The Risen ( Part 2): The Risen, Part 2

by Smith, Adam J.

  Ahead, I saw others rushing to the terraces, kicking at the doors. When doors failed to open, they shot out the locks and shouldered through.

  The door Adeline and I had chosen opened just as we got to it, and behind it stood a child. Maybe ten or eleven years old. Masculine features and dark brown skin. New, sharp teeth grinding away in its jaw. It hissed and rose its clawed hands to me, then it jumped straight into my arms like a toddler running to its mother. Teeth snapping. I had a million reasons why this thing should not exist, yet proof enough in my hands that it did.

  Pushing Adeline into the house, as I entered behind her I whacked the apexes head against the doorframe, crushing its skull, and dropped it as a warning to anything that might want to follow.

  “Don’t let me die, dear,” Adeline gasped. “I’m not quite the athlete I used to be.”

  “Go!”

  We crossed the hallway into the kitchen at the back, shelves of recipe books on the wall by the back door. A faded shopping list tacked to a chalkboard. Smiling faces on photographs magnetised to a fridge. And then I shouldered through the door into the back garden, met by the dazzling sunlight as it made an appearance. Adeline followed, out of breath. Something screeched in the house (I thought of a mother screaming, finding a dead child), and I shouted that we had no time to stop.

  I looped my arm in Adeline’s and we ran across the garden, through uncut grass and weeds with pale white gnomes spectating. The approaching fence was just a wooden panel, which I kicked down easily enough. A mirror of a garden on the other side, and the back of another terraced house.

  A growl from behind.

  “Go! Open the door,” I said. “I’ll deal with this.” Adeline jogged ahead, as I span on my heels. The apex was at full pelt; square, muscled shoulders adorned with stretched tribal tattoos. I grabbed a spike of the wood panelling and pointed it forward, as if to lance it. Simple creatures; these. As it reached out to swab the lance away, I flicked my claws forward and raked them back down its forearm. It cried in anger and lashed out at me with its other hand. It leaped at me and I jumped aside, waiting for the poison to take effect.

  My claws were still bloody, I saw. But perhaps too bloody. Perhaps my blood was no longer on them.

  It leaped again, and I dodged once more.

  Another apex appeared on the roofline above.

  I bit down on my lip and sucked, sucked, and hacked, and spat at the apex as it pounced at me for the last time. Clutching its neck, it dug its claws into my back; squeezing, I lifted it and slammed it down on the grass. Blood from my lips dripped onto its face. Jaws snapped. Corruption in every breath. I took my free hand and allowed the blood to drip across my claws, and then I pulled them across its neck.

  “It’s open!” shouted Adeline.

  The ground shuddered as the roofline apex landed.

  I span, and ran for the back door. Adeline was half-way through the kitchen, with me on her heels, when the front door smashed open and another apex burst in. How many are there? It felt like they were now everywhere, from nothing to infinite.

  Gunshots serenaded further up the row of terraces – proof that we weren’t the only ones having fun. Adeline sang with her handgun, two quick a capellas; I hoped she had more than the six my revolver had. One slug hit the chest, the other the forehead, and down it went.

  I slammed the door shut behind me, bracing it against the roofline apex. It pounded the door with its fists, then its shoulder, and my boots skidded along the linoleum floor before gripping. “Get!” I said to Adeline, as though shooing away a summer fly. I wiped at my forehead and cracked dirt fell to the floor.

  “Come with me!”

  “I’ll be right behind you,” I grunted as I held off another shove, harder this time. There were more of them on the other side of this door.

  She hesitated for only a second, but it was long enough for another shadow to fall across the exit. For some reason she forgot she had a weapon and she screamed and ran for the living room, and I had no choice but follow her.

  I tore the claws across my forearms again, loosening more of the dried filth and ensuring they were dripping wet, and pushed away from the back door. Immediately, it slammed open behind, a gushing gift of corruption for my nostrils.

  When I reached the living room, it was to see Adeline on the stairs leading to the first floor, with an apex approaching her. She was backing into that cul-de-sac one foot at a time, handgun poised ahead of her, elbows locked.

  The apex crouched, ready to pounce.

  She fired. The hammer clicked on an empty space and the apex cackled and jumped.

  I jumped to meet it midair, but even though I connected, its weight was far more than mine and we ended up crashing into Adeline at the bottom of the stairs. She screamed in agony and the apex tried to twist to shrug me off of it. It succeeded only in exposing its ribs, through which I tore, causing a torrent of blood to cascade down its legs and onto the carpet. I tore and tore, frenzied and unsure what else was happening.

  “Get... OFF!” screamed Adeline.

  I didn’t know if she meant me or the apex or both, but it broke through my bloodlust, and I realised the apex was truedead. Adeline’s face was red beneath us – not from blood but from exhaustion, fear, panic – our weight. I jumped up and tossed the dead apex backwards, incidentally striking one of the apex from the back door. It held a shotgun in its hand, but it held it like a club, from the barrel. He slammed it down on a coffee table, shattering it. I half-expected a shell to explode, but of course, it had no ammunition. I wondered if it could reload, if it had some.

  “Up!” cried Adeline, before she moaned in agony. I looked down at her right leg and saw that it was snapped at the shin, the foot pointing back at me.

  The shotgun apex was joined by two others, coming to a halt as they saw the scene. Shotgun apex slammed the shotgun again, against the fireplace this time, hissing out spittle tinged red. Eyes black.

  The other two apex reached behind them and pulled out clubs from a belt that had not been visible on them through hair and dirt. One was a two-by-four with nails hammered into the end. The other was a table leg. Perhaps there were levels of intelligence even within their ranks. Or perhaps Mr Two-By-Four had just got lucky with his find.

  Like Mr Shotgun.

  The one with the table leg hit it against the wall, tap-tap. Or did I rename that? Crack-crack. Crack-crack.

  The room began to fill with apex; strolling in like evolved apes with straight backs; skulking in on all fours like hyenas.

  “Help... me,” Adeline said, trying to stand. “We’ve got to get.”

  “Not with your leg.”

  “Then... then... can’t you... kill them?”

  “I’m sorry, Adeline. The chance has gone.” I watched the wall of apex closely for signs of imminent attack. Overall, I thought, you get a two out of ten. With all your numbers, you’re going to come away one solitary kill. Apex predators, I think not.

  And even then, it won’t be you doing the kill.

  Without taking my eyes off them, I slit Adeline’s throat with my tarnished claws – who knows, maybe it got into her bloodstream somehow? I could only hope.

  “Ffi,” she croaked, before I twisted her head with a snap.

  The apex all screamed at me, murderously angry. I dropped the dead Adeline at the foot of the stairs and made my escape through a first floor window.

  ***

  Dark clouds had swept in from the sea, salty and heavy, hanging low, pushing away the white and glints of blue that had spotlighted our escape.

  The fields surrounding the town were overgrown with dandelions and daisies; easy to kick through as we ran. Seeds swam in our wake. The back gardens of houses receded behind us where apex stood and watched, screeching. It seemed without the security of the brick walls, they weren’t so eager to give chase. Perhaps the lack of shadows and ambush points; perhaps the threat of our weapons. Either way, they were true townies, resorting to their devolved state.


  The others came and left my view, glimpsed between hedgerow and trees. The sound of cracking branches and squashed reeds on the air. We were inching upwards, towards the woods that sat at the crest of a hill. I came to a turnstile that seemed out of place without a path leading to, or from, it. It was easy to leap over. My bag was loose from a strap losing its threading, and it bounced on my back as I ran. The hardened tar shed from my skin in the wind; I could feel chunks of it still glued into my hair, and began daydreaming of finding a pool or a stream to soak in.

  Up we climbed, higher, until we were through the woodline. Looking back, the town of Dolgellau seemed so small and innocuous, and strange to say that it was; truthfully. Fewer people had died there than in most other towns. It had held out for a long time against the mutates; long enough that the streets were clear of bones and there were very real, very good fortifications in areas all over the town. Just a shame its ground was concrete and tarmac; that water no longer ran through its pipes. That crops couldn’t grow there. It was like all towns now, even without the bones and with its population of apex; just a place for memories.

  I turned right in the wood and kept pace with the group ahead of me, not getting too close, not yet. It could wait until we reached the rendezvous point.

  I slowed to a walk, really feeling the texture of the bark on the trees and the tackiness of leaves. My gloves were almost ruined, torn across the palm, and would need to be repaired. At least I still had the claws, and at least they had worked a treat. My forearms were cut to shreds with lines rippled across them, blood and dirt and tar smearing away from the already scabbing slices. I grabbed a handful of dock leaves and rubbed them between my palms, then smeared them across my arms. I picked some elderflowers and chewed on them. Tore wild garlic leaves from the ground and ate those. Passed nettle but ignored those, for they were everywhere. Wished for the end of springtime when the berries would come into season.

  At the rendezvous they were waiting for me. For us. When they saw I was alone they started to scan the area behind me with desperate eyes.

  “She was with you,” Greg said. He was the bloodiest of them all, a machete in his hand streaked with the stuff.

  Dale stepped up to me and demanded to know where Adeline was.

  “She didn’t make it.”

  Bessie and Elyse gasped and began sobbing. John put his hand to his mouth and turned away.

  Greg stepped up beside Dale. “How was that? How did you fail to protect her?”

  I wiped at my face, hoping to dislodge some of the dirt. “We were cornered. She tried to run but one of them got to her before I could get to it.”

  Dale shook his head, putting his hand on Greg’s chest. “I saw what you could do. We all saw what you could do. If anyone was going to get out of that shitstorm alive it was you. You... and whoever you were protecting.”

  “She didn’t suffer.”

  Greg parried Dale’s hand away. “She didn’t suffer? She didn’t suffer? What the fuck does that mean?”

  “It means she killed her,” sobbed Bessie.

  “Did you kill her?” asked Dale.

  “I bet you did,” Greg added. “You knew that she knew your little... secret... and through your shame, you allowed her to die.”

  How he could read my face through all the dirt I didn’t know, but then Greg continued: “That’s right. I know. We all know. And you know what? We don’t care whether you’re female, male, something in between. It was no reason to kill.”

  Shaking my head, I said; “I didn’t... She...” I didn’t care that they knew about me, but were there words I could say that would convince them? Did I even want to convince them? “She was injured and there were too many of them. I got to her before they tore into her. She did not suffer.”

  “You’re a fucking... some kind of... I don’t know. You’re cold and heartless. A monster.” There it was. Greg seemed to show some kind of pride in the assessment, as though no-one had ever called me that before. The irony being Adeline wasn’t here now to come to my defence.

  “Look at you,” Elyse said. “Should never have let you in.”

  “Should’ve dealt with you at the time,” Greg added.

  “Quiet,” said Dale. “You,” he pointed at me. “Follow. The rest of you wait here.”

  I followed him deeper into the woods, keeping my distance. Leaves crunched beneath his heavy weight. I kept an ear out for Greg following up, but they seemed to be doing what they were told.

  The boughs grew denser. Light dimmer. Dale sighed and turned to face me, leaning against a tree. “The truth,” he said. His knuckles were white, gripping a revolver. Hand shaking. His other hand hung at his side, also shaking. Sweat shined from his face. He smelled a little like the easterly wind and the sea-born clouds.

  “I never lied.”

  He nodded. “No, you didn’t, did you?” His back slid down the tree trunk, and he held his head in his hands. His chest rose and fell in deep breaths, regaining control. He removed his woollen hat and ran his fingers through thick, dark hair, streaked with grey. “Every death we have... it’s exponentially worse. Never gets easier. Each one is more of a tragedy than the one before, because there are so few of us now. Perhaps there are more of the animals than there are human beings. And how many like you are there?”

  “None that I’ve met.”

  “No. None that you’ve met.” He looked up from the ground. “We shouldn’t let you live. It goes against everything we stand for.”

  I looked down at him. Him, practically on his knees, threatening me with death.

  “But like it or not, we almost certainly wouldn’t have escaped the town without your help. It was a miracle we only lost Adeline.”

  “She was the weakest.”

  “The weakest...” he disagreed with a head shake. “No, she was the strongest of us. You wouldn’t understand.” He stood back up and began to walk away. “You don’t follow us. You don’t find us. You have nothing to do with us, not anymore. If we ever see you again, we shoot. You’re not immune to gunfire.”

  April 2029

  There was a smattering of snow a few days before, and no shortage of peaks in the Snowdonia National Park to ascend to it. Woodland was sparse; living far harsher than the farm. The hills and mountains held a sharper quality, as though the wind bit harder; they rose taller and fell deeper, sometimes into lakes I did not know the name of. You could see further, and climb higher; to heights that encouraged perpetual snow.

  When the snow came it fell down the slope, teasing the lower grasses of the valleys and the winding, stone-lined roads. These were some of the barest roads I’d seen. I imagined that every time a blade of grass dared touch the tarmac of the road, the wind scolded it, slapping it back to where it belonged. These were roads that would last for years. And without sheep or cattle to bother the walls, they would continue to stand too. A human endeavour within God’s country, slicing shades of green that lightened throughout the day before deepening at dusk, blackening at night. A silhouette of a hill against a starry sky standing as a tombstone, words not yet etched. The soundtrack of a wolf’s howl as a eulogy.

  The snow a shroud. It melted in my angel’s arms as I cooled off after a hearty meal of skewered offal braised over a fire. Further up among rock and below a pile of snow lay a dead muntjac that had somehow survived this long. Considering the scarcity of houses, it perhaps wasn’t so surprising. I would cut the muntjac up later, harvest what was good.

  The liver and kidneys didn’t need long, and they satisfied my hunger first. The heart and tongue needed a little longer. I lay in the snow, waiting for them to cook.

  The group were further on, at least a day’s trek. Their goal, it seemed, remained the same – get to Anglesey. It was curiosity that I followed. Their destiny seemed entwined with my own, somehow. Perhaps it was just Anglesey that held the answers, and I didn’t need them. On the other hand, I didn’t know how big Anglesey was or how secretive the destination they were hea
ding to. Why chance it when patience was my predatory virtue?

  I hadn’t always kept so much distance. Despite Dale’s threat, I remained close by for the days that followed. Out of sight. Nature’s glue holding leaves and twigs to my naked skin. Quieter than the small rodents thriving now their predators were meals for mutates. Not even peeing within a half-mile of the group in case they smelled it.

  Following from treelines, or even treetops.

  Following from the signs they left behind.

  They were not subtle.

  The first night they made camp, the mood was sombre. Bessie and Elyse sobbed quietly, holding each other in the firelight. Greg and John stayed by the fire, while Dale patrolled. On more than one occasion he stopped, and stood still, patiently listening. It reminded me of the evening back at the farm, when he could sense something was wrong. He even went so far as to whisper; “You were warned.”

  But there was no way he could have known for sure.

  While the fire crackled, Greg said; “Should never have taken the risk.”

  “We didn’t know,” said John.

  “Who were we kidding? We could’ve worked it out the second she killed her so-called brothers. She was the one in the report.”

  “The report was years old. And she wasn’t covered in hair, like the others.” There was a moment of silence, during which Dale flinched at the sound of a badger. “Besides. She looked human.”

  Dale’s silhouette crossed the firelight, and there was a moment of darkness. Thirty seconds; that’s all it would take for me to kill them. I’d shown them my human side and the moment they saw my other side, they ostracised me. John spoke of hair; the hair that I had been covered with until my earliest period? What did that mean? They’d found others like me, and killed them?

  I recalled all their talk of purging every last mutate, apex, beast. Monsters. Of clearing towns. How much of the south had they already done? And how many more groups were there, just like them? Threading through Wales and England, ‘purging’ the ‘monsters’? The report Greg spoke of, I imagined, had come from the Grapevine. Whispers across a barren country, of strange-looking babies, hairy children. I could see the jabbering lips and flapping tongues, spittle spattering the handsets, gossiping with eager mouths about little boys and girls who were neither one nor the other; either human or not. Maybe it had been Old Jack’s wife, Betty, who began it all, causing a wave that reached all the way to the south of England, only for it to return years later, as a tsunami. But then, how much further back could you go? That day the mutate attacked the village hall, Father hadn’t even wanted me to go. Mother wanted me ‘out of her hair’. So was it all Mother’s fault, in the end?