I looked at my brother-in-law’s face. I remembered how, years before this, we used to go to the footy together. He’d buy the pies and I’d buy the beer - that was our system. We watched our home town get promoted one season and then relegated the next. He’d been groomsman at mine and Clara’s wedding, and he’d helped me rewire our house after a dodgy electrician screwed us over.
He wouldn’t hurt me.
I got to my feet and stood in front of him. I forced a smile on my face, and I reached over to grab the shotgun. “C’mon Dave. Don’t start things like this,” I said, and move my hands toward the gun.
David took a step back. Quicker than I could react, he span the gun round and jabbed the butt of it hard into my face. I felt my nose crack and a kind of fizzy pain exploded in my head. Blood spurted out and dripped over my skin, warm and thick, and dropped onto the floor. I put a hand to my nose and when I pulled it away, it was covered red.
The pain screamed through my head. My heart was hammering and I felt a rage start to flow through my limbs. I looked at David. This wasn’t the same man as I used to know. I could feel my breaths coming quicker and shorter. My face was getting hot, flushing my capillaries with blood as my brain took in the sensory information of having my nose broken and translated it into anger.
“You motherfucker,” I choked out.
Nobody did this to me.
I leapt forward and smashed my fist into his face. This time David’s nose popped, and as his bone crunched he let out a cry. He dropped the shotgun to the floor, and I could see water welling up in the corner of his eyes.
I dropped my fist and took a step back.
“You big baby,” I said, trying my hardest to cool down.
He looked at me and his eyes were so intense they almost burnt red. He had blood all over his fingers, and when he touched his cheek he left a red smear.
“You left me,” he said. “We both lost everything. Right when I needed you, you left me.”
I shook my head. I was done with this. Right now, getting a car didn’t seem worth it.
He moved toward me. “You left me to die!” His screaming voice echoed off the stone walls.
He swung his fist toward me, but this time my reactions were quick enough for me to move my head to the left and make him miss. I ducked down a little and sank my fist into his belly. The wheezing sound he made told me I’d struck home and I had knocked the wind out of him. I pushed him to the floor.
I got on top of him and sank my weight into him. I raised my fist and was about to bring it down on his bloody nose, when his knee sprang up and smashed straight into my groin. The world seemed to turn white, and the only thing I could think about was the utter agony in my testicles.
For a second, the twin forces of pain and anger fought for control of my brain.
I was going to kill him. This was it. The rage was taking over me. I forced myself up off the floor and turned to him, ready to tear him apart.
Then the shotgun fired, and the loud boom it produced almost ruptured my eardrums.
***
I looked up and saw Justin stood in front of us. He held the shotgun in the air and smoke was drifting from the barrel. There was a strong smell of gunpowder, and my ears rang from the explosion. Above us there was a hole in the ceiling. Flecks of slate and dust fell onto the floor.
What the hell was the kid thinking? By shooting the gun he’d just made a noise so loud that every infected within five miles was going to set their radar on us. Right now, as the seconds ticked by, they would be turning their feet in our direction, a swarm of them all intent on tearing us apart.
Before I could reprimand him, Justin pointed the shotgun at me.
“What the hell?” I said.
Justin flicked his head in my direction. I turned round and saw that David was stood directly behind me.
“We need a car,” Justin demanded.
David’s eyes were hollow, as though he were struggling to process the situation. He had a lot to take in – his broken nose, the shotgun blast, seeing his brother-in-law for the first time in years.
“A car? For what?” His voice was nasal from where he pinched his nose to stop the blood.
I looked up at him. With the infected due to arrive shortly, we didn’t have time to mess around. I didn’t want David to know where we were going, but I couldn’t just steal a car from him. I needed him to agree. “We’re going to the farm,” I said.
David spent a few quiet seconds thinking. “Okay. Good plan. The farm. Haven’t seen it since dad died.” He looked at Justin. “Give me the gun, I’ll show you the car.”
This didn’t seem right; he’d agreed to this far too easily. I was about to tell Justin not to even think about giving back the gun, but the naïve kid had already passed it across. I closed my eyes and let out a long, frustrated breath. How many times did he have to make the same mistake? I thought back to Torben at the barricade.
When I opened my eyes, David had the gun pointed at me.
“I’ll ask again. Tie your wrists together.”
Reluctantly, I did what he said. After smashing me in the nose in the nose with the shotgun, I knew that David wasn’t the gentle person I had once known anymore. I didn’t know this man, I didn’t know what he was capable of. And he posed a threat to me most, of all people, because he was angry with me for what I’d done.
Maybe he had good cause, I didn’t know anymore.
“Go and wait outside,” he side to Justin.
The boy looked at David and then back to me, as though he were asking what to do. I nodded at him. He walked over to a door at the far side of the room past the table and chairs. There was a padlock on it.
“Use the door you came in,” said David.
When we were alone, neither of us spoke for a while. David kept the gun pointed at my chest, but he was staring at the floor. I wondered what he wanted and why he had sent Justin out. Was he going to kill me? Despite how unsure of him I was, I still couldn’t believe he’d go that far.
I felt a sting of pain from my nose. I put my finger to my nostrils and scratched away some of the dried blood. “Don’t suppose you have any paracetamol? I heard most of them still work,” I said.
He shook his head.
I needed to say something. I had to get him out of this state of mind. The infected weren’t here yet but the shotgun blast was sure as hell going to draw them to us, and when they got here I wanted to be long gone. Not only that, there were others out there, apart from the infected, who could have heard it.
Torben. The hunters.
“Remember when we were drunk in Brussels and we had to pay out for another night because you were so wasted? They wouldn’t let you on the flight.” I said, trying to bring up a light memory to break the mood.
David looked up. “Remember when my sister died and you abandoned me?” he spat.
I hung my head. I couldn’t have this conversation, not now. I knew he was hurting, but it was something I just couldn’t face. “Look, Dave – “
Justin came running in, his eyes wide with panic. He stopped just short of us and caught his breath. “They’re here. Fucking loads of them.”
I snapped my head to the doorway but I couldn’t see them yet. That didn’t matter. Justin had seen them, and as I predicted, they were going to swarm us. I felt my skin go clammy, and the tendons in my neck pulsed.
In the doorway, the first of the infected walked through. It was a male. His body was slim and his skin was wrapped around his bones like Clingfilm. He looked at us and growled.
I got to my feet. “We need to move,” I said. I looked at David. He had his hands wrapped around his body and he was staring at the infected. He blinked rapidly. The infected had always terrified him, and I guessed that hadn’t changed in the years since I last saw him. Next to him, on the floor, was the shotgun.