Mortal Skies Omnibus

by Rebecca Fernfield

  She stares from him to the window.

  “Jesus, Ellie! I’ll tell you later. Let’s go.”

  The noise of the helicopter intensifies and in his peripheral vision he notices a dark shape as Mimi runs to the window.

  She shouts back into the room with excitement. “It’s here!”

  Nate’s heart thuds. This is it. They’re all going to be safe. “Time to go. You got him?”

  Ellie returns a ‘yes’ and lifts her end of the bedsheet. Pulling both corners together to form a cocoon, Josh’s face disappears as the cotton wraps around him.

  “He won’t be able to breath!” Mimi complains.

  “He will. It’ll only take us a couple of minutes – don’t worry.” He checks in with Ellie. “Ready?”

  “Yes.”

  “Go!”

  She hauls her end of the cocoon and pulls. Josh lifts from the bed, his weight light between them both. Ellie strides for the door, taking Nate unawares, and he quickens his step.

  At the fire exit the man releases Todd. “Wait. You said it was dangerous outside.”

  “The infected are at the front,” Todd explains.

  He releases the fire extinguisher hooked next to the door. “Let me check.” Stepping out, he checks left, then right, then beckons for Nate. As they run from the doors, three men dressed in camouflage print bio-hazard suits jump from the helicopter’s open door and sprint towards them, rifles ready to shoot. Three more suited soldiers jump out, each carrying a bundle. The armed soldiers run past the group as the others surround them. Within the next seconds, Josh is taken from their grip and the men get to work unfolding the suits. Shots fire as they pull on the suits. Orders are barked as more shots are fired. Nate’s suit is zipped up and a respirator turned on. Turning his attention to his son, he grabs Josh’s ankles as a soldier grabs his armpits. For a second a white mist fogs the visor of Josh’s suit. The soldier quickly turns the respirator to ‘ON’ and the fog disappears. Nate catches a breath and hides a sigh of relief. The parasite has gone. He’d forced it out of the window. It can’t hurt them anymore.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Victoria lays back in the passenger seat, reclined to its lowest level to act as a bed. Her belly growls. Carrie sits in the back, thankfully asleep. The situation is becoming serious. All her available money – not much since she has to survive on the income from her part-time job and what Steve gives her for Carrie each month, has gone on buying food for them both since they got snarled up in the traffic jam yesterday. She winds the window down. She’d woken up to the cold of morning, but now the sun is rising the car is heating up. The air is muggy, and smells of morning breath and a fuggy sweat. There was no way around it; the road is totally jammed and she and Carrie will be stuck in it forever if they don’t walk to the next town. First, they’ll have to go back to the motel and use their toilets to freshen up; her bladder is about to burst!

  “Carrie.” The teenager doesn’t rouse. “Carrie!” She twists in the seat and shakes the girl’s knee. Carrie snorts in her sleep then sits a little straighter as she opens her eyes.

  “What?” The voice is querulous. Vicky doesn’t reprimand her rudeness; the last couple of days have been tough. Since the word had spread about the fatal outbreak of some horrible disease in the south, she’d decided it would be best to go back to her hometown in the north. The plan had been to stay with her mum back in Northumberland until the authorities got it all under control. Mike had said she was panicking and overreacting, but she wasn’t prepared to take any chances and besides, Sarah and George had taken off three days before she had, and he worked in the government so she was taking that as a ‘heads up!’.

  She’d wondered at their sudden departure, taking Millie out of school mid-term was out of character. Vicky hadn’t wanted to be fined for taking holidays during term-time, but when another two kids from Carrie’s class had ‘gone on holiday’ and Katy had told her about the three kids who had also suddenly ‘taken holidays’ from the primary school her son went to, Vicky had become nervous.

  “Wake up and we’ll go back to the services. We’ll get something to eat.”

  Carrie yawns and pulls her mobile’s earphones from her ears.

  “We’re going to have to walk to the next town.”

  Carrie’s eyes are bleary and mascara has smeared her lower lids to a dirty grey. She ignores Vicky. “Battery’s dead.”

  Vicky sighs. “Pass it here. I’ll plug it in.”

  Carrie presses at the phone, oblivious to Vicky’s reaching hand.

  “Charge it up mum. The battery’s dead.”

  Vicky sighs again, repeats her previous request and takes the phone. “Did you hear what I said?”

  “No.”

  “We’ll have to walk to the next town.”

  “Allelujah!”

  “At least you’re enthusiastic about some ... thing.” Movement outside the back window catches her attention, and she squints to get a better look.

  About one hundred feet behind them, on the slip-road that brings traffic back onto the carriageway, a thick fog is rolling down from the motorway services. The way it moves is unusual and Vicky watches as it sparkles in the sunlight, seeming to fall over itself.

  A man staggers down the slip-road and runs out between the cars. Even from this distance, Vicky can see that something is terribly wrong. She he gets closer, the injury to his forehead and the side of his head is covered with blood becomes obvious. The look on his face is one of pure terror. He darts between the cars then disappears. Another figure emerges from the mist and then another; two men, both enraged, their eyes staring and - Are they red? - lips pulled back against teeth into insane grins. Vicky glances at Carrie – she’s oblivious. As the men dart between the same cars as the first man, more people run from the mist, and Vicky becomes aware of the noise; a high-pitched shriek and, mingled with it, screams. Carrie, earphones now on her lap, catches Vicky’s eye and turns to look out of the back window.

  A woman sprints down through the fog and jumps onto the back of a man, tearing at his face, slinging one arm around his neck, legs locked around his waist, her free arm dragging long nails down his cheek. He reaches over his head and grabs her hair. The woman, a petite blonde, somersaults through the air and she’s thrown onto the bonnet of a red car. Carrie giggles, but the sound has an edge of hysteria. The fog continues to roll. The driver from the car behind hers opens his door to watch. The mist rolls closer. The petite blonde flips to her belly, pulls herself up on crabbed arms and legs, and launches herself at the man.

  “She’s demented, Mum!”

  Another car door opens and a woman steps out. She stares at the fighting couple for a second, turns to look up the slip-road to the horde of people running down, slams her car door shut, jabs at it with her fob, then runs. One of the men running down the slip road jerks his head in her direction and sprints. Vicky’s heart taps hard against her ribs as she watches the woman run past the car. The man follows, his arms pumping hard.

  “What’s going on, Mum?” The high-pitch of Carrie’s voice tightens as the man reaches the running woman, landing a heavy hand on her shoulder, just two cars from their own.

  “Don’t look, Carrie.” Vicky shouts as the woman turns, screams, then disappears as the man twists her head between his massive hands. Jesus Christ! He broke her neck. He just broke her damned neck!

  Carrie screams, and Vicky swallows the shout that has stuck in her throat.

  “Get down!” She hisses. “Don’t let him see you.” Heart beating hard, bowels turning to water, she slips into the footwell as Carrie crouches down. The man stands, snapping his teeth in a rapid chatter, his lips drawn back. “Keep your head below the window and ...” He takes a step forward, “don’t move.”

  Vicky crouches lower, thankful that the doors are locked, and makes herself as small as possible. Her thighs burn as her heart raps a rapid tattoo. She could shit herself right this second.

  Carrie sobs.

>   “Shh! Don’t make a noise.”

  Outside the thud of running feet is woven with screams. Glass shatters. Carrie yelps. “They’re breaking into the cars!”

  She’s on the edge! “Don’t panic, Carrie. Stay calm.”

  At any second, Victoria expects to see the murderer’s face looming in at the window.

  “How can I? People are killing each other!” she hisses.

  “Shh! Just be quiet.”

  Feet thud closer. Carrie mewls then crouches lower, flattening herself across the footwell of the backseat. Her breath is rapid, on the verge of hyperventilation.

  “Stay calm,” Vicky soothes, desperate to keep the fear from her own voice. She’s seen the films before—the killers always find the ones who panic.

  They wait, the only sound inside the car their own breathing. Carrie’s slows. Outside the screaming subsides. Vicky rises to peer out of the window. The man is several cars ahead of them, dragging something between the vehicles, and weaving at an angle. He stops at the central reservation and drops what he’s holding. As the dark objects fall from his hands, Vicky realises they are the boots and legs of the woman he has just killed.

  “The fog’s just behind us!”

  As Vicky turns to look, the fog envelopes the boot of the car, and a fist thuds on the passenger window. Carrie screams, and shunts across the seat as a dark figure blocks out the light. Thud! Thud! Thud! The fist continues to hammer. The fog rolls past the back windows. Vicky coughs as smoke seeps into the car, twisting from the air ducts.

  Carrie flattens herself against the far door as the man continues to thud against the glass. Tendrils of sparkling fog wind themselves around Vicky’s face and whisper across to her daughter. Another thud and the tendril reaches out as a pointed finger and shoots up Carrie’s nose, quickly enveloping her head and sinking down into her mouth. She splutters as particles seep through the membranes of her nasal cavity and the parasite hits her bloodstream with explosive force. Her body jerks as a spasm of ecstasy hits, flooding her lower belly with the endorphins of a vaginal contraction so powerful that she jerks back, flinging her arms against the glass, her head hitting the windscreen. The man thuds as the parasites flood through her body and the ecstasy recedes like dirty backwater into her bowels. The need to feel it again consumes her and she turns with gritted teeth at the man thudding at the window. He stares back and she gnashes her teeth, Carrie writhing on the backseat and scratching at the leather is forgotten. Vicky clicks the central locking, pushes the door open with a jerk, and jumps out of the car. The fog envelopes her legs as it rolls past along the road. The man shrieks, his eyes level with hers, and Vicky springs forward, barging against his belly with her bulk, knocking him to the floor. She lands with a thud on his head, instantly dislocating his jaw and snapping his neck. A flood of ecstasy fills her and her innards throb. Licking her lips, she is oblivious to her daughter’s screams, and throws her head back to shriek. Further along the road, a woman shrieks in reply.

  “Battery!” Carrie cackles.

  Oblivious, Vicky snickers. Licks her lips, and listens to the noises deep in her ear. A low moan fills her head, whispering noises, dark feelings, moist, dark, delicious words of death and need. The ache fills her. She can’t ignore the call. Shuffling back over the man’s belly, she pulls at his legs, grabbing the hem of his jeans and drags his body.

  “Battery dead!”

  The call comes from a dark place. As she moves position, the call disappears and pain swells, biting at her bowels. She grimaces, pulling lips hard against her teeth as the pain stabs at her innards and runs up her spine to the base of her neck. A dull ache spreads through her brain, filling it with the call. Desperate, she changes direction; the pain subsides, and the call becomes clear. She drags the body, following the path of the man who had broken the woman’s neck. Behind her, Carrie staggers from the car and smashes her forehead against the metal panels of a bus.

  “Battery!” she shouts as her head hits the metal. “Dead! Battery ... dead! Dead!”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  As the helicopter rises, the devastation below becomes clear. Men, women and children are running in all directions and a low fog, just as thick as at the tower blocks is hanging above the ground. It doesn’t look out of place for an early summer morning. Those are Taylor’s favourite kind of mornings; when the sun was bright, but the air was crisp, and a low mist still hung above the dew-sodden grass. It was the kind you knew would disappear as the sun rose and ‘burnt it off’ as his mum would say. This mist however, is something else entirely. This mist undulates and seems to fizzle and sparkle in the sunlight as it moves, tendrils rising from the mass, shivering, then speeding towards a target. And the target? He watches the ground and the running people as the pilot manoeuvres the helicopter into the air and across the forecourt – the target is anything that moves.

  In a sudden change of direction, a long and thick tendril of mist heads for a copse of trees, a deliberate planting to create a barrier between the service station and the motorway. At its edge, Taylor recognises the reddish and black-tipped snout of a fox. It seems intrigued by the mist, sniffing at the air, then shakes its head as a tendril swoops down and disappears up its nose. The helicopter lifts, and the fox disappears from his line of sight. Taylor remembers Connaught’s excited chatter in the canteen about the effect of the parasite on the rats in the cage and shudders.

  The redhead has taken a window seat and leans forward then taps the man, Nate Penrose according to Littleton, and jabs at the road below. Her voice is muffled, but she seems excited. He looks down to the blocked carriageways. What he sees there makes his heart thud a little quicker. Below, men, women, and children weave between the cars. There are various groups, some standing beside their cars, doors open, some smoking, some walking along the verge. A bus sits in the middle lane, trapped on all sides, its passengers milling around the vehicle. The fog has already made its way to the first lane and from it the infected guests from the motel emerge. As in the videos he’s seen from the cities, each drags a body, one man has a woman slung over his shoulder. He counts them – seventeen infected carrying seventeen bodies.

  “Hold steady, Parker. I want to get some footage of this.” Bodycam on his helmet, he focuses on the scene below and relays back through to base. “Smaller. Do you read?”

  Gareth Smaller responds. “Go ahead, Captain Marks.”

  “Live feed from the scene at the motel. Littleton and Blaylock will want to watch this.”

  Taylor watches the procession of infected as they cross the motorway’s three northbound lanes. The first one stops at the central reservation and drops the ankles of the dead woman he’s dragging, picks her up as though to lift her across the threshold then throws her unceremoniously over the four-foot barrier. She lands as a broken heap on the tarmac. Taylor cringes, his face setting into a stern frown. Please let her already be dead! As the other infected reach the wall, they also toss the bodies over and then drag them through the remaining stationary cars to the verge beyond.

  “Where the hell are they all going?”

  “Weird!”

  “They’re dragging them up the verge now.”

  “Hell!”

  Taylor watches for the next two minutes as the procession of infected drags the dead up the grass verge and beyond, leaving wide trails through the field of bright yellow rape seed. In the distance, about three miles as the crow flies, is a large compound of low and blocky utilitarian office buildings, residential apartments, warehouses, and aircraft hangers.

  “You thinking what I’m thinking, Parker?”

  “Yes, Captain. They’re heading for the base.”

  ELLIE TUGS AT NATE’S arm, pointing to the line of men and women making their way across the motorway’s six lanes as the helicopter hovers. Her stomach knots as she watches a man, and then a woman, throw corpses – she hopes they’re corpses – over the middle barrier as though lifting a pillow, and dumping it onto the road below. The d
ead woman’s head hits the concrete partition before slamming onto the tarmac. The man, tall and broad-shouldered with a mass of black hair greying at the temples, vaults over the barrier with ease. Energetic and driven, they are newly infected.

  She’d seen it back in the city; on the first day they would move with speed, and agility, displaying enormous strength. They fought ferociously, gouging, biting, kicking, and snapping with a relentless and vicious rage, but as the hours turned into days their energy would deplete. Their bodies showed the trauma, not only of the wounds they sustained, but what Ellie presumed was the deleterious effects of the parasite on the body. The infection, parasite, or whatever it was, seemed to sap the life right out of them. Fat Babs was a perfect example; on first infection, a healthy but overweight specimen, suddenly empowered with incredible strength and a ferocious urge to kill, but the infection seemed to eat her from the inside, her body losing its fat, then muscle until at her death she was a skinny heap of bones covered in saggy urine-coloured skin that was breaking down in great black patches. The eyes had faded too; starting as a bright and shining blood-red to one dulled by an opaque lens. A quick scan of the woman’s body with the torchlight was all that Ellie had been able to stand.

  She tugs at Nate’s sleeve. He responds with a muffled grunt and she realises that his attention is on his son. The boy lies in the centre of the helicopter’s cabin, eyes closed, skin a deathly grey. His breath is steady however and a twitch of his fingers and flicker on his eyelids are at least signs of life.

  Nate sits stiff beside her. Despite the horrors on the ground, her instinct is to soothe him. “He’s dreaming.”

  His response is a grunt.

  “You can tell he’s in REM sleep by the way his eyes are moving beneath his eyelids.”

  Her voice is muffled within her suit. She hopes he can hear.

  “Probably a nightmare,” is his gruff response.

  “We’re safe now. They probably have a hospital at the base.”