The Rule of Three

— 15 —

Dee peered out through the ventilation grating. The late afternoon sunlight shone through the beech trees bordering the back yard and dappled the lawn. She held her breath. Several of the creatures were moving around the yard, sniffing at the air. She stepped backwards a couple of feet, deeper into the shadows, fearful they would see her. The creatures took their time, sniffing, moving, pausing, sniffing. As they moved, popping sounds emanated from their bodies. She could see their veins through their translucent dark skin. Willing them to move on, she watched, terrified. Finally, they hopped on top of the fence and, shrieking, bounded off.

Letting out a breath, Dee nearly choked on the stench of sewage as she inhaled again. She had been down here in the basement for two days now and, after discovering the creatures had a heightened sense of smell, she had decided to really confuse them. The sewage took some getting used to, but anything was better than experiencing the same fate as Rachel, Machete, Broomstick and the two soldiers.

Dee took stock of her situation. She had about three weeks’ worth of food, maybe the same of water, and one weapon.

Thank God Jack bought me the katana in Japan that I’d been obsessing about. But will it be of any use against these nightmares?

She tried to remain calm, but her worry for her husband of three years was taking its toll. Not for the first time, she wondered whether to head on to the cabin without him or not. She remembered their first year together.

Nights spent in, cuddling on the couch, sharing their favourite movies and TV shows.

Talking late into the night about anything and everything.

Weekends spent in the wilderness exploring, sharing a love of nature. Learning, teaching each other.

Teaching what it meant to care for someone deeply. Learning tolerance of others and their situations.

Dee had thought it too late, too much of a princess fantasy to find that “one”, but she had.

She had fought her demons, her insecurities, every day with Jack. Her anxiety got the better of her some days, causing her to stay inside, hiding from the world. Cocooning herself away.

One night, after a few drinks, Dee had opened up to Jack, poured her heart out. She had told him about all her demons. Jack had cried, pouring out his own heart and releasing his own.

That had been that golden moment, that moment told in all the fairy tales.

She knew that was it. Jack was “The One.”

A popping sound caused Dee to look back out into the yard. One of the creatures was back. A straggler, maybe? It was staring straight into her neighbour’s house, sniffing the air. The sound of its sucker mouth smacked, making her shiver.

She prayed that her elderly neighbour, Faye, was hidden. In her nineties, the woman never ceased to amaze Dee with her virility by still playing tennis and tending her garden.

The virus had taken over so fast, and with so much fury, that no one had had a chance. Before the phones had died, Dee had called Faye, telling her to hide with her, to wait for Jack. Faye had refused, saying that her family were on their way. They were going together to the evac centre at Claudelands. But after five days, nothing. No sign of anyone. Dee now wished she had insisted having seen what was going on out there for herself and barely escaping with her life.

The creature was still there, sniffing. It suddenly burst over the fence with incredible speed, shrieking. Dee heard the crash of glass breaking. Her heart sank.

Against her better judgement, she grabbed the only weapon she had — the katana — and dashed outside. She leapt over the short boundary fence.

Dee could see the smashed window. A horrifying noise came from inside the house. Peering in, she saw the creature standing over Faye’s torn body, one of her arms clamped in its claws. Blood and gore dripping from its strange sucker mouth, it let out another shriek. More shrieks answered from close by, maybe a few houses down.

With blinding speed, the creature leapt at Dee.

Stumbling backwards, she brought the katana up as she fell. The speed of the creature went against it as the tip of the sword slid in underneath its chin and up into its brain, killing it instantly. Black, foul-smelling sludge poured down the blade to coat Dee’s arm and neck.

Gasping, her heart trying to beat its way out of her chest, she gagged and pushed the living nightmare off her. Hearing the shrieks again, but much closer, she listened intently. Screams, human screams, were intermingled with them.

Time to leave.

As she cleared the fence, she saw a group of people running up the street.

Dee gasped. People? I haven’t seen anyone for a couple of days!

“In here!” she waved.

The group turned towards the sound of her voice as one, their eyes wide in terror. They changed course and dashed towards her.

Dee ran to her basement door and swung it open. Getting a better look at the group, Dee made out four men and a couple of women.

“Hurry! C’mon!” Dee called, gesturing urgently for them to get inside.

The shrieking sounded really close as she slammed the door behind them, bolting it.

“Quickly, in the back,” Dee instructed. She reached into a plastic container and splashed some of the foul-smelling liquid over the door and floor.

Satisfied that she had disguised their presence, she joined the frightened group in the shadows. Dee could hear the creatures scratching around outside, and one of the creatures banged into the door, its joints popping as it moved around. It scratched at the door again, sniffing. Dee hoped that her seaweed garden solution would do the trick again, that its pungent stench would confuse the creatures, tricking them into thinking there was nothing to devour here. For the second time that day, the creatures moved on, and she breathed a sigh of relief.

“What’s the awful smell?” asked one of the men, whispering. Dee looked at him. Shaved head, slightly overweight, funny, beady eyes.

“That awful smell just saved your life,” Dee said. Annoyed, she met his eyes and glared at him.

“Matt, manners. She just saved our ass,” said one of the women.

“Sheesh, all right.”

Dee looked over at the woman who had chastised Matt and smiled. She had blonde hair, nice figure, a real beauty.

“Sorry about that. I’m Alice. You know Matt.” She nodded in his direction. Pointing at the others, she listed their names in turn. “Mike, Aston, Vicki and Boss.”

“Boss?” exclaimed Dee, looking closer at the teenage boy Alice had pointed at. “What, like Bruce Springsteen?”

Boss looked at Dee, a grin on his face. “Who?”

I like this kid already.

Boss started to laugh. “Nah, it’s a gaming thing. I used to boss everyone around in my WOW guild, drove everyone nuts.”

Oh, a gamer?

Dee grinned. “All right, Boss.” Dee looked over the group and lowered her voice. “That foul smell is raw sewage. It hides our scent from those creatures out there. That stench I put on the door is seaweed, and it does the same thing. You are welcome to stay here, but I have rules. I’ve managed to hide away from the creatures for three days. You get used to it, trust me.”

Dee glanced at each of them. So far they were paying attention.

“Rule one. Stay out of sight. Two. Minimal noise, no raised voices.” Dee grimaced. “We can share what little food I have. Hopefully my husband Jack will arrive before we have to scavenge more.”

“Variants. They’re called Variants,” murmured Boss.

Dee turned and looked at Boss. “What?”

“That’s what the American on the radio was calling them. Variants.”

“You’ve got a radio?”

“Well, had, until they found me and Mum.”

Dee could see Boss didn’t want to discuss the events of the last few days, so she made a mental note to ask him about it later.

Variants? Variants of what?

Dee’s group settled into an uneasy routine. For ten days they tried their best to be silent at all times, especially during the night. The darkness brought nightmares of hellish proportions. The Variants outside scurried, popped and shrieked continuously.

The ever-present fear of being discovered frayed everyone’s nerves. They took turns watching out of the ventilation grates in two-hour shifts, being careful to stay in the shadows.

Boss came up with the idea of dousing themselves in the seaweed solution, and Dee insisted that the human waste be buried and covered in garden lime. Minutes ticking by dragged into hours, and hours dragged into days.

And still no Jack.

With little else to do when not on watch, they played cards, read books from Jack and Dee’s stored collection or tried to sleep. But, knowing what awaited them outside, real sleep was a forgotten luxury.

Boss and Dee became fast friends, finding a common ground in all things Monty Python. They would try to lighten their mood by writing quotes, each testing the other person’s knowledge.

Matt, Alice and Aston all sat staring morosely, sometimes whispering to each other.

Vicki and Mike spent long hours just cuddling, only rising to do their shifts, eat and use the primitive bathroom. They had barely said two words to anyone, the shock of the past few days showing.

We all deal with things in a different way, some better than others.

Dee knew they probably had only one more days’ worth of food left, at best. They had exhausted the supplies they’d managed to scrounge from the immediate neighbourhood. No one was willing to venture out any farther than they had already. A few close calls with the Variants had scared everyone. Now they had no choice. If they were going to eat, they would have to go out into the mess the virus had caused.

Looking up from the book she was reading, The Chrysalids, she nudged Boss with her foot. “Hey.”

Boss was surrounded by electronic bits and pieces, remnants of an old ham radio her dad had given her. Without looking up, he replied, “Yeah?”

“Any luck?” Dee whispered.

“Nope, it’s dead. An ex radio. Expired. No longer with us.” Boss was now grinning.

Playing along, Dee said, “It was all right when it left the shop.” She sighed. “But seriously, could you fix it?”

“Not without the right parts. Then, yeah, maybe.”

Dee leant forwards in her chair, shuffling closer to Boss. The smell of the dusty radio parts evoked fond memories of her childhood, of watching her father patiently assemble the old ham radio, trying to get it to work. He had explained what he was doing to Dee, but it had all sounded the same to her. She’d just loved hearing his voice.

Blinking away the memory, she furrowed her eyebrows at Boss. “So, did your father teach you how to do that?”

Boss paused. Putting down the small screwdriver, he shifted his weight, stretching out a leg. “Yeah, well, sort of. He taught me how to use the radio. He loved to chat to people all around the country, and the world too, I suppose. I don’t know, really. He wasn’t around much.”

Dee watched as Boss shuffled around, turning away from her. He leant back down and picked up some pieces of the radio. He glanced around the room, his blue eyes flickering to her.

Dee placed a hand on his shoulder. “Boss, what happened? To him, to your mum?”

Wetting his lips, Boss said, “They happened, Dee. They!” He gestured wildly towards outside.

Dee patted his shoulder. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pried.”

Boss sighed, rubbing his hands through his hair. He stared at Dee. “Dad worked as an IT consultant, hardware stuff. He mainly worked for that big animal breeding place. It wasn’t long after the news broke, a couple of days maybe, that Dad came home sick. We thought he had a fever. He still insisted on going to work the next day, and then he never came back. As it got worse out there, Mum and I hid in the attic storage area. That’s where Dad’s radio was. So, when it was quiet, I warmed her up and reached out.”

Dee rubbed the nape of her neck. “Is that when you talked to the American?”

“Yeah. It was difficult to hear him. He said something about Variants attacking them, and to hunker down.”

Tilting her head in the direction of the others, Dee asked, “What about them? How’d you end up together?”

Boss picked up a piece of the radio. It was shaped like a small light bulb. Dee watched as he peered through it. He put it down next to the others and turned around to face her. His eyes glistened, and he blinked rapidly. “He came back, Dee. He came back.”

Her heart thumped against her chest and nerves tingled down her arms, her blood ran cold. She shivered. She hoped that what he was going to say next wasn’t what she was expecting. Why did I press him?

“After a few days, he came back. But he wasn’t Dad any more. He was one of them, Dee!” His voice caught on the last words and tears welled up in his eyes.

“I ran, Dee. I ran, and left Mum to him.” Boss sniffed and wiped his eyes. Gesturing towards Matt and Alice, he added, “They helped me. We hid in their shed. The other two were already there. But they found us. Then we met you.” Boss sniffed again, and a smile escaped his lips.

Dee moved forwards off her chair. She swept a few of the scattered parts away with her foot and crouched down, joining Boss on the floor. She drew him into a tight embrace. “I’m really glad you did, Boss. We’re going to survive this, okay?”

Boss tightened his arms around her, returning the hug. “Yeah. We better.”

She held on to him for a while longer, savouring the comfort.

Dee thought about how to approach the next subject, that of the drastically dwindling food supply. She knew the average male needed three thousand calories a day to survive, and they were all on a thousand at best. The time had come. Judgement day.

She broke the embrace with Boss and sat back up on her chair. Not for the first time, she wished her dad was still alive. He’d always treated her with a love and affection that had sometimes bewildered her. She’d always known he’d really wanted a son. He’d taken her on several hunting trips and shown her how to live off the land. Firing hunting rifles and shotguns, fishing and camping had all been a big part of her life growing up. Dee cursed her luck at the Hemorrhage Virus arriving when the guns he’d left her were being serviced. His death had hit her hard, and she’d foolishly let the guns sit in the basement gathering dust. After Jack had shown some interest in learning how to use them, she had taken them in for servicing. Now they were lost to her too.

What should they do? Move on and maybe get torn apart and eaten, or stay put and starve to death, and maybe get discovered and eaten?

Where are you, Jack? I need you now, more than ever.

Shifting her weight, Dee nudged Boss again. “Boss.”

“Yeah, what?”

“We need to talk to the others.”

Slightly perplexed, Boss looked up from his task. “Why?”

“We need to figure out what we’re going to do, that’s why.”

“Food?”

“Yes, food, and we need to move on. There are more and more Variants every day.”

Getting up off the floor so he could sit next to her, Boss gave Dee a quizzical look. “Have you noticed how you don’t see them in the middle of the day?”

Nodding, Dee murmured, “Yeah. I think that’s our best chance to go. We need to find water, food and weapons. Real weapons, like guns. Jack and I have this cabin up in the valley, isolated. I think we should head there.”

“What about a truck? Like a concrete truck?”

Smiling, Dee said, “We need to be practical, Boss. It’s not Mad Max.”

Stifling a laugh, Boss nodded. “All right. I’ll gather the troops.”