Plagued
Copyright © Nicola Jane Barnett
All rights reserved.
Cover design by MAC Art & Nicola Barnett.
Book design by Nicola Barnett.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form
or in any electronical or mechanical means including information storage or
retrieval systems, without the written permission of the author.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or used
fictitiously. Any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or
locales is entirely coincidental.
Nicola Barnett
First published: 2014.
This book
is dedicated to my late mother, miss you always.
I would
like to thank my loving—and long suffering—partner for his support while
writing my first novel and also my sister, who has listened to me rant on and
on about it for a very long time.
Thanks to
my family and friends. You know who you are.
Special thanks
My editor
for her painstaking work (sorry about that) and all of her amazing suggestions.
If there are any errors in the story, she’s completely blameless. It’s my fault
for adding some more details. (Sorry about that, too.)
The cover
artist, Mac, for his unique style and, again, patience.
Anyone who
has read this and didn’t hate it straight away. Much appreciated.
Contents
Hannah returned home from work around midnight,
holding her right hand tight and wincing in pain. She flicked on the light in
the bathroom without looking and left large, crimson smudges on the switch. She
ran to the bathroom sink and turned the cold water tap on, washing the gaping
wound between her thumb and index finger. The water stung like acid and she
hissed between clenched teeth.
“Fuck!”
Blood mixed with water creating a pinkish liquid
that spiralled down the drain. She wrapped a towel tight around the wound and
then went to turn the central heating down; she was feeling increasingly
flustered and sweat started to bead on her forehead.
Her shift, as a nurse at the Winding Memorial
Hospital in England, had ended half an hour earlier. It had been a long and
weary day; the morning had droned, completely uneventful (well, no more so than
usual). To Hannah this was worse than the chaos the weekend usually brought in:
drunks, car accident victims, drunks
in
car accidents. At least there
was some excitement, something to keep her busy until home-time rolled by. Such
days were usually welcome with her until, that is, she met Ryan Thomas.
Ryan Thomas was a fifteen-year-old boy brought into Accident and Emergency by
his parents, who had found him lying on the kitchen floor feverish and
delirious. He had thrashed around, ranting and raving about things that made no
sense, so they rushed him straight to hospital. Once there, his parents were
ushered into a waiting room while Ryan was taken into a side room given to all
emergency patients awaiting assessment. Hannah Longden was the nurse that took
his blood pressure and temperature; routine tests for all new patients.
Hannah, a 21-year-old petite blonde, was beautiful by anyone's standards; big
brown eyes and had the body of a model. Not too thin or too fat; as a size 10,
she fit perfectly in the middle. It was because of her beauty and her constant
friendly smile, that she was popular with the patients. They commented on her
smile more often than not, and many said her cheery nature could make even the
sickest person feel brighter.
She tried this smile on Ryan, knowing the usual effect it had on teenage boys,
as she introduced herself and told him he would be just fine. Instead of
smiling back at her, or even looking at her, he tossed and turned, sweat
pouring from his face and neck. The blood pressure monitor beeped its results:
160 over 122. Not a good sign.
As she began checking his temperature, the
attending doctor walked into the room, smiling politely until he saw the
results on the screen: the boy's body temperature was 103 degrees and still
rising. Hannah wiped the sweat from the boy's head with a paper towel and
uttered words of comfort to him.
The doctor frowned as he watched the boy thrash
around on the bed, covered in sweat and his face turning scarlet. He turned to
Hannah and asked her to talk to the parents and find out if he’d had any bites
or allergies, taken any drugs and so on. She nodded and hurried out into the
hall.
While the doctor was waiting, he checked Ryan's
body for rashes or bites, anything that could cause him such pain. As he
unbuttoned the boy's top button, something oozed from his shirt onto the
doctors hand; it was a thick mixture that he recognized to be blood and pus.
Intrigued, he unbuttoned it further—underneath was a large purplish lump right
in the middle of his chest. Pus and blood oozed from it and the rancid odour
that came from it made the doctor gag.
Hannah walked back in and saw the doctor looking slightly nauseous. She looked
at the lump on Ryan's chest and gasped, “What is that? A cyst?”
“I'm not sure,” the doctor said. “It looks
infected, whatever it is. Could you get me some gloves please?”
She handed them to him and put on a pair herself. After the doctor quickly
washed off the blood that had gotten on his hand, he pulled on the gloves. The
doctor then asked her to help him undress the boy to investigate further, so
she removed the boy's shirt while the doctor lifted him up. They found another
three oozing lumps on his chest and at least the same amount on his back,
though some of them were much more swollen, one at least the size of a tennis
ball.
“What are they? I've never seen anything like that before,” Hannah asked,
looking at the doctor anxiously.
The doctor sighed. “I'm not sure; it's not measles
or shingles. Certainly not herpes. I'll need to do blood tests but first we’ve
got to get that temperature down.”
He turned to leave, but before he did so, he took one closer look at the sores.
Something about them seemed vaguely familiar to him but he couldn’t place why.
Covering his nose with his handkerchief, he touched one of the sores. His
finger slipped straight in to it with no resistance from the skin at all and
bloody pus oozed out, dripping down the side of Ryan’s body and onto the bed.
“It looks like his skin is rotting. It certainly smells that way,” the doctor
said more to himself than Hannah. He watched as the boy stirred in his feverish
sleep.
“I don't know if you know this but there have been some really strange
admissions in a few hospitals around the county, I heard the other nurses
talking about it as I came in. I wonder if it's the same thing,” Hannah asked
rhetorically.
“That would make it contagious. How strange,” the doctor said, looking at the
mess on his gloved hands.
“Is that even possible?” Hannah asked, trying to
hide her nausea.
“Anything is possible,” the doctor said, “I need
you to go get one of the other on-call doctors, tell them it’s an emergency and
we need to get his temperature down right away. There’s something I want to
check.”
Hannah nodded, but seeing the doctor bend over the
boy, she froze in her spot, unable to look away.
The doctor leaned forward and pulled the sheet that was folded at the base of
the bed over the boy’s body. Before he could do anything else, Ryan's eyes
snapped open.
“Hello Ryan, I am doct—”
Ryan bolted upright before the doctor could finish his sentence. Hannah yelped
in surprise. Ryan stared at her, his eyes wild and instinctively she hid behind
the doctor, as if hiding from his glare.
“I hope you're feeling better, I'm going to take a blood sample and give you
some painkillers to make you feel—”
Before he could finish, Ryan's lips curled back into a snarl. He leapt from his
bed onto the doctor, screaming wildly. The doctor tried to move out of his way
but the boy was too fast. Hannah screamed as the boy began clawing at the
doctor's face like a feral animal. The boy screamed incomprehensible words as
the doctor yowled in pain. He tried to push Ryan's hands away from him but the
boy gnashed at his hands with his teeth; tearing chunks of flesh from his
fingers.
Hannah—seeing the boy's hands turn red with the doctor's blood—tried to pull
the boy off of the doctor but he wouldn’t budge. She hammered onto the boy’s
back frantically as he scratched at the doctor's face, ripping chunks of skin
from his cheeks and forehead. Blood gushed out and poured into the poor
doctor's open mouth.
Hannah tried to pull them apart one more time, this time grabbing the boy's hair
and pulling it fiercely backwards, away from the doctor. She felt an
overwhelming burning pain in her hand as he turned and bit deep between her
thumb and index finger. She screamed and pulled it away, tearing a little flesh
from it as she did so. He growled deeply at her like a wild dog, his teeth red
with blood.
Realizing she couldn't do anything to help, she ran out of the room screaming
for help and at that point, Ryan's parents rushed into the room to see what was
happening. The first thing they saw was something a parent would never imagine
seeing; their fifteen-year-old boy crouched over a screaming man, biting a gaping
hole into the man's neck.
Hannah Longden never returned to Winding Memorial.
“Get up! Come on lady, we’ve got to go!”
The frantic shaking of her body brought Sarah
Carlisle to consciousness. She opened her eyes as she felt the coldness of the
pavement beneath her back.
“Yes! That’s it, wake up!”
She winced at the brightness and blinked her eyes
clear. A red-haired man towered over her, his hands on her shoulders, shaking
her furiously. His mouth was opening and closing as though he was shouting
something but she couldn’t hear him clearly. She looked around her at the tall
buildings towering above her and realised she was laid on the cobblestones in
the town centre. People were running around her in all directions, their faces
a mixture of panic and rage. In her daze, she noted that some of them were
covered in blood—it dripped from their mouths and hands. Her hearing was muffled
but she could just hear the screams coming from all directions.
She started to panic.
What is going on?
She
looked back up at the man above her, as he was shouting frantically for her to
get up. She grabbed his hand and he pulled her quickly and effortlessly to her
feet.
Her ears made a whooshing sound and the noises of
the world came rushing back. Screams filled her head and she grabbed the man’s
hand even tighter. He stood in front of her, shielding her with his back as
people charged past them from all directions without trying to avoid each
other.
“What’s happening?” she whimpered from behind him.
“Don’t know! No time to talk, we’ve got to get out
of here!” he said and dragged her to the left, through the crowd.
A young girl ran in front of them, her blonde hair
covered in blood, she snarled and shouted something unintelligible at the
people who ran around her. A balding, overweight man wearing a suit ran past
her, screaming in terror and the girl, seeing her opportunity, jumped at him.
He yelped in pain as the girl clawed at the side of his face, viciously ripping
and tearing at his cheeks. He tried to push her off but it was too late and he
toppled to the ground with her on top of him.
“Help me!” he screamed, looking at Sarah and the man
who she was with; his eyes pleading with them.
“Oh my God!” Sarah shrieked and tried to run in
front to help him.
The red-haired man grabbed her arm and pulled her
back and Sarah looked at him in confusion.
“It’s too late,” he whispered, his face showing no
empathy.
Sarah turned back to face the horror in front of
her and in the ten seconds that she had spoke to her rescuer, the young girl
had sat astride her victim and had torn the right side of his cheek clean off.
She put it in her mouth and spat it back out onto his chest, scrunching her
face up in a look of disgust that would have, at another time, been comical.
The man’s screams turned in to a gargle as she began clawing at his throat.
The stranger pulled Sarah’s arm and she let him
lead her down a small alleyway as she looked back towards the young girl and
her victim in a state of shock. More people jumped on the now dead man behind
them, tearing at his clothes and skin and laughing as they did so. Sarah cried
out in horror.
“Why are they doing that to him?!” she shouted as
the man guided her through the maze of rubbish bins.
“They’re infected with something. As soon as they
bite you, you end up the same way. That’s all I know,” the man said without
looking back.
They walked out into the open and a road crossed
in front of them, cars driving erratically both ways across it. The beeping of
horns and screeching of tyres filled the air, drowning out the screams that
could be heard from all over the city. In a split second, a blue BMW flew past
and hit three people that stood in the road, knocking them over like pins in a
bowling lane. The car swerved, its tyres screeched and it crashed into a
building on the other side of the road. People were running into the roads screaming
for help as men and women with sore-covered bodies chased after them at
impressive speeds, spitting and shouting nonsense as they ran.
“We’re going to the hospital,” the man whispered
to her as she watched the chaos in front of her. “I’m meeting my friend, Simon,
and my father there.
Dad
works there, he might know
something more.”
Sarah turned to face him, her mouth agape and
shook her head as if trying to shake off what she was witnessing. “Okay,” she
said with uncertainty. “What is your name?”
“I’m Mark, what’s yours?”
“S—Sarah.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Sarah. Sorry it was under
these circumstances,” he said, giving her a small smile. He glanced down and
looked at her left arm and the smile fell from his face. “Are you hurt?”
Sarah followed his gaze and lifted her arm closer
to her face. An arc of small straight lines had pierced her jacket on her upper
arm and into her skin, leaving blood stained holes in the material. A trail of
dark blood led down her arm and onto the back of her hand. She touched it
gingerly, wincing as she felt the swollen cuts beneath her coat. It didn’t feel
deep, but it was still painful to the touch.
“I don’t know how I got that. It looks like
someone bit me,” she said, her eyes searching his in fear.
“Well, we’ll worry about that later. Come on,”
Mark said and then they ran across the wreckage-filled road.
~
“I love you, Sarah. I always will.”
A man's voice; distant in the air called to her gently, it felt familiar.
“Promise me we'll never be apart,” she said, aching to see him. The world
seemed clouded in fog. She couldn't see him, the world was shrouded in
blackness but she could hear his voice.
He laughed quietly; a deep and gentle sound that she was used to. “I promise
you, I will never leave you.”
~
The ache of loss woke Sarah from her slumber. The pain was so startling that
she shot in an upright position, covered in cold sweat. She struggled to open
her eyes, they felt as though they were stuck together and when she finally
did, they stung as they tried to adjust to the sudden light that flooded her
vision.
When her eyes settled, Sarah looked around her, confused as to her
surroundings. Even with the limited vision she had, she knew she wasn't at her home.
The bed she was in wasn't hers; it was a single bed with cold, metal bars on
both sides. The grey sheet covering her was damp and smelled like sweat but
most unsettling of all; she was naked underneath. She tried to remember what
had happened and how she got there but her mind drew a blank.
The room was dimly lit by a single bulb hanging from the centre of the ceiling.
Dust floated around the light like tiny orbs and the room smelled heavily of damp.
There were shelves along the walls, stocked with jars and boxes labelled with
chemicals like iodine, bleach or surgical spirit. The walls around her that had
once been pale green were now extensively cracked and showing the brickwork
underneath, the floor was covered in piles of the plaster’s dusty remains.
The stark realization that Sarah didn't know where she was, or how she got
there, hit her and she started to panic. She clenched her stomach muscles and
was greeted with a dull, aching pain. Grabbing hold of the tattered sheet that
covered her, she pulled it away from her naked body. The cold air hit her
dampened skin and she gasped.
She looked over her body in the light—it was damp with sweat and much paler
than she remembered. Bruises covered her body; her knees, elbows and stomach
were patchy with dark purple, nasty looking welts.
What the hell happened to
me
?
She ran her fingers over her stomach, wincing in pain. The bruises there were
raised lumps of swollen skin, which were extremely painful to the touch. On
some of them, she noticed that the skin was broken, like over-sized acne spots.
On the inside of her arm was a small IV cannula that was stuck to her arm with
sticky tape. There was a stand next to the bed with an empty plastic bag dangling
from it that once contained saline, a pipe led down to the floor where it laid
unconnected. She carefully unstuck the unused cannula from her arm and pulled
it out, wincing at the mild stinging as the small pipe freed itself from her
vein. She placed her hand over it trying to stem the trickle of blood that
escaped.
Am I in the hospital
?
As she sat there in the bed inspecting her body, the door opposite her creaked
open. Sarah gasped and pulled the covers right up to her neck as a child would
do to escape the bogeyman in the closet. Panic shot through her as an elderly
man holding a jug, shuffled through the door. He looked up at her with the same
shocked expression as the one on Sarah’s face.
The man looked at least seventy, with long greying hair tied back behind his
head. He wore a dark red night robe and a pair of dusty, brown slippers. After
a few seconds, his startled expression changed into a relaxed smile that was so
wide all of his large, obviously false teeth showed on display. This made Sarah
more anxious and her hands began to tremble.
“My, my! What a surprise!” he said, his voice crackling and weak, “You're
awake! You nearly frightened me to death, my dear!”
He chuckled soundlessly and walked towards her bed, jug in hand.
Sarah recoiled in fear, pushing herself so far
back onto the bed that she sat on the pillow. She darted her eyes around the
room, looking for somewhere to run,
if
she could run at all.
“Oh my! I'm sorry!” he said, backing away from her
slowly. “I should probably explain; you must be more scared than I! My name is
Albert England. I've been looking after you. You had an accident. Sort of...”
He walked towards her, more cautiously this time and leaned over the end table at
the side of her bed. As she watched, he poured the contents of the jug into a
glass with a shaky hand and gave it to her. “Drink this, you must be really
thirsty.”
She grabbed the glass, realizing just how thirsty she actually was and gulped
it down. Her lungs began to burn and she choked some of the water back up.
After a small coughing fit, she drank some more, slowly this time, giving her
body time to digest it.
“T—thank you,” she said, hoarsely. The quaver in her voice made her wonder how
long it had been since she last spoke to anyone.
“You are very welcome. Now, I'd better explain myself,” the old man said,
gently.
Sarah sat up straight and finished the last of the water, looking at him
nervously. She searched his face, trying to pick up any memories she could but his
face was not familiar to her.
“I am Albert, as I said. I've been taking care of you for the past six or seven
months; it's hard to tell just how long it’s been these days. I'm not certain
just how much you remember about what happened to you — to us
all
— but my
son, Mark, found you lying in the street not far from here just before all this
hell
started,” Albert said, his voice breaking.
“Mark. I think I remember him,” Sarah said, clearing her throat. It was still
hoarse and painful to swallow but the water had lubricated it a little. “Last
thing I remember, we were going somewhere...” she paused, frowning in thought. “To
the hospital! There were people attacking each other! Please, tell me that was just
a dream!”
“I wish I could, dear, I really do,” Albert sighed, his eyes downcast, “but I
can fill in the blanks in your memory. There is much to tell. Firstly, you are
still in Winding but the world has changed since you last saw it and,
unfortunately, not for the best.”
He sat gently on the side of her bed and looked her in the eyes.
“You see, that...
day
something awful
happened. We still don't know why or what. But there was an outbreak, some kind
of disease or virus spread like wild-fire throughout the town and God only knows
how far it’s gone now. No one knew what caused it, at least no one in Winding.
They were fine one minute and the next they
changed
,” he shuddered. “It
started with a fever that progressed with amazing speed. I heard it on the news
only minutes before it overtook the hospital. The first case here was a young
boy who was rushed here in a very bad condition and no one knew what was wrong
with him. He attacked our staff and killed a doctor. Soon after that our
hospital was full of them, they were delirious….raving mad actually. They all
had one thing in common; the marks.”
Sarah thought of the purple, partially healed lumps on her body and Albert nodded,
as if reading her mind.
“Yes, the same as yours, dear. Horrid purple lumps on the skin, oozing with
foulness. It wasn't long after that, most of the victims got violent. Frothing
from the mouth and attacking everyone around them. They were too surprised to
do anything...we all were,” he said, scrunching his face as though he was in
some kind of emotional turmoil. “Then it happened in waves, anyone in contact
with the sick became sick themselves — some in minutes, some in hours. They got
up and started attacking people and were completely unresponsive, like they
didn’t recognise us at all. It spread like wildfire. After a few hours, they
filled the streets like rabid dogs, attacking everyone in sight.”
Sarah started to panic; her brain couldn't take in the information. Bile rose
up in her throat and she tried to swallow it back down. “The
whole country
?
What about the police or the Army?”
“That, I don’t know, dear. There’s no telling how
far it’s gone. But it
has
been around six months and there’s been no
rescue…” he let the sentence trail off.
“I don’t understand,” she said, her panic showing in her voice. “I last
remember being at the bus stop and everything was fine. I got off the bus
and….that’s all I can recall. But things were
fine
. Then I wake up in
the street and it’s total chaos. Now I’m here!” Her breathing quickened and she
started to feel light-headed.
Albert looked at her sympathetically, pursing his lips and he took her hand in
his. She didn’t fight it.
“You passed out again in the street. Mark carried you to me. He was determined
to save you!” he smiled and patted her hand gently. Her hands were cool to the
touch. “I know how all of this may sound to you, dear, believe me I do. I wish
it wasn't true and I wish you didn't have to wake up into this nightmare. Truth
be told, I didn't think you would. It must be a lot to take in and I don't want
to put too much pressure on you, not after what you've been through.”
Sarah relaxed a little, finding his warm hand comforting on hers. “Where
is
everyone? Oh God,” she said, her eyes so wide that the whites stood out
brightly in the dim light, “where are my family?”