Outbreak The Zombie Apocalypse (UK Edition) (16 page)

‘Matt, the hero. Matt, the martyr. You weren’t the only one who lost someone, you know.’

‘Nick, I…’

‘Everyone wants to talk to you.
A quick word, a shake of the hand
. Everyone remembers your story. It’s like I wasn’t even there. Well, I’ll tell you something, mate, I’ve had enough.’

I didn’t know what to say as he walked towards me and shoved me in the chest with both hands. I stumbled backwards but kept my balance.

‘Nick! This isn’t you. Leave it.’

‘Shut it!’ he shouted.

‘What the hell is wrong with you?’

‘Wrong with
me
?’ he stepped towards me. ‘What’s wrong with you? After all that went on, and it’s like you exist in your own little bubble.’

‘Look, we’ve both had too much to drink and I know…’

‘You know nothing. Nothing.’

He turned and started walking away. My head was spinning. The fresh air had actually made me feel more drunk, and on another day I would have let him go. I should have let him go. But I didn’t. I caught up with him and grabbed his shoulder, pulling him around to face me.

‘Nick…’

I didn’t get a chance to finish the sentence. I was shoved on the ground with my jaw smarting. Nick stood over me, clasping his left fist with his right hand.

‘What’s today all about for you, mate? Go for a few beers to keep me sweet, mate? You have no idea what my life is like. You think Jenny left because of me? Is that what you think?’ He paused, tears now rolling off his cheeks and dropping to join the mounting rain hitting the ground. ‘She left because of you.’

I was totally confused. ‘What?’

‘Yeah, you. She hated seeing you. She hated me talking about you, talking to you. Because it reminded her of what happened. It reminded her that it was as much her idea as it was Danny’s to go get those people. And when she asked me to save our marriage, to cut you out of our lives, I said no. Because I owed you. For the kids’ lives.’

His voice slowed down as he spoke the last two sentences. His arms dropped to his sides. He shook his head and turned, began walking away again. Then he paused and looked at me over his shoulder.

“And you think my drinking’s gotten bad?” he barked. “Should’ve seen the impact Danny’s death had on Jenny. Except she drank at home. Around the kids. She couldn’t let them see her like that, so she left.”

I watched, mouth agape, as tears rolled down his face.

“And even after what I saw you and Danny do,” he continued. “Mate, what she did was the bravest thing.”

‘Nick, wait,’ I started to pick myself up off the ground. ‘Nick, I’m sorry. I’ve been… I…’

‘What Matt? What?’

Should I tell him now? Should I explain my behaviour over the last twelve months? I couldn’t force the words out of my mouth, and all the noise I made was another pitiful whine.

‘I’m sorry.’

‘No, you’re not. You’re not, and I won’t bother you anymore. Good luck, mate.’

I sat myself back down. I could have got up. I could have shouted to him. I could have chased after him. I could have let him take another swing at me. I could have told him the truth.  But I didn’t.

I gave Nick a good five minutes’ head start and then began walking in the same direction. The proper thing for me to do was to follow him and sort this out now. Apologise and mean it. Tell him the truth. 

If what he had said about Jenny leaving him was true, then he must have been building up to that like a pressure cooker on low heat. And the way I fobbed him off, not just the manner I had often taken with him, but the number of times I had just made up blatant lies and excuses not to have anything to do with him, none of that could have helped.

I ran through how I could approach things with Nick. First up would be an apology. No doubt about that. Then to try to rebuild things? Is that what I wanted? Not really, and trying to solve this drunk was going to get me nowhere. 

All I knew for certain was that I couldn’t tell him the real reason for my behaviour. What kind of reaction would I get if I just blurted it all out? He would be… I don’t know. I had misjudged him once already today and look where that had gotten me. And, now, did it matter anymore? Was I just dealing with the guilt I was feeling for Nick or was I feeling it for Danny? My brain wasn’t able to deal with the questions pinging from one side of my head to the other. 

The evening was now night as the final daylight faded from the sky. The orange glow of the street lamps cast warped, fire-like reflections across the damp road. With no jacket to keep me warm, and having first checked that I still had my wallet, keys, and phone, I jammed my hands into my jeans pockets and started to walk up towards Bridge Street.

I stood on the corner, looking left and right. Right would take me up towards Nick. Left was the way home, past the hairdressers’, over the bridge and the long march up the road. Talking to Nick tonight was out of the question. The rain intensified. Before I knew it, I was alone and halfway over the bridge. I paused and looked down into the River Usk. It chopped and swirled and was both deeper and faster-flowing than I had seen it in a long time. It was a thick, dark moving mass of water that looked to have several lives of its own as it divided around the bottoms of the arches that kept the bridge up. 

The evening had gotten so grim that I could hardly make out the shape of the railway bridge just a few hundred yards upstream. The back of my jeans got splashed as a car passed behind me, heading into Usk. I took that as my sign to press on and get myself home as quickly as possible. 

Everything seemed darker, and it was not just due to the clouds that blocked out every inch of sky; a huge part of the darkness came from inside me and impinged upon the way I was seeing the rain-washed world. The downpour had made the greens of the grass richer, yet more sinister. The thought processes going through my drunken and angry mind were a paranoid knot of denial and confusion. Even as my brain played through the events of the last few days I could feel the water ooze between my toes as my shoes filled more with every step either into a puddle or onto the banking to avoid approaching vehicles. 

Had Jenny really felt that she held some responsibility for what had happened? Was it right that I had done what I had done, yet never told them? What if I had been able to share with Nick and Jenny how I had tried to right things? Would it have made any difference to their relationship? 

My rugby shirt clung to my back and at times I could barely make out the road ahead as the rain and growing wind buffeted me. A couple of times I was totally blinded by the headlights of cars coming towards Usk from Caerleon. On more than one occasion, a truck or lorry gave me a blast of its horn as it got nearer; double-checking that I was actually going to get out of the way. 

What right did she have, anyway? Guilt was my issue, Danny was my brother. Yeah, if she had issues with her marriage, she should deal with them. Don’t be looking for some scapegoat, someone you can shift the blame to.

I was soaking wet before I had even reached the rugby club, but having walked past the garden centre and into the cover of the first proper roadside copse of trees I paused in the relative shelter for a few minutes. 

My jeans were filthy right up to the knees and as I plodded, now weaving in the road as the fresh air and the alcohol combined, I figured that if I was this dirty, I might as well get it done now. Just crack on and do it. Was I drunk enough that I wouldn’t remember it all in the morning? Probably not. But I was drunk enough that I wouldn’t remember
all
of it. 

As I passed the entrance to my neighbour’s house, to Des’s place, I realised that this was something I could do, something I should do. Put all this business to bed forever, tonight. Leave it all behind me. Get up tomorrow; suffer the hangover of both the drinking and the fallout with Nick. Sort things out with him. Have it all out. Tell him straight about a few things but, ‘ha-ha’, the irony, take it on the chin from him, too. 

The wall to my house began to stand out prominently in the gloom as I came nearer, and when I finally reached the gates I pushed the left side open and stepped inside. The sound of my footsteps changed from a squelch to a crunch as the wet gravel shifted under my feet. I slipped to the ground, managing to remember to release my grip on the gates as I fell. My hands were feeling a great deal better but if I was going to do this, there was no reason to injure them further at this stage. 

I was going to do this. Now.

Using the gate, I hauled myself to my feet, and with my current lack of balance, had to swing it even wider in order to get myself into a standing position. I pulled my house keys out of the pocket of my sodden jeans. After a few failed attempts, I finally unlocked the front door and stumbled into the house, slamming it shut behind me.

The whole house was in darkness. Without turning on the hall or lounge lights, I strode through to the kitchen, leaving wet, muddy footprints in the carpet as I went. I flicked the light on long enough to unlock the back door and grab the shed keys, then once again plunged the house into darkness. I opened the door and stepped out onto the decking.

The wood had a newly varnished look because of the amount of rain that had fallen on it and the glare from the motion-sensitive light mounted above the back door, but it held no puddles as it was slightly angled so that the grooves in the wood carried the water off towards the garden. I crossed it quickly, treading carefully down the steps, slipped a little as I put my foot on the grass, but didn’t fall over. I reached the hole I had dug, checking that it hadn’t filled too much with water and that the shovel was still at the top where I had left it. 

Although there was a fair bit of water accumulated on the pond liner, I was not put off. The stuff was waterproof; of course it was going to hold water. And the shovel, also soaked, was right there. The rain kept pounding down, the noises it made when hitting the shed roof, the pond or the lining in the bottom of the hole competing with each other to be the loudest.

I’d kept the shed keys tight in my left hand and now I put them to use, unlocking the two padlocks. The first one clicked open easily, so I detached it, opened the hasp and then hooked the arm of the lock over the top of it. The second one took a couple of attempts before it came loose, and I pulled open the door. I paused for a couple of seconds. Everything I needed to complete my task was just inside the shed. Easily accessible, even in the dark. I turned in a complete circle, looking for any sign that I was being observed. Even though I overbalanced and stumbled towards the hole a little I was able to ascertain that I was in the clear. I gently opened the shed door and stepped inside, pulling it shut behind me, sealing me in darkness. 

The sound of the rain hitting the roof was immediately amplified. I could hear Danny’s breathing and could smell the stench coming off him. As my eyes got used to the gloom I stood behind him and pulled the motorcycle helmet off his head, letting it drop to the wood floor with a dull thud. He didn’t make his usual jerky head movements. I stepped slowly around Danny, concentrating hard on placing one foot in front of the other, on not letting the contents of my stomach spew out of me and all over the floor. I took a deep breath and picked up the sharpened broomstick I had prepared as a stake.

Danny looked at me, his head lolling to the side. 

‘Duh… Ed.’

He had never been so calm. No longer did his feet work their little dance back and forth. He stared straight at me but there was no malice or vicious intent in those cold, grey eyes. I convinced myself that he knew the time had come and that he was glad of it. I stood directly in front of him, the stake in my right hand. I wasn’t yet crying but I knew I would be soon. I had things to say to him first and I prayed that he would understand and that there was enough of my brother still inside that he could forgive me.

‘I thought, by keeping you out here, that I could save you,’ I began, my voice shaking, all of me shaking. ‘I thought they’d find a way to reverse the effects. But they never will, Danny. And I shouldn’t have put you through all of this.’

The tears were now dripping off my nose, off my chin, my cheeks. Danny was silent, just looking at me with that vacant stare.

‘But I love you. And I can’t let you suffer anymore. I can’t let other people find out about you. I need to release you from this.’

‘Duh… Ed,’ he said. And then he raised his chin, squared his head on his shoulders, and very slowly and very deliberately, he nodded his head.

‘Duh… Ed.’

I brought the tip of the stake level with his left eye. My hands were shaking so much that I could hardly bear its weight.

‘Duh… Ed.’ Then he actually pushed his eye towards the sharp wood. He nodded again.

He was telling me to do it. He was asking me to end his suffering.

And with a moan, both my hands wrapped around the stake in much the same way that my brother had used a sword during the epidemic, I drove the shard through his left eye and into his brain.

Danny went limp before I even withdrew the device of his death. All of his weight was suddenly on the rope holding his arm to the rafters. His knees sagged and the toe of one of his boots slid across the floor in tiny circles. He still looked up at me. Where his left eye had been was now only a hole; no blood, no fluids seeping out of the wound, but just a hole. His right eye, grey and lifeless as it was, bored a furrow into my soul. I was still holding the stake and I lifted it again. I had to. I couldn’t bear him looking at me, accusing me. I had killed my brother and all I wanted to do was die.

 I leant down to my left and found the small axe. I looked up at the thick wooden rafter, at the rope that was tied around it, holding my brother’s arm tightly in place above his head. I could only see the top of his head, thank God, and after two, three solid swipes of the axe, the rope first frayed and then gave way, the axe fully imbedded into the rafter. His body fell to the ground with a light thump, nestling in the corner of the shed, legs straight out in front of him, arm hanging limply across his chest, and now, for want of a better phrase, his empty eye sockets staring me straight in the eye.