Contagion tc-3

by Tim Lebbon

  “They’re here,” he said.

  “Then push harder! We need to get close to the ramp. That way if the engine doesn’t start we can coast that far at least.”

  “And then?” Lucy-Anne said between them. But Sparky did not answer.

  “They’ve stopped,” Jack said, but he held no hope that the things would not attack. They merely seemed to be formulating a strategy. The two that had been trying to get Hayden were conversing with three others in a language Jack could not imagine, gestures and loud clicking sounds replacing the spoken word. They spread out, three stalking forward while two others scampered back down to the level they had just emerged from. They had seen what Jack could do, and were spreading themselves out as much as possible.

  Even if Jack and his friends did manage to start the car, they would have a gauntlet to run.

  They’re just people! Jack thought, wishing he could communicate, reach out to them. But “just” held no meaning anymore.

  “Now!” Sparky said.

  Jenna eased up on the clutch. At first Jack felt a resistance, then the vehicle jerked forward and he almost stumbled to the ground. Sparky grabbed him, and Lucy-Anne was already darting for one open side door. The car jarred forward, the engine coughed and growled, Jack caught a faceful of foul air from the exhaust, and then Sparky shouted, “Gas!” Jenna pressed on the gas and the engine roared.

  “Yes!” Jack punched the air and ran with Sparky. Jenna slammed on the brakes and dropped out of gear, revving the engine some more. Smoke hacked from the exhaust.

  And the creatures were coming. One each on the left and right, leaping across the roofs of parked cars, and one straight for the car. Jack was sure he saw sparks kicked up from their nightmarish limbs.

  “In!” Sparky shouted. “Jack!”

  But Jack waited until his friends were safely inside, his breath held and a shout ready to be unleashed. He did not want to kill, but if he had to…

  Sparky was in and Jack darted for the door. His strong friend grabbed his arms and pulled, and even as Jack sprawled across the others’ laps in the back seat, Jenna gunned the gas and pulled away.

  Hayden had climbed into the front seat and he cowered down, terrified. And his fear was good. If he’d been sitting up straight he might have died.

  The creature must have leapt directly at the windscreen, jumping over the bonnet of the moving vehicle and using its two arms as spears. The windscreen starred opaque, Jenna screamed, but she did not slow down. Sharp insectile limbs slashed across Hayden’s seat and shredded the headrest. The glass shattered and fell inwards in a shower of diamond shards, and Jenna punched the windscreen in front of her, clearing her view and spinning the steering wheel at the last moment. The Mazda’s bumper scraped across a wall as the car slewed to the right, and the creature emitted an ear-splitting shriek as it was wrenched from the bonnet.

  “Floor it!” Sparky shouted. Jenna pumped on the gas and the engine roared, and she spun the wheel again as they bumped onto the next level down.

  Jack pulled himself into a sitting position between Sparky and Rhali, and Lucy-Anne was pressed against the door beside Rhali.

  “Is he…?” she asked.

  Jack leaned forward to look over the seats, terrified of what he might see. But Hayden stared up at him with wide eyes.

  “He’s OK. Jenna, you need to change gear.”

  “What?”

  “You need to—”

  “I haven’t got a clue how to drive so just shut up and let me get on with it.”

  “Ease on the gas, foot on the clutch, slip into—” Sparky began.

  “Shut the hell up!” she shouted. Remaining in second gear she drifted them wide into the ramp to the next level, rebounding from the wall again with a sickening crunch and a laboured screech of tearing metal.

  “It’s okay,” Sparky said. “We don’t need the bumper. Bumpers are overrated.”

  “Where the hell are those things?” Lucy-Anne asked. Jack twisted in his seat and looked behind at the shapes loping after them.

  “Not finished yet,” he said.

  “Mate, can’t you do anything?” Sparky asked.

  “If I need to,” Jack said. “But—”

  It must have been on the car roof. Sitting there, planning, scheming, trying to figure out how best to get at the food inside. And the best way was to put their best defence out of action. Jack saw a flurry of movement, heard the dull whisper of strengthened glass breaking into countless pieces, and felt Sparky lean into him as he cringed away from the thrashing limb that swung into the car.

  Then the impact across his face, and no more.

  Blood splashed across Lucy-Anne’s face. It was a sickening warmth that quickly faded to cool, and she knew that Jack was dead.

  Rhali screamed. Jack slumped to the side and rested against her, bleeding on her, and she started hyperventilating, trying to shove him away and hold his face at the same time.

  “Jesus Christ!” Jenna shouted, because she’d seen everything in the rearview mirror.

  “Drive!” Lucy-Anne shouted. She could taste Jack’s blood when she opened her mouth. “Just fucking drive, Jenna!” If they stopped now—if they let those things get into the car—Jack was no longer here to do anything to help them.

  Jack was no longer here…

  She couldn’t dwell on that, and neither could she check him out to make sure. Sparky was struggling and he needed her help, and really, everything might depend on her. Everything. Because Hayden was crying and gibbering in the front seat, and Rhali could only look at the bloody mess that had been Jack’s face.

  Not yet, not yet, Lucy-Anne thought. I’ll look in a minute. I’ll try to find my best friend’s pulse in a minute.

  Sparky had grasped the thing’s limbs and was holding it up against the ceiling, pushing with all his might. It was dark and shiny like a beetle’s carapace, ending in a sharp pincer-like arrangement that was even now shredding Sparky’s shirtsleeve and the car’s fabric ceiling. The thing was scrabbling up on the roof trying to maintain its purchase, and as Jenna swung them down another ramp and bounced from another wall, the limbs shifted position as the creature slid.

  Lucy-Anne leaned across Rhali and Jack and thrust her hand into Sparky’s jeans pocket. She worked her fingers against the folds and creases and found the knife, tugging it out, ripping the material, opening the blade, and without even looking at Sparky she leaned further over him and started slashing at the limb where it entered the window. Shoulder or elbow she couldn’t quite figure out, but the thing squealed in agony as black blood spattered down across her forearm.

  “Sparky!” she shouted. He heaved the limb back towards the window and then let go. The creature slid from the roof and bounced from the boot, squirming and thrashing when it struck the ground.

  “Floor it!” Lucy-Anne screamed. She sat back against the door with the knife still in her hand, and realised that the thing’s blood stank.

  “Jack?” Jenna asked.

  “Get us out of here or we’ll all be dead!”

  “Dead?” Rhali said. She spoke softly, but even above the car’s labouring engine they all heard. It was a word that broke through such noise.

  Lucy-Anne looked at Jack again, nervous, her heart fluttering. His face was a bloody mess.

  “Just drive,” she said.

  Jenna seemed to become more confident. Though she did not attempt to change gear, and the engine screamed as she floored the gas between floors, she took the ramps more successfully, avoiding any more jarring impacts with the walls. On the third floor one of the tyres blew out and the car slewed sideways, but Jenna fought with the wheel and straightened them again. On the second floor she crashed into a Ford that protruded from the parking bays. The impact almost stalled the Mazda, but she slammed her foot on the gas, wheels screaming, the stench of burning rubber accompanying them as the Ford was shoved sideways and their car scraped past.

  “Where are they?” Sparky said. He was looking beh
ind them, ahead, and leaning cautiously sideways to peer from the shattered side window.

  “Given up the chase?” Lucy-Anne asked.

  “Maybe,” he said. But they all remained on edge as they drove out from the shadowed car park into daylight.

  “Too noisy,” Lucy-Anne said. “Let’s get a street away then dump the car.”

  “And we’ll have to see to Jack,” Sparky said. He was taking his first good look at his friend, and Lucy-Anne could see his fear.

  “How is he?” Jenna asked. She kept glancing in the mirror. The car engine screamed in second gear. Hayden gibbered in the front seat.

  Rhali stroked Jack’s brow, and his face bled.

  Her illness washing through her, Nomad raised her head and looked around. The tank was static and terrible. The wires and fail-safes glowed menacingly all around the display hall. All was silent.

  “Jack,” she said. She gasped, because something had changed. But whatever the change, Jack had made his choice.

  And there was always Lucy-Anne.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  FIVE

  In darkness and nothing, Jack thought he was with the monsters.

  He had an awareness of who he was but not why he was here. He wanted to call his friends, but could not remember their names. He floated, or sank, or rose through darkness so complete that it had form and solidity. It was like swimming in black water, but here he could breathe.

  The taste on his tongue was blood.

  After an unknown time he started to make out a glow in the distance. At first it was a smudge on the night, a sheen in the blackness. He moved towards it, out of the stark nothingness where there were monsters, and it started to take on form. Countless points of light manifested, like sprinkles of salt on a black sheet the size of a field. The closer he approached, the clearer the image became, and the larger and more malevolent the deep blackness behind him.

  That’s my universe. His words were comforting. And as he thought them, the spread of light expanded rapidly until it filled his field of vision and he was inside it, enveloped and part of the light himself, and the blackness was banished to the distance.

  Yet he still did not feel safe. He passed through this place that was his, and just off-centre was a warm red glow. It should have been inviting but was not. The warmth should have made him feel safe, but the opposite was true.

  The glow was contagion. But it was not his to give.

  “And it wasn’t Nomad’s to give either,” he said. His voice was so loud that the stars shimmered, and somewhere beyond he felt a reaction to what he had said. My friends heard me. They fear for me. But I have to make sure. He moved closer to the throbbing red glow and saw that it was a star on its own, but one that contained universes. Impossible, incredible, terrifying universes that he could pass on with a touch, just as Nomad had passed this on to him.

  None of this was natural. None of it should exist. His universe was a falsehood made real by a mad woman, and humanity could not endure it.

  I’ll always keep it to myself. Always. No matter what.

  “Is he dead?”

  Hayden had been the last to climb from the car and follow them, but now he was the first to speak.

  “No, he’s not bloody dead!” Sparky said. “And thanks would be welcome right now.”

  “Thanks?”

  “For rescuing you?” Lucy-Anne said. She hated Hayden already and she hadn’t even told him her name.

  “Oh, right. Thanks.”

  Jenna had parked close to the front of an old discount furniture store, and carrying Jack between them they’d entered and moved quickly through to the back entrance. Lucy-Anne had pulled aside a pile of damp, rotting mattresses to reveal a fire escape, and she’d opened it with a kick. Sparky had then slung Jack over his shoulder and followed Lucy-Anne outside, passing across a small courtyard and along a narrow alley before emerging onto the next street. There, an abandoned Starbucks had become their hiding place. If those things had been pursuing them, they hoped that they’d now shaken them off. But if they did still follow, there was little they could do.

  None of them would leave Jack behind, and Lucy-Anne was shocked at how vulnerable she now felt. Without realising it she’d quickly come to rely on Jack to protect them all.

  “See if you can find any water,” Jenna told Rhali. “Lucy-Anne, tissues or napkins, anything clean to mop away the blood.”

  “Me?” Sparky asked.

  “Best keep watch,” she said. Lucy-Anne caught the glance between her two friends; they knew how defenceless they all were now.

  She climbed behind the counter and looked for napkins. The place had been ransacked at some point, but a drift of napkins remained on one of the lower shelves. Rhali found some bottled water, and Jenna went about cleaning Jack’s wounds.

  “I think it looks worse than it is,” Jenna said.

  “You shitting me?” Lucy-Anne said. “His eye’s out, Jenna!”

  “No. Eyelid’s slashed, and that makes it look like his eyeball’s damaged. But I don’t think it is.” She mopped blood, and Jack’s eyes rolled.

  There were other cuts all across the right side of his face, from his jaw up into his hairline. Jenna cleaned them with bottled water, but that thing that had attacked him, its horrid pincers…Lucy-Anne didn’t like to wonder what germs it carried. She watched Jenna dab at the cuts, and then examine the deep bruise already forming across Jack’s temple and into his hairline.

  “That?” Lucy-Anne asked.

  “Fractured skull,” Hayden said. In a flurry of movement Sparky was up and at him, a seventeen-year-old boy pushing this thirty-year-old man back against the wall, forearm pressing against his throat, other hand fisted and drawn back ready to punch.

  Hayden looked terrified.

  “You haven’t earned the right to say a single word about my friend,” Sparky said. He released Hayden as quickly as he’d pushed him, turning back to Jack and squatting beside him. He leaned in close and examined the wounds that Jenna was tending. “So is it fractured?”

  “I don’t know,” Jenna said. “I…I don’t really know what I’m doing, Sparky. I can dab the blood away. Given the right kit I might even be able to patch his eye and bandage him up. But…”

  She cleaned gently, lovingly. Jack shuddered.

  “Come on, mate,” Sparky said. He held Jack’s hand and squeezed, moving his arm up and down, slowly so as not to shift him too suddenly.

  “He’s just knocked out,” Rhali said. “That’s all. The thing banged his head.”

  “It’s really hard to be knocked out,” Sparky said. “Not like in the movies. You have to do damage to knock someone out.”

  Oh no, oh no, Lucy-Anne thought. She had to lean against a table to prevent herself from slumping to the floor, biting her lip and drawing blood. She briefly considered letting herself drop into dreamland, dreaming Jack well again. But it might never last. And her wider fears included not only Jack.

  She looked around at the others. Sparky and Jenna at least were thinking the same thing. They’d only known each other for two years, but they’d been through a lot, and she thought they were brothers and sisters. Family. The only family she had left, and she could not bear to mourn any more.

  “We’re wasting time,” Lucy-Anne said. “You know that, don’t you?”

  None of them answered. Rhali looked up at her, about to speak, but she bit back the words. Hayden shuffled his feet. Jenna paused in her cleaning of Jack’s wounds.

  “We can’t just leave him here.”

  “I’ll stay,” Rhali said.

  “And it wasn’t Nomad’s to give either,” Jack said, and they all held their breaths, ready for him to open his eyes. But he remained unconscious, shuddering occasionally. His skin was growing pale.

  “Right,” Sparky said. He stroked Jack’s hand, eyes turning left and right as he thought something through. “Right. How long?”

  “About five hours,” Hayden said softly.

  “L
ong enough,” Sparky said. “You said you needed an hour.”

  “And peace and quiet. And the right tools.”

  “Tools,” Sparky said. “Okay. You and me, we go and find the tools. We’re close to the museum, so the others can rest here, and we go and find what you need.”

  Hayden seemed uncertain but he nodded.

  “I’ll come with you,” Lucy-Anne said.

  “Didn’t for a moment expect you to stay sitting on your arse,” Sparky said, grinning. He knelt beside Jenna. “Half an hour,” he said. “Stay quiet.”

  She nodded.

  “Stay safe!” Sparky said. He pulled her close and kissed her cheek roughly. “I love you.” There was not a shred of embarrassment to his words.

  “We’re going to have to leave him,” Lucy-Anne said as they emerged onto the street. Sparky held a hand up as he checked both ways, then waved them forward. They slipped from doorway to doorway, using parked cars and vans as cover.

  “Yeah,” Sparky said at last. “If he doesn’t wake.”

  “Even if he does he’ll be weak and have a monstrous headache,” Lucy-Anne said.

  “But it’s Jack,” Sparky said. “You know what he can do, how special he is. We need him. Don’t you think? We’ll need him to even get close to the museum, and here we are looking for bloody tools?”

  “We have to do our best.”

  They never stopped walking. Sparky scanned their route, Hayden between them, and Lucy-Anne kept glancing behind them to make sure they weren’t being followed. Or stalked. But she could sense a hopelessness in Sparky’s movements. He was desperate, and that same desperation was manifesting in her.

  She nudged Hayden. “See anything useful?”

  “We need a hardware store,” he said. “Maybe a repair shop. You know, washing machines, that sort of thing. A garage. Anywhere that might have a well-equipped toolbox.”

  “You were coming to defuse an atomic bomb without a toolbox?”

  “The Superiors wiped out our vehicles,” Hayden said. “Me and two others survived, ran, didn’t have time to grab anything. We were lucky to get away with our lives, let alone any equipment.”