They climbed the rest of the structure in silence, Max handing out bread sweetened with apple. Every bite sent a sugary hit swelling through William’s mouth, who leaned on the rough wall when they got to the top, the overgrown meadow and large lake beyond. “There seems to be about the same amount of diseased out there as always. I reckon if we partly open the gates, we can funnel them so they’re easy to kill. We could take the lot of them down before going outside.”
“I need a rest first,” Max said.
“Of course, you’ve been a star. Thank you for everything.”
“Hear, hear,” Olga said, holding Max’s hand. “I’m glad we got you out of that cell.”
If her glare was meant for Matilda, it fell flat because she had most of her focus on Artan. Little had changed in the boy’s demeanour, but at least he ate and had drank some water. As long as he moved when they needed him to, then he could have all the time he needed to get himself straight again.
The wind crashed into William like it always did this high up. He returned his attention to the lake on the other side of the meadow. His words caught, burning his throat, but he pushed through them. “I used to come here all the time with Dad. It was our chance to catch up. The number of people we saw evicted … I even knew one of them.”
The diseased’s blood had dried on Max’s face, flakes falling away with the persistent wind. “Who was it?”
“Someone Matilda and I knew. He ran a restaurant in ceramics.”
“And what did he do?” Olga this time.
“He was gay.”
Matilda pulled away from Artan for a moment. “Robert Mack deserves everything he got back there.”
“And then some,” Olga said.
Despite the rough surface, William continued to lean on the wall. “I can’t believe how much has happened in less than three days. Mum and Dad gone. Hugh. The girl in woodwork …”
The focus of Olga and Matilda turned on him. Artan still looked like he hadn’t registered much of what they’d said.
“We haven’t told you about her yet, have we?”
“Uh … no,” Olga said.
“When Max and I were leaving woodwork, there was a child trapped on a burning building.” A deep sigh to help him push on. “We tried to save her.”
The touch of Matilda’s hand against William’s back allowed him to stop. They didn’t need to hear any more if he didn’t want to say it. “But anyway,” he said, “I’m sure there will be plenty of time to talk about loss in the future. For now”—he held up the piece of bread he’d been eating and looked at the sky—“to Hugh. We wouldn’t have gotten here without you. Rest well, my friend.”
The others held their bread up, Olga crying as she chewed her next bite.
A few minutes of silence passed where they watched the long grass and the twenty or so diseased shambling through the meadow. Max then said, “So what now?”
William had plans, but before he could voice them, Matilda said, “Uh … you lot.”
Close to twenty of them, all of them carrying weapons, all of them covered in blood, they were led by the woman from cell number one, and they were heading straight for them, marching up the main road. They were ready for war.
Olga voiced the group sentiment. “Shit!”
Chapter 63
Because she walked at the front of the mob, William watched the prisoner from cell number one, and she stared straight back. They were too far away, but he was still careful to barely move his lips so his words couldn’t be read. Although, drawing his sword probably said everything it needed to. “We have the advantage.”
“How do you work that out, genius?” Olga had her sword ready. “We’re outnumbered at least four to one.”
“They have to climb up here. We can defend from higher ground.”
“Or they can just wait for us at the bottom.”
“But the diseased are down there.”
Maybe Max saw their conversation was going nowhere, because he interrupted them. “I suppose we’d best get down there and see what they want.”
The prisoners reached the broken ramp between the first floor and the ground and waited, their attention on the five as they descended the wooden structure. When they stopped, William nodded at the woman at the front. “Number one.”
The large ginger woman, her face fixed in a scowl, suddenly smiled. “You can call me Liz.”
From storm to sunshine, William’s shoulders loosened and he smiled back.
“What?” she said. “You expected a different reaction from us?”
“You didn’t look friendly on your approach. I’m pleased to see you all got out okay. We heard screams. I’m guessing you found Robert Mack?”
A slight wince and shake of her head. They didn’t need to talk about him. “I told the others what you did for us, and we’ve come to thank you. To see if you need any help?”
While holding up the bag of food he’d scavenged, Max stepped forward. “We’re out of water, but if you’d like to share some of this bread with us?”
After those from the cells in the justice department climbed up on the scaffolding so they could safely enjoy their meal, William repeated what Liz had spent the past ten minutes discussing with him. “So you’re definitely staying here?”
The bread had a thick and stodgy consistency, which Liz clearly struggled with as she ran her tongue around the inside of her mouth. She looked around at the part of the political district visible to them. “It makes sense. It’s already fortified. There aren’t many diseased here—”
“Probably more politicians,” Max said.
A wicked grin spread across Liz’s face. “We call that sport.”
William suppressed a chill. Whatever happened to them, the politicians deserved it.
One of Liz’s gang, a man shorter than even Olga but as stocky as a bull, spoke in a deep baritone. “I think it’s about time we did some of our own evictions. See how they like it.”
There were many worse ways to punish someone. They should think themselves lucky to be given a chance. And what more fitting way than being evicted?
“We might move out from here,” Liz said. “Reclaim Edin a bit at a time.”
Most of her attention had been on Artan, so when Matilda spoke, everyone listened. “Just please don’t bring back national service.”
The frame of a warrior and a heart of a leader, Liz reached across and placed one of her large hands over the back of Matilda’s. “The reclaiming of Edin will be entirely voluntary. There are no protectors here now. No politicians. No one calling the shots and forcing others to do what they don’t want to. In Edin, you now have choice. Choice over where you work, where you live, and who you love.”
While staring into the distance, Matilda reached across and held William’s hand. “If only we’d grown up in that Edin.”
“You still could,” Liz said.
William spoke first. “I can’t make decisions for anyone else, but Edin has too many bad memories.”
“Then where will you go?”
The map had taken a battering in William’s back pocket, but when he opened it and spread it out on the wooden boards, several of those from the cells gasped, and even Artan peered over. “It’s a map.”
“I can see that,” Liz said. “But of where?”
“This uncharted territory here”—William circled the space above the ruined city with his finger—“we think is Edin.”
The short and wide man who’d spoken about the evictions leaned over the map. “So there’s a lot more out there?”
“It looks that way. And I’d like to find out what it is. Of course, what the others do is on them, but if Matilda chooses to stay, then I’m staying.”
Matilda’s cheeks reddened as she stared at the map. “I’m ready to move on.”
“Me too,” Max said.
Olga nodded. “And me.”
Although they looked at Artan, he didn’t comment.
“I’d like to see what these
other places are,” William said.
Liz raised an eyebrow. “They say curiosity killed the cat, you know?”
“They do. But what do they say about living a life without answers? Is that the slower, more painful death?”
“We can’t talk you out of this, can we?”
“No.”
“So what’s the plan? How are you going to get out of here?”
William pointed at the wall directly behind him. “There aren’t many diseased out there. Twenty or so at the most. I think if we open the doors a little to restrict the flow of them coming in, then we can leave through the back gate after we’ve slaughtered them all.” He turned to the rest of his group. “You don’t need to come with me, but I made a promise to a group of rookies in the national service area that I’d return to free them. We left them on the roof of a hut three days ago. I need to go back to see if they’re still there.”
The past three days had clearly taken it out of everyone, Olga paler than William had ever seen her. Even paler than she’d been when she broke her arm.
“How about just Max and I go?” William said.
Max shrugged. “I’m up for it.”
“But how are we going to get back to the national service area?” Matilda said.
“We’ll walk back around the front of the city.”
“What about the diseased?”
“I can’t leave them to rot on that roof!”
A nasty twist took over Olga’s face. “But you were happy to leave Max in the labs?”
“We made the wrong choice.”
“Because it turned out you needed him?”
“Initially, yes, but also it taught me that if I have any agency over whether someone lives or dies, then I should exercise it.”
“Yet you’re happy to leave the politicians here?”
“You want to save them?” William said.
Olga shrugged. “I’m just trying to find the magnetic north of your moral compass.”
William’s heart quickened, the attention of the group burning into him. “Politicians aren’t people.”
A smile lifted one side of Olga’s mouth. “That’s a compass I can follow.”
A pile of dead diseased lay in the gates’ narrow opening, William’s clothes clinging to his sweat-soaked body. Eighteen in total.
Just before leaving, William turned to Liz. “Thanks for your help.”
“Thank you, William Johnson. You saved our lives. I hope those kids in the national service area can say the same. When Edin remembers their protectors, yours will be the first name they think of.”
The woman stank from where she’d spent time in her cell, but William hid his reaction as she wrapped a tight hug around him, his back cracking from her constrictor’s grip. She hugged the others—save Artan, who clearly didn’t have human contact in him yet. One of the people from the cells gave William a bag filled with bread. While they were fighting the diseased in the gates, a few of them had gone back into the political district at Liz’s whispered orders.
William leaned down to grab one of the diseased bodies, but the short bullish man said, “Leave them. Let us do it.”
William led the way out through the gates into the long grass in the meadow beyond. The bright sun dazzled him and his eyes watered. He let his tears out, mourning the path he’d now never take. In Edin, he left behind a life. A home. His parents. Mr. P. The girl in the woodwork district. And his dreams. Whatever else happened, he’d never be one of Edin’s protectors. Whatever else happened, he’d never see Hugh again.
End of book four.
Thank you for reading Collapse - Book four of Beyond These Walls.
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The Alpha Plague - Chapter One
This is the first chapter of my novel, The Alpha Plague.
Alice pressed her fork down on her steak. The soft meat leaked a pool of blood that spread over her white plate. It soaked into the potatoes and broccoli.
A slow heave lifted in her throat, and she gulped several times to combat the excess saliva that gushed into her mouth. She could almost taste the metallic tang of blood. “How was the–” another heave rose up and she cleared it with a cough that echoed through the sparse room. She tried again. “How was the lab today, John?”
A thick frown furrowed John’s brow. This was his usual response to most questions. Everything was an irritation. Such banal conversations couldn’t hold a flame to his vast intellect. He ejected the word as if giving a reply was below him. “Stressful.”
The rejection sent a sharp stab through Alice’s stomach. It didn’t matter how many times he knocked her down, she got back up and continued to look for his approval. Fire spread beneath her cheeks and she chewed on her bottom lip.
John flashed a grin of wonky teeth. It took all of Alice’s strength not to flinch at the ghastly sight. “I must say though, it’s been made a little easier by Wilfred having to make me this meal.”
A deep breath filled Alice’s sinuses with the smell of disinfectant; the smell she associated with John. Decades immersed in the study of bacteria and disease had driven his level of cleanliness to the point where it bordered on obsessive-compulsive. A frown darkened her view of the room. “What did you say the bet was?”
“I didn’t.”
Alice looked into his sharp blue eyes and waited for him to say more.
He didn’t.
A look first at the man, dressed in his white lab coat, she then looked around at his white, minimalist penthouse apartment. Everything had a place, and everything was necessary. Beakers and test tubes littered the sides like ornaments. She hadn’t ever seen a photograph on display, despite this being his personal space… no room for sentimentality here.
Alice squirmed in her seat as the silence swelled.
John watched her.
No matter how long she’d known the man for, John always made her itch in her own skin. As if pressured to break the overwhelming void between them, she said, “So, what was the bet about?”
“An experiment. I predicted the correct result.”
A machine would have been better company. Alice frowned at him again and sighed.
“Oh, do pull yourself together, woman,” John said. “You’ve got to learn to stop being so bloody sensitive.”
Despite his obnoxious behaviour, the man did have redeeming qualities. When he worked, his creativity and passion flowed from him. Science drove him like a heartbeat, but Alice couldn’t excuse him time and again. She couldn’t ignore every time he’d humiliated her during a lecture; every time he’d not let her finish her point; every time he’d selected her to clean the lab at the end of the day while he let his other students leave. “How about you learn to stop being so bloody insensitive?”
A flick of his bony hand at her and he said, “This is what I mean. It’s these emotional fluctuations that take away your ability to be objective. That’s why men make better scientists.”
“And terrible companions.”
He
lowered his head and peered over his glasses at her. “We can leave our baggage at the door,” he continued.
For the second time, her face smouldered. “You left your baggage in the delivery ward, John. Maybe your sociopathic detachment serves you well in the world of science, but it doesn’t equip you to deal with the real world. Without science, you’d be stranded.” Her vision blurred. Great! Tears again. They only strengthened the man’s argument.
John sighed and shook his head.
A glance down at her dinner, and Alice prodded the soft steak. Maybe a scalpel would be more appropriate than the wooden-handled knife in her hand. In the bright glare of John’s scrutiny, Alice cut into the steak and lifted a piece to her mouth.
The soft meat sat like jelly on her tongue. Unable to chew it, she took a deep gulp and tried to swallow. The piece of steak stuck in her throat like it was barbed. Her heart raced as a metallic rush of juices slithered down her oesophagus and clogged her throat.
John watched on, his expression unchanged. The cold detachment of a scientist rather than the compassion of a human being stared through his beady eyes.
Alice’s pulse boomed inside her skull. She held her neck and wheezed, “Help me.”
He didn’t. He believed in natural selection. Sink or swim. How many cavemen had choked on their dinner? The ones who had been saved only weakened the gene pool. Weakness should never be rewarded.
After several heavy gulps, Alice swallowed the meat, leaned on the table, and gasped. Adrenaline surged through her. Her pulse pounded in her ears. She dabbed her eyes with the back of her hand to stop her mascara from running and looked up to see John watching her with his usual blank expression. A barrage of abuse rose and died on her tongue; there was no point.
Collapse: Book four of Beyond These Walls - A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Thriller Page 23
