13
Recovery Or Death
It was a red sun, burning hot, flames returning and burning themselves, scalding each other as the heat increased, orange, through to yellow, to searing white, falling away into infinity...
I gasped, taking in what felt like the first breath of air I had ever had. The heat in my chest started to subside as I took another breath, then another, concentrating on the feeling, finding a rhythm. I could feel my heart pounding in my chest and ears – the only sound I could hear. Gradually other sensations forced their way into my cocoon of simplicity. The air was cold, stinging my throat with every welcome breath. My body ached and moaned with a thousand pains... stinging across my stomach and chest, acute throbbing in my shoulder, dull aches in my forehead, legs and feet. I started to moan involuntarily but the sound was such a din in the silence that I pushed myself to stop.
I could see nothing, as absolute emptiness surrounded me. There were physical presences around me though: the surface under me was freezing, a hard material cut into pieces and aligned in rows. There was a stickiness to them, or maybe it wasn’t the pieces, maybe it was something else that lay on the surface. Yes, that was it, there was a tackiness pulling my clothes towards the surface as I rolled fitfully in my microcosm of pain. The smell was also forcing its way into my consciousness, decay, pestilence, wet rot...
Celia Perrin.
That was my name, that was...
It flashed before me, taking a second and an age, the entirety of time and none. Another gasp, though this one was forced out of me by emotional forces rather than physical.
I had caused the plague.
I stopped thinking, going blank for a few moments, the weight of the realisation and the associated chain of thoughts that would certainly follow were too much for me to handle. I tried to concentrate on the physical again, spreading my hands out experimentally. Dried, sticky liquid, soft matter, stench... a cold metal cylinder.
My hand closed around it, and as I brought my other hand...
All of those deaths, every death that has come, every death that would come... how far would it go? Would it cover the country, the continent, the world?
… to also grip it, I found the button on the side of the torch. As I flicked it, the light blinded me for a few seconds as it filled my vision. I had no idea how long I had lain in the dark, crumpled in the decaying blood that I could now see surrounded me.
I had caused the plague.
There was no denying the thought now, as I shone the torch around myself. The blood in the morgue was the stark reminder of how it had begun, the festering lumps of flesh that had been bitten out of my father’s first victims lay scattered around me, leading to the gore drenched corridor. Jack and Lucas, the first to die, the first to come back...
I had left this place somehow before returning, too selfish to die, too scared to dive into the abyss of doom that followed me, even though there was no one that deserved its dark depths more.
Details returned, bleeding into my mind from a subconscious periphery: the moan as the restraints and gag had been taken off my father, the scream of mortal terror from Lucas as his wrist had been torn in half by the old man’s decaying teeth, Jack turning as I was momentarily forgotten, struggling with the thing that I had created out of my wish for some cure, some antidote to my childhood grief, hate and guilt, casting aside my Hippocratic oath as if it were a coat to be discarded at a whim... and what had I done when these two men had made the first vital stand against the new, encroaching enemy?
I had hidden.
With blood dripping from my head and into my eyes I had crawled into the closet and slipped myself between boxes of cleaning materials, sheets and surgical supplies, folding myself away as I tried to deny the horror of my actions. How long had I stayed there? I had no idea, yet it had been long enough to hear both Jack and Lucas return to their new, unnatural existence, groaning in defiance of the laws of mortality and staggering to attack the hospital workers who had arrived for the day shift. Still I had hidden, my blood clotting and matting in my hair as I tried to block out the screams.
When I had finally emerged from that hideaway, I was no longer one but three, three lost souls torn into being from my fugue state, three who needed names, finding them in a book... they had moved, weak and formless, drifting and changing, babbling and screaming, running and hiding, escaping to a memory, a dream of simpler times. My soul had been reborn on that island and it had longed for a completeness I had never experienced, driving the fractured parts of my identity back here.
At least, that was how it had felt...
I now knew that it had been a severe and understandable mental breakdown, the parts of my psyche splitting away until I had sufficiently healed. Somehow I had made it to the island that we had often visited as children, maybe I had walked and swam all the way, my fitness keeping me alive. Everything that I had seen had helped me to learn the value of patience, trust, and life. I was finally healthy, ready to be a part of the society that I had never fully understood whilst growing up. Except... what society was left?
The cold clinical reality of my new situation was too much to bear. I was paralysed by the enormity of it, the sheer cost of my actions, pinned to the tiled floor, lying in the spoils of a war I had waged on my own mental condition, a pool of festering bodily fluids. Why had I felt no remorse when I had filled my father’s body with cocktails of drugs and viruses? It was like I had been another person, a person I despised, a person that I could not escape from. There was no one here to judge me, as I lay in the darkness of the morgue with the light of the torch flickering and waning, the only two people who knew were dead and gone, forming the ranks of an army I had brought to life. I had to judge myself.
It was clear that I did not deserve to live. There was no way forward, no way backwards. I was the destroyer of worlds, the plague priest, the doom that walked... there was no reprieve, no way I could make amends. I should have died a death for every one that I had caused but I only had one life to give.
I started to sob as I tried to work out the most fitting way to end my own life, a horrific calculation that I had never thought of working through before. I shone the torch to my left and right, finding only the chisel and hammer, the extendible baton from the police uniform I was wearing, nothing useful for a quick and easy death. I gritted my teeth, my judgement upon my own crimes seeing fault in my reasoning. I did not deserve a quick and easy death. How many had the chance to die easily in this new world I had created? No, I deserved to be consumed, torn apart by the teeth and fingers of my rotting children.
I screamed, loud and long, using no words but simply a deep roar of anger, frustration and hatred at my own deeds. It reverberated around the morgue, the sound surely travelling into the bloody stairwell. Soon enough, I heard a distant moan in answer. I had called them to me. It was just a matter of time.
The waiting was unbearable, every second was a second to imagine the pain that I was going to feel, morbidly fantasising about what it felt like to be bitten so hard that your flesh tore. I kicked my legs as my body tried to rebel, to force a survival instinct to the surface, except what remained of Marcus, my Id, was now under my control. I knew what had to be done.
I did however relent a little, allowing myself to remember some of the people who still lived, the varied souls that I had travelled with, the last shred of society...
Arthur, that poor man who had lost everything, was already starting to heal. It was the wonder of humanity, always finding the strength to carry on, to keep fighting. It was a trait worth preserving. I was sure he would look after Juliet, at least until old age took him. Hopefully she would have learned enough to carry on without him when that happened. Perhaps she could look to Eliza.
Yes, Eliza. She was strong and forthright and if anyone would survive in this new world it was her. Her intelligence and unerring sense of justice would keep the others on the straight and narrow, if only they didn’t hold her back. I hoped she would find somewhere safe to fortify and call a home or at the very least a source of petrol for the onward journey. If she could find some help, if Ciaran could support her... I hoped that he would strive to be better than his past, forgiving himself as much as seeking forgiveness, allowing himself to heal and help his new family. For that was what they were, a family, with all the infighting, squabbles and disagreements that went with it, yet the bond of their continued life should keep them together. Part of me deeply wished I could have been part of it... but after all that I had done in here, I deserved to die.
Something in that thought brought back another memory, as I saw myself holding Ciaran down, discussing the value of his own life, before defending his right to live against Eliza. We had been the judges on that day, working for the remnant of humanity, our decisions carrying a huge weight. I could see in Ciaran’s eyes that he had indeed feared death, although part of him had thought he deserved that fate. Yet we had let him live, understanding what he had done and using it as a force for a new direction.
This was a world where forgiveness was a necessity for continued survival. I had said those words. Using judgement, it carried weight in both our situations. If I was to truly judge, I had to look at both sides. I had to hear my own defence...
Who else could heal the sick, using all of those pharmaceuticals we had scavenged from the town? I hadn’t saved Dorothy but I could have and I would have, given the chance. It hadn’t been Marcus, it had been me who had stopped the murdering thugs in the police station. I was strong and I was quick, two things that were needed to survive. I knew where there was fuel and I could pluck it from the carcass of the hatchback and bring it to them, a way of starting to heal the divide whilst I earned their trust again. They needed me. Which would be the best use of my skills, to die here in the mouths of the dead and leave them to fend for themselves or to stand with them and keep them alive long enough to see this out? As this thought struck me, I remembered a half forgotten moment from before and as I put my hand into my trouser pocket I found that I still had Isaac’s photograph. I shone the torch on the strong features, looking at the eyes of a man who had taken his own life through guilt. His death had solved no problems, healed no hurts, and he had even returned from the dead to cause further injury to the world. He would have probably killed Eliza if I hadn’t been there... if I hadn’t been there...
All of these points were strong and they were valid, but they were not enough in the face of what I had created. There was only one more fact that could justify my existence. I desired with all my soul to be able to die and let it all fall away, but there it was, like a thumbnail in a wound. It was undeniable, even though I wished it didn’t exist.
I alone knew how the plague had begun.
It was true that I had not been the highest paid or most well regarded doctor, but my medical knowledge was almost second to none. I was the only one that knew the chemical make-up of the plague, and if fortune was good I might be able to find a way to create an immunisation one day. If I died here, it died with me. I might be the only one who could save the human race.
It was a truth, I couldn’t deny it. My dying would be of no benefit to anyone or anything, except to relieve my own guilt.
I breathed in deeply, as I heard the moaning getting closer. I had very little time. I stood up as quickly as I could, pushing through the pain of my aching body before casting my torch around for some sort of weapon I could use. The light fell upon the autopsy hammer. It would have to do. I gave it a couple of experimental swings and something told me that it would be good enough, that I would be good enough. Now that I had decided to leave, to carry on... I would. The decision was all that was needed.
There was more here...
My memory filled with details of the past, a welcome ability that I had lost for so long. I scrambled over to the cupboard that I had retreated to in fear all those weeks ago, tearing it open and rummaging through it’s contents until I found my old doctors coat. I picked it up and searched through the pockets, pulling out the few vials of experimental drugs I had been using, along with what remained of my supply of the rabies virus, before tucking them away in the pockets of the stab vest. As an afterthought I pulled my old badge off the coat and slipped it into my pocket next to Isaac’s photograph. I would try to earn the title of doctor once more.
A low rasping moan made me turn. As I shone the light I saw the well rotted forms of Lucas and Jack lumbering towards me, their bodies showing signs of impact and possible broken bones. They had most likely fallen down the stairs in their hunger to reach me. There was little left of them, many muscles having been torn out in the initial fight with my father. They were pitiable things and it was time to end their mockery of a life. As I gritted my teeth and swung the hammer my mind became clear, calm and collected. I thought it was sadly fitting, the remains of my old life being dispatched so my life could begin anew, as Jack’s skull caved inwards in a spray of matter.
I would carry the weight of what I had done and use it to build a new future. They would survive. We would survive. I would never be able to truly make amends but I would never stop trying.