by Ryan Casey
Adam’s thoughts—his rants and hungry cries—had stopped.
Jonny noticed it too.
“Adam,” she heard him say. “Adam—are you there?”
Donna focused. Pictured Adam, as he was, all bloodshot eyes and rabid-dog-mouth. A human Cujo. Somebody she definitely was not interested in messing with any time soon.
She focused. Kept quiet and focused.
Then, a sharp jolt across her head, and an intense, burning scream blasted her.
Adam was dead too, there was no doubt about that now. His silence was a giveaway for one. But it was mainly that scream—that scream, louder yet more internal than anything else she’d ever experienced—the same scream that Doctor Harvey had given off when he’d been bludgeoned.
Two down.
Just Jonny Ainsthwaite and her to go.
“Don’t… Don’t think like that, Donna,” Jonny was saying, but none of it mattered, not in Donna’s mind. She’d accepted what was going to happen to her now—what had to happen to her. She’d accepted that soon, at long last, she was going to be reunited with her little Paul. She was going to be back with him, and the thoughts of his blood and his guts splayed out on the tarmac would not make her stomach crave his flesh or cry out with hunger, not for long.
“Donna, please. Don’t leave me.” Jonny was whimpering. “Don’t leave me. I can’t be alone. Please. Please. Help. There has to be a way. There has to be another way.”
She felt the door opening. A slight breeze against the bottom of her feet, which were the hardest and crustiest parts of her body. Just feeling again made her much calmer about what was going to happen. She was human. She was human and death was a part of humanity. Death was a part of life.
And death was much better than life with the hunger. Much, much better.
“Please, Donna.” Jonny’s voice grew quieter and quieter as she focused with all her strength on the room around her. She saw a shadow in her brightening vision. Heard something akin to a struggle. She knew what it was. Doctor Ermenstein. He’d seen too much for Mr. Belmont’s liking. Far too much of a morally correct man for Mr. Belmont to allow to walk on out of here.
When the struggling stopped and something heavy hit the floor beside her, she felt herself smiling. The blurry silhouette stood over her. It had a baton in its hand, just like the one Mr. Belmont had been holding in her vision. Funny, really. She’d always known Mr. Belmont as a man who would go to any lengths to protect his own messed-up ideas of “TCorps interests.” When it came down to it, she had been completely right. Bizarre, but hilarious, in a strange sort of way.
Or maybe that was just the hunger talking. She wasn’t sure anymore.
Muffled words above her head. The silhouette raising the baton. Raising it and raising it, preparing to bring it down, preparing to send her home. She thought of little Paul, only this time he wasn’t in pieces on the road outside the newsagent’s, not like the usual vision that woke her up in her sleep or brought on the panic attacks in the conference meetings. No, he was in that Gibraltar photograph. Only she was there with him. She was holding his hand. His warm, soft hand. She was in the photograph too, and his dad, Barry, was taking the photograph with a big cheesy smile. It was cloudy, but it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter because they were there, together, hand in hand, in this most important moment of all.
She smiled. She felt the warmth of a tear drip down. But it wasn’t a sad tear. It was a happy tear. The hunger, gnawing at her insides, trying to stir up the thoughts of her dead son’s corpse splattered across the road—all of it would be gone soon. All of it would be defeated.
She clung onto the thought of the cloudy sky. The rain-laced wind brushing against her cheeks. Her son’s hand, warm and clammy but so right in hers.
She clung onto it when the first blow cracked into her head and sent more warmth and stinging and explosions running down her forehead and all over her face.
Paul’s hand.
Paul’s warm hand.
She clung onto it when the second blow cracked into her skull.
His smile. His clammy hand. His cheeky little laugh.
When the third blow hit, Donna Carter was already gone.
43.
Sarah Appleton entered the room where Jonny Ainsthwaite lay. Her heart pounded. Her hands were clammy, and every muscle in her body seemed like it had turned to stone. She tried to process everything that had happened, everything that was about to happen, in her head. Mr. Belmont ploughing the weapon into Doctor Harvey’s head, then into Adam the security guard’s head, and then Donna’s head.
She felt it in her hand. The cool plastic of the handle. The sharp tip of the blade.
He wanted her to get rid of Jonny Ainsthwaite.
Either she got rid of him, or he got rid of her too.
She stared at Jonny Ainsthwaite as she entered the room. She hoped he wouldn’t notice her, but his eyes were already pointing towards the door. That just made it all much worse—he might have been infected with Turnstone, but he was still inherently human. She could see it in his eyes. A glimmer of life beneath the bloodshot eye whites and trickles of blood that were dribbling down his face. She could see that no matter how “hungry” he got, he was still human inside there.
She could still help him. There had to be a way she could help him.
“Gnnnnrrghhh…”
He was mumbling. Trying to speak. His hands were clenched into fists, his arms tugging up at the belts tying him down. Poor bastard. Poor, poor thing. Look at what you’ve done to him, Sarah thought.
But no. She hadn’t done this. She hadn’t intended to do this. She wanted to help. Help him. Help Stuart. Help everyone.
She stepped closer to the bed. Jonny’s distant but watching eyes followed her every move. He looked like Donna Carter had before Mr. Belmont had “dealt” with her. The emptiness, or the hunger, it must’ve been getting intense for him. What did the intensity mean? And what did it do? Did it kill the host, ultimately? Or just drain them completely of energy, forcing them to “feed”?
So many questions. So many questions that, if Mr. Belmont had his way, she’d never be able to answer.
She stopped right beside Jonny’s bed. He was breathing heavier now, his chest rising and falling at a rapid rate. He knew she was close, she could tell. He was sniffing out his prey. Desperate for a taste. Desperate to indulge.
She thought about her options as she gripped the penknife. She wasn’t a killer. That wasn’t her. Ironic thought, really, considering she might just have set free a monster of a infection on the British, and eventually global, population. But that was just assisted suicide, really. The British public and the global public had been on a downturn for quite some time.
She wasn’t a killer. It wasn’t in her blood.
Not yet, anyway. Not until Turnstone got her too.
“Gggrrrnnnhh…” Jonny was mumbling again. Thick, mucus-laced saliva dribbled down his chin. She could see that the skin on his lips was red raw and mashed up, blood congealing in the corners of his mouth. Biting his lips to get some kind of nourishment. So the virus was self-destructive, too?
“Have you not done it yet?”
The voice stopped Sarah’s thoughts right in their tracks. Her stomach grew heavy. She turned around, and as much as she wanted to believe that he wouldn’t be standing there, there he was.
Mr. Belmont and his huge fucking weapon. Coated in blood. Fragments of flesh. Pieces of brain.
“Mr. Belmont, please—”
“There’s no more time for debate,” Mr. Belmont said. He stepped into the room. He had that same cool, controlled vibe about him as when she’d first met him. That same half-smile, so fake, hiding so many secrets. She wondered if he’d gone this far before. A man who hadn’t gone this far before surely couldn’t be this… well, calm, could they?
“You have to think about what you’re doing here,” Sarah said. Her voice sounded less convincing out loud than it did in her head, faltering and tremb
ling. “Jonny Ainsthwaite is the only one we have left now. And sure, maybe Britain is going to shit on the outside. But we have something here, right here, that nobody else has. We have the source of the outbreak. We have Turnstone in its purest form. Is that not worth more than—than company and personal pride? Is that not worth taking a risk for?”
Mr. Belmont eyed her up closely. His eyes squinted. His half-smile flickered at either side. “You may be in the habit of jeopardising the name of TCorps, Miss Appleton. That might be ‘your thing.’ But it’s not my thing.”
Sarah gritted her teeth. “Can we not just have a proper ta—”
“You haven’t seen the news yet. Not like I’ve seen it. It’s spreading. It’s spreading faster than any of us could ever have imagined. Some people are falling victim to the hunger almost instantly. Others are unaccounted for. But… but it’s spreading. And soon it’ll be on planes and it’ll be on boats and it’ll cross the Channel. And this company—this company I’ve guided through its most successful periods—I can’t allow it to sink because of this.”
He paused. Cleared his throat. Strange thing—he actually looked like he had tears in his eyes.
“My… my actions. They may seem rash. But that’s what you have to understand, now. We’re on the cusp of living in a world of new humanity. Unless we somehow get Turnstone under control—which, with the rate of spreading and lack of understanding, we won’t—the world is going to change overnight. I’m acting in the interests of the new world, Miss Appleton. I… I’m not enjoying what I’m doing. I’m doing what I have to do. Now you have to play your part. I… I need to know I can trust you. So prove it.”
Sarah stared back at Mr. Belmont. His eyes were more human than they’d ever been. His smile had dropped completely from his blood-soaked face. A man of the new world. That’s what Turnstone really was—it was a world changer. And not for the right reasons that Sarah Appleton had intended. Her initial experiment had failed. As she stood beside Jonny Ainsthwaite’s bed, knife in hand, Mr. Belmont watching her with his heavy-looking weapon in hand, she knew right in that moment what she had to do.
Exactly what she had to do.
“Can I have some… some privacy? To do it alone?”
Mr. Belmont’s eyes lost their humanity again and narrowed. He watched her, speechless, for a few seconds that felt like fucking minutes.
Then: “Sure. I’ll be down the corridor.”
He turned away and left the room.
Sarah exhaled a large, heavy breath that she didn’t know she’d even been carrying, but she felt a whole lot better getting it out of her system. But the moment she let the nerves float out of her system, a whole new batch came right in. Her hands tingled. Her heart pounded. She had to think and she had to act.
Fast.
She grabbed Jonny Ainsthwaite’s arm. He flinched with the contact. He was absolutely boiling to the touch. Any warmer and she’d genuinely have trouble keeping hold of him for too long.
“Come on,” she muttered under her breath. She didn’t have a fucking clue what she was doing, really, but all she knew was that there was so much more to learn. She’d take Jonny Ainsthwaite. She’d find a way out of here—a way that made sure Mr. Belmont and TCorps weren’t implicated in the Turnstone outbreak.
This was her project. Jonny Ainsthwaite was her patient. They’d rejected her initial tests of the formula, so they could go fuck themselves if they thought she’d be making any last-minute compliance to their demands.
The first belt came free of Jonny Ainsthwaite’s arm. The second it did, his hand flapped around like a dead fish, desperate to get back in water.
Desperate to grip onto something. Grip onto flesh. Meat. Food.
“I need you to keep calm now,” she said. Her heart was racing so hard that she could feel her entire body shaking with every beat. She’d have to get Jonny Ainsthwaite free of the bed, then somehow tie his loose hand into the other belt, and all the while preventing him from biting her, while avoiding Mr. Belmont.
Shit. She really should’ve thought this out better beforehand.
Avoiding his snapping mouth, she gripped his flapping hand and wrapped it over his front and towards the other belt. The strength in the hand and the arm was immense. His muscles were as solid as a rock. His hand grabbed at her skin, scratched her with his nails, reached out for anything and everything.
“Please, Jonny,” she muttered. She pulled the hand under the already tight belt that his other hand was tied down with. “I’m trying to… I’m trying to help you here. I’m trying to help you.”
His muscles tensed further and further. His groans and grumbles grew in volume and frequency. He was like a zoo animal being put under anaesthetic, unknowing, terrified.
“Please, Jonny. Do this for me. Please.”
A funny thing happened after Sarah had said her last “please.” A series of funny things, rather.
Firstly, all of the muscles in Jonny Ainsthwaite’s body loosened.
Then, his teeth stopped snapping against one another.
His hand was loose, too. Warm still, but loose.
She looked at him. He was still looking back at her with watering eyes. He was still there. Still human. Had he understood her?
She smiled at him and kept hold of his loose hand. “Thank you,” she said. “I’m trying to help you. I swear.”
She went back to the belt on his right hand and loosened it. Loosened it just enough that she’d be able to slip the other hand through. As long as he couldn’t grab her, she could work out a way to keep him off her—a way to restrain him somehow.
All that mattered for now was that he understood. That he co-operated.
“Come on,” she said, loosening the right belt even further and moving his limp left hand towards it. “Let’s just—”
“I’m sorry.”
She thought the words were from elsewhere at first. Anywhere but Jonny Ainsthwaite’s mouth. He spoke with a clarity that went against everything else he’d mumbled since she’d been in the room. It was clear. Concise.
It was Jonny.
Before she could ask him how he’d spoken—before she even had a chance to process the words he’d said—she felt the thump against her right cheekbone.
Then, the grip on her hair, so tight that a few clumps of it tore out.
She thought about screaming. She thought about crying out as she moved closer to Jonny and struggled with all her strength to pull herself free. But who was there to help her now?
She clenched her eyelids together as she felt herself moving closer. Held her breath. Waited. Waited for the impact. Waited for the bite on her neck. The pain. The agony. Then, the hunger.
She waited.
Waited another second.
And another.
Why had he not done it yet? A change of heart? What was stopping him from—
Then she felt it.
The burning across her neck.
The waterfalling of thick fluid down into her chest, right down towards her lungs.
She felt it, and she wanted to scream, but instead, she let it happen.
She didn’t have a choice. It was time for Turnstone to meet its maker.
44.
Jonny Ainsthwaite didn’t feel much in the way of remorse or sympathy when he sunk his teeth into Sarah Appleton’s neck.
The only thing he felt was the energy returning to his veins. Fuck—more than returning. Charging through his veins. Pulsing, as every little drop of blood worked its way down his throat, his internal energy source growing stronger and stronger and stronger. He saw rich colours as he chewed the tendons from her neck, holding her close so she couldn’t struggle free. He saw rich, vivid blues. Deep greens.
Heavenly reds.
Pure bliss.
He was revitalised.
He wasn’t totally sure how long he was chewing on Sarah Appleton’s neck. Time, space—they all vaporised and disintegrated or whatever when the hunger was being nourished. He could�
��ve been hit over the head, called any amount of curse words, and he wouldn’t give a shit. He was involved. He was busy.
He was feeding. That was his purpose on the earth now.
He realised that Sarah had stopped struggling. Shame for her. She seemed a decent enough human being. Made a genuine mistake when she spiked his mocha with this “Turnstone” shit. A mistake that led to his mum’s death. His dad’s death.
So many deaths.
But fuck. He had her to thank, really. He was alive again. Truly alive. No—more than alive, in fact. He was on another plane of life completely. A plane without guilt; a plane where the only thing that mattered more than anything was feeding. He’d been cynical and sceptical when Donna Carter had told him that they were going to break out so they could feed. Cold, that’s what he’d remembered thinking of her. She was cold.
But now, with the sinewy meat of Sarah Appleton’s blood-rich neck between his teeth, he didn’t feel a fragment of grief.
In fact, he felt pretty good about himself.
His feet might’ve still been tied down, but he could deal with that now that his hands were free. Besides, he’d have a little helping hand. He’d been sure to chew right into Sarah’s neck—give her a wound that she’d be forced to die from. Death sped up the transformation process. He understood this, but he wasn’t sure how, or why. He didn’t understand a lot anymore—and yet he knew so much more.
His thoughts were clear now. Vivid. He looked at Sarah Appleton, leaning across his chest, so much blood and muscle spread out in front of him, like a painting accident gone wrong. He’d bitten so far into her that it looked like half of her neck was missing completely. Thank fuck he’d been lucky enough not to get one of those bites.
Not like Rebecca.
Not like the Cub Scout guardian.
Not like everyone else. He’d lost count, to be honest. Lost interest in remembering their names and their roles and their faces.
Only their taste. That’s all he needed to remember. It was all that mattered now.
After he’d stopped chewing on what he decided would be his final load of meat, he felt those normal human emotions flowing through him again, but turned down, like radio voices in the background of static interference. He felt bad, initially. Just a tiny bit bad. He felt guilty too.