The Grave: A Zombie Novel (24 page)

“Well yes, and no. In here with
me, you are quite, quite safe. This town was left to die and the houses burnt. The mall here survived relatively unscathed. The southern side has collapsed, but there’s literally no way through the rubble. Trust me, I’ve checked. The rest of the building is completely locked down. They must have locked up and left. The only way in or out is the alley where I found you. I have the key in my pocket and they won’t get in. You can relax. I’ve been living here for many years and they can’t get in.” Roach had sat back down on his chair, but kept still now as he talked. His eyes cast furtively around the room, as if he was examining them all, scrutinising his unexpected guests.

“Did you say years?” asked Mark.
“How many?” He casually lifted his camera and took a photograph of Roach.

“Well it’s hard to be sure. I spent some time in prison before they dropped me off here, so...about four in all. Yes, well three definitely. I stopped counting the days after a while. They don’t matter much anymore
.”

Will whistled through his teeth. “And you’ve been here the whole time?”

“Mostly.” Roach closed his eyes and hung his head for a moment.

Roach failed to say anything more on the subject and Tricia whispered in Kelly’s ear. “Do you think we should leave? Should we keep going for the coast?”

Kelly looked around the room and shook Tug’s image from her head. She was tired. Will and Mark looked shattered too. She knew if she asked them they would carry on, but did she need to? Suzy was drawn and pale, Claire was but a shadow of her former self, and they were all cold and wet. Without Tug, would they even go in the right direction? She also had to think about this Roach – would he want to come with them?

“Mr Roach,” said Kelly standing up, “if this place is as safe as you suggest, can I please ask for your help on all our
behalf? We all want to get home as quickly as possible, but that said - we also need to rest. It’s getting late in the day and we’re cold...our clothes are soaked and we haven’t had anything decent to eat in the last two days. After everything we’ve been through, I think we could do with a good night’s sleep. What we’ve seen out there today was horrific. Our friends Tug, Rasmus...” Kelly swallowed down her grief and carried on. “Perhaps even some more food if you have it please? Do you think we could stay here, just for now, and talk to you some more about how we get off this island?”

All eyes turned to Roach who got up and left his chair spinning and creaking
as it circled around. He walked over to Kelly and held out his hand, which she shook. “What kind of a man would I be if I kicked you out onto the streets? I can imagine what you’ve been going through. I’ve lost people myself.”

Kelly couldn’t help but shed a tear as she shook Roach’s warm hand. He was a little erratic and thin, but he seemed genuinely nice. It was only those wiry spectacles he wore that made him seem so shifty
. Up close, his eyes were soft and suggested he had a caring soul behind that eccentric exterior. If he had indeed been a prisoner here for years there was no surprising he was acting a bit strange. She collected herself, refusing to break down completely, even though every fibre of her being wanted to.

“Listen,” said Roach facing everyone, “it’s getting late and if you are all in agreement, I will show you around my home so you can feel a little safer. I have
some food and you can see I have plenty of spare beds. Follow me, and please introduce yourselves. Then perhaps later I will tell you a little about myself.”

Will got up and shook Roach’s hand too.
This queer man had saved them earlier, and had not hesitated to help them now. It did feel good to get out of the rain and if Roach had spent years inside this old mall, it must be very safe. Will felt reassured and confident that they were not in any immediate danger. He began introducing everyone and Roach made a point of remembering their names.

They decided they would follow
Roach through the centre with the exception of Claire. She was exhausted and her headache was worsening, so she stayed behind and tucked herself into one of the beds. Will promised he would bring food and clean clothes back for her.

On the upper level of the mall, Roach stopped outside a department store. “
You look completely soaked through, the lot of you. You’ll find everything you need in here. Luckily, the store was well stocked and there are both men’s and women’s clothes. Down the back, you’ll find the shoe department. I suggest you find some comfortable walking shoes. You never know when you’re going to need to run.”

It dawned on Will that Roach had survived here, apparently alone, and had made good use of his surroundings. It explained his unusual footwear, but it made perfect sense. There were a million questions he wanted to ask Roach, but only one occurred to him before he joined the others inside. “What’s with the mess on the floors? Was it like this when you got here?”

Roach looked around the mall and laughed. “No, no, it’s all my own handiwork. I think I did quite a good job of it.”

Will lifted his foot and picked a fifty dollar bill off that was stuck to his sole. “Because
…”

“It’s kind of an early warning system. If the dead ever miraculously found a way in here, I would hate
them to be able to sneak up on me. So I figured the best thing I could do was spread as much junk and garbage around as I could. Keep the floors as difficult to walk though as possible. Nobody’s ever gotten in, but if they did, I would hear them coming and it would give me my chance to get out of here with my brains intact.” Roach tapped the side of his head and smiled.

“Fair enough,” said
Will, walking into the department store, giving Roach an appreciative nod as he left. He screwed up the fifty-dollar bill and threw it back onto the floor. “Guess I don’t need that in here. We’ll see you in five.”

Roach pointed out all the exit doors
as they walked through the mall. The doors were all locked so they were pointless, but he wanted everyone to feel safe. He knew how hard it was to achieve the peace of mind required to sleep and relax decently in such trying circumstances.

They had all found dry clothing and comfortable shoes, so
he was now taking them to the food court where large floor to ceiling windows still stood intact overlooking the streets below.

Tricia pressed her face close against the glass. “Look at them, they’re everywhere.”

“At the moment, yes. They would have gotten excited by all the commotion you caused earlier,” said Roach. He walked away from the window. He had seen this scene too many times now to want to take much notice.

“How are we going to get out of here?” Suzy couldn’t see a single road, pavement or street that wasn’t swarming with the Deathless.

“Search me,” said Kelly. She turned to Will. “But we will, right? I don’t want to spend any longer in here than we have to.”

Roach appeared from a back kitchen with two trays of food. “It’s not much I’m afraid. I have to be careful with my rations. I’ve got some vegetable
s growing on the roof, but there’s not much at this time of year. So I hope you like tinned food.” He placed the two trays on a table and the others sat down with him.

Will read the labels
as he ate. There was tuna, chickpeas, tomatoes and even strawberries. “How did you come by all this? It can’t have been here, surely?” He looked around at the fast food stores, knowing that they wouldn’t have served any of what they were eating. “And if you scavenged all this from the homes around town, you must have an invisibility cloak or something to get past all of the Deathless out there.”

Roach smiled, watching them eat. “There’s a supermarket downstairs. The shelves were well stocked
. Out the back in their storeroom, there were boxes and boxes just piled up. It’s lasted me a long time. I managed to find access to the roof where I’ve gotten quite the garden growing. Plenty of buckets and tubs were in the mall that I could use, so I dragged them up there and found some compost in the supermarket too. They had seeds for all sorts of vegetables. It’s been no picnic and I have a strict regime of how much I can eat, but it’s gotten me this far. There are plenty of fresh fruits growing out there, apples, lemons, mandarins...but they’re tainted. So much of the land has been contaminated now by the Deathless, you don’t know what’s safe to eat and drink or not. It’s far too risky. I’m sure you are well aware of the dangers too. Unless you are confident you have a pure water source, you shouldn’t drink anything either. You haven’t consumed anything since you landed have you?”

“
No, just a couple of power bars we brought with us, and what little rainwater we managed to collect. Are you sure you can spare this?” said Suzy swallowing down a spoonful of cold baked beans. She didn’t think anything had tasted as delicious.

“Of course, of course.
I’ve kept a couple of tins back for your friend, Claire. We should probably be getting back to her. I don’t want her to worry. She looked quite pale. Is she sick?”

“The flu,” said Suzy pushing her chair back as she got up. The scraping sound grated on even her nerves. “
She just needs a good rest in the dry and a good feed. Say, is there a pharmacy in here? Maybe I can get her some medication. I’ll try to find some antiseptic and antibiotics. At the very least, we could do with some aspirin.”

“Sure,” said Roach. “I’ll show you on the way back
.”

They all stood up, the tins now empty. Roach held two more in his hand, and Will carried a bundle of clothes.

“I might just stay here for a bit, if that’s okay?” Mark hung back, toying with the camera strap that hung around his neck. “I want to get some good shots of all this and the windows here are presenting me with a great lookout. The light will be gone soon, so I won’t be long.”

“I’ll s
tay with you,” said Kelly. “I still think there’s safety in numbers. We’ll catch up with you.”

Roach took Will, Suzy and Tricia back to Claire
via a chemist’s shop, leaving Kelly alone with Mark in the food court.

“You didn’t have
to, you know,” said Mark adjusting the lens for the low light.

“I know, you’re a big boy, you can look after yourself.” Kelly joined him at the window. “After what happened to Tug, I’m reluctant to let anyone be
on their own. I know we left Claire, but she’s sound asleep, so nothing is going to happen to her. She needs the rest too, poor thing. It’ll do her good to give her some peace and quiet for a while.”

Mark was trying to photograph the Deathless, but through a
rain-streaked window, he was not getting very many clear shots. He wondered if he could get Roach to take him up to the roof in the morning.

“Look at that,” he said, pointing at an old woman down below them.

The dead woman was pawing at the door to the mall below. Her jaws worked tirelessly, pressing up against the steel barricade that had held her out for years.

“How long do you think she’ll keep that up, days, months...years? Do they have any concept of time?”
asked Mark.

“I don’t think they have any idea. I think they’re nothing like who they once were. M
ost people believe when you die the soul moves on, right? Heaven, hell, rebirth or whatever you think. These dead that we see now are just vessels for the infection. The Aqua-Gene hasn’t kept them alive, it has killed them. The infected bodies, kill. The soul has long since left these poor sods.”

“Jesus, look at that,” said Mark, pointing to a bank’s doorway across the road. He zoomed in to take a photograph and then lowered his camera.

He was pointing to a crumpled body, curled up in the doorway. There was no way of knowing how long it had lain there. The arms and legs were slight, the bones pronounced and skin mottled green and black. The figure was motionless apart from its hands, which kept grabbing at the door, trying to haul its useless carcass up. The belly was swollen and Mark wondered if it had been pregnant. Just then, the guts of the dead body gave up their secrets and spilled out the bloody and festering contents all over the road. A bloody fissure erupted in the side of the belly and the extended gaseous gut burst open, a slushy pile of white, writhing maggots spewing out and trickling onto the pavement. Mark looked away before he vomited up the contents of his own guts over the floor.

“Fa
scinating,” said Kelly quietly.

“Really?
That’s
what you think? Fascinating?” Mark sat down, unable to look out at the horror anymore. His camera had caught enough.

“Do you know why flies
congregate around dead bodies, Mark?” Kelly continued staring at the body in the doorway. She couldn’t tell if it had been male or female, but it was irrelevant now. “The flies know that a deceased human being is basically a perfect tool for them. A corpse presents the perfect conditions for them to breed. They lay eggs, which hatch as maggots and consume the flesh. Usually, you will find Calliphoridae in large numbers around a corpse. Sorry, that’s a blow-fly to you. You also find the Sarcophagidae, which eat the flesh, but don’t lay their young inside. This all aids the decomposition of the body. A dead human is really a wonderful factory for flies to produce their offspring.”

Mark let out a long sigh. “Thanks for the
lesson, Kelly. I’m not sure I needed to know that, but thanks anyway. I’ll be sure to credit you in my book when we get back. If you ask me, they should’ve been put down ages ago. What’s the point of letting them ‘live’ like this?”