by Paul Kane
The authorities outside of Middletown were alerted, the police inside having been effectively shut down by the malady, and within the hour the small city (only recently upgraded to a city, in fact), including all its surrounding areas, had been quarantined. This included cutting off all communication from and with the place, jamming mobile phones, terminating internet usage and landlines. The army were drafted in to maintain this “cordon” around the area – joint UK and US, from a nearby American base – with orders to use deadly force where necessary to prevent any spread of what was now openly being called a virus. Soldiers wearing gasmasks, gloves taped at the wrists and combats taped at the ankles, patrolled the barriers with rifles – though thankfully there were only a couple of incidents where they came close to using the deadly force option:
One at two in the morning, where a mother was carrying her five-year-old son away from the city, crying and screaming, but only made it within about half a mile of the erected fences before dropping, presumably asleep – though nobody was going anywhere near her to check for a pulse.
The other incident occurred at about three that same morning, when a Land Rover was driven over the horizon carrying three passengers, two already slumped over in the backseat, and a third struggling to stay awake in the front.
“Turn your vehicle around!” an authoritative voice quaked through a megaphone. The “advice” was ignored. “I said turn your vehicle around and return to Middletown. There is no way out here. You must remain in your homes until help arrives.”
“Help?” came a bellowing, if obviously exhausted, cry from the driver – leaning foolishly out of his window and making himself even more of a target. “Have you seen it back there? There is no help, mate.”
“Turn your vehicle around,” the voice repeated, this time without the hope and pleasantries; this time only with a generous amount of threat. It was backed up by weapons fire in the air, sprayed across the Land Rover’s bow as a warning shot. The vehicle swung sideways and at first the soldiers on hand thought it might have been because of the bullets: an avoidance tactic. But whoever was driving the vehicle had, quite clearly, lost control of it for other reasons. Succumbing to the sleeping sickness just like everyone else.
The vehicle’s tyres locked, it spun, and rolled over three times before landing upside down. Seconds later, it was alight – and moments after that, it was a fireball, everyone inside it roasted.
There were no more incidents, no more sightings. No more anything. It was the city that had gone to sleep now (in some cases, permanently). No-one knew the cause, nobody could figure out why.
But by the following morning, it was silent, and remained that way.
Its entire population, dreaming.
Two
It’s time. Come, quickly… I need you!
The words followed him, up out of unconsciousness as he was roused from his precious sleep. Precious, for him especially as an insomniac. The time he spent in a dream state – especially these days – was few and far between, and he resented anything that interrupted it.
Andrew Strauss groaned as he lifted his sore head off the pillow. Had it really been worth all that booze last night to put him under? Yes, definitely, always, if it meant he spent a few hours asleep. The incessant ringing of the phone on the bedside table – not his mobile, because that was switched off – seemed to be accompanying the booms he was hearing between his ears. A symphony for the hung-over in A-Minor. He needed pills... but painkillers this time; not the sleeping ones he seemed to be increasingly immune to these days. Alcohol didn’t usually have much of an effect, so he must have really tied one on the previous evening. Most of it was a blur.
He blinked a few times, thankful it was still only early, and dawn was a little way off. There was enough light to see by, though, and he frowned – not recognising his surroundings. It certainly wasn’t his own little bolt-hole retreat, because the bed there faced a set of glass doors, which led out onto a balcony and one of the best views he’d ever come across in his entire life. It was probably the reason he’d bought the place, regardless of the fact he didn’t get to spend as much time there as he’d like. That panorama: just the right combination of ocean and cliffs, with a sandy beach below which he often made use of during the summer months.
Here the bed was adjacent to a window, the layout much more… ordered than his pad. He’d been in enough hotel rooms in his time to know that’s where he was, and with that knowledge came more fragments of what he’d been doing last night; for the last couple of days, actually.
Andrew couldn’t remember why exactly he’d agreed to be a keynote speaker at this conference. It wasn’t the large payment the organisers were offering, thanks in no small part – ironically – to sponsorship by one of the largest pharmaceutical companies on the planet. He had more money than he knew what to do with anyway, so lures such as those – nice though they were – usually weren’t enough to tempt him away from his day-to-day work. He would, like as not, be giving the whole lot away to some charitable cause; probably one that dealt with trying to cure deadly epidemics abroad (thereby giving the pharmaceutical company back their money, however indirectly).
Could it have been the sucking up those same organisers had done, the many fawning emails and phone calls, telling him just how wonderful he was. A child prodigy, making MD at such a ridiculously early age it made Howser look like a pensioner, then going on to specialise in and even teach several fields – such as surgery, biology, urology and microbiology – before consulting for the likes of the Cambridge Infectious Disease Initiative, the World Health Organisation, the Centre for Disease Control and USAMRID (the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases) where he still had full clearance, or as full as any civilian had in a facility like that. A freelancer, always on the move. Always ready to tackle the next contagion, wherever it was.
He knew all that shit already.
The organisers also hinted that they’d do absolutely anything to have him come and speak to their delegates. Including, he suspected, though it wasn’t said out loud, laying on any forms of recreational activity he chose to indulge in. Now that was just funny. He let them go on and on, with no intentions of showing up. So what had turned things around?
The chance to get across the different methods he’d been exploring to fight all forms of global viruses, more important than ever before in a time when over 40 new human pathogens had cropped up in the last three decades. As crucial as that was, there were journals and papers which did the job for him. Although he doubted that could compare to the performance he’d put on yesterday; using lasers, holograms and music to enhance his oration – blowing the boring stuffed shirts they’d wheeled on before him completely out of the water. Yeah, that’s right, he was fucking Jean Michel Jarre…
No, it wasn’t that.
The promise of so many female delegates in one place, then – and everyone knew, research scientists were the hottest of all scientists. Was it that? He would have had no need for the organisers to lay on paid “company” for him. Andrew could have his pick of any of the white coat and high heels brigade. Not only was he revered in these circles, he also happened to be pretty damned good looking… even if he did say so himself, which he didn’t… well, not often. He reached out now, laying his hand flat on the mattress beside him, checking it for a body; a naked body. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d got loaded and fallen into bed with whichever woman happened to be closest, and he had been celebrating how well his speech had gone.
Nothing there, no warm flesh beside him.
But it did give him a clue as to why he’d accepted this gig.
Wouldn’t have been the first time he’d got loaded and fallen into bed with whichever woman happened to be closest; hadn’t been the last, either. Because the last had been–
“Bridget.” He whispered the name as he picked up the receiver and was connected with the caller. Andrew bit his lip. He’d known how she felt about him an
d he’d gone and made the worst mistake of his life anyway. Wait, it hadn’t all been his fault; they’d both felt it – the rush of still being alive after being caught slap bang in the middle of one of the worst cholera outbreaks in recent history; stranded in Africa while all hell broke loose. When they’d finally made it out, unscathed, they’d both needed a drink or several.
But what had happened after that was–
“Bridget,” he repeated, knowing it was her, that she’d finally tracked him down. The best assistant he’d ever had, cherry-picked by him from a roster of graduates because she was brilliant (and beautiful, don’t forget that – in a short-haired, elfish kind of way). He sighed. No, he’d picked her because of her brains and nothing else, but it became clear after months of working closely together that she had a massive crush on him. Andrew had put it down to who he was, the fact he was her boss as well as her elder, but the lingering looks she gave him never really faded in the six years they’d been “together”; practically inseparable, she’d gone everywhere with him. But he’d made sure they remained strictly friends – actually the best friend he’d ever had.
Then he had to go and stuff things up by thinking with his private parts. Not thinking at all, would be more accurate. That and the alcohol, far less than he’d had last night, granted, but somehow it had hit him so much harder… It had been Bridget who’d been lying beside him in his flat when he woke that time, and he’d looked down on her, horrified at what he’d allowed to happen. Not that he could remember much about it, but the fact their clothes were strewn all over the floor said it all really, didn’t it?
She’d stirred then, waking and turning over to look at him, to smile. There had been no hangovers that morning, except the massive Sword of Damocles he felt hanging above them, about to fall at any moment. “Morning, you,” she’d said in tones so sweet you could have licked them off a spoon, and Andrew’s guts had knotted. He’d run to the bathroom, not even having to feign sickness, but also knowing it had nothing to do with the drink. He threw up a couple of times and then, as he was splashing water on his face, she was knocking at the door, asking if he was okay. Andrew told her he didn’t feel great, that she should let herself out and he’d see her at work. Reluctantly, she’d done just that.
Later she’d rung his mobile and he’d tried to explain. “Look, it was just a really bad idea, Bridg,” he’d told her.
“But why? I don’t understand.” He could hear the pain in every syllable, the tears that were being choked back.
“You know why. Besides the fact we work together, there’s–”
“Christ, her,” Bridget had said, bitterly. “Can’t you see, that’s never going to happen. It’s an illusion.”
“She’s the reason I got into all this in the first place. I’ll… I’ll never feel the same way about anyone else. How could I? And I can only apologise about that. I know what you want me to say and I can’t, Bridg.” He’d rubbed his head. Deadly viruses he could face without qualms, but this was something else. Bridget was one of the few people he’d let inside and now he was ripping her world to shreds.
“Please, Andy. Can’t we just talk about this?”
“I’m going away for a while.”
“Where?”
He wasn’t about to tell her, even if he’d known himself. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll talk to you when I get back.” He’d switched the phone off and hadn’t turned it back on since. That was over three weeks ago. Coward that he was, Andrew had skipped town and laid low for a while, moving from place to place – barely sleeping at night, in spite of the amount of pills he took – and he’d soon grown bored without any kind of stimulus.
That’s when he’d remembered the conference.
Getting in touch with the organisers after so long, he’d asked if there was still time for him to come along and give a talk. “Of course! Yes, please.” It was hiding in plain sight, and the last place in the world Bridget would think of looking for him after he’d blasted the idea. As long as they didn’t advertise his attendance in advance, he’d be there – a kind of mystery guest. They’d agreed and even laid on transportation.
But now that the party was over, he had to finally face up to the consequences of his actions. Bridget was on the other end of the line and he was waiting for her to speak.
“Andrew,” was what he finally got. Not Andy now, because he didn’t warrant it. Didn’t deserve such intimacy. Jesus, he hoped someday they could get back to the place they’d been in before all this happened.
“How did you find me?”
“You know,” she said, a hardness in her voice that had never been there before, “for an extraordinarily bright man you can be really thick sometimes.” He pursed his lips at that one. “Never heard of YouTube? Your antics at the conference are all over it.”
Andrew groaned.
“But I’m not the one who’s been looking for you. Not since…” She couldn’t finish, and Andrew heard the pain that was still there, hiding, just as he had done from her.
“What are you talking about?” he said, finally, a little slow on the uptake.
“Turn on your TV set. Go to BBC News 24.”
Ah, the good old Beeb – no matter where you were, you could always rely on that channel to give you the home-grown news. “Hold on a minute,” said Andrew, and fumbled about for the light switch. The brightness of it hurt his eyes and he gave a small yelp. And did he hear a little laugh at the other end, Bridget revelling in his self-inflicted pain? Gritting his teeth and getting up off the bed, wearing just his boxers, Andrew took the cordless phone with him and clicked on the TV in the corner, turning it down a little when it blared out a channel logo; the drums in his head now keeping rhythm with that instead.
He flipped through the stations till he found the one he was looking for. The curt newsreader was at the end of a sentence, but he just caught the words “have been under quarantine for three days”.
Interest piqued, he walked – a little unsteady still on his feet – towards the set, finally placing a hand on top of it to brace himself as it threw back images of army personnel standing around with gasmasks on, obviously taken from a distance. Now cut to a field presenter, giving a report to camera.
“Thanks Bob, and yes, as you’ve just seen the enforced quarantine is still in effect – in fact we’re not being allowed within a good few miles of the military cordon. What we’re being told through official channels is that a form of unidentified viral infection has struck Middletown...”
“They’ve all fallen asleep,” Bridget told him, elaborating on what the reporter had said, giving him more information than the media would ever possess. “The whole place. The people in charge are calling it Anti-New York. You know, the city that never wakes.”
“It’s Midwich,” he murmured.
“No, Middletown,” Bridget corrected.
He gave a small shake of the head, even though she wasn’t there to see it. “I meant… Doesn’t matter.” He knew his assistant’s reading tastes were more Jilly Cooper than John Wyndham, sadly.
“What are you thinking?”
He nodded now, then realised she still couldn’t see him. “It’s the virus I’ve been waiting for all my life. The virus I’ve been preparing for.”
“I guessed as much.”
It’s time. Come, quickly… I need you!
Andrew moved away from the TV, uninterested in anything else the reporter had to say. He intended to see for himself. Resting the phone in the crook of his neck, head tilted to one side, he took his case from the wardrobe and began to pack. “I need to be there, Bridget. You know how important this is to me.”
“Yeah,” she said with a sigh. “Luckily, you’re not the only one who wants you to be there.”
“How do you mean?”
There was a knock at the door. Andrew looked through the peephole. He saw Bridget standing there, flanked by two broad men in smart military dress uniform, complete with berets on their heads. She looked up a
t him, then put her mobile away.
Andrew opened the door. “Good… Good; that’s good. I assume you have transport waiting?” he said.
“They do, and we can be there in under an hour,” replied Bridget, then pointed down. “But you might want to think about getting dressed first.”
Andrew followed her gaze, realising he was still only wearing his boxers. The military escorts were looking down as well, smirking at his lean frame compared to theirs.
He slammed the door and went off to throw on some clothes.
Three
The move was a risky one, but if he held his nerve he could pull it off.
Sweat trickled down his brow, his breathing coming in short bursts, but he fought to control it; fought to give the impression he was cool, calm and collected. He needed to, or everything was lost. Private First-Class Jackson Monks sucked on the cigar sticking out of the corner of his mouth, watching for any hint of weakness in his opponents. He glanced down at his nut-coloured hands, which were as steady as a rock. He couldn’t afford any slip ups with this operation. Not now, not when he was so close to victory.
His main enemy was staring straight at him, as if demanding he make his move. Jackson attempted a smirk, but it came out more like a grimace. His foe was about to strike, anyone could see that; but would he be able to beat Jackson to the draw?
The soldier sitting opposite tossed a handful of twenty-pound notes into the centre of the table, where they balanced precariously on top of a pile of money. “Let’s see what you’ve got, then,” he growled.
Jackson nodded, then laid his cards on the table. “Royal flush, Timms. Sorry, pal.” Hands free now, he took the cigar from the corner of his mouth, transferred it to the middle and puffed on it, blowing plumes of smoke high into the air.