Wildfire Chronicles (Book 3): Psychosis Read online

  “Timebombs, all around us,” Michael said, the full horror of understanding breaking across his mind like a stormy dawn.

  “And no cigarettes. How much do any of us know about…well…anything?” Rachel said. “I know how to put together a PowerPoint presentation, I know how to fetch tea and coffee for men in suits, I know how to fax. I know how to email. I can order stationary and take minutes of meetings. From the looks of things, pretty much everything I know is obsolete.”

  “You know why they rip their eyes out?”

  Jason’s voice. They all stared at him, startled. He was, apparently, a few minutes behind the conversation.

  “Uh, because they are insane animals?” Rachel said.

  “Maybe,” Jason said. “Or maybe they’re not. Maybe the person they used to be is still in there somewhere, trapped, struggling to make it back. Maybe they rip their eyes out because they don’t want to see.”

  *

  “He has to avoid stress, the medication can’t work miracles.”

  That had been the phrase Alex remembered most from the time before things went wrong, when the careful routine they all employed to keep him placid and anchored to reality fell apart. His stability had relied on that routine. When one of the nurses, Robert, had screwed up Alex’s medication, Dr Jackson had unloaded both barrels of her ire on him. Stable medication, stable environment.

  Stepping out of the car and into Rothbury represented a serious deviation from routine. Hell had descended on the town. It looked like the scene of a historical battle re-enactment in which real weapons had been used.

  He opened his door, nudging aside what looked like a mess of intestines on the floor outside, and stepped onto the street. He could smell it now, the overpowering stench of blood and shit. He almost thought he could smell the fear in the air, the terror these people must have felt as their sanitised, civilized lives ended in blood and fire. He felt it under his boots, the slick, slippery cobbles awash with death.

  “The whole town is dead.”

  Deborah’s voice did its best not to convey the unravelling of her mind; failed.

  Alex nodded wordlessly, scanning the streets. Smashed windows, burnt-out cars, smouldering buildings. A riot? The thought seemed ludicrous: even if the population of Rothbury, elderly and middle class, were capable of feeling strongly about anything beyond their gardens and their Sunday dinners, who the hell riots like this?

  No explanation that made its way into Alex’s stunned mind sat right, all the options seemingly impossible: terrorism, disease, some fucked-up accident.

  “Where are the authorities?” he whispered to Deborah. “There’s no one here. How can something like this happen to a town like Rothbury and there’s no one here? There should be choppers everywhere, media. Something. The place is dead.”

  He hadn’t intended the pun, and he saw her bite her lip and squirmed a little.

  He made the connection just as Deborah opened her mouth, not quite in time to stop her.

  This hasn’t happened to Rothbury. This is happening to Rothbury.

  “Hello?” Deborah cried out.

  Alex’s mind froze in horror, and he could almost feel the cracks spreading through it; the fracturing in his thoughts.

  For half a second, her voice reverberated off the cobbles and the stone walls lining the narrow street. It wasn’t long enough for Alex to think anything other she had almost certainly signed their death warrants.

  It began with a shattering and a crack. The former provided by a figure hurling itself from a third floor window further down the street; the latter the inevitable result: the figure’s legs snapping as it met the concrete.

  Alex watched, stunned, as the world became a stop-motion animation: the figure, apparently oblivious to its shattered bones, hauling itself up on the remains of its knees, dragging itself toward them at unbelievable pace, moving like some terrible insect, shrieking.

  No eyes, Alex thought, and then there was movement everywhere, figures bursting from the windows and walls of the buildings lining the street, erupting from side streets and doorways; a volcano spewing a pyroclastic flow of blood and flesh and death toward them.

  Slipping on the gore on the street, Alex leapt back into the car, and then Deborah was in the driver seat, and the engine was roaring as she reversed at speed. The horrific pack charging toward them began to recede as the car shot backwards, and then Deborah was spinning the wheel and the view in the windscreen was spinning; terrifying, and the car lurched dangerously.

  For a moment Alex felt the wheels below him lifting, escaping the grip of the ground, and a view of the road filled the passenger window beside him, and then the wheels were back down, biting into the concrete, and the car rocketed forward.

  Deborah swerved past a couple of them, delivering glancing blows with the car’s side panels, shearing off a wing mirror, and then they were clear of Rothbury, accelerating back up the hill.

  When they reached the small parking area they had stopped at earlier, Deborah hit the brakes and the car screeched and stuttered to a halt. She was gasping for air, trying desperately to suppress the panic that threatened to shake the fixtures of her mind loose.

  She looked back at the burning town, and cried out. The citizens of Rothbury, those that remained after the apocalypse took their town, had all suddenly been united in a single purpose: there were maybe two hundred of them, a rampaging pack, sprinting as one, leaving the town.

  Chasing them.

  Deborah screamed and stamped on the accelerator and the engine howled with her. Both were still screaming when the vehicle rocketed into a bend that all the citizens of Rothbury knew was temperamental even at 40 mph, and the bend refused to yield, sending the car sliding from the road, ricocheting from a tree, and Alex’s world went dark.

  Chapter 4

  Rough, hairy hands bundled her through a doorway and out of the darkened main part of the basement into another room outlined in the soft glow of a fat candle, slamming the heavy door shut, sealing the room off.

  It stank in varying degrees of awful: something stale and vinegary, and Claire smelled the thick, cloying odour of the man’s sweaty body. There was a thin, dirty mattress on the floor, and he shoved her down onto it.

  “Shhhhhh.”

  Wide-eyed, she shrank as the tall figure loomed over her, feeling like there was a pretty good chance she was going to wet herself.

  The man put a thick, filthy finger to his lips and cocked an ear to listen, never taking his piercing eyes off her. The wild grey eyebrows that drooped over them made him look furious and intimidating. Claire drew her legs up to her chest.

  Eventually, he took the finger from his lips, and his rigid stance eased.

  “They haven’t followed you,” he said in a low, gruff whisper. “Could be upstairs, I suppose, but the bastards will have a job getting down here.”

  He beamed, and then held up his hands in apology.

  “Pardon my French. You alone?”

  Claire nodded, her eyes wide.

  “Now, now, you can turn the volume down on them peepers young lady, I ain’t gonna hurt you. ‘Course, I probably ain’t gonna help you much neither, ‘less you also came to the conclusion that the correct course of action in the situation we find ourselves in was to drink your way through these here barrels. And if you did kudos to you, and if you brought a corkscrew with you then you planned a sight better ‘n I did!”

  He beamed, apparently oblivious to Claire’s confused look.

  “Did you?”

  Claire shook her head.

  “Bugger and blast. Well, we all make mistakes, just a shame we both made the same one, eh?”

  Claire couldn’t think of an appropriate response, and settled for changing the subject.

  “Do you…live here, uh, Sir?”

  “Sir!” The old man guffawed, and delivered a salute.

  “Name’s William, but Bill will do. And no I do not live here. Well, I suppose maybe I do now. Hmmm.”

/>   Claire looked at him expectantly, nodding encouragement when it became clear that he considered that a good spot to stop talking.

  “Oh,” he said, as if surprised, “I came down here to get away from up there, same as you, I expect. Town’s gone a little bit nuts after all.”

  “Didn’t you want to run?”

  “Hah! I ain’t run for nothing in twenty years child, not since my wife passed. Now there was a woman worth chasing, if you know what I mean.”

  He leaned close and gave her a knowing wink.

  Claire didn’t have the faintest idea what he meant, but nodded solemnly in any case.

  “And where would I run anyway? If there were anywhere left out there, they would be here, and asking just what the hell is wrong with Aberystwyth.”

  He chuckled.

  “So you decided to just…stay here?” Claire looked around the small room, wrinkling her nose.

  “And what’s wrong with here? As good a place as any and better than most I’d say. Strong walls, no windows, a door that locks and enough booze to keep an army fighting.”

  Claire looked at the damp walls, her expression dubious.

  “Why?” the old man said, suddenly curious. “You got somewhere better? Because I must admit, pissing up against that wall over there ain’t exactly a long term solution. And a little food with this beer wouldn’t go amiss. Well, then, let’s go!”

  He grabbed the deadbolt and slid it back, pulling on the door. Claire grabbed him.

  “Wait, wait, go where?”

  Confusion passed under the bushy eyebrows.

  “This place of yours, of course. I’m starving!”

  “I don’t have a place,” Claire said hurriedly, “I just meant, there has to be somewhere better than this, isn’t there?”

  The old man shut the door and slid the bolt across, looking a little dejected.

  “I didn’t think there were many places better ‘n this establishment before the world went to shit young lady. Now I know there aren’t.

  “Pardon my French.”

  *

  To go forward, we have to go back. Michael was dubious about John’s reasoning, while Jason, having re-entered his shell, apparently didn’t care either way. It was Rachel who backed John’s proposal.

  The car was maybe a mile or so back through the trees and, presuming nobody else had discovered it, was still loaded with all the supplies they had left when they abandoned it. There would be some weapons – blades mostly, ammunition for their only gun, which no one seemed to mind Michael hanging on to, food, clothing. Michael had given John the T-shirt he had used for a pillow the night before, but that simply preserved modesty. The thin fabric, damp from a night spent on the ground, did nothing to keep the chill wind at bay.

  When he had heard about the car, John had immediately suggested they use it, but both Michael and Rachel had shaken their heads firmly. The creatures had no qualms about flinging their bodies in front of the car; they would inevitably do so in large enough numbers to cause a crash. After that, the situation would be well out of their control.

  They had to walk. And so they needed supplies. Rachel saw the logic of it, and Michael, after the pause for thought that Rachel was becoming familiar with, acquiesced.

  John couldn’t help but be impressed by her demeanour. Rachel appeared to be taking everything in her stride, and making logical, rational decisions. It was gratifying, and as he thought about it, he had the nagging sensation that his memories were trying to communicate with him, that something about following her lead was relevant.

  He willed his mind to open up, conjuring up visions of the military, but all he got was stock footage; nothing personal resurfaced. Maybe the crippled guy, Michael, was wrong about him. Maybe he hadn’t been in the army at all. Frustration overwhelmed him.

  They moved silently through the trees, Jason again carrying Michael, who acted as lookout, scanning the foliage to the side and behind them, giving them a good chance of spotting any potential attack before it happened. The walk was uneventful, but eerie: every twig snapped and bush rustled forcing them to pause, straining their ears, listening for the sound of approach.

  Finally they were clear of the trees, and on the road. They could see the car in the distance.

  The vehicle was just as they had left it, and the discussion about whether they should use it or not was immediately rendered moot: even if the gore drenching the front grille hadn’t proved fatal to the engine, the headlights had been left on and the battery had died peacefully in the night.

  “Looks like we’re walking,” John said, and flushed as his eyes landed on Michael, sitting propped up against the car, his useless legs extended, acting in his now-familiar role as lookout.

  Michael waved away his blushes with an easy grin.

  “Hey, I’ve got it pretty easy here. As long as the big man is happy to keep carting me around?”

  Jason nodded without looking up, his attention focused on rifling through the various items they had stuffed into the car before leaving St. Davids. There was some more food, a few bottles of water, torches, batteries. He lifted a baseball bat, handing it to Rachel, who slid it between the straps of her backpack, sheathing it like a sword. They all had small hunting knives now, supplemented by blunt objects. It was the best they could do. Michael still carried the rifle, and had around fifty rounds. He hadn’t fired a gun in his life, but he would learn fast if the need arose.

  “Cars are a bad idea anyway,” Rachel muttered. “Twice we’ve tried, twice we’ve crashed. Makes too much noise, draws them in like a magnet.”

  “What about a hybrid?” John asked. “They are pretty much silent, right?”

  “You got a hybrid?” Rachel asked with a sly grin. John shook his head, feeling his cheeks start to burn once more.

  “Then we’re walking.”

  They set off, keeping to the centre of the road, moving with as little noise as possible, searching the landscape for movement, frayed nerves jangling at the prospect of violence that hung in the air under gathering black clouds.

  *

  Alex had woken to the same sight every day for three years: the surgical white emptiness of his cell. They liked to euphemistically call them ‘rooms’ at Moorcroft Hospital, but none of the residents were under any illusions. If the door locks at a certain time, it’s a cell.

  Waking to see Dr Jackson’s face hovering over his, full of concern and with a forehead smeared with blood, was jarring; for a moment he thought he must still be asleep.

  “Alex, Alex.”

  Her voice sounded thick, sludgy. No, not her voice. His ears. Full of blood.

  She shook his shoulder urgently.

  The events of the day came rushing back, and he tried to get up, grunting as the seatbelt dug painfully into his chest. The doctor was backing out of the mangled car, and he struggled with the clasp for a moment, finally succeeding in freeing himself. His door was stuck, but the window was smashed, so he hauled himself through the opening and quickly checked himself for injury. His ribs hurt like hell – the seatbelt, he supposed - but other than that and a deep gash on his temple, he seemed to be okay.

  Deborah looked in better condition. She had a matching cut on her head, but she moved freely enough.

  “They’re coming, they’re coming, we have to go,” she said, and the hysteria in her voice made his teeth itch. He glanced back at the road that had betrayed them. Empty. Surely the things wouldn’t keep chasing a car that had disappeared from sight?

  But then he heard it; faint, getting louder. Snarling.

  Shit.

  He nodded at Deborah, and charged toward a gap in the trees that lined the road, grimacing as the pain in his knees resurfaced. There wasn’t much in the way of forest here, just a smattering of trunks and then rolling fields beyond. Nowhere to hide.

  “Run,” he gasped at Deborah, as he took off, running faster than he had ever thought possible, fuelled by terror. Even as he ran, he silently cursed his incarcerati
on, feeling the lactic acid building up in his muscles almost immediately. His lack of fitness was going to get him killed. He would be the first person ever to die of cramp.

  When he saw the steep drop approaching and heard the rushing of water, he knew immediately that it was going to offer his only chance of survival. He pointed.

  “The river!”

  He veered toward it, neither knowing nor caring whether Deborah had heard him. The drop was about thirty feet. He was just slowing to think about the potential for damage in jumping into the fast-moving water when Deborah sped past him and hurled herself over the edge. Glancing behind him, Alex saw the reason why she hadn’t hesitated: the things were right behind him, fifty feet or less, closing fast.

  He jumped.

  The water was freezing; it felt like it sheared off a layer of skin as he broke the surface. He felt his feet kiss the bottom, and was dimly aware that if it had been only a foot or two shallower, the drop would probably have smashed his legs.

  The freezing liquid poured into his lungs, shocking his system, and he coughed painfully, succeeding only in drawing in another watery breath. The world was spinning crazily, occasional flashes of the sky and the surface of the river being torn away from him as the current sucked him under again. Finally he succeeded in righting himself, and saw that Deborah was already pulling away from him, working with the water, powerful strokes sending her shooting along the river. All those hours spent at the gym suddenly seemed less like cosmetic self-obsession and more like essential preparation.

  Alex was a hopeless swimmer, always had been. He thrashed and bucked, and ultimately had no choice but to let the river take him wherever it wanted. He heard the splashes behind him; the things chasing them were pouring over the ledge above like lemmings, utterly oblivious to the drop, gradually filling the river. He redoubled his efforts, splashing crazily, fearful that he was only slowing himself down.