I reached down and picked it up. The handle was clammy from David’s sweaty palms, so I wiped it on my jeans. Justin tugged at my sleeve.
“More of them are coming.”
I glanced at David. The infected man was moving toward us, but David didn’t move. His breath was raspy, and his eyes were squeezed shut.
“Justin, take care of it,” I said, and nodded at the infected.
Justin took his knife out of his belt and held it at head height. His stance had improved, and I was glad to see that he’d actually paid attention to the things I taught him. Most of his awkward posture was gone now. He was surer of himself, better at handling his own body. He took a step forward and without a second’s contemplation sank his knife deep into the skull of the infected, splitting its head open with a crack. The infected’s body sank to the floor and brain fluid leaked out from the knife hole.
“Hold this,” I said, and passed the shotgun to Justin.
I bent down, hooked my hands underneath David’s armpits and hauled him to his feet. Evidently he hadn’t enjoyed a healthy diet during his time alone, because the guy weighed practically nothing. Getting him to his feet seemed to shake it out of his trance a little, because he opened his eyes and there was a hint of alertness there.
In front of us, three infected struggled to get through the doorway, blocking each other’s way like commuters fighting to get on a tube. Behind them I could see the faces of others straining to get at us. This room was going to be filled with dead faces and snapping teeth soon, and when it did we’d have no chance. I gritted my teeth and let out a deep breath.
“Where’s your car?” I said.
David didn’t answer; he was too busy staring at the infected as they groaned with their desire to eat us.
I slapped him on the face. He blinked, and looked at me. He rubbed his reddened cheek.
“Where’s the damn car?” I said.
He pointed at the door. “Through there.”
“You’ve got the keys?”
He nodded.
Here was the choice then. I could take the keys from David, get in the car and drive away. Or I could still take the car and let David come with us. I didn’t want to take him, but it wasn’t really much of a choice to make. I was hardly going to leave him here for the infected to get him.
Not again.
“Good. You’re coming with us.”
I dragged him toward the door as the infected finally spilled in, pushing and shoving against each other in their struggle to get close to us. I got to the door, raised the shotgun and fired it at the padlock. Another blast rang in my ears, and the metal smashed into pieces. I kicked the door open.
Outside, there was the car.
I grabbed Justin and hauled him outside. Behind me, David hovered in the doorway. The infected were a few feet away from him now, but he didn’t move.
“What the hell are you doing?” I said.
“Leila,” said David, looking at the mannequin sadly as the infected filled the room and swarmed around his doll, leaving her out of reach.
“Leila’s fine. They don’t like the taste of plastic.”
I grabbed the collar of his shirt and dragged him away. We got in the car. There was the choke of the engine as it sparked to life, and soon we were speeding away, leaving the infected-infested building behind us. My pulse was racing as I turned the steering wheel and followed the road out.
We had had the car and that was something, but it had come at a price. I looked in the rear view mirror and saw David. His eyes were blank and his mouth was open, and he retreated to wherever the hell it was he went when things got too much for him.
I didn’t even want one person travelling with me. Now I had two.
Chapter 15
I steered the car through the corkscrew country roads. I had forgotten how easily you could lose your driving skills without practice, and the last time I’d been in a car was over a decade ago. I remembered that Clara and I still had her beat-up Yaris when things all kicked off, and sometime later we found a Mercedes with the engine still hot and the keys in the ignition. I had loved driving that.
In this part of the world the roads were tiny and they ran anyway they could but straight. At random times without any warning the road would seem to shrink so much that your wing mirrors scraped the hedges or the ramshackle stone walls that all ran alongside us.
I looked at Justin next to me. He stared out of the window with his eyes wide, taking in every centimetre of scenery. To him, someone who had fifteen years of his life living behind walls, everything was a wonder. To me, the way the roads twisted and turned made it feel like we were circling a drain.
“David,” I said.
I looked in the mirror and saw him curled up on the back seat, asleep.
“How long’s he been out?” I asked Justin.
He looked away from the window. “All day, pretty much.”
I nodded. I’d rather he was asleep and quiet than awake and asking me questions.
Justin leaned in a little toward me. “Is there something wrong with him?” he whispered.
I thought about a tactful way of putting it. “Bering alone does strange things to some men.”
“Sure does. It made you the most paranoid, distrustful person I ever met.”
I didn’t even have the energy to reprimand him. Last night we’d pulled over on a layby to get a little rest, but I hadn’t managed more than two hours. In the night the country was a foreboding place, and at one point I had seen reflective eyes staring at me through the darkness. My first thought was stalker, and my heart pounded, but then I realised it was a fox.
My head throbbed. I was starting to worry that the blow from David’s shotgun had given me concussion or something because every twenty minutes my eyelids flickered, and my attention started to drift.
The road in front of us seemed to run straight for a while, so I moved into fourth gear and picked up the speed. The engine hummed in the car bonnet and on the backseat, David snored in rhythmic breaths. A stone wall ran alongside us. It was hundreds of rocks of all shapes and sizes piled together, presumably to keep livestock from getting into the road.
Above us, the sky was mostly blue but with a few rain clouds drifting through it. Little patters of water trickled onto the windscreen, so I turned on the wipers and watched them sway hypnotically from side to side. My eyelids felt heavy, and I knew they were starting to close. My brain sent soothing messages through my body and tell me it was okay. My attention began to dissipate and my thoughts drifted.
There was a loud scrape and then a thud as the car swayed to the left and smashed into the wall, the impact of the metal against the rocks waking me immediately. Behind me in the mirror I saw David jolt upright. I felt my pulse racing and my breaths were shallow. I looked at Justin next to me.
“You hurt?” I asked.
He shook his head, his eyes large and white.
The wall in front of us was destroyed, and some of the rocks had collapsed onto the car bonnet. I hoped the car was okay; the last thing we needed, just fifty miles from the farm, was for it to break down.
The worst thing was that I was to blame. It was my stupid inability to sleep properly that had made me tired and made me drift off while I was supposed to be watching the road. Now I’d probably wrecked the car and I’d also put Justin and David in danger. If David hadn’t already done it for me earlier, I would have hit myself in the nose.
David rubbed his eyes. “Back it up and I’ll take a look,” he said.
“Want me to –“
“I said I’ll take a look,” he said, cutting me off. From the way his eyebrows slanted I could tell he was annoyed.