The Alpha Plague (Book 4)

by Michael Robertson

  Vicky leaned across and grabbed Flynn’s thick arm. “It’ll do you good to learn how to survive in this world.”

  Flynn stared at Vicky and his eyes narrowed. “There’s something else, isn’t there?”

  A glance at Rhys and Larissa, and Vicky looked back at the boy. After a gulp of hot air, she said, “Come on, Flynn, surely you knew this day would come?”

  “You’re leaving?”

  The accusation in his tone cut to Vicky’s core. No matter how she looked at it, by leaving the shipping containers, she was leaving him.

  Flynn’s voice became shrill, which raised the level of agitation down below. “How can you do this to us? How can you leave?”

  “Flynn,” Vicky reached across to touch him again but he pulled his arm away. “I’ve been waiting for you to get old enough so I could move on. I love you all very much, but I need something more. I believe there are other people out there. I’m lonely, Flynn.”

  “I’m sure there’s not anyone else out there. Don’t you think we would have seen some of these people by now if there were?”

  Without another word, Vicky pulled her wind-up radio from her pocket.

  “What’s that?” Flynn said.

  The wheel clicked as Vicky wound it. Once she’d twisted it around several full rotations, she let go and the message played.

  “…our vision. Home is located just near Britnall. The …”

  Vicky turned the radio off once the message had played in its entirety.

  “How do you know it’s real?” Flynn asked, his wide eyes still on the radio.

  “Because they change it every few weeks. Someone is still taking the time to update this message, so I have to go out and find who it is.”

  “It could be a trap.”

  “It could be.”

  “That’s it?” Flynn asked. “I don’t want you to walk into a trap.”

  “No, Flynn, neither do I, but I’m at the point where I’m prepared to take the risk. I have to see what this is. I have to find out.”

  Although still clearly upset, Flynn didn’t have anything else for Vicky. A deep scowl hooded his eyes, and he sat with his jaw clenched tight.

  Vicky reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out something wrapped in a carrier bag. She handed it to the boy.

  “What’s this?”

  “Your birthday present.”

  A shake ran through Flynn’s hands as she opened the package. “This has got to be the first year that you haven’t given me schoolbooks.”

  “Schoolbooks are important.”

  The wrapping didn’t hide what the gift was, and when Vicky looked up at Rhys and Larissa, she could see the shock on both of their faces.

  “Your catapult?” Flynn said as he stared down at the object in his hands. “I can’t take this from you. What will you do?”

  “I want you to have it. I can still hunt with a spear, or a baseball bat; I’ll be all right.”

  Grief buckled Flynn’s bottom lip as he turned the well-worn catapult over in his hands and stared down at it. A warble shook his words. “Just promise me one thing.” When he looked up, tears glistened in his eyes.

  “Okay,” Vicky said.

  Flynn’s entire face twisted with his sadness. “If you get the chance to, come back and see us.”

  Vicky smiled through her grief and reached across to touch Flynn’s forearm. “Of course I will.” She looked at Rhys and Larissa to see both of them were crying, and she made the promise to them too. “Of course I will.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Vicky wiped the rainwater from her eyes. Not that it did her any good. The rain lashed down and made it hard to see regardless of what she did—fuck knows how they’d hear the diseased approaching.

  “Should we be out in this?” Flynn asked as he hopped over the stile after his dad.

  A glance behind her just to be sure, and Vicky followed the pair of them over to the road on the other side.

  “It’s not ideal,” Rhys said, “but Vicky’s waited for a decade now, and it’s time to let her move on.”

  There could have been judgement in his voice. After all, he didn’t hide the fact that Vicky’s moving on hurt him, but instead, he spoke with compassion. A true friend. Rhys may not have said it, but his actions showed that he appreciated how she’d done right by him and his family. In another time with another set of circumstances, maybe Vicky and Rhys could have made a go of it.

  As they walked across the road, tufts of grass pushing up through the hard asphalt, Vicky watched Flynn. The boy looked around with wide eyes, his jaw loose as he took everything in. Rhys had initially said they’d take him to the allotment and back, but Vicky had agreed to go on one last supply run. They could give Flynn a better experience while they both looked out for him.

  The gate to the next field had been knocked down five years previously when Vicky and Rhys had grown tired of climbing the wobbly thing. The field beyond it had long grass like all of the other fields that surrounded the airport. A flattened path ran through the middle of it, trodden down over the years by Vicky and Rhys.

  As they walked, Vicky held the whistle around her neck. Probably not a good idea to use a whistle when the diseased responded to sound in the way they did, but Larissa needed to do the job of two people now, and it had seemed like the best plan. Not only did she need to bang against the container, but she also needed to lower the ladder to let them up when they got back. Because she couldn’t do both at the same time, she needed to know when to abandon one for the other.

  The grass along the side of the stream also lay flat from where Vicky and Rhys had pushed it down. With nets set up to catch fish, they needed the grass flattened to give them the manoeuvrability to pull them in. Not the most advanced way to fish. The keep nets they’d set up on the side of the stream did the job though. About once a week they’d catch at least something, which was far better than nothing.

  “This is where the fish come from,” Rhys said to his son.

  Vicky stood back to remove herself from the father and son bonding. She would be out of the picture soon, so the less she intervened, the better.

  After he’d edged slightly closer to the water, Flynn peered in. “What, the fish just swim in?”

  “Yeah, we have the top of the net high up, so when they swim in, they can’t get out again.”

  As Flynn edged another step closer, Vicky watched the long grass around them for signs of the diseased. The strong wind threw the rain at her so hard it stung, and it tossed the grass from side to side. Anything could be lurking nearby, and they wouldn’t have a hope of seeing it. Before Vicky could suggest they moved, she looked back at the father and son.

  Rhys smiled at his boy. A man deprived of a conventional existence, Vicky had to let them be normal for once. It didn’t always have to be about surviving. Maybe today, it could just be about fishing.

  A rock of anxiety twisted Vicky’s guts as she continued to look around. As much as she tried to tap into her other senses, the heavy rain deadened them all. Sound, smell, sight ….

  Vicky watched Flynn take another step closer to the water. When she saw it, she inhaled to call out and reached for the boy, but before she could let out a sound, he’d already slipped. Everything slowed down. Although not very deep, the stream ran deep enough for a boy who couldn’t swim.

  But before he fell in, Rhys sprung to life, caught him, and pulled him away. As he dragged his son from the water and pushed him into the long grass, he fell in himself. The splash seemed to stop time for a moment, and Vicky froze.

  When she looked to the left, she saw the grass move like it hadn’t before. It had nothing to do with the wind. Before the diseased appeared, Vicky lurched forward, grabbed Flynn, and pulled him away.

  Flynn screamed so loud it hurt Vicky’s ears, and he resisted her as he watched the monsters pile into the water on top of his dad. Vicky quickly overpowered Flynn and dragged him back as several more diseased crashed into Rhys in the water. In th
at moment, Vicky made eye contact with the man she’d known so well for ten years, and she saw the defeat in his wide stare. She had but one job now; get Flynn back to safety.

  After she’d pulled Flynn around in front of her, Vicky shoved him in the back toward the road. “Go, now! We need to get back to the container. Run, Flynn, and don’t look back.”

  Flynn, clumsy with grief, ran with everything he had. Despite his clear struggle, he still moved like the wind and left Vicky behind.

  A glance over her shoulder and Vicky watched the pile of diseased in the water. Rhys had already stopped fighting, and the water had turned red. He’d be one of them soon.

  The grass, although flattened, still whipped at Vicky’s legs as she ran after Flynn. With zero caution, she burst out into the road and followed the boy over the stile.

  At the end of the alleyway, her heart pounding and her head spinning, Vicky caught up with Flynn.

  The boom called out as Larissa hit the container with the weight.

  “Follow the path I take,” Vicky said to Flynn as she overtook him. “The field is uneven, so you need to watch where I step.”

  Vicky then lifted the whistle to her lips and blew hard. The high-pitched peep put a stop to the beat against the container from where Larissa had obviously heard them.

  Although she looked behind, Vicky didn’t see any diseased on their tail. Larissa best be waiting for them anyway.

  Just to be sure, she blew on the whistle again. With the rain as it was, she had to be certain Larissa had heard them.

  As she pushed on, the boy close behind, Vicky looked out across the field and saw them. To their right, a mob of diseased about fifty strong came at them like a pack of wild horses. They looked like they could reach the containers before Vicky and Flynn did.

  “Come on, Flynn,” Vicky called to him as she fought for breath, “we need to hurry the fuck up.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Although the banging had stopped, when Vicky rounded the corner and looked up to where Flynn used to stand, she didn’t see Larissa. A glance back at the red-faced Flynn and she looked back up at the container. “Come on, Larissa, speed it up.”

  The cries and yells from the pack of diseased to their right grew louder the closer they got. The diseased had different calls for different occasions; some of discontent, some of pain, some when they didn’t even know you were there—the idle moaning and groaning of what sounded like perpetual torment. Then they had the calls that she heard now—the calls of excitement.

  The whistle on the string around Vicky’s neck slapped against her chest, and it took her three attempts to catch it as she ran. Gassed from the exertion, she pulled as large a breath as she could, and blew the whistle again.

  This time, Larissa stood up on the container. Vicky should have felt relief, but she didn’t because the whistle seemed to intensify the diseased’s screams. Maybe they knew they’d now have to work harder for their prey. Instead of bursting to life, Vicky watched Larissa look down at her, Flynn, and then search behind them. Her entire frame sagged. The fear that one of them wouldn’t return had always been there. No doubt Larissa had already worked out what Rhys’s absence meant. But the lack of Rhys didn’t matter at that moment.

  Vicky pushed herself so hard her legs burned and her lungs felt just about ready to burst. She had a boy behind her to take care of, and a horde closing in from their right. Now she had to motivate Larissa to move too. A peer, and someone she’d learned to love like a sister, the sweet woman visibly broke as what must have been the realisation of her missing husband dawned on her. Even from the distance of at least fifty metres and through the heavy rain, Vicky watched Larissa physically sag.

  Vicky turned to look at Flynn again. The boy seemed to have lost a bit of distance to her. Tears ran down his red cheeks, and his features twisted from the pain of the sprint. No matter how much the kid had trained before that day, until he’d run from a diseased, he couldn’t prepare for it. Adrenaline could spur you on, but it could also rob you of your power. The boy seemed to be lagging, but they couldn’t stop.

  “Pick your pace up, Flynn,” Vicky screamed at him. “If you don’t hurry the fuck up, you’ll be one of them soon.”

  As happened with every pack of diseased, a couple of front runners broke away from the rest. A woman, naked save for a pair of hot pants, had taken an early lead. Her small and dirty breasts shook with every step. Flynn needed to move quicker.

  But Vicky couldn’t wait for him. The boy had to grow into a man and be responsible for his own well-being. Instead, she sped up. Give him something to chase and hopefully, he’d rise to the challenge.

  With Rhys’s dying face in her mind, Vicky closed in on the containers and left the teenage boy behind.

  When Vicky got to within a few metres, Larissa finally dropped the ladder down. Once she’d caught up to it, Vicky stood on the bottom rung. She’d climb it when she needed to, but if she could get Flynn up as well, then she would.

  As the boy continued to push on, Vicky clapped her hands together and shouted so loud it hurt her throat. “That’s it, Flynn. Keep it coming, you can do it.”

  The semi-naked woman had closed the gap between them to no more than a couple of metres at best. With her heart in her throat, Vicky looked up at Larissa to see the woman crying freely. “I’m going to save him,” Vicky said. “Make sure you’re ready to lift the ladder once we’re both up.”

  It looked like a nod, but Vicky didn’t have time to confirm it. As she ran at Flynn, she snapped her baton to its full length.

  The woman behind the boy roared for all she had and lunged at him. Vicky caught her in the centre of her forehead with the balled end of the baton. The impact ran a sharp sting up Vicky’s arm, drove the woman backwards, and threw her down hard on the ground. Flynn kept running at the ladder.

  By the time Vicky had turned around and headed back for the containers, Flynn had jumped onto the ladder and had climbed halfway up it.

  Although she didn’t look back at the diseased, Vicky heard them. Hell, she felt their stampede beneath her feet. A second later and their collective smell hit her. The smell of this world, the culmination of a pack of diseased concentrated as a fetid blast.

  When she got close to the bottom of the ladder, she caught the pack in her peripheral vision. With her entire body on fire from the effort of the run, she looked up at Larissa. “Be ready to pull this thing up.”

  Too busy comforting her son, Larissa didn’t even look down at Vicky.

  “Larissa! Pull the ladder up after me.”

  Nothing.

  With a few steps left on the ladder and now only a few metres from Larissa, Vicky slipped the whistle into her mouth and blew hard.

  Larissa jumped and looked at her.

  “Pull the fucking ladder up before the diseased follow me.”

  Having got through to the woman, Vicky jumped up onto the container and landed hard on the steel surface with a loud boom. As she lay face down, she panted and gasped for breath while she listened to the sound of the ladder sliding against the container from where Larissa pulled it up.

  Vicky rolled over onto her back in time to see Larissa drop the ladder onto the container with a clang. She then watched the woman fall to her knees and release a demented and broken wail. The hundreds of diseased that surrounded them joined in with her cries, their clear frustration at missing yet another meal.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Flynn may have sounded like a young man when he spoke, but when he screamed, he returned to the little boy Vicky had watched grow up over the past decade. The tone of his high-pitched cry, amplified by the metal container he lived in, woke Vicky from her restless sleep with a start. Had he been on his own, then she would have slept in with the boy, but he had his mother by his side, and though Vicky hurt over the loss of Rhys too, they needed to share their grief without her.

  With the lethargy of sleep still deep in her muscles, Vicky sat up in her container as Flynn conti
nued to cry. He sounded like an enraged primate, his screams coming in bellowed and furious waves. After she’d slipped her shoes on, she reached up for the ladder in her container and pulled herself to her feet. Still clumsy with tiredness, and with her eyes stinging, she dragged herself toward the daylight above.

  The stench of shit and rot hit Vicky as soon as she poked her head out of the container. The diseased joined in with Flynn’s cries, their agitation setting the air alight; their prey stood just metres away but they had no way of reaching it.

  Atop the containers, Vicky looked over to where they usually dropped the ladder into the field behind the airport. It had been lowered. But if Flynn remained in his container …

  Instead of going to the boy, Vicky ran for the ladder. Her footsteps boomed against the three containers she crossed to get to it. At the precise moment she peered down into the field, a pack of diseased came around the corner as if they’d gotten wind of a chance to get to them. Vicky gripped the cold aluminium ladder and yanked it up. A second later, the container shook beneath her feet from where the pack crashed into it.

  Without taking her eyes off the mob below, Vicky dropped the ladder on top of the container with a loud clang.

  Although they’d bridged the gaps over the containers with ladders, Vicky ignored them as she hopped from one to the other in the direction of Flynn’s cries.

  Still early enough for there to be low-lying fog on the airfield, the containers had a slight coating of dew, but not enough to encourage Vicky to slow down. She jumped another gap and looked at the diseased below as she crossed it. No matter how long she lived with them, the sight of the beasts still ran ice through her veins, especially on days like today when they seemed to be rising out of the fog.