Tabitha by Andrew Hall Page B

Tabitha. ‘The same way I did?’ Jane nodded over at the cobwebbed
ceiling in the corner.
    ‘There’s a metal
trap door there to the shop upstairs, over where the steps are,’ Jane replied.
‘It’s probably too dark to see it really. There’s a nice big pair of bolts on
it too. There’s nothing getting in here.’ Jane took a lantern and rummaged
through some plastic bags on the floor, fishing around amongst some tins.
    ‘Now. We have
baked beans, or… more baked beans. Oh no, sorry, baked beans with sausages.
Need I ask which one you’d prefer?’
    ‘Beans and
sausages, please,’ Tabitha replied with a smile, famished. She thought about
her mum, and her heart broke afresh. They used to have beans and sausages on
rainy weekends when they went camping together. Why did everything have to
remind her of mum?
    ‘Try not to
think about them,’ said Jane, with a gentler tone.
    ‘Could you tell
what I was thinking about?’ said Tabitha, wiping her eyes.
    ‘I could see it
in your face,’ Jane replied. ‘In my line of work you see that look quite a
lot.’ She came over and took Tabitha’s hand. Felt the cold, hard roughness of
her palm. Tabitha pulled away.
    ‘Jesus Christ,’
said Jane, stepping back at the sight of Tabitha’s grey hands. ‘They feel like… metal. ’ Tabitha said nothing. Things were about to get tricky.
    ‘What happened
to you?’ said Jane, suddenly nervous. She saw Tabitha’s eyes catch the lantern
glow, reflecting the light like a cat’s. Like a monster.
    ‘What?’ said
Tabitha, suspicious of the way Jane was studying her.
    ‘I said, what
happened to you?’ Jane demanded, producing a pistol from her coat.
    ‘What are you doing?’ said Tabitha, staring down the barrel. She saw the sudden intensity in
Jane’s eyes.
    ‘You’re
infected,’ Jane said simply, pointing the gun as she stepped closer.
    ‘I am not
infected! ’ Tabitha snapped as she stood up, surprised at herself for
squaring up to her. Jane cracked Tabitha on the jaw with the pistol grip,
dropping her to the floor. Before Tabitha knew what was happening Jane was
emptying a syringe into her forearm. The room spun in slow motion.
    ‘What the hell
are you doing?’ Tabitha slurred, looking around drunkenly at the cellar. Jane
stepped around her, watching her carefully. ‘Would everything stop bloody injecting
me?’ Tabitha mumbled, dropping unconscious to the floor. A door opened in the
gloomy corner, revealing the bright glow of lanterns in the cellar next door.
    ‘Did you have to
be so rough with her?’ said a younger woman, emerging from the doorway. She was
blonde and gangly, dressed in a white lab coat.
    ‘Just help me
get her in,’ said Jane, struggling with Tabitha’s wrists.
    ‘Oh wow,’ said
the younger woman, staring at Tabitha’s hands in the dim light. ‘It’s metal
skin.’ She touched Tabitha’s limp hands.
    ‘She’s
infected,’ said Jane, pointing at Tabitha’s legs for the other woman to grab
hold.
    ‘No, she’s mutated, ’
the blonde woman replied, taking Tabitha’s ankles. ‘It’s incredible.’
    ‘So you still
don’t think vetting the survivors for infection first is worth the effort?’
Jane asked her.
    ‘It’s not,’ the
younger woman chuckled. ‘You always think there has to be some security check
to go through before we can do our job. It probably just comes off as sinister,
more than anything. Secret labs and all that.’ Jane grunted unhappily with
dented pride. Together
they hauled her body towards the door, into the brighter light of a makeshift
clinic in the second cellar. They worked in silence for a couple of minutes,
hobbling through the clinic with Tabitha’s limp body. Grunting and struggling
to haul her towards a metal table.
    ‘She’s pretty,’
Jane observed, bringing more lanterns over.
    ‘Gorgeous,’ the
younger woman agreed. She hesitated then in the silence, and looked up at Jane.
‘Wait, are you jealous?’ she said playfully. ‘Even at the