Very little ever works out the way it should or the way you expect. That was a maxim that he’d learned early on in life.
Sometimes though, circumstances conspired to make you forget lessons learned.
They hit the first creature by accident.
Pearcey was accelerating around the corner from the centre exit and it appeared from nowhere.
A hideous wiry thing.
Huge head and massive jaw.
Skeletal limbs that terminated in hands and feet that were too big for reason.
Flailing razor-blade claws that caught the dying rays of the sun and sent shards of light every which way.
It came from a shadowy doorway.
Jumped at the side of the Jaguar.
As if it could take down even a mechanical beast.
Latch on to the glistening black metal and devour it.
The creature struck the curved angle of windscreen and driver’s window and bounced away.
“What the fuck.”
Gallagher shouted without thought. An involuntary outburst, an exclamation that seemed huge in the confined space of the vehicle.
Pearcey was silent.
Slewed the car to a halt.
More reaction than conscious decision.
His foot stamped the brake out of instinct as the impact made him swerve towards the opposite pavement.
He looked back and studied the thing he’d just hit.
It was a tangle of limbs, lying against a wall.
His eyes flicked forward and registered more figures a few hundred yards away. Moving with a staccato caution.
Predatory.
Proportions slightly wrong, even seen from a distance.
His gaze skimmed back to the casualty and he watched, with breath held, as it unfolded smashed limbs and rearranged itself.
The tangle breaking open like the worst kind of flower.
Diseased but somehow still verdant.
It staggered upright.
Swung its head in their direction and began a hobbled run towards them.
The video footage. A shooter.
Pearcey half remembered a YouTube clip from the presentation by the jittery yet ballsy kid he’d brought in from the suburbs.
The kid had stood in front of the assembled survivors in the CIMC government bunker and tried to explain the inexplicable.
Show them evidence of what was happening above their heads and all around the world.
Pearcey remembered the audio on one of the videos. A clip of some guy and his friend shooting strange, maybe make-believe creatures.
Get this ...they don’t die easy. You have to get them in the head to be sure. Hit them in the body or legs and those fuckers just keep getting back up.
Pearcey had half recalled it when Gallagher killed the cleaner woman thing.
At the back of his mind, he’d known it.
Breathed a sigh of relief when Sonny cracked the crow bar across its skull because the action rang a bell.
In more ways than one. The ringing sound.
Get a grip Pearcey. The clock is ticking.
He slammed the Jaguar into gear and accelerated through the figures at the end of the road.
Four of them.
He felt the wheel shudder in his hands as one of them clipped the right wing and was hurled away.
He wouldn’t be surprised if it got up again and begin a damaged pursuit.
It didn’t matter, he was out of there.
Foot jammed to metal.
Engine snarling oiled precision.
Another turn and one more, and then his left leg was extended, slammed against the brake.
The car slipping and juddering as he flexed his shoulders and gripped the steering wheel in an effort to control the slide of stopping.
The road was swirling with them.
Drifting between cars, flickering in and out of growing shadows like forgotten wraiths.
Ghostly and all too real in the diminishing light.
He couldn’t drive through that.
“Jesus Christ. Back up for fuck’s sake.”
Gallagher’s voice an echo of his own thought.
Pearcey was ahead of his friend though. Already reacting.
His arm thrown old style across the seat and a racing reverse. The backend hitting more of them.
Hurling them into the air.
For a time, everything other than driving became secondary.
A short distance became a seemingly endless endeavour. Restrained acceleration and frantic reverse.
The clock continued ticking and the sun continued sinking.
<><><>
Pearcey stopped and surveyed the bridge.
It reminded him of a film. He couldn’t recall which film. He was useless at that sort of stuff.
He half-watched things.
Videos, movies.
Television was something that he absorbed more by osmosis than study. The cinema was worse.
Hopeless.
Other people around him. It was a constant challenge to his awareness.
He found it difficult to relax enough to just let go and ignore his surroundings.
Maybe it was his job.
Perhaps his character.
His eyes only stopped roving when he read books. That was a pastime that delivered relaxation.
In the right environment of course. Where there was no threat.
<><><>
The setting was like something from a movie he’d seen at the cinema.
The one set in London with the guy who was in a coma.
Woke and discovered that the world had gone to shit whilst he was hooked up to tubes and busily thinking the thoughts of those locked inside their own heads. Happily removed from reality.
The film must have made an impression on him for Pearcey to recall that much. When the guy woke, he’d walked on an empty bridge. That was what this reminded him of.
Westminster Bridge was a big structure that had always captivated him, even though he was used to it.
Now, it was just unnerving.
The air of desolation.
The sense of abandonment.
The lack of activity. The absence of people. Traffic.
This time of day, early evening, it ought to be bustling. Pedestrians, fumes and congestion. A welter of humanity in motion.
The sun’s angle and the sense of emptiness lent it a new dimension.
The slant of light, the depth of shadow and contrasting brightness should have been beautiful.
It filled Pearcey with a simple sense of urgency.
Their time was ticking away.
Whirling like a dervish into the void.
Pearcey felt the urgency in his bones, a bad ache that had started when he entered the underground garage and didn’t go away. Just got more insistent. There were so many elements to this that were outside of his control.
So many things to make his job harder. The job had to be done nevertheless.
He had to assess the situation, identify the risks.
Quantify the danger for the powers that be at the bunker and report back with information that would help them make decisions for the nation.
What was left of it.
He felt too fucking tired and too fucking old to do it.
He was out here because he was the best they had.
There wasn’t anyone else at the shelter who was halfway close to his experience. A young field guy would probably have barrelled through this. Taken chances without even considering things. Just blasted ahead and worried about dying later.
Unfortunately, there weren’t any of those available.
Young idiots that wouldn’t think twice about it.
A lot of the people at the shelter were clever. Like the lad who’d delivered the presentation.
Jules ...Julian, whatever his name was
Put him out here, and the cleverness wouldn’t necessarily be the answer. He’d struggle to find his ringpiece using both hands, even with
notes and a map.
That was why Pearcey had wanted Gallagher. The man was older, had been around. Knew the corners where the dirt was hidden.
It was part of the reason anyway.
A practical, expedient part.
Gallagher was capable, had some initiative. Which meant he was less likely to be overly reliant on Pearcey if something shitty hit the fan.
Another part of it was compassion.
Gallagher was worried about his daughter and Pearcey could identify with that. He could understand how that felt.
Empathy, who’d have thought it.
Back in the day, he’d been pretty much free of emotional contagion. Sympathy and concern were easily stifled beneath a necessary skin of pragmatism.
The compassion had resurfaced though as he got older. It was one of Pearcey’s weaknesses.
<><><>
The bridge was passable.
He clung to that and vaguely detested himself. It was too much like an old man grasping at straws.
But at least it was one obstacle that could be surmounted. He’d worried that it would have become blocked since he’d last crossed it.
It wasn’t deserted.
There were abandoned vehicles and one or two glimmers of movement. The suggestion of motion was at the far end of the bridge.
Too far for him to be sure.
Given the odd quality of light and his obstructed view.
It could have just been shadow play. Or stress and his old eyes teaming up to spook him.
He didn’t think so though.
Instinct and experience were starting up a soft duet in his head.
A bittersweet melody he’d heard numerous times before. All about turning round and giving it up as a bad job. Getting the hell out of Dodge. In fact leaving Kansas completely, while the leaving was good.
Not that it mattered, whatever tune was getting airtime in his head. They had to cross Westminster Bridge. That eight hundred feet of gorgeously gothic wrought iron was the fastest route to where they needed to go.
Hit Lambeth as quick as possible and blast through.
A small part of him wondered how long it would be before it was painted again.
The glorious bridge.
How long before the detail was properly attended to, maintained in a way that would ensure its survival for future generations.
How long before it saw its usual volume of traffic. The return of feet and wheels pursuing the mundanely important.
It was a distraction and he knew it.
He was indulging it because it gave him an excuse to not push his foot down on the accelerator.
However useless it was to ponder things, sometimes the seduction got the better of you.
Especially when your heart wasn’t in the alternative.
“Is there a problem? Do you see something?”
Gallagher brought him back to the business at hand.
“No, we’ll be fine.”
The engine growled and they started moving.
Optimism, like pondering, was sometimes pointless.
Chapter 5
Girl in Black
She ran in stuttering bursts.
Jerky and uncoordinated. A glitched film.
There was no fluidity to it.
The way in which she ran.
If it was a film, it would have been one of those black and white affairs that slipped on the reels and irritated the eye.
Somehow fabulous, but somehow infuriating.
Almost unwatchable and impossible to turn off.
The stopping and looking back.
Then twitching around and looking ahead.
Then beginning the run again.
Faded black tee shirt emblazoned with a stark red and white design.
Dull black jeans that clung to her like a second skin.
Greyed in places with dust and dirt.
There was something beautiful in her graceless advance. Something powerful and at the same time powerless.
When she ran, her Converse pumps hit the pavement in flapping slaps.
Her arms, of course, were awkward.
Ungainly additions to her movement.
As if placed there to impede her progress rather than assist it. For all that, Angela Gacek moved with an impressive speed when speed was required.
In one hand, she held a kitchen knife.
In the other, she grasped the strap of a shoulder bag. The knife glistened red along the blade and the bag had seen better days.
Angela had been running for quite a while.
Far too long as far as she was concerned. She didn’t like running, detested it in fact.
Still, needs must when the devil drives.
She would have liked that phrase, it would have appealed to her gothic sensibilities. Not that she had time, at that moment, for idle musings on language and its usage. She was far too busy staying alive.
It was amazing what you could embrace when your life depended on it.
She wasn’t one for exercise.
You’d never have seen her at the gym or taking part in a Zumba class.
Despite that aversion, she wasn’t out of breath. A virtue of her genes, eating habits and youth, as opposed to any effort at physical fitness.
Athleticism born of an accidental nurture and nature combination.
She didn’t know where she was going, where she was running to.
She was running away, rather than running towards something. That was an issue that she’d have to address soon.
A destination.
Blind luck and blinder panic would only take you so far.
Angela had never felt like her luck was very good. She suspected that she’d eaten through more than her usual allotment in the last few hours.
She needed somewhere to go.
Needed that as badly as she’d ever needed anything in her whole life.
<><><>
Angela Gacek believed that she had a dark soul.
She liked listening to dark, sombre music.
Found pleasure in reading dark, bleak literature.
Enjoyed gazing at dark, disturbing artwork.
Her clothing was inevitably black.
Whenever she gave in to whim and purchased garments in brighter colours, they invariably sat unworn in her wardrobe.
On the rare occasions when she tried them on, she’d consider herself in the mirror on the back of the wardrobe door and feel uncomfortable.
Her lips would form a small moue of disapproval and she’d shake her head.
Change into something more acceptable. Something darker.
Ideally, something black.
When she considered it, Angie guessed that she’d stop wearing black when they invented a darker colour.
She had very few friends.
Real friends. Most of those she did have were virtual. Online acquaintances that shared interests.
And outlook.
It had been the same at school. There were friends of a sort, but not true friends that understood the darkness in her head. She’d been grateful to leave that rat hole behind.
Happy to go to college and study art and design.
Some years later, she’d left Camberwell with aspirations of being a professional artist.
And three years after that, she’d achieved a less than giddy height.
A temporary office job, the latest in a long line of dead end, desperate for the money jobs.
Still living with her parents. A mother she disliked despite loving, and a stepfather that she simply disliked.
Quite possibly hated.
<><><>
When they collapsed, she did her best.
It wasn’t pleasant. Both of them throwing up. The mess, the smell.
There was no help.
It was everywhere. The infection. The flu, the sickness. It seemed to be affecting everyone.
Except her.
The services not responding. Television and internet disappearing. It was too much
. An overload. She found herself on the street outside her house.
Crying.
Quietly weeping.
An absurdity. Crying in the street.
Tears were nothing new, but they were a thing that she hid, indulged in private. To find herself in a public place with a wet face was beyond imagining. Too ridiculous for words. It was a fair indication of the dreadful state of things.
She was familiar with being alone.
Philosophically.
Emotionally.
But not in the reality of a dead world.
<><><>
When they were changing, when her parents were slowly metamorphosing into something unknowable, Angela retreated to her core.
She rediscovered the essence of being alone.
There was no one but you.
She paid more attention to her mother. Monitored her stepfather, but always ended up at her mother’s side.
Watched in horrified awe as hair fell away and body seemed to shrink and be redefined.
Skin tightening to a leathery, striated shell that covered a skeletal frame.
Watched in stunned silence as jaw deformed and hands and feet became taloned weapons that didn’t belong on a human being.
<><><>
When they woke up, she killed.
And ran.
A knife from the kitchen. Taken from a broken drawer.
Plunged repeatedly into a mother that was a twisted parody of what she had been. There was no choice, it was kill or be killed.
When her stepfather began to rise, she fled. Despite desperately wanting to kill.
She’d been fleeing ever since.
Angela Gacek loved black.
Believed that she had a dark soul.
The belief would be tested.
Chapter 6
Crossing
Pearcey gunned the engine and the car growled. A subdued roar, a deep rumbling vibration that only hinted at the power that was available to him.
Carlton Pearcey understood driving and was good at it.
He loved cars.
Just as he loved reading and art and architecture. They were things that he treasured in his heart but never talked about. He wasn’t any expert with the arts, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t take pleasure from them.
The things in which he did have expertise were things that gave him no joy. Weapons and violence and death.
They had at first. Those awful interests. They’d lifted him beyond what he was.
Ferine Apocalypse (Novella): 4 Hours Page 3
