by Ian Woodhead
His mum had bought him this complete with a pet hamster back when he was a kid. Dean couldn’t remember exactly how old he’d been, he guessed either seven or eight. He’d named it Albert, and he did remember being so distraught when the hamster had died. His parents promised to buy him another one, but he had refused, knowing that he wouldn’t be able to take another death.
Dean had quickly thrown his coat over the top of the cage when his dad called out his name. If dad still only had Gruff for company then he may have disapproved of the experiment, but he would not have commented. The addition of some annoying tree-hugging, animal loving, save-the-earth banshee made his dad’s behaviour too unpredictable.
He had begun to wonder if coming back here had been the wisest of choice. Then again, what other option did he have? According to the reports, the infection had now spread to most of England’s cities. It wouldn’t be long before it reached here too.
Dean pressed his ear to the door, listening for any sign of either of them following him up. He sighed, not much chance of that really. The woman had worked herself up into a right tiz.
“Not my concern,” he muttered. “There’s more than her feelings at stake.”
Dean padded back to his experiment and sat on the bed beside the cage. He’d gone into the village earlier, hoping that the pet shop was still there. In any other place the stakes would have been stacked against him, but this was Seeton and nothing changed here. He smiled as he stood in front of the shop; it looked exactly how he remembered it, even down to the paintwork. The owner had kept the same colour when he’d re-painted.
He’d hoped that the shop stocked rats, but the closest he could find were a couple of gerbils. Dean had mentally shrugged, it’s not like he could go anywhere else. He told the man that they were for his son, but thankfully the old guy wasn’t really listening, his eyes were on a group of kids huddled around a large cage containing puppies.
Dean’s initial optimism took another beating when he pulled the blanket off the cage. There wasn’t much of the animal’s body left to identify it as a gerbil. It must have literally exploded once he’d left the bedroom. Bits of its insides stuck to the inside of the fabric. He’d already prepared the subject first by giving it a small dose of the original solution, and the animal’s reaction complied with Gertrude’s. The little bastard almost took off the tip of Dean’s finger when he attempted to inject it with the cure. He picked a piece of bloodied brown fur clinging to one of the bars and examined it in the light of his reading lamp.
“I must have set the dosage too high. I can’t think of any other reason why the drug should have had such an adverse effect.”
He cleaned the cage with a few baby wipes, placing the waste in a plastic bag, and then padded over to his bedside cabinet and opened the drawer. A tiny head popped out of the gap. The remaining gerbil then ran back into the corner and picked up a sunflower seed.
“I’ve got a bit of bad news for you, buddy.” He scooped the rodent up and dropped him through the door at the top of the cage. “Your friend met with an accident. Don’t be too alarmed though, I’ll get the dosage right this time.”
It hadn’t taken Dean that long to discover what had gone wrong at the labs when he managed to download the last test results. One of their incompetent technicians had mixed up a pair of nucleotides before compiling the final gene sequence. Dean put aside the glaring fact that one of the senior scientists should have double-checked the work before live testing had commenced. It was easier for his conscience to pass on the blame.
He’d been able to link up to the powerful remote computers to fix the problem and re-run the sequence before the internet failed. By what online news he’d scanned through whilst waiting, he didn’t believe that it would be coming back on anytime soon.
Several naval ships from over a dozen countries had already begun a blockade and had sunk half a dozen ships trying to escape from England. Apparently, they’d even destroyed two cruise liners. Dean wanted to weep for the vast amount of deaths this mistake was causing.
He injected the animal with the first solution then padded over to the bedroom window; he had a few seconds before the gerbil would lose control of most of its body functions. Dean saw his dad and the woman hurrying up the garden path just behind a huge bear of a man.
He’d recognise that broad back anywhere, that was Ken Ellis, Gavin’s uncle. The man owned the dairy farm a few miles from the village. The four of them regularly used to play in the man’s barns and in amongst the old junkyard bordering Ken’s property. Dean would have seen the farmyard if he’d been paying any attention whilst he was travelling here since the line cut right through his land.
All three climbed into the farmer’s Land Rover and a few seconds later the vehicle moved off. Dean scratched his head, wondering where they were going now; then he realised that it really wasn’t any of his business. He reminded himself that he was a stranger here now, and they’d probably just gone to the pub or something.
“Why should I really care anyway?”
All this was distracting him from the important work. Dean hurried back to the bed, staying well away from the creature in the cage; despite his precautions it threw its body at the bars, desperately trying to grab him.
Dean prepared the next solution, this time, only making it half the strength. He reached for his other syringe, keeping his attention fixed upon the animal. Its speed seemed to contradict his observations in the lab. The infected human’s movement decreased. Perhaps the mass of the body affected its movement after infection.
Dean trapped the snarling monster in the corner of the cage with two long pencils and injected the contents into its back. He then rushed over to the door in case this one exploded as well.
The animal just collapsed and appeared to die. Dean stayed where he was and counted to twenty. His optimism joined the gerbil in death. Dean slid to the floor and placed his head in his hands. The spectre of failure hung above his head like a thick, black cloud.
“Get over yourself, Dean,” he said. “Hiding in a cupboard is not your style. Think, man! There’s nothing wrong with the new solution, you know there isn’t.”
He got to his feet and checked on the gerbil, and it still hadn’t moved; even so, there was no way that he was going to stick his fingers through the bars, just in case. If he had the correct equipment, he would have been able to perform a rough examination of the body.
There was no chance of that happening. He sighed, then got to work cleaning up the mess. He dumped all the stuff inside the cage and carried everything downstairs. Doing something practical helped to keep his mind from spiralling further into depression. The answer was right there in front of him. It must be, there must be something he wasn’t taking into consideration.
He reached the bottom of the hall and placed the cage on the floor, stretched his arms, and shooed the dog’s inquisitive nose away before lifting it back up and walking into the kitchen.
He unlocked the side door and carried the cage into the back garden. His intention was to leave the cage in the shed, just for a day or two. Once this was all over Dean would burn the bloody thing in the garden, he was sure that his dad wouldn’t mind.
Dean opened the shed door, placed the cage on an old workbench, and closed the door. Heading back to the house he realised that it couldn’t be a problem with the dosage, Dean had compensated for the animal’s body mass before the injection.
The dog jumped up to greet him as Dean entered the kitchen; he absently patted the dog’s head then suddenly stopped, “That gerbil was just too small,” he said.
He needed a larger test specimen. He wondered if those puppies were still in the pet shop, they were an ideal size.
Chapter Fifteen
Alison crossed her legs and gazed up into the clear blue sky, it was so peaceful here. Unlike the rest of the village, this place brought back only happy memories. The only other people in here with her were a small group of kids messing about in the children’
s play area. One of them had a large bag of dried dog food and seemed intent on throwing the stuff at his mates.
She gauged their ages to be around thirteen to fifteen, and she wondered where they had found the dog food, it was probably stolen from the pet shop. Alison remembered getting up to equally stupid japes at their age too. There hadn’t been much else to do in Seeton for Alison and her mates. From what she’d seen, nothing had really changed.
Before that kid had ripped the bag open, Alison had received more than a few curious glances; whether the looks were admiring or scornful was debatable. Judging from the bouts of giggling she’d heard, Alison guessed on the latter.
She smiled to herself, wishing she could have gone back to being that age. Alison would have given her right arm to lose her experiences and memories and go back to having the naïve arrogance and natural optimism that she possessed at that tender age.
“Before that beast stole them away from me.”
Alison shivered and decided to go back to the pub where it was a little warmer; maybe she could get something to eat from that takeaway in the centre of the village first. The Rose and Crown did evening meals, but she’d rather not eat at the pub, not with all the locals giving her the odd snide look, wondering who she was. Alison didn’t think it would be that long before at least one of them would actually guess.
She imagined trying to eat her fish and chips in peace whilst occasionally hearing the ‘who’s that girl’ phrase thrown around the lounge and games room, treating her like some fucking monkey in a cage, and then looking up when someone called out her name—and seeing her parents standing there.
No, she couldn’t risk discovery, not until she had dealt with that copper. It was a real shame that she had to still behave like a pariah, especially considering just how nice that landlady had been to her when Alison finally plucked up the courage to enter the pub and enquire about a room after she’d left the cemetery.
The large middle-aged woman had one of those incredible faces just built for smiling. Combined with her compassionate manner and her genuine desire to help, it didn’t take Alison long to fall in love with the woman.
As soon as she had left her in the room after showing her everything and promising to bring her a cup of tea, Alison’s suppressed emotions took her by surprise and broke through the hardened shell she’d built around her damaged psyche. She sat upon the pale, floral bedspread and unleashed a never-ending torrent of hot tears.
It took her a while to get herself back together, but Alison did feel better, if a little drained. The landlady, as promised, returned and lightly tapped on the door. Alison ignored her, knowing if that kind lady saw her in this state, her benevolent face filled to the brim with concern and sympathy would have set her off again. If that happened, Alison didn’t think she’d ever be able to get herself back into a semblance of order.
Alison waited another twenty minutes before moving off the bed. She opened the door a crack, and seeing the corridor empty, opened the door a little wider to find a cup of lukewarm tea and a plate of digestives waiting for her beside the door. There was even a yellow post-it note stuck to the edge of the saucer telling her not to hesitate to give her a ring if she needed anything. She almost broke down in tears after reading the note.
Those kids had given up on their game of throwing dog biscuits at each other. She watched them all take up relaxed positions on the benches and around the playground equipment before a small blond boy was coerced into handing out the contents of his cigarette packet.
She smiled at their silly antics, then stood up and yawned. Alison felt as though she could sleep for a week. All this fresh country air was playing havoc with her system. She really did need her bed. One of the kids wolf whistled at her, followed by some inaudible words that caused at least two of them to fall about laughing.
“Gee, what a big, hard gang of rebels,” she uttered, grinning to herself.
Their banter abruptly stopped at the sight of an old man shuffling towards the play area. It didn’t appear that he’d seen the kids yet, but that soon changed when the blonde threw a bottle in his direction. The glass smashed on the path a few feet away from the old man. Every one of them erupted in gales of laughter. Alison wondered if she ought to sit back down to enjoy the ensuring frolics.
One of the major drawbacks of living in such a close-knit community was that, unlike the cities where you had a certain degree of anonymity, most people either knew you or at least was on nodding terms with at least one member of your family. How could the kids maintain that rebel attitude when any backchat they gave to another villager would inevitably find its way back to their parents?
Alison and Trisha had learnt that lesson when they both skived off from school and were seen by the postman. It took a few days for the news to reach Alison’s dad, but after the beating he’d given her, Alison never did it again. In this age of mobile phones, Alison reckoned that those kiddies’ parents would be finding out about this incident before any of them even got home.
She stayed on her feet, carefully watching the man stop and turn. There was something not quite right about the way he moved, was he drunk? The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end when the man issued a deep bestial groan and lurched towards the play area. Something was definitely wrong here; Alison didn’t need her months of street living to tell her that those kids were in danger. She quickly glanced around the park in the hope that someone else had noticed this. Seeing the area empty, she hurried across the grass.
Before, his movements were slow and erratic. Now, he closed in on those kids, acting like a starving man spotting food. Alison blinked and shook away that ridiculous notion. He was just a nutter, probably high on some narcotic; he sure as fuck wasn’t a bloody cannibal. Whatever he was, that weirdo posed a serious threat to those kids.
“Don’t just stand there!” she shouted. “Get away from him.”
The kids didn’t appear to have heard her, and they remained motionless like kittens, unaware of the danger. Their insular education had just not prepared them for situations like this. They only moved when the man reached the waist high yellow painted fence and lunged over, trying the grab the nearest boy.
She reached the other side and ran through the bright, red metal gate and up to the nearest boy. “Stop your gawping, lad, and move it!” she said grabbing his shoulders and spinning him around. The voice within their midst seemed to break their paralysis; they turned as one and pushed past Alison. One boy still remained, the blonde haired lad; he couldn’t get away as the man gripped the boys sleeve and was trying to pull him towards him.
“Get the fuck off him, you freak!” she shouted whilst running towards the boy.
He looked straight at Alison and she saw a pair of lifeless eyes staring back at her. Oh Jesus, this fucker was seriously up there orbiting the planets. Alison grabbed the boy’s arms and tried to pull him back. The old man responded by growling and dipping his head down. She watched in absolute horror as the man opened his mouth and fastened his jaws around the boy’s wrist.
The kid screamed when the man closed his jaws, then pulled his head back, taking with him a red raw chunk of meat. The blonde boy fell back into Alison when the man let go. She pushed the sobbing boy towards his crying friends, then grabbed the dog food bag off the bench.
“Don’t just fucking stand there, get him out of the park and ring for an ambulance.” She turned her attention back to the man who hadn’t moved away from the fence; he just stood there, gazing at her with his creepy dead eyes whilst chewing.
“What the fuck is your problem?” she shouted.
Alison ran towards the man, jumped out of the way of his arms, and threw the empty bag over his head. He still didn’t move, nor did the man attempt to remove the bag.
“You must be on some serious fucking medication, mate.”
Those kids were safely out of the park, and she wanted to follow them to make sure they found help, but Alison dare not leave this fucker to wander a
bout and bite anyone else. She slowly backed out of the play area, keeping her sight on him, but the man stayed just where he was; his reptilian stillness frightened the hell out of her. She thought she knew every drug going, but nothing in her experience could cause anything like this. Alison turned and ran for the gates, deciding to let the police sort all this weird shit out, and she turned around one more time before reaching the gates. That old man didn’t seem to be going anywhere.
The kids had also gone, Alison spun around, hoping to spot any of them. There were a few blood spots on the floor; they led towards the village hall. She just hoped that one of them had taken her advice and called for an ambulance. Then again, if they’d gone back into the centre, somebody was bound to see them and get help.
What was she going to do about the drugged-up freakazoid? Alison couldn’t leave that in the park, she wouldn’t be able to live with herself if he attacked another kid. What other choice did she have though? What if the copper who’d helped to abuse her all those years ago just happened to arrive on the scene, the one with the unmistakable voice. She didn’t think she’d be responsible for her actions. It was way too soon for a confrontation.
“Fuck it,” she muttered. “There was a phone box a few minutes from here, she’d ring from there. The chances were that the police were already on their way, and somebody must have found the kids by now.
Alison ran across the road and rushed back into the village; she didn’t think that this day could get any stranger.