Endurance (7 page)

Tom was
forced off his feet by a sharp pain in his chest. He landed on his
back and faced the sky.

For a moment,
Anna entered his mind, possibly for the last time. She looked
happy. The flashback was of her smiling in Jubilee gardens in the
sunshine, the sun bright and reflected off her sunglasses. The
grass looked better than ever before. Anna’s skin looked peachier,
her lips luscious, and her eyes astounding in the sunshine. Tom
focused on the grey skies and lost consciousness.

9

Tom awakened
in dimness; the only light source was the night sky that shone
through the window, the only window in the room. As he regained his
senses, he smelled a musky, damp stench. Staring into the dark, he
identified the objects around him by their shapes. To his right, he
saw some machinery; saws and other sharp objects hung on the wall.
Straight ahead of him were four long bars. The bars led to a
circular shape at the top with cables knotted and scattered across
the floor below them. To his left seemed to be four pigs hanging
upside down from the ceiling, swaying slightly. Below them, a
little closer to Tom were two plastic boxes on a table with animals
inside. He could hear the animals moving around in the boxes. Also
on the table was a stand with three tubes with liquid inside. Hung
on the chair next to the table was a long coat.

Horrified,
Tom tried to stand; he was tied to a chair with his hands behind
his back. Still soaked from the rain, water dribbled down his
face.

‘
Hello?’ Tom
bellowed.

It echoed
back to him at least seven times. He shouted over and over again
until all the lights turned on so brightly that he couldn’t see
directly in front of him. He looked to the side, toward the hanging
pigs, and realised they were naked corpses hanging upside down from
their ankles. Their arms flopped loosely. A young woman, man, a
child and an elderly lady hung there. As he continued to stare, he
looked at the face of the young woman. Her face was covered in dark
mould and loose skin with patches of green. Her hair looked wiry
and as dry as hay. Tom’s eyes welled up, his fists clenched, his
arms gained strength to try and break free. As he clenched his
fists, his nails dug into his splinter-filled hands forcing the
splinters to dig further into his hands and bleed. The pain was
excruciating but his adrenalin and rage blocked the pain. He began
to scream as he stared at the face of the young woman, Anna. Her
entire body was caped in white and grey mould; enlarged red veins
have covered her entire body. Her ankles bled while she hung there
and stained her body as it dripped down. She had plastic tubes
going into her arms, legs and mouth. The tubes were linked with red
and green liquid in vials that pumped through the tubes into
her.

Next to her
was Stewart, he looked like Anna, but was missing an arm. To Tom’s
horror, he saw a young girl next to Stewart, no older than ten.
There was also an elderly woman. All four of them had tubes with
liquid pumping into them.

Tom looked
back to Anna’s red and green patched face. She was barely
recognizable.

A man stood
in front of the light. The man’s outline was visible but his front
was blacked out from the bright light.

‘
Hello.’

Tom
recognized the voice, but he couldn’t quite identify the person it
belonged to.

‘
Who are
you?’

‘
That would
be telling.’

‘
Well, what’s
going on? Surely I’m allowed to know that before you kill
me?’

The figure
laughed, then fell silent. Tom tried to focus on the figure but the
light was too bright. It burned his eyes as he tried to
focus.

‘
Well. I’m
not going to kill you, quite the opposite actually. I’ve cured
you.’ The figure folded his arms together. ‘I spoke to your friend,
Danni, and she told me what her doc friend told her and, give him
credit. He was right about people being infected…’

‘
Where is
she?’ Tom interrupted abruptly.

‘
I’m sorry to
tell you, I couldn’t cure her. She had to be executed.’

‘
How could
you do this? How can you hang those bodies up and how dare you do
this to…’ Tom was interrupted by the man’s unsympathetic
voice.

‘
Look, I’m
doing this for the people who aren’t infected. This wasn’t my
fault, I’m trying to fix it and this is the best way to do it,
Tom.’

‘
How the fuck
do you know my name?’

The man began
to walk to Tom’s left and disappeared from sight. It was deathly
silent again. The man began speaking from directly behind Tom. ‘Do
you want the whole story?’

‘
Yes. I want
to know why my girlfriend was killed and my friends and everyone in
London; and what gives you the right to use my girlfriend like an
animal?’

‘
Well, I am
sorry for your losses. But it wasn’t my fault. Now, to explain what
has been happening. I will tell you as simply as I can. Where to
begin…’ The man began to walk around Tom. His shoes scraped the
concrete with each step. ‘We scientists have planned and worked on
this project for a very long time. The project’s aim was to create
a cure for cancer. But to do so, we had to create a sort of test
cancer which, unfortunately, didn’t end well. The cure was created
by Lukas Vidolski and the cancer by Kenneth Williams.’

‘
Wait. What?’
Tom paused in amazement.

Was this why
Dad was killed? For creating something that was obviously
threatening to humans? Or did what he create kill him?

‘I said Lukas
Vidolski created a cure and Kenneth Williams created a cancer. But
the cancer he created wasn’t actually a cancer, somehow he
accidently discovered a virus that mutates rapidly. The liquid he
created, if inhaled or digested, affects the brain.’

‘
How would it
affect the brain, what did he set out to do with this?’

‘
Ken’s plan
was to create this and test it against the cure. The cure never
worked. It couldn’t cure a rat or dog, not even a pig. Since the
virus had already been inhaled by some, Ken became desperate. He
decided to experiment on himself since humans are so very different
from most animals. He changed the liquid slightly and tested a
reaction with his own blood to see the effects. It thickened his
blood but at a slow rate. We tested it on him fully and he had
slight changes. The liquid affected him with the symptoms you had,
the eyes, veins, cough, and aggressiveness. The cure worked for
Ken. We don’t know why. The liquid he made didn’t affect him badly.
But when we tested someone else, he reacted quickly. It took only a
single day for someone to turn into a raging lunatic. People react
to the virus at different speeds and it depends on how much you
inhale or digest and how much of its original strength it has
retained as it’s travelled through the air. Now, you must be
wondering how it got into the open?’

Tom sat there
in silence, ashamed of his father.

‘
Well,
Vidolski was working in the lab. He was trying to alter both the
liquid and the cure to counteract each other. But of course he also
wanted the cure to counteract any kind of disease similar to
cancer. He worked until he was interrupted by some armed forces. We
do not know who they were but they obviously knew what we were
doing. They simply came into the lab and shot Vidolski dead.
Unaware of what they were doing, they decided to have some fun and
they smashed the lab up. To their stupidity, they smashed the cure
and the virus. So the virus went on the floor and, like I said,
it’s deadly to inhale. My assistant pressed the alarm and evacuated
the whole building, which was a bad idea. He should have sealed the
building, keeping the dangerous fumes inside. Instead, the
chemicals were released into the building’s air conditioning. It
was released into the air from open windows and open doors, but
also people’s clothing. People already infected carried the disease
out with them to infect everyone.’ There was another moment of
silence. The man continued to pace behind Tom, from left to right
and back. He then continued with his narrative, ‘I had to alert the
governing bodies. I told them what happened and they didn’t know
what to do. So I told them, they had to shut London down and kill
everyone who was infected, everyone in the London zone. This
allowed them to use new high-tech armory such as their hovercraft,
new guns and the new tank cars for the army. I presented a survival
presentation and gave them tips. They then decided it would be best
to destroy half of London and block anyone outside of London trying
to come in. Of course, it can’t spread worldwide, it would be used
up just from the population in London. The greater risk was people
leaving London who were infected. And to stop that from happening,
everyone had to die.’

‘
Do you think
you made the right decision?’ Tom awaited the answer but didn’t get
one. ‘If you do, then you are a fucking moron. You’re happy with
it…’

‘
Don’t you
dare tell me how I feel. You have no idea what I’ve been through.’
The man lost control and began to shout.

‘
I know
you’re a self-centered man with no morals. Reveal
yourself.’

The figure
walked in front of the light. Tom tried to see his face, yet the
man still hugged the shadows.

‘
Reveal
yourself!’ Tom bellowed.

The lights
went off. Tom was encased in darkness and greeted with silence. The
silence became eerie and unbearable.

He tried
again to break out of his bonds. From what he could tell, his hands
were bound together with plastic of some sort. As he tried to break
free, the plastic cut cruelly into his wrists.

The lights
came back on; the figure was standing in front of him.

‘
You wanted
me to reveal myself?’

The lights in
front of Tom turned off and light from behind Tom turned on. Tom
looked at the man’s face. He had a black beard with some grey hair.
The hairs on his head are the same texture and color as his facial
hair. He had dark eyes and black roughed up hair, he wore a shirt
and tie, a long white jacket, grey trousers and black shoes. It
took Tom a few seconds to realize the man was his father, Ken
Williams. As he realised this, he let out a gasp and spat at him.
He felt both ashamed and enraged.

It all became
clear. Tom didn’t react quickly to the chemicals because Ken had
the same blood; they were related. That was why Tom and Ken have
been cured easily.

‘
How could
you? You are fucking scum. I hate you. Why couldn’t you just be
dead?’ Tom’s rage clearly frightened Ken.

‘
Tom. I only
did this project to help cure your Mum. That’s how long this has
been going on. But by the time I got something together. She died.
Imagine how that made me feel.’ Ken began to cry. ‘My life was
over. I wanted to try to help people, not for all this to
happen.’

‘
You killed
Anna! You killed everyone. This is your entire fault. I’m going to
end this right here right now.’ Tom tried to break loose but it’s
impossible. Tom screamed in pain and fury at his father.

‘
I didn’t
decide to pulse the whole of London with a blast of electromagnetic
energy. That wasn’t me; that was the government’s doing. I found
Anna and brought her here to try and…’

‘
You had time
to pick up Anna’s body to experiment on, but not to look for your
son?’ Tom interrupted and stared at him in disgust.

‘
I tried to
help but realised she died from being hit by a car and not from the
chemical.’

‘
So your
instinct was to bring Anna back here and experiment on her and not
to look for your son.’

‘
No, Tom. I
couldn’t find you. They started blowing everything up. I tried to
look for you but I nearly got killed trying to find
you.’

‘
What a hero
you are.’ Tom said sarcastically.

‘
Please, Tom.
Don’t hate me. I brought Anna back to see if I could bring her back
to life with the liquid. It’s a magical creation; she came back to
life a few times but obviously was a little aggressive.’

‘
How fucking
dare you.’ Tom began to shake and screamed at Ken in his seat.
Tears fell from his eyes. Ken ignored his cries and tried to carry
on with the story.

‘
I had to
fake my own death because I needed to find this cure. It may not
make sense to you but people were aware of what I was doing. I had
to stay away from you to protect you from the media.’

‘
Well that
worked, didn’t it Dad. Your death was everywhere.’

‘
I’m
sorry.’

‘
No, you’re
not. Get me out of this.’ Tom said forcefully.

‘
I can’t do
that.’

‘
Let me out
now.’ Tom shouted.

Ken grabbed a
pair of scissors and cut the cable tie. Tom’s hands felt numb. He
had been able to feel the difference since he was cured, he could
feel the injury on his leg and shoulder once again. Tom walked
across the room to get used to standing and walking again. He
smelled the dusky room and walked back towards Ken.