and my boy in tears. I never went back.” He looked over at Cahz with doleful eyes. “I swear I always meant to. I wanted to go back home. Once I’d spent that night away I just didn’t know how I could go back.” He waved a hand at the deserted and overrun garden. “Then all this shit happened. By the time I got home they were gone.”
“You never said,” Cahz whispered.
“No note. Nothing. House was empty.” Cannon pointed an accusing finger back at the house. “I don’t know if my boy died waiting for his daddy to come save him! I don’t know if he died alone, cold and helpless cause I wasn’t there!”
Cannon was sobbing uncontrollably. Cahz put an arm around his shoulder.
“I wasn’t there.” Cannon gasped for air between the tears. The deep heaves of his shoulders grew softer. A few bellowing snorts of air pushed out from his nostrils.
Cahz ran his tongue round his foul-tasting palate. He decided it was time to confess about the mouthful of contaminated vitriol fluid he’d swallowed this morning. He took his arm from around Cannon’s shoulder and clasped his hands on his lap.
Cahz took a breath and began, “Look, Cannon, I think…”
“I can’t do this,” Cannon butted in with an oddly cold voice. He snapped open the Velcro on his holster and pulled out his pistol. He pushed the muzzle into his mouth and pulled the trigger.
The crack of the pistol filled the forsaken garden.
“Fuck!” Cahz jumped back fuelled by pure reflex.
Cannon’s body toppled over and lay sprawled on the ground.
Cahz sat motionless and shocked. A light spray of blood coated his right cheek.
Ryan came running out of the kitchen to stand frozen in the garden.
The body lay twisted back on itself, blood steadily pumping from the massive exit wound in the back of Cannon’s head.
Cahz could feel his head nodding from side to side as if his subconscious were screaming out
“Jesus Christ,” Ryan mustered.
Cahz put a hand to his cheek, partially covering his mouth to try to stop the shake and stifle his disbelief. When he pulled it away his fingers were coated in bright red smears.
He took a trembling breath and tried to compose himself.
“Come on,” he said, standing up. “Let’s get moving.”
Cahz was cold. The foul taste still clung to his tongue. He shivered and opened his eyes. For a moment he didn’t know where he was and then he recognized the house.
Ryan was sitting propped up against a kitchen unit, his child cradled in his arms.
“How you feeling?” he asked the groggy Cahz.
“What happened?” Cahz asked, still dazed.
“You stood up and passed out,” Ryan said. “I dragged you in here.”
“How long?”
Ryan shrugged his shoulders. “I guess thirty minutes.” He held out a bare wrist. “I don’t have a watch.”
Cahz started to sit up.
“Not so fast, tiger,” Ryan said. “I put another bandage on top of the one over your bite. That’s what you’re supposed to do, right? I mean it was Ray who knew about the first aid stuff; he’d done a course at work or something.”
Cahz looked down at his injured arm. The second bandage bulged and looked ugly, but it was still white and clean with no signs of the blood soaking through.
“Um, yeah.” Cahz thought back to his battlefield training. “If the blood is saturating the bandage you shouldn’t remove it; just put a fresh one on top.”
“You should drink something,” Ryan said. “I’m guessing you’ve lost more blood than you thought.”
“Yeah,” Cahz agreed, still feeling groggy.
Slowly he eased himself to his feet, his head swimming.
“You’ve cleaned up that graze,” he said, nodding to Ryan’s face.
He trudged over to the kitchen sink. There was a row of three open and empty tins on the counter. Out of instinct Cahz turned the tap on. There was a shudder and a hiss of air but no water.
“Used some of the water from the camel pack.” Ryan looked up at the sink. “You’ll not get anything from there.”
Cahz looked up from the dry sink and out of the window.
Cannon was still lying in the backyard. The rain had soaked his uniform and washed the blood clean into the grass.
Cahz stared at the body. His breathing was heavy and laboured. He looked at his dead friend, the only constant in his life these past five years. The big, quiet, reliable soldier. A physical giant. A tower of muscle and stoic reserve.
Cahz was dumbfounded.
“Why’d he do it?” Ryan asked, breaking the long silence.
“Cause he couldn’t live with himself, I guess.”
Cahz turned and sat down next to Ryan.
Ryan offered up an open tin of cold beans.
“The cans are still okay,” Ryan offered in way of assurance. “I’ve scoffed some already.”
Cahz accepted the can robotically. Ryan held up a spoon and plopped it into the can.
Cahz stared down at the juicy beans swimming in the thick orange sauce. He didn’t feel much like eating.
“Why now?” Ryan asked.
“There’s a dead child in there.” Cahz nodded over to the kitchen door. “I never knew he was a dad. I never knew anything about him. I just figured he’d tell me if he wanted.” He wiped his nose with his good arm. “We all had shit to deal with. We all lost someone.”
Ryan nodded.
“I never knew how close he was,” Cahz went on, staring absently at his beans. “It just happened so fast I didn’t have time to stop him.”
“Who can blame him?” Ryan said. “I’ve seen a lot of suicides. We had four the first summer. Then there are the people who got themselves killed on purpose. You know the kind who would take ridiculous risks.”
Cahz nodded.
“There were these two guys, blond floppy hair young blokes. Looked alike, think they were at college together,” Ryan explained. “We called them the Hanson brothers-you know, like the band.” When Cahz didn’t respond Ryan continued, “They were convinced they could go get help. In the end it wasn’t worth trying to talk them out of it. We helped them leave just so they wouldn’t do anything stupid that affected us-you know, burst the gate open or some such.”
Cahz set the untouched can of beans on the floor.
“We need to keep moving,” he said.
“Where to?”
“Somewhere we can secure,” Cahz said. “Somewhere a chopper can land.”
“Rebecca,” Ryan said.
“What?”
“That’s what I’m going to call her.”
Ryan looked down at the baby. The girl was awake, but placid no doubt after a feed. There was a little speck of mashed-up cracker at the corner of her mouth. Her wide eyes caught Cahz’s.
“Rebecca,” he ran the name round. “Rebecca. It’s a nice name. Any significance?”
“I’d thought of Hope or Miracle,” Ryan said, frowning. “You know, ‘cause she wasn’t infected. But…”
“Yeah, a bit much,” Cahz agreed, sensing Ryan’s disapproval of the names.
“Then I remembered Sam had mentioned she liked it,” Ryan explained. “I thought that was a bit more
