The Last Plague Read online

  “From what?” Ralph stared at the bodies.

  “Whatever killed these people.”

  “We should leave,” said Joel. He was holding one hand over his mouth and nose.

  “If we’ve been contaminated,” said Ralph, “it’s too late now.”

  “Are you sure?” Joel’s voice was muffled under his hand.

  “If there was still a danger, we’d already be dead.”

  “I admire your confidence,” said Magnus.

  Ralph regarded the sky. “We should find somewhere to spend the night. Just because there’re no infected here at the moment doesn’t mean any won’t pass through.”

  “Agreed,” said Frank, turning away from the pile of bodies. His body still ached, and every time he moved was a moment of dull pain.

  “We can’t stay in this village,” Joel said.

  Ralph looked at him. “Why not?”

  “Because we can’t.”

  “We haven’t got a choice.”

  “It doesn’t seem right.”

  “Why? You afraid of offending those poor bastards?” Ralph gestured to the bodies.

  Joel looked away.

  “We’ll find a house at the other end of the village,” said Frank. “It’ll be okay, Joel.”

  Joel ignored him.

  “I hope there aren’t more bodies,” said Magnus. “I’m sick of seeing bodies.”

  Ralph picked something from his teeth then flicked it away. “Doesn’t matter. Bodies are just bodies. It’s all just meat.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  The men found an empty house and made it their own for the night. Ralph secured the doors and closed the curtains.

  They made sure to check the attic.

  Joel removed the family photos from the walls and formed them into a pile in the corner. No one questioned his motives. They knew why, and they were grateful.

  They gathered around Frank’s map in the living room. Ralph had lit a candle he’d found in a drawer, confident that the curtains would hide the light from outside. They ate a sparse meal of cold hot dogs and baked beans from tins liberated from the kitchen cupboard. Ralph found a bottle of cheap whiskey; it tasted like badger piss but warmed Frank’s insides. The warmth gave him hope, numbed the edges, and made it easier to think about Florence.

  Joel hardly touched his food. Ralph ate the rest of his share. Joel was silent. He was lying on the floor, sipping from a bottle of water, gazing at the ceiling.

  “All we seem to do is hide in other people’s houses,” said Magnus. “Dead people’s houses.”

  Ralph swigged a shot of whiskey. The candlelight made his face flicker with shadow. “Would you rather be out on the streets tonight?”

  “I’d rather go for a ride on your mother,” Magnus said.

  No one laughed.

  Ralph nodded. He tipped his almost-empty glass towards Magnus in acknowledgement. “Well played.”

  Magnus looked guilty. “I shouldn’t be making jokes. Not after the things we’ve seen.”

  “I know what you mean,” said Frank.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Ralph said. “Things are fucked anyway. Cracking a few jokes won’t make things any worse.”

  Magnus looked at the floor.

  Ralph exhaled, a wistful look on his face. He met Frank’s eye. “I thought we’d lost you, mate. I thought you were dead.”

  “Yeah,” said Magnus, his eyes a little glazed. He rubbed his jaw.

  Frank winced as his spine clicked. “I’m sorry for leaving, lads. I won’t go out there on my own again.”

  “Good to hear,” said Ralph. “Can’t have you leaving me with Magnus and Joel. It’s a nasty job trying to keep them from kissing and cuddling every five minutes.”

  The three men laughed. Joel remained unmoving.

  Their laughter cut out. The men looked at the floor, as if ashamed of themselves. To Frank, it felt strange and even offensive, to laugh after what he’d seen today. He took a large swig of his drink. His throat burned. The alcohol hit his bloodstream and his head went a little fuzzy. He welcomed the buzz.

  Frank was studying the map. He’d folded it into a small rectangle that showed Southern England. He placed his finger on a spot on the map.

  “We’re here,” Frank said. “Slinfold. You see?”

  Magnus and Ralph nodded.

  Frank ran his finger westwards along the map. “And these are Loxwood, Ansteadbrook, Haslemore, Bordon. Various towns and villages.”

  “I wonder what we’ll find in them,” said Magnus. He didn’t look optimistic as he put down his empty glass.

  Frank said, “I was supposed to take Florence to her aunt and uncle in Bordon. I promised her.”

  “It wasn’t your fault she was taken,” said Ralph.

  “I still feel like shit.”

  “We all do, mate; it’s the end of the fucking world.”

  “She’s gone,” said Magnus. “There’s nothing we can do about that now.”

  Frank downed the rest of his glass then looked at Ralph. “Refill, please.”

  “Good idea,” Magnus said.

  Ralph nodded. He replenished their glasses and his own.

  They drank, grimaced at the taste of the whiskey, and then studied the map.

  Frank said, “We’ll skirt the northern edge of the South Downs National Park, avoiding Farnham, Basingstoke and Winchester. The next big population centre will be Salisbury.”

  Ralph sucked on his teeth. “The army might have razed Salisbury to the ground.”

  Magnus looked shocked. “Would the government do that?”

  “I don’t think they will,” said Frank. “Guppy told me that the army is regrouping in Salisbury.”

  “Why in Salisbury?” asked Ralph.

  “Because all the main roads go through there. He also said they were transporting refugees by train out of the city. Salisbury’s important to the government and the army. They won’t want to lose it to the infected.”

  “It’s probably a fucking battleground by now.”

  “Let’s worry about that when we get there,” said Frank. “We might not even get that far.”

  Ralph grunted. “I’m impressed; you sound as pessimistic as me.”

  “I’ve had a bad few days,” Frank said without humour. “We all have.” He was struggling to hold it all together, and it wouldn’t take much for him to fall apart. But that was true for all of them, he supposed.

  He glanced at Joel and wondered what his friend was thinking.

  “We could go around Salisbury,” said Ralph. “Avoid it completely.”

  “That’s a possibility, but it would take much longer. I want to get home as soon as possible. And maybe we can catch a ride on a train, if we’re lucky.”

  Ralph and Magnus nodded.

  Frank folded the map and put it away. “We’ll try to find a car in the morning.”

  “Maybe something that has enough petrol to take us further than twenty miles this time,” Magnus said.

  Frank grabbed the whiskey bottle and topped us his glass. He noticed Ralph looking at him.

  Ralph was studying him silently. There was no aggression or confrontation in Ralph’s face. More like a barely-disguised expression of pity. And concern.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Frank.

  Ralph’s face softened. He looked away. “Nothing, mate. Don’t hog the whiskey.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  Just before midnight Frank was in the kitchen, staring out at the darkness. The clouds had receded; the moon was revealed, stark and clear and pale. Starlit desolation. Planets and stars and all the things in-between. Pulsars and nebulas and moons. Burning constellations. Infinity.

  He was looking into forever, and it stretched before him and declared he was as insignificant as one of the dead insects on the windowsill. He rubbed his face and when his hand came away damp he realised he was crying.

  Past the back garden and the fields beyond, there were flashes of white light on the horizon.


  He listened.

  Distant booms and detonations.

  “War,” he whispered.

  * * *

  The four men watched from the back garden. They passed the whiskey bottle back and forth until it was dry.

  The distant horizon was lit up by tracer rounds and muzzle flashes; the crack and pop of gunfire.

  “I watched a documentary last week,” said Ralph. “It was about World War Two. Old footage of battles and night time skirmishes. It was like this.”

  “Last week seems like years ago,” said Frank.

  “I remember watching the invasion of Iraq,” said Joel. “The night-vision shots of Baghdad being bombed…” His voice trailed off.

  Silence fell upon them. Nothing else to say.

  Magnus asked, “Do you think we’re winning?”

  * * *

  Frank awoke a few hours later on the living room floor. The others were asleep. He’d dreamt about monsters that wanted to eat him.

  There was an approaching sound. He pulled aside the curtain over the living room window and looked onto the street. Darkness. Nothing out there but the other silent houses.

  Headlights were coming up the road.

  A convoy of civilian vehicles passed through the street. Frank counted them as they went past. Fifteen, in all. Cars, trucks and minibuses full of people. Refugees. Survivors.

  He didn’t go outside to stop them; he didn’t want to leave his hiding place.

  The convoy passed out of sight.

  “Where are you all going?” he whispered.

  He went back to sleep.

  * * *

  They left the house at first light. A cold breeze pushed them onward below clouds the colour of concrete and oil smoke.

  The crackle of gunfire to the south.

  Frank found a battered and ugly Volvo. It took four attempts to start the engine, and when it did it spluttered into a gargled cough of fumes and oil-stink.

  Fighter jets sliced the sky overhead.

  The men left Slinford and its dead behind. Magnus drove.

  Joel seemed to have recovered slightly. He had eaten the remaining four biscuits from the plastic bag. He still looked pale, but that could have been the morning light casting his skin in shades of ivory and chalk.

  There were wrecks on the roads. Shattered glass and crumpled metal. Collisions and accidents from days ago, when the outbreak had first hit. Magnus slowed the car to manoeuvre around them, careful not to puncture the tyres on the broken glass that littered the road.

  They passed a car transport truck that had ploughed through a wooden fence and into a field, shedding much of its load of brand-new cars, which were now scattered around like a child’s neglected toys. The transport truck was on its side. It would stay there for a long time, maybe years.

  They passed a few groups of refugees on the road, but with Ralph’s insistence they ignored their pleas for help. Frank looked back at the people struggling with injuries and children, and felt a stab of guilt. These people, lame and shuffling along the road, would be easy prey for the infected.

  There was a silence in the car that Frank didn’t like. He kept thinking of Florence. The shame and guilt he felt for losing her was strong and potent in his blood.

  Then he saw something that quickened his heart and turned his mouth dry and dusty.

  “Slow down,” he said.

  “It’s just another wreck,” said Ralph.

  “No, it’s not. Pull over. Now!”

  Magnus protested, but stopped the car.

  “The white van,” said Frank. “That’s the van they took Florence in.”

  “Are you sure?” said Ralph.

  “Yes.”

  Frank was out of the car and approaching the crashed van. He stood away from it, clutching his axe in one hand. Rush of blood in his head. He swayed. He ignored the dull pain throbbing in his muscles.

  The van was on its side against a sloped grass embankment. At the top of the slope were trees, their branches creaking, curled and gnarled.

  The driver’s door was open.

  “Florence,” he whispered. He opened the back doors of the van, stepped back. His eyes were wide and stinging. Insects swarmed within his ribcage, skittering over bone.

  “Frank!” Ralph said.

  Frank slumped. The back of the van was empty. Dirty blankets piled to one side. Empty tins of baked beans. A stink of sweat and grease. No sign of Florence.

  Ralph stood behind Frank. “What the fuck are you doing, mate?”

  “She was here.”

  “Who? The girl?”

  “Her name is Florence.”

  Frank barged past Ralph. There was some blood on the road. A scrap of clothing. Tyre marks burned into the tarmac.

  “Looks like they hit something,” said Joel.

  In the grime and dirt on the side of the van was a small handprint. Small fingers splayed apart. A girl’s hand. Frank traced a finger around it. He went to the cab. Empty. The windscreen was cracked. There were splotches of blood on the driver’s seat.

  The others were standing at the front of the van, inspecting the bumper.

  “They definitely hit something,” said Joel.

  “Blood on the bumper and number-plate,” said Ralph. “Almost looks black.” He touched the bonnet. “Engine’s still warm.”

  “Where did they go?” said Magnus.

  Joel looked at the blood on the road. “What did they hit? An animal?”

  “One of the infected?”

  “There,” said Ralph. He pointed down the road.

  They turned. A dark shape was lying on the embankment, ten yards away.

  Ralph raised the flare gun, walked towards the prone shape. The others followed. Frank swallowed and it was like slivers of metal scraping his throat.

  “Roadkill. Lovely.” Ralph spat.

  The woman was a broken jumble of twisted limbs. The van had thrown her this far. Skin hung in tatters from her bare legs. Her right foot was turned the wrong way. When the men gathered around her, she moved, gulping a breath of air and fixing what remained of her face upon them in turn.

  She hissed; the sound of sickness and hunger. Her chest rose and fell spasmodically. She reached her left hand towards them, as if imploring them for help.

  From somewhere nearby rose the shrieks and wails of the infected. The woman listened to them. Her body was shaking. She screamed in reply and the men stepped away.

  “Fuck this,” said Ralph. “Let’s go.”

  “What about her?” said Magnus.

  Ralph looked like he’d tasted something nasty. “Forget her.”

  “Where did they go?” said Frank, glancing around. “Florence!”

  “Shut up,” said Ralph.

  “Florence!”

  “Shut up!” Ralph grabbed him.

  “Where is she? Where did they take her?”

  “She’s gone.”

  “Ralph’s right,” said Magnus.

  There was something small and white in the grass, half-hidden amongst dandelions and daisies. Frank recognised it. He broke from Ralph’s hold and picked it up.

  “What is it?” asked Magnus.

  Frank turned it around in his hand. The golf ball he’d given to Florence. He imagined her holding it, terrified and alone, in the back of the van.

  The smiley face grinned.

  “I gave this to her. To cheer her up.”

  The others looked at him.

  Frank stared down the road. “I think she’s still alive. They couldn’t have gone far.”

  “Fair enough,” said Ralph. He took the axe from Frank’s hand and walked over to the infected woman. She was making a low mewling sound, like a dying cat.

  He ended her suffering.

  “I’m driving,” said Frank.

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  Two miles along the road, Frank stopped the car.

  A man and a woman had pinned Mackie, and were peeling him like a soft fruit.

 
“He’s one of the men who took Florence,” said Frank.

  The infected had torn away Mackie’s clothes, which lay strewn around them, ripped and bloody. Their mouths snapped at the man’s body, picking away bits of him.

  Mackie was still alive.

  Frank grinned, and he didn’t care.

  The infected glared at the car, distracted from the meat of Mackie’s tender parts. Wet mouths and mad eyes. They held Mackie tenderly. His mouth was moving. Frank couldn’t hear him.

  Mackie reached towards the car with a flayed, dripping-red arm.

  The infected gathered him up like a pile of wet rags and dragged him off the road, where they would pull him apart in the deep shadows.

  The last thing Frank saw of Mackie was his red hand trailing behind him.

  * * *

  Frank stopped the car on a hill looking down at the surrounding fields and roads. Ahead of them was the village of Loxwood. Ralph swept the area with the binoculars. The village looked empty.

  Smoke stained every horizon. War upon the land.

  “I see something,” said Ralph.

  “What is it?” Frank asked.

  “Not sure.”

  Frank snatched the binoculars. Ralph pointed to where he’d been looking. Frank saw a flash of movement among the fields. A brief sighting of something pink and small at the edge of the village.

  His body tightened. Adrenaline kicked in, dosing his blood.

  Three figures were walking across a field towards the village. Two men and a young girl. Bertram, Florence, and the bastard with the balaclava. Both men were injured and hobbling. Bertram was holding a machete. Balaclava corralled Florence along with his baseball bat. Her head was bowed, avoiding eye contact with the men.

  Rage was like bleach in Frank’s veins. “It’s them. It’s Florence. We have to get down there before they reach the village and find a car.”

  Ralph took the binoculars then looked through them. “What is that down there?”

  “What’s wrong?” said Magnus.

  When Ralph took away the binoculars from his eyes, his face was severe and concerned. Frank grabbed the binoculars.