When he reached a dead end, a vertical wall of green, he knew he’d come to the city limit, usually perforated by several gates where the arterial roads lead in and out of Tier Two. Now, all such exits were blocked by the new forest. Johnson realised that following the spider might have been nothing more than folly. It occurred to him that he might have been safer back in the apartment. In the moment he had the thought, he heard a sound behind him. He knew without looking what it meant.
When he turned, however, what he saw was not a stream of thick tentacles reaching for him. Instead, he saw the bodies of the dead tearing away from the rest of the weed and standing alone. The risen corpses, swaddled in green vine, didn’t stand still for long.
They came slowly, as if unsure of their feet, like toddlers when they first stand up. Many of them fell over before hauling themselves upright and walking again. All of them advanced in his direction. Johnson looked at the spider and found it was no longer oriented towards the great wall. Instead it was pointing along it.
He began to run. He left the clumsy revenants far behind at first but everywhere he looked more were rising. Behind him the numbers of green corpses grew; to a gang, to a crowd. Ahead he saw stairs leading upward; that was where the spider was directing him. He took the steps three at a time until he was exhausted. The spider had led him to a staircase which doubled back on itself over and over again, leading endlessly upwards.
Within minutes Johnson was no longer running. Lumbering was the best he could manage and without the help of the handrail, he doubted his legs were strong enough for the ascent. His body acted as though he hadn’t exercised for years and very soon he had to stop and rest. Looking down over the creeper-covered stairway he saw hundreds of green bodies pushing upwards behind him, only a couple of levels below. The vines he was stepping on appeared to be dying and turning brown but the green bodies chasing him seemed to be getting faster, learning not only how to walk with confidence but also how to run.
Johnson took a few more deep breaths and ran on up the stairs. From somewhere up above he heard the now familiar rustle and thump of more weed mummies. They were coming down to meet him, trap him in the stairwell. With no choice but to press upwards, he slammed into them with his shoulder, knocking five of them down and stepping over the rest as he continued to climb—they didn’t resist at all. He used the same tactic on the next group he met but they, too, were learning. One of the fallen in the group laid a hand on his ankle as he barreled past. He kicked the hand away and continued, realising only a couple of levels later that the arm of the weed mummy still gripped him. He flung the dead limb away.
The next group was stronger and there were more of them. They pushed him backwards, every one of them reaching out to him. He pulled the bodkins from his boots and began to stab at their heads. The spikes penetrated with ease and immobilised the creatures instantly. He pushed through, puncturing every head until he’s paralysed the whole cluster. They stood swaying and bewildered on the stairway until he pushed the two nearest to him and the group collapsed downwards, blocking the stairwell solidly. It bought him the time he needed.
The spider continued to point the way to the next level of steps and he obeyed its directions with reckless faith. The spider was all he had left. The groups of weed mummies appeared many times in the process of his upward journey and each time he dispatched them with spikes to their heads before using them to block the progress of the ones that followed. Each encounter sapped both Johnson’s will and his strength.
He still had a choice. Wouldn’t giving in and letting them take him be simpler? Then the nightmare that his life had become would be over once and for all.
As he staggered upwards, the self-admission that he’d let himself be swamped by drugs and alcohol hit him hard. He’d practically killed himself already.
He tried to remember his life before enrolling at the academy. No recognisable memories came to him. Indistinctly, he had a sense that he’d once lived in a valley in a much more peaceful city than this one but it seemed lifetimes in the past. He believed, though he didn’t know why, that he had once fought against terrible odds and been wounded in the process. Was that why he’d tried to become a Narcotics Squad officer? The fighting of those odds, the way he’d been outnumbered, was similar in some way to the odds he was fighting now. But where was there to escape to? Surely the way out of Tier Two was not to be found by climbing ever upward.
The questions, the doubts, killed his adrenaline. For a while Johnson sat down and listened to the weed mummies struggling up below him. It sounded as if they had learned the rudiments of speech now. He heard their moans and cries of hunger or whatever it was that drove them to chase him. Sitting was easy. They would catch him and that would be the end.
The thought didn’t ease his mind. It merely disgusted him to know that he could think that way. That he could allow defeat to be the answer to his problems. It was anger that pushed him once more to his feet just as the army of leafy soldiers reached the level below him. Once again, he was running.
Two levels up he emerged onto the top of the city. It, too, was covered in growth but the weed had shriveled and was lifeless. The spider pointed along the open expanse of what seemed to be a huge flat roof and so, one more time, he ran. It was good to see the sky again; it gave him a surge of elation to think that he was almost free.
The elation disappeared just as quickly when his running brought him to a precipice. He had reached the very limit of Tier Two. The spider still pointed outwards, into the void. Down below, miles down, was water; reflecting blue and silver in the sunshine but so distant the waves appeared not to move at all.
He looked back and saw the weed mummies streaming up from the stairwell. They assembled into ranks, their numbers too great to count. The cohorts of androgynous green humanoids spread out along the horizon of the building until he could no longer see the rest of the city behind them. Slowly, as one, they moved in.
The closer they came, the more distinct were their voices:
“We will be like you, Johnson.”
“You cannot reach the first tier, Johnson.”
“Let us evolve together, Johnson.”
“You are the last survivor, Johnson.”
“Give up, Johnson, you are so tired.”
“Join us, Johnson, you have already failed.”
He took out his pistol and aimed into the throng at head level. The first shot passed through twenty heads before losing its velocity. The weed mummies dropped in a line, only to be replaced by many more. Using this technique he brought down hundreds of them before his three clips ran out. It was nothing against their mounting thousands. He looked down at the water once again. It seemed distant and blue and peaceful. It reminded him of sleep and yet the height and the thought of the fall terrified him.
A cloud passed across the sun and as it did so the water became momentarily translucent instead of reflective. He saw a shadow far below the surface. Looking up he scanned the sky to find the cloud that was casting such a huge shape onto the water. There was nothing but a few wisps of ethereal vapour, drifting so slow they hardly moved at all. The army approached him, coming within a few a meters. Soon they would be able to reach out and take him and the one choice he had left would be gone.
The lightness that had gathered in his stomach deepened into something stronger; a sense of anticipation like the moment before any leap only much, much worse. He believed his bowels were about to let go.
“We will be like you, Johnson. You will be like us.”
Green hands reached for him. He turned to the city’s edge and sprang beyond their reach.
For the briefest moment he felt weightless, then gravity took him and he was impelled towards the water.
The waves accelerated towards him. He positioned himself to hit the water feet first, tensing every muscle in his body. One last look at the water showed the silhouette of some huge craft below the surface, a shape he thought he recognised.
Chapter 24
