“At least we have a chance to wait it out if we hide away.”
Although she stared hard at him, Vicky clearly didn’t have an argument. Rhys took her soft hand. “It’s the only way.”
She looked far from convinced.
***
When Rhys pulled the swing door open, the hinges groaned. The sound raced up the cavernous stairwell. The hinges as good as cackled when Rhys pushed the door a little wider.
After they’d both stepped though, Rhys closed the door to the same dramatic response. His voice echoed when he said, “What’s wrong with a bit of fucking oil?”
Vicky scowled at him.
The stone stairwell allowed access to every floor. As damp as the rest of the car park, the eye-watering reek of ammonia hung in the air. With his nose held in a tight pinch, Rhys shook his head. “How many dirty bastards have pissed in this place?”
The dark expression on Vicky’s face remained unchanged.
Each step strained Rhys’ weak legs as he ascended the stairs. Vicky followed behind.
As they climbed, Rhys looked over his shoulder at Vicky. She continued to glare at him and made light work of the stairs.
Once they’d passed level three, Rhys broke the silence. “The good thing about those dodgy hinges is they’re a dead giveaway if we’re being followed. I take the silence as an indication that we seem to have gotten away with it.”
“Let’s not get too cocky.”
Rhys shrugged.
“Where are we going, anyway?” Vicky said.
“Higher ground. If we have a better view of the city, we can plan our route out of here.”
“You do realise we’re going to the top of a multi-storey car park, right? I mean, it’s kind of like hiding in an alley with a dead end. What if they follow us up?”
“Haven’t we just had this conversation? Where else can we go? You heard that scream as clearly as I did. You saw the monsters in the alleyway. It ain’t safe in the city; at least, not if we’re just chancing our luck. We need some sort of plan if we’re going to survive this, and I didn’t want to be formulating it while I waited for that mob down there to get to the end of their alley.”
“We had a plan. Run like the fucking wind until we make it to the one bridge that hasn’t been blown up.”
“That’s easy for you to say.” The more Rhys spoke, the less he could breathe. “I don’t have the running in me.”
“So I have to risk my life because you’re a slob?”
“We’ve got to be smarter, Vicky. This disease is spreading quickly. We can’t outrun it.”
“You can’t outrun it. I can outrun anything if my life depends on it.”
“Alright, love, there’s no need to be so fucking smug about it.”
Vicky looked like she wanted to swing for him.
***
At the top of the stairs, Rhys pulled the door open—quickly this time to bypass any groaning theatrics. He held it wide for Vicky.
For a moment, Vicky didn’t move. With her hands on her hips, she looked between the open door and Rhys.
“Oh, right,” Rhys said. “It used to be polite to let a woman go first. That was before those things lurked behind every fucking door. Sorry. Old habits and all that.”
The bright sun hit Rhys the second he stepped out. The metre-high wall around the outer edge of the car park blocked the wind and turned the place into a suntrap. Black asphalt coated the ground.
Rhys walked to the edge and peered over. When he saw ten or so diseased below them, he drew a sharp intake of breath and pulled back.
When Vicky looked at him, he shrugged. “There’s some of them down there. I think we should wait it out up here for a while to give them a chance to clear out.”
“But what if they don’t?”
“Then we’ll be in no worse a situation than we’re currently in. What do we have to lose?”
After a pause, Vicky’s face softened and she finally nodded. “Okay.”
The wall on the opposite side of the car park created the only shade on the entire floor. Rhys moved over to it at a crouched run and sat down with his back against it.
Despite her obvious reluctance with every step of Rhys’ plan, Vicky followed and sat down next to him.
“The first thing we need to do is to get out of this city,” Rhys said. “Then I’m going to get Flynn. Whatever happens, I’m going to get to him. I know you say you won’t come with me, but please reconsider.”
Vicky turned away from him.
“You find that works for you?”
Vicky continued to look away.
“The whole ice queen thing; that sees you right in your life, does it? Shut everyone and everything out and make sure Vicky’s okay?”
“What do you want from me, Rhys? I’ve already saved your life.”
“But my life’s nothing without Flynn.”
“Have you considered that Flynn might be,”—she paused—”gone when you get there?”
Of course, he’d thought about it. He couldn’t think about anything else. Still, her words drove a knife into his heart. “I have to go to his school. All I have are hopes and prayers. I’ll ride their vapours if I need to, but I have to get to his school. Nothing’s lost until it’s lost.”
Vicky didn’t reply.
“Come on, Vicky, there’s a heart in there somewhere. He’s six years old. I need to get to him because God knows I can’t rely on his mother. Besides,”—Rhys looked at the buildings that surrounded them; all of which were locked down with steel shutters—“she’s locked in Building Seventy-Two. I need you, Vicky. You know how to fight these things.”
Although she still had her back to him, Rhys saw her grind her jaw.
Rhys retrieved the photo of his boy from his pocket and reached around to hold it in front of her. “This is him.”
She knocked his arm away.
“Go on,” Rhys said, “look at him. Look into the warm eyes of my innocent boy and tell me you won’t help me save his life. If you can do that, I’ll stop hassling you.”
When she snatched the photo from Rhys, he flinched.
As she stared down at it, she spoke in monotone. “I don’t want to help you save him.”
The reply nearly winded Rhys, who took the photo back and looked at his little boy. “You must have been really fucking lonely in your life before this happened.”
“What do you mean?”
“To be so switched off. To care so little about anyone but yourself.”
She shrugged. “It is what it is.”
A shake of his head, and Rhys turned his back on her. “Wow.”
Chapter Sixteen
As they sat in the shade, the heat of the day inescapable, Rhys listened. He had nothing more to say to Vicky. It had been a while since they’d heard the call of the diseased, but Rhys didn’t want to look over the wall. If the crowd below had grown, they’d be fucked. But if he didn’t look, they could end up waiting all day. The longer he waited the less chance Flynn had of survival.
Just as he moved to stand up, Vicky spoke. “You don’t want me with you anyway.”
“Huh?”
“You don’t want me with you. I can’t be trusted. I act in my own self-interest. I’m not like you. I don’t do the right thing.”
Rhys waited for her to continue.
“I knew about this virus well before it was released and I did nothing. I stayed in my shitty job because that was what worked best for me. I didn’t give a fuck about what was best for other people.” She couldn’t even look at him. Her brilliant blue eyes glazed with tears.
Despite the urge to lean across and touch her, Rhys kept his hands to himself. “That’s not true; you saved me when you didn’t have to. There was no reason for you to barge that diseased into the water fountain, but you did.”
“It was in my way.”
“If you’re so selfish, then why do you keep waiting for me when I can’t keep up? You could have left, and you’d probably be o
n the other side of the river by now.”
She looked away and the light caught her high cheekbones.
After a moment’s silence, Rhys looked at the floor. “Do you know why I’m not with Flynn’s mum anymore?”
“How would I know that?”
“I cheated on her. I had a wife and beautiful boy at home, and I cheated on them. My relationship with Larissa was loveless, and I should have ended it. That would have been the right thing to do. Instead, I got myself to a point where I was so miserable, I was happy to fuck another woman. Instead of taking responsibility for my life, I convinced myself that it was okay to fuck someone else while maintaining the shitty relationship I was trapped in. I haven’t always done the right thing either. In fact, it was doing the wrong thing that taught me to change.”
“And what happened to the other woman?”
Rhys kicked a stone on the floor in front of him and laughed.
“What’s so funny?”
“She’s always referred to as ‘the other woman’. It’s like she’s a stereotype and not a person. It didn’t work out. Emotions were running too high, and I decided to walk away from it. I was a mess, and she didn’t need to deal with that.”
He finally looked up and made eye contact with Vicky. He had to look back at the floor so he could speak again. “I’ve learned from my lies. I’m thirty-four and living on a shoestring budget so I can pay a shitty solicitor to help me see my boy more than once a fortnight. My problems are all my own making.”
“So what are you saying? I learn from the fact that I could have stopped humanity’s demise? Never mind I played a part in turning the entire fucking world into diseased lunatics. I just move on and become a better person?” A mixture of fury and grief moistened her eyes. “I’ll stand up in front of what few survivors there are and apologise for killing everyone they love. But it’s okay, everything’s great—I’m a better person now.” A sneer sat on her face like she had a bad taste in her mouth, and she shook her head.
“What could you have done to stop it? I’m guessing if you’d have threatened to talk, you’d have disappeared very fucking quickly. Just another dead body to be pulled from the river.”
Although she stared hard at him, Vicky’s face cracked.
Rhys’ throat dried and he reached across to touch the back of her warm and soft hand. She flinched, but she didn’t pull away.
After a few seconds, she turned her hand over and held his. When she looked up at him, she smiled through the pain. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For not judging me… for being kind.”
“You’ve done your best in your life and that’s all any of us can do.”
Vicky nodded.
“You’re a good person, Vicky. You need to stop telling yourself otherwise.”
She paused for a moment before she looked up. The starkness of her stare afforded Rhys a rare glimpse at the person beneath the front. “I’ll come with you to find Flynn,” she said.
A wave of grief rushed forward and made Rhys’ skin tingle. He kept a hold of her hand. “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you so much.”
Chapter Seventeen
Rhys let go of Vicky’s hand. They had to move, but they could only do that if the diseased had gone. The top of the rough wall dug into Rhys’ grip when he pulled himself to his feet. The second he peered over, his legs buckled and he nearly fell.
Once he’d regained his composure, he tapped Vicky on the shoulder and motioned for her to stand up too. When she got to her feet next to him, he pointed down at the coach below. Caught between two steel pillars, it had nowhere to go. “Look,” he said, “a school trip. The pillars have trapped the coach.”
The lights may have been off in the coach, but Rhys saw the small bodies that moved inside. When he saw the school’s crest emblazoned on the vehicle, he said, “Thank god.”
“Thank god?”
Rhys shook his head. “Sorry, I didn’t mean that. It’s a primary school, but it’s not Flynn’s.”
As Rhys watched the kids move around inside of the coach, he could feel Vicky’s attention on him.
“What shall we do?” she said.
“What can we do? We can’t rescue a collection of children. Don’t get me wrong, I feel devastated for them, but we can’t help them. Flynn’s my number one—” The breath caught in Rhys’ throat when he saw the diseased man appear.
From the way Vicky tensed up beside him, she’d obviously seen him too. Vicky then whispered, “Dan.”
Damn, she was right. Although, not Dan as they’d seen him about half an hour before. Not the man who had abandoned his lover as he ran straight past them. That Dan had checked out, and good fucking riddance. That Dan was a cunt and deserved everything he got.
Other than Dan, there were no diseased that they could see. As he walked closer to the coach, Rhys spoke to Vicky in hushed tones. “I don’t think he’s twigged that there’s anyone in the coach.”
It didn’t look like Dan had twigged about much as he stumbled along and his head flicked from side to side. He continued to walk toward the coach until he bumped into it. Someone moved inside. Of course they did. It can’t be easy to convince a coach full of petrified kids to hold the fuck still. But Dan didn’t notice the occupants.
With his sweaty hand clamped across his mouth, Rhys watched Dan slide along the side of the coach. The moistness of his bloody cheek made a screeeeeee noise as it ran down the black vehicle’s side panel. Dan continued on, and his jaw snapped as if he could taste the air around him. “He knows there’s food nearby,” Rhys said.
A light flashed in the coach and Rhys’ stomach sank. “Fuck!” The mobile phone screen stopped Dan in his tracks.
Rhys’ heart ran away with him and his throat dried as he watched Dan turn slowly and tilt his head up to look at the window. Blood ran over his chin as his mouth hung open. His cheeks ran red.
“How the fuck can he see through those bleeding eyes? How do any of them see through them?” Rhys said.
Instead of a reply, Vicky continued to watch on, her breaths short and sharp.
Hysteria stirred inside the coach as Dan continued to look up. “There must be teachers on there with them,” Rhys said.
“Yeah, but how do you keep a coach full of kids calm?” Vicky replied. “It’s hard work trying to get one kid to do something against their will, let alone an entire fucking coach full of them.”
Another one of the kids moved in the coach.
Dan locked onto it.
Another one moved.
While he stared up at the coach, Dan swayed on the spot.
Another child moved.
“Why don’t they keep the fuck still?” Rhys said.
Dan banged on the window.
A child screamed.
Dan banged again, this time with more force.
The movement in the coach stopped.
Dan didn’t. Instead, he turned away from the coach and drew a deep intake of air that made his chest swell. Then, with what looked like great effort, he released a primitive scream. Like an enraged chimp, hysterical and fierce, Dan called again and again.
“What the fuck?” Vicky said.
Before Rhys could respond, the rolling thunder of what sounded like a thousand heavy footsteps replied. Rhys’ bowels twinged, and his jaw fell loose. “He’s just told the others he’s found food.”
Chapter Eighteen
The first of the diseased appeared. They ran at full tilt to Dan’s call.
Within seconds, the tide rushed forward as a constant stream of them. They screamed and yelled as they descended on the coach.
Vicky’s warm hand found Rhys’ and he squeezed back.
The first diseased crashed into the side of the coach with a loud thump. Several more followed and collided into the side of the large vehicle.
The diseased rocked the coach on its wheels, and more joined them all the time. A lot of them punched it like they thought they could bash their
way through the metal.
The high-pitched screams of the children filled the air.
More diseased came.
Rhys gasped when the diseased lifted their side of the coach from the ground. “They’re going to tip it.”
It landed back on its wheels with a crash.
They tried again with the same result.
“They’re lifting it higher each time,” Vicky said.
When they lifted the coach again, Vicky said, “No.”
The huge vehicle yawned like a large beast as it passed its tipping point. For a second, it teetered on its edge.
Then it fell.
It hit the ground to a loud splash as broken glass exploded away from it. The diseased jumped onto the side that now faced the sky and pounded against the unbroken windows.
“Don’t they have an emergency hammer to break the glass with?” Rhys said. “Surely they should try to do something to get out?”
Hundreds of diseased flooded over the side of the coach like ants onto sugar. They banged against the windows. Anxiety twisted Rhys’ stomach. “It won’t be long before—”
The windows down the side of the coach popped one after the other. The roar of a feeding frenzy mixed with the screams of what must have been at least forty children. They didn’t stand a chance as what seemed like a continuous stream of diseased swarmed out of the city.
The diseased rushed through the broken windows. They pushed and shoved one another aside to get at their prey. A fight broke out between several of them over one little boy who cowered beneath them. Rhys dropped his head and closed his eyes. He didn’t need to see any more.
***
When the cries stopped, Rhys looked up to see a writhing mass of activity inside the coach. Tears ran down his cheeks as he looked at the blood that coated the side of the black vehicle. Small diseased children climbed out of the wreckage, dazed and confused as if they’d just woken from the night terrors. With bloody eyes, slack jaws, and jerky movements, clarity had left their tiny minds. “Look at what we’re up against,” Rhys said. “How the fuck are we supposed to get out of this city?”
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