The Dead

He pushed past a bike in the hallway, dumped Jack on the sofa in the sitting room and took a quick look around. There were two photos on the mantelpiece of Jack and his family, one was just him and his sisters, the other was of the whole family, standing smartly dressed in a big garden, maybe at a wedding. There was Jack, looking shy and awkward. He’d never liked having his photo taken. And there were his mum and dad just as Ed remembered them from the couple of times they’d met. His father wearing glasses, a bit bald but with a nice open face and broad grin. His mum, small and thin, a little tired-looking, her smile slightly strained.

Both dead now probably.

And as for Jack’s sisters? What was the chance that either of them would still be alive? Not his older sister. That was for sure. She would have been over fourteen when the disease broke out. Not necessarily dead, though, he supposed. Maybe just sick. Her pretty face covered in boils, her skin peeling …

Ed went into the kitchen. He opened the fridge: inside was a putrid mass of green mould and fungus. He went through all the kitchen cabinets. Apart from pots and pans and plates they were empty. Anything edible had long gone.

In a cupboard under the stairs, though, full of mops and brushes and a Hoover, he found a cardboard box hidden at the back, stuffed with cans.

Jack’s folks must have stashed it away here. Ed pulled it out with a wild excited cry of triumph. Peaches, tomatoes, spaghetti hoops, frankfurters, meatballs, chick peas, broad beans. Ed realized he was actually drooling. He’d not had anything to eat since breakfast, and that hadn’t been much to write home about. They’d left the lorry in such a hurry none of them had thought to stock up on food.

He opened a can of peaches and drained the liquid greedily before stuffing some of the fruit into his mouth.

What was he thinking? This wasn’t his food.

He raced in to tell Jack the good news. He found him at the mantelpiece, holding the family photograph, tears streaming down his face. Ed put an arm round him and hugged him, and Jack hugged him back.

‘Why is this happening, Ed?’

‘Don’t think about that,’ Ed whispered into his ear. ‘I’ve found some food, mate.’

Jack feebly pushed him away, nodded, smiled. Ed slotted a peach slice between his lips, and Jack’s whole face lit up like a little kid given ice cream. He worked his jaws, dripping juice and bits of peach down his front.

‘I feel like someone in a cartoon,’ he said. ‘You know when they’ve been shot and they drink a glass of water and it all spurts out of little holes all over them.’

He tried to laugh, but it hurt him too much and Ed helped him back to the sofa.

‘I need to look at you again,’ he said. ‘I need to sort out whatever Greg did to you and put some clean bandages on.’

‘Where’s Bam?’

Ed didn’t know what to say, whether he should protect his friend. He felt numb and blank.

In the end he simply said, ‘Bam’s dead.’

Jack just said, ‘Oh,’ and closed his eyes. The conversation had worn him out and his brief rally was over.

Ed lifted his shirt, dreading what he would find. It was awful. Greg’s cleaver had sliced through the original bandages just below Jack’s ribs. It was impossible to tell how deep the wound was without prodding and probing and risking making it worse. Instead he set to with antiseptic and did what he could with the bandages, but he was no nurse.

When he was done, he gave Jack some water and some more peaches. It seemed to revive him a little and he summoned the strength to speak. Although it was only one word.

‘Bedroom.’

‘Come on then.’

Ed once again took Jack on his aching shoulder and they stumbled awkwardly across the room, back out into the hallway and over to the foot of the stairs.

‘D’you think you can make it up?’ Ed asked. Jack nodded and took hold of the banister.

Up they went, step by agonizing step, Jack growing weaker all the way. They made it eventually, though. How long had it taken? Half an hour? An hour? Ed had no real sense of time any more. It was still light outside, though, so it couldn’t be that late.

When they reached the landing, Jack was almost passed out again and Ed had to look around for any clues as to which might be the door to his room. One of them had a ‘KEEP OUT’ sign on it with a skull and crossbones dripping blood. How old had Jack been when he’d put it there, he wondered. For it must surely be Jack’s room. It wasn’t the sort of sign girls put up. He must have been maybe ten, younger even. Parents liked to hang on to ancient things.

They groped their way along to the door and Ed pushed it open. A thin layer of dust covered everything but otherwise the room looked untouched.

There was a narrow single bed along one wall, with a dark blue duvet on it. Above the bed was an old poster for Casino Royale; one corner had come away and was hanging down, a flattened lump of Blu-Tack stuck to it. Ed lowered Jack on to the bed and without thinking pushed the corner of the poster back up so that it stuck to the wall.

He sat next to Jack and took in the rest of the room. It was a typical boy’s bedroom. There was a little desk, and a bookshelf. Old books mostly. Jack had been away from home at boarding school for the last couple of years. There was Harry Potter, Alex Rider, Melvin Burgess, Robert Muchamore. A stack of comics sat on the floor, a ‘Marvel Zombies’ on the top. Ed recognized the Kev Walker cover. He’d read that one. Enjoyed it. On either side of the door were a poster of Lady Gaga and a framed print of a piece of Banksy graffiti – the two guys from Pulp Fiction with bananas instead of guns. There was another shelf of trophies near the window, for football and cricket and swimming, even one for trampolining. And there – Ed’s heart snagged against his ribs – a photograph of the two of them, Jack and Ed, taken after the school team won a football tournament in Holland. Ed stood up and went over to take a closer look. He remembered when it had been taken so well. It was two years ago; they would both have been twelve. They looked so young, another lifetime. Ed had long hair back then. Jack looked happy and relaxed. The two of them stood with their arms round each other’s shoulders, smiling straight at the camera, not a worry in the world.

As Ed was studying the photograph, he caught sight of a face reflected in the glass of the frame and he spun round in fright, thinking he’d seen the face of a sicko.

Idiot. Jumpy idiot. Not a sicko.

There was a wardrobe across the room with a mirror in the door. He went to it, hardly daring to look.

No wonder he’d mistaken himself for a sicko.

The boy who stood looking back at him was in a right state. Covered in blood, his face pale and plastered with soot and ash. Most of the tissue paper had fallen off his cheek, but a few crusty black scraps remained, stuck to a long gash that was mostly scabbed over, but still bled in a couple of spots. His left eye was bruised and swollen shut. His right eye was ringed with dark purple.

The young fresh-faced boy in the photo might have been a different person.

He went back over to Jack, who was lying on his back, his eyes closed, his breathing shallow. Already the duvet was darkening around him where his blood was soaking into it. He was shivering.

And then Ed remembered something.

There was a toy box in the corner. He lifted the lid and rifled through it. It was full of Lego, and old Action Men with no heads and arms. There were also bits of Bionicle and some half-painted Warhammer figures. Nearer the bottom were some plastic zoo animals. But no stuffed toys.

He closed the lid and looked around the room. A battered cardboard box sat on top of the wardrobe. He pulled it down, his shoulders screaming.

It was full of cuddly toys – a duck, a cow, three teddies, a snake – and there … a dog, with long floppy ears and a silly smile. One of the ears was worn away almost to nothing.