Ferine Apocalypse (Book 1): Collapse

by Leonard, John F.

  How could he have ever thought that sky was beautiful? It was hideous and cold.

  You’re just a fucking casualty of romanticism Joey-boy. Not the new stuff, the proper old style romantic bollocks. You’re the sort of sad sorry fucker who believes in things and gets pissy and uselessly disappointed when it goes tits up.

  He rolled over and saw the machete twenty feet away glinting amidst jagged wetness.

  Skimbled and crawled until he felt the weight of the handle between his wet, bloodied fingers.

  Rose and hacked the first creature that slithered at him through the rain. Twisted and slipped and sliced two more that loomed up at him before he turned and ran into the shopping centre.

  The boy was somewhere at the end of this forever dead corridor of shops. The boy and maybe his kid brother as well. The suicidal rescue might all be going to shit but it was still just possible that they could pull it off.

  Vaguely possible.

  Maybe.

  Find Elliot’s brother and get away in one piece, get away to somewhere safe.

  Back to Black Hills and if not there, somewhere else.

  Joe emerged into a rectangular shopping centre. Open to the sky and lined by rows of shops. Some closed and dark and almost normal looking. Rainy bank holiday buttoned-up and grill-down, waiting for the everyday trade. Others showed more sign of the Collapse, shattered storefronts, jagged and gaping windows, gloomy interiors strewn with debris.

  Three more pedestrian entrances into the centre, similar to the one he’d just traversed. Multiple approaches to this four-sided shopper’s paradise. In the open square stood a structure that housed a communal lift and staircase. A brick tower that rose to the height of the shops and was connected to the roof above them by a concrete walkway. Joe guessed there was probably a car park up there and the tower was a bit of ugly sixties architectural ingenuity.

  All of that was just backdrop, captured in a shatter-glanced instant, a series of shutter-click images jerking across a grainy screen, secondary to the main event.

  Elliot, the woman and the younger boy were there in the middle of the antiquated shopping mall. And so too were the monsters.

  The woman and George, it had to be George, were by the central stair tower, backs to one wall. The woman wielded a fluorescent bat, incongruously bright in the grey daylight rain, and both she and the boy looked drenched and exhausted.

  Despite that, despite her diminutive stature and somehow beautiful fragility, there was something implacable and ferocious about her. She looked like she might stand there for an eon, an eternity, ridiculous club in both hands, slim legs planted wide, obstinately defending herself and the youngster.

  A creature darted at them and the illusion of imperviousness dissolved like dirt in the rain. Crouched and questing, head thrust forward, jaws snapping, it lunged at her and she crunched the bat into its head, sent it tumbling away from them. She lost her footing in the process, slipped to one knee on the slick pavement and cried out in pain.

  And beyond the woman and George, Elliot danced in the square, dead and wounded creatures on either side, spread around him like filthy skirts. A stuttering ballet of wet death and desperation. Rain sheeting from him as he twirled and killed, a jagged length of timber in one hand and scythe in the other. The blunt impact of wood and the whispered slice of blade.

  If asked, Joe would have denied any belief in fate, would have gently sprinkled scorn on the possibility of preordination, but at that moment, in that grim and grey square, he felt the uneasy flutter of premonition at the back of his mind. The feather light touch of a lost lover’s fingertip tracing the skin of his neck, barely touching, yet causing the slightest shiver of apprehension to ripple his spine.

  It had all been leading here, the madness of the last few days, it was always going to end up at this point, at this grimy concrete parade.

  That was crazy, wasn’t it?

  But the feeling settled on him with the leaden weight of finality. The bad choices and the wrong decisions, they were all just so much sleight of hand to get him to this particular point.

  You may well be crazy Joey-boy, but like the man said, there are more things in heaven and earth, more than your fucked-up excuse for an intellect can comprehend.

  Another creature closed in on the woman and George and Joe sprang forward and intercepted, hacked at it with the machete before it could reach them. There was none of the violent artistry of Elliot in what Joe did.

  No, none of that.

  Nope, you’re certainly no Fred Astaire of the Fall, Joey-boy. There’s no caucasian Bruce Lee of the apocalypse here fella. Just a heavy-handed, virtually one-armed old drunk who can’t catch a break ...ha, let’s face it, couldn’t catch a cold these days.

  He simply chopped at the things arms, driving it back and down. Swung again and the blade bit through the ropily armoured flesh of its shoulder and jarred against bone, an impact that reverberated along his arm like he’d hit a hardwood strut.

  Joe staggered in the rain and chopped down on its head, cleaving the hideous skull, spilling thick blood and grey matter. Dull red blood and grey brain, grey and red like the whole world was grey and red now.

  He swiped water from his face and stumbled on the spot as he tried to get his bearings, tried to assess the situation.

  They were massing. The creatures, they were appearing from everywhere. He glanced back the way that he’d come and saw more there, indistinct but real in the driving rain, no doubt drawn by the noise of the crash.

  Elliot, however uncannily skilled and deadly, was struggling to stem the numbers, fighting an unwinnable battle to hold them at bay. The kid retreated to the tower, slipping and sliding on paving sheened pink with swirling water and mutated blood.

  As Elliot reached the woman she said something to him that Joe didn’t catch. Then she dashed away across the square to Joe’s right, into an alleyway, half dragging, half carrying Elliot’s brother with her.

  Elliot followed them, grabbing Joe as he went.

  The alley was another exit from the shopping centre that Joe hadn’t noticed as he’d run into the square. Subdued daylight at the end, blocked by railings.

  Empty, free of creatures.

  A pedestrian tunnel, enclosed and claustrophobic, lined with more dark shops. Low roof overhead that only added to the feeling of being trapped.

  The woman and boy were already half way down, silhouetted by the weak light spilling through the wrought iron fencing and a narrow gap at the top between the railings and the ceiling of the alley.

  “Out there leads to the Church. She has a car,” Elliot said between heaving breaths.

  Joe grunted and stumbled after him, eying the gap at the top of the rusted iron barrier. They could get through that opening, tricky and tight, but it was feasible. And so would the creatures behind them. They’d shoot through it like shit off a shovel.

  And can you get over that Joey-Joe? With your messed up arm that, by the way, is dripping blood off the end of your hand and is beginning to hurt like a no-holds-barred naggy bitch.

  Joe slowed and watched Elliot move ahead to join his brother and the unknown woman.

  Dear Jesus God, how must that kid feel? His brother had survived, against odds that were hard to calculate. And Elliot had believed in that possibility, fought for the belief and found him. Fought his way, tooth and nail, across the country to find him.

  It mustn’t end here for them Joey. Even your big old self-obsessed, self-destructive head can see that. Surely?

  That is, if you can turn your ugly inward-looking eyes out at the world for a few precious moments.

  Joe considered the gap above the rusty iron spikes with something like longing and then glanced around himself. Blank brick wall to the left and a charity shop on the left. Second-hand glassware and old books amateurishly displayed in a darkened window.

  Where’s the fucking charity in any of it Joe? How can it be charity if you don’t even notice the cost ...and if doing it do
esn’t really affect you?

  How would it be brave if you weren’t scared?

  Joe looked back at the opening to the square. They were there, gathering in the square. He could see them in the misting rain. Skeletal shapes, things from another reality. Just the shape of them made Joe shudder, that alone sent fear shrilling along his nerves, raised a scream of protest in his head.

  Who was at your side when the thunder and lightning came?

  The kid, of course.

  Who was at your side when the thing that was once Andy reared up at you?

  The kid.

  Joe’s feet moved him closer to the others as he monitored the entrance. The woman threw the ridiculous bat between the railings and hoisted herself over, dropping heavily on the other side.

  “You’ll have to help George over. He’s not strong enough,” she said, rain slick face pushed to the bars that she’d just scaled.

  A pretty face, hard and delicate, well past the first flush of youth. Striking despite age and circumstance.

  Elliot dropped his weapons and shovelled his brother over, simultaneously rough and careful. Love and expediency against a gun-metal background.

  Joe looked away and saw the first of those hideous things enter the alleyway, hunched and hunting, more of them behind it, emptily snapping at the sodden air.

  Elliot bent, picked up the lump of wood and scythe, panting and as unsure as Joe had seen him in their short acquaintance. The indecision on the kid’s face warmed Joe’s heart and chilled his bones.

  “Go on fella. Your brother won’t wait but I will. See you at Black Hills. I’ll hold them here, give you a chance. Then get back to the Jeep and follow you ...get the gate ready for me boyo, I’ll be along shortly.”

  Joe smiled as he said the words and they stared at each other for a brief moment. Hard young eyes, brimming with questions and hope, and tired old eyes, burdened by knowledge and full of regret.

  Elliot turned away and gently placed his weapons through the bars.

  Then flew in one fluid coil of movement and landed on the other side, hands grasping iron, face close to the bars.

  “Thank you.”

  A whispered farewell as the rain dripped down his youthful face. At that moment, Elliot looked even younger than his tender years, not much more than a boy really. Then he was gone, with his brother and the woman, folded into the misting rain, disappeared into the dim greyness that seemed to pervade everything.

  Joe smiled again, a sad twitch of the mouth and crinkle of the eyes. Hard not to like Elliot, the kid was a piece of work. But there was no time for any of that, no time for reflection. He heard them behind him, those vicious horrible things, heard them above the noise of the rain, as it pounded down on the patch pf concrete that Elliot had occupied mere seconds ago.

  Joe turned and walked deliberately towards the first of them. Swung the machete as the thing broke into its final run. Just about took off the top of its head, cleaving through one of its hideous eyes and biting deep into the skull.

  Need to dial that swing down a tiny fucking wee bit, Joey-boy, maybe reign in the visceral rage a touch or two while you’re at it. Don’t want to be getting your one good arm and your stolen mini-sword stuck in one of them do you? That would shorten your life by ...gosh, what ... several minutes maybe.

  Skipped and stumbled to avoid overbalancing as he wrenched the blade free and then chopped and thrust as more of them closed in.

  Felt himself ripped and gouged as he flailed wildly with the blade.

  Struggling to stay upright, desperate to avoid their teeth.

  Found himself sagging against the wall, closer to the square than the railings. Transferred the machete to his useless left hand and fumbled the gun out of his pocket.

  Gun-time at last Joe? Time to play that untested ace? Yeah, that’s probably one of your better shouts. It’s now or never really, isn’t it fella? If it doesn’t work ...well, you’re pretty much fucked anyway.

  Screaming, he banged shots into the pack that bristled at entrance to the alley.

  Four shots?

  Five?

  Whatever, it cleared the way, ploughed the road. Left him the necessary gap, allowed him to wearily run into the square again.

  Dear Jesus selling double glazing door-to-door, with security locks thrown in for free, this doesn’t look good Joey-boy. There isn’t even the slightest fucking scent of good anywhere in this stinking pile of sloppy shit.

  They were everywhere.

  The exits were all gone. To his left was impassable, heaving with them. Across the way, the way that he’d entered the centre, was blocked. There was no route to the damaged and quite probably dead Jeep.

  Joe staggered to his right and fired again as he almost collided with another emaciated nightmare.

  Glimpsed snapping animal jaws, saw teeth shatter and splinter as the bullet sheared through them and exploded the back of the creatures head.

  Sensed more than saw another monster at his left shoulder and unthinkingly lashed out with the machete. Crunched skull bone and felt the machete break as he pulled it back. Arm braying new pain along his nerve endings like a klaxon blaring disaster. The existing wound ripped again terribly, wider and deeper, a cavernous yawning rent that threatened to blank his mind. Hand scarcely able to hold onto what remained of the machete.

  Joe barely registered the creature as it fell, a jagged section of blade still buried in its head.

  And then he was momentarily in the clear. An oasis of open ground materialised around him like a grudging benediction.

  The rain suddenly increased in intensity, became a deluge, unrelenting and unreal. The air almost opaque as water poured from the heavens. Cloudbursting violence that pummelled his head, half blinded his eyes, hammered his bruised and battered body.

  Joe lurched forward, slipping and sliding.

  Tumbled and fell as the slickened surface, gravity and exhaustion, teamed up and got the better of him.

  And then crawled on bloodied knees.

  Crawled on knuckles shredded by rough concrete, refusing to release his weapons, refusing to give in when there was the slimmest sliver of chance.

  Fetched up against a metal roller shutter, storefront canopy sheltering him from the worst of the rainstorm.

  He stared out at the square, gasping for air, chest heaving, exhausted, too many aches and pains to bother cataloguing them all.

  They were there, a shifting mass of alien shapes in the drumming, pounding downpour.

  Don’t you wish it could rain forever Joey? Confound the fuckery out of those shitty awful fucking things? Maybe even fucking-well melt them like the fake witch in the wizardy-old-bastard of ozzery?

  He hoped that Elliot and George made it. And that fierce mystery woman, he wanted her to make it as well. He had a feeling the boys might need her. He hoped that they all escaped this horror show and made it to Black Hills.

  Hoped that Black Hills was some sort of sanctuary, offered them asylum from the madness.

  Hope was all there was though, he couldn’t do anymore now. Just didn’t have it in him. Whatever he did have left was slowly leaking out of him to mix with the rain.

  His thoughts settled on his own son and wife. They’d never been far from his mind. Always there, at the edge, circling at the periphery, shoved out of focus because if he’d allowed them centre-stage it would have finished him.

  They loomed over it all. An achingly sad backdrop to everything that had happened since he woke up in Adi’s apartment. Feeling confused and lost, and about to get a flavour of what being lost really meant.

  Creeping coldness spreading through him.

  Hey Joe, that’s what you get with the new world, tropical monsoon in June.

  He hoped that someone would help his son ...if his son had survived in the first place. He’d never know but he hoped that some brave soul would be willing to stand up for his boy. Stand and be true when insanity held sway.

  The rain was easing off and with it
they became clearer. What had Pearcey called them?

  Jacks.

  Ripping things in the mist.

  Yeah, that was just about right wasn’t it. Ripping horrible things that were beyond understanding.

  Christ with clear-view lenses, this was never how he’d imagined it, never how he’d envisioned it all ending.

  Maybe a lonely last cigarette with a glassful of carefully chosen scotch.

  A hospital room and spectral loved ones hovering at the edge of his dimming, morphine-infused vision.

  But not like this.

  Alone.

  Wet and cold.

  Body torn to bits and useless, bleeding out on crumbling concrete.

  The road always leads here Joe. It’s always the same destination. But how you get here, there’s the rub ...the routes ... they’re always unique. The jinks that the road throws in your way, they can be negotiated ... to some extent. Ahhh Jesus, it’s awful complicated.

  A carful of booze and fags within walking distance and no legs to get there.

  It’s a big old crock of shit Joey-Joe, same as it ever was. The shit ...that at least stays the same ...well, there’s a certain familiarity of smell anyway, shall we say.

  Joe shuffled his body into a sitting position, the metal of the shutter cold on the base of his spine.

  The steel of the gun equally cold against his sweating head as he stroked the barrel across his face to rest in the dent at his temple.

  You did alright Joey-boy ...better than that ...you did good.

  And with that the voice at last went thankfully silent.

  STANDING

  Climbing Asylum Hill.

  As Caroline piloted the Range Rover through, Pearcey looked back and watched the gate to Black Hills automatically slide shut. He was genuinely sad that Joe and Elliot hadn’t come with them. The boy seemed decent, he’d acted like a combat veteran in the debacle outside the Hillstop Hotel, shown a rare courage and a loyalty that spoke volumes about his character.

  And Joe Byrne, Pearcey thought Joe Byrne could have been a genuine friend. The man seemed to have some pretty heavy shadows shrouding his shoulders, but Pearcey could identify with that. If you got to their age and weren’t haunted in some way ...well, there was a good chance life had passed you by.