They Remain: The Rot, #2

Prologue

The world turned and the sun rose. It reached out its warming arms and embraced the cold earth. The yellow rays finding their way through the cumulous clouds and giving new life to those on the ground.

Creatures of all kinds awoke. Humans in their tribes, colonies and townships. Birds in their nests with their young. Insects in the gaps between the broken ground and twigs. And with a frantic fervour, the thing moved.

It scurried across the floor, slicking a trail of clear slime as it went. Not quite a slug, far from some kind of serpent. A thing not of this world. Searching. Hunting.

The spore had lost its kin and set out on its journey. Its primary focus gene-deep. To multiply and move along the surface of this world and grow, spreading in different directions like roots of a tree, extending and reaching outwards from its birthplace as it latched from host to host.

There were no memories, as such. The spore was more machine than organism in its thought processes, but from its blackened physical makeup you wouldn’t think so. If it could think, it might remember with some alarm the flames that had come from the nozzle of the metal pipes. It might recall those of its brethren who had died underneath its burning glare before the spore had fled into the wilderness, honing its one true instinct: to survive.

Now, days had passed, and the spore understood the need to find new avenues of life. That it needed to find a place to reproduce. To reconnect. The search was frantic and all encompassing. Yet there was nothing. Not a thing to latch onto in this wasteland of countryside and grass. Through rivers and streams, the spore journeyed, exhausting itself further with each passing day.

It would’ve screamed for life if it had the facility to do so. But as the sun continued to rise, the thing continued to move through the dirt and leaves, all the while ignoring the insects which didn’t suit its preference. Crawling until the ground became smooth and cool.

The spore stopped in the shade of a nearby building. It had wandered into a derelict town. Terraced housing, commercial venues with boarded windows. And paths with—

A scent. Something.

The spore shuddered with anticipation.

There was life here. Ideal and ripe for the taking. Perhaps too far right to reach right now – the spore had been growing tired after all, taking damage from the steady increase in heat, the sun threatening to bake the thing on the floor.

But… the life, though… so close. Achievable from a fresh spore hatched from a cluster. A new birth might seek and attach to the host in less than a minute. Reaching in sticky fibres to brain matter and flourishing in the warm environment of blood pulsing through veins. The spore could already smell its flavours on the wind, spurring it on. Screaming out to it like a mother to its babe.

It clicked its fibres as it moved, dragging itself along until it blindly bumped into a something. A cool, yet tiny, shadow.

Not a creature, no. But a something.

The spore sniffed at the two forms lying in the middle of the road. A middle-aged woman, mouth frozen open in horror, long since decayed. Beside her, a baby, wrapped in its fabrics and sealed tight – cocooned in its place.

The spore climbed upon the body of the baby, the scent of live hosts tantalisingly close, yet just too far away for the spore to manage. It could already feel its life fading, feel the death kiss of the sun, the draining of its own beating pulse as the clock ticked and no nourishment came.

Survival. That’s all the spore knew.

And so it was going to have to find alternative means.

It crawled upon the baby’s face. Its slender white tentacles reached out from its black blob of a body, splitting into increasingly complex and fine fingers, grazing at the baby’s flesh. It threaded through where the eyes had once been, reached deep inside the cocoon and found, to its surprise, that deep down through the hard shell of leathered skin was life. A whisper of a heartbeat. Not much, but enough for the thing to make new life. It wormed its way inside and pressed its fibres into what remained of the child.

And as the sun now beamed its smile down onto the child, so too did the child reach upwards. Not quite alive, but alive enough. From there the spore found sustenance. From there it could hole up. From there it could wait.

And wait it did.

Hours later, there came life along the road. Two figures. One walking slightly in front of the other.

The first was a mute woman who went by the name of Faith – more as a joke to the universe than anything. She’d been an unfortunate soul. Not only had she lost half her tongue, but her ears had also been burned, leaving her partially deaf. She had blue ink etched into her face, and was holding a carbine assault rifle in her grasp – weapons pillaged from what remained of a pitiful little military outfit down on the coast.

By her side was a man by the name of Walker. An almost prophetic name given to him by his parents years before when buildings stood proud and the only gun he’d ever seen had been in a John Wayne movie.

His name shall be Walker, and he will spend most of his days doing just that.

The same blue ink on his face, drawn from his beard to the back of his bald head, reaching over and kissing that tree trunk neck of his. In his hands, he clutched a Colt M-series.

Both Faith and Walker were already feeling the excitement building like they were a pride of lions smelling the blood about to spill. The air of adrenaline so palpable you could almost hear it crackle on the tarmac roads. The clouds growing fuller and ashen every passing hour. There would be blood that day, sure, but the rain will wash it all away.

Scout said this road would lead us to the eastern point of entry, Walker said, stepping over a stray branch like he was prowling through the Serengeti.

Faith grunted as she scratched at her matted straw hair and prepped her rifle. There were others. Many others on all four corners. The plan was simple. She knew the drill. Flank the township from all four sides. Stay low, shoot, and loot. The meat on these townies’ bodies would sustain them for a good month or two, depending on how well they could preserve it.

She could already imagine the salty taste of flesh between her teeth.

Lookie, Walker said as he stepped over the burned remains of a woman. Her fingers welded to the handlebar of her stroller. Eyes long since pecked and taken by some scavenging animal. Lots of ’em around ’ere. I reckon it must have been a red alert quarantine job.

Faith walked further on and saw the dozens of bodies in the distance like dead ants on a hot day, boiled and blackened on the pavement. Amongst the mossy overgrowth and pile-ups of broken cars she could see more and more.

Her baby’s in here, too. Awh. Always felt sorry for babies. Imagine being the poor runts born into this world without a clue of what life was like before, Walker said, keeping his voice audible but little over a whisper. Poor thing never got a chance to see what life was about to… well… what is this?

Walker fell silent. Faith thought nothing of it. He’d probably spotted some grotesquery he hadn’t seen before (although let’s be honest, the chances of that were slim to none). The man had a love for the weird and wonderful ways in which people had left this planet. Walker had spent hours on a raid once looking at the way in which a lone traveller had tried to stab himself in the stomach with nothing more than a butter knife. But not before spraying the words, ‘Molon labe’, on a nearby fence in large black letters.

Walker had deduced that it was a Spartan saying. The poor dead guy – delicious, by the way – had tried to do away with himself like he was some sort of modern day King Leonidas. A proud death or some such. But, to Faith, he still looked a fool, sat there naked with a poxy piece of silverware in his stomach.

Woah. Lookie, Faith. Get a load of this—

Faith hardly heard Walker’s whisper before he was cut off. In the distance, she could see smoke flagging the sky. Evidence of the very people they had come to hunt. As if they were being summoned and welcomed into camp. ‘Hey! We got townies here. Follow the road to the T-junction, take a left, then cut our throats and lick us clean!’

Thud.

Behind her, Walker had fallen to the floor, struggling with the spore, no longer confined to the shell of its cocoon. His screams were muffled, barely audible to his half-deaf companion who smiled stupidly at the thin cotton-column of smoke, licking her lips with her phantom-tongue. In the last few days, she hadn’t eaten much other than the pickings of the bones of soldiers from somewhere down south. And their gristle was little more than fungus and marrow.

Faith’s stomach rumbled. Come on, she tried to say. Though it sounded more like "Wohm ohm."

She turned to Walker, her hunger quickly turning to confused fear as she saw her companion. She barely had time to lift her rifle as Walker’s boots slapped and kicked the floor.

Thud thud thud.

He rose, and ran towards her, screeching something rotten. The corpse of the blackened baby he had been cooing over just a minute earlier had fixed itself to his face, stitching them together with white myelin fibres.

The rot… Holy hell and fury… the rot, the words screamed in her head, not entirely believing what she was seeing. But… it’s gone. It’s over. Walker…

She didn’t want to believe it. Flashes and memories of nighttime raids and creatures that ran until their legs collapsed flew through her head. Things of nightmares that Faith, nor any of her companions, had seen in several years now. A rotless world, taken care of by the military brutes who slaughtered the villages and sanitised the world in fire.

But now…

Faith tried to scream but little more than a pathetic moan escaped her lips as her tribe-brother jumped for her, fingers upon fingers like the frayed ends of a knot, undulating white threads, reaching for her mouth.

And the thing.

The thing that started it all had found its hosts. The process would begin anew. As was the circle of life.

As was the cycle of the rot.

Chapter One

Beacon Avenue, the main road running through the length of King’s Hill, disappeared into the distance ahead. There was a crack in the tarmac, as if the Earth itself had shrugged its shoulders and broken the skin. Through the jagged hole, green things grew. Grass. Moss. Some flowers. And right there, in the crack, with an arm bent backwards, snapped but hanging on with fine chalky fibres, were the greying remains of a man.

He wasn’t alone. Up ahead, on either side of the road were burnt-out cars, broken windows, and decaying corpses. What flesh remained on those old bones had long since dried into cotton and papier mâche. The smell of death lingered all around but the overcast skies and foggy atmosphere tempered it down somewhat. Making it something almost bearable.

Susie K placed her bow on the floor as she bent down. Her boot dug into the skin of her legs as she reached over the man’s corpse, past the points where the shirt looked to melt into the dead man’s flesh, as if the two had always been joined, and lifted the head.

Bone dust crackled as it puffed into the air revealing the skeletal face beneath. With her free hand, she reached into the cup of the eye sockets and pulled out one of the dirty little brown fungal things growing there. Not one, but two. About the size of thumbs. She inspected them closely. They were gritty. Some tiny insect crawled along one of the stems. Ignoring it she greedily she pressed them both into her shirt pocket to join the other little handful of goodies she’d foraged. It wasn’t exactly Jamie Oliver’s brand of cooking, but hell, boil them up, pop in some salt, and you’ve got yourself a nice mushroom broth.

Running a hand over her head, the short hair bristled and flicked a fine mist of rainwater into the air. The scar on her scalp fizzed at the touch. A buzzing reminder of battles passed.

Picking up the bow again she stood, looked up the road. A Tesco Express on her left. Long since emptied, even before they’d set up camp in King’s Hill. The pharmacy was next to that, raped and pillaged years ago. Of the good stuff anyway. Penicillin. Aspirin. Bandages, etc. All gone. By the time Susie and her cadré of travellers arrived, all they’d been left with were a few boxes of tampons and, oddly enough, a stack of soggy cash on the counter. At least £500’s worth. They would’ve left it there but Quinton wanted it.

Why?

A keepsake, perhaps?

Maybe he wanted a memory of the old world’s values. Maybe he wanted to pretend like he still had some unit of control of the world around him.

Or maybe he’s just a stupid fucking child.

She shook her head and walked onwards, stepping over an open grate, and onto the pavement. A quick glance at the sun to gauge the time and she could already feel the pull of the camp behind her. The needs of her people. The questions that needed answering. The dramas that needed her delicate touch.

Just a little while longer, she thought to herself. Just to the end of the Avenue, where the road meets the football fields. The people will be fine. They don’t need you all the time. They can wipe their own arse. Blow their own noses.

Most of them anyway… she mused, thinking of her son.

A chuckle escaped her lips and the tension eased a little. Her shoulders relaxed and she sniffed up a deep breath of the afternoon air.

These little hunts were the only time she ever found peace and quiet. A little time for herself. A chance to step out of the choking responsibilities of leadership, and to do something just for her.

Some did yoga.

Some did pilates.

Susie Kendall liked to grab her longbow, head out, and find some food that wasn’t dried, from a tin, and wasn’t watery fucking porridge.

The road split off now. A fenced-off building called ‘The Discovery School’ sat in the middle of the fork. The left-hand road ventured further out of the town centre and into the Kent Weald. King’s Hill had a cache drop up there. A place where they traded with the others. The Hopefuls. But further afield than that? She didn’t know.

If ever there was a road that would lead her out of this camp and into the wilderness it was that one.

She turned right and stopped. Her breath caught in her throat. Standing next to those rusty school fences stood a creature. Nothing big. A tawny little critter – a rabbit. It sniffed the mossy ground around itself as if it were joining Susie in her daily food hunt. Both of them scavenging for what fresh scraps remained in this world.

Susie lifted the bow and drew one of the five arrows from her rucksack. Quietly, she placed the arrow against the bow and pulled on the string. It creaked as the metal fibres twisted and split. Her draw hand touched her anchor point at the base of her chin. She steadied her breathing.

It looked at her with its little black marbled eyes. It shifted its whole body as if to face her. As if it were trying to communicate.

I’m sorry, little guy, she whispered as she let the arrow fly.

It whipped forward, whistling an angry tune as it pierced through the wind and caught the rabbit in its rump. The thing bounced off the ground with the force of the projectile and rolled a good foot away from its foraging point.

She skipped over to it, planted her boot firmly against its hide, and yanked the arrow straight out. She wiped it down with her trouser leg and placed it back with the others, where its metal head got a fresh dousing of bleach at the base of her quiver. She pulled out a plastic shopping bag (a ‘bag for life’, living up to its name), and placed the rabbit inside, making sure not to meet its eyes. She didn’t mind the blood. But no way could she meet those eyes with her own. They were the windows to the soul after all. A soul she’d just released from its mortal coil.

With a fresh catch rustling in her carrier bag, stinking up her walk with the gamey smell of a hunt, she walked on past the school, following the rusted fences and dilapidated streets.

Broken glass popped underfoot as she passed a bus stop. The same bearded man sat there, as he did every day. Lazily slumped on the metal bench, waiting for a bus that would never come. His features looking a little more petrified each passing day as if he were turning into a fossil right before her eyes. Something to be dug up in a million years and placed in a museum.

Pompeii 2.0 – the real disaster.

There were more bodies, of course. A forest of them in their various poses. A woman in a concertinaed Ford Fiesta with her head bowed in against the steering wheel. A child laying outside the school gates as if she were simply napping. Even the shape of an Alsatian, looking more like a sanded-down sculpture of itself, weathered by years of winds and acid rain.

The whole town had a story to tell. One punctuated with the bullet holes of the military and brought to life with the innocent screams and cries of the wrongfully accused.

It was as if a military unit had stormed through the town under the impression that it had become a cesspit of rot, but that wasn’t the case. These folks weren’t rotters. These were human. And one day, many years in the future, Susie was going to gather up all of these bodies, and burn them. Give them something of a proper send-off. A funeral worthy of the Northmen, the Vikings, who invaded the shores so many years ago. Maybe she’d even carve up some sort of makeshift plaque.

Here lie the remains of the people of King’s Hill. Now cross your heart, sing a sad song, and get back to it, soldier. There’s plenty of work to be done.

Before she knew it, she’d left the town centre and was already nearing the camp. She could smell the burning of the fires, could hear the laughter of children, axes chopping wood. The black and white sign to her left read ‘Pipping Way’.

And, as she passed the Xing’s Corner with its Chinese takeaway menus still taped to the glass doors, she saw it. The big circle of green. The fences. Tents. Caravans. The smoke. The second generation residents of King’s Hill. Not those that littered the town, melting into their surroundings, but the living breathing ones. The survivors of the new world.

King’s Hill was a small town, but a town nonetheless. Residential houses and corner shops. Some boarded up. All empty. When the first of the survivors arrived several years ago, they fled straight past the houses in fear of the horrors which may have been hiding within. It was by sheer chance that they found the large circular patch of soft grass in the centre. Trees circled the entire site. And it seemed as good a place as any to park their dying cars and pitch their tents.

You best be checking that thing for worms before you skin it, the man with the Enfield rifle said as he unlocked the makeshift gate and let her in. Two finger lines of mud crossed his face, and a new hole joined the others in his tatty red beanie hat.

Shut the fuck up, Keaghan, said Susie with a smile.

He smiled back and nodded his head. His thick black curls bouncing over his ears.

"I’m just saying exactly what boss man is going to be saying. You know what he’s like with things found in the wild. Things that breathed."

Man was a veggie for five years before the rot. I guess it’s a tough habit to break. But I’m pretty sure I just told you to shut the fuck up.

Okay. Gotcha. Shutting up now, Keaghan laughed, waving her through. Once Susie was safely inside, he turned and locked it back up. Three heavy duty Yale locks. Top, middle, and bottom. The connective tissue that held each of the wire mesh panels together. At least a hundred of them. All rummaged from the construction sites on the industrial side of town. The fences circled the campsite and were fortified by four watchmen along the perimeter, all looking out for wanderers and rotters, waiting to holler with the referee whistles tied to their necks.

Before she left Keaghan to his duties she swung the bag with the carcass up towards his head. He ducked just in time, calling her a ‘psycho’, before Susie sauntered further on, past the three square patches of land which were supposed to be growing fresh vegetables but had only managed two and a half carrots so far. Petrov, King’s Hill’s so-called farmer, was digging his fingers into the ground, either fishing for produce or planting seeds. She wasn’t sure. Either way, he looked up and eyed the bag – the mealy contents casting a delicious shadow within. She could practically hear the saliva forming in his mouth.

Are we eating meat tonight, then? he called with his thick European accent.

I don’t know, Petrov. You bring us a side of veg, I might let you have the rabbit’s balls.

He mocked offence, but she barely noticed. Walking past the rows of caravans, jumping over the pit, still black and smoking from the previous night’s fires, she made her way to her father’s shack. A wheel-less caravan made from Formica and the holidays of many a retiree. The old grout had extended it with a canvas sheet that jutted out of the side, supported by several steel poles, where it cornered over and was pulled taut to the ground with a selection of muddy bricks.

You leave that thing out there, Suze, Beckett called through the window, his voice hoarse and tired. I don’t want fleas or lice or whatever that thing has.

She placed the bag on the floor by the bricks, along with her bow and rucksack before sidling herself in the gap between two overlapping sheets of canvas and into her father’s domain.

Only thing carrying fleas is you, Dad.

He was sat by the open door of his caravan, wrapped in two weathered coats with a fluffy trapper hat pulled tightly onto his head. The deck chair he was sat on looked ready to disintegrate beneath him. He didn’t smile. He didn’t say ‘Hi’.

You shouldn’t be going out alone, Suze. Those estates are a great place for people to hide. There may be no rotters anymore, but we need to stay alert for—

—Scavvies, I know.

Do you? Because the reckless way you act sometimes makes me wonder if you even care about this town. Our people. You’re a leader, Suze. My own daughter. And soon I may not be around to—

Here he coughed into his hand. Not a tickly cough, but one that wheezed long after the initial exhalation. One that sounded like the lungs were twisting, squeezing like rubber on sand.

Dad, you should be inside. You know the cold air only upsets your lungs.

He waved his free hand as his face reddened, trying to catch his breath.

Susie waited patiently. This man, who was