Collapse: Book four of Beyond These Walls - A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Thriller Read online

  Dear Mum and Dad,

  As much as I love you both, I don’t love our life and what’s become of our family since Nikki and Jaqueline have passed. It’s hard enough to think about working in laundry until retirement. It’s like you don’t see me. Like you both died with them. I get it, but I need something more. I can’t be a part of the sterile existence you two have accepted.

  I met a boy on national service who was bitten and didn’t turn. He’s being kept in the labs as a prisoner. They’re using him to run experiments on to see if they can find an antidote to the disease. I’m going to go to him and see if I can bust him out. He saved my life, which is how he got bitten, so I figure I owe it to him. It’s going to be risky, but what have I got to lose? Besides, it’s the right thing to do. I wouldn’t be here now were it not for him. He gave me a life, the least I can do is live it.

  I suppose if you see me again, then I’ve failed in what I’ve set out to do. If you don’t, I want to say goodbye. Try to focus on the people who are still alive, because you can’t have a relationship with the dead, or bring them back, as much as you might want to. There was a time when you both used to laugh and sing and dance. I’d like for you two to remember that. Not for my sake, but for your own. I’m going to be okay.

  So please don’t worry about me. There’s nothing here for me anymore, and I want to have one last try at happiness. I want a different future.

  I love you now and always.

  Your daughter,

  Olga

  xxx.

  Olga folded the letter, addressed it to her parents, and left it on her bed. She packed a small rucksack with as many changes of clothes as she could stuff into it. Who knew how long it would take her to assess the labs to work out what she needed to do to get into them. Who knew what would happen after that if she succeeded in busting Max out. They’d have to find a way out of Edin. There were too many ‘what ifs’, but she didn’t want the life in front of her. She had to act on that. Although, she had to be strong enough first. No use running away if her body couldn’t cope with the task.

  Olga dropped down into another round of press-ups.

  “Fifteen minutes until we leave for work,” Olga’s dad called through the house as if nothing had happened.

  “Forty-three …”

  Olga shook on the way back up, her left forearm aching. “Forty-four …”

  Sweat fell from her forehead to her bedroom floor, creating small circular patches slightly darker than the boards.

  “Forty-five … forty-six … forty-seven …” The strength returned to her forearm. She had it in her.

  “Forty-eight … forty-nine …” It had been fear holding her back.

  “Fifty.” Olga fell on her front, panting from the effort. She’d done it. As she sat up and looked first at her bag and then at the letter on her bed, she nodded to herself. Probably not the best time for her to make her move, but she couldn’t wait any longer. If she didn’t go now, she’d always find a reason to stay.

  Olga stood up and slipped on her backpack. She opened her window, letting in the sounds of the laundry district waking up for the day. It stood in stark contrast to the graveyard silence of her house. While swallowing the lump in her throat, she climbed from her window and dropped to the ground outside, pushing her window shut behind her. Sad, sure, but not guilty. She had nothing to feel guilty for. She couldn’t sink with her parents. She chose life.

  Maybe the consequences would be grave, but they were worth it. And she’d deal with them if they happened. Anything had to be better than staying—even prison or eviction. But it wouldn’t come to that. She’d reach Max and save him like he’d saved her. After one final look at her house, Olga turned her back on her family home for maybe the final time.

  No more than twenty feet away, Olga froze. The call of a diseased sent ice running down her spine, images from her time building the wall flashing through her mind. Blood … snapping jaws … bodies slamming into the living at full speed. She strained her ears and caught the wail of another one. Had they always been there? Did she only notice them now because of what she’d been through? After licking her finger and holding it up, she felt the coolness of the wind. It blew from a different direction to the shrieks, which came at her from the national service area. Maybe they were just extra loud today. What must the rookies be thinking as they headed out? Olga shrugged. Their problem, not hers. Fighting the diseased would probably be a hell of a lot easier than freeing Max.

  Chapter 6

  After two steps, William stopped. Matilda hadn’t yet moved. His back to the diseased’s stampede because he had to face her, he threw his arms up, shouting over the feral yell bearing down on them, “What are you doing?”

  Matilda hooked her thumb over her shoulder. “Shouldn’t we be going that way?”

  “Chupacabra’s dorm’s much closer.”

  While bouncing on the spot—his right foot on fire from sweat running into the cut on his sole—William waited for Matilda to make her mind up. Just before he shouted at her again, she ran for the dorm.

  Only then did William see Hugh had also waited. Were they both soft in the head? If they ran through the gates, the diseased would follow them. It took all of William’s resolve to refrain from looking at the frenzied mob behind him and keep his focus on the dorm. And a good job too. If he’d done that, he might have missed the pack appearing from around the side of Chupacabra’s hut. They fixed on William, Hugh, and Matilda with their crimson glares. Their jaws worked as if they could taste them in the air.

  Without breaking stride, Hugh said, “What do you want to do?”

  Another hellish call from behind, William fought against his heavy breaths. “What can we do? We need to get through them.”

  As Hugh raised his stick, William and Matilda did the same with their swords.

  The small group in front charged. It didn’t matter how many creatures William had already encountered, his legs threatened to buckle in the face of such a formidable foe. They attacked with no concern for their own safety. A hive mind of rage, they had just one objective: to eliminate humanity’s consciousness.

  Hugh ran ahead, reaching the diseased first. He took two down before William and Matilda caught up.

  William drove his sword through the chest of one of the beasts, pulling it out so the falling creature didn’t drag it from his grip. Matilda and Hugh went to work beside him in a flurry of hacking and slashing. William could hold his own, but even with just a stick, Hugh did more damage than he could hope to inflict on the beasts. The boy reminded him of Warrior as he played out a ballet of destruction, every swing done with purpose, each blow eliciting a deep crack or snap.

  Beside Hugh, Matilda turned the air red with the spray of claret, executing the creatures with almost the same efficiency as the short and stocky boy. It didn’t matter how well William fought, they fought better and they had it covered. Four diseased still on their feet from the group, all four of them were engaged with his friends.

  There must have been a hundred or more diseased closing in on them. They ran downhill, the slope giving them a momentum that turned them into a foetid avalanche of chaos.

  “I’ll get the dorm open,” William shouted and took off towards Chupacabra’s hut no more than twenty feet away.

  But the door didn’t budge. Another shove, it moved, but only a little this time. While clenching his jaw, sweat running into his eyes and his heart hammering, he barged the door again. It rattled. It had been locked from the inside. He banged against it. “Let us in.”

  Matilda and Hugh dispatched the diseased with unerring synchronicity, dropping the last two at exactly the same time before running at William with the larger pack of diseased breathing down their necks.

  Fighting the urge to kick the door from its hinges, William leaned his shoulder into it, opening a gap large enough to slide his sword through. He used the blade to knock the latch. As he fell into the dorm, Hugh and Matilda entered the place by leaping ove
r him.

  A strong grip wrapped around William’s collar and pulled him back, choking him and punching stars through his vision. As Hugh dragged him away, Matilda stepped forward, fighting the diseased in the doorway. Hugh jumped over William and slammed the door shut, forcing the creatures out and trapping Matilda’s blade. The weapon fell apart from the pinch.

  His back against the door, Hugh shook from the vibrations hammered against it as the diseased on the other side tried to beat their way in.

  William’s head spun as he got to his feet and led Matilda into the girls’ dorm.

  Like every other room, it had two sets of bunk beds. William ran to the closest one and dragged it away from the wall. Although Matilda moved as if to help him, he shooed her away with a flick of his head. “Get that one. We need as many out there as possible.”

  Back in the hall, William toppled the bed over, the large wooden frame slamming against the floor. Hugh shifted away at the last moment, and together they used it to block the door. Matilda appeared with her bed a second later.

  The hammering attack against the door shook through the bed frame while William pushed against it to prevent it from moving.

  “William!”

  Hugh and Matilda came at him with the other bunk bed. He jumped aside to let them throw it on top.

  Hard to trust the barricade would hold, William watched it while Matilda and Hugh ran to the boys’ dorm.

  Although the bunk beds still shifted from the impacts on the other side of the door, they held. They were heavy, their wooden frames thick. When Hugh and Matilda returned with a third and lifted it on top of the other two, the barrier became more resolute.

  Once they’d put the fourth and final bunk bed in place, they waited.

  After a few minutes, Matilda said, “They’re not getting through that.”

  William sighed. “Neither are we.”

  Hugh walked over to the swords on the wall and pulled one down. After tightening the bolts on it, he handed it to Matilda. “Sorry about your other one.”

  Despite already having a weapon, William abandoned his sword when Hugh handed him a new one, the metal clanging against the wooden floor. Like Matilda before him, he slipped it into the sheath on his back.

  His breathing levelled, the sweat drying on his forehead, William gulped. “We need to find water soon. I can’t keep going without having something to drink.”

  The attack continued against the door, forcing Hugh to shout so they could hear him. “We can’t keep going unless we find a way out of here.”

  Matilda dragged in a deep breath and said, “Hopefully—”

  Bang!

  All three of them spun around. It didn’t come from outside. “I’ve never seen one of those doors closed before,” William said.

  Hugh still had his sword in his grip and stepped closer to the team leader’s room. “No—”

  Bang! The door rattled in its frame.

  The ring of steel as Matilda unsheathed her weapon. “It’s definitely coming from in there, right?”

  Chaos still hammering against the door behind them, the next bang went off like an explosion in comparison. Gulping did nothing for William’s aching throat, but it helped him get his words out. “Yep, it’s definitely coming from there.” He too drew his sword and widened his stance. “I was wondering who locked the dorm. Now, who’s going to open it?”

  Chapter 7

  Two hours earlier

  Glad to leave a life in laundry behind her, but something took the edge off Olga’s sense of freedom. She’d made the correct choice, one hundred percent; whatever happened, she had to try to break Max out. She owed him. Maybe he would have done the same for her were the roles reversed. But what weighed on her as she walked away was just how easy she’d found it to leave. Had she belonged to a normal family—if such a thing existed—she might have been conflicted. But she only felt relief.

  There were about fifteen minutes before the residents of the laundry district needed to start work, but many of them were already in the streets. Olga walked down the main road, a criss-cross of washing lines above. Cleaning stations lined the middle of the wide thoroughfare. They were large stone basins with rough edges to run the garments against. Whenever a horse walked through laundry, they’d often try to drink the filthy water.

  By midday, washing would be hanging from the sky, damn near blocking out the sun, the air heady with the reek of damp. Olga’s hands would be puffy, wrinkled, and numb from the cold water. And they were entering the better half of the year for this kind of work, when the sun dried most of the washing. In the winter, every resident had a house filled with damp fabrics. On the plus side, they were given more wood than most districts on account of needing to keep their houses warm, but by the end of winter, nearly everyone had a hacking cough from living in such a damp atmosphere.

  “Olga!”

  The sound snapped Olga’s shoulders to her neck, but she didn’t turn around. She should have left earlier. Although she tried to ignore him, she heard the pat of his jogging steps as he ran to catch up before he jumped in front of her.

  Mark Stuck, a letch of a human being. Only a few years older than Olga, half a foot taller, and dirty everywhere but his hands. Maybe the work had given him an aversion to cleaning anything else. Despite his youth, he had the demeanour of an aging pervert: roving eyes, a grin filled with yellowed teeth, and he always spoke through heavy breaths as if he couldn’t control his lust. “Hey, I called your name.”

  “Did you?”

  Even though Olga dropped her head and walked away, he kept pace with her, swiping his greasy hair from his face. “Are you going to work?”

  “What do you think?”

  “Can I walk you there?”

  “Does it matter how I answer that?”

  The two of them walked in silence for a few seconds. Mark grinned like a moron. “What’s in the bag?”

  “Did I ask you to follow me today?”

  “Wow. I was only making conversation.”

  “And what if I don’t want to talk? Have you thought about that? Maybe my right to walk to work in silence is as important as your right to have a conversation with someone.”

  “So what’s in the bag?”

  Olga clenched her jaw and breathed through her nose.

  “Well?”

  “Lunch!”

  Mark laughed. “You planning on feeding everyone today?”

  Before Olga could tell him where to go, the cry of a diseased in the distance stopped her dead.

  For the first time since catching up to her, Mark’s smile fell. “You hear that too?”

  Were it anyone but Mark, she might have discussed it with them. Instead, Olga set off again.

  But Mark caught up with her. “I just thought it was a hangover from being on national service. I wondered if the screams this morning were some form of PTSD. National service was hard.”

  For the second time since he’d joined her, Olga stopped. “We’ve all been on national service.”

  “I know.”

  “You’re talking like you want sympathy from me. Like your experience was somehow harder than what everyone else has been through. Get over yourself, yeah? We’ve all done it, and while I don’t doubt it was difficult for you, you need to talk to someone who cares.”

  Mark tilted his head to one side and continued grinning at her. “Do you want to talk about your experience?”

  Another shriek called from beyond Edin’s walls.

  Mark tried again. “I’m here for you if you ever need me. You’re right; we have all been through it. Which is why we should talk about it.”

  When Mark reached across and held the back of Olga’s arm, she fought to suppress her shudder and growled at him, “Remove your hand before I snap it off and shove it up your arse.”

  Before he could say anything else, Olga ducked down a nearby alley between the houses in the residential area. She didn’t look back when he called after her, “You’re going the wr
ong way to get to work.”

  After rounding the first bend, Olga stopped and balled her fists. She watched where she’d just come from. If he followed, he’d lose his front teeth. She waited for about thirty seconds. Maybe the boy had taken the hint for the first time in his life.

  Each district had their own distinct look on the main streets, but when in amongst the houses in the tight alleyways, Olga could have been anywhere. A mess of wonky huts, some of them were pressed so close to one another she had to turn sideways to move between them. The place buzzed with domesticity: crying children, coughing adults, and general chatter; the banging and crashing of pots and pans.

  Like many other residential areas in the districts, a line of houses in laundry backed up against the walls between them and their neighbours. About fifteen feet tall, the wall blocking her access to tailoring stood high enough to be a deterrent for most people. Hell, with punishments as they were in Edin, they could have made it lower and still seen very few attempts made from adults trying to get from one district to another. To move between districts without permission meant eviction, and the city made sure everyone knew who’d been punished for that crime. But she’d made her mind up; even eviction would be better than the alternative.

  Olga walked with the tall wall on her right and the houses on her left. A quiet part of the city, very few people walked this way because it led nowhere.

  Up ahead, the alley pinched tighter where the back of one house ran close to the wall. The perfect spot. Olga quickened her pace. Then she saw the guard. “Dammit.”

  Olga’s heart hammered as she looked at the tall man with the baton on his hip.

  The guard stared back at her, his eyes tight slits in his angular face. His skin shock white, the sun reflected off his face like a mirror. His right hand went to his weapon, his brow wrinkling with his frown. Were his shoulders any wider, he would have had to turn sideways to move down the narrow walkway.