15
I was so
dazed I didn’t even register Alice leading us away from the commotion at the
town square and down Bleakholt’s streets. When I snapped out of it we were in
the dusty remains of a Chinese restaurant that hadn’t served a chicken chow
mein in years. A poster stuck to the wall named it as Blossom Garden. Behind the
bar area a golden cat statue stared at us. Save for specks of dust smeared on
the table clothes, the place was oddly clean.
We sat
around a ten-seat table as if we were waiting for a buffet. Alice had her arm
around Ben, who was in the seat next to her clutching his side. The dried up
remains of tears were crusted around his eyes. Justin seemed to have snapped
out of his own daze, and he rubbed the hair of Melissa who cried into his
chest. Lou sat across from me, her right eye bright red. I thought about what I
had done and I felt my throat close up.
“I’m so
sorry Lou,” I said.
I expected
her to shout at me and tell me what an asshole I was. I had punched her in the
face for god’s sake. It was an accident, but I deserved everything I got.
Instead she rubbed her eye and shrugged her shoulders.
“Had worse
playing netball at school. And they were girls. You punch like a ten year old
girl, Kyle.”
“Tell that
to the man whose face looks like mincemeat,” said Alice.
I remembered
being on top of the man. Raising my fist, then smashing it into his face over
and over again, emptying my anger over him like I was clearing water from a
leaking ship. It didn’t matter how many buckets I threw over the side, there
was always more.
Lou leant
back in her chair and lifted her feet on to the table. Mud lined the grids of
her boots.
“I don’t
know what the hell I walked into, but it was some intense shit,” she said.
My ribcage
squeezed as though it were trying to crush me. It was the anger coming back,
seeping into me like thick oil. Where the hell had Lou been all this time? I’d
needed her help with the Vasey campers, but she’d let me down. If she’d been
around when Ewan took Justin into the town square, she could have stopped this.
Lou had let us all down. I held onto the sides of the table and gripped the
edges as if it was going to tip. Applying the pressure lessened my anger, but I
still felt it bubbling.
“Where the
hell have you been, Lou? We needed you. I had to go and see Moe, for fuck’s
sake.”
“You’ve been
like a ghost,” Justin agreed.
“The monk
breaks his vow of silence,” said Lou.
I glared at
her. “Don’t start with the jokes.”
She crossed
her arms. With her boots casually on the table and her body couched back, she could
have been relaxing on a beach.
“You went to
see Moe?” she said.
I nodded.
“He’s worse than ever. And I had to take Billy with me.”
Lou moved
her boots off the table and jolted forward. The colour drained from her face.
“Why’d you
take him?”
“Because if
I didn’t have someone with me, I would have killed the bastard, and then
everything would have gone tits up. As it stands though, I think we’ve reached
that point already.”
“And whose
fault is that?” said Lou.
I raised my
fist and pounded it on the table. The sound jolted Melissa away from Justin’s
chest. Her eyes were as red as Lou’s, but hers was due to the tears that had
poured out of them rather than being punched.
“Enough,” I
said. I couldn’t hide the tremor in my voice. “You better tell us what the
hell’s going on, Lou. I’m sick of this.”
“There’s
nothing – “
“Cut the
shit,” said Alice. Her voice carried the weight of authority. “We know there’s
something between you and Billy. After all we’ve been through, you owe us an
explanation.”
Lou looked
down at the table. A silenced passed. I looked across the restaurant, over to a
door that probably led to the kitchen. I half expected a waiter to walk out
with a portion of spring rolls. Lou composed herself and then spoke.
“Okay,” she
said, taking a deep breath. “Guess I better tell you. I’d ask you to promise
not to hate me when you hear it, but that’s asking too much. Just listen and
don’t punch me again is all I can hope for, I guess.”
“Just spill
it,” I said.
“You know
when we met? After I killed that stalker that was going pounce on Alice?”
She looked
at Alice, who nodded. Lou carried on.
“Well I told
you I’d spent some time in Scotland already. I was part of a group of
survivors. And yeah, you guessed it; Billy was part of it too. It’s remote up
here, and the infected were far apart enough for us to handle. But things were
fucking bleak, man.”
“I’m a
beanpole as it is, but food was so scarce that even I dropped a few pounds.
Makes me wonder how gyms stayed in business, back in the day. Forget paying
twenty quid a month, you’ve just gotta starve the shit out of yourself.”
“Stay on
track,” I said.
“We ran out
of food pretty sharp. We didn’t have any aim, there was nowhere to go. The
group started to drop. An infected got one. Two starved. Three of them just up
and walked away, I think they were crazy. They just walked into the wilderness
with this weird look in their eyes. And that left me and Billy.”
Melissa
coughed. She ran her fingers through her hair and flicked back the stray ends.
“How long ago was this?”
“Hard to
keep track of time,” said Lou. “A few months ago? Anyway, it was just me and
Billy. We did things the honest way at first. We scavenged any food we could.
We went into every house we passed and checked every inch for something to
eat. Even tried boiling some leather shoes in a soup.”
The thought
of it made my stomach knot. I’d been hungry in my time in the Wilds, but I’d
never reached the level where eating shoes looked appealing. Guess I had never
had things as bad as I thought. No matter how much crap was flung at you, there
was always someone else covered in more of it.
“So
eventually we thought ‘fuck it’. We kept passing travellers on the road. They
always had food with them. We’d stop for a chat, and then go on our way. I
weighed seven stone when Billy and I decided we wouldn’t just stop for a chat
anymore. We were going to start taking their food from them. Hell, it was
either them or us, and I think in a pinch any person’s gonna choose their own
life over someone else’s.”
“Speak for
yourself,” said Alice, and hugged Ben tighter to her chest.
“Yeah,” said
Melissa. She moved her chair closer to Justin so that barely a centimetre
separated them.
Lou
grimaced. “Look, you’ve never been as hard up as we were, little girl. Come
back to me when you’ve got blinding stomach cramps from eating paper.”
“Just
because I’ve never starved doesn’t mean I haven’t had it bad,” said Melissa.
“Give me
break.”
I pounded
the table again. “Enough, guys. Get on with it Lou.”
“For a few
weeks we had plenty to eat, so we eased off. Let a few people we met go on
their merry way without roughing them up and stealing all their shit. But soon
enough our supplies dropped and my stomach started to cramp again. So then we
came across a bloke and his son.”
Her head
sagged a little, and her eyes drooped. For the first time, I saw emotion
written in her face. She gulped. “The boy was about Ben’s age, and the man
looked a little like you, Kyle. They had tons of food. And they were nice people,
offered us some of their stuff. But we didn’t just take what they offered us.
We took it all from them.”
A loose tear
dripped from her eye. It struggled through her tear ducts like a plant
straining through the cracks in the desert. It was strange seeing someone like
Lou cry, especially in front of us all. I didn’t think she was capable of it.
Something about it gave me a strange feeling in my stomach, and I wanted to
look away.
Everyone
else watched in silence. Melissa looked like she were holding in her breath.
Alice looked at the walls with sad eyes. Nobody could meet Lou’s stare.
Watching Lou cry reminded me of being a kid and watching my dad cry after
grandad died. There was something jarring about seeing strong people look
vulnerable.
“Then” she
said, her voice cracking, “We ended up having to go back the way we came a few
weeks later. And we found the guy and his son again. Only this time they
weren’t friendly. They didn’t offer us any food. They couldn’t because they
were laid down in the middle of the road. Their faces were cold and shrivelled
and covered in maggots. The whole place reeked of death.”
She stared
at the ground now, unable to meet any of our stares. Her shoulders shook, and
she covered her face with her hands. Revulsion twisted in my stomach, and my
belly burned as if it was trying to digest itself. Melissa’s eyes were wide,
her disc-like pupils staring out in shock. Justin looked on with disinterest as
though he’d been listening to a weather report.
“Finish the
story,” I said, wanting to get it over with.
A few
seconds of silence passed, and then Lou looked up.
Alice
interrupted her. Her face was cut into stone. Rage twisted through it so that
she snarled.
“Get out,”
she said.
I held up my
hands. “Hold on a sec, Alice.”
Alice moved
Ben away from her. She stood up, her face stained red with anger. “Get the hell
out. I never want to see you again.”
The anger in
her tone seemed to bounce against the walls and fill the empty air of the
room. I felt sick but in some way, a small part of me struck sympathy with
Lou. In the Wilds, it was easy to get to the point where you’d do anything to
survive. The old rules of the world had rotted away a decade ago, and now it
was up to you to ensure your own survival. Nobody was going to come to your
rescue.
I thought
about everything that had happened since we got to Bleakholt. Victoria treating
us like freeloaders, making us beg to stay. Moe tying people to trees and
leaving them for the stalkers. Charlie experimenting on Justin like a lab
monkey. Ewan treating Justin like a freak and trying to get him kicked out. On
top of it all, the wave of infected were still on their unstoppable march
towards us.
“This place
is poison,” I said.
Lou looked
up. Alice towered above us and crossed her big arms.
I carried
on. “There’s something toxic here, guys. Everything has turned to shit. They’re
treating Justin like he’s got some disease. There’s god knows how many stalkers
prowling the woods. The Vasey crew are here, and the less said about them the
better. You call this place safe, but I think it’s the worst place we could be.
They might be trying to survive, but I don’t see a life here for us.”
Alice shook
her head. “Don’t you see Kyle? There’s nowhere else to go. There isn’t some
golden sanctuary waiting for us. The only safe place in the world is the one
that we choose to make safe. Here they’ve got food, Power. Our choice is
simple. Go out into the Wilds and keep running, or we stay here and fight. And
I’m staying. I don’t care what you guys do, I’m not taking Ben outside of these
fences.”
She pulled
Ben to his feet and moved away from the table. Her chair slid back and tipped
over. They walked past us and out of the restaurant. The door banged behind
them and a breeze floated in.
Lou, Melissa,
Justin and I sat in silence. Lou wouldn’t meet our gaze. Justin seemed lost in
his thoughts, though what he thought about these days was anyone’s guess.
Melissa held her hand to her chin, as if she were weighing up what Alice had
said. I wondered what she’d do, if it came to it. She was a hell of a lot
tougher than she let on, and I knew she wouldn’t follow me blindly.
Lou stood
up. Her face was pale, her shoulders slumped. She walked out of the restaurant
without a word.
The group
was falling apart. I couldn’t see a way forward, and I didn’t know what we were
going to do. So much for my leadership. They needed someone like Alice to guide
them, not me. All I ever did was lead them from one pile of shit to the next.
The
restaurant door opened and the bell above it tingled. Billy stood in the
doorframe.
“Victoria
says it’s time to earn your keep,” he said.
16
Billy
marched us to the mayor’s office, where Victoria sat behind her desk. Pale
light filtered through the windows and illuminated the crow’s feet around her
eyes. Her skin looked tired and grey, and she drummed her bony fingers on the
table. Charlie stood behind her. He’d shed his blood-stained lab coat in favour
of a cotton brown jumper with black patches on the elbows. It made him look
like a physics teacher who was bored with his life.
“Take a
seat,” she said.
Alice and
Lou took seats in front of her. I was surprised that Lou had joined us, but
we’d seen her on the way to Victoria’s office and Billy had told Lou that the
boss wanted to see her too. Lou complied and joined the group without a joke or
a wisecrack, as if her usual sarcasm had been drained out of her.
Alice gave
Victoria a smile. It was strange to see the difference in her attitude towards
the woman. When they first met, Alice looked like she wanted to throttle her.
Now, after seeing Ben on the mend and being given a job on the fences, Alice’s
demeanour had changed. There was a look of understanding between the two women.
Billy stood against the back room of the wall. He didn’t move or speak, but I
could feel his bulky presence in the room all the same.
Despite the
empty chair, I stayed standing. I knew what was coming. After the fracas in the
town square, Victoria was going to throw us out into the Wilds. Alice would be devastated.
Ben was only just getting better, and now he was going to have to go through it
all again.
“Listen,
Victoria. I know what happened outside, but you’ve got to understand-”
“This isn’t
about that,” she said.
“Then what
is it?”
She looked
up at Charlie, who shifted uncomfortably. Then she addressed us.
“Charlie’s
come up with a plan. Something we can do to stop this wave of infected before
they even get here. Haven’t you Charlie?”
Charlie
nodded. “Sure have, Vicky.”
“Never call
me Vicky.”
“So you
believe me about the wave?” I said.
Victoria
shifted her tongue in her mouth as though she were picking at something in her
teeth.
“Frankly, I
thought you were paranoid. That maybe there was some infected headed here, but
I sure as hell didn’t believe it was half a million.”
“Then what
changed your mind?”
“Pure
facts,” said Charlie, cutting in. His voice was strained, as though he didn’t
like talking in front of so many people. I saw a glimpse of a gold chain around
his neck, but it was buried under the v-line of his jumper so I couldn’t tell
what was at the end. I thought it might have been a cross, but that wouldn’t
fit a scientist like him. Weren’t they all atheists?
Charlie
looked at Victoria, as if asking for assurance that he could go on. She huffed.
“Get on with it, Charles.”
“It’s pure
theory on my part, but I worked out that what you said was possible. I looked
at population levels in Manchester. Compared them with what we know of the
infected’s behaviour. Their instincts, their drives. How they travel. And
grouping together like that seems like a logical outcome.”
“It doesn’t
stop there. If I’m right, I think this wave is only the start of it. I can see
a time when every remaining infected is drawn together, from John O’Groats to
Land’s end. I can see them swarming to each other like wasps. At some point, it
won’t be half a million infected we’ll be facing. No. It’ll be the population
of Britain.”
A chill ran
through me. “Sixty million?” I said.
He nodded.
“Give or take the few thousand people who have survived.”
“Don’t like
those odds,” said Lou.
Victoria
straightened up. “That's why we need to get off our arses. Charlie has a plan,
but it’s dangerous. Frankly, it’s stupid. So I need you to go and do it. Show
me how much you love me.”
“How
dangerous?” I said.
Charlie
scratched his ear. “It, err, involves some very volatile explosives and making
a controlled explosion. You’d have to go out of the settlement.”
Alice
crossed her arms, shook her head. “No way. I’ve got a kid who depends on me.
I’m done endangering myself.” She turned to me. “Sorry Kyle, but you know that
I can’t go.”
“We kinda
need you to, Alice. If this is what it’s going to take to be able to stay here,
then surely it’s worth it,” I said.
Victoria
leant forward. Wrinkles cut into her forehead and made her skin sag. “You’ve
got leadership potential Alice, and this place could use some of that. So I
would suggest that Kyle, the girl, - “
“Lou,” said
Lou, a note of irritation in her voice.
“I suggest
that Kyle, Lou,” Victoria continued, “Billy and Steve go.”
“Who the
hell’s Steve?” I said, racking my brain to try and place the name.
Victoria
pointed behind me. “The man guarding my door with a baseball bat.”
“People
always forget his name,” said Billy. “He’s a very forgettable guy.”
“Fuck you,
Bill,” said a muffled voice through the closed wooden door.
Victoria
perked her head up, screwed her forehead. “Thought I told you not to
eavesdrop?”
There was no
reply.
“So what’s
the plan?” I said.
Charlie took
a step forward and leaned on the desk. Victoria gave him a glare, and he took
his hands off the wood. He crossed his arms. “A while back, we scavenged some
explosives. It’s pretty damn volatile, and I wouldn’t like to be holding it. I
think it’s because the compounds have – “
“Focus,
Charles,” said Victoria.
Charlie
nodded. He closed his eyes as if he was looking for his train of thought. “So
the plan is to take the explosives and blow out the passage between the hills.
Create a barricade of stone and completely block it.”
Billy sprang
off the wall as if he’d been zapped by a cattle prod. “Blow the pass? Are you
fucking crazy? It’d completely block us off from the South. We’d be stuck here
if things ever turned to shit.”
Charlie
nodded. “It also means that anything coming from the South would have to either
climb the hills or take a lengthy detour around them. Either way, they wouldn't
get to Bleakholt any time soon.”
“It also
means we can’t get south,” said Billy.
I thought
about it. The infected were coming from the south, so it made sense to cut them
off. But right now the hill passage was Bleakholt’s only means of getting into
England. If something were to ever come from the North, they’d be trapped
between a rock and a hard place. This was probably the most literal example of
that phrase there had ever been.
“You’ll be
cutting off your options,” I said.
“The nature
of options is that sometimes you’ve got to use them,” said Victoria.
“We’ve sent
scouts North,” said Charlie. “There’s not much going on a few hundred miles
north of us. We’re safe.”
“Nowhere is
safe,” said Lou. She stared in every direction but Billy’s.
Victoria ran
her hand along her desk, her nails scratching against the grooves of the old
oak. “The girl’s right, of course,” she said.
“My names
Lou.”
Alice put
her hand to her chin. “It would mean other survivors can’t find the
settlement,” she said.
It was a
damn good point, and the cynical side of me thought that this was Victoria’s
plan all along. Cut off the only accessible way to Bleakholt so that other
survivors couldn’t get here and drain their resources. By doing it under the
guise of stopping the wave, it made Victoria look like she was doing a good
thing.
It didn’t
seem like we had much choice. After all I’d put them through, I owed it to
Alice, Ben and the others to fight for their right to stay here. I was going to
have to put myself in danger again, but that didn’t matter. Like Alice had said
a long time ago, I didn’t have anybody. So it didn’t matter what happened to me.
“I’ll do
it,” I said.
Victoria
smiled. “Thanks, Kyle. Charles is going to walk you through the details.”
As the
scientist stepped forward and opened his mouth, I heard shouting coming from
outside. Victoria got up from behind her desk and walked to the window. She
stared out toward the town square for a moment and then turned around. Her eyes
were wide with alarm.