Eradication: Project Apex book II

by Michael Bray

  "Back up!" Parker grunted, training his weapon on the man who had the knife to Trig's throat.

  The man, however, stared right back at Parker, his eyes dull and listless. Death was nothing to fear for these men. They had been condemned and had come to terms that their lives were over.

  The man with the knife pressed the blade deeper into Trig's neck, opening a small cut. "You better put those weapons down, cunts, or I’ll open this boy of yours up from ear to ear." He grinned as he said it, his mouth a cavern of missing teeth framed by a greying beard.

  "I'll put a bullet in you. You'll be dead before you can do it," Parker said, his voice as flat and calm as the knife-wielding inmate.

  It was a stalemate. The knife-wielding prisoner didn’t react, and continued to stare at Parker, who returned his gaze, his weapon poised ready to fire.

  The prisoners name was Leon Kruger, and he was serving a double life sentence for murder after breaking into a house which he thought was empty, only to find its occupants inside. Instead of fleeing, the heroin habit he was doing everything to feed forced his hand. He beat the man to death. The woman he had subjected to a horrific ordeal of rape and torture, before he strangled her and dumped her body next to that of her husband. Their eleven-year-old daughter was asleep in an upstairs bedroom and had awoken with the commotion. Kruger had subjected her to the same fate as her mother. High on his cocktail of drugs, Kruger had left enough evidence at the property to make a conviction easy for the prosecution. Now fourteen years into his sentence, he had killed two fellow prisoners during disagreements, extending his sentence indefinitely and making him one of the most dangerous and feared men imprisoned in Belmarsh.

  "I won’t warn you again," Parker said as he adjusted the weapon nestled against his shoulder. Stanhope was at his side, staring at the prisoners who filled the hall and blocked their escape route. He counted thirty at least. Many of them armed with makeshift weapons acquired during the riot. Broken wooden chair legs, metal pipes ripped from sinks, knives taken from the kitchen were present. On paper, they were no match for Parker and Stanhope. However, most of them were lifers with no chance of parole, or at least they were before the world had fallen apart. Most of them were no strangers to having guns pointed at them, nor did they seem to care if they lived or died.

  "You could call a guard," Kruger said, "But I don’t think they're ere mate."

  Parker adjusted his weapon, his body tense and rigid, his finger poised over the trigger, ready to act. He looked at Trig, recognising the look in his eye. There was a defiance he knew all too well. It had been trained into them all. Win at all costs, no matter the consequences.

  "Shoot him," Trig said, his Adam’s apple bobbing against the blade.

  "Shut the fuck up, cunt," Kruger said.

  As Kruger and Parker stared each other down, Stanhope was still watching Trig. His hand was moving towards his belt. They spoke to each other without words, each knowing what was about to happen.

  "Where do you think you're goin' with him?" Kruger said, nodding towards Ross.

  Parker didn’t answer. Kruger grinned.

  "You think we're scared of your guns? You can’t get all of us, right lads?" Kruger said.

  The other prisoners behind him grunted in agreement.

  "We'll rush you. You might take a few of us before we get to you. That's where the fun will really start. We-"

  Everything happened at once.

  Trig pulled the flash bang grenade from his belt and activated it, rolling it behind him into the throng of prisoners. A non-lethal solution, it was designed to disorientate the enemy, emitting both an explosive sound and blinding flash of light which would incapacitate any potential enemy for up to five seconds. Although designed to cause minimal damage, the weapon's concussive explosion still had a devastating effect in the small confines of the corridor. At the precise time Trig rolled the grenade behind him, Stanhope grabbed Ross and shielded him with his own body.

  "Flashbang!" he grunted at Parker, who responded by shielding his eyes as the weapon detonated, the noise deafening. It was all the distraction Parker and his team needed. As the prisoners reeled from the assault on their senses, Parker was already firing his weapon, aiming above the crowd in the hopes of dispersing them and clearing the way.

  The prisoners responded, scrambling to get away from the gunfire. It seemed that for all the threatening words of Kruger, they valued their lives more than he did. They retreated back the way they had come, down into the bowels of the prison. It was as the chaos settled that Parker and Stanhope saw Trig on the floor. He was on his side, one hand clutched against his throat and trying to stem the flow of blood which continued to pump between his fingers and spill onto the floor.

  "Stanny!" Parker shouted over his shoulder as he scoured the crowd for Kruger, however, he was lost in the pack as they ran back into the depths of the prison. Parker knelt beside rig as Stanhope joined him

  "Fucks sake, he's bleeding out," Stanhope said.

  "See if you can patch him up, I’ll secure the end of the corridor and make sure those fuckers don’t come back."

  Parker also half hoped to get a glimpse of Kruger and put a bullet in his head.

  Stanhope took the medical kit from his belt and set it on the ground, acting on instinct, relying on his training.

  "Move your hand Trig, I need to see."

  Trig was growing pale. Stanhope leaned in close looking at the thin wound on his neck.

  "You might turn out to be a lucky bastard yet Trig," he said, forcing a smile as he took out a roll of bandages. "Doesn’t look too deep. Lift your legs up."

  Trig did as he was told as Stanhope started to bandage his neck. "Parker. We need to get moving sharpish."

  "All clear here," he replied. "Get a move on."

  "Come on then Trig, let’s be having you." Then, he turned to Ross who was watching from the corner. "You too, let’s go."

  "I don’t think I should," Ross replied.

  "Look, mate, because of you, my pal here might die. You either come with and stop moaning, or I'll do something I might regret, no matter who thinks you’re so fuckin’ valuable. Understood?"

  Ross nodded.

  "Good, now give me a hand to get him up and out of here."

  Ross and Stanhope helped the wounded Trig to where Parker waited. In the distance, they could hear Kruger screaming for their blood.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  ALAN AND CAPTIVES

  LOCATION UNKNOWN

  Alan woke just seconds before the agony of his injuries came back to him. He opened his eye, the left puffy and half-closed, making it next to impossible to see. Beyond the steady rumble of the engine, he could hear someone crying. He was almost certain it was his wife, however, he was face down with his hands tied behind his back, his injured shoulder screaming in protest. He tried to piece together what had happened, the tiny fragments of memory coming together.

  The Pentagon.

  The camper.

  The crash.

  His family.

  His children.

  He tried to turn his head, his nostrils filled with the smell of rust and dirt from the floor of the truck. He could see shadows of people, heads down, arms bound. Some were sitting up, heads lolling with every bounce and jolt of the truck. He mumbled, trying to say his wife’s name, but there was something wrong with his mouth. He ran his tongue along his teeth and found several were broken and missing as a result of the crash, and, now that he was aware of them, could feel the steady throb of agony, just one more pain in a world of hurt.

  "Agna, agna...” He mumbled, trying to re-learn how to say his wife’s name with his broken mouth.

  "Shh," a voice close to him said, "Keep it down pal, for your own sake."

  "Agna, Agnahh," he said again, swallowing back blood and spit.

  "Please, you have to be quiet," a different voice said, this one close to his ear. "They'll kill you."

  Alan didn’t doubt it. The desperation in the
stranger's voice was more than enough to convince him.

  "My wifthh," he blurted.

  "No women here, this truck is just for the men. Here, let me help you up."

  If Alan had been able to articulate, he might have asked to be left where he was until the pain had subsided, however, he never had a chance, and was dragged into a sitting position, his arms still clasped behind his back. The pain which surged through his body helping him to focus, and he stared through his remaining good eye at his shadowy fellow captives.

  "Name's Andy," the man who had helped Alan up said from beside him. He was grimy and had a crust of dried blood on the side of his face which ran into his thinning, curly hair. “You’ve been out for a couple of hours."

  "Where isth my wifthh?" Alan slurred around his broken teeth.

  "She's not with us. All the women are in the other truck in front."

  "Where are we?" Alan said, almost managing to sound normal.

  "I’m not sure, we've been out in the wilderness for a few hours now. Well away from civilisation, I’ll tell you that much," Andy said.

  "How long hafth they had you capthive?" Alan said, wincing in agony.

  "A couple of days. We were one of the first, me and my boy here."

  Andy motioned to the figure dozing beside him and Alan felt a wrenching sadness at the loss of his own children. "We were picked up just outside Vancouver. Most of the other people in this truck were picked up along the way. After you, we only picked up a couple more. We’ve been on the road for a while now."

  "Any idhea wthere we’re gthoing?" Alan said, struggling to ignore the agony in his shoulder.

  "No idea," Andy said with a shrug. "I still don’t know what the hell's going on here. Did you hear about the nukes?"

  "I did," someone else said on the opposite side of the van, a stocky man with dark skin and a blood-spattered mechanics uniform.

  "I did too," someone else added, "just before the TV networks went offline."

  "That's when we left," Andy said. "When we heard about the nukes, we just got the hell out of town. A lot of the people in my neighbourhood were holing up in their basements when we got out. Goddamn idiots. As if that would stop a fuckin nuke."

  "Did you hear about the guy in charge?" the man in the overalls said. "The one who took the White House?"

  "Yeah," Andy said, placing a protective hand on his sleeping son's shoulder. "Joshua isn’t it?"

  "Yeah," the man in overalls said. "I've heard some screwed up stories. I heard the British are in full martial law, and others saying the dead ain't staying dead."

  "Shut up with that," Andy hissed. "Don’t give me that George Romero bullshit. There ain’t no zombies out there, just men."

  "These ain’t just men," Overalls said.

  "And how the hell do you know?" Andy asked.

  "I shot one. In fact, I shot two, and it didn't do any good. They just keep coming."

  "Bullshit," Andy said. "You probably just missed."

  "No, man, I didn’t miss," overalls said. "I was state shooting champion when I was seventeen. Won it again at eighteen and twenty two. These two I shot were only fifteen, maybe twenty feet away when I pulled my gun. I saw the bullets hit home, I saw them exit and the mess it left. Those bastards still kept walking."

  "Shut up man, just shut up. What if my boy hears you?" Andy whispered.

  "Maybe he should know what we're dealing with. Might be the best way to keep safe."

  "I can’t put this on him, he's only thirteen. I need to protect him."

  "I get that, all I’m saying is... Sorry, what was your name?" overalls asked.

  "Andy."

  "Andy. I'm Mike. What I’m saying is, it might pay to wise the boy up to this situation. I think we can agree it’s gonna get worse before it gets better."

  "And what would that achieve? Especially in the situation we're in. Jesus, none of us know where we are, or where we're going. I have to let him keep hope that everything will be alright."

  "I get that," Mike said. "And I understand it. You just need to give the kid a fighting chance."

  "You know what this reminds me of?" another man said, a podgy, balding individual in a ripped tweed suit and wire-rimmed glasses.

  "What?" Andy replied.

  "The holocaust. The way this is happening, the way these... people are just maiming and killing at will. Reminds me of the way Hitler treated the Jews."

  "And what would you know about it?" Mike said.

  "Well, I’m Jewish for starters," the man fired back. "As you can imagine, the attempts to eradicate us from existence is something we tend to be taught about growing up."

  As a conversation killer, it worked, and they rode in silence for a while, each of them dealing with the situation in their own unique way.

  Mike thought about his daughter and ex-wife, both of which he was trying to get to when he was run off the road and captured. He feared for their safety. His wife was a timid woman, his daughter the same. He was wondering if they were already dead, or worse, had been loaded into a truck the same as the one he was in and were now cowering in the darkness and heading towards a future which was uncertain.

  Andy was thinking of his son, and asking himself if he would have the strength to end both of their lives if things got to a point where all hope was lost. He wasn’t sure he could, and that scared him more than the chaos of the world falling apart around them.

  Apart from his pain, Alan thought about his family, and how he had failed in his efforts to protect them. He made himself a promise, something he would either do or die trying. No matter where they were going, no matter what happened, he would do everything in his power to free his family, even if he himself couldn’t go with them. He closed his eyes and leaned his head against the vibrating body of the truck. If anybody saw him crying, they didn’t say anything.

  II

  He dozed, straddling the line between sleep and consciousness. With no sense of time, he had no idea how long they had been driving for apart from the blackness of night had started to lighten into pale shades of grey. A fine rain had started, and through the open back of the truck, he could see a light mist hanging in the trees which lined both sides of the road. The next time he woke, full day had come, allowing him for the first time to clearly see his fellow captives. After what felt like an age, the truck came to a halt. It was then he got a real sense of the fear amongst them. Whatever their fate was to be was about to be revealed.

  Boots crunched on gravel as those who had taken them approached the rear of the truck, unlocked the back and dropped it down. One of the two men, both dressed in black fatigues grabbed the man nearest the door by his shirt and dragged him to the ground. Message received, the rest started to file out, grateful to be able to stretch limbs which had been confined to such a small space. Alan and his 'group' were among the last to climb out and see where they had been taken.

  It was a farm, or at least it had been. The fences surrounding the property had been built up and wrapped with barbed wire, turning it into a prison. Everywhere Alan looked, people, prisoners just like him, were working. Some were building cabins, others were working on fencing under the scrutiny of the men in black with the red and white skull insignia on their arm.

  "It's a damn concentration camp," Andy whispered from somewhere off to Alan’s left.

  Nobody tried to correct him, it was true. Alan looked around. Three other trucks pulled in and began to unload their human cargo. The truck containing the women, however, didn’t unload. It drove on towards the second set of gates, which were opened to allow them access. The men followed on foot, trudging through the muddy ground as the drizzle continued to fall.

  "Line up there," one of the black-clad men grunted, pointing at a white line spray-painted in the dirt. The men did as they were told, the line becoming five deep and twenty long by the time they were done. Alan was trying to see where the truck containing his wife was going, but he lost sight of it as it made its way up beyond the farmhouse.
The man in black stood in front of the frightened men, arms clasped behind his back.

  "Citizens of the old world," he barked, his voice rolling through the surrounding trees. "You have been spared the fate of your fellow man to work in the creation of the new world. In return, you will be given food and lodgings and spared from the violence and chaos which flows through the world and will continue to do so until your kind has been erased from the planet."

  He began to pace the front line of men. From his position three rows in, Alan could see dull yellow veins glowing under his skin.

  "My name is Lucas, and I am in charge of this facility. Make no mistake. This is the safest place for you to be. Out there you face starvation, death, and the constant threat of attack. In here you will be given shelter and food in exchange for your hard work. Any attempt to escape will result in death. Any breach of the rules will result in your death. Any attempt to go against the authority of my men will result in death."

  Lucas smiled, a barely perceptible gesture as he paced in front of the line.

  "Forget any notion that someone is coming to help you. They're not. Also, forget any notion you can escape. You can’t. The only way you will walk out of this facility is if I choose to let you. You are all now prisoners of a war in which there can only be one winner. The sooner each of you accepts this, the easier your time here will be."

  More black-clad troops lined up behind Lucas, all of them stony-faced. Lucas stopped pacing and took his place in front of them. Alan thought this was a routine, something well practiced which he had done countless times in the last days judging by the number of captives he could see working on the farmland. It was a show of strength, a visual representation of their power.