Opening my mouth to say something reassuring, I found that the words wouldn’t come out. I tugged his shirt down over his naked chest. “Come on, let’s see what Chris has to say.” It was the best I could do.
We left Daniel and Dean sleeping, not wanting them to share this new fear, needing for the moment to keep it to only us, the remainder of our original group and Chris, who from our arrival had almost been an honorary member. In only his underpants, John sat on the examination bed, the one in which not so long ago Dave had taken his own life, and swung his legs while Chris checked him over.
“It seems they’re limited to his chest at the moment. Pretty much only in the upper abdomen and the sternum area. There’s nothing on his legs or arms.”
“Yes, but what the fuck is it?” The agitation was obvious in John’s voice now, and I couldn’t blame him for it. I guess by sharing it with us, he had to accept it was really happening, and that couldn’t be a good feeling. Chris turned away, leaning against the counter behind him and sighed.
“You think I’ve got one of those fuckers growing inside me, don’t you? Oh, Jesus. Shit.” John stared down at himself in horror, and I could almost see the cold sweat breaking out on him in small drops.
George handed the young man a fresh cigarette and lit it for him. “We don’t know what’s happening, John, and that’s the truth of it. It was you that said that all this was only just the beginning. It may be nothing. We’re just going to have to wait and see.” George’s naturally gravelly, calm voice wasn’t working for John and it wasn’t working for me. What the fuck were we going to have to deal with now? Wasn’t there enough shit going off out there? And now I had Rebecca and the baby to think of. After what happened with Chloe, I knew I would rather die than let anything bad happen to them, and that wasn’t me being selfless but quite the opposite. I knew I couldn’t survive that kind of loss twice. It would be better to give up and die.
“I think it was only a matter of time before this happened.” Chris turned round and for the first time since I’d known him, I saw no hint of excitement in his face at the thought of a new scientific discovery, however gruesome.
“Before what fucking happened?” I don’t think any of us wanted the answer to John’s questions, but we all needed it. I sat on the examination bed next to John and between us we created a cloud of cancerous cigarette smoke. It seemed like as good a way as any to hear some bad news.
“Well, it’s been bothering me for a while, but I haven’t wanted to mention it. All these widows are everywhere and they all evolved from women, yes?”
I nodded, wondering what he was driving at. “And?”
“Logic would therefore dictate that they’re female spiders. It may be guesswork, but it would make sense. We certainly think of them as female.”
“I’m not following.”
His own eyes were looking afraid, and I didn’t like that at all. “Well, if they’re all female, how the hell are they going to breed?”
The words hung in the air in front of us all, so thick with meaning we could almost see them. The cigarette smoke burned my nose and eyes, but I didn’t care, the weight of what he was saying blocking out everything else.
“So are you saying we’re all going to turn into the widows? After all of this?” My own heart was suddenly racing. Not after everything we’d been through. Surely not. Not after all of this.
“Oh, fucking shit, you are saying I’ve got one of those inside me.” John’s breath was coming in fast pants.
“No, no, no.” Chris steadied him, lifting the boy’s chin so he could meet his gaze. “What I’m saying is that we don’t know. Something is growing inside you, yes, but maybe you’ll just shit it out. Maybe what they need to reproduce isn’t in the same form as them. Maybe it’s something completely different.”
John’s hand was shaking so much he could barely get his cigarette to his lips. “Oh, fuck. Oh, holy fuck.”
“And as for your comment,” Chris turned his attention to me, “no, maybe it won’t happen to all of us. I doubt it will. If I had to put a bet on it, I’d say it would depend on your hormonal levels. That’s how all this started, wasn’t that our conclusion? All the people like me messing around with the hormones and genes in things?”
George handed John his T-shirt, helping him pull it over his head, hiding the cause of his, and our, terror.
“But what about John? What can we do for him?”
Chris’s scientist’s curiosity wasn’t entirely dead. “Well, it might be best if we just wait and see what develops so we know what we’re dealing with.”
“Fuck off!” John was off the table and reaching for the twitchy doctor to wring his neck, George and I holding him back.
“But obviously, we won’t be doing that.” Chris had stepped as far back as the counter behind him would allow.
“No, we won’t.” I glared at him. For a moment it was almost like having Nigel back. It was disregard for human life that had got us all into this mess, and I was fucked if I was going to let us use John as an experiment, however wise it may have been.
“There is one thing we could try to kill whatever it is.”
“What?” The anger was gone from John now, replaced with awful hope.
“Rebecca’s blood.” Whitehead looked at each of us. “He could drink some of Rebecca’s blood. That might do it.”
“Whatever we do, can we do it quickly?” John stood up from the table, his eyes cast downwards at the material of his T-shirt. “I think I can feel the lumps moving.”
We took a precious pint of Rebecca’s blood and that was all. Back in the old world there was no way she would have been allowed to donate it, but we were both banking on her being hardier than that, and that it wouldn’t affect the baby. It was her that was adamant about giving it, anyway. She said she couldn’t live with herself if anything happened to John and it turned out she could have prevented it.
I pushed to take the blood from Chester, but Chris thought that human blood would be better. It would mix with John’s system better. Not that he really knew what he was talking about any better than the rest of us. He was in unknown territory, as were we all.
It was still warm when we handed him the beaker, Rebecca laying and recovering on the table, George fetching her a strong cup of sweet tea, just like they would have done in the old world that existed only in our dreams, and John stared down at the thick liquid for a moment before raising it to his lips. He grinned and his teeth shone like a death mask, only gallows humour there. “Cheers!”
I watched as he drank from it greedily, some of the thick liquid dribbling down his chin until all that was left was a coating of red on the inside of the beaker, and the pungent sweet smell lingering in the air. Jesus. He’d swallowed it all as if it had been the clearest, coolest water taken straight from a spring and he was a wanderer lost in the desert.
Putting down the empty vessel, he reached for another cigarette and lit it. His eyes shook and he’d paled, but those were the only signs that he’d found anything disgusting in drinking hot human blood. I’d expected him to gag, to instinctively throw some of it back up, but he didn’t even belch. How much would we accept in an effort to save ourselves? For the first time since the incident with Nigel, I worried for Rebecca’s safety. If this worked, then her blood would become a precious commodity, even more valuable than it was now as a weapon against the widows. And what if it looked like it wasn’t going to work—what would happen then? Would some crazy bastard try to cook and eat her or something equally crazy? Nothing seemed too far-fetched at that moment.
John sucked in a good lungful of smoke. “So, what now?” When he pulled the cigarette away from his mouth the tip was coated with red, as if there were lipstick on it, and as he spoke I could see the blood clinging to some of his teeth. My stomach churned slightly.
Chris was checking that Rebecca’s dressing and plaster were holding up. He turned and shrugged. “We wait.”
And so we waited ther
e, watching the minutes ticking away on the white face of the clock, conversation dwindling down to nothing, in the main just trying to avoid each other’s eyes, lost in our own worlds. We’d thought that the dangers we had to face in the new world would come only from the women. Now only God knew what our bodies might or might not be planning against us. My skin itched slightly, phantom bugs crawling on me.
Every half hour or so, we checked to see how he was doing, and for the first couple of hours he seemed sure that he felt a bit better and that the lumps were going down, but as far as I could see, that wasn’t the case. And how could he be feeling better? He hadn’t been feeling ill in the first place. Still, after seeing what Rebecca’s blood could do to that widow outside, I could only hope that if it did get rid of whatever was inside him that it didn’t kill him, too.
“I think we should go to the dorm and try and get some sleep.” George stood up from where he’d been sitting in a hard upright chair in the corner, his old limbs almost visibly creaking as he stretched. “There’s no change, and we could sit up all night, and all that will happen is that we’ll be dog tired in the morning.”
“I agree.” Rebecca had gone to bed straight after giving blood, and I was eager to join her and take comfort in her warmth and our unborn child. There was no way we were going to get any real rest in the clinical confines of the medical room.
“I don’t think there’s any way I’m going to be able to fucking sleep.” Despite his adamant insistence, John looked tired. His eyes had lost that wide manic expression and were now just bloodshot and drooping.
“Yes you will, mate.” I took his arm and pulled him down off the trolley-style bed. “That blood’s going to take some time to get into your system and get to work on those lumps. You might as well sleep while it does.”
He stared down, but didn’t lift his T-shirt. “You really think it’s going to work?”
“Yeah, I think so. It worked on those ones outside. Think positive.” I smiled at him, and he returned it tentatively.
“Maybe I am going to be fucking all right after all.”
“That’s the spirit.”
My own legs feeling tight from the tension and uncomfortable surroundings, I was pleased to step outside into the humid air.
“At least it’s not raining.” Chris followed behind, locking up the room, probably out of habit rather than any need for security. I wondered if he’d really ever got a grip on what was happening in the world around us, if he’d really accepted how everything had changed. Sometimes I forgot he had been safe in the compound all the way through the times when everything was going crazy. Maybe that’s why he kept up his routines of keys and locks and safety. Or maybe that was just part of who he was.
It had been a long time since we’d had a dry night and as we trotted silently up the stairs and into the dorm, I wondered if it had any significance. Was it a sign of things settling down? Was it a sign that the beginning at least was over? Watching John lay down on his bed, keeping his T-shirt on despite the heat, I pushed the thought out of my head. There was too much to worry about without trying to find significance in everything that seemed a little out of the ordinary. Whatever ordinary was these days.
“Good night, mate. Sleep well.”
He grunted a response and I nodded at Chris and George through the gloom, their white skin brighter than their faces as they stripped, ready to try and sleep in the heat we’d slowly got accustomed to.
Creeping into the small single room I pulled off my own clothes and slipped under the sheet next to Rebecca. She smelled sweet and her olive skin was cool despite the warmth. Wrapping my arm around her curled-up body, I held her close and smiled to feel her responding, half-asleep, pulling my arm closer to her, resting my hand under her cheek. It was good, that’s the only word I can think of to describe the feeling I had there next to her, and despite what was happening or not happening to John next door and how it could affect me, I had a smile on my face as I drifted into sleep.
“Matt! Matt!”
George was shouting my name and shaking me so hard that Rebecca was awake before I was, bleary and dazed. Pushing his hands away a little I sat up.
“What’s the matter?” The light was on, but outside the small window the world was dark. “What the fuck is the matter?”
“Something’s happening to John. It’s not good.”
“Oh shit.” Grabbing my trousers I pulled them on, throwing a top over my shoulder for Rebecca, not that from the panicked look on the old man’s face anyone was too concerned about seeing a naked woman.
Still doing up my trousers, I followed him back into the dorm to John’s bed. Everyone was awake now, staring with dread, Daniel sitting on the opposite bed, Chris and Dean hunched over the boy. All I could see at first were his feet hanging over the edge, shaking, hands drumming fast into the mattress beneath him, the toes stretched taut. Dean stepped back to let George and I through, his own face a mask of terror. John’s eyes were wide with shock, staring up at the ceiling as his whole body convulsed angrily on the bed. Like his toes, his fingers were stretched tight, as if every sinew in his thin young body was straining to escape and his torso shook and shivered aggressively.
“John? John? Can you hear me?”
There was no response except a small trickle of drool escaping from the side of his open mouth.
“What is happening, Chris? What’s happening to him?”
He stared at me. “How the hell am I supposed to know?”
Reaching forward, I grabbed the top of the grey T-shirt, which was now black with sweat, and ripped it down the middle, exposing John’s chest.
“Oh, shit. Oh fucking shit.” Involuntarily I stepped backwards, banging my calf into the bed behind me. John’s chest was alive with movement, the bumps rippling under his skin, jerkily breaking free from wherever they had attached themselves inside and making their way upwards. One protrusion pushed up over his sternum and into his neck, stretching his Adam’s apple, forcing his breath out in chokes and coughs as it wormed its way up into his throat. Whatever it was, I expected to see it emerge through his open mouth, but there was nothing. It seemed to have just disappeared.
“Where the fuck did it go?”
“Wherever the others are going.” George’s voice was shaking with his own terror as we stared at the disappearing lumps following that first into his neck. Once the final one had vanished, John’s convulsions stopped instantly, leaving him panting for breath. He blinked for a moment, and then his eyes moved round the room, focussed again. None of us able to speak, we watched as he pulled himself up into a sitting position, his fingers running down his normal torso. He grinned.
“They’re gone.” Looking round at us in amazement, he laughed slightly. “They’re fucking gone!”
My heart hammered in my chest. Yes, they were gone, but where? Had they just dissolved?
“What did you feel when you were convulsing?” Chris didn’t look too convinced. “Could you feel them moving?”
“Convulsing?” Reaching for his cigarettes, John paused, his smile wavering a little with confusion. “I wasn’t convulsing. I was asleep. You guys just woke me up.”
“No, you were . . .”
“Nggnnnnnnn . . .”
Chris was cut off by the keening noise that suddenly came from John, his hand dropping his unlit cigarette and flying to his head. Wincing, his mouth opened wider, almost reluctantly, as if being forced apart, letting the sound build into a shaking scream, his eyes meeting each of our horrified gazes with too vivid a consciousness before he pushed past me and ran to the door, escaping into the night.
Following him, the scream becoming less human with each second, but oh so full of agony, we stepped back into the humid air, George holding us back on the stairs, not letting anyone run down to where John had fallen on his hands and knees, his fingers clawing into the earth, digging deep furrows in the grass as he raised his head to look at us, still letting out that awful shriek.
&n
bsp; The skin on his face was bleeding, and I couldn’t see where from, thinking he must have cut himself when he fell, but then I realised that his whole face was bleeding, bleeding through the pores, some dripping down from his hair. Grabbing Rebecca, I pushed her face into my chest, forcing her to stop looking, and smothering her own sobs into me.
He was shaking again now, his head distorting, and as the scream rose to almost a whistle the flesh of his cheeks and throat finally gave way, hard shiny black legs forcing their way through, ripping at him, tearing the life from him, aggressively bursting into the world.
Have you seen any black widows at your end? Smaller than the normal ones?
Oh God. That’s what the man in London had asked. He’d heard a broadcast about black widows. That was what was coming out of John. It had to be. Rebecca’s blood hadn’t killed it. From here it just looked like we’d royally pissed it off.
With John still screeching, but thankfully losing any real grip on life, the body of the thing pushed it’s way out through his extended mouth, all hard shiny shell, more like a beetle in a spider shape, its squat legs hairy and thicker than those of its giant mate, only two red angry pinprick eyes rather than a whole bank. Finally free, it twisted swiftly round and with a sharp hiss reached into the destroyed head and bit the tongue out, the two large mandibles sucking it in, chewing on it as it leapt away and disappeared across the grass into the dark half of the compound, where it could hide in the comfort of the night.
The silence was broken by the sound of Chris throwing up over the barrier, but no one moved. I could feel Rebecca’s breath coming hard on my chest, creating a damp space there, but I still gripped her tight, not yet ready or able to let go. Oh fuck. Oh, holy fuck. Was that going to happen to me?
We must have stood there for at least ten minutes, too shocked to move, the only sounds being Chris’s small moans as he finished being sick; then Dean spoke from the doorway, his tone monotonous with disbelief.
“I’ve got a lump on my chest. Oh God, I’ve got a lump on my chest.”
Breeding Ground Page 27