The silence hung in the vast space and Serj continued to pace up and down. He looked like he had an answer for them, and then he said, “I dunno. Honestly, I don’t have a clue.”
Some of the people looked at one another, and when Vicky scanned the crowd, she saw Sally; the woman she’d rescued from Hugh’s eviction. The same worried frown dominated her features as it did everyone else’s.
“However—” Serj stopped and raised a finger in the air “—what I do know is that if we don’t find a way to do it, we’ll die and Moira will take this place for her own.”
The statement threw a sombre blanket over the room and everyone sank beneath its weight. They weren’t ready to go to war. They would never be ready to go to war. Of all the people Vicky had trained, only a handful of them had learned how to fight. The rest would have to pick it up pretty damn quick. If they even had it in them. Maybe they’d be presenting themselves for the slaughter.
The man Vicky thought of as Brian, regardless of his name, spoke up again. “But if we leave them alone, then they may leave us alone.” He looked across at the monitors and the diseased displayed on them. “We’ve existed side by side with Moira’s community for years now.” When he stared at Vicky, she felt a chill snap through her. “We’ve only had a problem with them since she’s been here.”
The static crowd came to life. Nods and noises of agreement filled the air.
Sharon Blythe stepped forward. “I agree,” she said. “My children are dead because of her.”
Dan Blythe moved next to his wife and stared hatred at Vicky. “I think she’s a fucking liability.”
The quiet murmur of concurrence grew in volume and a few people said Yeah or I agree or We were fine without her.
When Brian pointed at Vicky again, his thick hair and beard wobbled with his fury. “She’s brought this down on us. If it wasn’t for her, we’d be doing fine now.”
The heat in Vicky’s cheeks rushed straight to her gut and she pushed off from the wall. She slammed a clenched right fist against her open left palm. “No, you wouldn’t! And you know why? Because sooner or later, Moira will take this community for her own. You had Hugh kicking innocent people out and Moira standing by waiting for the right time to take over. I didn’t bring that here, that existed long before me. If Moira had wanted to simply attack Home, the solar panels would have been destroyed by now. But she wants more than that and always has. Like Serj said, she wants Home for her own. Me being here hasn’t changed that. What’s your name?” she said to Brian.
“Brian,” he responded. She should have given herself more credit for remembering it.
“Well, you know what, Brian? If she takes this place over, you’ll wish you’d fought now. I’ve seen what she does to prisoners, so believe me when I say you don’t want to be one of them. I can leave now if you all want me to, but whether I came here or not, this community was fucked.”
A few people gasped at Vicky’s statement. “The only difference between then and now is then you were fucking ignorant.” She walked closer to Brian so only a metre of blue crash mat separated them. “Now you know what’s coming for you.”
Before Brian could react, Flynn stepped forward. “I agree, and I’m with you, Vicky.”
Vicky looked at Flynn, who returned her glare with the same anger he’d looked at her with for weeks now. He certainly didn’t forgive her, but he wouldn’t sell her out either.
Brian sneered at Flynn and it took all of Vicky’s patience to refrain from knocking the sneer from his face. He shook his head and said, “Of course you agree—”
“Me too,” Piotr said, cutting the hairy man off mid-sentence.
Brian drew a deep breath and opened his mouth to reply, but Serj cut him short this time. “And me.”
Until that point only the guards had stepped forward. When Stuart stepped from the group of people in Home, Brian’s shoulders slumped. “And me,” he said.
Sally stepped forward. “And me.”
The wind had been well and truly robbed from Brian’s sails. Even if he had the majority on his side at that moment, only Sharon and Dan seemed willing to voice it. The tension in the room wound a notch tighter, but before anyone else could speak, a loud scream cut through Home. It rushed down the corridors and into the canteen. It sounded like a man in agony.
Chapter 43
The crowd parted for Vicky as she rushed through them in the direction of the sound. The man screamed again, his shrill call bouncing off the walls of the complex.
Even as she passed the screens, Vicky got a sense of the sheer weight of diseased outside without directly looking at them.
As Vicky ran, she heard footsteps follow her. A glance over her shoulder and she saw Piotr, Serj, and even Flynn, who moved more freely than he’d done since his fall.
Vicky swerved through several of the dining tables before she jumped up on a bench of one and onto the Formica top. She watched for plates and glasses, but managed to hop from table to table without slipping. Although she didn’t turn around, the sound of the guards’ thumping steps followed behind her.
The slap of her feet rang out when she jumped from the last table and landed on the hard floor. She darted for the corridor where the sound came from.
Vicky stopped dead the second she looked down the hallway.
A moment later, Piotr crashed into the back of her and shoved Vicky forward a step closer to them. The other two guards caught up.
“What the—?” Flynn said through his heavy breaths.
The white walls of the corridor had been painted red and glistened with the spilled blood of what must have been the man. Where he’d screamed before, he now stood silent, pinned to the wall by a woman feasting on his throat. She seemed oblivious to her spectators.
When Vicky saw a little boy huddled away from the pair, she pulled her knife from the back of her trousers and stepped forward. Fuck knew if he’d been bitten or not. He didn’t move, whatever that meant.
Even though Vicky tried to be quiet, the pads of her feet touched the blue linoleum floor as she walked. If she could get the child and pull him away, it didn’t matter what noise she made afterwards. She’d have to fight the diseased anyway, but better she saved the child if she could.
The guards behind Vicky must have remained still because she could only hear the sound of the woman as she feasted on the man. A gristly snapping and squelching sound as if she was chewing through wet bone.
It didn’t matter how close Vicky got to the boy, she couldn’t work him out. Soaked in the blood coating the walls, he continued to huddle in a ball and not look up.
Vicky got to within a few metres of the boy when the sound of footsteps rushed across the end of the corridor. She didn’t look back. The people from the canteen must have run over to watch. No doubt none of them would help.
When one of the people gasped, the woman and the boy both looked up. They both stared at Vicky with the same bleeding eyes of the diseased. “Fuck,” she said and lunged for the boy as he lunged for her.
It might have only been a six-inch blade, but when Vicky drove it into the boy’s right eye, it sank deep enough to turn him limp.
The slap of the woman’s footsteps came at Vicky as she shoved the boy aside.
The woman waved her arms in Vicky’s direction, blood dripping from her chin and the thick reek of rot coming forward with her.
In the tight space Vicky only had one chance.
The woman yelled and dived at Vicky.
Vicky dropped to the ground, kicked the vile creature in the stomach as she passed over her, and listened to her land on the other side of her with an oomph.
Before the creature could recover, Vicky sprang to her feet, rushed her, and finished her off in the same way she’d just dispatched the child.
As much as she wanted to stop there, Vicky headed over to the man, breathing hard as she moved. He sat slumped against the wall, motionless as if he’d passed out.
When Vicky got to him, he open
ed his bloody eyes.
The crack of his skull popped through the space when Vicky plunged her knife into the top of his head. His mouth fell loose and his eyes dribbled fresh blood.
The corpse fell from his sitting position when Vicky stepped away from him, and slapped down against the linoleum as a discarded carcass.
The chatter at the other end of the corridor sounded like quite a few people had gathered to watch. Instead of turning to face them, Vicky walked away from the carnage and in the direction of her room.
Serj’s voice filled the hallway. “You still think Vicky’s the problem? I’d say she’s pretty damn useful to us when you look at what she just did. What no one else was prepared to do. Also, how the hell did someone get in here with the disease? Anyone coming back to Home now will be searched for bite marks before they enter the place. If you get bitten, it’s game over. Don’t be so fucking selfish as to come back. You’re not the exception; you will fucking turn.”
In all the time she’d been in Home, Vicky hadn’t witnessed Serj lose it often. She didn’t look back, but she couldn’t hear anything from the people he addressed.
“You, you, and you,” Serj said. “Clean up this mess.
Vicky stepped into her room and closed the door behind herself. It didn’t silence the sound of the people outside, but it shut them off enough. More importantly, it showed them she didn’t want to talk.
Chapter 44
When Vicky grabbed the door handle to leave her room, it felt cold to the touch and gooseflesh ran up her right arm. The corridor had been a mess the last time she’d been in it. Although a few hours had passed since then. A deep breath and she pulled the door wide as she exhaled. The hinges creaked, calling out into the hallway.
The white corridor shone as white as always, but the bleach smelled so strong Vicky ruffled her nose in response to it. There remained no trace of the blood she’d seen only a few hours previously, the blood she’d helped paint the walls with.
Voices mixed together as a hum of chatter and came down the corridor from the canteen area. What would the people say to her when they saw her? Would she be a hero for doing the job no one else wanted, or a monster for her actions? In the other direction Vicky heard the crash and bang of pans. The kitchen staff never spoke to her, not even when she tried to engage them in conversation, so she headed in that direction.
The second Vicky stepped into the vast area, the sounds stopped and the chefs looked up at her. “Well, this has never happened before,” she said from the side of her mouth as she froze under the collective gaze of the staff.
When none of them replied, Vicky looked at the floor. She walked toward the other corridor that ran parallel to the one she’d just stepped out of. It had the monitor room along it.
In the next corridor, a woman Vicky recognised but didn’t know the name of walked towards her. As Vicky had just done in the kitchen, the woman looked down. She also pressed herself against the wall at Vicky’s passing.
It made it easier than having to talk to her. Before Vicky could bump into anyone else, she came to the monitor room’s door, pulled it open, and entered.
To see Flynn in the room sent Vicky’s heart and stomach south. Instead of looking at the boy, she looked at the wall of monitors and shook her head. Diseased on every screen. Multiple diseased on every screen. They shuffled around, snapping at the air as a dog would when catching a fly. Fuck knew how they’d get through them should they need to.
A look at Flynn and she saw he focused on the monitors too. “We need to go outside and deal with this at some point.”
“Good luck persuading the people to do that.”
“Do you have any other suggestions?” Vicky asked.
“No, but we wouldn’t have needed them had you and Serj not filled a pen full of those monsters.”
As much as Vicky wanted to shout at the boy, she stared at him and clenched her jaw. She bit so hard it ran pains to her temples.
“I only stood by you in the canteen because I didn’t want everyone to turn on you,” Flynn said. “Even if you did deserve it.”
“You should try running this place.”
“Serj runs it, not you.”
“Yeah, right!”
As he threw his shoulders up in a shrug, Flynn said, “Whatever. Just know I’m still pissed about many things, including the monsters outside.” He turned to the monitors and looked from one to the next. “You and Serj are responsible for this. They wouldn’t be out there were it not for you two.”
Vicky couldn’t hold back. “Stop being such a self-righteous prick. You wouldn’t be here had I not saved your arse out there when you fell over.”
At times like this, Vicky remembered the little boy of ten years ago had grown to the size of a man as he towered over her, a faint whiff of body odour coming from him. “And I bet you loved that, didn’t you? Any chance to make me feel weak and vulnerable, eh?”
Vicky took a step back from Flynn’s imposing frame. Not that he’d do anything to her. “I saved you, Flynn. And I’d do it again. It’s why I wanted you to team up with Piotr so I didn’t have to make those decisions anymore. Your life is more important to me than my own. I will always put your safety first. Besides, the diseased only chased us because of the noise you made.”
“They wouldn’t have been there in the first place were it not for you! Okay, you saved me, well done.”
“And I’d do it again.”
“You’re not my mother, you know? How many times do I have to remind you?”
“As many times as you like. It won’t make any difference. Regardless of what you think, Flynn, Serj and I did what we thought was best for the community.”
“Well, that didn’t work, did it? Maybe you two morons shouldn’t be in charge if you thought that was best.”
The word moron hit a nerve and Vicky locked tight. She turned away from Flynn. “Just go back to your room. Get some rest, yeah? God knows you need it. You’ve always been cranky when you get tired.”
“Fuck you, Vicky.”
Before Vicky could reply, Flynn stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him as he left.
Chapter 45
A couple hours after Flynn left the control room, Vicky continued to watch the monitors. The black and white grainy images became harder to see as night settled in. Although they still had a good few hours before it got dark. Maybe tiredness played a role too. As she stared at the screens—her eyes stinging—more and more diseased appeared with every passing moment. What would they do if they kept coming? At what point would there be so many they couldn’t get out the front door?
The meadow in front of Home had diseased everywhere Vicky looked. They trudged through the long grass, aimless in their movement, but still not clearing out. Either side of Home looked the same.
More diseased wandered through the solar panels and Vicky squinted to watch them. They weren’t destructive against anything but people, but a shitload of the clumsy fuckers could cause a lot of unintentional damage, and Home relied on that power more than anything.
A look back at the images out the front of Home again and Vicky paused. “What the—?”
To be certain of what she saw, she leaned closer to the monitor in front of her.
Two diseased, locked together almost as if embracing one another. More than likely they were fighting, but as Vicky studied them, her heart beat harder than before and a rock clamped tight in her stomach.
The only sound in the room came from the buzz of electrical devices surrounding her and the pounding of her own pulse. The image might have been poor quality, but that didn’t matter. Vicky recognised what she saw from the start and now she had to accept the truth of it. In front of her—locked in one last desperate hug—stood Meisha and Scoop. She gasped. “No way!”
A knock on the door sent Vicky’s pulse skyrocketing. Her heart beat like a hamster’s as she took deep breaths to try to settle herself down.
After a second knock, she walked ov
er to the door.
When she opened it, the huge figure of Piotr blocked any extra light from coming in. Vicky looked up at him and her heart sank. Of all the people to turn up when she’d just seen that outside.
Piotr said nothing as he and Vicky stared at one another. He then looked over her shoulder at the monitors.
The image of the two diseased must have stood out among the rambling chaos because Piotr noticed it immediately. He walked over to it and stared for a few seconds before he said, “Is that …?”
Vicky nodded and cleared the lump in her throat. “Yep.”
“Damn.”
Another hot wave of sadness rose beneath Vicky’s skin, setting fire to her cheeks. “At least they still love each other, I suppose, even after they’ve turned. Maybe there is still something there. Although I’m not sure Flynn would want much to do with me were we in that state.”
Vicky squirmed under Piotr’s scrutiny. “The same thing happened between my brother and his kid, you know?”
“Huh?”
“The way Flynn’s pushing you away. I saw my nephew do the same to my brother. I think most teenagers do it against their parents.”
To be called his parent set Vicky’s tears loose and her bottom lip bent out of shape. She wiped them away with the back of her hand and sniffed hard. “I’m sorry,” she said as she looked at the floor. “I’m in a bit of a state at the moment.”
Piotr waited for Vicky to look up at him. “You do an amazing job with him, you know? You make him feel secure, which allows him to get shitty with you.”
An ironic laugh and Vicky shook her head. “That’s what it is, is it?”
“Absolutely.” After he reached out and lifted her hands in his, his grip firm and warm, Piotr said, “Just keep going, keep loving him, and he’ll come round. He’ll see it for what it is in time.”
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