Sleep had been impossible as he’d paced backwards and forwards across the living room through the endless hours of night. Who could sleep with that noise outside; the screams, the thrashing, the interminable sirens? Who could sleep with blood on their hands? Sandra’s voice nags in his mind. ‘Stop doing that! You’ll leave tracks’. Sandra! He glances to their bedroom door with a cringe. She was in there - his Sandra, what had been his Sandra - the woman he’d loved for more than thirty years, and bought adjoining burial plots with for their time in eternity, the woman who had gone for him with a carving knife, leaving great gashes in his flesh, and the woman he had eventually killed after more than an hour of trying to fend off her vicious attacks. In the end, her death had been an accident, the knife she was so desperately trying to stab into his face had become lodged through her sternum as his legs had finally given way and they had fallen together to the floor, she trapped beneath his greater weight. He’d watched her eyes as the life had seeped away, waiting for a moment of recognition, waiting for his Sandra to return, but only the seething monster remained.
He glances towards the door again, catches sight of shoeless feet and blood-spattered white sports socks. If her toe twitches, he knows he’ll die on the spot, just keel over in a great lump and die. He strides across the room, pulls the door to, and breathes a sigh of relief; seeing her lying there is more than he can stand.
Memories of the horror haunt him. Her efforts to end his life had been relentless, the power in her body immense, and he’d thought she’d kill him, actually drive the knife through his eye, or into his chest, on more than one occasion. After the knife had plunged into her heart, she’d still bucked and kicked, clawing and slapping at him, until finally she’d quieted and grown still. The black of her lips had remained, and when he’d checked to see if her pupils were dilated, a dull red had stared blindly back. He shudders at the memory, the room suddenly cold. He’d laid her out on the floor and dialled for the police. The phone had cut off. He tried again, and again, and each time the phone would just click to dead. Eventually, he’d laid her on the bed, past caring about getting into trouble for tampering with ‘evidence’, it was the respectful thing to do.
Pulling on the red cable knit tank-top Sandra had knitted for him as she’d watched her dramas on the telly, the needles only stopping their clacking at particularly intense moments, he walks back to the window and reaches for his pen and note pad, then stands next to the curtain. He reads through the notes jotted on the pad, then waits. Within twenty minutes, a small group of about five ‘monsters’ returns. He makes notes on the pad in his delicate cursive,
5:33 am.
A group of five infected return, entering the vicinity from Grover Street.
Three males: Ben Bradley, Colin Greaves, Knobby Renshaw
Two females: Kirsty Slight, unknown teenager
Notes: each is dragging a body. All victims presumed dead. The infected appear dishevelled, lips black, skin sallow tending to brownish-yellow. ? liver failure. All five disappear between Crosby and Pelham.
6:03 am
A group of three males and one female leave from between Crosby and Pelham.
Three males: Sadiq Khalifa, Brian O’Connell, Ali (unsure of surname – works at B & M Autos on Falkland Way)
One female: Betty (from the corner shop on Barley Street)
Notes: a track is obvious in the grass – the route to their ?‘lair’. Subjects seem to range in age from sixteen (see previous entry) to over sixty (Sadiq Khalifa was sixty-seven last week). ?Drug airborne. The group leave the vicinity, turning right onto Grover Street.
Mick thinks back to Lewis Sprocklesby, the drug pusher from Langland Tower as the group disappear. This catastrophe had to be something to do with him—perhaps a meth lab, isn’t that what they called them? Sandra would have known – some drug the idiot was tinkering with. The meteor must have wrecked his lab and the drugs, chemicals, or whatever it was he’d concocted, had sprayed particles into the air on impact. Now they were all suffering. Sandra was dead and it was all Sprocklesby’s fault. As he continues to observe the street, another group of drugged-up neighbours returns. He makes his notes and waits. As the minutes extend into hours, a pattern of ebb and flow emerges, and he realises that there are gaps of time where they are all are gone, a gap where he could perhaps discover exactly where they take the bodies to. He shudders, but strides to the walk-in cupboard where he keeps his tools.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Ellie wakes as sun streams in through the windscreen. Her eyes flick open and she sits with a start. The child, Mimi, lies on the stretcher, white sheet tucked around her shoulders, mouth open, breath coming light and steady as she sleeps. Pushing herself onto all fours, making as little noise as possible, Ellie twists to stand and peer from between the gap. She has an intense need to urinate. Scouring the street for movement, staring at the scene, she has woken to a nightmare.
She’d spent hours trying to leave the city, fuel gauge dropping, only to find that every exit was blocked. When the ambulance had finally run out of petrol, she’d coasted to the side of the road, parking the van in a gravelly driveway cut off by large metal gates. Blue lights flashed, obscuring her vision, and the ambulance had felt even more like a cocoon. The flashing lights were a safe haven, and she’d managed to glide the ambulance to sit among the emergency vehicles, the perfect camouflage. With burning eyes, she’d peered through the lights, hopeful of finding help, but there were no crew members to be seen, no paramedics, policemen, or firefighters.
The back of the ambulance had been more comfortable than she’d expected. Mimi had slept on the raised stretcher, warm beneath a sheet and blue waffle blanket, she even had a pillow. Ellie had made a makeshift bed of sheets and blankets on the rubber-laid floor, taken a sedative found among the medical supplies, and fallen into the oblivion of sleep.
Now, as she stares out through the windscreen, the scene is one of devastation. Two ambulances, three police cars, and a fire engine are parked, lights still flashing, at a distance from four imposing tower blocks. One block has a corner missing, the other several floors. Concrete slabs, breeze blocks, and twisted window frames have been dumped across a wide expanse of lawn and street, along with the apartments’ innards: smouldering settees, dented refrigerators, doors no longer attached, splintered divans, smashed flat-screen TVs, one standing upright with an armchair perfectly placed, a hand from the body at its side resting on its leather arm as though making a claim, a surreal image to add to the already bizarre scene. At the base of one of the towers is a crater, a single body lies on its belly, legs on the grass, torso and head pointing downwards, elbows pointed to the sky, as though clambering into a hole, his body oddly animated but frozen in time.
Movement catches her eye. A large man with a heavy frame, and bulbous torso covered by a bright red tank top, steps out into the sunlight. The door behind him swings shut. In his hand is a chainsaw. He scans the area, then moves with a quick run despite his girth, to the corner of the building before disappearing into the gap between two towers. She waits until sure he’s gone, then slips into the front of the ambulance. The need to urinate is intense. Opening the passenger door, she squats between the high metal fence and the ambulance, jeans around her ankles, alert for any movement or sound, and relieves her bladder, heart pounding. The pain recedes and she quickly returns to the cab, locking the door with a thump of her fist.
Stomach growling as she cleans her hands on a baby wipe, she reaches for a packet of sandwiches in the footwell; there’s enough food for the day and hopefully, by its end, she will have returned Mimi to her father and not have to worry about feeding the child. As she bites into a cheese and ham salad sandwich, a dollop of mayonnaise at the corner of her mouth, a child appears close to the crater. He seems to peer at the body lain there, looks quickly left and right, then freezes. Ellie watches him closely, chewing slowly on her mouthful of bread and ham. The child remains still, a statue in the sunlight. Ellie reaches a
cross to the window, begins to wind the pane down, then recoils as a figure blocks her view, walking only feet away from the ambulance. The man’s skin is sallow, his hair lank and greasy. With sagging jowls and baggy clothes, he has the look of an obese man slimmed down and living in ill-fitting skin. Another figure passes the window, and then another, all with the same sallow skin and dishevelled appearance, their clothes ripped and bloodstained. Half-chewed sandwich a bolus in her mouth, Ellie stares as they pass. Each drags a body. The boy remains absolutely still, in full view of the grotesque horde. Run! Get away! Incredibly, although the three people pass the boy, they don’t notice him, and, as they disappear between the buildings along the same path that the man in the red jumper had taken, the boy begins to walk.
Ellie scrutinises his face; no black lips, no hint of red in his eyes. She rolls down the window, checking for any other ambling, blood-covered figures, and calls to him.
“Hey!” Her voice is little more than a whisper. He stares across to the ambulance, spots her beckoning arm, then turns and runs back inside the tower block. Ellie leans back in her seat unsure why she had called him; the last thing she needs is another kid to look after.
Mimi yawns and shifts on the stretcher. “Fitz!”
Clambering into the back, Ellie grabs a torch and shines it against the wall, enough to illuminate Mimi’s face in the unlit space. She checks her lips and then her eyes, both are clear. Air rushes from her lips as she exhales, unable to restrain her relief, convinced now that whatever is attacking people, turning them into crazed and murderous lunatics, is some form of virus or bacteria, perhaps something that came with the meteors, something from outer space that humans have no protection from. That’s what happens when new groups come into contact. Look what happened to the indigenous tribes of the Americas once the Spanish arrived – the Incas, the Mayans – all but wiped out by disease they had no resistance to. This could be the same.
“You hungry?”
“I need to pee.”
Ellie gives an anxious glance to the windscreen and the road beyond; going out to relieve herself had been one thing, allowing the child to go out wasn’t a risk she is prepared to take. “I’ll find something for you to pee in.” She turns to the cupboards built into the vehicle’s sides.
“What? Pee in here?”
“Yes. It’s too dangerous out there. I didn’t realise it when we parked up, but this is where the meteors hit, and there are groups of them out there.”
“Them? The angry people?”
“I think they’re sick, Mimi. Perhaps some infection that is damaging their brains.”
She shifts her legs over the side of the stretcher and sits. “They still want to kill us!”
“They are dangerous, Mimi.” She doesn’t want to play down how much danger they are in, but regaling the girl with descriptions of the scenes she’s already witnessed this morning could send her into a panic, and Ellie needs her to stay calm and in control. “But we’re safe in here.” She reaches into the cupboard and pulls out a disposable sick bowl, along with a pack of antiseptic wipes, and hands them to Mimi. “Pee in that. I won’t watch.”
Careful to move slowly back into the front seat, Ellie takes a bite of her half-eaten sandwich. “Don’t forget to wipe your hands.” Shutting out the sound of the girl relieving her bladder, she takes another bite of her sandwich.
“What shall I do with it now?”
Damn! She hadn’t thought that far ahead. There’s no sink, nowhere to store a bowl, and a full bowl at that, given the length of the girl’s efforts.
Taking the steaming bowl of urine, she carefully moves to the passenger window, winds it down and empties it over the side. She pulls the bowl back, not wanting to litter, stares at the wet cardboard for a second then lets it drop outside—what difference will one biodegradable bowl make when there’s rubbish from a hundred bins swirling in eddies around broken settees, televisions, beds, and bodies? None. The bowl drops to the grass with a gentle thud, leaving a trail of urine splattered against the door.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The morning had begun as normal for many of the street’s residents, and Nate watched the neighbours walk out into the morning sun, seemingly oblivious to the night’s horrors as they made their way to work. The dishevelled woman hadn’t paid any attention, her focus had been absolute until now; the front window of Katy’s house.
The woman – thing! – stands in the small patch of front garden, but her attention has turned to the street. In the distance, three teenagers dressed in smart grey blazers, white shirts, and striped ties, walk along the path towards the house as they make their way to school. The boy has the same dark hair, and is the same height and breadth, as Josh. With a stiff twist, the woman turns and takes a step towards the garden gate. Nate grasps his weapon - a large garden fork provided by Katy and propped up in the hallway - and slowly opens the front door.
Oblivious to the woman, the neighbour in the house on the opposite side of the street kisses his wife and baby goodbye then strides down his garden path. The three children continue along the road, too interested in their own chatter, and phone screens, to take notice of the dumpy woman standing in their path.
Following the shuffling woman, Nate quickens his step, garden fork balanced in his grip, and runs into the middle of the road. The neighbour stops in his tracks, glancing from the woman, to Nate, and then the children. With a sudden burst of energy, the woman charges.
“Run!” Nate shouts as he picks up his pace to a sprint.
An ungodly shriek splits the air.
One of the girls screams and darts into the road. The other stands frozen on the path as the woman pelts forward. Too late, the boy makes a grab for the girl. She screams as fingers tangle in her black hair, pulling her to the kerb whilst grasping for the boy. Nate holds the garden fork as a javelin and rams it down at the woman. It’s tines stab into her back but she doesn’t release the girl. The boy grabs the woman’s arm as she claws for him. Pulling back, Nate stabs at her again. Metal spears jab at her skull and she staggers, releasing the clump of hair, and knocks against the garden wall. The boy drags the girl across the path as she scrabbles to stand. The woman staggers to her feet and lurches after them.
“Run!”
With a squeal of tyres, a car shoots beside the teenagers, blocking the woman.
Only feet away, the distinctive stench of sulphur and rotting flesh clings to Nate’s nostrils. Whatever infection she has, or drug she has taken, is making her rot; the stench is truly putrid and Nate’s belly begins to swirl with nausea. She snarls, revealing yellowing teeth against black lips, pulls her head back, shrieks, then lunges towards the car.
“Get in! Get in!”
Nate jumps into the road, jabbing the fork at her as she staggers forward, forcing her back from the car. Doors slam as the children scramble inside. Gears crunch, and the engine revs as the driver, the neighbour from across the road, hits the accelerator. The car jolts, then pulls along the road with a squeal of tyres. Fresh blood runs from matted hair, trickling to join the stains on her t-shirt. Nate jabs at her with the fork, she jumps to the side with surprising agility and he watches in disbelief as she lurches, then sprints down the road, arms pumping, until she, along with the car, disappears over the brow of the hill.
As he slams the front door of Katy’s house shut, the neighbour’s wife stands on her doorstep, baby clutched tight, staring after the car. In the distance a shriek splits the air. Nate locks the door, leaning the fork against the wall. The points of its tines are tipped with blood and the stench of rot rises in the hallway.
“Has she gone?” Katy’s face has drained of colour and Justin clings to her side.
“Yes, she ... she ran after Josh!”
“Josh? But he’s upstairs.”
“The boy outside. He looked like Josh. I think that’s what set her off.”
Katy’s face screws with disgust. “But, why? Why Josh?”
“She’s insane. H
as to be.”
Upstairs Josh’s makes a low moan. The woman forgotten, Nate runs up the stairs to his son. Cover thrown off, the boy lays rigid, skin pale against the contrast of his bright red Power Ranger underpants. The first straggling hairs of puberty lay as dark spiders on his chest, and his eyes are half-closed, showing the whites. On his shoulder is a dark stain. He moans again, swiping his arm through the air, a grimace pulling across his face. For a second, Nate is reminded of the woman, and takes a quick step back from the bed.
Nate slides the curtains open, and forces himself to inspect the boy. On his left shoulder, just beneath the skin, is a pattern of black filigree the size of a bottle top. It seems to pulse, to enlarge then shrink. It moved! The goddamned thing moved. Taking a torch from the bedside cabinet, he trains the light on the patch. Tiny tentacles of fine black thread cast out then withdraw. It is pulsing!
“Katy!” He shouts, staring down at the pulsing black stain. “Quick! Come look at this.”
He shines the torch back on Josh’s shoulder as she reaches his side. “Watch.”
The only noise is their breath as they watch the black tendrils, pulsing in rhythm with the rise and fall of Josh’s chest.
“It’s moving, Nate. What the hell is it?”
“I have no idea, but I think that’s what’s making him ill.”
Nose only inches away from Josh’s mouth, Nate takes a sniff of his breath.
“What are you doing?”
He sniffs again at the boy’s armpits; just the typical smell of a teenage boy in need of a shower and teeth being cleaned, no rotting, sulphuric stench.
“Smelling him.”
“What for?”
Mortal Skies Omnibus Page 10