6
Beyond the
edges of the forest was a grassy plain that stretched for miles. In the
distance hills jutted into the air, rocky crags that looked too treacherous to
walk on. My arms were cold, my legs heavy, and my breath blew like wispy smoke
in the winter air. Melissa and Justin turned around and looked the stalkers
behind us. There were two of them following us, but I was sure there had been
more of them earlier. Were they hunting us in packs?
Melissa’s
face turned white. She went to scream, but Justin clamped his hand over her
mouth. They looked at me, as if asking what to do. Ben whimpered in my ear. His
weight on my back threatened to drag me down.
It was
useless to run. I was carrying Ben, and at full sprint my leg was going to hurt
like hell. Besides that, a stalker going at full speed could run faster than a
car. It was even worse to stay and fight. I’d seen stalkers chew through bone
like it was tissue paper and tear into flesh like they were opening a package.
I reached for my knife, but I knew it was useless.
Justin’s
eyes were wide. Melissa’s face had drained as though her blood had been sucked
away and replaced by chalk. The stalkers prowled closer, testing the ground,
seeing how close they could get before we moved. We needed to make a decision.
“We run,” I
said. The words felt thick in my throat.
Justin
looked at me, and I could see in his eyes that he knew how useless it was.
There was nothing else we could do.
“Out of the
forest,” I said. “Just run.”
I turned,
faced the edge of the woods and saw the open plain through the breaks in the
leaves.
“Hold on tight,”
I said to Ben.
We sprinted.
Ben bounced on my back, and my leg began to ache. Twigs and roots hooked around
my feet and tried to trip me. One stumble and that was it. The edge of the
forest got closer. Outside of it, the sky was lighter; dawn was coming, but not
soon enough. There was just enough darkness to keep the stalkers from going
back to their nests. If there were just a little more light, they would retreat,
but could we run for the thirty minutes it would take for dawn to break? The
stabbing pain in my leg told me there was no chance.
Claws
scraped across the forest floor behind us. Branches crunched. A stalker gave a
shrieking war cry that pierced my ear drums and sent a shock of fear through
me. Melissa’s foot snagged a root and she tumbled to the floor.
The stalkers
made up ground. The edge of the forest was close but the stalkers were closer,
near enough that I could hear their snarls.
Justin
picked up Melissa. They carried on running. We cleared the forest, ran onto the
open plain. The absence of trees should have lifted the claustrophobic feeling,
but the sky was dark and heavy. My chest burned, my leg ached. Ben clung onto
my neck so hard that I couldn’t breathe, and my lungs struggled to pump air and
made me wheeze.
Just keep going. Every step keeps you alive.
I couldn’t
keep up the pace with Ben’s weight sagging on me. Pain exploded in my left leg,
as if my bullet wound were fresh again. It felt like I was running through
fire. Justin and Melissa overtook me. I couldn’t go on.
Ben cried in
my ear. “What’s wrong Kyle? What’s wrong? Keep going.”
But I
couldn’t. I pulled his arms away from my neck.
“Go with
Justin,” I said.
They were
young and they didn’t have wounded legs. They could keep running. I would let
the stalkers take me. All of this was my fault anyway. That would be my
sacrifice; buying them enough time to get away. I turned and faced the
monsters.
They
stopped. They were ten feet away; close enough that I could smell the earthy
stench of their skin. Their two rows of razor teeth glistened, and saliva
pooled down onto their chins. Their black eyes stared at me and their lips
curled in a malicious smile. If stalkers were capable of happiness, this was
it. They had a meal waiting for them, and it wouldn’t take them long to gorge
on my flesh.
After
sixteen years surviving the outbreak, this was the end for me. It wasn’t much
of a conclusion. Thoughts flashed through my brain.
What had I done with my
life?
I’d watched my wife die. I’d let Vasey be destroyed. I had led my group
into slaughter. This was the end, and the only thing I felt was a dull ache in
my chest from the darkness that seeped through my body.
I gave the
stalkers once last look, stared deep onto their lifeless eyes. I closed my own
and let the darkness take over.
Something
rumbled in the distance, a vibration that ran across the ground. Not the
stalkers. It was the sound of an engine. Two engines. Getting closer, the roar
of an exhaust firing, wheels turning over the plain. I opened my eyes.
Two quad bikes
tore across the grass. Men rode them with their heads bent down. The heavy
wheels of the quads rolled towards us. The stalkers stopped and turned to face
the noise of the vehicles that screeched toward them.
They were
feet away now, so close that I could smell the smoke as petrol burnt. A stocky
guy rode one of them, his muscles bulging as he gripped the handles. He rode
with his back arched, but it was clear that at full stretch he would stand at
six foot five. Pock-mark scars dotted the right side of his face, as though
someone had stuck pins in his cheeks. He turned the accelerator handle, made
the quad roar.
He stared at
the stalkers as he zipped toward them. His eyes were steel, his shoulders
tense. One of the stalkers, the nearest to him, turned. It went to move, but it
was a second too late. The quad smashed into its skull, hit the side of its
face with the force of a heavyweight boxer. The stalker’s head swivelled to the
side, spit flew from its mouth, and it crashed to the floor. The other stalker
reared and retreated a dozen metres.
The man
killed the engine and got off the quad. The stalker writhed on the floor and
tried to get up. The man stood on the grass. He pulled a mallet from a bag on
the back of the quad, the type a butcher would use to pound meat. He walked to
the stalker, his jaw clenched. He watched it struggle on its back like a fly,
then lifted the mallet and brought it crashing down onto the stalker’s head.
Black blood spilled onto the grass and a hiss escaped the stalker’s mouth.
Another blow and this time it stopped moving as the last of its life seeped
away.
My throat
was thick and my heart pounded. I had to clench my hands into fists to stop
them shaking. I got to my feet, felt a shock of pain run through my leg.
The man scooped
up the stalker’s body like it was a dog that had been hit by a car. He carried
it to the quad and put it on the ground next to the tyre. He took a bin liner
from a bag strapped to the back of the vehicle, opened it wide, and stuffed the
stalker into it. He put it on the back of the quad and secured it with ropes.
“What the
hell are you doing?” I asked, the words scratching my throat.
“No time,”
came his deep response. “You and the kid get on my quad. The boy and the girl,
you get on that one,” he said, and pointed to the other quad.
He was
right. There was no time to argue about it. The other stalker was getting
braver, and soon its hunger instincts would overrule its sense of danger. It
was still a threat. Even one stalker could tear us apart.
“Come on
Ben,” I said. I took his hand and heaved him to his feet.
I got on the
back of the quad. Ben sat behind me, his arms around my waist. Melissa and
Justin got on the other quad.
Behind us,
the other stalker shrieked. It reared onto its hind legs and prepared to launch
into a pounce. The man twisted the handle and the engine fired to life.
“Hold on,”
he said.
The wheels
tumbled over the grass. The air pinched at my face and made my cheeks wobble.
Ben clung tighter onto my waist. I turned my head and risked a look behind us.
The stalker ran full pelt, its legs springing it across the plain like a
jaguar. The look on its face was pure determination, a burning hunger.
“I’ll draw
it wide,” said the man on the other quad. “You head for the passage.”
The driver
of our quad grunted a response. The other quad turned, split away from us. But
the stalker didn’t follow suit. Instead, it picked up speed, bent its head and
powered toward us.
A gigantic
hill lay in front of us. I was sure now that it was the one that we had seen on
the map, and that meant that Bleakholt was beyond it. We were headed straight
at it. I knew that quad bikes were good on rough terrain, but surely it
couldn’t ride over the hill? The peaks of them were so high that they were
almost mountains, and even the most experienced climber would struggle with
them. The stalker closed the distance behind us, making retreat impossible. The
rocky hill loomed in front, ready for us to smash into it.
I held my
breath and closed my eyes. Maybe dying on impact would be better than being
torn apart by the stalker. If my choice was instantaneous death or getting eaten
alive, it was an easy one. I bit my tongue, prepared for impact.
It never
came. Instead, the wind on my face dropped. I had the feeling of being enclosed
in something. I opened my eyes.
We were on a
narrow dirt path. The hillsides pressed in close enough that one jerk of the
steering wheel would send us crashing into them. It was a passageway through
the hill system, a valley just big enough for us to escape. I hadn’t even seen
it when we had approached the hill.
The stalker
followed behind us. It shrieked and gave chase, its muscles bulging, clawed
limbs pounding on the ground. I saw the end of the passage way, a crack of
light that promised escape.
“Keep your
head down,” called the man.
We reached
the end of the passageway, and the quad tumbled out onto yet another open
plain. The stalker followed behind, the pursuit having no effect on it. How
long could they run for? Would it ever stop?
A crack rang
in the air, and I heard something tumble behind us. I turned and looked. The
stalker lay on its back on the ground, its arms and legs twisting. Blood leaked
out from its skull.
The man
driving the quad held his thumb up in the air and gave a whoop. There was a
building in front of us. A man was on top of it with a sniper rifle balanced on
a wall in front of him. The roofs of houses stuck into the air behind him. A
chain link fence was spread half a mile wide across the plains. In front of it
a large green sign read ‘Welcome to Bleakholt. A shining light in bleak times.’
7
This wasn’t
the welcome I expected. Ben was unconscious by the time we reached Bleakholt. A
group of men stood at the gates and formed a welcome party. They lifted Ben off
the quad and took him away without saying a word to me. The man on the quad led
me to a fenced area, pushed me in and then left. Another one stepped forward,
slammed the fence gate and clicked a padlock shut. I wanted to ask what the
hell was going on but my body felt too weak. Instead, I sank to the ground.
The floor
was hard stone with weeds poking out. A ten foot chain-link fence surrounded
it, making it look like a prison yard. There was a wooden shed in the corner,
and inside there was a cracked toilet and a mattress with a yellow bed sheet.
Every six
hours someone came and give me a bottle of water and some food. It was some
kind of gruel, a water mixture that tasted like sawdust. The guy who brought
the food didn’t look at me or talk to me. He wore a makeshift hazmat suit of
thick gloves and a body-length clear plastic coat. As he handed over the
supplies he kept a wary eye on me as though I might leap up and attack him. The
truth was I didn’t have the energy.
The first
day I paced the yard. I shouted for someone’s attention, but nobody came. I
started to wonder what kind of place this was. I had some grim thoughts. Were
they cannibals? Were they crazy? I pushed the thoughts back.
From here,
all I could see of Bleakholt was a few houses a hundred yards away. The bricks
were coloured to look like sandstone and thatched roofs sat on top of them. A
main road twisted around a corner, presumably toward the centre of the
settlement. The whole place reeked of mud, a sour smell that was thick in the
air and pinched at my nose. It could have been a normal country town, were it
not for the fence that ran the perimeter and caged it in.
As the sun
set and the wind chilled me, I went into the shed. Through a dirty glass window
I watched the sky turn dark, and my thoughts darkened along with it. I had a
twisting feeling in my stomach. I thought of Ben and how sick he was. I
wondered where they’d taken him and what they had done with him. I thought of
Alice and Lou. Alice was separated from her boy, and she and Lou had two
stalkers chasing them. I couldn’t shake the thought that there was no way they
could have escaped. What about Justin and Melissa? They had gotten on the other
quad. Did they make it?
It was all
down to me. A twisting feeling of guilt made my stomach cramp. Anger burnt
through me, but the fire of it spread inwards because I knew it was my fault.
Everything I did was for the others. But somehow, I always got it wrong. Made
the worst choice every damn time.
Dammnit
Kyle!
I pulled
back my fist and smashed it into the glass window. The glass cracked and
splintered out of the shed. A searing pain spread through my hand, and blood
welled though a cut on my knuckles.
***
A day later,
Melissa and Justin arrived. My heart pounded at the sight of them. As the fence
gate shut, Melissa shouted at the guard who had escorted them.
“What do you
think you’re doing? What is this place?”
Justin
looked up and saw me sat on the ground. He tapped Melissa on the shoulder.
“Mel, look.”
She turned
round. A brief smile flickered when she saw me, and then disappeared.
“What the
fuck’s going on Kyle?” she said.
The
profanity jarred me. It didn’t seem to fit her somehow, as though all this time
I’d seen her as a quiet girl who wasn’t capable of saying bad things. You never
truly knew someone until something bad happened. When you put the squeeze on
someone, their real personality seeped out. Melissa was tougher than she acted.
I got to my
feet. My right hand throbbed. I’d taken off my t-shirt, torn off the sleeve and
wrapped it around the cut. The bleeding had stopped, and now I just had to hope
it didn’t get infected.
“Did you
get…”? Melissa said. Her eyes widened at the sight of my makeshift bandage.
I shook my
head. “I wasn’t bitten.” I jerked my thumb behind me to the shed, to the
shattered glass on the ground. “I’m doing some remodelling.”
Justin
rubbed his hand across his beard. “How long’ve you been here?”
“A day or
two, I lost track,” I said. “What happened to you guys?”
“A stalker got
the guy driving the quad. We climbed on the quad and took off.”
“I wonder
how long he took to die,” said Melissa, scorn in her voice.
Justin
looked at her. His eyes were stern, the first real expression I’d seen from him
in a long time. “We didn’t have any choice, Mel. Would you rather it was us?”
He turned to
me.
“We drove
through that narrow little passage in the hills. But as soon as we got to the
edge of the settlement, a bunch of guys showed up and marched us here.”
“Any news on
Lou and Alice?” I asked.
Justin shook
his head.
“I’ll give
you the grand tour,” I said. “Better get used to it, looks like we’ll be here a
while.”
***
Later that
day the chain link fence opened again. This time it was Lou and Alice. As the
guards march them in, my heart leapt. I couldn’t help the trace of a grin
spread on my face. I didn’t know how they’d survived, but I didn’t care. They
were here.
The guards
shoved them in and closed the fence behind them. Lou kicked it, made the metal
sing.
“I’ll
remember your face buddy,” she said.
The guards
turned and left.
Alice limped
towards me. Bruises covered her face and dirt stained her white blouse. Her
eyes had the bloodshot look of an alcoholic.
“Where’s
Ben?” she said. Her eyes darted around the fenced area and inspected every
inch.
“They took
him away when we got here. Haven’t seen him in a few days,” I said.
Alice
scrunched up her face, and her shoulders shook. “Is he alright?” she asked.
I couldn’t
lie to her after everything I had put her through. I’d put everyone in danger,
and her son had taken the worst of it. The least she deserved was the truth.
“He was
unconscious when we got here,” I said.
Alice ran
her hands through her hair and then put her arms over her face. She held the
back of her head as if trying to stop something getting out. Maybe it was a
scream. Anger. Blame. Whatever it was, I just wished she’d let it go. Give me
everything I deserved.
“I swear to
god if something has happened to my boy,” she said.
There was a
clink. The chain link fence opened. Guards stepped aside, and a woman walked
into the yard.
“Your boy is
right as rain,” she said, in a thick Scottish accent. “He’ll live.”
She looked
to be in her fifties. Dark rings were sunk under her eyes, and her skin sagged
like it was trying to separate itself from her bones. She wore gold earrings so
heavy they weighed her ears down, and her hair was a mess of brown tangles.
Despite the haggard look of her face she held her body straight, her shoulders
firm. Her arms poked out from a sleeveless leather jacket, and her muscles were
toned. It was like she had a thirty-year old body and a fifty-year old face.
She walked
into the enclosure. Two guards stepped behind, one with a baseball bat in his
hand. She gave them a dismissive wave.
“Wait
outside,” she said.
Alice
clenched her fists at her sides. Her body looked tight with tension, like a
rubber band stretched to snapping point. Lou sat on the floor, cross legged,
and looked at the approaching woman with a grin. Justin and Melissa stood with
their arms interlinked around each other’s backs.
The woman
stopped a few feet short of us. Up close, I could see the thin muscles on her
arms. She wasn’t well-built, but she was in shape. Her stance was
statesman-like, as though she were a president about to address a nation.
“I’m
Victoria,” she said. “And I’d like to welcome you all to Bleakholt. Let’s go
somewhere we can chat.”