The Undead Day Twenty (32 page)

He nods to himself, takes a deep breath and pushes the panic away. Besides, there is nothing he can do about it and also, there is strength in numbers. Whatever he has got, the others have got too. Clarence, Howie, Dave, Blowers…all of them. And they all look healthy too. Really healthy.

Yep. Keep that dam in place. Stay calm and carry on. Anyway, this is a nice thing, a good thing, he is in a sports shop that specialises in archery supplies.

He looks round the gloomy interior and tuts at the display stands knocked over then tuts again at the cash-register lying open on the floor. Looting a sports shop at the end of the world is fine, it’s to be expected in fact, but there’s no need to make a mess and why get the till open? For what? To steal money you can’t use?

He spots the now empty crossbow section and smiles at the memory of the joke Blinky made. That was nice. Being included in the banter like that. He wouldn’t want it all the time. That would be annoying and besides, some people can say the most awful abusive comments and get away with it. Like Cookey and Blinky. If Roy told anyone to go fist themselves it would sound like a real sexual request.

He tuts again at the wire cutters left on the floor that must have been used to snip the security wire holding the crossbows to the display wall. Why leave decent wire cutters behind? He crosses over to pick them up, nodding at the weight and decent craftsmanship of the tool. He’ll keep these. You never know when you’ll need wire cutters. Actually, they should get more tools, and that hot water idea from earlier too. They should do that. Roy likes working with Nick when they tinker and fix things.

He moves further into the store, spotting the football team shirts and clothing racks. The cricket supplies and then the empty sections where the cricket and baseball bats would have been stored.

‘Ah,’ he says, seeing the untouched bows left on the display wall. ‘Urgh,’ he says at the cobweb brushing his face as he walks forward. ‘Oh,’ he says on seeing within one glance that the bows are all mid-priced low-end quality things.

He picks the first compound bow up and adds another tut at whoever left it strung. Why do that? Just so idiots can come in and pluck the thing a few times and feel like Robin Hood probably.

He picks the next one up, a recurve bow and barely adult sized. Weak and lacking power. Another compound bow. Another recurve. All cheap and no good for the demands of the apocalypse. Still, it’s nice to pick them up and have a few minutes of examination and study. The compounds operate with pulleys and wheels to lessen the effects of the draw and increase the power but these are too cheap. The pulleys snap, the wheels jam up. The recurves are the best out of this lot and look like an old-fashioned gentleman’s moustache with that curved shape. They do look nice. Very artful and pleasant but oh no, no no no, too light and this one has awful balance. Probably mass-produced from cheap materials.

‘
Boss, it’s Blowers, looks all clear up here…’

Roy pauses for a second at the voice in his ear and for a second he wonders why they aren’t being attacked yet. Maybe the things aren’t here. Ah now what’s this one like? He reaches up to grab the recurve bow on the top plinth and has a second’s worth of hope that is dashed the second his fingers brush the cheap wood.

‘Sod it,’ he mutters, looking round with another tut. He’ll get some arrows from the stock-room and bugger off. He’s got his current compound which is functioning. It’s not great but it does the job. He thinks back to his van that he ditched when he saved Paula. Maybe it’s still there? They could go and see. He had everything in that van, plus his Kindle was in there and he does miss having a book to read. Not that they have any time to read now.

He wanders through the store, idly musing on this and that while avoiding the thought that he has a deadly, awful, filthy disgusting disease in his body. A second of panic hits. A thudding in his heart. Think of Marcy and Reggie. Think of the lads and how healthy they all are. Think of how his bow use, aim and rate of fire have all got better since he started fighting with Mr Howie. Think of how much stronger he feels. Think of those things. Ah but the magical thinking is there too, the worry that if he doesn’t worry enough he will die. Okay, so have
some
worry but not too much. Enough worry to keep the bad things away but not too much worry that you can’t do anything.

‘Argh,’ he yacks again at the light graze gliding over his nose then the sensation of a sticky strand on his cheek. ‘Fat spiders,’ he mutters, reaching for the light in the stock-room before remembering there is no electricity. ‘Arse,’ he carries on muttering, pulling his pocket torch out to flash the beam over the shelves.

He finds the arrows. The distinctive packets stacked up neatly and gives thanks they are the bigger two-dozen packs instead of the smaller dozen sized ones. He drops his bag, opens the top and starts ripping packets open to slide the shafts in. These are pre-fletched too. He prefers fletching his own but that takes time and his skill is such that he can adapt to a slightly imbalanced arrow. In fact, that makes it more interesting sometimes.

He shoves a few dozen in and grunts in approval at having his ammunition now restored. The rest of the packets he will take into the van for re-supply.

The shelf empties and in the gloom he spies more on the next section that he reaches for without paying close attention. Only when the first packet is lifted does his mind snap to the contents in his hand. He pauses, standing stock still while staring. The packet is too long for recurve or compound arrows. He draws it closer, feeling the weight and balance even within the packaging material. Longbow arrows. These are longbow arrows and bloody good ones too. He pushes the torch into his mouth and uses both hands to open the pack and draw an arrow out. An oak arrow. A perfectly balanced beautifully straight thirty inch oak arrow with threaded and glued fletches. Steel tipped with a wicked barbed point. Hunting arrows without a doubt. Longbow arrows are fired by longbows. There must be a longbow. He rushes out back into the store and over to the bow section. No longbows. Just the cheap thing he casted aside.

‘Roy? We’re going up to Blowers,’ Paula calls through.

‘Longbow,’ Roy shouts back.

‘You what?’

‘Longbow arrows…’

‘Right, okay…er…’

‘They’ve got longbow arrows.’

‘That’s nice. We’ll be up with Blowers if…’

‘I can’t find the longbow though.’

‘You’ve got a bow.’

‘I’ve got a compound but…’

‘Okay, listen we’re going up the road. Howie, Clarence and Dave are here.’

‘Where is it?’ he mutters, rushing through the aisles. Why stock so many arrows if not the bow to go with them? He comes to a stop at realising it’s what he used to do. He used his local archery shop to order and stock his longbow arrows for him. They never had any actual longbows, just the arrows. ‘Bugger,’ he huffs, sags and walks back to the storeroom and underneath the glass fronted display cabinet holding the handmade longbow fixed to the wall over the counter.

‘Longbow,’ he whispers frantic, excited and running backwards to trip and stagger over the till on the floor. He doesn’t care for falling or tripping but keeps his head turned and fixed up at the cabinet. ‘Longbow…bloody longbow,’ he reaches up but his fingertips only brush the underside of the cabinet. A yelp and he rushes behind the counter looking for a chair or stool. Nothing. He goes into the store room, spots a chair, grabs it and runs back out. Chair down and he jumps up to stare at the cabinet with eyes full of hope.

Hinges at the top of the cabinet and with almost reverential poise he lifts the front up to reveal the bow resting on two big hooks. It looks good. It looks great. Must be yew. Has to be yew. Is it yew? It looks like yew. He almost doesn’t want to touch it for fear of ruining the hope but touch it he must and so, with the caress of a lover, the tips of his fingers brush the warm dry wood and the world is full of calm. All the noise vanishes. All the panic fades. All the fear and worry simply is not there. Instead, there is a yew longbow lifted carefully from the cabinet as he drops lightly from the chair.

He holds it one handed in the middle, feeling the weight and balance which are just…just…well, not even perfect because to be perfect suggests a thing manufactured or made and a bow is neither of those. A bow is crafted and a yew bow is born from the yew tree.

He turns it over and brings one end down to the ground. Six feet. An inch taller than he. A great thing. A long thing that holds power far beyond the appearance of the slender wood that, unslung, is almost straight with only a hint of a curve.

While the sweat slides down his face he finds string and commences, quietly and with laser focussed attention, to string the bow. The calm radiates from his core. A quietness within his soul. One end attached. He braces the bow and flexes the bend to fit the other end and in so doing he feels the suppleness of the wood and the resistance being offered to his hands. Like a living thing that gives consent to bend and allows the string to be fitted. He even murmurs a thanks when the stringing is finished and the bow takes shape.

Then he stands and looks at it. Just looks. Just looks for the sake of looking and as the heat builds and the tension rises and the pressure grows so he smiles and feels warm inside.

*

‘Have you been inside?’ Paula asks, coming to a stop with Marcy at the entrance to the shopping centre. Glass fronted, with multiple sets of doors all smashed through with small chunks littered across the entranceway. A corpse lies twenty feet in. Old and rotten. Dust, leaves, litter and filth all blown in by the wind and rain. Past that initial section the floor and windows look clean.

‘Went to the end of this section,’ Blowers says, staring through the doors. ‘Meredith hasn’t reacted…she’s sniffing like crazy but…’ he looks round for the dog still trying to discern the tracks of the things she can smell. ‘Did see that though,’ Blowers says, pointing to the first shop on the right inside the doors.

‘What?’ Paula asks, trying to see what he’s pointing at. ‘Oh…oh I see…a coffee shop.’

‘If we get the vehicles up here I could run a power supply in from Roy’s van,’ Nick says as Paula realises they’ve already discussed it, ‘if we find an extension cable,’ he adds.

‘Think Howie would like a coffee?’ Paula asks Marcy.

‘After today?’ Marcy says as though the question caught her off-guard, ‘I think he’d attach a drip if he could.’

‘Okay,’ Paula says, ‘get someone down to bring Roy’s van up…’

‘Roger,’ Blowers says, nodding at Nick who sets off back towards the road at a steady jog.

‘We’ll go in and start getting supplies,’ Paula says, sighing with discomfort at the same feeling they all suffer of wet clothes soaked through from sweat and hot feet, sore skin and irritation levels rising.

‘Mo, stay with them,’ Blowers says, ‘Blinky, in the main aisle with line of sight on Mo and the door. Cookey on the door with line of sight on Blinky and Charlie…Charlie, you head up that end away from the road…if anything happens we all fall back to this doorway first then down to the others. Everyone got it?’

‘Sir,’ Marcy says, grinning at him.

He smiles that easy grin, brushing the compliment off. ‘Maddox, we’ll float…’

‘I don’t care,’ Maddox replies.

‘Listen you…’ Marcy flares up, her face twisting up as Blowers cuts in.

‘Don’t bother, we’ve tried,’ he says.

‘Yeah don’t bother, they’ve tried,’ Maddox says, offering her a humourless smile.

‘Come on,’ Paula says through gritted teeth. It’s only been one day with him and already everything feels disjointed and off-centre. The moral they always have is plunging. They’ve had heat like this before and long days of hard gruelling work but they had each other all pulling in the same direction. One slight alteration, one different character in the group and it shows. She hates herself for thinking it but her mind is turning to ways to be rid of him. What they are doing is too important. That single thought stops her dead in her tracks. That’s all there is to it. They are the line between the infected and their species being wiped out and right now Maddox is threatening their ability to deal with that. If this was a work place Maddox would be dealt with under strict procedures. He would be advised to change his conduct. He would then be served with a warning and told he can have a union rep present when that happens. That warning would be issued with a time limit.
Improve within fourteen days or you may face dismissal.
Industry doesn’t suffer fools, not when there is money to be made so why are they suffering it now?

That takes her back to the initial problem. Maddox cannot be left at the fort with Lilly. He cannot be exiled either and nor can he simply be allowed to go off now for the same reasons. That leaves execution. Which put bluntly means Dave shooting him. Could she do it? Could she walk over right now and shoot him dead? She knows she couldn’t which then begs the question that to use Dave now would be taking advantage of his autism and lack of attachment.

‘You thinking what I’m thinking?’ Marcy asks quietly, making Paula realise they are both staring down the aisle at Maddox leaning against the front doors with his rifle held one handed at his side.

Paula sighs heavily, wearily and suddenly feeling drained as the tiredness of a hundred fights shows. ‘Come on,’ she turns to walk on and smiles warmly at the sight of Mo waiting patiently. A man but a boy. A highly capable man but still a boy and the contrast from Maddox makes her realise just how bloody good he really is. ‘You okay, honey?’