by Wilson, Mark
Somna wore his black hair long, tightly wrapped in a sheik-like bun and fixed in place with wire at the crown of his head. Blackest of all his features were his eyes. So dark, like pools of black ink, no emotion. Nothing, not anger, fear, love or regret, ever showed in them. They belonged to a shark rather than a man. They also lacked the frame of upper or lower eyelids having been removed by his own hand “to better serve my King and watch my flock,” as he said.
The very worst of Somna’s appearance was also the one aspect that seemed most out of place. Around his waist hung a bum-bag, a fanny-pack, with the legend I Love Edinburgh in bright neon orange lettering. Inside were the other trophies he took from his victims, the ones he cut from them when only his trusted few lieutenants were present. A festering pack filled with the putrefied eyelids of hundreds.
Somna finished his prayers and fished a little bottle of self-made serum from his pocket. Holding the bottle above his permanently open eyes, he waited patiently as a few drops of the moisturising liquid fell. The muscles around his eyes contracted, still attempting to engage the blink reflex, unaware that they no longer held eyelids to flick over his exposed eyeballs. Somna rolled his eyes around in their sockets, face pointing to the ceiling, as he spoke.
“What can I do for you today, Jimmy?” His voice was entirely at odds with his appearance, being gentle, seductive even. Always calm.
James told him of his encounter with Bracha, explaining that he had been hunting in the woods when stumbling across the former lieutenant.
“What a coincidence,” Somna said gently.
James held his poker face and continued. When Somna discovered that the hospital fences had been breached and the compound itself seemingly evacuated, he calmly rounded up fifty or so men within minutes and set off for Little France.
James had no idea whether the teens were still in the area, but whatever the case, it was out of his hands. Bracha had to be silenced. If Somna were to discover from him the extent to which James had lied to him about the status of the city-centre, he expected one more raven on Somna’s skin would be his legacy. He followed his master out into the morning frost and aided a silent prayer for the children he may have just murdered to protect his own secrets.
Looking along at Somna standing on the perimeter of the hospital boundary on Little France Crescent, James watched the leader of The Exalted converse with their King, who had been carried to Little France on his platform, still in his perverted pose, half-deflated ball at his foot.
Somna threw his arms up suddenly. “We will have the traitor, Bracha, delivered unto us this very morning,” he announced. “Our heavenly King assures me.”
A ripple of excitement from the gathered men; James could almost taste the adrenaline surging through the gathered monsters.
Somna strolled calmly towards James and leaned in close, voice a whisper.
“If you feel any lingering loyalty to Bracha, best that you leave now, Jimmy.”
A thousand memories rushed through James Kelly’s mind in that moment. He had known the man who was now called Bracha for most of his life. They’d met in boarding school. They’d joined the army together. Two tours in Afghanistan. He’d become a member of the man’s team of personal guards. He was there with his friend on the day the city fell. They could have left days before, a chopper had been sent, but he wanted to stay.
With his ruddy-red face and ginger hair, he’d told James, “This is the world now, and it’s a damn sight more interesting than the one we’ve waded through all these years.”
James and one other personal guard, Cammy, had stayed out of loyalty, out of duty. They’d followed their friend as he descended into madness. Cammy left soon after. James had stayed too long and finally abandoned him when he’d joined Somna’s insanity and taken the name Bracha. James wept for his friend and grew to hate the monster who wore his appearance like a twisted suit.
He’d gone his own way. At one point he’d lived in the city-centre, joining Cammy there. They’d made a life there and had helped establish a little farming community. They’d found a sort of peace amongst the wandering grey people who roamed the city streets eternally. And then they found themselves banished from there also. Cammy had been bitten within weeks of leaving the centre. For all James knew, he wandered the streets of the city to this day. He hadn’t had the heart to put him out of his misery.
Returning once more to Somna’s compound to find his final friend, out of loyalty, out of need, only Bracha was there by then. Not a shred of the decent man his friend had been remained. But Bracha was all he had left so he’d had to make do until his grasp exceeded his reach and Bracha challenged Somna, making James choose between Somna and his friend.
James coughed. “I haven’t felt anything for him since you gave him that name. Do what you have to do.”
Somna smiled and returned to his King’s altar to commune with his god.
Interlude
Fraser Donnelly
Three interns shot through into the control booth at Corporation House.
“Mr Donnelly’s here. He’s coming up, right now.”
The shift manager, Stevie Trewartha, blinked. A long blink, the kind that came after four hours of sitting in a chair, no matter how luxurious, editing hours of footage through the night.
Stevie rubbed at his bloodshot eyes with the heel of his palms, took a long pull from the cold contents of his mug and painted on an expression of annoyance.
“Don’t be ridiculous. Donnelly wouldn’t come anywhere near this building. He can access everything he needs from home.”
Intern number one – Stevie, hadn’t bothered to learn their names – interrupted. “That’s not strictly true, sir. There are several high-end and remote functions that not even...”
Stevie shot him a look, silencing him.
“Is he for real?” he asked intern number two.
The quieter of the interns, number two, merely nodded.
Intern one piped up again. “Sir, I assure you, he’s right behind us.”
Stevie stood. “It’s McGinley, isn’t it? He put you up to this.”
Stevie left the main control room and scanned around the deserted main floor.
“Out you come, McGinley, I’m onto you.”
The elevator beeped and Stevie launched himself over to the opening doors, stopping a foot short of a very irate-looking Fraser Donnelly.
“Out. And take those two clowns with you.”
Stevie didn’t want to argue, he really didn’t, but in his time at The Corporation, fifteen years this July, he’d had it drummed into him: never leave unauthorised personnel alone in the control room.
Clenching his hands into fists, he spoke shakily.
“Sir, I’d be happy to help with whatever it is...”
Donnelly cut him off.
“Leave now before I decide that you’re leaving for good.”
Stevie paused for a second, decided that the chairman of the company very definitely qualified as authorised personnel, and legged it down the staircase as the interns scuttered along behind him, intern one reminding him of the regulations about unauthorised personnel as they went.
Before they’d descended one floor, Fraser was in the control booth, manipulating the computers and the many cameras at The Corporation’s disposal. Fraser scrolled and erased and altered data and footage with elaborate flicks of his fingers, removing any trace of the private-feed footage that had been running since the teens entered the hospital. He checked the log: his name alone showed as the only board member to have accessed the private feed that night.
Taking a second to whisper a thank you to whoever, he performed a few more steps, removing his own personal access to the feed also. With that, all that remained was to get the boy and his friend off the hospital grounds before the power grid sprang back into life and the choppers brought the compound’s staff back.
Praying that they’d have left by now, without running into Bracha, Fraser looped a finger in the a
ir and tracked the kids to the main building.
They’d been searching the rooms nearby and were headed towards the fire exit, where a badly beaten Bracha was restrained to a radiator. Fraser permitted himself a wry smile. The smile vanished when he flipped his finger to engage the camera feed from the building’s exterior.
Fraser swore loudly and crashed his fist onto the console when he saw Somna and fifty or so of his murderers at the hospital fences.
Fraser checked the time. The power would return in less than ten minutes. They didn’t have time to deal with Bracha and find an escape that didn’t put them straight into Somna’s hands. They weren’t even aware that time was a factor. So far as the teens were aware, the hospital was always in this empty state. He was certain that Somna would never enter the hospital grounds. That was the agreement he held with The Corporation. That left only one option. He reached for a secondary control console, wished for another Glenmorangie to steel himself, straightened his suit, made his hair a little more presentable and went to work.
Chapter 26
Alys
As they made their way back to Bracha, Alys glanced once more at the logo on the walls. Something itched her brain. She hadn’t seen the logo before – she was certain of that – but the phrase ‘UKBC’. It looked familiar. She shook it off and continued after Joey.
Reaching the fire exit where Bracha lay strapped and unconscious, Joey knelt next to the man and delivered a hard slap across his face.
He choked on some blood and drool as he came to. Spitting it onto the white tile he leered up at them.
“Nothing smart to say?” Joey asked.
Unable to move his broken jaw, Bracha elected to stay silent.
“No? Oh, well. Sorry about the teeth by the way, those were really something.” Joey pointed at the floor where three of Bracha’s top incisors lay broken and bloody.
This time he did growl at them. Joey gave a humourless laugh.
“What you do to people and you’re vain about your teeth? Get a clue.”
Joey retrieved the laptop Alys had found and showed it to Bracha.
“I want you to show me how to use this.”
Bracha shook his head.
“Then you’re not much use to us, are you?” Alys said, removing her third Sai from her belt. As she stepped towards Bracha, a loud mechanical clunk reverberated through the building. Both she and Joey jumped at the sound. Bracha began to laugh in a sort of strangled gurgle.
His eyes moved to the doors and Alys understood.
“Joey, the door.”
He moved to push the exit open, finding that it wouldn’t budge. Alys ran back along the corridor, trying the other doors they’d been in and out of during their search. All were locked shut.
The only door they hadn’t tried was the one next to Bracha. The Main Feed Router room. Both were surprised to find that it swung open without resistance.
A voice came from inside the room.
“Please, do come in. I’m no threat to you, I give you my word. I want to help.”
Alys moved through first, Joey backing in behind her. She scanned around the room. It was filled with black plastic boxes with red and green lights flickering away on them. The desks had keyboards, but no screens. The logo was emblazoned across the wall over the desks. Aside from electrical equipment the room was empty.
“There’s no one here, Joey.”
Joey turned and looked over the same equipment she’d just surveyed. He saw nothing that he recognised.
“I don’t want you to be frightened.”
The voice startled them. Both spun at once in the direction it came from – a little black box with a round opening.
“I’m going to turn on a…” The voice seemed to be searching for a word they’d understand. “I’m going to turn on a monitor. Do you know what that is?”
Alys answered. “Like a television?”
“Yes, like a television,” he confirmed. “So that you can see me. Is that okay?”
Alys looked at Joey who shrugged.
“Yes. Okay.” She told the voice.
Over one of the desks a bright light, shaped like a sphere, blinked into view. It spread out into the three dimensional form of a man’s head and shoulders. They could still see through it. It wasn’t solid, but made of light. Joey gasped.
Alys moved closer to look at the man. The man had greying hair cut neatly, more neatly than they’d ever seen a person’s hair. His skin was unblemished, with no sores or old scars. Clean. He was dressed in a suit. His clothes looked as immaculate, as he did to Alys’ eyes.
When he spoke, the image moved with his voice. It was like a ghost of a person’s head sitting on a desk talking away, like it was the most normal thing in the world.
“What the hell is going on?” Alys demanded, suddenly angry.
The man looked sad for a second before snapping back.
“I’m sorry, but we just don’t have time for explanations right now. Some very bad people are waiting outside for the man you have tied up. I’m going to open the fire exit. I want you to cut him free and let him out. He’s in no shape to fight you again, and those people are no friends of his, I assure you.”
Alys laughed at the man’s image.
“You can’t be serious? That monster?”
“I’m perfectly serious, Alys. Look here.”
To the man’s left a second image appeared, showing the outside of the building they were in. The fences still stood but on the other side of them a large group of men gathered.
Joey moved closer and peered at the faces of the men outside. Seeing a man kneeling beside a bound Zom on a flotilla, Joey cried out involuntarily.
“Somna.”
Alys watched the man on the first screen as he stared at Joey’s face. He looked sad and excited, and something else. An emotion that she couldn’t place as he looked at her best friend.
“Joseph,” the man said.
Turning to look at him directly for the first time, Joey glared at his image.
“Why have you locked us in here? Why lead us into this room? To gloat?”
The image of the man frowned.
“I want to help you get out of here safely.”
Joey sprung away from him.
“We’ll manage. Unlock the doors.”
Alys watched the exchange, flicking her eyes from Joey’s face to the man’s. Something bothered her, but she couldn’t place what it was.
“Those men… Somna’s men, will do things to you that you cannot imagine, Joseph.”
Alys felt Joey prickle at the man’s repeated use of his given name. She stayed silent and allowed him to continue.
“Aside from them, the people who work in this building will return very soon. In six minutes’ time every camera, every piece of electrical equipment in this compound will spring back into life. You will be seen by a huge number of eyes. The people who see you here, in this place, will have you killed for seeing it. Just for being here. If you listen to me, I have a route that you can leave by and they’ll never know that you’ve been here; that you’ve seen this.” He indicated the room around them.
Joey looked into the man’s eyes.
“Why? Why are these people here inside the fences, with this technology? Are they security? In case survivors or the infected get near the fence?”
The man looked away from Joey’s face for the first time since he’d come into shot and glanced at Alys apologetically before turning back to Joey.
“No... Nothing so noble. Look, Joseph, we have two minutes until there’s nothing I can do for you. I don’t have time for explanations. Go and cut Bracha free then get down there.”
The man pointed to Alys’ right where a panel had slid back in the floor, revealing a set of stairs leading under the building.
Joey was frozen in place, glaring at the man’s image.
“Open the fire exit,” Alys told him.
She stepped out into the hall, cut Bracha free and pushed him thr
ough the now-open door. A man with short, greying-black hair, saw her in the doorway as she threw Bracha to the asphalt. She slammed the door closed again and re-entered the feed room.
“Joey, come on.” Alys put a hand on his shoulder.
He shrugged it off, continuing to glare at the man’s hologram.
“Not until he tells me why. What are these people doing here? Why would they kill us for being here? Shouldn’t they be helping us? We’re not infected.”
The man in the hologram image sighed and flicked at the air with a finger.
A screen to their right flickered into life and footage began to flip past.
Images of their lives. Images of them as kids. Of Jock being killed. Of Alys kissing someone Joey had never seen. Of a madman with a panda in his living room. Images of The Ringed eating survivors they didn’t know. Of Jock as a younger man, fighting a herd of Ringed. Images of The Brotherhood in Communion, catatonic, praising The Children of Elisha.
It was obscene.
A voice boomed over the footage.
“Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, do not miss the next thrilling highlights episode this Thursday on UKBC.”
A graphic covered an image of a Zom eating a child’s intestines:
dEaDINBURGH
Exclusively on UKBC
Alys and Joey stood stunned into silence, tears burning tracks along their cheeks. Joey fell to his knees.
“You watch us?” Alys voice was weak, distant. “We’re trapped in here with monsters, fighting for survival, dying, and that’s entertainment to you people?”
The man looked away.
“There’s no time. They will kill you. Please. Go. The tunnel leads out to the woods to the back of the cycle path. We use it to bring new people in. There are no cameras, but there are speakers. I’ll be able to guide you.”
Joey rose to his feet.
“New people? Into this city?” The sclera of Joey’s eyes was more red than white, his face a perfect mask of disbelief and betrayal. “That’s why the fresh ones keep appearing,” he said flatly to no one in particular.
