White and Other Tales of Ruin

by Tim Lebbon

  There had been people vomiting and leaking blood, but this close to so many dead I could see how extreme their affliction was. Something hissed inside the coach and the odour was suddenly beaten back by a sweet perfume, but I still got an idea of how bad this would smell, how awful the stench of rotting family and friends could be. There was so much blood. The bodies had bled out, their fluids leaving through existing holes and new ones alike. Stomachs were split, chests ruptured, noses rotted away, eyes pushed out of their sockets by the explosive pressure of blood seeking release. I’d heard about Ebola Zaire and Marburg, but this looked so much worse, even more violent than those nightmare viruses. A sheet of flies lifted from the corpses as if flicked at one end, swung around to a new patch of opened flesh and settled once more. New life for old, I thought, and I saw maggots squirming in a dead child’s mouth.

  Two young women tipped a body onto the base of the pile and turned to leave with their stretcher. I thought they were crying, but one of them turned and looked directly at me — through me — and I saw the blood leaking from her eyes. Even had I been visible, she could not have seen me.

  As we passed by the burial pit I saw an old man rooting among the dead. He was lifting limbs and prising mouths open with a thick stick, knocking out gold teeth, plucking jewellery from swollen fingers, and as we moved on I heard the jingling of his booty as he shifted a big rucksack from one shoulder to the other.

  The windows began to fade to black and I turned to the woman across the aisle, but then the voice rang up inside my head one more time. Sometimes it’s impossible to believe just how bad things can get.

  And the windows brightened again.

  Something was screaming. It Dopplered in from the distance, and at first I thought it was someone inside the coach shouting at what they saw, rebelling, running along the aisle as they sought escape. But then I realised that the sound came from outside. Some of the people across the plain looked up and I followed their gaze … and thought help was at hand.

  The aircraft screamed overhead so fast that I could not identify it, let alone make out its nationality. It left behind a shimmering wake and several cylindrical objects high in the sky, spinning and falling through the turbulent air until they each sprouted a parachute, bursts of compressed gas firing them away from each other, spreading across the plain until the five were slowly closing down like the fingers of a grasping giant’s hand.

  Medicine, I thought, a cure, parachuted in by some benevolent government who couldn’t risk putting their own people in and infecting them as well. The coach moved slowly across the plain and the cylinders floated lazily down, and more and more people stopped what they were doing and looked up. The ill lying on sheets or bare earth shielded their eyes if they could move, and the less-ill stood and stared, pointing, chattering excitedly, some of them even eschewing their fear of contact to hug their neighbours and rejoice that someone, at last, had done something good for them.

  Sometimes it’s impossible to believe how bad things can get, the voice purred in my head, and I didn’t know if it was memory or the words being spoken again.

  Either way, I went cold.

  “No…” I whispered, and I heard the word echoing up and down the coach as we all saw the first parachute land.

  The explosion was at least three miles away, off towards the snowy mountains that looked so picturesque in the distance, but it rapidly blossomed out, an expanding ball of flame rolling along the ground and rising into the air, burning stick-people tumbling before it. The rest of the cylinders landed then, bursting open one by one and allowing their magic to work, igniting the earth and air, and the bodies in between. I saw some people raise their hands in joy when they realised that peace had come for them at last, and others turned to run and were caught by the speeding flames, hair igniting and faces melting away. The burial pits exploded as withheld gases were fired. Makeshift tents were blasted along the ground from place to place as the firestorm set in, and soon bodies accompanied them in the air, sucked helplessly into the ever expanding walls of fire. The nuns were running. Nothing could save them now.

  As the fires from the separate explosions met, the windows in the coach faded to black.

  I could still feel the heat, hear the screams, smell the stench of everything burning. I was panting. Sweat ran down my sides and a cool breeze issued from some unseen vent, but mere machines could not understand that fear and terror and anger cannot be cooled. It takes more than a breath of fresh air to do that.

  I snatched up a bottle of beer and drained it in one go. It tasted foul but the subtle alcohol hit felt good. I kept trying to glance over my shoulder, through the window and back the way we had come, because I wanted to know if there was anything we should be doing for those poor people back there. Diseased, already doomed, then bombed and burned. There was no hope but still I looked back, seeing nothing in the blackened glass, not even offered my own wretched reflection to rage against.

  “It’s terrible, terrible,” a voice said from in front of me, probably several seats down. It fell apart even as the man was talking, tears breaking through and giving a raw edge to his words, cracking his breaths. “It just … it’s … those poor …” He wailed then, sending a shiver down my spine, making me want to shout at him to stop, just shut up, because I couldn’t take this now that the windows were dark. I searched for another bottle of beer, but I had only water left. The woman across the aisle hissed at me.

  “What?”

  She lobbed me one of her beer bottles. I caught it from the air and smiled at her, a pained, nervous twitch of my lips that did nothing to find its way through what was really there. She did not smile back. “Never did drink,” she said. “Just another drug.”

  I looked away embarrassed. But still I took a small sip and sat back, eyes closed, trying to cut out the crying.

  It occurred to me that so far I had only seen the woman, no one else. There could be two more or twenty more people in here, perhaps two hundred more, the seats were so large and well padded that they seemed to all but absorb any noise made by the coach’s occupants. There was the man in front of me — I could still see a wisp of his grey hair — but so far as I knew that was it. Voices, yes, but no more people.

  For the first time it struck me that this could all be for me.

  Perhaps everyone who resorted to Hell had this sort of treatment. Maybe anyone else was an actor, put here to treat me as they’d treated hundreds, maybe thousands before. Show the scenes outside, tell their stories, make me realise that I was never worse off than everyone.

  I took another swig of beer and the screaming man stopped screaming. There was a thud, like a door slamming shut or a page being turned in a heavy book, and then silence.

  The man in front sighed, and I saw a hand raise up and smooth down his wispy hair. It was old, wrinkled, calloused, the hand of a manual worker. I wondered if he worked in the inner-city farms, or the sewers, or the tunnel projects that were meant to link city to city, country to country.

  “It doesn’t matter anyway,” he said.

  I caught an whiff of burning bodies, as if a flake of scorched flesh was caught in my nostrils. “Of course it matters!” I said, wanting to shout. “Didn’t you see them? Poor bastards, poor …” I trailed off because I realised how inadequate anything I could say would sound.

  “It’s all put on for us because we’re in Hell, and that’s how they do things here,” the man said. “Ha! I can’t even see you, for all I know you’re a machine with reaction software, or just one of them.” I heard him tapping his fingers against the window, as if trying to read dark Braille there. “In fact, I’m sure you are.”

  “I’m not!” I said. “Maybe you are! Maybe everyone on this coach —”

  “Not me,” he said. “But I don’t worry or hold it against you, because what’s the capital of Syria?”

  “Huh?”

  He was silent for a couple of seconds and I saw the woman looking over, interest arching her eye
brows. I suddenly felt unreasonably good, seeing something other than fear, dread or sorrow on her face.

  “I suppose I’d have to be quicker than that to catch out reaction software, wouldn’t I?”

  “Absolutely, Sir,” I said in a slow monotone, and the woman snorted.

  Something made the coach sway slightly, and I heard a couple of coughs as people tried to ignore the sick movement in their stomachs. I glanced at the window, waiting for it to brighten again and terrified at what I would see, but it remained dark.

  I wondered where Laura was right then. It felt strange thinking of her, because it was almost certain that she wasn’t thinking of me. At most I was an invader in her memory. In a way I wished that I could forget as well, but she wasn’t in pain, wasn’t burning or being shot. I sent love to Laura, knowing she wouldn’t hear it but doing it for myself. It didn’t help, but I pretended it did.

  The windows brightened and I thought we were back. Back where I wasn’t exactly sure — somewhere deep in the Welsh mountains, perhaps — but at least our journey was at an end. The view from the window was wonderful, a mountainous rural paradise, and I sat back and smiled as the coach moved slowly through the scene.

  So come on, I thought, show us pollution or global warming or deforestation or disease or death. But the image remained pure, the trees and shrubs and flowers and grasses grew lush and healthy. Things weren’t so bad after all. There were a lot of people much more worse off than me. What this meant for them I tried not to consider, because this trip was all about me, and for the woman across the aisle it was purely about her, and so on, and so on …

  If thinking that way worked I was not about to argue.

  It was only as I noticed the shapes slung between the trees that I realised we still had some way to go. They came into focus, my breath hitched, my heart stuttered. And I knew it wasn’t a holo or a movie or an act.

  It was more than that. I knew for certain that this, all of this, was far more real than anyone could have guessed.

  I knew, because I recognised one of the shapes strung up on the barbed wire.

  Laura.

  “Laura!” I strained in my seat, fighting against the straps. I needed to press close to the window, closer to Laura, just to make sure it was her. Her hair was tangled in a knot of wire above her, arms flung out and bleeding where they were tied, legs dangling. I recognised the dress she wore … she’d first worn it on her thirteenth birthday. I’d bought it for her. Expensive. And even before the party started she spilled orange juice down it, and she started to cry because her party was spoiled. I’d told her that it was the girl, not the dress that mattered. The girl inside …

  “Laura!” I screamed again. The strap was biting into my waist as I reached for the window. The coach was moving along slowly, and other hanging figures were coming into view. Some of them were still but for the movement of birds and other carrion creatures, but most of them still moved where they hung, each movement drawing more blood or further cries or moans.

  Laura moved.

  I sat still and watched, and just as she passed out of sight behind a thick clump of trees she shifted again, her mouth falling open into a scream I heard from afar.

  “That’s Laura out there!” I shouted, having no comprehension of how this could be so, simply knowing that it was. I could no longer see her but her scream remained. “That’s Laura!”

  “Hey, I’m sure you didn’t see ”

  “Don’t tell me I don’t know my own daughter!” I shouted at the woman, and she flinched as if slapped.

  I looked back at the window and it was fading to black. The atmosphere had changed. The coach jerked slightly, as if struck from one side, and the windows flared brightly again for a couple of seconds before blacking out. They’d only let us see some of the pain and suffering out there this time, and I was sure I’d glimpsed something even worse happening ahead.

  Perhaps they didn’t like what I was saying.

  “She’s still alive,” I said, kicking out at the chair in front of me. “Hey! You! My daughter, she’s still alive on those trees. I have to get her!”

  I saw the man’s tuft of grey hair turn as he tried to lift himself to look at me, but we were too securely fastened. “It’s a holo, a make-believe. It’s not really happening. And if it is your daughter maybe she’s an actress, perhaps they paid her to act  ”

  Perhaps, I thought, but then I remembered the pain I’d seen on her face and the scream I’d heard. Laura was my daughter. I’d seen her in pain enough times — scraped knees, toothache, the broken arm when she was nine  to know that she could not have been acting.

  I wished that she had been taken away by a sect.

  I grasped at the strap around my waist and pulled. It did not budge.

  “Are you sure it was her?” the woman said.

  I nodded without looking up, still tugging at the strap, trying to find where it was buckled. I thought of Janine on her death bed, how the panic in her eyes had been for the daughter she was leaving behind, not for herself.

  I hated myself for not looking after Laura.

  There was a sighing noise from somewhere along the coach, and a few indrawn breaths. Footsteps approached along the aisle. The passengers were silent once more, and I felt a shadow approaching.

  “Positive?” the woman hissed.

  I stopped messing with the strap and looked across at her, just as a dark shape manifested between the two seats in front of us. “It was Laura,” I said.

  The thing leant down towards me. It looked like a huge beetle, with a hard shiny skin and a head twitching with several small antennae. Somewhere in there, perhaps, was a man or woman, but just then I felt as if I was looking a denizen of Hell right in the face. I’d never seen anything like this before.

  The thing clicked and clacked, reaching out one black hand and offering me the open end of a stun-gun.

  Kill me, I thought, they’ll kill me for seeing what I’ve seen …

  … or perhaps they’ll just add me to it …

  And then it flipped on its back, hands grasping at air as the woman stretched her left leg and kicked its ankle. “I reckon you’ve got maybe three seconds,” she said, crouching back in her seat as if afraid to touch the thing again.

  I looked down at where the shape was struggling on the floor. Thoughts rushed at me as I decided what to do first  Are there more of them? Does it have protection software? Is it going to kill me?  and for the half-second it took these to whirl through my head the world stood still. Its armour seemed to impede it, and when it reached out to grab my chair and haul itself up, I kicked out at its hand. The armour was as hard as metal and I gasped as pain dug through my foot.

  The thing paused, looked up at me, antennae twitching, perhaps signalling.

  I kicked again, using my heel this time, connecting squarely with the dark visor. I heard a crack and but hoped it was artificial. The thing flung one hand up as it rolled back. I reached out and grasped its wrist, twisting, feeling the armour harden under the contours of my hand, the stun-gun slipping from its grip 

  I had maybe a second left until the thing shook off its confusion and came for me.

  I kicked again, three times, aiming at the visor every time. It was constantly trying to rise, only my kicks keeping it down. I stop kicking, up it gets, I thought. So I kicked yet again, and again, glancing at the mean-looking black stun gun in my hand, trying to figure out how the hell to use it. There was a silver button and what looked like a trigger, again in silver, so I leaned over, forced the barrel end against the thing’s cracked visor and pressed both.

  The button must have been a voltage booster.

  The thing  and I really hoped there wasn’t a man or woman in there  only twitched for a second or two before it lay still, smoking.

  “What’s going on back there?” I heard someone shout, and I welcomed the distraction. Looking down would mean seeing what I had done, and I was afraid that it was a very bad th
ing. The normal stun guns carried by law enforcement were designed to do just that: stun. From the stench of hot meat I was afraid that this one had done much more.

  “I’m getting off,” I said.

  “Don’t be mad!” It was the man in the chair in front of me, still unseen, thinking he knew best.

  “My daughter’s out there,” I said, “and she’s bleeding and dying. Besides, I thought you said it was all false.” I paused, he said nothing. “I’m getting out,” I said again. Maybe I was trying to talk myself out of it.

  “If there’s one of those … things in here, there’ll be more out there. Lots more.”

  I felt around with my fingers, trying not to look because I didn’t want to see whatever damaged, dead thing lay inside the armour. I’d heard about genetic alterations, gene mutation … I’d heard about it far too much. I didn’t want to see it as well. My fingers scraped the smashed visor and I tugged free a loose piece of composite.

  “You sound like you’ve seen “ I began, but then the dead thing moved.

  It hissed, expelling a stinking breath right up into my face. And I heard a voice, soft and persuasive, deep inside my head. This was much more personal than the voice that had introduced the horrific scenes. This was not only inside my head but inside me, reaching out from places I’d forgotten or tried to forget, sounding like my poor dead Janine and my dying Laura combined … and it was telling me to sit back down.

  You don’t want to get up.

  You don’t need to get up.

  “Don’t listen to it,” the man in front said, and the injured thing at my feet growled a stinking threat up into my face, stinking and angry.

  “How do you know —” I began, but then I stamped back down on its face, feeling my boot heel striking something soft. Inside me, the soft voice grew harsh before fading away.

  “What is it?” I hissed, starting to hack at the strap around my waist with the rough-edged plastic. My own blood spotted my trousers.

  “Demon,” the man said.

  I stopped for a second and glanced up, but even his hair was out of sight. “You’re just kidding me, right?” I started sawing at the strap instead of hacking, and the heavy threads began to pop apart. The thing at my feet moved, I stamped again, and the man gave me his answer.