“What is the awful smell?” asked one of the men, whispering. Dee looked at him. Shaved head slightly overweight, funny beady eyes.
“That awful smell just saved your life,” Dee replied. A bit annoyed, she stared him down.
“Bloody hell, Matt, don’t be a dick!” exclaimed one of the women.
“Sheesh, all right.”
Dee looked over at the woman who had chastised Matt, and smiled. She had blonde hair, nice figure, a real beauty.
“Sorry about that. I’m Alice. You know Matt.” She nodded in his direction. Pointing at the others, she listed their names in turn. “Mike, Aston, Vicki, and Boss.”
“Boss?” exclaimed Dee, looking closer at the teenage boy Alice had pointed at. “What, like Bruce Springsteen?”
Boss looked at Dee, a grin on his face. “Who?”
I like this kid already.
Boss started to laugh. “Nah, it’s a gaming thing. I used to boss everyone around in my WOW guild, drove everyone nuts.”
Oh, a gamer? Dee grinned. “All right Boss.”
Addressing the group in a low voice, Dee said, “That foul smell is raw sewage. It hides our scent from those creatures out there. That stench I put on the door is seaweed, and it does the same thing. If you wish to stay here, you obey my rules. I’ve managed to hide away from the creatures for three days. You get used to it, trust me.”
Dee added, “And stay out of sight. Minimal noise too. We can share what little food I have. Hopefully my husband Jack will arrive before we have to scavenge more.”
“Variants. They’re called Variants,” murmured Boss.
Dee turned and looked at Boss. “What?”
“That’s what the American on the radio was calling them. Variants.”
“You’ve got a radio?”
“Well, had, until they found me and my parents.”
Dee could see Boss didn’t want to discuss the events of the last few days, so she made a mental note to ask him about it later.
Variants? Variants of what?
Dee’s group settled into an uneasy routine. For ten days they tried their best to be silent at all times, especially during the night. The darkness brought nightmares of hellish proportions. The Variants scurried, popped, and shrieked continuously.
The ever-present fear of being discovered frayed everyone’s nerves. They took turns watching out of the ventilation grates in two hour shifts, being careful to always stay in the shadows.
Boss came up with the idea of dousing themselves in the seaweed solution, and Dee insisted that the human waste be buried and covered in garden lime. Minutes ticking by dragged into hours, and hours dragged into days.
And still no Jack.
With little else to do when not on watch, they played cards, read books from Jack and Dee’s stored collection, and tried to sleep. But, knowing what awaited them outside, real sleep was a forgotten luxury.
Boss and Dee became fast friends, finding a common ground in all things Monty Python. They would try and lighten their mood by writing quotes, each testing the other person’s knowledge.
Matt, Alice, and Aston all sat staring morosely, sometimes whispering to each other.
Vicki and Mike spent long hours just cuddling, only rising to do their shifts, eat, and use the primitive bathroom. They had barely said two words to anyone, the shock of the past few days showing.
We all deal with things in a different way, some better than others.
Dee knew they probably had only one more day of food left, at best. They had completely exhausted the supplies they’d managed to scrounge from the immediate neighbourhood. No one was willing to venture out any farther than they already had. A few close calls with the Variants had scared everyone. Now they had no choice. They would have to go out into the mess the Hemorrhage Virus had caused.
Looking up from the book she was reading, The Chrysalids, she nudged Boss with her foot. “Hey.”
Boss was surrounded by electronic bits and pieces. An old ham radio her Dad had given her was scattered around. Without looking up, he replied, “Yeah?”
“Any luck?” Dee whispered.
“Nope, it’s dead. An ex radio. Expired. No longer with us.” Boss was now grinning.
Playing along, Dee said, “It was all right when it left the shop.” She sighed. “But seriously, could you fix it?”
“Not without the right parts. Then, yeah, maybe.”
Dee leant forward in her chair, shuffling closer to Boss. The smell of the dusty radio parts evoked fond memories of her childhood, of watching her father patiently assemble the old ham radio, trying to get it to work. He had explained what he was doing to Dee, but it had all sounded the same to her. She’d just loved to hear his voice.
Blinking away the memory, she furrowed her eyebrows at Boss. “So, did your father teach you how to do that?”
Boss paused. Putting down the small screwdriver, he shifted his weight, stretching out a leg. “Yeah, well, sort of. He taught me how to use the radio. He loved to chat to people all around the country, and the world too, I suppose. I don’t know, really? He wasn't around much.”
Dee watched as Boss shuffled around, turning away from her. He leant back down and picked up some pieces of the radio. He glanced around the room, his blue eyes flickering to her.
Dee placed a hand on his shoulder. “Boss, what happened? To him, to your mum?”
Wetting his lips, Boss replied, “They happened, Dee. They!” He gestured wildly towards outside.
Dee patted his shoulder. “I’m sorry Boss. I shouldn’t have pried.”
Boss sighed, rubbing his hands through his hair. He stared at Dee. “Dad worked as an IT consultant, hardware stuff. He mainly worked for that big animal breeding place. It wasn’t long after the news broke, a couple of days, maybe, that Dad came home sick. I think he had a fever. He still insisted on going to work the next day, and then he never came back. As it got worse out there, Mum and I hid in the attic storage area. That’s where Dad’s radio was. So when it was quiet, I warmed her up and reached out.”
Dee rubbed the nape of her neck. “Is that when you talked to the American?”
“Yeah. It was difficult to hear him. He said something about Variants attacking them, and to hunker down.”
Tilting her head in the direction of the others, Dee asked, “What about them? How’d you end up together?”
Boss picked up a piece of the radio. It was shaped like a small light bulb. Dee watched as he peered through it. He put it down next to the others, and turned around to face her. His eyes glistened, and he blinked rapidly. “He came back, Dee. He came back.”
Her heart thumped against her chest, and nerves tingled down her arms, her blood running cold. She shivered. She hoped that what he was going to say next wasn’t what she was expecting. Why did I press him?
“After a few days, he came back. But he wasn’t Dad any more. He was one of them, Dee!” His voice caught on the last words, and tears welled up in his eyes.
“I ran, Dee. I ran, and left Mum to them.” Boss sniffed and wiped his eyes. Gesturing towards Matt and Alice, he added, “They helped me. We hid in their shed. The other two were already there. But they found us. Then we met you.” Boss sniffed again, and a smile escaped his lips.
Dee moved forward off her chair. She swept a few of the scattered parts away with her foot and crouched down, joining Boss on the floor. She drew him into a tight embrace. “I’m really glad you did, Boss. We’re going to survive this, okay?”
Boss tightened his arms around her, returning the hug. “Yeah. We better.”
She held on to him for a while longer, savouring the comfort.
Dee pondered how to approach the next subject, that of the drastically dwindling food supply. She knew the average male needed three thousand calories per day to survive, and they were all on a thousand at best. The time had come. Judgement day.