The spread book 6 annihi.., p.1
The Spread: Book 6 (Annihilation), page 1
THE SPREAD
BOOK 6 (ANNIHILATION)
IAIN ROB WRIGHT
ULCERATED PRESS
CONTENTS
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Quotes
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Epilogue
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Thanks to Dorothy Rushforth for teaching me how to finally speak like a true Scot.
“There is magic in Scotland. It’s a country with a lot of pride and bravery.”
Gayle Ranking
“We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to meet.”
Stephen Hawkings
“No one can tell what goes on in between the person you were and the person you become.”
Stephen King, The Stand (1978) Doubleday
CHAPTER ONE
Ryan had been travelling south for three days through an unrecognisable world.
The fungus was gone, dissolving into black soot that broke apart and scattered on every light breeze like a thousand flicked cigarettes, but the air tasted of copper pennies, and the dusty air irritated his eyes. Every sight was a constant reminder of past devastation – burnt-out buildings, rotting corpses, and crumpled vehicles as far as the eye could see – but nature was slowly reclaiming what was hers. Succulent green grass sprouted from the gaps in the pavement and from the foundations of buildings. Buttercups and dandelions bloomed, and a weak sun pierced the magenta and orange sky overhead, reminding Ryan that it was still there – that it was fighting just as hard as everything else to survive.
Metal, said Wallace, flapping his fans as he strolled – three-footed – beside Ryan.
Ryan frowned at the seven-foot alien and looked ahead. He saw metal. Lots of metal. A gigantic fallen bird. He realised with a start that it was a plane. It must have dropped out of the sky when the power went out.
Broken, said Wallace.
Ryan was horrified by the sight before him, the enormity of the destruction. What must the passengers have been thinking as they plummeted to the ground? How many children were on board, clinging to their parents in terror?
It was awful.
Ryan sometimes forgot that the apocalypse had happened to everyone. Seven billion people experienced it from their own unique perspective. Most were no longer alive to tell their tales, but Ryan’s story started at a lonely cottage next to a hill in Scotland. For the people on this plane, the crisis had ended suddenly with an unexplained dive out of the clouds. They wouldn’t even have known what was happening.
The aeroplane was in bits. Both wings had come away from the fuselage and were lying bent and blackened to either side. The nose cone was crushed flat, and several uprooted trees lay in a muddy channel behind the tail where the plane had obviously skidded through the earth. Clearly, the pilot tried to perform an emergency landing, but the charred corpses strewn about the wreckage, some mangled beyond recognition, showed that he or she had failed. The impact of the crash had scattered the plane’s contents far and wide. Luggage, clothes, books, and other belongings were strewn about the area. A gruesome and heartbreaking scene.
Little point in sticking around. This was a gravesite. No survivors.
Probably for the best, thought Ryan. Surviving is harder than dying.
Space ship, said Wallace, using his vibrating fans to communicate. The big blue alien possessed a databank full of English words, but that didn’t mean he always knew the right ones to use.
“Not quite,” said Ryan. “Aeroplane. Flight.”
Air car.
“Yeah. More or less. Do they have cars on your planet? Machines?”
Machines. Many. Wallace flapped his fans again and conjured strange images of angular blocks with pulsing centres. Impossible to guess what they were or what they did. Alien contraptions.
Ryan scratched at his dark, sprouting beard, wincing as he disturbed the dry skin underneath. He could feel the grit and grime of days – weeks? – trapped in the hair. How long had it been since he’d last bathed? “So,” he said, his voice dry and starved of water, “if you have machines, why didn’t you bring any of them with you? You came here with nothing. Don’t you have weapons where you come from?”
Wallace stood for a moment, a big blue statue with one enormous black eye. He was likely accessing his word database again, so Ryan waited for him to answer. Eventually, Wallace lifted both fans and conjured images. He explained what they were with words: travel, space, machines, death.
Ryan frowned, trying to make sense of what Wallace was saying. “You’re telling me that when you travel through space, you can’t take anything with you? It all gets destroyed?”
Organisms. Life. Machines. Death.
“What about the boxes you came here in? I saw one of them. It was metal.”
Shell. Melt. Peel. Degrade.
Ryan folded his arms, trying to make sense of what Wallace was saying. It was safe to say they had become friends since Wallace had used his magical powers to bring Ryan out of a coma, but it still took some thinking outside the box to understand his alien companion sometimes. “So you’re saying the metal containers protected you while you travelled through space? They slowly melted away but were thick enough that you stayed safe inside long enough to get here?”
Safe. Arrive. Earth.
Ryan nodded, relatively sure he’d got it right. The blue aliens hadn’t arrived in spaceships like in the movies; instead, they’d shot to Earth in metal pods that hit the ground and peeled open like tins of baked beans, revealing the – hopefully still alive – alien within. How desperate must they have been to take such a risk?
Ryan continued walking, trying to push away the dark thoughts creeping into his mind. He had the entire world to himself down by the border, but the crushing loneliness was hard to bear. He’d encountered people further north in Edinburgh – and it was reassuring to know that humanity wasn’t yet extinct – but the city had been in disarray after some kind of recent terrorist attack. A few of the more helpful citizens informed Ryan about a large group of survivors migrating south, and his gut told him that Aaron was a part of that group. He would want to cross back into England to find their mother. Ryan feared to admit the alternative that his brother might be gone forever.
I’m gonna find you, little bro.
Ryan and Wallace left the plane wreckage behind and walked for a couple more hours until they entered a small village overgrown with strangling weeds and choking ivy that crawled up the sides of the buildings and reached for the rooftops. Corpulent rats with long tails darted back and forth across the road with little care, while from a nearby alleyway, between two grey-stone cottages, a plump orange cat with bright green eyes licked its paw lazily and watched them.
“What is your planet like, Wallace?” asked Ryan, soothing his nerves with conversation. You never knew what horrors you might find in a tiny village such as this. Corpses, at the very least.
Beautiful. Blue. Dead.
“I’m sorry. Did you… did you have cities? Towns?”
Outside live. Together.
After a moment, Ryan kicked a pebble down the road and watched it bounce off the kerb. “Your people probably have the right idea,” he said. “One thing I don’t miss about the old world is being cooped up indoors. When did we decide we should all live in three-bed terraces and overpriced flats? Why did we used to care more about the name on our trainers than the state of our planet? It’s insane. We got everything wrong.”
Ryan paused, realising the creature probably didn’t understand what he was talking about. “Come on, we can cross the border before we stop. I want to spend tonight in England.”
Wallace lumbered forward on his three legs, crushing a patch of daisies beneath his feet. Destination. End.
Ryan took a breath and considered. Now that the fungus had gone from the north, he wanted to see how far he could go before he encountered it again. A naïve part of him hoped the alien scourge had been totally eradicated, but the people he’d met in Scotland had told him the south remained infested, as did most places abroad. But the state of the world didn’t matter to him right now; there was only one place Ryan intended on visiting. “I’m taking you to see my home, Wallace. We’re going to Manchester.”
Man. Chester.
Ryan chuckled. “Close enough. Can you say Glory Man United?”
Wallace turned and looked at Ryan with his single black eye but said nothing. His fans lowered to his sides as if to punctuate the silence.
“Fair enough.” Ryan shrugged. “Just so long as you’re not a Liverpool fan.”
Wallace suddenly lifted his appendages again. Fan.
“Not that kind of fan, mate, but never mind, you’ll learn. Perhaps, one day, you and me will get to watch a ga
Christ. Jesus. Deity. Idol. Superstition.
“Superstition? You saying there’s no God?”
Superstition.
“Yeah, perhaps, but maybe don’t go around denouncing religion. If ever there was a time for people to put their hope in an all-powerful being, it’s now.”
Superstition.
Ryan chuckled. “It’s probably hard to understand. I don’t know what your people are like, but down here, people are always searching for a reason. We don’t like to accept darkness for darkness’s sake; we need answers. Even if those answers are God or Buddha, or whatever. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not for me, but it’s important to some people. You should respect that.”
Wallace stopped and turned to Ryan. His enormous eye did not move, but it seemed to look at him. Both his fans were still raised and vibrating. Superstition. Primitive. Myth.
Ryan shook his head and sighed. “Guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree. Come on, our kid. Let’s get moving before I lose the will to live.”
The two of them set off – man and alien – alone in the world.
Five months. Five months since the world had ended. Five months since the night that Aaron and his brother had found a strange corkscrew on a hill. Five months since the night Brett, Loobey, Sean, Ryan, and so many others had died. It still felt like it had happened yesterday.
Every day, Aaron woke up hoping that it had all been a dream. That his brother was alive and well. But every day he was reminded of the harsh reality. That the world was a dead place, and that there was hardly anyone left to bring it back to life.
Aaron and his current companions referred to their enemy as ‘takers’, but most others called them ‘slugs’. The pejorative term probably helped people think of their adversary as lesser beings, and not the terrifying monsters they were. Aaron had been through too much to kid himself that way.
He tucked his scuffed pistol into his belt and took a walk around the camp’s perimeter. The Central Army – as it was known, and working in tandem with Bristol’s Coastal Army – had set up a base of operations in an area of Birmingham called Cannon Hill Park, a large, open expanse of recreational ground ringed by an iron railing fence. Aaron and the others had been unanimous, over a month ago now, in joining the fight here. They had managed only a few days of rest in Edgbaston, after travelling south from Stoke, before deciding they were still able-bodied enough to fight. Their consciouses had sent them right back to the front line.
We’re either very brave, or fooking stupid.
Maybe both.
Near the park’s main entrance were two stream-fed ponds that supplied the camp with plentiful water and, the ducks upon it, additional food. It would’ve been beautiful back before olive-green tents and steel crates full of military equipment had popped up all over it. Now it was a bustling hub, with soldiers rushing back and forth constantly. The only time it was quiet was in the early hours of the morning, when most of the camp was asleep. At night, the only light came from the stars and the occasional lamp casting an eerie glow over the water.
Overhead, a large blue hot air balloon floated into the distance, towards Bristol. Cannon Hill kept in constant contact with the survivors in Bristol this way, taking messages back and forth and exchanging supplies. Occasionally, even people exchanged hands, sharing skills where needed. It was the only safe way to travel nowadays.
Aaron approached a recognisable face over by the park’s main entrance.
Sophie was not the same woman he’d known a year ago. Back then, she’d worn tracksuit bottoms and halter tops. Today, she donned army fatigues and wielded a sleek, long-barrelled pistol. Instead of eye-liner and lip gloss, she wore scars and dirt. She scowled more than she smiled. She’d changed. They had all changed.
I used to have two arms and both eyes.
It had been a surreal experience when Sophie had arrived in Birmingham a month ago. Like seeing a ghost. Aaron felt no shame for having assumed her to be dead. In fact, it was a miracle she had survived. Even more of a miracle that his mam had apparently survived as well.
But she’s two hundred and fifty miles away with no idea that I’m even still breathing.
So close, yet…
“Hey, Soph,” Aaron said glumly as he approached her. “How’s it going?”
She smiled at Aaron but said nothing for a moment. She just stared at him. Something she did often. Maybe he reminded her of his brother. Only with an arm and an eye missing. “Ask me if I make it through tonight,” she eventually told him. “I’m dead on my feet.”
Aaron nodded, utterly exhausted himself. Cannon Hill was the front line of the front line, so uninterrupted rest was a rare luxury. “Maybe they won’t attack us tonight,” he said, trying not to let it sound absurd. “We killed a lot of them during the last battle. More than they killed of us.”
Sophie glanced at her pistol, flipping it back and forth in front of her. Strands of blonde hair hung down on either side of her face. “We can’t hold on much longer like this, Aaron. The enemy knows it. Did you hear we lost Major James last night?”
Aaron groaned. “Shit! For real?”
Major James was one of the army’s best men, always fighting at the front and keeping everyone’s spirits high with his inventive slurs for the enemy: spunkheads, big yodas, crusty mother-in-laws. At seventy years of age, the grizzled veteran had come out of retirement to lead, and he had been as fit as most twenty-year-olds. His loss would affect a lot of people going forward.
The takers came every night, attacking the fences and sending their deadly pulses through the railings. Or they would club men to death with their thick limbs, the sound of human bones breaking like wet logs being snapped in half. Often the alien invaders sent waves of infected human beings – known as greens – in to battle first to distract and engage. The greens would throw themselves against the railings, their eyes blank and mouths foaming, and they would whip their tentacles through the gaps, desperate to touch and infect anyone they could reach.
But most of Cannon Hill’s defenders were fortunately now inoculated against infection – thanks to a vaccine rapidly synthesised from the blood of recovered infectees like Aaron. The greens were still a threat, though. Their sharp talons, dangling from vine-like appendages, were still deadly.
The most severe threat, however, was always the takers themselves. At seven feet tall minimum, with thick arms and legs hanging from their slender pale-green torsos, they were far more robust than humans and could take a great deal more damage. They gazed upon their prey with a dozen beady black eyes, and killed via a gruesome method – supercharging the air with an invisible blast from their limbs. When a taker’s pulse caught a man, it obliterated his flesh on an atomic level. The effect was beyond the current understanding of Birmingham’s boffins, but they were working hard to figure it out. Until then, dwindling bullets and blunted blades remained mankind’s favoured weapons. As well as two dozen friendly blue aliens.
Helper’s people were the main reason the camp hadn’t been overrun with fungus. Each day, the three-legged aliens patrolled the perimeter and used their vibrating fans to kill off any approaching fuzz. They also took care of any greens that wandered too close to the railings. Most importantly of all, they could heal the mortally wounded, although it took a lot out of them. The blues – as they were collectively known – were gentle creatures, despite their bizarre appearances. They had a calming presence that put men at ease, even amid battle. Whether it was to kill the fuzz or fix a broken man, they were always there to help. The camp’s protectors. The most severely wounded men were sometimes beyond their help and would have to be put down, but that was an unavoidable necessity, and thankfully rare.
