The Alpha Plague - Books 1 - 8: A Post-Apocalyptic Action Thriller

by Michael Robertson

  At first, Vicky didn’t respond to his facetiousness. Tired from her day, but grateful for the freshly washed grey tracksuit that had been left for her, Vicky lay back, sank into the groaning springs of her bed, and looked straight up at the ceiling. “That’s nice.”

  “I’ve been stamping pieces of paper all day.”

  If the boy wanted a fight, he should just fucking start one. “Good, so we’ve found a good use for you, then?”

  Silence.

  Something about Flynn’s teenage petulance pushed Vicky’s buttons and she couldn’t help but goad him. “Hugh will be pleased with all the good work you’ve been doing. He might even get you a more comfortable chair or maybe a stamp with a bigger smile on it.”

  “Yeah, it’s great work. Really putting me to good use at that desk. In fact, I think I’ve found my calling.”

  “Wonderful. I’m so happy for you.”

  “Fuck off, Vicky.”

  Despite her tiredness, Vicky sat bolt upright in bed and stared at Flynn. “What did you just say to me?”

  Red-faced and with pursed lips, Flynn continued to stare at her, but he didn’t reply.

  From his expression, Vicky could see that he knew he’d overstepped the mark, but she couldn’t let it go. “Would you have spoken to your parents in that way?”

  Flynn’s eyes narrowed. “No, but you’re not one of my parents, even though you like to think you are.”

  In a more Zen moment, Vicky might have taken the outburst with the pinch of salt it deserved. An emotional kid, Flynn said the words because he’d wanted to hurt her. But it had been a long and tiring day. “Would you have preferred I left you back at the containers on your own?”

  “Maybe I might have done better.”

  “You’d have died within a week, Flynn. Get your head out of your arse, boy, and grow the fuck up, yeah? You have this job outside the gym because we don’t want you to die. I love you more than any other person I’ve loved, and whatever you think of me, I think of you like a son. I will die protecting you. If protecting you means you hate me for a while, then so be it. As long as you’re alive.”

  Vicky’s response seemed to disarm Flynn, who shrugged. “You said you wouldn’t leave me again.”

  “And I won’t.”

  “Then why did you go out today?”

  “What I mean is that I won’t give up on you again like I did. Ever. If there’s a chance for you, I’ll die trying to save you. If I could go back to that bunker we were in, I’d fight every one of the diseased to get to you. But you have to accept that I need to leave Home from time to time.”

  Although Flynn didn’t respond, his tense form had relaxed somewhat.

  Vicky had wanted to tell him about her day, but she didn’t want him to realise how dangerous her trips were. Or to give him any reason to doubt Hugh. Until she had some stronger evidence about the man, she wouldn’t say a word. She lay back down again, and as she relived the day to herself, her limbs grew heavier with tiredness and her breaths more shallow.

  Every blink lasted longer than the one before it as sleep took her over. She spoke with slurred words. “How about I talk to Hugh about getting you a more interesting job?”

  “Forget it,” Flynn said.

  As much as Vicky wanted to respond to him, her eyes had started to sting from exhaustion. With her brain grinding to a halt, the slightest flash of compassion went with it. She had to say more to Flynn, but she couldn’t fight it and slipped into sleep’s warm embrace.

  Chapter 31

  When Vicky woke, her entire body ached. The previous day had been hard on her and not worth the one fox they returned with. But she’d gotten to know Hugh a little better. She now knew what the man did and didn’t have, and she trusted him less. Too many things didn’t add up. Despite his impressive physique and clear physical fitness, she couldn’t rely on him when shit went down. Maybe Flynn needed the chance he so desperately craved. Regardless of his skill level—which had become much higher than Vicky would be prepared to admit to him—he would follow her into hell if she needed him to. Hugh wouldn’t.

  “I’ve been thinking,” Vicky said as she looked across at the bed next to her … but it lay empty. Flynn must have got up already. Although cloudy in her memory, the previous evening came back to Vicky. She’d fallen asleep while talking to him about how unhappy he was. “Shit,” she muttered. “Way to show him you care.”

  Vicky sat up a little too quickly and her head spun. For the next few seconds, she sat on her bed and stared into space.

  Standing up with more caution, she slipped her khaki guard uniform on, the fabric scratchy compared to the smooth grey tracksuit she’d changed out of. One last look at Flynn’s empty bed and she left the room. The first stop would be to find Flynn and make sure she hadn’t upset him too much. Then she could find Hugh and work out what they had planned for the day.

  The sound of conversation and cutlery hitting crockery swam in the high ceiling of the canteen. If she didn’t have any responsibility, Vicky would have rested up for a day, her eyes on fire from lack of rest and her movements sluggish. But she’d signed up to help run Home and she had to take everything that came with that. The good and the bad.

  Although she couldn’t see Flynn, Vicky sat down to knock back a bowl of cereal. The breakfast shift would close soon and she didn’t want to have to wait until lunch before she ate something.

  The bland cereal and watery milk crunched with every bite. Magnified through her skull, it added yet another sound to the busy cacophony in the canteen.

  It took no more than a few minutes for Vicky to eat her cereal. The second she’d finished, she took the bowl to the huge pile of dirty plates and cutlery, dumped it, and left the room.

  “It’s always the last place you look, eh?” Vicky said as she walked down the corridor toward the gym and found Flynn sat outside at his desk.

  “What is?” the boy replied, a slight edge of impatience to his tone.

  “The thing you’re looking for.”

  “I’m a thing now, am I?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “And of course it’s the last place you look,” Flynn said. “You’d hardly carry on looking for something after you’d found it, would you?”

  A moment’s pause and Vicky smiled at him. “How are you today?”

  “Fine.”

  The sound of the treadmills and the exercise bike came from the gym. When Vicky peered in, she saw three twisted faces and smelled three sweating bodies. None of them seemed to be deriving any pleasure from their visit, but at least they were making the effort. Before she could say anything, a man stepped off the bike. In his late forties to early fifties, he had closely cropped hair—although most of it had already fallen out—and a large paunch.

  Wheezing as he left the gym, the fat man handed his book to Flynn to stamp—both of them apathetic about the transaction—before the man stumbled away, a towel wrapped around his shoulders and a smile stamped on his record card.

  The reek of body odour left with the man, and as Vicky screwed her nose up in response to it, Flynn said, “Hugh’s opened the showers permanently now. He said they should be able to sustain them, and he’d keep an eye on the water situation in case he needed to ration them again. But he couldn’t stand the stench.”

  “Have you seen him this morning?”

  Flynn opened his mouth to respond, but before he could make a sound, a call came from back down the corridor. “Vicky.”

  She looked back to see Hugh approach them, a frown on his chiselled face.

  “You have to come with me. I have something to show you.”

  “What is it?” Vicky asked.

  “Just come with me, yeah?”

  She looked back at Flynn, who scowled at her. He’d opened up to her for a short time, and now that she had to suddenly go off, he looked hurt all over again.

  Hugh led Vicky to the cells where they’d kept the two men who’d arrived with the bitten woman.
/>   Vicky shrugged. “So. What is it?”

  Hugh shoved one of the doors open with his foot. The hinges creaked as it rolled inwards, and when Vicky looked inside, she gasped, “It’s empty.”

  “As is the other one.”

  “Where have they gone?”

  “Jessica.”

  “Huh?”

  “Jessica let them out. She said it had been two days and they deserved to be treated like all of the other people in Home.”

  “But …”

  “I know,” Hugh said.

  “So, what, we trust them like Jessica has?”

  “I don’t know what we should do. I mean, Jessica’s the one most at risk, and she’s okay with it.”

  “And we can’t exactly lock them up again.”

  “Right?”

  A heavy sigh and Vicky shook her head. “I don’t like it.”

  “Nope, me either.”

  But what could they do? Jessica had made the choice.

  “So where are they now?” Vicky said.

  “Fuck knows,” Hugh replied.

  “Jessica just set them free to go wherever they wanted?”

  A nod and Hugh sighed. “Not the way I would have done it.”

  “I reckon we should go to find them at least and see what’s going on with them. I think these two will need steering toward becoming good citizens. I’m not ready to trust them yet.”

  “I agree,” Hugh said.

  Chapter 32

  After a search of Home, Vicky and Hugh returned to the gym. They stopped by Flynn’s table and Hugh asked, “Have you seen two men you don’t recognise?”

  “I don’t recognise most people. What do they look like?” Flynn asked and then threw Vicky a glare.

  “One of them’s tall, blond, and has bloodshot eyes,” Hugh replied. “The other one’s short and has brown hair.”

  “He looks a bit like a troll,” Vicky added.

  Another look at Vicky and Flynn turned to Hugh. “Have you tried looking in the canteen?”

  “We’ve looked in the canteen, the kitchen, the medic bay, and all of the empty rooms. Hell, we even checked the foyer in case they decided to leave and left the front door open.”

  “Who are they?” Flynn asked.

  “A couple of men we had in quarantine. Jessica decided to let them out.” A glance into the gym and Hugh leaned closed to Flynn so he could speak in hushed tones. “I think they could be dangerous to the community. But keep that one under your hat, yeah? The last thing we need is an unnecessary panic.”

  Vicky kept her smile to herself. Hugh didn’t need to do that for Flynn, but by including him in their search, he’d given him the respect he so craved. And he’d done it without prompting from Vicky.

  A serious expression and Flynn nodded at Hugh. “Okay. I’ll let you know should I see anything.”

  After he’d patted Flynn’s shoulder, Hugh walked down toward the farm at the back of Home and Vicky followed after him.

  When they’d gotten out of earshot, Vicky said, “Thank you.”

  But before he could reply, Hugh stopped dead.

  When Vicky looked up the long corridor, she saw it too. Close to the farm at the end, two men stood in plain view.

  Hugh picked his pace up and Vicky marched with him. When they got close enough to smell the damp earth on the other side of the farm doors, Hugh cleared his throat and the two men jumped as one and looked around.

  “Are you okay, gents?” Hugh asked.

  The tall one—the blond scruffy mess—still had bloodshot eyes like he’d had too much to drink. The short stocky one still looked like he’d be better living beneath a bridge than in Home.

  Neither man spoke as they stared at Hugh.

  When Vicky stepped forward, she caught the dirty smell of the two men and snapped her head back. She did her best to hide her revulsion as she said, “Is there something you’re looking for?”

  Silence met her question.

  “Look,” Vicky said, “what the fuck are you doing back here?”

  The blond man coughed. “We’re hungry and the canteen’s closed. We haven’t eaten properly for a long time.”

  “We fed you while you were in the cells,” Hugh said.

  The men looked at one another. “We’re both still starving.”

  With her hands on her hips, Vicky glared at the men. “So you thought you’d go snooping around the place?”

  “Look,” the shorter of the two said. “We didn’t mean any harm, honest. We just wanted to see if we could find some more food. We’ve not been here long and thought it was rude to ask for seconds in the canteen.”

  A faster pulse and rage rising in her chest, Vicky stepped forward another pace, despite their reek of ground-in dirt. “So you thought you’d steal some instead? That’s less rude, is it?”

  “As long as we don’t get caught, yes.”

  Before Vicky could say anything else to the men, Hugh cut in. “Look, this is a community with rules and laws. We have cells because we have to have them, but we don’t like to use them if we can avoid it. How about we start again, yeah?”

  Neither man replied.

  “Also, I have a job for you two. Not today, but when you’ve had time to recover, I want to use you to clean the solar panels each day. Unlike most of the people here, you’ve been outside recently, so I want to make the most of that.”

  The tall blond man stepped forward. “You want us out there again?”

  “We all have to do our bit to keep Home running.”

  “And who’s to say you won’t lock us out when we leave?”

  “If we’d wanted you gone,” Hugh said, “we wouldn’t have let you in in the first place. There’s a bed for everyone at Home; that includes you as long as you do your bit and don’t cause trouble. Besides, if you’re prepared to go outside, then you’re more useful than most of the people here. Why would we kick that out?”

  Dark stares fixed Vicky and Hugh, dark stares from sunken eyes that had already known too many hardships.

  The stand-off held for a few seconds too long, and Vicky reached for a weapon she didn’t have.

  Finally, the shorter man of the two nodded at Hugh and Vicky. “You won’t get any trouble from us.”

  Hugh let the silence hang before he replied, “You two should go back to your rooms and get some rest. Everyone gets a couple of days to acclimatise. Enjoy it. Oh,” he added, “and have a shower.”

  The men shuffled past Vicky and Hugh like scolded teenagers. Dragging their heady smell, they watched their feet as they walked.

  Once they’d disappeared from sight, Vicky leaned close enough to Hugh to smell the soap on his skin and spoke in a whisper. “I think we’ve got our work cut out with those two.”

  Chapter 33

  The snap of the door handle cracked through the room, forcing Vicky awake with a panicked inhalation as if she’d been drowning. In one scrabbled movement, she sat bolt upright in her bed, whacked the light on with the palm of her hand, and pushed her back into the wall. She had nothing to defend herself with, so she pulled her knees to her chest and stared at the doorway.

  Although a shocking vision stood before her, she recognised the man. The starkness of his panicked glare damn near sprang from his face as he gasped for breath, unable to get his words out.

  Instead, he raised his shaking hands to show them covered in blood.

  “What the hell?” Vicky said and looked across to see Flynn in the bed next to her, his body language mirroring hers.

  “I …” Hugh tried, but another rush of panicked breaths stole his words.

  The dry taste of morning locked in Vicky’s mouth, and she swallowed several times to clear it a little before she said, “It’s okay, Hugh. Sit down and tell me what’s happened.”

  But Hugh backed away from her and shook his head. “You need to come and see for yourself.”

  The stress of the situation had taken Vicky’s self-consciousness away, and only now, as she sat with Hugh i
n front of her, urging her to get out of bed, did she realise she had just a vest and knickers on.

  Her guard uniform lay on the floor by her bed, so Vicky reached down for it. She pulled her trousers on beneath the covers and then her shirt. She nodded at Hugh. “Fine, take me to where we need to go.”

  Flynn jumped from his bed too, and he and Vicky locked stares. The order for him to stay put sat on the end of her tongue, but Vicky saw pain shimmer across Flynn’s eyes in a pre-emptive reaction to her rejection, and she swallowed it down. “Hurry up and get changed, then, if you’re coming with us.”

  A stoic nod and Flynn dragged his tracksuit on.

  Bleach hung heavy in the corridor as it always did, and other than the footsteps of the three of them, Vicky heard nothing else. Whatever the time, most people were still asleep.

  Hugh stopped outside one of the many rooms along the corridor between the kitchen and the farm. Not a holding cell, storage room, or the gym, it must have been empty like most were in the back half of Home.

  With the blood on Hugh’s hands, Vicky had a strong idea of what she’d find, just not who. Still without a weapon, she nudged the door open with her foot, the slightest squeak of the hinges echoing from the action.

  But the door didn’t open fully. Instead, it swung into the room and stopped, as something lay in the way of it. A dry gulp and Vicky swallowed again immediately afterwards as if the second attempt to rehydrate her throat would offer something more effective. A shake had taken a hold of her limbs as she pushed the door as wide as she could open it and peered around to see what blocked the way.

  A frigid wash of gooseflesh covered her skin when she looked down at the body and the large glistening pool of blood it lay in. With panic galloping through her chest at the strong metal stench of spilled blood, Vicky fought to get her words out as she said, “Jessica? My God, Jessica.”

  Had she seen him come in, then maybe she would have done something about it. But she didn’t, so before Vicky knew it, Flynn had entered the room next to her and he too stared down at the expired form of Jessica.