Today's Sunday Blogging is a special one - a 12,000 word novelette, set in the world of H1NZ. Enjoy. Try not to get too creeped out.
~ ~ ~
Abby
Abby
barely heard the front door of the flat open, so loud was the volume
of the TV in the living room. She jumped as Anthony walked in, her
mobile phone flying out of her hand and thumping down onto the wooden
floor.
“Jesus, Ant,” she
said, leaning over from where she was lying on the couch, to retrieve
it. “You scared the hell out of me.”
“Sorry,” Anthony
said, walking over to the kitchen, opening a cupboard and taking out
a glass. He was staggering a little as he walked, quite clearly
drunk. He filled the pint glass he had taken from the cupboard at the
sink and drank greedily from it.
“I thought you were
out for the whole night?” Abby asked him.
“Yeah, that was the
plan,” Anthony said, hiccuping a little. “But I’m not feeling
too good, so I came home.”
“Sure it’s not
because of how much you were drinking?” Abby asked, returning her
attention to her phone. It buzzed in her hand as she resuming typing,
another message coming in from her friend in Brighton. Becky was
apparently out on the seafront, painting the town. Lucky girl. Abby
wished she could join her.
“Positive,” Anthony
said. “I didn’t drink that much. Suddenly felt really shit, so I
called it a night.”
“Maybe you’ve got
food poisoning?” Abby suggested.
“Maybe.”
“Hey, I have some
news,” Abby then said.
“You’re going back
home to Australia?” Anthony asked.
“Hmm, not yet. I’m
moving out. Told Pete this morning. Sorry, but I can’t afford to
live here any more. The rent’s killing me and most of my wages go
on it.” She looked around the flat with its wooden floors and large
open spaces. “Nice as it is, it’s costing me a fortune.”
“Okay, sure,”
Anthony said, sounding largely disinterested. “You know you’ve
got to give a month’s notice, right?”
“Yep. Next Friday’s
the last rent I’m paying. We’ll sort out all the bills later on.
Woah, are you sure it’s not the beer?” Anthony had wobbled a
little as she had spoken, almost falling over. He had only just
managed to keep hold of his glass of water.
“It’s not the
beer,” Anthony protested. “I only had one. I think I might have
caught what Pete’s got. He’s been in bed all day.”
He has? Abby
looked in the direction of the bedrooms. All three tended to keep
their doors shut – though not locked – whenever they were out of
the flat, for the sake of privacy. Returning home, Abby had been
unaware that the man had been in his room, asleep, his bedroom door
shut as usual. She felt guilty about having the TV on so loud now,
but wondered why he hadn’t bothered to ask her to turn it down.
Surely no one was that deep a sleeper. Maybe she should check in on
him?
“That will explain
why he never returned my email,” Abby said. “He never went into
the office. I didn’t email or text you because you said you
generally don’t have time to read either during the day.”
Anthony said nothing,
drinking down his pint of water.
“You going straight
to bed?” Abby asked.
“Yeah. Just needed
some water.”
Abby nodded. “I’d
turn down the TV, but it’s not exactly going to keep you awake.”
She pointed towards the ceiling. “Those arseholes upstairs are
having another of their weekend raves. Earplugs tonight until at
least three or four. Let’s hope it’s just tonight they’re doing
it, and not tomorrow, too. Someone said to me that I should just go
up there and ask to join in, but they don’t ever answer the bloody
door. Maybe I’ll get the concierge to have a word tomorrow.”
“Hmph,” Anthony
responded. Once again, he didn’t seem to care and only returned to
the kitchen sink to refill his pint glass. He had downed that last
one quickly. He went on to drink three more full pints of water,
before dropping the glass into the sink and staggering off to his
room. He looked as though he was going to collapse and pass out at
any moment.
“Oh my God, Ant,”
Abby said. “You’re going to either be up all night, going to the
toilet, or you’re going to piss the bed.”
The only response Abby
got was the sound of Anthony’s bedroom door shutting.
Never mind, Abby
thought, the replacement of a urine-drenched mattress wouldn’t be
coming out of her deposit.
It was pretty warm
tonight – eighteen degrees. That would’ve made sleeping
difficult, if the noise coming from the upstairs flat wasn’t
already doing so. She could hear the revellers screaming on the
balcony, one girl needing to make sure that every flat in the
immediate area was able to learn about her exploits in a nightclub
the previous weekend.
Abby returned her
attention to her phone, wondering what to type back to Becky, if
anything. Maybe she should think about moving down to Brighton? The
times she had been down there before had been fun, and she and Becky
had gotten on fine. But would the woman react differently to Abby if
she was so close? The topic of the incident in the train station
hadn’t come up again, and perhaps it was best left that way.
Her phone jingled, a
text message from Claire, one of her friends from back home in
Adelaide, now living in London –
I’d let you sleep
over here tonight to get away from the noise, but we’re all coming
down with the flu. Don’t want you to get it. I’ll let you know
what’s happening tomorrow, in case you fancy coming over for lunch
x
Abby sighed. Only four
more weeks and she could get away from this place. Moving into a
house couldn’t be nearly as bad as this. She set the phone aside,
focusing on the film she was attempting to watch, though found she
was largely unable to concentrate, due to the volume of noise from
upstairs.
As midnight approached
and the film came to an end, she switched off the TV and headed for
her bedroom. She paused as she passed by Anthony and Pete’s rooms.
Were they okay? It would be terrible to discover that anything had
happened to either of the men, when she could have done something
about it. She quietly opened Pete’s door, allowing a small amount
of light from the hallway to illuminate the room.
Pete was asleep in his
bed, the form of his body visible beneath the duvet. It was wrapped
tightly around him and his window was closed. In the warmth of the
evening, the room was rather stuffy. It couldn’t have been
comfortable in that bed. But if he was suffering from a fever, he
would not notice and would only be trying to keep warm. At least she
could hear him breathing. That was a good sign.
She gently closed his
door, and then checked Anthony’s room. The man had been crashing
and thumping about a bit as he had turned in and Abby was bothered by
his story about not drinking. Anthony drank like a fish most
weekends. She had to ensure that he hadn’t gotten sick in his
sleep, lying on his back. He could drown in his own vomit if that
were the case.
She opened Anthony’s
door, relieved to see that the man was sound asleep. As with Pete,
she could also just about hear him snoring over the noise of the
party. And as with Pete, he too had shut his window and was sleeping
beneath his duvet. Good. Both men were fine.
She retired to her own
room, stuffed a pair of earplugs into her ears and got into bed.
~ ~ ~
Despite
spending a lot of time in the flat over the weekend, Abby didn’t
see any sign of Anthony or Pete. It was one of the most lonely and
boring weekends she had ever spent since arriving in England. Many of
her friends were unable to come out and meet her for either coffee,
shopping or any other activity, due to sickness. Her gym was also
shut, due to a lack of staff, as were many of the shops in Canary
Wharf. She almost couldn’t wait for Monday to roll around so that
she would have something to do.
At least the flat
upstairs was quiet, no midnight raves or all night parties to keep
her awake until the small hours. With nothing else to do, she spent
Saturday and Sunday with a load of box sets, catching up on all the
TV series she had missed.
She finally heard one
of the two men emerge from their rooms in the small hours of Monday
morning, the door of one of their bedrooms slamming. They bumped
around for a time, before the door slammed again. Abby glanced at her
bedside clock. 3:14 am. Well, at least one of them hadn’t died in
their sleep. She rolled over and went back to sleep.
~ ~ ~
“Where
is everyone?” Abby asked Josh, one of the few other employees who
had shown up to the office.
Josh shrugged. “Sick,
probably. Lots of people are getting it. They think it might be swine
flu again or something.”
Abby frowned. “I feel
fine.”
“Yeah, me too,”
Josh said. “What about your flatmates? Are they okay?”
“No, they’re sick,
too.”
“Hmm,” Josh
frowned. “Just be careful you don’t get it. I’ve heard it’s
nasty. Puts you in bed with seriously aching muscles and everything.
You can’t do anything.” He looked out the windows, to the square
below, that was largely devoid of any activity.
“You live around
here, right?” Josh asked.
“Over in Limehouse.”
“What was it like
around here over the weekend? A bit of a ghost town, was it?”
“Pretty much; nothing
was open,” Abby nodded. “Usually there are tourists everywhere.”
Josh nodded. “Traffic
was pretty calm this morning,” he said. “Still took me a while to
come in, so it’s not affecting everyone.”
Abby looked around to
the many empty desks. “Think they’re going to send us home early
today?”
“Doubt it,” Josh
said. “They’ll probably make us stay late, to pick up the slack.”
Abby returned her
attention to her work. Not a single email from Becky today. She
wondered if the woman was sick, too? After saying that she was
planning on hitting Brighton’s pubs and clubs hard over the
weekend, Abby had heard nothing from her. Maybe she had met someone
and no longer had time to talk. That would be just Abby’s luck that
Becky would finally meet the man of her dreams.
~ ~ ~
Abby
left the office early. No one stopped her, none of the management
were around. She probably could have gotten away with not going in at
all and still billing for the time, she reckoned as she walked home.
She noticed that even
more shops were shut on the walk home. Finding something for lunch
had been a chore. A good job her cupboards at home were well stocked
and neither Pete or Anthony ‘borrowed’ anything from her.
Back home, she set her
bag down in the living room, finding the flat as quiet as was to be
expected at this time of day. Except ... it had been just as quiet
when she had gotten up that morning. There was no sign of disturbance
in the kitchen, no used tea or coffee mugs, and no evidence of any
meals having been eaten. Were Pete and Anthony still sick? She was
certain she had heard one of them moving about last night, as well as
this morning.
She went to Pete’s
door first, listening carefully. She couldn’t hear anything, and
with the deathly silence of the flat and the world immediately
outside, she should have at least been able to hear something.
“Pete?” she asked,
knocking on the man’s door. No answer. She opened it very gently;
she needed to make sure he was okay. If anything had happened, she
would have to call an ambulance immediately.
The room was just as
stuffy as it had been on Friday night, the window closed, the
curtains drawn tight. Pete’s bed was empty, the duvet pushed aside.
She ventured in, to see if he had fallen out of bed and onto the
floor. Pete was nowhere to be seen.
Abby breathed a sigh of
relief. The man was up and about. He wasn’t dead. She had worried
that she was about to open Pete’s door and see him still there, the
outline of his body beneath the duvet in exactly the same position as
she had seen on Friday night. The man had clearly started to feel
better, and gotten up and gone off somewhere. Maybe back to his
parents’ place in West London. Thank God for that. She closed the
door, and made her way to check on Anthony.
She opened the man’s
door, peeping into the room. As with Pete’s bedroom, Ant’s was
stuffy, the window closed, and curtains drawn. But unlike Pete,
Anthony was in bed, wrapped up in the duvet as Pete had been. He was
moving, too, rocking back and forth slowly. Low moans issued from
under the duvet, as though the man was suffering from a bad dream.
“Ant?” she asked.
There was no response
at first, and then Ant rolled over, the duvet unfurling. Ant wasn’t
alone. Pete was with him, lying on top of him. Both men appeared to
be naked, limbs entwined.
“Oh, woah,” Abby
began. “Sorry, I didn’t know.” With that, she made to leave,
but paused as she withdrew from the room. Something about the
arrangement of the limbs seemed off, as did the men’s faces. She
then saw, giving a yelp as the realisation of what she was looking at
struck her.
Anthony and Pete were
not engaging in some sexual act, caught up in one another’s embrace
– their bodies were fused together, almost as if they had
melted into one another. Abby’s hand flew to the light
switch, refusing to believe what she was seeing, hoping that the
additional light might cause the shadows to flee and reveal to her
that things weren’t as awful as they appeared.
It was worse.
Anthony and Pete were
conjoined, like Siamese twins. Their bodies were melded at the torso,
which was now far thicker than normal, having become one. Their arms
were at odd and unnatural angles, two hanging off the shoulders, one
sprouting from the thick torso, and another having shifted somewhere
out the back. At least one of the arms was missing a hand altogether,
and the remainder no longer had all their fingers. The legs were
arranged in a similarly obtuse manner, one leg even growing out of
the other.
But by far the worse
were the heads of the two men. Like their bodies, the heads had
started to merge together. The skin about the faces was sagging and
discoloured, greeny-yellow like the rest of their flesh. Neither head
had very much hair left – it was now lying in clumps on the
bedsheets. One head – Abby couldn’t tell whose – was alive and
awake, while the other appeared dead. The eyes were missing, the nose
sunken and misshapen, the ears tiny little specks on the sides of the
heads. It still had a mouth, though, unlike the other, which was
hanging open. A few teeth and a very swollen tongue were inside.
There was also
something dangling from their limbs – tendrils, vines or tentacles,
or something. What appeared to be fur or leaves were sprouting from
every part of their skin. Both bodies were totally hairless.
Was this a joke? Some
sick prank the men were playing? The eyes of the live head focused on
Abby, and Anthony-Pete rose from the bed, liquid-like skin peeling
away from where it was sticking to the duvet and the sheets.
Anthony-Pete arranged itself as Abby started to back away, balancing
uncertainly on its odd arrangement of limbs.
“Abby,” the throaty
hoarse voice of the living head said. “Don’t move out. Don’t
leave us.”
Abby screamed, backing
quickly out of the room. She tipped over backwards as she retreated,
striking her head off the floor, landing half in and half out of the
room. She must have blacked out for one or two seconds, as when she
came to Anthony-Pete was clambering over the bed to get to her. Abby
screamed again, attempting to stand and escape the bedroom.
She became aware of
something around her leg as she tried to stand, wrapped tightly about
her ankle. She looked down and saw what at first glance appeared to
be a thin piece of rope or a wire. But as she eyesight returned to
normal, she saw that it was actually a vine. It was feeding back to
Anthony-Pete, sprouting from some part of his body. It continued to
tighten its grip on her as she watched. Conscious once again, Abby
started to crawl out of the door, the vine around her leg attempting
to pull her back.
“Abbbbby ...”
Anthony-Pete called to her.
Abby ignored it,
breathing hard and trying to think of what to do. She had to get to
the front door, to get out of the flat and get to safety. But she
also had to find a way to free herself.
A sudden yank and she
was pulled back a few feet. Anthony-Pete’s foot landed on the back
of one of her legs, attempting to pin her down. She rolled over as
the thing that Pete and Anthony had become leaned down close to her,
its arms flailing. It was drooling, something other than spit
dripping from the mouth of the live head, a light green in colour and
somewhat thicker.
Like sap.
Abby did the only thing
she could think of and kicked out at the thing’s face as it bent
close. The first kick stunned the thing momentarily, before it
focused on her once more. The second kick did a better job of pushing
Anthony-Pete away. The vine was still holding onto her, though.
Mustering all the
strength she could, Abby pulled hard against it, feeling it give a
little. She tugged her leg again and again, seeing the vine starting
to fray and splinter, before snapping altogether.
Free, she took a moment
to examine her options, before racing to the kitchen and pulling a
knife out of the knife block. She raised it threatening in front of
herself, waving it at Anthony-Pete. Whatever the men had become was
truly a grotesque sight.
“Stay there,” she
warned. “Don’t come any closer.”
The warning fell on
deaf ears, and Anthony-Pete carried on coming, repeating her name
over and over, the sap-like substance leaking from both of the
mouths. The vine that Abby had snapped was waving about erratically,
as though it had been injured. There was little doubt in Abby’s
mind that it wouldn’t be long before it – or any of the others –
would be coming at her again.
“I’ll stab you!”
she said. “I’ll do it, don’t think I won’t!”
Anthony-Pete came at
her suddenly, propelled by the three legs that were supporting it,
swinging all four arms. Abby couldn’t say how she managed to avoid
serious injury, somehow ducking and diving under the limbs and
receiving only minor thumps on her back and sides for her efforts.
With Anthony-Pete
having ignored her warnings, Abby raised the knife and went at the
thing, stabbing wildly. The knife cut into the flesh more easily than
she might have thought, and she withdrew the blade and plunged it in
time and time again, targeting the torso.
She expected blood, as
well as screaming and thrashing from the two men, but instead got a
sticky fluid, moaning and not much else. The thing didn’t seem all
that aware of the injuries that she was inflicting on it, and neither
did it seem to feel very much pain.
One of Anthony-Pete’s
hands then punched her square in the face. Abby had never been
punched before, and didn’t know if the cracking, the sudden heat
and the explosion of blood around her nose was usual. Whatever it
was, Anthony-Pete had hit hard. She staggered backward, but managed
to maintain both her balance and her grip on the knife she held,
resuming stabbing as soon as she was able.
Anthony-Pete began to
sag as she did so, Abby finally going for the live head’s throat,
cutting it wide open. The thing that the two men had become gave one
last gasp before slipping to the floor, Abby backing away. Still no
blood anywhere, just sap. What the hell was this thing? With it
really Anthony and Pete, or just something that looked like them?
Abby took a few moments
to collected herself, before looking to the knife she still held and
casting it aside.
“Wake up you dumb
bitch!” she said to herself. “This is just a dream; a night
terror. It’s not real, it’s not real, it’s not real!”
But after a few minutes
of waiting for the nightmare to end, Abby came to the shocking
realisation that it wasn’t a dream at all. This was real.
Everything she had done, everything she had experienced had actually
happened.
“What the fuck is
going on?” she asked herself.
She couldn’t stay
here. She had to go somewhere else, somewhere safe. She snatched up
her phone, scrolling through the list of names and trying each one of
her close friends in turn. The phones rang, but not one of her calls
was answered. She next dialled 999. She was greeted by pips. All the
lines were engaged.
She jumped as
Anthony-Pete began twitching and writhing violently all of a sudden.
Death throes or something similar, perhaps, but Abby didn’t feel
like hanging around to find out. She snatched up her keys, her bag
and coat, and dashed out of the flat, taking the stairs to the
ground.
~ ~ ~
She
would go to Hammersmith, to Claire’s house, she decided, as she
bounded up the stairs to the Docklands Light Railway.
She was breathing hard
from running from the flat and up the stairs, her hands shaking, her
heart hammering in her heart. She looked back in the direction of the
building she had fled from. Anthony-Pete was nowhere to be seen.
He/They/It wasn’t there, hadn’t come back to life and was
following her. Not yet, anyway.
The sign on the DLR
platform told her that the next train would be along in just one
minute, the one after that not for another sixteen. Good timing.
Something had clearly gone wrong on the track to lead to such a large
gap in the service. Her phone started to ring as she saw the train
coming her way. The number was withheld.
“Hello?” she
answered it.
“Abby!” It was
Claire. She sounded frantic. “Abby, where are you?”
“I’m just getting
on the DLR, coming to see you,” Abby said.
“Abby, don’t go
outside! They’re everywhere! Don’t go outside! Get back indoors!”
“What are?” Abby
asked.
“The things, the
monsters!”
“Claire, where are
you?” Abby asked.
“Shit, there’s one
right here!” Claire said, ignoring Abby’s question. “I’ve got
to go! I’ll call you back! Get inside!”
Claire hung up, leaving
Abby alone on the platform. Almost. The train was pulling up, and as
it did so Abby saw terror on the faces of the passengers in the
carriage she was preparing to board. The men and women were clustered
by the doors at one end, waiting for them to open and making it very
clear that they would be exiting as soon as they were able.
It was then that Abby
saw the blood splattered on the windows at the other end of the
carriage. She made out the form of something with pale greeny-yellow
skin, multiple limbs at obtuse and unnatural angles. Vines. Leaves.
The thing appeared to be attacking one of the other passengers, that
it had trapped in a corner.
A man right by the
doors banged on the glass of the carriage, pointing to Abby and
indicating in the direction of the stairs. Run, you stupid cow!
Get the hell out of here! he was telling her.
The doors opened, and
the passengers spilled out, falling over one another in their haste
to escape. Many of them were screaming, even those who were not in
the carriage with the monster fleeing as fast as they were able.
People were crashing into one another, falling down, creating havoc;
a tsunami of men and women, young and old, all moving in the same
direction.
Abby ran with the rest
of the crowd, back down the station stairs, moving to one side so
that she wouldn’t be crushed in the panic. What to do now? For a
moment, she considered returning to her flat. She then started for
Hammersmith on foot. Even if she didn’t make it, Claire would
surely call her back and tell her where she was going and what to do.
The phone never rang.
Phil
“How
are you feeling?” Phil asked Hayley.
The woman in the bed
turned slowly to look at him, shaking her head ever so slightly.
“Still feel sick. Really sick,” she said.
Phil put a hand on her
forehead, feeling that it as hot as ever. “I’ll get you a cold
compress,” he said. “Try and take the fever down a little.”
“I don’t think it’s
going to make that much difference,” Hayley said. “Have a look at
my arm and see if it’s any better today,” she then asked him.
Phil did so, lifting
the woman’s limp arm out from beneath the covers. Her arm was a lot
colder than her forehead was, and Phil saw immediately that the skin
there was still as transparent and discoloured as the day before.
Perhaps even worse. Hayley met his eyes as he examined it, not saying
anything. It was clear to both of them that the antibiotics weren’t
working. Even so, Phil wanted her to continue taking them.
“Still the same?”
she asked.
“The same,” Phil
said. “But not getting any worse.”
“It’s not going to
get any better though, is it?” Hayley asked. She sounded ready to
throw the towel in. Phil wasn’t about to do that.
“It might just take a
while for the course to start taking effect,” Phil said. “It
could be weeks, months before we see any positive effects. We need to
keep going.” He offered her the pills from the bedside table, and
Hayley opened her mouth so that he could pop one in, followed by a
glass of water, to help her swallow.
Phil wasn’t sure what
was taking so long with his wife. Everyone else had succumbed to the
plague and turned a lot quicker – days, rather than weeks. Was it
her or was it the drugs keeping the infection at bay? And why hadn’t
it affected him? It had affected more than ninety-nine percent of the
country, yet he was still as fit as a fiddle. For a
fifty-six-year-old at any rate.
He noticed how Hayley
spent quite a lot of time staring out of the window, at the sun. Was
that part of the result of the infection, the desire to go towards
the sun? Phil had noticed how the things that gathered around his
house and roamed the streets seemed to quieten down at night. They
had some sort of affinity with the light, just like most other
plants.
“What time is it?”
Hayley asked.
“Just after eleven,”
Phil said. Hayley’s eyes had become milkier in these past few days,
a sign that her vision was gradually starting to fade. He wondered
just how much she could see. Not a lot, he thought, given how close
the bedside clock displaying the time was to her.
The woman started to
shift about in the bed, and for a moment Phil thought that she was
either starting to suffer the onset of a fit, or that the antibiotics
she had just taken had had a negative reaction. It was nothing of the
sort, however, and the woman was only attempting to either get more
comfortable or sit up. She turned again in the direction of the
window, to the warm rays of sun that was streaming in. Phil followed
her gaze there.
“Could you move me
closer to the window?” Hayley asked. “Please.”
At first, Phil wanted
to say no. But he then complied with his wife’s wishes and helped
her out of bed. The two struggled over to the window, where he sat
her down in a chair. She sighed as the sun’s rays touched her skin,
closing her eyes and smiling contentedly.
The window of the
bedroom overlooked the back garden of the house. Phil gazed out there
for a time, at the things he could see moving around. In the
neighbour’s garden was what looked like a half plant, half human,
half dog creature, writhing gently. About four feet tall, it was
embedded in the soil. There wasn’t much left of the human part,
which had once been, by Phil’s own reckoning, a young boy. The
thing was hairless, and now retained only one arm. The other arm had
become a sort of stump on the body. It had all six legs, though, a
few of them having become what he could only describe as roots.
What had become of the
boy’s family, Phil could not say. Maybe the boy and the dog had
been the first of the family to turn, and, knowing that he couldn’t
be saved, his parents and older brother had fled. The same fate
awaited them, Phil was sure. He still wasn’t sure why he hadn’t
been affected by this unknown plague. Maybe it was just something in
his genes that prevented him from getting it. He probably still had
it, though, and would be able to pass it on to others; a little like
how HIV could remain dormant in the body for years, able to be passed
on, but not becoming full-blown AIDS until the virus felt the time
was right.
Phil looked at his
wife. She had barely eaten for well over a week now. She said she
wasn’t all that hungry, but she drink copious amounts of water. She
never went to the toilet, however. He noticed that another small
clump of hair had come loose, ready to drop down from her head any
moment now.
She remained by the
window for quite some time, not saying anything or even acknowledging
Phil. Phil saw a shape tumble from the roof of a house opposite,
landing on the top of the conservatory below. It was a cat, or, at
least, what resembled a cat. It was trailing vines and tendrils
behind it, attempting to walk on its stumpy legs, but failing. Its
body was lumpy, not all of its hair gone quite yet.
“Beautiful, isn’t
it?” Hayley said.
Phil didn’t know
whether she meant the sunlight or the cat creature. “Yes,” he
said, placing a hand on her shoulder. “Beautiful.”
A thumping sound came
from the front door. The things were attempting to get into the house
once more. Phil would check the doors and windows at the ground floor
of the house in a moment. The doors were sturdy enough, the windows
on the ground floor all boarded up. He had heard one of the windows
break once, but that had just been the glass on the outside. None of
the things could get in. He should probably board up the ones on the
top floor, too, just in case. He could see vines creeping across from
the adjacent house. Once strong enough, they might soon attempt to
smash their way inside.
Hayley soon asked to be
put back to bed, and Phil helped her over to it. He tucked her in and
fetched another cold compress for her head. It wasn’t doing a lot
to bring the woman’s temperature down. Something told him that not
a lot would.
~ ~ ~
He
left her when she told him she was tired and wanted to sleep, and so
he went downstairs to the kitchen, to eat. The electricity and gas
were still working, he was glad to see, but the televisions were
showing nothing but static. The radios were the same. He took Hayley
some soup, but she told him she wasn’t hungry, and so he left it by
the bedside, knowing that it would grow cold.
After eating, he
ventured out into the back garden, weary of vines and any creatures
that might have made their way around the back of the house. He saw
none, and so commenced his daily ritual of salting the soil. He had
only table salt with which to do it, but was sure that it was enough.
Still no sign of any
flies, wasps, bees or other insects. It was approaching summer, and
yet there were none to be seen anywhere. Had the infection killed
them all off?
Phil spent the rest of
the evening sitting with Hayley. The woman did nothing but stare out
of the window, barely even acknowledging him. She moaned softly when
the sun finally set and the night came, closing her eyes and drifting
off. Phil settled down to sleep in the spare bedroom.
~ ~ ~
That
night, he woke to find Hayley standing in the doorway of the spare
bedroom, staring at him. She had done that twice before. The first
time, Phil had walked her back to her bed and tucked her back in,
only for the woman to return to the doorway a few minutes later. He
had again walked her back to her own bed, for the very same result.
The second time, Phil
had attempted to speak to her, but she had not answered him. He had
sat up in the bed the whole night, not sleeping, and only watching
her, scared that she might do something terrible to him as he slept.
She did not, and only remained where she was, watching him. She had
returned to her own bed as dawn came.
Phil hoped that tonight
she would do the same. He did not sleep this night, either.
~ ~ ~
“The
treatment’s not working, is it?” Hayley asked the next day.
Overnight, the woman’s
skin had started to become increasingly transparent, changing from
pink to a light green. Phil could see that the veins in her arms were
growing lighter, no longer a strong dark blue, but far paler than
that.
“We need to give it
more time,” Phil said.
Hayley shook her head.
“It’s not going to help me, darling,” she said. “You can’t
save me.” She fumbled around, taking his hand in hers and began to
weep. The pupils in her eyes had faded away to nothing. She was
blind. Even more of her hair had fallen out, too, leaving great big
bald patches all over her scalp.
“No, we’re going to
get through this,” Phil told her. “Maybe we just need to try
something stronger.”
“Nothing’s going to
help,” Hayley said. “It’s only slowing the process. It’s not
even a vaccine, much less a cure.” She was quiet for a time as Phil
tried to think of something else he could try. At this point, the
effects seemed irreversible.
“I don’t want to
turn into one of those things,” Hayley said.
Phil sensed what his
wife of close to thirty years was telling him.
“Do you want me to
help you die?” he asked her.
She squeezed his hand
tight. “Yes,” she said. “Please.”
Phil was quiet for a
time. “Okay.”
~ ~ ~
He
brought as many sleeping pills as he could find in the bathroom to
his wife’s bedside, and fed them to her one at a time, giving her a
drink of water with each one. He waited for her to change her mind as
the number went into double figures, requesting that he make her
vomit up all the pills she had just taken. But she didn’t, and only
continued to swallow each pill that he gave her.
“I love you, Hayley,”
he said.
“I love you, too,”
she replied. They were the last words she spoke.
She gradually started
to lose consciousness, the grip on his hand slowly releasing, until
she was not holding it at all. Her breathing became shallow, and less
than an hour later she was dead.
Phil never left her
side the whole time.
~ ~ ~
That
evening, he buried her in the garden, digging down as deep as he was
able, wrapping her in the sheets from the bed and gently lowering her
into the hole.
He could hear the moans
and groans of the creatures around him, some, the cat and bird-like
things, as well as vines and tendrils, making tentative steps towards
him, sensing his presence as he worked. They retreated fairly
quickly, however, not liking the salt he had poured throughout the
garden. He would be exhausting his supply soon.
Done, Phil filled in
the hole and went back inside the house. He couldn’t think of what
else to do. The death of a loved one was always a very strange
experience, so many conflicting emotions running around in his head
that he was struggling to feel anything.
He wandered the house
aimlessly for a time, unable to think straight and not knowing what
to do with himself. He opened all of the cupboards in the kitchen,
evaluating the stock of food that was on the shelves. A few weeks’
worth, if he rationed it out. The water might run out a lot sooner
than that, though. Hayley had consumed so much of it, and Phil had
not held any of it back from her, just in case it caused her
condition to deteriorate faster.
He tried opening the
taps in the kitchen again, though no water came out, no matter how
much he turned them. That was it, the supply was all gone. Unless he
was going to set up some elaborate system to catch rain water – of
which there had been very little – he was going to be forced out of
the house very soon. He wasn’t even sure that drinking the rain
water would be wise. It was likely contaminated with whatever this
pathogen was.
He cooked, ate, checked
the doors and the windows, and went back upstairs to spend the night
in the spare room. On a table were the notes he had been making into
his study of the disease. He picked them up, seeing the sections
recording the progress on attempting to cure Hayley. They were
useless to him now.
~ ~ ~
He
slept badly again that night. His eyes were mostly fixed on the
doorway of the spare bedroom. He was expecting to wake and see Hayley
standing there, as she had before, having now come back to life,
climbing out of the grave he had dug and broken back into the house,
dragged half the garden in with her. He imagined her standing there,
staring, covered in soil, mutated in the way everything had been –
vines and leaves covering her body, and perhaps even fused with the
beautiful cat creature she had seen walking ungainly across
the rooftops of the nearby houses.
But the only moans he
heard were the ones of the things outside the front of the house. He
eventually drifted off in the early hours, waking with the dawn. He
went into the bedroom he had for many years shared with Hayley,
looking out the window to the back of the house, to the garden below.
The grave he had dug for his wife was still there, the fresh soil
still covering it. She would remain there forever, he knew, never to
get back up.
He turned to the bed
they had shared together. It remained unmade, the sheets and duvet
crumpled and pushed to one side. Hayley had always made a point of
tidying the bed, to make it presentable, and not let it look bad to
anyone who might happen to see it. There would be no one to see it
now, no friends to come around to the house. Even so, Phil made up
the bed, smoothing the sheets, plumping the pillows and straightening
the duvet.
He then went downstairs
to the kitchen, to eat and drink, and finally burst into tears at the
knowledge and acceptance that his wife was dead and that he was now
possibly alone in this strange and very dangerous new world. What had
caused it? he wondered. A so-called super bug? A genetic experiment
gone wrong? Some kind of dirty bomb, set off by terrorists? Whatever
it was, it was worldwide, having spread across the globe in a matter
of weeks.
A loud tapping sound,
like something rapping on glass, caused him to start choking on the
water he was drinking. His thoughts turned immediately to Hayley.
Surely not. He took a knife from the block in the kitchen, wandering
the downstairs of the house, before moving upstairs when he was
unable to discover the source.
Entering the main
bedroom, he saw that the tapping was coming from one of the windows
there, several vines banging on the glass. One of them was using what
appeared to be a load of finger, another, the jaw of an animal,
possibly a dog. Before now, the vines had mostly kept away from the
top floor of the house, apparently not sensing anyone inside. Now,
they appeared to have discovered where Phil had been hiding all
along.
Had they found that out
due to him burying Hayley in the back garden? he wondered. Surely
not. Whatever it was, he knew he couldn’t stay in this house any
more; it was no longer safe. The vines might soon smash their way in
through the windows, or discover another way inside, perhaps
tunnelling in through a wall. Phil came to swift conclusion – he
was running out of food and water, and had just lost the only woman
that he had truly ever loved, so much so that he had helped her to
die. He was done here.
~ ~ ~
He
packed a rucksack with as much food and water as he could carry from
the kitchen, and then went through to the adjoining garage. He
clicked on the light switch before opening the door to the garage
itself, seeing immediately the things that had made themselves at
home there – rat and mice-like things were attached to the walls,
and there were vines and tendrils creeping in under the dented and
battered garage door itself. There was a sizeable gap there, Phil
saw, enough for a person to squeeze under.
The consideration made
him round in time to see the thing lurching towards him, only
groaning and warning him to its presence when it was inches away.
Phil leapt back,
stumbling over the clutter of random items – power tools, boxes,
oil and petrol cans – that littered the floor of the garage. They
must have been knocked from their shelves and neat stacks when the
thing had forced its way in.
He prepared to pull
himself up and face the thing, snatching up the knife that had
slipped from his grasp as he had stumbled over. He then saw that the
thing had come no further. It was attached to the wall, its arms and
legs almost shrivelled away to nothing. What remained was a thick
torso, the belly of which was open, plant-like matter and vines
spreading out from the interior and boring into the brickwork behind,
creating a sticky mesh via which the thing had affixed itself.
The thing was right
next to the door Phil had come in to the garage through. The head
that had snapped at him was quite deformed, the eyes, nose and ears
all but gone. Even so, he recognised the overall shape, a second head
he spotted confirming his suspicions. The extra head was embedded in
the side of the thing, its features not quite as eroded as the main
head. It had no eyes, but its ears and nose were still there. Its
mouth was hanging open a little. It was clearly a woman.
This was Mr and Mrs
Jeffrey, his next door neighbours, the ones whose son had merged with
the dog in the back garden. What had happened to their eldest son,
Phil couldn’t say, and right now, he couldn’t spare the time to
care.
He pulled himself to
his feet, looking around at the rat creatures and the vines coming in
under the door, to ensure he was safe, before focusing his attention
on what he had come into the garage for.
His motorcycle was
still in tip top condition. And while the creatures seemed to have
smashed up things all over the neighbourhood – cars and all sorts
suffering their destructive attention – his Honda was still in one
piece. He tested the engine, hearing it roar into life without any
problems whatsoever. Good.
He returned to the
house, dodging around Mr Jeffrey who snapped at him with an almost
toothless mouth, and attempted to grab at him with vines, and fetched
the supplies he had gathered from the kitchen, hitching the rucksack
over his shoulders. He stowed he knife securely in one of the side
pockets and went back into the garage, spotting a length of hose on
the wall. That might come in handy for getting petrol; he could
syphon fuel from cars and other vehicles into the bike using it. He
had a feeling there would be a lot to choose from. He stashed the
hose and started up the Honda once again. He let the bike run for a
time, to warm the engine up, and then pressed a button on the side of
the wall to open the garage door.
Nothing happened.
He pressed it a few
more times, noticing that the button was no longer lighting up with
each press, as he might have expected. Either the power to the garage
had been affected by the things in here, or the electricity that had
served him so well for the past few weeks had finally been cut.
Phil would have
preferred to not have been right next to the garage door when he
opened it, in case there was something waiting for him on the other
side. He had little choice about it now. He moved to the door,
listening for a time, then released the automatic lock and lifted the
door by the cord.
Save for the car parked
there, the driveway was clear. It had been a long time since he had
seen what had become of the neighbourhood, and he only spared a few
moments to take in the scene before returning to his motorbike. The
houses opposite were even more overgrown than before, victims of the
plague – humans and animals – were planted in the front gardens,
where there was soil. Some people were lashed to the houses
themselves, as though they had been crucified. But the most important
thing to Phil was that the driveway was clear, as was the road
leading out of the cul de sac he lived in. He would worry about
everything else later.
He hopped onto the
bike, driving it forward slowly out of the garage. A vine that had
been hovering above the door leapt out at him as he did so,
attempting to curl around him and stop him from going any further.
More were moving in quickly to join it. Phil squeezed the accelerator
of the bike to escape their probing. He knew better than to attempt
to beat them off with his bare hands – that would only result in
the things wrapping their way around his wrists and yanking him to
the ground.
Now in the clear, Phil
accelerated up the road, out of the cul de sac. He paused at the
junction, looking back at the house. The front, as he knew, was
overgrown with plants. He could now see that there were quite a lot
there, more so than any of the other houses on the road, twisted and
mutated animal and human remains making up mesh.
Hayley. Phil had always
thought that they would grow old together, living happy and
fulfilling lives. But that hadn’t been the case. First, the death
of their only child, and now this. Whatever this was. He
should really stay here and die with her, so that they could be
together.
But, no. She wouldn’t
want that for him. She would want him to find a way to survive and
remember the good times they had shared together. He would find a
way, he was sure.
He returned his
attention to the road ahead, looked both ways at the junction, and
drove away.
Abby
Her
water was almost all gone now, as was her food. The stuff in the
fridge was starting to smell funny, too, as it would do with the
electricity having gone. A good thing she had anticipated a loss of
power and cooked what she had while she had the chance.
For almost two weeks
now she had been stuck in the flat she had once shared with Anthony
and Pete. The streets of London had been chaos and she had failed to
make it to Hammersmith, turning around when she saw nothing but
death, destruction and fear all around her. None of her friends had
picked up their phones when she had attempted to call them, and
neither had they responded to her text messages. Similarly, calling
her family back home in Sydney had resulted in the phone ringing
endlessly. They were all gone.
Briefly, she had hoped
that the plague – whatever this thing was – had not made it all
the way to Australia. But the news channels had confirmed it weeks
ago, presenting a detailed breakdown of the infection rate per
country. The figures had not made for pleasant viewing.
Returning to her flat,
she had hauled Anthony-Pete’s corpse to the balcony, and heaved it
over the side. It had taken over an hour for her to do so, Abby
having to make use of whatever she could in the flat to shift the
corpse without touching it. Getting it over the railing had been the
most difficult bit, but at least it was done. She had watched the
remnants of the two men spiral down four floors to the ground, making
an audible thump as it struck the concrete below. All that remained
of Anthony and Pete in the flat was the dried, crusting sap-like
substance that the ... thing the two men had become had bled,
creating a sticky film on the wooden floors. She had thrown a load of
towels over that.
Several times now, she
had considered leaving the flat and attempting to find somewhere
safer to go. The buildings surrounding her had been transformed into
what she could only describe as a jungle, plants climbing the sides
of the buildings and slipping in through open windows and doors. It
was like the human race had upped and vanished, and nature was
reclaiming the planet from them; although this had happened in a
matter of weeks, rather than years.
And the creatures. They
were everywhere. They would wander the quad outside the flat, the
roads beyond, and as far as the eye could see. Some she could see
moving about in the buildings opposite, the doors and windows having
been smashed. Others were attached to the walls of the buildings
themselves. Abby wondered how long it would be before she joined
them. Less than a week, perhaps, when the need for food and water
forced her out there.
She switched on her
phone, to check if any messages had come in. With no power left, she
had taken to switching it off to converse the charge as much as
possible, turning it on only once every few hours. Thankfully, the
old phone was still able to connect to the operator service, though
the signal was quite weak now. She knew that at some point there
would be no bars displayed whatsoever. She stared at the display,
willing it to do something, anything.
Nothing.
Shit. Shit, shit, shit.
What was she going to do? She almost threw the phone in frustration,
and at that point it beeped and buzzed in her hand. A text message.
She hoped it wasn’t spam, that would just make her day.
Are you okay? Where
are you?
The message was from
Becky, her friend in Brighton. She checked the details, and felt her
heart rate spike. The message had been sent not ten minutes ago.
Abby’s fingers raced across the buttons, explaining her situation
and asking Becky of her own. It took her several attempts to send the
message, the service apparently deteriorating with each passing
minute, but eventually it went through.
I’m in my flat in
Brighton. I’ve barricaded myself in. I’ve got food and have just
discovered a supply of water on the beach. Everyone is dead, or have
changed. I’m okay for now. Do you know of any help or rescue up
there?
Abby told her that she
didn’t.
You’re the only
person left alive that I’ve been able to contact. I wish you were
closer.
She might not be now,
Abby thought, but she could be. I’m coming to Brighton, Abby
told her, her fingers shaking as she tapped out the message. I
think I can remember where you live. It’s near the pier, right?
How? How are you
going to get here? Becky wanted
to know.
Good question. Abby
would have to follow the roads south, walking the entire way unless
she could find a working bicycle. Despite the abundance of bikes in
the city, she had a feeling that those would be far and few between.
The things had been smashing up the city, almost raging against any
man-made object they came across. The car park beneath the block of
flats she was sheltering in had always been home to a number of
bikes. Sadly, they were all locked up. Unless she could find a pair
of lock cutters, they would be of little use to her.
Maybe a car? One of the
other residents’ cars might be available to her; she would only
need to locate the keys. Getting into the other flats and locating
them would be difficult, but perhaps ... She paused to think, cursing
as she realised that the power outage meant that she would struggle
to get past the electric gates sealing the car park. There would be a
way to open them somewhere, but it wasn’t likely to be
straightforward. They were there for security purposes, after all.
No, she had little
choice. It was either the roads or follow the train tracks. Either
way, she would be going by foot and that would be extremely
dangerous. She would probably not even make it to London Bridge
before something grabbed her.
She moved to the
balcony windows, overlooking the Limehouse marina. Plants were
covering everything, things wandering around everywhere. Everywhere
but the marina itself. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t noticed
that before. The boats moored there were mostly untouched by the
plants, the mutants and whatever else not going anywhere near them.
Only a small number appeared to have been affected, the boat
residents having changed. They were still in far, far fewer numbers
than the streets and buildings, though.
She then started. One
of the boats was moving, one of the little narrowboats, white smoke
puffing out of the chimney at the top. Someone else was alive! But
they were leaving, pulling out of the dock and heading off out of the
marina.
Abby felt a stab of
panic. This was her chance to get away. If she was going to escape,
she had to do it now. She tapped out a message to Becky, snatched up
a knife from the kitchen, and moved to the front door of the flat.
Beyond the door, in the corridor, was pitch black, anything that
might be lurking in the hallway concealed by the darkness. She
fetched a torch and shone it out into the corridor.
Nearly every other flat
door was open, vines and other plant matter creeping out. Dormant
before, it now began to react to the light from Abby’s torch. She
could hear moaning the groaning coming from some of the other flats –
the residents who had succumbed to the plague and been transformed
into the hideous abominations.
The stairs weren’t
far, and she only had eight flights or so to get down. Her heart was
hammering hard as she drew on the will to exit the flat and run down
those stairs, hopefully not into the jaws/arms/claws of whatever she
might encounter on the way down. Her thoughts then turned to the boat
that would be chugging its way out of the marina, her only possible
means of escape. There would be no escape for her if she dallied any
longer.
“Okay, okay,” she
said to herself, as the vines and tendrils began to take notice of
her. “On three. One, two ... three!” She raced away from the
flat, keeping the stairs in sight, keeping the light from her torch
focused on the door.
She caught an instance
of something humanoid emerging from one of the flats in the brief
moment before she reached the stairs, a fusion of people of some
kind. The further details escaped her. Something snatched at her
legs, sliding off her thighs. She pushed on forward, ignoring it and
shoving the door of the stairwell open.
The stairway was as
dark as she had expected, and her torch revealed that the doors to
the floors below were spilling open with mutated things. Most were
clearly still alive, some of them appearing to be stuck to the walls.
Faces turned to look at her as they caught the light, and Abby was
forced to hop and bound down the stairs two or three at a time, to
prevent herself from being caught by hands, limbs, vines, and
whatever else. She was sure that at one point a mouth had attempted
to bite her.
“Help. Help Me.
Please,” one of the things begged.
Abby ignored it, didn’t
even look at it, her focus entirely on getting down the stairs and
escaping from this hell. She had heard the cries for help before,
from the flats around her, and from the affected people outside. They
had screamed sometimes, tortured cries, begging for death. Abby
looked forward to leaving this all behind should she be able.
She made it to the
ground floor, pulling open the door and almost running headlong into
the thing that was stretched across the reception area. Several
metres in length, it was connected from one wall to another, like a
great thick rope of some kind, a twisted mass of people and animals
making it up. Hands, arms, legs and feet were sticking out in every
direction. She ducked under it, feeling vines grab hold of her arm.
“No! Get off!” she
cried, tugging hard against them. They resisted for a time, not
yielding at all, and Abby found herself slashing automatically with
the knife, cutting the vines and stabbing at the limbs and faces that
were trying to grab her. The vines were tough, extremely hard to cut,
and more were feeding her way.
She screamed in panic,
fearful of becoming a part of that mass of human and animal remains,
becoming an Anthony-Pete of her own. She thought of the boat. It must
have departed its dock by now, heading off to freedom, to safety. The
terror the thought that her only means of escape might abandon her
prompted her work harder than ever to free herself, slashing, cutting
and sawing.
The vines soon
relented, so suddenly that she tipped over backward. She was on her
feet in a flash, crashing out of the front doors of the building, and
running as quickly as possible to the marina. The narrowboat was
still there, chugging along and building up speed. A man was stood at
the stern.
“Hey!” she shouted.
The man paid her no
notice, and Abby saw already that her shout had caught the attention
of the things that roamed the area outside the flats. They started
after her, some staggering along on their randomly placed limbs,
falling as they cried to run, others moving a great deal faster.
Every one of them was a monstrosity of some kind, a fusion of people,
animal, plant and whatever else the plague had done to them.
“Hey! You in the
boat! Wait! WAIT!” she tried again.
This time, the man
turned around to face her. He appeared surprised by the sight of the
woman, but still did not answer Abby, turning his attention back to
what he was doing. Abby felt suddenly sick. He was going to leave
without her! She started to run around the edge of the marina, things
still chasing after her, Abby calling out to the boat, pleading.
Finally, the man turned back to her.
“I can’t stop her
now; dodgy engine,” he called. “You’ll have to meet me further
up.”
He couldn’t turn the
boat around either, Abby realised, there wasn’t room. She looked to
where the man indicated she should go to meet him, and only hoped
that she would be able to run fast enough to catch the boat.
She stopped dead as she
encountered some of the creatures coming her way, blocking off her
route. These ones were far more nimble and agile than the humanoid
things that were chasing after her. Less human, more like dogs or
foxes.
The man in the boat
saw, too. For a time, he cast about himself, before looking back to
Abby. There was only one way she could go from here.
“Can you swim, girl?”
he shouted.
“Yes!” Abby said.
“Then jump!”
Abby didn’t need any
further encouragement. The drop into the waters of the marina must
have been ten or fifteen feet, a black chain railing separating it
from the quayside. Abby vaulted the railing in one motion, giving
little consideration to what might lie beneath the surface of the
waters, and plunged deep into them. She surfaced quickly, looking to
where the narrowboat was and started after it.
“I can only slow down
a bit,” the man called to her, as she swam as quickly as she could
through the murky waters. “Come around the side, so you don’t
catch yourself on the propeller.”
Abby did as the man
instructed, doing her best to swim up parallel to the lengthy boat.
She noted swollen plant-like things spilling out of the cabins of
other vessels that she passed, some pressing up against the
interiors. The sights only made her swim harder. Eventually, she made
it, and the man grabbed hold of her as she came next to the boat,
hauling her up into it through a doorway in the side.
“Thank you,” Abby
breathed. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
The man said nothing,
and simply hurried back to the stern, to continue steering the boat
through the twisting Limehouse waterways. “Stay there,” he told
her, as she started to come out to join him. “Just stay where you
are and don’t touch anything. I’ll be with you in a minute.”
Abby did so, sitting
down on the floor of the narrowboat, dripping wet and shivering from
both the cold of the water, as well as the exhilaration of the run
and the swim. She couldn’t believe she had made it. She had feared
that she would be stuck in that flat until she eventually starved to
death, or something had broken in to kill her.
The narrowboat began
cutting through the waters faster as the man increased the speed of
the engine, continuing to make turns here and there. The waterways
were certainly clearer than the roads around London had been, as far
as Abby could tell.
She saw creatures on
the banks of the canal, people and animals that had mutated, melded
together, and transformed into those terrible nightmares. They moaned
and groaned, Abby picking up on words here and there, mostly ‘help
me’. Both she and the man ignored them, and eventually the
narrowboat made it out of the canals, turning onto the Thames,
leaving Limehouse far behind.
~ ~ ~
“Where
are we going?” Abby asked after sometime.
“East,” the man
said. “Stay there, stay there,” he added, as Abby stood. He
slowed the boat once more before coming over to her, a little
gingerly and still keeping his distance. He fixed her with a stern
look. “Are you infected?”
“What?” Abby
breathed.
“Are you infected?”
the man repeated.
“No,” Abby shook
her head vigorously.
“Take your clothes
off,” the man said, pointing to her top and trousers. “I need to
see.”
Abby very nearly
protested, before she obliged, stripping down to her underwear. The
man looked her over, telling her to turn around so that he could
examine her back. Abby could feel his eyes on her, sure that despite
the fact that he might be checking her for whatever signs of
infection he was after, he would also be soaking up her figure. The
guy might not be young, but he was still a man.
“Fine, fine,” the
man said. “You can put your clothes back on. Sorry, but I just
needed to be sure.” He breathed a sigh of relief, putting his hand
on his chest. “My name’s Derek,” he said, once Abby was
dressed, extending his hand.
“Abby,” Abby said.
“Australian?”
“Yes,” Abby nodded.
“Anyone you know
still alive down there? Not that this old girl would be able to get
us there, you understand.” He nodded around himself.
“No,” Abby said. “I
think they’re all dead.”
“I’m sorry,”
Derek said. He pointed to the stern. “I’d better get back to
driving. I’ll probably go a little slower from here, to save fuel.”
Abby followed the man
out to the stern of the boat, where the steering area was located.
She gasped as she saw what surrounded them. Hidden from view before
whilst she had been in the cabin, the fate of London was now clear
for her to see.
It seemed that every
single building throughout the capital was covered in vines and plant
matter, surrounding them like ivy. Those would be people and animals,
she was sure. She couldn’t believe there was so much of it, but
reminded herself just how densely populated London was, not only with
people, but also animals.
Thick columns of smoke
could be seen rising in the distance, too. Fires, the causes of which
could have been anything from a gas leak in a house, to someone
intentionally trying to burn the plants away. On occasion in the
flat, Abby had seen one of the things staggering around on fire,
before collapsing in a heap on the ground. These other fires had
gotten very much out of control. Derek passed no comment, and only
shook his head as he continued to steer the narrowboat.
Abby reached into her
pocket to retrieve her phone and tell Becky what had happened. She
then remembered that she had dived into the marina with it,
completely unprotected.
“You have a working
phone?” Derek asked. He looked suddenly hopeful.
“Was working,” Abby
said. “It got a bit wet when I went swimming.”
Derek nodded. “Don’t
try and turn it on. Just put it in the kitchen area and let it dry
out naturally.” He was clutching at his chest again, Abby noticed.
He was doing that a lot.
She put the phone in
the kitchen area, in the light, and then returned to Derek’s side
to talk to him. She found out that he had been living on the boat for
several years, working odd jobs around East London, to pay for food
and the mooring costs. Like Abby herself, he had felt trapped when
the plague had struck, unsure of where to go and what to do. Safe on
the boat, he had chosen to stay where he was. But now that his food
and water were running out, he was on the move.
Abby told him her own
story, of how her flatmates, Anthony and Pete, had fused together,
and attacked her one evening. She had survived off what food remained
in the flat, wisely stocking up on water from the taps while they
were still running, and while the supply was fresh and
uncontaminated.
“I can only spare a
little food,” Derek told her. “There won’t be enough for both
of us for more than a few days.”
“I know. I’m
sorry,” Abby said. “I promise I won’t eat much. I’m sort of
used to it.”
“You know, I wasn’t
going to stop when I saw you,” Derek confessed. “But then I
thought you might know of somewhere to go.”
“Brighton,” Abby
said. “I have a friend who is still alive in Brighton. I’m going
to find her and try to get through this with her. You should come. We
should all stick together.”
“So long as the old
girl can make it,” Derek said, after pausing for a time to consider
things, studying the scene of London around him. “We’d have to go
around the east coast. Boats like this weren’t designed for
anything like that; they don’t cope well with swell and prefer
shallower waters. We’ll have to stick close to the mainland. It
could get very rough. You’ll have to give me a hand sealing the
hatches and making sure we’re watertight. Where in Brighton is your
friend?”
“Near the pier,”
Abby said. “Not the broken one, the other one.”
Derek nodded. “I’m
not going to make any promises. I will turn around if I think we’re
better off going elsewhere. Right, girl, time for you to earn your
sea legs ...”
~ ~ ~
The
narrowboat made it to Brighton, but Derek didn’t. As they passed
along the south coast, the man abruptly collapsed, hand still on his
chest. He had suffered a heart attack, and despite all of Abby’s
efforts, she was unable to revive him.
She laid him out on the
floor of the cabin, trying to perform many different tasks at the
same time. A good thing she had watched Derek as he had steered the
narrowboat and worked the engine.
She soon discovered
that her phone was working again, and the service was still up. Weak
as ever, she was at least able to send a message to Becky. Becky was
both surprised and relieved to hear that Abby was still alive.
Text me when you can
see the pier. The beach is safe; the monsters don’t like to come on
it for some reason. I’ll meet you there.
Abby found that Becky
was true to her word, sighting the woman standing on the pebbled
beach that was Brighton’s seafront. Somehow, Abby managed to steer
the narrowboat to the beach front, running it aground. Just in time,
too. The boat was not moving as fast as it had been at one time, Abby
certain that that was a sign that the fuel supply was almost
exhausted. A miracle it had brought her this far at all, she was
sure.
She ran the remaining
distance to Becky, the woman she had met online more than six months
ago, and embraced her tightly. To Abby, she was now the only other
person left alive in a world gone horribly wrong; a representation of
the only sane thing remaining.
“Are you okay?”
Becky asked.
“Yes,” Abby nodded.
“A little tired, but okay.”
“Good. Think you can
manage this?” Becky picked something up off the pebbles, handing it
to her. It was a short fire axe.
Abby noted that Becky
had one of her own, stained with a green-like substance. She tested
the weight, giving it a few test swings when prompted to by Becky. A
glance up the beach, towards the promenade and the town centre,
provided all the further information that she needed. Two mutants
were standing there, staring at them, moaning and groaning as they
tried to cross the pebbles but were turned away by some instinct or
other. It was obvious to Abby that they were going to have to fight
their way back to Abby’s flat.
“Ready?” Becky
asked.
Abby steeled herself.
“Ready,” she said.
And with that, the two
women charged up the beach.
~ ~ ~
TO BE CONTINUED
