The Plague Series (Book 1): The Last Plague Read online

  “She’s bipolar, not crazy,” said Frank.

  “Not to mention she weighs about twenty stone.”

  “Fuck’s sake, Ralph.”

  “What did I say?”

  Frank opened two beers and handed one to Joel. “You’re such a sympathetic soul, mate. Ever considered manning calls for the Samaritans?”

  “Nah, too depressing,” Ralph replied, rubbing his stomach. “By the way, did anyone bring toilet roll?”

  *

  The men gathered in the living room. They’d been drinking for over an hour. Frank raised his shot glass of vodka. “To Joel: may he be a brave man in the years ahead. May he have the strength to fight the good fight.”

  “May he rest in peace,” said Ralph.

  “May the Lord have mercy on his soul,” said Magnus.

  “Amen,” they said together, heads bowed.

  They downed their shots. Joel was last to finish. He patted his chest and winced.

  Frank handed out the beers while Ralph offered cigars. Frank refused one, due to his asthma.

  Joel swayed on his feet as he lit his cigar. “How many years have we been friends for?”

  “Don’t get soppy, mate,” said Ralph. “You always do this when you’re drunk.”

  “I’m not drunk.”

  Magnus laughed, exhaling smoke, and then coughed to clear his throat.

  “Let the groom speak,” said Frank.

  Joel gave a mock salute. “Thank you, Frank. Uh, what was I about to say? Ah, yes. We’ve been friends since preschool, haven’t we?”

  “More or less,” said Frank.

  “The Fearsome Four.”

  “Yeah, four idiots,” said Magnus, not unkindly.

  “But look at us now,” Joel continued. “We’re older and a little wiser. We’ve got responsibilities and all that grown up stuff to deal with.”

  “Apart from Ralph.”

  Ralph scowled. “Hey, I’ve got responsibilities.”

  “You live with your parents.”

  “It’s cheap, and Mum does my laundry.”

  “I’d do your mum.” Magnus grinned at him.

  “Dickhead.”

  “As I was saying,” said Joel. “We’ve all got responsibilities and commitments, but we’ve still remained close.”

  “Gaaaaay,” said Ralph, shaking his head.

  Frank couldn’t help laughing. “Politically incorrect, but a fair point.”

  Magnus laughed as well.

  Joel raised his bottle. “Cheers, lads.”

  They drank.

  Frank looked down the neck of his beer bottle. “Where did the time go?”

  “Not down there,” Magnus said.

  “Tell me about it,” said Ralph. “You remember when we used to go out clubbing every weekend? I miss those days. I miss the nights when we would go out and anything was possible.”

  “Great nights,” replied Frank.

  Joel finished his beer. “Clubbing loses its appeal when you reach a certain age; seems a little desperate somehow. That’s why I wanted to spend the weekend here. I didn’t want to go to a nightclub or a big city. I know it’s a bit crap, but I wanted to be here with my oldest friends. My best friends.”

  “We’re certainly getting old,” Frank said. “I’ve started to wear cardigans at home. I’m growing man-boobs.”

  Ralph patted his stomach. “How do you think I feel, then?”

  Magnus adjusted his glasses. “That’s because you eat too much. You think you’ve got it bad? My pubes are going grey.”

  “And you’ve got the muscle tone of a crack addict.”

  Everyone laughed.

  “Better wiry than curvy.”

  Ralph shrugged, downed his beer until it was empty. “Fuck it, put on the DVD. I want to drink until my eyes fall out.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Hours passed in a haze of alcoholic fog. They watched Star Wars IV: A New Hope. Joel’s attempt at critiquing each iconic scene was met with sighs of drunken annoyance and laughter. Han Solo was his favourite character.

  Ralph called him ‘Hand Solo’ and made a wanking gesture that Joel didn’t appreciate.

  Magnus performed his party trick of balancing a pen on his nose while Ralph poured beer down his throat. He managed to keep it balanced until Ralph swapped the beer for whiskey.

  They played Guitar Hero on the Xbox. Magnus was surprisingly good, hitting each note perfectly, despite being steaming drunk.

  Frank downed enough shots to numb his extremities. He laughed when Joel began slurring his words. He laughed when Ralph tried to light his own farts and only succeeded in burning his arse. He laughed for no other reason than to laugh.

  A knock at the door interrupted them.

  Joel froze with a bottle at his mouth. “Who’s that?”

  “What’s the time?” said Ralph, scratching his head.

  Frank checked his watch. “Almost midnight.”

  Magnus burped, gagged a little. His eyes were watery.

  “We expecting any visitors?” said Joel. The last word came out as ‘vishitors’.

  Ralph turned to Frank and winked.

  Joel glanced back and forth between his friends.

  “I’ll see who it is,” said Ralph. He struggled to rise from the sofa and stumbled into the hallway, giggling like a schoolboy high on sugar. His shoulder grazed the wall, knocking askew a framed painting of a riverside cottage.

  Magnus looked at Joel. “I’m sorry, mate. It was Ralph’s idea.”

  Joel’s face went slack. “What was…?”

  Frank heard the front door open and shut, followed by low voices and Ralph giggling out in the hallway. Then Ralph appeared, trying to keep a straight face as he swigged from his beer. He carried a wooden chair in his other hand.

  “What’s the chair for?” said Joel.

  “What do you think?”

  “Did you…?” Frank asked.

  “I certainly did, fuckers.” He moved some empty bottles out of the way and placed the chair in the centre of the room.

  Joel looked at the chair, puzzled.

  A female police officer entered the room, followed by a tall, wide-shouldered man with a shaven head who looked like he worked security at seedy nightclubs. The man nodded a curt greeting and stood in the corner of the room, arms folded.

  “Oh shit,” said Joel. His voice was uneven and boyish.

  The woman looked to be in her late forties. She had dyed blonde hair, eyeliner coated on like paint and blood-red lipstick. A short leather skirt barely covered her arse. She was carrying a small black bag and an Alba CD player.

  Ralph started laughing.

  “Is there a Mr. Joel Gosling here?” the woman said.

  Slowly, Joel raised his hand but said nothing.

  “I’m afraid you’re under arrest, Mr. Gosling.”

  “Read him his rights!” said Ralph. He finished his beer and grabbed another one. Frank sat next to Magnus on the sofa. They watched in fascination, holding in their laughter.

  “You’re not a real police officer, are you?” Joel muttered.

  In the corner of the room, the woman’s minder smirked and shook his head.

  She bared her teeth. “Luckily for you, I’m not. But I’ve heard you’ve been a very bad boy. Now, come sit down on this chair and we’ll get on with your interrogation.”

  “Brilliant,” said Ralph. He nudged Frank with his elbow. “You owe me fifty quid for the stripper.”

  “Fifty quid? Bloody hell.”

  “She was the cheapest one I could get on such short notice.”

  Guided by the stripper Joel sat down on the chair. She smiled at him. He tried to return the smile, but it came out as an awkward grimace.

  “My fiancée’s gonna kill me if she finds out.”

  “Don’t worry, my dear,” the stripper said. She undid her uniform and took off her skirt. The back of her thong vanished into the crack of her sagging buttocks. She placed the CD player on the floor then reached into he
r bag and produced a bottle of squirty cream.

  Joel went pale.

  The stripper pressed a button on the CD player. Britney Spears began to sing ‘I’m a Slave 4 U’. The stripper wiggled her arse.

  “She reminds me of my mum,” Ralph whispered as he took out his phone and started recording.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Two hours later the stripper was gone, and Joel was unconscious, a bottle of beer in his hand and whipped cream smeared around his mouth. Frank dozed on the sofa. Ralph was on the floor, snoring loudly, his stomach gurgling.

  “Lightweights,” said Magnus. He smiled and swayed as a warm numbness filled his body. He ate the last slice of pizza and licked grease from his fingers.

  The house was silent apart from the creak and groan of its wooden joints and brick walls, reshaping itself in the night.

  Magnus walked outside and stood in the dark. The breeze stirred the grass. Everything was peaceful and there were so few moments of peace these days. He filled his lungs with the night air.

  The moon was blanketed by clouds. Abyssal darkness surrounded the house, like starless spaces between galaxies. No lights from towns or villages. This was how the land would have been before the rise of Man.

  The gaps in the cloud cover were filled with stars. Constellations aflame. Distant suns ancient and dying. Some had been dead for millennia. It inspired both awe and terror within him. He had read about solar flares; about what would happen if one reached out and enveloped the earth. A temperature of twenty million degrees kelvin would turn the oceans to steam and drown the world in fire. Suck the oxygen from the air. Turn every organism to ash. Cities would be destroyed by immense walls of flame and the planet would be left as a burnt piece of dead rock floating in space.

  He felt small and unworthy, like an insect before the void. A speck of dust on cosmic winds.

  His hands shook as he took out a packet of cigarettes. He lit one and took a long drag. The smoke was chemical bliss inside him. He checked his mobile, frowning at the three missed calls from Debbie. Another text message. He read it, shaking his head.

  He was sick of her. He was sick of taking care of her and the boys. She had burdened him for five years, with her sickness and paranoia. She had drained him of his strength and his will. They hadn’t had sex in over a year. She often forgot to take her medication, causing mood swings and bouts of white-hot anger.

  Sometimes, lying in bed as she grunted and snored next to him, he fantasised about burying her in a custom-made coffin and crying crocodile tears at her graveside. He thought often of caving in her face with a hammer and laughing in relief as he did so. He thought of murder. Then he would be free.

  But he couldn’t kill Debbie. He was a coward. He’d never even been in a fight. And he still loved her, which was the worst part about it. He couldn’t help himself. He had known about her problems when they first met. There had been an attraction on a fundamental level. She had been slim, but curvy in the right places. The sex had been fantastic; the way she would lower herself onto him, grind upon him, press her skin against his. It had been primal, manic fucking. She used to bite him, make him bleed sometimes. He’d loved that.

  But her condition had worsened as the years passed. And that was that.

  Magnus dropped the cigarette and put it out with his foot.

  The clouds lifted, revealing the scarred moon. Silver light fell over the patchwork quilt of fields.

  He flinched when thunder roared above. The moon and stars vanished again, all hidden behind broiling clouds. Thunder boomed again.

  Something huge and silent moved high in the sky directly above him. He sensed rather than saw it.

  Moments later, his nose began to bleed. He dabbed at the blood with one finger. “What the fuck?”

  And as though his legs had turned to water, he fell down, sprawling on the ground, the air knocked out of him. An immense pressure pulsed in his head. His bowels felt like a sack of hot soup.

  The thunder sounded like the giant bones of skeletal gods grinding together.

  Witless and feeble, he curled into a ball and began to cry, gripped by a terror he hadn’t felt since childhood. It was the fear of monsters and being lost in the darkness.

  The ground was deathly cold.

  He whimpered as the world faded away.

  *

  Ralph woke shivering in cold air. He ran his tongue over furred teeth then used it to loosen a shard of pepperoni stuck between two molars. His burps tasted of stomach fluids.

  He sat up, hands over his face, groaning. The world tilted to one side. The sky was brightening beyond the nearest window. The wall clock ticked like a needling pulse. It was just past four-thirty, and the room was strewn with the wreckage of the night. The smell of stale beer made his insides crease.

  Someone had eaten the last of the pizza.

  “Wankers.”

  Frank and Joel were asleep. Magnus was gone.

  Ralph stood, put his hand on the sofa to stay upright. His bladder was swollen. His stomach gurgled and turned. He burped again.

  The front door was open. Faint chorus of birdsong from beyond. He stumbled to the doorway.

  “Magnus?”

  No answer.

  Thunder boomed in distant dark clouds to the east.

  Magnus was curled up on the grass, his arms wrapped around his chest. His clothes were damp. His glasses were askew. A crust of dried blood between his nose and top lip.

  Ralph crouched and shook him by the shoulders. “Magnus, what you doing out here?”

  Magnus woke with a moan in his throat. He glanced around with wide eyes then looked at Ralph. “What’s going on?”

  Ralph helped him sit up. “You tell me, mate. Christ, you smell like a badger’s pissing hole. And your nose has been bleeding.”

  “I had a nightmare,” he said, his voice small.

  “Have you been smoking those Jamaican woodbines again?”

  “No.”

  “Is it something stronger you haven’t told me about?”

  Magnus wiped dew from his face. “I haven’t touched any drugs.”

  “Fair enough,” Ralph said with some scepticism as he helped his friend up from the ground. “Let’s get you back in the house, tiny dancer.”

  Magnus watched the sky as they went inside.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Later that morning, Frank popped two aspirin into his mouth and washed them down with water as he sat next to Ralph on the sofa. Magnus was at the kitchen table, head bowed, drinking coffee and eating toast.

  “I feel like shit,” said Ralph.

  “Join the club,” Frank told him. “I need to brush my teeth.”

  The toilet flushed from the other side of the cottage. Joel entered the living room in sluggish movements, wearing a baggy t-shirt, boxer shorts and Homer Simpson slippers.

  Ralph grinned. “You look very sharp this morning.”

  Joel collapsed into the armchair and groaned with his hands to his forehead. “I suppose the stripper was your idea?”

  “Someone had to liven up your stag weekend.”

  “Please don’t put any photos or video on Facebook.”

  Ralph looked genuinely offended. “Oh, come on, mate…”

  “Please, Ralph. Anya will kill me.”

  “No, she won’t. Polish girls are very open-minded.”

  “I’m begging you.”

  “Don’t guilt trip me, motherfucker.”

  “Please…”

  “Okay then. You spoil all the fun.”

  “Cheers mate. Where’s Magnus?”

  Frank took a puff from his inhaler, grimaced. “Out in the kitchen.”

  “Is he okay? Has Debbie been calling him again?”

  “No,” said Ralph. “It’s something else.”

  “Like what?”

  “I found him outside, asleep on the grass.”

  “What was he doing out there? Is he back on the weed again?”

  Ralph hesitated. “I don’t think so.
He said he had a nightmare. His nose had been bleeding.”

  “Is he doing coke?”

  “Magnus wouldn’t do that shit,” Frank said.

  Joel frowned. “Hope he’s okay.”

  “I think so,” said Ralph. “He’s a bit shaken up, that’s all.”

  Magnus appeared in the doorway, steam rising from the cup of coffee in his hand. A muscle twitched in his face. “I can hear you from the kitchen.”

  The other men said nothing.

  Magnus eyed the three of them in turn. He took a mouthful of coffee and swallowed. “While you all were asleep I went outside to have a cigarette and look at the sky. Everything was fine for a while, but then it felt like something huge was in the clouds, staring down at me. I lost all the strength in my legs and fell down. I was absolutely terrified, and I don’t know what it was or if I was imaging it. It’s freaking me out, to be honest.”

  Ralph scratched his beard. “You sure you’re not on drugs, mate? It’s no big deal if you are. We’re all adults.”

  “I haven’t been doing drugs, okay?”

  “Okay. Fair enough.”

  Magnus returned to the kitchen while the living room stayed silent behind him.

  *

  There was no more thunder. No rain.

  They spent the rest of the morning recovering from their hangovers. Frank and Joel cooked fried breakfasts for everyone.

  In the afternoon Ralph played Frank at darts. They drank coffee between turns. Ralph had once played for their county. He beat Frank without trying too hard and didn’t try to hide it.

  “You’ve got a dart player’s physique,” Frank told him.

  Ralph smiled and threw a double-top. “That’s five games to nil, fuck-face.”

  Frank put down his darts.

  Ralph took the five pound note from Frank’s hand, folded it into his wallet.

  “Well played,” said Frank.

  “Don’t forget you still owe me for the stripper.”

  “I’ll pay you when we get home.”

  “No probs.”

  Outside, the day grew dim.

  *