He found the place on the wall and slipped through into the white corridor. He hesitated again. He’d just spoken to a demon. He’d taken this whole mess in his stride. The zombies had been a challenge, a way to prove his worth and his intentions to his new-found God. Even the soldiers and the ladies in waiting had been no big deal. But he’d just spoken to a demon, a mythical creature that was ten feet tall and covered in red fur that did nothing to hide the massive dick hanging between its legs.
He’d very quickly got used to being the biggest man around. It had always been that way, except on the rare occasions he met up with those he did business with. And even them he turned his nose up at. But there was no denying there were beings here who were bigger than him, in every way. In every way. He ground his teeth and looked at his fists. He wasn’t helpless. The demon thought he was stupid, just like Luke did. That was their first and biggest mistake. When this was all done and he had his audience with God, he would drag the arrogant bastards before him and demand the truth.
The first door opened into an empty room that reminded him of a canteen. The second and third were locked. The fourth took his breath away. The corridor that lay beyond it was cavernous, far larger than should have been able to fit into the space. This was magic, trickery that until a week ago he’d have scoffed at and expected only from the weirdo nerds who played online games.
Now he felt it, like a cold wind on his skin that raised goosebumps all down his body. He crept into the passageway, cooling his anger for a moment. Both sides of the corridor had doors every few feet and he reached for the nearest handle with shaking hands. It opened silently and he peered in.
The room beyond was as small as the corridor was large and contained only a bed and a hospital machine. Tubes ran from it into the arm of the woman lying in the bed. Her gas mask obscured most of her face but her eyes were open and widened as she saw his face.
He pushed the door closed behind him, then knelt beside the bed and inspected the tubes. They were putting things in her. He sniffed. There was nothing in here, nothing to amuse the person lying prone. He could feel her eyes on him.
‘I’m Jackson.’
‘I don’t remember.’
‘What?’
‘Anything. Where am I?’
‘You’re in St Paul’s.’
‘What’s St Paul’s?’
He blinked and took her hand. It was utterly limp, lying in his like a piece of raw meat. It was faintly warm and dry and felt somehow inhuman. ‘How long have you been here?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t know anything.’
‘Can you feel my hand?’
He squeezed her hand and she winced. ‘I can feel that. Is that your hand?’
His eyes filled and he blinked the tears away. What had they done to her. ‘Why are you here?’
‘I don’t know.’
He turned away, standing abruptly before he crushed her hand. What had they done? His breathing quickened and he growled. Was there someone like her in every room? And why was she in here and the ladies in the tent outside? He paced across the room in two steps, and as he turned he noticed the chart hanging from the other side of her bed.
It was simple. It had a number, 24, and a blood type, O positive. It also had the following written in type.
Partial exposure, fifth day after P.
That was it. He could guess what it meant and, just like that, the mission had got tougher. Footsteps came from outside the room and he pressed his ear against the door. They stopped a little further up the corridor and he pictured them opening another of the rooms. Footsteps again followed by a soft click.
He pushed his door open and peered out. There was nothing there so he slipped into the corridor and tiptoed towards the sound. Murmuring reached him through one of the doors and he stopped beside it, holding his breath.
‘This one’s full exposure. Camera ready?’
‘Yep, that and the knife.’
‘God’s will, we won’t need it.’
‘Hah, God ain’t listening any more.’
‘That’s blasphemy, brother, and I’d thank you to keep it to yourself. God is always listening. He is testing our resolve and by the sounds of it, is right to do so.
‘How long till it stops being testing and starts being that he doesn’t care.’
‘Brother.’ The word was sharp and made Jackson jump. There was doubt. That’s where these guys were going wrong. The doubter should be strung up in the middle of the cathedral with a sign saying why he was there. Only way non-believers would ever truly change.
‘Right. Are we ready.’
A grunt was the only response and Jackson was moving before he had time to think about it. The door swung open easily enough and the scene beyond it was exactly as he’d imagined. The robed man stood frozen with his hand on the gas mask. The other man stood away from the bed, camera focused on the woman who stared from one to the other, blinking furiously. Jackson raised a hand, but as if in protest, the robed man yanked the gas mask down and off the woman’s face.
All three of them took a breath and waited. The woman took a shallow breath and then another. Nothing happened. The robed man’s face broke into a huge smile and he glared at the cameraman.
‘So you see, God has answered our prayers.’
Jackson’s heart leapt, not realising how badly he’d wanted to see the same thing. Then the smile froze on his face, a groan emerging from deep in his throat. The woman was changing. It happened horribly slowly. He looked away for a few moments, and when he looked back, he was unable to deny the pale sheen to her skin. Her eyes sunk equally sluggishly, as though her body fought the change.
Her eyes slid closed and her neck stiffened as the plague completed its work. He didn’t know how long she would lie still before she reawakened, but at this moment, she was dead. He stepped further into the room, pulling the knife from his belt. The camera man watched him without saying a word. Then he blinked and pulled a gun from his belt.
‘Stop. Don’t move.’
‘You need to kill her.’
‘We need to take blood and we can’t do that until she returns.’
‘She’s a bloody zombie.’
‘Right now, she’s dead. When she returns, we’ll take blood and then we’ll kill her. Until then, you don’t touch her.’
The robe nodded but moved away from him to stand behind the head board. His eyes twitched from the body on the bed to Jackson. ‘You’re Jackson. Etienne warned us you’d be back.’
‘He was right. First time for everything. What happened to her?’
‘She nearly survived. The plague’s potency is ending. She will, I think, be the last test to die in this way.’
‘In this way?’
‘The people in this corridor are ruined. The drugs we use to keep them immobile do irreversible damage. It doesn’t matter, we have no further use for them.’
His first thought was for the women in the tent outside. ‘What about the ladies in waiting?’
The robed man smiled. ‘We use other methods for them. It is why we keep them unconscious. They would be unfit for purpose were we to ruin their muscles. But those in here are not fit for childbirth. Some too old, some infertile, most not worthy. Like you, they are inherently worthless to our cause. Now, your presence here is unacceptable.’ He turned to the soldier. ‘If you will?’
The man raised his gun and Jackson saw his finger tighten on the trigger.
Krystal
The rough stone of the roof jarred her shoulder and scraped the skin as she fell. She slammed into the wall and the air rushed from her body. She wanted to scream, but a part of her knew the soldiers below would hear. She couldn’t make a sound, couldn’t give them away.
David’s hand was sweaty around hers. He was twisted, his side pressed against the window sill. His face was screwed up, teeth clenched together and lips pulled back in a grimace.
‘Don’t let go.’
His lips formed something close to a smile. ‘Wasn’t p
lanning on it.’
He looked like he wanted to say more, but all his energy was taken by her weight. His hand was slippery and her fingers moved. She whimpered and forced her legs to stop kicking. She stared at the wall in front of her. It looked smooth but in truth was rough and notched. She ran her hand over it until she found something approaching a hand hold and locked her fingers in it.
She lifted and took a little of her weight. David tightened his hand and the grip felt more secure. She dragged her feet down the wall, trying to push herself up, but succeeded only in pushing herself away. Her hand came loose from her hold and she swore. Sweat ran down her back.
‘You have to pull me up.’
No answer came and she glanced up. David was turning his body and the next moment his other hand emerged from the window, coming down to grab her wrist. ‘You’ll have to help me.’
She grabbed the wall tighter with her other hand. She pulled and David hauled on her wrist and she went up a foot. She flailed with her hand and succeeded in grabbing the wall again. She went up another foot and, with her outstretched hand, gripped the window ledge. She took more of her weight and David’s hand relaxed.
She wasn’t ready for it and dropped, a scream escaping her as she fell. He tightened his grip at the last moment and she jolted to a stop. Her heart battered her ribcage like a prizefighter taking shots at the punchbag and she panted, blood pulsing through her temples. She looked down and wished she hadn’t. It wasn’t that far, but it felt plenty high from up here.
She watched the floor, waiting for soldiers to appear outside the cathedral. Torches lit the walls in flickering pools of yellow, casting deep shadows around them. No soldiers emerged.
‘I can’t hold you much longer.’
She stiffened and felt one of his hands loosen on her wrist. Her heart sped up and she scrabbled on the wall until she could dig her fingers in. ‘Ready?’
Without waiting for a reply she hauled herself up. He tugged and once again she got hold of the window sill with her other hand. This time she gripped tight, but David didn’t relax his hold and between them they pulled until her chest went over the ledge. She rested against it, willing her breathing to slow.
It didn’t happen so she pulled herself over until she fell into the tiny corridor. She lay in a heap, hand still gripped in David’s, heart bashing in her chest like it had hammers and got paid double for the overtime. She raised her head to look at him and the smile that came back looked entirely sane.
‘Thanks.’
‘Hey, no worries.’
They took another pause and heard the soldiers. They were louder, shouting to one another below.
‘Shit, we need to go.’ Krystal twisted her body round until she was upright and stuck her head straight through the window.
‘You’re going out there again after that?’
‘Better idea?’
She was met with silence. She pulled herself out and up onto the roof. There was a moment when she clung on with only her hands, feet dangling in space, when her breath stopped and her mind went blank. She gripped with her fingers until they ached. But she wasn’t falling so she scrabbled and scrambled until she was on top of the roof.
David’s head appeared below her and he came up exactly the same way. He’d been watching her this time and made a far better go of it. He reached the same place as her, holding on with only his hands, when she realised he probably couldn’t pull himself up. She didn’t dare give him a hand, but lay flat on the roof and hauled on his leg until he got a foot up over the edge. The other followed it and he rolled over and sat up.
The roof was only slightly sloped, but was as narrow as the corridor below. Above it, the dome rose steeply away. She explored it for handholds but it was too smooth. They were trapped on less than a square metre of stone, directly above the soldiers. As they settled in, breathing finally calming, soldiers’ voices reached them through the windows.
‘They aren’t in here. I know every inch of this ruddy place and they aren’t here.’
‘Well, where then?’
‘They’ll be in the cavern. There’s plenty of hiding places round the walls. We light a few more torches and dig them out. They aren’t going anywhere, don’t sweat it.’
David let out a long breath that sounded horribly loud in the lull after the soldier’s reassurances. The men below were silent, boots no longer clicking on the stone, and Krystal glared at him. He scrunched up his eyes and managed to look apologetic and scared at the same time.
They stared at the edge of the roof between their feet and waited. Krystal took David’s hand and squeezed it and he glanced at her, looking green. Any moment. Any second now, they would ruin the entire plan and sentence Luke and the others to death. Any moment.
The soldiers’ boots clicked on the stone, growing fainter before fading altogether.
She held her breath for a while, not daring to hope they’d actually left. David glanced at his watch and shrugged and she disentangled her fingers from his, wiping the sweat off on her jeans. He put his face in his hands and his shoulders shook.
She could see the cavern and the front of the cathedral. The rest of it was hidden from view and she couldn’t help gasping when a soldier appeared far below them, a freshly-lit torch in hand. One by one they emerged and spread out around the cavern, walking until they were vague shapes made unearthly by the pull and play of the flames.
David touched her shoulder and pointed to the shelf at the top of the cavern. It was still far above their vantage point and at that moment three soldiers appeared atop it. She swore and shuffled around the dome. David followed until they were round the far side. Then she craned her neck and watched the soldiers descend into the cavern.
From the bottom of the steps they ran straight to the cathedral and inside. David’s voice was barely a whisper. ‘Luke’s told them about the machine.’
She nodded, not trusting herself to speak. She still didn’t quite believe soldiers weren’t waiting in the tiny corridor below for them to expose themselves. Minutes later the soldiers emerged and their voices rose up. ‘It’s true.’
One of the searchers was close enough to hear and came over. ‘What’s true?’
‘The guys we fought yesterday, you know, the freaks? They’ve disabled the machine.’
The searcher shook his head and his voice was louder when he answered. ‘We’re screwed, then.’
The first man, glaring at his companion, shook his own head vehemently. ‘No, we’re not. We’ve made a deal and we’ll get it back. Anyway, what’s wrong, are you scared of a few zombies?’
‘Course I bloody am. It’s not just a few, it’s the rest of the human sodding race.’
‘Not any more. We’re the human race now and don’t forget it. They mean nothing. They’re obstacles, fodder in the way of the new world, t—’
‘That’s as maybe. They’re still zombies and they still want to eat me and if we don’t have the machine, it doesn’t matter how many bloody guns we’ve got.’
The first man lowered his head as though he was searching on the floor for something. When his head came back up, the gun resting over his shoulder came with it. The thunder as it went off made her yelp and pull her knees in. She blinked as the doubting searcher crumpled to the floor of the cavern. He couldn’t have. Why had he done that? The soldier who had done the shooting glared at the others.
‘Anyone else not believe in what we’re doing here? Them upstairs may not like enforcing the Lord’s word, but that’s why we’re here. And I’ll enforce just as much as I see fit if anyone else wants to question the mission.’
The other soldiers turned away, resuming their search with added enthusiasm. The two soldiers who had come in with the shooter, whom Krystal assumed was a leader of some kind, looked suitably contrite, shifting back and forth and keeping their eyes on the ground. More conversation followed but too quiet for her to hear. Shortly, all three set off back to the steps.
Krystal watched them
go. The shooting had prevented them finding out what was happening in the cavern and she couldn’t quite believe their luck. But they were leaving at a pace and had already reached the steps.
David touched her shoulder. ‘I don’t like him.’
‘Yeah, he’s not the nicest guy, is he?’
‘What now?’
He was asking her again. Why was he asking her? She shrugged. ‘We wait, I guess. We could text but what happens if their phones have been stolen?’
‘We could text Jackson?’
‘Why? The guy’s a looney.’
‘You said that about me.’
She blushed. ‘Uh, yeah, sorry about that. And thanks again for the whole life-saving thing.’
‘No problem. Jackson saved my life. He didn’t have to. But he did.’
‘So what, what are you going say?’
David was already pulling his phone from his pocket. ‘I’ll just check in and see what he’s doing. Maybe he’s met the others.’
‘Or maybe he’s dead. Or maybe his phone’s been stolen and we’ll give ourselves away to the soldiers.’
‘At least we’ll know something.’
She hissed through her teeth. ‘Bad idea.’
He nodded but still started texting. She watched him, gripping her knees with her arms to stop herself grabbing the phone. She couldn’t do anything up here that would give them away. What was she even doing here? Why had she ever agreed to be left with David?
What was she doing here at all? Why had she been saved when the plague came? She knew it was down to Luke, to something he’d done. But why? What was she good for? She’d gone out in the hospital to prove what she was good for and only just escaped with her life. She was better at fighting than David, but she was better than him at just about everything as far as she could tell.
He had just saved her life, though. The thought rankled. She wasn’t beholden to anyone, hadn’t been for years. There was nothing that grated more than someone else having a hold over her. Ed did, but that was something that had happened organically and she’d chosen it, in a way. She could have walked away any time she liked.
Thirteen Roses Book Three: Beyond: A Paranormal Zombie Saga Page 12
