Chapter 5
Chapter five
Liam
With each day that passes and with every morning that I wake with just the memory of her I can feel the darkness steadily creeping in, taking over.
It’s pollution tainting me with its vicious claws, each stab of pain deep and unforgiving.
This disease can only be cured by one thing: finding the woman who has completely taken over my heart, my life, my entire existence.
There’s only one problem: I can’t find her anywhere.
I’ve had my fair share of misfortune in this life, both before the apocalypse and after it. But the suffering I felt then is incomparable to the agony I have felt over these past months.
Ru and the lads have helped me, supported me in my search for her but it has been no good.
The emerald-eyed beauty had admitted that she was travelling, that she wasn’t staying where we had by chance crossed paths.
Still I searched the area. All but turned it upside down in hopes that I would find her or at least some traces of her existence.
But I found nothing and that cycle has repeated itself in a vicious hellscape ever since.
There are moments, dark moments where I question my sanity. In the darkest hours of this winter I’d asked myself repeatedly if I’d been so lonely that my mind had conjured up the perfect beauty as a way to help me cope.
We’re all lonely at the stadium. Some admitting it more than others but we each know it. We can see it behind the masks we wear.
The huge football stadium across the river has been home for years now, completely transformed from a place where violence once reigned unchecked.
An alleged community. A family, yet with one wrong move and the slightest bad mood that ideal would come crashing down and violence would ensue.
The blind haze of a football fan in a rage.
I hated the place when Ru – Ruaridh our leader – first took me there, not able to see it for anything other than what it was to me.
The cause of so much pain and suffering, so many fearful late nights.
But once I walked through the walls protecting our little community it became obvious that this was not a football stadium anymore, not even slightly.
Fifty-thousand seats removed, all to make room for crops, storage and enjoyment.
The place was bustling with life and I couldn’t find it in me to walk away.
Not until I found her.
Something in me changed courses the day I met the emerald beauty. As the lads pointed out I’ve spent more time away from the stadium than I have in it since I met her and they are not wrong in that either.
I have been away.
And I’ve spent the entire time looking for her.
A few weeks ago I’d decided to bring my search back to Glasgow, having scoured the boarders as thoroughly as I could there was something in me drawing me back here. Like a sixth sense telling me this is where I needed to be.
With no company but the whistling wind that has found a gap in the rotting window frame of the flat I am using as a base I lie here in the darkness trying to find an ounce of rest so I can continue my search for the formidable woman who has my soul.
‘Liam you there, mate?’ Vishrut’s voice crackles over the radio pulling me from my pitiful mind.
Vishrut, another brilliant guy that has had my back since I joined The Skulls. Him, Ru and I have managed to form an unspeakable bond over the years, one that I am lucky to be apart of.
Clearing my throat I respond. ‘Aye, lad.’
‘You around the East office?’
I sit up straight, alert and ready.
‘About thirty minutes away. Why?’
‘Ru and his girl are here with me. You want to come meet us?’
I go still at that information.
‘His girl?’
Why has he never mentioned this? In fact, in all the time I have followed my leader, he has never once shown a slight interest in anyone else.
It had lasted for so long that the other Skulls assumed that he wasn’t sexually attracted to people and wanted to be left alone.
That’s the impression he gave off whenever any woman or man who wasn’t scared of him seemed to show any interest. If I’ve heard Vish right, though, then Ru has a secret he has been hiding from us.
‘Aye.’ Vish’s crackled voice confirms that I indeed did hear him right, and a sliver of jealousy runs through my body in response.
I clench and unclench my fist, embracing the pressure and resistance.
Although I’m a little gutted that he decided not to tell me about finding someone a small part of me can’t blame him.
I’ve spent the last couple of months wallowing in my own self-pity.
Absorbed by my own grief for a woman I knew for no more than an hour.
That hour was the best hour of my life and one that will stay with me forever.
Now Ru has the opportunity to experience the happiness I had with my girl with his own and I am ecstatic for him.
Holding down the switch on the handheld radio, I speak into it.
‘I’m on my way.’
It doesn’t take me long to head through the abandoned buildings and into the unfinished office block we occasionally use when needed.
The air is crisper now that the sun has set behind the buildings, the white glow of the moon guiding me where I need to be. It’s hard to remember a time of street lights and busy neon signs.
I was an angry teenager when the outbreak happened, not one for hanging around the fancy shops in cities. My home was further afield, down the local woods with some mates. Now I rarely step foot in a woodland, not in the adventurous way I would when I was a daring teen, anyway.
Mask fully in place, I glance around the building's windows, lingering on a couple that have the glass broken. The curtains inside sway with the breeze.
Breaths slow and steady, I wait.
I watch.
My sixth sense has never failed me before, not when I was younger and not since. Something outside of the office block feels… off. But as I look around, searching for any signs of suspicious activity I find nothing.
I huff a breath from my nostrils, deciding to give it some time before I go back out and step through the revolving doors.
The ground floor is empty, as to be expected.
It would be a bad move to set up camp on a floor surrounded by head-to-toe glass windows, ones that can easily be seen through by any passing crazies who still dare to roam the city.
Taking the fire exit steps, I quickly climb to the second floor, rounding the corner to take in one of my best friends, Vish.
‘Hey man,’ calling out, I feel the wide grin plastered across my face as I take in the surroundings and head towards his perch on the floor.
‘You alright, man.’ Vish responds in a thick Glaswegian accent, making a move to get to his feet.
We embrace, slapping each other’s backs and he returns to his resting spot.
His long limbs splay out across the floor as he stretches, a pop of a muscle accompanying his movement.
The old fucker. All of this sleeping on the floor is eventually going to catch up to us — having luxury mattresses back at the stadium to sleep on probably isn’t helping either.
Next to him is an unlit stove and a couple of empty food cans. A few of them piled together compared to the rest.
Vish notices my gaze and lets out an audible sigh. His expression strained as he looks over the cans.
‘She was starving,’ he rakes a brown palm across his dark cropped hair, shaking his head. ‘They are upstairs, having well… you don’t need me to finish my sentence.’ He angles his head towards the audible moans and squeaking furniture from the floor above.
I chuckle, genuine amusement washing away my bad mood.
‘So, he has a girl.’ I state shifting to take a seat next to where Vish is sprawled out.
The concrete flooring is hard underneath me, but that has never bothered me before. Simple comforts don’t call to me the way they used to, not since I felt the way I did with my emerald-eyed beauty.
‘I’m not sure where she came from, don’t think she’s been around here for long or even around him for long but she’s definitely his girl alright.
’ Vish explains, his lean body resting against the plain wall at his back.
‘Never seen him this protective over someone. The psycho nearly killed me for just looking at her.’
I blow out a breath, surprised at our friend's actions. ‘He must have it bad.’ Ru has never been violent for no good reason with any of us. And any time he has been violent, it was never in a rash decision that would be regretted later on. I look at Vish, ‘What did you do?’
‘Wha?’ He asks, mouth wide.
‘C’mon, you must of done something for Ru to react.’ Knowing Vish and his wind-up behaviour he probably deserved whatever Ru gave him. But judging by his unscathed appearance, that wasn’t much.
His signature cheeky grin turns into a grimace as he remembers something, probably his earlier actions towards Ru and his girl. ‘I walked in on them…’ he pauses, clearing his throat, ‘erm in a…’
‘In a what?’
‘Situation.’ his eyes bulge as he points a finger towards the ceiling, right where I heard the noise from when I first walked in.
He sees the moment I realise what he’s referring to, giving another sheepish grimace. ‘And I may have made a joke.’
I groan, rubbing my palm across my face. Every bad-tasting, inappropriate joke that Vish has made comes to mind, and I don’t need him to tell me why Ru will have wanted to kill him if this is what his first impression to her was.
‘Lad, I should be organising your funeral.’
If he’d made a joke about my girl I would have seen red as well. I’m not surprised Ru managed to hold back since he has that extra level of control over himself that I lack.
‘He looked like a bull ready to charge me. Absolutely psychotic for a second, which — I don’t blame the guy — Fauna looked so vulnerable, so bloody terrified, I felt awful man, still do.’