Melanie nods calmly.
“I know,” she says.
Parks doesn’t like the idea, which doesn’t surprise Justineau at all. And Caldwell likes it even less.
Only Gallagher seems to approve, and he doesn’t do more than nod – seeming reluctant to say anything that directly contradicts his sergeant.
They’re sitting in the day room, on four chairs that they’ve pulled up into a small circle. It provides the illusion that they’re actually talking to each other, although Caldwell is off in her own world, Gallagher won’t speak until he’s spoken to, and Parks listens to nobody but himself.
“I don’t like the idea of letting her off the leash,” he says, for about the third time.
“Why the hell not?” Justineau demands. “You were happy enough to cut her loose two days ago. The leash and the handcuffs were so she could stay with us. Your idea of a compromise. So from your point of view, there’s nothing to lose here. Nothing at all. If she does what she says she’ll do, we’re out of this mess. If she runs away, we’re no worse off than we are now.”
Caldwell ignores this speech and makes her appeal directly to the sergeant. “Melanie belongs to me,” she reminds him. “To my programme. If we lose her, it will be your responsibility.”
It’s the wrong thing to say. Parks doesn’t seem to like being threatened. “I spent four years servicing your programme, Doc,” he reminds her. “Today is my day off.”
Caldwell starts to say something else, but Parks talks over her – to Justineau. “If we let her go, why would she come back?”
“I wish I could answer that,” Justineau says. “Frankly, it’s a complete mystery to me. But she says she will, and I believe her. Maybe because we’re all she knows.”
Maybe because she’s got a crush on me, and all love is as blind as it needs to be.
“I want to talk to her,” Parks says. “Bring her in.”
On the leash still, with her hands behind her back and the muzzle over her mouth, she faces Parks like the chieftain of a savage tribe, on her dignity, and Justineau is suddenly aware of the changes in her. She’s out in the world now, her education accelerating from a standing start to some dangerous, unguessable velocity. She thinks of an old painting. And When Did You Last See Your Father? Because Melanie’s stance is exactly the same as the way the kid stands in that picture. For Melanie, though, that would be a completely meaningless question.
“You think you can do this?” Parks asks her instead. “What you said to Miss Justineau. You think you’re up to it?”
“Yes,” Melanie says.
“It means I’d have to trust you. Set you free, right here in the room with us.” He’s been holding something in his right hand, shaking it as though it’s a dice he was going to throw. He shows it to her now: the key to her handcuffs.
“I don’t think it means that, Sergeant Parks,” Melanie says.
“No?”
“No. You have to set me free, but you don’t have to trust me. You should put the chemical stuff all over your skin first, to make really sure I don’t smell you. And you should make Kieran unlock the handcuffs while you aim your gun at me. And you don’t have to take the cage thing off my mouth. I just need to be able to use my hands.”
Parks stares at her for a moment, like she’s something written in a language he doesn’t speak.
“Got it all figured out,” he acknowledges.
“Yes.”
He leans forward to look her in the eye. “And you’re not scared?”
Melanie hesitates. “Of what?” she asks him. Justineau is amazed at that momentary pause. Yes or no would be equally easy to say, whether they were true or not. The pause means that Melanie is scrupulous, is weighing her words. It means she’s trying to be honest with them.
As if they’ve done a single thing, ever, to deserve that.
“Of the hungries,” Parks says, like it’s obvious.
Melanie shakes her head.
“How come?”
“They won’t hurt me.”
“No? Why not?”
“Enough,” Justineau snaps, but Melanie answers anyway. Slowly. Ponderously. As though the words are stones she’s using to build a wall.
“They don’t bite each other.”
“And?”
“I’m the same as them. Almost. Close enough so they don’t get hungry when they smell me.”
Parks nods slowly. This is where the catechism has been leading all this time. He wants to know how much Melanie has already guessed. Where her head is. He’s working his way through the logistics.
“The same as them, or almost the same? Which is it?”
Melanie’s face is unreadable, but some powerful emotion flits across it, doesn’t settle. “I’m different because I don’t want to eat anyone.”
“No? Then what was that red stuff all over you when you jumped on board the Humvee, day before yesterday? Looked like blood to me.”
“Sometimes I need to eat people. I never want to.”
“That’s all you’ve got, kid? Shit happens?”
Another pause. Longer, this time. “It hasn’t happened to you.”
“Very true,” Parks admits. “Still feels like we’re splitting hairs, though. You’re offering to help us against those things down there, when it seems to me that you’d want to be down there with them, looking up at us, waiting for the dinner bell to ring. So I guess that’s what I’m asking you. Why would you come back, and why would I believe you’d come back?”
For the first time, Melanie lets her impatience show. “I’d come back because I want to. Because I’m with you, not with them. And there isn’t any way to be with them, even if I wanted to. They’re…” Whatever concept she’s reaching for, it eludes her for a moment. “They’re not with each other. Not ever.”
Nobody answers her, but Parks looks happy with this. Like she got the secret password. She’s in the club. The hopelessly-outnumbered-and-surrounded-by-monsters club.
“I’m with you,” Melanie says again. And then, as if it needed saying, “Not you, really. I’m with Miss Justineau.”
Surprisingly, Parks seems satisfied with this too. He stands, with a decisive air. “I get that,” he says. “Okay, kid. We’re going to trust you to get this job done. Let’s go.”
Melanie stays where she is.
“What?” Parks demands. “Something else you need?”
“Yes,” Melanie tells him. “I want to wear my new clothes, please.”
43
They take her to the top of the stairs. To where the top of the stairs was, before Sergeant Parks exploded them. Melanie peers over the edge.
There are lots and lots of hungries down there. Maybe a hundred or more, all standing together in the hallway. They look up as the two men and two women come into view, their heads all moving together like flowers following the sun.
Sergeant Parks doesn’t get his gun out, but he makes Melanie turn away as he unlocks the cuffs, and he tells her not to move. She feels them fall away, and she wants to wiggle her fingers to make sure they still work okay, but she doesn’t.
Sergeant Parks unties the leash from around her neck, too, and she turns to Miss J, who’s ready with the little bundle of clothes.
It’s unpleasant to have the sweater – Miss Justineau’s sweater, which she’s worn all this time – lifted off over her head. To be momentarily naked again. It’s not the scrutiny of the adults she dislikes, it’s the feel of air directly on her body. The sensation of being so exposed.
But as Miss J dresses her in her new finery, that feeling goes away. She likes the jeans and the T-shirt very much – and the jacket, which is a little like Sergeant Parks’ jacket. It’s only the trainers that feel strange. She’s never worn shoes before, and the loss of the stream of information her feet receive from the ground is disturbing. It’s possible that she and the trainers might not be a long-term thing. But they’re so beautiful!
“Done?” Parks says.
“You
look great, Melanie,” Miss Justineau tells her.
She nods thanks, and agreement. She knows she does.
But they’re not done. Not yet. Miss Justineau takes something out of her pocket and holds it out for Melanie to take. It’s a tiny thing, made out of grey plastic. Rectangular, with a single round button on it. Around the edge of the button, in red letters are the words SAFE and GUARD. And then underneath, DANGER 150 DECIBELS.
“When you get to the part where you have to make a big noise,” Miss Justineau tells her, “this might help.”
“What is it?” Melanie asks. She’s trying to look casual and calm, like getting a present from Miss Justineau is no big deal.
“It’s a personal alarm. From a long time ago. People used to carry them in case they got attacked.”
“By hungries?”
“No, by other people. It makes a noise like the end-of-the-day klaxon back at the base, but much, much louder – loud enough to make people panic, so they want to run away. But hungries wouldn’t run away, they’d run towards the sound. It might not work at all, after all this time, but you never know.”
Melanie hesitates. “You should keep it,” she says. “In case you get attacked.”
Miss Justineau closes Melanie’s fingers over the object, which is still warm from being in her pocket. It’s like a little piece of Miss Justineau that she can take out into the world with her. The weight of her new knowledge is still pressing her down, but her heart swells with joy as she puts the alarm into the pocket of her brand-new unicorn jeans.
“Done,” she confirms to Sergeant Parks. Sergeant’s face says about time. He ties the leash up again around Melanie’s waist with a different knot.
“Once you’re down on the ground,” he tells her, “you pull on this end here, and the rope will come away.”
“Okay,” she says.
“I’m not taking your muzzle off,” Sergeant says. “But with your hands free, you could easily release the strap yourself and get it off. You’re a smart kid, and I bet you thought of that already.”
Melanie shrugs. Of course she has, and there doesn’t seem to be any point in trying to explain to him all over again why she won’t do that.
“Just so you know,” Sergeant Parks says, “if you want to stay with us, you’re going to need to keep the muzzle on. Or put it back on when you’re done. I don’t have any more of them, and as far as I’m concerned, your teeth are a loaded gun. So keep that thing safe, because that’s what gets you back in the door. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Okay then. Gallagher, give me a hand here.”
The two men move into position at the top of the stairs and get ready to pay out the rope, but at the last moment Miss Justineau kneels beside Melanie again and holds out her arms.
Melanie steps into the embrace, shivers deliciously as Miss Justineau’s arms close around her.
But she pulls away after no more than a moment. There’s just a tiny trace of the human smell, the Miss Justineau smell, underneath the bitterness of the chemicals. Enough to turn the pure pleasure of their proximity into something else entirely; something that threatens to escalate out of her control. “Not safe,” she mutters urgently. “Not safe.”
“Your e-blockers,” Sergeant Parks translates unnecessarily. “You need another layer.”
“I’m sorry,” Miss Justineau murmurs – not to Sergeant Parks, but to Melanie.
Melanie nods. She was scared for a moment there, but it’s okay. It was a very faint scent, and now that it’s gone, the hungry feeling is back under her control.
Sergeant Parks tells her to sit down on the top step, and then to push herself away. He and Kieran lower her down into the waiting crowd of hungries.
Who don’t react at all. Some of them follow the movement as she comes down, but Sergeant Parks makes sure that her descent is really slow and gradual, so it doesn’t get the hungries too excited. Their gaze sweeps over her without lingering. Or else they stare right through her, not registering her presence at all.
As soon as her feet are on the ground, she loosens the rope with a tug. Sergeant Parks draws it up again, just as slowly and gradually as he let it down.
Melanie glances up. Sees Sergeant Parks and Miss Justineau peering down at her. Miss Justineau waves; a slow opening and closing of her hand. Melanie waves back.
She threads her way carefully through the hungries, un-noticed, unmolested.
But she was lying when she said she wasn’t afraid. To be right here in the middle of them – to look up at their bowed heads and half-open mouths, their off-white eyes – is very frightening indeed. Yesterday she thought that the hungries were like houses that people used to live in. Now she thinks that every one of those houses is haunted. She’s not just surrounded by the hungries. She’s surrounded by the ghosts of the men and women they used to be. She has to fight a sudden urge to break into a run, to get out of here into the open air as quickly as she can.
She makes it to the door, pushing between the packed-together bodies. But the doorway itself is completely impassable. Too many hungries have squeezed themselves into the narrow space between the doorposts, and she’s not strong enough to break up that logjam. But the floor-to-ceiling windows to either side of the door have been shattered, every last sliver of glass forced out of their frames by the hungries charging through. Some of those closest to Melanie bear the slash marks from that difficult passage on their arms and bodies. From the new wounds a sluggish brown liquid has oozed. It doesn’t look much like blood.
Melanie pushes her way out through the left-hand window. More hungries are standing out on the driveway, but they’re not so tightly clustered and it’s easier for her to make her way through.
To the gates, and then out on to the street.
She walks past more hungries. They don’t turn as she goes by or seem to notice her at all. She crosses to the overgrown green and walks in among the trees and tall grass.
Melanie likes it here. If she were free, if she had lots of time and nothing that she needed to do, she’d like to stay here for a long time and pretend that she’s in the Amazon rainforest, which she knows about from a lesson with Miss Mailer, a long time ago, and from the picture on the wall of her cell.
But she’s not free, and time is pressing. If she takes too long, Miss Justineau might think she’s run away and left her, and she’d rather die than let Miss Justineau think that even for a second.
She’s hoping for a rat like the one that scared Dr Caldwell, but there are no rats. No birds, even, but in any case a bird probably wouldn’t do for what she needs.
So she looks further afield, walking up and down the streets, through the open doors of houses, through the jumbled, desecrated remains of vanished lives, trying not to be distracted by the ornaments, the photos, the hundreds and thousands of inscrutable objects.
In a room silted up a foot deep with old brown leaves, she startles a fox. It leaps for a broken window, but Melanie is on it so quickly that she catches it in mid-air. She’s thrilled at her own speed.
And at her strength. Though the fox is as big as she is, when it squirms and thrashes in her arms she just tightens her grip, closing down its range of movement, until it stills, quivering, whining, and lets her take it where she wants.
Back up the street to the green. Across the green to the fence where the hungries are clustered, every face turned away from her, every body still.
Melanie screams. It’s the loudest sound she can make. Not as loud as Miss Justineau’s personal alarm would be, but both her hands are full of fox and she doesn’t want to let it go until all the hungries are looking at her.
When the heads turn, she opens her arms. The fox is away like an arrow flying out of Ulysses’ bow.
Primed by the sound, awake and alert for prey, the hungries obey their programming. They start into violent motion, run after the fox as though they’re joined to it by taut strings. Melanie backs out of the way quickly, into a doorway, as the first wave
goes by her.
There are so many of them, crowded in so tightly together, that some of them get knocked down and trampled on. Melanie sees them trying again and again to get up, only to be trodden underfoot each time. It’s almost funny, but the grey-brown froth that’s forced out of their mouths, like wine from grapes, makes it sort of sad and horrible too. When the rest of the horde have run on down the road, almost out of sight, some of these fallen struggle to their feet and limp and crawl after them. Others stay where they fell, twitching and scrabbling but too badly broken to get up off the ground.
Melanie skirts around them carefully. She feels bad for them. She wishes that there was something she could do to help them, but there isn’t anything. She goes back in through the gates and walks up to the house. She enters the hall, which is completely deserted now, and calls up to Sergeant Parks, who is exactly where he was when she left. “It worked. They’ve gone now.”
“Stay there,” Sergeant Parks calls down. “We’ll join you.”
And then, after looking at her hard for a few moments longer:
“Good job, kid.”
44
Getting everyone down to street level is easy enough, with the ropes. Sergeant Parks decides the order: Gallagher first, so there’s someone on the ground who knows how to use a gun, then Helen Justineau, then Dr Caldwell, with himself bringing up the rear. Dr Caldwell is the only one who presents any kind of a problem, since her bandaged hands won’t allow her to grip the rope. Parks makes a running knot, which he ties around her waist, and lowers her down.
They could retrace their steps, but it’s easier to keep going through the town. There are any number of places where they can pick up the A1 again, and they’ll actually get out from among the buildings more quickly if they steer east of south, past a region of desolate industrial estates. Not many people ever lived out here, and after the Breakdown the pickings were thin for uninfected survivors, whose needs ran more to food than to heavy plant, so they don’t see many hungries at all. Of course, they’re also following roughly the same line that the fox took, at least to start with. That irresistible moving target cleared the way for them very effectively.