by James King
“It always seems to be cold in the laboratories these days, have you noticed?” Morrell went on, “cold in the entire Raddex base, I would say. A cold that seems to seep into your bones, that freezes the very blood. An unnatural cold.”
Felix remained silent, but still there was an uneasy stirring. Perhaps Felix too had felt the cold. Perhaps he understood - no, not understood, - knew that the cold presaged something more than absence of heat, something more profound than the Raddex base’s over-efficient aircon. There was a quality to the cold that was psychological rather than physical, spiritual, rather than merely visceral. The cold seemed to open its own chamber within the soul.
“I’ll bet that it was cold in Antarctica,” Morrell said at last.
“Antarctica has nothing to do with this,” came Felix’s reply: sudden, harsh, brooking no argument.
Morrell smiled in the darkness. Once again he’d hit home, and closer this time than merely calling his son an idiot. “I didn’t suggest that Antarctica did have anything to do with this situation – other than the obvious fact that the Necrovirus was brought from there in a shard of ancient ice. I was merely commenting that it must have been cold... in Antarctica...”
Felix uttered a brief bark of derision. “Cold? Of course it was cold. There are temperatures there of fifty below zero. What an utterly puerile comment, father.”
“...ah, but you thought that I was talking about the mere temperature. I was not. I was talking about something much more fundamental. I was talking about - ,” and now Morrell chose to put his earlier thoughts into words, “ – a psychological state rather than a physical state: spiritual, rather than merely visceral. I was talking about a cold that opened its own chamber in the soul...”
“Father... dear father... what the hell are you talking about.”
Morrell allowed himself the luxury of uttering a laugh: deep and malign. Now we get to it, he thought, now we arrive at the nub, the heart, the nexus of what has been happening between us, father and son, for the last twelve months... and perhaps the reason behind what is transpiring in the good town of Alchester even as we speak... now we get to the cold chamber at the heart of the matter.
“Ever since you returned from Antarctica, Felix, you have been changed,” Morrell began, his voice loud, heavy, dark and paternal within the atmosphere of the laboratory, “you were always unstable, even as an infant, prone to sudden outbursts of violence and vile sadism. Remember that puppy that you tortured to death? I awakened in the middle of the night and thought that it was you crying, howling in the darkness, Felix – until I found you with the razor blade, covered in blood and grinning. We tried to help you, your mother and I. We really did. Doctors, medication, therapy programmes, but it mostly amounted to nothing. Eventually, after many years of harsh treatment, you reigned in the worst excesses of your personality. We managed, to an extent, to control you. I feared that your mother’s death might tip you over the edge, but you fought your madness and, in a warped, crazy manner, you won. You became a scientist, your psychopathic mindset perfect to the cool, dissecting detachment that the discipline requires - ,”
Felix uttered a sudden, harsh sigh, “father – you should know that, as a psychopath, I get bored easily. Won’t you just get to the point of whatever nonsense it is that you are spouting?”
“Antarctica...” said Morrell at last, after a heavy pause, “...you went to Antarctica a young man full of scientific zeal and learning. Your psychology disturbed, to be sure, but controlled nonetheless with drugs, and with my guidance. But when you returned from Antarctica, there was something about you, some... some quality. Not just the banality of violence. Not just the tiresome excesses of sadism, but something else entirely. Something that I can only describe as coldness...”
Morrell allowed the word to trail away into the blackened air. The memory of the word trembled within that air, like a final high note wrought upon a violin. Felix, for his part, held his peace, the sound of his breaths inaudible in the air, his figure a grey wraith that hovered on darkness.
“Felix...” said Morrell at last, his voice low, quiet, almost – and he hated to admit this – almost pleading, “...Felix... what happened in Antarctica...?”
“Let’s just say...” Felix began, “...that I found myself.”
“Meaning?”
“The cold Antarctic wastes,” Felix began, his voice dreamy now, reflective, “the midnight sun, hanging like a demon star before an alien horizon, ice, sculpted by the relentless sub-zero wind, the sheer emptiness, the sheer beauty. The sheer evil... How could I not respond to such a place, father? It was like living within an outward representation of my very soul. My mind’s own landscape captured in tortured ice, a place not just of death, but where life could barely exist to start with. Unless it was in stasis, frozen, ancient...”
“Pretty words,” said Morrell, his tone suddenly impatient, “fake poetry. Spare me it –,” and then suddenly shouting, angry, “tell me what happened in Antarctica, damn you!”
Felix tittered, and he tut-tutted, “father... that was always your weakness wasn’t it? Anger, impatience: and a tin-ear for poetry. And anyway, you already have the answer that you rage for, don’t you? You know full well what happened in Antarctica. We surveyed. We located. We tested. We extracted our samples, just like any good scientists should. And then we packed our samples, and returned them to the laboratory for testing. And we found the Necromancer Virus. What more need be known? Was the Necrovirus not discovery enough?”
“So what about the coldness, Felix? The coldness in you? The coldness in the Raddex base. The unnatural coldness that even now, in the middle of a hot July day, permeates everything. What about the coldness, Felix?”
A slight movement in the darkness, an inclining of the head, acknowledgment: understanding, “...I know where this is going. Oh, father, you try to be so oblique, and yet I can read you like the proverbial book. This is all about room eighteen, isn’t it? You’re asking me all about Antarctica, and yet really you want to know what lies inside Room Eighteen. You’re curious. And what is more, you’re annoyed because Room Eighteen is the only place in the Raddex place where you can’t go. So... am I right?”
“Annoyed?” Morrell asked after a pause, “why should I be annoyed, Felix? I don’t own Raddex, after all, Gudrie does, and if he wishes to give a key and keypad code number to you and not to me, then that’s entirely up to him. Why he would have done so is something to ponder on – I suppose that you convinced him in a way that only you know how. But no, not annoyed. I am a scientist after all, not a politician, not a power monger - ,”
This elicited a sudden harsh burst of laughter from Felix: hearty and evil, “oh father – you do love to dissemble, don’t you? You do love to play the almighty scientist whose hands are unblemished by the filth of the world – when in reality you’re in that filth up to your neck.”
“But curious...” Morrell went on, “yes, I am curious. So why not tell me, Felix? Why not assuage my curiosity? What is in room eighteen?”
Felix shrugged, a slight movement in the darkness, and then said, suddenly nonchalant, “...oh, you know father. Just the samples from Antarctica. The shard of ice -”
“No, Felix. The shard was completely broken up, thawed, analysed. And I wasn’t aware of any other samples existing - ,”
“You weren’t aware? And you’re aware of everything that happens here are you?” and now the voice was sullen, petulant, “you know about everything that is brought into the Raddex base and then taken out again, you know everything there is to know about what I found, and what I brought back from Antarctica, you know - ,”
Felix stopped speaking, suddenly checking himself, as though he was aware that he was on the verge of saying too much. Morrell smiled. Sometimes, occasionally, he could gain the advantage in a conversation with his son.
“ – but Antarctica, and room eighteen are the least of it,” Felix went on, his voice gleeful once more, the previous petulance forgotten in a moment
, “and the most of it, father, is the helicopter crash, and what is now happening in this town of Alchester, and the Necrovirus that has been unleashed upon the world. There is something about this whole scenario that I wasn’t going to divulge but now, as you seem to be so determined to hear about me and all my works, I will. Who knows, you may well have figured it out for yourself by now, being such a student of my psychology and my motivations.”
Morrell sighed, shook his head, feeling suddenly confused by the change in direction that the conversation had taken, by the sound of Felix’s voice that whispered and insinuated, by the coldness that he felt within the atmosphere of the small laboratory. He could almost see it, pluming like ice vapour through the atmosphere. “Felix...” said Morrell at last, “...what are you talking about?”
“The helicopter crash...” Felix replied, his voice still edged with glee, “...it was no accident. I sabotaged the aircraft.”
“My God...” Morrell breathed, although he found that this revelation held no surprise for him at all. It was indeed nothing more or less than he would have expected from his crazy son, “...how?”
“A slow leak in the petrol tank,” Felix replied, his humour brimming over into small chuckles now, like filthy storm water bubbling down a drain, “one of the choppers ground crew, he and I... well, we’d reached a little understanding, shall we say? What understanding? Well, maybe I found out that he’d been embezzling funds from the Raddex budget. Or maybe I found information of a certain sensitive nature on his laptop? Who can say? And it really doesn’t matter anyway. Suffice to say that he and I had a little understanding, in the sense that he understood what I wanted and then he made sure that it happened. And so he sabotaged the helicopter. Made sure there was a slow leak, and that the helicopter would crash at a range of about twenty miles out from the base.”
“My God, you’re insane - ,”
“ – and, better still, father – always better and better – I got one of the lab technicians – someone else who was well and truly in my pocket – to ensure that the transport box was sent out unsealed. So that, when the helicopter crashed, it would break open, just like Pandora’s box, and all the horrors of the world would break out... So you see, dear father, nothing was left to chance. All was ordained just as it should be. All was planned down to the finest detail. Would you have expected anything less from your son? And the salvage team can go in and investigate the situation all that they want. All that they will find is a twisted, broken container case. All that they will find is blackened, tainted ground. All that they will find is the Necrovirus, alive, at large, and causing the dead to walk the earth... The Apocalypse at last, father, writ large, writ huge upon this corrupted world. Don’t you think your son is clever, father? Won’t you, at last, pay your Felix the respect that is his due...?”
Slowly, Morrell shook his head. His understanding reeled. His comprehension felt drugged with horror. He knew the potential of the Necrovirus. Had he not been present at the first reanimation, when the corpse of the prisoner had stirred? He knew that the potential of the virus was no lie, no urban myth, no chimney corner tale. And now his son – his insane son – had unleashed this horror upon the world...
And suddenly, Morrell was gripped by violence. It was as though his rage – his confusion, his fear – had boiled like lava over the cone of a volcano, and in this moment its power was undeniable. He lunged forward, and seized Felix by the front of his coat. Caught by surprise, the younger man staggered backward, and both men blundered into a nearby lab workbench. The bench skittered backward, and a rack of test tubes plunged to the floor, sending broken crystal shards seething away into darkened corners. They tussled for a moment, both locked in a helpless symbiosis of violence, until, his energy seemingly spent, Morrell collapsed against his son, sobbing, wretched, two bunches of Felix’s coat still clutched in his furious hands. Felix, for his part, merely encircled his father’s shoulders in what might have almost been a loving embrace, and held him for a moment.
“Father...” he whispered, almost crooned in a kind of sing-song, “oh father... I think that I have won. After all these years. After all that disappointment... your son has finally achieved what you always hoped he would. Oh father, your son has changed the world...”
Carefully, gently, Felix disengaged himself from Morrell’s grip. He stood, smoothed his suit around him, and ran delicate hands across his jet black hair. Then he gazed down at where his father lay, trembling and weeping on the laboratory floor, and an expression of pity and of contempt writ deep into his face.
“I must go now, father. I have an appointment to keep, and much to discus. In Room Eighteen...”
Fourteen
“What the fuck was that?”
Matt stared at Becky, and Becky stared straight back at him. The expression on her face mirrored exactly what Matt Dixon was feeling himself at that moment. Stark terror. After the helicopter, the cemetery, and then the flower shop, Matt thought that he’d felt all terror and nightmare that it was possible to feel in one life time, and then some. Now, listening to the sound of screaming echoing from the end of the alleyway – from the direction of Alchester High Street – terror cut him once again with a blade that had been sharpened anew.
“I mean,” Matt said again, “what the fuck?”
“I don’t know what the fuck it was Matt,” Becky replied at last, “but whatever it was, it didn’t sound good. To say the least. Shit.”
She glanced up the alleyway form the direction that they had come, her eyes wide, biting her lip. Matt didn’t have to be a mind reader to know what she was thinking. Back up the alley way lay the shop, (and beyond that a dead end), and they both knew what, most probably, would await them there. The dead people. The zombies. The people done up in face paint and fake blood. Dangerous, whatever the fuck they were. But ahead of them lay the high street, and the screaming. And there was nothing at all fake about those screams. Those screams were one hundred percent genuine.
He turned back to Beck, “what should we do?”
“You’re asking me?”
“Yeah,” he said, “I’m asking you.”
“Well – two choices really. We could go back to the shop, though all things considered that would probably be a very bad idea. Or we could go ahead to the high street and find out what the fuck is going on over there. Or – three choices actually – we could just stay in this alleyway until the whole thing – whatever the thing is - is finally over, or until we die, whichever comes first.”
“You know,” said Matt, “just staying here does seem sort of attractive.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean. But probably not practical. Because you know, I have an idea that whatever is going on in the big wide world out there is going to find us pretty soon if we just stay rooted to the spot. I have a nasty feeling that we’re not going to be able to sit this one out.”
Matt nodded, licked his lips, glanced one way and another along the alley, as though seeking answers, and of course finding none. “So what then? Shop or high street?”
“Let’s try the high street
“Okay,” Matt said reluctantly.
Slowly, cautiously, they made their way down the alley. Passed the waste bins with their rotting contents, passed cracked and moss-mottled brick. As they walked, the alley twisted around several blind corners, and as they made each turn, Matt and Becky would flinch, as though expecting to be confronted by dripping, shambling drooling horror. But only more cracked brick and wheelie bins and graffiti.
But the screams were closer now: echoing, desperate, and there were words too, phrases screamed out form the high street:
“Oh my God no - ,”
“Fuck this can’t be happening - ,”
“Shit this - ,”
“Oh God, mother, no leave her – “
“Oh Christ leave him, leave him LEAVE HIM!”
- sharp, broken pleas and refutations, snatched from the air, echoing along the brick tunnel of the alleyway. Ma
tt could understand those voices. Their horror, their denial, their amused, crazed, disbelief that any of this could be happening AT ALL. The voices of people who had been in the grip of nightmare, had awakened, and had found that the nightmare was still transpiring around them.
At last they rounded the final bend beyond which, they both knew, lay the high street. As he rounded the bend, Matt skidded to a halt, peering at something that was sitting just within the alley way’s opening. The figure of a young man: slumped, drooping, pale skinned, his arm injured and covered in an odd black substance, as though he’d dipped it in oil. He was wearing a black Metallica t-shirt, had a mop of sandy-blond hair, and as soon as Matt saw him, he recognised him. It was young Carl Baker, the guy who lived in the flat on the high street. Matt knew him from a couple of drinking sessions down at the Hope and Anchor, had struck up conversations with him on a couple of occasions. Good for a laugh now and then, though not a close friend of Matt’s, a passing associate of which there were many in a small town where most people knew everyone else. Now, Carl was looking a little sorry for himself, seemingly having taken refuge in the alley from whatever madness was transpiring beyond, much as Matt and Becky had done. It looked to Matt as though young Carl could use a friend.
“Hey,” Matt began to call, “C-,”
- but he didn’t get to call Carl’s name because, just at that moment, a hand clamped over his mouth, and killed his voice while it was still in his throat. A warm hand, Matt was pleased to note, a living hand. He looked down along the arm that the hand was attached to, and then into Becky’s face. She shook her head, her other hand held to her face, her finger to her lips. Gently, she drew Matt into an alcove that lay in the alley wall, and from there, they watched Carl Baker.
The saw him rise: slowly, unsteadily, as though drugged. They saw his complexion: pale, dead, his skin riddled with odd black lines as though some weird tattoo had been applied to his skin, or else some rare poison had been injected into him. They were close enough to see his eyes too: pale, blank, seemingly without pupils or irises. His jaw hung to his chest, and from it flowed a stream of what looked like saliva and black gloop, as though his mouth had been filled with engine oil. He looked very much like the people in the shop, the people in the cemetery, the people who had crawled from the helicopter. Like a zombie. Matt recalled that Carl had been a huge zombie fan, had seen all the movies and read all the books- and, in a strange way, that gave him hope. Perhaps this was just a put-on, just some huge and crazy zombie walk that had gone way too far. It was just the sort of thing that Carl would have got himself involved in.