Plagued (3 page)

 He walked to Sarah, smiling gently and wrapped
his arm around her neck. The warm comforted Sarah and she rested her head
against him as they embraced. He kissed her on the forehead, his stubble
tickling her and then he left the room.  
Sarah yawned as she watched him leave and Mark smirked at her.

 “I’m tired again. You’d think sleeping for six
months would be enough,” Sarah said, blinking away the moisture in her eyes.

“I'm not surprised. It's been one hell of a day
for you. I can imagine it’s a lot to take in,” Mark smiled. “Finding out that a
disease has taken over the country isn’t easy.”

A wan smile crept on Sarah’s lips —she liked his
sense of humour. “Is it just you two here? What happened to your friend?”

“Simon?” Mark asked as the smile fell from his
face. “He…didn’t make it. He was the only reason we managed to make it back
here. We got attacked on the way back and unfortunately he got bitten.”

“I’m
so
sorry,” Sarah gasped, kicking herself
for bringing up the subject. “So much death. It’s not fair.” She frowned, a
shadow covering her face as she sat quietly.

“You are thinking about Jack?” Mark asked and
Sarah looked at him wide-eyed. “Don't look so surprised, you spoke about him a
lot in your sleep.”
“Yeah, I'm just wondering if he's alive, my family too. I should have been home
that day with them. I wish there was some way that I could find out if they’re
okay,” Sarah said, tears welling up in her eyes.
Mark held her hands from across the table, squeezing them much lighter than he
had before.
           
“I wish there was something I could do to help. I haven't seen a survivor in town
for at least two months now and we haven’t been out of town, it’s not safe.”
“He didn't live here,” she said, wiping her tears away, “he lived in Solitude
with me. It's a small village outside of town that takes about an hour to get
there with a car.”
“I've heard of it. Well, he's lucky to have been there instead of here. The
population is much smaller. Maybe he's okay and they’re in hiding.”
The thought hit Sarah like a brick and she bolted out of her seat. “I didn't
think of that!” she said loudly and slammed her hands down on the table. “You’re
right! I have to go to them!”
Seeing her turn to run for the doorway, Mark jumped out of his seat and grabbed
her shoulders. “Whoa! Slow down! Didn’t you hear what I said? It’s not safe,”
he said, emphasising the last sentence slowly, “Plus it’s much too far to walk.”
“Then I’ll find a car, there has to be some, we’re in the middle of a city!”
“There aren't. The roads are covered in wrecked cars and we couldn’t get out of
town even if we had one,” Mark argued. “Listen to me carefully, Sarah, there
are some really bad people out there. They came and took everything they could
get their hands on and they stalk the main road, waiting for idiots like us to
drive past. They have a safe-house somewhere out of town —they’ve got weapons,
cars, food, water and they killed innocent people to get it.”
Sarah growled angrily. “I don't care! I have to know if they’re okay!”
She shook out of his grasp and walked towards the door. Mark ran in front of
her and she bumped into his chest, looking up at him in frustration. The urge
to push him out of the way was almost too much to bear in her anger.
“Listen to me, Sarah, you are being irrational. Those things out there are
dangerous. I know you’re scared for your family right now but if you go out
there, you will die.”

“If it was your family, or your girlfriend, what
would you do?”
“Please, Sarah, you’ve just recovered from a serious illness. You can’t just go
running out there on a whim. If you want to do this, I can’t stop you; all I
ask is that you think about it for a while. Give yourself a chance to recover…
please.
”
Mark pleaded.

Sarah saw the urgency in Mark’s eyes and sighed
irritably. He was right and she knew it. She’d only been awake for an hour or
so. If her family had been alive for the past six months, an extra day wasn’t
going to make a damn bit of difference.

“Okay, okay,” she said, removing his hands from
her shoulders gently. “I’ll wait until I feel stronger.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yell at you. I just
don’t want anything bad to happen to you,” Mark said, smiling apologetically.

“Me too,” she laughed sadly. “I don’t know what I
was thinking. I’m not exactly Rambo.”

“You are worried about your family. I would be too.
Now, you get back to bed, you look exhausted. If this is what you want to do,
you’re going to need all the strength you can get,” he said and rubbed her
upper arm soothingly.

“That’s a great idea,” she said, yawning and
walked back to her room.

~

Mark England lay in bed later that night, fighting
with his pillow restlessly. His father was asleep in the bed across from him, snoring
loudly. Mark smiled, amazed at the amount of noise such a small man could make.
It scared him just how small his father now was.

When he was a child, his father had been the toughest,
smartest person in the whole world to Mark, and he always had an answer for
everything. He was a role model. And it was true; his father was smart. Working
at the hospital meant that Albert worked endless hours, well into the night. Mark
often heard his father creeping into the house late at night after his shift had
ended and pulling the left over dinner Mark’s mother had left him out of the
oven.

The older Mark got, the smaller his parents
seemed, until one day it finally hit him that his parents wouldn’t live
forever. Though most children know this deep down, it’s not until they have
their own families that the prospect of losing their parents starts to feel
real and with that often startling realisation comes the knowledge that once
they’re gone, you’ll never see them again.

Mark’s mother, Joanna, had died four years earlier
from cancer, when Mark was twenty four years old. It hadn’t been a shock to his
father or himself—she had battled the disease for years, going into remission
twice before it finally became terminal.

He never remembered the times when she was ill; in
fact he blocked them from his mind. He, instead, remembered days like when his
parents took him on day trips to Alton Towers as a boy or the afternoons when
he’d have food fights with his father while his mother was cooking. The
good
times.

Mark himself had never married. His job as a night
guard at a local 24-hour supermarket kept him busy during the nights when his
friends would be out ‘painting the town red’ — as his father used to say. He’d
never been a fan of pubs or nightclubs anyway, so it wasn’t a great loss to him.
He preferred to spend his days hiking with his father and their German
Shepherd, Buster, or camping with his friends.

Though he was admittedly a loner — only having a
small group of close friends — he did have relationships with women. He’d had
four semi-serious ones that had lasted around a year each. He figured that
after that time, most of them had gotten bored of his gentleness and went on to
more exciting ‘bad-boy’ types. Which didn’t surprise him — women rarely knew
what they wanted. The only thing they knew was when, exactly, they wanted it by.

When he’d found Sarah, lying there on the pavement
as people ripped each other apart, he’d stopped dead in his tracks. He was
startled by her dark, flowing hair and the gentle features of her face. His
father had later told him that she was a lost cause and she probably would wake
up any minute to bite their faces off, but Mark couldn’t pull himself away.
Something in his chest tugged at him to help her, her vulnerability awakening
something inside him that he’d never felt before; an urge to protect her. So he
had.

Now she was awake and wanting to run straight back
out to save her family and a man who she apparently loved. For some reason, that
hurt him. Part of him had never expected her to wake up, he had never thought
about what would happen if she did.

He certainly hadn’t expected her to be so stubborn
and that irritated him a little. What was she going to do? Run out there and
beat them to death with her bare fists?

More importantly, why did he care so much about a
woman he knew nothing about? He didn’t like to feel so attached to someone and
that someone’s actions could affect him so much. It ran through his mind for
most of the night.

A room away from Mark, Sarah spent most of the
night thinking of her family and Jack. Were they okay? Should she expect the
worst? And was this crusade to end in tears — or worse? She shrugged it off,
she wouldn’t let go until she knew for
certain
that the people she loved
were gone. She fell into a troubled sleep.

The next morning, Sarah awoke refreshed. Albert
woke her in the early hours of daylight and served her breakfast. The three of
them ate their bowls of watery noodles hastily and Sarah found her appetite
growing with each meal. At the table, Mark began telling his father about
Sarah’s plans to leave.

“I see,” Albert said, frowning at the table. The
clear disappointment on his face made Sarah’s heart wrench, she hadn’t wanted
to upset him.

 “Well I can’t stop you, but it’s not safe out
there, my dear. If you had a vehicle, it would only take an hour but with those
criminals on the roads, you’re better off avoiding them anyway. Without a car,
you’ll be travelling a long way without protection,” Albert said. He looked up
at her, his facial lines becoming more prominent.

“I know. But I have to know if they’re okay. I
can’t just stay here and wonder if they survived or not. Plus, if Jack is in
Solitude there’s no way he’d let anything happen to them. I hope.”

Albert sighed as he fidgeted with his hands. “You
are stubborn, Miss Carlisle. I know someone else who has that trait,” he said,
eyeing his son.

Mark smirked at his father. “That’s true, which is
one of the main reasons why I’ve decided to go with her.”

Sarah was stunned. She stared at Mark as the words
began to sink in. The seriousness in Mark’s eyes told her he wasn’t lying. He
looked back at her and his mouth turned up in a small smile.

 “No! I couldn’t let you do that,” she said,
shaking her head.

“You don’t have a choice,” Mark said, smirking at
her rebelliously. He folded his arms over his chest like a stubborn child that
had just won an argument.

“Tell him, Albert. Make him see sense!” she said,
turning to Albert.

Albert smiled at her.
“I
told you, dear, he’s stubborn. But in this case, I agree with him. You can’t go
out there all alone.”

“But what about you? You’ll be alone, it’s too
dangerous,” Sarah said, exasperated by the two men in front of her. The thought
of Mark having to protect her again was too much for her, she didn’t think
she’d be able to handle the guilt if anything happened to him and if something
did, Albert would be all alone.

“I’ll be fine here, he knows that. We’ve lasted
here for over six months now. I’ve got enough food to last me a long time,
especially if there’s only me eating it,” Albert smiled and stroked her hand
over the kitchen table, his rough skin scratching the back of her hand.

“I couldn’t ask that of you, Mark. You’ve already
done so much for me. If you got hurt, I’d never forgive myself,” Sarah said
quietly.

“Let’s be honest here, Sarah, you need me. I’ve
saved your life twice and I didn’t do all that just for you go out there and
get killed,” Mark smirked, one eyebrow raised. “Anyway, there’s nothing you can
say to stop me. If we make it to Solitude in one piece, we’ll come back for my
father as soon as we can. I promise.”

Sarah looked into those bright, blue eyes and saw
how sincere he was. How could someone she’d never really met be so kind to her?
“Okay,” she resigned. “We’ll go together and we’ll come back for you, Albert.
If it’s the last thing we do, we’ll come back for you.”

“Don’t say that, dear.” His laugh was grainy and
weak. “You’ll jinx yourselves.”

Sarah smiled at him, tears forming in her eyes.
The sweet, old man in front of her filled her with love, she felt her chest
swelling. He reminded her of her own father; kind and always joking around. She
wished she could remember more about her life before she got infected, but it
was all still a blur. Her past felt like a dream.

“Okay, then it’s settled,” Mark said, leaving the
table. He opened one of the small cabinet doors in the makeshift kitchen and
pulled out a piece of rolled-up paper. He unrolled it and straightened it out
over the table, it was a map.

“Now, this is the road we’ll need to take if we’re
going to leave this city alive.”

~

It had been decided they would take the back roads
out of the city which was, more than likely, the quietest road to take. Mark
had told her that the infected had been seen in large numbers roaming the
forests and farmlands but, since there weren’t many houses out there, it would
be easier to slip through without meeting any of the infected or anyone else
that wandered around the outskirts of Winding.

Mark had given her a small rucksack and filled it
with water bottles and any remaining food that they could carry. It turned out
that Mark and Albert had quite a stash in the basement, enough for a few more weeks’
worth of food—probably double that with Mark gone.

As Sarah sat trying to memorize the forests and
houses on the map, a wooden stake dropped onto the table in front of her.

Mark stood there, smiling at his creation. He had
changed into a sleeveless, black jacket that had at least six pockets on the
front over a long sleeved black shirt, and over his shoulder he held a black
rucksack, seemingly heavily stocked.

“Are there vampires out there as well?” Sarah
snorted, looking at her new weapon on the table with amusement.

“Very funny, it’s the best I can do, unless you
prefer toothpicks?” Mark retorted.

“No, this will be fine. I’m hoping not to run into
anyone to use it.”

Mark put a flick-knife into the side pocket of his
jeans. “I think we should take a little detour to the sports shops, see if
there’s anything we can use.”

Sarah looked at the stake and sighed. “Yep. That
sounds like a good plan.”

So it was time to leave. Albert had given them the
map and lectured them on the infected; do not get close to them, do not let
them bite you or get any blood on you, just in case. Though for Sarah, he
didn’t think that would be too much of a problem. She was hopefully immune,
after all. He put some surgical spirit in the back of Sarah’s pack. “Just in
case,” he smiled.

They said their goodbyes. Sarah pleaded with the
old man to come with them, a sudden wave of guilt washing over her as they made
to leave but Albert held his ground.

“I have research to do. I may be the only person
who can,” he smiled warmly at her. Despite his brave face, Albert shed a tear
as Mark removed the furniture blocking the basement door and unlocked it. Sarah
hugged him tight and kissed him on the cheek.

“Thank you for everything you’ve done for me, I
will never forget it,” she said, eyes misting.

“You are welcome dear, good luck out there. I’m
sure we’ll see each other again soon,” he said and wiped the tears from his
eyes with his sleeve.

“I’ll come back for you, I promise,” Sarah said,
determination on her face as she looked into the eyes of the man who saved her
life.

Mark hugged his father and kissed him on the
forehead. “See you, Pops. Stay down here and don’t leave the house. If we make
it through, we’ll come back and get you.”

“Stop worrying about me,” Albert said, chuckling. “Worry
about yourselves, I’ll be fine. Look after her.”

“I will,” Mark said as they walked up the basement
stairs.

He turned around and looked at his father standing
at the bottom of the stairs, noting how small and frail he looked. He wished
his mother had been alive to look after him. “I love you.”

Albert smiled sadly. “I love you too, son.”

Mark closed the door behind them and they heard
the sound of furniture dragging back against the other side of the door.
Good
man,
Mark thought.

Once they were upstairs, they glanced around,
listening for any sounds. The house was dark and dingy; the windows and doors
had been boarded up so that only a small trickle of light shone in and dust
danced in the illuminated shafts.

They stepped quietly into the kitchen. Cupboards
and draws were wide open, their contents scattered all over the floors. Most of
the food was gone. Flies buzzed around the empty tins and the rubbish bin that
had been tipped over. The smell was so strong that Sarah held her hand over her
mouth, the state of the room in front of her confirming that she had been asleep
for a very long time.

They passed through to the living room without
saying a word. Mark looked at the sofa where his father, mother and he had spent
many nights watching TV together. All of the furniture that had been spotlessly
clean was now dusty, dark and damp. Rubbish and glass covered the floors. The
TV lay broken on the floor. He sighed and tried to stop his eyes welling up
with tears, keeping a stony facade to his face.
That life is over now, you
can cry over it later, son,
his father said inside his head.

On the walls were pictures of smiling family
members; a young Albert stood next to a very beautiful, red haired woman and
they smiled in the sunshine. She had the same unusual shade of hair as Mark. In
the next picture was a red-haired, chubby baby sat on a sofa with a teething
ring in his mouth, his blue eyes bright and curious. The rest of the photos
were of the three of them in a park and with friends or family — happier times.

As they walked towards the front door, Mark
stepped in front of her.

“Aha!” he said, and picked up a long metal object
with a curved head off of the floor. “It’s a crowbar. I think it was Simon’s before
…” He shook his head, clearing the thought away.

He swung the bar through the air, looking pleased
with himself. “Much better,” he said, smirking. He motioned for Sarah to stand
behind him as he held the handle to the front door. He opened it slowly with
the crowbar readied in his other hand.

Bright light shot inside and hurt their eyes. They
both winced as they stepped cautiously through the doorway.

Sarah’s eyes stung from the light.
This is the
first time I’ve seen daylight in 6 months
, she thought to herself in
disbelief.

She let out a gasp as she saw the devastated world
for the first time —cars were piled up in the middle of the road in heaps of crumpled
metal. Shards of glass sprinkled the ground, glistening in the rising sun.
Sarah looked both ways down the street seeing more cars that had been crashed
and then abandoned, completely blocking the stretch of road for anything larger
than a motorbike. The scene reminded her of her best friend’s car collection as
a child, he littered them around his mother’s burgundy carpet and pretended to
smash them in to each other, imitating the sound of screeching tyres and
crashing metal as he did so.

An ice cream truck was precariously balanced on
the next-door neighbours' retaining wall, looking like it could fall sideways
onto the lawn at any moment. Newspapers and leaves blew across the pavement in
the delicate breeze, the rustling sound unusually loud in the silence of the
morning. The darkness of dawn gave the street an eerie feeling and Sarah didn’t
think she’d ever seen the city without streetlights or the noise of traffic. In
another life — and without the crashed cars and debris — she would have found it
a peaceful scene.

They stepped through the garden and up the path onto
the street ahead, cautiously checking left and right up the roads for signs of
life. There were none. The only sound was the happy chirping of a few morning
birds as they flew from roof to roof, completely oblivious to the chaos around
them.

“
It hasn’t spread to animals then?” she
asked, curiously watching the birds fly happily around them.

“Not that I’ve seen, no, just humans.”

They walked in silence up the street, checking the
windows of every house they passed for signs of life or anyone that could have
survived. Mark blocked thoughts of his neighbours out of his head — it had
taken a long time for him to get used to the fact that Mrs. Green would never
be mowing her lawn again, or that the man in the corner shop down from his
house would never again call him ‘Marco’ by mistake. His friend, Simon, who had
died trying to protect a young girl he didn’t even know, would never stumble to
his house at midnight and serenade him with his drunken rendition of The
Proclaimers’ 500 Miles.
Oh Simon
.

It took them half an hour to walk cautiously from
Mark’s house to the centre of town, a walk that usually took five or ten
minutes. Even though Mark himself had walked here many times after the outbreak
took over, he still kept hope that this time he’d find someone else alive. Or
the army would drive into town and sort this mess out in a matter of hours. It had
never happened.

Sarah’s eyes skimmed the tall buildings, once
shops and apartments, now all skeletal remains of the busy city this used to
be. In the panic and chaos, they had been ransacked —windows smashed and doors
broken as people panicked and stole what they thought would help them survive.
The streets were littered with electrical goods, even in their panic people had
realised that none of them were useful anymore. Instead of mobile phones and
video games, the sought after items would be water, food and anything they
could use as a weapon. The world had taken a dramatic step backwards. A morning
breeze blew rubbish across the street gently, empty cans of Cola and Dr Pepper
rolled into the roads like modern day tumbleweeds.