Game Changers of the Apocalypse by Mark Kirkbride

Author:Mark Kirkbride [Kirkbride, Mark]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781949054767
Publisher: Omnium Gatherum Media
Published: 2019-01-06T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 17

Electric Meat

“I was thinking,” came Polly’s voice, on the way down to breakfast.

Swinging round a bend in the stainless-steel tubular banister to turn back on himself on stairs composed half of shadow, he glanced up at her. “What?”

Half a flight behind him, darkness competed with his peripheral vision to claim her. “If we can receive via the printer, maybe we can send via it too. We could get a dialogue going.”

“Brilliant.” Twenty-four hours ago. “There’s just one thing...”

“What?”

The handrail levelled out, curved round and bent smoothly downwards, delivering him to the final half-flight. “We can’t get to the printer.”

She leaned out over the banister above him. “It really is that bad?”

“Bad?” He cast his eyes down. “We’re buggered.”

Knee bending as if trying to push his foot through the floor, he dipped to one side as his forward foot ended up on the same level as his rear one. He glanced ahead at the foyer where mirrors and glass doors slowly brightened as light came in like the tide. Brass fixtures glimmered.

He swung round.

When the first light hit her face and he saw what his words had done to it, with the cheeks caved in by shadow, lending a skull-like effect, he wished he’d learnt to lie.

She scrunched up her mouth. “There must be a way…”

“They’re protecting it, guarding it, with their… Well, whatever you want to call it.” He thought of Milo leaning out of the window. “And they’ll be more of them by now. No, the printer’s off limits.” He pictured his old rival’s almost human eyes. “In any case, I have a feeling it’s all turned rather… personal.”

“You mean it wasn’t before?” She shot him a look.

“I just mean…” He blenched. “We have to avoid Milo. Like the plague. You saw him, staring down at his corpse bride.”

“Rather I killed children?” she muttered.

Just before she reached him, he pivoted.

They crossed the lobby, with its gathering light and rock pools of darkness, in tandem.

He stood aside at the entrance to the dining room and tortured a smile on the rack of his face as she passed. “Oh, don’t get me wrong. I’m glad you’ve got over your squeamishness.” His heels clicked as he turned after her. “It stood in the way of our survival.”

Her shoulders drooped in front of him as she exhaled.

He inhaled.

They wheeled round towards their table.

Suddenly she stopped.

Outside the long window, figures stumbled past, in both directions, in the bluey charnel-house light.

She turned her head slowly.

He placed his hand on her shoulder. “It’s alright. They can’t see us. The window’s tinted, remember?”

They continued to their table. Bending by degrees, she sat down.

He remained standing. Carry on as if everything’s normal. “What do you feel like today?”

Her gaze flicked from him to the window and back. “It’s like…” She leaned closer, lowered her voice: “It’s like the early morning commute out there.” The dead moved as if underwater. “Don’t you think we should go upstairs?”

“Come on, we’ve got, well…”

“Tea and those tinned sausages and some baked beans.

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