24
As Billy
took a step back inside the glow of the moon slipped from his body and left him
covered in shadow. Alice got to her feet. She put a hand to the back of her
neck and rubbed, easing her stiff muscles with her thumbs.
“Shut the
door,” she said.
It took a
second for the words to register with Billy, like he'd tuned out everything
apart from the shriek of the stalkers.
“Billy.”
He jerked
his head back like he was waking from a trance. He stepped forward and took
hold of the door then pushed it shut, careful not to let it bang.
I ran my
fingers through my hair and felt the knots strain against my fingers.
Adrenaline spiked my blood, and I felt like I could run all the way to
Bleakholt without stopping. The idea of the stalkers sniffing us out made my
skin itch, like microscopic bugs were eating it.
Lou stood by
the window. She looked calm, but the hairs on her arms were on edge like static
had ruffled them. She moved her head as close to the pane of glass as she
dared, hesitating as if a stalker might suddenly appear in the window frame.
“I thought
we’d be okay here?” she said, and looked at Billy.
Billy
screwed his face up. Despite a penchant for violence when it came to the
infected and stalkers, he seemed like a good natured guy when it came to
people. But when he looked at Lou, there was genuine dislike on his face.
“I don’t
control the stalkers,” he said. “And we don’t know they’re getting closer.”
Every so
often something cracked on the forest floor. A cry rang out and floated through
the trees, carried to the shed by the wind. The shrieks got louder, the
snapping sounds were closer.
“They’re on
their way,” I said, trying to put a touch of finality to the discussion. “So we
need to decide what we’re going to do.”
Lou curled
her fist and hit the wall with the bottom of her palm. The window frame shook.
“How the
hell can they smell us? We’re miles away.”
“I didn’t
have a clue,” said Billy.
“There’s a
fucking surprise.”
Billy kicked
out at the air like a drunk striking an annoying dog. “I’m not David
Attenborough. I don’t know how they found us. Stop being such a bitch.”
The stalkers
were hunters. They were fast and agile, with tough skin and senses keener than
a wolf’s. They were experts at hiding in the night and sneaking through the
dark. They hunted in packs and they killed without mercy.
Despite
that, I felt that Lou was right. We were miles away. How had they found us?
Then it hit me. Frustration rushed through me and made me huff at my own
stupidity.
“We were in
their nest,” I said. “So we were the first thing they smelt when they woke up.
Imagine how they felt when they woke up at night and got a whiff of us.”
“Angry?”
said Billy.
I shook my
head. “I don’t think they have emotions in that way. They felt hungry. They
smelt us in the air and they knew they had an easy meal waiting for them. All
they have to do now is follow the trail.”
“God
dammit,” said Lou, and hit the wall again. The window frame shook harder, and
it seemed like the glass panes could just pop out.
“Stop that
Lou,” I said. “No point drawing their attention even more.”
“Like it
matters now.”
Billy bent
to the floor and picked up the dynamite. He held it to his chest like a baby,
and then put it on the table.
“We should
have just gone back to Bleakholt,” he said.
Lou shot him
an angry look. She could give the meanest look I’d ever seen when she was in the
mood.
“You were
the one who said we’d be okay here,” she said.
“Again, I’m
not David Attenborough.”
“No kidding,
he’s got more balls.”
Billy arched
his eyebrows. “Didn’t know you liked them shrivelled up.”
Lou sprang
away from the wall, fists at her side. “He’s faced lions, tigers, snakes. You
lose your shit when you see a mouse.”
Billy looked
at the floor, scratched the back of his neck. “Can’t believe you’re bringing
that up.”
Blood rushed
to my cheeks and a prickly heat ran down the back of my neck.
“That’s
enough,” I said. “You’re acting like kids, and we’ve got other shit to think
about. Like what the hell we’re going to do.”
The sky was
thick like a barrel of oil. The outlines of the trees seemed to blend into it
until everything was a uniform black. The stalkers couldn’t have been less than
a few miles away, and it wouldn’t take them long to cover the distance. We
needed to make a decision. I walked to the centre of the room.
“We either
stay here, or we move. The only question we need to answer is, which one makes
it more likely we survive?”
I didn’t
know where the sudden logic had come from. I was as scared as the rest of them.
My spine felt like ice, and my stomach felt light and twisted. Maybe it was all
the time I had spent in the Wilds over the years. The nights spent shivering in
the forest with infected lurching by and stalkers screeching in the distance. I
learnt that I had to keep my head or I would die.
Alice
crossed her arms. Her face was the only one of the groups that wasn’t pale.
Instead she had a healthy glow, and her breaths were even.
“If we
leave, they’ll catch us in minutes. You know that, Kyle.”
“We could
outrun them on a quad,” I said. “Pity we had to leave them at the edge of the
forest.”
Billy
stepped away from the table. “Too much shit on the forest floor. Gets in the
carriage and screws things up. We lost one that way once.”
“Leaving is
out of the question, I guess. We’re going to have to stay here. At least it’s
kind of defensible,” I said.
“These
windows couldn’t keep out a badger,” said Lou.
Billy put
his hands around his head and covered his face with his arms. He let out a long
sigh. “For god’s sake! This is pointless.”
Alice glared
at him. “Hold it together, Bill.”
He moved his
arms away from his face. “Don’t call me Bill. My dad was Bill, and I’m nothing
like that bastard. I’m Billy.”
A shriek
rose in the night sky and spread through the trees. It drowned out the other
sounds of the forest. This one was much closer, though I didn’t know which
direction it came from.
“Okay,” I
said. “Let’s think. How do they track us?”
“Smell,”
said Alice.
“Hearing,”
said Billy.
“GPRS,” said
Lou.
I cut her a
look that I hoped she interpreted as ‘shut up.’
“So they
wake up and catch our scent in their nest. The track it, and it leads them to
this shed. They smell us in here and then they get ready to eat. That about the
size of things?”
Alice glanced
toward the window. “Sounds right.”
“So it’s
clear what we need to do,” I said. “We need to disguise our smell.”
Billy took
an uncertain step into the middle of the room. He scratched his head, and I
heard his nails scrape against the stubble straining through his scalp. “I’ve
got something. You’re not gonna like it.”
“We don’t
have time to mess about, Billy. Spit it out,” said Alice.
“We could
piss on each other.”
There room
was silent as all of us thought about Billy’s idea and how to best reject it
without telling him how stupid it was. Billy scratched the back of his neck and
looked down at the ground. After a few seconds, he coughed nervously.
Lou rolled
her eyes. “How would smelling like pee help us, you dolt? Think about it. Our
pee is human. We’d still smell like humans, with the added bonus of smelling
like a bus station toilet.”
Lou’s
derision made Billy scowl back at her, but it gave me an idea. Lou was right.
The problem would come when the stalkers worked their way toward the shed and
smelt live humans. If they didn’t smell us, then they’d ignore the shed.
“I’ve got
it,” I said.
Alice smiled
at me. “Go on.”
“We saw some
infected walking near the quarry. We need to bring them in here.”
***
The infected
were heavier than they looked. Billy, Alice and I killed them and dragged them
to the shed while Lou stood on lookout, shivering and rubbing her arms. The
infected were three men, two of them young and bulky, and an older one who was
smaller and thinner.
We piled
them in the middle of the room as though we were making an infected bonfire.
Then we stood around them in a circle and stared. I couldn’t tell if it was
just because I had gotten used to it, or I was just being critical of the plan,
but they didn’t smell as bad as I thought.
“This gonna
work?” said Billy.
I stuck a
foot out and kicked the palm of an infected. “It doesn’t seem enough.”
Alice shook
her head. “You’re right, it isn’t. The infected will be able to smell the
difference. They’ll smell us in here as well as the infected.”
“So what do
we do?” said Lou.
I knew what
we needed to do. My throat felt thick, so I swallowed.
“We need to
paint the walls,” I said.
We sliced
through the skin that covered their bellies. As soon as my knife punctured the
grey flesh, the smell hit me in full force. I choked back a glob of sick that
hit my throat. This was the smell we needed. Pure death and rotten flesh. It
reminded me of when I’d been in Iceland and tried their nation dish, putrefied
shark. In the shed, the smell of death was so ripe I tasted it in the air.
Billy found
a sheet of canvas stood in the corner of the room. He rolled it out on the
floor, borrowed my knife and then cut it into pieces.
“Always
loved decorating,” he said.
The choke of
death seeped into every available inch of space. It crept up my nostrils, made
my stomach lurch and bile rise up my throat. Lou’s face was the colour of tofu.
She picked up a clean sheet of the canvas and held it to her nose. Her cheeks
bulged like she was about to hurl. She walked to the door and opened it.
The fresh
breeze of the wind swept in and started to clear the smell from the room. My
nose thanked her for it, but no matter how much I liked the breeze we couldn’t
keep it. This would be the only time in my life I would think this way, but
right then we needed the stink of the infected.
“Close the
door,” I said.
“I’m going
to vom,” said Lou.
“Then do it
and get it over with. But we can’t let the smell out. That’s the whole point of
this.”
Billy stood
up. “Okay guys, roll up your sleeves and get painting. Time to give this place
a zombie makeover.”
Lou turned.
She looked at the zombie guts on the floor and the pieces of torn canvas.
“We’re going to spread it all over the walls? I can’t do it.”
I had never
seen this from Lou before. I knew that deep down things scared her sometimes.
It was hard not to be afraid when spending the night in the wrong place could
draw a stalker to your scent. She usually hid her feelings behind a wall of
sarcasm, but that was gone tonight. Lou was scared, and she was showing it.
A cry rose
in the night and crept through the open door, and it sounded much closer than
the others. Cold seeped through me. The open door felt like a gaping wound,
like it was an open invitation to the stalkers.
“Close the
door,” I said.
Billy dabbed
a piece of canvas against an infected’s intestines and covered the material in
crimson. Clots of flesh clung to the sides of it and made it look like jam. He
moved to the wall and dabbed the canvas against the wood, spreading the thick
paste of infected blood across the panels. The smell hit me afresh, twisting
and stabbing at my nostrils, remind me that death was in the room.
“Shut the
bloody door and pick up a cloth,” shouted Alice.
This jarred
Lou from her thoughts. She pushed the door and let it slam against the wood.
She took a deep breath as if she was readying herself, and then she picked up a
cloth.
***
The walls of
the shed were covered red with a soup of infected blood. Chunks of flesh stuck
to it like raisins in fruit bread. Billy had taken the infected’s trails of
intestines and lined them against the bottom of the door like a draught guard.
We’d scattered their organs randomly around the room, distributing the sick
smell of death as evenly as we could. Lou’s guts had given in while we worked
and she’d thrown up on the floor, but we were finished now. The shed looked
like the finished product of a home makeover show where the contestants had
gone insane.
Something
crunched on the forest floor. The stalkers were here now. They had tracked our
scent all the way through the forest and to the shed. If the plan had worked,
then our scent should have stopped suddenly.