“He’s Tek,” I said.
“Well, he can still hold stuff. Give me some help here.” She pushed the bowl towards him, and got to work. “I’ll do my best,” she said, brandishing a pair of tweezers. “I only know the basics. Hold still, this is probably going to hurt. In fact, you might want to take a couple of these first. They’re strong.” She passed me a tube of pills, two of which I necked.
She started to tease out the first of the teeth, and the pain hit me like an electric shock. I gripped the edge of the tabletop, my whole frame shaking, my eyes tightly shut, feet kicking against the bare wooden floorboards. I could feel blood trickling between my knuckles, and hear Loxley swearing under her breath. Something wrenched free, and white-hot agony blossomed in my head like fireworks.
“Jesus,” I heard her say. “How is that…? Look, it was sending out little roots. It was growing into him...”
“Get it out of me,” I rasped, voice trembling.
“Yeah, yeah. Only another five to go. Show a little backbone, will ya?”
She dug into my hand for the second time, and I passed out, surfing a Valium-induced haze. For some reason, the sensation of hitting the canvas as I took a dive beneath the bright lights of an auditorium sprang into my mind, and then darkness rushed in.
I AWOKE TO the testy back and forth of raised voices, and what sounded like gravel being thrown repeatedly at the cabin’s windows. It took me a moment to re-orientate myself, the unfamiliar surroundings and thick, druggy tendrils of sleep still clinging to me both fogging my senses. The tight ache in my hand finally grabbed my attention and pulled me into full consciousness. I rose slowly from where I’d been passed out on a bed—Loxley’s bed, I dimly realised—and studied my tightly wrapped palm, the wound having been efficiently dressed with clean white bandages. For the moment, I appeared to still have all my limbs, which I considered a minor victory.
There came another shout and a bang against the door. I struggled to my feet, feeling like I could do with a drink, and staggered out into the main living area, where I saw Loxley crouching beneath the window, shotgun clasped in both hands. Stender was in the opposite position on the other side of the door, on his hands and knees. It was gloomy, little light spilling through from outside, though no one had lit any lamps.
“How long have I been asleep?” I asked, confused. It had been early morning when we’d arrived; surely I couldn’t have been passed out for most of the day.
“About three hours,” Loxley said, then indicated that I should join them on the floor.
I felt drunkenly sluggish, my head taking a while to process information. I didn’t move, but instead turned my attention to the window and the shifting blackness beyond. “Why’s it so dark?”
“McGill,” she snapped. “Get down.”
The pane rattled again as multiple hard objects spattered against the glass. I ignored Loxley’s entreaty and took a few steps towards it. “Is that rain? What the hell’s making that noise…?” I peered out just as the door shuddered, and I caught a glimpse of what was darkening the cabin’s exterior.
“Jesus Christ.” My head snapped back as the creature scuttled centimetres away from my face and crawled over its brethren, the swarm teeming in their thousands: what I had mistook for twilight was in fact their brown, fifteen-centimetre bodies coating every surface of the cabin outside. The things were winged, and a swirling tornado of them besieged the building, hitting the walls and glass with considerable force. They were of a size I’d never seen in an insect before, and they oozed malevolence, their huge compound eyes seemingly regarding me as I watched them. Antennae twitching, mandibles chittering, their barbed legs traced the window and frame as if testing its durability.
A hand tugged my shirt and pulled me down, and I dropped next to Lox. “Fuckin’ giant bugs,” I somewhat stupidly announced as if I was offering my expert opinion.
“You noticed.”
“Locusts,” Stender piped up. “Or an aggressive new strain, at least.”
“But… they’re huge—”
“Genetic mutation,” he replied. “Weaponised wildlife.”
“It’s a goddamn plague, is what it is,” Loxley muttered.
“Amounts to the same thing,” he said. “Destruction on a massive scale.”
“Can they get in?” I asked. “Lox, what about your chimney?”
She shook her head. “Wire cap. I had birds nesting in it. Looks like these things are too big to fit through, fortunately.”
“Guess we should be thankful for small mercies,” I said, and from the expression on Loxley’s face, it seemed we’d been handed a pretty fucking small mercy indeed.
“Do these things follow you around?” she asked angrily. “Have they tracked you here?”
“This can’t be localised,” Stender said, easing himself off the floor to take a peek through the window. “We must just be in their path. They’ve probably been bred to swarm down the farmbelt—”
“Move away from there,” Loxley yelled just as a roiling mass detached itself from one corner of the roof and threw their hard carapaces at the glass where Stender’s flabby head had just emerged. Either the glass had become weakened or they hit it at just the right angle, for it spiderwebbed and small shards tinkled onto the sill.
I had the time to mouth an expletive before the first of the insects burst through like a bullet. It hung in the air for a second, hovering, the buzz of its wings filling the room, before it zeroed on Stender. He yelped and scooted backwards, the locust following, dive-bombing his face, which he tried to cover with his hands.
“Stender, watch out,” Lox shouted as she stepped past me and raised the shotgun to her shoulder. She waited until the creature was on the ascent before pulling the trigger, blowing it against the wall in an eruption of sticky green gore. A further half-dozen were through the breach by this point and doing a circuit of the ceiling. She switched targets without hesitation and nailed a further two, punching a hole in the plaster.
One dropped onto the back of my head and I could feel its limbs in my hair, hooks on its feet scratching my scalp. I tried to remove it, pain lancing through my neck as it bit me hard under the jaw. I made for the table and retrieved my automatic, attempting to shake it off; when it wouldn’t budge, I used my bandaged hand to curl around its squirming body and plucked it free, slamming it on the tabletop then putting a bullet through it for good measure.
“McGill!” Lox bellowed. The roar of the things’ wings was deafening now. “Back into the bedroom! Quickly!”
More flying terrors squeezed their way in as we ran for the rear room, Loxley slamming shut the door behind us. It shuddered with each new impact. She marched across to the far wall, perched on a nightstand and unhooked a narrow skylight. “They’re concentrated on the front of the cabin,” she said. “We can scoot through here onto the roof, then drop down next to the garage at the back. My truck’s inside; key’s in the ignition.”
“Fuck, Lox, where are we gonna go?” I said, a little desperately. Another safe haven had been compromised.
“Gotta be somewhere better than here,” she answered, legs already dangling through the skylight as she pulled herself up.
“Is there?”
She didn’t reply; I could hear her feet sliding on the rooftiles. I motioned wearily to Stender to follow her as I glanced around the room at the remnants of a life abandoned. Inch by inch the world was being eaten away, and the ground was disappearing beneath our feet. What choice did we have but to retreat, and keep retreating until the darkness eventually swallowed us up? But I was getting tired of running.
I wanted to start punching back.
CHAPTER SIX
“I’M SORRY, LOX.”
We were sitting in the cab of her flatbed, parked some distance down the road and looking back at the eddying spiral of locusts that were still swarming over her house. I wondered if they were going to take the whole building apart, beam by beam, reduce it to sawdust, but figured we would
n’t stick around to see it happen, in any case. Clouds of them were starting to break away in search of more to consume, be it animal or vegetable. Loxley quietly regarded her home one last time, then put the truck into gear and pulled away, eyes not flicking to the mirror even for a second. I couldn’t help myself and cast a final glance over my shoulder before it was lost to the treeline.
“I shouldn’t have brought this to your door,” I said.
“It’s going to be at everyone’s door, sooner or later,” she replied, “if that’s any indication.” She jerked her thumb behind her.
“All the same, I feel bad for getting you involved.”
“Right now, I’m not entirely sure what I’m involved in. You didn’t get so far as to tell me what you wanted from me. The professor here explained to me about… What did you call it?”
“Red Mosquito,” Stender muttered.
“Yeah, that. He filled me in on what the sick bastards have got planned while you were dead to the world.” She shot me a look. “He also told me how you two met and became unlikely partners. Never were the brains of the outfit, were you, McGill?”
“Believe it or not, I have apologised already.”
She snorted back that damn irresistible laugh. “I’ll bet. Serendipity, I suppose you could call it. If you two had never crossed paths, you’d probably still be back in that hovel you used to slum around in, Jackson, scratching your balls and wondering why all the TV channels were down. Now, you’re the motherfucking saviour of the world.”
“I wouldn’t go that far—”
“But you do have a plan?”
“Well…” I glanced at Stender. “More of a last-ditch opportunity, really.”
“So naturally you thought of me.”
“You’re my number-one go-to saboteur, Lox. I thought you’d be flattered.”
She stomped on the brake and we screeched to a stop. I had to put my good hand out on the dashboard to stop my forehead connecting with the windscreen. Loxley shifted in her seat to regard us both, elbow up on the wheel. “Let’s get this straight before I go any further with you jokers. I facilitate the procurement of things through unlawful means; that’s my talent. I’m a B&E expert, I steal to order. You don’t need me for common vandalism, if that’s what you’re after.”
“No, no, that’s not what I meant,” I said quickly. “I still need you at your thievery best. It’s just that, in this case, we’re not stealing anything of value—not to us, at least. More like we’re putting a spoke in these fuckers’ plans. But you’ll be our way in, Lox. We won’t be able to do this without you.”
She smiled thinly. “Not sure if it goes against my principles, taking something of no worth.”
“Have to say, anyone’s rep is gonna be worth shit if the whole world dies. Won’t matter what we were, or what we did or didn’t do, we’ll just be ash and bones. Who’s gonna be left to care?”
She turned and gazed out the windscreen. “That’s true,” she said. She leaned forward as if something beyond the truck had caught her eye. “Oh, my God,” she breathed, then wrenched open the door and clambered out, walking ahead up the road for a few metres before stepping off into the woodland. I called after her, but she didn’t look back.
“Where’s she going?” Stender asked.
“You got me,” I answered, sliding across the seat. “Stay here. Lock the doors. Hit the horn if any more Creatures from the Black Lagoon turn up.”
I jogged to catch up with her, pushing aside branches as I followed her path. She hadn’t entered very far, and was standing at the edge of a glade, only part of which she must’ve glimpsed from the vehicle. I joined her at her side, though she didn’t acknowledge I was there at first, and simply silently regarded the figures before us.
“Did they do this?” she whispered finally, eyes roving over the scene. “The things you say are now in charge?”
“I don’t think so. Doesn’t seem like their style. I think these people made their own choice.”
We were looking at a body orchard: there must’ve been close to a couple of hundred of them, hanging from the branches, bedecking the beeches and conifers like Christmas ornaments. They turned slowly in the breeze, limbs slack, the creak of the ropes around their necks audible in the unnatural quiet. Ages ranged from infants to pensioners, and there was no unifying element to suggest that this had been a cult or commune that had decided to commit mass suicide; rather, it looked like the cross-section of an average town—suited businessmen swung side by side with hooded youths and farmers still with mud crusting their boots. It was as if a random selection of citizens had made the joint decision to hasten their demise rather than wait for the Justice Department demons to find them. Clearly, the younger ones had had little say in the matter, but the manner in which parents and siblings dangled alongside them suggested that the act had been one of perceived mercy. The sight was both peaceful and heart-breaking; grotesque in the widespread loss of life and chilling in its clear-sighted, fatalistic practicality.
“This must be nearly half of Hadley,” Loxley said.
“Did you know them?”
“I recognise a few. The town’s a few miles down the road. Used to talk to Tommy Jaffrey there when I’d pick up my groceries.” She nodded in one of the dead’s direction, but I wasn’t entirely sure which one she meant. “It had a little market. There’s some faces I’d see around… God.”
Her voice cracked, and it was the most vulnerable I’d ever heard her sound. I put a tentative hand on her shoulder in comfort, and she didn’t shrug it off.
“They were just regular folk. Was this some… collective madness? What compelled them to all come here and… and end themselves?”
“They lost hope, I guess. Thought this was the easy way out.”
“But there’s so many. They all thought this was the best solution?”
I picked out the black-shrouded figure of a priest hanging amongst his flock and wondered if there’d been some encouragement from the Holy Book, despite the Church’s traditional dislike of self-destruction. Maybe Purgatory held no fear, now they believed Hell was here. “Despair can be a powerful thing,” I said, somewhat lamely. “If you can see no future, if you feel at a loss, then this is the one thing left you have control over—the decision to stamp your own ticket.”
She looked at me. “That the voice of experience?”
I gave her a lopsided smile. “I’ve had my low points over the years.”
She put her hand over mine. “I never knew. Always figured you were too dumb to have feelings.” She paused, then asked: “Why did you choose not to, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“You sound disappointed at the outcome.”
“God, no. I just wondered if you knew what it was that kept you going.”
“Cowardice, mainly. I didn’t have their willpower.” I nodded towards the dead displayed before us.
“No, don’t do yourself a disservice, Jackson. You’re a scrapper.”
“Once, maybe.”
“And you still are. You’ve taken your punches, but you refuse to let it break you.” She glanced back towards where her truck was waiting. “What we’re doing here, it’s not the actions of people giving up. You and me, we don’t owe this world anything—Justice Department, government, they haven’t done shit for us. We’ve always been on the outside. Why should we risk our lives on some foolhardy and damn-near-certain-to-fail attempt to stop this thing?”
“‘We’?”
“You don’t think I’ll let you walk into this alone?”
I smiled again, buoyed by having her next to me. “Thanks, Lox. But like you said, this isn’t your fight.”
“It isn’t yours, either. But it’s for the sake of everyone.” She turned her head back to the hanged. “Every innocent life we’ll die trying to save.” She stood there for a moment in contemplation, then added softly: “’Cause we’re not going to put our heads in the noose. You hear me? Not while we can give it our best shot.”
She patted my hand, removed it, and started to walk away. I watched her go, lingering with Hadley’s lost souls, beset suddenly by a crushing sadness: of a future stolen, of bright, effervescent lives snuffed out. A wave of inky-black sickness threatened to roll over me and I could feel tears pricking at the corners of my eyes, so I quickly followed Loxley back to the truck, wiping them away before she could see. She was up on the running board, arms over the open driver’s door, waiting for me to emerge.
“So c’mon, then, McGill—what’s the grand plan?”
STENDER FILLED HER in as we resumed our journey. “Standard procedure for any biological weaponry is for it to be stored in the Center for Disease Research, based outside of Rennick. From what I saw, the Red Mosquito supplies were shipped there.”
“Not the Grand Hall?” Loxley asked.
He shook his head. “Too dangerous, should there be an outbreak. Can’t afford for anything to escape the Tek-labs, so better it’s contained off-site, where it can do minimal damage should the worst happen.”
“Sucks to be one of the poor saps in Rennick, though. Do they know what they’ve got on their doorstep?”
“It’s… not well advertised, no.” Stender shifted in his seat, looking uncomfortable.
“I’ll bet.” Lox, on the other hand, appeared to be enjoying herself, revelling in the spod’s unease. “The Judges make a lot of stuff like this—this kind of bacterial warfare? Before the current dickmunches in charge came on board, I mean.”
“Experimentation is—was—going on all the time—”
“With a view to deploying them against citizens?”
“No! Well, not practically. Theoretical models were floated at the ideas stage, but that’s—”
The Fall of Deadworld Omnibus Page 6