Plague World

by Alex Scarrow

  You entirely sure?

  She only had Grace’s word for that. Freya’s infection had been slow and stealthy – more to the point, in complete isolation. She wondered if the virus inside her was making assurances it couldn’t guarantee. What if the rest of the virus had a very different opinion about her? What if the scuttlers decided they were just meat to be chopped up and digested?

  She tossed that thought to one side. Grace had been so clear; preservation where possible was a core instinct, a cornerstone of the virus’s behaviour, its purpose.

  Freya? Grace’s voice. Don’t be a threat to Them. Trust Them. Trust me.

  ‘I’m not sure I can do this,’ said Tom. ‘You know, I’ve got a pretty well-developed fight-or-get-the-hell-away reflex.’

  ‘All the old army training?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Do you want to see Grace again?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you want to see Leon again?’

  Now here she was, making a promise she couldn’t guarantee. Leon. By now the virus must have found him. But had he surrendered? Or had he run? Or worse . . . taken his own life before it had reached him?

  ‘God, yes. Leon? More than anything.’

  ‘Then give me your gun.’

  Tom looked down at the side arm tucked into his belt. ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘Throw it away.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘No gun, no threat. When They come, we lie down and let them know we’re OK with Them.’

  The last stain of daylight was fading fast and she saw floodlights from the various logjammed ships in the bay switching on, their sharp beams crossing each other, the water churning and boiling around them. She sensed all was not going well for their escape attempt, that the virus had figured out a way to scale their sheer metal hulls.

  ‘Shit,’ muttered Tom.

  CHAPTER 46

  The marine sergeant poked his head through the doorway and glanced in both directions down the passageway. ‘The way ahead’s clear, sir.’

  Trent had insisted on hearing the helicopter’s engines starting up and the blades turning before he committed to making a run for the roof. He wasn’t going up there to wait in the open for some dull-witted pilot to go through a pretake-off checklist.

  The two marines beckoned to him that it was time to go, and as Trent left his luxurious presidential office he glanced quickly back at its grandeur with a hint of regret. If there’d been more navy, army, air force – more nukes – at his disposal, he was sure he could have commanded the great ‘take back’ of Planet Earth from there.

  They hurried down the passage. Red lights were flashing on the walls and warning fire bells blasted his eardrums as he ran past them. He could hear the rattle of gunfire echoing from the other buildings around the courtyard, voices raised in alarm and panic. Less than an hour after the nuclear detonations had been confirmed, the virus had arrived on the island, emerging from beaches and coves all the way along the northern coast.

  He was certain that had been the virus’s intention all along. In which case, he was glad he’d fired those three nukes.

  ‘Which way now, Sergeant?’

  ‘We’re turning left up ahead and then we’ll see the emergency exit that leads out on to the roof, sir.’

  ‘Good. Lead on.’

  The passage had doors open wide on both sides that led on to the public radio broadcasting suite and telephone system monitoring stations.

  Of course this morning’s pre-emptive strike had been the right move. The pilots had reported a huge structure coming their way. What the hell was he supposed to do? Give up? Broadcast to everyone to make their peace with God?

  He’d made the call. A very calm and logical one; they had a clear and vulnerable target sitting out there, and the means of taking it out.

  This isn’t my fault. I did the smart thing!

  The marine sergeant in front of him held out his hand to bring them both to a halt. He peeked round the corner then looked back at them. ‘Gonna go check ahead. Stay here!’ he bellowed above the shrill blast of the fire bells.

  I did what I thought was for the best, for Chrissakes!

  The sergeant disappeared around the corner, leaving Trent and the marine private with the deafening ringing coming from a speaker on the wall above and the flashing red lights along the low ceiling.

  The marine looked quickly back at him. ‘Stay down.’

  Trent nodded, holding back an urge to reproach him for forgetting to add the ‘sir’.

  You gonna let that go, amigo? Let a lowly pissant grunt disrespect you like that?

  Trent’s wandering mind was jerked back by the loud, echoing rattle of gunfire. The dimly lit walls flickered back staccato images of the sergeant’s silhouetted figure from round the corner. A moment later he heard the man scream, another couple of shots, both projecting a haunting shadow image on the corner walls: a man down on his back, a hand held up defensively, something spindly, tall, with many legs and appendages rearing up to deliver a fatal blow.

  ‘Back! Back! Back!’ yelled the private. He swung round and shoved Trent hard with a clenched fist to his chest to get him reversing the way they’d come. He staggered backwards, nearly falling over.

  ‘What the fu—!’

  The way they’d come only moments ago was blocked. The private let rip with half a dozen rounds right over Trent’s shoulder. The nearest creature exploded, showering them both with shards of chitin armour and dabs of sticky gunk. Trent fell backwards on to his ass; his peripheral vision registered another half a dozen flickers of gunfire just above his head.

  Another creature, its body the size of a basketball, with spider-thin legs that lifted it up to the height of a man’s head, lurched backwards from the impact of the rounds, spattering the floor, the walls and Trent’s crisp, expensive white shirt with more strings of gore.

  Behind the creature, filling the passage as they spilled out of an open doorway like toothpaste out of a tube, came more and more of them. The marine stepped over Trent and continued to fire shorter bursts as he advanced several steps towards them.

  Finally he was out of ammo. The gun was tossed aside as he reached with the other hand for his side arm. He wrenched it out of its holster, and just as Trent thought he was going to fight on until the last round he turned it on himself.

  One flicker of muzzle flash and he dropped heavily, boots sliding in the gore on the worn carpeted floor.

  Trent was alone . . .

  And the creatures advanced slowly towards him. He felt himself let go, the warmth running down his leg, and he was vaguely aware that the shrill sound filling the corridor was his own screaming voice.

  His eyes widened as he caught the glint of the flashing red light on the serrated blades, the barbed spines, the lobster-like claws.

  ‘NO!’ His shoes scuffed and skidded in the blood as he tried to shuffle backwards. The nearest creature began to raise its body high on its thin legs as it drew closer.

  The creature had a pair of pincers – a powerful-looking cutting implement, industrial secateurs that jarred open like a spring-powered trap, ready to close again.

  On him.

  CHAPTER 47

  Freya gazed up at the night sky.

  It was completely dark. The sparsely placed old fizzing street lamps had winked out an hour ago as the power failed, leaving Havana illuminated only by fires dotted across the city, taking a steady hold in the absence of any firefighters.

  Above, she could see stars. It was a clear sky, a perfect tropical night, if a little chillier than one would expect from a country like Cuba. But then, of course, everywhere was colder these days. She’d overheard someone in the warehouse theorizing that the complete absence of human activity and ALL of the world’s animal life would explain the radical drop in global temperature. She vaguely recalled from her school days that 1.5 billion farting cows added up to a third of the world’s methane emissions, so that kind of made sense.
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br />   The distant sounds of gunshots had died away. There were no more signs of life in the city. Every now and then she heard a scream come from the stepped hillside of fancy houses and private gardens, the virus working its way systematically out into the suburbs.

  Towards them.

  She panned her torch out through the windscreen at the gravel of the lay-by. No sign of them here just yet. She snapped it off and settled back in her seat. Mr Friedmann was beside her, silent. He’d withdrawn into himself. She wondered if he was the praying type.

  Will I be safe, Grace?

  You will, Freya. I promise.

  But you said the snarks are just dumb-ass ‘machines’.

  They are, but they know blood chemistry. They know ‘friendlies’ when they taste them.

  I don’t want to end up as crab food!

  You won’t.

  She gazed at the logjam of ships in the distant harbour. One of them seemed to be burning. Shafts of light from another’s floodlights swept the water around it.

  This is happening everywhere, isn’t it, Grace?

  I think so. Everywhere.

  They’re finishing us off?

  Finishing what They came to do, Freya.

  ‘Saving’ us all, right?

  Grace didn’t reply immediately. Saving those They can.

  And Leon?

  The pause was even longer. We will soon pass inside. Then we can try and find out if Leon’s with us.

  ‘Freya!’ Mr Friedmann jerked forward in his seat, snatched the torch from her hand and panned the beam out through the windscreen. ‘Shit! Look!’

  She sat forward in her seat and stared at the ground where the beam of light rested. A carpet of tiny pale crabs was emerging from the undergrowth on to the gravel of the lay-by.

  ‘They’re here!’ he hissed.

  ‘OK,’ she whispered, aware that her heart was suddenly pounding in her chest. ‘We need to stay calm.’

  The carpet of creatures slowly inched towards them, a glinting, gleaming tideline of scouting virals, like army ants on the march across a jungle floor.

  ‘Grace says we should step outside and—’

  ‘No way. No goddamn way!’

  ‘And lie down.’

  ‘No. No. Shit!’ He glanced quickly at her. ‘I can’t. I can’t just . . .’

  Just then, something drifted into the beam of the torchlight. A solitary fluffy snowflake see-sawing lazily down until it settled lightly on the bonnet of the jeep. Then there was another. And another.

  ‘It’s snowing,’ he whispered. ‘Virus flakes.’

  The gentle flakes reminded her of that night so long ago. She’d been in her bedroom looking out of the window at the flakes descending on her cul-de-sac in King’s Lynn, knowing that however much it looked like a white Christmas come early it was death descending.

  ‘Grace says that’s a good sign.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘These flakes are made for infecting.’

  She reached for the door handle.

  ‘Freya!’ Tom grabbed her arm. ‘What the hell are you doing?’

  ‘It’s time.’ She tried to prise his fingers off her. ‘Look . . . Grace is right. The snowflakes are a safer option. Safer than the snarks.’

  He gazed wide-eyed at the slowly advancing blanket of glinting shellac. ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Come on. We have to!’

  He shook his head. ‘It’s suicide.’

  ‘No. It’s not.’ She twisted the handle and the door lock disengaged with a dull clunk. ‘If we stay inside this jeep – if the snarks have to smash their way in – it will be.’

  She saw him glance at the gun sitting on the dash. ‘Really? You’re thinking of doing that?’

  He breathed deeply in and out, through his nose. His eyes remaining on the gun.

  ‘I want to go look for Leon. How about you, Mr Friedmann?’

  He didn’t answer, but he let go of her wrist.

  ‘Are you coming?’

  He shook his head. ‘This is . . . completely insane!’

  ‘I’ll go first,’ she replied. She offered him a reassuring smile. ‘Show you it’s gonna be OK.’ She opened the door, stepped out on to the gravel and held out her hands.

  ‘It is gonna be OK, right, Grace?’ she whispered.

  Yes. Once it enters your main arterial system, it will ‘know’ you.

  A single flake settled on to her palm and began to ‘melt’, breaking down into a small droplet of thick syrup. She gazed down at it.

  ‘What’s happening? Freya? Talk to me!’

  ‘It’s just saying hello,’ she replied.

  The droplet began to grow fine pale threads across her palm, exploring its new terrain, millimetre by millimetre. She could feel her skin tickling where the droplet sat, and knew another thread was growing downwards, into her, overpowering skin cells and rendering them a compliant, malleable material.

  Meanwhile, the crabs had come to a halt just short of the vehicle, fanning out, spreading around it as their hair-thin antennae twitched like cat’s whiskers.

  ‘Freya?’

  ‘It’s OK,’ she answered him. ‘It’s gonna be OK.’

  ‘I . . . I’m not ready to do this!’ he barked.

  She turned to look at him through the open passenger-side door. ‘You have to.’

  ‘Dammit! I can’t!’

  She could see his chest heaving. He was hyperventilating in there. Terrified.

  ‘It’s OK. I’m scared too.’

  It’ll be fine. Tell Dad . . . it’ll be just fine. I’m waiting right here for him.

  Freya stared at the reddening skin of her palm, already beginning to soften into a gel-like substance. ‘Grace is waiting for you, Mr Friedmann.’

  ‘Really?’

  Freya nodded. ‘I promise.’

  Just then she heard a skittering sound from across the road. She turned to see larger creatures emerging from the gloom, similar to the ones she and Leon had encountered in the Oxford overpass, the size of small dogs. She wondered if there were even larger ones out there beyond the reach of their torch, waiting patiently to determine how this encounter with survivors was going to go.

  Tom turned the jeep’s headlights on and her suspicion was confirmed. Further down the road, they stood there on spindly legs, bobbing and swaying gently, ready to charge forward and tear to pieces anything that presented a threat.

  ‘Shit! Shit!’ hissed Mr Friedmann. He snatched the gun off the dash.

  ‘No!’ she whispered. ‘Don’t fire it! Please! Don’t!’

  He had it gripped tightly in both hands, the aim wavering and undecided between the gathered creatures outside and himself.

  ‘You pull the trigger,’ she hissed, ‘and it’s over for you either way. Maybe me too!’

  A trickle of dark brown liquid rolled out from her clenched fist and down on to the pale skin of her wrist and forearm. ‘This isn’t the end, Mr Friedmann. It’s a change! That’s all!’

  She watched him agonizing over his decision, his lips drawn back, teeth clenched, the barrel of the gun arcing between himself and the open window like the pendulum of a clock.

  A small string of liquidized skin began to sag from the heel of her thumb.

  ‘Grace is begging!’ she whispered. ‘She’s begging you. I’m begging you . . . Please, don’t!’

  Freya sensed the invasion of the virus in her blood stream. She could feel a reassuring warmth spreading throughout her body. Grace was no longer whispering. She imagined Grace had other things to do . . . Perhaps somewhere deep inside her body a simple parley was taking place – Grace explaining to the invaders that this body was already taken.

  ‘Freya! I’ve got to go now. I’m gonna get out of here!’

  ‘Don’t . . .’ She felt light-headed now. Freya could feel herself beginning to slide into that warm bath. Felt the world drawing back from her. She tried to plead with him again, vaguely aware that her words were slurring like they used to, that the strength was
ebbing out of her legs. That she really needed to sit down.

  She slumped to her knees. ‘Please don’t . . .’ she pleaded again. ‘Please, put the gun down, come out here . . . join me . . .’

  The world around her felt like a cinema screen shrinking in size, receding, leaving her with the sensation of floating in a dark and empty auditorium. She settled back until she could feel the coarse bite of the stones against her shoulders.

  Now she was seeing stars, and tumbling snowflakes glowing brilliantly as they descended through the headlight beams towards her. There was something so beautiful about how elegantly they danced.

  She heard something moving, the whine of unoiled hinges, the rasp of footsteps on gravel. She was dimly aware of something flickering across the headlight beams, then of his face appearing, looking down at her. So far away, as if he was looking over the lip of a well and she was at the bottom staring up.

  ‘Please . . . don’t . . .’ she whispered, aware that her voice was changing somehow, weakening, becoming softer, becoming someone else’s.

  ‘Please . . . don’t . . . die . . . Dad . . .’

  The world was a dwindling round window, shrinking, shrinking, the soft hiss of the trees, the skitter of spindle-thin legs shifting impatiently, her own laboured breathing; the world slipping away and becoming increasingly irrelevant.

  Fading fast. Fading. Fading.

  Then her window on this world was finally gone. Darkness. She knew They had control of her eyes and her optic nerves now. But not her ears. Not yet.

  She could still hear Mr Friedmann’s panting breath.

  ‘. . . Please . . .’ she slurred. Her lips felt numb, ungainly, cumbersome, making her sound stupid.

  ‘. . . Please . . .’

  Her ears began to fill with the dull roar of internal traffic, the superhighway of cells racing through an arterial motorway system. A city alive in rush hour.

  The last of the old world was leaving her. Or she was leaving it.

  She thought she could feel some movement beside her.

  Then a male voice. Mr Friedmann’s voice. His words were indistinct. Muffled. He no longer sounded frantic or frightened.

  Just resigned. And – as the last portions of her mind fought to hold on and understand what was happening out there – she thought she could just about work out what he’d said.