38 THE END OF DAYS
The next morning, there was an overpowering stench coming from Mustafa’s room. My initial thought was that a rat had crawled in and died there. But, I knew that wasn't right. I knew that smell.
Since this all began, it’s a smell that’s been seeping into our every pore until it’s become part of our skin. We can’t scrub it out or cover it up with other smells. It’s visceral and ugly, and I’d hoped I’d never have my nostrils assaulted in that way again.
When I tell Scott what I smell, he says he’ll check on Muzz. I hear his feet as he makes his way down the hall towards Mustafa’s room. Then a cry of, “Oh no,” followed by the unmistakable sound of a gunshot and a heavy object dropping onto the floor.
I bolt towards the room.
Mustafa’s down on the floor, blood pooling around his head, almost creating a halo as his eyes stare sightlessly ahead. Parts of his brain are splattered against one wall. Instead of blood, a greenish substance runs like paint drips down the wall, the rivulets reaching the floor.
Scott’s slumped down on the bed. He doesn’t make eye contact with me; he simply stares at the body on the floor. “It wasn’t him anymore.” His voice is a whimper. There’s no emotion. He’s in shock.
I gently take the gun out of his hand and he doesn’t resist.
“I had to do it,” he adds. “I couldn’t shoot Kenny, I know, but if I didn’t shoot Muzz, you’d have to do it, and I didn’t want you carrying that around with you.”
Scott buried Mustafa as close to his beloved beach as he can. He knows a little about Muslim burial rituals, and we observed them the best we know how. Scott washed Mustafa’s body in preparation for his journey to the afterlife then wrapped him in a white sheet before he buried him on his side facing Mecca, propping him up with a stone.
After the last stone has been laid over his body, we decided to say something. A war poem I learnt at school popped into my head.
“Move him into the sun. Gently its touch awoke him once. At home, whispering of home fields left unsown.”
Scott squeezed my hand. “That was beautiful, Emma.”
That’s when I realised he was crying. He’d done well to hide it, but I can see the wetness on his cheeks. I hold out my arms, and he falls into them.
“How much more are we meant to take, Emma? Haven’t we suffered enough? Without this?”
Putting my hand to his cheek, I wipe away the tears. “Come on. You’ve got to say something, too. He was your pal.”
Scott sniffles and begins to sing:
“Scots, wha hae wi' Wallace bled,
Scots, wham Bruce has aften led,
Welcome tae yer gory bed,
Or tae victorie.”
His choice of song confused me. Has Mustafa’s death pushed him over the edge?
Fat tears rolled down my cheeks as I realised that all we had left now of everyone we loved are memories. Nobody is coming out of the shower Bobby Ewing style to say this is all a dream.
We were on our own now.
Us and the baby.
A smile flickered across Scott’s face, a brief respite from all the tears. “Sometimes Mustafa would get folk coming into his shop to pinch stuff. When he caught them, they’d act all indignant and turn the blame on him, saying he was a Paki and should go back where he came from. He used to sing that song to them as he tossed them out on their backsides.”
“What killed him, Scott?”
“The midge bite. It had to be.”
“He was infected by a wee insect?” I hate the sound of my own words. “How can that be?”
The expression on Scott’s face is one of weary resignation. “It’s the only possible explanation. They’re carriers of whatever it is caused the dead to rise. At least one of them was. Probably bit a zombie and then bit Muzz.”
“What are we going to do, now?” I hear the desperation in my voice and hate myself for it. I need to be stronger than this, even knowing an insect bite can take our lives. Surely, we didn’t come this far to fail now, to hand our world over to those dead bastards.
Finally, I said, “How can we protect ourselves against millions of midges?”
We thought about covering our bodies head to toe to prevent them from biting us, of wearing hats with netting to cover our faces, but we decided that was pointless because nothing kept midges out.
There was another option. Scott and I talked about leaving Scotland, of taking the boat and sailing off to search for survivors, but we decided against it. We need a home to hold onto, and as Mustafa once put it as he ranted on about the waking dead, we were the Scots, and this was our land. Too many times before in history outsiders had tried to dispossess us of our land or tell us where we could and couldn’t go. It was time to make a stand.
Besides, I wanted our child to be born here where I felt safe; where we had food and shelter.
In time, we might come to regret that decision, but on that day as we mourned another friend, we decided to stake claim to our home, and no insect or zombie bastard was going to take it from us.
39 TIME STANDS STILL FOR NO ONE
When days and weeks passed and we didn’t see another human being, we started to believe we were the only people left on the earth, and all the horrors that had gone before were so far away, so long ago, we began to doubt those horrors ever happened at all.
Scott and I revelled in the tranquillity of island life. No rush hour traffic, horns honking, no pupils pulling knives on teachers, or hands covering the ATM key pad to enter our PIN number. The lullaby of the waves lapping the shore, hushes us to sleep each night. And as my belly grows, we call ourselves the island castaways and act like it was our choice to be here.
We don masks and overalls we find in a shed and use fire to burn the midges. They are our enemy now. But we know we can’t keep it up forever.
In the end, we put Mustafa’s death down to bad luck and give up on the impossible task of eradicating the midges. We could spend every moment of every day trying to destroy those things, but that wouldn’t be living. Besides, cold weather will return soon, and nature will do our battle for us then. Meanwhile we slap at the microscopic insects and scratch our bite wounds.
One day Scott says, “Do you think there are other people waiting for someone to tell them it’s all over and they can go home?”
His question drags me out of my daydream where I’ve been watching Kenny and Mustafa skipping through the heather towards us in a parody of the opening to Little House on the Prairie. Doyle’s with them, but he’s marching behind, ever on the lookout for trouble, a soldier to the end.
Today is a perfect day. We’re sitting on a tartan rug, enjoying lentil soup Scott made on the camping stove and eating Ritz cream crackers spread thick with bramble jam we made ourselves. We’re at the highest point of the island where we can see for miles, where the sun caresses our faces and the breeze breathes peace through our hair. We’re happy.
I blink and gaze at Scott. I enjoy these moments with him, relaxed away from all the stresses of his teaching job. If only the people we loved were with us now, things would be perfect.
We’ve finished our picnic. Scott’s packing up our things and depositing them in a backpack when I catch movement out of the corner of my eye. It could be a deer (there are a few on the island). Then I catch a whiff of something dead, and my heart is squeezed in a fist of panic.
“Scott,” I whisper, fear dragging its claws down my neck. “There’s somebody here.”
He eyes me, and I can tell he thinks the pregnancy hormones are making me say crazy things. But he stops what he’s doing and listens. Fear drains the colour from his face.
We’re not armed. We no longer felt we needed to be armed.
The grip on my heart is getting tighter, and I’m terrified I’ll be starved of oxygen and the baby's heart will stop beating.
Scott pulls me towards him and we ducked down behind a boulder. But who are we trying to kid? Those things are wild beasts. Once they catch a whiff of our scent, that’s it.
He holds up his fingers in a V to indicate there are two of them, and all I can think is we’re going to die, and before I die, they’ll rip the baby out of my womb and eat it.
From my hiding place, I see them. Their bodies are skeletal and their skin is as transparent as tracing paper. Coastguard uniforms hang off them. Big chunks of skin are flaking off their faces as though they have psoriasis. Their teeth are sharp as if they belonged to piranhas and their bulbous eyes scout for prey.
Gripping Scott’s hand, I squeeze my eyes so tightly shut that only pinpricks of light get through. There’s no way I’ll get past them, not with a bump the size of a watermelon to impede my progress, and Scott won’t leave me, so we've got to hope they go past us.
They stop, sniff the air, groan, and start shambling towards our hiding spot.
My heart almost stops. They’ve picked up our scent.
Scott pulls away from me and I almost throw myself at him. I don’t want him to do anything stupid. He unscrews the flask of hot tea and clutches the knife he’d used to open the tin of soup.
The dead bastards are sniffing around the rock we’re hiding behind.
Scott stands up and throws the contents of the flask into the face of the closest zombie. The burning hot tea singes its skin, but the zombie is unscathed and starts swiping at us.
I haul myself to my feet in time to see Scott stab wildly at the other zombie. Briefly our eyes meet and he yells, “Run!”
I know I should run, but I don’t want to leave Scott behind.
I pick up a heavy rock and bring it down hard on the first bastard’s head, and as I do I’m yelling obscenities as I batter him again and again until its on the ground where I bash it some more.
When the thing stops moving, I realise that Scott’s resting against a rock, holding his chest and panting away.
I’ve delayed asking the next question, because I’m terrified of what the answer will be. “Are you hurt?”
“I’m all right, just winded.”
Relief washes over me.
He bends over and yanks the knife out of the eye socket of the dead zombie that’s lying at his feet. “Let’s get back to the house.” He puts his arm around me. “There may be more of those bastards around here.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Coastguards. They come by the boatload.”
Together we walk down the hill. Every step closer to home is a step closer to safety.
Once we’re inside, we can barricade the door, light the fire, and arm ourselves with Doyle’s gun. Make sure nothing gets in. Out here in the open we’re zombie buffet.
We’re twenty yards from the house, when Scott’s ripped free of my grip. I turn to see him grappling with another Coastguard zombie on the deck. Where the hell did he come from?
Scott’s holding his own, stabbing it in the neck, but if he gets bitten even once, he’ll be lost to me forever.
Fighting panic, I search around, find an old broken fence post lying about. I grab it and run to Scott’s aid.
The drool on the walking corpse’s teeth glistens in the sun as it leers up at me, and for an instant it eyes me like I’m dinner. I skelp it him across the face with the post.
The thing’s head slams backwards. Its neck makes cracking sounds. It lets go of Scott and struggles to its feet while its head lolls back between its shoulder blades and its chin points up. The knife Scott must have stabbed it with is still lodged in its throat.
Scott’s back on his feet, and we’re both bolting towards the door. Heavily pregnant, I can’t run very fast so Scott has to slow down and help me along.
We’ve almost made it when another Coastguard freak lunges at us. Scott shoves me towards the house, and I stumble forward and over the hearth, managing to right myself against the legs of the heavy chair we put against the door at night because old habits die hard. I turn around in time to see Scott through the open doorway grabbing the shovel at the door and clocking it over the zombie bastard’s head. The skull cracks and the attacker tumbles to the ground.
Scott slams the shovel blade into its neck. The head rolls off and stares at the dirt.
He throws down the shovel in a victorious flurry. “Fucker.” Then he’s inside and shutting the door.
“That was a close call,” I say, still breathing hard. My heart’s pumping for two; I haven’t felt this exhilarated in a long time. The baby must sense my excitement because it’s kicking away good style.
We’d kicked some zombie ass before, and we’ve done it again, even though we were out of practice.
Scott’s sitting in the chair. He’s not saying anything, and I’m thinking maybe he’s in shock until I notice a hole in the arm of his sweater. He holds out his arm for me to see the teeth marks.
He’s been bitten. My next breath seizes in my lungs.
“The bastard got me. The bastard got me.” He slides down from the chair to the floor.
“Scott, how could you let him get you?” Before I can even think, the accusation is out of my mouth, and even as I’m saying it, I know how stupid it sounds. It’s not like he did this on purpose.
I’m on my knees, sobbing and cradling Scott’s head. His arm’s bleeding heavily. Blood is everywhere, pooling on the floor, soaking through the knees of my jeans.
There’s a twitch of a smile on Scott’s lips, and he’s trying to say something. His words are so faint I have to press my head close to his face to hear him.
“Do what has to be done, Emma.” His voice is filled with sadness.
My heart plummets like a rock down a well.
“Maybe it’s not that bad.” I’m lying to myself, but I don’t want to lose Scott. I need to believe he will be okay.
We’re having a baby.
“It's going to be okay,” I lie.
“It’s not okay. I've been bitten.”
A bubble of blood pops between his lips; he must have been bitten on more than his arm. He swallows and looks at me with pleading eyes. “You have to kill me.”
It's what we agreed to do if either of us got bitten. But talking about it is one thing. I never thought it would really come down to actually doing it. The reality, the finality, makes every breath a struggle, as though my lungs are getting smaller.
I have to be strong for Scott and our baby, but tears are coursing down my face. Big fat tears landing on him and mingling with the blood now dribbling down his chin. He’s dying, and then he’ll come back as one of them, a dead bastard. And if I don’t kill him then, I’ll be his first meal, our baby his dessert.
“Don't leave me alone,” I whimper. “Our baby needs you.” I blurt it out, immediately regretting it. I don’t want those to be the last words he hears. Words that mean he dies worrying about me.
He tries to speak so I press my ear to his cheek.
“The baby.”
As if on cue, the baby kicks inside me, and I lift Scott’s hand to my belly. It would be cruel not to let him feel a baby he will never see.
Scott’s choking on his own blood. I lift his head higher.
He sees my fear, my reluctance and whispers, “Please do it now.”
He’s trying to say more, but he can’t. Maybe this is how it starts. The deterioration of speech goes before everything else, then reanimation and descent into a flesh-eating monster.
“I don’t want to be alone.” I say it as much to myself as to him, because I know he’s beyond hearing. There’s no light in his eyes. The brightness has been replaced by a milky sheen.
He’s moaning now. The sound breaks my heart, so much pain.
I put my head to his chest to listen for his breathing. It’s so faint I strain to hear it. I sit there watching him and holding his hand.
He splutters. I want to turn back time. I want to delay the inevitable, forever, but I can feel his energy leaving the room and something evil replacing it.
Softly, I kiss his forehead and tell him how much I love him. How much our baby would have loved him.
I drag myself to my feet and remove the gun from behind the stove. He’d taught me how to load the cartridge and hold it two-handed to keep my aim steady. I point the weapon at his head.
“I’m sorry, Scott.” Tears blur my vision. Horror shakes my hand, but somehow I manage to pull the trigger.
The explosion startles me so much, I drop the gun. The bullet has blown a hole in his head and sprayed his blood and brain matter all over the room, all over my clothes, in my hair.
I fall to the floor, cradling what’s left of his head, talking to him as though he’s still alive. I want life to go back to the way it was when the five of us were together. Mustafa sniping at Doyle. Kenny full of bright ideas and doing that thing with his glasses. They all drove me nuts, but I loved them all.
I don't know how long I lie there on the floor, in a trance, hugging myself and talking to the baby as though they're already there.
As day turns to night, a chill takes root in my bones.
Grabbing a blanket, I cocoon myself in it and lie down beside Scott, praying that when I wake up this will all have been some nightmare, and he’ll be alive.
He’s starting to smell. But I need to be beside him. He’s still my Scott.