The Rot (Post Apocalyptic Thriller) (6 page)

“Er… yeah, that’s right.”

“Where’d you get the gun?”

“What?”

“
This
gun.” He shook it for emphasis. “The one we found in the wreck with you.” Now we were starting to get somewhere.
We
… so he wasn’t alone, and I had him to thank for dragging me out of the crashed chopper before any of the affected could get to me. “Military hospital, was it? You some kind of soldier?”

“Some… something like that,” I replied.

“Ask him about that stuff. What’s wrong with his skin?” Another voice – female – came from the back of the room.

“Who—” I began and promptly got cut off.

“Answer her,” said the man. “What’s wrong with you, why’re you scaly like that?”

From a distance, they might not have noticed – but up close, dragging me back here, they couldn’t fail to clock the SKIN. “It’s… kind of hard to explain,” I said.

He looked at me, puzzled. I wasn’t sure myself what exactly this thing was, so I sure as hell couldn’t explain it to this guy; he needed Weeks, and I’d left him hog-tied and barking in that corridor. “There something wrong with you? That it? That why you were in the hospital?”

“Yeah… that’s right.”

“It’s not… you know, contagious is it?” This was the woman again.

“No,” I promised her, shaking my head. “No, it’s not.”

“That why you’re bald, too?” The man again.

“Listen, doesn’t matter. What matters is that most of the people back there where I was being… treated just went nuts, same as they did here. Something’s happened and—”

“Something’s fucking happened, all right!”

“
Dennis!
” The woman scolded. “You’re scaring Jane.”

Now I knew there were at least three of them.

“She
should
be bloody well scared,” said the man, but his tone had already softened.

“If he’s with the military, maybe he knows what’s going on,” the woman said. And then, suddenly, she moved closer to one of the candles. She was slightly younger than the man, her hair shoulder length. It was hard to tell in that light, because everything had an orange glow, but it looked a reddish colour – probably from a bottle. She was holding someone’s hand: a little girl, presumably Jane, who was wearing a school uniform – black jumper and trousers, white shirt, and clutching a backpack. The pig-tails completed the look of innocence.

I shook my head again. “Sorry lady, but I have to confess that I don’t have the first clue what’s happening – or why.”

“Carrie,” the woman said then. “My name is Carrie McCall.”

“Pleased to meet you, Carrie. You too, Jane.” I nodded at the girl, then the man. “Even you, Dennis. I think I have you guys to thank for saving me.”

“We were looking for more folk like us,” said another voice now, and a young man in his late teens or early twenties with a much darker complexion stepped forward. He was wearing jeans and a hoodie, his hair close-cropped. “Found you instead. I’m Rakesh.”

“Well, I’m very grateful. And hi Rakesh.” These people were survivors, like me. Maybe the only people in this godforsaken town who were normal – and they’d been doing the same thing that I was trying to do back at the facility, gather together anyone who wasn’t with the affected. Band together to protect each other, to live. To give each other hope.

“Dennis, will you put that thing down before you hurt someone,” said Carrie, and the man finally lowered the rifle… a little. “It’s obvious Adam’s not like—” She paused, unwilling or unable to say any more.

“I’m not,” I replied, filling in. “I’m
really
not. Can I just ask, how long has it been since you dragged me out and brought me here?”

“A good few hours,” Rakesh told me. “Maybe half a day.” So, definitely night-time out there; maybe even almost dawn.

“And where exactly
is
here?”

“
The White Hart
,” said Dennis, with more than a hint of pride in his voice. “Miccleston. My pub.”

Didn’t look like any kind of pub I’d ever drank in, or even got drunk in. But then the more my eyes adjusted, the more light was thrown out by those candles and the more of my surroundings I could make out. Barrels, shelving with bottles on them, boxes of crisps. “We’re in a cellar,” I said.

“Give that man a cigar,” sniped Dennis, pulling up an empty crate and sitting down hard on it; so hard it almost collapsed underneath him.

Not a bad place to hole up. There were provisions at least – and enough booze to make sure you didn’t care that the end of the world was apparently here. No, I told myself, there’s nothing to say it’s happened
anywhere
else. Just the two places so far that have torn themselves to pieces.

“And you all know each other?”

“We do now,” answered Rakesh.

“Any of you together?” I was thinking Dennis and Carrie surely – they spoke to each other like an old married couple – but apparently not. They lived on opposite sides of town, complete strangers until… I nodded then at her and Jane, thinking they might be mother and daughter; some kind of blood link between them that might explain the immunity.

“I’m… I live not far from her school; I know her mum and dad a little.” Carrie turned to Jane, said: “Sweetie, why don’t you go and do some more of that colouring in? Over there, right next to that candle where the light’s better.” The girl looked at her, then nodded, fishing stuff out of her backpack before heading off across the cellar. Carrie lowered her voice. “When it… The kids were just coming out of school when it happened. I can see them from my window, always makes me smile; they’re so full of energy. Takes me back.” She had a faraway look in her eye, as if she was remembering her own childhood days. “It’s always quite lively, boisterous. Only something was off this time, something not right. The kids were fighting, but then that’s nothing new – only it was the
way
they were fighting with each other. It was just more…”

“Savage?” I offered.

Carrie gave a nod. “They were really laying into each other, doing some damage. Not just to each other, to themselves as well. One lad was simply standing there punching himself in the face. But it wasn’t just the kids, it was the teachers too – and parents. I watched for a few moments, not really knowing what to do… I got up off the sofa finally when I saw all the blood; when there were kids on the ground not moving. I tried to call the police, but the line was dead. So I got my shoes and coat on, went outside – just in time to see Jane running towards me, terrified. Her mother was chasing her, but she wasn’t trying to get her back, to keep her safe. Sandra had this odd expression on her face, a wild look in her eye, you know?”

I did. I knew exactly what she meant.

“Jane basically leapt into my arms. I think she had a sense that her mother wanted to do something to her as well. I took her back into my house, just as Sandra caught up. She was banging on that door, trying to get in – but she wasn’t shouting anything, just wailing. Screaming and wailing. I held Jane to me in the hallway; she was sobbing into my shoulder. Then the banging suddenly stopped. I don’t know what happened to Sandra, whether she just gave up or someone…” Carrie looked back across at Jane, busily colouring something in, tongue sticking out of the corner of her mouth.

“What did you do then?” I asked.

“I waited a little while, but the noise was deafening outside – like a full scale riot or something. When someone put the living room window through, I took Jane out the back door, out into the garden, and we climbed over the fence. Wasn’t until then, until we were making our way through town, that I saw it had affected more than just the school.”

I recalled the images I’d seen as I flew over the place. There was no need for Carrie to go into any more detail.

“I just couldn’t get my head around it. How quickly it had turned… for everything to go to rack and ruin, to go to rot. If Rakesh hadn’t found us, I don’t know what would have happened.” She looked across at the youth and smiled a thank you.

“So,” I said next, “what’s your story, Rakesh?”

Turned out he was a student at the local college. “Moved here to study art,” the lad told me. “Painting, drawing, film…”

“Piss about at the tax payer’s expense more like,” Dennis chipped in, but Rakesh didn’t rise to the bait.

He’d been walking back to his digs after a lecture on Picasso, taking a short-cut down an alleyway leading into town proper, when he became aware of someone following him. “There was a gang of them; guys, about my age. It’s not the first time something like that’s happened,” he said with a sigh in his voice. “Things can get a bit difficult… especially up here.” I thought I noticed a pointed exchange of glances between him and Dennis, but he moved on quickly. “It’s like Carrie said, though, there was just something off about them. The way they were moving, the funny noises they were making. Wasn’t right. So I ran, raced up the alley – and they chased me. Managed to lose them eventually, but I was scared they’d still be waiting to jump me somewhere. You can imagine how relieved I was when I spotted a copper on patrol. I’d been about to phone for help, when I saw him – went up to him. Except…”

“What?” I prompted.

“Well, when he turned and looked at me… his face was blank. It was as if there was nothing going on inside, like he was just reacting to the tap on the shoulder automatically. Nobody at home, you know…” Rakesh pointed to his temple, “…up here. He was drooling; reminded me of Nan that time when she had the stroke, and… I could smell something. As if he’d messed himself or whatever. When I looked down, the front of his trousers were wet as well. His eyes were going in different directions; he was in a proper bad way. I was going to call for an ambulance, but that’s when the gang caught up with me, all grunting and snarling. I braced myself for what they were about to do, but it was the policeman they went for first. Some part of them must have remembered that they hated the police more than…” He hung his head and shook it. “I ran off. Wanted to stay and help him, but there were just too many of them – and I’m not much of a fighter. Never have been. Used to get bullied all the time at school, but could never dish it back out.”

“That’s not a bad thing,” I told him, at the same time thinking that perhaps it was, given this new situation. That if you didn’t fight, you would never survive it.

As if reading my mind, Rakesh said: “It might be. I think I’m going to have to learn; the things I saw out there… Before I ran into Carrie and Jane.”

“You mentioned your phone – did you try to use it after the thing with the cop?”

“Reception’s rubbish at the best of times out here, but it’s completely dead at the moment – at least on mine. No net, no service; nothing.”

Okay, that was my radio, the landline Carrie had said was out, and now Rakesh’s mobile. “So,” I said, trying to change the subject, “you all ended up here, in the cellar of a pub?”

“Dennis spotted us wandering down the street, ushered us down through the cellar doorway.”

“Just in time too, there was a car weaving its way towards them. Out of control it was. I could see what was going to happen as plain as day,” Dennis informed us. “It ended up smacking into the post office opposite.”

“But how did you come to be down here in the first place?” I asked him.

“What kind of stupid question is that?”

I shrugged.

“It was the safest bleedin’ place to go when all the shit hit the fan. I can lock the door to the cellar from the inside, and there’s a way out through the cellar doors I saw them through.” Dennis thumbed back at Carrie and Rakesh. “I’ve seen this place turn ugly before, usually after a match night – or on Friday or Saturday when it comes to chucking out time – but this was something else. And in the middle of the fucking day! No warning, nothing. Weren’t even that many people in here; dozen or more. Started when Franny, that’s my…was my barmaid.” He paused, composing himself. “She was serving this customer – well-to-do kinda bloke. Smart suit, wanted one of those poncy lagers that they think makes ‘em look so cool. Franny was pulling that for him, chatting away like always – nothing flirty, she wasn’t that kind of girl. Definitely nothing that should have provoked what happened next, when he just reached across the bar and grabbed her… you know…
grabbed
her.” Taking one hand off the rifle, now resting across his knees, Dennis made a squeezing gesture to illustrate what had happened. “Just out of the blue, right there in front of everyone. Molesting her. ‘Course, Franny slaps him, as you would – but that doesn’t stop this guy. He’s holding on for dear life, squeezing harder, hurting her.”

It was the kind of behaviour I’d come to associate with some of the affected, reduced virtually to animals – acting on their basest instincts, whether that was to kill or to mate.

“I was over there quicker than you can say Jack Robinson, obviously. He ignored my warnings to let go of her, so I just smacked him straight in the jaw.” Here was someone who was the exact opposite of Rakesh, no stranger to a brawl or several. Probably grew up learning how to use his fists; definitely a plus when it came to running a pub I would have imagined. “Still he didn’t let go, even when I grabbed his collar and pulled him in – gave him a couple more taps. His face was a right old fucking mess by this time, but he didn’t seem to care. Then the other crap started, the two lads at the pool table knocking seven bells out of each other with the cues – and when one of those snapped, the guy began stabbing his mate with the broken end. Like he was Peter Cushing fighting Christopher Lee. A couple of the older regulars – retired, wouldn’t hurt a fly – they were throwing darts at each other, until one pulled the board off the wall and hit his friend with it. So there I was, in the middle of all that, rushing from one disaster to another, trying to calm things down and thinking
just what the hell is going on?
When I look over and see that the fellow in the suit is still at it, only he’s pulled Franny over the bar now and is—” He looked around the make sure Jane was still occupied by the colouring book; she was. “You know, doing things to himself over her. Had his trousers down and was… doing things.”