In the background, through the glass, he could hear Freya or someone shouting to put a stop to this. Whippy was through his shirt now and Leon felt the sharp pain of its scalpel claws digging into his skin.
Enough.
“No!” he screamed, and swung his fist at it. The creature sensed a threat and tightened its hold on his belly, but the blow on its shell knocked it off, leaving several pale appendages clinging to the small, bloody incision beside his belly button, like the stinger of a bee stubbornly left behind.
Leon jumped to his feet and flailed to knock the other three off his chest. He managed to grab hold of one, Spider, and wrench it off him. The other two, sensing easier prey, leaped off him, onto the bench, and skittered quickly toward Grace, who screamed in blind panic.
Leon tossed the squirming spider-like creature to the floor, then stamped hard on it. Juice spattered out from its bulbous abdomen.
He stepped across the floor and thumped the window with his fist. “You satisfied now?”
He spun around to tackle the other two that had gone after Grace. He’d promised her he’d get them. He’d promised her…
She was frozen perfectly still, her eyes rounded in terror, her mouth agape with a scream that had stalled in her throat. Croissant and Crab were sitting on her chest, their long antennae probing her face cautiously, stroking her cheeks almost affectionately. The light of the flashlight was trained on her through the window. Her face and the two inquisitors sitting passively on her chest cast an absurd shadow on the wall.
Leon could see her whole body was trembling. Her eyes flickered toward him.
“Leon,” she whispered. “Help me.”
“I won’t let them hurt you. Just…stay still.”
And then something happened. Something Leon couldn’t make any sense of as it occurred. A small lump began to grow from the skin just beneath Grace’s right ear. Like a blister at first, then extending into a small polyp dangling lifelessly, then elongating to a fine tendril just three inches long. It flexed and curled and reached out, stretching toward the nearest antennae stroking her cheeks.
Her tendril and the antennae caressed each other gently, curled around each other like a tender lover’s embrace.
“Oh Jesus!” whispered Leon.
“What?” Grace looked at him, saw his expression. “What? What’s happening?” She couldn’t see.
Leon grabbed the crab-like one and tugged it off her chest, its claws hooking on to the material of her T-shirt as he pulled, squirming in his fingers until he managed to tear it free. He tossed it on the floor and stamped on it. Then did the same to the other.
He turned to the door of the sauna, his eyes blinking in the glare of the flashlight now aimed at his face. “They’re all dead! Can we come out now?”
Silence.
He winced in the glare and shaded his eyes. “I said…can we please come out now?”
The light shifted from his face, and now he could see their silhouettes crammed at the window. He could just about make out the dark ovals of mouths hanging open.
They saw it. They saw that thing on Grace’s face.
All the same. He needed to say something. “For God’s sake! We did your frickin test. Now let us out!”
He turned back to look at Grace, the flashlight beam full on her now. She was huddled up, face buried in her arms her shoulders shaking as she sobbed.
What just happened? It had happened so quickly, lasted just a couple of seconds…maybe he’d imagined it.
The latch snicked and the door swung open. Dave was standing in the open doorway.
“You can come out.”
Leon puffed out air. A tiny part of him wanted to say thanks—a very tiny part. The rest of him wanted to throw a punch at the guy for putting both of them, particularly Grace, through this.
He turned to her. “Come on, kiddo. It’s all over.”
“No! Just you, Leon. She’s staying right there.”
“What?”
“Come on, you saw it too, Leon. You saw…that thing on her face.”
“What are you talking about?”
“That thing…the growth…her face tentacle.”
The word sounded comical and out of place, and Leon found himself laughing, more as a release of tension than anything else. “You’re kidding me, right?”
“She grew something out of the side of her face. We all saw it.”
Leon shook his head. “Oh, come on…”
But something did happen there. He blanked the thought out quickly.
“Jeez…it was playing with her hair… It was, I dunno, curious about her hair!”
“No, that’s not what happened,” replied Dave. He stepped to one side to look at Grace, aiming his flashlight on her. “Hey…you! Show us your face!”
She ignored him and remained as she was, curled up, arms wrapped around her knees, and her face buried.
“I said show us your face! Now!”
Slowly she moved, lifting her head up. She stared intently at the wall in front of her, showing them her profile, the left half of her face pale and pink and shining with tears.
“Look at me!” barked Dave.
She ignored him. Leon could see her bottom lip quivering and curling, her chin dimpled like orange peel. He knew that face—the time she’d been accused of smashing another girl’s phone at school and their dad had been called at work about it and at dinner that night he’d demanded she own up to it, then forced her to ring the girl and apologize. That face.
“Grace?” said Leon softly. “It’s OK…” He was still hoping that what he’d seen had been a trick of the light or his eyes playing games. “Just show him you’re normal, kiddo.”
She turned her head slowly toward them, revealing her right cheek. Tears were streaming down and she looked terrified. There was something else in her expression: she looked ashamed.
“Please,” she whispered, “p-please…d-don’t hurt me…”
And there it was, looking almost like a flesh-colored earring dangling below the small lobe of her ear. It curled and flexed like a kitten’s tail.
“Bloody hell!” gasped Dave.
Leon felt lightheaded, dizzy with conflicting emotions—revulsion…sadness…fear. Fear—not for her, but of her. “Grace?”
“Leon,” she whimpered, “I’m not…a monster… I’m me. It’s me, it’s me, it’s me. Don’t leave me! Please…please…don’t let them hurt me!”
“She’s…she’s a snark!” said Dave. He grabbed Leon’s arm to pull him back.
Leon shook his hand off angrily. “Grace? What…what’s happened to you?”
“It’s not your bloody sister!”
He ignored Dave. “Grace…come on, talk to me.”
“I’m scared,” she whimpered.
“Were you infected? Is…is that…is that what happened?”
“I didn’t know!” she cried. “I didn’t know, Leo! Honestly!”
“Didn’t know?” Dave shook his head. “The hell she didn’t know!”
“I didn’t know!” she screamed at him.
“You were the one begging to let that horse in, weren’t you?” Dave turned to look at the others crowded outside the sauna. “Wasn’t she? She wanted to let that thing in! And when Ron said he was going to burn it?” He turned back to her. “You knew. You bloody knew!”
She shook her head vigorously, sobbing. “No. No…I…I—”
“Leave her alone!” snapped Leon. “She’s crazy about horses, OK? She’s always wanted one! She just—”
“It’s not your sister, mate. Not anymore.”
Leon swung a fist at him. The first time in Leon’s life that he’d ever thrown a punch. It was clumsy, slow, and badly aimed, and it glanced off Dave’s cheek. Dave retaliated with a punch to his gut, and Leon doubled over, winded.
>
“Get him outside!”
He felt hands grabbing hold of his shoulders. He tried shaking them off, but then a knee came up sharply and smashed him in the temple. His head suddenly exploded with white noise, and he was vaguely, dully aware of being dragged out of the stuffy sauna cabin and thrown down onto some rubber matting.
He gazed up at the glass roof of the tropicarium, everything blurred and spinning and refusing to settle into something on which he could focus. It was getting dark outside. That’s the one thing he could make out. Darkness was coming.
Oh, my poor, poor Leo. You’ve been knocked silly. His mom’s voice. From the time he’d bashed his head using a chin-up bar in the doorframe of his bedroom. Leo…you silly boy. Are you all right? He remembered being rushed to hospital and a doctor telling his mother he’d concussed himself and it was best if he stayed in the hospital overnight so they could watch him.
Over the ringing in his ears, he was vaguely aware of other voices in the background now. Shouts and screams and some ridiculous fight going on over something, but he was struggling to piece together what it was all about. Something important though. Something immediate. Life and death.
Thumping, banging. And a screaming voice. He knew that voice. It was Grace. She was screaming his name over and over and over. And another female voice he vaguely recognized but couldn’t put a name to right now.
“You can’t do this! No. Oh God! No. You can’t do this!” He sat up, his head still spinning and now beginning to throb painfully, his ears still ringing. From the sauna he could see flashlight beams and shadows flickering around. He could hear Dave and Iain in there with her. The narrow doorway was plugged with everyone else, curious and frightened.
Freya appeared beside him. She crouched down. “You OK?”
Leon shook his head like a dog shaking off water. He pulled himself up, Freya helping. “What’s happening in there?” he uttered groggily. “What are they doing to her?”
“We’ve got to stop them! We’ve got to—”
Leon pushed himself forward into the pack of bodies around the door.
“Leon! LEEEE-ON!” Grace’s voice sounded muffled now, as if they were gagging her. He wrenched at shoulders in his way, pushing them aside to get back into the small sauna. But he needn’t have bothered.
Dave appeared in the doorway with a squirming green shape slung over his shoulder. It took a second for Leon to realize it was a tarp wrapped around Grace.
“Leon! Help me!” her muffled voice whimpered.
He could see one of her small, pale fists poking out from the tarp, thumping ineffectually against Dave’s back.
“Put her down!” Leon screamed.
Dave squeezed through the door, and the curious crowd backed away from him as if he were carrying a hornet’s nest on his shoulder. Leon took advantage of the space ahead of him and charged forward. But once again he found himself down on the ground, blinking up at the spinning, darkening sky. Something heavy landed on his chest. Big Phil. He was straddling him and his meaty fists were holding his arms down.
“Mate,” he whispered, “if you don’t want the same thing to happen to you, just stay there, all right?”
Dave strode past, Grace kicking and screaming over his shoulder. He was heading toward the storeroom. He saw Freya struggling a few feet away, Claire and one of the cleaning girls restraining her like prison guards.
“Dave! You bastard! You can’t do this!” Freya was screaming after him.
“What’s he going to do?” asked Leon, still not getting it.
Big Phil looked down at him, shaking his head. “Just be quiet, mate.”
“What’s he going to do?”
The answer came, not from Phil, but from the sound of liquid sloshing in a gallon drum. He saw Iain walking in behind Dave, the drum held in his arms.
Oh God.
“No…no…nononono!” He tried to buck Phil’s weight off him, but there was too much bulk for his slender frame to shift.
“Sorry, Leon. Sorry, mate… We’ve gotta do this.”
He ignored Phil. “DAVE! PLEASE! WE’LL LEAVE! WE’LL LEAVE!” he screamed.
Dave carried on ignoring him and then paused by the storeroom door, waiting for Iain. Leon caught a glimpse of them discussing something; then his view was blocked by all the others making their way toward the storeroom. “Phil! For God’s sake…they’re gonna burn her! Let me go!”
He could see Big Phil didn’t want to think about that. Big Phil was more than happy just thinking about keeping Leon down on the ground. “Just shut up! Mate, please?”
“Please! Please! Oh God…please!”
Leon could smell the diesel. He could hear it spattering the ground. He could hear Grace’s muffled screams increasing in pitch.
She smells it too. She knows what’s going to happen. He twisted and squirmed and Phil’s grasp just got tighter as he braced himself.
“It’ll be over quick.”
“You can’t let him do this to her!”
“It’s not Grace. It’s not your little sister.”
“Let me goooooo!”
In the twilight gloom, he saw a glow of flickering amber. Leon caught a glimpse of flame…a twist of paper burning at one end. He heard Dave shout something over the top of Grace’s muffled screaming. The crowd took several cautious steps back, which allowed him to see more. Iain quickly pulled the storeroom door open, Dave tossed the soaking, squirming tarpaulin bundle in. Iain shook the rest of the diesel fuel out inside the room, then hastily backed out.
And Dave finally tossed the flaming twist of paper in. The door remained open. A second or two passed.
Then with a soft whump, a rich, orange glow spilled out of the open door. Dave, satisfied the bundle was burning, slammed the door shut.
Leon heard Freya screaming…then he heard himself screaming.
Part III
Chapter 46
“He’s really nice. He’s got a good heart. You’d like him.”
Freya paused, the phone held to her ear as she stared out at the dark city from the balcony. “Yeah. Not too bad-looking. No Brad Pitt, of course. More like Big Bang’s Leonard. But, you know, he’s really sweet.”
She paused again, her head cocked, listening. “Yeah…I know. I know he’s messed up inside. I do know that. But who isn’t, right? We’re all a little screwed up in our heads these days. I mean, I saw you turned into gunk. Everyone who’s alive has now lost someone they loved. Everyone. We’re all damaged goods one way or another.”
She clutched the phone to her ear, even though it was just a lifeless sliver of plastic. Even if it had had any charge left in it, there’d be no point. There were no signals out there.
I know, Freya love…but just be careful who you attach yourself to. Boys can be so cruel…
“Oh God, I know all about boys, Mum. He’s not like that.” She turned to look back into the dark bedroom. She could just about see his dark form spread across the bed. She could hear his heavy, regular breathing. Fast asleep, for sure.
“He’s just…well… I think I’m going to have to be the strong one for a while. He’s broken right now. So I’m going to look after him.”
And when he’s better again, Freya…will he look after you? Will he stay with you when you can’t walk anymore? Feed you when you can’t swallow? Push you around in a wheel—
She laughed softly. “You mean will he dump me for someone way hotter? I don’t think I’m facing any stiff competition right now.” She stared out at the dark city of Norwich. Not a single light. Not a single sign of life. “Anyway, it’s not like we’re going out or anything. We’re just friends right now. Survival buddies.”
She lowered the phone from her ear, losing interest in talking to her dead mum. Even as just a voice in her head, a voice from the grave, she was still suffocatingly protective of her fra
gile little girl.
“I love you, Mum,” she whispered, “but I’m a big girl now. I can take care of myself.”
She set her dead, useless phone down on the balcony coffee table and gazed at the cluster of tea candles set in the middle, the only man-made illumination in Norwich. The apartment they’d randomly picked was in a modern-looking, converted, five-story, canal-side warehouse, which Freya imagined had months ago been occupied by groovy hipsters, urban types—all trimmed beards, slim fits, and canvas deck shoes.
By day, the river below looked like a mottled tan-and-red mud bath. Every now and then, its thin membrane surface ruptured as gas bubbled out. By night, it looked far more interesting. Beneath the membrane, faint green swirls of bioluminescence sometimes rippled through the gloop, like a submerged aurora borealis.
Freya had been concerned at the prospect of being this close to the virus’s presence. But Leon had made the point that the virus was everywhere. If it could make horses, even people, then it could get anywhere. Apart from the occasional swollen, intestine-like balloons floating on the breeze, they hadn’t seen the virus produce anything that could actually fly, so up here in the penthouse apartment seemed as safe a place as any.
A bridge ran over the river and on the far side was a soccer stadium—Norwich City Football Club—opposite a retail park with an untouched Sainsbury’s supermarket. Even though the stench inside of rotting freezer goods was almost overwhelming, the shelves were still fully filled with cans of food, bottles of soda, and boxes of painkillers that would last them for years.
Here’s OK. For now.
Here would do while she waited for Leon to return to her.
She glanced back into the room—he was still fast asleep—then looked down at the faint every-now-and-then swirls of green in the canal below. She was no expert on mental health. She’d once known a girl at school who had been so relentlessly bullied online she’d had a nervous breakdown. That’s what this looked like to her. A collapse.