“Yep, I’m fine.” A deep breath eased her taut lungs and she added, “I promise, Flynn, I won’t give up on you again. I’m so, so sorry.”
So dark in the room that Vicky couldn’t see his movement, she flinched when Flynn reached over and held her hand. Larger than hers, and always surprisingly strong, Vicky squeezed it back.
The pair remained that way as they drifted off to sleep.
Chapter Four
The aches of an early morning gripped Vicky’s body as she opened her eyes and stared up into the darkness of their room. It would be a while before she felt rested after a night in a nearly comfortable bed. The windowless room made it impossible to tell the time of day, but she had no more sleeping in her. After a deep inhale and a sigh, she heard Flynn shift next to her, the springs groaning their protest at his movement.
“You awake, Vicky?”
Vicky flicked the light switch and watched Flynn recoil as if the glare could cause him harm. After he’d ducked beneath his duvet, he spoke again, his voice muffled by the bedding. “You could have warned me you were going to do that.”
It was impossible for her not to smile. Vicky waited for him to reappear and swallowed against the funky taste of morning in her mouth.
When he poked his head out again, Vicky grinned at his dishevelled hair. “Have you been awake long?”
A shake of his head and Flynn stared back at her. “You?”
“No, not long. I’m not sure I can lie in for any longer though.”
“Why hasn’t anyone asked us to do anything? Surely there’s plenty of work that needs to be done in a place like this.”
“I think we’ll get jobs,” Vicky said. “But I get the impression they want to let us get our strength up first. I don’t know about you, but too long lounging around without purpose will drive me nuts.”
At that moment, Vicky sat up. Although she kept her covers on her, she suddenly felt aware of being dressed in a vest and knickers. They’d spent so much time together it felt like they were related, but they weren’t. She should cover up around the young man.
Clearly unable to look over, Flynn blushed, got out of bed, and picked up Vicky’s clothes for her. Just before he tossed them onto her bed, Vicky shook her head. “Can you give me yesterday’s tracksuit?”
When Flynn turned a puzzled look on her, she shrugged. “I’ve heard there’s a couple of rooms with gym equipment. I’ve run nearly every day for the past decade, so if nothing else, that’s what I need to do now. Wanna come?”
The apathy of a teenager came back at Vicky with Flynn’s gentle shrug, and Vicky couldn’t help but laugh. She slipped her tracksuit bottoms on beneath the covers and hopped out of bed. “Come on, let’s go.”
***
The reek of bleach accompanied Vicky and Flynn’s walk to the gym. They’d passed through the medic bay-slash-kitchen area, and Vicky had watched Flynn’s wonder again as he looked around the cavernous space with his jaw hanging loose. The sheer size of Home certainly stood in stark contrast to the understated entranceway, and it had taken Vicky a few trips through the place to get over the vastness of it.
They entered the corridor with the gym room on it and Vicky heard the repetitive boom, boom, boom, boom of someone on a treadmill. If there had been any doubt as to where to find the room, the sound had just erased it.
The gym had no door on it, so the second they got level with it, Vicky saw Hugh on the treadmill. Tall and strong, he stared straight ahead, his face glistening with sweat as he pounded away on the machine. A glance at Vicky and he flashed her his brilliant white grin.
When Vicky looked into the next room along, she saw it had free weights in it. One room for cardio, one for muscle building. Not that she’d spend much time muscle building.
Vicky returned to the room with the machines and Flynn followed her in. Although the tang of bleach battled the heady funk of stale sweat, it didn’t quite overpower it. The room smelled like an old gym bag.
To be fair to Hugh, he clearly tried to look Vicky in the eye when she removed her sweatshirt, but for the briefest second, his stare ran the length of her body in her tight-fitting vest.
After Vicky had placed her clean clothes on the floor in a pile next to the ones she’d just taken off, she got onto the treadmill next to Hugh and set it at a slow pace to start with. She didn’t need to prove anything.
Once she’d settled into a gentle rhythm, she focused on her breath to keep it level and watched Flynn get on the exercise bike in front of the treadmills.
For the first few minutes, none of them spoke. Fixed stares straight ahead accompanied heavy breaths and the whir or thud of the machines. The hard floor and walls amplified every sound in the small space.
Vicky had seen the writing when she’d entered the room. Quotes and mantras written in black on the yellowing walls, Vicky read a few aloud as she ran. “I’m not where I need to be, but thank fuck I’m not where I was.”
A wry smile and Hugh forced the words out through his heavy breaths. “I replaced the word ‘god’ with fuck. I’m not anti-religion or anything, but it’s just not my bag, you know?”
Instead of replying, Vicky read the next quote, grinning as she said it, “Fitness: A lifestyle with no finish line.”
From the look on Hugh’s face, he took the jibes in the good humour Vicky had intended. “They may seem ridiculous to you now, but when you spend ten years here, it’s little things like those quotes that make the difference.”
A nod at the man and Vicky turned the speed up on her treadmill until the red LCD letters on the screen had turned to seven point zero. When she looked across at Hugh’s machine, she saw he had it set to eleven.
About thirty seconds later, Vicky went from seven point one up to eight point five. The click of each increment grabbed Hugh’s attention, who looked across at the machine with a raised eyebrow.
As if caught up in the competition, Flynn pedaled faster.
Several more beeps later and Vicky had gone up to level ten. After a few days’ rest, her lungs felt tight and her legs ached, but she’d been here many times before, and when she’d had the diseased on her tail, she had to push through it. Once she got past the pain, she could run forever. Although, getting through to the other side seemed harder when she didn’t have a pack of rotting diseased behind her.
A few more beeps and Vicky got up to eleven next to Hugh. The pair fell into a natural rhythm, their feet beating against the treadmill in unison, their ragged breaths mirroring one another’s. They both stared straight ahead. At that speed, to look down would upset Vicky’s balance and she’d be flung into the wall and the stupid quote that read I think I like who I am becoming. A collision with that would undermine the statement in an instant.
The vigorous exercise allowed no room for conversation. Still, Flynn said, “When will you tell us about the alarm, Hugh?”
Unflinching as he stared straight ahead, Hugh took a few seconds before he replied. “You’re right to be suspicious about the alarm. There is more to it than we’ve let on. But instead of explaining it—” he fought to get his breath back “—let me show you the next time we need to set it off.”
“Do you set it off often?” Flynn asked.
“No. Thankfully.”
The reply silenced Flynn, and the tension in the room thickened. What did he mean by that?
It upset Vicky’s balance to look across at Flynn, but she did it anyway and met his wide-eyed glare. He clearly wanted some kind of response.
“I trust you, Hugh,” she said. Not that she did, but Hugh didn’t need to know that. A glance back at Flynn and Vicky saw his eyes had stretched even wider. “Whatever it is, we can wait until you’re ready to show it to us.”
Flynn stopped cycling, got off the exercise bike, picked up his clean set of clothes, tutted at Vicky, and left the room.
A couple of minutes passed before Hugh said, “What’s his problem?”
Hot from the run, Vicky dragged lungfuls of air in
to her body and ran her arm across her brow to clear the sweat. “He doesn’t trust you and he doesn’t think that I should either.”
Several beeps and Hugh slowed his treadmill down to nine point five. “But you do, right?”
Vicky followed his lead and also slowed down. Pain spread through her chest as she fought to pull in all of the oxygen she needed. “Yeah, I think so.”
What else could she say? She would watch him closely. Any sign of wrongdoing and she’d leave Home in a flash, but Hugh didn’t need to know that.
After a pause, Hugh said, “So why did you come to the gym today?” The grin on his face looked like he thought Vicky came because of him.
A shake of her head and Vicky laughed; the male ego never ceased to amaze her. “I came because I have nothing to do in my room.”
“That’s because you need to rest.”
“Maybe, but I haven’t rested in over a decade, so it’s not something that comes easily for me. I haven’t been inside for this amount of time in over a decade either. I suppose it’s making me antsy. I need to do something.”
“If only everyone used that method to deal with their pent-up energy.”
“Huh?”
Hugh batted the comment away with his hand. “So how about you join us on the Home guards?”
“No.”
“You don’t even want to think about it?”
“Sure I do, but I promised Flynn I’d stay by his side. I left him once; I’m not prepared to do it again.”
“But he’ll be safe in Home. Nothing can break in.”
“Even if you’re right, I’m not sure I could deal with other people’s bullshit. If it was just a case of fighting and working, then I could do it, no problem, but it’s dealing with the drama of this place. I’m not sure I could cope with that. And I don’t want to work with Jessica.”
Now they’d slowed down, Hugh seemed to have more energy. After he’d thrown his head back in a laugh, he said, “That’s a fair point about the politics of this place; it does get tiring. Although, Jessica’s all right. You just need to give her a chance.”
Before Vicky could reply, Hugh cut her off, “And you get one of our sexy uniforms.”
Vicky laughed this time. “Well, that’s me sold, then! Look, how about I talk to Flynn and we take it from there?” At least if she worked closer to Hugh, she could keep more of an eye on him.
A final beep on Hugh’s treadmill and the machine slowed down to a standstill. He then offered his hand for Vicky to shake. “I’ll take that deal.”
Although sweaty, Vicky took his hand.
Chapter Five
“So have you thought about what role you might like here?”
Flynn spoke as he scooped up another spoonful of his broth. “Dunno, not really considered it yet.”
“Maybe you should.”
Flynn didn’t respond, a slight wince on his face as he ate.
“I’ve been having a look at what there is for me to do,” Vicky said. “Guard looks like a good option.”
Flynn froze, his soup spoon on the way to his mouth again, and he tilted his head to one side. He didn’t speak. He didn’t need to; his pained accusation said it all.
The stark glare of the boy put Vicky on edge. “I … I, uh, Hugh suggested it and I just thought it might be a good idea, you know. I could do my bit for the community.”
To take herself away from his glare, Vicky looked around her. A vast amphitheatre of a room, its floor was littered with tables and chairs. There seemed to be no plan for the layout. And why should there be? Maybe if Home had four times the residents—four or five hundred rather than the one hundred people that lived there—then they’d need to be more organised. As it stood, the huge place had room to spare. Room for the chaos of disorganisation. Even when everyone in Home gathered in the space, it still looked empty. It painted a sad picture of how ravaged humanity had been by the disease. Ten years and they still barely broke three digits in their number.
When Vicky looked back at Flynn, she found him still staring at her.
“So what else has Hugh asked you to do?”
“What are you suggesting?”
“I’ve seen the way you look at him.”
A few people at a table nearby looked over, and heat flushed Vicky’s cheeks. She turned back to Flynn and scowled at the boy. Most of the time she watched Hugh to look for the cracks in his act. If she joined the guards, she could watch him more closely. Not that she could say that in the public space of the canteen. Besides, there seemed no point in making Flynn doubt him too. She didn’t have any evidence against his character.
“You said you wouldn’t leave me again,” Flynn said.
“And I won’t. I’ll be going out for sure, but I’ll be back every day. It’ll be just like it was in the containers.”
“So I’ll sit around doing nothing all day again? Behave like the good little boy I am while you and Hugh run around playing action heroes.”
The memories of a decade’s worth of encounters with the diseased flashed through Vicky’s mind. Sometimes, when she closed her eyes, she saw strobed images as the recollection of the violence blinked through her consciousness. Snapping jaws, bloody mouths, flailing arms … the repeated cracking of skulls as she executed one after another. No matter how she tried, she’d never forget the feeling of their craniums giving way to her blows.
When she spoke to Flynn again, she delivered it with the jab of a pointing finger. “You don’t know what I’ve seen and what I’ve been through to make sure you stayed alive. Do you think it’s fun running for your life for the sake of a tin of beans? You think I enjoyed that responsibility? Poor you, having to remain safe for all of those years while everyone else looked after you.”
The self-righteous anger that could only come with the inexperience of youth drained from Flynn’s tight features and he dropped his gaze to the white table between them.
The brown soup had vegetables in it, and when Vicky took a sip, she tasted rich meat of one sort or another. With no trace of the chewy texture of a dead animal, the stock must have come from a carcass at some point. As she ate, she stared at Flynn, daring him to speak again.
When Flynn drew a breath as if to reply, he opened his mouth and was cut short by the shrill scream of a woman. So high in pitch, it went off like a sonic blast and turned Vicky’s spine to ice. Such a violent noise, it sounded all the worse because it didn’t belong in the canteen; outside on the battlefield maybe, but not here, not with all the children around. Like a gunshot in a playground, it ran cold dread through Vicky, who spun around to see the woman who’d made the noise.
On her feet, the woman screamed again and slashed at the air between her and a man on the other side of the table from her. “You fucking fuck! What the fuck? You piece of shit.”
Wide eyed and red faced, she yelled with such malice spittle shot from her mouth.
“Look, love, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
The woman stepped up on one of the benches to get to the table and closer to him, a metal butter knife in her hand. “You know everything. You’re inside my head, I know it. I hear your voice when I sleep.” She knocked against her skull with a clenched fist. “I even hear it during the day. Tormenting me, telling me to do crazy things.”
Her voice lifted even higher as she screamed louder than before. “You have no right to be in my head. You need to get the fuck out.”
Bowls of soup sat lined up along the table the woman stood on. She kicked each one toward the man as she walked down it.
By that point, Vicky had gotten to her feet. Flynn grabbed her arm as if to stop her, but Vicky shook it off and stepped toward the woman.
A good twenty metres separated Vicky and the crazy woman, so she edged closer as the woman continued. “I’ve put up with it for too long.”
It might only have been a butter knife in her hand, but the woman looked like she could do plenty of damage with it as she waved it in the man’s directi
on. The man had stood up and backed away from her toward one of the corridors that led out of the canteen.
A girl no older than twelve stood between the woman and the retreating man. “Joanne, what are you doing? Harry didn’t say anything to you. Why are you having a go at him?”
When Vicky saw the look the woman levelled at the young girl, she took off. She stepped up onto a chair and leaped at one of the several tables between her and the commotion. She sprang from one table and landed on top of another with a loud crash, but even that didn’t break the woman’s focus on the child.
Vicky jumped down to the floor and swerved around several chairs before she sprang back up onto another table. Just a few metres separated her and the crazy woman, who yelled again and lunged at the young girl, knife first. The girl’s scream joined that of the woman’s.
Just before the woman made contact, Vicky leaped at her, rugby tackled her around the waist, and knocked the woman from the table down onto the hard floor. Vicky landed on top of her, driving the air from the crazy woman’s body with a deep omph.
Vicky sat on the woman’s chest with her knees on the woman’s biceps. The crazed eyes of the lunatic showed a lack of humanity Vicky had only previously associated with the diseased. Lost in the confusion of her own mind, this woman clearly didn’t register any human rationality. Something had broken inside of her.
The woman twisted and writhed beneath Vicky’s weight, but no matter how she tried, she couldn’t throw Vicky from her. After a short while, exhaustion took over and the woman lost some of her fight.
Vicky then felt a hand squeeze her shoulder. When she looked behind her, she saw Jessica flanked by Hugh and Serj. “You can leave her to us now, Vicky. Thank you.”
Hugh and Serj moved to either side of the woman and grabbed an arm each. Vicky climbed off her and stared at the dishevelled mess as they dragged her to her feet. Something had permanently switched off inside of the woman, and it didn’t look like it would come back any time soon.
The Alpha Plague 5: A Post-Apocalyptic Action Thriller Page 3
