The Survival Chronicles (Book 3): Mercy Fall

by Nally, Fergal F.

  “Come on Flynn, it’s clear down here,” Mercy shouted from the alley.

  Flynn scanned the alleyway, the distant sound of shelling persisted in the city, their district seemed to be full of smoke, three neighbouring buildings were on fire. He lowered himself over the wall and dropped to the alley below.

  Mercy saw his hand, “Jesus Flynn, your hand—”

  “Another day in paradise, living the dream,” Flynn said. “Don’t worry it’s nothing, let’s get out of here—” he stuffed his hand in his jacket pocket and started to move down the alley.

  Mercy unslung the Remington and went ahead. She was frowning, the smell of blood would attract every trope for miles, she needed a plan, and fast. The day was oppressive, it was getting under her skin, they were close to the edge, more than before. She felt control slipping away, was she even heading in the right direction?

  Hell, I don’t know the way to Oakland Mall, how are we supposed to find it? That was Garrett’s job—

  Then she remembered the radio, she had put it in her back pocket when she had taken off her belt. She brought it out and stopped. She flicked the switch and cycled through the channels and was rewarded with static.

  A big fat nothing—

  Mercy’s eyes said it all. Flynn shrugged and pulled a face.

  “We’ll keep on going, away from here anyway, away from the shelling—” Flynn said.

  Mercy returned the radio to her back pocket and continued down the alley. They emerged onto a larger street, Mercy looked up and saw a sign: COMMERCE STREET. A large building loomed in the distance, it was undamaged by the shelling, they were near the city centre.

  There should be signs ahead, Garrett said Oakland was to the east of the city. We’ll find it, we’ve got to, twelve hours he said, a lot can happen in twelve hours—

  Mercy stuck to the centre of the road walking briskly through the rain. Flynn’s left hand was out of action but he could still use a pistol. She looked back, he had his Remington slung across his back and the Sig Sauer P226 was in his right hand. They still had firepower, they still had options and therefore hope.

  Hope—

  Mercy grimaced.

  Hope? What’s the point?

  Mercy scanned the buildings and the roads. A large rounded building came into view on her right: FORT WORTH CONVENTION CENTRE. It was huge, it would provide shelter and a welcome respite from the rain. Thunder rumbled in the distance, leaden clouds filled the horizon.

  At least it’ll dampen our scent—

  Mercy edged towards the convention centre the Remington raised. She looked back at Flynn, her eyes flicking to the street behind. Movement caught her eye, dark shapes loping along the sidewalk, tropes emerging from buildings and alleyways. She looked at the multi-story carpark opposite the convention centre, tropes were running down the spiral exit ramp towards street level.

  Flynn followed her gaze, “Shit, they smell my blood,” he took his bloodstained hand out of his pocket, his jacket was soaked in blood, the rain washing it onto the street laying a trail.

  Practically broadcasting our presence—

  Mercy raised the Remington and fired at two tropes exiting the carpark. One fell, half its skull missing, the other one kept coming. Mercy fired a second slug round, the trope slumped to the ground, gore smattering the street behind it.

  “Run, follow me—” she chambered another round.

  Mercy ignored the convention centre and continued down the street. The road curved, she weaved through abandoned vehicles and an old police checkpoint. They scrambled over barriers and fled the advancing trope column. An open area of concrete and greenery appeared up ahead. Mercy kept running and threw herself into the cover afforded by the trees and long grass. She climbed a series of steps, a large pool of stagnant water lay off to her right. A body was floating face down in the reeds, the smell of rotting flesh pervaded the air.

  Maybe this was a mistake—

  “Go, go, go—” Flynn shouted. “They’re everywhere—”

  Mercy swung around, the tropes were converging on all sides. Nearby a faded sign showed a map of the Fort Worth Water Gardens. Mercy stepped towards it, her eyes scanning the detail.

  “This way,” she said, her voice even.

  They retreated through the long grass towards the heart of the gardens. A phalanx of tropes appeared on Flynn’s left, he brought the Sig Sauer up firing instinctively at the nearest tropes dropping the first two. On Mercy’s right a cluster of tropes burst out of the long grass, she blasted the Remington, eviscerating two. More came, trampling the others.

  Mercy and Flynn retreated down a series of moss covered steps, the ground was slick with vines and lichen. Mercy glanced over her shoulder.

  “Shit, we’ve backed ourselves into a corner—”

  A series of concrete shelves led down into a large excavated area, waterfalls had once adorned the space, but no longer. It was a killing ground, a trap for the unwary, evidence lay everywhere: skulls and bones littered the ground.

  We’ve retreated to our grave—

  Chapter 25 Blades

  “Find a way out Flynn—” Mercy shouted. She blasted at the tropes coming after them.

  Flynn’s pistol was empty, he could not change the magazine with his injured hand. He reached the bottom of the Water Gardens and looked around.

  No way out—

  He looked up, around the concrete rim of the space, more tropes were appearing by the second.

  Damn, we’ve stirred up a hornets’ nest—

  “Hey, mister, get your foot off the grate,” a young voice broke Flynn’s train of thought.

  What the hell?

  Flynn glanced at the ground, a boy’s face was staring up at him through the slits of an iron grate embedded in the concrete.

  Mercy’s Remington fell silent, she was out of shells and switched to her Beretta, “Whatever you’re gonna do, do it now Flynn—” she barked.

  Flynn stepped off the grate and bent down, the boy pushed the grate up and to one side. “Get your asses down here, you’ve drawn enough attention,” his face disappeared into the darkness below.

  “Mercy, here, like now—” Flynn shouted.

  Mercy turned and took in the scene, “You go first, I’ll hold them off a bit longer—” She swung around and shot a trope between the eyes as it tried to grab her, she retreated a few steps and changed the Beretta’s magazine.

  Flynn cursed and knelt beside the open drain, he lowered himself through the hole using his good hand. His feet found the metallic rungs and he descended into the underworld.

  Mercy emptied her replacement magazine in ten seconds and jumped down the last few steps. Tropes were throwing themselves from the elevated garden rim onto her position, they rolled into a tangle of squirming bodies at the bottom. Mercy crouched beside the open drain and climbed in pulling the heavy grate after her. It fell into place with a resounding clank.

  Please hold, please hold—

  Mercy descended into the gloom below, the tropes clawed at the grate above.

  “Don’t worry they won’t get through, they’ve tried before but it’s held,” a boy appeared out of the darkness holding a KA-BAR. “Who are you guys? What are you doing on our turf?”

  Mercy looked at the boy, he was about twelve or thirteen years old, short hair, defiant eyes with a dirty face, he wore a T-shirt depicting some band Mercy had never heard of. “Hey, thanks, you saved our skin up there,” she glanced at Flynn. “My name’s Mercy this is my friend Flynn, we’re caught between the NSA and the Texas lines, we just want to get out of here, head east. We’re meeting up with some others in Oakland—”

  The boy stared at Mercy for a few seconds, “Yeah, you’re telling the truth. I’ll buy that. Well you’re just going to have to lie low for a while, the shelling usually stops at night which is when me and my crew go up top to look for food, you can join us if you want. Oh, and you don’t want to go to Oakland, last I heard there was a stadium full of biters just brok
e loose up there—”

  “Shit, that’s all we need—” Flynn said.

  Mercy reached out and gripped his arm, “It is what it is, a few minutes ago we were dead meat, now look where we are,” she gestured at the boy. “So what’s your name hero?”

  The boy grinned then spat on the ground, “The name’s Blades, but I like hero too.” His smile was infectious and Mercy found herself smiling, she instinctively liked the boy.

  “So Blades, you’re part of a gang right? Down here?” Flynn asked.

  “Sure am, but we don’t take in adults though, adults are always trouble. Look at the shit storm above, that’s all because of adults. I’ll need to clear it with the others but I’ll vouch for you. Stiff will let you stay a few hours, I’m sure. Stiff likes guns.” Blades licked his lips and glanced at Mercy’s shotgun. “Just sayin’,” Blades added, “one good turn and all that.”

  Mercy nodded, “Lead on Blades, anywhere’s better than here.” She looked at the shadows moving across the grate above, the distant sound of groaning filtered down from the outside. She looked at Flynn and pointed up, “Brings a new meaning to circling the drain don’t it?”

  Flynn pulled a face. Mercy could see he was in pain, the sooner they could get to Blade’s den the sooner she could have a look at Flynn’s hand.

  Blades led them through a warren of tunnels. Mercy counted six KA-BAR combat knives strapped to his chest and legs in addition to a claw hammer on his belt. She wondered if his name reflected a gift with knives; gang names were important, a badge of honour, they were earned. She tried to figure out what the name Stiff could mean but came to no conclusion. Her mind raced with the information Blades had given them about Oakland. The city centre was bad enough with tropes but Oakland sounded worse.

  A stadium of tropes on the loose? That could be fifty, sixty thousand—

  Why had their evacuation been planned for Oakland? She looked at Blade’s back, local knowledge was priceless. Blades slowed down, produced a torch from his back pocket and switched it on.

  “Next section’s a bit gross but keep moving and don’t slip, it’d be… unhealthy to slip—” Blades did not explain.

  Mercy looked back to check on Flynn, he met her gaze. She could see the pain in his face, she frowned and turned to follow Blades. His torch lit the way. She moved forwards and after a few paces came to the first bloated body, it wore a uniform she did not recognise, she pushed past it and soon came to others. They all wore the same uniform, all had bullet wounds to the head. The tunnel was choked with dead soldiers.

  Must be Constantine’s men. At least they won’t turn with those head wounds— a massacre, it looks like they’ve been executed, recently, the smell’s not too bad yet. This’d be a war crime back in the day, but now prisoners are a luxury I guess, nowhere to keep them secure, no food to spare. But why dump the bodies down here?

  Mercy’s thoughts were interrupted, Blades stopped ahead and started up a ladder to the surface. Mercy stepped over the last body and went to the ladder, Blades was climbing out of a manhole cover above. She looked back to check on Flynn who had just negotiated the last body, then she climbed up towards the daylight. She pulled herself from the shaft out onto a wet road. They were in a retail park, surrounded by warehouse sized shops.

  Blades was watching a few feet away, “The NSA have death squads, they pound Constantine’s guys with shells then when they surrender they take them and boom, it’s all over,” Blades mimed a gun to the head. “You were lucky I found you at the Water Gardens,” he added. “Eyes and ears is what it’s all about, our scouts are out gathering information all the time. Stiff’s talking about leaving the city altogether, let the dust settle, see what’s left after all this shit,” he waved his hand in the air.

  “So you’re a scout—” Mercy said. “Did you see another group; an older guy, three women and a boy?”

  Blades shook his head, “Them the ones you spoke about earlier? Your crew, heading to Oakland?”

  “Yeah,” Mercy nodded. She gave Flynn a hand as he climbed from the manhole.

  “They’re on their own now, you on the other hand are not,” Blades beckoned them on.

  He led them to a shuttered retail outlet, Mercy looked at the frontage trying to work out what the shop was, the name emblazoned across the top gave no clue: Findlay’s Fancy Goods.

  Blades tapped on the shuttered door, “It’s Blades, open up—”

  Movement caught Mercy’s eye, a CCTV camera swivelled to face the door. She stared at it for a few moments wondering who was on the other end. The shutters rose from the ground stopping at knee height. Blades crouched and crawled under, Mercy waved Flynn on.

  Flynn shook his head, “After you, I’ve got your back—”

  Mercy shrugged, dropped to the ground and crawled under the shutters, a hand appeared in front of her face. She looked up at Blade’s grinning face. Another youth stood nearby holding a bloodied baseball bat. Mercy took Blade’s hand and he helped her up. The other kid bent to help Flynn.

  Blade’s eyes narrowed as he watched Flynn crawling under the shutter, “That had better not be a bite.” He tensed and pulled out a KA-BAR.

  “Relax,” Mercy said. “He nicked his hand climbing over a fence. Have you got a first aid kit, disinfectant?”

  “Yeah— this place sold useless crap but we’ve got all sorts of good stuff here now,” Blades said, his eyes not leaving Flynn. “Show me your hand,” Blades demanded.

  Flynn held his injured hand out, allowing Blades to inspect it. “Just careless I guess, my eyes were elsewhere—”

  Blades re sheathed the KA-BAR satisfied. “Yeah, well, we’ve all been there.”

  A voice boomed out from behind, “Blades, whatcha got there?”

  Mercy turned to see a group of youths coming towards them, twelve in all, a mixture of girls and boys, the youngest about eight the oldest around sixteen. She looked to the eldest boy expecting him to be the leader but he remained quiet.

  “Rescued these two at the Water Gardens, they were seconds away from being trope food,” Blades declared. “They know how to use weapons but they’re not military. Their group was split, their friends are heading to Oakland for rescue by Constantine’s forces.”

  A girl about fourteen or fifteen with close cropped hair and startling green eyes stepped forwards giving Mercy and Flynn the once over. “You know how to use weapons?”

  Mercy met the girl’s stare sensing an angle, “Pretty much, yeah—”

  “We’ll patch up your friend if you show us how to use some stuff we found,” the girl said, her tone direct.

  “Agreed, show me what you got,” Mercy responded, wondering why Texan kids needed any instruction in firearms.

  The girl led Mercy to the back of the room to a table covered in plastic sheeting. “Found these at the police storage facility on Lancaster Avenue. Figure they’re real weapons otherwise they wouldn’t have had them in storage would they?” The girl pulled back the sheet and stood back.

  Mercy looked down; two backpacks were attached to plastic pistol shaped guns by tubing. Mercy shook one of the backpacks and heard a sloshing sound. She had seen similar weapons in New York in the early days after the infection when the NYPD had been trying to control looters.

  Mercy put the backpack on, “Liquid Taser, stun gun, uses liquid to transfer electric charge to the target, looks state of the art. This could come in pretty useful if you wanted to capture someone without killing them—”

  “Show me how it works,” the girl said, her eyebrows raised.

  Mercy picked up the plastic gun and examined it, “You’ll need a living subject as a target to test this thing properly—”

  The girl looked disappointed and chewed her lip, thinking, “That can be arranged, we’re going scavenging later. We’ll patch up your friend, but he’ll stay here. You’ll help us waste one of those NSA pigs and we can strip him of real weapons.”

  Mercy shook her head, “No can do, I’ve a deadline, we
’ve got to get to Oakland in…” she looked at her watch, “ten hours.”

  The girl stepped forwards and reached for Mercy’s hand, “You will help us and we will help you. We know the streets, my crew can get you to Oakland by safe routes, you can be there in an hour tops. You do this for us and we’ll be quits, plus we’ll fix up your friend,” she glanced at Flynn.

  Mercy stared at her and the group of kids, they were survivors, she recognised that. They needed this and she needed Flynn’s hand cleaned and dressed. It would be dark soon. She had nothing to lose.

  “Sure, whatever, you got a deal,” Mercy held out her hand.

  The girl looked at Mercy’s outstretched hand, “Still keep to the old ways huh?” She gripped Mercy’s hand and they shook on the deal. “The name’s Stiff, it’s a pleasure doing business with you—”

  “Dawes, Mercy Dawes and this is Flynn,” Mercy replied.

  Stiff nodded at Flynn then turned to a lanky, long haired youth, “Marky have a look at his hand, see what you can do—”

  The youth beckoned to Flynn and they went over to a screened off area.

  “Looks like you could do with a drink and some food,” Stiff said to Mercy, she looked at her watch. “We’ll move out in an hour.” She turned to a red haired girl, “Fix them something to eat Sash.” Stiff left the group and went to the back of the room.

  Sash helped Mercy out of the backpack and brought her over to a makeshift kitchen area. “We got crackers and oatmeal oh, and some coffee.”

  “That’ll do fine,” Mercy replied, she was exhausted.

  Mercy watched Sash prepare the food on a camping stove. The other kids had dispersed around the room busy with various tasks. Mercy noticed two of the older boys had parked themselves nearby and were watching her.

  Let them, they don’t know me—

  Stiff’s offer had been reasonable, they would get a guide to Oakland and make the rendezvous. Mercy looked at her hands, her nails were dirty and broken, her skin scratched and bruised.