Flu (15 page)

    "This is one of the quarantined flats," he said. "I remember a house down from me, in Derry, getting similar treatment just as things got bad. The cops put yellow tape across anywhere they boarded up. Seems they only got started on that one."

    "Here, you can probably look inside," the more sober private said, setting his beer bottle down and fiddling with some controls on a nearby panel. The screen flicked to the inside of the flat, throwing up images of each room as the private worked. It looked no different to other flats, largely untouched by the madness outside, almost looking hospitable. As the private continued to change the display, showing each room, separately, Jackson noticed a dark shadow move, suddenly, across the screen.

    "Good God," Jackson said. "Did you see that?"

    "Where? Which room?" the private asked.

    "The bedroom," Jackson said, siding over to the private. "Move back to the bedroom. There's someone moving inside there…"

    "Probably one of the dead, sir." Gallagher said, from behind. His voice sounded disinterested, as if this was all trivial compared to whatever savagery he had been up to with the colonel's body, earlier.

    "No," Jackson said. "Look closer." As the private returned to the bedroom, they watched as the shadow moved across the room, again. It moved as if with purpose, as if in full control of its movements. It lifted something from the floor. Gallagher moved beside

    Jackson, now intrigued. The room fell silent, everyone staring at the screen, mesmerised. The private worked with the controls to achieve a close-up.

    The image became clearer, more defined…

    They looked small from the roof top. Less demonic, perhaps, and more human. You could make out their clothing, their hair colour, their arms and legs, even. You could see them walking, then stopping. Shaking their heads, as if tired. As if human. But you couldn't see their faces. The decay, the starkness of their dead, bloodshot eyes. And you couldn't hear much of their breathless moaning, the comforting whirl of the blue- sky, cloud and wind whipping up enough of an air show to drown out their voices.

    Pat sat quietly on the rooftop of the tower block. Thinking, dreaming, reflecting. Looking up to the sky and down upon the dead.

    Although it was late morning, Karen hadn't stirred from her room, as yet. He had gotten up early, as always, but she wasn't there to pour him some tea and make him some breakfast. He was quite embarrassed to admit it, but he had become quite accustomed to her fussing around him. He missed her when she wasn't there.

    Beside him lay his ' Widowmaker' rifle, this time with a scope attached. He fumbled in his pockets for a pair of binoculars, lifting them to his eyes and checking along the ever-increasing sea of bodies outside the tower block for one particular one he had seen earlier. He had noticed it wandering about amongst the others, but then lost it again. He would find it again, though, despite their number. Regardless of how indistinct it was from the others, in every way.

    Every way apart from one.

    It was wearing a uniform. A police uniform.

    Pat recalled the speech he had given to Karen only the previous day. About how those bodies, below, once belonged to people. People like him, people like her. People who once cared for their wives, their families, their friends. People with lives and loves and passions. She had wanted to shoot more of them, but he wouldn't let her. But now, on the top of the tower block, more than ten floors from the ground, he was going to break his own rule.

    Pat didn't know exactly why he felt the need to shoot the cop. A part of him wanted to do it indulgently. A gratuitous act of petty vengeance. A hark back to the old Pat. The freedom fighter. The prisoner. Yet, he was also wise enough to know this was hardly a revolutionary thing to be doing with his time. For another part of him, the therapy of (re)killing it might have come from having a target that was already dead. Legitimate, then, in every way. A way of taking life without
really
taking life. Or maybe, were Pat to look really hard beneath the quagmire of his damaged heart and mind, the desire to shoot came more from Pat actually having a chance to put the poor bastard out of his misery once and for all. He'd taken the lives of a lot of men in uniform through the years, as part of his 'armed struggle.' Men who may or may not have deserved it. So, maybe now he could make up for at least one of the lives he had taken, giving something back where he had taken it from…

    (give a life, take a life, give a death, take a death)

    In all honesty, Pat didn't know what was making him do what he was doing. Probably a mixture of all of the above. And none of the above. A potent cocktail, flaming at the neck like a petrol bomb. Damning. Calming. A toast to the old days and the new days, waiting to be drunk thirstily, like some dare at a stag-do.

    He lifted the rifle, aligning the scope to the horizon. He lay down on the rooftop, getting himself within comfortable view of his target. He took aim, his steady hand sure to keep the cop's head well within the bullet's radius. He fired once, keeping his eye on the target, satisfied to see the cop's head explode, quietly, in the scope before the body sank to the ground.

    Pat immediately pulled himself to his feet. He removed the scope, quickly putting the rifle back onto safety and sliding it into his bag. He left the rooftop as quietly as he had entered it.

    On reaching the flat, he noticed Karen standing by the window, looking out at the dead. She seemed to be becoming more and more infatuated by them, and it was beginning to worry Pat. He knew what cabin fever could do to a person, having shared smaller spaces than this for weeks on end with other operatives during IRA assignments. It took real strength to find your own space where space wasn't available, and he didn't know if Karen had that strength.

    "Where were you?" she asked, without turning around.

    "Just on the roof," he said, innocently.

    "What were you doing up there?" she asked.

    "Not a lot," Pat replied. He quietly stashed his bag behind the sofa. He suddenly noticed how untidy the place was. An opened tin of fruit sat on the coffee table, next to a mug of coffee. Neither had a placemat under them.

    "That's funny," Karen said, still without turning to look at him, "because I heard shooting."

    Pat sat himself down on the sofa, running a hand through his hair to flatten it down. He looked at Karen, noticing how unkempt she looked. She was still in her pyjamas and dressing gown. It didn't look she'd even had as much as a wash since getting up.

    "Are you okay?" Pat asked.

    "Yes," she said, turning, finally to look him in the face. "Why?"

    "You just look a little…"

    "Ropey?" Karen asked, without humour.

    "Well, I wouldn't quite put it like that…" Pat backtracked.

    "Just doesn't seem much point in worrying about how I look, does there?" she said. "Why bother when I'll never get out the door."

    "Come on," Pat said, tiring of this same routine. "Don't be like that…"

    "I'm not being like anything…" she said. "I'm just telling the truth. Aren't I?"

    Pat stood up, walking over to the counter to make himself some tea. He noticed the worktop hadn't been wiped; spilt coffee granules peppered across the bench like soil. It reminded him of his childhood, suddenly. Innocent days spent hunting caterpillars in the garden.

    "We've got to keep positive," he said. "We don't know what will happen in the future. One day all of those things outside might weaken, even die…"

    "They already died," Karen said, without humour. "That's the thing. And when we die, we'll be just like them."

    "You don't know that -" he countered.

    But she interrupted him, "Of course we know that. In fact we can be sure of it. It's the only thing we can be sure of. Death used to be the only thing we could be sure of. That's what they told me in church. But now… now we can't even be sure about that, anymore."

    Pat noticed she had been crying. The tears had dried on her cheeks like old cellotape. He went to comfort her, but stopped himself mid-motion. What could he tell her? How could he convince her to keep her spirits up, when she was pretty much telling the truth? He realised that she had grown up very quickly since he'd known her. And grown more cynical with it. But it didn't sit well with him. It didn't make him proud to see her mature. She no longer saw him as the father figure, the one who could protect her from the scary monsters. She no longer trusted him, doted on him, even. He realised that he had been depending on her to keep
him
stable, to distract
him
from all that was going on. He needed her as much as she needed him. That's what gave him purpose.

    Pat simply sidled up to Karen, hands in pockets, looking out at the dead. They were so small, so insignificant from so far up. But they surrounded her like a moat. And she seemed reckless, now, unpredictable. Like Princess Karen of The Tower Block, able at any minute to unravel her hair and let it down for them to touch, feel.

    For them to climb.

    The reality of their existence was hitting home to her. He would have to watch her even more closely, now. Because, for Pat, this could be a life. This could be
enough.
Yet, for her, it had become little more than death.

    From that moment, he realised that this tower block was no longer a haven.

    It was a prison.

    And he had to make sure it was locked up tight.

Chapter Twelve

    "Three cans of soup - mushroom, no less. One bottle of water. Half a pound of sugar, some powdered milk and… an out-of-date block of cooking chocolate." Lark listed the contents of the almost-bare cupboard with a hint of irony in his voice. He smiled, once done, stepping away from the kitchen cupboard as if to invoke applause. But no one applauded. The two cops, McFall (still wearing his balaclava) and Geri sat around the kitchen table, wordlessly. Each of them nursed a cup of weak tea, drained from one bag in a full pot.'That's it," he said as if to encourage the credits to roll on his little performance.

    "That's it," George repeated, flatly.

    No one spoke for a while, all five survivors sipping on their tea. McFall burped loudly, somewhat ruining the contemplative moment they had all shared over a bare cupboard.

    "Sorry," he said, smiling, weakly.

    Geri glared at him.

    "Well," said George, before clearing his throat, "we're going to have to do a food run, then."

    "What, out there?" McFall said, shuffling in his chair, nervously. Geri glared at him, again. This time shaking her head.

    "We have to," George said, politely. "It's not like we have any choice in the matter." He looked to Lark, who was still standing beside the opened larder, as if lording over some failed magic trick. "Where's the nearest supermarket?" he asked him.

    "Tesco's," Lark replied, "but I'd say it's been completely pillaged. I think it was one of the first places to be raided," he said.

    Everyone looked to their cups, again, trying to think of other options.

    "What about the off-licence across the road?" Norman said.

    "I think we need more than just booze," replied Lark, shortly. George reckoned he still hadn't got over the previous night's run-in with the cop.

    "Yeah, but a lot of offies do more than just booze, now. There could be biscuits, crisps, tinned foods in there, as well. There'll definitely be soft drinks. Water, even."

    George looked around the room, hoping for other thoughts on the idea.

    "I guess it's as good a call as any," Geri said, clearly in agreement.

    George looked to the other two. McFall didn't seem that interested. The talk was clearly making him nervous. For someone who chose to appear so intimidating, with that ridiculous mask, George couldn't get over how cowardly he was when it came down to it. Every mere mention of the dead seemed to ooze fear from him in waves of heavy-smelling sweat. His main interest in this most recent proposed encounter would be in steering well clear of it.

    He looked to Lark next, the less predictable one amongst their number. He knew that no love was lost between the tattooed man and his partner, Norman, but would they be able to put their differences aside and work together for the greater good, as it were? Or would he need to keep them apart like warring children…

    (Lark, sandpit. Norm, swings).

    A sudden realisation dawned on George - he was playing Sergeant for the first time in a long while. Order had broken down during the whole end-of-the-world thing, meaning that what police remained on the streets worked outside both regulation and rank. Although some troops were drafted in from both the UK and south of the border, they, too, stopped playing by the rules fairly swiftly. Some more swiftly than others, of course. Soon, having a gun and wearing a uniform offered little hope to anyone, least of all the civilians of Northern Ireland.

    His mind travelled back to that final quarantine he'd been on. The little girl. How her mother looked at him as if he had the power to do something for them. How he caged them both in, like wild dogs. That might have been the last time he'd tried (and failed) to act like a Sergeant, to act like it meant anything to be in the force or to wear the uniform. But it was hardly a glorious moment.

    George suddenly felt short of breath, heating up as if in that suit again. The girl looked over to him, concerned.

    "Are you okay?" she asked.

    "S-sure," he smiled, unconvincingly. "I just choked on my tea."

    She smiled back at him, seeming to have bought his excuse.

    "So, it's decided, then?" George said to the others.

    He stood up before anyone had replied, suddenly feeling sweat break across his back. He could sense the eyes of his partner on him. He excused himself from the kitchen, moving out into the hall and quickly up the stairs towards the bathroom. He feigned a cough, as he went, but it wasn't his throat he was worried about. His chest felt as if it were going to explode. He was heating up under his collar. He stepped into the bathroom, locking the door behind him with a shaking hand. A bottle of mineral water stood by the sink. A couple of chemical toilets sat in the bath, unused. He inserted the plug, emptying half the contents of the water bottle into the sink. He tore at his collar, loosening his shirt and removing it, roughly. With cupped hands, he cooled himself with the water. Finally, he sat back on the toilet seat, breathing deeply.