“There we go.” He turned to the rest of us as he straightened up. “Now, there’s a few things I want to show you before dinner. Won’t take long.”
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Following him out into the warm night, I was amazed by how light it was. The whole complex was covered in a series of powerful floodlights, making the grounds far brighter than they had been in the hazy grey light that mother nature had provided; but as I looked over to my left, it seemed that that half of the area was in relative darkness, only an occasional pool of light visible.
“Why is it so dark over there?”
“This morning we decided that it was uneconomical keeping all the systems running all over the site. We’ve got the two generators and plenty of fuel for them in the underground tank, but it seems a shame to waste it. We’re keeping ourselves on this side mainly. The canteen and food store are here and one of the comm centres, so we’re keeping that all on full power, and of course all the cameras are running, but they pick up movement with infrared, so the floodlights aren’t necessary in all areas, and we’ve upped the voltage on the fences.” He peered over his shoulder to make sure we were all listening, especially Jane. “Don’t feel tempted to touch those, not at any time of the day or night. You’ll be fried alive. Obviously there’s a barrier before the fence, just in case, but still…be careful.”
Slightly ahead to our right, a large pond shone in the reflected light.
“That’s pretty.” Janie’s eyes were wide with it all.
“Yes. Yes, nice to sit next to during your lunch hour. When the weather’s good, of course.” That tic in his mouth twitched again. “Not that bad weather seems likely. At least, not cold weather at any rate. And lunch hours are pretty much a thing of the past. How fast things change.”
Sticking to the path, we skirted round the pond and
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came back to where we’d walked when we arrived. A severe grey stone building sat cloaked by trees. From where we stood, I could see the barriers a couple of hundred yards away, and the imposing fence further beyond. Thank God we’d got inside. I didn’t know what would have happened to us by now if we hadn’t. Despite the heat, I shivered.
“This way.”
Whitehead led us up a small flight of stairs on the side of the building and pushed open the heavy door. “This is the communications centre.” The room was full of machinery and computer screens, some with lights flashing, others dead. Compared with the brightness of outside, the yellow light in the windowless room seemed dingy. “Most of this we’re not using. It won’t work, or we don’t know how to work it.”
I followed him carefully down a slim aisle between the desks, not wanting to knock or damage any of the equipment, whether it worked or not. The whole inside of the place looked like it belonged in some kind of spy film or TV series.
“That’s Daniel at the control desk.”
Ahead of us, an unshaven man of about thirty-five in a black hooded sweatshirt raised his hand, but kept the set of large headphones on his head. His eyes moved past me and George, stopping at the women, his expression darkening slightly. He didn’t say anything, but at least smiled slightly. Maybe that was the cause of the “discussion” that Whitehead had mentioned. Maybe the other residents weren’t so keen on being joined by women. I didn’t let it get me down. They were going to have to get used to it. And I was sure they would. They were men, after all, and the whole of our sorry history showed men being suckers
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for women. Besides, if worst came to worst, we would outnumber them.
“Daniel’s our expert at this, really. Most of the hi-tech stuff has stopped working, but the morse is getting through, and so is the voice equivalent, whatever they call that.” He grinned again, more relaxed. “I deal in living cells, not electronics, so this is all alien to me. But it is relatively simple to work. You’ll get some training in the morning when we work out a rota.”
Listening to him, I felt that George had met his match in this highly strung scientist. Between the two of them, I figured they’d probably think of just about everything.
In front of Daniel was a bank of monitors. “Those feed back from the cameras. It was on those two,” he indicated the last two in the middle row, “that I saw you earlier.” Now all I could make out in them was darkness and the vague outline of our abandoned minibus.
George had come alongside and peered closely into one of the monitors. “Where is this camera?”
“Along the back perimeter. There’s a small wood on the other side of the fence and then it backs onto fields.”
He leaned in even closer, his old eyes sharply focussed. “There’s something moving, isn’t there? That’s what these red flashes of light that keep coming up are. Am I right?”
Daniel pulled his headphones down so they sat around his neck. “You’re right. There’s some of those things out there. In the trees.” His voice was deep and had a rougher accent than I’d expected from someone working in a place like this. I guess I just thought they’d all talk like something out of a British World
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War Two film. I watched the red outlines as they dipped in and out of the screen, or maybe bits of the creatures were just being shielded by branches or dense leaves.
“What are they doing?”
Daniel stared with George into the monitor. “I think they’re trying to figure out what to do next. A few got fried on the fence last night trying to get in. We counted about ten, in fact. These ones turned up about twenty minutes ago, but so far they haven’t touched the metal. They’re coming close, but not close enough.” The distaste and hate in his voice was like a low hum buzzing under every word.
“They won’t.”
The finality in my words made Daniel’s head snap round. “What makes you sure?”
“They’ll have learnt from the mistakes of the others. Even if they weren’t here last night. They’ll know.”
Help me … pleeease …
Those hissed words were never going to leave me, just as the first time I heard them would stay etched in my brain.
“Trust me. We’ve learned a little bit about these things on our way here.”
Whitehead shuffled behind me. “It sounds like we’ve got plenty to share with each other over dinner. Daniel’ll stay out here. We’re aiming to keep this room manned twenty-four/seven, and now that you’re all here that should be easier.”
We turned to follow him out of the slightly claustrophobic, sweaty building, but George stayed staring at the screen for a moment or two before squeezing Daniel’s shoulder.
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“Widows. That’s what we call them. It seemed right given what they came from.”
The other man nodded at him before pulling the headphones back up and staring at the monitors, where silent red shapes moved amongst the trees.
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Chapter Sixteen
I don’t know what I was expecting to be served up, but sizzling chicken fajitas and a Mexican beer weren’t on top of the list. They were, however, just what was needed, and within minutes of the dishes being served, I had juice dribbling down my chin, never having been very good at wrapping the damned things.
The canteen was cosy, the long tables and benches made of pine, creating a less austere regulation atmosphere. It felt more like we were eating in a school than a government facility. The chef for the night, Michael, came out of the kitchen and joined us, but took his seat at the far end of the table opposite Nigel. He was older than Whitehead and Daniel, easily in his fifties, and I noticed with a glance down that he had a wedding ring on. For a second I considered telling him that it really would have made no difference if he’d left the safety of the compound and gone home, but I figured that was for him to work out by himself. He smiled and seemed friendly enough, but didn’t really make any effort to join in the conversation.
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“I thought you said there were five of you left?” John swilled his messy mouthful of food down with a long swig of beer. “Where are the other two?”
Unlike the rest of us, Chris rolled his tortilla with precision, not a drop of juice or sour cream escaping. “They’re out doing a patrol. Checking the perimeters. Obviously the cameras keep a pretty good overview of things, but it doesn’t hurt to be safe.”
George nodded. “It seems you’ve got it all pretty well sorted out, given the situation. Remember, we’ve got those two guns with us if you need some weaponry on patrol. We’ve taken on a couple of the widows. You’d need something.”
Whitehead smiled. “Don’t worry, we’ve got guns. This is a government place after all, and until a couple of days ago we had a pretty large contingent of army chaps here.” He left his beer untouched, sipping water instead. “We have our own armoury, and a few grenades and equally delightful toys the boys in green left behind in case we needed to defend ourselves.”
Most of the meal was taken up with the retelling of our trip to Hanstone, and how we’d all met. I left out the detail of Katie and the widow in the pub, how it hadn’t attacked us. With everything else that had happened, it didn’t seem important anymore. I said a little bit about what happened to Chloe, and I noticed Michael listening pretty intently to that. Rebecca shared a bit, slowly answering questions on paper, or with nods and mimes if it was quicker.
She lived in a flat annexed to the home where she worked for handicapped children-Meadowbank. That was where she’d got the bus from. The children weren’t deaf, but had severe difficulties, mainly a combination
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of physical and mental handicaps that made it difficult to do anything for themselves. She spent most of her time trying different light therapies and vibrations with them, as well as the ordinary day-to-day nursing things like bathing and feeding them.
She hadn’t really noticed anything wrong around her. Most of her days were so involved in just taking care of the children that she didn’t have time to see if nurses were off sick, and it was the kind of place where people did have time off. It was stressful work, and if you weren’t at your best it was no good coming in. She did notice that a few had put on weight, though, but she hadn’t mentioned it. A flicker of tired humour had crossed her face as she’d scribbled, Women don’t mention putting on weight. Only losing it. Not to each other’s faces, anyway. And then she’d got gastric flu and been really sick. Sicker than she’d ever been in her life. If you were sick at Meadowbank you had to stay off until you were completely better or you’d risk infecting the children, and so by the time she was well enough to go back in it was all over.
She paused, put her biro down and took a long drink from her beer, taking almost half the bottle down in one go. The rest of us stayed silent, just staring at her as she shut us all out for a moment, and for the first time since I’d met her, I saw the true depths of her soul in those dark eyes. I wasn’t the only one to see it. She was a special person. A good person. I wondered how many were left amongst us. I felt ashamed for how I’d treated her when we first met. I should have seen her properly then. Not been so caught up in all my own crap.
Unlike the rest of us, she hadn’t tried the radio and phones, and her first real knowledge that something
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was very, very wrong was when she’d stepped into the main building of Meadowbank that morning. Like Oliver Maine, she’d missed day one of the new world completely, lying in her bed feeling sorry for herself.
The reception area was covered in the white stuff. Huge ropes and strands spread across the surfaces along with some foul smelling slime. When she went upstairs, she found the children all dead. Not cocooned, not being eaten, just dead. There were pillows on the floor that maybe hinted at suffocation. She didn’t know what had happened. She didn’t really want to know.
As she recounted this part of her story, her face had tightened and her scribbling became more frantic. She wanted this bit of the story to be over quickly; you didn’t have to be a body language expert to tell that.
There were three of the widows in the building that she came across. Two were eating their way through the cocooned bodies of Nurse Harold and Nurse Garner in the small playroom. The third dropped from the ceiling in front of her as she ran back down the stairs. It stared at her, it’s jaws working and then leapt over her, leaving her free to run. And run she did. It wasn’t long after that she found the rest of us. She’d been going to head for London.
“I wonder why it didn’t attack you?” While the stories were being told, Katie had gone and made coffee, and George spooned three sugars into his mug.
Rebecca shrugged. Katie gave me a stern warning glare, but I didn’t feel the need to share our experience at The Plough with the rest. If it meant anything, we’d figure it out when the time came. I poured myself some coffee and lit a cigarette. I figured that the severe no smoking signs plastered to every wall were no longer
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relevant and if anyone tried to enforce them then I’d tell them where to shove it. Not particularly liking my newfound aggression, I inhaled and asked the question I’d been waiting to get to all evening.
“So, what’s the cause of all this, Chris? You’re the doctor, the geneticist. You must have some idea.”
He leaned forward, his elbows resting on the table. “Genetically modified food. That’s where the smart money is. They, or I suppose I should say we, let it get out of control.”
“GM foods? But we’ve been eating those for years and never had any problems.” Nigel sneered from behind his beer, and it was nice to see even our friendly mad scientist send him an irritated glance.
“That’s a fool’s argument. I think we can definitely say we’ve got some problems now. Just because the results aren’t immediately apparent, it doesn’t mean that things aren’t definitely going on beneath the surface. Remember Thalydomide?”
George stuffed his pipe, and I hoped he’d remembered to pick up a couple of packs of that tobacco when we’d been in Woburn. He lit it before speaking. “But how? How could they mess with the genes of crops to this extreme? It sounds crazy, even for our government.”