Kristin (8 page)

The city seemed unusually
quiet. There was no rumble of early morning traffic, no honking of car horns.
He rubbed his eyes, made a visor with his hand and peered out at the urban
sprawl far below. Nothing was moving. He looked up. No planes were coming into,
or leaving Galeão International Airport;
the city was dead.
Perplexed, he let his eyes
drift further north, to the
 
foot
of the Corcovado mountain, and roam upwards to find the holy statue, the Cristo
Redentor. As if punched by an invisible fist, he lurched back from the window.
‘Mary, mother of Jesus!’

Juanita woke and rushed
through to him, met his wild eyes. ‘Carlos, what’s wrong?’

‘
It
’
s vanished ... Christ the Redeemer has vanished
!’

As one, they moved to the
window and Juanita covered her mouth with her hand; the Cristo Redentor
had
gone!

‘... Carlos, it hasn’t
vanished,’ she said, looking closer, ‘
it’s been destroyed
!’

Minutes passed in silence
as they stared at the scene of sacrilegious destruction.

Again it seemed their eyes
were playing tricks on them: one of the enormous demolished block started to
move ... then another ... and another. One appeared to levitate and settle upon
the others. They strained their eyes, holding on to one other.

Gradually, the great bricks
shifted up and down and from side to side, shuffling position, losing portions
here and there, until they’d formed a distinctive shape ... a human shape. But
it did not resemble Christ. Juanita screamed: the blocks had remodelled
themselves into the effigy of a woman.

The drive through the municipality of
Humaitá was a vision of
hell. Mutilated corpses lay in the streets and on the pavements,
slumped at the wheels of
 
cars.
Every few minutes, Almeido brought his cab to a halt and they checked the
victims. All were dead, or beyond the limited help they could provide.

On a corner, outside a
plundered jewellers, some youths lashed out with fists and feet at something on
the ground. With horror Juanita realized that the target of their violence was
a child. ‘Carlos, help him!’ she cried. He skidded across the icy road, floored
the gas pedal and aimed the vehicle at the group. They scattered just in time,
disappearing down alleyways, over walls.

Juanita jumped from the cab
and held the child in her arms. He was a boy, no more than ten years old. And
he was dead. Her instincts, as the mother of a daughter who’d died in infancy
prevented her from leaving the child where he was. She picked him up, carried
him to the car and lay him on the back seat. Then she climbed in, slamming the
door, and her husband nodded his approval.

‘
Carlos
,
what
’
s happening
?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know, my dear ...
I just don’t know.’

‘Have things spread from
London, from Europe, are we damned too?’

He shook his head.

They left Rio’s back
streets and emerged onto the Avenue Epitácio Pessoa, the main northern arterial
route out of the city. Windows of boutiques, restaurants and bars, banks and
offices had been smashed in, their interiors ransacked. On both sides of the
wide thoroughfare, and in the road between the abandoned cars, masses of people
trampled the dead or dying, shuffling mindlessly towards the distant statue of
the girl.

Almeido wiped sweat from
his brow:
These
people may no longer know their own minds
,
but he did. He would take it upon himself
to investigate the monstrosity that infested the sacred site
,
the present evil
that was
 
brainwashing
,
terrorizing the
city. He would not be afraid. He
’
d confront whatever it was and find a way of
destroying it
,
even if he had to blow it to pieces himself. And then he would rebuild
the Cristo Redentor — with his bare hands if need be
,
if he was the
only citizen of his native city who
’
d retained his sanity.

Alongside the eastern banks
of the Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas lake more bodies floated. They passed out of
the bright sunshine into the green light of the
 
Tunel André Rebouças, the underpass that stretched for two
miles deep beneath the base of the Corcovado Peak. When they came out Almeido
turned left into the Tijuca forest and joined the Estrada do Corcovado, the
narrow mountain road that wound through successive hairpin bends hewn from the
heavily wooded mountainside. At the top he swung the cab into the car park,
turned off the engine and they listened to the sound of absolute silence.
Almeido counted ten other unoccupied vehicles, parked haphazardly, their doors
hanging open.

They climbed from the car
and stood motionless, gawping up at the incomprehensible, grotesque effigy
raking the blue sky, then ascended the white stairs to the viewing platform. As
they neared the top they noticed something dark and wet spilling over the edge.
They stopped for a moment, then carried
 
on climbing. On the penultimate step Juanita grabbed his arm and
convulsed —
the platform was brimming over with blood
! Within the spreading
pool lay burnt shoes, fragments of scorched clothing, and human bones. The
blood had been diluted by a foaming, repellent effluence that ran down the legs
of the statue.

He swallowed, crossed his
chest and walked forwards, but she pulled him back. ‘
I have to know what it is
,’ he said.
‘Wait here for me.’

Almeido masked his face
with a handkerchief and picked his way through the remains, slipping on strips
of partially dissolved skin. He heard frantic, splashing footsteps behind him
and turned to find she’d followed him.

Through the nauseating
stench he isolated and identified a new odour ... burning rubber! He looked
down — the soles of his boots were melting. ‘Acid ...
 
quickly!’ he bellowed. He grabbed her
and they struggled to a dry spot at the foot of the effigy, kicking off their
smouldering footwear.

Tipping their heads they
stared up at the sheer wall of soapstone that formed the shape of the statue.
It had been expertly rendered. The feet were tiny, perfect, the waist slender.
The breasts were gentle, underdeveloped mounds, the facial structure beautiful,
its mouth open, enticing. Once they’d looked upon the idol, they couldn’t turn
away.

‘ ...
What in the name of God is it
?’ she
asked.

He was mesmerized.

‘A statue can’t just build
itself, Carlos.’

‘
She
built it. She made it in her own
likeness, just as God created all of us in his.’

‘ ... But it isn’t humanly
possible.’

‘It isn’t human, it doesn’t
belong in this world.’

‘It’s just a pile of
stones, it couldn’t have crippled the whole city, torn all these poor people to
ribbons.’

‘The Cristo Redentor was
just a pile of stones, but look at the hold it had over Rio’s population.’

‘But it was a power for the
good. How could anything, however evil, do this?’

‘It could, and it did.’

‘
But how
,
why
?’

‘It embodies something very
bad, I can feel it,’ he mumbled, unable to tear his eyes from the statue’s
beautiful face. ‘It wants to impregnate
us
with its malevolence.’

‘ ... How do you know?’

‘It’s talking to me.’

‘
Talking
, how can it be talking?’

‘It’s inside my head, wants
me to do something important for it, something to prove my allegiance.’

‘What, Carlos, what does it
want you to do?’

‘This!’
In that moment his memories of life as a human
being, a good man and a devoted husband
were stripped
from him — he knew what he had to do. Almeido turned on his wife, forced
her to the ground and proceeded to throttle her with large, dry hands. The
presence was pleased,
he could feel its pleasure
.

She appeared to be mouthing
something. He became curious and before
  
he stopped any more oxygen from entering her lungs he
loosened up enough for her to splutter a name.

‘ ... SOFIA!’

He pondered the name for an
instant, but it meant nothing to him and he proceeded to strangle his wife.

‘ ... Remember … your
daughter ... Sofia!’
 

‘
Sofia
?’

‘ ... Yes ... we had a ...
daughter together, a lovely ... little girl.’

‘A daughter?’

‘ ... We named her ...
Sofia ... after your mother ... she died when she was ... four months old ...
don’t you remember?’

Her husband remembered, and
fell to his knees as the monstrous presence continued to chatter to him, to
berate him. ‘Juanita, I’m so sorry!’ he wept. ‘Can you forgive me? It had me
this bastard, this antichrist, I didn’t know what I was doing. It was urging me
to kill you’ ...
Thou
shouldst have killed her
,
Christian pig
,
thou shouldst have slain the whore
!

He scrambled to his feet,
shaking with rage, picked up a rock and threw it at the idol’s shins. ‘WHAT DO
YOU WANT, YOU FUCKING BITCH ... WHY ARE YOU ON THIS MOUNTAIN, ON THIS EARTH?’
...
I am here
to claim humanity as my own
,
imbecilic wanker
!
Why didst thou not do as I instructed
,
why didst thou
not murder that obese dog
? ... ‘I will not kill my wife! I will do nothing
you command, I do not fear you! You can’t turn my head, gain my soul!’ ...
Very well
,
I will kill her.
...
‘You will not!’ he promised, moving in front of her. ‘I will resist you
the best I can! You’ll find others like me, we will not let you spread your
disease of the soul here without a fight, you piece of shit!’ ...
Then thee all
will die
!
...
‘I’d rather die now, with her, than live in your world!’ ...
Moron
,
as thou wishest
!

The statue rained a shower
of burning fluid down upon them and they ran. The effigy grated round on its
pedestal and issued a second cascade of
 
deadly bile that hit the platform surface ten feet behind them,
splattering
 
and blistering their
legs.

They staggered to the car.
Almeido punched the lever into drive and they sped from the park, meeting the
first bend so fast that the rear of the taxi snaked out of control, taking them
perilously close to the edge:
Now he believed the news from the other side of the Atlantic. Now he
could accept the terrible images from Lourdes as reality. Now he could
appreciate the horror that had beset London.

Juanita touched the
bubbling skin of her calves and grimaced.

‘ ... Whatever it is, it
may have gained the upper hand against the people of Rio, but it will never
consume the heart of this great city, nor will it enslave humanity. I’m just a
man, just one mortal, but there must be other people — strong-willed, good
people like you and me who haven’t been perverted by this ungodly scum.

‘I know my way around this
city like I know my way around our apartment. We’ll search every street, every
alley, every back yard and find more like us. We’ll rally them, go back to the
Corcovado and kill that bastard, I swear it, in the name of God! And then we’ll
reinstate the Cristo Redentor.’

Near the foot of the
mountain he brought the car to a standstill beneath a sprawling pepper tree.
Together, they carried the body of the boy into the woods, lay him down and
covered his stiff, white body with fallen branches and leaves.

Back in the car, she turned
to her husband. ‘I know you would never have hurt me, our love has endured for
all these years, it runs too deep,’ she said, and kissed him.

Thirteen

The sleek, white, Mercedes transit van had
parked directly opposite the building. The driver, a man with severely cropped
red hair sat motionless at the wheel, but something told Thom that he was being
watched as he opened the door to the flat and he shot a glance over his
shoulder. There was a shout, the van doors burst open and a group of eight or
nine sprang out and charged across the road towards him, headed by a striking
woman with flowing, blonde hair.

Following closely behind
stocky, sweaty men wielded video cameras and sound equipment. The inertia of
the crew swept him inside, up onto the landing.

‘Stop! What do you want ...
who are you people?’ he shouted.

‘Greta Johansson ... BBC
... could we speak to the woman?’

‘What woman? ... there’s
nobody else here, get out of here!’

‘Just a couple of minutes
with her?’

‘ ... How did you find us?’

‘Ministry of Defence.’

‘Listen to me ... ’

‘Five minutes, Mr Sharman?’

‘You have no idea what
you’re dealing with ... ’

‘I’ll take my chances.’

‘They’re not good odds.’

‘Don’t you think the
public, people unaffected by the siren, and there are many, have a right to
know if this woman
you’re harbouring is ... ’

‘I’m not
harbouring
her.’

‘ ... Have a right to know if
she’s the cause of ... ’

‘
What do you think
? Do you think an
ordinary girl could have made all of
this
happen?’

‘
Ordinary
? It’s my job to establish
facts, Mr Sharman, not to speculate.’

‘Really? Here’s a fact for
you to consider very carefully, Miss Johansson, if you go into that room ... ’

His inadvertent hint
prompted a stampede, and the crew surged past him.

She was sitting at the
dining table, and they bared down upon her, filtering busily around her static
figure. Lights were set up, a microphone pinned to her blouse. Somebody cracked
the back of her head with a hard piece of metal and she glared at the technician,
then at Thom in bewilderment, disbelief:
Why had he done this to her
?

‘Can you tell me your
name?’ Johansson asked her.

She turned her head slowly
to face the pretty presenter.

‘ ... Kristin.’

‘Kristin who?’

‘Kristin.’

‘Quiet everyone! Going live
in five ... four ... three ... two. Hello, this is Greta Johansson, for the
BBC, coming to you live this morning from Greenwich, London. Acting upon
information received from an official source, I’m here to speak to a woman,
known only as Kristin, whom we believe may have somehow played an instrumental
part in the psychological and sociological
 
breakdown that began in London a few days ago, and is now
spreading rapidly across the rest of the country, and the world.

‘
Kristin
? It’s unusual not to know one’s
second name, isn’t it?’

Kristin stared hard at her.

‘How long have you been in
the country?’

She glared at Thom.‘A few
months.’

‘Why did you come here?’

‘ ... To find work,’ she
replied, fidgeting uncomfortably.

‘And did you?’

‘Did I what?’

‘Find work ?’

‘No.’ Beads of milky sweat
formed on her forehead.

‘Where are you from,
Kristin?’

‘Why do you want to know?’
she asked, curtly, relighting a half-finished cigarette.

‘Please tell me where
you’re from?’

‘
I am from hell
.’

‘ ... Sorry?’

‘The Czech Republic.’

‘Whereabouts in the Czech
Republic?’

‘Rakovnik!’ she shouted,
sending a cup skating across the table and smashing onto the floor.

‘ ... Are you aware of
everything that’s been happening in London?’

She shook her head.

‘France, Brazil?’

‘No.’

‘You know nothing about the
siren?’

‘What siren?’

‘The high pitched tone
— three days ago?’

‘What are you talking about
you moronic bitch!’ she bristled.

The presenter stopped,
scrutinized her. ‘Government scientists have pinpointed the origin of the sound
to this exact location.’

‘So what?’ she scowled,
knocking off some ash onto her interrogator’s notes.

‘Is it true the siren can
affect peoples minds, brainwash them?’

‘How should I fucking
know?’
  

‘Have you been influencing
people’s minds, Kristin?’

‘
Influencing
?’

‘Have you been ... ?’

‘Questions, questions,
questions.’

‘You’ve had your five, get
out of here,’ Thom insisted.

Johansson held up her hand.
‘Have you been willing bad things to happen, Kristin?’

‘
Bad things
? Yes.’

‘I didn’t catch that?’

‘I said no. Are you deaf ?’

‘You are denying any
involvement, absolving yourself of any blame?’

‘I am involved, but the
blame is not all mine.’

Johansson frowned as
Kristin leered at her duplicitously.

‘Has anything that’s
happened been caused, either in part, or in whole by any unusual powers you may
possess?’

‘
Powers
? Ah, you’ll see those soon, last
things you’ll see.’

‘ ... What do you mean ...
?’

‘Anger.’

‘Your anger?’

‘My anger, Greta.’

‘And what should I do, when
you become angry?’

As Kristin glared at her
inquisitor her tormentor placed a vile, psychotic thought in her mind, willed
terrible things upon Johansson.

‘You should fear me,
Greta.’

  
‘ ... Do you ... have anything more to say?’

‘
More to say
?’ She looked past the
Swede’s shoulder, into the camera trained upon her from an oblique angle, but
far beyond the shiny lens and the electronics inside. ‘More to say?’

Johansson saw a mercurial
flash of brilliant white light within the void of Kristin’s eyes, and her
malignancy streamed, unstoppably, into the minds and souls of the millions
watching the early morning programme.

‘ ...
What happened
?’ Johansson asked. ‘
What have you
just done
?’

‘What needed to happen,
what had to be done.’

‘ ... And what ... what do
you mean by that?’ she stuttered, disrupted, physically compromised.

Kristin smiled insidiously.

‘Can you explain the white
light, it didn’t come from our equipment?’

‘Transference of thought.’

‘
Your thoughts
?’

‘The siren wasn’t
completely effective, I’m afraid.’

Johansson felt pressure
build behind her eyes. She closed the lids, traced the abnormal bulges with her
fingertips and gasped. ‘ ... What will happen ... to the people who’ve received
these thoughts?’

Kristin flashed a furious
glance at Thom. ‘Why have you foisted this rabble on me, this prying heap of
faeces, this fucking slapper?’

‘
What
did you call me
?’Johansson blurted.

‘You’re nothing but an
intrusive, overbearing whore!’

The presenter lunged,
grabbed her subject by the throat — it was cold to the touch, like
snakeskin, and she caught her breath. A technician intervened, separating them,
and she recomposed herself.

Kristin leaned forwards. ‘
... Thy nose bleeds, Greta.’

Johansson shrank from the
execrable voice, dabbing at her nostrils in alarm, her stomach aflame. ‘ ...
What are you ...
?’

‘Thy future.’

 
‘ ... What have you done to me ... ?’

‘Nothing thou didst not
deserve.’

From below came the sound
of smashing glass and splintering wood, the hurried, clumsy clop of heavy boots
on the bare wood of the stairs.

‘POLICE!’ reverberated the
alert, as the men filled the room. ‘NOBODY MOVE!’

Three of the officers
closed in on Kristin, nudging her thin, fragile skull with the muzzles of their
cold, black, Heckler and Koch carbines. A short, burly officer stood back from
the rest. He removed his peaked cap and tossed it aside, uncovering a sweaty
mat of thinning hair. He cocked his Glock 17 pistol and aimed directly at her
face. ‘Mooney, SO19!’ he barked, looking at Thom. ‘Don’t worry, Mr Sharman, or
the rest of you — whoever the fuck you are! We came for the girl, she’s
all we’re interested in!’

‘Thy nosebleed worsens,
Greta,’ smirked Kristin.

The trickle turned into a
steady flow, running aroundJohansson’s ruby lips, off her chin. She tipped her
head back and stuffed her notes beneath her nostrils, but blood began to seep
from her ears and eyes and she wailed.

‘YOU, DON’T MOVE A FUCKING
INCH!’ Mooney shouted, forcing her head to one side with his gun as she
continued to observe the distress of her beautiful prey with muted fascination.

‘
Look ... poor Greta
!’ the demonic voice
cackled. ‘Greta, Greta, Greta ... bleeding, bleeding, bleeding.’

Johansson’s slender wrists
and neck swelled rapidly, until they were corpulent. Her face, arms, stomach,
followed, inflating like rubber balloons filling with water. Her skin started
to smoulder and split.

‘WHATEVER YOU’RE FUCKING
DOING, STOP IT NOW, YOU FREAK!’ Mooney yelled, cringing.

Johansson screamed —
a scream born of desperation to live, in the realization she would not.

‘Time to die, Greta!’

The presenter’s body went
into violent spasm. Extremities — fingertips, earlobes, turned black. The
charring spread, peeling off her skin in sheets. Her crisp, beige suit, her
white blouse combusted. Her tongue fell from her open mouth and her eyeballs
pushed their
 
way free of their
sockets. One exploded with a phutt. Then the other.

Kristin’s eyes watered, her
face twisting with momentary remorse.
But her pity for Greta was short-lived. Greta had
entered the lion’s den and would have to pay the price. ‘Holes ... just ugly,
bleeding holes where once there were eyes with which to see!’ she laughed.

Johansson bubbled blood and
her smoking corpse rocked back in the chair. Its mandible fell away,
discharging an internal gas — a final breath, and then deflated.

Kristin slumped forwards
and her head crashed into the hard wooden table.

Mooney covered his face to
quell the repellent odour of the burnt flesh, as Johansson’s crew vomited, or
fainted, or ran screaming from the lounge. He’d seen a human being burn to
death once before, whilst working on the pylons as an electrician.
But this
?
It was abnormal
,
incomprehensible
,
unearthly.

He nodded at his men. ‘ …
Take her.’