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WHAT DOESN’T KILL YOU

  A short story

  By

  Michelle Ann King

  ‘What Doesn’t Kill You’ is one of 11 short stories of science fiction, fantasy and horror collected in Transient Tales Volume 1

  They evacuated people, in the the early days of the Blight. They sealed off the affected areas and posted guards. They provided protection, issued reassurances. They put their top scientists to work on finding a solution.

  They don’t do any of that anymore.

  But even if everyone else is giving up, Olivia’s determined to find a way to survive. To adapt.

  Because what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

  Or different, at least.

  Copyright 2013 Michelle Ann King

  Table of Contents

  What Doesn’t Kill You

  About the Author

  Also Available

  What Doesn’t Kill You

  ROASTING BEEF, FRESH vegetables. Real coffee. Wonderful aromas that she’d almost forgotten.

  The meal had torn a massive hole in their rations, but Olivia didn’t care about that. Robert was home. That was the only thing that mattered.

  ‘Come and sit down,’ Carol said. ‘The food’s ready.’

  Olivia turned, surprised to see her set only two plates on the dining table. ‘What about Robert?’

  ‘He’s in the bath.’

  ‘Still? Well, he must be clean by now. I’ll go and get him.’

  ‘No.’ Carol’s hand shot out and gripped her wrist. ‘Leave him be. Sit down. Eat your dinner.’

  Olivia stared at her. ‘What’s the matter?’

  Carol let go of her arm and looked away. ‘They said it was a chemical spill, the first time. An accident. Do you remember that?’

  Olivia frowned. ‘Yes, but what’s—’

  ‘We watched it on the news,’ Carol went on. ‘There were people being rescued and evacuated, like it was a flood or an earthquake. Everyone packed into community centres and church halls, being given cups of tea and wrapped in blankets donated by Oxfam. They cleared the area for five miles. Five miles. Can you imagine trying that now?’

  She sat down at the table and looked at her plate, but didn’t pick up her knife and fork.

  Olivia put a hand on her shoulder. ‘Don’t,’ she said gently. ‘I know it looks bad, but they’re going to figure it out. It’s going to be okay.’

  Carol shook her off. Her eyes glistened. ‘It was a mistake,’ she said. ‘A baby. It’s too much. Too much pressure.’

  Olivia put a hand instinctively, protectively, on her stomach. ‘What do you mean? Why would you say that?’

  Finally, Carol raised her head and looked Olivia in the eye. ‘You still don’t get it, do you?’

  The kitchen clock ticked, overly loud in the small room. Gooseflesh pricked Olivia’s arms, and she tried to rub some warmth back into them. ‘Get what?’

  ‘Why he came home tonight. Why they let him.’

  ‘No, I don’t. What are you talking about?’

  ‘It’s getting worse, you must know that. We all know it, even if we don’t want to face it. Those gas explosions in Birmingham? The warehouse fire in Glasgow, the riots in Coventry? They’re stories. Cover-ups. They want people to believe those things, because you can put out a fire and you can break up a riot. But there’s nothing anyone can do about a Blight.’

  Carol pushed her plate away. A drop of congealed gravy slid off the side.

  The smell of meat, warm and rich, soured in Olivia’s nostrils. ‘What’s wrong with you? This is supposed to be a special night.’

  Carol’s eyes were flat and empty. ‘It’s a goodbye. Don’t you see, Olivia? Don’t you understand? Robert, all the others—they’ve practically been prisoners in that lab. Why would they suddenly give them time off? Now, when things are worse than ever? I’ll tell you: because they know there’s no point in trying any more, that’s why. They’ve given up. They know it’s over.’

  Olivia shook her head. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she said. ‘I’m going to get Robert.’

  ‘Don’t,’ Carol said, but her voice had lost all its force.

  Olivia got up and went to the bathroom. The door was closed, with a piece of notepaper taped at eye level.

  I’m sorry, the note said. I wanted us to go together, but I just couldn’t do it. I hope you can find your own way, and that you’ll forgive me. I love you.

  There was a smudge of ink, then it continued on the line underneath:

  Olivia, call the police.

  Don’t come in.

  ***

  Olivia sat on the bed and stared at the pattern on the wallpaper—slender green sprigs against a silver background—as if it might reveal some secret, or explain how any of this had happened. Maybe tell her what she was supposed to do next.

  ‘I wanted us to go together,’ she said. Her tongue felt too large for her mouth, the words awkward and slow. ‘That’s what he said. Is that what he really came home to do? Kill me? Kill our baby?’ She let out a long, juddering breath. ‘Is it that bad? Is it really that bad?’

  Carol stood in the doorway, leaning against the frame. ‘He must have thought so.’

  ‘Could you do it?’ Olivia asked. ‘What he couldn’t? Could you kill me?’

  Carol looked down at her. ‘Do you want me to?’

  Her voice held no expression, as if she were offering nothing more than to go and fetch the rations. I heard we might be able to swap eggs for bread today. Do you want me to?

  The baby was a girl. Miranda, they’d decided. Miranda Jane.

  ‘Could you have killed him?’ she asked. ‘Robert? Could you have taken that razor yourself, and cut his wrists?’

  Carol said nothing for a long time. Then she closed her eyes. ‘No.’

  ‘No,’ Olivia said. ‘And I’m not going to kill my baby, either.’ She struggled to her feet. ‘I’m going outside.’

  ‘It’s not safe,’ Carol said.

  ‘Is it any safer in here? Death still got in, didn’t it? This whole place stinks of it. Now, if you don’t mind, please get the fuck out of my way.’

  For a moment Carol stayed where she was, blocking the doorway. Then she did as she was told.

  ***

  Olivia jabbed the call button on the landing, and the lift responded straight away. One of the remaining advantages afforded to the families of government personnel: the building was looked after, the electricity supply maintained, security provided.

  Or it used to be, anyway. Today, Olivia walked straight through the lobby. The guard’s station was empty, the screens blank.

  There had once been guards around the Blight outside, too. Road blocks, metal fences, warning signs, blank-faced men with guns. For your safety, do not proceed further.

  But resources had been tested, then stretched, then snapped. So many people displaced, so much land lost. The priorities become simple: shelter, food, public order. Hurtling back down the slope of Maslow’s hierarchy.

  She stopped. Ahead, the edge of the Blight was clearly visible—the rubble and ruin, the grey weeds, the bones.

  There was nothing left to stop anyone walking straight in, if they wanted. Go there, stay there. Die there. One less body to find space for, one less mouth to feed.

  How many had made that choice?

  Fewer buildings were lit up, at night. The ration lines were getting shorter, not longer. She’d been pleased, to the extent that she’d noticed at all. More for her, for Carol. For Miranda.

  She’d been so blind, for so long.

  What was it like, to die in the Blight? To rot from the inside out?

  Was it worse than sitting in a tub of hot water and watching it turn
red?

  Olivia picked her way through the broken glass and debris strewn across the road. This had been Coltswood Avenue, when she and Robert had first come to live here. A nice street, with yellow brick terraces on one side and white-painted bungalows on the other. Cherry trees alternating with lampposts and shiny cars lined up in neat driveways.

  Now the buildings were all in various stages of decay. Some had most of their walls standing and even part of a roof, but many had crumbled to nothing more than a pile of brick and dust. The cars were rusted sculptures of metal, looking like some kind of ancient industrial fossils. Unidentifiable bones crunched underfoot, sharp fragments poking through the thin soles of her shoes. It looked like the lost civilisation of a thousand years ago.

  ‘Hello,’ said a voice.

  Olivia jumped, her heart jerking in her chest. The voice belonged to a child, maybe seven or eight years old. Tall and long-haired, dressed in dirty jeans and a sweatshirt that might once have been green. Girl or boy? She couldn’t immediately tell.

  ‘My name is Charlotte,’ the child said, ‘but you can call me Charlie if you like. My mum used to. What’s your name? You have a very big belly.’

  ‘I’m Olivia.’ She smiled and rested a hand on her stomach. ‘And yes, I do. It’s because I’m going to have a baby, a little girl. She’s going to be called Miranda.’

  ‘That’s a nice name,’ Charlie said. ‘Will she come and play with me?’

  ‘I’m sure she’d like that, when she’s old enough.’ Olivia stepped forward. ‘What are you doing here, Charlie? Where are your parents?’

  Charlie turned and pointed to the remains of a house further down the street. ‘I live down there. But I don’t have parents any more. I used to have a mum and a granny, but they got sick. Now it’s just me and Leo. He’s my brother. He’s fourteen. I’m seven and a half. That means I’m a little lady. How old are you? You look quite old. Leo is a teenager, which means he’s a moody bastard. That’s what my granny used to say, anyway.’

  Olivia let out a choked laugh. Charlie grinned and bounced on the soles of her feet.

  ‘And you live here?’ Olivia said. ‘You and Leo, you live here?’

  ‘Yes. Would you like to come and see our house?’

  Olivia hesitated and looked behind her. Already, it seemed like the start of the Blight was further away. She could go back, but to what?

  She turned to Charlie and nodded. ‘Okay.’

  The girl smiled and took her hand.

  Some of the lampposts had fallen, collapsed in the road or on top of the cars. Some still stood but were bent or swayed precariously. Some of the trees looked blasted, as if struck by lightning. Some appeared to have melted into a grey-brown sludge that dripped, in slow motion, off the kerb. A strange smell, half sweet and half rotten, drifted on the sluggish breeze.

  ‘This used to be Mr and Mrs Bailey’s house,’ Charlie said. ‘Ours fell down, so we couldn’t stay there.’

  She led Olivia to one of the soundest-looking houses, into what must once have been a living room. Shelves still lined one wall, some with tattered remnants of books stuck to them. A mossy, lumpy shape might have been a sofa, a fused mess of metal and wires might have been a television. Two sleeping bags, one plain blue and one with a pattern of cartoon pigs, were rolled out on the floor, between grey, twisted branches that had broken up through the patchy carpet. A glass jug rested nearby, three quarters full of greyish water.

  ‘Mrs Bailey was called Mabel and she used to give me sweets,’ Charlie said. ‘But then they got sick too.’ She picked something off the ground and held out her hand, palm upwards. ‘Would you like some sweets?’

  The objects she was holding could have been small fruits, once—plums, maybe. But now they were swollen, shiny and dark. Olivia recoiled.

  ‘I know they look funny,’ the girl said. ‘But they’re okay, really.’ She popped one into her mouth, chewed and swallowed. ‘I didn’t like the food here much at first, but you get used to it.’ She smiled, showing teeth stained black. ‘Sometimes things don’t taste very nice, but that means they’re good for you. Like spinach. That’s what my granny used to say.’

  She broke off as something that looked like a large grey butterfly fluttered past. ‘Ooh,’ she said, and grabbed it in one fist. Brown liquid trickled between her fingers onto the floor. She opened her hand and licked the palm.

  Olivia stepped backwards, tripped over one of the questing roots and almost fell.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Charlie said. ‘You don’t look very well.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ she said. ‘I just need to go and sit down for a while.’ She found a smile. ‘Charlie? Do you ever get sick, living here?’

  The girl flashed Olivia a grin. Apart from those discoloured teeth, she looked healthy. Strong.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Never. Will you come back later, after you’ve had your nap?’

  Olivia swallowed hard, then nodded. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I will.’

  ***

  Carol held Olivia’s hair back with one hand and rubbed her neck with the other. ‘I thought you didn’t want to die,’ she said.

  Olivia heaved again, but there was nothing left in her stomach. Her abdominal muscles felt shaky and sprung. ‘I don’t.’

  ‘Then why the hell do you keep going out there? Think about what you’re doing to yourself. To the baby.’

  ‘Of course I’m thinking about that. It’s all I ever think about.’ She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and struggled to her feet. ‘You haven’t seen them, Carol. Charlie and Leo. The way they live is disgusting, yes, I’m not denying that. It’s foul, the whole place. But it doesn’t have to kill you. If they can do it, so can I. So can we.’

  ‘You’re out of your mind, girl.’

  ‘What other choice do I have? You were right, it’s getting bigger. Every day, more ground is gone. There’s nowhere left to run, and no-one’s coming to fix it. You were right about that, too. So we have to find a way to live with it. That’s the only choice we’ve got left.’

  Carol put her hands on Olivia’s shoulders and turned her to face the mirror. ‘Look at yourself. Look at what it’s doing to you.’

  Olivia stared at the rough, grey patches on her face. At the sores. ‘I’m still alive,’ she said. The baby kicked, hard. ‘And so’s Miranda. That’s what matters.’ She smiled. ‘What doesn’t kill you, right?’

  Carol flinched away from the reflection of her stained teeth, and Olivia pulled out of her grip. It wasn’t hard; there was no strength in Carol’s hands. She’d been a big woman once, but now she was just bones jutting at sharp angles under sagging skin.

  ‘Don’t,’ Carol said. ‘Don’t go back out there.’

  Olivia paused in the doorway and looked back at her. ‘I don’t have to,’ she said. ‘Didn’t you notice?’ She ran a hand over the wall, and the tile dissolved into a stream of thick dust. ‘It’s come to us.’

  She turned and held out her hand. ‘Come on. We should get out of here.’

  Carol laughed, a weak but wild sound. ‘And go where? There’s nowhere left to run, remember?’

  ‘We’ll go to Charlie and Leo’s. Take clothes, supplies, whatever we’ve got left. Some of it may survive. Come on, Carol. Now. We’re on the fourth floor, here. If the building comes down fast, it’ll be bad. We need to get outside.’

  ‘Into the Blight.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Carol shook her head. ‘No. I don’t want to die like that.’

  Olivia followed her gaze. ‘That’s an option,’ she said, looking at the enamel bath. ‘We still have razor blades. But I don’t think it’s as pleasant without the hot water.’

  Carol didn’t answer.

  Olivia packed as much as she thought might be useful into a bag, and waited outside the building. She waited for a long time, until the walls began to soften and slide. Then she shouldered her bag and walked away.

  ***

  Charlie met her at what used to be the gard
en wall. She scuffed at the dusty ground, kicked away a chunk of broken glass. Clean streaks showed through the dirt on her cheeks.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Olivia said. ‘Charlie? What’s the matter?’

  ‘Leo,’ Charlie said. It came out barely above a whisper.

  ‘Leo? What’s wrong with Leo?’

  ‘He got sick.’

  ‘Sick?’ Olivia’s stomach twisted. ‘What do you mean? Did he have an accident? A fall?’

  Cuts and bruises, broken bones. Injuries were temporary. Fixable.

  ‘No,’ Charlie said. ‘I’ve been trying to show him how to build things, but he wouldn’t listen. You have to be nice, you have to ask, you—’

  ‘Where is he?’ Olivia said.

  Charlie jerked her head towards the house. ‘He’s asleep.’

  Inside, Charlie’s sleeping bag was opened out and flat. Leo’s was zipped up, his unruly brown hair spilling over the top. Olivia edged closer.

  ‘Leo? It’s Olivia. Are you okay?’

  No response.

  She crouched down, carefully, by his side. ‘Leo? Can you hear me?’

  Still nothing. Olivia shook his shoulder and it crumbled under her hand, releasing a puff of foul-smelling air.

  She coughed and whipped her head aside. ‘Oh, Leo,’ she said.

  His body, shrivelled and desiccated, lay in the foetal position. His face was hollow, the skin stretched tight. In some places it had torn, revealing mottled bones underneath. A length of one of the grey weeds, torn and lifeless, lay underneath him.

  Two nights ago, she’d been teaching him campfire songs. Now he looked like he’d been dead for months.

  Olivia let her head drop. This wasn’t supposed to happen. The kids were supposed to be all right. The kids were supposed to live. She took a deep breath, and it turned into a sob.

  Charlie appeared behind her. ‘Is Leo better now?’

  ‘No, honey. No, I’m afraid he’s not.’

  Olivia held out her arms and Charlie walked into them. ‘Are we going to be all right?’ she said.

  Olivia stroked her hair. She dug deep for confidence, for reassurance, and found only dust.

  The kids were supposed to live.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I don’t know, Charlie.’

  The girl rested in her arms for a while longer, then pulled back. She wiped her eyes. ‘I’ll bury him,’ she said, ‘and we can say goodbye.’

  ‘Charlie, I—’

  ‘It’s all right. I can dig. I know what to do. We used to have a cat, and it was called Oscar, and it got very old, and we dug a hole in the garden. And I helped, and my granny said I was brave, and that Oscar would be happy in the garden because it was pretty. The garden here isn’t very pretty now, but I think Leo will still be happy, because we’re here and he’s not on his own. He didn’t like being on his own.’