The Rot (Book 1): They Rot Page 2

  His mind jumped back to Redhill estates. The brief flash of the blond child from afar. A face that haunted him in dreaming nights and waking days.

  Colin didn’t notice the room go quiet.

  “What’s wrong, kid?”

  He looked into Jerry’s concerned face. Beard dipping into his glass of water on the table. For a second he thought about telling them. Just letting the demons out. Instead, he said, “I guess I’m just wondering whether it’s time to move on.”

  There was a brief moment as Kitty turned around and caught Jerry’s eyes. He shot her a look that brought her back to the dishes.

  “Move on?” Jerry laughed, less convincing this time. “We’ve spoken about this, Col. What do you think is out there? You think you’re going to find a town full of rations? Maybe even a group of people that have remembered how to live like human beings and get along without stabbing each other five minutes later? C’mon, we know better than that. It’s all well and good to hope, but things have changed. You should know that better than anybody.”

  “Jerry…” Kitty warned, leaving the dishes now and addressing the room.

  Though there was still a small smile on Jerry’s face, slowly slipping. Colin saw an offended look in his eye. The atmosphere turned a shade tenser with every word Jerry uttered. “I just mean that…”

  “Let me tell you something. That, out there?” Jerry pointed a bony finger toward the window. “The world is one big death trap. Full of scavvies, rotters, and who knows what else? The world’s changed and that’s that. You want to go and find out, fine. But me and Kitty have done pretty well here so far, so just leave us here where it’s safe.”

  “No, I mean all of us,” Colin said, feeling himself becoming heated. He stood up, feeling his presence as a black cloud looming over Jerry. Sure Jerry’s tongue was sharp, and he certainly had a hold on Colin, but that was nothing to the great beast that Colin became when he was angry. With beard bristling and eyes blazing he was a terrifying force to behold. “I’ve been walking these fields for years now and I’ve seen no hide nor hair of any rotters at all. All I see are ways for scavvies to break in. There’re no defences, there’s nothing at all to stop a group of scavvies trotting over the fields and taking this place while we sleep. And with all of these supplies you got lying around, it’s a damn paradise for travellers. We’re lucky we’ve even made it this far. Not to mention that car—”

  “—What about the car?—”

  “—You realise that thing is rarer than a sushi roll, right? I mean… you’re just asking for trouble. If we can just look at expanding our patrol, maybe even taking a trip out for a few miles…”

  “Colin,” Jerry said, hands shaking, doing his best to calm the tone a little. “We’ve lived in this farm for over thirty years. We were here long before the rot came, and we plan to stay long after. We’re not going anywhere.”

  “So we just sit and wait until we’re raided?”

  Jerry stood up, walked across to Kitty and put his arm around her. She leant her head against his chest and flashed a half smile at Colin before her eyes quickly moved away.

  Jerry spoke, softer now. “We ain’t worried about no retard with a spear he’s made out of some stick he found in the woods.”

  “Why the hell not?” Colin said, slumping back into his seat.

  “Because we got you, kid” Jerry smiled. “And I don’t think no scavs would come messing around here, because we got you and… well… have you ever met you? You’re as scary as a taxman on payday, Col.” He walked closer to Colin. “You’re one scary son-of-a-bitch!”

  Jerry patted Colin’s shoulder, that winning smile appearing and erasing any memory that only minutes before had been a face of anger. Colin idly stroked his beard, watching Kitty out the corner of his eyes as she shuffled awkwardly, apparently not sure whether to become a part of the moment or to finish cleaning.

  “I wouldn’t speak too soon,” Colin grumbled, eyes trained on Kitty. “I’m not quite sure what side I’m settling on.”

  “Well, I know you’ll make the right decision,” Jerry winked, bending down and planting a wet kiss on Colin’s face. He grunted in disgust and wiped away the moisture. “Now, unless I’m very much mistaken, breakfast is finished, and that means it’s car tinkering time. You coming to help an old man, Col?”

  Colin told Jerry he’d be through in a second. That he wanted to finish his drink. When Jerry left the room fell in silence, with Kitty shuffling about the kitchen collecting the last remnants of their meal. Occasionally she’d catch Colin’s eye, but that would only be for half a second before she found something else to busy herself with. After a couple of minutes, Colin was about to leave the room when she spoke.

  “He’s a good guy, you know. He trusts people. He puts a lot of trust in you. I hope you can see that.”

  “I do.”

  “You know you can trust me too?”

  Without a word, Colin nodded, signalled for Wheat to follow, and headed to the barn.

  ~ 3 ~

  The car was a Saab 9-5. A vehicle that had once been something grand to behold. The kind of car that wasn’t too ostentatious but was smart enough to pull into a supermarket carpark and step out with pride. Jeremiah LeShard had purchased the thing a few months before the first quarantines. A back-alley deal that had him shaking calloused hands and handing over a fat envelope stuffed with cash. For the first six months, the thing worked beautifully, gliding across tarmac with ease, the smell of fresh pine satisfying his nostrils. But Sod’s law dictated that it had to conk out and die six months into the new world. When mechanics were a rare breed, and looters were drawn to cars like moths to a flame.

  Through the overcast skies, Colin looked up to see the washed-out sphere of the sun in the sky. Another grey day with potential rain. Without a phone or digital watch to tell the time with, the sun was about all they had. And as far as he could tell from the position of the sun… it was coming on lunchtime.

  Jerry pulled his head out of the car bonnet and wiped the greasy build-up from his forehead. An oily smudge marked his arm, catching in the long white hairs. He tutted at himself. “Spanner”.

  He heard Colin leave the driver’s seat and rifle through the toolbox. “Size?”

  “13mm?”

  Colin passed the spanner to Jerry’s hands and waited patiently. After a couple of minutes of grunts and metallic clinks, Jerry withdrew, tongue poking out the side of his mouth. “Try again now?”

  Colin popped back into the car’s cab and turned the key in the ignition. For a few seconds, the Saab vibrated violently, emitting a sporadic choking before black smoke puffed out the exhaust.

  “Damn it,” Jerry muttered, scratching his head and leaving a dark streak of grease in his snow white hair.

  Colin relaxed in the seat and rolled his eyes. It would be a simple enough fix, he thought, if Jerry would at least let him look at the damn engine. No matter how many times Colin had suggested that he, as a formerly trained engineer of sorts, should be the one to diagnose and fix the problem, Jerry stuck his nose high in the air and made it clear that it was his own burden to bear.

  “We’ve all got our parts to play. You patrol, Kitty cleans and cooks, I fix the house.”

  Colin thought it cute at first that Jerry had enough pride to want to make himself appear useful. But after several months of the same routine, it grew tiresome. Even with the regular interruptions from Kitty offering refreshments and a reminder of the time, there was only so much that Colin could do to play dumb and pretend that it wasn’t as simple as cleaning the catalytic converter and de-rusting a couple of the pipes beneath the car’s frame.

  Not that Kitty came out half as much since their last verbal bust-up. That had been four days ago now. Where before Colin had been greeted in the morning by Kitty’s smiling face, lately she had taken to keeping herself busy. Finding excuses to tend to chores in the other room to wherever Colin chose to be. He wondered if perhaps there was more to their conversa
tion, or if perhaps Jerry and Kitty had had some kind of row, themselves. Jerry had certainly been keeping within a closer reach of Colin, even offering to accompany him on his patrols in the morning – to which Colin kindly declined, liking the freedom of his morning and evening walks.

  Jerry threw his hands in the air, sending the spanner crashing to the far wall. “Ah, screw it. Let’s grab some grub.”

  After lunch (in which Kitty was once again absent) Jerry and Colin returned to the garage. Only instead of the usual ‘Hop in the cab, I’ll have a tinker’ that prologued the beginning of Jerry’s tinkering, he crossed the room, picked up the spanner and handed it to Colin.

  “I think it’s about time I let the pros take a look”, he smiled.

  “Yeah?”

  “Oh, get on with it.”

  When Colin was beneath the car Jerry paced the small barn, prodding and playing with tools and equipment that had been left to hang without purpose for close to three years. Through the gap beneath the car’s belly Colin occasionally peeked out to see a nostalgic expression across the old man’s face.

  “It’s not as easy as you thought it’d be, huh?” Jerry said, twisting a length of exhaust pipe between his hands. “Thought you’d twist a few nuts and the thing would start ticking again?”

  “Something like that. I guess I sort of had a vision in my head.”

  Jerry told Colin about a dream he’d had. The first real dream that had given him hope that one day things might return back to normal. It was the thing that forced him onwards, kept him tinkering, again and again, every day, without any sign or hope that the thing might one day run again. He pictured himself driving through empty roads, the sun glaring above as he twisted the volume knob and blasted out some Led Zeppelin or some Pink Floyd from the speakers, singing along and sipping from an icy cold can of coke.

  He wasn’t sure why the can of coke was involved in the vision. He never liked the stuff all that much even before the rot, but there it was, in his mind’s eye, and maybe one day, he hoped it would be a reality.

  When he finished his story Colin realised that he had put down his tools and was staring at Jerry. They looked at each other for a moment, Jerry’s eyes sparkling from the memory.

  “Sounds silly, I know. But a man’s got to have something to keep him going after the world has fallen to shit.”

  Colin picked up a file, returning his attention to the pipe. “Yeah. I guess he does.”

  Jerry opened his mouth and closed it again. Colin knew what he was going to ask. A question that occurred every few months and would meet the same stony response. A question like: What’re your dreams, Colin? To which Colin would reply with nothing more than a simple: To survive. Something that never quite seemed to satisfy the LeShards, but something that was, in part, true.

  Though hardly the whole truth, so help him God.

  With a loud bang, small specs of rust fell into Colin’s mouth. He spat, then called, “How’s that?” A moment later he watched Jerry’s feet skirt the car. The keys clicked into the ignition. He held his breath.

  The engine churned.

  The sound of a cat caught in a washing machine.

  Jerry kept the key strong, kept it held tight.

  The cat kept yowling, the washing machine kept spinning, but nothing happened.

  “Argh.” Jerry took the keys out, caught his breath, and looked through the large, open barn door and out at the horizon. He let out a sigh of exasperation and climbed out of the car. The old man gripped hold of the jeans and lifted his leg, doing his best to shake the aches out the end of his shoe before placing it back on the ground and limping towards the front door of the house.

  “Where’re you going?” Colin called after him.

  “Checking up on Kitty,” Jerry replied, rubbing his hands on a mucky old rag.

  *

  Things went a bit faster without Jerry distracting him. As the sun began to work its way towards the horizon, changing the sky from blue to a pale orange, Colin worked away at the various pieces of the giant jigsaw. As he methodically worked his way around the car, he couldn’t help but feel that the poor bastard had, in some places, done more damage than good. Maybe nothing unfixable, but still, he’d need an extra pair of hands on this crusty old go-kart and he hardly thought Jerry and Kitty would have what it would take.

  Still, gotta work with what you got. The way of the modern world.

  It was when Colin’s stomach rumbled that he decided to hang up the tools for the evening, cross the weed-flecked stones that made up the path to the farmhouse’s door and made his way inside. Instantly he felt the warmth, smelled the scent of roast vegetables and corned beef – the king of the salvaged tins that made up their pantry cupboard. He thought he would’ve been sick of the taste by now, maybe even repulsed by it. But damn it, after an afternoon of labour he couldn’t wait to sink his teeth in.

  Colin was just taking off his boots when he heard them in the kitchen.

  “He’s a young lad, Jerry. We can’t keep him cooped up forever, trapped without a clue that there may be something else out in the world.”

  “Dammit Kitty, this is the last time we’re going to have this conversation. He’s here. He’s safe. We’re safer with him. You really want to give all that up for a shard of hope that Henry made it?” At the sound of the name he didn’t recognise, Colin pushed his ear closer to the crack in the door. Jerry and Kitty’s shadows were against the far wall. Jerry significantly more animated than Kitty. “You know the kid will head out there and look. He’s got an adventurer’s spirit. All he needs is an excuse to go wandering.”

  Somewhere in the kitchen Wheat whined.

  “Well isn’t that the point? He’s not built for this life, Jerry. Sure, he’s done us a great favour being here. But we’re just a couple old has-beens who are soon enough going to kick the bucket. And what’ll happen then? Maybe he’s right. Maybe we all need to move on.”

  There was silence for a moment. Colin did his best to hold his breath and keep from making noise. From what he could guess, Jerry had seen something in Kitty’s expression then.

  “There’s something you’re not telling me,” Jerry declared. His voice monotonous.

  From the faint shadows, Colin saw Kitty hand something to Jerry. The rustling of paper. “Came through this morning.”

  Colin pushed his nose closer to the gap, trying his best to see.

  “But… how?”

  Colin lost balance, nudging the door ever so slightly that it squeaked. Wheat’s ears pricked up as he barked and ran over to the door, wedging his nose through and jumping at Colin’s waist.

  Colin looked up just as Jerry shoved whatever the thing had been into his back pocket. In a second Jerry’s smile was painted back on his face, now clean from grease. Kitty turned and made herself busy with her pots.

  “Colin!” Jerry said, clapping his hands together. “Just in time for tea.” He walked forward and scooped Colin under his arm, “Any luck with the Saab?”

  *

  Dinner was a quiet affair, despite Jerry’s attempts to lift their spirits. He even brought out his guitar at one point. It was no use. Colin was in no mood to talk, and the most they got from Kitty was a half-arsed attempt at a smile. Colin was relieved when it was over and he could excuse himself, head upstairs and to his room, Wheat running up and passing him on the old stairs, tail slapping the walls as he went.

  The floorboards of the house creaked something rotten as he stepped over them and into the bedroom. He couldn’t rightly call it a bedroom. It was some sort of office for the farm at one point. Boxes of papers with words and nonsense on them that only highlighted the ridiculousness of the world left behind. A stinky Black Sabbath t-shirt pinned to the wall, torn at the edges, a few ornamental bears on the windowsill. An old computer that hadn’t been turned on in years, some old radio equipment, and a trophy for bowls. Not the ten-pin kind. The one where the old folks used to get together in uniforms of white and roll little black balls
and try to get them as close to the little white ball as possible. Apparently, Kitty used to be pretty good. She would’ve shown him if they still had any of the balls lying around. They tried it at one point with some stones but it didn’t seem all that fun. And then there was Colin’s bed, sort of. There was no mattress. They had one but Colin refused. He was happy with the frilly pink covers and the white duck feather pillow.

  He slipped off his woolly jumper first, folded it, and draped it over the computer chair. He then did the same with his Manchester United football shirt, and then his ragged chino trousers and then kicked his socks off against the cold radiator on the back wall. He shivered before taking off the chain link necklace, holding it up to see the wedding band still secure, before placing it on the computer desk next to the yellow-white plastic computer keyboard. He stretched his arms into the air, feeling the tightness of the skin of his scarred chest and back, before falling to the floor and into the pink covers.

  He lay staring into the dark for some time, mind busy with thoughts. He thought back to Kitty and Jerry’s conversation. To the name, Henry.

  There was something that they weren’t telling him, though he couldn’t place it. It sounded like they knew of safer places, of colonies that may have set up across England and found safety together, as he had with the LeShards. But the thought seemed impossible. If only he could have leant around enough to see what it was Kitty had passed Jerry. The paper thing that could have been a letter or a document of sorts.

  But then, who would be delivering letters nowadays?

  Tiredness began to take him. He was awake long enough to see Wheat climb over him and curl up next to him. The dog’s smelly brown back pressed against his beard and his face. He didn’t mind, though. He appreciated the warmth. He lifted his hand out of the covers and patted Wheat on the back, whispered “There’s a good boy” before the feeling of sleep caught up. His last thoughts of Henry, and what he meant to the LeShards.