Rich Hawkins: The Last Plague

The woman tried to claw at his eyes. He drew back the crowbar and hit her in the face. She fell back and Frank scrambled away from her, breathing hard, shifting awkwardly on his feet like an amateur fighter.

The woman was on her knees. Skin came away from her legs, peeled by the road surface. She hissed at him through broken teeth. Her nose was smashed and broken, blood dribbling into her mouth and down her chin. Frank hadn’t meant to hit her that hard. He felt guilt and shame for hurting a woman.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

She began to get to her feet.

“Please stop,” Frank said. “This can end now. It doesn’t have to be like this. You need medical attention.”

She ignored him.

“Please stay down. Stay back.” His pleading tone made no difference to her.

The woman stood. She opened her mouth, her jaws clicking. Her face was monstrous in the growing dark. She took a step towards him, a great tension building in her body. A low growl emanated from her throat.

“Don’t come any closer,” said Frank, retreating two steps. “I’ve already warned you. I don’t want to hurt you. I want to help you.”

She lurched towards him, arms outstretched.

It happened so quickly. Time seemed to speed up. All he could see was her leering bloodied face coming towards him.

Frank hit her again with the crowbar. She collapsed at his feet. The back of her skull hit the tarmac with a dull, porcelain crack. Blood pooled underneath her head.

The world went askew. Gravity pressed down on Frank’s shoulders. A sense of surrealism washed over him.

“I had to defend myself,” he said. “I had to…”

The woman wasn’t moving. Her eyes remained open, staring into his face.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you; it was an accident. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

He covered his mouth with one hand. His eyes stung with tears. He muttered and cursed under his breath, shaking his head slowly.

No matter how disturbed and insane she had been, she was a woman. A human being. And he had killed her.

“What have I done?” he whispered, staring at the woman’s cooling corpse, until the sharp cold air bit at his face and he regained his senses.

Noises drifted towards him over the gentle wind. He looked around the street.

Shapes and scurrying forms were emerging from their dark holes and silent places, gibbering and hungry.

They saw Frank.

Frank ran.

Ralph halted on the penultimate step and shone the torchlight into the landing’s darkness. The attic hatch was open. He breathed slowly and quietly. Magnus tensed behind him, holding a brass poker. Joel was waiting at the foot of the stairs.

Ralph stepped upon the landing. The open hatch gaped like a mouth above him. He imagined something plucking him from the landing and hauling him up into the dark.

“Look,” said Magnus, his voice barely audible.

The door to the bedroom, which seemed to be the boy’s judging by posters of superheroes upon it, was open just enough for someone to slip through.

“It was closed before I came downstairs.”

“I see it,” Ralph whispered. He looked at Magnus and nodded. Magnus returned the gesture. A muscle twitched under his left eye.

Ralph placed his hand on the door. He smiled weakly at the Spider-Man poster. Spider-Man had been his favourite superhero as a kid.

He pushed the door open; a low creak, and aimed his torch into the room. Magnus did the same. Ralph paused in the doorway. The room looked like how he had left it when he searched the house earlier. A shelf full of comics. Shrek wallpaper. Posters of Harry Potter, Lionel Messi, and David Beckham. Action figures scattered on a desk. A few books. A box of Lego.

Only one thing was different.

“Oh shit,” said Magnus.

There was a huddled shape on the bed, underneath the Star Wars duvet cover.

The shape was trembling in the torchlight.

Ralph and Magnus looked at each other. Magnus’s Adam’s apple bobbed and moved. He chewed on his bottom lip. Ralph stepped into the room and Magnus followed.

They approached the bed. Ralph felt his heart try to climb his throat.

The shape under the duvet jerked, as if hit by a spasm. The two men froze. Ralph could see Magnus’s hands shaking. Ralph motioned for Magnus to pull back the duvet so he would be ready with the knife if there was something… nasty underneath.

Magnus reached slowly for the duvet. He gently took hold of it between a thumb and forefinger.

Ralph raised his knife.

Magnus pulled back the covers.

A little boy was on the bed. His skin was almost transparent and his eyes were too large within his face. He wore only a white vest and underpants. He shivered in the torchlight. His dark eyes found Ralph.

Magnus stepped back, his face quivering. “Look at him. Fucking hell.”

Ralph couldn’t speak. He ran the torch beam over the boy’s bony, white limbs. A narrow chest. Thinning, coal-black hair.

The boy opened his mouth, and a pale fluid wet his lips, spooling on the mattress. A wheezy sigh. The boy had the look of disease. Ralph had seen black-and-white photos taken of inmates rescued from Nazi death camps at the end of World War Two. This boy could have stepped out from any of those old photos.

“What’s wrong with him?” said Magnus, as if Ralph would know the answer. “What happened to him?”

Ralph shook his head. “I wish I knew.” He covered his nose. The boy stank of vinegar-and-eggs.

Magnus said, “I think his parents left him here. Maybe he started to… change, so they fled. Poor little bastard.”

“Yeah.”

“Do you know CPR?” Magnus asked him.

Ralph shook his head.

The boy stared at Ralph. His breathing slowed gradually until it stopped. His eyes glazed over, fixing onto Ralph until what little light had resided there was gone. Ralph considered checking the boy’s pulse. He didn’t.

“It’s as if he went to bed just so he could die,” said Ralph.

“But what did he die of?”

“Maybe the same thing that was wrong with the woman we found.”

“It’s fucked up,” Magnus muttered.

Ralph averted his gaze to the floor. “I wish we knew his name. No one should die without a name, especially not a child.”

Magnus covered the boy with the duvet and retreated quickly. “What if the boy’s contagious?”

Ralph didn’t answer.

They returned to the landing.

Ralph looked up at the attic hatch. “So what was he doing up there? Hiding?”

“We’ll never know,” said Magnus. “There’s no need to know. Let’s just go back downstairs.”

“Someone should go up there,” Ralph said.

Magnus blinked. “What? Are you mental?”

“Think about it. Do you want to go downstairs knowing there might be someone else lurking in the attic? There’s that thing outside that crashed against the door, and the thing that was shrieking when we first arrived in the village. Those things , whatever they are, are outside. We need to make sure that we’re safe inside the house.”

Magnus sighed. “I’m not having you on my shoulders. You’re too heavy. We’ll need a stepladder to get up there.”

“Not necessarily,” said Ralph.

“What do you mean?”

“You get on my shoulders.”

“Fuck off.”

“We have to know if the attic’s empty. We might have to stay here for the night. Otherwise one of us will have to stand guard here all night.”

Magnus looked up at the hatch. “Bollocks.”

“Come on then.”

“How do you wanna do this?”

“Either you stand on my shoulders or I give you a lift up with my hands.”

“You choose.”