Last Stand For Man

by Ryan, Nicholas

  Emily slowly pulled her hands from her pockets. In one clenched fist was the capsule Viktor had given her.

  “Show me your hands!” the security guard shouted. “Open your hands. Both of them!”

  Emily kept slowly raising her arms. Her mouth hung open, the expression on her face almost amused. She felt like she was immortal; like none of this really mattered.

  Emily popped the capsule into her mouth and held it on her tongue. She lifted her hands high above her head, palms facing out. The security guard kept shouting at her, his voice becoming strident with his own panic. One of the other guards who stood behind her came forward two paces from out of the crowd as if to seize her from behind but she turned on him, quick as a cobra, and her eyes flashed a wicked warning. The guard backed away nervously and Emily turned round again. She tried to smile at the fearful press of faces in the crowd. She thought that would be a fitting last image for the world to remember; Emily Statham – the grinning girl who destroyed the world.

  She thought for an instant about her mother, and about the man who had been her father before he had walked out one day and never come back. She thought about the young woman and her baby. And then her mind filled with visions of Viktor. In her imagination he was smiling at her adoringly, reaching his hand out to her, beckoning her to join him. She actually stretched out her hand as if to feel his fingertips… and then she realized it was all an illusion. Viktor wasn’t reaching for her. It was the security guard.

  Emily’s eyes slammed back into hard focus. She snatched her hand away from the guard’s grasp and then bit down on the capsule. For a single heartbeat nothing happened… and then a peculiar tang flooded across Emily’s tongue and filled her mouth.

  Suddenly her lips felt as though they were on fire. She could feel them puffing, swelling out of all proportion. Then her tongue seemed to thicken in her throat. She choked on a gagging breath and her eyes flew wide with abrupt horror. Her nostrils began to burn and a stream of mucus filled her throat and ran from her nose. It drooled down over her lips and hung in long silver strands from her chin. Emily screamed – a fear-filled terrified cry of pain and shock. This wasn’t what Viktor had told her would happen. He had promised her she would feel like she was floating, rising slowly and beatifically towards Heaven.

  She shook her head and a heaving gout of yellow gore and vomit hurled out of her gasping choking mouth. It spattered the guard and spilled across the polished airport floor. The crowd drew back aghast. Then Emily’s bowels voided in a brown stinking liquid spray down her legs. She looked about her wide-eyed and retching with pain. She clawed her fingernails and hooked them into her mouth as if trying to tear out her tongue. Then a trickle of blood spilled from the corner of her eye like a teardrop. She felt it, warm on her hand, and she stared at it in white-knuckled shock. She cried out one last time, and then Emily’s eyes rolled up into the roof of her skull, turned yellow and bloodshot. Emily fell to the floor in a wretched stinking puddle of her own excrement and vomit. Her back arched like a bridge, and the crowd heard bones crack with a sound like snapping twigs. Emily’s face stretched and swelled, contorting as the cords in her throat bulged from the skin like thick ropes. She drew one final breath, held it for long seconds while her hand reached out in a final desperate plea for help, or maybe salvation.

  Then she slumped, dead. The air wheezed from her lungs, and she lay perfectly still.

  The crowd gasped in shock, the sound of their moaning and breathless horror undulating as they crept closer, drawn by macabre fascination. The security guard holstered his weapon in white-faced disbelief. He went down onto one knee and reached tentatively towards the dead girl’s body.

  “Hank!” he looked up into the face of the nearest guard. “Call the paramedics.”

  The security guard felt under the young woman’s jaw for a pulse and found nothing. His fingers were slippery with the dead girl’s mucus and vomit. His face scrunched up into a mask of putrid revulsion. He wiped his hand on the leg of his trousers and looked over his shoulder into the faces of the crowd.

  “Back up!” he shouted. “Everyone move back behind the security barriers.”

  The people shuffled away reluctantly, still fixed by their gruesome enthrallment. Then a woman in the crowd screamed a shrill cry of utter horror. The security guard narrowed his eyes, searching. He saw a young woman clutching a baby to her. She was pointing a trembling finger at him, and her eyes were enormous.

  The guard didn’t see the dead young woman sit upright. He didn’t feel the clutch of her clawed hand around his throat. By the time she had come up onto her knees and sunk her teeth into the guard’s shoulder, the crowd was running, fleeing in screaming panic.

  The security guard fell onto his back, dead, and the thing that had been Emily crouched over the corpse almost protectively. It was panting hoarsely, loathsome yellow eyes rolling demented within the sockets of the skull. It looked around the airport and saw a thousand screaming people fleeing in a wild panicked crush for the doors. Glass shattered and the horrified press of bodies blew out huge plate glass windows.

  The thing waited until the security guard’s corpse began to twitch into re-animated life… and then it went hunting for fresh blood.

  The undead Apocalypse had begun…

  * * *

  Part 1:

  Steven Tremaine stood on the beach with one hand shading his eyes, and stared out at the blue horizon line where sky and ocean were smudged into an indistinct blur. The Mediterranean was as calm as a lake, the sea seemingly crushed flat by the oppressive afternoon heat. The water glittered like a million sunlit jewels and came lapping up onto the sand around his feet, blood warm.

  A hundred yards off shore a suntanned man in a pair of red shorts stood on a long paddleboard, and behind him, like baby ducks in a line, were three women each of them struggling for balance and control of their own boards. They were on their knees, shifting the long paddle from side to side on the rolling wavelets, crying out in fits of panic and laughter.

  The instructor turned around and let his board drift.

  “Come on, Shelly,” he said with a broad English accent, his voice carrying clearly to where Tremaine stood on the beach. “Keep your back straight and your knees parted.”

  The woman was the last in the line. She was a slim girl with pale skin, wearing a dark bikini. The woman let out a shriek and went tumbling off her paddleboard and into the waist-deep swell.

  Tremaine smiled wryly and turned away, his gaze slowly drifting along the horizon until his eyes reached the promontory of the distant headland that jutted like a finger into the sea.

  It was a beautiful Spanish afternoon, the long flat strip of Castelldefels beach covered with a thousand sunbaking bodies, their towels and colorful bikinis like bright flowers in a garden bed of sand.

  Tremaine sighed. The beach lay forty-five minutes south of Barcelona, and yet it seemed like a world away from the thronging crowds and the bustling frenetic noise of the city. He took a deep breath, watched idly as an aircraft appeared in the distant sky, and then finally – as if he had been savoring the moment – he glanced down at the young woman lying on the beach towel beside where he stood.

  Her skin had been tanned to honey brown and her hair lay long and dark across her shoulders. She was lying on her back with her eyes closed, her face lifted up into the afternoon sun like a worshipper. Tremaine’s gaze lingered on the young woman’s perfect physique, clad in a skimpy white bikini, with a twinge of guilt. She looked disquietingly young – maybe half his age.

  He crouched down in the sand and ran his fingers lightly across the girl’s shoulder. Her skin felt warm and silken.

  “Maria, wake up, honey. I have to get back to the hotel and get ready.”

  The young woman opened her eyes and then smiled a slow languid invitation. She arched and stretched her back in a voluptuous feline gesture, and wordlessly reached out for Tremaine. Her fingers brushed against the inside of his thigh in a slow cunn
ing caress and he stood up quickly, shaking his head.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I really am, but I don’t have time for any more of that. I need to get back to the hotel and prepare for tonight’s presentation.”

  The young woman pouted theatrically and rolled onto her side. “Then if you have no time for me, I think I will stay here at the beach,” she said, her English heavily accented, and her voice throaty.

  Tremaine nodded. “Do you want to meet again tonight? After the seminar?”

  “Sure,” she said. “I will be at the same dance club. Stop by if you like, and buy me a drink.”

  “I’ll do that,” Tremaine promised.

  He picked up his beach towel and pulled his sunglasses from his pocket. He checked his cell phone. He had missed another call from New York. It was the third message he had missed since he had met Maria the night before. He grunted. He knew the number, and for a moment he considered dialing back. Maria kept watching him with dark enigmatic eyes.

  “Something is wrong?”

  Tremaine shook his head and showed her the phone. “Just my secretary,” he smiled. “She likes to keep tabs on me.”

  “Tabs?” Maria frowned, not understanding.

  “She likes to know where I am… and who I am with,” his smile lightened playfully.

  “You will tell her about us?” Maria asked, openly curious.

  “No,” Tremaine said. “Some things are best kept secret.”

  His hotel was a mile along the beach, nestled in the tree line that edged the sand. He waved goodbye to the beautiful young Spanish woman and began slowly walking through the hot sand.

  The girl called out to him. “What is your name again?”

  “Steven,” he called back.

  “And you are American, yes?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Okay!” she flashed a brilliant white smile. It seemed all she wanted to know. “I will look out for you tonight, Steven.” She waved at him brightly and stayed watching the broad of the Tremaine’s back until at last he reached the grassy fringe of the beach and disappeared from her sight.

  * * *

  Tremaine came down off the stage with the sound of polite applause at his back. He was sweating from standing under the conference room’s spotlight, his voice a little raspy, his body just beginning to loosen with relief now that the lecture was over. He ducked behind a plush red velvet curtain and one of the hotel’s staff greeted him. She was a tall, elegant looking woman with immaculate make-up. She wore the city hotel’s navy blue uniform. Her eyes were bright, the smile almost, but not quite, genuine.

  “A glass of water for you, Professor Tremaine,” the woman handed him a crystal tumbler. “And there are soft drink refreshments in the mini bar just along the hallway.”

  Tremaine nodded. He mopped his brow with a handkerchief and swallowed the water in a long appreciative gulp. It was dark and cool in the shadows behind the stage and Tremaine slumped against a wall and loosened his tie. In the auditorium the applause had dwindled and he could hear the murmur of voices and the shuffle of feet as the audience began heading for the conference room exit. He imagined many of them heading to the hotel’s bar but the thought of joining them did not appeal – not when compared to the memory of the tall beautiful young Spanish girl waiting for him back in a Castelldefels night club.

  Tremaine glanced at his watch and made a wry face. He had been on stage for exactly two hours and one minute.

  “I know the damned material so well, and I’ve preached the same message so many times, I’ve got my lines down to a perfect patter,” he thought. The realization gave him no pleasure. He kept repeating the same warnings to the assembled world leaders… and they kept smiling blandly and nodding their heads with inane placations.

  No one was listening.

  Tremaine let out a long slow breath and was about to follow the backstage hallway towards the exit doors when a short, smartly dressed man suddenly appeared. He wore a hand cut suit of the finest cloth and a silk tie. His face was broad and smiling, his thinning grey hair swept across his brow and curled at the ears and collar. His eyes were bright and twinkling with mischief. The man saw Tremaine and threw his arms wide in a delighted greeting.

  “Steven, my old friend!” the man laughed. His accent was French. “How very good to see you again.”

  “Maxime?” Tremaine’s eyes widened with genuine surprise. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  Laughing, the Frenchman embraced Tremaine and kissed him on both cheeks, then stood back and shrugged his shoulders in a typical Gallic gesture. He smelled of fine cigars and expensive aftershave. “I came to hear your lecture, Steven.”

  Tremaine stared at the man, shaking his head slowly. “Maxime, you’ve heard my lecture. It’s the same one I delivered in New York, and in Washington. It’s the same speech I gave in Madrid and Amsterdam… and it’s the same warning I made in Paris and London. Hell, you know my damned message as well as anybody.”

  The Frenchman made a contrite face of appeasement and then the smile crept back up onto his lips. “As France’s Minister of Health, Steven, it is my duty to keep abreast of all new information,” the corners of the man’s eyes crinkled into a spider’s web of fine wrinkles. “And besides,” he lowered his voice conspiratorially and winked, “it is the chance for a brief expenses paid holiday away from Paris with my secretary.” He nudged Tremaine’s shoulder and then thrust his hands into his pockets, balancing on the balls of his feet. He ran an appraising eye across Tremaine.

  “You look good, my friend. Barcelona’s sunny weather suits you, eh?”

  Tremaine nodded. Maxime Baudin had been a close friend since he had begun his political career at the turn of the century serving as a member of the National Assembly of France. Now the man was the nation’s Minister for Health and Social Affairs. “Spain certainly has its natural beauties,” Tremaine said abstractly.

  Maxime Baudin gave an obligatory wicked little laugh and then sniffed delicately at the air as if to change the subject. Quite suddenly his expression became more like the grave countenance of a politician. He waved one of his hands as if he were conducting a slow passage of music. “This latest news from America…” he paused significantly. “Do you think it in some way begins to validate your theories?”

  Tremaine looked surprised. “What news, Maxime… and what theories exactly are you talking about? I’ve been on a beach for five days with no television and no internet.”

  “Your overpopulation theory, Steven,” the French Minister licked at his lips and his eyes became hooded. Behind the twinkle in the man’s gaze there was now some dark cloud of earnest concern. It smeared away the bright glitter of mischief and darkened his eyes so they were almost black. “You have been telling the world for two years that overpopulation was going to bring about the end of mankind one day, yes?”

  Tremaine inclined his head cautiously. “Maxime, I’m a Professor of Disease Ecology – that’s what we do. We talk about the dramatic rise in the world’s populations and how that affects the spread of disease. We talk about how the correlation between the risk of a pandemic and human population density means that when the next big pandemic emerges mankind will be unlikely able to isolate it. We’re overcrowding the world, my friend,” Tremaine tried to lighten his tone a little but the Frenchman did not respond.

  Tremaine sighed and then became serious. “Maxime, in the second half of the twentieth century, the world’s population grew from 2.5 billion to 6 billion, in just fifty years. And by the end of this century, that number could be as high as 11 billion.” Tremaine shook his head slowly and frowned, trying not to slip back into the rehearsed language of his seminars. “With so many people on the planet, we are changing the way we interact with animals and our environments. We’re living too closely together. Disease in Africa can often be isolated because its origins tend to be in remote communities that can be quarantined. But if those same diseases broke out in the heart of London, or Moscow…�
�� Tremaine shrugged. “It would sweep across the populated centers of the world like a wildfire. It couldn’t be isolated. Cities that size could never be quarantined – not with global trade and travel. No, that, my friend, would mark the beginning of the end for mankind.”

  Tremaine stopped talking for a moment and shuddered involuntarily. He had played out these scenarios in his mind and through sophisticated computer models for several years. It still gave him nightmare chills.

  He fixed the French Health Minister with a wary, curious gaze and narrowed his eyes. “What’s this all about, Maxime? What aren’t you telling me? You’ve never been this interested in my theories before, and you’ve never come back stage after one of my seminars.”

  Maxime Baudin gave a restless glance at the gold Rolex watch on his wrist and then looked furtively over his shoulder. When he turned back to Tremaine, his expression had become more composed. Some of the deep lines of concern that had been etched around the features of his face had softened. “This is not the time, my friend,” he clapped Tremaine affectionately on the shoulder. “And I have to return to Paris.”

  “Tonight?”

  “Yes, I’m afraid so.”

  “Immediately?”

  “Yes. I only flew to Barcelona this afternoon to meet with you. I must fly back,” the edge of anxiety had crept back into the Frenchman’s voice and Tremaine felt himself become troubled.

  “What’s going on, Maxime?”

  The Frenchman shrugged. “I suggest you find a television, Steven. Quickly.” Baudin turned to go, and then paused. He glanced back at Tremaine with an expression on his face like a forlorn sad farewell. “You have my number, yes?”

  Tremaine nodded. “Yes.”

  “Then call me in Paris tomorrow morning.”

  Tremaine nodded. He watched the French Minister walk away… and then his cell phone began ringing.

  * * *

  “Hello?”

  “Where the fuck have you been?” a young woman’s voice bellowed down the line, made sharp by anxiety and panic. “I’ve been phoning you for two days.”