by Alex Scarrow
If it wasn’t for the fact that she wanted to retain this human construction in order to present the best possible face to her captors, she’d have allowed her whole body to dissolve around the bowl into a resting pool to give every cell a break. But instead, like soldiers on a diplomatic mission, she needed to keep a presence they could understand.
All the same, Grace allowed her conscious self to descend into her micro-universe to feast and to relax. The cold glare of the lights, the harsh white of the bulkheads, the steady chug of the aircraft carrier’s engines, the hiss of the intercom speaker—all these things receded as she descended into the warm darkness of her internal universe. Her sense of vision became taste, her sense of hearing became a chemical language. Her mind did what it was used to doing—taking sensations and turning them into an illusion that was meaningful and pleasant.
She found herself in Grandma and Grandad’s country house in England, sitting at their large oak kitchen table. Grandma—the vision she had for her was based on fading childhood memories—brought her a plate of freshly baked cookies.
“Thank you, Grandma.”
“You’re very welcome, my love.”
Grace watched the illusion of her settle down onto a wooden stool and wished she and Leon had visited them more often before the plague came. She had only the sketchiest recollection of her face—kind eyes surrounded by laugh lines, fine curly hair as white as fresh snow, and cherublike cheeks that belonged on a much younger face.
“You miss me and Grandad, don’t you?”
Sometimes she let her illusions have their own thoughts and voices. “Yes.”
“We never made it into your new world, my love. I’m so sorry.”
Grace couldn’t know that for certain, but it was likely. They were old and remote. If they’d avoided being infected in the initial outbreak, they probably would have died shortly after from starvation or the cold.
Death was death. Not even They could do anything about that.
Grandma smiled kindly. “But at least you remember us, love.”
Chapter 13
“So what’s your story?” asked Leon.
Now that they were on the move in a large truck along an empty road, for the first time in what seemed like a lifetime, he almost felt relaxed enough to try talking like people used to talk.
Jake was driving the truck, Leon sitting on the seat beside him, and the other five were in the back. They were taking the A31 southwest out of the city, heading through the New Forest to Bournemouth, the next big port along the south coast. They’d come to the conclusion that following the coast until they reached the Cornish toe of England’s foot might possibly result in bumping into the recently departed fleet in the hope it might stop again before heading out to sea.
It was a long shot.
“You mean, what was my life like before all the shit?”
Leon nodded.
“Not up to much. I was getting a degree. Well, I’d just started one, anyway.”
“Oh yeah? In what?”
“Geology and geophysics.”
“Uh, OK.” Leon nodded. “Like rocks an’ shit.”
Jake turned slowly and raised an eyebrow at him. “Sooo much more than ‘rocks an’ shit,’ matey.”
“Sorry. I wasn’t being—”
“Nah, it’s OK.” He turned back to gaze at the empty road ahead. “My friends used to say the same thing. It’s not exactly a sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll subject.”
“So why study rocks?” Leon shuffled on the hard seat to get comfortable. “Did someone give you a sparkly geode when you were a little kid or something?”
“My dad, actually.” Jake took a swig from the water bottle parked in the cup holder between them. “He was an oil logistics engineer.”
“Right.” The term didn’t mean a thing to him.
“Oil logistics is about the distribution networks of oil.”
“And was he, like, an inspiration for you?”
“Sort of. But not in the way you’re thinking.” He glanced at Leon again. “Dad was a crackpot. A real conspiracy nut. He believed we were almost out of oil. The world was about to run out of the stuff.”
“Uh, OK. And was it?”
“I’m not sure. But I wanted to find out for myself rather than just take his word. Hence the choice of subject.”
“Right.”
Leon had to ask because it seemed to be the way conversations went these days: “What happened to your folks?”
“Mom and Dad and my older sister died in the outbreak. I was at school when it happened. They were in London. I managed to get back home after the first week and…”
Leon nodded. Everyone’s story ended up this way.
“…they were dead. But my little brother, Connor, was alive still.”
Leon looked at him. “Shit.”
“Yeah.” Jake nodded. “I found him in his bedroom. He’d been drinking bathwater and eating Play-Doh to stay alive.”
“What were you both on? Meds, right?”
“Yup. I was on anti-inflammatories for an elbow injury. Connor had been on chemotherapy. Leukemia.”
“Jesus, cancer. Sorry.”
They drove on in silence for a while. It was Jake who broke it. “I managed to keep him alive for nearly two years.”
Leon nodded.
“So what about you, bro?” asked Jake.
“Kind of similar to you. I was looking after my younger sister. My mom died, so then it was just me and Grace.”
“You’re American. How did you get over here?”
“We were living in London when it happened. Well, me, Mom, and my sister were.” Leon looked at him. “I was born in the UK. So technically I’m not a Yank, by the way.”
“So?”
“So…we did a pretty good job of surviving. I was on meds for migraines; she had a fractured arm. So, you could say we survived because we had issues.” He watched a gas station and a Starbucks pass by. “We got as far as Southampton—me, Grace, and Freya.”
“Who’s Freya?”
“My survival buddy.”
“Right.” Jake nodded. He turned to Leon. “Buddy? Or…you know…”
“What?”
“Orrr?”
“Jesus, man. None of your business!”
“Right, so she was more than just a buddy, then.”
“No. We just fell in together and…and stuff.”
“OK. Chillax, mate. Just being a nosy jerk.”
Leon shook his head and sighed. “It’s OK. It’s OK. We got pretty close. Maybe we would’ve ended up, like, you know, a couple, but we never quite got there.”
“So the three of you got split up when the camp imploded?”
“Yeah. It all just got out of control. The stampede. I lost my grip on them and then I was alone, running for my life.” He gently bumped the knuckles of his fist against the window on his side. “Man, that was the crappiest-organized rescue ever.”
Jake laughed. “Wasn’t it?”
“I was kinda hoping somewhere else in the world, the authorities had managed to get their shit together. But the whole thing seemed like they were just playing catch-up.” Leon sighed. “But I mean, how the hell does anyone prepare and plan for something like this? This is right off the page.”
“Off the page?”
“Out there. Random. Freaky. Like, bird flu, Ebola, those are viruses you can isolate even if you can’t cure them. But this…a virus that manufactures a whole bunch of living shit?” He shook his head. “We were screwed from day one.”
“People I was with said it had to be man-made. Like a genetically engineered thing.”
“Seriously?” Leon frowned. “As far as I know, science had gotten as far as working on disabilities and cancer and stuff. Not creating something like this.”
“I’m not saying I agreed. I think it’s got to be aliens.”
Leon’s laugh sounded sarcastic. It wasn’t meant to be, but any sentence that ended with “got to be aliens” sounded like it belonged on daytime TV.
“I’m serious though!”
“You mean this is the whole War of the Worlds thing?”
Jake shrugged. “As good as. But instead of parking stupid giant robot tripod things in the ground, it makes crabs out of people.”
“I’m not a great believer in the aliens-from-other-worlds thing. You know what’s out there? Lots and lots of nothing.”
“But you were saying it can’t be homegrown either.” Jake shrugged. “What does that leave? God made it?”
Leon laughed, good-natured this time. “Hell no. I don’t believe in that crap!”
“So it’s not from Earth, it’s not from space, it’s not supernatural, and it’s not from God. Where the crap did it come from, then?”
“It’s accidental,” said Leon.
“Huh?”
“I’m serious. Look, this whole world’s ecosystem, the whole flora and fauna family tree, was built on the back of a biochemical accident anyway.”
“An accident?” Jake glanced his way. “You going to explain your thesis, mate?”
“When was it, something like three billion years ago? The first replicating cells? If I’ve got this right, there was one kind of single-cell life that could, like, generate energy from sunlight or whatever but didn’t do the whole genetic thing. And there were viruses that had DNA or RNA and could change and adapt and stuff…because that’s what viruses do, right? But viruses are parasites and have to live off the backs of cells, because they can’t do the energy-conversion thing. So one day, about three billion years ago, in one particular muddy pool, somewhere on planet Earth, a cell caught a cold that didn’t, you know, kill it.” Leon paused for a moment before continuing. “So that’s where we came from—a virus got inside a cell. They decided they could both work with each other, and it turned out really well for them.”
“Nice way of putting it!” Jake laughed. “Mind you, depressing, right? We’re just the result of some mix-up in a mud pool. An accident.”
“So it simply happened again. Another accident. Jesus, it’s been three billion years. I guess we were due for another one. That’s what I figure anyway.”
“What were you back before? A science nerd or something?”
“No. I just like reading.”
“Books?”
“Internet.”
“I miss that so much.”
“The internet?”
“Yup. Just the whole being linked-up thing. It’s like, you can have an Xbox, but what’s the point in having one and not being hooked up to Live? You used to go on vacation with the fam, and the first thing you did when you got to the hotel was check on the Wi-Fi.” He sighed. “I really, really miss being hooked up.” He laughed again. “Is that sad or what?”
“It’s totally sad.” Leon shrugged. “But totally true.”
His mind drifted back to lazy, sofa Sundays, his phone in one hand, laptop on his chest, and the world and his friends back home in New York all one keyboard tap away from him.
“Whoa!” Jake slammed on the brakes, shifted down gears, and eased the truck to a crawl. “Look!”
Leon was jerked out of his reverie and saw the sign in the middle of the road ahead of them. They could easily have driven around it. It wasn’t a roadblock—just placed bang in the center, so that it was guaranteed to be read.
Next Left—will take you south on the A354 to us. We are a community of 1,235 1,264 1,301 1,342 We are located on the Isle of Portland.
We are friendly. We promise!
Leon noted the last population number seemed to have been scrawled recently enough not to look as weather worn and faded as the rest of the message.
“Call me paranoid,” said Jake, “but isn’t that the kind of sign that leads directly to a bunch of wonky-eyed, man-eating weirdos?”
“Stop,” said Leon.
Jake brought the truck to a standstill. “Come on, Leon. That’s got to be a lure.”
“If this was a shitty postapocalyptic movie, then sure. I’d be like, drive on past, bro.” He looked around. There was nowhere nearby that an ambush might spring from—just open road and flat, overgrown fields on either side. Nothing to see.
“Clichés exist in real life too,” said Jake.
“We’re going to get the others out, and we’ll all vote on it.”
“Seriously?”
“We’re going to vote,” he said again. “That’s my call. Final word.”
“What?” Jake frowned at him. “Who made you the boss of—” Then he stopped himself, rolling his eyes at his own stupidity. “Oh yeah.”
“That’s right. I’m still project manager.”
Chapter 14
“Mr. Friedmann, sir?”
Tom looked up from Captain Donner’s small desk. The two of them were sharing the same tiny cabin. He worked in here while Donner was on the bridge and let the captain have his room back when he came off duty. He was halfway through compiling the data they’d gotten as a result of the fleet-wide second testing: names, ages, professions, qualifications. Among the rescued were seven doctors, a dentist, a wind turbine engineer, three garage mechanics, a train conductor, a food hygienist, five chefs, two IT experts, and a network specialist. Useful stuff.
A marine stood in the doorway. “That girl’s turned up again, sir.”
He cursed under his breath. Every day, for the last four days, since the sinking of the Sea Queen, she’d turned up at the bridge requesting to speak with him. At least he presumed it was the same one. The description was consistent: young, long dark hair, a limp, and a walking stick.
Tom vaguely recalled the girl had said something helpful several days back as they’d observed the cruise ship from afar while deciding what to do, but he was damned if he could remember what it was.
“OK.” He sat back in the chair and stretched. He could use a short break and get this girl out of his hair as well. “Go get the pest and bring her down.”
“Uh, she’s already right here, sir.”
“Huh?”
“Captain Donner already sent her down. Said he was fed up of seeing her face too.”
Tom nodded. The marine stepped to one side, allowing the girl to stand in the doorway. She braced herself against her walking stick and grabbed the doorframe as the ship rolled gently.
“Pest? How utterly charming,” said Freya.
Tom shrugged apologetically. “I didn’t realize you were standing right outside my door.” He gestured at the small cabin’s one other chair. “Come in. Sit down.”
She stepped in, reached for the chair’s back, and eased herself down. “My name’s Freya Harper.”
“Hello, Freya Harper,” said Tom. “This’ll have to be brief. What can I help you with?”
“I just need to check on something. Your last name’s Friedmann? Double n at the end?”
He nodded toward the door. “It’s on there. In genuine plastic lettering.”
She turned to look. “Oh yeah.” Then turned back. “Tom Friedmann?”
“Correct. That’s my name.”
She nodded. “Do you have a son called Leon?”
He felt his heart skip a beat.
“Also a daughter called Grace?”
“Yes. Yes…I do.” He was suddenly light-headed. Dizzy.
“I may be wrong, but I think I know them,” said Freya.
“My kids,” he whispered. Not exactly a question nor a statement. “My children?”
“Yes. I’ve been living with them. If it is the same two people, that is.”
Tom took a deep breath, put down the pen he’d been fiddling with, and clasped
his left hand with his right to stop them both from trembling. “OK, now look…Freya, isn’t it?”
She nodded.
It’s likely to be a hoax, Tom. She wants something.
Special treatment.
“Freya, so, I’m thinking you know my children’s names because I carelessly revealed them over the fleet’s channel. I’m well aware the entire fleet heard me talking with the Sea Queen—”
“That’s why I’m here. It’s probably a coincidence, but Leon said you had a job in the U.S. government or something, so—”
“Describe him.”
“Leon?”
Stay calm, Tom.
“Describe him or get out. I really haven’t got time for games.”
“He’s nineteen. He’s slim, slight I guess you’d say.” She smiled. “He looks a lot like you, actually. Um, let me see, dark hair…”
“Long or short?” He realized as soon as that was out it was a stupid question.
“Longish. Now. Although I think he’d prefer it shorter.”
It’s not enough. I’ve got dark hair. Of course he looks like me. Safe guess for her.
“What else?” he asked quickly.
Freya cocked her head. “He’s pretty pissed off with you.”
Tom could feel the trembling in his hands spread to his legs. “Why would that be?”
“Because he said you left him and Grace and his mom for someone else just before the outbreak.”
“Describe Grace.”
“She’s very small for her age. She’s fourteen now. Dark hair like Leon.” Freya grinned. “And quite—no, very precocious.”
It sounded like her. But he needed to be absolutely certain. “What side of her face is the birthmark?”
“What birthmark?” The girl looked confused at that. “Uh…I don’t remember seeing one of those. Is it—”