Thirteen Roses Book One: Before: An Apocalyptic Zombie Saga

by Michael Cairns

  'Yeah, yeah, you're right. Yeah.'

  The phone went dead and he stared at it. Had she hung up? It rang a second later and he jumped and dropped it. It slipped between the cushions and he swore and jumped onto the floor, dragging them off until he raised it triumphantly aloft.

  'Yeah, what happened?'

  'Sorry, just cut off, don't know why. So, we go tomorrow?'

  'Yeah. I'll come over yours.'

  They sorted the time and he put the phone down. He reached for the controller and pressed start, but the bad guys had been planning and he died before he got anywhere.

  He slept badly, waking up in pools of sweat and searching for a dry patch on the bed before drifting off again.

  It was half five when he finally crawled out and into the shower. No point lying there when he couldn't sleep. He slipped out the house and got on the tube heading for Central. The others thought he was weird, but there was nothing he liked better than getting into town before everyone else.

  It was half six when he arrived and the rush hour traffic was already building up, but Embankment was quiet enough for him to think. He reached Temple when his phone buzzed.

  I don't want an abortion. Can you come over now?

  The phone shook as his hand tightened around it. He shoved it in his pocket. This time he could pretend he hadn't seen it. He could go over to hers at the normal time and just pretend it got lost. He wasn't having that conversation over the phone. And she was wrong. He stomped back toward the station and grabbed a hot chocolate.

  Alex stared into the river at the swirling dark water, his mind going in circles. He couldn't have a child. He wanted to do things; travel, get drunk. He knew what it meant to have a kid. Well, maybe not completely, but he knew he couldn't stay at uni, and that meant the end of his research. His biological sciences degree would be a complete waste. He'd have to get a serious job. He snorted and turned away from the river.

  She'd understand, once they had a chat. She knew it was stupid, she just didn't want to admit it. And that was fair enough, she was the pregnant one. He had no idea how it felt, but it had to be pretty intense having something growing inside you. Like Aliens. He chuckled and sipped his hot chocolate.

  There was nothing funny about this. Nothing at all. The scent of flowers drew him back toward the river and he paused. There was a guy selling flowers and they were amazing, the most incredible blooms spread out on this little table. He wore this big puffer jacket and looked cold.

  'Hi. Nice flowers.'

  'Thank you, sir. I am rather proud of them. Can I interest you in buying something? Perhaps there's someone special you could give them to?'

  Actually, that was a really good idea. He could soften her up with some roses. There was a bunch of red ones right in front of him that smelled gorgeous.

  'Yeah, I'll take those, please.'

  The flower seller wrapped them up, humming a song that sounded vaguely familiar. He held them out to Alex with a smile.

  'I've given you thirteen in case one gets damaged on the way to wherever you're going. Maybe you could give it to someone else, if you don't need it?'

  Alex nodded absently and paid, not really hearing him. Lisa would love these. He could say sorry and they could have a chat and decide what they wanted. He nipped across the road and up the steps to Embankment Station. Just as he was about to step in, the world went black. He stared up and gasped.

  The sky was filled with shapes, huge balloons that drifted like clouds over London. There were glimpses of sunlight between them, but the smog and dirt that hung beneath blocked any that got through. The streets were deserted around him and the entrance to the station was blocked by orange bollards.

  A screaming sound, like a police siren on crack, started up and he ducked his head instinctively. A car hammered down the street, weaving this way and that before piling into the black railings. Moments later, a different sound cut through the sirens, a whistling noise that grew louder. Alex spotted the rocket just before it struck the car. The explosion washed over him and he was thrown back into the bollards.

  He raised his head, peering at the flaming wreckage of the car. Two dark grey trucks came into view and screeched to a halt. Men in uniforms the same colour as the truck emerged and surrounded the car. They carried guns and before he had a moment to prepare himself, they unleashed at the burning vehicle.

  The flames shifted this way and that as the bullets flew into the steel and rubber. After a few seconds of gunfire, the men piled back into their truck and drove swiftly away, leaving Embankment empty and shockingly silent. The siren stopped.

  'Alex, welcome to London.'

  The voice was familiar inside his head and took his mind a little further than it was willing to go. He groaned and cradled his head in his hands.

  Alex Part Two

  'This is London. I'm sure you recognise it. It's changed a little since you were last here.'

  He raised his head and saw the flower seller tramping slowly up the steps from the street. What the hell? The roses were scattered around him. Some had gone over the barrier into the dark of the station. He started picking them up, futilely hoping he could get all twelve. There had been thirteen though, so maybe he could. Was this why the guy sold him the extra one?

  'What do you see, Alex?'

  'Roses.'

  'Look around you.'

  He didn't want to. He didn't want to think about what he'd just seen. It was an execution, in broad daylight. Only it wasn't broad daylight because of the smoke and the balloons.

  'What happened?'

  'Your son.'

  'What?'

  'All this could have been stopped. The plague would never have happened and the dead would never have walked, had he been here.'

  'Where was he?'

  'He never happened. You didn't let him happen and so here we are, where those not 'officially clean' are hunted down by the soldiers of god.'

  'What do you mean...' He trailed off. 'Where am I?'

  'The future. Your future, to be precise.'

  'I'm not really here, am I?'

  The flower seller cocked his head to one side, the friendly smile creeping back. 'Impressive. Most don't get outside the reality in which they find themselves. Why do you think that?'

  'Because I wasn't here a minute ago.'

  'Are you sure?'

  Alex laughed bitterly and held the few roses he managed to gather together before him. 'You see anything else like this around? I just bought them from you and there's no way you sold them to me here.'

  The flower seller threw back his head and laughed. 'That is true. Well spotted.'

  'Is it real at all?'

  The flower seller lost the smile. 'What do you think?'

  Alex shrugged. 'Dunno. Could be. Something like this'll happen, you know. Don't think I'll figure it out, but twenty, thirty years down the line, it's gonna happen. Feels real.'

  'Well perhaps that is your answer. How else does it feel?'

  'Horrible. It feels horrible.'

  The flower seller turned away and the light faded back in, like someone using a dimmer switch. He sat on a bench, the roses gripped tightly in one hand, Oyster card in the other. He blinked, squinting beneath the sunlight. The clouds were shifting and blue sky peeked through. He took a deep breath and stood.

  The tube was close to empty at half ten in the morning. He looked at the message on his phone again and felt something clasp around his heart. It was a boy. He didn't know that, of course. It wasn't anything right now, just a foetus. His heart told him the truth of that lie in the next second and he noticed a tear drop onto the roses. It ran down the petal and into the heart of the rose, out of sight.

  He took the long way round and every step sounded like a door shutting. What could he be? What could his son be? Did one cancel out the other? He wasn't his son. He wasn't anything, not yet. There was no religious issue here, having an abortion wasn't killing anything.

  But potential. The chance of so
mething happening, or not happening. His foot caught on a paving slab and he stumbled and came up short. He thought of a question he should have asked in the future. Who created the plague?

  'Hey, are you there?' He caught funny looks from the couple across the street. He shouted louder. 'WHERE ARE YOU?'

  Still no answer. Did it matter? If they had an abortion his son wouldn't stop the plague. Assuming any of it was real. But what if it was? He stopped before her front door, waiting. Something would come to him, some answer he hadn't found. But there was nothing. No shining pathway to lead him to the truth.

  He thought, in some vague way, he should be freaking out over what had happened. He tried to, but he could barely remember it, the details already fading. He could still picture the light though, the smog and the sickly pale sunlight that filtered through. And he could remember the balloons, like the shadows of falling gods.

  He blinked and Lisa's front door came back into focus. His life was stunted. A day ago his world could be anything, lead anywhere. Now he saw only drudgery. He knocked on the door and Lisa opened it. He handed her the flowers and she burst into tears.

  'Hey, come on, come on.' He wrapped her up in his arms and they stood on the doorstep, roses poking awkwardly out from between them. Finally he took her indoors and made tea, and they sat and planned where the money was going to come from and where they would live.

  They lay side by side in the bed, Lisa's breathing steady beside him. She'd always been able to sleep. He was seeing again the smile she wore when he said he'd stay and look after her. He had to focus on that, because his heart felt crushed beneath a weight too great to manage.

  The boy arrived seven months later and grew up fast. Alex found his way into a job doing what he'd always wanted, and the fears that plagued him in those days before the birth fell away. His son, Jason, was the joy in both their lives, even as they grew apart and went separate ways.

  It was amicable, for the most part, and Alex found no sadness in having more time to devote to his research. It was made better by the ever-increasing interest of Jason in the same field. They worked together, once he was old enough, and he soon surpassed Alex, theorising things his father hadn't even dreamed of.

  Alex was a tenured professor, content and growing just a little lazy when Jason, thirty one and greedy for everything, burst into his office.

  'I've got it. Dad, I've got it, I've actually got it.'

  Alex blinked and looked up from his paper. There was a familiar note in Jason's voice, that of excitement and the surety that, this time, he'd cracked it. As they pored over the paper together, Alex felt his stomach twist as it hadn't done all the previous times. There was no way of knowing, not without testing, but it looked right. It felt right.

  They did test it, of course. The moment came months later, in the university labs after hours. The lights were off, save for the bench where they worked. They talked in hushed voices, though there was no need. The place was deserted after ten at night. They knew because they'd been here till then every night for the past six weeks.

  With shaking hands, Jason put the test tube into the centrifuge and switched it on. They said nothing as they watched it turn. It slowed and Jason reached for it. Alex put a hand on his arm.

  'Wait. Just, wait.'

  'Dad, we've been through this. God, over and over again. There's no harm in it.'

  Alex laughed, a sound he'd heard once before. 'There's every harm in it. It's harm in a test tube, pure, undiluted harm.'

  'But no one knows and no one will. Not unless we sell it.'

  With those words, Alex went cold and took a step away. He grabbed Jason's arm and swung him round. His son had that gleam in his eye, the same he'd worn most of his life that had made him so proud. It was drive, determination, all the things he and Lisa had put in him. It looked different now.

  It looked like madness.

  'You can't sell this.'

  'Of course not. The only people who would see this is the government, but we won't tell them either.'

  Alex took a breath and let go of Jason's arm. His words helped, but the gleam was still there and he opened his mouth. What was the worst that could happen? He blinked and saw something in his mind's eye. It was a balloon, floating low above him and rose petals dropped from it to rain upon him.

  He blinked again and saw the test tube, rising slowly from the centrifuge. Jason carried it over to the bench and slipped the pipe into the cover. In their sealed glass tank, Jack and Jill scurried about in mousey-ignorance, blind to what was about to befall them.

  Inside the test tube what looked like dirt-ridden smog twisted and turned. A wisp of it ran up the tube and emerged into the tank. Jill was nearest, though Alex was never sure which was which. She twitched, tiny nose wrinkling up, then her eyes rolled back and she collapsed with a soft thump to the cage floor.

  Alex and Jason drew nearer, staring at the cage. Jack was still on the far side, away from the smoke. If the mix did what they thought it would, it was the worst place he could be. Jill twitched, nose wriggling. She rolled over and back, tiny paws scratching at her fur. She climbed slowly to her feet.

  They saw her eyes at the same time and the loudest noise in the laboratory was their joint gasps. They were red, every blood vessel burst and filling her eye. Then she moved, steadily and surely. The next thing Alex saw was her fastening her tiny teeth around her cage-mate's head and squeezing and squeezing.

  Jack squealed, a pathetic sound that cut off as his head caved in. Jill set to work, gnawing and chewing, pieces of undigested mouse falling from both sides of her mouth. She was greedy for something, but nothing was going down. Once he was reduced to a pile of half-masticated bits, Jill picked one at random and settled down to her dinner, chewing slowly.

  Alex turned away, one hand pressed to his mouth. The hand shook and he saw the balloon again. He turned back to the test tube and pulled the pipe out.

  'We destroy this. We destroy the formula and all the research.'

  'Dad, we can't. Look what we've done.'

  'I'VE SEEN WHAT WE'VE DONE! We destroy everything.' His breath came in great gasps and he put a hand to his chest. 'What have we done, god, what have we done?'

  'It's the ultimate weapon. There'll be no more wars. Dad, just think of it.'

  'We destroy it.'

  'You can't. It's not yours, it's mine.'

  Alex stared, his mouth open. Jason looked past him and he realised what he was doing just a second too late. His son dashed past and grabbed his notebook off the desk. He was out the door before Alex had even turned. He looked at the test tube clutched in his hand. He could smell roses.

  Interlude

  They'd tricked him. Somehow, they'd tricked him. The list made it quite clear which direction was the right one and he'd steered him expertly. Now the Seer was telling him his latest subject was going to help destroy the world.

  How was that the right direction? He was supposed to be a guardian, a protector of the world. Instead he'd scared one man into making a decision that would bring the most terrible pain to every living soul on Earth. A small part, almost too quiet to hear, giggled.

  And what about the others? He peered out at the thousands of chambers. In a few decades, they'd all be out of a job. That wasn't going to be popular, particularly with the angels who'd spent the last however-many thousand years trying to make things better.

  The flower seller dropped the list and stalked across his chamber. He stepped out and dropped. The Dome of the Father grew bigger as he fell, imposing and, as always, faintly reminiscent of a huge breast. His wings caught the currents and he soared and turned until he reached the entrance. It was busy today.

  He squeezed past a couple of goat-footed demons and headed for the bar. Seph would be there by now, as would Az. They should be the first to know. Truth was, they were the only two in here who might be able to hear it without attacking him. Being made of pure energy meant no dying, but pain was in plentiful supply.

 
The bar was heaving, the conversation high, and he stopped at the door. Something was already happening. There was a buzz in the place, more than usual. Herc ambled over and gave him a nod of his enormous, ram-shaped head. 'Evening, Luke.'

  'Hi Herc, what's going on?'

  'You haven't heard?' He had an impressive rumble to his voice. 'The Father is coming to visit.'

  The flower seller, Luke, went cold and shivered. Rubbing his upper arms, he raised an eyebrow and strove to keep his voice steady. 'Why's that?'

  'Big news, apparently.'

  'Oh.' The goosebumps racing up his arms faded and he relaxed. 'Any idea what?'

  Herc shook his massive head. 'Not a clue, you know they don't tell me anything. You'll know when it happens though, don't worry.'

  Luke gave him a nod and sidled through the door, picking his way through the crowds until he reached their table. As suspected, Seph and Az were there. Az had his head down and scratched furiously between his horns, mussing the dark hair that sprouted there. As always, Luke resisted the urge to have a go himself.

  Seph raised an eyebrow and waved to a seat, pouring him a drink from the massive jug dominating the table.

  'Join us, please. We have so much to celebrate.'

  'You do?'

  'But of course, my fine friend. Today, I cleared my week. Four-two up with a day in hand. Az brought quite astonishing pain and suffering and started a war. Between us, we've kept the balance very nicely. I do so like to think of us as a microcosm of the world down there.'

  'So what am I?'

  'Ah, you, my friend, are the random. You're the thing that no one expects. How's your week?'

  Luke shook his head, staring down into the dark liquid thrust before him. 'I don't know. I think I'm three-three with all to play for, but, well...'

  Az heard the note in his voice and raised his head. His thin yellow eyes always seemed to see more than the others. It was why he was so unpopular. That and the ten feet of muscled red demon that came out when he got particularly drunk or angry.