Storm Front Read online

  Alex sneered from the sidelines in silence. These people were walking the halls of his house; he didn’t want to listen to what they had to say.

  But he knew their sounds. The way Krol dragged his feet. The way Nelson and his sister, Reni, would walk in tandem down the halls. The way Jamie marched around corners with a pause and how Jenna sang to herself under her breath when she thought no one else was around. Every day, from sunrise to sleep time, the house was never quiet.

  Alex sat on the bed, dabbing the towel at his head. Joan had tried to cut his hair short with a pair of blunt kitchen scissors. A functional effort but not all that fashionable. Wiping the damp from his ears, he noticed something. The quiet. It was eerie. Nothing moved. No feet across floorboards, no tapping of walls, or mumbles of distant conversations.

  Alex strained his ears, trying to catch a sound. Any sound. Nothing.

  Something was wrong.

  Alex pulled on his clothes. Same old pair of jeans, worn-out socks, a T-shirt, a sweater, and his beaten-up sneakers. So many holes in so many clothes. As soon as the laces were knotted up, he ran from the room, down the corridor, and through the kitchen.

  No one was around.

  Bursting out of the back door, Alex expected to find Krol in the back yard. No one was there. Deadly quiet reigned supreme.

  Snatching up the axe from the woodpile, he ran around the outside of the house. He couldn’t hear anybody. He couldn’t see anyone. Not even the dog.

  Arriving in the courtyard, the thin canvas on his sneakers stretched as he squealed to a halt.

  An empty space, just a cold wind blowing.

  Where the hell is everybody?

  Alex didn’t want to shout. Not out loud. It felt wrong. Everything felt wrong. Weighing the axe in his hands, he stalked around the courtyard, eyes scanning over everything.

  Then he saw it.

  A black dot in the distance. A figure on the road, moving up the winding path towards the farm. A person. Alone. Walking. Stumbling. Too far away to make out clearly.

  The axe wasn’t heavy. Alex was used to the weight. He could feel the smooth varnish of the handle in his hands.

  Someone was coming.

  “Alex!” A hushed, desperate voice. “Alex, get in here!”

  Jenna’s voice. The teenager. Alex looked around and saw nothing but closed doors and blank windows. He wasn’t used to people calling his name, not least any of the others. But she sounded urgent. There would be time to scorn her later.

  “Over here!”

  The girl wasn’t good at whispering. The voice carried far and wide. She was worried.

  Alex saw her, crouched beside the other side of the farmhouse, face appearing above the porch. Looking back towards the figure, it was moving closer and closer.

  “Come on, Alex! Come here!”

  Taking a last look at the figure from the road, Alex ran towards Jenna. As he arrived towards her, she covered her mouth and nose with a hand.

  “Jenna, I’ve told you. I’m not infectious. You don’t have to-”

  “Not you!” She raised a finger and pointed it down the road. “Him. He’s coming. We have to hide.”

  “Where is everybody?”

  “Already hiding. Come on. You’ll get us in trouble. We’ve got to protect the farm!”

  “It’s church people?” Alex hadn’t stopped thinking about the visitors he’d overheard on the road.

  “Dunno. Could be anyone. Quick!”

  Jenna led Alex around the back of the house. They clambered in through one of the side windows and slammed it shut behind them, sliding the lock into place.

  “I don’t understand,” Alex mimicked the girl’s hushed whispers, “where are we going?”

  She didn’t speak. Instead, she raised her hand and pointed upwards. Upstairs.

  The farm house was mostly single story. The bottom floor held most of the rooms. But upstairs, that was the master bedroom. It nestled in the roof, windows cut into the sloping shape and looking out over the courtyard like a pair of giant eyes. Alex’s parents had slept there. Now, no one did.

  Alex followed Jenna up the stairs. They half ran, half crept. When they reached the top of the stairs, turned the corner, and arrived into the bedroom, everyone was there. The only one missing was Krol.

  “Hey,” Alex approached Timmy, “what the hell–”

  Timmy just placed a finger to his lips and shushed. He was wearing a tool belt, a hammer hanging from his hip.

  Everybody was crowded around the two bay windows. Cam, Joan, and Timmy in one, Nelson, Reni, Jenna, and Jamie in the other.

  “They’ve locked all the doors.” Joan leaned sideways into Alex, muttering in his ear. “Locked all the windows, too. They seem to know what they’re doing.”

  “But where’s Krol?”

  Jamie shot them a glare, raised her hand to her mouth and made a gesture as though she were zipping up her lips.

  “Protect the farm, man.” Timmy’s turn to whisper. “That’s what they told us.”

  Jamie shushed again.

  “Ah, shut the hell up, Jamie.” Timmy stopped whispering. “We have to tell him. He didn’t bring them here.”

  Jamie turned back to her window, her lips pressed together tight, telling the world that she disagreed.

  “Alex?” It was Joan’s voice again but quieter. Barely a whisper. “Alex, can we talk? There’s something…”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Alex could see Jamie staring him down. A fierce glare, filled with anger.

  “Soon, Joan. Do you know what’s happening?”

  She just shook her head and turned back to the window. In the glass, Alex could see a reflection – faint, spectral – of her pained expression.

  Alex leaned in over his friends’ shoulders. He could see out across the courtyard, could see the figure moving closer and closer to the farmhouse. It was a man, still a few minutes away. This man stumbled and stuttered, making the walk difficult.

  He felt a hand gripping him tight on the shoulder. Joan, he knew. Alex reach up and tapped her fingers. She must be worried, he thought. Strangers arriving at the farm.

  A heavy, irregular thud came from the hallway. Before Alex had even turned around, he knew it would be Krol. Turning around, he could see the old man was carrying the Savage rifle in one hand and his oxygen tank in the other.

  “You can shoot?” Krol didn’t bother to step into the room, he simply stared at Alex, who nodded.

  “Sure.”

  “Then get up on the roof. Don’t do anything unless I give the signal.”

  Krol threw the rifle across the room and Alex caught it, swinging it round and checking the chamber in one movement. Loaded.

  “Hey, what’s the signal?” Alex said, looking up from the gun.

  Krol had already left, his hefty, shuffling steps echoing down the stairs and toward the front door.

  Alex slung the rifle over his shoulder and slipped through his friends toward the window. He undid the small, fiddly lock and began to climb out onto the roof.

  “Be careful.” Joan called after him. “Don’t slip.”

  Alex looked back to her, reading the concern in her face.

  “I did this a hundred times when I was a kid, Joan. Watch me. I’ll be fine.”

  With that, Alex swung his leg out through the window and felt the sole of his sneaker press against a notch in the roof. It slipped, just for a second, while Alex adjusted his weight. He was bigger now, he reasoned, might need to make a few adjustments. Flashing a grin to the others, he ducked his head and clambered out.

  Right away, he could feel the wind. Down in the courtyard, at least, the stables and the barn acted as barriers. They kept out the worst of it. Up on the roof – just some twenty feet above ground – it was a different world. Alex steadied himself, gripping the gun with both hands. Don’t slip, he told himself. Don’t fall. Just like the old days.

  From up on the roof, he had a fantastic view. He wasn’t high but there was nothing
to hinder his eyeline. The shape of the scenery was so familiar. He could see far across the fields, at the tufts of trees, at the distant road, and at the hedge lines. Away to his east, he knew, on the other side of the barn, was Athena.

  Too far away to see, even on a clear day. Today, on this crisp morning, a thin fog sat on the horizon. It looked like the edge of the world, creeping in from every side. Alex shrugged his shoulders up against the cold and began to climb up toward the chimney, his hands and feet finding familiar grips.

  The tiles were cold and flat, fitted together without gaps. Lichen and moss grew in lines along the roof. Everything was slippery, still wet with frost and dew.

  But Alex climbed upward, carefully and slowly, checking over his shoulder as the figure moved closer and closer. Almost without looking, he reached the apex of the house and swung his leg over the joint in the two sides of the roof, just like he’d done when he was younger.

  The chimney stack was ten bricks high, a few feet of red earthen shade sticking up from the flat black of the tiled roof. It straddled the house like a clothespin holding a bedsheet on a line.

  Alex lay flat on the tiles, leaning his shoulder into the chimney while propping his elbows up on the roof. Up here, he was away from it all, away from the petty squabbles and the distractions. It allowed him to look down on the courtyard, holding the rifle in position. He breathed in and out, settling himself. Ready.

  Through the scope of the rifle, he could see the man stumbling up the track.

  A ragged man, wearing too few clothes for the weather. Sweating, talking to himself, with a pair of glasses balanced precariously on the tip of his nose, in danger of falling away as the man sauntered wildly left and right.

  He’s sick, Alex thought to himself, early stages. Running a fever, so he didn’t care about the cold. Blood beginning to boil in his veins. He knows.

  When the man was almost in the courtyard, the front door to the house creaked open. Krol’s familiar footsteps crossed the porch. The door swung shut. Someone locked it.

  “Hey! Hey, a person! You have to help me!”

  The man had spotted Krol instantly. He picked up the pace, lurching in past the stables and the barn, all his effort driven into putting one foot in front of the other.

  “Stop there.” Krol’s commanding voice didn’t boom. But it was loud enough.

  The man shuddered to a halt, his legs obeying the words even if the rest of him wanted to move forwards.

  “No, wait. Please. You’ve got to–”

  “Who sent you?”

  Krol was marching into the empty courtyard. The voice carried through the mask, the oxygen tank hovering a few inches above the ground, setting the rhythm of the walk.

  “Thank God! Thank God! I’ve been searching everywhere. For someone. Then I saw the smoke. From the chimney!” Alex tucked himself up against the bricks, trying to remain hidden. “I knew there was someone here. Someone to help me.”

  Alex could hear the silence. The bated breath. The man had stopped talking, his mind finally catching up to what Krol had said. The others, waiting at the bay windows of the upstairs bedroom, waited for the answer.

  “What do you mean ‘who sent me?’”

  “You heard the question.”

  “Well, no one sent me, I just saw the–”

  “You are sick.”

  The man had found himself in the center of the courtyard. Krol began to circle him, staying ten feet away at all times.

  Dabbing at his forehead, trying to keep his eyes focused on this new conversation partner, the man looked around for help. He found no one. Alex kept him in the crosshairs, the scope bringing him almost too close.

  “I don’t know what… Sent me? I need help. Help me.”

  “If you are sick, you must leave.”

  The man laughed. A desperate, terrified laugh.

  “You can’t be… I’ll die. I need… just a bit of kindness. Don’t you… Can’t you help me?”

  “We cannot. There is no cure. I am sorry.”

  Krol continued to walk around the man, circling him like a shark. All the man could do was stand the center, spinning around, one foot catching against the other over and over in a dizzying delirium. He pulled a handkerchief from a pocket and dabbed again at his sweaty brow.

  “Listen, I’ve come so far. I’ve seen… Everyone’s dead. I just need…”

  The man’s hands reached out before him, palms turned upwards, imploring and empty. The handkerchief waved and caught in the slight breeze, blowing. “Can’t you help me? Where’s your compassion?” The man coughed. “Just a sip of water? A warm bed? Anything?”

  Krol halted. The oxygen tank clunked on the ground. He tilted his head to the side, like a vulture considering roadkill.

  “Tell Levine that his methods don’t work. I am sorry. You will have to leave.”

  The man tried to speak but something caught in his throat. He bent double, coughing, spraying phlegm onto the ground. The handkerchief waved up and down desperately.

  “Listen, I need help.” The man caught his breath. “I don’t know any of this… I just… I.”

  The coughing started again. A rough, sharp edge to the sound. Alex kept the crosshairs trained as the man roiled up and down, bending and standing up straight, caught in a whirlwind.

  “You have to help me.” The man’s words seethed. “You have to.”

  “I am sorry.” Krol had begun to walk, resuming his circle. He was almost in front of the house. “I am.”

  The coughing started again. This man is sick, Alex muttered to himself. He’s really, really sick. But Krol did nothing. He offered no assistance, no olive branch, no tiny, miniscule act of kindness. Just detachment and accusation.

  There was no trick here. No plot by whoever those church people were. Just a sick man, asking for help. He wasn’t a threat. He was just one man, a couch away from a casket. Alex wanted to help him, to reach out and offer some crumb of comfort. He’d seen Timmy struck down by the same illness, had seen the endless sick and the dead which littered the highways across the country.

  Alex could feel his fingers twitching, fidgeting. He wanted to do something. He wanted to help this man.

  Krol did nothing.

  He strode around the courtyard until he arrived back in front of the farmhouse, now twenty feet from the stranger. The man had collapsed into a fit of coughing, almost choking. He looked up.

  “You have to help–”

  “I do not.”

  Krol began to turn on his heels, his coat flapping behind him. He flicked a hand up in the air. Was that the signal? Alex asked himself. Did he just tell me to shoot this man?

  Before Alex could figure it out, the cough stopped in the man’s throat. He stood up to his full height. Through the rifle scope, Alex could see the rage in his bloodshot eyes. The handkerchief fell from his hands, caught slightly on the wind and blew across the dusty courtyard.

  The man sprang forwards and screamed. A long, piercing scream which worked its way up from the gut, from the depths of hell. He threw himself at Krol. Alex watched it all.

  Through the scope, the world slowed down. Alex could see the man’s eyes, could see the bloodlust and the murder. He would kill Krol or die trying, that much was clear.

  He still had ground to cover. Alex tracked him, keeping the crosshairs over the man’s festering body.

  Shoot, Alex told himself. Save Krol.

  But Krol shouldn’t need saving. Caught in the throes of the virus, Krol should make short work of this man. He’d cut through Alex, Timmy, and Cam while barely breaking a sweat.

  Infection, though. One slip, one wrong move, and this patient could leave Krol on his death bed. Alex felt his grip on the trigger tighten, his shoulders hunched up, tight with indecision. Save Krol.

  Even as the man ran forward, cutting the distance in two, he coughed and spluttered and sweated and suffered. And Alex watched it all, every blood cell popping in the man’s face, every fleck of rabid drool dri
bbling from his chin. The world turned so slowly. Shoot or not?

  Krol had turned. He was hefting his oxygen tank, ready to swing it around. The man was almost upon him. Alex had to decide.

  Twitching his wrists, Alex pulled the trigger. The crosshairs dropped, switching from chest to thigh. The stock thumped into his shoulder. Wing him, Alex thought, don’t kill him. This man had suffered enough.

  The shot echoed around the courtyard. The man didn’t slow down. He stumbled. A patch of dust beside him exploded. Alex had missed.

  Lining up the shot again, wrenching hard to reload, Alex tracked the man.

  But he’d fallen. Tripped. Skidded along the ground and landed squarely at Krol’s feet. All the man could do was cough and splutter, twisting and writhing, sinking deeper into the sickness, the effort of attacking enough to ruin him.

  Krol turned and stepped towards the house. Alex heard the door open, the patter of feet on the porch.

  “Pick him up.” Krol’s words carried upwards on the cold air. “Put him in the barn. Give him water. Make him comfortable. Let him die.”

  Reni and Nelson emerged from the house, wrapped up in layers and masks, and dragged the coughing man toward the barn.

  Alex could only stare. No, he told himself. He could do more. He had to do more. He had to confront Krol.

  Rifle slung over his shoulder, sneakers squeaking on the slippery tiles, Alex slid down the roof and in through the window. He ignored his friend, pushing past. He walked straight through the room. Behind him, Timmy and Cam were calling.

  There was no time to stop. Krol owed him answers. This wasn’t the way the world worked.

  10

  Alex picked up speed as he left the bedroom, going faster and faster down the stairs, his anger accelerating. The rifle banged against his shoulder blade. Ignore it, he thought, but don’t let go. The gun might be needed soon.

  Even as he stormed through the farmhouse, Alex could feel the thoughts running through his mind. Anger, rage, and wrath. He’d felt that way ever since he’d arrived back at the farm. His farm. But this was different. Something was boiling over. But Alex had no idea what it was.