Beyond the Stars

Infected - Part 2

I didn't really appreciate how bad things had gotten until Mike's birthday rolled around again. The day also marked the anniversary of Sean's death, made all the more poignant because his car was our only means of transport for the ritual birthday shopping trip into the city.

Our village is a good two hours' drive from Belfast, but once we reached the motorway, about halfway there, things got weird. Traffic heading into the city was virtually non-existent and I wondered if I missed the road closed sign. Any cars or buses travelling the other way flashed their lights at us, which I took as a warning of a police checkpoint or an accident up ahead. I slowed down a little just in case.

What we came across a few miles further along wasn't what I expected at all. One of the slug things spanned the entire width of the road, two lanes, underneath the overpass. Traffic on the opposite lanes stopped and many from the road above abandoned their vehicles, gathering along the rail of the bridge. Several people stretched over for a better look. Directed by their pointing, we could make out a truck lying on its side just beyond and assumed the creature injured when it started grunting.

I reversed back to the slip road, planning to re-join the motorway on the other side. Discovering that option blocked by onlookers, I turned and drove back down the slip road - not something I would normally do, but desperate times call for drastic measures.

"Mum, wait," Mike said from the back seat. Like many on the bridge, he was fascinated, sitting on his knees, watching through the back window.

High-pitched squeals erupted from the creature as its centre section rippled and pulsed. As we watched, a stream of black trickled from its back end, forming a writhing pool that spread across the road. Within a minute, most of the writhing pool lifted from the ground and converged on the onlookers. I recognised the swarm as the same things that attacked Sean and hit the accelerator, taking the hard shoulder to pass the creature.

The wheels crunched over several of the flightless bees. Next thing I know, the swarm is chasing the car and they're gaining on us. I willed Sean's Nova to go faster when a couple managed to hit the rear window.

Mike screamed. "Go faster, Mum!"

The Stig would have been envious of the speed I managed to pull from our twelve-year-old car.

We were only about a kilometre from the city limits when I gathered enough courage to glance in the rear-view mirror. Thankfully the insects were nowhere to be seen.

"You okay, Kiddo?" I asked Mike, catching his saucer-like eyes in the reflection.

He pointed ahead and shouted, "Stop!"

The row of army Landrovers blocking the road just about registered in my brain before I stomped on the brake, sending the car into a skid. We were going too fast, I couldn't bear to look.

Once I realised we'd managed to avoid hitting anything, I dubiously opened an eye and peeked from beneath my hair. A familiar face strode to the driver's window and waited, with his hands on his hips, until I wound it down.

"What the hell, woman? Did you not see the signs?"

Just the sound of his voice caressed my senses, sending shivers of pleasure coruscating from the ends of my hair to the tips of my toes. I forgot to breathe until my next breath became a necessity, and even then, each came in shallow pants.

Why me? I asked my inner-self. Why today?

Ignoring him until I regained my composure, I brushed my hair away from my face with a shaking hand and pasted a smile on my face, intent on not letting him see how much he still affected me.

Eleven, almost twelve, years had been good to him; much better than they'd been to me at any rate. I forced the wish that I'd worn make-up aside before it fully formed, reminding myself that I could do without another man in my life. Or this man in particular, back in my life.

"Hello, Michael," I said.

Mike leant forward between the seats. "Cool! We have the same name."

Michael looked bewildered for a moment, as if trying to place where I knew him from. Maybe he was trying to come up with a good enough excuse for disappearing without so much as a goodbye. "Marie?"

"Long time no see. What's up?" I asked, feigning nonchalance, and pointing at the road block.

"Where the hell have you been? The city's been closed off for months now." He sniggered, snapping his fingers when recognition finally hit. "That's right! I remember now, you live in the back o' beyond. Still keeping your head buried in the sand?" Without giving me a chance to respond, he swung the door open and ushered me out of the car. "Come on, you too kid," he said to Mike. "I know what you're like, Marie, you'll not let it be 'til you see for yourself."

After saying something to his mate, he bundled us into one of the Landrovers and took off toward Black Mountain. The density of trees lining the mountain road didn't let us see anything apart from the sky until we rounded the final bend.

I couldn't believe my eyes. The once thriving city sat in ruins, buildings nothing more than steaming piles of rubble. If it hadn't been for the river, I wouldn't have been able to distinguish where the shipyard's cranes, Samson and Goliath, should have been.

"What are those?" Mike asked, tugging my attention away from my coy study of Michael's profile, and back to the present.

"Ah, those are Tin Tops, the Government's response to the invasion. In my opinion, they're overpowered and too difficult to control in the close confines of city streets, hence why there's nothing left. What the slugs didn't destroy, those things did."

"Do they zap the slugs? Do they explode slime like when you step on the little ones?" Mike asked, enraptured by the huge Tin Tops moving through the building debris in the distance.

"It's not slime, but they do explode." Michael laughed when I cringed in disgust at the thought of pieces of slug coating everything. "I think you've seen enough to satisfy your curiosity. Let's get you back on the road home."

"I'm not going back the way we came. There's a swarm of those bee things back that way."

Michael's face paled. "Shit! Did they sting anyone? Did either of you get stung?"

"We're fine, we were in the car, but they attacked the crowd standing on the overpass."

"Back in the Jeep! Move!"

His foot didn't lift from the accelerator the entire way down the mountain road, his driving made even more precarious because he was using one hand to operate the radio he barked orders into.

When we reached my car, he all but booted us out and sped off, leaving us watching his dust trail.

Some things never change, I thought. Typical Michael, always running off just when things get tricky.