Justin was already awake. He’d arranged a pile of twigs in front of him and he was furiously rubbing two stones together.
“Why didn’t we just take the stove from the scout shack?” he asked.
I shook my head, trying to clear away the fog.
“It wasn’t ours to take.”
“It would have been easier.”
I stretched out my arms and felt my elbow joints crack. “Tell me I didn’t fall asleep.”
He nodded. “You were out when I woke. I thought I’d let you get a couple of hours.”
That worried me. I knew my body needed sleep as much as the next man, but I couldn’t ever let myself drop off while there was nobody on watch. I didn’t know what to do. I needed some rest, and I didn’t know where I was going to get it. My head pounded.
Justin carried on banging the rocks together, and I almost laughed.
“What’re you trying to do?”
His cheeks were tinted red. “I was going to cook us some beans.”
“By smashing rocks together?”
“Thought that’s how you did it.”
I grinned. Through all his learning and his amazing memory, he still had no clue. “Where’d you get the sticks from?”
He gestured toward the pocket of his raincoat. “Collected them when we were in the woods. I got sticks and kindling, now I just need the spark.”
“You’re not going to get it that way. Hand me the chocolate and the soda from the bag.”
He passed me the items and I spent twenty-five minutes painstaking showing him the chocolate-soda can method of lighting a fire. It took a hell of a lot of patience, but if you were in the wilds with nothing to set a fire going, it was as good a method as any. All you had to do was use the chocolate to polish the can until it was all nice and shiny, then angle it toward the sun and use it to get the tinder smouldering. It acted like a crude magnifying glass.
“Wow, where did you learn that?” he said.
“I used to do a bit of camping back in the old days. It was just a hobby then. Never thought it would become my life.”
Justin had a wide smile on his face. “I love learning this stuff.”
“Remember it for when I cut you loose,” I said.
I hated to admit it, but a small part of me got a kick from teaching him. He was an eager student, and he seemed to be getting the hang of knowing when to shut up. Back when I was a hiking enthusiast, I’d always looked forward to the day me and Clara would have a child – obviously a boy – and I’d get to teach him things like this. Then the world decided to give us a big ‘fuck you’ and any plans for the future rotted away.
As the beans cooked, the smell of the tomato sauce drifted through my nostrils, down my throat and put my stomach in a twist. It was so overpowering that I felt spit collect in my mouth.
“What are we going to do?” said Justin.
I scratched my chin and my beard felt rough beneath my fingers. When I had last shaved? It must have been weeks ago. “We don’t have a lot of options.”
Justin looked into the distance. “The GPRS said – “
“Enough with the GPRS.”
“Is this just because I know the route and you don’t?”
Of course it is, I thought. If you hadn’t have taken it upon yourself to screw me over just so you could tag along, I’d be fine. I felt my chest tighten and the familiar feeling of anger welled up inside me. I tried to let it settle back down, because I didn’t have the strength to get mad.
“If we’re taking the motorway, we’ve got some work to do. We’ve got supplies for another couple of days, and that isn’t going to get us far.” I said.
Justin bit his lip. “We could ration ourselves.”
I shook my head. “Still won’t cut it.”
“Then what?”
“We either get a car and cut our travel time, or we get more food somewhere.”
On hearing the word ‘car’, Justin’s eyes lit up. I wondered if he’d ever actually seen one before the pick-up truck yesterday, because working cars were rare these days. There were plenty of them scattered around and most of them still had the keys in the ignition, most likely because their drivers had met an untimely death. The problem was that batteries soon drained, and there weren’t exactly any mechanics out there waiting for a callout.
“Let’s get a car!” he said.
“Not that simple.”
Rare as they were these days, I knew someone who had one. He was also the only man alive besides me who knew where the farm was. The problem was, I didn’t have any desire to see him again. It wasn’t that he was a bad guy; more that he reminded me of what I had lost, of who I had failed to protect.
Getting a car would be easier than getting enough food to last the trip, but it wasn’t an option.
“How dangerous is the wholesalers, really?” I said.
Justin looked at the floor. His eyes looked grave. “Kyle, please. Let’s not do that.”
“Come on kid, can’t be that bad.”
Above us a grey cloud had gathered. The edges were white, but in the middle of it was a heavy darkness. It started to spit, and I felt the flecks of rain drop on my head. I was in for another drenching if this carried on. I should have just picked up a new raincoat when I was in town.
Justin pulled his hood over his head. He looked at me, and I could see in his eyes that he was scared.
“Moe sent five guys there once. They were supposed to be gone a week and come back with loads of stuff. Two months later, we’re still waiting.”
“Hunters or infected?” I said. I hated having to ask that question, and I thought back fondly to the time when the infected were all I had to worry about.
“Your guess is as good as mine,” said Justin.
The rain was coming down heavier, and the storm cloud seemed like it had deliberately positioned itself above us. That was the way the world was now – it actively worked against you. Once man was the king of the planet, and now our home was trying to destroy us. How else could you explain all this shit? The infected, the stalkers, men hunting men. This was the end.
I wasn’t going down so easily.
“They must be ready now,” I said, nodding at the beans. My stomach ached.
Justin dished us both a share. The smell of them was intoxicating, and my mouth watered as I lifted them to my lips. They tasted amazing; it was the most glorious breakfast I’d ever had.
So here was the choice then. We could go get a car, and I’d have to face someone I had no interest in ever seeing again. The only other option was to go to the wholesalers and run straight into a den of either the hunters or the infected. It all came down to this question; would I rather risk emotional pain, or would I rather risk my life?
I shovelled another spoonful of beans and felt a warm glow in my stomach. Above us the rain cloud gathered force and blotted out the sun. The rain thickened into a torrent, the water battering the grass as it landed. I closed my eyes and made my decision, knowing the choice I made could mean the end of myself mentally, or the end of us both physically.
Chapter 11
GO AWAY.
I looked at the message painted in red letters on the wholesaler wall, and I wondered if we should listen to it. The building was a giant warehouse with a main entrance that faced us as well as a row of windows, though the glass was dirty to see anything inside. Round back a truck was parked up, and although I couldn’t see it, I guessed there would be a larger entrance that was used for deliveries. The whole place was deathly quiet, and if there were any infected hanging around, I couldn’t see any of them. Above the main entrance there was a sign that read ‘NJB Foods”. The place looked so silent I wouldn’t have believed Justin’s warning of how dangerous it was were it not for the spray of bullet holes carved into the brick wall facing us, and the long smear of blood on the floor.