“Sonny, are you okay? Are you able to move?”
Incoherent mumbling and a thumbs up.
There was movement.
Outside. Through the dust, beyond the red tinged glass, Pearcey could detect movement.
“Good, because, we’ve gotta go. Make like a tree and leave. Ditch the car and run. Find somewhere safe. Get our shit together and move on.”
Gallagher might have understood, even agreed.
Pearcey didn’t care. He wrenched open the driver’s door and dragged his friend out.
Things had started out bad and hadn’t improved. They’d just taken a distinct turn for the worse.
Chapter 8
Girl Lost
Angela Gacek had stopped running.
Not because the fear had receded. If anything, the fear was growing at an exponential rate. No, she hadn’t stopped running because she was less scared, she’d simply decided that conserving energy was a priority.
She was thirsty, hungry and tired.
So tired.
Lightheaded.
A little while back, for a moment, the world had greyed out. Everything had gone topsy-turvy. The pavement had suddenly been close to her nose and her hand had trailed down a wall.
The pain in her fingers had brought her back to reality.
On her knees.
When she’d inspected her hand, a nail was gone and blood was leaking from the place where it used to be.
Leaking at an alarming rate.
Not exponential. Just a lot.
She’d sucked that bleeding finger and come back to herself.
The pain became intense enough to bring tears to her eyes.
<><><>
She was walking.
Sort of.
Stagger creeping might have been a better description.
She lived in Southwark but she was lost now. Had run and run and found herself lost.
Run away from home because home had ceased to be home. It had become a house of horrors, where terrible transformations took place and dreadful events were perpetrated.
Home had become an unknown place.
That might have been the case for a long time.
She didn’t know, she couldn’t think properly.
The horror of being there and being who she was.
If her home was really what she classed as a true home. It was difficult to say when your nightmare-grey world had suddenly turned blood red reality. Hard to know for definite if what you were experiencing was the real world or something forced into your mind by exposure to brutality.
Angela Gacek kept going because she might rediscover it.
She might find it again.
A home.
The vague thing she remembered from childhood.
It seemed an unlikely prospect at that point, but it was still a possibility.
<><><>
Angela came to the end of one road and edged into the next.
It felt radically different. The character had changed without warning. Or perhaps she was simply too self-absorbed to notice.
It was a thoroughfare, whereas up until then, she been rattling along deserted roads.
Mostly abandoned places.
Unexpectedly, she found herself on some sort of high street. A street full of shops and shadows.
Thankfully, it was empty of people.
Empty of monsters.
She must be heading away from the river.
It was too rough, too much decline evident in the buildings and atmosphere, for it to be otherwise.
There was a stationary bus at the bottom of the road but she couldn’t see the number. That might have given her a clue. Informed her of a route and possible location.
She walked slowly.
Eyes continually scanning.
Pausing to take faltering steps and then turn on the spot.
Check behind her and stumble back to the front. It hadn’t been long, but she wondered if her flight might last forever.
Wondered if running was her new existence.
Wondered how long she could keep moving without going insane or if that had already happened.
In her heart, Angela had always felt that the world was a hellish place. And now it was really was.
Hell.
She could smell smoke in the air and flickers of hot light in the darkening sky.
London was burning, turning into a nightmare place.
The masks had fallen away. People had morphed into monsters. Feral things with animal claws and terrible teeth.
It was like being inside a Beksinski painting.
<><><>
She’d seen packs of those monsters roaming. Had hidden and prayed not to be seen by them. One could kill her, a pack of them would rip her to pieces. She’d seen cars roar past, pursued by predators that were once human.
Not many cars, but enough to know she wasn’t the sole survivor. It was little consolation because they didn’t stop.
And she wasn’t sure that she wanted them to.
In their own way, those other survivors scared her nearly as much as the monsters. The people that could endure this must be mad. They had to be.
She was alone. Now more than ever, she was alone.
She’d have to stop. Find somewhere safe to hide.
Rest.
She was exhausted, mentally and physically. Wasn’t thinking straight. No energy left in her limbs. She felt heavy and dull in every sense.
And it would be dark soon. The idea of being out here at night was too dreadful to contemplate.
Perhaps one of these dingy shops that she was scuttling past. They were darker than the street. It nearly made her laugh, the thought of entering one of these buildings and exploring it as a temporary refuge.
What refuge did it offer?
Even if it were miraculously empty, she’d be a rat trapped in a maze. They were everywhere, those creatures. Prowling the streets, searching for anything breathing.
Anything like her.
She’d seen a dog, an enormous Doberman, cornered and torn apart.
Devoured.
Dogs like that, attack dogs, had always scared her. Compared to these things, it was a harmless rabbit.
Something she could hug and love.
She needed to get out of London, but she had no idea of how to do it.
On foot?
That was beyond ridiculous. So preposterous that she felt like slapping herself for even considering it. A senseless, absurd concept. Yet she couldn’t think of another option.
She couldn’t drive, had never learned, and now didn’t seem like the best time to teach herself.
She needed help.
Other people who hadn’t been changed by whatever this was.
Before the Collapse event, if asked, Angela Gacek would have characterised her life as a grim, dismal affair. She often felt despondent, sometimes hopeless.
At that point, on that rapidly darkening city street, she was experiencing a much deeper understanding of hopelessness.
<><><>
The thing lurched out of a recessed shop doorway.
Was on her before she had time to breathe or scream.
It hadn’t completely mutated. Straggles of hair remained on its head, although the jaw and claws had developed into lethal weapons.
It had been curled in the doorway. Angela’s slow progress gave it opportunity to lunge at her legs.
She didn’t feel its talon slice through her black jeggings and open her calf.
She was already falling as its emaciated arm tangled with her legs. The arm was knurled and corded, a texture more akin to wood than flesh.
The creature had been hideously wounded. An entire side of its body twisted and broken. Nevertheless, hunger smouldered within it.
It dragged itself on to her as she lay prone. Slithered up her with one barely functioning arm and one half-good leg.
Heedlessly raked her stomach as it snapped ever closer to her face.
Angela
swung the knife from the side. Desperation lending her energy that she didn’t think she had.
Buried the blade in its temple more by luck than skill.
Gasped as it collapsed on her.
Appalled by the pulsating shivers that racked its body as it died on top of her.
Crawled out from under it until she was free and then lay on her back, staring at the sky. The quivering of it had been awful.
Almost sexual.
She turned her head and weakly threw up. Water vomit dripping into her black hair.
Lay and looked at the unforgiving sky again.
Heard the low rumble of a car and then a splintering boom that seemed to fill the gloomy air like judgement.
She began crawling again.
The knife was gone.
Hilt deep in the monster’s head.
It didn’t matter, she still had the bag, clutched in her white-knuckled fist. There were more knives in there.
Chapter 9
Meetings
Gallagher fell as Pearcey hauled him out of the car and Pearcey let him fall.
He had other concerns.
It had been one of the creatures that had hit them.
It lay thirty feet distant.
Small spasming movements. Jittering signs of a desperate will to live. No sign that it was about to get up. No indication that it was about to give up the fight to keep breathing either for that matter.
There were shards of glass glinting on the road. Pearcey looked up at a broken window above their heads.
Third floor.
Jagged fragments of the glazing were all that remained in the frame. Like sharks teeth. The rest was strewn around him and the car.
He distractedly pieced together what had happened while he appraised their situation.
It had jumped, smashed through the window.
Trapped, he guessed.
Woke up from the coma and couldn’t get out of the room. Whatever intelligence they possessed was animalistic, had its limitations. He filed that away for future reference and turned to more immediate issues.
Like the creature that had appeared from a side road a hundred yards away.
And was coming towards them.
<><><>
The Jaguar was a mess.
Bonnet scrunched and dented as if a meteor had landed on it.
In some ways, that wasn’t too far from the truth, Pearcey thought. The windscreen was cracked. The front left wing had crumpled into a pillar box when he lost control of the wheel.
The post box was one of the big old heavy ones.
Oval with two posting slots for mail.
Cast iron.
Built to last.
Certainly build to last longer than the Jag.
A brick shit house in bright red metal.
It was canted to one side slightly but, on the whole, Pearcey thought it had come out on top. Especially when he glanced back at the smoking bonnet of the car.
Whatever his thoughts on old manufacturing methods and modern technology, they weren’t going anywhere in that car.
Not now and, he suspected, not any time soon.
If ever.
Gallagher leaned back into the wrecked vehicle and retrieved his trusty steel bar. He’d gaffer taped one end into an improved grip. He held that in his right hand as his left swiped blood from his face.
<><><>
The thing was running.
Coming fast.
As it got nearer, Pearcey could hear it growling.
The noise drifted towards him, insidious and chilling. An insane, inhuman sound that set his nerves on edge. Sent a shot of unadulterated fear down his spine.
Behind the first creature, he saw another appear.
The sound of the crash must be bringing them. That was the only thing that made sense. And if that was true, he and Gallagher didn’t have long.
Who knew how many were heading their way. He weighed his options in those last seconds before the first mutant got to him.
Made his decision and went with it.
<><><>
Pearcey’s knife flashed at the last moment. Caught a ray of the dying sun, sharp and beautiful, as it blurred through the air.
He drove the blade up under its chin and into its brain.
Managed to avoid its drooling teeth, but was still bowled over by its momentum. Felt his arm punctured by its talon and his back slammed into hard concrete.
Ignored the injuries.
Minor discomfort.
Rolled clear of the repulsive thing as it thrashed and mewled on the ground.
“You ugly fucker.”
Breathed the words and dropped his weight onto it. Pinned its dreadful arms and grasped the handle of the knife in both hands.
Waggled it, drove it deeper still. Up to the hilt so that syrupy blood spilled over his knuckles.
Looked up to see the other one had moved uncannily fast. Closed the distance between them and was about to spring at him.
Saw Gallagher spring first.
Swinging the steel bar like the last batsman on earth.
Pearcey could almost feel the vibrations in his own arms as it impacted with the thing’s skull. Splitting it, spraying more blood into the air.
The blood black in the near dusk light.
A sickening crunch.
As the bar did its work.
Gallagher was short but built like the pillar box.
Broad shoulders and thick chest sitting on a low centre of gravity that gave him awesome strength. He didn’t know if the man was trained but, once or twice, it had crossed Pearcey’s mind that he wouldn’t want to get into a fight with Sonny Gallagher.
And if he did, he’d perhaps want to be the one with the crow bar in his hands.
“Come on Sonny, we have to go now, before any more of them pop up. If we get caught out in the open by a bunch of them, we don’t have a cat in hell’s chance.”
Gallagher simply nodded.
Pearcey scanned the street.
There were cars.
It was possible they might find keys, or that he’d be able to start one. But that would take time, and he didn’t think they had much of that.
He motioned Gallagher and started off down the street.
He wanted a store, a shop. Somewhere to hunker down and regroup. Get his thoughts in order and figure out a plan of action.
He smiled.
A plan?
What a fucking joke.
You couldn’t plan this shit.
At the best of times, plans were a rough guide. When it got this surreal, plans were a fantasy.
He still wanted one. Some vestige of organisation amidst all of the chaos.
Something to cling to when the next impossibility presented itself. When the next unpredictable element appeared in a puff of nasty smoke.
<><><>
Pearcey nearly fell over the girl.
He’d been distracted, searching for a likely premises.
Felt the rubber soles of his boots loose grip and slide on the pavement as he stopped short. Felt Gallagher bump into him from behind.
She was crouched at the side of a van.
For a moment he thought it was another mutated creature, squatting there, ready to leap.
He gripped the knife and prepared to kill again.
As he looked more carefully he realised that she was human. Another immune survivor.
Black clothes.
Delicate white face framed by black hair. She looked like some waif at the end of time.
Another random factor from fucking nowhere.
Pearcey surveyed their immediate surroundings. They were close to a small supermarket. The door was slightly ajar. He might have missed it if he hadn’t been forced to halt.
He thought he could hear running feet and low growling. Echoing on quiet roads.
It might have been his imagination.
“Are you hurt?”
He spoke just above a whisper.
She sho
ok her head.
He could definitely hear something.
It would have to be the store. Anwar’s Mini Market.
Good old Anwar.
He hoped to fuck Anwar had left the building. He didn’t need any more complication.
“Come with us. We’re going in there.”
He indicated the shop twenty feet further down and she struggled to her feet.
Grasping a black bag as if her life depended on it.
Chapter 10
Way Station
It was dim inside the store.
Shadowed without electrical light.
Bigger than it appeared from outside, but just as disappointingly grimy as you might have expected from the exterior. Lots of aisles and a half-arsed attempt at a modern checkout.
Three tills and a tiny basket and trolley park were near to the front where they’d entered. The exit and entrance were the same dirty double doors.
All in all, it was pretty grim. Not somewhere Pearcey would have enjoyed doing his daily or weekly food shopping.
Not that he did a lot of the domestic. He usually ate on the move or opted for takeaways when he was at home. Not that he was likely to be doing a lot of anything like that anytime soon.
He had a feeling the weekly shop, nipping out for a meal, or ordering an online takeout delivery were on hold for the foreseeable future.
He let the other two get in and then turned to monitor the situation outside.
They’d just about made it in time. Figures were beginning to bleed into street.
Rush hour in hell.
Pearcey snicked the catches at the top and bottom of the glass door. Checked that the one next to it was also secured. He didn’t think those locks were up to a full assault. No sir, it wouldn’t take a great deal to bust those little beauties open.
They were better than nothing.
And he didn’t have the keys or the luxury of being able to drop the metal grills. Rattling those babies down would be like ringing the dinner bell when you were the main course.
He backed away into the shadows but close enough to still see.
The store was gloomy because the windows hadn’t been enlarged. He mentally saluted Mr Anwar for that bit of penny-pinching. It meant that there was less glass, and that meant less vulnerability.
He was grasping at straws again.
Old straws, just like him.
Ferine Apocalypse (Novella): 4 Hours Page 5
