Wildfire Chronicles (Book 3): Psychosis Page 18

  As they talked, Michael focused on the countryside bisected by the snaking road: to the left, the sea. To the right, trees and farmland had given way to barren hills. He scanned for a familiar landmark as they closed in on Aberystwyth, and finally saw it: the ruins of Aberystwyth castle, destroyed hundreds of years earlier when civil war tore the country apart. They were close to their destination.

  Michael’s gut churned in apprehension.

  Staring as the ruins moved beyond his view, he found himself wondering just how far civilization had been set back by the actions of a tiny minority.

  And then the truck crested a final hill and the town hovered into view.

  Aberystwyth had been a town locked in silent battle with itself even before Project Wildfire had been unleashed upon it, and dramatically upped the stakes.

  Nestling against the Irish Sea, with empty rolling hills at its back, the town existed in immaculate isolation that pleased the locals and dismayed the students that made up almost half of the town’s population of twenty thousand. A town divided, simmering with stale resentment.

  Time itself battled in the town: modern buildings gathered around forbidding medieval architecture in the form of the University and the National Library of Wales. For the students that arrived each year from big cities to discover that their new home had a tiny shopping area, no cinemas and no real nightlife to speak of, the place was a culture shock. Finding out that the nearest place that did contain such essential amenities was at least sixty miles away simply gave that shock a more permanent edge. To them Aberystwyth existed alone at the edge of the world.

  The epicentre of the town was the small harbour lined with yachts around which pubs and restaurants and the town’s two small clubs clamoured to achieve ‘ocean view’ status.

  As John let the heavy vehicle roll down the hill and into the town, his foot lightly squeezing the brake to control the descent, Michael scrutinized the dark streets, hoping despite himself to see the place unharmed.

  It was immediately obvious that harm had been done to Aberystwyth. Near the centre of town a large fire looked to have all but burnt out, but had devastated a large part of the town’s small shopping district. He saw a couple of much smaller fires. Burning cars.

  There were cars everywhere, abandoned or crashed. An ambulance lay on its side as they neared the town’s borders, lights darkened, and the sight was somehow jarring, a stark reminder that the time of the ambulance was over. Probably for good.

  His wife’s flat wasn’t far from the burned area, close enough to the harbour that her presence on the fifth floor meant she could view a thin sliver of the sea from her living room window.

  “Left here,” Michael said, and John smoothly turned the big wheel.

  Getting closer was somehow like getting worse; like a sickness spreading through him. Looking at the dark, empty town, at the carnage on the streets, Michael knew that his little girl was gone. The notion sent tendrils of yawning black depression into every corner of his thoughts. He hadn’t considered about anything beyond getting to Claire, but Claire was dead. Had to be. Nausea swept through him.

  “Stop, stop here.” he said.

  John eased the lorry to a stop and winced a little as the air brakes blasted sharp noise into the night.

  “This is it?”

  “No,” Michael said. “I just…I can get a wheelchair from there.” He pointed to a small health centre.

  John’s brow furrowed.

  “Fine. I’ll get it,” he said after a moment’s pause, and popped his door open, slipping out of the cab without further debate.

  Michael watched him canter toward the doors, crouching low. He couldn’t tell John that he wasn’t sure he could go on and find what he knew was waiting for him in Aberystwyth. Wasn’t sure he could go on at all.

  Outside, he heard the muffled sound of glass breaking. In the gloom, Michael could just about make out John slipping into the building and out of sight, and was ashamed to find himself almost hoping for some catastrophe to intervene, anything that might delay him finding Claire dead, or worse. When John reappeared, carrying a foldaway wheelchair, Michael felt relieved and sick.

  “It’ll be okay. She’ll be alright.”

  Rachel squeezed his arm and smiled at him.

  Michael took a deep breath and nodded.

  *

  “That’s the place.”

  The small block of flats looked empty. Five floors. Nineteen residences. Elise Evans’ flat was located on the top floor.

  Externally at least, the building looked largely undamaged, though battle had certainly raged along the street outside. The remnants of a market lay scattered among the corpses that lined the road like gruesome street art.

  Staring up at the dark building as Jason hefted him out of the truck, and started to set him in his wheelchair, Michael felt nauseous. A deep, churning despair worked his nerves at the thought that he would never be able to make things right with his estranged wife. He’d always thought there would be time.

  “Wait,” Michael said, and flushed. “The elevator won’t work without electricity, we’ll have to take the stairs. Sorry.”

  “No problem, Mum,” Jason said thickly, and Michael blinked in confusion.

  Mum?

  Before he could frame a question, Michael was hoisted onto the big man’s back and Jason started toward the entrance, following behind John and Rachel.

  When they stepped into the building they saw the battle had indeed penetrated the walls: the doors to most flats stood open, some spattered with dark blood. There was a body on the third floor, awkwardly splayed across the stairs.

  With each step leading up, Michael felt the thin thread of optimism he’d clung to begin to fray.

  When they reached the top floor, Michael’s heart sank and bitter recrimination burned in his mind at the ridiculous hope he’d nurtured. The door to his ex-wife’s flat stood open, as had the others. There were signs of a struggle in the corridor. He knew the flat was empty before he was even able to see the stillness beyond the doorway.

  The feeling of desolation overwhelmed him, the hopeless despair pressing down on him; squeezing.

  And then the door behind him opened.

  Chapter 17

  It had been a full minute at least, and Michael still hadn’t been able to do anything other than smile mutely as tears made their way down his stunned face. Those sixty seconds had seen Claire burn through emotions like rocket fuel: crying, laughing, terrified, stunned; a torrent of feeling that flowed openly through her.

  She’s alive.

  Michael clutched his daughter to him in disbelief.

  Standing just behind her was a small boy, wide-eyed, looking like he might at any second burst if he didn’t blurt something out, and an elderly woman whose face was dimly familiar to Michael. It took him a moment to place her. Elise’s neighbour. She waved them into the flat, eyes widening as she saw the cuts and bruises, the weapons and the blood, and then closed the door firmly.

  Jason set Michael down on the couch and Claire maintained an iron hug on her father, like she expected him to slip from her grasp and somehow disappear.

  “Is your mother..?” Michael began softly, and saw the answer written in his daughter’s eyes.

  Claire buried her face in his chest, and sobbed, shaking her head. Michael felt her warm tears soaking through his sweater, and bottomless anger filled him as he imagined what she had been forced to witness.

  When the world had fallen apart, on that first day, Michael had chosen to try to do his duty as a police officer. He’d headed toward the chaos. It had been for nothing.

  I should have been here, he thought, and guilt flooded through him.

  Watching the man reunited with the daughter he had expected to find dead, John leaned toward Rachel.

  “They’ll be coming,” he said softly. “Staying still is not a good idea, not here. This place –“

  “Oh don’t worry Dear, they’re all gone,” Gwyneth inter
rupted with a smile.

  John stared at her.

  “Mrs Blake can feel them,” the young boy said quickly, and looked relieved to have finally spoken. “She was bitten, but she didn’t turn into one and now she can feel them!”

  John stared blankly at the boy, and then at Gwyneth.

  “It’s true,” she said with a soft shrug. “Not all the time. I can’t really control it, but after I was bitten I could sort of sense them out there, if I concentrate.”

  “What do they feel like?” Rachel asked, shooting a thoughtful glance at Jason.

  “Like an itch, physically. But it’s more like I can feel what they are feeling, and that sort of tells me how close they are. The stronger the feeling, the closer they are, I think.”

  “What are they feeling?”

  “Rage.”

  Gwyneth shuddered.

  “It’s not very pleasant. I try to suppress it whenever I can, but it’s difficult.”

  John shook his head a little in disbelief.

  “So they’re all gone. That makes sense. We saw as much coming here. But they’ll be coming back. That’s what they do. They’re drawn toward us no matter what. Can you feel that?”

  Gwyneth pursed her mouth.

  “No need for the tone, son,” she said, and squeezed her eyes shut, trying to focus.

  She shook her head.

  “I can’t feel them. They’re gone, miles away from here.”

  “For now,” John said, and turned to Rachel. “Come with me, I’ll need your help for this. And I don’t want you thinking I’ve run away again.”

  He grinned as Rachel scowled darkly.

  “Help with what?”

  *

  John’s plan was as simple as it was terrifying: enter every flat in the building, turn on the gas and wait upstairs with his lighter.

  “If they come and we’re still here, we blow the place. If we get moving first, this can be our distraction. Light a candle on the top floor and when the gas reaches it…”

  They had turned the entire building into a time bomb.

  “Now we just have to get out.”

  For a moment Michael stared at John, astonished. At the insanity of the plan; at the fact he and Rachel hadn’t even bothered to ask what anyone else thought before they implemented it.

  “We need to stop running,” he growled at them. “I’ve been running away in panic ever since this first started. All running is doing is putting us in harm’s way.”

  “No, you need to stop running, Michael,” John snapped. “Because your fucking legs don’t work and this reunion was always your goal. This is not my goal. I’ll stop running when I reach a place I think I can defend. This isn’t it.”

  Michael opened his mouth, and felt the angry reply catch in his throat. As he remembered the ruins of the castle he’d seen on the hill leading into Aberystwyth, an idea formed in his mind like smoke. Difficult to grasp, but he could see it, coalescing.

  “You’re right,” he said, and savoured John’s surprised expression. “But do you have any idea where such a place might be?”

  John glowered.

  “Well, you’re in luck. I do,” Michael said.

  He turned to Gwyneth.

  “What’s the quickest way to the harbour from here?”

  Gwyneth frowned.

  “First right, second left,” Pete chirped confidently, and beamed at Michael.

  “Light your candle, John,” Michael said. “And let’s get out of here.”

  *

  Gwyneth had protested at first. Had only given in eventually when she saw the tears filling Claire’s eyes at the prospect that the old woman would refuse to leave her home.

  When they emerged from the apartment block and into the night air, and she heard the distant sound of the Infected approaching and felt the familiar itch of their presence, she decided that running wasn’t such a bad option after all.

  The others were faster, and she puffed hard as her old legs struggled to keep up with them, gradually falling behind. She was surprised to find it was John, the one who acted like ex-military and reminded her of the way her husband had been all those decades earlier, who slowed to match her pace.

  “Better not suppress that itch in future. Sensing them is no good if you choose not to,” he panted with a reassuring grin, and Gwyneth snorted a laugh despite her aching lungs. The creatures would be closing on them, but they weren’t in sight yet. The group rounded the last bend on their short journey and the harbour loomed into view. There were around thirty small yachts and fishing boats gently nudging each other in the dark water. Very few looked big enough to accommodate them all.

  “That one,” Michael said, and pointed at the largest of them. It looked like a miniature replica of the sort of pleasure yachts that billionaires had flaunted in a previous world. It would have an engine in addition to the sails he saw curled up along the masts, and which he doubted any of them had any idea how to operate.

  The six of them rushed onto the boat, and John stooped to unwind the chain mooring it, while Rachel sprinted into the cabin.

  A few seconds later John heard the engine roar. And choke.

  And die.

  John paled, and shot a look up at the streets leading to the harbour. The noise of them was louder now, the humming; the thunder of their footsteps. They were close. Getting closer with every passing second.

  John rushed into the cabin and found Rachel staring at him in shock.

  “I think it’s got no fuel,” she said, her voice cracking.

  John glanced at the dials around the wheel; didn’t need to twist the ignition to know that she was right.

  Shit.

  He raced back out onto the deck, Rachel at his heels, just in time to see the first of the Infected entering the open harbour area, hurtling toward the water and the waiting boats. There was no time to run, nowhere for them to hide.

  “Push!” John screamed, and heaved against the dock. The boat lurched out a few inches. It wouldn’t be enough.

  The chaotic mass of death was a hundred yards away.

  Fifty.

  Rachel felt it happening before she saw it. Felt the movement as Jason leapt from the boat, and in an instant understood what he was doing.

  “Jason, no!” she half-screamed, half-sobbed.

  He turned to face the boat, and for just a fleeting moment, Rachel thought she saw her brother again, saw him struggling to find her through haunted eyes.

  “Sorry, Rach,” he said thickly, and placed his enormous hands on the side of the boat, pumping his powerful arms forward, casting the boat off into the harbour, the momentum he gave it moving the boat away from the wall foot by foot until a hint of current caught it and pulled it away.

  Rachel screamed wordlessly as she saw her baby brother turn to face the incoming horde, pulling out his trusted pipe-and-knife combination, and charging to meet them with a yell that sounded oddly like relief.

  For a second she saw his massive form swinging as the tide broke around him, and then the sight of him was lost, submerged in flesh, and Rachel screamed.

  When the things reached the harbour wall, they simply ploughed over the side and into the murky water, the waves caused by their impact pushing the boat away from the dock and out of reach.

  Only one made the leap across and caught the railing, pulling itself up onto the deck and charging Gwyneth to the floor with a crash before John tore it away from her and threw it into the sea, and then the time bomb they had left in the heart of Aberystwyth ticked down to zero and sent a pillar of fire into the night above the town with a roar like distant thunder.

  EPILOGUE

  Jake woke to the fresh scent of dawn approaching and the wet chill of the earth under his back. His misshapen muscles ached, as though he hadn’t used them in days. Feeling the creak of his bones as he flexed his arms, he guessed that might not be far from the truth.

  He remembered the running, and then nothing, like someone had simply whipped out his batte
ries and plunged him into darkness. He staggered to his feet, and gnawing pain in his stomach informed him that whatever he had become, he still had to eat. He wandered for a time then, stopping to drink deeply at a river, and finally spotting a deer that he was on before it could react, ripping chunks of the beast away and chewing thoughtfully, feeling his energy returning slowly with each bite, as if the meat were petrol being poured into an empty tank.

  Jake sat heavily on the grass and glanced around, trying in vain to pinpoint his location.

  Trees swaying softly in the breeze that carried the morning toward him. Hills in the distance.

  He hadn’t gone far, was most likely still in Northumberland, though he could not be sure. When he had eaten his fill, he tossed the carcass to one side and cocked his head, feeling the strange rush of power surge through his deformed body.

  He could feel them out there, shambling around; flawed prototypes to his finished article. Different to the way the humans felt somehow. The presence of the Infected in his mind was an outrage that he would not tolerate. All would die. Human and Infected alike. Eyes narrowing, he focused his thoughts on recognising the itch of their presence in his brain; concentrating.

  And then he felt something strange in the far-off distance, something that drew his attention like a magnet: a strange pulse of energy that made the new sense he didn’t quite understand ripple in recognition. It lasted for a moment, and then was gone, leaving an echo of a feeling reverberating in his head. Not the Infected. Not human, exactly, either.

  Whatever it was, it was aware of him, scanning him like an x-ray machine.

  His leapt to his feet, facing south, eyes narrowing.

  *

  It took a long time for the lapping waves to pull the boat out into the Irish Sea and away from Aberystwyth, longer still for the glow of the fire in the night sky to finally fade as sunlight crept over the horizon to the east.

  None of them talked for a long time. Rachel sobbed a while, and didn’t shrug off the comforting hug that Claire gave her, but her eyes remained fixed on the deck, and Michael thought he saw rage cloaked in her gaze. His heart ached for Rachel even as he made a mental note that he’d have to keep an eye on her.