Several diseased’s screams burst from behind the gym. A small pack emerged a second later. So much for reaching the gates without being spotted. As Matilda caught up to him, William said, “Even if we were super cautious, we had no chance of seeing them.”
Her reply came in the form of ringing steel from where she drew her sword and quickened her pace to catch up with Hugh.
Faster than William, Matilda sprang on the diseased while Hugh fought them, jamming her sword into the right ear of one, pulling it back out again with a wet squelch before she went to work on another.
Just one left for William by the time he caught up. He swung a hacking blow into its neck, knocking it to the ground before he stabbed the gasping creature through the face.
The three of them might have made quick work of the pack, but the diseased let the world know they were in a fight. A second or two of silence passed before the roar of the horde they’d left outside the hut flew at them from across the field. A leading pack of about ten had an army of at least one hundred spread out behind them.
William yelled, “Run!” and took off towards the gym. When he reached the wooden rungs leading up the back of the tall building, he stood aside for Matilda.
Before she got to him, her face red, her brow furrowed, she said, “What the hell are you doing?”
“Climb!”
Although Matilda followed William’s instruction, she spat the word, “Prick,” as she ascended the ladder.
William followed her up, dew from the grass turning the soles of his boots slick.
A few seconds later—the leading pack on his tail—Hugh reached the gym and climbed.
Matilda on the roof, William three-quarters of the way up, and Hugh about six feet from the ground. The first of the lead diseased jumped and grabbed Hugh’s feet.
William’s stomach sank as Hugh got ripped from the rungs and dragged into the mob below.
Chapter 15
William gripped the wooden rung tighter as Hugh hit the ground, almost as if he could somehow hold on for his already fallen friend. Ten or so diseased, but Hugh knew how to fight. He’d be okay. He could take on that many. Not having had time to sheathe it before climbing, Hugh still had his sword in his hand as he jumped up swinging, temporarily driving them back. But they had him surrounded.
After dropping down several rungs, William mouthed an apology to Matilda, who’d already made it to the roof. She frowned, but before she replied, he answered her question by releasing his grip and kicking away from the wall.
William landed next to Hugh and then turned his back on his friend. Too concerned with his half of the pack to see what Hugh did, he went to work, his arms moving like pistons. Stabbing several times, he sank his blade into faces and chests, the creatures’ stench spilling from them with their pints of rancid blood. Soaked in the beasts’ warm spray, it took all he had to focus on them and not the pack ten times their number closing in from behind.
Four down, William spun around. A diseased closed in from Hugh’s right, its jaw stretched wide, its crimson eyes glazed. It took the end of William’s sword to its temple, already dead when it crashed into Hugh.
The front runners down, William stood aside to give Hugh a clear path to the ladder. But Hugh charged at the larger pack instead.
Just before Hugh escaped his reach, William grabbed his collar and dragged him back. He then shoved him at the gym. “Get up on the roof, you fool.”
For a second time, Hugh tried to break away. William caught him again and slammed him against the gym’s back wall, driving a gasp from his stocky friend. “You’re going to get us both killed!”
For the briefest moment, the Hugh William knew so well broke through the dark glaze in his brown-eyed stare. His face fell slack and the colour left his skin before he turned to the ladder and climbed.
Aware of Matilda peering down on them, William watched his friend, waiting for enough space to follow.
The chasing pack came at William like a landslide, but he sheathed his sword. It wouldn’t be a fight if he remained on the ground. His body tensed. His lungs tightened. His pulse worked overtime.
Hugh finally climbed high enough for William to follow. His progress only as fast as his friend above, it took all he had to refrain from screaming at the boy.
William had climbed about six feet when the lead runner appeared, its arms windmilling as it slapped the heel of his left boot. It tore his feet from the rung, the lower half of his body swinging away from the building. But he’d learned from Hugh and held on, finding his footing again after several scrambling attempts.
Although others tried to grab him, William climbed out of their reach.
At the top of the ladder, William fell onto the roof, gasping as he rolled over onto his back and looked up at both Matilda and Hugh, who stood over him with the same furrowed expression.
“What was that about?” Matilda said.
Using everything he had to drag more air into his lungs, William only had the breath for, “Huh?”
“That!” Her finger pointed at where he’d just climbed up. “Letting me up the ladder first! You should know me better than to play that ladies-first bullshit. If we’re going to survive this, you need to recognise me as a soldier. I’d kick your arse ten times over. You’d do well to remember that!”
Still too breathless to speak, William then faced Hugh’s wrath. “And jumping down after me. I had it covered.”
At least he could shake his head in response to his short and stocky friend.
Matilda’s face had turned puce and she balled her fists. “That was suicide jumping off after Hugh.”
William finally found the breath to reply. “Firstly, Matilda, it was nothing to do with ladies first. I let you up before me because you’re the fastest climber and we needed the ladder clear.” A pause to level himself out. “I knew you’d get up it the quickest.”
Although her face contorted, Matilda held onto her response.
“And, Hugh, had I not jumped down, you’d be one of them by now. You’re one of the best fighters I know, but you’re not that good. And why the hell did you try to fight the larger pack?” But Hugh’s eyes had glazed before William had even finished. Matilda’s raised eyebrows weren’t lost on him, and although he continued to focus on Hugh, the words were for her. “We’re in this together. I’d go after you again, Hugh.”
The run had aggravated the pain in William’s right foot, and he shook as he stood up. Hugh remained locked in his trance while Matilda had more to say. But as she spoke, he lost track of her words and pointed in the direction of Edin. “Um, you two.”
Matilda saw it first. “Shit! Those gates outside, waiting to be fitted on the latest extension of the wall …”
“Must have been taken from in here,” William said, a large space where the gates between the national service area and the rest of Edin should be.
Hugh’s thick shoulders slumped. “Could there have been a worse time for me to let the diseased in?”
From their current position, they saw most of Edin. Where the districts had been characterised by difference over the years—the coloured fabrics of textiles, the factories of woodwork, the vibrancy of ceramics, the fields of agriculture—they all now had one major thing in common: chaos. In every street of every district ran scores of diseased. The virus had brought their home to its knees.
Chapter 16
Two hours earlier
The guard continued to comfort Olga, his thick arm around her while he led her from the labs. At first, she’d been so preoccupied with being caught and the fact that she’d killed at least one person in woodwork, she hadn’t looked at the district. Now settled by the guard, she took the place in. It had more open space than anywhere else she’d seen in Edin. But not like agriculture, which had the open space of fields because they were being used for the greater good. Instead, the labs were set in a vast expanse of wasteland. Kids were being massacred on national service for extra room, and the labs had acres t
o spare.
Not only did the labs have more open land than Olga had ever seen, but the buildings were different too. Much like the structures in the national service area, the labs were constructed from wood. But the huts here were placed end to end in one sprawling complex. Compared to the squalor everyone else lived in, it looked positively luxurious.
As they approached the labs’ exit, Olga said, “You mentioned the woodwork district revolting and wood quotas. What did you mean?”
“Didn’t you ever wonder why woodwork was so locked down as a district?”
“I had theories, one of them being how close it was to the labs.”
“The place is run by gangs,” the guard said. “As you’ve just found out. They decide how to run the district, and Edin lets them as long as they meet their production quotas.”
“Why?”
“They threaten to revolt if they’re not left alone. It’s the only district organised enough to be able to overthrow the government, so they have an agreement.”
“But?” Olga said. “How—?”
“How have you not heard about it before?”
“Yeah.”
“They keep to themselves. The gangs have a tight enough control to keep their citizens silent. The punishment for anyone who talks is severe. It’s also why they don’t give their children the same freedoms as everyone else.”
“But they send them on national service?”
“Another requirement from the powers that be. No one gets out of national service.”
“So you’re from woodwork?”
“No.”
“But … your daughter?”
“They took her from tailoring. There was nothing we could do. No one wants to get involved. The life of one girl isn’t worth inciting a revolution.” He spoke through gritted teeth. “Unless it was the child of a politician—I’m sure they’d go to war for that. But as you know, all life isn’t equal in Edin, and the outspoken get evicted. The only power I had was to get work in the labs …”
Olga left the silence hanging to allow him to explain.
“The labs are even more locked down than woodwork. They always have diseased in here, so they need guards to keep out any unauthorised people. They give us the power to kill if we think the threat warrants it.”
“So it allows you to deliver justice to the gangs from woodwork? It gives you the power to decide they’re a big enough threat?”
A frame of pure muscle, even the guard’s jaw had lumps when he tensed it. “Yep, and I always do.”
The pair walked out onto the main street, the guards at the entrance to the labs watching Olga but letting them through. She cast one last glance back at the sprawling layout of the buildings. Where were they keeping Max? Whatever happened, she’d get him out of there.
The guard said, “Where are you from?”
“Laundry.”
He led them back towards her home and shook his head. “Tough break.”
“Is it?”
“I mean, none of the jobs in this city are dream jobs, but I can’t imagine washing clothes all day is much fun.”
Olga shrugged.
“So what brings you over here? Whenever we catch adults moving through the city, they always have a story.”
“I’ve just come back from national service.”
“It gets easier.”
“Huh?”
“Reintegration into society. After years of having freedom as a kid, then seeing half the people you care for torn apart by those things—”
As if on cue, the shrieks of several diseased pierced the morning air, and Olga said, “They sound louder today.”
“They always do after national service. You’ll get used to them again. Soon they’ll be nothing but background noise. Anyway, as I was saying, reintegration’s hard. The life in front of you is going to be dull and monotonous from here on out. And not just your life, the life most of us have to live. We’ll work the same job until we retire, and the likelihood is we’ll be as good as dead by then anyway. Living in this place is like serving a prison sentence on death row. The end will come as a relief.”
“Should you be saying all this to me?”
“Everyone else lies to you, kid. I don’t want to be a part of that. You’re smart, and I’m sure I’m not telling you anything you don’t know. Other than maybe how they run woodwork.”
The farther they walked back into Edin, the busier the main street became, the people watching her and the guard as they passed. The press of her blood-damp clothes heightened Olga’s paranoia. But if those who passed them had thoughts, they kept them to themselves, their faces impassive. They did what Edin’s citizens always did in the main street: they moved with the purpose of whatever job they’d been sent to do, lest they get their privilege of being let out taken away. And if they were kids enjoying the freedom of youth, they were too caught up in their peers to notice a blood-soaked girl and a guard.
Woodwork now on their left, the wooden hatches of Edin’s underground storage on either side of the street, the guard said, “You never said what you were doing.”
“In woodwork?”
“Yeah.”
“Heading for the labs. I wanted to find someone I was on national service with. He saved my life and got bitten in the process. But he didn’t turn.”
The whites of the guard’s eyes stood out against his dark skin. “So what have they done with him?”
“They’ve locked him away. He’s their latest science experiment.”
“And you want to free him?”
“Yeah.” As the word left Olga’s mouth, a chill crawled up her back. She’d said too much.
“Don’t you worry that he’s carrying the disease?”
“Maybe. I was going to take both of us out of the city and away from here. So even if he is a danger to Edin, it won’t be a problem.”
Olga’s stomach sank when the guard shook his head. The air damn near crackled between them as the atmosphere changed, a deep scowl hooding his eyes. “I can’t have that.”
“What do you mean?”
The guard wrapped his hand around Olga’s left bicep. A grip of iron, she had no chance of escape. “I can’t have one of our citizens thinking it’s okay to release an infected person into society.”
Half-hearted, but she had to try, Olga tugged against the guard. She’d only get free when he decided. “What are you doing? I thought you understood.”
“I didn’t want you getting in danger in woodwork, but I don’t understand why you’d want to risk the lives of an entire city.”
Another shrill diseased’s scream, closer this time.
“It’s still my job to protect Edin and the people in it.”
Olga slammed her right heel on the guard’s left foot. She could have sworn she felt something crack. The brute screamed and dropped to the ground.
A moment to react, Olga snatched his baton before sprinting back towards the labs, the peep of the guard’s whistle calling after her. She had nothing to lose now. Once she got Max, they could both get out of there.
Another whistle joined the first as other guards responded. She could outrun them. She could run faster than most—especially guards dressed in their full uniform—but not on the main street. She had to lose them in a district.
Then Olga’s escape plan abandoned her and she slowed down. The whistles behind drew closer. But she didn’t turn to look. She couldn’t. Instead, she watched what came towards her. A wall of them as wide as the open street. Screaming, hissing, snarling … They bit at the air, their limbs flailing. There had to be hundreds of them.
Olga turned from the stampeding diseased and ran back the way she’d come. Shrieks and cries on her tail, she passed several stunned guards. One or two of them still had whistles in their mouths. Whatever else had happened up until that moment, it all became irrelevant. Judging by the size of the mob swarming through the streets, Edin now belonged to the diseased.
Chapter 17
A c
ity William didn’t recognise stretched away from him as he swayed in the strong winds because of his elevated position on the gym’s roof. The life he’d known had gone. A gap of no more than two feet had ushered in the destruction of an entire city. Edin had always had the order of an ant colony, everyone serving their monotonous purpose for the greater good. But now, with chaos tearing through the streets, it bore little resemblance to his home.
Matilda’s dark eyes narrowed. “Artan’s in a cell.”
William didn’t reply.
“That has to be one of the safest places in the city right now. If they’re strong enough to keep the prisoners contained, they must be strong enough to prevent the diseased from getting in.”
The words sank through William and he swayed where he stood. “You think we can get through Edin?”
Matilda shrugged. “That’s not the question.”
“Then what is?”
“Is Artan still alive?”
“What if someone’s already let him out?”
“What if they haven’t? And why would they? If you had to run for your life, would you waste time freeing someone you believed to be a murderer? Someone due for eviction anyway. Also, don’t you want to see if your mum and dad are okay?”
“Of course, but …” The wind blew too hard for William to shout over.
All the while, Hugh stared down at where the gates between Edin and the national service area had once been. His eyes were glazed and he stood perfectly still, impervious to the wind’s effect. Were his cheeks not damp with his tears, William wouldn’t have known he was crying. Whatever anyone else said to the boy to reassure him, this was his fault. Not that William blamed him, but there seemed little point in trying to convince him otherwise.
Matilda pulled William’s attention back to her. “I’m going whether you come or not. I have to assume he’s alive, and there’s no way I’m going to let him rot in a cell.”
Even as they spoke, the diseased spread out, finding every corner of the city. Several districts close to them were already alive with fury, and those farther back, like tailoring, had already fallen and were growing more populated by the second. William chose not to look at his home district. There seemed little point. What could he do about it from his current position? “Okay, I’ll go with you. But I’d like to pass through agriculture on the way.”
Collapse: Book four of Beyond These Walls - A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Thriller Page 7
