Free The Last Plague by Rich Hawkins Page A

TWENTY
     
     
    Ralph halted on the penultimate step and shone the torchlight into the landing’s darkness. The attic hatch was open. He breathed slowly and quietly. Magnus tensed behind him, holding a brass poker. Joel was waiting at the foot of the stairs.
         Ralph stepped upon the landing. The open hatch gaped like a mouth above him. He imagined something plucking him from the landing and hauling him up into the dark.
         “Look,” said Magnus, his voice barely audible.
         The door to the bedroom, which seemed to be the boy’s judging by posters of superheroes upon it, was open just enough for someone to slip through.
         “It was closed before I came downstairs.”
         “I see it,” Ralph whispered. He looked at Magnus and nodded. Magnus returned the gesture. A muscle twitched under his left eye.
         Ralph placed his hand on the door. He smiled weakly at the Spider-Man poster. Spider-Man had been his favourite superhero as a kid.
         He pushed the door open; a low creak, and aimed his torch into the room. Magnus did the same. Ralph paused in the doorway. The room looked like how he had left it when he searched the house earlier. A shelf full of comics. Shrek wallpaper. Posters of Harry Potter, Lionel Messi, and David Beckham. Action figures scattered on a desk. A few books. A box of Lego.
         Only one thing was different.
         “Oh shit,” said Magnus.
         There was a huddled shape on the bed, underneath the Star Wars duvet cover.
         The shape was trembling in the torchlight.
         Ralph and Magnus looked at each other. Magnus’s Adam’s apple bobbed and moved. He chewed on his bottom lip. Ralph stepped into the room and Magnus followed.
         They approached the bed. Ralph felt his heart try to climb his throat.
         The shape under the duvet jerked, as if hit by a spasm. The two men froze. Ralph could see Magnus’s hands shaking. Ralph motioned for Magnus to pull back the duvet so he would be ready with the knife if there was something… nasty underneath.
         Magnus reached slowly for the duvet. He gently took hold of it between a thumb and forefinger.
         Ralph raised his knife.
         Magnus pulled back the covers.
         A little boy was on the bed. His skin was almost transparent and his eyes were too large within his face. He wore only a white vest and underpants. He shivered in the torchlight. His dark eyes found Ralph.
         Magnus stepped back, his face quivering. “Look at him. Fucking hell.”
         Ralph couldn’t speak. He ran the torch beam over the boy’s bony, white limbs. A narrow chest. Thinning, coal-black hair.
         The boy opened his mouth, and a pale fluid wet his lips, spooling on the mattress. A wheezy sigh. The boy had the look of disease. Ralph had seen black-and-white photos taken of inmates rescued from Nazi death camps at the end of World War Two. This boy could have stepped out from any of those old photos.
         “What’s wrong with him?” said Magnus, as if Ralph would know the answer. “What happened to him?”
         Ralph shook his head. “I wish I knew.” He covered his nose. The boy stank of vinegar-and-eggs.
         Magnus said, “I think his parents left him here. Maybe he started to… change, so they fled. Poor little bastard.”
         “Yeah.”
         “Do you know CPR?” Magnus asked him.
         Ralph shook his head.
         The boy stared at Ralph. His breathing slowed gradually until it stopped. His eyes glazed over, fixing onto Ralph until what little light had resided there was gone. Ralph considered checking the boy’s pulse. He didn’t.
         “It’s as if he went to bed just so he could die,” said Ralph.
         “But what did he die of?”
         “Maybe the same thing that was wrong with the woman we found.”
         “It’s fucked up,” Magnus