by Mark Tufo
‘I don’t follow,’ Dez said. ‘Don’t talk in riddles.’
The sergeant’s shoulders slumped forward, like he was carrying an immense weight. ‘Something Mr Griffiths here said a few minutes ago that we all just glossed over. Who says they’re planning to let us go? We’ve assumed they’d shut us all away in here to keep the parasite out, but maybe the opposite’s true? What if they’ve got us rounded up because they’re trying to keep it in? Who says our safety matters to them? We might just be bait. Expendable.’
‘You think it’s like a worm or sumthin’?’ Dez asked. ‘You think you can see it? You ever seen Rabid? Wait, no, not Rabid... Shivers. It’s about this sex slug. Goes crazy in a block of flats in Canada in the seventies an’...’
They were all looking at him again. ‘Shut up,’ Scott said, and this time he did. There followed an awkward moment of quiet, only disturbed by the low hubbub of conversation elsewhere.
‘It would make a good weapon, wouldn’t it?’ Sergeant Ross said.
‘Come on, Dan,’ Dr Kerr sighed. ‘Are you serious? Now who’s scaremongering?’
‘I’m serious. Think about it. All those invasions they’ve spent billions of pounds of our money on over the years... this thing would make wars like that a hell of a lot easier and cheaper. Just drop the parasite in and let it do what it apparently does. If the area can be contained, it’ll just keep killing and being passed on from person to person until there’s only the final carrier left.’
‘Stupid idea,’ the doctor scoffed.
Scott didn’t agree. ‘No more stupid than anything else I’ve heard. I think you might be onto something. That’d explain why we’ve got the army here and not the NHS or Environmental Health.’
‘So what are we going to do?’ Dr Kerr asked. ‘Do we just sit here and wait for this thing to show itself. If it’s in here with us, surely it’s only a matter of time before it needs a new host? There’s never been any longer than a couple of days before kills... maybe that’s how long each new body can sustain it for.’
Sergeant Ross looked around the crowded leisure centre. Some people appeared to be getting used to their incarceration, accepting everything they were being told with blissful ignorance. They were reasonably comfortable, well fed and watered... Others clearly remained unconvinced, defending the independence of their own little areas of space, perhaps only deciding not to fight or protest for fear of the heavy-handed military response they’d already seen demonstrated.
‘Way I see it is this,’ he said. ‘We don’t have much in the way of options right now. This place is probably surrounded. We certainly are, anyway. Stay alert and keep your wits about you. Stay close to your families and make sure they don’t mix with anyone you don’t know. Hold onto your own, lads. Don’t let anyone else get too close. Bottom line is this – if this parasite or whatever is being passed from person to person, and all the people of Thussock are in here with us, then it’s only gonna be a matter of time before it shows itself.’
Chapter 78
Phoebe was standing up, looking out over the heads of the unsettled crowd, still desperately searching for her father. He had to be here somewhere, didn’t he? Michelle pulled her down but she shook her mother off. ‘I’m going to go and find him,’ Phoebe said.
‘You can’t, love. You have to stay here with us. It’s not safe.’
‘But what about Dad? He’s on his own.’
‘After what happened at the house he could be anywhere. If he was here he’d have found us, wouldn’t he? He’s probably left town. He’ll be in touch soon, I’m sure he will.’
‘He wouldn’t have left, not with all this going on.’
‘Listen to your mother and shut up,’ Scott said, his voice detached and unemotional. Michelle pulled Phoebe closer and held her as she cried. She watched Scott, and she wished she could tell him exactly what she was thinking like she’d tried this morning. She wished she could be honest with him and tell him to fuck off and leave them alone, to take a frigging hike and never come back again... but she knew she couldn’t. Not yet. She knew him better than he ever gave her credit for. She knew he had a better understanding of what was happening in Thussock than he was letting on. She and Jackie had watched him and Dez and the others talking, watched how they grouped together in a secretive huddle and spoke in whispers the way men do. They know, she thought.
‘Why can’t I go?’ Phoebe asked again, not giving up.
‘Because it’s too dangerous.’
‘How is it dangerous? We’re locked in here, aren’t we? I’m only going to be walking around this one room. You’ll be able to see me. It’s not like anything’s going to happen with all those soldiers around.’
‘No.’
‘I’ll go with her,’ Tammy said.
‘I said no.’
‘This is bullshit,’ she said.
‘Watch your language.’
‘You just don’t want us to see Dad because of what happened this morning. You’re embarrassed, aren’t you? Ashamed...’
‘That’s not true.’
George was sleeping with his head on Tammy’s lap. She gently moved him and got up. ‘I’m not waiting around here. I’m going to find him. And if I can’t find him, I’m going to...’
Scott was on his feet in seconds. He held her arms and pushed her back against the wall, suddenly aware of sounds of movement and concern all around as people scurried away.
‘Scott...’ Michelle hissed at him. ‘Soldiers.’
He looked over his shoulder and saw that his actions had aroused plenty of interest. A couple of soldiers were approaching, swinging their weapons off their shoulders in readiness as they moved towards him. He pulled Tammy back down and she yelped with pain.
‘You’re not going anywhere,’ he told her, ‘not yet. It’s too dangerous. You have to trust me.’
‘Trust you?’
Michelle positioned herself between her husband and her daughter and looked straight at Scott. ‘I’ve had enough of this.’
‘We’ve all had enough of this...’
‘You know exactly what I mean, Scott. All this bullshit. All this pretence. You know what’s happening here, don’t you?’
‘We’re in danger, that’s all you need to know.’
‘So how come you’re the one who gets to decide how much the rest of us need to know?’
‘Because I’m the one who has all the responsibility, that’s why. Because I’m the one who keeps this family together.’
‘You control us, Scott. You stop us breathing and try to stop us thinking for ourselves. You don’t keep this family together, you just won’t let any of us go. That’s what all this is about, isn’t it? It’s all a bloody power trip for you.’
‘For fuck’s sake, now’s really not the time for one of your domestics.’
‘One of my domestics? Jesus.’
‘Listen, this is serious. That warning about a biological hazard... it’s true, but it’s a hell of a lot worse than they’re letting on. If you have to know, and I’m guessing you won’t shut up until you do, there’s some kind of parasite on the loose.’
Michelle laughed involuntarily. ‘That’s the best you can come up with?’
‘It’s the truth. It’s passed from person to person. It’s passed through sex.’
She laughed again. ‘Bullshit.’
‘Think what you like. Why else do you think Jeremy was all over you this morning? Don’t flatter yourself, sweetheart, it’s because he was infected, not because he fancied you.’
‘You’re a heartless bastard.’
‘Maybe,’ he said, shrugging his shoulders nonchalantly. ‘Thing is, getting through this is going to need someone with a little backbone. As soon as I can I’m going to get us out of here and away from everyone else.’
‘What about Jackie and Dez and those others you were talking to?’
‘What about them? Fuck ’em.’
‘Hang on... if what you’re saying’s true, surely the army are trying to pro
tect us from this thing? So shouldn’t we just stay in here? Wouldn’t they be trying to isolate or quarantine it?’
‘Clever girl. Yes, they are. But I’m not having them quarantine us along with it.’
‘But wait, Scott... shouldn’t we stay here? They’ll find out who’s got it sooner or later and deal with them.’
‘We’re not taking that risk.’
‘But if we try to get away, will they not think we might be infected?’
He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Maybe. We’re not waiting here all night to get caught like sitting ducks, though.’
‘There you go again, making decisions for the rest of us...’
‘Like I said, somebody has to do it.’
‘What happened to us?’ Michelle said, tears stinging her eyes, keeping her voice low so as not to involve or upset the girls more than they already were. ‘We used to be a couple... a partnership.’
‘You’re the one who tried to fuck your ex this morning,’ he said coldly.
‘But that was to do with this, wasn’t it?’ she said. ‘Christ, what happened to Jeremy? How did he—?’
‘Don’t know, don’t care.’
Michelle watched Scott closely... studied the way he did what he could to avoid looking at her. ‘You’re lying.’
‘Listen,’ he said, voice ominously low, ‘I’ve had enough of you. Just keep your bloody mouth shut and do what you’re told.’
‘Not anymore, Scott,’ she said, her throat dry, body shaking with anger.
‘What did you just say?’
‘I said not anymore. I can’t take this. You do what you want to do like you always do. The kids and I are staying here.’
‘You don’t have any choice.’
‘There’s always a choice. I could—’
A scream rang out from the far end of the cavernous room and everything stopped. For a single, heart-stopping moment, barely anyone moved. Scott stood up as a few trickles of movement threatened to become a stampede of desperate people, all trying to get away from whatever it was that was happening. More and more folks were getting in the way of him now, crisscrossing, blocking his view. He pushed them away, moving further forward until he was at the outermost edge of a roughly semi-circular bubble of space which had formed around the disturbance. And then he saw it.
It had been a woman who’d screamed, but it was a man’s body he saw slumped against the leisure centre wall, stripped to the waist. It was only when his blood-stained hands twitched that Scott realised he was still alive. As other people tried to get further away, Scott was one of the few who moved closer.
Soldiers swarmed out into the crowds, blocking his view again momentarily. When they moved, he saw that the man had, somehow, managed to flip himself over onto his front. He was using the wall to haul himself up. He recognised him. Christ, it was Warren from Barry Walpole’s yard.
‘Stay where you are,’ a soldier barked at Warren, aiming his rifle directly at his head and circling him at a distance, kicking rolls of bedding and people’s possessions out of the way. One arm outstretched, Warren leant against the wall, barely able to support his own weight. He was bleeding. Scott had been so focused on his pallid face that he hadn’t seen the streaks of blood running down the inside of his thighs from the eviscerated stump where his penis used to be. And now he was almost upright, the blood-flow increased, the trickling becoming a gushing, then a flood. Warren pushed himself away from the wall and staggered a few steps forward, hunched over, painting the wooden gym floor red. Then he collapsed, hitting the floorboards with a nauseating thud.
At first stunned silence; an uneasy malaise.
How did no one see this happening? How did they not know?
Then absolute chaos.
As panic erupted, Scott turned back and ran straight into Michelle. ‘What the hell was that? What just happened?’ she demanded.
‘Oh, so you believe me now?’
He grabbed her arm and dragged her back through the imprisoned population of Thussock. She tried to stop herself but was unable to find anything to hold onto. She slid along the smooth wooden floor. ‘Scott, stop!’
He saw more soldiers appearing, moving towards a mass of desperate people trying to force their way out through the entrance to the leisure centre through which they’d all originally been admitted. He yanked Michelle’s arm again. ‘We’re getting out of here.’
‘How?’
He couldn’t answer, but he knew he had to find a way. The carrier of the parasite was trapped here with them now, of that there was no doubt, but who was it? Probably a woman, but that barely narrowed the field. Already he could see troops dividing those people they could reach, separating them into males and females. The air was filled with screaming and crying, then with shouted warnings as brutally divided families fought not to lose sight of those they loved.
‘We’re getting out of here,’ Scott said to Tammy and Phoebe who were already on their feet. He bent down and picked up George, then turned to Phoebe. ‘We need a way out. Is there another way out of here?’
Trembling, she nodded and gestured, barely managing to lift a shaking hand and point towards the corner of the room where a fire exit had already been forced open by someone else. Scott looked back across the gym. Soldiers. Coming their way. No time to waste. But now Michelle had hold of him and was trying to pull him back the other way.
‘It’s not safe out there,’ she yelled.
‘Doesn’t look too safe in here.’ He pulled his son close, holding him so tight it clearly hurt. The boy writhed in his father’s arms. ‘George is coming with me, so I suggest you follow.’ He looked at Tammy and Phoebe. ‘Stay close.’
Gunshots.
For a heartbeat – no longer – everyone froze again. Scott spun around and from the dust and debris now falling like snow from the high ceiling, he figured they’d just been warning shots. Rather than calm the situation, though, they had the exact opposite effect. The threat of the soldier’s weapons clearly paled into insignificance alongside the horror of whatever it was that was loose in the leisure centre; the fear of the unknown far worse than the fear of being shot or beaten. Several people rushed the military lines, Sergeant Ross included, and were felled with a hail of bullets.
Enough. Scott ran for the exit which was, thankfully, being almost completely ignored by almost everyone else. ‘It’ll bring us out by the playing field,’ Phoebe said, shouting over the sudden carnage.
Another round of gunfire. George was screaming, his noise deafening Scott. Tammy winced at the echoing cacophony inside the gym and put her hands over her ears. Phoebe shoved her towards the exit and they piled through the fire door. Scott kicked it shut behind them, keen to stem the flow and mask their escape. The more people who followed, the worse their chances of getting away unnoticed.
It was cold and wet outside, and the sound immediately changed. The noise coming from the leisure centre became muffled, then was almost completely drowned out by the tumultuous soundtrack out here: the sounds of people being rounded up and fighting back. Jeeps, gunshots, warnings being shouted through loud-hailers, a helicopter drifting overhead which was clearly tracking people down with an intensely bright searchlight. Scott pressed himself against the side of the building they’d just escaped from while he considered their options. ‘We should go back,’ Michelle said. ‘What’s the point of running? They’ll know it’s not us who’s sick...’
‘Are you out of your fucking mind? You think they’re just going to give us the all clear then let us go home?’
‘Why wouldn’t they?’
He shook his head in disbelief and pointed into the chaos. ‘The world don’t work like that, Chelle. They won’t let any of us go now. They’re hunting people down... look!’
She followed his gaze down the side of the leisure centre building and saw a white-haired woman trying to get away. She’d somehow managed to escape, squeezing out through an unexpected gap in the chaos, but she was struggling to keep going. A soldie
r was in close pursuit, almost matching her speed even though he was only walking. Michelle looked away as he grabbed the woman by the waist and dragged her back towards the leisure centre, frail legs kicking and hoarse voice screaming for help.
Scott looked from face to face. ‘If we run now, they’ll see us and they’ll catch us. We need to lie low, then make our move when things calm down. Where do we go?’
The girls tried to think, to visualise, also trying not to panic. Tammy couldn’t get her bearings at all, but Phoebe could. ‘The temporary classrooms,’ she said, pausing mid-sentence as more gunshots echoed around them. ‘Over by the netball courts. They’re about halfway between here and the school gates.’
‘Show me.’
She crouched down and led them away from the leisure centre, taking them through a dark and narrow gap between two more buildings, then pausing to check her bearings. She took a sharp left, still crouching, half-running, only stopping when she reached the edge of the next block along. Scott looked over her head and could see across the playground to the Portakabin classrooms. It was relatively quiet there. Plenty of activity overhead and behind, but nothing in the direction they needed to go. ‘Wait here,’ he said, but none of them did. Michelle kept them moving forward together, bunched up tight. They held back slightly and ducked down as he forced the door to the nearest classroom. It flew open with barely any effort, just as flimsy as it had appeared. Still carrying George, Scott held the door and the others squeezed through. ‘Get down,’ he told them. ‘Stay low and stay away from the windows. We’ll sit tight, then get out of here.’
The five of them crammed into the corner of the room furthest from the door, hiding behind desks and chairs and holding onto each other for warmth and support, differences temporarily put to one side. ‘So what now?’ Michelle said. ‘Or didn’t you think any further forward than running out into the middle of a bloody war-zone?’
He glared at her, the anger in his face illuminated momentarily by a flash from the helicopter’s sweeping searchlight. ‘I told you, we’re getting away from here. Getting away from whatever’s doing the damage back in that place.’