this time it was loud and wracking, chorusing with the others. The doctor pulled the mask away from his mouth, revealing the blood inside it. Then he looked up. 'Oh Jesus,' was all he said.
It was at that moment the penny dropped. It really didn't matter anymore: nothing did. Because they were all fucked. The medicos didn't have a clue how to stop this, not even the government – of this country or any other – knew what to do.
Reluctantly, Robert returned home with Stevie and Joanne, made them as comfortable as he could, trying to force cough mixture and paracetamol down them as if they had a common cold or a dose of the flu. Robert waited it out with them, just like he was waiting here today. Knowing that any minute now, because he'd been exposed to the virus as well, he'd start coughing up blood. They'd all go together if they were going to go at all. He watched his wife and son pass their final few hours back in bed, in each other's arms, heaving up their liquefied lungs, fighting for breath. Max lay beside them on the mattress, whining as if he could sense what was about to happen. Robert had spent his whole life trying to protect people, and now he couldn't even protect his own family from the microscopic bastards that were ravaging their bodies. As they slipped away from him – Joanne first, taking a final, wheezing breath, followed by nothing; then Stevie while he stroked the boy's blond hair, not knowing how to answer his questions about why he felt so ill or why Mum wasn't coughing anymore – Robert cried until he thought his tear ducts would burst.
'Help me, Dad… it hurts… make it stop!'
Max licked at Stevie's face, trying to bring him round. The boy didn't move.
Robert slumped over their still bodies, clutching their clothes, screaming at the universe, at God, at anything and everything, before finally exhaustion took him. Conversely now he didn't want to wake, to face what had just happened. But when he did at last, realising that this was all real, wrapping them in the blankets they'd died beneath, he held on to the one and only shred of hope left.
'Stop wriggling about, Stevie, you're taking all the covers. And let your Dad read his sports section.'
'Kay.'
Robert waited once more, it must have been days… maybe even a couple of weeks, but he didn't feel the passage of the hours. This time it was his own death Robert anticipated. He willed the cough to come, the blood, for the virus to take him. He was ready for it. Oh, was he ready.
Robert existed on what was left in the house – tinned food mainly that Joanne had squirreled away; she was a terror for keeping the cupboards overstocked. Though he hardly felt like eating or drinking, his survival instinct was too strong to simply let himself starve to death. He fed Max, but left the door open so the animal could supplement his diet elsewhere if he chose. Or perhaps for another reason altogether.
'You're going to have to find a new owner soon, boy,' he'd tell the old dog daily, 'because I'm not going to be here for much longer.'
Then even that was snatched away from him by the men in gas masks, the hooded yellow-clad figures in their wagons, sent to scoop up the dead that littered the streets in a vain attempt to halt the spread of this infection. Even this far outside the towns and cities, the pavements were covered. The men broke down the doors of houses, checking inside, coming for the victims of the virus, spraying crosses on walls of buildings to be gutted with flamethrowers. Robert heard them approaching down the street, the megaphones blaring, but it hardly registered. Not until they were actually inside his house, waving their guns around, did he acknowledge their presence.
Max leapt at one of them, clawing at his plastic suit. The man struck the dog on the side of the head with the butt of his automatic rifle. Max fell to the floor with a whine and lay there twitching. Robert jumped out of his chair, but when a rifle was swung in his direction, he froze. He watched anxiously as a couple more men ascended the staircase. Was this what had become of the authorities in his absence, Robert wondered, bully boys throwing their weight around?
'Two of 'em up here,' came the muffled call from upstairs. 'Been there a while as well by the looks of things.'
'Leave them where they are,' Robert warned the man pointing the gun at him. 'I'll be joining them soon enough.'
The fellow gave a cold laugh. 'You not seen the news lately, or what passes for it these days? If you haven't got it by now, chances are you never will. You must be O-Neg.'
'O-Neg?' Robert gaped at him.
'Completely immune, you lucky bastard. Though it's a wonder you haven't caught somethin' else off them stiffs.'
He couldn't take it in. He wasn't going to die after all – leastways not from the virus. But Robert felt far from lucky: he'd lost everything he ever cared about and now he just wanted this all to end.
The men came back downstairs and told him he'd have to go with them. They were looking for people like Robert, apparently. Someone in 'power' thought they might actually be able to develop an antidote from them.
'And what… what's going to happen to Joanne and Stevie… My house?' Robert asked.
'Same as all the others with infected dead inside. Poof,' said one of them, opening his fist like a flower in bloom. 'The rest of us can't run the risk of catching it when we've gone to all this trouble.'
Tears welled in Robert's eyes as a man to his left grabbed his arm, attempting to drag him outside. 'I'm not going anywhere,' he told them.
'Oh yeah?' the first man brought up his rifle, aiming at Robert's head. He took a step towards the barrel, pressing the cold metal against his forehead.
'Do it, get it over with.'
They all looked at each other. 'He's too valuable,' said the second man, shaking his head.
'Don't you understand, I don't want to live anymore!'
'Tough shit,' said the third man, and they began to drag him out through the door. Robert elbowed one, lashed out at another, but all this earned him was a punch in the stomach.
Outside, two of them held Robert while the third sprayed a red 'X' on the front of his house and signalled to a truck behind. Robert looked on through the tears as more men climbed out with flamethrowers, tanks strapped to their backs. While he struggled, these 'firemen' disappeared inside, only to emerge moments later, leaving a trail of flames in their wake. And then, as if the rest of it hadn't been enough, something crawled from the spreading conflagration, looking for all the world like a demon emerging from Hell. Fur alight and whimpering with pain, Max made it a few steps down the path, before collapsing into a burning heap. They hadn't even bothered to check he was dead before setting the house on fire; or maybe they just didn't give a crap.
It was too much to bear. Robert reached up and pulled one of the men's gas masks off, then swung it at his other captor.
'Oh-shit-oh-shit-oh-shit-' gibbered the man whose mask was hanging off, fumbling to replace it, while Robert wrestled out of the other one's grip. Then he ran.
'Get him!'
The third man shot into the air, careful not to hit their prisoner, but at the same time powerless to stop him.
Robert made it round the corner, glancing back over his shoulder only once. His house and everything in it was a blazing inferno, much like many of the others nearby.
'Goodbye sweetheart,' he whispered to his wife. 'Goodbye son. I love you both very much.'
The men would come after him, he knew that, but they wouldn't kill him. Instead they'd take him away somewhere to be prodded and poked, to provide a cure for the men in the masks and their superiors. People he'd once served (no, not like that… never like that!). So Robert ran, harder and faster than he ever had in his life. He didn't have a clue where he was going, just that he had to hide – he needed to get away from people: the living and the dead. Robert calculated that if only those with O-Neg blood were immune, as the man back at his house had said, then most of the population had already been wiped out. Joanne would probably have been able to give him a more precise estimation… if she'd been alive.
On his journey he came across a small abandoned army surplus store, which had been partially looted, the window smashed and whatever was in the display long since stolen. That wasn't what interested him. Robert climbed through, hoping that there might be at least some of the things he'd need: a change of clothing for starters. He found a pair of tough khaki combat trousers, a green t-shirt and a hooded top that fitted him, plus a long, waxy outdoor coat. All that remained was to find a decent knife, a compass and some twine. Once he'd scrounged them
