The Alpha Plague (Book 5)

by Michael Robertson

  The second she’d entered the room, Vicky saw the corner of a white sheet beneath Hugh’s bed. It had bloodstains on it, lots of fucking bloodstains. She already shook with adrenaline, so when she saw the sheets, she shivered beyond control and whispered, “Fuck.” That must have been how he transported her body to the storeroom. It made sense that he thought he could sit on the evidence too. After all, who watched the watchmen?

  Vicky knelt down and peered beneath Hugh’s bed. Next to the stuffed sheets sat the small black walking boots that Jessica always wore. The air left Vicky’s body in a gasp and nausea flipped her stomach. She knew the two men were innocent. The case had been too convenient. The way Hugh engineered the men’s exile reeked of wrongdoing. The leering sneer on his face like the devil lurked beneath his skin as he pressed the siren to call the diseased to them. The man smelled guilty, and now she’d put the pieces together, Vicky could see he positively reeked of it. After she drew a stuttered breath, she muttered again, “Fuck.”

  Another rush of adrenaline sent Vicky’s pulse ragged and her head spun. She quickly stood up and left Hugh’s room. The corridor remained empty, so she clicked the lock shut and made her way back to the gym.

  ***

  It would have looked suspicious had Vicky not returned to the gym, so she got back to Hugh as quickly as she could. Next to the treadmill, just out of his line of sight again, she adjusted her shoes for a second time and slipped the key back in his bag.

  When she stepped onto the treadmill next to the man, her head still spinning, she cranked the setting up to seven. At a fast walk, she had no more in her tired legs.

  When Hugh turned his speed up next to her, she felt his silent challenge, but Vicky didn’t respond.

  “What’s the matter?” Hugh asked. “You not feeling up to it today?”

  A shake of her head and Vicky couldn’t find the words. She then hit the large red button on the treadmill and stepped off it. “I’m sorry. This whole Jessica thing has done my head in. I need to go and rest.”

  Without looking at Hugh, she hurried to the doorway and said one last, “Sorry,” as she walked out.

  Chapter Forty

  No matter how clean he appeared, Vicky couldn’t escape the fact that she shared her tiny personal space with a teenage boy. When she returned to their room, his stale smell hung as a combination of sweat and flatulence.

  Flynn lay back, oblivious to his festering pit.

  Vicky sat down on her bed and the flimsy cot creaked beneath her weight. Although she felt Flynn’s eyes on her, she didn’t look back at him. Instead, she rested her elbows on her knees, dropped her head into her hands, and stared at the blue linoleum floor.

  “What’s up?” Flynn asked.

  But she didn’t reply. The past twenty minutes swirled as a confused mess through her mind, and the words to express it existed just out of her reach.

  After a few seconds of silence, Flynn’s bed groaned from where he sat up. The small walkway between the two beds stretched just wide enough for Vicky’s knees to nearly touch Flynn’s bed on the other side. So when Flynn sat up too, his long legs bridged the gap and rested against Vicky. She shifted away from him.

  “What’s going on, Vicky?”

  “I’ve had a rough day. It’s been long. I dunno, seeing those men taken out. It just—”

  “But they killed Jessica,” Flynn interrupted.

  “That’s certainly what they got accused of.”

  A moment’s silence and Flynn said for a second time, “What’s going on?”

  The tears she’d held back since she’d first seen Jessica’s dead body rushed forward in a hot wave. Within seconds, they’d soaked her cheeks and she stuttered when she tried to draw a breath. A few more deep inhales and she levelled out a little before she looked up at Flynn.

  He regarded her with a confused frown as he looked from one of her eyes to the other and Vicky broke down again. “I’m not sure they did it, Flynn.”

  Flynn gasped. “Who else could have done it?”

  “I snuck into Hugh’s room while he worked out in the gym and found bloody sheets and Jessica’s shoes beneath his bed. Now I’m not saying he did it, but those sheets could have been wrapped around Jessica’s bleeding body when he dragged her down to the empty storeroom.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Flynn said. “Why would Hugh do it?”

  “I don’t know, and I’m not sure he did do it, but he was the one who found the knife and necklace in the man’s room. He made the process of evicting them run as quickly and smoothly as it did. He steered a decision towards convicting them. I got behind that because I couldn’t find any evidence to the contrary.”

  “You suspected him from the start?”

  “Do you trust him?”

  Flynn didn’t answer.

  “When I saw the look on Hugh’s face as the men walked away from Home … and the body language of the men. I dunno … I just don’t think they were guilty.”

  With a deep exhale that puffed his cheeks out, Flynn ran his hand through his hair and shook his head. “I’m sure there are a lot of things Hugh doesn’t tell us, but murdering Jessica?”

  “I don’t think you’d question it if you’d have seen his room.”

  “But why would he do it?” Flynn asked again.

  “That’s the thing. I don’t know. It doesn’t make sense.”

  “We should tell Serj.”

  “No!”

  Flynn pulled his head back at Vicky’s outburst.

  “Serj is too emotionally involved in this. If we tell him, there’ll be chaos.”

  “But I’d feel terrible if Serj found out that I knew and hadn’t told him.”

  “We need to be sure first, Flynn. We have to work out what’s going on before we tell anyone.”

  The springs on Flynn’s bed creaked again as he shifted around on it. “What if Hugh kills more people? By the time we’re sure, he will have gotten rid of the sheets and Jessica’s shoes.”

  “What if I’ve got it wrong?” Vicky said. “You’ve seen how they evict people from this place. I’m not going to let that happen to you.”

  Silence descended on the small room again. After she’d kicked her shoes off her tired feet, Vicky lay back on her bed and stared up at the white ceiling.

  “Then we should leave,” Flynn said.

  “And leave all of these innocent people behind? Leave Serj and Piotr and all of the others in this place? They’re good people. We shouldn’t shun them because of one bad egg.”

  “One bad murdering egg,” Flynn said. “So what do we do, then?”

  “I think we need to play it smart,” Vicky said as she continued to stare up at the ceiling. “I need to build a case against Hugh so when it comes to presenting it to the community, we can sentence him without any fear of being wrong.”

  “How long will that take?”

  “I don’t know, Flynn. I don’t know.”

  Chapter Forty-One

  Vicky clenched her teeth against the biting wind. Maybe no windier than usual, but since she’d spent so much time underground, the elements had more of an impact on her when she stepped out into them. A look across the long swaying grass and Vicky’s eyes burned. She’d had a restless night’s sleep, her mind on spin dry as she tried to put all the pieces together. Not even the fresh smell of nature could lift her spirit.

  Although Vicky scanned their environment, pretending to look for the diseased or something to hunt, she kept her eye on Hugh in her peripheral vision. Her finger rested on the trigger of her crossbow. If he gave her half an excuse, she’d sink a bolt into his chest.

  The pair had said little to one another while they walked, so when Hugh spoke, it ran an extra twist of tension through Vicky. “Do you think we’ll see the men who killed Jessica?”

  The intensity of his stare made Vicky uncomfortable, and heat flushed her cheeks. She stalled for a moment before she finally said, “I hope not. It felt bad enough kicking them out yesterday; I don
’t want to see them now they’ve turned.”

  A bitter scowl as he looked out over the landscape again, and Hugh lowered his voice to a growl. “They deserved everything they got.”

  They might have walked side by side, but Hugh clearly led the way as he guided them back to the spot they’d been to the other day: the spot that overlooked the prison-like community.

  Because Vicky didn’t respond, Hugh shot her an aggressive, “Don’t they?”

  A gentle squeeze on the crossbow’s trigger and Vicky shrugged. “If they did it.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “What if someone set them up?”

  Impatience ran through Hugh’s words and the air between them thickened. The atmosphere felt loaded like they were moments away from a thunderstorm. An almighty power sat coiled in Hugh’s large and tense form, ready to be sparked into action at any moment. “Who would set them up?” he said. “And how? How did they manage to get the bloody knife and Jessica’s necklace into their room before I got there? It would have been impossible.”

  The aggression in Hugh’s delivery backed Vicky into a corner. His bullying might have been delivered as questions, but he didn’t want answers. So Vicky said nothing in response to him; instead, she continued to look around as they walked up the hill toward their neighbouring community. “Do you think we’ll find any animals today?”

  “You think you’ve already found one, don’t you? You think you’re so fucking smart.”

  When Vicky turned to Hugh, she saw he’d raised his crossbow and pointed it straight at her. “Now put your fucking weapon on the ground.”

  A dry gulp and Vicky did as he said. She saw the same darkness in his eyes that she’d seen when he’d watched the men leave Home. “Why did you do it, Hugh?”

  “Keep walking,” Hugh said as he forced her up the hill.

  When they got to the top, the wind stronger than ever, Hugh said, “Look at it.”

  Vicky did as he said. It looked like a prison from a developing nation. Erected on a shoestring budget and built with little concern for the prisoners, it had just one purpose—keep people contained, comfort and human rights be damned.

  “You don’t realise how lucky you were. Home is paradise compared to a lot of the places around here. You’ve been to the mall; you can see how people are treated down there. But you know what, I think we’re too fucking nice at Home. You helped me see that.”

  “Huh?”

  “Well, you and Flynn. When you two arrived and you were more useful to me than ninety-five percent of the people already in Home, I realised that I’d been mugged off for years. I work like an arsehole so those freeloaders can have a nice, cushy life.”

  “But that’s why you decided to make them train in the gym, right?”

  “That was too little, too late. Food’s running out at Home, Vicky. For some reason, the farm can’t produce the quantities it once did, and those lazy fucks are eating it all. I don’t want to starve looking after those fat losers.”

  “So why kill Jessica?”

  The directness of her question seemed to knock Hugh off guard, his eyes narrowing as he stared at her. “Because I wanted to kick a lot of the people out of Home and she thought I was wrong to do it. She thought we could find another way and she threatened to tell everyone what I was doing.”

  “So you killed her?”

  “Yep. We were fucking, Jessica and I, did you know that?”

  The grief between Serj and Hugh flicked through Vicky’s mind. “That’s why Serj hates you.”

  “I’d assume so. Not that he knows, but he must have had a hunch. I mean, as much as he pretended he didn’t know, he knew.”

  A gargoyle grin split Hugh’s face. “Did you seriously think I didn’t see you steal the key from my bag the other day? Had you been a bit more savvy with it, then maybe you wouldn’t be here now.”

  The hill that led down to the neighbouring community ran steep. Vicky rocked in the strong wind as she looked to the bottom. The strength drained from her legs and her stomach lurched.

  As Hugh shouldered the crossbow and closed one eye to peer down the sight, he said, “Jessica wanted to break it off with me. That’s why I told her about my plans to kick people out. I wanted to confide in her. I thought the trust might make her want to stay. But she didn’t.”

  “I used to think you were strong,” Vicky said. “Then I saw how you reacted to being chased by the diseased. And now this: killing innocent people.”

  “Innocent? Jessica was about to sell me up the river to the people of Home.” Hugh pointed at his chest. “My community and she was going against me. I can’t allow that.”

  When Vicky saw the slight twitch of his finger on the trigger, she dropped to the ground. The whoosh of the bolt ran over her head as she grabbed a handful of dirt and launched it at Hugh. Enough to cause a distraction, she rolled away from him down the steep hill.

  Within seconds, gravity had taken a hold of Vicky and accelerated her escape. As she rolled and bounced on the lumpy ground, each jolt stung and drove more of the wind from her body. With every revolution, she caught sight of Hugh at the top of the hill and heard another whoosh as another bolt narrowly missed her.

  Her back crashed against a particularly large lump on the ground and drove the rest of the wind from Vicky’s body in a deep bark. Her diaphragm spasmed as she continued toward the prison at the bottom.

  The sound of the bolts ceased. Hugh had fired maybe four or five at her and missed with each one. Maybe she’d get away. But instead of a bolt, the fizz and pink smoke of a flare shot over her head. Then another one followed it almost immediately afterwards.

  When Vicky hit the fence for their neighbouring community at the bottom, it ran a shaking rattle away from her in both directions. Battered from the fall, she lay immobile on the ground and gasped for breath. Every part of her body ached. The two flares that Hugh had fired billowed smoke around her, and it made it hard for her to see up the hill. As she squinted up through the pink haze, the wind blew a gap in it. It gave her the time to see the figure of Hugh stare down at her for a few more seconds before he turned and walked away.

  What had he seen? Why didn’t he try to kill her?

  Before Vicky could think on it any further, three large men and one woman appeared over her. One of the men—small with sharp features and greasy black hair—grinned down at her. He looked like a rat. “Well, well, well, look what Home have delivered to us.”

  The other three laughed as they closed their ring around Vicky.

  The biggest of the three men then raised his fist and drove a heavy blow into the centre of Vicky’s face.

  The first punch spun Vicky out and threw stars across her vision, but she remained conscious. Sharp and stinging pain made her eyes water. Blood ran into her mouth from what must have been a broken nose. The figures above her turned into blurred blobs, and before Vicky could react, one of the blobs hit her again and her world went dark.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Vicky opened her eyes to a deep sting that stretched through her face. When she wriggled her nose, she winced at the jarring pain of it. It felt like her sinuses had been packed with crushed glass. Once she sat up, the pulse of her headache compressed her skull, and although she clamped a hand to either side of her head, she couldn’t ease the pain.

  Vicky blinked several times to try to clear her vision and looked at her surroundings. A small square cell about four paces by four paces, it had walls made from chain-link fence and a concrete floor. Other than Vicky, the cold cell stood empty

  Despite the swollen mess that clogged her nose, it didn’t take away the reek of piss and shit. Vicky retched several times at the stink of it. She’d obviously been imprisoned by the people of the community at the bottom of the hill, but what the fuck did they want with her?

  The cell next to Vicky’s backed up against a brick wall the same as hers did. Easily twenty paces by twenty paces, Vicky’s cell would fit in it four to
five times over. It currently sat empty.

  Hard to tell from her current position, but the long wall must have been the back of the building she’d seen when she’d looked at the place from the top of the hill. A small alleyway ran down past her cell. It probably led to the front of the building, but Vicky couldn’t see clearly enough from her current position to be sure.

  A wide open forecourt stretched between Vicky’s cell and the main gate to the place. It had the same rough concrete ground that Vicky currently sat on. It also had two manhole covers in it. Despite the darkness of night, she saw scratches in the ground surrounding the holes. It looked like the covers were removed regularly.

  As Vicky searched the darkness beyond the complex, she looked in the direction of Home. Not that she could see much. The communities stood close to one another. So close, yet they existed in two separate worlds. High-end technology on one side, and medieval barbarism on the other.

  Before Vicky could take in any more of her surroundings, a shrill peep of a whistle pulled her attention to the front gate. A man and a woman appeared from the darkness. Both wore hoodies that hid their faces, and each carried a bloodstained machete. Another blow of his whistle and the man banged the handle of his large blade against the bars of the gate. The entire chain-link fence rattled from the contact. “Come on, Moira, let us in.”

  He had an accent Vicky couldn’t place. Australian? South African? She couldn’t tell.

  A woman with two hulking men appeared along the walkway that ran next to Vicky’s cell. Despite her curiosity, Vicky cowered away from them and stared at the ground as they passed. Once they’d stepped into the forecourt, she watched them from the corner of her eye.

  Older than Vicky by maybe ten years, the woman had wild black hair, sharp features pulled tight with bitterness, and she wore a long white fur coat. The large men by her side both carried battleaxes and marched in perfect time with her wide, flourishing strides. The rim of the woman’s coat billowed out like a bell.