Contagion tc-3

by Tim Lebbon

  “You don’t look like a health food freak,” Sparky said, and they all paused, a loaded silence.

  Then Rhali burst out laughing, and the others joined in.

  “Er, I didn’t mean…” Sparky said, but Jenna slapped him playfully around the head.

  “They’ll be the first back in if we open London up again,” Jack said. “Day one: four hundred McDonald’s branches re-open in London.”

  “And I will live here in luxury,” Sparky said.

  They moved on. A group of dogs crossed their path several hundred yards along the street, and they paused until the pack had disappeared. Jenna looked at Jack, waiting for him to access a power to check the dogs had gone. He didn’t.

  Three people dashed from the cover of a Tube station entrance, looked their way, then ran along the street, hissing and clicking in what might have been a strange language. Again, Jenna looked to Jack, but he shook his head and waved them on.

  He dipped in and out of the universe of potential he carried inside, and each time that pulsing, living red star stared back. It was as aware of him as he was of it, and it scared him. He did not like the fear. He wanted to know more, but to do that he would have to take back possession of his starscape.

  Soon he would go deep and confront it, touch it, find out exactly what it was. Soon.

  Rhali squeezed his hand. She stopped walking, and if he hadn’t caught her she would have fallen. He was amazed at how feverish she felt, and her lightness shocked him afresh.

  “What is it?” he asked tenderly.

  “Something not normal,” she said. “Sit me down. Let me…” She drifted off, her eyes rolled, and Jack eased her down to the pavement and leaned her against a shop front. It had used to sell wedding dresses, but now its window was home to a leathery corpse.

  Jenna knelt beside her, and Sparky stood guard, scanning the street in either direction and glancing back at them to see what was happening.

  “Is this how she does it?” Jenna asked.

  “Don’t know,” Jack said.

  “What’s wrong with you, Jack?” It surprised him that Jenna would query his well-being while Rhali was like this. But then Jenna hardly knew this girl, and Jack was her friend. She’d sensed that he was troubled the evening before, and it must have been playing on her mind.

  “Something,” he said, touching his head. “In here. Something strange.”

  “To do with Nomad?”

  “I think it’s all to do with Nomad.”

  “So many,” Rhali said. She squeezed Jack’s hand tighter, then smiled weakly at him to let him know she was all right. Then she closed her eyes again. “It’s all normal everywhere else…people moving around, cautious, smallish groups. Looking for food. Safety. But there’s something so strange…big groups, all moving the same way. Fleeing something. Or heading for something else.”

  “Where?” Jack asked. He looked up at Sparky, who shrugged and held out his hands: All clear here.

  “From the north,” Rhali said. “There are dozens of them, perhaps hundreds. And they’re all coming down from the north.”

  “Oh, shit me,” Sparky said. “Guys, don’t want to add to the crap quotient, but we have a guest.”

  Jack looked up, keeping hold of Rhali’s hand. Jenna stood shoulder to shoulder with Sparky. And they all stared along the street at the woman walking towards them.

  To Jack, Nomad looked different from before. Lessened, and weaker. But her eyes still blazed, and for an instant they reminded him of that glowing red star.

  She paused when she was a dozen steps from them. She only had eyes for Jack.

  “My boy,” she said. “I’ve come to save you.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  FIFTEEN

  Two of them had been with Jack the time she bestowed her gift upon him. The other was a stranger. But she did not care about those around him. It was Jack who mattered, Jack she had to help. Up to now he had managed to help himself, but this was something more. The bomb was unstoppable. And Jack was going the wrong way.

  “My boy, I’ve come to save you.”

  Jack released the girl’s hand. She was slumped against the shop facade, sick. Nomad thought perhaps she might never rise again, but right then she did not care. Jack came towards her, and already she could sense the staggering change in him.

  “Oh, you’re everything I wanted this to be,” she whispered.

  “You’re bleeding.” Jack was staring at her mouth, and Nomad lifted a hand to touch the blood dribbling from her nose. It tasted alien, as if it belonged to someone else. He asked, “You’re sick too?”

  “No.” It shocked her that she should choose to lie. That was a purely human conceit, and she had removed herself from humanity.

  “Yes,” Jack said. “Just like all of them. So can you stop the bomb?”

  “No, Jack,” she said. The others came into focus around Jack now, and for the first time Nomad considered them as more than shadows. They stood together as if they were part of him.

  “Why not? You’re Nomad. All powerful, feared by everyone, and if you can do this to me, surely you can do anything!”

  “I’m here to take you out,” she said. “Just you. Out of London where you’ll be safe when—”

  “I’m not leaving without my friend.”

  Nomad glanced at the girl on the ground, the stocky boy, the other girl. “I’ll take them, too,” she said, not sure whether she was lying again.

  “Not them. Our other friend. And everyone else. Will you really leave London to its fate after you caused all of this?”

  “It’s evolution,” she said. “And you’re the future.”

  “No,” he said. “Help us if you can. Stop the bomb, warn everyone. Make it so everyone can leave.”

  “Fifteen hours.” Nomad frowned, confused. “That’s how long you have. But I’ll never take you out by force, Jack. You have to want to be special, to be saved. I don’t want you to doom yourself.”

  “You’re too late for that,” he said quietly. He was facing up to her and, though scared, so were his friends.

  “I’ll be watching you.” Nomad searched inside, trying to grasp something that would change how things were. But Jack was his own boy. She had told the truth—she would not save him by force. He was as special as she was, and he had to want everything she had given him for it to matter.

  Jack watched Nomad turn to leave and did not call her back. She was almost not there—ethereal, like an echo of someone who had once been. He wondered what it was like being her.

  “Jack, she’s got to help!” Jenna said from behind him, but Jack shook his head.

  “She can’t,” he said. Nomad was walking away now, and her gait betrayed nothing. One look, Jack thought, and he took a deep breath and plummeted into the endless space between potentials, swirling, flitting across the void and closing on one star, always aware of that pulsing, glowing red shape that watched him like the eye of God.

  As he reached out to touch what might help him know Nomad, he suddenly realised what the red star was.

  Shock struck him from all sides. He gasped and went to his knees, pulled instantly back to stark reality.

  “Jack!” Sparky was by his side, clasping him and holding him in a sitting position. Jenna was there too, already looking him over for signs of injury. She checked his eyes, felt his pulse, pressed her hand against his chest. Even Rhali came to him, swaying a little and sighing as she sat and leaned into him.

  “It’s everything,” he said. The words echoed inside his mind.

  “What is, mate?” Sparky asked.

  “The red star. The…” He shook his head, because they did not understand. “Inside. There’s something inside I thought was watching me, but it isn’t. It just feels like it because it’s so alive. So vital. It’s everything Nomad gave me ready to be passed on. The red star is contagion.” He held out his hand and extended his finger, remembering Nomad putting her own finger in his mouth and tasting her on his tongue even now.r />
  She was little more than a silhouette along the street, becoming a shadow.

  “I can pass it on,” he whispered. Then he fisted his hand. He would not wish this on anyone.

  Jenna stared at him for a moment. Then she said, “Come on. She’s gone. If she can’t help us, we’ll help ourselves. We’ve got to find Breezer again.”

  “Fifteen hours,” Jack said. “That’s what we’ve got.”

  “Midnight tonight,” Sparky said, grim. “At least that gives us something to aim for.”

  “It’s no time at all,” Jack said.

  Jenna grabbed him beneath the arms and hauled him upright. “Then let’s not waste any.”

  Lucy-Anne ran through the dawn, leaving Hampstead Heath far behind, and with every step she became more convinced that she was being followed.

  Others ran with her. She’d become aware of them very quickly, and at first she’d believed that they were chasing her. But she’d hidden away several times to let something pass by, and the monsters showed no signs of pursuing anything. They were animals with human attributes—or humans with animal aspects—and they were heading south into London with motives she could not perceive.

  She thought of Jack and the others a lot as she made her own way south. She had no idea how she’d find them, or whether they were even still in the city. Rook had told her that Emily and Jack’s mother were safely away at least, but she had no idea what Jack might be doing now. Still, she had to do her best to find them all, and tell them about the bomb.

  She passed a small square with a park at the centre. It was overgrown, and the trees’ heavy canopies moved with something other than the breeze. Things whispered in there, secret mutterings that might have been about her. She ducked into an open front door and ran through the property, out across the backyard to the alley beyond, over a high wall into another garden, and smashed a window to gain access to another house. Three people were sitting around a table, dried bodies slumped down in their chairs and a meal gone black before them. Lucy-Anne left them to their peace and opened the front door.

  The street beyond was silent, and she ran.

  Moments later, something emerged from that house and came after her.

  She froze in the middle of the street and turned around, but there was nothing to see. Not one of those monsters, she thought. She didn’t know how she could be so sure, but she clung on to that certainty. It followed, but without malevolence. Perhaps it was an echo of herself, the memory of what she had been or what she might have become had Rook not died. Her dream-shadow.

  How she wished she could dream him back again. But she had already seen how that had ended.

  “Who are you?” Lucy-Anne shouted. Her loud voice shocked her, echoing between buildings that had been silent for so long. She wondered whether a city could haunt itself. Somewhere so accustomed to the sounds of traffic and human interaction must find silence so strange.

  Nothing and no one answered.

  “Come out!” she said. “I don’t bite.” She laughed, perhaps a little manically. She was the only thing she’d met in London that didn’t bite.

  So she moved on instead, glancing back every now and then, seeing nothing, but knowing nonetheless that something saw her.

  Along streets, across squares, crossing road junctions clotted with crashed vehicles, Lucy-Anne headed south. She navigated by the sun—it had just risen, so she kept it on her left—and she thought how her father would have chuckled at that. He’d been a Scout leader when he was younger, and though Andrew had always been keen to listen to his dad, Lucy-Anne had been the rebellious one. She could see no sense in camping in the woods with a bunch of kids when she could be causing trouble in town with her friends. There was no point in learning knots and how to build a fire, when finding a pub that would serve them cheap, strong cider was so much more fun. If he could see her now, he’d tell her that she was doing well at gaining her Survival Badge.

  She found herself at a T-junction, and across the road was the entrance to an industrial estate. In either direction along the road, the opposite side was lined with the bland grey metal of industrial and business units, and the map on the board at the entrance showed how vast it was. Straight through would be far easier than skirting around it. And at least from what she could see there was less traffic clogging the roads.

  As soon as she entered, the noises began. Clanging, dragging. Something following her across rooftops. Something with claws.

  She ducked into a large unit and hurried through to the other side. It was stacked with countless boxes of computer screens, millions of pounds in value now worth nothing. They weren’t edible, couldn’t burn, and would be useless as weapons. She hurried through, still listening for those sounds of pursuit.

  She found a fire escape that hung open, the door propped against the sad skeletal remnants of someone who’d wanted to die in the sunlight. She listened, heard nothing.

  But she knew that meant little.

  Why the hell couldn’t I have wandered into a unit that made machine guns and bazookas? she thought as she burst from the door.

  Heart hammering, she glanced up at the sky, expecting to see rooks following her progress. But the sky was a bright, blank blue. A beautiful day.

  She was thirsty and hungry, her head throbbed, and she was not used to such excessive exercise. But still she ran. She heard something scampering across metal, but she couldn’t tell how heavy the something was, nor how far away. She passed by a white van slewed across the road and caught sight of its contents through the open side door—piles of board games, still stacked as if ready for children to take their pick. She thought briefly about jumping into the driver’s seat and slamming the door, but if the engine did not fire she might trap herself in there while those pursuing things came for her.

  She drew the knife from her belt and held it blade-forward, ready to jab and slash.

  Inside another unit, and here the smell was so familiar that it made her gasp aloud. Shoes. Storage racks were stacked with thousands of boxes of new trainers, and a few were scattered around beneath the shelves, bright white and coloured objects that looked so out of place. These were proper running shoes, and she remembered shopping for them with her mother when she had taken up running several years before. She’d watched her mother on a treadmill while the shop assistant analysed videos of her gait, prescribing a certain type of shoe and bringing out her recommendations. Afterwards they had gone to a Starbucks and Lucy-Anne had eaten a shortbread while her mother drank coffee and examined her shoes. The smell conjured this completely detailed memory, and also the more recent dream during which Lucy-Anne had sensed her parents buried in one of London’s mass graves.

  Tears beaded in her eyes, and she wiped them away.

  Approaching a door at the rear of the unit she skidded to a stop. There was a huddle of bodies against the wall, shrivelled, dried skin hanging on grinning skulls. More stories she’d never know. The door was closed, and she checked it quickly for locks. The moment she opened it she wanted to be running, and if she made a noise rattling the handle against locks, then—

  Loud impacts sounded from the high metal roof. The noise filled the previously quiet unit. Lucy-Anne cried out in shock, then pressed down the handle and swung the door, darted into the open, and ran. She crossed a car park and dodged around several cars, then heard thuds behind her as things dropped from the roof.

  She stopped and spun around, backing up against a truck sat on flattened tyres. This is where I make a stand, she thought, and she was filled with a dreadful sense of foreboding. She had not dreamed this at all. As she saw what faced her, she wished she could have fallen instantly asleep to un-dream it.

  She was going to die here, and her bones would be scattered across the moss-covered concrete.

  There were three of them stalking closer to her, cautious but confident, and she could sense their hunger. Each breath ended with a gentle growl.

  “So what are you supposed to be?” s
he asked. Her voice wavered, and none of them gave any indication that they had heard.

  They were smaller than adult humans, but she had no sense that they were children. Vaguely ape-like, their arms and legs had grown long and thin, yet still wiry and strong. Their naked bodies were covered with a fine brown felt-like fur, and their heads had elongated, mouths protruding and ears flattened against their triangular skulls. The teeth were long and vicious. Their eyes were startlingly human, yet they held little sign of any intelligence she could understand. One of them had a tattoo on its upper arm.

  She was certain that they wanted to eat.

  “Come on then,” she said, waving the knife before her. But she felt no real bravado. She would fight when they came, but she could not kid herself. She might wound one or two of them, but they’d take her down within seconds.

  She only hoped it was over quickly.

  I’m so sorry, Jack, she thought. Sparky, Jenna. I’m so sorry. I only hope you get out anyway, but I can’t pretend that I’m sad at what’s going to happen to London. She blinked and saw Nomad once more, silhouetted against the nuclear blast that would sweep away all that had gone wrong, and every twisted thing that London had birthed.

  When she opened her eyes again, someone else was there.

  Lucy-Anne frowned, squinted, trying to make sense of who and what she saw. It was a shadow on the light where no shadow was cast, and when it moved it was like a blind spot in her vision. It flowed from the doorway of the sports shoe unit, and then the ape-things were screeching as it moved amongst them. They darted away, one of them passing so close to her that it collided with the truck’s hood, tripped over the bumper and sprawled on the ground, scrabbling for purchase before sprinting away on all fours. One took a huge leap up onto the building’s roof and disappeared from view. The others ran across car parks and roads, vanishing between units. In moments they were gone, and Lucy-Anne was alone with whatever, or whomever, had saved her.

  Someone new, she thought, but she instantly knew that was wrong. This was someone she already knew. She dropped the knife, barely noticing the sound as it struck the ground.