Mercy Kill
The Survival Chronicles
By
Fergal F. Nally
Copyright © Fergal F. Nally 2017
The moral right of Fergal F. Nally to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act, 1988.
All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing of the author, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
Cover design: Beetiful Book Covers
Cover Photograph of Woman (used with permission): Valentina Kallias
Contents
Contents
Chapter 1 Mercy
Chapter 2 Evasion
Chapter 3 Boy
Chapter 4 Escape
Chapter 5 Black And Blue
Chapter 6 West Side
Chapter 7 Lost and Found
Chapter 8 Night Terrors
Chapter 9 Wall Of Tears
Chapter 10 Preacher Rules
Chapter 11 Fresh Meat
Chapter 12 The River
Chapter 13 Dash
Chapter 14 Trapped
Chapter 15 Safe House
Chapter 16 Amber Flush
Chapter 17 Splinter
Chapter 18 Dawn Fire
Chapter 19 Between The Lines
Chapter 20 Punishment
Chapter 21 Terror Street
Chapter 22 Lighthouse
About the Author
“Ring-a-ring o' rosies,
A pocket full of posies,
A-tishoo! A-tishoo!
We all fall down.”
(Unknown)
Chapter 1 Mercy
Mercy examined her fingernails; broken, bloodied, dirty.
She’d never have clean nails or teeth again, not like the smiling people in the faded advertisements decorating the streets from the time before the Fall. Her joints ached and her head hurt again. She felt old, but she was only seventeen— was that right? It was difficult to remember the unimportant things.
Mercy squirted oil onto the sloping glass below, she needed to find more oil, the rats were becoming persistent. The sun’s dying rays disappeared behind the buildings opposite. A familiar chill rose in her bones, she hated the night and what it brought. Sleep had evaded her for two years. She kicked out the fire and pulled the blanket around her.
Her mind drifted but her eyes remained alert.
Seventeen years on this planet and two years since the pandemic. The infection had taken her friends and had stolen her life leaving her stranded in this new world. She drifted back to the orphanage and the conversation that haunted her.
“Mercy’s different… you must understand… she has Urbach-Wiethe disease, an extremely rare recessive genetic disorder. Worldwide there’s only been four hundred cases reported since it was first recognised in 1929… she will never experience fear.”
There was no cure for Urbach-Wiethe disease. The rest of the doctor’s explanation was long gone. No fear— is that what had kept her alive these last two years? All the others at the orphanage had died, killed by the tropes, with their sagging red eyelids and their insane thirst for human blood. She reminded herself that tropes had once been people, with friends, family, loves and lives.
What was fear anyway? What purpose did it serve? She remembered the trope attacking Connor in the orphanage. Connor didn’t even react, he just stood there, staring as the trope ripped his throat out. And then there was the kid with the glasses, he did run when the tropes came, but he ran towards them— what was that about?
Fear.
It served no useful purpose. It got you killed. Mercy’s eyes took in the fast encroaching shadows across the street, she was on trope time now, playing by their rules. She missed the others, especially Marianne, with her funny smile and spiky blue hair. At least Marianne’s death had been quick, Mercy’s arrow had flown true, through Marianne’s heart, her first mercy kill, she had honoured their pact— the trope hadn’t taken Marianne’s life.
They had joked about their pact. If Mercy had to do the deed it would literally be a Mercy kill. Mercy blinked, she saw movement in the shadows down the street on her right, the tropes were stirring early, they must be hungry. She reached into her pack and took out the jar of lion scat. She unscrewed the lid and put her hand in, coating it liberally. She rubbed the scat onto her neck and behind her ears. Tropes kept away from the lions, she would be a lion tonight. She sent a silent “thank you” to the zoo keepers for freeing the animals near the end.
Guess I’ll never know why they released the animals, it was probably a mistake, like a lot of other shit—
Mercy looked down fourteen stories to the street below. She was in the sweet spot, neither too high nor too close to the ground. Too high and she could run into the Flyers with their wings and zip wires, too low and the tropes would pick up her scent. Fourteen stories was a safe middle ground.
Who am I kidding? There is no such thing as safety—
The Big Apple had gone bad, and she was at its rotten heart, still alive two years after the haemorrhagic fever had struck the city. She had learned a lot since then, how to survive, how to keep under the tropes’ radar. The other gangs tolerated her; La Roche’s crew and the Angels, she brought them news from other districts of the city.
Mercy remembered being underground in the Chelsea gallery district, in the hidden subway station, long abandoned, even in the years before the pandemic. What she saw there sickened her; the freaks were weaponised tropes— weaponised by the military. They wanted more than blood, they consumed human flesh and even ate trope flesh.
Hunger ruled the Big Apple, everything was feeding, she had learned to survive; hunt or be hunted. She frowned, the tropes had been staying out longer than usual. They were pushing their nocturnal forays further from the city centre, staying active into the early morning light. They were using plastic sheeting, tarpaulins and in a few cases old clothes to protect their skin from daylight. Their behaviour was changing, they were evolving, becoming bolder, stronger than before.
But they would not get her tonight, not on the fourteenth floor.
Mercy lay her head back on the glass platform. The building had been unfinished when the pandemic struck. The platform looked down through the heart of the building and sloped away as part of a glass pyramid giving her a 360 degree view of her surroundings. If anything tried to sneak up on her she would see it coming.
Mercy remembered the batteries she had found. Batteries— who would’ve thought? She reached into her pocket and pulled out the old mp3 player and earphones. She popped the casing and inserted the batteries, anticipation running through her.
It was one of the things she missed most since the Fall— music, its wonderful warm sound, full of life, hope and humanity. There was no music in this world, her world was dead, silent, threatening. She looked long and hard at the player. Would it work? Were the batteries dead? She almost didn’t press play, but then she did, nothing happened, her earphones remained silent. Emptiness surrounded her.
What did you expect? Everything’s dead, even music— she pulled the earphones out. Bitterness welled up inside her
, the pandemic had even killed music.
Mercy turned pressing her cheek to the cool glass and looked into the darkness below. She closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep. She woke hours later, cold and stiff, her breath misting the air. Her eyes were unfocused, bleary, she blinked, wind moaned through the building.
The wind carried the smell of death— the smell of tropes.
Mercy froze, she was high enough. Unless—
She reached for her pack and searched inside finding the night vision goggles. She put them on and flicked the switch. She froze, eight tropes, closing in, they had her position surrounded. What were they doing up here, so high off the ground?
Mercy was unprepared for this— the rats yes, they would annoy her at night but not the tropes, not this high up. Hunger or something else had driven them up. No time to think. Mercy looked up then down. They were almost on her, she could not fight them all.
Run—
She stood and put on her pack. Tropes could sense movement and track human scent. The lion scat had not worked this time. Tropes hunted in packs— her escape window was closing. Mercy crept along the glass platform towards a cross beam surrounded by scaffolding. As she reached the beam she noticed the lead trope moving away from her, out towards the edge of the building. Were they reading her movements? Was she being flanked?
Then she saw the boy.
Chapter 2 Evasion
Mercy hesitated. The tropes were not after her, they were hunting the boy.
If she stayed put, they might pass by, she could escape.
Her internal voice screamed, Move, move, move—
Those that kept moving lived, those that stayed put died. She had seen it again and again. The boy moved fast, he was thirty feet in front of the lead trope, heading out to the exposed front of the building but it was a feint. He ducked inwards and jumped onto the internal scaffolding. The other tropes hung back behind their leader.
Mercy blinked, this behaviour was new, usually trope hunting was a chaotic affair with no clear leader. Here was an obvious pack and alpha. If she could create a diversion it might give the boy a chance to put some distance between him and his pursuers.
The tropes still had not seen her, the leader turned to the others and screamed. They replied with their own screams and the pack dispersed around Mercy’s platform. She’d have one shot, she would do her best but the boy would be on his own. She reached into the pack and pulled out her last flare. She twisted the base of the flare breaking the seal, it erupted with intense red light.
The whole atrium lit up, dazzling light reflecting off the glass pyramid. The tropes froze, raising their arms to protect their eyes. The lead trope screamed in defiance staring directly at Mercy. The trope’s hand went for something around his neck. He placed the object over his eyes.
Goggles.
Mercy was stunned, this was not good, tropes didn’t do this, they did not use things, they were not intelligent. She had no time to think, the leader leapt towards her onto the sloping glass. His bare feet connected with the pyramid and he slipped, sprawling awkwardly on the glass. Mercy snapped out of her fugue, glad she had oiled the glass earlier. She turned and ran towards the scaffolding, all thoughts of the boy gone.
She made it to the beam and jumped on, the flare still in her hand. Grunts and shrieks came from behind as the lead trope gained traction on the glass. Mercy needed both hands for the scaffolding, the flare would last another minute or two. She reached the scaffolding and rammed the flare into a loose bracket and began climbing. The scaffolding had been exposed to the weather since the Fall, Mercy’s hands gripped the lichen covered metal.
Her muscles were toned and strong, she made good progress up the scaffolding. She had climbed this piece before and knew where its weaknesses were. The flare spluttered behind her, the atrium was plunged into darkness. The tropes screamed as they resumed the chase.
The scaffolding shook as the lead trope grabbed it, climbing like a monkey. It gained on Mercy grabbing her leg, she felt no fear just a sense of urgency, of a job to be done. For every problem there was a solution, sometimes two or three solutions, she just had to find the key. The trope tried to bite her through her lace up boots. She held on to the scaffolding and kicked out missing. She cursed and tried again this time pulling herself up with both arms.
The trope released her leg and jumped grabbing her waist, it crawled up her body latching onto her backpack. Its stinking breath surrounded her, it stopped screaming and retracted its jaws to strike. Mercy let go of the scaffolding and fell backwards. They dropped through the air landing on the atrium roof with a loud thud. The trope’s ribcage crunched breaking Mercy’s fall, the glass cracked around them. Mercy lay still for a second processing what had happened. The cracking grew louder.
The trope was still alive and started clawing her, its teeth snapping at her neck. Mercy wriggled free of the backpack and rolled away from the apex of the atrium. Her body found an oily patch of glass and she slipped from the injured trope. He moved to follow her leaning into the glass, wrestling with the backpack.
The sound of shattering glass filled the air, the whole upper section of the atrium gave way falling down through the building. Mercy lost her grip on the glass and slid down the final section to the concrete floor. Breathless and with a racing heart she lay there listening. Sweat beaded her forehead, she felt a sharp pain in her right side. She reached down, her fingers found glass protruding from her flesh. She braced herself and tugged, the shard came out, a wave of agony lanced through her. Mercy stifled a cry and lay there trembling. She had to move, she had to get out. She had a stash in another building, it would keep her going, hell, she had stashes all over the city.
Keep moving, or die.
There would be more tropes on the ground, she could not go back down. She needed to keep to the plan and go up, find one of the Flyer zip wires and exit the tower. She still had the night vision goggles and her knife, she was alive. She would get through this.
Mercy lay a moment longer and listened. Nothing. Where were the remaining tropes? Where was the boy? Slowly she stood, the pain in her side had lessened to a dull ache, she ignored it and put on the goggles.
Nothing.
Knife in hand she turned towards the scaffolding and took a step. Broken glass crunched under her foot, she cursed. She needed to move fast. She reached the scaffolding, the same section the boy had taken earlier, and began to climb. The scaffolding was rusty and slick with lichen but it held firm. She looked through the goggles as she climbed. Where had the tropes gone? There should be seven of them left.
Mercy climbed keeping three points of contact. A few minutes later a cry came from her left, she turned. A writhing mass of bodies lay clustered forty feet away locked in combat; humans and tropes. The humans were wielding blades and clubs— Flyers.
Bad for the Flyers, but good for her. The Flyers were a tough crew but nobody would choose to battle tropes in the dark, tropes owned the dark. The Flyers would’ve sent scouts down from their camp on the thirtieth floor to investigate the noise on the fourteenth. This was her chance, she’d use the diversion to leave the tropes behind.
Mercy climbed until the scaffolding ran out. She lowered herself from the last section onto a wet concrete floor and stood panting, a fresh breeze reached her from outside, the ache in her side had returned. She didn’t have time to check the wound, she was running on adrenaline.
Mercy looked around with the night vision, the area was clear. She took out her knife and followed the breeze. Her goggles revealed large pools of water on the floor. She noticed the absence of glass; she was above the seventeenth floor. She made her way to the building’s outside edge and found her bearings.
Cold rain slammed into her, Mercy shivered realising she hadn’t eaten or had water since midday. Stupid, stupid, stupid— the worst thing she could do was to become dehydrated. Once dehydrated she wouldn’t think clearly, she’d lost her water bottle. She saw a pool of rainwater near the edg
e of the building. Glancing around and seeing nothing, she knelt to drink from the pool. She managed three mouthfuls, the water tasted metallic but it would do. She stood and turned to where the stairs should be scoping the area with her goggles.
Nothing.
Something didn’t feel right. She clenched her teeth ignoring the ache in her side. She waited. An inhuman scream came from somewhere within the building followed by silence. Then she saw it, across the floor where the stairwell should be.
Movement, a green blur.
A door opened, the blur disappeared.
The boy? Something else?
She had to follow. The upper floors could be crawling with tropes in minutes, she had to expect anything. There was something very different about tonight. Be prepared for anything— Sam’s voice whispered in her mind. Sam the Shadow, another ghost from the orphanage.
Your shadow didn’t save you, did it Sam?
Mercy crouched and ran towards the door. It was the stairwell— she’d made it. She looked back, then listened at the door. She turned the handle and opened the door a crack, a thin section of wire was visible behind the door, she froze.
Christ—
That was all she needed; a booby trap. Whoever had gone through the door had left it as insurance. Mercy traced the wire with her fingers and found a grenade taped to the wall. She used her knife to cut the tape and free the grenade. At least now she had another weapon. She went through the door closing it behind her.
Her night vision flickered and died, the battery drained. She was totally blind.
Move or die—
She reached out and grabbed the stair rail with her left hand, the knife in her right. The stairwell was silent, the smell of decay came from somewhere far below. Mercy counted the steps as she climbed, her feet brushed against debris and fallen cables. She clambered around a collapsed section of concrete, feeling the way as she went. The darkness felt endless. She knew sensory deprivation fed the imagination and imagination was her enemy right now. She needed her senses, she needed facts to make the right decisions.
The Survival Chronicles (Book 1}: Mercy Kill Page 1
