Oedema: An Apocalyptic Horror Novel

by Stuart Keane

  She checked her watch again.

  Fiona had fifteen minutes until the rest of the plan was set in motion.

  Now or never, she thought.

  She stood up and pressed down on her desk with both palms.

  She breathed out.

  All part of the bigger picture, everything is but a piece in an intricate puzzle.

  Fiona turned around and smashed the red fire alarm panel behind her. The small glass window shattered, the shards tinkling to the tiles below, and a shrill alarm rang around the facility.

  Across the room, she saw several people jump to attention. A mild panic circulated around the head office of Aqua Services Limited. The workers slowly filed towards the fire exit, conversing to dull the peaky tension that always comes with the sound of a fire alarm, collecting their mobile phones and personal belongings despite the evacuation instructions advising against it.

  Fiona found herself shaking her head in disgust.

  I'm doing you a fucking service. What a dumb species, she thought.

  As they exited the building, she ducked down, collected her rucksack, and headed in the opposite direction. She watched the dispersing collective as she retreated to the rear of the building.

  Towards the outer facility.

  *****

  Michael Hughes held two fingers to his lips, kissed them, pointed to the roof of the dull cabin, and whispered to himself. With the same calloused hand, he reached out for a curled photograph on the control panel of the plane. He lifted it gingerly and brought it to his face, planting his lips on the image of his dead wife and daughter.

  Marie and Erin.

  Gone, but never forgotten. Taken long before their time.

  Killed by a compulsive drunk behind the wheel of his expensive sports car, a wealthy drunk who walked free because of a technicality. A technicality and his bent, well-paid solicitors. Plural.

  When someone hires an entire team of solicitors, you know they're guilty.

  People with money will always walk free.

  What an endorsement to the British justice system.

  A system that cared not for the average Joe, was too lazy to protect the innocent and, what was normally the case in modern society, cared only about where the money was coming from, about their personal coffers and unlimited greed. The man, the killer who took his family, was still out there, walking the streets today, without a care in the world.

  And his Marie? His Erin?

  Well, his nine-to-five as a lowly crop duster was no match. His quest for justice was quashed before it even gained momentum. Denied at every turn by lack of evidence, conniving witnesses who Michael suspected were on the take, and suspiciously absent CCTV footage. He couldn’t even afford a basic gravestone after the court costs. His loved ones lay buried in an unmarked grave on one of the numerous neglected plots scattered around Manchester. Nothing but two slim piles of disturbed dirt in the overgrown grass, each with a crude wooden cross shoved into the earth.

  Hell, the driver hadn't even offered to pay for the funeral.

  Well, he didn’t expect that. The solicitors probably asked their client to distance himself as much as possible. Offering money could be seen as an act of guilt. Besides, it wouldn’t bring his wife and daughter back.

  Michael closed his eyes and cursed beneath his breath.

  He blinked away tears, slipped the photograph into his top pocket, and locked both hands onto the control stick, gripping tight as the machine fought his command, his knuckles paling to white with the intense hold. Below him, the vast cold blue of the Atlantic Ocean stretched into the distance, ending on the horizon, where glorious sapphire water met the beautiful azure skyline.

  How can such splendour exist in a world of unfathomable horrors?

  He remembered the photo in his pocket, his question answered.

  Michael pushed the stick up gently, veering the plane towards the sky at a casual incline. To the left, the United Kingdom was nothing but a mere shadow, a hilled formation of sharp angles and oblique curves hidden behind a smattering of clouds, a distant land. His eyes bulged with anger as he restrained himself from cursing the land that ruined his life. He resisted and stayed with the plan.

  In fourteen minutes, all will be accomplished. No rush.

  The day of reckoning is upon us.

  *****

  Fiona climbed off the ladder and stepped gingerly onto the top of the water storage tank. She dropped the key at her side, the object clanging loudly on the metal, and narrowed her eyes at the sight before her. A second later, the heavy door from below closed with a soft clunk, its aged hinges hindering the speed. She'd climbed twenty-eight rungs in the time it took to swing shut.

  Not bad.

  She smiled.

  Her footsteps echoed and boomed as she made her way to the centre of the vast cylinder, crossing its circular roof slowly and carefully. The surface below her was mottled with rust and small dents, and stained with dried bird faeces and dead insects. She could feel both crunching beneath her feet, brittle and shrill in the morning heat. She stopped and took a quick look around.

  She counted eight sizable storage containers placed in two rows of four, all identical to one another in dimension and shape. The Aqua Services Limited building peaked at three stories high, and each container was level with the tip of the gravel-coated rooftop. They lined up like enormous, rounded metallic soldiers, two neat rows of white cylinders. Hundreds of gallons of drinking water, for hundreds of thousands of people.

  Clean water. Essential water.

  Fiona smiled.

  Easy.

  She placed her rucksack down on the metal with a dull thud, and removed the items from her bag. She slipped one of the chocolate bars into her pocket, before removing the heavy box from the bottom. She lifted it out and opened the lid slowly. Inside was a long black tube. With a smirk, she removed her customised thermos from the bag, opened it and poured some of the hot black liquid onto the metal, smearing it with her fingertips. After a second, the flesh began to burn and blister. She rubbed the digits together to ensure her fingerprints were coated, and flinched as the liquid sent pangs of surging pain up her arm.

  Coffee. Yeah right.

  With the other hand, she slipped the black tube from its home and placed one end against the now-wet storage container between her feet. The other end contained a blue button, which she promptly pushed.

  A huge groan echoed across the landscape, followed by a deafening clang, the sound of which startled some crows in a nearby thatch of oak trees. Their black shapes flickered against the bright morning sky as they sought to escape the strange noise. Seconds later, Fiona heard a light plop as something splashed into the drinking water beneath.

  She removed the device and noticed a small hole in the metal surface, an opening created by the spiked metal rod contained within the black tube. The unmistakable sound of gallons of sloshing water emanated from below.

  This is all too easy, she thought.

  She removed the chocolate bar from her pocket and slipped it into the hole. Waited for the plop. With a deep breath, she cautiously removed a beaten paperback from her bag. She opened it slowly, gently, respecting the contents.

  The yellowed, crinkled pages of the book were hollowed out.

  Inside sat eight glass vials of clear liquid, nestling safely against the padded interior.

  Oedema, she thought.

  The end of the human race.

  She removed a vial and unscrewed the cap, tossing it to one side. She knelt onto the metal and upended the vial into the hole, pouring the contents into the storage container, careful not to get any on her clothes or skin. Light dripping was heard from within until the glass vial ran empty. She released it from her fingertips, dropping it into the container too.

  Fiona smiled.

  She repeated the careful process with the remaining seven containers. It took her ten, long, dangerous minutes, which left her with sixty seconds. By the time she was done, her fingers
and thumbs were tingling, the excruciating pain numbed through exercise and exertion, all fingerprints flaked away with the corrosive, black liquid. She held them up for inspection in the morning sun, and winced a little. The skin was red raw, blistered, nobbled and uneven. No one was getting any prints from her in the near future.

  The throbbing pain started to increase as she lowered her hands. Fiona rustled the rucksack, feeling its emptiness. She left the remaining contents on the final cylinder, allowing them to roast in the sun. She dropped the bag beside them.

  She didn’t need them anymore.

  The world would no longer need for anything.

  She pulled her phone from her pocket, rubbing her burnt fingertips against her thigh, and skipped to the speed dial menu. She trembled as a tear rolled down her cheek.

  "Fiona Markos, put the phone down."

  She froze, the voice catching her off-guard. She turned slowly.

  On the roof of the water purification plant stood a team of seven security guards. They watched her intently, cautiously, moving one step at a time in a rehearsed approach, analysing her for potential threat or a weapon. She flicked a tentative glance towards her feet. There was a six-foot gap between the cylinders and the rooftop. She could hear their footsteps crunching across the tired gravel. They each held a long, wicked-looking baton.

  Fiona smiled, holding out her hand, phone facing downwards.

  "You don't know who you're messing with."

  "Put it down, ma'am. That's an order."

  "As you say." Fiona crouched down, and slipped the phone into the small hole. A small wet plop piqued her ears. She stood up and flicked her gaze from one security guard to the next. She said nothing, slowly straightened up and took a gentle step backwards, away from the roof, putting distance between them. "You just made a very serious mistake."

  "Threatening us will not help your situation, not in the slightest." The man who spoke circled his finger in the air, his eyes still on Fiona. His men spread out, blocking her escape. "Now, we need you to come down from there." One of the security guards placed a metal ladder on the edge of the roof, extending a makeshift bridge between the cylinders and the building. "Carefully walk to the ladder and we'll assist you across."

  "No, I don’t think I'm going to do that."

  "It wasn't a request, ma'am."

  "And I said no."

  "If we have to take you by force, we will."

  She smiled. "So, do it."

  The security team stood staring. No one made a move.

  Impasse.

  Fiona took another step back, putting her an inch from the edge of the cylinder. "Ma'am, we won't ask again, walk to the ladder and enter our custody, or we'll have to take you by force."

  Fiona raised her wrist, checked her watch, and chuckled. "Do you realise what you've just done. You just condemned the entire human race to extinction. Well done." She clapped, mocking them, wincing a little as her burnt fingers jolted. "Unfortunately, I can't be around when the world goes to shit."

  "Ma'am … don’t do this."

  "It's already done."

  And with that, Fiona turned and walked off the edge of the cylinder, bending at the waist, flinging herself off the structure head first and into a flailing Swanton dive. She curled in the air, floating into a long, graceful, silent arc. She grazed the top of several trees, her feet smacking wet leaves and branches as she sailed to the ravine below.

  She closed her eyes, her mission successful.

  When she hit the jagged rocks below, her head cracked and sprayed like a ruptured melon, and shiny skull splinters and mushy brain fragments splattered the wild animals and foliage that surrounded her. A wild dog blinked innocently, its face splashed with hot blood. Her body flipped and rolled and shredded on the unforgiving terrain, like a spinning car in a car crash, flinging chunks of slippery flesh and muscle into the air, bones cracking audibly amidst the silence of nature. A deer looked up, confused, glanced left to right, and returned to its meal a few seconds later. After a long minute, Fiona's mangled, bloody corpse came to a rest. Within hours, the animals would chew on her body like nothing happened.

  The main security guard turned to his men. "Radio this in. We have a serious problem."

  *****

  The deadline had passed.

  Plan B was a go.

  Timothy Christie put the truck into gear, took a deep breath, and smiled.

  This is your moment. In death, no one will care, but you made a difference, finally did something of significance with your life. This will matter in the next life.

  He put his foot on the accelerator and drove forward, at speed, hurtling towards the pier. The barrels of Type 1 Oedema sloshed behind him, bouncing in their restraints.

  *****

  The deadline had passed.

  Michael Hughes didn’t panic, he had no need to.

  All along, his plan was to grace the clouds of the picturesque sky, regardless. The lack of a phone call from Fiona confirmed her side of the plan was interrupted. Whether she'd been successful or not, whether the water was tainted or untainted, he didn’t know. His part in the plan was overkill, to ensure the plan succeeded to some level. After all, polluting the water around the United Kingdom would do some severe damage to its infrastructure.

  Not to mention its inhabitants.

  Ten oil drums clanged and echoed in the back of the plane, supply pipes hanging from their openings, each filled with gallons of Type 1 Oedema, the most powerful version of the deadly virulent.

  Undetectable, untraceable.

  No chlorine, man-made or natural filtering process could destroy it. Nothing could stop it. Once it was in the water, it was there permanently, bonded as part of its natural chemistry. The water could spend years underground or in storage, it could be filtered a hundred times, but the Oedema would continue to exist.

  But to get it into the sky? To introduce it to the natural water cycle? Such a process would take weeks, months, even years, and They didn't have that sort of time frame.

  No, in order to carry out his orders, Michael needed to speed it up, cut corners, take drastic measures. Even if it cost him his life.

  Michael flipped the duster switch, which opened the nozzles located beneath the cabin. He heard the familiar chug as Oedema pumped from the barrels, spattered out beneath him, and found a new home in the soft clouds and atmosphere below. He wiped his brow, his breath coming in short gasps from the increasing altitude.

  Not long now…

  He coughed, as unconsciousness approached. He didn’t care.

  His job was done. Oedema was released.

  It was only a matter of time until it became a worldwide epidemic.

  He touched his pocket with his fingertips, remembering the special moments with his family, envisioning them in his head as the plane hurtled upwards, towards the blue, rippling sky, knowing the height would eventually kill him, take control from him. A dull, mechanical hum echoed along his ear canal, as the struggling plane chugged closer to the edge of the earth. The noise started to increase, making him groan in pain.

  I love you, he thought, knowing his words would go unanswered, just like his fruitless prayers all those months ago. Maybe in the next life, he would be reunited with his wife and child, Marie and Erin. Maybe they would become a family once again. Maybe his suicidal approach to the heavens would shorten his journey.

  He felt it was the least he deserved.

  As the plane veered upwards, Michael released the control stick and closed his eyes.

  THREE

  The front door swung shut and ushered in an eerie silence, a calm that filled the narrow space before him with a fragile sense of foreboding. Luke Barrett placed a brown paper bag on the side table, took one step forward and paused, and allowed the flitting shadows of the cold entrance hall to consume him. He cocked his head to the left, listened, and veered his wavering scrutiny to the stairs.

  He heard nothing.

  No sound at all.


  "Nicky?" he called.

  No response.

  Luke lifted the brown bag with one hand and carried it into the kitchen. He placed it on the worktop, tore it down the middle, and watched with no emotion as a slew of groceries rolled onto the counter. Without thinking, he began to give the items a home, stocking the cupboards and a homemade fruit bowl like he did three times a week. Once done, he screwed up the bag and dropped it into the bin. He ran his fingertips across the immaculate granite surface with disdain, turned, cocked his head, and listened.

  This time, he heard a familiar electrical hum.

  Luke sighed, departed the kitchen through a different door and walked down the short hall. He paused again, satisfied, and opened the glass door to the conservatory. A relieved smile etched onto his face. "There you are."

  Nicky Barrett looked up at her brother with wary, green eyes. Slumped on a sofa with the TV remote in hand, she chuckled and resumed her viewing. "I'm always here, bro. It shouldn’t be a surprise. I've hardly moved from this spot since the surgery."

  "True." Luke rubbed the top of her head, caressing her curly brown hair, and lowered into the armchair opposite. He studied the room, checking the corners and windows – a habit – and returned his attention to his sister. He smiled again. "I always come home and expect you to be walking about. Or worse. I've seen surgery go wrong before. I worry about you."

  "Please. As if that's going to happen," she chuckled. "I'm a nurse. I know how to recover at home – trust me, I tell people on a daily basis. You don't think I would heed the advice I preach?"

  "You could fall. Or get an infection."

  "Fall? Unless it's into a bag of Doritoes or popcorn, I think I'm good. This sofa has my back. And I give the best sponge baths in the whole of East Sussex. Trust me, my skin is cleaner than fuckin' Teflon."

  Luke grinned. "I believe you."

  A comfortable silence settled on the room. Nicky lifted the remote and scanned through the channels, paying no attention to anything in particular. Luke collected an old film magazine from the coffee table and flicked through the glossy pages, studying the pictures with mild interest. The crunch of popcorn danced on the air.