‘You stay there! I go and call someone! OK?’
They both seemed to understand her. The girl nodded.
Dave and the rest of the park’s inhabitants were gathered in the foyer again, just like they had been a week ago, weighing up the two new arrivals outside. This time round there was no open discussion, no back-and-forth debate – there was no point. Dave ran things now. On his belt were two things that marked him out as undisputed leader: Mr Carnegie’s large, jangling bunch of keys and, on the other side, the gun.
They looked sullenly to him for a decision.
He felt their eyes resting on him, like hands pushing at him to say or do something.
‘I’ll go talk to them,’ he announced. He unzipped his anorak and felt on his hip for the reassuring grip of the gun. He unhitched the jangling keys from his belt, sorted through them for the right key. He unlocked the double doors and stepped outside.
His hand remained on his hip like a small-town sheriff, ready to pull the gun out and wave it threateningly around if need be.
‘Afternoon,’ he said stiffly.
The two newcomers stared at him cautiously. Closer to them now, he could see the man looked not quite right. His eyes looked squinty and watery. The hair on his head looked patchy, his scalp bald in places. The girl noticed him looking him over.
‘You’re looking at his hair, right?’
Dave nodded.
‘’S OK . . . We’re real. Steven has alopecia.’
The man smiled innocently, a friendly, beaming grin that revealed pink gums and just a couple of wobbly teeth. ‘Hello . . . my name is Steven.’ He spoke with a whistling lisp.
‘He’s got special needs.’ The girl shrugged. ‘I’ve been taking care of him since . . . well, since all this went down, haven’t I, Stevie?’
Dave looked at her. She looked to be about twenty, long blonde hair. She was pretty even without a dash of make-up. Natural-pretty.
He looked her over quickly while she was looking up at her simpleton friend.
Nice. Fit.
‘My name’s Dave Lester. I’m the leader here.’ He turned to gesture at the building behind him, at the row of pale faces peering out. ‘I run this place.’
She nodded as she appraised the front of the building. ‘Meg.’
‘You two . . . you’re immune, right? You’re not infected?’
‘Oh, we know all about the painkillers. Yeah . . . we’ve been poppin’ the pills all right.’
Dave smiled. He liked her. She seemed straight-up. Confident. Sparky even. A bit like that sarky cow Freya used to be, in fact, minus the shitty ‘up-yours’ attitude she’d had.
Big Phil had come back and told him that he’d done the deed. Dave had counted the bullets and sniffed the barrel. He’d fired the gun all right. No more Freya. And no more of that whining Yank kid, Leon. For all they knew, he could have been another snark waiting to pop too.
‘Seriously . . . we’re good,’ said Meg. She flicked at her hair, bared her teeth to him and presented her hands. ‘See? We’ve got teeth, nails and hair . . . that enough for you?’
‘Right.’ He nodded. ‘OK. You know, I just have to be careful.’
‘We know. IT can do people now. Pretty freaky, huh?’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘Well, I suppose you can come in if you want.’
‘Hey, who says we actually want to come in?’
Dave was taken aback by that. ‘What? Uh . . . oh, I just assumed—’
She laughed dryly. ‘Just messing with you, Dave Lester.’
He found himself laughing, liking that . . . liking that a lot. She reminded him of the kind of sparky female lead that populated teen flicks: the hot chick with a brain and all the best slap-down lines. The park could do with someone like that around. Someone to liven up this godforsaken place.
CHAPTER 48
And, it turned out, he was one hundred per cent right about that. The mood in the canteen that evening was markedly different. New faces for everyone to get to know, to quiz about the big bad world out there.
The girl, Meg, had little to add to what they already knew. She told them that they were the first real humans that she and Stevie had come across. She gave them all a potted account of their last six months, witnessing the same things they’d all seen – the ‘balloons’, the ‘feather clouds’, the ‘creepy crawlies’ – and, a month ago, a completely bald man who looked as pale as a ghost, shambling around like a drunk. She’d been suspicious of him, ‘it’, immediately, and they’d given the thing a wide berth.
She told them that the whole world, as far as she was aware, had been hit by the plague and was in just the same state as England. Then she told them how impressed she was by this place. Flattered Dave by telling him what a great job he’d done setting up this survival enclave. That it might just end up being the starting point for human civilization version two.
The big man, Steven, she explained, she’d found wandering around outside a care home. She told them all not to worry about him. Yes, he was big, and strong too, but he was perfectly harmless. He seemed to have nothing but a childlike gratitude to offer anyone who bothered to take the time to interact with him. Meg told everyone in the canteen that although he didn’t say much he did really cool impersonations of any cartoon characters they cared to name.
It didn’t take much to persuade him to do his party trick. His Bart Simpson soon had the small canteen echoing with guffawing laughter.
Dave was pleased. Finally some smiles, some laughs again. The evening with these two new arrivals felt like an important punctuation point, like a new start, a very definite line drawn beneath the unpleasantness of the previous week. More importantly, a distraction from the clear schism that had begun to develop in the park. Up until these two strangers had turned up this afternoon, Dave was becoming certain that he was going to have to wave his gun around a bit. Lay down the law. Remind people that this was not some hippy-dippy democracy and they’d better get that into their stupid heads.
New management, new rules. Time to buck up and get on with things again.
He was pleased. And then, to make matters all the better, Meg caught his eye across the canteen and winked. A wink that suggested that she might want to be more than just friends . . . given time.
Meg talked a bit with everyone who had questions for her, and then finally she was standing right beside him.
‘How about you show me around? This place looks very impressive.’
He made an effort not to look too eager to do that. He managed a casual nod. ‘What about your friend over there?’
‘Hey, just look at him!’ She shrugged. ‘He’s having a great time showing off. Gimme a sec.’ She wandered over to Stevie and touched his arm lightly. He turned to look down at her. She stood on tiptoes and whispered something into his ear and he nodded and waggled his hand at her then went back to entertaining his audience.
She came back.
‘What did you just say to him?’
Meg smiled. ‘That me and you were going for a little . . . stroll.’
Was that another wink there? Dave could have sworn it was. He led her out of the canteen and into the half light of the tropicarium. It was dark outside and several up-lights around a palm tree in the middle caught the tips of its waxy green leaves and cast jungle shadows up on to the glass ceiling.
‘This is very impressive,’ she said again.
‘You know, this used to be an exclusive health spa.’
‘Really? It’s totally awesome.’
He led her round the edge of what had once been a small pool. It was now filled with soil, and bamboo canes were erected in rows. ‘We’re going to grow beans and peas there, and potatoes and onions. No tinned veggies any more.’
She nodded, studying the vegetable garden as they walked around it. She seemed to be fascinated with every detail.
‘I suppose you must have seen enough yourself to realize that we have to stop waiting for a rescue and start looking a
fter ourselves,’ said Dave.
‘Yes. You’re right.’
‘I’m doing the best I can to adapt it to be a proper long-term survival place.’ He led her away from the canteen, past the empty spa pools and the row of sauna cabins to the paths round the back that led to the chalets.
‘Look . . . see? We’ve got more growing here. Tomatoes. This tropicarium is good for them. It’s perfect really. I mean basically this is one big greenhouse.’ He was vaguely aware he was gabbling. Talking too much.
She knotted her brows, pursed her lips and nodded mock-sensibly. ‘Excellent work, Dave. Excellent.’
He stopped, looked at her and giggled self-consciously. ‘Are you taking the Mick or something?’
She looped her arm through his. ‘No! I’m just soooo impressed with what you’ve achieved here! Very good work!’
He looked at her and narrowed his eyes suspiciously, still smiling, though. If she were making fun of him, he was pretty sure, well, hoping actually, it was in a flirty way.
‘You are . . . aren’t you?’
He couldn’t make her out yet. They’d only met her just a few hours ago, and she seemed to already have everyone eating out of the palm of her hand.
She gasped theatrically. ‘Now why on earth would you think that I’m mocking you?’
‘The way you’re talking right now, it sounds, well, a bit sarcastic.’
Her manner changed abruptly. As if she’d suddenly thought up another game she wanted to play. She walked two fingers up along the inside of his forearm.
‘I think I know why you let me and Stevie in this afternoon.’ She ran her hand up his arm. ‘You fancy me, don’t you?’
Dave realized his mouth was dry. His legs felt like jelly, trembling with excitement.
‘OK . . . OK, yeah . . . I uh, think you’re pretty, you know—’
Her eyes rounded, wider still. ‘So, do you want to kiss me? Hmm?’
He laughed nervously.
‘Yes. Kiss me.’
He swallowed. ‘Uh . . . I . . .’
‘Kiss me, right now.’
‘Right here?’ His voice was trembling. He hated that, hated sounding like some kind of teenage dork.
‘Yes.’ She pressed her hand against his chest and gently pushed him back. He took a step backwards on to the soil, almost stumbling.
‘Right here . . . on these tomatoes,’ she whispered. ‘Right now.’
Dave shot a glance across the tropicarium towards the canteen. Light was spilling from the doorway, laughter too. No one sounded as if they were thinking of heading to their chalet any time soon.
‘Wow. Seriously?’
She nodded.
‘Yeah, sure. OK. Yeah. O-OK,’ he replied, not quite believing his luck.
She tugged his shirt out, indicating that he needed to lie down on the soil. He did so obediently.
‘So, how do you . . . want me to—’
‘Shh . . .’ She put a finger to her lips. She knelt down in front of him. ‘You really do want me, don’t you, Dave? Hmm?’
He nodded vigorously. ‘Yeah! But, uh . . . come on . . . if we’re going to do this, we better do it before anyone comes out!’ he whispered.
Her hand stole up inside his T-shirt, one finger circling lightly round his navel. ‘What do you think about this?’ With her other hand, she gathered her long, tumbling locks into a bunch and playfully swished it like a pony flicking away buzzing flies with its tail. She cocked her head as if trying to remember something. ‘You like corn-dolly hair?’
‘Yeah . . . yeah . . . really nice . . . but . . .’
‘Or what about this?’ She pulled at the bunched hair and all of it slid away from her head, leaving a perfectly smooth scalp that glistened like pearl in the half light.
‘What the . . . !’
She tossed the wig aside on to the dark soil then reached into her mouth. Something clattered around inside and her hand emerged, clutching a set of dentures that she dropped on to his lap. Her lips spread wide, revealing baby gum ridges.
‘What the—’
‘Oh dear, oh dear,’ she giggled playfully in a singsong voice. ‘I’m not a real girl.’
He dug at the soil with his hands, attempting to scramble back from her, but, too late, something hard and sharp suddenly pierced through his navel and sank deep into his gut. He screamed then grabbed at his belly, trying to pull out whatever had gone into him.
Her smile spread wider, skin sagging and separating like a plastic bag held over a candle, unstitching and spreading across her cheeks towards her ears.
Dave could feel something razor sharp inside him being wiggled around, carving, lacerating his insides. He coughed a thick globule of blood on to his chin.
‘She . . . hates . . . you . . .’ she sing-songed softly, tilting her head. ‘She . . . hates you . . .’
Her words sounded mangled and were rendered almost unintelligible by the lack of dentures and the melting shreds of her mouth.
She shoved with her hand again sharply and it felt to him like her whole fist was inside his belly. He tried to pull her hand out, already suspecting that the damage she’d done fumbling around inside was enough to kill him.
She raised her other hand in front of his face, opened her fist to reveal her palm. But it looked nothing like a hand – it was deformed into the unpleasant pale underbelly of some crustacean, chitinous segments flexing and overlapping, organic crazy paving surrounding a beaklike mouth in the middle that flexed and opened like a starving cuckoo. The beak opened wide, and a head of knobbled bone and cartilage surged up the tunnel of her wrist and out of the beak. It unfolded into a dozen fragile, articulated limbs, each with a fine scalpel tip. They swayed and flexed centimetres from his face, legs pedalling in the air.
‘Please . . . please . . .’ he gurgled as more blood spilled on to his chin and down on to his shirt.
She cocked her bald head, curious. Her face was disintegrating rapidly. All that was left now was the bridge of her nose, her eyes, her forehead. Her eyes were still startlingly pretty, glistening and staring intensely at him. Beneath them, either side of the bridge of her nose, the flesh was breaking down: skin, muscle, tendons and bones wilting, drooping into pliable, swinging ribbons of gelatinous material that was busy deciding what it wanted to become next. Pieces swung free and dropped on to the soil.
Dave’s dizzy mind was going into shock – an endorphin-flooded shutdown. The merciful exit reflex of a dying body. His eyes focused blearily on the dozen fragile limbs that were kicking the air impatiently just in front of his face, a spider-leg ballet, each one seemingly eager to get to work on his flesh.
From somewhere far away, he suddenly heard a chorus of screaming voices, the sounds of struggle and panic, chairs being kicked over, smashed glass and a deep keening cry like whale song.
‘Meg’, or what was left of her, had studied him long enough. She thrust her arm forward and those flexing legs made contact with him and started to burrow into his cheeks and his eyes, the very last words he heard, slurred and moist, words that sounded as if they’d escaped the minced mouth at the bottom of a kitchen blender, were . . .
‘You. Burned. Me . . .’
CHAPTER 49
She studied his corpse lying across the soil bed. His blood looked as black as ink in the half light, like an oil spill on a beach. His body was already being worked on by the parts of her that had broken away and disassembled into ‘gatherers’: a dozen or so small, simple-minded creatures with articulated limbs that had begun to snip and cut at his flesh, breaking it down into raw material to be absorbed as fuel.
The rest of the girl, this temporary construction, stood up.
The ‘intelligence cluster’ of cells that were overseeing this particular mobile colony had pieced together the genetic template from a human who had once genuinely been called ‘Megan’, who had once lived a life in a place called ‘Thetford’. Who had once been considered ‘pretty’ by every young guy she’d met. Who wanted
to be a thing called a ‘model’, but until circumstances improved had to be satisfied with being a ‘hairdresser’.
This intelligence cluster was a mature one, several billion cells that had organized themselves into a firm and very permanent core: a structure that was able to process chemical data at a high enough level to think, to strategize, to reason.
In this sprawling new ecology of the virus, of colonies and sub-colonies, mature clusters and immature clusters, it was high in the hierarchy. If not yet a ‘king’, then it was a ‘king in the making’. The cluster had already made great strides in decoding its own DNA, to delve deep and begin to understand itself, to read most of the way down its programmed to-do list, the mission statement with which it had been born.
The primary stages of its mission were now complete: establishing a foothold, consolidating, proliferating, spreading, securing its existence. The secondary stages were now in full flow: piecing together the fragments of the world it had picked apart, like a clumsy house guest hastily attempting to repair a fragile and expensive broken Ming vase. It was learning so much about the things it had destroyed, how rich and varied the life templates were in this world. For example, how the simple task of locomotion came in so many different forms, how things wiggled, slithered, crawled, climbed, jumped, flapped, hopped . . . sprinted. So much complexity in this place, so much speciation.
It had learned that one particular species was extraordinarily dominant. A species in many ways very much like itself; a species capable of studying, reasoning, adapting. This particular intelligence cluster had carefully and patiently read this species’ construction manual, its DNA, and attempted many times to make viable reconstructions until it had finally, despite the difficulty of mimicking the dead-tissue structures, the things made from keratin protein, had finally got it right.
‘Megan’ and ‘Stevie’ had been convincing enough to fool these creatures.
What was left to learn about this species was how its own intelligence clusters worked, that solid-state organ comprising billions of cells linked together by pathways that could strengthen and weaken according to necessity. This intelligence cluster had learned how to make a copy of this organ, but now it was very keen to learn how this curious species used the organ.