Annaliese went to argue, but stopped herself. She didn’t have the energy. She put her hands on her hips. “Fine, whatever you say. I’m going to get some rest. If the world stops ending then you have permission to wake me.”
Without waiting for a reply, she ambled over to the staffroom sofa and collapsed onto it face first. The slumberous feeling that immediately washed over her was heavenly. The blood in her body seemed to stop moving and settle in her veins. Her muscles turned to jelly. Within seconds, she felt sleep coming to snatch her away.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Every time Annaliese went to sleep without having drank alcohol first, she dreamt about her baby. She dreamt about the baby she never knew. The little boy that never was. She dreamt about Baby.
She saw her son’s face. His closed eyes and tiny nose. Eyes that would never see and a nose that would never take a breath. She only got to hold her baby boy once, and he had been dead.
Once upon a time, Annaliese had given birth to a baby boy with no name. Every time he crossed her mind she thought of him as Baby. She thought about what Baby would have looked like now, ife he had lived to see four years of age. She wondered if Baby would have looked like his dad. She wondered if Baby’s dad would still be around.
Then she would wake up in tears. Every night the same.
Until she found alcohol.
Then the dreams stopped. But the headaches and nausea started.
Tonight, though, she could not escape her dreams. They kept a hold of her and twisted and tore at her soul. Tonight she dreamt of Baby as a ghoul, back from the dead to come and drag her down to Hell where she belonged. Baby had died in childbirth, murdered by his mother who was too weak, too inhospitable to bring him to term. He was denied the most basic gift of life, while his wicked mother lived on. Now Baby was back. His tiny teeth were bloody, and coming for Annaliese’s flesh. They would tear her apart, chew her up slowly until there was nothing left but her disembodied screaming.
And as she screamed, so too did Baby.
Baby screeched like the infected people. It hurt her ears and she begged for it to stop.
Stop, she cried.
Please, Baby, stop.
I’m sorry. I’m sorry.
I wish it was me who had died.
I wish you were alive and I was dead.
Please, Baby, stop screaming. I’m begging you to stop.
Annaliese woke up in darkness. Something covered her face. She shot bolt-upright and clawed at her neck, trying to get free of whatever clung to her.
It was a coat. Someone must have covered her with it.
Annaliese’s kicked out with her legs and found the floor. Then she remembered that she had fallen asleep on the sofa in the staffroom. Then she remembered, with oily sickness in her belly, all of the other things that had happened.
All of the death.
Everywhere, death.
The room was dark and Annaliese could hear snores from several sources. She also heard something else; something she was sure was the reason she had woken up.
Wailing?
The muffled sound of someone – or something – in pain floated into the staffroom like a ghostly visitation. It seemed to echo off the walls and entwine with the darkness. Moonlight shone in through the gaps in the room’s now-closed curtains and made things seem even more ethereal.
Am I imagining it?
She straightened up and went over to the nearest window. She ducked her head beneath the curtain and peered through the glass. There was nothing outside but the narrow silhouettes of the trees outside.
But the wailing continued. It was a weak, pining sound.
Eventually, she realised what the sound was, and where it was coming from.
Lily.
The female orang-utan was still pining the loss of her family.
She’s lost everything. She’s all alone now, not even watched over by her keepers.