Tabitha (14 page)

‘Get up,’ she
mumbled to herself, still holding the knife out where the dogs could see it.
She fought the blackness back from her vision, and dragged her body away
through the bloody silver puddle. She staggered up to her feet, clutching her
side in agony. At least the bleeding had stopped, for the most part. There was
still a gouge above her knee that was taking a while to close. Wild-eyed she
hobbled away, then realised she’d left her rifle. She limped over to it in a
shell-shocked daze, slung it over her shoulder, and staggered away across the
precinct. Still felt her heart racing. Still stamping down the tears and the
terror. Tabitha never took her eyes off the dogs as she went. She made sure
that they always saw the knife; that they knew what would happen to them if
they followed her. They had to see the knife.

11

It was a chilly night. Tabitha spent it
in the town library, two storeys up. She huddled down in a nest of coats on a pile
of giant beanbags, where she gave herself permission to cry. Long-drawn sobs
took over her body, shaking her by the shoulders. She wiped the tears from her
eyes with her wrists, and looked out at the night through the window beside
her. The feral dogs and silver spiders wouldn’t find her up here. She hoped.
Maybe that’s why she’d picked the quietest building she could think of; a
library. So she’d hear them coming. It was ridiculous logic, now that she
thought about it, since every building in town was silent as the grave. But
there was something more comforting about a library, really. More so than an
office or a shop. A library was
meant
to be quiet. It was meant to be
empty, more or less. Huddled in the corner beneath the window, high above the
streets in her beanbag nest, Tabitha felt a little safer. The building was old,
and the ceilings were high. She wasn’t especially warm, but the coats kept what
heat she had close to her body. She felt more at home here, surrounded by so
many words on the shelves. Like there were still the spirits of people in this
place. Lying back and hugging herself tight, and pulling her mum’s note from
her bra to hold it close, she even managed to fall asleep.

There was a scream a couple of streets
away; a man’s scream. Tabitha woke with a jump. She couldn’t see anything
through the window. The night sky was clouded over; the darkness was absolute.
She heard a second scream, even louder than the first. It was the sound of
terror distilled, launched desperately into the night sky above a dead world.
She staggered up from her nest. She had to get down there and help him. The
third scream was cut short though; a life ended, just like that. Tabitha sank
back down into the corner, and cried into jackets that smelled like people.

She didn’t sleep
the rest of the night. But she couldn’t head outside either. Not if she’d be
running and hiding from the spiders in the dark. Since she’d woken at the sound
of the scream, Tabitha had been searching for something to take her mind off
it. It was probably a good idea to start training, she thought, dragging
herself from her idle melancholy. She had to be strong if she wanted to
survive, and not just an inner strength. A strong body was probably the best
survival tool she could have.

Tabitha lay out
in a press-up position and took her weight on her hands and toes. Pushed up off
the floor and sank down again. Repeated. She’d never been one for press-ups and
sit-ups before, but now they seemed to come so easily. She could feel lean
muscles under her skin, tensing and relaxing. They felt alien to her, as
strange as her new metal hands. With grunting breaths she pushed up, sank down.
Pushed up, sank down. More press-ups than she’d ever done in her life, and
she’d barely gotten her heart rate up. The action became a meditation. If she
was going to survive in the world she had to be strong. She switched off for a
while and just trained, lost in catharsis. By the time she stopped, trembling
and sweating, the early summer dawn had turned the black sky pink.

Tabitha went
book hunting once the sun was rising. Sunshine spilled in along the walls of
books; dust drifting and rising in the light. When she reached the section she
was after though, she found only empty shelves. Survival techniques, edible
plants, the great outdoors… Every book had been taken. It looked like everyone
else had had the same idea. She did find a cigarette lighter though, tucked
away in an office drawer. It was old and cheap, a grubby piece of plastic,
clear bright yellow. And instantly the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen. It
held the promise of fire.

Tabitha headed
up to the floor above, searching for anything useful. When she saw the broken
window though, she knew it was time to leave. Her eyes followed a trail of
dusty dots from the broken glass across the ceiling, and rested on a spindly
silver shape lurking in the far corner. Ok, it was
definitely
time to
leave. Tabitha backed away quietly and headed for the stairs.

Outside on the
street Tabitha squinted at the bright morning sun. She kept close to the
buildings for safety, and headed down the main road. She shouldn’t have come
back into the centre yesterday, she told herself. Probably better if she just
got out of town, and tried her luck in the countryside beyond.

A couple of streets down she saw a fresh
human skin in a blood puddle, wrapped and blowing around the base of a lamp
post. It must have been the screaming man from last night. A big man, judging
by the loose clothes that dressed his skin. A shape moved in the window across
the road. She was surprised to see a dog sitting there in the office window, a
border collie, barking soundlessly behind double glazing. Was it as wild as the
others had been? Or had the empty skin on the road been its owner?

‘It’s alright,’
she told the dog, walking over to put her hand on the glass. But the dog wasn’t
barking at her – it’d moved to see over her shoulder. It was barking at
something behind her. Tabitha turned around. A spider leapt on her and forced
her down to the road. She pounded her fist into its head, over and over. It was
larger than usual, and stronger. She grabbed its stabbing tongue as it slid
out. Had to wrestle it away from her face. Her skin could heal quickly, but she
didn’t rate her chances if that spike went in through her eye socket. Holding
the stabbing tongue at bay with her left hand, she smashed the spider in the
head with her right. Fighting for life. Hitting it over and over until it
staggered for a moment. Tabitha growled with the effort and threw the spider off
her chest. She leapt on it and slammed her fist down, cratering its head. She
pulled the knife from her belt and drove it in through its metal skin, and the
thing dropped dead on the road. She stabbed it again. Again. Over and over.
Exhausted, Tabitha raised her knife up and hesitated. The bleeding spider
wasn’t moving any more. She slumped down on the road to catch her breath. Her
arms were killing her. Maybe she shouldn’t have done so many press-ups last
night. Staggering to her feet she went back to see the dog in the window, still
barking at her. She wandered over to the front door and turned the metal handle
with a tired shaking hand.

The collie was
staring at her down the office corridor when she walked inside. It wasn’t
barking any more, just whimpering. Hesitating, but wanting to come closer.
Producing the stray digestive biscuit from her hoodie pocket, Tabitha sealed
the deal.

‘Come here, it’s
ok,’ she said softly, crouching down. She kept a hand on her hunting knife,
just in case. The dog padded over, tail wagging. It didn’t seem all that wild.
It took the biscuit eagerly and crunched it with rapid chomps off the carpet,
licking up the crumbs. When Tabitha held out her hand, the dog came close and
sniffed at it. It was confused by the metal smell. Tabitha offered the pale
skin of her arms instead; her face. The dog sniffed at her keenly, and licked
her mouth. Tabitha spat, smiled, and suffered the licking. The dog came closer,
tail wagging. Soon Tabitha was grinning, holding the dog back in its excited
hello. Peering round the back, it looked like a girl. The round name tag on her
collar read LAIKA.

‘You’re a
softie, aren’t you?’ Tabitha said happily. The dog wasn’t much more than dirty
black and white fur on a scrawny frame. Breath that smelled like warm rubbish.
One brown eye, one blue. Both wide open and gushing trust. Tabitha spent a good
while fussing over her, and Laika was happy for the attention. Tabitha was just
happy to find something in the world that wasn’t trying to kill her.

‘You’re too skinny,’
Tabitha told the dog, stroking her soft smelly fur. A quick check of the
cupboards in the staff kitchen revealed nothing; not a scrap of food anywhere.
But someone had been here, and not long ago. Maybe the screaming man had lived
in here, she considered. So hungry that he had to go out into the lethal night
to find food for him and his dog.

‘I’m sorry about
your owner,’ she told Laika, who waited patiently by her side with a sombre
peace. She stroked the dog’s soft head. ‘I’m going to look after you.’

‘Stay,’ Tabitha
commanded, sticking her head out from the front door to check up and down the
street. Laika sat obediently, staring keenly. The dog took one whiff of the air
outside, and licked her lips ready for a meal. Tabitha held her rifle and edged
out onto the street, sneaking and glancing up at the windows for any sign of
spiders. The road seemed clear, as far as she could tell.

‘Come on,’ she
whispered. Laika obeyed, and together they stalked off down the street. Tabitha
took them off the main crescent and down the side roads, where hopefully there
was less chance of trouble. Another mile or so and they’d be out in the
suburbs, away from the built-up centre. Tabitha peered around the corner of a
brick wall, before heading out down the next side street. She froze at the
sound she heard behind her. A cracking squelch; flesh and bone. A spider must
have killed the dog. Tabitha reached for her knife, and took a couple of deep
breaths for the fight. Slowly, she turned around. No spider though.

‘Oh Jesus,
Laika. That’s disgusting.’ The dog was tucking into a dead rat, having sniffed
it out and dragged it from an open gutter. Tabitha wouldn’t have minded so
much, but there wasn’t much left of the rat that hadn’t rotted away. She could
only watch in horror as Laika cracked its head loudly in her jaws. She dropped
it to the road with a wet slap, and nipped the grey meat off it with her teeth.

‘I thought a
spider had you,’ she told the dog. ‘Please can I find you something better to
eat, before you do that
again?’ the dog wolfed the last of it down and
licked at the gore on the road.

‘You’re rank,’
Tabitha told her, leading them on down the alley.

They saw a spider down the next side
street, on the far side of a full car park. It had its back to them. Laika
didn’t make a sound. Tabitha held out a grey hand towards her, telling her to
keep back. The dog hung around behind her, eyes fixed on the spider. She didn’t
growl, and she didn’t go for it. As they stalked towards it, Laika stuck to
Tabitha’s side. She couldn’t stop Laika’s pack instinct though, and when she
attacked the spider so did the dog. Tabitha surprised it and killed it quickly
with her knife, before Laika could jump in and get herself hurt. But at least
the dog had her back; it was worth the risk.

‘Good girl,’ she
said, crouching down to rub Laika’s sides. Immediately Laika started wagging
her tail, and she was all too keen to lick Tabitha’s face.

‘Actually let’s
not do that, please,’ said Tabitha, recalling the rotten rat as she stood up away
from her dog’s affections. ‘Don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re
disgusting.’ The dog sat and looked up at her with mismatched eyes. ‘Diet aside
though, you’re a much better bodyguard than my cat. Good job.’

They only encountered two more spiders
before they made it out of the centre and into the suburbs. Both times, Laika
had gone for the spider when Tabitha had. She tried to signal to the dog to
hang back and let her deal with it, but Laika wouldn’t have it. Still, she was
smart enough not to start barking and attract every spider in town. Tabitha
relaxed a little once they were clear of the shops and offices. The silence
didn’t seem so heavy out of the centre. There was only the creaking sound of
her boots, and the clawed padding of Laika’s paws on the tarmac as they headed
out of town.

‘Look, Laika.’
The dog’s ears pricked up at her name, and she stared into Tabitha’s bright
eyes. ‘No, look up there, up the road. I’m going to find you some food.’
Tabitha pointed off to a petrol station in the distance. Laika’s eyes didn’t
follow Tabitha’s pointing hand, but she smacked her lips all the same.

‘Yeah, you know
that word,’ Tabitha said with a smile, as Laika’s tail started to wag. They
walked on down the road towards the looted petrol station, past rows of
reddy
-brown terraced houses. A plastic
meerkat
statue stared at her from a dark window; a vase of dead flowers in another. One
window had a small statue of a wizard on the sill, and a dragon holding a
crystal beside an ashtray. Every window was dark and dead; every living room an
empty murk inside. Tabitha hurried them on a little faster past the houses with
open doors. She didn’t need to guess what might be lurking inside. In a couple
of minutes they were getting close to the petrol station down the road.

‘So, do you
think there’s any soap in there? For both of us?’ said Tabitha, sniffing her
armpits through her t-shirt. ‘Seriously, I’m trying not to gag at the smell of
us. To be honest, if it wasn’t the end of the world, I don’t think we’d be
walking this close together.’