by Jack Lewis
Ed shook his head. Bethelyn seemed equally confused.
“This is too perfect,” said The Savage. “How the world has changed since you’ve hid on your rock. The mainland would be too much for you islander. Come to me, and I’ll show you the mercy you won’t find across the waters.”
Ed looked at the cliff edge again. The drop seemed inviting, but for different reasons than it had before.
“How far to the mainland?” said Ed.
“Too far,” answered Bethelyn.
“I’m not ready to give up.”
The Savage gripped the end of his spear and tore it from the ground, spraying little flecks of mud over his feet. Brown soil covered the metal tip.
“You won’t have to give up,” said The Savage. “I can take the choice away from you.”
He stepped forward in a movement quicker than Ed expected, given his heavy furs. He gripped Ed’s collar, heaved him away from Bethelyn and threw him to the ground. Pain exploded in his shoulder.
The Savage was standing above him. Ed grabbed his boot. He tried to make him lose balance, but it was like pulling on tree roots.
Bethelyn raised her knife and ran at The Savage, but he punched her in the face so hard she fell to the floor. The impact of the back of her head on the ground made Ed feel sick.
The Savage raised his spear and pressed it toward Ed’s throat. With every inch close the spear came, his skin itched and he grew cold. He grabbed hold of it and tried to push it back, but The Savage was too strong.
“Just give in to it,” said The Savage.
The metal pressed against his throat, and the tip threatened to pierce his Adam’s apple. With the slightest application of weight, The Savage could puncture a hole in Ed’s neck.
He stared into The Savage’s eyes. He wanted to talk, but the spear was so close to his vocal chords he didn’t dare. The Savage stared deeply at Ed, with the expression of a man contemplating how to deliver bad news.
The Savage pressed harder. His eyes never left Ed’s. He stared at him with an unnerving concentration. What is he thinking? Why isn’t he doing anything?
The Savage’s expression broke. The creases on his forehead softened, and the pressure on Ed’s neck lightened. He drew away the spear and stepped back, his eyes shining.
“I don’t believe it,” he said.
The Savage dropped his spear to the floor, got to his knees, and straddled Ed’s chest so their faces were inches apart.
The musk of sweat and the sour, leathery smell of the fur blocked Ed’s nose. The Savage grabbed Ed’s cheeks with cold hands and stared at his face.
“This can’t be right,” said The Savage.
Bethelyn stirred. She scrambled to her feet and grabbed the discarded spear, but The Savage didn’t pay attention to her.
“What the hell are you doing?” said Bethelyn.
The Savage laughed like schoolboy playing prank. “I feel like I’m on camera,” he said.
“What are you talking about, you creep?” said Bethlem.
The Savage stared at his face again. “I can’t believe this,” he said, and turned Ed’s right cheek toward him. “You’re so alike it’s uncanny.”
Ed waited for the killing blow to fall, but instead The Savage grabbed his spear from Bethelyn’s hands and leaned on it.
“He spoke about you,” he said, “But James didn’t tell me his brother was such a runt.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Heather
The infected at the front of the cabin gave Heather enough cover to slip around the side. Ahead of them, across a vast forecourt with lines painted on it like a school playground, was a warehouse.
She had no idea what was inside, but she needed to get away from Charles. The soldiers blocked the exit behind her, and the infected lined the sides of the compound. Going through the warehouse was the only way.
Mary and the others lagged behind as she approached the warehouse, but Heather didn’t stop. Kim and Eric were on the train.
“Slow down,” said Mary, panting.
“If I don’t get to the train before it leaves, I’ll never find it. Come on.”
The double doors hung on rusted hinges, and a thick bolt ran through the middle and barred them shut. Heather pulled the bolt, but the metal wouldn’t budge. Behind her, over the courtyard, the cracks of rifles met with the shouts of the soldiers.
Mary caught up to her. She rolled her sleeves up to show bony arms, but as she grabbed the bolt and helped heave it away, the years seemed to drop off her.
“Put your back into it,” she said.
Time ticked away. If she didn’t hurry she would miss her chance. She’d spent so long scared of the Capita, and it had never gotten her anywhere. It was time to find the kids and stand up to Charles and the other bastards.
The bolt screeched. Feeling buoyed, Heather tugged harder on the metal until her muscles burned. Sprinkles of orange rust fell to the ground as the bolt squealed against its metal support, and Mary made the sounds of a panting dog. Another DC, a man with glasses held together by tape, joined them at the door and added to the effort.
A hole exploded into the door above them, boring a bullet hole into the wood. Heather strained, and the bolt slid free.
Behind them, she heard the soldiers trample around the cabin. They hadn’t dealt with all the infected, but it seemed Charles had ordered them to pursue the escaping DC’s.
They entered the warehouse. A cold draught hit her face with a whoosh, as though they had disturbed an ancient tomb. Black paint covered the windows, and it took her eyes a while to adjust. When they did, she almost fell to the ground.
Steel pens and cages filled the warehouse, enough to cover most of the floor, and leaving a few narrow walkways that twisted further into the building. Some infected were in the pens. When they saw the newcomers, they shook the bars of their cages and cried out, their eyes wild.
The infected weren’t the worst of it. There were people in the other cages; immune men, women and children. Some lay on the floor in the foetal position. Others paced the small span of their pens in circles, staring at the floor.
Heather looked at one cage, and her stomach bubbled. I’m gonna throw up. She bent over, but nothing would come.
Mary rubbed a hand on her back. “It’s okay.”
Heather spat on the floor. She wiped her lips. “What the hell is going on here?”
In a cage across from them, four wooden stakes were driven into the ground. Two men, a terrified woman, and a whimpering child were tied to them. Needle scars dotted one man’s body. The woman had a stump where her arm should have been, with the end of it cauterised. A tube stuck out from the child’s arm, draining her blood into a see-through container.
Mary carried on rubbing Heather’s back. “Bet you thought the world couldn’t get any worse, didn’t you?”
Heather looked at the family tied to the stakes. She couldn’t keep her stare away from the child, at the blood that trickled through the tube. Did this fate await Eric and Kim? Where was the train taking them?
Despite the burning in her stomach, she couldn’t stop. The soldiers would arrive soon. She wouldn’t let them catch her here, and she wouldn’t abandon Kim and Eric to it. A hatred for the Capita scorched every inch of her skin.
“Let’s keep moving,” she said.
As they threaded through a narrow walkway between the cages, the darkness became thicker until the daylight struggled to find its way through. Heather, Mary and two other DC’s stayed an arm’s length away from the cages. Their bestial cries made the warehouse sound like a zoo.
A whimpering sound made her turn to her right, where a woman flopped around on the floor, with her arms and legs missing.
It made her want to empty her stomach, but she wouldn’t ignore what was happening. Someone had to witness the horror of it all. She was too late to save them, but she wouldn’t pretend they didn’t exist.
Across the warehouse behind them, the doors opened, and boots
stomped on the stone floor. A soldier shouted orders, and the boots dispersed.
“Did you know about all of this?” said Heather.
Mary walked with her hands at her side, her stare never leaving a narrow space in front of her. “I was never brought here. I thought I would be plenty of times, but they never picked me. Or…I got good at not being picked. Some say they’re trying to find a cure. Not me.”
“What do you think?”
“They’re doing something even worse.”
The infected thrashed in their cages, shaking the metal. The pounding of the boots grew louder. She had to push on; stopping now meant getting caught.
A voice boomed above everything else. “I know you’re here, Heather.”
Charles.
“You have a choice,” he shouted. “Stop running and I’ll let you and your daughter go. All I need is the boy. But I need to speak to you, Heather. You have to see sense. I can get you into the Dome. You’ll never have to worry about anything again, but you must stop.”
Bullshit. If she stopped, she would end up on the other side of a cage with tubes sticking out of her, and cauterised stumps where her arms used to be. She wouldn’t allow that. I won’t let him scare me.
“I know what you want, you bastard” she said. “You think I’ll give up?”
“I won’t argue with you. Especially not by shouting across a warehouse. Come where I can see you. For the mighty to live, a few have to die.”
“I’ve made my choice, Charles. Fuck you.”
“I hope it works out for you,” he said.
He spoke again, this time not across the warehouse but to the men close to him. “Kill them all.”
Boots pounded down the narrow pathway between cages. They were catching up to her.
Mary lagged behind. One of the DC’s kept pace with Heather, but the other was gone. There were more cages to her right and left. Infected stuck their arms through the bars and reached toward her.
She needed to distract the soldiers, or they’d catch her. What could she do? Hang on…
She opened the latch of one of the cages. When the door swung wide, the infected walked out into the corridor. Heather grabbed Mary and made her walk faster.
“If I’m going to do this I can’t have you trailing behind,” she said.
She went from cage to cage and opened them all to release the infected, creating a wall of the monsters behind her. The only cages she didn’t open were the ones housing DC’s. She wanted to let them out, but most of them didn’t look like they could walk. Opening their cages would be an invite for the infected to feed on them. Her heart tore in two as she left them.
Kim and Eric. Kim and Eric. Don’t stop.
Behind her, at the beginning of the walkway, Charles headed toward her. Infected drifted toward him and his men, but he swiped them away with a swing of his pickaxe. With every arc of his arm, the axe smashed against the skulls of nearby infected and sent them crashing to the floor. Blood, teeth and bone sprayed out, but Charles walked through, eyes fixed on Heather, the beak of his mask poking through the darkness.
One of his own men, a soldier holding a gun, blocked Charles’s way as he aimed at an infected. The bounty hunter swung his axe and broke the man’s skull.
Heather’s legs turned to water. It wouldn’t be long until she collapsed to the floor in a flood of panic. She forced herself to keep moving. She and Mary reached the end of the warehouse, where another set of double doors waited.
Since these weren’t bolted, it was easier to heave them open. Daylight streamed in. When she crossed the threshold, she lost her breath.
A welcome party of a dozen infected waited.
Then she saw the train. It was a three-carriage steam locomotive. It was green, and ‘The Valiant’ was painted in silver along one carriage. It was sitting idle with the immune on board, ready to leave for whatever hell the Capita decided to take them.
As the infected approached her, she snapped out of her thoughts. She couldn’t kill them all, but she wouldn’t let them stop her reaching the train. Nothing would stop her, no matter what it cost. They’re close now. I can feel it.
An infected lurched at her. She side-stepped and pushed it away. Another spun in her direction, but she swung the butt of her gun and cracked its skull. She weaved her way through them, acting on instinct to get out of the reach of the ones who grabbed for her. Behind her, Mary screamed.
Heather stopped long enough to see two infected pull the old woman to the ground and tear at her with their teeth. I have to help her.
She was too late. As the monsters gorged on the flesh of the woman’s neck, Heather knew she was lost.
Kim and Eric. Kim and Eric.
Something lurched her way. She reacted too slowly, and an infected sunk its teeth into her shoulder blades. A burning pain spread through her.
Heather grabbed its hair and ripped it away, shoving so hard it fell to the floor. Blinded by pain, she abandoned her instincts and ploughed through the crowd of infected until she cleared them.
Fuck, that hurts. She breathed through the pain, willing it to turn to anger that would spur her on. She walked by the train and peered into the carriage windows. The faces of panic-stricken DC’s stared back at her. They banged on the glass and shouted, but Heather couldn't hear what they said.
“Kim? Eric? Where are you?”
She ran along the train and looked into each window, searching for two faces. As she reached the last carriage, hope left her. Kim and Eric were on there, but she couldn’t see them, and time was running out.
Blood oozed out of the bite-marks in her skin. She was surprised she could stand. I failed. I couldn’t find them. Kim…Eric…I’m sorry.
She looked up again at the windows of the last carriage, and adrenaline exploded in her.
In the second to last window, Kim stared at her. Her eyes widened, and she pounded on the glass.
“Kim! I’m here. Wait, honey.”
She ran along the carriage and to the stairs. She grabbed the rail and lifted her foot onto the first stair, when something yanked her back with such force she ended up on her back. She expected an infected to be standing over her. Instead, it was Charles Bull.
“The mice can run,” he said. “But I always catch them.”
He lifted his pickaxe in the air, and for a second, it blotted out the sun.
She’d failed. Her daughter stared at her from the window of a train destined for hell, and there was nothing she could do about it. She closed her eyes and surrendered to the misery she was doomed to die with.
The sound of galloping came from close by. The pickaxe above Heather lowered, but not toward her. Instead, Charles brought it to his side and turned to find the source of the noise.
Heather got to her feet. Blood soaked her shoulder, and a woozy feeling made her stumble.
A horse rode toward them. On top of it, with a painted grin spread across his mask, was Max Armstrong.
Max didn’t slow when he approached Charles. He swung an iron bar at the bounty hunter’s face, connecting with the side of his mask and knocking him off balance. Max turned his horse in a circle and headed back toward Charles.
As Max approached, Charles stepped out of reach and swung his pickaxe into the side of the horse, puncturing its flesh. The horse whinnied, then collapsed to the floor. Max managed to leap off without becoming trapped under the animal.
He ran over to Heather. “Where’s the gun?” he said.
Charles approached. “I knew you were in the Resistance, Max,” he said.
“The gun,” said Max, and held out his hand.
Charles took another step. “I never got rid of you though.”
“Bullshit. You had no idea, you lying bastard,” said Max.
Charles laughed. “A liar is one thing I’m not. Having a mole in my unit wasn’t so bad. Spreading the word about our plans helps us. You know why?”
“I’m all ears.”
Charles was close enough now
to raise his pickaxe above Max. “Because the more people know about us,” he said, “the more they fear us.”
Heather lifted the pistol and aimed it at Charles. “They don’t fear you. They pity you,” she said.
She pulled the trigger, expecting it to blow Charles’s head off. She heard a click. She tested the trigger again. Click. Panic rippled through her.
