A Christmas Carol II--Contagion Read online

  Cratchit seemed especially voracious when it came to placing guns about his person. In this crisis his habitually nervous and irritable disposition had achieved a kind of apotheosis of its crazed condition: now, at last, what he had always thought to be true, irrevocably was: the world was out to get him, and he was most certainly not going to miss his opportunity to give the world back some of what it deserved. Which is to say, he had gone off his head, and was determined to die, and die fighting, and therefore when he stood he rocked unsteadily from side to side and his clothes clanked as though they were a lumpy suit of armour, cleverly disguised as cheap cloth.

  The group made their way towards the door through which they had come, making as they strode away from him, Zaltzwick thought, a rather fearsome spectacle with guns over shoulders or swinging from their hands, and all walking with a stone-cold deadly purpose; four horsemen without their steeds, venturing into the Apocalypse; a vengeful posse. He started out of these ruminations as he saw them pass through the door into the chamber beyond.

  ‘Please,’ said Zaltzwick, catching up with them, ‘this is not fair. You are risking my life, as well as your own. Come first up to the tower and look! We can see how crowded the streets are and decide together.’

  ‘He’s stalling,’ said Cratchit, looking perfectly crazed in the shadow of the antechamber. Tacker looked indecisive for the first time. It did after all seem a fair request but his urge to action gave him pause long enough for Cratchit to state his argument even more emphatically.

  ‘There’s no point!’ he said in the manner of a child dissatisfied at its own birthday party.

  Zaltzwick looked to Scrooge and the girl for support and, noticing that for the moment they were both staring at Cratchit, he reached desperately for Scrooge’s gun. The old man could not help but instinctively yank it back to regain control and with his hand still around the trigger, it went off. The shot passed closely between Felicity and Tacker, ruffling the latter’s coat pocket, and as the shock and flash of the blast resounded in all their ears and exposed to them the danger of their own lunacy, in one moment they became united as a group once more. Two of them had just escaped being murdered and two of them had escaped becoming murderers. It was suddenly clear to them all that they must retreat into the hall, go up the stairs and briefly survey the streets, rather than stride out recklessly and at once.

  They had scarcely a minute to contemplate this new enterprise, and to set out with great unity of purpose towards the stairwell on the far side of the laboratory, when this measure was rendered unnecessary.

  There came first a minute and high-pitched squeaking, that might have been a mouse in extreme distress. They faltered; they stopped and looked at each other; they hunted for its source, above them and on every side.

  The sound then graduated to a wooden creaking, a long ascending note laden with impersonal menace. They turned round as slowly as they dared and saw what in their haste they had not at first perceived: where the shot had gone. Fired at such proximity to the door, it had passed wholly into the beam across its centre, and the wooden structure (thick and ancient and made of dry strong oak) seemed to be taking a subtle change in shape. They remained silent, and watched. Cratchit raised his gun.

  ‘For G—’s sake, not again, Bob!’ whispered Scrooge, gently pressing the barrel towards the floor. They all crept closer in curiosity, and made out what now appeared to be a bulge in the middle of the door. The creaking grew into a splintering, and at last matured into a snap signalling some fissure in the vast oak frame, which now allowed another noise through. It was the Groaning. Another creaking splintering noise broke out, as another of the door’s timbers protested under the stress.

  They all looked to Zaltzwick, and in their eyes was apology, and sorrow, and the expectation of furious despair from that man. But he said quietly, ‘It would appear I was right. And the gunshot has attracted them too. It is too late now to escape this way. Let us fasten the inward door, and make as good a defence as we can. I am still hopeful they will go away when they find they cannot penetrate this house.’

  No voice demurred. They all retreated.

  Tacker and the doctor at once moved to close the inner door, and find furniture and props to keep it that way for as long as possible. Cratchit and Scrooge’s eyes met and the old man felt suddenly the same way his partner did: that this giant draughty vault, as large as a cathedral, was no more comforting than an airless prison cell. It felt like a tomb, now that they were trapped inside, and the stone walls, almost invisibly distant as they were, pressed against him as though they formed a coffin moulded to his form. He tried and found himself unable to take a deep breath. Once more the old Scrooge, the mean and grasping man, rose within him and this time the new, kindly, generous Scrooge, the Good Fellow who wished nothing but happiness to all his fellow men, welcomed him, and retiring, allowed the scoundrel full dominance.

  The hovering uncertainty about his eyes hardened into a frown; his mouth set hard. And it did not surprise the Bad Fellow to find that being in control once again felt, well, it felt good.

  ‘Come with me,’ he said to Felicity, pointing to a chest wrapped with chains, and they dragged it beside the boxes and crates and tables that were being piled up against the door. Cratchit was surprised out of congress with his inner demons by this display and rushed to bring any heavy objects he could find. Felicity too was impressed by Scrooge’s new inward resolve, and while she moved briskly alongside Scrooge and displayed a surprising strength, this new regard brought a slight girlishness to her again whenever he spoke to her.

  It took ten minutes for them to construct a barricade large enough that the door was so completely obscured they could no longer make out exactly where it had been, and realised to make the barricade larger still out of sheer guesswork might be to pointlessly fortify great stretches of wall.

  They refilled their weapons a second, third, fourth time; tore holes in their clothes to improvise holsters for extra ones. Then there was little to do but wait, and try not to think. Nodger brought more wine and they drank again at the table, and the men smoked their pipes, and Felicity stole one of their pipes to have a smoke herself and, handing it back, pronounced the practice as disgusting as she had always supposed.

  Mr Nodger produced still more wine, and perceiving that this was not the time to stand on ceremony, sat with them, and told them a joke that was at once exceedingly funny and also so very much more offensive than Tacker’s worst outburst that the author finds himself powerless to include it here, even by the most circumscribed and delicate allusion. Zaltzwick himself, perhaps because he was so surprised to discover this talent in his footman after so many years of inexpressive servitude, or perhaps because half a life spent in the sober halls of Königsberg University left him unacquainted with ribald tales about the anatomy of barmaids, or, further, perhaps because he was spiritually weakened at that moment, laughed quite uncontrollably at it, until the rest of the group feared he was crying. When they were assured he was not, by a strange process the laughter spread through them as though it was an airborne infection, until not one could keep control of themselves or prevent the tears from flowing, except for Nodger, who maintained a serene composure.

  As all parents know, when witnessing children in the full ferment of hilarity, the heights of excitement must be followed by a trough of some kind soon enough, and as the group drank still more wine and quietened after their laughter, a seriousness overtook them. The same spirit which had informed the servant that everything had changed and he would not still be employed the next morning in the same capacity he had been at dinner tonight, informed each of them that they only had an uncertain chance of seeing the morning at all. One by one, they crept away into other parts of the cavernous room to find a quiet moment to reflect, and make their peace with whatever and whoever they must, for what lay ahead.

  Zaltzwick was particularly hard hit: it had finally occurred to him he was likely to die here, surrounded by his life
’s work, killed by the very things he had spent his life trying to protect against, and while these very researches were still unfinished, and he was unknown for them. Apparently without a God to consult, but only an incomplete corpus of results, theories, calculations and notes to flick through hollow-eyed, he remained at the table while the others disbanded into the shadows, to give him his moment alone.

  As Scrooge walked into some far corner, and allowed his thoughts to drift through the childhood he had so long forgotten, until the ghosts had shown it to him, he found himself standing in front of Felicity.

  ‘Mr Scrooge,’ she began demurely, not meeting his eyes.

  ‘My dear,’ he said, surprised. ‘The sight of you caught me unawares. I was shocked by—’

  ‘By the sight of me,’ she said.

  ‘No. That is to say – yes. You reminded me of someone who was once quite dear to me.’

  ‘Some maiden aunt with whiskers on her chin, no doubt,’ said the pretty minx, whose chest beat hard with the wound of never once having provoked Scrooge to the mildest compliment, while she had callously rejected doughty military heroes for paying her just such a gift. ‘Or some fat ugly wretch, or a moustachioed circus strongman with anvil tattoos upon his biceps?’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ he chided. ‘A young lady with whom I was … connected. We were due to be married. I would say so with embarrassment, but I am too old to be embarrassed by such things now. Except that I suddenly thought of her, looking at you.’

  The nook they found themselves in was exceedingly quiet and private, and a nearby ledge providing a natural seat, they sat alongside one another. Speaking quietly, they assumed an unexpected intimacy that was quite intoxicating.

  ‘She died?’ asked Felicity, taking Scrooge’s hand.

  ‘No indeed,’ he said, although the vision he had seen earlier that evening confused him momentarily and made him pause long enough to pray his words were true. ‘I was neglectful of her attention. And her intentions, too. While I was concentrated on work, she married someone else and lived a very happy life, while I became a … well, never mind.’

  ‘You missed out on love,’ said Felicity, squeezing his hand harder. ‘At first,’ she corrected herself. Scrooge laughed out loud, and the girl, looking cross and upset with him, asked ingenuously, ‘Why must you think it will stay that way?’

  He laughed again. ‘I would have been seventy within a few months.’

  ‘Men grow stronger in spirit as they get older,’ she attested, moving closer to him on the ledge.

  ‘I am not suitable to start a family.’

  ‘A rich man who is benefactor to all the neediest in his community. I cannot think of a better candidate,’ she said, squeezing closer still.

  ‘I shall,’ he said, with a twinkly glance that declared this last remark would conclude the conversation, ‘not very likely live out the night.’

  ‘Then why wait?’ she said, and instead of bounding into his lap, she pounced upon him and sat astride his legs.

  ‘Good Lord …’

  ‘We might be dead in a few minutes,’ she said.

  ‘I admit it,’ he whispered, unsure what this all meant.

  ‘These are our last moments together,’ she said, making business with her skirts.

  ‘It’s true,’ he insisted, all of a sudden determined to agree with her. A lifelong terror of female dress and anatomy was overthrown by an instant surge of energy and suddenly he was helping her with buttons and ties as angrily as one tearing off bonds after a long confinement. A strange bewildering energy took over his whole being and gave him a rapidity of movement matched by her own desperation to be rid of the seemingly endless layers of frilled cotton, each succeeded by another, more complicatedly fastened or elaborately frilled than the last, so that as they became excited by making progress into disrobement, they discovered themselves more complexly tied up in the process.

  The couple did not allow this to get in the way of their excitement; indeed it increased it, and the more obstructions placed in their way by the layers of clothes, the harder they whispered encouragements of a most verbally innocent and yet usefully euphemistic kind. Their words became less euphemistic and more aggressively direct as the seconds went by until it became clear that Scrooge was so provoked he was only prevented from breaking verbal obscenity laws by his descriptive ignorance of female physical anatomy.

  As in a bad dream, or a not quite good dream, they struggled for a good while (ten or fifteen seconds will seem a very long time in such a frustrated situation) and were so close to reaching a solution to their problem that it was in fact physically agonising when a noise interrupted them both, and forced them to collect themselves and scramble to rearrange their dress in case someone might be nearby (where someone might easily have been all along, when they didn’t care).

  The disturbance, which brought all the others from the far corners of the great hall to seek each other out, was a sudden increased intensity in the groaning sound from outside, which for an hour or longer had been little more than a background hubbub. In just a few moments it had suddenly become so loud that none could ignore it, or fail to be frightened by it.

  They gathered in the centre of the laboratory floor, all brought rudely and suddenly from their secret reflections, aware the time for those was now past.

  ‘What has caused this?’ asked Zaltzwick looking round at them desperately before turning his attention to the barricade which shivered visibly under some new attack. ‘They are not simply gathered outside, they are attacking us! We are attracting them – why are they headed here? Surely none of us has become suddenly happy, that would be insane!’

  ‘Yes, quite, of course …’ said Felicity quickly.

  ‘Impossible,’ agreed Scrooge stiffly, attempting to stand behind Cratchit so he could hide his frustration and rebutton his flies.

  Tacker caught sight of what Scrooge was doing and, forgetting his personal fears for a moment, his chest swelled with sincere pride. Covering for his friend, he said, ‘Never mind that now. We must escape, that’s all. Come on!’ As he started to run away towards the tower staircase, the barricade shifted as though it were a mantle laid over a sleeping beast that was turning in its sleep.

  ‘They have breached the door already,’ said Zaltzwick despairingly. ‘They are much stronger than I feared.’

  ‘Trapped,’ Cratchit was muttering, and rubbing his hand roughly over his face, as though he might succeed in waking himself up from this nightmare. ‘Doctor!’ he shouted. ‘Why not release your creature? Henrietta! She could defend us against them!’

  ‘No, no,’ said Zaltzwick testily, ‘she is quite stupid. She would probably kill us as well as they. And if she gets bitten, then she will turn zombie too. Ach, imagine that. We must retreat as fast as possible up the stairway and trust they do not follow us.’

  The scientist was right: now that the creatures outside were roused, perhaps because there were so few remaining uninfected people in the area, the attack was becoming ferocious. Tacker and Cratchit heaved the crate of weapons up ahead of the group, who followed behind them. As they tumbled one by one up the staircase, Scrooge heard a crash of glass and splintered wood and looked back. It had only taken a handful of minutes for them to break through two heavy wooden doors. It afforded him a vertiginous lurch of horror to reflect that before that same amount of time had passed again, he might be dead.

  It was too late to hide their route of escape. A few of the stumbling creatures had already seen them at the foot of the stairs, and were heading straight across towards them. But they were yet fifty yards away across the stone floor and Scrooge allowed his gaze to linger on them for a moment before he fled. A weird peace came over him, to look at those slow-moving, shambling forms, that seemed more absurd and mundane than they were frightening; many walked with twisted-around shoulders as though suffering from a hunched back or a crippling shyness. They looked comical and pathetic, and their progress was so slow as to add further comed
y to it. It was an effort for Scrooge to persuade himself of the very imminent threat to his person and, yanking the door closed behind him, he climbed the stairs to rejoin the group.

  They were not far above, and had made a small barricade with a grandfather clock, a chest and several chairs.

  ‘What’s the plan here?’ he demanded.

  ‘It’s not a complicated one. We kill as many as we can and if we get overwhelmed, we move further up the stairs and start again. But as short a distance as possible. Because sooner or later we’ll run out of stairs.’

  Reaching out to the hands he was offered, Scrooge clambered over the barricade and kneeling down on the other side, found a place where he could comfortably lean, aim and shoot. He heard the overturned grandfather clock’s laboured ticking beneath his arms and listened to an entire minute click past, and discovered then when you listened to an entire one without moving, a minute was a huge expanse of time. He thought of his whole life and the spirits who had visited him; he thought of Felicity by his side. He was fiercely determined to be alone with her again, and for them to continue whatever it was that they had been doing.

  A multitude of dull thuds had fallen upon the door, and it had emitted a number of squeaking noises to announce its intention of collapsing, before it finally broke down, and a crowd of open-mouthed heads appeared below them. The group held fire as the initial wave of zombies had first to negotiate the feat of climbing stairs before they could present any actual danger. Tackling this challenge by simply falling flat on their faces, the first twenty or thirty formed a sloped carpet for the others behind them to climb.

  When the closest face was but five feet away, they fired. The frail, bloodless skin and fragile bones of the creatures proved unexpectedly sensitive to gunshots and seemed to explode everywhere at once. Dead bodies that were inert fell back and shuddered to the floor between the crowd of those dead bodies that were still moving, who came on as fast as before.