Remade

by Alex Scarrow

  ‘It wasn’t leaves or branches. It was something else. An animal.’

  ‘Where?’

  Leon pointed to the trees around the tennis courts. ‘Over there.’ He handed the binoculars to Spanners.

  Spanners squinted as he stared through the lenses. ‘You sure?’

  ‘I saw something.’ Leon shaded his eyes and scanned the trees again.

  ‘Brown you say? Like a rabbit? Or a fox?’

  ‘Bigger than that. I think. You reckon we should raise the alarm?’

  Spanners sucked on his teeth. ‘Maybe.’

  Leon caught site of that flash of tan again. Further to the left, in the car park. ‘There!’ he said. ‘It’s among the cars!’

  Spanners swung his binoculars to the left. ‘I can’t see anything.’

  ‘Next to the van. The green van.’

  Spanners aimed his binoculars where Leon was pointing. ‘Oh . . . shit, you’re right!’

  It was moving one way, then the other, like something lost, confused. Leon couldn’t make out what shape it was, or even judge precisely how big it was, the dappled light coming down and the gaps in the fir trees providing only disjointed glimpses. Then suddenly the creature changed direction again, left the car park and darted into the trees.

  ‘Lost it,’ said Spanners.

  ‘It was big. Maybe it was a moose or something?’

  He chuckled. ‘We don’t have mooses over here, lad. There’s plenty of deer in the park, though. Well, there were, anyway.’

  He spotted movement again. Something hovering uncertainly behind some bushes near the front entrance to the spa. Moving backwards and forwards, pacing like some frustrated predator behind the bars of a cage. Finally, it emerged into the clear space before the main entrance.

  ‘Oh my God . . .’

  Leon smiled. ‘No way.’

  CHAPTER 42

  ‘Please! Please can we let it in!’

  They were all gathered in the foyer beside the spa-treatment booking counter, watching the horse trotting backwards and forwards outside. It looked to Leon’s inexpert eye like it was horrendously malnourished and clearly distressed. The animal must have remained untended for some time, perhaps locked in a barn somewhere, and had only now finally managed to find a way out.

  Grace was pressed up against the window waggling her hand to get its attention. ‘Please, Mr Carnegie . . . before it runs away!’

  ‘I don’t think it’s going anywhere, Grace. It wants feeding I’d say.’

  ‘Poor thing,’ said Claire. ‘It looks well hungry.’

  ‘It is starved horse,’ said Sofia, one of the cleaning ladies. ‘We must give it food.’

  Half of those present murmured in agreement. Leon couldn’t help but notice the gender split on the matter: females nodding, pitying the pitiful creature’s condition; males more likely silently considering whether they were ready to try eating fresh horse meat.

  ‘To be absolutely clear about this . . . we are NOT thinking about letting it in, right?’

  All heads turned towards Dave.

  ‘I’m serious! We don’t know if that thing is infected or not!’

  ‘It must be like us,’ said Terry. ‘Immune. It could have been on some medication that rejected the virus.’

  ‘Or maybe it’s been locked away somewhere and not had a chance to interact with the virus yet?’ said Leon. On the issue of whether they should let it in, he found himself in the odd position of agreeing, reluctantly, with Dave.

  ‘Well, if it isn’t immune, we have to let it in before one of those crabs comes out and stabs it!’ said Grace.

  Freya nodded. ‘Come on. We’ve all seen how quickly the Snark affects things. If it’s been infected, it would be showing signs already.’

  Ron pursed his lips and air whistled between his clenched teeth. ‘To be fair it doesn’t look infected. Just hungry.’

  ‘It could be useful to us, Mr Carnegie,’ said Spanners. ‘As transport . . . or as fresh meat.’

  Grace turned to look at him, utterly disgusted. ‘We are not going to eat it!’

  ‘I’m just being practical.’

  ‘Ron?’ Dave stepped towards him. ‘Seriously? We are not letting it—’

  Ron scratched the back of his neck indecisively. ‘A horse . . . could be very useful.’

  ‘What?’ Dave shook his head. ‘I’m not putting myself at risk just because the girls want a pet pony to ride!’

  ‘What’s the risk?’ Freya answered. Leon realized that this was the first time in weeks that she had even acknowledged Dave existed. ‘We’re immune. That horse is . . . or it isn’t.’

  ‘Well, I’m voting we don’t let it in.’

  ‘Well, I vote we do.’

  He huffed. ‘Now there’s a shocker.’

  ‘Oh God, why don’t you grow a pair?’

  ‘Cut it out, you two!’ snapped Ron irritably. He wandered over and joined Grace by the window. ‘It looks OK to me . . . just very, very hungry.’

  ‘Please?’ begged Grace. ‘If he’s not immune, we should let him in quickly!’

  ‘How do you know it’s a he?’ asked Ron.

  She looked up at him and made a face. ‘Really? Can we?’

  He looked again. ‘Ah yes . . . of course.’

  ‘Ron!’ Dave stepped forward. ‘This should be down to a vote. Not just your decision!’ He tugged at his green top. ‘You’re not my boss any more, mate. Or anyone else’s.’ He turned to look for support and got some nods from Iain and Big Phil and one or two others.

  ‘The only reason you’ve been in charge here so far is because you were the manager—’

  ‘All right.’

  Dave was silenced by that.

  ‘All right,’ Ron said again. ‘You’re quite right, we should probably all vote on this.’ He turned to address the others. ‘Right then, everyone . . . who’s voting that we let the horse in?’

  Grace’s hand shot up. Freya’s too. The cleaning ladies . . . Claire . . . Spanners. Others too. Roughly half of them. Ron dutifully counted the raised hands.

  ‘And who doesn’t want to let it in?’

  The rest of the hands went up, including Leon’s, Dave leading the way. He silently counted them. ‘Interesting . . . it appears we have a dead-even vote.’

  He smiled dryly at Dave. ‘Looks like it’s my deciding vote that counts.’

  He rubbed his neck then looked back down at Grace for a moment. Outside, the horse had ceased its incessant back-and-forth trotting and come to a rest outside the glass doors. It hung its head wearily, like a criminal resigned to its fate and awaiting a judge’s sentencing.

  Ron lifted the keys off a clip on his belt. ‘All right, then. I’ll take him round the back to the service entrance.’ He unlocked the door then tossed the keys across to Terry. ‘Will you let me in?’

  Ron stepped outside and let out a shaky breath.

  You’re going to have to watch out for that young man. He’s trouble.

  Ron had been marginally inclined to shoo the horse away, cruel as that would have been. It was another mouth to feed. But Dave’s challenge needed a response. He’d been preparing himself to go against the vote and make an executive decision, to flex his authority and demonstrate who was in charge here. Luckily he hadn’t needed to.

  He spread his palms as he approached the horse. ‘All right, boy, I’m not going to hurt you.’ He approached the animal slowly. The horse eyeballed him warily, snorting and shuffling restlessly on its hooves.

  ‘You poor, poor boy,’ he cooed softly. ‘Been in the wars, haven’t you?’

  The horse’s flanks were mottled with bald patches of skin, criss-crossed with raised welts from scratches and cuts. The bare skin looked sore and dry.

  There was a term for this . . . mange, wasn’t it?

  The animal had no halter on it, nothing with which to lead it. Ron cautiously held out his hand and felt the hot breath coming from its flared nostrils. He’d never handled a horse before, never even strok
ed one. He wasn’t even sure whether it was the done thing to pat it on the muzzle like a dog.

  Instead he rested a hand on the horse’s neck and gently tugged at it. It complied wearily, snorting and dipping its head in surrender.

  Ron led the way and the animal followed obediently. ‘There’s a good lad.’

  Through the window, he saw them all watching eagerly, Grace beaming at him through the glass. He gave her a wink and then rounded the corner, the horse clopping dutifully beside him.

  ‘Poor boy. You look hungry.’ He looked at the animal’s large brown eyes, ringed with dried mucus. ‘Have you been crying, lad?’

  He didn’t know if horses ‘cried’ as such. Probably not. ‘Well, you’re going to be fine now . . . although, what on earth are we going to feed you, hmm? I’m afraid we don’t have any apples or carrots. This way, boy.’

  He led the animal down the side of the building, finally coming to a halt outside the double doors that led to the main store room. For now, they could keep it in there – it was a little bit like a stable, certainly space enough for a horse.

  He knocked on one of the doors. ‘I’m here, Terry!’

  He looked around for any sign of snarks. Last time he’d been on a foraging trip, admittedly several months ago now, there had only been those crablike things. They didn’t appear to have eyes and seemed to respond sluggishly, probably reacting to scent. He couldn’t see any now.

  He knocked on the door again. ‘Terry?’

  The horse snorted beside him. Like him, it was looking anxiously around.

  ‘It’s OK, boy. None of those nasty little critters nearby.’

  He heard the jangle of keys through the corrugated metal of the shutter door. ‘Come on, Terry! I’d like to come in now, please!’

  ‘Just a sec . . . Just a sec,’ Terry called through the door.

  The horse shifted uneasily. ‘Easy, boy, easy now.’ Ron patted it gently on the back of his neck. The mane felt odd. He’d expected the texture of knotted greasy hair; instead it felt like tyre rubber. He looked more closely. The dark mane appeared to be coarse hair slicked down by grease, but it was a solid mass. He had a fleeting childhood memory of riding a merry-go-round, sitting astride a white plastic horse and feeling vaguely cheated that the animal’s mane was just more painted, moulded plastic.

  He could hear a key being shoved into the padlock on the other side. Ron rested his hand on the mane again and squeezed it. His fingers left dents that slowly vanished like grip marks on memory foam.

  That’s weird.

  He ran his hand across the animal’s flank, where the tan-coloured coat was thickest. The hairs felt a little like wood grain. They didn’t splay like toothbrush fibres – they presented one solid textured surface, like the leathery hide of an elephant.

  The shutter door rattled to one side.

  Very weird.

  He took a step back and looked at the rear of the horse, at its tail. It hung down between the horse’s hindquarters, limp and lifeless.

  ‘Sorry, Mr Carnegie. I couldn’t work out which key it was.’

  Ron wasn’t listening. He ran his hand down the tail. Like the animal’s mane, it felt like a length of ridged, moulded rubber. Not horse hair, but a simulation of it. Just like that merry-go-round horse . . . a solid blob.

  This . . . thing . . . isn’t . . . right.

  The animal clopped slowly forward without being led, stepping into the dim interior of the store room.

  ‘Hey there, horsey,’ said Terry.

  ‘It’s . . . not . . . right,’ said Ron slowly. He looked down at the animal’s hooves, just as its rear disappeared out of the winter sunlight and into the gloom beyond. He was pretty damn certain hooves were meant to be near black, hard and shiny. Instead, what he glimpsed, before they were lost to the sun, were flexing grey-red pads that, for some reason, reminded him of gym-shoe treads.

  Terry was looking at him. ‘You all right?’

  ‘That horse,’ he said again, ‘it’s not right.’

  Terry shrugged. ‘It’s not well.’

  He pulled the shutter door to behind Ron’s back and locked the padlock again. The room went dark, save for a crack of light coming in between the shutters, and a small shard of light coming from the open door leading into the tropicarium. Terry handed back the keys. ‘Here . . .’

  ‘The horse feels wrong,’ said Ron. ‘The hair. It feels like sponge.’

  ‘It’s probably not been – what’s the term? – groomed for months. It’s—’

  ‘Just feel it . . . Go on, stroke it.’

  ‘OK.’

  Ron could only see the faintest silhouette of the horse, standing perfectly still, and Terry’s outline, stepping towards it, reaching out a hand. He heard the soft rasp of a hand running down the animal’s side.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘That’s odd . . . Ew . . . what’s . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Feels sticky. Is that a cut on its side . . . or something?’

  They heard something wet spluck down on the concrete floor beneath the animal’s distended belly.

  ‘Oh great. Did it just crap?’

  Ron fumbled with the jangling keys. There was a little LED torch on the fob somewhere.

  ‘Oh boy, now that really . . . really stinks,’ gasped Terry.

  They heard something else splatter on the concrete. ‘Whoa! I think our friend’s spurting diarrhoea, Ron.’ He could hear Terry puffing air at the stench. ‘Jesus Christ!’

  Ron found the small torch nub on his key fob, and pressed it. The little LED bulb glowed and he aimed it at the horse.

  The animal’s eyes reflected the beam like those of a fox caught in the headlights of a car.

  ‘Oh my God . . . What’s all that stuff beneath it?’

  Ron looked where Terry was pointing. Beneath its four legs, the belly of the creature appeared to have ripped wide open and emptied its contents in a wet glistening pink and purple pile on the ground.

  Ron thought he could make out organs, sausage loops of intestines, pulsating vein-covered sacks that might well have been the horse’s lungs, still flexing rhythmically. The animal snorted a bloody aerosol spray from each nostril then its legs suddenly buckled and it collapsed on to the pile of offal beneath it.

  Terry staggered backwards. ‘Jesus!’

  The horse’s thick neck began to deflate, the hide, fake fur and skin wrinkling as the substance beneath spilled out of the horse’s wide open mouth, pooling into a viscous puddle that spread out across the floor.

  Ron stared at the carcass, watching as it deflated like the time-lapse film of some roadkill deer being eaten from the inside out by maggots.

  ‘It’s the virus . . . we’ve let it in!’

  Ron looked at Terry, his mouth opening and closing dumbly. ‘Terry? We’re all still immune, aren’t we?’ he whispered.

  Terry was staring at the collapsing body, mesmerized. ‘I don’t know! I hope so.’ He looked up. ‘It made a horse, Ron. It made a complete bloody horse!’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘A completely convincing horse!’

  ‘I know!’

  ‘Jesus.’ Terry stepped away from the slowly spreading pool and headed towards the door leading to the tropicarium.

  ‘Where are you—?’

  ‘Diesel,’ replied Terry. ‘I’m going to get a can. We need to incinerate that. All of it.’

  ‘Yes.’ Ron nodded. ‘Go. Hurry!’

  Terry rushed out. He could hear the sound of the others approaching: excited gabbling from Grace and everyone keen to meet their new guest. Ron reached the door and pulled it closed behind him as they all appeared.

  Grace led the way, announcing loudly that she was volunteering herself as chief horse-looker-after-er. The snaking line of the curious followed her lead and made their way along the winding pathway towards the back of the tropicarium, past the sauna shacks and empty spa pools, an excited babble of voices keen to see the animal close up.

&
nbsp; ‘Hey, maybe all horses are immune?’ She grinned at the thought of Horse World – nothing but the nature-covered ruins of mankind and an endless herd of carefree horses frolicking through it.

  Leon spotted Ron, backed up against the closed door of the store room. ‘Is the horse in there?’

  He shook his head and remained there, blocking the doorway.

  Grace look alarmed. ‘You didn’t leave him stuck outside, did—’

  ‘It’s not a horse.’

  She looked confused by that. ‘Of course it’s a horse!’

  Leon noted his ashen face. ‘Mr Carnegie, what’s wrong?’

  ‘We have to burn it.’

  ‘BURN IT?’ Grace almost shrieked. Her head swiped from Ron to Leon and back to Ron again. Several others gasped in horror at the thought.

  ‘Burn it? What? Why?’

  Ron shook his head. ‘It’s not right, Grace . . . It’s not . . . well.’

  ‘Of course it’s not well,’ said Freya. ‘The poor thing’s starving!’

  Dave pushed his way forward to the front. ‘Shit! It’s infected, isn’t it?’

  Ron met his eyes, looked away and then nodded.

  ‘Shit! I said that! I bloody said it might be!’

  ‘It can’t be!’ said Grace. ‘It was running around just now!’

  Leon put a hand on his sister to hush her. ‘Mr Carnegie, we’ve all seen how quickly this thing affects animals . . . It didn’t look like—’

  ‘Leon, the thing in there –’ Ron tipped his head at the door he was leaning against – ‘it isn’t a horse.’

  They heard feet pounding and liquid sloshing, then Terry appeared carrying a five-gallon plastic drum of diesel fuel.

  ‘Oh God . . . no . . . no . . . no! Leon, they’re serious!’ cried Grace.

  ‘Mr Carnegie, what do you mean it’s not a horse?’

  Ron looked at Leon. ‘It’s the virus. It made a copy of one.’

  ‘OK, that’s just insane!’ said Freya. ‘That was a real horse I just saw outside!’

  Terry set the drum down. ‘Freya . . . Ron and me just saw that thing disembowel itself.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It stepped inside . . . then it immediately started to . . .’ He tried to find a term that worked. ‘Un-make itself, to break apart!’