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

by Michael Robertson

  The Queen still said nothing, a slight grin on her otherwise stony face. She then turned to Flynn and patted his shoulder. “Why don’t you go and get some rest, sweetheart?”

  As he turned to leave the barn, the Queen added, “Jason was an energetic lad, you’ll need to get your strength up if you’re to match his stamina.”

  Chapter 51

  The second Flynn woke up, he looked at his bedroom door. He somehow knew the Queen was watching him through the small round window, but it didn’t stop him jumping from the shock of it.

  A glazed look sat in the Queen’s eyes. It sent a chill through him and he quickly covered himself with his duvet, despite the heat in the room.

  Daylight shone in from outside. He’d either been asleep for a few hours, or he’d gone through an entire night. Because everything ached, he couldn’t be sure either way.

  The Queen stared in expectation at Flynn, who sat up in bed, reached down for his T-shirt, and pulled it on. The sting of his brand had already eased a little because of the cream she’d given him.

  Taking his actions as an invitation, the Queen entered the room. Dressed in her usual tight-fitting black jeans and knee-high boots, she had her hair scraped back in an extreme ponytail. A cocked eyebrow and a half smile and she said, “Quite tired, then, I see? I’m not surprised, considering what you went through with the games. We’ve had plenty of times where no one’s made it to the end because of how hard they are.”

  Although he looked at the Queen, Flynn thought about Rose. He quickly dropped his gaze to his lap so she didn’t see the betrayal in his eyes. Especially since he’d seen what she’d done to Jason. “How long have I been asleep for?”

  “Well, you left the barn yesterday lunchtime. I was going to wake you for dinner, but I thought better of it.” A look down in the direction of his crotch and the slightest smile lifted one side of her mouth. “Better for you to get your strength up. You’ll be needing it.”

  With an already dry mouth from sleeping in a hot room without a drink, Flynn fought the urge to gulp as he stared at her, his pulse speeding up. “So, uh, why have you woken me now?”

  The Queen let the silence hang and stared straight at him. Lust glazed her stare and she looked to be considering what she’d do with him next. As if snapping out of it, she finally said, “We’re going out.”

  Flynn relaxed a little, but tried to hide his relief. “Where are we going?”

  “You’ll see. As much as I don’t want to say this, put some clothes on. I’ll wait for you out in the hallway.”

  Chapter 52

  Fortunately they didn’t expect Flynn to ride one of the horses. He’d never learned how. Instead, he sat on the back of the Queen’s horse, yet again paying homage to her dominance over him.

  About twenty horses in total, each one had two people on it. About thirty of them were the men under Mistress’ command. The Queen had told him they were referred to as hunters. The other ten or so were the Queen’s female guards. They rode the closest to them and all wore the same royal blue.

  Several hours had passed since they’d left the royal complex. Flynn had grown beyond uncomfortable, the base of his back aching and his hips sore. Although it would ease some of his pain, he didn’t want to wrap his arms around the Queen. He didn’t need to be at any more of a submissive disadvantage with her—especially with the ravenous looks she gave him.

  The Queen hadn’t said anything to Flynn for the entire journey. Every time he’d thought about asking her where they were headed, she snapped at someone in the group for doing something wrong. It seemed wise to keep his mouth shut.

  Besides, he hoped they were going to the town where they had Rose imprisoned, and any questioning would surely reek of his desire to save her. If he couldn’t hide it from the Queen, then he shouldn’t say it at all. A glance across at Mistress a few horses away and he saw the scimitar strapped to her hip. It had been cleaned of Jason’s blood as if ready to remove another appendage.

  And if they weren’t heading to the town with Rose, he’d find out where they were going when they got there. Anything had to be better than her trying to fuck him. An attractive woman, but too old for him and far too domineering.

  Just before the brow of the next hill, the Queen pulled her horse to a stop. She slipped to the ground and beckoned for Flynn to come down and join her.

  Together they walked to the top of the hill and Flynn suddenly saw why. A decent-sized community stretched out in front of them. Smaller than both the royal complex and Home, it still looked to be the residence for about fifty people, maybe even a few more.

  As far as fortification went, it had nothing on the royal complex or Home. A fence had been erected around it much like the ones used to contain livestock before everything went to hell. No more than a metre high, even a human would be able to hurdle it. The nomads tended to be bullies and would only pick battles they thought they could win. Flynn assumed this place had only managed to remain safe because of the number of people living there.

  “So what are we doing here?” Flynn said as he watched some of the people in the community working the land.

  “We’re going to raid the place.”

  As much as he expected her to say that, Flynn’s stomach still sank. The hunters around him drew their weapons. Some of them had longbows. Some had swords and axes for hand-to-hand combat. After he’d looked at them, he looked back at the Queen.

  “We do well with our self-sufficient approach to things, but sometimes it’s not enough. I have itches I need to scratch, and taking what I want, when I want, is one of those itches.” She let the silence hang and stared at Flynn’s crotch.

  The Queen then stepped over the brow of the hill, revealing herself should anyone look her way. She beckoned Flynn forward with her. “Come on then, I need you with me.”

  Chapter 53

  The closer they got to the community, the more pathetic the fence around it looked. So low down, the long grass stood higher than it at most points. How the fuck had they lasted as long as they had without being raided? They’d been naive to think they could survive forever.

  The grass dragged on Flynn’s progress and the fresh smell of his surroundings wafted up at him. It offered a strange counterbalance to the rock in his stomach and the dread that seeped poison into his psyche.

  “Let me put my arm around you,” the Queen said to him.

  As much as Flynn wanted to question it, he didn’t.

  The Queen feigned an injury and exaggerated a limp as she leaned into Flynn. They stumbled down the hill together, all the aches from his run through the games returning as he bore her weight.

  Two flimsy corrugated tin gates stood at the front of the community. Like the fences next to them, they didn’t look up to much and were only a few metres high.

  Still about twenty metres from the place, a crack opened between the two gates. A man and a woman stepped out. The man had a pitchfork, the woman a shovel.

  “They look like fucking cavemen,” the Queen muttered.

  The two guards didn’t speak. Instead, they stared at Flynn and the Queen and waited.

  The Queen muttered beneath her breath to Flynn, her words sending ice through his veins. “We don’t expect a body count from you today. Just watch and see how it’s done.”

  As much as Flynn wanted to call out to the people in front of him, he didn’t. A deep breath did little to settle the ever-tightening tension in him.

  Maybe Flynn’s fear of the Queen kept him quiet—after all, he’d seen her order multiple deaths. Maybe he wanted to make sure he got to Rose and rescued her; he owed her because of her sacrifice. Whatever the reason, he couldn’t justify it. He knew what was about to happen and he wasn’t about to do anything to stop it.

  When the gap between them closed to no more than ten metres, the man stood straighter and pulled his shoulders back. “That’s quite close enough,” he said.

  But the Queen pushed them forward several more steps as if trying to
provoke him.

  “I said that’s quite close enough,” the man repeated, his voice deepening as he brandished his pitchfork.

  “I’m sorry,” the Queen said. Flynn didn’t recognise her weak and vulnerable voice. Meek like a nervous child, she continued, “I’ve injured my leg. We need somewhere to rest up for a day or two before we carry on.”

  The man shook his head. “We don’t take people in. We don’t know who you are, and we have our families inside. We can’t risk it.”

  A shake ran through Flynn and he did his best to control it.

  “What about you, dear?” the Queen said to the woman. “This man makes all the decisions, does he?”

  A slight flinch at her words, but the woman didn’t bite. A tight jaw and she nodded. “It’s like he said.”

  “Fair enough.” The strength had already returned to the Queen’s voice, even if she hadn’t shown it with her body language yet. She then looked up at the sky and set a tongue-rolling battle cry free, the sharp call of it ringing out over the meadow surrounding the community.

  In the time it took for the man and woman to look at one another, the twenty or so horses they’d brought with them galloped over the brow of the hill. Several arrows flew past Flynn and the Queen, so close Flynn felt the air shift next to his face. Every one embedded in the chests of the two guards.

  It robbed the man and woman of their voices before they’d had a chance to use them. Both of them opened their mouths to release nothing but a gurgled sound.

  The Queen let go of Flynn and straightened herself as the guards both fell over dead. A shake of her head as she stared down at them and laughed. “I suppose it wouldn’t be any fun if they’d obliged us.”

  Chapter 54

  The second they stepped through the weak front gates, Flynn’s eyes ran up the track leading away from him. The main thoroughfare, it had a couple of small buildings on either side of it near to them.

  Farther away from them, Flynn saw a barn similar to that used by the Queen in the royal complex. As the main building in the place, they probably used it as a communal area too.

  The people Flynn had seen working from the brow of the hill had vanished. Maybe they’d set up an ambush. Although, it seemed more than likely they were hiding. He looked at the barn again. They probably weren’t hiding very well.

  Crops grew on either side of the track between the two small huts and the barn. Other than that, Flynn couldn’t see much else. Did they sleep in the barn too? Maybe the barn hid other structures behind it.

  The Queen pointed at a flatbed trailer much like the ones they’d put spikes on for the games. At least three metres long, it looked to have been well maintained, the wooden wheels smooth and round, the flatbed repaired with different pieces of wood from where it had clearly broken over the years. “Grab that,” she said to Flynn.

  Almost every urge inside of Flynn screamed no at the woman. These people didn’t deserve it. They seemed peaceful, like they just wanted to get on. Yet under her steely and psychotic glare, he did exactly as she ordered and walked over to the trailer, his shoulders slumped, his legs heavy.

  When he brought the trailer back to the Queen—the squeaking of the wheels making the only sound as everyone watched him—she looked him up and down, lingering on his crotch. “Is there a problem?”

  Jason’s screams rang through Flynn’s mind and he glanced over at Mistress’ scimitar. He shook his head to look at the grinning weapon. “No, no problem at all.”

  “Right, follow me.”

  Mistress sat on the lead horse, her hunters and the Queen’s royal blue guards behind her. They all waited for the Queen.

  The Queen moved off and Flynn followed her, the wheels of the trailer squeaking again as he pulled it along with him. The entire party moved forwards at his pace, the horses stepping and then stopping, stepping and stopping.

  The first two wooden huts looked like somewhere people would stay, but it seemed odd they were so far from the rest of the community. Unless they were guards’ huts.

  In response to several hand signals from the Queen, four of Mistress’ hunters slipped from the back of their horses. The pillions on each horse, they left the riders behind as they moved forwards with their swords and bats at the ready.

  The Queen directed two hunters to one hut and two to the other.

  Flynn wanted no part of it. If he could have run, he would, but if he made a break for it, he probably wouldn’t even make it to the gates before an arrow sank into his back. Besides, he couldn’t outrun a horse even if he did get free.

  Screams responded to the hunters entering the huts. Screams of what sounded like older larynxes—a younger, fitter person would have made more noise. It took until that moment for Flynn to notice the red crosses painted on the side of each hut. Clearly the community’s hospital.

  The hunters emerged seconds later. Two of them had a woman that looked to be in her eighties, and the other two, a man of a similar age. The couple looked tired and pale.

  Maybe they were there before, but when Flynn looked up the track, he saw a gathering of people in the barn’s doorway. They were crammed in the large space and all of them stared out.

  A man with a beard and homemade sandals elbowed his way through the crowd to the front. “Please,” he called out at the Queen. “Please let them be. They’re both dying. We’re keeping them in the hospital huts so we can give them palliative care. You can take our food, we can grow more, but please don’t harm us.”

  The four hunters looked from the man to the Queen, who stared at the old people with a sneer on her face. The air wound so thick, Flynn damn near choked on it.

  In a cold monotone, the Queen said, “Kill ’em.”

  Before the old people could scream, the hunters cut the sounds from their throats. One slice each and both fell at the same time, their weak frames making little noise as they folded to the ground, blood emptying from their deep wounds.

  The community in the doorway cried and shouted. Chaos rushed out of the barn as everyone vocalised their grief at the same time.

  When the bearded man stepped forward, everyone else quietened down. He threw his arms wide, his face red as he addressed the Queen. “What the fuck’s wrong with you?”

  Flynn looked at the Queen as she first glared at the man and then looked down at the dead bodies. “Right, you four.” She pointed at the dismounted hunters as if the man from the community didn’t exist. “I want you to follow behind and take everything that’s useful. Flynn’s going to pull the trailer while you load it up. And when you’ve been into each building, if you can find a torch, use it to burn them to the ground.”

  The hunters nodded and vanished into the hospital huts.

  “Oi!” the man called again and stepped closer to the group. “I asked you a question, you crazy bitch.”

  Although Flynn looked at the Queen, he couldn’t see any sign she’d even heard the man. Instead, she turned her back on him and spoke to the hunters and guards still on their horses. “The rest of you,” she said, calmer than she’d ever sounded, “take ’em out.”

  The thunder of horse hoofs rattled past Flynn, trampling the dead people and sending an earthquake through the ground. The rush of their charge created a strong breeze in their wake.

  Flynn watched the bearded man’s anger turn to slack fear, his face falling south. A second later, one of the hunters on the back of the lead horse drove a hard blow with a baseball bat into the side of his head.

  Chapter 55

  However long had passed, Flynn had lost track of time as everything turned into a blur. He walked back through the community, sweating and his muscles straining from dragging the now heavy trailer. He looked at the Queen. A sick pleasure lit her up.

  The screams had died down as the people fell. The sound of the trailer’s wheels creaked as Flynn tugged it. The air reeked of smoke and seared flesh. Much of the earth had turned damp with spilled blood.

  “This is what we do,” the Queen sai
d as she looked at their stacked trailer. “Quite a good haul and a wonderful body count.”

  Not that Flynn had seen her kill anyone. He said nothing.

  “Survival of the fittest,” the Queen added, taking in the burning ruins around them.

  Flynn had satisfied his curiosity as they delved deeper into the community. Many of the huts the community slept in were positioned behind the large barn, as he’d thought they might be. All of them were alight.

  When they passed a dead child no older than five or six, a titter escaped the Queen. The boy’s mouth hung wide open and his glassy eyes stared up at the sky. She clicked her fingers at a hunter and pointed at the boy. The hunter ran over, picked the boy up by his ankles, and launched him into a nearby fire.

  A thick cloud of smoke wafted across Flynn and the Queen’s path and he held his breath while it passed. The cloying cloud seemed to cling to him, sticking to his sweating skin like oil, wiping a stain of what he’d been a part of on him.

  “We grow what we want, and we take what we want.” The Queen spoke as if the lines had been rehearsed. As if she had no connection to them other than a rhetoric she hoped to believe if she repeated it enough times.

  Flynn still didn’t respond.

  “You have to say something, Sixteen.”

  The mention of his number snapped tension through Flynn. She’d called him Flynn since he’d been in the community. She’d called him Flynn when she’d let him know she intended to fuck him. But maybe now, at the height of her bloodlust, she showed him what he was to her: a number that could be done away with at any moment.

  “So,” the Queen said, “are you in?”

  A throat so dry he couldn’t speak, Flynn nodded. What else could he do?

  The Queen smiled, the same distant look in her psychotic gaze. “Good.” Her tone dropped. “Next time you don’t get to look away, okay?”