CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE
The days and nights clouded together and it was cold all the time. Hunger was something that kept Ralph awake at night. He thought of his parents often, especially his mother. Her face, her awful mouth and her nightmare eyes, made a nest in his mind. He considered leaving the camp and travelling beyond the perimeter, past the soldiers and into the ruined country to find something to kill. Despite his quick temper, he had never felt the urge to kill anyone or anything, but now he was being consumed by it. The urge made his heart palpitate and his mouth go dry. Made his teeth itch until he could barely sit still.
Maybe he’d go home, where he belonged, and give his parents a decent burial. Put them in the ground. Maybe he’d just build a funeral pyre for them. Yeah. Burn the dead. Fire purifies.
He wondered if he would be buried or cremated or left to rot as sustenance for the rodents, the insects and the birds.
Ralph was huddled in one corner of the tent, his arms wrapped around his chest. The cold air he pulled into his mouth made his gums ache and thrum. His breath stank of sewage. He tongued the gap where one of his front teeth had once been. It was spongy and raw, tasted of copper.
There were gunshots at the perimeter. The wailing cries of the infected. Guttural sounds echoing through the night. Strangled, insane shrills scraped from bleeding throats. It was enough to send a man insane. He shivered. It was a cosmic terror; something alien that didn’t care for him or any other human. Something beyond the understanding of humanity. Something that couldn’t be reasoned with, because the plague only wished to infect and multiply.
And when there was nobody left to infect...
The gunfire stopped. Raised voices. Then silence again.
Ralph decided to stay. He would help his mates. Help them survive.
He would stay with them until the end.
Morning. No colour in the world. Everything bleached and drained.
“The ships are coming!” Joel and Anya burst into the tent, hope and exhaustion across their faces.
“What?” asked Frank. He and Florence were playing Snap. Florence had won the last five games.
Joel got his breath back. “One of the soldiers said the ships are coming.”
“To Sidmouth,” said Anya. “Very soon.”
“How soon?” Ralph was watching from his claimed corner, chewing on a stale granola bar. It had the texture of cardboard.
Joel smiled, showing dirty teeth. “Today.”
Word of the ships’ arrival spread around the camp. The ships were waiting just off the coast. The refugees were told that requisitioned buses were coming to transport them to Sidmouth, which had finally been cleared of most of its infected population.
For the first time in a while people spoke with a renewed sense of hope and purpose. Some couples even rutted in their tents in celebration.
An old man and his elderly wife wept and embraced.
Some started to sing songs in celebration.
People began to talk about salvation.
Ralph thought they were fools.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR
The refugees massed at the front of the camp. The large gates were kept closed and the soldiers manned the perimeter as they had done before. The air was cloying and turgid. So many different and terrible smells. The ground was sticky, clinging onto those standing upon it. Some people were caked in mud. Children sniffled and watched the adults with glassy, expectant eyes. They were so close to being rescued from this diseased isle. No one wanted to be left behind. Apprehension and anxiety flitted through the crowd like the creeping arms of a silent mist.
Some people stood in silence, but a few outspoken men, determined and a little too proud, advocated walking the few miles to Sidmouth. But they were overruled by the soldiers; it would be too dangerous on foot.
Some people complained, but quickly fell silent when a coach crested the hill and started down the road towards the camp.
Then people were cheering.
Frank was jostled by the warm, musty bodies around him. He kept hold of Florence.
There were only five coaches. Each coach could hold probably fifty to sixty people. Not enough to carry all of the refugees. The rest of the crowd realised this just as he did.
The crowd surged. Bodies pressed him on all sides. Joel was hugging Anya, keeping her close to him. Florence whimpered and then she was drowned out by the collective roar of the crowd. A man was asking if they’d be left behind. A woman asked if more coaches were coming. The pulse of the crowd quickened, people slipping in the mud, and some were knocked down, battered by errant legs and feet. Someone screamed.
A gunshot.
The crowd fell silent.
“Please stay calm!” a sergeant said, raising his hands. “There is no need to panic.”
“Where’s the rest of the coaches?” asked a fat man near the front of the crowd.
The sergeant hesitated then looked to the officer in charge of the camp, Captain Shaw, who was watching the coaches descend the hill.
Shaw turned to the crowd. He was a tall and morose man, black haired and dark-skinned. Eyes like dark stone fetched from the earth. “Everyone will be evacuated, I promise you. I have been told by my superiors that there are more transports arriving soon. There’s no need to worry. Salvation is here.”
He wasn’t lying. Frank could tell. But Shaw’s superiors might have lied to him, for all he knew.
The coaches halted outside the front gates. They were being driven by soldiers, haggard and exhausted-looking. The sides of the coaches were streaked and smeared with blood, grime and mud. Frank wondered if the coaches had enough fuel to reach Sidmouth.
He held Florence’s hand and offered her a crooked smile.
The first coach had been filled, packed tight, the refugees weighing it down as it left the camp.
Frank and the others were near the front of the crowd. He was confident they’d be on the next coach when it was ready to receive them. He breathed in, breathed out, tried to keep his heart steady. Florence was jittery beside him.
“Are we going to France? Or an island?” she asked, large eyes peering up at him.
His mouth felt dry and cracked, like a desiccated corpse’s leathery skin. “Maybe, Florence. We’ll find out when we get on the ships.”
“Okay.”
Frank looked at Ralph and nodded. Ralph returned the gesture. Joel and Anya were struggling to stay on their feet as the crowd swayed and flowed.
“Keep together,” Frank said. “No matter what.” He looked down at Florence. He wished Catherine was here with them. He wished she was here to hold his hand.
His insides were cold, and he missed her enough to offer his own heart for her return. But he had to push away his grief and deal with it later. Now, he had to help Florence.
The second coach was slowly filled with refugees. The soldiers checked the lines of people to keep them in order. Belongings were left behind. All they could take was what they were wearing.
Frank and the others missed the cut off point for the second coach.
“At least we’ll get a decent seat on the next one,” Ralph said sourly.
“Hopefully,” said Frank.
Then there was gunfire. A woman screamed. Frank looked to the east side of the camp.
“What’s that sound?” asked Florence.
Frank lowered his head to look at her. “What sound?”
But then he heard it, and so did everybody else.
A roaring. A screaming. A wailing. The tremor of the ground from a thousand footfalls.
“What is that?” asked Joel.
The horizon was filled with an enormous writhing swarm of infected. Sprouting tendrils and baying mouths. Mangled faces with too many teeth. Abominations. Travesties and twitching wretches. So many of them. More than a thousand. More than two thousand. More than three thousand.