CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

 

 

RICK FILLED THE hypodermic with the morphine he’d scavenged from the doctor’s apartment. He wasn’t quite sure of the correct technique involved, but was certain that it wouldn’t matter if he got it wrong. Sally was dead, so he doubted that a mistake or a slip of the wrist regarding dosage would cause her much pain.

She’d become restless since his return, as if something had disturbed her. Hungry, he thought. She’s probably hungry. He tried not to think of the human remains he’d seen earlier, pretending that Sally wanted a burger, or a pizza from the local takeaway. He recalled the way she’d refused the frozen steaks…

It had taken him quite some time to remove the dirty dressings, clean up the congealing crimson mess of her skinned face, and then apply a layer of kitchen cellophane before putting on the new bandages. But he didn’t mind. It was his job; the job of a husband and lover; the job of a true friend.

“This won’t hurt,” he told her, smiling. “Not really. Just a bit of discomfort, then you’ll feel a bit sleepy.” He hoped that was true. During his time in the Paras, and then again in police training, he’d seen the effects of morphine and other painkillers on human beings. But those subjects had been alive; this one was dead. What would the morphine do to dead tissue? Would it even work?

Sleepy? Can we make spoons?

“No. No, we can’t.” He flicked the syringe, looking for air bubbles. Not that it mattered. He jammed the plastic hypodermic between his teeth, nervous of accidentally pricking himself in the face. Then, slowly but firmly, he braced Sally’s arm and rolled up her sleeve. The flesh was already turning pale blue, the tell-tale hue of oxygen starvation. Haematomas had erupted along the length of her arm, discolouring it even further. Under her clothing, she was cold to the touch; her veins stood proud, the blood frozen in her system because the heart had ceased to beat.

Rick took the syringe between finger and thumb, lined up a particularly large vein... and then stopped. If the blood was not being pumped around her circulatory system, then how was the morphine meant to do its job? He knew enough to be aware that it worked by affecting certain receptors, a few of which were distributed in parts of the spinal cord. Most of them, however, were located in the brain.

The brain. It was the only part of these dead things’ anatomy that seemed to work, however weirdly. He stared hard at Sally’s freshly bandaged head, at the shallow pits where her eyes would be.

“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice dropping an octave.

It's okay, baby. I know you’re just trying to protect me.

It was incredible how quickly he’d adjusted to her speaking to him in this way. He knew it wasn’t real, that Sally could not really communicate and he was imagining her voice, but all the same... it helped, and made it easier to carry out the extreme acts necessary for survival.

I know you would never hurt me.

Without thinking, he diverted the needle to her right eye socket, slamming it in and depressing the plunger. With any luck, the massive dose of opiate would bypass the usual route and go straight to the brain, doing its job and sedating her while also shutting down whatever remained of her central nervous system.

For the first time he wondered why the young doctor across the way had kept morphine in his apartment, especially when he had kids on the premises. He was probably an addict; perhaps he got hooked on the stuff during his training, working impossible hours and surviving on hardly any sleep at all. Rick knew a lot of medics in the army who’d used drugs to get by, particularly when they were posted in high pressure locations – often it was a necessary evil, a way of being able to do your job in impossible situations.

Rick’s drug of choice had always been alcohol. He craved a drink now, but forced himself to wait until this unpleasant task was done. Glancing over at the drinks cabinet, he fixated on the whisky bottle. Fifteen year-old Glenmorangie: a nice drop, bought for him as a gift by Sally.

The morphine seemed to be working. Sally was slumped sideways on the sofa, her body loose, and the tension had gone from her limbs.

Sleepy... so sleeeeeepy... time for beddy-bye.

She was docile, easily manoeuvred. Rick put away the drug kit and transferred it to his rucksack, which he’d taken out of the wardrobe earlier. Inside the bag were also the neighbour’s medical kit (including the rest of the fresh bandages), toiletries, some ammo for the Glock, a map and compass, some Kendal mint cake and a few essential items from the cutlery drawer – a can opener, a spoon and a cork bottle-stopper he’d grabbed purely because it reminded him of their holiday in Greece the year before.

Rick left Sally on the sofa and retreated to the bedroom. He took off his clothes and laid them out on the bed, then went to the bathroom and took a shower. There was still enough hot water for him to remain under the jet until he felt at least partially cleansed.

After showering, he cleaned his teeth with Sally’s toothbrush until his gums bled. The bristles were worn, but he imagined that they tasted of Sally. Tears ran down his cheeks. He refused to wipe them away. In the mirror, his face had become harder, leaner; the face of the killer he was trained to be. That face had always lurked beneath the face he wore every day, waiting for the slightest opportunity to surface and show itself to the world. It was a face that had felt the desert sun, the hot shower of blood, the grit of explosions and nearby gunshots. It was the ancient face of warfare, a dark countenance worn by so many before him and countless more warriors who would come marching after, battling their way through whatever kind of world was left behind.

In the bedroom, he opened the secret door at the back of the wardrobe. He was forced to remove all the clothes on hangers to gain access, but Sally would not need her blouses and dresses any more. He picked up a long overcoat she hardly ever wore and put it to one side. He would put it on her before they left the apartment.

Inside the hatch was an M16 assault rifle he’d managed to smuggle back from Afghanistan. There was also a second-hand gun, another Glock like the one he had in the holster on his belt. Boxes of ammunition for these two guns sat on a couple of shelves he’d screwed to the wall. Hanging on a hook was a large hunting knife, one edge serrated and the other smooth and scalpel-sharp. Fresh riot gear hung on a peg. He put on the clothing, enjoying the clean feel of it against his skin.

Rick took the guns, knife and ammo and returned to the living room. He wrapped the M16 in an old black dress Sally used as a dust sheet whenever she decorated, and put the other stuff in his rucksack. The bag was full now, but he still managed to squeeze in the whisky bottle and an old photograph of Sally, taken by a mutual friend, name now forgotten, when she and Rick had first become a couple.

Sitting on the floor, the rucksack between his knees, Rick sipped the whisky. It burned a path down his throat and heat bloomed in his stomach, making him feel that somewhere at the end of all this there was hope. He finished his drink and set the glass on the floor. Then, standing, he prepared to move Sally.

First he inspected the landing. It was clear; nothing had disturbed the silence since he’d shot the kid. He traced a route along the landing to the stairs, then descended the stairwell with his gun at the ready. He propped open the doors along his route, mindful that if he was carrying Sally’s by now largely unresponsive body it might prove difficult to open them as he went.

Outside, he pulled the Nissan up to the front entrance, scanning the entire area for movement. He left the car doors open and made for the cover of the lobby. Pausing before re-entering the apartment block, he stared around him, taking in the seemingly tranquil atmosphere. Nothing moved, and there were no sounds other than that caused by the light sing-song motion of the canal. Even the birds had stopped singing.

Overhead, the sky was a vast dark canopy, covering the hell below. There were no planes up there, not even a light aircraft. The extent of the situation must be huge: it was impossible to prepare, to set out plans, for something as insane as this. He wondered again if, as had been intimated on the few news reports he’d managed to glimpse, terrorists were responsible, or if this was some kind of cosmic accident. Perhaps God had judged humanity as unfit to carry on, and instead of another cataclysmic rainfall he had simply decided to flood the earth with the dead.

It was clear now that anyone who died would return to attack the living, and that all they wanted was to eat. Humanity stripped down to an awful basic drive to consume. Take away the trappings and progress of evolution, the intellectual ground man has made up over the millennia, and all that remains is a brutish appetite. Beneath all that emotion, beyond love, hate and even fear, all you have left is hunger.

For years now, he thought, we’ve been trained to become the ideal consumer. Now that’s all we are. Mindless consumers, just not in the way they intended…

Rick turned his back on the thought and entered the building. His finger was light on the trigger of the gun, but the triggers at his nerve-endings – the ones that really mattered – were all-too-ready to react and make him spring into action.

He made his way back up the gloomy, windowless stairwell, keeping an ear out for the telltale signs of anyone creeping around on any of the floors. All was silent; the other tenants were either dead, had hit the road in an attempt to escape the city, or were hiding indoors, afraid to even move.

Then: laughter. A soft, echoing chuckle that rose up the concrete throat of the stairwell. Rick stopped, turned around, and dropped to his knees, peering back down the way he’d come. The laughter did not come again, and after several agonising minutes he stood and climbed to his floor.

Sally looked as if she were asleep when he entered the apartment, her head on the cushions, arms lying straight down at her sides. Her white-covered hands were clenched, the fingers stiff as windblown twigs against her thighs.

Earlier, when he’d cleaned her up he had slipped some running shoes on her feet and managed to get her to slide her arms into a heavy woollen cardigan. Now, he eased her upright so that her back was against the rear of the sofa, then clumsily manhandled her into the long overcoat he’d retrieved from the wardrobe along with his portable arsenal.

Sally moaned once, almost a word... a real word, not one that existed only inside his mind. Then, like a blissed-out crack-head, she lapsed into a deep silence. He slung her up and over his shoulder, into a fireman’s lift. She was heartbreakingly light, not much more than a bag of bones. Her muscles were already beginning to waste away, hanging slack on the bone beneath. Rigor mortis would set in soon – maybe that was why some of the dead things moved so stiffly, their limbs seizing up hours after death. The state, he knew did not last long; and after it wore off, the arms and legs would move easier, but still they lacked co-ordination. Sally, her brain only partially functioning, would probably be incapable of independent movement: even without the morphine, her body would be as floppy and unresponsive as a rag doll. The drug was more for his peace of mind, a safety precaution in case the hunger that drove these things broke through and gave her away.

Rick could barely believe that he was about to try and pass off his dead wife as the victim of an accident. She certainly looked the part – no problem there; the disguise was realistic to a fault. But the psychological ramification of his idea, the damage already being done to his sanity, was surely immeasurable.

He carried Sally downstairs without incident. By the time he’d buckled her into the passenger seat of the little four-wheel-drive vehicle, the washed-out sun was already on the wane. Night was dominant in these dark days, as if what was happening to people was somehow reflected in the very cycle of the earth as it shuddered through a mockery of its usual routines.

Rick started the engine but did not drive away from the apartment block. He stared through the windscreen, at the sketchy twilight, and wondered if his slowly emerging plan could ever work. He had a vague idea that rural areas might be the safest places to hide, and he and Sally had rented a cottage up in North Yorkshire two summers before. He still knew the way, and they had always planned to return to the cottage. They had spent a two-week period there which had, in retrospect, been one of the happiest times of their lives.

The cottage was miles away from the nearest town, and hidden from the road by acres of fields and woodlands. It had taken them hours to find it that first time, and only once they’d actually done so where they able to find it again. Every trip out to the shop, or to some local point of interest, held the fear that they’d get lost upon their return to the small stone cottage.

It was the best he could do, the only option he could think of. He hoped that no one else had gone there, and that the roads were passable. If they couldn’t make it there, to that isolated potential refuge, then he was fresh out of ideas.

He glanced at Sally. She was still out cold, her head tilted against the headrest. A scrap of hair had crept through a fold in the bandages, and the sight of it almost killed him. Even now, like this, he loved her – but was it really her that he felt compassion towards, or some other woman who had taken her place? His wife was dead, and this slow-witted impostor was all he had.

Rick closed his eyes and turned away. He could not let himself dwell too long on such thoughts: that way lay madness, and probable destruction. He let his foot fall onto the accelerator and pulled away, the rear wheels skidding on a patch of gravel. Their old home shrank in the rearview mirror, turning into a small-scale replica of the place where they had lived. Like the rest of the world, it was becoming even smaller, dissolving into nothing more than a wan memory of what had once been and could never be again.

“I know exactly where we’re going,” he said, still not looking directly at Sally, “but I’m not sure if we’ll ever get there.” He watched her reflection in the darkening glass of the windscreen. She did not stir.