Skylight (Arcadium, #2) (10 page)

The road starts
to flatten out and expand sideways. It stretches into the distance,
fairly free and clear. The landscape hasn’t changed much since we
passed through it on the run from Arcadium. Vehicles lie across the
road with doors and boots open, sometimes on their sides or upside
down, sometimes puncturing another car or with random belongings
spilling onto the bitumen. All that stupid luggage people were
trying to escape with now seems totally meaningless.

I catch Jacob
assessing Trouble in the rearview mirror. Trouble doesn’t seem to
notice, or at least he doesn’t make it obvious. Then Jacob looks
across at me. His eyes are sharp. I feel like he’s trying to read
my mind, so I try to think about nothing.

But when I try
to think about nothing I always end up thinking of Liss.

“Did you bring
weapons?” Jacob asks.

“I have a knife
in my bag,” I say. I know Trouble left his cricket bat for Kean…
and the golf clubs and the crowbar. They couldn’t possibly use all
of them, but he still won’t deprive them of anything. I don’t know
what he’s got in his bag. It could go either way. I don’t think
Trouble was carrying a weapon when we first met, but things change.
It’s different when you have to look after other people.

Jacob reaches
over and pops the glove box. Inside is a black hand gun.

“It’s yours,”
he says.

I stare at it
like it’s a live rattlesnake. It stares back at me, lethal and
cunning.

I snap the
glove box shut. “Yeah, I’m not going to use that. I mean, where do
you even get guns from?”

“That’s a
police issued Smith and Wesson M&P.”

“Oh.” I try not
to think of the dead body it once belonged to.

The road widens
and the dead traffic builds. Jacob has to slow to weave through a
puzzle of mess. I don’t see the same gaps he does, the same spaces
as he does. It’s still programmed into to me that driving on the
footpath is highly illegal, but Jacob doesn’t have that problem.
Hundreds of thousands of people didn’t have the kindness to park
their cars before doing whatever it is they’re doing now, but never
mind.

“How do you
know this place is still running?” I ask. “What if they’re
overrun?”

“Because I
contacted them in Arcadium.”

My eyes narrow
instantly. It’s like there’s nothing he can’t do. “Are you
serious?”

“Sure.” He
considers explaining, and in the end he can’t help himself. “I
simply pretended that I was a bored Arcadium guard wanting to chat
on the radio. They informed me they’re very much still alive and
thriving.”

“But Arcadium
had no guards.”

“I know that.
You know that. But they don’t know any better. It’s the human
condition to assume everything is the same, until you see that it’s
different.”

Jacob slows to
navigate a narrow gap between two car pile-ups, then accelerates
freely into the next portion of clear road. He clears his throat
and shifts in his seat, but says nothing. Maybe he frowns a bit.
Who knows what’s going on in his head?

I wiggle my
fingers and give them a stretch. Before us, a few abandoned cars
lay stricken on the side of the road. Houses with red and sand
coloured brick fences line the four-lane road. A plastic bag
flutters across the bitumen, followed by a few torn pieces of an
old newspaper.

Jacob coughs
loudly and I look across. His eyes boggle, his mouth opens in
surprise. Then he collapses against his seatbelt, out cold. His
hands slide off the steering wheel and fall at his sides but his
foot is hard down on the accelerator. The engine revs hard as our
vehicle careens to the left. My panicking hands grab the steering
wheel and try to right us. We narrowly miss a parked car, but
sideswipe the next. The impact sends us shooting up over the curb
and towards a brick fence.

And BANG, white
clouds of airbags explode in our faces. I paw them away as the bags
deflate. Jacob is curled forward, limp in his seatbelt. As the
airbags die down I see the extent of the damage. The windshield has
been shattered by a flying object. I turn and see a brick lying in
the backseat. Trouble gives me a thumbs up, breathing hard. He
tries to unbuckle his seatbelt but it won’t budge. He fight’s
against it, but it won’t extend anymore. He pulls against the belt,
struggling to reach his bag that’s been thrown behind Jacob’s seat.
I grab it for him, and yank it out until it’s close enough for him
to touch.

And when I turn
back an infected man is leering at me through the windshield. His
livid eyes, cracked liked runny eggs, eject tears of clotted blood.
His bald head is oversized, his shoulders broad and carved; he’s at
least twice my size. He draws a breath and expels it in a painful,
strangling roar. The infected man rips away at the hole in the
windshield, pulling chunks of glass off, cutting into his own dead
skin.

For a moment
I’m paralysed, belted into my seat while this gruesome thing tries
to claw his way in. But when the man reaches his red hand in and
grabs Jacob by the throat, something engages in me. A spark, a
connection, a shock.

Jacob’s head
lolls to one side as I fumble through the bag at my feet. The
infected man smears bloody fingerprints across Jacob’s cheek,
through his stubble. I find the knife handle and in the small
space, wrench it up.

In the backseat
Trouble tries to reach us, tries to help. His belt stops him.

I plunge the
knife into the infected man’s arm, right through the tea towel it’s
wrapped in. He doesn’t even react; eyes locked on Jacob, jaw
snapping. His elbow knocks the hole wide open and his head ducks
in. He comes chin to chin with Jacob’s unconscious face, spreading
his toxic breath.

I scrabble with
the man and lose the knife. It sticks straight up from his bleeding
arm. I don’t know what to do, where to go. I unbuckle my belt and
start pounding the infected man with my fists. His teeth graze
Jacob’s nose, and in that moment two things happen.

First, Trouble
kicks at the seat back release and Jacob’s seat snaps back. The
infected man falls forward, his whole body sliding through the
glass, and he kicks out, connecting with the glove box. It pops
open and there it is, sitting patiently, waiting for its turn. The
gun.

Trouble rips
the knife from the infected man’s arm and thrusts his palm into his
forehead, keeping a mere centimetre between Jacob and death.
Trouble winds back with the knife but never makes the blow—two pale
hands grab his arm. Teeth follow. He jerks back, narrowly missing
the bite but the hands still grip him. A second infected man
attempts to enter through the shattered rear passenger window.

And there I am,
with the gun in my hands.

The infected
men squeal and howl in the frenzy. More are coming. They lumber
along the road toward us. At least five more.

I don’t know
how many bullets I have.

I touch the
black barrel to the temple of Jacob’s attacker and the infected
head swivels around, his teeth clamping down on the gun. I close my
eyes and fire.

Click, click,
click.

The sounds are
empty.

No heads
explode. I shake the gun, like that might help. The infected man
curves around, pressing me back into my seat. He’s heavy.

The gun is
under his chin. His breath invades my soul. From the backseat
Trouble manages to punch him in the head. He reels back, not in
pain, maybe in surprise.

A hot hand
grabs mine.

“Safety’s on,”
a deep dry voice says.

My eyes squeeze
shut as Jacob yanks my finger back on the trigger. A bullet
explodes from the chamber, gouging a bloody path through the
infected man’s head, piercing the metal roof and shearing into the
sunlight. Blood sprays across the inside of the windshield. My ears
ring. Jacob calmly slides the gun from my fingers and extends his
arm. BOOM. He takes out Trouble’s attacker with one shot straight
through the eye. Then he points it out the broken windshield. Still
lying down, and with the infected man’s head resting on his chest,
he lets off five shots, one pop for each of the approaching
infected. The bodies drop.

The car goes
silent.

My breaths are
short and sharp.

Trouble pulls a
Swiss Army Knife from his bag and cuts himself free.

Jacob looks at
me. The question he won’t ask radiates from his eyes.

What the heck
happened?

He shoves the
body onto the centre console and kicks the door open. Trouble
evacuates too and helps me out. I drag my bag with me and, as the
others assess the aftermath, I open my antiseptic wipes and clean
the specks of blood off my face.

We stand in
someone’s torn up front yard, surrounded by bricks and dust and
dirt. The four-wheel drive plunged deep into a garage roller door
but didn’t break through.

Trouble tries
to start our car but gives up and starts searching for another
vehicle. Jacob has his gun drawn, covering the highway.

The day is
warm. A breeze trundles the heat down the highway. Cicadas hum. I
peer into the distance.

“They would
have heard that,” I say.

Jacob doesn’t
look at me. He clears his throat, wipes his forehead with the back
of his gun holding hand. “They’ll be coming.”

“You passed
out,” I say.

Trouble tries
to start some nearby cars with no luck. Maybe me and Jacob aren’t
really helping, but there’s something off about him.

“Did I?”
There’s a long silence. “I must have been tired.”

I look back at
him. “You didn’t fall asleep. You passed out. And you almost died.
Why?”

“I am many
things, but I am not a doctor.”

“Did you get
bitten?” I know he didn’t, because I was three centimetres from the
action that whole time, but I don’t know what else to say.

Jacob turns and
gives me a slow smile. “No. Thank you. Though we do have to have a
talk about what happened with the gun.”

“Do we?”

Trouble
scratches his chin and stands straight, looking for another
suitable vehicle.

“You don’t know
how to use one.”

“No and I don’t
want to.”

“Don’t be
naive.”

“I’ll shoot
someone, or worse, myself. This isn’t the movies and apparently
it’s not as easy as they make it out to be.”

I frown and
look away. Jacob seems steady and focused again, like the cool
operating system he always is.

The cicadas
suddenly go quiet. Jacob moves suddenly.

“Trouble,” he
calls.

Trouble looks
up and follows our gaze.

A spread out
horde of infected amble toward us. They flow around debris, all
marching in the same direction like they’ve one collective
brain.

“Run,” Jacob
says.

But I’m already
running, heading back up the road, the way we just came. My eyes
scout for someplace safe to take shelter. Trouble surveys the cars
as we slip by them. Jacob slows suddenly. He stops and stares
ahead, ignoring the approaching horde behind him.

“Well, I’ll be
damned…” he says.

I can’t see
anything, but a low hum is approaching.

Then I see it.
A white city-type four-wheel drive zooms toward us.

I don’t stop
running. It could be anyone. If it were me driving, I’d have turned
around by now. My boots pound the bitumen. I spot a house with a
high wrought iron fence and angle toward it. I point it out to
Trouble and he changes direction.

A dead head
pops up behind an abandoned car and fixes its cloudy eyes on us. It
rasps a breath then lets out a scorching dry scream. The tall woman
lumbers out, cutting between us. So I stop and jog backwards,
drawing her away from Trouble.

The white
vehicle is still coming, forging a path down the centre of the
road. I glance back. Jacob is standing there, gun hanging relaxed
in his hand, with a backdrop of horror bearing down on him. A party
of infected pour out of a side street, attracted by the noise and
commotion. They blend in with the other pale, lurching figures,
collectively snapping their jaws and clawing their hands in thin
air. They band together like a roaring crowd, thirty metres from
Jacob and closing.

Trouble grabs a
loose brick from a wobbly fence and comes to help me, but he’s
sidetracked as an infected man sways out of a driveway and targets
him.

I draw the
woman closer. Her beard of blood is dried and almost black under
the hot sun. I jog back a few more steps and stop. She reaches me
quickly, but so does the white four-wheel drive. It hits her hard.
She pops up over the bonnet, flings off the roof and rolls across
the road for a good twenty metres.

The white
vehicle screeches to a stop, tyres smoking, long rubber marks dress
the road in its wake. The reversing lights flash on and it backs
toward me. The door flings open.

“Get in!” Kean
yells.

I pause for a
brief second of disbelief then wave Trouble over. He drops his
bloodied brick and runs to us, diving in the back seat.

I climb in the
front and stare at Kean as I catch my breath.

“Henry?” I
ask.

Kean puts on a
brave smile and nods a hello at Trouble. “He’s having a holiday
from me. His choice.”

Jacob walks
slowly toward us, amusement pulling at his features. The infected
follow him like a suffocating smoke.

Kean assesses
our options. “I’ll reverse behind that dead car and we’ll have to
wait it out.” He drums his fingers on the wheel. “If Jacob ever
decides to join us.”

It’s the only
choice we’ve got. If we try to drive through them we risk damaging
the car, but if we sit still, eventually they’ll get bored and
forget about us, just like they did with Liss and me in the wheely
bins.

Jacob strolls
to us and slips in the back seat as infected bear down on us; all
slapping feet and gurgling growls and things getting knocked over
in their wake. My heartbeat kicks up a notch and thumps in my ears
like it thinks I’m not aware I’m supposed to be scared right
now.