Marigold

I hate my months in the shelter. I know it’s safe, but I can’t stand being shut in. The closest I get to the outside world is pressing my face up to the barred windows during the short daylight hours, ignoring the electrical hum at my cheek, staring out at a tree and a slice of sky through the gaps. Other people at the shelter laugh at me (“Bit early for spring, David.” “Keeping an eye out for Rezzies?”) but at least they do it to my face, and gently. They have too much respect for what I do to treat me badly.

Except for the Transport, Recon and Acquisition teams, most of them don’t set foot outside the perimeter. Even the yard is abandoned until spring, and only used then for obligatory exercise and to absorb the necessary amount of vitamin D. I see their faces when we’re huddled in the lounge, watching the MOD’s public information films about Rezzies. In spite of the questionable reassurances given—Residual Humans don’t move outside their replay loops, Residual Humans only harm you if you step into their path—they’re all terrified. And none of them remember what it’s like to spend time in a garden.

I scrape through the winter as best I can, shifting supplies from store to kitchen every day, walking the corridors each night before I sleep, keeping my old joints going. My room is barely big enough for a single bed and storage chest, but at least it’s my own. Most people share, but they have family or close friends. I get on well enough with everyone, but it’s not the same without my Jeanie.

My restlessness grows throughout February, and I distract myself packing seeds and cleaning tools, checking I have all I need. I begin to pace under the windows, impatient for evenings sitting on the back step admiring the veg beds, the sun on my face. The house I’ll stay at—long abandoned, and declared Rezzie free by the Recon team—feels more like home than this place, and I bear the loneliness there well. I have my plants, and eight months a year to tend them, or thereabouts.

Once the temperature rises enough to start sowing seeds, Transport drive me to my post. There are six of us gardeners for this city, one per shelter, each with our own plot. All we need is a good-sized piece of land, with an adjoining property that’s still got power and water. Most importantly, it must have been empty at the time of the attack, as we obviously can’t live anywhere infested with Rezzies and their re-play loops. It’s bad enough having them nearby, but the arrival pulse wipes them out, at least for the first few months I’m there.

My house backs onto a cricket ground: nice and flat, a good four acres. This year, when Transport drop me off, I almost forget to wait in the van. The driver growls when I reach to open the door, then hits the switch. Warning lights flash as the electrical pulse builds and then radiates outwards. The van has its own field; all vehicles have since the first days after the attacks. Accidents still happen though. A Recon team down south were hit by a Rezzie car, its occupants repeating their last living minutes in an endless loop of petty bickering and cheesy music. The Recon van had broken down, field dead, and the team didn’t get out fast enough, so the Rezzie car swept through and killed everyone still in the van.

There aren’t any Rezzie vehicles near this house, but there are plenty of them on foot in the neighbourhood so I’m grateful to the arrival pulse for removing them, even if the effect’s only temporary. After the all-clear, Transport test the power supply and switch on the perimeter field that runs through the metal fences surrounding the garden and cricket ground. We unpack the van and they leave. I carry my equipment inside, run the kitchen tap, fill the kettle. I’m already smiling as I open the back door. I step out, through the garden to open ground, walk between raised beds and fruit trees, check for damage, weeds, early pests. Satisfied, I sit on the back step with a mug of tea, thumbing through my seed packets. I’m allowed a few flowers for companion planting; nasturtiums to lure aphids away from the beans, marigolds to distract the slugs. Well, that’s my excuse for the marigolds anyway, and it works, but really I grow them for their colour. My little ray of sunshine, that’s what they are. Jeanie loved them too.

As soon as the sky darkens I head inside, leaving the perimeter field switched on. There’s little danger from Rezzies—their replay loops mean you can predict where they’ll appear—but sometimes they’re drawn to loud noises, so it’s better to be cautious. There’s an old man back at the shelter with one arm: dropped a petrol can when he was out on Acquisition and didn’t see the Rezzie come up behind him. Only brushed his elbow but the team had to knock him out to stop him screaming. They amputated his ruined flesh on the way home. Afterwards, he said it was like being hit by an ice-cold lightning bolt. Typical of a Rezzie’s touch. If only the attacks had just killed them.

I listen to the low murmur of old music on my battered old radio while I eat a dinner of tinned beans and bread, the last loaf I’ll see until the end of May, when they come for the early harvest. After the evening play, broadcast from a neighbouring city, I head upstairs.

The next morning, birds wake me, and I smile as they sing, thankful that so many survived the attacks, flying far above the epicentres. After breakfast, I start work, empty the compost bins of their black gold, spread it on the beds. Then I sweep out the shed, repair a few holes where the rain’s come in over winter. The weather brightens by lunchtime so I eat outside, then bring out the radio for the afternoon, keeping the volume low. I clean the cold frames and sow my first seeds in two-inch pots, cover half the rhubarb crowns to force them. The sunset is glorious.

A week passes, and my potted seedlings break the surface of their soil, unfurling miraculous head-of-a-pin leaves or hardy fairy-tale stalks that strain towards the light. I settle my first and second early potatoes in the ground, earth them up in mounds, and sprinkle carrot, spring onion and beetroot seeds in the next bed.

Another few weeks and the cold frames are bursting with fledgling plants—peas, beans, brassicas, spinach—but they’re too important to rush into the ground, risking a fatal frost. There’s a traditional method of testing the warmth of the earth used by farmers for centuries back. In late April I try it myself, thinking of Jeanie’s shock the first time she saw me sit my bare bottom on the garden. I grin as I unzip my trousers, then take a seat in a raised bed.

“Warm enough,” I say.

A cat miaows in reply.

I stop, thinking the cold air on my buttocks is making me hear things. There are no animal Rezzies and domestic pets were virtually wiped out.

But it comes again, a tiny piteous mew. I get up, yanking at my trousers. Grab my long-handled prod, switching it on before I move towards the sound. Its tip crackles as I edge around the side of the house. When I reach the front, I see it, a kitten, a little scrap of a thing. It’s on the pavement opposite, its head and front legs sticking out of a pile of broken bricks and wood. It mews again and tries to haul itself out, but it must be stuck as it only squeaks in pain.

I can almost hear Jeanie’s gasp, almost see her put one hand to her chest, the other on my arm.

“We’ve got to help it, David,” she’d tell me.

“Alright,” I mutter and turn to go back to the house to switch off the perimeter field.

That’s when I spot it. A Rezzie. Standing a few meters from the kitten, a look of mild confusion on its pallid face.

I flinch back, drop into a crouch. No matter how often I see them, the shock of it never lessens. I’ll never get used to the Rezzies’ grey translucence, the way their bodies ripple as though they rest just under water. I blink, focus, and realise this one’s from a house further down the street. It must have been out of range of the pulse and now it’s drawn to the mewing. That cat’s lucky it’s not dead. Yet.

I swear softly: there’s no time to get my protective suit.

Once the field is off, I hurry up the garden path, prod gripped tightly in my hand. The creak of the gate makes the Rezzie’s head swing in my direction and I freeze. It can’t see me, of course, but if I didn’t know that, I’d swear it was staring straight at me. I sidestep towards the cat, glancing around to make sure no other Rezzies have appeared.

“Hush now,” I say gruffly, as the cat miaows again. But it complains more loudly, scrabbling desperately at the rubble that traps it. The Rezzie turns towards the sound, moving closer, its jaws opening and closing, hands waving awkwardly as though it can’t quite grasp something right in front of it. It takes another step. Soon it’ll be closer to the cat than I am. I grab a piece of brick from the road, throw it as far as I can in the opposite direction. The Rezzie’s head jerks towards its clatter. I run to the cat, resting the prod on the ground while I kneel to lift away the rubble and scoop out this scrappy bundle of fur and noise.

“Stop that,” I say, as the kitten squeaks indignantly. Still on my knees, I reach for my prod, looking up, and the Rezzie is there, within arm’s reach, gaze fixed on me and the cat. So close, I can feel the chill of it on my skin. I shout and fall over backwards, clutching the kitten to my chest and the prod in my other hand. I thrust it up, feel the tip slide in, like a knife through water. The charge jumps to the Rezzie. It opens its mouth, then disintegrates, disappears.

I carry the cat to the house and switch the field back on. As I empty a box of tinned food with shaking hands and find a blanket to line it with, the cat hides under the sofa. I think about the Rezzie’s face, its stare, directed straight at me. It looked…hungry. I shake the thought from my head, search for something to feed the cat. In the end I give her some of my ration pellets—they always provide more than I need, just in case the first harvest fails—and spoon a bit of condensed milk over them. She crunches away greedily, getting flecks of milk on her face. When she’s finished, she purrs and headbutts my leg to show her gratitude, and I give her a scratch behind the ear then put her in the box. She tilts her head quizzically, huge amber eyes staring up at me.

“You stay in there while I work,” I say.

She sits, but five minutes later, she’s out in the garden, checking to see what’s in the hole I’m digging.

“How did you get out?” I ask, but she only cleans a paw. Turns out she managed to knock the box on its side to escape. She’s strong, for such a tiny thing. After my evening cup of tea I call her in and put her back in her box, but I can hear her sad little miaows through the floor, so I bring the box up to my room.

“Be quiet and go to sleep,” I say.

She blinks at me, lying down obediently. When I wake in the morning, she’s curled against the back of my leg, snoring gently.

— # —

I spend the next week planting out the early crop seedlings, and at twilight, the cat and I prowl the garden. I carry a sharp stick for the slugs. Some still reach my sunshine marigolds, just blooming, but the courgettes and tomatoes remain intact.

By mid-May the weather is hot and bright. The cold frames are full again, a second wave of seedlings ready to replace everything I harvest for Transport. The cat sunbathes, belly to the sky, retreating to the shade between beds at midday, then padding up to me with a decisive chirrup when she decides it’s time for tea.

One morning I leave her safely in the house and head towards the river to carry out another of my duties: a survey of local wildlife. Jeanie would laugh if she could see me, stiff as a scarecrow in my thick protective suit, two prods sheathed at my waist. I’m not laughing though. No perimeter fields out here. The sun’s barely up but I sweat as I walk, hat low to shield my eyes, gaze moving constantly. I see a few Rezzies in the usual places, distant from my path, their replay loops unaffected by my passing. A meter-wide gap in a low stone wall marks the entrance to a ruined abbey. I turn into the grounds, which provide easy access to a slow curve of river. I stop in the shade of a blackened turret, my gaze following the water to an artificial cascade where it spills and foams noisily. But that’s not the only thing moving. I stumble forward, snatching up my binoculars. Three Rezzies squat in the water, the cascade pouring through their backs. Every now and then, one of them stands, clumsily but with surprising speed, arms outstretched. It takes me a while to work out what they’re doing but then I see the flash of a fish, trying to leap the cascade but passing through the body of a Rezzie instead, falling dead in the river. The Rezzie’s mouth flaps, its body flexes, then it turns to its neighbour and emits a low, triumphant growl.

These Rezzies are feeding.

I race back to the house, prods out, palms slick, frantically trying to explain away what I saw. The Rezzies are shadow creatures, the MOD’s always said that; just an empty echo of their human selves. Those Rezzies can’t have chosen to stand in the river, to strip the life from those fish. They’re just a hideous side effect of the bombs, like the black marks left across the streets of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, but mobile, tangible. Lethal.

In the days after the attacks, the MOD closed off residential areas and sent us all to shelters in the middle of nowhere. Those of us who’d survived had been out of town, distant from the epicentres. But when we arrived back there were so many extra deaths. The Rezzies might only be distorted and deadly remains, but their loved ones could still recognise them. People got too close, trying to help partners, children, friends.

So the MOD closed the cities, told us the people we loved were gone, that the Rezzies don’t feel anything, don’t understand. They’re just clockwork corpses, following their loops, day in, day out.

Oblivious.

But what if that’s changed?

I slow down, drag in ragged breaths. When I reach the house, I startle the cat in my hurry to dig out the walkie-talkie. I give my call sign and ask for the Captain. She runs our shelter and heads the Recon team.

When I explain what I saw, she sighs, and I know with a sickening certainty that this isn’t the first report she’s heard like this.

“I’ll speak to the council” she says, “I’ll let you know what they say.”

I sign off and sink back in my seat. The cat takes the opportunity to jump neatly into my lap. I stroke her fur, muttering softly, trying to soothe us both.

— # —

At the end of May, the Captain accompanies Transport when they collect my first harvest. She inspects the crops, then asks to meet the cat, who’s sulking in the house, displeased with all the noise and activity in her garden. She seems to like the Captain though.

Once the kitten’s had her fill of attention, the Captain turns to me.

“The Rezzies. This unusual activity. The Council’s keeping an eye on it. Stay on your plot with the field on and call me immediately if you spot anything else.”

I nod, jaw clenched to stop it from trembling.

For the next month, the demands of the garden are a welcome distraction. The effects of the arrival pulse have worn off, so my closest Rezzie neighbours reappear, as they do every summer. I eye them warily and keep a prod with me at all times. Three doors down, the end-of-life replay loop is a garden barbeque, its distorted soundtrack coming through in waves. Fragments of music, laughter, sometimes even the low hiss of cooking meat. The sounds weigh on my mind more than usual, never quite fading into the background.

One evening I’m out thinning the carrots, cat at my heels, when movement catches my eye. The barbeque house has a low tiled roof, and a blackbird jerks and hops there, one wing crooked. Grey hands lurch towards it and fall away again.

I duck instinctively, glance at my open back door, then remind myself that I’m safe inside the perimeter field. My hands still shake while I drag an upturned planter to the fence and climb onto it, peering over. I can only see the Rezzies’ heads and shoulders from here, but that’s enough. They’re ignoring the barbeque. Instead, they take turns to grab at the bird, grunting. They must have touched it once already, their fingers brushing its wing. The bird pecks frantically at a patch of rigid feathers, scrambling to move further up the roof. But as I watch, it slips, and a Rezzie’s hand closes on its back. The bird screeches, flings itself into the air, across the space between us. It’s dead before it hits my fence, but the impact sends sparks shooting. There’s a loud crack and the field cuts out.

As I fall off the planter, I have just enough time to see six Rezzie heads twist around, six pairs of Rezzie eyes fixing on me, before I land clumsily in the sweetcorn, snapping stems.

I stagger out, snatch up the cat, and bolt into the house. The cat gives a disapproving squawk and wriggles against my chest as I pause just inside the open doorway. The Rezzies melt through the fence at the side of the garden. They stare straight at me and I lose a precious few seconds blinking stupidly back. But I must be squeezing the cat too hard because she slides her claws into the skin of my arm and I flinch and slam the door shut. I lock it—pointlessly—grab my walkie-talkie and the nearest bag of ration pellets, then head down the stairs to the basement, almost tripping over my feet. There’s a secondary field down here, metal bars built against the walls that are attached to a back-up generator. I flip it on, panting, sweating. The generator coughs, then kicks up to a loud grumble. Me and the cat cower inside the inner cage. I sink onto the camp bed, then switch on the walkie-talkie. I give my call sign, explain what’s happened. Try to ignore the panic in the man’s voice as he asks me to confirm what I’ve just said.

“Transport have been notified,” he says. “Hold tight.”

“How long?” I ask, but he’s already gone, most likely on his way to the Captain.

The cat crouches beside me, looking up, ears twitching. I too stare at the ceiling, straining to hear any noise from upstairs over the sound of the generator. The Rezzies will be drawn to its rumble, are probably standing in the living room, maybe even outside the door that leads to the basement, waiting to see if the field fails. Perhaps as the hours pass they’ll drift away, back to their replay loops. But I doubt it. They understand how to feed, just like the ones at the river. I’d be a gourmet dinner to them, the kitten a perfect palate cleanser. They won’t give us up so easily.

There’s a small square window high on the wall, south-west facing. I watch colour sweep across the basement as the sun sets, sip water and share a handful of ration pellets with the cat. Then I lie back, let the cat curl against my chest, her head under my chin.

When I wake, it’s dark and bitterly cold, the chill of half a dozen Rezzies seeping down through the floorboards. I get up, grope my way to the light switch but the bulb must have blown. I hurry back to bed, pull the blanket up to my chin. The cat is trembling, a ridge of fur standing on end along her spine. She’s right to be afraid. From upstairs, I hear a low growling, not one voice but many, calling together, and I realise there are far more than six of them up there now. I stare at the ceiling grimly, feeling the weight of their waiting above me.

Transport’s pulse won’t stop this. It’ll wipe them out, yes, but they’ll come back. And they’re not empty anymore, not oblivious. They sense living creatures. They move in packs. They hunt. We can’t undo that.

I think of the garden, the sunlight, my blissful days with a radio and a cup of tea. For a moment, I consider switching off the generator, letting the Rezzies in, getting this over with. Perhaps the cat and I can haunt the veg beds, old-fashioned ghosts unaffected by fields or pulses. I move my hand towards her gently, let her sniff it, then scratch behind her ears. In spite of the chill, she is warm and soft, and nestles against my palm.

I think of Jeanie at the end, of sitting by her bed, holding her hand. She turned her face from the pillow to the midsummer sun and smiled.

“Okay,” I say. “Okay.”

The walkie-talkie crackles and I jump. Transport are outside in their van. I keep stroking the cat’s fur while I wait, listening to her purr until the pulse hits the house and the growling from upstairs stops. I’ve never been happier to hear the tread of human feet above my head. There’s a knock on the basement door, torchlight showing through the gaps. The Transport lead stares at me; I’m scruffy and terrified, clutching a kitten. He laughs.

“This must be Marigold,” he says.

The cat peers at him doubtfully.

“I’ll take you back to base,” he says. “Captain needs to know what happened here.”

I nod, follow him out, murmur to the cat, “Don’t worry, we’ll be back.” We’ll manage it somehow, we have to. She won’t be keen on the shelter either, not when she could be out in the sun.

© 2023 Vicky K Pointing

About the Author

Vicky was a winner of Tiny Owl Workshop’s Halloween flash fiction competition, curated the UK leg of the Krampus Crackers project, and is currently working on a dystopian novel for young adults. Her short stories and flash fiction have been published by Postcard Shorts, 101 Words, and Expanded Horizons. She completed an MA in Creative Writing in 2016 and won a place in the 2022 Northern Short Story Academy.