The Rot (Post Apocalyptic Thriller) Read Online Free PDF Page A

mistake when I peeked round and into that room. These weren’t the sounds of a couple having consensual sex at all, but rather those of somebody being raped.
    The nurse, whose name I’d never learned, had been shoved back onto the table in the room, while another techie – his white coat hanging off one of his shoulders – worked away. Her clothes were ripped to shreds – blouse, especially – and I saw marks where his nails had raked her flesh. Her skirt had been shoved up around her waist, legs forced apart so he could gain access. She was writhing beneath him, not in ecstasy, but in complete agony – head whipping from side to side, tawny hair all over the place, no longer tied up.
    “Hey,” I said, jamming the gun into the back of his skull and cocking it loudly so he’d know what it was. “You want to stop that now, you sick bastard.”
    To my amazement he continued, sped up if anything to reach his climax; to get his own pleasure. The woman looked past him pleadingly at me. Whatever was going on, whatever was making these men do these things, she wasn’t affected by it. Well, when I say not affected I mean… Obviously she was affected just not— Shit… She hadn’t been driven mad, is what I’m trying to get across in my stupid ham-fisted way.
    I’ve never felt more like killing someone in cold blood as I did right then. Never felt more like pulling a trigger and blowing someone away. But I didn’t… probably because the memory of that other guy being shot in the head was still too raw. So instead I whacked him on the back of the head with the butt of the pistol. He fell across the nurse, unconscious, and I dragged him off her, let him fall away to the ground. I shook my head as she made to cover herself up again; there were massive welts on her thighs and I wondered how long this had been going on – all the time I’d been trapped behind that glass? “I’m so sorry,” I said. I don’t know what I was apologising for; not getting there sooner I suppose. Or maybe I was feeling guilty, about the way I had been thinking about her since I got there. For thinking of her as something disposable in my own way, to have a good time with and then bail on.
    She said nothing, just continued trying to cover herself up – so I wrenched the man’s lab coat off him and handed it to her. “Any… do you have any idea what’s…?” I couldn’t find the words.
    The nurse just shook her head, tears tracking down her cheeks as she pulled the coat around her.
    “Come on,” I said then. “Let’s just get you away from here.”
     

    Pause.

CHAPTER TWO

     
    Resume recording:
     
    We made our way down the corridor, but didn’t see any more trouble. Just bodies – the guard and Dr Weeks’ legacy.
    When we reached the lift, and I’d stabbed at the buttons, I found that wasn’t working either – again, a consequence of whatever had happened to the electrics maybe? We discovered what that was when we reached the door leading to the staircase; my thinking had been that we could search for anyone else who might be okay, who might be normal – then bundle them into a car and get the fuck out of there.
    Looking down the stairwell, we saw smoke – and then flames lapping at one of the lower levels. There was a man standing on the stairs just above it – not running away or trying to get higher, just standing there. He was Hardy to Dr Weeks’ Laurel, fat with a moustache. I shouted down to attract his attention, to get him to look up. “Hey… hey mate, move away from there!” The nurse pulled on my arm, perhaps afraid that we were attracting too much attention – or that this guy would turn out to be like the techie back on our floor.
    Hardy tilted his head to stare at us, frowning. Then he just started shouting, screaming at the top of his voice. The words were nonsense, a stream of gibberish: “Horse! Potato! Camera! Babies!” His hands were flailing around at the same time, obviously trying to