Edge of Chaos Page 5

  She found him in the corner of the room. There was a bed in the centre, but he had taken the duvet off it and cocooned himself so only his head poked out. Apple cores littered the floor around him, their flesh turning brown. The boy’s eyes became saucers, and he shrank back against the wall. He was a feral child, with his pale skin and hair flattened on his scalp.

  “It’s okay,” she said.

  He pushed the duvet away. He wore a jumper made to fit an adult. The grey pattern was splattered with grime, and the frayed sleeves spilled over his hands.

  Hang on…where’s his mask? It lay discarded on the floor next to him. It was standard issue the same as Heather’s, so he wasn’t a Capita student.

  She took out her AVS. She pressed the power and let the device test the air. It blinked red in alarm.

  “What the hell are you doing?” she said. “Get your mask on.”

  He looked at his mask on the floor but didn’t move.

  She held the sensor out to him. “You know what this means, don’t you? Red means virus. Put your mask on.”

  When the boy spoke, his voice came out croaky. “I don’t need it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m immune.”

  She crouched in front of him. She put her hand on his knee. The boy jerked it back.

  “Where are your parents?”

  The boy looked at the window. Night had taken over the sky, and the storm still raged on. The infected groaned to each other in their cannibalistic game of hide-and-seek.

  “Where are you from?” she said.

  He pulled the duvet closer to him, but he didn’t answer.

  “You need to come with me,” she said.

  Her words met a wall of ice. The boy seemed frozen in place. Poor kid. Why was he alone? She couldn’t leave him here.

  She tried to grab his hand, but he jerked away. “You can’t stay here,” she said, and grabbed for him again.

  He lashed out with his fingers, and her arm stung. It was covered in long red scratches. The boy moved further back into the corner, and he tensed in the manner of a dog ready to attack.

  What had made him like this? Where were his family? He was a Darwin, no prizes for guessing that. She thought about Jenny being taken from her class, and then about Kim, at home. Kim couldn’t have lived like this. This kid, whoever he was, was a survivor. So much pity flooded her chest she couldn’t breathe.

  Outside, the infected still lurched down the street. There were enough of them now to be called a crowd. If she waited much longer there would be too many on the street for her to escape. The clouds were still spitting a torrent. My plants are gonna be waterlogged. Hope Kim’s done something.

  The boy grew more panicked with every inch closer she got. She didn’t want to leave him, but nor could she stay. She had her own life to think about. A daughter who would be lost without her, crops in their garden which all their future hopes rested on.

  “Are you going to come with me or not?” she said. “This is the only time I’ll ask you.”

  The boy shook his head.

  “Then I have to go. Stay quiet, for god’s sake. Wear your mask when you see a stranger.”

  She walked out of the room, not giving the boy a fleeting glance. If she looked at him, she’d break down. She was giving up on him in the same way she’d abandoned Jenny, but there wasn’t a thing she could do about it.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, over her shoulder.

  Chapter Four

  Ed

  He’d run out of candles months ago. He hadn’t bothered to replace them, because darkness was comforting. It put a black sheet over the things he wanted to keep hidden, but at the same time couldn’t bring himself hide away. Maybe that was his inner goth talking.

  Darkness meant he couldn’t see the photograph of his dad on the mantelpiece, where he held the trophy he’d won in the Golgoth fishing competition. He couldn’t see the wool decoration his mother knitted, which declared, “A house is not a home without love.” He always hated the damn thing, but man, he’d give anything to have her knit some mushy message for him now.

  Beyond the living room, water dripped from a tap with the regularity of a ticking clock. It should have been annoying, but it was testament to the engineering infrastructure that allowed Golgoth to stay self-sufficient. In the distance was the cylinder of the lighthouse stretching into the sky. When did he last see a light coming from it? Not since he was a kid.

  After it fell out of use, he and James used to sneak there and smoke poorly-rolled cigarettes they’d stolen from dad’s stash. Ed hated the feeling in his lungs as he breathed it in, hated the rank smell that clung to his clothes, but he didn’t dare tell James. If he did, his brother would withdraw, and the time they spent together would be taken away.

  The wind screamed, and the rain banged on the window like hands begging to come in. A crashing sound came from outside his house.

  “The hell…?”

  He went out into the cold. The storm reminded him of a disaster movie, a brooding sky building into a cataclysm to destroy the earth. Something whizzed toward him, propelled by the wind. He ducked to his side, and his heart skipped as it missed his head, rushed by his house and over the cliff. Shit, that was close.

  He walked over to the cliff, where the tide washed over the beach. The sea lashed like an angry serpent, its twenty-foot-high waves rising and crashing, spray and foam splattering in the air. It stretched out as an endless sheet of darkness, except for the distance, where there was a shape.

  It can’t be. Miles away, battling against the waves, there was a boat. No, that couldn’t be right. Ever since the outbreak not a single boat visited Golgoth, and they hadn’t heard from the mainland in years. Was there anyone alive there anymore? Was there a government? Was there anything except the flesh-eaters?

  Something screamed behind him, but it wasn’t the wind. A figure ran at him, cloaked in darkness, and shouting.

  His heart nearly burst through his chest. He clenched his fists, ready to use them until he figured out who it was.

  “It’s you,” he said, exhaling. “Jesus, Bethelyn. Coming running at me screaming like a banshee…”

  “What the hell, Ed?” she shouted, struggling to talk over the wind. She wore a raincoat she’d fastened so hastily she had missed a button.

  “What?”

  She pulled him away from the cliff edge with a strength he didn’t expect. He shrugged her away. “What’s your problem?”

  “I don’t trust you around cliff edges,” she said.

  He pointed out to the sea. “You thought I was gonna jump?”

  “I’m not saying that. I just…”

  “You’ve got it wrong. I saw a ship out there.”

  “Bullshit. There’s no way a ship would sail in this.”

  “Yeah, maybe you’re right,” he said. If there was a ship, he couldn’t see it now. “You need something?”

  The wind swept a wild curl over her face. She tucked it back with a gloved hand. “I was taping my windows like you said, but I decided that wasn’t gonna cut it. I’m going to board them instead. I have spare wood and nails if you want some?”

  “I’ll be okay.”

  “It’s getting bad. It’s gonna blow the drawers off the whore, as my rude old grandma used to say.”

  “Your grandma said that? I’d like to meet her. Trust me, I’ll be fine. Let me walk you home.”

  They walked toward their houses. Being with Bethelyn spread warmth in his stomach. He’d spurned company for so long that a small part of him appreciated her interest. He squashed the feeling like a cockroach under a Doc Martin. People come, and they go. Another thing as predictable as the tide.

  “You know,” Bethelyn said, “When the outbreak started, the council had loads of long meetings. Booooring crap. We decided we were remote enough to stay unaffected, but we’d prepare in case it hit. There’s a room under the town hall. You should see it, Ed. Wall to wall jammed with preserves, fuel,
weapons. We could last a hundred outbreaks, but we never prepared for the weather. This storm is going to destroy us.”

  “There’s nothing we can do about it.”

  “I guess. We need to try and weather it,” she said, her face deadpan.

  He shook his head. Her joke reminded him of the kind his dad used to make. Ones so unfunny it wasn’t right to call them jokes. He used to shake his head and call Dad a loser, but now he found himself wishing for another awful pun.

  “That was so bad you took a year off my life,” he said.

  “They wanted you to join the council, you know.”

  “Yeah.”

  “It would be good for you. I joined it out of boredom, but it’s good to have a say in things.”

  “Like, ‘should we plant more tulips in the community park?’”

  “You wouldn’t be laughing if you saw the bunker.”

  They reached her cottage. Ivy climbed the stonework of her house, straining to keep hold under the gust of the wind. Her yellow window frames and doorway stood out against the slate roof. Wooden beams, coated in rain and warped in the middle, covered the stonework. A knee-high plant pot stood next to the door but there were no plants inside, and rain water collected halfway up the ceramic.

  “Thanks Ed,” she said. “I couldn’t have walked these extra fifty yards without you.”

  Candles glowed through her living room window, and April was stretched out on the sofa with a book covering her face. Once again, he found the idea of a warm house inviting, but he buried the feeling.

  “Be careful,” he said. “You never know what can happen in this weather.”

  A second after the words left his mouth, a groaning sound came from Bethelyn’s house. There was a crash, and the slate roof of the cottage collapsed under the strength of the wind. Slates span off and fell to the ground, and Bethelyn stared with shocked eyes as once smashed next to her foot. April sprang off the sofa and let her book fall to the floor.

  Ed rushed inside. Bethelyn followed and ran straight to her daughter, but Ed went upstairs. The master bedroom was fine, but the same couldn’t be said for the second bedroom.

  Where the hell was the ceiling? A hole gaped where there had once been a roof, and the angry night sky sat above it. A freezing channel of wind swirled around. Water poured through the hole and soaked the carpet, ruining the bedding and making a sopping mess of everything it touched.

  When he joined them downstairs, Bethelyn paced the living room and ran her hands through her wild hair. “What the hell are we going to do?”

  April stared at her mother with glum eyes. She shrugged her shoulders.

  Damn it, it was all coming down to him, wasn’t it? I regret this already. “You can stay at mine,” he said.

  Bethelyn looked as though she hadn’t expected the offer.

  “What about Rex?” said April.

  “Rex?”

  “It’s her bear,” Bethelyn told him. She put a hand on her daughter’s shoulders. “No honey, Rex is going to stay home and guard the house.”

  Bethelyn mimed words at Ed so April didn’t hear.

  “What?” Ed said.

  “Jesus, you’re dumb as a rock,” she whispered. “Rex is upstairs.”

  “Ah.” Now he understood. Her bear was likely ruined, and Bethelyn didn’t want April getting upset.

  “I’m not stupid mum,” said April. “The house is flooded. Rex will get wet if he stays here.”

  “He’ll be fine.”

  “But mum.”

  Bethelyn’s voice became sharp. “April, stop it.”

  The girl pushed away from her mother and sobbed. Ed couldn’t stand it, but not because the girl’s tears upset him. Crying children were annoying. The thing that annoyed him was most of them faked it. Still, he’d been a kid once, so no use being a hypocrite about it. Anyone could grow out of their childish ways. Adults who refused to stop acting like kids were the problem.

  “Hang on a sec,” said Ed. “Which room is yours?”

  Her tears dried the second she knew she was going to get what she wanted. Maybe her drama was a habit she’d developed to twist her mum around her finger.

  “You can’t go up there,” said Bethelyn.

  “Is Rex in your room?”

  April nodded. “My room’s the one next to the bathroom.”

  Upstairs was colder, and a pattering sound came from the bedroom. April’s room suffered the most damage, and the red carpet had darkened from where rain poured in. Broken slates and plaster covered her bed. So much for my roof repair job.

  Rex, the lucky bear, sat undamaged on a bedside table. Ed grabbed him and left the room. As he put his foot on the top step, a creaking sound spread through the ceiling above him. A crack splintered across the plaster, like someone was drawing it on in marker, and the ceiling grew the bulge of a pregnant belly. It wouldn’t be long until the whole thing caved in on his head.

  He started down the stairs as the plaster gave way. There was a loud crash. The ceiling spilled out onto the landing behind him. A spray of dust and debris covered his shoulders, and it scratched his throat when he breathed.

  An involuntary cough rose from his chest as his lungs tried to expel the dust. Without being able to stop himself, he let go of the bannister and tumbled down the staircase, feeling stabs of pain as he banged against the floor.

  “Jesus Christ, Ed,” said Bethelyn.

  He lay on at the bottom of the hallway and stared at Bethelyn’s chalky face.

  “Can you move?” she said.

  His shoulders ached, and a lump swelled on the back of his head. He shifted his leg. When he was satisfied it wasn’t broken, he moved more deliberately.

  Bethelyn helped him to his feet. “You better be careful.”

  “Ugh. Feels like I’ve been crushed by a rock.”

  “Let’s get back to your house,” said Bethelyn, and supported him out into the cold.

  In Ed’s house, Bethelyn spent ten minutes taking her own tour of the place. “Don’t you have any candles?” she said.

  He’d already burned through his supply. Maybe his dad had stashed some for emergencies, but they never talked about that sort of thing. For years, their conversations were about what Ed was doing at school, and how he needed to make sure he studied harder than all the other kids so he could get a job on the mainland.

  “Golgoth’s not a place you come to live,” said his dad in one of his depressed moods. “It’s a place you come to die.”

  “What about you?” said Ed. “You came here with mum.”

  “We came here because she loves the sea. I thought it was a fad.”

  Ed’s dad had been stubborn, but the one thing he gave way to without question was The Will of Mum. She the amazing ability to sweet-talk the gruffest of people, and everyone on the island went out of their way to please her.

  In his dark living room, Ed wished he’d had those sorts of conversations instead of the same old talks where his dad asked him questions and Ed put the bare minimum of effort into his answer. He wished he’d appreciated the guy while he was still here. Why hadn’t he thought for a damn second about how the old man wanted more out of his son?

  “Don’t think we have any candles,” said Ed. “Sorry.”

  “Okay, Dracula,” said Bethelyn. She held a roll of tape in her hand. “I’m going to have to do this in the dark.”

  “I’ll help.”

  Ed tried to get to his feet. His muscles groaned with pain. The feeling must have shown on his face because Bethelyn pushed him.

  “No way, pal. You sit back.”

  As Bethelyn covered each window with duct tape, April perched on the arm of Ed’s chair. She put her hand on his arm and squeezed. His muscles burned.

  “Not so hard,” he said.

  “Sorry,” said the girl.

  A wave of annoyance crashed through his mind, but he let it go as quickly as it came. It wasn’t her fault. It was his own for breaking a lifelong habit and trying to play t
he hero.

  Bethelyn stretched the tape across the window in a lop-sided line and bit off the end. Outside, Golgoth resembled the surface of a hostile alien planet. The storm intensified to a level Ed had thought it impossible to achieve, especially for Golgoth which, although never warm, lived in a meteorological twilight zone where extreme weather never hit.

  The girl stared at him.