Flu (9 page)

    Pat sighed, reaching across the barrel to lower the safety lever.

    "Sorry," she whispered.

    "It's okay," he said, smiling weakly.

    Pat readied his own 9mm before bending forward, quietly, to open the front door to flat 52. It wasn't locked, and that worried Pat. They'd had to break open every other flat, save this one. It certainly wasn't a good sign to find a door unsecured.

    Pat reckoned that most of the block's tenants had shot through well before the worst had hit Belfast, leaving most of their belongings locked up tight in their flats. He had heard reports of rescue camps, during the height of the outbreak. Well after even the TV had stopped broadcasting anything besides the 'Emergency Broadcast Signal' that had become all too familiar. Of course, rumours were circulating that the 'rescue' camps were only slightly better than 'concentration' camps. He'd even met some survivors, along the way, who had broken free of the camps amidst reports of government- sponsored culling. That wouldn't surprise a man like Pat Flynn, when it came to the British government. In fact, it fitted in perfectly well with his political leanings, as well as his personal experience…

    Turning to Karen, Pat raised one finger across his lips in a gesture encouraging her to move quietly. She nodded before moving to enter the flat, but Pat stopped her, choosing to enter first. A smell of rotting food and God-knows-what-else hit him like a smack around the head. It was pungent, weeks of neglect and shut windows creating something of a greenhouse effect with the sun's daily assault.

    Pat checked behind him, finding Karen following closely, her handgun pointed to the ground. It impressed him to see how comfortable she looked with the gun, now. It was hard to think that only two days ago, she was holding it like it was a possessed thing or some kind of forbidden fruit. A good girl like Karen shouldn't look this comfortable with a gun, he thought, but it made him smile, nonetheless.

    They moved through the hallway, quietly It was the same layout as their own flat, several floors above, so it was easy enough to navigate. They moved towards the kitchen, hoping to free up some tinned goods. The place was even more decrepit than they expected, more flies seeming to populate the area than Pat deemed possible. And then there was the smell… He slammed the door, tightly, turning to Karen and shaking his head.

    "There's no way we're going in there," he said, "We aren't likely to find anything useable, anyway."

    Karen nodded, turning to retreat out of the flat. Absentmindedly, she reached for the door to the bathroom on her way out, turning and opening the handle before Pat could stop her. The door slammed back on her face as the figure of a man lumbered out of the small room. His entire face was completely caked in bloody mucus. A quick glance inside the bathroom revealed a scarlet-stained toilet and more of those damn flies.

    Karen fell back onto the ground, the dead man lingering over her, dangerously.

    Pat did the first thing that came to mind, slamming the creature, hard, forcing it through the hall and open doorway. The two of them fell to the cold, tiled floor of the outside corridor. Pat struggled against the thing, his own handgun having slid across the corridor during the commotion. It was on top of him, somehow, and seemed much stronger and aggressive than he had thought it should be. With one hand, he held its face away from his as he struggled to reach with his other hand for his weapon. The thing's teeth were showing, rotting and slathered with the same bloody gore that leaked from its eyes and nose. Flies continued to crowd him, creating a terrifying din of desperate moaning with the annoying buzzing sound.

    Pat fought against the damn thing, but it was everywhere - Tearing, scratching and… trying to bite him. It managed to get its jaws over his sleeve, closing down upon his leather jacket. He could feel its hunger, its feral nature having completely taken over its brain and functions to make it the predator it had become. This creature was no longer the docile, disease-carrying pest it had been before. It was a hunter, now. A savage hunter.

    A shot rang out close by, and Pat found his face completely covered in blood within an instant. Another shot, and then there was calm. The dead thing no longer bit against his jacket. It no longer dragged and scratched against his clothes and person. He kicked it away from him, as if it were a dead rat, and scrambled to his feet. He wiped his face, spitting to make sure none of the dead thing's blood had got into his mouth.

    "Did I hit it?" said the voice from inside the flat.

    Pat turned to find Karen, gun pointed towards the ground, just as he'd taught her. She looked almost scary in the pale light, wearing that little white dress that used to look so innocent to him, stained by a single speck of blood. Her face remained naive, questioning, even, as if she wasn't so sure she'd done the right thing. He realised, suddenly, that she
had
become a killer, that she
had
learned to protect herself, but she still remained pretty much the person she had always been. Maybe in this new world, where death was becoming a part of life, it wasn't so bad to kill. Especially if in self-defence. And especially if what you had killed was, in some strange way, dead already.

    "Yep," he said, smiling as he cleaned his face with a handkerchief. "You hit it."

Chapter Six

    Although he was dead by the late afternoon, it was almost midnight by the time the colonel had turned. Gallagher was prepared for him long before that, of course, standing over the old man's body wearing a harshly scrubbed, yellow plastic suit, its thick material to act as protection against a potential attack from the late colonel, regardless of how unlikely such was. The colonel was stripped naked, lying on the floor, the desk and chair from the interrogation room having been moved to the back of the room to allow Jackson to view the situation more fully from the observation room. The dead man's arms and legs were tightly bound, meaning he would not be able to get up or grab anything.

    "I think he's coming around, sir," Gallagher said, somewhat excited. "We can see the coating on his skin already fully formed."

    "You mean sweat?" Jackson said, inquisitively. He sat, uncomfortably, at his chair by the red button on the other side of the glass.

    "Almost, sir. But more than that," Gallagher said. "I've noticed this from other bodies I've examined. After death, a thick, clear mucus seems to emit from their pores, layering their skin
like
sweat. But, over time, it hardens - a bit like liquid latex - to provide some sort of preservative, some sort of protection against the ravages of time and the sun. It's really quite remarkable. Apart from that, I know little about it. I haven't sufficient equipment at my disposal to examine it properly. However, I would guess that it's made up of the substances our bodies already secrete during life."

    Jackson remembered watching them from the lookout at Aldergrove. Soon after the oxygen had run out and the surviving military gave up fighting them. Their numbers became thicker, attracted by the soldiers' constant to and fro at the gates. They were in various states of degradation, some of them ravaged more severely by the flu virus that had ripped life, brutally, from their bodies, than others. But, for most of them, you could tell they were dead. They were different to the living. They
acted
differently from the bodies of the living, or, indeed, the bodies of the dying. The sun's daily onslaught was merciless, as if some great pagan god were angry at their ongoing pillage of Great Mother Nature and all she had created. Its damaging rays took a gradual toll on them, regardless of the preservative Gallagher spoke of, and despite this, they seemed drawn to the heat, even energised by such. At times, some of them would lift their hands up, as if worshipping the sun or trying to grab it and pull it down towards them. One would suspect that they, in some way, fed off light in a similar, but less aggressive way, as they fed off flesh. But that would make them uncomfortably close to human, of course.

    "So, they're more or less made up of the same stuff we are," Jackson said, sighing heavily. "Well, what makes them tick, then? Do they have a heartbeat, for example?"

    "Good question, sir. They don't use their hearts anymore. In fact, they don't seem to need
any
of their inner organs. It's really quite curious." Gallagher stepped back slightly as he spoke. Jackson glared in through the glass, catching a flicker of movement from the colonel's hand. As he watched, the eyelids started to move. A long drool of phlegm sputtered from the colonel's mouth, like oil from an old engine, rolling, slowly, down his chin, as if to demonstrate Gallagher's next point. "That cough, sir. It isn't a sign of life, you understand. This isn't a resurrection you are witnessing. When they wheeze and spit like that, well, it seems to be their way of getting rid of disused, broken down organs, simply spewing them up along with the phlegm that still troubles them from their dying moments."

    Jackson felt his stomach churn at that. He was beginning to resent Gallagher's running commentary. But another part of him was fascinated by the dead, needing to understand them better, to watch their every move, analytically. To make more sense of their wandering, like lost children. Their drive to seek out the living like the embrace of worried parents. The way they seemed to change, evolve over time. At first, simply lethargic - attacking only those humans foolish enough to engage them - but eventually actively seeking out their prey. He had noticed it all at Aldergrove. They would batter down the gates, as if becoming stronger, as if some sort of hunger or desperation had set in. But their faces were always drawn, tired, maybe even frustrated looking, as if they knew they would
never
be sated, no matter how close they got to humankind.

    The colonel was rolling about on the floor now, looking as angry and frustrated as he had sounded during his last moments of life. A part of Jackson was glad to see the old bastard suffer so much, even though he felt bad for thinking it. This man used to be human, he reminded himself. Human like himself, his daughter, his grandchildren. He watched as Gallagher continued to study the colonel. His face was studious, bearing no signs of emotion, as if he had never known the colonel in life. He seemed unconcerned about whether he might contract the virus, working so closely with the body. Jackson found himself wondering just how much use all of this study could be. What would it help them achieve, down at The Chamber? Were they no better than the so- called 'experts' who used to argue 24-7 on television, expounding their ideas like new religions? Theorising, as if their self-indulgent bullshitting could do anything other than make them
sound
knowledgeable, when, in reality, they knew absolutely nothing.

    The colonel's eyes suddenly flicked open, struggling against the harsh light. He looked sad, mournful, even, as if part of him were aware of his predicament. His body shook, vigorously, trying to free itself from its bonds. Gallagher approached, eyes wide and joyful, like a nurse delivering a new baby. "You're awake," he said, smiling. "Let's get started then…"

    Lark unlocked the patio doors. He looked inside, finding Geri sitting where he had left her - same chair at the same table, wearing the same bemused scowl. He stood back, gesturing for her to get up.

    "Okay, you can come out, now," he said. "Quarantine's over."

    Geri glared at him, wordlessly, as she got up off her chair. She kicked over her piss pot, knocking the plate resting on top of it and its contents across the tiled floor. Then she walked through the doors to 'freedom'.

    "We had to be sure you weren't infected!" Lark protested, throwing his hands in the air. "It was nothing personal, like…"

"Nothingpersonalis
Geri retorted, bitterly, "Just like it was
nothing personal
when your fluff-headed mate there," and she pointed to the nearby McFall, "almost killed me on those fucking roads!?"

    McFall shrugged his shoulders, saying nothing. He was sitting at the kitchen table, quietly emptying his revolver of bullets. Once finished, he rested the revolver on the table and stood up to make himself a cup of tea.

    "Look, we were just scared, that's all -" Lark said.

    "Everyone's fucking scared!" Geri interrupted, pointing a finger in defiance. "Doesn't mean you have to act like a cunt, does it?!"

    "Well, what's done is done," persisted Lark, "And anyway, it's not like it was a cell you were locked up in. The patio's comfy enough, like."

    "Comfy?!" Geri said, emphasising the word as if it were something foreign to her, "
COMFY?
She was getting more animated, pacing the kitchen like a wild thing. Lark was really wishing he'd just kept his mouth shut. "Does 'comfy' mean sitting in a fucking cold, damp room, sleeping on a fucking rug on the ground, LIKE A DOG?! DOES IT?!"

    Both men looked at each other, then around the room. She was acting like a woman possessed. McFall simply continued making tea for himself. Lark just stared at the nearby wall, rubbing the stubble on his head. Neither of the two men seemed to know the right thing to say or do.

    "Or does 'comfy' mean eating
nothing
for three whole fucking days, because you two fucking pricks are too fucking scared to even slide as much as a biscuit through the door?! DOES IT?!"

    "Well, we -" McFall went to say, before being cut short.

    "OR - maybe 'comfy' means pissing in a FUCKING pot on the FUCKING ground like some kind of refugee! Does it?!"

    Lark stared at the overturned pot on the patio floor. He watched as the lurid yellow contents spread out in the grooves of the tiled floor. It was making him retch, a little, so he turned back to Geri.

    She was in tears now, completely overwhelmed by the whole affair. She sat down on a chair by the table, burying her head in her hands. McFall, having returned to the table with his tea, moved suddenly away from her, again, as if crying were more infectious than sneezing.