Apocalypse (The Ward Z Series Book 3) Read online

  “You should go,” Ruth stammered, “and -”

  “Do I have to search every room by myself?” Merrie added. “I will, you know.”

  “She really might,” Javier added.

  “You have to get her out of here,” Ruth replied, turning to him. “You have no idea how much trouble you're getting yourself into! I'll explain later, I'll explain it all, but right now you both have to leave the villa and go back to town.”

  “What are those things out there?” he asked.

  “What things?”

  “They're in the trees. They're alive.”

  “I don't know what you're talking about.”

  “You're a bad liar, Ruth,” he replied. “What have you managed to get yourself into?”

  “Please just leave!” she said. “I'll talk to you about it later. I'll come into town tomorrow, okay? I'll talk to you about it tomorrow. I'll tell you everything I know, but not now.” She paused, waiting for him to agree, but her sense of desperation was getting stronger. “Javier, please!” She grabbed his arm. “I can't do this right now!”

  “Okay, fine,” he said. “I'll do what you want. But there's one problem.”

  “What's that?”

  “While you were saying all of that, Merrie went that way.”

  He pointed past her.

  “Huh?”

  Turning, Ruth saw that Merrie was now nowhere to be seen.

  “Oh no,” she stammered. “Oh -”

  ***

  “Judy!” Merrie hissed, leaning into yet another room and seeing that there was nothing inside. Not even any furniture. “What's up with this place? It's almost completely empty!”

  She made her way to the next door and clicked it open, only to be confronted – once again – with a bare room.

  “I know you're here somewhere,” she continued under her breath. “I can sense it. It's like a radar for sisters. A sis-dar.”

  She hurried to the next door and checked, then the next, until finally she got to the end of the corridor and looked both ways to try to figure out where to go next.

  A moment later, hearing footsteps, she turned and realized that Javier and Ruth were getting closer.

  Keen not to get caught up in another waste-of-time conversation, she made her way along the corridor that ran to the left. There were no doors at first, and she was starting to feel as if she was going deeper and deeper into some kind of maze. She certainly couldn't remember her way back to the vent, but she figured that wouldn't matter too much. All she had to do was find Judy, and then she'd be able to come up with a whole new plan.

  First, though, she had to actually locate her sister.

  “Why would you even come up here?” she whispered to herself. “Come on, Judy, you're nobody's fool. Damn it, you're way smarter than me. How can I figure out what you're up to, if I'm the dumb one? There's no comparison when -”

  Suddenly she heard a scream, way off in the distance. Even before she'd turned to look along the corridor, she knew that she recognized the voice.

  “Judy,” she stammered, before hurrying toward the doors at the far end. “Hell, no.”

  Running now, she barreled through the doors and then starting racing along the next corridor. She no longer cared about staying quiet or about avoiding attention; all she knew was that her sister was in trouble and that she had to get to her. And as she pushed her way through yet another set of doors, she was determined to let nothing stand in her way.

  ***

  “No,” Judy whispered, still suspended with her back against the ceiling, as a trickle of blood ran from her lips. “Please stop, please don't do this, I don't know what that thing is but -”

  ***

  The scream rang out again, as Merrie shoved another set of doors open.

  “Where are you?” she yelled, frustrated to find herself facing yet another corridor in what was turning out to be some kind of maze. “Judy! I'm coming!”

  The scream was still ringing out ahead. Although she could tell she was closer now, Merrie was starting to feel as if she was never actually going to get to her sister. She couldn't even be sure that she was always going in the right direction, and after a few corners she stopped to get her bearings and she realized she might have been in this corridor once already. She turned and looked around, waiting for the scream to return so that she'd know which way to go.

  “Come on, Judy,” she whispered, with tears in her eyes. “You've got a pair of lungs, so use them. Let me -”

  Suddenly she flinched as she heard the scream, and it sounded so much closer now.

  Racing over to another set of double doors, Merrie pushed her way through, and finally she found herself in a huge, high-ceilinged room with thick white drapes blocking her way. She hurried forward, pushing the drapes out of the way, trying desperately to find her sister, and finally she burst through and stopped as she saw two figures ahead.

  “Judy...”

  Her sister was strapped to some kind of metal frame, which was holding her with her back to the ceiling. Below, a rotund man was looking up at her. From each of their bellies, thick glistening black tendrils were wriggling and writhing and reaching out to caress on another.

  And Merrie did something she'd never done before. She screamed.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  “That was a different scream,” Javier pointed out as he and Ruth hurried along to the end of the next corridor. “One scream I could write off as maybe nothing, but two screams? What are you involved with up here?”

  “It's complicated,” she said, trying not to panic as her mind raced with the possibilities.

  “We have to go,” he told her. “We have to call the -”

  “It's about my mother!” she snapped, turning to him.

  “I thought you were an -”

  “My real name is Emma Briggs!” she continued. “I didn't know until today, but my mother was a woman named Cally Briggs, she died in an exploding hospital when I was a little girl. It was blown up by the military because of some things that had been happening there, because of these creatures that had emerged. There have been other places where it's happened too, but the hospital was kind of the beginning of this new phase. I'd suppressed all these memories and now they're flooding back, and I don't know exactly what's happening but Mr. Velucci says my mother was somehow mixed up with it all from the start.”

  “You're not making any sense,” Javier pointed out.

  “I know! But Mr. Velucci says I was born for this moment, he says it's my destiny to be involved somehow.”

  “There's no such thing as destiny,” Javier replied. “Maybe this stuff isn't even true, maybe Velucci's just messing with your mind!”

  Shaking her head, Ruth felt as if she was about to break down in tears.

  “I belong here,” she explained. “I have to help continue whatever work my mother started. Don't you understand, this is -”

  Suddenly a nearby window shattered, and they both turned to see black tendrils starting to flick through the gap.

  “They're waking up,” Ruth continued, as she watched more and more tendrils coming into view. “They're always so docile, but something's making them agitated.” She turned back to Javier. “I think Mr. Velucci might have been telling the truth. About everything.”

  ***

  “I had a vision of this moment,” Mr. Velucci said, beaming as he looked up at Judy, seemingly in no pain as the creature in his body continued to reach up from his chest. “In the vision, I saw a pure creature resting on the lap of its progenitor. They were far from human civilization, surrounded by worshipers, silhouetted against the most beautiful blue sky. The dawn of a new age had begun.”

  “This isn't real,” Merrie stammered as she stepped closer and looked up at her sister. “Judy! What's happening?”

  Above, Judy was barely able to respond. Her eyes were wide open and there was blood smeared around her lips. Her chest had been torn open from the collarbone all the way down past her belly button,
and pieces of skin and bone had been pushed aside to allow black tendrils to snake down and meet with the tendrils from Mr. Velucci's body. As the two sets of tendrils met and caressed, a constant slithering sound filled the air.

  Merrie stopped beneath Judy and looked up, horrified by what she saw. And then, slowly, she realized that deep within Judy's chest cavity there was a large black mass, and deep within the large black mass there was a large, glistening ball that seemed to be twitching slightly.

  An eye.

  “Hell, no,” Merrie whispered, still not managing to accept that any of this was real. “This is special effects. Or VR. Or something. This isn't really happening.”

  The eye twitched, and a thin membrane briefly closed over the ball before retracting again, as the pupil shrank and then slightly dilated.

  “This is the moment I saw in my dreams,” Mr. Velucci continued. “It has to be. It looks a little different, but all the elements are here. I think I even saw this girl's face, the one who was carrying the Pure One inside her body. I have always known that once this moment arrived, nothing would be able to stop the coming of the new age. The Pure One is here, and we must all bow down before the Pure One's glory.”

  Still speechless with shock, Merrie looked up at Judy's face and saw that her sister was returning her gaze. As they made eye contact, Merrie saw Judy's features flickering with pain, and she noticed that her sister's lips were twitching slightly.

  “I can't hear you,” Merrie said. “Judy, I came to get you. I...”

  Her voice trailed off.

  “Help me,” Judy whispered. “Merrie... please... Kill me.”

  “Tell me what you want, Pure One!” Mr. Velucci shouted, raising his arms toward the mass of tendrils that were emerging from Judy's body. “I am the one who brought this moment to reality! I am your most devoted follower! I alone among my species can -”

  Suddenly he let out a panicked gasp, as his tendrils and Judy's continued to twist tighter and tighter together.

  “Take from me what you will,” he groaned finally, although he was starting to tremble now as a ripping sound emerged from his chest. “I am yours! I ask only that I be allowed to share in your -”

  Before he could finish, he let out an agonized cry, and Judy's tendrils began to pull even harder on the mass that nestled inside Mr. Velucci's body.

  “I...”

  He couldn't finish another word.

  Slowly, Judy's tendrils began to tear the creature from Mr. Velucci's body, ripping it free and pulling out his organs at the same time. Blood erupted from his mouth, but already one of his lungs had been forced from his chest and now the knotted black core of his creature was being lifted away. Tendrils were still sloughing out from his chest cavity, bringing blood and organs and bone, until finally Mr. Velucci's feet were lifted from the floor and the man himself was lifted into the air. His eyes were open wide and blood was pouring from his mouth, and tendrils were curling into his chest and starting to cut the threads of flesh that linked his human body to the creature.

  “I... am your servant,” he gasped. “I bring you... to...”

  Suddenly his body jolted down, and now he was hanging from a single tendril that remained connected to his spine. With fear in his eyes, he watched as another tendrils snaked down into his chest cavity.

  “I am part of you,” he stammered. “Listen to me, I want to remain in your service, to help as you spread your -”

  Suddenly the tendril sliced his spinal cord, freeing the last of the creature from his body. Mr. Velucci let out a gasp and fell back, slamming down against the floor and rolling onto his side. He groaned briefly, and then he fell still while the creature from his chest remained high above, held by the creature that had begun to emerge from Judy's body. And the sound – of rustling tendrils sliding against one another, of razor-thin blades scraping as they twisted and overlapped – seemed to be getting louder and louder.

  “It has begun,” a voice said nearby.

  Turning, Merrie saw Mr. Ford standing a little way further back.

  “Even the sullied specimens are reacting to this moment,” his eyes wide with wonder as he watched the creatures that hung from Judy's body. “They are rising up in joy. Nothing can stop them now. Mankind's reign is over. The future can no longer be held back!”

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  “Did you just feel the ground move?” Gemma asked, looking out across the dance-floor.

  “No,” Lucy replied, still pressed against her and angling for a kiss, “but I'll take that as a compliment.”

  Gemma turned back to her.

  “Something feels weird,” she added. “Like the whole room is moving. And this might sound weird, but I think a little metal screw just landed on your head.”

  Lucy shrugged.

  “Maybe it's something they do here,” she suggested. “I wouldn't put anything past a mega-club like this. For all I know, the entire building's on some kind of robotic platform that allows it to move. In fact, the more I think about that, the cooler it sounds.” She paused, staring into Gemma's eyes as loud music continued to blare all around. “Now, how about you flash me that smile again? You've got a very pretty smile. It makes me want to get real close to you.”

  Gemma opened her mouth to reply, but then she spotted something moving in the distance, beyond the sea of dancers. Squinting slightly, she realized that long, thin black things were dangling from the vents on the ceiling high above. And as she watched, she saw several of the 'things' fall down, attached to bulbous black shapes.

  “What the hell are those things?” she whispered, moving her head out of the way as Lucy tried again to kiss her. “Hang on a minute. Do you... Do you hear people screaming?”

  ***

  “Help!” Kay screamed as the building lurched again, this time sending her sliding past the doorway until she slammed into the wall.

  Gasping, she turned just in time to see that Greg, Colin and the girl in the yellow dress were sliding straight toward her, like zombies on a pinball table.

  Scrambling to her feet, Kay managed to get out of the way just in time, but the roof was already starting to tip the other way now, as if the entire Apocalypse nightclub was shifting on its foundations. Trying to grab hold of a nearby pipe in order to steady herself, Kay just about managed to get her grip in time, before the building lurched yet again. This time she managed to hang on, but the three zombies were sent careering past until they slammed into the far wall.

  “I want to get off!” Kay sobbed, barely able to get her bearings as she began to feel dizzy.

  Reaching out, she tried to grab the roof of a small vent that rose up from deep within the building. Before she could manage, however, she spotted something thin and black reaching out from inside the vent, and suddenly the tendril lashed out and sliced its razor-sharp edge against her hand.

  Crying out, Kay pulled her hand back and saw that she'd been cut from the knuckle to the wrist.

  “What the fuck?” she stammered. “What the actual fu -”

  Suddenly the building tilted again. She felt herself getting pressed hard against the side of the vent, and then she turned to see that the three zombies were slithering straight toward her. She saw Greg opening his mouth as if he was going to try to bite her, so at the last second she pushed herself away from the vent and tumbled across the roof until she slammed headfirst into the door that led into the stairwell.

  Reaching up, she grabbed the handle and tried to get the door open, only to find that it was still locked.

  “You've got to be kidding me,” she gasped. “I'm never going to get down from this fucking building. I'm going to be stuck up here forever.”

  And then the floor gave way beneath her.

  Screaming, Kay tumbled down into the darkness. She slammed hard into something – she saw not what, but she felt it was hard against her ribs – and then she twisted around and fell head-first for a few seconds before hitting some kind of sloped surface which sent her sliding do
wn through a broken grating until she emerged in a toilet cubicle and somehow contrived to land on her knees. She instantly tumbled forward and headbutted the inside of the door, and then she froze for a moment as she felt the floor shifting again.

  “What the fuck?” she said, finally opening her eyes as she felt the whole world spinning around her head. “What the actual...”

  People were screaming in the distance.

  Stumbling to her feet, Kay opened the cubicle door and took a step forward, before hearing a thudding sound over her shoulder. She turned just in time to see Greg, Colin and the girl in the yellow dress tumbling down from the same hold in the roof, landing in a pile around the toilet. The three zombies immediately got to their feet, at which point Kay pulled the door shut. Taking a step back, she could hear the zombies snarling on the other side, but then she realized that they seemed too dumb to figure out how to escape the cubicle. They were pushing constantly on the door, trying to break through, when simply stepping back would allow them to pull it open.

  “I'm getting out of here,” Kay mumbled, turning and limping toward the door at the far end, past the sinks. As she walked, she felt a pain in her right leg, and when she looked down she saw that both her legs were badly cut from the fall.

  She checked her hands and saw the same, then she looked in the mirror above the sinks and saw that there was blood all over one side of her face.

  “Nice,” she muttered, before resuming her shuffling walk toward the door.

  As soon as she was out of the bathroom, she heard the screams. They were so much louder now, as if hundreds and hundreds of people were all crying out. The terrible sound was coming from the direction of the main dance-floor, at the far end of the corridor, and the scream itself was punctuated every few second by a series of loud crunching sounds, almost as if...

  Suddenly the door burst open and Kay's eyes opened wide with horror as scores of panicked people came rushing straight toward her.