Ferine Apocalypse (Novella): 4 Hours
Page 1
4 HOURS
By John F Leonard
A Tale of the Ferine Apocalypse
4 Hours
By John F Leonard
Copyright © 2016 by John F Leonard
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
John F Leonard
Visit my website at www.johnfleonard.com
Catch up on Twitter: twitter.com/john_f_leonard
Also by John F Leonard
COLLAPSE
Ferine Apocalypse Volume 1
For the three people that matter the most and yet often get the least of me.
I love them dearly and they deserve more of my time.
There’s never enough time.
Contents
INTRODUCTION
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Author's Note
About the Author
INTRODUCTION
4 Hours is a standalone story set in the world first visited in the novel Collapse.
A novella, the second tale of the Ferine Apocalypse.
The two books are complimentary but not interdependent. Directly related, but stories in themselves.
You don’t need to have read Collapse to enjoy this one.
4 Hours takes place as the full reality of the Collapse event is beginning to reveal itself.
A flu like pandemic has swept the globe. Swifter and more virulent than anything ever recorded.
The victims rapidly fall into a coma like state.
The effect on normal life is catastrophic. Put simply, vast numbers of people became too ill to work and so things stop working.
In the space of a few days, the world stands on the brink of collapse.
A few survivors, those immune to the mystery infection, are escorted to an emergency government bunker below the streets of London.
It soon becomes apparent that the nature of the catastrophe is changing.
Something unprecedented has occurred, but something more disturbing still is now happening above their heads.
Something far worse than mass illness and unconsciousness.
Two men are sent to investigate ...
<><><><><>
There are bad things out there baby.
Just like your daddy always said.
Don’t go out in the dark baby,
You could wind up dead.
<>
Screaming Mike Hawkins and the Lamentations.
Don’t Go Out in the Dark, 1958.
Courtesy of Paladian Records.
<><><>
Chapter 1
Surface
He stood in the dim garage and considered his options.
They’d take a vehicle.
That involved the time consuming rigmarole of raising the steel shutters and securing everything, and then moving out.
A lot of messing around.
It was getting late.
A few hours before nightfall.
Even so, he wanted to delay their start. Eat into what little daylight was left.
Check things out on foot first, before they drove out.
It would chew up another ten minutes, but it was worth it.
He wanted to take the air, get a feel for it, rather than just rolling away in a car. Partly because that was what felt right, and partly to get the taste of the bunker out of his mouth.
Get his head straight.
He didn’t enjoy being below ground. He could feel the weight of the earth above him.
Pressing down.
Squeezing the breath out of him.
“What say we take the stairs first? See the lie of the land and then decide on our next move?”
His companion merely shrugged and nodded.
Ran his hands along the crowbar he was holding.
Gallagher wasn’t the most talkative at times. It was an admirable quality in Pearcey’s humble opinion.
<><><>
The professional side of Carlton Pearcey was already regretting this.
The impromptu reconnaissance mission. It had all of the ingredients that were required for a bona-fide fiasco.
Rushed.
Little planning.
Right next door to zero planning if he was honest.
Questionable research and limited information.
A more or less unquantifiable, but possibly serious, level of hazard.
It was the perfect cocktail.
If you wanted a balls up of impressive proportions.
Not that he’d really had any alternative.
He hadn’t so much volunteered as been volunteered. Manoeuvred into it by Robert Holte.
Good old Robert, smooth old politician that he was.
The thought reminded him of a pop song and he nearly smiled. A pounding beat and a lot of squealing.
The smile didn’t quite make it all the way to his eyes. Gave up somewhere around the corners of his mouth.
In his experience, there wasn’t much difference between criminals and politicians, smooth or otherwise. More often than not, it was simply that the latter hadn’t been caught yet.
Or were simply slicker, more intelligent, depending on your point of view.
Besides which, he was the logical choice.
Of the forty or so people in the centre, he was the best equipped to go and do something that was potentially dangerous and violent.
Holte was right in gently pushing him into it
Pearcey could think about it, rationalise it, as much as he wanted. It wouldn’t make any difference if things went bad. The situation would be going bad on him, not the guy who’d volunteered him into it. He sometimes wondered if he was hard of learning.
After all these years he should know that everybody loved a volunteer. It meant they didn’t have to do it themselves.
Having been volunteered, he’d done something similar and roped in the man who was at his side. Better still, he’d done so in the man’s absence.
He didn’t feel too bad about that.
Sonny Gallagher had his own reasons for wanting to visit the surface and find out exactly what was happening. He’d actually been happy when Pearcey told him about it.
Gallagher had the right qualities for this. He was capable and intensely loyal.
To his family.
To responsibility.
Pearcey kind of understood that. He liked it, and it was why he’d instantly thought of the man when the mission materialised like bad news.
<><><>
They made their way through coded doorways and up concrete stairways.
Emerged into a shadow room.
Emergency lighting that gave darkness a good run for its money.
Gallagher clicked a flashlight and shone the beam around.
They were in the ground level re
ception area.
Dusty and grey.
Most people had come in through the main entrance. This place wasn’t abandoned as such, but it did a fair impression.
“How are we going to play this?”
Gallagher spoke quietly as he swept the torch around and then held it on the exit door.
That door would lead out on to the street.
“Like the blind pianist, my friend. By ear. Be ready to shift our arses back inside sharpish if it looks dodgy.”
The words were light. Pearcey’s tone was serious.
He glanced over at Sonny.
“Are you okay? Still up for it?”
Gallagher glanced up at him and the question hung like cigarette smoke hangs in heavy air. Swirling and unpredictable.
He nodded and seemed to weigh his words before speaking.
“I’m fine. I don’t have any choice. After what you described on the videos, I’m a little ...what shall we say, nervous? Yeah, nervous is what I am big fella. God knows why though, I’ve got a state sponsored bodyguard.”
Pearcey ghosted a smile and shook his head.
Thought about what he’d seen earlier and what might be waiting for them outside. He still wasn’t entirely sure he believed it.
<><><>
Pearcey had watched the presentation carefully. The footage from security cameras and various other video feeds.
Showing, what could only be described as, well ...monsters. If you wanted to cut the crap and call a spade a spade.
Things that were once human, but had mutated into something else. That was a decent description of monster. Surely?
Savage creatures.
Seen unclearly. Grainy resolution, poor quality recording.
For all that, the footage had appeared genuine.
Not doctored or faked.
But appearances could be deceptive, especially when it came to modern technology. He knew that well enough. Electronic wizardry offered tricks and deceit of a whole new dimension. Although, in the current circumstances, he didn’t understand why anyone would go to the trouble of doing that.
Which led him back to the conclusion that it was real.
If it has a wagging tail, barks and wants to bite the postman, chances are that it’s a dog.
Despite that, it was incredible.
In the true sense of the word.
Not the admiring, impressed kind of incredible.
The wow, eff-me, that’s incredible man!
No, it wasn’t that happy emotion.
It was the doubting, finding something hard to accept type of feeling. The that’s kind of difficult to believe incredible.
Pearcey’s existence was rooted in the practical. His natural reaction was to resist mental indulgence.
He dealt with fact. It wasn’t that he lacked imagination. Simply that, for long periods of his life, there hadn’t been a great deal of room for the fanciful.
It was useless to ponder.
He’d believe it when he saw it with his own eyes, and in the meantime be as prepared as he could for that eventuality.
<><><>
They emerged into an evening street that was all tall brick buildings and blank facades. The occasional wooden doorway or steel shutter.
It was a service road.
In the heart of the Capital, but hidden from everyday traffic.
In normal times, you’d need some level of security clearance to be even standing there.
Pearcey looked at his watch and gauged the sky.
That unique quality of light when the sun was sinking.
Beautiful, if you were sitting in your backyard and necking a beer.
In the current situation, it wasn’t ideal.
It wouldn’t make driving any easier.
That would be a joy, driving in this light in these circumstances. Maybe he could find some pins to shove under his fingernails before he started the car. Add an extra thrill to things.
He shook his head.
Didn’t matter what the light was like, they’d be doing it in any case. And any light was preferable to darkness.
He didn’t want to be out there at night.
He couldn’t remember what time the sun set at the tail end of May, but he thought it was pretty late.
Nine?
Nine-thirty maybe?
Not a lot of time.
Not if you’re gonna run Sonny-Jim’s errand as well as reconnoitre the situation.
But it was entirely possible.
If their luck held up.
Carlton Pearcey and Sonny Gallagher were about to discover a brand new truth. These days luck had become just like the fabled centre.
It had developed a tendency to not hold.
Chapter 2
Encounter
They drifted off the pavement, into the middle of the road.
It was eerie.
Too quiet.
At this time of day, traffic would normally be slackening off. A few government cars, maybe some service vehicles.
It wouldn’t be dead.
No vehicles at all.
Pearcey had collected a lot of the people who were seconded to the centre and he’d experienced the mounting emptiness, the lack of activity on streets that should be bustling.
This was different.
Then, he’d been mostly confined to cars and with a definite objective. Find out if the person was active, unaffected by the City Flu or Sweeping Sickness or whatever the hell it was called, and bring them in.
Get the job done and move on to the next boyo or girly on the list.
He hadn’t really taken any time to sample the atmosphere or think too deeply about the implications of what was happening.
Had actively tried not to think about it, if he was honest.
Pondering it wasn’t going to achieve anything. So he put it to the back of his mind and concentrated on the task.
It struck him then though. There was something unnerving about standing there in the creepy silence.
It wasn’t entirely silent when he listened.
There were distant ringing sounds.
Alarms.
Sporadic crashes and booms. Again, distant, not nearby, but the sound carried in the stillness.
And the air.
There was something about the way the air tasted.
It had been sweet when he’d first emerged after being locked down there. Now though, there was something strange, a slight flavour at the back of his throat.
Not the usual diesel-petrol city undercurrent that you failed to even register after a while.
It came to him and he was mildly irritated that he hadn’t instantly noticed it.
Subtle, far away, but it was the smell of burning.
London’s burning baby, and there ain’t no firemen to put the fires out. Let’s hope it rains because, otherwise, it’s just gonna burn.
The introspection stopped at that point.
A figure appeared at the end of the street.
It moved in an odd way.
Difficult to define the oddness at distance.
Hard to put into words what flashed through Pearcey’s mind, but the way that figure moved made the hairs on his arms stand up.
Spat a little shot of adrenalin into his blood.
“Is that one of them?”
Gallagher spoke without thinking and the figure stopped abruptly.
“One of the things you saw on the videos?”
The figure began to move toward them.
“I don’t know, but I think we’re about to find out.”
<><><>
If that person had looked wrong from a distance, the wrong just became more pronounced as they drew closer.
There were alarms going off in Pearcey’s head that dwarfed those in the city. Made them seem insignificant.
The movement was the most obvious thing.
It was feral.
Bestial.
It reminded him of an animal that had scented prey and was si
zing up the possibilities.
Figuring out the best target and the best approach. It also reminded him of what he’d seen at the presentation.
Except now it was real.
Flesh and blood, not pixels on a screen.
Unlike any flesh and blood he’d ever encountered. Coming at them with the inevitability of the sun setting in the sky.
<><><>
It had been a woman.
That was a guess, but Pearcey thought it was right.
Maybe a cleaner.
That was stretching the logic but it made sense from what he could see and absorb in that stutter shock instant.
The clothing as much as anything else suggested an occupation. Made him think about what she might have been before this madness descended like darkness.
The tattered remains of one of those aprons that office cleaners wear.
And that explanation would fit the circumstances. There were a lot of offices around Westminster.
So there were a lot of cleaners.
From the waist down, she was naked. Had lost whatever clothes had covered her.
Before she’d caught the City Flu.
Before she’d changed and woken from the coma-like condition.
Been born again into a new existence.
Her legs were sickly captivating.
Wasted yet somehow fearsome.
Corded, almost mechanical and giving the impression of immense power despite the strangely emaciated appearance.
He glimpsed her sex and was appalled.
The remains of clothing were the most human thing about her.
<><><>
As she got nearer, more detail revealed itself.
Pearcey was mesmerised. Professionalism fell away and was replaced by horrified fascination.
The head was too big.
Largely hairless.
A few wisps left. Straggling strands that appeared as if they were about to wave goodbye to everything and everyone.
Arms and legs that were emaciated and corded. Ropes of something unknowable, sitting below skin that rippled like liquid metal.
Those limbs were way too thin. Only vaguely human, and yet they held the suggestion of savage strength.