Mortal Skies
Rebecca Fernfield
Mortal Skies
Rebecca Fernfield
Redbegga Publishing
Copyright 2019 Rebecca Fernfield
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
MORTAL SKIES is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover design/illustration: Matt Seff Barnes
Created with Vellum
Contents
Also by Rebecca Fernfield
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Epilogue
A Request
Never Miss Another Book
About the Author
Also by Rebecca Fernfield
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The Kielder Strain Trilogy
The Kielder Strain
A World Torn Down series
The Road to Ruin
The Savage Road
The Outcast’s Journey
The Path to Destruction
The Route to Justice
Blackout and Burn series:
Days of Fire
Nights of Fire
Land of Fire
Town of Fire
For my family.
One
The moment Judith opened the curtains, her morning became dark. Permanently. Fired from the outer reaches of space, a dazzling display of shimmering, flaming missiles hurtled their last few metres through earth’s atmosphere before obliterating Judith’s living room. They shattered the display of white-glazed angel ornaments that had been so carefully collected, dusted, and admired for more than thirty years; seared the luxurious ‘one-hundred-percent wool’ carpet, with extra-thick underlay, that Judith religiously hoovered before nine am, and rendered Judith herself a shower of carbon particles that rose into the atmosphere then floated and eddied on the wind. Later, they would settle on a becalmed sea, and sink, with gentle certainty, to the bottom of a deep trough, adding yet another layer to the ancient sediment. That morning, Judith only had time to widen her eyes in uncomprehending surprise.
The impact shook the entire building, waking its residents, leaving a wide gouge through its fortieth floor, before bursting through the other side several floors below. The meteor’s steeply angled trajectory took out Mr Raymond Michaels on the thirty-ninth as he brushed his teeth and noticed yet another grey hair in his beard, along with Jenny and Patrick O’Connell on the thirty-eighth as they celebrated their twelfth wedding anniversary with a ‘cheeky quickie’, as Patrick would have described it, and also Kelly Anderson, her unborn child, and snappy, leg-biting Papillon puppy, Kulture, on the thirty-seventh.
Their deaths, Nate is relieved to hear as he dresses for work, were instantaneous, their bodies obliterated by the fierce heat and impact of the meteor, their bodies shredded to mere particles within seconds, presumably becoming as one with the rubble and dust. The news piece continues, as Nate pulls on his trousers, to show an image of the destroyed London tower block, then flicks back to a video of a man jumping from the still intact, but burning, forty-seventh floor. Nate flinches as the man hurtles through the air, but buckles his belt before reaching for his tie.
“Josh!” He bellows the word, his patience wearing thin; his shift starts within the hour, and he still has to deliver the boy to the babysitter, make sure his bag is packed, and his schoolbag ready for morning, when Nate will make a mad dash across town to get him to school on time. The thought makes him weary. “Josh!” The boy doesn’t answer and the glimpse of Melanie’s pink nightgown still hanging behind the door brings with it a deep and grinding ache to his guts. Damned woman. Damned, scheming, deceitful-
“What?”
Nate straightens, glad of the interruption to his silent rant; he has spent far too much time ruminating on the lies his soon-to-be ex-wife had told him in the months – perhaps it was years! – before the final catastrophic meltdown that had been the end of their marriage.
Giving his tie a final tug, he returns his son’s disgruntled shout. “Are you ready? Katy will be waiting.” Katy! What a Godsend!
“Why can’t she come here?” The shout is sulking and twists at Nate’s gut; the boy shouldn’t have to put up with this, but he’s old enough to know how it is, old enough to appreciate how tough life is for Nate. He pulls a comb through his hair, scraping at his scalp just a little too hard, and clenching his jaw. “It’s just for tonight. She’s looking after Justin, so she can’t come here.”
“Why can’t you change shift then?”
Nate grits his teeth, takes a breath to ease the tension; he doesn’t want to shout at the boy, doesn’t want a repeat of yesterday.
The news changes to a different story, another piece on the crime wave in London that had passed tipping point in the last day; a flow of riot vans moving through a city street, smoke, images of police closing in on a man, machete in hand. Another day, another terrorist doing what terrorists do, terrorise! The police taser a different man and move in to cuff his hands – good lads – the video shifts to someone running. He watches in horror as another group of men – what the hell! – and women, sprint towards the police. All armed, their faces blurred by the shaking hand of the camera, they bear down on the officers and begin to—the video feed stops and the news piece returns to the studio where the presenter is interviewing Dr Raymond Boyle, an academic they’ve managed to convince to speak on the daily, and seemingly relentless, increase in urban violence. He twitches, and fiddles with his tie as the presenter addresses him. The noise of Josh clattering down the stairs is a background to the grey man and his droning voice. The usual suspects are pulled out: reduction in police numbers, no convictions in nine out of ten cases, urban decay, leniency of judicial sentences, social tensions aggravated by an inadequate immigration policy, slum conditions—a community on the brink. He’s heard it all before, agrees with some of it, but the level of violence he’s just witnessed, along with the videos and stories his colleagues had recoiled from over the past couple of days, they were something that just didn’t fit that narrative. His gut gripes, and the screen grows black, cutting off yet another citizen journalist’s video of yet another brutal attack that had taken place only last night.
He takes his jacket from its hanger and makes his way downstairs. Josh’s stance is t
ypical; rounded shoulders, head bent with overly-long fringe hanging over his eyes, ear-plugs pinned into middle ears that will soon discover tinnitus if he doesn’t listen to Dad’s warnings, and thumb scrolling eternally on his damned phone. “You ready?” Nate asks, pulling his overcoat from the hook. The boy doesn’t respond. For crying out loud! “Josh!” He tugs at the boy’s elbow. A pair of startled eyes stare into his own, and a hand grasps for a white wire, pulling the earplug from his ear; tinny music spills into the hallway.
Josh’s irritated ‘What?’ is accompanied by a frown.
“Enough of that, lad!” A fraction of remorse flicks in Josh’s eyes. “Are you ready?”
“Yes!”
Nate notices the backpack on Josh’s back with relief. “It’s only for tonight. I’ve got four day’s leave after this shift.”
Josh grunts.
“We can take the bike up to the moors … if you like.”
Another grunt, but this time there’s the curl of a smile on Josh’s lips.
“We can get brekkie at Top Road café.”
The smile curls up.
“Full English.”
The smile broadens. “Sure, whatever.”
The tension across Nate’s chest eases and he can’t help a smile as he pats his teenage son on the back and urges him to leave the house.
Two
The clack of Ellie’s heels taps a regular, hurried beat, along the resin floor. She gives the janitor, a pimpled youth with an unfortunately narrow and large nose dotted with blackheads, a cursory glance as he steps out of the ladies’ toilet cubicle, squirty bottle and paper towel in hand. A pang of guilt as their eyes meet, and she gives him a quick smile, before rolling her compact suitcase across the tiles to the cubicle marked as vacant. Poor sod, cleaning toilets! But somebody has to do it, and he is working, earning a crust, which is more than can be said for the teenagers so many of her colleagues seemed to be moulding into overly-privileged, permanently dissatisfied and offended, idle layabouts - good-for-nothing spoilt brats is what her father would have called them, and if this year’s cohort of interns were anything to go by, he would have been right.
Thankful for the cleanliness of the toilet, she parks the suitcase, and relieves herself, checking the time yet again. The boarding gate will be open in exactly … three minutes and forty-two seconds. She finishes, washes her hands twice at the basin, checks her reflection for creases, lint, and any other sign of imperfection, and hurries back into the airport’s departure lounge.
She checks her mobile. Still nothing from Leon. He hasn’t messaged her since five pm, and that had only been a quick reply, a ‘Love you too, babe. Have a good one. Xxx’. Gone were the days when he’d message her with X-rated missives that made the blood rise in her cheeks and an ache spread between her legs. She sighs. Perhaps she was expecting too much? Oh, hell! Was she being too needy? Had she turned into an ‘attention whore’? Pete’s words, not hers. An unconscious smile slips onto her lips despite the stab of pain Pete’s memory brings.
Striding across the departure lounge, she searches the information board. Which gate? Please not number six. The memory pricks; Gate 6, the one they’d left through for their final holiday together. The sudden sting of emotion brings an unwanted tear to her eye. Please not the same gate. Don’t’ worry, it won’t be. It’s a different airline. Knowing your luck, it will be. Stay in control, calm down; this is not the place to start blubbering. Seven years on, and he still has the power to wrench her heart. Damn you, Pete! She dabs at the tear, pushes down the emotion. Damn you for dying. She takes a large breath to ease the tension of grief, and love, and absolute desolation that his memory brings, and steps in front of the board. ‘NAPLES. GATE 9. NOW BOARDING’. A shoulder barges into hers, she teeters, but keeps her balance. Expletives are grumbled to her right. A woman, gawping at the board, pushes through the crowd. A white mist envelops her head, and billows over the crowd. Damned vapes! If it was no smoking in here, it should be no vaping too. Deep among the cluster of people, a man shouts, and another responds with an aggressive, ‘Watch it!’
Ellie feels a familiar stab of panic; she’ll be late, it’s a long way to the boarding gate from the departure lounge, and she has to find the train first! ‘Calm down. You’ve got plenty of time. The train will get you there. It all runs like clockwork here; they make sure you’ve got time to get there.’ Pete’s words ring in her ears. He’d always been able to soothe her nerves, placate her need to be in control, and on time. She hates being late. The imprint of countless school registrations missed, of walking into the classroom to the disapproving glare of Mrs Butcher, or Mr Claremont, or Miss Storey still strong. It had always been the same: an initial jovial acceptance at the start of the year as she’d mumble ‘Sorry’. She’d grip the door handle, heart pounding, and take hesitant steps into the room as twenty pairs of eyes looked up. The smile would be replaced by a frown and dismissive pinching of lips as the days late became weeks then months. It was a relentless flow of daily disapproval until she’d been old enough to get herself ready, and make her own way to school.
Pushing the elongated suitcase handle down, it locks with a click. She lifts the case, carrying it with hurried steps along the wide corridor to the station. As she arrives, the train is already at the platform, a throng of people waiting at its closed doors, the shoulder-barging woman, and her wisp of twirling smoke, at the front. Behind Ellie, more shouts. Jolted from her consuming thoughts by a yelp, she looks back. What the hell is going on? In the distance a security guard, walkie-talkie at his ear, runs through the crowd. Travellers move out of his way, unconcerned. Some twist to look, then continue forward. The crowd waiting for the train throngs, the white mist swirling around their heads, and the doors swish to open. Ellie steps into the carriage to a background of angry shouts and a high-pitched scream from the departure lounge.
“Someone’s having a bad day!” A woman, yellow raincoat tied with precision at her waist, bright red lipstick sitting perfectly on bowed lips, flicks curls off her shoulders. “They’d better not hold up the plane.”
“Probably a shoplifter.”
Muttered agreement from her companions and the carriage grows quiet as the train pulls out from the station. A spark of instant envy as Ellie takes in the woman’s vivacity, her bouncing chestnut locks, the brightness of her yellow raincoat so neatly belted at the waist, the gleaming lipstick on full lips. Ellie in her dark, serious suit, and auburn hair cut into a controlled and frumpish bob, seems dull in comparison, is dull in comparison. She yearns for the woman’s freedom of just being, that zest and vitality that comes from knowing that you’re liked.
The woman pushed from her thoughts, Ellie sits down with relief, back straight, suitcase between her knees, and checks her mobile once more. Zero new messages. She slides a thumb across the screen. It opens to a photograph of Odin, the pure white Norwegian Forest cat she’d paid five hundred pounds for, though she would have paid double. The creature was exquisite, a perfect example of its breed, a fantastic stud that had already earned her more money than she’d paid for him. She clicks on the icon for her home security cameras, just a peek to see what Odin is doing, to check that Emily has fed him as instructed.
The image of her living room pops into view. Empty; just as she’d left it this morning. She clicks through to the kitchen. The swish of Odin’s tail as he struts out of the room goes unnoticed as she zooms in on the figures in her kitchen. Emily, her bleached blonde hair a bright grey in the black and white video feed, has her back to the camera, her arms draped around a man’s shoulders, her hips – Ellie frowns – her naked hips, arse crack black in the image, are wrapped around a man’s thighs, her mouth on his, his face obscured, trousers around his ankles. Cheeky bitch! “That’s my kitchen!” The words escape before she has a chance to pull them back. Ring the house phone! That’ll teach her! Ellie slides her thumb to pull up the screen, but before she has a chance to click ‘CALL’ the pair turn, the man lifting Emily onto Ell
ie’s perfectly polished, ‘Sparkling Midnight’, faux-granite island. For a fraction of a second, before he begins thrusting into Ellie with forceful enthusiasm, his face is in full view.
“Bastard!” The word erupts as a shout. Someone titters, a woman tuts, the other passengers ignore her outburst, eyes focused on mobile screens or gaming devices. A quick glance up, her cheeks stinging as a disapproving glare meets her gaze, and she checks back down to the screen. Leon is hammering at Emily now, her head thrown back, mouth open in silent pleasure, arse knocking against Ellie’s fruit basket. The woven bowl tips, spilling its load of carefully stacked mandarins. They roll across the counter’s dark and shining surface and disappear over the edge. The bastard! The goddamned fucking bastard. She clicks the phone to off, unable to watch the betrayal playing out in her kitchen, her head reeling. The bitch! Emily is her friend! Was her friend! No wonder Leon had become distant of late. How long has he been shagging her? Could be months! She slumps back in her seat, eyes closed, the scene in the kitchen still playing out in her mind. Idiot! You stupid, stupid idiot. Through her confusion, angry voices begin to chunter, a man and woman bickering. She shuts out the noise and waits for the train to reach its destination. There’s nothing she can do, no way she can turn back and confront them; she has to turn up for the meeting tomorrow, fully alert and in charge, and Odin has to be fed. She can’t risk Emily not turning up to feed him, but once she gets back from Naples, there will be hell to pay. Fuck him. Fuck her. There is no way she is going to let them hurt her. Good riddance to bad rubbish. She’s been through worse. She swallows down the lump in her throat, winces at its pain, and stands, grabbing the handrail as the train slows to a stop, tears pricking her eyes.
Mortal Skies: A Post Apocalyptic Sci Fi Horror Novel Page 1