The Dead Boy (17 page)

            When
she got back to the car she emptied everything into the back seat and threw the
baskets down.

            'Was
it all right?' asked Edgar.

            'Shove
over,' she said. 'No problem.'

            Later
that day, before night fell, she felt George's eyes on hers in the rearview
mirror. Without touching, they couldn't speak. Francis glanced at Edgar, head
against the window, asleep.

            To
George, she shook her head.

           
Don't.

            She
watched the road instead. Nothing come up behind them to worry about anyway,
was there? She ignored George and drove on in silence and when night did fall
it was a relief to have no eyes on her.

*

When
they stopped, Francis did what she could with Edgar's arm. It smelled, but not
as bad as she thought it would. Green and yellow and ugly, but not putrid.

            He
screamed when she splashed the entire wound with iodine.

            'Sorry,'
she said. She was, too. His face was a picture, though, looking at her with
some fire and a ton of hate. She couldn't help a small laugh.

            'Here,'
she said, popping antibiotics and codeine into his palm before strapping him
with the broadest bandages she'd been able to find. 'Consider it my apology.'

            Francis
let Edgar make George comfortable and busied herself with things she didn't
need to do - like watching their surrounds for danger - so they could sleep in
the car.

            She
knew there was nothing out there. The only eyes she felt on her belonged to the
strange boy behind her.

            It
was cold - near freezing, even, and the windows misted with their breath. There
might have been a thousand madmen outside and they wouldn't see them until it
was far too late. But she didn't need to worry. Something inside her, like
George had, maybe, and Edgar, too, told her it wasn't dangerous. It
felt
open
and wide. The kind of place where people aren't.

           
My
senses are changing,
thought Francis.
I'm changing.

            Edgar
slipped back into the passenger seat and closed his eyes. 'Goodnight George.
Goodnight Francis.' Before the interior light switched itself Edgar opened one
eyes and looked over at Francis. 'Thank you.'

            'It's
okay,' she said. 'Night.'

            Lights
off, George was invisible in the back seat.

            She
didn't touch him - she wasn't ready for him to know, or say a single word
inside her head. But after a few minutes of reaching out for sleep and missing
it, Francis found she was unsettled, no matter how far away she pushed all the
horror.

            She
nudged Edgar.

            'I'm
awake,' he said. 'What's the matter? Are you okay?'

            There,
in the dark, it was easier to speak.

            'Do
you think about your wife much?'

            He
sighed. She thought he might have shrugged.

            'Her
name was Sarah,' he said. 'I do...but...not all the time. I thought I would.'

            'I
don't think about my husband at all. You know that? Not at all.'

            'I
thought you weren't married...'

            'I
don't think I am. Not anymore. I used to have a picture. In my purse. I lost
the purse, and...I don't remember what he looked like. Is that cold, Edgar?'

            He
stared out of the window.

            'I
think it's what you need it to be, Francis, and that's okay, isn't it?'

            They
sat like that, in the dark, for a while longer, both half-stoned on codeine.

           
I
killed a man with a fucking shopping basket, Edgar,
she thought.
I shot
a policeman in the heart. I shot your wife. I killed a man with a meathook, or
a bailing hook. I'm not sure it matters...what about that, Edgar? Are those
things, those deaths, cold?

            Am
I cold?

            Pain
floated away. Sleep came, but it wasn't easier. Sleep was full of fresh new
nightmares. She took more from the pharmacy than medicine.

           
That's
fine, though,
she thought in the morning.
The old nightmares were
getting stale anyway.

*

XII.

John Wake

Francis
drove with no real direction in mind but north. They were on their fourth car.
Petrol, rather the car, being the problem - hoses for siphoning weren't as easy
to find on the road than in gardens. It might have been two days, or three,
when the three survivors passed something other than destruction. It might have
been Cumbria, where they found the airfield, but the skies were darker, people
rare, and in the grey sleet directions and time and even day or night became
guesswork.

            Francis
pointed. Edgar squinted through the windshield and a sheet of dark sleet. Behind
a wire fence, the dim outline of aeroplanes - unmistakeable. Small planes,
though, rather than the larger commercial jets and airbuses. A private
airfield, for hobbyists and rich folk.

            'I
can't fly, Francis,' said Edgar. 'George probably isn't quite up to it.'

            George,
safe in his seatbelt in the backseat grunted.

            Edgar
raised an eyebrow at Francis. 'Did he...'

            She
nodded. They smiled. Both smiles were rusted.

            'Maybe
there's someone there who can fly... If not, at least there's bound to be
something useful. Take what we can, right?'

            'And
what if there are people? They're probably insane, or dangerous.'

            'We're
not dangerous, are we?' she said.

           
Not
you, Edgar. Not you, George.

            Me,
I'm not so sure.

            She
didn't voice these thoughts, but added, 'There must be other people like us.'

            George
nodded, his eyes not missing a thing. Maybe two months since his neck was
snapped and half his brain taken away...and he could move his hands, nod.
Grunt.

            She
reached in the back seat and held George's hand for a moment, to hear what he
thought.

            'O'Dell's
not looking for us right now, he says. But he will be. He says he's getting
stronger...because he has help now. O'Dell's...George, wait, I don't know what
you mean.'

           
I
don't, either,
said George in her head.
All I know is he's not O'Dell
anymore...he's US.

            She
let George go.

            'He
says he's us.'

            'O'Dell
is us?'

            'I
don't know what he means. George doesn't know. Does it matter? Do we go in?'

            She
waited while Edgar stared through the gloom at the planes beyond the fence.

            'Okay,'
he said. 'First sign of trouble...'

            'I'll
sic George on 'em,' she said. She pulled away and drove half a mile along the
road, looking for a gate, or a break in the fence, until she tired of it and smashed
the car through the fence.

*

A
helicopter sat idle in a hanger at the strip. Outside, everything was covered in
grey, cold sludge. The helicopter seemed to gleam after so long without shining
surfaces.

            The
pilot must have looked after it. Himself, maybe not so much. He laid out on a
desk. They thought him dead until he groaned and puked out vodka-stinking
vomit. His eyes were red, there was blood on his knuckles.

            'Fuck
me,' he said, bleary-eyed, blinking.

            'Maybe,'
said Francis. She imagined she looked a lot like some kind of tramp or beggar. Crutches
held her up. She was covered in grime, in a mix and match outfit taken along
the way. Stinking, greasy-haired.

           
And
I might still be the best-looking woman in the world,
she thought.
Eminently
fuckable
.

            'Can
you fly that helicopter?'

            'Sure,'
said the drunk.

            'Then
we'll see about that fuck. Get us the hell off this island, and we'll see.'

            She
had no intention of screwing the man, but...

            She
wiggled her head, side to side, for him.
Maybe,
the gesture said.
Maybe
not...

            She
put it out there, let him think what he would. Edgar, beside her, started to
speak, but George, still in his chair but moving better then, laid a hand
against Edgar's.

           
He's
not just moving,
she noticed.
He's moving quicker. His control's
returning.

            She
guess George told Edgar to shut up, because Edgar nodded, but didn't reply. George
might be moving more each day, but he didn't seem able to make a word - not out
loud, anyway. The words were there, in his head, but that's as far as his words
got without someone to touch, and even then, conversation was limited to her
and Francis. Maybe because they were different. She didn't know. They hadn't
met any other people interested in conversation.

            She
understood Edgar's caution. But caution wouldn't keep them alive forever.

            The
pilot weighed up his options, then shrugged. 'I'd sure like a fuck,' he said,
honestly. 'But keep it. I can fly the thing...but I won't.'        

            'Why?'
said Francis. 'Should I be offended?'

            The
man laughed. Hungover (and possibly still drunk) or not, Francis knew they'd
get along just fine.

            'No.
Hell...no. Trust me. Finest looking woman I've seen in weeks. No. It'd be
suicide.'

            'Why?'
asked Edgar. 'The weather?'

            'Yeah.
The helicopter's fine. Does what it's supposed to. Only thing is, it's not
supposed to fly through a shit storm. In this weather, it'd work like a vacuum
cleaner and be just about as useful.'

            'I
get the picture,' said Francis. 'No way?'

            The
guy shrugged. 'Maybe a short hop. Never make it across the channel.'

            'Fuck
it, then,' said Francis. 'Got a drink?'

            He
looked from Francis to Edgar, then down a short hop to George. He thought about
it for a minute.

            'Sure,'
he said. 'Coffee, too. Probably.'

            Francis
raised an eyebrow at the man.

            He
laughed again. 'Fair enough. Drink. Coffee'll keep.'

            Francis
liked him, but she glanced at George before she let her guard slip even a
little.

            George
nodded. That sixth, or seventh, or whatever sense he had was far more reliable
that her judgement.

            'Thank
Christ. I really, really want that drink.'

            Edgar
nodded. 'Can't say I'd turn it down, either.'

            They
followed the man into the back of the building. There, in a cabinet beneath a
paper-strewn desk, the man showed them his stash: Tequila, Whiskey, Gin.

            'Had
more, a couple of weeks ago. But...you know how it is.'

            'End
of the world, and all alone?'

            'Yeah,'
he said as grabbed the tequila. 'That's how it is.'

*

The
man's name was John Wake. He hadn't lied about making it to the continent.
France was out of their reach.
'Oil rig?
' he said.
'Maybe.'

            What
did they have to lose?

           
I
think the real war starts soon
, George said before they boarded the
chopper.
It doesn't matter where we are. But away is safer for our bodies.
O'Dell isn't the only danger.

            Francis
remembered the unmade man on the motorway and wire shopping baskets with
grateful eyes dying inside that cage. She let herself remember and held George.
She couldn't keep it from him. He was just a kid, maybe, but she didn't want
secrets between them.

            Absolution
was what she needed, but there is no forgiveness or peace from such things.
Just living.

           
You
did what you could, and what you had to, Francis,
he said.

            She
wasn't sure he was right about her...but he was right about people. They could
be dangerous. People did change.

           
George,
too,
she thought when she release him.

            More
often, lately, when they spoke inside their minds, he sounded
older.

            Wake
put them down on the rig in a storm suited for the ending world. The wind was
stronger with the passing of each day. Off the ground in a flimsy helicopter,
the gusting wind became terrifying. Their pilot wasn't wrong about the engines,
either. They coughed and died before he switched them off.

            Francis
sat in the front and wished she'd taken the back seat. George was just a boy,
but she'd rather be holding his hand than anyone else's in the whole world.

            But
while the weather tried to kill them, John Wake kept them alive.

            If
he could do that drunk, she thought Wake might be the best pilot left on the
planet. Her heart beat so hard her chest hurt. Beside her, Wake was pale. She
turned and checked on George and Edgar. George managed his half-smile. Even
Edgar smiled, though he wasn't pale, but green.

            'Good
job,' Edgar told Wake and vomited down the front of his coat.

            Francis
kissed the man beside her on the cheek.

            'Thank
you, John Wake,' she told him.

            'Won't
hold you to it, you know,' he said.

            'I
know,' she'd told him.

            She
almost wished he had. It had been a long time since she'd felt a man. Been a
long time, she supposed, since she'd even thought she might want to.

            She
screamed for the first time in months. A man stood out in the storm, and must have
been freezing even under all the layers.

            He
waved, hands wide.

            'Come
inside,' he seemed to say.

            He
proved no threat. Luck, and nothing to do with judgement. His name was Bors and
he showed them they weren't the only people in the world not bent on killing.

            Francis,
George, Edgar, Wake - they'd all assumed they would weather the storm or die
starving, or even just drift away, lost inside their minds just like George. But
it was good for men and boys to see what humanity could be before they went to
war.

*

 Out
on the North Sea, it was always cold, and the seas, always rough. The
green-brown waves ravaged the rig, high and foam-tipped.

            Riggers
would stare down at the sea and imagine their families as they settled in for a
four or six week stint on a platform isolated above the surface, where the wind
whipped mercilessly around girders and scaffolds and abraded bare skin.

            In
normal times.

            But
these times weren't normal. The men on the rig wouldn't be going home. Maybe
knowing that changed them. Maybe they were good men before.

            This
storm, this cold, were harder than they should be. It was early for ice, yet
any moisture in the air froze into stubble along the cables and the steel and
the plates that made the platform itself; everything became dangerous. To rush
was to slide. No one wanted to slide high up on frost and ice covered steel,
while cold winds battered them from the skies.

            It
wasn't the nuclear winter of fable, yet. But it was a winter that was quick and
dirty, and the sleet that assaulted the rig promise worse - bitter, evil
weather to come.

            Inside,
with everyone jammed into the cafeteria that served as a common room, it was as
warm as it was going to get.

            Francis
watched Wake doing his only party trick, saying his name like he was John
Wayne, but with a broken nose. It was stupid, but it made her smile, at least. Wake
must have been around Edgar's age. Who else would still make jokes about John
Wayne? Youngsters like her probably never knew who he was.

            Charlie
Chaplin, Marilyn Monroe, Clint Eastwood, Paul Newman, Audrey Hepburn, but Brad
Pitt, Scarlett Johansson, Ethan Hawke, Charlize Theron, Angelina Jolie. Actors
in movies or television, singers and bands before their crowds in stadiums,
long dead or young or someplace in between...the rich and the famous. Now,
dead, or nothing, and never remembered.