Despite the tacky veneer, the sight of the shop made Vicky’s mouth water as she anticipated a strong and hot cup. “They make a great coffee though. And it’s the most efficient coffee shop in the city.”
Vicky led the way and put her bankcard into the machine as soon as she’d entered the shop. She ordered her coffee, and then ordered Brendan’s. Black no sugar; the man never changed his mind.
When Vicky stepped onto the conveyor belt, she gripped the moving handrail that ran along beside it. Made from rubber, she held it for balance and turned to Brendan, who’d stepped on behind her.
The pair made small talk as the belt weaved a mazy path through the shop. They had people both in front and behind them. Their chattering voices joined the hiss of steam from the coffee machines. The baristas moved like they’d mainlined the product. Each one ran from one machine to the next as they prepared one of the many coffees on offer.
Most businesses in the food and drink industry tried to keep things simple for efficiency, but coffee shops seemed to go the other way. A new coffee came out every week. Gingerbread dry Grande latte Milano froth monster seemed to be the latest. Vicky often felt like she needed to learn another language to order exactly what she wanted. Instead, she always opted for a gingerbread latte.
“The conveyor belt never stops,” Vicky said as she watched two baristas collide when their paths crossed behind the counter. “It’s their policy. If they have to stop the belt, everyone on it gets the cost of their coffee refunded. If they don’t stop the belt and your coffee is either made wrong, or simply isn’t ready, the entire shop gets free coffee.”
With a limp jaw, Brendan watched the other people on the belt. Some of them shouted at the baristas like they were angry with them. Some tried to distract them with charm.
After she’d given him a few seconds to digest the chaos, Vicky said, “I even saw someone flash their tits at them once.”
“All to distract them?”
“Yep.”
“So they could get free coffee?”
“Yep.”
Brendan shook his head. “And has it ever worked?”
“No! Like fuck. I think that’s why people are so desperate to make it happen. Bragging rights or something like that. Where were you when Summit City opened? Where were you when the cold war started? Where were you when Caffeine’s conveyor belt stopped?”
Brendan shook his head as he watched the chaos. “All of this effort for a free coffee.”
The coffee cup’s exterior remained cool in Vicky’s hand when they stepped out of Caffeine. The design had been the brainchild of a Swedish scientist and had made him a millionaire overnight. It managed to keep the outside of the cup cool while the coffee inside stayed hot. It had revolutionised coffee drinking.
After he’d glanced around them, Brendan grabbed Vicky’s hand and pulled her over to one of the stone benches in the square. It faced both the Alpha Tower and the only water fountain in the area.
Vicky looked across at her lover. “What’s up? You seem distracted.”
A sip of his coffee and Brendan looked around them again with a deep frown. “Since you’ve told me about the, you know, virus in the tower.”
Vicky’s heart raced and she looked around too. If someone heard that … “Please don’t mention it so explicitly again.”
After he dipped a subtle nod, Brendan continued. “I’ve been trying to find a way to make your problem go away for you and I think I’ve found one.”
“That’s impossible, there’s nothing we can do about it.”
“Actually, I think there is. I know some people who could jeopardise it and put the experiments back by years, if not forever.”
Vicky had never seen Brendan like this. The man always had a serious side, but he had something almost cold about him that day.
“What kind of people do you know? And what if it goes wrong?”
“These people don’t get shit wrong. Trust me. Do you want me to help?”
With the sweet yet bitter taste of gingerbread latte in her mouth, Vicky’s throat dried and the first rush of caffeine pulled her stomach tight. She looked into Brendan’s icy stare and shook where she sat. After another hit of the hot liquid, she drew a deep breath. When she looked back at Brendan, his eyes had softened a little.
“It’s cool either way,” he said.
Many innocent people could die when the virus got out. And that was the thing. The virus would get out. Vicky nodded. “Yes please, Brendan; I want you to help.”
Chapter 11
The crack of the mobile phone as it hit the ground echoed through Rhys’ head long after the sound of it had died. He stared down at the broken device on the driveway. What an idiot! He held his breath when he looked up and scanned the dark neighbourhood. The shadows could have contained anything, but what he could see seemed clear. Were it not for Larissa’s quick breaths as she recovered from her fight then the street would have been silent.
He felt Larissa’s glare burn into the side of his face, and when he finally looked at her, he shrugged. “Okay, so that wasn’t one of my brightest ideas.”
Larissa looked around as if to make a point. “You reckon? Why don’t you start your own one-man band to see if you can get any more of the diseased to come out of their houses?”
Even when she had a valid point, she delivered it in a way that made Rhys want to punch her in the face. With his fists balled, he took a calming breath. It did little to satiate his desire for violence.
After a few seconds, he bent down and pulled the trousers off one of the fallen diseased.
“What the fuck are you doing now?” Larissa said.
Rhys didn’t reply. Instead, he wrapped the trousers around one of his metal stool legs, both of which protruded like flagpoles from the two diseased he’d killed. Both had been driven through each creature’s head so the entire shaft had turned slick with blood and black slime. Rhys wiped the first one clean. “There’s no way I’m holding these poles with all this gunk on them.”
Larissa didn’t respond. Instead, she pulled the shirt off one of the diseased she’d killed and did the same with her broken stool legs.
Rhys couldn’t help but look down at the woman Larissa had taken the shirt from. A toned body, he could almost forget about the pulped face and reek of rot. His stomach turned. Who was he kidding?
“Vicky told me the disease is only passed through saliva, but I’m not taking any risks.”
Larissa seemed to tense up at the mention of Vicky. She didn’t reply as she went more vigorously at her task.
After the pair had cleaned their weapons, Rhys looked around again. The neighbourhood stood as quiet now as it had before. The temperature had dropped by a few degrees. A slight gust rode the night air, which bit through Rhys’ shirt and made him clench both his jaw and tighten the muscles of his torso. “We need to find a phone,” he said. “One that we can actually use.”
With no streetlights, the shadows seemed to spread out like an oil spill with every passing minute and ate into what little light the slim moon provided. Every window in every house sat as a black hole. If anything stirred inside, Rhys and Larissa had no chance of seeing it.
Rhys looked at the window the diseased had leapt through to get at him. Glass remained in the frame as jagged shards. “I’m guessing there’s no more diseased in this house. Surely, they would have jumped out of the window by now if there were. I think we should start our search here.”
Each house on the street seemed to have been built from the same plan. Each had a sloped driveway with a garage at the top. The front door sat next to the garage on every house. The only thing that marked out the one in front of them was the phone number painted in blood on the white garage door. Well, that and the huge splash of crimson next to it.
Rhys walked up to the front door and pushed the handle down. The door didn’t move. Of course it didn’t because that would have been too damn easy. Another look around the quiet neighbourhood and Rhys s
aid, “I don’t like it here.”
Larissa didn’t reply, and when a strong gust of wind flew through the street, she hugged herself tightly.
“Let’s go around the back,” Rhys said. “Hopefully they’ve left that door unlocked.”
An alleyway led to the back garden and a tall gate barred the way. When Rhys pressed the latch, the gate didn’t budge. He reached over the top and slid a bolt free, allowing the gate to open. He stepped through with Larissa close behind him.
Unlike the front, the back garden showed serious signs of neglect. An old fridge lay on its side in the corner by a dilapidated shed. A huge rabbit hutch took up the rest of the space. From a quick count, Rhys saw at least seven furry shapes as they shifted around in the tight wooden hutch. They’d starve pretty quickly without human aid. If he let them out when he left, at least they’d have a fighting chance at survival. Despite the mess of the back garden, the concrete path that led to the back door remained unobscured, so Rhys headed down it.
As he walked, Rhys held his breath. The near silence called every one of his steps out no matter how lightly he trod. When he got to the back door, he bit down on his bottom lip and pushed the handle down. It creaked and Rhys’ pulse raced. When he’d pushed it all the way down, he put a small amount of pressure on the door and it swung open into the house.
The stench of the diseased rushed out like heat from an oven and hit Rhys in the face. He stepped back and held his nose. “Fuck.” He looked around to see Larissa, tight-lipped and focused entirely on him. “You need to be ready for this; it fucking stinks in there.”
Her dark bob swayed as she nodded.
One last gasp of fresh air and Rhys stepped through the doorway.
Like the outside, the house stood silent. Rhys’ feet tapped against the wood laminate floor when he walked down the corridor. His heart beat out of control as the darkness smothered him. A second later, he heard a noise like a pig at a trough. He froze and raised a hand to halt Larissa.
Larissa stopped.
Rhys leaned so close to his ex-wife he could smell the slight tang of sweat on her skin. The familiar scent took him back to well before Flynn arrived when they had Sunday morning lie-ins and sex after a night out. “The kitchen,” Rhys whispered. “Whatever it is, it’s coming from the kitchen.”
After he’d raised both of his spear-like stool legs, he walked toward the sound.
Larissa followed, the gentle pad of her feet in time with his own.
As they got close, the snarls and growls of a diseased became clearer. It sounded like there was just one of them.
By the time he’d gotten to the kitchen door, sweat coated Rhys’ palms and the spears shook in his moist grip. The snarls and growls of the diseased had grown louder, as if the creature sensed their arrival, but it hadn’t moved yet.
When Rhys poked his head around the corner both the smell and sight hit him at once and he heaved.
The diseased lay on the ground with a wheelchair toppled on its side. With half of its face torn open it stared fury at Rhys. It snapped and groaned and reached out to him, but it couldn’t move the lower half of its body.
When it opened its mouth and took a deep, breath Rhys ran forward and drove both stool legs into its face. The wet shunk of both poles cut the creature’s scream off before it could release it. A look of horror had frozen on its face. Its mouth hung wide open and its black tongue lolled out.
Two moist schlops as Rhys pulled each spear free and he looked at the fallen wheelchair. It had a large handbag hooked over one of the handles so he stepped over the corpse and picked it up.
Heavier than he’d expected, Rhys lifted the bag up onto the kitchen table and tipped the contents across it. A phone spilled out amongst the assortment of make-up, a purse, a compact mirror, a novel, and a whole host of other useless items. Rhys grabbed it, pressed the button, and the screen lit up. “It’s an older model, Larissa.” In his excitement, he’d spoken a bit too loudly.
Larissa remained by the kitchen doorway and stared at the dead woman.
Rhys dropped down next to the corpse, pushed her finger to the phone’s screen, and watched the thing unlock.
A notepad and pen had fallen out of the woman’s handbag, so Rhys took the leaves from his pocket, wrote down Vicky’s phone number, and dialled it.
Larissa still hadn’t moved. She watched on with her mouth open wide and her tense shoulders lifted into her neck.
A warm beep pulsed in Rhys’ ear and he pulled the phone away from his face to look at the bright screen. “Fuck it. It’s not connecting, even though it has full service.” After he’d redialled and got the same result, Rhys sighed. “It won’t connect us. She must be in a bad area. At least the networks are still working, I suppose. I’m guessing that means the world hasn’t fallen apart just yet. If we can find them and get through London before the disease catches up with us, we’ll be home free.”
Larissa looked around the kitchen before she finally spoke. “So what do we do? Wait here until she calls back?”
Before Rhys could answer her, the back garden gate crashed open. His heart boomed and he crouched down below the window. When he saw Larissa had also dropped to the floor he crawled across the kitchen, poked his head out, and peered down the hallway at the back door.
Six diseased had entered the back garden. They moved much slower than he’d ever seen them walk. In single file, they headed straight for the rabbit hutch.
The one at the front, a girl who couldn’t have been any older than about sixteen, tried several times before she finally beat her clumsiness and lifted the top of the hutch open.
She let out a slight growl as she leaned forward. When she stood up again the dark form of a rabbit twisted in her grip. The groans and grumblings of agitation rippled through the pack as she passed the rabbit to the diseased next to her.
The small animal kicked and fought as it moved all the way down the line to the creature at the back.
While the one at the front selected another rabbit Rhys watched the one at the back lift the first one to its mouth. The black furry animal continued to fight until the diseased bit into its neck. A light pop of what must have been the rabbit’s windpipe and the thing fell limp.
After the diseased had taken a bite from it, the rabbit’s insides drawing a line from its belly to the diseased’s mouth, it passed the dead creature onto another one of the group.
The next diseased bit a chunk from it as well.
Rhys jumped when Larissa spoke. He didn’t realise how close she’d gotten to him. “What the fuck are they doing, Rhys?”
Unable to take his eyes from the scene outside, Rhys finally found the words. “They’re feeding. It’s what I thought when I saw the policewoman. It looks like they’ve learned how to survive.”
Chapter 12
Five Days Ago
Vicky’s pulse raced and she struggled to breathe. An invisible hand gripped her neck and squeezed as she looked up at the security cameras in the hallway before she slipped into the room. Building management gave her free reign of the Alpha Tower, except for the penthouse suite. She needed that freedom because light bulbs needed to be checked and faults needed to be addressed. If anyone stopped her, she had a legitimate reason to be there; it was tenuous, but legitimate all the same.
She may have been away from the cameras in the staff room, but if someone came in to find her checking the staff rota, she’d be fucked. Light bulbs and electrical points were fine, but confidential paperwork was a whole other issue. And it wasn’t just any staff rota—she needed to see the rota for the security guards. Sweat stood on her brow as she closed the door behind her and walked over to the shift manager’s desk.
With shaking hands and the reek of coffee heavy in the air, Vicky opened the shift manager’s drawer and pulled out the red rota file. Although it worked in her favour today, it seemed ridiculous that they still had to have the rota on paper. Every other building in the city used an electronic system, but because o
f hackers, the Alpha Tower couldn’t risk it.
The click of footsteps sounded outside and Vicky froze. She kept a hold of the file. No point in trying to hide because she had nowhere to go, and the rush to put it back would make a noise that would alert the people. If they entered the room, she’d have to ’fess up and their plan would be fucked at the first hurdle. After a dry gulp, Vicky continued to watch the back of the currently closed door. Please let them go past. Please.
Two pairs of heels clicked in time as they got closer to the room. Each click snapped through Vicky and wound her body tighter than the one before. As they neared the door, an urge overwhelmed Vicky to give herself over at that moment. If she walked outside now then maybe they’d go easier on her. She saw herself being caught red-handed; anything had to be better than that.
Although, what would she tell them? That the man she loved planned an act against them, against the state. Besides, she was already an accomplice and no amount of confessing would change that. A chill sank through her as if her blood had frozen. Whether she thought of herself as one or not, she would be judged as a terrorist. With a policy of zero tolerance when it came to terrorism, she wouldn’t stand a fucking chance. Better to go down in flames now than with a whimper as she cowered in the shadow of some over-fed judge.
The heels clicked against the hard floor and Vicky remained frozen to the spot. Sweat ran down her back as she waited for the handle to drop.
But the clicks went straight past.
As she listened to the people continue down the corridor, Vicky released a heavy sigh. Her hands slick with sweat, she looked down at the file. She could forget all this nonsense and tell Brendan it didn’t matter, but the consequences of that could be catastrophic too, and not just for her. If she didn’t stop the virus’ creation, she’d have to live with the fact that she could have stopped the death of millions. The time for debate had passed. She’d started down this road so she needed to keep going. A shake of her head and Vicky flipped the file open. She took a photo of the shift rota with her phone and sent it to Brendan.
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