by Ian Woodhead
“What the hell?”
Lucy jumped up and ran over to him, wrapping her arms around his legs. “Mummy is one of those now,” she whispered. “I’m so scared, what are we going to do?”
He held her tight, trying not to think about the fact that her body was freezing cold. He lifted her up and placed the girl on the bed. “I need you to take these,” he said, digging out the foil strip. “You have to take them all at once.” Patrick passed her the glass of water which was sitting on her bedside table, then picked up another foil packet, lying next to where he’d picked up the glass. This strip had belonged to Veronica. Every pill had been pushed out of the strip.
“I took them all, Daddy,” she said, stuffing the ones that Patrick had given her into her mouth. “Make it stop!” Lucy stood up on the bed and threw herself at him, wrapping both her arms around his neck. “Daddy, I don’t want to end up like my mom.”
He returned her hug, gently squeezing Lucy’s slender waist. “Hush, don’t worry, everything is going to be okay. I promise.” He carried her into his bedroom, trying not to look at his wife’s side of the bed. Patrick glanced at Veronica’s bedside table, noticing her nearly completed romance book. A single tear ran down the side of his cheek. “Honey, Daddy has some spare tablets. We’ll get those and get you to a medi-center.”
She struggled in his arms. “No, please, not one of those kinds of people, Daddy. I don’t want to be a needle junkie.”
Patrick bent down and managed to open his cabinet door while still holding Lucy. He could hear his wife under them, moving about in the living room. She’d spend the next hour or so wandering around the room before finally stopping, becoming as motionless as the furniture around her.
“Am I going to be okay, Daddy?”
“Of course you are, Lucy.” He placed her on the bed. “Look, it really is nothing to worry about.” He did his best to give her a reassuring smile, wishing that he had someone to give him some hope. His smile faltered when he put her tiny hand in his. Her body temperature was starting to drop. Patrick turned and snatched his emergency packet. He popped out four tablets and pushed them into her mouth. “Swallow them, honey.”
Patrick picked her up and ran out of the bedroom.
“No Daddy, I don’t want to go to one of those horrid places.”
“Hush baby, they’re not like what the other kids say at school, I promise. They’ll make you better.” Patrick wished he could believe his own words. Right now, his daughter was the only thing that was keeping him alive. If he lost her, then he might as well have let Veronica end him.
He passed the living room door, trying not to think about his daughter’s flesh cooling. Patrick had no more tablets left. He pushed open the door, squinting at the bright sunlight. He looked over at the two kids and saw the older one now lying on the ground while his friend straddled him. The kid’s head was buried deep in the other boy’s stomach cavity.
Lucy’s grip suddenly relaxed. He turned his head and gazed in horror at a pair of lifeless eyes staring back at him. “Oh no,” he gasped. Patrick tried to pull the girl off his body but her grip had returned, stronger than ever.
She growled once then lunged forward, her small jaws fastening on Patrick’s windpipe. His scream died in his throat. Patrick’s last thought was of watching his mother leap on Patrick’s father during the first outbreak. He closed his eyes, feeling his strength leaving him. He hoped that he’d meet up with all of his family in a few moments.
Chapter Six
He pressed his forehead against the cold white tiles. Tony placed his hands beside his face. He had to find some way of calming down before his heart bounced through his ribcage. There was little chance of him finding any sort of tranquil state when his own body was cooling faster than a glass of water in a fucking icebox.
The sickness had awoken with vengeance. It coursed through his system, into each cell in his body. He was turning, Tony was going to join the ranks of the living dead and there was absolutely nothing he could do to stop it.
Tony rolled around and leaned back. “Stop it, for crying out loud, you baby. Get a grip on yourself.” He staggered over to the sink and gripped the edge while looking into the mirror. “Positive mental attitude, Tony. Come on, it’s what your wife keeps saying to you.” His eyes were a little bloodshot, but apart from the droplets of sweat on his forehead, he showed none of the classic symptoms. He leaned closer to the glass. “It’s all in your mind, Tony,” he whispered. “No, it fucking isn’t. The others standing in line showed no signs either. It didn’t stop the security forces from pulling them out.”
If he hadn’t been delayed, Tony knew that he would have been forced out of that queue at gunpoint, joining Kelly and Arnold in that truck. “And you even started to run because you thought you were going to be late for work,” he said to the terrified looking man in the mirror. Tony spat into the bowl. “No blood in your saliva. That has to be a good sign.”
He cast his mind back to when the entrance to Government House had just come into view. Noticing the long queue, Tony had slowed down to his normal walking pace. There was little point in overtiring his already worn down body. He’d done enough of that in the simulation, earlier.
A moment before Tony reached the end of the queue, the line began to move again. He’d never seen a queue outside his place of work before. From listening to his fellow colleagues standing at the end of the line, Tony wasn’t the only one who thought this was a bit odd.
His curiosity soon turned to fear when he saw five armed men pulling two employees out of the queue at the front of the line. Tony retained enough sense to notice that one of the soldiers carried a scanner. His gun was still slung other his shoulder.
A strange sense of calmness settled over him. It was as if he was watching the events unfold from the comfort of his armchair. Tony reached into his back pocket, pulled out the remaining tablets, and dry swallowed them. He had no intention of getting caught by another scanner today. Those soldiers wouldn’t wait for him to babble out an excuse. He’d be inside that truck along with the others before he could blink.
They dragged out two more workers that failed the scanner before driving away. As he watched the truck leave, he realized that the others in front of him cared more about saving their skins and the indignation of the soldiers treating them like commoners than the fate of their unfortunate workers.
Not one of them even gave a single comment about what would happen to the other employees. Tony kept his mouth shut. He knew where that truck was going, judging from its direction. At least he had a strong hunch.
Those poor bastards were about to be processed, killed, their corpses chemically changed back into human before final disposal. He hoped that he was wrong about that. None of them deserved ending up sharing the same fate as a needle-pushing scumbag. They were the ones who had helped to bring human society back from the brink of anarchy. Treating them like commoners or even worse, walking dead, was just despicable.
Tony’s feeling of detached reality left him as soon as he ran into the restroom. It had taken considerable effort to stop his stomach from ejecting its contents; what was inside him needed to stay there. After all, he’d just swallowed the last of his precious tablets.
His haggard reflection frowned. “So, what am I going to do now?” He hurried over to the door, opened it just enough to let the light in, and peered through the crack.
There was nobody about. All he could hear was the usual piped music coming through the tiny speakers attached to the walls. It was an oasis of calm out there, in stark contrast to the turmoil he was going through. Tony paused and decided not to leave his sanctuary just yet when he spotted movement. Six men, all dressed in the somber uniforms of building security, were escorting a young man in his mid-twenties along the hallway.
Tony stared at the figure inside that throng of dark blue-suited muscle, wondering if his eyes were actually working correctly. The man was dressed in what could only be described as outlandish.
He looked like a cross between a clown and harlequin. Tony had never seen anything like it in his life.
The sudden sound of rapid gunfire blasted through the corridor. Tony jumped and let go of the door. Jesus, that was inside the building; judging from the noise, it wasn’t that far away either. So much for the oasis of calm. He pulled open the door again and saw that the man in strange clothing had tried to take advantage of the confusion by swinging his fist into the nose of the black-haired man holding his other arm. The man clamped both hands over his nose, screaming muffled obscenities at the grinning clown, who then proceeded to try and shake himself free from the other two men still holding him.
Tony watched with interest as the man desperately fought with his captors in a futile attempt to escape. He wanted to join in; the man obviously needed help, but there wasn’t a chance that Tony would leave the safety of the restroom. Although he felt for the man, it was obvious that he must be going through the same changes as Tony. Why else would building security be treating him like that? Tony also knew that if he joined in, it wouldn’t take longer than a minute to end up lying on the rough blue carpet with at least one of those bastards sitting on his chest.
He sent a silent apology to the other man, watching security rectify the situation, restraining him securely before pushing him through a door on the other side of the corridor.
Tony’s heart leapt up into his throat when he noticed several white tablets lying on the carpet. He waited until he heard the sound of the other door locking before rushing out and scooping every one of them up.
“The gods must be smiling down on me today,” he whispered, looking at the tiny white tablets huddled together in the palm of his hand. They must have fallen out of the guy’s pocket.
They weren’t like the ones that were handed out to the workers like him and his wife, and they certainly weren’t the same as that crappy cast-off rubbish that was given to the masses.
“Fuck me, the gods really are being kind to me.” That guy must belong to the inner government, the shadowy elite that ruled their huge city. He picked one up and held it up to the light.
His gut feeling told him that he had found something very special. This had to be what the elite used to stave away the sickness, what else could it be? The idea that a member of the inner council would be walking around with a handful of headache tablets was just ludicrous.
Tony held it close to his eyes. He guessed that just one of these things would probably be as strong as a full foil strip of the stuff that they gave to the admin. After all, from what Ellen had told him, the elite did demand the highest quality of everything.
His newfound pessimism then peered out from under a rock and asked Tony why it hadn’t worked for Clown Man.
“Screw it,” he snarled, before stuffing the tablet into his mouth. Fuck the pessimism. He knew he was right about this. Hell, for all he knew, the clown man might have done something totally unrelated from the sickness. Tony paused, then stuffed in another three just to make sure.
He set off running down the hallway, eager to get away from the area. The thought of one of those security guards bursting through that door, glaring at Tony and demanding back the tablets, gave him a sudden burst of energy and enough motivation to get the hell out of there. There was no way, with the state he was in, that he’d be able to offer any resistance.
“Well they can’t have them,” he whispered, pushing the remaining tablets into his back pocket. “They are mine now.” As he ran, Tony realized that it no longer felt as though he had iced slush flowing through his veins. The tablets must be working; he’d bought himself a little more time.
“Oh, well that’s great,” he muttered. How long did he have left though? He stared at a battered metal table next to a vending machine that had never worked. It amazed him that only yesterday, he’d been trying to see if any sweets were still inside it. Until a few minutes ago, those kinds of wispy thoughts were the only ones drifting through his mind. Until a few minutes ago, his work time occupied the majority of his rather sad life. He could very well go there now. Tapping in an endless stream of meaningless numbers for the next eight hours sounded to him like a death sentence. It probably would be as well. For all his boasting to his wife, he was only a very small cog in a huge machine. He paused, for the first time wondering why the head of the department had chosen him to test out Joseph’s new device.
Maybe he should go back home and see if he could sleep his way out of this malaise. He was sure that Ellen had left a dozen foil strips in the kitchen drawer, beneath her collection of tea-towels, but he guessed that there was little chance of him getting out of here without running into more people armed with scanners. Even if he did get out and survived the journey back home, what were the chances of him getting through the checkpoint?
Besides, he wanted to be fixed. Taking tablets was just delaying the inevitable. It was like sticking a plaster over a hole on a burst water pipe. He might be a very small cog in a huge machine, but there might come a day when his input could help find a permanent cure to this vile disease. He couldn’t afford to go home.
Distant screams reached his ears, followed by the sound of more gunfire. The commotion came from behind him. He guessed that the main entrance would be the likeliest location. That meant there was no chance in trying to leave just yet.
He didn’t have a clue where to turn, or who could help him. Tony felt like a rat in a maze. He’d just keep going round and round these empty fucking corridors until the tablets lost their potency. After that? He skidded to halt. After that, it wouldn’t matter anymore. He’d be dead, simple as that.
The floor looked so comforting. Perhaps he should just sit down and lean his back against the wall, and maybe close his eyes for a couple of seconds. He stared at the government issue brown wallpaper, following the parallel patterned lines up towards a black metal sign bolted to the wall next to a set of double doors. It displayed every department in the east wing; Tony must have passed it hundreds of times and not once had he bothered to read it.
The name of one department, right at the bottom, stuck out from the rest. He found that the tiny candle of hope had just been re-lit. “Research and Development – Ground Floor,” he said. He’d never been down that far, not that it mattered. Tony knew of one person who did work down there. The guy who’d given him the VR machine to try out.
“Why didn’t I think of him before? Yeah, Joseph will be able to help me out. Oh yeah, I think my problem has …”
Tony’s words dried up. He stepped back and crashed into the other corridor wall. He managed to reach into his pocket, pull out the tablets, and push them into his mouth before hitting the floor.
Tony swept his hand out in a low arc, grunting with confusion when his probing fingers found nothing but dry rubble. His eyes snapped open and he looked up at the broken roof, seeing a dozen stars through the rafters which stuck out of the top of the wall like skeletal fingers. What the fuck just happened? Where was he and where was his shotgun?
He calmed his breathing, then got to his feet. “Wait a minute, Tony. What fucking shotgun?” None of this made any sense. He fell back against the wall and muffled a scream when he felt alien thoughts urgently trying to press through a thin barrier located at the back of his mind. “Go away,” he snarled. “Get out of my fucking head!” It was no good, those other thoughts rushed into his mind, pushing out everything that was familiar.
What the fuck had he done with his shotgun? No matter how hard he looked, the weapon was nowhere to be seen. He knew that he’d left the campsite with it. Coming back into the city was stupid enough, but to come here unarmed was just suicidal. It wasn’t just the few dead things that he needed to watch out for. If the security forces caught him outside during curfew, the bastards would take great pleasure in torturing him. Those bastard off-worlders honestly believed that they were all fucking sub-human.
“Did I really leave the site without my gun?” he whispered. He must have done so. It troubled hi
m that he couldn’t remember. The only thing he could recollect was some weird dream about him watching some clown fighting with a group of men and then pushing a load of pills into his mouth.
“I think I need to lay off the homemade beer before setting out,” murmured Tony. So, he had no weapon and his memory had deserted him. Ever the practical man, Tony pushed these worries away. There was no point in worrying over stuff he had no control over. At least there was no sign of dead monsters, so it gave him time to look for a suitable alternate weapon. As for his recent memory lapse, well, he was sure it would come back to him eventually.
Perhaps he’d banged his head? That did make some sense, considering he’d just picked himself up from the ground. Tony’s objectives hadn’t changed, no matter what the condition of his memory. He must be back in one of the forbidden places solely to look for weapons. There would be no other reason to risk death by coming into this blighted place.
Tony climbed onto the rubble, jumped up and managed to catch a low beam with his fingers. With more luck than skill, Tony eased his body up until his head was clear of the top of the structure. The ruined city’s panorama stretched out in front of him.
Beyond the forgotten buildings, Tony could make out the vast sway of green, yellow, and white fields which stretched all the way to the horizon. Each one was packed with enough food to feed a city for months. Tony growled to himself. None of this precious stuff would go to feed any of his people. This harvest would disappear through the gate, into the hateful city of those evil, fucking invaders who had arrived here five years ago, bringing the plague with them. The ones who didn’t turn into shambling corpses, eager for human flesh, were enslaved.
He dropped back to the ground, just in case their ‘master’ was watching, He didn’t want them to find him in here. Wherever ‘here’ was.
“Oh, that’s helpful,” he grinned, looking up at a metal sign just above his head. Tony brushed away the years of accumulated dirt, tracing his fingers over the embedded letters in the metal. Judging by the departments’ names, he figured that this building had been either a military complex or probably some sort of administration building belonging to a chemical factory. Why else would it have a research and development section?