The Last Plague (31 page)

     Magnus felt their slowly-fading hunger and Debbie’s maternal satisfaction. He heard her heartbeat, its slow rhythm; the blood swimming through her veins. He felt the swell and rush of her insides adapting to the plague. But she was still Debbie. She was still his wife. And she still loved him.

     “I’m sorry for everything,” Magnus whispered. 

     This was his family. He felt proud. He felt humbled.

     This was his home.

     Magnus couldn’t help smiling.

CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

Magnus and Frank returned outside.

     “I’m staying here,” said Magnus.

     The others looked at him. Frank was the only one who didn’t look stunned. There was only acceptance in his eyes.

     Joel looked hurt. “You can’t leave us. We stay together. There might be a cure. We can get you help.”

     “I’m too far gone,” Magnus said. “You can see that for yourselves. Look at me.” He could feel the plague needling his insides, changing his chemistry and his thoughts.

     “You don’t know that,” said Joel.

     “There’s not enough time, even if there is a cure. I’m changing. I’ll be a danger to you. I’m contagious. I can feel it pulling at me now. I can feel it in my blood and in my brain.”

     Joel shook his head.

     “I can smell everything under your skin,” said Magnus. For a second, all he wanted to do was slaughter his friends and the little girl with them. He wanted to open her up and see what she was made of. He had known Frank, Ralph and Joel since childhood, since they were able to wipe their own arses, but when he looked into their faces he felt an urge to kill them and drag their bodies back to the house so his family wouldn’t go hungry.

     There was an itching sensation behind his eyes. He looked down at his hands and they looked like a stranger’s. His skin was damp and glistening, but not with sweat. His body throbbed. His teeth felt too big for his mouth. There was a growing darkness in his chest and it was spreading outwards, and when it reached his extremities and his brain, he would finally succumb and be transformed.

     He looked at his friends and saw their insides; saw their beating hearts and their digestive systems working. He saw their blood.

     “So this is it, then?” said Joel. “That’s it? Just like that?”

     “Yes.” Magnus felt a twinge of hot pain across his back.

     “We’ve come all this way, and that’s it. You’re done?”

     “Yes, mate.”

     “This is madness.”

     “Magnus is right,” said Frank. Joel shot him a glare. “And it’s his choice. His family is in there, waiting for him. It’s too late for a cure.”

     Magnus nodded.

     “Frank,” said Joel, “you can’t be serious.”

     “Frank’s right,” said Ralph. “It’s Magnus’s choice. He doesn’t have long left. If he stayed with us, we’d have to kill him eventually.”

     Joel was shaking his head. “No, no, no.”

     Magnus smiled ruefully and shrugged. “I guess this is goodbye, lads. I’ll forgive you if you don’t want to shake hands with me.”

     The others stayed where they were. Joel was crying silently. Ralph was staring at Magnus. Florence offered Magnus a little smile and it comforted him.

     “The infected are everywhere,” Magnus said. “There aren’t many places left to run to. The light is fading, lads. Time is running out. We are dying out.”

     The thought of never seeing his mates again made his chest ache. Magnus wiped his mouth.

     “See ya, mate,” said Ralph. “Sorry it had to end like this.”

     “Me too.”

     Joel wiped his eyes. “Bye, Magnus.”

     Frank said, “Go and be with your family, mate. Take care of them. Maybe we’ll all cross paths again one day.”

     “I hope not,” said Magnus. “It wouldn’t end well for any of us.” He wiped his eyes. “I remember when we were kids and we used to spend our summer holidays playing football and cricket, building tree houses and bases in the woods, pretending we were in the army. I never thought those days would end. I thought they would last forever. Maybe our younger selves are still doing that right now, in another time. I wish we could go back there.”

     “Same here,” said Frank. Ralph and Joel nodded.

     “Now there is nothing to say, I suppose.”

     “We won’t forget you, mate,” said Frank.

     “I hope I don’t forget you lot either.”

     Thunder rumbled far away.

     “I hope you find your families, lads,” Magnus said. “Frank, I hope you find Catherine. Joel, I hope you find Anya. I hope you all get to safety. I hope you all survive.”

     The others nodded.

     “Cheers, lads,” Magnus said. “Thanks for everything.”

     He limped back to the house. By the time he walked inside and joined with his family, the old Magnus Heap was gone and a new one was born.

CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

“So what do we do now?” asked Joel. “Where do we go?” He wrapped his arms around his chest.

     Ralph swigged vodka. He swallowed then grimaced. “Fuck knows.”

     Frank said, “We could go back to my house.”

     “And then what?” Joel said.

     “We figure something out.”

     “Anya and Catherine could be dead, Magnus is gone, and you want to figure something out?”

     “You have a better suggestion?”

     “We have to find help.”

     “Find help where?”

     “I don’t know. There might be other survivors somewhere. Maybe the army will find us.”

     Ralph grunted. “Keep on dreaming, Joel.”

     “Shut up, Ralph,” said Joel. “You’re drunk.”

     Ralph grinned and it wasn’t nice. “Not yet. But I plan to be.”

     “This isn’t helping,” said Frank. “We need to decide what to do next.”

     Ralph said, “Might as well get drunk while we still can.”

     Frank ignored him. He was still reeling from the loss of Magnus. He couldn’t believe he’d never see Magnus again.

     Magnus was gone.

     Frank missed him already; missed his sniffles and the way he chewed the inside of his mouth. Frank hoped Magnus was happy with his family in his new existence.

     A great emptiness bloomed inside Frank when he thought of Catherine. He could not give up hope of finding her alive. If he did that he might as well sit down on the road and wait for something hungry to find him.

     “We’re fucked,” said Joel. “What are we going to do? Are we going to just wander around the village all day? What if there’re infected still around?”

     “Calm down,” said Frank.

     “We’re fucked.”

     “Stop it.”

     “Have a drink, lads,” Ralph said.

     They both ignored him. They were staring down the road. So was Florence.

     “Don’t want a drink?” said Ralph. “Fair enough. More for me.”

     Florence pointed ahead of them.

     There were people gathering down the road, emerging from passageways, doorways and gardens, twitching and snarling. Some of them were transformed beyond recognition. Some of them Frank did recognise. Some of them were his neighbours. His friends. People he once passed on the street. People he used to wave at as he drove by in his car on the way to work every morning. Those he used to get drunk with in the pub, enjoying a pint and a laugh and watching the football. He saw Jim Bottomley and his wife Emma, both growling through stained mouths, their clothes torn and dirty. He saw the Field brothers, Pete, Tom and Addy, snarling at one another over a severed arm that Tom was trying to eat. He saw Josh Fade, Luke Oliver, Tom Brister, AJ Carvell, Rich Pippin and Josh Wilkinson. They were deformed and pale, glistening skin and growing tumours on their shivering bodies. Josh Fade was wearing a white dressing gown tainted with yellow stains; it opened to reveal his pyjamas bulging with wet growths and tendrils. Tom Brister was on all fours, his jaws swollen and dripping, his fingers raking the road. They were staring at Frank and the others with a naked hunger. The last time he had seen Luke Oliver was the Sunday before last, when he’d gone to the local shop to buy a newspaper and had spoken to him outside; now Luke was crouching by a car gnawing on his own fingers. He saw Rosie Milton, a young girl who lived four doors down from his house and had been friends with Emily. She was shaking with hunger, her eyes drilling into his face. Her neck had extended, swelling with fluids and gases, and scythe-like appendages twitched and jabbed from her shoulders.

     Some of the infected were naked and covered in blood.

     Frank wondered with a wave of hot panic if Catherine was amongst the infected. If she was, he would kill her. He would kill her quickly.

     They gathered as a pack, darkened limbs and torn skin. The Field brothers discarded the severed arm and regarded Frank’s group. Gibbering mouths opened to reveal black tongues and chattering teeth. Twitching hands grasped the air; hands that were deformed into sharp points of bone and muscle. Palsied arms folded into themselves. The sound of growling grew louder within them, until it was all that could be heard.

     There were other faces that he recognised. It was too painful to remember them as they had once been. They were monsters now.

     “Oh shit,” said Joel, backing away.

     Ralph stopped drinking.

     Florence grabbed Frank’s hand.

     The pack of infected broke into a run, and before Frank could turn and flee, they had already halved the distance between them.

     Ralph threw the vodka bottle at the pack, and it hit one of the infected, knocking her down. Ralph turned and ran.

     
We’re not going to make it
, Frank thought.

     
They ran past Magnus’s house.

     Frank glanced back to see the infected within ten yards. Ralph was already flagging, breathing hard. Joel whimpered as he ran.

     One of the infected reached for Ralph. Something wet and black emerged from its mouth. 

     Ralph looked at Frank, a final exchanged glance.

     The infected thing let out a scream, reached out and snagged the back of Ralph’s jacket.

     Ralph cried out.

     The back of the infected thing’s head exploded.

CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN

Another infected went down. A bullet whirred past Frank’s head, into the chasing pack. He turned.

     There were two men standing on the road, five yards back, one with a rifle and the other with a shotgun.

     The man with the rifle shouted, “Get down!”

     Frank dragged Florence down with him. Ralph and Joel hit the road on their stomachs.

     The two men opened fire. Frank hugged Florence, burying her face in his chest. The world around him became an explosion. He screamed and Florence screamed with him.

     Frank screamed until his throat was raw.

     Then there was silence. Frank raised his head. The smell of blood and smoke hung in the air.

     The two men reloaded their weapons. The infected were littered all over the road, many of them still twitching. The road was red and mushy. Arms and legs lay at broken angles, twisted and smashed, ripped from bodies. Pulped remains. One of them, a woman with most of her face obliterated by buckshot, reached out to Frank as he rose. He stepped away from the infected woman. Her hand grasped at the air, her muffled grunts desperate and gasping. She opened her mouth and a dark green fluid slipped onto her chin.

     He was glad he didn’t recognise her.

     The woman slumped upon the road. Her bleeding wounds lessened their flow as her heart finally stopped. Her eyes remained fixed on Frank.

     Ralph and Joel got to their feet. They looked at the bodies on the road, struck with awe. 

     The men with the guns raised their gas masks.

     The man with the rifle was old and limping. He was in his late sixties with a face like pale, creased leather and a grey beard. He was short and narrow. The other man was younger and red-bearded, with large eyes. He was tall and broad-shouldered. They reloaded their weapons.

     The men stopped five yards from Frank. They eyed him warily.

     The old man grinned. “Frank Hooper. I thought you were dead.”

     Frank nodded. “I thought you were too, Roland.”

* * *

They walked to the edge of the village, where the houses gave way to fields. The distant cries of infected drifted through the air. The day was darkening, becoming colder. Frank was hungry and exhausted.

     Roland Pratt was friends with Frank’s parents. “Here we are. Mary should be waiting for us. We don’t want to be outside when it gets dark.”

     The other man was Henry Pratt, Roland’s nephew.

     Roland knocked on the front door and waited. The lock clicked and the door opened. Mary Pratt greeted them with a nervous smile. She was a short, plump woman wearing a long dress and a stained, white apron. Her grey hair had been tied into a bun. Roland gave her a quick hug and entered the house. Frank and the others followed him. Henry locked the door, threw the bolt.

     They were in a hallway. The only light was from candles flickering by the walls. The house smelled of old shoes and sweat. Frank had been here before when he was a teenager and had come here with his father. It suddenly felt strange that he hadn’t visited the house since then.

     “I thought I heard gunshots,” Mary said. “I was worried.”

     Roland kissed her on the cheek. “No need to worry, dear. We encountered some of the corrupted ones. We made short work of them.”

     “Good,” she said, smiling. “That’s good.”