The Undead Day Nineteen (4 page)

Resolve comes back. Her back stiffens. Her eyes harden and the knuckles of her hand turn white from the pressure applied to the gun held ready.
Do the right thing. Those children cannot be allowed to take control.

‘We be quick,’ Lenski says, slowing briefly as she reaches the exit door and turns to look back at Lilly, ‘you be ready, yes?’

‘Yes,’ Lilly mutters the word, nodding once and firm.
Whatever it takes. Do the right thing. I wish Nick was here. I wish Mr Howie and Clarence were here. Paula, even Cookey would know how to do this. Any of them would. But they are not here. I am.

Into the strong light they go. Into the outside world of death and filth. Of bodies still lying where they fell. Of tents still smouldering and a hole in the wall gaping through to the sea on the other side.

Behind Lenski she steps out and looks first right to see a youth wearing black ramming a magazine into an assault rifle as his mates adjust the slings on theirs. She steps further out to see three girls yanking the bolts back on rifles and Sierra striding through the fort with a group gathered round her handing out the guns taken from the new armoury.

Too late. They’re armed. Her eyes scan the perimeter seeing the numbers of potential opposition. Too many. Everything balanced on that knife edge again. Every action taken could spark a devastating reaction. Her mind in overdrive. Thinking. Planning. Calculating the paths ahead and which one to take.

Movement to her left. An adult woman with dark hair who was up the top with the children on the wall now standing and looking sadly down at the bodies of those taken from the hospital.

Lilly glides behind Lenski, using the Polish woman to shield the sight of the pistol in her hand. The youths see Lenski and that recognition spreads as they stop to stare over.

‘Too many,’ Lilly whispers behind Lenski.

‘Gun. Hide it,’ Lenski mouths, turning her head a fraction.

Lilly moves quickly to the woman with dark hair, passing the gun from her right hand to her left to hide it from view.

‘Hey,’ Lilly says, naturally and softly but her eyes lock on the dark haired woman and pass a message so clear and evident. The dark haired woman blinks at the penetrating gaze locked on her. ‘You okay?’ Lilly asks, glaring fiercely with an expression that conflicts with the soft tone of voice.

The woman nods, unsure of what to do as Lilly closes the gap and leans in as though to hug her. The woman can’t move back as the bodies of the dead children are right behind her. She stays still, feeling as Lilly reaches her right arm up and round her shoulders to draw her close.

‘Take it….hide it…’ A whisper in her ear and something hard pressed into her hand. With instinct she grips onto it, knowing instantly what it is. Lilly pulls back, that yearning in her eyes, ‘Hide it…’

The woman nods quickly and shoves the pistol down the back of her waistband before pulling the tails of her filthy checked shirt over to hide the shape of the gun bulging out.

‘Go up…don’t let anyone see it.’

The woman nods again. A small almost frantic motion of her head bobbing up and down. She swallows and looks past Lilly to Sierra and the youths all ranging out dressed in black with guns held in their hands.

‘Lenski,’ Sierra calls out, stopping metres away and her voice sounds rough, hard and cold. ‘Where’s Mads?’

‘See you up top,’ Lilly says at normal volume moving back from the woman who quickly turns away.

‘He sick,’ Lenski replies, sullen and staring.

‘Sick?’ Sierra asks. Everyone listens. Everyone watches.

‘He was tazered several times,’ Lilly says, moving to Lenski’s side, ‘He passed out…the doctors are with him now. I think he’ll be fine…just needs a rest. Is anyone else hurt?’ she asks looking round at the youths, ‘the doctors can check you if you need it.’

‘We’s fine,’ Sierra says. Holding her ground with some of the crew chiefs gathered round as she stares over, glowering and full of menace but empty in her eyes that have seen too many things. The image of Darius’s skull exploding right in front of her replays over and over. His brains coating the front of her shirt. The shards of his skull sticky on her hands as she wept silent tears.

‘Good,’ Lilly says, taking care to keep her tone neutral. ‘We need to get that hole in the wall fixed and the children up there need food and water…and this place is a complete mess.’

‘We’ll sort it yeah,’ Sierra says, her tone flat.

‘So much to do,’ Lilly says, papering over the cracks and the tension mounting as everyone watches to see the power game play out. ‘Bodies.’

Sierra scowls, a fleeting expression that wanes as quickly as it came, ‘Bodies?’

‘Where do we put them?’ Lilly says heavily. ‘We can’t leave them here. What was Maddox’s orders with the bodies?’ She slips it in without confrontation. A reminder to all that Maddox is the one who gives orders. Maddox is number one.

‘In the sea,’ a youth calls out. ‘With rocks and shit so they sink down, you get me?’

‘I see,’ Lilly says politely, letting her accent play off against the youth in a playful gesture. ‘Well, the sea it shall be then. Lenski? What’s first?’

The tension rises again as Lilly draws Lenski into the conversation, waiting to see if Sierra will accept what the woman has to say.

‘We do wall first,’ Lenski says with a deep sigh as she folds her arms. ‘This mess. All of this is mess. Sierra, we need guard yes? On wall and on gate, yes? I fix wall you guard, yes?’

‘How you gonna fix the wall?’ Sierra asks, still not blinking or moving.

‘I not know this. I not builder. We find the people in here who know this. We fix wall, we clean mess.’

‘I can go and find someone,’ Lilly offers, ‘if that helps? Sierra? You okay with that?’

The girl flicks her eyes from Lenski to Lilly. The gun held tight across her chest. A curl of her lip and her head inclines an inch, ‘Liam, you take the gate yeah?’

‘Yeah,’ Liam says from the side.

‘Zayden, you’s get a few watching that wall,’ Sierra adds, ‘where’s Maddox’s gun?’

‘Pardon?’ Lilly asks, stepping forward as though to hear better.

‘His gun. Where is it?’

‘No idea,’ Lilly says, glancing over at Lenski, ‘I didn’t see it…maybe he dropped it or it fell out…’

Lenski shrugs with a gesture both non-committal and disinterested.

‘Could be anywhere, Sierra,’ a girl says looking round at the ground by her feet.

‘Whatever,’ Sierra says and the tension breaks as she looks away.

‘Right, I’ll go and see who I can find to fix the wall,’ Lilly says. ‘Lenski? Are you coming with me?’

Lenski shows no reaction as Sierra walks off but simply stares hard with her arms folded tight across her chest.

‘Tense,’ Lilly mutters.

‘No. We fix wall then tents.’

‘No I meant it was tense.’

‘Yes,’ Lenski says finally taking her eyes from Sierra to look at Lilly, ‘I know this. We fix tents later.’

Five

It feels like every pair of eyes is on her. It even affects the way she walks. Her arms swing unnaturally and she yearns to reach back and check the gun is still there. She knows it’s there. She can feel it. What if it falls out? What if it slips? Everyone is watching her. Every single pair of eyes in the fort are scrutinising her every step and they can tell just from her gait that she is guilty of something.

The worry knots in her stomach as she starts the incline up the ramp and curses as the gained height means she’ll be even more visible. She wants to turn and hand the gun back to Lilly. Why did she take it? She only went down to see how bad it was and if they could get some food and drink for the children. Oh god. Everyone is staring. She knows they are. The urge to turn and look is so strong but she walks on with heavy legs and arms that swing weirdly. Like at a comedy show when you try and sneak out for the toilet and the performer stops the show to call you out. That’s how it feels. Like everyone is watching and staring.

She does turn. The urge is just too great and she risks what she hopes is a casual glance back, as though she is simply looking round from benign curiosity.

No one is watching. Nobody. Not one person is actually looking in her direction. They’re all fixed on the stand-off between the hard looking girl with the rifle and Lilly and Lenski. Words are being said but the distance and the blood pounding past her ears blots them out.

Relief washes over her and she lets a long gasp of air out, closing her eyes and thanking whatever deity is watching over her. Reaching the top she looks over the forms of sleeping children and those injured and sent up who stare with eyes made slack from the sedatives and pain killers given out by the doctors. Bandages everywhere. Limbs wrapped in clean dressings so stark against everything else covered in grime, filth and shit.

She threads a path through the bodies, nodding at the other men and women until she reaches her spot. The spot she claimed when they ran up to keep the children safe. By the low wall that Howie and the others fired from when Darren led his army against them. She wasn’t here when that happened. None of these people were. They didn’t see the sacrifices made to keep this place safe and give their species a chance to survive.

She slumps down to rest her back against the wall and instantly adjusts position to stop the pistol digging into her spine.

‘What?’ Sam asks

‘What?’

‘Look on your face,’ Sam says.

‘What look?’

‘What’s going on, Pea?’

‘In a minute,’ Paula whispers, ‘just act normally.’

‘You are bloody joking I hope,’ Sam chuckles without humour while edging closer to her friend. ‘What’s happening?’

‘In a minute.’

‘Paula bloody Gabriel…’ Sam says, adopting a stern expression.

‘I hate it when you call me that,’ Pea whispers, ignoring the stern expression.

‘Paula Gabriel.’

‘Stop it.’

‘Paula Gabriel.’

‘Sam, stop! I’ll tell you in a minute.’

‘Paula Gabr…’

‘Fine! I’ve got a gun…’

‘What!?’

‘Shush,’ Pea whispers, waving a hand at her friend.

‘Why have you got a gun?’

‘Lilly gave it to me.’

‘Lilly?’

‘Yes, Lilly. The blond girl…’

‘I know who Lilly is. Why did she give you a gun, Pea?’

‘I don’t know,’ Pea exclaims then winces at the volume of her own voice, ‘She just did. She came out of the hospital with Lenski and just stopped when she saw that girl…’

‘What girl?’ Sam asks, desperate for more detail.

‘Er…she was with Darius…Escort or…Focus or something?’

‘Sierra,’ Sam says, rolling her eyes, ‘you did that on purpose.’

‘I did not.’

‘So did,’ Sam says.

‘I forgot her name.’

‘Yeah right, anyway…so go on…’

‘Well, Lenski and Lilly came out and Lilly was holding the gun and they just stopped when they saw that Ford girl…’

‘Pea!’

‘Okay, they stopped when they saw Sierra, she’s got a big machine gun by the way.’

‘Who has?’

‘Sierra, I just said that.’

‘Oh right, yeah I’m with you now. So?’

‘So Lilly hid behind Lenski then rushed over to me and slipped the gun into my hand and told me to take it and hide it.’

‘She never did?’

‘She so did,’ Pea says, nodding earnestly.

‘Why?’ Sam asks, lowering her voice again and leaning even closer.

‘Don’t know,’ Pea says, ‘I don’t think she wanted Ford girl to…’

‘Pea…’

‘Fine! I don’t think she wanted Sierra to see they had it.’

‘What about Maddox?’

‘Oh god I didn’t tell you that bit.’

‘What bit?’

‘Maddox got carried into the hospital.’

‘Why? What for?’

‘He passed out.’

‘Well that Lani did tazer him like a hundred times,’ Sam says, ‘so it must be Maddox’s gun, right?’

‘Might be,’ Pea says, shrugging.

‘Where is it now?’

‘Down the back of my jeans. You’d better take it.’

‘Me?’

‘Yes you,’ Pea says leaning forward ready to tug it out but finding a hand pushing her back against the wall.

‘I’m not taking it,’ Sam says in panic, stopping her friend from leaning forward.

‘I can’t bloody keep it.’

‘Don’t give the bloody thing to me.’

‘Sam, you’re better at things like that. You take it.’

‘Better at hiding guns? When have I ever hidden a gun?’

‘You hid that joint in school.’

‘Pea! That was over twenty years ago.’

‘You still hid it,’ Pea says reaching back to tug the gun free.

‘Pea, no…put it away…I’m not taking it…’

‘Take it…quick before someone sees.’

‘No! Put it back in your pants.’

‘Put it in your pants,’ Pea says, thrusting it into Sam’s lap, ‘you know I can’t hide things…I always get caught.’

‘Pea, it’s a bloody gun.’

‘Remember that time you went on a date and I told your parents you were at my house?’

‘Oh that’s not fair.’

‘Take the gun.’

‘Pea…’

‘Quick, someone’s coming.’

‘Shit,’ Sam says, tucking the gun down the back of her waistband, ‘Where?’

‘What?’

‘You said someone’s coming.’

‘Yeah, er…no, I just said it. But you got the gun now.’

‘Fuck’s sake,’ Sam tuts. ‘But you…you can do the whole face thing better than me.’

‘The what?’

‘The face thing…the resting bitch face…I can’t do that.’

‘What on earth has that got to do with anything?’ Pea asks.

‘If anyone asks us…I’ll go red but you can do the whole resting bitch face thing.’

‘Leave my bitch face alone.’

‘I’ve got a gun now, I’ll shoot you.’

‘Do you know how to use a gun?’

‘No. Do you?’

‘No.’

Silence, pursed lips and furrowed brows. ‘Don’t you just pull the trigger?’ Sam asks.

‘Probably a safety switch or something,’ Pea replies, ‘like on the movies.’

‘Oh, yeah probably,’ Sam says.

Silence again and they sit shoulder to shoulder leaning their backs against the wall. Both exhausted, drained, filthy, hungry and thirsty. Sam stretches her legs out, sighing audibly as she adjusts to stop the gun digging into her back, ‘What if it goes off?’

Pea looks over at the serious expression on her friends face, ‘Go off?’

‘Yeah, what if it goes bang?’ Sam says and snorts a dry laugh at Pea’s slow grin spreading across her face. ‘You’ve caught the sun,’ Sam says looking at Pea’s darkening olive skin.

‘Is my hair frizzy?’

Sam looks up, cocking her head to one side as if in contemplation, ‘yeah,’ she says slowly, ‘it’s really frizzy.’

Silence again but not awkward. A silence between people who have been best friends since childhood can never be awkward. They grew up together. Went to school together. Dated boys and went to each other’s weddings. They helped raise each other’s children and had lives entwined with the deep bond that can only ever come from a shared life. Nothing was ever left unsaid between them and a glance or the lift of an eyebrow was often all they needed to convey a whole raft of emotional messages.

They were together when it happened. At Pea’s house watching a scary movie. On the sofa with snacks. Popcorn, crisps and red wine. While the world tore itself apart they watched actors tearing themselves apart while laughing and giggling. Then the movie just stopped and the technical error message came on the screen. That was funny too as it was right at the climax of the movie. They pressed buttons and even turned the satellite box off but the movie never came back on.

Instead they learnt, as so many did, of what was happening in the real world. They both had husbands and children but neither families were ever seen again. The one thing they had was each other. The darkest of days and the even darker nights when they wept and hid. When they held each other through the grief. When they ran and fell only to stop and help the other up to keep running and keep hiding.

It was the not knowing that was the worst. The displacement from their homes. The separation from everything that was familiar. The running. The constant struggle just to stay alive, all of those things were hard but not knowing what happened to their families was the worst of all.

Somehow. Through either divine miracle or pure luck coupled with a spirit inside that refused to curl up and die, they kept going. A whisper from another survivor. A fort. A man called Howie. It was a fragile rumour but enough to give light in the darkest of those nights. The next morning they headed south and joined the straggling lines of people threading their way to the fort.

If they had ever been separated it would have been over but they weren’t. They had each other. They still have each other.

Pea looks down at the feather tattoo on her friends foot and the sadness rushes back in. The sight of something so familiar to her eyes and it reminds her of all they have lost. Sam senses it, feels it. She nestles closer and reaches a hand over to clasp Pea’s with a squeeze. Words are not needed and in silence they wait.

Lilly reaches the top of the ramp and stops. Her mind whirling as she turns round to see Lenski is still coming up behind her. Another glance down to the fort at the black clad youths, now so fewer in number but all armed to the teeth once again.

They were too late. Lenski was right. Lilly blames herself for not understanding fast enough what Lenski was trying to say. Without Maddox here the youths have once again turned into the sullen child soldiers showing disdain to everyone else. She can see they’re shocked from their drawn faces and hooded eyes. From the way they keep looking to each other for comfort and how they cling to everything Sierra is telling them and that hierarchy they have been taught shows true as they see her as the next number one. Why not Lenski though? She isn’t one of them, that’s why. It’s not race or the colour of her skin, or even the fact she’s Polish. The kids are made up of every ethnicity, race and culture. Lenski just isn’t one of them. She’s not from the estate. She hasn’t been forced to fight to survive and run from the police and have well-meaning patronising social workers giving out colouring books when they attend state funded counselling. The crews would take orders from Howie and his group but only because they’ve seen how tough those people are. Lenski is strong in mind but she hasn’t fought with them. She hasn’t smoked weed, got drunk, had scraps or proven herself in the pecking order.

Billy is fast asleep and Lilly looks down with a fresh surge of worry at Milly and her brother curled up in the space vacated by Meredith. The thought of Meredith makes the pain in her heart so much more acute. The dog’s mere presence somehow soothes the children around her, but Meredith isn’t here. Nick isn’t here.

‘Look worse from here,’ Lenski says, falling in beside Lilly as they stare down into the fort.

‘We can fix it,’ Lilly says with a tone firmer than the belief inside. She turns round, scanning the heads until she spots the dark haired woman at the far side sitting next to another woman. Both of them leaning casually against the wall and trying not to look at Lilly or Lenski.

‘She have gun?’ Lenski asks, seeing the dark haired olive skinned woman.

‘She does,’ Lilly says.

‘You know this woman?’

‘No.’

‘She been here for some of the days yes?’

Lilly goes to reply but stops, hesitating as she tries to find order in the memories within her mind. Everything seems so different. Time is different. Like it’s moving faster.
How long have I been here? A week? Longer?

‘How long have I been here?’ She asks in a voice rasping from exhaustion and the filth of the fires hanging in the air.