Spike scoffed. “Very democratic.”
“What did you say?”
Not that he hadn’t already assessed him, but to make a show of it this time, Spike looked the boy up and down. Smaller and slimmer than him, there would only be one winner when it came to the apprenticeship. “It’s a bit of a dick move to take the bed you want without any discussion. What if we all want a top bunk?”
When Max stepped forward, it halved the distance between them. “Well, it looks like you have a problem then. I called the top bunk first; you and Hugh can fight over the other one.”
Grinding his jaw, Spike opened his mouth to speak, but Hugh cut him off.
“I prefer the bottom.”
“You sure?”
While nodding, Hugh focused on his toes. “I don’t like heights.”
Spike looked at Max again and the tension faded between them when Max smirked. A second later, they were both laughing.
With a stamp on the wooden floor, Hugh put his hands on his hips as he looked from one of them to the other. “What’s so funny?”
Looking first at the bunk bed and then back to his short friend, Spike shook his head. “Well, it’s hardly high off the ground.”
“It’s high enough. Besides, it’s more of a problem when I’m sleeping. I have the worst nightmares if I’m high up.”
“Whatever, Hugh. It works out for all of us, so that’s all that matters.” Dropping his bag on the floor by the second bunk, Spike kicked his shoes off and jumped up. Hugh slipped onto the bed beneath him.
Lying on his back and with his hands behind his head, Spike stared up at the white ceiling and relaxed into the soft sheets. Maybe it would do him good to room with Max. He had to be comfortable competing with his peers.
Just as he was starting to unwind, Hugh said, “So what do you think it will take to get into the apprenticeship trials?”
Neither Spike nor Max replied, the silence hanging heavy between them.
Finally, Max said, “I’m not sure, but I’d say hard work and keeping your head down.”
Maybe he meant it as a dig, maybe not. Either way, Spike wouldn’t bite. Things could be worse. The next six months would be much harder if all the other cadets saw him as the one to beat. They’d see who remained standing when they got to the end of national service.
Chapter 33
Spike rested his weight on his knees and leaned forward as he dragged air into his tight lungs. Sweat burned his eyes. He could have held back in their warm-up and saved some of his energy, but, in light of his introduction to national service, he felt like he couldn’t give any less than one hundred percent. And while everyone focused on Ranger, he’d subtly show the leaders what he could do.
The combined funk of many overworked bodies permeated the thick air in the hot gym. Another warm April day. The dining hall had seemed large from the inside, but the gym dwarfed it. At least twice the size, if not more.
A red curtain ran along one of the walls. Only four teams had made it in so far: Minotaur, Dragon, Cyclops, and Yeti. Their leaders—Bleach, Tank, Ore, and Flame—stood in front of the curtain, talking to one another in hushed tones.
Dressed in the red tracksuit of team Minotaur, Spike looked at the other recruits from the other teams. Dragon wore green, Cyclops blue, and Yeti white. It took several attempts, but when he finally caught Matilda’s eye, he dipped a nod at her. She returned a tight smile before looking down and straightening her green tracksuit. The teams didn’t mix, but he still raised a thumb in her direction. Was she okay? A furtive look at the team leaders by the curtain, she barely returned his gesture before slightly turning her back on him.
Before Spike could get her attention again, a loud bang crashed into the main doors. Half-jumping, he spun around. The double doors had been kicked open and team Bigfoot strode in, Ranger in the lead.
Stunned silence filled the room. Just over twenty recruits already there, they all watched the team’s bold entrance. The silence hung for a few seconds before a girl in team Cyclops said, “What the hell?”
Even Ranger, with his straight back, broad chest, and confident swagger, couldn’t pull it off. Like all of the other teams, they wore identical tracksuits. How Spike would have loved to be a fly on the wall when they were given their gear.
The stunned silence burst with the room erupting into laughter. A boy from team Yeti called out, “Team Skidmark have entered the building.”
Although Ranger scanned the laughing faces for who’d said it, his eyes didn’t settle. He flushed red, clearly still trying to find the perpetrator while opening and closing his mouth. But he said nothing. What could he say? Especially as the other team leaders were also laughing at them.
Although the other teams entered, it took for Sarge to walk through the double doors before the laughter died. He took the middle of the room, team Skidmark moving aside. “Right, you little wastes of space, this is day one of training. Today’s gonna be damn hard. This entire month is going to be damn hard. So be prepared. However, before we start, I have something to show you.” Sarge nodded at Bleach.
Bleach grabbed a handful of the red curtain before pulling it aside to reveal a wall of glass about seven feet tall by about twenty feet wide. It gave them a view into two rooms of equal size, a vertical partition separating them. Both of the rooms were dark. They both appeared to be empty.
Like everyone around him, Spike held his breath, putting pressure on his toes from leaning forward as if it would help him see better into the unknown.
Sarge walked over to the glass, balled his right fist, and drove three heavy blows against it. Boom, boom, boom.
The silence in the room damn near choked Spike, his throat turning dry and his pulse quickening.
Next to him, Hugh’s voice wavered when he said, “What is this?”
But nothing happened.
The other cadets exchanged glances and shrugs. Had Sarge lost the plot?
Sarge’s expression remained stony while he raised his fist again. A clenched jaw, he pounded against the glass a second time. Harder than before.
Still nothing happened.
Time seemed to stand still before Sarge finally turned to face the cadets. When he opened his mouth to speak, a shrill scream cut him off.
The sound snapped Spike’s shoulders to his neck. He jumped backwards when he saw a diseased burst from the darkness. It slammed against the window face first. The sound went off like a bomb and the collision drove the creature back several wobbly steps before it fell into the darkness again. It left behind a splatter of blood the size of a fist.
Silence hung in the room, Spike’s heart beating so hard he worried the others would hear it. Hugh shifted a step towards him. Any closer and their shoulders would have touched.
Spike’s lungs tightened and his breaths quickened as he watched the creature appear again. He heard his own panicked breaths in his head and glanced to see if anyone else noticed. Everyone watched the diseased.
Back on its feet, it stumbled on wobbly legs and shook its head as if it could clear its dizziness. It then roared again and charged. Spike jumped back another pace. The same loud connection of face against glass, it stumbled back. But it didn’t fall over this time.
The moment he’d clearly been waiting for, Sarge flashed the cadets a crooked smile before he pushed his face close to the glass. A much gentler knock this time, he said, “This, boys and girls, is a diseased.” The diseased’s bleeding eyes flitted wildly as it looked at the recruits. The walls of the room felt like they were closing in on Spike and he wanted to turn away. He wanted to get out of there. It didn’t look like anyone else felt the same.
A fierce lust for violence burned in the diseased’s crimson glare. Much slower this time, it pressed its face to the other side of the transparent wall as if trying to push through it. Its rotten lips splayed, showing its yellow teeth from where it opened and closed its jaw. Similar yellow teeth would have taken a bite from Spike had Ore not saved him. The sound
of enamel against glass tormented him. It called to him as if mocking his fear.
Sarge pulled away from the window. “You’ve all seen a diseased.” He looked at Spike. “Some of you from a closer perspective than others.”
Spike felt the others looking at him and he physically shrank by an inch or two. But he avoided their attention by watching the creature on the other side of the glass, its pallid skin wrinkled and pitted as if it had had the life sucked from it.
“But you won’t have been able to see them this close up. This is the enemy. This is what you’ll be facing in a month’s time. If this thing running at you makes you piss your pants—” he paused to look at Spike again “—then you need to change that before you step outside the gates. For the sake of both you and your team.”
What if Spike couldn’t? What would he do then?
The wooden floor amplified Sarge’s heavy limp. Thud, thud, thud. He stopped in front of the other dark room behind the glass.
An adrenaline-fuelled shake running through him, Spike covered it as best he could by holding his hands behind his back. He looked at the other cadets. None of them had noticed. He returned his attention to the room, squinting to see into it. It looked empty like the first one had.
The ripping sound of a curtain tore across a rail, flooding the rooms with light from a window in the ceiling. The loud sound and sudden illumination sent another nerve-rattling shot of adrenaline into Spike’s bloodstream. He looked at the rooms. They were clinical in appearance. Tiled in white. The room with the diseased in it had bloodstains on the floors and walls. It looked like there had been a massacre in there. The other side looked immaculate.
A door then opened into the empty cell, and Fright—team Chupacabra’s leader—walked in, pulling a sheep behind her. Although the creature resisted, Fright had no trouble dragging it into the room against its will. Deep black bags beneath her eyes, she looked like something from a horror story as she stared out at the cadets. No expression on her thick features, she left the sheep on its own as she exited the room and closed the door.
The diseased in the other room pulled away from the glass and turned to face the partition wall instead. It lifted its nose as if sniffing the air. Spike assumed the blood covering its eyes rendered it blind. It must be guided by its sense of smell. The wretched thing looked drunk as it stumbled into the dividing wall. Palsied movements, it slowly dragged its hands down it, raking its fingers like it could claw its way through to the beating heart on the other side. Could it hear Spike’s beating heart at that moment? Could the rest of the room hear it?
Sarge cleared his throat, the sound going off like a gunshot in the near silence. Spike jumped again, and this time, he looked across to see Ranger had clocked it. A wicked smile lifted his smug face.
“What you’ve seen of the diseased is them being dominated,” Sarge said. Although Spike kept his eyes forward, his cheeks burned to feel Ranger’s attention on him. “It’s almost comical watching a protector take one down. Or seeing the snapping heads in the square. Some of you might have even seen people evicted from Edin.”
Spike thought about Mr. P.
“But this, boys and girls, is what one of these creatures looks like when they’re in control. When the odds are more in their favour, which they most certainly are on the other side of the main gates.”
A cold rush ran through Spike and he pulled at his collar. He looked behind him at the gym’s entrance. What would they say if he went out for air?
When someone said, “It’s shitting itself,” Spike looked at the sheep. But they weren’t referring to the docile animal. Watching the diseased lift a leg, he saw the rich brown sludge spill from the bottom of its trousers and spread out on the white floor. It looked like it had more blood than shit in it.
Spike noticed Matilda’s face twisting as she watched on, transfixed like everyone else. He ignored Ranger, even though he saw the boy’s smile in his peripheral vision.
Walking so he was level with the dividing wall, Sarge pointed at it. “Now, as you can see, this wall is the only thing keeping the sheep alive at the moment. The second we pull it up, the sheep’s a goner. If you learn how to fight back, then you might avoid the same fate.” Balling his fist, Sarge banged against the window again.
A loud rattling sound of chains called out and the partition wall lifted. The grating clack of the winch rattled Spike’s nerves. He looked at the exit again, his legs twitching with his need to get out of there. He couldn’t be the next protector. Who was he kidding? To look at Matilda showed him the sadness in her eyes. She knew it too.
The second a gap lifted beneath the wall, the diseased dropped to its knees and pressed its face to the floor. It poked its nose through the space, its scrabbling feet driving it forward. It looked like it thought it might be able to shove its entire body through the tight gap.
When the space had grown to about ten centimetres, the diseased reached one of its arms through. A long and atrophied limb, its hand spasmed while clawing in the direction of the sheep. Similarly wiry limbs had reached for Spike twice, and he’d failed to protect against them both times.
The sheep remained frozen to the spot, trembling as it looked at the hand. It didn’t make a sound. Spike remembered his dad telling him that a sheep’s only defence came from being quiet. The loudest sheep showed its predator it was weak. It made it stand out as an injured and easy target. Keeping quiet was the best defence they had. Keeping quiet and standing still. While twirling the heavy ring around his shaking finger, he watched on.
The wall lifted high enough for the diseased to turn its head sideways and shove it under. It stretched its neck forwards, its tongue shooting from its mouth like a snake tasting the room beyond. With better co-ordination, it would have twisted to get its shoulders through. Instead, they caught and prevented it from getting any closer.
Raising his hand, Sarge shouted, “Halt.”
The wall stopped.
Dropping down, he pointed at the diseased. “Now, as you can see, this thing’s pushing so hard to get through, it’s shearing one of its ears off.”
Spike drew a deep breath, but he couldn’t fill his cramped lungs. His throat tightened as he stared at the creature’s half-attached ear.
“But if you look at its face,” Sarge continued, “it doesn’t seem to have any awareness of the injury it’s causing itself. Driven by a single purpose to attack, they forget everything else. I’m not sure they even feel it. The only things I can tell you these things feel for sure are hate and a desire to destroy.”
Spike’s entire body shook as he watched black blood belch from the creature’s torn ear.
When Sarge whistled, Spike jumped back again. Close enough to the doors, he could sneak out. But could he do it without anyone noticing? He held his chest while watching the wall lift again.
After a few more seconds of the diseased shimmying and twisting—its bare feet clawing against the floor for leverage—it got through. Jumping up, it ran at the sheep full tilt and Spike yelled.
The diseased connected with a loud thud and the sheep bleated. Almost human in its scream, the diseased silenced it by biting into its throat.
Spike watched the sheep kick wildly, his face on fire with shame at his outburst. Blood spread out beneath the sheep. One of its thrashing legs connected with the diseased. The kick sounded with a wet crack, but the creature didn’t stop. It didn’t seem to notice.
Several convulsions snapped through the sheep before it fell limp.
With its death, Spike felt the slightest release in his chest and pulled a deeper breath into his lungs.
The diseased sat up, blood coating its maw. Its mouth stretched wide and it hissed while looking around the room as if searching for something else to attack.
The monster’s rage soon abated. It got to its feet and wandered off. Sarge stepped in front of the glass again. “As you can see, these diseased aren’t to be messed with. They’re killing machines, hell-bent on your total des
truction. Outside those walls isn’t a controlled environment. If you survive national service, it’s because you’ve earned it.”
After Sarge knocked on the glass again, Spike watched Fright stride into the room for a second time, a broadsword in her two-handed grip.
The diseased flicked its head in Fright’s direction. Bloody saliva dripped from its loose maw. Its lips pulled back in a snarl and it hissed like a bag of angry snakes. It exploded towards her, Spike wincing in anticipation of it connecting.
The diseased closed the gap between them in two long strides.
With a swing of her sword, Fright decapitated it and jumped to the side as the headless body crashed into the white, tiled wall. An explosion of blood from where it connected, she stamped on its still-snapping head.
After a moment’s silence, the room gasped again to see one of the sheep’s legs kick out in a sharp spasm. “As you can see, the diseased didn’t eat the sheep, it just killed it. This is what happens when you get bitten. Don’t wait for your friend to change; end them before it’s too late.”
The sheep stood up on bandy legs and released a shrill bleat. A hellish call of torment, it charged at Fright, snapping its teeth as it ran. With another well-timed swing, she took the sheep’s head off and watched its body collapse in a heap next to the diseased’s.
Wild eyes and bared teeth designed to chew grass not flesh, the sheep’s mouth snapped in its decapitated head. Fright drove the tip of her sword into the top of the thing’s skull. Its tongue lolled from its mouth as it became suddenly inanimate. Its eyes remained stretched wide on its dead face.
Despite the battle and the carnage in the rooms beyond the windows, Fright didn’t have a single drop of blood on her. Minimum effort, maximum effect.
Sarge broke the silence by clapping his hands and Spike jumped again.
Protectors - Book one of Beyond These Walls: A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Thriller Page 15
