“What are you going to do when that whisky runs out?” asked The Preacher.
“That’s the big question, isn’t it? But tell you what, you can let me worry about it.”
“Couldn’t you just help us a little bit?” asked The Woman, her tearful blue eyes meeting his. It was the first time he’d looked into a pair of eyes for what felt like an aeon. He’d kind of lost his taste for them. “There’s a lot to do, and you’re the strongest of us.”
McGrigor looked away. “You’ll manage. If The Preacher is right, this mountain air is so bracing you’ll have all the strength and energy you’ll want in no time.”
“Come on, my dear,” said The Preacher. He wound his arm around her shoulders and pulled her to her feet. “Come on, my dear; let’s leave him now.”
The Woman continued to stare at McGrigor, and he continued to stare away.
With one arm holding The Woman, The Preacher leant down and cupped his hand around The Kid’s jaw. The Kid just stared ahead, seemingly unaware of anything around him.
“Come on then, young man,” said The Preacher. “You can still be helpful. Yes you can. Let’s go outside now, get us some firewood. Don’t worry, Andrew, I know how dreadful it’s been for you, I know how awful it’s been for all of us. But it’s going to get better from now. I promise.”
The Kid staggered up, and McGrigor felt sorry for him – the poor bastard was little more than a zombie.
As the low sun blessed them all, the noise of work began. McGrigor heard The Preacher give his instructions again, and then there was a silent interlude before the sound of lovely hard work beginning. McGrigor guessed The Preacher was sharpening the axe – using stones and swinging the blade back and fore against them. He even heard The Preacher whistling and knew it was entirely for effect; the idiot just wanted to show what a good worker he was, how enjoyable the whole business of labor could be.
McGrigor wondered if anyone else could hear him, and then wondered how far behind the cottage those bushes were. Maybe The Woman was just out of his sight and The Preacher was once again pretending it was just the two of them in a countryside idyll.
Eventually McGrigor straightened his limbs and made it out of the cottage, sitting on the doorstep with the sun’s rays upon him. Of course, in his right hand was a sensible daytime draw of whisky.
He squinted at the view. He hadn’t realised how far up they’d come, how far they’d removed themselves from the city. It was a grey, amorphous mass in the distance. The Preacher had promised to take them away from it.
It wasn’t going to save them, though.
The Preacher had managed to snap The Kid into something resembling work. He slowly bent down and picked up dry twigs and branches and made a neat little pile. He still stared vaguely though, he still looked like he had no comprehension of the world around him. McGrigor heard The Preacher, still sharpening the axe, the repeated sound of metal against rock. The Woman came round the corner. She held the frayed hem of her T-shirt in front of her – a tray for her collected berries – and she hesitated when she saw McGrigor. She stumbled a little, bit her lip, and then perched down next to him.
“Hi,” she said. “Are these berries edible?”
He looked at them, a collection of reds, oranges and greens. “I’ve no idea. I’m not what you’d call a berry man.”
“Oh,” she said.
“Don’t worry, The Preacher will know.”
“Is he a preacher?”
McGrigor shrugged and smiled.
The scream was revolting. They’d heard similar screams, but somehow up here it was much worse. They’d got used to that sound in the city – from friends, loved ones, strangers at the distance – but up here it echoed, up here it was only the scream and a void.
The Kid convulsed in agony. Blood spurted from his eyes and mouth, and he screamed as if his tongue were being ripped loose. His arms and hands writhed at his side, and blood dripped down from his fingernails.
The feet were first to go. The feet were always first to go. He screamed as his toes and heels broke through his skin and attached themselves to the ground. He staggered as the blood spurted from his soles, but he couldn’t fall – he was spiked to the ground by his own skeleton. He tried to pull away, to raise his feet up before they took hold, to snap himself off at the ankles – but he was stuck, caught in agony, and he cried out in desperation.
The bones in his feet took firm hold of the ground beneath him, and then his flesh started to break apart. His shins first, ripping out of the skin and muscle of his legs. The blood sprayed off, both red and green. The shin-bone gleamed in the sunlight, the white of the bone tainted by a plant-like hue. His arms went next, the bones forcing themselves up so that the blood and flesh dropped to the stone below.
The convulsions were extreme, his hips and waist shaking themselves free of flesh – his stomach and colon slipping down as if slurry. They splattered to the ground, rotting almost instantly in the sun. He screamed again, a gargle – as he was now without tongue. What had once been his heart, what had once beat and kept him alive, now burst from his chest. Moments before it had been the centre of a human being, now it looked like long forgotten carrion.
Only the head remained, the final hint of humanity on a twisted skeleton. The skin and tendons and veins and muscles were all torn away at the neck, the face showered and smothered in blood. But despite the tortured expression of terror and pain, The Kid was still recognisable. His eyes still wide.
His head spasmed. Its head spasmed. It rocked back and fore, jerked violently, tried to free itself from the encumbrance of flesh. The rigid skeleton stood transfixed; in a strong wind it would only bend slightly. The head contorted, blood and flesh flew from it, red and green globules thrown through the air, removing the last taint of man.
It only took a moment, but it seemed so much longer because of the sound. Somewhere in that husk of a head was still a larynx, and The Kid screamed – hoping for someone to save him, for the pain to end.
It didn’t last long. Every sinew fell away, and all that was left was a distorted skeleton, a dark artist’s terrible representation of a bare human being, a green twisted sketch of a man rooted to the ground, the eyeballs hanging in their sockets as two shiny flowers.
“No!” screamed The Preacher. He charged forward, the axe above his head, the blade glinting in the sunlight.
The Woman got up, spilling her berries, eager to help. McGrigor grabbed her arm and threw her back, flung her through the doorway to the cottage. She gave a scream and a thud as she hit the floor.
The Preacher made it to what had been The Kid and almost slipped on his blood. He steadied himself – his look of anguish visible from the cottage – and took a swing.
The skeleton was tough; you couldn’t just break it with a swing of an axe. You could pierce it maybe, but you weren’t going to fracture the bone. It shook a little at the blow, but didn’t really move. The flower eyes swung from side to side, staring at The Preacher with cold accusation.
The Preacher tried again, swinging at the leg. This time the handle of the old, neglected, damp axe snapped, and the blade spun away. The skeleton stood, while The Preacher fell to his face on the blood and flesh splattered rock.
McGrigor stepped inside the cottage and looked at The Woman. He shut the door behind them, bolting it as securely as he could.
It started six weeks earlier – people just began to change. A few changed, and then all in their vicinity changed, and soon it was clear that everyone was sick. While there was still a media – when there were still enough people alive to run newspapers and television and the internet – various theories were put forward. Pundits said it was a virus from outer space, that it was a chemical weapon leaked from one of the world’s more aggressive regimes, that it was a sudden step in evolution.
It didn’t really matter, all that mattered was that millions of people were dying, sprouting into these terrible plants.
The Preacher raised himself
on slippery fingers, wailing skywards at the horror of it all. He looked at the cottage, and his wail stopped, his righteous fury as to what was happening in the world choked by his immediate fury. He staggered forward, getting his balance, his shirt smothered by what had once been The Kid.
McGrigor grabbed one of the empty bottles and rammed it into the wall – breaking it. He heard The Preacher yelling at him, yelling at them – some garbled rant as he charged towards the cottage.
“What are you doing?” asked The Woman.
“It’s in all of us,” said McGrigor, his eyes not leaving The Preacher. “It’s already there inside us; it’s just a question of when. But if you go near one of those things, if you break it – say with an axe – then it gives off a spray, an invisible scent that speeds up your own change. If you roll around in that thing’s blood, that also accelerates your transformation. That bastard Preacher is so stupid he’s managed to do both. He’ll be gone by morning, and I’m not having him in here when he does.”
The Preacher raced towards them.
“What are you doing?” he yelled. “What are you doing to me? You can’t leave me out here! I brought you here. I made this place. I gave it to you. You filthy drunk! What the hell are you doing? How can you do this to me? My dear, don’t listen to him, don’t listen to what he’s telling you. Let me in there please, you have to let me in. Don’t listen to what he’s saying, just let me in – just bloody let me in!”
He reached the door and started to shake it. McGrigor stood the other side with broken bottle in hand, just in case The Preacher was more powerful than he looked. The Preacher grabbed at the door, rattled it, but got little give.
The Preacher went to the window and McGrigor went with him, holding up the jagged weapon. The Preacher shuddered, unwilling to break his hand through just to have that forced into him. He vanished from sight and McGrigor went to the next window and the window afterwards, and each time found The Preacher on the other side pushing his fingers to the glass.
“Let me in!” screamed The Preacher. “Please let me in. You have to let me in, you just have to!”
“You have to let him in!” yelled The Woman, still on the floor. “Please, you have to let him in!”
“How long do you want to live for?” snarled McGrigor. “Do you want it to be a day or do you want it to be an hour? If it’s the latter, then I’ll unbolt that door right now. Why not? If you want to give yourself up so easily then why don’t we do that? But I figure if you marched all this way, then you’re not that keen on a quick death. And if that’s the case, then shut up and let me do this!”
“Let me in!” said The Preacher, weeping now. “For God’s heart, let me in!”
“Let him in,” cried The Woman, “Let him in.”
“Shut up!” barked McGrigor.
They made it round every window in the cottage, The Preacher’s face becoming more anguished as McGrigor’s became more determined. They did a second loop, dancing together through the stone wall. It was as if The Preacher thought he’d get to a window McGrigor had forgotten, as if he thought McGrigor would keel over drunk. They went round a third time – McGrigor more animated with the bottle, bored of the game, annoyed that The Preacher wasn’t taking the hint.
Evening fell and The Preacher drifted away – he wasn’t at any of the windows, he wasn’t in sight. McGrigor peered out but couldn’t glimpse him. He guessed he was hiding, waiting. McGrigor kept the broken bottle at his side, just hoping his own stock of strength lasted longer than The Preacher’s.
He unscrewed the top of a full bottle and took several gulps. The Woman continued to stare at him, fear in every inch of her.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ve just got very used to looking after myself. That isn’t about to change now, and you should feel thankful I’ve saved you too.”
The night-time gloom came on them fast. McGrigor kept vigil, trying to penetrate the dark – but there was no Preacher, no movement. That insufferable bastard couldn’t have changed yet; they’d have heard it. They always screamed, every single one of them screamed.
The Woman brought her knees up in front of her and started to rock backwards and forwards. There were tears on her cheeks, but they didn’t look fresh, they looked like they’d been wept months ago and had stained the skin permanently. She didn’t look at McGrigor; she just looked at that solid stone floor on which – you’d imagine – it would be impossible for any plant to grow. McGrigor paced in front of her, a full bottle in one hand, the broken one ready in the other.
The first rock shattered the glass just as full darkness came. It burst through the front window and landed beside The Woman’s legs. She screamed but seemed unhurt. McGrigor held his weapon up and moved cautiously to the broken frame, he couldn’t see anything.
There was another smash, in the kitchen this time, another rock hurled through the glass. McGrigor ran, ready to confront The Preacher if he came through. Again he peered out and there was nothing. There was no movement, no glimpse of man – only a third smash, this time in the bedroom. The Woman screamed as McGrigor raced past her. Again there was nobody trying to crawl through, no smug face of The Preacher.
The other window in the front room exploded – this time a shard of glass flew by and cut The Woman’s ankle. She screamed and then stopped, clutching it with a pained expression that showed more stoicism than McGrigor had credited her with. Again there was no Preacher, but McGrigor knew what was next and made it to the kitchen before the rock took out that other window, and to the bedroom before the stone removed the remaining pane. He even jabbed at it with his trusty weapon – but there was no hand reaching through, there was no Preacher.
He stood and listened. There were no windows anymore. There was no sound. He wouldn’t have said The Preacher was the kind of man to crawl through broken windows. He certainly wouldn’t crawl through to have a bottle forced into his face. It was all down to waiting again, it was all down to who lasted the longest – him or The Preacher. He took another swig of whisky.
He patrolled the inside of the cottage. It was darker inside than out, but McGrigor soon found a path and even knew when to raise his feet to climb over The Woman’s legs. She was quiet, maybe listening in the dark, maybe dozing.
He talked the whole time, letting The Preacher know he was awake. He invited him in, told him what would happen if he tried to get in. He called him a bad preacher, a worthless preacher, a lecherous preacher, a lonely preacher, a preacher without a flock.
There were no sounds outside; when he stopped his monologue he couldn’t hear a thing. Sometimes he thought The Preacher was near – that he was crouching down just below one of the windows, waiting for his opportunity. He could almost smell The Preacher’s sweat, that disgusting mix of salt water and pollen they always produced at the end. He stayed vigilant, stayed awake, stayed ready. His hands trembled, he knew too well what would happen if The Preacher got in, if he was allowed to change within four close walls. He and The Woman would be gone by afternoon, and he intended to live longer than that – even if he was the last man on Earth.
The Preacher was furtive, The Preacher was quick, The Preacher was sneaky. McGrigor looked out at the darkness and wished it was light, wished there was something to see. His legs ached, his chest was filled with fluid – weighing him down, drowning him.
His throat hurt but he continued to speak: “You alright there, Preacher? How you doing, Preacher? I don’t recommend coming in, Preacher, I really don’t!” He wanted to sit down, he wanted to rest, he wanted to close his eyes for a moment. How could The Preacher have more energy than him? How could he possibly have more stamina? He was sicker, older, wandering around on rough terrain as opposed to the flat floor of the cottage. It wasn’t right he could do that. It was wrong he had so much fortitude.
Then it happened. McGrigor was prowling the front room, while The Woman shivered in silence. They heard the scream; it came from the direction of the kitchen. Both swallowed with familiar dread.
McGrigor slammed the kitchen door, bolting it so nothing in there could get out. The scream burst in at them – dreadful, high pitched and accelerating. It seemed to go beyond the range of a human voice box, as if every muscle, tendon and bone was being forced through a grinder to create this scream.
The Woman scrambled to her knees and clutched McGrigor’s legs. The scream got higher – they could hear bones tear through flesh, the limbs of the plant ripping apart the limbs of the man. There was the splat of blood and the slide of flesh and the scream stopped. Somewhere in the dark was another of those plants. The Preacher’s eyes staring out, a sad flower.
McGrigor shook The Woman’s grasp from him and collapsed to the floor, leaning back against the wall and taking another sanctuary bolt of alcohol.
He should never have left the city, but they were everywhere in the city. You’d find them on street corners, in supermarkets; the doors of second floor apartments were broken down and there it was in front of the TV. People cut them – they used knives, they used machetes, they charged at them with their cars.
But it didn’t matter. It was soon clear that if you broke one, something was released that sped up your own illness – so before long you’d replaced it. That was the reason they couldn’t research it properly. No matter how many layers of protective clothing the scientists wore as they wielded their scalpels, it always got through, it always took them. Soon there was no one left to research it, and even the thinnest slice of hope was given up. It got into you, got into your bones, twisted their DNA, made you something that wasn’t you. As soon as it was strong enough, it discarded the flesh and the heart and the brain and stood on its own in the world. It destroyed what was you and then replaced you.
Edgar Speller was the first – he was a nobody, a farmer, a man who’d never done anything interesting in his life. Two weeks later the President of the United States was on television announcing his plans to save the world; in two more weeks there was no President of the United States. Not long after that a band of survivors came together and made a bid for the higher ground. One of them took on the mantle of authority and told them things would be better up there.
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