by Unknown
The headmaster coughed again into a handkerchief that looked damp and sticky. He took short, sharp breaths, struggling to get the coughing under control.
“Mr Ross? Is there anything I can get you?” said Tom, more to say something than from any expectation that he could actually help the man.
Mr Ross shook his head. “No,” he managed. “When it catches me, I have to go with it. Ride it out. It’s easing now.” He sat up straighter and looked at Tom’s charge.
“Hello, young James,” he said. “We’ll soon sort you out. Be a good lad and wait for me in the corridor while I talk to Mr Evans.”
James nodded and let go of Tom’s hand. He turned and trudged out of the office.
“I know that one’s mother,” said Mr Ross. “She went to school with my eldest granddaughter. I’ll take him home. Maybe sit with them for a while.”
“You’re closing the school?”
“No bloody point staying open. You’re the only person who’s turned up today who’s fit and healthy.” Despite his swimming eyes, Mr Ross was still capable of fixing Tom with a piercing glare. “Haven’t been able to get hold of anyone, mind.” He motioned to the phone on his desk. “Education department, governors, even tried the Welsh Government Education department in Cardiff. No bugger’s answering.”
“This thing seems to be widespread. Worldwide. Everyone’s coming down with it.”
“Except you, eh?”
“Apparently so . . . I feel fine at the moment.”
“Well, I hope it remains that way, Tom. Trust me, you don’t want to feel this way. Tell me, are you a religious man?”
“Um, not really.”
“No? Me neither. I was brought up with the chapel, but stopped going twenty years ago when my Elsie died of cancer. I could no longer believe in a god that would allow such a terrible thing to happen.”
Tom didn’t know what to say so said nothing.
“I wonder,” continued the headmaster, “whether it’s too late to find that path again.”
“I don’t think it’s ever too late, is it, sir? Forgiveness and all that.”
“Hmm. I suspect I shall find out sooner rather than later. Do me a favour, will you, Tom? Help an old man to his feet.”
Tom stepped around the desk and gripped Mr Ross under his arm. The man felt hot. Feverish. With a grunt, he stood. Tom helped him around the desk where the headmaster shrugged into a heavy overcoat that was hanging from a coatstand behind the door.
“Right, where’s that young James? Let’s get you home, young man.” Before stepping out of the door, Mr Ross stopped and looked back at Tom. “You and Lisa would have made a lovely couple, you know. Pity.”
“You knew?”
Mr Ross smiled. “Good luck, Tom. Whatever fate has in store for you, meet it head on.”
“Er, okay. Good luck to you, too, sir.”
“Oh, I think luck will play no part in my future, Tom.”
Tom followed him and James out of the building and watched as they both got into the headmaster’s car. He waved as they disappeared down the school drive. Neither Mr Ross or the boy waved back.
* * * * *
The desert at night in December is a cold place, but the vehicle’s air conditioning was efficient and kept the interior temperature to a steady twenty-one degrees Celsius. Diane drove through the night, enjoying the emptiness of the highway, barely going above fifty miles per hour.
She pulled in at every rest stop. If fuel was available, she’d fill up, smearing the pump handle with dust from her canister. If not, she’d pretend to use the WC, leaving smears on door handles and faucets. If, as was more often the case, the joint was locked up in darkness, she’d stride over to the doorway and grip it briefly as though to confirm the place was closed before walking smartly back to the car and driving away.
At one point, her headlights picked out a rough dirt track leading across the desert towards some low hills. Had she chosen to turn off the highway and follow the track, it would have eventually led her to a low building enclosed behind a well-maintained chainlink fence topped with barbed wire. A camera mounted above the locked gate would have swivelled towards her and a disembodied voice would have enquired about the nature of her business. If she had no business there, the voice would have politely suggested that she turn around and return to the highway.
The building and the land upon which it stood were in private ownership. The government was aware that it existed and every five years or so carried out an inspection, but had never turned up anything that gave cause for concern. The locked cabinet inside the main door contained a small selection of firearms that were all licensed and properly stored. The variety of chemicals that were used for research and to maintain the sterile environment were, too, fully logged and stored according to regulation.
The land was registered to a corporation that gave its address as a swanky building in Manhattan that housed a firm of attorneys that prided itself on acting for the extremely rich and famous, and providing extreme discretion if so required. Such was required, very much so, in this case.
As far as the government was aware—and it had tried to dig further without success—the corporation was the public face of a group of reclusive millionaires who wished to remain anonymous, but who desired to use some of their wealth for altruistic purposes. One such purpose was to conduct research into the gene that caused cancer and that is what the building in the Mojave Desert was used for.
Every five years, the government inspectors were treated to a guided tour of one of the most advanced laboratories in the world, staffed by a team of half a dozen, presumably highly paid, research scientists. The gleaming laboratory equipment was state of the art, so the inspectors thought. In fact, a few items of equipment, disguised as a spectrometer or hidden within a centrifuge or masquerading as an electromagnetic microscope, went way beyond state of the art, employing technology unknown to man.
It was from this building that, eighteen months or so ago, a shipment of silvery metallic containers, somewhat resembling thermos flasks, had left, bound for destinations throughout the world.
Now the scientists within continued to work, ostensibly still trying to isolate and manipulate that elusive gene. An unannounced inspection would not uncover anything suspicious. Yet the work was a sham. The scientists in that laboratory knew exactly how to isolate and manipulate the gene. They could have eradicated cancer in a heartbeat.
What they were actually doing was awaiting the call that would see them drop everything and head east, following the same route as Diane Heidler. Two SUVs stood ready in the dusty yard, fuelled and packed with food and water for the trip east.
* * * * *
As the virus spread and the worldwide death toll rose into thousands, political tensions increased.
For a twelve-hour period on the Wednesday two weeks before Christmas, mankind teetered on the edge of adding nuclear war to its list of woes.
North Korea postured and threatened a full-scale nuclear attack on the United States, claiming that the West had waged biological warfare upon it. The West responded cautiously, pointing out that it had in fact been the first to suffer casualties and the virus appeared to be a world problem, divorced from political ideology, killing democrat, republican, communist, anarchist and liberal indiscriminately.
China entered the fray, followed by Russia and Iran. Soon every major world power had something to say about the Millennium Bug, fingers were pointed and warheads armed.
The world held its breath.
Then, as the virus raged unabated, the absurdity of the claims and counterclaims seemed to strike home. Either that or the upper echelons of state themselves were feeling too ill to be bothered getting into a fight. Warheads were disarmed and troops stood down. Besides, the troops were needed to deal with the increasing domestic unrest to which not even North Korea was immune.
Floods of panic-buying had cleared most shops of fresh produce; tinned goods were next to fly from the shelv
es. Restocking ground to a halt as shop workers, warehousemen and delivery drivers fell victim to the Millennium Bug.
The usual militant factions saw their opportunity and stirred up unrest, leading to protests and rioting and looting. Many governments reacted strongly, imposing martial law, but the riots were short-lived in any event. It is difficult to be enthusiastic about rioting when the light is too bright, limbs feel like they’ve been scooped out and filled with concrete, and bed seems a much more attractive proposition than throwing a brick through a shop window.
Martial law was nevertheless retained and in fact extended by most administrations in a vain attempt to curb the further spread of the virus. Quarantine areas were set up, buffer zones established, firebreaks attempted. People attempting to flee quarantined areas were peremptorily executed.
International flights were cancelled by one country after another until the skies had fallen silent. All except for the occasional drone of military aircraft.
Most experts agreed that these attempts were futile, that the damage had already been done. One prominent medical expert, speaking on BBC’s Panorama, described the measures as, “not so much slamming the stable door after the horse has bolted. More like after the horse has been captured, shot and turned into dog food and glue.”
* * * * *
In the New York apartment that overlooked Central Park, Milandra let out a deep sigh and pressed the off switch on the TV remote.
“Well, that was a close call. A lot closer than I’d have liked.”
She and her Deputies had spent all day in front of the television, watching the world draw close to nuclear annihilation and then pull back from the brink.
Wallace grunted. “Our people wouldn’t have let it happen.”
Milandra nodded. “It is as well we took the precaution. It was nevertheless a close-run thing.” She shuddered.
Simone spoke in a voice of one just waking up. “Um, what precaution did we take?”
Milandra exchanged a glance with Grant and allowed him to explain.
“Simone, don’t you recall? We have people in top advisory positions in most volatile governments throughout the world. Their job wasn’t to disseminate the virus, but to exert influence at the very top to try to prevent any overreactions. It seems that they were successful. Just.”
The girl tittered. “Oh, yeah. They were to stop everything going Boom!”
Grant raised his eyebrows. “Yep. That’s about the size of it. They actually had by far the most dangerous jobs to do. And the most crucial . . . We could only hope that in the extremity of facing the decision of whether or not to press the button, the minds of world leaders would be open to influence and would fail to detect that their wills were being manipulated. It appears that—”
A loud, insistent banging came from the front door.
Wallace and Lavinia were at the door in moments, standing to either side, guns at the ready. Milandra and Simone remained seated, but both turned towards the door to watch. Grant rose and strode to the door. He glanced at Wallace and Lavinia who both nodded and slipped off the guns’ safety catches.
Grant called out, “Hello? What is it you want?”
The banging stopped. A woman’s voice, thin and quavering, muffled through the heavy door, came back. “Please? Help me.”
“I’m sorry. There is no help for you here. Go home.”
“Please! My daughter. . . .” The voice tailed into a fit of coughing.
Grant glanced again at Wallace and Lavinia. They both nodded once more, but remained tensed like cats about to pounce.
Slowly, Grant reached out a hand and started to turn the locks on the door. Milandra arose from her chair and moved forward so that she stood behind him.
Grant lowered his hand to the door handle and pressed it down. As he swung the door open, he moved forward to prevent the person on the other side from entering the apartment. Wallace also moved forward as the door swung open towards him so that he stood near its edge, ready to spring around it if needed. Lavinia had adopted a marksman’s crouch against the wall, handgun held forward in both hands, poised to emerge and fire in an instant.
A pale, dishevelled woman in her mid twenties stood in the corridor, face damp with snot and tears. In her arms she held a child, wearing a disposable diaper and nothing else. The child appeared to be asleep, though its breathing was shallow and laboured.
The woman held the child out towards Grant as if in supplication. “Please. . . .”
She coughed again, ignoring the spittle that flew from her mouth and dangled from her chin. Her gaze moved from Grant to Milandra, who was peering into the gap between her Deputy and the door jamb, and then back to Grant.
Milandra looked beyond the woman, but the corridor was otherwise empty.
“Where have you come from?” Grant asked the woman.
“Number seven. It’s three floors down. You’re the only one who’s answered. . . .”
“Do you have a husband?”
She nodded and spittle dropped from her chin onto the front of her already-stained blouse. “He’s. . . .” A sob hitched in her chest. “I think he’s dying.” She took a deep breath and it all came out in a rush. “I’ve called our doctor but he won’t answer and the hospitals are full, the paramedics won’t come and my daughter is only eleven months old, it’s her birthday next week, her name’s Holly, she was nearly a Christmas baby and I don’t know what to do. . . .”
The woman still held the child out towards Grant as if she hoped he would take her and heal her. He pressed the palms of his hands against her hands, gently but insistently pushing the child back towards the woman’s midriff. Her face started to crumple and the start of a thin wail came from her mouth.
Grant silently posed a question to Milandra who immediately answered it in the affirmative. Together they probed. . . .
The wail tailed off as the woman’s eyes widened. She drew her daughter close to her chest.
“Go home,” Grant said gently. “Be with your husband. Be with Holly. Be together.”
The terror and utter helplessness faded from the woman’s face. She nodded, now calm, almost serene.
“Yes,” she murmured. Then she turned and walked away.
Grant and Milandra watched her go down the corridor until she disappeared down the stairwell.
* * * * *
Tom walked home from school Wednesday morning through a village that seemed to be asleep. Barely a vehicle moved on the roads. He encountered only one other pedestrian, a man walking his dog, someone he vaguely recognised as one of his neighbours. The man was middle-aged and walked with a slight limp. Tom recalled another neighbour telling him that the man had been injured in an accident at work and now lived off the compensation he had received.
The dog wagged its tail as Tom approached them. Tom was no expert on dogs, but thought that the mutt was probably some sort of mongrel, like a cross between a border collie and a Labrador.
He nodded at its owner. The man barely glanced at Tom. Beads of sweat stood out on his forehead and cheeks, despite the almost freezing temperature. His limp seemed far more pronounced than normal and his breathing was laboured, but he walked with chin thrust forward as though determined to keep up appearances of normality.
Before Tom could enquire whether he was okay or needed any help, the man and dog were past him. Tom turned and stared after them for a moment, troubled, before continuing on his way.
As soon as he was in the house and had removed his coat, he took out his mobile and called his mother. It rang and rang. No sooner had Tom disconnected than his house phone rang, making him jump.
He snatched up the handset.
“Mam?”
Silence. Then, “Tom? Is that you?” The voice was faint as though the speaker held the phone too far away.
“Yes?”
“Oh, Tom. It’s Lisa.”
“Lisa! I’ve been trying to get hold of you.”
“I got your message. I’ve been sleeping
a lot. The signal’s not very good here.”
“Here? Aren’t you at home?”
“No, I. . . .” There came a sound that it took him a moment to realise was the sound of sobbing.
“Lisa! What’s the matter?”
He heard her take a deep breath as though trying to compose herself. When she spoke again, her voice was stronger. “Tom, listen! I probably won’t be able to speak for long. They . . . Look, I’m at the sport centre in town.”
“The sport centre? What—”
“Shush, Tom, and listen! My parents and sister aren’t well. I’m not well. I think . . . I think my mother’s dying. And my dad. And, oh God, my sister, too. Tom, I think I’m dying. . . .” Her voice broke and he heard her take another deep breath. “We rang for an ambulance but they said the hospital was full and to come here. I drove us down. They’ve got us all in the sports hall, the big one. It’s full of camp beds. Tom, there are soldiers here. They’re wearing masks and weird suits . . . it’s like something from a horror film. And they’re carrying guns.”
“Huh! Guns?”
“Yes. I think they’re stopping anyone else coming in. Or leaving. I heard gunshots from outside. And people are dying. The corridor is piled with bodies under blankets. I peeped around the corner. A soldier saw me and made me come back inside. He . . . he pointed his gun at me.”
“That’s outrageous! I’m coming to get you. I’ll—”
“No! They won’t let you in. Stay away.” There was a pause and Tom heard a sharp intake of breath. “Tom, one of them has noticed me on my phone. He’s coming over. Tom, say a prayer for me. I—” Tom heard a voice in the background; a harsh, muffled voice.
“Lisa! Put him on. Let me speak to him.”
There was a shriek and the line went silent.
“Lisa! Are you okay? Lisa!”
But the line was dead.
Tom replaced the handset and dialled Lisa’s number on his mobile. It was answered after the first ring.