CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

 

 

ON A CLEAR day, the view was magnificent. Standing at the upstairs picture window of his mansion, binoculars held to his atrophied eyes, Harry Flowers surveyed his kingdom spread before him with approval; it was everything he could've asked for, everything he'd strived for. From his vantage point, London curled into the distance, a grey mass choked of life. At this time of the morning, just after dawn, a mist rose off the iron waters of the Thames, seeping past the office blocks standing silent sentinel on its banks. The dance of those few wisps, chased from the surface of the river by a stiff wind, was the only movement that he could see; the metropolis was inert, a desiccated corpse the colour and vibrancy of cold embers. A few pockets of resistance still remained, he knew; a few parasites still clung to its rotting hide. But he was slowly, inexorably, consuming the city, gradually absorbing it into his domain; and the best thing was this was only the beginning. Once the capital fell utterly under his command, then he could extend his reach - send out his men to the peripheral settlements that he knew to exist in the satellite towns and stamp his mark even further. He saw it as spinning a web, casting the strands wider and wider until the entire country was his to control; and with him naturally at the centre, at the hub. He never wanted to be anywhere else.

He lowered the binoculars, studying the grounds nearer to home. He had ordered the woods that had backed on to the house to be cleared completely, so he could obtain just such an unobstructed view of the city that was now his. There wasn't a day that went past when he didn't like to gaze upon it and marvel. Elsewhere, the gardens had been allowed to grow wild, his interest in keeping them manicured and healthy having waned over the years. It was an odd sensation, one that he hadn't expected come his resurrection: his appreciation of beauty had diminished, to the point where he found the still, bare qualities of the barren landscape more appealing. He had allowed the weeds to choke the roses and the rhododendron, the nettles to encroach from the edges of the paths to virtually engulf them, and the potted plants to wither and die. There was nothing of colour out there now, just decay and those feeding upon it, and yet he felt unmoved by this loss. It seemed to suit his mood, and the empire he was building - a bleak, desolate land fit only for the dead, and the man (or what was once a man) that ruled it. Instead, in place of the flora that had once ringed his mansion, he had devised more fortifications: fences, sentry posts, anti-personnel weaponry, to keep him safe from those that would do him harm.

He turned away from the window, placing the binoculars on the sill. A familiar gnawing ache resounded in his empty belly, and he reached out and grasped the back of a nearby chair to steady himself, waiting for the moment to pass. It was taking longer these days, and he gritted his teeth, the pain blossoming. Despite his dead nerve-endings, the need to feed still brought with it its own singular sting. It was the one reminder of his undead status, the one link to the pusbags that staggered through the city streets, and he could not rid himself of it. All that he had accomplished post-death - an organised militia, enforcing his rule, a London paralysed by fear and ripe for the taking - and yet still his body was slave to the demands of his zombiehood.

At the start, it had been easy satiate his hunger. Warm flesh was readily available, and once the pangs took hold he had no trouble feeding. In the interim, as he and his troops established the body shops that enabled the living to be distributed in convenient, pre-packed states, he fought to lessen the control his stomach had over him; as far as he was concerned, he called the shots, not the virus squatting in his brain. Sheer strength of will enabled him to gain the upper hand, and he found he could manage and maintain his belly's insistent need for sustenance, not requiring living meat more than once a week or so. Such a diet was soon an act of necessity as much of choice as the regular deliveries from the processing stations were beginning to dry up, and humans became increasingly difficult to find. Others lesser than him took to stumbling about the mansion grounds, groaning, not much better than the rotting deadheads they themselves looked down upon. But not he. He had not been dictated to in life, and he certainly would not become a mere puppet at the whim of his own body post-death.

But in his heart, he knew it could not be denied, no matter how much he fought it. The hunger, the lust to feed, was his nature, and it was impossible to resist. It had to be at least a fortnight now since he'd properly feasted, and the throbbing pain that swelled from his gut was a wake-up call, an intestinal nudge to suggest it wasn't going to go away. However, unless the situation changed, he didn't know how he could face the eternity stretching ahead of him, a victim to cravings he couldn't satisfy. What good was it to rule over an empire, when there was nothing left to consume? And what would become of him if his belly's desires were not met?

Despite Flowers' instructions to his resident boffins many years ago (just how long was it, he wondered; time seemed to slip past him with little relevance) to find a way of tweaking the virus's demand for flesh, they had come up with few results. Given its stubborn refusal to be adapted by artificial means, he suspected the best he could hope for was that the bacteria would continue to evolve along a similar path that it had taken so far; but that process could take decades, if not centuries. He hated being at the mercy of elements he could not manipulate to his own ends. It left him helpless, and that was a state of being that had previously been an anathema to him.

The ache in his belly gradually subsided, and he straightened. Perhaps he should investigate the pantry and see what supplies remained, he pondered, loathing the junkie-like caving of his willpower. He left the room and crossed the landing, noting the disrepair the house had fallen into; the wallpaper was streaked with dirt, the carpet frayed and stained. How long had it looked like this, he wondered. How many months had the mansion slowly slid into decay without him being aware of it? It felt cadaverous itself, a crumbling, hollow shell. He realised with a sudden stab of amazement that he hadn't ventured beyond these walls for over three years, too wrapped up inside his own addiction to see it falling apart around him.

He padded to the first floor, then paused in his descent. He glanced across at the closed door to his right, hesitated, but finally rapped upon it and stepped across the threshold without waiting for an answer. As ever, the room was silent save the ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece, and the rising sun cast the chair in front of the window in silhouette, an aura of light haloing the figure seated upon it. He squinted as he strode towards the window, casting an eye to the woman staring at the landscape beyond the glass. He pulled a curtain across the view, lengthening the chamber's shadows. She blinked and stirred, conscious of the gloom that had settled upon her.

Flowers pulled up a chair and sat beside her. "Anna," he said. "Have you slept at all?"

"Like the light," she replied in a tiny voice, fidgeting in her seat.

"It's too bright. You shouldn't sit so close to the window."

"S-scared of dark. Scared of what's t-there. Want to close eyes, but scared."

"You need rest."

"Don't tell me w-what I need," she muttered. "And s-since when have you cared?"

"I'm still your father."

She looked at him for a second, then laughed, an eerie sound as dry as kindling. "You? You're n-not even human."

He studied her, a mixture of sadness and frustration and self-hatred churning in his chest. That he had cut himself adrift from his daughter like this hurt him as deeply as a knife to the heart; or at least when he was still capable of feeling such a wound. His resurrection might've brought him a lack of physical sensation, but the mental anguish at what he'd done all those years ago was sharp as ever. He had selfishly hoped that he could slough off the trappings of his former life upon coming back as a Returner, his sins fading like the memory of breath in his lungs. But it was not to be, his torments were as fresh as they ever were in life and they were here in front of him, represented by the young woman that had once been his kin. But now... now she was the past that he would not allow himself to forget. Her condition, her indifference towards him, the future that she had been denied, was all his fault, and every time he came to visit, it was to reaffirm his guilt - a confessional not to absolve his failings as a parent but to refresh them anew.

She was regressing, and he didn't know how to stop it; indeed, wasn't even sure whether halting it was the correct thing to do. Where once she had been trapped between life and death, the moment of her passing held in stasis by the virus, now it was as if the reanimation bacteria was struggling to stay in control, losing its grip on her central cortex. While he had witnessed other undead growing more intelligent over the years, she was the first to take the backward path. Her speech and sense of balance were becoming unstable, she was increasingly unresponsive, and she was losing her ability to comprehend those around her. He didn't know why it was happening, or where her decline would take her. Towards a true death? Or to become one of the shambling hordes? He could not accept that, yet he had no good reason why he shouldn't just let her go. She had lived this half-life for over a decade, ever since he had shot through her to prove his strength of will to Goran Vassily, and had hovered on the cusp of mortality, a prisoner inside her own skin. The kindest act would be to finish it, to set her free, to lead her into the weed-ridden gardens and place a gun to the back of her head. But he was too much of a coward for that, he could not bear the weight of that responsibility; and in truth, he did not want to lose her, because once she was gone, nothing would stop his transformation into a monster. Her presence reminded him of his past deeds, of what terrible crimes he had committed, a wound that he would never allow to heal. If she was gone, then all would be consumed - identity, history, love and regrets - in the pursuit of power, and he would no longer recognise his own reflection.

"I've always cared for you, Anna," he said, reaching out and stroking her hair. She flinched at his touch. "If I could do anything to bring you back to me, I would."

"Just let me g-go," she whispered, her head bowed.

"What?"

She looked up at him, her eyes glistening. "I'm t-trying s-so hard to leave, to end this. S-scared of dark, don't want to close eyes, but I know it's only w-way of escape."

Flowers knelt quickly, placing a hand on her knee, the fingertips of the other holding her chin. She was as cold as porcelain. "What are you saying? That you're bringing on this decline yourself?"

"Only way... to escape you. I w-won't be held here anymore."

"No, please, Anna, don't do this. I need you here—"

"I want... to go..."

"Anna—"

It was then that the first of the explosions rocked the mansion, and the alarms started to wail.

 

 

Twenty-four hours earlier...

 

"GIVE ME ONE good reason why I shouldn't just rip your fucking throat out," Gabe rasped, holding Gannon by the lapels. "Tell me why I wouldn't be doing the human race a huge favour."

"And you think that will change anything?" the former scientist replied. "You think that's going to magic the world back into what it was fifteen, twenty years ago?"

"It would make me feel better."

"And once that feeling had passed, what would you be left with? Just another corpse on the floor, and a host of unanswered questions. Killing me will solve nothing."

Gabe considered this, then released the man. They were standing in Gannon's makeshift laboratory, a collection of tables and rudimentary scientific equipment that he'd looted from various sources and collected together in a long-abandoned back room of a chemist's. His jottings and diagrams were tacked to the walls and covered the work surfaces, while a few works in progress were evident, scattered about the space: a severed ghoul's head was held in a clamp, it's brain exposed, another was wired up to a car battery. Everything looked crude, filthy and incapable of bringing usable results.

"Some sense at last," Gannon muttered.

"Pal, there would be a queue of people from here to the Watford Gap trying to get hold of you, if they knew where you were. In fact, a few survivors that I met recently probably wouldn't mind five minutes alone with the man who destroyed their lives."

"We've all suffered, believe me."

"Yeah? So what happened to you?"

He shrugged. "I was called to my superior's office in London once the outbreak hit, part of an MoD convoy that got caught in a riot. I managed to make it to a government station, and was working on containing the crisis. Unfortunately, the safety of the outpost was compromised."

"Compromised?"

"The infection got inside and spread like wildfire. I was bitten, end of story."

"Well, not quite. You're standing here talking like me, completely self-aware and an evolutionary step up from those deadheads outside. That doesn't sound like the end of the story to me." The stiffs that had initially appeared with Gannon had remained on the street, watching over the vehicle while Alice and the rest had made some attempt to repair the damage done to the tyres. Gabe had had to give a brief explanation of why they were travelling in one of Flowers' trucks, and their business of infiltrating his mansion.

"True," the scientist said, nodding. "HS-03 has developed beyond all my expectations. If it keeps growing at this rate, we could have a new species of human being in the next thirty years." He studied Gabe, his eyes roving over him with clinical dispassion. "Your strength and intelligence makes me wonder if it did have military applications after all..."

"I'm not one of your test subjects, Gannon."

"Don't you see, you're the next generation. The mindless carnivores were just the first stage. HS-03 is constantly evolving the dead to an incredible degree."

"You must be very proud." Gabe gestured to the experiments dotted about the room. "So what are you doing here? Trying to replicate it?"

"I've got some advanced cultures, yes. But I'm also trying to control the Returners, make them reasonably docile and open to instruction. I was working on something similar before the outbreak. As you've seen from the little band outside, I've had some partial success."

"They'll do what you tell them to?"

"Up to a point. Interesting thing is, even they are growing quite territorial - they're recognising that those trucks you came in are removing all the warm flesh from the area. They're conscious that the ruling elite is getting all the food, while they are being left to rot. It's a simple animal deduction, but they're smart enough to have laid the stinger trap."

"My God."

"Like I say, that's HS-03's evolutionary power." He chuckled to himself. "The dead aren't taking it lying down anymore."

"So the zombs are no fans of Harry Flowers either."

"Few are. They're as much under the cosh as the humans."

Alice entered, her expression grim. "Wheels are screwed, Gabe. Too shredded to be repaired."

"Damn," he murmured. "We've just lost our way in." He slumped against a table. "No way we're going to be able to get past Flowers' security, not without some kind of cover..." He looked up suddenly and grabbed Gannon by the arm. "Wait a minute - Doctor, you want to go some way to compensating for the shitstorm you landed everybody in? You want to claw back a few brownie points? And your undead friends out there want to grab a piece of the action they're being denied?"

The scientist blinked, bemused.

"You think you could you could control more of them - a regular army?"

Gannon nodded. "If we could round them up."

Gabe smiled. "Then I think I might have a solution."

"Which is?" Alice asked.

"We're going to do this the Harry Flowers way. We're going to storm that fucking mansion head on."