by Paul Kane
“So,” I said next, “what’s your story, Rakesh?”
Turned out he was a student at the local college. “Moved here to study art,” the lad told me. “Painting, drawing, film…”
“Piss about at the tax payer’s expense more like,” Dennis chipped in, but Rakesh didn’t rise to the bait.
He’d been walking back to his digs after a lecture on Picasso, taking a short-cut down an alleyway leading into town proper, when he became aware of someone following him. “There was a gang of them; guys, about my age. It’s not the first time something like that’s happened,” he said with a sigh in his voice. “Things can get a bit difficult… especially up here.” I thought I noticed a pointed exchange of glances between him and Dennis, but he moved on quickly. “It’s like Carrie said, though, there was just something off about them. The way they were moving, the funny noises they were making. Wasn’t right. So I ran, raced up the alley – and they chased me. Managed to lose them eventually, but I was scared they’d still be waiting to jump me somewhere. You can imagine how relieved I was when I spotted a copper on patrol. I’d been about to phone for help, when I saw him – went up to him. Except…”
“What?” I prompted.
“Well, when he turned and looked at me… his face was blank. It was as if there was nothing going on inside, like he was just reacting to the tap on the shoulder automatically. Nobody at home, you know…” Rakesh pointed to his temple, “…up here. He was drooling; reminded me of Nan that time when she had the stroke, and… I could smell something. As if he’d messed himself or whatever. When I looked down, the front of his trousers were wet as well. His eyes were going in different directions; he was in a proper bad way. I was going to call for an ambulance, but that’s when the gang caught up with me, all grunting and snarling. I braced myself for what they were about to do, but it was the policeman they went for first. Some part of them must have remembered that they hated the police more than…” He hung his head and shook it. “I ran off. Wanted to stay and help him, but there were just too many of them – and I’m not much of a fighter. Never have been. Used to get bullied all the time at school, but could never dish it back out.”
“That’s not a bad thing,” I told him, at the same time thinking that perhaps it was, given this new situation. That if you didn’t fight, you would never survive it.
As if reading my mind, Rakesh said: “It might be. I think I’m going to have to learn; the things I saw out there… Before I ran into Carrie and Jane.”
“You mentioned your phone – did you try to use it after the thing with the cop?”
“Reception’s rubbish at the best of times out here, but it’s completely dead at the moment – at least on mine. No net, no service; nothing.”
Okay, that was my radio, the landline Carrie had said was out, and now Rakesh’s mobile. “So,” I said, trying to change the subject, “you all ended up here, in the cellar of a pub?”
“Dennis spotted us wandering down the street, ushered us down through the cellar doorway.”
“Just in time too, there was a car weaving its way towards them. Out of control it was. I could see what was going to happen as plain as day,” Dennis informed us. “It ended up smacking into the post office opposite.”
“But how did you come to be down here in the first place?” I asked him.
“What kind of stupid question is that?”
I shrugged.
“It was the safest bleedin’ place to go when all the shit hit the fan. I can lock the door to the cellar from the inside, and there’s a way out through the cellar doors I saw them through.” Dennis thumbed back at Carrie and Rakesh. “I’ve seen this place turn ugly before, usually after a match night – or on Friday or Saturday when it comes to chucking out time – but this was something else. And in the middle of the fucking day! No warning, nothing. Weren’t even that many people in here; dozen or more. Started when Franny, that’s my…was my barmaid.” He paused, composing himself. “She was serving this customer – well-to-do kinda bloke. Smart suit, wanted one of those poncy lagers that they think makes ‘em look so cool. Franny was pulling that for him, chatting away like always – nothing flirty, she wasn’t that kind of girl. Definitely nothing that should have provoked what happened next, when he just reached across the bar and grabbed her… you know… grabbed her.” Taking one hand off the rifle, now resting across his knees, Dennis made a squeezing gesture to illustrate what had happened. “Just out of the blue, right there in front of everyone. Molesting her. ‘Course, Franny slaps him, as you would – but that doesn’t stop this guy. He’s holding on for dear life, squeezing harder, hurting her.”
It was the kind of behaviour I’d come to associate with some of the affected, reduced virtually to animals – acting on their basest instincts, whether that was to kill or to mate.
“I was over there quicker than you can say Jack Robinson, obviously. He ignored my warnings to let go of her, so I just smacked him straight in the jaw.” Here was someone who was the exact opposite of Rakesh, no stranger to a brawl or several. Probably grew up learning how to use his fists; definitely a plus when it came to running a pub I would have imagined. “Still he didn’t let go, even when I grabbed his collar and pulled him in – gave him a couple more taps. His face was a right old fucking mess by this time, but he didn’t seem to care. Then the other crap started, the two lads at the pool table knocking seven bells out of each other with the cues – and when one of those snapped, the guy began stabbing his mate with the broken end. Like he was Peter Cushing fighting Christopher Lee. A couple of the older regulars – retired, wouldn’t hurt a fly – they were throwing darts at each other, until one pulled the board off the wall and hit his friend with it. So there I was, in the middle of all that, rushing from one disaster to another, trying to calm things down and thinking just what the hell is going on? When I look over and see that the fellow in the suit is still at it, only he’s pulled Franny over the bar now and is—” He looked around the make sure Jane was still occupied by the colouring book; she was. “You know, doing things to himself over her. Had his trousers down and was… doing things.”
Look, I’m sorry – again this isn’t probably something you want to hear. But I figure it’s best to lay it all out, document it. Didn’t happen to me, but I’m relating it as faithfully as I can, what I can remember about that conversation. Might not be the exact words, but you get the gist… sadly.
“Then before he’s done, another customer has gone behind the bar, got a bottle of vodka and is standing on the counter pouring the spirits onto them. Before I could do anything about it, he’s got a lighter out and he’s chucked it down onto them.” Dennis used his free hand to wipe his face. “I mean, I’ve never seen anything like that before in my life. Franny was screaming at the top of her lungs, but the bloke with the trousers round his ankles – well, shit, he was laughing as he burned to death. Laughing! I mean, for fuck’s sake! Like he wasn’t wired up right. By the time I got to them, so I could use the extinguisher on them, it was already too late.”
Wasn’t long after that, and certainly not long after Dennis had seen what was happening out on the street beyond the pub, that he retreated to the safest place he could think of.
“I heard the ones that were left in the pub go outside, join the rest of those freaks out there. There’s a gap in the cellar door, the one that leads to the street, and I watched them all going on their rampage – before finally heading off somewhere else. I tried the lights, but there was no power on at all, so I lit these candles. It was about an hour later, maybe two, when I spotted those three in trouble out there, so I got them to safety.”
“But if you four are okay, it proves that not everyone went mad. Not everyone was affected.”
“Right,” Rakesh answered. “Which was why we went out to try and find some others.”
“Pretty brave thing to do,” I told him, remembering what he’d said about not being a fighter.
He shrugged. “I’d
been found. Figured I needed to pay that forward.”
“Me and him were out there looking around when we heard your crash,” Dennis chipped in. “When we found you. Got you out, and carried you the couple of streets back here.”
“You’re lucky to be alive, Adam.” That was Carrie; she had absolutely no idea.
It was at this point, after they’d all got their stories off their chests, that they asked me to fill them in on what exactly had happened to me. Only fair, I suppose, so I gave them the edited highlights. Techies and guards became doctors and security men, escaping from my level became an escape from the ward… I didn’t have to change what had happened to that nurse though, and I could see Carrie pulling a face as I went through it with them.
When Dennis started asking too many questions again, about my ‘condition’, about the military angle and rifle, I deflected it by asking: “So, what do we think’s happened here? Any ideas?”
“Some kind of mass hysteria?” offered Carrie, biting her bottom lip.
“Mass panic, you mean? Something usually sets that off though, doesn’t it?” I said.
“Like when that radio programme convinced everyone there was an alien invasion. People are sheep,” spat Dennis. “Especially his generation.”
Rakesh was still doing very well to bite his tongue.
“No, I don’t think it was that,” I said to steer the conversation in another direction again. “Too spontaneous, too random. More like a plague.”
“Wasn’t there some sort of dancing plague in the middle ages?” said Carrie.
“I think you’re right… My dad was into history,” I added by way of an explanation.
“Didn’t a lot of the people involved die from heart attacks or whatever, simply because they couldn’t stop dancing? There were hundreds of them, if I remember rightly,” Carrie continued.
“My ex-missus used to read horror books,” said Dennis. “Tried them once, but wasn’t a big fan. I do remember a couple by this guy though – one was about the earth heating up and mass hallucinations, people seeing these weird grey figures. Another one was where adults suddenly turned on teenagers and kids, tried to kill them all. It was in the blood…” Dennis realised that everyone was looking at him, then said: “Personally, I reckon it was some kind of chemical weapon. One of his lot.” He jabbed at finger in Rakesh’s direction and that was it; the lad was shoving himself off the wall, heading towards Dennis.
For his part the publican was rising, bringing the gun around.
“Whoa, whoa!” I said, standing now and getting between them. “You really want to do this? Don’t you think we’ve got enough problems, without turning on each other?”
“You, soldier, soldier,” Dennis said, training the weapon in my direction. “Sit the fuck down.”
“All of you sit down,” said Carrie, nodding over towards Jane, who had her head down over her colouring book, arms covering herself up – body wracking with each sob as she cried her little heart out. She went over, bending and putting her own arms around the child, who turned and flung herself into Carrie – just as she had done when her mother had tried to kill her. Jesus, what that might do to a child… Kid was probably still in some kind of shock.
“She’s right,” I said. “This isn’t helping.”
Rakesh walked away, back into the shadows of the cellar where he’d been when I first woke up. Dennis glared at me, waiting for me to do as he’d ordered – sit down again. When I backed off, holding my hands up, and sat down on the floor again, he took his seat on the crate once more, watching me. Studying me, just like those scientists had done back at the facility.
And for some reason, I felt like I was… that all of us were in more danger from him and his wild temper than any number of the affected.
Stop.
CHAPTER FOUR
Record:
Sorry for the break, felt like a good place to stop and move on a little before continuing. I need to keep moving, keep trudging on. But I know I also need to continue with the story, get you up to speed before making any future recordings.
I listened to the last instalment before dropping off to sleep last night, just to get it clear in my mind where I’d left things. So, we were in that pub cellar – and for a while it kind of worked. I say a while, it was probably only a few days that we played “happy” families down there. The atmosphere was always tense, but then it would be with Dennis the way he was. My head and my side healed quite nicely though, thanks to the SKIN. There was food and bottled water, so the four of them were okay – except I didn’t, couldn’t really have any. And I think I’d started to figure out that whatever was causing this might be in the air – that I might not be like Dennis, Carrie, Rakesh and Jane. That I might not be immune to its effects, and if I simply took the SKIN off and started noshing on dry roasted peanuts, I could become like one of the affected in seconds. Might end up throttling someone. Maybe even Dennis… I might even have enjoyed that.
No. Bad joke. Definitely, considering how—
Backtracking, don’t worry. Carrie was really the only one who noticed I wasn’t eating or drinking, kept telling me, “You need to keep your strength up, someone in your condition.” She still thought I was sick; ironic really.
“No, honestly. I’m good.”
In the end I took the proffered packets of crisps, the bottles of water, and I’d pretend to eat them – just out of sight, when the others weren’t looking. I’d do the same with going to the loo, which we all did privately in the far corner of the cellar anyway. I’d imagine the stink was terrible by then – I was thankful the SKIN filtered it out.
There were no more scouting missions, mainly because I don’t think Rakesh and Dennis wanted to go out there with each other anymore – and partly because Dennis didn’t want to leave me unguarded; he even slept with that gun across his lap, probably made him feel better. They could have gone out separately, but then that would have meant Dennis trusting Rakesh with the rifle out there – and in all honesty, I still don’t think he would have lasted ten minutes alone – or trusting him to watch me down in the cellar. He wasn’t about to give the weapon to Carrie, either, because she’d already made up her mind I wasn’t a threat. Besides, if there were pockets of survivors out there, the crazies definitely outweighed them, and if they hadn’t gone to ground somewhere they’d probably be dead. They’d be just as hard to find now as we would be.
So we trod water. I think some part of them all wanted to stay there, though, and pretend none of what had happened had really happened. Maybe wait for rescuers who didn’t even know we were there. Stranded on our own distant planet…
“At some point we’re going to have to go out there again, you know,” I argued once or twice. “We can’t just sit around here forever.” That would be worse than being trapped behind that glass, trapped in the facility. I couldn’t even get Carrie’s support on that one; not even when we heard people above us in the pub itself, noise and general mayhem – and we’d had to stay quiet, Carrie telling Jane it was all just a game, like the one her mother had been playing with her. That soon they’d see each other again and Jane’s mum would be back to her old self.
It couldn’t go on, however, and the tipping point came during yet another argument. Dennis had been going on about the chemical weapons thing again – another reason I was glad I hadn’t told the truth about where I’d come from – ranting about terrorism and all that bullshit, as if Rakesh had anything to do with any of that. As if it even mattered anymore after the past week.
Rakesh had been brave enough to go for the gun this time, to try and take it from Dennis – and they’d wrestled with it. I thought at one point the thing was going to go off. Carrie had been shouting about upsetting Jane again, had gone over to where the girl had been working on yet another project the woman had come up with to keep her occupied – cutting out shapes she’d coloured in, making patterns which she’d eventually show to the art expert Rakesh, who’d nod approvingly whatever
they looked like.
Jane had covered up her head again, as she did whenever these kinds of rows kicked off, so Carrie went over and rubbed her shoulders – trying to calm her down, to calm the sobs that were beginning. I didn’t see what happened next, though, because I was concentrating on what was happening with Dennis and Rakesh. But I saw the aftermath, when the screaming started.
By the time I glanced over again, Carrie was staggering backwards. She looked like she was crying as well, hands up to her face. It was only when she took these down that I saw the wounds there, the ragged holes in her cheeks. Carrie’s screams were shrill, causing all of us to pause and look over. Jane was rising from her work, a pair of scissors still fixed in her hand which were dripping blood. The girl was crying all right, but from laughter rather than sadness. And before any of us could do a thing to stop her, she’d leapt up to carry on stabbing Carrie – this time in the neck and chest. The woman did her best to ward her off, arms flailing around, but in the end it was no use. She toppled backwards, into a shelf that had bottles on it – knocking everything flying. The screaming was replaced by smashing glass as Carrie slumped down to the ground, not moving.
Rakesh let go of the gun, let Dennis take it – maybe realising that whoever had it would be forced to make a really tough decision. We’d all seen people who had become affected, knew what they looked like, how they acted; for whatever reason, Jane had been slow to display the symptoms and we’d all just assumed she was immune. There was no way of knowing, no doctors to test her, to analyse her for… whatever the hell this was. When it had struck, it hit so many people at once; if you didn’t turn then it was safe to assume you were okay… or so we’d – I’d – thought. It was an assumption that had cost Carrie her life.
When Jane ran across the room, she ran quickly – and with the energy of youth, powered seemingly by the transformation that was overtaking her. “Dennis…” I said; which was all I thought needed saying. He was the one with the gun, the one she was targeting. Dennis levelled it at her, grinding his teeth. I could see his finger twitching on the trigger. A few seconds ago he’d been fighting with Rakesh over the possession of that firearm – who knows, might have even shot the lad if it had continued. But now he was reluctant to use it when he really needed to; not that I could blame him, not that I’d have done any different. Jane was affected, but she was still a child. One who, up until only a few moments ago, had been colouring in, making pictures, doing the normal things that kids do. Now she was a stone cold killer, with one notch already on her belt – and a second imminent.
