The memory of the last time the kid had been part of an attack on John surfaced unbidden. Attacking John when he had been human had terrified Glyn; had almost left him in tears. Clearly he had no such issues now. With a roar, Glyn charged.
Damn things never stay down.
John slid the nightstick he’d acquired at the police station from his belt and smashed it into the incoming creature’s throat, driving it back into the wall once more. The thing that had been Glyn coughed and sputtered, sounding almost human.
John didn't hesitate. He hefted the short sword and buried it deep into the kid’s belly, twisting the blade and ripping it across his abdomen. John pivoted from the hip using all the strength in his upper body to compensate for the dull blade and swept it clear of Glyn’s flesh.
Glyn staggered, still grasping weakly at John, until a final shattering blow with the flat edge of the sword knocked the poor bastard sideways. Glyn’s body hit the ground a half-second after his intestines spilled out onto the cobbles.
John turned away, feeling nauseous, and his eyes widened.
More movement, charging toward him, like Glyn had called for reinforcements.
Ray. All of them.
It looked like the scream he had heard had been the sound of Ray’s group failing to reach the hardware store. There was no time for John to curse the fact that he wouldn’t be home-brewing any explosives. He counted four figures streaking down the road toward him.
Running is my plan A, he remembered saying to Emma. The girl had looked at him like she didn’t quite believe him; like John could handle himself and would fight his way out of trouble.
John flung his nightstick at Ray as the eyeless biker closed in on him, and heard the crunch as the baton caught the infected man across the nose and floored him, but John didn’t see the impact.
He was already running.
*
Shirley had done his best to persuade Michael to get on the raft, but Michael wouldn’t even acknowledge the man. He stayed focused on the rifle’s iron sights, waiting for a target to appear. The road Ed had appeared on remained empty.
Maybe something drew them away from him?
The notion made a cold knot of tension form in Michael’s gut. There was only one other thing that could possibly draw the Infected away from their pursuit of a human, and that was other humans. And there were only a handful of those in Caernarfon.
He swept his gaze north, to the street John had taken en route to the police station.
Come on, John. Come on.
When Michael saw the first of John’s group appear, sprinting and terrified but still in one piece, he clenched his fist in triumph.
They’re going to make it.
But something was wrong. Michael counted the figures that sprinted toward him, but he didn’t need numbers to tell him the truth. The people running toward the raft were all small and slight. All female.
“On the raft!” Michael roared as they approached. “Emma, where’s John?”
Emma looked back in the direction she had come from, and her face contorted in confusion.
“He was behind me,” she said, her eyes filling with tears. “He was fighting them, but then he ran, and he was right behind me.”
Michael felt himself deflating as the thought of having to proceed without John loomed in his mind. He spent a lot of time butting heads with John, but the man was invaluable; the only reason any of them were still alive.
Fuck.
Michael saw movement on the street. Something had been running behind Emma, but it wasn’t John. It was Ray. Had been Ray. But Ray was gone, replaced by a walking weapon that closed on the raft with a fearsome, single-minded purpose.
Michael heard Shirley let out a grief-stricken moan behind him, and then he felt the big man’s arms wrapping themselves around his torso, and suddenly Michael was on the raft, and Shirley was pulling hand over hand on the rope, dragging Michael away from Caernarfon and back to the castle, and Michael felt dark clouds gathering in his mind.
33
“John didn’t make it,” Michael said to nobody in particular, in a bereft tone.
They were gathered on the edge of the river, watching, stunned, as the last of the group of Infected that had been their friends were washed out to sea.
Rachel couldn’t believe it. Wouldn’t believe it. When the raft made its final voyage across the river, delivering Michael and Shirley to the castle and she saw Ray, eyeless and horrific, plunging into the fast-flowing water and being pulled away by the current, all she could think about was John.
He can’t be gone.
The man had survived far worse. He was practically fucking bulletproof. How could he have fallen while Emma and the others made it?
“Where’s John?” she snapped at Emma, grabbing the crying girl’s narrow shoulders and forcing her to look into Rachel’s blazing eyes.
Emma shook her head miserably.
“I…he…he was catching me up!” she moaned. “He was right behind me, and they were chasing us. I don’t know.”
Tears flowed freely down Emma’s face, and Rachel felt a stab of sympathy for the girl. Somehow it had been easy to view the other people at the castle purely as comrades-in-arms, but when Emma began to cry, Rachel abruptly realised that the person standing in front of her was a young girl who a couple of weeks earlier had probably been busy worrying about school exams and whether that boy in her class liked her in that way.
Tears blurred her own eyes as Rachel realised that the effect the violence of the world was having on her was profound and irreversible. She was hardening, becoming cynical and cold.
She grabbed Emma and pulled her close, hugging her fiercely. After a moment, Emma returned the hug and sobbed into Rachel’s shoulder.
“You did great, Emma,” Rachel said, brushing away the girl’s tears. “You did great.”
Emma shook her head and choked out a sob.
“I don’t know what happened,” she said. “He was right behind me.”
Rachel’s eyes narrowed.
Ray had been a good distance behind Emma. Of course, he could have been slowed down when he stopped to tear John apart, or…
She remembered the way John had been acting before they left the castle, like he was up to something. He had avoided Rachel’s gaze, almost as if he was guilty about something he didn’t want her to know. She frowned.
“You didn’t see him…uh…getting attacked?”
Emma shook her head and sniffed. “He killed Glyn, but then he ran. He was catching up to me.”
“Didn’t hear anything?”
“No, nothing.” Emma looked at Rachel, and suddenly her wet eyes were filled with incomprehension. “Why?”
The truth wriggled free and danced in Rachel’s mind until she acknowledged it. Her eyes widened.
John, you bastard, she thought.
She grabbed Emma’s shoulders again.
“Tell Michael I'm coming back, okay? Tell him to keep a look out.”
Emma stared at Rachel in confusion that deepened when Rachel turned and dived into the river, swimming frantically with the current, and disappearing toward the sea.
*
John’s arms ached like a rotten tooth; his whole body burned and throbbed from yet another battle with the surging waves of the Irish Sea. He had felt bad about leaving Emma and the others, but they had been close enough to the castle for him to trust they would be okay.
As soon as he saw the river, John had thrown himself into it, crossing in a few powerful strokes and emerging on the steep, jagged rocks behind the castle. Glancing back at the town, he saw Ray tearing after Emma, and paused until he was sure she had made it back to the raft safely. Michael would know how to deal with Ray. If all else failed, he had the rifle.
John turned his attention to the rocks, which were sharp and forbidding. He had done a little climbing in a past life, and he navigated them without too much trouble, clambering carefully across the unforgiving terrain until
he finally reached a vertical drop that fell away into the sea around forty feet below.
After taking a moment to check that he wasn’t going to land on rocks, John dived.
The current was against him, and it took John an eternity to reach the boat. He spent most of the swim praying that Rachel hadn’t pulled up the rope ladder he had left dangling over the side, and feeling guilty that he hadn’t filled her in on his intention to go to Anglesey alone. Right now, Rachel - all of them - probably thought John was dead.
There had been no other way. Rachel would have insisted on going with him to find Jason, and that would doubtless have spiralled into going in force. Bloodshed would inevitably follow. Far better for John to go alone. Without the others to look after, he could find the people that had tortured Ed, find Jason and get the hell out.
If it all worked perfectly, no one would even know John had been there. If it didn’t, well, he had the gun. He doubted anyone on Anglesey had a gun, but even if they did, John would back himself if matters devolved to the point where shooting became inevitable. He had six shots, and he had his knife. More importantly he would have the element of surprise.
Finally, when the build-up of lactic acid in his muscles felt like it was close to paralysing him, he reached the boat, and gave silent thanks when he saw the rope ladder still hanging over the side.
He pulled himself up and crashed onto his back on the deck, breathing heavily, waiting for the burning in his limbs to fade.
After taking a minute to catch his breath he twisted the lever that would raise the yacht’s small anchor from the depths. The boat began to bob away from the castle, and John pulled on the rope that released the main sail, grateful that he finally had a vague idea how to operate the boat. The wind had died a little, but the sail slowly billowed out and the boat began to move smoothly away from Caernarfon.
He secured the sail and stepped into the cabin to steer toward the distant Anglesey shore.
“Bastard.”
John squeezed his eyes shut in frustration.
“Hi, Rachel,” he said through gritted teeth.
“What the hell are you doing, John?”
John sighed. Somehow, while he had been congratulating himself on successfully carrying out his clever plan, he had overlooked just how damn sharp Rachel could be.
She stood in the cabin, dripping water and breathing heavily. It looked like she had arrived not long before him. Her face told a tale of righteous fury.
“I’m trying to avoid a damn war, Rachel. What the hell are you doing here?”
“He’s my brother,” Rachel said in a flat tone that barely disguised her anger. “Where else would I be?”
“Back in the castle. Safe,” John snapped. “I can get him, and nobody needs to get killed. We don’t need to start a fight with whoever these lunatics are. Haven’t we got enough problems already?”
Rachel snorted.
“So, what, you’re going to sneak in like James bloody Bond and just whisk him away without them even noticing, is that it?”
“Something like that,” John said glumly. Rachel had a way of making it sound ridiculous, and for a moment, John considered telling her that this wouldn’t be his first rodeo, but he shook the idea away. She would inevitably ask questions, and there was too much history that he didn’t want to relive.
“Well, now you’ve got help. How about that?”
John glared at Rachel and she glared right back, setting her mouth in a firm grimace that dared him to object. For a moment John searched his mind for some response; some way to put a plan that had unravelled spectacularly back together.
He heaved a weary sigh.
“Then let’s go,” he said finally.
34
According to what Ed had told them of Anglesey, the hotel that the old woman was using as a base of operations was a little way south of a huge area of sand dunes.
John dropped the anchor about fifty feet away from the sand and figured all he had to do once he was on dry land was follow the coast until he found his target.
Ed had told them all that there were Infected on Anglesey, but there didn’t appear to be many. It made sense: the island had a small population and the only link to the mainland was a pair of long suspension bridges. It didn’t seem likely the Infected would cross them unless they were pursuing something. And besides, most of the Infected in the northern part of Wales had already been drawn to Caernarfon.
Anglesey, once it had finished tearing itself apart, would comprise a few survivors, a few Infected, and a whole lot of dead bodies. When the power station inevitably decimated the island, it would become a wasteland.
The place made John’s nerves complain loudly.
John and Rachel moved slowly along the sand, keeping low, and searching for signs of movement. Finally the sand gave way to grass that seemed to John to be strangely manicured, until he realised he was standing on a fairway. The hotel’s golf course.
“We’re close,” John hissed at Rachel. “Stay low. If they’ve got any sense they’ll have posted lookouts. Make sure we see them before they see us.”
Rachel nodded and followed John off the fairway. The area that comprised the rough, into which presumably thousands of golf balls had been sent to a chorus of muttered curses, was mainly low bushes and the odd tree that rustled softly in the slight wind.
John crouched low in the bushes and made his way forward by inches, ignoring the impatience that radiated from Rachel next to him. If she was determined to tag along, she would do it his way, he thought, and that meant going slow, and not getting spotted.
Eventually, John was close enough to see the hotel, and he put a hand on Rachel’s shoulder to stop her. Together, they laid prone in the bushes, crawling forward until John could part the branches that jabbed painfully into his torso and get a clear view.
The hotel was large, and grand. Ed had mentioned a jetty, and John saw it to his right. To his left he saw an open-air eating area with wooden picnic benches. Beyond that a bar area lurked behind floor-to-ceiling glass. The place had four floors, and he saw movement in several of the windows. The window that led to the bar had been smashed, and Rachel pointed at it and looked at John inquiringly.
He frowned. It was a way in, but it all seemed a little too easy. The bar beyond was dark, but it looked empty. Are they so complacent?
John couldn’t imagine anyone being so relaxed about maintaining a watch on their surroundings. Maybe Ed had been right, and the small number of Infected on Anglesey meant the people at the hotel weren’t fully aware of just how the world worked now. Or maybe they were simply arrogant enough that they believed themselves to be safe. If that was the case, John thought, there was a chance they had gotten their hands on some weapon that he had not anticipated; something that gave them confidence that they could deal with the Infected easily.
He shook his head firmly at Rachel.
“Wait,” he breathed. “Watch for however long it takes. We don’t even know if Jason is really in there, but even if he is we don’t go charging in. If somebody leaves a door open, it’s because they want you to use it.”
Rachel nodded, and settled down to wait.
An hour or more had passed by the time John saw movement in the bar. An old woman walking alongside a tall, thin man, talking animatedly.
That must be her, John thought. Ed’s crazy old psycho.
To John, she looked no more threatening than the average grandmother. Short and plump, grey-haired and waddling. He reminded himself that Gwyneth had looked like an average old woman too, and had been anything but. If the woman led a large group of people loyal enough or afraid enough to overlook her apparent lunacy, underestimating her would be dangerous.
The woman and the man disappeared from John’s sight. Moments later, they returned, walking back the way they had come. But this time another figure trailed behind them, and as soon as John’s eyes brought the figure into focus, his mouth dropped open and his heart sank. The former because
Rachel had been right: Jason was alive and no more than fifty yards away. The latter because the old woman was leading Jason by a rope tied around his neck, like a dog on a leash, and even from this distance John could see the scars that laced the man’s bare torso.
Jason looked like he had suffered extensive torture.
Rachel won’t be able to help herself, she will -
He reached out to grab Rachel, but too late. She was already leaping to her feet, already screaming her brother’s name and rushing forward.
Things began to move quickly, and all John’s careful preparation collapsed like a house of cards.
John leapt to his feet, charging past Rachel as the old woman and her companion turned to face him, their mouths slackening with surprise.
“Rachel, wait,” John snarled as he passed her, grabbing her arm to halt her forward momentum.
Without looking back, he raced toward the broken window, and the old woman, pulling the revolver from his belt and pointing it at her face.
“You let him go, you live,” John growled, his gaze flitting between the old woman’s wrinkled, tiny eyes and Jason’s familiar, vacant stare.
“You must be from the castle,” the old woman said with a devious smile. She looked over John’s shoulder at Rachel. “He talked about you,” she said with a smirk. “Back when he could talk.”
Her eyes glittered with malice.
“Let him go,” John said again. “I’ve been killing people since long before all this started. I will shoot you if I have to.”
The old woman shrugged and dropped the leash that connected her to Jason. She turned to face him and pointed a bony finger at John. “He wants to hurt your mother, dear child,” she said softly, and ran her hand down Jason’s cheek.
John’s brow furrowed as he watched Jason sigh and nuzzle her palm like a loving pet.
Trauma (Wildfire Chronicles Vol. 5) Page 20
