22 YOU NEVER GET USED TO THE DARKNESS
The silence was creepy as we snaked our way along the road, weaving a path through abandoned vehicles. Some cars seemed to be waiting for their owners to return and had their doors open like the driver just hopped out for a smoke. The authorities had advised people to remain indoors, so people had done the opposite and drove.
Some vehicles have been there for so long only the shape was visible underneath the snow. Other vehicles were buried so deep, only the imprints of bird claws on the windscreens gave them away.
If anyone was alive when they‘d stopped they’d be dead by now, frozen in their metal tombs.
“I guess the zombies got to the gritters first,” remarked Kenny, in a brief respite from the silence.
Everything is so still we could have been on the set of a disaster movie, after the director had shouted
CUT
. There are abandoned cars everywhere, some strewn across the road, some pulled into the side.
Doyle was forced to make so many detours I was dizzy and I'd regressed to childhood, constantly asking where we are because at least knowing that would allow me to assert some control in a world that’s plunged into the abyss.
Along the road, we passed smatterings of the undead, wretched refugees standing dazed in the snow, their once human skin the colour of the putty they put on new windows to seal them in; their eyes black beads that lacked humanity. Their arms reached out for us as we passed, as though some part of what was left of their brain thought they could simply pluck us right out of the car as though we were burgers on a grill. The days of fast food are over for us, but not for them.
There are a few children amongst these wretches and that’s the hardest thing to take. What kind of world is it when you think a child would be better off dead than alive – that’s if the state those things are in could even be described as alive?
Every so often, we caught glimpses of dead people (the old dead, as well as the new) sitting upright in their cars, ironically imprisoned by the very seatbelts that were designed to save their lives. The cold has halted decomposition and they appear almost alive. Those things lack the intelligence or cognitive skills to free themselves and without human flesh, they’d starved. Kenny pointed out that the one thing we did have in our favour is we can do without food for much longer than they can. I’m grown fond of Kenny. He’s all about the positives. We need that. Compared to him, Mustafa’s the wasp in your ear you want to crush.
In Greenock, we see two children standing together by the side of the road, lost lambs with no adults in sight. They almost fool us and we’re about to stop for them, but as we got closer we realise the boy, who's about eight-years-old, is flashing his teeth, exposing lots of cavities and something stringy and dripping between his molars that we know aint spaghetti Bolognese. There’s splatters of blood on the dress of the wee girl; the kind you get when you hit an artery before they manage to tie it off. All round her mouth was red as though she’d been playing with her mum’s lipstick.
Their mouths shot open when they saw us, exposing rotting teeth (the virus would have been a boon for dentists if they were any still any around). Whilst Doyle managed to close his window before they spat their vile digestive juices in our direction, I covered my ears so I couldn’t hear the god awful howl I know they’ll make. Half between a trapped soul’s cry and long nails being slowly dragged down a pane of glass.
Without realising it, I’d been digging my nails into Scott’s arm. His whole body shuddered and I assumed it was with the pain until I realised that he was chuckling away to himself.
“I thought the kids at my school were bad.”
Maybe it was the tension, but Scott’s comment cracked us up. Kenny was howling so hard the tears were streaming down his face forcing him to take off his glasses and wipe them, whilst I was worried that I was going to wet myself. Even Doyle chortled away. It sounded alien coming from him. Laughter from the Tartan Taliban.
After a few days of not washing, we stink to the high heavens. I’d stopped noticing because compared to rancid, decaying flesh; eau de body odour was morning dew. But now the honk was starting to get to me. The car reeked of sweat; of clothes left so long in the laundry basket, they’d gone mouldy, of smelly, sweaty feet and the unmistakable coppery smell of blood. That smell is everywhere: our clothes, down the insides of our fingernails, oozing out of our pores. With every breath I take, I'm drowning in it.
Miles down the road we see a blue bus that has crashed onto its side, the luggage of its passengers are scattered over the road.
It wasn’t until we got closer that we realised the objects strewn all over the road were schoolbags, backpacks and textbooks Doyle slows down. There was a shoe sticking out from under the bus. Hope flutters in my chest.
Amidst all this carnage, has a child survived?
Doyle’s been insistent all along that he’d stop for “naebody,” not even his own family (we don’t even know who they are as he’s tight-lipped on the subject of himself, and you don’t tend to ask suicide bombers many questions) but he abruptly brakes and without a word, jumps out.
We watch as he marches over to the bus and gets down on his knees.
Kenny has his hand on the door. “I’m going to see what’s happening.”
As I watch him slip out the car, panic sets my heart racing. When Scott makes a move to join him, I put a restraining hand on his shoulder.
“WAIT.”
Something isn’t right.
I glance out the car window. No movement. Nothing to make me worry, but the panic rising inside me.
Scott follows my gaze as Mustafa eyes me with barely concealed disdain, no doubt chalking my reaction down to my time of the month, or similar chauvinistic bollocks.
Scott’s voice is tight, “What is it?”
There was no time to explain. There was a flash of movement and then I was sure.
Leaping out the car, I roar “Incoming.”
The words are out my mouth before I realise what I was saying. Doyle sprang to his feet, put his arm around Kenny and pulled him with him as he tries to make it to the car.
A bullet pinged off the hood of a nearby car and put an end to their run. Whoever fired wouldn’t miss a second time.
“Don’t shoot.” Doyle’s voice was steady and calm and he had his hands above his head.
In the car, Scott, Mustafa and me, have ducked down.
I inch up enough to see what's happening and peer out the window. Five people emerge from the other side of the bus. Two men, a woman and two teenage girls. The girls were chained together convict style. Their shoulders were hunched and their clothes were torn. Behind them, there was a woman, but unlike them she was standing tall and proud. She was in her 50’s and was dressed like an aging biker chick in knee-high boots, trousers and a leather jacket.
The tall man with the gun held the weapon the way people with experience do, which worried me. In Scotland, most people don’t hunt and most people have never held a gun far less fired one.
His companion had brown hair and a podgy heart-shaped face. He was holding a gun, the way an amateur would. Both men were wearing fleeces that said
SECURITY
on the back.
Doyle and Kenny have their hands up as the men stride towards them.
Doyle’s talking but I can’t make out the words.
The sight of the armed men paralyses me. I can’t move and Scott has to pull me back down to the floor where Mustafa's already crouching. I told them what I’d seen.
Doyle’s left the keys in the ignition and one thought springs to mind.
“We need to drive…get out of here…”
As the words tripped out of mouth, I despised myself for saying them. Only a coward would suggest leaving Doyle and Kenny behind. But these men are armed and by the look of these girls, they were prisoners, not their companions. Staying here could be signing Scott and Mustafa’s death warrant, and leaving me to a fate worse than death – one where I’d be raped and abused.
Whatever we were going to do, we had to make a move. Dither and it’d be taken out of our hands.
23 WHAT WILL BE, WILL BE
Scott and Mustafa eye each other.
“I think you know what to do?” said Scott.
“Aye,” says Mustafa, who’d shifted over to the driver’s seat.
He fired up the engine, put his foot down, and fuck yi he cannoned straight into the two men with guns.
The pair were propelled over the bonnet, landing with a pleasing thud onto the half-gritted road. Limbs at unnatural angles, their bodies twitched in the snow. One of the man’s eyes were open wide, and staring up at the heavens. As if, he’s going there.
I’d been so focused on the armed men, I’d lost track of Doyle and Kenny and my heart did a wee leap when I realised they were okay. They must have dived out the way because they’re twenty yards away from the dying men.
Scott pats my shaking arm but it doesn’t stop the drum roll of my heart. I thought we were done for. Screwed. As dead as anyone can be - at least before the dead got restless and got up and bloody walked.
Scott had a grin as wide as a crocodile’s as he turned to me. "Now you see why I never get in a car with this nutjob, Emma.”
He doesn’t care that Mustafa has just killed two people; people who weren’t dead bastards and you know what, I didn’t care either. Deep down in my gut I know what happened had to happen.
We got out the car and that’s when I see Doyle’s bending over one of the girls. As I approach, I see a trickle of blood running down her lips and a gaping bloody hole in her chest where the bullet must have hit her after it pinged off the bus. Her eyes stare sightlessly up at the sky.
Doyle lifted her limp arm to feel for a pulse and that’s when I notice the vicious vine of cuts and scratches running down her arm as though someone took a knife and dragged the tip down the skin several times.
There’s a girl beside her, curled up into a ball, not making a sound, but there’s no sign of the woman.
My eyes met Kenny’s, but we don’t say anything. What is there to say? Humanity has managed to outdo the dead bastards for bringing misery. And, we thought the infected were the only ones we needed to worry about.
Doyle eyes the chains that tie the girls together. “I’ll go and get the metal cutters from the car.”
“What’s your name?” I ask the girl gently.
The girl uncurls herself and stares warily at us. She can't be much older than 15. She had dyed blonde hair with a dash of pink highlights, delicate features and a nose ring. Despite the freezing cold, she's dressed in a crop top and low hung jeans that show off a studded belly button ring under an open hooded top.
She eyes me with fear and suspicion, but then the dam bursts and she weeps great bug hacking big sobs that made her whole body shake. All I can do is put my arms around her and keep telling her it’s okay, that she’s safe now. Nobody will hurt her ever again.
The more reassuring things I say the less I believed them. How can I protect her when I’m having a hard enough time protecting myself?
When she stops crying she finally tells me her name is Laura and I tell her mine.
When Scott steps forward to introduce himself, she flinches, so he backs off. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.” And I know he didn’t. Scott knows how to deal with damaged people. He works with them at school.
All this time Kenny and Mustafa have kept their distance. Zombies they can handle, but a traumatised young girl was a step too far.
Taking off my coat, I drape it around her shoulders. Touching her is like touching a block of ice, but she’s not shivering. It must be the shock.
“I’m sorry about your friend. What was her name?”
She gazes at me, dead eyes filled with misery. “Callie, her name’s Callie. She’s my sister.”
Doyle arrived with the wire cutters, cursing away about having been able to find them much sooner if some bastard hadn’t been messing around in his car. Without a word, he hands them to me and I cut Laura free of the chain binding her to her sister.
Kenny appears at Doyle’s shoulder. He’s brought the girl some water.
I open it for her noting the cuts and fag burns on her wrists. She gulps it down, wiping her dribbling mouth on the sleeve of her hooded top. “Sorry, I don’t usually act like a slob.”
“It’s okay.” I let her finish her drink in silence, before I ask the killer question. "Laura, what happened to you and Callie? Who were those two men?” I cock a finger at the two bodies. “And, that woman. Who was she?”
When Laura spoke, she told us how she and Callie fled a nightclub full of “crazies” only to fall into the clutches of two psychopathic rapists and their mother.
When she’s finished recounting her tale, she asked who those crazies were and I told her. There was no point in sugar-coating it, so I tell her everything. She might be a kid in the eyes of the law, but in a lawless world, she needed to know the full truth.
When she'd recounted her story, she'd showed little emotion, almost as though the story wasn’t hers, but as the full reality of what I was telling her hit home, her eyes swam in tears.
“So, my mum’s probably dead too? And my gran and my friends?”
What could I tell her? That she was probably right? That everybody she loves is probably dead, or would be better off if they were? Because there’s worse things than being truly dead. There’s waking up and wanting to eat the first person you see and everybody else after that.
She eyed me with a weariness no girl her age should have. “What happens now?”
“You come with us,” I said. “They’re good guys. None of them will hurt you. Not like...”
I have to stop myself from saying any more. This girl’s been through so much already.
Kenny gave me a hand and we helped her up – she wasn’t as afraid of him as she was of the others - maybe it was because of his big puppy face.
She feels so light in our arms I'm worried she’ll float away. She must weight less than six stone. How could anyone hurt her? She was so delicate – just like Fiona.
We were trying to get her into the car when she pulled away from us. I don’t know how she got hold of the gun. It happened so fast there wasn’t time to react. She shoved it in her mouth and pulled the trigger.
For her at least, the pain was over.