The question
was would they give in, or would they explore? Did they possess enough logic to
realise that if the scent trail ended at the shed, then the humans must be
inside? Maybe they’d smell the infected and assume that the humans had died.
Either way,
hearing them sent a shock of panic though me. Just being near the stalkers was
enough to make my skin itch. It was like looking at the lion enclosure in the
zoo and wondering if the cages could really hold them. Were the bars strong
enough? What if you fell in and got torn to pieces?
Branches
snapped. Tremors of cold shot up my arms. Lou darted a look at me, her eyes
wide. Billy looked at the ground and closed his eyes. Alice stared at the
window. I looked up at it.
There was a
face in the glass.
My heartbeat
jarred and then seemed to stop. My brain screamed at me, told me that the plan
had failed and that I had to run. But at the same time, I knew my legs were
frozen solid.
The dark
face pressed against the window frame. It had dark eyes and oil-black skin that
shimmered in the moonlight. I looked away, hoping that my not looking at it, it
wouldn’t exist. My cold breath left my mouth as steam. I slowly turned my head
back toward the window.
Sharp grey
teeth flashed in front of a sneering smile. It stared in through the glass. I
held my breath. I didn’t even dare risk the tiny movement of my chest.
There was a
shriek outside, as though one of the stalkers was communicating with the others
and telling the pack what it had found. Any second now they were going to smash
through the window or crash through the door. We’d be torn to pieces in seconds
if they got in.
I wondered
if I should stand up. If I was going to die, I wanted to die fighting. I
wouldn’t let the bastards take me that easily. I moved my foot, tested to see
if my body would still respond to me. My leg twitched. Alice reached slowly
across, put her hand on my shoulder and pushed me down.
The face
left the window and its footsteps moved away from the shed. None of us moved.
We hardly even breathed. Time dragged for hours like some unseen force was
stretching it out and making the night last as long as it could. The cries of
the stalkers drifted further into the night, like voices disappearing down a
dark tunnel. When pale daylight flickered through the window panes, I knew that
we had made it.
25
As I walked
through the streets of Bleakholt I didn’t even look up to say morning to the
people I passed. My body felt wilted. I knew I should go and see Victoria and
tell her we had the dynamite. Tell her about the breeder. I couldn’t do that
yet. I just needed sleep.
I got home
and walked upstairs. I drew the curtains and sank into the bed like I was
falling into water. Pale light filtered through the curtains, so I shut my eyes
tighter. Every so often I’d open my eyes and see that the hands of the clock
had moved and the light that strained through the curtains had changed. It got
brighter as midday came and went, then faded as the winter afternoon and onset
of night suffocated it. Soon it had extinguished completely, and the bedroom
swam with shadows.
My eyelids
flickered. I tossed and turned. A breeze floated in, crept underneath my
bedcovers and made my hairs stand on end. I tried to blot everything out, but
at three o’clock in the morning I realised I wasn’t going to get any more
sleep. I threw the covers back, got out of bed and walked to the window. I drew
back the curtains and let the moonlight spill into the room.
The streets
were awash with darkness, a river of black that blotted out the features of the
houses. The settlement was a curious mix of the old and the new. On the outskirts
were homes that were built in the seventies. They were characterless blocks of
stone that had the uniform two up, two down arrangement. In the heart of the
town, beyond the streets that span like veins into the centre, were the older
cottages. Some were a couple of hundred years old, the sodden timber having
seen multiple generations live and die. They had sat silently through the end
of the world without judgement.
I opened the
window. I expected a breeze on my face but the night was still, and it would
have been clammy were we not in the dead of winter. Instead the temperature
chilled my skin but there was no gust of wind to blow it at my face. The night
was silent. All the people would be in bed now, sleeping off their labour and
letting their muscles recover in time for the next day.
Despite the
layer of grimness the dark of the night bathed on the town, there was something
bright about it all. There was a sense that everyone believed in Bleakholt and
was willing to work together to make it somewhere worthwhile. If there was ever
a place to spend the apocalypse, this was it. Bleakholt was all there was, and
all there ever would be.
I was going
to close the window and get back in bed, but a shriek broke the stillness of
the night. My brain flicked to one thought; stalkers. Invisible icy fingers
stroked the hairs on my arms, made them stand to attention. I thought back to
the quarry shed and the stalker peering through the window.
There was
another scream but this one stopped abruptly. It wasn’t a stalker, I was
certain of that. This had been a woman. It had come from somewhere within
Bleakholt, but the dark buildings and streets gave no clue where.
I pulled my
trousers over my legs, ran downstairs and opened the front door. I stepped onto
the dark streets, felt the night press down on me. The chill in the air was
stronger now, made goosebumps cover my skin. My ears felt alert, attuned to the
slightest noise. I ran to the end of the street, turned left, and ran a hundred
yards down another street. I passed by houses that settled in stillness, no
sign of life behind their drawn curtains.
I didn’t
know where I was going or where the scream had come from. Something about it
made my stomach heavy. I tried to rationalise it to myself. Maybe it had been an
animal. Perhaps someone just had a nightmare and left their window open. As I
walked back down the gloomy streets, something fluttered inside me and made my
insides feel like water. The scream had meant something.
***
The next
morning my head felt like it was full of fog. I had planned on getting up
early, but the sun snuck up on me. I woke up to something pounding on the front
door.
I opened the
door and squinted into the light. Lou stood on my doorstep. Her cheeks were
pale and puffy. I waited for a sarcastic greeting or jibe, but it didn’t come.
She smiled at me and stepped into the house.
“You look
like shit,” she said.
I rubbed my
head. “Did you hear anything last night?”
Lou looked
puzzled. “Like what?”
“Something
on the streets.”
She shook
her head.
“We need to
see Victoria,” I said.
I got
dressed and we left the house. The streets were light now. People walked down
them on their way to their assigned jobs. The bulk of them would go to the
fields where their manual labour would ensure the town had food for the winter
months. Some would trundle toward the fences and others toward the wind farm.
Everyone had skills and a purpose. I could almost picture this as a normal
town.
There was a
burning smell in the air but I couldn’t see the source of it. It was as though
an invisible fire licked and spat on the winter ground nearby. I looked around
me and tried to see the plume of smoke responsible for the smell that teased
its way up my nose.
“What the
hell is that?” I said.
Lou pointed
over at the school, where a black smoky snake twisted into the air. For a
second my heart jolted, and I tried to see which part of the school was on
fire. My legs twitched, and I thought I was going to have to run toward it. Lou
put her hand on my arm.
“It’s not
the school. It’s in that direction, but it looks like it’s outside of town.
They’re probably burning the stragglers.”
“Stragglers?”
Lou pointed
at the fence. “Sometimes infected get to the fence, and Ewan and his crew do a
daily clean up. They burn the dead bodies.”
The smoke
scratched at my throat. “I’ve never noticed the smell before.”
“They
usually do it further away from the town. Maybe Ewan’s getting lazy.”
I thought
about Ewan and his sneering face. His not-so-subtle jibes at Victoria, his
green bulbous eyes on her power.
“I hate the
prick,” I said.
We met Alice
on the way to Victoria’s office. She greeted me with a grunt, no trace of her
usual warmth or smile. Her skin was grey, and she looked like she had lost
weight. For a second her face looked strained as though the stress of the last
few days pressed down her. Then she shook it away, and her face looked strong
again.
“Going to
the fence?” I asked.
“Yeah. You
going to see Victoria?”
“We need to
get the dynamite set up today. The wave are a few days away, and that’s being
generous. We could see them spilling through the hill passage any day now.”
Lou’s boots
scuffed on the ground as though lifting her legs to walk took more effort than
she was willing to give. “You seem awful calm about it.”
The truth
was that whenever I thought about the wave, a feeling of panic liquefied my
guts. I pictured hundreds of their rotting faces walking toward the gates of
Bleakholt. Then the hundreds swelled into thousands.
I imagined
our spotters seeing them and raising the alarm. Men shrieking, women screaming.
People running around in panic. Victoria standing up and bringing everyone to
order. Alice standing beside her and helping to control the chaos. We look to
the fences and see the dead, their mouths open, saliva pooling in rotted gums.
***
I opened the
door to the mayor’s office. The lobby was oppressively silent. Watercolour
portraits of past mayors lined the stairway, their serious faces imprisoned
behind canvas. The step of my boots thudded on the stones. I stopped.
“Something
doesn’t feel right,” I said.
Lou leaned
against the bannister. “I know what you mean.”
Alice
crossed her arms. “Let’s just see Victoria.”
Two men
stood outside Victoria’s office. One of them scowled, and his fingers moved as
he gripped the knife in his hand. It was a hunting knife with a green handle.
The blade was serrated, and the edge of it was stained with dried blood. The
man next to him watched the three of us intently. I didn’t recognise the men,
but it had only been a matter of time before Victoria got new guards after what
happened to Steve.
I opened the
door, stepped into the room, and then stopped. Victoria wasn’t behind the desk.
I’d expected her sat there, stern faced, a cigarette hanging between her
fingers. Instead, Ewan Judah filled her seat. He sat with his back wedged into
the chair and his boots propped up on the table. He spread his arms wide and
gave a smile.
“Morning
Kyle. What a pleasure to see you.”
26
Victoria’s
office looked like the scene of a drunken punch up. The bookcase behind her was
missing books like a boxer missing teeth. In the corner, Victoria’s watercolour
canvas lay on the floor with a boot print in the middle. At some point her
ashtray had tipped over and spread ash on the floor.
Lou stepped
forward. The colour was back in her cheeks now, a flush of anger that washed
away the traces of tiredness.
“You better
explain yourself,” she said.
Ewan put his
hands behind his head and leant back like he was reclining on a beach. There
was smugness in the way he smiled, the self-satisfied grin of a man who loved
himself. The chair behind him seemed to wilt, as though his bulk were bending
the framework. When Victoria sat in it, the chair had looked enormous. Ewan’s
presence made the office shrink.
“You guys
smell smoky,” he said. “The smell got bad, so I had to shut the window. Shame,
because it gets stuffy in here.”
I stepped
forward and leaned on the desk. “Where’s Victoria?”
Ewan put a
finger to his temple and drummed it. He leaned back, stared at the ceiling.
“Victoria, Victoria.”
He put his
hand to his chin. He bolted forward, his grin wider than ever, the edges of his
lips curling like a circus clown. It made my head pound with anger, and I
realised I was gripping the edge of the desk. I laid my hands flat on the
table.
“Oh yeah.” said
Ewan. “You mean the lady who used to sit here.”
If I looked
into his eyes for much longer I was going to flip the desk over. Or try to, at
least. I turned to Alice. “I can’t deal with this guy,” I said.
Alice spoke
a stern voice that wouldn’t have been out of place in the classroom. “Cut the
crap, Ewan. I’m tired of it. Tell us where Victoria is.”
Ewan got up
out of the chair. At six feet tall he was still smaller than Lou, and that was
with the extra inch the heels of his boots added. What he lacked in height he
made up for in bulk, with a frame that wasn’t muscled but looked like it could
withstand a torpedo. He wore a mix of office wear and hunting gear; a
crease-free blue shirt and black trousers with a green hunting belt hanging off
his waist.
He reached
to the floor and picked up a cane. It was made of polished wood that was so
black it looked like it had been scorched, and the top of the cane was a silver
bear head. He held the cane in his hand but he didn’t press it to the ground,
instead carrying it with him as he walked to the window with a confident
waddle. On anyone else the look would have been amusing, but there was
something about Ewan that left a bitter taste in my mouth.
He walked to
the window and rested his arms on the frame. He turned to me and beckoned me
over.
“What do you
think of this?” he said, gesturing at the cane. “Found it in one of the supply
rooms. Think it belonged to an old mayor.”
I screwed up
my face and grunted in acknowledgment.
“You want to
know where Victoria is?” he said.
I nodded. I
didn’t want to spend another second with Ewan if I didn’t have to. We needed to
see Victoria and tell her we had the dynamite.
Ewan pointed
at the window and dragged his finger across the frame, smearing a film of
grease along it. I followed his finger until it stopped at the school. Behind
it the grey swirls of smoke billowed into the air and released their toxic
chemicals into the waiting sky.
Ewan looked
at me. His black pupils seemed to swell in his eyes like ink droplets
dispersing into water. They were eyes that could hold a gaze for as long as
Ewan liked, but not ones that you would ever want to look into.
“I don’t get
it,” I said.
“You wanted
to know where Victoria is?”
I sighed. Hot
needles stabbed my neck. “Drop the act and tell me where the hell she is.”
Ewan’s grin
spread impossibly wide, as though his lips were trying to stretch off his face.
“I’m showing you, Kyle. Victoria’s over there. That’s her rising into the sky.”
I watched
the black smoke rise up to the heavens, defiling the blue sky and seeping out
across the horizon. The truth hit me like a plunge into an ice bath, and I felt
shards of cold stab through my back and chest. Suddenly I knew what the swirls
of smoke meant and what was burning. My stomach twisted and vomit rose up my
throat.
Alice
stepped forward. Her face was reddened by anger into a crimson hue. She grabbed
Ewan by the shoulders.
“What have
you done?”
Ewan cried
out and tried to shake himself free. The office door opened and the guards
outside stepped in. I realised that they weren’t Victoria’s guards. These were
Ewan’s men. One of them held up his serrated hunting knife and stepped toward
me.
Lou stepped
in close to me. I looked around the room for a weapon, but there was nothing in
reach. Gritting my teeth and feeling the flush of anger melt the ice inside me,
I stepped forward and got ready to fight.
Something
crashed into the back of my head. My ears rang, and my vision twinkled as
though my eyes were a television blinking through poor transmission. Hot pain
exploded on the back of my skull, and a warm trickle of blood ran over my hair
and onto my neck. I turned round in time to see Ewan, his cane raised, ready to
strike me again.