Decimation: The Girl Who Survived

by Burke, Richard T.

  “Let it go,” Perrin said, jerking his head around to check on the progress of the policemen. “You can’t make it go any faster.” One of the men was crouched by the abandoned suitcase, talking into a radio. The rest were jogging towards them and would be at the door in a matter of seconds.

  With agonising slowness, the glass panels lurched back into movement. As soon as the gap was wide enough, Max slipped through into the stuffy warmth of the foyer. Perrin emerged and sprinted across the tiled floor drawing several bemused glances from the small number of onlookers. He reached the sealed double doors and fumbled in his pocket for his identity card.

  “Where are we going?” Max asked.

  Perrin said nothing as the red light changed to green. The locking mechanism released. He barged through two steps ahead of his son. The doors swung back into position and locked with an audible click.

  “Dad, I asked where we’re going.”

  Perrin halted at a door labelled with a large flame logo. Panting for breath, he turned to face Max.

  “God knows why, but I’m going to try to warn that madwoman.”

  Chapter 81

  Monday 17th January 2033

  Rosalind Baxter glanced at the phone’s display. That was the second time in a minute that reception had tried to get hold of her. It could mean only one thing. The police had arrived. There was still time. She had allowed the guards to go home early. Now that the fugitives were accounted for, their services were no longer required. Nobody knew where she was apart from Nigel Perrin, and he had departed ten minutes ago.

  It wouldn’t take long to dispose of the evidence and then what? The police might have their suspicions, but they wouldn’t be able to prove anything. There might be some awkward questions to answer, but she had no doubts that any prospect of criminal prosecutions would soon be swept under the carpet when she delivered a cure.

  She placed the tablet computer on the metallic grid of the combustion chamber floor. She smiled at her good fortune. Not only had the email been blocked because the attachment was too large, but Floyd and Jason had been foolish enough to leave the machine in the car. The security guard had found it on the back seat after breaking the rear window.

  Rosalind straightened up and looked down at the girl. She was still unconscious, facing the sliding door. Her head lolled to one side in the wheelchair. It was probably for the best. She would only struggle if she realised what was about to happen to her.

  It would be a tight squeeze, but all three adults would fit in. She retraced her steps to the main part of the room. Floyd sat in one wheelchair, the right side of his face caked in blood from the gash in his temple. She had strapped his arms and legs to the frame of the chair with plastic ties. His eyes were closed, and his breathing sounded wet and shallow.

  Beside him sat Jason, similarly restrained in a wheelchair. In contrast to his father, he was clearly conscious. His terrified eyes darted about the room as he struggled against his restraints. A cloth gag tied across his mouth prevented him from speaking.

  “It’s ironic that you should all be in wheelchairs,” Rosalind said as she directed Jason’s chair towards the heavy door of the furnace. He tried to speak through the gag as the wheels rattled across the thick metal grating. She positioned him to Antimone’s left.

  “You only have yourself to blame,” she said. “If you’d done as I asked, you wouldn’t be in this situation. I’m sorry it’s come to this, but you know too much.”

  Jason attempted to talk again, but the gag turned his words into muffled grunts.

  “You’re trying to tell me that you told the police the whole story, right?” Rosalind said. “The thing is, that’s all it is without proof, a story, and the evidence is lying there on the floor beside you.”

  She paused as if listening to him. “Oh, you sent an email to the police containing that encrypted file? Yes, I know. Unfortunately, it was too big and their server bounced it. Maybe you should’ve checked that they received it before storming in to rescue your helpless little cripple. After all that money I spent on your education, who’d have thought that you weren’t even capable of sending a simple email? Still, I suppose it’s partially down to your genetics. Anyway, much as I’m enjoying this little chat, I still have work to do.”

  Rosalind’s footsteps echoed in the cramped metallic box as she strode across the gridded floor. She grabbed Floyd’s wheelchair by the handles and swung it around so that it was facing the furnace. An electronic beep came from behind her.

  Rosalind turned her head to the source of the noise and saw Nigel Perrin standing in the door frame beside his son.

  Chapter 82

  Monday 17th January 2033

  “Nigel, why are you here? I thought you’d left?”

  Perrin entered the room, his gaze focused on the injured man in the wheelchair. “The police have arrived.” His eyes rose to meet Rosalind’s and then dropped once more to her captive. “What are you doing?”

  “What does it look like, Nigel? I’m disposing of the evidence.”

  “Is he dead?”

  “No, not yet.”

  “Jesus, Rosalind. You’re going to incinerate him while he’s still alive?”

  “I’m right out of sedative shots, so unless you have something suitable in your pocket, yes, that’s the plan. I’m sure it’ll be very quick.”

  Perrin swallowed hard but remained silent. The focus of his attention wandered to the open incinerator chamber. He took two tentative steps forward trying to pick out details from the dim interior. He squinted and angled his head forwards as he attempted to make sense of what he was seeing.

  Gasping with shock, he stepped backwards. “The girl and – that’s not your son, is it?”

  “No, he’s not my son,” Rosalind said, a frown creasing her forehead. “He’s somebody who lived in my house for sixteen years and then betrayed me.”

  “Christ, Rosalind, you’re mad. You’re going to kill your own son?”

  “I just told you, he’s not my son. You don’t get it, do you? He knows everything. He and Floyd hacked into my computer and downloaded a file containing all the details going right back to the beginning. He tried to send it to the police. If he wasn’t so incompetent they would have all the proof they need to put both of us away for the rest of our lives. I’m not going to let that happen. This work is too important for anybody or anything to stop it.”

  Perrin reached into his pocket for a pen and began absent-mindedly clicking the tip in and out. “So you plan to incinerate three more people to cover it up?”

  “Oh come on, Nigel. How many have we already incinerated today? And how many women died because you deliberately made them pregnant?”

  “What’s she saying, Dad?”

  Perrin had forgotten that his son was standing beside him. “Look, Max, it’s complicated. Sometimes you have to–”

  “Actually, it’s quite simple really,” Rosalind interrupted. “Your father abducted women off the street and impregnated them so he could use them as guinea pigs for our tests. Why else do you think he had those drugs in his office that you then stole and put into the drink at the party?”

  Max turned to face his father. “Is it true, Dad?”

  Perrin hung his head then looked up and met his son’s stare. “Yes, it’s true. The women we took were drug addicts and prostitutes. They had a very low life expectancy anyway. At least this way, they were doing something useful with their lives. I know it’s not right, but we were trying to save the human race. Somebody had to make the sacrifice so why not choose those who valued their own lives so little?”

  A wintry smile flashed across Rosalind’s face. “While you two have your debate about the morals of the situation, I’ve got a job to finish here. That is unless you both want to spend a long time in jail. Don’t forget that Jason knows what you did too, Max. He probably also told Antimone.”

  She turned away from the father and son and propelled the wheelchair towards the dark interior of the
chamber. She positioned it in front of Jason’s chair.

  “Goodbye Jason,” she said. His head rested on his chest so she couldn’t see his face.

  As she spun around to leave, a voice called out from behind her.

  “Now!”

  Chapter 83

  Monday 17th January 2033

  The gag bit into the corners of Jason’s mouth and obstructed his breathing. He inhaled loudly through his nose. His mother was talking to somebody. The sound of voices carried into the dimly lit chamber, but he couldn’t make out the individual words. A droplet of sweat trickled down his chest as he struggled to free his hands. The tie-wraps were far stronger than the thin plastic suggested, and all he succeeded in doing was deepening the welts that already ran around both wrists.

  Jason forced himself to relax. There had to be a way out of this. He glanced to his left. Antimone was still unconscious, her head lolling backwards, but unlike him, she wasn’t bound. If only he could wake her, she might be able to release them.

  He focused his attention on the gag. He contorted his face, trying to loosen it enough to get the knot out of his mouth. His frustration grew as the material resisted all his attempts. He slumped back in the chair and groaned in despair. Tendrils of panic teased away at the edges of his mind and threatened to overwhelm him. His mother apparently planned to burn them alive. Would she really go through with it? How much pain would he feel? How long would it last?

  An idea occurred to him. He strained against the tie at his wrist and pushed his elbow forwards as far as it would go. At the same time, he angled his head downwards so that his chin was touching his shoulder. It felt as if the joint was about to dislocate as he tried to dislodge the gag, but he did manage to shift it down a millimetre or two. He attacked the task with renewed vigour. After a few more seconds, the damp material rolled down and hung loosely around his neck.

  He turned to face the unconscious girl. “Antimone,” he whispered.

  No response.

  “Antimone,” this time a little louder. “Wake up.”

  A slight movement of her head. “Come on, for Christ’s sake wake up.”

  Antimone’s eyes fluttered. A dribble of saliva ran down from the corner of her mouth. She moaned as her head lolled to the side.

  “Antimone, if you want to live you have to wake up.”

  A single cough. Heavy lids blinked open as she stared uncomprehendingly at her surroundings. “Where am I?” Her voice came out as a low rasp.

  “Thank God. We haven’t got long. We need to get out of here.”

  “Where are we? What’s going on?”

  “I don’t want to frighten you, but my mother’s got us in an incinerator. She’s talking to somebody. If we don’t do something, we’re going to die. Is there any way you can loosen these tie-wraps?”

  Antimone’s frightened eyes darted around the interior of the chamber. “An incinerator?”

  “Come on, the clock’s ticking. My hands and feet are tied down so I can’t move.”

  Shock tinged Antimone’s words. “She’s going to burn us alive?”

  “Yes, unless we can free ourselves somehow.”

  Antimone moved her wheelchair forwards a short distance and peered down at the black plastic bands binding Jason’s arms and legs to the chair. “I don’t know. These are impossible to break without a cutter of some sort. You know, a knife or scissors.” Her head jerked from left to right as she surveyed her surroundings. “I can’t see anything in here that we could use.”

  Jason racked his brains, but his thoughts kept returning to the flames that could turn them to ash at any second. “Come on, Antimone. Think.”

  “I can’t see anything in here that would do the job.”

  “She’s talking to somebody outside. Maybe they can help us.”

  Antimone cocked her head to listen. “That sounds like Dr Perrin. He’s in this as deep as she is. He was the main doctor who was investigating why I survived. We certainly can’t trust him.”

  “So we’re dead then?”

  Antimone’s thoughts turned to her son. He would grow up without a mother – if they let him grow up at all. She couldn’t allow that to happen. “If I can get her on the floor it should even things up a bit.”

  “How are you going to do that?”

  “I’m going to have to knock her over first.”

  “How do we know she’s even going to come back in here?”

  Antimone frowned. “We don’t, but Floyd’s not here. I assume he arrived with you.”

  “Yeah, she grabbed him at the same time as me, but what’s that got to do with it? He was unconscious when I last saw him. He’s certainly not going to be in any condition to help us.”

  “Whatever condition he’s in, she’s going to want to dispose of him just like us. He knows too much. So somebody is going to have to come inside.”

  Jason struggled against the ties again. With mounting desperation, he tried to bounce the wheelchair forwards.

  “Keep it down,” Antimone hissed. “We don’t want her being prepared.”

  “I can’t believe she’s really going to do this. Maybe she’s just trying to scare us.”

  “She’s certainly doing that. I’m not prepared to gamble that it’s a bluff, though.”

  “You don’t know her like I do. I’ve lived with her for sixteen years. She wouldn’t do that to me.”

  Antimone’s tone hardened. “Listen, Jason, there’s something you’ve got to understand. That psychotic bitch out there – don’t think of her as your mother – is going to kill us both unless we stop her. I’ve seen what she can do. She’s more than capable of putting us down.”

  Jason swallowed hard. “Okay, so what’s the plan?”

  “I pretend I’m still unconscious. I need you to tell me when to move.”

  Jason did his best to hide the quaver in his voice. “I’ll shout when it’s time.”

  Chapter 84

  Monday 17th January 2033

  The wheelchair surged ahead under Antimone’s powerful strokes. The plan might have worked had her right wheel not clashed with the chair in which Daniel Floyd was restrained. As it was, the contact soaked up some of her forward momentum and threw her off course. Instead of striking Rosalind full on, the footrests caught her with a glancing blow. It was sufficient to knock the woman off her feet but not powerful enough to incapacitate her. The wheelchair slewed to the left and came to a halt straddling the runners which guided the furnace door.

  It took Antimone’s eyes a moment to adjust to the bright illumination from the ceiling lights. The collision had winded her, and she struggled to recover her bearings. The wheel of her chair was jammed up against the wall of the incineration chamber. Nigel and Max Perrin stood side by side, staring in shock at the scene before them. Rosalind Baxter knelt on all fours, blood splattering the floor from a gash to her forehead.

  Antimone tried frantically to release the trapped wheel, but the chair refused to budge. “Max, Dr Perrin, you’ve got to help us.”

  Father and son remained silent and motionless. Rosalind slowly rose to her feet and fixed Antimone with a hate-filled stare. Blood trickled from the wound to her head. She brushed a hand over her face, leaving a streak of crimson across her cheeks like an elaborate war-paint. Her voice shook with fury when she spoke. “You stupid little …”

  Rosalind limped towards the immobile wheelchair and glared at Antimone. When she was a pace away she halted, her face distorted in a grimace of rage. She lifted her leg, drew it back and stamped it into Antimone’s knees.

  Even though she felt no direct pain, Antimone cried out at the shock of the blow. The wheelchair lurched backwards a few inches. Rosalind moved closer and lashed out for a second time. The wheel broke free, and the chair rolled back a short distance before tipping on its side. Antimone used her arms to break her fall but found herself lying on the metal grating, her legs entangled in the wheelchair’s struts.

  Rosalind surveyed the three prisoners, he
r eyes picking them out one at a time. She inhaled deeply then turned her back and hobbled to the sliding door. She grasped the handle and pulled it towards her. The door rattled as it ran along the runners and closed halfway. She took two paces to the right and reached for the handle again. The door slammed shut with a metallic clang.

  She extended a finger to the green button. A beep from behind made her hesitate. She craned her neck and watched as Karen Atkins led a group of six men wearing dark coloured uniforms into the room.

  “Mrs Baxter and Dr Perrin, you’re both under arrest.”

  Chapter 85

  Monday 17th January 2033

  Rosalind turned to face the group of policemen. “What are we under arrest for?”

  “Where do I start?” Karen Atkins said. “Why don’t we go back sixteen years or so?”

  “You’ve got no proof.”

  “So you know what I’m talking about? Good. Well, let me tell you what I know. Seventeen or eighteen years ago you started doing research on an artificial virus, creating its DNA from scratch. Somebody had the bright idea of mixing it with the flu virus to create a pathogen that would spread more easily. One of your researchers at the time, an Eileen Floyd – that’s Daniel’s wife – threatened to become a whistleblower and stop what she regarded as dangerous research. To keep her quiet you kidnapped her. Did I mention she was pregnant with Jason at the time?”

  “So you worked out who the boy’s real mother was?”

  “Yes, when we discovered that Daniel Floyd was Jason’s biological father, it didn’t take much effort to determine who his mother was.”

  “Well done,” Rosalind said, clapping slowly. “It’s only taken you sixteen years. And who says our police are slow on the uptake?”

  “So you framed her husband, Daniel, for her murder,” Kat continued. “He didn’t even know she was pregnant. You held onto her for eight months and used her as a test subject. She was the first victim of the Orestes virus. She didn’t know you had infected her and nearly escaped. By the time you recaptured her, she had infected a number of other people. After that, it didn’t take long for the virus to spread across the world. I still don’t understand why you adopted Jason. I can only assume it was because you wanted to continue studying him.”