As we ran the view ahead grew clearer, emerging from the burning air like the picture on a television that’s just been turned on. There was another rabid inmate standing on the bonnet of a small red car, using a shotgun like a bat to try and smash the windscreen. It was working, a web of cracks spreading out across the glass, and beyond them I could make out Lucy’s face. She pressed the horn again as if the sound might knock her attacker away, but he just hunched over her, the gun descending again and again in a terrifying frenzy.
Simon moved first, running past another car and ripping the bumper clean off, swinging it like a club and catching the inmate’s legs. The strike was hard enough to spin him head over heels in a clean circle, and he almost landed perfectly on the bonnet like an acrobat. But his balance failed him and he stumbled backwards, arms flailing. Simon swung again but the inmate fell beneath the curve of the weapon, pushing himself off the bonnet and throwing himself on Simon, arms and legs wrapped around him and his teeth going right for the jugular.
I slid over the bonnet, grabbing the boy by the collar. Beneath his skin I could see veins of black, pumping visibly, and there were beads of ruby-flecked nectar there, like dew, that had been squeezed from his pores. I wrenched him away from Simon, throwing him against a wall. There was a pop, like a balloon filled with water, and something beneath the kid’s overalls burst. Nectar began to drain out of him like a tap had been turned on, the weird swellings that covered his body and face shrinking, making him look like a paper bag that had been left out in the rain. It looked as if he was dissolving. He was growing weaker, too, his desperate lunges slowing.
I heard an engine roar to life beside me. The red car’s headlights blazed, and with a crunch of gears it jolted forward, accelerating fast, bouncing up onto the kerb and pinning the inmate to the wall. He flopped onto the steaming bonnet, twitched violently, then was still.
For what seemed like a long time we stood in silence, trying to catch our breath. Then Lucy opened the car door, letting it swing out on its hinges, broken glass tinkling from the windscreen and the side windows.The air bag had deployed, and she was covered in white powder, making her look like a ghost.
‘Is it dead?’ she asked.
‘I’d say so,’ Zee replied.
He stepped towards the car and offered Lucy a hand. She stared at it for a moment as if she wasn’t sure what it was, then grabbed it and let him help her out. Simon was leaning over the bonnet, prodding the dead inmate with his foot.
‘What the hell are they?’ he asked. ‘They look like, well, us – us as in me and you, Alex. Only, they haven’t been under the knife. That’s impossible.’
‘Full of nectar,’ I added. ‘But it’s not the same nectar we had back in Furnace.’
‘It’s got red in it,’ Simon said, dipping his finger into a puddle of the filth and studying it in the smoky sunlight. It’s as if it’s, I don’t know, supercharged or something. It’s turning them straight away.’
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘The one who attacked me, that was Bodie.’
‘Bodie?’ said Zee, the corners of his mouth dropping. ‘Seriously?’
I nodded, and we were silent for a minute more. Bodie had been a Skull, but he’d been a good kid. He’d helped us get out. To see him reduced to a mindless animal, full of poison and hell-bent on destruction, was devastating. Zee took another look at the corpse on the bonnet, then glanced at me. He seemed about to say something, but instead he frowned, walking over.
‘You okay?’ he asked. ‘That bite on your neck looks nasty.’
I raised a hand to where the creature in the station had gripped me in its jaws. It didn’t hurt – of course it didn’t – but my heart sank anyway. It was another scar that would forever remind me of what I’d been through, what I’d become. Zee put his face close to mine, peering up at the wound.
‘I can see it,’ he said. ‘I can see the nectar in your skin.’
I wasn’t surprised. That’s what it did – prowled through your veins, plugging wounds and healing wrought flesh. But Zee had obviously noticed something else. He walked to the red car, reached inside and pulled the rear-view mirror free from its mount.
‘Look,’ he said, handing it to me. I took it, peering into the glass reluctantly. The wound was worse than I’d thought, and there was something more. Clumps of nectar grouped around it, caked in drying saliva. I moved to clean it off, but as I did so I thought I saw those thin trails move, edging closer to the ragged bite mark. I blinked, tried to focus, saw it again – tiny beads of red-beaded nectar defying gravity and rolling up my neck. With a grunt I drew my sleeve across it, wiping until every last trace of nectar had gone, then throwing the mirror to the floor.
‘What the hell is going on?’ I asked, my skin itching at the thought of what I’d seen. ‘Nectar doesn’t do that.’
Zee looked down at the broken mirror, then back at the dead inmate, whose skin hung in loose folds, empty of the fluid that had swollen it.
‘I’m not sure,’ he said quietly. ‘But it looks like these kids, these inmates, were infected by the nectar.’
‘Infected?’ said Simon, walking to Zee’s side. Lucy was there too, listening to the conversation with the expression of somebody who has just woken from their worst nightmare to find out it’s real.
‘Yeah, infected,’ he said. ‘That’s why the berserker in the subway carried that kid off rather than killing him.’
‘So it could set him loose up here, you mean? Let him infect others?’
Zee nodded. ‘The berserkers fill the kids with nectar, turn them into psychos, and those infected inmates do the same with new victims. That rat was sure as hell trying to bite me just now.’
I remembered the way Bodie had been trying to sink his teeth into me, nectar spilling from his throat.
‘I don’t think this is an invasion,’ Zee went on.
‘So what is it?’ Lucy asked him.
Zee looked once more at my wounds, wiping his tired eyes with the back of his hand.
‘I think it’s a plague.’
St Martin’s
We stared at Zee as if he’d gone mad, as if he’d suddenly snapped under the pressure. Simon even snorted a laugh in his direction, shaking his head in denial.
‘You’re off your head, Zee-boy,’ he said as he ran his hands over his body, checking for injuries, for bite marks. ‘Nectar don’t work that way. It’s not contagious.’
‘Isn’t it?’ Zee asked. He walked over to the car Lucy had been in, looking down at the shotgun the inmate had been using to smash through the windscreen. He seemed as if he was about to pick it up but then obviously thought better of it, turning back to us. ‘How do you know?’
‘Duh,’ Simon replied, gesturing at his enormous, misshapen arm.
‘But look at Alex,’ Zee said. ‘He’s changing.’
I lifted my right arm, the muscles so big now that the sleeve of my hoodie had ripped. It still looked as if something was moving under my skin, black worms that appeared then vanished before I could make any sense of them. It wasn’t sore, though. In fact if anything I felt stronger than I ever had. I felt as though I could take on every single one of Furnace’s freaks with that single bulging limb.
‘It doesn’t matter what’s going on,’ I started, cradling my arm against my chest. Zee cut me off.
‘Doesn’t matter?’ he said, one eyebrow raised. ‘Look around you, Alex, and tell me it doesn’t matter if the city is overrun by … by whatever Bodie was.’
I did as I was told, not that I could see much with the ocean of smoke churning around us. It had grown thicker, blocking out all but a halo of dull orange that sat just above the horizon. It hung in the back of my throat, burning like acid, and I hawked up a ball of dirty spit.
‘He was a rat,’ Simon said, and Zee nodded. I didn’t believe them – I mean, how could Bodie have been turned into a rat without the surgery, without days spent in the infirmary, in the screening room, slowly losing his mind as the warden’s poison
went to work? – but now wasn’t the time to argue. The fire behind us was spreading fast, there was no sign of the emergency services. If we didn’t get moving soon then we’d be barbecued.
And I could hear more screams from close by, chirruped cries of menacing delight carried on the filthy air. If Zee was right, and this was a plague, then the streets would be crawling with those things.
But he couldn’t be right, could he?
I thought about the new nectar, the crimson insect eyes that swam inside it, the way it had seemed to crawl inside my wound, like it was alive, and I shuddered so hard I almost lost my balance.
‘So what now?’ asked Lucy. She was leaning up against the car, her arms folded over her chest and her chin almost resting on them. She spoke in a robotic monotone, one that I recognised from Furnace – the voice you used when your brain went into survival mode, switching off everything but the bare essentials.
‘We keep moving,’ I offered. ‘North, I guess. We stick to what we agreed, get the hell away from here. If we just keep moving then we’ll think of something.’
It wasn’t the best plan in the world, but nobody had a better one. With a collection of weary shrugs and sighs we set off up the road, jumpers pulled up to our mouths to keep the smoke out. We could have taken a car, there were enough of them around – too many, in fact: the road was littered with vehicles, like an assault course. It was quicker on foot, and we made good time considering we had to stop again and again as those relentless shrieks faded in and out between the buildings.
With each step the smoke grew thinner, its acrid touch weaker. I studied the shops and offices that emerged from the smog – a travel agent, two betting shops, a computer service company, a pawnbroker, a chemist – wondering if we’d be better off taking shelter. But it felt good to be moving, even though we didn’t know where we were going, or what was waiting for us. Every step carried us further from Furnace Penitentiary.
Some time later we reached a crossroads, the signals blinking from red to green and back again controlling non-existent traffic. There were vehicles here, too, one sickly yellow sports car buried deep into the side of a white van, the windscreen broken, the driver nowhere to be seen.
Ahead was what looked like another fire, this one blazing on both sides of the road, spreading into a small park between offices, the trees like burning hands held up to the heavens. It looked like there were shapes in the flames, figures dancing between the trunks, reminding me of some weird pagan ceremony. It had to be an illusion, but it creeped the hell out of me and I turned away only to see something that scared me a million times more.
To my left was another street, a wider avenue with flowers planted down the divide between the two carriageways, abandoned cars spilling along its length. It stretched downhill, all the way into the centre of the city, to the distant skyscrapers that stood there like sentinels. And amongst them was the spire-topped monolith of black glass that I knew from my nightmare.
My ears began to ring, and for an absurd moment I swore I could feel that building searching for me, like a giant eyeball scouring the city. The ringing grew more intense, unbearable, like a high-powered drill working into the flesh of my brain.
And suddenly the view before me changed, the other buildings crumbling slowly into a cloud of debris, like they had been demolished, the city glowing red as the steel foundations of every building began to melt, ashes incandescent as they rained upwards towards the roiling black sky. All that remained was the tower, and perched on the throne of its sloping roof a monstrous, merciless creature that howled into the flames, claiming victory over the world.
Then I blinked, and the street was back, looking positively heavenly compared with the vision. I swallowed and my ears popped, the ringing ebbing away into silence. I peered up to see Zee’s eyes on me, but he didn’t say anything. If he wasn’t used to my sporadic moments of madness by now then he never would be. I pointed down the street, towards the city, but it was Simon who explained.
‘Furnace,’ he said.
‘The prison?’ asked Lucy.
‘No,’ Simon replied. ‘The man. That’s where he is, that tower,’ and he explained what the two of us had seen.
‘In that case, my friends, I suggest we go this way,’ said Zee, setting off along the street opposite, one that led away from the city, away from the tower.
‘That’s the wrong way,’ Simon called out after him. ‘You’re going east.’
‘Doesn’t matter,’ Zee said over his shoulder. ‘Running into the police is the least of our worries now. Whole city is a death trap. We’re better off heading out of it while we still can.’
He was right, and I was happy to turn my back on the distant skyscraper, even though I imagined I could feel its depthless windows boring into my head, making note of where I was, keeping track of every step. I did my best to ignore it, focusing on the road ahead.
After a hundred metres or so it divided into two. The bigger branch was blocked by a barricade of concrete blocks, a police van stationed behind them. The door of the van was open and from inside I could make out the sharp static bursts of a radio. We stepped closer, warily, until the jumbled words began to make sense.
‘… need backup, immediately. Ten-double-zero, ten-twenty-four, repeat we are under attack—’
The cop swore and I heard gunfire, the noise too loud for the empty street we were on. There were more curses, then a deafening bleep as the radio cut out. Almost instantly there was another broadcast, a woman this time.
‘… everywhere, don’t know … Can’t …’ Screams, then a growl loud enough to make the van’s speakers vibrate. ‘What the hell? Ten … Ten … Screw it, just get to the CC fast, they’re everywhere!’
More followed, but by that time we were walking again, taking the smaller road which angled gently to the left. There was more smoke here, starting as a fine, gossamer-like mist that hung a few feet off the ground, thickening quickly as we approached a burning car. We gave it a wide berth, worried that it would suddenly blow up, pressing through the worst of the smoke to see a shape looming up before us. It was huge, emerging from the gloom like a tanker coming to dock in a fog-drenched harbour. I smeared the tears from my eyes and the silhouette took on a shape, a round dome that I recognised.
‘St Martin’s,’ I coughed. I’d been here once before, years ago on a school trip – memories of cold stone, uncomfortable pews and beating up a kid called Andrew Spragg in the shadows behind the pillars until he’d handed over the money he’d brought to buy a souvenir. I felt my cheeks redden, wondering – not for the first time or the last – whether I even deserved to be saved from this nightmare, whether I should have just stayed in Furnace, accepted my punishment for who I used to be.
The enormous baroque building sat in the middle of a tiled plaza, deserted apart from the army of pigeons that huddled in the centre and cooed curiously at us. We started across it, making for the other side, and had taken a dozen steps when we heard somebody calling. We froze, expecting the worst, but there was no malice in that voice, no menace, just concern.
‘Over here!’ it hissed, the whisper carrying across the open ground. ‘Quickly!’
The front of the cathedral was a sculpture of pillars, reminding me of a matchstick house. It was difficult to see into the darkness behind them, but as I looked I could make out a black-robed figure standing there and waving at us.
‘What does he want?’ Simon asked. An answer leapt into my head from nowhere – trouble – but I left it unvoiced. The figure stepped past a column, glancing nervously to the left and right before gesturing at us even more enthusiastically. I saw the white collar, realised he was a priest.
‘You kids need to get off the streets,’ he shouted. ‘Haven’t you heard? Come, you’re welcome here, it’s safe in the House of the Lord. Come, pray with us.’
‘This guy has no idea,’ Simon said, but Lucy was already hurrying across the plaza without so much as a backward glance.
‘We should take a look,’ Zee said as he watched her go. ‘It’s safer than out here, right?’
‘But we need to get out of the city,’ I said, although I couldn’t deny that a chance to rest my weary body would be welcome. Besides, those relentless calls were still rising up over the rooftops, shrill whoops and barks that set my teeth on edge. It wouldn’t hurt to take shelter for an hour, get a better idea of what was going on.
‘Come on,’ said Zee. ‘It looks safe enough.’
‘Yeah, like that’s all you’re concerned about,’ Simon replied with a smug smile as he followed. He put on a falsetto, clasping his hands to his heart. ‘Oh Lucy, wait for me, I’ll look after you.’
Zee turned and scowled, the blood rushing to his face. And, incredibly, we were all laughing as we entered the vaulted doors of St Martin’s.
God’s House
The cathedral was just as cold and as dark as I remembered.
The priest – a short, wiry man with a neat beard and clipped grey hair – led us through a small lobby into the main body of St Martin’s, muttering as he walked. Lucy was tucked beneath his arm, crying soundlessly, her shoulders twitching.
Inside, it was more like a cave than anything, the stained-glass windows vast but leaden, the smoke outside like old curtains which cut out all but a trickle of dirty light. Two rows of pillars lined up on either side of us, between which were the rows and rows of wooden benches, which made my ass feel numb just looking at them. Resting on these, draped in dusty shadows, were a number of people, all with their backs to us. Some were hunched forwards in the pews, obviously praying, while others talked in hushed voices.
I noticed that the biggest group was clustered around something on the floor in the main aisle, close to the altar, a small shape that I couldn’t quite identify. A couple of them turned round when they heard our footsteps, their faces full of fear.