Fever (Flu) (17 page)

M1 Motorway, Southbound

Shaun followed the little Volkswagen, eventually overtaking when they got to the open road, his own people carrier easily outdoing the brave little banger when it came to speed and power. As they passed, all three of the people carrier’s occupants stared in disbelief at the soldier hanging out the windscreen of the Beetle. They marvelled at the driver laughing.

Several other cars had made it out of the city, now following them south.

On the other side of the road, more cars could be seen heading north, towards Belfast.

That worried Shaun.

Were the people of Northern Ireland chasing their own tails, fleeing the frying pan only to get burned by the fire? Shaun began to wonder if the rural areas were going to be any different to what he’d just left behind. Was this, indeed, the beginning of the end?

Twenty minutes passed. The excitement of before was still fresh in Shaun’s mind.

He felt Lize’s hand on his shoulder and jumped. “We need to stop,” she signed to him. “Jamie needs to pee.”

Shaun looked into the back, finding the screwed up face of his son looking back, eyes pleading with him. He looked to the road, finding nowhere appropriate to stop, save the hard shoulder. He looked to Lize who raised her eyebrows in a ‘hurry up’ kind of gesture.

Minutes later, Shaun took the turn-off for Lurgan, one of Northern Ireland’s larger towns.

He drove a couple of miles, entering a built-up area, surprisingly deserted. There was no one around. Cars remained parked in driveways. Blinds were closed, some windows boarded up with metal sheets.

They drove past a sprinkling of glass on the pavement, the result of a blown out streetlight. A nearby shop window was broken, random items spilling out from its doorway. The door itself hung on one hinge, gently swaying.

A flash of siren caught Shaun’s eyes in the rear view mirror. He feared it might be the police or the army or someone else with a gun and a uniform. But it was an ambulance. It bolted past them, tearing up the empty roads as if there was somewhere worth taking the wounded and the sick.

Lize tapped him on the shoulder, pointing into the back.

Shaun turned, and Jamie signed to him,
Daddy. Need to go!

They continued to move along the street, driving slowly so they could spot somewhere that looked like it might have a toilet.

A service station dead ahead.

Its lights were still bright, although it was unlikely to be open. There were no cars around it. The pumps looked unmanned, but a sign reading ‘customer toilets’ sealed the deal.

Shaun pulled in, parking in one of the spaces provided.

Jamie grabbed Shaun’s shoulder from behind. He asked permission to leave the car, but Shaun raised his hand.

He looked to Lize then carefully opened the car door.

It was much warmer outside than in, thanks to the miracle of air con. Shaun shielded his eyes from the bright sun, and looked over to the Spar mini-market joined onto the service station.

Still no sign of life.

He looked left and right before jogging across the forecourt towards the customer toilets. He checked the gents, finding no one inside. He came out and waved across to the car.

Within seconds, Jamie was running across the forecourt and into the toilets. Shaun watched as the boy relieved himself in the urinal, one hand against the wall to its side, his face turned sideways. Once finished, the boy stood for a moment, seemingly enjoying the feeling of an empty bladder.

“Come on!” Shaun called.

Jamie zipped up and headed straight back over to the car.

Shaun went to follow, but a quick movement from a townhouse opposite caught his eye.

He looked across to the people carrier. Jamie was climbing back in.

The movement in the house caught his eye again. It was the first real sign of life he’d seen, save for the ambulance. He found himself gravitating towards it.

The townhouse was a typical small terrace. The décor was dated. Pebbledash finish. Old wooden door with a single pane of glass at the top. Shaun reckoned it was an older person or couple who lived here, just by the look of the place.

He wiped the glass of the door with his sleeve, peered in to investigate.

The hallway was empty.

Patterned carpet led up the stairway, with mahogany banisters looking freshly polished. An old telephone rested on a coffee table just by the door to the living room.

Shaun was about to turn away when he noticed movement again. The living room door was pulled open, but, from where he stood, Shaun couldn’t see exactly what was happening. He looked through the side window. But the blinds were partially closed, and he couldn’t see much from there either.

Shaun stood back, thinking it probably best to just go, join his wife and son and hit the road. But he couldn’t seem to leave well enough alone.

He strained his eyes, twisting his head to stare through the door’s glass pane once more. He hadn’t noticed before, but there was a stain on the pale carpet leading through the now half-ajar living room door. It looked like blood.

The body of a man fell heavily across the doorway to the living room.

Shaun stepped back, yelled: “Jesus!”

He knew he should leave but instead found himself going back to the glass.

The man was still there. He was older than Shaun, probably late forties. His hair was dark and thinning at the temples. Blood soaked his white shirt. His eyes opened, his hand rising then falling back to the carpet.

The head of someone else...
something else...
appeared from the living room doorway, towering over the body. It didn’t look human. It looked down at the body on the floor. Its lips parted, a thin line of drool seeping out; hanging like silvery string before pooling on the felled man’s face. Then it stopped, like it knew it was being watched.

Its head turned slowly, viscous white eyes looking at Shaun.

Something grabbed his shoulder, and Shaun screamed out.

Turning, he found Lize.

“What are you doing?” she said.

She looked through the glass, her face twisting, losing colour as she no doubt found what he was watching. “Don’t look,” Shaun said, grabbing her. “Come on! We have to go!”

“Wh-what is that!?” she stuttered.

But Shaun pulled her away, both of them running back towards the car.

Waringstown, County Down

He usually tuned in for the weather forecast. It was a habit more than anything else, one that gave his day routine. But today was the first day that it didn’t broadcast and, for a man like Martin, that was a worry.

Sure, he’d seen the news reports: riots in the city, hospitals on the brink of closure, sanctions on trade and travel. But all of these things seemed distant to Martin, as if part of some end-of-the-world movie. None of it was real in
his
world.

But no weather forecast...

He looked out the window, trying to formulate his own forecast. The sky was a rich blue colour. A few clouds moved in from the west; Martin wondered if there’d be rain later on. He hoped so. His vegetable patch out back was dry as a bone and, with things going the way they were, he might be needing a bit more growth out there.

Martin switched the television off, sick of the same old footage; the same debates and interviews; the same announcements from the same politicians saying little about anything. The TV channels were repeating everything on a constant loop; helpline numbers and out-of-date ‘community announcements’ rolling along the bottom of the screen. Curfew times for each county. Wasn’t there anything else to report? Was anyone actually out there recording anything
new
, reporting on what was going on
now
? Or were the journalists just as scared as everyone else?

Martin wasn’t scared. Martin was prepared. He’d stocked up early, filling his locked garage and shed with as much food and bottled water as he could get his hands on. The house was secure. The doors and windows were locked.

He wouldn’t be walking into Waringstown village, where everyone was talking crazy talk, like old Tom at the boot sale, spreading rumours about locals who hadn’t been seen in a while.
Caught the flu
, they whispered. But they may as well have been saying,
Caught the plague
.

Martin wondered if the internet would have anything different. He thought so, but with no connection in his house, no computer even, there was no way of finding out. Martin was a proud technophobe. He liked the radio or the television or the newspaper; tried and tested ways of getting information across in a way which didn’t require some whizz-kid on stand-by, lest your system crash, or whatever.

He heard a familiar noise.

He looked down, finding Fred staring up at him, head poised to one side, concern in his eyes. Martin ruffled the dog’s fur. Even old Fred could feel the tension in the air. Maybe the dog could sense that something was about to happen, that visitors were coming. Like most dogs, Fred wanted his whole pack together. And Martin felt the same right now: he’d talked to them on the phone only an hour ago, but he couldn’t fully relax until Lize and little Jamie were in the house and he could lock the doors up tight.

But that dumbo, Shaun...

It wasn’t that Martin hated the man. He just hated him being with Lize. She was his little girl, after all. He’d brought her up single-handedly after her mother had died in childbirth, and while Martin would have to admit that he hated her in those first weeks, blaming her for taking the only woman he’d ever loved, he soon grew to love little Lize for the very same reason: she was all he had left of his wife, Liza.

As the years went by, all he could see was Liza in her. In fact, he meant to name Lize after his wife, but a careless scribble on some form or other and she was registered as Lize. And so it stuck. In a way, it suited her very well. To Martin and everyone who knew her, Lize was one in a million.

Where was she?

Martin lifted his phone and punched in some numbers. The dead tone screamed in his ear like a siren. He slammed the receiver down, swore loudly.

Damn phone company!

Fred sloped off to the back of the room, hiding under the dining room table.

Martin was all worked up now. He hated himself for that. He should be calm, relaxed.

He cracked his knuckles, paced the living room. Blew some air out of his mouth then breathed it all back in again.

He switched the television on again. Still the same old footage and numbers and announcements on repeat, over and over and fucking over again. Martin wanted to put his foot through the bloody thing.

Suddenly, Fred’s ears pricked up, and he ran to the door barking.

A car had stopped outside the house.

Martin followed the dog to the door, unlatching the safety and turning the key in the lock.

Ballynarry, County Armagh.

They’d pulled off the motorway at Portadown.

Colin said they should avoid the town centre, head straight for the country roads, and Vicky wasn’t going to argue. She’d seen enough of urban life back in Belfast. She was ready for a bit of country air.

Soon the world turned green around her. Cattle and sheep stood huddled together by hedges. Even the birds seemed quiet, their normally cheerful chorus muted against the overwhelming sound of silence.

They passed a few houses, mostly barricaded from within, crudely erected signs saying things like ‘Trespassers will be shot’ or ‘Beware of the dog.’ Country folk weren’t fond of townsfolk, period. But this was a whole new ball game.

“Are we nearly there yet?” Vicky said for the fourth time within twenty minutes.

“What are you, four years old?” Colin said. He sighed. “Okay, yes. We’re nearly there. It’s just up here to the right.”

Sure enough, they followed a small lane off the main road. Furrowed mud had dried in the shape of large tractor wheels, leading as far as the eye could see. Fields flanked each side of the lane.

They passed by an old-style barnyard, small cottage by its side. Again, if anyone were in, they weren’t for advertising the fact.

Eventually, they neared another house, a newly built bungalow with a wide lawn and freshly stoned driveway. Hedges shaped like animals guarded a beautiful flowerbed and artificial waterfall.

But still no sign of life.

“Are you sure they’re expecting us?” Vicky asked. Colin didn’t reply.

“Maybe they saw the car coming,” Vicky pointed at the solider lodged into the windscreen. “I know
I
would hide from
that
.”

Colin parked the car on the driveway, opposite the garage.

“Oh, thank God,” Vicky said, swiftly exiting and putting some distance between herself and that bloody soldier she’d been staring at for the last hour. She stood by the waterfall, carefully brushing the glass from her clothes using the rolled up cuffs of her sweatshirt.

“You stay here,” Colin said to her. “And watch the car.”

“Yeah,” she said, looking once more at the soldier in the windscreen. “Like it’s going anywhere.”

***

The house belonged to Chris Lennon and Ben Reilly. They were friends of Colin’s. That much was true. But Colin hadn’t talked to them in weeks. He’d lied—told Vicky the couple was expecting him just to get her out of the city.

The last time Colin had visited Chris and Ben, they had just moved in, and had been were boxes all over the place. There were no floors laid, and everything was cold to touch. The couple held a painting party, paying guests with beer and wine. Colin got very drunk. He stayed over on their couch, remembering the white dust from the concrete floors being everywhere. It was like talc. Got into his hair, between his fingernails. It was infectious.

Now, of course, over a year later, the house was a veritable palace. Chris and Ben were country boys at heart, so this was their dream home, both of them selling their apartments from Belfast to move here.

Ben was self-employed and conducted most of his business online.