Clare had met the old woman twice while visiting her sister. Annie lived down the road and owned three huskies. Beth had talked about her fondly. She was a sweet woman, Beth had said.
She hadn’t become mindless. There was awareness in her eyes, and misery pulled at her face. She had probably come to Beth’s house seeking help, slipping through the open front door and locking it behind herself. But Beth hadn’t been there; she’d been in her bunker. And Annie had become trapped by her own mutations, her fingers twisting until they could no longer turn a handle.
Clare felt paralysed. The radio’s noise still camouflaged any sound Dorran made, but she knew he wouldn’t be far away. Like her, he’d assumed all of the hollows had been drawn outside by the noise. But Annie wasn’t like her counterparts; she wasn’t blindly hungry. At least a part of her was still human.
The cracked lips parted again, and the hollow whispered through a near-crushed oesophagus, the words slurred and distorted. “Please… help… me…”
Clare opened her mouth. A horrible sense of despair weighed on her. What kind of help could make any meaningful difference? I can’t change this. I can’t reverse this.
The woman’s mouth worked, saliva pooling over her chin as she struggled to form the words. “Let… me… die.”
Tears spilt over Clare’s cheeks. She looked down at the metal bar gripped in her hand. Then she shook her head urgently, almost desperately.
You have to. She’s in pain. How long has she been here, wishing she could die, but too hobbled to end it herself, not even able to open the door? She can’t do it. You have to.
Clare imagined bringing the metal down on Annie’s head again and again, as many blows as it took to stop the twitching. She wanted to scream.
Dorran was close. She could call him. He would take care of it for her. Again.
That wasn’t fair. She already relied on him too much. She needed to be strong for him. To be prepared. To carry her share of the burden.
She raised the metal bar. Her grip was weak. The metal shook. She wouldn’t be able to do it. She couldn’t carry through.
Clare choked on a sob as she dropped the fire poker into the sink. Annie took a halting step closer, her expression pleading.
A weight rested in her pocket. The knife, she remembered. Clare pulled it out and felt the cool metal handle. “This… this, uh… should be faster.”
“Please,” the woman gasped.
Clare stepped near to her. Nearer than she wanted. Near enough to smell the stench and to see the cracks in the skin where it had stretched too far. She lifted one shaking and placed it on Annie’s opposite cheek to hold her head still. Then she brought the knife up and positioned it under the tilted chin.
The lidless eyes looked strangely gentle. They weren’t afraid.
“I’m so sorry,” Clare whispered and thrust the knife up.
Hot blood poured over her hand. Annie’s eyes rolled up in her skull. Clare tried not to scream, cry, or be sick. She needed to do the job properly. She twisted the knife, digging it in as far as she could, until Annie’s body went completely limp and tumbled to the ground.
Clare backed up and stood by the sink, body heaving as she retched and sobbed.
Chapter Thirty-Six
“Clare?” Dorran stood by the hallway cupboard, sorting through sheets and towels as he searched for anything useful. His expression tightened as he saw her swollen eyes, then his gaze flicked down to her hand, which was painted red with blood. The concern turned to terror. He crossed to her in five quick steps. “You’re hurt. Clare—”
Unable to stop crying, Clare shook her head. She’d thought she had the measure of this new world, but the encounter with Annie left her feeling dead inside. Dorran held her hand, turning it over as he looked for cuts, and she pulled free from him. Her tongue felt swollen and inflexible. “I’m fine. We need to go.”
He looked tense, his lips pressed into a tight line as he stepped around her, scanning her, his hands running over her shoulders and back. “What happened? I should not have left you alone. Was it a hollow?”
“We need to go,” was all she could manage. She moved past him, into the kitchen, towards their collection of supplies heaped in the centre of the quilt. She tried to pick some of the tins up, but Dorran gently pushed her hands back down.
“I have this. Just follow close to me. This will be all right, my darling. We will be all right.”
The radio still played its discordant clips, the audio loud enough to crackle through the rooms and mask their voices. Dorran brought the corners of the quilt together and tied them. He heaved it onto his shoulder then reached out his spare hand to hold Clare’s. She didn’t want the blood to get on him and shook her head no.
“Yes.” He took it anyway.
They moved through the house and carefully opened the front door. The radio abruptly fell silent, and they both froze. The quiet only lasted a heartbeat before it resumed: a man laughing, followed by three notes from a commercial’s jingle.
They’re breaking it. She could picture the creatures prying at the radio, trying to open it, trying to either make sense of or silence the voices.
Dorran paused in the open doorway as he searched the street. Daylight was gone, and the moon was weak. Clare hoped he could see better than her; she was struggling to parse the shadowed shapes. He kept scanning the environment, one hand holding the supplies onto his shoulder and the other clasping Clare’s. They half walked, half ran along the flagstone path and through the gate. Clare’s red car seemed to have gained a few new scratches on its paint while they were in the bunker, but she couldn’t see any signs that the exposed engine had been tampered with, at least.
Something wailed to their left. Clare turned and caught sight of the hollows gathered around the shrub—or what had once been the shrub. At least thirty of the creatures swarmed the area, clawing at the ground, clawing at the house, and clawing at each other. The shrub had been torn apart, branches stripped and discarded. They fought over the radio. Some of them had started digging a hole in the ground to get under the shrub’s roots.
Clare slipped through the passenger door as Dorran threw the supplies in the back seat and vaulted over the front to reach his side of the car. The hollows were starting to pay attention, but Dorran was efficient. He dropped into the driver’s seat and turned the key, and the creatures scattered as the headlight flickered on.
As the car pulled forward, Clare had time for a final glance back at Beth’s house. Its windows were cold and empty, just like every other building in the street. She hated seeing it like that; it had always been warm and inviting when Beth lived there. Now, it only looked abandoned.
Dorran took a sharp turn, and she had to brace herself against the dashboard to keep stable. This new cross street was narrower but quieter. She could feel Dorran watching her, his dark eyes careful and worried. “Tell me. Are you hurt?”
“No.” She couldn’t stop her eyes from burning, but at least her voice was steadier.
“Please, my Clare. I need to know you are telling the truth.”
“I am.” She stared down at her hands. One white, with grime under its fingernails. One smeared with red. “It’s not my blood.”