Viral, p.1
Viral, page 1
Viral
By
G.B. James
Also available:
‘Army of the Dead’ (2015)
Copyright © 2014 GB James
All rights reserved.
http://www.gbjames.org
It is a fact, universally acknowledged that greatness derived of humility carries substance, meaning and potency; the shade in which all lesser greatness’s lie. Uniquely coveted, rarely relinquished and never extinguished. Burdensome as it is, greatness changes lives and times and creates futures beyond the wildest of all our dreaming, and the wildness of all our realities.
Chapter 1
From the skin to within, the human form is a complex and intricate mechanical masterpiece of biological engineering. John's body was on this particular night a well-oiled machine, a faltering, inebriated, poorly functioning response unit, steadily collapsing under the strain of being pushed beyond its limits.
In the hour since his ceremonial au revoir to the sleepy coastal village of Flay, John had been moving constantly yet for all his efforts had made remarkably little progress, stealing his way along the unloved pothole strewn track up the side of the mountain towards the station and a train home.
Johns indecision surfaced as a fork in the road came into view. Left, or right. In a skewed stroke of practical genius, John turned to face backwards, hoping a familiar, if darker view would jog his memory on which course he had taken on arrival the day before.
The move was executed too quickly, and John’s pickled brain spun into orbit, causing him to bend and steady himself. He was none the wiser - the twinkling lights of the village and glistening ocean beyond bore no resemblance to the sights that greeted him on arrival under an early summer sun.
Disappointed, and a little confused, John resumed his journey, taking a left turn and picking up the pace lest he miss his train - the last one of the day. It was at this point he was suddenly caught in an intuitive feeling he was not alone. There was no overt signal, no obvious clues, just a nagging feeling that had hooked on and was reeling him in with every drunken step.
“Hello?” John waited with bated breath for a response. None was forthcoming and so tightening his grip on the brief case, he continued on his way.
A snapping sound echoed up the path. Someone or something was just in front of him.
“Hello? Who's there?” John hoped to hear the voice of a villager or farmer, as he was quite sure there wouldn't be any other likely candidates for being here this hour. Again, there was no answer. John settled for indigenous wildlife as explanation for the rustling in the foliage at the side of the road.
The dim light of Flay Station appeared ahead. John paused, thankful the turn he had taken proved correct. As he did, the blood suddenly drained from his face, his fingers trembled, and his body stiffened like concrete had been funnelled in. Caught on the sea breeze, John heard breathing. It was light, near inaudible, but most definitely breathing, and this time, it wasn't up ahead, or to the side, this was right behind him.
Fleeing wasn't an option - he could barely walk in a straight line, let alone run for his life. John swung round to confront his aggressor, and was astonished to find no one there. As he did so, he felt a thud from behind, the impact of which was enough to induce temporary paralysis.
An uncontrolled explosion in the small of his back sent aftershocks streaking from head to toe and back again; a lung full of alcohol infused breath burst out into the night air. Like the demolition of a crumbling tower block, bones crashed into bones and fresh blood seeped from an outstretched hand, grazed on the stone track in an attempt to break his fall.
John smacked down on the ground hard. As he came round, moments later, John clambered to his feet, disorientated and wondering why he had fallen. No more drinking he wrongly surmised as he approached the platform masquerading as a train station.
Clambering up the wooden steps to wait for the train, John considered why he kept putting himself through this. As the Environmental Safety Inspector for Global Energy resource company N-Gen, John had a few years left in him yet, and not enough put aside for the early retirement he'd always promised himself.
John had reached the apex of his career some years earlier, when many years of dedication and devotion to the work came crashing down around his ears when he had blown the whistle on some acutely inappropriate practices in a colleague. In shame, N-Gen had worked tirelessly to protect the offender and dismantle and discredit John's well-earned reputation in the field.
With a family to provide for, John, a mild mannered, fair and kind natured man in his forties had reluctantly taken the contract to cover the developments in remote outpost of Flay - his penance for being a bearer of the truth, translated as bearer of bad news for those who had turned a blind eye for so long. Comforting himself with the hope that this was his last field trip, and imagining the stability and security of an office role, John stood on the platform and waited. This ordinary man was an unwitting host to something extraordinary; something not of this world.
It was 10.47pm when John staggered out onto the platform, gasping for breath and with acute muscle tension from the impromptu run. I'll never be stopping off for a beer on the way home again he thought, before that now familiar déjà-vu feeling from the week previous. It seems a perilously close to addictive need for liquid relaxant almost without fail resulted in an Olympic sized effort to make it to the train on time. Consoling himself with the thought at least I'm predictable was swiftly replaced by wondering why he puts himself through this every time. The answer, or an answer at least, followed immediately in the form of a satisfied yawn, and bleary eyed squint at the clock - it was 10.48. John was in time. Only now could he proudly own his complacency as he safely tucked his lucky guy badge back in pocket for another day.
10.49. John became aware of his uneasy gait, and a very poor attempt to straighten up and look sharp swiftly became a decisively clumsy manoeuvre collapsing into a platform seat. He stared out into the darkness. The never ending sea of black, occasionally interrupted by the glistening lights of what he assumed to be cars in the distance - the nearest road traversed the opposite side of the valley, parallel to this rail line, with acres of wild, untamed grassland stretched out between.
As the wind changed direction, John caught the piercing cry of the train approaching. Still some distance away, but he recalled reading an article in the local press about the high number of animal deaths further up the valley from trains in the night. John let out a long, drawn out breath; another yawn - must be tired. Couldn't possibly be the drink? A beleaguered attempt to convince himself that in fact convinced no one.
10.50. John was suddenly aware there was indeed no one. He was entirely alone on the platform. Recalling his last visit, some six months earlier, he pictured the cityscape he’d left behind and now was returning to. The fully populated platforms, bustling with raucous teens, guilty looking business types in crumpled suits, and night workers glistening like plastic jewels in the crowd with their hi-vis jackets and accessories contrasted as polar opposite to this ghostly vacuum. John was aware of being in what on any other day he might have experienced as perfect solitude. Swathed in the eerily dense darkness and drowning in silence resonated with grizzly anxiety-inducing isolation. This was broken only by the mildly arresting sight of an unusually obese rodent, confidently trundling up the track and away into the shadows.
Bored with indulging himself in contemplating the life of a scarpering rat, John checked the clock just as the big hand lurched heavily into place. 10.51. My time he thought. Dusting himself off and with indelicate ease, John lifted to achieve a sort of standing position. Clutching the bag to his chest as though an attempt to gain some warmth; the hug of an inanimate object betrayed an unconscious, internal anxiety. John didn't know what was about to happen, but maybe he sensed it, maybe he anticipated it.
The train was much closer now, and gave one last scream of intent as it approached; the light swelling to fill up the void, casting shadows and light across the horizon. It was getting brighter, but it wasn't slowing down. As the train met the station at a thunderous, unforgiving pace, John caught the other end of the platform in its light. He wasn't alone. What he had up until now mistaken for a pole or post at the far end took on human form. As it stood, bolt upright and motionless John could make out a turn of the head, and glint on the eyes in the half light of carriages speeding past.
Lifting himself from the seat, the frayed corner of his jacket caught on a nail protruding from the arm rest and momentarily the right side pulled back to reveal what even the casual observer would clearly see, had there been any. A small stain of what appeared to be fresh blood had permeated the creases and folds of his shirt, less than half an inch in diameter, and shades of further dry blood around as though that area had been rubbed, and the stain extended beyond the dark and precise circle at its centre. Unaware of the discreet excretion John lazily pulled his jacket back into place and fasten a button so as to avoid any further rips or tears, and a short sharp breeze washing through the platform prompted the winter coat to go on also - buttons fastened to the top.
John’s preoccupation with this new companion at the furthest reaches of the platform was interrupted by the realisation that the 10.51 train was now a red light slowly fading in the distance. The train had not stopped and claimed him. But that was the last train of the night. The alcohol coursing through his veins dumbed any feelings of anger, but not even three large whiskeys could temper the rising sense of panic as the scale of this self-induced disaster took hold.
John shuddered suddenly as the anxiety ratcheted up a notch. The crossing was before the station. If the train is only now at the crossing, then where am I? John’s mind raced, he tried to visualise retracing the route of his walk back as far as the bar - had he taken a wrong turning he wondered? Gone off track perhaps? Surely not!
With all the precision and commitment of a tired drunk, he looked to the far end of the platform. The figure remained motionless. John decided if ever there was a time to man up and ask someone, then it was now. The mind was willing and two steps ahead, considering already what he might make of this other person on approach and how best to mask the slight sense of drunken vulnerability and angst at his predicament. The body however, was not for moving. John slumped further into the discomfort of the freezing cold metal seat and was left to simply entertain himself with what would have transpired had he been able to engage the mysterious figure.
The time was now closing in on the eleventh hour. 10.58. John was suddenly aware of another light approaching in the distance. Why had he only just noticed, he wondered? This looked like a train approaching. Had he heard the bell? He couldn't recall? This train seemed to be slowing down, and unlike the rickety lilt of the 10.51 this seemed to be pulling in with the quiet confidence of a slowing pulse. John had heard plenty about these new, modern trains and how much more sedate and unobtrusive they were, but had yet to actually see one.
John looked at the clock. It was old, tired, like Father Time himself had banged it together with fragments of metal and flecks of paint. Could this old timepiece be inaccurate? Was this in fact the 10.51 pulling in now? Remembering it was the last train of the night, with rejuvenated and restored confidence John leapt to his feet, somewhat heavy footed, and with new found optimism waited for his train.
In anticipation, John loosened the top button of the coat that clung to his neckline, fending off these 'minus zero' temperatures, and as he stepped up into the train, dared to wonder if there would be a breakfast carriage, as a post-whiskey hunger was now creeping up in him, and focusing the mind on a table service spread before him. I'll have all but the mushrooms he decided, mushrooms being his most exotic phobia.
John pulled the coat back up as he orientated himself at the carriage door. The inside of this carriage was it seemed several degrees below the already unreasonable frozen planet outside in the darkness of the green desert. This was very cold indeed. He needed to find a sleeper car and a blanket filled cabin in which to sleep away the small hours until his Full English with coffee.
As the eerily silent carriages pulled out of the station, he paused at the door and swiped away the warm misty patterns his breath had cast upon the icy glass. John surveyed the platform from which he had made his escape. The pace had not yet picked up fully, so there was opportunity to lean out for a more thorough inspection. The platform left behind was, once more, empty. No longer was there a tall thin figure at the far end, and with a half gasp of wonder, John heard himself mumbling.
“I wonder if he is on the train too?” The answer would reveal itself all too soon, and in ways he could not possibly have conceived.
John reached out to press what he assumed to be a button of some description to open the door. A mere waving of the hand over this pulsating blue glow and the door swiftly slid open. Feeling like an excited five year old having just discovered the joys of a new toy, John was momentarily awash with the soothing cloak of nostalgia - past good experiences pushing to the fore of his conscious and with the innocence and bewilderment of his younger self, he paused, and waited for the door to close again before drawing a hand across the circle and once more - to his delight, the door slid back. Perhaps the two were intertwined, or at the very least closely connected, but those good feelings subsided as rapidly as a tsunami-expectant tide pulling back from shore, to be replaced with a short, sharp pang of anxiety. This was an environment unfamiliar to him; as much unknown as it was new.
In a beleaguered attempt to conquer a rising sense of foreboding, John stridently engaged this first carriage in anticipation of a seat amongst the fellow passengers. He was perplexed at the immediately obvious fact that the carriage contained neither seats nor passengers. There was a faint whirring sound of what he guessed to be a cooling fan or faulty heater. From end to end, running the left hand side of the carriage were multiple, shelved, open booths, with hard, metal boxes and containers with logos emblazoned on them and sequences of images that recalled ancient hieroglyphics of some description.
Entering the nearest of these booths, and with curiosity getting the better of him, John heard the faint swish of a door at the far end of the carriage open and shut. Without really taking time to notice, his instinct was to hide. John edged his back against the wall of boxes, secreting his brief case under a bottom shelf, and remained as still as was possible with the heart beating so fast as to make a break for freedom through his ribcage. He listened intently.
John could hear his breathing and felt the dull thrust of panic infused blood charging his veins. I am right now, he considered the closest I think I have ever come to wanting to be invisible and almost loud enough to be heard over each sprightly, shallow breath, his head was consumed with one word: why?
These seconds were felt as minutes and hours, but almost as soon as the doors whirred into action, they were purring shut again.
It was a dawning realisation as perverse and uncharacteristic as the contrasting temperatures and unchartered environment, and not something one often has to consider when on what should be another mundane, innocuous train journey home, but it had just occurred to John, with rising degrees of trepidation, that he had company, and that may not necessarily be a good thing at all.
As though wishing to somehow leave a part of him symbolically close to the exit, John slowly pushed his brief case with his foot further under the lowest shelf in the booth. John had decided that he would first find a seat and return to claim the brief case once he was safe and settled.
Cautiously making his way through the carriage, John noted the generic nature of each booth: only subtle differences in the images that adorned each box, or in the number of boxes that filled the shelves. Could this be food storage of some kind? Were they valuables perhaps? All too soon John was at the farthest end of the carriage, peering through the four doors that separated him from what lay on the other side. Is this a military carriage? John wondered, recalling a recent article he had read in Today Magazine on the relocation of military supplies and personnel from east to west coast.
John glanced out of the window. The world was now streaking past at breakneck pace. In the distance, beacons of light from small towns and villages passed by like shooting stars that had taken root in the earth, and shone like rough cut diamonds on the twilight horizon.
With a jolt powerful enough to cause umbilical whiplash, John’s focus was brought sharply back to the here and now, as the opening bars of Springsteen's Born to Run punched through the silence. His thigh was vibrating. It was a text.
'Where are you John? I thought you’d have been home by now? The kids are in bed, and I’m not waiting up any longer. I’ll see you in the morning.'
John’s guard dropped and he let out a sigh of relief. It was going to be ok. In fact, it was better than ok. Everything is exactly as it should be; as it always is. I’m late home, she’s pissed off, and tomorrow I have to run the gauntlet of getting the boys ready for school while fending off yet more accusations of an affair. Will she ever let it go? John noted having not been on the train more than fifteen minutes at this point, so there's another hour and five minutes to go. This was a journey he had done many times now, and his body clock alone knew every twist and turn in the rail, every stop and go for the stations, of which there were three before he would disembark for the ten minute stroll, counting the street lamps; the neighbourhood-patrolling cats to his home, and the suburban sanctuary of domestic melodrama and monotony ready to welcome him in.
