by Paul Kane
Andrew looked over at Bridget and attempted a smile. She gave him a half-hearted one in return.
Here we go, he thought to himself. It is indeed time…
***
The Fallow Estate – and who exactly had named it that? – lived up to its name.
As they drove through the streets, they found nothing but inactivity now. Close-up, Andrew could make out the bodies under that weird secretion: a postman in the middle of his rounds; a couple of housewives who’d obviously been chatting at the gate to one of their houses; a window cleaner who’d fallen asleep just as he was getting off his ladder – or maybe he’d fallen from it? All had succumbed, some more suddenly than others, gone to sleep and had those cobweb blankets pulled over to tuck them in.
“Jesus,” said McBride as he steered through the community. “I’ve never seen anythin’ like it. Never want to agin.”
“Amen to that,” Strauss whispered.
He had the driver pull up near the corner shop and open the door. They were going out to fetch the first samples of what had been dubbed back there as the Sleeping Sickness, but what Andrew had long since come to think of as his nemesis. The thing keeping him from her. Yet wasn’t it also – he believed – the thing that would bring them together?
It was such a mindfuck.
As was that first outing. Andrew climbed down the steps of the bus and was immediately greeted by both UK and US troopers. He held up a hand. “It’s okay. Look, I’m unarmed.” They stared at each other through the gasmasks, obviously not sure what to make of his sense of humour. “I’m all right, guys. Can you give us a bit of breathing space to do our work?” And he meant it; those suits were claustrophobic enough.
They backed off but remained on guard. Again, Andrew had no idea what they thought was going to happen here. All they were doing was collecting information, samples they’d take back to the bus, then ultimately back to base for a more thorough examination. They’d be hard-pressed to get to the bottom of this using just the facilities inside the vehicle, but at least they could make a start. It would give them some idea of the nature of this disease they were up against.
Bridget followed him as he went over to the nearest victim, a male teenager by the looks of things: jeans, T-shirt and jacket showing through the cobwebs. Strauss bent down, examining the body of the boy. “He can’t be more than fifteen. What is this stuff?” he asked no-one in particular, then put his gloved hand out to touch the thin membrane.
“Looks like it’s trying to cocoon him.”
“Bit like Body Snatchers, or maybe Species? Don’t worry about it,” he said when Bridget looked confused at his remarks. He felt along the arm, then moved to the wrist, checking for a pulse. It was there, but faint; like the boy was in a state of suspended animation.
Andrew pulled his hand back sharply.
“What is it?” asked Bridget.
“I could have sworn it moved, that secretion. Tried to curl around my fingers,” said Andrew. He shook his head. “Probably just my overactive imagination. That or lack of sleep.”
“Or too much to drink,” she reminded him. It was only twenty-four hours ago that he was being filmed for YouTube.
Ignoring her, Andrew bent closer, taking a good look at both the fine substance and the boy. “My God! I think… I think he’s been sweating this stuff out of him.”
“What?”
“Or more accurately whatever’s inside him has been reacting with his body’s sweat, becoming viscous or jellied, then solidifying – however finely – on contact with air. Becoming this.”
“It’ll be impossible to take samples unless we cut through it, though. Will it hurt him, do you think?”
Andrew shrugged. “I guess it’s a chance we’ll have to take. We really need some of his blood, as well as this secretion. Until we can test those, we’re nowhere.”
There was a sharp intake of breath from Bridget. “Oh my Lord, look!” She was pointing at the lad’s face, only now visible at this close range. It was something the cameras on those planes couldn’t hope to have picked up. Strauss peered at the sleeping boy, buried beneath the fine, wispy covering. And he saw what had spooked Bridget. Whatever had changed his sweat had also healed over his eyes with what looked like skin, but could well have been just a thicker coating of whatever had encased the rest of him. They could see his eyeball rolling underneath, though.
“Do... do you think he’s dreaming?” asked Bridget, but got no reply.
“We’re going to need to get him on board the bus,” Andrew said, finally. “Hey, you guys, Action Men, would you come over here a minute.” He waved at the British soldiers, and one of them – their superior, Andrew guessed, though they all looked much the same in that get-up – pointed for a couple to go across. “Want to make yourselves useful? We need this victim loaded up onto the bus.”
The two Brits exchanged glances, masks making it hard to read their reactions – though Andrew could guess.
“Come on, what’s the problem?”
“Fucking look at ’im,” said one of the soldiers through the mask. “He’s covered in that shit.”
“Yes,” said Strauss, rapidly losing patience. “He is. Now pick him up and put him on the bus. Right now.”
“Fuck that,” said the soldier.
“Look, what are you doing here if you’re not going to help?” asked Bridget.
“Personally, I’m here for the money,” the soldier replied honestly. “Pay-rate for this was brilliant and I’m short at the moment.”
“He got cleaned out in a poker game,” the other soldier with him clarified. “Didn’t you, Timms.”
“All right, all right. He doesn’t need to fucking know that, does he?”
“I’m going to have a word with your superior,” said Bridget.
Timms stood in her way as she made to walk across. “Listen, little lady. Nobody said anything about moving any bodies–”
“Bodies?” spat Andrew. “These people aren’t dead, you know.”
“Nobody said anything about moving people covered in that fucking crap, all right? I’m a soldier; I fight for a living.”
“You’re a prick,” Bridget told him. For a second Strauss thought the man was going to attack her, but the moment passed, and he stepped aside without a word.
“Go and ask, but my Lieutenant’ll tell you the same thing.”
“Then he’s a prick as well,” said Andrew.
“What’s the problem here?” someone behind them asked in an American accent.
Timms turned. “No problem, mate.”
“You’ll address me as Sergeant Baker, soldier,” he told him, moving closer. Timms seemed to visibly shrink.
“We need this boy moving onto the bus so we can start doing tests,” explained Andrew.
“I see,” said Baker. “Monks, come over here and give me a hand, will you?”
A second American soldier appeared beside the sergeant. “Happy to oblige.” He was looking in Timms’ direction and although Strauss still couldn’t see any expressions, he could feel the loathing those two had for each other. It was coming off them in waves.
Monks then switched his attention to Bridget, nodding as he passed by. “Ma’am.”
She nodded back. “Thank you, Jackson.”
That made Andrew pause. How did she know that guy? Probably met him during the prep for coming in here. He couldn’t help feeling a little twinge of jealousy though, at the friendly nature of their tones – or more than friendly. What’s it to you, anyway? he told himself. You’re not interested, right? You had your chance with Bridget and blew it, not that you even wanted it in the first place. Maybe it was just a case of not wanting something until somebody else did; until somebody else had it. No, there was still only one woman in this world for him. He knew it made no sense, but that was the way things were. That was why he needed the boy on the bus, so they could get cracking.
Monks took hold of the victim’s feet; his sergeant grabbed the shoulde
rs. “After three,” said Baker. “One, two…” They hefted him up and strands of the fine secretion which had stuck to the floor snapped and broke. If Bridget was right and cutting or breaking the material might harm him, then they’d soon find out. But there was no other way to do this, and the soldiers were at least being as gentle as possible. They carried him back over to the bus, where they lifted him up the steps. McBride stared as they went by, but said nothing. Bridget and Andrew followed the Americans inside.
“Where d’you want him?” asked Baker.
“Over there on the bed,” Andrew told them. They laid him down with care, then stepped back and looked at their hands. The secretion had stuck to their gloves. They were about to wipe it off when Andrew shouted: “Wait a minute!” He took the opportunity to get some samples from the gloves, transferring the fine material from them to glass slides. “Waste not, want not. Now here,” he gave them a bottle of liquid each. “Use this to wash off your gloves outside.” They took these and turned to make their way back up and out of the bus. “And fellas…” Both Baker and Monks paused. “Thanks.”
Monks gave a little salute, touching two of his fingers to his temple. Then nodded again to Bridget, who smiled and turned shyly away.
There it was again: that pang of jealousy. Like it or not, he’d spent most of the last few years with this woman, and seeing her flirting with another guy did hurt, Andrew found. He tried to shrug it off again, but it stuck almost as much as the secretion had to the boy. To the soldiers’ gloves.
“Okay,” said Andrew, “time to go to work.”
***
Bridget took samples of the boy’s blood, poking the needle through both the secretion and his skin. The tearing of it hadn’t seemed to hurt the kid, in fact the stuff was still growing, weeping from him; replacing what had been lost back there on the street, and covering the base of the bed.
“Like a scab healing over a wound,” Andrew observed.
“Do you think it’s possible this stuff is sustaining him?” asked Bridget. “I mean, they’ve been in a coma-like state for a while now, that means they don’t need quite so much food and water.”
“Like being in hibernation, you mean?” offered Strauss.
“Yeah. But the human body still needs sustenance to survive. And he looks pretty healthy to me.” Bridget caught herself. “Apart from the obvious, of course.”
Andrew nodded. “It’s entirely possible. I guess we’ll see when I take a closer look at these samples, won’t we?” What was concerning him more than that was Bridget’s comment from earlier. If these Sleepers, for want of a better word, were in cocoons, what would happen when the secretion had finished whatever it was doing to them? Would they really be replaced, like pod people?
Strauss studied the screen of his laptop, hooked up to the portable scanning electron microscope they’d brought along. It threw back images of the cells that made up the boy’s blood and the secretion coating him, confirming that not only was it keeping him alive, it had actually formed a sort of symbiotic relationship with the host.
“Look at the way the foreign tissue has latched on to him,” Bridget said, pointing at the colourful rainbow bubbles clinging to his blood cells. “It’d be impossible to remove now without killing the subject.”
“Looks that way, so we’ll have to neutralize it at source. Find an antidote that will restore his systems to normal. We need to analyse this stuff.” Andrew told McBride to drive on into Middletown proper so they could collect more samples, which he did, radioing the flanking vehicles – which set off to accompany them again.
As they travelled, the sun was falling in the sky. It had been one of the longest days of Andrew’s life – and he’d seen a fair few. You did when you couldn’t sleep at night. He was well used to seeing the sun set, then waiting for it to climb back up again in the morning, greeting it like an old friend. Listening to the birdsong as–
“Wait a second,” Strauss said suddenly. “I haven’t heard any birds since we came through the barrier, have you?”
“Can’t say I was really listening for them,” Bridget replied. “But now you mention it...”
He went to the window and began looking at the sides of the streets, under any trees he could spot. Sure enough, there were birds on the ground: hard to spot, because they too had been covered in the secretion, but it was evidence that this virus wasn’t limited strictly to the human population.
“You don’t think animals could have passed this on, do you?” suggested Bridget.
“What, that it mutated like bird or swine flu?” Andrew pulled a face. “I think this started with us somewhere along the line, but the fact that it’s already spread to other forms of life is worrying. If this got out it could not only cover the globe – if you’ll forgive the expression – in a matter of weeks, days maybe, it could also see every single living thing on the planet fall into one of these comas.’
“At least we’d still be alive, I guess.”
Andrew looked back over at the boy on the cot at the back of the bus. “But what kind of life? Would you want to end up like that forever?”
“How do we even know it’s forever? If the same virus that’s put these people to sleep is also looking after them, mightn’t they wake up at some point?”
Andrew returned to his original thoughts about the cocoon. Even if they did, how would they have changed? What would the virus have done to them? Left them with no will, or even transformed them somehow like a caterpillar turning into a butterfly? No, the only way these people would be waking up – and waking as their normal selves – would be if they could work up an antidote, and for that they’d need: “The carrier,” Strauss said under his breath. “It’s imperative that we find the first person in Middletown to come down with this sleeping sickness, Bridg.”
“How are we supposed to do that? We can’t exactly ask around, can we?”
“Whoever it is will probably be pretty much unchanged by the virus,” he said, either ignoring her last words, or choosing not to think about them.
“Search for them, maybe? But that could take ages, even if we got the manpower out here.”
They turned one street corner, heading into the centre of Middletown. The story was pretty much the same here as it had been on the outskirts, except there were even more people affected by the disease in this more densely populated space. They saw all age ranges now, from old people to children. The boy they had with them had been bad enough, but over there was a mother with a toddler in a push chair, collapsed on the high street where they’d been walking, toppled over on one side. At the other extreme, an old man with a flat cap and walking stick, who had been coming out of a betting shop. It was more important than ever for Strauss to focus now, not let all this get to him. Concentrate on the virus rather than the people. But it was easier said than done.
They pulled over not far away from what looked to be the main car park in town, an open-air slab of concrete that was half-filled with vehicles – their owners either asleep inside or in the process of getting out, getting tickets for their stay. The car park branched off down various streets and roads, making it quite literally the heart of the city, and possibly even “ground zero”. The military vehicles tagging along stopped when they did, men pouring out with their guns.
Andrew and Bridget set to work again, harvesting more of the secretion and blood, anything that might help them come up with a way to fight this. It was as he was bending over the sixth or seventh victim he’d come across that Andrew thought he saw something out of the corner of his eye. Just a flash, but movement nonetheless.
“Did you see that?” he asked, nudging Bridget.
“What?” She’d been too preoccupied placing the samples he’d handed her into bio-trace sampler containers.
He rose. “I thought I saw…” He was going to say someone, a woman maybe. But he didn’t; he knew what Bridget would come back with. In his desperation to spot her, he was imagining things. Maybe she’d be right, as wel
l. Nevertheless, he began walking towards the place where he’d seen that movement – that person.
“Andrew, where are you going? We need to be heading back to base soon.”
“Dr Strauss!” called out Sergeant Baker. “Come back.”
Come, quickly… I need you!
He felt the hand on his shoulder and spun around, expecting to see–
But it was only one of the British soldiers, sent to retrieve him. “Now, you don’t want to be wandering off like that, Sir,” he told Strauss, talking to him like he was a confused geriatric. “We’re supposed to be looking after–”
The soldier hesitated; the only indication of his shock, because Andrew couldn’t see his face. Then Strauss saw why he’d stopped. Not far away one of the victims was twitching, spasming. Hell, what now? he thought.
“What’s–” was all the soldier could manage.
Andrew was about to go to the prone figure, when another began doing exactly the same.
Then a further three closer to Bridget and the bus.
And, seconds later, the first of the Sleepers sat bolt upright.
Six
Bridget had to admit she was taken aback when the first of the virus victims woke up.
To begin with she thought they might not be needed here after all. Perhaps the effects of whatever this was had worn off, just like she’d said back on the bus. That because the disease was non-fatal – had actually been keeping these people alive, albeit in a hibernation-like state – it might have run its course and they’d simply recover, as you do when you get over the common cold. The violent shaking had simply been them shrugging off the last remnants of this illness.
Except the person she was looking at wasn’t awake, was he. That is to say, sure, he was sitting up, but his eyes were still healed over, the secretions still attached to him like candyfloss to a stick. He was staring right at her, but not really seeing. How could he, with his eyes welded shut like that? She had to go to him, help him. But damn, it was so eerie the way he was just staring at… no, facing her. Bridget felt a shiver spread throughout her body.