Alpha Force: Untouchable

by Chris Ryan

  Li had attracted some attention. A guy in baggy jeans with a chain hanging out of his pocket was offering her a bottle of water and putting his arm around her. She was clearly rejecting him but the guy persisted. If he went much further, thought Alex, Li might have to do something rather unfriendly.

  Alex went up to her and grabbed the bottle. Li put her arm around him and gave his waist a squeeze. Alex nodded at the guy and took a swig of water. The guy looked annoyed. Still, he got the message and went away.

  Li mouthed a word at Alex. ‘Tiff?’

  Alex shook his head.

  A wave of artificial smoke began to creep through the crowd, lit up in spots by the glow sticks and strobes. That would make it even more difficult to see who was there. Paulo emerged from the glowing fog like an apparition. He was closely followed by an emphatically grooving Amber and a jigging Hex.

  Alex looked at them enquiringly. They shook their heads. He gave another hand signal: go round again; split up.

  Again they disappeared into the flashing fog. Through the throng of bodies, in a strict search pattern, pushing past girls wearing butterfly wings, inspecting their glittery faces.

  So many people; how long would they have to search?

  Alex suddenly felt as if he’d closed his eyes for a minute and been rebooted, like a computer. What was he doing? He looked at the people dancing around him, their eyes half-closed. He’d spoken to that girl with the pigtails, the girl next to her with the glasses . . . Had he been there for days? No, it felt like he’d just arrived.

  It was all familiar, but nothing was the same. With all these glow sticks it was like being back in Belize. All these bodies . . . but here there were far more of them. The faces around him turned into a group of schoolchildren and teachers, the people they’d been trapped with during the earthquake. Some of them were dead before he even found them; some of them died before he could get them out. Hex had been lost for hours that night. The relentless pulse of the music became like a sinister countdown. And yet all these people were staying here, dancing, the strobe picking out one after another like a hand of fate. Get out, he wanted to scream to them. It’s not safe. You’re all going to die.

  Alex leaned against the rough brick walls and breathed deeply. What was happening to him?

  Hex came towards him, a pink glow stick in his hand. It was so good to see him alive. Alex wanted to hug him, but then Paulo appeared – with Tiff. She was trudging along as usual, a white circular glow stick pulled down over her head like a fallen halo.

  Get a grip, Alex told himself. Get some air. Gratefully, he led the way to the exit. As the door closed and cut off the music the cold air hit him like a shower and he saw that the others were out there too.

  ‘Are you OK, Alex?’ asked Li. ‘You look a bit weird.’

  Alex nodded. ‘It was hot in there. I’m fine.’

  Tiff was sticking next to Paulo, her mouth chewing. Aside from that her expression was blank, as though she was trying to mentally withdraw. With the glitter on her face and the pink streaks in her hair, she looked like a mannequin. Paulo looked closely at her – did she seem normal? Had she taken something? She stared back at him. He decided she was just her usual sulky self. He had been intending to give her a piece of his mind but if he said anything he’d just get that stony stare. At least she was coming without an argument.

  At last the hostel was quiet. Tiff had gone to her room in silence. That was the only time she made any kind of noise – when she slammed the door. She refused to answer their questions about where she had found out about the rave.

  The others went to bed but Alex’s nerves were like live wires. He got dressed and went outside, but instead of absorbing the stillness of the moors, he couldn’t keep still.

  He patted his belt for his survival tin, which he carried everywhere. It contained an assortment of useful kit such as dry kindling and waterproof matches. What he was looking for was the tiny torch and the button compass. He replaced the lid and fastened it with waterproof tape. In his other pocket was his mobile. Now he could get moving.

  He jogged down the drive and onto the moors. He could hear so many sounds: the wind blowing in the heather like a mini-gale; a lone car in the distance, its engine impossibly loud; the piercing cries of owls out hunting. His breathing deepened into his running rhythm and he felt better. Underfoot he felt rocks and springy turf and rocks. He ran, on and on.

  A freak gust of wind brought a sound to him like the deep booming bass of the music in the rave. With it came images of smoke and glow sticks. The smoke turned into falling rubble, then rock dust, the glow sticks scattered like broken toys. The faces became still and stared at him, their dead eyes saying, Why did I die?

  Alex slowed to a walk. He put his hands over his eyes, but the images were inside his head; they wouldn’t go away. ‘We couldn’t save you all,’ he whispered. ‘We did all we could.’

  Ahead of him was a lighted window. He had come to a building. It was golden and welcoming, a normal-looking thing. Maybe the light would chase these demons away. He stumbled towards it and peered in.

  Two men were inside. Their mouths and noses were covered by green surgical masks. Their hands were bleached to corpse paleness by rubber gloves. One of the masks was moving, talking quietly to the other. There was blood spattered on them, and on the gloves. It was like the masks had taken over their faces, dissolved their lips. The other mask talked. It sounded like a low rumble, like gurgling blood. When the man took the mask off his mouth would be a bloodied hole.

  Alex gasped and flattened himself against the wall, looking out into the night, breathing hard. By his feet, in the pool of light from the window, was something dark and quivering. He looked at it. Grey-pink snakes glistened in the shadows. They slithered in a heap, tying themselves in endless knots. Suddenly they made a high, piercing noise like a squeal of feedback. Beside them, a heart the size of a baby’s fist beat on the rocky ground with a deep, heavy throb. As the snakes writhed and squealed Alex saw other fleshy items – the missing lips of the men inside. He glimpsed something round with an edging of white. It was worse than he thought. The men’s eyes were starting to dissolve too and were being discarded out here.

  Once the men had been absorbed, the masks might come and get him too. Alex stumbled away.

  6

  LONG NIGHT

  Hex closed the bathroom door and went back to his bedroom. That’s funny, he thought. I didn’t leave the light on.

  Suddenly he was ambushed. He caught a glimpse of Alex’s blond hair, then he was engulfed in strong arms. Hex prepared to break free – until he realized this wasn’t a judo hold. It was a hug.

  ‘Mate,’ said Alex, ‘it is so good to see you alive.’

  Hex froze. Something was really, really wrong. Alex wasn’t the touchy-feely type. That sort of thing made Hex cringe too. It was why he liked computers so much. They did what you asked; no complicated stuff.

  He disengaged himself from Alex’s hug and held him at arm’s length. ‘Alex, what’s happened?’

  His friend’s expression didn’t look normal.

  ‘Alex,’ said Hex firmly, ‘look at me.’

  ‘You’re alive,’ said Alex, and made to hug him again.

  Hex dodged and looked at Alex’s eyes. The pupils were wide black holes and the eyes were flickering from side to side. He was grinding his teeth together.

  ‘Alex, did you take anything at the rave?’

  Something seemed to click in Alex’s brain. For a moment he looked lucid. ‘I am having,’ he said, ‘the most horrible trip.’

  That cold sensation spread all over Hex’s body again. They’d all been drinking water at the rave – had Alex’s been spiked? And with what? It was the only explanation. Hex didn’t know much about recreational drugs but he knew that they tended to enhance whatever was going on in your head. If you were worried, a drug would make you pathologically paranoid.

  He steered Alex to the bed. ‘Sit down. Stay there, I’m g
oing to help you.’

  Alex obeyed, like a child.

  Hex knew he had to check first if Alex was in danger. He listened to his breathing. It was a bit fast, like someone who’d had a scare. It didn’t look as though his airway was about to close.

  Alex began muttering, ‘I’m so sorry. It took us so long to find you.’

  Hex sat back and looked at him. Alex didn’t need a doctor – there probably wasn’t an antidote anyway and a doctor would just tell them to keep an eye on him.

  Alex hung his head. ‘We looked for so long. So many dead people.’

  Something was going on in Alex’s head, thought Hex. What could he do about that? His palmtop was on the bedside table. That might do the trick. Hex put the cordless Bluetooth headphones over Alex’s ears.

  Alex looked at him. ‘We didn’t know where you were. The earthquake had brought down the room.’

  Hex suddenly realized that Alex wasn’t talking paranoid gibberish; he was talking about the earthquake in Belize.

  ‘Alex,’ he said severely. ‘Quiet. I’ll have you sorted out in a moment.’ The one thing Hex didn’t want to do was to relive those memories.

  The palmtop was on, the screen glowing. He brought up folders of music. Something nice to chill him out was what Alex needed. Most of Hex’s collection was a bit dark; bound to make Alex worse. He clicked through the albums he had on MP3. Aim: Cold Water Music – definitely chilled, but a bit edgy, and track nine, ‘Demonique’, would scare the willies out of him. Autechre: Amber – no, too mysterious and a bit dark. He tended to listen to that when he was in a grim mood at school. Buddha Bar 1 – a friend had sent it electronically by File Transfer Protocol and he hadn’t got round to deleting it. But track one was celestial choirs, gentle percussion and harps. Definitely calming. He hit PLAY AND REPEAT. The familiar patterns of the first track leaked out of the headphones in a tinny voice.

  Hex sat down cross-legged on the floor. Alex looked scared, like a rabbit caught in a car’s headlights. Was the music too ethereal, too freaky? Hex couldn’t think of anything else to try.

  Then Alex began to look calmer. He lay down on Hex’s bed.

  The track reached the end and started again at the beginning. Hex stayed where he was, sitting on the floor, watching his friend.

  When Alex woke up, his mouth was dry and his jaw ached. Someone was knocking at the door. He sat up. ‘Yeah?’ he said. He suddenly realized he wasn’t in his own room.

  Amber came in. ‘Hex, it’s our turn to do breakfast . . .’ She trailed off as she saw Hex sitting with his back to the wardrobe. ‘Unusual sleeping position.’ Then she spotted Alex. ‘Did I miss a slumber party?’

  Alex realized he had something on his ears. Hex’s Bluetooth headphones. He took them off and noticed that on the bedside table the lamp was on and Hex’s palmtop was showing the ‘battery dead’ symbol. Then he remembered.

  ‘Alex got drugged at the rave,’ said Hex.

  Amber’s eyes went wide. ‘You whaaat?’

  He got to his feet. ‘You sleep a bit longer if you need to, Alex. I’m going to get a shower.’ He grabbed a towel from a chair.

  Alex subsided back on the bed.

  Li looked down at Paulo’s legs poking out from under the Range Rover, and nudged him with her foot.

  Paulo slid out from under the vehicle, then wished he hadn’t. He wasn’t on a small trolley, like the one he used at home to tinker with vehicles on the ranch. He was lying on the hard gravel drive. He’d have gravel rash for days.

  Li was holding out a mug of coffee; Hex and Amber, behind her, were clutching theirs.

  ‘Conference,’ said Li. ‘Before Tiff gets up. Did you feel OK after the rave?’

  Paulo got to his feet, rubbing his sore back, and took the coffee. ‘Huh?’

  ‘Alex’s water was spiked,’ explained Hex. ‘I found him having hallucinations. And flashbacks to Belize. Did you feel OK when we got back?’

  Paulo nodded. ‘Fine. Is Alex all right?’

  ‘I think so. Just tired and bewildered now. I had a quick surf around the web and it looks like one of these designer drugs – ecstasy mixed with something.’

  ‘It was that guy.’ Li’s mind went back to the previous night in the rave. ‘This guy was hitting on me, trying to get me to drink something. Alex drank it instead to scare him off.’

  ‘What did he look like?’ said Paulo. ‘Maybe we can track him down.’

  ‘He was a dork,’ said Li. ‘He was too sappy to be a drug dealer.’

  ‘Anyway, he could have come from anywhere,’ said Hex. ‘I did some sleuthing last night and that rave had been advertised in a web community. Tiff probably knew about it for ages. No wonder she didn’t complain when she had to stay.’

  Paulo groaned. ‘When’s the next rave? Maybe she’s doing the tour.’

  ‘Not for a while,’ said Hex. ‘It’s in Liverpool in October.’

  They heard footsteps on the gravel. Alex was coming out of the kitchen, his hands curled around a mug of coffee. He looked pale, there were hollows under his eyes and he was moving gingerly.

  ‘Hey,’ he said, looking at the little group around the Range Rover. ‘Is it working yet?’

  ‘It’ll go like a dream,’ said Paulo. ‘How do you feel?’

  ‘So-so. Reckon I need to get out and do something. What’s planned for today?’

  ‘I was hoping we could do some climbing,’ said Li, ‘but that uses similar muscles to potholing and I don’t think Tiff will cope. She’ll be quite stiff after yesterday.’

  ‘She wasn’t stiff when I saw her dancing last night,’ commented Paulo.

  ‘No,’ agreed Amber, ‘but we should do something gentle or she’ll refuse to do anything at all. How about orienteering? Alex, what do you feel like? You don’t have to come with us.’

  ‘Actually I could do with a run,’ said Alex. ‘To clear my head.’

  ‘Someone should go with you,’ said Paulo. ‘You can get flashbacks with some drugs.’

  ‘I’ll go,’ volunteered Hex. ‘I’ll bring the chill-out kit.’

  They heard swearing and crashing from the kitchen. Tiff had come down.

  ‘I think I hear her ladyship’s up and about,’ sighed Amber.

  As they started back indoors, Alex hung back with Hex. ‘Thanks for sorting me last night. I guess I was talking gibberish.’

  ‘Snakes and Wendy houses,’ said Hex. ‘Yeah, you were.’

  Alex kept his voice quiet. ‘Can I ask a favour? Will you come with me to find that little house? I know it’s daft but I want to see what’s really there.’

  7

  FLASHBACK

  Hex and Alex jogged across the open moor. Hex had an Ordnance Survey map in a waterproof case secured to his belt. Although Alex couldn’t remember where he’d been, a little detective work allowed them to retrace his steps. While the palmtop finished recharging, they worked out how far he could have gone in the time, then looked on the map for possible buildings within that radius. It was mostly open moorland, and every farm, cottage or ruin was marked. It wasn’t hard to narrow down Alex’s likely route.

  Hex kept looking at his friend as they jogged, worried he might get a relapse. But Alex seemed more normal now. He’d lost the washed-out pallor and the haunted eyes. In fact it was Hex who was looking worse. He’d only had about an hour of sleep because he’d been looking after Alex.

  It was magnificent countryside. Rolling hills, narrow sheep tracks, hummocks where marshes had dried out, the occasional gulley carved by streams, now dried to just a trickle in the bottom. Some were more than a metre deep, covered with tufted wiry grass. But it wasn’t quite as peaceful as during the night. Every now and again they heard the crack of a rifle shot in the distance – people from the hunting lodge. And sometimes—

  A vast noise suddenly filled the sky. Hex and Alex stopped and looked up. A black shape like a dart zoomed over, heading out to sea. The RAF flew up from Lincolnshire to practise laser target marking on the uninha
bited islands off the coast. The jet screamed into the distance, leaving a cotton-wool wake.

  Hex’s heart soared. Now he felt like he was in the land of the living again.

  ‘Hey,’ said Alex. He pointed ahead: on the horizon was a small stone building with a chimney and a fence.

  Hex checked the map. It was marked, but there were no roads or tracks to it. He recognized the characteristic features. ‘It’s a bothy.’

  They had come across a number of bothies in the previous week. They were small one-room buildings in the middle of nowhere, constructed so that travellers could shelter from bad weather. A club kept a number of them maintained as a tradition of the countryside.

  But this one had fallen on hard times. As they approached, they saw that the fence petered out around the side of the building and became a mess of shattered wood. Where the rafters had been was open sky. The windows had gone and the interior was a mass of fallen timber.

  Alex looked at it in disbelief. ‘It was like this; it had a window here, but inside . . .’

  ‘Maybe when the moonlight touched it, it came alive,’ said Hex.

  Alex gave him a withering look.

  ‘Sorry, mate, but you were high as a kite and seeing snakes and faces. You might easily have imagined you saw people inside it.’

  ‘No, there definitely were people,’ insisted Alex. ‘Let’s have a look at the map.’

  Hex handed it over.

  Alex scanned the area around them, then compared it with the compass. ‘There’s another one just over that hill.’ He set off at a jog.

  Hex sighed. ‘Just over the hill’ was quite a way. Still, he liked to do at least one really long run every week.

  They jogged up to the next peak. Down below was another small bothy with grey slate tiles. ‘That’s it,’ panted Alex. ‘It’s got a roof.’

  Don’t get your hopes up, thought Hex as he followed him down.

  This bothy was in much better condition. There was glass in the window, a sturdy door. Alex looked at the stone mullioned window and then at the ground beside it.