Tabitha (25 page)

‘Look lad, do
you want to eat or not?’ he growled. Chris said nothing; just stared. ‘Then
shut up moaning and get your head down. Like her.’ Liv looked at Jim and
smiled. She wished her dad had been more like him. But she didn’t like to think
about her dad. His drinking, and his shouting. And how much she missed him.

‘Let’s have a
b-break,’ she suggested, sticking her own knife into the soil. She sat back on
the grass and smiled at the blue sky, brushing the crumbly soil off her hands.
A butterfly danced past on the warm breeze.

‘Timing,’ said
Will, coming out of the castle keep. He was walking over carefully with a tray
of drinks.

‘What is it
lad?’ said Jim, picking up a glass off the tray with a grateful nod.

‘Very strong,’
Will replied, taking a glass himself. He handed one to Tabitha as she came
outside. Liv couldn’t help but notice how happy Tabitha seemed, coming out of
the keep with Will. Certainly a far cry from how pale she’d looked this
morning. They’d been alone in there for a good while, and she was pretty sure
that Will liked Tabitha. He was a good-looking guy; she’d be surprised if there
wasn’t something going on between them.

‘To
civilisation?’ Jim suggested, eyeing up the glass of liquor.

‘And The
Ghosts,’ said Tabitha, smiling.

‘Hear
hear
,’ Will concurred, raising his glass. They all necked
the stuff together, and coughed and grimaced as it went down. One by one they
swore off the stuff, and still went back for more from the bottle. Will and
Tabitha glanced around at the others, and kept an eye on their expressions.
Waiting for them to see it.

‘Well look at
that,’ said Jim, staring up at the keep. Will and Tabitha smiled. Liv and Chris
looked up and saw a big white banner draped down over the wall of the keep.
Weighted down against the wind with silvery spider legs like grizzly totems. It
was a giant ghost, painted in thick black outline on the white sheet. Above it
were three words:
A SAFE PLACE.

‘That’s
awesome,’ said Liv, staring up at it.

‘It’s just a
couple of bed sheets stitched together,’ Tabitha replied. It had come out
pretty well though, she thought, considering her limited artistic talents.

‘Right, yeah, so
why don’t we just tell everyone where we are?’ Chris mumbled unhappily,
studying the ghost banner. Tabitha’s smile disappeared.

‘Well that’s the
point,’ Will told him, wondering how Chris could be so against it.

‘So what, you’re
happy for all the rapists and cannibals she’s talked about to come knocking on
the door?’ said Chris, glancing at Tabitha. He did have a point, she
considered. The same cold dread ran through her again like a knife; like she
was back in that creepy seaside village all over again.

‘No, it’s for
all the sick starving people who need our help,’ Will countered.

‘Oh right,’
Chris replied sarcastically. ‘
More
new people coming to eat all our
food. It’s the same thing.’ His look aimed the sentiment squarely at Tabitha.

‘Don’t even
start,’ Will growled, stepping up close to Chris. ‘If you want to play that
game, fine. I was here first. You’re here eating
my
food. I’ve told you
before, you’re free to piss off out of this castle any time you like. But we
both know you’ll stay right here where it’s safe, and do as little as possible
to help.’ Chris stared at him, and looked away. Will turned his back on him,
back to the group.

‘Anyway, long
live the Ghosts!’ Will told the others cheerily. ‘The sun’s out, and we’re not
dead. Two reasons for a party right there. So let’s take this up on the wall.’
He nodded behind them at the battlements, up on the curtain wall above the
garden. They took some blankets and cushions from the keep and set them down by
the railing on the wall, and called to Laika to climb up the steps and join
them in the sun.

Tabitha felt the rough drink go down
easier the more she had. The company and the hot summer sun were the perfect
mixers.

‘Paw,’ she told
Laika
. Smiling her dog smile, Laika flopped her paw into
Tabitha’s grey hand. ‘Good girl!’ Tabitha said tipsily.

‘Is this hooch?’
Chris mumbled to Will, staring at the bottle of spirit in his hand. There
wasn’t a label on it.

‘It could be,’ Will
slurred, tapping his nose.

‘Isn’t it just
v-vodka?’ said Liv, sniffing her glass.

‘Could be,’ said
Will, smiling.

‘Are you a b-bit
too drunk to know either way?’ said Liv. He smiled and nodded.

‘Good stuff
though, whatever it is,’ Jim chipped in from his deck chair.

‘Mm,’ Tabitha
said into her glass, mid-swig. Laika lay down beside her. Tabitha stroked her
side. She looked around her and saw friends, for the first time in so long. It
couldn’t have been three weeks ago, when everything happened. And still, it
felt like a lifetime. She’d come so far from home; she surprised herself. She’d
never get her mum or Jen and Emma back; they were still a sore thought and a
heartache of disbelief. But she was safe here, and she had people to call a
family. Compared with what she’d seen of the new world, this was the best thing
that could happen to her. The best people who could ever happen to her. Well,
maybe apart from one. But it wasn’t bad going, ending up here. She was safe.
The sunlight and the drink bleached everything in her vision; made the world
sharp and bright. With her new family around her, and the wide green view under
a late summer sun, Tabitha forgot about the world outside. Just for a little
while. Looking around at their smiling faces, she was pretty sure that the
others had forgotten about everything too.
God, I’ve missed this,
she
told herself. If only she could have brought Mum and Emma and Jen here. If only
she’d gotten to them sooner.

‘I’m feeling
m-more civilised already,’ said Liv, after another glass. Chris was still in a
sulk, but he tolerated their company to stay within easy reach of the spirit
bottle. Will was dealing cards. Jim looked out over the wall at the park below,
leaning quietly on the stonework with a glass in his hand. In a tipsy day
dream, he felt like he had his girls and his sons-in-law back around him again.
A subtle smile creased his flinty old face. He watched a blackbird flutter past
over the trees in the park; a dark feathered spirit cutting through the balmy
heat. The warm sun crawled from sparse clouds, flooding the green world with a
light that felt as old as he did. Tears welled up in his eyes at the thought of
his family, and he wiped them away and made sure that the others hadn’t seen.

‘Come on, you,’
Liv coaxed him, taking his glass and setting it down on the wall. ‘We’re
p-playing cards. And you don’t g-get to duck out of it this time.’ She and
Tabitha took a hand each and hauled him over to sit with them on the blankets.
Will cheered.

‘Cards, Chris?’
said Will.

‘No,’ he
replied, sipping his drink, sat on the edge of the wall with his feet hanging
over the garden below. Will held his stare for a moment, and went back to
dealing cards out to the group.

Under the wide
watchful eyes of a white painted ghost, a few tiny shapes sat huddled together
on the castle wall. Drinking and laughing in the bright summer sun, in their
last little corner of civilisation. Beyond the park below the town lay dead and
septic. Prophetic newspapers blew past empty streets and lurking silver shapes.

23

‘Spot on,’ said
Jim, amidst the munching and clinking of breakfast around the kitchen table.
Sausages and beans steamed on their plates, bright and orange as paint.

‘Delicious,’ Liv
agreed, busily feeding her hangover away.

‘
Delicious
?’
Chris grunted groggily. ‘It’s beans. Again.’

‘Give it here
then,’ said Jim, taking Chris’s plate off him. Chris pulled the plate back, and
slammed it down on the table.

‘Don’t touch my
food,’ he growled.

‘Well stop
bloody complaining then,’ Jim replied, shovelling in his breakfast. Tabitha
could only watch longingly with a post-drunk hunger. Her brain still very much
wanted her to eat. But her stomach lurched at the prospect of food, making her
feel ill just thinking about it. It didn’t help that everyone was eating
loudly, and the smell of stodgy deliciousness was filling her nose. At least
her cup of water was good; the best she’d ever tasted. Cold and smooth,
straight from the spring outside in the courtyard. She sipped it and tasted
things she’d never experienced before. Tiny reactions; electrical pops. A cool
fresh electrolyte, fuelling sparks in her heart. It almost felt like wine in
her head; a new sensation. She ran her metal fingers up and down the cup in a
high rasping whisper, enjoying her strange new high. The more she focussed on
it, the less she felt like eating anyway. Tabitha looked up from her cup and
smiled at Laika in the corner, waiting patiently beside the table for
everyone’s leftovers. Everyone always left a little bit for her.

‘So, we’ve got
the g-guns,’ said Liv, in between mouthfuls of beans. ‘So what’s next?’

‘Well, now we go
out and find people,’ Will replied with a full mouth, scraping the last few
beans from his plate.

‘What do you
mean?’ said Jim, blowing his cup of tea to slurp at it.

‘Survivors,’
Will replied. The clinking and clattering of plates stopped suddenly.

‘No,’ said
Chris, moving the beans around his plate. ‘I’m not going out there.’

‘We need to,’
Will replied calmly. ‘It’s on us to help other people find this place.’

‘Nah,’ Chris
said simply. Will stared at him, silent and furious. Liv saw a fight brewing.
Tabitha watched in silence, sipping her water.

‘What’s the plan
then?’ Liv asked Will, overlooking Chris’s sulk. Arguing with Chris wouldn’t
change his mind on the subject; Liv knew that much. He was always an arse; some
days it was just more concentrated. And yeah, he had every right not to go with
them outside if he didn’t want to. Just so long as he knew that any food and
supplies they brought back weren’t his to use. He could go hungry, for all she
cared.

‘We’re going to
the police station,’ Will told them, having thought it over for a little while.
‘I think there might still be riot gear in there. So that’s our next place to
go.’

‘Riot gear?’
said Jim, confused.

‘Yep,’ Will
replied. ‘We’ve got guns and bulletproof vests. But that won’t be enough
against spiders. We need armour.’

‘I would have
thought a
castle
would be enough to stop the spiders from killing us,’
said Chris.

‘Unless they get
inside,’ Liv replied. Jim nodded, gulping his tea loudly and putting his mug
back down on the table.

‘Exactly,’ said
Will. ‘And we’ll need to go outside again for food, supplies, et cetera.’ He
rubbed his tired eyes and fretted at the thought. Chris shook his head, and
pushed the beans around on his plate some more.

‘So, the police
station,’ said Liv. ‘Do you think we’ll be r-running into a lot of spiders out
there?’

‘I think so,
yeah.’ Will replied, with a grim nod.

‘We will,’ said Tabitha,
hugging herself against her gnawing hunger.

‘Exactly,’ said
Chris. ‘So it begs the question, why even go out there
any
more
?’

‘For food,’ Liv
snapped. ‘You know, so we don’t
st
-starve to death.’

‘And because
there are still people out there looking for help,’ said Will. ‘We’ve got the
means to help them, and this place to keep them safe. We owe it to them.’

‘We don’t owe
anyone anything,’ Chris shot back. ‘Why should we have to risk our lives to
help other people, just because you say so?’

‘Chris,’ Will
warned him. The others stopped eating, and waited in the tense silence.

‘All this time
you’ve been banging on about doing this and doing that for other people,’ said
Chris. ‘When we all know, deep down, that we’re all just looking out for
ourselves. So don’t pretend like you’re some knight in shining armour, when we
all know that you didn’t save a soul to get up here in the first place. You
just wanted to get out of harm’s way.’ Will stared at him across the table.
Chris looked down into his cup of tea, lost in thought for a moment. ‘I’ve seen
people down there in town when it all started, crawling over each other like
rats to get away from death,’ he said. ‘I’ve seen crowds trampling little kids
to get away from those spiders. I’ve seen people dying face down in the streets
in their own shit and blood, with no one hanging around to help them. Even
these two,’ he said, nodding at Liv and Jim. ‘The day we all ran up here to get
inside the castle, I saw a man and a woman pushing Jim out of the way to get away
from the spiders. Pushing past an old man to get up here; not helping him. No
one was helping anyone. It was all just
survival.
If you can leave
someone else to get eaten, that just means there’s one less spider looking for
you. That’s what it’s like out there. So don’t tell me we owe anything to
anyone.’ The others sat in silence. Tabitha knew he was right. That was the
worst part. She thought back to all the skins she’d seen; she’d just been glad
that they weren’t her.
Liv and Jim looked on silently between Will and
Chris. Will looked angry. They didn’t get involved when Will looked angry.
Something was burning up inside him.

‘We owe it to
civilisation to help people!’ Will yelled back at him, slamming his fist down
on the table. ‘Civilisation looks after its weakest, and that’s what we’re
doing!’

‘
Civilisation
?’
Chris said mockingly. ‘Five rejects and a bloody dog, that’s civilisation is
it?’

‘Yes it is!’
Will snapped, slamming the table again.

‘Towns. Armies.
Hospitals. That’s civilisation mate,’ said Chris. ‘And it’s all gone.’

‘We’re
rebuilding it!’ Will shouted back. ‘One brick at a time, one day at a time!’
his angry look softened to despair. ‘I mean, why do you think we get up every
day?’ he asked Chris. ‘What do you think we’ve been doing all this hard work
for?’

‘Us,’ Chris said
simply. ‘I’m not working for other people, and I’m not growing food for other
people. I’m doing it all for me, because that’s called
survival
.’

‘You can’t think
like that. We don’t think like that!’ Will said desperately.

‘Yeah?’ Chris
replied. ‘Ask this lot. See what they think.’

‘I’ll t-tell you
what I think,’ Liv snapped at him. ‘I think Will’s right, and you’re wrong.
That’s all I need to know.’ Will nodded, and looked to Chris for his reply.

‘So you happen
to agree with what the alpha male thinks,’ said Chris, nodding. ‘See, that’s
interesting.’

‘What?’ said
Liv.

‘Pairing up with
the leader, reflecting everything that he’s about,’ said Chris, looking between
them. ‘That’s survival at work.’

‘Piss off,’ Liv
told him.

‘You’re talking
out of your arse lad,’ said Jim.

‘I’m telling it
like it is!’ Chris yelled back. ‘You think there are
survivors
out
there? You’re out of your minds. This isn’t something that people
survive
!’

‘I’m a
survivor,’ Tabitha chipped in quietly. ‘I found this place. You’ve all helped
me survive.’

‘Yeah, but look
at you!’ Chris chuckled. ‘Look at what you’ve turned into! That’s the only
reason you survived.’

‘Don’t you dare
talk to her like that!’ said Will, shouting over Liv and Jim.

‘What am I then?’
said Tabitha, losing her temper. ‘Go on, tell me what I am!’

‘Well, you’re a
freak,’ Chris replied, with a look that said he was stating the obvious.
‘You’re not even human
any more
,’ he told her.
Tabitha’s newfound rage took her over, fuelled on the latent black hate of a
bullied childhood. She went for him. Liv jumped in after her, grabbing her arms
to pull her back. It took all three of them to stop her from hitting him. Laika
was barking.

‘You’ll kill
him,’ Liv warned her.

‘That’s the
idea,’ Tabitha growled, straining against them.

‘T-Tabitha.
You’ll
kill
him.’ Liv repeated, looking into her wild eyes. Tabitha
stared past Liv’s shoulder at Chris. He was smiling at her as he stood up from
the table.

‘So this is the
real Tabitha coming out,’ he said.

‘Don’t you dare
start!’ Liv yelled at him.

‘Chris, go
outside,’ Will warned him, struggling with the others to hold Tabitha back.
Tabitha hesitated then, and breathed deep. She heard Laika’s barking, frantic
and distressed. She felt her new friends around her, straining to hold her back
from something she’d regret.

‘Chris, go
outside!’ Will repeated.

‘…I’ll go
outside,’ said Tabitha, easing off. She felt the others relax around her, still
holding her close. Like a family. She stepped back, and looked around at their
worried faces. ‘I’ll go out for a while,’ she said, nodding. ‘No one come out
after me.’

‘I’ll go w-with
you,’ said Liv.

‘Please, don’t,’
Tabitha said gently. Liv watched her go and wanted to say something. Wanted to
be there for her. Tabitha stepped outside the keep and shut the door behind
her, and Will sighed with relief.

‘I’m not holding
her back next time,’ Jim warned Chris. ‘Actually, if you come out with anything
like that again, I’ll hold you down for her. How’s that?’

‘Jim,’ Liv
pleaded. ‘Please don’t m-make this any worse.’ There was a sudden crackling
bang of lightning outside, loud as a firework. Liv raced out onto the
courtyard, and found Tabitha punching a stone block in the wall. Laika was
barking unhappily in the keep.

‘What was that?’
Liv said in shock, looking around the courtyard. There were smoking black marks
on the cobbles. The others watched from the open door. Tabitha was busy laying
into the curtain wall. Her thudding punches sent chips of stone flying. Liv
stepped closer. ‘Tabitha, what was that?’

‘Lightning,’ she
replied, stepping back from the wall. ‘From inside me.’

‘
Lightning
?’
said Liv, disbelieving. Tabitha shrugged. Her grey knuckles were white with
stone dust.

‘Like he said,
I’m a freak.’

‘Chris was talking
out of his arse,’ Jim said from the doorway, shaking a sore hand. He had red
knuckles. ‘He didn’t mean what he said.’

‘No, I did,’
Chris replied, rubbing his sore jaw. Will had to hold Jim back from hitting him
again.

‘Jesus Christ, Chris!’
Liv yelled at him. ‘Can you make this any worse?’ Chris shrugged. ‘Don’t rise
to it,’ she told Tabitha, who was walking back towards the door.

‘Fuck him,’
Tabitha said simply. She turned her gaze from Chris to Will. ‘So we need riot
gear from the police station?’

‘We do,’ Will
replied.

‘Right. So let’s
go,’ she said. She pushed past Chris to get back inside the keep. Liv smiled.

‘I’m not going
out there,’ said Chris, standing in the doorway as the others followed Tabitha
back inside.

‘Yeah, we know,’
Tabitha replied, picking up an assault rifle from the stack in the corner. ‘I
think we’ll manage without you,’ she assured him. Chris stared at her as she
crouched down with Laika for a while, stroking her sides to calm her down.

‘You just r-run
along upstairs and
survive
while we’re gone,’ Liv told Chris, on her way
back inside. ‘Like a rat.’

‘Watch the
street corners,’ said Will, heading out in front with his gun raised. The town
centre was silent as a grave. The only sounds were their footsteps and tense
shallow breaths. They wore the army vests they’d taken from the soldiers,
though they felt strangely light and thin for body armour. Jim had suggested
that the vests weren’t much good at stopping spiders, which was why the
soldiers had died with them on. They had to be better than nothing, though.

‘Shout up if you
see a spider,’ said Will. ‘And tell us if you’re going to shoot. That way we’re
not all wasting bullets on the same one.’ They stayed close and moved through
town together, watching the roofs and checking down side streets. Everywhere on
the roads there were crinkled old sheets of newspaper, flapping and tumbling in
the wind. Tabitha looked down at a loose front page that simply declared
INVASION. The ink was too rain-smudged to read the rest. The photo showed a
dead spider on a road, with a soldier standing beside it.