The Unblemished (36 page)

She tugged at his belt, fumbled at his zip until he was freed; cold
but thickening in her hand. She didn't notice the wayward splashes of
piss on the floor or the toilet seat, or the unholy fug its stench
provided. She didn't care that the toilet bowl was brimming with
waste or that there were depictions of vulvas drawn in indelible
marker on the door. She didn't notice the glory hole in the dividing
wall or the wad of toilet paper that filled it. By now all she was aware
of was the burn in her cunt and how she might douse it.

Nick positioned her against the wall and lifted her right thigh.
With his other hand he thumbed aside her gusset. She directed him
into her and almost bit her lip as he slammed himself home. Almost
immediately, despite the frenzy of his rhythm and the anxious breath
in her ear, she heard slow footsteps. A shadow fell across the thin
rectangle at the base of the door. She clearly saw the shadow broaden
as it turned, presumably to face the door. She heard a settling sound,
as if whoever it was had leaned against the thin melanine barrier,
perhaps to listen to what was happening inside. Despite this
distraction, and the feeling that it was one of their party – she had to
cling to that idea, the alternative was too harrowing to consider – she
was losing herself to the pleasure that Nick was sawing into her. She
could feel herself zeroing on a climax, at the same time both the most
recognisable sensation she knew and the most foreign. Even when the
door began to bulge inwards, she didn't quite get it, not at first. She
thought it was the approaching orgasm bending her mind. Although
she was so close to the release she wanted, she pushed Nick away. He
too seemed on the brink; he surfaced from its narcosis like a sleeper
rudely awakened.

'What?' he gasped. His penis bobbed violently with the beat of his
heart, like something nosing the air, trying to get back to where it
needed to be. She pointed at the door as she stuffed herself back into
her clothes. Now she pointed at the gap above the partitions dividing
the two cubicles. She mimed going over; any movement of theirs
would be screened by the extra few inches on top of the doors. Nick
was shaking his head,
no, no.
But she couldn't understand what he
was objecting to. He still had not dressed himself properly. He was
dwindling before her in every possible way. She left him there. She
was up and over the partition in a few seconds, as the door split and
collapsed inwards. She offered Nick her hand, but his attention was
on what was coming in to take Sarah's place.

She dropped to the floor and tried to open the door, but it was
jammed in the frame, perhaps by the destruction of its neighbour. She
worked at it, trying not to make any noise while trying to understand
why Nick was making no noise. Wondering if he was dead yet,
wondering if he was winning the fight. She would help him if only she
could get this open. And then she heard an awful wet splintering
noise, so deep as to make itself felt within her chest. Blood appeared,
fanning swiftly under the partition. Horrified, fascinated, she noticed
she could see the violence being visited upon her erstwhile lover in its
deep red reflection. The paper wadding in the glory hole tipped out
and through it she could see Nick's eye, dead, imprinted forever
with the unspeakable acts that had sucked the life from him.
More splitting, crunching sounds. Whatever was working on him had
enormous strength. She used that sickening noise as cover to wrench
the door clear. But as she was gathering herself to make a dash for the
exit, she heard the killer barge free of the cubicle.

She quickly pushed the stall door closed. There was a brief rush of
running water – was it washing its hands? – and the roar of the hand dryer.
She was convinced then that it knew she was there and that the
noise would drown out her screams, her cries for help. There was an
unbearable wait. She imagined the door slamming open and being
invited into some vibrating blood-flecked maw a dozen times over
before the hand-dryer ceased and silence rushed in.

It was bluffing. It was waiting for her. Nick's blood, pints of it,
pooled around her feet and she felt her gorge rise as she imagined
much of it thrumming in the head of the penis that had been inside
her only minutes before.

She could not bring herself to check how safe things were. Her
hand remained pressed against the door, obscuring the puerile
graffiti, until it seemed that it too was a part of the profane decor.
Seconds, or hours, passed. She thought that if she tried to move, the
blood would have coagulated, gluing her to the floor. The light in the
bathroom seemed to be fading, yet she could not buck her paralysis.
It was too risky; it might be the move that would signal her death.

She listened hard, hoping for some indication that the monster had
left. And then reason began to speak to her.

If it thought you were in here, it would come for you. Look at
what it did to Nick. What fear could it have of you? You would be
finished by now, if there were any shred of suspicion. Your blood
would be mixing with lover-boy's.

She pulled the door open, her heart too large, too noisy for her
frail body. Bo was standing there, his jaws slathered with blood,
Nick's liver in his fist. He said, around his mouthful of food, 'Are you
all right?'

But no. Reject that. Filthy mind; Judas mind. Reject it.

She was alone.

He woke up from a dream in which he was freezing to death. His
throat hurt. Under his fingers, the pages of thousands of books felt as
smooth as porcelain. He was in the busy reading room, Humanities
One, at the British Library. Every desk was occupied. He was sitting
at desk number 2375, his favourite because it meant he could watch
the people as they came and went. No matter how much he drew the
edges of his cardigan around him, the cold would not retreat. His skin
rasped whenever it met itself. The pick-up counter, usually so busy
with readers collecting or returning books ordered, was unattended.
The occasional trill of a Windows-operated laptop or the fanfare of a
Mac was missing. There were no sneezes or snuffles. No coughs.

Everybody was naked. Everybody was dead. He was naked too,
his skin as thin and blue as eggshells.

He came to in a dark room, breathing musty air that smelled of
chalk dust and chlorine. He shifted and knocked over a brush, a pile
of photocopied leaflets advertising New Year swimming-pool
discounts. Someone was calling his name.

He got shakily to his feet and pulled open the door of the
storeroom. He listened for the voice. It didn't repeat itself. He strode
across to the swimming-pool entrance. Lamb, Tina and Claire were
sitting in the same corner of the empty swimming pool, their voices
incomprehensible yet constant, rolling and humming around the great
marble arena. He cut through the hubbub with a question.

'We haven't seen them since they went off to check the windows
and look for weapons.'

'Weapons?' Bo said. 'This isn't a fucking barracks.'

'Don't tell us,' Tina said. 'You know what they're like. There's no
reasoning.'

'Did you hear someone calling my name? It sounded like Sarah.'

'Maybe in your dreams,' Tina said, a little smile showing through
the strain.

'Maybe,' Bo agreed, recoiling from her grim expression. Humour
failed like something dead on a cake when all you wanted to do was
survive. Her smile looked unnatural, ill fitting, as if she had somehow
stolen the mouth of another person in an extreme attempt to make
herself appear normal. 'I'll be back in a moment,' he said.

He thought he heard something being knocked over, above his
head. He trotted up the stairs and saw Sarah at the other end of the
corridor, a wastepaper basket rolling away from her feet. She looked
dazed, lost, until she saw him approaching. Then she stopped, her
eyes alert, fastening on him like something on the hunt for prey.

'Where's Nick?' he asked.

'He's back there,' she said. 'In the ... in the loo.'

'He's all right? I mean, what, he's taking a piss?'

She was staring at him. He began to feel uncomfortable. It was as
if she were trying to read him. He looked down at his hands and
heard her take a little gasp.

'No,' she said. 'No, you washed your hands afterwards. Your
manners are impeccable.'

'Sarah.'

'Don't come near me,' she said.

He explored himself. He rubbed his tongue across his palate,
searching for the flavour that would damn him. 'Sarah, where is
Nick?'

'You tell me. You tell me, Bo, you fucker. I saw –'

'You saw what? You saw me?'

She didn't say anything. He had to cling to that. 'You didn't see
me, did you? Please say you didn't see me.'

'He's dead,' she said. 'Jesus, he's deader than dead. What you did
to him ... I –'

'Please, Sarah. You didn't see me.'

'That doesn't mean it wasn't you.'

'I was asleep.'

'All the more reason to suspect you. You told me yourself, you
don't know what being asleep, what being awake, what any of it
means any more.'

'I know,' he said. 'But I promise you I'm fighting this. I'm not
giving in to it. I won't give in.'

'So you say. But you don't know who you are, Bo. The graves you
opened. You don't remember doing any of that.'

'I'm coming back from it, Sarah. I'm in charge of myself.'

'You don't know that. You say it, but you don't know for
sure.'

She was right. His tongue was running across his teeth now,
checking for any terrible shreds. The action reminded him of his own
face reflected in the photographs from Abney Park cemetery. He
thought of his hands scrabbling at the seals of soil-encrusted coffins.
He thought of the dirt and the decay packed under his fingernails.
Tossing gobbets of spoilt flesh to the weak, their eyes upturned, like
thin dogs impatient for a titbit.

'You have to trust me,' he said, and hated the puling slant to his
voice.

'I can't do that,' she said. 'I don't trust anybody any more. It's me
and my daughter and everyone else might as well be dead. We'll go
with you, but we'll be watching you every step. And I swear I'll kill
you if you fuck us over.'

'Okay. That's okay.'

He looked as if he were going to say more, but he simply nodded
shyly and turned around, tucking his damaged hand into the folds of
his jacket.

'Bo?' Sarah watched him go, unsure of what was happening. She
knew he was innocent. She could not quite bring herself to believe he
would commit such a terrible assault on Nick. He was confident in
his innocence, and that must be good enough for her.

But that also meant that there was something else in the building
with violence on its mind.

She hurried after him. So caught up with what might be hurrying
after
her
, she failed to see how the dynamic within their group had
shifted until she saw Bo standing as if preparing for a dive, at the lip of
the swimming pool. Something wasn't right, but there was nothing in
the way these people were reacting, or failing to react, with each other
that talked of discord. Beyond a general malaise, a reluctance to be
marshalled or led, they were a bunch of people trying to survive. They
were afraid, hungry, cold. Should it bother her that Lamb was no
longer crying about her father's horrible death? She tried to remember
what she had been like after Andrew had died and she supposed it had
been the same for her. Shock, numbness. You didn't cry much if you
couldn't feel anything.

'It's going to be light in a couple of hours,' Bo said. 'And it seems
we have an unwanted guest here. We need to move on.'

'Where's Nick?' Tina asked, staring at the bloody footprints Sarah
was bringing towards her.

'Nick's dead,' Sarah said. Everybody looked at her, except for Bo.
She hated herself for looking down at Bo's feet, but there were no
bloodstains, nothing on him.

'Where's your jacket, Tina?' she asked, her voice trembling. 'You
were wearing a large jacket when we got here. Why did you take it
off? It's not exactly tropical in here, is it?'

Now Tina turned her dark eyes on her, her brows gathering like
miniature stormclouds. 'What are you saying?'

'I'm saying everybody is under suspicion.'

'Then ask yourself some questions,' she said. 'You're the one
traipsing blood all over the place.'

Sarah had to stop herself from attacking the other woman. Her
fists were clenched so tightly that she thought her fingers might break.
But why shouldn't she be pointed at? She was the last person to be
with Nick. Maybe she had killed him. Maybe she was infected with
this abhorrent hunger. Maybe they were all cleaved to this breed,
their minds so destroyed by the fever for meat that they couldn't settle
upon the truth.

'Knock it off,' Bo said. 'Let's just simmer down. We can't sit here
playing judge and jury. If Nick's killer isn't one of us, then it might
still be in the building. We're still exposed. We're vulnerable. I say we
go now.'

'Wouldn't it be better to wait until daylight?' Tina asked.

'Wouldn't it be safer, travelling like that? I mean, don't we have a
better chance in here against one than out there against ...'

Her voice trailed off; Sarah could see she didn't want to attempt
an estimate.

'We need sleep,' Tina now said, instead. 'We could take it in turns
keeping watch.'

Lamb said, 'I'm all for killing it,' but her eyes didn't possess any of
the steel in her words.

'We're safer awake,' Bo said. 'All of us. It's when I'm sleeping that
you need to watch out.'

Tina was agog. 'You mean you control their level of
consciousness, depending on whether you're asleep?'

'Something like that. They've been absorbing behaviour from me,
a kind of osmosis. They've needed to relearn how to do it. Walking,
talking ...'