Collapse: Book four of Beyond These Walls - A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Thriller
Page 15
“We need to rest. Besides, we can’t create more sunlight. Give it another hour or two and it’ll be dark out. I’m not confident I can find a better place than this in that time.”
Matilda’s cheeks had reddened and she shook her head. “We’re too vulnerable here.”
“As opposed to the streets outside?”
William felt Hugh’s attention on him as if in a silent plea. If anyone could persuade Matilda to see reason, it was him.
Matilda shook her head. “No.”
“No?” Olga stood up again.
“I’m not staying here. If Artan’s locked in a cell—”
“Then he’s safe,” William said. All three of them turned his way, but he kept his focus on Matilda. “If he’s in a cell, he’s safe. The city only fell this morning, so he won’t have been on his own for long. He’ll be okay for the night.”
“What about the state he’s in?”
A flashback to when he’d been to see the boy, William scratched his head and sighed. “I’m not sure one extra night will make things much worse. Olga’s right.” His voice caught in his throat and he swallowed several times. “We don’t have Goliath anymore. We can’t move through the city as easily as we did. Here, we’re hidden. We’re away from the diseased and the gangs, and we have blankets in case it gets cold. We’ll go first thing, but for now, we all need a rest—including you. Fatigue will make all of us sloppy.”
No matter how he empathised with her current state, when Matilda fixed her narrowed eyes on William, it ran straight to his heart. She moved away from the hatch to the darkest corner of the loft. If she had to wait here for the night, she wanted to be left alone!
William moved over to the opposite corner, hiding in the shadows as he laid his sword on the floor before sitting down and pulling several sheets around him. Hidden from the others’ sight, he ran through Goliath’s last moments. Such a noble creature, his deep brown eyes had begged him for release and given him the permission to do it. It took for a tear to fall from his chin before he realised he was crying. The dark loft a blur around him, he let it all out.
Chapter 40
The hard rain woke William with a start, a knot like a hot coal beneath his left shoulder blade from where he’d leaned against the wall all night. The murky glow of a new day spread through the loft, a strong breeze filling the space with cool and fresh air. Matilda remained in the corner she’d picked the previous evening, Olga nearby. Both of them were still asleep.
Despite the weather, it didn’t mask the steps on the roof above. “Hugh?” Olga stirred. Matilda remained motionless.
With slow movements, William pulled the sheets back and slipped from his impromptu bed, rolling his shoulders as if the action would be enough to rid his exhausted body of the aches inhabiting it. But they’d been driven deep into him, the collision with the wall enough to alter his posture for months.
The loft hatch opened inwards. It had made it much easier to access from the roof and allowed them to leave it gaping all night. Their only threat came from above, and if the gangs from woodwork couldn’t see a hatch swinging away from the building, then how could they possibly find them?
The rain fell so hard it stung William’s face. He opened his mouth to catch some of it. A muddy taste, but it would have to do, seeing as their supplies had hit the wall as hard as he had, and were no doubt now mashed into the wet ground surrounding Goliath’s corpse.
Although he hadn’t heard them over the rain, the sight of the diseased quickened William’s pulse. A harsh reminder of what they still had to face. But at least they now only had the rest of laundry and then the square between them and the political district.
William reached up for the rough tiles. They were wet but coarse, so they wouldn’t turn slick. He clamped his jaw against the stabbing beneath his left shoulder blade and kicked off from the loft, pulling himself up to see the roof. The second he did, he damn near lost his grip.
His legs swinging, the diseased giddy below, William pulled through his aches and reluctance, dragging himself onto the tiles.
On his feet, William walked towards Hugh, who stood in the centre of the roof. The short and powerful boy hadn’t yet turned his way. Keeping out of his reach, he called to him, “Uh, Hugh?”
Seven bodies in total lay scattered around them. When Hugh finally lifted his face, his eyes were red and puffy, his mouth open a little.
Seven corpses were bad enough, but what Hugh had done to them sent a shudder through William. One of them, a boy who must have been several years younger than them, had been splayed like a butterfly pinned to a board. His arms and legs stretched wide; he’d been cut open along the centre of his body. His intestines had been dragged across the tiles.
Hugh’s shaking hands were as covered in blood as his white lab coat. His hair soaked, rainwater dripped from the end of his nose.
Another body nearby, it took William a few seconds to identify the headless corpse as a girl.
When he looked up, William balked to find Hugh staring at him. His sword in his right grip, Hugh trembled. He finally closed his mouth, his teeth clamped shut, his jaw widened from the tight clench.
Loud enough to be heard over the rain, but desperate not to startle him, William said, “Hugh, what’s going on, mate?”
Prior to Elizabeth’s death, the Hugh currently on the roof had been a stranger to William. But as the days went on, Hugh’s alter ego became more prominent. A stronger personality than the mole of a boy they’d met when they first arrived on national service. His glazed eyes sat somewhere between fear and fury.
In the face of such volatility, William held his hands up to urge calm. “Put your sword down.”
Hugh’s face buckled again and his voice broke. “Why?”
“You’re scaring me, Hugh. Just put the weapon down and then we can talk, yeah?”
Clearly battling against himself, Hugh finally opened his hand, the sword hitting the wet tiles with a loud clang!
With slow, deliberate steps, William focused on his friend rather than the surrounding carnage. When he got close enough, he wrapped Hugh in a tight hug.
Hugh shook more than before. “I should have been there for Elizabeth. I should have been there when the woodwork gangs got her.”
“But you didn’t know her then.”
“I should have. I should have known what the gangs were doing and done something about them. I lived in the district next door. I should have known.”
“None of us knew about it, Hugh.” The rain continued to drive nails against the top of William’s head. “What happened? Where did these people come from?”
“I heard them in the night. They were a few roofs away. Maybe they didn’t know where we were, but I didn’t want to take the risk. It was dark enough for me to get onto the roof unseen. But I don’t know who did this to the bodies afterwards, Spike, I really don’t.”
Before William spoke, Hugh took a sudden step back. The glaze returned as he spun on the spot to take in the carnage. “I did this. I can see that now. I killed my dad, I mutilated Sarge, and I let Elizabeth die.”
“You didn’t let Elizabeth die.”
“But you know what scares me the most?”
William waited.
“Apart from Elizabeth, I’ve enjoyed it. The act isn’t the worst part. It’s when Hugh comes back to face what I’ve done.”
“Who’s here when Hugh’s not?”
Hugh’s eyes turned darker as he said, “The devil.”
William fought to both remain on the roof with his friend and to get his words out. “You’ll get back on track. A lot of people come back from national service with things to work out. And we’ve lost almost everyone.”
“Thanks to me. I created this. I left the gates open. Nearly everyone in Edin is dead.” He looked at the hellish massacre at their feet. “And then we left Max. Who are we to decide who we save and who we don’t? The kids in the national service area and then Max? He’s still in the labs; I know it.”
“Doesn’t she have a right to know? Wouldn’t you want to know if it was Matilda?”
“Know what? We don’t know anything for certain.”
“Wouldn’t you want to know?”
“Look, all we can do now is clean you and this mess up. We were going to be attacked in the night and you saved us, that’s a good thing. The girls don’t need to see what you’ve done to the bodies, do they?”
Hugh frowned and looked around while scratching his head. The glaze had left him again. “Oh dear, I’ve really done this, haven’t I?”
“Come on.” William reached down and picked up a severed arm and leg before walking across the roofs of several houses to a small alley. The diseased looked up in time to get the body parts in their faces. When Hugh threw the headless corpse of the girl off after him, William said, “Hopefully this will serve a purpose.”
“How?”
“If the gangs see it, they’ll think twice about following us. Now take that lab coat off.”
Hugh did as he said and tossed the coat into the alley.
Of the bodies around them, William found one of a similar build to Hugh. The boy lay on his front with his rear end in the air. It took all he had not to look at where Hugh had shoved the machete. He rolled the boy over and removed his top. He couldn’t look at Hugh as he handed him the garment. How long would it be before the devil returned? And when it did, would it turn on them?
After about ten minutes, they’d cleared the bodies from the roof. The rain had done a good job at washing most of the blood away. William rubbed his hands on his trousers as if wiping them would somehow remove the experience from his psyche. A machete in his hand, he showed it to Hugh. “At least Olga has a better weapon now.” They just needed to make sure she didn’t know where it had been. “Are you ready to go back to the girls?”
Hugh frowned, his eyes red from crying. He then nodded.
“Right, we’ll tell them you saved us, because you did. You killed several people, and now we need to move on.”
When Hugh didn’t reply, William said, “Right?”
Hugh nodded. “Right.”
William went first, kneeling down on the roof and sliding off it backwards, letting his legs hang down until his feet found the floor of the loft below. Hopefully, Hugh wouldn’t feel the need to talk about his guilt surrounding Max and the labs. On top of everything else, that was the last thing they needed.
Chapter 41
The rain had stopped, the sun breaking through the dense grey clouds. Not quite a jog, but they’d been on the move for about twenty minutes, their pace quick enough for William to be sweating beneath his clothes. They spoke little, all of them on high alert for the gangs from woodwork. As of yet, none had shown themselves. They’d known about Goliath, so hopefully they’d used that same ability to spy on them to witness what Hugh had done. If that didn’t keep them away, nothing would.
Hugh set the pace, jumping alleyways as he moved from roof to roof. Although William, Olga, and Matilda followed, they were at least thirty feet behind. Far enough back for Olga to speak freely. “What are you not telling me?”
“Huh?” Had Hugh told her about Max? William looked at Matilda. “Uh … what do you mean?”
“Come on, we can see Hugh’s lost the plot again. What did he do to those kids from the gangs?”
Even as the memory of the massacre flashed through his mind, William relaxed. A grizzly thought, but better than admitting the truth about Max. It didn’t matter how often he told himself the lie, the chances were Max was still locked in a cell in the labs. Were he back there now, he’d do more to free him, but they were too far away to do anything to help.
“Well?” Olga said. “What did he do?”
“Whatever it was, you think they didn’t deserve it?”
“Oh, no, I’m sure they deserved it. My concern isn’t for them. It’s obvious that Hugh’s losing the plot. Who knows what he’ll do in his current frame of mind. What if he turns on us?”
“He won’t.”
“You know that?”
“I promise you he won’t.”
“How can you make that promise?”
“I trust him.”
“That’s not a reason for us to trust him.”
“Us?”
“Matilda agrees with me.”
An apologetic wince, Matilda lifted her shoulders with a slight shrug. “At what point does he become too much of a liability?”
“Shit,” William said and halted. He then drew his sword. “We should have been paying more attention.”
At least fifteen boys and girls from woodwork blocked Hugh’s way. William jogged to catch up with him. One of the boys stepped forward. A tall lad with a shaved head, the sun bounced off his pale scalp. His blue eyes glared almost as bright. “We saw what you did to the others.”
“They shouldn’t have followed us,” Hugh said, the slow ring of steel as he drew his sword.
Olga and Matilda caught up, Matilda with her sword drawn and Olga gripping her machete.
The tall and bald boy held Hugh’s glare, his tone flat. “Well, we’ve followed you.”
“I thought the threat was implicit in my response,” Hugh said.
A vacant wash travelled across the boy’s face before Hugh sighed. “You’ve enunciated the point I was making. It seems like I need to be more direct with you. Spell it out and maybe speak using words with fewer syllables. You shouldn’t have followed us because you saw what happened to those who did. Do you understand now?”
The bald boy’s face twisted and he charged, the gang rushing forward with him. Before William or the girls reacted, Hugh ran to meet his attackers. Fast and with deadly accuracy, he slashed his sword across the throat of their leader, dragging a line of blood away from the bald kid’s neck.
As the boy fell, rolling over when his momentum continued to carry him forwards, Hugh took two more down, predicting their moves like they were as easy to read as the diseased. The gangs had been bullies for their entire lives. They didn’t understand combat, and it showed.
By the time William, Matilda, and Olga had moved forward to join the fight, Hugh had taken down nearly half the gang, and the others had backed off. And why wouldn’t they? Especially when Hugh had ignored the very real threat of those still standing and went to work on those he’d already dropped. He hacked and slashed, removing hands, feet, and heads, even from the ones who’d clearly passed. While he did it, he shouted, “This is for you, Elizabeth. These gangs won’t be able to harm anyone else.”
Nine members of the gang left, by the time he’d finished mutilating the fallen, Hugh backed them towards the edge of a roof at laundry’s perimeter. A drop of several feet to the ground below, William heard the diseased waiting for something to feast on.
“Please,” one of the nine said. “We’ll go. Just let us go.”
The drop from the roof landed in the square, the only thing between them and the political district. It took for them to get this close for William to see the wooden wall where there hadn’t been one before the city fell.
His sword pointed at the kids from the gang, Hugh stepped towards them. He shook when he shouted, the diseased below falling momentarily silent at the loud outburst. “On your knees and drop your weapons.”
Whatever had happened to him when Elizabeth died, it gave him a drive unlike anything William had seen. It had turned him almost superhuman. The gang fell to their knees.
“Now drop your weapons.”
The clang of several machetes and knives hit the tiles.
“Over the side, you morons.”
All nine of them—the once brave thugs of the gang—were reduced to subservient pets in the face of Hugh’s rage. They all threw their weapons over the side.
“Now hands behind your heads.”
One of the gang members Hugh had already dropped lay nearby. Still just about alive, she groaned as she tried to stand up on her one remaining leg. Olga hacked a deep cut into her neck.
Closer to Hugh, William again took in the square stretching out in front of them. The cage in the centre of it, rotting heads of the diseased on the spikes in the middle. The benches the lovers sat on. A lump lifted in his throat. Mr. P didn’t deserve that treatment. If he ever saw Robert Mack again …
“How are we going to get across?” Matilda said.
There were as many diseased in the large square as anywhere else. Too many. As William traced the route from one side of the square to the other, he sighed. “There’s nowhere to hide from them, and what’s that wooden wall about?”
Olga pointed across the main road at the structure in the distance. “What about the arena?”
“What about it?” William said.
“It might be a better route to the political district.”
“How?” Matilda said.
“We might be able to use it to get over the wall. It’s right next to it.”
Matilda shook her head. “But how will we get there?”
“Hugh?” Olga said.
The same glaze William had seen too many times fixed on Olga. A distance in his dark eyes. The devil had returned.
“Can you get these clowns over to the main road?”
“They’ll do whatever I need them to.”
“Okay,” Olga said, “I have a plan.”
“You heard her,” Hugh said to the gang, directing where they should go with a flick of his sword.
The gang stood up and walked off in single file. William spoke to Olga from the side of his mouth. “Good job we had Hugh to help us then, eh?”
Chapter 42
About ten feet from the edge of the roof, William stood with Olga and Matilda while Hugh moved closer to the street and lined up the woodwork gang. He made them kneel and face the main road as if they were about to be executed. The diseased grew louder at the sight of them.