Grey Flesh Flies by Matthew Smith

Author:Matthew Smith
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction
Publisher: Rebellion Publishing Ltd

…AND JESSICA PUT a flaming torch to the supply stores, holding back her protesting, weeping fellow survivors at gunpoint. “Don’t you see?” she asked, watching the black flies spiral into the air to escape the blaze. “It’s rotten… contaminated. We mustn’t touch it.”

Her stomach ached sympathetically as she watched the food burn, tears pricking her eyes. “We mustn’t eat any of it.”

CHAPTER SIX

MISHA RECALLED LITTLE of how she came to end up in the compound. She remembered the lights emerging through the swarm, the high-powered beams of what turned out to be a pair of dune buggies dazzling her as they approached, and the fact that she couldn’t get the ever-present drone of the locusts out of her head; it had been lodged there like tinnitus, a white-noise hum that echoed in her skull in the quietest of moments. But the events beyond that were decidedly hazy—she suspected she’d blacked out, though she couldn’t say for certain that she hadn’t been deliberately knocked unconscious. She ached like she’d done ten rounds in a ring with an enraged gorilla, that was for goddamn sure.

When she woke, she’d found herself lying on an honest to goodness bed, complete with sheets and a pillow. She hadn’t lain on one since the night before the Fall, and it took her aback a little, like she wasn’t sure if it was part of a dream she’d hadn’t entirely disentangled herself from. She’d run her hand over the cool smoothness of the linen for several minutes, pushed her head back against the mattress’s soft yield, listened to the creak of the springs as she shifted position, and—once she’d established that it was real and not a product of her mind—felt a raw pang for a simple luxury that she’d taken for granted back in her old life. The texture of it was so easy to succumb to. Briefly, she never wanted to be anywhere else, and curling up in the bed’s embrace seemed as good a place as any to see out the end of days. But eventually curiosity overcame her torpor, and she rose, swinging her legs over the side, noting that someone had undressed her and robed her in a white shift. She looked around, but her clothes were nowhere to be seen.

Placing her bare feet on the wooden floorboards, she made an attempt at standing, then tried again several more times until she felt she could do it without the aid of the bedframe’s support. Looking down, she realised that clean bandages had been strapped around her calf, and putting her weight on her limb made it feel tender and tight, though manageable. Whatever she’d done to it—a torn muscle or a sprain rather than a break, she suspected—it would take a while to feel back to normal. There was another bed on the other side of the Spartan room, upon which Hawkins was slumbering, and Misha limped across to her, suddenly aware of how fragile and old the Judge looked. Her breathing was shallow.

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