A coded lock that he opened at the second attempt. His fingers nervous, hitting the wrong buttons.
A small, gloom filled space that felt more industrial than domestic.
A concrete staircase. Leading up into more gloom.
Emergency lights that were nearly no light at all.
The power had failed.
Of course it had. The world was drowning in a sea of flame and claws, why would there be electricity.
Maybe it was for the best. Whatever they did here was best kept between them. Better it be done in darkness.
Gallagher took the lead. His turf, he knew the way.
<><><>
The creature seemed to fall on them.
They were a little way past the first landing.
Pearcey was dimly aware of a skittering sound, echoey and distorted in the stairwell.
And then it was upon them.
Barrelling into Gallagher and bowling them both down the stairs.
Pearcey wrapped himself as best he could and fell. Went with it rather than fighting. Let the fall take him.
Bounced and jarred off walls and sharp risers and came to rest. Dazed and confused.
Vision blurred, mind spinning.
Stunned and aching.
Bruised but nothing worse. A cut at the back of his head. No broken bones.
He was lying in the entrance area, back where they’d started the climb. He lay there and tried to shake off the effects of the fall.
There was scuffling above him.
Horrible hissing sounds and muttered curses.
The creature and his friend.
Gallagher was still above him. He hadn’t fallen as far, had instead transferred the full impact to Pearcey.
Thuds and the clang of metal against stone. Gallagher was battling the creature.
Before Pearcey could gather his strength and get up, there was a strangled squeal and the bump thump repetition of another body falling down the stairs.
The creature crashed to a stop less than two feet from his face.
Head to head, a short distance separating them. Unlikely lovers in an even more unlikely setting.
It twitched and shuddered.
Pearcey stared into alien eyes that slowly clouded. Went dull and lifeless despite the continued shivers that ran through its frame.
Thin and warped and utterly revolting. Thick blood in its mouth, seeping between teeth that were terrible cutting and crushing weapons.
Somehow it must have got trapped in the stairwell.
It would be here forever now.
Pearcey rolled to his side. He needed to stop looking at that thing and he needed to get to his feet.
He looked at his watch and found that it was ruined.
The face smashed.
Of course it was.
Everything was being ruined. Everything was being shattered.
People and places.
Reality and illusion.
Nothing would be untouched. Nothing would escape the ravages of whatever this was. It would all be swallowed in the flood of madness that was enveloping them.
He dragged himself upright.
Back against the wall.
Stepped around the corpse and went to find his friend.
<><><>
Gallagher was sitting on the landing.
Back to the wall, iron bar across his legs.
“You alright?”
Ridiculous question.
Gallagher nodded and Pearcey pulled him up.
It was nearly over. Sonny was nearly home.
Gallagher stood by his apartment door, panting slightly.
He had every reason to pant after what had happened getting up here, but Pearcey thought it was more than that.
He thought some of that shortness of breath, some of that lack of puff as they used to say before puff meant something else, was down to anticipation.
And fear.
Gallagher may have professed a rock solid conviction that his daughter was okay, unaffected by the infection, but Pearcey knew he must have doubts. It would have been stupid to not have doubts and Sonny-Jim Gallagher was nobody’s fool.
He was a father though, and blood could be stronger than logic. A father’s love could trump common sense.
Sometimes.
If he was honest with himself, Pearcey had feared from the start that this might have been one of those sometimes.
They’d find out soon enough.
Gallagher rummaged in the pockets of his utility pants.
Produced a small set of keys. Picked one out and inserted it into the lock. It was one of those plastic doors that had a multi locking mechanism.
He grasped the handle and turned to Pearcey before turning the handle.
Didn’t say anything, just looked into his eyes.
Pearcey nodded and conjured the ghost of a smile.
Chapter 17
Home Sweet
The hallway was dark.
What illumination there was spilled from open doorways along its length. Meagre light for what they had to do.
Gallagher had some semblance of self-preservation left, despite being in familiar surroundings.
He didn’t just shout his daughter’s name.
He moved quietly.
Cautiously.
Opened one door and then another.
Stood halfway down the dim corridor and turned to Pearcey as if for reassurance. Raised his shoulders and hands. The self-preservation suddenly all gone-gone-gone, dissipated in the still air of his home.
She appeared then. In the doorway behind Sonny.
Annie Gallagher. His troublesome daughter.
Moved into the hallway.
Making a sound that was something between a hiss and a whimper. It was one of the most awful things Pearcey had ever heard.
Pitiful and yet terrifying.
Pathetic and feral. The sound of something that shouldn’t exist.
It turned out that Annie wasn’t okay after all.
It had gone wrong.
That was what sprang into Pearcey’s mind as he took in the full extent of her. Stared in dismay at her naked form.
The mutation.
It had gone wrong.
She’d become infected and the infection had started its unspeakable process and failed.
Not done a proper job. Half-arsed it and walked away shaking its head.
Somewhere along the line, something had gone wrong.
Annie Gallagher had become something dreadful. Even worse than the other dreadful things that were prowling the streets.
Pearcey knew what the mewling, whimpering sound was.
Pain.
The right side of her face and body had embraced the change. The transformative magic of the infection had taken complete hold and finished with a flourish. Skin that looked like silken wood, corded with thick wires below the surface.
Oddly mechanical. A hideous organic machine.
But the left side of her, oh the left side was a failure.
Bubbled and misshapen.
Shrunken and skeletal in places. Bloated and bulging in others.
If he’d been appalled by the other mutated things that he’d seen, Anne Gallagher made him feel sick.
And sorry.
Her face was a ruin.
An asymmetrical alliance of distortion and waste. Veined and hairless on the right, a shrunken skull on the left. Thin skin clinging to twisted bone. Vestiges of dark hair hanging in greasy hanks.
Annie Gallagher’s mouth had become a monstrosity.
A skewed and horrible hole in her face.
Filled with huge wet teeth.
Jagged, uneven things that slanted to shards and disappeared into her left cheek. That frozen left side leaked thick ropes of liquid. Clear thick stuff shot through with red striations.
<><><>
Sonny turned again, toward his daughter this time.
His unspoken question to Pearcey was forgotten. Sonny Gallagher ha
d all of the answers that he needed.
She limped towards him.
Weak and slow.
Bundled him into the room with a sudden savage strength.
Took him from Pearcey’s view.
Sonny was gone in an instant.
Pearcey stumbled down the dark hall and arrived at the door into which Gallagher had disappeared.
A living room. Worn sofa and eighties shelving units. Filled with the crap that life accumulated.
Dust floating in the rays of a sun dying through the big window.
Gallagher was grappling with her.
Crying.
Talking.
Muttered words. A slurred outpouring of emotion. Whispered between them as her face closed on his.
Words spoken to her. Maybe to himself.
“Oh Annie, no, no. Don’t fight me. Don’t.”
Pearcey didn’t catch it all. He didn’t need to.
Gallagher was virtually holding her upright and at the same time trying to fend her off. She moved in a lop-sided, off centre lurch. Nothing like the monsters that roamed the streets with their animalistic grace and loping speed.
Gallagher tripped, tangled in his own legs.
Fell with a head jarring thump to the thin old carpet. The thing that had been his daughter fell with him.
On top of him.
Scrabbling and snapping.
He grasped her right wrist to stop the claws from shredding him. His muscles bulging as he struggled.
Annie’s left arm scratched at him, but it was ineffectual compared to the razor-tipped right hand. Sonny had that in his grasp.
Gallagher held her neck with his other hand. Her head strained for his face, jaws biting at the air.
Pearcey stood there and watched, the knife in his hand and his hand stayed. Appalled and momentarily stilled.
Dismayed by the situation.
Dismayed by the only answer that he could think of to resolve it.
<><><>
A loop of drool fell from Anne’s awful mouth.
Lay itself across Gallagher’s face in gluey slow motion. Eventually touched his right eye.
He twisted his head in disgust.
Closed his eyes for a split second.
Reflexively loosened his grip on her neck as his instinctive desire to wipe the filth clear went to war with the necessity to hold her away.
It was all she needed.
Her head pistoned forward and her terrible teeth sank into the soft part of his shoulder above the clavicle. Latched on like some warped lamprey’s maw.
His scream ripped through the apartment.
Primal and unspeakable.
Pearcey was moving before he could think.
Part of it was revulsion. Part of it was an attempt to save his friend. Part of it was simply Pearcey acting without thought.
Whatever the motivation, the result was the same.
Pearcey drove the knife into the base of her skull. Drove if deep and upward. Wrenched and hammered the blow to cause as much damage as he could.
Grabbed hold of her repulsive left shoulder.
Felt the skin split as his fingers burst through the surface to grip wasted remnants of muscle and thin bone.
Used that loathsome grip and the blade to heft her off Gallagher.
Hurled her to one side and staggered away, the dripping knife in his hand.
Collapsed on the floor.
Staring at her shuddering form. Entranced by the dying of something that should never have lived.
<><><>
Sonny Gallagher landed on him like that tiresome old ton of bricks.
The blade flew away with his breath. A heavy knee punched into his midriff like a lead weight.
The man’s hand around his throat.
Squeezing the way you’d squeeze the bar on a challenging weight you were about to attempt. The difference being that it was his thick neck rather than an iron bar. Knuckle whitening grip on pliant tissue instead of impervious steel.
One arm pinned by Gallagher’s leg.
The knife gone.
Pearcey could feel stars beginning to threaten.
Could see the silver fish shimmers of unconsciousness flitting at the peripheries and darting across his vision.
Feel the dim discomfort of death flowering in his heart. A willing and welcoming embrace that would enfold him and make it all better.
Gallagher loomed above him.
Face rictussed in grief and fury. Tears and rage dripped from his eyes. Maniacal and beyond reason.
Pearcey squirmed his hand into his jacket and dragged the gun free. Oxygen starvation beginning to cloud his thinking.
He jammed the gun under Gallagher’s chin. Forced it into the yielding flesh below his jaw to try and hurt some sense into the man.
“Don’t do this Sonny.”
Choked the words out.
“Don’t make me kill you.”
Finger hovering the trigger.
And endless instant as he attempted to judge how long he had before consciousness departed and his choices disappeared with it.
Terrible choices.
Something changed on Gallagher’s face. The anger gave way to desolation.
The grip on Pearcey’s throat relaxed and the weight lifted off his body. Gallagher rolled away. Crawled back to the still shivering corpse of what had been his daughter.
Pearcey pulled himself into a sitting position.
Back resting against an old armchair.
Thought about how quickly he’d decided to kill Anne Gallagher and how long it would take for him to learn to live with that action.
Wondered what Sonny would do next.
The man could only spend so long hugging the remains of his only child. Pearcey hoped that it wouldn’t be too long because time was running out.
He pondered how quickly his friend had turned into a monster. For a moment, he’d actually thought that Gallagher had been infected and was mutating.
He tried to clear his head. Concentrate on getting breath back into his lungs.
It was useless to ponder any of it.
Chapter 18
Tombs
Pearcey watched Gallagher hug her and tried to will the weariness out of his bones.
Their time was running out.
He didn’t know how long this had taken, but he knew there wasn’t long before Raylens would climb into the vehicle and drive away.
He glanced over at the window and was sure that he could see an orange tint to the encroaching darkness.
If there’d been a remote possibility at the back of his mind that they could let that crazy fucker go and hunker down here for the night, that hot hue to the sky removed it.
There was no way that he’d sit there waiting to be caught in a towering inferno. Always assuming that more creatures didn’t find them in the meantime.
<><><>
There was no easy way to say it.
No time for kindness and consideration.
They were on a battlefield.
It may not have had all of the characteristics, but it was a battlefield nonetheless. A war zone. Unlike any conflict he’d ever been involved in, but no less desperate.
If he indulged sentiment, they’d still be sitting there as Raylens drove away and flames licked at the door.
They had to move and they had to do it sooner rather than later.
There was no time for grief. No time to reflect and allow sadness to slow them down. Either his own sorrow or Gallagher’s greater grief.
“Sonny, we have to go.”
He didn’t think the man had heard him. There was no reaction. Pearcey wondered what he’d do if Sonny didn’t respond and pushed the thought away.
He’d do whatever was necessary.
After what seemed an age, Gallagher eventually moved.
Extricated himself from the hideous thing that had been his daughter. Sat at her side and turned his head once more to Pearcey.
“Go where?”
Pearcey was momentarily nonplussed.
Where the fuck do you think Sonny? The Costa del fucking Sol for a little mini break.
He pushed that thought down as well.
“Back to the CIMC. Now, while we still have chance. Before that crazy bastard does one with your truck and we’re stuck in the middle of a burning street with our thumbs up our arses.”
He felt brutal as he said the words.
Uncaring and without compassion.
He was neither. He simply wanted to survive.
Gallagher was staring beyond him. Tears rolling down his blank face.
Blood dripping from the wound on his shoulder. Mixing with the blood of his daughter that was smeared on his clothes like an accusation.
His expression remained blank as he shook his head.
“I’m not bothered about the bunker now Carlton. It doesn’t matter. I can’t leave Annie like this.”
Annie wasn’t okay. She was dead. It was a blessing.
Pearcey could feel the panic building. Pressure inside a vessel that was liable to burst at the seams, explode in violence and disaster.
“We have to go. We can’t take her with us Sonny. I’m sorry. I can’t tell you how much. But there are people at the shelter and they’ll need us.”
He attempted to calm himself and persuade Sonny. He considered simply knocking him out and carrying him back to the garages. Dismissed the idea because he was too tired and too sick of it all.
“They need our report, our firsthand knowledge. They need you more than anyone. You’re the only person who is capable of keeping that place running. You’re the only one who knows how to maintain the centre. The basic shit. Aircon, plumbing, power. Without you, they’ll be knee deep in their own piss in a week and breathing stale air before that.”
He hoped it would work. It was true apart from anything else.
Hoped it would bring out the best in Sonny.
Make him think about responsibility to the living rather than culpability for the dead.
<><><>
“How bad is the wound?”
Gallagher shrugged. Looked at Anne.
What was left of her.
Mystified. Confused.
“Not so bad. But it hurts. It hurts a lot.”
Pearcey figured that it must. The physical injury and more. The bite was deep and the pain deeper still. He went to Gallagher and helped him stand.
Ferine Apocalypse (Novella): 4 Hours Page 10
