Rhys unsheathed his bat from where he’d slid it between his rucksack and his back. He gripped the handle and wound back, ready to swing. In his peripheral vision, he saw Oscar drop into a defensive crouch, his axe still raised.
Some of the diseased ran quicker than the others. The slap of their feet beat against the hard floor as they bore down on Rhys and Oscar.
With the mob closer, Rhys re-counted. Eight! Four each. They could cope with that. Just.
The three fastest opened up a clear lead and left the pack behind.
Rhys clenched his jaw, turned his shoulder to face their attackers, and swung at the lead diseased’s nose. Its momentum carried it forward, but Rhys’ blow threw its top half back. The monster’s legs kicked up as its torso hurtled toward the floor, back first. It seemed like it shook the ground from where it hit it so hard.
“Fuck off, cunt,” Rhys yelled as he swung for the downed creature. The thing’s skull damn near popped from the blow, and a puff of rot and vinegar rushed up and smothered Rhys.
Rhys heaved, drew several heavy breaths, and looked up at Oscar.
Two quick strikes let Oscar drop both of his diseased in quick succession. Both had died before they’d hit the ground. As they lay there, limp and lifeless, their wounds leaked across the marble.
Before he had time to dwell on it, the other five descended on them.
Rhys took three this time. He swung for them one after the other. All three of them fell to the ground. As he rushed over to them, he heard Oscar behind him. The big man’s deep grunts followed by a wet squelch for each diseased, and then silence. His mechanical efficiency unsettled Rhys. What would he be like without an injury?
Rhys gripped the handle of his bat with both hands and let the thick end hang down as he stood over the first diseased. He drove a sharp jab straight into the centre of its face. When he moved onto the next one, he screamed and forced the end of the aluminium bat down again.
The last kill—a blonde woman no older than about twenty-five—stared up at him through blood-red eyes. Her mouth worked slowly; the blow had only stunned her. Rhys clenched his jaw and drove the bat straight into her dainty nose.
Out of breath, Rhys stared at Oscar. For the first time since he’d met him, he saw the large man had broken a sweat and breathed heavily too. “You ready to go?” Rhys said.
Oscar nodded.
The pair of them ran across the foyer toward the lift at the far side. Their footsteps echoed as wet slaps through the large open space.
With the power still on in The Alpha Tower, Rhys saw the pools of blood as he ran through them.
“I know it’s forcing us to look at this mess,” Rhys said as they both ran through a particularly large pool, “but at least the power’s still working in here.”
Oscar nodded. “I’m guessing it runs from its own backup.”
“Good job, really.” Rhys pointed at the gold elevator doors. “We need one of these lifts powered so it can get us to the top floor.”
Chapter Twenty
Once inside the lift, Rhys pressed the button for the fifteenth floor.
Nothing.
He pressed it again, harder and repeatedly.
He pressed it to the point where it stung his finger, but still nothing happened. He stared out through the open doors into the foyer; if a group ran at them now and pinned them in the elevator…
The buttons for floors twelve, thirteen, fourteen, and fifteen all looked the same. Embedded in the large gold plate like all of the elevator’s controls, the top four glowed red instead of green.
When Rhys reached up to press the button again, Oscar grabbed his wrist and squeezed hard.
“Ow,” Rhys said.
Sweat beaded Oscar’s brow and he looked pale when he pointed at the card reader below the buttons. He struggled to get his words out. “I’m guessing they’re red for a reason. Maybe you should use your security card and see if that helps.”
A glance out into the foyer and Rhys fumbled for his security card. A need to hurry made his hands shake. His cheeks flushed as he felt Oscar’s cold glare on him. Of course, the card reader would give them access to some of the other floors. It made perfect sense. It wouldn’t be there otherwise. He’d looked like a complete idiot for the entire time he’d been around Oscar. No wonder the big man treated him with such contempt—that and the fact that Oscar was clearly a dick.
As happened with every card reader he’d come across, Rhys swiped Vicky’s card through it and the small red light turned green. Not only did the light on the reader turn green, but the buttons for the higher floors changed to the same colour.
Oscar pressed the button to the fifteenth floor and the lift doors closed.
Just before the doors had shut out Rhys’ view of the foyer, another diseased scream tore through the open space.
The hairs lifted on the back of Rhys’ neck when he saw a solitary diseased appear. Its jaw hung so loose it swung as the creature jerked its head around. Blood streaked its pale cheeks and it had a deep gouge that ran down the side of its face. When it turned to the lift, its mouth stretched wide and it screamed again.
The thud when it collided with the other side of the closed doors made both Rhys and Oscar jump back. Seconds later, the lift rose. Rhys shook his head. “Great, we’ve got to come back down to that.”
Oscar cleared his throat, but didn’t reply. The act of riding in a lift together seemed to quash any idea of conversation. Rhys nearly conformed to that social convention until he looked down at Oscar’s thigh. “What the fuck?”
The patch of blood had been large before, but now the entire top half of his trousers had turned red.
After he’d looked down at his leg, Oscar lifted his head again. Sunken eyes stared back at Rhys and he shrugged. “The fight in the foyer must have torn it open farther.”
“Take your trousers off,” Rhys said.
“Huh?” Oscar skin turned paler with every second that passed.
“Take your trousers off now.”
Although Oscar looked like he wanted to argue, he undid his belt buckle and dropped his trousers.
Rhys balked and turned away from the fleshy, deep red sight. “Fucking hell, mate; I’ve seen some bad wounds today, but… Fuck.”
Oscar stared at Rhys but didn’t reply.
After he’d placed his baseball bat and bag on the floor, Rhys retrieved Oscar’s trousers. A quick check of the controls and he saw they’d passed the fourth floor.
Rhys then turned the trousers inside out and folded them over so one leg lay on top of the other. He pulled them taut and kneeled down. “Push the wound close together.”
When Oscar forced both sides of the deep gash together, dark blood oozed from the wound. The large man shook and breathed heavily as he held it in place.
A look up at Oscar’s sweating face and Rhys nodded. “You ready?”
Oscar nodded back.
Rhys found the cleanest patch on Oscar’s bloody trousers and pressed that against the wound. He then pulled both sides of the trousers around the back of Oscar’s thigh and tied a tight knot.
A glance behind and Rhys saw they’d passed floor number seven.
When he looked back up at Oscar, the big man breathed heavily and his face glistened. “It’ll have to do,” Rhys said. “I think it’ll hold for the time being.”
With a stoic nod, Oscar fell against the lift’s wall.
As the lift continued to rise, Rhys retrieved his bag and bat. He slipped the rucksack on and squirmed beneath the discomfort of it. It sat lopsided on his back, so he tugged on the right strap to adjust the weight of it correctly.
Still out of breath from the exertion of the day, Rhys panted and looked at the lift’s control panel. They’d reached the tenth floor. He removed the map from his top pocket and the wrinkled paper rustled when he unfolded it. The drawing said what it needed to. It left out one important detail, however. It didn’t reveal which room had the controls in it. Oscar would have to be
lieve whatever Rhys told him.
Oscar could clearly see the map over his shoulder, so Rhys lifted it to give him a better look. “When these doors open, we’ll be at the end of a long corridor.” The map shook in his hands and his palms sweated more than before. “The two rooms are at the opposite end,” he cleared his throat and his face burned at the thought of the lie. He couldn’t repeat it again.
Oscar said nothing.
When they passed the twelfth floor, the entire wall in front of them turned white. Rhys squinted against the bright light. It had black letters in the top left-hand corner that read ‘FL15’. “That’s where we’re heading,” Rhys said as he stared at the wall and waited for the screens to show him something more.
An image appeared in front of them and Rhys’ blood ran cold. His tired limbs ached worse than before.
“It looks like we have a welcoming party,” Oscar said. He continued to lean against the wall and his eyes rolled in his head.
They originally looked small on the screen because they’d camped out by some closed doors a distance away, but the rising elevator seemed to pique their curiosity and both of the diseased got to their feet. As one, they charged forward. They bashed into one another and the walls in their attempt to be the first to the lift when the doors opened.
“Those things will be on top of us the second we reach the fifteenth floor.”
Oscar sighed and lifted his axe. He looked like he could barely keep it aloft.
“I’ve got these two,” Rhys said. “You just wait here, yeah?”
Oscar lowered his weapon and didn’t reply.
Rhys turned to the door and readied his bat. His heart hammered an irregular beat as he looked around his confined space. His dry throat pinched when he swallowed. How the fuck was he going to get a good swing at them?
Chapter Twenty-One
With his bat raised, Rhys’ arms trembled as he watched the elevator door. Another look to either side and he shook his head. He could barely move in the tight space.
When they stopped at the fifteenth floor, Rhys’ heartbeat ran away from him and his breaths quickened. The rancid tang of the diseased filled the air before the doors opened. Rhys gulped when he heard the ping that announced the chaos about to enter their world.
The crack down the centre of the doors widened, and the diseased groaned louder as their excitement mounted.
With the gap at no more than a couple of inches wide, their two bloated faces pressed into it. Their eyes bulged and they snapped their teeth. One of them poked his tongue out as if the extra inch would get him to his prey sooner.
Rhys sneered; the vile protrusion reminded him of black pudding.
When the door opened wide enough, Rhys jabbed his bat twice through the gap. Each jab connected with the face of one of the diseased and they both stumbled back.
Before they could charge forward again, Rhys jumped out into the corridor.
With more room around him now, he swung for the first diseased. He caught it clean and the thing flopped.
Before Rhys had time to react, the second diseased hit him hard. They both fell to the floor, Rhys on his back and the thing on top of him. Rhys held each end of his bat like a bar and wedged it beneath the creature’s chin. It pulled its skin tight, and forced its face away.
When Rhys glanced behind, he saw Oscar remained in the lift watching. The man looked better than he had moments before, yet he remained rooted to the spot and stared with a cold detachment.
When the diseased shifted on top of Rhys, Rhys adjusted the position of his bat so it remained locked beneath the thing’s chin.
The diseased leaned over and snarled with a phlegmy rattle as it bit at the air between them.
The weight of the thing made Rhys’ arms shake worse than before. No matter how hard he wedged the bat into its neck, it did nothing to subdue the desire with which it tried to attack him. The fucker didn’t seem to care whether it could breathe or not.
Rhys stared into the thing’s dark eyes. A film of blood still coated them, but they didn’t actively bleed like the others. The red trails down its face had dried. It must have been one of the early ones to turn.
Rhys’ arms shook worse than ever as he lost the strength to hold the thing at bay. When he took a deep breath, he inhaled its reek and said, “Oscar, help me please.”
The thing on top of Rhys pushed down more, and Rhys thought about Oscar as he stood back and watched from the lift. He shouldn’t have trusted him. He knew the guy was a psychopath.
The sharp snap of the diseased’s jaws became more frenzied. It clearly sensed it had the advantage. It twisted and shook with renewed vigour. It screamed so loud it hurt Rhys’ ears.
Rhys’ arms gave way a little more. Just centimetres separated him and the rotten bite of the diseased. Rhys turned his face to the side and breathed through his mouth to combat the smell. The heavy, phlegmy rattle of his opponent wheezed in his ear. Its hot and rancid breath turned clammy on the side of Rhys’ face.
A loud thunk that sounded like a dull bell had been struck, and the pressure lifted from Rhys’ arms. The thing fell to the side and Rhys looked up to see Oscar above him. The diseased that had been on top of him cowered; it had taken a heavy blow to the head from the blunt side of Oscar’s axe.
“Yahhhh!” Oscar yelled and drove the axe so hard into the creature’s face, half of the blade disappeared into its nose. Oscar pushed against its head with his boot and ripped his weapon free with a wet squelch.
As Oscar examined his bloody axe, Rhys looked at the dead body next to him. It had a lab coat on. Despite the shake that ran through his exhausted arms, Rhys pushed himself up and rifled through the dead scientist’s pockets.
Within seconds he’d found the guy’s security card. The photo on it matched the man. Rhys looked at the corpse and said, “Thanks, Wilfred, just what we needed.”
When Rhys pushed off against the floor, his arms nearly gave way. His legs buckled as he walked.
Rhys turned to Oscar—the large man covered in a fevered sweat—and said, “Thanks. Thanks for saving me.”
Coldness sat in Oscar’s gaze as he dipped a stoic nod. “It’s okay.”
The long corridor had been separated into sections with sets of doors. It seemed like each segment served as another area for quarantining the fallout from whatever wicked experiments went on in the labs at the end.
Large windows ran down either wall. Although the doors were at the end, they showed a lab on each side. “So this is it,” Rhys said as he looked from one room to the other. “This is the place where it all started. Rather underwhelming when you’ve seen the severe consequences, wouldn’t you say?”
Oscar didn’t answer. Instead, he held his hand out. “You found a security card. Can I have one?”
Rhys gave him Vicky’s card.
For a second, Oscar stared at it. “This is lower security than the scientist’s one.”
“Is it?”
“You know full well it is. Take the better card, fine, but don’t mug me off.”
Oscar may well have just saved Rhys’ life, but the fucker took his fucking time about it. “Come on,” Rhys said, “let’s do this, yeah?” He walked up to the first security door and swiped his new card through it. The light turned from red to green and the door slid open.
Although he didn’t move at first, when Rhys stepped into the next section of the corridor, Oscar followed him.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The long corridor had been broken up by four sets of sliding doors. It created five sections that they needed to pass through. “This much precaution to prevent the disease getting out, and it still spread?” Rhys said. He shook his head as he swiped Wilfred’s card through the reader at the second set of doors. They opened with a whoosh.
“You could have given me that card, you know,” Oscar said.
Rhys moved onto the third doors and didn’t reply. When he got to the card reader, he swiped the card and turned to look at Oscar. T
he tall man grimaced as he walked with a limp.
Rhys waited and looked through the doors. The corridor beyond, a brilliant white, had been splattered with blood. The dark red stood in stark contrast to the sterile walls and floor. Despite the warmth from the hot day, Rhys shivered. The place reminded him of a hospital. No matter how warm the actual buildings were, he always felt cold in hospitals.
“I’ve saved your arse on more than one occasion,” Oscar said when he caught up with Rhys. “So who made you the boss of me?”
“I’m not saying I’m the boss of you. I’m just not giving you this card.” Although Oscar still stood as an imposing form, Rhys had seen the wound on his leg. If it kicked off between them, a quick blow to his thigh and Oscar would go down in a flash.
As they walked to the fourth set of doors, Rhys listened to Oscar’s heavy breaths and staggered steps behind him. Rather than look at him, Rhys looked at the labs on either side of them. The one on the right looked like it hadn’t been used in some time; empty beakers, test tubes, scales, and other scientific equipment sat on the sides. The one on his left, however… “Have you seen this, Oscar? It looks like the place has been turned over.”
“Everywhere looks like it’s been turned over.”
“Yeah, but we’re at ground zero now, aren’t we? Somewhere on this top floor, the virus was created and unleashed.” Rhys looked at the table toppled over in the middle of the room. Two chairs lay on their side as if thrown away from it. One of the worktops had been swiped clean like someone had run an arm across it. Then Rhys looked down and froze.
Oscar walked up next to him. “What’s up?”
Rhys pointed to thick lump of flesh on the floor. “It looks like it’s been cut out of someone on purpose.”
“It has been cut out of someone on purpose.”
Rhys gasped and turned to the pale man. “How do you know?”
The Alpha Plague 2 Page 9
