Quiet static replaced the silence. Puzzled, I checked the frequency. 98.2. Radio One should have been blurting out some new tune or another, or at least reporting on all this. I turned the dial, slowly running the full length of the FM band. Still nothing. I could feel my own pulse throbbing through my body. Surely
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someone was broadcasting somewhere. Surely they must be.
Flicking a switch on the front I searched the medium and then long wave bands, my head lowered listening intently for anything, any sign of life. For a moment, a brief instant in time, I thought I heard the faint strains of an orchestra drifting in from a galaxy away, but it was gone before I could convince myself that it was really there. Despite creeping the dial backwards and forwards millimetre by millimetre trying to find it again, it was lost in the sea of white noise.
Turning the radio off, I mulled over the options. Either there was no one the length and breadth of the country attempting to broadcast, or something had happened to the radio signal. Maybe somehow it was being blocked. With that flash of thought, I stretched over the counter and grabbed the telephone, pulling the receiver to my ear. Instead of the familiar tone, again all I could hear was deathly static. Slowly, I put it back and leaned against the counter. My hands clammy, I gazed through the vandalised window at the bright day outside, staring at everything and nothing, and my skin tingled both inside and out. If there’d been a TV there, then I guessed that all it would be delivering was snow and crackle. So what was doing it? Some coincidental breakdown in all the communication networks?
Shivering, I remembered Chloe standing silently in the sitting room with that secretive smile on her face, her deadened eyes almost laughing at me. I’m talking to Helena. Maybe the new methods of conversation were blocking the old, all-inclusive ones. I sighed. There were too many maybes filling this morning, and I didn’t have a concrete answer to any of them.
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Perhaps if I went home I could find one or two, but the pain in my heart told me that there was no going back there. Shock was numbing my feeling of loss over Chloe, but I knew that what I was feeling was grief. Chloe was gone. I knew it in my soul. My Chloe was not coming back. Eventually, if no one started to emerge, I was going to have to break into a flat or house to face whatever was happening, but I wasn’t ready for that.
Stepping back out onto the pavement, suddenly aware of the rumbling emptiness of my stomach, I realised that what I was ready for was breakfast. In fact, I was ravenous. Food hadn’t been on the agenda yesterday, and any scraps lingering in my system had been vomited up down by the river.
I jogged across the road and through the small parade of shops until I got to Budgen’s, but frustratingly the double doors to the small supermarket were locked and the shutters down, someone obviously taking their responsibilities very seriously before the world went mad. Cursing under my breath, I kicked the steel and turned outward, venting my anger at everything in that one blow. God, it felt good. I lashed out with my foot again. And then again, the noise echoing loudly, satisfying me that I was alive. Alive and angry and goddamned hungry.
If a shooting pain through the side of my foot hadn’t paused my assault, then I probably wouldn’t have heard the quiet running footsteps pattering away from me. Spinning around, I scanned the surrounding area for any sign or shadow of human life.
“Hello?”
I ignored both the creepiness of hearing my voice aloud and the warning voice in my head that advised
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quiet caution. Who knew what drawing attention to myself would bring out of the silent dwellings that surrounded me?
“Hello?” I called out louder this time, but there was no answer from the hushed walls and bushes. I waited, breath held, but no figure appeared or called back from their hiding place.
Still, unlike the vague hint of music on the radio, this was a sound I definitely knew I’d heard, and my spirits lifted. There was someone else out here other than me, and the fact that they were obviously scared of coming too close went in their favour. It certainly pushed up the odds of them being normal, at any rate. Only an insane person wouldn’t be scared; not if they’d been through anything like I had with Chloe and then stepped out into this empty world. Fear was a healthy emotion and I was quickly learning to live with it.
Feeling buoyed by the almost-contact with another living being, I headed into St. Swythen’s Court, tucked away behind the hairdresser’s and bookshop. There was a little cafe there, and if I was lucky, maybe I’d be able to get my muchneeded breakfast.
In the sunshine the tiny courtyard was picture postcard perfect, more so for the lack of people cluttering it and distracting from its peaceful charm. The small cobbles sparkled, the smooth stones reflecting the bright natural light as if they were glistening with moisture, and for a moment it could have been early on a perfect summer morning. There were even sparrows singing in the trees around me. They weren’t too bothered about the lack of human company. Perhaps
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the whole of nature was heaving a sigh of relief at the respite.
My rumbling stomach threw any more philosophical wanderings out of my mind as I eyed the glass door and chintzy bay window of the small, whitewashed Old World cafe and smiled. This was going to be easier than Morris’s Menswear; even my inexperienced burglar’s eye could tell that. Unlike that thick plated window, the glass here was thin, and turning my face away I jabbed the pane immediately above the wrought iron handle with my elbow, relishing the sweet tinkling of the glass giving way. Once again, no alarm sounded despite the red box on the wall, and I reached my arm carefully through the gap and released the snib lock. With the gentle ring of the connected brass bell, the door swung open before me. The first hungry customer of the day had arrived.
Within moments, I’d lifted the wooden flap that served to separate the public from the workforce and found the kitchen, pleased to hear the humming of the fridge creating a sense of normalcy. Yanking the door open, I peered inside and pulled out some eggs and bacon and a loaf of sliced white bread that the management obviously kept in there to keep it fresh longer. I’d started to fill the kettle when I spied the coffee machine and grinned. Fresh coffee and a fry-up. I couldn’t think of anything that would satisfy my grumbling appetite more, and if there was a morning for spoiling myself, then this was it.
Ten minutes later and the dirty pans were soaking in the large stainless steel sink. I sat down at a small round table covered with a chequered cloth, a steaming mug of strong coffee in one hand and a large plate
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of food in the other. After the second mouthful, my spirits had lifted further and I was almost humming to myself. I should have been tired; in fact, I should have been exhausted, but at that moment I think I was feeling the exhilaration of survival. For a while, my grief was suppressed, part of too big a picture to be real in itself, and all that mattered was that I was alive, that I’d heard the footsteps of another living soul, and that my eggs were perfectly cooked.
Having devoured my breakfast, scraping the last dregs onto my fork, I took my plate to the kitchen and then leaned against the counter, sipping my second cup of coffee and contemplating where to go and what to do next.
I was so lost in my own thoughts that at first I didn’t hear the noise. It was almost not there, a furtive invasion, hoping for recognition rather than demanding it. Getting ready to step back out into the world, I’d just decided to make myself sandwiches to take with me when I finally noticed the gentle tapping coming from upstairs. Staring up at the white ceiling, I tilted my head, focussing on the sound; my body once again fully alert. Perhaps it was just the water pipes or the boiler. This building was old and bound to have quirky characteristics.
The coffee forgotten in my hand, I listened quivering with stillness, my breath short and raspy. There it was again, a rhythmic knocking above my head. It was too regular, too intent to be anything other than manmade. Slowly I put the mug down, ignoring the slight shake in my hand. What was it? Morse code? My heart thumping hard, I moved quietly back through the kitchen and gently opened a door that led into a
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small, carpeted hallway. A dull blue coat and tatty umbrella hung from a hook on the wall. Beside them, the stairs rose up to what was more than likely the owner’s flat and home. The tapping was louder here.
Hesitating in the doorway, not wanting to investigate but knowing I really had no choice, my breakfast felt greasy in my stomach. The uplifted spirits of earlier were fading fast, each tap from above sending a slight bout of nausea through me, and cursing silently I pulled a large knife from the block on the counter and crept forward, leaving the door fully open in case I needed a hasty retreat. The carpet was soft beneath my shoes, and keeping my eyes focussed on the hallway above, I very slowly made my way up the steep and narrow stairs.
The flock-papered walls on either side of me were lined with family photos old and new, and the landing above was no different. A mahogany sideboard was covered with silver and wood photo frames. A darkhaired, plump woman of about forty-five and a balding man of about the same age smiled out from most of them, in the company of two teenage children. A happy family. I paused and absorbed them for a moment before dragging my reluctant attention back to the call of that morbid tapping. It was coming from the room at the end of the corridor ahead of me, no doubt about that, but the almost-shut door left me clues as to what I might find in there.
Flinching as a floorboard creaked under my weight, I gripped the knife handle and edged forward until I could peer carefully through the small gap where the door was open. The narrow field of vision betrayed nothing at first, just a patch of the same patterned carpet stretching out and the tiniest edge of a pale green
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velour sofa, but no clue as to where the surreptitious knocking was coming from, or who was doing it. Slowly, my throat dry and tight with fear, I reached out and gently pressed the chipped wood with my damp fingers until it crept open a few more inches, expanding my range slightly. I still couldn’t see anyone, but something plastic glinted on the floor. Oh God. It was meat packaging. The kind of sealed plastic box that normally filled supermarket shelves with beef and joints of pork. It was empty, ripped open and tossed aside, but a small puddle of blood and meat juice still lingered at the bottom. Oh shit.
Unable to stay in this purgatory of unknowing any longer, I pushed the door again, allowing it to swing open but stayed outside the room, the knife uncertain in my hand. My mouth fell open as I stared, the door separating my rational world from the horror in front of me, framing it like a parody of the family photos I’d left behind in the hall.
A thin man lying on his side in vest and trousers, his body almost hanging off the sofa, dropped the spoon he’d been tapping with, his bare arm lolling to the ground. In the far two corners of the old-fashioned lounge the teenage children were pressed into the walls, unmoving, their eyes sluggish and dim. Something shone on them, covering their skin and clothes, and it took a moment before I realised it was like some kind of gossamer running up from them, shimmering on the ceiling and lights. Whatever the stuff was that was keeping them trapped, it wasn’t the mental force that Chloe had used on me. This was real; it had substance.
My breath throbbed in my ears, drowning all other sound for the moment, as my eyes moved on to the
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dead woman sitting on the carpet, slumped against the TV. Her thick legs were spread, the lower half of her body covered in blood, loose folds of skin escaping from beneath her large floral blouse, reminiscent of obese Americans who suddenly lose all their weight, needing rolls and rolls of unwanted flesh removed.
Staring at the blood and intestines that hung from beneath the hem of her wide skirt, my head filled with the image of my poor dead baby on our kitchen floor, and Chloe’s haunting words: I think there’s something else growing inside me. A new kind of baby.
Jesus Christ. Were they all carrying something inside them? Is that what had killed this woman? Giving birth to something? Resisting the urge to turn and run I stared at her, needing more time to believe the horror of what I was seeing.
She too glistened with the light threads that covered her dazed children and most of the room, but in her case strands of it had erupted from within her, escaping through her nostrils, ears and mouth and wrapping round her body; even the corners of her eyes leaked it. Her dead body was cocooned, but done so from the inside. Had it been her last unnatural act, or had it happened postmortem?
The rasping moan pulled my attention back to the man who’d summoned me up here, his bloodshot eyes meeting mine and reflecting my own terror, urging me to step across the threshold into his nightmare world. His jaw worked silently before he finally got the words out, his body pushed forward on the edge of the sofa in an almost impossible position. How could he stay like that? Why didn’t he fall off the side?
“Help me …”
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I was about to move forward, God help me I was, when from behind him, from where slick sucking sounds drifted towards me, one milky, translucent leg, thin and sharply jointed, came over his side, wrapping round him like a lover, and I froze. I stared at the shiny footless limb in disgust, as another crept over the man, and then another until four held his limp body in place, one at his shoulders, then his waist, his knees and his feet. What the fuck was it? Jesus Christ, just what the fuck was it? And what the fuck was it doing to him?
Looking over his shoulder, I could make out the smooth, curved edges of the creature’s body pulsing behind him, completely inhuman, like some awful pale insect, huge and mutated.