Reaction (Wildfire Chronicles Volume 6) Read online

  Ed thought there was a good chance that he had killed the man with the rock; certainly the way he had dropped to the ground said sack of meat as much as it said stunned human. Still, he couldn't shake the certainty that he had committed an even worse crime: knocking the old woman to the floor in his mother's kitchen before fleeing.

  Everything about Annie Holloway's demeanour suggested to Ed that such a personal slight would be met by severe recrimination.

  Please just let them keep us locked in the cells. Please...

  Ed's cell held four people. Alongside himself there was a woman who introduced herself with a kindly smile as Linda, and a frightened young girl by the name of Emma, who seemed to have taken John’s death particularly hard, and had sobbed softly until sleep finally silenced her. And in the corner opposite the one he had made his home sat the woman whose fierce eyes and burning intensity made him wonder if he might be better off with Annie Holloway after all.

  Rachel.

  When he had first met her, Rachel had seemed intimidating to Ed. Following her imprisonment, she became something more. She sat, hugging her knees and staring at the filthy stone floor, and rage seemed to leak from her incessantly until the atmosphere in the tiny cell felt thick and heavy with tension. To Ed it felt like being caged up with a rabid dog.

  Or a time bomb.

  Rachel hadn't spoken a word all night, and hadn't responded to Linda's attempts to engage her.

  Ed didn't know the full story, but he knew the big man that Annie Holloway had turned into a dog and kept on a leash was Rachel's brother, and he knew that John, who had seemed like the most confident guy Ed had ever met, had returned from the rescue mission with his hands tied and his throat waiting to be cut.

  Understanding only half of whatever-the-hell was going on was par for the course in the new world, and Ed cursed himself for ever leaving the safety of his mother's house. Isolation and starvation had frightened him, but after a night spent in the cramped cell chewing on dry bread and terror, he would have happily accepted being alone and hungry once more.

  Because if guys like John and Rachel’s enormous brother could end up so comprehensively fucked-over, Ed put his chances of remaining unscathed somewhere near the wrong side of none.

  The cell door unlocked suddenly with a loud clunk, and the door swung open, bathing the cell in cold morning sunlight.

  Ed's heart dropped.

  The smaller of Annie Holloway's two sons.

  Looking directly at him.

  "You," Bryn Holloway rasped with a sneer as he pointed a dirty finger straight at Ed.

  "Out."

  *

  The throne room.

  By the standards of most castles, it was probably a little underwhelming. The seat itself was no more than a wooden chair with a high back: ornately carved, sure, but a far cry from the sort of solid-gold-and-jewel-encrusted affairs that Michael typically might picture on hearing the word throne.

  The room was large—the largest in the castle—serving as what would once have been a general meeting chamber perhaps, or even a place of prayer: long, low wooden benches occupied the bulk of the floor space, lending the place the feel of a small cathedral.

  For Michael, it was simply the room in which he had first been able to see threat lurking in Darren Oliver’s eyes; burgeoning realisation that the man would do whatever it took to maintain his grip on the castle.

  It came as no surprise to Michael that the latest psychopath to take charge in the castle was to be found in the throne room: it seemed the ancient space exerted a gravitational pull over those who wanted to assert dominance over their peers. Maybe it had always been that way; maybe it was something inherent in the design of the room or, more likely, the people who inhabited it.

  Darren Oliver had at least had the humility—or perhaps just the foresight—not to position himself on the throne itself; not to broadcast his intentions so clearly. Yet when Michael wheeled his chair into the room, he found that Annie Holloway had no such reservations.

  She was to be the second maniac Michael would have a conversation with while entombed in the ancient wood and stone of Caernarfon Castle. One way or another, he decided when he saw her perched regally on the ancient seat, she would be the last.

  The old woman’s small, dark eyes didn’t leave Michael for a second as he wheeled himself toward her. Only when he came to a stop before the elevated throne that she sat on without a trace of irony did she look at her son, who followed a few paces behind the wheelchair.

  "That will be all, Rhys," she said. "Wait outside."

  Her voice was thin and almost tremulous; wrinkled and coarsened by age, but her sharp tone left no room for debate.

  Michael watched Annie carefully. Being left alone with a man whose friends she had just either taken hostage or had executed didn’t seem to bother her in the slightest.

  Michael expected that Rhys would argue that he should stay put, to protect his mother perhaps, but there was no response beyond an acquiescent grunt and footsteps that receded until the door closed with a soft thump. The man's entire demeanour had changed as soon as he entered the room and saw his mother there. All the bristling confidence that exuded from him had suddenly evaporated.

  Michael got the sense that leaving Annie’s presence was a source of relief for Rhys, and he felt his nerves tighten a little. Even the woman’s own sons—lunatics in their own right—were terrified of her.

  Michael couldn’t shake the feeling that Annie Holloway had been insane long before the world twisted to mirror her.

  "Michael, isn’t it?"

  Michael nodded.

  "I presume the others looked up to you."

  Michael blinked in surprise.

  "You had the gun, after all," Annie continued, when it became clear that Michael had no response to her words. "Interesting that they would let a man in a wheelchair have a gun, don’t you think?"

  Michael shrugged.

  "I assume I was allowed to have it because I was no threat to anybody. Even if I had decided I wanted to shoot someone, it’s not like I could just run away. I guess I was the one person that wouldn’t use the gun. Letting anyone else have it would have been more of a risk."

  Annie pondered that for a moment.

  "How did you end up in a wheelchair?"

  "Car accident," Michael said flatly. The old woman’s eyes drilled into Michael, searching for lies in his answer. He met her gaze evenly. Apparently satisfied, Annie nodded.

  "I suppose that’s one silver lining to come out of all this. No more people dying tragically in car accidents. Such a waste of young lives."

  She shook her head sadly.

  "In my experience, people tend to find ways to kill each other somehow," Michael said. "If not with cars, they just get a little more…creative."

  "And just what is your experience, Michael?"

  Michael forced a non-committal shrug.

  "I doubt it’s that dissimilar to yours. I was in South Wales when all this began, and then Aberystwyth, and now I'm here. The towns are different; the faces are different, but the people have remained the same. All killing each other instead of working together."

  "And yet none of them have killed you."

  Michael said nothing.

  "Despite your being something of an easy target."

  Aware that the old woman expected an answer to the question she hadn’t quite asked, Michael felt his mind begin to race.

  "I suppose it takes a certain kind of person to kill a paralysed man," he said finally. "Maybe I just haven’t met that kind of person yet."

  He tried to keep his voice parked in neutral; tried to avoid pressing the accelerator on that final syllable. Judging by the flicker of understanding that flashed across Annie’s eyes, he didn’t quite make it.

  "Maybe not," Annie said with a smirk. "You’re probably wondering why you’re not in a cell with all the others."

  Michael nodded slowly.

  "You could say that."

&
nbsp; "The thing is, Michael, that I meant exactly what I said. I’m not a monster. I have no wish to kill for the sake of killing; not at all. Your friend in the courtyard—the man who was leading this group, I presume?"

  Michael met Annie’s penetrating stare coolly and forced himself not to respond.

  "Well," Annie continued, "I’m afraid he was dangerous. No doubt you liked him, and no doubt he was good to all you people. Still, he turned up on my doorstep waving a gun. Threatened to kill me. Did his best to kill the poor soul who was protecting us. Letting him live was not an option. You understand?"

  Michael shrugged.

  "Believe it or not I actually do understand that," he said. "What I don’t understand is why you don’t just let us all go. You wanted the castle and you have it. However John offended you—and I’m sure he did; he could be…abrasive—well, you’ve dealt with that. Why keep us here?"

  For a moment a look of genuine confusion passed across Annie’s wrinkled features, as though Michael was a child asking a question with an obvious answer, something she hadn’t even thought it would occur to anybody to ask.

  "Despite what you or some of the people I’m with might assume, Michael, this castle isn’t of huge significance to me. I had a good place. It might not have had these walls, but it was secure enough. At least, it was safe from the Infected people. I took the castle—once your friend John had so kindly alerted me to its presence—because of what was inside the walls."

  It was Michael’s turn to look confused. Annie smiled benevolently.

  "I’m no businesswoman," she said, "but I do understand the principle of supply and demand. I’m sure a smart fellow like you does, too, though you may not have given much thought to it in light of the way things have changed recently. The less there is of something—oil, gold, whatever—the more valuable it becomes. You know what occurred to me as I watched my friends and neighbours tear each other apart Michael?"

  Michael shook his head, though a faint outline of an answer to her question had already begun to emerge in his mind.

  "People, Michael. All of a sudden, they’re in quite short supply, wouldn’t you say? I didn’t want the castle for its walls. I wanted it for the people hiding behind them."

  Chapter 4

  "Wh-where are you taking me?"

  Ed knew he shouldn't have asked, but sheer panic ripped the question from his throat. His answer, of course, was an open-palmed blow on the side of his head that made his eyes water and his ears ring.

  Bryn had tied Ed's hands together as soon as he had pulled him from the cell. He tied the knot expertly, tightly enough that it dug painfully into Ed's wrist and felt like it cut off the blood supply to his fingers. The man didn't even look down as he worked the rope; his eyes never left Ed's. Something about his stare felt worse than the rope biting into Ed's flesh.

  Bryn shoved him forward, and Ed fell to the ground. He heard the man chuckling and knew what the sound meant. Ed had pulled the same stunt once before, and it had ultimately resulted in his freedom. Bryn apparently hadn't forgotten being made a fool of.

  This time, when Ed stumbled to the ground, he wasn't hauled back to his feet to have his bonds cut away. Instead, a hefty kick to the ribs persuaded him that he should get up of his own accord.

  Ed's teachers had never described him as a fast learner; no one had. Turned out that learning was just a matter of motivation.

  He was learning quickly now. Information had a way of sticking in even his dope-addled mind when knowing something might just mean the difference between living and dying.

  He pushed himself upright, coughing out the dust he had inhaled after Bryn's boot had driven the air from his lungs. When Bryn prodded him forward once more, Ed watched his step carefully.

  Bryn guided him to the rear of the castle's main tower, and an unobtrusive door set deep into the wall that Ed hadn't even noticed before.

  When the man heaved the door open, and Ed saw steep, narrow steps leading down into thick darkness, and smelled damp air that felt like it had been trapped underground for many years, a dim flicker of understanding began to fire in Ed's mind, but he found himself unable to focus on it. Unable to focus on anything apart from one all-consuming word.

  Dungeon.

  *

  People.

  It was as simple as that. In the end the old woman differed to Darren Oliver only in the scope of her ambitions. Where he had wanted to draw people to the castle and keep only the ones that suited his needs, Annie Holloway was prepared to go out and get people. The only difference was the degree of power they sought. Darren wanted enough to preserve a life of authority and comfort for himself. Annie wanted it all.

  "Do you plan on staying here?" Michael asked.

  "I see no reason not to. Presumably the reason you had a signal fire on the tower was to bring people to you, and it worked, didn’t it?"

  Annie’s leathery face split in a wry grin.

  Michael grunted his acknowledgment.

  "So it will work just as well for me, I think. The more people I can gather, the better, if we are to have any chance of surviving the way the world is now. Someone has to be in charge, and though you might not like it, or any of the people in the cells for that matter, I think I would prefer that person to be me."

  For a moment Michael considered telling the old woman what Ed had said about Wylfa Power Station, but the satisfaction he would have found in bursting her little bubble would have been short-lived. The castle would soon enough see fire rain down on it; would see the air itself become toxic. If Michael failed in getting out of the place, he would die content in the knowledge that Annie and all her people would follow him from one Hell to the next in short order.

  "We’re in agreement about one thing at least," Michael said. "Survival is all that matters. I tried telling that to John, but he wasn’t exactly what you’d call a people person. He had no interest in gathering people together; in strength in numbers. I don’t much care who is in charge, as long as my daughter is safe. It’s not like I can protect her beyond these walls by myself."

  He fixed Annie with an earnest stare.

  "You’ll have my cooperation, and I’ll do my best to get everybody else to fall in line if and when you let them out. I ask only one thing in return."

  Annie seemed highly amused by the idea of Michael making demands.

  "Go on," she said.

  "There's a woman in the cells I'd like you to free. It will benefit you as much as me."

  "Oh?"

  "Her name is Linda. She's a doctor. I'm guessing you don't have one because the big guy you've got out there killing the Infected looks like he's got a lot of untreated wounds, and I'd say it won't be long before his own infections get to be too much for him. We have plenty of medication here, but unless you have a doctor that knows how to use it…"

  Michael shrugged.

  "We did have a doctor," Annie said thoughtfully, "but I’m afraid his attitude left a little to be desired and he is…no longer with us. In retrospect, that was, perhaps, a rash move on my part."

  It didn't take much for Michael to picture what Annie Holloway's version of an attitude adjustment might be.

  "Well, you do still have a doctor in the cells," Michael said carefully. "As far as I'm aware she had no particular allegiance to John, but of course, what you do with her is up to you."

  Annie stared at Michael for a long, heavy moment.

  "I'll consider letting your friend the doctor out next, though how soon that might be will depend on you. I must say, you are being very reasonable, Michael. Considering."

  Annie’s eyes glittered darkly.

  "But of course I am far too long in the tooth to take a man at his word. Especially a man who seems able to switch allegiances without batting an eyelid. I said you'd be given a chance to prove your loyalty, and you will. Right now."

  Michael's jaw dropped a little.

  "I thought-"

  "You thought that putting a nail through a dead man's f
oot and passing out some bread might do it?"

  Annie laughed. It was a mirthless, unsettling sound that set Michael's teeth on edge.

  "Afraid not. There's no loyalty without sacrifice, I think. And no sacrifice without pain."

  Annie sucked in a deep breath and yelled with as much power as her old lungs would allow.

  "Rhys?"

  Michael heard the door behind him opening and footsteps stalked toward his wheelchair.

  "Michael here is going to be our first volunteer. Isn't that nice? Soon he will be like a part of the family."

  Annie beamed at Michael, and he felt his gut begin to squirm.

  Chapter 5

  Dad must be on the battlements again.

  In Claire Evans’ brief time at the castle, whenever she hadn't been able to locate her father immediately, she had eventually found him up on the wall, usually staring blankly into space. Claire didn’t like the look on his face when she found him up there; it looked to her like he was staring at things that she could not see.

  When she had awoken on the cold stone floor to find the room empty, she had spent a few minutes assuming that she was locked inside the tower once more. Just like a princess in a fairytale, aside from the blood and the death and the constant terror.

  Yet when she finally worked up the courage to try the door she discovered that it swung open easily, and she peered out into the courtyard, hoping that nobody would spot her. What she saw outside surprised her.

  There were dozens of people in the castle now—Claire had watched them with wide eyes as they arrived in groups of eight or nine at a time—but the place actually looked more empty than it had previously. Of course a lot of people had been locked in the cells; all the people that Claire knew, in fact, but she found it strange that all the new people seemed content to hide in their rooms in the towers.

  Maybe they're locked in, too.

  Claire frowned, and stared up at the battlements. She couldn't see the wheelchair anywhere - usually if Dad made his way up to the wall alone, heaving himself up one step at a time, he left the chair at the base of the steps so he could easily return to it.