Twenty-Five Percent (Book 2): Downfall

by Nerys Wheatley

  “Stunt doubles?”

  Alex was grateful to see Micah smile as he laughed. “We don’t need stunt doubles. We’re tough. And we’re going to do this. For Lucy and Hannah and Sam’s parents and Claire’s mother and everyone else who’s suffered. We’re going to stop Omnav and save the day. Because we are heroes.”

  Micah shook his head, popping a meatball into his mouth and speaking around it. “Don’t you start.”

  16

  They spent the night at Micah’s family’s house, making sure the door to Lucy’s room was secure before they went to sleep.

  In the morning, Micah left a note for his parents in case they returned, explaining they were going to try to find a cure for Lucy and to not do anything drastic. He stared at the closed door to Lucy’s bedroom for a long time before leaving. Alex got the feeling that, despite his words, Micah didn’t hold out much hope that they would find a cure. It was probably better that way. If they didn’t find a cure, maybe the disappointment wouldn’t be so severe. But Alex hated seeing his friend in pain, so he held onto hope enough for both of them.

  He set out towards Omnav with a renewed determination. He now had three objectives; find and rescue Hannah and the other doctors, find a cure for Micah’s sister, and save the country.

  Piece of cake.

  When they’d been driving for just over an hour, Alex speeded up to reach Micah and indicated for him to stop. As soon as they pulled over, Alex flipped up his visor and sneezed.

  “You stopped so you could sneeze?” Micah said.

  “One, you never sneeze inside a helmet if you can avoid it, and two...” Alex stopped as another sneeze tingled up his nose and exploded into the cool air. “...and two, no, I didn’t just stop so I could sneeze. I can smell pheromones, which is why I’m sneezing.”

  Claire sneezed twice and rubbed her nose. “What on earth is that smell?” She sneezed again.

  Micah looked around at the trees surrounding them. “A horde?”

  “If it is, it’s a big one. It’s strong.” Alex massaged his nose as something occurred to him. “And I’m sneezing and getting the smell at the same time.”

  Even though they’d stopped under cover of a wood, Sam looked up. “I can’t hear any helicopters.”

  “No.” Alex pulled two tissues from his pocket, handed one to Claire and blew his nose with the other.

  “What are pheromones?” Claire said as she snuffled into the tissue.

  “It’s a chemical that insects and animals release to communicate,” Alex said. “The new eaters use it too, because Omnav put termite DNA into the virus. It’s why they band together and follow each other. The natural pheromones are what we can smell. We have a theory that Omnav are using synthetic pheromones to control the eaters that make us sneeze.”

  She looked at Sam and Micah. “Why aren’t you two sneezing?”

  “It only affects Survivors,” Sam said. “We can’t smell it.”

  “Oh, great. Another reason to love my supernose.”

  Sam grinned. “Supernose?”

  “My little brother calls it that. After I got home from the hospital, he used to like playing this game where I’d close my eyes and he’d bring me stuff to identify from the smell. He also took great pleasure in farting around me, the little sod.” Her smile disappeared and she pressed her lips together, looking down.

  Sam reached out and took her hand. “I think you have the perfect supernose.”

  It was cheesy, but it got her to smile again. Alex made a mental note to ask Sam how he did it. He switched off his engine and removed his helmet, Micah following suit.

  “I can’t hear any eaters,” Micah said.

  “Me neither. Sam, could you get off?” He followed Sam off his bike and opened his seat, shuffling the maps around until he found the correct one. Claire hopped off Micah’s bike and came to look at the map with Alex. He pointed at a small patch of trees marked on the paper. “I think we’re here. There’s that pub we just passed. So that makes us about half a mile away from Omnav.”

  “We should probably walk from here now anyway,” Micah said. “In case they hear us coming.”

  Claire looked around nervously. “But what if there are eaters? We can smell them.”

  “Claire,” Alex said, “it’s just about certain there will be eaters, probably a lot of them. But you don’t have to be here. We can find you somewhere to hide and come and get you afterwards.”

  She looked at the ground. “I don’t want to be on my own.”

  “I’ll stay with you.” Sam stuffed his hands into his pockets and smiled at Alex. “We all know I’d just be getting in the way anyway. You and Micah can go in there and save Hannah and the others and we’ll be waiting for you when you get back out.”

  Alex smiled. “You wouldn’t be getting in the way.”

  It was the truth, but he was nevertheless relieved Sam wouldn’t be coming with them. He didn’t want to have to worry about him while they were in Omnav. It was better this way.

  They returned to the isolated pub they’d passed a minute earlier. A quick check of the building revealed it to be empty.

  “We’ll be as fast as we can,” Alex said, “so stay hidden. And don’t get drunk.”

  “You sound like my mum,” Claire said.

  He turned to leave, then glanced back. “And the two of you had better behave yourselves.” He waggled a finger at them. “No funny business.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Is he always like this?”

  Sam shrugged as he studied his shoes, his face a vibrant shade of red.

  Alex turned away to hide his smile and joined Micah by the bikes in the car park at the front of the building.

  “They’ll be okay,” he said as he climbed onto his bike.

  “A nineteen year old girl and a twenty year old boy alone in a pub with alcohol, food and beds,” Micah said. “I’m sure they’ll find something to do.”

  . . .

  “I must be hallucinating. Please tell me I’m hallucinating.”

  Alex let out a long breath and lowered his chin onto his hand. “You’re not hallucinating.”

  Micah shuffled backwards on his stomach down the small rise and rolled onto his back in the grass. “How on earth are we going to get in?”

  “Maybe there’s a way through on the other side.” Even as he said it, Alex knew it was unlikely.

  He studied the scene below them. The headquarters of Omnav Industries was smaller than he was expecting, although still extensive. A large, ultra modern, three storey, blue glass and steel building with wings extending back on either side held the central focus, surrounded by landscaped grounds. OMNAV was spelled out in shiny, steel, six foot tall letters set into the lawn by the main entrance, next to a modern art sculpture that doubled as a water feature. The water running down its white marble curves indicated that, unlike the surrounding area, they had power.

  Behind the main structure, three single storey buildings surrounded a wide grassy courtyard planted with tall silver birch trees. To one side of the main building sat an almost empty car park. On the other, a large brick building fronted with two doors big enough to take a bus sat beyond an open area of tarmac which provided parking for three military transport vehicles, a smattering of smaller vehicles, a tank, and three black helicopters. Alex wondered if two of them were riddled with bullet holes. He hoped so.

  The whole area was surrounded by a ten foot tall solid steel fence, but that wasn’t the problem with gaining entrance. The problem was what was outside the fence.

  Surrounding the entire perimeter, like a moat around a castle, was an undulating river of eaters.

  In the same way they had gathered at the barriers in Sarcester what seemed like an age ago, the eaters stood close together, ripples of movement passing around the unbroken circle. Alex could hear their low moans from where he lay hidden, hundreds of feet away. They stood at least ten eaters deep, more in some places, numbering several thousand in total, surrounding the Omnav com
pound with an impenetrable barrier.

  Alex was grateful they’d passed a pharmacy on the way and broken in to get him some anti-histamine tablets. Without them, he would have been sneezing constantly. There was no doubt in his mind that whoever was inside was using the synthetic pheromones to control these eaters. They were being used as they’d intended, as a mindless army doing their bidding. Although the fact that there were, as far as Alex could see, no eaters inside the compound potentially spoke volumes for their confidence in their ability to control them.

  He moved back out of sight and rolled over onto his back next to Micah, staring up at the wispy clouds trailing across the brilliant blue sky overhead.

  “Nice day,” he said.

  “Yep.”

  “Warm for the time of year.”

  “Yep”

  “You ready to risk our lives yet again?”

  There was a pause. “Nope.”

  “Good. Let’s go.”

  . . .

  Various strategies were considered and discarded as Alex and Micah circled the outside of the compound, searching for a way in.

  Lead the eaters away while on a motorcycle: Too noisy. They were trying to sneak in.

  Lead the eaters away while on foot: Too risky. Neither of them wanted to be followed by thousands of single-minded eaters.

  Go under the eaters, through the sewer system: Yuck. Besides, the sewer system was too small to get through.

  Go over the eaters: Good idea. However, how they would accomplish that was problematic. Micah suggested a giant catapult. Alex said they’d call that plan Z.

  Fight their way through the eaters: Yeah, right.

  Distract the eaters somehow...

  Micah stared at the flock of sheep, a doubtful look on his face. “I’m really not sure you’ve thought this through.”

  Omnav’s headquarters weren’t actually in Sheffield. They lay to the south of the city, set amongst the rolling hills to the east of the Peak District national park and surrounded by farmland. In effect, it was in the middle of nowhere. Having decided to create some sort of distraction to draw the eaters away from the fence, they had to find something to do it. The idea came to Alex as they stood in a deserted farmyard, an open backed pickup truck parked next to the barn to their right and a field of contentedly grazing sheep to their left.

  “How hard can rounding up sheep be?” Alex said. “We only need a few.”

  “I’m fairly sure they can run fast,” Micah said. “It’s why farmers use sheepdogs instead of just running after them themselves.”

  “But in the absence of any sheepdogs, I’m sure we can do it. Surely we have enough brains between us to outwit a few sheep.”

  “I can see that statement coming back to haunt us.”

  Alex wandered over to some temporary metal fencing panels standing against the side of the barn. “We can make an enclosure up here near the gate, then get a few sheep into it and load them onto the truck. Easy.”

  Micah snorted. “Easy. Right.”

  “We are going up against the might of Omnav. We can handle a few sheep.”

  . . .

  “No!” Alex yelled. “Go that way!”

  “Which way?” Micah yelled back.

  “Away from me,” Alex shouted, waving both arms like he was guiding a plane in for landing. “We need to stop them getting through any gaps.”

  “There’s only two of us. All there is are gaps.”

  “We need to run back and forth like a sheepdog.”

  Micah stood still, planting his hands on his hips. “You run back and forth like a sheepdog, I’ll shout instructions. Does come by mean go left or right?”

  After setting up an enclosure and backing the truck up to the gate leading into the field, Alex and Micah were trying to round up the sheep. The extremely wary, ridiculously fast and remarkably cunning sheep. After ten minutes of tearing around the field, Alex and Micah were exhausted and the sheep were farther away from the gate than they had been when they started.

  “We need a better plan,” Micah said as he walked up to Alex, breathing heavily. “This is embarrassing.”

  Alex stared at the flock of sheep. They stared back at him. He could swear they were laughing.

  “Okay.” He thought for a few seconds. “I’ve seen dogs herd sheep on TV. They keep them together. They also lie down a lot.”

  “I could go for lying down right now.”

  “So...” He looked around the field. “If we could keep them against that hedge, and slowly and gently move them to the pen, then it might work. Plus, it means less running.”

  Micah blew out a breath. “Amen to the less running.”

  They split up and walked around behind the flock, slowly moving them along the hawthorn hedge splitting the field from the next. It worked, up to a point, that point being when the first ten or so sheep got into the enclosure and realised their mistake.

  “Don’t let them get out!” Micah shouted as the back end of the flock turned aside and tried to head back the way they’d come.

  Alex ran for the enclosure opening, throwing himself at the sheep inside to stop them from moving towards the entrance. Micah grabbed the piece of fencing they’d left aside as a gate and pushed the retreating sheep back into the pen.

  Chaos erupted. Trapped inside the enclosure, Alex was suddenly surrounded by panicked sheep trying to escape the small space. They jumped at the fencing, trying to get over the top. They jumped at each other. They jumped at him.

  Sheep may look like clouds on legs, but the moment one of them leapt at his chest, Alex found out they were really wool covered balls of muscle.

  He crashed backwards onto the muddy grass, trying to shield his face from flying hooves. Rolling onto his front, he scrambled to his feet, ran for the fence and dived over the top.

  He landed in a groaning heap at Micah’s feet.

  “Are you alright?”

  Alex sat up. “I hate sheep.”

  “But you’re such a natural with them.”

  With Alex out of the pen the sheep had calmed and they stood in a huddle against the far side, throwing him accusatory looks with their creepy eyes with the weird shaped pupils.

  Alex climbed to his feet and glared at them. “I have just one thing to say to you - mint sauce. And wool makes me itch.”

  Micah was smirking at him. “Oh yes, you are clearly the superior intellect when it comes to sheep.” His wrinkled his nose. “You smell terrible. What did you land in?”

  “I am painfully aware of how I smell.” He looked down at the stains on his clothing and tried not to think about what they were. “But on the plus side, after we get them into the truck, you’re going to smell just as bad.”

  Micah’s smirk disappeared. “Crap.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Let’s get it over with.” Micah walked towards the truck.

  “Wait. I’ve had a thought.”

  “You’ve really got to stop doing that.”

  “Haha. What I thought was, the eaters are attracted by smell as much as movement, so we really need the truck to smell like human, not like sheep.”

  Micah frowned at him. “I’m not going to like where this is going, am I?”

  “Urine.”

  “Sorry, what?”

  “I think you should piss in the truck.”

  Micah closed his eyes and shook his head. “And I’m guessing it has to be me because your urine smells different from mine.”

  “Actually I’m not sure about that. For obvious reasons, I’ve never checked. But to be on the safe side, yes, it has to be you. And anyway, I don’t need to go.”

  Micah heaved a sigh. “I am rapidly running out of dignity to lose.” He climbed back over the gate, then into the bed of the truck. “At least turn around,” he said, waving a hand at Alex.

  Alex snorted and turned away, staring across the field until the sound of the stream hitting the metal truck bed stopped. “Ready?”

  “As I’ll ever be. Le
t’s just get these sheep in.”

  It took them half an hour of chasing, catching and lifting to get the eleven sheep they had in the pen onto the truck. Half an hour of running, lunging, falling, being kicked and covered in dirt and worse. But finally, they were loaded up.

  “I bloody hate sheep,” Micah said. “I’m going to check the farmhouse. There must be a change of clothes and something to wash myself with in there somewhere.”

  “Hold on,” Alex said, sniffing the air.

  “What?” Micah’s eyes widened. “Oh, no. No. Don’t tell me I have to stay like this. Do not tell me that.”

  “You smell like sheep manure.”

  “I know that.”

  “You don’t smell like an uninfected person. If we have to go near any eaters, that will only be a good thing.”

  Micah huffed out a sigh and put his hands on his hips, staring across the field. “We live such a charmed life.”

  17

  They’d chosen a spot to the side of the Omnav compound, away from the guard hut at the main entrance and near to where the army vehicles were parked, which would hopefully afford them more cover once they got over the fence.

  Prior to their sheep adventure, Alex and Micah had watched the compound for half an hour for guard patrols inside the fence. They didn’t see one single person. Who needed guards when you had an army of eaters to keep the world out? There were, however, security cameras on the external walls, so they planned to go in at a blind spot, behind a couple of parked canvas topped trucks. Once the eaters started to move, however, it would only be a matter of time before someone came out to check what was going on. They would have to be quick.

  It wasn’t easy to push a truck a couple of hundred yards along an unsurfaced track through the woods to avoid being heard. Although it was easier than rounding up sheep. They left the pickup some way from where they planned on going in, pushing it to the edge of the undergrowth just shy of the mown, grassy area surrounding the compound.

  Once they were in position, Micah loosened the tarpaulin they’d fastened over the truck to hide the sheep and Alex lowered the tailgate. The sheep, not able to see out, stayed where they were.