Plague World Read online

  Tom turned around. A dark-haired girl with a walking stick was grasping the safety rail beside him.

  ‘What did you just say?’

  ‘I . . . ’ Her mouth flapped uselessly for a moment. She’d obviously not been expecting to be heard. Or noticed, even. She finally found her voice, though. ‘If they’re infected, they won’t jump in. They won’t do it!’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Salt! It’s salt water, right? They sort of melt in salt!’

  Tom winced at his stupidity. The girl was right. They had been testing for a reaction with saline solution. A good dunking in seawater would do exactly the same thing.

  ‘Get some launches over there,’ he said, turning to Captain Donner.

  Captain Donner nodded reluctantly and passed the order on to his executive officer.

  ‘Bloody well hurry up, about it!’ he bellowed as the junior officer walked back across the helipad. He turned back to look aft, then pressed the PTT button on his handset. ‘Sea Queen, Sea Queen. We are sending over some rescue launches right away. If you are able to do it, jump over the side when they arrive. We’ll be there to pick you up quickly. Over.’

  The handset hissed, then finally crackled. ‘Understood. Out.’

  Donner stood back from the railing. ‘I should brief the fleet.’

  Tom nodded – ‘Do it’ – and watched him go.

  ‘Excuse me,’ said the young girl to his right.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Are the people on that ship all from Calais? I didn’t see that ship at Southampton.’

  ‘Mostly,’ he replied absently. ‘There are some Brits on there too, though. Why do you ask?’

  ‘I got separated from someone when it all went tits-up. I just . . . He . . . They might be on there.’

  ‘Once we’ve checked them over we’ll add any we manage to save to the fleet manifest.’ He turned to go.

  ‘Hold on. Is that like a passenger list?’

  ‘Yes, exactly like a passenger list. It’ll be made available once all of the fleet’s testing has been completed.’

  And maybe my kids’ names will be there.

  ‘Could I give you my friends’ names, you know, just to look out for?’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ He shook his head. ‘Just check the list when it’s done and posted, OK?’

  CHAPTER 8

  ‘That’s good.’ Leon nodded approvingly at Artur’s handiwork. He had found some trolleys in the warehouse and detached several handles from the bottom of their chassis. He’d removed the floor mesh from several of the large cages and then secured them to the wheeled bases.

  They now had four floorless cages on little castor wheels. Which was just as well, since the cages themselves had turned out to be surprisingly heavy. Given none of them had eaten anything but a few dried dog biscuits in the last five days, their ability to physically function was beginning to shut down.

  ‘Two people per cage, and we’ll have to squeeze three of us into one of them.’ He looked around for the best candidates for that. ‘Kim, Finley –’ they were both small and narrow-framed – ‘and Howard would be best.’

  Howard nodded. ‘Makes sense.’

  ‘And the rest of us . . . I think we need to pair up those who still have some energy with those who aren’t doing so well.’ Leon expected pushback from the ‘fitter’ members of their group; Jake was still holding out well, and Dawn still seemed to have some get-up-and-go about her.

  Artur and Cora were struggling. But Adewale, six foot tall and almost as broad, was the most affected. He was all muscle and zero fat, and all of that muscle was crying out for sustenance. Leon thought he might have been a wrestler or a boxer.

  No one objected to Leon’s pairings. No one seemed to have the energy in them to object to anything right now.

  ‘I’ll go with Cora.’ He looked at Jake. ‘Will you go with Adewale?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘So, Dawn, you’re with Artur.’

  She nodded, while Artur frowned at the mention of his name. He was slumped against a cinder-block wall, exhausted and spent from helping to assemble their cages-on-wheels.

  ‘There’s no point delaying this,’ said Leon. ‘We’re all suffering; we’re getting weaker, dizzy and stuff. The sooner we do this, the better our chances are going to be.’

  Again, there were no objections. Stepping outside felt like suicide to Leon, but it would be a faster one than staying in here and starving to death.

  For a moment he wondered what Dad would have made of this little scene: his under-achieving, sulking son actually showing some leadership. He’d probably find something to pick fault with.

  ‘So we’re making straight towards the red Goddards truck out there?’ said Finley.

  They’d discussed the objective as the light had faded the previous night. The truck was parked a couple of hundred metres away, just outside the open delivery doors of a large warehouse. They’d gone to sleep with that objective in mind. But overnight Leon had been having second thoughts. The truck was right outside a dark cavernous entrance, from which God knows how many virals might just swarm, and there were no other vehicles to be seen nearby. His thinking, his concern, was that the truck had presumably been sitting there for nearly three years, and more than likely wasn’t going to start. The battery would be flat. If so, they might be able to escape into another building nearby, but then it would be a lottery as to whether the building was occupied with waiting virals.

  On the other hand, he knew where there were a number of vehicles that certainly did work.

  ‘We’re gonna head for the camp. There’ll be supplies. Food.’

  Dawn shook her head. ‘You serious? No bloody way I’m going back there!’

  Cora chimed in. ‘We only just managed to escape from there.’

  ‘No, hold on. He’s right,’ said Jake. ‘There’s more chance we’ll find a working vehicle there. If the red truck’s buggered . . . then we’re buggered too.’

  Leon nodded. ‘That’s what I was thinking. Those soldiers had a bunch of trucks and Humvees that worked just fine. They left Southampton in a real hurry so I’m thinking they probably left them, keys still in the dash.’

  ‘And all sorts of useful kit,’ said Jake.

  ‘Guns?’ added Finley.

  ‘Right.’ Leon shrugged. ‘Provided the virus isn’t still massed down at the quayside, it could be a treasure trove of stuff.’

  ‘And if the virus is still there?’ asked Adewale. He was slumped against the wall next to Artur, his knees drawn up, wrists resting on them, big hands dangling like ripe fruit. ‘We will be in trouble.’

  ‘We are already,’ replied Jake. ‘We stay here another day and we’ll be lucky if we can even walk out, let alone push around a heavy cage. It’s a sound plan, Leon, mate. I think it’s the best way to go.’

  There was another reason for going that Leon wasn’t prepared to share. He needed to see, just to be sure. Freya had been wearing that bright orange anorak – one of those cheap ones that could fold up into a bum-pouch. He needed to know it wasn’t lying somewhere on the cold, hard concrete, tangled up among bones and a walking stick.

  ‘I’d say the virus will have relocated by now from the open quayside into these warehouse buildings,’ said Finley. ‘It seems to prefer being under cover.’

  ‘And it’s close to what they’re after,’ added Jake.

  Us.

  ‘Who’s leading?’ asked Leon.

  ‘Your idea. That makes you the project manager,’ said Jake. ‘No pressure.’ He grinned.

  ‘Shit.’ Leon took in a deep breath and puffed it out. ‘OK, all those who say we try for the red truck nearby?’

  He looked around.

  No hands. No dissenters.

  No reason to delay.

  ‘OK. All right then,’ he huffed.

  ‘Right,’ echoed Adewale.

  ‘Right,’ added Dawn. ‘We doin’ this or what?’

  They had the four rolling cages lined up b
eside the building’s delivery door, everyone already inside them and hunkered over. Leon was standing beside his cage looking at their bizarre train – each one containing two crouching people, like a pantomime horse, except the second to last, with Howard at the front, then Finley, then Kim.

  ‘Is everyone ready?’ asked Leon.

  Cora was holding the back of the cage up, ready for him to hurry back under. ‘Come on. Let’s just get this done, love.’

  ‘God,’ uttered Dawn. ‘We’re really doing this?’

  Several of the cages rattled softly: hands shaking as they held on to them.

  Yeah, we’re doing this.

  ‘Everyone remember which way to head?’ he continued. ‘We go right out of this door, then keep going towards the warehouse with the red truck parked outside it. Turn left, go round the end of it, then keep going straight for the quayside.’

  ‘When we get to the quayside?’

  His memory-map of the area was hazy. He’d been running away from the outbreak at night and in a blind panic. He was pretty sure, though, that the quay was an endless, open, football-pitch-wide promenade of concrete that they weren’t going to miss.

  ‘We should be able to see the camp to our left. Or at least what’s left of it. We’ll head towards the nearest army truck. If that doesn’t work, then we go to the next until we find one that’s good to go.’

  Here’s the bit I don’t want to say.

  ‘One rule. No one stops for anything, OK?’

  ‘Anything?’ echoed Howard.

  ‘Anything.’ Leon could see they knew what he was saying – every cage for itself. If anybody got stuck, they were going to have get unstuck by themselves.

  ‘And another one. No effort-farting in my face, Addy,’ said Jake. His head was a few centimetres away from Adewale’s huge behind.

  ‘Gas-powered, man,’ he replied over his shoulder.

  There was a ripple of forced laughter from their assembled convoy.

  ‘Right.’ Leon approached the delivery doors. ‘This is it.’

  He ducked down to examine the slither of light spilling through. From time to time over the last five days, they’d seen spindly shadows breaking the long dash of daylight: small crabs drawn to their smell, testing the tiny gap, and then giving up. They’d found a large drum of disinfectant and soaked the floor along the base of the doors. It had seemed to work; the virus hadn’t attempted to grow any tendrils through the narrow gap.

  He couldn’t see any shuffling shadows outside.

  ‘Coast is clear,’ he said quietly.

  The delivery doors were braced by an improvised locking bar: three lengths of copper piping that had been pulled from the shower in the staff changing room. Artur had rammed them through the doors’ looping handles.

  Leon slid the locking bars out one by one, trying to make as little scraping noise as possible. The last bar clanged slightly as he set it down on the floor. He froze, and after a couple of seconds stood up straight and eased out a breath. The doors were unsecured. He looked back again at the others and saw nothing but the whites of their eyes – pair after pair, round and frightened – and wondered if he looked as shit-scared as they did.

  He held up a hand and counted down on his fingers.

  Five . . .

  Four . . .

  Three . . .

  Two . . .

  One.

  He pushed the left-hand door open a crack. Daylight flooded in and momentarily dazzled him, even though the sky was overcast. Heart racing, he peered out and scanned their immediate surroundings.

  The ground outside was mottled with the virus’s vein-like network. The biggest were coated in a ribbed, leathery surface and as thick as a wrist, snaking like tree roots across the tarmac. Finer tributaries as thick as fingers spun away from them, eventually splaying out into hair-thin dark lines.

  Leon slowly pushed the door open, then stepped back and reached for the right-hand door, easing it open as quietly as he could, minding his feet didn’t tread on any of the virus’s fine-ended network.

  As he eased open the second door, he heard a soft, wet, snapping sound above him. He looked up to see a finger-thick vein dangling from the cinder block above, leaking a string of gooey brown liquid.

  ‘Shit!’ Leon hissed.

  It had grown across the corner of the right-hand door and looked to Leon almost intentional. He was pretty sure the broken vein was there as an alarm. They were going to have to move fast.

  For a second he was uncertain what to do: go for the plan or abandon it.

  Someone was going to step on a tripwire sooner or later. You have to go. Now!

  He turned back to them – ‘Go! Go! Go!’ – then hurried to the cage Cora had been holding up for him. He ducked under the frame and she lowered it down quickly, the trolley wheels bouncing and rattling noisily on the ground.

  Jake and Adewale rolled out into the open first, the cage ringing like an empty shopping trolley pushed across a cobbled street as their wheels encountered the first ribs of viral growth. The rest followed them out, Leon and Cora last in the convoy.

  ‘Right! Go right!’ Leon shouted to Cora over the deafening rattle of their wheels.

  ‘Yes, yes, I know!’

  He looked down at his feet just as one of his trainers stepped on a zigzagging vein. It squished like a slug, spurting dark goo out through its ruptured hide. Even this small spatter of liquid seemed to have some sort of rudimentary intelligence, as the liquid appeared to draw back under its own momentum towards the flattened skin to escape the blinding daylight.

  Even a single droplet of this stuff . . . can think for itself! The thought hit him hard. Consideration would have to come later, because already it seemed news of their escape had travelled the meandering highways and byways. Ahead of them lay the red truck parked up beside the wide entrance to the warehouse marked ‘Pinner Distribution’. From fifty metres away it looked as though the straight edges of the entrance to the dark interior was being dissolved away before their eyes. It reminded him of ink being dropped on to blotting paper. Blooming, spreading.

  He realized then what he was seeing: a swarm, surging from the inside of the building, over the edges and out on to the walls. He suspected his first act as ‘project manager’ was going to get them all killed.

  Leon could see Jake and Adewale up ahead, steering their cage diagonally to the left, giving the truck, and the warehouse entrance beside it, as wide a berth as possible. The creatures were swarming out of the gloomy interior like enraged killer bees from a kicked hive. They surged down the walls, across the tarmac, around and under the red truck.

  It could have been all the noise they were making; it could have been that first root he tore open as he’d pushed the second door out. Either way, the virus was on to them.

  We’re screwed. We’re dead! Leon could feel terror locking his mind, overturning his plan with an instinctive desire to flip the cage and run for his life.

  The dark carpet of small creatures picked up their scent and corrected its course as it began to surge straight towards them.

  He shot a panicked glance at the mesh either side of him; the holes were big enough for a finger to poke through – but no more than that.

  Shit. Shit. Shit. All of a sudden he realized this idea of his was insanely stupid. He was going to be eaten alive in a prison cage of his own making.

  ‘OhmyGod!’ he heard Cora scream in front of him. She started to lift the front of their cage up, presumably trying to get out and run.

  ‘NO! DON’T!’

  He reached forward and grabbed her arms, jerking her hands from the mesh.

  ‘LEMMEGO . . . LEMMEGO!’

  She was trying to shake his hands off and push the cage up with her shoulders. A yawning gap opened up as the front of the cage lifted again, the front two castor wheels spinning uselessly in the air.

  ‘Stop! You’re gonna let them in!’

  She wasn’t listening. She was thrashing now, the cage bouncin
g around and threatening to topple over.

  He did it out of instinct. Probably because it worked with Grace when they were younger. He grabbed the thick rope of her ponytail and yanked on it savagely.

  She let out a loud yelp, lost her footing and fell into him, toppling them both backwards and upending their cage completely. He found himself lying on his back, Cora on his legs, the front of the cage and two dangling wheels above them both, silhouetted against the grey sky.

  ‘SHIT! GET IT DOWN! GET IT BACK DOWN!’

  He rolled her off him and sat up, reaching for their mesh canopy. The creatures were almost upon them now. Just a few metres away.

  And close enough to see that they were bigger than normal. These things seemed to have no standard configuration; just random, almost chaotic arrangements of pale crablike legs and claws sprouting from a central pearl-coloured carapace.

  The front of the heavy cage swung down painfully slowly, clattering loudly as the freewheeling castors hit the tarmac heavily, bounced up half a metre and clattered down again.

  The first of the creatures crashed into the wire mesh and were held back by it, others quickly piling in behind them, climbing over their spine-covered skins to get a purchase on the wire. Cora was screaming. Leon was pretty sure he was screaming too as the crabs, unable to squeeze their bodies through the gaps, probed through the gaps between the wires with their claws, serrated spines, antennae . . . reaching for him, desperate to make contact.

  Cora was recoiling, swatting at them, backing into him and pushing him into contact with the rear of the cage.

  ‘CALM DOWN!’ Leon shouted, his own voice sounding as ragged and broken as hers. ‘THEY CAN’T GET IN! WE’RE SAFE!’

  Above him, he heard the creatures scuttling across the roof of their cage, testing for a way in, others swarming around it, clawing their way up the sides. Within a minute, the entire mesh was covered. It was almost dark inside, the pallid daylight reduced to a thousand jagged gaps as small bodies shifted and jockeyed for position around them. The air was filled with the hissing noises of their shell-like bodies scratching against the wire.

  He looked down at the ground. Artur had attached the castors to the very bottom rim of the cage, giving the wheels just enough clearance from the cage to work. But that meant there was a gap of a few centimetres all the way around.