The Dead Boy (16 page)

XI.

Passing On

Edgar
sat beneath the underpass while dirty rain fell either side - like they were
inside a charmless, manmade waterfall. Cold, too. Near November now, but no one
had a watch or calendar. The weather wasn't a good indicator of season any
more. It would be a long time before they might just the time of year by the
weather.

            George
was inside, away from the chill. Edgar was there because when she brought back
the car she'd found a few days ago (if it would start, even, after nearly a
month idle) she'd need his eyes, and his ears, and his one good arm. She
supposed she would have driven the white van full of blood, if she had too. The
concrete beneath the bonnet was black with grease or oil, though. It wouldn't
start, and she wasn't upset about it.

            The
rain was hard and nearly black and certainly poison...but it hid her from those
who roamed; those lost in the dead days.

            'Are
you ready?' Edgar asked.

            She
patted his good arm - once dislocated and still sore and weak, but connected by
nerve and tendon at least.

            'Close
enough.'

            She
put her hand on the cold concrete and began to push up.

            'Wait,'
he said.

            'If
I don't go now...'

            'I
know. But wait.'

            'Edgar?'

            He
looked away for a second, like he was trying to tidy his words before he let
them out.

            'Francis...when
I touched you, that first time,' Edgar said, 'I felt
him
. Like you and
George are connected? I worry O'Dell can see us through
you
.'

            'That's
an easy one,' she said, and rose. He was on a slight slope, higher, and now
they faced. 'He can't,' said Francis. '
George
holds him at bay. Sure, we
don't know what O'Dell can do. But then we don't know what George can do - and
George is just getting started.'

            'Okay...but
O'Dell...' 

            'Edgar,
you think this is about bombs and poison in the water? It's not. It's not unimportant...but
Edgar, the world
is
going to end - maybe it already has. And there is
nothing
we can do.'

            'Then
what's the point?
Why?
'

            'O'Dell's
already won. Do you see what I'm saying? The world's lost. Something will
survive. But we were never going to
win
. But the world isn't the
battleground. It's not
the
battleground. The battle isn't for buildings
and land and shopping precincts, isn't it? And you and I? We're not fighting.
He
is,' she said.

            She
meant George, of course. 'It's us, Edgar. O'Dell didn't die in the madness, or
the fire. He's still alive, and we have to fight...and it's us against him -
but you and I, even George, we're not the soldiers. We're the battlefield.'

            'If
that's it, Francis...how are we going to protect him?'

            She
took Edgar's hand. 'We're not, not now, or later.
George is protecting us.
The kid, O'Dell...they're fighting for what's left and O'Dell doesn't know it
yet.'

            She
walked into the hard rain, and away, toward a car she prayed would start. Edgar
watched her until the rain swallowed her.

*

The
car was two miles distant.

            Francis'
limped through the rain. The best she had was a jean jacket she'd found - some
woman's jean jacket, short and nearly useless. It grew heavy and barely kept
the cold out. Maybe it cut down some of the wind that seemed to grow stronger
day by day. The weather, the temperature, the wind, the dark rain...everything
was miserable.

            And
even though it should be daylight, it was dark. In the dark, she knew, people
like her roamed and took what they wanted. Some were just like her. They wanted
medicine and shelter, warmth and food.

            Some
took the other things they wanted - people.

            Each
step she took she glanced, her eyes wide and full of rain. Sight was next to
useless anyway, hearing not much better. Senses she didn't know she had came
into play. Thoughts she wished away. There, behind a car...was that a shadow, a
shift, a tiny movement?

            Or
was it just the rain drumming of roofs and bonnets?

           
Can
I fight on crutches?

            If
it came to it, she would.

            She'd
found the man who screamed. She'd seen what men (and women) could do. Not just
crazed cannibals with filed teeth and long saws, not only grinning old men who
wore suits and destroyed the world. But the small people, too. Nobodies. People
with murder or torture in mind, or rape and mutilation or flesh ornaments for
their bloodied homes. Gangs would roam, she imagined. People would follow those
stronger than themselves, perhaps, and violence would become a badge, thigh
bones topped with skulls sceptres in the new world.

           
Stop
it.

            Each
step dark, every sound possible death.

            The
walk was slow, the rain full of fear, and when she found the car, and it
started, she wept.

            She
thought it was the longest walk of her life, the most miserable she'd ever
felt, the hardest thing she'd ever done.

            It
wasn't.

            Her
life was once shoes and good meals and credit cards. In the dead days, she
found you had to earn what you needed, and pay for things you bought in
different ways. She learned that in the next town.

*

When
she pulled up in front of the white van, pointing to the north, Edgar's smile
was almost worth the fear.

            She
wound down the window. 'Hey handsome, how much to go round the world?'

            Edgar,
to his credit, did laugh. She thought it might have been the first time she'd
heard anything but questions and complaints.

           
Maybe
hope for him yet,
she thought.
Maybe for me, too.

            'Where
to?' said Francis when Edgar was beside her and they'd got George in the back
and the wheelchair in the boot.

            'Does
it matter?' replied Edgar.

            It
didn't.

            The
car was a Cherokee Jeep, or a Jeep Cherokee. Francis wasn't sure and didn't
care. Not as large as a Range Rover, but sure on the muck and mud that covered
every road.                         They found a town just five miles down the
road.

            Fire
and violence and madness left its mark.

            Heads
adorned the street. Not on pikes, like might have been done in some medieval
war, but arranged neatly in rows along the streets.

            Rows
of buildings burned or smashed, cars stuck down with rubber, debris from street
battles, too - what looked like bullet holes, here and there, as though the
military or police, perhaps, had been involved at some point.

            No
people, just their heads.

            They
drove on, through the littered streets, looking for a way out. Further out,
there were no heads lining the dark streets. The silent stares of all those
dead eyes was heavy, and when they were gone Francis at least felt lighter.

            Further
still, near the place where the town seemed to turn to road again, was a small,
one row car park that served a pharmacy. Here, it seemed quiet. Less oppressive.
After town, it looked like an oasis.

           
Medicine,
bandages...painkillers.

            Not
an oasis...it might be heaven.

            'Don't
stop,' said Edgar. 'Don't.'

            'We
need to. Anything is better than nothing. Edgar...you need medicine. We need
supplies...we might not get another chance.'

            'Don't,'
he said. 'It's too...'

            But
she pulled in.

            'Get
in the driver's seat,' she told Edgar. 'Keep the engine running.'

            'I
can't drive one-handed,' said Edgar.

            'I
can't whistle, either. But if you hear me scream, drive. Understand?'

            'Francis,
you don't have to.'

            'I
don't, do I?' she said, but opened the door, took her crutches and made her way
through the rain to the pharmacy.

*

It
was almost heaven. Close as she imagined she was getting. A hot bath, a warm,
soft bed, chocolate, a book...

            These
things were mostly gone.

            But
the shelves were nearly full, and there was a basket.

            She
laughed, actually laughed, a hearty, belly laugh. She didn't hear the wet words
until she stopped.

           
'Please.'

            All
her joy dried up in her throat.

            A
trick?

            Someone
hurt?

            Her
only weapons were her crutches. If she tried to hit someone with those, she'd
just fall on her arse.

           
'Pleaseeee.'

            Whoever
spoke was hidden behind the chemist's counter. The till, the rows of dextrose
sweets and cough candies like Fisherman's Friends. Bottles of pink medicine for
acid guts...the simple stuff in a line.

            The
good stuff - codeine, morphine, penicillin, amoxicillin - over there where the
owner of the voice hid.

            In
pain, or waiting?

           
'Please.'

           
Weak,
she thought. But she couldn't be sure. Madness was full of cunning.

           
Don't
speak...just sneak. Look...get the fuck out if you have to...

            She
argued with herself, but her mind was losing. She walked to the counter and
looked over, half-expecting to see a weapon for a mere instant before it
plunged through her eye.

            She
didn't expect to see a man, arms and legs cut off. She didn't expect to see
anything like the misery and agony (and fear) in that man's eyes. She didn't
think she'd see it again.

            Like
the man on the motorway.

           
Like
a gang tag?

            'Please...'

            She
couldn't speak. She wanted to vomit, or run, but she couldn't do those things,
either.

            'I
can't help...I...'

            She
turned away, her body winning once again, her mind shutting down, walking to
the door.

           
'Kill
me...please...'

            She
stopped. The basket was still in her hand.

           
I
can't go. I can't go, because we need medicine.

            She
hated herself afresh for a moment. Survival over compassion.

            Her
husband would have been proud.

           
But
he's probably dead, too, isn't he?

            They
needed medicine. She didn't need to leave the man like that.

            She
walked back to the counter. She couldn't figure out how to open the hatch
without putting her crutches down and using both hands. She couldn't look at the
man, and she couldn't break her crutches.

            Because
she needed them, just as much as they all needing medicine and all the other
sweet treats right here.

            Francis
climbed over the counter. It was awkward and hard and it hurt, but it had to be
done.

            'Just...'

            She
didn't need to hear whatever he had to say, though. That would have made it
worse. She put the edge of the basket against the man's throat and laid all her
weight against it, while she closed her eyes and looked away. It would have
been obscene, to look at him. She didn't want to hear, but that, she couldn't
help.

            Francis
thought she stayed that way for maybe two minutes.

            Long
enough.

            She
worked around him and took all the medicines she recognised, and then climbed
back over the counter and filled another basket with bandages, scissors,
butterfly staples, energy sweets, anything at all that might prove useful.