TILL DEATH

Episode Five

DAY 16

I'm stood on the driveway. I have been stood here for some time, with the house behind me, the car before me, and the bunch of keys in my hand. Today I intend to take the car to Charlie's store, get what I need to reinforce the fences, then get back and do just that, but somewhere between locking the door and approaching the car, I stalled. It was the sound of the gravel, I think. The way it crunched beneath my feet. Or maybe it was the jingle of the car keys in my hand. No, it was the combination of the two. The two sounds together remind me of a moment from my past. I see it all again. Me, striding out across this gravel, these same keys in my hand, getting in that car there and starting its engine with a quick twist of my wrist, then reversing out of that parking space with no thought for what was behind me, or for what future lay before me. I didn't notice his trike abandoned to my right, didn't consider the location of his soft little body. But I'd know soon enough. "Daddy!" Thud. Crunch. Now I'm frozen with anxiety. I know what I need to do, but I'm stuck in time. To survive I know I need to get in that car, the same car I... I killed my son with, and I need to drive out of here, but I'm afraid. I'm afraid to go, and I'm afraid to stay. I'm afraid all the damn time. Fear turns to anger. It always does. First I'm angry at myself, then I'm angry at her, then finally, I'm angry at Nathan. He knew better than to go near the back of the car. I had taught him better than that. "I taught him better!" I stamp my foot down as the words leave me and the gravel spits. I'm surprised by the sound of my own voice. How long have I been talking to myself? No matter, the surprise and anger get me moving and then I am at the car. Beep. Click. Clunk. I am in. The ignition fires, the tyres spin, and I'm away. At first, the vehicle feels alien and unwieldy but once I am beyond the gate muscle memory kicks in and driving feels easy and familiar once more. Before I know it I am hurtling down country lanes, skidding into the corners and stamping the pedals like the last three years never happened. It's a thrill, and I realise how much I have missed all this. The sound of tyres pulling on tarmac under a wide, blue sky. The sound of freedom. So many of my best memories start with a car journey. The taxi to a show. An airport transfer. The two of us escaping the city, cruising into the country in the butterfly summertime, the windows down, a song playing. Music. How I've missed it. The radio. My hand flicks the switch and the speakers come alive, but no music plays. Instead, a siren, and a warning.

...APPEAR SLOW AND WEAK, BUT THEY FORM GROUPS AND TOGETHER THEY CAN EASILY OVERPOWER THE HEALTHY. IF YOU ARE ATTACKED AND ARE UNABLE TO ESCAPE THEN ATTEMPT TO DESTROY THE HEAD. DESTROYING THE HEAD WILL ELIMINATE THE THREAT. I REPEAT, DESTROYING THE HEAD WILL ELIMINATE THE THREAT.

REMAIN INDOORS.

CONSERVE FOOD, WATER, AND ENERGY.

STAY TUNED FOR FURTHER ANNOUNCEMENTS.

MAY GOD HELP US ALL.

***

THIS IS AN EMERGENCY PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT.

THE ZETA VIRUS HAS REACHED PANDEMIC STATUS. THE PUBLIC ARE ADVISED TO REMAIN INDOORS. DO NOT APPROACH THE INFECTED. THEIR ONLY DESIRE IS TO KILL AND EAT YOU. DO NOT TRY TO REASON WITH THEM. IT IS IMPOSSIBLE. IF SOMEONE CLOSE TO YOU BECOMES INFECTED YOU MUST CONTAIN THEM. DO NOT EXPEL THEM FROM THE HOME. IF YOU HAVE SPACE SECURE ONE ROOM FOR THE PURPOSE OF CONTAINING YOUR INFECTED. DO NOT ENTER THIS ROOM. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO FIGHT THE INFECTED. THEY MAY...

The message loops again, a pre-recorded cycle. I listen to it two more times, then turn it off. The freedom I felt is short lived and uneasiness returns as I arrive at Charlie's farm store.

Everything here has changed. The building that stands before me is an uninspired construction of metal and breeze block. It is not the building that stood here when I last visited. Back then it was just a draughty barn sitting squat on the outskirts of town, repurposed to sell bread and milk and chicken feed to the local farming community. The old building was webbed and dusty and creaked in the wind, but at least it had charm. The building that stands before me is sturdy, but has none. Why didn't she tell me it had changed? There's no time to consider this peculiar omission. I must get what I came for. I knew the layout of the old store well, but I know nothing of this new one so I will have to search to find what I need. I reverse the car up to the entrance, kill the engine, then step out onto the new tarmac and listen. Nothing. Not even birdsong. The glass door to the store senses me and slides to one side, inviting me in. The deserted shop feels eery and makes real what I realise I have been considering in the abstract. The end of the world. This is what it looks like. It looks like an empty shop in the middle of the day, the lights all on, blazing bright for absent eyes, lurid and lonely like some abandoned film set. I wonder how much longer the power will last. Another thing I hadn't considered. The bulbs overhead hum and I itch inside as I wander the aisles. Detergents. Tools. Reins and harnesses. Oversized tins of coffee. I'm transfixed by colours and words. "BUY TWO GET ONE FREE!" a star shouts. "Whites that are whiter than white!" promises another. I need all of this. All of it. Focus, man. Timber and chicken wire. That's what you're here for. Once that stuff's in the trunk you can take anything else you like. Just get what you came for first. I wander further past cans and hammers and knives toward the back of the store. Another automatic door leads to an outside yard. Maybe the building supplies are out there. The door slides silently aside and cool fresh air breathes past me as I step through it. Yes. Here they are. Between the aluminium troughs and chicken hutches, I find everything I need. Hundreds of posts neatly stacked, rolls of wire beyond them. More than I will need to build my fence. Good. Good. I breathe a little easier. Now I just need to get the stuff to the car and then away we go. A trolley will help get that done sooner, so I cast around looking for one. I go to the edge of the yard. The yard is protected from the sun and the rain by a tin roof and is surrounded by a rugged and rigid wire fence that's almost as tall as the building itself. I spot a trolley abandoned at the bottom left corner of the yard. I start toward it, then stop. On the other side of the sturdy fence is a figure. A man. He's about twenty metres away, just beyond two galvanised skips, black bags and a stored bicycle, and he's heading in my direction. The life that he emanates is all wrong. I know he's one of them. I know I ought to run, ought to hide. I ought to grab a mallet or a plank to defend myself with, but I don't. I don't move. I stay stuck firmly to the spot, watching him, transfixed. He's an inelegant creature, falling and crashing into the skips and refuse, getting caught in the black plastic that hangs out of them and spilling their rotten contents onto the concrete floor. The leaning bike falls and he steps into the chain then falls on his face. He might be pitiful, comedic even, but every time he falls, he gets back on his feet. He's dogged. Determined. Now that he's nearer I can see that he must be in his mid-forties. His hair, the side that isn't darkened with dry blood, is speckled grey and cut short. He's wearing chinos and a checked shirt. His belt and watch look expensive. Then I realise who he is. He's Charlie. The three years since I saw him last have peppered his hair and lined his skin, and of course, he's dead now. Well, pretty much. But it's him. I'm sure of it. This place was his. His business. His livelihood. Now he's at the fence. A less well made fence would rattle and shake, but his holds firm. He looks straight at me. I can sense his desperation. He presses his wanting body hard against the fence, his pallid skin going purple in instant bruises, his thick fingers wedging between the wire in a way that splits his dry, grey skin. He rubs his jaw against the fence in an eating motion and I hear his teeth drag against the hard wire while something thick and viscous dribbles from his chin. I should leave, I know I should, but I don't. I do the opposite. I go toward him. No harm in understanding these things is there? Surely it can only help me better prepare? From a few feet away I can see his eyes more clearly. Something in them draws me in. Something more than just animal... Then I catch sight of his throat. Behind his red stained collar there ought to be an Adam's apple covered in cologne-stained skin, skin speckled and raised by a lifetime of dragged blades and duty. But there is no skin, and there is no Adam's apple. There is no windpipe at all in fact, only exposed sinew, torn cartilage and two notches of an ivory spine. It's a wound that tells a tale of the violence that caused it. It's only too easy for me to picture the scene and the image is enough to revolt me. I stagger back and awaken to my situation. I must do what I came here to do, that much is more certain than ever. I grab the trolley and drag it away with me, back to where the timber and wire are stored. I jerk to a stop, pile the square wooden posts onto the trolley until they sway in a stack, then I heave the trolley back toward the car as quickly as I am able. As I begin moving so does the monster on the other side of the fence. He's slow, but he's sliding along the fence in the same direction as me. I shuttle through the store as fast as I can, wheels squeaking against their bearings. As soon as he is out of my sight I am unnerved. At the entrance I quickly glance side to side to see if the coast is clear. It is, so I throw the timber posts into the back of the car, two by two. The wood is good and heavy and I break sweat quickly, but all the time I can feel his presence behind me like a cobweb at my neck. I glance back at the building. Nothing. I keep going. Eight, ten, twelve. I glance back again. Nothing. Fourteen, sixteen. A noise. I look back. Nothing. No, something. A shadow. A foot drops around the edge of the building, then the body of him follows. I throw the last two pieces of timber in the car and back away from him, hands out in a gesture that mirrors his own. What's my next move? I need more stuff, but I can't go back inside. Not with him here. The sliding doors don't lock, and if he follows me in that way he'll be blocking my exit. Maybe I could fight him, but I don't want to risk it. No, I need to get him away from the entrance, then stop him from following me. A loose plan forms. I circle away from him, keeping my eyes on his, then lead him back down the side of the building, back to where he came from, back to where we first met. "Come on Charlie. Come with me." I say, teasing him along like a stray dog I must coax from a playground. He moans and reaches out for me. I must stay close, but not too close. I must stay out of reach of those hands and those teeth. He bites and salivates, feet falling on the tarmac, slow but steady. I am close enough to feel both his presence and his strange absence. I bristle and sweat, but I hold my nerve and tempt him further with my warm meat. We pass the last of the three corners of the building, edging and teasing until finally we are back by the wire fence where I first caught his eye. This is the furthest point from the entrance to the store, and now that I've got him where I want him, I must run. I sprint toward him then dart past like a footballer weaving around his opponent. He lunges for me but I dodge his grip and move away faster still. I skid round two fenced corners then down the side of the breeze block building, round the last corner to the front of the store, then in through the sliding door. I drop my pace only enough to grab a bike lock from a shelf, then pick it up, dashing out into the yard. He has made his way round one corner of the yard fence and is already looking in my direction when I stagger to a stop, panting and damp. Did he know I would come out of this door? Does he sense my presence without sight or sound of me. Surely not. Surely not. Still, there's no time to ponder the behaviour of this animal. There is work still to be done. With my breath shallow in my chest, I walk toward him. Close now. "You want me." I tell him. "You want to eat me, don't you?" I goad. It's more fun than it ought to be. I need him to move to the right a little. There's a pallet of bricks on my side of the fence that comes up to his waist and I need to get to his belt, so I shuffle to the side, and so does he, biting and groaning as he goes. "That's it," I say. "I'll come nearer if you just come a little further this way." I'm getting a kick out of his obedience, or at least out of how easy it is to manipulate him. His needs are so simple. I can see his full body now, so I get closer. His eyes are fixed on mine, leaving my hands free to go where they want. I loop the thick chain of the bike lock between the links of the fence, then behind the thick leather of his expensive belt. His shirt has come untucked and I feel the bristle of his lower belly on the back of my hand. It's cold. Stone cold. I pull the two ends of the lock together, fix them, then spin the barrels, binding him in place against his trusty fence. I step back and look down at the combination lock. 1976. The year she was born.

With Charlie restrained I finish what I came here to do. I collect the rest of what I need, piling boxes of nails and rolls of chicken wire on the trolley. I load it up in three runs through the store, then dash around taking whatever else I can carry. Tinned food mostly, but other needful things too. A claw hammer. Bottles of bleach. In the midst of my haste, I go past the counter. On it is a scrawled note obscured by a small pile of cash. The dashes and lines that scrawl out from beneath the notes and coins are familiar. They're hers. I'd know those flourishes anywhere. I stop and peer down at it. Something about the words under the metal and paper seems out of place here. I flick the money to one side.

"Charlie, I looked round the back but couldn't find you. I took four bags of logs. Hope that's OK." Then, "Miss you babe. xxx." I stare at the words.

"Miss you babe. xxx"

I stagger back, winded and somewhere behind me Charlie moans, but now it sounds like a laugh. Like a taunt. I leave the note where it is. Now I have a new job to do. I am at the driver's door, white knuckles clutching the new hammer while its tag flicks in the wind. The sky is darkening again. I go back inside his brilliant shop, back to where zombie Charlie rattles, shackled to his sturdy fence. The leather of his rich belt is already fraying. It won't hold for long, but there is still time for me to do what I must. His left hand claws the fence for me. It bears a golden ring. I stand in front of him for one long minute and consider his life, his wife, his children, then I raise my new tool up high. His body is frantic but his eyes are calm. I bring the hammer down, claw side first, striking through the fence and into his head, over and over, again and again, until his lifeless body hangs loose and I am spattered in his remnants. I'm panting. The tag from the bloodied hammer is lodged in his collapsed face. It reads, "Makes Quick Work Of Big Jobs!"