“Like you did to Ray?”
His eyes twinkled. Sickly delight lurked amidst their inky, lifeless depths. “That’s right.”
Norman wriggled his wrists, testing the knots holding them to the chair. Flawless. No fool’s knots. It’d take hours to worm free. He sighed. “What do you want?”
“I’m here to deliver a message.”
“So send a letter to the office.”
Jason gave a full-throated belly laugh that sent his head flying back. “Sorry, postman’s got a day off,” he said once he’d recovered.
“Why me?”
Jason shrugged. “Word on the street is you’re next in line for the Chair, that the Big Cheese is on the way out, that he’s got his knickers all in a bunch over a few birdies.” He tittered at that. “Also,” he raised an eyebrow, “you make an easy target. Been alone in the dark for days.”
“Just like the old man, eh? You had a message to give him, too?”
“He saw us. We reacted,” Jason’s face had fallen slack. “You weren’t supposed to see us. Not yet. The old man wasn’t part of the plan. I was just clearing up a stupid mistake of some…associates of mine. Same goes for the boulder head at the mill.” He took a step forward, twirling the blade in his grasp, observing Norman with frank curiosity. “But then you had to step in, didn’t you? You couldn’t just let things rest. You had to come after us, had to rock the boat.”
“You killed two innocent men. Who’s rocking the boat?”
Anger flashed behind those onyx shark eyes. Yet Jason’s face creased into another smile. Somehow, seeing his cheeks upturn was so much worse. “After all that you and yours have done—after all the lives you’ve ended—I can’t imagine where you could find the gall to say something like that.”
“That we’ve ended!” Norman surged forwards, straining against his bindings. “We’ve done nothing!”
Jason’s grin widened, such that it almost reached the lobes of his ears. “You have no idea what you’ve done, do you?” he whispered.
Norman swallowed. The slight, hissing voice reverberated deep in his chest, sending a vat of liquid fear boiling in his guts. “What are you going to do, finish me off as well?”
“What would be the point in telling you a titbit of jack shit if I was here to kill you?”
Norman licked his bleeding lip. “A message, huh? You want to get me a pen?”
Jason’s smile lost its strength—died a slow and sickly death. He took yet another step forwards and dropped to his haunches. The two of them were now at eye level. “You took everything,” he hissed.
The intensity of his stare felt as though it would set Norman’s flesh ablaze. He swallowed. “What?”
“All of it. Every scrap, every weed, all of it. You took it all. You just wandered into people’s homes and took what you wanted like it was yours, not a care in the world. All those people’s work—all the sweat and blood they put into growing enough to scrape by… you took it all.”
Norman looked at the ground. “What do you want?” he murmured.
Jason’s face became uglier. “Do you know how many people you killed? How many children died in their parents’ arms, shrivelled up like rotting prunes?”
Norman grimaced. As the words washed over him, pangs of pain danced across his heart. His mind’s eye spat out images of the begging, emaciated creatures at Margate once more, reaching for him…
He shook his head and glared at Jason. Despite his own guilt, he saw nothing stir in his captor’s eyes. He couldn’t have been more certain that the man cared little, if at all, for the troubles of others. “What do you want?” he repeated.
“I'll bet you haven’t even seen it with your own eyes, have you? The hundreds of starving skeletons, crawling around like worms?”
Norman started, gritting his teeth. “I’ve seen it.”
“Yet still you took. And now everybody’s gone, moved away, left everything that they had, because of you.”
Norman felt his guilt putrefy into shame, dripping along his spine and festering in his bowels.
Still, Jason stared back at him without a flicker of emotion. He’d spoken with intent, but there had been nothing to the words, no glimmer of genuine feeling. They had merely escaped his mouth mechanically, as though rehearsed.
“What do you want?” Norman breathed.
“We’re not going to tolerate your greed anymore.”
“Who?”
“Survivors. Those of us who managed to hold out long enough. People who’ve lost everything. People who want to see justice done… People who want revenge.”
Again, not a trace of sincerity touched his eyes. Some other voice was speaking through this monster; another greater will, far more sinister than Jason’s feral wickedness.
It was enough to send Norman’s skin crawling. He leant forwards against his restraints. “What do you want?” he yelled.
Jason bore his scream without even a twitch. Then he inched forwards. “We want you to run,” he whispered. “Disband, scatter—all of you. Run to the corners of the earth, along with everyone like you. We’ll give you this one chance to atone for what you did.” His voice slowed to a halting shudder. “Then we will descend upon you, and we will show no mercy.”
Norman leant back against the chair. “You’re crazy,” he muttered. “You kill innocent men, crawl into our homes like rats, and you think you’re in a position to make demands?”
Jason leapt forwards, anger flaring in the depths of his eyes as he brought the blade up to Norman’s throat. There, the blade hovered a millimetre from the skin of his trachea, shaking as Jason’s eyes searched his own. Norman remained as still as possible, desperate to hold the snarling beast’s gaze despite his racing pulse.
After almost ten seconds, seconds that seemed to stretch into an age, Jason let the knife fall to his side. “We’re the rats?” His lip curled. “If most had their way—if I had my way—you’d all be dead already. The only reason you’re still breathing is because He—”
“Norman!”
A deathly silence stole over the two of them as a voice rang out from the front door, accompanied by a rapid succession of hammering knocks.
Jason’s expression had contorted, a small distance removed from surprise, more intrigued than angry. Norman realised that he was taken aback, almost impressed. “What’s this?” he said, bringing the knife back to Norman’s throat.
“How should I know?”
“Why’d they come back?” Jason looked out through the back window, cursing. His eyes darted in their sockets, considering.
The pounding at the door came again, accompanied by another yell. “Norman!”
It was Allison. Minutes before, Norman would have wished for nothing but for her to leave him alone. Now, hearing her babbling voice made him almost delirious with joy.
Jason appeared to have weighed his choices. Norman was sure that he could have put an end to her in a trice, but something seemed to be holding him back—perhaps that same greater will that had been speaking through him all this time. “Well, Norman, I hate to cut it short,” he said.
“Oh, hush.” The pain in Norman’s chest was growing sharper, driving his peripheral vision towards darkness. “No need to apologise.”
Jason grunted. He was pacing closer to Norman’s side, prowling close enough to fill his nose with the nauseating, raw pang of sewage, so intense that it made his eyes water.
The knocking at the door was louder now, more emphatic.
Norman blinked his vision clear, and struggled to speak through rubbery lips. “We were desperate. We did what we had to.” He swallowed with difficulty. The floor was falling away. “I can believe that people want revenge. Even justice—even now, after all that’s happened.” He locked his gaze on the feral man’s wild eyes, desperate to keep the darkness at bay. “But I bet you didn’t lose a thing. Men like you get blown towards trouble like tumbleweed in the wind. So what are you doing here?”
When Jason answered, h
is maw constricted into a half-grin, half-grimace—a step away from mania. “Every wasteland needs a devil,” he said, bringing the curved blade’s handle above his head. “We’re done waiting. Your time’s up, so think about what I said.”
Norman saw the blade flash before his eyes for only a split second before the handle came down, and a thousand bells erupted in his head. Then all was black, and Allison’s cries were muted.
XVIII
“You have to go,” Don muttered. His sentence’s end was followed by a great, wracking wheeze that sent him sliding down the face of the rock upon which he rested.
Billy, cross-legged on the floor with her arms clamped over her shins, started. Her head, ducked into her lap, shook violently. “No!” she whined.
Don was powerless to stop himself sliding until a mere inch above the dirt. Even moving his arms was now beyond him; breathing itself occupied the entirety of his attention. He had reached the point of no return days ago. He wasn’t at all sure how he’d kept going since then. Even staying alive for Billy’s sake wouldn’t have been enough to sustain him, had it not been for her incredible tenacity.
She had shown him no mercy, had marched him day and night.
Every village, town or hole in the ground along the way had been unapproachable. It seemed that people here had fared even worse than back home. The wreckage of entire communities, built on top of the Old World’s wonders, lay in growing ruin, blowing in the wind. Overgrown motorways had been dotted by the shrivelled bodies of the recently deceased.
In some towns, life had held on. But these places had been barricaded or road-blocked by stacked Old World motorcars. Enormous painted signs had hung from the tallest buildings, declaring: ‘NO FOOD HERE’, ‘STEAL AND DIE’, and ‘WANDERERS SHOT ON SIGHT’. Beside a few of these signs had been the bloodied bodies of those who had ignored them, nailed to walls or hanging by the neck from nearby tree branches.
Even the merest scraps of food had disappeared. They had once again reached the coast, but Don hadn’t a clue which it was, or to which sea the waves belonged. He’d lost all sense of direction in the forest days ago. In his exhaustion, he hadn’t even been able to make sense of the stars.
“You’ve been a very good girl,” he said, managing a single word per exhalation. “You’ve been strong. I’m so proud of you.” He swallowed, and dragged another ragged breath. “But Daddy’s not getting any better. I’m just going to get sicker, so you have to go now. Find someone who’ll help you.”
Billy unfolded her body into a sitting position. Her eyes were wild, aflame with a light that Miranda had once commanded. “No! You said that there would be food here. When we find it, you’ll be better.”
Don shook his head. “I was wrong, Billy.”
“No!” she cried. She leapt up and marched over to him, tugging at his sleeve.
His body bent to her will without resistance, and he felt his back lifting away from the rock behind him.
She had pulled him to his feet many times now, and on each occasion had managed it with a little less effort. At first he had thought such ease had come with her growing strength, but now a sickening truth seemed obvious: he had withered to the point that an eight-year-old girl could lift him without trouble.
The thought stirred a pang of fear in his gut as she righted him and looped his arm over her shoulder. She began to haul him from the rock, silent tears spilling from her eyes.
“Stop it,” he muttered.
She wiped her eyes with a jerk and shook her head. “No,” she sobbed.
“You have to—”
“No.”
“Billy, you have to go. I want you to leave me!”
“No, Daddy! No. I’m never leaving you.”
“Let go, Billy. Run.”
“No, Daddy.”
“Let me go and run!”
“No!”
“BILLY, YOU HAVE TO—”
The rest of Don’s roar died in his throat. Something had caught his eye, nestled in the foliage ahead. Recognition blared behind his eyes, but he contained his surge of relief with enormous effort, suspicious of any good fortune after all they had lost.
Billy was staring up at him, open-mouthed, tugging at his sleeve. She looked frightened by his sudden pause. “Daddy, what is it? What’s wrong? Is it the Bad Men?”
Ahead, through the foliage, he could see a break in the trees, and a cliff edge beyond. Nestled beside it, he discerned a rectangular mass of slate tiles, capped by the unmistakable profile of a chimney. Beneath it were four walls of shoddy brick and plaster.
“It’s a cabin,” he whispered.
Billy whirled, fixed her gaze in the direction of the structure, and then turned back to him. Her eyes were wide. “Safe?” she whispered.
There was no time for caution. Either they got under shelter now, or there would be no chance for either of them.
He nodded. “It’s empty. It’ll be fine.” He sent a silent prayer and nudged her. “Come on, let’s go.”
Billy began to haul him towards it immediately, moving faster than ever.
Don couldn’t quite keep himself from indulging in the same beginnings of hope that now seemed to infest her every move.
FIFTH INTERLUDE
“Find anything?”
“Nah! There’s nothing here!”
“Keep looking!”
Alex was drawn from a nightmare—one of fog, fire, and a pair of leering, darkened eyes—by the voices, which at first he assumed had hailed from the tail end of a better dream. When he opened his eyes, however, he still heard them yelling from afar.
“What about these ones?”
There was a reverberating series of metallic clatters and a spate of cursing, and then Alex was fully awake and upon his haunches. The dog stood nearby, emitting a steady whine.
He checked on James. The noise had failed to rouse the boy, and he showed no sign of waking any time soon.
Good, he thought. God, please let it stay that way.
Satisfied, he rose to his feet, pressed himself against the wall, and listened.
“What are you doing?” one of the voices bawled.
“What does it look like? I’m trying to reach,” said another.
“If you’re going to help then do it properly. Those things are no good to us if they’re broken.”
People. Survivors.
Alex almost yelped. He whirled back to James and took the boy into his arms, hushing him as he whimpered and stretched. He ruffled the dog’s fur and nudged her aside, turning the doorknob with the utmost care.
He took a steeling breath and stepped out of the office.
Out in the warehouse, the aisles still lay in every direction, and the behemoth door was still ajar, but there was a stark difference about the place. The floor was littered with gutted boxes and mechanical parts of all kinds and of various sizes.
Between them, bickering and reaching for a set of high shelves, was a group of people. Not military, not aliens, not demons. Just regular folk, dressed in work denims and the remains of business suits, sporting boring haircuts and budget Seikos, their pockets bulging with the profiles of wallets and keys.
Alex stood in the doorway of the office and watched them, stunned. James gurgled as he woke in his arms, and the dog continued to whine by his side, but the people continued in their search, none the wiser. He stared without a single thought for a long time, his duvet still hanging from his shoulders, unmoving. Slowly, he began to believe that they were really there, right in front of his eyes, arguing and talking.
His frozen stupor stretched on until the dog gave a somewhat louder whine. The noise whistled along the aisles, echoing under the warehouse’s vast roof.
The people froze and glanced over their shoulders, some with heavy boxes held precariously in their arms. Upon spotting the three of them, crammed into the office doorway, their mouths fell open, and they stared just as Alex had stared at them.
A tense moment of silence stretched out between them.
Then James began to cry. A moment later, the warehouse was ablaze with noise.
They burst into motion, leaping down from the shelves and sprinting forwards. Alex surged from the doorway at an equal pace. They met at a fork in a wide aisle and skidded to a halt, still some distance apart, each group uncertain of the other. Alex hefted James’s struggling body in his arms and hushed the dog, which still whined at his side.
The group was composed of a young couple barely older than himself, a powerful-looking woman in her forties, a young child, and two middle-aged men. All of them observed him with calculated stares. Their numbers and obvious unity automatically leant them authority over the motley crew of teenager, baby and household dog.
Alex waited for them to make the first move.
Eventually, one of the men cleared his throat. “You choose strange company, lad,” he said. His face was striking: far longer than it was wide, marred on the right side by a lazy eye that bulged almost free of its socket.
Alex opened his mouth to answer, but only a shuddering gasp passed his lips. He suddenly wanted to withdraw into himself, to shield James from their combined stares. He had almost accepted that he would never see another person again. To have that certainty falter now, and then have this turn out to be part of some torturous dream—or another intrusion of the macabre into the real world—would drive him to insanity.
But he was saved by the mature woman’s instincts. Smiling with such sincerity that his heart almost melted, she stepped forwards with her hands held out for the wailing child.
Alex placed James against her bosom without protest, and looked to her for guidance.
She smiled with such warmth that he could have sworn she had reached up and caressed his face. She held the child with an expert, soothing ease that no man could ever achieve, and began to rock him. “Beautiful, so he is,” she said.
“Y-Yes,” Alex stammered.
James, within the blankets, continued to cry, unheeding of the momentous occasion. Despite the great tenderness with which he was held, he cried only louder.
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