Onslaught

by Drew Brown

  “Yeah, that was the last one,” he answered. He dropped the empty syringe into the briefcase and then closed it up. “I don’t think we’ll be running any marathons soon. I saw what this did to Juliette last time.”

  “That’s all right,” Andy said. He looked towards the cabin. “At least we’ll be nice an’ warm here.”

  Juliette coughed three times. Her skin had turned pale and clammy, lined with sweat, her eyes were bloodshot and she looked as if she was finding it difficult to remain sitting upright. “Monsieur Ashby,” she whispered, her lips trembling, and then she sunk backwards to lie upon the dewy grass.

  Budd shuffled over to be at her side. He placed his hand on her forehead and stroked her skin. She was already unconscious. Her right leg kicked out at the empty air, and then her shoulder twitched, bouncing her body up and down.

  “Help me hold her,” Budd said, realizing that his own voice was weak. His stomach was filled with a queasy feeling that was worse than the results of any sea voyage he’d ever taken, and the burning sensation around his wound had changed into an itch. Inside his clothes, despite his proximity to the cabin’s burning wreckage, he suddenly felt cold.

  He started to shiver.

  He looked at Juliette and saw that her arms and legs were twitching more violently now. The reaction was almost too much for Andy and Sam to cope with and the two men were sprawled across her, fighting to hold down her limbs. As he watched the struggle, his vision began to blur at its edges, the clear area narrowing quickly.

  He saw Andy turn to him, a frightened expression upon his face. The maintenance man asked a question.

  I didn’t hear diddly-squat…

  Focusing as best he could, he watched Andy’s lips move, but the concentration involved caused his eyesight to blur even faster, until it seemed he was looking at the world through a pool of murky water.

  Everything went black.

  23

  The worst thing ’bout taking Deacon’s damned antidote was that afterwards, when I woke up—happily no longer with a space mutant for company—I could remember all the dreams I’d had during my recovery. While the antidote had battled the virus, I’d dreamt of fire, of ice, of pain and suffering; there were times when I felt my body was being burnt, and others when I felt like I was submerged in a sea of frozen water. Not nice, I can tell you.

  Still, I shouldn’t complain, it could’ve been worse.

  Even after the antidote had done its job, the sleep that followed was fitful, restless, and filled with visions of being awake. You know, the kind of stuff a marijuana smoker suffers—and, let’s face it, there’s a reason lots of them have mental health problems…

  Budd opened his eyes to find himself surrounded by darkness.

  His first thought was that he’d slept through the day and into the night and that he’d been abandoned by the others, but a quick look around revealed that he was no longer out in the woods or near the cabin. Instead, he was lying upon something hard and had a green blanket over his body. From the metal floor and the rim that ran around it, the green canvas roof and walls which were supported by a metal frame, as well as the small size of the enclosure, Budd guessed that he was in the back of a flatbed truck. He looked down beyond his feet and saw that the canvas ended, exposing the fog of the outside world. There was nothing else to see. No people, no buildings, and no woods, simply a vista of gray emptiness.

  He lifted the blanket and found that his pants were around his knees and that the wound on his upper-left thigh had been dressed with a thick, white bandage. The injury throbbed, but nothing worse than he would have expected had a simple bite, and not the mouth of an infected schoolchild, caused the wound.

  He eased up his pants and buttoned the fly, letting the blanket settle over him again before lowering his head. Someone had folded another blanket several times for him to use as a pillow. He closed his eyes, happy to return to sleep. At least he was until he remembered the sight of Juliette’s bitten forearm.

  After that thought, he couldn’t rest.

  There were footsteps along the truck’s side, the casual, walking footsteps of someone in no hurry. Budd looked up and saw Andy’s smiling face appear in the opening.

  The maintenance man pulled himself into the truck. “You’re awake, then. You seem to make a habit of getting yourself knocked out,” the Yorkshireman said, his voice filled with relaxed humor.

  “I’m not one for all this excitement. Where’s Juliette?”

  “She’s fine,” Andy said, gesturing to a pile of gray blankets. “Came-to about an hour ago.”

  “Where are we?”

  “We made it to t’airfield,” Andy said. He sat down on the blankets and rested his back against one of the metal struts that secured the canvas. He had a handgun tucked into his tool belt. “After you’d blacked out, I left you with Sam an’ Bogey an’ made my way back here. I managed to find a couple of stretchers in t’medical room an’ then Father McGee an’ t’young kid, Jack, went back with me. We carried you here.”

  “I owe you one, buddy.”

  “Don’t mention it. Besides, how could we escape without our pilot?”

  “I guess you’ve got a point. So, now that I’m awake, we’re ready to go, right?”

  The relaxed expression across Andy’s face darkened. He scratched at his stubble. “Not exactly.”

  “How come?”

  “Do you know this airfield well?”

  “Pretty well; I used to fly here once or twice a week. I’d stay overnight at the mansion,” Budd said. He raised his eyebrows quizzically. “Why’d you ask?”

  “We’re in t’smaller of two hangars, t’doors were open when we arrived, but we can’t get into t’big one. There’re no planes here, and none out in t’open either.”

  Budd shook his head and sighed. “This is the maintenance hangar. The main hangar is used to store the aircraft when they’re on the ground.”

  “We can’t get t’doors for t’main one to open.”

  “You won’t, not if this place doesn’t have power. They’re automatic, touch-of-a-button thingies, put in place to reduce the risk of terrorists stealing a bird and flying it into something important.”

  “Is there a back-up generator?”

  Budd nodded. “Yeah.”

  “Where?”

  “Up at the mansion. Everything is controlled from there.”

  “Then we have a problem,” Andy said, scratching harder at his face. He climbed out of the truck and walked across the concrete hangar floor onto the grass outside. He turned to the left and stared intently into the fog.

  Budd caught up with Andy, his pace hampered by the stiffness at the top of his injured leg. He looked to where the other man was indicating, but only saw tarmac and grass before the gray haze thickened into an opaque mass. From memory, though, he knew that Andy was looking towards the mansion.

  The view was clear in his mind.

  Between the maintenance hangar and the mansion was a mile-long field of grass, nearly three hundred feet across and lined with woods on either side. A single road cut straight down the center of the field. Budd knew that if he’d turned to face the other direction, without the fog, he would have seen the main hangar and the control tower, both alongside the wide grass runway, which cut perpendicularly to the field. Those things, however, did not yet interest him.

  “One of t’soldiers went up there as soon as we arrived. There’s a hundred or so cars parked outside.”

  “That’s a hell of a lot of cars,” Budd said with a sigh. “I remember Deacon said something about a conference.”

  “Is t’mansion large enough to hold that many people?”

  “It is,” Budd nodded. “If it wasn’t for this damned fog, we’d be able to see the old part of the building from here; but there’s a big extension on the back, two extra wings that contain nothing but small bedrooms. Really, the place is more like a hotel than anything else.”

  “That’s what one of t’soldiers said,” An
dy responded. “And you say that’s where t’power for t’other hangar is?”

  “Yeah. In the basement.”

  “Well, I guess we don’t have a choice. We’ll have to go up there.”

  I don’t have to tell you that I didn’t like the idea of heading on up to the grand, white-painted mansion, regardless of the back-up generators. It would mean even more danger, and I’d already had my bellyful…

  Footsteps approached on the hangar’s concrete floor. “There’s tea and biscuits for you both in the staff room,” Father McGee said. “It’s good to see you up once more, my son.”

  “It’s good to be up,” Budd replied, grinning. “Now, did you say something about food?”

  24

  Budd crossed the hangar to a small room that was built into its corner. The structure had large glass windows and no top, to allow as much light as possible to stream inside. He knew that the aircraft engineers had used the room on their breaks. There was a table at one end and three sofas along the other walls. Juliette was standing at the table, busying herself with a portable gas stove.

  Budd followed Father McGee and Andy inside.

  “Dude, you’re in the land of the living,” Sam declared as Budd entered the room. “Again.”

  “As close as I’ve ever been.”

  At the table, Juliette turned from her work to face him. She had taken off her black leather jacket and had the long sleeves of her red T-shirt pushed up to her elbows. Her newly bandaged forearm was on display, as was her strapped-up left hand. With long, eager steps, she crossed the room and placed a soft kiss on Budd’s cheek. Her lips bristled against the growing stubble on his face, which reminded him of his need to shave. He wondered where his rucksack was.

  “Thank you, Monsieur Ashby,” she said. “Thank you for everything. Would you like coffee or tea?”

  “Whatever I did, it was my pleasure. And coffee would be great,” Budd answered. He stepped back from Juliette and looked around the room. Aside from her and Sam, there was only Jack and Annabel, who were sitting together in the corner of the room. There was no sign of Chris or the two women Budd had last seen waving from the boat. He turned to Father McGee, who was the other person he remembered in that group. “Where’re the rest?”

  The old priest’s face went pale and he stroked his white beard with his hand. “Only Mister Sanders and I made it through. The two women were killed, and after that, Christopher and the Polish couple were lost.”

  “Lost?” Budd questioned, raising an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

  “We were set upon by dogs; Sanders fought them off, but not in time to save the two women. In the meantime, the others ran away. We never saw them again.”

  I gotta tell ya, as terrible as it sounds, the image of Chris runnin’ through the woods, chased by those horrible, snarling dogs and eventually being caught and torn to pieces, cheered me up somewhat. Perhaps the whole ordeal had desensitized me, but I’d never liked him; he was too cowardly.

  I guess he was too much like me for comfort…

  “I’m sorry to hear ’bout the women, and the foreign pair. They seemed okay,” Budd remarked after a pause. He sat down on the chair next to the table, resting his right arm on the surface. Juliette stood in front of him, fixing his coffee. “So, we still have two soldiers left?”

  “Yeah, t’one we came with was unscathed as well,” Andy said, nodding towards Sam. “They’re outside on guard.”

  “At least they’re being useful,” Budd said. He looked at Juliette who turned to him with a smile. She had a teaspoon full of sugar floating above the cup she was preparing. “Two please, sweetheart.”

  She dropped the spoonfuls into the liquid and then stirred them in. Once the coffee was ready, Juliette handed it to Budd and then sat on the chair beside him, placing her hand on his.

  “Thanks, babe.”

  “My pleasure, Monsieur Ashby,” she said, and tilted her head so that it rested on his shoulder.

  Across the room, from his place in the corner, Budd saw Jack stiffen in his chair. The young man, his hair still impossibly spiky and his stylish clothes mud-splattered, looked Budd straight in the eye. “Now that you’re awake, when are you going to fly us the fuck out of here?”

  Budd sensed the hostility in the younger man’s voice. Despite the mannequin-like Annabel who appeared to be attached to Jack’s arm—her skin visibly goose-bumped because her small silver dress offered little protection against the cold—it was clear to Budd that the sight of Juliette’s affection for him caused Jack considerable annoyance. Realizing this, he smiled smugly across the room and stretched out, putting his arm around Juliette and gently stroking the top of her shoulder as he blew on his coffee. He took his time forming a response. “Not yet, buckaroo; someone’s gotta turn the power on at the mansion first. Any volunteers?”

  “The mansion?” Jack said. “With all those fucking cars?”

  “Yeah, the building, you know, four walls, a roof. The big thing on the hill.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Sorry, but you’re not my type.”

  Jack rose from his chair, fury flashing across his face, but Andy, who was at the table making a cup of tea, positioned himself in the way. “Sit back down. We need each other.”

  “Screw that loser,” Jack said, waving his hand towards Budd. “He probably can’t even fly us to France.”

  France? Oh yeah, I’d almost forgotten ’bout that little misconception…

  Budd smiled wryly. “You think you can do better? By all accounts, I waggle my flight-stick better than you do.”

  Sam burst into laughter, but Andy didn’t. Instead, the maintenance man was forced to grab hold of Jack to stop him charging across the small room.

  “Fuck you, I’ll fucking kill you,” Jack spat, trying to break free of Andy’s grip. Unperturbed, the maintenance man pushed him back down onto a chair and then motioned his right hand towards the handgun on his tool belt.

  Jack became still.

  “Settle down, right now. We don’t have time for this.”

  “I was only stating my credentials,” Budd replied, but Andy’s angry expression told him that it’d be a smarter idea to keep his mouth shut.

  “I think a small, well-armed, party stands t’best chance of getting to t’mansion an’ turning on t’emergency power. So I propose that me, Budd, Sam an’ one of t’soldiers should go. T’rest stay here until t’power comes on, then head over to t’main hangar.”

  I didn’t like this one little bit: my luck had been stretched quite enough for one lifetime. All I wanted now was an easy ride. I did, however, have a wild card left to play. One that I was sure would work…

  “We can’t just take off in a plane; I’ll need time to prep it. So if I come to the mansion with you, and those things chase us back here, we’re not gonna get anywhere. I doubt the plane will even be fueled.”

  Andy’s face darkened with worry. “You’re t’only one with any idea of t’mansion’s layout. Going without you is a big risk.”

  Not for me…

  “But if I go with you, there might not be any point us coming back. I can draw you a map.”

  Father McGee cleared his throat. He was pouring something from his flask into one of the cups. “If it is a turboprop, then I can do the pre-flight checks. As a young man I served in the ground crew for the RAF. It was a lifetime ago, but I’m sure I can still do the job.”

  “That settles it,” Andy said. “Budd, you can come with us after all.”

  “Well, that’s a relief.”

  What can I say? Except thank you very much, Father McGee. God bless you all the way to Hell…

  25

  A few minutes later, his cup of coffee finished, Budd limped from the staff room to stand outside the hangar. He looked toward the distant, fog-hidden mansion. Juliette was beside him, her hand pressed into his.

  “I want to come with you, Monsieur Ashby.”

  “No, honey, it’ll be safer here.”

&nb
sp; “I know it will. But I want to be with you.”

  “Don’t be silly, sugar. There won’t be any problems. It’s gonna be fine.”

  I’m such a bad liar…

  “You do not believe that, Monsieur Ashby.”

  Budd looked at Juliette. Her mysterious, dark eyes shone brightly. “Baby, I’m only gonna act as a guide, I won’t do anything brave or stupid; you just stay here and make sure the half-cut vicar doesn’t damage my bird. We might need to leave in a hurry.”

  Juliette smiled and then kissed Budd on his cheek. “I will do my best, Monsieur Ashby. He is not a vicar. You know that, I am sure.”

  Behind them, back inside the hangar, the truck’s engine kicked into life. “Looks like they’re ready to go,” Budd said.

  Juliette released his hand. “Monsieur Ashby,” she said, her eyes narrowing and her lips curling into a teasing smile. “You do ‘waggle your flight-stick better.’”

  Budd raised his left eyebrow, pretending to look embarrassed. “I know plenty more maneuvers, too. See you soon.”

  Juliette gave him one more kiss and then watched as he walked back into the hangar, his boots loud on the polished-concrete floor. Andy was waiting beside the truck, while Sam was sitting in the cab, gently revving the engine.

  “You got it working, then?”

  “The soldier, Sanders, found some spare parts earlier. Get in t’back with me,” Andy replied. “I’ve got your stuff in there.”

  “Sure thing,” Budd said, glancing around the hangar.

  Father McGee, Jack, and Annabel had come out of the staff room to watch them leave. Budd felt the weight of Jack’s stare pushing against him, but he was sure that the arrogant, young, former pop star wouldn’t try anything with Andy so close. The maintenance man was holding his handgun in one hand and had found another hammer to replace the one he’d been forced to drop at the hotel. It hung from his tool belt.