“It was a fucking massacre,” Violet said. “It’s like they just disembarked willingly from the convoy and came here to be killed. Like cattle.”
“It doesn’t make sense,” Morse said.
Violet stood next to him and put her hand on his arm. “I don’t think Florence is here. We’ll find her.”
Morse had never before noticed the blueness of her eyes.
“It’s okay,” she said.
He nodded and wiped his mouth.
She smiled at him, with something like hope.
He touched her arm. “Thank you.”
The bullet made a neat hole in Violet’s forehead before the back of her head was blown out. Her eyes met his, and she opened her mouth to say something, before her legs failed and she collapsed at his feet.
He stared down at her, shocked into silence, her blood warm on his face and hands. His mouth hung open as he tried to say her name, but all that spilled out was a trembling breath.
The next bullet took Morse in the shoulder.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
His hands scraping raw on the tarmac, Morse crawled over the road as someone came through the mist after him. The shoulder of his coat was soaked with blood. He gritted his teeth at the pain and dragged himself to the roadside and sat against the wheel of a rusted car. His body had failed him and this was the end. Faint and sick, he clasped one hand to his shoulder to stem the bleeding, and all he could do was look at Violet’s body lying on the road.
A shape manifested in the mist and struggled towards him, hunched upon a walking stick.
“You bastard,” Morse said.
Jardine emerged and stood looking down at him with such an expression of hate and anger that Morse almost turned away. The old man looked at the pistol in his hand. The weapon he’d used to kill Violet.
“You didn’t have to kill her,” Morse said, and spat at him. “You didn’t have to. What was the point…?” His voice faded with his strength.
Jardine wiped his mouth. “She had to die. It seems that we all have to die. Are you ready to die now, Morse?”
“What happened to your army? Looks like the infected fucked up your plans.”
Jardine winced as he touched the weeping wound in his side. His face clammy and bloodless. “I was betrayed.”
“Betrayed?”
“The infected were waiting for us. The Plague Gods were in the sky. When we first arrived, it was exciting and I thought we were going to be welcomed. But after we disembarked from our vehicles, the infected emerged from the fog and set upon us.”
“What about Florence? Is she dead?”
Jardine’s eyes fluttered. He grimaced. “They didn’t harm the children.”
“Then how did you survive?”
“I managed to escape while the others were being slaughtered. I hid. I heard them all die, Morse. And when I returned, the infected were gone and they had taken the children with them, down the road to Hallow Hope.”
“Ascension,” said Morse.
Jardine’s face crumpled as if he was about to cry. “I was supposed to be their leader, but only the children were saved. Why wasn’t I saved? I have the gift. Why didn’t they take me with them?”
Morse shook his head. “Maybe you weren’t pure enough. Too old. Too weak. Just a doddering old man.”
“Don’t you mock me,” Jardine spat. “Don’t you dare mock me, you insignificant wretch.”
Morse savoured the taste of blood in his mouth and raised his middle finger to the old man.
Jardine shook with rage and his eyes were wild. He took one step forward, breathing through his clenched jaw. “I should have killed you back at Darlington House. I should have cut your head off.”
Morse mouthed fuck you.
Jardine bared his teeth and aimed the pistol at Morse’s face.
A plaintive cry drifted out of the mist.
Morse saw something monstrous approaching behind Jardine and he thought it was the Devil arriving to take them both away. He grinned through nerve-shredding pain and felt a pure wave of relief for the first time in a long while.
“Judgement,” Morse whispered.
“What?” Jardine said, puzzled.
“You’ll see.”
A tall form of flailing tendrils came out of the fog behind Jardine, seized the sides of his head with dripping pincers and lifted him from the ground. He screamed and dropped the pistol. The monster emerged fully, and the sight of it almost stopped Morse’s heart. It was over ten feet tall and pale white in colour, shuddering on insectile legs that bent both ways at their joints. The squirming appendages on its glistening abdomen danced in the air, whip-like and tipped with weeping stingers.
And those stingers jabbed at Jardine’s body, piercing him multiple times through his clothes. His face slackened and blood frothed from his mouth as he gurgled and spluttered. More pincers emerged from fleshy sheaths within the creature’s centre mass and gripped Jardine’s limbs; and his final scream died as he was torn in half like a wet cardboard effigy and his insides slopped upon the road and steamed in small mounds.
The creature opened its vertical maw and pushed the two parts of Jardine inside, gobbled up his dangling legs, and then there were only the sounds of bones being snapped and flesh chewed to paste.
Morse’s chest tightened. A squeezing hand around his heart. He stared in awe at the monster, waiting for it to come forward and work itself upon his quivering body. He felt his mind slipping away, and it was for the best, because he did not want to be aware when it fell upon him.
The monster skittered forward until it towered over him. Its smell was of stagnant water and brine. Jardine’s blood stained its mouth and limbs. A shivering breath slipped from its maw. Morse saw the teeth inside gnashing in anticipation of his flesh.
“Hurry up and get it done,” he said. “I’ve had enough. We’ve all had enough, you fucker.”
The monster’s appendages descended to him and paused before his face, wriggling and floundering, dripping a pale fluid onto his clothes. One of the appendages touched his forehead and he had to stifle a horrified cry by gritting his teeth. The appendage’s sharp tip ran across the skin of his brow but didn’t break the skin. He swallowed bile down his throat. The back of his mouth watered with nausea.
“What are you waiting for…?” he whispered.
The monster backed away until it was indistinct in the fog, and it stayed there watching him, a tumultuous form mewling softly, sated by the feast of Jardine’s body.
Another form melted from the mist and approached, stepping softly over the corpses. A small, slight figure that smiled and reached towards him. A girl he once knew. He tried to stand, but his legs failed and his ailing heart was a terrible weight.
The girl stood and looked down at him. Her scalp was completely hairless and her eyes were soaked in a deep red. The gown she wore hung from her thin shoulders, speckled with dried blood. Her mouth was pretty, and when she smiled again Morse felt the pain leave his body. He smiled back at her. His dark angel.
“Florence,” he whispered.
She reached down for him and took his hand and her skin was warm. “You came back for me. I’m sorry I was mean to you before. I’m so glad you’re here.”
“What’s going on, Florence?”
She showed her teeth. “Something wonderful has happened, Morse. It’s all going to be okay. There will be no more pain. No more death. Not for any of us”
“What do you mean?”
“Come with me and I’ll show you.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
The Plague Gods filled the air while Morse and Florence walked hand in hand to the cries of monsters. The air he breathed was foul with rot and thick enough to be swallowed like fluid. Shapes moved around them, barely glimpsed. Nasal snorts and murmuring. Deformed faces stretched beyond human suffering. Crooked bodies lurching and loping. Beasts of the plague, misshapen to obscene positions and composed of human limbs, faces, eyes and torsos. A prehensile tail
tipped with a loaded stinger, weaved through the mist. A bloated stomach glistening as it peeled open to allow a sheathed proboscis to emerge wetly, draped with strands of mucus. The slapping of flesh on the ground. Feral cries.
Florence was smiling. Her voice was serene and kind, as if she’d been dosed with some kind of opiate. “Don’t be scared, Morse. Nothing will hurt you here.”
Morse turned his head slightly, trying not to stare at her hairless scalp or meet her red eyes, which looked like deep pools of velvet. He tried to keep the fear out of his voice, despite the tremble of his mouth and chin. His heart was frantic.
“What happened to you?” he said.
Her smile never wavered as she raised her face to him. “I know I seem…different, but I’m still me. I’m still the girl you know. I’ve just been changed a bit, that’s all.”
“Is this your ascension?”
“This is the prelude to it. I’m in the early stages of transformation.”
“What will you become?”
“Something wonderful. It’ll be glorious, Morse. The Plague Gods have welcomed us.”
“They didn’t welcome the Order of the Pestilence.”
“They weren’t gifted, so they were deemed expendable. Only good for food, I’m afraid.”
“What about Jardine? He had the same gift as you.”
“He was just a facilitator, though an unwitting one. His purpose was to bring the children together, and once he’d fulfilled his purpose he was no longer needed.”
Morse realised that the other children were standing nearby, silent and motionless in the mist, watching him and Florence. They were red-eyed and hairless. The boys and girls of the plague. He thought of them as larval forms eager to shed their human skins and reveal the monsters lurking underneath.
“Why haven’t you killed me yet, Florence?”
She wiped her mouth with back of her pale arm. “I want you to join us. There is no other way. This is the next stage.”
“You want to infect me, you mean.”
She halted. “Look ahead at what is waiting for us, Morse.”
He stared into the fog as it swirled and capered, and when it thinned and allowed him to see beyond, it revealed an enormous pit whose edges faded into the vapour. The ground had collapsed or been scooped out. Endless. Incomprehensible. Nothing but darkness within. He stepped forward until he was a few yards from its edge and felt such a wave of vertigo that he held his arms out to steady himself.
“That’s what’s left of Hallow Hope,” Florence said. A note of victory in her voice. She’d appeared beside him, gazing down into the abyssal dark.
“What happened here?” Morse said, trying to comprehend what his eyes showed him.
“The Plague Gods came down from the heavens,” whispered Florence. She trembled with something like excitement. “This is how it’s supposed to be.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You won’t be a drone; you’ll be something else. Something better. Something greater.”
“Like what?”
“A protector. A guardian. My guardian, again.”
A deep rumble travelled underneath their feet, like massive tremors in the deep earth. Morse swayed and almost fell down, but Florence gripped his hand and held him up. The tremor passed beyond them. Morse didn’t let go of her hand despite the damp meat feel of her skin.
“What do you mean?” he said.
She turned away and faced the pit as something emerged with the sound of colliding mountains.
“Oh God.”
“Yes, that’s right,” Florence said. “A god.”
The immense form rose and extended into the sky, at least four hundred feet tall. A gargantuan entity that roared through a mouth as wide as a quarry, claiming the world and all life upon it. A wavering, writhing protean form, extending giant tentacles towards the sky, casting the ground in shadow, its red skin rippling and swelling with undulating tendrils and immense, worm-like appendages.
Morse retreated from the pit until he fell onto his back, staring up at the monstrous titan. The Plague God. One of many. He felt his mind slipping away. His heart jerking in his chest. Hard to breathe. He realised he was crying and biting into his fist so hard that his teeth left dimpled marks in his skin. He couldn’t speak.
Florence stood over him as he put his hands to his face and stared through the gaps between his fingers. Past her, membranous-winged beasts swooped, circling the towering Plague God, screeching and wailing. They were pale, elusive forms, darting around the massive tentacles like birds or bats. His eyes hurt, and he tried to deny what he saw, but there would be no denying of anything because this was the way of things now. This was the plague in all its forms.
Florence offered her hand and he accepted. He could feel her alien heart beating. The corruption within her spreading like cancer. “This is the fate of all sentient life,” she said. “The other children and I will be emissaries to other worlds yet to receive the plague.”
“Emissaries?”
“The plague has evolved, Morse, and it wants other life forms to accept infection willingly. Communion is so much easier that way.”
She pulled him to his feet and he stood there breathing weakly, grasping his shoulder. He glanced beyond her at the abomination that filled the sky; the Plague God in all its dark glory. Florence unhanded him but stepped closer until he could smell her. The foul odour of her mouth and her bloodless skin.
“I can talk to the Plague Gods. All the children can. We’re linked. Our thoughts are shared. The Plague Gods have agreed to let me take you, Morse. We can still be together.”
He reeled, pleading to her with his eyes. “I can’t join you like this, Florence. This isn’t life. It’s not supposed to be like this.”
Doubt passed over her face. “There is no other way, Morse. Human survivors are slowly being wiped out or absorbed, and soon there will be no one left. Come with me, Morse. I can save you from an agonising, lingering death. What will you do if you flee? You’ll die out in the wastelands, or become infected and you’ll join the swarm and you’ll just be another drone. This is the only way. Come with me, Morse. Please.”
She held out her hand.
Morse swayed on his feet, wiping his eyes. “I don’t know. I need time to think about this. It’s all too much.” His heart winced. He put one hand to his chest.
“Take my hand,” she said. “It’s the only way.”
He met her crimson eyes. She was still the girl he’d sworn to protect, but she was being consumed from within and it broke his heart beyond comprehension.
The children gathered around them. No one spoke. The thunder roared in the sky. Writhing flesh in the fog all about them. The sky darkened with colossal shapes.
He sagged, torn by indecision, the sounds of the Plague Gods filling his skull. He looked at Florence. Saw her the way she had once been. The little girl he’d rescued from an abandoned refugee camp. The girl he’d saved. The girl he’d come to love as a daughter. And then he saw the truth of her: transformed by the Plague Gods, changing into something that would be soon unrecognisable as human. She would be lost.
She was already lost.
His mouth trembled and he let out a low, mournful moan.
Florence reached for him. Her small voice. “Come with me, Morse. We can be together until the universe dies.”
He let out a low sob.
She touched his arm gently, like old times.
With one hand he reached behind him into the waistline of his trousers under the hem of his coat and grabbed the pistol stashed there. The pistol that Jardine dropped when he’d been plucked from the ground and devoured. And Morse pulled the pistol free and brought it forward and aimed at Florence. His hand was shaking terribly, his shoulder in agony. Screeching laughter filled his head. He was losing his mind. He muttered with no idea of the words he spoke.
The children wailed around him, except for Florence; she simply watched him with her red wine eyes full of
sorrow and disappointment. They became watery with what seemed to be tears. And she knew what would come.
Morse grimaced at the pain of the bullet wound and wished to die soon. “I love you, Florence. You are my daughter. My weakness. I promised to protect you, to save you, and I will. I will save you from the monsters.”
Florence opened her mouth and shrieked his name as he fired the pistol into her chest. The report of the gunshot filled the space between them, and the silence that followed was terrible and heart breaking. Morse cried with such sorrow that he fell to his knees.
The children stumbled away, clasping hands to their faces as they vanished into the mist.
Morse closed his eyes for a moment and exhaled deeply until there was no air in his lungs. When he opened his eyes, Florence was lying on the ground, sprawled cruciform. A red rose spreading upon her gown.
He sobbed. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” He knelt next to Florence and held her hand, lowering his face next to hers. “I had to save you.”
Her mouth took weakening mouthfuls of air. She looked at him with tears in her eyes, and she became that frightened little girl he’d saved once upon a time.
“Forgive me, Florence. Forgive me, please.”
She raised her head slightly and whispered something in his ear, but it was too soft to be heard and she died with her mouth close to his face as a final shuddering breath rattled in her chest.
He cradled her head and kissed her brow. He cried for a long time, surrounded by the hell of Hallow Hope, as the Plague Gods roared and screamed and mourned for his loss.
“I love you, Florence. Sleep well. It’s all over.”
Epilogue
The world was darkening and the skies were never without thunder and rain. All creatures of the plague prospered in the ravaged land. A new ecosystem was emerging. New monsters and beasts. Abominations and obscene things that lived to kill and feed. Broken gods birthed from nightmare wombs. The world was flesh, tooth, maw, stinger and claw. It was meat and skin. A world torn asunder to be remade.
The Plague Series | Book 3 | The Last Soldier Page 20
