The Poison People

by Alex Makepeace

  “What happened to her?”

  Magda grins, smoke seeping from the sides of her mouth. “She got away.”

  “There’s no need to sound so damn pleased,” says Kobro. I realise he’s been sitting at the opening this whole time, listening in.

  “Damn near got me canned. Damn near got you canned, my dear.”

  “It wasn’t my fault, darling. Anyway, we have the boy. He’s the prize. That was the deal.”

  “Yes, yes.” Kobro laughs. “A deal’s a deal. What the heck.”

  “Josh,” she says, “you’re drunk.”

  “Sure I’m drunk. Wouldn’t you be?”

  “What’s the matter,” I say. “Isn’t everything going to plan?”

  Magda smiles. “Josh thinks he will get into trouble. You see, they wanted to pick you up as soon as we got hold of you, but he wanted to observe you in a natural . . . you know, habitat for a while. He convinced his bosses. They thought they might learn something.

  “But then things began to get out of hand, obviously. He’s afraid he will get the blame. I’ve told him we’re not to blame—that all this shit would have happened anyway, once you’d spread your nasty germ—but he’s panicking anyway. I never realised quite how ambitious he was.”

  “Fuck you, bitch . . . ”

  “You should stop drinking,” says Magda.

  “Fuck off, mutant.”

  Magda smiles again.

  “And the CCTV at Ma’s place,” I say. “Was I under observation then?”

  “You showed what you could do, with those poor boys. But no, it was just to get you back. It was like I said—they informed the police because they were worried their own people wouldn’t reach you in time.”

  “Only their own people were you.”

  Magda shrugs. “I’m sorry, baby.”

  Through the silence I can hear a radio crackling away hysterically in French. I don’t understand a word.

  “It’s about London,” says Magda. “Washington, too, and New York. The Americans are promising immediate reprisals.”

  “You sound as if you’re enjoying yourself,” I say.

  Magda shrugs. “Maybe.”

  Pain sparks every time I shift my wrists, but part of me welcomes it. It keeps me here, in the land of the living. It reminds me to keep hanging on. It keeps me sharp.

  There’s no getting out of here under my own steam until they cut me free. Then I’m sure they’ll have another trick up their sleeve. They’re not stupid. They know me. Magda knows me.

  “It feels so good to be with you,” she said. “Would you be angry if I told you I had feelings for you?”

  I want to vomit.

  I think of Ma, how she held me, how she loved me, would sacrifice her whole life for me. How I sacrificed her for that.

  Is this what we are, is that what I have become?

  As far as I know, the plan remains the same—to get a boat out—but the attack on London must have held things up. No boat has arrived and, from what I can make out from the conversation upstairs, all communications, including the phone, TV and Internet, are down. Only the radio seems to be working and then, apart from the odd announcement by some official-type sombrely instructing people to keep to their homes, it is tuned to France.

  But the thing is, Ma is beginning to smell. At first I thought it was just my imagination as I lay there in the gloom, but over time it’s grown stronger. Bad meat, Ma, your spirit’s gone. You’re just a carcass now.

  “My little toad, you’ll always remember that no matter what, I’ll be there for you. Just for my little toad.”

  Can you hear me then, even now? I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.

  “That’s no good,” says Magda as soon as she opens the hatch. “I wondered what the smell was. She’s going quick. How can you stand it?”

  I don’t reply.

  “We were going to throw her in the sea, but as you may have gathered, our ride hasn’t turned up yet. What luck, huh? What luck! Josh!”

  Eventually he comes down the stairs, looking worse for wear but fully decked out in protective gear, the handle of a revolver jutting out of his coat pocket.

  “Christ, what a stink,” he says.

  “We have to move her,” says Magda. “I thought the store room, until the boat comes.”

  “Dear oh dear oh dear.” He stands over Ma, covering his masked face with his hand. “How the good turn bad, huh?” He turns to me. “That’s what’s beneath us all, Vereesh, even you. That stink. Shame. She was a sharp one, sure enough.”

  “Why did you do it? You didn’t have to.”

  “I didn’t have to, Vereesh. I didn’t have to do a whole lot in my life. But hell, I did it anyway. She would have just made more trouble. She always was a feisty girl. She had me worked out from the beginning, even warned the old man before we came to the States, but hell, I was too useful. The Swami needed folk like me, scientists to build his brave new world.”

  “You were with them in India?”

  “Oh yeah, the government saw him coming. Maybe he sucked in a son or daughter of a senator. Who’s to say? Anyhow, they drafted me in early. They didn’t want another Charlie Manson. At first I was just to keep an eye on the old phoney, but when he moved stateside it began to get heavier.

  “Give me one of those cancers, cutie pie.” Kobro takes a cigarette from Magda, pulls up his mask and lights up. “It’s why tobacco became so popular, you know, back beyond. Masked the smell.

  “Anyhoo, one day I get the call.” He shakes his head. “To be honest with you, fella, I wasn’t so flip at the time. Maybe the old man was beginning to work some of his magic on me. I mean, there was a lot to the guy, but at the end of the day someone had to play Judas. And I figured if I didn’t do it now they’d asked, well . . . these were definitely not the kind of people who took no for an answer. The alternative—my twelve pieces of silver, my brilliant career—seemed infinitely preferable.”

  “He thought,” I said, “a holding cell . . . ”

  “Man,” Kobro shook his head, “it happened long before that. Every time he turned on that goddamn gas he was laughing a little more of his life away . . . ”

  I look at Kobro, wreathed in smoke.

  “Are you going to help me?” calls Magda.

  Kobro takes a final draw on the fag, stubs it underfoot. “Still,” he says, “I guess he had one more card to play, eh?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You,” he says. “The joker in the pack. The end of the goddamn world.”

  34

  They arrived a couple of hours ago. Three of them at least. I can hear their heavy boots pacing up and down, their gruff, low voices. Big men. Professionals.

  I realise—if I am to get away, it will have to be now. The alternative is letting them have their fun with me, over the decades. A prisoner of science, stripped of human rights because, after all, I am not wholly human.

  Prodded, probed, perhaps finally peeled open when they’ve had their fill. And right up until the last moment I’ll be hanging on, hoping to survive.

  I push myself up the pillar, try one last time to break the bonds. It’s no good. They weren’t taking any chances, they knew what they were dealing with.

  The hatch opens.

  It’s Magda, followed down by a pair of bulky figures in puffa-jackets, bobble hats, gas masks and gloves. They look like demons by Walt Disney.

  “Here he is,” she says. “Our prize.” One of them stands back, opens his puffa and reveals a whole armoury hanging from his beetle-black body armour. He unhooks some kind of machine pistol.

  “Quite right, Rory,” she says. “His bite is much worse than his bark.” She winks at me. “So, baby, ready for the trip? You know, we’re probably doing you a big favour. England’s going up in smoke. I don’t think your soldiers are going to stay so nice for much longer . . . ”

  She comes up behind me, begins to cut away the wires. “Oh, baby, what a mess you’ve made! Now you will behave yourself, w
on’t you—if you don’t, Sanchez here is under instructions to fire enough tranquiliser into you to put an elephant to sleep. But I’ve told them that won’t be necessary, that you’ll be a good boy. And if you’re not I have your little electric friend here,” she waves the Taser in front of me, “to keep you in line. And you know that I will use it, don’t you, baby.” She stands back as the final wires snap back.

  “Go to hell,” I say.

  Magda laughs. “Actually,” she says, “this time next week I’ll be in Bermuda.”

  I’m led upstairs. Kobro is there with one of the others, who pulls his mask up. I have time to catch a glimpse of his bullet head, his tiny blue jailer’s eyes. There’s no empathy there, I think, no fellow feeling, and I wonder where I’ve seen those eyes before. And then I remember—Kobro himself, when we disposed of Vlad, his true character revealed through the letterbox of the balaclava.

  “Sit down,” Kobro says, his words clipped with tension. “Magda, do something about his wrists.”

  It feels like we’re on stage, sitting at the kitchen table with Magda dressing my wounds as the three gas-masked thugs stand in a triangle around us, their various weapons at the ready. Kobro is fiddling with the radio. He finds an English language station, only it’s from Belgium.

  “ . . . the special English language service from Flanders. Millions are on the move in the southeast of England as they flee radiation . . . ”

  “Fools,” mutters Kobro.

  “Martial law has been declared throughout much of Europe. In France the army has been mobilised and is enforcing a curfew following riots in the suburbs of Paris and other major cities which left thousands injured and at least two hundred people dead.

  “And . . . reports are just reaching us that . . . all contact has been lost with Tehran and Damascus. Wire services report flashes in the vicinity of these cities, but we as yet have no further information . . . ”

  “Armageddon,” says Kobro. “The fucking end game, my boy. Does it make you proud?”

  “We should go, Doctor,” says one of the thugs.

  It’s dusk as we emerge from the cottage, Kobro and Rory leading the way, Magda and the others bringing up the rear. I look in the direction of London, but there’s nothing now. Just a dull puddle grey against the tree line.

  As we leave the property, I say to Magda, “Weren’t you going to take Ma? Conceal your dirty work at sea?”

  “No point now, baby,” she says. “No need. The law won’t be taking any interest in us for a long time. I think they’ll have their hands full enough. Look,” she says, “just like old times.”

  She means the spit. The road along the quayside is packed with cars both occupied and abandoned and crowds of people milling around, many weighed down with luggage. Tempers are frayed, horns sounded.

  More crowds are gathered around boats moored along the dock. Along the spit, men stand on boxes negotiating a price, while others lead lines of people across the sand to waiting yachts or trawlers like a scene from Dunkirk.

  “Hurry up, people,” says Rory as we make our way down the winding path to the quay. “We need to catch the tide.”

  “Come on, baby, you heard the man.”

  “It’s my ankle,” I say. “I’m going as fast as I can.”

  “What’s with his ankle?” asks Kobro.

  “Sorry, Josh. I forgot. He said he broke it.”

  “For fuck’s sake, Magda! What is this? Broken goods?” Kobro laughs. He turns to me. “Get a move on, chief. If it was broken you wouldn’t be able to walk. I’ll take a look at it once we get on the boat.”

  He seems more relaxed now we’re on the move. “Okay, guys,” he says as we approach the quayside. “Off with the rubber stuff. Don’t want to spook the horses. Vereesh, buddy, don’t try anything dumb. We won’t fuck around. We will kill you if we have to. Magda, take a hold of him.”

  “Yes, Josh.” She takes my arm and squeezes it hard. “Don’t try anything, baby,” she says. “It’ll soon be over.”

  But I barely hear her. She must know I’m running at one hundred and ten percent, waiting for the smallest incident, the tiniest opening, to flee. But something is also troubling me. I realise it is mostly the human in me that’s doing this, thinking this way. The bug seems to have already sized up the situation, decided it’s hopeless. In any case, it feels . . . dormant.

  We weave our way between the parked cars, the gathering people, pushing, panicking, crying. Fear hangs heavy here, infectious, explosive. A car edges forward, nudges into the side of a family. The father turns and beats his fist upon the bonnet. What’s your fucking problem?

  Inside, another frightened family, the kids are crying, pressing their palms against the window—all that separates them from chaos.

  “Yes,” I hear Magda say, “this is how it is. How it always is.”

  At first I think we must be heading for one of the boats at the quayside, but we’ve stopped.

  Rory pulls out a mobile. “It’s Bute. We’re coming in. Okay.” He turns to Kobro, nods towards a ladder leading down onto the sand. “You go first, Doctor, I’ll follow.” He looks at Magda, his eyes passing over me like I’m a piece of meat. “Then the kid. You three follow after.”

  It’s dark now but the light of the ships, the criss-crossing car headlights provide enough visibility to see how the water runs in channels between the sandbanks. It’s running increasingly quickly as the tide begins to draw back in. I wonder how many people have been caught out there, stranded on a bank as the water rushes around them.

  And now I can see the boat, silhouetted against the blue-black horizon. A few hundred metres away, listing to the side between islands of sea and sand. Some kind of posh yacht, the kind that royalty, celebrities, millionaires use. I realise, stupidly I know, but I realise for the first time how much money is behind all this.

  I watch Kobro descend. Rory gives his men a soldierly nod then follows him.

  “Okay,” says Magda. “Down you go, baby.” She keeps her hand tight on my arm until I have both of my hands on the rusty, barnacle-encrusted rail. I make my way down the ladder, knowing Rory and Kobro are watching my every move.

  As I set both feet on the sand, wincing with the weight upon my injured ankle, there’s a flash from above.

  A flash that freezes us, everything. In a moment.

  Rory’s too-small mouth is gaping upwards. His eyes are no longer dead like a soldier’s, a trained killer, but suddenly alive like a child’s, in wonder.

  I notice the liver spots on the back of Kobro’s hand for the first time, the creases around his eyes, his mouth. I wonder: how old are you? Were you there, waiting at the Honolulu docks for Vladimir’s steamer to arrive?

  I watch the dismembered hand begin to tumble in a downward arc towards us. Realise—time is starting up again.

  A scream. Someone from the quayside.

  It begins.

  Rory’s hand is on the butt of his gun but it’s as if he’s still a heartbeat behind. It is the easiest thing, the easiest thing, for me to get close. He shies away, horrified to find me so near. Stumbles backwards, struggling to keep upright on the sand as me, this wee slip of a lad, grabs hard on the wrist that holds the machine pistol and twists.

  He lands a blow on the side of my head with his elbow. There again, but I roll with the impact, twisting the wrist now with both hands.

  The gun falls from his hand and I drop with it, try to scoop it up.

  The heel of an army boot smashes me clean on the chin and I’m knocked sideways. I look up to see Rory coming at me, a baton now pulled from that inner armoury.

  It comes down on my collarbone.

  Another boot follows it up, but I catch it in mid-air. With all my might, turn it hard.

  Rory goes crashing down. I scramble over his back as he reaches for the gun. I manage to nudge it further out of reach.

  I hear machine gunfire. Am momentarily perplexed. It’s not my gun. That’s still lying there inert in the sand. Then
I realise—it must be behind us, on the quayside. Magda, I hope.

  Rory is reaching inside his puffa, trying to get to another tool, no doubt. I grab on to his collar, lean forward and take one of those cold, dry, sticky-out pug ears of his between my teeth. I snap my jaws shut, sink my teeth into the cold skin and—

  TEAR the flesh from flesh with a sharp turn of the head.

  SPLUBBER the sinewy pug and blood and saliva out onto the sand in front of us.

  Rory roars. ROAR, Rory, roll onto your back clutching your mutilated head as I reach inside your beetle body, pull out the nasty knife with its serrated edge and plunge it into your throat. Once, twice, three times, and your roar has lost its OAR. Now only the R remains, a quizzical r-r-r-r-r-r while you wonder where it’s gone, the blood spouting so rapidly from the severed artery your brain does not have the fuel to think, Rory whose lost his roar, it does not have the time to think and that must be a good thing because goodbyes are always so painful.

  I pull out the knife, all that is attaching Rory to this world. “He’s gone,” I say.

  “Vereesh,” says Magda, coming up behind me. “Where did Kobro go?”

  “Kobro?”

  “Vereesh.” She takes my face in her hands. “Look at me. Come back, Vereesh. Come back.”

  “All those people,” I say, meaning the crowd gathered along the quayside. “Witnesses.”

  Magda shakes her head. “None of that matters anymore. It’s all over.”

  “What is?”

  “None of that matters now. Trust me, it’s everyone for themselves. Now, where’s Kobro?”

  “I don’t know.”

  She picks up the machine pistol. “Well, at least he didn’t take this. Here.”

  “Why did you do it? What happened?”

  “Never mind that. We have to get going.”

  “Where to?”

  “Where do you think, baby? The boat.”

  35

  The seawater is beginning to rush in now, the channels that had reached out like roots into the spit are being swept away by young waves, overwhelming the sandbanks in a confusion of currents.