by Sam Kates
She strode to the stairs and started up them. She did not glance back until she had gained the landing. The others were following, Dusty in the lead, bounding up in easy lopes. He reached the landing and favoured her hand with a brief lick before sitting in front of the door. A sign similar to the one downstairs was attached to the door, but only one word: Private. Now the smell of decay was strong enough to qualify as a stench. Ceri felt her stomach lurch. She tugged at the neckline of her jumper and drew it up so that it covered the lower half of her face. She did not smell particularly pleasant—how she yearned for a long soak in a hot bath—but her own odour was far preferable to the stink emanating from the cracks around the door.
Tom offered her a half-hearted smile and took hold of the door knob. It twisted easily and, with a creak, the door swung open. Tom grimaced and pinched his nostrils between thumb and finger.
Even through the thick material of her jumper, Ceri smelled the waft of corruption and gagged on the foulness. Only through a monumental act of will did she manage to keep her breakfast down.
The interior of the room was dark. By the daylight entering through the doorway, Ceri could make out a double bed to the left, behind the door. On the wall opposite, the window was covered in thick velvet curtains.
Clutching one hand to his nose, Tom took a few steps into the room and tugged back the curtains with his free hand. Around a dozen flies took to the air, buzzing angrily. The room remained cast in darkness. Tom tore down the black plastic sheeting that had been taped to the glass and daylight flooded in, banishing the shadows.
Ceri barely noticed Peter brushing past her. Her gaze was transfixed by the bed. Two corpses occupied it, the coverlet concealing them to their chests. The one nearest Ceri had dark, thick hair. Facial skin had sunk to the bone, revealing the shape of the skull. The one furthest away had much longer, fair hair, the face rounder and fuller. The eye sockets writhed with maggots.
With an effort, Ceri tore her gaze away. Tom was reading something taped to the end of the bed. A note. Trying to breathe through her mouth, Ceri stepped to his side.
“Ceri. . . . don’t,” said Tom, but she had already tugged the note from his fingers. Bending a little, she read the tiny handwriting that covered it:
My name is Moira Watson. On the bed in front of you, my body is the one lying to your right. To your left lies the body of my husband, Craig Watson.
We are the owners of this hotel. This was the realisation of our life’s dream. But that matters naught. Not now.
When the plague—what they are jokingly calling the Millennium Bug; excuse me if I don’t laugh or even smile—reached this place, we reacted immediately. We sent home the guests and staff. We locked the front door. If anyone had come, we’d have refused to open it.
It was not enough.
If you enter the adjoining room, there you will find our children. James was 14. A keen footballer and angler. A sharp scientific mind. Kathryn was 12. An accomplished rider. Showing promise as a pianist.
Craig, the strongest, was the first to go. I was too weak even to rise from my bed to comfort my bairns in their last moments.
Instead of allowing me to follow my loved ones, God saw fit to spare me. For what design I know not and care nothing.
I am weak but the fever has passed. Why me? Why not sweet Kathryn? Or loving James? Or steadfast, loyal Craig?
My flesh can be restored. My spirit is beyond repair.
I reject God’s design.
May He have mercy on my soul.
Ceri let go of the note. She glanced to the right of the bed. Lying on its side on the bedside cabinet was a large, medicinal-looking bottle. Empty.
She looked further to the right. In the far wall was another door. She took a step towards it.
“No!” Ceri felt Tom’s hand on her arm. “Don’t go in there,” he said. “You don’t want to see them.”
A rushing sound filled Ceri’s ears. Her vision blurred. All the terror, the pain, the horror, the guilt, all the things she thought she had conquered, came gushing back to the surface.
Pushing past Tom, she ran from the room.
Chapter Ten
Bri was not overwhelmed by Buckingham Palace. She had a mental image of how a palace should look and it didn’t resemble this. Not a turret or spire in sight. She and Will stood at the railings in front of the main building, clutching them like convicts. Though the gates remained shut and locked, the grounds were dotted with corpses. Civilians in the main, but military as well in full combat fatigues and body armour. Will wanted to scale the fence to fetch one of the soldier’s guns, but Bri dragged him away.
“They’re not toys, Will. And you don’t want to get too close to those bodies. You might catch something. Not a good idea. I doubt there are any doctors left.”
Will did not protest too strongly. His trust in her appeared complete. Bri was unsure that she wanted the responsibility of being the boy’s mother substitute, but she would prefer that to not having Will around.
They strolled down The Mall to Trafalgar Square. Pigeons milled about the stone lions in the sort of copious numbers that tourists would have flocked there a month or two back. There was also a marked increase in the number of rotting corpses and, consequently, scavengers.
The bloated body of a woman floated facedown in the brown water of the fountain, hair spread out like weed.
“That water used to be blue,” said Will, pulling a face.
Bri maintained the warding aura with minimal effort. If a rat scurried in their direction, it would veer quickly away as it drew within a few feet. Dogs gazed at them mistrustfully, but did not come near. The pickings were too rich to go to the bother of attacking food that might fight back. Even the pigeons, normally unconcerned at approaching within inches of humans, gave them a wide berth.
As they walked down the wide avenue of Whitehall, past the Cenotaph, past Downing Street and to Westminster Abbey, the number of dead bodies increased so that they had to weave between them. Bri made Will pull his scarf up to cover his mouth and nose; she did the same with hers. Flies weren’t a problem—the temperature was probably a few degrees too low yet—but occasionally their passage disturbed a feasting gull or crow and it would take to the air with a startled cry, leaving behind a dusty, feathery wake that Bri did not want them inhaling.
Although many of the corpses had been ravaged by claw or fang or beak, clothing and flesh torn indiscriminately, some remained untouched. Bri noticed that the clothing worn by these corpses was similar: drab, old-fashioned, threadbare to the point of becoming ragged. String often took the place of belts. Hair on heads and on the swollen faces of the men was unkempt and sometimes thick with dirt. Empty bottles of spirits and wines with names she had never heard of lay among the bodies.
“Why are there so many, Bri?” Will asked as they walked past the Abbey. “Why didn’t they go home to bed?”
“I don’t think these people had homes, Will.”
It was as though London’s disenfranchised and destitute had at the last emerged from the deep, dank places of the city, determined to spend their final hours in the airy thoroughfares of the privileged where they had hitherto been shunned.
“I don’t like it,” said Will, clutching Bri’s hand.
“Me neither.”
They barely spared the Houses of Parliament or Big Ben a glance as they hurried by. Westminster Bridge, normally streaming with traffic and people, was dotted with corpses. Yellow-eyed gulls rose screeching at their approach, only to settle back onto their meals as soon as they had passed. Bri spotted a length of rope tied in a huge knot to the handrail, the other end disappearing from view over the side.
The London Eye stood still, as Will had predicted. The glass of one of the carousels was cracked and bore a large, dark stain as if something alive had exploded inside.
They left the bridge and descended steps to the river embankment. Bri glanced back. A ragged corpse dangled from the end of the rope she had noticed on the bridge. The dr
op had almost torn the head from the torso. It was held tight by the noose while the body swung below it in the breeze, blackened feet facing in the opposite direction. Bri could too vividly imagine the body dropping to the muddy waters of the Thames as the sinew or whatever held it at last parted. The head would follow, a rotten cabbage tumbling into a murky stew. Would it sink, she wondered, or bob to the surface like some ghastly buoy? She gulped, hard, and turned away.
By unspoken agreement, they quickened their pace. The childish glee they had experienced only hours earlier when exploring Harrods seemed to have been prompted by a different city. This city had become sinister, birds and vermin menacing rather than merely bothersome, the silent buildings’ magnificence lost beneath an air of brooding malevolence. Daylight was starting to leech from the sky, doing nothing to ease their sense of gloom.
“The cycle shop,” said Bri as they hurried south past Lambeth Palace. “Let’s go straight there. I don’t care about seeing any more sights.”
Will nodded. He shot Bri a tight smile.
When they reached the next road junction, Will turned to the left away from the river. He led them down this street then that, never hesitating about which way to go. Bri wondered how close they were passing to Will’s flat, but did not say so for fear of upsetting him again.
Once off the main tourist trails, the number of corpses they encountered thinned out dramatically. So, too, did the birds and animals, though Bri maintained the protective aura without having to think much about it, so second-nature had it become.
Darkness fell, the sort of absolute dark that can only pertain in a land without artificial lighting, relieved only by weak starlight by which they could make out large objects sufficiently not to walk into them. The temperature dropped and they were again thankful for their new clothes.
“There,” said Will as they rounded a corner. He pointed across the road. Bri found herself glancing in either direction before stepping out into the street. Old habits die hard she mused.
They stopped in front of the cycle shop. Plate glass window and a door mostly of glass. Will shook the handle.
“Locked,” he said. “But look.” He motioned to the shop next to it. “We can get in there.”
The building next door also had a glass frontage, but most of the glass lay smashed on the floor inside, glittering faintly. Beyond, the rest of the shop lay in pitch blackness.
“Damn!” Bri muttered. “We left the candles and torch behind in that house. Did you pick one up in Harrods?”
Will shook his head.
“Neither did I.” Bri wrinkled her brow in thought. A sharp twinge reminded her that the cut was still tender. “Pass me one of those mobile phones. One with a camera.”
Will frowned, but shrugged off his backpack and extracted a phone.
Bri fiddled with it for a moment, waiting for it to come on.
“Now then,” she murmured. “Let’s see. . . . yes!”
Will blinked in the sudden white light that illuminated the pavement. “Ah,” he said. “A camera with a flash. Clever girl!”
“I’m not just a pretty face,” said Bri. She glanced at the phone screen. “There’s not much charge in this battery. We’d better be quick.”
They stepped in through the broken window, Bri holding up the phone. The flashlight was bright enough to light the entire shop.
It had clearly been a chemist; it had also been ransacked. Boxes and packages lay on the floor. The secure cabinets behind the counter had been forced open and their contents removed.
“Ah,” said Bri. She reached for a pink package that stood alone on a shelf and quickly stowed it in her backpack. “Girl stuff,” she said to Will’s enquiring look. “Oh. Paracetemol. Even better.” She grabbed the two boxes of tablets that lay on the floor behind the counter. They would help keep the headache at bay for a few days.
No whiff of decay intruded above the normal sterile smells of a chemist shop. Apart from the broken glass and ravaged stock, nothing was amiss. Bri made for the back of the shop. A curtain hung there and she pulled it aside to reveal a fire door. She turned the key that protruded from the lock and pushed the door open. Beyond lay a dark, narrow corridor.
“Come on,” she said to Will, turning to the right. The door swung closed behind them. The corridor would have been cast into total darkness if not for the light from the phone. “That must be a shared toilet.” Bri indicated a door in the wall opposite. She sniffed. “Smells like there’s a corpse in there.” She stepped forward and tried the door handle. “Locked. They must have died on the loo.” She uttered a short, high-pitched giggle.
A few paces to their right was another fire door. Bri took hold of the grab handle. “Let’s hope. . . .” she said and pulled. It opened smoothly. “Phew! I thought it was going to be locked.” She glanced back at the toilet door. “I guess the person in there is the owner of this shop.” She swung the door wide and ushered Will inside, holding the phone up to light the way.
Will gasped. “Oh, wow! Bri, look at them all!”
Bri stepped into the shop behind him. She, too, gasped.
Floor-to-ceiling aluminium racks were affixed to every wall. Each rack contained a full complement of gleaming bicycles. Road bikes, mountain bikes, hybrids, they ranged from economy-priced, alloy-framed bikes to top-of-the-range, carbon-fibre racing models.
“Oh, oh, oh!” Bri squealed as a bike caught her eye. “It’s Italian. These cost thousands.” Handling it reverentially, Bri lifted the bike—easily, it had such a lightweight frame—down from the rack. For a few moments, she forgot about Will as she lost herself in wonder at such a perfect piece of machinery, adjusting the height of saddle and handlebars to fit her, itching to take it outside onto open roads.
When she remembered Will, she found him sitting astride a handsome boy’s bike.
“Ooh, nice,” she said and Will grinned. “We’d better make these backpacks a little lighter or they’ll affect our balance. Let’s open some of these tins of food. Shall we spend the night in here?”
“Okay. Bri?”
“Hmm?”
“Can we lock that door we came in through?”
* * * * *
From time to time, Tom glanced out of a window or the front door to check on Ceri. She had run from the hotel, across the lawn to the storm beach. She sat on the ridge of banked pebbles, gazing out to sea. Dusty had joined her and lay companionably by her side. Ceri’s hand rested on his head.
Tom gave her an hour before stepping outside. Dusty glanced back as he approached and his tail began to wag across the pebbles. Tom sat down the other side of him and grunted as he made himself comfortable on the hard, shifting surface.
“Glad the rain’s stopped,” he said.
Ceri nodded but did not look his way.
“Wind’s not showing much sign of letting up,” Tom continued. “Peter says it might later, though he expects it to be stormy again tomorrow.”
“Did you find your guns?” Ceri turned her head towards him. Her cheeks were flushed from the wind but dry.
“Yes. Peter found a bunch of keys in that room. Oh, we’ve locked that door and sealed the gaps with damp newspaper. We propped the front door open and the smell’s all gone.”
Ceri nodded. “What about the guns?”
“Well, one of the keys was for the office. The guns were locked in a cabinet in there. The key for that was on the ring, too. Peter was right; there are rifles and shotguns. There’s a walled garden to the side of the hotel—”
“I passed it when we were trying to find a way in.”
“There’s a firing range inside. Peter wants us to spend the afternoon in there getting used to the shotguns.”
“Okay.” She didn’t look enthusiastic. “What about food?”
“There’s tons. The kitchens were fully stocked ready for Christmas. Of course, all the fresh and frozen food has spoiled, but there’s plenty of tinned, dried and preserved stuff. And we’ve found a barbecue, a huge one,
with plenty of gas and spare bottles. We can eat like kings. So. . . .” He tailed off awkwardly.
Ceri smiled. It was pale, a little forced, but a smile nonetheless.
“You’re really not very good at this sort of thing, are you?” she said.
Tom moved his backside, trying to find a comfortable gap in the pebbles. “What d’you mean?”
“I mean that you want to ask me how I am after my little bout of hysterics when we found that family, but you don’t know how.”
“Um, I wouldn’t call them hysterics. . . .”
“Oh, they most definitely were. If I hadn’t run from the room when I did, I’d have started screaming.”
“Oh.” Again Tom shifted his backside. Of course Ceri was right. He had always been hopeless at talking about feelings. He experienced a flashback to the last conversation he’d had with his mother. On the telephone, it had been, a couple of days before he’d driven to Swansea and found her dying. He had tried to tell her that he loved her as the conversation drew to a close, but he’d hesitated and the chance had gone.
He glanced up. Ceri was watching him closely.
“Methinks I’m not the only one trying to keep painful memories under control,” she said softly. “Want to talk about it?”
“Not really. . . .” Tom tailed away again as he realised that he did, in fact, want to talk about it. Needed to. “Well,” he began, “I found my mother in bed in a coma.”
“Go on.”
So he did. He told Ceri how he’d rung for an ambulance that had never come, about his mother regaining consciousness at the end and speaking her last words, how he’d tried in vain to reach somebody who would take her body away and how he’d ended up burying her himself, wrapped in her duvet, in a hole he dug in her back garden with a shovel he stole from a neighbour’s shed. By the time he’d finished talking, his cheeks felt raw from where the wind had whipped his tears dry.
“Oh, Tom,” said Ceri. “That’s awful.” She reached across Dusty and squeezed his hand.
“But what about you?” he said. “I came out here to make sure you were all right, not to talk about myself.”