CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Joel awoke to the sound of helicopters flying over the village. He rubbed his eyes, yawned into his hand. A gradual increase in light as dawn broke outside. There was too much grey in the world and it depressed him.
The country is dying, he thought absently.
He checked to make sure his small crucifix was in his pocket. He couldn’t see the helicopters but the air trembled with their presence. They flew close to the rooftops, and by the time he rose from his seat they were gone.
Joel looked at the other men. By the movement of their faces, they were dreaming. Magnus muttered something under his breath. Ralph’s mouth hung open towards the roof, catching dust.
Joel looked at Frank and smiled. He was relieved that Frank was alive. They were all together again. Joel was adamant the four of them would never fragment again on the way home. He felt something like love for his mates.
After checking his mobile phone, which was almost dead, Joel ate a biscuit and looked out at the street to the side of the bus. He thought of Anya and if they would be alive by the time of the wedding.
Would there even be a wedding?
Not if everyone was dead and the country was burning.
He stretched the muscles in his face. He cleared his throat, wetted his mouth with short sips of lukewarm water from the only bottle in the plastic bag. He liked the quiet, before the others awoke. The village outside was a dead place and there was plenty of quiet. Only the birds in the trees lining the street broke the morning’s silence.
Joel sat down and wondered what sights he would see today. He took the photo of himself and Anya from his wallet. He smiled at it. He missed her deep in his stomach. He put the photo back in the wallet and pocketed it.
Then the infected came.
Joel ducked down in the aisle. He froze. His heartbeat filled his head. He breathed slowly through his mouth, peering through the window on the right side of the bus.
The infected came prowling through the street, amongst the abandoned cars. He did a quick count. Fourteen, in all. Deformed faces and jutting, twitching limbs held close to their bodies. Glazed eyes secreting dark fluids. They revolted him. How could God have allowed such things to exist? Were they His creations? Were they really demons? Was the pestilence blighting England actually a demonic plague?
Did that mean the Devil was roaming the land? And if that was true, what was God going to do about it?
Joel noticed one of them, a young boy, was limping at the back of the pack and making an awful, slow mewling that made Joel’s heart sink. The boy crouched over a scrap of bloody clothing on the road and picked it up, holding it to his face and taking deep breaths from it. Joel watched him, amazed and horrified.
Was the boy a demon? Was that pathetic creature something unholy and damned?
Some of the pack scratched and scraped their fingernails on the side of the bus. Joel’s teeth fillings tingled. He shivered and cold tendrils coiled around his bones.
Joel stepped down the aisle, watching the infected move down the road. He stopped near the front of the bus, waiting for the pack to leave.
The infected moved clear of the bus.
Joel slumped on a seat.
Behind him, the others were waking up.
Ralph found a Ford Fiesta with its keys in the footwell and no bodies inside. There was a small, still-working torch in the glove compartment, which they added to the one already in the plastic bag. The car had a quarter-tank of petrol. Ralph volunteered to drive. Joel sat in the front with him. Magnus and Frank were in the back.
Frank seemed to be recovering from his beating yesterday. He was bruised and winced whenever he moved too quickly. Every few minutes, Ralph glanced in the mirror at Frank, but Frank never met his eyes. Frank talked about the girl he’d travelled with. He talked about her too much.
They left Broadbridge Heath just before eight. No sign of the infected Joel had seen earlier. No sign of anyone.
“What’s the plan?” asked Magnus.
“We’re going home,” Ralph said.
“Sounds too easy.”
“It won’t be. We’ve been lucky so far. Our luck won’t last.”
“Nothing like thinking positively,” said Joel.
They travelled through other villages and hamlets. Lone infected lurked outside houses and by roadsides. They stared at the car as it passed.
Crashed vehicles by the road. Frank noticed a Dyno-Rod van on its side. The driver, a heavyset man with long hair, lay next to it, gutted and spilled open. A few hundred yards down the road, a tractor had crashed through a fence and into a tree. Smoke drifted from its engine.
Ralph stopped the car by an abandoned grocer’s van. The men stared at the pool of oranges that had spilled from the open back doors. Two women, their faces streaked with soot, were filling plastic bags with fruit. They mouthed insults and threats at the men while discreetly displaying the knives tucked into their tracksuit bottoms.
The road dissected fields; groups of people were travelling across them. Frank remembered that they were called refugees, now. Some groups walked the roads. Ralph beeped the horn at them when they blocked the way. Men glared and swore at him. An old woman put one palm against the window and begged them to take her with them.
“Please help me. Please help me.” A reedy, pathetic voice. Her nose was bloody.
“We’re not stopping,” said Ralph. He stared straight ahead. “We’re not stopping for anybody.”
“Where are they going?” said Magnus.
“Anywhere that’s safe.”
“They’re heading west,” said Frank. “Like us.”
Two men were fighting by the side of the road, swapping punches while a young woman encouraged them, waving her hands and shouting. She looked feverish. The other refugees ignored them, not even sparing them a glance.
Heading towards the village of Slinfold, the numbers of refugees lessened until the road was empty again.
The petrol tank ran empty and the car shuddered to a halt. No other cars around from which they could siphon petrol.
“Bollocks,” said Ralph. “Looks like we’re walking.”
“I don’t feel too good,” said Joel, holding his stomach.
They left the car behind.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
They walked. Frank’s legs were throbbing. He ached from the beating he’d taken yesterday. He kept thinking of Florence. Guilt and shame made his stomach boil. He popped two painkillers with a sip of water. He felt used up. They weren’t even halfway home.
Two miles outside the village Joel vomited onto the grass verge, doubling over and retching until he cried and his eyes were red-ringed and sore. He spat by his feet.
“Are you okay, mate?” said Magnus.
“Feel like shit.”
“Did you get bitten or scratched by one of the infected?” Ralph asked.
Joel wiped his mouth. “You’re trying to ask me if I’ve got the plague? What is wrong with you?”
Ralph was unmoved. “I’m just asking. Don’t take it personally.”
“Don’t take it personally? You think I’m going to turn into one of those monsters?”
“I didn’t say that. I just wanted to make sure.”
“Piss off.”
“Were you bitten or scratched, though, Joel?” asked Magnus.
Joel shook his head, glared at Magnus. “No, I wasn’t. I’m fine.”
“Okay,” said Ralph. “Do you still feel sick?”
“No.”
“Good. Let’s keep moving. We need to get to Slinford before it gets dark.”
“We’ve got hours yet,” said Magnus.
“I know, but we’re walking. Think about it, genius. I don’t want to be caught in the open when night falls.”
“I suppose you’re right.”