Norman started laughing at him.
Ignoring the drunken cop, McFall moved straight out to the kitchen, pushing past the others. He stood by the kitchen table, calming himself. Then he looked through the hallway towards the door his friend had left through.
He hoped to God he was okay out there, but he didn't dare follow him.
Lark reckoned the herd had thinned a little since he'd last looked out. From the garden of their house, he could make out three of them, standing near the Land Rover. They were staring at their own feet, doing very little of anything. They looked almost human, for a moment. Like bored teenagers hanging out at night. But then the moonlight caught their faces, and they began to look far from human and more like the monstrous parodies of their former selves that they truly were. After a while, one of them noticed Lark and started to wander towards him with about as much enthusiasm as a whore in church.
Lark laughed at the thing, drunkenly. "Come on, ye bastid," he slurred, raising his handgun. He aimed, rather confidently, and fired the first shot. The bullet struck gold, capping the poor fucker on the eye, shattering half its cheekbone in the process. It fell back, hitting the ground with all the grace of a donkey doing ballet. Lark laughed at it, strolling over and squeezing his DM boot against its head. He could feel his boot grinding through the flesh as if it was dried mud. It repulsed Lark. He took his boot away.
"Fucking stupid " he mumbled at the dead fuck, bending down to aim his gun at its head, point blank range. He was interrupted by another one of them, reaching forward as it approached, grabbing Lark's gun arm. "What the -" he muttered, heart leaping with shock. "Are you trying to save your mate?!" he said, laughing out loud.
The thing didn't reply, of course, simply reaching with its other hand in the general direction of Lark's throat.
Lark surprised it by head butting it sharply, drawing blood and fuck knows what else from its feathery- skinned nose. The thing stumbled back, Lark first splitting its brain with his second shot before cocking the revolver's hammer and finishing its mate on the ground with his third.
He looked to the Land Rover. It was close, but he wondered what lay behind it and to its blind sides. He was full of gusto, full of the drunken bravado that made men climb walls far too tall in order to impress their mates or girls walking by. A hidden voice from below the reverberating warmth of his drunkenness told him to be careful. But he ignored it. Mocked it, even. He took another step towards the vehicle, jingling the keys in his hand to antagonise and whistling
The door to the house suddenly opened. He turned at its sound, finding Geri standing there, looking at him, leaning against the door. To any man, the sight of her long, lean frame would have been welcome. But to the beer-goggled Lark, it was more than that. She looked every bit like the Red Sonja he'd loved to perv over as a lad.
"There is no more beer," she said. "Come back in; they were just pissing around with you."
"How do you know?" he said back.
"Cos I'm a girl," she said, wryly. "And I know how stupid and childish grown men get when they're drinking."
Lark laughed, turning just as a third and forth dead fuck wandered around from the other side of the Land Rover. He raised his gun and aimed. He held his aim for a while before lowering the gun. Spitting on the ground, he simply turned and walked back up the path towards the house.
"What's the point, anyway," he said sulkily as he passed her.
He noticed her shaking her head as she closed the door behind them.
Chapter Eleven
He awoke having never remembered falling asleep, still wearing his clothes, lying on top of the slim bed of his modest quarters. Jackson's eyes moved around the room, finding the sunrise picture glaring back at him. It was a ridiculous joke to him, now. This reminder of a past, where the rise of the sun each day meant something. Now it was meaningless. Now he didn't even know whether it was night or day, nor did he care. But that was the way things were, down in The Chamber. Time was of no interest. Clocks were all but ignored. The dead had stolen the show, leaving life, and all that represented life, as some sort of half-arsed warm-up act.
Jackson ran a hand over his bearded face, clearing the cobwebs, as it were. He hadn't washed in days. There just didn't seem to be a point anymore. He pulled himself off the bed, stretching his tired, sore bones, before reaching for the bottle of vodka on the desk. They had run out of whiskey, so this old poison would have to do. He swigged it indulgently, shaking his head after gulping a sizable quantity of the liquid down. His throat burned, the vodka's sour taste rinsing through his lethargic body like a kick to the head. Jackson screwed the lid back on the bottle, tucking it into his coat pocket. He pulled the door open, wandering out into the hallway of the small compound.
He heard the sounds of the others from the main control room. They seemed to be in high spirits, and he quickly followed the noise down the corridor to see what all the fuss was about. When he got to the control room, he noticed a number of wall monitors, previously blackened and, frankly, unnoticeable to him beforehand, now displaying various images.
"What's going on, private?" Jackson asked, still feigning the charade of authority.
The private looked up at him, as if happy to see him. "Major Jacko!" he cried, throwing his arms around him. He was clearly drunk, and Jackson pushed him gently away as he pulled up a chair alongside another of the men, less inebriated. The second man handed him a beer, but Jackson refused it, retrieving his vodka instead.
"We managed to get the monitors going," the second man said, merrily, pointing to one particular screen showing a shopping centre. "We're taking bets on who's going to win, that poor bastard with the cricket bat, or the crowd of dead approaching him from the arcade." Jackson watched as the silent fight ensued on the black and white monitor, the man hitting out, viciously, against the undead horde as half of the soldiers cheered him on. The other half sang out, though, as a young dead woman grabbed him from behind, sinking her teeth into his neck like some uncouth vampire.
"Jesus," Jackson said, unable to take his own eyes away from the scene. He forced himself to look somewhere else as the fight continued, some of the men throwing down their crudely constructed betting stubs, angrily, as the man on the screen became completely overwhelmed. As the rowing over bets continued, Jackson cast his eyes over the other monitors. They seemed to be displaying different locations, some more recognisable than others. He wondered why there were cameras at all of these spots. What new project had The
Chamber been cooking up since his resignation? His eyes were drawn to one monitor, on the far left hand side, displaying the front of a flat, its door completely boarded up.
"You can change the picture for that one, if you want." The slightly less drunk soldier said, still smiling, having obviously won the bet.
"What are these?" Jackson asked, standing to his feet and retrieving his glasses to get a better look.
"Surveillance cameras," replied the soldier.
"Yes, I can see that, private, but where are they watching? And why?"
A voice from behind answered for him.
"They are part of a special project we were working on following your retirement, sir." It was Gallagher, his voice immediately silencing the men's frolics. Jackson immediately felt inferior, his own entrance having had little to no effect on the men. He turned to address Gallagher, finding him still dressed in the yellow plastic suit, doused in blood as if he'd been at a riot in a butcher's shop. "The aim, at first, was to maintain surveillance on several key suspects. Without their knowledge, of course. Worked very well, sir. We were able to gain insider knowledge on the extra-curricular activities, shall we say, of several key representatives from the paramilitaries. Such information helped us to secure a ceasefire, sir. We simply blackmailed each of these men to ensure they played ball with the British and Irish governments. Of course, we took on other projects after that. Once the peace process was secured "
Jackson looked at the screen, already havi
ng blanked out Gallagher's voice. It wasn't that he doubted any of what the doctor was saying. The Chamber's work was every bit as effective as it was questionable. Operating with free rein to do as it saw fit, results were achieved all too readily. But Jackson was drawn to something else, something that reminded him of his old life, of Deny and Donegal. Of his family. He brushed over the image of the struggling man, almost invisible now against the throng of starving dead. He moved back to the still image of the flat, noticing a strand of tape hanging off the door. He walked closer to the screen to get a better look.
"This is one of the quarantined flats," he said. "I remember a house down from me, in Derry, getting similar treatment just as things got bad. The cops put yellow tape across anywhere they boarded up. Seems they only got started on that one."
"Here, you can probably look inside," the more sober private said, setting his beer bottle down and fiddling with some controls on a nearby panel. The screen flicked to the inside of the flat, throwing up images of each room as the private worked. It looked no different to other flats, largely untouched by the madness outside, almost looking hospitable. As the private continued to change the display, showing each room, separately, Jackson noticed a dark shadow move, suddenly, across the screen.
"Good God," Jackson said. "Did you see that?"
"Where? Which room?" the private asked.
"The bedroom," Jackson said, siding over to the private. "Move back to the bedroom. There's someone moving inside there "
"Probably one of the dead, sir." Gallagher said, from behind. His voice sounded disinterested, as if this was all trivial compared to whatever savagery he had been up to with the colonel's body, earlier.
"No," Jackson said. "Look closer." As the private returned to the bedroom, they watched as the shadow moved across the room, again. It moved as if with purpose, as if in full control of its movements. It lifted something from the floor. Gallagher moved beside
Jackson, now intrigued. The room fell silent, everyone staring at the screen, mesmerised. The private worked with the controls to achieve a close-up.
The image became clearer, more defined
They looked small from the roof top. Less demonic, perhaps, and more human. You could make out their clothing, their hair colour, their arms and legs, even. You could see them walking, then stopping. Shaking their heads, as if tired. As if human. But you couldn't see their faces. The decay, the starkness of their dead, bloodshot eyes. And you couldn't hear much of their breathless moaning, the comforting whirl of the blue- sky, cloud and wind whipping up enough of an air show to drown out their voices.
Pat sat quietly on the rooftop of the tower block. Thinking, dreaming, reflecting. Looking up to the sky and down upon the dead.
Although it was late morning, Karen hadn't stirred from her room, as yet. He had gotten up early, as always, but she wasn't there to pour him some tea and make him some breakfast. He was quite embarrassed to admit it, but he had become quite accustomed to her fussing around him. He missed her when she wasn't there.
Beside him lay his ' Widowmaker' rifle, this time with a scope attached. He fumbled in his pockets for a pair of binoculars, lifting them to his eyes and checking along the ever-increasing sea of bodies outside the tower block for one particular one he had seen earlier. He had noticed it wandering about amongst the others, but then lost it again. He would find it again, though, despite their number. Regardless of how indistinct it was from the others, in every way.
Every way apart from one.
It was wearing a uniform. A police uniform.
Pat recalled the speech he had given to Karen only the previous day. About how those bodies, below, once belonged to people. People like him, people like her. People who once cared for their wives, their families, their friends. People with lives and loves and passions. She had wanted to shoot more of them, but he wouldn't let her. But now, on the top of the tower block, more than ten floors from the ground, he was going to break his own rule.
Pat didn't know exactly why he felt the need to shoot the cop. A part of him wanted to do it indulgently. A gratuitous act of petty vengeance. A hark back to the old Pat. The freedom fighter. The prisoner. Yet, he was also wise enough to know this was hardly a revolutionary thing to be doing with his time. For another part of him, the therapy of (re)killing it might have come from having a target that was already dead. Legitimate, then, in every way. A way of taking life without really taking life. Or maybe, were Pat to look really hard beneath the quagmire of his damaged heart and mind, the desire to shoot came more from Pat actually having a chance to put the poor bastard out of his misery once and for all. He'd taken the lives of a lot of men in uniform through the years, as part of his 'armed struggle.' Men who may or may not have deserved it. So, maybe now he could make up for at least one of the lives he had taken, giving something back where he had taken it from
(give a life, take a life, give a death, take a death)
In all honesty, Pat didn't know what was making him do what he was doing. Probably a mixture of all of the above. And none of the above. A potent cocktail, flaming at the neck like a petrol bomb. Damning. Calming. A toast to the old days and the new days, waiting to be drunk thirstily, like some dare at a stag-do.
He lifted the rifle, aligning the scope to the horizon. He lay down on the rooftop, getting himself within comfortable view of his target. He took aim, his steady hand sure to keep the cop's head well within the bullet's radius. He fired once, keeping his eye on the target, satisfied to see the cop's head explode, quietly, in the scope before the body sank to the ground.
Pat immediately pulled himself to his feet. He removed the scope, quickly putting the rifle back onto safety and sliding it into his bag. He left the rooftop as quietly as he had entered it.
On reaching the flat, he noticed Karen standing by the window, looking out at the dead. She seemed to be becoming more and more infatuated by them, and it was beginning to worry Pat. He knew what cabin fever could do to a person, having shared smaller spaces than this for weeks on end with other operatives during IRA assignments. It took real strength to find your own space where space wasn't available, and he didn't know if Karen had that strength.
"Where were you?" she asked, without turning around.
"Just on the roof," he said, innocently.
"What were you doing up there?" she asked.
"Not a lot," Pat replied. He quietly stashed his bag behind the sofa. He suddenly noticed how untidy the place was. An opened tin of fruit sat on the coffee table, next to a mug of coffee. Neither had a placemat under them.
"That's funny," Karen said, still without turning to look at him, "because I heard shooting."
Pat sat himself down on the sofa, running a hand through his hair to flatten it down. He looked at Karen, noticing how unkempt she looked. She was still in her pyjamas and dressing gown. It didn't look she'd even had as much as a wash since getting up.
"Are you okay?" Pat asked.
"Yes," she said, turning, finally to look him in the face. "Why?"
"You just look a little "
"Ropey?" Karen asked, without humour.
"Well, I wouldn't quite put it like that " Pat backtracked.
"Just doesn't seem much point in worrying about how I look, does there?" she said. "Why bother when I'll never get out the door."
"Come on," Pat said, tiring of this same routine. "Don't be like that "
"I'm not being like anything " she said. "I'm just telling the truth. Aren't I?"
Pat stood up, walking over to the counter to make himself some tea. He noticed the worktop hadn't been wiped; spilt coffee granules peppered across the bench like soil. It reminded him of his childhood, suddenly. Innocent days spent hunting caterpillars in the garden.
"We've got to keep positive," he said. "We don't know what will happen in the future. One day all of those things outside might weaken, even die "
"They already died," Karen said, without humour. "That's the thing. And when we die, we'l
l be just like them."
"You don't know that -" he countered.
But she interrupted him, "Of course we know that. In fact we can be sure of it. It's the only thing we can be sure of. Death used to be the only thing we could be sure of. That's what they told me in church. But now now we can't even be sure about that, anymore."
Pat noticed she had been crying. The tears had dried on her cheeks like old cellotape. He went to comfort her, but stopped himself mid-motion. What could he tell her? How could he convince her to keep her spirits up, when she was pretty much telling the truth? He realised that she had grown up very quickly since he'd known her. And grown more cynical with it. But it didn't sit well with him. It didn't make him proud to see her mature. She no longer saw him as the father figure, the one who could protect her from the scary monsters. She no longer trusted him, doted on him, even. He realised that he had been depending on her to keep him stable, to distract him from all that was going on. He needed her as much as she needed him. That's what gave him purpose.
Pat simply sidled up to Karen, hands in pockets, looking out at the dead. They were so small, so insignificant from so far up. But they surrounded her like a moat. And she seemed reckless, now, unpredictable. Like Princess Karen of The Tower Block, able at any minute to unravel her hair and let it down for them to touch, feel.
For them to climb.
The reality of their existence was hitting home to her. He would have to watch her even more closely, now. Because, for Pat, this could be a life. This could be enough. Yet, for her, it had become little more than death.
From that moment, he realised that this tower block was no longer a haven.
It was a prison.
And he had to make sure it was locked up tight.
Chapter Twelve
"Three cans of soup - mushroom, no less. One bottle of water. Half a pound of sugar, some powdered milk and an out-of-date block of cooking chocolate." Lark listed the contents of the almost-bare cupboard with a hint of irony in his voice. He smiled, once done, stepping away from the kitchen cupboard as if to invoke applause. But no one applauded. The two cops, McFall (still wearing his balaclava) and Geri sat around the kitchen table, wordlessly. Each of them nursed a cup of weak tea, drained from one bag in a full pot.'That's it," he said as if to encourage the credits to roll on his little performance.
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