by Guy N Smith
Reitze permitted himself a smile as he left the laboratory. Ed Barnes wouldn't step out of line, not where Reitze was concerned anyway. Because he knew that the Professor knew all about him. You didn't take a guy on at this level without compiling a very personal dossier on him. If the White House found out then Barnes would be out faster than a rat out of a hole, but sometimes it was prudent to have an employee with a skeleton in the cupboard because you had him where you wanted him and he did as he was told. Blackmail, but the end justified the means.
Reitze had singled Barnes out shortly after the latter had graduated, had met him socially on a couple of occasions. Ideally you needed a team of eunuchs for this type of work, 24-hours-a-day men without any distractions. The next best thing was guys who wanted to shut themselves away because they were shit-scared of the outside world. Not criminals, that was too much of a risk.
Barnes fitted and the Agency had set him up. A relationship with a male prostitute. The whole saga had been bugged and they had even got a few intimate photographs. A Watergate-type operation—and Barnes was their man.
Ed Barnes looked up from his desk as Reitze walked in. Small, no more than 5 feet 4 inches tall, cropped dark hair. Eyes set a shade too close together gave him a furtive look like that of a man permanently on the run. Barnes was on the run—from his past. He was making some notes on a pad in his tiny spidery handwriting, further proof of a withdrawn personality.
'I want to check the environment compound,' Reitze said.
Barnes nodded, closed his pad as though he had written something which he did not want the boss to see. He hadn't, it was just a natural reaction. If you watched him closely he blinked fast, had a slight twitch too. 'OK, I'll be right with you.'
They took one of the Land Rovers, up the sloping ramp and out into the world above. Reitze switched on the wipers; it was raining fast and there were splats of sleet on the windscreen. Good, this would put the outside experiments to the test. Winter had arrived virtually overnight.
They had less than a quarter of a mile to drive before they reached the compound. Once it had been a well-fenced paddock belonging to somebody who had kept ponies. So handy to the laboratory, so little adaptation needed. A reinforcement of barbed wire, the fenced extension a good 8 feet high, backed up with a double-strand electric fence. A locked gate was guarded by two soldiers. At the approach of the Land Rover they emerged from the shelter of their hut, kept their backs to the driving rain.
They knew Reitze, did not even ask for his pass. The Professor pulled the Land Rover off the track, climbed down, followed by Barnes.
'We need to examine the specimens,' he told the guard. 'One of you better come with us. The other can lock the gate after us.'
It was a routine precaution. The throwbacks had never shown violence, only fear of their hairless overlords, but when you were experimenting you never knew how things would turn out.
Barnes shivered, turned up the collar of his windcheater. This sleet was turning to snow. You felt the cold worse when you spent most of your life below ground in a centrally heated building. He wished he had put on an extra sweater.
They walked across the uneven ground, the soldier a couple of yards ahead of them, unslinging his rifle as they approached the dilapidated tin-sheet structure. At the moment there was no sign of life; the occupants of this compound would all be huddled inside that three-sided shelter with the open front. You couldn't blame 'em for that.
Surprise and fear, a dozen squat shapes leaping up from the piles of blankets on which they had been sitting or lying, huddling in the far corner, pressing against each other. They reminded Reitze of those cages of rats in the lab in Arizona. No matter how many times a day you went near them they always squealed and ran to a corner. Because they were intelligent enough to know that you were experimenting on them, that you didn't give a shit whether they lived or died so long as you got the results you were after.
Reitze stood in the wide doorway and regarded the throwbacks carefully, saw the fear in their faces. Totally demoralised, they had given up, maybe they were even willing themselves to die. His eyes narrowed. One of them was dead, the rest crowding and standing on the corpse, treading it into the muddy floor.
'We'd better take a look at that one,' he said, and moved forward a pace.
The captives huddled closer together, spilled away along the wall, crowded into the other corner. The Professor knelt down, had to extricate the body from the mud before he could roll it over. It was a girl, in her late 'teens or early twenties. She was stiff and cold, had probably died during the night.
'Pneumonia,' he said looking up at Barnes, 'but you'll have to take some tests. We can send over for the body later. In the meantime we'd better check the others.'
Jt wasn't easy because they kept backing away, furtively following the wall round, only the soldier at the entrance preventing them from fleeing out into the open. Outside the sleet had turned to pure snow, the paddock beginning to whiten over already.
The throwbacks bunched and suddenly one of them fell, a young man toppling forward on to his face, hitting the ground with a thud and lying still. The rest trampled on him in their haste to keep their distance from their captors.
Reitze let them go, he was only interested in the unconscious one. He knelt down and Barnes helped him to roll the body over. The man was still breathing, shallow breaths that might peter out at any second. His bearded face was flushed, the flesh hot with a high temperature.
'What is it?' Barnes whispered, lifted one of the unconscious man's eyelids, let it slip back.
'A fever.' Reitze's voice was tense, suddenly that dull monotone gone. 'We'd better get him back for checks.' Not for attention, for checks. Because it looks interesting.
Between the two of them they lifted the sick man. Reitze supporting the head and shoulders, Barnes taking the legs. The soldier was eyeing the rest of the throwbacks, rifle barrel half-raised. They were scared to hell and there was no knowing what they might do if they panicked. You couldn't say to them, 'This man's sick, we're taking him for treatment.' You were taking one of their kind away to harm him and they were incapable of understanding anything beyond that. In a way they were right because the scientists didn't care whether he died, were only curious what he died of.
They loaded him unceremoniously into the back of the Land Rover, and Reitze took the wheel. It was snowing hard now, the ground slippery with white slush. If it kept up it could be deep by nightfall. The Professor engaged four-wheel drive and even then the wheels slipped a little, the vehicle slewing then righting itself.
'That bunch are in a bad way.' Barnes watched the wipers building up a block of packed snow on the windscreen. They can't stand the winter. They'll all be dead by the end of the week if we don't do something.'
'Like what?' There was a touch of sarcasm in Reitze's reply.
'House 'em better.'
They're undergoing tests. It would be defeating the object.'
They'll all die. You can see that for yourself.' Then so will the thousands, millions, living in the wild. We can't do anything about them.'
Neither of them spoke again until they arrived back at HQ. Reitze called two assistants, had them stretcher the 'patient' up to the end lab, the closed one with the operating table in it. Newman was in there, his features serious when he saw the newcomer.
'Christ, what's the matter with him?' he snapped. He had already done post-mortems on Reitze's victims from the freezer block. Exposure. This was something different, though. Even a layman could tell that.
'I'll have to leave you to it.' Reitze made for the door. 'I've got a meeting in ten minutes. Check this guy out thoroughly.'
'He needs a heavy dose of antibiotics.' 'No!' Reitze whirled, his cheeks flushed slightly. 'You'll fuck the whole experiment up if you start pumping drugs into him. Do all the usual tests first. Ed will help you.'
Newman checked a retort. If they didn't do something drastic quickly this fellow could die. It wasn't
just exposure he was suffering from and that was what worried him. I'll have a report ready in an hour,' he said tight-lipped. Reitze closed the door behind him. Suddenly they weren't making any headway at all and Caldecott and Rankine were going to ask an awful lot of questions.
'You mean that tough as they seem they can't stand exposure to the elements!' The Prime Minister was incredulous. 'My God, and our security forces have driven thousands of them out of the towns into the hills and woods!'
Reitze got the impression he was supposed to say something. I'm sorry, I should have told you before that they would not be able to withstand the cold. Perhaps we can round them up again. It's too fucking late because it's blizzarding out there now. He said nothing, just waited. Put the ball in their court.
'Are you absolutely sure they're not resilient?' Rankine was clutching at straws. 'I mean . . . you could be wrong . . . couldn't you.'
Reitze hoped his contempt for them didn't show. You lot ballsed it up. You wouldn't wait for my tests. Drive 'em out of the towns into the wilds, get rid of 'em. We don't mean 'em any harm because they are our people; we just don't want 'em around. Now you're shitting yourselves because you might've got rid of 'em for good. Please help us. Professor, or else we'll blame you.
'I'm not wrong.' Reitze's voice was as emotionless as ever. 'My tests have proved beyond doubt that the throw-backs can't stand the winter.'
'Did you really have to ... to kill those few to prove that?' Caldecott's eyebrows knitted, accusing.
They died.' A politician's answer, avoid replying to a direct question. 'If you want me to do tests then there are bound to be casualties.'
The Defence Minister and the Prime Minister exchanged glances. Both were uneasy. They gave up blaming the Americans, looked for another outlet; there weren't many left.
'But we've got to do something.' Caldecott spread his hands in despair. 'If only it wasn't winter.'
There's nothing we can do.' Reitze took his time selecting and lighting a Camel, 'The way the snow's blowing up right now we won't be able to get out of here ourselves before long. Even if we could, even if the weather was mild, it would be an impossibility rounding these people up again. They've dispersed, are trying to adapt to a new environment. Towns and cities are foreign to their primitive nature so no way will they be coming back. We've just got to face up to it—by the spring there won't be many of 'em left.'
Silence. The battery clock on the wall sounded deafeningly loud. Time was everybody's enemy right now.
'What about these . . . these latest tests you're doing?' Caldecott asked hesitantly. 'The ones in the ... outdoor shelter.'
'I've just come back from there.' Reitze took his time replying. Damn them, they would ask about that. There was no point in lying; the truth could be known in a matter of hours. Just don't try blaming me. 'We've got a problem.'
'What sort of a problem?'
'At the moment I'm not sure. Newman and Barnes are conducting tests right now on a man who collapsed less than an hour ago. It isn't from exposure to the elements, I'm virtually certain of that.' 'What then?'
'I'm not sure. I'll let you know the minute I am.' That should break the meeting up if anything could.
'All right,' Caldecott nodded, 'we'll be waiting to hear from you, Professor. I just hope it isn't bad news. It seems that time is on the side of the enemy who did this awful thing to us. They have only to sit and wait and within a matter of months the unpopulated western world will be theirs for the taking! I just hope you're wrong.'
'It's bad.' Brian Newman's features were devoid of colour. He sat on a chair in the corner of the laboratory. There was no sign of Barnes and Reitze didn't ask after him. On the operating table a sheet covered the body of the man they had brought in earlier. There was no movement from beneath it and Reitze did not enquire if he was dead because he never wasted his time on futile questions.
'How bad?' Don't rush him, let him take his time giving the facts.
'A virus,' Newman replied. 'An off-shoot of the microorganism that worked on the skin tissues, doubtless. It affects the lungs like the fastest cancer you've ever known and the heart can't stand the strain. Triggered off by a drop in body temperature. If those we deep froze hadn't died so quick they'd've got it almost certainly. Cold and wet brings it on. Whether it will affect every single one of the millions of throwback Britons is anybody's guess, but I'd say you'd have to be bloody lucky to survive out there. Another thing, and I'm not absolutely sure about this, but I'd say it's contagious.'
The hell it is!' Reitze instinctively moved back a pace. 'In that case we'd better start work with some antibiotics, inject all that lot up in the environment compound. Right now I can't think of anything else.'
They took the Land Rover again. The blizzard had increased to gale force, restricted visibility to less than fifteen yards. The snow was beginning to drift and several times they had wheel-spin but they scarcely noticed it.
The same sentry unlocked the gate, climbed on the tailboard. It wasn't going to be easy injecting a crowd of primitive men and women who had a terror of civilisation.
Reitze drove right up to the hut, parked the Land Rover across the entrance and killed the engine.
'Jesus H. Christ!' was all he said.
His companions stared where he was looking. There was limited vision through the driving white flakes but it was enough. More than enough.
Newman wanted to say 'Maybe they're just sleeping, huddled together for warmth.' It would have been a pointless lie. The soldier had jumped down from the rear, was pressed up against the side of the vehicle, his rifle still slung on his shoulder because he wouldn't be needing it.
Two of the hut's occupants squatted against the far walls, heads forward, nodding as though they were on the verge of slumber. They did nof look up even though they had surely heard the Land Rover's approach. Two children lay just inside, arms entwined around each other.
The rest were strewn across the entire floor space, lying in various poses, some on their backs, others face upwards. Not moving.
The snow was cutting a virgin white path inside as far as the centre, creating a fluffy shroud which was fast covering the bodies in the foreground. Maybe in a few hours it would fill the whole shed, hide the horror of it all. Nature's final apology before the world died.
Reitze pushed the starter-button, began to reverse back out into the paddock.
Test Number Three was conclusive enough without further examination of the specimens—the new virus was fatal within a matter of hours*.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
THE THROWBACKS would not be attacking again, Jon Quinn was optimistic about that. They would not face guns; they had learned their lesson.
He had spent the remainder of that awful night at the bedroom window, but there had been no sign of the enemy out there in the darkness. They had withdrawn, were doubtless watching from the hills around. But they had no answer to the sudden death that firearms were capable of. They would not risk another raid, would rely on stealth, maybe an ambush if they got the chance.
Dawn came gradually, a slow greyness, a creeping hill-fog that reduced visibility to a few yards. He could make out the gate, the tall hedge that bordered the lane, but only because he knew what and where they were. Detail was obscured in a still damp world. If you listened hard enough you heard the. steady dripping of condensation. Not even the harsh squawking of a crow in the fir spinney. Nothing.
Sylvia was sleeping heavily. He bent over her, for one awful moment thought she had stopped breathing. Her breasts scarcely rose and fell. A combination of shock and exhaustion. She would probably sleep the clock round.
As he turned away from the bed an awful feeling of loneliness assailed him. He didn't even have Sylvia any more. Physically she was here in the cottage but her love, her thoughts, were out there up in the hills. Eric Atkinson was a terrible sight to behold but everything in her had gone back to him. She might even go to him now and if that was her wish then he would let her
go. There was no point in trying to stop her.
Another awful thought; out there in the yard were three dead bodies.
Murderer!
He winced, did not even try to convince his conscience that it was self-defence, that he had shot them to save Sylvia; just accepted that he had killed them. The corpses had to be buried, there was no question about that, and there was only one person to do it. It was a task that could not be delayed,
He went downstairs and outside, took the gun with him. The sooner he got it done, the better. Funerals were therapy, a sort of climax to grief, and once they were over and done with time could begin to heal; perhaps his conscience would be easier when the dead were below ground.
The cultivation patch was the obvious choice; the soil there was soft and the digging would be relatively easy. AH the same, it would take him most of the day.
He fetched a spade from the outbuilding and propping the loaded shotgun up against the fence he began marking out the first oblong. He would not need to cultivate the whole area again, all he would need would be a few rows of essential basic crops for himself (Sylvia would not be here then). He might not even bother to grow vegetables again. He wasn't thinking positively any more.
The digging was soft and easy, rhythmic motions, taking his time, piling up a mound of soil, some of it sliding back into the shallow rectangular hole.
The fog had rolled back as far as the base of the steep hillside. Every so often he paused and glanced around but there was no sign of anybody. The throwbacks had returned to the hills, maybe now they would leave him alone.