by Wilson, Mark
As she passed the window a man rushed past outside, blood flowing freely from a cut on his arm. Alcohol made her doubt what she’d seen, but Jenny peered out into The Royal Mile anyway, trying to catch where the bleeding man had gone.
Three more people ran screaming past the window. Something made her neck prickle. This wasn’t just folk letting off steam. A second later a cacophony of screams reached the ears of everyone in the pub. Jenny’s eyes snapped to her sister, who had already dropped the drinks she’d been carrying and was pushing her way across the pub to Jenny.
Grabbing her sister’s arms roughly, Jenny pushed past a group of students near the entrance, emerging out onto The Royal Mile as they cursed at her from behind. As they shot out onto The Mile, Fiona was poleaxed by a middle-aged man who’d run straight at and through her from up the hill.
“Ya fuckin wanker!” Jenny yelled after him, but he was disappearing into the night, unaware or uncaring.
Yanking her sister back up onto her feet, Jenny stole a glance up the long, slow gradient towards St Giles’ Cathedral. People were screaming, fighting, running and generally panicking. Most were headed down The Royal Mile towards and past the sisters. Large groups fought each other up by the Cathedral.
“What the hell’s going on?” Fiona said, voice a whisper as she watched the violence begin to move their way.
“Let’s get back to our room,” Jenny said.
As they began to run along the street, downhill away from the epicentre of whatever was going on, a Ford Focus screeched along towards them, mounting the pavement with one of its wheels to avoid a fallen man in the road. The car bulleted straight towards them. The driver’s eyes were wide in horror as he came within a hair of killing the sisters.
Fiona pulled Jenny up, both sisters rising to resume their sprint towards their hostel.
“Could’ve sworn that was a priest driving,” Jenny puffed as they ran.
“Fucking worst priest ever if it was,” Fiona replied.
Chapter 5
Jock
The doors groaned and centuries-old stagnant air puffed out into the night. The politician stood, back to the doors, accepting the applause, arms raised. From the crypts emerged a man. Moving slowly he came up behind the politician and wrapped his arm around the man’s pudgy chest.
Naked, partially decomposed, covered in a layer of grime and decay, the man moaned at the sight of living flesh. We thought that his appearance was some pre-planned gimmick, tasteless perhaps, but harmless. These kinds of actors worked historical tours all over Edinburgh in those days, ghost tours and suchlike.
The ancient-looking man tore the neck from the politician with his teeth. The arterial spray drenched those closest to them, some of whom had begun to clap, despite confused looks.
The instant the smell of blood and the condensed heat from it hit the air, I moved. I already had Tricia and Marty in my arms, and pulled them over to their mother, who stood blankly looking at the gory show.
“For God’s sake, Dad,” Tricia yelled at me.
I jabbed a finger at her. “Just shut your fucking mouth, Patricia, and do what you’re told for once.”
She was shocked enough by my anger and language to glance over once again at the murdered politician. Her eyes widened as the only explanation for her father’s outburst came to her.
Marty’s sleeve in my right hand, I grabbed hers with the other and yanked her around.
An inch from her face I hissed quietly, “Do exactly as I tell you.” Whipping round to eyeball Marty, I said, “Got that?”
Both nodded like infants caught with their hands in the cookie jar.
“Yes, Dad,” Tricia said.
“Good,” I barked, “Get moving. Don’t look back until I catch up to you.”
I shoved at the pair of them, sending them a few paces downhill ahead of me. I shot a hand out and grabbed at Isabelle, who slipped from my grasp to look into the blood-soaked doorway of Mary King’s Close.
Another twenty or so dusty, hungry creatures were spilling from the crypts. The politician was back on his feet but his face, his eyes, were feral. His lips pulled back to expose teeth that, moments later, ripped the femoral artery from his wife’s leg. They were so very quick in those days, Joseph, and we simply weren’t prepared.
Isabelle pulled away from me again, caught in the moment. It happens. I was losing sight of the kids’ backs as they did as I’d told them and ran downhill. Grabbing at Isabelle very roughly, I put her over my shoulder as she screamed at me to leave her alone. One arm wrapped around her legs, the other out for balance, I sprinted towards my children.
I caught them just at the junction with North Bridge. Thankfully Tricia had seen me nearing them and had pulled Marty into a doorway. With Isabelle struggling on my shoulder, I checked the kids over without a word exchanged. They were wide-eyed with panic and confusion, but were following instructions and using their heads. Pride I didn’t deserve to feel for their composure flashed for a moment. Screams and the wet, tearing sounds of sickening violence rattled along The Mile towards us, snapping me back into the moment. One arm across the doorway, I pulled my body near to the wall as a group of tourists ran past. I risked a look back up The Mile.
A group of wild-looking people were sprinting erratically along the streets, pulling people to the ground, tearing at flesh, the scent of yet more nearby driving them into a frenzy. I went into automatic pilot. A dozen strategies, possibilities, flared in my mind. Shelter.
I’d visited a nearby church earlier that day. With its heavy stone walls, few entry points guarded by heavy oak doors and fenced and walled perimeter, reaching Canongate Kirk became our goal.
I placed Isabelle back onto her feet and into the arms of Tricia, who took her mother’s face in both hands and began whispering platitudes. I stepped out to the kerb, wrapping my coat around my arm as I went. Smashing the driver’s window of a little Ford hatchback, I unlocked the doors and yelled for the family to get in. The kids marched Isabelle to the car and into the backseat. Wedged between them, she continued shouting curses at me from the rear seat. My hands were shaking and slick with sweat as I flicked my eyes between the mirror and the wires I held.
The car shuddered as a woman’s back slammed into the rear window, forced there by a crazed assailant who began tearing at her face with his hands and teeth. Blood spattered along the side of the car, painting it with the promise of more violence to come. All too aware of my broken window, I tried again and thanked Jesus as the diesel engine growled into life.
Skidding away, tyres slick on the cobbled section of the road, I eked every horse of power out of the shitty little engine, dodging people in the road as I tore through the night. I almost killed several pedestrians, but finally got around and ahead of the growing crowd of people running from the violence. Isabelle had begun kicking at the back of my seat, screaming for me to stop.
I obliged.
Screeching onto the pavement outside the Kirk, I cursed the child locks holding my family in the backseat, opened the doors and pulled each of them from the vehicle.
“Round the rear of the building,” I instructed. I didn’t give Isabelle the chance to argue. Hefting her back up onto my shoulder, I followed the kids to the rear of the building, thankful to find the minister’s entrance still unlocked.
We crashed through the door and secured it behind us. I placed Isabelle back onto her feet and left her standing. Racing through the small hall, I reached the main doors, which were locked from the inside. The Kirk’s minister came rushing from a recess.
“Padre Stevenson? What on earth…?”
“Help me open this door, Jason,” I told him. He made to protest, noticed the grimness of my face, then took the weight of one end of an oak barricade that lay horizontal across the joining of the twin doors. We lifted it aside and began sliding the door’s bolts loose.
“What are you doing, Jock?” Isabelle screamed as she stomped along the church aisle towards me. She looked all t
he way sober and all the way pissed-off.
I felt calm, in control. The heat and the shock of the events at Mary King’s had cooled and I was in a purely pragmatic, military state of mind, thinking clearly and planning.
“Isabelle,” I said calmly, “there are people outside who’ll need shelter. It’s my duty.”
I winced at the word.
“Your duty is to your family, Jock. Now’s not the time for your bloody heroics.”
It was a conversation we’d had many times.
Duty, heroics, assignments, orders.
These words were incendiary in our home.
I ignored her and pushed the heavy red doors out into the courtyard.
Taking position at the gates, I stepped out onto the street. People were beginning to reach the Canongate, fleeing from the growing horde of killers hunting them from the upper Mile.
I began waving passing people in, watching some of the infected further up the hill bring down a group of students. Glad for the first time to be out of uniform and in the black clothes of a minister, I thanked God again for the luck. People saw the dog-collar and trusted it. Dozens ran past me into the safety of the Kirk.
Eventually the madness caught up to us. Hundreds of wild-looking people tore along the road after those fleeing. Predatory eyes glinted in agonising hunger. Hundreds died. The street began to stink of coppery death and battlefield gore. I pulled a final few people into the courtyard and was about to close the courtyard gates when I heard a baby’s piercing cry rise above the feeding sounds.
Three soldiers circled a wounded young woman who handed the baby to one of them. Assessing their distance and the number of infected people coming at them, I turned my back and ran towards the Kirk, pulling the doors behind me as I crossed the threshold. I caught sight of my children and cursed loudly before shoving the doors open once more. I’d wanted to close the gates, but more, I needed to help those soldiers with the infant. Isabelle screamed at me again, another accusation.
The doors ground open one more time and I waved the three soldiers into the Kirk. Immediately they began securing the building. Their mere presence, the efficiency and professionalism of their movement, their actions, began to quickly reassure the people gathered. The relief I felt was indescribable, Joseph. God, we needed their help.
Chapter 6
Tricia
“What’s on your mind, blondie?” Tricia asked her brother.
Martin flicked at the screen of his smart phone, slicing virtual fruit. He grunted a non-committal reply. The phones hadn’t been good for much since they’d lost all trace of a signal just before the soldiers left in the early hours. Despite what had taken place since midnight – the frenzied attacks, what seemed like an infection roaring through the city, the indescribable extremity of the violence they’d run from – this simple loss of a phone signal and electrical power had sent a wave of panic rippling through the survivors inside the church with as great an intensity as any that had come previously. It seemed an umbilical cord had been severed and the absence of information… of answers from anywhere was terrifying.
Tricia stood and ruffled her brother’s hair. “Love you, Marty.”
Martin paused the game. His eyes flitted up to meet his sister’s. Neither of them had ever been embarrassed about expressing their feeling for each other. It was part of who they were. In many ways, the spoken acknowledgment was a mark of how close they’d become in the shadows of their mother’s alcoholism and their father’s absence. As such, I love you had many connotations for them. I understand how you feel. I need to talk. I’m so glad to have you…
Marty gave her his full attention.
“Love you too, Tricia.” He smiled broadly at her, eyes searching for any emotional need in his sister’s. Deciding that she was fine, he flicked his game back on, unaware that she was leaving.
Tricia wandered across the Kirk, stealing discreet glances at those assembled. Men and women of all ages and from many backgrounds filled the hall. Most lay across pews or on the carpeted floor of the balcony above, trying to catch some sleep, perhaps hoping that they’d awake to find a rescue team, or that last night’s events had been a lucid nightmare.
Glancing up at the balcony, she noted that many of the group, perhaps thirty people, were awake and seated, Buddha-style, on the carpet at the feet of a man in his mid-forties. The man spoke quietly, moving from person to person, laying his hand on one crown after another, offering reassurances he couldn’t in good conscience give, Tricia supposed.
Tricia recognised him as the minister of the Canongate Kirk whom her father had introduced the family to whilst visiting earlier in the day. She’d sensed that Jock hadn’t liked the man much. That wasn’t unusual for her dad. Despite his occupation, he was more marine than minister and had very few real friends in the clergy, preferring to socialise, work and fight with his brothers in the service. Jock’s gruffness with this particular minister, Jason Grayson – she remembered laughing at the name – seemed more personal though.
Cocking her ear to tune into Grayson’s quiet voice, she caught only snippets before moving away.
God’s plan… the meek have risen…
Moving off to the rear of the chamber, Tricia noticed a young woman watching her from a pew near the altar. She recognised the dark-haired woman as one of the people who had gone outside with Jock and the other soldiers to clear the courtyard and secure the gates.
Tricia hadn’t had the chance to speak to Jock since, other than a quick check-in as he’d been tireless since Mary King’s Close. Getting the family and so many others into the Kirk. The mission outside to clear and secure the courtyard. He was somewhere in the building cataloguing supplies and poring over maps of the local area, picking out likely residences, shops, restaurants and storage facilities to which supply runs might be undertaken.
For the first time since she’d been a kid, Tricia was glad of her father’s profession and, perhaps, more than a little in awe of his skills.
The dark-haired woman nodded over to her, signalling for her to approach. Tricia took a moment to take in her face. She was a pretty, twenty-something, very smart-looking but unremarkable except for her actions outside earlier that morning.
Moving closer to her, she took the woman’s hand, offered when she was a few steps away.
“Just wanted to say hi,” she smiled. “My name’s Jenny. We’re all so grateful for what your dad is doing for us here.”
Tricia almost made a disparaging remark, out of habit, but caught herself. She didn’t want to appear childish in front of Jenny. Despite her admiration of Jock, Jenny seemed unaware of how big an impression her own bravery had had on the group inside the Kirk.
Tricia gave her a genuine smile. “Thank you, Jenny. You didn’t do so badly yourself.”
Jenny gave a brief nod in thanks.
“Tricia. Tricia Stevenson.”
Jenny winked at her. “Well thanks, Tricia Stevenson. I’m Jenny Kinsella,” she said, affecting a formal tone. “I’m not exactly in my comfort zone, but I’ve been discovering a whole new side to myself recently.” Jenny laughed at her own comment, and Tricia joined in simply because it seemed the polite thing to do.
“Well, tell your dad thanks, will you?”
A flash of movement behind Jenny caught Tricia’s eye. Her dad had entered the room and was instructing a group of students in the placing of boxes of water and dried food that they’d brought through from the Kirk’s food bank store.
Tricia nodded over Jenny’s shoulder. “Go thank him yourself. He could do with a few moments’ rest and some kind words.” Tricia felt her own face flush hot as she acknowledged that her own behaviour recently had given Jock more reason than normal to need a mental boost.
“You’re right,” Jenny said, “I should. Catch you later?”
Tricia smiled and watched Jenny Kinsella chat with her dad.
After a few minutes Jenny disappeared down the steps to the basement, having volunteered to hel
p Jock in organising the group’s resources.
Tricia sighed, rolled her eyes at her own petulance, and walked over to Jock. Slipping her arms around his waist, she pressed her right cheek close to his firm chest. As she did so, soaking up his strength in a way she hadn’t since adolescence had come, Tricia breathed in the reassuring strength and calmness of her father and rediscovered her love for the man.
His arms enveloped her completely. He didn’t need to admonish her, he didn’t question her motives, or demand an apology: he just needed to love his daughter. They both sighed relief and let go of years of mistrust and harsh words.
Finally Tricia craned her neck to look up at him.
“What can I do to help, Daddy?” she asked.
Jock slipped an arm from around her, guiding her towards the staircase Jenny had taken.
“C’mon, love. I’ll show ye.”
Chapter 7
Jock
In those first few hours of the outbreak, people just assumed that the stories of rabid monsters emerging from the depths of Mary King’s Close couldn’t be real. This was despite what they’d seen with their own eyes. What they’d run for their lives from. In a few short hours overnight, we’d seen people torn to the bone and fed on by walking insanity and death. Still, many insisted that a trusted face would appear on the news telling us that it was all an elaborate hoax. That someone like Dynamo, the magician, had pulled a War of The Worlds type of event. Obviously we were wrong.
In the early days of the outbreak, people were so isolated, or perhaps too innocent, to realise that what was happening was the new reality for them. What they had, what remained in the city – this was it from now on. Twenty-somethings sat on their devices, comfortable in the knowledge that the screams and death they heard outside their barricaded doors were nothing to worry about, nothing that could affect them, and that the police or army, government or whoever would sort it out.
