dEaDINBURGH: Origins (Din Eidyn Corpus Book 3)

by Wilson, Mark

  His face undergoes a startling transformation, rebuilding itself from melted shock into steely determination.

  “No. They’re still there. Still alive,” he says, matter of fact.

  “Spike, the messages were pretty unambiguous,” I say.

  He shrugs.

  “You’ll see when we get there, Cameron. My family are still alive.”

  His facial expression is determined, calm. He’s slipped into analytical-solider mode. But more, that part of him I rarely see, the authoritative Royal, the assured confidence that he knows something I don’t, has slipped into place. It’s not really him, this arrogance, but his upbringing gets the better of him at times. Whether he goes alone or with his friends, Captain Wales will make his way to the palace.

  I sigh and glance over at James who gives me a curt nod, confirming that he’s seen the change too and he’s in the same mindset as I am.

  “Okay, Spike,” I say. “Let’s move out.”

  As I say the words, the power goes out. Some people are poking at their smartphones, complaining that all signal has vanished. Somehow the loss of this basic, meaningless resource has frightened them more than anything else so far.

  We leave the main hall and the people behind and begin to gather our equipment.

  As I’m packing my things together, the kid, Jenny, approaches me and sticks out a blood-encrusted hand.

  “Thank you for what you did for us,” she says.

  I take her hand and shake it firmly.

  “You’re welcome… Jenny, isn’t it?”

  She nods.

  “Jennifer Kinsella,” she says.

  I find that for the moment I can’t take my eyes from hers. She’s a pretty girl, clever, and so courageous, but it isn’t that. It’s the way she’s looking at me. Like I’m abandoning them. Which I am.

  “Jenny, I have a duty to get that man,” I nod over at Spike, “him there, to safety.”

  She nods, but obviously resents that Spike’s needs are being placed before those of the survivors inside the Kirk.

  “His family is there, Jenny. He’ll go with or without us. My duty is to keep him alive. It’s really that simple.”

  She finally blinks, breaking the stare and nods once more, looking a little resigned but less betrayed.

  “It’ll take the soldiers a few days to get through what’s happening out there. Quarantine will be their first priority, and after that they’ll begin planning rescues. You won’t be here long, Jenny, a few weeks at worst.”

  Her bottom lip wobbles. “I… we’re not like you guys. We haven’t been trained. All we can do is hide in here and hope for someone to come for us.” Her face hardens. “I don’t like being… vulnerable.”

  I laugh, despite the tenseness of the moment.

  “You’re anything but vulnerable, kid. You fought like a pro out there and took control of your own fear as well as of those around you. Listen to the padre. Follow his lead and learn from him until you’re rescued. You’re all heart, Jenny. Stay strong and you’ll be fine.”

  I lift my equipment, signalling my intention to leave.

  “Don’t forget us,” she whispers.

  I reach out and lay a hand on her right cheek. She looks uncomfortable but doesn’t protest.

  “I promise that we’ll see each other again, Jennifer Kinsella.”

  Slipping through the graveyard at the rear of the Kirk, we approach Dunbar’s Close and spend a few moments crouched in the darkness of its walls. The Royal Mile is a straight shot downhill to the Palace, but with its narrow roads and pavements, sloping surface and flanked by tightly-packed buildings, it has become a flume for the infected. Thousands of them, moving like a disjointed wave, flow along the thoroughfare. We peer out from the shadows, searching the passing faces, looking for signs of anything other than rabid hunger and death.

  We see none. Each passing face bears the predator’s snarl.

  Looking out and along The Royal Mile, our hearts sink as we begin to accept that the city is infested. My face stays set in its grim mask of purpose, mirroring Spike’s. James’ face is somewhere close to horror.

  The Royal Mile, our preferred route, is no longer an option. Spike spits out a curse, attracting a few of the infected. Snapping their heads round to face us, two men and three women sprint at the entrance to the Close.

  Having dispatched a small number of the infected in the back alleys and graveyard since leaving the Kirk, we’ve learned that stealth is our best option. They can hear well, their sight is good, but not sharper than that of living humans, and they’ve proven to have a good sense of smell. We’ve been moving through the back yards as though we’re hunters, when in reality we’re hunted, but the principles of evasion remain the same. Move lightly, stay downwind. Don’t betray your position unless you wish to.

  Taking the creatures head on isn’t tactically difficult. They’re badly co-ordinated and too single-focused to evade our blows, but they’re also tireless and seemingly have infinite numbers.

  Evade and avoid is our best tactic. Spike slips back through the Close whilst James and I work together to dispatch the nearest of our attackers. Back-pedalling, we crash through the gates at the rear of the Close as Spike clangs it closed behind us. Smoothly, he slips the bolt into place and fastens a cable-tie around the gate and its moorings as the group of infected smash themselves into the iron barrier.

  In moments, the narrow Close is filled with the infected. The sounds of bones popping begins almost immediately as the infected, desperate to satiate their endless, ancient hunger, make pulp of each other against the stone and iron.

  We don’t waste any time watching or waiting for the fresh wave of infected that the clamour will attract, and take off at a half-run around the rear of the row of buildings.

  The same density, the closeness of the buildings out on front of The Mile, keeps any infected from reaching the rear of the buildings, except through alleys like Dunbar’s Close. So long as we move quietly, there should be few of the infected on our replanned route through the gardens and graves between The Royal Mile and Calton Road.

  With only a few infected to dispatch en route, we reach the last building and break our way quietly inside. The building, a gift shop closed for the holidays, is mercifully free of the infected. Crouched down low, we peer out onto the roundabout outside.

  The higgledy-piggledy jigsaw shapes of the Scottish Parliament reflect the early morning redness of the winter sun, bouncing it back off the frosty paths and roads. The glare makes me cover my eyes with a salute-shaped hand. Some of the infected lose their footing and slip around on the icy surfaces, crashing hard to the stone. None show any signs of distress or pain. They simply pick themselves up and begin shambling once again.

  I scan along to the Queen’s Gallery and to the open gates of Holyrood Palace. The Lt Colonel hadn’t exaggerated the state of the grounds. Perhaps five hundred snarling infected tear around the grounds of the Palace, half that many stagger and pace the streets outside. Gore and blood and body parts lay scattered like gruesome leftovers everywhere.

  The landscape slopes down to our left, meaning we’d scored a lick of luck as the downward momentum had led most of the infected along Abbeyhill, away from the Palace entrance. That still leaves a battalion in the Palace grounds, but we know the grounds and are faster than the infected.

  Before leaving the Kirk, Padre Stevenson had asked us again and again if we were sure that this was the right thing to do. His family joined him, as did some of the volunteer team who’d helped us clear the grounds of the Kirk, in trying to convince us to stay and sit out the early hours or days of whatever was happening. “Give the troops time,” the Padre had pleaded. We’d thanked him, and promised to return if the road ahead proved too dangerous.

  This is what I wanted to do right now as I stared out onto the cobbled approach to the Palace. I almost said as much to Spike, but one look at his steely expression told me I’d be wasting my breath.

  Less th
an fifty minutes later, we’ve evaded, sped, dodged and fought our way into and through the Palace, via the east servant’s entrance and have made our way to Mary Queen of Scots’ Chambers, the last remaining fortified room we haven’t already searched. Our guns spent, James carries his knife and a heavy wooden baseball bat he’s scooped up along the way. I have a large knife and a table leg. Spike has found a nice set of golf clubs and has taken a nine-iron which he’s silenced at least ten of the infected with.

  The Palace interior, scattered with only a few dozen infected, proves both welcoming and horrific with its heavy-doored rooms and the number of bodies and body parts scattered along its corridors and ostentatious rooms. Wealth and status, it seems, have proven no barrier to the infection or the monsters it has created.

  We gather at the heavily-decorated, closed doors to the chambers. Each of us whispers a prayer that we might find some people safe inside. I press my ear up against the wood and strain to pick out any sounds from within We’ve been through this process many times already since entering the Palace, securing the building as we move.

  Sometimes the sounds from within have warned of the infected, sometimes silence has emanated. Always we have found death and violence lying on the other side of the closed door. This is our final room; our last opportunity to find someone, anyone, alive.

  I use a hand signal to indicate that the room is silent and we take formation. Spike throws a heavy-booted sole at the door and crouches low, knives raised as it crashes open. James and I dart through and immediately assess the room.

  As one we turn back to Spike and rush him. Grabbing our friend, an arm each, we do our best to block his eye-line and prevent him entering the room. The long, guttural scream-cum-roar that rattles its way through his vocal chords and around his ancestor’s bed chambers tells us we’ve failed. We let him fall to his knees and re-enter the room.

  The only infected in the room still moving fixes his glassy eyes on us but does not rise to his feet. Instead, stooped over like a jungle cat, he tears another chunk of flesh from his wife’s ribcage and swallows it whole. His eyes watch us. They promise violence and are filled with feral hunger, but their owner stays with his meal.

  Spike’s cries make the creature’s eyes slip towards him. On some primitive level, he’s reassessing. The meat he has is still warm, otherwise he’d be on us in an instant. He continues to watch us and to rip more meat from the body of his love.

  I slide my gaze around the room. Blood and death fill the chamber. A middle-aged man whose face and throat are no longer in place is beginning to reanimate. His legs are in shreds; strips of meat dangle from bone where strong quadriceps once moved the machinery of his limbs. He can’t stand or crawl. I look to Harry for permission. He nods once and continues to stare at the feral beast who’s feasting on his sister-in-law as I clunk my blade into the head of the creature who used to be Spike’s father.

  A little arm protrudes from behind a fallen shelf. A toddler’s arm. Mercifully, it does not move. I silently thank no-one in particular, selfishly grateful that the rest of the infant’s body is out of sight.

  The feeding infected senses something in its meal has changed and spits out a chunk of meat. The eyes fix more intently on Spike. The creature, who only looks like a man, launches itself at Spike whose face is a mask of grief and bottomless pain. Mechanically, on pure instinct, Spike stands, pivots at the perfect moment and forcefully clumps his nine-iron through his brother’s brain.

  He reaches out to catch the lifeless body and they collapse together, limbs tangled, Spike holding the remains of his best friend and brother. His face is as blank as his dead brother’s. He looks… gone. Perhaps that’s for the best.

  After many long minutes, James and I usher an almost catatonic Harry out of the room. We take time we don’t have to move the bodies of his family to the ancient fireplace and give them a respectful cremation.

  Spike doesn’t watch. He simply stares into the distance, his mind somewhere else. Somewhere these blasphemies aren’t happening, perhaps.

  Eventually we move him and secure a room in the servants’ quarters. We receive word through our dying military phones the next morning that the city is being sealed. We have one chance: to proceed to an extraction point in the Palace gardens.

  Spike, still someplace else, does not resist as we walk him to the chopper. As I place my foot onto the landing skid, he springs out and uses all of his strength to pull away. The grounds aren’t secure. A troop of infected, attracted by the helicopter’s noises, have begun to sprint in our direction. I aim a blow at Spike, intending to knock him out and bundle him onto the chopper. He slips past it easily and runs back to the servants’ quarters. James and I abandon the chopper and catch up. We yell and beg and threaten and plead, but he’s slipped back, immobile and unresponsive, into oblivion once again.

  “Spike… Harry, please. We have to go,” I yell in his face. “Harry!”

  He starts to laugh the most humourless laugh ever set loose into the world.

  “Harry’s gone. Harry’s gone,” he says. He repeats the phrase, laughing manically as the chopper drifts back into the air and disappears, its whoop, whoop pulling the infected along after it.

  “Harry’s gone. Harry’s gone. Harry’s gone. Harry’s gone.”

  Padre Jock’s

  Journal

  Part One

  Chapter 1

  Jock

  Hogmanay

  2015

  I’m not a good man, Joseph. You should know this. Oh, I’m not a terribly bad man, not by this city’s standards at any rate, but good? No. I used to be. At least, I thought that I was at certain moments.

  The weeks I’ve spent looking back at the pages in this battered old journal, adding to the stories, reliving them. The act of raking those old coals has sparked the living flames of many a painful memory. Thoughts and deeds I’d forgotten or perhaps buried somewhere deep in my subconscious. Things I did… people I loved that I haven’t thought of in decades.

  I’ve written everything I can remember. Thirty-five years of bad times, hard times, horror and precious little joy. It’s all I have to give you. Learn from my past. Learn to survive: you must survive this place. It needs souls like yours. Free, driven, joyful beyond circumstance. You have to be a good man, Joseph. Men like you can make this place more than just an ordeal to be endured. A life rather than an existence. Men like you can be better than men like me. If only you can learn from an old man’s failings.

  The Brotherhood is the best place for you right now. I know that you can see the cracks, the futility of their dogma and their devotion to the dead. You will not be here forever. Perhaps one day I may summon the courage to do more than watch over you... to speak to you instead of scowling. To guide rather than manipulate. Perhaps.

  I’m not mentor material, Joseph, and certainly not a father anyone deserves. This place, Mary King’s Close, and The Brotherhood who have claimed its crypts will keep you safe for now, but I know that you need more. Whether you leave with me or alone, you’ll leave. That’s a certainty. You won’t be ten years old forever. You won’t accept the limitations of this community for much longer. It’s a hard reality to accept, this place, even for me, but The Brothers have got you this far. Another few years of their pious ways won’t take too much of a toll. I won’t allow it to.

  I almost knocked Father Grayson on his arse today. I’d returned from cleaning up some twenty-odd Ringed from the fence-line along at North Bridge. That’s what I do here. Nobody need know that the Children must be kept from The Brothers. That we’re not immune to their eternal hunger for flesh. That’s what I do. The price of them caring for you.

  I was exhausted and in no mood for any of Grayson’s usual closed-minded decrees. Unfortunately I had to seek permission for something. Good God, having to ask anyone’s permission grates at me but doing so of this… man, Jeezus help me.

  He argued with me for an hour but finally caved in when I asked him, ‘Who’ll
guard your borders when I’m too old, or dead?’ Father Grayson scowled at me like never before, but eventually promised that you wouldn’t be put forward for Communion, not ever. He agreed that I could train you in a few years, if you’ll have me. More importantly, you would be allowed to keep the bow I’d acquired for you and the freedom to train with it.

  I never wanted this for you, Joseph, living in these dungeons, worshipping the dead. You’re too clever. You have too much spirit for a life in The Brotherhood. Sometimes I pass you in the corridor and you look just like one of them with your head down and face passive. It makes me sorry that I brought you here. It makes me wish that I was a better man. A man who could be a father to you. I learned from my own kids that that’s not who I am. It’s better that you’re brought up here.

  Other times I watch you from a distance when you think no one is around, up on the surface. I like that you show this small defiance to them. I promise we’ll leave this place one day, but only when you’re ready: only when you won’t die outside these fences. For now, the bow is yours and I’ve ensured that nobody will take it from you.

  When we… or you do leave, this journal will be yours to learn what you can or wish from it. Will it be a reminder of a man you despise? A useful guide to the city, or the ramblings of a bitter old fool? I can’t know. Whatever it is to you, Joseph, know this: you are the reason I chose to endure this last decade. Your survival and happiness is the only thing I can give this half-life of mine. It’s no altruistic sacrifice I make, watching over you. My care is simply a debt, a promise I made to your mother. A minute part of me hopes that in you I may find a sliver of forgiveness for myself, or redemption for my past failings.

  Irrespective of what my fate holds, I promise you this, Joseph. I won’t let you down.