Fever (Flu) (20 page)

Fred came over to Shaun, tail wagging, still nervous. There was a space in the hammering.

Shaun took it: “What are you doing?”

It was to be their first
real
conversation in five years—an indication of how well the last one had gone.

Martin stopped whistling, turned around. “Boarding up the windows,” he said, and by the shape of his lips, it looked like he was shouting.

“Yes, I can see that,” Shaun pressed. “But why?”

Martin turned again, this time setting the hammer down on the windowsill. He pointed at the television.

Martin went over to the television and switched it on. He lifted the controller, waiting patiently until the satellite kicked in. News 24 flicked up, midway through playing footage that would become legendary throughout the world.

It looked like a recording from a security camera. The time and date was written on the video’s footer. The name of some laboratory from Belfast was rolling along the bottom of the screen.

A doctor wearing medical scrubs stood by a bed where another man’s body lay. It looked like he was in the middle of an autopsy. Beside him stood a trolley holding what looked to be the dead man’s heart and lungs stored in containers.

Suddenly, the body rose up, like a vampire from some old movie, stepped off the bed and grabbed the doctor.

The doctor pushed the body away, retreated off camera.

“What the hell—” Shaun mouthed.

The footage continued for a while, the dead man wandering around the room, pausing to look closely at the camera filming it. Shaun leaned closer to the television. He could see the dead man’s face clearly and recognised it but, at first, couldn’t tell where from.

The footage played on fast forward for a while before returning to normal time.

The doctor from before returned on screen, working at his trolley, seemingly trying to prepare an injection. He was attacked by the dead man again.

A young girl, maybe a nurse or lab assistant, intervened, attacking the dead man with a blade of some sort. As Shaun watched, she ripped at the dead man’s neck until his head was all but torn away.

There was blood everywhere.

Shaun turned away in disgust.

He looked to Martin, the older man’s face smug, “I told you so” written across it.

Satisfied, Martin lifted the hammer from the windowsill, retrieved another nail from the small tin box nearby then moved to position it on another spot.

“Wait,” Shaun shouted, his mind struggling to process all that was going on, his words slurred and barely legible. “You can’t just lock us in!”

He sensed a hand on his shoulder, turned and found Lize, her dressing gown wrapped around her body, one hand grasping the fabric at her neck.

“What’s going on?” she said.

Shaun threw his hands up in the air, “Your father’s locking us in.”

Martin stopped hammering, turned to Lize. “What did he say?”

“I said—”

“Oh, both of you, please!” Lize protested.

She sat down on the sofa, both arms folding across her chest. Her eyes were drawn to the television, the same footage from before rerunning, heading towards its dramatic conclusion.

“Watch that,” Martin ordered Lize, pointing his hammer at the TV. “And
then
you’ll see why I’m doing this.”

“But how can we be sure it’s even genuine?” Shaun protested.

“It’s the BBC,” Martin said, still looking at Lize. “It’s good enough for me.”

“It’s an isolated incident in Belfast, for Christ’s sake!” Shaun argued. “Some... medical anomaly. It’s got nothing to do with what’s going on here.” Shaun moved closer to Martin, now standing in front of the television. “You can’t go locking us in whenever—”

“Oh sweet Jesus,” Lize said, her face paling, one hand moving to her mouth as she continued to watch the footage.

“Everything’s under control,” Martin said to her. “Nothing for you to worry about, sweetheart.”

“He’s overreacting,” the younger man countered. But then Lize did something that cut Shaun to the very bone: she lifted one hand and raised it in his direction like a cop stopping traffic.

“This is insane!” Shaun yelled, the anger distorting his voice, a line of spittle escaping his mouth. “
He’s
insane!”

Both Lize and Martin glared at him, their faces then softening as they looked away from Shaun, to the door.

Shaun turned with them to find Jamie standing in the doorway, his Spiderman pyjama top on inside-out.

“Daddy?” Jamie said, and Shaun went to him, lifted him and carried him through the doorway, back upstairs, away from the excitement, the tension, the confined space that Martin was creating in the living room.

Away from the zombies on television...

***

Lize was terrified.

She couldn’t even
look
at the television.

That man. Surely it can’t be—

She swallowed hard, looked to her father.

She knew how headstrong he could be when he got an idea into his head. She thought it came from his army background, the black-and-white mentality they drilled into him. Either way, Martin had always been a zealous man. Especially when it came to security.

Lize remembered coming home from school one day, back when they were living in Germany. One of the other kids had pushed her in the playground, causing her to fall, cutting her knees and ripping her jumper. She recalled trying to mend the jumper herself with a needle and thread she found in the garage, but her daddy found her searching through the many toolboxes and tin tubs that had populated his garage back then, just as they did now.

At the time they were living at a military base, with all the other army families, and when Martin found out it was a local kid who had pushed her over, he marched her to the boy’s house, demanded the parents bring the kid to the door and then instructed her to push the little toe rag to the ground.

Justice was served that day. Her father believed in an eye for an eye, tit for tat. Do onto others before they do it onto you.

Martin pushed past his daughter, snapping her back to the present. He had boarded up the whole downstairs of the house and was proceeding upstairs.

Lize felt confused. She thought about the television, about what she had seen. God knew, she didn’t need
that
anywhere near this house. But there was truth in what Shaun was saying. Locking themselves in meant no escape.

“Daddy, please stop. Think about this!” Lize reasoned with him. “You’re upsetting Jamie!”

Martin stopped for a moment, laughed. “
Upsetting
Jamie? I’m giving the boy a chance to live! I’m giving us
all
a chance to live.”

“You’re going too far,” she reasoned. But her voice was weak. She didn’t even know if she believed her own argument.

She watched Shaun come out of their bedroom, closing the door behind him. Martin ignored him as always, pushing past the younger man and heading for the master bedroom, hammer in hand.

Shaun looked at Lize, shook his head.

Lize remembered their meal together, the first night they arrived. Shaun at one end of the table. Martin at the other. Lize and Jamie in between.

Martin was lecturing on how to conserve fuel used by the generator he’d rigged in the garage. “We only turn the cooker on once a day,” he told Lize. “Make sure and tell him too,” he added, looking over at Shaun.

Tell the dummy.

But Shaun didn’t need to be told. He’d read Martin’s lips. Lize had felt the anger resonating from him like a heater that night. Good God, the beam coming off his face could have powered the bloody generator for a week.

Lize followed Martin through to the master bedroom. He had stacked some wood there, intent on covering the glass with it.

Lize grabbed his arm.

Martin turned, his face filled with rage. He raised the hammer, and she fell back onto the bed, her arms raised in defence.

Martin immediately crumbled, dropping the hammer and going to her.

“I’m sorry, darling,” he said.

But she retreated from him.

And then it happened.

The first blow surprised Martin as much as it surprised Lize. The second blow he managed to block, pushing his attacker away for enough time to allow him to reach for the hammer.

But Shaun recovered quickly, bringing his foot down hard on Martin’s hand.

Martin pulled his hand away, but Shaun followed through with a kick to the head. His shoe connected with Martin’s jaw, a single tooth flying from the older man’s mouth, a splash of blood spoiling the nearby wallpaper.

“Stop it! Both of you!” Lize screamed.

Jamie was at the doorway, looking in, clutching the doorframe with both hands, tears streaming down his cheeks.

“For God’s sake, stop it!”

But Shaun was like a man possessed. His eyes were full and red, his fists beating repeatedly on Martin’s face as the ex-soldier fought to defend himself.

Then Jamie was in the room.

Lize held her arms out to receive him, but the boy ran past her, grabbing the discarded hammer. He lifted it in both hands then brought it down hard on his Grandpa’s leg.

“Oh God, Jamie, no!” Lize yelled, going to him and scooping him up, but the boy was persistent, pulling away, the anger in his face mirroring that of his father.

Shaun stepped away from Martin, the boy’s attack enough to pull him out of whatever spell he’d been under.

He went to Lize and Jamie, throwing his arms around them both.

Lize received him but, while they embraced, she watched Martin roll away, reaching into a nearby drawer.

The older man rose up brandishing a hunting knife. He pointed it at Shaun.

Lize stepped in front of Shaun. “Daddy, no!” she said, her hands raised, palms forward.

Martin’s hands were shaking, his breathing heavy, almost like he was growling.

Shaun immediately pushed Jamie away. “Get out of here, son,” he ordered, but Jamie stayed close, hammer raised in his hand threateningly.

“Fucking dummy!” Martin spat. “You won’t get the better of me, you fucking invalid!”

“Come on, then!” Shaun goaded.

“I’ll fucking slice you!”

“No you won’t, shit chicken!”

Lize would usually laugh when Shaun muddled his words, often when he was drunk or excited. But there was nothing to laugh at now in this room where a knife was waving in the air and her father’s blood ran down the wall like wet paint.

She moved closer to Martin.

“Daddy, please... it’s okay.”

Martin’s face softened, tears gathering in the corner of his eyes. “I ... nearly hit you!” he said to Lize in a voice that she’d never heard him use before. “With a fucking hammer!”

“But you didn’t,” she said, “I’m okay, look at me...” He looked at her, stared right into her eyes.

She reached for the knife slowly. He released it, and Lize laid it on the bed.

She took her father’s hands and placed them on her cheeks.

“See?” she said. “I’m okay. You didn’t hurt me.”

He pulled her tight. She could feel his heat. His body started to shake as he burrowed into her embrace. When Lize looked up, she found Shaun and Jamie glaring back at her. There was still anger in their eyes. And something else.

Jealousy.

Ballynarry, County Armagh

Colin woke with a start, finding himself in the study’s easy chair.

He’d been dreaming.

In the dream, he was driving the car with Sinead in the back seat. Vicky sat beside him, wearing a wedding dress covered in blood. The young soldier stood on the road, his gun aimed at them through the window of the car. Yet, no matter how fast Colin was driving, he was never able to hit him.

And then Sinead rose up from the back seat, snakes instead of hair on her head, each one alive and vicious, snapping the air, like alligators, then lunging for him. It was then that Colin had woken.

He got up from the chair, his body stiff. He thought of checking on Sinead and the young soldier but didn’t. He was too freaked after the dream.

He went to the bathroom, took a piss.

It was still early, but he decided to stay up. Maybe run a shower.

He peeled his t-shirt and shorts off. Paused by the mirror, examined himself for the first time in days.

His body-grooming had fallen by the wayside of late. His chest hair was filling out. Where his skin once looked golden, it was now pale and blotchy. A nervous rash covered the right side of his neck and he went to scratch it.

He’d lost weight, too, the normally problematic Buddha belly (as Sinead used to call it) almost gone.

He turned the shower dial, quietly thanking Chris and Ben and their countryside ways; the house’s generator ensured that home comforts such as water and electricity continued to work while the urban world crumbled. Colin made a mental note to check the generator for fuel as he stepped under the gloriously warm water.

At first, he didn’t move. He stood under the shower, closing his eyes and enjoying how the noise, the moisture, the feeling of being cleansed brought him to another place, a place where the virus didn’t belong, where it couldn’t survive.

He reached for the shower gel, hanging from a nearby rail, the noise of it squirting into his palm loud and obnoxious. He lathered the gel into his skin, working it across every inch of his body. He could feel the germs all over like fleas, and he wanted rid of them. Medusa Sinead from his dream kept appearing in his head, and he fought to make her disappear, closing his eyes tight as he scrubbed, trying to think of anything else to overwrite her enduring, nightmarish image.

The sound of something breaking pulled him back to reality.

The noise rang out again, coming from the next room over.

The master bedroom.

Colin turned the shower off, listening again. There was a thumping noise, like someone was banging the door.

Colin stepped out of the shower, wrapped himself in the bathrobe hanging on the wall.

He opened the bathroom door and looked out into the hall.

Across the way, he found the couple’s bedroom. The door was still closed.

Another thump. Or maybe it was a knock.