The Alpha Plague (Book 6) Read online

  “Jesus, Stuart,” one of the other men—maybe Ben, but Vicky couldn’t remember his name—said. “How many times do you want to ask the same bloody questions? What do you want Vicky to say to you?”

  “I … I don’t know. I just thought she might have gone past the community on her travels and have more information. I’d like to know what we’re going into.”

  “Hell,” Ben said. “We’re going into hell.”

  Vicky stepped in to diffuse the situation. “I’d imagine she has about twenty still, Stuart. I haven’t been back since they trapped me, but from what I saw, the number of prisoners changes all the time. She kills some, she finds some more, she kills some …”

  Another rhino charge came from over Vicky’s right shoulder, which she avoided. As William shot past her, she said, “You need to get lighter on your feet. You ain’t sneaking up on anything if you move like that.” It didn’t help that he stank of sweat too, but she kept that to herself.

  Shame, anger, tiredness … whatever had set fire to William’s cheeks looked like it had taken root. A fury burned in his eyes.

  “You can go back against the wall now, William. And remember to work on your movement. I’ve no doubt you hit like a steam train, you just need to make sure you can move with enough stealth to land one of your punches.”

  As William found his place against the wall, Vicky looked over at Flynn and pulled a tight smile. The boy returned the same tense gesture. They’d not spoken since she’d moved him to his new room two days ago.

  The children lined up at the end, as they had done since Vicky started her meetings. She walked over to them and smiled at their chubby faces as she continued to address the room. “It’s been working well to take the children outside of Home. I think it’s important they understand what we’re up against from a young age. Who knows when they’ll need to fight. If they’re ready for it now, then hopefully it’ll save lives. Although I don’t think we should take them any farther than the solar panels at the moment.” If any of the residents ventured too far, they might find the pen of diseased. That would be a hard one to explain to the group. They hadn’t even told the other guards about it yet.

  When Vicky got near the corner of the room, she looked at the collection of spears resting there. The tip of each one—made from different types of scavenged metal—caught the light. The world had an abundance of cutlery, tin cans, and scraps of cars, so they’d taken everything they could find, sharpened them into points, and attached them to long, straight sticks. She picked up a particularly large one and looked down its length like she would a snooker cue. “This collection is coming along nicely. These spears could be the difference between life and death, so keep making them.”

  After she’d replaced the spear, Vicky looked along the line at the people. “Before we start training for the day, does anyone have any questions?”

  Everyone turned to look at Stuart. His pale face turned crimson and he shook his head.

  “Good,” Vicky said. “Serj and I will go to the local town later on today. We need to get a few supplies. We’re not taking requests, I’m afraid; we won’t be able to carry it all.”

  The glare from Flynn tugged on Vicky’s attention and she turned to look at the boy. He seemed pissed, like he expected to go out with them too.

  “Although we won’t be here, Scoop, Piotr, and Flynn will, and they’ll be able to help anyone who needs it.”

  Vicky clapped her hands together and the sound carried through the open space. “Right, well done, everyone. Keep up the good work and we’ll keep you informed of when we plan to attack Moira’s community.”

  Vicky then left the canteen and headed for her room. Covered in the sweat of the two guys she’d sparred with, she needed to shower and get some clean clothes on.

  Chapter Five

  “It’s hard to believe this used to be a road,” Vicky said to Serj as they walked, the long grass up to her waist. “Were it not for all these cars, it’d be impossible to tell.”

  Sweat glistened on Serj’s brow and he breathed heavily from their fast pace. “What I’d give to be able to drive a car into town now,” he said.

  The ruins of what used to be the local town stood on the horizon. Vicky squinted against the bright sun as she focused on the tall glassless tower that dominated the skyline. “I like to think of the days when cars queued on this road to get in and out of town,” she said.

  Serj’s dark hair danced in the strong wind and he squinted from where it lashed against his eyes. “You like to think of traffic jams?”

  “Life was simpler then, you know? We had our worries, sure, and maybe it didn’t feel simpler at the time, but hindsight being a wonderful thing and all that …”

  Shrugging, Serj pulled a tight-lipped smile.

  Vicky rolled her shoulders to help her crossbow sit more comfortably on her back. She reached down to touch the knife strapped to her belt. Paranoid she wouldn’t be able to grab it in an emergency, she’d already touched the handle for reassurance about fifty times in the past twenty minutes.

  “Do you ever worry about upsetting the people in Home?” Serj asked.

  It felt good to stretch her legs, and Vicky drew a deep breath of the fresh outside air before she responded. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, you know …” Serj cleared his throat.

  “No. What?”

  “You’re quite … direct. You don’t take any shit, which I admire, but don’t you worry it’s not good for morale?”

  “Fuck morale.”

  Serj flinched at the comment and then smiled. “See what I mean?”

  Vicky laughed. “Okay, maybe not fuck morale, but I’m more concerned about getting the people of Home ready to fight. If they resent me for it and survive, then so be it. If I go too easy on them, they’ll die. And more importantly, the people I love will die.”

  “Flynn, you mean?”

  “Of course. I’ll do anything to protect him. So if I need to ruffle a few feathers now to save lives in the future, then so be it. I’m not here to make friends. At least, not until Moira’s community has fallen.” Vicky checked her knife again.

  “But you still have to live with them.”

  The conversation faded away and Vicky listened to the sounds of nature around them. The caw of a crow, the swooshing of the long grass, the scuff of their boots as they walked over the hard road surface. They might not have been able to see it, and it had plenty of cracks running through it, but after being chased through uneven fields by the diseased, the ground definitely felt like a road.

  ***

  As they entered the town, Vicky looked up at the large round-fronted office block she’d seen from miles away. It looked as she remembered it … a framework of steel, smashed windows, abandoned desks, chairs, wastepaper baskets. A yellowed sheet of newspaper skittered across the road in front of them as they walked beneath an old railway bridge. For some reason the grass hadn’t pushed through the road as successfully here. Tufts sprouted through cracks, but on the whole, the roads remained usable. Not that she’d seen any working vehicles in a long time.

  To look up at the top of the building from the ground hurt the back of Vicky’s neck and made her dizzy. Desperation had driven her to hang from such a high spot when her and Hugh had been chased up there; nothing else would have brought that out in her.

  Several broken bodies lay on the ground in front of them. All of them had the look of twisted horror synonymous with the diseased. Rigor mortis had frozen their pained expressions as they cured in the sunshine.

  A look across at Serj and Vicky saw him taking the scene in. “It was here when I realised something was up with him.”

  “Who?” Serj said as he continued to study the bodies of the fallen.

  “Hugh.”

  When Serj pulled his axe from the harness on his back, Vicky did the same with her crossbow and checked she could reach her knife on her hip by touching the handle.

  “What is it?” Vicky aske
d Serj, her eyes stinging from refusing to blink as she scanned their surroundings.

  “Nothing. I just want to be ready.”

  Vicky eased her stance a little but kept her crossbow drawn.

  “With this building in the way,” Serj said as he pointed at the large office block, “it’s much harder to see if anything’s coming. Better to be prepared, eh?”

  Vicky nodded. “We got chased into that building,” she said. “A herd picked up our tail and we had nowhere else to go. We ended up on the top floor with a pack of them behind us.” She pointed at the diseased on the ground. “We managed to avoid some of them, but Hugh shit himself. He couldn’t keep it together and properly panicked. If he’d had any military training, he would have been able to cope with the pressure.”

  “He lost his head?”

  “And then some. The guy went to pieces. Door kicking in Mogadishu … what a fucking clown! How he got this far in this world, I don’t know.”

  “He had the keys to Home.” Clearly aggravated by the wind, which played havoc with Vicky’s hair too, Serj pulled his fringe from his eyes again and held it there as he looked at her, his axe still raised.

  “Yeah, I think you’re right. He gave it the big ‘I am’ behind a locked door, but I don’t think he would have survived any other way.”

  “I don’t think many of us would.”

  And he had a point. Vicky had probably been an exceptional case by surviving for years when so many would have fallen. They’d been lucky to find a shelter like Home. Had Vicky found it too, maybe she would be much softer for it.

  “I knew all along, you know?” Serj said.

  Vicky looked at him, his dark eyes pinching from where he winced against the elements. “Huh?”

  “About him and Jessica.” Serj spoke through clenched teeth. “I knew the filthy slut was fucking him. Everyone did. They treated me like a mug.” The Adam’s apple on his neck bobbed from gulping and his words wavered. “I’m glad they’re both gone. Fuck them. It’s a fresh start for me now and I’m not going to let anyone treat me like that again.”

  Although Vicky opened her mouth to respond, she didn’t get the words out. The scream—somewhere between a shriek and a roar—came into the town from the fields behind them. Serj’s eyes widened as her heart kicked.

  “Fuck!” Serj said and spun in the direction of the noise.

  “Whatever happens”—Vicky looked back underneath the railway bridge and saw nothing—“I ain’t going back in that building.”

  She didn’t need a response and Serj didn’t give her one. Instead, he ran down the road that forked around the left side of the building and Vicky followed.

  The diseased were too far away to have seen them, but maybe they’d picked up on their scent. Whatever drove the mob forward, Vicky and Serj needed to get out of there.

  They passed an old gallery, art in the windows that probably had some worth in the old world, then an old fried chicken shop; the image of a bearded man that looked like Santa remained intact even if a little bleached by the sun. They passed a pub on their left and Serj ducked down an alleyway next to it.

  The call of the diseased followed them. The blood-curdling sound turned Vicky’s tired legs weak as she ran on Serj’s heels. Two steps into the alley, her stomach sank. What the fuck had they just run into?

  Serj disappeared around to the right at the end of the alley.

  Before Vicky got there, she heard him say, “Fuck!”

  When Vicky rounded the corner, she looked up at the tall wall. It stood easily ten metres high. She fought for breath, the confined space giving an echo to her heavy respiration. “Fuck!”

  Serj moved back and forth in the enclosed space like a demented dog. He shook his head. “I’m sorry, Vicky. I’m so sorry. I’ve fucked up big time.”

  And he had, but what could she say? It would serve no purpose to have a go at him now.

  As the sounds of the diseased drew closer, Vicky inhaled a deep breath and raised her crossbow. She’d only jump out and use it when she had to. If she could reload quickly enough, maybe she’d take out a few before they got close. She touched the handle of her knife.

  The crossbow shook in Vicky’s grip, but she kept the stock against her shoulder, closed one eye, and looked down the barrel, ready to jump out.

  The stampede closed in on the alley. The group screamed and Vicky saw Serj jump in her peripheral vision. She spoke to him in a whisper while still looking down her crossbow. “They haven’t seen us yet, we’ll be fine.”

  The second she finished her assertion, the clumsy footsteps of what sounded like a solitary diseased entered the alleyway. Fortunately, the sound of the others thundered straight past. She looked at Serj, who raised his axe.

  A nasally, rattled, and rasping breath moved closer to them, but they remained out of its line of sight. The thing sounded like a bulldog with respiratory problems. Its gasps spoke of how far it had run to get to the town. But the rest hadn’t homed in on Vicky and Serj, so what the fuck were they hunting?

  By the time the beast had made it about halfway down the alley, Vicky’s breathing had leveled out. One bolt could end it. But could she get it off before the thing screamed? If the sound of footsteps had been anything to go by, the swarm of diseased in the town would end them within seconds. Whatever happened, the solitary fucker in the alley couldn’t be allowed to give them away.

  Vicky scraped her left shoulder against the brick wall as she leaned into it, watching the bend in the alley for the thing to appear.

  The clumsy steps drew closer.

  When the thing’s shadow preceded it, spreading across the ground as a dark oil spill, Vicky smelled the funk of rot. She swallowed a dry gulp, stale from the air being polluted by its presence, and waited for the diseased’s face so she could fire a bolt into it. One final inhale to steady her rampaging heart and she put a gentle squeeze on the bow’s trigger.

  Chapter Six

  The diseased’s breaths sounded like an old motorbike engine, stuttering and inconsistent as it shuffled closer to Vicky. She glanced at Serj once more, who continued to hold his axe aloft. The diseased had drawn so close now the cloying stench of rot damn near choked her. She clenched her jaw against its invasive probe and readied herself to release a bolt into its face.

  Vicky closed her left eye and continued to look down the barrel of her crossbow at the space she expected the thing to appear in.

  A loud scream shot through the city. A human scream, the sound of fear from a non-diseased. It flew through the streets and Vicky jumped. It took all her restraint to stop from pulling the crossbow’s trigger, her finger tensing on the small piece of metal.

  The beast—just centimetres from seeing them—screamed in response to the sound, its shrill call bouncing off the tight alley’s walls before it sprinted away. As the heavy footsteps retreated up the alleyway, Vicky let go of the tension in her upper body and lowered her weapon. But she couldn’t yet take her eyes from the space she’d expected it to appear in. She reached down to touch her knife strapped to her hip and watched just in case.

  After a few minutes, Vicky let go of a hard exhale and looked across at Serj. Paler than she’d ever seen him, he breathed quickly. “That was close!”

  “You’re telling me,” she said. “I feel sorry for the poor bastard who just screamed.”

  Serj nodded.

  Vicky sighed.

  ***

  A couple of minutes passed, during which time Vicky listened to the sound of the diseased in the town fade. Although she could still hear something. Maybe her imagination, it sounded like they hadn’t completely left the area. Probably just her imagination.

  Vicky checked her knife at her hip again, raised her crossbow, and led the way back up the alley. She paused after every step. They’d heard the diseased run away, but you could never be too careful in this new chaotic world. And if any of them found her and Serj in the alley, they’d be fucked. No room to fight and nowhere to run to. The
thought quickened her pulse.

  After her next step, Vicky screwed her nose up at the ammonia reek of urine. She looked at Serj; with his own nose ruffled, he seemed to also notice the smell. “It’s been a decade since people went out on the piss on the weekend and this alley still stinks of urine.”

  Serj shook his head. “Maybe it’s animals?”

  “I hope so, we could do with finding something to eat.”

  At the end of the alley, Vicky peered out and looked up and down what seemed to be an abandoned road. She pulled her head back in. “Looks clear.”

  That seemed to be good enough for Serj, who suddenly strode past Vicky out into the street. What a time to find his confidence! He led the way toward the old high street and Vicky followed.

  After a couple of steps, Serj broke into a jog and Vicky sped up to keep pace with him. She scanned their surroundings as she ran, peering into darkened buildings in case any diseased lay in wait.

  Once Serj reached a large abandoned shop, he slowed down. The kind of place that sold everything, the white writing on the sign above the door still displayed the shop’s name.

  “Wilkinson’s,” Vicky said, “I remember these places. When Woolworths went out of business, this lot sprang up everywhere. I wouldn’t mind betting all the hammers, axes, saws—in fact, anything of any use—are gone.”

  Serj shrugged. “Probably.”

  Glass dust covered the pavement outside the shop like glitter and sparkled in the strong sun.

  Serj walked toward the place and Vicky followed him. They stepped through the bent chrome frames of the front doors where a large sheet of glass had once been. Very few windows remained after ten chaotic years.

  Clearly less trodden than the pavement outside, the glass inside the shop still had some bite left and it crunched beneath Vicky’s steps, as popping candy would. She stopped, checked her knife, and looked back outside the shop one last time. Now that she’d moved slightly farther forward, she saw what had once been a McDonald’s across the way. A vast building on the corner, it had two floors. Like every other property in the area, it had no windows left. It made it easier to hear the diseased when they screamed from inside the place.