The Plague Stones

by James Brogden

  ‘Okay,’ Natalie continued, ‘so She attacks Joyce to stop her from reconsecrating the stones but it’s still not much more than half past three in the morning and sunrise won’t be until a quarter to five, so if dawn is a limiting factor She’s still got over an hour in which She could easily take out a few more of us but She doesn’t. Why not? It can’t be just the daylight. Let’s assume that She went for Richard next because he’s the chief executive – except he’s not at home and not answering his phone. So something must have happened to stop Ser.’

  Trevorrow shook his head. ‘Are you saying that he, what? Talked Her down?’

  ‘I’m saying that I don’t know, but that we need to find out, and quickly. We need to find him. He’s lied to us about some fairly important things, but you have to admit that he has a knack of being able to tell people what they want to hear.’

  Trevorrow threw his hands up in frustration. ‘And so we’re back to square one: what does She want? Beyond killing us, obviously.’

  ‘Bread and salt,’ said Toby.

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean? Is that another gaming thing?’

  ‘It’s a Bible thing, sort of. Hospitality, but an older and more powerful kind, older even than the Bible, not just the “can I borrow a cup of sugar” kind. The ancient Greeks called it xenia – the duty which you owe to guests, that got you cursed by the gods if you withheld it. The medieval church of Hester’s time called it hospitium. Maya’s mum…’ he stopped and swallowed thickly. ‘Maya’s mother gave me bread and salt as a guest to her home. I think that Hester wants what She never got in life, which was to be given refuge by Her neighbours, but the people of Haleswell denied Her God-given right as a traveller in need, and She’s cursed this village in punishment.’

  ‘Christ, he sounds just like Stephanie!’ said Trevorrow. ‘That’s exactly the same kind of mystical bollocks she kept spouting!’

  Toby turned to his mum. ‘I’ve been reading Mrs Drummond’s books,’ he explained.

  ‘Yes, well she’d been losing her marbles for years, and I’ll tell you now what I told her then: the notion of actually welcoming Hester into our home is simply fucking insane! It’s suicide!’

  Toby shrugged. ‘She seems happy enough to break the door down and come for you instead. Maybe there’s nothing to lose by trying.’

  Trevorrow opened his mouth to retort, but Natalie got in before him. ‘I think we’ve got a way to go before we try anything quite that drastic. Let’s focus in the meantime on trying to find out where Richard has taken himself off to and whether he knows anything helpful.’

  Before anything else could happen, Peter doubled over in a fit of violent coughing. When he pulled his hands away from his mouth he stared at them, horrified, and turned his palms to show Trish: they were slimy with green mucus, streaked with the vivid red of blood. ‘Honey?’ he said.

  She texted Esme: I think we’re going to need something stronger than a decongestant.

  * * *

  It was a few hours before the duty doctor could see the Gorić boy, by which time the state of him was such that she marched straight back to the custody sergeant and insisted that he be taken to Accident and Emergency immediately.

  ‘Just as soon as his uncle gets down here from Sheffield and we can get someone from CAMHS,’ said the sergeant. ‘I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but it’s only just gone seven.’ It was the last hour of a long shift and he was due on a plane at six the next morning to visit his sister in Sydney. This was the last thing he needed.

  ‘Mental health isn’t that boy’s priority,’ the doctor objected. ‘Even the head laceration – which needs stitches, by the way, never mind that he’s likely got concussion – isn’t the worst of it. It’s his hand. It’s already badly infected. He’s got a raging fever, vomiting, abdominal pain, and his lymph nodes are up like golf balls. I don’t know what particular bug this boy has but he needs some serious antibiotics, right now.’

  The duty sergeant sighed and reached for his phone.

  Banahan:

  hey Iz u there?

  IzPorter:

  just about. Knackered. 2hrs sleep if that. U?

  Banahan:

  Same. Cops asking me all sorts of questions about Raj.

  Parents went absolutely skitz on me. I heard he got arrested?

  IzPorter:

  I heard he killed someone.

  Banahan:

  WTAF?!?!

  IzPorter:

  don’t believe it tho.

  Banahan:

  That’s it. Not coming into college today. Can’t face it.

  IzPorter:

  dont blame u. Me neither.

  Banahan:

  also feel like shit. think I’m coming down with flu or something.

  36

  RECKONINGS

  THERE WAS A BORED-LOOKING POLICEMAN SITTING on a plastic chair outside the door to Ward 28, the Infectious Diseases Unit of Heartlands Hospital, when Toby’s dad was taken in for observation. It seemed an odd coincidence, given the events of the previous night, but he didn’t give it any more thought. The cop could have been there for any one of a dozen reasons, and Toby was too exhausted to pay attention to much beyond what was happening with his dad.

  Esme and Anik had returned to Natalie’s apartment with a load of prescription antibiotics, but they hadn’t done any good. They moved his dad into one of the bedrooms, where he kept hacking up great gobs of phlegm and blood. He couldn’t stomach food and struggled to keep down a glass of rehydration salts. Every half hour during the rest of the day Esme had checked his vital signs, and his pulse had become faster while his temperature had steadily climbed to the point where she declared that she couldn’t see any signs of him improving overnight and it might be best to get him to a hospital sooner rather than later.

  Ward 28 was primarily for HIV sufferers but it also treated everything ranging from tonsillitis to malaria. It consisted of two bays of five beds apiece and another twenty-one separate rooms, with two high-security isolation suites at the far end with their own dedicated entrance, so that those suffering from the worst of conditions didn’t have to be wheeled past other patients on the ward. The nurses welcomed his dad with warmth and calm professionalism, and firmly but gently threw Toby and his mum out to get some rest while they made him as comfortable as possible. It would be at least twenty-four hours until the samples that the doctors had taken came back from the lab to tell them what Peter was suffering from, and in that time all they could do was wait.

  Seeing his strong father totter from wheelchair to bed on unsteady legs, wheezing like an old man, was easily more terrifying than anything Toby had seen yet, and he was happy to leave.

  The last person he’d expected to see in the corridor outside was Rajko.

  He’d been to a vending machine around the corner from the ward entrance while his mum dealt with the paperwork, and noticed the cop was up and moving, escorting a nurse and a porter who were wheeling a bed-bound patient towards Radiography. Clustering about the patient were drips and monitoring equipment, and he had a large dressing above his left eye and a surgical mask covering the lower half of his face, so that Toby didn’t recognise him until he lashed out and grasped Toby by the wrist as they passed each other.

  ‘Hey there, little landlord,’ he croaked, his voice muffled by the mask.

  ‘Rajko?’ Alarmed, Toby pulled away; Rajko’s grip was so weak it was easy to shake off.

  ‘Oi!’ warned the cop. ‘We’ll have none of that!’

  ‘It’s okay, officer,’ said Toby. ‘We, well, we sort of know each other.’ He didn’t know why he felt the need to defend Rajko – maybe because he looked so catastrophically ill.

  The surgical mask shifted as Rajko’s mouth curved into a ghastly smile beneath. ‘Best buds.’

  The nurse escorting the bed tutted. ‘I’m sorry, but we do need to move on,’ she said, so Toby followed alongside.

  ‘What have you got?’ he asked. ‘Whatever it is, you�
�ve given it to my dad.’

  ‘They don’t know,’ said Rajko. His voice sounded like someone sawing raw meat. ‘They’re doing tests. But we both know better, don’t we, landlord? We know what She gave us.’

  Toby couldn’t even say it; its name stuck in his throat, choking. The Black Death. ‘Jesus,’ he whispered. ‘It’s not going to stop with the Trust this time, is it?’

  ‘Not Nash. He’s going to get away with it. I fucked up again. I’m sorry.’

  ‘What do you mean? Get away with what? How?’

  ‘He’s got something. Something She doesn’t like. Or can’t touch. Or…’ Rajko shook his head and coughed in wet, ripping sounds.

  ‘That’s enough now,’ warned the nurse. ‘You’re distressing him. You need to go.’

  Toby ignored her. ‘What’s he got, Raj? Where is he? How do I find him?’

  ‘Son,’ said the cop, who was now in front of him, stopping him from following. ‘That’s it. You’re done.’

  ‘How do I find him, Rajko?’ he called over the cop’s shoulder.

  He thought Raj wasn’t going to reply, but as he was being hustled away by the policeman he heard a croaking laugh come back to him along the corridor with the words: ‘Ask Her!’

  * * *

  But She was busy.

  She had Her father’s tally sticks, and the ancient rage of the gwrach clefyd brimming within Her. There was a reckoning to be had.

  * * *

  Anik Singh got as far as Birmingham Airport. The Trust’s director of human resources had a large family scattered all over the globe, and he had no intention of sitting in one place waiting for death to come to him. He didn’t know how far She was prepared to pursue him, how quickly She could catch up with him, or how long he could keep moving until the money ran out, but he literally had nothing left to lose by trying. He bought a last-minute flight to Sweden, hoping there would be room at his cousin’s place in Malmö, threw some clothes in a bag and endured a nail-biting train journey from Birmingham New Street, jumping at sudden noises and keeping a wary distance from any young women who looked even remotely like Her. Paradoxically, he had chosen public transport over driving because he felt safer amongst other people; anything which might make Her think twice about attacking him. He began to relax only once he had passed through check-in and security; there were so many airport guards with guns about the terminal that She couldn’t possibly go for him. His reasoning was that if She was capable of direct physical assault then She must surely be vulnerable to a physical defence, and who was better defended than the passengers at an airport?

  All the same, as the minutes ticked away until his gate opened for boarding he felt his anxiety rising. He watched from the gate lounge as the ground crew busied about the Lufthansa 727, making it safe. Then there were the final checks, and he heaved a sigh of relief as he set off down the slope of the boarding tunnel, with a family of four ahead of him and his cabin luggage trundling along behind him on its little wheels, and behind that the footsteps of the other passengers. The boarding tunnel dog-legged, and for a moment the family were out of sight around the corner, and when he followed them around it they weren’t there anymore.

  There was only Hester, in the ticking flicker of a faulty strip light, tally sticks in one hand, bloodstained sickle in the other. There had only ever been Hester, and he had been a fool to think otherwise.

  The footsteps behind him were still there, but he knew that it wasn’t the other passengers who were following him. He felt himself shoved violently from behind, and looked down in surprise at something that had appeared in his peripheral vision. The twin steel tines of a hay fork protruded from his chest just below each nipple, and he tried to gasp in surprise except that he couldn’t breathe. He would have fallen, if whoever was holding the handle hadn’t been helpfully holding him up. Then Hester stepped towards him with a swift, sideways swipe of Her hand, and he was watching the purple and grey loops of his intestines spilling out over his waist and onto his feet, emptying him, hollowing him utterly.

  * * *

  Natalie hadn’t meant to fall asleep. She hadn’t thought that she’d be able to so much as catnap, what with everything that was happening. She’d decided to just have a little lie-down because she’d been up since the early hours and she could feel the tell-tale signs of one of her migraines coming on. The darkness of her bedroom and a damp washcloth over the face usually did the trick, but her body had obviously decided that it needed something a bit more substantial because her bedside clock told her that it was nine o’clock in the evening. She’d been asleep for four hours. Her stomach growled, reminding her that she was also starving.

  ‘Why didn’t either of you wake me?’ she muttered, stretching out the stiffness in her shoulders and shuffling towards the hall in her socks. Anik had disappeared earlier that afternoon, despite everything that they could do to persuade him that whatever safety there was lay in numbers, leaving Trevorrow and Esme in her apartment. She didn’t even know if they were still here. There was no sound of either television or conversation coming from the living room.

  ‘Guys? Are you there?’

  The smell stopped her in her tracks like a physical wall. Once when she’d been seventeen and her grandmother had gone into hospital because of a fall, she’d had to look after Gran’s aged cat Hector who, because of Gran’s conviction that tinned food was bad for cats, was fed on meat scraps and liver from a nearby butcher’s. It was stored in little plastic bags in Gran’s freezer, and Nattie would have to thaw out each bag before feeding Hector, and she quickly discovered that the smell of liver was sickening. It was thick and heavy, like a nosebleed clot of jellied blood trapped in your skull.

  That smell hit her again, only it was a thousandfold strong and coming from the doorway to her living room.

  Sean Trevorrow and Esme Barlow had been laid out side by side on her dining table, naked and holding hands, in a lake of their mingled blood which covered its entire surface and spread over much of the surrounding floor. At first glance it looked like they’d simply been hacked to death; their bodies were slashed and gouged in hundreds of small wounds. That would have been bad enough, but as she edged closer she saw that their limbs had been tied off at each joint – shoulders, elbows, wrists, hips, knees, ankles, and each individual finger and toe – with tourniquets that in some places were so tight they sank deeply into flesh and couldn’t be seen, and each part of Sean’s and Esme’s divided bodies had been systematically cut open and bled. Death from a single wound would have been too quick, presumably. This way they could watch themselves and each other being emptied bit by bit. How long must they have suffered while she was asleep in the next room, and why hadn’t she heard anything? More importantly, why hadn’t Hester come for her too?

  ‘Because you need us to see it, don’t you?’ she said to the empty air. ‘You need us to know what’s going to happen to us. Well I get it!’ she screamed suddenly. ‘Okay? I fucking get it! Somebody hurt you a long time ago and you can’t get at them so you’re taking it out on us. Well boo fucking hoo! This isn’t justice – it’s murder, and you’re not some avenging angel, you’re just a petty little vindictive bitch! So come on then! What are you waiting for? Come on!’ She screamed this last so loudly that her voice broke on the last syllable and ended as a hoarse rasp.

  The shadows in the corners of the room shifted and took on substance, stepping forward into the ragged shapes of men and women armed with bloodstained tools, and Hester at their head.

  Nattie took a step backwards, towards the sliding glass doors which led out onto her seventh-floor balcony. Outside, the sky was still lambent with the long slow dusk of a summer’s evening. ‘Fuck you,’ she spat at them. ‘I’m not your meat to butcher.’ And she turned, ran, and vaulted the railing into the twilight.

  * * *

  When Hester came for Trish, she was praying at Peter’s bedside – although not literally so, since, having worsened throughout the day, he’d been moved into
Ward 28’s other negative-pressure isolation room and was behind several layers of sterile glass and Perspex. She was in the anteroom where the nurses changed into and out of their protective clothing; it had a large window looking into the room where Peter lay surrounded and dwarfed by monitors, lights, cables, and respirator units. He was sedated, having been drifting in and out of lucidity and distressing both himself and her with his violent reactions to the hallucinations that his fevered brain kept spawning. She knew that in the room next to this, Rajko Gorić was in an even worse way. The doctors’ laboratory tests had yet to confirm Toby’s claim that both men were suffering from bubonic plague, but they were acting on the assumption that it was since everything about their symptoms matched up – except for the extreme speed and virulence with which the bacterium was spreading, and the inability of all but the strongest antibiotics to put even a dent in it. She and Toby had both been advised that, since they had been in such close proximity to him, it was best that they stay in one of the smaller side suites, where they were being given prophylactic antibiotics and having their vitals monitored regularly. On the few occasions when she’d left Peter’s bedside to pay any attention to what was happening in the outside world, she heard stories in the hospital corridor about increasing numbers of the general public reporting severe flu-like symptoms, but that held no significance for her. The only world that she had any concern for was lying in that hospital bed.

  Trish was sitting on a plastic chair with her forehead leaning against the isolation-room window, hands clasped under her chin, pleading with the Lord to spare her husband and the father of her child, when she felt the cold whisper of a blade stroke the hairs on the nape of her neck.

  She froze, glancing at her reflection in the window. It showed nobody behind her, but the blade continued to stroke, almost lovingly. Slowly, she let out her breath, and without moving from her position said, ‘I don’t have time for you right now. I’m busy.’

  Hester laughed softly, Her mouth right behind Trish’s right ear. ‘Take time,’ She whispered. ‘Take time to watch him die. Watch him die like my mother watched her own husband die, and then you will join him.’