‘I found some more,’ the priest called out, his voice swallowed instantly by the immense space, as though the cathedral was demanding us to be silent. The thought brought gooseflesh out on my arms.
He turned to us, squinting into the darkness, and his smile suddenly grew nervous. I knew why. Our clothes covered up most of the scars and the surgery – except for my bulging arm – but mine and Simon’s eyes must have been glowing a fierce shade of silver in the half-light beneath the dome. He swallowed, cocking his head and clutching Lucy tighter to his chest.
‘Are you children of God?’ he asked. I almost burst out laughing, managing to bite my tongue before it erupted. The air was thick with incense, the smell making me sleepy, sitting on my eyelids and pressing them down. ‘You may rest here, if you are. Each of His flock is welcome.’
I looked at Simon, unsure what to say. Luckily, Zee stepped in.
‘Then I saw the beast,’ he said, the cathedral turning his shout to a whisper. ‘And, um, the kings of the earth and their armies gathered together to make war.’
The priest’s face opened up and he lifted one hand from Lucy, holding it out to us like the Pope addressing the faithful. I threw Zee a look and he returned it with a bashful smile. He didn’t have to speak for me to know he’d heard it on one of the documentaries he used to watch with his parents.
‘Revelation 19:19,’ the priest beamed. ‘You are welcome, child; you are all welcome. Come, pray with us.’
He led us forward towards the group of people. I counted seven of them, and as we drew closer I realised the shape on the floor was an eighth. It was a kid, and he groaned feebly, writhing on a bed of hassocks and tucked beneath a blanket of coats. His face was a sickly shade of yellow, and it was filthy, dark lines like warpaint stretching from his neck to his forehead.
‘Take a seat, anywhere you like,’ the priest said, helping Lucy onto a pew. She put her head in her hands, staring at the bible on the shelf in front of her and rocking gently back and forth. ‘The more voices we have, the better He will hear us.’
‘He okay?’ Zee asked, nodding at the kid.
‘I don’t know,’ replied a young man in a suit. He was kneeling by the child’s side, holding the boy’s hand in both of his own, and he looked up at us through a thick pair of glasses. I noticed that the kid was wearing a green jumper. He didn’t look like an inmate. ‘We’ve called an ambulance.’
‘Fat chance,’ said somebody else. A woman three rows further down peered over her shoulder, glaring at us. I noticed she was wearing a hat and a uniform, and I thought for a second she was a cop before realising she must have been a security guard. ‘All over the radio, emergency numbers are down. We’re on our own.’
‘We have God,’ the priest interrupted, but the woman waved his comment away with an impatient hand, turning her attention back to the altar. The other adults – a mix of men and women, mostly older, in their forties and fifties – shuffled uncomfortably while the kid strained and whimpered beneath them. I did a quick headcount. There were eighteen of us in total.
‘What’s it like out there?’ the man in the glasses asked. ‘You see anything?’
‘Saw plenty,’ Simon replied. ‘She’s right, there’s no cops.’ I tried not to think about the policeman we’d seen, putting a gun to his head and blowing out his own brains. ‘Sure as hell didn’t see any ambulances.’
‘What happened to him?’ Zee persisted, pushing through the small crowd and kneeling beside the kid.
‘I’m not sure,’ the glasses man replied. ‘I was on my way to work when everything kicked off. He was outside, on Slate Street, round the back there. There was blood everywhere, I thought he was dead.’ His voice lowered to a whisper. ‘The blood belonged to his parents, they were … They were …’ His voice caught in his throat and I thought he was about to vomit. ‘I couldn’t get through to 999 so I brought him in here. He’s alive, but he’s been hurt, pretty badly.’
He reached out, pulling back the brown cord jacket that was covering the boy’s neck, and I felt my heart drop right to my feet. There was a bite mark there, unmistakable even in the cathedral’s sulking light. I could make out the teeth marks, blunt stab wounds that stretched from his collarbone to his windpipe, embellished with bruises. And what I thought had been dirt was something worse. Those dark trails were nectar, pulsing beneath his skin, spreading out through his body. The kid seemed to grow more anxious under our scrutiny, attempting to burrow deeper into his makeshift bed.
‘Oh Jesus,’ said Zee, earning a stern stare from the priest. ‘He was bitten.’
‘Bitten?’ asked several of the adults together. The man with the glasses finished. ‘By what?’
Zee ignored them, standing up and walking towards Simon and me.
‘I’m telling you,’ Zee went on, quieter than before, leaning in so that even with every eye in the cathedral fixed on us he wouldn’t be heard. ‘It’s a plague, it’s spreading. If you get bitten, you turn.’
‘Come on, Zee,’ Simon replied. ‘These aren’t zombies we’re talking about. That’s crazy.’
‘Excuse me?’ said the priest, taking a step closer. ‘Do you know something? Any information would be helpful at this point.’
We kept our mouths shut, unsure what to say. But Lucy seemed to wake from her daze, peering out at us through eyes that reflected the dappled mosaic of light from the windows.
‘They’re from the prison,’ she said softly. ‘They escaped. They know what’s going on.’
The priest stumbled back, clutching a pew to stop himself from falling over. Several of the adults retreated too, some even uttering absurd cries of distress. The rest looked as if they were preparing for a fight, their eyes steely and their knuckles white.
‘Is this true?’ asked the priest, making the sign of the cross over his robes. ‘You’re from Furnace?’
I nodded, getting ready to run. I didn’t honestly think this bunch of geriatrics would turn on us, but I knew what people were like. You take away the things they take for granted and they soon go mad. It’s like ripping out the foundations of a house and watching it crumble. When you think about it, we’re all insane, we just don’t know it till we’re given a little push in the wrong direction.
‘But they’re okay,’ Lucy went on, aware of the growing tension. She looked at Zee and offered him the ghost of a smile which almost knocked him off his feet. ‘They seem okay. They saved me, really. I’d be dead now if they hadn’t showed up. And they do seem to know what’s happening, as insane as it sounds. You’re better off listening to them.’
The crowd seemed to relax, although their bodies remained stiff, mouths screwed into little more than slits. The priest recovered himself, smoothing down his robes and looking at Zee.
‘Is this true?’ he asked. ‘Do you know what’s going on?’
Zee shook his head.
‘Not everything, not even close,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell you what we know, but first things first.’ He pointed at the kid on the floor. ‘You need to tie him up, and tie him up good.’
Toilet Break
I thought we were in for a force-ten riot. The second Zee gave his order the man with glasses stood bolt upright, hands knotted into small fists.
‘Don’t you dare touch him,’ he said, his voice so low and so hoarse it sounded demonic. His eyes, too, were flaring in a way that made me think of the devil – except I’d already been to hell, I knew the truth about demons. ‘I swear …’
He didn’t finish. He didn’t need to. His body language did all the talking. Zee held up a hand, silently begging them to listen.
‘I’m not saying we should hurt him,’ he said, his voice calm. ‘But trust me, if he was bitten then something’s going to happen to him. He’s going to …’
He looked at Simon and me, his eyes imploring us to help.
‘He’s going to become a monster,’ Lucy said, pulling herself up from her seat and leaning on the carved wooden finial of the pew. ‘There’s som
ething in him –what do you call it?’
‘Nectar,’ said Zee.
‘Nectar,’ Lucy repeated, dropping down onto her haunches near the boy. People in the crowd were protesting, those who had been seated making their way towards the aisle to hear our story. Lucy spoke over their muttered remarks. ‘I’m a nurse. Well, I’m training. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it, if someone just like him hadn’t tried to kill me. But it’s true. If that nectar stuff is in his veins then he’s turning. He’ll become feral, aggressive. He’ll lose his mind.’
‘Look,’ said the man, ‘I don’t know who you are, but you’re talking nonsense. He’s in shock, he’s got a serious wound in his neck and he needs rest, warmth and water. You can’t tie him up, I forbid it.’
‘Forbid all you want,’ Lucy said. ‘If you don’t get some restraints on him then I’m getting the hell out of here. You want the truth, you poke that head of yours out the door and take a look at what’s going on. There are kids out there …’ She paused for long enough to reach out a hand and press it against the boy’s cheek. ‘There are kids out there and something is happening to them. They’re tearing the city apart.’
‘Start from the beginning,’ the priest said. ‘Please.’
‘You sure?’ Zee asked. ‘It’s a long story.’
‘From the sound of things, we’ve got a long wait before anybody comes to rescue us,’ replied the priest.
Zee opened his mouth, but before he could begin I burst in.
‘Is there a bathroom here I can use?’ I asked. The priest nodded, pointing behind him.
‘Over there, by the transept, down the stairs in the crypt.’ I thanked him and set off, only to hear him shout: ‘Please don’t steal anything from the gift shop or the cafeteria.’
‘I need to go as well,’ Simon shouted, trotting to catch up. Zee was mumbling something at us, but the crowd had surrounded him now and were urging him on. We left him to it, squeezing past the last few stragglers and following the nave to the huge open space beneath the dome. I looked up as we walked, but the vaulted ceiling was lost in shadow. It was easy to believe there were creatures up there, clinging on to the rafters, faces like gargoyles, ready to drop down and feed, so I let my head fall, concentrating on the floor. It took us a while to find the entrance to the crypt, and when we did I felt my throat choke up.
‘Underground again,’ I said as Simon ducked through the low stone archway and traipsed down a narrow spiral staircase. He laughed without humour, keeping one hand on the newel post as he led the way. We walked deeper and deeper, the twisting stairs seeming to go on forever, but just as claustrophobia began to grip me we emerged into a light, airy corridor. To the left were two doors marked MEN and WOMEN.
Simon pushed through into the gents, holding the door open for me. There were two urinals and I took one, surprised when he squeezed himself in next to me.
‘Um …’ I said, suddenly self-conscious.
‘You want me to use the cubicle?’ he asked as he went, grinning that lopsided grin of his. ‘Too late. Come on, don’t be shy. Unless …’ he leant in even closer. ‘The warden didn’t experiment on your you-know-what, did he?’
‘No!’ I retorted, the mere idea killing off any last hope of relieving myself. I waited until Simon had finished before trying to relax, the sound of the taps running doing a bit to help.
‘Wow,’ Simon said. ‘Warm water. You remember that?’
I rinsed my hands under the tap, the sensation of hot water on my skin bringing back too many memories – showers at home after football training, washing up the dishes after dinner – and the sense of loss was so overpowering that my face screwed up, hard enough to make it ache. Simon must have noticed because he turned away with an uncomfortable expression, then thought better of it and clapped me twice on the shoulder.
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Poor old Zee probably needs some help. You know how he gets when he’s stressed.’
We walked back to the spiral staircase and started climbing, but after a dozen or so steps Simon stopped, turning to face me.
‘Alex,’ he said quietly. ‘How the hell did it get so bad so quickly?’
The stone walls pressed in, trapping us in a bubble of darkness that felt protective rather than threatening.
‘I don’t know,’ I replied.
‘It’s just…’ Simon seemed to choke on his words. ‘How did Furnace manage to get his army into the city so quickly? I mean his creeps were here almost as soon as we got out.’
‘He knew we were escaping,’ I finished when Simon faltered again. ‘The warden told him, remember that phone? That’s why Furnace sent those two berserkers to the prison, that’s how he had time to get everything else in place.’
Simon looked unsure, and it took a nudge from me to make him spill the rest of his thoughts.
‘It’s more than that. In the vision, back in the subway, he said that we forced his hand, made him start his war today, right?’
I nodded, trying not to think about what I’d seen after the berserker had bitten me, what Alfred Furnace had told me. Simon shuffled uncomfortably, then looked me right in the eye.
‘This break, us getting out. It wasn’t a blow for Furnace. It was exactly what he wanted. And I don’t think we escaped …’ He left the sentence hanging, and all of a sudden the silence in the stairwell was replaced by the roar of my pulse in my ears as I realised what he was saying. ‘I think he let us out.’
‘That’s impossible,’ I said, shaking my head as I remembered everything we’d gone through to force our way out of the prison. There was simply no way that Furnace could have engineered all of that. ‘Why would he let us all go just to try and catch us again?’
‘He’s not trying to catch us,’ Simon said. ‘The police are, sure, but Furnace – he’s trying to turn us. He wants us out here, tearing the world apart.’
I was still shaking my head, but I only had to look out onto the streets of the city to know the truth.
‘No,’ I barked, pushing past Simon and almost tripping up the stairs. ‘There’s no way. We’re wrong. Furnace is crazy. He’s off his head. They both are, him and the warden. The army are here now, anyway. They’ll handle it. We just need to stay alive.’
‘But they don’t know what they’re dealing with,’ Simon said. ‘If Furnace is filling this city with berserkers, if his rats are pouring into the streets, infecting everyone they bite, then the army’s just walking into a trap. They’ll get eaten alive out there.’
I don’t think he was talking literally, but I know we both had the same image in our heads. Simon was right. The rats – these new ones – were fast and they were furious, and by the looks of things their numbers were spreading. They’d attack without mercy, without hesitation, and those of their victims who didn’t die stood a good chance of turning into bloodthirsty freaks themselves. I thought about the faces of those soldiers we’d seen on television, how young some of them looked. I didn’t know how the nectar worked, only that the warden had told me adults couldn’t handle it. But where was the cut-off point? Sixteen? Eighteen? Twenty?
‘Coming in here was a mistake,’ Simon said as we walked through the arch into the main body of the cathedral. ‘City’s gonna be swarming; there will be nowhere left to hide. We should grab Zee and Lucy and keep moving, get out of here before—’
‘There will be no getting out of here,’ the words were spat from the shadows and we both flinched. The priest was standing there, bathed in darkness. ‘Our only plan is prayer, our only escape is God. This is Armageddon, the last battle of good and evil before the Day of Judgement. We must believe, my children. And we must sacrifice. Oh yes, we must sacrifice.’
I shared a look with Simon as we walked towards the door, a look that was echoed in his furrowed brow. Out there was hell, but inside this cathedral a storm was brewing, I could feel it.
And I didn’t like it.
Not one bit.
Trouble
It was da
rker in the cathedral now and it took me a minute to work out why: the huge doors at the front of the building, the ones we had entered through, were now closed and bolted, chains looped between the handles and sealed with padlocks better suited to a medieval dungeon.
‘Looks like we’re here to stay,’ I whispered to Simon as he stepped out after me. The priest was close behind, his eyes like burning suns as he stepped round the last bend. I noticed that the white band in his collar had come loose, folded up like a broken bow-tie.
‘Join the flock,’ he commanded, and it was a command, there was no doubt about that. Any hint of the friendliness and warmth he had displayed when we arrived was now long gone. He ushered us across the open floor beneath the dome, back towards his congregation. They were huddled together even more tightly now, watching us approach with a mix of expressions, all unreadable in the growing darkness.
The kid hadn’t been moved, but I was relieved to see that one of his arms had been secured with a plastic cuff to the leg of a pew. The security guard was standing over him, one chubby hand resting on her holstered pistol. The man with the glasses was back on his knees, cradling the child’s head and glowering at Zee, who sat on a pew a few rows back, Lucy beside him. I made straight for Zee, excusing myself as I pushed through the crowd.
‘Thanks,’ he snapped, sitting forward. ‘You left me to tell the whole story on my own!’
‘We’d have just messed it up,’ I replied. ‘You’re good with words. Besides,’ I nudged him, ‘you had Lucy to help you.’
His elbow nudged back hard into my ribs, but he couldn’t completely hide the smile on his face as he crashed back against the pew. The priest was standing by the altar, genuflecting so energetically that it looked as if he was conducting an aerobics class. His strangled prayers drifted back to us, garbled words that meant nothing to me.
‘Did they believe you?’ Simon asked. Zee studied the crowd, then looked at Lucy.