Alien Virus

by Steve Howrie

  “What does that mean?” asked Kate.

  “It means Tony and co have made the right decision.”

  ***

  Fourteen

  The next day, I couldn’t believe that I’d just spent a whole night in a room with a beautiful young woman whom I fancied like anything, and nothing had happened. But the journey to Eday had made us both tired – and there would be plenty of time for Kate and I to get to know each other.

  With a cloudless blue sky and warm sun, we both felt brighter the next morning and soon began to explore Eday, driving from one croft building to another, looking for empty property and getting to know the island. There really was only one road, with smaller tracks branching off to the west and east. We were amused to see that despite Eday possessing only two shops, the island did have an airstrip – which was known as ‘London Airport’. Nothing to do with Heathrow or Gatwick of course – this one received its name from being located at London Bay.

  “Well, that could be handy,” observed Kate, scanning the airfield. “A quick escape route if ever we need it.”

  “Yeah – assuming we have an aeroplane, and you can fly it.”

  “My sister flies her own microlite,” she said matter-of-factly.

  So not such a dumb idea after all then.

  Great sandy bays flanked the airport east and west. If the climate was a few degrees warmer, this would be paradise. But then it would probably be thronging with tourists, and not be the safe retreat we needed. To the west lay another, smaller, island called Faray. And at the north end of Eday was The Calf – a sanctuary for seals and seabirds. The more we got to know the island, the more we liked it. It was remote, yet had a homeliness we liked. We wanted to show the others as soon as possible.

  “Yes, it is really peaceful here – and it’s got something I really can’t put my finger on,” observed Kate. “But there are other islands to see – this is just the first one in the alphabet, remember?” She was right of course. So I suggested that the two of us go over to first Sanday, then Westray, and ask Tony, Gareth and Sandi to take a look at Shapinsay and Stronsay.

  When I finally got through to Tony, he was very much up for the idea. I asked him if he’d caught the news last night.

  “I did – and it’s just as we expected, don’t worry about it. Sandi and Gareth picked up supplies of salt just before we left Edinburgh, so we’ll be fine for the next twelve months at least. We’re not going down with the virus just yet.”

  That news put our minds at rest. We set off for Sanday, whilst the others took the first available boat from Kirkwall to Shapinsay. The plan was to meet up in Kirkwall in two days time.

  *

  The islands of Orkney are all different. From the Mountainous Hoy to the dead flat North Ronaldsay, and from the tiny Calf of Eday to the large main Orkney island (formerly known as Pomona, but now boringly called ‘Mainland’). Sanday impressed us. Similar in many ways to Eday, but with a micro village at Kettletoft. It even had a hotel! On balance, though, we still preferred the feel of Eday. Next, we headed off to Westray, the largest of the northern Orkney islands with a population of over one thousand. We’d got so used to small islands that Westray just seemed too big and impersonal. Having come from London, I couldn’t believe I was thinking like that.

  Whilst we were on Westray, we couldn’t help noticing there was an airport with a one minute flight to neighbouring Papa Westray, affectionately known as ‘Papay’. Billed as the shortest scheduled air flight in the World, we just had to try this out; it was an opportunity to see another island at the same time. The total duration of the flight was only two minutes – including taxiing on the runway! From the Papa Westray airstrip, a taxi took us to the centre of the island, where we found a Community Centre and a row of holiday chalets. We’d missed the last ferry back to Kirkwall, and there wasn’t another flight to Westray for a couple of days, so we stayed the night on the island. Fortunately, there was plenty of room available – we were the only guests.

  Piping hot, home-made barley soup and bere bannocks were laid out before us for supper in the little restaurant in the Community Centre. The bannocks were made from the local bere wheat – a cross between wheat and barley. They had certainly been cooked with plenty of salt, which I asked the landlady about.

  “Aye, well – between you and me mind – I canna understand these government people. We’ve always had salt through the generations. And it’s never done anyone any harm – quite the opposite. And my boy was telling me the other day how the ancient Egyptians, and all these other advanced civilizations, used plenty of salt. And they were healthy enough.” We nodded in agreement. I wanted to tell her about the alien virus, but thought better of it.

  “Are you folks staying up here long?”

  “Oh, possibly. We’re playing with the idea of moving up to Orkney.”

  “Well, you canna ‘ave picked a better place. Aye, it’s a grand place to live. I’ve been here all my life, and I’d never want to move away. Oh, I’ve been down South…”

  “To London?” asked Kate.

  “Oh no! That’s like going to another country… to Glasgow. And I can tell you, you can keep it. Everybody’s in such a hurry, no–one’s got any time for anyone else. And everyone’s so unhappy. You’d think they’d been hit with a misery virus.” Kate and I smiled. We thanked the lady for the supper and asked if we could pay her for our stay.

  “The morning will be grand – there’s no hurry. I’m no going anywhere.” We said goodnight and headed for our room.

  *

  The next day, I had a smile on my face that I had difficulty hiding. I was floating on air, and we held each other all the way to the ferry. We talked nonsense, looking into each other’s eyes, smiling, laughing, happy.

  We’d arranged to meet the others in Trennabies, a cosy coffee shop in the main shopping street in Kirkwall. After we hugged and kissed each other, Kate got the drinks. Then Tony spoke.

  “Well, how did you two get on? Find anything suitable?” We looked at each other and smirked. Sandi looked out of the window. “What were the islands like?”

  “Oh, right.” I tried to compose myself. “It seems to be a toss-up between Eday and Papa Westray as far as feel and location goes. We both liked Papay very much,” I tried not to look at Kate – it would only start me grinning. “But there wasn’t really any ready-to-move-into property. Unless you count a stone-walled croft with just that: stone walls. No roof, and a mud floor.”

  “But the walls were straight,” added Kate.

  “Oh, yes very straight,” I confirmed. Tony nodded, trying to offset out flippancy with some seriousness.

  “I see. What about Eday?”

  “We liked that – liked it very much, didn’t we Kate?”

  “Yes. Probably Kevin more than me. But it had the nicest feel of all, I’d say – and very safe there I think. Sanday was a difficult to get to know because of the shape. Westray a bit too big, and we couldn’t be so private there. You’d be expected to take part in community life – and we might not want to do that. On balance, I’d probably pick Eday. But I’d like to go back to Papa Westray.” She smiled at me.

  “Yes, me too,” I agreed. Tony nodded, pensively.

  “Good. Well, it sounds like we all need to look at Eday. As for Shapinsay and Stronsay, we had an interesting couple of days. Shapinsay has its own castle, and we all liked the island, but the castle is open to the public, so we’d always have visitors around us – tourists coming across from Kirkwall or Stromness. In contrast, Stronsay seemed more of a possibility – didn’t you think so Sandi?”

  “Yes, at first. Gareth and I certainly felt at home there.” She looked at him, and he smiled back. If a picture could paint a thousand words. Sandi continued, “The only drawback was Papa Stronsay – the small island nearby.”

  “It’s full of religious freaks,” explained Gareth. “Some sort of weird Christian order. They all wear habits and beads, and look very odd – like they’ve
just time–leaped from the thirteenth century. You can’t go direct from Papa Stronsay to Kirkwall without going through Stronsay, so we’d end up bumping into the buggers all the time. Not good. There were two of them on our ferry and I felt like bopping them one.”

  “Thanks for your Christian viewpoint,” said Tony. “But I agree – I don’t think it would be a good idea to be so close to them – we’ve no idea how they would react to us, particularly if they’ve been contaminated by the virus.

  “I agree,” nodded Sandi.

  “So it sounds like Eday is our best bet just now,” confirmed Tony. We nodded our agreement. “But before we sail to Eday, there’s something I’ve been wanting to talk to you about. It’s never really seemed like the right time before; but now we’re all together up here, I need to let you in on something. But not here. Gareth spotted a quiet place earlier…”

  “It’s got the local brew,” Gareth smiled.

  *

  Everything in Kirkwall was close at hand, and ‘The Bothy Bar’ was only a minute’s walk from the coffee shop. It was dimly-lit with a large, open log fire at one end and cosy, private areas around the bar, with chairs and tables constructed out of large wooden logs – mimicking a traditional Orkney Bothy.

  Once we’d sat down with our ‘Dark Island’ ale, Tony quickly scanned the bar to make sure no–one else could hear, then looked at us in turn to make sure he had our complete attention.

  “It’s about Frank,” he said. And then he dropped the bombshell: “Frank’s not dead.” You could have knocked me down with a feather, as they say.

  “What? But that’s impossible – I saw it in the paper… we both did. Right Sandi?” I looked at her for confirmation and she nodded quickly. “And both the doctors and police confirmed it.”

  “I honestly believe they did Kevin; and if Frank was a normal human being, then you would be totally correct. But Frank can’t die – he’s not human.” We all looked at Tony in complete disbelief, waiting for his explanation of what seemed totally impossible. Tony took a deep breath. “He didn’t come here in a spaceship or anything like that. He used a body, a human body – just like we use a spacesuit when we go to the Moon or another planet. He has to have a body to connect with us, to talk with us. So in one way, he is human. It’s his inner self – his soul – that’s alien.” We were all astounded. “Whatever the Police or the hospital told you was a cover up. Frank has a natural immunity to the virus – he understands it better than anyone else on Earth.” So many questions flooded my brain… I couldn’t access them quickly enough. “I know this is a shock,” Tony continued, “and I know your natural reaction will be to reject the idea. That’s okay, it’s normal. It’s exactly what I did when I heard this… until he proved it.”

  “Proved it? How?” asked Gareth. Tony took a sip of his drink, then another quick look around the bar. Nobody seemed interested in us.

  “Frank knew that I would never believe he wasn’t from this planet unless he demonstrated it. So one night he took me to the University’s Medical School, next to the Infirmary. He seemed to know all the right doors for where he wanted to go. They keep bodies in the basement for the third year medical students to work on – to learn their trade in anatomy. Some are very fresh – they have to be for the dissections of certain organs – otherwise they atrophy. I don’t know exactly how Frank managed to get the key to the basement, or even if he needed one. But the next thing I knew we were in a room full of stainless steel body draws. He instinctively went straight to one, pulling out the draw and exposing the corpse. I’d never seen a dead body before, and was taken aback at first. Then he said, ‘Watch me.’ He lay down on the floor took a deep breath and closed his eyes. After about four minutes, he seemed to be in a deep sleep; and then the most amazing thing happened – something I’ll take with me to my grave. The body in the drawer actually sat up, and opened its eyes. I didn’t know whether to run or scream. Then the head turned to face me and said in a croaky, unrecognisable voice: “It’s me, Tony – don’t be afraid. It’s Frank.”

  “You mean, Frank had actually transferred his consciousness to a dead body?” I asked in complete amazement.

  “Yes,” Tony answered. “Exactly that.”

  “And he can do it at will?” Kate asked.

  “Yes – but only with dead bodies – where the ‘occupier’ has departed. Ideally, just at the time of death – before the decay of the body begins in earnest.” We didn’t know what to say – we were shocked, dumbfounded and totally bewildered. Tony sat back and studied our reactions, as we looked at each other. This was a revelation none of us could ever have anticipated. Then Sandi posed the question we all wanted to ask.

  “Where is Frank now?”

  “Ah, I thought you’d ask that.” He put down his drink. “The answer is, I don’t know. From what I’ve heard, he couldn’t have gone back to the same body – it was too mangled from the ‘accident’. He could be anywhere. But you can bet he’s still on Earth.”

  “How can you be so sure?” I asked.

  “It’s no coincidence that Frank and the virus are both alien. He came to Earth at the roughly the same time: he followed it here.” This was getting more and more incredible. But we didn’t want Tony to stop.

  “Followed it from where?” Kate asked.

  “I know you’re going to find this fantastic – and I don’t blame you if you think this is completely off the scale of reasonable. But Frank told me he followed the virus from his own planet – from his own Galaxy.”

  We were shocked for a second time. There was silence as we tried to comprehend what we were hearing.

  “Why… why would he do that?” asked Gareth.

  “Benevolence. Not all races are like Man – in fact, very, very few are like Man. The majority have an inherent need to look after others – to help out, to benefit other races – regardless of self.”

  “How do you know this Tony?” Kate asked. “I know you’re an Astrophysicist, but how can you possibly know about other life–forms in the Universe? We’ve only just reached the stage of accepting that there could be other life in the Universe… we’re nowhere near knowing it’s nature.”

  “From Frank… he’s told me everything.”

  There was another stunned silence. My mind was racing now.

  “You must know how unbelievable, how utterly crazy this sounds Tony…” He nodded. “But just for the sake of argument, supposing this is true, why would a single alien from another galaxy travel alone to another part of the Universe to try to stop a virus affecting a planet with a population of seven billion?” That was about as rational as I could be at the moment in time.

  “Whoever said he was alone?” replied Tony.

  Gareth sat back in complete disbelief. “I need another drink,” he admitted. “Anyone else?” We all needed another drink. After Gareth returned with a tray of beers, we couldn’t wait for Tony to continue.

  “There are thousands of aliens here from Frank’s planet, Kevin – all with the intention of helping us to understand and eliminate this alien virus.”

  I was suddenly aware of people watching us, as was Tony, and we decided to continue our conversation back at Tony’s hotel. Everybody wanted to hear more.

  ***

  Fifteen

  On an evolutionary scale, Frank’s race was a million years in advance of human kind. Entering or leaving their physical bodies was as normal as you or I getting in or out of our cars. And without the hindrance of a body, they could travel at the speed of light with ease, enabling intergalactic travel to anywhere. So evolved were they that even the most advanced brains on Earth would seem like very primitive savages to those of Frank’s race.

  Yet the nomadic virus had hit his planet hard, decimating the population. It would have wiped out his race completely, had they not developed an immunity to its functioning. As soon as the virus knew it was blocked, it left the planet as quickly as it had arrived. Without hosts, it would eventually wither a
nd die. It could not exist on thin air, or even on vegetation. The parasite needed animal life to survive.

  Where it had come from, no–one knew for certain. But they suspected it was the result of some tragic catastrophe at the boundaries of the known universe – some sort of accident that caused the mutation of an intelligent life into minute mindless beings – and the loss of their home planet. Consequently, they were condemned to wander space and time – programmed to seek out and live off other live forms.

  Frank’s race – which he spoke of as The Great Ones – was able to communicate with every type of life within its Universe. But all efforts to communicate with the virus were to no avail. When the virus finally left their area of space, it was essential to stop it destroying other worlds, and towards this end Frank and others from his lands volunteered to track it down and – if necessary – destroy it.

  Though destroying life was totally contrary to the Great One’s code, protecting other intelligent life forms was a far higher priority. Frank and his race still hoped that there was a way to reverse the virus’s programme and bring it back into the fold; but failing that, termination of its life–force looked like the inevitable endgame.

  How long Frank and his fellow souls had been on Earth, Tony couldn’t say exactly – but he knew it was at least ten thousand years. Aliens from Frank’s planet were spread around the globe – mainly in areas where the virus was densest and at its most virulent. Capital cities were the most infected. With millions of potential hosts in close proximity, conditions were perfect for the virus to multiply.

  *

  Unbeknown to Tony, Frank had already found another body by the time they had reached Orkney. With death an hourly occurrence in London, it wasn’t difficult to find a suitable cocoon. Every day, somewhere or other around the Earth, a person clinically dies and then suddenly comes back to life. He or she is not the same person after the experience – which their friends and family put down to the trauma of them returning from the brink of death. Many seem to have developed a completely new attitude to life – more of a selfless nature. A feeling of being at one with the Universe. Whilst some people are pleased by the change in their friend or relative, others find it very distressing, and so bodies have to be carefully chosen before ‘entry’. Those with fewer connections to other beings are generally best.