“It’s more of a waystation for my soldiers, when they’re further up north. My men need to satisfy their urges. That’s just the way it is. Men need release from war. Women serve their purpose when they’re on their backs.”
“I killed all your men at the whorehouse,” Morse said.
Jardine blinked and looked past Morse’s shoulder. “I see. That’s unfortunate. But let’s put that to one side for now.”
Guthrie didn’t move, but his eyes never left Morse. Always watching.
Jardine picked at one fingernail. “You see, Morse, like Florence I have a gift. The same kind of gift; and I too have felt its pull upon me recently, beckoning me to the south, where ascension awaits us all. That was the direction you and Florence were heading when my men encountered you, right?”
“You have some sort of a connection with the Plague Gods, just like Florence?”
“Yes, in a way.”
“How?”
“They came to me in my dreams. They tainted me somehow. I sensed Florence before I even saw her. I knew she was out in the wastelands, within reach; it was like a homing beacon. Florence is very gifted. She even knew that you were nearby; that’s why my men went out to intercept you. All the children here are gifted.”
Morse frowned. “There are other children like Florence?”
“Yes, Morse. We’ve been waiting for all of the children to join us, and Florence was the last one to arrive. And we will be leaving soon, but you will not be joining us.”
“So you’re going to execute me, after all.”
Jardine wiped his damp mouth with the handkerchief, then folded it and tucked it into his jacket pocket. “I considered keeping you as a slave, but I fear you’d be too much trouble. We have something else in mind.”
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
There had been no food or water in the hours since Morse had spoken to Jardine. The lights had been turned off, and he remained tied to the chair, staring into the pitch black, swallowing the lump in his throat as his lower body became numb.
No sounds of movement or activity outside the room; no footsteps or voices. Maybe they had left him here to rot. But Florence wouldn’t let that happen, would she?
He wondered if the room was flanked by others. He tried not to think of cool fresh water in his mouth and down his throat. How long did he have left until his heart gave out?
Unknown time passed and his vision dipped in-and-out of focus. So tired. Everything fading.
When he passed out he dreamed of terrible gods with human faces.
*
He woke terrified in the darkness, breathing hard through a dust-filled mouth, cold sweat dripping from his face; his nerve endings were on fire, and he was certain someone was here to kill him. Tensing at the anticipation of an unseen hand upon his shoulder, hunched over and trembling, he tried to gather spit inside his mouth.
On the other side of the room, near the door, a small flame appeared in the dark, and beyond it was a face revealed in the flickering light. A visiting phantom.
“Florence,” Morse whispered; his voice dry and painful at the back of his mouth. He was unsure of the vision facing him from across the dark. “Is that you?”
She approached on soft footsteps. The smell of the burning candle. The low scuffle of her white robes upon the floor. She stood beside him, put the candle on the table and placed a bottle of water to his mouth. Looked at him with something like pity. He drank from the bottle, hesitantly at first, but as the cold water sluiced over his teeth, gums and tongue and down his throat, he gulped several mouthfuls before Florence pulled it away. He sat there gasping. The water bloated his stomach and loosened his guts. Florence screwed the top back on the bottle. Morse was scared to look at her in case closer scrutiny revealed her as a pale figment and she’d melt away into the dark.
“It’s good to see you, Morse,” she said with genuine warmth in her voice. Morse’s heart burst. “I was worried about you.”
“I’m okay,” he said. “Have they done anything to you, Florence? Anything bad?”
“Jardine has taken care of me. He has a gift too.”
“Yeah, he said.”
“The Plague Gods will make us into something greater than human. More evolved.”
“This is insane, Florence. Untie me and I’ll take you away from here.”
“You have to let me go,” she said.
“I can’t. I promised to protect you.”
“You did protect me, Morse. Your work is done.”
“You’re like a daughter to me, Florence.”
“And you’ve been like my father, for all this time, since you found me. I wouldn’t have survived without you. But now it’s time for me to move on. Nothing can stop the ascension. Me, Jardine, the other children; we’re all linked to the Plague Gods. It’s why I was called back to Britain. We have to go to Hallow Hope.”
“Hallow Hope?”
“It’s where we’ll find ascension.”
“They’ve brainwashed you, Florence.”
“They’ve helped me. I see colours and hear sounds you will never understand. In my dreams I speak to the Plague Gods and they tell me things you wouldn’t believe. All sorts of secrets. And I can hear your fragile heart, Morse, ticking down to its eventual end. It’s tired, and so are you.”
“This is madness, Florence. The Order has killed people. They’ve killed women.”
“You have to let me go, Morse. Don’t come after me.”
“I can’t let you go.”
“You have to.”
“I can’t…”
“Goodbye, Morse.”
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
He sat in the dark, shivering and mumbling, reciting the names of people he’d known in the long ago years.
The Order of the Pestilence had departed for the south. When he realised he’d been left behind in the locked room to die of thirst, he was overcome by hysteria and panic, and he kicked at the table and thrashed in his chair until his legs gave way and he collapsed to the cold floor.
He lay on his side, tears on his face, nodding his head to the beat of his heart and whispering to the room’s occupant ghosts.
*
Unknown time passed. In the cold dark, the memories of old army mates came to visit him. The memory of Belfast kids throwing stones at him on his patrols. He’d been screaming for a long while, but now he was silent, and in that silence he heard their footsteps and scrabbling hands on the floor. Whispering his name. Naming his sins. Pinning the blame. When he closed his eyes, it made no difference to the dark.
His army mates gathered around him. They were muttering something, but it was muffled, as if their mouths were stuffed with cloth or their heads were bowed too close to their chests. He asked them what they wanted, but they ignored his questions and kept muttering and gibbering. They smelled of ash and blood.
He craved water and tried to remember the taste of it in his mouth. Delirium filled his mind. Waking dreams about thirst and isolation. He whispered his service number, name and rank. Prayed to pagan gods. Asked for Christ, Vishnu and all the terrible entities of mythology. But only the Devil answered and spoke warmly of preparing the way for his descent to hell.
*
Morse was talking to his old mate Pete Simmonds, who had been killed by an IRA sniper back in 1989. Pete said how he missed fried egg and chips, and Morse laughed and didn’t stop laughing until the banging at the other side of the door startled him and silenced Pete’s complaints about the dripping mess that had once been the back of his head.
The banging wasn’t real. He was merely disorientated by the thirst in his throat and the ravaging hunger in his gut.
“Who’s there?” His voice was a mere croak. He licked his scabbed lips, but there was no moisture on his tongue to dampen them. “Who’s there? Is that you, Florence? Have you come back to help me?” His throat was raw, filled with brambles and sand. His limbs felt petrified.
The sound of bolts being pulled back. The click of
the lock echoed inside his head. His eyes widened as the door opened and a small light appeared in the doorway and swept towards him. He cowered from the light, like a distressed child.
The torchlight found him, stinging his eyes. The breath rattled from his chest. “Florence? Have you come back for me?”
A voice came to him. “I’ve found you.”
PART THREE
ASCENSION
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Florence wandered the shores of the fjord in the dark, listening to the lap of the water and the distant cries of sea birds. She looked at the sky and the pitch black of it made her feel small and terribly lonely. She wrapped the blanket tighter around her shoulders and kicked at small stones by her feet. She stared at the dark water for a long time, trying to summon the will to walk into the shallows and then the deeper depths, because that would mean the end of all suffering and pain, and she could join her loved ones. The infected would never have her if she took her own life.
She kept going along the shore.
The great shapes of the mountains beyond the fjord tempted her, and she remembered all those people who had gone up there to die. Florence thought she might do the same, but she was too tired and scared to leave the shelter of the encampment, and she’d probably collapse before she reached the mountains.
She turned around and headed back to the camp.
*
Her torchlight meandered over canvas walls and flaps as she wandered amongst the tents and makeshift shelters. The silence filled her head. The abandoned belongings of refugees scattered like trash. Opened suitcases and clothes, empty food packaging and small mounds of used batteries. Fish bones in a cold campfire. Smell of ashes and piss on the breeze.
She stood in a small clearing within the camp and looked past the gathered tents, out to where the water led to the sea. She thought of home and all she’d left behind. She thought of her school friends and her teachers, her cousins and her uncles and aunties. Her mum and dad. They were all gone. What would they say to her now?
A sound in the sky directly above her, like whale-song from a much greater creature. A cry from cavernous lungs and chambers. She looked up. In the pitch black clouds, she sensed rather than saw something, and she knew it saw her, too, and it regarded her with the appraisal of a human to bacteria. Then there was a great pressure upon her, grinding on her bones. A feeling of insects swarming inside her head and scraping their little limbs over her brain. Her nose was bleeding and she could taste the blood as it dripped into her open mouth.
She fell to her knees and tried to turn away from the sky, but she couldn’t look away because the thing bearing down on her would not allow it, so she opened her mouth and screamed and then collapsed onto the cold stones and dirt.
The last thing she saw before she fell into the dark was the silhouette of the great sky-thing backlit by strobe-flashes of pale lightning. And then the sky filled with thunder and there was nothing else.
*
A light was shone into her eyes as she woke shivering and crying. A figure in a gas mask stood over her. There was a rifle slung over his shoulder and a pistol in his belt. He smelled of engine oil and smoke. She looked up at him, at the black eye holes of the gas mask, and stifled her cries with her hand over her mouth.
Behind the man, other people in similar masks surveyed the encampment, sweeping their torches over the abandoned tents and scattered rubbish.
“Please,” she said to the man. “Please help me.”
The man took hold of her and helped her to sit up. He gave her his water canteen and she drank deeply until she was gasping and coughing.
She flinched when he pulled his mask off because she was scared he’d have a monster’s face instead of a man’s.
He smiled at her. His sad eyes. “Are you okay?”
She drank more water as she nodded.
“What’s your name?”
She wiped her mouth. “Florence.”
“Nice name.”
“What’s your name?”
“Morse. Pleased to meet you, Florence.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
They had been on the road for two days; it had been four days since Violet rescued Morse from Darlington House. He was weak and stumbling like a drunk, holding his arms to himself in the cold. Violet helped him stand straight when he faltered. The rain murmured as it fell. They needed food and water. They were exhausted and freezing.
“Have to keep heading south,” Morse said, his voice muffled within the hood of the coat Violet had found for him in the previous house. The trousers she’d scavenged were too short for him and stopped just above his ankles.
Violet said nothing. She watched the fields, looking for the infected, and the road for signs that the Order of the Pestilence had passed through here in their vehicles.
“Hallow Hope,” Morse said. “Hallow Hope.”
*
They arrived at the high ground outside a village, cowering from the rain. The downpour shrouded the black hills.
“We need food,” Violet said, her head bowed away from the sky. “We have to go down there and see if we can find something.”
Morse nodded, slow and listless; his face crumpled by melancholy. The despair and exhaustion in his eyes forced Violet to turn away. Something had happened to him in the darkness in that locked room. He had lost something about himself. She once had a friend who’d lost her baby son to meningitis, and was never the same afterwards; even when she’d smiled it was humourless and cold. The last Violet saw of her was only a few days before the outbreak hit. Morse reminded her of that friend.
Violet checked the pistol. Only three bullets left. She checked the knife in her belt.
Morse stared at the village down the hill. Red-rimmed eyes, bloodshot and squinting. He looked broken and wrecked, bedraggled and forlorn. Violet pitied him, but she would take care of him because he had saved her life before and she didn’t want to be alone out in the wasteland of Great Britain.
*
The rain soaked them long before they entered the village. They walked the main road, past streetlights, derelict cars and dilapidated houses. Violet entered the grocery shop while Morse waited outside frowning at the shattered windows and the post box which had been broken into and emptied.
Violet searched the shop and its backrooms but there was nothing, and when she returned outside the disappointment on her face must have been obvious because Morse turned away and stared down the road to where two cars had collided on the vicarage lawn.
They went through the houses, watching for infected or other survivors. Violet searched a row of bungalows and found all the cupboards looted bare. She thought their luck was out, until she stumbled upon a stash of bottled water and tins under some loose floorboards in a house whose scarred, stained walls told of extreme violence committed long ago. She couldn’t believe her eyes; but she reached out and touched the supplies and lifted them from their hiding place and knelt staring at them until the crazed smile left her face. She kissed one of the water bottles and muttered her gratitude to whoever had left the stash there. Maybe they had been killed before using the supplies or had simply forgotten and moved on. She opened one of the bottles and drank. When she was finished, the bottle was half-empty. She wiped her mouth and exhaled deeply. Her thoughts seemed a little clearer now.
Violet was almost on the verge of tears as she looked at the tins, anticipating the taste of mandarin segments in syrup. Then she went back out into the street with the supplies in two string bags she’d found in a cupboard. Morse looked at her then the supplies and gave a wan smile that broke her heart.
Violet gave him one of the bags. Morse nodded faintly. His shabby trainers scuffed on the road. There was a distant look in his eyes as he held the bag to his stomach. Violet knew he was thinking of Florence.
*
Violet found a house without corpses, bones, or the leavings of wild animals inside. They shut the doors and blocked them with furniture, then closed t
he curtains.
She lit their only candle, recovered from the trouser pocket of a corpse she’d stumbled upon in a field before finding Darlington House. Examining the food tins for punctures, she listed them to Morse, who stood the bottles of water by the wall. Vegetable chilli, meatballs in tomato sauce, sweetcorn, new potatoes, haricot beans, mandarin segments, peach slices, pineapple chunks, and three tins of fruit cocktail.
“Which one do you want?” Violet asked him.
He regarded the gathering of tins, one hand at his mouth. “Peach slices, please.”
She handed him the tin, watched him pull back the ring and sniff at the contents. He pinched a slice of fruit between his fingers and lifted it to his mouth, bit into it and chewed. He closed his eyes and swallowed. Then he bowed his head and put one hand to his face, and Violet realised he was weeping.
*
Violet ate the tin of mandarin segments then drank the remaining syrup in one go. Her heartbeat quickened and her skin tingled. It was wonderful. She hadn’t eaten mandarin segments since well before the outbreak. She licked juice from her lips and fingers then slumped back against the wall.
Morse watched her while he sipped water.
“You okay, Morse?”
He took the bottle from his mouth. “I can’t believe you’re alive.”
“I could say the same to you.”
“When we parted back at the van, I was certain you’d die.”
“Thanks for your confidence.”
“Did you destroy the nest?”
“I killed them all.”
“Impressive.”
The Last Soldier Page 16
