Ghost Virus

by Graham Masterton

  ‘That was when we understood that the ghosts in those clothes thought of my uncle and me like gods. They depended on us to come back from the dead. If we didn’t restyle the second-hand clothes, they would never go back on the market to be sold and find new owners. If we didn’t card all of that fabric, the fibres from recycled clothes would never be woven into yarns and become new clothes.

  ‘For all of those clothes, new and second-hand, we are the difference between death and life after death. We are their only hope of resurrection.’

  ‘But at what price?’ said DI Saunders. ‘Your clothes have killed hundreds of living people – people who never had the chance to live their lives to the full, like they have! Do you know what you’re talking about here? Mass murder. Deliberate, pre-meditated mass murder, and you’re responsible for it. And you seriously expect me to drop all the charges against you?’

  Liepa pointed a finger at him. ‘Do you know why those clothes are trying to get in here? Do you know what they want? Why have they come to this police station rather than anywhere else? Like I told you, I am one of their gods. I gave them life. They have come here to rescue me. Think about it. If Jesus had been born again, and unjustly held prisoner, don’t you think that crowds of Christians would come flocking to set him free?’

  ‘All right,’ said Jerry. ‘How did they know you were here? They haven’t got eyes so they couldn’t have seen it on telly, and they haven’t got ears so they couldn’t have heard it on LBC.’

  Liepa pressed the fingertips of both hands to his temples. ‘I called them, detective. Don’t forget that they are ghosts – whatever it means to be a ghost. They can pick up a thought from thin air as easily as we can receive a text, especially when somebody is concentrating on sending them a message.’

  ‘So what are you trying to tell us?’ said DI Saunders. ‘If we let you out of here, they’ll all go away?’

  ‘Of course. They have no interest in harming any of you. They only want to see me released, so that I can carry on bringing more and more of them back to life.’

  ‘And what will they do, after we’ve let you out? That’s always assuming that we do let you out?’

  ‘They’ll go back to wherever they came from... back to their shops. They’ll lie down again, like the clothes that they are, and it will be hard for you to believe that they ever came to life. They won’t attack anybody else, once they know that you’ve let me out.’

  DI Saunders stared at him, and it was obvious that he was wracked with indecision. Liepa was calmly admitting that by continuing to sell clothes infected with the ghost virus, he was making a profit out of mass murder and cannibalism, and that if he were released he would continue to do so. It was plain that he had no qualms about making that admission, because it would be impossible to prove in court. Even with all the forensic evidence that Dr Fuller and the laboratory technicians at Lambeth Road had amassed, there was no way in which Liepa could be indisputably connected with any of the killings that had taken place over the past few days.

  Jerry doubted that they would even be able to trace Liepa’s company back from the second-hand clothes that had been sold in Tooting’s charity shops, or the yarns that had been used to make all the duffle coats and other clothes. And if he were questioned by the prosecution about the ghost virus, he could always say that he had made it all up, as a joke. How could anybody scientifically prove the existence of vaiduoklis virusas?

  DI Saunders was faced with the starkest of choices. Should he let Liepa go, or should he risk the lives of all the officers and staff who were trapped inside the station, including his own?

  His mind was made up by a thunderous crash from downstairs, and an officer shouting, ‘They’re in! They’re in! They’ve broken the fucking door down!’

  DI Saunders stood up, and so did Jerry and Jamila and the two PCs. Jamila looked at Jerry as if she wanted to tell him something important, but DI Saunders said to Liepa, ‘Come on, then. Let’s go. Now you can show us just what a god you are.’

  Liepa stood up, and gave another one of his humourless smiles. ‘In another life, you know, detective inspector, you and I could have been very good friends.’

  ‘Don’t you worry,’ said DI Saunders. ‘If there is another life, I’ll come back and haunt you.’

  45

  They clattered down the staircase, not using the lift in case the power cut out. Halfway down, they heard more shouting and a crackling volley of shots from an automatic rifle.

  As they reached the first-floor landing, they saw below them a battleground. The double front doors of the police station had been smashed down flat, and a host of living clothes was swarming over them and into the reception area. A variety of coats was leading the assault, but they were followed by scores of jackets and anoraks and dresses and sweaters.

  About twenty police officers were lined up beside the front desk. Five or six of them were kneeling, and pointing their Heckler & Koch machine guns. The rest were wielding batons and holding Tasers and pepper sprays. Most of the volunteer officers and clerical staff had fled upstairs.

  Apart from the banging of sporadic shots, the whole station was eerily quiet. The police officers were no longer shouting, and the clothes had stopped drumming at the back doors. All that Jerry could hear was the breath-like sound of clothing as the coats and jackets came swaying across the reception area.

  DI Saunders turned to Jokubas Liepa and said, tersely, ‘Go on, then. Do your god thing.’

  Liepa didn’t answer him, but walked down to the bottom of the staircase and held up both of his hands.

  ‘I can’t see this working,’ said Jerry.

  ‘Me neither,’ said Jamila. ‘He was lying about something. I’m not sure what. Towards the end, his eyes went black.’

  ‘What? You’re kidding. Tell Smiley.’

  ‘What’s the point? He won’t believe me, and anyway we’ve run out of time.’

  Liepa walked right out in front of the oncoming coats, still with both hands raised. For a moment, Jerry thought that they were going to keep on floating forward and beat him down with their windmilling sleeves. But then he cried out, ‘Stop! Tu mane pripažįsi, ar ne? You recognise me, don’t you?’

  Although they were still swaying, the coats stopped, and hovered, and one after another they dropped their sleeves slackly by their sides. Liepa lowered his hands and walked towards them, and when he reached them, they parted to let him through. They allowed him to walk all the way to the fallen front doors, and when he was standing on one of the doors he turned around and lifted his hands again.

  ‘You see?’ he called out. ‘I am a god!’

  With that, he walked out and disappeared into the rain.

  ‘Liepa!’ screamed DI Saunders. ‘Liepa! What about all these bloody clothes?’

  But as soon as Liepa had gone, the clothes began to surge forward again, and three or four black duffle coats rushed up to the line of police officers together and started to beat at them with their sleeves. The police fired at them again and again, and dozens of fragments of dark cloth were blown up into the air, but the coats kept on coming, even when their hoods had been shot into tatters. They were followed by a tumultuous horde of jackets and dresses, overwhelming the officers and piling themselves on top of them, until they were lost from sight. Jerry could hear muffled screaming, and one or two gunshots, but then nothing except that strange deep breathing sound that accompanied the clothes, as if they had lungs.

  DI Saunders said, ‘Back upstairs! Back upstairs! We can lock ourselves in! The SAS will be turning up in a minute!’

  As she turned around to follow DI Saunders back upstairs, Jerry caught hold of Jamila’s hand.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘If we go back upstairs, we’ll be trapped.’

  Jamila looked down at the mass of clothing writhing on top of the officers. Some of the shirts were already stained with blood.

  ‘Where else can we go?’ she asked him. Her eyes were wide with fear, and she was tugging at
his hand, trying to get free.

  ‘There – out through the door. Look at them, they’re all too busy trying to get a share of those poor bastards’ souls.’

  ‘Come on!’ shouted DI Saunders. ‘You don’t want to get locked out!’

  Jerry held Jamila’s hand firmly. ‘We need to go now, Jamila! It’s the only chance we’re going to get!’

  Jamila could see that there was a clear space between the bottom of the staircase and the front door, and if they went now, and ran fast enough, they might just be able to make it outside. But if the clothes realised that they were trying to escape, would they leave the squirming bloodstained heap and come after them? And if they did, how fast could they fly?

  Without saying anything, she launched herself downstairs, pulling Jerry after her. When they reached the bottom stair, she tripped and almost fell, but Jerry yanked her upright, and together they ran for the space where the front doors had been.

  Jerry didn’t turn his head to see if any of the clothes were chasing after them. Still holding Jamila’s hand, he sprinted through the doors and into the rain, and together they leapt down the police station’s front steps as if they were dancers in a stage musical.

  They both stopped when they reached the pavement, and looked around. None of the streetlamps were lit and there were no lights shining in any of the shop fronts or upstairs windows. Even though it was raining so heavily, and it was so gloomy, they could see that at least a score of coats and jackets were hunched over the bodies of the riot officers, and that they looked as if they were tearing them apart. They could also see Jokubas Liepa, standing in the road at Amen Corner, watching this grisly dismemberment with his hands in his pockets. He was too far away from them to be able to see the expression on his face, but Jerry imagined that it was grim satisfaction.

  You see? I am a god!

  ‘I don’t think he’s seen us,’ said Jerry. ‘Let’s head this way, but we should nip down a few side-streets in case he sends any of those clothes after us.’

  They started jogging south towards Tooting railway station. There were only twenty or thirty cars along this stretch of Mitcham Road, and all of them were abandoned. Most of them had dented bonnets and broken windows, and one or two of them had runnels of blood down the sides of their doors. There were no pedestrians around, either, and every shop and restaurant and pub was in darkness, although some of their doors were open.

  Outside the railway station entrance, they saw bodies lying on the pavement in the rain – men, women and several small children. Some of them were severely mutilated, with their heads so badly crushed that their faces were unrecognisable, and their arms and legs twisted off. One small boy had been torn in half, with his upper body only connected to his hips and his legs by yards of intestines. His eyes were open and he was staring at the pavement through spectacles with cracked lenses.

  ‘God almighty,’ Jerry panted. ‘Hundreds of clothes must have come charging through here. Thousands. This is like a bleeding ghost town.’

  He took out his phone to see if he could make contact with the CCC – the Met’s central communication command at Lambeth Road. He knew that his battery was charged but the screen remained black. Jamila tried her phone, but hers was dead, too.

  ‘The landlines should still be working,’ said Jerry. ‘Let’s knock on somebody’s door and ask to use their phone.’

  They looked around to make sure that they weren’t being followed, and then they crossed over to Finborough Road. As they did so, a police helicopter roared overhead, very low, with a spotlight shining along the road.

  Finborough Road was narrow, with terraced Victorian houses on both sides. Jerry went to the front door of the first house and rang the doorbell. There was no response at first so he rang it again. The curtain was drawn aside from the living-room window and a pale bald man in glasses appeared.

  ‘Who are you?’ the man shouted, barely audible through the glass. ‘What do you want?’

  Jerry took out his warrant card and pressed it against the window. ‘Police. We need to use your phone.’

  ‘It’s not working. Nothing’s working.’

  ‘I’m not talking about your mobile. I mean your landline.’

  ‘It’s not working. Ever since those coats came past and knocked at the door and tried to get in. Nothing’s working.’

  They tried another house, further down the road. A very polite Indian woman refused to open the door but spoke to them through the letterbox. She had no electricity, either, and her landline was dead. ‘I am sorry. I would like to help. But I am too frightened. Ghosts came down this street, knocking at all of the doors, and I heard screaming.’

  ‘What did they look like, these ghosts?’

  ‘Invisible people. But wearing clothes. I don’t care if you don’t believe me. That is what they looked like.’

  They tried one last house, but this time nobody answered, although Jerry was sure that he saw a woman’s face at an upstairs window.

  ‘Well, sarge, it looks like we’re on our tod,’ said Jerry.

  ‘The SAS squadron must be very close now,’ said Jamila. ‘Since we can’t make contact with anybody, let’s head in that direction and see if we can meet up with them.’

  ‘That sounds like a plan. The last time they got in touch they said it was going to take them about thirty-five minutes to get here. They must have reached the Broadway by now.’

  ‘We won’t have to go back the way we came?’

  ‘No... there’s a pedestrian cut-through between the end of this road and Robinson Road, and that’ll take us straight to the High Street. It’s only about half a mile to the Broadway from there.’

  They jogged along the dark wet suburban streets, not talking. Every now and then Jerry took out his phone to see if he could get a signal, but the screen stayed blank. The police helicopter roared over them again, and for a split-second they were lit up by its spotlight, but it carried on flying north-eastwards, towards Streatham. Either its crew hadn’t seen them, or else they had more urgent business to attend to.

  They had almost reached the High Street when Jamila said, ‘Look – on the corner – are those—’

  Jerry strained his eyes to look up ahead. His optician had told him several times that he needed to think about wearing glasses, but he had kept putting it off. Although they were blurry, he could just make out four or five dark figures gathered beside a motoring shop on the corner, and from the way they appeared to be bobbing and floating he guessed they were coats.

  ‘Damn,’ he said. ‘We’ll have to make a detour.’

  ‘What about that street we just passed? Can’t we go up there?’

  ‘It’s a dead end. They all are, along here. The bleeding River Graveney’s in the way.’

  Jerry was still trying to think of the best route to reach the Broadway without having to walk miles out of their way when he noticed that the dark figures on the corner were moving. Not just moving, but crossing the High Street and coming towards them, and quickly.

  He touched Jamila’s shoulder and said, ‘I think they’ve spotted us.’

  ‘I think you’re right,’ said Jamila. ‘Quick – which way shall we go?’

  ‘Down here,’ Jerry told her, pointing to the next street on the left, Park Road.

  They started running, but as they reached the corner of Park Road they could see that the coats were clearly coming after them, and very fast – flapping along the pavement as if they were being blown by a hurricane.

  ‘Allah, give me wings!’ gasped Jamila. But as they sprinted down the middle of the road, Jerry quickly looked behind him and he could see that the five dark figures were less than a hundred metres behind them.

  On either side of the road there were nothing but two-storey terraced houses, and every window was dark. Even if they knocked and someone came to the door and was prepared to let them in, the figures would have caught up with them by then, and the house-owner would probably be killed, too, along with anybody el
se in the house.

  About sixty metres up ahead of him, though, he saw a gap between the houses. It was fenced off from the street, and behind the fence he saw a half-demolished brick warehouse, and three parked vans, and a builders’ hut, and two workmen’s chemical toilets.

  ‘In there!’ he panted. ‘Maybe they won’t be able to follow us – over the fence!’

  There were double swing gates in the centre of the fencing. He ran straight towards the gates and jumped at them, grabbing the topmost rail with both hands and sticking one foot into the gap beside the catch. He managed to swing his leg over the top of the gate and once he was sitting astride it, he twisted around and leaned down so that he could grasp Jamila’s hand and help her to climb up.

  ‘I can’t do it!’ she shrieked, but Jerry leaned over even further and grabbed her left sleeve as well as her hand, and once he had a firm grip on her he threw himself sideways. Jamila scrambled up the gate as he fell, and when he landed on his left shoulder on the ground, she came tumbling down on top of him.

  Only a few seconds after they had fallen, the dark figures collided with the gate, so that it rang like bells. Jerry struggled back onto his feet, and it was then that he could see them for what they were: five black and navy-blue coats, with hoods, and flailing sleeves. The gate shook as they threw themselves against it again and again. Inside their hoods, there was nothing, only darkness.

  His shoulder was bruised and he was winded, but he helped Jamila to stand up, and together they hobbled around the last remaining wall of the warehouse, so that the coats could no longer see them.

  ‘Do you think they can climb over?’ asked Jamila.