Tim Lebbon - Contagion

That red star could change the world, and Jack did not feel that he had any right to do so.

But would he let his friends die? If it came down to it and they were an hour away from the explosion, would he not touch them all, give them Fleeter’s power, and flee from London with them?

He wasn’t at all sure. He saw the way Lucy-Anne looked at Andrew’s wraith, and knew that there were some things worse than death. And if all went well, he would not even be faced with such a decision.

“We’re close,” Andrew said.

“Look,” Rhali said. She had been silent since crossing the river, almost ghostlike herself. Now she pointed along the road, and only then did Jack see the movement. Perhaps Rhali had sensed it for some time.

A group of three strange people were passing across the street, emerging from a narrow side-road and clambering over stalled cars. Creatures from the north.

They ducked down low.

“Rhali?” Jack whispered.

“They’re heading for the museum,” she said. “There are many more there already, and even more still travelling.” She frowned, her thin face pinched. “And there’s something else.”

“ What else?” Sparky asked.

“Choppers,” Rhali said. “At least, I think they’re Choppers. They’re moving as I’m used to seeing them moving.”

“And how’s that?” Jack asked.

“Quickly.”

“Could be more of them,” Jenna said, nodding towards the shapes. A man loped like a wolf. A woman seemed to flow across the road, trailing gossamer limbs that barely touched the ground.

“So where’s this man?” Jack asked. No one answered, no one moved. “Andrew!”

The wraith turned its head, and Andrew’s ghost seemed to be dreaming.

“I said where’s the man who can stop all this?”

“His name’s Hayden,” Andrew said, pointing along the road at a multi-storey car park. “And I left him there, hiding.”

“Let’s hope he listened to you,” Jack said. “If he tried to move on alone, he’ll probably be dead.”

As it turned out, he had not listened.

They climbed the concrete staircase, and Andrew showed them the Range Rover where he’d told the man to wait. It was empty, doors open. There were no signs of violence, but neither was there any sign of Hayden. Wherever he’d gone, and why, he had left them no message.

“Shit!” Sparky said. “So now what?”

“Now we look for him,” Jack said.

“Something spooked him,” Sparky said. “This place sure as shit spooks me.”

Jack nodded in agreement. The car park was half-filled with cars, all of them left here two years ago by people who’d all expected to return.

“So where would he have run if he was spooked?” Jenna asked.

“Up,” Jack said. “Further away from the street.”

“My thoughts exactly,” Sparky said. He slapped Jenna’s butt and ran back towards the staircase door.

“We’ll take the other staircase!” Jack called after him, and Sparky waved over his shoulder. Jenna followed him. She looked scared as she smiled at Jack, and he knew why, because he felt it himself. I don’t like us being split up. Not this close to the end, whatever that end might be . He watched the door swing closed then led the way up a ramp towards the car park’s opposite corner. He didn’t want to miss Hayden by letting him slip down one staircase while they climbed another.

The car park was built on a series of split levels with wide up and down ramps at either end. Jack had been in scores of places like this with his parents, and as a kid he’d loved them, and had even had a model car park at home in which he stored his large collection of toy cars. He didn’t love this one. The parked cars were testament to lives ruined or lost, and now it had become a vertical maze in which their one last hope might be hiding.

But what if he isn’t? he thought. What if he fled an hour ago and is out there in the streets? Jack tried to shake the idea, but his imagination was running riot. Even though he hadn’t yet met Hayden, he saw him being chased along streets by misshapen people, their teeth bared, hunger giving them energy and pace. They would catch him and rip him apart. And somewhere in the mess of brain matter spattered across the dry gutter would die the memory of how to stop the bomb.

“Hurry!” he said to Rhali and Lucy-Anne. “Come on, we’ve got to hurry!” He barged through the door into the stairwell and started up, and then came to a sudden standstill. Rhali bumped into him.

“What?” she said, startled.

“The ramps,” Jack said. “Stupid of me! He could easily just slip down the car ramps while we’re trying to find him.”

“I’ll stay,” Rhali said. “I’ll wait on this level, and if I see him I’ll shout as loud as I can.”

“But what if—?” Jack began.

“I don’t think he’s a threat,” Andrew said. His voice was chilling. “He only wants to do what you want to do and stop the bomb.”

Jack didn’t like any of this, but could only nod in agreement. He watched Rhali walking back between the parked cars as the door swung closed, and he couldn’t help thinking that he would never see her again.

“This is so screwed,” Lucy-Anne said.

“Yeah. Tell me about it. Come on.”

Jack took the steps three at a time. Another staircase, another building, and he expected at any moment to be shot at or attacked, because it seemed that’s what his life had been since entering London. Nomad’s touch throbbed within him, manifested as that amazing, terrible red star, and it had made him the centre of things. None of them had wanted any of that. All of this had been forced upon them, and he felt a sudden rush of intense love and respect for his friends and the way they were handling everything. They could have walked away, but none of them had.

None of them would.

Four storeys, eight flights of stairs, and the stench of the stairwell brought an uncomfortable flash of familiarity—it stank of piss. Every car park staircase he’d ever been in seemed to smell the same, and for a disconcerting moment, before they emerged onto the car park’s open upper level, Jack thought perhaps everything was back to normal.

Then they emerged onto daylight, and awful reality came to the fore once more.

Two creatures from the north were attacking a car. They looked almost human apart from their limbs, which were black and shiny like a beetle’s. They were using them to score metal and pummel glass, and it looked as if they had been there for a while. The car was a mess. Jack thought they’d be inside within minutes, and whoever they were seeking would be finished.

“Hey!” Sparky called from across the car park, emerging from the stairwell on the other side. “Hey, uglies!”

“No, Sparky!” Jack shouted.

The creatures both jumped on the car and watched, back to back, limbs raised in front of them in a defensive gesture.

“Hayden,” Andrew said, and Jack had already seen the pale face at the car’s rear window.

Jack ran. Sparky’s shout had been brave but foolhardy; if they went after Sparky, he and Jenna had nothing to protect themselves with. This was all up to Jack.

He delved deep as he ran, but he already knew that these things were beyond his ken. They had evolved physically, a painful, shattering change that had left most of them half-mad from the continuing agonies, and raging. Even if he could find and touch the ability to do the same, he would not. He thought perhaps that darkest part of his universe—beyond the stars, way out past everything he knew and many talents he did not yet know—was the infinity of their pain, and he had no wish to go there at all.

But perhaps he could communicate with them. Along with their monstrousness came a high level of intelligence, and if he could appeal to that, maybe this would not have to end in more violence and death.