The Alpha Plague (Book 6) Page 4

  Serj walked next to Vicky and she blocked any further progress with an arm across his chest. “Whatever’s happening over there,” she said in a whisper, “we need to make sure we’re gone before it becomes our problem. The diseased will get bored, or they’ll feed. Either way, they won’t stay in there forever.”

  Serj squinted as he looked across the way. “But what are they chasing? Maybe there’s someone in there that needs our help.”

  “And you think we can help them?”

  After a few more seconds of peering out of the shop, Serj shrugged and looked down at the ground. “No, I suppose not.”

  Dark from the lights no longer working, the store had been turned over, as Vicky had expected it to be. She checked the knife on her hip as she looked around the place. Shelving units had been toppled, some of the larger ones leaning up against the others like dominos yet to fall flat. They looked like they could crash down at any moment.

  Black tyre tracks marked the mauve floor from where motorbikes had been ridden through the place. It must have happened years ago, but Vicky still tensed at the sight of them and checked her knife again.

  As they padded through the shop, Vicky listened to the screams of the diseased outside. It fought for her attention, but she kept her focus on Serj and their surroundings. The diseased wouldn’t know about them if they kept a low profile.

  “You seem to know your way around,” Vicky said as she followed Serj’s quick pace.

  “I came out scavenging a few years back. We always had most of what we needed in Home, so I didn’t do it often. But I came out a few times. Once with Jessica. We weren’t together then and I was trying to impress her. I wanted to show her just how brave I could be. Also, it was about the only time we got to go out when Hugh wasn’t around. I should have listened to my gut then, eh?”

  What could Vicky say to that? She remained silent.

  The talk of Jessica changed Serj’s demeanor. He scowled and sped up as he moved through the shop. Vicky picked up her pace to keep up with him. They jumped obstructions, ducked a couple, and swerved across the littered floor as they both avoided making any loud noises.

  Once they got to the back of the store, Serj stopped, slipped his rucksack from his back, ripped the zip open on it, and pulled some door locks from the shelf in front of him.

  After he’d put several in, he held one up to Vicky. She took the packet to get a closer look. A cardboard back with a plastic sealed front, the heavy-duty lock weighed about the same as a bag of sugar. It had six keys in the pack too.

  “One key each and a spare,” Vicky said as she thought about Home’s five guards.

  “Exactly.” Serj took the lock back from Vicky and slipped it into his bag then did the zip up. “I’ve got eight locks in here.”

  “Eight?”

  “If anything goes wrong with me fitting one, I want to make sure I don’t have to come back.”

  A loud scream came from the McDonald’s, louder than all the others. Vicky’s heart jumped and she looked at Serj before she turned her attention to the front of the shop.

  “They sound like they’ve caught something.” Serj’s whisper carried through the dark space.

  “We need to hurry,” Vicky said.

  However, before she could move off, she heard a wet squelch. It sounded like a large pig eating slop. When Serj looked at Vicky, she pressed her finger to her lips.

  Serj nodded.

  Although she’d held onto her bow for the entire time, Vicky raised it again, pressing the stock into her shoulder. She checked her knife. She then took slow and deliberate steps toward the sound.

  Once she’d drawn close to a nearby shelving unit, the huge metal rack still upright, she peered around it and froze. On the ground just a couple of metres from her, hidden behind some of the store’s furniture, crouched the ravenous form of a diseased child eating a dead dog. Boy or girl, Vicky couldn’t tell. Most of them had lank, greasy hair now, and because it had its back to her, she had no idea of its gender. Not that it mattered. The diseased weren’t human anyway.

  A blank and glassy stare sat in the dead dog’s eyes. Its mouth lolled open and its pink tongue lay along the ground. Like a Komodo dragon consumed with its feast, the child seemed oblivious to them watching it.

  Another scream outside and Vicky jumped clean off the ground. Several slow breaths helped her find her composure again.

  Serj moved beside Vicky and raised his axe, but she shook her head at him. Instead, she shifted the crossbow until it sat as securely as she could get it into her shoulder and stared at the mass of greasy black hair on the back of the kid’s head. Nausea clamped her stomach tight. Diseased or not, she shouldn’t be killing children. A clench of her teeth and she pulled the trigger.

  Thwack! The bolt embedded in the back of the kid’s skull with a pop. It sent an explosion of red through the front of its face and against the white wall. The kid remained upright for a second before it slumped face first into the dead dog’s exposed intestines.

  For the next few moments Vicky panted as she stared down at it. She then stepped around the shelves, trying not to knock them. When she got to the dead and messy kid, her throat pinched as she started to heave from the stench. She tried to breathe through her mouth and pulled the bolt from the carnage. After she’d wiped it on the kid’s clothes, Vicky loaded it back into her crossbow, looked at the glisten of blood on its shaft, and said, “Right, let’s get the fuck out of here.”

  Vicky led the way from the shop this time, stopping at a display with shoelaces on it. She slipped one of her shoulders free from her rucksack’s strap, pulled it around her side, and tugged the zip open. After she’d stuffed several packs in, Serj said, “Why so many?”

  Vicky looked down at her boots and then Serj’s. The laces on both of them had seen better days, knotted in several places from where they’d snapped. “I’m sure we’re not the only ones that need them.” She stuffed more into her bag. “Also, when we have the keys to give out, I’ll want to tie mine around my neck. I know Flynn will need to too. He’ll lose it otherwise. Don’t tell him I said that though.”

  Serj laughed. When he fell quiet again, Vicky listened to the distant screams of the diseased in the McDonald’s outside. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

  Chapter Seven

  Once she’d stepped outside the shop, Vicky looked over at the McDonald’s again. The wind blew into her face as she stared across the abandoned high street. The sun had lowered in the cloudless blue sky, taking some of the day’s heat and leaving shadows behind. Maybe if the McDonald’s had windows, it would have been easier to ignore, but as she stood there and listened to the call of the diseased, she couldn’t deny she heard the scream of a child. It sounded like a little girl.

  Serj appeared next to her, his hand across his brow in a clear attempt to block out the low sun. “How are they still alive?”

  Vicky shrugged as she looked at the mosh pit of diseased inside the place. “Dunno. But I’ll be fucked if I’m going in there.”

  “You think we should leave them?”

  “You think we should go in? Have a look, Serj; we won’t last two minutes against that crowd. It would be suicide. Why risk our lives when theirs are already lost?”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “I’m prepared to make an educated guess. Besides, do you have a plan to rescue them?”

  Serj didn’t say anything; instead he moved along the line of shops closer to the packed McDonald’s. The rest of the town seemed abandoned, but Vicky checked about regardless and reached down to touch the knife on her hip. At least one of them had to be careful.

  An old fried chicken shop, a fish and chip shop, a coffee shop … as Vicky passed each one after Serj, she looked into the mess inside. They’d all been turned over and all of them seemed free of diseased.

  Another charity shop sat at the end of the row. The British Red Cross, it looked to have been mostly left alone. Not even
scavengers wanted the shit they tried to sell. What use were books and DVDs now?

  Serj got to the shop first and Vicky stepped up beside him a few seconds later. The place smelled of dust and rot. The wooden window frames looked to have collapsed a long time ago and flakes of the damp wood lay scattered on the ground.

  They had a clearer view of McDonald’s from where they stood and Vicky drew a sharp breath to see the source of the screaming child. What looked like a family of four had barricaded the stairs to the first floor. For now, it kept the diseased penned in on the lower level. Hard to tell from the distance, but it looked to her like a mum, dad, and two daughters. Although like she’d discovered with the dead kids, long hair didn’t denote gender anymore. Regardless, the youngest looked to be about ten, the other one about fourteen. Neither of them would see adulthood.

  “They must have raided the army surplus store,” Serj said. “Other than clothes, they have nothing left in there.”

  The entire family wore camouflaged gear. “Yeah, I’d say so too. I doubt they have any military experience. They look about as well trained as Hugh.”

  “Maybe they’ve been door kicking in Mogadishu too.”

  Vicky smiled for a second before she looked back at the McDonald’s. Hard to maintain her mirth with the sight in front of them.

  “We need to help them,” Serj said.

  “They’re all right,” Vicky replied. “They have the diseased contained.”

  At that moment, a large diseased man climbed over one of the tables the family was using as a barricade. The dad looked to have an axe like Serj, which he planted in the head of the creature before he threw it back over into the crowd trying to get to them.

  “You were saying?” Serj said.

  The mum abandoned the others and ran up the stairs. When she appeared at one of the windows on the first floor, Vicky grabbed a handful of Serj’s shirt and pulled him back.

  “What are you doing?” Serj asked.

  “That woman might have seen us.” Vicky checked the knife on her hip.

  “So what?”

  “So what? What if she starts screaming at us and alerts that mob to our presence? Look, Serj, I admire that you want to help people out, but you need to take your head out of your arse. We can’t beat that crowd.”

  When a female voice called out, Vicky’s stomach sank. “Hey, you! Please help us.”

  Vicky clamped her jaw shut and shook her head as she glared at Serj.

  “Please,” the woman called again.

  Serj stepped forward and Vicky grabbed him. Although taller than her, he cowered slightly in response to her growl. “Don’t make me fuck you up. You may be the leader of Home, but that means fuck all out here.”

  When Vicky heard voices out in the street, she encouraged Serj to step back with a gentle push and slowly poked her head around the corner. Where she’d expected the woman in McDonald’s to be looking at her, she found her looking the other way. A crowd of people—mostly men—walked down the street. They carried an array of handheld weapons from bats to machetes, and moved in a line like riot police. Maybe twenty of them, they would give most packs of diseased a good fight.

  Serj moved forward next to her and poked his head around the corner too. “I think they’ve found their saviours,” Vicky said.

  “You think?”

  “Either way, I ain’t fighting the diseased and them. You can if you like, but you’re on your own.”

  Without consulting Serj, Vicky moved away from the corner and ran in the direction of the road they’d entered the town on. She checked her knife at her hip as she looked into the shops again. The sooner they got away from the place, the better. Fuck knew who the people were, but she didn’t have much interest in finding out.

  Chapter Eight

  Vicky stood in line with the other guards as Serj addressed them, his voice echoing in the enclosed space of Home’s foyer. “You all have a key now.”

  Each gold key had been threaded on a shoelace. Better to give it to Flynn that way than single him out as the one who needed it around his neck like a ten-year-old would. He and Vicky still hadn’t spoken much.

  Serj walked along the line and handed them out one by one. When Vicky saw Flynn slip the key over his neck, she couldn’t help but smile.

  “It’s crazy that we’ve had to get some of the kids standing guard for hours so they can let us back in. Now we can do it ourselves. We also have a spare just in case.” Serj pointed at the key hanging from a nail on the wall. It hung close to the siren Hugh used to use when they kicked people out. They wouldn’t use that again. “That key mustn’t be removed.”

  Scoop snorted a laugh as she pulled her dreadlocks back and tied them into a ponytail. “Is that why it says ‘key must not be removed’ above it?”

  For the second time in quick succession, Vicky smiled. She liked Scoop; the woman had fire in her belly.

  A facetious grin and Serj continued to pace up and down in front of the five guards. “Any key goes missing and you need to tell me straight away. We can’t afford to let them get into the wrong hands. I have eight locks and I can put another one in. Replacing the lock is fine. I’d rather do that than have you feel too shy to tell me you’ve lost it and we get overrun by hostiles one night.”

  Maybe he hadn’t realised it, but Vicky had watched Serj deliver most of his speech to Flynn.

  “What?” Flynn said, “You think I’m going to lose a key because I’m young?”

  “I didn’t say that,” Serj replied.

  Flynn either didn’t hear him or didn’t care. “Jesus, Serj, I know how to look after a key. It’s not rocket science.”

  Normally on the receiving end of Flynn’s anger, Vicky remained silent and let them work it out.

  “I said, ‘I didn’t say that.’” A usually calm man, Serj’s face turned red as he stared at Flynn, daring him to carry on. If he needed to bite the young pup to get him back in line, he would.

  Flynn fell silent.

  If only Vicky had that control. Flynn would have gone at her all night were she Serj at that moment.

  “Also, if you’re the last of the guards to return home, make sure you bolt the door. But make sure you are the last guard home. I’d hate for the door to be locked with someone still outside.”

  All the while Serj had spoken, rain crashed against the two huge windows that flanked the main door. So much water fell from the sky it cascaded down the glass.

  “We’re going out today,” Serj said. “Vicky and I have something to show you.”

  Just the thought of it pulled Vicky’s stomach tight. What would they think when they saw it?

  “We’re going out in that?” Scoop said.

  A nod and Serj continued to pace up and down, his footsteps light against the hard floor. “It’s only a bit of rain. Do you all have weapons?”

  A glance down the line and Vicky saw that both Flynn and Piotr had baseball bats. Scoop had a hammer, Serj his axe, and Vicky pulled her crossbow from the harness on her back. She held it with both hands.

  “Okay,” Serj said, slipping the key in the lock and freeing it with a click, “let’s go.”

  “Meisha,” Scoop called out as she leaned down the stairs into the canteen.

  A few seconds later, Meisha appeared, her eyebrows raised in response to the shout.

  “We’re going out, sweetheart. Mama Bear loves you and I’ll be back soon, all right?”

  Meisha nodded but didn’t respond.

  Vicky and Serj had remained inside waiting for Scoop while Flynn and Piotr stepped out into the rain.

  After blowing her daughter a kiss, Scoop stepped outside into the downpour.

  Vicky and Serj looked at one another. They didn’t need to speak about it. The guards would see it all soon enough. A deep breath to settle her anxiety and Vicky followed the others out. God knew how they’d react when they got to the pen.

  Chapter Nine

  Despite being summer, the rain came down in sheets and
Vicky shivered against the breeze. Her clothes were already soaked and they clung to her as she walked through the field’s long grass. She’d got so wet her feet squelched in her boots. The familiar anxiety about rotting laces rose up in her and quickly dropped when she looked down at the new ones she’d put in. It would be months before she had to worry about them again.

  None of the group said much over the sound of the swishing grass and strong wind. When Vicky glanced at the others, each of them seemed locked in the same battle as her. Tense jaws, heavy scowls, raised shoulders, they all dipped their heads into the stinging and horizontal rain as they pushed on.

  Vicky opened her mouth as she walked. An old habit, she tasted the slightly muddy hint of the rain and quenched her thirst with it. When they’d been in the shipping containers, the rain had always been the freshest source of water. But she now had the filtration system at Home.

  Piotr finally spoke. It seemed for no other reason than for the sake of speaking. “It’s amazing how much has changed in such a short space of time.”

  The large Russian looked back at Home and Vicky did too. For the first time she looked at the closed front door and knew her fate didn’t depend on kids. Not that they’d ever fucked up, but giving anyone that power over her life made her uneasy.

  “To think,” Piotr said, “just a few weeks back we were panicking about food. We were trying to get things to grow in over-farmed soil, and Hugh had no idea about how we could improve it. I thought we’d run out. Jessica dying has forced so much change.”

  Vicky winced and watched the large Russian clamp his hand across his mouth. It muffled his words when he said, “I’m so sorry, Serj. I didn’t mean to mention her name or for it to sound that way.”

  “It’s fine,” Serj said, scowling as he looked away from the group. He offered a petulant, “I don’t care.”