The Return Man: Civilisation’s Gone. He’s Stayed to Bury the Dead. (47 page)

And with a fanfare of blood and entrails, Kheng Wu went to them.

Right. No–left!
The corridor divided, forcing Marco to choose. He cut to his left, ditching the corpses that stalked thirty feet behind him; he raced through another long hall of occupied cells–strangled moans emanated from behind
the metal doors–and he gulped the toxic air as he went; panicking, disoriented by the mazelike bends and identical hallways disappearing into the gloom, he felt like Theseus stumbling dazed through the labyrinth of Crete, hunted by the deadly Minotaur–
left? no, straight
, knowing that a single wrong turn would kill him, and as infuriated cries echoed behind him and ahead, from locations impossible to pinpoint, he prayed he wouldn’t accidentally double back, turn the next corner and crash right smack into the frenzied dead convicts–
left, definitely left
–and just then a rat bolted under his feet, and he hurdled it like some mad Olympian; at the next corner he careered out of control, wild, body-slamming the wall, but his adrenalin was pumping too high to feel anything like pain, so without even a flinch he stiff-armed himself back on course and sprinted–small details beginning to look familiar now, and with growing confidence he suspected he’d been this way before, recognising a constellation of bullet holes in the wall, an oblong bloodstain on the tile–and then suddenly, at the end of the corridor, a hundred feet
ahead
somehow, he saw the dead, ragged and grey and mindless, charging at him… his stomach shrank, but he didn’t stop, didn’t slow, he had it figured out now, and he ran straight at them like a crazed soldier charging across the battlefield, headlong towards a terrible death.

Thirty feet, twenty feet, ten…

Three steps from their groping arms, a hallway opened to his right, and with a holler he planted his left foot and leaped sideways to escape…

… and whooped victoriously as he saw he’d been correct. He’d stumbled his way back to the central corridor; there was the same gurney he’d passed earlier, like a sign posted to steer him out of this fucking maze. The hall ahead was unobstructed; the dead legion from the main block had emptied into the infirmary and turned towards the lab, a
thousand corpses snaking through twists and turns behind him, as though he were leading a monstrous conga line at a bad wedding.

He heard the corpses collapse around the corner, still hot on his trail, and his nose bristled as if they’d pushed a cloud of rancid air ahead of them. He took off again, this time elated, laughing, certain he would survive–incredibly, impossibly, he would
survive
this mind-numbing fucked-up morning–and each twenty yards he ran, another sight bolstered him: the admissions desk, the infirmary entrance…

… The steel-barred security checkpoint. He slipped across a slick surface of frothy blood embellished with shapeless chunks of meat–legs and a ribcage and a half-chewed heart, and Big Skull’s skinned head lying in the corner, mouth open.

And beyond that, the abandoned quad, sideways in the corridor.

Jackpot.

Thank you
, Marco thought, clutching his ribs as if another breath would kill him. Giddy, he almost hopped onto the vehicle–then caught himself, feeling his mind settle to rational speed, the logic returning. He turned and grabbed the barred door, then yanked it so hard his elbows popped. The door crashed shut and locked, just in time.

The dead onslaught hurled itself against the bars, clambering and shoving and squishing the corpses in front. Eyeballs squirted loose as the crowd pushed from the back; chests cracked and oozed black blood. A starved corpse with a big chin grabbed at him through the bars; as the pressure grew enormous, its arms sliced off and slapped to the floor at Marco’s feet. Marco stepped back, warily eyeballing the damp cinderblock walls.
God, don’t let the door crumble loose.
It held solid. The dead screamed and raged.

‘Sorry,’ he addressed the crowd. ‘You have to stay.’

He mounted the quad and turned the ignition key, and as the handles rumbled in his sore grip and the motor throbbed like an indestructible heart, Marco shared the sudden rush of power in his own muscles, as if he, too, were wired into the engine.

Ahead of him the hallway was quiet, empty, long.

Hope it stays that way.

He noticed the ghostly horse skull tied to the hood. Its long head pointed the way home.

‘Giddy up,’ he commanded, then gunned the throttle.

The quad bounded forward, whipping a tail of exhaust behind it. And then he was out. Out to the cell blocks, also eerie and silent… then out to the prison yard, past the crashed military truck… then out to the grounds, the sun high in the sky, the late morning air fantastic and fresh on his cheeks as he weaved easily between the few scattered corpses still roaming the property.

Two minutes later he’d exited through the bombed-out hole in the concrete wall, and there he’d traded the quad for one of the remaining abandoned MTVRs; five minutes afterwards he was barrelling east in the truck along Route 247 back to Arizona, back to base, back to whatever might remain of reality for him there. He studied himself in the mirror–eyes bleary and bloodshot, pink with tears that came and went in unpredictable spurts–as behind him Sarsgard Prison shrivelled in the rear-view mirror, shrinking and shrinking and then finally vanishing altogether, sucking Roger and Wu with it into the void.

Gone.

His hands draped the steering wheel. His eyes fell sadly on the loose platinum band sitting askew on his ring finger.

He felt more alone than he had in a long time.

Danielle was gone, too.

But I’m alive
, he thought, and there came the tears again, a wet running salt he could taste on his lips.
After all this, all this bullshit, still alive.

Fuck it. Fuck prison.

I’ve been paroled.

Arizona. Home, just past dawn. He’d driven all night, a grim voyage across the Redlands Highway in the MTVR, four hundred miles of nothingness to numb his mind. The front door creaked as he let himself in, and all that greeted him was the ache that accompanied these lonely arrivals home; no warm welcome, no gratifying sense of being missed. The house was indifferent to whether he lived or died. He thought of the stray dogs in Hemet, those pathetic and ownerless animals, and he wondered if maybe–just maybe–the time had come to conquer his fear and find a good dog for himself.
Might be nice to have a friend.

Upstairs, his office had a dreamlike quality, familiar yet strange, as if somewhere along the sixteen-hour drive he’d fallen asleep and was now only fantasising his homecoming. Except, he knew, it had to be real. His body hurt too much; he could never dream a pain this complete, this sharp–hot blue flames burning in a dozen bloody fire pits in his skin, purple embers smouldering beneath bruises on his arms and legs and stomach. He was a living lab specimen of cuts, scrapes, blisters, bumps and contusions.

He collapsed into his chair and turned on the computer.

He didn’t give a shit about checking the barricade. Or the trap.

Trap’s empty. She’s not coming back.

With a sour smile, he dialled Benjamin.

The phone rang eighteen times. Finally the line clicked, and a grainy video materialised on the screen. A face. Owen Osbourne.

Marco wasn’t surprised. ‘Hi, honey, I’m home.’

If possible, Osbourne appeared uglier than he had four days ago, as if he truly were morphing from human to fish–the eyes seemed spaced a fraction wider, his piranha face colder. His wet white hair was slicked back like mucus on his head, suggesting he’d just stepped from the shower. His black pupils glistened. Eager.

‘Welcome back, Doctor Marco. We’ve been waiting.’

‘Yeah, sorry to keep you. Where’s Ben?’

‘Did you locate Ballard?’

‘Where’s Ben?’ Marco insisted. He called out. ‘
Ben!
You there?’

‘I’m here, man,’ Ben’s voice assured him from off screen. He sounded like hell–hoarse, tired. So it had been a rough few days for Ben, too. ‘It’s cool.’

‘Okay,’ Marco said, relaxing. ‘Glad to hear you, buddy.’

‘Same here,’ Ben began, ‘I was starting to freak—’

‘
Doctor
,’ Osbourne snapped, cutting Benjamin short. The director had momentarily lost his composure; a white strand of hair had fallen forward onto his rounded forehead. He brushed it back, then cleared his throat and resettled in his chair. ‘Please. The sooner we settle matters, the sooner you and Mr Ostroff can catch up. As for myself, I only want to know one thing…’

He ran his tongue hungrily along his top row of bleached teeth. ‘Ballard?’

Fuck you
, Marco wanted to answer. He stared wordlessly at Osbourne, letting the silence speak for him, and then at last relented.

‘Dead,’ he reported. ‘Returned. And yes, I brought back
a nice little sample of DNA as a souvenir–not that you asked me for it. Turns out, your RRU team had orders to collect Roger’s blood. You only sent me to kill an old friend without informing me why.’

Osbourne’s mouth twitched at the corners. He nodded, looking as if he’d just swallowed a bite of delicious filet mignon. Savouring the after-flavour.

‘The DNA,’ he said. ‘Very good news.’

‘Good and bad,’ Marco continued. ‘Because guess who’s also dead? Every single one of your RRU soldiers. In fact, they never even showed–but someone else did. A nice guy from the Chinese CIA or some bullshit like that, and oh, by the way, he tried to kill
me
, too.’

‘I see,’ Osbourne remarked, unblinking. ‘Not entirely surprising–I was aware of external interest in our mission. We
had
wondered why the RRU didn’t report at the designated time-point. If you hadn’t returned by sundown today, we planned to dispatch a back-up unit.’

‘Wow, thanks. I would’ve been long dead by then.’

‘Exactly,’ said Osbourne bluntly. ‘While you were alive, there was no reason to commit additional resources. It would have been necessary only if you were dead.’

Marco bristled. ‘You’re a great leader. Your men must love you.’

‘Doctor, please, don’t turn this personal. You and I, we each had objectives. I’m pleased that you accomplished yours. Your country is pleased,’ the director cooed. Once again Marco felt like a child receiving insincere praise from an adult. A pat on the head.

Uncle Owen.
Wu’s disdainful moniker for Osbourne.

‘So,’ Marco said. ‘Are you going to tell me finally what this was all about?’

Osbourne lifted an eyebrow, pretending not to understand. ‘About?’

‘Why? Why did you need Roger’s DNA?’ He knew the answer, of course. But Osbourne
owed
him the same truth, goddamn it. Osbourne, the grand master in this New Republican chess match, the man scouring the board from above and toppling pawns like Wu and Marco.

Osbourne answered him with stone eyes. ‘I’m afraid that’s classified, Doctor Marco,’ he said, and crossed his legs politely, effeminately, at the knees.

‘You have what you need, in other words,’ Marco translated. ‘So there’s nothing else I need to know.’

‘Well said.’

Marco inhaled, cooling his anger before it reddened his cheeks. ‘All right, fine,’ he breathed. ‘I figured you’d say that. The thing is, though… I already know more than you think.’

A shadow flickered across Osbourne’s face.

Marco chewed his lip. Should he tell Osbourne everything? That Roger had been alive? Alive, still working, still unravelling the Resurrection?

How great
, Marco thought,
it would be to see Osbourne squirm.

To see the regret in the director’s eyes as he realised that Roger’s murder was a
loss
; that Roger might have contributed so much more to the world if he’d survived.

To see Osbourne feel one-tenth of the grief in Marco’s own chest.

You smug fucking asshole. Roger’s death should be mourned.

‘There’s one more thing to show you,’ Marco said. He dug into his vest pocket–cringing as his fingers brushed the clammy chunk of Roger’s brain–and pulled the glass phial he’d grabbed from the prison lab. He waved it teasingly for the camera. ‘This.’

Osbourne blinked, and his gaze narrowed just perceptibly; the man’s piranha face hungered towards the computer, and
Marco felt a flutter in his stomach, a nervous anticipation, like a fisherman watching a trout circle the hook before it bites.

And, sure enough, Osbourne snapped at the bait. ‘What is it?’ he asked, cool and even, but just below the surface Marco sensed a torrid undercurrent of alarm. The director uncrossed his legs and edged forward in his chair. ‘The DNA?’

Marco leaned back, prolonging Osbourne’s discomfort.

‘Better,’ he said. ‘A vaccine. A working vaccine.’

Osbourne’s face was unchanged. But his eyes–his eyes detonated with something like lust, a nearly electric discharge of desire. It burned intently and then extinguished, and Osbourne breathed out through flexed nostrils. The microphone emitted a sustained hiss.

‘You found that with Ballard?’ Osbourne asked, attempting nonchalance, and yet he sounded strained, as if an invisible hand had grabbed him by the throat. His rigid jaw worked side to side, teeth silently grinding. He wanted the phial, Marco knew. Badly.

‘Yes,’ Marco answered. ‘With Ballard. And, according to his private notes, it’s the real deal. Apparently Roger didn’t share everything he knew with you.’ A twist of the truth–Marco still wasn’t sure how Osbourne would react if he learned Roger had been alive.

Pissed that I didn’t save him? Hold me to blame?

Why take that chance?

Osbourne glowered. His brow creased, suspicious; the skin bunched on his forehead, creating rubbery wrinkles in his bad facelift. ‘What proof did Ballard have that it works?’

‘Roger Ballard was a
genius.
I know you’re quite well aware of that. I also know you’re aware how close Roger was to succeeding.’ He paused to give Osbourne a chance to comment–to admit to the email that Roger had sent. Osbourne said
nothing.
Bastard
, Marco thought and then concluded simply, ‘If Roger said the vaccine works, I believe him.’