Dave was staring down at him. He’d taken an involuntary step back. “They stopped…because…of…you, or maybe it was her.”
“What?”
“They…tasted her.” He backed up another step. “They bloody well sampled her…then they stopped!”
Chapter 44
“What the hell are you saying?”
Dave glared at Freya. Then looked around at all the others. The staff room was normally their meeting room, the breakfast briefing room. This evening, it felt like a courtroom.
“I’m saying I saw them. They were all over Leon and Grace. They were all over the pair of them. Then they just suddenly froze. They stopped, dropped off them, and ran away.”
He looked at them, sitting alone at one of the tables. Isolated by the space around them. Even Freya, in effect acting as their defense council, stood a cautious stride away from them.
“It was like they were after a sample. A blood sample. They got it…and decided those two had to be left alone.”
“They left everyone else alone,” she countered. “And they haven’t come back since. For all we know they may have gone for good.”
“Or they’re still in there,” said Claire. She was perched on a table, legs drawn up off the floor just in case there might be stragglers still lurking around. “With Ron…with Terry and Spanners.”
Their names, mentioned again. No one so far had wanted to discuss what must have happened to the three of them.
“They’re dead, Claire,” said Freya. “They have to be dead.”
“What if they’re not?” she whimpered.
The inner door leading to the tropicarium had been blockaded. The outside door, the shutter, no one had dared go out to investigate. If it had been forced open, then good, maybe whatever nightmare was in there had scuttled off into the night.
“Ron, Terry, Spanners…they’re dead,” said Freya. “We’ve heard nothing from inside.”
“Right.” Dave nodded. “Those poor guys are gone.”
Claire dropped her face down and shook her head.
“It’s just us now…” Dave shot a glance at Leon and Grace. “And them.”
Grace glared at him. “Why are you doing this to us?” She looked at the others. Her eyes red with angry tears. “Why are all of you sitting away from me and Leo? I thought we were all supposed to be friends?”
No one answered.
“They sampled her blood…and then they suddenly backed off,” said Dave. “Which means there’s something different about those two.”
“Like what?” asked Freya.
Dave took his time answering that. “All right…if no one else is going to say it, I’ll say it. Like they’re not real people.”
“What?” Freya laughed cynically. “What?”
“Just like the horse. They’re copies.” He looked at the others. It seemed a smaller crowd minus the three older men. Maybe their combined age and wisdom had taken up more space than they’d thought. Ron, Terry, Spanners—all three men in their thirties and forties—had been the elders here. Now, apart from Mr. and Mrs. Lin, who hardly ever spoke anyway, the cafeteria was occupied by young adults looking for someone to take charge. Most of them in their early twenties, right now they looked like frightened children.
“Come on! You all saw that horse! We all thought it was real, right? It looked, moved, and sounded like a real horse! If the virus can make a horse, then why can’t it make a person?” said Dave.
“You’re saying it made Leon and Grace?” Freya shook her head. “Yeah, right. Complete with what? American accents?! Their stories? Their memories?”
“OK, then.” He must have realized how ridiculous his accusation was beginning to sound. “Then maybe it’s altered them? Maybe they got infected before we found them and it changed them.”
“Changed them? How?”
Dave only had a shrug to give her.
“Come on, how?”
“To spy on us. To learn about us…what our weaknesses are?”
Freya snorted derisively again. “You really have no idea how stupid you sound, do you?”
“Well, hold on!” said Dave. “Remember…she insisted we let the horse in!”
“So did I! So did Claire… So did half of us!”
“And she wasn’t going to let Ron burn it! Even when he said it wasn’t even a horse. You all heard him say that, right?”
Heads nodded. “He said the thing was breaking up into pieces. And you remember she—she—was screeching like a tomcat for us not to burn it!”
“Oh please, Dave…she’s just a little girl. I didn’t want to burn the thing alive either!”
“They have to go,” he said. “Both of them.”
“Shit, they’ve been living with us for months! Grace has never…attacked anyone!”
“She was infected though, wasn’t she? When we picked them up. She was running that fever? I said even then we should keep her separate. Even Terry wasn’t sure what was wrong with her.”
“Oh, for God’s sake…”
“Maybe with her it was a different kind of infection? The Snark evolving the way it infects. Doing it gradually?”
“Do you have any idea how flipping paranoid you’re sounding, Dave? Maybe I’m slowly changing into Fake Freya? Huh? Was that why you tried to grope me? To see if I’m still a real human?”
“I know what I saw! They got on her, they got a blood sample…then they stopped!”
He looked around. “Who wants them to go?” He raised his own hand. Only a couple of others followed his lead, Iain one of them, of course, and Big Phil reluctantly followed suit. Just about half a dozen hands.
“There you go. Outvoted. Matter resolved,” said Freya. “Are we done with this crap?”
“All right, then. Who’s prepared to share a chalet with them?” Dave looked around. “Come on, stick your hands up. Who’s prepared to stay with them in their room tonight?”
No hands went up. “Come on, none of you wanted to kick them out…so let’s have a volunteer to spend the night with them, then!”
Still no hands.
Dave turned to Freya. “See? And that’s why they can’t stay! No one feels safe around them now.”
“But no one’s voted to kick them out. So what now? We keep them locked up in a storeroom forever? Or maybe we can consider that you got just a little carried away with what you think you saw?”
“We test them.”
Everyone turned to look at Arletta, one of the cleaning ladies. Her cheeks turned pink, and she seemed to shrink under the gaze of everyone suddenly looking at her.
“So, you understand?” she continued. “We must know this…for sure?”
“She’s right,” said Big Phil. “We really should test ’em first, Dave. We can’t just fling ’em outside without being sure.”
Dave nodded thoughtfully. “OK…there’s that. We can do that.”
“Test us?” Leon stood up. He looked at Dave. He could guess where this was heading—how exactly they were going to be tested—even if the idea hadn’t yet been spoken out loud.
“Look, come on…me and Grace, we’re just exactly the same people as when you picked us up!”
“Isn’t that the point?” Dave shrugged. “I don’t know what you and Grace were like. How do we know you were ever real people?”
“Oh, this is just ridiculous!” Freya got up. “They’re just regular people!” She steadied her balance, knuckles down on the table beside her. “Dave, please tell me you’re not such a complete shit that you’re thinking of doing what I think you—”
“We’ve got to do something! We’ve got to know…or they’re gonna have to leave!”
“All right.” Freya nodded. “All right, then, let them leave. Let them get their stuff and go. But, please, for Christ’s sake, you can’t just throw them
in—”
“Throw them in the storeroom?” He shook his head. “Is that what you think I am? A psycho?” He shook his head again. “Oh, I wasn’t thinking that.” He looked at Leon and Grace. “We need to see what happens. You all need to see exactly what I saw.”
Freya frowned. “So, what are you—”
“Just a couple…just a few… That’s all. We put them together in one of the sauna rooms and we see what they do.”
• • •
“Please! Please! Don’t do this!” screamed Grace. Terrified, she clung to Freya’s arm.
“This isn’t right!” said Freya. “This is friggin’ barbaric!”
Dave, Iain, and Phil had managed to capture a few of the creatures. It had been easier than they could have hoped. They’d eeny meeny–ed over who was going to have to go into the storeroom as bait, but in the end, they’d only had to crack open the door, and seconds later the nearest of the crabs had been drawn by the faint light—or maybe the smell of them—and skittered out through the gap. Iain had slammed a large plastic bucket down, crushing one of them with the rim but trapping another four or five inside.
“Let us go!” Leon struggled and tried to shake off the hands of Phil and Iain as Dave brought the bucket over. They were standing either side of him, leading him by the arms. “This is crazy!”
“Hey, just relax, Leon,” Dave said, patting his shoulder. “It’s just a few. It’s just a handful of—”
“Me and Grace will just leave! OK? God! We’ll get our stuff and go!”
“Huh?” Dave tilted his head curiously. “Why would you do that? Why would you say that? Why don’t you want to do the test, huh? Unless you know something?”
“For God’s sake, look at her!” Leon nodded at Grace. Her arms were wrapped tightly around Freya. “Grace is terrified of those things! They killed our mother!”
Dave tapped the plastic bucket. It stirred to life with the sound of scratching and rustling. They could see faint arachnid-like outlines shifting through the almost-opaque green plastic. “It’s just a few. Nothing to get excited about. Nothing you can’t deal with on your own.” He smiled.
Leon stared at him. “Oh my God…you’re getting a kick out of this, aren’t you?”
“I know what I saw.” His smile quickly disappeared. “I want the rest of them to see what happened.”
“For God’s sake…nothing happened!”
Dave shook his head. “Those things took a sample…and they stopped, Leon. They stopped dead, like someone just blew a halftime whistle. I’m sorry, mate, but we have to find out why.”
Dave pulled the door to the sauna open. He switched on the light inside. “Just sit down in there—this won’t take long.”
“I’m not doing this! Dave…this is just crazy. Mr. Carnegie wouldn’t have—”
The paper-thin expression of sympathy on Dave’s face vanished in a flash. He balled his fist and punched Leon in the mouth. “Shut up with your stupid whining! We’re doing this! All right?” He grabbed a fistful of Leon’s T-shirt and dragged him into the small room. Slats of pinewood deadened his voice. “Just sit down and shut up!” He gestured at Iain and Phil to grab Leon’s arms and hold him there; then he turned around. “Freya! Bring her in here!”
“No!” Freya shook her head. She looked around at the others, gathered in a semicircle around the sauna’s entrance. Looked at them for support. She got absolutely nothing. “Nope. I’m not having anything to do with—”
“Claire!” he barked impatiently. “Get her in here!”
Claire stepped forward and grabbed Grace’s arm. “Come on, Miss Princess.”
Freya grabbed Claire’s wrist. “Shit! Leave her alone!”
“Let go of me, you emo weirdo!”
Freya slapped her hard and Claire recoiled, both hands clasping her face. “She hit me!” she bawled through her fingers. “You saw that! She hit meee!”
Dave stormed out of the sauna, grabbed Grace’s arm, and tore it from around Freya’s hips. He twisted Freya’s wrist sharply. “You can leave with them when we’re done here, ’cause I’ve had just about enough of your shit.”
“Please!” cried Grace. “Please…Dave…please. I’m not a snark! I’m not a snark!”
He dragged her kicking and screaming into the sauna and shoved her forward. “We’ll find out soon enough, won’t we?” He beckoned Iain and Phil to let go of Leon, and together the three of them backed out of the small room and slammed the door shut.
Through the glass panel, Dave watched Grace cuddle up to her brother, tucking her legs up off the floor, onto the pinewood bench.
He grabbed the plastic bucket and held it up for everyone to see. “There’s just four or five of those things in here, that’s all! That’s not going to kill them! We’re just gonna see what they do! All right? That’s all we’re doing here. Does everyone understand?”
Heads nodded.
“Does anyone disagree with what I’m doing?” He glared at Freya.
“You’re a total psycho,” she snarled at him.
It was silent. No one else had anything to say. Through the thick glass, they could hear the muffled sound of Grace’s sobbing.
“Right then.” Dave snapped the clasps off the lid to the bucket. “Phil?”
Phil pulled the door open. Dave whipped the lid off quickly and swung the bucket in with both hands. The creatures that had been clambering restlessly over each other in the bottom of it flew through the air into the room, and the door thudded quickly shut behind them.
Chapter 45
Grace clung to Leon tightly, her face buried in his chest, her sobs muffled.
“Shh…Grace,” he whispered as he watched the creatures flip over from their backs onto their bellies on the floor.
If we stay still? Stay perfectly silent?
Through the insulated glass in the sauna’s door, a flashlight shone in. It was aimed on the snarks, casting their jagged, little shadows across the wooden-slat floor. Leon could see the silhouette of several heads crowding the window to peer in.
Enjoy the show, you shitheads.
He watched the crabs, four of them, subdued for the moment. It was the first time that he’d had an opportunity to study them closely. It occurred to him that he could just get up, draw them over to him by his motion, and then stamp on them. Four wasn’t enough to overpower them. Four were easily dealt with, in fact. But then that wasn’t what this was about, was it? Instead it was about proving to everyone outside this room that they were who they said they were. That they were real humans. Not like the horse. Not copies.
The four crabs were all slightly different—different in size, in the number of appendages they had, in the configurations of their protective shells. One had a single egg-shaped shell over its top, making it definitely crab-like, while the one next to it had overlapping C-shaped segments that reminded him of a croissant. The third one looked like a spider, with no shell on its soft body, only on its seven spindle-thin legs, and the fourth…looked vaguely like a snail with a spiraling shell like a Mr. Whippy ice cream.
Leon found himself identifying them: Crab, Spider, Croissant, and Whippy.
“I’m scared,” whispered Grace.
“It’s OK. There are just four of them. Look.”
She turned slowly to look at them, sitting together on the floor, long, whisker-like antennae twitching, flexing, touching each other’s. Her grasp on Leon eased slightly as she seemed to relax a little.
“What…what are they doing?”
“I don’t know…sniffing the room for us?”
They seemed to be communicating through their antennae, rubbing them together. He saw two touch, then separate, leaving, for a moment, the tiniest string of sticky liquid dangling between them.
Exchanging fluid? Is that how they talk?
“Grace…I know this isn’
t good…but we need them to come for us. Everyone outside is looking in. We need them to see those crabs attack us.”
She shuddered. “Leon, please…don’t attract them!”
“It’s only four. We just need them to know we’re here and come toward us. Don’t worry…I’ll crush them. I’ll get them all.”
“Oh God…they’re horrible!”
She was right: they were horrific creations: all jagged, serrated edges, their ghostly pale—in places, almost transparent—surfaces lit up by the stark beam of the flashlight trained on them. He tried to make sense of how their limbs articulated, rigid crustacean sections linked by gooey strings of soft tissue. But, worst of all somehow, they had nothing that looked like eyes, nothing that remotely resembled a face.
“They’re sharp,” Grace whispered. “They cut. They dig—”
“Shh…relax. It’s going to be fine. Only four of them. We can handle that. OK?”
He felt her head slowly nod against his chest.
“I’m going to let them know we’re here…and when they attack, I’ll get ’em. I promise.”
He looked up at the window and saw heads crowding at it, watching. Impulsively he flipped a finger at them. Screw you, Dave.
“OK…OK…here goes.” He stamped his foot down on the planked floor. The creatures reacted instantly to the movement, jerking in awareness and then scuttling quickly across the floor toward them.
Crap. Crap. Crap. His instinct was to yank his foot up, but for the benefit of their audience these things had to attack him. He clenched his teeth as he felt the first sharp appendages dig into his tennis shoe, then the slight tugging sensation on his jeans as the first of them began to pull itself quickly up his lower leg.
“Shit. Here they come!”
As she caught sight of the first one pulling itself up over his knee, Grace suddenly let go of him and screamed, scrambling away, pulling herself along the sauna’s bench and huddling up in the corner as the creatures raced up Leon’s thighs, over the waistband of his jeans and up his torso.
The snail-like one—Whippy—stopped on Leon’s belly and its little scissorlike claws began cutting through his T-shirt while the other three continued their race up toward his neck.