All the Dead Are Here (18 page)

“
What do you mean?” she says, still staring.

“
Well all this? We have been to places before like Legoland on Bank Holiday and we never got stuck like this? And Dad said that journey was the worst he had had for getting stuck in a jam, and what’s a Zombie?” Mum looks at me with a weird expression on her face. Really serious.

“
Where did you hear that?”

“
Bobby Driscoll at school said they were going to come and eat our heads and stuff.”

“
Well, Bobby Driscoll is wrong,” she says, still looking at me. She shuffles round to face me better.

“
There is a disease that some people are getting, and it makes them angry and violent. Thing is there are a lot of them getting it and that’s why we are going to Auntie Cassie’s to be safe. She says they are building a wall we can hide behind in Cornwall.”

“
Oh,” I say, not really getting it.

“
How do I know who’s ill? Is it like a cold?”

“
No it’s not like a cold, if they are ill with this they look all grey and erm, they will probably have blood on them. If you see them you have to hide and when they have gone come find Mummy and Daddy. Got it?”

I nod.
Boom! There is another huge explosion, a bit closer this time. I can see flames and smoke. Mum stares out of the window.

“
Can you see Dad?” I ask.

“
No,” she says very quietly. She looks in the rear view mirror.

“
Babe, can you scramble in the back and pass me Dad’s binoculars in the Tesco bag?”

I climb to the back and rummage around until I find them and pass them to Mum. As I get into the front of the car, Mum opens the door and uses the binoculars to look down the road.

“
Can I have a go?” I ask.

She doesn’t answer and I can hear glass smashing and tyres screeching. I can hear screams as well. My legs feel a bit funny and my mouth goes dry.

“
Mum?” I say, but she doesn’t answer. I look out the window and see a car in the distance go off the motorway and down the ditch at the side, its wheels shoot mud up into the air but it’s not moving. Mum is still looking through the binoculars, but her hands are shaking.

“
Mum?” I say again. This time she turns and looks at me, her eyes are wide, my legs go really numb, she looks really scared but her face is blank like she’s thinking.

“
Mummy?” I say again. She beckons me over the seats. I scramble over and she picks me up in her arms, the fresh air outside feels nice but I can hear more screams, and glass breaking, and tyres screeching, and I can smell burning. Mum has turned me away from where Dad went and I try to
turn round in her arms, but she is holding me facing back up the road. I see her face and she has tears in her eyes. I stop struggling.

“
Babe, remember when you were little and we used to play the ‘Stop’ game, where you had to stay very still when we shouted stop!”

“
When we were on busy roads and in car parks?”

“
Yes that’s right. Good boy. Well I want you to get under the car and play the stop game until I come and get you.”

“
But I don’t wanna get under the car, it’s dirty!”

“
Listen. This is very, very important and you mustn’t make a sound for anyone until I come and get you.”

The sounds are getting louder now and I want to twist and see but Mummy’s face is red and she is crying. In her eyes she looks like she loves me when I have been a good boy all day and she tucks me up with a nice story.

“
Ok.”

“
Your dad and I love you more than anything, you know that don’t you?”

“
I love you too, Mum.” I throw my arms round her, she smells warm, like bed. My neck feels wet and I realise it’s her tears. We hug like that for ages. I hear another explosion and it makes me jump it’s so loud. There is another sound too, like someone moaning.

She lowers me to the floor.

“
Now, Paul! Get under the car now!”

I scrabble under the car, it’s still warm from when Dad was running the engine earlier. It smells like the garage. I think about calling out to Mum. I can still see her feet, but I remember the ‘Stop’ game and stay quiet. The screams are louder now and I can hear running and something like a dog growling.

I can see Mum’s feet walking slowly backwards and then there are people running past her and the screams are so loud I cover my ears and want to cry and I can hear the growling again. Then I see someone hit Mum and knock her over and she’s lying on the ground and I can see the back of her head and I want to crawl out to her but I remember the ‘Stop’ game, and someone is hurting her and I can see her blood and the man has blood on his face. Oh...my..God... it’s a Zombie. The man gets up and carries on running and the screaming won’t stop and all the people running past the cars and I see Dad’s shoes I think and I can’t cover my ears hard enough to stop the screaming and growling but I can’t see any dogs and there is blood spraying on the floor and Mummy is just lying there and I want to go to her but the ‘Stop’ game won’t let me and I feel wet on my legs and I don’t need a wee anymore and I lie there for hours and the people keep running and the dogs I can’t see keep growling and the tyres keep screeching and things keep exploding and then Mummy gets up slowly and something red and covered in blood falls from her as she stands and then she runs away and she’s gone. Mummy’s gone!

Then it starts to go grey.

Paul Jollie sees the images from a lifetime ago fade away, but the feeling of fear stays with him like a child. It’s so real, the letterbox view from under the car, but soon it fades to milky mist like a cloying London fog. He can still feel the fear in his legs, still see his Mum lying on the ground a thousand years ago. Before...

Before something happened. Before he died.

Now all Paul can see is the fog, so close he couldn’t see his hand in front of his face, yet all around he could see myriad specks of black off to a billion miles. Specks in pairs, like soulless eyes all facing in the same direction. Billions of black colons looking past him.

Paul turns slowly to see what the eyes see around him see and, with the feeling of dread spreading through his dead mind, he sees the monstrous black shape that they stare at. Slowly it rotates like a massive black hole in the grey and he finds himself on the edge of its centrifugal force, both repelled and attracted to its horror and majesty like all the other Dead around him. They are waiting for the black to cast its vastness at them and tell their dead legs how to function.

Paul died in a kitchen in Edinburgh with a sword in his belly and his image reflected in the black eyes of the Minister. Eyes that contained the black hole in front of him, and the boy was how it all started.

The first time Seth saw Janice she was sashaying across the canteen talking to that girl from Human resources who always looked down her nose at him. Janice was wearing a white lab coat, as was the uniform for technicians or scientists, and carrying one of the small grey plastic trays from the pile at the entrance of the canteen. On it, she was carrying an orange, a carton of milk, a plate with lasagne, fries and peas. Underneath her new, pristine lab coat, she was wearing a short black dress with tights and a pair of flat black leather shoes. Even though he could remember all these little details it wasn’t that that made his mouth flop open, and a little dribble of apple sauce escape from the corner. It was her jet black hair, shining like the leaves of a rubber plant, and down past her shoulder blades. That, and her skin. It was porcelain white like the bone china his mother served tea in when he went to visit her occasionally. Then, as she turned towards him, he audibly gasped at her beauty. She was tiny, no more than five feet tall. He stared too long at her jade, asian eyes and her button nose. She looked up at him as he turned away rubbing the apple sauce from his chin as he did so. He looked again, and saw an expression on her face he couldn’t interpret, but this was normal, as Seth was a man with no empathy, and reading people was a skill he just never had.

It had first come to light while he was at High School. The local bully had decided to pick on someone bigger than him to prove a point, and Seth was the obvious target. A massive boy for his age, ungainly and not the brightest in school, he put up with the taunts and pranks for several months before turning on his tormentor in the playground and pinning him to the ground while he pummelled his face. After a few minutes the playground cheers turned to horror and three burly teachers had to drag Seth off the now unconscious boy, with some of the voyeurs in tears in the belief the battered victim was dead.

Later, in the Principals office he had been asked why he hadn’t stopped. Seth shrugged his shoulders. He was asked how he could have done such a thing, and how he would have felt if that was him on the floor. Seth had looked confused and asked the Principal to explain what he meant. It was then he first heard the word ‘Empathy’. No matter how it was explained Seth couldn’t grasp the concept. How did you put yourself in someone else shoes, unless in a purely literal sense? How could you place yourself in someone else’s position? Seth couldn’t understand, and so, the Principal instructed the school psychologist to intervene and determine if there was something wrong with the boy.

After a battery of tests the psychologist determined that Seth had a mild form of Dyslexia that meant he was a below average student at writing and comprehension skills, but Seth was not stupid and had an average IQ, and yet he could not empathise with other people. All relationships were assessed only on how it affected him, and him only and yet, he had no sociopathic tendencies prior to today, indeed it was more likely that it was noted just how gentle and kind he was. Years later it had occurred to him while watching Blade Runner that he had more in common with the Replicants in the film than the humans, and he smiled at the realisation that it was not empathy that lead him to this realisation, only rational thought and deduction.

So Seth was not bullied at school again, and unlike others who would have abused this new found position of power he didn’t, but then again he didn’t stick up for anyone else being bullied, because he couldn’t empathise with their plight. He drifted through school getting average grades and being an average kid. All apart from the fact he continued to outpace his peers in terms of growth to the point where, unbeknownst to him, he earned the nickname ‘Jaws’. This was due to his resemblance to the bond villain from the seventies and eighties in stature, if not metallic teeth. He had few friends but didn’t mind, and spent his time playing computer games and reading books on all subjects except fiction. Eventually his friends lessened as it wasn’t much fun being with someone who didn’t ‘get’ or laugh at your jokes.

After High school he didn’t want to go to college and didn’t really have the grades to do so. His mother was disappointed but didn’t say so, and his father was long gone so his opinion was unimportant. Seth drifted from job to job, usually in Sales at first, until customers complained about his unhelpfulness with returns, or customer complaints, again a consequence of his condition. He also grew interested in girls but he believed his absence of empathy meant he was incapable of love. A belief he harboured until the day he saw Janice in the canteen, when he realised for the first time that love was about how that person made you feel. A relationship may be difficult without empathy, but love certainly wasn’t.

Seth had just been fired from yet another job when he spotted the advert in the paper for a security specialist who could work alone for long periods, harbour responsibility and be reliable. He had no experience in this field but the idea of working alone appealed to him and so he applied. The job was at the Carver Centre for Communicable Disease Research, on the other side of the city so his Mom helped him write the application letter and fill out the application form. He thought nothing of it until he was invited to an interview. He bought a new suit and went to the immense grey single story building ringed wing a razor wire fence, studded with smart looking security guards, and devoid of windows.

The interview was cursory and he was told he had done well, but it wasn’t until the psychological evaluation that the interviewer showed any real interest. As it turned out he was the fourteen hundred and fifth applicant for the job, which was to monitor security inside the facility from a remote office at the edge of the building. It was explained to him that this was a ‘Bio Security Level five’ facility and that research was being conducted into Ebola, lasser fever, and other such rare and nasty diseases. The psychological evaluation reminded him of the test in Blade Runner, which made him smile. He was told that until the previous year the security system had been totally automated but an accident with the system resulting in the deaths of several leading scientists had convinced the Directors that it was important that a human be in charge of the security, however the persons monitoring the facility had to be of a very specific psychological makeup. It turned out that Seth was perfect. However when Seth was offered the job he didn’t accept it straight away, he held out until they offered nearly double the original wage. He was many things, but not stupid.