by Alex Scarrow
“We’re doing just fine as we are!” cut in Lawrence.
She shook her head sadly. “It will get much harder for you to survive. Your food will run out…”
“No, it won’t. We have an endless supply of fish, for God’s sake!”
“Not for very much longer.”
“Hang on! What do you mean by that?” asked Leon.
“The sea creatures will also be absorbed soon. We are learning ways to filter the salt from their chemistry. There is so much life in the sea for us to bring into our world.”
“We can go on foraging for supplies,” said Lawrence. “Indefinitely.”
“This is true. But those supplies will also run out one day.” Camille looked over to the restaurant, then at the window, at more faces peering through the scuffed glass. “Your population will die out.” She turned back to him. “Death is your enemy. Not me. Not us.”
“Not our enemy?” said Lawrence. “Your flippin’ virus wiped us out.”
“No. We have not ‘wiped out’ anything. We have preserved it.”
Lawrence shook his head, exasperated and out of his depth.
“Yes. Every form of life has been broken down, read, and stored. Kept safe. If you want to know who has done more wiping out of life on Earth, it is humans.”
Leon had heard enough of “They.” He wanted to know more about them than just that one mysterious word.
“Camille? Who are They?”
She turned to look at him. “Yes, that is a much more useful question to ask.” She paused for a moment. It looked like she was listening to an unheard voice, seeking advice. “They…like to be seen as facilitators, that is all. Helpers.”
“Yeah, but what are They?” pressed Leon. “What? Not why are They here. What are They?”
Camille shrugged. “Helpers. They have instructions that are stages that take Them to a final goal.”
“So, what’s that?” asked Leon. “What’s this ‘final goal’?”
“To achieve on a different scale what cannot be achieved now.”
“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”
“It is easier for me to show you than it is to explain it to you.”
Lawrence raised his hands. “Don’t do anything! Just stay right there!”
“I came here to invite one of your group to come with me.”
“Now listen here! No one’s going to go anywhere!”
Camille shook her head. “I will not force anyone. I am here only to ask for one of you to volunteer.”
“When you say ‘come with’ you,” said Jake, “what does that mean exactly? What’s going to happen to them?”
“They will be absorbed. They will have a chance to witness my world.” Camille smiled. “Then they will be allowed to return and explain what they’ve seen.”
“Great,” said Leon. “You’re going to infect them, let us take them back in, and then we’re all going to be sneakily infected!” He turned to Lawrence. “This is bullshit!”
“No. No infection. We do not wish to ‘sneak’ in.” She nodded at the window. “We do not need to trick you—we could sail across and land on this place quite easily. We could force you, overrun you, but we do not want to. We choose to ask you instead.”
Chapter 34
Tom Friedmann stared out through the dusty windshield. A pallid gray light was threatening to steal back into the night sky. He had no idea what time it was now. His watch was back on the bedside table in the small room he’d been assigned in the diplomatic apartment block.
He looked down at Freya, curled into a fetal position on the seat beside him. Her dark hair was splayed across her face. She appeared to be utterly exhausted and fast asleep.
He had been talking to this girl for several hours. But it hadn’t been Freya.
He’d been talking to Grace.
She’d been sitting right there, on that seat. His daughter. Not the Grace he last saw over three years ago, but a girl who was now a teenager. Her face had gradually grown out of Freya’s. Maybe in full daylight, the transition from one face to another might have been horrifically disturbing, but by the wan light of the moon, it had seemed like a magical transformation. The bridge of Freya’s nose had thickened slightly, her jaw had become more oval and pointed. The skin around her eyes had shifted almost imperceptibly, one moment Freya’s, the next, unmistakably, he was staring into Grace’s eyes. Freya’s hair, however, remained unchanged, as did her body. It had been an odd and unsettling experience for him to see his daughter’s face transplanted onto another person’s frame.
As she spoke to him, he knew it was Grace; her voice had the slightest trace of her New York accent, the hard corners of it knocked away by the short time she’d been living in London.
He sensed it could only be her—not a copy or an impersonation.
Dammit. It was her.
You look like crap, Dad.
That was the first thing she’d said.
She told him about how the outbreak had happened in the UK, in London. That after their last phone call got disconnected, things went south on their train up to Norwich. How Mom did her best to keep them both alive, finally having a breakdown and Leon stepping up to look after them both.
She told him about their months hiding out in a mothballed nuclear bunker from the Cold War, eating tin cans of food. Then eventually emerging into daylight, into a world transformed by the virus, stripped bare of everything that had once walked, flown, crawled, slithered.
She shared with him how Mom had died in the service station, ambushed by spiderlike creatures—Grace referred to them as “scouts.” How Jennifer had fought to ensure both her children escaped through a smashed window before being overrun by the creatures. Jennifer fought to save her kids. She didn’t get “preserved.” She was torn to pieces.
Tom listened to his daughter try to persuade him that she was one of the lucky ones, not like her mother. That infection was the way “They” preferred to invite their victims.
…They’ve learned the best way to preserve humans. The pathways that need to be taken, the particular order in which a body is disassembled and broken down to ensure the valuable parts of the mind—what makes us us—remain unharmed and perfectly encoded…
She explained that the scouts—the crablike creatures—were like dumb robots, simple, disconnected automatons. Constructed for scouting, foraging, and, if necessary, killing. Running, resisting, fighting the virus was going to draw them like tiny, voraciously hungry assassins.
Dad, you have to understand, the virus isn’t the enemy.
Death is our enemy.
She gave him a phrase that seemed to work well in summing it all up for him. There is an “afterlife,” you know? A heaven. But it’s not up in the sky—it’s deep down. It’s within us.
A biochemical afterlife.
The real tragedy, she said, was all of those who lived before the virus came to our planet. All the generations of people before them, come, gone, and then lost forever—their memories just fading photographs and footnotes. The people still alive now, right here on this island and far away in New Zealand…they faced the same fate—the terminal end of the natural life cycle. From the moment you’re born, you’re on a clock ticking down to death and decay, then gone…lost forever.
He’d asked her about Leon. She told him he’d been there at Southampton.
Dad, if Leon is still uninfected, and he dies…he’ll be gone. Gone forever. Like Mom.
Her eyes focused, her face set with a determination. Dad, now listen closely. This is really important… And then she told him why she was here, why she’d surrendered herself to the Chinese aircraft carrier.
That had all happened an hour ago. Then, Grace’s face had faded away and Freya had returned, slumped down in the passenger seat, exhausted by the process.
She stirr
ed now, swiped her hair back, and blinked sleepily.
“You OK?”
She nodded. “Feel sort of hungover.”
“I…I spoke with my daughter. I actually spoke with Grace.”
Freya smiled. “I know.”
“She said the virus is coming this way. It’s coming to us. It wants to meet with us.”
Freya didn’t seem to hear that. She certainly didn’t respond to it.
“Freya? Did you hear? It is coming this way!”
“I know. I know.” She flapped a hand to hush him. “Grace is telling me that right now.” She tilted her head like a cat listening for mouse squeaks beneath an old grandfather clock. She nodded to herself, then finally seemed to realize Tom was waiting.
“They’re afraid of the survivors here on this island,” she said. “Very afraid of them.”
“Afraid? Why?”
“Weapons. Bombs.”
“You’re talking about the nuclear warheads?”
She nodded. “They’re well aware of the technology humans still have at their disposal. That they can still use on them.” She paused again. She pulled herself up in the passenger seat and tilted her head once more. Listening. “Grace is telling me They’re undecided about how to deal with you. Some want to reason with you, to get you all to submit and join. Others don’t want to risk a mass death from the bombs—They want to strike hard and fast and wipe you out.”
“If the virus is coming our way,” cut in Tom, “what’ll it do when it gets here?”
Freya shook her head and looked at him. “That’s what she’s saying. They don’t know yet. They’re still trying to decide.”
He rubbed a hand along his jaw. Jesus Christ. Maybe I’m hallucinating all of this?
“You know, Leon and I made a pact back in England. A deal.”
He turned to look at her. “What deal?”
“We wouldn’t let ourselves die this way…you know? Become infected.” She closed her mouth, shook her head. “I’m beginning to understand how stupid that was. How wrong we were.” She turned to look at him, frowning at something, maybe at herself. “I’ve seen what it’s like. While you were talking to Grace…I saw…it.”
“Saw what?”
“The inside…I suppose.” She looked around at the worn and scuffed metal dashboard of the ex-Soviet military vehicle. Then held her hands up, staring at them as if they belonged to someone else. “Did you ever play computer games, Mr. Friedmann?”
“What? No. Maybe a little bit of Pac-Man as a kid.”
“You ever try one of those virtual reality helmet things?”
He shook his head absently.
“It’s weird, so weird,” she said, staring at her hands, flexing them. “Coming back out…that’s kind of what it feels like. Like I’m wearing stupid virtual reality goggles. The outside world”—she patted her hand along the dusty dashboard—“that’s the part that feels…fake. But inside? That’s what feels real.”
She shook her head. “Back in England, Leon and I both agreed we’d rather shoot ourselves than end up like everyone else. The thing is”—she looked at him—“they are guessing that’s how everyone on this island feels. And They know the survivors here have bombs…nuclear bombs. They’re scared for themselves, for us. They’re scared the survivors will do something stupid.”
“Which means we have some leverage. Something to negotiate with. Maybe if we let off another warning shot—”
She twisted in her seat, reached out, and grabbed his wrist firmly. “No! No! You mustn’t!”
“What?”
“You drop a bomb on them and They won’t have a choice! They’ll swarm you. Wipe you all out!”
“Freya, we’re not just going to simply lie down and let them crawl all over—”
Her grip tightened. He could feel her nails digging into his skin. “You have to convince Trent. You have to convince him to meet with them!”
“There’s no way! Even if I agreed with you.” He tried peeling her fingers off his wrist. “There’s no way I’d be able to convince him. Freya, let go of my arm!”
“You have to see.”
“What?”
“You have to! You’ve got to see what I’ve seen!”
By the pallid gray light of approaching dawn, he could see a glistening fervor in her eyes.
“Freya! You need to calm the hell down! I’m not going to…” He tried to jerk his arm back.
She shook her head. “Not until you understand. Not until you’ve seen what I’ve seen!”
He tried to shake her off. But her grasp was surprisingly strong.
Then he felt a sharp stab into the underside of his wrist. “What the—”
“Don’t struggle!” she hissed. “It’s OK…It’s OK!”
“—hell are you doing?” He managed to wrench his wrist free of her hand, and as he did, he saw something thin and glistening, like the needle of a syringe, pull out of his skin. The “needle” dangled from her palm, still pumping drops of a milky liquid onto the car seat.
“Shit! What…what have you done to me?”
“I’m sorry.” She held her hands up before her. “I’m sorry. But…They’re right. We need you. We need you to reason with Trent.”
He looked down at the pale underside of his wrist. The small puncture in his skin was already puckering and reddening.
“What the…! You…you just infected me?”
He could feel warmth traveling up his arm, and it reminded him of a childhood sensation: helping his mom with the dishes. A cold kitchen but hot, soapy water, his arms and hands blissfully warm while the rest of his scrawny body was enviously goose-bumping.
She’s killed you. The bitch just injected you. Shit. Shit.
A part of him that sounded like his younger self, like Technical Sergeant Friedmann, was screaming at him to get off his ass and do something quick. His eyes settled on the glimmering metal of the handgun sitting on the dash. He reached out for it quickly. The crosshatch of the grip felt reassuringly rough against his palm, the cold trigger even better against his index finger.
“No!” screamed Freya, reaching out to snatch it from him.
He placed the barrel against his temple. Hard. It hurt. It would leave a bruise there, if he was still alive tomorrow.
“DON’T DO IT!” she was screaming.
DO IT, asshole! screamed Sergeant Friedmann in his face. You wanna be slime? You wanna be a shitty crab? DO IT. DO IT!
That cozy warmth was spreading across his shoulder now, across his chest. He could feel his body losing a war. He had one good arm left and, at the end of it, a good, solid, reliable gun.
DO IT! NOW!
His finger tightened around the cold trigger. He could feel the hard edges of the grip pressing against his soft palm—the last sensations his functioning mind would register as he squeezed.
The trigger wasn’t moving. It was locked. His mind dimly recalled the safety was still on.
Shit. It wasn’t a Beretta. His fingers knew every contour of the standard-issue M9. It was Russian. Not a gun he could unlock by touch. He needed to look at the damned thing to find the safety.
Shit.
And that’s when he felt his resolve beginning to ebb, a marine’s honorable way out fast receding as an option, becoming a hazy notion, as the warmth of invasion spread down his arm.
“Don’t fight it,” whispered Freya.
He slumped back in his seat. He could feel that warmth descending down his chest into his upper torso. Whatever was inside him was making use of his vascular system to get where it wanted to go. Traveling quickly and intelligently. He could feel the heat inside traveling upward now, propelled by his pounding heart.
His face suddenly felt hot, then numb.
“It’s OK,” he heard Freya whisper. “It just wants to get to y
our brain as fast as it can.”
No shit.
He could feel his surroundings—the dusty dashboard, the smeared windshield, the threadbare driver’s seat, the dark silhouettes of trees outside, and the lightening predawn sky—all pulling away from him. Receding. Strangely, it felt like he was shrinking. In a few seconds’ time, he’d be the size of an action figure with a funny, squeaky voice to go with it.
His vision was clouding, dimming. Fading.
Freya was still talking to him, but he could only hear the muffled tones of her voice, just like ducking your head underwater in a bath. He could hear the thumping of his own heart, the roaring of his own veins like the hiss of distant traffic on a free-flowing highway.
It felt like a descent. Like a deep-water submarine sinking away from the shimmering light of the surface into the dark abyss below.
Chapter 35
Leon looked around at the others. Then at Lawrence and Jake. “This is nuts. No one’s going. No one’s actually giving this a thought, right?”
Camille shook her head. “We are not monsters. We are you. We were you. All we want is what is best. We just want someone to come and see.”
“No one’s doing it!” said Leon. “No one!”
“We want someone to come to us willingly. No one will be taken by force.”
“Lawrence! For Christ’s sake…tell her! No one is going! No one is—”
“I’ll do it,” said Jake. “I’ll go…”
Leon looked at him. “What?”
“I’ll go.”
“Don’t be a frickin idiot!” He turned to Lawrence. “Tell him! We’re not doing this. We’re not looking for volunteers!”
“What if she’s right?” said Jake. “What if everyone I knew…” His voice faltered. “What if Connor’s in there somewhere?”
“Not everyone,” said Camille. “There were some…far too many…who got lost in the process. But They did the best They could. They tried to save as many as possible.”
“This is complete bullshit,” said Leon. “They just want us to lower our guard.”