The Dead Road

by Seth Patrick

He wondered where the bodies had gone.

  ‘There are carrion birds in Nationals Park,’ said Annabel. She said it in a calm voice, but Jonah immediately knew what she meant. The baseball stadium had a forty-thousand capacity, but it wasn’t as if anyone would be seated. Annabel took his hand again, and he could see it: the vast pile, still growing. How many, he could only guess. A hundred thousand, maybe? Three times that? The birds feasted; most of the eyes were long gone, yet there was plenty left for them to relish. Already the smell would be appalling nearby, and within another day or two it would taint the whole city. But what would it matter, by then?

  And there were other piles, in other hidden places.

  The bus rolled on, staying on the I-66 and taking the Theodore Roosevelt Bridge across the Potomac, then along Constitution Avenue, with the Washington Monument right ahead.

  Jonah felt a shiver as he saw what was in the green spaces in the Constitution Gardens, running alongside the vast reflecting pool that faced the Lincoln Memorial. Twelve-feet-high steel fencing, newly erected, ran the length of the road, and on the other side were throngs of people. To everyone else, it would just look like a massive carnival was underway. To Jonah, it was cattle being herded into their pens, just as he’d seen in his vision of the airport in Rio.

  Every green space was the same – the area around the Washington Monument was similarly fenced off, and filling with people. Further on, the National Mall was the same, presumably all the way to Capitol Hill. He could see plenty of food trucks within the enclosures, rows of portable restrooms, inflatable bouncers for the kids. The bus pulled up beside the Ellipse, the entirety of which had been similarly fenced off and supplied with the same amenities. He could see the entry gate, and the people in a steadily moving queue to get inside. The solidity of the barriers was ominous.

  ‘Here we are, folks!’ said the driver. ‘Have a great day!’

  Jonah was in a daze as they walked through the gateway. He didn’t imagine it would be long before the gates were sealed off.

  The Ellipse was still sparsely filled, but more and more buses were pulling up and unloading their livestock. Large VICTORY signs were dotted around the fencing, too. He looked to the sky. The cloud cover was significant, but he didn’t need to see the aurora to know it was there. He wondered if those black veins were already starting to pulsate high above them.

  Dark would start to fall in the next hour. It wouldn’t be long now.

  The Beast was coming, and Jonah was as ready as he would ever be.

  23

  They stood near the security fencing at the north side of the enclosure as twilight fell. The Ellipse was almost full, now; most buses drove past on the road, heading for the other enclosures. The crowd wasn’t too densely packed any more, which Jonah was glad of; otherwise he would have had to avoid being jostled or risk people noticing the effect of chill.

  There were speakers positioned at regular intervals, he could see, and patriotic music was playing just below the noise level of the crowd. He looked to where the cables led, and saw a large van two hundred feet from where he stood, on the outside of the fencing. They had generators on the go, yes, but one thing was missing, the absence of which was only occurring to him now that night was actually falling – there was no lighting anywhere.

  He listened to what people around him were saying, and was astonished at how mundane most of it was. Comparisons of experiences over the last few days were the norm, and very little unease was expressed. These people, it seemed, had suffered from little more than an extended power cut. The rumours that had spread had scared them, yes, but they’d not been confronted with anything traumatic. Various other leaflets had been handed out at the site, ‘explaining’ that power would be restored to most areas within days, and that seemed to be the only news that mattered to some.

  There was utter ignorance about the real nature of the attacks. Biochemical warfare was mentioned more than once, in hushed tones. It baffled Jonah that people could accept that kind of explanation, while standing in the open air in a supposed attack site.

  He watched the soldiers who were corralling the new arrivals, and as he did, he saw the first shadow of the day – a relatively large one clinging to the shoulder of a higher-ranking officer. He wondered if any of the soldiers were uninfected.

  He turned away and caught Annabel looking at her skin, flexing her hands and turning them over.

  ‘What are you?’ he asked again. ‘You ignored me when I asked before.’

  She looked to the distance. ‘What am I? I don’t think I could explain it in a way you would understand. Not without you getting entirely the wrong impression.’

  ‘Yet you’ve come here to help us. Why?’

  ‘I was invited.’

  ‘By Tess?’

  She shook her head. ‘By you.’

  ‘That doesn’t answer my question. Why are you willing to help?’

  ‘Perhaps I’m not. Perhaps I’m here to take over, once the Beast has been defeated.’ She smiled, as Jonah’s face fell. The smile turned into a laugh. ‘I know what thoughts Annabel has had, Jonah,’ she said. ‘I was joking. Humour in darkness, isn’t that a common trait?’

  Jonah said nothing. There was a squeal from close by, and Jonah turned urgently to look. It was only a small boy, perhaps seven years old, being tickled by his mother.

  Annabel looked at the child, and Jonah could see genuine sorrow in her eyes. He wondered if the real Annabel was starting to wake, or if the creature within her was truly capable of caring. ‘You look at a child and see innocence,’ she said. ‘Look again, and you’ll see an adult in the making. You tell yourselves that children are pure, only tainted by what happens to them as they grow, but this is wishful thinking. Your people are formed of hatred and jealousy. There are counters to that, yes, beneficence in all forms, but life gets by perfectly well without those. Tell me what you know of the Beast.’

  ‘It spoke to me once,’ he said. ‘Through Michael Andreas. It told me that it thinks life, in its purest form, is pain. The Beast is made of souls, corrupted and lost, existing in torment. It seeks to corrupt all that it can. Torment all that it can.’

  ‘You think that it touches a soul and fills it with the same taint it carries within itself?’

  She was looking at him with something close to disdain. ‘Yes,’ he said.

  ‘I just explained it to you, Jonah. Didn’t you listen?’ She shook her head. ‘Billions of years of evolution, and intelligence has arisen. On what scaffolding? On death, Jonah. Your minds have risen from the dust on the backs of immeasurable deaths. Death is your past, and your future. Life is hatred, jealousy, fear. Life is violence and slaughter. The darkness you think of as taint, external and thus somehow avoidable? That darkness is there, from the very beginning. Kendrick spoke of seeing the eyes of a child in the vessel they had chosen. A child. The dark was already there. Waiting.’

  ‘You’re wrong,’ he said.

  ‘Souls are dark to their very core,’ said Annabel. ‘The Beast is not really corrupting, Jonah. It calls you home.’

  He stared at her. ‘I know you’re wrong,’ he said. ‘I’ve seen . . .’

  She cut in. ‘What have you seen? In your career, Jonah, cleaning up after atrocities? The worst of people, yes? Their petty vengeances, their stupidity, their mercilessness. You have come to know these things are not the exceptions.’

  ‘But they are the exceptions,’ he said. ‘People don’t give in to . . .’ This time he stopped by himself, realizing what he was going to say. People don’t give in to their nature. ‘You’re arguing that reason can’t win against instinct, and that’s just not true.’

  Annabel put a hand on his shoulder. ‘You can be light. You can be truly selfless. But that is not what lies at your core. The one thing that binds all life, intelligent or not, is malice to whatever threatens it. And with intelligence, the scope of threat widens ever more. Imagination turns inanimate rocks into devils. It transforms friends into conspirato
rs. Had the Beast not come, you would have found another way to destroy yourselves.’ She sighed. ‘Your world was always doomed. Most are.’

  Jonah felt a deep cold. ‘You’re here to judge us? Is that it?’

  She frowned. ‘I told you, I’m here because I was called. Look inside yourself, Jonah. You fight for your friends. You fight for yourself. Tell me if you think you are immune to what I described? Annabel would die for you, and you would die for her. But would you die to save another, if you didn’t know them?’

  He hung his head. ‘Don’t take her,’ he said.

  She looked at him for a moment, appraising. Clearly she knew what he was referring to. ‘A prison for the Beast requires sacrifice. Your myths tell you that, again and again. So tell me, would you really take your place by her side for an eternity, in the darkness?’

  ‘I would.’

  ‘And would you take her place, if you could spare her?’

  ‘Of course.’

  She stared into his eyes for long seconds, and at last she nodded. ‘Good,’ she said. ‘For how can you call on another to sacrifice themselves, if you would not do it in their place?’ She lowered her head, and remained silent for a while.

  *

  Above them, the clouds thinned as the sky grew dark. The aurora was by far the brightest yet, easily providing more light than a full moon, painting the world a sickening green, and Jonah was certain that the aurora was entirely an artefact of the Beast’s power. He looked hard for signs of the black veins, hunting carefully for even the thinnest of threads, but he saw none. Yet.

  And while the encroaching darkness was filling him with dread, those around him were creating an ever more carnival-like atmosphere. People were eating hot dogs and cotton candy, holding hands and laughing, releasing the tension that had built up since the power failures came.

  It suddenly changed.

  The music, which had been playing just under the chatter of the crowds, quickly grew in volume until it was distorted. People glared at the speakers, hands over ears, as feedback filled the air.

  The sound died, leaving near-silence in its wake, and a panicked voice spoke.

  ‘Everyone, please,’ said the voice. ‘You have to get away from here.’

  There was a distant crack of gunfire.

  The voice continued, breathless. ‘This isn’t our victory, do you understand? This isn’t our victory. This is a—’

  More gunfire came, but this time it came over the speakers. The voice was silenced. The crowd remained quiet and frightened. Parents were gathering up their kids to them, and Jonah could tell now who among them was infected – several in the crowd had an expression that was far too calculating.

  A small military transport sped past them. There was a spray of gunfire, hitting several of the soldiers on the road; someone inside the fences cried out, and Jonah looked across to see a fallen man, blood on his face.

  He looked at Annabel. She seemed utterly calm. Sounds of distant gunfire came from several directions, but it didn’t last long.

  Not all of the soldiers had been infected after all, he guessed, and some had even managed to organize themselves. It was an impressive achievement, extraordinary courage under the worst circumstances. And it was already over.

  Jonah waited for the speakers to crackle into life again, for the music to start or a message of reassurance to play. Surely they would want to calm down the crowds? All thought of celebration was gone, now. The Ellipse was full of huddled groups, cowering on the grass; frightened children whimpered; adults stared out around them.

  The speakers remained silent, and Jonah understood that this was the most frightening aspect of all. There was no need to calm the cattle any more.

  He looked up. The black thread-veins were there, pulsating, thickening. Others around him noticed too, and pointed. Despair spread, and burst out in a vast cry of dismay when the thunder rumbled above them, and the great black column began to form, then reach down to the ground. It would have been the river it touched, Jonah thought, beyond the Washington Monument, presumably past the Jefferson Memorial. A mile away, and impossibly vast.

  The continuous rumble was more like the deep growl of a rabid dog. Most of the crowd watched with a mixture of awe and terror, but some among them were attempting to climb the fences; at the gate, a few were trying to force their way out.

  The soldiers there had no hesitation; small-arms fire popped every few seconds. People backed away.

  The dark column widened. The sounds coming from it grew and grew, and Jonah thought he could feel his organs vibrate from the sheer volume. He turned to Annabel.

  ‘Whatever you’re going to do, surely now’s the time to start.’

  She was impassive, watching the column.

  ‘Did you hear me?’ he said, shaking her.

  Her eyes turned to his. ‘Protect Annabel,’ she said. ‘Protect yourself. At all costs. You’ll be needed.’

  Jonah looked around at the thousands of people, old and young. ‘After what you said about selfishness? Can’t we do anything?’

  A sudden roar snapped their attention back to the column, which collapsed down and vanished. He was expecting the river to rise up now, as it had done before.

  ‘Hurry,’ he said. It was already too late, surely. They would be swamped by the shadows – consumed, or taken as Never had been.

  A dark mass rose, accompanied by a wail of fear from the crowds. But the mass didn’t form a wave to engulf them all. Instead, it kept growing taller. Like the shadow that had come from Never, it seemed to be forming itself, adopting a shape, extruding limbs.

  People were crying now, but not all. Some were smiling, holding up their arms in supplication.

  Their master had come. The Beast had come.

  It rose up as it stepped from the water, five hundred feet high, a thousand . . . Jonah didn’t know. All he could do was stare at the creature as black wings spread wide, and its near-featureless head opened in a gaping maw.

  It reached down, and Jonah knew it was into one of the other enclosures nearer the river. The creature howled its pleasure as it picked up handfuls of living flesh and watched it burn, letting the dead and dying fall back through its new-formed fingers.

  Jonah turned to Annabel. ‘Are you just here to watch?’

  She shook her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Forgive me. Gods die too. And they fear it just as much.’

  She seemed frightened. He stared at her, an idea forming in his mind that he almost didn’t dare believe. She nodded, though, confirming it. She fell to her knees, her hands on the ground, and started to tremble.

  In the distance, the Beast roared. Jonah looked up at it. The creature seemed to pause in its carnage, victims falling from one outstretched claw. It turned its head, and Jonah felt his stomach fall away.

  It was looking towards him. It took a vast stride.

  He looked at Annabel. She was shaking even more, and she heaved as if ready to vomit.

  The people within the Ellipse enclosure were panicking as the Beast took another stride towards them, groups surging towards different parts of the fence, trying to climb the wire. Gunfire broke out again.

  ‘Do something,’ Jonah cried. Annabel’s shaking grew more violent, and there was a scream from behind him. He turned in time to see soldiers firing into the crowd again, but suddenly the soldiers spasmed and fell; the metal clasps fastening the sections of fence exploded in sequence, and Jonah realized he could see something moving rapidly, from soldier to soldier, from fence to fence.

  Countless thin tendrils, like the tentacles of jellyfish, flailed in the air. As sections of unsecured fence toppled, Jonah noticed that the people nearest him weren’t looking at the fence, or at the fallen soldiers.

  They were staring, horrified, at him. No: at something behind him. He heard it, before he turned – heard the gagging, choking sound, the wet hissing.

  He looked.

  A black living mass was streaming from Annabel’s mouth, the way it h
ad poured from Tess in the vision he had had during the revival. The writhing blackness was gathering itself on the grass, growing, and from it the thin tendrils streamed out, impossibly long, the source of what had killed the soldiers and destroyed the fencing.

  Jonah backed off. The people near him watched in pure horror until they turned and ran from this abomination in their midst, to join the rest of the panicked crowd who were fleeing into the streets surrounding the Ellipse, all heading north away from the river and towards the White House.

  Annabel continued to retch as the last of the black pulsing flesh emerged from her mouth. She fell to her side. Jonah edged forwards, and the black shape in front of him lurched suddenly. He shielded his face. When he looked again, it was gone.

  He went to Annabel and took her pulse. It was weak, not the unnaturally strong beat that Philip had been so wary of.

  The black creature was gone, but the slow strides of the Beast continued. Now, a vast dark foot stepped on the southernmost edge of the Ellipse, and with a sense of desolation Jonah looked up, up, at the Beast’s head, which was lowering down to leer at him.

  It knew what he was, he thought. It knew the history it shared with him.

  Yet it seemed wary. Jonah presumed it had sensed the other creature, and still could sense it, even though it had fled. The fear that it had expressed before, in Annabel’s voice, had clearly won out.

  The Beast reached down, its claw coming ever closer. Jonah could feel a terrible heat emanate from the Beast’s flesh, and he could see the writhing mass of shadows that it had constructed itself from.

  In his arms, Annabel stirred, but she didn’t wake. He was grateful that she would be spared seeing this, as the end came.

  But just as the claw drew within feet of him, Jonah saw thin black tendrils begin to wind around it. The tendrils thickened, engulfing the claw, and then the arm, pulling it away. The Beast screeched and stood, and as it did so, the tendrils reached around from behind its back, joining at the front and holding fast. The Beast fought to free itself from its captor, screaming and shrieking with sheer outrage.