Tim Lebbon - Contagion

FIVE

In darkness and nothing, Jack thought he was with the monsters.

He had an awareness of who he was but not why he was here. He wanted to call his friends, but could not remember their names. He floated, or sank, or rose through darkness so complete that it had form and solidity. It was like swimming in black water, but here he could breathe.

The taste on his tongue was blood.

After an unknown time he started to make out a glow in the distance. At first it was a smudge on the night, a sheen in the blackness. He moved towards it, out of the stark nothingness where there were monsters, and it started to take on form. Countless points of light manifested, like sprinkles of salt on a black sheet the size of a field. The closer he approached, the clearer the image became, and the larger and more malevolent the deep blackness behind him.

That’s my universe . His words were comforting. And as he thought them, the spread of light expanded rapidly until it filled his field of vision and he was inside it, enveloped and part of the light himself, and the blackness was banished to the distance.

Yet he still did not feel safe. He passed through this place that was his, and just off-centre was a warm red glow. It should have been inviting but was not. The warmth should have made him feel safe, but the opposite was true.

The glow was contagion. But it was not his to give.

“And it wasn’t Nomad’s to give either,” he said. His voice was so loud that the stars shimmered, and somewhere beyond he felt a reaction to what he had said. My friends heard me. They fear for me. But I have to make sure . He moved closer to the throbbing red glow and saw that it was a star on its own, but one that contained universes. Impossible, incredible, terrifying universes that he could pass on with a touch, just as Nomad had passed this on to him.

None of this was natural. None of it should exist. His universe was a falsehood made real by a mad woman, and humanity could not endure it.

I’ll always keep it to myself. Always. No matter what.

“Is he dead?”

Hayden had been the last to climb from the car and follow them, but now he was the first to speak.

“No, he’s not bloody dead!” Sparky said. “And thanks would be welcome right now.”

“Thanks?”

“For rescuing you?” Lucy-Anne said. She hated Hayden already and she hadn’t even told him her name.

“Oh, right. Thanks.”

Jenna had parked close to the front of an old discount furniture store, and carrying Jack between them they’d entered and moved quickly through to the back entrance. Lucy-Anne had pulled aside a pile of damp, rotting mattresses to reveal a fire escape, and she’d opened it with a kick. Sparky had then slung Jack over his shoulder and followed Lucy-Anne outside, passing across a small courtyard and along a narrow alley before emerging onto the next street. There, an abandoned Starbucks had become their hiding place. If those things had been pursuing them, they hoped that they’d now shaken them off. But if they did still follow, there was little they could do.

None of them would leave Jack behind, and Lucy-Anne was shocked at how vulnerable she now felt. Without realising it she’d quickly come to rely on Jack to protect them all.

“See if you can find any water,” Jenna told Rhali. “Lucy-Anne, tissues or napkins, anything clean to mop away the blood.”

“Me?” Sparky asked.

“Best keep watch,” she said. Lucy-Anne caught the glance between her two friends; they knew how defenceless they all were now.

She climbed behind the counter and looked for napkins. The place had been ransacked at some point, but a drift of napkins remained on one of the lower shelves. Rhali found some bottled water, and Jenna went about cleaning Jack’s wounds.

“I think it looks worse than it is,” Jenna said.

“You shitting me?” Lucy-Anne said. “His eye’s out, Jenna!”

“No. Eyelid’s slashed, and that makes it look like his eyeball’s damaged. But I don’t think it is.” She mopped blood, and Jack’s eyes rolled.

There were other cuts all across the right side of his face, from his jaw up into his hairline. Jenna cleaned them with bottled water, but that thing that had attacked him, its horrid pincers…Lucy-Anne didn’t like to wonder what germs it carried. She watched Jenna dab at the cuts, and then examine the deep bruise already forming across Jack’s temple and into his hairline.

“That?” Lucy-Anne asked.

“Fractured skull,” Hayden said. In a flurry of movement Sparky was up and at him, a seventeen-year-old boy pushing this thirty-year-old man back against the wall, forearm pressing against his throat, other hand fisted and drawn back ready to punch.

Hayden looked terrified.

“You haven’t earned the right to say a single word about my friend,” Sparky said. He released Hayden as quickly as he’d pushed him, turning back to Jack and squatting beside him. He leaned in close and examined the wounds that Jenna was tending. “So is it fractured?”

“I don’t know,” Jenna said. “I…I don’t really know what I’m doing, Sparky. I can dab the blood away. Given the right kit I might even be able to patch his eye and bandage him up. But…”

She cleaned gently, lovingly. Jack shuddered.

“Come on, mate,” Sparky said. He held Jack’s hand and squeezed, moving his arm up and down, slowly so as not to shift him too suddenly.

“He’s just knocked out,” Rhali said. “That’s all. The thing banged his head.”

“It’s really hard to be knocked out,” Sparky said. “Not like in the movies. You have to do damage to knock someone out.”

Oh no, oh no , Lucy-Anne thought. She had to lean against a table to prevent herself from slumping to the floor, biting her lip and drawing blood. She briefly considered letting herself drop into dreamland, dreaming Jack well again. But it might never last. And her wider fears included not only Jack.

She looked around at the others. Sparky and Jenna at least were thinking the same thing. They’d only known each other for two years, but they’d been through a lot, and she thought they were brothers and sisters. Family. The only family she had left, and she could not bear to mourn any more.

“We’re wasting time,” Lucy-Anne said. “You know that, don’t you?”

None of them answered. Rhali looked up at her, about to speak, but she bit back the words. Hayden shuffled his feet. Jenna paused in her cleaning of Jack’s wounds.

“We can’t just leave him here.”

“I’ll stay,” Rhali said.

“And it wasn’t Nomad’s to give either,” Jack said, and they all held their breaths, ready for him to open his eyes. But he remained unconscious, shuddering occasionally. His skin was growing pale.

“Right,” Sparky said. He stroked Jack’s hand, eyes turning left and right as he thought something through. “Right. How long?”

“About five hours,” Hayden said softly.

“Long enough,” Sparky said. “You said you needed an hour.”

“And peace and quiet. And the right tools.”

“Tools,” Sparky said. “Okay. You and me, we go and find the tools. We’re close to the museum, so the others can rest here, and we go and find what you need.”

Hayden seemed uncertain but he nodded.

“I’ll come with you,” Lucy-Anne said.

“Didn’t for a moment expect you to stay sitting on your arse,” Sparky said, grinning. He knelt beside Jenna. “Half an hour,” he said. “Stay quiet.”

She nodded.

“Stay safe!” Sparky said. He pulled her close and kissed her cheek roughly. “I love you.” There was not a shred of embarrassment to his words.

“We’re going to have to leave him,” Lucy-Anne said as they emerged onto the street. Sparky held a hand up as he checked both ways, then waved them forward. They slipped from doorway to doorway, using parked cars and vans as cover.