by Drew Brown
Budd knew there were more coming. And they were gaining. “Run,” he shouted, surging for the next lantern. Juliette matched his stride, but did not pull ahead.
“Go faster,” Becky said, fear and frustration in her voice.
Budd tried.
His legs ached and the cold air burned his lungs. Puffs of condensed breath billowed from his mouth. His mind raced, and he risked a backward glance. The beasts were closer now, their images clearer in the fog. Some were dressed in the blue TimeTech Solutions winter gear, but others were less suitably attired; one was wearing the casual gray sweatshirt and pants of a radio operator, and another wore the green overalls of an aircraft mechanic. The closest was a slim female with wayward blond hair, dressed in the whites of the cafeteria staff. She was less than twenty feet behind them.
Her name was Rachel.
She’d been nice, and lonely enough working on this God-forsaken island that a friendly smile and a playful wink could secure you an… extra portion of your favorite grub. Come on, what did you think I was gonna say?
After all the horrors we’d fought, all those nameless faces that had chased us, it seemed strange to know the people who’d kill me. All that way, just to die at the hands of friends and co-workers.
And we would die.
I couldn’t run any faster, but they were still gaining. We wouldn’t reach the North Camp, and I didn’t think Juliette would go in for sacrificing Snot-nose…
Looking forward again, Budd altered his direction, angling towards the next lantern. He’d lost track of how far they’d come. All he could do was focus on one red globe after another, but he felt tiredness wash over his body, his energy sapped by the snow and the biting cold.
He knew he was slowing down.
His feet seemed to sink deeper into the carpet of snow.
Juliette was half a pace ahead of him, urging him on.
Her voice seemed distant. He lowered his head, watching the white floor vanish beneath his feet. When he looked up again there was a dark object ahead of him, a tall outcrop of black rock. Standing at its side was the outline of a man. He had a long rifle aimed towards them.
It was Tony.
“Down,” Budd cried, falling to the snow as the shot rang out. The muzzle flash lit up the surrounding fog and the sound echoed in the darkness. Juliette crashed to the ground next to him, while Becky rolled from his back to land in a heap. Budd reached out and held the little girl down as the chatter of a sub-machine gun burst out above their heads.
It was Jack, the MP-5 held to his shoulder, flames licking from its barrel.
He looked pretty macho, but I had a feeling that a weather report by a rookie meteorologist would’ve been more accurate…
Budd took a backward look and saw several of the following group shot down. The rest scattered.
As soon as they’d stopped advancing, Tony held up his arm to cease Jack’s firing. “Come on, man! Run to me,” he cried.
Scrambling out of the snow, Budd pulled Becky to her feet. He went to help Juliette but she was already up and so he dashed the last few paces to the rocks. “I owe you, brother,” he said. “Thanks for waiting.”
“No problem, but we’re not home yet.”
Budd glanced around, gulping when he realized that his friend was correct. The fast-movers were spreading around the limit of their visibility, attempting to surround the outcrop of rocks. “Let’s get moving, then. How far to go?”
“Two hundred yards. We came back to look for you.”
“Thanks, man.”
Jack jogged away, struggling in the ankle-deep snow. He headed for the glow of the next lantern. Budd pointed after him as he scooped Becky up, swinging her around so that she was once more on his back. “That way, sweet cheeks,” he shouted. “Not far now.”
Juliette took one look around the outcrop of black rocks, her eyes passing between their attackers as they edged further around, threatening to envelop them. She started to move.
Budd chased her but watched over his shoulder as Tony raised his rifle.
His friend squeezed the trigger and one of the beasts, a dark-haired man in a gray fleece, was catapulted backwards. The speeding bullet carried away the left side of his head, and several other beasts ducked and moved away from the victim as blood squirted across the snow.
Budd forced himself to go quicker, although his stumbling, weary pace remained somewhat below the speed of a jog. Tony pulled alongside him, his rifle slung over his shoulder and his gleaming revolver in his hand. “We need to go faster, brother,” he said, and he pointed his weapon out to the left, indicating for Budd to look.
Budd didn’t like what he saw: some of the fast-movers had already drawn level with them, only twenty feet away, and the unencumbered beasts were moving fast, their feet plunging in and out of the soft snow. He realised they were trying to get ahead and cut them off.
They were thinking, planning, and working together. I assumed that, like Deacon had forecast, they were communicating. I’d have said telepathy was mumbo-jumbo once, but with space-mutant zombies running around who knew what to think…
Up ahead, Juliette slowed and turned back. Her cheeks shone bright beneath her goggles. Budd waved her on, but she ignored him and waited until he’d caught up. She took his hand.
“Come on, Monsieur Ashby. We must hurry.”
I would’ve quipped back a reply. But for once I thought I’d save my breath…
Jack had vanished, his body swallowed by the fog. All they could do was follow the lines of back and forth footprints to the next lantern. Budd hoped they were nearly there: three of the fast-movers on the left were now in front of them and angling inwards.
Tony aimed his Colt in their direction and fired two shots. The bullets missed, but the beasts veered away.
Budd spotted two more fast-movers on their right. His entire body ached.
They were being surrounded.
Like a ninety-year-old billionaire with his teenaged, stripper wife on the first night of their honeymoon, I could sense the end was coming. And it wouldn’t take long….
Budd looked straight ahead and his eyes went wide with fear. There was a group of figures standing around the next lantern, bathed in its red glow.
Not long at all…
52
The initial panic Budd first felt at seeing the group eased as more details of their appearance registered with his mind. They were all wearing blue ski jackets, thick pants, heavily padded boots, and goggles with orange visors. Their fur-lined hoods were up, and they had black scarves around their mouths and lower faces.
In their bare hands they held an assortment of firearms.
Budd kept running, his boots pounding through the snow. Juliette tugged his arm, trying to make him faster. As he reached the lantern, the closest of the figures stepped forward and tilted their head to the side. “We’ll take it from here,” the man said in a voice muffled by his scarf. Behind him, two of the others opened fire at the three fast-movers on the left.
Budd watched the beasts crash to the ground in a hail of pistol and revolver bullets. Desperate, one of them tried to crawl away, pulling his body along the snow, leaving a trail of blood from a wound in his stomach. The man-beast wore the green overalls of an aircraft mechanic.
A single, well-aimed bullet popped his skull like ripe fruit.
“Get movin’,” Tony shouted from behind the sight of his rifle.
I was glad I didn’t see the mechanic’s face. I used to drink beer with all those guys. So did Tony…
With Juliette leading him by the hand, Budd wove between the five newcomers as they fired. He didn’t look back to see how they would fare, but instead let his head sink on his shoulders, his eyes tracing back a line of footsteps, following it to the next lantern.
When he got there, he looked ahead. Fifteen feet away were two guide lanterns positioned side-by-side, six feet apart. They flashed intermittently. Behind them was a dull, black object that seemed to drift out of
the fog.
They had reached the Northern Camp.
Budd forced his legs to make one last effort.
Standing by the door was a man in a ski jacket. His hood was down and he wore no goggles—instead, simply thin, wire-framed spectacles beneath a dishevelled mop of red hair. Budd could see the black handle of a revolver sticking out of his pocket, but his empty hands waved frantically, beckoning them on.
Budd tumbled through the open doorway a couple of paces behind Juliette. At last sheltered from the freezing wind and billowing snow, he felt his strength sag and he dropped to his knees. He peeled Becky’s arms from around his neck and handed her to Juliette. The little girl’s skin was ice-cold to touch and her lips were blue, but she smiled at Budd as he rose to his feet.
Glancing around, Budd realized that there was no sign of Father McGee, Jack, or Annabel. More alarming, it also appeared that the small concrete room had no door except for the one they’d entered by—he could only see four walls and a ceiling. Finally, with a sigh of relief, he spotted an open hatch on the floor.
“Sweetheart, get Snot-nose down there quick.”
“Not without you, Monsieur Ashby.”
The gunshots outside were close.
“I’ll be right down, honey.”
The freckly redhead stepped inside. He had both his hands clenched around the handle of his old-fashioned revolver. “They’re almost here.”
“Now, baby,” Budd said, readying his shotgun.
Juliette hesitated, but Becky climbed onto the rungs of the ladder that protruded through the hatch. “Let’s go,” the little girl said. There was a smile on her pale face. “We’ll be safe.”
Budd winked at Juliette. “Go on, I’m right behind you.”
With a smile, Juliette stepped onto the ladder.
Budd turned back to the open door. He aimed his shotgun at the center of the empty space, staring out through the foggy air. “You ready to shut that door, buddy?”
The freckly-faced man nodded. “I think I can.”
“You’d better.”
With the sound of rushing boots and panting breath, the first of the blue-jacketed gunman stumbled inside. The next four were close behind, pushing their way in one after the other. Tony was the last to enter and he kept his rifle at the ready as the freckly-faced man swung the heavy metal door closed.
In the narrowing space, Budd saw several fast-movers appear, charging forward, their claw-like hands at the ready. One of them was Rachel, the woman from the cafeteria. She had a red circle of blood through the shoulder of her white shirt.
With a thud, the door slammed home and the freckly-faced man wound the central wheel to engage the bolts.
Budd found himself surrounded by the labored breathing of the gunmen, but then a faint knock on the door reverberated through the thick metal. A moment later, a scratching sound began. The gathering beasts were running their fingernails down the door.
Budd pulled back his hood, removed his goggles, and smiled.
Even with that horrid sound, the knowledge that the door was closed, that those things were on the outside—and would quickly freeze if they didn’t beat it—was enough to put a warm glow in my belly.
Deacon had got it right and we were safe. I was ready to kick back, drink whatever whiskey I could find—or beer, I wasn’t fussy—and enjoy Juliette’s company for however long it took the world to sort itself out. And I was sure it would.
I mean, humans—we’re Number One, right? That’s what I thought…
53
Before anyone could say a word, Budd hung his shotgun over his shoulder and made his way to the hatch. The small room was not heated, and because the door had been open for so long, the temperature had plummeted. But that was not the reason he was eager to reach the depths of the research camp. He wanted to find Juliette.
Looking down, he saw the next floor level was a little more than twenty feet below, and the concrete cylindrical shaft that gave access to it was three feet in diameter, with a curved steel ladder bolted to its side. He stepped onto the top rungs and descended, grateful for the invisible warm air that sailed up the narrow passage. By the time he was halfway, loose snow was pattering down around him, falling from the boots of one of the gunmen who’d taken to the ladder.
Budd skipped the last few rungs to land on the concrete floor. The room was small, and its outside was surrounded with benches, lockers, and coat-pegs. There were four metal doors, one in the center of each wall. Only one of them was open.
Juliette was standing there, leaning ever so slightly against the doorframe, her ski jacket removed to reveal her loose-fitting gray fleece. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail and her cheeks were the colour of roses.
Budd smiled as she walked over to him and wrapped her arms around his neck. She kissed him. “Thank you, Monsieur Ashby. You got us here safely,” she whispered as their lips parted.
Budd pulled her in close and kissed her a second time. “Did you ever doubt it, sugar?”
Juliette smiled, but slipped out of his grasp as the next person reached the bottom of the ladder. “I guess there were times,” she answered.
“Just one or two.”
Zombies, cannibals, crazies, space mutants—whatever name you care to give them—as well as vicious dogs, murderous soldiers, and generally having to cope with the end of the world; right then, as she kissed me, it all seemed worth it.
Obviously, I don’t think the other six and a half billion people whose lives had come to an abrupt end would necessarily agree with me.
But, hey, this ain’t their story…
“I still can’t get over seeing you here, brother,” Tony said as he laid his rifle across a bench and unzipped his jacket. The other gunmen were coming down one by one, filling the room as they removed their outdoor clothing, stowing their gear in the lockers. “Especially with such a beautiful young woman,” Tony continued, and then he turned to Juliette, flashing his bright white teeth with a friendly smile. “Tell me, how did you meet this scoundrel?”
Juliette shrugged her shoulders. “He ruined my meal at the hotel.”
“You were staying at a hotel?”
Budd smiled. “And I even managed to get the company to pick up the bill.”
“Very nice. What were you doin’ there?”
“Acting as nursemaid for a guy called Charlie. The science geek you had me fly to Britain,” Budd answered, but his voice trailed away when he realised that several of the other men in the room had turned to look at him.
“You were with Charles?” one of them asked.
Budd’s inquisitor was sitting on one of the benches and had been struggling to remove his snow-covered boots. The action, however, was now forgotten as the man waited for an answer. He was perfectly still, except for his eyes, which blinked repeatedly. Without his ski jacket, he wore a black polo-necked sweater that was tight on his wiry body. His hair was dark and cut short, and his skin was exceptionally pale, except for the dark bags above his high cheekbones. Faint lines spread from his eyes and mouth, while the hair around his temples was flecked with streaks of gray.
“Were you with Charles?” he repeated.
“Yeah, that’s right.”
“Where is he?” the dark-haired man asked.
From the way the other men in the room were staring at me, I got the feeling that Deacon was a hot topic of conversation…
“He died.” Budd said. “At least twice.”
A sigh of disappointment spread around the room.
“Who’s Deacon?” Tony asked, but no one answered his question.
Budd shrugged his shoulders. “I take it from your tooth-paste-white complexion that you’re a mad scientist, too? Right?”
“Yes, I am,” replied the dark-haired man.
“And you’re working on a time machine, yeah?”
The five men exchanged a few swift looks and then a couple of them nodded. “Yes, we are.”
“Then it might please you to know tha
t your old pal Charlie got it working, well, gets it working, in less than ten years. Except that, now he’s dead, and he screwed up the world, I guess it won’t happen,” Budd said. He ran his hand through his hair as he considered the different ramifications. The look he got from the scientists proved they had little interest in his meandering thoughts.
“You have to tell us everything you know,” the dark-haired man said. He stood up and took Budd by the arm, trying to pull him through the open door.
Budd resisted. “No problem, smart-ass, but not ‘til I’m outta these clothes. And not before I’ve had some coffee.”
54
True to his word, Budd waited until he’d removed his snowy outerwear and a cup of coffee had been placed in his hand before he explained anything further about what had happened before their arrival on the island.
He sipped his coffee and looked around the room the scientists had brought him to, waiting for them to settle into their chairs. Along one wall were rows of desks, while the opposite one had a white projector screen spread against it. This was where the eleven scientists gathered across two horseshoe-shaped rows of seats, all facing where Budd sat beside the speaker’s podium. Juliette was next to him, enjoying her own cup of coffee. Tony had taken Jack, Annabel, Father McGee, and Becky to the sleeping quarters to get some rest.
“Right, I’m only gonna go through this once, so you eggheads better listen up. We didn’t come here to take part in your pet science project, just to be safe from those things outside, capisce?” Budd looked around at the eleven faces, but none of them expressed anything other than impatience. “You got that, brainiacs?”
“Yes,” answered the man with dark hair. He was sitting in the center of the front row.
