Thirteen Roses Book One: Before: An Apocalyptic Zombie Saga

by Michael Cairns

  Good seats meant those near the back and they joined the rapidly filling back row. His hands were thumping on his legs, feet tapping on the floor and Az put his hand on his shoulder.

  'Relax man, you gotta relax. What will be, will be, you're driving me crazy.'

  'Easy for you to say.'

  'Well, actually, it is. Doesn't mean it doesn't matter.'

  Luke sniffed and rested his elbows on his legs, cupping his chin between his hands. The room filled up. Seph came in halfway through and waded through the crowds to take the seat Az had saved beside him. The chatter that had filled the bar the previous night was ten times louder in here.

  It was remarkable really. They spent their days among men, the mere mortals of whom they spoke with such longing and contempt. They were hyper-aware, every one of them, of the foibles and failings of their subjects. Yet put a bunch of them in a room and give them something to gossip about, and still they acted just like humans.

  Luke sat back, breath getting short. This was ridiculous. He couldn't just sit here and wait to get shafted. Then another bell sounded and he knew it was too late.

  The hall hushed, people scurrying to their seats as the lights dimmed. The lectern at the front was illuminated in a spotlight and the Father walked out. He wore, as he always did, a loincloth that barely covered his privates. His sunburned skin was covered in whirling tattoos and bore the marks of many bites. He carried his staff, a piece of wood that made a sharp retort with every step he made.

  He stood behind the lectern and cast his gaze out. Luke knew he was looking for him and wasn't surprised in the least when their eyes met. Then the Father nodded and smiled and rocked back on his heels.

  'My people. It is with great pleasure that I come here today not with warnings or checks. I don't come to deal with those among you who have failed in your work. My trip here is one of joy. I come today with the news that one among you has been chosen to do something quite remarkable and will be bestowed with a truly unique honour.'

  Luke exchanged a glance with Az, who raised an eyebrow and looked doubtful.

  'He is known to many of you as the great betrayer. That was true, many years ago. But for many the last millennia and beyond, he has served us faithfully and well. It is this change in him, this remarkable willingness to change and become a better person that has led me to this momentous decision.'

  Luke put his head in his hands. The question was, what 'honour' was it? If it was really an honour, he'd eat everything he wore, pants and all.

  'Luke, please, come down here.'

  Every face turned to stare as he stood and took the walk of death to the gallows. Half way down he glanced to the side and saw Sara. She gave him a smile, but it was weak and carried none of the warmth of last night. His mind started up. Was she involved in this?

  He reached the lectern and the Father opened his arms, welcoming him up to stand beside him. He spoke in muttered tones. 'Hey Luci, long time. Are you ready for this?'

  'What are you going to do to me, you bastard?'

  'Nothing you don't deserve. Remember, it's a great honour.'

  'Why did you go through all the bullshit last week if you were gonna make it a big honour?'

  The Father cleared his throat and spoke to the hall. 'Luke's efforts in his work have been, of late, a little underwhelming. This week in particular he failed to meet his target. This was the final piece in the puzzle for me in deciding who should be given the most important task that now lies before him.'

  So it was a task now. Not an honour anymore, oh no. Now he had to do stuff. The Father's face turned serious.

  'The world is in trouble. Not long from now, a man called Jason will infect it with a disease so virulent and so terrible that ninety percent of the population will be wiped out in a matter of days. I am forbidden to become involved directly in the matters of men and you can only work in certain ways, those prescribed by the ancients. Only one who is human himself can change the world.'

  The Father turned to Luke and slapped him on the arm. 'Luke will become human.'

  All the eyes that stared at him ceased to matter as those four words carved their way into his soul.

  Luke - Monday: 10 Days to Plague Day

  The ground was hard and cold. He shifted, rolled onto his back and opened his eyes. Between the trees he could see the stars and they terrified him. He closed his eyes again and waited. He opened them and the stars were still there. Muttering under his breath, he rose to his feet and looked around.

  The forest was open, thin naked trunks denuded of branches until far above his head, where a scrappy sort of fern sprouted and reached toward the sky. In every direction he saw only more trees and bracken and ferns, and not one damn house or coffee shop. He was human, he was finally here, and he was in the middle of a bloody forest. This was just like the Father, typical of his warped sense of humour.

  Luke spat and set off, stomping over the thick bed of pine needles and broken branches. It took an hour for him to arrive at a road and another half hour to reach a pub. He had money in his pocket. The bastard had given him that much at least, and the pub was open, so he bought a pint and settled himself by the fire.

  The flames did a little to burn away the horrible cold inside. He'd never been cold, not properly. Now it was all he could feel. That and anger. He stared down into the beer, wondering how he had spent so long wanting to taste it. There was nothing particularly wrong with it, but it was far from the glorious experience he'd expected.

  That was a fairly good way to describe the entire human experience to date. The pub was what he thought would be called a 'local's place', which meant it was too far off the beaten track for anyone else to ever come in. The locals were three fat men at the bar bitching about something on the TV.

  Luke watched it for a minute and was shocked to see something on there about the tube explosion. The Father had sent him here only the next day. He'd expected to be at least some time in the future. He thought back to the rest of the speech.

  'Luke will become human. And gifted with such an amazing ability, he will be able to make the changes necessary to save the world from any such fate that may befall it.'

  On reflection, that was a load of woolly twaddle that meant next to nothing. He'd thought it meant going into the future to stop Alex's son, Jason, but it could mean anything. Maybe he was supposed to spend the next thirty years drinking beer and getting laid. The thought put a smile on his face and the sudden silence in the pub brought him back to himself.

  The three men at the bar were staring at him. It was in looking back at their round, red faces that he realised what had changed. In three hundred years of being back in the Flights, he had found within himself the compassion and empathy that he had been created with. The fires of hell had burned it all away, but the Father had helped him rediscover it. Somehow, in becoming mortal, that same compassion and caring had vanished. He was as he had been, back when he ruled the underworld.

  'Can I help you?'

  The nearest one, named Beardy for his lack of facial hair in contrast to his thoroughly hirsute companions, grunted and leaned forwards, gesticulating with his pint glass.

  'We were just wondering what you found so funny about them bloody Arab terrorists.'

  Luke sat back in the chair and raised an eyebrow. 'Well, there's a few things there. First, the explosion wasn't cause by a terrorist attack, Arab or otherwise. It was caused by the tube carrying a container on board that really shouldn't have been on a tube train. Secondly, I think you'll find the word Arab relates to people from Saudi Arabia and if you chose to investigate further, you'd find that every country in the world has supplied us with terrorists.'

  He took a deep breath followed by a sip of beer. 'However, with regards to what I found funny, it was simply the presence of three fat unkempt fools such as yourselves trying to debate something as complex as world politics.'

  Beardy's brow creased as he tried to decipher what had just been said to him. One of h
is friends was clearly a bit sharper as he leaped from his stool and came towards Luke, fists clenched.

  'Think you're clever, don't you? Think because we ain't up in the city we got no brains.'

  'Well, your lack of grammar and inability to use full sentences does seem to support my hypothesis. But to be honest, I am clever.'

  He smiled his brightest smile, set his pint down above the fire and stood. The man stopped before him, flattened lips visible through his beard.

  'Don't think coming in our bar and calling us stupid is very clever.'

  He raised a hand and took another step forwards. Luke closed the gap and muttered under his breath.

  The man stopped, eyes widening. Then he screamed. It was a sound that brought back so many wonderful memories, it took Luke a minute to realise he was supposed to be doing something.

  The man cowered, hands help up against some invisible foe. As always, it would be his worst fear, so in all likelihood he was facing dancing razor blades, or maybe a hot shower. Either way, he was entirely unprepared for Luke's fist crashing into his face.

  Luke smiled. His strength was somewhat diminished by his recent switch to the mortal realm, but still the man's knees buckled along with his nose and he dropped senseless to the floor, streaming blood. The other two men were still on their stalls, joined in their staring by the barkeeper.

  Luke folded his arms and tapped his foot. Beardy summoned up the courage and climbed off his stall. He picked it up and swung it experimentally before him. Luke muttered again and the huge man dropped the stool. He followed this masterstroke of fighting prowess by bursting into tears. They were followed by him linking his arms together as though he held a baby and rocking gently back and forth.

  Everyone in the bar, Luke included, was transfixed. He raised his vibration a little and saw, around Beardy's head, a number of tiny faces, all shouting and screaming at him. The baby cradled in his arms was him and he was the father he'd never had. It was beautifully sad, and more than a little pathetic.

  Luke retrieved the barstool and swung it full strength into Beardy's tear-stained face. It shattered into more parts than he'd have thought possible. Okay, his strength wasn't that weakened. Beardy spun most of the way round until he collided against the bar. He fell sideways into his friend and took them both to the floor.

  Luke took a sip of his pint and smiled. The Father had sent him here to save the human race. But giving him human form had done something. Some part of him, the moral compass the Father had beaten into him down in hell, was gone. He was here to save the human race, and he would, but that didn't mean he couldn't have some fun.

  The last man shoved his friend's body off him and staggered to his feet. He backed away, hands held out. 'Hey man, that's enough, we didn't mean nothing by it.'

  'You didn't mean anything at all. You didn't say anything. I, on the other hand, meant plenty by it. Tell me... Richard, what's your greatest fear?'

  Richard shook his head and ran for the door. He was most of the way there when swarms of wasps attacked him and dragged him to the floor. This one's mind was strong, his imagination full, and tiny red dots appeared all over him. Venom that existed only in his mind surged through his blood stream, enough to drive him face down and tear a blood-curdling howl from deep within.

  Luke chuckled and sat back down in his seat, reaching for his drink.

  Alex - Tuesday: 9 Days to Plague Day

  Something was different. He knew the contents of this white board like nothing else. He knew every stroke of the pen, every figure and symbol. But something had changed since yesterday and it took him a few seconds to spot it. A difference in one of the equations. Stranger still, was that it looked like his handwriting.

  He grabbed his notebook and scribbled down the new formula, trying to figure out why it would work. Had he done this before it all happened and just forgotten it? It wouldn't be surprising. He could have cracked the cure for cancer and what happened on Saturday would have knocked it straight out his brain.

  He was struggling to fit the events of the weekend into his mind and his world. He was having a child. They were having a child. In a way, that was easier to handle than the faded images he had of a future world. It had felt so real, yet now the pictures were like smoke, flitting away when he reached for them. They had been true, though, he knew that.

  He checked his watch. He had a lecture this morning, and despite the strong urge, he wouldn't skip it. This stuff wasn't going anywhere and there was a large part of him that longed to junk it and toss it in the bin. He dumped the notepad back on the desk and headed for the door, smiling wryly.

  He could never give up on it. He was the youngest student to be awarded a research grant in fifteen years. He was doing something no one else in the world was doing. This was his future. He just had to change it a little, move from creating a weapon to creating the cure for other weapons. He woke up thinking about it, which made a pleasant change from thinking about babies.

  Chemical warfare was prevalent across the world. It was what had drawn him to it in the first place. Make the one ring to rule them all. But now he knew where that led, he could change the formula and create immunity. The shift wasn't that great. His disease was based around changing the levels of chemicals within the brain. It would create the ultimate fight or flight response so the reptile brain took over. It would have to carry immunosuppressants to remove the body's natural fight back.

  This new formula would focus on the physical alone... he stopped, one hand pushing the door closed. Who was he kidding? This was entirely different. The only part of two years research he would be using was the basic chemistry of turning the solution into gas. Everything would change. He would be starting again.

  The door clicked shut and he shrugged. If he had to start again, maybe he could finish this one first anyway. Whatever happened, when his son came along he would stop him doing anything stupid with it. He'd thought about that a lot last night. Perhaps just seeing his baby, a new person brought into the world, would stop him.

  He drifted to class and made notes that would make no sense when he looked back at them. He'd only look back at them once and by then, they would have ceased to matter.

  The formula changed again the following night and the figures he programmed into the machine were quite different from what he'd been working on before Saturday. He understood the changes, though he still doubted where they came from. They had to be him. There was no one else who understood what he was doing.

  He realised when he stepped into the lab on Tuesday that sometime between yesterday and today, he'd made his mind up. He would make it, he knew he could crack it. He would make it and put it somewhere no one could find it. But he had to finish it.

  He watched as a series of chemicals were combined into a test tube that hung from a machine the uni had given him quite a considerable amount of money to buy. In some small way, finishing his project was the least he could do for the faith they had put in him.

  He lifted the test tube gently and placed it in the centrifuge. He pressed the button and stepped away to look at the formula where he'd scribbled it down. It was right. He knew that without even testing it. His hand shook as he thought what that meant. He'd given himself five years at the least, though he'd told the uni four at most. But he'd cracked it in under two. He was a genius. He grinned as the shaking slowed.

  Alex sat in his chair, folding his hands behind his head and leaning back. New Scientist was the first place to g-- No. He couldn't tell anyone. He knew where this would lead if it got out into the world. This was the greatest secret he would ever hold. But the university would be pissed if he turned around and said they'd wasted their money. That was fine, he would just have to make the immunity gas as well.

  He turned to a fresh page in his notebook and began to write, lulled by the gentle whirring of the centrifuge.

  David - Thursday: Plague Day

  Something was different. He could hear something. He rolled over, scratch
ing at the side of his head. He scratched a lot these days, which probably came from not showering for a few weeks. He'd scratched his scalp raw and his fingers came away with blood and hair under the nails. It should probably hurt, but he felt nothing.

  There it was again. A shuffling skritch skritch.

  Sound.

  It ran through him like he'd been dropped into an ice-cold bath and every hair on his body stood on end. Sound meant he wasn't alone. Or it meant the wind was blowing. It wouldn't be the first time since he came here he'd thought he heard someone.

  But something was different. He could smell it, a scent new to his desolate corner of the city.

  David pushed himself up from his bed of concrete and slouched out from under the bridge. The Thames was sluggish this morning, moving like children on the way to school. He stopped to stare at it, keeping his eyes from the empty streets and empty buildings that surrounded him.

  As he had done every morning, he tried to remember. He remembered finding a rose on his bedside table. He remembered looking down at Amber and shaking his head, then sneaking from the house and off to work. He met up with Steph at lunch and they banged like bunny rabbits. She loved the rose. Apparently one red rose was romantic, where twelve were cheesy and thoughtless. Eleven days of complete isolation still hadn't given him the answer to why that was, but it didn't matter, he'd got it right.

  After that, he remembered nothing. He'd left her flat and the world had gone, or at least, the world that included other people. He'd rushed back to hers but she was gone along with everyone else.

  He tried to kill himself in the first few days. He'd stood on the railing of the Millennium Bridge and readied himself to jump. But he couldn't. He'd headed into Boots and filled his hand with painkillers and all sorts from the pharmacy. But he couldn't put them in his mouth.