The Undead Day Twenty (13 page)

That isn’t right though. Paco is special. She’s seen how many he can kill, and with ease too. One of them said she and Paco killed thirty nine at the hedge and she knows most of those would have been by Paco. He was bitten, infected but something in him seems to be fighting it off while leaving him with immense strength and an ability to heal and seemingly not feel pain. Like he is part them and part human, or something else entirely. Did he pass something to her to make her immune? Why didn’t she turn then fight the infection like he did?

She freezes at his touch. So absorbed in her thoughts that she didn’t see him reaching forward to lay his hands on her shoulders. She blinks up at him and smiles. Paco would never hurt her. She knows that for fact. She feels his touch on her skin as he starts rubbing as though trying to clean her. An intense look of focus in his eyes. Her mouth opens in surprise that he can form the connection of what she just did for him and do it back to her.

‘Hands.’

He pulls away from her, opening his hands so she can pour shower gel into his palms. He stares for a second as though unsure what the gel is before reaching back out to start rubbing her shoulders again.

‘Do my back?’ She asks quietly, still stunned at him trying to clean her. She turns on the spot and steps back before glancing over her shoulder to watch him intently. He carries on rubbing but so gently, like he is afraid of hurting her. She smiles and faces forward, closing her eyes at the never before felt sensation of someone else washing her back. It feels divine. Better than divine. It’s amazing. He goes lower as she eases back a touch to increase the pressure on his hands. ‘You won’t hurt me,’ she murmurs.

He washes her back. Paco Maguire washes her back. Another human being that is a man who is naked is washing her back and she doesn’t feel the urge to stab him in the face with a pen.

He goes lower, moving down her spine and out to the sides. Rubbing gently. She feels him step closer, reaching round to open his hands in front of her. She can feel his penis touching her. She swallows and exhales while spurting the gel into his hands. He steps back and carries on. His penis just touched her. She’s washed it before but that was different. This is bordering on being erotic.

His hands work steadily down to her bum cheeks. She swallows again and blinks, thinking that she will feel repulsed but it’s nice. My god it’s so nice. She lets the breath go and relaxes into it. Feeling his hands work down her thighs to her calves. A hand on her shoulder. She turns to face him. His hands open. She pours more gel. He reaches out and washes her face. She closes her eyes, feeling his fingers brush lightly over her skin then down to her neck. She’s seen him snap bones with his bare hands. She’s seen him throw big men like they were made of paper and those hands now move like silk down to her chest.

She swallows again at the first feel of his hands on her breasts. The borderline eroticism increases. He washes as gently as before. Rubbing to remove the dirt and moving down to her stomach. She licks her lips, breathing slightly harder. Her face flushes but her eyes remain closed. He washes her stomach, her hips and down over her groin to her legs once more. Again she lets the breath go, fighting the urge inside and the heat that seems to be building in her stomach. Not her stomach. Lower down. Down there. Oh my.

She opens her eyes when he stands up. He is finished. He smiles. She smiles back. A moment frozen in time until she spots his groin.

‘Paco!’

He blinks in surprise at her tone.

‘Put that away right now.’

He doesn’t know what he should put away.

‘Look at the bloody size of it…oh my god, Paco…you’ve got a bloody erection…’

She stares at it as it stares back at her. She goes to speak, to say something, to tell him off for being a dirty sod but she just felt the same thing so that makes it natural, normal, it makes it okay. He didn’t grope her either. He didn’t try and poke it in her, he isn’t doing anything now either but looking at her looking at him without any shred of threat or malice in him. She even smiles, feeling a strange reaction to knowing he just got turned on by her naked form.

‘Heather? Are you decent?’ A knock at the door. Paula calling out.

‘No!’ Heather shouts, jolting guiltily. ‘Er…hang on…’ She pulls a face at him and looks round, spotting the fluffy white towels hanging neatly from the towel heater that will probably never get hot again. She turns the shower off and hops out, almost sliding across the wet floor to crash into the side unit, sending ceramic pots flying from the top that fall to the ground.

‘Are you okay?’

‘Fine!’ Heather shouts back, grabbing a towel before skating back towards the bathtub. She stops in front of him, knowing she needs to wrap the towel round his waist but wondering how to do it while that thing is poking out. Does it go down or up? It doesn’t look like it goes down, not when it’s that big. It must go up. She loops the towel round his backside and pulls the ends round in front of him. ‘Tuck it in,’ she whispers at him. ‘Paco…tuck it in…I’m not touching it…’

Paco doesn’t tuck it in.

She tucks it in. Huffing and trying to give him a look but bursting out laughing while she does it. She holds it up against his body while wrapping the towel round to secure off. ‘You can stop grinning like that too,’ she tells him.

‘Coming,’ she skates back across the floor to the door, pulling it open to look at Paula. ‘Hey…’

‘Oh right,’ Paula says, turning her head away.

‘Oh shit,’ Heather yelps, realising she is still naked. ‘Hang on…’

‘It’s fine,’ Paula says. ‘Got some cream that’s all.’

‘Cream?’ Heather asks, sliding to grab another towel that she pulls round herself.

‘Doctors gave it to Roy yesterday for cuts and…well, Roy’s got it in his head that we might be immune to
tha
t infection but there’s other things that can hurt us.’

‘Oh…’ Heather says, now covered and glancing back at Paco still grinning from the bathtub.

‘Can I come in?’

‘Er…yeah, I guess…’

‘Thanks,’ Paula says, stepping through with only a cursory glance at the now filthy bathroom and an even more cursory glance at Paco grinning at something in the bath. ‘Er, listen…’

‘I don’t like people,’ Heather blurts. The flush from being turned on is still there, the heat in her face and the sensation at being washed and massaged all serve to imbue a sudden ability to say those few words.

‘That’s fine,’ Paula says easily. ‘Nor does Howie most of the time…and come to think about it, nor do I that much…actually…I think that might be a recurring trait. No…Marcy is good with people, Charlie too. Roy isn’t. Clarence is. Reginald isn’t…the lads are…depending on who it is of course, otherwise they’re evil shits…’

‘I…I mean I can’t handle…’ Heather swallows, the sensation of pressure starting to return. ‘I don’t like it…I mean I can’t deal with people asking questions and…’

‘Questions?’ Paula asks. ‘You’re immune, Heather. Paco is too or something else probably…’

‘Not that,’ Heather says, frustrated at feeling herself clamming up again. ‘I mean…like…’

‘Like what?’

‘Just…like…when people ask where you’re from and…family…I can’t…and when more than one person looks at me. I can’t…I’m sorry…we’ll go…’

‘Slow down,’ Paula says. ‘We’re not like that.’

‘I can’t. I just…we’ll go. We’ll have to go…that man with the glasses can ask about me and Paco…about what happened but then we’ll go.’

‘I was almost raped…’ Paula says so matter of fact it catches Heather off guard.

‘What?’

‘I said I was almost raped…no, I
was
raped. First day it happened. The outbreak I mean. I was in the office working late. One of my male colleagues came back drunk and told me what was happening outside. He raped me.’

‘Oh shit,’ Heather says, seeing the dark look on Paula’s face.

‘I killed him,’ Paula says. ‘Then I killed every single one of the infected in my town…every man woman and child including my mother.’

Heather stares, listening closely as Paula talks so matter of fact about something so awful.

‘I swore that I would never be near anyone ever again and I was fine with that. I could look after myself. I met Roy then this lot…Howie and the others I mean. Not all of them, some joined a bit later…but you know, not one of them have asked about my life before this and I don’t ask them. We talk and sometimes things come out. Like I know Mo came from a bad estate and had a shit upbringing but I don’t know the details. I don’t know if any of them have brothers or sisters. I don’t know what happened to their parents or families and they don’t ask me. Like I said, things come out here and there but…it’s too fresh, too soon and we’re too busy to be completely honest. I saw my mother the day before it all happened. Then I saw her after. She’d turned. I didn’t see her when I killed them but I knew she must have been there. Point is, the reason we’re all together is because we’ve got nothing to go back for, no one to find or help. We’ve got each other and that’s it and you know what? After everything I went through and swearing I wouldn’t trust another human ever again? I wouldn’t be anywhere else other than here with this lot and add to that we’re probably all immune…’ She trails off, exhaling into the silence with a flurry of thoughts rushing through her mind. ‘Talk to Howie…give him a chance.’

‘Howie?’

Paula nods, ‘you’ll see what I mean, just talk to him for a bit. They won’t ask questions about anything. I promise you and if they knew, or even thought for a second they made you uncomfortable by looking at you they wouldn’t do it. You’re new. You’re immune. You might be one of us so…’

‘One of you? I’m not one of you.’

‘No? Thirty nine was it? Over fifty during the night?’

‘Paco killed most of them.’

‘Still did it. Still walked away from it…no one else does. We do. We took on ten thousand that night in the square and walked away from it.’

‘I’m not one of you.’

‘Okay, that’s fine. Just give us a bit of time…you can leave whenever you want but remember, those men that came down to the summer house were the ones that tried to save Paco and Meredith. They fought by his side. Right next to him.’

Heather stays silent, watching the woman talk. There’s something comforting about Paula. The relaxed manner, the concern in her eyes and tone of voice that make it seem she really cares.

‘Cream,’ Paula says, lifting the tube up. ‘You got bites on your back…want me to do it?’

‘Er…’

‘Ah,’ Paula says, smiling gently. ‘It’s just cream, Heather. Can Paco do it?’

‘He’ll probably try and eat it.’

Paula chuckles, smiling at Paco still grinning in the bath. ‘What’s he grinning for?’ She asks as Heather glances down with a wry smile and a blush spreading across her cheeks. ‘Go on, turn round. I’ll put the cream on then you can do Paco.’ Heather turns, easing the towel down a few inches to expose her back. ‘So, he doesn’t speak then?’ Paula asks, squeezing a dollop onto her fingertips. ‘Might be a bit cold, okay?’

‘It’s fine,’ Heather says, facing towards Paco watching closely as another person touches Heather. ‘He didn’t at first…he couldn’t do anything at first…but he’s healing and…getting more intelligent every day. I can see it in his eyes. He gets frustrated that he can’t make me understand what he wants.’

‘Like most men,’ Paula mutters. ‘It’s good that he’s got you,’ Paula says, rubbing the cream into the broken skin round the big bite on Heather’s shoulder.

‘He saved me.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Well, he tried to eat me then saved me.’

‘Did he?’

‘I got trapped at the top of a building. Paco found me first but then more came in. That was it. I was dead…but Paco attacked them instead of me. I ran…he found me then just followed me everywhere.’

‘Seriously?’

‘Then we just stayed together.’

‘He can fight then?’

‘God yes, never seen anything like it. Maybe you have but I haven’t…he never gets tired, he doesn’t feel pain and his strength is just…I can’t explain it but…he can pick big men up and throw them like nothing but then he’s so gentle with me. Like the way he touches me? So gentle…like he’s afraid of hurting me. He snaps bones like they’re twigs but when he looks at me it’s like…I can’t explain it…he’s changed so much and he carried me one day. I jumped on his back playing and…and he can play too. He laughs sometimes, not like we laugh but you can see when he finds something funny. And he’s naughty, like mischievous? Like that. Like he refuses to do things sometimes to make me do them for him…’ The words rush out in one solid stream of explanation from days spent watching him but being unable to talk to anyone else about it. ‘And he carried Amna and let them poke him in the face. I didn’t see that happen and I’d told the children not to touch him but they did and he was as gentle with them as he was with me but when he saw you in the square he got so weird…that’s when he first spoke…he said dog and girl…’ She trails off as if suddenly aware of speaking too much. A silence settles, awkward and heavy.

‘Sorry,’ Heather mumbles, withdrawing instantly.

‘Don’t be,’ Paula says, trying not to think of Clarence while easing Heather’s towel down a bit to reach a bite on her ribs and tutting at the sheer number of them. ‘Like bloody Howie…’