The Last Plague (Book 2): The Last Outpost

by Hawkins, Rich

  Amy cried when she realised her baby had stopped kicking.

  Days faded into nothing. Consumed by dreams of water and food. Nightmares of the infected. Monsters in the fields. George drank his own tears. Time became meaningless. Night and day and screams in the dark. Huddling together in the tombs of houses.

  It began to snow, and soon the ground was covered.

  They walked the roads until Amy stopped and could go no further. She cried into her hands as she slumped by the roadside. George and Royce went to her, sheltering her from the falling snow with blankets pulled from their packs. Their shivering forms and chattering teeth. No one spoke. George was too tired to open his mouth, and he could feel his limbs growing numb and his heart slowing. His eyelids were heavy, and it was a struggle to keep his eyes open. His head nodding. Snow drifting against his face. The wail of the wind down the road.

  He thought about the child inside Amy, wondered if it were better this way, instead of being born into misery, starvation and violence. Her baby would feel no pain and suffering, no hunger and sadness. No madness. No knowledge of the world and the black ruins of everything. There would be no fading of the light, and then that would be the end.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  There is nothing but flesh. It feeds and assimilates, bringing communion to millions. Mouths, limbs and claws, tentacles, tusks and eyes. Always feeding, always infecting. Minds and memories consumed. The plague is elegant in its design, and without fear. It is all-consuming and has no conception of mercy and compassion. No love, no hate, nothing. When there is nothing left to sustain it, the plague will gestate and begin its next stage of evolution.

  But for now, it feeds.

  *

  Royce woke on a hard floor with blankets wrapped around him and a pillow under the back of his head. His first breath was a desperate gasp for air. His limbs like stone and his lungs were flapping sacks. He looked at the dusty light casing on the ceiling, his eyes stinging, and put one hand to his head to quell the pounding at the centre of his skull. The lethargic, painful movement of his mouth made him think his lips had been stitched together and then pulled apart at some point while he was passed out. When he tried to rise from his back, a thin hand was placed on his shoulder.

  “Easy,” an old voice said. “It’s alright.”

  The sensation of movement underneath him. The grinding of a large engine and wheels over an uneven road. The scrape of an axle, a jarring suspension, and metal rattling in a composite of parts. He was aware of shapes around him, and the smell of unwashed skin and hair, and old breath. Bacteria on teeth. The musk of dried sweat and garments that had clothed bodies for weeks at a time. The fetid, pungent smell of bodies in an enclosed space.

  “It’s alright,” the voice said again in a soft Scottish accent.

  He didn’t trust the voice and tried again to rise, but other hands pressed gently on his shoulders and pushed him down. His vision swayed. The hands were all bony and he thought the fingers upon them were long-nailed, and when he looked at one of the hands placed near his neck he was sure it resembled a pale spider twitching in proximity to his open mouth.

  An old woman was sitting by his side, leaning over him. She poked at his face with one gnarled finger, and the thought of that finger slipping into his mouth made him shiver. She was wizened and narrow, all sharp angles, the slit of her mouth working between the frayed strands of long grey hair. There were other faces, too, but he couldn’t focus on them.

  “Where am I?”

  “You’re safe,” she said.

  Two of those who had gathered around him moved away, and he looked to his left and saw George lying on his back in a wrapping of blankets, eyes closed, face deathly pale.

  “George…” Royce muttered.

  “He’s fine,” the woman said. “So is the young lady you were with. Don’t worry. You’re safe here.” Her eyes were like glass stained deep blue, and he found them both comforting and slightly disconcerting.

  Royce looked over the woman’s shoulder, at the darkness past the windows.

  *

  It was daylight when he next woke and rose on to his elbows and looked around. The vehicle had stopped. Sweat on his brow and the vague sense of a fever inside him. George was gone, as were the other people, but Royce wasn’t alone. The woman who had comforted him last night was crouching in a corner, reading a tattered Shaun Hutson paperback, her blue eyes following the lines of prose until she looked up at him over the top of the page and smiled. She lowered the book and placed it on the floor among heaps of blankets, bags and cardboard boxes. Royce noticed the handle of a knife tucked into the belt of her loose trousers. Coiled scarves surrounded her neck above a woollen jumper and a thick fleece coat. Her fingers were decorated with tarnished rings.

  “Take it easy, Royce,” she said. “Don’t want you keeling over.”

  “How do you know my name?”

  “George told us.”

  “Oh.”

  “I’m Sister Fiona.”

  “You’re a nun?”

  “Not exactly.”

  She crouched down next to Royce and offered him a plastic cup of water. She smelled of damp grass. Royce looked at the cup then her harshly-lined face.

  “It’s not poisoned, if that’s what you’re thinking,” she said. “We’re not murderers. Get it down you.”

  Royce’s throat was raw. “Is this real? Is this a dream?”

  Sister Fiona shook her head. “No dream. I’m as real as you are.”

  He swallowed, licked his lips, and the coolness of the cup in his hand tempted him to the water. And before he’d given it any more thought he was gulping at the water and he didn’t stop until the cup was empty. He put down the cup and breathed hard, droplets on his beard.

  Royce looked underneath the blankets. He was wearing different clothes.

  “We had to change your clothes,” Sister Fiona said. “They were ruined. Luckily we’ve got spares.” Hooking her arms around him, she helped him up from the floor. She was stronger than her thin body suggested. Once Royce was on his feet, she let go of him, and he pulled the blanket tight around his shoulders. The thought of food birthed a moan at the base of his throat. The floor seemed to be moving, even though the vehicle was stationary. He wavered, but she steadied him. Her fingers dug into his clothes and against his skin. He noticed his boots were to one side, stuck between two bin bags bulging with children’s clothes.

  “Where’s George and Amy?” he said. He was prepared for bad news.

  “They’re on the other coach,” she said.

  Royce looked at his surroundings. The moisture on the insides of the windows hid the world outside. The last four rows of seats had been removed to create an open area to store provisions and equipment. He stared down the aisle between the empty moquette seats. Overhead compartments were crammed with plastic bags of food and water.

  “Where are we?” Royce asked.

  Sister Fiona smiled thinly, deepening the creases in her face. “Let’s go outside.”

  *

  Royce descended the steps to the wet ground. Sister Fiona followed in her clunking boots and stood to one side of him, her hands hidden in the front folds of her coat. The ground was patchy with thawing snow and the air was cold enough to bite at his face with blunt teeth. He looked back at the coach he’d woken within; another coach was parked behind, where two men in oil-grimed clothes were tinkering with the engine at the front of the vehicle. The sides of both coaches were dented and scratched, covered in dried blood. The blood of the infected.

  “The other coach broke down,” Sister Fiona said.

  There were people out in the field, next to the road where the two coaches were parked. A breath caught in Royce’s throat as he stared at a gathering of about a dozen children dressed in winter clothes who giggled and whooped as they threw snowballs at one another. Woollen hats with bobbles covered their heads and scarves trailed from their necks. The sound of them, their laughter and chatter, near
ly brought tears to his eyes.

  Sister Fiona watched him watch the children.

  “I haven’t seen any children in months,” Royce said. “I thought they were all dead or infected.

  Beyond the children, further into the field, small groups of men carried shotguns, axes or bludgeons; watching the perimeter. There was a lookout with binoculars on the roof of each coach. Two women keeping an eye on the children glanced at Royce and talked with their faces close to one another.

  Some people were on their knees, praying in the snow.

  “Who are you people?” Royce said to Sister Fiona.

  She smiled and looked at the children. “We’re people of faith, Royce. We’re survivors. Just like you and your friends.”

  “I’m not a man of faith,” he said.

  “That doesn’t matter,” she said. “We all have to walk our own path.”

  Several dozen crows lifted from the trees at the far end of the field. The men turned that way, ready for whatever had disturbed them to come out of the trees, but nothing emerged and the crows flew away.

  “Ah, one of our new arrivals,” a voice said behind them.

  Royce turned. A thin, bald man with a scarred face and pale eyes had appeared next to Sister Fiona. He was no taller than the woman. The scar ran from under his left eye and down to his prominent chin. He wore a stained coat and muddy boots. Several layers of clothing added bulk to his form.

  “Hello, Royce. I’m glad to see that you’re up and about.” His accent was straight out of the Home Counties. Royce shook the man’s offered hand and tried not show his discomfort at the leathery fingers on his skin.

  “Hello,” Royce said.

  The man smiled, but it seemed strained and not entirely honest. “I’m Marek. Pleased to meet you. We haven’t seen many other survivors lately.”

  “Marek is our leader,” Sister Fiona said. She wiped her mouth.

  “I dislike that term,” Marek said. “I’m more of a father figure to our people. Leader sounds so authoritarian, don’t you think?”

  Sister Fiona nodded and looked to the ground, as if chastised.

  “I suppose so,” Royce muttered.

  “How are you feeling?” Marek didn’t break eye contact.

  “Bit of a headache. Nothing severe.”

  “We found you and your friends by the side of the road, huddled together and half-frozen. Another hour out there and you’d have been dead. You were lucky we found you; we were only on that road because we’d been turned back another way by a fallen tree.”

  “Lucky, I guess,” Royce said.

  Marek smiled. The corner of one eye twitched. “I think we were supposed to find you, Royce. Luck had nothing to do with it.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  There were more people on the broken-down coach, sat in the seats, standing in the aisle or at the back of the vehicle. Marek muttered greetings to his people and left Royce to make his own way. Faces regarded Royce, nodding at him; most of them were pale and docile, some appeared maudlin. The smell of body odour everywhere. Furtive glances and muted greetings from mouths reluctant to open. Many of the seated people wore baseball caps and woollen hats, like apocalyptic tourists. A young woman with pretty eyes smiled warmly at Royce, and it was such an unexpected gesture that he could only stare blankly at her as he passed.

  He imagined how he appeared to them, an ashen ghoul shambling out of the wastelands. A scarecrow man wandering in from the cold.

  The back of the coach had been modified much the same as the other coach. The back rows of seats had been removed and piles of supplies lined the edges of the open area. Royce followed the smell of soup or stew to the far end of the coach, where people were gathered around a steaming pot on a portable stove. He winced at the hunger cramps and held his stomach.

  George called to Royce and rose from the floor where he’d been sitting and limped towards him. There was a moment of uncertainty between the men. No handshake or awkward hug. A small smile on George’s face.

  “How are you feeling?” George asked. He looked hungry and tired, withered inside his clothes.

  “As well as can be,” Royce said. “Knackered.”

  George rubbed one eye with his knuckles. “Same here.”

  “I was ready to die,” said Royce. “I’d accepted it.”

  “I was actually relieved,” George said. “And then we get another chance. Strange how things work out, isn’t it?”

  Royce exhaled. “Where’s Amy?”

  George pointed to a sleeping form huddled within a mound of blankets. “She’s fine.” He fiddled with his hands and looked around, then looked back to Royce. “We don’t know about the baby yet.”

  Royce said nothing while he looked at Amy, and in the stillness of her sleeping face there was no difference between sleep and death.

  *

  After Royce and George ate bowls of soup and drank cups of water offered to them by kindly women, they went outside with Marek. The sky had clouded over and threatened rain. Royce raised his collar against the wind coming off the low hills. George rubbed his hands together then folded his arms.

  They stopped and watched an old woman lead the children into prayer.

  “You’re probably wondering who we are,” said Marek.

  Royce and George exchanged an unsure glance.

  “We’re just grateful that you helped us,” said George.

  “Who are you?” Royce asked Marek, before George could continue.

  Marek placed his hands together. “We are the Family.” He looked at them in turn, as if the name should have meant something.

  Royce had a bad feeling, and it wasn’t indigestion from guzzling down the soup. “What is that exactly?”

  “We are a gathering of believers. Like-minded people.”

  “Believers in what?” said Royce. “Sister Fiona said you’re people of faith.”

  Marek smiled, meek and warm and humble. “Believers in Almighty God, of course.”

  “You’re a cult,” said Royce.

  “Pardon me?”

  “A cult.”

  George made a disapproving sound.

  Marek smiled again, but something in his eyes had changed, and he showed too many teeth for Royce’s liking. “No, we’re not a cult. Not at all. I think you’re mistaken, Royce. We’ve been preparing for the End Times; readying ourselves for the apocalypse, so when we win the final battle we can start again, throw away the old problems and prejudices that have forever plagued Mankind. A clean slate, if you will. We welcome anyone to join us.”

  Royce nodded at the armed men in the field. “You’ve got plenty of weapons.”

  “A necessary evil,” said Marek. “We wouldn’t have survived without them. We number forty-six souls, not including Amy and both of you. Five families among us. We have lost a few brothers and sisters along the way, of course.”

  “You’ve been on the road since the outbreak started?”

  “No. We had lived in a commune near Exmoor, since the forming of the Family over forty years ago. Our ancestral home, you might call it. We held out against the infected for a while, and then they finally breached our walls two days ago. Luckily we were ready to evacuate, so our losses were minimal, but we knew we could never return to our home. We had to leave to survive.”

  Royce said, “Where are you heading?”

  “The east coast, like you. And then across the North Sea.”

  “The Danish outpost.”

  “We had a long-wave radio,” said Marek. “We picked up the first transmission two weeks ago. Unfortunately the radio was left behind when we abandoned the commune. Once the infected got inside, there wasn’t time to save it.”

  “So you’ll all be taking a ship across to Denmark?”

  Marek nodded, pleased with himself. “One of our men used to pilot a fishing vessel, so operating another boat shouldn’t be a problem.”

  “If you can find anything to use,” said Royce.

  “I’m sure we�
�ll find something,” Marek said. “If not, we’ll find another way.”

  Royce looked at George. The old man shrugged, shivering against the deepening cold.

  Marek was staring into the distance, and when he spoke, his voice was faint, as if his mind were somewhere else. “God will not fail us.” He turned back towards them. “If you’ll excuse me, I have to check on our mechanics, see how the repairs are going.” Voice louder.

  They watched Marek walk away.

  “I don’t trust him,” said Royce.

  George looked at the praying children. “They’ve got food, water and supplies. And weapons. Don’t forget they saved our lives, Royce. Amy needs help with the baby – and neither of us is qualified for that. We’re not even capable.”

  “The baby could already be dead,” said Royce. “And the Danes could have been massacred by now.”

  “We have to try,” said George.

  “Why do you want to survive?” Royce asked him.

  “To help Amy and the baby.”

  “What if the baby’s dead?”

  “Then I’ll survive for those children over there,” George said. “They’re the future.”

  “The future is pretty fucked, George.”

  The old man didn’t reply.

  Royce folded his arms and rubbed them to rekindle some warmth in his skin. “Do you still have the pistol?”

  George shook his head. “They took it from me when I was passed out. The hatchet, too.”

  “They took my knife,” Royce said.

  “Marek said he’s looking after them, for our own safety.”

  “Fuck’s sake.” Royce shook his head and watched the children praying in the cold.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  An hour later, Marek announced that the engine was fixed and the Family would be on the move again. There were cheers, and arms were raised in half-hearted celebration, while others clapped and thanked their god. Royce watched them all and said nothing.