IMPACT (Book 1): A Post-Apocalyptic Tale (12 page)

Billings poked one of the bodies with the muzzle of his weapon. For reasons he found difficult to explain, Edward felt the impulse to tell him to stop, that it was wrong. He kept the thought to himself. The corpse flopped back into position when Billings drew the rifle back.

“Looks like we won’t be firing, sir,” he said to Neeson. The officer dipped his chin, saying nothing.

Catherine walked slowly across the vast space, and Edward decided to move towards her. The two soldiers were examining the bodies, sharing comments quietly.

“Shocking, isn’t it?” he asked when he had reached her.

“Yes.” Catherine knelt down beside one of the bodies. The signs of the Affliction were masked beneath a new layer of suffering, but still clearly visible. “These are bullet wounds,” she said, partly to Edward, partly to herself.

He too noticed that all the bodies presented similar wounds, powerful perforations that had deprived them of their lives.

“Yes ma’am,” confirmed Neeson as he too bowed down beside a body. “And it looks like whoever did this was
very
well equipped.” He stood. “No reason to waste any more time in here. Where were the meds, Mr. Moore?”

Edward stood and, stepping over the dead meteorwraiths, scanned the room for the blue plastic boxes he had seen, when he was trapped in here with Mathew. It was difficult to focus among the carnage. “They were blue, quite big. Plastic,” he said, and the others began to search as well.

He recognized other boxes. The ones that had contained the tins of canned food they had feasted upon in their little bunker on one of the shelves. Out of curiosity, he shifted the cardboard flap back. The food was gone. Before he could reflect on the implications of this, he heard Cathy say, “Were these the ones?”

He turned. She was in a corner of the room, pointing at two boxes he recognized instantly. Something on her face made his heart sink.

As the men approached her, she dipped a hand inside one the two boxes, and drew out a single white pack of medicines. She glanced at them, then shook the small container in the air. The little pills inside it rattled. “MemoryAid,” she said sadly.

“Anything else?” asked Neeson.

Catherine looked down again, then shook her head.

“Nothing.”

* * *

They stood in a circle, all peering inside the empty blue boxes. They had come all this way for nothing.

“Shit,” said Billings, and turned to spit. “Blokes who did the ‘wraiths in must’ve taken the meds, sir,” he told Neeson.

“Apparently. Yes,” agreed the officer.

“Damn,” said Catherine, kicking the ground with her foot. Edward could hear the frustration in her voice. As the only living health professional left in Bately, the lack of medical supplies must have been a constant, nerve-racking concern.

“We should leave,” said Neeson, “the area isn’t safe.”

Catherine and Edward turned towards the entrance, and shuffled along in disappointment, trying to avoid the sight of the dead bodies.

“You reckon the attackers were another gang of ‘wraiths, sir?” asked Billings.

“No. They were properly trained. Well armed. They’re not ‘wraiths.”

They reached the far end of the warehouse.

“Also,” added Neeson as they neared the door, “‘wraiths don’t waste their time with stuff like that.”

Moore was about to ask what the soldier was referring to – then he saw it.

A large symbol had been traced above the warehouse entrance. It stretched all the way from the ceiling to the floor, even covering the door they were about to step through. Three precisely-drawn circles, painted with a thick, black paint. A larger one and two progressively smaller ones below it.

It was terrifying in its bare simplicity.

Catherine, Billings, and Moore could just stare, open-mouthed.

* * *

Paul thought he heard something.

He eyed the roof of the warehouse. Was it a gunshot? He hoped not.

Paul shifted his weight, the pressure of the damp ground against his chest becoming bothersome. For what seemed to be the thousandth time, he scanned the view ahead of him, not really expecting to see anyone or anything. There were noises coming from the west, inside Ashford, but they were far away and he supposed they were of no concern to him or his companions.

He felt an itch on his left elbow, and put the binoculars down on the grey grass to scratch it. He pinched the fabric of his shirt, rubbing it up and down, but the itch didn’t quite go away.

He perched himself up on the opposite elbow, legs still spread flat out on the ground behind him, and rolled up his sleeve to inspect his skin.

There were three silver-white flakes of dead skin, almost perfectly circular, where he had felt the itch.

“What–?”

His fingers prodded at the dry film of epidermis, both fascinated and disgusted by it. He scratched a little harder and they came off.

“Yuck,” he said to himself. Then he noticed a similar itch coming from the other elbow. He reversed his position, planting the first elbow in the grass, and rolling up the opposite sleeve. Here too he found the dead flakes of skin. His eyebrows drew together as he wondered, concerned, what they could be. Was he ill?

That was when he felt the cold touch of the muzzle behind his head.

* * *

“Who are you?” asked the voice.

Paul tried to speak, but couldn’t. Also, finding an appropriate answer to that question wasn’t easy. His mind registered the fact that it was a male voice, and that it had a slight accent – Swedish perhaps, or Danish.

There were no thoughts flying through his head, no words he could utter, just a basic, instinctive and voiceless dread of death that utterly paralysed him.

He felt a boot shoved into his back, pinning him to the ground. The muzzle stabbed at his head, the man obviously frustrated by his lack of response.

“Who
are
you?” he repeated, louder.

Paul tried to articulate his reply, but failed. All he succeeded in producing was a strange, high-pitched muttering sound. He felt the pressure from the boot on his back increase. He swallowed and tried again.

“I-I’m… my name is Paul. I’m a priest,” he said realising how odd it was to define himself, his whole person, in such a scanty collection of words to a man who might be about to kill him.

The man grunted. The muzzle was once again thrust into the back of his head.

“What are you doing here?”

Paul tried to think, but it wasn’t easy. What combination of sentences might, somehow, get him out of this situation without giving his friends away?

Before he could speak, there was a rasping sound somewhere behind him. It was a small, metallic voice, and heavily distorted. In his fear, Paul conjured up the image of a small devil, like the ones he’d admired in the illustrations within ancient manuscripts in monasteries all across Italy. He pictured it there, standing next to this armed man, pushing him to end Paul’s life.

“Stay there,” the man said, and Paul felt the pressure from the boot abandon his back. Soon after it, the firearm went too. It was a walkie-talkie, just like the one he had under his chest. Someone was trying to contact the man with the weapon.

“I’m here, sir, what is it?” the man said into the walkie-talkie.

The response was muffled and Paul couldn’t make out its contents.

“I’m still in Ashford. Found someone in the area I was patrolling, sir. Got him here.”

Something in the quality of the sound of those last few words made Paul realise the man had turned around, shoulders towards him.

Paul decided to take a peek. He turned his head, slowly, and saw the back of a muscular man, the rifle in one hand and the walkie-talkie in the other, held close to his ear. The peculiar thing was that he was wearing a uniform – a stern, red and black outfit that was meticulously clean and strangely intimidating in its elegance.

“No one else, no,” the man was saying, in reply to a question Paul hadn’t heard. “The team has left. I’ll follow soon.”

The rifle
.

The thought entered Paul’s mind from nowhere, fully-formed and crystal clear.

The rifle is right next to me. Under my jacket. He hasn’t seen it. All I need to do is reach out, grab it, and shoot this man while he’s turned.

It was so simple, so manageable. All it took was for him to hold the weapon, aim, and pull the trigger. If he aimed it properly – it shouldn’t be too complicated at this distance – perhaps he would be able to kill the man instantly, without him suffering.

Easy.

Yet it was the most complicated and overwhelming thought he’d ever considered.

Murder
. The most vile of sins against man.

His ears tuned in to what this individual – the one whose death he was contemplating – was saying in the walkie-talkie.

“… might be others. Not sure,” he threw an indifferent glance at Paul, then turned around again. He listened, as the voice on the other end said something. “He’s a
priest
. Yes, I know. I’ll question him before I do…”

Before he does what?
Paul asked himself, his heartbeat accelerating. Was that as bad as it sounded? Did this man intend to kill him? And the disgust with which he’d pronounced the world ‘priest’, was it real or had Paul simply imagined it?

“… I’ll contact the team, ask them to get back here and search the area again. Yes, as soon as I’m done here, sir.”

He wants to interrogate me, kill me, and then ask others to return to conduct a search
, Paul thought. He couldn’t be completely sure that this was the meaning of those words. Not the bit about killing him, anyway.

What he
was
sure about however, was that this man would call others like him, armed men who would come back and possibly find his friends. They might even kill some of them. Or perhaps all of them.

Paul tried to concentrate. He had little time. At the beginning of the walkie-talkie conversation, the man had pointed out he was ‘still in Ashford.’ This suggested that the person on the other end was elsewhere. And that the team returning to conduct the search, they were a third party. If Paul shot and killed this man now –
that’s a very big if
, a voice inside him added – the man on the walkie-talkie would be alerted. He’d then inform the other group that something was up.

If I am to kill this man, it’ll have to be after he’s closed the communication. I need him to end the call before he turns around.

“Yes, sir. All right, sir–” the man’s tone suggested their conversation was coming to a close. Paul tried to balance things rationally, to weigh the situation. But the thought of a swarm of uniformed men raiding the warehouse, gunning Cathy and his companions down was overwhelming.

Before he knew it, his hand reached for the rifle under the coat. His fingers touched the cold metal. It felt just like the one that had been pressed against his head minutes before.
Except this one might save my life, rather than end it.

Paul turned, laying on his back in the grass, drawing the weapon to his chest. He held it there with both his trembling hands. As he rotated the barrel towards this nameless man with the intention of killing him, he knew this action, even done in defence of his friends, would spell the end of his life as a priest.

He positioned the sight as Bill had taught him to earlier that day, aiming for the head. Almost precisely where this man’s weapon had been resting against his own.

Paul held his breath.

The man closed the conversation. “Yessir, of course sir. Over and out.” Then he turned, fumbling with the walkie-talkie, in an attempt to hang it off a small hook on his leather belt. His body was now facing Paul, but his eyes were low, on the belt.
He thinks I’m such an insignificant threat, he isn’t even bothering to keep his eyes on me
, thought Paul.

“All right then, little priest–” the man began before noticing Paul and the rifle pointed at him. His eyes and his mouth both widened, like in one of those old cartoons Paul had watched as a child, and his hands darted up to fire his own weapon.

Things happened very rapidly.

“Forgive me, Father,” he whispered, feeling his own heart break.

He pulled the trigger and in that exact instant something inside him cried:
The safety! Release the safety!

He heard the dull click of the weapon’s interrupted mechanism and his heart stopped.

But amazingly, despite the safety, his opponent’s throat burst open, pierced by the bullet.

The man fell to the ground, dropping his weapon. Paul scrambled to his feet, shaking in horror, and noticed the man’s black shirt was now stained by blacker shadows where the blood was flowing.

For five seconds or so, Paul watched the man shake grotesquely, his muscles contracting in random spasms.

The priest felt tears run down his cheeks as he ran to the man’s side.

Chaotic thoughts burst into his mind, broken and echoing through the vast chasm of his desperation.
I can stop this. I can stop this. Lord, I can make it better. I can go back, go back and change it. Oh Lord, I have sinned, but I can save this man, save my friends, and–

“He’s dead, Father.”

It was Neeson’s voice.

Paul turned, still crying, and saw the soldier standing behind him, his rifle raised from the shot fired.

“He’s dead,” repeated Neeson. “I aimed for the throat, Father.”

Walscombe had watched the impact through a monitor in his room. The feed was from one of the innumerable webcams that had been set up for this purpose by weirdos and others who had nothing better to do with the little time they had left. Most news channels had simply closed, as nobody bothered to turn up for work when the meteorites’ strike had been confirmed.
Lazy pricks
, thought Walscombe, with a humourless smile.

He had sat in his chair, munching on Doritos, uncertain about how he was meant to feel, as he gazed at the low-resolution images on the screen. They showed an empty field in the ass-end of nowhere in Bumblefuck, Nebraska or something like that. A bouquet of grain stalks swayed lazily in the breeze, their proximity to the lens tricking his eye into thinking they were six foot tall. The video was black and white, but he found it easy to visualize the gold and brown that belonged to this distant view. There had been many fields like that where he grew up. Those, like this one, as empty and boring as his own childhood had been.