Ferine Apocalypse (Novella): 4 Hours

by John F. Leonard

Crumpling in his hand.

  They were up shit creek. The paddles weren’t all gone, but he wasn’t sure the ones they had left were up to the job.

  “Carlton, I’m going to check the back of the shop.”

  Gallagher whispered at his shoulder.

  Made him jump inside his head. It took all of his self-control to not plunge the knife into Gallagher as a simple reflex.

  Pearcey gritted his teeth before replying.

  “Good idea. Don’t make too much noise Sonny. It’s getting busy out there. If any of them were in here with us, I think we’d already know about it. These fuckers don’t strike me as shy.”

  Gallagher ghosted away and Pearcey glanced at the girl.

  Woman.

  She wasn’t some kid out of school.

  It was hard to be sure in the gloom, but he thought her jeans and tee shirt were ripped and bloodied.

  “I thought you said you weren’t hurt.”

  Spoken softly with eyes that squinted questions.

  She shrugged.

  Pulled the shirt from her skin and shook her leg slightly.

  “I didn’t want to go into detail.”

  She nodded at the doors.

  “Not out there.”

  There was a clatter in the depths of the store and Pearcey felt sweat break out all over his body. He stared into the gloom and then glanced back at the street.

  They were milling about now.

  Horrible things.

  Mostly skin and teeth and claws. Tattered rags of clothing. Hardly human at all. Prowling and jerking into runs. One brushed the doors and paused. Brought its face close enough to mist the glass.

  Placed a sharp tipped hand to the surface and held it there.

  Scratched down and then moved on.

  Pearcey breathed again. Didn’t realise he’d been holding his breath.

  He retreated from the entrance and ushered the girl with him.

  “Sonny, for fuck’s sake, come over here will you.”

  The man uttered an indistinct reply. A few moments later, Pearcey heard the sound of him taking a leak. The patter of water hitting something soft. He twitched an apologetic smile at the girl.

  She averted her eyes and didn’t acknowledge it.

  <><><>

  They settled half way down an aisle. An unequal triangle with Pearcey facing the front of the store. Gallagher and the girl angled to the rear.

  Sipping bottled drinks and eating snack food scavenged from Anwar’s less than salubrious market.

  Backs uncomfortable against shelves.

  Nerves frayed.

  Grateful to stop and sit, however tense it felt.

  Gallagher found a couple of first aid kits amongst the eclectic mix of goods in the shop and Pearcey dressed their various wounds as best he could with the meagre supplies in the plastic boxes.

  The woman was awkward with it.

  As if she found his proximity difficult.

  She told them her name, but not a great deal else. That she’d been running, trying to avoid the monsters. Trying to survive.

  Pearcey could understand that, even if he didn’t get her.

  She was distant, which could have been a result of the terrible events that had taken place. If that was the case, he had a feeling it was only part of the cause. He got the feeling that her face had forgotten how to smile long before civilisation started collapsing.

  After a time, she said she wanted to look outside and silently glided to the front of the shop. He thought it was maybe an excuse to just be away from them.

  To be on her own.

  As much as she could, given the circumstances.

  He could understand that as well.

  <><><>

  There was a mantra repeating in Pearcey’s mind. A looped refrain that he couldn’t shake as he sat there looking at Gallagher a few feet away, and the girl, Angela, standing by the window.

  Fuck up. Complete and utter fuck up. From start to finish.

  You’re too old for this shit. Find a way out.

  “What do you want to do?”

  Gallagher was stony-eyed and grim. The question was half plea, half challenge.

  “Get back to the fucking shelter is what I want to do.”

  Pearcey sighed, regretted the comment as soon he said it. He looked at the stained tiles of the ceiling. Water, or something worse, had created dirty circles on the once white fibre.

  God, this place was shit hole.

  “Do you know where we are Sonny? How far from your place?”

  Gallagher shook his head.

  “Not exactly. We can’t be that far away. Nearer to Lewisham than Westminster for sure.”

  Pearcey had half hoped that Sonny would suggest they abandon the attempt.

  Make a dash for the CIMC before darkness fell. He glanced at his watch and then out of the window. They’d used a fair proportion of his four hours. He figured they had two, maybe two and a half hours before you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face.

  How great would that be? Wandering around the city in the dark. When it was full of mutated monsters. It could be a dangerous thing to do at the best of times. Now, it didn’t bear thinking about.

  “I can’t leave her out here Carlton.”

  Pearcey tried a smile and gave up on it.

  Nodded his head.

  They’d have to get moving soon, but he needed to recharge his batteries, clear his head and come up with a plan.

  “What happened to your wife Sonny? You never mention her.”

  The man shrugged, an unreadable look playing across his features.

  “My wife? Ahh, that’s a long story. She lied to me for years before we split up. Every morning she said she was going to leave me. She was still there every night I got home.”

  Gallagher smiled but there was no happiness in it.

  “That’s not fair. I wasn’t much of a husband. She put up with me for a long time. Hoped I would change, I suppose. Eventually realised she was barking up the wrong tree with that.”

  It might have been the gloom, but Pearcey thought Sonny had never looked so old.

  “In the end, she kept her promise. Upped and left me. Left Annie as well. Walked away from her own daughter. Ten years ago. Haven’t heard from her since. Not a word. She could be dead for all I know.”

  Pearcey could sympathise with that to some extent. His own wife had left him, except she’d taken their child with her. Had perhaps arrived at the decision that he couldn’t be trusted to raise a child.

  Like Gallagher, he hadn’t been a model husband. Unless the model you were considering was piss poor. He might have fitted that bill quite well. He had no idea where they were either.

  Or if they were dead or alive.

  Or worse.

  “I sometimes think that’s why Annie is, well, why she has ...her ...problems.”

  Pearcey had no reply to that.

  Gallagher swigged water and lit a cigarette. Gazed at the window of the shop as figures moved on the street beyond it. Even from a distance, they had an inhuman aspect. Were horrifying and yet somehow fascinating.

  He surprised Pearcey with a question.

  “What do you think caused it? What do you think it is, the sickness, the mutation?”

  Pearcey had already pondered the question and come to the conclusion that it was a useless exercise doing so.

  It usually was. The pondering.

  He didn’t know and, in his humble opinion, was unlikely to become any wiser in the immediate future.

  “I haven’t got a fucking clue Sonny. But I’ve seen enough to satisfy the criteria of the job we were given. The videos and the info that the analyst kid pulled together are correct. It’s like the arse-end of hell up here. The sooner we’re back in the bunker, the better.”

  He didn’t enjoy being underground. Felt claustrophobic and enclosed.

  Caged. A prisoner.

  Compared to the surface, it was paradise.

  Albeit, under the ear
th.

  <><><>

  Angela Gacek rejoined them shortly after that.

  Sat a little distance away without talking. Staring at her scuffed trainers as if they held an answer to something important. Her black bag clutched under one arm against her torn and bloody black tee shirt.

  For Pearcey, she was another complication in a situation that already had plenty more than he needed.

  And despite that, he didn’t have any choice.

  “Angela, we have to collect Sonny’s daughter. She’s quite close, but it won’t be any walk in the park. Once that’s done, we’re running back to where we came from. That’s a government bunker in Whitehall. Well, below Whitehall, you know what I mean.

  Do you want to come with us? It’s secure and safe from the ...things out there.”

  She flicked her eyes up at him and gave the merest nod of her head.

  “I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

  Pearcey was about to speak again when another voice stopped him.

  It came from behind him.

  Muffled and low.

  “Take me with you as well.”

  Pearcey didn’t turn.

  It took all of his willpower. Instead he registered the look of surprise on Gallagher’s face.

  Surprise wasn’t quite right.

  Shock and fear was more accurate.

  Chapter 11

  Mask

  The figure had a gun.

  A rifle.

  Maybe military issue. SA80 A2 was his first thought.

  Lightweight and formidable. Powerful and deadly.

  Maybe a fake, but Pearcey wasn’t about to chance that. The possibility was scary enough.

  The rifle was vaguely pointed in their direction.

  Wavering, floating. Not aimed directly at them, downward and off to the side, but a flex of the arm and twitch of a finger would make that irrelevant.

  The man was wearing a gas mask, the hood of his coat over it.

  If the gun was possibly military and current, the mask reminded Pearcey of something from an antique shop. The coat was a thigh length grey parka that belonged in an eighties indie music video.

  The combination was unsettling.

  Let’s hear it for understatement. A big round of applause please.

  Pearcey was pretty much unnerved.

  He was at a loss.

  The world had gone surreal zombie horror with a twist. Creatures from the twilight zone prowling the streets. Now, into the bargain, some lunatic had managed to creep up on him. A lunatic that looked, for all the world, like some nightmare apocalypse cliché.

  It was all getting to be too much. If Pearcey thought he was too old for this shit he was becoming surer by the second. He really didn’t need this latest dose of the bizarre. He had plenty to be going on with.

  He slowly stood.

  Hands loose at his side, once he was upright.

  “I want to come with you. I’ll help do whatever you have to do. Yeah yeah, blah blah, whatever the fuck that is. What I really want is to get into the bunker. That will be uber cool.”

  The man swung the rifle as he spoke.

  The motion held an hypnotic appeal. The barrel seemed huge. The grip stupidly small, resting against the waxy cotton of the jacket.

  Pearcey took a moment.

  Breathed and tried to think.

  If that rifle started blasting away, life was going to get short. If he pulled the pistol in his jacket and took the bastard out it was going to be noisy.

  He could do it.

  At least he thought he could.

  Kill the fucker stone dead in an instant. But if he got it wrong it would be a disaster.

  Even if he got it right, it would still be potentially disastrous.

  So Pearcey went along with it.

  Why not? The world had moved into a place that made crazy appear sane. What was one more shot of insanity in this churning mix of madness.

  “The more the merrier my friend. Providing that you stop pointing that gun at me. I’m allergic to friendly fire.”

  Pearcey smiled a broad smile and sat back down. Dazzling white teeth framed by a wide brown face. Motioned for the man to come over and join them. He may have been tenser at some point in his life, but he couldn’t recall the time.

  And to his amazement, the man came closer and sat.

  Laid the gun across his legs so that it was fractionally less threatening.

  “Don’t worry about this.”

  He indicated the rifle.

  “I won’t hurt anyone who isn’t going to hurt me.”

  Pearcey thought there might be some friendliness, humour even, in his tone, but it was hard to tell through the distortion of the mask.

  <><><>

  He seemed friendly enough. Began to talk without any prompting.

  “My name’s Wayne. Wayne Raylens.”

  He extended a hand and they shook. Pearcey hadn’t noticed up until that point, but the man was wearing surgical gloves. Flesh coloured. The touch of them was ambiguously disturbing.

  Pearcey made introductions, but got the impression that Wayne Raylens was hardly listening. Had an ill-defined notion that the man wasn’t interested in other people.

  The mask, the gloves, there was beginning to be a certain logic to it, given the circumstances. He wasn’t sure how much real sense it made.

  “Where’s your shelter? Is it a full-on bunker thing? Hardened Cold War shit? Man, I have got to get myself inside there. I’m perfect for that.”

  Pearcey nodded.

  “Yeah, it’s government shelter. Just across the river. Whitehall, Westminster.”

  “Wow. I mean fucking wow. Awesome. I’ve got to come with you. Where’s this person you’ve got to rescue?”

  Pearcey looked to Gallagher.

  “Lancaster Court on Park Road.”

  The man in the mask snorted.

  That’s what it sounded like. Pearcey couldn’t be sure. He might have been gargling. The mask distorted sound.

  “That’s a piece of piss. We can walk it in ten minutes. It’s lovely there, Park Road. Is it on one of the high floors? Where we’ve got to go?”

  The man leaned forward, as if the answer was important.

  Gallagher looked at him quizzically and shook his head.

  “No, fourth floor.”

  Raylens might have been relieved. His posture seemed to relax.

  “That’s good. Being on the high floors is bad. It’s more exposed to the waves. There’s less shielding, the higher you get.”

  Pearcey had no idea what to make of that and let it go.

  “Where did you come from Wayne? Were you already in here when we came in?”

  A nod of the mask.

  The canister cartridge like some pig’s snout. The shadowed glass of the lens hiding his eyes.

  “I saw her first.”

  A jerk of the snout to indicate Angela.

  “Dipped in here when you arrived. I waited to see if you made any of their signs, or had insect voices, before I showed myself. To be on the safe side, you know?”

  Pearcey nodded, although he wasn’t sure he did know.

  “You made quite an entrance. On the street I mean. Man, that was awesome. Fucking stuntman movie shit. That alien breaking out the window and landing on your car. Kaboom.! I knew the noise would bring them. They came out of the woodwork like cockroaches.”

  They all looked to the front of the store. The street flickered with predatory movement.

  Pearcey turned back to Wayne Raylens.

  “Wayne, aren’t you ...err, hot? With the mask, the coat, the gloves.”

  He paused before answering. Maybe assessing Pearcey’s sanity for asking such a stupid question.

  “Well yeah, fucking obviously. But I can’t take them off. The spores would invade my lungs or get into my skin. I’d end up as an alien. Same as all of the others. Same as my mother. She never listened and I’d been telling her for years. Fucking years. Telling her that th
ey were coming. That they were monitoring us. Finding out about us. Measuring us.”

  Raylens was becoming agitated.

  Hand clutching the rifle in a way that alarmed Pearcey as much as the creatures clicking along the window. He wanted to ask Wayne more questions.

  Where had he got the rifle?

  Did he know how to use it?

  Where had the vintage gas mask come from?

  Lots of others.

  He wanted to explain that the mask and the gloves wouldn’t make any difference. That whatever the infection was, the vectors of contagion were far beyond their comprehension.

  It was random, whether you got the City Flu or not.

  There was no evidence to support any other conclusion.

  The only definite seemed to be that everyone who got it either died or mutated into something that bore only a passing resemblance to human.

  And he asked none of those questions and offered none of that opinion.

  Because he was genuinely concerned that Raylens would do something dangerous. He half considered taking him out. Incapacitating him and relieving him of the gun, and the mask while he was at it. The mask pissed him off and unnerved him in equal measure.

  He grudgingly rejected the idea again.

  It might go wrong and besides that, Raylens could actually be of some use to them. More than that, could be crucial to their survival.

  And as Pearcey pondered things, a calm seemed to return to the man.

  Raylens shifted and stood.

  Grasped the rifle in both hands.

  “We ought to go. It’s getting dark. There’s a back door, I already checked that out. It’ll be easier on foot, so long as we’re careful. And quiet. They have alien hearing that’s attuned to our sounds. You probably know already, but they’re like zombies, although they’re obviously not. You have to destroy their brain or head to be sure.”

  He drifted towards the darkness at the back of the store and Pearcey looked at Sonny and Angela.

  “We don’t have any choice that I can see.”

  They both nodded and followed him as he followed Raylens.

  <><><>

  To say Pearcey had misgivings would have been another understatement. Somehow, in the space of a couple of hours, he’d managed to find himself in a situation that had spiralled out of control.

  He was trailing after some nutjob like a lost school girl.