The Dying & The Dead 1: Post Apocalyptic Survival (7 page)

She
took a few steps toward the boy, but he grew more panicked with every inch
closer she got. She didn’t want to leave him, but nor could she stay. She had
her own life to think about. A daughter who would be lost without her, a crop
in their garden on which all their future hopes rested.

“Are
you going to come with me or not?” she said. “This is the only time I’ll ask
you.”

The
boy paused, thought about it, and then shook his head from side to side.

She
turned and walked out of the room, not giving the boy even a fleeting glance,
because she knew if she looked at him then she would break down. She was giving
up on him in the same way she’d given up on Jenny, but there wasn’t a thing she
could do about it.

“I’m
sorry,” she said over her shoulder.

She
stepped out of the room, out of the house, and into the cold.

4

Ed

He ran
out of candles months ago and he hadn’t bothered to replace them. There was
something comforting about the dark. It put a black sheet over the things he
wanted to keep hidden but at the same time couldn’t bring himself hide away. It
meant that he couldn’t see the smiling face of his father from a photograph on
the mantelpiece as he held the trophy he’d won in the Golgoth fishing
competition. It meant he couldn’t see the wool decoration his mother had
knitted which declared that “a house is not a home without love.”

Somewhere
in the house water dripped with the regularity of a ticking clock. Though the
window, in the distance, he could see the cylinder of the lighthouse stretching
into the sky. When was the last time he’d seen a light coming from it? Not
since he was a kid, probably. Long after it had fallen out of use, he and James
used to sneak up there and smoke poorly rolled cigarettes from the tobacco
they’d stolen from dad’s stash. Ed hated the feeling in his lungs as he breathed
it in, hated the rank smell that clung to his clothes, but he didn’t dare tell
James. He was scared that with the declaration his brother would withdraw, and
the time they spent together would be taken away.

The
wind screamed and the rain banged on the window like hands begging to come in.
From somewhere outside his house he heard the sound of a crash.

He got
up and went out into the cold night. The storm was something from a disaster
movie, a brooding sky building up a cataclysm to destroy the earth. Something
whizzed toward him, propelled by the wind. He ducked to his side, and his heart
skipped as it narrowly missed his head, blew passed his house and over the
cliff.

He
walked over to the cliff and saw the tide washing over the beach. The sea looked
wild, with twenty foot high waves rising and crashing, the spray and foam
splattering in the air. It was an endless sheet of darkness except for the
distance, where he swore he could see a shape.

It
can’t be,
he
thought
.
Miles away, battling against the waves, he was sure he could
see a boat. He knew this couldn’t really be the case. Ever since the outbreak
not a single boat had visited Golgoth, and they hadn’t heard from the mainland
in years. Was there anyone alive there anymore? Was there a government? Was
there anything except the monsters that walked in human skin?

Something
screamed behind him, but this time it wasn’t the wind. He turned and saw a
figure running straight at him, cloaked in darkness. As it got closer, he
realised it was Bethelyn.

“What
the hell, Ed?” she shouted, struggling to talk over the wind. She wore a
raincoat that she had fastened so hastily that she had missed a button.

“What?”
he said.

She
stopped a foot away from him, grabbed his arm and pulled him away from the cliff
edge with a strength he didn’t expect. He shrugged her away.

“What’s
your problem?”

“I
don’t trust you around cliff edges,” she said.

He
pointed out to the sea. “I saw a ship out there.”

“Bullshit.
There’s no way a ship would sail in this.”

“Maybe
you’re right,” he said. “You need something?”

The
wind swept a wild curl over her face. She tucked it back with a gloved hand.

“I was
taping up my windows like you said, but I decided that wasn’t going to cut it.
I’m going to board them up instead. I have spare wood and nails if you want
some?”

“I’ll
be okay.”

“It’s
getting really bad.”

“Trust
me, I’ll be fine. But thanks.”

They
walked away from the cliff and toward their houses. Despite himself, Ed felt warmth
for Bethelyn. He’d spurned any sort of company for so long that a small part of
him appreciated the interest she took in him. As quickly as that feeling rose
he smashed it down and reminded himself that people come, but they always go.
Another thing that was as predictable as the tide.

“You know,”
Bethelyn said, “When the outbreak started, the council had loads of long
meetings. We decided we were remote enough to stay unaffected, but that we’d
prepare in case it hit. There’s a room under the town hall. You should see it,
Ed. Wall to wall of preserves, fuel, weapons. We could last a hundred
outbreaks, but we never prepared for the weather. This storm is going to
destroy us.”

“There’s
nothing we can do about it.”

“I
guess. We just need to try and weather it,” she said, her face deadpan.

He shook
his head. Her joke reminded him of the kind his dad always used to make. Ones
that were so unfunny that it wasn’t even right to call them jokes. He used to
shake his head and tell himself what a loser his dad was, but now he found
himself wishing he could hear another awful pun.

“That
was so bad you just took a year off my life,” he said.

“They
wanted you to join the council, you know.”

“Yeah.”

“It
would be good for you. I joined it out of boredom, but it’s good to have a say
in things.”

“Sometimes
it’s good to say nothing.”

As
they got nearer their houses Ed decided to walk past his own and make sure
Bethelyn got safely to her cottage, despite knowing he probably needed her help
more than she needed his.

Ivy
climbed the stonework of her house and strained under the gust of the wind. Her
window frames and doorway were yellow and stood out against the slate roof and
brown walls as though Bethelyn was making a statement against the night. The
stonework outside was covered in wooden beams which were coated in rain and
warped in the middle. A knee-high plant pot was next to the door but there were
no plants inside, and instead rain water had collected halfway up the ceramic.

“Well
thanks Ed,” she said. “I couldn’t have walked these extra fifty yards without
you.”

He
looked through her window and saw her front room where candles glowed, and
April was stretched out on the sofa with a book covering her face. Once again
he found the idea of a warm house inviting, but he buried the feeling.

“Just
be careful,” he said. “You never know what can happen in this weather.”

A
second after the words left his mouth a groaning sound came from Bethelyn’s
house, and then there was a crash. The slate roof of the cottage collapsed
under the strength of the wind. Slates span off and fell to the ground, and Bethelyn
stared with shocked eyes as once smashed next to her foot. April sprang off the
sofa and let her book fall to the floor.

Ed
rushed inside. Bethelyn followed and ran straight to her daughter, but Ed went
upstairs. In the master bedroom everything seemed okay. The same couldn’t be
said for the second bedroom, which was missing a ceiling. There was a wide hole
where there had once been a roof, and an angry night sky sat above it.  It took
ten minutes for the warmth of the house to be shattered and replaced with a
freezing channel of wind. Water poured through the hole in the roof and soaked
into the carpet, ruined the bedding and made a sopping mess of everything it
touched. He was too late to do anything.

Downstairs,
Bethelyn paced the living room and ran her hands through her wild hair. She
turned to look at Ed as he walked into the room.

“What
the hell are we going to do?” she said.

April
stared at her mother with glum eyes and sagging shoulders.

Ed
knew what he had to do., He didn’t savour it, but there was no escaping it.

“You
can stay at mine,” he said.

Bethelyn
looked at him strangely as though she hadn’t expected the offer.

“What
about Rex?” said April.

“Rex?”

“It’s
her bear,” Bethelyn told him. She put a hand on her daughter’s shoulders and
scooped her toward her. “No honey, Rex is going to stay home and guard the
house.”

Bethelyn
looked at Ed and covered her mouth with her hand so that April couldn’t see.
She mimed words at him, but Ed couldn’t understand.

“Rex
is upstairs,” she whispered.

Now Ed
understood. That meant the girl’s bear was ruined.

“I’m
not stupid mum,” said April. “The house is flooded. Rex will get wet.”

“He’ll
be fine.”

“But
mum.”

Bethelyn’s
voice became sharp. “April, stop it.”

The
girl pushed away from her mother and started to cry. Ed couldn’t stand it, but
not because the girl’s tears upset him. He just found crying children really
annoying. Then thing that annoyed him most was that he knew most of them faked
it. Still, he’d been a kid once, so there was no use being a hypocrite about
it. Anyone can grow out of their childish ways. It was the adults that refused
to who were the real problem.

“Hang
on a sec,” said Ed. “Which room is yours?”

The
girl looked up at him. As he suspected, her tears had dried the second it
seemed she might get what she wanted. Despite that, he could tell she was
genuinely upset about her bear. Maybe the dramatics was just habit she’d picked
up to get what she wanted with her mother.

“You
can’t go up there,” said Bethelyn.

“Is
Rex in your room?”

April
stood up and nodded. “My room’s the one next to the bathroom.”

The
house was already cold from the wind that rushed through the broken roof. As he
passed the living room he saw that without the glow of the candles it looked
just as lonely and empty as his own. Darkness had a way of making everything
seem that much worse, even things that in the light were a source of joy. Ed
had spent so long in the darkness that his whole life view was covered by it,
and he realised this was partly to blame for how glum he was.

Upstairs
was even colder, and a pattering sound came from the bedroom. April’s room was
the one which had suffered the damage, and the red carpet was already turning
darker from where rain poured in. Her bed was covered in broken slates and
plaster from where the ceiling had exploded inwards. Even before the outbreak
this would have been a hell of a repair job, but it was probably going to be
impossible now.

Rex,
lucky bear that he was, sat on the bedside table that hadn’t suffered any
damage. Ed picked him up and walked out onto the hallway and toward the stairs.
As he put his foot on the top step there was creaking sound that seemed to
spread through the ceiling above him. He saw that a crack was cutting into the
plaster like someone was drawing it on in marker, and the ceiling grew the
bulge of a pregnant belly. It was going to fall apart.

He
started down the stairs just as the plaster gave way. There was a loud crash
and Ed felt the ceiling spill out onto the landing behind him. A spray of dust
and debris covered his shoulders. He sucked some of it in and felt it scratch
his throat. An involuntary cough rose from his chest as his lungs tried to
expel the dust, and without being able to stop himself he let go of the
bannister and tumbled down the staircase, feeling stabs of pain as he banged
against the floor.

“Jesus
Christ, Ed”.

He lay
on at the bottom of the hallway and stared at Bethelyn’s chalky face. She
reached out for his hand.

“Can
you move?”

His
shoulders ached and he already felt a lump start to swell out from the back of
his head. He slowly shifted his leg, and satisfied that it wasn’t broken, he
moved more deliberately.