By Chris Castle
Robbie looked out of the window to the
city. Everything was broken and smoke was drifting constantly around the
rubble. He saw them running between the rocks, blood all over them, their
mouths open. What used to be people and were now in ruins. A few gathered
around a body and began feasting and Robbie felt his stomach lurch. He turned
away, putting his hand to his mouth. He counted to five and brought it down,
trying not to catch a glimpse of the bandage over his forearm as he did. But he
felt the burn of the bite underneath the white cotton all the same, and
immediately the question roared into his brain: How long have I got before I
turn into one of them?
Robbie Roberts, a make-up artist living in
a world of monsters. Big joke: Ha-ha. He walked through his loft, all his best
work surrounding him, his own rogue’s gallery. The awards sat on the shelf,
the pride of place, back when things like that mattered. He wondered now how much
time he had wasted on his own small problems before the world changed; his worries
about being an artist, how much he still loved his ex, his financial problems
and blah-blah-blah. He was holding a pile of bills when the news broke. At
first there was that feeling of seeing a catastrophe on the television screen,
the unreality of it, the feeling it was a movie and not really happening. But
then the television didn’t stop reporting the news. Slowly he drifted to his
window and saw it begin on the streets. By the time his phone started ringing,
he knew the world had shifted into a full blown nightmare.
The desk was clear, save for the model, the
tool kit. When he started out in the business, it was all Robbie had; a plaster
cast kit, clay and paintbrushes. It was dawn and he calculated he had nine
hours of light. He stretched and rolled his fingers and coolly wondered which
of his functions he would lose first to the virus. The information on the net
before the power shorted was so random and scatter shot he couldn’t afford to
believe any of it. Even when the world was ending, people still felt the need
to lie. He sat down on his work bench and picked up the brush. The light moved
over where he sat; he hadn’t lost the sun, not yet.
It was the one time he was glad his parents
were no longer with him. He tried to call Sarah but couldn’t get through. His
friends called him, shouting, crying, looking for a means to escape until after
two days, there was nothing. Already bolted into his studio and with a fully
stocked fridge, Robbie watched the world die from his window. On the third day
his phone lit and Sarah’s number came onto the screen. He listened to her; her
voice changed and unrecognizable. As her voice faded, a strange sound,
almost like white noise, seemed to come from another place in her throat. They
spoke until that white noise overtook them both and he flung the phone away as
she screamed. That was the sound of the Change.
Robbie leaned forward and wiped his eyes.
When he had stopped crying he leaned back and worked on the ears, prodding the
clay into shape. For a full hour he worked on the model and thought of nothing
else but the contours and the lines; he was as close to happy as he was going
to ever be. The sunlight shifted and he adjusted his stool, dropping the brush.
When he crouched down, he slipped off, hitting the deck and nearly dragging the
whole table down with him; he laughed at getting pins and needles in his legs
out of all the problems he could suffer. Robbie made to pull himself up and
couldn’t quite move. He tried again, slapping his legs, his laughter subsiding
into frustration, then anger. Still, he couldn’t move. Finally, he pushed
himself to the wall, reaching down to his left leg, pulling his jeans up. The
breath rushed out of him. He looked at the veins and the distortion and closed
his eyes. That was where the Change had started.
There was no logic to how the scavengers
attacked. Sometimes they hunted in packs; sometimes there was just one stray,
roaming and aimless. Robbie watched them long enough to understand they had no
sense of internal logic. Each day he watched them, each day he told himself it
was suicide to go out there. There was enough food until things calmed down, or
the governments came up with answers. He could sit tight until his water ran
out and going outside became a necessity. Hell, he lived on the roof; if he was
careful he could store water and ration his food for a very long time. In the
day, logic held tight, but at night, when he tried to sleep, he heard her voice
on the phone, the last words she said. The woman he loved, the last person on
earth he had spoken to.
Robbie pulled himself into the bathroom,
injected himself with painkillers. He took a shot of vodka and waited for one
minute for the brew to work. He crawled back to the desk, still clutching the
pills and the bottle. Suddenly, for the first time, he was aware of his body, the
war between the drugs and his infected body, his veins pulsing, his skin
turning. It felt as if his skin was forcing itself from the safety of his
bones. Somewhere there was a surge and his shoulders shook, his neck locked.
Then it seemed to be over and he reached for the brush.
He made it to the elevator shaft, the
street, the carpool. He found his car easily enough and made it out into the
road; if it wasn’t for all he knew, it would have felt like a Sunday morning,
waking up before the rest of the world. Robbie peeled onto the road and saw two
monsters on the corner of the road; they were feeding off each other’s arms,
each crouched and slowly bobbing up and down. There was a gang in the middle of
the street and he swerved to avoid them, missing them easily. By the time he
made it to her house he had counted twenty seven in all. He stepped out of the
car and walked up to her door, holding an axe in his hand and feeling terrified
but, ridiculously, a little self-conscious too, holding the weapon. He had the
key ready, but dropped it when he saw the open door.
He worked with the buzz of the pills and
the booze, finishing off the left side by noon .
There was no time to stop now, no need for food. Instead, he simply placed the
painkillers and the bottle by the side of the desk. He did not check his legs,
he did not think of anything but his work. The sun was still bright in the sky,
letting him see every detail. That was all that mattered now.
He found her in the bedroom, where she had
called him from. He had smashed the door in and saw the gun by the side of her
before he had seen her body. They had not reached her. She had used the word
‘defile’ when they spoke, that was her fear. But it was not like that; they had
not reached her. Instead, he took off his jacket, laid it over her. He walked
over to the mirror and took a photo from the wall and slipped it into his back
pocket; it was of the two of them on holiday, two years before. The curtains
were the best place to start, he reasoned. There was nothing but the sound of
the match sparking into life and then the crackle of the fire spreading as it
consumed the room.
The jolt was so fierce it brought tears to
Robbie’s eyes. He winced and then gripped the brush tighter, not wanting to
spill it and have to go through the process of having to clamor down to the
floor again. It was his stomach now, locking and weaving against his ribs. He
looked down and saw he had lost control of himself. Quickly and carefully,
Robbie swallowed more pills, took another swig, hoping he would be able to hold
it down. He counted to three, even as he felt the virus move up as high as his
heart, gripping it, making it beat at a speed he had never known; was this a
seizure? The body locked, but his mind held just above the surface of the
madness. Finally, he took a breath and reached forward to the model.
The room burned quickly and soon spread to
the rest of the house. Robbie watched as the flames ripped the house that he
had so dearly loved, part of him relieved it would not be infested by the
scavengers and ruined. He watched the flames carry higher and higher into the
sky; it was almost beautiful. The smoke was all around him, blinding him. There
was a noise, something like a purr, then a sharp pain in his arm. Then the two
of them fell onto the concrete, tussling, Robbie trying to lever the axe
against the body to find some distance, knowing somewhere, in the back of his
head, that he was already dying. They rolled over and then he was on his feet.
How strange it was, all played out in silence, with no screaming. And then he
brought down the axe and felt it hit the body, wrapped and cloaked in the
smoke.
It was almost complete. Robbie was aware of
losing track of time now; his mind was slowing, he knew this, even as it was
happening. There was a steam running over his eyes, his mouth, clogging his
senses; this is how it feels, he thought, as it moved over him. The sun was
still there, just about, he still understood this. The bandage had fallen
apart, though he didn’t remember loosening it; all that mattered were his hands.
Even through the fog, he watched as his hands worked, pushing lips into a
smile, patting a cheek into the correct angle. There was a snap and he suddenly
felt everything below his neck slip away, so there was just a damp, mossy,
feeling where his body should be. The sound in his ears began to tilt, become
uneven, so that it felt as if he was submerged in water. That was it, Robbie
understood then; he was drowning in the virus. He lunged forward, making a
small indentation in the chin, the mark she hated and he loved so much. Then
his hands slipped away from the desk.
© 2010 Chris Castle. All rights reserved.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chris Castle lives and works outside of London, England and has had 300
odd pieces published in various places; his main influences include Ray
Carver and the films of Paul Thomas Anderson.
