by Guy N Smith
'Let's go out of this God-awful place,' the co-pilot muttered. 'I can't wait to get back to base. Hell, imagine anybody living out here.'
The chassis vibrated and Jackie clung to her seat. The man called Bill still had the pistol trained on her, maybe thought that she would attack them in a wild frenzy, afraid of a weeping girl who asked nothing else than to be freed back into this environment of death.
She felt the helicopter begin to take off, rising vertically, shuddering, straining, roaring its ferocity at the world below. A stark white unbroken landscape beneath, rolling hills that went on and on.
Jackie peered down, mutely screamed her frustration and hopelessness. It had taken her months to trek back here; she had almost made it back to her mate and then suddenly these men had appeared and were spiriting her away. Primitive fear, she wanted to leap out, to fall, to die down there in the snow. Because it was home.
Faster now, the scenic view a dazzling blur in the bright sunlight, the tops of coniferous trees dull green where they poked clear of the snow. Scattered dwellings like symmetrical buried boxes. All being left behind.
A sudden jerk that threw her forward so that she banged her head, cried out. The helicopter bucked, sent her slithering on to the floor. The two men were trying to shout to each other and she felt their fear rather than heard it, Bill's eyes wide with terror behind his thick goggles.
And at that moment the noise cut out. Nothing; just a rush of air, a sensation of dizziness, the only roaring that in her own ears.
'For fuck's sake!'
A scream, she thought it came from the pilot. Clung tightly to the stanchion of her seat, shut her eyes tightly.
'Fucking shit!' Both men were yelling, screaming, struggling desperately with levers on the instrument panel.
Plunging downwards, the rotor blades spinning slower and slower.
Jackie did not even brace herself for the inevitable impact, just saw in her mind the face which no longer eluded her, wept because she remembered more clearly than ever now, and knew that she would never see it again.
And then they hit the snow-covered hillside, bounced, slewed, the helicopter breaking up and leaving a trail of debris in its wake as it rolled downhill, finally struck an outcrop of rock and was crunched into a ball of mangled metal.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
REITZE HAD coughed and spat blood into the wash-basin that morning, then vomited, clinging on to the stand, otherwise he would have fallen. The room around him swam and he had to wait for it to steady.
He forced himself to think logically, didn't like what his thoughts came up with. The tests had proved conclusive, too conclusive. They would not be making any more tests because they had achieved the ultimate—death, the end of civilisation.
A cancerous side-effect to the skin disease, a contagious one. The reversion had only been a symptom of what was to follow. The body's resistance was lowered, vulnerable to just about anything that was going, like AIDS in a way. Severe cold had killed off most of the population and those who survived ended up with this spreading cancer that grew like couch grass in May. And if you missed it once you caught it off somebody else.
He brushed his teeth, tried to get the taste out of his mouth. It didn't work, smelled like your shit had come up the wrong way. Bastards, not just the fuckers who had started all this but the throwbacks themselves, disease-carrying apes that should have been driven into the hills in the beginning and left there. Instead they were brought in here for tests and this was what you ended up with, a dose of internal syphilis.
Reitze began to pull on his shirt, coughed again and spotted it with crimson. Even so he needed a Camel, he wouldn't gain anything by kicking the habit now.
He let himself out of his room and went down to the laboratory. There was no sign of Westcote, Barnes or Newman, and he didn't think they would be showing up.
Caldecott and his ministers had been moved across to the other centre, the one where Royalty was housed, the final bastion. The last step to preserve life as Mankind knew it.
Sketchy reports were still filtering in from the States but now winter had hit them hard too. Whole settlements of throwbacks were reported dead and there had been outbreaks of the Coughing Death reported in New York, Los Angeles and Houston. Undoubtedly it was in a lot of other places, too, but the news had not come through. Maybe nobody really wanted to know.
The Professor's lips tightened into a bloodless slit, those eyes behind the rimless lenses were no longer expressionless. He crossed to the first experimental chamber, peered in through the tiny window. One of them was stiH alive; two lay dead on the floor, their bodies streaked with pink phlegm as though haemorrhaging snails had crawled all over them. The third was sitting propped up against the far wall; for him time was running out too.
Reitze went to one of the cupboards, unlocked it and took down a red-labelled bottle, filled a syringe from it. He laughed softly to himself, heard his lungs rattle. There wasn't much time left for any of them.
There was fear in the captive's eyes when Reitze opened the door, sheer terror that had those twin orbs rolling right up until only the whites were visible, arms and legs twitching, the nearest they could get to crazy headlong flight. A rush of liquid anal wind. The bastard knows, Reitze thought. He might be the equivalent of a Stone Age man but he knows just what I'm going to do to him.
A prick just beneath the skin on the neck, pressing the plunger slowly until all the grey fluid had emptied out of the cartridge. Withdrawing, standing back to watch, to gloat.
The eyeballs dropped back down; Reitze thought they clicked. The mouth opened, the tongue protruded, darted like a snake's, the saliva thick and frothy, mucus beginning to ooze out of the flared nostrils.
The limbs jerked, twitched, went into spasms, the head nodding like a puppet's, stretching so that the veins in the neck bulged and stood out. One scream and then the vocal cords gave out, just left the victim mouthing his cries of agony mutely. Fingers and toes bent over, long nails digging deep into the flesh so that blood began to flow.
A silent scream, a choking cough that brought up a blob of black congealed blood, almost drowning in a second until he got it out. Pain and hate in those eyes, an expression that bridged a gap spanning thousands of years.
And Reitze stood back and laughed, coughed his own blood and still laughed. If only the other two had not died overnight they could have had the same. ML 273, a formula that destroyed the body in much the same way as strychnine did only much, much faster, did not act on the brain. You only died when you couldn't stand the pain any longer.
He watched the throwback disintegrating, nerves stretch and break, vomiting his life's blood in huge splodges until the skin whitened to the colour of pork. Twitching because he hadn't the strength to writhe and convulse, biting on his teeth until they chipped and broke.
Just the heart pumping weakly and the brain still functioning. Reitze knelt down and pushed his face close to the other's, stared into those bloodshot eyes.
'I wish you didn't have to die/ He unloaded his hate in a terse whisper. 'I wish you could go on like this for ever because you bastards have killed the world off. Sure, there'll be a few survivors but they'll be the unlucky ones. I'm dying now but what few fuckers of you remain are going to pay!'
He stood up, lurched unsteadily. Time was running out for him, too. He had to be going, he could not stop here any longer. Down the corridor and into the vehicle bay. The duty soldier did riot question him when he made for the end Land Rover, took a rifle out of the rack and filled his pockets with ammunition. Nobody travelled unarmed these days.
Reitze pulled himself up into the driver's seat, collapsed into it. Only hate and will power gave him the strength he needed, spun the wheels as he misjudged the clutch. Up the ramp and out into the open.
Most of the snow had blown off the lane and drifted the hedgerows; he hoped the Land Rover would make it. Soft powdery patches created wheel-spin in places and once he had to hit a drift at 30
mph to bulldoze his way through. He skidded, hit something beneath the snow with a metallic clang, bumped over it and kept going.
God, he hoped he would find some of 'em, that the soldiers hadn't driven 'em all to the woods and fields, that the cold and the coughing hadn't wiped the last of 'em out. The shitfuckers, he wanted 'em now more than he had ever done all along.
Within a mile he found the first one, a female coming towards him, limping, dragging herself along. She saw him, stopped, but did not attempt to run. In all probability she had not the strength.
He hit her dead centre with the Land Rover, the speedometer needle flickering on 35, a crunching impact that slewed the vehicle sideways on, sprawled her across the bonnet, gushing blood like a burst flagon of claret. Reitze jammed on his brakes, threw the Land Rover into a 390-degree spin and threw her off into the road. Then he went over her with the nearside front wheel, caught her with the rear one as well. He didn't even glance in his mirror because he had spied some more throwbacks further up the lane.
They ran for the bank, floundered in the snow and had to grab hawthorn branches in the hedge to save themselves from sliding back down. Suspended up there they thought they were safe. The Professor cruised slowly forward, slid to a stop fifteen yards from them. Slowly, deliberately, he picked up the rifle and climbed out. There was nowhere they could go, it was easier than the kids' airgun gallery at the fairground.
Five of them, he took the furthest first, a teenage girl, disintegrated her features with a dum-dum bullet, transferred his sights to the second and blew out his jugular vein so that bright scarlet blood sprayed technicolour patterns all down the snow-capped hedge. The third had turned his back so Reitze blasted his spine, sent him writhing down the slope.
The last two jumped for it, gave him sporting shots as they ran and slipped on the ice. He missed for the first time, broke a leg at the second attempt, scored a direct head shot on the fifth one.
Four dead, one flaying about. He climbed back in the Land Rover, edged it forward in low-ratio. He aimed the offside front wheel for the head, felt it crunch and split, bumped over the trunk with the back tyres, split the abdomen like a squashed haggis.
Half a mile further on he saw the big wood, knew there would be some of them in there but he would have to leave the Land Rover and go on foot, hoped he had the strength to clamber over those huge drifts. The fuckers would be in that wood all right.
Only his obsession kept him going. He was breathing heavily, spitting blood all the time, and his heart was trying to hammer its way out of his body. It took him nearly half an hour to make it to the wood.
Huge trees, mostly oaks, a few dead leaves still clinging stubbornly to their branches. Rhododendrons were virtually the only cover; that was where he would find the bastards skulking, flush them out as if he was hunting rabbits for sport. It was sport.
It was the blood that gave them away, thick dark lung-blood, a trail of it leading up to a dense patch of bushes, maybe fifty metres square. Reitze leaned up against the trunk of an oak, the rifle resting in the crook of his arm. They were in there, all right, skulking like the animals they were. Getting them out was the only problem . . .
He thought about it; thinking didn't come easy these days. He found the Camel packet in his pocket, just one left. Just one. He straightened it out, rolled it between his fingers. Just one small white cylinder of paper packed with rich dark tobacco. He sniffed it; it smelted sweet. He would in all probability never smoke another after this one because he wasn't going back. He put it to his lips, flicked his lighter, drew the smoke down deep into his diseased lungs, sent himself into a fierce coughing fit.
They would know he was here now, but it didn't matter. Jesus, he wanted the fuckers to know what they were in for. An idea, but the deep snow made it impracticable; if it had been summer he could have set fire to the whole wood, stood downwind and waited. Get roasted or shot, you fuck pigs, it's up to you! But it wasn't summer and no way was he going to be able to fire the wood. Shit!
The hunter, it gave him a sense of pride, Man's superiority over animals. They were in there crapping themselves because they didn't know how to escape him. Well, there was only one way to get them—he would go in there after them!
Moving slowly, unsteadily, his rubber boots slipping on the snow. Parting the outer trailing branches of the bushes and peering inside. Much darker in here, even the snow had only penetrated in places.
Something rustled. The rifle came up to Professor Reitze's shoulder, bucked. A bullet cut through the foliage, whined, embedded itself in the trunk of a silver birch. Then silence.
Reitze stood there listening, sweat streaming down his face. There should have been panic, throwbacks stampeding everywhere at the sound of the shot, screaming with terror. But there was nothing, not even a protesting crow insulting him from a distant tree. It made him uneasy.
He stepped forward, rifle at the ready. God, it was heavy, made his arms ache. More blood here; he quickened his pace, had to stoop beneath the twisting rhododendron trailers, peering into every dark recess. So quiet.
A sudden noise had him whirling round, forefinger taking a trigger pressure. Just dislodged snow falling. Nothing else.
He came to a birch tree, had to rest for a moment, leaning up against it. Only then was he aware of the cigarette butt scorching his lips, leaned forward and spat it out into a patch of snow, saw how the nicotine-soaked paper was pink. Trying not to cough in case it gave his position away, a heaving of his lungs that eventually threw up stringy phlegm. He turned his head away, didn't want to see. His strength was failing fast, he had to find them soon.
A lot more blood now, they couldn't be far away. He would come to the end of the rhododendrons soon, the beasts of the chase hugging every last scrap of cover until there was no more left. Then they would be forced out into the open. Six ... eight... ten ... a dozen of them, firing as fast as he could pull the trigger, using his remaining strength and sheer will power to work the bolt. Bodies falling, convulsing, lying still. That was how it would be, there could not be any other outcome. His whole body trembled with anticipation, somehow found that extra reserve of strength to keep going.
And then at last he found them, a big bunch of them, twenty at least, in a wide clearing amidst the dense bushes, men, women and children. A strewn litter of bodies, corpses!
It took some time for Reitze to realise, to accept, that they were all dead. He did not want to believe it, wanted them alive, fleeing, shrieking their terror as he cut them down one by one, wanted the satisfaction of gazing down on every one of them dead by his own hand. But the elements and the Coughing Death had beaten him to it.
No, it couldn't be, it wasn't like this. They were all alive, trying to fool him into thinking they were dead so that he would go away. But you can't fool me, you shit-pigs!
'Get up!' He screamed, brought the rifle up to his shoulder. 'I know you're not fucking well dead. D'you hear what I say? Get up and run for it. I'm giving you a chance. D'you fucking well hear?'
No movement except a piece of wet snow sliding off a branch, plopping on to the ground. Faces stared back at him, dull orbs that were filled with a hopelessness that had frozen into them. Features rigid, defiant. We're not going to run because we're dead. You're too late.
'For the last time, are you going to fucking well get up and take your chance with me?'
No answer, no movement. Reitze had the rifle barrel trained on the forehead of the nearest inert body, took another trigger pressure. Your chance has gone, you bastard!
The slug split the skull in two, exploded a shower of red bone splinters. The second shot was almost simultaneous, bowled a small child over, rolled it so that you could not see the gaping wound in its side. Firing fast now, corpses coming alive with the impact of the bullets, thrown back, jerked one way, slumping another. Reloading, shooting again, the cloud of cordite smoke thickening, doing its best to screen the awful mutilation.
Reitze paused to reload, looked
for unscathed bodies and could not find any. The first throwback again, this time a chest shot, ripping out the breast bone, breaking legs, arms, disembowelling others so that the stench of human offal mingled with the smeil of powdersmoke.
Only when he was out of cartridges did he stop, dropping on to his haunches, leaning back against the birch trunk. His eyelids were heavy, wanted to close, the smoke was making them smart but he forced them to remain open. The conqueror revelled in the sight of his conquest, wanted to savour the bloody carnage. All my own work. Liar! No, I killed 'em because they were still alive, trying to fool me but 1 was too damned smart for 'em. They paid.
'I got you, you fuck bastards!' A cracked whisper that was meant to be a jubilant yell. 'I got you for what you did to us.'
And when dusk drifted into the wood Reitze was still propped up against the bole of that tree, rigid, eyes still fixed on the bloodshed in front of him. The rifle had fallen from his grasp, half-buried in a patch of snow. Anyone stumbling upon him might have been forgiven for thinking that he was still alive, that he had slaughtered mercilessly and was merely resting.
But nobody would be coming here any more.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
JON QUINN had wounded a hare on the steep hillside that led up to Gwyther's boundary. An almost pathetic creature lolloping in the snow, its size confusing his judgement of distance when he fired; forty-five yards had seemed no more than thirty. It had squealed once, momentarily lost its footing then regained its balance, powered itself on upwards in spile of the pellets embedded in its back legs, bright red bloodspots marking the course it took once it had gained the brow.
'Damn!' Quinn ejected the spent cartridge, slipped another into the breech. Guilt because he had wounded the creature and in all probability it would die a lingering death up in the big forest after dark when the temperature dropped below freezing. He tried to console his conscience that he was desperate for meat. Rubbish, nobody needs meat, there are ample vegetables stored in the big barn. All the same, he had to follow it and make every possible attempt to alleviate its suffering.