Angus saw them. Instantly, he broke the tender touch on Ady’s cheek. Just seconds before, the look on his face was distant, tortured, but not hostile. It quickly changed.
He jumped to his feet, standing in front of Toby, and reached out for the rifle.
“Get out of my house!” he roared. He was breathing heavily, his vast chest expanding and contracting fast. He pointed the rifle towards them, constantly shifting the muzzle from Paul, to Cathy to Moore. “Leave. Now.”
Paul clenched his fists. The image of the children so close to that firearm infuriated him. Angus had already fired once. He might do it again. This time, Adrian or Alice might be harmed.
He lowered his chin, and spoke in a low, deliberate voice. “Angus… lower… that… fucking… rifle. Now.”
Angus frowned in disbelief. He stared at Paul, as if he couldn’t recognise him.
Behind him, Paul felt Cathy stiffen. He knew this was unlike him. But, at this precise moment, he didn’t care.
After a beat, Angus chuckled. “Oh my, the little fairy priest has suddenly manned-up has h–”
“Shut up, Angus.”
He did.
“Now, lower the rifle.”
Angus seemed to consider this for a second. Then, with a slow, hesitant motion, he pointed the muzzle to the floor.
“Good,” said Paul. “Now, this is what we’re going to do – you step aside, and let Alice and Adrian walk over to me.”
Angus reluctantly obeyed. Alice ran to Paul’s side. Adrian followed, walking slowly, and throwing confused glances towards his uncle. The priest lay a hand on his shoulder. “It’s okay, Adrian. Step outside with Cathy. I’m coming.”
When the others had left, Paul looked back towards Angus and his son. The obese man was now crouching beside the sick boy, an arm across his shoulders. He looked up at Paul. The hatred in his eyes was now combined with silent shame.
“This house is a tip, Angus.”
The other man lowered his gaze.
“It’s a disgrace. You are a disgrace.”
The muscles in Angus’s jaw quivered, but he did not reply.
Paul turned to leave, his heart beating fast. Before he did, he looked back. What he said next would come back to haunt him.
“You don’t know how to care for your boy. This cannot continue, Angus.”
He stepped outside. The door creaked, as he closed it behind him.
Chapter 7
R3dPill
If anyone had bothered asking him what, exactly, was his fascination with computers, Sean would have replied: logic.
A program executed coldly, with no regard for anything, other than its inner logic. A set of instructions, branching out in ifs and thens, with no fear nor joy. A clear, focussed unfolding of commands and executions, untainted by human feelings and hesitation.
Sean, R3dPill, found that soothing. He conjured up images of a world governed by pure, abstract processes, a world of ideas produced by machines. It was precisely this non-human element that warmed his heart. This was hard to explain to those he knew at school, or in Bately. No one was interested, anyway. The girls, they fancied blokes with fit bodies and expensive clothing, men with broad shoulders who always knew what to say.
He wasn’t like that. He’d sit in a corner, his raised hoodie casting a shadow across his eyes, but failing to give him a menacing look, as it did with the other kids. He drew manga and wrote out code, uninterested in the lessons or in the chatter of his classmates.
The obvious group he belonged to, in school, were the losers. No other name for them, really. Like him, they were overweight, unpopular, awkward. But unlike him, most of them were also stupid. They deserved their place in the ruthless school social hierarchy, he thought. Dull expressions, with a hint of the meanness he had often spotted in the cowardly. Fuck them.
His real life was elsewhere. It sped lightning-fast across forums and servers and open ports. So fast, in fact, it was necessary to leave his body behind, typing away at the keyboard in his room, while his mind wandered the digital space with fellow hackers – people like him, who thrived in problem-solving, who understood the beauty of elegantly-written code. Sean was a nerd, a geek, a nobody, in town. Online, he was R3dPill, elite hacker and gifted programmer.
With others like him, he’d publicly shamed paedos, emptied multi-million dollar accounts of gigantic corporations, pouring the money into deserving NGOs, and exposed all kinds of wrongs by politicians and businesspeople. A lot of these feats had been reported on the front pages of major papers, and discussed on panel shows, by men in suits and women with stylish hairdos. He had watched them, their faces serious under knotted eyebrows, debating the rights and wrongs of the hacker movement, the threat these kids with computers posed to society. They talked and talked and they looked like dinosaurs, to Sean. They knew nothing, understood nothing. The world was changing, and they hadn’t the faintest clue. There they were, on television – television, for Heaven’s sake! – delivering their opinions with all the blind confidence of the ignorant, doing their best to look intelligent before the next commercial break. Ridiculous.
They had never caught him. He, R3dPill, creator of Prob3, the network scanner that could one day rival Nmap, and countless other tools used by hackers worldwide, lived quietly in Bately, tending to his nan, always careful to cover his tracks.
Still now, after the impact, little pockets of his brothers and sisters talked to him like a mentor, a master of their craft. It felt good. There were few of them left, of course (the meteorites had destroyed most of the digital world, as well as the physical), but he still got to enjoy their company.
Funnily enough, the three rocks had also made him somewhat of a celebrity outside of the web, in town. Not one day went past without someone or other knocking at his door, asking about news from the outside world, things he might have gleaned online. They all were polite, humble, curious. Like they were talking to some sort of all-powerful oracle of old. Sean tried to answer their questions, when he could. He appreciated their newly-found respect, but he got rid of them as fast as he could. Social interaction, in the ‘real’ world, wasn’t something he was too comfortable with.
Even his seat on the Council was something he struggled with. They had offered it to him because his skills were undoubtedly useful, and it made sense to have him sit in on the meetings. He enjoyed it, at times. But the only true reason he’d accepted was Cathy.
Cathy.
The effect she had on him was unsettling. Her presence always managed to thrust him back into the physical world, where reasoning was fallacious, where bodies and impulses mattered. More than once, he had been tempted to ditch the Council’s meetings, eager to just stay home and enjoy his time at the computer. Yet, she kept luring him back.
Sometimes, it felt like she could understand him. She was a woman of science, after all, in a way, right? She was a nurse. Not a girly-girl, like the ones who had failed to even notice his existence, in school. When he spoke, she always listened intently, encouraged him, respected his opinion. Also, she was fucking hot. He didn’t really like putting it like that, but is was true.
Even now, sitting, back hunched, at his desk, the computer’s fan quietly humming away, he began to feel the arousal that always accompanied the thought of her. Of her body.
There were noises, outside. People shouting. Something was up.
He opened the webcam interface on the monitor, flipped through the feeds, until he found the gathering in the square. Some old bloke was rallying the ’wraiths. Others stood around, afraid. Hard to tell what would happen next. If the Guard were monitoring the video feed (this same one he had set up for them), they were likely to intervene, soon.
He scanned the faces on the screen. As always, he was surprised by the lack of interest he felt for them all. To him, most people were like extras in a film – they were there, but they didn’t really matter.
He spotted her. She was standing in the crowd, next to Father Paul, in her nurse
’s uniform. Even like this, through the medium of his computer screen, she managed to draw his attention.
I’ll ask her out, he told himself. Tomorrow, after the meeting, I’ll ask her out. He nodded slowly, and swallowed, as if trying to digest the fear and excitement that came with this thought. A thought that had blossomed in his mind innumerable times before. But this time was different.
It was the arrival of that man, Moore, that had convinced him to finally try this. Cathy had looked at that newcomer with an expression that had twisted up Sean’s stomach, like a tight sack of vicious snakes. He feared she might end up with him, somehow. But, if he made his move now, if he gathered the courage, then maybe, maybe, she’d be his.
Sean closed his eyes, and rested a hand on the computer’s case. He found its hum relaxing.
Chapter 8
Walscombe
Breathing through the mask was harder than Walscombe had thought.
The hazmat suit was cumbersome, stiff. He sat on a bench, his body uncomfortable beneath the layers of synthetic fibres, and watched as Jeff donned his own. He did it slowly, often pausing, as if a sudden thought had struck him. Like he’d forgotten to turn the lights out, at home. It was irritating. Jeff had to focus.
“Need a hand there, man?” Walscombe asked him, spitting out the words. Hurry the fuck up.
“Ah – no, no. Thank you.” Jeff shook his head, concentrated on the task at hand. He then checked the zips and straps that were meant to keep the pathogen (whatever it was) out. His focus lasted about fifteen seconds, before his mind slipped off again. He stood there, mouth half-open, like a mannequin lost in thought.
Fuck me, thought Walscombe with a sigh.
* * *
There she was.
Lying in that eerie passageway, limbs settled in unnatural angles, dry blood splattered all around. The scene had a sick, magnetic pull to it. Walscombe did his best to clear his mind. He motioned to Jeff to stand back, gun ready, in case Don showed up. It took a while for the other man to turn around, his eyes behind the glass visor glued to the dead body. His hands were shaking.
Walscombe observed the woman. A piece of cardboard lay on the ground, next to her, perhaps fallen out of her pocket when she was shot. He turned it over with his foot, and recognised it. It was the hand-written sign she had held up to the security cameras, outside, when they’d first seen her. Her name was scrawled across it. Thick letters, traced with a marker.
Nancy Clark.
A wave of nausea struck him. That sign, next to her corpse, was terrifying, for some reason. It was wrong. What he saw was a dead, twisted body, head blown apart and reddish… bits sprayed all over the place, like something half-chewed then spat out. No name needed. There was no trace of humanity, of life, of anything remotely deserving a name, here. A person’s name. This wasn’t Nancy Clark any more.
Okay, get this over with.
They’d both have to carry her, one on each end, all the way to the exterior, up on ground level. Atlantis’s power-saving systems had blocked the elevators, so they wouldn’t be able to use them. This wasn’t going to be easy. Especially with Jeff shaking and quivering like that.
“Jeff,” Walscombe called out, his own voice sounding too close, inside the visor. “I’ll grab her shoulders, you get the feet.”
Jeff nodded, and awkwardly fitted the gun inside one of the suit’s pouches. Then he knelt down, slowly, fearfully, his gloved hands hovering above the woman’s ankles.
“No,” said Walscombe. “Not like that.” He swivelled his index finger in the air. “Turn around. Like you’re pulling a wheelbarrow. You know, behind you.” The other man considered this for a second, then nodded.
I don’t want you looking at her, my friend. You’d fucking lose it.
Jeff bent over, his back towards Walscombe and the corpse, hands blindly grasping for her legs. He finally caught a hold of them, and froze.
“Jeff.”
“… yeah?” he replied, without turning.
“Keep cool, yeah? It’s okay… you’re pulling a wheelbarrow. That’s all it is, ’kay?”
A beat. Jeff nodded.
Walscombe knelt down too. The body was face-down (Thank god), the top of her head leaning against the blast hatch. He slipped his hands under her arm pits, trying to find a firm hold.
Cold meat, he thought. Not skin. Just meat. Dead, cold, hard meat, wrapped in layers of clothing. Rigor mortis – the stiffness of the dead. Strange thing to have in common, stiffness, he thought, nonsensically. If that’s all you got to describe yourself, oh you dead folks, there really ain’t much going for you.
He was crouching by her side. There was no way he could lift her up, like this.
“Hang on,” he said to Jeff.
Walscombe stood up again, then set one foot on either side of her head. He lowered his arms, grabbed her firmly at the shoulders, then called to Jeff, “Okay, lift!”
She was lighter than he thought. Heavy, but not that heavy. The absence of weight was somehow disturbing. Disrespectful, in some weird way.
The body rose upwards fast, and the muscles in his abdomen turned to stone for a second, when her cracked skull brushed past his crotch.
Ohshitohshitohshitoshit
They straightened their backs, Nancy’s body a stiff plank levelled at their waists.
Just look straight ahead. Just look straight ahead. Just look–
“Okay… ready. Go.”
Jeff bobbed his head, and began walking.
* * *
Later, after all the mess unfolded, Walscombe would blame himself.
He’d nagged at Jeff, fearing his companion’s lack of focus might fuck things up. And it did. Yet, it was his own absent-mindedness that ultimately precipitated things.
Still, he thought, given the whole situation, it was sort of justifiable, right?
They had carried the corpse through Atlantis, with clumsy, out-of-sync steps. At every corner, the chilling expectation of seeing Don appear, insane and dangerous, sent shivers down their spines. They often had to halt, arms tired, to try and coordinate their movements. Most of this was done without a word. There were groans, nudges, gestures, but few words spoken.
For the first time since the impact, Walscombe started to feel the eeriness of this place creep inside him. It was gradual – drops of fear drip-drip-dripping, seeping into his mind and body. As he shuffled along in the bulky hazmat suit, through the underground base’s empty corridors, the corpse rhythmically bumping against his belly, Walscombe started to wonder how it had all come to this. His eyes rested on the hypnotic undulations of Jeff’s back, but that’s not what he was seeing.
What he saw, was a kid in a field. Short, dark hair. Braces. Sun on his skin and dust on his shoes. This kid’s days were spent on his family’s farm, running around, observing the dull nature that surrounded him, filling his time with the aimless occupations of childhood.
He had once been this goofy, intelligent child. But it didn’t feel like he had.
Nothing (in him, in the world he now inhabited) suggested any link to that kid. Like a stranger he had happened to share the same body with, at some point in the past. How was it that that eleven-year-old farmer’s son would eventually end up under ground, the earth above him shattered and torn by three gigantic space rocks, carrying a dead woman’s body ravaged by some alien disease?
Corn fields. Sunshine. School. Mom. Cereal. Girls. His dog, Tony. Laughing in the tractor, next to his dad. These things he saw, they all had the sketchy inconsistency of a lie, except he knew they had happened, way back then.
But he wasn’t even really seeing them. What he saw was Jeff, his back, the hazmat suit that kept shifting and…
“Jeff,” he said, breaking the silence. He stopped, and felt like his heart was pumping ice.
His colleague almost tripped, Walscombe’s unexpected standstill impeding his forward motion.
“What is it?”
Walscombe swallowed. “Your suit, man… it’s
not sealed.”
“What?” Jeff asked, confused. There was a slightly irritated note to his voice, like Walscombe had interrupted some pleasant string of thoughts he’d been entertaining. He wasn’t really listening.
“Your suit. You missed a latch… on your back.”
Sure enough, a limp strip of material hung there, dangling above the corpse’s feet. Walscombe could just about catch a glimpse Jeff’s sweater, beneath it.
They stood still.
Think, you asshole. Think, Walscombe was saying to himself. Questions flooded his thoughts. What did Ivan say about the disease? Is it a virus? Bacteria? Did they even know, on the outside? Would it survive inside a dead host? Could it have found its way into Jeff’s suit?
All he could remember, was that it was fast. According to Ivan’s accounts, the signs and symptoms would show almost immediately.
“How… how do you feel, Jeff?”
The other man didn’t turn, and Walscombe had the sudden, surreal impression of speaking to a faceless statue.
“I… I feel okay.” Without warning, Jeff started lowering the body to the ground. He did it slowly, stiffly. Walscombe doubted it was because of the weight.
Once she was on the floor, Jeff motioned vaguely towards his back. “Um… could you…?”
“Ah. Yeah, sure.”
How the fuck did I miss that? Walscombe asked himself, while trying to seal the suit. It was tricky, the thick gloves getting in the way.
Jeff turned to face him. He was pale. His gaze drifted towards the woman on the floor, pausing on the details of her tortured, bloated skin. The signs of the sickness almost worse than those of death.
“Hey,” Walscombe said. “It’s okay, man.” Jeff looked back at him, eyes wide, skin paper-white.
“It’s okay,” he repeated, not really knowing if it was okay, but not really knowing what to add, either.
Jeff nodded. Said nothing.
“Come on, Jeff. We’re almost there. Let’s go, man,” Walscombe said, as he bent down to lift the corpse again.
IMPACT_A Post-Apocalyptic Tale_The Complete Series Page 17