Дэвид Муди - Strangers

‘Why can’t I go?’ Phoebe asked again, not giving up.

‘Because it’s too dangerous.’

‘How is it dangerous? We’re locked in here, aren’t we? I’m only going to be walking around this one room. You’ll be able to see me. It’s not like anything’s going to happen with all those soldiers around.’

‘No.’

‘I’ll go with her,’ Tammy said.

‘I said no.’

‘This is bullshit,’ she said.

‘Watch your language.’

‘You just don’t want us to see Dad because of what happened this morning. You’re embarrassed, aren’t you? Ashamed…’

‘That’s not true.’

George was sleeping with his head on Tammy’s lap. She gently moved him and got up. ‘I’m not waiting around here. I’m going to find him. And if I can’t find him, I’m going to…’

Scott was on his feet in seconds. He held her arms and pushed her back against the wall, suddenly aware of sounds of movement and concern all around as people scurried away.

‘Scott…’ Michelle hissed at him. ‘Soldiers.’

He looked over his shoulder and saw that his actions had aroused plenty of interest. A couple of soldiers were approaching, swinging their weapons off their shoulders in readiness as they moved towards him. He pulled Tammy back down and she yelped with pain.

‘You’re not going anywhere,’ he told her, ‘not yet. It’s too dangerous. You have to trust me.’

‘Trust you?’

Michelle positioned herself between her husband and her daughter and looked straight at Scott. ‘I’ve had enough of this.’

‘We’ve all had enough of this…’

‘You know exactly what I mean, Scott. All this bullshit. All this pretence. You know what’s happening here, don’t you?’

‘We’re in danger, that’s all you need to know.’

‘So how come you’re the one who gets to decide how much the rest of us need to know?’

‘Because I’m the one who has all the responsibility, that’s why. Because I’m the one who keeps this family together.’

‘You control us, Scott. You stop us breathing and try to stop us thinking for ourselves. You don’t keep this family together, you just won’t let any of us go. That’s what all this is about, isn’t it? It’s all a bloody power trip for you.’

‘For fuck’s sake, now’s really not the time for one of your domestics.’

‘One of my domestics? Jesus.’

‘Listen, this is serious. That warning about a biological hazard… it’s true, but it’s a hell of a lot worse than they’re letting on. If you have to know, and I’m guessing you won’t shut up until you do, there’s some kind of parasite on the loose.’

Michelle laughed involuntarily. ‘That’s the best you can come up with?’

‘It’s the truth. It’s passed from person to person. It’s passed through sex.’

She laughed again. ‘Bullshit.’

‘Think what you like. Why else do you think Jeremy was all over you this morning? Don’t flatter yourself, sweetheart, it’s because he was infected, not because he fancied you.’

‘You’re a heartless bastard.’

‘Maybe,’ he said, shrugging his shoulders nonchalantly. ‘Thing is, getting through this is going to need someone with a little backbone. As soon as I can I’m going to get us out of here and away from everyone else.’

‘What about Jackie and Dez and those others you were talking to?’

‘What about them? Fuck ’em.’

‘Hang on… if what you’re saying’s true, surely the army are trying to protect us from this thing? So shouldn’t we just stay in here? Wouldn’t they be trying to isolate or quarantine it?’

‘Clever girl. Yes, they are. But I’m not having them quarantine us along with it.’

‘But wait, Scott… shouldn’t we stay here? They’ll find out who’s got it sooner or later and deal with them.’

‘We’re not taking that risk.’

‘But if we try to get away, will they not think we might be infected?’

He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Maybe. We’re not waiting here all night to get caught like sitting ducks, though.’

‘There you go again, making decisions for the rest of us…’

‘Like I said, somebody has to do it.’

‘What happened to us ?’ Michelle said, tears stinging her eyes, keeping her voice low so as not to involve or upset the girls more than they already were. ‘We used to be a couple… a partnership.’

‘You’re the one who tried to fuck your ex this morning,’ he said coldly.

‘But that was to do with this, wasn’t it?’ she said. ‘Christ, what happened to Jeremy? How did he—?’

‘Don’t know, don’t care.’

Michelle watched Scott closely… studied the way he did what he could to avoid looking at her. ‘You’re lying.’

‘Listen,’ he said, voice ominously low, ‘I’ve had enough of you. Just keep your bloody mouth shut and do what you’re told.’

‘Not anymore, Scott,’ she said, her throat dry, body shaking with anger.

‘What did you just say?’

‘I said not anymore. I can’t take this. You do what you want to do like you always do. The kids and I are staying here.’

‘You don’t have any choice.’

‘There’s always a choice. I could—’

A scream rang out from the far end of the cavernous room and everything stopped. For a single, heart-stopping moment, barely anyone moved. Scott stood up as a few trickles of movement threatened to become a stampede of desperate people, all trying to get away from whatever it was that was happening. More and more folks were getting in the way of him now, crisscrossing, blocking his view. He pushed them away, moving further forward until he was at the outermost edge of a roughly semi-circular bubble of space which had formed around the disturbance. And then he saw it.

It had been a woman who’d screamed, but it was a man’s body he saw slumped against the leisure centre wall, stripped to the waist. It was only when his blood-stained hands twitched that Scott realised he was still alive. As other people tried to get further away, Scott was one of the few who moved closer.

Soldiers swarmed out into the crowds, blocking his view again momentarily. When they moved, he saw that the man had, somehow, managed to flip himself over onto his front. He was using the wall to haul himself up. He recognised him. Christ, it was Warren from Barry Walpole’s yard.

‘Stay where you are,’ a soldier barked at Warren, aiming his rifle directly at his head and circling him at a distance, kicking rolls of bedding and people’s possessions out of the way. One arm outstretched, Warren leant against the wall, barely able to support his own weight. He was bleeding. Scott had been so focused on his pallid face that he hadn’t seen the streaks of blood running down the inside of his thighs from the eviscerated stump where his penis used to be. And now he was almost upright, the blood-flow increased, the trickling becoming a gushing, then a flood. Warren pushed himself away from the wall and staggered a few steps forward, hunched over, painting the wooden gym floor red. Then he collapsed, hitting the floorboards with a nauseating thud.

At first stunned silence; an uneasy malaise.

How did no one see this happening? How did they not know?

Then absolute chaos.

As panic erupted, Scott turned back and ran straight into Michelle. ‘What the hell was that? What just happened?’ she demanded.

‘Oh, so you believe me now?’

He grabbed her arm and dragged her back through the imprisoned population of Thussock. She tried to stop herself but was unable to find anything to hold onto. She slid along the smooth wooden floor. ‘Scott, stop!’

He saw more soldiers appearing, moving towards a mass of desperate people trying to force their way out through the entrance to the leisure centre through which they’d all originally been admitted. He yanked Michelle’s arm again. ‘We’re getting out of here.’