by Rich Hawkins
“It’s okay, boys,” Magnus said. “I won’t hurt you.”
They sniffed at Magnus’s outstretched hands, eventually licking his fingers in the affectionate way dogs would. It tickled. Magnus felt such a swelling of warmth and love for his boys that he almost burst into tears. He looked down at them and smiled.
His boys glanced up at him then darted towards Debbie. Magnus’s eyes stung when he first saw her. Her clothes had been removed. She was a writhing mass of blubber and white skin, her scalp bare apart from a few wisps of hair above the trunk of fat that was her neck. Her wedding ring had vanished into engorged fingers, of which the nails were long and dirty. Lesions, sores and weeping blisters covered her legs.
She was lying on her left side, facing the room, cooing softly as the boys knelt by her side making small yipping noises and patting their excited hands on the floor.
Debbie’s breasts had sagged and drooped until they resembled empty water bladders, like punctured flaps of skin without a use. Her sore nipples bloomed into leaking pustules. Her face was as he remembered it, save for the dried blood and scraps of meat around her mouth and down her chin.
Around her were the scattered remains of four children, their bones stripped clean, yellow-white and discarded. Leftovers. Mixed in with them were more animal bones and tufts of fur.
It was a nest.
Debbie had grown six large udders, which were hanging from her torso, pale and wrinkled above the matted patch of pubic hair. Her teats wept some sort of greasy milk from the bloated tips.
Magnus watched as his boys lowered their heads and started to feed from her udders. They were eager, biting down with their jaws hard enough to make Debbie whimper and moan. She quietened as the boys began to suck. They squirmed and mewled as they fed from their mother, their shrivelled genitals shivering, their tongues lapping at any milk that missed their mouths.
Magnus felt their slowly-fading hunger and Debbie’s maternal satisfaction. He heard her heartbeat, its slow rhythm, and the blood swimming through her veins. He felt the swell and rush of her insides adapting to the plague. But she was still Debbie. She was still his wife. And she still loved him.
“I’m sorry for everything,” Magnus whispered.
This was his family. This was his home.
He couldn’t help smiling.
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
Magnus and Frank returned outside.
“I’m staying here,” said Magnus.
The others stared at him.
“You can’t leave us,” Joel said. “We stay together. There might be a cure. We can get you help.”
“I’m too far gone. You can see that for yourselves. Look at me.” He shuddered as the plague needled his insides.
Joel’s eyes were damp. “You don’t know that, mate. You don’t know that.”
“There’s not enough time, even if there is a cure. I’m changing and very soon I’ll be a danger to you. I’m contagious. I can feel it pulling at me now. I can feel it in my blood and in my brain.”
Joel shook his head, inconsolable and ragged with grief.
“I can smell everything under your skin,” said Magnus. For a second, all he wanted to do was slaughter his friends and the little girl with them. He wanted to open her up and see what she was made of. He had known Frank, Ralph and Joel since childhood, but when he looked into their faces, he felt an urge to kill them and drag their bodies back to the house so his family wouldn’t go hungry.
His skin was damp and glistening, but not with sweat. His body throbbed. His teeth felt too big for his mouth. There was a growing darkness in his chest, spreading outwards, and when it reached his brain, he would finally succumb.
“So this is it, then?” Joel said with anger in his voice. “That’s it? Just like that?”
“Yes.” Magnus winced as his back twinged with hot pain.
“We’ve come all this way, and that’s it. You’re done?”
“Yes, mate.”
“This is madness.”
“It’s Magnus’s choice,” said Frank as Joel glared at him. “His family is in there. It’s too late for a cure.”
Magnus nodded.
“Frank’s right,” said Ralph. “It’s his choice and he doesn’t have long left. If he stayed with us, we’d have to kill him eventually.”
Joel was shaking his head. “No, no, no.”
Magnus smiled ruefully and shrugged. “Then, I guess this is goodbye, lads. I’ll understand if you don’t want to shake hands.”
The others didn’t move. Ralph stared at him. Joel cried silently. Florence offered Magnus a little smile and it comforted him.
“The infected are everywhere,” he said. “The light is fading, my friends. Time is running out.” The thought of never seeing his mates again made his chest ache.
“See you, mate,” said Ralph. “Sorry it had to end like this.”
“It’s okay, mate. Take care of yourself.”
Joel wiped his eyes. “Bye, Magnus. I’ll miss you.”
Frank stepped towards him. “Go and be with your family, mate. Take care of them. Maybe we’ll all cross paths again one day.”
“I hope not,” said Magnus. “It wouldn’t end well for any of us.” He wiped his eyes and tried to not cry as his voice cracked and wavered. “I remember when we were kids and we used to spend our summer holidays playing football and cricket, building tree houses and bases in the woods, pretending we were in the army. I never thought those days would end. I thought they would last forever. Maybe our younger selves are still doing that right now, in another time. I wish we could go back there.”
“Same here,” said Frank. Ralph and Joel nodded. “We won’t forget you, mate.”
“I hope you find your families,” Magnus said. “Frank, I hope you find Catherine. Joel, I hope you find Anya. I hope you all survive.”
The others tried to smile and put on a brave face, but they were already in mourning for him. Joel wept, as did Frank, and Ralph clenched his jaw and wiped tears from his eyes.
Nothing left to say.
He limped back to the house, and by the time he walked inside and joined with his family, the old Magnus Heap was gone and a new one had been born.
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
Joel wrapped his arms over his chest. “What do we do now? Where do we go?”
Ralph swigged vodka. “Fuck knows.”
“We could go back to my house,” said Frank.
“And then what?” Joel asked.
“We figure something out.”
“Anya and Catherine could be dead, Magnus is gone, and you want to figure something out?”
“You have a better suggestion?”
“We have to find help.”
“Find help where?”
“I don’t know. There might be other survivors somewhere. Maybe the army will find us.”
Ralph kicked a stone from the road. “Keep on dreaming, Joel.”
“Shut up, Ralph. You’re drunk.”
Ralph grinned and it wasn’t nice. “Not yet. But I plan to be.”
“This isn’t helping,” said Frank. “We need to decide what to do next.”
Ralph said, “Might as well get drunk while we still can.”
Frank ignored him. He was still reeling from the loss of Magnus. He couldn’t believe he’d never see his friend again. And a great emptiness bloomed inside him when he thought of Catherine. He could not give up hope of finding her alive. If he did that, he might as well sit down on the road and wait for something hungry to find him.
“We’re fucked,” said Joel. “What are we going to do? Are we going to wander around the village all day? What if there’re infected people still around?”
“Calm down,” Frank told him.
“We’re fucked.”
“Stop it.”
“Have a drink, lads,” Ralph said, with a wan smile.
They both ignored him. They were staring down the road. So was Florence.
Ralph laughed to hims
elf. “Don’t want a drink? Fair enough. More for me.”
Florence pointed ahead of them.
People were gathering down the road, emerging from passageways, doorways and gardens, twitching and snarling. Some of them were transformed beyond recognition. Some of them Frank did recognise. Some of them were his neighbours. His friends. People he once passed on the street. People he used to wave at as he drove by in his car on the way to work every morning. Those he used to get drunk with in the pub, enjoying a pint and a laugh and watching the football. He saw Jim Bottomley and his wife Emma, both growling through stained mouths, their clothes torn and dirty. He saw the Field brothers, Pete, Tom and Addy, snarling at one another over a severed arm that Tom was trying to eat. He saw Josh Fade, Luke Oliver, Tom Brister, AJ Carvell, Rich Pippin and Josh Wilkinson. They were deformed and pale, tumours on their shivering bodies. Josh Fade was wearing a white dressing gown tainted with yellow stains; it opened to reveal his pyjamas bulging with wet growths and tendrils. Tom Brister was on all fours, his fingers raking the road. They were staring at Frank and the others with a naked hunger. The last time he had seen Luke Oliver was the Sunday before last, when he’d gone to the local shop to buy a newspaper and had spoken to him outside; now Luke was crouching by a car gnawing on his own fingers. He saw Rosie Milton, a young girl who lived four doors down from his house. She was shaking violently, her eyes drilling into his face. Her neck had extended, swelling with fluids and gases, and scythe-like appendages twitched and jabbed from her torso.
Some of the infected were naked and covered in blood.
Frank wondered with a wave of hot panic if Catherine was amongst the infected. If she was, he would kill her. He would kill her quickly.
They gathered as a pack, bruised limbs and torn skin. The Field brothers discarded the severed arm and regarded Frank’s group. Gibbering mouths opened to reveal black tongues and chattering teeth. Twitching hands grasped the air. Palsied arms folded into themselves. The sound of growling grew louder within them, until it was all that could be heard.
There were other faces he recognised, but it was too painful to remember them as they had once been. They were monsters, now.
“Oh shit,” said Joel, backing away.
Ralph stopped drinking.
Florence grabbed Frank’s hand.
The pack of infected broke into a run, and before Frank could turn and flee, they had already halved the distance between them.
Ralph threw the vodka bottle at the pack, and it hit one of the infected, knocking her down. He turned and ran.
We’re not going to make it, Frank thought as they ran past Magnus’s house. He glanced back to see the infected within ten yards. Ralph was already flagging, breathing hard, while Joel whimpered as he ran.
One of the infected reached for Ralph. Something wet and black emerged from its mouth as it snagged the back of Ralph’s jacket with one stained hand.
Ralph cried out.
The back of the infected’s head exploded.
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
Another infected went down. A bullet whirred past Frank’s head, into the chasing pack. He turned to see two men standing on the road, five yards back, one with a rifle and the other with a shotgun.
The man with the rifle shouted, “Get down!”
Frank dragged Florence down with him. Ralph and Joel landed on their stomachs upon the road.
The two men opened fire. Frank hugged Florence, burying her face in his chest. The world around him became an explosion. Florence screamed.
Then there was silence. Frank raised his head. The smell of blood and smoke hung in the air.
The two men reloaded their weapons. Corpses of infected littered the road, many of them still twitching. Arms and legs lay at broken angles, twisted and smashed, ripped from bodies. Pulped remains. One of them, a woman with most of her face obliterated by buckshot, reached out to Frank as he rose. He stepped away from her. She opened her mouth and a dark green fluid slipped onto her chin, and she slumped upon the road. Her bleeding wounds lessened their flow as her heart finally stopped, but her eyes remained fixed on Frank.
Ralph and Joel got to their feet and looked at the bodies on the road.
The men with the guns raised their gas masks.
The man with the rifle was old and limping, the lower half of his face covered with a grey beard. The other man was younger and red-bearded, tall and broad-shouldered.
They stopped five yards from Frank, reloading their weapons, eyeing him with caution.
The old man grinned. “Frank Hooper. I thought you were dead.”
Frank nodded. “I thought the same about you, Roland.”
*
They walked to the edge of the village, where the houses gave way to fields. The distant cries of infected drifted through the air. The day was darkening, becoming colder. Frank sagged with exhaustion, hunger creasing his stomach.
Roland Pratt was friends with Frank’s parents. “Here we are. Mary should be waiting for us. We don’t want to be outside when it gets dark.”
The other man was Roland’s nephew, Henry.
Roland knocked on the front door and waited. The lock clicked and the door opened. Mary Pratt greeted them with a nervous smile. She was a short, plump woman wearing a long dress and a white apron. Her grey hair had been tied into a bun. Roland gave her a quick hug and entered the house. Frank and the others followed him. Henry locked the door, threw the bolt.
They stood in a hallway. The only light was from candles flickering by the walls. The house smelled of old shoes and sweat. Frank had visited the house once, when he was a teenager.
“I thought I heard gunshots,” Mary said. “I was worried.”
Roland kissed her on the cheek. “No need to worry, dear. We encountered some of the corrupted ones. We made short work of them.”
She smiled. “Good. That’s good.”
“Mary, you remember Frank Hooper, don’t you? John and Lucy’s son.”
“Yes, I do. I hope John and Lucy are safe in France. And Ralph Barrow and Joel Gosling. I remember all of you lads!” She looked at Florence. “And who’s this pretty thing?”
Florence eyed her warily.
“Ah, shy, is she? Never mind. All little girls are shy.”
“Hello, Mary,” Frank said.
Ralph and Joel greeted her, too, offering polite smiles and nods.
Roland said, “We found them near Piece Lane, being chased by the demons. A whole pack of the bastards.”
“Roland and Henry saved us,” said Frank. “We were very lucky.”
“Don’t mention it,” said Roland.
“You’re all safe now,” Mary told them. “Safe and sound.” She held her hands together and smiled. “Now, who wants tea and cake?”
*
They feasted on Victoria sponge, buttered scones, and tea weakened with powdered milk. Frank stifled a burp and relaxed into the armchair. He was drowsy from the rich food, and ready to burst due to his stomach shrinking in the last few days.
Florence sat next to Frank on the floor, eating her third scone. Crumbs stuck to the edges of her mouth. Ralph and Joel slumped on the sofa. Joel rubbed his stomach with one hand, holding a mug of tea with the other. Ralph was devouring a fourth slice of cake.
It was a brief, glorious respite. Frank savoured it.
Candlelight painted the living room. The curtains were closed over the wooden planks nailed over the windows. Roland and Mary sat on the other side of the room, sipping from their own mugs of tea. Henry was leaning against the doorway, still holding his shotgun, staring at the floor.
Before Mary had served the food and drink, Frank had recounted their journey to their hosts, finishing with the loss of Magnus. Mary, Roland, and Henry had listened in silence.
“Do you know what happened to my wife?” Frank asked.
“And Anya, my fiancée,” said Joel. “She’s missing.”
Roland looked at Mary, then at the floor. A shadow passed over his face. �
��They’re gone. They’re all gone.”
“Gone where?” asked Joel.
“Gone away,” replied Mary. “All gone away.”
“They were evacuated,” Roland said.
“Evacuated?”
Mary said, “People turned into monsters. The demons roamed the streets, made it their playground. We stayed here while people died. After two days we went outside. Many of the demons were gone, and there were other survivors. Catherine and Anya were among them.”
Frank wanted to smile but couldn’t. Not yet. Not until he knew she was safe.
“Then the army arrived,” said Roland. “They took most of the survivors away.”
“Where did they take them?” asked Joel.
“There’s a camp on the coast, they said. Near Sidmouth. Apparently they’re evacuating people from Britain.”
“Why didn’t you go?” Frank said.
Mary held Roland’s hand. “We wanted to stay here, so we hid from the soldiers. This is our home. We’ll never leave.”
“We’re safe here,” said Roland. “We’ve got enough supplies for a long time. We don’t need electricity as we’ve got the stove to cook with. We’ve always been self-sufficient, and we’re safer here than in some filthy camp. Also we’ve got guns. I’d rather we die in our home with our own ground under our feet.”
“I can empathise with that,” said Ralph.
Frank and Joel exchanged a look. Joel’s eyes were wide, wet and glassy. But the relief was evident on his face and the stiffness had drained from his body. Frank felt like collapsing into a fit of hysterical laughter. He wanted to hug and squeeze Florence and tell her that she would see her adoptive mother very soon, and they would be a family together. And then things would get better. He wanted to believe that.
“It’s the Devil,” said Roland.
Frank looked at the old man.
Mary nodded, pursing her mouth.
