Demise of the Living (3 page)

The doors slid open with
a metallic hiss. John turned to step into the elevator but
immediately jumped back in fright. There was a flash of yellow and
red and he was just inches from a wrinkled, ashen-faced creature
lurching at him. Its eyes were dark and sunken behind skeletal
cheekbones.

“Sorry,” John said
instinctively, and stepped back.

“
Nie ma
problemu
,” came the muttered
reply.

Lumbering from the
elevator came two cleaning ladies.
The
first pushed a cart piled high with paper rolls, the second an
industrial silver and black vacuum cleaner.
The one with the cart had dyed black hair and thin lips
from years of drawing on cigarettes. Her companion, a much younger
woman, wore a red and yellow football top of some team John had
never heard of. The younger woman was almost attractive, but her
face had an odd quality to it born of overly large eyes and an
angular chin that didn’t appear in
proportion
with the rest of her
face.

“Morning, ladies,” Gary
said.

He unhooked his thumb from his
belt and looked at his watch again.

What
’s the point of
that?
John wondered.
The idiot just looked at the
thing
.

“Smoko?” Gary asked the
women.

The pair had more than a
passing resemblance to each other. Dark hair tied in a high
ponytail, pale ghostly skin, and a skinny figure that most women
would die for, but on them just looked malnourished. They could be
mother and daughter, or sisters, or just grown to look similar
through years of doing the same menial jobs together.

“
Yes, cigarette,” the
older woman said.

John sidestepped into the
carriage and pressed the button for the first floor.

***

The phone rang.

Colin thrust a hand out
from the comfort of the bed sheets in an attempt to silence the
noise, but accidentally smacked his knuckle against the corner of
the bedside cabinet.

“
Shit!” he cursed,
flexing his fist.

Wide awake now, he gave
up the pretence of getting back to sleep, and sat up.

Shaking off the throbbing from
his fist, he picked the phone up from its cradle and held it to his
ear.

“Hello?”

“
Colin?” a voice
said.

“Woody?” Colin asked,
recognizing the voice.

“
Yes, it’s Mr. Woods. I
didn’t wake you, did I?"

Colin stifled a second
curse,
realising he’d
just called his boss
Woody
. Panicked, he looked at his
alarm clock, fearing he’d slept in. His heart rate halved when he
saw it was a full hour before he had to get up.

“
I was just getting up
anyway,
Mr. Woods,” he lied. “Why are you
calling at this time of the morning?”

“
It’s the school trip,
Colin,” Mr. Woods said.

Colin rubbed at the
corner of his eye, dislodging a crumb of sleep. “Yeah? What about
it?”

“It’s going to have to be
cancelled.”

Colin was shocked. “What?”

There was a faint crackle on
the line.

“We need to cancel it.”

“
We’re due to leave in
four hours,” Colin said. “Why is it being cancelled at such short
notice?”

“To be honest, I don’t know.
There's some kind of public health scare going on.”

Colin threw back the bed
sheets and stood up. “You've got to be shi—I mean are you
serious?”

“
No,” Mr. Woods said
sternly. “There was an email on Friday that basically means if you
go we don’t have insurance.”

“
My Internet’s been down
all weekend and the service number has been engaged, so I’ve not
picked up any emails.”

“
I’ve been running around
all weekend trying to get us some kind of liability cover,” Mr.
Woods said.

Colin walked over to his
window, phone in hand, and pulled the curtains back a chink. The
bright light assaulted his eyes and he let the curtain fall back
into place.

“
This is nonsense. Their
parents have all signed waivers,” Colin said.

“Colin, you know that's not
enough. We need to have insurance in place. Even if nothing
happens, if the parents get wind of the fact we sent their kids
into the wilderness with inadequate cover—” The line faded beneath
a burst of static.

“
What's going to happen?”
Colin asked. “It’s a camping trip!”

Colin knew all too well
what could happen: trip on a rock, a slip with a pen knife, popping
the wrong berry in your mouth—there were a million ways a school
trip could turn sour. But he was upset at the thought of the trip
being cancelled.

The line cleared and the
principal’s voice came back loud and forceful. “If something should
happen off school premises…Well, you know how litigious people are
these days and when you consider the kids you’re taking
out.”

“
We’ve done all the risk
assessment,” Colin said. “The paperwork’s clean.”

“
We’ll be sued, Colin.
We’ll be on the news. You and I both will lose our
jobs.”

“Mr. Woods—”

“Have you got the money to pay
for a lawyer?”

“What?” Colin asked.

“
I don’t, Colin, and I’m
on the highest pay grade there is for a principal. Look, I know
you’ve been working hard on this, on the kids. You’ve done
wonderful things, Colin. You have a real passion as a teacher and
it’s refreshing to see someone who takes a real interest. Thirty
years ago, when I was in your shoes, we’d have gone—and with a lot
less aversion to risk than these days. Hell, we didn’t even have
seatbelts in the bus back then.”

Colin sighed. “Mr.
Woods...”

“
I know
you’
re disappointed, probably more so
than the kids will be.”

“
I am,” Colin said,
resigning himself to the fact.

“I’ve emailed all the parents
and guardians who have email addresses and I’ll start phoning round
them all once I’m off the call to you. But I need to ask a
favour.”

“
Uh-huh,” Colin said,
knowing Mr. Woods did not expect his request to be turned
down.

“
I’ve got my hands full
with this already. Can I ask you to go into school in case I don’t
manage to catch everybody? Apologise that the trip’s cancelled and
tell them we’ll reschedule just as soon as we can.”

“
Yeah, sure thing, Mr.
Woods,” Colin replied.

“
I’ll send you a text
with the names of the kids I get in touch with. At least then
you'll have an idea of who you’re waiting for.”

Another bout of static came
over the line.

“Makes sense,” Colin said,
scratching the back of his head. “Will Jenny be there?”

“
Miss Alvarez? I tried
calling her, but the line’s dead. There’s not much point both of
you going, anyway.”

“Suppose not,” Colin said,
disappointment in his tone.

Mr. Woods didn’t seem to pick
up on Colin’s dismay.He continued, “Well, I’d better get started on
this list of reprobates. Makes a change calling their parents for
something other than a disciplinary. I’ll speak to you later,
Colin.”

“Yeah, catch you—”

The line went dead.

“
Bit rude,” Colin said,
looking at the receiver and listening to the irritating pulse tone.
He put the phone back in its cradle and sat down on the edge of the
bed. He ran his fingers through his hair and forced out a
yawn.

Sunshine was trying hard to
push its way past the curtains, but Colin was still feeling
overwhelmed by its discouragingly bright touch. He decided to
shower first before attempting another look at the summer’s
morning.

He snatched up clean underwear
and a shirt.

“
He phoned Jenny first?”
he said aloud.

This trip for the more
difficult children had been Colin's brainchild, a way of instilling
responsibility, dependability, and a whole host of other watchwords
that looked good on the school’s audit report. He knew it would
reflect well on a young geography teacher in his first job, but the
real motivation was his chance to spend some time with Miss
Alvarez. But yet he hadn’t been the first person Principal Woods
had called.

Colin picked up the phone
again and pulled up Jenny’s number from his contacts list. He
pressed the call button and the phone beeped as it dialled the
number.

The same irritating tone pulsed
in Colin’s ear. He hit the hang up button and set the phone down
again.

Maybe he
called Jenny because she lived closer to the
school
,
he thought.

Mr. Woods calling Miss Alvarez
might not have been a slight on his reliability; it could have just
been convenience.

He picked himself up and
made his way towards the bathroom, disappointed that his chance to
spend a week with a luscious redhead had just evaporated. In the
hallway lay his already packed Bergen. His insulated hiking jacket
had slipped from its position perched on top and was crumpled on
the floor beside the two bottles of red wine.

He had planned to sneak them
into his day bag and then hide them on the bus. Then, towards the
end of the week after he and Jenny spent some time together and
once the kids were put to bed, he had planned on breaking out the
bottles.

The campfire, the starlight,
the alcohol… and then Colin would make his move.

Still, he had the week free now
and Jenny wouldn’t have any other plans.

He grabbed up a towel and threw
it and his clothes in a bundle by the shower.

I
’ll pop round to
Jenny’s on the way home. Moan about how disappointed I am that the
kids will miss out on such a character-building experience and then
ask her if she’d like to have lunch.

Colin smiled and
nodded,
congratulating himself on such a
brilliantly improvised plan.

Pleased with his new
tack, he stepped into the shower and turned it on. A blast of
ice-cold water hit him like a riot cannon. His muscles tensed and
his eyes jolted wide open. He was now very definitely
awake.

***

Tink!

Karen rolled over in bed.

Tink!

This time she opened an eye and
held her breath.

Tink!

The noise was coming from
behind the blinds. She swung her legs out of bed. Her foot landed
in something sticky and wet. She looked down to see she had
stood
on an abandoned slice of
pizza.

“Crap.”

She scraped her toes against
the lid of the pizza box.

Tink!

She hopped over to the window,
trying not to soil her carpet with her tomato- and cheese-coated
foot.

Tink!

Karen gingerly pushed the
blinds to one side to peek out of the window.

In her backyard Shan was
pulling her arm back, about to throw another stone when she spotted
her friend.

Karen tugged on the blind cord,
letting the morning sun fill her unkempt room. She opened the
window and called out in a loud whisper, “What are you doing?”

“You coming out?” Shan
asked.

Karen looked around the
empty backyards of the neighbouring houses. “What time is
it?”

Shan shrugged. “Don't
know?”

“Wait there,” Karen said.

Going back to her bed and
picking up her discarded jeans she spun the garment round until she
felt the hard lump of her phone. She retrieved it and toggled the
screen until it displayed the time.

She shook her head. Ignoring
the pizza topping stuck to her foot, she stormed back over to the
window.

“
Christ, Shan, it’s not
even seven in the morning! It’s still technically
night-time!”

She had the face of the phone
pointing to her friend as evidence, not that Shan could read it
from down in the yard.

“Sun’s up.” Shan pointed
out.

“So? We’re on holiday—there's
no school. We don’t have to get up.”

“
How’s that matter?” Shan
asked. “We would’ve just dogged it anyways. You getting out of your
nightie or what?”

“I’ve been up all friggin’
night with ambulances going up and down the whole way through.
You’d think there’d been a train wreck or something,” Karen said.
“Anyway, why didn’t you just call me rather than throwing bricks at
my window?”

“
Long story. I’ll tell
you when you get down here,” Shan replied.

“Wait there. I’ll shower and
come out.”

“Not just let me in?”

“No! They’d go ballistic if
they even knew you were here.”

“
Your folks still think
I’m a bad influence then?” Shan said, smiling.

Karen shook her head.
“I’ll be down in a minute.”

“Got any breakfast? I’m
famished.”

“
I'll see what I can
find,” Karen said, ducking back into her bedroom.

Karen found Shan propped up
against the side of the house.

“
Here,” she said,
offering up a sandwich.

“
What is it?” Shan asked,
snatching the sandwich from Karen.

“Peanut butter and banana. And
you’re welcome.”