One second Murdoch was whimpering. The next, Scott was pushing him towards the hole in the floor. All the time Murdoch begged for his life in the same way his victims probably begged for theirs before he fed them to the freaks.
“This is for my sister and Helen Brodie.” Scott shoves the butcher into the hole.
“No.” Murdoch screams.
“Honey, I’m home,” Mustafa shouted down.
The last time I saw of Murdoch, he was being dragged down by the hands, kicking and screaming, pleading with us to haul him back out, to spare his worthless life.
Listening to him, I feel nothing. Not even a trace of sympathy. Justice had been done.
Once the screams die down, Doyle fetches a petrol can from a shelf and starts dousing the floor. Then he hands Scott the matches.
There wasn’t so much as a flicker of regret in Scott’s eyes as he struck a match and tosses it into the shed.
The place went up with a mighty whoosh.
As I stood and watched the roaring flames consume the shed, I imagine the shufflers trying to claw their way out of the inferno, hair and clothes on fire, decayed skin sizzling, meat shrinking, bones turning white hot. Instead of being horrified, I feel empty inside.
As I watch embers swirl and dance into the night sky, I might as well have been watching a fireworks display.
Once everything in the shed had been burnt to a cinder, we find a nice spot near one of the standing stones and bury Lindsay in the frozen ground.
It takes us a while, but we're in no hurry. It's important Lindsay gets the burial she deserves.
31 A CHINK OF LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS
I was with Mary and Scott in the kitchen when Mustafa raced in. His face as animated as a cartoon. “We’ve spotted a ship...a ferry...it’s coming this way. There are other survivors.”
There was a childish excitement about him, and I could see him as a wee boy with huge brown eyes and a mischievous grin. In fleeting moments like those, I don’t think he’s a complete and utter clown. In fact, he may even be winning me over. Not that I'd ever tell him that.
My heart did a Highland fling. We weren’t alone. There were others.
I resisted the urge to shout yes at the top of my lungs and dance around the room with Mustafa and Mary. Experience has taught me to be cautious about getting my hopes up.
It’s been two months since Lindsay died and I know I’m pregnant – I managed to sneak two pregnancy kits out of the chemist and two came up positive. I knew there was a small chance I’d be pregnant, but I’d left it for fate to decide. Scott still doesn’t know.
I’m happy and fearful at the same time. I've always wanted have children. Thankfully, there’s been no morning sickness yet. Instead, I have a massive craving for peanut butter that’s been hard to explain.
William, Scott’s bear of a dad, appears behind Mustafa and lifts Mary up and twirls her around as she giggles. Scott knows better than to try the same thing with me - I get ticklish. Instead, he high-fives his pals before he sweeps me up into his arms.
Over Scott's shoulder, I see Kenny hugging Mustafa and then Doyle. Mustafa and Doyle almost hugged one another but they pulled back at the last second: one miracle at a time.
Scott’s parents don’t know what happened to their daughter. We’d made a pact not to tell anyone about her true fate. We’re letting them hold on to the hope of seeing her again someday. We all need hope. Without it, what are we fighting to stay alive for?
William mentioned in passing that Murdoch was missing, and neighbours did a search for him. They came up with nothing but a burnt out shed by the standing stones. His van was found there with a dead battery, and it had run out of petrol. Folk assumed he was another person gone missing, like the others, but there’d been no more disappearances since Murdoch’s, so the mystery remained unsolved.
I wonder what they would say if they knew the real story. If we hadn’t finished off Murdoch, I reckon he’d have been strung up from the nearest tree, Wild West style. People who'd been turned into ravenous savages had no choice about how they acted. Murdoch had a choice. He was in full control of himself.
The days since that fateful night have fallen along predictable lines. We help tend to fields and collect firewood. Whenever a body washes up on shore, bloated and deformed, we cut off the head and burn the remains. It sounds like desecration of the dead, but we don’t know if this virus or infection, or whatever it is, lies dormant in dead bodies or not. If it does, it still might infect us, so we destroy everything.
William reads passages from the Bible as we commit bodies to the flames. He’s found comfort in his Presbyterian upbringing. Me, I don't believe there is a god. Why would any god allow this to happen? But, then I think that's what's happening could be a human creation. Scientists created mice that glow in the dark. They designed to kill people in indescribable ways.
Would creating a virus that started all this really be such a big leap?
Once Scott had remarked, “Fat lot of good religion’s done for us lately.”
William came back with, “Where has science got us, son?” Scott had no answer to that.
We still don’t know what caused this plague, but we haven’t discounted some Frankenstein-style government experiments gone wrong. Mankind did so much tinkering with nature and this might be the payback.
Now, seeing everyone so merry about the arriving ship gives me conflicting emotions. Part of me wants to celebrate too, but my gut twists as fear burrows its way in like a parasitic worm.
My reaction surprises me, because surely I should be happy that our hopes have been realised. That it isn't just us anymore. Others have survived and now, together on this island, we can share our haven from the horrors of the mainland. We can build a new Scotland. Be the pioneers of this new, brave civilisation. Make it whatever we want it to be. We're the architects of our own brave world.
At times that feels exhilarating.
But what if the mainland brings the horrors to us? Do we even know who’s on that ship? That no one is hiding a bite mark or a scratch that could end us all? That thought strikes dread into my heart. I want to live. I want Scott and our baby to live and our friends.
But how can I mention my fears when all around me, people are happy and hopeful because they see a chink of light in the darkness?
I can't rain on their parade, so I rein in my fears and try to accept how marvellous this is. Nobody sees through my smiling façade. They’re too busy celebrating the good news.
Except for Doyle, that is. He looks as wary as me, the way he frowns at people and keeps his gun close by although there seems no need to.
Blood thumps in my ears. “When will they be here?”
William glances at his watch, his eyes tired but full of hope. “In ten minutes.”
He goes off to knock on doors and tell the others the good news, and Mustafa and Kenny scamper after him. I’m about to ask where Doyle has skulked off to when Mary pours us a celebratory dram.
I turn it down without making her suspicious that I’m pregnant by saying, “It gives me heartburn.”
Mary chatters away as she makes plans for the new arrivals: she’s organising a list of volunteers to take people into their homes so they will be fed and stay somewhere warm.
“If there’s too many, we can always use the empty houses,” she chirps. “I’m sure the owners wouldn’t mind.”
She sounds so happy when she says, “There might be children.”
At that moment, I almost tell her there will definitely be one child: her grandchild, but I keep my mouth shut.
***
There’s a festival atmosphere as we assemble along the pier to greet the ship, a double-decker ferry flying a Scottish flag. For the first time since we arrived, all the islanders are together in one place, and it’s a fine sight: young and old gathered together. There’s a feverish excitement that would have been intoxicating, but for the sense of dread that weighs me down like a boulder in my chest.
We’ve brought our weapons with us, although we’re keeping them out of sight by a nearby fence because we don’t want to panic anyone.
I don’t tell Scott how worried I am. Something broke inside him when his sister died, and he needs to believe that good things can still happen. That life’s not always going to be death and destruction. That’s why I don’t tell him about the baby; there’s no doctor on the island and something could go wrong. It would kill him if he knew about the baby and anything happened to him or her.
As the ferry lurches towards the pier, an almighty roar rises up into sky, and for a fleeting moment, my worries evaporate. Maybe this is going to be okay.
Doyle’s eyes shift between the pier and the approaching ferry. I notice his coat is extremely bulky, like it’s covering something. Like he’s hiding something.
Like his bomb vest.
Immediately, I understand.
32 JULIE’S STORY
People were so kind to her on the ferry, fussing over her like she was royalty and sharing what little food and water they had. One nice man, Gavin (a barman from Partick with a huge grin and a heart to match) removed the coat from his back and presented it to her with a flourish. She’d almost cried because that was the kind of thing her Gary would have done. If only he was there to protect her, she wouldn’t have felt so alone even on a crowded boat.
People’s kindness made her want to cry, but she bit back the tears before they could fall; it wasn’t good for the baby if she got emotional. And even although she felt manhandled because so many people came up to her and stroked her belly as though she were a Buddha and it’d bring them luck, she didn’t protest because she knew why they did it: to reassure themselves that there was still hope in amidst all this despair.
No one said it, but the words hung there in the air: she might be the last pregnant woman left.
So far, things were going well with the pregnancy. Their son was due in a month’s time and apart from the occasional bout of morning sickness (often cured by a peanut butter and banana sandwich), she’d been healthy all the way through. At her last check up, the doctor had been pleased with her progress. That was less than a week ago, but it might as well as been a lifetime.
Now everything in her life fell into two categories, now and B.T.C (Before They Came) as the others on the boat were calling it. She didn’t know exactly who or what they were; it was all so confusing. Dead people coming back to life and attacking people, but that couldn’t be right. Dead people didn’t come back to life, except in silly movies or TV shows.
What she did know was that when people became ill they were filled with an uncontrollable rage that turned them into rabid dogs, wanting to rip apart everyone, even those they loved. She’d witnessed it with her own eyes when Gary came home from work, face the colour of laundry starch, feverish and falling all over the place and claiming his boss bit him. She’d laughed when he’d said. Sure, his boss was a bit of a nippy sweetie, but biting him. What a crazy notion. Gary did say some funny things.
She’d assumed he'd picked up the winter flu bug that was going around and packed him off to bed with a few painkillers and a cup of tea. Why else would he be babbling such nonsense, scaring her? That wasn't like her Gary at all.
Half an hour later, when she’d excitedly shuffled upstairs in her slippers to tell him that the baby was having a kick about, he was out cold. She’d let him be. He needed his rest. He’d been working so hard recently, doing all the work only for his boss to swoop in and take all the credit as usual for his ideas. He was a fly one that Jock Baxter.
Half an hour later – she knew how much time had passed because Emmerdale had finished and EastEnders was coming on – the crash of furniture drowned out the closing credits. She’d pushed herself up off the couch and towards the stairs, going as fast as she could despite the fact she felt like a bowling pin.
Whatever was in that room, it wasn’t her husband. Gary was a kind, gentle man. The thing in his pinstriped pyjamas was a wild animal with eyes that reminded her of a wild cat she’d seen in the garden once, the head moving from side to side, eyes coldly studying a little bird, before understanding dawned and it saw it was its next meal. The baby kicked again as if to warn her.
When she called out Gary’s name, she’d got a reaction she’d never forget. The thing in Gary’s pyjamas lunged at her, trying to grab her, with its nails curled into claws and its teeth grating.
“Gary, stop it. This isn’t funny,” she yelped, backing out the bedroom door, all the time telling herself that this could not be happening.
Gary had never so much as raised his voice to her. Now he was throwing himself at her, murder in his eyes.
She picked up her favourite Tiffany lamp from the bookcase next to the door and brought it down on his skull. He didn’t even flinch as the glass lampshade bounced across his head, fragments of the coloured rose pattern splintering, landing on the carpet like rose petals of flowers torn from their stalks.
Eyes pleading with him to stop, she pressed a shaking hand to her stomach. “The baby.”
He came at her again and this time she managed to avoid his grabbing hands and slammed the door shut in his face. Turning on her heels, she shuffled back down the stairs, all the time mindful of the fact that one misplaced step, stumble and she’d tumble down the stairs and that thing would get her.
She made it down the hall and yanked open the front door.
Tears streaked her vision as she stumbled out into the street as elsewhere in the city sirens shrieked and people yelled. She didn’t stop until she came to Janette’s house where she pounded on the door until her knuckles hurt. It was the only way she could be heard above the racket of dance music interspersed with the screech of bagpipes thumping out of the bedroom window, making the whole house jump.
“Janette.”
She hammered on the door.
Why was no one coming? They must hear her, even above that din?
Normally she would have left and caught up with Janette another time, but this was far from normal circumstances. Gary needed urgent medical attention and she needed to use Janette’s phone. She couldn’t go back to the house alone. Not with Gary in that state.
She needed help; somebody to tell her everything would be okay, that Gary was ill and they’d make him better.
She lifted up the top of the ornamental lantern that sat on the porch and retrieved the spare keys. She put the key in the door and turned, but it wouldn’t go all the way in; there must be a key in the door.
Now, what was she going to do? In her hurry to flee, she’d come out without her mobile phone or coat.
Scooping up the brick Janette used as a doorstop to prop the door open in the summer, she used the last of her strength to hurl it at the glass on the door. The pane shattered, but nobody one came running.
She pulled the sleeve of her top down over her hand to stop herself from getting cut and reaching in over the doorframe, she turned the key that was in the other side of the lock.
When a hand shot out through the fragments of glass and latched onto her wrist, she shrieked.
‘Hoi,” she managed to say.
The hand wouldn’t let go. It was trying to pull her up through the door.
It was only by punching it with her other hand that she managed to get herself free.
There was a roar from the other side of the door and someone tried to haul themselves up over the door. It was only when Julie’s eyes locked onto the distinctive ruby wedding ring (it’d been passed down four generations) that she really lost it, screaming at the top of her lungs.
“Janette. Not you. Please not you.”
Julie ran. All she could think about was her baby.
***
The next few days passed in a blur of desperation and despair. She’d seen awful things that were beyond the imaginings of any horror movie, but somehow she’d survived with the baby kicking inside her as if to spur her on.
She’d managed to get to the police station where she’d stayed until they’d arranged her evacuation from the city. As she’d waited in a packed corridor filled with people in various states of despair, some silent with shock whilst others loudly wept as they clutched the few possessions they’d brought with them, she’d clung to the hope Gary would somehow find her there. He’d be cured and be the Gary of old and not that thing she’d encountered at home.
He never came.
She felt incredibly fortunate to be allowed on the ferry when so many people had been turned away by the police who’d set up barricades along the Clyde. It was only when a growler of a man with a face the colour of a squashed tomato, protested so loudly about the long wait and was dragged away, that she realised the police were all armed. The only time she’d seen armed police before was on the news at sieges or terrorist incidents.
As the argumentative man was dragged away in handcuffs, he’d upset folk by bellowing about being left to die. What nonsense. From what she’d seen, the authorities were doing remarkably well. At the police head quarters in Pitt Street, they’d even taken her address and agreed to send someone out to help Gary. She’d been so grateful…
***
She’d been dosing off when she was jolted awake by the commotion. Her eyes snapped open in time to see a woman running across the deck of the ferry screaming about being bitten.
There couldn’t be a dog on the ferry, surely?
That was Julie’s first thought until she saw the policeman chasing the woman. There was something bloody and dripping, hanging from his mouth. His eyes were bulging out of their sockets and his lips were pulled back into the snarl of a wolf before the beast pounced upon its prey. One man reached out an arm to try and grab the errant policeman as he came past, but despite being twice his size and girth, he was flung aside as though he weighed nothing.
There were more screams and more people running, and before Julie knew what was happening, one of the burly boat crew had lifted her up and deposited her in the tiny kitchen staff used.
“Barricade yourself in here, missus and don’t let anyone in,” he instructed her, before slamming the door behind her.
She did as instructed, shoving the few heavy objects she could find: a chair and a microwave against the door, as people screamed and yelled on the other side of the door.
Once she was finished, she sank to her knees and putting her hand to her stomach, she closed her eyes and sung a lullaby to her unborn baby to drown out the cacophony of screams and other ungodly noises coming from the other side of the door. Eventually she gave up and stuck her fingers in her ears, and rocked back and forwards.
She didn’t know how long she’d lain there, but she couldn’t hear any more screams, so she moved the chair and the microwave and opened the door, just a fraction to see if it was safe to come out.
The hand came out of nowhere and nails dug into her arm, followed by teeth that held her in a vice grip, tearing into flesh, teeth jarring against bone. Screaming in agony, she managed to slam the door shut.
Slumped against the door in a feeble attempt to stop anything from getting in, a crippling sadness swept over her and all she could think about was how much she and Gary would have loved their child.
Exhausted, she fell into a deep sleep and as she did fragmented memories sped through her mind. The clown who’d turned up drunk to her fifth birthday party and made her cry...Tom, the first boy she’d kissed at 13, a kiss so soppy it felt like being kissed by a sponge...meeting Gary when she was 17 and working as a GP’s receptionist and rebuffing him twice because she was seeing someone else, until he’d won her over by sending red roses every day for a week…their wedding in their local church, a carpet of cherry blossoms lining their way as they departed as man and wife... seeing their baby for the first time on the scan…
Memories playing out on an old film reel, crystal clear then crackling…images fading…voices distorting…until all that remained was a buzzing grey screen of nothingness, as though there was never anything there at all.
Julie’s last thought before her mind emptied of all thoughts forever, were of the baby and the nursery she’d lovingly painted with pictures from nursery rhymes. She was smiling at the picture of Humpty Dumpty when her heart stopped beating.
When Julie jerked awake, she wasn’t Julie any more. If she'd been able to see herself she'd have seen that her eyes were dull and lifeless. Her skin was the colour of pumice stone.
All she’d ever been, or ever would be, were gone.
REPLACED.
BY ONE THING.
HUNGER.