Contagion (Toxic City) by Tim Lebbon Read Free Book Online Page A

though their relationship was—he was the Good Boy, the hard worker, the apple in her mother's eye—she could not find it in herself to be angry at him.
    He looked the same now as he approached across the cracked concrete car park.
    If this is my dream I can change it , she thought, and she glanced towards the industrial unit to her left, willing it to turn to marzipan and icing. But the aluminium sheeting remained, dented and spattered with mould. The windows did not turn into chocolate squares, the drainpipes were not liquorice. If this is my dream …She closed her eyes and opened them again, but everything was the same.
    “You're not here,” she said.
    “I am,” Andrew said. “Enough, at least. But I'm only really an echo. I dreamed myself alive.”
    “I dream too!” she said.
    “You always did. And your dreams drove you to distraction.”
    Lucy-Anne stepped forward and reached for her brother, but he drifted back as she came closer. His feet barely seemed to move.
    “What are you? A ghost? What happened?”
    “Ghost is as good a word as any,” he said. “And I'll tell you. But you should walk south, and quickly. Those things aren't the only ones moving out of the north today.”
    “Because of the bomb?”
    “Word is spreading,” Andrew said.
    “Aren't you afraid?”
    “Only for you, sister. I'm already dead.”
    Lucy-Anne closed her eyes and breathed deeply, fighting off a faint. Only useless women in old movies faint at something like this! she berated herself. She bit the inside of her lip, pinched the back of her hand, and for a fleeting instant thought that when she looked again he would be gone. That terrified her. So much so that she found herself frozen, unable to move, unwilling to open her eyes in case—
    “Lucy-Anne,” he said, and she felt something almost stroke her cheek.
    Her eyes snapped open and he was there before her, one arm outstretched and his hand moving away. He'd touched her face, just like he used to when she was a little girl and he wanted to show affection. He'd very rarely kissed her. A fingertip to her cheek was his greeting, a gentle touch that said more than any words.
    “Oh, Andrew,” she said. The tears came at last because she knew he was gone. He echoed to her now, but there was no future for them.
    “Quickly,” he said, moving backwards, pointing south. “I'll tell you while you walk.”
    He made her feel safe. She wasn't sure why. He'd seen off the ape-like people, true, but he was hardly there at all. Perhaps it was simply the fact that she no longer felt alone.
    “I ran,” Andrew said. “After I found Mum and Dad dead in the hotel room I left and ran, as fast as I could, directionless. The streetswere filled with bodies back then, so soon after it had happened. And sometimes other people. But most were so scared, so shocked, so alone, that they hid. So I just ran, and I was already dying. Whatever killed everyone else seemed to be acting much slower on me. I didn't know why. I felt myself fading. My strength was filtering away. I fell, and I dreamed myself alive again.”
    “So you dream, too,” Lucy-Anne said, but she should not have been surprised.
    “I dreamed of a folly on the hill, and knew what was happening. So I ran on until I found it, and then let everything take its course.”
    Lucy-Anne reached into her jacket and shirt and brought out the chain and signet ring given to her by Nomad. Andrew's chain, his ring.
    “I showed Nomad where to find me,” he said.
    “You…”
    “I laid down and died,” he said. “Leaning against a wall, still dreaming about not dying, because even as I felt myself closing down…my heart stopping, my senses fading…I was always thinking of you. My poor little sis left all on her own.”
    “You made yourself a ghost.”
    “Whatever I am is because of my dreams.”
    “So, all this time?”
    “I've been waiting. But don't be sad for me. It's different for me now.”
    They left the industrial area behind