LIFERS Chapter Fifty Three

Jill smiled and sniffed at a runny nose, she used the back of her hand to wipe her face dry and then turned to the two people stood beside her.

‘Do you know him?’ she asked.

‘Yes,’ the man said. ‘He’s Gregg Pieroni, my business partner, I’m Larry Kessler … and you are?’

‘Jill Gordon,’ she said, and then looked at the mess that surrounded them. ‘We’ve had a pretty rough night of it as you can probably see.’

The woman with Larry Kessler plucked a photograph from her pocket and passed it to Jill. ‘Have you seen her at all? My name’s Celia Brontrose; she’s my daughter.’

Jill looked before she passed the photograph back. ‘Why not use your crystal ball, lady?’ she said, and wanted nothing more than to whack Celia Brontrose right on the jaw, but somehow refrained from doing so.

Celia huffed at the remark and walked off toward the red 4x4 lying on its roof. Larry and Jill watched as the paramedics put Gregg on the stretcher and strapped him down to carry him over the rubble to their waiting ambulance.

Nick lay on a gurney in the other ambulance and was having his cuts cleaned and bandaged. The shard of metal in his thigh would have to stay there until he reached hospital because it had plugged the hole it made on entry and would, in situ, continue to allow very little blood to escape from the wound.

Jill turned to Larry. ‘Gregg found Alicia.’

‘Alive?’

‘Yes,’ she said, then pointed. ‘She’s in the white van.’

‘Were there any others?’

‘Two others, but it looks like Gregg didn’t get to them in time.’

‘Hey,’ shouted one of the police officers. ‘There’s someone coming out.’

Jill and Larry turned to see Marianna Brontrose holding the hands of two teenage girls as they clambered over the rubble toward them. Four police officers went to give assistance, two of them took a young girl each and the other two helped Marianna, who, apart from being partially covered in paraffin oil, looked pretty much unharmed.

Celia saw this and walked over to Larry. ‘Like I said, Mister Kessler, Marianna is more precious than you could ever possibly imagine.’ She then joined and greeted her daughter with a hug.

Apart from torn and oily clothing, Marianna showed no physical signs of injury, and, because of her actions in the cinema, neither did Jenny Walsh or the other girl, whom the police immediately identified as Kaylee Price, a thirteen year old taken from Ashland, just north of Richmond.

Jill told another police officer about Alicia’s ordeal and how she may need some medical attention, then left Larry looking at the remains of the cinema whilst she made her way over to the ambulance Gregg was in. En route, she overheard Marianna tell one of the paramedics that she was fine, and she also refused point-blank to be examined in any way.

She reached the ambulance to see a paramedic pour bottled water onto a large wad of cotton-wool and was about to wipe oil from Gregg’s eyes

‘Stop,’ she shouted. ‘Don’t use water, he’s, he’s allergic to it.’

The paramedic frowned. ‘Well I’ve never heard of anyone having an allergy to water, ma’am, and I’ve just cleaned the wound across his forehead. What kind of allergy is it?’

‘You did? And he’s okay? I mean …’

‘Take a look for yourself.’

Jill looked at the injury to Gregg’s forehead to see droplets of pink water sitting there and not burning his skin. She then remembered what happened to Hal and the others after they died; the rain coming through the hatch and the water she tossed over the old man had no effect on them. She also remembered what she said to Gregg in the stationroom hours earlier.

“Okay, if it still burns you and not them, it could mean they’re cured for one simple reason.”

The force of the blast must have stopped Gregg’s heart which puts her “one simple reason” theory at the top of the list; he had died, and therefore so had the virus.

‘Well I for one think you’ve done a damn fine job there, you should be very proud of yourself,’ she told the paramedic.

Again he looked at her through narrowed eyes. ‘Are you sure you’re all right, ma’am?’

Did he really have to call her that? She wasn’t fifty years old for Christ’s sake. ‘Yes, yes I’m fine. Now─’

‘Excuse me, ma’am,’ said one of the police officers.

Jill closed her eyes, sighed. ‘Please, it’s miss, or Jill.’

‘Very well, miss. Can you explain to me exactly what’s happened here?’

At that very moment the sun broke through the clouds and caused Jill to raise her right hand to shield her eyes as she looked up at the officer. She pushed her left hand into her back pocket and touched a piece of paper she’d forgotten all about. She pulled it out and unfolded it to look at the David Marsh “Wot I did yestaday” essay, with the drawing of his “stick-man-with-kite” underneath.

‘Tell me, officer,’ she said, again squinting up at him. ‘Do you believe in vampires by any chance?’

The police officer seemed a little distracted by her question; he looked round to make sure it was he she spoke to, and then straightened his tie and cleared his throat. ‘Erm, no, Miss, I do not believe in vampires.’

Jill smiled as she looked back at the essay. ‘Then I’m afraid you’re not going to believe anything I’m about to tell you, officer.’