Fever (Flu) (32 page)

Several of the dead littered the front yard, their faces turned to look at the car as it ground to a halt. Willis checked his gun, prepared to take the hostiles out swiftly.

A dark shadow fell upon them.

Lark looked up to find a flock of birds circling the house, their cries high-pitched and shrill.

“Just hope he’s okay,” Willis said.

He reached for the car door, waited.

“Come on,” Geri said to Brina as she reached for her own door. “Let Mr Willis go first. And stay close to me.”

Lark’s gaze fell upon the birds again, their flight taking a random dip, swooping close to the car.

“Hey,” he said, his own door only semi-open, “Maybe we should wait a—”

Their attack was as fast as it was brutal. The first one was on Willis within seconds, claws digging into his back, beak pecking at his head. Willis went to shield his face, shaking the dead bird off, but more lit upon him, digging into his flesh hungrily.

Geri pulled Brina close but stood frozen to her spot. “Fuck,” Lark muttered to himself. And then to Geri, “GET BACK IN THE CAR!”

Still she didn’t move, so he reached to grab her arm, tugging her back. Geri grabbed Brina with her, and Lark pulled them both into the car, then slammed the door behind him.

One of the birds collided with the glass, piercing it with its beak. It hung there trapped, the bloody thing’s wings shaking like it was possessed. Its eyes were frosted over. It was dead.

“Don’t look at it!” Lark shouted.

His own eyes were drawn to Willis outside, the pilot now completely covered by birds, their black feathers like some kind of elaborate cloak. At his feet, the grass ran thick and red with blood. His screams were masked only by the unholy squawks of the birds as they tore into him, shedding his flesh like lumps of meat.

A smaller flock circled the car.

They swooped, like the first bird, ramming the glass like tiny kamikazes, falling onto the bonnet and then taking flight to attack again. Spider web cracks were starting to form in the glass all around the survivors.

They were fucked.

Lark patted his head.

“Think!” he said to himself.

Geri stretched across the back seat, covering the child with her own body.

The image suddenly reminded Lark of Afghanistan, of that house where his army buddies had thrown a young girl on the floor and had their fun with her. Of later seeing the girl’s mother bent over the body of her daughter. Those bastards had killed that poor girl. Raped her and left her to die, bleeding on the floor of her own home.

And then Lark was in battle. There was confusion, insurgents thick and heavy on them. But in the smoke and dust and noise, Lark aimed his rifle and fired not at the insurgents, but at three of his own men, giving those rapist cunts as taste of their own medicine.

Friendly fire, they’d called it.

He repeated the words now: “Friendly fire...” Something clicked.

Lark reached his hands across the back seat of the car, finding a petrol can. He shook it to his ear, ensuring there was some fuel in it, then stretched forward, dousing the front seat of the car with the contents of the can, emptying it completely then dropping it into the driver’s seat.

He found a second can, did the same thing.

He reached for his lighter, looked to Geri.

“What the hell are you—” she began.

“When I say go,” Lark cut in, “I need you to grab the girl and sprint as fast as you can away from the car!”

“You’re insane!”

“GO!” Lark cried, flicking the lighter and chucking it into the front seat.

The whole front of the car erupted into flames, scorching his face.

Geri grabbed Brina into her arms, pushed through the back car door. She moved swiftly across the yard towards a nearby outhouse.

Lark struggled from the burning vehicle, aware of the birds flocking around the front bonnet, pecking frantically at the hot windscreen, trying to get to the flames that would no doubt consume them. The few dead hanging around the house joined the frenzy, moving hungrily towards the car, bathing in its flames and then flailing around like possessed men.

Lark hobbled forward, the pain in his ankle sharper than ever. He was only metres from the car when it went up in an almighty roar, the windows blowing out, raw heat eating into the back of his head as he was thrown to the ground.

Lark rolled over, watching the birds dance in the fire, their shrill cries piercing the still country air. As the flames continued to build, roaring victoriously, the squawk of the birds began to wane.

Lark pulled himself from the ground, feeling the bite of glass in his neck and back of his head. His eyes stung. He was feeling dizzy, nauseous. His stomach gave, filling his mouth with warm, thick bile. Lark puked it onto the ground.

God, he felt fucking awful.

The tattooed man moved towards the charred corpse of Willis. The pilot had been fumbling for his handgun, now curled in his right hand uselessly. Lark prised it from the dead man’s shredded fingers, wiping it onto his t-shirt. The hard plastic of the gun was warm in his hands, but it looked undamaged. Lark dropped the magazine, checked then reinserted it before chambering a round.

He looked around, then up at the house. At the first storey window he noticed a face poking through the space where a wooden board had fallen away.

“Hey!” Lark called.

The face disappeared.

Lark limped over to the heavy front door, finding it boarded up and locked tight. He banged the wood with his fist, to no avail.

Lark aimed the handgun at the wood, blew a hole through. He then fired on the exposed door’s lock. Noticed several other bolts. Blew them away too, kicked the door in.

He entered the house. Coughed, spitting another gob of bile onto the floor of the hallway. “Okay, where are you, ye bastid?”

The house reeked. Flies hovered like thick smoke in the living room. There was shit everywhere. Bin bags piled high. Spent gas cylinders.

He could hear something coming from upstairs. More bird sounds.

Lark readied his gun, clambering up the stairs.

He found the first bedroom door open, an old man sitting inside by his computer. In the corner was a birdcage, a clearly dead bird squawking and fluttering around inside, as if drunk.

The old boy turned and looked at Lark. “Where’s Agent13?” he asked.

“What the
fuck
are you on about?!”

“The group!” the old man shouted. “I’ve made contact with Chrysler’s place. They’ve found data, important—” The old man stopped talking, looked Lark up and down. “You’re infected,” he said, but there was no fear or pity in his voice. Rather a sense that the infection would spoil things, ruin things for him and whatever bullshit quest he’d signed on for.

Geri and Brina entered the room, Geri’s arm wrapped protectively around the child.

“I swear,” Lark said to Geri, pointing to the old man, “I’m going to brain this cunt.”

“Jesus,” Geri said, “Would you calm yourself down?” She grabbed the handgun from Lark’s grasp, shook her head. “You’ll upset the child.”

That seemed to stall him. He remembered what had happened the last time Brina got upset.

Lark stumbled over to the nearby bed and fell down upon it.

The old man turned to stare at Brina. His eyes widened. “It’s her,” he said, and for a moment Geri thought he was going to reach for the girl.

Geri fixed the old man with a defiant glance.

He backed off, returned to the computer screen. “You’re Tom,” Geri said to him.

But the old man ignored her. He scratched his head, and Geri could have sworn that she saw something fall from his hair. She almost gagged. He was filthy. The string vest he wore looked like it had
never
been washed.

She tried again. “That’s your name, isn’t it? Uncle Tom, Willis told us—”

“Willis?” Tom said, suddenly interested. His eyes fell to Geri’s chest, then back to her eyes. “That was his
real
name, wasn’t it?”

“He spoke very highly of you. Said you were a good man, Tom. Very learned.”

“He’s dead now, isn’t he?” Tom said.

“Yes,” Geri replied.

She thought of the birds. Of the dead gathered by the door. She looked out the window. The few remaining cadavers still circled the car, infatuated with the dwindling flames. But how long would that keep them occupied?

“Tom,” she said, “we need to lock the door up again.”

“The memos,” Tom said, ignoring her once more. “Chris had memos from the top boys involved on his file. Don’t you know what this means?” He looked to Geri. “The government are up to their necks in this shit.” A line of spittle broke across his beard. “And we can prove it!”

Geri sighed heavily. Tom wasn’t addressing her as an individual, instead using her as sounding board for whatever life he was leading online.

“Tom,” she tried once more, trying to focus him away from his computer, back to reality, “The door...”

But a sudden beeping noise had the old man transfixed. “This is it!” he beamed. “He’s sent it through!”

Ballynarry, County Armagh

The documents in the file Ciaran found told a story which might have been quite unbelievable, had he not witnessed the outbreak—and the government’s attempts to deal with it—first hand. Previously, he would have thought the file to be the stuff of kooky conspiracy theorists. Today, it was something to cling to, a reason for everything that was going on and, more importantly, someone to blame.

In this instance, it was a laboratory, hired by the UK government to create a new strain of the flu virus. It was to be a distraction to recent bad press on expenses and an illegal war, a way the government could prove its relevance to people against a backdrop of corruption and collusion.

The documents Ciaran found on the computer spelled it all out.

They were trying to create a pandemic, a viral outbreak that would prove deadly to some, yet treatable for most. The flu would cull the older and more vulnerable populace, viewed by some officials as a drain on state welfare. The government knew the remaining populace would turn to them for help, and they would handle the situation admirably, primed with the resources to do so: inoculations, anti-viral treatments, those yellow fucking surgical masks and glossy self-help guides.

But something went wrong.

God knows, something went very wrong.

And these documents, these memos fingered every last bastard to blame for that.

Ciaran scanned everything into the PC as instructed by the man called Uncle Tom. He wasn’t sure if he could trust this guy, if the user group was legit, but he didn’t have much choice. There was too much at stake. And there was no way he could hold onto this information himself, given his present state of health.

Ciaran uploaded the scanned documents to the group. A reply came back almost immediately from the man he’d been talking to.

GOT IT.

Ciaran took a breath, grateful the generator hadn’t given up before he’d uploaded the docs.

He could hear a sound at his door, a banging, and wondered if it was Colin, risen from the dead. Or if maybe Vicky had found some way to pull herself back onto her feet and get revenge.

Not that it mattered.

Ciaran thought about the growing number of dead outside. His own mangled body. The strong possibility that the stinging sensation in his neck was nothing to do with his fall onto the kitchen floor and more to do with Vicky’s long, sharp fingernails.

Polish Ron came into his head. The girl he’d met in the pub on the day he’d enlisted. How they had both been gunned down simply because a man wearing stripes deemed it the right thing to do.

He thought about his mam too, hoping against reason that she was still somehow alive down in Newcastle.

But, even if she were, Ciaran wouldn’t want her to see him like this.

He was finished.

He returned to the screen. There were no more messages. But Ciaran typed one himself:

POWER ALMOST GONE. SIGNING OFF. GOOD LUCK.

Waringstown, County Down

Geri watched Tom as he beavered away on the printouts, oblivious to her. He was muttering to himself, circling bits of text in red pen, his random swears a mixture of delight and anger.

She left the old man to it, attended to Lark. She was beginning to worry that the tattooed man’s sweating and nausea wasn’t just the result of the ever-increasing stress to his body. That old Tom might be right: Lark was infected.

His sneeze confirmed her suspicions. Geri winced as it soaked her face.

With shaking hands, she pulled a tissue from her pocket, wiped the bloody snot from her face.

“Lark?” she called, running her hand along his brow. It was red hot.

His eyes opened.

“Jesus, you’re sick,” Geri said.

Lark pulled himself up, spitting a bloody gob to the floor of the bedroom. “First time anyone’s ever called me Jesus,” he said, offering a smile.

Geri buried her face in his chest.

Lark gently placed his hands around her. “Careful now,” he said. “I hear this shit’s infectious.”

Another beeping noise from the computer. Old Tom looked up from his papers, staring at the screen. He reached for his mouse, clicking on the user group icon.

There was a message from Agent 13.

Tom looked to the other survivors, confusion etched across his face. “What the hell,” he said. “Agent13 is dead, right?”

“If you mean that twat, Willis, then sure,” Lark said. He looked to the cage in the corner where the dead parrot still squawked and fluttered like some broken toy. “Henpecked,” he added.

Tom turned back to the screen, still baffled. “Well, who the hell’s
this,
then?”

The answer to his question appeared on screen.

MY NAME IS MILES GALLAGHER AND I WANT TO HELP YOU.

“Gallagher!” Tom spat. He pulled back from the screen. “Damn it, he’s infiltrated the group.”

“Who’s Gallagher?” Geri asked.

Tom was shuffling through more papers piled under the computer desk. “He’s a fucking goon, that’s who he is!”