After Life (Power Reads Book 2) Page 17

  The dense streets and buildings gave way steadily to more open roads and greenery. As the jeep weaved around abandoned cars clogging the streets or diverted around the stagnant lakes of water so she realised how the natural landscape was overcoming the houses, shops and supermarkets. Trees sprouted across car parks; vines, creepers and mosses were draped across walls and roof tops, and some routes were impassable due to the dense, tall grasses and weeds that had pushed through the tarmac surface of the road.

  Arianna knew that they were well out of the city and some way into what had once been the county of Surrey when the driver of the car pulled off the main road. They had been passing the rusting hulks of abandoned cars and lorries for some time on what had once been the A3, but now they were driving down an unobstructed lane, the road apparently fresh and the route overhung by huge trees that cast a broad green canopy overhead.

  The driver turned left onto a rutted track so well concealed from view that Arianna momentarily thought that he had taken a wrong turn. Thick brambles brushed and scraped along the side of the jeep as it was driven down the winding, steep track. Arianna glimpsed through the jeep’s grubby windows a deep valley, open grassland and a narrow river nestled between soaring hills thick with trees.

  The jeep slowed and stopped in the middle of the track and the driver switched off the engine.

  ‘Get out,’ he said.

  Arianna fought back more anxiety as she clambered out of the jeep, the leader’s gun still pointed at her as they led her several paces out in front of the car.

  ‘On your knees, hands behind your head.’

  Arianna gasped. ‘You’re not going to kill me are you?’

  ‘Only if you don’t shut up and do as I say.’

  Arianna knelt down on the muddy track, pebbles and stones digging into her knees as she put her hands up behind her head.

  To her amazement, her two captors mirrored her actions alongside her.

  For a moment nothing happened, and then the bushes and weeds came alive around them.

  Eight men stood up, their bodies entirely concealed within a mass of foliage packed against their uniforms. All of them held assault rifles that were pointed at Arianna. From behind them walked a ninth man, concealed beneath a thick green hooded coat and camouflaged trousers. He strode silently across to where Arianna kneeled as his men hurried forward and checked her over for weapons.

  Satisfied, the soldiers stood back as Arianna’s captor’s hauled her to her feet between them. The ninth man reached up and pulled back his hood, and Arianna gasped despite herself.

  His face was like one of those Greek masks, grotesquely deformed on one side only. The face of a black man in his early forties who had once been quite handsome, a square–jawed, rugged looking type with thick curly black hair, stared down at her. But one side of his face was a ragged mass of scar tissue, the eye completely closed over and the ear just a ragged strip of tattered flesh long since healed.

  When he spoke, his voice was distorted by the useless half of his mouth, which no longer bore any teeth or recognisable lips.

  ‘Barry, Tim, good job. Take off and get some rest.’

  Arianna’s two abductors obediently walked away. The man watched them leave and then looked down at Arianna as though studying a different species.

  ‘Welcome,’ he lisped awkwardly, ‘my apologies for the rough journey.’

  Arianna swallowed, managed to contain wildly conflicting emotions of fear, hope, disgust and pity for this stranger standing fore square before her.

  ‘Who are you?’ she demanded. ‘What the hell am I doing here?’

  The man reached out and placed a hand on her shoulder. She glanced down at big digits, the skin calloused and worn by countless hours of labour needed to survive out here in the lonely wilderness.

  ‘My name is Icon,’ he said, ‘and you’re here to save yourself. Come, there is much that you need to know.’

  Icon guided Arianna gently down the track, six of the soldiers forming a protective phalanx around them while the others melted back into the foliage, their weapons trained on the entrance to the track a hundred yards back up the hill.

  They walked in silence for a few paces before Arianna spoke.

  ‘You’re not wearing any protection against The Falling.’

  Icon inclined his head. ‘Nor are you.’

  ‘I could be infected at any moment.’

  ‘Yes, you could.’

  ‘And you’re doing nothing about it,’ she snapped.

  ‘No, I’m not.’

  Arianna almost laughed. ‘Don’t you care?’

  Although she could not see the undamaged side of his face, Arianna still was able to detect the subtle shift in what remained of his facial muscles as he smiled.

  ‘I care very much, actually,’ he replied. ‘But you becoming infected is, I’m afraid, inevitable.’

  ‘It’s what?’

  ‘Inevitable,’ Icon repeated as though she had genuinely not heard him.

  Arianna stopped on the track and refused to budge further. Icon stopped and turned to face her.

  ‘If so, then I’m doomed,’ she retorted. ‘I’m not doing another thing that you say.’

  ‘Then you’ll die, Arianna.’

  She looked at him for a moment. ‘I haven’t told you my name.’

  ‘I know your name,’ Icon replied. ‘Your face has been on the news for some time now.’

  Arianna’s eyes widened. ‘You get broadcasts all the way out here?’

  ‘There were plenty of solar panels left lying around when civilisation collapsed,’ Icon replied. ‘Plenty of receiver dishes too.’

  Arianna’s eyes narrowed. ‘What do you mean I’ll die if I don’t do what you say?’

  Icon extended his arm and gestured for her to continue down the track.

  Arianna thought for a moment and then obeyed, walking with Icon alongside her as they descended to the floor of the valley. There, beneath the vast canopy of trees, was a camp of perhaps a hundred carefully camouflaged tents. As the sun briefly broke through the clouds above so dappled sunlight danced like fireflies across the surface of the tents.

  ‘Welcome to Nirvana,’ Icon said.

  People watched her as she walked between the tents, peering out through gaps with eyes wide and silent. Although they were hidden in the shadows of their cramped homes and their heads held low behind hoods and scarves, she could see that their features were scarred and disfigured, twisted by the ravages of The Falling.

  Yet they were still alive.

  ‘You’re immune,’ she whispered in amazement. ‘You’re all immune to The Falling.’

  Icon shook his head slowly.

  ‘We have immunity inside us but we still contracted the sickness that you call The Falling,’ he said. ‘It damaged us all but not enough to kill us.’

  Arianna slowed as people emerged from their tents, their courage bolstered by Icon’s presence and their curiosity aroused by Arianna.

  ‘The government says that there is no cure or natural immunity to The Falling,’ Arianna whispered.

  ‘I know,’ Icon replied. ‘They’re lying.’

  Every person Arianna laid eyes upon was disfigured in some way. Limbs were missing, skin warped and twisted into rivulets where scar tissue had knitted together once–rotten flesh. Bodies had chunks missing from torsos and chests, deep depressions where the infection had rooted itself but somehow never reached the major internal organs.

  ‘It’s not all they’re lying about,’ Icon said to her.

  Arianna turned in the direction that Icon indicated and saw a satellite dish hooked up to a television monitor, one of the old types with a slim screen but a solid back made of plastic and with cables coming out of it. The sound was turned down but upon the screen was the news, and the news was about her.

  ‘Oh my God,’ she uttered in disbelief.

  On the screen, a picture of Arianna’s face was emblazoned beneath a caption that read in clear, bold lett
ers.

  RE–VOLUTION PSYCHOLOGIST KILLED IN TERRORIST ATTACK

  Arianna looked up at Icon, whose lips twisted into a grim smile.

  ‘You’re looking remarkably well,’ he said, ‘for somebody who is already dead.’

  ***

  25

  Arianna watched the screen as the residents of Nirvana crowded silently around her. Some of them were children who touched her skin and face in wonder, marvelling at how smooth and clear it was.

  ‘Be gentle with them,’ Icon said beside her. ‘They have never seen a person who has no scars. Many were babies when they became infected.’

  Arianna let them touch her as she spoke. ‘They didn’t inherit the immunity of their parents?’

  ‘They did,’ Icon said, ‘but it is through infection that the immunity becomes effective. We do not know why. None of us have escaped without first having to endure the sickness.’

  Arianna watched the news report on the screen and saw the smouldering remains of the apartment block.

  ‘Can the sound be turned up?’ she asked Icon.

  ‘No need,’ Icon said, ‘they’ve been running the piece all day. It says that police carried out an assault on a suspected criminal hideout south of the Thames in the old city. During their approach, an individual named as Arianna Volkov, a priest and qualified psychologist contracted to Re–Volution Ltd who was recently questioned about an alleged involvement in the terrorist attack on the company yesterday, opened fire from a top–floor apartment. Police returned fire, and a gas leak in the building caused an explosion in which Miss Volkov died.’

  Arianna’s hand flew to her lips as she saw further aerial shots of the pile of rubble that had once been her adoptive father’s hideout.

  ‘Were there any other supposed fatalities?’ she asked Icon.

  The man looked at her curiously. ‘Apparently the remains of two men were also found in the rubble by rescue teams about an hour ago.’

  Arianna turned away from the screen, her eyes blurring with tears that she swiped angrily away.

  ‘You knew them?’ Icon asked.

  Arianna got back control of her breathing. ‘There were police detectives on the scene,’ she explained. ‘They questioned me after the Re–Volution attack.’

  Icon raised his one eyebrow at her. ‘They set you up and tried to kill you and yet you mourn them?’

  Arianna shook her head. ‘I don’t know what’s going on, or who to trust.’

  Icon chuckled to himself. ‘Isn’t that standard procedure in the city? Come, I will tell you what I do know, and then perhaps you can help me with what I don’t.’

  Icon led her through the camp, the little crowd of children and parents following them within interest. Arianna noticed that there were no fires, despite the chill air. Instead, thermal blankets, sleeping bags, insulation and closely packed tents seemed to be all the inhabitants of Nirvana had to warm themselves against the cold.

  ‘Not exactly living up to its name, your little town,’ she observed.

  ‘We’re happy enough,’ Icon replied. ‘The police and government send patrols out into the suburbs and helicopters to fly out even as far as this in search of us. We do our cooking a half–mile from here to prevent them from detecting us using their infra–red cameras. In Nirvana, staying inside the tents, inside our bedrolls and being beneath the trees is just enough to prevent easy detection.’

  ‘The police know you’re all out here?’’ Arianna asked. ‘Are you all convicts?’

  Icon did not reply as he led her into a larger tent at the rear of the camp, tucked in against the steep side of the valley. Inside, a bed and a table dominated the tent, which was just large enough to stand up in. Maps on the table suggested this tent doubled as Icon’s home and a planning room.

  Icon eased himself with a weary sigh into a folding chair that bulged as it tried to contain his huge frame, and gestured to another nearby. Arianna sat down as Icon spoke.

  ‘Most of us are not convicts,’ he said. ‘They stay near the Thames, where they can still trade items with people in the city from time to time. What we represent is a dirty little secret that the government doesn’t want anybody else to know about. We’re the ones who became infected but survived The Falling because we carry antibodies in our blood that make us immune.’

  ‘Why would they lie about that?’ Arianna gasped in amazement. ‘They could have formulated a cure by now, a vaccine against The Falling. They could have saved lives, millions of lives and…’

  ‘I know,’ Icon said softly, stalling her tirade with a casual waft of his hand. ‘We all know.’

  Arianna sat back for a moment. The expression on her face was a question in itself, and Icon answered.

  ‘Most of us were cut off when the city of London was quarantined against infection, locked out and left to die. The majority of victims went insane with pain or died from starvation or dehydration or blood loss. Others preyed on those more advanced with the disease, surviving by eating the flesh of the dying until they too eventually died or were eaten by others. It was horrific, to say the least. Others, like myself, fled the city for the countryside. I figured that it didn’t matter if all the cows, dogs, cats, rodents and birds were dying too. I could eat the healthy bits of anything I caught in the hope that by some miracle I survived this.’

  He pointed to the ruined side of his face. Arianna glanced at it but then looked away.

  ‘No,’ Icon said, ‘look at it.’

  He got up and walked across to her, bent down so that his cratered, shining scar tissue was inches from her face. Arianna looked. She could see beneath the sinewy skin the shape of Icon’s skull and jaw, saw the tendons and muscles flex and twist as he spoke.

  ‘This is as far as it got,’ he explained, and touched his face once again as he stood up straight and returned to his seat. ‘I used to be a soldier, so I knew how to survive in the wild for limited periods. I caught fish, slept out under the trees on makeshift beds and tried to keep myself clean despite the smell of decaying flesh falling off the side of my head.’

  ‘And it just stopped, just like that?’ she asked him.

  ‘After a few days of considerable pain, and obviously a lot of damage to my face, I noticed that the smell of dead flesh was fading. I found an abandoned house and a mirror, and watched for the next few weeks as the skin and flesh healed and scars began to form. I was lucky. When we were cut off from the city most people went on the rampage for food and water. I didn’t. I took medicine. That’s the clue to survival, you see. You can learn to find food, to purify water, to sleep at night in the wild, but you can’t fix blood poisoning or gangrene or cure a broken leg out here. I took boxes of every pain killer, anti–biotic and medical dressing I could find and brought them with me out here.’

  Arianna could not help but admire Icon’s sheer tenacity.

  ‘So you survived,’ she said, ‘and started looking for others?’

  Icon nodded. ‘I wasn’t sure if it was the medicine or pure luck that cured me, but I figured that whatever it was there were other people who needed it too. Once I was fully healed and fit, I went in search of others. They’re the people with me in this camp. Every one of them both survived The Falling and the human panic that it caused, and was close enough for me to find them and teach them to survive out here.’

  Arianna glanced out of the tent, where she could see people milling about, waiting patiently for her to emerge once more.

  ‘There must be a reason for why you’re being hunted,’ Arianna said.

  ‘I don’t doubt it,’ Icon agreed. ‘If the citizens of London discover that there is immunity to The Falling, the government will fall overnight. There haven’t been elections for years. We’re living under a dictatorship in all but name.’

  ‘We still have a free press,’ Arianna began, ‘and if we can get this to them…’

  Icon laughed out loud, spittle drooping from his ruined lips and his big barrel chest heaving as he shook his head and pointed
out of the tent. ‘You mean the same free press that’s reported you dead on the word of the government alone?’

  Arianna kept her demeanour calm as she replied.

  ‘It’s not possible to silence all of the people all of the time,’ she said. ‘The press might have no more idea than I did that your people are out here or that I’m still alive.’

  ‘Very true,’ Icon agreed, ‘and very foolish on the part of the government if they have assumed that you were killed in the explosion.’

  ‘It wasn’t the government,’ Arianna said, ‘at least not entirely.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Icon growled, leaning closer to her, his dark eyes focused on hers.

  ‘Kieran Beck,’ Arianna said. ‘He and his men were there. They tried to kill me.’

  Icon watched her for a long moment before speaking.

  ‘That does not surprise me at all,’ he rumbled. ‘Even so it’s not like them to rush such an announcement out without being certain of the facts. It is most likely connected to the planned vote on holosap control of government. They’re in a hurry to push it through and we must endeavour to prevent that.’

  Arianna’s blood ran cold as she remembered where she was sitting and with whom.

  ‘So you’ll commit another terrorist attack?’ she uttered. ‘Kill another few innocent civilians?’

  ‘We have committed no such atrocities,’ Icon assured her.

  ‘How am I supposed to believe that?’

  ‘You’re not,’ Icon admitted, ‘that’s the whole point. But we have no access to the city and frankly we wouldn’t want to go there at all.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘We may be immune to The Falling, but we remain carriers of the infection.’

  Arianna froze on her chair. ‘Carriers? You mean you can infect people?’

  ‘Yes,’ Icon replied. ‘With the same ease as I could pass to you a common cold.’