The words hit Leon like a slap on the cheek. “What are we gonna do?”
“I really don’t know. I…really don’t know.” Leon could hear Ben’s breath whistling through his nose. “Well, for starters, when it’s light enough, we need to get off this train.”
“That’s what Mom said we should do.”
“Good girl. That’s what we’ll do, then.”
“What about James?”
Ben shrugged. “If he’s OK and he wants to, he can come along with us. That all right with you?”
Leon nodded.
The old man was quiet for a while. Then finally, he stirred. “So, your father…does he work in America?”
“Yeah.”
“What does he do?”
“Shares and markets an’ stuff. He works on Wall Street.”
“And you, your mother, and sister came over here for a holiday?”
“No, we live here now. Mom and Dad split up, like, eight months ago.”
“That’s not very long ago. How’s your mother been coping with all of that?”
“She keeps real busy. That’s pretty much how she copes.” Leon didn’t want to give him any more than that. Ben Mareham seemed like a nice old guy, but they were all just strangers in a crisis, and his mom was always telling him and Grace that if friends asked what the deal was, they could just say it was “complicated” and leave it at that. She was like that, tight-lipped.
Leon changed the subject. “Do you think anyone’s gonna come looking for us?”
“I don’t know. The power’s down. It looks like the telephone system is down as well. It’s not looking very encouraging, is it?”
“No.” Leon shook his head. “I…I’m pretty scared, Mr. Mareham.”
“Me too. But that’s a perfectly sensible thing, to be scared. It means you’re keeping your wits about you.”
“We’re not going to survive, are we?”
“I have no idea what’s going to happen, Leon. Whether this is some horrific crisis that’s going to be cleared up in a month, like they always inevitably seem to be, or whether this is the viral outbreak that doomsayers have been warning us all about for God knows how long. But you, Leon, have more than yourself to think about. Your little sister? Your mother?”
“Mom? She’s OK. She—”
“I suspect your mother is brittle.”
Leon looked at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“She’s the brittle type—”
“You don’t even know my mom. You just spoke a few words with her earlier.”
“I’m not criticizing her! In fact, she reminds me of my daughter, Margot. Strong. Very strong. You can throw the world at a person like that and they can take everything you hurl at them. They can take it.” Mr. Mareham looked away. “Until one day they…can’t.”
Leon understood that. He’d had that feeling about her for a while. Like that old kid’s game Buckaroo!, where you piled up a spring-loaded plastic mule with a load of junk until that spring finally clicked and the mule buckaroo-ed. All her false cheeriness, all her bravado, all that positive spin on everything… Part of him had been waiting for a monumental crash, a nervous breakdown.
Now this.
“I’m just saying, Leon, that you need to help her. Just keep an eye on her.”
“We’re staying together, right? You, me, Mom, Grace?”
“Of course. We all want to get to Norwich. Like everyone else on the train.”
“But we can keep together afterward? Right?”
The old man sighed again. “Let’s get to Norwich first, lad.”
They sat in silence for a while.
“Tomorrow morning,” Leon started. “What about James?” Leon wanted him to be OK. He seemed smart and proactive. He’d been the first one to react. He’d basically saved everyone on the rest of the train by acting decisively. They needed him.
“We’ll have a look in on him and see how he is. You should go get some rest, Leon.”
“You coming back to get some sleep too?” Leon asked.
“I’m not going to get any sleep wherever I am. But you should try. When it’s light enough, I’ll come back and wake you.”
“Then we’re definitely heading outside?”
“We really can’t stay here…so, yes, that’s what I suggest. We can walk to Norwich.”
“OK.”
Chapter 20
Leon opened heavy-lidded eyes and stared stupidly at the smudged window his head had been leaning against; the natural grease in his hair had produced a spiral pattern. Beyond the glass his eyes slowly focused on the steep bank carpeted with thick, dark-green nettles that swayed gently in the breeze.
It took him a full minute for his sleepy mind to realize it was much lighter now. It was time to make a move. He looked around the car. One or two others were beginning to stir and stretch, aching from a night of uncomfortable sleeping.
Leon’s mom was asleep, her neck cocked at an angle that was going to make it stiff and sore when she came to. Grace was still fast asleep on her lap.
“Morning.” The lady with the long nails gave him a warm smile across the aisle. “You OK, love?”
For a moment he struggled to remember her name; then it came back to him. “Yes, thanks, Eva.”
He rubbed his temples. His head throbbed dully with fatigue…and stress, predictably. On the Richter scale of his usual headaches, it was just a minor tremor though.
“Yeah…” He craned his neck. “Where’s Mr. Mareham?”
“The old man?”
“Yeah. He said he’d wake us up when it got light.”
Eva shrugged. “I only just woke up myself.”
Leon pulled himself up out of his seat, stood, and stretched the stiffness out of his limbs, then looked down both sides of the aisle for any sign of Ben.
Pretty much every seat was taken. Ben must have decided to remain in the compartment, then. Sleeping on the cold hard floor, if that was even possible.
“I’m gonna go wake Ben. He said we should get out of here when it was lighter.”
Eva nodded eagerly. “No way I want to stay cooped in ’ere another day.”
Leon pushed past the half-open door into the space beyond. It was still gloomy. The small windows in the car doors let in only a small amount of the dull, gray light from outside.
Jeez. It stank in here. The smell from the toilet compartment had had the night to stew and fester and was now producing a heady, eye-wateringly bad odor.
He stepped across the segmented rubber matting. “Mr. Mareham?”
No answer.
“It’s Leon. You said we should make a move when it got…” He squeezed past the luggage rack into the other half of the linking foyer and stopped dead in his tracks. His eyes struggled to assemble what he was seeing into something that made any kind of sense.
The first thing that he did recognize was Ben’s polished black shoes, on their side, one on top of the other, like twins in a bunkbed. Above them, the light-gray flannel cuffs of Mr. Mareham’s trouser legs had risen up an inch to reveal a playful pair of lime-green socks. It was the next part that didn’t make sense. At the knees, the material was dark and spots of moisture had soaked through, becoming a solid stain of dark brown as the material approached Ben’s waist. The last thing that Leon could make sense of was the waistband of his trousers and the bottom of his shirt, which, once, had been a crisp, freshly laundered white, but was now a mottled-sepia color.
The shirt disappeared into a tangled mass of quivering, dark jelly that reminded him of the drippings Leon’s mom used to set aside in a tray on the counter when making roasts on Sundays. In among the jelly, he thought he could make out the uniform curve of ribs and the distinct disc segments of a spinal column.
He fought the urge to retch as he finally compreh
ended what he was seeing.
The skeleton of Mr. Mareham, poking through the jelly here and there, was unaffected, un-liquidized, and told an instant story. Ben had died as he slept. The bones indicated he’d been lying on his side, knees drawn up, hands balled beneath his rolled-up jacket, propping up his bloody, tufted-scalp skull.
Leon retched and vomit spattered the floor in front of his tennis shoes. He reached out and steadied himself.
Oh shit… Oh God.
His eyes were getting used to the pale gloom and picking out more details. The dark jelly that used to be Ben Mareham seemed to have spread in a peculiar way: thin filament lines snaked and weaved in all directions across the rubber-mat floor.
He quickly looked down at his shoes to check if he’d stepped on any.
No.
He traced the lines, picking up on one tributary that seemed thicker and more established than the others around it, thin lines that fanned out and came to feathery dead ends. He followed this line, increasing in thickness until it started to look like a length of electrical cord, then thicker, like tarred rope. It squeezed through the narrow gap beneath the door and disappeared into the next car.
He stepped carefully up to the door and peered through the scuffed window.
“God, no!” he gasped and took an involuntary step backward.
There was even less of James left…
The dark tributary that had sneaked under the door in the last couple of hours had…
Oh God.
…had been a part of James reaching out for a part of Ben.
…James…
…reaching out for Ben…
…making contact with him as he slept…
Right behind him, Eva screamed. “OhmyGod he’s dead!” Her hand grabbed his shoulder, her long nails digging in. “OhmyGod! OhmyGod! OhmyGod!” She pulled him roughly backward by the arm. “It’s got inside!”
Leon wanted to shake her off. Wanted to take another few seconds to make sure he fully comprehended what he was seeing—not with ghoulish fascination, but with a desperate need to understand how they were all eventually going to end up.
He also wanted to run.
She dragged him back into train car D. “Everyone!” she bellowed.
Those few who were still fast asleep jerked wide awake; the rest all spun to look in her direction.
“Get out now! Get out now!”
Leon caught his mother’s eyes. They were wide, round, and questioning. He nodded at her and then looked at all the other eyes locked on him and Eva. “She’s right. We… W-we have to get off this train. Now.”
One of the lads who’d been drunk earlier stood up. “Hold on. The warnings ’ave been that we got to stay inside, not go out and—”
“It’s inside now!” yelled Eva. “It’s in our car!”
“What?”
“It got under the door…got Mr. Mareham while he was sleeping…and it’s growing this way!”
A wave of voices and gasps rippled down train car D. Leon saw faces crammed into the doorway at the far end, and over their shoulders, other faces appeared, trying to listen to the commotion going on this end.
“Growing… What the hell does that mean?” asked the man. He looked much less like a smart city trader this morning, with his disheveled hair and untucked pink office shirt.
Leon’s mom stood up protectively in front of her son. “Leon? What’s happened to Ben?”
“The virus…it’s grown, Mom. It came right under the door, like a fungus or something,” he started quietly. For the benefit of everyone else listening, he raised his voice. “This thing is growing…feelers, tentacles…or something, across the floor, like it’s…like it’s looking for us!”
“It found that old man,” added Eva loudly. Her shrill voice carried down the car like a police siren. “Turned him to…mush!”
Leon’s mom stepped past both Leon and Eva, pushing through the half-open door into the gloomy compartment beyond. The car went quiet, awaiting her return. Seconds later, she reappeared ashen faced. She looked ready to faint or vomit.
“We…we can’t stay here any longer,” she said quietly to Leon. She looked down at Grace. “Come on, honey, get your things. We’re getting off.”
“Mom? But…what if—”
“Now!” she screamed.
“Where are you going?” asked the young man.
“It’s light,” she replied. “The warning mentioned flakes, like snowflakes. We can see them coming down now.”
Every pair of eyes in the car was on her.
“And I don’t think anyone’s going to come for us.”
• • •
Leon jumped down onto the gravel beside the tracks with a heavy crunch.
The noise startled some birds roosting on the electric cables above, and they scattered into the cheerless, gray sky with the sound of beating wings.
The sight of them was vaguely encouraging. Birds…are they immune?
He held out his hand for Grace and guided her down, then his mother. He heard the impact of other feet landing to his left. Word appeared to be spreading quickly down the train that outside might be a safer bet than staying on the train. Doors were swinging open, and other passengers were hastily joining the exodus.
He held out his hands for Eva. By some unspoken arrangement, Eva had become part of their group.
Leon’s mom turned toward the front of the train. Ahead of them was C, the car they’d started in, then B, the car that had first been infected. Beyond that was A and the driver’s cabin at the very end. Then it was a straight, empty track flanked by raised banks as far as she could see.
“Norwich has to be that way, then,” said Leon.
Leon’s mom stared warily at the cars ahead of them.
“Mom?”
She stirred. “Yes…yes…I know. We have to go that way.”
Leon stepped slowly forward, loose stones clattering beneath his feet. He veered to the right, off the gravel bed and up the lower slope of the embankment, as far as he could get to the right before nettles and brambles stopped him, giving the cars as wide a berth as possible.
He led the way forward, past C, toward B, the first of the two first class cars. Behind him he could hear his mom’s footsteps, Grace’s, and Eva’s. Morbid curiosity compelled him to look to his left to try to snatch a glimpse of what was inside the first class cars.
He found a break in the nettles and brambles and clambered several steps up the steep bank until he was high enough to look down and into the front part of the train.
He heard his mom telling Grace to keep walking, to not copy Leon. Just keep walking and looking forward, hon. They passed by below him as Leon slowly scanned the length of coach A. Every window appeared to have a delicate pink lace curtain drawn across it for modesty, as if each one were a dear old lady’s dressing room.
But they’re NOT curtains, are they?
They were sheets of fine, semi-opaque membranes revealing vein-like threads within, and hinting at the slaughterhouse horror beyond.
Shutter-click images of Ben and James flashed into Leon’s head: the soft tissue of their bodies melting, leaving behind raw bones that dangled unwanted or unneeded shreds of cartilage; their clothes stained dark, hanging on empty frames, like poorly stuffed scarecrows.
You don’t think about Ben, OK, Son? Leon’s dad’s firm voice, scolding him. You do not replay what you saw. He’s gone. James is gone. All those poor bastards in there are gone. They’re in a better place now.
OK, Dad.
That’s my boy, MonkeyNuts. Now…you just think about walking to Norwich.
Leon took several staggered steps back down the embankment and hurried to catch up with the others.
“I don’t want to know what you saw,” his mom said quickly.
Leon nodded.
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They were in front of the train now and swerved back onto the train tracks, preferring the wide-open way ahead, the gravel, the ties, the rails, rather than the steep bank, with its nettles and brambles and the stunted overhanging trees at the top that cast forbidding shadows.
He turned around and saw that they were at the head of a long trail of bedraggled commuters picking their way slowly between the train tracks.
You listen to what that old guy said, Son. You help Mom where you can. She’s strong, but she’s not Wonder Woman.
He trudged in silence beside Grace and his mom. He reached out and put a protective arm across his sister’s shoulders. Forty-eight hours ago she would have gone ewww and shrugged him off. Forty-eight hours ago, she was giving her lame older brother advice columnist tips.
She let go of their mom’s hand and squeezed his gratefully.
Chapter 21
About ten o’ clock in the morning, the sound of crunching gravel and weary footsteps was broken by someone calling out for everyone to stop. Leon turned to see a young woman waving her phone around like a rallying flag.
“Hey!” she shouted. “I’ve got a signal! I’ve got 3G!”
The news caused everyone to stop trudging along the tracks and turn to converge around her. Most people’s phones had been dead this morning. There were just a few people with a trickle of battery power left. There was a hope—everyone was thinking it even if they weren’t saying it—that the world was still out there, phone networks still operating, internet still alive and well, power stations running, law and order…somebody still making decisions. And the only reason they were getting nothing on their phones was that the train had dumped them in a signal black hole.
Leon, Leon’s mom, Eva, and Grace joined the crowd gathering around the woman.
“BBC website!” said someone quickly. “Don’t mess about, love! Get the news website!”
“OK, OK.” She sounded hassled as she tapped at the screen. “What is it…BBC dot com? Or—”
“Here…” Someone snatched her phone off her and directed her browser. Faces pooled around the dull screen, brightness turned down to preserve what was left of her charge. They waited for the page to load.