As I reached the top of the stairs, Sam tossed me an assault rifle. I caught it reflexively, being careful to point the barrel at the floor. I recognised the gun as an L85 rifle but my knowledge of weapons came from video games, not from real life. “I’ve never fired a gun before,” I said.
Jax, holding the other L85 and looking like she could grace the cover of Soldier of Fortune magazine, said, “It’s easy. Just point it and pull the trigger.”
“Come on,” Tanya said, stepping over the bodies in the doorway.
We followed her along the corridor. I kept the gun pointed down and my finger well away from the trigger. The weapon felt heavy in my hand and I had to carry my baseball bat tucked under one arm. The bat hit my leg as I ran. Jax carried her bat in one hand and the rifle in the other. I considered doing the same but I was worried I wouldn’t be able to aim one-handed.
We reached a windowless door at the end of the corridor and Sam opened it. We stepped through into a production studio. The room was dimly lit but an electric glow came from banks of audio machines and computer screens. A plump woman with long blonde hair and wearing glasses, headphones, jeans and a Robert Plant T-shirt looked up from the computer as we entered.
“What the hell?” she asked as she pulled her headphones down to her neck.
“We’re not going to hurt you,” Tanya said quickly, raising her hands in a placating motion. “We just want to get into the broadcast studio.”
A large window above the banks of machines showed the next room where a slim black man in his thirties with dreadlocks and wearing a Jim Morrison T-shirt sat at a desk and spoke into a large microphone. He was surrounded by papers, computers and machines with dials and sliders. He wore headphones and seemed oblivious to our presence as he spoke into the microphone.
“We’re broadcasting,” the woman said, pointing to a red light above a door that was marked “On Air”.
“What’s your name?” Tanya asked her.
“Cheryl. Cheryl Ginsburg.”
“Cheryl, we’re going to put out a message on the radio. Jax here is going to stay with you while the boys and I go in there and meet…Johnny Drake, I presume?”
Cheryl nodded.
“We’re not going to hurt anyone,” Tanya said. “But we have to make sure our message goes out to the people. So you can just relax and don’t touch anything.”
Cheryl raised her hands and wheeled her chair away from the computer. Jax levelled her gun in Cheryl’s general direction but the woman didn’t seem to be a threat at all.
Sam opened the door to the next room and we stepped through beneath the “On Air” light.
Johnny Drake looked up as we entered and his eyes went wide. He ripped off his headphones. “What the hell?” He reached for a dial on his desk but I pointed my gun at him.
Tanya stepped up to the desk. “No, Johnny,” she said. “Don’t touch that dial.”
Chapter 27
Johnny raised his hands in surrender. “Okay, guys, no need to do anything we’ll all regret.” It was strange to hear the familiar rich tones of his mid-Atlantic accent in real life when I had heard them on the radio for so long. All the time I had been listening to his show, I hadn’t thought about meeting Johnny Drake in person and I certainly hadn’t envisioned holding him at gunpoint.
Tanya went around to the desk and looked at the controls and dials. “Get me on air,” she said to Johnny.
He nodded. “Okay. Here, let me get this…” Leaning forward, he reached for the control panel.
Tanya grabbed his wrist and looked into his eyes. “Just remember, if you try anything, we’ve got your friend Cheryl at gunpoint in there.” She nodded towards the window. Johnny looked into the production studio where Cheryl sat, arms raised, as Jax stood over her with the L85.
“There’s no problem here,” Johnny said. “I’ll patch you right in and you’ll be on every radio that’s turned on.”
“Do it,” Tanya said.
He reached for a switch then hesitated. “You have to realise,” he said, finger poised over the switch, “that the army listen to Survivor Radio all the time. It plays in all the Survivors Camps. As soon as they hear your voice, they’ll know exactly where you are. There’s a whole platoon stationed outside this building. They have tanks and huge guns and the road is totally blocked with razor wire. You won’t be able to escape.”
“Let me worry about that,” she said, flicking the switch.
Johnny leaned back in his chair with a resigned look that said, “It’s your funeral,” on his face.
“This is a message to all the survivors,” Tanya said into the microphone. “Everything you have been told is a lie. The virus has not infected the world, only Britain. The authorities have told you there is no escape so they can control you and put you in camps. They are covering up their own mistake…a mistake that has killed millions of people and means those in charge are mass murderers.
“You have to refuse to be confined by liars. There are options other than sitting in a Survivors Camp waiting to die. The army are attempting to control ports and marinas but they have a problem on their hands right now. There is a hybrid version of the virus that is affecting vaccinated soldiers. Yes, that’s right, the soldiers have been vaccinated. Have you? No, they are not going to vaccinate you. Only themselves.
“The hybrids are weakening the military. We saw it ourselves at Falmouth Harbour. All the soldiers there had become hybrids. I won’t lie to you, the chances of survival are slim but you can take boats and sail to Europe. Tell them what is happening here. Once the rest of the world knows our plight, they will send help.
“This country has been plummeted into hell by the people in charge and they have told you there is nothing you can do about it because the rest of the world is in the same hell. That isn’t true. You can escape. But first you need to escape the camps. Head for the coast. Tell the world what has happened here.”
She flicked the switch and stood back from the control panel.
Johnny Drake looked at her. “Is that true?”
“You should know, you’re part of their system.”
He shook his head. “No, that isn’t true. Cheryl and I are prisoners here. We’ve been kept in this building since the outbreak. We don’t know what’s happening outside, only what they tell us and what we see through the windows.”
We heard tyres screeching outside in the parking lot.
“They’re here,” Sam said. “We need to leave.”
“Wait,” I said, leaning forward to the microphone and flicking the switch. “Lucy, it’s Alex. I don’t know where you are or what happened at the marina. Meet me at…” I tried to think of a place I could mention on the radio without alerting the army to where I was going. “…At the place Mike and Elena died. In three days’ time.” I added, “Joe, if you can hear this, I’m going to find you somehow.”
I turned to Johnny. “Did that message go out?”
He nodded.
“We’re leaving,” Tanya said.
“Take us with you,” Johnny said, looking suddenly desperate. “Please.”
She hesitated for half a second before saying, “We’re going to have to fight our way out of here.”
“That’s fine. I can’t stay locked up in this building any longer.”
“Let’s go,” Tanya shouted.
We left the studio and ran back down the hallway with Johnny Drake and Cheryl Ginsburg in tow. The two soldiers Tanya and Sam had dealt with still lay in the same positions. I didn’t know if they were unconscious or dead.
As we descended the stairs, we heard boots running along the hallway below.
We reached the bottom of the stairs and Jax stuck her head and arm out through the doorway, firing her rifle. The bursts of fire cracked the air in the enclosed space and made my ears ring.
Jax sprinted across the hallway into the room we had broken into earlier. She looked across at me. “Alex, put down some suppressing fire!”
I handed my
bat to Johnny Drake and shoved my rifle out through the doorway, pointing it along the hallway and squeezing the trigger. It spat out bullets and kicked in my hand. The soldiers in the reception area took cover.
Sam went across the hallway with Johnny and Cheryl as I continued to let off bursts of deadly bullets. The windows in the reception area shattered.
Tanya went across and beckoned me to follow.
I leapt into the room. Sam closed the door and pulled the vinyl sofa across it. “We’re out of here, man,” he said as he ran for the broken window.
We went out onto the cement walkway one at a time. By the time it was my turn to climb through, the soldiers on the other side of the door slammed into it. The sofa slid across the carpet.
“Give me that,” Sam said, grabbing my rifle. He let off a burst of rounds at the door. The pushing from the other side stopped.
Dropping down into the Zodiac was easier than climbing out of it. With six people, it was a tight squeeze but we found our places and sat tight while Jax started the engine and turned us around in a wide arc so we faced downriver.
As we started out of the city in a cloud of gasoline-tinged engine smoke, Sam pumped his fist into the air. “We fucking did it, man!”
I couldn’t share his enthusiasm. I was glad to be alive but I had no idea if Lucy had heard my message. The meeting place I had suggested worried me.
The lighthouse where Mike and Elena had met their deaths.
Somewhere I had vowed to never return.
The rain began to fall from the night sky as we approached Falmouth Harbour. I wished the heavens had broken earlier so we didn’t have to endure seeing the rotting mass of zombies lining the river banks. I was sick of them. I wanted to take the rifles and fire every last bullet into the crowd of yellow-eyed monsters. It would be a waste of ammunition and even if every bullet delivered a killing headshot, it wouldn’t make any difference to the huge population of zombies but it might make me feel better.
Instead of actually carrying out my plan to waste all of our bullets to fight the depression that was dropping over me like a heavy, dark blanket, I just closed my eyes and thought about it while Tanya and Sam filled Johnny and Cheryl in on the events of the last few days.
I had already heard Johnny say that he never had access to the Survivor board—the list of survivors and camps—and that he was given the Survivor Reach Out recordings on data sticks. He had no idea which camp they came from or when they were recorded.
After hearing that, I tuned out.
I needed to get my hands on one of the networked military laptops if I was to have any chance of finding Joe.
The harbour looked as deserted as it had earlier except for the drowned hybrid bodies floating face down in the water by the boats. The ones that hadn’t jumped in after us had disappeared. Probably hiding in the shadows of the buildings. The hybrids seemed to go into a dormant state when there was no prey around. They found a place out of sight and stayed there until triggered into action by sound or movement.
I thought back to the hybrid in the village, standing in the middle of the road waiting for us. He hadn’t been hiding because he knew the prey was already aware of his presence. But when he first saw us, he was hidden in the trees at the edge of the field.
As we got closer to the metal barricade, I stared at the shadows between the buildings, waiting for a tell-tale movement. There was none.
“We’re going to have to get the boat over the jetty,” Tanya said. “And we’re going to have to do it fast. Those bastards are around here somewhere.”
Sam picked up one of the L85s. “No problem, man. We’ve got guns now.”
Tanya picked up the other rifle and nodded. “Only shoot if you have to. We need to preserve ammo.”
“You got it,” Sam replied.
Jax steered us around the floating bodies to the steps that ran up to the top of the jetty. Sam took the rope and jumped out onto the lowest step, pulling the Zodiac towards him. We grabbed our weapons, Johnny taking Tanya’s crowbar and Cheryl picking up Sam’s tire iron. We all got out and picked up the boat, carrying it on our shoulders as we ascended the steps. Once we were past this obstacle, we would be back on the Lucky Escape. I could hardly wait. My nerves were frayed. I felt exposed out here.
Not long now. Just get across this jetty and we’d be safe.
But as we got to the top of the stairs, all hell broke loose.
Sam was in the lead and he was the first to react. He shouted, “No!” and let go of the Zodiac as he brought his rifle up. The boat crashed down on one side as Sam started firing.
The hybrids were everywhere, getting up from where they had been lying on the cement jetty. They had been silent and patient while we blindly stumbled into their trap.
I realised with a sudden cold clarity that in our absence, they had not gone into a dormant stage at all.
They were waiting for us.
Chapter 28
The Zodiac crashed to the steps then slid into the water.
Sam brought up his rifle as a hybrid leapt at him. The gun spat twice and the hybrid crumpled at Sam’s feet.
Tanya joined Sam and began shooting into the mass of yellow-eyed ex-soldiers. The ones they hit dropped to the cement but there were so many others, it was only a matter of seconds before they would overwhelm us by sheer numbers.
We had no choice but to get back onto the Zodiac. Sam and Tanya were already backing down the steps as they fired into the advancing hybrids.
The Zodiac’s rope floated on the water like a dead snake. I grabbed it and pulled the boat closer to the steps.
I didn’t need to tell anyone that the Zodiac was our only chance of survival. Cheryl and Jax jumped on board, followed by Johnny and myself. Tanya and Sam came backwards down the steps, the L85s kicking and spitting in their hands. Hybrid bodies littered the steps.
Jax pulled on the starter cord. The engine spluttered and died. She shouted, “Come on!”
Tanya and Sam continued shooting until they both ran out of ammo.
There were still dozens of hybrids on the jetty.
They leapt into the Zodiac and Jax pulled the starter cord again. The engine coughed out a cloud of gasoline smoke. Jax tried again but the engine still did not start.
Sam and Johnny grabbed the metal oars from the floor of the boat and used them to push us away from the jetty before beginning to row us out into the harbour.
We weren’t going to put the distance between us and the hybrids in time.
Two hybrids jumped from the steps and grabbed the side of our boat. They attempted to scramble on board but I swung my bat into the skull of the one closest to me and it collapsed into the water.
Sam jammed his rifle butt into the face of the other, sending it sprawling backwards. It still held onto the boat with one hand until Sam smashed its fingers with the butt and the hybrid sank into the depths. Sam picked up the oar again and rowed furiously to get us farther from danger.
Four more hybrids jumped down on us. One of them missed the Zodiac entirely and splashed into the water. Two landed short but managed to hook their arms over the side of the boat. Sam and I went to work on them. I smashed the bat down on the head of the one closest to me. The impact was so hard it sent a blast of pain through my hands and wrists and up my arm. The hybrid sank into the water, leaving a stain of blood spreading across the surface.
Sam attacked the other with the rifle butt, sending it reeling away.
Behind me, I heard a scream. I turned in time to see the fourth hybrid land in the boat and scramble for Cheryl. She kicked at it but everything happened so fast, nobody else had time to react. The hybrid lunged forward and sunk its teeth into Cheryl’s neck. Her scream became a garbled choke as the hybrid’s forward motion took them both over the side of the boat into the harbour.
“No! Cheryl!” Johnny cried, reaching for her. She and the hybrid splashed into the water before Johnny could even get a hand on her. He stared over the side of the boat a
t the place where she had disappeared.
“It’s too late,” Tanya said, putting a hand on his shoulder. She took the oar from him and began rowing while Johnny slumped against the side of the Zodiac, tears running down his cheeks.
More hybrids leapt from the jetty, grabbing for us as they hit the water. Like last time, they didn’t seem to realise when it was time to give up the chase. We were out of reach but they still tried to get us, drowning themselves in the process.
As we rowed farther out, the hybrids stopped, finally understanding they couldn’t get us. They stood on the steps and jetty and stared at us with their hateful yellow eyes.
Sam and Tanya stopped rowing and we drifted in the darkness. The wind was picking up. It bit through my clothes and chilled me. The water became rougher. We bobbed up and down on the waves.
“What now?” Jax asked. “I can’t get the engine started.”
“One thing is for certain,” I said, “We can’t get around the barricade by going across the harbour. We might have to go around it at the other end, across the bay.”
Tanya shook her head. “We’d have to go into those fields. They’re heaving with shamblers.”
“What if we went over the barricade, man?” Sam asked.
“Climb over it?” I asked.
He nodded. “Yeah.”
I looked at the army barricade. The metal wall sections were at least ten feet high and made of smooth steel. If I couldn’t get over the wall at the radio station without help, there was no way I could climb over a sheer metal barrier. “We can’t get the Zodiac over,” I said.
“That doesn’t matter,” Sam replied. “We can swim to the Lucky Escape once we get on the other side. We can all swim.” He prodded Johnny Drake. “Hey, can you swim, man?”
Johnny, who had been lost in his own thoughts, looked up and nodded.
“It’ll be easy,” Sam said.
In the distance, thunder rumbled. I wondered if it was an omen.
Undead Rain Trilogy Box Set Page 28
