11. The Middle of Nowhere

Rev was dead.

Not literally; not yet, anyway. But he felt dead. His feet were killing him, aching with the pain of running across the Ceredigion countryside in a pair of ill-fitting combat boots he’d found somewhere back in Birmingham, before the invasion. The last time he’d had a chance to stop, his socks had stuck to the back of his ankles where the shoes had rubbed raw. He had to peel them off, scab and all. That was a good few miles ago, and he could feel that the blisters had gotten worse now. His right knee was killing him from a fall he’d taken right after he’d left the farm. That had actually nearly killed him. Dozens of those creeps, just feet away from tearing him apart; such great fun! Then there was his head, which he was sure was going to split open anytime soon. Water was sparse, and when he drank from a small creek, he’d felt sick soon after and spent the night hunched over in the bushes, thinking if I get killed whilst taking a shit, my time on Earth was definitely not worth it. Now there was a stitch in his side, and his lungs felt tight, and the heavy, black trenchcoat he was refusing to part with really wasn’t doing him any favours either. He really craved that sweet, sweet release of a Salbutamol inhaler, like he used to have in school, though now he was cursing himself for using his asthma as an excuse not to participate in any sort of exercise that might have trained him for this moment. He might as well have fallen apart right there on the spot, halfway up a mountain. It certainly would save him the trouble of getting to the top.

There was no telling how many days he’d been running now. At first, he’d planned to run out to one of the main roads, lose the crawlers somehow and then loop back around to the farm. When he made that leap over the fence, he wasn’t even thinking about saving the girl. Well, he was, but that wasn’t the only reason. He had been thinking about having fun. And looking back, however much he cursed himself for making that decision, he knew he would make it again. Life on the farm had been nice, but it had been cushy. Behind fences and walls, there was no excitement. There had been the death of Jamie, which had shaken him up at the time. He’d liked Jamie; a cheeky lad with a mischievous sparkle in his green eyes. But Jamie had been an idiot, and Kurt had been insufferable, and though Lola had been cute, she had also been bossy. He’d grown closer to Pebbles, sharing the basement with her, but he knew in time, she would die too, and he’d rather not see someone he loved killed in front of him. Not again. No, life was better on the run. He’d left Birmingham a few weeks after the invasion started, after everyone he’d ever known had been ripped apart, and the week he spent making his way to Aberystwyth had been one of the best in his life. The crawlers had been far and few between. Just him, the stars, the greenery and the birds overhead. Not like now.

They were everywhere. Everywhere he’d turned, there were more of them. Most were heading towards him, and with the horde following behind him, he’d had to take a crazy, winding path that led him so far away from the farm that there was no point in going back. So now, he was heading in the direction of Cardiff. At least, he hoped he was. It was hard to tell. His navigation skills were not as good as he’d liked. In that they were essentially nonexistent, and relied entirely on luck. He’d only known how to get to Aberystwyth from Birmingham because he’d found a map of the train lines at the train station and stuck to the tracks.

And then there was the biggest issue: he’d left his bat behind.

That bat had meant a lot to him. He’d found it in a rundown Sports Direct in Kidderminster. It had bashed in the heads of many crawlers, stained red with his victories. When he twirled it in his hands, he felt powerful. Without it, he had nothing. He hadn’t been so lucky as to find a pointy stick in all his days of travelling. There had been a few nice, big rocks he’d picked up to smash in a few crawler noggins, but they only weighed him down. He hoped that the kids at the farm would continue to use it as he’d intended, and not for playing actual baseball. Though maybe hitting a home run with a crawler brain might be amusing. 

Suddenly, Rev lost his footing on a loose chunk of dry earth and slid four or five feet back down the mountain. He managed to steady himself with his hands, ripping out tufts of grass and weeds until he grabbed something more substantial and found his footing again. Just why was he doing this to himself again? Right, because every large group of crawlers he’d encountered seemed to cluster together in ditches or near riverbanks, so being high up seemed like a good idea at the time. It wasn’t like they couldn’t get up here, though, so he wondered what that was all about. Maybe they got lazy when their dinner was at a different altitude. Mainly, he wanted to get to the top to see if he could work out where he was; if he could spot some lights in the distance, he’d know which way to head to find a town or a city. Anywhere with a few doors to lock and a bed. Or some food. God, he would kill for some food right now, though he supposed that was already done when he killed a crawler that was sleeping by an old, bloodied backpack, discarded from a previous dinner it had killed, and in the bag he’d found a protein bar and half a litre of water.

He tried again, carefully climbing back up the way he’d slipped, making sure he didn’t put any weight on his right foot until he was sure the notch in the ground would hold. He’d never climbed a mountain before. Kids from his school had climbed Snowdon for some award, but there had been a party on the same night a few roads away and of course that was more important to him then. He thought of Mr Jones, his head of year, who had always regarded him with such disappointment. Look at me now, bitch! Though he knew what Mr Jones would have replied – that’s not even a mountain, Craily. That’s just a big hill. No wonder you’re failing Geography.

Stuff you, Rev thought angrily at his own imagination. Mr Jones would be dead now, or maybe he was a crawler, scampering around the Birmingham streets looking for hoodlums to eat. Ha, not much of a change there, then. His thoughts were tinged with sadness. He would never get to finish school, as much as he’d hated it and skived off. He’d never get his GCSEs, or his A-Levels, or go to university. There were a lot of kids who would celebrate this, and he would have been one of them, but it would be nice to still have it all as a choice, right? 

With one last push, Rev managed to haul himself to the top of the mountain - the large hill - and took a moment to catch his breath, burying his face in the long, cool grass. In the distance, he could see a few tall buildings, and maybe the smoke of a fire somewhere out west. Nothing to signify he was anywhere near Cardiff. Great. The stars above him were magnificent, clearer than he’d ever seen them before. He could see the Big Dipper, which was the only one he could actually name. With one finger outstretched, he tried to trace the shapes of the other constellations, but then he felt silly and dropped his arm to his side. Then he realised no one was watching anyway, so he did it again, and after a quick check to ensure no crawlers were hanging about, he lay down on his back and stared upwards, taking in every glorious twinkle. 

After what felt like an hour, though very well could have been only a few minutes, Rev heard a scuffle, like shoes struggling against the mountain terrain as he had done. He rolled over onto his side, hoping the cover of the grass would hide him from sight. Not much use if it was a crawler headed his way, though. Down the other side of the mountain he could see a shape in the shadows, no, two shapes. One was sat on their arse, scooting down the steep face of the mountain, whilst the other one stepped tentatively behind them. He couldn’t determine whether they were girls or boys, but they were definitely human. What were two people doing out here? Were they crazy? Maybe if they were crazy, they would be his type of people. Part of him wanted to stand up and wave, or run over to them and ask if they had any food. But the saner part of him - although small it was - told him it was better to stay quiet and watch. He crawled forward, commando style, through the grass, wriggling across the ground. He found a better vantage point, where the shadows became illuminated by the light of the moon, and he could see that the figure standing up was a girl, with a brunette ponytail swinging behind her, and the one sat down was a guy, his hair closely cropped to his scalp. 

‘Get up!’ the girl was hissing, trying to grab at the hood of the boy’s dark coat. ‘Stop messing around!’

‘Get off me,’ the boy said, batting her arm away. ‘I’ll definitely slip and fall if I stand up. My shoes have no grip. Do you want to find my broken body at the bottom of the hill?’

‘Stop being so dramatic,’ she moaned. ‘We literally have the same shoes on. You’re just being a pussy.’

‘Am not!’

‘Am too!’

‘Am too!’ The boy mocked the girl's whiny voice, and she replied by slapping him playfully around the head. 

Rev stifled a laugh, clamping his hand over his mouth. Really, he should just shout out to them, wave his hands and ask for help. But there was something in him that enjoyed simply observing them, the normalcy of it. He crawled forward again, until he was nearly at the edge of the hill, looking straight down at them. That’s when he noticed the sword, slung over the girl’s back in a leather sheath. A long, shiny katana, reflecting the moonlight right at him. He stared at it for a moment, mesmerised by the glinting shimmer of the weapon’ It was even more beautiful than his trusted baseball bat, and he wanted it. He thought about stealing it, but that thought quickly disappeared when he realised that the soft earth was slowly giving way underneath him.

He tried to push himself up, but the earth spilled through his hands. He’d been resting not on a solid bit of the hill, but a small mound of dirt that formed a ledge with nothing supporting it underneath. The dirt tumbled towards the two teenagers, and unable to find anything to grab, Rev slid forward on his front, gaining speed rapidly. Small, sharp rocks ripped into his torso, and he barely had time to let out a scream before he tumbled past the two strangers, hitting a bump and flying into the air. 

‘What the ever-loving fuck was that?’ He just about heard one of them saying before he crashed back into the ground, rolling a few times quickly in a row before slowing to a halt at what must have been the bottom. He landed on his back, looking back up at the stars. Now he definitely felt dead. Whatever pain he’d complained about before was gone, replaced by the feeling of being used as a human punching bag by nature. 

‘Over there!’ came the girl’s voice, whispering. There was a lot of rustling and thumping as they made their way over to him.

‘That’s exactly why I was going so slowly,’ said the boy in a smarmy manner. ‘I bet you’re glad that’s not me!’

‘Shut up, don’t make me wish it was!’ she replied, and then Rev heard a long swish as she pulled the katana off her back. ‘It must be really injured, if it’s not already dead. Be careful! Don’t get too close.’

‘I’m not!’

‘Let me go first!’

Rev found the two of them so funny, he didn’t want to move or reveal himself as a human. He stayed still, staring upwards, until he felt the cold metal of the sword pierce the skin under his chin, tilting his head to the side. 

‘Mind my face!’ he said, daring not to move in case she slit his throat. ‘It’s my third best feature, after my intellect and charming wit.’

‘Ugh, it’s just a human,’ the girl said, shaking her head and looking at the boy. She pulled the sword away and offered a hand to Rev, pulling him up with surprising strength for someone who was a good half a foot shorter than him. Up close, he could see that she had a stern, boyish face, with thick brows and thin lips, pursed into a frown. She looked a little younger than him. Maybe fourteen or fifteen? Beside her, the boy stood awkwardly. He was a good few inches shorter, and definitely a year or two younger, barely a teenager. He had a real bloomer of a bruise across his right cheek. Both of them were dressed head to toe in khaki camouflage gear, like they were military cadets. 

‘Just a human?’ he said, feigning offence. ‘What, were you hoping I was a crawler?’

‘You call them crawlers?’ the boy laughed. ‘Cute. We call them bastards!’

‘Ignore him,’ the girl shook her head. ‘We just haven’t seen one in a while. Need the dopamine hit of killing them, or we get itchy.’

‘She gets itchy,’ the boy pointed at her. ‘I don’t. I’m not addicted to it, like she is. I just find it fun.’

‘So, what, are you guys, like, hunting down and killing ‘bastards’ for the fun of it?’ Rev asked, scratching at his neck and dusting off the pieces of dry grass that had stuck to his trenchcoat. The girl had her sword poised in position, like she was ready to slice if she needed to.

‘Hey, we’ll be asking the questions,’ the girl said firmly. ‘Were you following us?’

He shrugged. ‘Not really. I came up the other side of the mountain and heard you guys squabbling, so I came over to investigate and then, well, fell all the way down here.’

‘So you were eavesdropping on us?’ she pressed.

‘Uh, I guess? Sorry.’ He held up his hands. ‘Look, you’re the first people I’ve seen in days. You got food? Or water? Please, help a brother out.’ He made a praying motion with his hands and wobbled them back and forward, batting his eyelashes. ‘Pretty please?’

The boy went to reach into his pocket, but the girl slapped his hand away as she had before.

‘Vegas!’ she hissed. ‘We can’t trust him yet!’

Vegas, which Rev thought was a pretty cool name, rolled his eyes. ‘Literally what is he gonna do to us? You’ve got a sword. I’ve got my fists,’ he said, holding them up and making pathetic jabs into the air. ‘He’s got nothing but a whole load of bruises and cuts. Let him have a Mars bar, at least.’

A Mars bar? Whoa, now that was a luxury that Rev had forgotten about. He could almost taste the chocolatey, caramelly goodness on his tongue already. The girl stared at him, clearly considering her options.

‘Name?’ she asked bluntly.

‘Rev Craily, at your service, Ma’am!’ He made a sharp salute and stamped his foot. 

‘Rev,’ she said, like she was tasting how the name felt in her mouth. ‘What's your real name?’

‘Rev,’ he repeated. ‘Rev Craily.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

‘I don’t believe his name is Vegas!’

‘It’s not,’ said Vegas, pulling a Mars bar from his pocket and waving it around. ‘I’d tell you my real name, but she’d punch me.’

‘What’s her name?’

‘Her name is-’ 

The girl snatched the Mars bar off of him before he could finish. ‘I have to know we can trust you. We recently made a terrible mistake, and trusted someone we shouldn’t have. That’s why we’re out here, in the middle of nowhere.’

‘And how I got this,’ Vegas said, pointing at his bruise. ‘And how I lost my special knife.’

‘We came up with some tests to ask strangers, should we come across them. I’ll give you this-’ she held the bar up before him. ‘If you tell me your true, real, honest, legal name.’

‘How will you know I’m not lying?’

‘I’ll just know.’

The offer of the chocolate was too good, and he snatched it from her. ‘William,’ he said, tearing off the wrapper. ‘William Marshall Craily.’

He sniffed the chocolate first, closing his eyes for a second to appreciate the rich aroma. Then he nibbled a little bit of the chocolate shell off of the edge, planning to take his time eating the thing in order to make the most of it. But when the first chunk melted on his tongue, he couldn’t help himself, and scoffed the entire bar in one go.

‘Jesus Christ, that’s good,’ he mumbled through a mouthful. ‘Mhm, oh my God, thank you so much.’ When he was done, he licked each finger and then smacked his lips loudly ‘You gonna tell me your name now?’ He asked the girl.

‘Gunner,’ she said.

‘That’s not your real name.’

‘No.’

‘So, you know mine, but I don’t know either of yours? How does that work?’ He licked his fingers again. ‘You, uh, got any more of those?’

‘Yea-’ Vegas started.

‘No,’ Gunner said over him. ‘No more food. And we’ll tell you our names when we trust you more.’

Rev shrugged. That was fine by him. He quite liked the secrecy. He could tell this was all an act, and he admired it. He loved the way they bickered like siblings, or perhaps like an old, married couple. Part of him wished he’d thought of something like this before he’d gotten to the farm, acted weirder than he had. It was all fun and games to him.

‘So, you said you trusted someone you shouldn’t have?’ he asked as they began to walk on from the bottom of the hill, looking for somewhere to camp for the night. ‘How did you end up here? Where even is here, do you know?’

‘According to the sign we saw a few miles back, this is near Rhayader, and this is the Elan Valley,’ Gunner said. When she spoke, she reminded Rev of the type of kid in his school to ask for more homework; an almost nasally inflexion. ‘We’re searching for our friend. He was kidnapped, and we believe he was taken somewhere out this way.’

‘Kidnapped? What happen–’ Rev began, but a twig snapped somewhere to the left of them. Rev jumped, but Gunner and Vegas stayed deadly still. Gunner raised her katana and stepped ahead of the group, her eyes trained on the shadows.

‘Over there,’ she said, nodding her head towards a small cluster of bushes. She exchanged a look with Vegas that Rev really didn’t like. It clearly signalled go ahead. Vegas stuck his fingers in his mouth and made a short, sharp whistle.

A crawler sprinted out of the bushes on all fours, its eyes like glowing orbs floating in the darkness. Oh God, how Rev wished he had his bat. Without it he was useless. He ducked behind Vegas and watched as Gunner expertly swung the katana around and sliced the thing’s head off in one clean swoop. 

‘Bloody hellfire,’ Rev guffawed. Illuminated by the moon, Gunner looked like an action hero. There was blood splattered across her stern face, and bits of crawler skin hanging from the weapon. She cleaned the blade with her sleeve and pushed it back into the sheath.

‘All in a day’s work,’ she said. ‘Let's get out of here. We passed a barn a mile or so back. We’ll stop there until morning.’

They turned in the direction of the barn.

‘So,’ R ev said. ‘This friend of yours?’

‘Oh, can I tell him the story, Gunner?’ Vegas asked, clearly both excited and upset by the prospect of it. ‘Please?’

‘I suppose so,’ she replied in a huff. ‘Just be quiet.’

‘Okay, so, I’ll start at the beginning,’ Vegas said, turning around and walking backwards, so he could face Rev. ‘Right, so, I was down in Hereford when all this started. My parents died early on, and it was just me, so I left the house like an idiot and nearly got killed. That’s how I met Gunner, ‘cause she saved me from a bunch of bastards with the sword.’

‘Where’d you get the sword?’ Rev asked Gunner.

‘It was my Uncle’s,’ she said. ‘He got it from some Japanese guy in Hay-On-Wye.’

‘Cool,’ Rev replied as they cut through a short section of trees. 

‘Right, so,’ continued Vegas. ‘Me and Gunner found this old mansion, and decided to live in there. There was a bunch of other kids too, but they don’t really matter. What matters is that there, we met Tommy. Tommy was a real cool guy. He could drive, even though he was only sixteen.’

‘Sweet,’ Rev said. ‘I can drive?’

Vegas’ eyes lit up. ‘Really?’ 

‘Yeah, course! Got my license at LegoLand driving school back in 2015.’

‘Oi, stop interrupting me if you’re just gonna lie!’

He laughed. ‘Sorry, go on.’

‘We got sick of staying cooped up all the time and decided that, well, if this virus thingy only affects adults, then all we need to do is kill all the adults, right? And then we can restart the world from just kids. So we got weapons and stuff, from police stations and this old army base, and we called ourselves The Reapers-’

‘No, we didn’t. It was The Exterminators,’ Gunner interjected.

‘Well, it was both. And Tommy liked the name Bastard Bashers. Anyway, Tommy would drive this old jeep he found at the army base, and Gunner and me would lean out the windows and smash the heads of the bastards. Got quite a reputation for ourselves. We cleared out a good few areas. Then we found The Shadows. You know about the Shadows?’

Rev nodded. They turned onto a narrow path that led them to a small hill. ‘I’ve met a few of them, yes. Back in Birmingham.’

‘Well, The Shadows wanted us to clear this big warehouse for kids to stay in, so we did. And when all the kids moved in, there was this girl there who was looking for her cousin. What was her name, Gunner?’

‘Macey,’ Gunner said through gritted teeth. ‘Macey bloody Ernest-White.’

‘Macey begged us to drive her out here, and said she might have gone to Aber, Aber- what was it called, Gunner?’

‘Aberystwyth.’

Rev suddenly had a very bad feeling, but he didn’t want to ruin Vegas’ story.

‘Yeah, that place. But we didn’t want to, ‘cause most of the bastards are in the cities and towns, not in the middle of bleedin’ nowhere. She stole Tommy’s gun and forced him to drive her, but we found the car crashed not far out of the town and tried to follow the trail. There was a lot of blood. We don’t know, but we think she might have killed him.’ Vegas finished. 

‘The bitch,’ Gunner said under her breath.

‘Uh, this girl. Was she about so high, big puffer jacket, blue jeans?’ Rev said, holding up his hand just below his own head. 

‘Yes!’ Vegas exclaimed, amazed. He stopped walking and pointed at Rev ‘That was her! What the hell!’

‘Well, she made it to Aberystwyth. She’s literally the reason I’m here right now.’

‘With Tommy?’

He shook his head. ‘Just her. She was running from a pack of bastards, and I distracted them away from her and the farm I was staying at. I got lost trying to lose them, which is how I found you guys.’ He scratched at his neck again. ‘So, she’s bad news, this girl?’

They both nodded solemnly. Rev felt a pang of guilt for never getting back to the farm, and even more for not really wanting to go back there anyway. They had been good to him, especially Kurt and Lola, and if they might be in trouble he wanted to help. But he’d come so far, and he was itching to get back to a city. Somewhere where it didn’t stink of manure, and there were more people to annoy. He looked between the two, odd strangers and then down at his empty hands. 

‘And you’re out here, looking for Tommy, and bashing bastards’ heads in?’

They both nodded again.

‘This jeep Tommy drove, where did you say it crashed?’ Rev said, forming a plan in his mind.

‘Couple of miles outside Hereford,’ Gunner replied. That’s approximately thirty miles back.’

‘Shit,’ Rev said. ‘That’s too far. Look, if you guys can get me to a nearby village or town tomorrow, somewhere I can get some weapons and some more food, I can help you find your friend. Is that a deal?’

‘Yes!’ Vegas practically yelled. Gunner clamped a hand over his mouth and play wrestled him to the ground. These two were weirdos, but so was he, and the idea of killing crawlers appealed to him. He decided that he would help them find Tommy - whether he was alive or dead - give them directions to the farm, and then escape into Cardiff if he could. As much as Rev wanted to see himself as a cool, mysterious stranger, he had a big heart, and if there was someone out there that needed his help, he couldn’t just walk away. 

‘That alright with you, Gunner?’ he asked, offering a lazy salute.

‘Fine,’ she said, storming on in front of them. ‘Just hurry up.’

Rev followed behind, jogging to catch her up. ‘Can I have a go with your sword?’

‘Nope.’

‘Can I just touch it?’

‘Nope.’

‘A closer look?’

Vegas laughed, too loud. ‘You’ll get a closer look when she stabs you with it in a minute!’