by Mark Ayre
“It’s a nice night,” said Liam. Sam sensed he just wanted something to say. He was looking at the sky because he was afraid to look at her. She was not used to being the more confident person in a couple.
“It is,” she agreed. “Thank you for walking me. You didn’t have to.”
“I wanted to.”
Benny hated odd jobs, legal or otherwise. He liked jobs that paid enough that he could put his feet up and do nothing for months or even years.
Liam was one such job.
“I want you to be safe and secure, the rest of your life,” he had told her. “Sometimes, we have to do things that make us uncomfortable to protect the ones we love. I need you to work with me on this.”
Benny had carefully planned the route. Sam did not take the fastest way home but instead led Liam through a housing estate. Most homes were dark, their lights off, their windows covered by curtains. Some were not. In one kitchen, Sam saw a skinny guy pour a glass of wine. Bowing her head, Sam moved quickly on, Liam speeding up to keep pace.
“I’ve struggled to raise you,” had said Benny. “Never having any money but always doing my best. You want me to be happy, don’t you? If you love me, you’ll do this.”
“It’s probably too early to say something,” said Liam. “I should wait until I drop you off, but I’m worried I’ll lose my nerve.”
“What’s up?” asked Sam.
Benny had pulled her close, had hugged her tight and whispered to her. “I need you not to let me down. If you let me down, you’ll break my heart.”
“I’d like to take you to dinner sometime. To go on a proper…” Liam struggled to finish the sentence, afraid of rejection. Forced it out. “Date.”
Sam stopped at the word. They had come to the end of a cul de sac. The only way forward was a narrow alley, high walls on either side. It wasn’t long, but shrouded in almost total darkness. Beyond was an empty pathway bordered by trees. There were nearby homes, but none with a clear view of the alley or tree-lined lane.
“Probably a stupid idea,” Liam was saying.
“I’d love to,” said Sam, and realised she meant it.
“Well, that’s great. I mean no pressure or anything, whenever you want to go. We can exchange numbers or something.”
“Sounds great,” she said and took out her phone. Unlocked it and created a new contact. “In here.”
Beaming like a kid at Christmas, he took the phone and inputted his digits. As he did, Sam looked over her shoulder. Was that something moving in the dark?
“Here it is,” Liam said, passing the phone on. He gestured to the alley. “Shall we?”
Before they had left, Benny had taken Sam’s hand, pulled her back.
“I know what you’re like, Sammy, sweetie. You got this big heart, and you’re going to feel guilty, going to worry. Just remember, when you feel guilty, what matters most. Just think, do you care more about some nobody, who ain’t never done nothing for you, or your brother, who’s been your parents and best friend for years. You think about that tonight.”
To Liam, she said, “I can make it the rest of the way on my own.”
“I don’t mind. I like walking with you.”
He reached out his hand to take hers, then pulled back, realising what he had done, embarrassed. Ashamed, Sam shook her head.
“I live just past the alley,” she said. “My brother’s probably waiting up for me. I don’t want him to see you.”
Liam considered, but she knew this would work. He was a nervous guy and would fear a confrontation with a big brother. Because he looked torn, she took his hand.
“I can’t wait to have dinner with you,” she said, knowing she never would, wishing that she could. “I’ll text you.”
He looked over her shoulder, into the blackness of the alley. Presumably, it didn’t feel very gentlemanly, leaving her alone with that to come.
Taking the decision out of his hands, she leaned forward, stood on tiptoes, and kissed him on the lips. One, two, three seconds. Then she pulled away and turned towards the alley, preparing to say goodbye and rush off before he could insist on escorting her to her front door.
As she took a step away, releasing Liam’s hand, her brother appeared from the darkness.
“Hello,” he called to Liam. “Are you my sister’s new squeeze?”
Benny smiled a hideous smile.
He continued, “I can’t wait to get to know you,” and, before Liam could register what was happening, Benny charged towards his target like a bull.
Fourteen
Anchored by despair, Mercury dragged herself into the clearing and dropped against a tree.
She didn’t close her eyes. The clearing’s twig strewn floor faded. In its place, the bodies. So many bodies. Her boyfriend, mother, and Liz, who had given her life to save the world. Also, the faces of those she didn’t know, including those she had this night slaughtered whilst in the grips of her rage. Her monstrosity. Staring into their blank eyes made her want to scream.
They were the enemy. They had wanted to kill her. That was Amira’s argument, and it never washed.
Amongst those sent by Heidi and killed by Mercury would have been cruel and power-hungry men. Upon meeting their future master, they would have given themselves readily to infection, seeking new ways to dominate the weak, to bring pain to the unfortunate. They would not have understood the full implications of the condition they were accepting—the obsession, the need to serve—but they were despicable humans. For them, Mercury’s sympathy was limited, though she did not believe this gave her the right to play executioner.
Then there were the others, type B in Heidi’s small army of recruits. Lonely men and, occasionally, woman. Good people who suffered from isolation and depression. Easy prey for Heidi. The moment this beautiful woman showed them kindness, affection, love, they were lost. They became willing murderers only because of their infection. Mercury had executed them for having an illness.
Feeling the pain morph into a pulsing anger the like of which she had felt in the flats, Mercury put her fists into the ground, clenching them until it hurt.
She could hear Heidi whispering, laughing. The demon would never leave her mind, never stop corrupting Mercury day after day. The infected weren’t the only ones with a maddening sickness.
Amira had sent Trey away. Mercury’s so-called best friend crossed the clearing and stopped near the tree. She wiped soil from her jeans and kicked it from her shoes.
“Worst thing about being on the run,” she said. “All this mucking around in the dirt. I’m a girl who likes simple comforts. A nice mattress, a warm duvet. My pyjamas. You know me.”
Mercury said nothing. Amira watched her a little while, trying to make eye contact, then examined her best friend: Mercury’s bruised skin, the way she winced when she moved. The pain of the battle with Betty seemed to grow second by second.
“Are you going to be okay?”
Mercury turned angry eyes to her friend. “Not for a thousand years.”
In her life, Mercury had, on numerous occasions, been described as emotionally unavailable; several times as cold; and once or twice as heartless. Compared to Amira, she often seemed like a robotic teddy bear designed in a lab with no other purpose than to love.
“You think I’m pathetic,” she said.
Amira shook her head, but it was in her eyes, written onto her face. She did not, could not, understand why Mercury hated to kill the infected. Before long, she would start talking about the Nazis.
“I don’t,” Amira said. “You find it difficult. I get that. Maybe you’re hurt by what I did but—“
“Maybe?” In her anger, Mercury rose. The anchor groaned at her side. “You know I am. You know how difficult I find this, how I struggle with what Heidi’s remnants mean for me. And what you did…”
She could not find the words. Amira tried.
“I was encouraging you to release the full force of your power. I was helping you see—“
&nbs
p; “You emotionally manipulated me into doing what you wanted,” said Mercury. Amira’s response had helped her find the words. “You used me as you would a gun. A cold, feelingless piece of steel designed only to help you commit murder.”
Amira had tried to hold at bay her disdain. But it was a bull. Mercury’s gun comparison was a red cape, and Amira could no longer hold back the charge. She rolled her eyes.
Turning away, so she would not punch her supposed friend, Mercury said, “Right, you don’t get it. You don’t understand compassion, or what it means to have a heart.”
As she spoke, she moved around the tree against which she had been sitting. Passing it, she started towards the car. Her anger handed her strength, her anchor of despair trailed in her wake as though made from tissue.
Amira allowed Mercury’s latest barb to sink in, then gave chase.
“I have a heart,” she said. “I could feel it when you came into that corridor, beating so hard I was afraid it might burst. At least then I’d have been dead, and you wouldn’t have been angry. Because whatever you might think, I love you.”
“If you loved me,” Mercury said, turning, pointing at her friend, “you’d never have done what you did.”
“Wrong,” said Amira. “For the sake of the world, I put my love to one side. Despite what it meant for you and me, I did what I had to do to get us out of that situation. Why? Because we can’t die. If we die, it’s the end. The world is finished if we can’t stop Heidi, and what good will my love be then?”
Mercury faced Amira. In the cool of the night, they stood six feet apart, straight-backed, panting a little from the argument.
Mercury shook her head.
“I came to save you,” she said. “I could have done it without killing. You made me murder them not because it was the only way, but because it was the fastest. It’s one thing putting feeling and humanity to one side to win a war. You did it for expediency.”
Amira considered this. After thirty seconds, she did no more than shrug and brush it away.
“I wish I could be sorry you killed those infected.”
“People, Amira. They were people.”
“The Nazis were people. They had families, friends, hobbies. They loved, they laughed. Sometimes you have to do horrible things for the greater good. Sometimes—“ she stopped, sighed. “We’ve covered this a thousand times.”
“Yes,” said Mercury. “We have.”
Turning, she continued through the woods. A minute later, she reached her car, went through her pockets for her keys. Amira arrived as she fished them out, and stopped beside a tree, a couple of metres away.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
Mercury unlocked the car, opened the door, looked to Amira.
“It’s not about the people I killed,” she said. “It’s about me.”
“You?” Amira raised an eyebrow. Mercury could feel it coming, the weight of everything she feared bursting towards the surface. Tears reached her eyes, and she fought to keep them in.
“Heidi’s gone but what she left behind is destroying me,” Mercury said. “I can feel it, every day, all the time. Poison, eroding what made me human, turning me into something else. A monster.”
“Come on. You—“
“No. Don’t. You don’t understand, and you can’t talk this away. I lie in bed every night, awake, praying for a way to save my humanity, but there’s not one. We saw it today. Your little trick showed me. Much as I love you, hearing about your death shouldn’t have made murder so easy. Like that—“ she snapped her fingers— “I changed. It was so easy to attack, to torment, to kill. It took a trigger this time, but that’s where I’m heading. That’s what I have to look forward to. Don’t shake your head.”
“But you’re wrong,” said Amira. “Killing those people doesn’t make you evil.”
“It’s another step on that path. I’ve been walking down it a while, and you know what? It’s getting steeper. Every day, steeper and steeper and I’m moving faster and faster, and at the bottom, by the time it levels out, there’ll be nothing of the old Mercury left.”
“Merc—“
“I’m going,” she said.
“Going where?”
“It’s time to end this.”
She dropped into the car. Amira left the tree, rushed to the door, grabbed it before Mercury could slam.
“An end to what? Please, Mercury—“
“I need to kill her before I want to join her.”
“You won’t ever—“
“Get off my car.”
“Mercury—“
“I said, get off.”
Lashing out, Mercury grabbed Amira’s hand and yanked it from the car. Before her friend could recover, she slammed the door and hit the locks. As Amira banged on the window, Mercury turned the key in the ignition.
“Don’t do this,” said Amira. “We’re not ready. I have my little black book. Mercury, we don’t need much longer.”
Mercury looked at her friend. Saw so clearly their lives together, the way things had been before Mercury took a stroll in the woods, before everything changed.
How happy they had been.
Amira and Mercury, those cold, closed down bitches. Both were crying now. Even Amira couldn’t put emotion aside.
“Please,” she said.
Mercury couldn’t talk. Could only put the car into reverse and back quickly away, through the opening in the trees towards the road.
In her head, the bodies of the dead lay still, but staring, watching her.
In her heart and soul, the decrepit hand of Heidi’s evil continued to crawl it’s way around, coating everything that was Mercury in its evil grime.
Before long, she would be a monster in a human’s body, just like any other possessed.
Before that could happen, she would destroy the creature who had created her, and who sought to destroy the world.
She would destroy Heidi—or die trying.
Fifteen
The late Harvey Michaels had been an ugly man with an ugly heart, in charge of an ugly empire. His wife had been beautiful, and the elder two of his three children had been handsome enough, but their hearts had been as ugly as his.
Almost every action Harvey had taken had been cruel, twisted, hideous. Despite this, despite the ugliness that had surrounded him his entire life, he had somehow created one of the most beautiful grounds and gardens in the country, if not the world.
Every morning, Heidi woke early, showered, dressed, and made her way through the house to her favourite set of french doors which, per her instructions, one of the house staff would already have unlocked. Heidi had only to take the handles and thrust the doors wide to escape the ugly home and enter the stunning grounds.
Harvey had not maintained the gardens. He had spent a considerable sum to make them happen and if one could believe the servants’ idle chatter, had worked with a team of high-salary architects to realise a vision of the garden that was very much his.
The astonishing and ongoing garden and grounds budget paid for a fleet of staff to maintain Michaels’ masterpiece, covering every role from bog-standard lawnmower to a specialist who tended to a single rare flower flown in from Peru. No matter the job, each employee had the uncanny ability to ensure they were never seen by a member of the household.
From the French doors, Heidi stepped across a semi-circular patio and made her way along a gravel path which cut between two beautifully manicured lawns. The garden was vast, and Heidi had no set route for her morning walks. She allowed her mood to carry her. The garden inspired too much peace to make plans.
Most people assumed Olivia Michaels, Harvey’s wife, had demanded the garden and had been involved with its architecture.
Having taken Olivia’s body, Heidi had not only inherited the late Harvey Michael’s money but his wife’s memories. Olivia had cared only for herself. She had had little time for her three children and had cared for the garden not at all. Some of the staff must have f
ound it peculiar that Olivia was suddenly taking such an interest. Perhaps they believed the loss of her husband and two of her children had changed her. Of course, none of them asked.
From the gravel path she made her way past a white marble water fountain and towards one of her favourite features—the hedge maze, today walking more slowly than usual, taking more time to savour every sight, every sound, every scent. There were unusual flowers everywhere you looked, and Heidi stopped and crouched beside many of them. This morning might be the last chance she had to observe the wonders of this garden, at least for a little while.
Today was the day.
Harvey and Olivia’s elder two children had been handsome on the outside, ugly within. Their youngest child, a son, had been rather plain. Not ugly, like his father, but a dim bulb compared to the spotlight that was his mother. Unlike his cruel family, he was kind, warm-hearted. Beautiful on the inside.
Though he, Trey, would never believe it, Heidi had taken a shine to him. It was for this reason she had never tried to infect him after he had brought her into this beautiful but diseased world. He was loyal, at first, though Heidi knew he acted out of fear, rather than because he wanted to help. She wished he had stuck around. She would have taken him into her confidence in the end.
Despite everything he had done, she regretted having to order his murder. About Amira, she couldn’t care less, but she was sad about Mercury, too. They had, after all, shared a body. Heidi knew Mercury better than she would ever know anyone, aside from Olivia. If only the girl could have come to Heidi’s side.
Given Heidi had murdered Mercury’s boyfriend and mother, this was always going to be a big ask.
At the edge of the maze, she paused. Flower beds had been laid on either side of the maze entrance. By one of these, she lowered. With delicate fingers, she touched a beautiful purple flower. Without leaning too close, she could smell its gorgeous scent.
Today was the day. Within hours, her master would rise. There would be murder, bloodshed. More than human life would be lost. Many beautiful places would be destroyed.