Purification (24 page)

‘So what are you saying?’ Brigid asked. ‘Why do you think they do it?’

‘I think their fighting is nothing to do with wanting, because they have no obvious desires. I think the only thing they’re left fighting for is survival. They’re fighting just to continue to exist. It’s self-preservation.’

‘I don’t buy any of this,’ Guest whined. ‘Listen to yourself, will you? Can you hear what you’re saying? Can you hear how…?’

‘What I’m saying,’ Michael added, unfazed by Guest’s outburst and with his voice ominously serious, ‘is that the bodies aren’t a threat to us, it’s more that they’re beginning to see us as a threat to them. And if they really are driven by instinct, then they’ll do whatever they have to do to make sure they continue to survive.’

27

Kelly Harcourt

I can’t do this anymore. I’ve been sitting here for almost a day now and I know that I can’t take anymore.

I’ve listened to everything the others have said and I’ve tried to understand and see their way of thinking but I can’t.

My perspective is different to theirs. My priorities are different to theirs. They keep trying to persuade me to stay strong and go with them but I know that there’s no point.

Doesn’t matter what they think they might be able to do for me and Kilgore, it’s never going to happen. They’re going to have enough trouble trying to look after themselves from here on in. When it comes to the crunch they’re not going to put themselves at risk for us and I don’t blame them. It would be stupid. It would be pointless. What’s going to happen to Kilgore and me is inevitable.

It’s the waiting that’s hurting me most.

I’ve had my share of hard times before now. I cried my way through the first half of basic training like a bloody baby. I’ve been stuck out on the battlefield looking down the barrel of the enemy’s gun. I could handle all of that.

Hard as it was at the time, I managed it and I got through.

When each one of those things happened, no matter how bad it got, I dealt with it.

The difference today is that everything’s out of my control. I can’t think or fight or negotiate my way out of this one. The end is a foregone conclusion and I’ve just been putting it off sitting here and waiting. I can’t close my eyes anymore without seeing everything that’s happened and remembering everything that I’ve lost. I haven’t slept properly for days because my head’s been filled with constant nightmares and dark thoughts, even before we came above ground. And it all seems to have come full circle now we’re sitting here at the airfield. I look at the people around me and I can see that their faces are full of more hope than ever. They can finally see a way out. The things that are stopping them from moving on now are obvious and clear, and by leaving this place they’ll be leaving those problems behind. But it doesn’t matter where I go. Location won’t change anything. It’s not the bodies that will kill me, it’s what’s in the air. It’s going to be the same whatever I do or wherever I go.

Things have changed since we got here. Arriving here felt like reaching the end of the road. I watched the helicopter leave this afternoon and that made me realise that things are moving on without me now and that I should finish this today.

I’m an outsider. Neither living or dead. I can’t continue to exist like this.

I’m standing a little way short of the perimeter fence now. The bodies are watching me but they’re not reacting as much as I’d expected them to. God, everything sounds and feels different out here. I’ve spent the last two months either hidden underground or travelling. Now I can hear my footsteps as I walk through the long, wet grass. I can hear birds again and I can see them shooting quickly across the sky. I can see the wind ripping through the tops of trees and I can feel it blowing against my suit.

It’s spitting with rain now. Little drops of water are splashing against my visor. If I don’t look at the bodies then everything seems green and fresh and clear and all I want to do is breathe the air again. Since we came above ground and left the base I haven’t been able to touch my own skin. I want to scratch my arms and bite my nails and rub my eyes and run my fingers through my hair. I want to feel the wind and the rain on my skin one last time.

Kelly Harcourt stood at the edge of the airfield.

Oblivious to the bodies standing just metres away from her,
and equally ignorant to the watching eyes of the survivors
in the observation tower behind, she ripped off her
facemask.

And for a moment the sweet relief was overpowering.

Cool, fresh-tasting air flooded her lungs, making her
feel stronger and more human than she had felt in weeks.

She could smell the grass and the decay and it tasted a
thousand times better than she remembered. The seconds
ticked by, and it seemed that the impossible had happened.

Was she immune? By some incredible chance, did she
share the same physical traits which had allowed the
people in the building behind her to survive? She didn’t
dare believe it at first. What were the odds against her
managing to survive like this? In a delirious instant her
mind was filled with visions of finally making it to the
island and actually having some kind of existence where
before she’d only been able to think about…

It

started.

It was happening.

She knew this was it.

From out of nowhere the pain gripped hold of her like a
hand wrapped tight around her neck.

The inside of Kelly’s throat began to swell and then split
and bleed. With her eyes bulging with pain and suffocation
she fell back onto the grass and stared deep into the heavy
grey sky overhead, seeing nothing.

Thirty seconds later it was over.

28

The fact that he found himself lying on a relatively warm and comfortable bed for the first time in weeks wasn’t helping Michael to sleep. Danny Talbot, in comparison, was snoring from the comfort of his narrow bunk on the other side of the small, square cottage bedroom. It was almost midnight. Michael’s head was pounding and he wished that he could find a way to switch off and disconnect for a while. It was impossible. If he wasn’t being distracted by the noise coming from the other survivors downstairs then he was thinking about the island and how he had finally managed to get there. When he stopped thinking about the island he found himself thinking about the changing behaviour of the bodies, and when he stopped thinking about that he started to think about Emma.

Once he’d started he couldn’t stop thinking about her.

Funny how distance alters perspective, he thought.

Having spent virtually all his time with Emma over the last two months, he’d grown used to having her around and it felt strange, almost wrong, now that they were apart. He’d always had her there to talk to or to shout at or cry with until now. Whereas they had previously spent most of their time in the same building or the same vehicle together, now it could be argued that they weren’t even in the same country. The distance between them seemed immense, almost immeasurable. The sudden physical gulf made him feel strangely guilty and made him question whether leaving the mainland had been the right move. He should never have left her. He knew that she was more than capable of looking after herself (Christ, she’d looked after him enough recently) but that didn’t make it any easier. In many ways he felt responsible for her. More than that, he liked being with her and he was missing having her around.

He hadn’t yet dared say as much to her, but he knew that he loved her and he was reasonably confident that she loved him, as much as anyone could love anyone else in their cold and emotionally-starved world. His sudden solitude this evening (which he still felt despite the fact that he was surrounded by other people) had made him painfully aware of the depth and strength of the feelings he had for Emma but which, because of circumstance, he’d kept hidden and subdued. The constant pressure and danger on the mainland had made it impossible for either of them to fully appreciate how they really felt.

Lying on the bed in the dark was pointless. He wasn’t going to be able to sleep. Already fully dressed, he got up and crept back down the narrow staircase to where Brigid, Guest, Harper and Gayle Spencer were sitting in the kitchen.

‘You all right?’ Brigid asked as he entered the room. His shuffling footsteps on the floorboards above had alerted them to the fact that he was up and awake.

‘I’m okay,’ he answered quietly.

‘Coffee?’

He nodded. The kettle was boiling on a portable gas stove, filling the room with steam and heat.

‘Where are the others?’ he asked, looking around and trying not to yawn.

‘Danny, Tony and Richard are upstairs, Harry and Bruce are outside.’

‘Outside? What the hell are they doing out there?’

‘Keeping watch,’ Gail answered.

‘Why? Has something happened?’

She shook her head.

‘No, we’re not planning on taking any chances, that’s all.’

‘Bloody hell, just being outside would have meant taking a chance where I’ve just come from.’

‘We know. It’s different here, you’ll get used to it.’

Michael took a few steps closer to the window and looked out into the darkness. He could just about make out movement a few metres ahead. It was too quick and purposeful to have been a body. It had to have been either Stayt or Fry.

‘Here you go,’ Brigid said, handing him a mug of coffee.

‘Thank

you.’

He could see one of the men outside more clearly now.

Whoever it was they were walking back towards the cottage. Seconds later the door to Michael’s right creaked open and Harry Stayt stepped inside.

‘Okay, Harry?’ Gayle asked. Stayt nodded.

‘Bloody cold out there tonight,’ he complained.

‘What you come back in for? Anything happening out there?’

‘Saw a couple of bodies about half an hour ago, that’s all.’

‘Give you any trouble?’ Michael wondered. ‘I mean, did they go for you or were they like the others earlier?’

‘They went for us.’

‘I don’t understand. Why do some of them still react like that when others don’t?’ asked Harper. A young man, tonight he looked tired and drawn beyond his years.

Michael shrugged his shoulders.

‘Who knows,’ he replied. ‘My guess is that it all depends on what condition their brains and bodies are in.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Some of them are more decayed than others. You’d expect their brains to be decaying at the same rate as the rest of their bodies, so it stands to reason that some will be in a worse mental state than others.’

‘Bloody hell, they’re all in a bad mental state, aren’t they?’ Stayt grinned. ‘Look, sorry to change the subject, but I saw the windows steaming up and guessed you’d put the kettle on. Any chance of a drink?’

Deep in thought, Brigid stood up and spooned coffee into two more mugs. She poured on boiling water, stirred the drinks and then pushed them over towards Stayt who picked them up with one hand. Michael noticed that he was carrying a blade of some description in the other hand.

From where he was standing he couldn’t see whether it was a sword, a machete or just a long-bladed knife. Stayt noticed that he was looking at it.

‘Bloody useful, this is,’ he explained as he lifted the blade up into the dull light. It was a long and ornately decorated sword. The other survivors watched him raise it with cautious eyes. ‘Nicked it from a museum a few weeks back. I tell you, it’s the best thing I’ve found for getting rid of bodies.’

‘Put that damn thing down, will you?’ Brigid sighed.

‘You’re like a bloody kid with a new toy. I used to spend half my time locking up idiots who carried things like that.’

Michael looked puzzled. Stayt explained.

‘Ex-Copper,’ he grinned. He did as he was asked and then turned round to leave the cottage again.

‘Mind if I come out with you?’ Michael wondered. His question seemed to surprise the others, Stayt included.

‘You can if you want to,’ he answered, grinning again.

‘If you’d rather spend your first night here out in the dark with Fry and me instead of here in the warm then be my guest!’

‘Can’t sleep anyway,’ Michael grumbled as he zipped up his jacket and followed Stayt out into the darkness. The two men walked away from the cottage together.

‘Don’t know why they get so wound up about this sword,’ Stayt said quietly once he was sure they were out of earshot. ‘Don’t know about you, but I’d rather carry a weapon like this than a gun.’

‘I’ve never got on with guns,’ Michael agreed. ‘They’re no use anymore. They’re too bloody noisy and you have to be a damn good shot to take the bodies out. Miss the head and they’ll just keep coming at you.’

‘Damn right, and by the time you’ve got rid of one of them there’ll be another couple of hundred following close behind trying to see what all the noise was about.’

‘Stick to your sword,’ Michael grunted.

‘Fry,’ Stayt shouted into the darkness. ‘Oi, Fry, where are you?’

‘Over here,’ a disembodied voice replied from the direction of the small hill which overlooked the pyre Michael had seen earlier. The remains of the fire were still smouldering. He could see the faintest of orange glows in the darkness.

‘Two of us coming over,’ he shouted back. He lowered his voice again to talk to Michael. ‘Didn’t want him thinking you were one of them and trying to take you out!’

Michael managed half a smile.

‘Thanks.’

They found Fry crouched over the embers of the fire, warming his hands. Earlier in the evening they’d fuelled the flames with wood and other general rubbish but the remains of the fire’s original fuel could still clearly be seen.