Chapter Nine

 

We'd been rowing for about an hour before I dropped the oars and let out something between a gasp and a cry.

Derek had had a compass. And I'd forgotten it. The most obvious thing of all. It'd probably been in his pocket when I'd put him over the side. Might still have been when he'd come back. With it, we could have got a bearing on the land I thought I'd sighted. With it, we'd have known which way to go, and if we were still going there. A forlorn, threadbare hope, perhaps, but better than this.

There were no landmarks; only the bare, spreading water which in any case was disappearing into the encroaching mist. All I could do now was to keep rowing, and hope we were still pointing the right way.

I would have suggested that Marta and I take turns rowing. But it's not easy to change positions in a dinghy. If we capsized, then even if the dead things didn't take us, we'd lose our supplies of food and water, maybe the guns too. To say nothing of the risk if the filthy water got into an open cut.

And in any case, Marta was in no fit state to row.

She'd grown pale, and groggy. When I gasped, she stirred and forced her eyes open.

"Katja?"

"What is it?"

"I don't feel well at all. I feel... I think I'm going to be sick."

"Aim over the side."

"What if there are... things in the water?"

"I don't think they'll be interested in vomit," I said, trying to smile. She tried too. I don't think either of us made a very good job of it.

The water slapped against the dinghy. It rocked and bobbed. Marta gave a faint moan; the dinghy listed badly as she leant over the side. I looked away as she threw up.

Maybe it was just seasickness. She'd been ill on board the Rosalind, at first. On the heels of that came a second thought; what if we met another storm? We wouldn't stand a chance in an inflatable.

I didn't let myself think about it. Or how easy it would be, in the mist, to row straight past the land I'd seen. If it had been real.

If we were heading the right way.

All I could do was row.

Out of the frying pan. Into the fire.

 

"Katja?"

"Yes, little one?" I spoke gently. She was white now, dark rings around her eyes, swaying slightly.

"I feel horrible. I need to lie down."

"OK." I stopped rowing. "Careful now."

She nodded weakly and wriggled round. She rested her head in my lap and propped her feet over the edge of the stern. I tried not to think about dead hands lunging up to grab them. Her forehead was burning not.

I gave her some water and painkillers, hoping they'd take the emperature down. Were there any antibiotics in the first aid kit? I needed to stop and look properly. I needed some solid ground under us. But there wasn't any.

Something scraped the dinghy's hull, rocking it. I let out a yelp. Marta moaned in fear. Then I looked astern and saw thin, limp twigs and drooping leaves, just breaking the surface. A tree.

A tree.

"Higher ground," I whispered.

"What?" Marta's voice was a croak. I held the water bottle to her lips. "Not too much," I whispered. Supplies were finite. If we had to drink the muck around us, the dead things might offer a quicker death.

"It was a tree. We might be close to somewhere. Land. There might even be other people."

Perhaps even a doctor. I didn't dare say it aloud. This wasn't seasickness. The fever, the nausea, the weakness: they all spelt one thing.

Infection.

The dressing on Marta's arm was still relatively clean, but that was no indication of what might be under it. I didn't want to look, not yet.

The first aid kit lay next to my left knee. I picked it up and opened it. Antiseptic creams, TCP. More painkillers. Plasters and bandages. Surgical tape. No antibiotics."Katja?"

I touched her hot cheek.

"I'm scared."

So was I. "Just hold on, baby." My voice wouldn't stay steady. "We'll get to land. We'll get you help. Just hold on."

I began to row again.

 

I kept on for another hour, with brief pauses. Finally I had to stop. My arms were throbbing. Marta's eyes were closed, and her breathing was shallow. I looked at her arm.

My breath caught. The bandage was stained an ugly yellowish-green. The flesh on either side of it was livid and swollen.

The kit held a small pair of scissors. Marta let out a faint moan as I snipped at the bandage, and I stopped, but her eyes didn't open.

I peeled back the bandages. The gauze pad was stained and wet, and the thick green smell of the wound was nauseating. I'd smelt something similar once. A staphylococcal infection. But I'd never seen one develop so quickly.

The wound itself was thick and oozing pus, but the flesh around it was, if anything, worse. It was black and green. Like something rotten.

I threw the stained bandages over the side, poured TCP onto a cotton-wool pad and pressed it to the wound. It was all I could think of to do.

Marta's faint, sick cry was worse than a shriek. Either she was too weak to even give proper voice to the pain, or the damage was already so bad she had almost no feeling there.

Antibiotics. We needed antibiotics. Nothing else would give her even a chance of survival.

This was how it began, I realised. The second wave of deaths. After the flooding, after the dead things. Deaths from lack of clean water. Lack of food. Lack of medicines. Deaths inconceivable only the day before. That is how quickly it can go - how quickly it had gone.

Even Ilir, if Marta had been this ill, would at least have called a doctor. He might dispose of her if she'd suffered something too expensive or troublesome to treat, but antibiotics wouldn't have been a problem. But now even the water was a precious, limited reserve. I rinsed my hands with some of it, and rubbed antiseptic cream into the wound. Then I gauzed and bandaged it, and secured it tightly with surgical tape.

That was all I could do.

I could see the blue tracery of veins on Marta's eyelids. Her lips were parted and dry, already starting to crack, her breathing hoarse and shallow. Soon, she would be thirsty. When she woke - if she woke - she'd have to drink.

And there was only so much water.

It might be better if she never woke up.

If it's just you, there's less weight. You'll go further. If it's just you, there's more water. You'll live longer. If it's just you, there's more food. You'll be stronger.

The worst thing about the voice that said all this? It was my father's.

Marta was my friend. More than that. She was a younger sister, or a child. The difference in ages was such she could have been either. And she looked so like my mother.

Marta was all the family I had.

And she is dying, said Papa.

No. We could get help.

What help? The authorities are either in hiding or they've been wiped out too. Even if they had any intention of providing help, do you think they'll have the means?

But a village, high on a hill. We might find that. There might be a doctor's surgery there. They would have medical supplies.

Perhaps. And if they do, why should they give them to you? It is survival now, Katja. The others who've lived through this may even now be fighting amongst themselves for dominance and control of resources.

If they were divided, it would be so much the easier to take them.

But you will be on your own. What then? How will you establish yourself in such a community, if you find one? Why should they share what they have with a stranger?

I have food and water. I have guns and ammunition.

Without which, you are dead.

I have my body.

Hours after killing Derek for what he'd forced me into, swearing I would never do such things again, I thought this quite calmly.

I have my body.

And if you offer that, what then? They'll expect more such favours. And when you give yourself to them, how will you stop them overpowering you, taking your guns? You will be where you were before the floods came. And Katja - Katja, look at her. She is beyond help. This infection has taken hold so swiftly and savagely. She will be dead before you reach land.

"No!"

Marta moaned at the shout. So, this was it. Madness at last. Drifting in a boat with a dying girl, arguing with a ghost. No, not a ghost. A figment of my imagination.

Katja, you admit yourself that she is dying. There is no choice here.

"No."

Triage, Katja. Advanced triage. You know what that means.

And I did. Triage was how you graded the severity of injuries - decided who would cope with little or no treatment, whose treatment could be delayed, whose treatment was required now?

But advanced triage...

Oh Papa, you've taught me too well. I don't need these things in my head.

Without them, Katja, you'd already be dead.

And now I was conversing with a ghost in rhyme. Final proof of madness.

That crazy, jagged laughter, climbing in my throat again.

Advanced triage.

In advanced triage, patients with no or small chance of survival may not receive advanced treatment. Painkillers, nothing more. At most.

I didn't have much more than painkillers anyway.

But the rationale - where there aren't the resources to spare, where there's no chance, you let them die.

I looked down at Marta.

She is dying, Katja. You cannot help her. Anything else is a delusion.

I shook my head. Dimly I became aware that I was crying. Tears splashed Marta's pale face, like tiny drops of rain.

You were ready to kill her before, at the brothel. When the alternative was an agonising death, you were ready to kill her quickly to spare her. Do you want to see her die in such agony now?

I shook my head. "Shut up," I whispered through my teeth.

Katja -

I grabbed the oars and jerked them savagely, smashing the surface of the water into froth. A petulant child, throwing a tantrum in response to a truth she wouldn't accept. "Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!"

Marta moaned and opened her eyes. Her lips were bloodless. "Katja?"

"It's alright, darling." I touched her cheek, bent to kiss her forehead. Both burned to the touch. "It's alright. We'll soon be there."

"You've... found somewhere?"

"Not yet, little one. But we will. It's close. I can feel it."

I grabbed the oars again and began rowing. Her eyes closed again.

Stop crying, my father said. Stop crying.

"I'm not crying."

You are. Stop crying. You have to be strong, Katja. You have to be strong.

But it was so hard to be strong, watching this.

My father's voice faded as I went. I never heard it again.

One other loss, amongst so many.

 

My arms ached terribly. I took two of the painkillers at long last. I had to keep going. Had to. There was no alternative.

Had to find land. Had to find land.

A dank, chilling mist lay thick around us, reducing visibility to a few metres. The redness had spread up to Marta's shoulder now. Her hand was a bloated claw. Around the edges of the bandage there was a thin rime of black, green-tinged flesh. The veins on the arm around the wound were visible. They too were black.

So much easier to kill her. To finish her before it got worse.

It would be bad. I knew that. It would be bad. But I could do it.

But that would not be the worst.

Because even if I killed her with a bullet to the head, even then -

She would come back. She would come back and I would have to do it again. And I could not do that. I could not do that.

But if she died anyway, died of the infection -

If that happened she would come after me anyway. And it would be kill or be killed.

So it was very simple. Marta was not going to die. She could not die. It could not be allowed to happen. Could not be countenanced. It became my mantra, as I rowed. I may have mumbled, or spoken, or screamed it aloud. Marta could not, must not, die.

It was as simple as that.

I had to stop at last. Gathering my breath. Painkillers or not, my arms were throbbing.

Marta's face was grey. Shallow breaths hissed in and out through her lips. Her forearm was black from elbow to wrist. Her small, swollen hand had gone green; so had about half of her upper arm. The bandage I'd secured was already sodden.

She's dying.

No. No.

I took the oars up again. It felt like I was trying to lift and move tree-trunks.

Something hit the side of the boat. I yelped, released the oars and grabbed my pistol.

Something in the water.

I actually had the gun aimed at it, finger tightening on the trigger, before I realised what it was.

A treetop. Beyond it there were more, vanishing into the mist. And then I saw the roof of a white, half-submerged house. Another building beyond it. A chimney.

I looked around. A dark mass to starboard. Land. A wind began to rise, thinning the mist. Up ahead, I saw a bridge. Something else. Through it all. I heard voices. I was sure of it.

I looked to port. A road rose up out of the water, bordered by a stone wall and half-submerged tree. The road rose to the bridge. I thought I saw a rooftop - up on the dry land.

I rowed the dinghy past the white house. We passed a window; through it I could see the bedroom. A figure stood, its back to me. It started to turn.

As the mist dispersed I saw peaks. Hills. All around us. I hadn't seen them in the mist. And my frenzy to keep moving. Because I'd never really believed we'd reach land. I'd hoped. I'd had to believe. But deep down, I'd known. We were fucked.

I twisted slowly round and looked aft.

Rooftops. Hills. One in particular, tall, wide and sheer, rising to a steep crest. It looked like a huge wave. But it was made of rock and earth. A sheep's bleat drifted towards me.

"Marta?" I whispered. "Marta, we've done it. We're here. I can see land. It's right there. People."

She didn't answer. I turned, put my hand on her shoulder. Stopped.

Her face so grey.

No sound of breathing.

"Marta?" I shook her. "Marta!"

No. Nothing. No. No. No.

I kept shaking her, till finally her head lolled sideways, lips slack.

I felt her throat for a pulse. There was nothing. I kept trying. This time there would be something. This time. But there wasn't.

I blew air into her lungs, spat out the sour taste of her dead mouth. I pushed down on her chest, tried to pound her heart back into life. The dinghy rocked and tipped, nearly throwing us both out.

Nothing.

I don't know how long it was before I gave up. I slumped back, away from her. Nothing. All for nothing.

I sat there. Again, I have no idea for how long. Time was meaningless now. Marta was dead. The last of my little family was gone.

The swelling was going down, I noticed, and let out a wave of that jagged laughter. Her arm, paling, was regaining its normal size and shape almost as I watched. I couldn't stop laughing. All this way, and for nothing. A hundred metres from land and any point to continuing was gone.

Except it wasn't. I wasn't dead. There was one thing I could still do for Marta: get to land. Try to survive.

And if she rose, put her back down into the earth.

I forced myself to pick up those heavy, heavy oars.

And rowed.

Her head was still in my lap. I looked down at her face; I'd turned her head back upwards so I looked down into it.

Suddenly, there was movement. Had something hit the dinghy? No. The movement was coming from within it.

From Marta.

The infected hand was twitching. The arm shuddered. The small, delicate fingers flexed, opened and closed. A leg kicked.

I knew what it must be. How could I not? But if we excel at one thing, it's self-deception. For one, precious moment, I thought I was wrong, that she wasn't dead, that she was coming back...

And then I saw her eyes.

Through her eyelids, I saw a flickering, greenish glow.

Oh God, oh no, oh fuck...

Dim at first,the glow was strengthening, flickering, pulsing.

Brightening.

And finally blazing.

Her arms thrust outwards, fingers hooked and clawed, shuddering. Her legs kicked and shook. Her lips peeled back from bared, snarling teeth. Thin spit jumped through them. An eye burst; warm, thick fluid spattered my face. I screamed then.

The other eye opened, the eyeball clouded over, glowing from within. The empty socket blazed. With a gagging, choking noise, Marta's jaws yawned open. A hissing, croaking howl escaped her dead lungs.

The boat rocked, water splashing over the gunnels.

Her head rocked side to side. Then stopped. She stared up at me, the burst eye congealing like wax on her cheek. And lunged up at my face. I tried to pull back and overbalanced, toppling into the water.

The shock... I'd heard the shock of icy water could stop a heart. In that second, I believed it.

Marta sat hissing in the dinghy, a vaguely baffled expression on her slack, empty face.

And when I'd killed the blue woman, I'd mourned the loss of an enemy whose face I knew...

There could be more in the water. The road was near. I struck out for it and Marta lunged after me.

Kill her, Katja.

Was that a last fading echo of my father's voice? I didn't think so. It was my own. Perhaps it always had been.

Kill her. If you care for her, finish it. This is not Marta, just a dead thing that looks like her. A puppet made of her body by something vile. An obscenity. An insult to Marta, and you. Destroy it.

And give her rest.

But I couldn't, because it was still Marta, and if I pulled the trigger, I'd be killing her. Again. As I already had, by not reaching land in time.

You did everything you could.

But it hadn't been enough.

She swam closer, eyes glowing above the waterline.

I reached the road's edge. Clutched at the wall. Pulled myself clear. So heavy, so slow. She'd grab me any second. I flopped over, onto the tarmac. My feet slid but I was on dry land at last.

When I looked back, Marta was scrabbling over the wall, a thin arm reaching out, eyes blazing in the fading light, hair matted and straggling, face grey and slack and full of hunger. She slithered and fell in the mud.

I began to run. Hills rose through the mist. A big grey building. A sign on it: The Pendle Inn. A row of houses.

The wet splat and slap behind me of her feet.

Kill her or she kills you.

It wasn't her anymore.

Turn around, look into her eyes - they weren't really her eyes now anyway - and blow her brains out. End it for her. Kill a part of me too, of course, but...

I reached into my waistband for my gun.

It was gone. I must have lost it in the water.

Marta suddenly flying forward, in a manic, thrashing burst of motion.

I went backwards, tripped. Fell.

The bullets hit her with a wet, sickening thud. Holes exploded in her chest and stomach; pieces of meat, cloth, bone and clotted blood flew out of her back. More bullets whipped past with an angry hornet's buzz. They cracked and whined as they hit stone.

Marta stumbled, but didn't fall. She stared up to my left, and hissed with a kind of drunken, baffled rage.

Her right hand - so tiny, so delicate - flailed through the air. A bullet, or bullets hit it and blew it apart. A forefinger and a thumb remained, twitching.

Another half-dozen hit her torso. One must have shattered her spine; she dropped to the ground and lay hissing and thrashing.

And still the bullets came. One whipped past me; two more hit the ground centimetres away. I think I screamed.

"Cease fire! Cease fire!"

A man ran down the road.

"Cease fucking fire!"

Tall, reddish hair, a soldier's lean hard build. A military uniform and a pistol in one hand, pointed at the ground away from his feet.

He brought the gun up, two-handed and aimed past me, to where Marta lay. He fired once.

The hissing and snarling and the drumming sound of thrashing limbs on the ground stopped. A long, rattling sigh from Marta. And then silence.

The solider pivoted, and pointed the gun at my face.

The muzzle of a gun looks so small.

Except when it is pointed at your face.

For a second I thought my bowels would fail, but I held onto that shred of dignity at least, although when he shot me they would open anyway. Like Derek's had when he'd died.

Then he stepped in closer, gun still aimed. "Were you bitten?"

He had a harsh accent I hadn't heard before. "Answer me! Did she bite you?"

I shook my head. "No," I said at last. "No."

He looked me over - in case I was lying, in case there were any wounds a casual glance might have missed - then nodded, stepped back, pointed the gun upwards and shouted "Clear!"

Other voices echoed the cry. "Clear... Clear... Clear..."

The soldier uncocked and safetied his pistol, then holstered it. He held out a hand. "I'll no hurt you. Come on."

I took his hand; he helped me to my feet. "Don't look back," he said. But of course I did. Marta was a stained, ragged bundle of cloth. I pulled free of him and went to her.

I didn't cry. I just stood there, looking down. There was nothing I could do. I didn't want him to see a frightened woman. I was more than that. I had strength. I knew that now. It had its limits like everything else. But I was still alive, and I wouldn't have been otherwise.

If I could have, I told her silently, I would have saved you too.

Her mouth hung slackly open; her clouded eye and empty socket - both now lightless - gazed blindly upwards. A neat hole starred her forehead; fragments of skull, scalp and brain littered the road behind her. I'd get no answers there. Neither accusation nor forgiveness. If Marta was anywhere now, it wasn't here.

The soldier came up behind me. I turned sharply; I don't like it when people do that. Never have. "You can do nothing for her," he said. His voice was as close to gentle as he could make it.

At last, I nodded. He nodded back. He motioned me forward and I followed him up the road. I kept my back straight, tried to show nothing with my face. No weakness. No fear. No helpless woman. I vowed as I followed him that I would never be helpless again.