The Last Plague Read online

  “Don’t be scared,” Frank told her. “We’ll find some help.”

  A fire burned on the next street. The air tasted acrid, scraping the flesh of his throat. Florence kept her hood up and covered her mouth and nose with one hand.

  Frank’s eyes flicked to both sides of the street. No one came out of the houses. Front doors hung open. There was fire damage to some of the houses. Scorched walls and blackened lawns. Frank swallowed, felt the burning heat of being watched from the windows, but when he turned there was no one there. He raised the axe. He stepped on broken glass. There were suitcases and bags on the road and the pavements. Scattered belongings. Abandoned cars. Frank contemplated stealing one of the cars to travel into town, but he was worried that they would be held up by roadblocks and wrecked vehicles. And bodies, of course. Also, driving around was a good way to get noticed by the things he didn’t want noticing them.

  “Where’s everyone gone?” said Florence. “The ones who aren’t dead.”

  “Maybe they’ve been evacuated.”

  Turning onto the next street they found a body slumped across a car bonnet, rendered genderless by the ferocity of its death. The body had been shredded and most of it had been scattered on the road.

  A burst of gunfire, and they both ducked instinctively. Frank pulled Florence closer to his side and scanned the road ahead. Smoke drifting through the air gave the impression of figures moving within a grey-white veil.

  They passed a dead man in a Rolls Royce, slumped over the steering wheel. Frank didn’t look at him in case he began to move.

  Ahead of them was a fire engine left abandoned across the road. Its crew were nowhere to be seen. Long gone. Florence stared at the vehicle as they passed it.

  Frank heard weird animal sounds, shrieks and howls, from the nearby streets.

  The town was being overrun.

  * * *

  Moving further into Horsham. More bodies. Past the point of trying to protect Florence from the sight of them.

  The concussion of thunder in the sky, like mountains colliding.

  Frank had expected safety and sanctuary here. He kept trying to call Catherine. His heart palpitated when he thought of her. He squeezed the phone until his hand hurt.

  They couldn’t stay on the streets much longer.

  Florence pulled on his jacket sleeve. Frank looked down at her. She pointed up the street. A car had been abandoned across the road. Swathes of darkness and grey light beyond.

  “What is it?” he said.

  She kept pointing. Large, shining eyes in her face.

  Frank pocketed his phone, resisting the urge to throw it away. He flexed his hands on the axe. He approached the car. Florence followed him.

  He could hear wet sucking sounds. A cold hand fingered his spine. He peered at the road behind the car.

  He went to say something but the words stuck in his throat.

  There were bodies laid out on the road. Broken remains of people. A girl was crouched over one of the bodies. Her face was attached to its face. The girl was making the sucking sounds. There was just enough light to make out the torn pyjamas she was wearing.

  Florence saw the girl and let out a whimper. The girl couldn’t have been much older than her.

  The girl raised her head, detaching from the dead body. Frank pulled Florence behind the car and put his free hand over her mouth. He caught a glance over the car’s bonnet. The girl looked around, her gleaming feral eyes scanning the road. Her face was covered with blood. A carrion eater scavenging on the dead. She had been a little girl with a family once; a mum and a dad and dreams of boy bands.

  The girl returned to her meal. Frank and Florence went around her, treading silently. Frank watched the girl all the way until they were clear.

  Further on they crept around a group of people feeding on a pile of corpses. Some of the dead were wearing army fatigues. The scavengers were too busy stripping meat from bones to notice them.

  Every dark corner and shadow was a threat. Small fires burned. Shop windows had been smashed. All he could smell was blood and smoke. The deeper they went into the ruined town the more they saw deformed and mutated people roaming the streets in baying packs, shrieking and screaming and dragging flayed bodies behind them. Frank noticed others lurking in shadowed alleyways and gardens, gibbering and wailing. Some of them simply stood staring at the ground or at the sky. A lot of them stared at the sky.

  Frank saw people chased down and ripped apart. Some of them begged until the very end, until their vocal chords were removed by spindly fingers and hooked claws.

  Some of the mutated ones hunted alone, stalking the streets like predatory insects. Frank and Florence hid behind cars and walls. They were prey. Death would not come quick if they were caught. The monsters sensed Frank and Florence, sucked in the smell of their fear and sweat. Monsters everywhere, creeping out of their holes.

  He found the dark doorway of an empty book shop and pulled Florence down with him.

  Slick-skinned figures skittered upon the pavements, parts of their bodies clicking and clacking and scraping together like lengths of dry bone.

  Screams and shrieks and plaintive cries of hunger.

  Gunfire nearby. Florence was trembling and crying. A man was shouting. Frank looked up, expecting some grinning monster to fall upon them.

  “It’ll be okay,” Frank whispered to Florence. “It’ll be okay.” He decided he would kill her with the axe and then take down as many of them as he could before he succumbed. He wouldn’t let the creatures take her.

  Dark shapes approached them.

  Frank raised the axe.

  Florence whimpered.

  A man’s voice.

  Four soldiers, faces hidden by gas masks, found them huddled in the doorway.

  “Are you infected?” one of the soldiers asked them.

  Frank stared at them, his mouth open.

  He shook his head.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Corporal Guppy was a short and stocky man. Even behind the muffling effect of his gas mask, his voice was deep and commanding. The other soldiers – Privates Sibbick, Gawen and Pike – sounded as though they were barely out of their teens, but they killed infected people with an absent, instinctive skill.

  The infected, Frank thought. That’s what they’re called. Infected.

  “Keep moving,” Guppy said. He and Private Gawen jogged either side of Frank and Florence. Private Sibbick was on point, his SA80 trained on the road ahead. Private Pike guarded the rear.

  Sibbick raised his hand. They stopped behind him, hidden behind the corner of a house. Frank was breathing hard.

  “Is she okay?” asked Guppy, nodding at Florence.

  “Yeah. But she’s seen a lot,” said Frank. “Too much.”

  “Are you her father?”

  Frank hesitated. “Yes.” He swallowed, looked away. He felt Guppy’s eyes on his face.

  “What do you see, Sibbick?” Guppy asked.

  “A single infected ahead. He’s just stood there.”

  “Maybe he’s waiting for a bus,” said Gawen.

  “Can we get past him?” Guppy said.

  “Should be able to,” said Sibbick. “He’s facing the other direction.”

  “Okay, let’s move. Keep an eye on the bastard. If he clocks us, take his head off.”

  They crept past the man and stopped at the next corner. The soldiers scanned the street, searching for targets.

  “Where are we heading?” said Frank. “What’s happening?”

  “The world’s ending, that’s what happening,” said Gawen.

  “Button it, Private,” said Guppy.

  “Sorry, Corp.” Gawen said. He looked at Florence. “Sorry, little lady.”

  Guppy cleared his throat. “The town’s been overrun. We lost a lot of lads back there, including our CO.”

  “We’re more fucked than a choirboy at a priests’ piss up,” muttered Pike. His eyes were shockingly white.

  “We’re head
ing to the school,” said Guppy. “Before we were cut off from our unit, the order came through to evacuate the town. The last transports will be leaving the school soon. We haven’t got much time. The town’s due to be firebombed within the hour. We’ve lost control.”

  The air was sucked from Frank’s lungs. “Firebomb the town. Jesus.”

  “We could do with Jesus right now,” said Gawen.

  “I only believe in my SA80,” Pike said.

  “Fucking atheists,” said Gawen. “Heathens.”

  “Piss off.”

  “Cut the yap, lads. We’ll have every hostile in the area upon us.”

  “Sorry, Corp,” they said together.

  Private Sibbick led them along the street. Gunfire and detonations from nearby. Far off screams that caused Frank’s skin to burst into gooseflesh. He held Florence by the shoulders, guided her in front of him.

  “What caused this?” said Frank. “What has happened?”

  Guppy grunted. “Where have you been for the last few days?”

  “On a stag weekend.”

  “Lucky bastard,” said Pike.

  “It’s a virus,” said Guppy. “As far as we know.”

  “How far has it spread?”

  “Everywhere.”

  “The whole country?”

  “Maybe the whole world. We’re not sure.”

  Something cold uncoiled in Frank’s stomach.

  “Have you heard about any other areas of the country?”

  “We haven’t heard much. It’s all a mess.”

  “A big fucking mess,” Gawen said.

  Frank could only shake his head. “But where has this virus come from?”

  Ahead of them, Sibbick halted. The others did the same.

  Guppy looked at him. “Nobody knows. And if they do, they’re not telling the likes of us.”

  “No one tells the grunts anything,” said Gawen. “Wankers.”

  “Stop moaning, Gawen,” said Pike. “Always fucking moaning.”

  “Go fuck your mother,” Gawen replied.

  “I’d rather fuck yours.”

  Private Sibbick turned, addressed Guppy. “Corp, the school is on the next street.”

  “Good,” said Guppy. “Everyone stay on their toes. Keep sharp. Let’s go, lads.”

  They moved.

  “Don’t say that about my mother again, Pike,” said Gawen.

  “Piss off.”

  “Shut up,” said Guppy, “or I will personally kneecap both of you and leave you here.”

  “Sorry, Corp,” said Pike.

  “Sorry,” Gawen muttered.

  “That’s better,” Guppy said.

  A shadow passed overhead.

  Pike stopped. “What the…”

  Something came out of the sky and plucked Gawen from the street. Frank caught only a glimpse of it. Large and dark, made of sinew and bone, and stinking of wet rot. He saw its burning white eyes as it grabbed Gawen and made off with him.

  Gawen screamed from above them.

  The leathery flap of wings; the glimpse of a black shape against the sky.

  “Holy shit,” said Pike. He was breathing hard through his mask. “It took Gawen. It took him. What the fuck was that?”

  Sibbick fired off a short burst into the sky.

  Florence sobbed.

  Then there was silence. Guppy glanced overhead.

  “Keep moving. Let’s go.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  The infected filled the street, flocking towards the school. Twisted, wretched faces; twitching and sagging bodies. They surged and staggered with the fervour of zealots, a mindless rhythm in their appalling jerking movements.

  The refugees retreated from the fence.

  Joel made a small, child-like sound. His face was slack and boneless.

  “We’re fucked,” said Magnus. He looked around at the other terrified faces, then to Ralph.

  Ralph said nothing.

  People were crying and screaming. The police officers aimed their weapons towards the swarm of infected bodies.

  The infected reached the fence, trying to pull it down with clawed hands and even their mouths. Some of them attempted to climb the fence with black spindly limbs. More infected clawed at the gate, thrashing and roaring through wide mouths.

  The police opened fire.

  Bodies were ripped open and thrown back into the swarm; others collapsed where they were standing. But those behind the fallen kept coming.

  The refugees headed towards the school. Ralph, Magnus and Joel were herded with the crowd. Ralph turned back to see the battle behind them.

  The infected tore open the gate and skittered over its wreckage. The fence came down with it. They poured into the car park. They closed down the yards between them and the line of police officers, and the line fell as it was breached. Some of the officers turned to run, but were caught and dragged back into grasping hands and jagged sucking mouths.

  Some of the infected had been soldiers.

  The police sergeant fired his handgun into the thrusting mass of infected. He took down a few staggering, grasping bodies. His gun clicked empty. A group of infected brought him down and pinned him. One of them, a young woman no older than twenty with bleached-blonde hair, forced her hand into his mouth and down his throat. The sergeant bit into her arm even as he choked. An infected man buried his face in the sergeant’s groin, and his mouth came away red and dripping. The woman pulled something pink and slippery from the sergeant’s mouth, threw it away and then locked her mouth to his raw lips. The sergeant’s eyes bulged and he tried to scream. He vanished amidst a throng of squirming bodies.

  And then there were no more police.

  The infected came for the refugees.

  They slashed and clawed and used their teeth. They tore at the stragglers at the back of the refugee crowd. They ripped at soft flesh. There were wet tearing sounds and screams of agony and terror. The last sounds of beating hearts. A woman’s scream became a liquid gurgle as her throat was removed by an Asian man with a nest of pale tongues emerging from his dripping, gasping mouth.

  The infected were jackals amongst lambs, tearing through the crowd, snarling and hissing. The air stank of hot blood and slaughter. Screaming faces. Bloated faces deformed to ruin. Rows of teeth too large for their mouths.

  Ralph pushed against the bodies massing around him, crushing him. He grabbed hold of Magnus and Joel. They were buffeted and slammed by flailing arms. Magnus was hit in the face; he cried out, clutching his nose.

  There was no way out of the car park except into the school; otherwise they would have to go through the infected to escape onto the street. Some desperate men and women took this option and were caught before they could reach the fallen fence. They weren’t seen again.

  A man fell against Ralph, and tried to shoulder him out of the way, but Ralph pushed him back. The man was grabbed by a fat infected woman and dragged to the ground. She smothered him like a blubbery sea creature. Ralph turned away, elbowed his way through the crowd with Magnus and Joel behind him. He glanced back to see infected men and women clawing through the crowd of refugees, getting closer. People were dragged away and battened upon.

  Ralph pushed his way to the front of the crowd, trying to get inside the school. There was only one door. The people inside the school were trying to shut the door on those outside. A few men were attempting to keep the door open, wrench it from the hands of those inside. Punches and elbows were thrown. A man spat out his teeth.

  Ralph helped keep the door open. A man from the other side of the doorway tried to scratch out his eyes. Ralph batted away the man’s hand and punched him in the face.

  The infected tore their way through the crowd. The panicking refugees were easy prey. Men and women were turned inside out and flayed; bones were separated from meat.

  Ralph pulled Magnus and Joel with him as he pushed through the doorway, shoving others out of his way. They staggered into a classroom. Chaos. Bodies falling. Children sc
reaming and clutching their mothers.

  “Where do we go?” said Joel.

  “Away from here,” said Ralph. “Anywhere but here.”

  The infected tore through the doorway, into the school. Blood hit the floor and the walls. Ralph felt warmth on the back of his head. He kept pushing through the bodies. A man was clutching his bleeding throat. People pleaded to Ralph. He looked them in the eyes but did not stop for them. He headed for the doorway leading to the corridor.

  He saw Susan Blake sitting in a corner across the room, her eyes closed, embracing her dog.

  He left her there.

  More screams and wails. Some people were too numb with horror to even flee or resist. Their deaths did not come quickly.

  Ralph pulled Joel and Magnus into the corridor. Refugees ran past him in both directions. Some tripped and fell. Not all of them got up. He moved down the corridor.

  “We can escape through the playground,” said Ralph.

  “The playground?” said Magnus, still holding his nose.

  “I think there’s a gate at the back.”

  Ahead of them were people with the same idea.

  Ralph glanced back to see the infected entering the corridor. The rooms behind them were slaughterhouses. No one would come out of them alive. A man was dragged to the floor as he tried to escape. He was buried by a scrum of ragged, slippery bodies.

  They ran out into the playground.

  Ralph stopped. So did Magnus and Joel.

  The infected were in the playground.

  They were killing and feeding.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  The school fell to the infected. Frank, Florence and the soldiers had watched it from the street. Frank had seen the refugees overwhelmed and consumed. A slaughter. The screams lasted for a while after the school had been overrun.

  Now they moved along the street. The infected were everywhere.

  “What the fuck took Gawen?” Pike said, flicking his eyes towards the sky. His voice was reedy, uneven. Scared. “What the hell was that thing?”

  “He’s gone,” said Guppy. “Nothing we can do for him now. Focus on your job.”