‘Oh, come on, that’s crazy—’
‘No. We’ve seen the virus can make crabs out of itself,’ cut in Spanners. ‘I’ve seen bigger things. Rabbit sized . . . dog sized.’
Freya turned round. ‘Right, but not an actual rabbit or dog, right? Not something you’d actually mistake for one?’
Just then they heard a baleful cry from beyond the door, like the sound of some animal finally comprehending the purpose of a slaughterhouse . . . recognizing its impending fate. They all looked at each other.
‘That didn’t sound like a horse . . .’
‘All right, that’s enough!’ Ron bent down to pick up the drum of fuel. ‘We’re going to burn whatever’s in there now. I want you all to step back. Get right back!’
Grace broke free from Leon’s hold, raced forward and grabbed at the plastic gallon drum. ‘No, don’t! Please, don’t kill it!’
‘Let go, Grace.’
She hunched over the drum, grasping the handle tightly.
‘Leon, get your sister, please,’ said Terry.
Leon stepped forward. ‘Come on, Grace . . .’
‘No! Leon! Don’t let them kill it!’
He peeled her fingers off the drum’s handle and dragged her back, kicking and screaming. ‘Grace, for God’s sake!’
‘Dave?’ Ron looked at his deputy manager. ‘Fire extinguishers. Get two of them. I don’t want to burn the whole bloody place down!’
Dave nodded and hurried off.
Freya hunkered down and tried soothing Grace. She was sobbing, her face buried in her crossed arms.
‘You’re absolutely sure about this, Mr Carnegie?’ said Leon. ‘About what you just saw?’
Ron nodded. ‘It . . . it’s a copy, like a goddamn photocopy. Completely, a hundred per cent convincing . . . until I touched it.’
They heard the clanking of fire extinguishers and Dave’s approaching footsteps.
‘All right, then,’ said Ron, drawing in a deep, fluttering breath. He picked up the drum. ‘Terry, will you take one of those extinguishers? The rest of you, back up some more. I’ve got no idea how big a fire this is going to make.’
‘Anyone got a match?’
‘Here.’ Spanners handed him his lighter.
‘Come on, back up . . . everyone!’ Ron shooed them with his hands. They all stepped away from the door, picking their way back past the empty spa pools into the humid warmth of the tropicarium, but all of them still close enough to watch.
Ron turned to Terry and Dave. ‘I’m going to splash around what I’ve got in here, light it and we’ll give it about a minute, then we go in again and put it all out. Agreed?’
‘I . . . uh . . . I’m not going in there,’ said Dave. ‘Can’t we just spray it from outside?’
Ron glared at him. ‘Jesus Christ . . . just do what I said, will you!’
‘Give it to me,’ said Spanners. He took the extinguisher from him.
Ron shook his head at his deputy. Then took another deep breath. ‘Right.’ He turned the handle and pushed the door inwards. ‘Here goes.’ He stepped into the dark storeroom, the other two following in behind him.
Leon watched them disappear through the open door into the storeroom’s darkness. He was still holding Grace firmly. And she was still sobbing. ‘It was so beautiful,’ she whimpered.
‘It’s got to be done, Grace.’
Dave had backed up and was standing beside them. ‘We shouldn’t have let it in in the first place,’ he muttered angrily.
Leon could hear murmuring voices inside the storeroom, echoing out through the open door, but not clearly enough for him to hear what they were saying. He could hear the scraping of feet, the clank of the fire extinguishers, the first slosh and splatter of diesel fuel being poured out.
Then he heard . . .
‘That’s not all of it?’
‘Where’s the rest? . . .’
Then . . .
‘Shit! . . . Ron! Look out!’
CHAPTER 43
Leon heard Spanners’s voice. ‘They’re everywhere!’
Then Ron’s, screaming, high-pitched with terror. ‘HELP ME!’
He heard the loud clang of one of the extinguishers being dropped on the floor and something else that made his legs suddenly feel boneless and useless: a hissing sound. In the same way a single hand clap sounds like a clap while an audience applauding can sound like rain . . . the hissing sounded like white noise. Leon knew what it was – he recognized it from the service station – the sound of thousands of tiny pincer-like legs scrabbling for purchase against a hard, smooth surface.
He leaped forward, hurrying towards the open door, not sure what his plan was – to help Spanners and the others get out, or to pull the door shut?
‘Leon!’ screamed Grace. ‘No!’ She grabbed at the back of his shirt. ‘Don’t go!’
And because of that he didn’t make it to the door in time. They swarmed out of the dark interior of the storeroom, a heaving carpet of mother-of-pearl-coloured carapaces. Bigger than the ones from the service station, palm-sized bodies, but the same random configuration of legs, and claws, but this time with long antennae-like feelers, like a cat’s whiskers.
The larger scale didn’t slow them down. In fact, they moved faster, frighteningly fast on legs that had been refined to move more efficiently. They made a beeline towards the nearest fresh meat: Leon and Grace. She clawed at his shirt.
‘RUN!’
He backed up, tripping over her. He managed to stagger around her and keep on his feet, but his weight had knocked her to the ground, landing on her belly.
The nearest of them leapt – actually launched itself – through the air at her prone body, landing at the top of her back.
Leon grabbed one of her flailing hands and dragged her behind him, kicking and screaming as the creature dug its barbed pincer legs into her sweatshirt and clung on. With her free hand she tried reaching round and tugging and slapping at it, but it hunkered down in the valley between her shoulder blades, fine jointed legs receding like a tortoise into the carapace, tugging the clenched material with it, clinging on, as impossible to dislodge as a limpet.
Leon managed to get her on to her feet just as the rest of the swarm caught up with them. More of them launched themselves from the ground at him. He batted one away with his hand, a hard razor-sharp edge slicing open the pad of his thumb. He staggered backwards to where he’d been standing with the rest of the group just moments ago, but they’d now broken and fled in different directions into the tropicarium. Dave, however, was still standing there, a squash racket in his hand. He stepped forward and swung it at a crab that had landed on Leon’s upper arm. It spun off, jetting an arc of pale gunk behind it and leaving behind a broken-off pair of pincer legs that continued to flex and twitch as Leon pulled them from his hoody.
The swarm of crabs caught up with the three of them, most streaming past them in pursuit of the others, but dozens were now starting to try to clamber up their legs. Leon stamped on one trying to gnaw its way into his left trainer. Its shell crackled and spurted gunk out on to the ground.
‘It’s CUTTING INTO ME!’ screamed Grace. Leon looked down to see the creature that had latched on to her back had now climbed higher and had burrowed itself in her long dark hair.
Beside him, Dave swung the racket at everything airborne, the fibres of the racket zinging as creatures spun off like well-returned serves. ‘Shit! Shit! Shit!’ he was shouting.
We’re dead this time. That was all that was in Leon’s head. He was about to reach into Grace’s tangled hair to try to extract the creature lodged in there when one landed on his cheek. Razor-sharp points dug into his flesh immediately. Instinctively, he let go of Grace and with both hands clawed at the creature on his face. As he tugged at it, he could feel the thing tensing, barbed hooks burrowing deeper, his cheek being tugged painfully as he tried to remove the creature from his face.
He could feel a fine articulated arm fumbling blindly for somethin
g else to latch on to. It found his nose, his left nostril and something sharp curled up inside. He could feel dozens of other crabs taking advantage of his distraction, clambering up his legs, pinpricks like kitten claws, hopscotching up towards his torso.
Leon heard himself screaming. An out-of-body voice, someone else dying, not him. He felt pricking around his waist, circling round to his back. It felt like dozens of them, it felt like hundreds, a Lilliputian army jabbing at him with tiny spears and swords, death by a thousand paper cuts.
Then it all stopped.
Very suddenly, every one of them froze. For a moment, he felt like an over-decorated Christmas tree, standing there covered with rustling, crackling creatures, poised and motionless. Then they dropped off him. One after the other, they just loosened their hold, clattered to the floor and scuttled away.
He looked about for Grace. She was on the ground beside him, tucked into a foetal curl. He saw the creature that had been tangled in her hair slowly making its way down her shoulder and hopping on to the floor. One of its pale pincer arms was covered in her blood. It held that aloft, like a trophy, like a captured flag, and as it joined the others, they clustered around it, their whisker-like antennae reaching out and stroking the bloody pincer, caressing it. He had a sense they were all trying to get a sample of it.
‘What’s happening?’ whispered Dave.
Leon shook his head. ‘Grace? Grace? You OK?’ He squatted down beside her.
She uncurled herself, and looked at him. Wide-eyed with terror.
‘You OK?’
She nodded. She reached round to the back of her neck and dabbed her hand there. She showed Leon the blood on her fingers. ‘It . . . it was digging deep. I . . . thought . . . it was getting inside. I thought I was going to d-die!’ Leon turned to Dave, begrudgingly wanting to thank him for staying put and helping them, but he was staring intently at something.
‘What the—?’ said Dave.
They looked where he was looking. The swarm was heading back towards the storeroom, back to the place from which they’d all emerged moments ago. The other creatures that had rushed past them to pursue the others scuttled back too, giving Leon, Grace and Dave a respectfully wide berth as they did. The one creature with the bloody pincer held aloft like a victory banner was right in the middle, surrounded on all sides. Protected like some timid, crowd-shy pop star amid a mob of hired heavies.
‘They stopped . . .’ said Dave. He looked at Leon, then at Grace. ‘They stopped.’
‘Jeez,’ Leon gasped. ‘I know, but . . . why?’ He watched the swarm converging in the doorway, clambering over each other like a haul of shellfish caught in a trawler’s net.
He hunkered down beside Grace. ‘You OK?’
She was staring at the blood on her hands. Her blood. ‘I . . . I could feel it . . . trying to get in . . . me . . .’ Her face crumpled and Leon wrapped his arm round her. She sobbed into his shoulder.
He could hear the others elsewhere in the tropicarium, their voices echoing off the glass roof. ‘What about Ron? Terry? Did they get out?’
Freya’s voice among them. She was calling Leon’s name.
He looked up at Dave. ‘Thanks for hitting that crab off me . . .’
Dave was staring down at him. He’d taken an involuntary step back. ‘They stopped . . . because . . . of . . . you, or maybe it was her.’
‘What?’
‘They . . . tasted her.’ He backed up another step. ‘They bloody well sampled her . . . then they stopped!’
CHAPTER 44
‘What the hell are you saying?’
Dave glared at Freya. Then looked around at all the others. The staff room was normally their meeting room, the breakfast briefing room. This evening, it felt like a courtroom.
‘I’m saying I saw them. They were all over Leon and Grace. They were all over the pair of them. Then they just suddenly froze. They stopped, dropped off them and ran away.’
He looked at them, sitting alone at one of the tables. Isolated by the space around them. Even Freya, in effect acting as their defence council, stood a cautious stride away from them.
‘It was like they were after a sample. A blood sample. They got it . . . and decided those two had to be left alone.’
‘They left everyone else alone,’ she countered. ‘And they haven’t been out since. For all we know they may have gone for good.’
‘Or they’re still in there,’ said Claire. She was perched on a table, legs drawn up off the floor just in case there might be stragglers still lurking around. ‘With Ron . . . with Terry.’
Their names, mentioned again. No one so far had wanted to discuss what must have happened to both of them.
‘They’re dead, Claire,’ said Freya. ‘They’ve got to be dead.’
‘What if they’re not?’ she whimpered.
The inner door leading to the tropicarium had been blockaded. The outside door, the shutter, no one had dared go out to investigate. If it had been forced open, then good, maybe whatever nightmare was in there had scuttled off into the night.
‘Ron, Terry, Spanners . . . they’re dead,’ said Freya. ‘We’ve heard nothing from inside.’
‘Right.’ Dave nodded. ‘Those poor guys are gone.’
Claire dropped her face down and shook her head.
‘It’s just us now . . .’ Dave shot a glance at Leon and Grace. ‘And them.’
Grace glared at him. ‘Why are you doing this to us?’ She looked at the others. Her eyes red with angry tears. ‘Why are all of you sitting away from me and Leo? I thought we were all supposed to be friends?’
No one answered.
‘They sampled her blood . . . and then they suddenly backed off,’ said Dave. ‘Which means there’s something different about those two.’
‘Like what?’ asked Freya.
Dave took his time answering that. ‘All right . . . if no one else is going to say it, I’ll say it. Like they’re not real people.’
‘What?’ Freya laughed cynically. ‘What?’
‘Just like the horse. They’re copies.’ He looked at the others. It seemed a smaller crowd minus the three older men. Perhaps their combined age and wisdom had taken up more space than they’d thought. Ron, Terry, Spanners, all three men in their thirties and forties, had been the elders here. Now, apart from Mr and Mrs Lin, who hardly ever spoke anyway, the canteen was occupied by young adults, looking for someone to take charge. Most of them in their early twenties, right now they looked like frightened children.
‘Come on! You all saw that horse! We all thought it was real, right? It looked, moved and sounded like a real horse! If the virus can make a horse, then why can’t it make a person?’ said Dave.
‘You’re saying it made Leon and Grace?’ Freya shook her head. ‘Yeah, right. Complete with what? American accents?! Their stories? Their memories?’
‘OK, then . . .’ He must have realized how ridiculous his accusation was beginning to sound. ‘Then maybe it’s altered them? Maybe they got infected before we found them and it changed them.’
‘Changed them? How?’
Dave only had a shrug to give her.
‘Come on, how?’
‘To spy on us. To learn about us . . . what our weaknesses are?’
Freya snorted derisively again. ‘You really have no idea how stupid you sound, do you?’
‘Well, hold on!’ said Dave. ‘Remember . . . she insisted we let the horse in!’
‘So did I! So did Claire . . . So did half of us!’
‘And she wasn’t going to let Ron burn it! Even when he said it wasn’t even a horse. You lot heard him say that, right?’
Heads nodded. ‘He said the thing was breaking up into pieces. And you remember she – she – was screeching like a tomcat for us not to burn it!’
‘Oh please, Dave . . . she’s just a little girl. I didn’t want to burn the thing alive, either!’
‘They’ve got to go,’ he said. ‘Both of them.’
‘Shit, t
hey’ve been living with us for months! Grace has never . . . attacked anyone!’
‘She was infected, though, wasn’t she? When we picked them up. She was running that fever? I said even then we should keep her separate. Even Terry wasn’t sure what was wrong with her.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake . . .’
‘Maybe with her it was a different kind of infection? The Snark evolving the way it infects. Doing it gradually?’
‘Do you have any idea how flipping paranoid you’re sounding, Dave? Maybe I’m slowly changing into Fake Freya? Huh? Was that why you tried to grope me? To see if I’m still a real human?’
‘I know what I saw! They got on her, they got a blood sample . . . then they stopped!’
He looked around. ‘Who wants them to go?’ He raised his own hand. Only a couple of others followed his lead, Iain one of them, of course, and Big Phil reluctantly followed suit. Just about half a dozen hands.
‘There you go. Outvoted. Matter resolved,’ said Freya. ‘Are we done with this bollocks?’
‘All right, then . . . Who’s prepared to share a chalet with them?’ Dave looked around. ‘Come on, stick your hands up. Who’s prepared to stay with them in their room tonight?’
No hands went up. ‘Come on, none of you wanted to kick them out . . . so let’s have a volunteer to spend the night with them, then!’
Still no hands.
Dave turned to Freya. ‘See? And that’s why they can’t stay! No one feels safe around them now.’
‘But no one’s voted to kick them out. So what now? We keep them locked up in a store cupboard forever? Or maybe we can consider that you got just a little carried away with what you think you saw?’
‘We test them.’
Everyone turned to look at Arletta, one of the cleaning ladies. Her cheeks marbled pink and she seemed to shrink under the gaze of everyone suddenly looking at her.
‘So, you understand?’ she continued. ‘We must know this . . . for sure?’
‘She’s right,’ said Big Phil. ‘We really should test ’em first, Dave. We can’t just fling ’em outside without being sure.’
Dave nodded thoughtfully. ‘OK . . . there’s that. We can do that.’