Flu (14 page)

    "Say no to drugs," he said to Lark, slipping the white powder into his pocket.

    It had been him, alright. Lark could never forget the smile.

    "The booze is outside," Norman said. "In the Land Rover." He slid the keys to the van over to Lark on the table. "Wanna go grab them?" he said, eyes still staring, face still smirking.

    McFall looked uncomfortably at Lark.

    "Seriously, mate," he said, quietly. "I'm alright for one. You needn't bother."

    Lark ignored McFall, still looking at the cop. This wasn't about the beer. This was more than that. He lifted the keys from the table.

    "I'll be right back," he said, getting up from his chair, a bit light-headed.

    "You sure about that?" the cop said, eerily, just as he was about to leave the room.

    Lark paused for a second. He considered turning around, checking the cop on his comment. Instead, he moved on through into the kitchen. The beer had gone to his head and he was feeling a bit woozy. He lifted the revolver from the table and checked it for ammo. There was only one shell in it. He picked up a few more shells from the ash tray on the worktop, quietly loading the gun. He smiled, thinking back on how Geri had got the better of them with this very gun. He almost respected her for that move. Almost.

    She walked into the kitchen, now, the other cop behind her. Her eyes were red and moist as if she'd been crying.

    "What are you doing?" she asked, seeing him loading the revolver.

    "Beer run," Lark smiled, looking at the other cop, suspiciously, as he followed Geri into the kitchen. He checked Geri's puffed-up face with a single finger, still eyeing up the younger cop.

    "Fuck off!" she said, ungratefully. She pulled away from him, her face turned up in disgust.

    "Everything alright?" Lark asked her, casting a glance at the other cop.

    "Yes. So don't touch me," she replied, backing away as if he were one of those diseased fucks outside. Truth be told, he probably meant less to her than they did. But that was fine. He didn't need her. He didn't need any of them. He just needed more beer.

    Lark stumbled through the kitchen, brushing against the other cop.

    "What's your problem?" he heard the younger cop muttering as he walked on through the hallway.

    As he reached the front door, he could hear a single sniff from the dead fucks outside. He laughed, suddenly amused, then turned the key in the lock. He placed his hand on the front door handle.

    Geri was suddenly behind him, placing her arm against the door to prevent it from opening.

    "Think about this," she said, looking at him like she was his mother.

    "Let go of the door," he said.

    She didn't move her arm. She didn't say anything, either, simply fixing him with one of those 'disappointed' looks. An exasperated look, the way a teacher would look at a problem child.

    "Let go!" he yelled, more aggressively, when she didn't respond.

    She lifted her arm away, still glaring at him.

    He said nothing, stepping out into the street, gun in hand.

    McFall sat quietly, sipping the last dregs of his beer. He felt the eyes of the bigger cop burning into his head, but he didn't dare look up.

    "Why do you wear that ski mask?" the big cop suddenly asked.

    The cop was pissed, and his words were slurring. He'd had as much as McFall to drink, and McFall was sure as hell feeling pissed. Yet, unlike Lark, McFall didn't get any bravado when drinking. He just felt even more paranoid and nervous.

    Sometimes, of course, that was enough to get him into bother. An angry outburst at the bar, aimed at some lad who was, supposedly, checking out McFall's wife (God rest her soul). An over-zealous reaction to someone walking past him on the way home. Or some bloke who looked at him funny whilst ordering a pizza in their local fast-food at one in the morning. These were the kinds of situations that got McFall into bother.

    Yet, regardless of how many pints he'd downed, McFall was usually pretty good at choosing his fights.

    And he wasn't for choosing one with this guy.

    "I said, why do you wear that -"

    "I heard you," McFall said.

    "Well, then answer me," The cop replied, simply.

    "Come on," McFall said, laughing, "what does it matter?"

    "It matters because your friend thinks I'm hiding something when you're sitting there wearing a fucking balaclava!" he said, his voice slightly raised.

    The other cop came into the patio, immediately catching wind of the tension. He was followed by the girl - both looking rather bemused.

    "What's going on, here?" the younger cop said, looking at McFall. "I've just caught your mate on his way outside. You want to tell me why?"

    McFall looked at Norman, who was glaring back at him with a 'don't tell teacher' look on his face.

    "He…er… wanted more beer," said McFall.

    "More beer?" the younger cop said, looking at Norman. "We have no more beer. You lot have drank it all."

    "Yeah, that's what I told him!" Norman said, smiling over at McFall.

    McFall looked at the older cop, his eyes filling with venom. His lips felt dry. He felt his face heating up under the mask. He immediately stood up, kicking the chair away rather aggressively. He pulled the mask back over his mouth, as if now meaning business.

    Norman started laughing at him.

    Ignoring the drunken cop, McFall moved straight out to the kitchen, pushing past the others. He stood by the kitchen table, calming himself. Then he looked through the hallway towards the door his friend had left through.

    He hoped to God he was okay out there, but he didn't dare follow him.

    Lark reckoned the herd had thinned a little since he'd last looked out. From the garden of their house, he could make out three of them, standing near the Land Rover. They were staring at their own feet, doing very little of anything. They looked almost human, for a moment. Like bored teenagers hanging out at night. But then the moonlight caught their faces, and they began to look far from human and more like the monstrous parodies of their former selves that they truly were. After a while, one of them noticed Lark and started to wander towards him with about as much enthusiasm as a whore in church.

    Lark laughed at the thing, drunkenly. "Come on, ye bastid," he slurred, raising his handgun. He aimed, rather confidently, and fired the first shot. The bullet struck gold, capping the poor fucker on the eye, shattering half its cheekbone in the process. It fell back, hitting the ground with all the grace of a donkey doing ballet. Lark laughed at it, strolling over and squeezing his DM boot against its head. He could feel his boot grinding through the flesh as if it was dried mud. It repulsed Lark. He took his boot away.

    "Fucking stupid…" he mumbled at the dead fuck, bending down to aim his gun at its head, point blank range. He was interrupted by another one of them, reaching forward as it approached, grabbing Lark's gun arm. "What the -" he muttered, heart leaping with shock. "Are you trying to save your mate?!" he said, laughing out loud.

    The thing didn't reply, of course, simply reaching with its other hand in the general direction of Lark's throat.

    Lark surprised it by head butting it sharply, drawing blood and fuck knows what else from its feathery- skinned nose. The thing stumbled back, Lark first splitting its brain with his second shot before cocking the revolver's hammer and finishing its mate on the ground with his third.

    He looked to the Land Rover. It was close, but he wondered what lay behind it and to its blind sides. He was full of gusto, full of the drunken bravado that made men climb walls far too tall in order to impress their mates or girls walking by. A hidden voice from below the reverberating warmth of his drunkenness told him to be careful. But he ignored it. Mocked it, even. He took another step towards the vehicle, jingling the keys in his hand to antagonise and whistling…

    The door to the house suddenly opened. He turned at its sound, finding Geri standing there, looking at him, leaning against the door. To any man, the sight of her long, lean frame would have been welcome. But to the beer-goggled Lark, it was more than that. She looked every bit like the
Red Sonja
he'd loved to perv over as a lad.

    "There
is
no more beer," she said. "Come back in; they were just pissing around with you."

    "How do you know?" he said back.

    "Cos I'm a girl," she said, wryly. "And I know how stupid and childish grown men get when they're drinking."

    Lark laughed, turning just as a third and forth dead fuck wandered around from the other side of the Land Rover. He raised his gun and aimed. He held his aim for a while before lowering the gun. Spitting on the ground, he simply turned and walked back up the path towards the house.

    "What's the point, anyway," he said sulkily as he passed her.

    He noticed her shaking her head as she closed the door behind them.

Chapter Eleven

    He awoke having never remembered falling asleep, still wearing his clothes, lying on top of the slim bed of his modest quarters. Jackson's eyes moved around the room, finding the sunrise picture glaring back at him. It was a ridiculous joke to him, now. This reminder of a past, where the rise of the sun each day meant something. Now it was meaningless. Now he didn't even know whether it was night or day, nor did he care. But that was the way things were, down in The Chamber. Time was of no interest. Clocks were all but ignored. The dead had stolen the show, leaving life, and all that represented life, as some sort of half-arsed warm-up act.

    Jackson ran a hand over his bearded face, clearing the cobwebs, as it were. He hadn't washed in days. There just didn't seem to be a point anymore. He pulled himself off the bed, stretching his tired, sore bones, before reaching for the bottle of vodka on the desk. They had run out of whiskey, so this old poison would have to do. He swigged it indulgently, shaking his head after gulping a sizable quantity of the liquid down. His throat burned, the vodka's sour taste rinsing through his lethargic body like a kick to the head. Jackson screwed the lid back on the bottle, tucking it into his coat pocket. He pulled the door open, wandering out into the hallway of the small compound.

    He heard the sounds of the others from the main control room. They seemed to be in high spirits, and he quickly followed the noise down the corridor to see what all the fuss was about. When he got to the control room, he noticed a number of wall monitors, previously blackened and, frankly, unnoticeable to him beforehand, now displaying various images.

    "What's going on, private?" Jackson asked, still feigning the charade of authority.

    The private looked up at him, as if happy to see him. "Major Jacko!" he cried, throwing his arms around him. He was clearly drunk, and Jackson pushed him gently away as he pulled up a chair alongside another of the men, less inebriated. The second man handed him a beer, but Jackson refused it, retrieving his vodka instead.

    "We managed to get the monitors going," the second man said, merrily, pointing to one particular screen showing a shopping centre. "We're taking bets on who's going to win, that poor bastard with the cricket bat, or the crowd of dead approaching him from the arcade." Jackson watched as the silent fight ensued on the black and white monitor, the man hitting out, viciously, against the undead horde as half of the soldiers cheered him on. The other half sang out, though, as a young dead woman grabbed him from behind, sinking her teeth into his neck like some uncouth vampire.

    "Jesus," Jackson said, unable to take his own eyes away from the scene. He forced himself to look somewhere else as the fight continued, some of the men throwing down their crudely constructed betting stubs, angrily, as the man on the screen became completely overwhelmed. As the rowing over bets continued, Jackson cast his eyes over the other monitors. They seemed to be displaying different locations, some more recognisable than others. He wondered why there were cameras at all of these spots. What new project had The

    Chamber been cooking up since his resignation? His eyes were drawn to one monitor, on the far left hand side, displaying the front of a flat, its door completely boarded up.

    "You can change the picture for that one, if you want." The slightly less drunk soldier said, still smiling, having obviously won the bet.

    "What are these?" Jackson asked, standing to his feet and retrieving his glasses to get a better look.

    "Surveillance cameras," replied the soldier.

    "Yes, I can see that, private, but where are they watching? And why?"

    A voice from behind answered for him.

    "They are part of a special project we were working on following your retirement, sir." It was Gallagher, his voice immediately silencing the men's frolics. Jackson immediately felt inferior, his own entrance having had little to no effect on the men. He turned to address Gallagher, finding him still dressed in the yellow plastic suit, doused in blood as if he'd been at a riot in a butcher's shop. "The aim, at first, was to maintain surveillance on several key suspects. Without their knowledge, of course. Worked very well, sir. We were able to gain insider knowledge on the extra-curricular activities, shall we say, of several key representatives from the paramilitaries. Such information helped us to secure a ceasefire, sir. We simply blackmailed each of these men to ensure they played ball with the British and Irish governments. Of course, we took on other projects after that. Once the peace process was secured…"

    Jackson looked at the screen, already having blanked out Gallagher's voice. It wasn't that he doubted any of what the doctor was saying. The Chamber's work was every bit as effective as it was questionable. Operating with free rein to do as it saw fit, results were achieved all too readily. But Jackson was drawn to something else, something that reminded him of his old life, of Deny and Donegal. Of his family. He brushed over the image of the struggling man, almost invisible now against the throng of starving dead. He moved back to the still image of the flat, noticing a strand of tape hanging off the door. He walked closer to the screen to get a better look.