The Last Plague (6 page)

     Frank stared down the street; Joel sipped water and glanced behind them as if expecting an attack; Magnus was absently rubbing his mouth like he was trying to wipe away the crumbs of his last meal. Spit came away with his fingers. A muscle moved just below his right eye.

     Ralph slapped the palm of one hand with the crowbar.

     “What the fuck is going on?”    

* * *

They heard the shriek again. It was louder.

     “That ain’t a fucking dog,” said Ralph.

     “I don’t feel well,” said Magnus. His eyes were moving quickly, glancing around. He swayed on his feet and Joel took hold of him by the shoulders. His face shined with sweat.

     “You okay, mate?”

     “Not really.” His eyelids drooped. “Feel dizzy and hot.”

     Joel touched Magnus’s forehead. “He’s burning up.”

     “We keep walking,” said Frank.

     “Where to?” asked Joel.

     “Maybe the church, if whoever was ringing the bells is still there.”

     “Fair enough.”

     Magnus exhaled through his teeth. He held onto Joel.

     The four men moved on. They kept to the middle of the road. Ralph held the crowbar like he was craving violence, spoiling for a fight.

     The sky was turning darker. Grey becoming charcoal. Low clouds, their undersides painted with shadow. There was a deep, short rumble far away in the sky. Frank thought about thunder and how it should sound. Not like that.

     They reached the end of a T-junction. Half a dozen cars were parked along the side of the road. Frank led them onto Carpenter Street. This road would lead them out of the village, eventually.

     “What’s that sound?” said Ralph. He raised the crowbar.

     They rounded a corner. A young woman was lying on her stomach, trying to raise herself up with her arms. She was wearing a jumper and jeans. White trainers. She made a horrible noise, as if her stomach was trying to climb up her throat. Her eyes bulged and she was crying, her shoulders hitching with each sob.

     When the woman sensed them, her neck turned slowly.

     “Christ on a fucking bike!” Ralph said.

     “Oh shit.” Joel forgot to keep hold of Magnus; he folded at the knees. Joel grabbed him again and held him up.

     Frank took a step towards the woman. He held out his hands. “Are you okay?”

     The woman looked at him.

     “We’re not going to hurt you,” Frank said, keeping his voice low and steady.

     “What’s that on her neck?” said Ralph, pointing.

     Frank saw, about two inches below the woman’s left ear, a puncture mark weeping a clear fluid. The skin around the hole was red and sore.

     “Looks like a wasp sting,” said Frank.

     “It would have to be a big fucking wasp.”

     “There’re no such things as giant wasps,” said Joel. He didn’t sound convinced.  

     “Help me,” the woman said. She held out one hand to them.

     Frank couldn’t take his eyes from the woman. He took a step towards her.

     “What’s wrong with her?” said Joel.

     “Fuck knows,” Ralph said.    

     “Help me,” the woman muttered. She turned onto her back, breathing hard. Her face was vaguely child-like in the dirty light.

     “Do you think she has something contagious?” Ralph asked.    

     The men backed away from her.

     “What happened to you?” said Frank.

     She didn’t answer.

     “Let’s get out of here,” Ralph said.

     “We can’t just leave her,” said Frank.

     Magnus let out a moan.

     Ralph looked at Frank. “Can’t we? We’ve got our own problems. I’m not touching her.”

     “So compassionate, as always.”

     “Ralph’s right,” said Joel. “What if she is contagious?”

     “She needs help,” said Frank.

     “We all need help.” Ralph let out a humourless laugh.

     Frank glared at him.

     Ralph shook his head. “If you want to help her, mate, be my guest.”

     Frank looked at the woman. The wound on her neck had become redder and swollen. Frank thought that if he touched the mark, it would feel spongy and moist. He shuddered with revulsion.

     “Go on then, Frank,” said Ralph. “You want to be a Good Samaritan. Stay here and help her.”

     “Let’s go,” said Joel. “We can get help for her and come back.”

     Magnus drifted lazily on his feet, dazed. Joel and Ralph were struggling to keep him upright and stable.

     “What
happened
to you?” Frank asked the woman.

     She stared at Frank. She tried to speak but her words dissolved into murmurs and sobs.

     The terrible shriek echoed towards them again. It didn’t sound human. More like an animal sound, but not one any of them knew.     

     “What the hell is making that noise?” said Joel. He was looking back the way they had walked. He was saucer-eyed. He chewed on his bottom lip.

     Ralph said, “We need to get some help for Magnus first before we help this woman. We’ll find some help and come back for her.”

     Frank didn’t believe Ralph, but he nodded. “Okay.”

     “Good idea,” said Joel. “Let’s go.”

     Frank hesitated. He didn’t want to leave the woman here. For some reason he felt responsible for her. He didn’t know why. If he left the woman here, she would die. She would die alone.

     “C’mon, Frank,” Ralph said. “She’s not our problem.”

Magnus was staring at the woman. His nose was bleeding.

     Joel pulled a tissue from his pocket. He wiped Magnus’s nose with it, then held it there.

     “You look like shit, Magnus,” said Ralph.

     “I’m okay,” said Magnus. His voice was slurred. He took the tissue from Joel’s hand and held it under his nose. “I’m fine.”

     Behind them, another shriek rang out. Closer. Much closer.

     “Fuck this,” Ralph said. He pulled Frank with him as he and Joel helped Magnus along.

     Frank glanced back at the woman. Ralph was swearing under his breath.

     “Please don’t leave me,” the woman said. Desperation in her voice. “Don’t leave me here.”

     Frank kept walking. He looked away.

     From beyond the street, another shriek rang out. 

CHAPTER ELEVEN

“What’s wrong with Magnus?” asked Joel. His face was all sharp angles and creases.

     Frank looked back as the unseen thing shrieked again. A stab of remorse pricked his chest. They had left the woman behind, back there.
He
had left the woman behind. He could have helped her.

     “Hurry up, Frank,” Ralph called to him.

     “Feels like someone’s playing a joke on us,” said Joel. “Some kids or bored villagers trying to scare some outsiders. This can’t be happening, can it? It has to be some kind of prank…”

     “If it is a practical joke,” Ralph said, “I’m going to beat the fuck out of the little shits.”

     Frank hurried forwards. Something made him look up at the sky; he sensed a presence above him, hidden in the clouds. Then it was gone. He looked back at his friends.

     Ralph was slapping Magnus’s face lightly, trying to keep him awake. “We need to stop. He’s dead weight.”

     “What is making that shrieking?” said Joel. “I don’t want to be caught in the open when that thing shows up.”

     Ralph pointed to the open front door of a house across the street. “What about in there? Magnus needs somewhere to rest. We can’t drag him much further.”

     “We don’t know who’s in there,” Joel said.

     “I don’t give a fuck,” said Ralph. “We can’t stay out here. What do you think, Frank?”

     Frank looked at the open door inviting them inside. A grey dimness lurked beyond it.

     The shrieking thing called out again; a wailing, desperate sound. He tried not to imagine the mouth that made such a noise. He imagined something wet and dripping. He imagined a toothless mouth with fleshy slippery gums and tongue running over clammy white lips.

     “Frank,” Ralph said, clicking his fingers at him. “What do you think?”

     Frank looked back down the street.

     “Frank!”

     He looked at Ralph. “Okay.”

     Ralph and Joel hauled Magnus towards the house. There was a blue Nissan on the driveway.

     Frank followed then stopped at the door. Joel was calling out to see if the house was occupied. No answer. Ralph helped Magnus sit down on the hallway floor, slumped against the wall. He muttered under his breath.

     Joel returned from the kitchen. He had already checked the living room. “Nobody home. Don’t know about upstairs, though.”

     “Shut the door, Frank,” said Ralph.     

     “I’m going back.”

     Ralph’s eyes widened. “Oh, for fuck’s sake, mate. Why?”

     “It’s not right to leave her.”

     “Please don’t go,” said Joel. “Stay here, Frank.”

     “I’m sorry. I have to do it.”

     “Don’t be a dickhead,” Ralph said. “We have to look after Magnus, not some woman we don’t even know.”

     Frank handed his bag to Joel. “I can’t leave her back there.”

     “Here.” Ralph tossed Frank the crowbar.

     He caught it.

     “Get back here in one piece.”

     Then Frank was gone.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Frank hid behind the back of a white transit van parked by the side of the road. He gripped the crowbar and peered around the side of the van.

     The woman was gone.

     A sliver of panic and guilt stabbed him in the gut. Something had happened to the woman. He had had the chance to save her but neglected it. Maybe someone else had helped her. Maybe not.

     Frank’s body sagged and he rubbed his face with one moist, clammy palm.

     Something moved on the other side of the van. The patter of feet and the scrape of something on the road. Frank froze. His temples throbbed.

     Something shrieked.

     The sound filled Frank’s head. He clenched his teeth, fought the urge to scream, pins in his eardrums.

     The shrieking thing swiped against the van. A scraping sound, like nails over metal.

     Frank crouched and looked under the van.

     The naked legs and bare feet of a man. Gangrenous lesions on his calves.
It is human.
The man grunted, a terrible livestock sound, like a cow drowning in a mud pit. Frank was struck by a stink like something left to rot in the sun by the side of a road.

     Frank realised that if he could look under the van at the man, then the man could do exactly the same. He edged to the rear of the vehicle, towards the wheel, for cover. The man breathed loudly through a gasping mouth. The fevered breaths of a sick animal.

     The man
skittered
. Wet grunted breaths grew more rapid.

     The man was moving around the side of the van, towards him.

     Frank got onto his hands and knees and scrambled under the vehicle. The cloying stink of oil and diesel.  He stayed low to the ground, kissing the road. The cold hard tarmac bit at his hands. He tucked in his limbs. He held his breath. Sweat dripped from his face. His pulse thudded hotly between his ears and he thought the man might be able to hear his heartbeat.

     The man’s bare feet stopped next to him. Long toenails yellowed, curved and fungal. Calloused heels wrapped in dead, flaking skin.

     
I’m a fool for coming back here. 

     The man shrieked again, the sound of swollen and infected vocal chords.

     Frank closed his eyes. He did not want to see the man’s face when he stooped to drag him from his hiding place.    

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Ralph examined the blade of the kitchen knife in his hand. It was sharp and he liked it.

     Judging by the framed photos on the walls, the house belonged to a young family. Mum, dad, and a little boy no more than ten years old. Ralph wondered where they were now. He had searched for the Nissan’s keys, but couldn’t find them.

     He wondered if the family was dead.

     They had laid Magnus on the sofa. He was barely conscious but his nose had stopped bleeding. Now he was a limp shape, eyelids fluttering, muttering nonsense words and moaning gently. His head was resting on a cushion. Joel laid a damp cloth over his forehead after cleaning the blood from around his nose and mouth.

     Ralph found a Tupperware box full of chocolate bars in the kitchen cupboard. He gave one to Joel, one to save for Magnus when he awoke, and one for Frank when he returned. Ralph didn’t save one for the woman Frank had gone to rescue. He took two for himself and ate them without pause.

     “What’s happening out there?” asked Joel. “Where is everybody?” He let out a nervous, juddering sigh. “I’ve got work tomorrow…”

     Magnus groaned.

     “Fuck knows,” said Ralph. “Have you tried the TV?”

     “The power’s out. Do you think it’s only happened to this village, or do you think it’s happened elsewhere? Maybe the people were evacuated for some reason. What if this area is contaminated with something? Radiation or a biological agent of some kind. We could be in the middle of a quarantine zone. The government might want to hush it up, keep it all secret. There could be squads of soldiers in bio-hazard suits executing on sight anyone they think is contaminated.”

     Ralph’s mouth turned sour. “We don’t know what’s happened. No point in jumping to conclusions.”