George had no idea that his secondary school had just ceased to exist as a viable educational establishment.
Not that he would have been greatly saddened by the fact. Whilst being a somewhat more dramatic announcement of closure than many, Oakhill Academy’s change in status was in no way unique. The official education system in Britain had effectively ended with the advent of the collapse. As had every other public service and governmental organisation. Ended in any meaningful sense that is.
As the explosions subsided and flames began to inexorably spread and consume the building, Oakhill Academy was one of the more obviously closed institutions. However, its destruction differed only in visibility to that of an entire nation.
George waited as runners flew past. And then waited again as a stillness returned. Eddies of smoke were visible in the sky, rising from somewhere over to his right. Relatively close but it was difficult for him to judge. He ventured back onto the main road and was greeted by a changed scene.
It was deserted. The things were gone.
He didn’t have the energy to run but he wasted no more time, moved as quickly as he could and got to the church rooms in minutes.
Located a short distance from the old church, the rooms were an aging building that dated from the late forties. The squat concrete structure was far from glamourous. Ugly and showing the ravages of time.
The ugliness didn’t register with George. This was still a cherished place from his childhood. Birthday parties, his own and those of friends, with clowns hired by parents to entertain the children.
Food and drink, gifts and fun.
Unknown to George, the parish council had planned a redevelopment of the building to renovate it and better meet the needs of their community. Needless to say, that would never take place. And if it did, the needs of the new majority of the Oakhill community were now somewhat different to what they would have been.
The area in which he stood was blessedly quiet.
He made his way to the double doors at the front of the building but they were locked.
Of course they’re locked. What did you expect when everything is this messed up? A break? A bit of luck?
He rested his head against the peeling wood and wanted to cry, stifled tears because that was baby stuff.
Try the toilet window at the back, where we once got in, the window that they never seem to close. There’s nothing to lose.
He wandered down the side of the building and climbed a tall iron gate, slipping at the top and falling heavily on the other side.
Truly tired now. All worn out and nowhere to go.
He did cry when he rounded the corner and saw the open window.
Tears of relief and nostalgia. He clambered up the drain pipe next to the window and shoved his bag threw the small top section of open window. Squeezed himself after it with the last of his strength and tumbled gracelessly to the floor of the room.
Whimpered in pain as his wounded shoulder jarred against the corner of a storage cupboard. Lay exhausted and shivering on a dusty linoleum floor.
The infection that had entered his system when he was bitten was now raging furiously within his body.
An invasion more violent than any tooth or claw.
Chapter 4.
Mr Monkton and the End of the Affair.
In one of those moments of peculiar synchronicity, David Monkton arrived at Oakhill Academy as George Lowton sat pondering his journey to the Church Rooms. George was a Year 8 pupil at Oakhill and obviously knew Mr Monkton by sight, although he rarely spoke to him.
The Church Rooms, George’s destination on that day, was approximately a half mile away from Oakhill School.
Neither George nor David had any inkling of the proximity of the other. George certainly had no notion that Mr Monkton’s actions might have a hand in prolonging his life.
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After bludgeoning the thing that used to be his wife to death, collecting some essential supplies, and setting his marital home to burn, David Monkton was good to go. Equipped with those essential supplies and a God-given plan, armed with a zeal that would put any Jihadi to shame, having undergone an epiphany that left him burning brighter than his wife’s funeral pyre, Mr Monkton was needed at his school.
There was absolutely zero doubt in his mind on that score.
Once his business at Oakhill Academy was concluded, the slate would be clean, spic and span as they said. Whoever they were. Things would be squared away and ship-shape, ready for him to set sail on his new mission in life. Except for one, not so small, thing.
Angela. His mistress in the common parlance.
The hell-spawned temptress that had tested his faith to its utter limit, and beyond, and was an undeniable instrument of the darkest kind. Before he attended to his duties at the school, he had school-related business with Angela Skorecki. Zero doubt on that score either. And that score would be settled in satisfactory fashion, you could bet your bible on it.
Categorically no doubt. Zilch. Nada. Nil. Diddly squat, diddly kumquat. As they said.
And conveniently, her flat, her lair, was nearby and on the way.
As he left his home for the final time, to have said that David Monkton was insane would have been an understatement of the highest magnitude. He was so far round the bend that he was in serious danger of meeting himself coming the other way.
Close as it was, it still took him a fair while to get Angela’s home. The roads were teeming with them. His respectable suburban streets were teeming with them. Awash with them, awash with the effluent from satanic sewers.
Dear Lord, we have fallen so far, we were so bad. I was so bad. Yet you have spared me. For your work. For my work for you.
Getting to Angela’s apartment was a sore test in itself, but he didn’t waver for a second. He had to remind himself that he was journeying through the dawn of a dark age. Was present for the first rays of a sun that would light a time of trial and retribution. He welcomed the tests, welcomed the trials. He would deliver retribution wherever he could, with a strong arm and an unequivocal mind.
He had to rein in the urge to plough through them. Drive at them with an ill-considered abandon in his desire to destroy them. Wipe them from the face of the earth like the befoulment that they were.
That would have scuppered his ship whilst still in the harbour. Before he’d begun his real work. Broken his trusty Passat and left him stranded, surrounded by the Devil’s work, unable to pursue his own purer purposes.
Instead he persevered. Dodged and clipped, utilising the car as he would a critical pen on a student’s paper. With care and ...and love. Yes, love. Despatching those creatures that he could despatch without endangering his mission was an act of love, just as his generosity in marking had been loving and benevolent.
Smiled and even laughed when he thought he’d scored a kill with the ever faithful, emission dubious VW.
At one point, on a stretch of road that was deserted except for two of those things, those horrible creatures, he stopped and got out of the car.
He simply couldn’t resist it. Felt the cleansing fire burning so hot within him that to not let it free would have been a sin. To not have acknowledged God’s fire, coursing through his mind and body, would have been a sin.
Threw acid into the face of the first one as it closed within four feet of him. Dodged its lunge and watched, laughing, as it reeled away squealing. Took the lump hammer to the second. Hammered at it as he had at hammered at Rachel, poor unworthy Rachel, and actually whooped, as they said, when it went down for the last time.
Got back into the car and sat smiling and thoughtful as more began to appear. Left before the number became too great to navigate.
That bend, which he’d rounded a little while ago, the one that could have been turning in on itself, was now twisting into its own strangely irregular helix. He was going round bend after bend it seemed.
It’s quite possible that he was the craziest man left on the planet. Alth
ough there would have been challengers if he’d claimed the title.
A sane man may well have abandoned the attempt, especially after he saw the number of creatures in the forecourt of Angela’s building, a low rise complex of flats and apartments dating back to the seventies. Located in a densely residential district that had turned into a decent representation of hades with the advent of the rising after the collapse. A thoroughly unholy resurrection. In David’s humble opinion.
He eased the car past the troupe of creatures and turned into a quiet side road. Sat and considered the situation and considered the bigger houses around him. Houses with large expanses of ground and gardens around them. Very expensive houses.
He delved into the back of the trusty old Passat and retrieved some of his essential supplies. Not the little glass bottles of acid. Not those, not for this job.
Bigger bottles with rags. Somewhat basic but somewhat spot-on for what he had in mind.
He chose a house that appeared quiet and undisturbed and a little dilapidated. In need of renovation perhaps. He was quite prepared to begin the process of renovation. Everyone knew that renovation began with destroying the dead wood, stripping back the waste, arriving at what was sound and good.
Strolled up the drive and saw a young woman in the window. Waving at him frantically. She appeared to be somewhat agitated. In a state of panic perhaps.
He flicked the disposable lighter and delivered a petrol bomb through the front window.
Was pleasantly surprised by the unexpected sound of a braying burglar alarm. A Brucie, as he believed that they also said. An added bonus.
He strolled back to the car. He would have liked to have stayed and watched the outcome ...but he had other fish to fry.
His escape was no more sophisticated than his choice of distraction. He simply reversed and pulled into another drive. Left the engine running and waited as the swarm began to coalesce, darting past him, drawn by the sound. A few of them slowed, glanced at the low purr of his engine, but the noise of the alarm and spreading fire was too strong, too strident, too loud a lure to be ignored. He waited until the stream of Satan spawn slowed to a stop and then eased the car out and travelled the short distance to Angela’s complex. Never once did he consider the waving girl in the window of the dilapidated house. Her fate was in God’s all-encompassing hands.
What looked like a human carcass was close to the communal doorway. He drove over it, a satisfying bump and pulp, and parked the good old Passat as close to that doorway as possible, while leaving enough gap to actually open one of the doors.
He had keys to the apartment complex and her flat. Angela had given him keys.
Come anytime. That smoky voice accompanied by that deliciously lewd wink. The weight of her implication sitting as heavy as the weight of her buttock on his lap. Or desk.
The Devil readily distributed keys to your own damnation. They were another Brucie, free with every eternal torment.
He got out and surveyed the forecourt. Concrete covered with glass and glistening fragments, and patches of marooned matter that might have been organic.
Dear Lord, they are beast. Without you presence, they are become beast.
Found the main door unlocked and entered the functional foyer. Remedied the unlocked entrance behind him and twirled the keys in his hand to find those for Angela’s flat. Stoically walked the stairs to the third floor, the top floor in this low rise, Sutton splendid complex.
The Penthouse David. That’s where I live. The Penthouse. Where the bad girls get to live and the naughty good boys come to visit.
Stood at her door, key in one hand and lump hammer heavy and good in the other. He didn’t knock like he’d always done in the past. The polite boy asking for entry. This time he just went in.
Heard the thumping, the hissing, almost immediately.
From the bedroom.
Of course, it had to be the bedroom. Where else would it have been?
The stink was worse than with Rachel and the bindings more sturdy.
Someone had padlocked her to the bed. Hands and feet, steel bracelets around metal bedposts. The bleached blonde hair had shed all about her, bed and floor. The glorious heft of her body was gone too. A skeletal thing now, thrashing and fevered, desperate for release, one ankle showing bone that would soon splinter and break. The gold necklace that he’d guiltily given her bounced at her spindle corded throat.
The fact that she had been entertaining somebody else at the time of her collapse didn’t enter his mind at that point. That she had been betraying a betrayer wasn’t even a consideration for David.
She was so changed, so different.
Yet so the same.
Her sex rippled at him. Pulsing and wet and waiting to grasp.
To resist would have been a sin.
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He blunted her head with the hammer. Chopped through her ankles and wrists with the axe.
Essentials supplies. Essential tools.
Raided her fridge for food and drank water from the tap as he sat and watched the world disintegrate from her balcony window.
Pissed and defecated into her toilet and left it there to stew.
Cut and scavenged electrical flex from the apartment. Fashioned a noose for her strange new neck and suspended her from the same balcony.
Fondled the red flecked gold of the necklace that he’d taken back from her.
Hung a sign around that new neck. Gem markered onto the back of a framed print of nude female abstract.
The sign said love.
<><><>
David Monkton arrived at Oakhill school, sorry, Academy, with one score left to settle before he could begin his life’s work, his one true purpose, God’s work.
My work for you.
He needed to attend to one last matter. That matter was to officially close the school.
The trusty Passat was pumping out volume and the volume was attracting the damned. That was as it should be, but was it enough? Was it maximising the potential, as they surely must have said? He would take steps to maximise it.
As he secured the main entrance to Oakhill Academy, demons pounded the glass and wooden doors. Those doors were stout enough in themselves but he wasn’t sure how long they’d withstand the mounting pressure.
Long enough he hoped. Long enough for him to maximise the result.
Dropping his old sports bag by the reception desk, he rummaged in the storage cabinets behind the desk and produced the ghetto blaster that he knew was there. Switched it play whatever bland nonsense was on the inserted disc, positioned it on top of the desk and flicked the volume slider to full.
That should hold their attention.
Next he ran through the adjacent dining room and into the large kitchens that served it. Thankfully the gas was still working. He turned on everything and blew out any flames that had automatically ignited. Whilst he waited for the lower explosive limit to be reached, he busied himself with a number of other tasks around the building.
Amongst his many academic qualifications and certifications, Mr Monkton possessed a degree in chemistry. He was also a keen scientist and amateur inventor. He put those skills to good use in the next minutes. It’s fair to say that by the time he’d finished his preparations, Oakhill Academy had become an incredibly dangerous place to be.
Not that many places in Oakhill could, strictly speaking, be classed as safe these days. Certainly not for those immune to the infection in any event.
The explosions and fire that would ensue from his activities would be rather impressive in scale. Even more impressive than the significant number of mutated creatures that he’d attracted by his blatant ringing of the metaphorical dinner bells.
By the time he was ready to permanently close the school, close the academy for good, there were hundreds, possibly thousands, of creatures scrabbling over each other to gain ingress to the building. David Monkton had the singular distinction of destroying more of them in one knock than anyone else in th
e country on that cataclysmic Thursday at the tail end of May.
His undeniable masterstroke was allowing them into his beloved institution before initiating the conflagration. That, and luring them a little deeper into structure.
Homicidally insane as he now was, it could never be said that Mr Monkton was anything but accomplished.
He was blissfully unware of the fact that his last act as head teacher at Oakhill provided the diversion that enabled one of his former pupils, George Lowton, to reach the improbable sanctuary of the nearby church rooms.
Not that he could have cared less by that juncture.
Chapter 5.
Going Overground.
Julian Holloway went back to his quarters and disabled the cameras that Pearcey had mentioned. Hacked the software and did it without any qualms.
The situation had become surreal when he entered the bunker. What had happened since had taken it into the realms of fantasy. He felt like he was on a travelator through a compendium of Daliesque paintings with no end in sight and no idea of what it might be when he got there.
He was swamped with it. The whole thing.
He couldn’t really settle to anything and couldn’t identify what he should be settling to in any event. After a restless spell he ended up in the cafeteria and stayed there only long enough to eat an unappetising ready meal. He felt uncomfortable there. As though the few others present didn’t want contact with him or, at the very least, he couldn’t connect with them in any way that was meaningful enough to make it worth the bother.
Probably paranoia but the feeling persisted and he retired to his quarters.
As a consequence he missed Pearcey and Gallagher’s dramatic return. Didn’t see their blood spattered clothing or see the shake in their hands as they dazedly drank cups of tea laced with scotch.
Didn’t detect the quaver in their voices or hear their breathless accounts of a world changed beyond recognition, a world inhabited by beasts that stood upright like men, but acted like wild animals.
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