by Ryan Casey
“Or both.”
Sarah shrugged. “Or both.”
Mr. Belmont walked past Adam Chester’s glass window and leaned against it. Mr. Chester was still in there, still tugging at the belts. Blood dripped from his eyes.
“So what you’re telling me is that we have an army of… of conscious zombies out there. An army of bloodthirsty, infected bastards who won’t stop trying to eat human flesh until they’re shot in the heart or brain.” He didn’t face Miss Appleton as he spoke. Instead, he kept on walking towards the heavy door at the end of the corridor. All had gone silent in there. In all of the panic and chaos, he’d almost forgotten about Doctor Harvey, locked away in the medical room, bleeding out with a bite to his arm.
“Hyperbolic, but… but yes,” Miss Appleton said. “Sir—and I don’t mean this in a patronising way—but as far as I see it, there’s only one realistic option here, and that’s to… well, to go public with Turnstone. Warn people. Get to Jonny and find out what he’s done. There might still be time. Time to… to deal with this situation.”
Mr. Belmont stopped at the heavy metallic door that Doctor Harvey was behind. Doctor Harvey was in there, sitting on the floor against a shelf of medicine. He was sucking at the bloody wound on his arm, more enthusiastically than he should’ve been. He’d be one of them soon. Just like the others. Another infected.
Another opportunity.
“I know it’s a—a cruel thing to suggest. On TCorps. But this is bigger than us. There’s no other way, Mr. Belmont. We can’t let this—”
“If I were to provide you with some… some more test subjects. Would you be willing to work with me—work with TCorps—on creating a new formula?”
Miss Appleton paused. “Umm… An antidote to Turnstone? Well, I could try. But I—I can’t see how I’d do it. It would take time, and it—”
“Not an antidote to Turnstone,” Mr. Belmont said. “An accompaniment to Turnstone. Like we agreed.”
“A… Wait. You’re seriously still considering using this formula? Look what it’s done to Donna Carter. To Adam. Look what it’s doing to this doctor. Please. You can’t be serious here. It’s dangerous. It’s out of control as it—”
“Artificial flesh. Some form of nourishment. If we can create something—a product—we can… Yes. Yes, this is perfect. Say you’re right. Say Mr. Ainsthwaite really has fed, and he’s passed on the infection, or the virus, or whatever it is. Say he’s passed it on. Yes, we could go out there on a wild goose chase after every Turnstone-affected and his dog. Or, we could use the situation to our advantage. Create something to… to feed the infected. Just think about it. TCorps are the only company that even knows about Turnstone right now. If we can get a head start, we can create something. We can price it respectably. After all, it will be in demand. We can use this situation to our advantage.”
Miss Appleton stared at Mr. Belmont with vacant, distant eyes. Her mouth was partly open. “Can you… Can you hear yourself? Have you not seen what Turnstone does? No way can you actually be contemplating using this—this epidemic as a marketing opportunity.”
“Bird flu. Swine flu. You’d be surprised, Miss Appleton.”
“But this isn’t fucking bird flu. This is real. And it’s here, right now.”
“All thanks to you.”
Miss Appleton paused again. This one got her, Mr. Belmont could tell.
“We can go with your plan, and we can take out Mr. Ainsthwaite. But what then? What about the people he has sunk his teeth into? What about the people they’ve sunk their teeth into? Taking out the source of the problem would be damage limitation, nothing more. A waste of time. A pointless death.
“Or, we think ahead. I bring you Mr. Ainsthwaite. He’s an original, right? So Turnstone must be purest in him. He’s one of the first. So I bring you Mr. Ainsthwaite, and you work on this… this nourishment. You work with Mrs. Carter and you work with Mr. Ainsthwaite and using them, you find a way. This isn’t damage limitation, Miss Appleton. This is adaptation.”
Miss Appleton shook her head. “Nourishment? How exactly do we test that?”
“Well,” Mr. Belmont said. “I’m sure we could find a… a willing test subject or two.” His eyes moved to the end of the corridor, where Doctor Ermenstein and Donna Carter remained behind the glass window.
“No,” Miss Appleton shouted. “You’re saying we feed them? No fucking way. No. I don’t want to be a part of this. I don’t—”
The sound of Mr. Belmont’s phone cut through the conversation. The pair of them froze, their debate put on hold.
“I’d better get this,” Mr. Belmont said.
Miss Appleton nodded.
“Mr. Belmont speaking, what have you got for me?”
“Still no word on the location of subject Jonny Ainsthwaite,” the woman said. “We’re working on it, but our man has had to get a train back to Birmingham, so we’ll keep you updated. But there’s something else. News from Preston.”
Mr. Belmont paused. “What news?”
“An altercation reported at a pond by the city centre. A blonde girl lashed out at a Cub Scout who was cleaning up around there. The place is a bloodbath. Two Cub Scout guardians reported missing, too. We’ve got a positive ID on the girl—Rebecca Hemmingway. She’s… she was seriously injured, but seriously angry about something, too. Found trapped between a few rocks at the bottom of this pond. Hypothermia, huge wound on her neck. But here’s the interesting part—she’s a friend of Jonny Ainsthwaite’s. At a party together the night before. Witness says they didn’t see her after she took off with Jonny, and that Jonny was acting suspicious all today.”
Mr. Belmont let the news sink in. Jonny had fed. He’d fed and then his victim had fed and then those victims would feed.
It had started.
“So we can keep on searching for primary subject Jonny Ainsthwaite, but if this situation is as you describe, then we’re going to need to raise our efforts—”
“I’m going to need your man to hold off from killing Jonny Ainsthwaite. Instead, he’s going to bring him to TCorps.”
Miss Appleton frowned and shook her head.
“Um, are you sure about that?” the woman on the line said. “He’s likely very dangerous. I’m not sure what good in stopping the spread keeping him alive will do.”
Mr. Belmont forced a smile. It didn’t feel right as it sat on his face, but it gave him confidence. Always did. “We’re not going to stop the spread. We’re going to work on accommodating to it.”
“Mr. Belmont, it’s going to take some time to get to Jonny Ainsthwaite. He’s already jumped our man once.”
“Your man killed his parents, didn’t he?”
A pause on the line.
“Which means he’ll have their bodies, right?”
“Well… Yes. The targets will be ready for disposal.”
“Well, be creative. I’m sure if poor Jonny Ainsthwaite saw what had happened to his dear parents, he might just consider taking a trip back home. But I don’t know. You’re the creative ones. Use the news. Use your gut. Be creative. Just get him, whatever you do.”
Mr. Belmont put the phone down. The smile felt more natural now. So, the world was ending. Turnstone was spreading. And yet, strangely, he didn’t feel too bad about it. Hell, the world needed a pandemic anyway. It needed something to liven things up—to sell drugs, to sell papers, to sell merchandise.
“What the fuck did you just authorise?” Miss Appleton asked.
Mr. Belmont patted Miss Appleton on her shoulder. “It’s started,” he said.
27.
The second he got off the escalator, he made a dash for the ticket office.
Birmingham New Street station was massive. It was more akin to an airport than a train station, with elevators leading down to each platform, and an expansive row of shops running through the middle of the waiting area. People pushed past, dragging their suitcases along, seemingly unaware—or more, uncaring—of whether somebody was in front of the
m. He felt like an outsider in here, like everybody was moving at a different pace to him. A different rhythm.
Then again, he was different.
He joined the back of the queue at the ticket office, which was more like an open reception area. There were five people in front of him, and the fat, curly-haired woman at the desk didn’t seem to be in too much of a hurry. To his left, security-laden gates led out to Birmingham city centre. He’d visited Birmingham once. He had a friend at uni here. They used to go to an abandoned car garage in Selly Oak and smoke pot. Those were the days. They seemed so long ago. The sheer thought of the past brought a wave of nostalgia crashing against Jonny when in fact it was little more than a year ago. So much had changed.
The first person at the ticket office moved away, and the queue shuffled forward. Jonny bit his lip. He hadn’t felt the hunger, not for a while now, but then again he had eaten a couple of hours ago. An unplanned meal. A meal he didn’t know he even wanted until it was right there in front of him. He looked around. Looked at all the people—all the warm-blooded animals—and he hoped that unexpected desire would stay at bay, just for now. He needed to get another train ticket to London. According to the screen above him, there was a train to Euston in twenty minutes. It was a bugger having to pay for an extra ticket, but he didn’t expect luck to be on his side, not after the few days—few months—he’d had.
Another person moved away from the ticket office and the queue shuffled forward again. Just three people in front of him now. He felt the security guards watching him. He tried to keep his back straight and his face neutral. He tried not to look too shifty. But that was impossible. When you’d killed two people in the last twenty-four hours, you couldn’t help but look a little shifty.
When you’d seen one of those two people come back to life and savage a ten-year-old… you get the picture.
Another person stepped away. Just two in front of him now. He looked at the screen. Just fifteen minutes until his Euston train. He’d timed this right. Perfectly, in fact. Just had to make sure he didn’t accidentally get handed a student ticket again. Student fucking ticket. What a joke.
As the queue in front went from two people to one, Jonny didn’t move forward.
His eyes were glued on the screen to the left of the arrival and departure monitors. His stomach sank. He felt like he’d shat himself, right there, and his entire body went cold and numb.
It was a Sky News reel. Breaking news just in. He couldn’t hear any sound, but he could see the words. See the pictures.
Double Murder in Preston Woods—Boy, 10, Amongst Victims.
He stared at the screen. The rest of the station disappeared around him, and all of a sudden it was just him and the screen, connected, linked.
The screen flicked to a shot of Rebecca. The hair on his arms stood up. Seeing her face like that, all made up and pretty. Seeing it like that after the way he’d had to see her.
Trapped under the water, all the colour drained from her face, a bloody, fleshy hole on her neck.
Beside her, they showed a picture of the Cub Scout kid who had fallen in. The Cub Scout kid who had been ravaged by Rebecca. But of course, they didn’t know that. They weren’t reporting it.
What the report didn’t mention was the two Cub Scout guardians—the one who had gone in trying to save the kid, and the one that Jonny had feasted on.
It was just a “double murder.” Nothing else.
“Sir?”
Jonny blinked and he was back in the room. The buzz of voices and footsteps came back into his awareness. An automated voice spoke over the loudspeaker.
“Would you like a ticket, sir?” the woman behind the desk asked.
Jonny hadn’t even realised he was at the front of the queue. He looked over at the security guards, who were watching him with judgemental eyes. He looked back at the woman. She was looking at him strangely, too. What was it? Was he pale? Had he said something? Given himself away?
Jonny cleared his throat, then stepped up to the ticket office, his knees like jelly. “Yeah. I… Sorry. I’ll have a ticket to London Euston, please.”
The woman tapped on her keyboard then winced. “That train’s just got a delay I’m afraid. Half an hour. That okay?”
Fuck. A delay. Jonny shrugged. Nothing he could do about it. “Yeah, that’s…” His voice trailed off again. The room around him slipped away again, only much more intensely this time. He could see people in the corners of his eyes, only they seemed greyed out, moving in slow motion.
The television screen, however, was in full colour. Full, vibrant colour.
His chest tightened. He wanted to be sick. He wanted to scream out but at the same time he wanted to collapse inwards.
He was staring at a photographic still of a prime suspect with dark, curly hair with purple bags under his eyes.
He was staring at a photographic still of himself.
Jonny’s heart pounded. The waiting area of the train station returned into his axis of awareness. But still, he couldn’t take his eyes off the screen. He wasn’t even sure whether or not his face was still on the screen, it was that engrained on his eyes that it didn’t matter. He’d seen it. He was a wanted man for a double murder. That meant that somebody else had seen it, too. He had to get away. He had to act.
Fast.
“Is that half-hour delay going to be okay for you?” the woman at the ticket office started.
But she didn’t get her answer, because Jonny was already making his way back through the main area, past the WH Smiths and The Pasty Shop. There was only one thing he could do now. There was only one place he could go. He couldn’t risk waiting for half an hour for a delayed train in a station full of people. If somebody hadn’t recognised him already, they would. No. He had to get away. He had to get to the only place he could.
The abandoned car garage.
Then, he’d figure out what the hell his next move was going to be.
He kept his head down as he moved to the opposite end of the station. He’d do what he did when he visited his friend, Mark. Catch a train to Selly Oak. They never checked tickets on that train. Never.
Which meant they probably would today. But he wasn’t in a position to be making any better choices.
He looked up at the board when he reached Platform 11. The next train was in… Shit. One minute. He rushed down the steps beside the escalator, trying not to look suspicious, trying to look just like any old student running for a train. But he couldn’t help but sense them looking at him. Their eyes, burning through him.
He wanted to tear those eyes out. Chew them. Swallow the fluid inside them, then suck the streaming blood from their sockets.
His stomach churned.
No. Not hungry not now.
He reached the platform. The whistle blew. The doors started to close. With all his strength and more energy than he thought he had, he threw himself towards the doors, somehow slipping between them just in time, and he was on the train and the train was moving, just like that.
He rested his head against the glass of the window. Ending up in Birmingham wasn’t ideal, but maybe it was a strange sort of blessing in disguise. If he’d stayed on the train to London Euston, somebody somewhere might’ve been watching the news via 3G or 4G or whatever. He’d be trapped, then. Trapped in a metal torpedo taking him directly to his death.
Or the rest of his days in prison, anyway.
The train stopped at Five Ways station. A couple of people got off and a couple of people got on. At least it wasn’t busy on here, not like the Euston train. He looked around as he stood by the door. A man with long, curly hair and muddy walking boots sat with a black Labrador beside him. Students sat in groups, smiling and laughing. He was anonymous. To them, he was nothing.
Not yet.
The train stopped at University, and then made its final journey towards Selly Oak. He knew exactly what he had to do and where he had to go. Nobody would follow him, and providing this car garage was still aban
doned, he’d be able to get at least a night’s shelter. Perhaps more, if things seemed quiet.
But if he was prime suspect, the police would talk. They’d trace him to Birmingham and they’d trace him to the garage. They always traced people, somehow.
He watched the lights of the tall university clock tower pass by as he crossed the bridge, and the train slowed down as it reached Selly Oak station. The doors pinged open, and he stepped out into the cold, dry Birmingham air.
At least he’d managed to avoid buying a ticket.
Perhaps he wasn’t so unlucky after all.
He stepped onto the platform, then went through the gate that led down to the road. The streets were quiet. They all looked the same around here, with lines of terraced houses after terraced houses. There were very few people around tonight. Every once in a while, as he descended the hill on Exeter Road, somebody walked past, but they kept themselves to themselves.
He turned onto Harrow Road. He prayed to God—if there was one who answered the prayers of bloodthirsty murder suspects—that the garage was still abandoned. He just needed a bit of luck. A small bit of luck, just for tonight. One step at a time.
He held his breath as he walked past the metal fencing in front of the garage. He braced himself. Braced himself for a vastly renovated garage, open twenty-four hours a day. Fuck—he braced himself for a police squad, standing there as his mate Mark pointed at him with a “that’s him!” expression.
But as he turned to look at the garage, Mark wasn’t there at all.
Neither was a police squad.
Or a twenty-four-hour garage.
Instead, the same old garage was in front of him. Quiet. Dark. Graffiti sprayed across the metal grating in front of the entrance.
Davidson’s Mechanicals.
Jonny smiled. For the first time all night, he felt a small fragment of relief lift from his shoulders, as he placed his foot onto the metal grating and climbed over.
One step at a time.
He pulled up in the derelict, tree-lined area in the black Range Rover. He yawned. He hadn’t been expecting this hiccup. He wanted it done by now. He wanted to have his subject dead. He wanted to go to sleep safe in the knowledge that his prime subject was dead, so he could wake up tomorrow and deal with the others that had been in contact with him in the last forty-eight hours.
