“I cannot watch.” Delphine left without arguing.
Henry, Dave, Kevin and I stayed. I watched in morbid fascination, the thrum of my heart resounding in my ears. The furies reached the man in the blink of an eye and bore down on him like a pack of lions.
Horrible screams.
More blood pooling from underneath the mass of tangled limbs.
“Jesus,” muttered Kevin.
The roamers fought each other for access to the uninfected body, pushing each other aside. One of them was no more than a child. A dark Italian boy of about nine who stood no chance against the stronger, adult cannibals, and could do nothing but claw agitatedly at their backs in an effort to get closer to their collective prey. His soft features were painted in smears of blood and his eyes glowed blackly with senseless rage.
“I’ve seen enough.” Henry turned resolutely around and marched back to the common area.
“Why arewestill watching?” Kevin asked, sounding like he was on the verge of throwing up.
“You don’t have to. But I will, until the end.” I was barely aware of replying to him, my own voice sounding perversely raptured even to myself.
Petr had always said that I had a disturbing penchant for violence whenever we watched horror or action movies, and my eyes would be glued to the screen, my breathing shallow, my thighs squeezed together. I had often wondered whether I would be as enthralled by similar scenes of brutality in real life. I supposed that question had been answered at last. Much as I wanted to, much as I felt sick to my stomach, I couldn’t look away.
The screams ceased. As if on a cue, all the furies straightened up and dispersed around the street, affording us a full view of what remained of their victim. It was a horrible sight. The infected had gnawed flesh off the extremities almost completely, leaving the bones exposed and looking strangely fragile amongst the mess of torn clothes, skin, and meat. The face was the least affected, with only a few gashes across the cheeks. Lifeless eyes gazed in our direction as if in reprimand. The stomachwas ripped open below the ribcage, and guts spilled out onto the road. Inappropriately, I imagined them sizzling on the sun-warmed, dusty stone like on a grill and stifled an unhinged impulse to giggle.
It was better than imagining that Petr may have been met with a similar fate, but I did that next and my head swam with the vision. I had to hold on to Dave not to crash into the ground. As sobs tore their way out of my throat, I became aware of calling his name over and over.
“Petr, oh god, Petr, no ...”
“It’s not him, hun. We don’t know what happened to him,” Dave kept repeating patiently as I leaned into him.
But what he said didn’t matter. Because even if Petr was indeed well and on his way home, someone else I had known was sure to have become a maimed carcass in a manner like what we had just witnessed.
And several someones were sure to have been stripped of their humanity, their dignity, driven not by their hearts and their minds, not even by their instincts, but by the bloodthirsty disease in their bloodstream.
By the next morning, all the infected were gone from the back street. Only the mutilated cadaver remained in the rising heat.
By all measures, our situation was beyond dire. We were almost out of food supplies; only some breakfast cereals and dried fruits remained. By some miracle, we still had running water, which was unlikely to last much longer. With each passing day, it became clearer and clearer that if help were ever coming at all, it would come too late for us. That unreal moment was drawing near when we would have to go out and face the new world that had emerged in our absence. The moment that would likely bring us much closer to our demise.
And yet, despair was the last thing that I felt. Imperceptibly at first, a hot air balloon had begun swelling in my chest. The feeling was akin to clouds gathering and warm winds rising, heralding a much-anticipated summer storm after weeks of drought. And then, at long last, raindrops at first with the bursting of the skies, turning quickly into a veritable downpour, revitalising the parched, cracked earth. Infusing it with life.
For years, I was like a dandelion seed, tossed around in the wind, helpless and without aim. But over those weeks following the Outbreak, I had managed at long last to take root in the conviction that there was something I could do with my life. Something that fit so perfectly that suddenly it felt like the only possible answer to the question I had been asking over and over. The notion that, perhaps, if my own life were indeed without much hope for the future, I could help achieve the survival of those whose lives were not.
My coach had always said that I had a rare talent for archery. He even tried to talk me into competing professionally, but I wanted a different kind of life. Still, I won every amateur competition I had ever attended. Long before it became a question of life and death, I had mastered the use of a bow—the most perfect, silent weapon there was in the circumstances.
My life could have a purpose after all, and that knowledge was like a lifeline, pulling me out of the depths of my desolation.
“It’s time to make a plan,” I addressed the others during breakfast, which consisted of a handful of dry cornflakes. “We don’t have much time left before we’ll have to choose between starving to death or risking a rendezvous with the furies. Personally, I choose the latter.”
The clinking of spoons against bowls ceased, and too many eyes fixated on me with attention. I stood near a window from which the corpse was visible, the gun near it glinting in the sun.
“I couldn’t agree more.” Dave nodded gravely. “At this point, I don’t think help is coming. We ought to figure out what to do.”
I smiled at him gratefully.
“Well,” I said, “we’ll need weapons, that’s for sure.”
I then explained about my aptitude for archery.
“If I can shoot clay pigeons, then I can shoot the infected too, I’m sure of it,” I told them in what I hoped was a confident tone of voice. “I may be your best chance of getting out of this city.”
“My dear girl, the mechanics of it are not the only consideration,” Henry spoke to the stunned silence that ensued. “Are you telling me you are prepared to kill people?”
