The Dead Road

by Seth Patrick

  ‘I’m coming,’ said Never. ‘I’m a witness to the revival. Might help your case.’

  ‘No,’ said Sly. ‘I go alone.’

  But Never wasn’t having it. ‘You’re in strung-out shape, Sly. If you want me to stay in the van I will, but I’d be happier if you had some company.’

  She looked at him for a long moment, then nodded. ‘Company would be good.’ She opened the front door and started walking.

  Jonah looked at Never. ‘You sure?’

  ‘Mainly I want to guarantee she doesn’t just fuck off somewhere,’ he said. ‘If shit happens, she’ll be worth her weight in gold.’ He ran through to the kitchen and returned with his jacket in one hand, and the video camera in the other.

  ‘Be careful,’ said Jonah. ‘Sunset’s not far off. Don’t take risks.’

  ‘I have personal protection,’ said Never. ‘What could go wrong?’

  13

  ‘It’s getting dark,’ said Never. He could hardly stand still. He’d been watching the sky since the moment he and Sly had left Annabel’s, watching as the aurora became unmistakable, growing increasingly clear as the sun made its way down to the horizon.

  They were in Washington DC, standing overlooking the Potomac by Long Bridge Park. Behind them, the Pentagon skulked. Above, the darkening sky was showing off the aurora in almost its full glory now.

  ‘He’ll come,’ said Sly. ‘I spoke to him this morning, before I went for the files. Before the power went.’

  The Pentagon was one of the few lit buildings in the city, and even then most of the windows were dark. That had been where they’d tried first, only to be turned away by the guards at the main entrance after ten minutes of waiting. The response Sly had got had seemed like a simple rejection, but she’d explained to Never that it had merely been a way to establish where to meet. She’d driven over to Long Bridge Park and taken Never to where they’d been standing since. Her allowing Never to leave the van and tag along had come as a surprise to him, but she was visibly exhausted and wanted an extra pair of eyes, even if those eyes belonged to Never.

  That had been forty minutes ago, and time was ticking.

  ‘How long do we give him?’ said Never.

  ‘Feel free to walk home,’ she said. There was an edge to her impatience, Never knew. She didn’t suffer fools at the best of times, but he could tell she was thinking exactly the same thing that he was: they should have left the city already. She just didn’t appreciate Never banging on about it.

  He couldn’t help it, though. By day, anxious as he was, there had still been a theoretical edge to what was happening. Now he looked at this city he’d known for so long, and he couldn’t deny that everything about the situation was utterly alien. The green sky; the near-deserted streets. It was a dark city, devoid of street lights, the buildings dead. The silence was broken from time to time by the short squawk of a police vehicle announcing its presence, a basic reminder to the inhabitants that they’d not been forgotten. There was no sign of the looting or unrest that had seemed a clear possibility. Whether that was down to the police visibility or not, he didn’t know, but he reckoned there was a good chance that the residents were feeling the same sense of portent that he was, even if they could have no idea why.

  He switched the video camera on and started to capture the scene.

  ‘Put that away,’ scolded Sly.

  He let the camera fall to his side, casually continuing to film as a man in black jeans and black jacket walked up the park steps to where they stood.

  ‘Sly,’ said the man.

  ‘You took your sweet time,’ said Sly.

  ‘Who’s this?’ he said, nodding to Never.

  ‘A friend,’ she said. ‘Harmless. I got the files I told you about. I got some more you should know, too.’

  ‘I’ll take a look when things settle down,’ said the man. ‘If you hadn’t noticed, we have a situation.’

  ‘This situation is the same thing.’

  The man shook his head. ‘Like hell. Look, Sly, I’d like to help, but none of Kendrick’s hobby has ever been sanctioned. None of it has ever been believed. Trust me.’

  ‘They believed it enough to vaporize Winnerden Flats.’

  The story,’ she said. ‘A virus know what the hell that was. Can I remind you that Kendrick changed his story repeatedly? And he hasn’t even got the decency to come here himself. He sends you.’

  ‘He didn’t change his story,’ she said. ‘A virus was cover, that was all. He made that clear. Here.’ She passed him the USB stick. ‘Kendrick’s dead.’

  The man said nothing.

  ‘All his files are here. So is footage of his revival. He saw it. He saw the creature, alive again in a new body.’

  The man shook his head. ‘Shit, Sly, I’m sorry. But they gave your boss the benefit of the doubt all this time, and look what happened. Nothing.’

  ‘You call this nothing?’ She gestured to the sky.

  ‘Take this,’ said Never, reaching out to the man. He had a piece of paper in his hand.

  ‘What’s this?’ said the man, taking it.

  ‘A frequency to monitor, and a translation of what we’ve heard so far,’ said Never. ‘The files Sly gave you include a recording from St Petersburg. And Lisbon. They—’

  Sly interrupted, and Never realized she’d noticed something in the other man’s expression.

  ‘You already know,’ she said. ‘You know something’s coming.’ She shook her head, smiling in a way that was loaded with anger. ‘I assume everyone important is at Mount Weather by now.’

  ‘I can’t answer that,’ said the man.

  She drew in a sharp breath. ‘Aren’t you planning on warning people? You realize New York is probably next, yes?’

  The man scoffed. ‘Warn them about what?’ Sly said nothing. ‘Exactly. You want to create panic?’ He took a long breath, and looked at the USB stick in his hand. When he spoke again, he sounded drained. ‘You really think this is connected? That’s what this is?’

  Sly nodded.

  The man gave her an urgent look. ‘Then tell me that there’s an answer in these files, not just ramblings.’

  Sly closed her eyes for a moment. ‘I don’t know if there’s an answer here,’ she said. ‘But I think it’s the only place we can look for one. Christ, why didn’t you people listen to what we were telling you? We’re out of time.’ As she spoke, Never could see her fist clenching. ‘What do they think this situation is? Tell me.’

  The man seemed wary, but he relented. ‘Information is sparse. What we do have makes no sense, but the international tensions that were spilling out this past week are based on something, Sly.’

  ‘The cable sabotage?’ she said.

  ‘Exactly. The submersible drone they found wasn’t just chance. There had been rumours for days in advance.’

  ‘Rumours of what?’

  He looked reluctant again. Sly glared at him. ‘OK, OK. Have you heard of QNB? Or BZ?’

  Her mouth almost dropped open. ‘No way.’

  They were silent for a moment, until Never found he had to speak. ‘Can someone explain, for fuck’s sake?’

  ‘It’s a drug,’ said Sly. ‘Developed as a weapon.’

  The man took over, looking at Never. ‘We don’t think this is QNB exactly, but that’s our best bet. A neurochemical weapon with effective aerosolized distribution. QNB is an incapacitant, essentially – it creates stupor, confusion and confabulation. Causes hallucinations, OK? People make shit up. The effects can last for weeks. The reports you’ve heard, yes, we’ve heard them, and the reason they sound like a nightmare is that they probably are. This is war, but not war like we’ve ever known it. This isn’t about taking territory, Sly, this is about fucking everything up and using the effects of the flare to mask it.’

  ‘Who do they blame?’ said Sly.

  ‘They wanted to strike North Korea,’ said the man. ‘The prime candidate for aggressor.’

  ‘They wanted to launch?’ sa
id Sly, appalled. ‘So what happened?’

  ‘They did launch,’ he said, matter-of-factly. ‘And nothing hit. At least, nothing detonated. We can still detect nuclear explosions seismically, and none were detected.’

  ‘Are you saying our nuclear capability has been compromised?’

  ‘It could be anything,’ said the man. ‘Finding out what will take time, and time is not what we have.’

  While they’d talked, Never had been biting his tongue, but there was a question he needed to ask. ‘Uh, does Pandora mean anything to either of you?’ he said.

  Sly looked at him. ‘In what way?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Never. ‘A project name, maybe? A weapon? It’s just . . . Jonah had some kind of dream . . .’ He shook his head, knowing how weak it sounded. ‘He thought it was important. I don’t know.’

  The man sneered. ‘A fucking dream? Jesus.’

  ‘Don’t dismiss it,’ said Sly. ‘Trust me.’ She shook her head, though. ‘I don’t know of a Pandora weapon, Never.’ She gave her colleague in black a pointed look.

  ‘Me neither,’ said the man, without disguising his disdain. ‘Look, Sly, this is bad, but it’s not some fucking demon that’s coming. Best advice I have: get supplies, hide, wait it out. So unless you actually have information we can use, then we’re done here.’

  The man’s attitude infuriated Never. ‘Did you tell people anything?’ he said.

  ‘To stay indoors,’ said the man. ‘What else could we do? We can’t protect anyone but ourselves.’ He put the USB stick in his pocket. ‘Take care of yourself, Sly.’

  He walked away.

  *

  Sly looked vaguely ill. ‘When I mentioned Mount Weather, did you see that twitch?’

  ‘No,’ said Never. ‘And Mount Weather is . . . ?’

  ‘Emergency Command and Control hub,’ she said. ‘It’s where senior figures would gather, but I don’t think they’re there. Nobody high up the command chain, at any rate.’

  ‘Where, then?’ said Never. He was still quietly fuming about the way he’d been treated.

  ‘You heard the man,’ she said. ‘They’re leaving the people to fend for themselves. The top brass have decided to cut and run, until they see how bad this gets. I’d be willing to bet they’re all in Cheyenne. Hiding deep in a mountain.’

  ‘Meaning . . . ?’

  Sly sighed, and Never saw her clench her fist again. ‘It means we’re on our own.’ They stood in silence for a moment. ‘Let’s go,’ said Sly. She started back to the van.

  He looked to the sky. The aurora was brighter than he’d ever seen it, and he lifted his camera to film the slowly shifting forms. Now that he could see it so clearly, the pattern of the lights seemed odd – shot through with a secondary branching structure, like dark veins in a corpse. And while the lights gently fluctuated and rippled, this structure seemed stable, yet growing . . .

  He used the camera’s zoom to take a closer look. He stared at what he saw: there was a pulsing, he was sure of it, in the darkness. A gradual widening and shrinking of the dark lines, which was all heading in the same direction. As he watched, a small region of pure black formed high in the distant sky, then bulged. Slowly, the bulge stretched down in a thin black line, until it was out of sight.

  He started to back away. The column of darkness was widening by the second.

  ‘Come on, Never,’ said Sly. ‘We need to . . .’ She drifted off, as she saw it too. ‘What the hell is that? Is that a . . . a water spout?’ Her expression changed suddenly, becoming fearful.

  ‘How far away do you think that is?’ said Never. ‘Over Chesapeake Bay? Nearer?’

  The veins in the sky thickened.

  ‘We need to leave,’ said Sly, but Never felt dazed at the sight.

  ‘Coastal,’ he muttered. ‘So we thought New York. On the other hand, Washington DC and Baltimore are almost on top of each other. And both are beside water.’ The proximity of the Potomac suddenly felt like a threat.

  ‘We need to leave now,’ said Sly, grabbing his arm.

  As she did, the dark column suddenly collapsed inward, and at the same instant the aurora surrounding the black nexus brightened enough to leave an afterimage.

  They both stared. A few seconds later, a dull rumble reached their ears. It was like thunder, but the rumble didn’t simply fade. It kept going, and seemed to grow louder.

  Nearer.

  They ran to Sly’s van and jumped in, Sly starting the engine and pressing hard on the accelerator before Never had even shut the door. When they reached the I-395 there was another sound underneath the rumble – a higher-pitched noise, a curious hissing that took Never a moment to place.

  ‘That’s water,’ he said. ‘The river.’ He looked behind them, to where the top floors of the Pentagon were still visible past the rise in the road. Something dark rose up behind it, silhouetted against the green-tinted clouds to the north. A shapeless mass, it rolled forward to engulf the Pentagon. He thought of Petro, translating the report from Gatchina – a sea of poison rose up. The lit windows on the building were obscured now, and he could see the same black form rising further up and down the river.

  ‘What is it?’ said Sly, focusing in the road. ‘What do you see?’

  He faced front. ‘Drive,’ he said. ‘Just drive.’ He thought of the road they were on, and it occurred to him that it ran parallel to the Potomac. ‘Shit,’ he said. ‘Get us off this road. Get us away from the river.’

  Sly said nothing. She slewed the car across to the next off-ramp, heading for Lincolnia and along the Little River Turnpike. The screaming of the engine still wasn’t enough to drown out the rumble and the hiss that seemed to follow them. The road was almost empty, the few drivers bemused and angered by Sly’s speed. They passed houses that were dark, save for the flicker of candles and the beams of flashlights. There were curious faces at the doors, though – the rumbling, hissing sound was drawing attention.

  ‘How far will it come inland?’ said Sly. ‘How far away do we need to get?’

  ‘The first report came from Gatchina,’ he said, trying to remember. ‘Petro said it was maybe twenty miles out of St Petersburg. That gives us an upper limit, I guess.’

  ‘Jesus,’ said Sly. ‘We’re outpacing it, though? Right?’ ‘Yeah,’ said Never. He had no idea. Although the darkness had seemed to rise slowly to consume the Pentagon, he’d not seen what kind of speed it was advancing at now. For all he knew they would see it any moment, crashing over the rooftops beside them.

  They kept going down the turnpike, and just as they passed a gas station on the left, another vehicle hurtled out of the road to their right, the driver’s face a mask of panic. Sly swore and swerved, slamming on the brakes, but she hit the traffic signal post on the corner. Airbags fired and the engine died.

  When Never gathered his senses, for a horrible moment he thought he might have blacked out for a time. ‘Sly?’ he said, unclipping his safety belt. He reached across. She was slumped, unconscious. Her door window had smashed into tiny fragments, letting in the roar and hiss, louder than before. It took a few seconds for the situation to really dawn on Never.

  They weren’t going anywhere now.

  ‘Oh shit,’ he said. He jumped out to the road and looked back along the turnpike. The drivers in the few cars that passed them looked terrified, glancing behind them, but none stopped to check on them or offer help after their impact. He looked around. There were only a couple of car lots and empty shops nearby. Nowhere to hide.

  In the distance, the road was moving. Cars headed that way were stopping suddenly, and turning back. He watched the furthest of them, as their headlights simply vanished, swamped by the dark tide.

  He thought of the report from Gatchina, and how someone had mentioned shutting themselves in their vehicle. With the window smashed, staying in the front of the van wasn’t an option. But this van had a metal divider between the front seats and the rest of it. Maybe it would be enough.

  He
ran to Sly’s door and yanked at it. The impact had clearly shifted the frame slightly, but the door creaked open with a little force. He leaned across her and unclipped her belt, then pulled her out and dragged her to the back of the vehicle. He opened the rear doors. Kendrick’s body bag was still there, the van’s internal light glinting off the black plastic. He hoisted Sly up and bundled her inside, all the while horribly aware of the rising volume and the realization that, as the sound grew nearer, he could hear a chitinous, insectile click underpinning the hiss. As he climbed into the van, the camera strap around his shoulder tangled on the latch. He turned back, looking along the turnpike again, and shuddered to see how close the dark had got. He pulled the doors, but the lock wouldn’t engage – the camera strap was blocking it. He opened the doors again and yanked with all his strength to free the strap. It was snarled, though, and he couldn’t quite tell how to get it cleared.

  He could see what the flood consisted of now, dim-lit by the green sky: dark spider-legged things covering everything in their path, closing down, closing down . . .

  A car screeched to a halt by the van, and the panicked driver shouted at Never through his open window: ‘What the hell is that?’

  ‘Close your fucking window!’ screamed Never, still working at the strap. ‘Close it!’

  The strap came free, as the river of shadows engulfed the rear of the other car.

  He closed the van doors. The lock held.

  The van shuddered as a thousand legs scratched and scraped over the metal, the hideous sound unbearable in the confined space. He wanted to cover his ears, but he didn’t dare release his hold on the doors, just in case, just in case.

  He could hear something else underneath the roar of movement, and he was sure it was screaming.

  14

  Never dreamed of a dark river, flowing through all the waterways of the planet – a slow, tar-like morass of hatred, moving with intent, alive. The land was dry; the few trees and sparse vegetation along the banks were struggling to hold on, and as the black waters reached them, the poison was drawn into their sap, spreading up inexorably through to the veins of the leaves. Once the contagion had taken each plant, it collapsed in on itself, then tumbled to the earth and fell apart into pulsating wet masses. Eventually, those masses dragged themselves to the dark water and joined the vast flow.