The place was packed with mutated creatures. Savage, bestial things that were once human.
Some naked and some dressed in the rags of their past.
All terrifying and somehow fascinating.
To indulge that fascination would have been suicidal. To stand and observe would have been to invite death. To spread your arms and beg for oblivion.
Pearcey glimpsed the mass of creatures and felt his blood run cold. Took no persuading to backtrack one more time.
<><><>
He’d smelled something as they approached the square. Something coppery and rotten. Something hot and yet wetly cold. Like damp earth soaked in filth and shed blood. The smell flooded his senses when they turned the corner and then he saw the shifting mass of mutants.
It was the smell of them made huge by their number. The smell of that many permeated the air, drifted lazily in the spaces between the buildings, soured his lungs with a rank sweetness.
A distant part of Pearcey wondered if that smell would eventually fill the world. Become the signature of life on the planet. A commonplace scent that signified the presence of the dominant species.
They mystified and appalled him.
He couldn’t understand what made them congregate. Maybe they were communal. Maybe it was that they had a pack mentality.
Or maybe it was a last vestige of their humanity. An echo of what they were before the contagion warped them into something new and beyond comprehension.
Raylens was right when he referenced insects.
There was something vaguely insectile when you caught sight of that many of them gathered in one place. They were tactile, contact aggressive and animalistic. They roiled around each other like smoke given substance. Snapped and hissed, but didn’t actually fight amongst themselves.
It was overwhelming.
Chilling.
Eerie and dreadful.
The smell and the sight of them.
More than that.
He couldn’t put it into words. It unmanned him in a way that he couldn’t define. Left him feeling as desperate and terrified as a child faced by the nightmare materialising in daylight.
The situation was beyond him.
They were beyond him.
Those things were something that defied his understanding.
They offended his sense of wrong and right. They were worse than wrong. They were unearthly.
Raylens was crazy but it was understandable.
Mad as a hatter and as bizarrely dressed.
And why not?
Why not be crazy when you were surrounded by the insane.
At that moment, Pearcey understood his deranged interpretation of events. These creatures, the mutated people, were horrendous.
Otherworldly and totally alien.
If Raylens was paranoid and dangerous before the event, and Pearcey was pretty much convinced that was the case, why not embrace the delusions when they manifested themselves in reality.
It was hardly surprising that Raylens had his own take on things. It was crazy, but crazy was the order of the day.
If those things in the square had seen them, they would have had no chance.
Pearcey was absolutely sure on that score.
None and Bob on the hope front, as the man once said.
<><><>
Wayne Raylens saved them.
Led them away through more darkening alleys and crumbling brick passages.
The intermittent ringing of untended alarms. The occasional rumble of vehicles being driven at speed.
Sporadically, the dim boom of collision.
Twice they met lone creatures and twice Raylens acted without pause or request for assistance.
Wielding the bayonet like he was born with it in his hand.
Slashing and stabbing with an effectiveness that left Pearcey somewhere between open mouthed admiration and subdued alarm.
Mutated blood sprayed, followed by muttered, inaudible commentary from behind the mask.
The man killed without thought.
As casually as you’d step on an ant or swat a fly.
And with a cold proficiency that spoke of time worn familiarity.
Pearcey wondered again how hot he must be in that outfit.
The big coat, the hood and clinging constriction of the mask.
There was no indication of discomfort, but he must be sweating like a pig.
It was cooling as the night came down, but it had been an unseasonably warm day earlier and was still humid.
An end of May hot spell that had no place at the dawn of a dark age. The weather should have cold and wet and grim.
Not unusually warm and dry. It was wrong that there was heat in the air and even a glimpse of the sun through evening cloud.
But why would it be otherwise. The wrong was everywehere.
Everything was wrong.
<><><>
They emerged into more open roads.
Smoke and ash in the air.
The soundtrack a subdued crackle and roar.
An orange glow in the sky that could only mean that something was burning. Raylens led them towards the glow until they rounded a corner and were confronted by a street that was on fire.
One side in flames.
Pearcey caught up with Raylens before he could continue. Laid a hand on his shoulder and was met by the unreadable mask turning to him.
“We aren’t going down there are we?”
Raylens moved away, out of reach, as if Pearcey’s touch was an affront. The gloved hand that slipped to the rifle was an unmistakeable warning sign.
“Fuck yeah baby, that’s where we’re going. We’re close now. Close to your friend’s block of flats. If it wasn’t for all the smoke, you’d be able to see it.”
Pearcey thought he could detect pleasure in the tone.
Enjoyment.
Excitement.
“And don’t touch me Bunker Man. I don’t like it. You’re obviously immune, but that may not last and I don’t want your spore on me. They may be able to track that.”
Pearcey nodded.
“Yeah, okay. I ...err, I know what you mean. I just wanted to get your attention. Are you sure that this is the best way?”
Raylens gargled behind the mask.
Laughing, speaking in tongues?
Pearcey didn’t know and it was pointless even questioning it.
He wanted to kill Raylens and also hug him like a brother and tell him it would be alright.
He couldn’t do either so he just had to grin and bear it.
Eat shit and smile like it tasted good. Nothing new, but he’d had a bellyful.
The gargling stopped, replaced by speech.
“This is a bonus. The fire. It’ll give us a clear path. They don’t like it, the alien ants. From what I’ve seen, it scares the shit out of them. They runny-run away on their bone-worm legs. I saw it earlier today. It’s actually pretty funny. They’ll run at a car and get smashed to fuck, but show them a burning building and they’re on their toes.”
It didn’t sit easy but Pearcey was willing to accept the wisdom of experience. Even this far away he could feel the heat. See cars ready to be engulfed by flame. See the wildfire spread threatening.
Best just do it.
Before it was too late.
Gallagher spoke up from behind them.
“He’s right, we’re close now.”
Pearcey turned to look at them.
Gallagher was tired, worn out and used up.
The girl hovered in the background, a persistence of memory in black and white. Reluctant and as wild as the fire in her own way.
It was fucked up beyond measure. The whole situation. Wrong from the start and getting wronger all the time.
There wasn’t time to debate it.
The clock was ticking.
The sun setting.
The fire burning.
Best just get it done.
Chapter 14
Lancaster Court
The fire burned behind them.
Wayne Raylens had been right when he’d said they were close.
A few streets back, the world was wrapped in heat and flame.
Disintegrating timber and red-hot brick.
Buckling steel and splintering glass.
For Pearcey, negotiating that street had felt like a sneak preview of the future. They’d scuttled along the opposite side of the road in constant fear of the scorching heat and collapsing houses.
It had been empty of people and creatures alike.
The living things had fled the fire. It would spread, that fire. There would be no intervention. It would spread until it hit a natural firebreak or the rain came. No fire brigade, no emergency services.
The infection was indiscriminate and widespread. Devastatingly widespread.
So extensive that little or nothing would be spared.
Not the police and not the army for that matter. Not the paramedics in their ambulances or the hospitals where they would have taken their patients.
They were gone.
Things of the past.
It felt like it was all going. Everything he knew and took for granted. It wouldn’t be back soon. Not if what he’d seen so far was anything to go by.
There was a despondency growing in him.
Pearcey shook if off.
He didn’t have time.
<><><>
A few minutes after that, they’d arrived at Gallagher’s building.
And come to a stop, crouched between a hedge and parked car. In front of more terraced housing.
Smoke swirled around the higher floors of Lancaster Court.
Blurred it in a shifting haze that caught the last of the sun and cast the scene in an apocalyptic light.
Gallagher’s apartment was on the fourth floor of what amounted to a high rise block of flats. Maybe eleven or twelve stories at a quick glance.
A cruciform shape that was out of fashion these days. Plenty of light, but they cost more to build.
A nice high rise.
Red brick and white concrete balconies.
There was space around it. Trees and some grass.
They’d probably have been called apartments now. It sounded so much cooler than living in a flat.
Definitely expensive given the location.
Pearcey vaguely wondered how Gallagher could have afforded it. Maybe he’d ask him one day.
Not today.
They had more important things to worry about.
Like getting into the flat without getting eaten.
The green upon which it sat was littered with glinting shapes and bodies.
Twisted creatures lying on a lawn spiked with sharp glass.
Pearcey scanned the windows and could make out broken windows that corresponded to the location of the glass shards.
He didn’t know for sure, but he was pretty certain that it was a mirror of what had happened to them when the Jaguar bit the dust.
Those broken windows were exit signs.
The occupants had caught the City Flu and retreated to their apartments to collapse.
Lay there changing, mutating into something new.
Woken with a hunger that burned stronger than caution. Found themselves confined and simply battered against the nearest obvious escape route.
The window.
Until it broke and they were free.
Free to fall.
As alien and resilient as their new bodies were, the fall to earth had shattered some of them. Destroyed them too completely for survival.
Pearcey could see seven or eight crumpled heaps in the gathering gloom.
Not all dead. Two of them continued to twitch and make small, desperate movements. Immobilised, but not finished. Clinging to their new existence with a tenacity that awed him.
Dear lord, they were tough.
<><><>
Pearcey glanced at Sonny Gallagher.
“Can you see your windows? Are any of them broken?”
Gallagher nodded and then shook his head slightly. He’d come to the same conclusion as Pearcey, knew exactly what his friend was asking.
Had his daughter turned and already left.
“They’re intact.”
He pointed, but Pearcey didn’t bother looking. He trusted Sonny not to lie. It meant that Anne Gallagher hadn’t jumped of the window. That was all. It didn’t tell him much else.
Besides which, he was more worried about what was around them. It was quiet, no creatures in evidence. It appeared that Raylens had been right once again. They’d run from the fire.
Pearcey didn’t trust it though.
He felt exposed, squatting there in the street.
Naked and defenceless.
Those things could come from anywhere at any moment. Their fear of the flames might not be as strong as their desire for prey.
Their need to hunt.
And the light was fading.
Pretty soon it would be dark and then everything would change again.
If he’d learned anything in the last couple of hours, it was that the rules of the game, along with most of the human population, had undergone a radical metamorphosis.
A savage transformation.
He was struggling to grasp those rules in daylight. He didn’t want to start figuring them out in the dark.
Gallagher interrupted his reverie.
“The garages are at the back of the flats at the edge of the green. A block of lock-up units. I rent one. Costs an arm and leg but what can you do, they’re like fucking gold dust.”
Pearcey thought that the cost had probably just plummeted. Like the creatures lying on the grass there.
The rent wouldn’t be collected this month.
And not for the foreseeable future.
Gallagher delved into his combats and produced a bunch of keys.
“Keys to the lock-up and the motor.”
Pearcey chewed his lip and tried to improvise a plan of action.
It was all improvisation and that had been the problem from the outset. One improvisation led to another and before you knew where you were, you were in a shitload of trouble. Neck deep and floundering to keep your head above the waterline.
Or shitline, if you wanted to be pedantic.
God, he’d had enough of this.
Like the character in the film had once said, he was too old for this shit. Too old and too tired.
He wanted to be at home. Watching a movie or reading a book and dreaming about his next spell of leave.
“Okay, here’s the plan. We scoot round to the garages and make sure that everything’s peachy there. Get it all ready to roll before we go in and grab your daughter.”
Gallagher agreed with his habitual nod and the girl stared at him blankly.
She may as well have been wearing a sister to Raylens mask for all he could judge from her expression. Maybe one of those disturbing but beautiful harlequin things.
He had no intention of abandoning her, but in his heart Pearcey wished he’d never laid eyes on her.
She was just another complication.
Another problem, when he had more problems than he could handle.
“I’m not going in there.”
Wayne Raylens voice was emotionless and unequivocal, a monotone made flatter still by the mask.
The rifle cradled in his arms like a precious child.
“It may be an alien hive now. Where they lay their eggs. No way baby. I’m not taking that chance. Being trapped in one of their filthy fucking nests.”
Pearcey was almost relieved. However good Raylens was at killing monsters, the guy was a loose cannon in a stormy sea.
Loop-de-fucking-loop.
He’d vaguely dreaded being in an enclosed space again with the man.
“I’m not that keen to go in there either.”
Angela’s voice was a soft whisper. For a moment, she held Pearcey’s eyes and then diverted her gaze.
It didn’t sit quit
e right, but it suited him.
When they went into Lancaster Court, Pearcey didn’t want the random factor of Raylens and he didn’t want the potential burden of the girl. He was caught in an impossible situation. If you tracked it back, it was a situation largely of his own making.
Leaving her with Raylens was wrong on all sorts of levels, but it made life simpler.
He was supposed to be out here assessing the state of things. He’d subverted that to help his friend and had started regretting the decision as soon as they breathed unfiltered air.
Everything else had led from that.
In his opinion, the girl was a basket-case.
A burn-out. Blown away by the cataclysmic events of the last few days. That didn’t mean that he felt good about leaving her with the looney tune in the long coat.
“Okay. Fine. We get to the garage and Sonny and I will go and get his daughter. You and Angela stay with the car and wait for us. It probably makes more sense than all four of us traipsing up there.”
Raylens head angled up to consider the building. The lenses of the mask a darkly shifting reflection of the world.
“I want the car keys. If you’re going into that building without me, I want the keys to the wheels baby. I want to get into your shelter, Bunker Man, I want directions and instructions on how to enter. In case you don’t come back, you know?”
Pearcey nodded.
Anything to get moving.
<><><>
They skirted the green.
Pearcey cast glances at the bodies as they moved. There were more than he’d originally thought.
Amidst the glass, he could see limbs.
Scattered remains.
Human, unchanged. A leg lay close to the path they were following towards the garage units.
More bone than leg. Maroon, black and white in the faltering light. Tattered bits of flesh and shreds of cloth clinging stubbornly.
Teeth marks scored into the white of the bone.
As they neared the garages, he saw something on the ground.
Twenty feet ahead. Moving away from them and then becoming still as they got closer.
Pearcey quickened his pace, overtook Gallagher.
He wanted to be first to get to whatever it was. Gallagher was beginning to rush, anxious to get to his daughter, and Pearcey was worried that might result in a lack of caution in how he did things.
Ferine Apocalypse (Novella): 4 Hours Page 8