Skylight (Arcadium, #2) (7 page)

The infected
woman rises up out of the chest like Dracula. I know that at any
second she’s going to trip over the side of the box and it’ll be my
best opportunity, so I glance around for a weapon.

I scrabble to
the bedside table and grab the chrome lamp, ripping its cord from
the wall. The infected woman growls and I just hope the other guys
don’t casually walk in. I flip the lamp over so the base is
sticking up, and sure enough the woman tries to come at me but she
falls over the side of the box. She’s quick though, must be hungry,
because she’s on her feet in an instant and I barely have time to
wind up for a hit. Her scaly hands come clawing at me but I swing
for her forehead and she goes stumbling back, her bare feet
thumping across the cream carpet.

I advance
quickly and swing again but she’s just out of reach. For a few
seconds I’m off balance. She lurches at me and there’s nothing I
can do. We go down together with a thud.

“Flo?” I hear
Liss call out from down the hallway.

I smack the
lamp frantically at the infected woman’s arms and head, pushing her
away with each hit until I can use my boot to kick her back.

The woman is
dressed in plain clothes, dusty and dirty, but she’s one of the
infected that still have all their limbs attached. Though she seems
flimsy, and probably starved from being in the chest, she’s still
scary. Her cloudy eyes roll in every direction and her brown
straggly hair is matted over bits of her face. Black and yellow
teeth snarl from behind split lips. The stench hangs in the air
like a cloud of toxic gas. She is well and truly dead.

My breathing is
rapid fire, my senses painfully alert. And then I see Liss step
into the doorway.

The infected
woman sees her too. Her priorities change: Liss is closer than I
am. The woman roars and leaps at Liss.

“No!” I scream
and jump up, racing after her. I wind up with all my might and
thump her in the head. Something cracks this time. Maybe it’s her
skull. Maybe it’s the lamp. But I keep going. I grab the back of
her shirt and swing again, another sickening crunch and she drops
to her knees.

Again and again
I hit her, blood covers the lamp and flicks about on the walls.
Liss must have run because I don’t hear her screaming.

The infected
woman’s head is caving in and she’s making awful sounds. I’m out of
breath but I don’t dare to stop.

This time I
crack her in her squished oozing head, and she drops to the floor.
For a second I feel the triumph of survival.

And then I see
Liss, silent and cowering on the floor, trembling arms raised for
protection.

And my heart
just stops.

She’s covered
in infected blood.

“TROUBLE!” I
SCREAM again and again. I don’t know if I’m calling out
for
Trouble or if I’m trying to tell everyone what’s happened. I reach
for Liss. My hand slides down her shoulder.

Trouble
appears. He glances from me to the infected body and then to Liss.
His chest expands. He picks Liss up in one swoop and runs.

I follow. I
don’t know what else to do. My hands are red. I don’t even realise
that I’m still holding the lamp until the cord gets stuck on the
staircase banister and I abandon it.

Kean and Henry
watch, stunned into wide-eyed horror. They don’t know which way to
go, whether to follow, or watch the road or attack something.

“What
happened?” Kean asks.

But I’m too
shocked to speak. I follow Trouble like I’m on autopilot, watching
Liss’ dangling feet. He forges into the back yard. Henry’s
wheelchair rattles along behind us. The boys shout up to us, but I
can’t stop.

We race to the
stream and Trouble dunks Liss’ body in up to her neck, as if she’s
on fire. The water around her bubbles red.

Liss’ eyes are
wide open, white against her red painted face. Her arms flounder,
her lungs gasp.

“Don’t move,” I
say, trying to force an
it’ll be okay
expression to my face.
“Keep your mouth closed.”

Trouble
supports Liss with one hand and tries to wash the blood from her
shoulders. I slosh out of the stream, half tripping over Trouble’s
abandoned cricket bat. I lurch into the garden shed and rip open
the door. I start flinging things around, searching for our
survival backpack.

Kean reaches
the doorway and blocks the sunlight. “Tell me what’s going on!”

I find the pack
and tip out the contents — tinned food, water, sunscreen. Nothing,
nothing, nothing.

“There’s
nothing to disinfect her!” I scream, pushing past him.

Trouble is
scrubbing with patient fury. He’s got Henry’s neon sweat headband
and it’s gone so dark it’s almost black. Henry’s sitting on the
bank, out of his chair, aching to help, but there’s nothing he can
do.

I leap over his
legs and splash into the stream. Kean is right behind me. He whips
his t-shirt over his head and forces it into my frozen hands.

I lean over
Liss and wipe the fabric over her grazed elbow until the blood
disappears.

“I’ll do this
side,” Kean says, pulling his sweatbands off.

I try to rinse
my hands of infected blood as best as I can but it clings to my
skin like a toxic dye.

Liss is staring
at me with big watery eyes. She blinks rapidly but keeps her lips
pressed together. There’s blood on her face too. Not as much as the
rest of her, but I can see flecks on her lips. My hand shakes as I
remove every speck with firm strokes. I hope the antibacterial
wipes will do the trick, and I try not to look scared for Liss’
sake. But she looks like a baby being bathed, helpless and confused
as we hold her up.

The stream
current drags away clouds of blood and we scrub until it runs
clear.

“Home,” I choke
out. “Let’s get her home.”

Kean and Henry
share a glance.

“She’s fine!” I
shout, then I soften my voice. “Liss you’re fine.”

Maybe the blood
only landed on her lips. Maybe there’s a chance she didn’t get it
in her mouth or eyes. Maybe the graze on her elbow isn’t that
deep.

I nod to
Trouble and he picks her up so gently that the very movement seems
tragic. We walk back to our house drenched, and bloodied, and
stunned. No one says a thing. Not even Liss. She hangs in Trouble’s
arms and only her eyes move. They follow me like I’m a target. I
don’t know what to do, other than to stare back at her. Don’t know
how to comfort her, how to make it better.

Henry’s the
only one of us without a speck of blood on him. Kean runs along
side him, shirtless and wielding the cricket bat, barking orders
about where to find disinfectant.

When we reach
home Kean opens the garage door with his set of keys and pushes the
roller door up. He throws the keys on the concrete floor as Trouble
jogs in with Liss and sets her down. And suddenly everything goes
to the next level of frantic.

Kean slams the
roller door. Henry rips open boxes and knocks bottles all over the
ground.

“No body move,”
Kean says. He puts both of his hands up so Trouble understands. “We
need to decontaminate everyone and Henry’s the only one clean, so
do not touch anyone or anything. Henry, what have we got?”

Henry piles
products into his lap. “Tea tree oil… Detol… baby wipes. I don’t
know what else.”

“That’s a
start. Find gloves, Henry. Then anything fabric.” Kean strips off
to his underwear. He kicks his tennis shorts and shoes toward the
roller door. “Every inch of skin needs to be de-germed. Start with
me, then we’ll do Trouble and Flo.”

Henry rolls
over with yellow dishwashing gloves and Kean kneels down.

“Florence.”
Kean slides a bottle across the concrete. “Use the Detol on Liss
for now.”

I catch the
bottle mid-slide and start to read the label. It takes me a few
seconds to realise I don’t have the time. But still, I don’t want
to burn Liss’ skin off… if that’s even possible.

I douse her in
the translucent brown liquid, focusing on her limbs and lips. I
know you’re supposed to water it down but there’s no time.

“Faster,
Henry!” Kean urges. Henry concentrating too hard to reply.

“Have we got
any alcohol?” Kean asks as Henry cleans smudges of red off his
torso.

I shake my head
and I take off Liss’ bloodied school shoes. “I don’t know.”

There’s just a
whole lot of scrubbing noises, and quick breathing and some kind of
sobbing that I think is probably coming from me. Liss is as still
as a doll. Maybe we’ll decontaminate her and she’ll be fine. I saw
the blood on her grazed arm and on her lips but maybe it’s alright.
Maybe we beat it.

“Done.” Henry
throws the dirty towel onto the contaminated clothes pile.

“Me next,” I
say. “I want to clean Liss properly.”

I strip to my
underwear and don’t even care. Kean focuses on my front half and
Henry the back. I stand face to face with Kean. We’re both barefoot
on the concrete and almost naked. And he looks at me with the
deepest sadness, the most overwhelming pity.

“She’s clear,”
Kean says. “I’ll get supplies inside.” He races into the house as
Henry starts on Trouble and I grab a pair of gloves, more
antibacterial wipes and return to Liss. She’s fully conscious, but
lying limp, like she’s given up. She’s the calmest one in the
room.

“There,” I say,
clearing her face. “You can talk now. You alright?” I smile. “You
gave me a scare there.”

“I couldn’t get
out of the way,” she says in the softest voice that almost breaks
my heart.

“It doesn’t
matter. It’s going to be just fine anyway.”

She looks at me
but doesn’t say anything. I can tell she doesn’t believe me.

“I mean, it
didn’t bite us, did it?” I stretch out her arm.

“No.”

“Then we’re
fine.”

Liss stares at
me. Her eyes say it all,
I’m not stupid
.

“Clean clothes,
mouthwash and vodka,” Kean calls as he runs in, dressed in new
shorts and an unbuttoned shirt. “You change,” he says to me. “I’ll
get her to gargle the mouthwash.

It’s all very
methodical. You do this while I do that. We work together like
cogs, pushing each other along. I discard my dishwashing gloves on
the contaminated pile. In seconds I’m in leggings and a baggy
t-shirt and a new pair of gloves. I splash Vodka on a tea towel and
press it straight onto Liss’ elbow. “Sorry, sorry, sorry,” I say as
she tries to squirm away from the sting.

When Trouble is
clean and we’ve gone over Liss at least five times and her skin is
red raw from scrubbing and when we can’t think of anything else to
do, we all get another set of clean clothes each, just to be on the
safe side, and head inside the house.

I set Liss up
in the downstairs bedroom that we never use. It’s got a single bed
with a red coloured frame and a cover of blue kiddy sailboats and
ocean waves. So not Liss’ style.

“How do you
feel?” I ask, sitting beside her. I stroke her pale wet hair.

Liss looks
around the room and then shrugs. “I’m thirsty.”

“Kean, Liss
needs water.”

I hear the
others shuffling around in the kitchen, and smile down at Liss
again. I smooth her hair, over and over in one patch. It’s too hot
for her to be under the covers so she’s just lying on top of
them.

“Just try and
relax.” I nod. “Sleep will help. It’s been a crazy afternoon and
you’ll need some time to recover.”

Kean brings
Liss a glass of water and me a mug of tea. He lingers in the
doorway and I can tell by the guilt in his eyes that he wants to
talk. He wants to ask those questions, the ones I can’t answer.
What happens now? Is she infected? What do we do when she
turns?

I don’t have
answers, but I still have my sister, so I focus on her and ignore
Kean.

My tea goes
cold on the bedside table. Kean disappears into the living room and
I sit there, hoping like all hell that Liss isn’t infected. Like
maybe the cut wasn’t deep enough, or the infected blood was too
starved and weak to transfer, or that Liss is somehow magically
immune to the disease and her blood carries the key to a
life-saving cure.

“I’m cold,”
Liss says.

A few minutes
later she starts shivering uncontrollably. Her lips turn blue, her
forehead like ice.

“Guys?” I call
out desperately.

Kean rushes in
first. Henry and Trouble stand back against the bedroom wall and
watch with solemn expressions.

“Her skin is so
cold.” My voice sounds hollow. “Liss, can you hear me?”

Her eyes must
have closed at some point between me looking up and calling for the
others. She doesn’t respond.

“Hold on, Liss,
please.” I touch my sweaty forehead. “This can’t be happening. Oh
God, this can’t happen.”

I’ve never seen
anyone catch the infection, only the end product, so maybe she’s
just in shock, that’s all, and she’ll wake up tomorrow and be just
fine.

But from the
expressions of the others I can tell that’s not what they’re
thinking.

My eyes glass
over. I turn to Kean. “What do I do?”

His mouth half
opens but no words come out.

“Flo?” Liss’
voice is so tiny, like she’s calling out from far away.

I touch Liss’
forehead and lean in closer. “Liss?”

“What happens
when you die?” she says.

My eyes were
glassy before, but now tears are just pouring out, and I keep the
noise of crying inside, so that Liss doesn’t realise.

She’s not
shivering anymore.

“It’s like…
it’s like when you’re playing a game and you go out and have to sit
on the sidelines with the other people that went out.” I pause and
wipe my cheeks but they’ll never be dry again. “And you get to
watch the people still playing, until everyone’s out. And then you
get to play another game.”