Tide of Souls, page 18
Scrambling back on my arse, fumbling for the P226, knowing there's no time, it's glaring down at me -
Claws reaching down -
The side of its head blows out and it falls sideways onto the deck.
Katja lowers her pistol.
I am really fucking glad, for the record, that I let her tag along.
Airborne. Looking down. The nightmares gathering below, glaring up.
All across the compound, glaring up.
And as we fly out, I see more of them.
They're swimming up through the waters, towards the surface.
Heads breaking water. Staring up. And they're moving.
They're moving after us.
But we're faster. We're leaving them behind. Not fast enough for me, though. Never fast enough.
Joyce moves to the dead nightmare, face white. He grabs its ankles to drag it clear. Dump it.
"No," I tell him. He stares at me. "No."
I'm looking at it, and something is different; something is definitely different. I need to know, we need to know, what.
"We're taking it with us," I say. "Time we got a proper look at one of these things."
"Oh, God!"
Akinbode.
He's cradling his left arm. He's staring at it.
Oh shit.
Even from there I can see the wound in his forearm. I can see it very clearly, because there is white bone gleaming through the mess.
But worse.
Oh, worse.
Far worse.
His hand is swollen. Horribly swollen. He's cut the sleeve open with his knife. The flesh all around the wound is already black and green.
"Oh no. Oh fucking no."
Feeling my hand drift towards the P226 at my belt.
And Akinbode's suddenly on his feet in the doorway, holding his rifle one-handed, and the muzzle whips towards my face, then away, towards Katja's.
And then he puts the barrel in his mouth.
"Akinbode!" I yell.
He pulls the trigger.
He drops down into space.
He hits the water below, and we watch it churn into a bloody froth.
It recedes fast, into a pale, fading spot on the water.
Until Katja stumbles over and pulls the door shut.
Click.
Hassan had set up a temporary hospital in a barn. A trestle table rigged up; the dead nightmare laid out on it. He didn't have much else to do. That was one thing about fighting the nightmares - there wasn't much middle ground. You were either unscathed or you were dead.
"Sarge." He looked up as I trudged in. Tired, gaunt. Dark rings around his eyes. Stubble thickening on his cheeks.
"Hassan. You OK?"
He nodded. "Not enough sleep, that's all."
"What can you tell me?"
"I'm just a medic, Sarge, not a pathologist."
"Give me your best guess."
"The body's not bloated. And the skin... I'm not sure what that green stuff is. Some kind of algae, or mould. If I had to guess, I'd say it's protecting the skin somehow."
"Protecting?"
"From the water, Sergeant. Bodies in seawater decompose very quickly."
"But this hasn't."
"No."
It hasn't started yet.
"So when we hoped they were just going to rot away..."
Hassan nodded. "I don't think they're gonna, Sarge." He rubbed his face. "I don't understand how it works. I mean, the water must get into body cavities, in through the mouth. It should rot them from the inside out. Unless it coats them on the inside too. But then..." he trailed off.
"Like you said, you're not a pathologist. But there is one thing you might want to consider."
"What's that?"
"We're dealing with something that makes the dead get up and walk. That's against pretty much every fucking law of nature I ever heard of. If it can do that, rustproofing the bastards shouldn't be much of a challenge."
It.
The Deep Brain.
Neither of us could add much to that. I didn't know what he was thinking as I trudged back out into the night, but I could guess.
Death, Sergeant. Death is coming.
***
I sat in silence in the bar of the farmhouse kitchen.
Alone. Unless you counted that bottle of Isle of Jura.
I didn't want anyone to approach me. No-one did. Maybe they knew how I felt and respected it. Or maybe they just wanted to keep away from me. Blamed me for it. My fault.
Death is coming.
Parfitt going down under a rush of nightmares. Parfitt, now a nightmare himself, staggering forward. Parfitt falling, brains blown out.
Akinbode. The terror and the despair on his face. His arm rotten and necrotic in fucking minutes. The gun in his mouth. The eyes popping out of their sockets as he blew off the top of his own skull. Dropping back out of sight. And gone.
Akinbode's arm. Alf Mason had quickly fallen ill, had passed out. Katja's friend, Marta - the bite had taken time to kill her. In a rare moment of openness, Katja had described the state of the girl's arm, but it had taken hours to get to that state. Akinbode's had been turning green and black in the time he'd been taken on board the helicopter and into the sky.
It's working faster. Getting more poisonous.
I poured myself another shot.
"Robert. How are you?"
I looked up.
"Can I join you?" asked Katja.
I shrugged. "Free country."
"Is it still?" She gave a thin, tight smile. Good point. God knew what kind of country it was anymore. Whatever was left of it.
She sat. I lifted the bottle. She nodded. I poured a shot.
"Are you OK?" she asked.
"No. I'm not."
"I didn't think you would be." Her eyes were very dark, very frank. "There's nothing you can say, is there?"
"Not really, no."
"When Marta died. I was responsible for her. I felt like I'd failed her. For a while I felt as though I shouldn't be alive."
"Still feel that way?"
"No." A small shake of her head. "But it still hurts. I don't let myself think of it often. One day, I'll be able to. It'll never not hurt. But it will be bearable."
"In time."
"Yes."
"That what you came to tell me?" My voice sounded sharper than I meant it to. She drew back a little. When she spoke again, her voice was more clipped. "No." She looked at me. "Stiles wants to see you."
I stared at her. "He does?"
She nodded.
"That's a switch."
"I don't think it's good news."
"When is it ever?"
"Just go easy on him, OK?"
We walked up towards the Hill.
"I've been going easy on him ever since we got here, hen," I said. "I can't afford to anymore. He said death was coming. Remember?"
"Yes."
"Has he said anything to you?"
She nodded, her eyes lowered.
"What?"
"Something happened last night," she said. "How much do you know about him?"
"Got a basic bio before the mission. I don't know his shoe size or anything."
"Size eight English, forty-two European. I read it on the label." She smiled crookedly. I couldn't keep away a little pang of jealousy.
She knows his shoe size, if he snores or talks in his sleep. All those little things lovers know.
Focus, Robbie.
"Does the name Ellen Vannin mean anything to you?" she asked.
I ran back through the briefing in my head. "No. Why?"
"He woke up screaming it."
"Oh." Maybe a nightmare that didn't relate to this? It could still happen. Maybe.
"Early hours of this morning. He woke up screaming her name. All he said was 'It's Ellen. Ellen Vannin. She's found me.'"
Tears gleamed in her eyelashes. I put my hands in my pockets, because all I wanted was to reach out and touch her. "You love him. Don't you?"
"Yes." A whisper.
"I'm sorry."
"I'm not. I'm not sorry I love him. But..."
"What?"
"He cries, you know? He looks at me sometimes, and... he just... cries. I think... I think it's that he knows I'm going to die soon. We all are. That's why I'm crying, Robert. I don't want to die."
"None of us do."
"Stiles... he said that we all die alone. And he's right, isn't he? However you die. Whoever you're with. In the end, it's always alone."
I nodded. "Yes." I'd seen men die often enough. I knew it was true.
"And I don't want to. Do you know what the strangest thing is? I'm happy here. Meeting him has been the best thing to happen to me since I lost my parents. And it wouldn't have happened without this. Do you ever think that perhaps there is a God, and that he has a very cruel sense of humour?"
"Only explanation that ever made sense as far as I'm concerned."
Katja began to laugh, and she wiped her eyes. She looked around at the fells, the meadows, the woodlands, even the sea that surrounded us, and seemed to see it, really see it, for the first time. "It is very sweet, isn't it?"
"What is?"
"Being alive."
And it was. And to be savoured and treasured and lived, and all of that. And if this had been a movie I would have swept her into my arms and kissed her then and there, rather than go my grave not knowing it. But I didn't. It would have been wrong.
But she took my arm as we walked the rest of the way to the caravan, and I savoured every minute of that. It was as close to her as I was ever going to come.
"Thanks for coming," Stiles said, forcing a smile.
Even for Stiles, he looked pretty ghastly - pale, sunken-eyed, his hands shaking. Two bottles of own-brand vodka stood by the rickety chair he perched on.
Katja sat on the divan, her knees pulled up to her chest. Stiles was breathing, fast and shallow.
"Sorry," he said. "Just... some pain. That's all."
I sat on the other divan. I kept still and didn't speak. I could see the effort he was making, and finally started to realise what he was up against. But I mustn't speak. Mustn't give him the chance to back out. He needed to talk and I needed to listen. Silence was the only help I could give him.
"I know... you came here to find me," he said. "And I know that you don't really know why. And you've a right to know. I'm afraid, though... it won't make much difference."
I felt my stomach hollow and tighten.
"The thing is... the Deep Brain... whenever I think about it... I can always hear it, you see. The voices. The souls. I can always hear them. It's like a screaming in my head, a roaring. Drowning out my thoughts. It's always in my head, Sergeant - never far away. But when I think about it, talk about it..." His voice had risen. His fingertips touched his forehead.
"Ben -" Katja, a hand outstretched. I touched her wrist. Wordlessly, I shook my head.
For an instant, there was fury in Stiles's face. Then it cleared. He straightened up and nodded. He uncapped one of the bottles and took a big gulp. He leant back in the chair, face screwing up, tightening, flushing a violent red, and let out a long, explosive breath. After a few seconds, he opened his eyes again. Forced a smile.
"Takes away the pain, a little."
Swaying slightly, he leant forward again, breathing quick and ragged. He swallowed hard.
"As I said... when I talk about it, the pain gets worse. I'm still not sure... not even now... if it's trying to silence me, or... if it just becomes more aware of me at those times."
I waited.
"Would it surprise you to learn, Sergeant, that I was predicting what's happened as long as five years ago?"
"No," I said at last.
"I suppose not. You're not stupid, after all." He gave a sudden, almost boyish grin. "Not a Nobel prizewinner or anything, but you're not stupid."
"Was that a compliment?" I asked, feeling my eyebrows go up.
Stiles grinned again. "After a fashion."
After a moment, I grinned back.
"Ben." Katja, cutting in on the male bonding. "There isn't much time."
Stiles nodded wearily. "The alcohol's just a temporary aid," he said, "and it's getting less and less effective. The Deep Brain is the only name I've got for what we're facing. I've been aware of it for several years now."
"Since the diving accident?"
"Yes." He pulled a sheaf of stained, rumpled papers out from under the divan. "It's all here. I've managed to write it down, just about. Katja will tell you - I've been up late writing these past few nights. Mostly drunk out of my skull."
I looked at Katja. She nodded. Stiles reached out and took her hand. "Only way I could manage it. Very difficult. Painful. But, this will give you some idea of why you were sent... but as I say, I don't there's anything we can do to stop it."
"That bad?" I asked. Stupid question.
"How do you fight the sea, Sergeant? Men have been trying for millions of years. And it's always won. And now it's starting to move against us in earnest."
A chill ran over my skin. Pretty much what I'd suspected, but now it was confirmed in black and white, so to speak.
"I don't think there's much you can do with the information, to be honest. But I thought you had a right to know."
I nodded my thanks.
"The dead rising was only the beginning. When it had enough control, enough strength, it found ways to preserve the bodies it controls. Also, the waters were thick with silt after the floods. Impossible to see very far. The walking dead are the Deep Brain's eyes and ears. It's split itself apart, a tiny fragment of its consciousness in each reanimated corpse, each independent but linked into a greater whole. It can't keep track of them all at once - imagine having a billion eyes, each moving independently - but it gathers information steadily. And now, with the water clear, it can move in search of survivors."
"Why didn't you warn us when we went to the army base?"
"Would you have listened? Besides, you might have escaped without incident. And it was inevitable we'd need supplies. The same with any other group of survivors. Sooner or later there'd have to be a clash."
"Clash?" What he was describing sounded more like genocide to me.
Stiles sagged, deflated. "It's a word for it. Not a very good one, perhaps. Anyway..." He took another gulp of vodka, his throat working. Squeezed his face tight as the booze hit; he flushed again. "I'm afraid we may be at a particular disadvantage, because I'm here. It wants me, Sergeant, most particularly."
"Why?
"It's all in my notes. Perhaps if you killed me, you might have a better chance."
"Ben!"
"It's true, Katja. On the other hand, it might attack even harder out of rage. Or you could fly me out, far away from here, abandon me on some far-off scrap of land."
"Ben, don't talk like this."
"If it gives the rest of you a chance of survival, Katja, then it has to be done. I'm tired of hiding. I'm tired of being a coward."
"You're not, Ben."
Stiles turned to me. "I've told you pretty much all I can. I don't know any way to fight it, or destroy it. I'm sorry, Sergeant."
"So am I." I got up. There really wasn't much more to say. Stiles wasn't looking at me, but Katja was. Her eyes were bright."You're tougher than you look, Stiles. I'll say that for you."
He looked up and forced a smile. "Was that a compliment, Sergeant?"
I forced a smile back. "After a fashion."
Katja walked part of the way back with me. Stiles had said he wanted to be alone for a while. The fields and the meadows spread out before us; beyond them the glitter of the water that would bring all our deaths.
A thought occurred to me. "You don't think..."
"What?"
"Stiles. You don't think he might do something stupid?"
A moment's unease, then she shook her head. "I don't think so. Not yet. I think he'll wait until the end. When he's sure there's no hope. It'd be stupid - wouldn't it - to kill yourself only to find out you were wrong?"
"You think he is?"
"I wish I did."
So did I.
"What about you?"
"Me? I think, yes, I'll kill myself, rather than let them take me. I don't want to die like that. And I don't want to be one of them. But I've been here before."
I waited. She told me how it had begun for her. Trapped on the brothel's roof with Marta.
"I fought as long as I could, until I was sure there was no more hope. Then I was going to kill myself. Marta too. But we were rescued." She told me the rest then. Her voice faltered once or twice, when she talked about what had happened on the narrowboat. "We went through all of that, just to die here. Hardly seems fair, does it?"
"Life isn't fair."
"I knew that," she said. Of course she did. Even before the floods, she'd known that. "But still..." She shrugged. "Well, I'll do the same. Hold out until I'm sure there's no more hope. Until then..."
She shrugged, looking off into the distance, towards the sea.
"Katja?" She looked at me. "I don't want to die either."
She smiled. Then leant forward, put her hands on my shoulders, and kissed me once, very softly, on the lips. I tried to respond, but she pushed me back, shook her head. "To remember me by," she said. Then she looked away. "I'd better get back."
I watched her walking back up to the farmhouse, to Stiles' caravan. The kiss still tingled on my lips. It lifted me, a little, but there was a cold hard weight in my stomach, and it wouldn't go away. I thought they called it doom.
I've read Stiles' notes. Not an easy task. His handwriting's not brilliant, and the pages are a mess; creased, crumpled, stained - spilt booze, spilt coffee. And what he's got to say is pretty wild. Craziness on craziness. Except that I can't say it doesn't make sense.
It gives me some idea of what's coming, and why. But it doesn't help.
I've been writing this last thing at night, first thing in the mornings. I know Katja's done something similar. Seemed right to leave a sort of record, for the future.
Except there isn't one. Not for any of us.
I was called away. We've just heard.
