Tabitha (9 page)

‘I thought...’
she mumbled.

‘What?’

‘I thought they
were spiders,’ she said wearily. ‘Let’s just get inside.’

‘Thank god they
left something here to drink,’ said Tabitha, perching on a barstool. Dev passed
her a bottle of rum from behind the bar.

‘Don’t you want
something to go with that?’ he said, with his sniffing nervous tick.

‘No, it’s fine,’
she replied, unscrewing the bottle cap with a whispering grind. ‘If there’s a
time and a place for a really strong drink,’ she said with a smile, looking
around at the gloomy pub. She gulped from the bottle, gasped, and took another
swig. She felt it go down like a hard warm bolt of light, and tasted the spirit
fumes on her breath. Dev took the bottle and knocked a gulp back himself.

‘I don’t know
why I didn’t come in here more often,’ Tabitha said sarcastically, looking
around at the murky old pub.

‘Yeah,’ Dev
chuckled. ‘It just looks the same at the end of the world.’ The place was
filled with over-varnished tables on an ancient threadbare carpet. It had
always smelled of sour ale and stale smoke in here, and the closed curtains
gave everything a glum half-light. Tabitha rubbed her fingers over her cuts,
healed and itchy, brushing away bright crumbs of dried silver blood. The scars
faded and vanished completely. She wouldn’t even have a few badges of honour
left to show for her fights.

‘So, we’re just
here to get rat-arsed on rum?’ said Dev. The glass bottle clinked against
Tabitha’s metal hand as she took it back.

‘Well, it
doesn’t look like there’s any survivors around here,’ she said, taking another
gulp. ‘So yeah, I’d say getting rat-arsed is a good plan B.’ Dev cracked a
smile, and took the bottle back.

‘To plan B
then,’ he said, raising the bottle and taking a big gulp. He coughed at the
taste. Tabitha took a swig and put the bottle down on the bar, and glanced
around. The pub was starting to look better already.

‘So, do you
always dress like that, or is it just an end-of-the-world thing?’ he asked her.

‘Dress like
what?’ she replied.

‘Well, like a
mountain climber,’ he said with a grin. He must have meant her plain outdoorsy
t-shirt; a breathable fabric kind of thing. And the hiking boots.

‘What’s wrong
with that?’ she said, affronted.

‘Nothing, I’m
joking,’ he replied, taking another gulp of rum. ‘It’s a good look for you.’
Tabitha watched his expression, and saw the grin creeping back through.

‘What’s wrong
with mountain climbers?’ she said. Dev just sniggered.

‘I’m joking,’ he
insisted. Tabitha watched him suspiciously, and looked down at her clothes. She
was half-covered in blood stains like silver paint.

‘I look like a
messy art student from the future,’ she said, rubbing at a silver stain on her trousers.
She looked up to see Dev smiling at her. There was a sound on the floorboards
upstairs. Wide-eyed, Dev and Tabitha stared at one another in the gloom.

‘Was that a
footstep?’ Tabitha whispered.

‘I think so,’
Dev whispered back. He hurried back round the bar quietly and crept towards the
old staircase in the back.

‘Wait,’ Tabitha
whispered after him, struggling down weakly off her bar stool. By the time
she’d hobbled through the pub into the back Dev was already creeping up onto
the landing upstairs.

‘Dev, wait,’ she
whispered, hauling herself up onto the first step. Her leg burned with a fresh
agony, still healing inside. She heard Dev retch, and he came stomping back
down the old wooden staircase.

‘They
are
here, the survivors,’ he said. ‘They’re dead.’

‘Then we need to
get out. Now,’ said Tabitha. Dev followed her as she hobbled back through to
the bar. She felt her head begin to swim as they headed for the door. It wasn’t
just the rum though.

‘Are you ok?’
said Dev.

‘Yeah, I’ll be
alright,’ she replied. She felt a heavy weakness in her limbs, like she was
about to faint. It must have been the blood loss. She had to get out into the
fresh air, into the daylight, and just sit down on the road for a while. Dev
held the first door for her. Tabitha limped into the small porch and opened the
heavy front door, and hobbled outside to squint in the sudden daylight.

‘Maybe you were
right, about just getting out of town,’ she conceded, looking up and down the
street to make sure it was clear. But the pub door didn’t open again behind
her. Peering back inside, it took her eyes a little while to adjust to the
darkness again.

‘Dev?’ she said.
She put her hand to her mouth; felt that cold familiar dread seeping through
her bones. He was sprawled on the floor, dead. There were gulping sounds and
silvery shapes in the dim light; spiders surrounding him. Tabitha kicked at one
that hugged his chest while it drank him. But her legs felt like jelly. Her
kick only nudged it, and the spider just hissed and carried on feeding. More
crawled towards her. She felt too weak to fight them; she could barely stand
up. They were moving to surround her. Before they could pounce she was back out
of the door and running. The spiders came scuttling out behind her, a sudden
clattering rush on the road. She broke out into a limping sprint, dragging her
right leg. Gasping at the pain. More spiders joined the chase from the toppled
buildings around her. Tabitha felt her thigh sting and her heart pound in her
chest. All her grief flew out of her head, and instinct took over. There was
only
run.
She couldn’t fight them like this. Without her strength she
was just another victim. Only prey, running for her life.

6

Tabitha sprinted round the corner onto
the ruined high street. Every other footstep was a fresh agony, slamming her
weight down on raw tender tissue in her leg. But she had to keep running. The
pack of spiders had grown to a swarm. Far too many to fight. She ran past more
strangled trees coated in black tentacles; more spiders dropped down from the
walls around her. The chittering silver mass behind must have been fifty strong
at least. She felt small metal claws gripping at her boot heels, shaking them
off as she ran. Her muscles burned and her mind raced, looking all around her
as the buildings rushed past. The metal chatter of the horde was deafening; a
tinny racket in a clattering tide. One stumble, one unsteady step, and they’d
be on her. She saw movement then, on the road up ahead. Silvery legs in the
distance. More spiders rushing towards her, cutting off her escape. Nowhere to
run. Tabitha kept limping on, though she knew it was hopeless now. They’d have
her surrounded in seconds, with no side streets to escape. Breathless, Tabitha
looked around desperately for somewhere to climb up high.

‘In here!’ came
a voice off to her left. Tabitha looked over as she ran, searching for it. A
woman ushered to her from an open cellar window, right on street level. Tabitha
gave it everything she had and broke away from the swarm at her heels. She
reached the far kerb and threw herself down on her side, sliding in through the
open window. It slammed shut behind her as she hit the cellar floor; a thick
metal shutter that closed the spiders out. They crashed against it outside.

‘Are you
alright?’ came a voice in the dusty gloom. Gasping for breath, Tabitha looked
up at a middle-aged woman, wiry and athletic, helping her up off the floor. She
was tanned and stern, with short salt-and-pepper hair. The daylight crept in
through a bank of glass bricks in the street above. A pale milky light,
painting their faces.

‘You saved my
life,’ Tabitha gasped. She staggered over to a pile of flattened cardboard
boxes in the corner, and collapsed down on them to catch her breath. An old
pool table filled the middle of the cellar.

‘Well,
technically you saved yourself. I just left the window open for you.’ The woman
smiled, and tossed her a plastic bottle of water. She was deep-voiced and
well-spoken. ‘I’ve left that shutter open for everyone I’ve seen, but you’re
the first person to make it inside. Did you see all the empty skins of the
not-so-lucky out there on the road?’

‘I wasn’t
looking,’ said Tabitha, gulping the water. She tried to smile about it. It
didn’t really come off as the grim pleasantry she’d hoped for.

‘Sorry, catch
your breath,’ said the woman, rummaging in a box in the far corner. ‘It’s been
a while since I’ve had anyone else to talk to.’ Tabitha just nodded, draining
the bottle.

‘Have you seen
anyone else?’ said the woman.

‘There was a
man. They killed him,’ Tabitha replied, suddenly shocked at the thought of Dev.
Now that she had a minute to take stock, his death hit her like a sledgehammer.
‘One minute he was there, then he was just gone… just like everyone else,’ she
mumbled. She stared at the far wall, numb. The tears came quickly at the
thought of her mum, her friends.

‘I’m sorry,’
said the woman, lifting a canister out of a box in the corner.

‘I didn’t know
him,’ Tabitha replied. ‘I – I don’t mean that I don’t care what happened to
him. I mean I’d only met him today.’

‘No need to
explain,’ the woman said gently. ‘Life is
very
fleeting these days. I’m
sorry for what happened to him, all the same. For what happened to everyone.’

‘Thanks,’
Tabitha replied, staring back at the wall. What was it he’d said, that this was
all some punishment from god? It seemed that way, and she didn’t even believe
in god. It was like a new plague. Tabitha pulled her numb legs closer, and
tried to rub some feeling back into them. She felt exhausted. It was hard to
believe that all of this had happened in one day. Home felt like a week ago.

‘Sorry, I’m not
much good at conversation,’ she said. ‘Not today.’

‘Don’t worry,’
the woman replied. ‘Just rest for a bit. I imagine you’ve been through rather a
lot recently.’

‘Are you a
doctor?’ said Tabitha, looking around at the clutter in the gloom. There were
boxes of tablets, plastic syringes. Empty body bags.

‘I am,’ the
woman replied. ‘Part of the ill-fated
relief
effort
. Army field hospital, essentially. We got here just in time to
get massacred,’ she sighed sadly. ‘So, we made a run for this cellar. Pure luck
that we found the place.’

‘There’s a few
of you?’

‘There were,
yes,’ the woman replied. ‘Not now.’

‘I’m sorry,’
said Tabitha.

‘So am I,’ the woman
sighed. ‘No offense to your town, but we should never have come here.’ Tabitha
smiled sadly. ‘I’m Jane, by the way.’

‘Tabitha,’
Tabitha replied.

‘Well, it’s good
to see someone actually make it in here alive,’ said Jane. ‘I’d given up hope,
truth be told.’

‘Are we safe in
here?’ said Tabitha. The spiders still scratched on the metal shutter outside.

‘Perfectly
safe,’ Jane said with a smile. ‘Do you need some more water? I’ve got plenty
here.’

‘No thanks,’
Tabitha replied. ‘I feel really weak though. Do you have any food?’

‘I do,’ said
Jane, walking over with a bottle of antiseptic. ‘But first things first. You
look like you’re in shock. Are you hurt anywhere? Did they cut you at all?’

‘No, just grazes
from the pavement,’ Tabitha lied, looking for wounds. It was just easier not to
explain her disappearing wounds. She’d felt the sting of the pavement graze her
side when she slid in through the window, though it seemed to have healed up
already.

‘Well, I don’t
see anything.’ said Jane, putting the antiseptic back down on the dusty old
pool table. ‘Any dizziness, any blurred vision?’

‘No,’ Tabitha
lied again. She didn’t want to trust her alien changes into the hands of a
military doctor. She’d seen too many movies where they wanted nothing more than
to catch the peculiar and cut it open. She hid her hands down by her sides.

‘I can’t feel
much of a pulse,’ said Jane, pressing her fingers against Tabitha’s neck.
Tabitha said nothing about her new heart. ‘And you’re sure you’ve not come to
any kind of harm, the last few days?’ said Jane.

‘Got lucky, I
suppose,’ Tabitha replied with a shrug. The less she said, the better.

‘How are your
boots?’ said Jane, standing up.

‘Fine, I think,’
Tabitha replied, looking over them as she sat up on the flattened boxes.

‘Well, do you
think, or do you know?’ Jane replied, with a bossy tone. ‘Check the backs.
Those monsters were right on your heels.’

‘Why does it
matter?’ Tabitha replied, pulling her feet closer to inspect the back of her
boots.

‘Because if your
boots come apart you’ll end up running barefoot at some point,’ Jane warned
her. ‘And unless you’ve got some very impressive callousing on the soles of
your feet, you’ll get caught out. And end up like those skins outside.’ Jane
fixed her with a matriarch stare. ‘
Always
look after your boots.’

‘Alright,’
Tabitha protested, reminded suddenly of her mum’s nagging. The thought of her
mum stung, and a fresh tide of disbelief washed through her. Jane wandered off
to move some boxes from the corner.

‘Let’s have some
light in here, shall we?’ said Jane. Tabitha staggered to her feet and watched
Jane rummaging around in a box. She produced a pair of old oil lanterns, and
lit them with a cigarette lighter.

‘Luckily there
are still some people who believe in the practical worth of antiques,’ said
Jane, putting the lanterns down on the pool table. ‘I’ve had these for years.’

‘How did you get
in here?’ said Tabitha. ‘The same way I did?’ Jane nodded over at the cobwebbed
ceiling in the corner.

‘There’s a metal
trap door there to the shop upstairs, over where the steps are,’ Jane replied.
‘It’s probably too dark to see it really. There’s a nice big pair of bolts on
it too. There’s nothing getting in here.’ Jane took a lantern and rummaged
through some plastic bags on the floor, fishing around amongst some tins.

‘Now. We have
baked beans, or… more baked beans. Oh no, sorry, baked beans with sausages.
Need I ask which one you’d prefer?’

‘Beans and
sausages, please,’ Tabitha replied with a smile, famished. She thought about
her mum, and her heart broke afresh. They used to have beans and sausages on
rainy weekends when they went camping together. Why did everything have to
remind her of mum?

‘Try not to
think about them,’ said Jane, with a gentler tone.

‘Could you tell
what I was thinking about?’ said Tabitha, wiping her eyes.

‘I could see it
in your face,’ Jane replied. ‘In my line of work you see that look quite a
lot.’ She came over and took Tabitha’s hand. Felt the cold, hard roughness of
her palm. Tabitha pulled away.

‘Jesus Christ,’
said Jane, stepping back at the sight of Tabitha’s grey hands. ‘They feel like…
metal.
’ Tabitha said nothing. Things were about to get tricky.

‘What happened
to you?’ said Jane, suddenly nervous. She saw Tabitha’s eyes catch the lantern
glow, reflecting the light like a cat’s. Like a monster.

‘What?’ said
Tabitha, suspicious of the way Jane was studying her.

‘I said, what
happened to you?’ Jane demanded, producing a pistol from her coat.

‘What are you
doing?’
said Tabitha, staring down the barrel. She saw the sudden intensity in
Jane’s eyes.

‘You’re
infected,’ Jane said simply, pointing the gun as she stepped closer.

‘I am
not
infected!
’ Tabitha snapped as she stood up, surprised at herself for
squaring up to her. Jane cracked Tabitha on the jaw with the pistol grip,
dropping her to the floor. Before Tabitha knew what was happening Jane was
emptying a syringe into her forearm. The room spun in slow motion.

‘What the hell
are you doing?’ Tabitha slurred, looking around drunkenly at the cellar. Jane
stepped around her, watching her carefully.
‘Would everything stop bloody injecting
me?’ Tabitha mumbled, dropping unconscious to the floor. A door opened in the
gloomy corner, revealing the bright glow of lanterns in the cellar next door.

‘Did you have to
be so rough with her?’ said a younger woman, emerging from the doorway. She was
blonde and gangly, dressed in a white lab coat.

‘Just help me
get her in,’ said Jane, struggling with Tabitha’s wrists.

‘Oh wow,’ said
the younger woman, staring at Tabitha’s hands in the dim light. ‘It’s metal
skin.’ She touched Tabitha’s limp hands.

‘She’s
infected,’ said Jane, pointing at Tabitha’s legs for the other woman to grab
hold.

‘No, she’s
mutated,
’
the blonde woman replied, taking Tabitha’s ankles. ‘It’s incredible.’

‘So you still
don’t think vetting the survivors for infection first is worth the effort?’
Jane asked her.

‘It’s not,’ the
younger woman chuckled. ‘You always think there has to be some security check
to go through before we can do our job. It probably just comes off as sinister,
more than anything. Secret labs and all that.’ Jane grunted unhappily with
dented pride.
Together
they hauled her body towards the door, into the brighter light of a makeshift
clinic in the second cellar. They worked in silence for a couple of minutes,
hobbling through the clinic with Tabitha’s limp body. Grunting and struggling
to haul her towards a metal table.

‘She’s pretty,’
Jane observed, bringing more lanterns over.

‘Gorgeous,’ the
younger woman agreed. She hesitated then in the silence, and looked up at Jane.
‘Wait, are you jealous?’ she said playfully. ‘Even at the end of the world?’
Jane said nothing, and looked at her grumpily. ‘I guess that’s a yes,’ the younger
woman replied. ‘Are you scared I might run off with her or something?’

‘If you run off
with her, I’ll kill you,’ Jane told her, with a hint of a smile.

‘Will you
really?’ said the younger woman, grinning.

‘I’ll hunt you
down and shoot you,’ Jane assured her, smiling.

‘Well, I love
you too honey,’ the younger woman replied. ‘Now help me get her on the table.’

Tabitha blinked her eyes open and saw
flickering lantern lights. She felt groggy, like her head was off swimming. Panicking,
she sat up on the table. She was surprised that they hadn’t restrained her at
all. She looked over at Jane, and a blonde younger woman beside her.

‘See? I told
you,’ said the younger woman. Tabitha watched them warily. ‘Jane was convinced
you’d try to attack us,’ she said. ‘I’m Sam, by the way.’ She sneezed. ‘Sorry.
It’s too dusty down here. What’s your name
hun
?’

‘Tabitha,’ she
replied hesitantly. She watched them carefully, and reached slowly for her
belt. Her carving knife wasn’t there.