The Everett-Hahn creature’s elongated, headless neck was transforming rapidly. From among the tattered strands, a knuckle of hard resinous material punched out and began unfolding itself into several long, jointed pincers. Corkie had his machete to hand now and was hacking at the claw-arm that had grabbed the top rim of his shield and was now stubbornly refusing to let go.
Leon’s fingers were slippery with sweat. He couldn’t get a purchase on the cap’s ribbed surface. He frantically pulled his sweater sleeve down over his hand and tried again. This time the cap twisted.
‘Watch out!’ shouted Briggs.
Leon looked up just in time to see the newly ‘born’ pincers flexing and reaching out towards them. He ducked down as Briggs snatched the shield from Royce and raised it up to protect them both. The pincers clattered against the scuffed Perspex, latched firmly on to it and began to pull.
Briggs held on, bracing himself for a tug-of-war, his bare feet spread for balance. Leon spotted one of his feet too close to Everett’s jettisoned head, brushing against the side of it. The head suddenly stirred into life.
‘Your foot!’ Leon yelled. ‘Watch your—’
From Everett’s wide-open mouth something darted out: a thin, slimy, hastily formed tendril, still gelatinous and fragile. It curled round Briggs’s ankle. He yelped in surprise or pain and lifted his foot to swing and shake it from him. With his balance off, the pincers successfully yanked the shield out of his hands and tossed it to one side.
The extended neck quickly reared up above Leon and Briggs like a cobra, the pincers dancing and flexing in the air with balletic grace.
Briggs was weaponless. Leon had the fuel can. Royce was a step back from them both. Everyone else was backed up against the walls, and Corkie was on the far side of the creature, locked in his own struggle with the claw-arm.
Leon caught a glimpse of Hahn’s wildly rolling eyeballs and wondered whether her sight was controlling the movement of everything, or whether each limb, each pincer, each tendril had a mind of its own.
He cowered as the pincers hovered in the air, flexing, and the neck drew back, ready to make its lunge.
Not at me. Not me. Not . . .
The neck whiplashed forward, the pincers whistling past Leon towards Briggs. He raised his arms to shield his face, and the pincers, each of them a metre long, closed around him like a penny-arcade grab machine.
Briggs wrestled with them, snapping one pincer easily, but the others, lined with little barbs, had a firm grip on his bare shoulders and back, and dug in. Leon saw thick tendons in the long neck flex beneath the waxy skin and knew huge muscular effort was at work.
The thing wanted to reel Briggs in like a fish.
Leon swung the opened jerry can and sloshed out an arc of diesel. It spattered uselessly on to the floor. He took a step closer and swung it again, this time splashing some on to the glistening skin of the creature.
‘LEON!’ Grace screamed behind him.
He sloshed more and more fuel, looking around for any other recently grown limbs the creature might use to attack him. Nothing seemed to be growing or emerging or ready to erupt from the mass, and there was only Hahn’s very human, very feeble-looking forearm, hand spread as if she were waving at him. Or bidding goodbye.
He tossed the nearly empty jerry can on to the floor at the creature’s feet and it gurgled a small puddle on to the floorboards.
‘Light it up!’ screamed someone.
But Leon didn’t have anything, and Briggs was ensnared and being pulled in.
Corkie had given up holding on to his shield and now stepped around the creature. ‘DO IT!’ he shouted. ‘LIGHT IT UP!’
‘I can’t!’ yelled Leon.
Someone barged past him. Fish. He had a lit cigarette in his hand. He flicked it at the floor and pulled Leon back with him. The cigarette bounced, sparked, rolled and skittered towards the small puddle, coming to rest there and doing nothing at all.
Corkie meantime was hacking at the thick muscular neck pulling Briggs in. His machete had carved a deep fleshy trench. Another couple of hacks in the same place and he was going to do it . . . He was going to cut the man free.
The diesel ignited with a percussive thump.
CHAPTER 35
‘. . . Don’t give up. Help is coming. Help is on its way. This message is aimed specifically at survivors in the United Kingdom and mainland Europe. If you are in Britain and able to travel, make your way to the city of Southampton. If you are in Europe, make your way to Calais by the first of September. A fleet of vessels from the New United States will be waiting for you. Medical help and emergency food supplies will be available there. Those requesting evacuation will be assessed. The ships will be there for two weeks only, leaving on the fourteenth of September . . . God bless you all.’
. . .
. . .
. . .
‘This is President Trent of the New United States. Today’s date for this broadcast is . . . [Thursday, the eighteenth of July] . . . My message to you is this: don’t give up. Help is coming. Help is on its way. This message is aimed specif—’
Corkie turned the radio off. ‘All right. That’s enough.’
They’d all heard the message half a dozen times already, and it was there to be listened to again and again, constantly looping, every day, every hour, every minute. He looked at the men beside him, then at the others sitting either side of the two long tables in the main hall.
‘So Dr Hahn was right about that bastard sonofabitch. He was lying to all of us!’
Leon had got the story from Grace earlier that Hahn had revealed to her that she had misgivings about Everett.
Corkie looked down at Grace, sitting nearest to him. ‘You should have come to me first, love.’
‘Claudia wasn’t completely sure about it,’ said Grace quietly. ‘She just had a . . . a . . . hunch.’
‘All the same, you should have bloody well told me!’ snapped Corkie.
Leon put an arm round her. ‘Jeez, leave her alone. She didn’t know who to go to.’
It was a gusty day outside and the only sound was the creak of the building mercilessly buffeted by the wind, its mournful whine pushing through the cracked open skylight, and a steady metronome tack, tack, tack of dripping water from the gallery floor above.
The mood in the main hall this morning was sombre. Silent and still. No bustling noises from the kitchen, no roaring fire, no bubbling broth. The castle reeked of burnt flesh, a savoury odour that might have had tummies rumbling with hungry anticipation if they hadn’t known exactly what it was they were smelling.
The fire upstairs was out now. The gallery floor was soaked with water that had been tag-team carried in buckets from the washroom. And in the middle of the soaking, soot-covered floorboards sat a dripping, glistening black and dark brown sculpture. A nightmare statue comprised of twisted limbs and contorted, carbonized flesh. A surreal study of four human bodies . . . Everett . . . Hahn . . . Gosling . . . Briggs.
Mostly an undecipherable mass, but here and there parts that were horribly recognizable.
‘You spoke with him every day,’ said Naga. ‘How come you didn’t spot he was one of them?’
Corkie crossed his arms defensively. ‘I don’t know! He . . .’ He shook his head. ‘Everett seemed perfectly normal. Maybe he didn’t even know he was infected.’
His words hung uncomfortably in the air.
‘I’m going to say this out loud . . . because I know it’s what we’re all thinking,’ said Freya. ‘I guess we now know for certain it can replicate us . . . and can do it completely convincingly.’ She looked down the table. ‘So that means any one of us sitting here could be one of them.’
There was a ripple of unease. That’s what they had all been thinking.
‘We need to find out who’s really human here.’
‘What if Corkie’s right?’ asked Fish. ‘What if we don’t even know if we’re one of them? Then what?’ He looked around. There were he
ads nodding at that. ‘Say, for example, I’m infected? What happens to me? Am I gonna get burned at the stake too?’ He didn’t like the look in their eyes and quickly defended himself. ‘To be absolutely clear, I’m not infected, OK?’
‘Salt water,’ said Leon. ‘We know it can’t cope with salt water.’
‘We know that?’ said Naga. ‘For a fact?’
‘It works,’ said Royce. ‘We spray ’em and they hate it.’
‘We all saw how it responded when Gosling sprayed it,’ said Freya. ‘And that’s how Dr Hahn tested us all, mixing salt with our blood. Before we discuss what we’re going to do next, we’ve all got to have a salt test. That’s got to be the top priority.’
‘Discuss what we’re going to do?’ Corkie cut in. ‘There isn’t going to be a bloody discussion, ladies and gents, because this isn’t a bloody town council meeting! Love it or shove it, I’m next in the chain of command!’
Fish snorted sarcastically. ‘Chain of command? We’re not in your little platoon, mate.’
‘We need to stay a cohesive unit. That means—’
‘You’re not even real soldiers,’ said Naga. She cocked her head as she let her gaze settle on the knights flanking Corkie. ‘None of you are, or were, soldiers. Am I right?’
Some of them managed to hold her accusing glare, while others looked away. She’d hit the truth with at least some of them.
‘It doesn’t matter what my lads once were,’ said Corkie. ‘I’ve trained them to fight these bloody creatures, and they do it well. You people want us to carry on looking after you, then I’m afraid, love, it’s me who’s going to be in charge.’
‘Well, that depends on whether I agree with what you decide to do,’ said Naga. She nodded at the radio sitting in its carry rack on the top table. ‘I’m for leaving.’
‘Me too,’ said Fish.
‘Go out there?’ cried Danielle. ‘You’re flippin’ mental! Seriously! No way I’m . . .’
Others raised their voices. There was an almost even split between those who wanted to stay and those who wanted to go. The hall filled with competing exchanges.
Corkie shouted above the noise to shush them. ‘All right, enough! Enough!’ He banged his fist down on the table. ‘Everyone SHUT UP!’
The noise settled down. Corkie waited until he had complete silence. As he waited for their voices to hush, Leon noticed the man was on the edge: the slightest twitching of his head, the flexing of his right hand. He remembered his headmaster Mr Mareham’s words of advice.
Brittle. Watch him. He’ll snap.
‘We’re gonna do what you suggested,’ Corkie said, glancing at Freya and Leon. ‘Do this salt test, and when we’re done with that . . .’ He shrugged. ‘I’ll put it to a bloody vote. Stay or leave.’ He spread his hands. ‘Whichever way that vote goes, we’re all doing it.’ He looked around at everyone. ‘That’s it.’
The testing was done in an order that told Leon everything he needed to know about where they stood in terms of Corkie’s trust. Corkie took charge of the process. He went outside and returned a few minutes later with a large bucket of stagnant water he’d scooped from the moat and a jerry can full of diesel. He set both down on the head table. He tested the ten remaining members of his platoon first. They stood in an orderly queue and he dipped a mug into the rancid bucket for each of them.
‘C’mon, lad, one big glug of that shite and you’re done,’ he urged them each in turn. One by one they swigged back the contents and, as they did, Corkie examined their faces closely. Leon wondered what Corkie was looking out for. What the hell were they expecting to see? Someone’s head explode? A tentacle suddenly erupt from their forehead?
That ridiculous thought, mixed with the Russian-roulette tension, nearly made Leon laugh. He suppressed it. An out-loud laugh right now would’ve made him sound manic.
With each noisy gulp, the atmosphere in the hall momentarily froze and settled back down to a perfect silence.
The last of them tested, Corkie nodded at his men and gestured for them to stand to the left of the room. ‘Drissell?’
‘Sarge?’
‘You’ve been promoted to corporal.’
The man nodded.
‘We’ll get you a bloody badge later. Meanwhile –’ he nodded at the jerry can of diesel on the table – ‘have that ready in case we need to use it quickly.’
Drissell came forward to stand beside Corkie, unscrewed the cap and set it down again, both hands resting on it, a box of matches set down on the table and ready to use. He looked ready . . . He looked ready to pick it up, swing it and douse anybody who came near.
‘Right, then,’ said Corkie. ‘Let’s get this done. Form a queue.’ The people in the hall milled reluctantly together and a snaking line began to form.
Except for Fish.
‘Look. I’m not doing this!’ he said. He glanced around for others to stand with him on this. ‘This is completely insane!’ He turned to face Corkie. ‘We haven’t even defined what a positive result is yet!’ He pointed at Drissell standing there with the jerry can ready to swing, and, from the look on his face, eager to do it.
‘Before we go any further . . . what exact response from one of us means we’re under suspicion? Huh? And what does that even mean – “under suspicion”? Does it mean Drissell lights us up straight away?’
‘Shut up, Fish!’ Corkie barked. ‘Let’s just get this over with.’
Fish picked out Leon for support. ‘Leon, mate? C’mon this is crazy!’
‘Maybe Corkie’s right. The sooner we’re done with this the better.’
‘I . . . I . . . W-what if I have been infected? What if it’s already in me?’ Leon could see Fish was trembling. He could hear the terror in his voice. ‘I don’t want to burn to death!’
‘You’d know,’ said Freya coolly. ‘Everett must have known. That must have been why he was lying to us.’
‘Or he was just frightened of h-heading out there! Like, you know, I’m frightened right now of that frikkin idiot holding a gallon of flamma—’
‘Fish! SHUT UP!’ snapped Corkie. ‘You get in line or I swear I’ll shoot you and light your body up right now!’ Leon noticed him place a trembling hand on the holster strapped to his belt.
He’s not coping well with this, thought Leon. He’ll be fine, right up to the moment when he snaps like a dry twig.
Leon placed a hand on Fish’s arm. ‘It’s OK. You’re going to be fine. It’s the same deal for all of us. Best just get in line like he says.’
Fish nodded. ‘Yeah . . . yeah, I s’pose.’
‘Come on.’ Leon led him to the back of the queue. ‘Just relax.’
‘This is totally insane, Leon.’
Freya and Grace joined them both at the rear.
‘Fish,’ said Freya, ‘for God’s sake, just take it easy! I think it’s safe to say you’d know. You’d flippin’ well know if you were a . . . a . . .’ She didn’t know what to call the creatures. She laughed uneasily. Her laugh came out sounding awkward and unsettling.
The queue began to shuffle slowly forward. The hall was quiet now, conversations few and whispered as person after person took the mug from Corkie and slurped the rancid, salty moat water.
‘As far as I could see,’ said Freya, ‘Everett kept himself to himself. He kept everyone at a distance.’
Leon looked at her. ‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning, maybe he knew he wasn’t quite right? That the less he interacted with others the less chance he had of giving himself away. Maybe that’s what Hahn noticed. Maybe that’s why she got suspicious, right, Grace?’
Grace didn’t respond. Leon noticed his little sister looked worried.
‘It’s OK, sis. We’ll be done pretty soon.’
‘I’m scared, Leo.’
‘It’s fine. It’s gonna taste like crap but—’
‘Literally,’ added Freya. ‘We’ve been emptying the latrines into it.’
‘And probably give us all diarrhoea and—??
?
‘Dysentery. And Hepatitis B,’ added Fish. ‘This is a bad idea. Hahn would never have allowed this.’
The queue continued to edge slowly forward. Those who had swigged the water were gathering with Corkie’s men over on the left side of the hall.
Grace reached out and grasped Leon’s hand tightly. He could feel her trembling. ‘But what if Fish’s right?’ she whispered. ‘What if it can infect us and we don’t even know about it?’
He looked down at her. She looked terrified. The unscarred side of her face was ashen.
Jesus, with good reason, especially after what she’s been through.
‘Grace, I can’t see how a person wouldn’t know. This thing kills you. Turns you into a puddle of goo.’ He squeezed her hand. ‘You ever been a puddle of goo?’
She shook her head vigorously.
‘You’ll be fine then, sis.’ He winked and smiled. ‘I promise.’
At the head of the dwindling queue, Danielle swigged from the mug, then squawked loudly in disgust. ‘It’s frikkin rank!’ she cried. She made a big show of gagging at the taste, but it was clear she was relieved beyond words.
Corkie shooed her away impatiently. ‘Next!’
‘Leon, if that psycho –’ Fish pointed at Drissell – ‘decides for s-some reason that I’m a viral, you gonna vouch for me?’ Fish looked as pale and terrified as Grace. ‘Freya?’
‘Well, are you? A viral?’ asked Freya.
Fish went goggle-eyed at that. ‘What?’
She smiled. ‘I was joking! Just trying to lighten the mood.’
He cursed. ‘Th-that’s not even f-funny!’
‘Fish, come on, you’re being ridiculous. You need to calm down.’
‘I don’t want to burn, Freya!’ Fish’s voice had changed from a whisper to a whimper.
‘Calm down!’ Freya glanced at Grace. ‘You’re frightening her.’
They followed the shuffling queue. There were just a dozen people ahead of them now.
‘I’ll go first, Grace, OK?’ said Leon.
Naga was at the front now. She reluctantly took the mug from Corkie and, after catching a whiff of the water, she shook her head vigorously and passed it back. ‘I can’t . . . I’m going to be sick.’