Mortal Skies Omnibus

by Rebecca Fernfield

  GARETH ROLLS OVER IN the deep sleep of utter exhaustion. Surviving on less than four hours sleep a day since the crisis began has finally caught up with him, and the buzzing of the phone sits at the periphery of his unconscious mind but doesn’t penetrate.

  DR. ROB CONNAUGHT RETURNS to his lab. His eyes burn with tiredness, but she needs feeding, and he doesn’t trust anyone else to do the job properly. Two hours away from the laboratory was more than he’d wanted, but Felix, his Doberman, had also needed feeding and taking out for a walk, otherwise there would be one hell of mess in the kitchen. He’ll take another break in the morning to let him out again and then perhaps book him into kennels or ask Mrs. Hinkley, his neighbour, if she’d help him out for a few days. His plan is to doze throughout the night, setting his alarm at intervals to feed and monitor Beryl. He allows himself a small chuckle; Beryl had been the name of his ex-wife’s domineering and controlling mother.

  Entering the laboratory, he switches on his desk lamp to keep the light muted, and begins the process of retrieving the rats from the box. The missing cool box goes unnoticed as he drops their corpses into the one that remains and spends the hours until daylight making notes and watching the creature devour the rats.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Morning light shines across the room to the bed, irritating the cloud of fog that hangs above Josh’s open mouth. As light filters through the grey-edged scallops of the motel’s lace curtains, dust eddies in the sun’s warming ray, and the tendrils of curling mist rise to the ceiling before returning to the boy’s sleeping face. It strokes across his cheeks, slips over his ears, and furrows through his hair before reappearing at his forehead. Sliding over closed eyes, it seeps back up his nostrils. Mesmerised, Nate watches the rise and fall of Josh’s breath as the fog plays, and shudders. The boy coughs.

  A knock at the door snaps Nate back to awareness and he pushes himself up from the low chair with a struggle. Every muscle in his body aches. The pain across his shoulders, and the back of his head, has returned with a vengeance now that the last of Cathy’s post-operative pain killers has worn off; he’d eked them out over the past days, cutting the last one in half to stave off the pain.

  At the door, he peers through the peephole; Ellie. Nate opens the door to allow a narrow gap, and she squeezes through.

  “Where are the kids?”

  “Back in the room.” Ellie steps past Nate. “They’re watching Cinder-” Her words falter as a tendril of mist escapes from Josh’s mouth and twists towards the ceiling.

  Nate follows her gaze and tracks its rise. “He’s still sleeping.”

  For a moment she watches the dancing fog, then breaks her silence, “No matter how many times I see that, it freaks me out.”

  “You don’t say.”

  “Sorry. That sounds so lame, but ... it is just so gross.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean Josh ...” She stares as tendrils unfurl. “It’s not Josh that’s gross. It’s just that ... the whole infected-alien-parasite thing ...”

  “Is terrifying. I know. I get it.”

  “I’m so sorry, Nate.”

  “Stop saying ‘sorry’ Ellie!”

  “Nate ... I don’t know what else to say ... it’s just so ... so awful.”

  Nate sighs. The last days have strained him beyond endurance. The chaos and violence in the city, and then the dreadful scenes on the riverbank after their escape, had been truly horrendous. It was so much more than ‘awful’, and the mist was more than ‘gross’. It was soul-suckingly dreadful. The knowledge that Josh was playing host to an alien parasite that if it transferred to another living creature would turn that dog, rat, man, woman, or child, into a psychotic and violent, death-seeking monster, was truly horrific. Seeing the tendrils of parasitic fog twisting in and out of his son’s mouth and nose enraged him, and that rage was sucking at every last drop of energy he had. He needs to sleep, but sleep is the last thing he is capable of.

  The mist turns, reaches a tendril in their direction.

  “God!” Ellie takes a step back.

  “No god is going to help us, Ellie.”

  The mist speeds up, reaching Ellie within seconds. “Nate!”

  “Just stay still.” His voice is weary, sick of the drama. “You know it won’t bother with you.”

  She stands frozen as Nate sits himself back down in the chair. “Jesus! It’s like it’s sniffing me out!” The mist trails over her hand, twisting between her fingers, then turns back towards the boy. Ellie visibly relaxes, and takes a step back to stand beside Nate. Her sigh of relief audible, and grotesque to Nate; why can’t it go to her? He berates himself instantly for his selfishness. She sighs as she continues to stare at Josh. “I don’t know how you can be so calm.”

  Nate grunts. Calm is the opposite of what he feels.

  “Why does it stay here? It can move; it could go.”

  “My guess is that it’ll move on once it finds another host.”

  “I hope so. I mean ... I don’t want it to infect anyone else, but-”

  “Sure, Ellie. I know. Don’t beat yourself up.”

  Her brow furrows and their eyes meet—hers look hurt. Another wave of guilt; he shouldn’t be so harsh—she’d saved the boy’s life for God’s sake. He breaks the gaze and stares back at Josh, watching the rise and fall of his chest. He clenches his hands and digs nails into his palms. God! What God? If there is one, He is full of hate for Mankind and he can go to hell!

  “The receptionist was asking me questions, Nate. When I took the kids for something to eat, she was asking about you—if you were alright—said she hadn’t seen you since you arrived and there’d been no room service. The way she asked if you were ‘alright’ was odd, like she was suspicious.”

  “None of her bloody business.”

  “No, but-”

  “What did you say?”

  “Well, I just said that you were a bit under the weather and sleeping a lot ...”

  “That’s true apart from the sleeping bit, so, no worries.”

  Her eyes wander across to Josh. “Don’t you think we should get a doctor?”

  “No!”

  “But-”

  “And tell him what, Ellie? That my son is infected by an alien parasite that the government is hellbent on destroying and has bombed the city killing tens of thousands of innocent people to try and eradicate?”

  “No, but-”

  “What do you think would happen to us ... to him, Ellie? If they find out?”

  “Well ... You can’t keep him in here forever.”

  He checks his phone. Still no response from Gareth. Perhaps he’s dead too?

  “You’re right. We do have to leave.” He’d emptied his bank account to pay for the room. “We’re only booked in for one night.” He buries his head in his hands, wallowing in the pain across his back as he leans forward. If only he hadn’t gone to work that night, none of this would have happened.

  “You look done in, Nate. Come and get something to eat.”

  “I can’t leave Josh.”

  “He’s sleeping, you can lock the door. Ten minutes won’t harm. You’re not going to be any good to him if you don’t look after yourself. You haven’t eaten since we got here.”

  She’s right—again. Now she’s mentioned food, his belly swirls with the sickness of hunger. He has enough cash to buy a meal and get something for Josh when he wakes. “OK,” he agrees. “I’ll get something for Josh too.” He ignores the pained look Ellie flashes at him and reaches for his jacket. A sour odour wafts into his nose and it takes a second to register that it is from his raised armpits. Suddenly self-conscious, he pulls on the jacket and determines to take a shower and freshen up once he gets back to the room. Perhaps with food in his belly, and a warm bath, he’ll be refreshed enough to figure out just what to do next. Right now, he is completely stumped; he doesn’t have enough money to get them through today, never mind buying enough petrol to get them to safety. He pulls the jac
ket on, takes a final look at Josh, and his phone rings.

  He catches Ellie’s look of surprise, then fumbles in his pocket for the mobile. The screen reads ‘GARETH SMALLER’.

  “Thank God!”

  SALLY SHIFTS THE GEAR into third, pressing the accelerator to the floor, and the engine chugs as she releases the clutch too quickly. The digital clock on her dashboard reads 08:53. She has precisely seven minutes to park, run into the café, tie on her pinny, and stand behind the counter looking happy and fresh. Her heart thuds. A second beyond that nine o’clock deadline and she’ll incur the wrath of Carol. The old cow will give her a nasty look anyway, but why should she be there ten minutes before her shift starts? They won’t pay her for it, and those are ten minutes of life she’ll never get back. Besides, given all the crap that is going on, she’d half expected a phone call to tell her not to come into work.

  She pulls out from the junction, passes the village boundary, then takes the short road that will take her to the motel’s back entrance. The raised and enclosed walkway that crosses the motorway, joining southbound to northbound services together, comes into view and her mood shifts from annoyed to irritated; she has to find a different job, just the sight of the place gives her a headache. This is the last place she had expected to be once she’d finished university, but here she is living at home with her parents and working at the poxy services like the rest of her mates.

  The low rooves of the petrol forecourt and the nearby motel come into view and Sally slows down for the speedbump whilst looking for somewhere to park. The place is busier than usual, even taking into account the typical increase in holiday traffic. Eight fifty-nine. Hell! Carol will have her guts for garters if she doesn’t move it. She slides into an available space and turns off the engine as a faint queasiness swirls in her stomach. She burps, something she’s done repeatedly from about the fourth week of pregnancy and rubs at her belly, smoothing a hand over the hard lump that sits there. She is fifteen weeks and three days according to the scan, which meant it was Marlon’s baby for sure even if he was being a dick and refusing to accept it. How the hell can something so small be causing her so much grief? Is it making her feel so ill because she’s O Rhesus negative? The midwife had said she’d have to have a special injection – anti-D or something – because her body would make the baby come out with a big head or liver and it could die. She’d read up on it and it was OK if the dad was Rhesus negative too, and Marlon was, so she didn’t really need the injection, although there had been that one night when things had become blurry and her memory broken – too many vodka shots. She’d take the injection just in case. How crazy was it that a mother’s body would try and kill its own baby as if it was some sort of alien life form inside her?

  The car park is busy with travellers, some striding to the services, others sitting on the grass or in their cars with the doors open, the day being surprisingly hot already. She wonders if the meteors were warming the place up – they certainly looked hot and magnificent as they hurtled through the sky. As she strides towards the motel’s entrance, a woman shouts at a man and she catches snippets of their argument, ‘how the hell do we get out then?’, ‘roads jammed’, ‘blocked’. As she reaches the entrance the oddness of the day strikes her. Nothing moves. The usual roar of traffic from the motorway is silent, even when there’s a traffic jam, one or the other lane is open and there’s the constant angry hum of engines. The car park is full, a line of traffic is queueing behind the barrier, and the people look unhappy, more than that, they look stressed. A child wails. A father frowns. “Can’t you shut him up!” The mother turns with an exaggerated sigh, picks up the child, and walks away from the father. Tension is thick in the air. Sally picks up her pace. Her watch reads a minute past nine. Now she’ll get it from Crabbie Carol.

  The double doors open to a cacophony of noise; the quiet of the outside broken by the rising chatter of voices inside. Kelly at the front desk looks flustered as a man leans over the desk and jabs down at something below. Kelly shakes her head, her cheeks flushed. “We’re full, Sir. I’m sorry.” Sally strides past, avoiding Kelly’s eyes, not her circus, not her monkeys. If Kelly had swapped shifts last week like Sally had asked, then perhaps she’d consider helping.

  The dining area is quiet though each table is full. Jack at the desk is turning a couple away. The woman seems close to tears as they turn. “A two hour wait! How can there be a two hour wait at a Little Chef?”

  “We’re had a lot of guests, Sir, and with the traffic at a standstill, a lot of drivers have come in to eat and have a break.”

  “And left their cars to block the road no doubt!”

  “I’m not aware of that, Sir.”

  She winks at Jack as she passes. He frowns and clutches at the monitor on the pedestal. “Shall I make a reservation for you, Sir?”

  “Reservation! At a Little Chef?”

  “Come on, Andy. We can get a sandwich or something at the shop inside the services.”

  “I wanted a full-English, Donna! Not a bloody sandwich.”

  The woman says something about getting a bacon and egg sandwich and dipping it into a ‘bloody can of baked beans’ and then her voice fades as the couple walk back towards the foyer. Sally slips behind the counter and into the kitchen. Nine o-five and no sign of Carol. She breathes a sigh of relief and grabs a clean apron from the neatly folded stack beneath the counter.

  Hard fingers press into her shoulder.

  “What time do you call this, Miss Edmonston?”

  Sally winces as dread sinks into her bowels and the woman begins her tongue lashing.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Gareth slumps back in his chair, turning his mobile over and over in his hand. The relief at receiving a missed call from Nate had quickly passed. He hadn’t listened to the voice mail, preferring instead to call his old friend. The guilt that had hung over him since the previous day, the recurring pleading voice, had receded as he’d pressed ‘CALL’ only to return with a vengeance as he’d listened to Nate.

  “Nate! Thank God you’re alive.”

  “Thank God you called! Can you send help?”

  The same request. Gareth’s stomach had churned.

  “I’m not sure how I can. Where are you?”

  “Didn’t you listen to my message?”

  “... No. I called you as soon as I saw the missed call.”

  Silence.

  “We’re at the Little Chef off the M18 northbound.”

  “We?”

  “Me and Josh, and a few other survivors from the city.”

  The word survivors is a knife to his guts. Like the others at the Secretariat, he was responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands. Sweat beads again at his hairline. His heart picks up a beat. It was the only choice. You had to do it. “How many ... survivors?”

  “Three; a woman and two kids. Gareth, can you send someone to get us? It’s chaos here.”

  Gareth knows exactly where the motel is. Five grid-locked miles south from his current location, the military base with a bunker designated as the Operations Centre by the Secretariat for times of Extreme Emergency. “It’ll have to be a helicopter, Nate. I’ll have to talk it over with my colleagues, I can’t just send one out.”

  “Gareth! Josh is sick.”

  The ache in Gareth’s belly twists. “Sick? What do you mean, sick?” If the boy had picked up a trace of Novichok then it would be too late to save him.

  The line is silent again.

  “Nate?”

  “Yes, I’m here.” The voice has lost its energy.

  “How sick is he, Nate?”

  “It’s hard to tell. He has a head injury.”

  “Any other symptoms?”

  Again, the line grows silent.

  “Nate? Any other symptoms?”

  “We’re immune to the infection.”

  “Immune?” He blurts.

  “Yes. We’ve been around the infected, but we’re all alright.”

  Fo
otsteps pad across the room and Littleton stands at his shoulder. Gareth’s scalp creeps as he listens to Nate’s strained voice. How many more were immune? How many people had they needlessly killed?

  Nate continues, “but Josh ... the fog is living inside him ...”

  “Inside him!”

  Fingers press down on Gareth’s shoulder. He jumps and twists to the dour face of Colonel Littleton.

  “Hand me the phone, Smaller.”

  Nate’s voice is tinny as he passes the mobile. Littleton speaks for a moment then turns to face the room. “Can I have complete silence please.” He turns to Gareth. “Smaller, switch the phone to loud speaker please.”

  Gareth follows instructions then passes the phone back to Littleton.

  “Mr Penrose. You have our attention, could you please explain your situation.”

  Silence fills the room as Nate begins to speak. For the next few minutes the military and research personnel listen with rapt attention as Nate relays his story of escape from the city, his belief that he and the other survivors are immune, and that his son is a carrier for the infection. Littleton ends the conversation with a promise of help.

  Gareth sits back with relief, the pain of guilt ebbing.

  “I need a team in their pronto.”

  “Thank God!”

  “God has nothing to do with it, Smaller ... Level Red.”

  “What?” Gareth rocks forward. “Level Red? You just promised to help him!”

  “You heard what he said. His son is a carrier. That means he’s contagious. As deadly as the Novichok, and just waiting to be unleashed.”

  “He’s in a coma. He can’t infect anyone.”

  “Level Red, Smaller.”

  Pain sears Gareth’s belly as bile burns in his stomach. He can’t be a party to killing Nate and his son. “But he’s immune!”