Footsteps.
The noises of the undead grew louder,
and I knew that they had seen me.
“We need to move. Now,” I said.
“What’s around the corner?” said Mel.
“Can’t you hear it?”
She paused. She put her hand around
her ear, as if this would amplify the sound. Then her stare grew hard as she
recognised what headed our way.
“Think he knew they were there? Maybe
he led us into a trap.”
“How do you know it’s a he?” I said.
“I don’t know. I just get the
feeling.”
“I guess I did too. Let’s go back the
way we came.”
Mel shook her head.
“We still have to hit the pharmacy.”
An infected groaned. It was long and
drawn out, almost as if it was trying to make us hear it. I wondered if their
primitive brains allowed communication. After all, why did they groan? There
had to be a reason that the infected’s brains thought it was useful to let
these sighs of despair leave their mouths. Was it communication? And if it was,
who was it aimed at? Was it directed at us, or each other? When an infected saw
you and let out a moan, was it one filled with hunger and desire? Or were they
begging you to end their misery?
“Kyle. The pharmacy,” said Mel.
I knew we couldn’t go back without
the antibiotics. “Shit. We don’t have much time.”
We turned and ran down the street
toward the pharmacy. As we got nearer to the sign with a green cross painted on
it, I stopped. I turned around and saw that the infected had rounded the corner
and were walking our way, steadily gaining ground.
Mel moved to the pharmacy door. She
stopped and put her hand to her head. Then she looked up and punched the glass
of the door.
“Shit shit fucking shit,” she said.
I joined her at the doorway and saw
the cause of her frustration. The pharmacy was completely bare. Every single
shelf had been stripped, and some had been pulled apart and left on the floor.
On one side of the room there were pills littered all over the carpet, but
otherwise it was empty.
***
It was nightfall by the time we got
back to the barn. Every yard closer we had gotten, the sky had darkened and
each footstep seemed heavier. I almost didn’t want to face everyone. I knew
that I wouldn’t be able to look at Lou and tell her that we had failed.
“It’s not our fault,” said Mel. “It
was probably stripped years ago. Hell, it was ridiculously optimistic to even
think there would still be anything there.”
The moon was blocked by a creeping
cloud. Insects chirped around us, and the grass blew in the night time breeze.
When we reached the barn, we found everyone outside. Charlie was a hundred yards
away walking along the nearby wall. Reggie walking around the outskirts of the
barn. None of them noticed us as we got near.
“What the hell’s going on?” said Mel.
Gregor was the first to see us. He
took big strides across the grass. His beard, thick and curly, covered most of
his face and made him seem expressionless. He reached us and stopped in front
of us.
“It’s lad,” he said. “He’s run away.”
I looked behind Gregor. I noticed
that Charlie wasn’t just walking alongside the wall. He was studying it and
leaning over to see if there was anything behind it. Reggie’s face look
worried, and he paced around the barn.
“What the hell are you talking
about?”
“I better go see,” said Mel, and
rushed away from us and toward the barn.
Gregor put his hand on my shoulder.
He was such a heavy guy that even the slightest pressure from him felt like he
was trying to squash me.
“Reggie was on watch while the rest
of us tried to get some shut-eye,” he said. “Guess Reggie dropped off, and the
lad must have gotten the door open somehow. Charlie was the first to notice. He
opened his peepers and then starting shouting.”
Over at the barn, Mel shouted to me.
“He’s not here,” she said.
“Are you telling me you let Ben run
away?” I asked Gregor.
The butcher nodded. “We didn’t let
him. But aye, he’s gone.”
Chapter
15
The countryside around us hid a lot
of things, but it didn't hide Ben. We searched all through the night, and
before we knew it the weak morning sun was looking down on us.
As the day wore on, we combed the
fields of knee-high grass. We searched through thorny bushes and inspected any
tangled undergrowth that was big enough to conceal a boy. The sunlight changed
from white to yellow to red, finally draining of colour. We had split up so
that we all covered search areas of our own. At each side of me Charlie and Mel
walked in parallel lines. It reminded me of the search parties that we used to
see on television. The news crew would show footage of volunteers scouring the
nearby woodland and marshes, before cutting to the crying parents who would beg
their child to come home.
The grass around us was yellowing
with the approach of winter. I doubted Ben would be in it. I just couldn’t
figure out why he would run away. I knew that he wasn’t happy; he’d lost too
much over the last couple of years to wear the smile of a normal kid.
Surely
he didn’t think that he would be better on his own?
I imagined him walking alone through
the countryside at night. The wind lapped around his head and crawled down his
coat collar until it could spread itself over his back. Shivering, he would see
dark shapes move in the shadows, and he would wish for a mum and a dad who he
knew were long gone and never coming back.
We had to find him. If something
happened to him, I didn’t think my conscience could take it. To my left,
Charlie stopped. He seemed to be studying the ground in front of him.
“Anything?” I asked. The gust slapped
my words out of the air.
Charlie put his hand to his ear.
“Have you found anything?” I shouted.
Charlie shook his head. He lifted his
hand to his forehead and swept away a mess of curls that almost hung over his
eyes. Beyond him, Gregor took relaxed steps through the field, more like a man
on an afternoon walk than a member of a search and rescue team. Mel walked
quicker than the rest of us, her head moving from left to right. Finally there
was Reggie. He walked with wilting shoulders, as though the gravity around him
was heavier than for everyone else. Lou was in the shed, sleeping her way
through the pain.
As I walked forward, the grass in
front of me shook. I stopped. My blood rushed through my veins that little bit
faster. Part of me wanted it to be Ben, but my instincts made me reach for my
knife. The blades of grass vibrated.
I took a cautious step forward. I
gripped the hilt of my blade and drew it an inch out of my belt. I swallowed,
but my throat felt dry. A rage started to pump through me, the leftover toxin
of two days of hell. First there was Lou's accident, then Larkton, and now
this. I was worried for Ben and I needed to find him, but at the same time I
wanted to shake him.
Why put us all in danger like this?
I moved further forward. Whatever was
in front of me must have sensed my presence because the grass quivered.
My knife gleamed in the dying light
of the day. My heartrate spiked.
A shape burst out of the weeds. It
was small and black, and as it bounded away, I felt like it was me who needed
shaking, not Ben.
“What was that?” shouted Mel, with
her hands cupped around her mouth.
“A hare,” I said.
“Did you catch it?”
I shook my head.
“I like hare,” said Gregor. “A salty
meat. Good with roasties and red wine.”
The fields stretched out for miles
ahead of us until they reached a slope, which then cut a twisting path down
into the Redeye Valley. A stream snaked through the valley and slithered for
miles across open fields, finally reaching an aqueduct that stood a hundred
feet over the rest of the countryside.
Ben couldn’t have gotten that far, I
knew. We would only search in this direction for only an hour more, and then we
would need to turn back and look the opposite way. We had to be quick because
the colour was bleeding out of the sky and I didn’t like my own chances in the
dark, let alone those of a boy.
I turned around to look at the barn.
The glassless windows in the side were dark. The two near the roof looked like
eyes staring back at me, and the smaller ones on the ground level reminded me
of a crooked grin. The roof was slanted, and there was a hole in the middle.
There was something beyond the barn,
a shape moving through the fading light. At first I thought it might have been
a tree, but when I concentrated, I saw that it was definitely moving.
“Charlie,” I shouted.
The scientist stopped and looked at
me. The bottom of his coat trailed over his knees and blew in the breeze. The
sleeve of his left arm was tied up in a knot at the stump.
I pointed over at the barn. Charlie
turned around and followed my finger. When he saw what I was pointing at, he
nearly fell over.
I turned back around. There wasn’t
just one figure now. More of them had joined it, bulky dark shapes moving in
the fading afternoon light, heading our way from the direction of Larkton. They
were about a hundred metres away from the barn now.
The breeze around me seemed colder;
the sky took on a darker edge. On the other side of me, Mel had stopped.
“They followed us,” she said.
“You led them here you mean,” said
Reggie.
There was no doubt that it was the same
crowd of infected that we had seen in Larkton. When Mel and I had left the town
we had made a series of detours through road turnings and back alleys so that
no infected followed us. It clearly hadn’t worked, and now the stench of thirty
undead creatures blighted the countryside air.
We rushed back to the barn. Reggie
reached it first, his long legs vaulting him across the open fields as if he
was on stilts. Mel joined him and ran into the barn. When I reached the door,
the scar on my leg throbbed. I put my hand out against the barn wall and let my
breath catch up and the pain fade away. Finally, Charlie joined me.
The infected were close now. Their
moans were messages of hunger delivered by the wind. I stepped into the doorway
of the barn.
Lou was stretched out on a sheet of
wood on the floor. The others must have found it while Mel and I were in
Larkton. The bottom of her jeans on her left leg was cut away, and a patch of
them was tied over the wound where her shin bone had cut through her skin. Her
face was white and her head was covered in sweat. Lou opened her eyes and there
was confusion in them, as if she was waking from a long sleep and taking time
to adjust to her surroundings.
Gregor climbed the wooden ladder
until he reached the platform above us. His footsteps thudded overhead, and the
wooden support creaked under his weight. Dust fell from cracks in the platform
and sprinkled onto the ground. Gregor leaned his head over the railing.
“Kyle. Catch,” he said.
Before I had time to get ready,
Gregor threw his guitar over the railing as if it were a ball. I reached up and
caught it. One of the ends of the strings trailed out from the neck, and it
scratched across my face as I took the weight of the instrument.
On the floor, Lou moaned.
“We need to move her,” said Mel.
The groans of the infected didn’t
need to sail on the wind anymore; they were strong enough to reach us through
the hole in the roof and walls. Soon enough it wouldn’t just be their moans
greeting us at the windows. It would be their bodies too, their thin fingers
gripping the frames as they climbed in, their mouths open and baring their
teeth.
“Lou, can you walk?” said Reggie.
Lou looked at him with unfocused
eyes.
“We need to carry her. Gregor, grab
one side of the board,” I said.
We lifted Lou up on the wooden board
and took her out of the barn. Mel and Reggie carried most of our bags, and
Charlie managed to sling one rucksack over the shoulder of his good arm. We
left the barn and stood in front of it.
“Which way?” said Reggie.
“Larkton’s a no-go,” I said. The
rough edges of the makeshift stretcher dug into my hands. “And we’ve explored
as much of the fields as we need to. If we’re going to get away from the
infected and try to find Ben, there’s only one road to take, I guess.”
I looked to my left, to where a thin
road tore through the hills. It curved away from the hills and then ran
straight for a mile, where it turned a corner beside a hill and then
disappeared from view. I knew where that road led.
“Ben wouldn’t have gone to Grey
Fume,” said Mel.
I looked at the road. I didn’t want
to walk down it any more than the rest of them, but I didn’t see what other
option we had.
“I’m done guessing what that boy will
do. We’re going to have to go to town.”
***
We had been on the road for fifteen
minutes when Reggie stopped and bent over. Three heavy bags of provisions swung
from his shoulders, but he wore them well. Since we had gotten back to find Ben
missing, Reggie had been full of energy. He had helped us search for the boy,
and he had volunteered to carry our bags while Gregor and I moved Lou on her
stretcher.
Reggie bent down to his knees and
scraped the tarmac of the road in front of him. He picked something up, and
then rose to his feet. The moonlight shone down on the countryside like a torch
running out of batteries. Reggie pinched something between his fingers and held
it up to the streak of silver light.
“What’s that?” said Mel.
Reggie twisted his fingers.
“Look,” he said, and handed it to
her.
“Can we set her down a second?” I
said to Gregor.
We lowered Lou to the floor. Relieved
of the weight, my arms throbbed. I stretched them out in front of me, and with
one hand I felt how tight the muscle on my bicep was. Gregor stood with his
arms folded, not showing any sign of discomfort whatsoever. Somewhere, a
cricket chirped a love song to its mate.
Mel looked at me.
“It’s one of the beads from Ben’s
necklace. You know, the one Alice gave him.”
“I wondered where he’d gotten that
from,” I said. “So that’s good, then. We know he came this way.”
“Only…” began Reggie.
I felt my muscles begin to slacken a
little. “Only what?”
“We’re headed to Grey Fume. So he’s
not exactly safe.”
Lou coughed. Her forehead was dry and
a tiny bit of colour had seeped back into her cheeks. She said something, but I
couldn’t make it out because her voice was too croaky.
“You sound like you’ve been smoking a
twenty pack,” I said.
I took a bottle of water out of my
jacket pocket. There were only a couple of swigs left in the bottom. I handed
it to Lou. She was well enough to reach out for the bottle, unscrew the cap and
then drain it dry. Charlie had told us that Lou would swing back and forth from
burning fever to top-of-the-world.
“If we’re going to Grey Fume,” said
Lou, “There are a couple of books I wanna find.”
She gave me a grin. It was good to
see a smile on her face, but the feeling didn’t last long. I stretched my arms
out again.
“Let’s go then. We know that Ben came
this way. He won’t have gone far into Grey Fume, if he went in at all. But
unfortunately we’re gonna have to go into town. Don’t look at me like that
Reggie. I don’t want to set foot in that place any more than you do, but there
are a couple of pharmacies.”