The Sickening King (The Grid 2) Read online

  "How the hell is it going to be okay?" David asked. "There's no electricity. There's no rule of law. There's a possible nuclear disaster and now there are stories of zombies. Do you seriously think the government's going to suddenly work out what to do, and everything going to be okay?"

  "Actually," Caroline said firmly, "I do, yes. I think everything's going to be just fine, and all we have to do is stick it out and not do anything stupid like, say, sail a fucking boat out into the Atlantic fucking ocean". She paused, hoping her words would finally sink in. "David, I'm not risking Andrew's life on some crazy scheme".

  "And I'm not risking his life by letting him stay here and get killed by one of those things, or letting him die of radiation sickness. We don't have long, we have to decide what to do. Right now. There's no time to wait, Caroline. If the government were coming, they'd be here by now".

  "I'm staying," Caroline said. "You can do what you want. You can sail away on that fucking boat. But I'm staying, and Andrew's staying with me".

  David sighed. There was no way he could leave his wife and child, not like this. But staying would effectively means giving up. It would mean... suicide. He was absolutely certain that choosing to stick around would mean certain death, and he could accept that for himself, and even for Caroline. But for Andrew? David looked at his son, a tiny baby wriggling in his mother's arms. Shouldn't he have the best chance for a full life?

  "Can we think about it overnight?" David said finally. "Can we discuss it properly? Maybe tomorrow -"

  "Not tomorrow," Caroline said. "Or the next day. We're waiting here until the government comes to fix everything". She turned and walked away from the dock, and David hurried after her. He couldn't let her walk the streets alone. He glanced back at the boat, knowing that there was a chance it would be gone the next day. Most people, seeing a good boat, would try to steal it. David had secured it as best he could, but he figured his best chance of getting away from here was now shot to pieces.

  "You hate me," Caroline said as they walked.

  "I don't hate you," he replied, but deep down, he felt like maybe she was right. Her faith in government help was like religious dogma. It was as if she believed the government could somehow magically rise above the crisis and find a solution, as if the government had powers that were beyond the reach of normal people. David felt differently: he knew there was no way the government could help them, not now that things had become so bad.

  They reached their house and went inside. David was careful to bolt the door shut. He turned to Caroline. "Now what?" he asked.

  "We wait," she said, sitting on the sofa with Andrew still in her arms.

  David stared at her. "Wait for what?" he asked, running out of patience.

  "For help," she replied. She looked up at him, with tears in her eyes. "David, please don't ask questions when you know the answer. Can we just try not to fight?"

  David said nothing, and instead went upstairs. He looked out the window, watching for any sign of life in the deserted streets. Apart from his wife and son, he hadn't seen another person for more than a week. He figured that anyone who could walk had probably left. Smart people. He took a deep breath and made a decision. Caroline would have to sleep eventually, and when she did, he'd take Andrew and leave. They'd go to the boat, and they'd sail away and hope for a new life. Although he loved his wife, David wasn't about to let her foolishness cost his son a shot at living a full life. It was heartbreaking to imagine Caroline waking up and finding them both gone, but David decided he'd just have to be strong. For his son's sake, he had to take this action.

  Epilogue 2

  They wandered the desert for three weeks, moving at night and sleeping during the day to avoid the worst of the sun. There were three of them, two men and a woman, and they dragged a cart filled with food and bottles of water. They were lost, and they knew it, and they had no maps and no way of knowing how to get away from here. Worse, as they walked, they found their skin was starting to become sore. At first they thought it was because of the sun, but eventually they realised it was something else. There was something in the air.

  "Radiation," one of them muttered as his teeth and hair began to fall out. It was the last word that would ever come from any of their mouths.

  They kept moving, because they wanted to live. Like most humans, they were willing to fight until the final moment. But eventually the cart of food and water became too heavy, and they all felt too sick to eat anyway, so they left it and the three of them stumbled out across the desert. Soon they had forgotten the cart even existed. In fact, soon they had forgotten everything: where they had come from, even their names.

  Both the men died within a few hours. They collapsed and their bodies remained where they had fallen. Finally the woman found herself alone, staggering across the dry desert floor. She glanced back and saw that vultures had already landed on the bodies of her friends, and were ripping away strips of flesh. The sight horrified her, but the woman staggered onwards. She was barely thinking by now, just walking because of a desire for life that filled what remained of her senses. She knew she was going to die in the next few minutes, but she wanted to keep pushing ahead.

  Just in case.

  And then she saw it.

  A large grey dome, with some buildings around it.

  She picked up the pace, and eventually she reached the perimeter fence. She stumbled along its length, and eventually she found an unlocked gate. She walked across a yard and reached a large metal door in one of the buildings, but it was locked. She glanced up at the dome, and she realised it was making a noise. There was a loud humming noise coming from within, and something was hissing. In one area, the dome was cracked and there seemed to be burn marks along the broken edges.

  Spitting out her last tooth, the woman walked along the side of the building. She could barely think any more, her mind too badly dimmed by her body's decline. She was incapable of really thinking, incapable of doing much more than wandering around and staring at things. She tried to think, though. She tried to come up with some kind of plan, but her brain - like the rest of her body - was dying. Eventually she realised there was no way into the building, but she spotted a small window set into the wall, near the ground.

  She got down onto her hands and knees, and she looked at the window. At first she was shocked by what appeared to be a skeletal figure staring back at her, but then she realised it was her own reflection. The radiation had reduced her to a horrific state, with all her hair gone, and the sun had burnt her so badly that the nerve-endings in her head were dead now, which at least spared her from feeling too much pain. She cupped her hands around her eyes, trying to see in through the window, and finally she was able to make out a room that looked like part of a laboratory.

  As she watched, a figure shuffled into the room, followed by another, and another. They were horrific sighs, skeletal and rotten, like zombies. They walked slowly, and soon the room was filled with seven of these creatures. They all shuffled over to the window and looked straight at the woman, and finally they began clawing at the glass, trying to get to her. It was as if they were suddenly overcome with a desire to get to this woman at any cost.

  But the woman was dead. She had died as she looked through the window, at the exact moment that she first saw the creatures. So her dead body just remained there, teasing the creatures inside the room. Eventually a vulture landed and began to pick apart the meat, tearing juicy strips from her corpse. This continued for a day or two, and the woman did not reanimate like the others. She had not been infected by the worm. She was just dead.

  The creatures inside the facility didn't give up. For them, the sight of a large, fresh meal was enough to drive them into a frenzy, and they struggled to try to get through the glass. They clawed away at the window, desperate to get out of the room and to feast on the woman's flesh. But the vulture had this one all to itself, and soon it had picked every scrap of flesh from her bones. Deciding it was full, the vulture turned and
took to the air, flying away from the facility. The vulture had noticed that it felt ill whenever it went near the old human place, and now that it was full of food, the bird decided it was time to fly away and find a new hunting ground.

  For two days, the vulture flew west, and eventually it spotted the ocean on the horizon, and what appeared to be a small town. This was good news for the vulture, because a town usually meant humans, and humans meant waste, and waste meant a meal. The vulture spotted something on the ground, and swooped down to see what it was. A human girl was cycling on a yellow bike, racing towards the town. Deciding not to bother with the girl, the vulture flew on and was soon flying above the buildings. It circled for a while and then landed on a road next to the ocean. It looked around, and saw that there were no humans anywhere to be seen. Lately, the vulture had noticed there were far fewer humans around, and although the vulture didn't know why this had happened, it was more than content with the situation. So the vulture walked over to an old bin and managed to tip it over, picking through the waste and finding a few things of interest. But as it tried to get its beak into an old can, the vulture suddenly felt a human hand gripping its neck. Lifted into the air, the vulture struggled, but the last thing it felt was a human mouth biting into its own chest, and finally the bird was dead.

  ALSO AVAILABLE BY AMY CROSS

  Dark Season (series 1-3)

  Lupine Howl (series 1-2)

  Ghosts

  Asylum

  Devil's Briar

  Broken Blue

  The Night Girl

  Mass Extinction Event (series 1)

  The Library