by Tim Lebbon
No longer. Now, a smile from her would tumble a squirrel dead from a tree, its innards pulped and leaking from every orifice. A laugh could strafe through woodlands like high velocity bullets, smacking birds from their roosts and throwing them at the ground, already dead from shock. Deer froze helpless in her path and shrieked as they died of fright. If they were lucky.
At first, she had not wanted it like this. But she had no control, and if this was how things had to be then she would make the most of it. With loss of reason went a distortion of love.
It was not the true power she possessed, but an echo, caught from the person wielding the genuine vigour. A throw-back to the womb, perhaps, though the womb that had birthed Fay was long lost and deformed through the passage of time. Nature had begun when Fay had begun; a long time ago. It continued now, but its course was being irrevocably altered. And she was glad. Glad because she was bored, tired of the same old thing, and now she savoured the taste of change in the air.
She could almost see it. The air itself shimmered with anticipation, transmitting the change via its agitated particles, the message of revolution moving on and ever onward. It swept across farmland and hillsides, bathing the land in its invisible, tasteless and odourless perfume, encouraging the first signs of change. The trees obeyed; the animals obeyed; the people, slipping from the heady heights of their ascendancy, obeyed.
Fay loved it. She enjoyed watching. Especially, like now, when what she was observing had direct consequence on her own bit-part within the mighty play of nature. She was high in a tree, sitting at a junction between branch and trunk, one hand clawed into the dying bark. A nest of woodpeckers had died with fright as she climbed, but a rook sat on her bicep, gazing at her through sapphire eyes, its head jerking from side to side. Its feathers were unhitching and splaying, shedding the microscopic barbs which allowed flight. Soon, it would only walk. All part of the change.
Fay had seen the cars stop just as they pulled from the motorway. People had darted from the doors and gone behind a hedge to urinate.
She felt a wave building. Behind her, in the field, there was a rustling and an air of disorder; around her, those creatures still alive in the trees hissed and spat in their confusion, eyes turning towards the cars. The air was charged. Fay’s hair stood on end with the static of promised violence.
In the field, she heard the waterfall patter of an entire herd of cows voiding their bowels at the same time, the stink wafting up through the trees.
It had not happened yet, she knew. Not completely. But now seemed to be the time for it all to begin. Perhaps it was because she was there, the echo she had of the true power urging those affected just over the precipice. Whatever the reason, Fay was ecstatic. An almost sexual thrill passed through her as she heard the sound of cows pushing through the hedge below. Barren thing that she was, her stomach tingled with expectation.
Fay touched herself, gasped, laughed as one of the cows glanced up at the noise. Its eyes began to roll. Foam flecked the whiskers around its mouth. There was blood in the foam.
The trees suddenly came to life, as if the leaves themselves had a mind of their own. The rook on her arm fluttered awkwardly to a branch nearer the road. Other birds – sparrows, finches, tits of all kinds, a group of magpies, several sparrow hawks and a pair of huge, powerful buzzards – flowed through and above the trees as if fleeing a bush fire. But there was no fire, not externally, at least. The only flame burned inside the mind of every animal here. The flame of hatred, the white heat of madness. The agony of change.
Fay knew that the cars would be found. She knew who would find them. He would find them, along with his band of cronies, so sure that they could drive their way out of this madness. If only they knew.
Oh, it would be a true work of art. Part of her Renaissance.
“Go, then,” Fay whispered.
The cows forced their way through the hedge and stood glaring wetly at the cars, both loaded down with people and their meagre belongings. The people stared back, across the expanse of road separating them like a fire stop. But nothing could contain this conflagration.
The cows moved hurriedly across the road. Birds burst from the trees around Fay, splattering her with shit and tangling in her hair. She cried out with joy, and the noise seemed to spur them on even more. Squirrels, rabbits, badgers, stoats, a family of foxes, all flowed against and through the hedge, a living, jumping carpet of animals.
Their complete silence made the scene all the more frightening.
Curious voices called out from the cars, then fell silent. A toddler asked for his Mummy. A woman screamed. A boy came from behind the hedge, shaven head gleaming with the sudden sweat of fear as he saw the tide of creatures bearing down on the parked cars. He had forgotten to do up his zip.
The cows struck first, battering into the cars like a tank assault. They dented metal, rocked the vehicles on their suspension, starred glass. Just as they hit, a door opened and a figure emerged from the Cavalier, holding a short black object. He was crushed between the door and the car body, arms going skyward as his ribs were shattered and punched inwards. He opened his mouth, but screamed only blood. The gun discharged, pumping pellets uselessly at the sky.
Other cows piled into the first, crushing them into the cars, leaping up and pounding into their cousins in a parody of rough rutting. The cars slid sideways, leaving squealing black skids on the road. The animals remained silent, apart from the occasional bay of pain and the snap of bones.
The birds and other creatures hit then, darting between the stamping legs of the cows, climbing into smashed windows, fluttering through an open rooflight in floods of feathers.
The real screaming began.
The shaven-headed youth turned and ran, bare feet slapping the Tarmac. He managed quite a distance before he was caught.
Fay sat on her branch and grinned. She cried out as the people in the cars cried, trying to match their screams of agony with own moans of false pleasure. They deserved it, she knew. They all deserved it. No exceptions, no questions. If it weren’t for them, she wouldn’t be who she was today. She would still be perfect.
The back doors of the Mercedes opened and two women darted out. One of them tried to force her way through the far hedge. In seconds she was engulfed in a mass of biting, scraping, tearing birds and small mammals, and her screams lasted only as long as she remained upright. Then, there were only sounds of feeding. The other woman ran. She was chased. She was caught by a fox, which snapped into her ankle like a bloodhound and held on as she fell. Birds dive-bombed her, pecking, clawing, drawing red hieroglyphics of agony into her exposed skin. Then the other ground creatures reached her and set to, ripping clothes from her body with hooked claws, tearing flesh. She stood and screamed, looking back at the cars as if expecting help from there. Then a buzzard swooped down and plucked her left eye from its socket. She crushed a rabbit as she fell, breaking its back with her knees. Its feet drummed a death tattoo on the roadside as the woman was killed next to it.
The cows were climbing over the cars now, dropping themselves heavily onto the roofs, breaking their legs and rolling off to allow others to continue the assault. Screams, androgynous with terror, fought their way through the rolling wave of animals engulfing the vehicles. There was hardly any metal or glass to be seen. And all the time more creatures arrived, attracted by the noise and called by whatever strange signals had enraged the first.
The engine of the Mercedes suddenly burst into life. The horn sounded, but the animals took no notice. The vehicle began to move, a macabre mobile sculpture of biting, clawing animals, their fur speckled with blood. It crawled along the road, crunching over the twitching bodies of creatures injured in the attack, picking up speed until it hit the flailing mass of the woman on the verge. The wheel struck what was left of her head and stilled her misery.
Two cows fell from the roof of the car. Glass had burst from all the windows, and these openings were now crawling with life. There were sc
reams from inside and the driver’s door opened. A figure fell out as the car was still rolling. It squirmed in the road as if trying to smother burning clothing, but this fire was the blaze of open wounds. Soon, the shape had stopped moving. Seconds later the Mercedes drifted to the right and tilted gracelessly into the ditch alongside the road.
There were no more screams. From the Cavalier, moans drifted over to Fay for several minutes. The sounds only seemed to enrage the frantic animals even more. Back legs kicked at the air as they fought their way inside the car, and then inside what was inside.
Fay watched them for an hour. By that time most of the animals had drifted away, gorged and bloodied, swaying across the road with eyes full of a manic confusion. Blood dripped from their whiskers. Pink flesh clung to their teeth. The cars were ruined; their interiors were a gruesome mess, split and torn and emptied of their stuffing. Blood dripped from bent metalwork. Bones gleamed in the afternoon light. A hand, half stripped of flesh, clung to the doorpost of the Cavalier.
Fay let herself slowly down from the tree and walked away. She did not need to see close up. She had seen enough.
Enough to know that Blane would see it. Enough to know that the message – the tiding of the end of things, and the beginning of something else – had been well and truly sent.
17. Rebellious Ghosts
Peer was not completely at ease with her new travelling companion. The girl seemed too casual about what had happened, almost dismissive. But she needed company – she craved it – and Mary had been the only person in the service station to offer it.
The car began to shake as it reached sixty miles per hour. Mary insisted on driving at seventy. The dog, Spike, sat with his head protruding between the two front seats, panting bad breath, dribbling thick drool. Peer thought that the mutt had still not forgiven her for almost taking a swing at its head. Any time she turned, it seemed to be staring at her. It would glance away, but look back at her if she did not divert her attention. It was unnerving.
Aside from that, there was also the matter of the spiked chain that Mary carried around with her. She had thrown it into the footwell of the passenger seat before Peer climbed in; Peer now sat with her feet resting on the cool metal. Over the last half an hour she had been trying to take a good look at it without being too obvious. She was certain there was dried blood on the blades. In many ways, she did not want to know for sure.
She remembered the man in Newport, the one with the shotgun. How many people would be driven mad by something like this, shoved over the subtle dividing line between eccentricity and insanity?
Or were the few survivors mad not to be mad? Perhaps the welcome embrace of derangement was the only real escape from this dreadful reality.
“Don’t let me nod off,” Mary had said as they started out from the services. She laughed, and Peer almost joined her, but then she remembered what the people from the two cars on the motorway had said. About how only those who had not slept last night had survived.
And remember the dream, Peer. The falling. The ground, waiting to crush you.
And she had said, “Yeah, me too.”
At least Mary talked. Incessantly. A defence mechanism, Peer thought, telling a complete stranger about the way she had found her parents dead in bed, almost relishing the elaborate descriptions of their shattered corpses. Peer had once gone out on some dates with a man who, by his own admission, was peculiarly sensitive to other people’s emotions and states of mind. He had taught her how to spot a lie, by varying methods, from the way a person’s head is tilted as they talk to the words used to relay certain falsities. Unfortunately, he had been too good at his own particular gift. When Peer’s interest waned, her attempts to embellish it turned into a huge, pounding guilt. Eventually, the man had imagined a lie greater and more important than the sad truth, and he had left.
Mary was rattling off at the mouth. Her descriptions of her dead mother and father were intricate and detailed. She emphasised the loss she felt, but seemed to enjoy doing so. She made a point of catching Peer’s eye as often as she could, sometimes to the detriment of safe driving. The only thing she did not do was to touch Peer’s leg as she spoke.
Mary was lying. Everything she said, Peer was certain, was a complete fabrication, created on the spot and expanded with a childish enthusiasm as her imagination got the better of her. She seemed so pleased with her own peculiar little tale that Peer did not mind. It seemed to make her happy, and Peer was pleased to hear a human voice doing something other than screaming or crying.
“And Mr Hopkins next door was dead in his bathroom,” Mary said. “And that’s where I picked up Spike. He was in there, sniffing around old Hopkins’s head when I went in. Oh, I always have a spare key for next door, because Mr Hopkins is old and frail. And I check him every day. So I went in and saw he was dead, and Spike followed me out as I left. I couldn’t just leave him. Could I Spike? Eh?”
The dog glanced at Mary as if to acknowledge what she had said. It drooled, just to be different.
Mary continued her monologue. Peer half listened, but most of her attention was absorbed by thoughts of her distant family. Her mother in Newcastle, what would she be doing now? Was she still alive? Peer had not seen her for several years, and now petty family rivalry seemed the most foolish concept ever. It was always too much trouble to telephone, she never seemed to have time to write a letter, even though she knew just how much her mother would have loved to hear from her. She wanted to say she loved her, send a note and go to stay with her. For a weekend, at first, because longer may be too much. Then, maybe, reconciliation and friendship. She so wished she could have the chance, but at the same time she was certain the time had passed long ago.
“Peer? I said I think we should go through Chepstow anyway. What do you think? Are you listening to me? I was thinking of heading north.”
“Why north?” Peer had no real plans, just a vague idea to find help. But the further they drove from Newport, the more unlikely it seemed that there was any help to be found. There was hardly any traffic. No signs of the emergency services, anywhere. They saw an occasional vapour trail high in the sky, or the tell-tale flicker of sunlight from a helicopter’s rotor blades, but these things seemed far removed from what was happening on the ground.
“North, well, I just thought it would be for the best. And I’ve got family. In … Cheltenham. A brother. Maybe it’s all right there, who’s to say?”
“All the phone lines are down,” Peer said.
Mary did not reply at once, and when she did it was with another question. “So, Chepstow it is then?”
Peer nodded. “Fine. Only dead bodies there, though. That’s what the girl in the services said.”
They drove on in silence. It seemed that Mary was all lied out.
Peer thought that she and Mary had some things in common. They were both rootless, for a start; she had never felt this more so than now, when calamity had struck and she had nowhere to go. Her best friend was dead and she was estranged from her mother, unable to communicate with her even if that were not the case. And there was no one special, no lovers, nobody left to turn to. She had no home, no place of comfort where she could at least wait out this catastrophe until everything was put back as it should be, and normal service had been resumed.
Mary, at first glance, appeared the same. Peer was sure that if she did have parents she had not just come from their home, and she probably knew as much about them now as Peer did about her own mother. Maybe there had been a boyfriend, but now she was alone. The spiked chain testified that she could look after herself, but there was also a frantic vulnerability about her, shimmering below the surface like a child trapped under ice.
Two lone survivors together. Peer hoped they could help each other.
Mary had not spoken this much to one person in years. Peer was the one, she was sure, the woman whom Fay had told her about. Whatever quirk of fate had brought them together Mary blessed it, and hoped that Fay would be equ
ally as happy. Mary was silently intimidated by Peer’s presence and the ease with which she carried her power, almost as if she did not acknowledge its existence. But she also found she hated her, wishing so much that now was the time to let her Spikes – both the dog, and the chain – loose on the bitch’s putrid flesh.
Fay had preached caution, however. Mary must wait until the time was right. And she would never, could never disobey Fay.
She needed to tell Peer a story, paint out a make-believe background so that she could not betray Fay with any casual questions. So she thought up a dead family, a dead neighbour, the dead neighbour’s dog, escape from the home and flight towards Cheltenham in the hope of finding her brother alive and well there. In truth, she knew that they would get nowhere near Cheltenham before seeing Fay once more. The transparency of the lie mattered little.
As she took the exit ramp from the motorway Mary experienced a sudden, intense flush of dread. Her skin prickled, her stomach rumbled. She felt as she had for the last few years, closed in with Roger and his sick gang, turned into one of them by the endless mockery and the foolish, useless urge to make herself wanted. She slowed the car and started to ease it into the hard shoulder. From the corner of her eye she saw Peer look up.
“Anything wrong?” Peer asked.
Mary shook her head. She did not want to talk to her, could not. Something terrible nestled in the pit of her stomach, twisting her guts and promising much, much more pain to come. She felt an instant of dissatisfaction, and she was honest with herself for the first time in a long while. Like a drowning woman she relived a dozen instances from her life, all of them were bad. The here, the now, suddenly felt the same.
The car swung around the roundabout under its own momentum, and Mary helped it on its way around the corner and down between the fields.