Viro (Book 4): Viro

by Taylor, Barnaby

  The boys walked together. They were frightened but trying to be brave. It was horrible for them too. How did they cope in the locked freezers? They just had to. Like us as well. They had no choice. You only die when you are dead. Until then you fight to live. You stay strong and keep hope inside.

  What was Florence thinking? It was bad to see her parents like that. The worst bad ever. But at least she knew. Was it better like that? Better than worrying forever?

  Did I want to know about Mum?

  I did. And I didn’t. If I knew it might be terrible. But it was terrible now. Would it be worse if I found out? I could stop guessing. I could stop spending all day thinking about her. But if she was a viro then that was the end. All my journey was a big old waste. If she was a viro then I would have no need to stay alive.

  But she could be alive somewhere.

  She might be waiting at the asylum.

  These were silly thoughts. She probably died at work. The soldiers probably shot her from the trucks we saw when me and Ellis were hiding. She was bound to be like Florence’s parents now.

  She was most likely dead.

  Game

  The barn was old. We got inside. It was dark. Daphne found the ladder. The kids climbed up first. Damian asked me questions.

  ‘Are we hiding again, Jake? Are we still playing the quiet game?

  ‘Yes we are. We must play for longer.’

  Damian looked happy.

  ‘I like the quiet game. It makes me safe.’

  The kids lay down in the hay. They were tired. David took ages to climb the ladder. He had to hop. Daphne followed. Vinnie was last. Florence sat by the kids. She was quiet as well. Ellis whispered in her ear. Florence hugged her. Her eyes had more tears.

  Amber hugged her other side. The three of them went to sleep. Me, Abe, Vinnie, David and Daphne sat by the ladder. We could keep watch. David was unhappy.

  ‘I’m slowing us all down. I should stay here with the kids. The rest of you need to get to the farmhouse. I’m sure they must have transport.’

  Daphne nodded.

  ‘They still have their old tractors. They also have their own diesel so they should still be able to get about.’

  ‘That’s decided, then. Those that can will make their way to the farm. The rest of us will wait here to be picked up.’

  I was confused.

  ‘What about the asylum? We need to get there. Mum is waiting.’

  David said soft words.

  ‘She might be waiting, Jake. She might be but we can’t all get there now. There’s too many of us. We’d be better getting everyone to safety and then thinking about the asylum.’

  This was no good.

  ‘They might be gone, David. Mum might be missing again when we get there.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Jake, everything has changed now. We couldn’t have known that Ciaran would steal the ambulance and leave us stranded.’

  Daphne started speaking to me.

  ‘I’ve heard that a whole platoon of soldiers had reached the asylum. That’s fifty soldiers. If any survivors are with them then they should be fine for a while longer.’

  I remembered the Tall Man’s camp. The attack at Wait-and-See City. And all the soldiers on the road. It was too late.

  ‘It’s no good, Daphne. There’s not enough soldiers in the world to stop the viros.’

  Stink

  Then we heard the noise. It was crunching. Like breaking wood. David put his finger to his lips. Daphne picked up her shotgun. I looked down. It was dark.

  A stink came up from outside. It was really bad. Like wet mud and rotten things. Everyone smelled it like me. I felt my tummy churning. My eyes burned. There was sick in my mouth.

  The crunching got louder. Things were breaking the wood. Viros. Loads of them. A swarm was walking past. David looked at Daphne. He shook his head. She nodded. Her gun was pointed at the ladder.

  I stared at the door. Lots of shadows moved. It must be a massive swarm. I heard them tripping and falling. They were smashing into the barn. The walls wobbled. Some viros came inside. Others pushed them from behind. It was like a football crowd. The barn was filling up.

  The viros were noisy. It was whiny. Like squeaking. It was a different song from the ones before. But it still sounded sad and angry. Like all the world’s upset collected together.

  More came inside. And more. The barn was filling. There was no escape now. We were trapped. I looked at everyone. We were all scared. Florence and Ellis and Amber were with the little kids. They were hugging them. This helped to keep them quiet. David wanted to speak. Daphne shook her head. Me, Abe and Vinnie waited. We were ready to do something.

  I looked down. The barn was alive with dead things. It was mad. The walls shook. Viros banged and barged each other. It was like a horrible pond all churning.

  The ladder started to wobble.

  I kept looking. A dirty viro with broken teeth was at the bottom. It was pushing and pushing. I knew I should hide. I knew I should. But I couldn’t stop looking. I kept looking at the viro. It was banging against the ladder. The other viros were trapping it. It banged again. I should have looked away.

  I went to move.

  But it was too late.

  The dirty viro’s head turned.

  It looked up the ladder.

  It saw my face.

  The viro screamed.

  Busy

  The viro climbed up the ladder. It was getting to us. I couldn’t speak. My words had gone. I pointed down. Daphne pushed me out the way. She leaned down the hole. Her gun exploded. The viro screamed again. All the kids did too. David shouted.

  ‘Daphne! What have you done?’

  Daphne fired her gun again.

  ‘Get everyone out the loading window behind us. Throw down some hay bales to land on and get going. I’ll keep them busy here.’

  ‘But Daphne …’

  ‘Go David, go now and save yourselves.’

  Vinnie and Abe went to open the window. It was wide. The doors swung open. They started pushing hay bales out. I helped them. David got to the window. He pointed.

  ‘There’s a road behind the barn. Daphne said the farm is at the end of it. The swarm has come from the other direction so as long as we are quick and quiet we should make it.’

  Ellis found a ladder. She leaned it out the loading window. It reached the bales. David smiled.

  ‘Well done, Ellis. Now everyone get down and I’ll pass the kids to you one at a time.’

  Vinnie went first. Abe next. Then Ellis, Amber and Florence came next. I climbed down last. It was quiet here. Daphne’s shotgun had drawn all the viros to the front. I looked up. David was at the window. He looked around. There was nothing. He went away and came back with the kids. They were all screaming. It was too loud. The viros would hear them. They would come. They did come. Ellis saw them first. She shouted.

  ‘The viros. They’re coming around the barn.’

  I looked. A big crowd had heard the screams. It was thirty or more. All moving fast. They were nearly on us. David saw them. He kicked the ladder away. He pointed to the road. He was not panicking.

  ‘Get to the farm. We’ll wait here for you.’

  Private

  We ran for ages. There were no viros on the road. We didn’t wait to see if any chased us. Then Vinnie said to stop running. It was dark in the night. There were no lights. The moon was hiding behind thin clouds. We looked back at the barn. I heard gunshots still. Someone was firing the gun. Florence was worried.

  ‘What about the kids? We should have brought them with us.’

  Amber nodded.

  ‘Yes but we couldn’t. The viros were almost upon us. They would have eaten the kids.’

  I was worried too.

  ‘They still might. We have to go back and help.’

  Vinnie shook his head.

  ‘We can’t, Jake. We can’t go back. We have to get to the farm and hope there is someone there who can help.’

  Ellis started
running again. She shouted.

  ‘What are we waiting for? I think I can see some lights up ahead.’

  We followed Ellis down the road. No one had the energy to talk. There were lights down the road. We headed for them. Everyone was running as fast as they could. I was getting puffed out. Then Ellis stopped running. We all stopped when we got to her.

  Two men were standing in the road. They had rifles. They pointed them at us. One of them spoke.

  ‘Whoa there, kids. Where do you think you’re going? All this farmland is private property.’

  Vinnie stepped in front of us.

  ‘Put down your guns, please. Daphne told us to come and find you. She’s trapped at the barn. A swarm of viros has them surrounded.’

  The man looked at his friend.

  ‘I told you it was gunfire.’

  The man looked at Vinnie. He sounded angry.

  ‘What were you doing at the barn?’

  ‘Hiding for the night. We were planning to make our way to you tomorrow when it was light.’

  ‘And bring all those things with you? I don’t think so. Our electric fences can handle small groups of those creatures but a massive horde is another thing altogether.’

  The man looked at his friend.

  ‘I say we leave these kids here and go home. We need to be ready in case they have already drawn those things on to us.’

  The other man nodded. I was scared.

  ‘What about us? You can’t leave us here.’

  The man laughed at me.

  ‘We can and we will.’

  Dare

  It was Ellis who said the truth.

  ‘You must take us with you. We promised Daphne and David and all the kids that we would go back and help them. That’s why we’re here.’

  The man didn’t think Ellis was telling the truth. He was so rude to her.

  ‘Who is Daphne anyway? Why did she say come and find us?’

  There was gun shots from the barn. I pointed back at it.

  ‘That is Daphne. She’s the old lady with the shotgun. She saved us in the village and said she was coming here.’

  The man still didn’t think we had the truth.

  ‘How do we know that you haven’t killed Daphne and stolen all her stuff.’

  Ellis got annoyed.

  ‘If we had murdered her don’t you think that we would have brought her shotgun with us?

  The man had to think.

  ‘I suppose but what’s this got to do with us?’

  ‘Everything!’

  Ellis shouted. She made me jump. The men laughed. Ellis shouted louder.

  ‘Don’t you dare laugh at me! Don’t. You. Dare.’

  The men stopped laughing. They looked at each other. They looked at Ellis. The man spoke.

  ‘Sorry, kid. No offence.’

  He pointed his gun back down the road.

  ‘We’ve survived this long by not helping anyone but ourselves. If there is a horde in the area then we don’t want you bringing them our way.’

  He pointed his gun at us.

  ‘Clear off. We’re going to give you ten seconds to get going and then we will start shooting.’

  Vinnie tried to speak to them.

  ‘But you’ve got to help us. They’re trapped at the barn. We said …’

  ‘TEN … NINE … EIGHT …’

  Amber shouted at him.

  ‘Stop this! You’ve got to help us rescue them.’

  ‘SEVEN … SIX … FIVE …’

  ‘Please …’

  ‘FOUR … THREE … TWO …’

  I said something in my best voice.

  ‘Please help …’

  ‘ONE!’

  The man fired his gun.

  Amps

  I opened my eyes. There was a dead viro laying in the road. The man had shot it in the head. There was blood all over. The man looked at the hedge. He fired again. So did his friend. Two more viros fell on the road. The man looked at us. He was shouting angry.

  ‘Now look what you’ve done!’

  The other man fired again. I heard viros screaming. The man shouted again.

  ‘Follow me and don’t hang around. We’re not playing games anymore.’

  He walked off into the night. We all followed him. I didn’t want to wait. Behind us the other man was still firing his gun. The viros were still screaming. Florence and Ellis were holding hands. So were Amber and Abe. There was no one to hold mine.

  The man came to a field. There was a gap between two posts. He went through the gap. We followed. The other man followed us. He dragged barbed wire across the gap. He connected the wire to a box on the post. He saw me watching.

  ‘Don’t ever touch it. It’s the amps that kill you.’

  I nodded. No way was I going to touch it. The man pointed at a viro. It was coming to the wire. The viro touched it. There was a flash. The viro fell over. The man smiled.

  ‘It used to be just be for curious sheep and the occasional trespasser. But we’ve juiced it up now. It really is the first line of defence.’

  The man put out his hand.

  ‘My name is Harry. What’s yours?’

  ‘Jake. My name is Jake.’

  ‘Pleased to meet you, Jake.’

  We shook hands. Harry pointed at the mean man.

  ‘Pay no attention to old Murphy. His bark is worse than his bite. He has a lot to think about at the moment and this is making him cranky.’

  I nodded.

  ‘We all are thinking about lots of things. My mum is missing. Have you seen her?’

  Harry shook his head.

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that, Jake. Everyone is missing someone at the moment.’

  ‘Are you?’

  ‘Of course. My two sisters are out there somewhere. I haven’t heard from them for days.’

  Overrun

  Harry said his sisters got trapped when their convoy got surrounded. He had heard that the survivors escaped a horde on foot. That was five days ago.

  ‘I’ve not heard anything since.’

  ‘We were at the army camp in Dungeness. It got attacked and we escaped in an ambulance. There was a huge swarm on the road. We never got to Lydd aerodrome. That’s where the evacuations were happening.’

  Harry sighed.

  ‘I heard the aerodrome was overrun as well. Helicopters were pulled to the ground by those things. They rushed two planes on the runway and got inside before they could take off.’

  I was not shocked. All I knew was bad news. What was some more?

  ‘My mum worked at a hospital. She got taken away in an army truck. I think she’s at Watling Asylum.’

  Harry nodded.

  ‘I’ve heard there was an army unit holed up there. Hopefully, they still are.’

  ‘They have to be. I need to find my mum now. It has been much too long.’

  Harry paused.

  ‘You know there’s no way of knowing who or what is left anywhere anymore? Everything is just too torn apart now.’

  Harry’s words were sensible words. But I didn’t want to hear them. I wanted to hear the words from my heart. The ones that said that Mum was still out there looking for me.

  ‘Yes, Harry. I know. But if I don’t keep the words in my heart alive then there is just the dark things and nothing else.’

  Stubborn

  We came to a farmhouse. There was Murphy and three ladies. They were young. Harry spoke to me and them.

  ‘Hey girls, this is Jake. Jake, this is Maggie, Susie and Grace.’

  The girls were nice to me. Grace shook my hand.

  ‘My real name is Elaine but everyone calls me Grace. You must be starving. Let’s get you something to eat.’

  We all sat in the kitchen. It was warm. I was tired. So was everyone else. Susie gave us tea and sponge cake. She laughed as she sliced it.

  ‘I baked it myself. It makes me feel slightly normal for a little bit.’

  Vinnie told everyone about our story. Harry whistled. Then he went out
side to keep watch. Murphy spoke as well.

  ‘I’m really sorry but there’s not enough of us to rescue your friends from the barn.’

  I didn’t want these words.

  ‘But we have to go back.’

  Murphy said no.

  ‘I’m sorry but we can’t. I won’t risk losing this place. Daphne knew the dangers. We told her not to go back to the village but she’s a stubborn old thing who has never liked being told what to do.’

  Murphy laughed.

  ‘We grew up together and she was as much a handful then as she still is now. She had six brothers and her father taught her to shoot before she could even walk. I told her to stay here but I knew she wouldn’t listen.’

  Vinnie asked a question.

  ‘What was she doing in the village?’

  ‘Daphne said we should keep checking for survivors. I told her that I had better things to do, like keeping my family safe, but she insisted on patrolling the area.’

  ‘But she’s now trapped in a broken barn with a bunch of kids and a soldier who can’t walk.’

  Murphy frowned.

  ‘I know it’s bad but what can I do? Not counting Harry outside watching the road, we are all we have left standing between us and total annihilation.’

  Luxury

  Murphy was not going to change his mind.

  ‘You lot can do what you want, we’re waiting here until the horde has passed by completely. Once it has gone, I will happily go and see about rescuing Daphne and the others. But not until it has gone.’

  Abe was annoyed.

  ‘But we left them behind and told them we’d be back.’

  Murphy got a bit cross.

  ‘Listen, kid, how many bad luck stories do you think the world has already? How many? Take a guess.’

  Abe didn’t say. Murphy kept talking.