Fear the Dead 2 (6 page)

6

Seats emptied and the theatre
cleared, leaving behind the old oak roofing, torn chairs and a vast silence
that echoed the slightest movement. Moe walked toward the exit behind the
stage, his coat folded over his arm. Now that the people had gone, his posture
sagged. The old man had kept it together for a short while, but now his age
weighed down on him.

“Give me a minute,” I said.

He turned. The smirk of victory left
his face and he sighed.

“It’s over, Kyle.”

My steps thudded on the bouncy
treads, the decades-old wood creaking under me. I stopped just short of him.

I had lost the debate. Moe’s
reasoning and his popularity had won out, and it seemed that most of the people
were going to leave with him. The old man had played it smart; I thought he was
going to use the ‘no alcohol, no fun’ card, but instead he’d brought up the
wave of infected. He’d made them terrified of it.

I was never going to win them back
with words, because persuasion wasn’t my strong point. So what was?

Survival. Since the outbreak fifteen
years ago I’d seasoned myself to the horrors that waited in the Wilds. This is
what I would use.

My chest loosened. “I’m going to go
find it,” I said. “I’ll prove that this ‘wave’ is just bullshit.”

Moe put his hand to his chin. “Do you
really believe that?”

I nodded. “There’s no way five
hundred thousand of them would join together. They act on instinct, some sort
of primal shit that I can’t work out. But they don’t decide to join together.”

“Take a look outside once in a while,
Kyle. Nobody out there made a conscious decision to live together in Vasey;
they just drifted here one by one. Maybe the infected aren’t much different.”

“If you think we’re the same as them,
you’ve obviously never had one try to kill you,” I said.

He looked at the floor, gathered his
words. “At any rate, I’m going with whoever wants to come with me. I imagine it
will be a lot of them.”

I wasn’t going to let him do this.
We’d worked too hard, sacrificed too much. Vasey had to work because if I
didn’t, then I couldn’t see a way forward.

“I’m going to Manchester. I’ll prove
that the wave doesn’t exist, and then I’m going to come back and rebuild this
fucking town.”

A door burst open at the back of the
theatre. Justin rushed down the hall, past the rows of empty seats. His face
was red. He stopped at the stage, bent over. He took deep breaths.

He looked up at us. “I missed it?” he
said.

Anger flashed though me. “What the
hell do you think?”

“I’m sorry Kyle.”

Moe turned. “If you two can excuse
me, I’m going. You’re serious about going to Manchester?”

I nodded. The thought of going back into
the Wilds turned my stomach to water, but I knew I had to do it.

“You’re doing what?” said Justin.

I ignored him. I couldn’t even look
at him right now.

Moe scratched his chin. “If you’re
really doing this, then I’m sending Dan and Faizel with you.”

Dan and Faizel were his scouts, his
most loyal men. Why would he want them to come along?

As if reading my thoughts, he
replied. “I don’t trust you, Kyle. You got this dream of Vasey, and I know you
don’t want to give it up. The bug’s bit you so bad that even if you went there
and saw the wave, I think you’d still come back and say you didn’t.”

I gritted my teeth. On top of
everything he was calling me a liar. I was going to risk my life just for the
good of the town, and this old man didn’t trust me.

“No chance,” I said.

“No arguments, Kyle. They’re going
with you. If you come back with them and they tell me the wave doesn’t exist,
then maybe I’ll listen.”

Justin shifted. “I’ll come too,
Kyle.”

***

The next morning I packed. I’d spent
plenty of time in the Wilds in the past, underprepared and low on food, and I
wasn’t taking that chance again. I looked at the supplies laid out in front of
me.

My knife

Four gas lighters

Food to last two weeks

Water

A sleeping bag

Flares

20 metres of rope

Nothing I packed would ever be
enough, because you never knew what you were going to run into out there, but
this was the best I could do. I’d been out in the Wilds for a lot longer with a
lot less plenty of times before now.

By the time I got to the town square
it was lunch time. It was an overcast day, and the sky wanted to send us off in
a torrent of rain. A chill ran through the air, as if trying to drive me back
indoors. I was glad I’d put on an extra layer.

Dan waited in the square. He sat on a
small bag, the kind you’d take for a weekend city break. His hair stuck of in
tufts, and his red cheeks puffed out. When I got closer, I picked up the sour
smell of alcohol. Mean-looking bags sagged underneath his eyes.

“You stink of booze,” I said.

“Had a few drinks last night to
celebrate our grand voyage,” he said, sarcasm undercutting his words.

“And a few this morning too?”

“Never leave the gate with a clear
head,” he said. “Because anyone thinking straight would turn around.”

I dropped my bag to the floor, glad
to lose the weight. “You seen Justin?”

He shook his head. “Nope. Why’s the
kid coming with us anyway?”

“No offence, Dan, but I trust him a
hell of a lot more than you.”

“Yeah, I heard you two were best
friends. You’re an idiot, taking him with us. Kid’s a liability.”

Maybe he was a liability once, but
he’d changed. Ever since we’d spent time on the road together, Justin had
toughened up. He knew how to handle himself in the Wilds.

“What about Faizel?” I asked. I
hadn’t expected him to be late.

Dan shrugged his shoulders.

Two figures approached the edge of
the square. One was Justin, the other was a girl. I recognised her face. Mary?
Maxine? Something like that. She linked her arm through Justin’s, and the two
of them walked so closely together it looked like you’d need a crowbar to prise
them apart.

“Sorry I’m late,” said Justin.

His face was unshaven, but his hair
was combed back as much as his mop would allow. He wore army cargo pants that
were too long in the leg. His coat was thick and waterproof, but it seemed like
it was going to drown him. He had a rucksack on his back that was so heavy it
looked like it would tip him over.

“This is Melissa,” he said.

She grabbed his hand, linked it
tightly with hers. When she looked at me, her eyes flinched with scorn.

“Why does Justin have to come with
you?” she said.

It all fell into place. Slacking in
his duties, asking me if he could clock off early. Turning up late to the
meeting. He’d gotten himself a girlfriend, and like all teenage boys who got
laid for the first time, she had become the most important thing in his life.
Despite how much the world had changed over the last sixteen years, some things
stayed the same. A pretty girl still had the power to reduce a man to a buttery
mess.

“I don’t have time to deal with
this,” I said. “Dan, stay here and watch our stuff.”

***

I stood at Faizel’s door and knocked.
His living room window was open, and I heard a boy crying. The door opened, and
Faizel gave me a nod.

“Kyle, come in.”

His house was spotless. The carpet
was clean and a flowery smell lingered in the air. Paintings lined the walls of
his living room, some of them with their price tags on. One of them, a wooden
boat swimming against a raging sea and with a captain stood on the stern
holding a wheel, was worth ten thousand pounds.

Faizel saw me looking. “I got them
from the art gallery in town. Nobody wanted them, and the owner is dead. It
seemed a shame to let something so beautiful collect dust.”

He led me into the living room. His
little boy was sat on the sofa, tears pooling from the corners of his wide
eyes. His face was red, and he clutched a cloth rabbit in his hand.

“Just getting the last of my things,”
said Faizel.

He pulled a key out of his pocket and
opened a wooden cabinet that was pushed against the wall. He pulled out a fire
axe. The handle was wooden and had dozens of little notches carved into it. The
blade was clean, but it had been dulled through use. Faizel slipped it into a loop
on his belt.

He bent down toward his son and took
his hand. “You be good and look after your mother. You’re the big man now, and
you can’t cry. Okay?”

The boy sniffed.

“I need to talk to Sana,” said
Faizel. He walked out of the living room and toward the hallway to find his
wife.

The boy’s eyes were puffy and his
nose was raw from crying. I wanted to say something to comfort him, but the
words wouldn’t come. Instead, I walked to the window, brushed back the curtains
and looked out onto the town. Rain rolled over slate roofs and collected into
the gutters.

“Is daddy coming back?” said the boy.

The boy’s eyes stared expectantly.
There was a time when we lied to children and protected their innocence against
the horrors of the world until they were old enough to handle them. But that
was before the infected destroyed everything. Now, children couldn’t afford the
luxury of innocence. 

“I don’t know,” I said.

A door slammed out in the hall, and
Faizel marched back into the living room. His face sagged a little, the corners
of his mouth turning ever so slightly down. It was the closest thing to emotion
I’d ever seen him show.

“Everything okay?” I said.

“Sana isn’t talking to me.”

He bent down and put his arm around his
boy. The boy held his father and squeezed, as if he were trying to hold him
back and keep him from going away.

I felt a pang in my chest. This was
because of me. It was my fault that Faizel was leaving his family behind and
going out into the Wilds. If he didn’t come back, the guilt would be mine.

Faizel gently pushed his son away. He
picked up his bag, swung it across his shoulder and then gave his fire axe a
tap.

“Ready?” he said.

I gulped. “Look, Faizel, I can’t ask
you to do this.”

Drips formed around the boy’s eyes
again.

Faizel looked me square in the face.
“I believe in what you’re doing Kyle. Sometimes a man has to do something
unpleasant if it’s the only way forward.”

***

We left Vasey without any fanfare.
Nobody said goodbye to us save Melissa, who held onto Justin’s arm until we
reached the gate. The guard on the turret pressed a button and the pulley
system activated.

As the chains rolled and the black
bars opened, Justin gave Melissa a long kiss. When they broke, he put his hand
on her cheek.