Ferine Apocalypse (Novella): 4 Hours (6 page)

Gallagher fell as Pearcey hauled him out of the car and Pearcey let him fall.

He had other concerns.

It had been one of the creatures that had hit them.

It lay thirty feet distant.

Small spasming movements. Jittering signs of a desperate will to live. No sign that it was about to get up. No indication that it was about to give up the fight to keep breathing either for that matter.

There were shards of glass glinting on the road. Pearcey looked up at a broken window above their heads.

Third floor.

Jagged fragments of the glazing were all that remained in the frame. Like sharks teeth. The rest was strewn around him and the car.

He distractedly pieced together what had happened while he appraised their situation.

It had jumped, smashed through the window.

Trapped, he guessed.

Woke up from the coma and couldn’t get out of the room. Whatever intelligence they possessed was animalistic, had its limitations. He filed that away for future reference and turned to more immediate issues.

Like the creature that had appeared from a side road a hundred yards away.

And was coming towards them.

<><><>

The Jaguar was a mess.

Bonnet scrunched and dented as if a meteor had landed on it.

In some ways, that wasn’t too far from the truth, Pearcey thought. The windscreen was cracked. The front left wing had crumpled into a pillar box when he lost control of the wheel.

The post box was one of the big old heavy ones.

Oval with two posting slots for mail.

Cast iron.

Built to last.

Certainly build to last longer than the Jag.

A brick shit house in bright red metal.

It was canted to one side slightly but, on the whole, Pearcey thought it had come out on top. Especially when he glanced back at the smoking bonnet of the car.

Whatever his thoughts on old manufacturing methods and modern technology, they weren’t going anywhere in that car.

Not now and, he suspected, not any time soon.

If ever.

Gallagher leaned back into the wrecked vehicle and retrieved his trusty steel bar. He’d gaffer taped one end into an improved grip. He held that in his right hand as his left swiped blood from his face.

<><><>

The thing was running.

Coming fast.

As it got nearer, Pearcey could hear it growling.

The noise drifted towards him, insidious and chilling. An insane, inhuman sound that set his nerves on edge. Sent a shot of unadulterated fear down his spine.

Behind the first creature, he saw another appear.

The sound of the crash must be bringing them. That was the only thing that made sense. And if that was true, he and Gallagher didn’t have long.

Who knew how many were heading their way. He weighed his options in those last seconds before the first mutant got to him.

Made his decision and went with it.

<><><>

Pearcey’s knife flashed at the last moment. Caught a ray of the dying sun, sharp and beautiful, as it blurred through the air.

He drove the blade up under its chin and into its brain.

Managed to avoid its drooling teeth, but was still bowled over by its momentum. Felt his arm punctured by its talon and his back slammed into hard concrete.

Ignored the injuries.

Minor discomfort.

Rolled clear of the repulsive thing as it thrashed and mewled on the ground.

“You ugly fucker.”

Breathed the words and dropped his weight onto it. Pinned its dreadful arms and grasped the handle of the knife in both hands.

Waggled it, drove it deeper still. Up to the hilt so that syrupy blood spilled over his knuckles.

Looked up to see the other one had moved uncannily fast. Closed the distance between them and was about to spring at him.

Saw Gallagher spring first.

Swinging the steel bar like the last batsman on earth.

Pearcey could almost feel the vibrations in his own arms as it impacted with the thing’s skull. Splitting it, spraying more blood into the air.

The blood black in the near dusk light.

A sickening crunch.

As the bar did its work.

Gallagher was short but built like the pillar box.

Broad shoulders and thick chest sitting on a low centre of gravity that gave him awesome strength. He didn’t know if the man was trained but, once or twice, it had crossed Pearcey’s mind that he wouldn’t want to get into a fight with Sonny Gallagher.

And if he did, he’d perhaps want to be the one with the crow bar in his hands.

“Come on Sonny, we have to go now, before any more of them pop up. If we get caught out in the open by a bunch of them, we don’t have a cat in hell’s chance.”

Gallagher simply nodded.

Pearcey scanned the street.

There were cars.

It was possible they might find keys, or that he’d be able to start one. But that would take time, and he didn’t think they had much of that.

He motioned Gallagher and started off down the street.

He wanted a store, a shop. Somewhere to hunker down and regroup. Get his thoughts in order and figure out a plan of action.

He smiled.

A plan?

What a fucking joke.

You couldn’t plan this shit.

At the best of times, plans were a rough guide. When it got this surreal, plans were a fantasy.

He still wanted one. Some vestige of organisation amidst all of the chaos.

Something to cling to when the next impossibility presented itself. When the next unpredictable element appeared in a puff of nasty smoke.

<><><>

Pearcey nearly fell over the girl.

He’d been distracted, searching for a likely premises.

Felt the rubber soles of his boots loose grip and slide on the pavement as he stopped short. Felt Gallagher bump into him from behind.

She was crouched at the side of a van.

For a moment he thought it was another mutated creature, squatting there, ready to leap.

He gripped the knife and prepared to kill again.

As he looked more carefully he realised that she was human. Another immune survivor.

Black clothes.

Delicate white face framed by black hair. She looked like some waif at the end of time.

Another random factor from fucking nowhere.

Pearcey surveyed their immediate surroundings. They were close to a small supermarket. The door was slightly ajar. He might have missed it if he hadn’t been forced to halt.

He thought he could hear running feet and low growling. Echoing on quiet roads.

It might have been his imagination.

“Are you hurt?”

He spoke just above a whisper.

She shook her head.

He could definitely hear something.

It would have to be the store. Anwar’s Mini Market.

Good old Anwar.

He hoped to fuck Anwar had left the building. He didn’t need any more complication.

“Come with us. We’re going in there.”

He indicated the shop twenty feet further down and she struggled to her feet.

Grasping a black bag as if her life depended on it.

It was dim inside the store.

Shadowed without electrical light.

Bigger than it appeared from outside, but just as disappointingly grimy as you might have expected from the exterior. Lots of aisles and a half-arsed attempt at a modern checkout.

Three tills and a tiny basket and trolley park were near to the front where they’d entered. The exit and entrance were the same dirty double doors.

All in all, it was pretty grim. Not somewhere Pearcey would have enjoyed doing his daily or weekly food shopping.

Not that he did a lot of the domestic. He usually ate on the move or opted for takeaways when he was at home. Not that he was likely to be doing a lot of anything like that anytime soon.

He had a feeling the weekly shop, nipping out for a meal, or ordering an online takeout delivery were on hold for the foreseeable future.

He let the other two get in and then turned to monitor the situation outside.

They’d just about made it in time. Figures were beginning to bleed into street.

Rush hour in hell.

Pearcey snicked the catches at the top and bottom of the glass door. Checked that the one next to it was also secured. He didn’t think those locks were up to a full assault. No sir, it wouldn’t take a great deal to bust those little beauties open.

They were better than nothing.

And he didn’t have the keys or the luxury of being able to drop the metal grills. Rattling those babies down would be like ringing the dinner bell when you were the main course.

He backed away into the shadows but close enough to still see.

The store was gloomy because the windows hadn’t been enlarged. He mentally saluted Mr Anwar for that bit of penny-pinching. It meant that there was less glass, and that meant less vulnerability.

He was grasping at straws again.

Old straws, just like him.

Crumpling in his hand.

They were up shit creek. The paddles weren’t all gone, but he wasn’t sure the ones they had left were up to the job.

“Carlton, I’m going to check the back of the shop.”

Gallagher whispered at his shoulder.

Made him jump inside his head. It took all of his self-control to not plunge the knife into Gallagher as a simple reflex.

Pearcey gritted his teeth before replying.

“Good idea. Don’t make too much noise Sonny. It’s getting busy out there. If any of them were in here with us, I think we’d already know about it. These fuckers don’t strike me as shy.”

Gallagher ghosted away and Pearcey glanced at the girl.

Woman.

She wasn’t some kid out of school.

It was hard to be sure in the gloom, but he thought her jeans and tee shirt were ripped and bloodied.

“I thought you said you weren’t hurt.”

Spoken softly with eyes that squinted questions.

She shrugged.

Pulled the shirt from her skin and shook her leg slightly.

“I didn’t want to go into detail.”

She nodded at the doors.

“Not out there.”

There was a clatter in the depths of the store and Pearcey felt sweat break out all over his body. He stared into the gloom and then glanced back at the street.

They were milling about now.

Horrible things.

Mostly skin and teeth and claws. Tattered rags of clothing. Hardly human at all. Prowling and jerking into runs. One brushed the doors and paused. Brought its face close enough to mist the glass.

Placed a sharp tipped hand to the surface and held it there.

Scratched down and then moved on.

Pearcey breathed again. Didn’t realise he’d been holding his breath.

He retreated from the entrance and ushered the girl with him.

“Sonny, for fuck’s sake, come over here will you.”

The man uttered an indistinct reply. A few moments later, Pearcey heard the sound of him taking a leak. The patter of water hitting something soft. He twitched an apologetic smile at the girl.

She averted her eyes and didn’t acknowledge it.

<><><>

They settled half way down an aisle. An unequal triangle with Pearcey facing the front of the store. Gallagher and the girl angled to the rear.

Sipping bottled drinks and eating snack food scavenged from Anwar’s less than salubrious market.

Backs uncomfortable against shelves.

Nerves frayed.

Grateful to stop and sit, however tense it felt.

Gallagher found a couple of first aid kits amongst the eclectic mix of goods in the shop and Pearcey dressed their various wounds as best he could with the meagre supplies in the plastic boxes.

The woman was awkward with it.

As if she found his proximity difficult.

She told them her name, but not a great deal else. That she’d been running, trying to avoid the monsters. Trying to survive.

Pearcey could understand that, even if he didn’t get her.

She was distant, which could have been a result of the terrible events that had taken place. If that was the case, he had a feeling it was only part of the cause. He got the feeling that her face had forgotten how to smile long before civilisation started collapsing.

After a time, she said she wanted to look outside and silently glided to the front of the shop. He thought it was maybe an excuse to just be away from them.

To be on her own.

As much as she could, given the circumstances.

He could understand that as well.

<><><>

There was a mantra repeating in Pearcey’s mind. A looped refrain that he couldn’t shake as he sat there looking at Gallagher a few feet away, and the girl, Angela, standing by the window.

Fuck up. Complete and utter fuck up. From start to finish.

You’re too old for this shit. Find a way out.

“What do you want to do?”

Gallagher was stony-eyed and grim. The question was half plea, half challenge.

“Get back to the fucking shelter is what I want to do.”

Pearcey sighed, regretted the comment as soon he said it. He looked at the stained tiles of the ceiling. Water, or something worse, had created dirty circles on the once white fibre.

God, this place was shit hole.

“Do you know where we are Sonny? How far from your place?”

Gallagher shook his head.

“Not exactly. We can’t be that far away. Nearer to Lewisham than Westminster for sure.”

Pearcey had half hoped that Sonny would suggest they abandon the attempt.

Make a dash for the CIMC before darkness fell. He glanced at his watch and then out of the window. They’d used a fair proportion of his four hours. He figured they had two, maybe two and a half hours before you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face.

How great would that be? Wandering around the city in the dark. When it was full of mutated monsters. It could be a dangerous thing to do at the best of times. Now, it didn’t bear thinking about.

“I can’t leave her out here Carlton.”

Pearcey tried a smile and gave up on it.

Nodded his head.

They’d have to get moving soon, but he needed to recharge his batteries, clear his head and come up with a plan.

“What happened to your wife Sonny? You never mention her.”

The man shrugged, an unreadable look playing across his features.

“My wife? Ahh, that’s a long story. She lied to me for years before we split up. Every morning she said she was going to leave me. She was still there every night I got home.”

Gallagher smiled but there was no happiness in it.

“That’s not fair. I wasn’t much of a husband. She put up with me for a long time. Hoped I would change, I suppose. Eventually realised she was barking up the wrong tree with that.”

It might have been the gloom, but Pearcey thought Sonny had never looked so old.

“In the end, she kept her promise. Upped and left me. Left Annie as well. Walked away from her own daughter. Ten years ago. Haven’t heard from her since. Not a word. She could be dead for all I know.”

Pearcey could sympathise with that to some extent. His own wife had left him, except she’d taken their child with her. Had perhaps arrived at the decision that he couldn’t be trusted to raise a child.

Like Gallagher, he hadn’t been a model husband. Unless the model you were considering was piss poor. He might have fitted that bill quite well. He had no idea where they were either.

Or if they were dead or alive.

Or worse.

“I sometimes think that’s why Annie is, well, why she has ...her ...problems.”

Pearcey had no reply to that.

Gallagher swigged water and lit a cigarette. Gazed at the window of the shop as figures moved on the street beyond it. Even from a distance, they had an inhuman aspect. Were horrifying and yet somehow fascinating.

He surprised Pearcey with a question.

“What do you think caused it? What do you think it is, the sickness, the mutation?”

Pearcey had already pondered the question and come to the conclusion that it was a useless exercise doing so.

It usually was. The pondering.

He didn’t know and, in his humble opinion, was unlikely to become any wiser in the immediate future.

“I haven’t got a fucking clue Sonny. But I’ve seen enough to satisfy the criteria of the job we were given. The videos and the info that the analyst kid pulled together are correct. It’s like the arse-end of hell up here. The sooner we’re back in the bunker, the better.”

He didn’t enjoy being underground. Felt claustrophobic and enclosed.

Caged. A prisoner.

Compared to the surface, it was paradise.

Albeit, under the earth.

<><><>

Angela Gacek rejoined them shortly after that.

Sat a little distance away without talking. Staring at her scuffed trainers as if they held an answer to something important. Her black bag clutched under one arm against her torn and bloody black tee shirt.

For Pearcey, she was another complication in a situation that already had plenty more than he needed.

And despite that, he didn’t have any choice.

“Angela, we have to collect Sonny’s daughter. She’s quite close, but it won’t be any walk in the park. Once that’s done, we’re running back to where we came from. That’s a government bunker in Whitehall. Well, below Whitehall, you know what I mean.

Do you want to come with us? It’s secure and safe from the ...things out there.”

She flicked her eyes up at him and gave the merest nod of her head.

“I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

Pearcey was about to speak again when another voice stopped him.

It came from behind him.

Muffled and low.

“Take me with you as well.”

Pearcey didn’t turn.

It took all of his willpower. Instead he registered the look of surprise on Gallagher’s face.

Surprise wasn’t quite right.

Shock and fear was more accurate.