The Alpha Plague (Book 6)

by Michael Robertson

  When they drew closer to the kitchen, the whir of its large extractor fan called down the corridor at them. Boiled cabbage pushed the smell of bleach away. No matter what time of day, the kitchen always smelled the same. A loud crash sounded out and Vicky jumped; someone had just dropped a metal pan while making breakfast.

  Vicky didn’t have much to do with the kitchen staff. They always seemed too busy to talk, so she didn’t bother. Let Serj deal with them if they needed to communicate at all.

  When they reached the end of the corridor and stepped into the large space containing the kitchen, Vicky looked over at the staff and none of them looked back. Apparently they were like that with everyone—everyone except Jessica. She didn’t need to think about her at that moment, not with her emotions already on the surface.

  Vicky walked through the huge hall, heading for the corridor near the medical bay. Flynn remained beside her, matching her step for step and still not speaking.

  When they got closer, the metallic tang of Jessica’s spilled blood returned to Vicky’s sense memory. She looked at the shitty bed they’d put her on and shook her head. They’d been woefully ill-equipped to deal with anything other than a blister, and even then they would have struggled. Jessica hadn’t stood a fucking chance.

  When Vicky looked at Flynn—his bottom lip pushed out in a slight frown—she saw that he too stared at the medic bay. No doubt he had similar thoughts as her own.

  Once they reached the corridor running parallel to the one Vicky stayed in, they cut into it and headed toward Flynn’s new room.

  Vicky walked into the room first and Flynn followed her, carrying his bedding from where he’d brought it from their shared room.

  Like the corridors, the room stank of bleach. It also had the same white walls and blue floor. She’d got so used to two beds, it looked sparse with just a single bed and a bedside table.

  A cough to clear her throat—which did little for the lump still in it—and Vicky said, “So this is your new room.” She couldn’t hide the warble in her voice.

  Although Flynn stared at her—a heavy scowl darkening his features—he didn’t reply.

  “Come on, mate, you knew this day had to happen. You hate how overbearing I am. I know you’re only sixteen, but I think you’re old enough to sleep in your own room. If you stay too close to me, I’ll carry on being that annoying mum that wants to do everything for you.” Vicky smiled as she looked up into his brown eyes and round face. “When I look at you, I still see the little boy we rescued from a tree. You were the only survivor that day, you know?”

  Flynn continued to stare at her without response.

  “It’s true. None of us have spoken much about it because it was such a harrowing time. Your dad and I arrived at your school and the place had been ripped to shreds. There were bodies of little kids and teachers everywhere. There seemed no way you could have survived. Then your dad thought about the tree and how much you loved to climb. Good job we checked that, eh?”

  Vicky stepped closer to Flynn and hugged his huge frame. When he hugged her back, he damn near squeezed the life from her. “You understand, don’t you?” she whispered to him.

  She felt him nod, but he didn’t speak.

  “And don’t tell me you’re not getting pissed off with me keeping on doing things for you. I need to let you grow up and be the young man you’re ready to be. Otherwise, we’ll just keep on arguing about me getting in the way.

  “Besides, you’ll have Piotr with you. Now we’ve swapped the dead soil in the farms with fertile stuff from outside, Piotr can leave the farm and become a guard. He’ll be a great mentor to you.”

  After Vicky stepped back a pace, she held her hands out to Flynn. She gave his strong grip a squeeze and he squeezed back. A damp film covered his large brown eyes, but he didn’t cry. She didn’t cry either, as hard as she found it not to.

  “We’ll still do a lot of stuff together. As guards, we’ll need to work as a team when we go on missions outside.”

  Silence.

  “I’m going back to my room now, okay?” Vicky said.

  Flynn nodded and lifted his chin. The sad look had left his eyes to be replaced with a detached steely glaze.

  Vicky turned around and walked out of the room. By the time she’d got three steps from him into the corridor, she blinked a single tear. The track of it turned cold against her cheek.

  Chapter Three

  Vicky made sure she closed the door behind her and Serj. They needed to keep the muggy heat in. The humid atmosphere clung to her skin like a film coating, and the air stank of damp soil. When she gulped, she tasted mud on the back of her throat.

  Rufus, the new head of the farm, looked up at them.

  “So everything’s going okay since we swapped the soil round?” Vicky asked.

  A hippy in a previous life, Rufus seemed permanently in awe of nature. His face lit up, his eyes going from half shut to wide open as he sprang to life. “Things have been awesome. I know supplies are low at the moment, but give it a few months and I’m sure we’ll be back to full capacity.” The tall and slender man pulled his long hair away from his face and smiled. “Maybe sooner.”

  Piotr had already given them that information before he’d joined the guards, but Vicky and Serj liked to check in case Rufus needed anything. Whatever happened, they couldn’t afford for the food to run out.

  The heat pressed so forcefully against her skin, Vicky twisted and writhed almost as if she could worm her way free of it. She looked at Serj. “Right, can we go now?”

  Serj nodded and opened the door back out into the corridor.

  Not cold in the corridor, but the change in temperature cooled Vicky’s sweat-dampened skin as she walked along with Serj beside her.

  Serj held his bottom lip in a pinch, frowned, and stared straight ahead. “I keep worrying the crops will fail again.”

  “Me too. Rufus seems to have a handle on things though. We can catch any problems as they occur as long as we keep checking in on them.”

  Although Serj nodded at Vicky’s comment, he didn’t reply.

  As straight as an arrow flies, the corridor led all the way to the kitchen in the centre of Home. Over one hundred metres away, Vicky could see the occasional chef’s-whites-covered arm or leg as they worked at preparing the food. She could even see through the kitchen to the corridor beyond, the one with her bedroom on it. If she squinted, she could see movement in the canteen at the end of that too.

  When they passed the room Hugh had planted Jessica’s body in, Vicky looked at Serj and reached across to put a comforting hand on his back.

  Serj shrugged it off.

  Vicky listened to the sound of someone running on a treadmill in the gym in one of the rooms farther along. She inhaled the bleach in the air. As a child, she’d lived in the countryside, and every year the smell of muck spreading made her feel at home. The aroma of bleach had a similar effect now. To smell it meant safety. Certainty in an uncertain world.

  “I think we should open that room up again,” Serj said.

  A look at the locked door and Vicky frowned at him. “So soon?”

  “It’s not too soon for me.”

  The tone suggested it was, but Vicky didn’t point that out. Instead, she said, “It may be too soon for the community though. It’s still pretty raw for most people.”

  Serj shot a blast of air from between pursed lips. “Well, they need to get over it, then. We can’t keep it locked forever.”

  “Actually, with the amount of spare rooms we have in this place, we probably can.”

  The conversation between them died again for a second.

  “Look,” Vicky said, “just let me know when you want it opened up and I’ll make sure it happens, yeah?”

  “I don’t care,” Serj replied. “Do it whenever you like.”

  Vicky let it drop as they drew closer to the gym. The table they’d set up for Flynn remained outside the room. Although instead of Flynn manning it, they�
�d given the job to someone a little younger. Alf—twelve years old and so tall he had to duck to enter most rooms—seemed pleased when they offered him the position. The boy already towered over her and he probably had more growing in him. He even stood a few inches taller than Piotr, who topped out at at least six feet four inches. The boy had a curtain-style haircut that hung in his eyes.

  Before they got to him, Alf looked at the stopwatch around his neck and stood up. An origami child, he unfolded himself from his seat, his long limbs like spaghetti as he moved to the gym’s entrance. A queue of about seven people lined up waiting their turn. “Excuse me, sir,” Alf called into the room. Vicky couldn’t tell who he spoke to from her current position.

  “Excuse me,” the boy said again.

  With a voice higher than it should have been for someone his size, Alf spoke again. “Sir, you need to move on now. Your time’s up and we have quite a few people waiting.”

  An average-sized man in every way—about five feet nine inches, a paunch, and white hair—walked from the gym and passed the boy on his way through. He shot Alf a glare and then moved past the line of people with his attention on the ground.

  Just as the person at the front of the queue—a short black woman who Vicky didn’t know by name—stepped forward, a man behind her shoved past.

  Alf restrained him by pushing a large palm into his chest.

  The man clenched his jaw as he looked up at the boy.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” Alf said, “but you need to wait your turn. This lady’s been here longer than you, so she’s next.”

  “But I’ve been waiting hours.”

  “Join the queue,” Alf replied. Then before the man could respond, he added, “Oh, you already have, and you’re second in it.”

  “Don’t get smart with me, boy.”

  Before it could go any further, Serj cleared his throat. The man and Alf turned to look at him. “Everything okay?”

  A look at one another and Alf nodded while he kept his focus on the pushy man. “Everything’s fine.” He stepped aside to let the short black lady in and Vicky held her smile back. It made her happy to see the younger generation being given more responsibility. They all needed to grow up eventually.

  A flushed face and the man refused to make eye contact with either Serj or Vicky as he returned to the queue. They both let it slide as they waited for Alf to fold back into his seat before they spoke to him.

  “Everything’s going well, then?” Serj asked.

  The boy nodded and grinned, clearly still stoked about his appointment. “Yep.”

  “Good, you’re doing a grand job.”

  “Thanks, the queues have been crazy for weeks now. Everyone’s trying to get fit for the impending war.”

  An anxious bristle shimmered down the line at the mention of the future conflict. It also seemed to give the tired and slouched queue a little boost, as many of them straightened their backs and nodded in agreement with Alf’s statement.

  “That’s sensible,” Vicky said while watching them all, “because it won’t be long now. It won’t be long at all.”

  Chapter Four

  The guy might have been twice Vicky’s size, but that much weight—running at her like a stampeding rhino—became easy to manipulate when she grabbed his swinging arm and flung him over her shoulder.

  Jackson hit the blue mat hard and it drove the air from his body with a loud oomph.

  Red-faced from the exertion, and probably shame, the large man stared up at Vicky and fought to get his breath under control.

  “Now that,” Vicky said as she paced the blue, padded mat in front of the gathered residents, “is how you use someone else’s momentum against them.”

  She held her hand down to Jackson and helped him get to his feet. She bowed at the man and he bowed back before he joined the others along the far wall.

  “I’ve never trained in a martial art,” Vicky said as she continued to pace the mat, the plastic surface cold against her bare feet, “but I have fought the diseased for over a decade now. It’s made me calm in tense situations and able to telegraph people’s movements. I’m not saying you all need that, but sparring is important. To try to outsmart your partner will teach you the valuable skills needed in combat. If you’ve dodged a blow a thousand times in training, the theory is you’ll dodge it when the pressure’s on.” The sound of her voice carried through the amphitheater of the canteen.

  When Vicky first started training the people of Home, they would move the tables and chairs to one side of the space, lay the blue mats down, and put everything away afterwards. As the residents got used to the slightly more cramped eating conditions, they left the mats out. Now half of the canteen had been allocated to gym work permanently, and at any one time there would always be someone training in it.

  Also, moving the tables closer together had helped the community bond. Where they had once eaten on opposite sides of the canteen, they now ate side by side and socialised more. They’d grown into a tight team. A team that would hopefully be ready to go out and fight Moira’s community soon.

  “I’m pleased to see how you’ve all progressed,” Vicky said as she continued to pace. Although Serj had been appointed the leader of Home, she took the responsibility for combat and the outside world. She knew it better than him.

  “We need to be ready to go to war any day now, and all of you are much fitter, leaner versions of your previous selves. For that, you should be proud.”

  A glance over at the tables in the other half of the canteen and Vicky saw the remains of breakfast. Most mornings they did breakfast from seven till nine, but on a Tuesday, when Vicky had her meetings, they did it from six thirty till eight. Everyone had to be done by eight and ready. She didn’t normally adopt an authoritarian approach, but the discipline seemed to help the residents get in the zone. As a result, breakfast never got cleared away on a Tuesday until after training. “We have a new guard I’d like to introduce you all to.”

  With a beckoning hand, Vicky encouraged the lady to step forward. “This is Scoop,” Vicky said. “Most of you know her, but for those who don’t, just take her in for a moment.”

  A lean and toned woman of Jamaican descent, Scoop had dreadlocks down to her arse and a scowl that could level cities. Despite knowing most of them, she looked at the gathered people like she’d fight anyone who wanted it. Although in truth, she had a heart of gold. Once she let you in, she never let go, and now she’d joined the guards, Home would be a safer place.

  “Scoop’s daughter, Meisha, is fourteen now and old enough to take better care of herself,” Vicky said. “It’s given Scoop more time. Where she’s always wanted to help out, she now can.”

  Vicky watched Scoop’s hard scowl lift when she looked at her daughter. The heavy set spread into a broad smile and then dropped again as quickly as it had appeared when she continued to look down the line.

  “Now before we get to training, I want to spar with someone else.” A look up and down at the gathered residents and Vicky put her hands on her hips. “I need a volunteer. Who wants to test their skills?”

  A man named William stepped forward. At over six feet tall, he stood a good eight inches above Vicky. Wide-shouldered and with thick biceps, he nodded at her. “Are you sure you want me to go for you?”

  “You can try.”

  The man laughed, as did a few other men in the crowd. They never seemed to learn, their male ego always telling them they had the beating of a woman.

  “I needed to check,” he said.

  “No, you didn’t.” Vicky widened her stance and stared at William. About thirty metres of blue crash mat separated them, so she beckoned him forward. Like the last man, William charged at her.

  “Moira’s community haven’t attacked yet,” Vicky said as she felt the vibration of William’s heavy footfalls rush towards her through the mats, “but they will.”

  Just a few metres separated them and William wound back, his punch coming from a mile off. When he
swung, Vicky dropped to the ground and rolled away from him.

  Several steps past her, William spun around and scowled.

  “Does anyone have any questions about what we’re going to face soon?”

  William came at Vicky again. She had most of her attention on the man, but she still noticed the raised hand from one of the residents. Even if she hadn’t, the collective groan said it all.

  A much better attempt at masking his attack, Vicky still saw William’s fake lunge and jumped to the side to avoid the real punch from his left hand. Before he’d passed her, she dropped down and swiped his legs away. A second later, the ground shook when he hit it.

  “Ignore them, Stuart,” Vicky said to the slightly podgy man with the raised hand.

  Stuart nodded and asked one of the many questions he’d no doubt ask that day. “How many people are there in Moira’s community?”

  When Vicky had worked in an office, she’d hated meetings the most. They’d always moved at a glacial pace, as everyone had to stay with the tempo of the stupidest person in the room. It had been even more galling when the thickest person there had been her boss. However, now she had to lead the meetings, she had a fresh perspective on it. Sure, Stuart didn’t have it going on upstairs, but he had something to offer. Simply being willing and able would make him an asset on the battlefield. She couldn’t treat him like everyone else did because he’d be by her side when she needed it most. “I still don’t know that,” she said.

  “You don’t even have a rough idea?”

  “No.”

  William came at Vicky from behind. At the last minute, she dodged to the right. The haymaker swooshed through the air above Vicky’s head.

  As if to teach him a lesson, Vicky jumped back up and kicked him up the arse on his way through.

  “How many prisoners, then?” Stuart asked.