Fever (Flu)

by Wayne Simmons

  “Vicky–”

  “YOU!” she cried, pointing a finger. And then, more quietly, “You...” Water filled her eyes, her mouth turned up as if something were trying to crawl out and couldn’t stretch her lips wide enough. A soft low wail left her, not unlike the noise Dead Ben made. “You stood there in your suit. Me beside you...”

  “Vicky, please...”

  But she persisted, talking over him, “And you said those words in front of all those people. And I loved that day, I really loved that day. And I loved you.”

  “This isn’t the right time—”

  “When is the right time? You come into the shop every day and everyone is laughing with you, having fun, sharing jokes, and then I come over and everyone’s quiet...” She wiped her face. “When did you tell them all that our marriage... our life together was A FUCKING JOKE?!”

  “Vicky, it wasn’t like that.”

  “It was EXACTLY like that!” she barked. “And YOU... Everyone told you how brave you were, how difficult it must have been.” She beat her fist against her chest, and he could actually hear the vibrations. “WHAT ABOUT ME?!”

  He grabbed her and pulled her close, and while at first she resisted, pounding with her balled fists, she soon crumbled against him, releasing more tears and noise than her frail body seemed capable of. And Colin took it all from her. He took it because he knew that when it boiled down to it, a part of her was right; he did lead her up that garden path. He married her, spent the best days of her life on a whim, on an experiment to see if he could make a go of the mainstream life, the life his parents, his friends wanted.

  As her sobs subsided, Colin could hear the gentle thuds against the door of the master bedroom.

  ***

  Later, Colin was lying on the sofa bed in the living room, Vicky asleep beside him. Colin nursed her until she went over, exhaustion claiming her. He waited until he could be sure she was out, and then he carefully unfurled the duvet and stood up quietly.

  He lifted his pillow, carrying it with him as he opened the door and left the living room.

  In the hallway, he could hear the soft thumps against the master bedroom door as Ben continued his tireless campaign.

  Colin ignored the noise, entering the spare bedroom, finding the two twin beds. The sun was strong now, attacking the blinds. He could see Sinead’s face clearly. Still breathing heavily, her mouth and nose smeared once again with more of that thick, bloody mucus.

  Colin stood over her bed. He was shaking.

  “Sorry,” he said, and with hands that felt like jelly, he pressed the pillow in his hands against Sinead’s face.

  He held it firm, feeling only the slightest bit of resistance as her hollowed-out body tried to keep going, her lungs fighting to get air that was no longer available. Within moments, she relaxed, but still Colin held the pillow, pressing harder, feeling something break under the force of his hands.

  He heard some noise leave his mouth, perhaps the beginning of a keen, but he held it in, closing his eyes and pressing harder.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  He stood over the three bodies in the garden, stacked like old mannequins one on top of the other. In his hand he held a petrol can. He doused the bodies with the pungent liquid then dropped the can to the ground. He struck a match, dropped it onto the bodies then stepped back as they were swallowed up by flame.

  Colin was numb.

  His mind travelled back to earlier.

  After dealing with Sinead, Colin had found a baseball bat in the spare room.

  He’d gone to the master bedroom, finding Ben on his feet; the dead man’s head sloped to one side, tongue protruding, eyes looking up and to the left. It was like his whole body was hanging from some invisible rope.

  Colin brought the bat down heavy against his old friend’s head. The noise was duller than he expected it to be, and so he hammered again, digging into the soft part of the dead man’s brain, his body shaking, a short gasp leaving his lips before he was still.

  He recalled bringing the bat down on Chris too, and then his memory blurred into random images of lifting each body in his arms, of carrying them outside to the grass.

  The fire roared painfully.

  Colin watched Sinead’s sweet face through the flames until he couldn’t bear it any more.

  He left the garden, heading back into the house.

  He found Vicky curled up on the sofa, staring into space. He sat down beside her, rubbed her feet aimlessly. She allowed him but didn’t seem to gain any comfort from his massage.

  They heard a scream.

  Vicky looked to Colin, her eyes like two bright lights. Colin grabbed the baseball bat, followed the noise. He entered the spare room.

  He found the soldier on the remaining twin bed.

  The lad’s eyes were open. He stared at Colin. A low rasping sound escaped his lips.

  Colin raised the baseball bat, but the soldier cried out again, and this time Colin could make him out. “Please,” he was saying.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  24th June

  Ciaran was full of pain. It flowed like waves through his mangled body. His breathing was strained, each gasp fighting against broken ribs. Both arms were throbbing, crudely wrapped in a makeshift sling.

  He’d been conscious for days now. He wished he hadn’t been. He wished he could sleep, but he couldn’t. He wished there were drugs he could take, gear he could smoke, but there was neither.

  There was a television set at the other side of the room. As Ciaran writhed on the bed, the damn thing played a constant loop of violence and panic.

  Colin entered the room. He carried a bottle with him. He reached into his pocket, dropped a mobile phone onto Ciaran’s bed.

  “That’s yours,” he said. “Found it on you when I pulled you from the car. I’d be surprised if it works, mind. My network’s packed in. You see, this,” and here he pointed at the TV screen, “seems to have spread across the whole of the UK. What you’re watching is quite new. Seems Scottish, from the accents, but we rarely hear a commentary anymore.”

  Ciaran stared at the phone. A little antenna icon appeared in the top left corner.

  “The internet’s better,” the other survivor continued. “A few servers are still connecting. We’ve AOL here. Some of the other search engines have powered down. Unpaid bills, you think?” Colin laughed, took a glug from his bottle.

  “Pick it up for us,” Ciaran said to the other man, gesturing to the phone, his one good eye pleading. “Pick it up and search for my mam on the contacts list.”

  “Your... man?” Colin seemed to look at him funny. “MAM! M.A.M.”

  “Ah.” Colin laughed quietly, reached for the phone. His hands were moving slowly with all the booze he’d consumed. His brow furrowed as he struggled to work out how to use the thing. “Jesus,” he said, noticing the antenna icon. “Looks like you’ve got a signal.”

  “Middle icon,” Ciaran urged. “Address list.”

  The other man waited for a moment, his eyes meeting Ciaran’s. “Look, are you sure you want me to do this?”

  Ciaran couldn’t understand what he meant, what he possibly could mean. Of course he was sure! He needed to talk to his mam, see if she was okay, tell her he was going to come for her, that he was still out there, that he still loved her. His face must have said it all, because the other man nodded, smiled faintly then pressed the CALL button. He looked again at Ciaran.

  “Ready?”

  “Yes!”

  The phone was held to Ciaran’s ear.

  On the television, he watched a young woman trying to pull away from an older man wearing a suit and tie. The older man’s mouth was wrapped around her arm. A stream of blood seeped from the man’s mouth.

  The number was ringing.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The phone lay on the bed.

  Ciaran’s face was turned away from it, looking out the window at the empty fields that seemed to go on forever, stretching out like a fluorescent de
sert, many miles from the concrete West Belfast he called home.

  He imagined his mam’s phone lying in some puddle or ditch up in Newcastle, or anywhere else that lost things seemed to accumulate. Behind the sofa. In a taxi. Anywhere at all apart from in her hand, or at the bottom of the brown leather handbag that never left her side, the bag that contained her life, her medication, her fags, her address book.

  Her phone.

  If he allowed himself to believe that she still carried the damn thing, then Ciaran would know that his mother was dead.

  Tears broke from Ciaran’s one good eye. It cried all the harder. His nose streamed with clear snot that he constantly fought to sniff away.

  Colin sat beside him. The other man reached over, gently tipping Ciaran’s head and wiping his nose and eye every few moments, before leaning back and without as much as a word, allowing Ciaran to continue weeping, exorcising his grief the way it had to be done.

  After some time, the tears just seemed to dry up. There was a salty taste in his mouth. It still hurt to breathe, perhaps even more so now.

  Ciaran looked over to find the other man. He was still drinking.

  Ciaran looked out the window again. Then to the television, still playing the same footage on repeat. “It hasn’t reached us then, has it?”

  “Not as such...” Colin set the bottle down and Ciaran noticed that his hand was shaking. He tried to steady it. Cleared his throat then continued: “We’re fairly isolated out here. Very few neighbours about.”

  Ciaran nodded, looked back at the phone.

  “Still can’t believe it’s working,” Colin said. “You should maybe turn it off, save the battery.”

  “Yeah.” But Ciaran didn’t care about the phone anymore. If he had the use of his arms he would probably have opened the window and thrown it as far as he could. “Maybe best to stick it in some drawer. Just in case.” He didn’t mean any of what he was saying. These words were just something to fill the air, the phone just a focus point, irrelevant amongst the scenes of riots and barbarity on the television screen.

  “What’s wrong with them?” Ciaran asked.

  He watched another scene unfold: an older man sinking his teeth into a nurse at the hospital. The man’s face was empty as he attacked, his eyes heavy and tired looking, as if he was bored.

  “They’re dead,” Colin said. He lifted the bottle again, drank from it.

  “What do you mean, dead?” Ciaran asked.

  “I mean, like, not living. Horror movie stuff where people climb out of their own graves.”

  “Like ghosts?”

  “Have you ever watched a zombie film?”

  “Of course. I used to love them,” Ciaran said. “Well, that’s what seems to be going on here.” Ciaran laughed, but Colin looked at him sternly. He stopped laughing.

  “The guys who own this house,” Colin said, “we found them dead when we got here, lying side-by-side. But one of them didn’t stay dead. He got up and started moving around. He attacked me, and I had to—” Colin sighed, shook his head bitterly. “Outside is clear, though. Not a sinner for miles. So maybe we can wait it out here. Maybe the army or the government will get their shit together, beat it, and we’ll be able to go back to the city.”

  Ciaran looked back to the screen. It was different footage now. A mob of people were closing around some cops in someone’s living room. One of them took his gun out and was threatening to fire.

  “Maybe,” Ciaran said, but he didn’t believe it.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Waringstown, County Down, 28th June

  “Shit!” Tom barked.

  His chat icon appeared. Agent 13 was incoming.

  The alert sound had woken Tom suddenly, and he’d knocked over the mug of tea resting on his desk. Forgetting the spilt tea, Tom moved his shaking hand back to the mouse and opened the dialogue box, finding what looked to be a web address link.

  “What’s this?”

  But Agent13 was still typing. A new message appeared.

  FOLLOW THE LINK. NO TIME TO EXPLAIN.

  A cold sweat ran down Tom’s back. He stepped away from his computer.

  He’d been watching more videos online. The lab in Belfast, where a dead man climbed out of his gurney and started walking around the room. The infected were all over the net, looking more and more demonic by the day. And they weren’t the only demons. The demons in Tom’s head ran rampant. He’d no pills. Felt more paranoid than ever.

  Do I know this man? he mused. I mean, REALLY know him?

  “Who are you?” he barked at the screen.

  He typed the words back to Agent13.

  Mere seconds passed before another line appeared: TOM, IT’S AGENT 13. NOT COMPROMISED. TRUST ME.

  Tom ran a hand through his greasy hair.

  He’d been cyber-chatting to 13 for years. They would talk for hours about everything. Not just truther stuff, but films they enjoyed, life and all the shit it threw at them.

  Another message appeared:

  NET GOING DOWN SOON. FOLLOW THE LINK OR WE’LL LOSE TOUCH.

  Tom smacked a hand against his head.

  He looked briefly at the link he was meant to follow. He couldn’t focus on it. It was just squiggles and numbers and dots, dancing before his eyes.

  “What to do? What to do?” he muttered.

  The parrot imitated him, repeating the words back to him, “What to do? What to do?”

  Tom sneered at the bird.

  He moved back towards the keyboard, banging his reply out angrily on the keyboard. “Are you from the government?” he said as he typed, but he knew it was nonsense even as he said the words.

  Seconds passed. The message on screen advised that Agent13 was typing.

  TRUST ME

  The same bloody message!

  Tom growled, grabbing his hair with both hands. He was beyond frustration.

  “What to do?” he said again and again to himself, the bird in the cage repeating his mantra.

  HURRY, came another message.

  Tom swore as he moved back to the computer.

  He placed his hand on the mouse and hovered the cursor over the link. Its numbers and dots and squiggles were still dancing, making him dizzy.

  He closed his eyes and clicked.

  ***

  Ballynarry, County Armagh

  The internet was fucked. Every last search engine, including AOL, failed to connect. YouTube was no longer accessible.

  Colin leaned back in his chair. Rubbed his beard.

  His eyes once again fell upon the characters written on the notebook page he’d found taped to the study wall. He’d tacked it to the corner of the monitor:

  12/08

  He remembered a conversation he’d had with Chris some time ago. Chris always struck Colin as a paranoid type, always going on about the government and the New World Order, all that American stuff that didn’t make much sense to a guy like Colin, a guy who lived his life one day at a time. Chris would recite some date when the world was supposed to end. It was to do with some conspiracy or other.

  Was this the date?

  Colin looked back at the screen, and an idea struck him.

  When he’d moved into Aunt Bell’s house, he’d needed to get an internet connection put in. Aunt Bell didn’t care for it. ‘What’s wrong with the television and radio?” she’d said to him. But Colin had experienced some problems getting connected and needed to ring a help desk. They gave him a long number with a few dots to type into the URL bar. Colin remembered it bringing him to his service provider’s help page, where the technician could sort out his connection problems for him. All website addresses were coded like this, he’d learned.

  He looked back at the numbers he’d found scribbled onto the page.

  He clicked on explorer. It didn’t connect, just as Colin expected.

  He typed the numbers from the page into the URL bar, a full stop between the two dates:

  http[colon slash slash]12[dot]08[dot]


  He pressed the RETURN key.

  It didn’t connect.

  Colin leaned back in his chair, thinking.

  Maybe he should put the year in. This year.

  He was interrupted by Ciaran’s voice from the other room.

  Colin stood up, left the study and moved through the hallway.

  He opened the kitchen door, finding Ciaran sitting on his makeshift wheelchair.

  Vicky stood at the sink, staring out the window in front of her.

  Colin followed her gaze.

  Several figures stood in their garden, their bodies twisted like old scarecrows, their movements slow and laboured.

  “They’re here,” Ciaran said.

  PART FOUR:

  THE LIVING AND THE DEAD

  CHAPTER ONE

  The Chamber, County Armagh, 30thJuly

  Dr Miles Gallagher sat in front of his laptop, playing footage from the security cameras.

  A crowd of dead people were pushing at the perimeter fence, surrounding The Chamber’s Mahon Road base of operations. Their eyes held no emotion. Yet their hands grabbed the wire with aggression, their lips shaping cries of hunger and frustration.

  The enemy was at the gate, Gallagher mused. And what a peculiar foe they were.

  Gallagher turned away from the screen as several men entered the room.

  An older man, the Colonel, stood po-faced at the front, watching as the others filed in. Some of the men sat in the chairs by each workstation, others moving to the back wall, preferring to stand. Once everyone was inside, the Colonel closed the door.

  “Gentlemen, at The Chamber we’ve always worked on the premise that knowledge is power. It’s been key to everything we do at this project: our surveillance work, investigative work, as well as our,” he cleared his throat, looked to Gallagher, “interrogation work.

  “Now I don’t know a hell of a lot more than you about what’s happening with this virus outbreak, but what I do know I want to share with you right now. Along with our options.

  “Things aren’t good as you know. Stormont’s fallen. They tried everything to contain this thing. First with softer methods, then with more force. They tried quarantine,” the Colonel continued. “Locked people in their homes. Sealed up hospitals and community centres. Opened death camps.” He waved his hand. “None of it worked, gentlemen. This island is fucked beyond repair. And that leaves you and me with two options: we either stay or we go.”