Breeding Ground (16 page)

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Still shivering, Dave pulled on another fleece before sinking inside his sleeping bag for the night, only his freshly bandaged arm visible. Nigel disappeared into the small toilet for several minutes, a washing bag under one arm, and when he emerged he wore pyjamas and looked scrubbed and clean.

“If you go in there, be careful of my contacts. They’re on the side in their solution. There’s not a lot of space, so try not to knock them over.” He looked at me with slight disdain, as if he could tell I really had no intention of scrubbing myself clean. Where the hell had he gotten lens solution? He must have gone and found it while we were sticking to George’s list in John Lewis. Nice of him to check whether anyone else needed some.

Still sniffing in my direction, Phelps put his washbag down in the corner. “I’ve left spare toothbrushes for everyone in there.”

George had moved his sleeping bag to the wall and was sitting up skimming the blurb on the back of an old paperback he’d taken from the shelf. Smiling, he raised his topped up glass at Phelps. “Thank you kindly, but I may wait until the morning before I take advantage of your kind offer. This is a very fine wine, and I don’t want to spoil it with mint.”

“Suit yourselves.” Nigel’s pinched expression acknowledged that he knew George spoke for the rest of us that were awake, and turning his stiff back on us, he arranged his suit carefully on one of the chairs. “I just don’t see why we should let our standards slip. You can always judge a man on his personal hygiene.” Still muttering to himself, he spread out his sleeping bag in a little space away from the rest of us and climbed

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inside. “You can turn that light out whenever you’re ready.”

We left the light on for a further twenty minutes, until the collective irritation had cooled enough to realise we were being childish. Eventually it was Katie that got up and flicked the switch, before coming back and sitting with me. It seemed that she wasn’t ready for sleep anymore than George and I, but rather than chatting, we sat together and yet apart, each lost in our own thoughts and memories, until the rhythmic rustle of paper brought both Katie and me back to the present.

“What are you reading?” I kept my voice low as I peered across through the shadows to the red glow of the fire where George was turning the pages of a tatty paperback.

“You ought to be careful reading in that light. You’ll damage your eyes.” Smiling at the older man, Katie leaned in closer to me, and I have to admit it felt pretty good having her so near.

The creases in his face, elongated by the semidarkness, became caverns of blackness, making George almost unrecognisable apart from the kind, intelligent twinkle in his eyes.

“Thanks for your concern, but at my age, your eyes aren’t too much of a worry.” His smile widened. “They’re about the only part of me that doesn’t complain if I move too quickly in the mornings.” He turned the yellowing book over, reflecting on the cover. “John Wyndham, The Kraken Wakes. Have you read it?”

I shook my head and so did Katie.

“Well, you should. It’s a damned good book. I read it the first time about thirty years ago, and it’s as good

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this time round as it was then. Good books are timeless.” He raised his glass. “Like good wine.” Pausing, he took a sip. “Anyway, this time it’s more of a research project. You see, it’s a kind of end-of-the-world book. I’m wondering if Mr. Wyndham has any better ideas of what we can do than we do.” Smiling, he returned his gaze to the text and lost himself in it.

Across the room, Nigel murmured and called out something from beneath the zipped quilted covers, his body twisting slightly in the casing. However much Nigel thought he was holding it together in daylight, his sleep had been pretty much constantly restless since he’d gone down for the night, and whatever was cracking up his conscious state was having fun with his unconscious one.

“I don’t like that man.” Katie stared over into the corner, her voice hard.

“I’m not too keen, either. But he may shape up. We’ll have to wait and see.” After what Nigel had said about the man with the air rifle having the right idea for shooting at them, I couldn’t blame Katie for her dislike. But there was more to it than that. Phelps just didn’t like women, and I doubted he’d had that much respect for them when they were all normal. I wondered what kind of life the late Mrs. Phelps would have had. Dull, dreary and patronised, more than likely. I bet there was one pissed off widow out there that really wished she’d got her man.

“But I do like him.” Katie nodded in the direction of Dave. “And I’m worried about that bite.”

“He looks like he’s running a fever.”

“Yes, I’m sure he is, but I’m not surprised. That bite was looking a lot worse tonight.”

Our eyes met, and the fear in hers made me

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remember how young she really was. She was looking at me as if I could somehow make things better. As if having reached the almost old age of thirty, I had some infinite knowledge that could cure him. Oh yes, mutant female spider bite. I know just the thing! But behind that hope was a twenty-year-olds slowly unwrapping knowledge that all that was just a pipe dream of childhood. No one had the answers. In fact, no one had a fucking clue.

“How do you mean? Do you think there’s poison in there?”

She shrugged slightly and sipped her wine. “It wouldn’t surprise me. Would it you?”

“No, not really. Looking at Dave earlier, I figured there may have been something more to that bite, but I was hoping that there wasn’t.” I paused, looking at her green eyes, which seemed to flicker yellow in the warm light, and wondered what they hid. “What about you? How are you doing?”

Lowering her head, she avoided my eyes and tucked a long curl behind her ear. “Oh, I’m okay. As long as Jane is, I will be.” Looking over at where her little sister slept, the lines of tension that had begun to form around her mouth softened. “It’s funny. I don’t really know her that well. I mean, there’s ten years between us. I was a late baby and I guess my parents thought their days of being able to have children were over, and they became a little less careful with their precautions.” She grinned, not at me, but at the memory of people that I would never meet.

“My mother was in the throes of the menopause when she fell with Janie. She never tires of telling people that one.” A small flinch went through her as she stumbled over the use of the present tense. We both let

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it pass without correction. “Anyway, the age gap was such that as much as I love Jane, we’ve never really done much together. Not once she started school, at any rate. And then by the time she was nine, I’d done my A levels and was off to university. Bit of a waste of time, really. I graduated this summer and look at the world now. I wish I’d stayed at home and had more time with my family.”

I could feel the barriers she was putting up and squeezed her arm. It felt so fragile through the thick fabric of the man’s sweater she was wearing.

“Hey, foresight is something all of us wish we’d had a bit of right now.” Glancing over at George, lost in his old book, I wondered how he was coping with the loss of his family. Probably the same way as I was coping with the loss of Chloe. By ignoring it. By putting the grief out of reach for now and by doing those we’d lost proud by surviving. Or at least attempting to for another day or two.

“She’s a good kid. I think she’s dealing with all of this better than some,” I said.

“Yes. Yes, she is. I think my mum would be proud. I certainly am.”

Even with the sleeping bag beneath me, the ground was hard, and I lay down on one side resting on one elbow and took a long gulp of wine, draining my glass.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

This time her gaze met mine, straight and strong. She didn’t need me to spell out what I meant. She shook her head.

“No. The past couple of days are private to me and Janie. If she wants to talk about it when she’s ready, than that’s fine with me, but I’m not like that. I need it

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inside me to keep me strong. I don’t expect that makes a lot of sense, but that’s how I am. What about you?”

The idea of retelling my pain for the second time that day weighed my soul down, and I shook my head. “I think we can both live without that story right at the moment.”

Nodding, she said nothing, and we sat in silence for a few moments, until eventually she lay down facing me. Again, her beautiful eyes intrigued me; staring into them, I was so glad that they weren’t brown, so glad they couldn’t make me think of Chloe.

She chewed her bottom lip delicately. “Can I ask you something?”

I lowered my voice so it matched her whisper. “Sure.”

“I don’t mean this in any funny way, but…” Her eyes slipped away from me. “But will you hold me while I go to sleep? I…I think I need the contact.”

Saying nothing, not wanting to embarrass her or make her feel more uncomfortable-and also knowing my own innate ability for saying the wrong thing, which came with the territory of maleness-I moved across as she slid into her sack, her body facing the other way. Unzipping my own bag I got in and then curled up behind Katie, one arm around her waist. Holding my hand, she pulled it upwards so that it was under her chin, her face warm and soft, and making my heart ache for reasons I was too tired to analyse.

“Good night, Matt.” Her breath brushed over my fingers.

“Good night, Katie. Sleep tight.”

I’m not sure how long I lay there listening to the rain outside and the rhythmic breathing around me, occasional moans and sounds coming as dreams and pain

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injected themselves into the night, my mind numb to thought. All I know is that somewhere after Katie and before George, I eventually drifted off into my own restless sleep.

I woke up suddenly with fear making my breath catch in my throat, my survival gene ahead of the rest of me, shaking me free of the grip of my dark dreams of Chloe and widows and the inescapable mixing of the two. I stared at the others in the glow of the fire.

“What the fuck was that?” Dave sat bolt upright. George was already out of his sleeping bag and Nigel was on his feet, standing awkwardly in the middle of the room.

From outside, mixed in with the increased level of the wind and rain, glass smashed angrily and something hard thudded into the wall to my left.

“Jane! Get over here!” The hiss in Katie’s voice alone was enough to make the small girl scurry into the arms of her older sister.

“What is it?” John coughed, hauling himself sleepily in my direction. He pulled a crumpled pack of cigarettes from the back of his jeans. “Shit.” Rooting inside the box, he found one that wasn’t too damaged and lit it, sucking in hard. “What’s happening?”

I shrugged, my body tingling with adrenaline. “I don’t know.” I tried not to whisper, but failed.

“There’s something outside. Isn’t there?” Nigel’s voice was almost a snivel, and he huddled in with Katie and Jane in the centre of the room.

“Shhh.” George moved to the door and quickly pushed the bolts across at the top and bottom, slamming them home as something on the other side angrily clawed at it. The smashing from outside got louder,

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coming from more than one angle, and I ducked instinctively as a thud came from the roof above, followed by an unpleasantly close scuttling that scratched over our heads in fits and starts.

“Yes. I think we can definitely say there is something outside.” George wasn’t whispering, but his voice was low.

“Should we turn the fire off? Maybe that’s attracting them. Maybe they know when we’re using electricity or something. Like with the phones.” Standing now, Katie had managed to extract herself from Jane’s grip and held a large aerosol, but from the slight shake in her hand, I would guess it wasn’t bringing her any comfort. It pleased me, though, that someone had thought to bring them in earlier when all I’d been mainly concerned with was food and sleep.

Outside, the rain was drowned out by the screeching and crunching of metal, and my eyes focussed with dread on the small window that we’d bandaged up with parcel shelves. I tried to remember how hard we’d hammered those nails home, and how many we’d even used, but it was all a tired blur.

“It’s them, isn’t it? The widows.” Jane’s words came in a series of rushed, panicked breaths.

“Shit!” My heart beating faster, I jumped as the mended window shook with an impact from outside. I wasn’t the only one with the jitters, Dave letting out a mumbled expletive that I couldn’t quite make out.

“Yes, darling,” George’s soft words answered Jane. “I think it is them. But we’re safe in here. This building’s stood firmly for longer than I’ve been alive, so I think we can trust it to keep us safe now.”

I glanced back up at our repairs. “Well, that may be, but I think I’d still feel a little safer with a few more

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nails up there. Someone pass me the tools.” I pulled a chair out and climbed up, instantly feeling the breeze that squeezed through the gaps, reaching out for me and making me shiver, my skin crawling with the idea that one of those things was probably only inches from me, red eyes desperately seeking out a chink in our armour.

Something scraped the ground of the hut, and looking round I saw Katie climbing onto a chair beside me. She held up a lighter and the can, her gaze firm and direct. “Just in case.”

I smiled, but a sudden scrabbling on the other side of the carpeted plastic made me wobble backwards, almost losing my footing completely. “Fuck.”

“Whenever you’re ready, Matt. Take your time. Personally, I’m loving it up here.”

Taking a deep breath and ignoring her sarcasm and the less than pleasant sounds on the other side of the wall, I placed three nails in my mouth as I hammered in the first. We actually hadn’t done a bad job the first time round, and by the time I stepped down, there were nails only about two centimetres apart all the way round.