“It’ll be cool to the see the outside world again, right?”
Somehow, he couldn’t shake the impression of walking through Atlantis with not one, but two dead bodies.
* * *
Vertigo.
First, the quick swipe of his security card, followed by the swift, windy parting of the hatch doors. Then, the sense of falling.
Not falling down, but up. As if the world had inexplicably tilted over, and he were suddenly dangling over the endless abyss of the sky above him.
The pressure had gone. The constriction had gone. Atlantis was behind him, and the world was vast and wide and boundless. A storm was raging, the rain pelting down upon them like the vengeance of some furious god.
It was terrifying.
He tried to keep his balance, and noticed that Jeff too had felt the sudden flood of agoraphobia. A couple of steps, then the technician stumbled, and fell.
Nancy’s feet hit the ground, hard, the impact reverberating through her stiff corpse, up through Walscombe’s fingers. A second later, he too was lying there, on the tarmac, head spinning and heart racing. Trying to take it all in (fucking hell, the sky, that’s the motherfucking sky), while, at the same time, doing his best to keep it out. It was all too much. This new world that was also the old, this monstrous stretch on sights and sounds and light, was enough to drive his mind to insanity.
From the outside, Atlantis looked derelict, abandoned. A place that belonged to the past. All around, Nature had crept forth, demanding and destructive, reclaiming the world of man as her own. This was Colossus’s work.
The largest of the three rocks, the one that had struck North America with blind, devastating strength. Scrambling around on the ground, in an attempt to stand up again, Walscombe was witnessing its legacy – the thick, thundering clouds above them, the savage, torn earth below it.
This is what we really mean by awesome, he thought.
The two men crossed glances. Two humans, scuttling on the surface of a continent, of a planet, that no longer belonged to their race.
“Quick, let’s get a move on,” Walscombe said, raising his voice above the tumult of the storm.
They could have just left her there, by the entrance, but they did not. The decision to do otherwise was never expressed. Just a mutual understanding – neither of them would ever want to see the corpse rotting away, on one of Atlantis’s video feeds. ‘Out of sight, out of mind’ sort of thing, Walscombe told himself.
Somehow, they managed to get back up, fighting the dizziness and the battering rain. This time, both of them stood at the body’s feet, each grabbing an ankle.
“Ready?” asked Walscombe.
Jeff nodded. “As ready as I’ll ever be,” he said, with a faint smile.
They began dragging the body out, towards the exterior gates, both eyeing the CCTV cameras along the perimeter. All they needed was to get her outside of the lenses’ field of vision. Walscombe remembered that the cameras labelled EXT.N.4 and EXT.N.6 had stopped working. They had to reach their sectors.
“Wait!” Jeff called. They’d hardly started moving.
“What is it?” Walscombe quickly glanced towards the entrance hatch, suddenly afraid Don might be standing there, gun in hand. Ready to kill them.
“She’s face-down!” Jeff said.
Walscombe peered down. So she was. He looked back up at Jeff. So?
Jeff hesitated. Bit his lip, behind the visor. “It’s just… you know,” he said waving his hand across his face. “Scratches.”
Walscombe paused. All he wanted to do was grab the other man by the shoulders and shake the shit out of him, screaming Half her head is blown off, you r-tard! What? You’re worried the corpse will get a couple extra scratches on her cheeks? In case you haven’t noticed, it’s a fucking nightmare, out here right now. We gotta GO!
But he nodded, as if he agreed. Jeff was cursed with a delicate soul, and this wasn’t the time to start debating about it. Without waiting for him, Walscombe quickly dived down, and rolled the body over.
He immediately wished he hadn’t. The few metres they had dragged her across the tarmac had been enough to peel off part of her forehead. It fluttered in the rain, like the cover of some magazine left to rot in the street.
Fuck you, Jeff, he thought, looking away. “Okay? let’s go now.”
They grabbed her legs again, and started pulling her backwards, with quick, anxious steps. Gusts of wind fleeted through the downpour, making it quiver like a ghostly curtain. Suddenly, the abandoned corridors of Atlantis felt comforting. Well, sort of, anyway.
“Here!” he cried, as they reached the area monitored by the blind EXT.N.6 camera. Walscombe just dropped the corpse’s leg to the ground. Jeff lowered it, gently.
Somehow, it all suddenly felt ridiculous. Why go to such trouble, to simply dump this woman’s body out here? Watching her there, under the pelting rain, it felt like a very undignified way to dispose of someone who had passed away.
Except, I never could have lived with the knowledge of her inside Atlantis, thought Walscombe.
Jeff was bending down, next to what had once been a rose bed. He scraped up a handful of runny mud, then delicately placed it on her chest. When he noticed Walscombe’s eyes upon him, he muttered, “Best burial I could think of.”
“Let’s get going,” Walscombe said. “I feel like I might die myself, if I stay out here any longer.”
Inside the suit’s hood, Jeff dipped his chin.
They both gave a last, silent look at the body, before turning, and running.
At every footfall, Walscombe heard their feet breaking the surface of the water flowing wildly on the tarmac below. The storm stirred, grew louder. It felt like this wide, wild world had suddenly noticed them, trespassers from a previous life, and was closing in on them. Hunting them down.
Runrunrunrunrunrunrun
The entrance hatch of Atlantis grew closer. Only a few steps away .
Something was wrong.
For an instant, he debated whether he should care, whether perhaps all he needed to do was just keep running. Forget everything. Keep going and screw everything else. But he couldn’t.
He threw a glance to his side. Jeff wasn’t there any more.
Ohfffuck
He swirled round. There he was. The only remaining technician in Atlantis – this sensible, sweet man, was standing under the pelting rain, arms and eyes wide, almost perfectly still. His mouth was open, as if frozen in mid sentence, like someone stuck on pronouncing an endless Oh.
“What–?” asked Walscombe. Mainly to himself.
Then, it happened.
Jeff’s visor was suddenly covered in vomit. It happened from one instant to the next, like a video missing frames. Jeff’s pale face. Vomit. Like that.
Even at this distance, Walscombe could make out the details of the yellowish pulp. Red bits of organic substance, like pieces torn from his lungs, had also been ejected, and slid, sticky, down the visor’s inner surface.
Jeff collapsed to the ground.
A bolt of lightning set the sky ablaze.
Chapter 9
The ’Wraith Pack
“Fuck d’you mean, a cure?”
Jake, the Alpha ’Wraith of the Pack, sat sprawled on the carpeted floor, stained cushions surrounding him. He was rolling a joint, and didn’t look at Ana, who stood before him.
“Yeah. A cure. That’s what Luke says, anyway.”
Jake passed the cracked surface of his grey tongue along the rolling paper, sealing the spliff. He chuckled. “Right. Luke, your little bum bandit boyfriend. The one who’s too much of a wuss to get out of Bately and join the Pack.” He raised his one eye, contempt oozing out of his toothless smile. “Yeah, I know ’im.”
Ana clenched her fists, but said nothing. She knew better than to piss Jake off. He was unpleasant and irritating, but he was also the one who had succeeded in turning a bunch of loose gangs of ’wraiths into an effective, organized community. One that the
neighbouring towns feared. He commanded respect, despite his attitude.
“This old geezer from what-was-Europe,” she said, “he says he can cure the ’wraiths in Bately.”
Ana heard the silent shuffle of the ’wraiths who sat behind her. Jake’s ’court’: his advisers and guards and arse-lickers-in-residence.
Luke lit the joint, and took a deep hit. When he exhaled, the thick cloud of smoke lingered around him. He lay his patchy head against the wall, and fixed his gaze on the bright tip. A cruel deity sniggering in the mist.
“What’s that to me?” he asked.
Ana stuffed her hands in her pockets, to try and keep them still. She felt uneasy.
“What’s this to the Pack?” Jake added, with a vague sweep of the hand, encapsulating their brothers and sisters inside and outside of the room.
“Dunno,” said Ana. “Just thought you’d like to know.”
Behind her, she heard Dimwit, a sixteen-year-old kid whose real name no one remembered, and who spent most of his time sucking up to Jake, suddenly stand up and say, “We don’t need no cure, do we, Jake? Fuck that. We’re ’wraiths of the Pack, and we’re fine just the way we are, innit?”
“Shut up, you twat,” Jake said, without looking at him. Dimwit mumbled something, and sat down again. The others laughed.
Jake gently spun the joint around, between the tips of his fingers. He too must once have been beautiful, thought Ana. Like Luke, like herself. But, unlike them, Jake seemed to actually believe the meteorwraiths were a chosen people, the angels of death set free by the meteorites. Apostles of the End Days, he sometimes called them. He was proud of his missing fingers, his blind eye, his bloated skin. Perhaps this talk of a cure might only have angered him.
Ana was about to turn around and leave, when Jake said, “This old man… does he know about the Pack?”
She nodded. “Luke mentioned something. The Healer… that’s what the ’wraiths in Bately are calling him… says he’d like to meet you.”
As she spoke, Ana began to ask herself if perhaps this was an issue Jake would have to raise with the Greater Pack, or even with the ’Wraith Queen herself. If that were the case, she might even be rewarded for bringing the Healer’s presence to his attention.
“All right. I’ll think about it,” Jake said at last. He sniffed and jerked his chin towards the door. He was dismissing her. “Now show us your tits or get outta ’ere, lass,” he said.
The ’wraiths laughed their gurgling laughs, and she left.
Chapter 10
Alice and Adrian
“We can’t stay here.”
Alice and Adrian sat on a low hill, behind the church, elbows resting on their knees. Bately lay before them, a light mist lingering in its empty streets.
She looked at him. His eyes were red, angry. Angry with the town. With himself. “We can’t stay here, Ally,” he repeated.
Alice had always found it easy to read Adrian’s thoughts. She knew he liked her, although he’d never confessed it. And she knew, now, that he was ashamed. Because after all their travels, all the fear and danger and tears, there was no ’Aunt Hellen’s house’ to welcome them and keep them safe.
Aunt Hellen’s. He’d said those words so often, like they were part of a secret spell, one that would protect them. When we get to Aunt Hellen’s… he’d say, as they lay in their sleeping bags in some muddy field or cold cave, and then tell her about all the wonderful things that would happen once they got there.
But she’d only half-believed him. All the nice places were gone, now. Most of them, anyway.
“Ady… it’s all right,” she said, gently bumping her shoulder against his.
“All right?” His voice was harsh. He never talked like that. Not to her. “I drag you across all those places, to get here, and… and… all we find is a town full of ’wraiths and a smelly old man who points a gun at us.” She saw tears gathering in his eyes. “My uncle. He almost shot you Ally. Shot you. Is that all right?” He shook his head, looked away.
Despite his anger, she knew that a part of him was now expecting her to comfort him. He was like that, sometimes. Most of the time, he didn’t expect anything from her, but there were times in which she knew he wanted a hug, or for her to tell him he was doing his best, and that was all that mattered.
“Ady.”
Adrian didn’t turn around. His eyes were fixed on Bately.
“You’re an idiot,” she said, and suddenly stood up. She felt like slapping him, like kicking him as hard as she could.
This time, Adrian did look up. His mouth was wide open. She had never called him that.
“Wha–”
“Yes. You’re an idiot, Adrian.” She pointed towards the town, her arm shaking. “For the first time since… since I don’t even know how long, we’re among people who actually care for us. We just slept in a bed, Ady. A bed. I had breakfast. I brushed my teeth. I walked around, without ducking or hiding or creeping around like an animal.”
Adrian kept staring.
“And now, after all we’ve been through, you… you whine like a little girl and say we have to go. All because–”
“Because it’s full of ’wraiths, Ally. Because my aunt is dead. Because my uncle is–” Adrian said, his voice not as strong as he’d hoped.
“Crazy,” she interrupted, “yes, your uncle is a bit crazy, and your aunt is dead. I’m sorry, Ady, and I really am. But you know what? All my family is dead. All of it. All I have left, now, is you.” Adrian lowered his eyes, after those last words. But she had no intention of softening up. She pressed on. “And yes, there are ’wraiths here, but none of them have tried to kill us, Ady. None of them tried to… do things to us, did they? They might be dangerous, okay, but so far this is the safest place we’ve been in, in ages. Father Paul, he… he really wants to help us. So do his friends. Right?”
Adrian nodded quietly.
“And we got here because you knew about this town. We got here thanks to you. So please stop nagging and try and be happy, for once.”
Adrian swallowed. He extended his hand, tried to rest it against her, but she brushed him off. “I’m not finished.” She knelt down, and stared him in the eyes. “I know something might happen tomorrow, or after-tomorrow, or whenever, and this place won’t be safe any more. I know that. But, today, just for today, let’s try and enjoy this tiny bit of safety, okay?”
The young boy nodded.
One of the church windows opened, and Paul peered out. “It’s nearly lunchtime,” he called, “do you children want–”
“Yes,” replied Alice without looking at the priest. “We do..
She grabbed Adrian by the sleeve, and dragged him towards the church.
Chapter 11
Shedding Skin
“Is it…?”
Paul sat on a pew, his sleeve rolled up so Cathy could inspect his elbow. He was biting his lip, nervously. He feared the worse. But it wasn’t just the fear of what those flaky bits of dead skin might be. It was rare, and unsettling, for him to feel the touch of a beautiful woman. He bit harder, the fragile lining of his lips bulging painfully between his teeth. Punishing himself.
“Is it what, Paul?” Cathy asked, the tips of her fingers pressing delicately against his arm.
“You know… the Affliction?”
Cathy looked up, a hint of a smile curling her lips. “Don’t be daft, Father,” she said. “There is no resisting the Affliction for so long. You know that. You’d have developed it sooner.”
Paul felt relief flood his body, like warm milk washing his veins. He fought a sudden, unexpected urge to laugh.
Cathy rolled down his sleeve, and patted his arm, like you’d do with a good puppy. “No,” she added, “I’m pretty sure this is psoriasis.” She sat next to Paul, on the pew.
“Sor–?”
“Psoriasis. It’s an autoimmune disease. Genetic.” She nodded, as if confirming her own diagnosis. “Can be triggered by stress, anxiety, etcetera.”
&nbs
p; Paul stared at the sleeve, now covering the flaky skin patches, as if he could see through it. His relief was now tainted with an eerie, uncomfortable feeling. The feeling of being unwell, different, sick.
“There’s something I have to ask you, Paul.” Cathy’s voice was serious, now. She looked him straight in the eyes. He returned her gaze, his heartbeat uneven.
“Anything stressful happen in your life, of late?” she said.
The irony of her question was lost on Paul, his mind confused by illness, doubt and proximity to her.
“Paul…? Hello?” A wide smile had spread across Cathy’s face. “Anything stressful? You know, like three gigantic meteorites destroying the world, devastating our civilisation and spreading a deadly disease on top of it all, for instance?”
He, too, smiled. He was grateful to her for not mentioning the events in Ashford. “Oh. Of course. Yes, there’s that. Plus, Padre Claudio’s snoring does keep me up, sometimes.”
“Well,” said Cathy, a twinkle in her eye, “could be either of those two things, come to think of it.”
They chuckled quietly, both mildly surprised by the fact they had managed to laugh about the impact, about its aftermath.
“Anyway,” said Cathy, standing up. “If you pop round the clinic, tomorrow, I might be able to give you a cream. Just keep an eye on it. Let me know if it spreads.”
Spreads? Paul didn’t like the sound of that. He tried not to show it. “Thanks, Cathy. You’ve really taken a weight off my shoulders.”
“Better get back to the others.”
“Yes, of course,” replied Paul, his heart sinking a couple of inches, for some reason he wasn’t eager to consider, right now.
* * *
“Tomorrow’s going to be… tricky,” said Moore. He sat at the church’s small kitchen table, with Cathy and Paul, the remains of their simple dinner scattered across the cloth. Claudio and the children were reading, in the next room, the low, hypnotic murmur of the older priest’s deep voice creeping through the door.
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