by Ryan Casey
He sighed. That was too much of a risk. It was too much of a...
A thought.
A thought came to his mind.
A surge of life rushed through him.
Because the Reds.
They were savage. They were brutal. And they weren’t going to stop.
And as long as they were around... people were in danger.
They needed eliminating.
They needed destroying.
That was his goal. His purpose. His responsibility. Charged even more by the fact of what had happened to Iqrah.
Her family. They were still out there.
Then there was Kirsty. He didn’t know where she was. What had happened to her. So many unknowns. So many mysteries. So many questions, unanswered.
But he knew what he needed to do.
He had a purpose again.
He was found again.
And he knew exactly what he had to do.
He crouched down. Ruffled Bruno’s fur.
“Thank you,” he said. “Thank you for making me realise. Thank you for making me remember.”
He didn’t know how Bruno had made it this far. Didn’t know how he’d survived. But one thing was for sure.
He’d fought to be here.
So Noah had to keep fighting too.
“Keep fighting…”
He stood up and walked over to the cabin door.
The rain lashed down, heavy, torrential. Thick grey clouds overhead. A storm wreaking havoc, no doubt about it.
But he looked off into the distance, and for the first time in a long time, he felt his purpose again.
He felt so sure about what he had to do.
“Come on, lad,” he said, Bruno by his side. “Let’s finish this.”
And then he took a deep breath, and the pair of them walked.
Chapter Forty-One
Doctor Watkinson looked at the video footage of the fallen bodies and felt a sickly taste in his mouth.
It was dark outside. Not that it made a difference in here, in these windowless labs. He hadn’t seen sunlight or moonlight for almost five years now. All this time, locked away, working on some kind of solution, some kind of resolution.
It looked like he’d finally found what he was looking for.
So why did things seem so… bleak?
He clicked through the images on his large iMac computer. The rest of the office was quiet. A couple of scientists working away, like him. Going through their own results, seeing if the outcomes were the same by their readings.
There was this muted silence about the place. Especially when he clicked past the images and over to the samples. He knew the solution he’d settled on—the solution he and his team had worked on for years—was reliable. He knew it was the answer. He’d seen it, over and over again, in test after test after test.
But it was brutal. It meant making a major, major sacrifice. It meant blood on his hands.
The blood of the many, for the future of the few.
He clicked further through the results when he found Jaan’s report. It was from Blackpool, the first site of the test.
Those harrowing words stared back at him.
Est Total Pop: 112
Deceased: 84
Survived: 28
Doctor Watkinson swallowed a lump in his throat. He knew the figures were bound to be in favour of the dead. After all, there were far more asymptomatic carriers of the virus than people realised. That was the beauty of it; the way it survived. Transmission between healthy individuals, reanimation after death. It wasn’t like any ordinary virus. Unlike most viruses, which thrived on their own survival, this virus—HB938—would not stop until it infected everyone, until there was nobody left to infect.
It would not stop until it found a way to bypass everyone’s defences.
And when it did, it would swallow itself whole and drag itself down into oblivion, settling in the permafrost until many thousands of years later, humanity’s successors—whoever they were—would stumble upon it too, and fall in the same way.
It happened with the dinosaurs. Happened with the Neanderthals. The discovery of HB938 and its evolution over time had truly rewritten the history books.
The only problem?
Nobody was going to be left to write them.
Nobody was going to be left to send out a warning.
HB938 was the true constant in this world. Not humanity. HB938 was Mother Earth’s dearest, most successful child.
But now, staring at this screen, staring at the results, Doctor Watkinson knew he had an answer.
He knew he had an opportunity.
He knew he had a chance to exorcise the demon of this virus and rewrite the path going forward, once and for all.
Footsteps behind him. He turned around, saw Commander Jenkins standing there. Commander Jenkins was a tall, imposing figure. A classic army type. Wore his full gear. Straight backed, impeccable posture. Mean face. Always intimidated Doctor Watkinson a little.
He looked at Doctor Watkinson, and neither of them even had to say a word about why he was here. They both knew. They both understood the significance of this, the significance of their discovery.
It was Commander Jenkins who broke the silence. “What are your orders?”
Doctor Watkinson flushed. He looked around the office. Saw the eyes of his fellow scientists rise and look over at him. Their pale, sun-starved faces. The alopecia and the hair loss in full flow. The dark circles. The years and years of stress.
And the knowledge that this could be the end for them, too.
Feasibly, this could be where it ended.
But it was all for the best.
It was all for the greater good.
He looked across the labs. Over towards the production centre, which worked away silently, underwater, hidden from view of humanity. The true source of power in the globe, like so many stations of their kind.
He swallowed a lump in his throat and thought of the life he could’ve had. A wife. Children, two preferably. A nice little suburban home. Barbecues and holidays.
But this was the life he’d chosen. A scientist was the way he’d chosen to live.
And it was how he’d die.
He looked back at Commander Jenkins, thought about the results they’d got from their Russian friends, and took a deep breath. “Give the order,” he said.
Commander Jenkins’ eyes widened. Almost like he didn’t expect it. A rare slip in his composure.
“Are—are you sure, Doctor?”
Doctor Watkinson felt the weight of the world on his shoulders—literally.
He felt the hands of humanity stretching up towards him, begging for mercy.
He felt the history of this planet shifting, all with this decision.
He just hoped it was the right one.
“Yes,” he said. “Give the order. We start with Britain. We monitor. And then we move on.”
“Move on?” Commander Jenkins said.
Doctor Watkinson nodded. “It’s time testing ended. It’s time we moved on to Phase Two.”
Jenkins went pale. He opened his mouth like he was about to cut in and say something.
And then he just closed his lips and nodded.
“Understood.”
He turned around, walked out of the office area, and left Doctor Watkinson alone with the prying eyes of his fellow scientists.
It didn’t feel like it, in this underwater lab off the British coast.
But right there, with Doctor Watkinson’s words, everything changed.
Chapter Forty-Two
Noah walked back towards Kelly’s and the industrial estate when he suddenly got a sense that something wasn’t quite right.
He couldn’t explain it. Just a taste. A heightened sense of reactivity. He knew humans had evolved to detect dangers, and no doubt that evolution had grown even further in a short period of time. After all, there were threats out there. So many different kinds of threats. Stood to reason that human
s’ inner warning systems were pretty much raging these days—and about legitimate safety fears, too. Not just the false warnings that the anxieties of the old world used to produce.
He looked around at the woods on the left. At the abandoned cars dragged over to the side of this main road on the right. The road cleared and emptied otherwise. The occasional ancient plastic bottle of smashed pieces of glass peppering the cracked concrete.
He didn’t hear anything but the wind against the trees. Didn’t see any movement but the birds.
He was probably just overreacting. Probably just worried about any potential loss or setback, especially now he felt alive again; like he had a purpose again.
He walked further down this road, cracking on. He just wanted to get to the industrial estate now. He’d spent so long hiding from the thought of being around other people because he was just so afraid he might bring trouble to them. That he might lose them, and that would be his fault; that would be on him.
But he’d long ignored the fact these people said they’d be there for him. That they’d go the hell down with him if that’s what it took.
It was time he started listening to those voices. It was time he stopped thinking he had to go through everything alone.
It was time he found Kelly—and this time, stayed with her.
Just like Bruno had found him, out of nowhere, against all odds.
He had to embrace that same resolve. That same strength.
It was time he stopped pushing people away.
He walked further down the road when he heard Bruno whine.
He stopped. Looked around. At first, he thought it might be pain. Bruno looked hungry and a lot weaker than he remembered for one.
But that whine. The way he looked around. Scanned the area. It was like he was bothered about something too. Like he sensed something too.
“Hey,” Noah said, walking over to his side. “It’s alright, lad. Nothing to worry about.”
But Bruno didn’t seem reassured. Still seemed unsettled, as he sat there, tongue dangling out, panting, scanning from left to right, then up at the sky.
Noah found himself looking up, too. Staring up into the grey clouds. Listening to the wind. He didn’t know why, but he felt there was something up there. Something watching. Something closing in.
They kept on walking for another hour, found themselves in an abandoned little village. No sign of life, much like everywhere else. But still that sense that eyes were on them. That something was coming. Noah thought about stopping and taking a rest at first, but he was done with that idea. He just wanted to get there. If he walked at a decent pace, he could be there before nightfall. That was the goal. That’s what he needed.
The clouds thickened over. Cold rain pelted down from above. The wind picked up. Somewhere overhead, in the distance, he swore he heard thunder cracking and rumbling away. It felt like they were on the brink of something. Like something major was on the verge of unfolding, and yet he just couldn’t put his finger on it.
Perhaps most alarming—more alarming than anything else—was the lack of life itself Noah that encountered. Infected. Society. Reds. None of them had hunted him down in recent days. It’s like they’d stopped looking for him.
Maybe Iqrah really was the more important one after all. Maybe they’d moved on to someone else.
He reached an old junction towards a motorway. Still blocked with cars. A few dead bodies lay beside it, prune-like grey skin tight around their starved faces. Graffiti written in blood across the side of a lorry: SAVE US.
And it all brought the horrors of the early days crashing back. It brought back reminders of the old world, and how good they had it, without truly realising it. People complained about jobs and the government and climate change and all that crap. But now? It all seemed so irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. It all seemed so false. Like humanity itself were living a lie.
He turned to the road ahead as the clouds thickened and the rain fell heavier when he heard something above.
He thought he was imagining things at first. Thought it was in his head.
But there was no denying it, the closer he listened.
An engine.
No. Rotors.
Something above.
Something…
He looked up, and he saw it in the clouds.
No. Not it.
Them.
Helicopters.
Two of them that he could see. Lined up alongside one another. All traversing their way across the sky.
He stood there and stared up as the rain pelted down onto him. Bruno barked a little, whined, uncertain.
And as he stood there and looked up—unable to shift his gaze, unable to look anywhere else—all he could think about was that weird feeling in his gut.
That sense that something wasn’t right.
That this was wrong.
He watched the helicopters pass by when he heard something else behind him.
Engines.
Car engines.
He spun around.
Saw four vans driving down the road towards him.
He jumped out of the way. Dragged Bruno to the side. Hid beneath an old Jeep.
And he watched as those vans passed by.
Not four. More than four. Far more than four. Double figures.
And as he watched them pass by, a tension swelled in his gut.
Because inside those vans, he could see Society guards.
Not Reds. Proper Society guards.
Armed to the hilt.
Like they were going somewhere.
Like they were preparing for something.
A conflict.
That’s when he heard some of the doors open up. A few of them stepped out. Noah heard voices. Arguing. Debating. He couldn’t make sense of the words. Not at first.
Not until something caught his ear.
“He’s at the industrial estate. Has to be. And we’ll shoot every one of those fuckers to get to him if we have to.”
Noah watched them pass by, and the only sense he got was that they were going to the industrial estate where Kelly was—and that he was the one they were looking for. That something was happening there.
Fear built inside him.
Adrenaline surged through his body.
They were going to the industrial estate.
They were going to where Kelly was.
He waited for the vans to pass by.
And then he did something he knew was risky.
Something he knew might be the goddamned death of him.
He ran across the street, over to that open door of the van.
Threw himself and Bruno inside, into the darkness of the ammunition and weapons store.
And then he hid behind a box, and he waited.
Silence for a while. Silence but for the rain. For the wind.
And then the whistling and the footsteps of the Society guard.
He walked over to the van door. Stood at it for a moment. Glanced inside and looked around.
And then he slammed the door shut, and the room filled with darkness.
Noah sat there. Held on to Bruno. Heart racing.
A few minutes later, the van kicked into life.
He didn’t know what was ahead, but he knew one thing for sure.
They were going to the industrial estate.
But as they moved, all Noah could think about were those helicopters passing over, and the strange slimy film on the bodies of the innocent back at Blackpool...
Chapter Forty-Three
Kelly looked out at the storm clouds, and she got the feeling something wasn’t quite right.
It was late afternoon. Nights were drawing in. She’d never liked the dark nights of winter, right from being a kid. Mostly because of her fears of the dark. Her fears of waking up without any vision. Fears that had obviously been fucking exacerbated since losing a goddamned eyeball.
But this afternoon, as the darkness of the storm threatened to swallow the e
vening whole, there was something just… different about it. Something felt not quite right.
She couldn’t put her finger on it. She knew she’d felt this way before, and it’d turned out being nothing; all had turned out good.
But she still never ignored the signs. Knew better than to dismiss that hyper-vigilance.
Because sometimes—just sometimes—she was right.
Like when Edward died.
And when you went through some shit like that, you never shook this level of hyper-vigilance, that was for sure.
“Still moping about him, huh?”
Kelly jumped. Turned around. It was getting a bit of a habit that she’d be standing here staring into goddamned space and someone would make her jump. Clearly said a lot about her commitment to the security job these last few weeks.
But fuck. Ever since Noah came back into her life—then left again. Ever since the incident with Iqrah… It felt like things had changed all over again.
She saw Shel standing there. Hands on her hips. Shel had pretty much made herself at home here in the community ever since she’d arrived here with Noah. Kelly had got to know her a bit. Learned about her past. Learned about her time on the road, practically bounty hunting for those lunatics out west. And for that reason, it was hard to totally trust someone like Shel.
But at the same time, the way she’d been so frank and upfront about shit reassured Kelly a little. She kept an eye on her, sure. Didn’t want her bringing any trouble to their door. No time for that shit.
But for now, Shel seemed good. She kept herself to herself. She’d settled right in here and was training up to become a security guard alongside Kelly.
“Moping about who?” Kelly asked.
Shel puffed her lips out, stepped to Kelly’s side. “Don’t kid yourself, love. You’re defo not kidding me. Noah. White Knight himself. You guys fucking before all this or something?”
“Whoah,” Kelly said. “That’s kind of uncalled for.”
Shel shrugged. “Don’t see the point beating around the bush, whatever. Look. It’s been two weeks, doll. I don’t mean to be mega blunt, but… well, if he was gonna come back, he’d’ve come back by now. Besides. You heard the man. He’s dangerous to us. They’re after him. As long as he’s close to us, we’re in trouble too. That the kinda life you really wanna live? The kinda risk you really wanna drop the good folks here into?”
