by Seth Patrick
‘It didn’t take long before it found me. I raised my gun. Raised it to my head. But it was quick. The gun was knocked away—’
Kendrick paused, long enough for Jonah to think he was fading, that the revival was coming to an end.
‘The smoke was thick,’ Kendrick said at last. ‘I could feel myself losing consciousness as it attacked.’
Another pause. He was definitely fading now.
‘What Ferris had said came back to me,’ said Kendrick. ‘The perfect vessel isn’t easy to find. A blank slate. I saw its eyes again, saw them up close. I saw the youth in those eyes. I saw delight. I saw wonder. The eyes of a child.’
He stopped.
Jonah let him be for ten seconds, twenty, but Kendrick was fading fast. ‘We don’t have long,’ said Jonah, prompting. ‘You need to say your goodbyes.’
‘Sly,’ said Kendrick. There was a mountain of regret and sorrow loaded into that one word. ‘It’s been an honour.’
‘You’re damn right, boss,’ said Sly. ‘But I’m going to miss saving your hide.’
‘It’s time,’ said Jonah.
‘Do it. Let me go.’
Jonah did.
But instead of seeing the room around him, and Kendrick’s corpse to his side, he found himself looking out through something else’s eyes. With horror, he realized what it was. The images he saw were full of flame, and then suddenly there was a man in front of him: Kendrick, bringing a gun to his own head. With a flick, the gun was gone from his hand.
Behind Jonah’s viewpoint, behind the creature, the crackle of fire was growing. Jonah suddenly realized he could sense this creature’s thoughts. It knew it would have to leave soon. It didn’t have time to send the shards of its being out, to try and commune with the man before it. There was time for something, though.
The creature began to tear at Kendrick’s flesh, savouring each moment: the spray of hot blood, the cracking of fragile bone. It relished the pain it caused. It delighted in the screaming.
It was just starting to learn about the world.
*
Jonah opened his eyes with a start, breathless and terrified.
‘What?’ said Never, eyes wide. He stepped forwards and put a timely hand on Jonah’s shoulder, just as Jonah felt himself start to black out.
‘Shit,’ he said. He looked around; Sly and Annabel were clearly as concerned as Never. ‘What just happened?’
‘You said it was time,’ said Never. ‘Then you went quiet and started to slump.’
‘I saw it,’ Jonah said. ‘I saw the creature.’ He shook his head. ‘No. I was looking out of its eyes.’ And knowing what it was thinking. When it had known it had to leave, and get away from the fire, it had thought of the ceiling. ‘Sly,’ said Jonah. ‘The collapse you mentioned. The one they assumed meant the building was unstable. You said there was no fire above it?’
‘There was,’ said Sly. ‘Just not the most intense.’
‘Could that fire have come up from the basement?’
Sly shrugged. ‘I’m no expert. Why?’
‘I think it broke out. I think it tore the ceiling down, and broke out.’ But outside? Wouldn’t that be the worst place it could put itself? The shadow parasites couldn’t survive long in sunlight, and surely this creature would find it unbearable too. ‘What time did the fire happen, do they know? Was it dark outside?’
Sly nodded. ‘It was late evening. Yes, it was dark.’
Jonah took a long breath. It would have had all night to find shelter. Tess’s words came to him: The Beast is coming.
It was already here.
10
Sly was keen to leave at once, to find the file Kendrick had told her about, but Annabel managed to talk her into staying over and getting some food and sleep. Annabel whipped up some pasta for Sly, which she wolfed down as they sat on the games-room couch catching up on the news about tomorrow’s expected solar flare, and the likelihood of some impact to power and communications.
‘Any problems may take days to resolve,’ said the anchor in a grim tone, and Never scoffed.
‘I know they like to big these things up,’ he said. ‘But please . . . The worst problems people might see is their lights dimming for a second, or more of the interference on TV signals.’
‘Less catchy,’ said Annabel. ‘People love their news to be frightening and doom-laden.’
About to reply, Never stopped. He’d just noticed that Sly had fallen asleep. He stood and took one of the blankets folded at the side of the couch and carefully placed it over her. He half expected her to snap awake and break his nose, but she slept on.
‘She needs it,’ said Annabel, softly. Then she looked at Jonah, and her expression hardened. ‘So, Jonah,’ she said, ‘when Kendrick mentioned the shadows, you didn’t seem quite as stunned as I might have expected. Anything you want to tell me?’
Jonah had been half expecting this. ‘Ah,’ he said. He glanced at Never, who clearly recognized the impending awkwardness.
‘I think I’ll head home,’ said Never. ‘Give you two some peace.’ He made a hasty retreat.
‘Well?’ said Annabel once Never was out of earshot. ‘Are you going to tell me?’
‘Not here,’ said Jonah, nodding to Sly. He stood and went to the door, and Annabel followed.
She shut the door behind her. ‘Out with it,’ she said.
‘When she died, Tess told me something. She said that the Beast was coming. She said to be ready.’
Annabel sighed, and nodded. ‘So all this time, you’ve just been waiting for the inevitable, and not saying anything to me?’
‘That’s about it.’
She glared at him, then punched him in the shoulder in frustration. It was just hard enough to hurt. ‘We’re a team, you fucking idiot. You tell me these things.’
‘I didn’t want to give you anything more to worry about.’
Annabel groaned. ‘I know. That’s exactly why I’ve not talked to you about it either. You seemed so adamant that the shadows were all gone, I thought you really believed it.’
Jonah looked at her and frowned. ‘Didn’t you believe it?’
‘I’m a journalist,’ she said. ‘I have a nose for these things.’
She paused for a moment, then shook her head. ‘Although, to be fair, it did help, you seeming so certain. It meant I could let myself hope, when I needed to.’
‘So you forgive me?’ he said.
She smiled and gave him a hug. ‘Just don’t do it again.’
His shoulder was still smarting from her punch. ‘At least Never didn’t hit me when I told him.’
She took a step back. ‘You told Never about this? Before you told me?’ She shook her head. ‘Shit. Now you are in trouble.’ From the games room came an indistinct moan. They opened the door quietly; Sly was still asleep, but restless. ‘Scratch that,’ said Annabel. ‘We’re all in trouble. Kendrick and Sly always seemed immune to fear. Did you see how hard this has hit her?’
‘Of course,’ said Jonah. ‘She’s always looked like she could walk through Hell without breaking a sweat. Tonight’s the first time I’ve ever found myself worrying about her.’
‘You need to sleep too,’ said Annabel. ‘It’s been a tough night for you. I’ll stay down with Sly and make sure she’s OK.’
Jonah nodded. He turned to go, then looked back. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘For not telling you everything.’
Annabel kissed him. ‘Go,’ she said. ‘You’re forgiven. Sleep.’
But sleep didn’t come easily for him.
Jonah had long been used to having Annabel in bed with him, and having their bed all to himself tended to upset his sleep anyway. The revival had left him both exhausted and overstimulated. He tussled for an hour. The images still in his mind from the surge were unsettling. Memories of a subject could linger for a time, in spite of the medication he took, but in the hours immediately after a revival they were freshest. Kendrick had lived a life on the edges of morality, pushing t
he boundaries of what was acceptable in the defence of a country, and some of the flashes of recall that Jonah experienced underlined that.
By far the worst thing, however, was when he remembered the feeling of looking out through the eyes of the creature in the basement. Sensing its thoughts.
Sleep eventually came, but it was fitful, and shattered by a dream: he was in the same void he’d been in when he saw the vision of Tess. There she was again, but standing and looking right at him.
‘Pandora,’ she said. She held out her hand to him, and he approached. She put her arms around him, and began to squeeze until it was painful. He couldn’t breathe, and still she squeezed harder.
She let him go, a look of malice on her face. Then she opened her mouth, wide, wider; she looked to the sky and placed her hands on her top and bottom teeth, then pulled until the jaw cracked wide. She kept pulling, her flesh tearing down her neck. Inside, gore-streaked, was Annabel. She smiled at him and opened her mouth just as Tess had done. Jonah screamed as Annabel placed her hands in the same way and began to pull.
He woke with the sound of cracking bone still ringing in his head.
*
For Never, the rest of that night didn’t hold the same kind of sleep disturbance as it had for Jonah, but he did find himself restless when he got back to his apartment. After so long without the threat hanging immediately over their heads, the cautious peace-of-mind he’d known for the last year – which had come at the price of Jonah’s ‘death’ – was utterly gone. Hope had gone.
He’d set foot on the Dead Road again, and he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to think himself off it. His grandmother would not have been pleased.
He drank a little more, vaguely wishing that he had thought to bring the opened mini-cask back with him as consolation. He thought about Kendrick, and Sly – whose relationship had always been mysterious, and unbroachable. He’d tried more than once with indirect questions, probing how the two had met, and how the close bond had arisen. Watching her there, with Kendrick’s body so mauled, had been strange. Heartbreaking, in a way, but he had no real insight into what went on in Sly’s mind. Kendrick could have been her real father, for all he knew, or simply a close colleague.
Still, it underlined why any kind of relationship between himself and Sly couldn’t work. She was emotionally sealed off in a way that Never wouldn’t have been able to deal with. He liked to think that was one of the reasons she wouldn’t countenance anything happening between them. And sure, that notion made it easier to deal with than a simple ‘She’s just not into you’, but he figured he was due a break.
The next morning was Friday, and he wasn’t at work – hence why he’d suggested the previous night for a marathon pool/beer session. His few consolation drinks from the night before had hit him harder than they had any right to, which seemed unfair. Hungover, to add to his newfound sense of pessimism about the future of – well, of everything.
Cruel.
He decided to watch old comedy movies all day, but the phone rang mid-morning. It was Tabitha, one of the tech team at the office, complaining that the work he’d done on the backup comms hardware had already failed and could he come in and fix the damn thing.
He was about to suggest that she fixed it, but then he remembered going slightly ballistic the month before when he’d realized someone had changed the settings on those servers without telling him. He’d kind of suggested that if anyone touched them but him, he’d fire them on the spot.
In other words, he’d asked for this.
That didn’t stop him cursing Tabitha’s name as he drove.
On the way to work, news broke of another failed sub-oceanic cable and the ensuing war of words between likely culprits trying to deny blame. Worse, a delay in repairing the damage was inevitable as, of the five repair ships in the area, two were already engaged in other cable repairs, and the remaining three were all in dry dock for ship repairs or maintenance work. This was bubbling just under the headlines, however, which were all focused on the likely timing of the predicted solar flare’s arrival – or, more correctly, the arrival of the coronal mass several hours subsequent to the flare. Whether it would cause significant effects on Earth would only be known when it hit NASA’s ACE Probe, and until then the best they could give of its ETA was roughly five hours.
He saw Tabitha as soon as he entered the office.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘I’m here.’
Tabitha frowned. ‘Good. There’s a second link down.’ She paused. ‘I’m sorry I called you in, Never, but it’s been a busy one today, and I know you like the comms stuff just so.’
‘Not a problem,’ said Never, feeling slightly bad about cursing her name. Across the office, he saw Lex and caught her eye. She waved and came over.
‘Hey,’ she said. ‘Thought you were off today?’
‘They called me in to, uh, fix some stuff,’ he said, suddenly finding he couldn’t speak in intelligent sentences in front of her. ‘How was your revival yesterday?’ He winced a little, remembering that it had been a gruesome one that she’d almost certainly not want to talk about.
‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ she said. ‘It was a bit grim.’
‘Right,’ said Never. An awkward silence ensued.
‘Oh!’ said Lex. ‘Yeah. Some of us are out for drinks later. Maybe you could come along?’
Feeling his face form into an idiot-grin, he nodded. ‘Will do!’ he said. Lex went, and he wondered if she’d just sort-of asked him out. Great timing, what with the end of the world on its way.
He went to the comms room in the basement and got on with his work, chiding himself for being such a dour bastard. Yes, Kendrick was dead, and yes he was killed by something terrifying, but it could be decades before their little ‘pet’ was all grown up, and there was surely plenty that could happen between now and then to stop it. Sly, for one. It was personal now, which made Never feel anxious for her. She would commit to the cause even more than she already had.
‘OK,’ he said to himself, running through the first tests on the hardware. The link he’d fixed was down again, as well as one other on the same secure government network that ran on dedicated lines, called FMRC. The hardware tests came out fine, though. He frowned. The two downed links were on two separate parts of the government network. He called the data centres and asked them to check their end, which took fifteen minutes. They came back with the all clear on their hardware, but one of them said something that made Never fret. As the phone was hung up, he just caught a few words of conversation with a colleague: ‘looks like another one’.
He called the Chicago FRS and asked for a favour – could they check their own secure links and backup comms?
‘Funny you should ask,’ came the reply. ‘Our only running backup comms are to private data centres right now.
All the federal ones are silent.’
‘All of them?’ said Never, incredulous. Then he looked at his own, and saw that now he had exactly that problem. He rang upstairs and asked Tabitha to come down. ‘You know much about the FMRC system?’ he asked when she arrived.
She shrugged. ‘Enough,’ she said.
‘OK, so what would make for a countrywide FMRC outage?’
Tabitha screwed up her face. ‘What kind of question is that? The redundancy means you can’t really have that happen. Like the Internet, shit can slow down and sites can go offline, but it doesn’t die.’
‘The whole FMRC is down. I called around.’
Tabitha shook her head. ‘You called everyone?’
‘Not everyone,’ said Never. ‘But enough to be worried.’
She looked at him like he’d sprouted an extra nose.
‘What? It’s probably innocuous. A fuck-up, yes, but short-lived.’
‘I don’t know,’ he said, but he did know. It bothered him that there were so many simultaneous breaks in communications cables, and that the repair ships were out of action, and that a supposedly failure-proofed communication n
etwork had failed.
All before the supposed effects of the solar flare hit them. He thought about his chat with Jonah, mentioning how governments or business might want to take advantage of an unusual situation by making it much worse.
‘They’d better make sure it’s back up soon,’ she said. ‘Someone’s head will be on the block for this.’
‘Yeah,’ said Never. ‘I think I’ll, um, head on home maybe. Our kit’s all fine, so there’s nothing I can do about it.’ He went back upstairs to his desk and checked out the news. The flare’s arrival had been narrowed down to the next half-hour, but it was now confirmed as one of the most powerful on record to hit head-on. Communications, it was noted, might be affected.
But just not yet, he thought.
‘Hey, Never!’ called someone across the office. He didn’t even look up to see who it was. ‘Do we have to switch anything off for this flare thing?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘Circuit breakers will deal with any unexpected surges. It’s unlikely we’ll see any impact.’ He was starting to wonder about that. He put on headphones and brought up a live news stream about the flare, and found a NASA site that showed its ETA: still another twenty-eight minutes to go. Then he hunted around in the FRS emergency contact list for an FMRC phone number. It was engaged. He kept trying. He tried an alternative number, and it was engaged too.
And then the words the Chicago FRS had used came back to him: all the federal ones are silent.
It was ringing a bell, and he didn’t quite know why.
Silent.
He thought of Lex, and the question she’d asked after their revival in Durham: Don’t you ever follow up old cases?
‘Shit,’ he said. He called up the records they had on that case, because he’d had a sudden sense that something important had been staring him in the face.
John Trent, Patti Trent’s husband, had set himself on fire rather than take a gun to his own temple. He’d not been himself for months, and when he was acting like himself, he’d killed his wife, poured gasoline over his head and lit a match. They’d assumed the fire was so he could avoid being revived, but it wasn’t just revival chances that fire destroyed . . .