Plagued (15 page)

“Hey! Get the fuck back to work!” Mitch shrieked
at her, making her jump.

“I’m sorry, Sarah, I’ll talk to you later. Please
find me, we really need to talk. He’s not who he says h—”

“NOW!” Mitch shrieked again—louder and squeakier
this time—and threw his half full beer can at her.

 It hit her head on and she screamed in pain.
Blood poured from her lip. She took one last sorrowful look at Sarah and ran
back to the other side of the fire.

Duke saw the commotion. “Sit back down,” he
demanded, and she did so. “You know her, I take it?”

“She is a friend, yes,” Sarah said coolly,
watching the fire.

“And how long have you lived in that shithole, if
you don’t mind me asking?”

“All of my life,” she said, anger rising. “Those
women you have over there, they’re my
friends
. They’re my neighbours.
What gives you the right to treat them like that?” She turned to face him and
looked him dead in the eyes.

Duke laughed, surprised at her outburst. “You have
balls. I’ll give you that,” he said and he leaned in closer to her. His breath
was horrid and smelled like stale cigarettes. “I took them, and you, in perfect
trade. We get you and he gets food. It’s just business.”

Sarah frowned. “You make it sound like he had a
choice.”

Duke’s amusement left his face and he looked at
her square in the eyes. “Honey, it was his idea. Maybe not you, but the
others—the blonde one he was pretty adamant to give up.”

Sarah looked at Emily, who was sat next to her,
expressionlessly listening to their conversation.

“I don’t believe you,” she said, returning Duke’s
gaze.

In that second, a car pulled up next to the parked
Land Rover, the sound of tyres rolling over dirt alerting them to its presence.
Duke turned to look at it with amusement. He looked down at Sarah. “Why don’t
you ask him yourself?”

Sarah stood up. It was too dark to see the figure
getting out of the car, but it was a man. He walked towards them and Duke
opened up his arms and laughed.

“Well, well, well. I wondered if you’d make an
appearance tonight!” Duke chuckled.

“I came to see
her
,” the man said, his
voice husky and deep.

Sarah recognised him instantly. As he walked
towards the fire, his face lit up in the orange glow and Sarah’s heart sank. Where
had he been hiding that car?

“That fucking bastard!” Emily shouted and ran at
him.

Mitch grabbed her leg from the ground and pulled it.
Emily fell flat on her face, blowing dust and dirt into the air.

“Uh uh! No you fucking don’t!” he said, and pulled
her to him.

Sarah stood there, in shock. She dropped her beer
on the ground and it soaked into the dirt, leaving foam on her boots. Jack walked
confidently towards her, unsmiling, and turned his attention straight to Duke.

“Have a beer, man,” Duke said and threw one at
him. Jack caught it effortlessly and they both sat down together. “We’ve been
looking after your lady friend real well, haven’t we?” Duke looked at Sarah and
sneered.

 “Thanks for the bitches, Archie!” someone yelled
to Jack.

Jack nodded solemnly and waved at them. Then he
turned to Duke. “I need to have a word with Sarah for a minute, man. That okay?”

Duke gave him a ‘thumbs up’ and got to his feet.
He motioned for Mitch to follow him. Mitch stood up and dragged an angry Emily
with them.

“What is going on here, Jack?” Sarah asked
aggressively. He reached out to touch her but she evaded it quickly.

“Let me explain,” he pleaded. His face was
sincere.

Sarah looked at his face, feeling nothing but
contempt for the man she once loved. But a small part of her hoped that there
was still a reasonable explanation for it, so she waited.

He led her to Duke’s caravan and they went inside,
closing the door behind them. Jack sat down on the bed and waited for Sarah to
follow, but she could hold it in no longer.

“How can you possibly explain this? You traded us!”

“Yes, I did but it’s not what you think it is!”
Jack said in desperation. “I
had
to, Sarah! We ran out of food months
ago, I’ve been looking for it everywhere but it’s all rotten. You don’t know
how hard it’s been trying to keep them calm.”

“That doesn’t give you the right to give those women
to
that
bastard! And now Emily?” Sarah yelled at him, her face reddening
with anger.

“I know, I know! But what else could I do, I
didn’t know you were going to offer yourself on a plate to him! And the only
reason we are still alive now is because he gave us food and water. We were
starving, Sarah. Your
parents
were starving. I did what I thought was
right!”

“There must have been others ways,” Sarah said,
her anger fading into exasperation. “How are my parents?”

“If there was, I would have done it, baby. Believe
me,” he said, his voice softening. “They’re as good as they can be, not a fan
of me at the moment. Don’t worry about them. I’ll get you out of here as soon
as I can.” He reached out for her hand. She turned away from him and squinted her
eyes to stop the tears from rolling.

“Listen to me, I wouldn’t have let you go if I had
the option. I knew he wouldn’t hurt you. That’s part of the deal. He doesn’t
hurt any of the women I tra—”

“Are you blind or just stupid?!” Sarah spat, a
fresh wave of anger burst through her. “Have you seen them out there? I heard
Mitch talking about what they do to those women, when we were in Winding. What
did he do with the women that tried to run away, Jack? Where are they now? And
don’t you think it’s strange that they have enough food to keep giving it away?
What are they eating?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Sarah. You must have
misheard him.”

“I didn’t. Mark was there too! Those poor women,
Jack. What kind of man would do that!?”

Jack’s upper lip twitched. He jumped up off the
bed and stood an inch away from Sarah’s face, breathing heavily. “What do you
want me to do, Sarah?” he growled. “Do you think they won’t just take whatever
the hell they want if I object? They do what they want to do and nothing I say
can stop them. At least this way, we all get food in our bellies and I didn’t
see your fucking family complaining when I brought it home! ”

Sarah was startled by his anger—his teeth were bared
at her and she backed away from him slowly. Jack saw her fear and his face
softened in the blink of an eye.

“I’m sorry,” he said, smiling apologetically. “I
didn’t mean to yell. I’m just so tired, Sarah, it’s been so hard here. You
don’t know how difficult it’s been.”

Sarah thought about her own battle, fighting their
way through Witch’s Woods with nothing but a crowbar and a bat. It
had
been hard and she would have done anything she could to survive. Well, nearly
anything. “So what happens now?” she asked, completely exasperated.

“Now, you stay here for a while—maybe a day or two,
and I’ll figure out a way to trade you both back home. I don’t know how, maybe
they’ll take Annie’s shotgun. Whatever it is, I’ll do it, I promise. In the
mean time I’ll talk to Duke. Tell him to leave you two alone,” Jack said.

Sarah sighed. Jack reached for her hands, kissing
the backs of them. She forced a small smile, enjoying the comforting touch. He moved
in and kissed her and she tried hard not to tense against it.

“I love you, Sarah,” he said, stroking her cheek.

“I love you too,” she said, the fake smile growing
heavy on her face.

“Okay, I’m going to talk to Duke. I’ll come back
to get you soon,” he said as he turned for the door. “Oh, I never had the
chance to ask you. Do you remember much about what happened before the
outbreak? Your mother told me that you’ve been struggling with memories,” he asked,
nonchalant.

Sarah frowned, trying to picture the scene of the
bus stop. “No nothing. I remember hearing screaming and that’s it. The last
thing I remember was having dinner with my friends in town that morning. That
and little pieces from my childhood; my mum and dad, the dog. But it’s still
foggy at the moment.”

“Oh...” he said, thoughtfully. “Well don’t worry,
baby, it will come back to you,” he said with a chirpy smile, and then left the
caravan.

Sarah watched him walk away. Mixed emotions ran
through her head and she fought to make sense of them. She had no reason to doubt
him but something niggled deep in the back of her mind.

Jack walked up to Duke and patted him on the arm
chummily. They clinked their beer cans together and talked for a few minutes, Duke
throwing his head back in laughter occasionally. One of the girls ran to Jack
with a hotdog and he took it without acknowledging her.

Sarah’s eyes went to Mitch and Emily. Mitch was sitting
on the ground where Sarah had been and was bouncing Emily up and down on his
knee like a child. She tried to shake him off and he slapped her in the face.
She then sat quietly on his knee, holding the side of her face. Sarah gritted
her teeth in anger.

Jack looked back towards Sarah in the window and
smiled sweetly. Sarah waved back automatically without really paying attention.
Then he shook Duke’s hand and slowly walked back to his car, shaking hands and
high fiving a few of the men that he passed. Sarah felt uneasy. Something just
wasn’t right.

The candle burned down to the wick’s end and Sarah
sat in the darkness, her mind racing. The caravan door burst open and Mitch
pushed Emily inside. She cried out as she fell over the top step.

“Now you two stay here and be good girls,” he said,
slurring a little. “We’re gonna have to go make sure the area is safe. We don’t
want any of those freaks ruining our good party, do we?” He laughed to himself as
he left. The door slammed behind him.

Emily lay next to Sarah on the bed, put her face
into the pillows and wept as Sarah lit another candle. A warm, flickering glow
lit the room, contrasting against the darkness outside.

“It's okay,” Sarah purred, as she stroked Emily’s
hair. “We’ll get out of here. Jack said he’s gonna come back for us, he’s gonna
trade the shotgun. He said so himself.”

As she spoke the sentence, she was hit with the
stark realisation that Jack wasn’t coming back. One side of her wanted to
believe it—to believe him, but the feeling that he lied to her was strong and
it felt final. He never tried to find her the first time she disappeared, why
would he do it now?
Mark would have.
She smiled to herself. Yeah, he
would have. If he had any way of getting here, he would have done it.

Emily stopped crying and looked at Sarah, her
blonde hair matted to her wet face. “He won’t come back for us, Sarah,” Emily
said, miserably.

“But I’m his girlfriend. He loves me. I’m sure he
will. He’s explained it all to me,” Sarah told her, trying not to sound as naïve
and hopeless as she felt, “and I believe him.”

Emily shook her head and looked down at the tear-stained
pillow beneath her uncomfortably. “I’m so sorry
,
Sarah,” she said
unhappily, tears spilling down her cheeks.

“Whatever for?” Sarah asked, bewildered.

Emily took a deep, slow breath. “When all this shit
started, everything was chaos. Utter chaos. We were terrified, Sarah. People
were dying in front of us and none of us knew what to do. There were twice
as
many people in the hall a few months ago, you know? Forty four altogether. Jack
was the only person that wasn’t panicking. He was calm and collected and we
needed that. We followed him without question. He was the one that told us to
stay in the Centre; he got us to board up the all windows and doors. We felt a
lot safer.”

“I went with him to find food a few times but we
came back empty-handed every time. Duke’s guys had got there first, and we
didn’t have the fuel to go out and find more. I asked him whether we should go
looking for you, Sarah, honestly I did. But he told me you were dead—he’d seen
it with his own eyes and only just managed to escape himself. I believed him,
Jamie believed him. Your
parents
believed him.”

She stopped to wipe her eyes. “A few weeks ago, he
started getting really friendly with me; he gave me extra food and one night he
brought me some beer. I was
so
lonely and he was so comforting....I’m so
sorry, Sarah,” she cried into her hands.

Sarah sucked in air involuntarily; the words hit
her like a blow to the stomach. She bit her lower lip to keep herself from
screaming, the coppery taste of blood filled her mouth. Her best friend and her
boyfriend—that old cliché
.
The urge to hurt Emily—to
really
hurt
her—grew as she watched her friend weep pathetically into the pillow.  

Then she remembered her night with Mark and how
happy she had been laid in his arms afterwards; how normal it had felt. She had
no right to play the martyr. She wasn’t the only one who had suffered during
the outbreak, Emily had to. Everyone had. Suddenly, she felt pity for her
friend. Her anger disappeared and was replaced by shame—she had wanted to harm
her oldest friend when really she had just been a frightened girl, looking for
someone to save her. Sarah could relate—there was a time when she thought she
needed to be saved, that she couldn’t do anything for herself. Then Mark showed
her that it wasn’t true. He had faith in her.

“It’s alright, Emily, I understand,” Sarah said,
stroking her friend’s knotted hair. “The truth is—”

“No,” Emily interrupted. “I’m not finished, and if
he finds out that I told you, I’m a dead woman.”

~

Emily cleared her throat and began talking quickly
and nervously as Sarah waited to hear what she had to say.
“Soon after we…you know...he changed. He told me if I
told anyone about what we did, especially your parents, he’d leave and let
Duke’s men do what he wanted to us. He said their safety was my responsibility
now. Not like I was going to blurt it out anyway—I felt nothing but guilt. I told
him exactly that and that it couldn’t happen ever again. It was a mistake. He
didn’t take that too well,” Emily said, taking a shaky breath. “He said that if
I wanted to ensure the safety of our group, I’d make sure he was kept
happy
.”

Sarah sat in silence, appalled at what she was
hearing.
This isn’t happening.

“I couldn’t believe it, he changed so quickly. I
got angry and told him that I wasn’t going to be manipulated by him. I said we
could look after ourselves. He didn’t like that,” Emily said, her voice
breaking. Her bottom lip began to tremble.

Sarah stroked her friend’s hand impatiently,
concentrating more on her words than her pain. 

Emily smiled weakly and took a deep breath. “He
dragged me into the bathroom and pushed me against the wall. I banged my head
on the tiles and when I cried out, he hit me in the face. He told me to do what
the fuck I’m told and called me a bitch. I was so angry at him, no one’s ever
hit me before and you know what I’m like. I kicked him hard in the balls,” she
let out a small, miserable laugh. “He fell on the floor and I tried to make a run
for it, but he’s
so
fast! He grabbed my leg and pulled me back to him.
He pulled a knife from somewhere inside his shirt, I had no idea he had it...”

Emily wiped her eyes on the back of her arm. She
was fiercely trembling. “He looked at me with his dead eyes and said, ‘You are
mine.’ Then he…” Emily’s mouth curled up in disgust, “then he raped me. I tried
to struggle, I really did but he pressed the knife against my throat...”

Sarah stared at her, dumbfounded. Her mind swam
with images of them together; of Emily’s distraught face as she pleaded with
him to stop and of her boyfriend’s face as he raped her best friend. Everything
suddenly made sense and there wasn’t a single moment of disbelief in Sarah’s
mind. A strong sense of déjà vu came over her, it all felt very familiar but she
couldn’t recall why.

Seeing the torment in her friend’s eyes was too
much for her. She fought back tears until she could no more. The world felt
surreal; like a really bad dream that you would remember for days
afterwards—but in this one there was no escape. They held each other and burst
into tears; both of them were too emotionally drained to hold it in any longer.
They clutched each other tightly as Sarah drifted slowly to sleep.

~

Sarah awoke in the house she shared with Jack, but
this time it was different. This time she knew she was dreaming and this one
was a real memory; one that been lost to her.

This was before the outbreak—back when Solitude
was a peaceful place to live. She suddenly remembered that Jack had a steady
job as a prison guard in Winding.
How could I have forgotten that?

She had been crying; her eyes stung and her nose
was blocked, she had to breathe through her mouth. Her jaw throbbed painfully,
making her wince every time she opened it to take a breath.

It was sunny outside. The only sound was of birds
singing on the rooftops and cars driving into the village.

She heard footsteps coming down the hallway
.

 She knew Jack was standing in the doorway behind
her; she could feel his stony glare on the back of her head.

“Feeling better now?” he said, in an emotionless
tone.

“A little,” she muttered, rubbing her jaw
tenderly.

“Good. Maybe now you will think twice before
betraying my trust like that.”

“I
didn’t betray you. I went into town with my friends,” Sarah replied, angrily.

“But I told you
no!
” he screamed, slamming
his fist on the wall behind her.

Sarah jumped and lifted her arms up to protect
herself. “You aren’t my boss, Jack.” She tried sound angry and in control, but
it came out in no more than a whisper.

He stormed around to the front of the sofa until
he towered above her. He grabbed her chin in his hands roughly. “That’s where
you’re wrong, my love,” he said between gritted teeth. “I am your entire
fucking world!”

He slapped her across the already painful spot on
her jaw with his free hand. She yelped as the explosion of pain shot through
her head.

“Stop it!” she screamed, guarding her face. Her
jaw throbbed. Probably broken, she thought. 

He slapped her again and she screamed. With
gritted teeth, he said, “I’ll do,” another slap, “what the fuck,” another slap,
“I want!”

He tried to slap her once more but she blocked his
hand with her arm. His eyes opened wide and he stared at her for a moment, as
if in shock by her new bout of courage. Then a dark smile crept on his mouth
and Sarah realised she had made a mistake. He raised his arm back and swung a
punch at the side of her face. The force knocked her head back and a hot wave
of pain shot through her head, her ears rung. Dazed and her new courage now
gone, she pulled her knees up onto the sofa and hid her head between them,
crying hysterically. Her cheekbone was throbbing with searing pain and a warm
liquid trickled down her cheek.

Jack stood up, watching her cower before him and
smiled cruelly. He looked at his fist and tutted at the sight of the blood
dripping across his knuckle. He shook his head in mock disappointment. He
reached down and lifted her head up to see the damage. Sarah let him. He
examined the side of her face—the right side was covered in blood and a small
gash ran across her cheekbone, close to her right eye.

Then—as if annoyed by her pain—he rolled his eyes
and left the room. The bathroom door closed and the sink’s taps turn on. He
swore to himself about the mess on his hand.

Sarah slowly got up from the sofa and the room
span around her. Blood had never been her favourite thing. She wobbled around
the sofa, using the furniture to keep her balance. She listened to him in the
bathroom, the water was still running. She sneaked past the door, as silently
as possible, willing her weak legs to keep going.

Creeping down the hallway, she mapped the spots
where the floorboards creaked and tried her best to avoid them. She irrationally
wished she’d had the time to correct them as she carefully meandered her way to
the front door.

Jack’s coat hung on one of the hooks and she felt
through his side pockets, thanking God as she felt the cold, hardness of his
house keys. She grabbed them and held her breath as she tried desperately not
to jingle them. Quietly, she opened the front door—it squeaked loudly and she
froze in dread, her heart pounding in her chest. Her eyes shut closed as she
waited for his shout or his footsteps. There was no sound, so she quietly
stepped outside on to the garden path and used his keys to lock to the door from
the outside, hands shaking frantically.

“Where the fuck are you going?!” Jack shouted
through the bathroom window, startling her.

She’d forgotten that the bathroom window overlooked
the front path! The adrenaline cleared her head and panic took over; she bolted
quickly out of the garden and down the road. Jack screamed at her in the
background and she clenched her teeth as she ran, expecting his voice to get
closer and closer.

As she ran to the bus stop, a bus pulled in and
without thinking, she jumped on it. She paid the driver with the change in her
pocket and sat in the front seat, looking nervously towards the house. Jack was
nowhere in sight. She sighed with relief and leaned back in the seat. People
stared at her curiously, but she didn’t care.

The bus left the village and she took a deep
breath of relief. It was over. She had no plan of what to do next. All she knew
was that she would get into town and then find the police station, report what
happened, and ring her parents. Then maybe go to the hospital. After that, she
didn’t know. And she didn’t care.

The bus braked sharply and Sarah jolted awake, she
had dozed off on the bus. They were a few feet short of the stop. Without
thought, she jumped off and thanked the driver. Someone shrieked in the crowd
in front of her. Sarah—being tired and light-headed—took a while to process the
scene, but when she did, she didn’t quite believe it. People were running in
all directions, knocking each other to the ground and trampling over them
without sympathy.

Someone banged into Sarah’s shoulder and nearly
knocked her to the ground. She turned around to give the guilty party a
mouthful, but when she saw the blood dripping down the back of his suede
jacket, she changed her mind.
What the fuck is going on?
Panic rose—something
was very wrong. The crowd was getting bigger and she was being knocked around
like a rag doll, not one person looked back to apologize. Blood was everywhere.