by Tim Ellis
‘I thought you were recruiting.’
‘I am. I’m recruiting you.’
She shrugged and climbed back on the ladder. ‘Please yourself.’
He began following her down.
‘Also, it’ll give me the opportunity to show you that I’m excellent boyfriend material.’
‘Job prospects?’
‘I’ve joined the British Army – 1st Battalion of the Grenadier Guards. I report to Lille Barracks in Aldershot in three weeks’ time.’
‘A short-term career then?’
‘Are you worried about me already?’
She laughed. ‘Have you any idea what’s happening here, Michael?’
‘Not really. Me and a couple of mates got caught up in it two nights ago on the way back from doing the town – one was killed, one was taken by the others and I managed to escape with Coxon’s help.’
‘We think they’re Satanists.’
‘We?’
‘My boss is ill on the twenty-sixth floor.’
‘Oh! Well, they certainly do a lot of chanting.’
‘Name her?’
‘Yeah – weird.’
They reached the lobby and slid back the access panel a crack.
‘How many?’ Michael asked her.
She counted seven, and they weren’t just sitting around drinking beers and playing snap either. There were five men of varying ages and two middle-aged women. They all had iron bars, cricket bats or baseball bats and were pacing round the lobby as if they were just waiting for someone to beat to a pulp. With the amount of blood on the floor and the walls, it looked as though they’d had a few visitors. She moved back. ‘Take a look for yourself.’
He leaned over and stuck his eye to the crack. ‘Yeah, I told you that you’d never get past them. Nobody’s getting out of here until it’s over.’
‘Until what’s over?’
He shrugged. ‘The war, I guess.’
‘Now what?’
‘Now we head upwards. You’re my first recruit. I have to take you to the penthouse apartment and get you signed up.’
‘Forty fucking floors?’
‘Speaking as your future boyfriend, I’d say you’ve got the body for it.’
‘Very kind. What about going down? Aren’t there two basement levels?’
‘Yeah. We don’t want to go down there. That’s where their army is holed up.’
‘We could infiltrate their army. Go under cover. Pretend to be one of them.’
‘Not a chance. Take another look at those people in the lobby – take a look at their faces.’
She did as he said. Their eyes were blood red, and their faces showed no emotion. ‘They’re like . . . zombies.’
‘Exactly. They were just Heights residents, but they’ve been changed in some way. Now, they’d kill you without a second thought.’
‘Is there a signal on the roof?’
‘There hasn’t been a signal since this all started.’
‘I need to get out of the building then. I’m going down – there’ll be ways to get out down there.’
‘Speaking as your future boyfriend – I wish you wouldn’t.’
She smiled. ‘Are you worried about me already?’
‘Damn right. I’ve seen what those crazy bastards are capable of.’
‘You forget, so have I.’
‘I’ll come . . .’
Touching his arm she said, ‘No, you have recruiting to do, and two normal people will be spotted more easily than one.’
‘Crap,’ he said. ‘We haven’t even kissed yet and you’re dumping me.’
She leaned forward and kissed him softly on the lips. ‘Look after yourself, Michael.’
‘And you . . . I don’t even know your name.’
‘Tallie Kline,’ she said as she started down the ladder.
His voice drifted down to her. ‘And you, Tallie Kline.’
***
So, he was going to die.
Well, he supposed it had to happen sometime. He was hoping to last a few more years, but then people didn’t really have a say in when they died, did they? He’d miss his many children growing up – although the way kids were today maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing after all. Whatever happened to respect and discipline? He’d miss Duffy, Ruth, Lucy . . . He didn’t believe he was thinking this, but he’d also miss the Chief as well. Ruth hadn’t even given birth to his new son yet – he’d never see him. Then, of course, there was his mother - Beryl. Where was she now on her round-the-world-cruise? He hadn’t had chance to say goodbye to her, and to thank her for . . . well, lots of things he guessed – he just couldn’t think of what they were right now. There was his daughter Phoebe, Aryana and the ‘triples’ in Canada . . . There was a whole host of other people he’d miss. Would they miss him?
As beautiful as Magdalena Van Groesen was, he decided that he didn’t want to die just yet.
She grabbed his erection as if it was a baton she was twirling in a competition and tried to force him into her.
He pulled back. ‘Not yet.’
‘What in Lucifer’s name do you mean, “Not yet”?’
‘There are things to discuss.’
‘This is not the time for a discussion, Quigg – we’re in the moment. Discussions are for times when there’s nothing else better to do. We have something far more important to do than talk rubbish.’
‘You’re right, we are in the moment, and I’d like nothing else better than for you to have your evil way with me. However, this moment is different from other run-of-the-mill moments, because I’m going to die once the moment is over. I have obligations, Magdalena. In fact, I have more obligations than most men. So, if it’s all the same to you, I’d like to ask you a couple of questions.’
‘It’s not all the same to me.’
‘So, I have no say in it?’
‘Not really, no.’
‘In which case, why have you stopped?’
‘Because I like you, Quigg, but that likeness is being stretched to the outer limits.’
‘Once we’ve got the questions out of the way, I’ll let you kill me for as long as you want.’
She climbed off him and began pacing about the living room. ‘Be quick then. I’m impatient to have your seed in me.’
‘Do I have to die?’
‘You didn’t say you were going to ask stupid questions. Of course you have to die.’
‘I know everyone has to die, but do I have to die right now?’
‘Haven’t I just answered that?’
‘Well, yes and no. How are you going to kill me?’
‘That’s not important. What is important is that I’m becoming impatient, and when I’m impatient I get angry, and when I get angry people die.’
‘You say it’s not important, but it is important to me. I’d like to know the details . . .
She grabbed him by the throat. Her eyes were blood-red, her breath smelled of a medieval sewer, and foetid urine and slime dripped from her vagina onto the carpet. ‘Enough questions. Lie down now and become one with me.’
He glanced at the shrivelled penis dangling between his legs. ‘Ah! That could be a problem.’
‘You promised,’ she hissed.
He was surprised he hadn’t noticed her discoloured teeth and throbbing veins before. ‘A man has to be in the right frame of mind to grow an erection. Impatience, anger and threats by his partner simply aren’t conducive to that condition, so there could be a little wait I’m afraid.’ He pulled his trousers up and popped the button in its hole.
She stamped along the hallway, opened the door and slammed it behind her.
He heard distorted voices talking gibberish, screams of pain and agony, and non-human voices chanting: “Name her”. A feeling of unease and foreboding spewed over him. He turned the key in the lock, put the chair under the handle again and crept back to his quilt.
She said he was dying – was that really true? He certainly felt as though he was dying, but why
? It was as if the life had been sucked out of him.
Maybe he’d caught a virus. Maybe he wasn’t the only one dying. Maybe . . . It was time to go back to sleep. He’d decided that if Magdalena knocked again he wasn’t going to let her in. As much as he wanted her, he had to practise some self-restraint. She wouldn’t be happy, but he was sure he’d die a lot better with a couple of hours more sleep.
***
The further down she climbed, the smellier and noisier it became. On the first basement level she slid the access panel back a crack and pushed her eye to the opening. It was heaving with people. They weren’t doing anything, merely standing there as if they were parked in neutral. What was going on? There was no way she could even think about climbing down into that morass of . . . what were they? Were they still people? Or something else entirely?
She put the panel back and carried on down to the lower basement level. What was down here? This was where the twister cranked up a head of steam before it shot up the maintenance shaft. There was no access panel. She could hear metal clanking on metal, hissing and sighing sounds as if she was in a steelworks.
And then . . . her foot missed the non-existent rung . . . her other foot slipped. Because of the sweat and the weight of her body, her hands couldn’t hold on either . . . she fell. She thought she would plummet forever, but she didn’t – she fell in a clatter of empty metal containers that bruised her back but broke her fall.
How many bones had she broken? That’s all she fucking needed – the inability to move around. Even one broken bone would probably get her killed. She checked, but miraculously she still seemed to be in one piece.
As her eyes became accustomed to the gloom, she noticed she had fallen into a cage that was being used to store waste metal. The last rung of the maintenance shaft ladder was high above her, and by the looks of it getting back into the shaft wasn’t going to be so easy – she’d need another ladder or a tower of containers to reach it.
There was an oily substance on the concrete floor that had soaked into the back of her jeans and top, and she’d just put her hands in the sludge to push herself up.
‘Fuck!’
The metal cage began rattling and made her jump. On the other side half a dozen completely black-eyed human faces were pressed up against the mesh staring at her. Fingers had been forced through the twisted metal squares. It was eerie, because it looked as though they were screaming, but no noise came from their open mouths. The rattling became louder and louder. A few more creatures joined them, and began to force the cage gate open.
If the creatures got inside she knew she wouldn’t last thirty seconds and began hunting for something to use as a weapon.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw a dark shape drop from the shaft – she turned to protect herself.
‘Michael?’
‘I decided that leaving my future fiancé to fend for herself was the behaviour of a coward.’
‘Since when did you decide we were getting engaged?’
‘Since I decided that I couldn’t live without you.’
‘We’ve known . . .’
If such a thing were possible, the rattling became louder.
‘I think we should announce our engagement to the world at another time,’ Michael said. ‘We need to get out of here.’
‘I agree.’
Michael picked up a sweeping brush. ‘I’ll keep them out of the cage, you find a way to get back up to that ladder.’
She nodded.
Michael began hitting the fingers sticking through the mesh with the brush handle, but the creatures didn’t move them. It was as if they were immune to pain.
Kline found a half-inch thick iron rod down the side of a steel cabinet. ‘This should make them think twice,’ she said, passing him the three-foot long weapon.
‘Thanks,’ he said, throwing the brush to one side. ‘These people don’t think once, never mind twice, so I don’t think it’s going to be much of a deterrence.’
She finished building the stack of oil drums so that they could reach the ladder and haul themselves up, but as she began climbing onto the second drum the cage gate burst open.
‘Mom?’ Michael said. ‘Mom, it’s me, Michael.’
Kline stopped climbing and watched as a large rotund black woman came into the cage swinging the same type of iron rod Michael was holding.
The woman said nothing.
The other creatures stopped what they were doing and watched the mother and son reunion play out.
Michael lowered his iron rod. ‘Mom, it’s me.’
She swung her weapon and hit him on the upper arm.
‘It’s not your mum, Michael,’ Kline shouted at him. ‘Maybe it used to be, but it’s not anymore.’
His mom hit him again.
He turned slightly, so that the iron bar smashed into his back. ‘Mom, please don’t. It’s me, Michael.’ He was crying and tried to grab the weapon, but she stabbed it at him and then yanked it back.
‘You have to defend yourself, Michael,’ Kline said.
‘I can’t. It’s my mom.’
‘That’s why they sent her in first, because they knew you wouldn’t hit your mum, but you have to, otherwise you’ll die where you are and then they’ll kill me.’
‘Mom?’ he pleaded.
She swung at him again.
He swung his own rod and hit his mom on the side of the neck, but she didn’t even blink.
‘Oh God!’ he said through the tears.
She took another swing at him.
He ducked and jabbed his own iron bar upwards into his mother’s thoracic cavity.
The rusty metal ripped a hole in the descending aorta as it passed and blood gushed out into the available space.
As she sank to her knees, she dropped the weapon and it clattered on the floor.
Michel stopped her from falling forward and was on his knees as well. ‘Oh God, Mom. I’m so sorry.’
His mom’s eyes cleared. ‘It’s all right, Michael.’ She reached up and touched his face before she died.
‘Oh Mom.’ He held onto her and wept.
‘Michael,’ Kline said. ‘This is probably not a good time to say this, but we have to go.’
‘I can’t leave her.’
‘Then you’ll die with her. Is that what she would have wanted? I don’t think so. I think she would have wanted you to get revenge on the fucking bastards who are responsible for her death. Now come on, let’s go.’
He stood up and picked up his mom’s discarded weapon. ‘You’re right.’ He beat back the creatures that were trying to get through the gate and secured it for a short time with the iron bar.
Kline climbed up onto the last barrel, jumped and grabbed the last rung of the ladder. ‘I need help, Michael,’ she called over her shoulder.
Michael clambered up the drums.
‘And don’t go thinking that because I’m letting you touch my arse it gives you any rights in the future.’
‘I won’t.’ He pushed her up.
She got her feet onto the ladder and then reached down and grabbed Michael’s hand.
Just as he was pulling himself up, a man leapt off the barrels and grabbed Michael round the legs.
‘I can’t hang on,’ Michael said looking up at her.
‘Yes you can. Think of your mum.’
He gritted his teeth and gradually wriggled from the creature’s grip. Then, he hauled himself up onto the ladder.
They began climbing. In the crawl space at the first basement level they rested.
‘I’m sorry,’ Kline said.
‘It’s not your fault.’
‘If I hadn’t gone down there . . .’
‘It was my decision to follow you.’
She put a hand on his shoulder. ‘That wasn’t your mum.’
‘Yes it was. You saw and heard her at the end. My mom was inside all the time. I killed my own mom. How am I going to live with that?’
He cried silently.
&nbs
p; Kline had no answer for him.
***
‘Wake up, Quigg.’
He’d been dreaming that he was lying on a sun bed wrapped up in a thick blanket on the Titanic listening to the band playing ‘Chant d’Automne’ (Autumn Song). His mother was lying on the sun bed next to him, and they were sliding along the deck towards the bow as the stern rose up in the icy air behind them.
‘It’ll be all right, Quigg,’ he recalled his mother saying. ‘Sing along, sing for all you’re worth, sing as though your life depended on it.’
The English lyrics reverberated in his head, even though he’d never heard the song before, and he began to sing:
Under the moon of an autumn evening
Inside of a secret clearing
Sing the beautiful Lady Fairy
She sings of mysteries,
Shadows and beauty
And everyone around her listens
Winter will soon be here
Spreading its cold shroud
And Lady Fairy will leave
Hear the autumn song
It flies by just like the wind
And yet, it always resounds
When frost and snow come,
You will all be asleep
Only my voice will resound
He forced his eyes open.
Magdalena was standing in front of him naked.
‘How did you get back in?’ he asked. He didn’t mean to sound so annoyed because she was so beautiful, but he really needed a lot more sleep and she kept waking him up.
‘I’m the Lady Fairy, Quigg. I’ve brought the frost and the snow. It’s time to die.’
He looked down at the monstrous erection between his legs. ‘Whoa! Where did that come from?’
She sat astride him. ‘You had it in you all along, but now it belongs to me.’
‘I don’t think I’m ready to die just yet, Lady Fairy.’ The tip of his penis entered the cavern of ice and he shivered as his life was sucked from him.
‘It matters not, Quigg. This is your time.’
She rode him. She rode him as if he were a beast of burden. She rode him until he was slavering at the mouth. She rode him until he had emptied himself into her and he was simply an empty husk lying between her muscled thighs. She rode him until he could see that she was a hideous horned creature with glowing red eyes, cloven hooves and a long pointed tail.