“Who?” Serj said as he continued to study the bodies of the fallen.
“Hugh.”
When Serj pulled his axe from the harness on his back, Vicky did the same with her crossbow and checked she could reach her knife on her hip by touching the handle.
“What is it?” Vicky asked Serj, her eyes stinging from refusing to blink as she scanned their surroundings.
“Nothing. I just want to be ready.”
Vicky eased her stance a little but kept her crossbow drawn.
“With this building in the way,” Serj said as he pointed at the large office block, “it’s much harder to see if anything’s coming. Better to be prepared, eh?”
Vicky nodded. “We got chased into that building,” she said. “A herd picked up our tail and we had nowhere else to go. We ended up on the top floor with a pack of them behind us.” She pointed at the diseased on the ground. “We managed to avoid some of them, but Hugh shit himself. He couldn’t keep it together and properly panicked. If he’d had any military training, he would have been able to cope with the pressure.”
“He lost his head?”
“And then some. The guy went to pieces. Door kicking in Mogadishu … what a fucking clown! How he got this far in this world, I don’t know.”
“He had the keys to Home.” Clearly aggravated by the wind, which played havoc with Vicky’s hair too, Serj pulled his fringe from his eyes again and held it there as he looked at her, his axe still raised.
“Yeah, I think you’re right. He gave it the big ‘I am’ behind a locked door, but I don’t think he would have survived any other way.”
“I don’t think many of us would.”
And he had a point. Vicky had probably been an exceptional case by surviving for years when so many would have fallen. They’d been lucky to find a shelter like Home. Had Vicky found it too, maybe she would be much softer for it.
“I knew all along, you know?” Serj said.
Vicky looked at him, his dark eyes pinching from where he winced against the elements. “Huh?”
“About him and Jessica.” Serj spoke through clenched teeth. “I knew the filthy slut was fucking him. Everyone did. They treated me like a mug.” The Adam’s apple on his neck bobbed from gulping and his words wavered. “I’m glad they’re both gone. Fuck them. It’s a fresh start for me now and I’m not going to let anyone treat me like that again.”
Although Vicky opened her mouth to respond, she didn’t get the words out. The scream—somewhere between a shriek and a roar—came into the town from the fields behind them. Serj’s eyes widened as her heart kicked.
“Fuck!” Serj said and spun in the direction of the noise.
“Whatever happens”—Vicky looked back underneath the railway bridge and saw nothing—“I ain’t going back in that building.”
She didn’t need a response and Serj didn’t give her one. Instead, he ran down the road that forked around the left side of the building and Vicky followed.
The diseased were too far away to have seen them, but maybe they’d picked up on their scent. Whatever drove the mob forward, Vicky and Serj needed to get out of there.
They passed an old gallery, art in the windows that probably had some worth in the old world, then an old fried chicken shop; the image of a bearded man that looked like Santa remained intact even if a little bleached by the sun. They passed a pub on their left and Serj ducked down an alleyway next to it.
The call of the diseased followed them. The blood-curdling sound turned Vicky’s tired legs weak as she ran on Serj’s heels. Two steps into the alley, her stomach sank. What the fuck had they just run into?
Serj disappeared around to the right at the end of the alley.
Before Vicky got there, she heard him say, “Fuck!”
When Vicky rounded the corner, she looked up at the tall wall. It stood easily ten metres high. She fought for breath, the confined space giving an echo to her heavy respiration. “Fuck!”
Serj moved back and forth in the enclosed space like a demented dog. He shook his head. “I’m sorry, Vicky. I’m so sorry. I’ve fucked up big time.”
And he had, but what could she say? It would serve no purpose to have a go at him now.
As the sounds of the diseased drew closer, Vicky inhaled a deep breath and raised her crossbow. She’d only jump out and use it when she had to. If she could reload quickly enough, maybe she’d take out a few before they got close. She touched the handle of her knife.
The crossbow shook in Vicky’s grip, but she kept the stock against her shoulder, closed one eye, and looked down the barrel, ready to jump out.
The stampede closed in on the alley. The group screamed and Vicky saw Serj jump in her peripheral vision. She spoke to him in a whisper while still looking down her crossbow. “They haven’t seen us yet, we’ll be fine.”
The second she finished her assertion, the clumsy footsteps of what sounded like a solitary diseased entered the alleyway. Fortunately, the sound of the others thundered straight past. She looked at Serj, who raised his axe.
A nasally, rattled, and rasping breath moved closer to them, but they remained out of its line of sight. The thing sounded like a bulldog with respiratory problems. Its gasps spoke of how far it had run to get to the town. But the rest hadn’t homed in on Vicky and Serj, so what the fuck were they hunting?
By the time the beast had made it about halfway down the alley, Vicky’s breathing had leveled out. One bolt could end it. But could she get it off before the thing screamed? If the sound of footsteps had been anything to go by, the swarm of diseased in the town would end them within seconds. Whatever happened, the solitary fucker in the alley couldn’t be allowed to give them away.
Vicky scraped her left shoulder against the brick wall as she leaned into it, watching the bend in the alley for the thing to appear.
The clumsy steps drew closer.
When the thing’s shadow preceded it, spreading across the ground as a dark oil spill, Vicky smelled the funk of rot. She swallowed a dry gulp, stale from the air being polluted by its presence, and waited for the diseased’s face so she could fire a bolt into it. One final inhale to steady her rampaging heart and she put a gentle squeeze on the bow’s trigger.
Chapter 6
The diseased’s breaths sounded like an old motorbike engine, stuttering and inconsistent as it shuffled closer to Vicky. She glanced at Serj once more, who continued to hold his axe aloft. The diseased had drawn so close now the cloying stench of rot damn near choked her. She clenched her jaw against its invasive probe and readied herself to release a bolt into its face.
Vicky closed her left eye and continued to look down the barrel of her crossbow at the space she expected the thing to appear in.
A loud scream shot through the city. A human scream, the sound of fear from a non-diseased. It flew through the streets and Vicky jumped. It took all her restraint to stop from pulling the crossbow’s trigger, her finger tensing on the small piece of metal.
The beast—just centimetres from seeing them—screamed in response to the sound, its shrill call bouncing off the tight alley’s walls before it sprinted away. As the heavy footsteps retreated up the alleyway, Vicky let go of the tension in her upper body and lowered her weapon. But she couldn’t yet take her eyes from the space she’d expected it to appear in. She reached down to touch her knife strapped to her hip and watched just in case.
After a few minutes, Vicky let go of a hard exhale and looked across at Serj. Paler than she’d ever seen him, he breathed quickly. “That was close!”
“You’re telling me,” she said. “I feel sorry for the poor bastard who just screamed.”
Serj nodded.
Vicky sighed.
A couple of minutes passed, during which time Vicky listened to the sound of the diseased in the town fade. Although she could still hear something. Maybe her imagination, it sounded like they hadn’t completely left the area. Probably just her imagination.
Vicky checked
her knife at her hip again, raised her crossbow, and led the way back up the alley. She paused after every step. They’d heard the diseased run away, but you could never be too careful in this new chaotic world. And if any of them found her and Serj in the alley, they’d be fucked. No room to fight and nowhere to run to. The thought quickened her pulse.
After her next step, Vicky screwed her nose up at the ammonia reek of urine. She looked at Serj; with his own nose ruffled, he seemed to also notice the smell. “It’s been a decade since people went out on the piss on the weekend and this alley still stinks of urine.”
Serj shook his head. “Maybe it’s animals?”
“I hope so, we could do with finding something to eat.”
At the end of the alley, Vicky peered out and looked up and down what seemed to be an abandoned road. She pulled her head back in. “Looks clear.”
That seemed to be good enough for Serj, who suddenly strode past Vicky out into the street. What a time to find his confidence! He led the way toward the old high street and Vicky followed.
After a couple of steps, Serj broke into a jog and Vicky sped up to keep pace with him. She scanned their surroundings as she ran, peering into darkened buildings in case any diseased lay in wait.
Once Serj reached a large abandoned shop, he slowed down. The kind of place that sold everything, the white writing on the sign above the door still displayed the shop’s name.
“Wilkinson’s,” Vicky said, “I remember these places. When Woolworths went out of business, this lot sprang up everywhere. I wouldn’t mind betting all the hammers, axes, saws—in fact, anything of any use—are gone.”
Serj shrugged. “Probably.”
Glass dust covered the pavement outside the shop like glitter and sparkled in the strong sun.
Serj walked toward the place and Vicky followed him. They stepped through the bent chrome frames of the front doors where a large sheet of glass had once been. Very few windows remained after ten chaotic years.
Clearly less trodden than the pavement outside, the glass inside the shop still had some bite left and it crunched beneath Vicky’s steps, as popping candy would. She stopped, checked her knife, and looked back outside the shop one last time. Now that she’d moved slightly farther forward, she saw what had once been a McDonald’s across the way. A vast building on the corner, it had two floors. Like every other property in the area, it had no windows left. It made it easier to hear the diseased when they screamed from inside the place.
Serj walked next to Vicky and she blocked any further progress with an arm across his chest. “Whatever’s happening over there,” she said in a whisper, “we need to make sure we’re gone before it becomes our problem. The diseased will get bored, or they’ll feed. Either way, they won’t stay in there forever.”
Serj squinted as he looked across the way. “But what are they chasing? Maybe there’s someone in there that needs our help.”
“And you think we can help them?”
After a few more seconds of peering out of the shop, Serj shrugged and looked down at the ground. “No, I suppose not.”
Dark from the lights no longer working, the store had been turned over, as Vicky had expected it to be. She checked the knife on her hip as she looked around the place. Shelving units had been toppled, some of the larger ones leaning up against the others like dominos yet to fall flat. They looked like they could crash down at any moment.
Black tyre tracks marked the mauve floor from where motorbikes had been ridden through the place. It must have happened years ago, but Vicky still tensed at the sight of them and checked her knife again.
As they padded through the shop, Vicky listened to the screams of the diseased outside. It fought for her attention, but she kept her focus on Serj and their surroundings. The diseased wouldn’t know about them if they kept a low profile.
“You seem to know your way around,” Vicky said as she followed Serj’s quick pace.
“I came out scavenging a few years back. We always had most of what we needed in Home, so I didn’t do it often. But I came out a few times. Once with Jessica. We weren’t together then and I was trying to impress her. I wanted to show her just how brave I could be. Also, it was about the only time we got to go out when Hugh wasn’t around. I should have listened to my gut then, eh?”
What could Vicky say to that? She remained silent.
The talk of Jessica changed Serj’s demeanor. He scowled and sped up as he moved through the shop. Vicky picked up her pace to keep up with him. They jumped obstructions, ducked a couple, and swerved across the littered floor as they both avoided making any loud noises.
Once they got to the back of the store, Serj stopped, slipped his rucksack from his back, ripped the zip open on it, and pulled some door locks from the shelf in front of him.
After he’d put several in, he held one up to Vicky. She took the packet to get a closer look. A cardboard back with a plastic sealed front, the heavy-duty lock weighed about the same as a bag of sugar. It had six keys in the pack too.
“One key each and a spare,” Vicky said as she thought about Home’s five guards.
“Exactly.” Serj took the lock back from Vicky and slipped it into his bag then did the zip up. “I’ve got eight locks in here.”
“Eight?”
“If anything goes wrong with me fitting one, I want to make sure I don’t have to come back.”
A loud scream came from the McDonald’s, louder than all the others. Vicky’s heart jumped and she looked at Serj before she turned her attention to the front of the shop.
“They sound like they’ve caught something.” Serj’s whisper carried through the dark space.
“We need to hurry,” Vicky said.
However, before she could move off, she heard a wet squelch. It sounded like a large pig eating slop. When Serj looked at Vicky, she pressed her finger to her lips.
Serj nodded.
Although she’d held onto her bow for the entire time, Vicky raised it again, pressing the stock into her shoulder. She checked her knife. She then took slow and deliberate steps toward the sound.
Once she’d drawn close to a nearby shelving unit, the huge metal rack still upright, she peered around it and froze. On the ground just a couple of metres from her, hidden behind some of the store’s furniture, crouched the ravenous form of a diseased child eating a dead dog. Boy or girl, Vicky couldn’t tell. Most of them had lank, greasy hair now, and because it had its back to her, she had no idea of its gender. Not that it mattered. The diseased weren’t human anyway.
A blank and glassy stare sat in the dead dog’s eyes. Its mouth lolled open and its pink tongue lay along the ground. Like a Komodo dragon consumed with its feast, the child seemed oblivious to them watching it.
Another scream outside and Vicky jumped clean off the ground. Several slow breaths helped her find her composure again.
Serj moved beside Vicky and raised his axe, but she shook her head at him. Instead, she shifted the crossbow until it sat as securely as she could get it into her shoulder and stared at the mass of greasy black hair on the back of the kid’s head. Nausea clamped her stomach tight. Diseased or not, she shouldn’t be killing children. A clench of her teeth and she pulled the trigger.
Thwack! The bolt embedded in the back of the kid’s skull with a pop. It sent an explosion of red through the front of its face and against the white wall. The kid remained upright for a second before it slumped face first into the dead dog’s exposed intestines.
For the next few moments Vicky panted as she stared down at it. She then stepped around the shelves, trying not to knock them. When she got to the dead and messy kid, her throat pinched as she started to heave from the stench. She tried to breathe through her mouth and pulled the bolt from the carnage. After she’d wiped it on the kid’s clothes, Vicky loaded it back into her crossbow, looked at the glisten of blood on its shaft, and said, “Right, let’s get the fuck out of here.”
Vicky led the way from the shop this
time, stopping at a display with shoelaces on it. She slipped one of her shoulders free from her rucksack’s strap, pulled it around her side, and tugged the zip open. After she’d stuffed several packs in, Serj said, “Why so many?”
Vicky looked down at her boots and then Serj’s. The laces on both of them had seen better days, knotted in several places from where they’d snapped. “I’m sure we’re not the only ones that need them.” She stuffed more into her bag. “Also, when we have the keys to give out, I’ll want to tie mine around my neck. I know Flynn will need to too. He’ll lose it otherwise. Don’t tell him I said that though.”
Serj laughed. When he fell quiet again, Vicky listened to the distant screams of the diseased in the McDonald’s outside. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
Chapter 7
Once she’d stepped outside the shop, Vicky looked over at the McDonald’s again. The wind blew into her face as she stared across the abandoned high street. The sun had lowered in the cloudless blue sky, taking some of the day’s heat and leaving shadows behind. Maybe if the McDonald’s had windows, it would have been easier to ignore, but as she stood there and listened to the call of the diseased, she couldn’t deny she heard the scream of a child. It sounded like a little girl.
Serj appeared next to her, his hand across his brow in a clear attempt to block out the low sun. “How are they still alive?”
Vicky shrugged as she looked at the mosh pit of diseased inside the place. “Dunno. But I’ll be fucked if I’m going in there.”
“You think we should leave them?”
“You think we should go in? Have a look, Serj; we won’t last two minutes against that crowd. It would be suicide. Why risk our lives when theirs are already lost?”
“You don’t know that.”
“I’m prepared to make an educated guess. Besides, do you have a plan to rescue them?”
Serj didn’t say anything; instead he moved along the line of shops closer to the packed McDonald’s. The rest of the town seemed abandoned, but Vicky checked about regardless and reached down to touch the knife on her hip. At least one of them had to be careful.
The Alpha Plague - Books 1 - 8: A Post-Apocalyptic Action Thriller Page 87
