One More Dawn

by John Riley

  'Sarah slow down, what do you mean you saw dead people?' He asked, 'You mean you dreamt it?'

  'No!' She barked back, 'I am not dreaming!'

  '...Is this some kind of joke?'

  'I swear if you don't listen I'll just hang up!' She yelled,

  'I am listening Sarah,' He shot back, getting haughty, 'But you aren't making sense, how can I have attacked you if I haven't seen you since last night!?'

  'You came home in the taxi, the taxi drove away but you had already seen the old couple across the road, then you ran at them and...' Sarah hurriedly explained, coming to a halt at the act of murdering the couple, 'you killed them Daniel, they had to be dead, or at the very least hospitalised!'

  'But I haven't...' He stammered,

  'Then,' She cut in slightly louder, ' you came back to the house, I put the chain on and we talked through the door. That's when I told you about the old couple and you said they were fine. I checked... They were fine but Daniel I saw you attack them!'

  'Wait, you saw them afterwards and they were fine?' His voice changed pleading, 'then are you sure you weren't...'

  'I wasn't dreaming!' She screamed, her voice bounced down the small lane and came back to her in a ghostly echo.

  'Daniel,' She said quietly, 'When I came back to the door I was ready to believe I was dreaming, or insane I don't know. But you saw me through the gap left by the chain and you went berserk. You broke the door and when I ran out of the house you must have gone back outside before you woke up.'

  'Before I what?' He asked incredulously,

  'I've just thought,' She muttered worriedly, because she had, 'After you attacked the neighbours you relaxed, you looked like a puppet with its strings cut... like you were sleepwalking.'

  'So, I'm sleep murdering?' He scoffed, 'Then what, fairies followed behind me to fix the neighbours?'

  Sarah tried to stay calm, she had to agree it sounded ridiculous even to her, but it would explain his sense of deja vu if he had gone back outside after attacking her and she said this.

  'So would deja vu!' He laughed, 'I've walked to our front door hundreds of times!'

  'Maybe you've been hypnotised!' She blurted suddenly,

  'Or maybe you've gone crazy,' He replied mockingly, 'Sarah come home, I heard you out the back when you screamed at me and I managed to hold my “blood lust” at bay.' The phone purred the dialling tone then went dead. Sarah saw the back door open over the fence and hurriedly moved out of sight around the corner,

  'Baby come on!' Daniel called, ' I think something is wrong, please come home.' He meant wrong with her and she knew it, was he right?

  She watched as the gate to her back garden opened and she thrilled with terror at the sight of Daniel coming out and looking away from her down the lane. Before he turned to look her way, she was saved in the least ordinary sense of the word by an ear-splitting combination of animalistic howl and scream.

  Sarah span on the spot, terror stopping her heart at the sight of the retired veteran all but foaming at the lips and loping toward her, his wife close behind trailing her scarf like a forgotten banner. They had chosen to come this way, or had Daniel told them to? Self-preservation had Sarah grasp the straps of her pack and wheel blindly into a sprint that was almost indistinguishable from a mindless retreat. She exploded from the little alleyway and out onto the path beside the road. It ran straight with no deviation for a long stretch, Sarah needed her breath for running but a scream bounced around in her mind and as the unmistakable sound of her pursuers got louder she reached the end of the street.

  Her feet chose to go right and follow the way she would go on her regular morning runs. Her body straightened up but her head continued round, stealing a glance at the monster's behind her. Her lead was practically non-existent. Beyond all belief the old couple were only a few steps behind, their mad eyes unwavering and hands outstretched like eagle's talons. What she saw beyond the couple was what froze her heart however; Daniel. His face a mask of red fury, running with a speed and grace he had never once shown before in his life, putting the final lie to everything he had said before.

  Tearing her eyes away, Sarah searched frantically for a way to escape, forcing her loss and fears away for now. The street she flew down now was empty of people, it was still too early for many to be about after all and she despaired at what she could do. The monsters were almost literally breathing down her neck now...

  Then she saw the side road open up ahead and heard the distant roar of an engine. Nothing had passed them so far, the car must be coming towards them rather than away Sarah hoped, pushing hard and moving into a sprint as the outline of a blockbuster inspired plan came to her. The corner was blind, she wouldn't see the car until it was on top of her, either she would be saved or she would be splattered across the road; and given the state of her life at the moment she wasn't sure the latter would be undesirable.

  Sarah threw everything she had into speeding up and the creatures fell back a step, not much but hopefully enough, Sarah's feet thudded down off the curb and onto the road, the sound of the car unmistakably close. She shot across the road, her left foot coming down safely on the other side to the accompaniment of screeching tires and the blaring klaxon of a horn. Her right reached safety but barely, she felt a rush of air as the metal passed a hair's breadth away from her heel. The monster which had been closest to her hadn't been so lucky she saw with a quick glance behind her.

  The car had hit the veteran squarely and ran him down, his broken body lay twisted on the road hissing like a boiling kettle. The others were hidden from view by the car but Sarah knew they'd catch up soon, she ran as fast as her sore feet would carry her and didn't stop even after she heard what must have been the driver scream.

  4

  She’d gotten someone killed. Sarah had run for another few minutes, slowing eventually to a limping trot. She had gotten someone killed, she knew it. There hadn’t been time to think, hadn’t been time to wonder as to the fate of one unknown person. But in not thinking about it she had decided that her life was more important than theirs. She slowed to a walk, glancing fearfully behind to see if she had been followed. There wasn’t anybody there though, no slavering monsters, no neighbours, no Daniel.

  She hadn’t been the one to snap the driver’s neck or crush his skull, but she knew she’d been the cause. Sarah halted to see where she was, but the houses around her weren’t ones she recognised and she didn’t know the street name. She wondered at the fact that she could get lost barely ten minutes from her own home, but then she’d not really paid attention to where she’d been going after the car crash. Sarah tried not to recall the veteran’s hideously torn apart body on the road, but the picture of his broken form, twisted limbs and all, came readily. She wanted to be sick. That was two people she had destroyed then, she supposed. The veteran might now be a monster, but that didn’t mean he deserved that.

  Sarah started walking again, her legs sore from standing still. The path followed between the back of houses, nobody saw her as she walked but it made her twitchy anyway. Where to go though, that was the real question. She couldn’t go home, not until she knew what the hell was going on anyway. Her parents’ house was out because they might be turned and they lived too far away to walk. She thought about work, but dismissed it as being too risky. It was strange she thought, how numb her mind felt considering how much pain she felt everywhere else. Yes, numb. Certainly not brimming with anguish, rammed with fear and overflowing with a feeling of betrayal so severe it physically hurt.

  She followed the path blindly, holding back the tears and found herself stopping at the entrance to a small children's park nestled within a ring of some new ugly terraced houses. She stepped wearily onto turf paled by the thin morning light and made her stumbling way onto a heavily rusted roundabout which gave a squeaking protest as she sat upon it. Her body was shaking as though she were sick, her stomach clenching painfully with every shivering fit that racked her. Adrenaline had taken its toll
on her and it was all she could do to keep herself sitting upright, her head drooped and she held it in her hands.

  'God...' She moaned, 'God...' The tears started, she couldn't hold them back, was much too tired and weak in body, mind and soul. Huge racking sobs escaped her as she pictured her fiancé, her Daniel, smiling at her the night before; the last time he had done so before being changed. It seemed obvious to her now that the faultless monsters had changed him then, infected him with whatever it was that made them what they were. He must have been terrified she realised, she had seen what it took to become one of them, or at least what she assumed it took; near death. Then Daniel had lied to her, he had chased after her when he thought the others would get her, when his attempts to get her to come home had failed.

  The “amnesia” must be another lie, what else could it be she thought numbly. The tears slowed as her view of him changed, this new version of him seemed now like a cunning spider with deceitful webs meant to catch her to... To what she wondered. Her stomach lurched once more and threw her mind off track, Sarah remembered the energy bars in her pack and slipped it off her shoulders and onto the floor before her. She removed the wrapper from the first bar she found and tried not to think about Daniel's clothes stowed with hers beneath it. The bar was tasteless to her and she chewed methodically, swallowing with a little difficulty.

  'What now...' She sighed, the morning was cold but she was numbed to it. With Daniel changed she couldn't go home, nor could she go to her friends she realised; they had left the club only a few minutes before the attack, chances were good they were monsters themselves. The police were out too, either they were monsters or would just be unwilling to believe the fantastical story she would need to tell, they'd believe she was as crazy as she should be. The other emergency services might not yet be tainted, but she still sounded insane and they would at best only advise her to go to the police. She wished that she knew what the hell this thing was, whether it was alien body snatchers or demonic possession or some new deep ocean brain controlling algae. She pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes hard.

  'Stupid,' She muttered, 'I should be wishing that nothing had happened at all,'

  So, she couldn't go into the centre of town, needed to get to somewhere unpopulated; maybe out of town entirely. She couldn't be sure that was the best thing to do either though, it was possible that it'd already spread out of town, she didn't know for certain that it had started here even.

  What if she left the town to find that the last vestiges of truly human people only existed here, what if she were the last un-possessed human alive anywhere. Surely, she would have heard something though, some stir from other cities and towns. You couldn’t murder thousands of people in complete silence. She remembered the club owner, remembered the response of the police; perhaps you could. What if she didn’t find anybody else, perhaps she’d have to live the rest of her life outside of society, like a recluse in the woods. It would be so much easier if it turned out Daniel hadn’t been lying to her.

  Moving her pack away from her feet she leant back on the cold metal and stared up at the thin clouds above. Could Daniel have been telling the truth? She wanted to hope so. She desperately wanted to believe he still loved her... Her heart ached and she grimaced, anger flaring at the unfairness. They were going to be married, had just started down on the path to a long life together. She had been through her share of failed relationships, had loved, lost and loved again and this was by far the worst. If he had died at least she could have had closure, what could she have now except the constant wondering; had he truly still been him, could she still have the life they were meant to have... She blinked slowly, a half horrifying half wonderful thought coming to her; could she become changed? Daniel had done it, the old couple had done it, had they been changed before Daniel attacked them or had he…

  Sarah had her thoughts cut off by the sound of pounding feet. She sat straight with a jolt of fear and listened with dread as the footfalls got unmistakably closer. Reflex had her grab the straps of her backpack, exhaustion had her lurch unsteadily to her feet and face the newcomers with trepidation.

  They were children, one a boy of about six, the other a girl of fourteen and they were running, the girl throwing a glance over her shoulder as she pushed her brother ahead of her into the park. Sarah could see that the boy's shoelaces weren't tied, they flew around his ankles as he ran, the girl was wearing dark pyjama bottoms and a t-shirt under a thick fur trimmed winter jacket, her shoelaces were tucked into her shoes, they were loose on her feet. The pair had obviously left their home in a hurry and Sarah had a horrible idea that she knew why.

  The boy saw her first, his face was pale beneath his straw-coloured hair and tears made wet tracks down his cheeks. The girl stumbled to a stop as she saw Sarah, she seemed scared, but her face was set determinedly behind her shoulder length straight black bangs and she quickly pulled her brother across the park at an angle, keeping her distance from Sarah but keeping an eye on her.

  'Are you ok?' Sarah blurted, moving to follow, 'Do you need some help?'

  The girl didn’t respond, ushering her brother faster, the boy turned his head with hope obvious on his face,

  'Lau...' He started

  'Stevie go.’ She muttered quickly, glancing quickly at Sarah and away,

  'What are you running from?' Sarah called, quickening her steps despite the pain in her legs, 'Wait!'

  The girl stopped, glancing back down the way they had come and biting her lip worriedly,

  'Our Mother,’ The girl said finally, running a hand through her brother’s hair absently, ‘she hurt our Granddad and now she’s chasing us. She’s... You can’t help us, we need to run, c’mon.' She whirled without waiting for Sarah to respond and grabbed for the boy's hand,

  'Wait, where are you going?' Sarah felt sluggish, she was wearied beyond belief and her mind seemed slow.

  'Away!' The girl answered without looking back, 'far away.'

  'But you're just kids!' The pair had reached another gate in the park and the girl pushed her brother through before standing with her back to it, setting herself against Sarah. Sarah felt like a snake that had cornered a small furry creature; which had turned out to be a mongoose.

  'Where can we go?' The girl said angrily, 'If I find a policeman...'

  'No!' Sarah blurted,

  'Laura!' A woman's voice called from the direction the children had come and the girl blanched, her face paling.

  'No...' The girl whispered, 'We have to run!' She threw the gate open, the metal screeching in protest with the force. Sarah grabbed it before it could close and followed with a furtive glance behind her.

  'Steven!' The cry proceeded a woman slightly taller than Sarah with hair as long and straight as her daughter's but straw coloured like her son's. She was built stockier than her daughter Sarah noticed and as the woman's eyes caught sight of her and the children Sarah noticed something else. The mother was changed like her Daniel had been, Sarah could now easily see the signs; strong angular features, any softness her face had held before the change now chiselled and beautiful. It made the twisted feral fury more terrifying than it would be on a normal face, as though the victims were less than ants with their own ordinary features, daring to face their betters.

  A scream tore loose from the monster's mouth as it charged and Sarah turned her head to find the children already running ahead of her. Her fingers lost the gate as she forced her legs into a painful sprint, it clanged shut behind her and opened again with another scream of rusted metal, far too soon for her liking. Sarah tried to put on more speed but the pain in her knees refused to let her, for the second time that morning she felt hot breath on the back of her neck and felt a thrill of fear. The children weren't far ahead of her now, the young boy's shoes were flapping dangerously with every step and the girl threw a glance back with a look of resignation on her face, Sarah thought she knew what she meant to do.

  Better me than her, Sarah thought, her chest bu
rsting with the effort of keeping pace,

  'Run!' She wheezed loudly, the girl's eyes met hers briefly but she didn't wait to see if she'd listen.

  Sarah twisted her body sideways and slipped to a staggered stop with her right foot away from the monster. It was charging at a tremendous speed, practically on top of her as she pushed off with her foot, grabbing wildly for the arms. Her fingers closed over the mad creature's wrist and Sarah bent, pulled and twisted. Being a fitness trainer had led her down many avenues, the self-defence classes had been meant for larger assailants than the thin woman she had just flipped over her back but they worked just the same. The creature tried to twist in the air like a cat, but it failed and crashed heavily with a wet crack into the concrete housing of the fence at the side of the path.

  Keeping her feet herself with no small amount of effort, Sarah managed to suck in a couple of quick lungful’s of air before dropping into a defensive stance facing the body on the floor.

  It was a body, that was immediately obvious and her stomach roiled at the sight of blood and scalp remaining on the concrete just above where the head lay in a pool of gore. Sarah's vision blurred and she swayed slightly, trying to keep upright in the face of the knowledge now battering at her mind. She had killed the woman. She had killed another person.

  This had always secretly been the reason she had never hit anybody. She had known that statistically the chances of her grievously harming anybody were slim, but the thought had always followed that there was a chance... Now it had happened though, she had been right, if you tried to hurt somebody then they'd get hurt and now these children's Mother was dead.