The Beginning (3 page)

The two quads ate up 200 metres of land in a few seconds. Martin wasn’t sure whether he should be running away or not, but he didn’t have a chance to find out. One of them was wearing a New York Knicks basketball jersey and the other a wife beater. Martin’s heart began to thump as they approached and he knew he’d made a mistake.

He should have ran.

Both quads stopped a couple metres from Martin, cutting the engines and taking their hunting rifles with them as they got off.

“Martin North? Well, I’ll be damned.” Knicks stared Martin up and down, before exchanging a glance with the man in the wife beater.

Martin was racking his mind, trying to put a name to these unrecognisable faces, his eyes flicking between them. “Yeah?”

Wife beater chuckled. “You don’t remember us? The Millard’s? John and Les?”

A wave of recognition washed over Martin and he hoped it wasn’t apparent in his facial expressions. The Millard brothers lived a couple miles away on Windmill Farm and they’d been best friends as kids. “Oh shit! Man, am I glad to see you boys. What the fuck is going on here?”

John, who was wearing the Knicks jersey, took a step forward while Les scanned the horizon. “That measles outbreak wasn’t just a measles outbreak. It makes th
em crazy.”

Les’ voice dropped to just a whisper and he shifted nervously on his feet. “It changes them, man. They don’t feel pain, they just want to eat.”

Martin remembered how the man had chased him to the barn, ripped half his fingernails off just trying to get in. “Yeah, I know. There was one chasing me and I saw a couple running around here.” Martin suddenly remembered where he was going and spun towards the house. “I think they were going towards my parent’s house.”

“Only a couple?” John had a confus
ed look on his face.

Martin turned and nodded. “Yeah, why is there more?”

John and Lee looked at each other as if they were about to tell a child Santa wasn’t real. “In the cities it’s worse. Way worse. There are thousands of them. Out here in the sticks it ain’t so bad. But they’re getting here too as well, especially in town. You guys are lucky, your house is about 5 miles out from town. We ain’t so lucky.” John’s voice trailed off.

This thought seemed to snap them both out of it and a hardened look app
eared on their faces almost instantly.

“Listen, Marty, we’re on a supply run.” John eyed the shotgun Martin had draped at his side. “We’re running real low on ammunition. We could really use that gun.”

“The Peacemaker? I need this. I saw some infected running towards the house. I haven’t got anything else.” Martin looked between the two hardened faces and realised his requests fell on deaf ears. It wasn’t just the infected that had changed.

Lee’s hand rested on his hunting rifle and began to tap innocent
ly.

“Sorry, Marty. If we don’t bring stuff back, Big Red will throw us out to those things. Times have
.. changed.” John’s look eased. “Listen, come with us? There is a group of us over at Robinships Bakery. There is food and protection. It’s safe.”

Lee chimed in. “We hate to leave you like this, Marty. Come with us. They could do with a guy like you.”

Martin couldn’t believe guys who were once his best friends would do this to him. He dropped the shotgun at his feet and turned walking towards his house. He heard running footsteps behind him but carried on walking anyway. The hand on his shoulder was rough and span him round. He was surprised to see Lee’s face there, they’d never got on as well as him and John.

“Marty, don’t go out at n
ight. They go crazy at night. As soon as you get to the house, start boarding it up.” Martin felt Lee press something cold and hard into his hand. “I know what it’s like to lose a parent to this. It’s heart-breaking, man. Look after them.” And with that Lee turned and jogged back to the quads.

Martin looked down to find a small revolver in the palm of his hand. Checking the chamber he found no bullets. Great, thought Martin, exchanging one useless gun for another.

He tried to jog the remaining distance to the house, but his ankle was still injured so instead settled for a quick walk. As the engines of the departing quads got fainter, the only sound left were the heavy footsteps of Martin’s slippers. They hadn’t even asked about his blood covered pyjamas. Maybe the sight of blood was that common now.

He felt naked crossing the field without the big shotgun. Even though it didn’t have any firepower it was still a heavy weapon. As he got closer to the house this feeling increased. Those bastards, why did they
have to take it!

Approaching the porch, Martin noticed the windows in the front had been smashed and the front door was covered in scratch marks. But the most worrying sign was the silence. He was unsure where the three infected had gone, whether they we
re in or around the house. The silence was quickly broken by the creak of Martin’s footsteps on the wooden porch steps.

Martin advanced towards the door and took a closer look at the claw marks. He noticed the door was ajar.

Martin stood at the
door not knowing what was on the other side. Martin tried to recall the layout of the house from his childhood, it had been over five years since he had left but everything was still fresh in his mind. Beyond this door was the hallway, this opened up into the living room which had doors to both the kitchen and staircase. He turned his ear towards the door and listened intently for a few seconds. When he was satisfied that there wasn’t anyone in the hallway beyond the door he slowly pushed it open.

The doo
r silently swung open to confirm his guess; the hallway was empty. But the coppery smell that Martin was beginning to associate with the infected was definitely present. They were here. There was several bloody handprints on the blue wallpaper, Martin prayed it was someone else’s.  He took a step inside and, in a half-crouch, began moving towards the living room. Something crunched under his footsteps. He glanced down and quickly realised it was broken glass from a fallen picture frame. A picture of his parents lay on the ground, glass shattered and a single drop of blood smudged across their faces. Martin waited.

In the corner of his eye there was movement.

Martin’s head jerked up. But there was nothing there. Maybe it was Martin’s mind playing tricks on him. Maybe it was the whisky. Or maybe it was a snarling creature. Martin had no idea and his grip tightened on the useless revolver.

At the bottom of one of the walls lay a mirror that had once hung on the hallway wall. It had obviously been knocked off
as the three infected had entered the house. Martin could imagine them ploughing through the door, then pushing and shoving to move along the corridor three-a-side like children do with narrow doorframes. Martin picked up a broken piece of the mirror and edged closer to the entrance to the living room. With his back to the wall, he held the broken piece of mirror at arm’s length and looked into the reflection of the living room on the mirror’ surface.

Fuck.

This was Martin’s first thought. His parent’s usually kept everything in the house immaculate, everything had its own place and there was never mess or rubbish anywhere. The sight before him now was the complete opposite - the whole room had been trashed. The sofa was upturned with its wheels sticking in the air, the cabinets had been pulled over and Mom’s best china littered the floor. But there was no infected, only the trail of their destruction remained.

Martin crossed the room, making sure to avoid the broken china and entered the kitchen. It appear
ed as if the infected group hadn’t entered here. There was a distinct smell of apple in the kitchen, Martin looked over to the oven and saw it was cooking something. As he got closer he could see an apple pie, but it had been in too long and was now burnt. The sweet smell of apple, cinnamon and nutmeg didn’t even raise an ounce of hunger from his body, it had locked itself down.

Scanning the kitchen, Martin located the knife rack and pulled out a long 9 inch meat cleaver. He made a few cutting and swooping
motions in the air with it, then tucked the revolver into his pyjama bottoms. The cleaver shook in his hands.

On the marble kitchen counter was a tray with a large bottle of whisky and a couple of tumbler glasses. Martin felt the urge, as he always did.
But he moved past it. Later, Martin thought.

Martin went back into the living room and his eyes looked up towards the ceiling. He knew where he needed to go. The door which led to the staircase was wide open, inviting Martin to enter. Standing at the botto
m of the staircase, Martin suddenly became aware of a slow and steady dripping sound. His stomach dropped and every worst case scenario began running through his mind. The infected had got in and had killed his parents. That was there blood dripping.

Mart
in shook his head and took a deep breath.
No. It could be anything.

As he began to climb the stairs, the upstairs landing coming into clearer view and he went up the incline. He held the cleaver tightly in a hammer grip, raised to his eye level. The drippi
ng sound got louder as he ascended the stairs and he noted it seemed to be coming from the bathroom.

Martin felt his heart rate jump as his parents door come into view. It was just as scratched and clawed up as the front door. Martin’s hand reached for th
e door knob and turned it.

Locked.

He let out a deep sigh of relief. They were safe. Martin knocked on the door and whispered: “You in there?”

There was a quiet shuffle inside and Martin heard furniture being moved away from the door and then the click of
a lock being released. Finally the door swung inwards and there stood Collin North. The ever present smile had disappeared from his face and he grabbed Martin by the shoulders, giving him a once over, his eyes lingering on the cleaver in Martin’s hand. Between the blood covered pyjamas and the increasingly large bump on his head, he must have looked a state.

“What happened to you?” He pulled Martin into the spacious bedroom. “You should have stayed in the bunker, they could be back any minute.”

“Where did they go?” Martin asked as he helped to push the cabinet in front of the door.

“One second they were outside the door, banging and scratching and howling. I didn’t think the door was going to hold any longer.”

Mollie North’s life had ended, but nobody knew it yet.

Martin sat beside her on the bed and placed the cleaver quietly on the bedside table. He looked down at her white face and the waxy complexion of her skin. His eyes moved down to her bandaged wrist wh
ere blood had seeped through. Her blonde hair was plastered to her skin with sweat from a fever. Behind her eyelids Martin knew there was a set of piercing blue eyes, but now all he could see was the dark bags under them.

“How is she doing?”
“Been sleeping like that for about four hours now. Earthquake couldn’t wake her.” Collin paced the room, readjusting his cap.

“So Dad, do you mind explaining why we have a bunker in our barn?”

“Aha, Bunker Z. That ha-“

Collin’s sentence was cut off by a crash downsta
irs.

Martin leapt to his feet and Collin froze mid-step. The sound seemed to echo throughout the house, resonating off every surface and lingering in the bedroom.

They had returned.

Collin raised a finger to his lips indicating silence and Martin picked up the cleaver, touching the unloaded revolver in his pants belt. He didn’t know why he did it, but for some reason it made him feel safe. Safety in technology.

There was another loud bang downstairs and an animalistic bark.

Collin tensed and then walked over to the cabinet in front of the door, grabbing it with both hands. “This is my house. I don’t care what’s wrong with them, they have no right. Stay here with your mother.”

“Dad, stop! You don’t understand! They’re crazy!”

But it was too late. Collin had already ripped the cabinet from the door and had unlocked it before Martin could get halfway across the room.   

Suddenly the door was open and Collin was through the door, striding out into the landing, bellowing loudly: “Come on then!”

There was a sudden rapid movement bounding up the stairs, too fast to be human. Martin heard the gush of wind rush out of Collin’s mouth as something collided with him at the top of the stairs.

“Oh, it’s you.” Collin breathlessly croaked.
 

As Martin rounde
d the corner he saw a golden retriever on top of Collin enthusiastically licking his face. This image was quickly followed by the sound of footsteps climbing the stairs.

A woman’s wearily spoke as she climbed the stairs. “Duke,
down! I’m so sorry Mr North. I dropped the lead when I saw-“Her eyes rose abruptly as the climbed the stairs and locked with Martins. “Oh, hi Martin.”

“Kelly. Hi.”

**

The dog growled as it entered the bedroom.
The heckles on its back spiked up as it approached the bed where Mollie lay. Kelly jumped back.

“She’s infected.” Kelly blurted out bluntly as she pulled Duke back by his lead. She glanced between both Collin and Martin, as if to check if they knew.

Collin stared down at his wife, not breaking his eye contact as he replied to Kelly. “Infected? She’s just got a fever. A girl bit her hand out shopping today.”

“Did the girl have black pupils?”

“Yes. But you know what kids are like nowadays, with their black fingernails, black leather coats. It doesn’t mean she is infected.” Martin had never seen his dad so distraught, as if he was battling something he couldn’t beat; himself.

Kelly looked towards Martin for back up, almost pleading. “She’ll come back as... one of them. You need to get rid of her.”

Martin held her eye contact. She hadn’t changed a bit. Her long brown hair was still cut in the same style she had in high school, but it looked unkempt and a bit greasy now. She’d put on a bit of weight, but it fitted her well.

Martin had seen how danger
ous the infected were, but this was his mom. “Get rid of her? Is there no cure?”

“I don’t know. It is way worse than the news broadcasts make it out to be. The cities are overflowing with them, the army has retreated. I barely managed to get out. I came b
ack to here as I thought it might be safer. When I finally got to my parent’s house on the other side of town it was deserted. No note. Nothing. You guys were the only people I knew here.”  

The shock of the news was apparent on both Martin and Collin’s fa
ces. How had a minor outbreak of measles suddenly turned into a nationwide crisis leading to the army retreating? It must be bad.

“How?”

Kelly sat down on a wooden chair in a corner of the room, Duke curled up underneath the chair, but kept two wary eyes fixed on the bed. “It’s the numbers. The infection spreads so fast as the infected are so aggressive that the army couldn’t handle it. Once infected they actively seek to infect others with it. Not on purpose though. The infection seems to kill off most of their brain cells, but leaves them with their survival instincts. The survival instincts that we honed for thousands of years before we invented cappuccinos and heated seats. The instinct to eat. But when they bite you, it transfers. ”

They all looked ov
er to where Mollie lay, a tension settling over the room.

Collin was the first to speak. “She might not be infected. We have to wait till she wakes up.” That seemed to settle the issue.

“Okay.” Kelly’s eyes suspiciously surveyed the room, lingering on the windows and the cabinet in front of the door, before resting on Martin. “This is where you’re staying then? Is it safe?”

“I only arrived last night from the coast. There wasn’t any infection there. Here... I’m not so sure. But we have a bunker over in t
he barn.”

 
“Great. Let’s go there.” Kelly smiled for the first time that day and in that moment an ocean of memories flooded back to Martin. They had been high school sweethearts until they both left for college. The last time Martin had seen her was when she’d adopted one of Collin’s golden retriever puppies.

Collin continued to dab Mollies brow with a damp towel, pushing her hair back gently behind her ear. “We’re not leaving without Mollie and she can’t move like this.”

“Plus, if we did take her and we ran into any of the infected, we’d be screwed. No way we could outrun them while carrying her.” Martin pinched the bridge of his nose and let out a deep sigh. “We’ll have to stay put for the night.”

Kelly looked anxious. “We’re going to need to fix this
place up then. They get crazy at night. And the stronger ones come out too.”

As if on cue, a low deep howl echoed in the distance.