The Survival Chronicles (Book 7): Hard Mercy

by Nally, Fergal F.

  Barnes grunted then yelled as he hoisted himself up, through the skylight. He pushed his elbows out on either side. Mercy tried to look past Barnes to see how Flynn was faring.

  Shit, shit, shit. Flynn—

  Barnes gasped, his head lolled to one side.

  Christ, has he passed out—?

  Mercy kept the tension on the rubber seal. “Barnes, come on big guy, get your ass in gear soldier—”

  Barnes yelled again and hauled himself the rest of the way through the skylight. He rolled to one side, gasping for breath.

  Tawny stepped forwards, “I’ve got this—”

  Mercy returned to the skylight and looked down. The carriage was swarming with undead, their hands reaching up towards her. Mercy’s eyes widened in shock, a searing pain gripped her chest. She screamed, her fingers clawing at the skylight.

  Flynn. No, no, noooo, you bastards… you bastards—

  The heaving mass of undead ten feet below groaned and snapped their teeth in response. Mercy lay on her stomach and gripped the skylight frame. She stuck her head and shoulders through the opening and searched the sea of decayed faces below her. “Flynn? Flynn? Flynn—?”

  More tropes were pushing through the carriage door from the outside. They surged forwards bringing a new set of ghoulish faces. Mercy screamed again, her voice hoarse, “Flynn? Flynn?”

  A rifle jerked out of the crowd, two hands holding it aloft. Mercy stared, uncomprehending. The rifle inched closer to the seats below the skylight. Flynn’s face materialised out of the seething mass of tropes. He looked up at Mercy, her heart soared.

  “Flynn. Oh god, Flynn—”

  Mercy pulled the rubber seal from under Barnes and thrust it down through the skylight towards Flynn. The jostling around Flynn was intense, he tried to climb onto the nearest seat but was knocked back twice. He tried a third time and succeeded. After a heart stopping moment he managed to straddle the aisle under the skylight.

  The tropes are ignoring him, his biotech’s working. No alphas in there, thank goodness—

  Flynn passed his rifle to Mercy then reached up to grab the rubber seal. He stood above the worst of the jostling and was able to steady himself by pressing his hand against the ceiling.

  “Ready?” Mercy yelled. “Come on—”

  Flynn pulled himself up and thrust a hand through the skylight. Tawny appeared, straddling the gap. She reached down and grabbed Flynn under the arms, hauling him up. Flynn emerged through the opening, his eyes bulging with the effort. Five seconds later he lay stretched out on the roof, gasping beside Barnes.

  Mercy and Tawny collapsed and looked at each other. Mercy shook her head then pumped the air with her fist. Tawny gave an exhausted smile and responded in kind. Flynn rolled over and started checking his arms and legs.

  “Am I bit? Am I bit? I don’t think I’m bit. Can you check me?” His speech was pressured.

  Mercy tapped him on the arm, “Hey, calm down babe. You made it. We’ll check you out. Take off your shirt, let’s have a look—”

  Mercy inspected Flynn, “You’re clean, there’s no bites. They were after Barnes not you. Looks like you’ve got the same biotech as me and Tawny.”

  Flynn put his shirt back on.

  Tawny picked up Flynn’s rifle and inspected it, “Funny, your body rejected the biotech when they tried it on you back in Cheyenne Mountain. They must’ve made some improvements in the process.”

  Flynn shrugged, “Well, they didn’t have those incubation tanks back in Cheyenne Mountain. Maybe that helped—”

  Mercy looked down at the tracks, “This is hopeless, look, there’s even more of them now. They’re coming from further away. We’ve stirred up a hornet’s nest—”

  “Yeah, their blood’s up, they can smell Barnes, he was sweating like a pig in there… serious cold turkey. We have to get out of here, find a place to lie low—” Tawny said.

  Lie low?

  Mercy looked back along the train roof towards the footbridge, “Right, let’s get our shit together. I’ve got an idea—”

  It took thirty minutes to make their way along the carriages to the footbridge. Tawny dropped down between carriages and smeared her hands with thick grease from the train buffers. She smeared the grease on Barnes’s skin. She collected more grease as they went and applied it to his clothes. By the time they had reached the footbridge Barnes was unrecognisable.

  “That should help cover his scent for a while,” Mercy said, wrinkling her nose. She looked back along the tracks. “They’re not following us, they’re still gathered around the front of the train. We’ll drop down here and get up that embankment—”

  Mercy and Tawny clambered down to the carriage coupling and reached up to help Barnes as he lowered himself from the roof.

  Flynn glanced back along the tracks before he climbed down. “The grease seems to be working, they’re still head banging around the first carriage.”

  “So what’s the plan?” Tawny asked Mercy.

  “I saw a sign on the road when we were back at that school. There’s a lumber yard not far from here, I’m hoping we can hide out there. There’ll be shelter and hopefully no trope activity, seeing as they’re all down here—” Mercy answered.

  Tawny nodded. “Sounds good. Our very own GI here,” she patted Barnes on the shoulder, “needs some serious rehab time.”

  They climbed up the embankment, leaving the train behind. Tawny and Mercy crossed the footbridge and retrieved their scavenged food from the other side of the railroad. Mercy pointed out the lumber yard to Tawny from the footbridge. They returned to Flynn and Barnes and set off into open country. Long grass, trees and undergrowth made progress difficult. Finally, after almost an hour they came to a chain link fence which they followed to an entrance.

  “Barboursville Lumber… well that’s original,” Flynn said, reading the sign above the wide gates.

  “The entrance is locked, that could be a good sign,” Mercy said.

  Tawny pressed her face up against the chain link, “I can’t smell any of them in there. I think it’s clear. Good call Mercy.”

  “Let’s hope your biotech’s correct Tawny. I’d like to keep this gate locked. Let’s find a way in without breaking the defences,” Mercy answered.

  Mercy and Tawny went looking for a way in, leaving Barnes and Flynn at the gate.

  Tawny returned first, carrying a piece of old carpet. “Found this in a ditch, there’s a lot of crap back there, it must’ve been an illegal dump back in the day. If you give me a boost I can throw it over the top of the fence,” Tawny said.

  Flynn stood up, “Sure, let’s do it.”

  Seconds later Tawny was up and over the fence, leaving the carpet straddling the razor wire on top. She disappeared into the yard office a short distance away and emerged a few minutes later clutching a set of keys.

  Mercy appeared from the opposite direction, empty handed. She spotted Tawny and ran up to the gate, “Nice work Tawny, go for it.”

  Tawny opened the gate’s padlock on the fifth attempt. The others piled in and she locked the gate behind them.

  “Let’s get out of view and lie low,” Mercy said.

  They searched the yard office, then secured the building. Barnes lay in a corner and curled up against the wall. Mercy and Tawny unpacked the food and water and collapsed to the floor.

  Flynn examined a large wall map of the area behind the desk. “This map could come in pretty useful. I’ll take it down later. We should check outside before it gets dark. Make sure it’s secure out there.”

  The exhaustion in the room was palpable.

  Mercy looked up, “You’re right Flynn, but you know what? I’m going to trust Tawny’s biotech when she says this place is deserted. We’re all shattered. We need to eat and rehydrate… and sleep.”

  Rose, you’ll have to wait, there’s no way we can come to you just now. Not the way Barnes is—

  Tawny gave Flynn a look.

  Flynn nodded, “Yeah, well, it’s
been another day of days, ain’t it? A real day of days—”

  Mercy tapped the GPS tracking device beside her pack, “At least we’ve got this. We can find Rose. We’ll get her back, don’t you worry—”

  They ate, and drank their water in silence. Barnes slept, his breathing slow and even. The stink of axle grease filled the room. Flynn and Tawny made a final round of the building, checking doors and windows. Mercy watched over Barnes.

  His colour is returning. I’m glad we got him to drink some fluids, he’ll have to eat something tomorrow—

  Barnes started mumbling in his sleep. Mercy leaned forwards to listen.

  Without warning Barnes opened his eyes and stared at Mercy, “Mitchell’s done it, the mind cipher, it’s been executed—”

  Mercy pulled a face.

  What’s he going on about—?

  Mercy held Barnes’s hand, “Hey Barnes, calm down, it’s OK, you’re safe. We’re with you, it’s all good, you’re just going through cold turkey. It’s pretty shit but you should be OK soon. I reckon you were taking other drugs you didn’t tell us about. What about it? What else were you taking? Opiates? Benzos? Tell me, what was it?”

  Barnes slumped back, his forehead glistening with sweat. He closed his eyes and his breathing deepened. Mercy took a paper towel from the stash they had found in a utility cupboard. She mopped his brow.

  What the hell Barnes? What’s “mind cipher”? Is this just some delirious withdrawal ramblings or what?

  Flynn and Tawny returned from their security check and sat on the floor. Tawny checked her M4 and lay down, her head on her pack. She was asleep in minutes. Flynn slid over to Mercy and put his arm around her. Mercy nestled her head against Flynn’s shoulder and closed her eyes.

  Mind cipher—?

  Mercy fell asleep surrounded by the smell of stale male sweat and axle grease.

  Chapter 21

  Mind Cipher

  Footsteps. Rustling.

  Mercy opened her eyes and focused on the figure standing beside the table.

  “Barnes?” Mercy said, rubbing her eyes. Early morning light filtered through the closed window blinds. Tiny motes of dust shifted like snow in the shafts of light.

  Mercy checked her watch; 6:47 am.

  Christ, I’ve been asleep for ten hours—

  She shifted her position, a sudden stab of pain shot through her neck.

  Shit—

  Mercy reached up to rub her tight muscles.

  Barnes turned to look at her, a tin of meatballs in his hand, “Hey—”

  Mercy yawned. Flynn was asleep beside her, she stood up. Tawny stirred in the corner.

  “Hey yourself, Barnes. How you doing? You were pretty flaked out yesterday. Do you remember what happened?” Mercy reached for a bottle of water on the table.

  “Yeah, no… I mean I remember some stuff. The rest is blanked out. All I know is I’m starving and my mouth is dry.” Barnes finished opening the tin of meatballs, scooped some out with his fingers and wolfed them down. “Fill me in on what’s happened. Looks like you lucked out with this food… and where the hell are we anyway?”

  Mercy sat down at the table beside him and recounted the previous day’s events.

  Barnes listened in silence. He stopped eating. Mercy finished her monologue and sat unmoving, drained.

  Tawny joined them at the table, “Glad to see you up, big guy. You won’t be firing on all cylinders for a while yet but you’re looking a lot better than yesterday.” She wrinkled her nose, “I’m sorry but you do stink though—”

  Barnes grunted, “You should’ve left me. I mean, thank you, I’m grateful… but you’ve lost your window to rescue Rose. The alpha queen will be long gone by now—”

  There was an awkward silence.

  Flynn sat up rubbing his stubble, “What does the tracker say?”

  Mercy brightened, “It’s GPS so as long as we’ve still got satellites overhead we’re good. Let’s give it a go.” She retrieved the tracker from Barnes’s pack and handed it to him.

  Barnes shook his head, “Best use it outside, maybe on the roof, there’s a better chance of a signal outdoors.”

  “There’s a forklift truck parked along the back wall, we can climb onto the cab and reach the roof that way,” Tawny said.

  “Sounds good,” Mercy said, standing up.

  Five minutes later they were on the roof of the building.

  Barnes switched on the tracker and adjusted the settings, “Nothing, nothing, wait, wait… there.”

  Barnes showed the device to the others. A cluster of green dots flashed at the centre of the screen.

  “So where are they then?” Mercy said, her voice strained.

  Barnes peered at the tracker, “38° 17′ 49″ North, 78° 26′ 22″ West. Hold on.” He scrolled through the screen and found what he wanted. “Standardsville, Virginia. They’re… thirteen and a half miles away from here, you can get there by… US-33 West.”

  Flynn squinted at the readout, “They’re heading to the mountains, that’s the Shenandoah National Park to the west of there. That’s some rugged territory—”

  “Hikers’ paradise; the Appalachian Trail. We’ll never find them in there,” Tawny said, frowning.

  “We’ll not catch up with them, but we have this,” Mercy tapped the tracker. “And—” She paused.

  “And what?” Barnes asked.

  “We have Billy-Ray’s daughter. The girl I told you about before. Annalise. Billy-Ray said she was holed up in Shenandoah. Mission Home, he gave me the address—”

  “Wait… we know nothing about this girl. This Billy-Ray… what do you know about him?” Barnes asked.

  “He helped us get to Annapolis. Without him we wouldn’t be here. An NSA gunboat finished him off—” Tawny said.

  “Yeah, he was a good, ex-bad guy,” Flynn added. “Salt of the earth, not the kind to pay taxes though—”

  “OK, so what are you saying? You want to go find his daughter… on the off chance she might know her way around the mountains?” Barnes said, disbelief in his voice.

  Mercy nodded, “The way I see it is… we’re only going to get one chance at rescuing Rose. There’s a whole lot of variables in the equation. A lot of shit could happen. This alpha queen bitch has been chasing Rose ever since she laid eyes on her. The bitch’s got some kind of fixation on our girl. Who knows why? We’re gonna need all the aces we can muster and having someone who knows this country is potentially a game changer—”

  Barnes shrugged, “So, that’ll be a yes then. We’re going to… where did you say she was?”

  “Mission Home, Virginia,” Mercy answered.

  Barnes punched in the name to the GPS tracker. “Mission Home, Greene County, Virginia.” He squinted at the screen, “Well, that’s 25.7 miles from here… by US-33 West and State Route 633.”

  “Twenty five miles… that’s doable in a day,” Flynn said, looking at the information on the screen.

  Mercy slapped Barnes on the shoulder, “Let’s do it… we’ll take our time. It’s a marathon, not a sprint—”

  Barnes grimaced, “Yeah, you can only invoke the forty percent rule so many times.”

  “So, I reckon we feed up and rehydrate, then rock out of here within the hour,” Mercy said. “We’ll take the wall map from the office… use it to get us to Mission Home. We’ll need to conserve the battery on the tracking device.”

  Tawny slapped Barnes on the back. “Let’s look on the bright side, there’s a rain barrel over there,” she pointed to the rear of the building. “It looks as if it gets the run-off from this roof. We can boil up some water and make some coffee before we head off—”

  Flynn pulled a face, “Where are we gonna get a stove and coffee?”

  Tawny gestured at the lumber yard. “We’re in a lumber yard, yeah? So, no end of fuel and…” She pulled a fistful of instant coffee sachets from her pocket, “look what I found in the office kitchen drawer last night.”

  Barnes’s eyes lit up,
“Forget drugs, man, I haven’t had a good cup of joe in weeks. I would quite literally kill for some hot coffee. Lead on you angel—”

  Tawny caught Mercy’s eye, a wry smile on her face.

  If only you knew Barnes, Tawny is, correction, was, an Angel back in Hell’s Kitchen—

  “Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s get this show on the road,” Flynn said.

  They boiled up water from the rain barrel and brewed fresh hot coffee. Barnes had a second breakfast and tried to clean up his fatigues.

  “I’m gonna need some new clothes. These rags are now officially a health hazard, just putting people on notice,” Barnes said, shouldering his sniper rifle.

  “Noted,” Mercy said. “OK people… we’re good to go.”

  They left the lumber yard and returned to the railroad. They gave the train a wide berth, crossing the tracks beyond the footbridge. They entered Barboursville and stuck to Spotswood Trail, avoiding the buildings on either side of the road. Two bloody deer carcases lay on a garage forecourt at the centre of town. Six crows were perched on the dead hind and her young fawn, picking at the remaining flesh. More crows called from the nearby trees, their caws harsh and menacing.

  Tawny shuddered, “These must be the ones we saw circling yesterday.”

  Mercy gave the carcasses a wide berth then stopped. She looked back.

  Wait a minute—

  Mercy doubled back, putting her hand over her mouth and nose. She reached down and pulled a bunched up headscarf from under the hind’s neck.

  Rose—

  “This belongs to Rose. I recognise it. She’s… alive, she was here. This was the alphas’ kill. They need fresh meat, if they can’t have human flesh… they’ll eat anything with a pulse—”

  “They’re mindless bastards,” Barnes growled.

  Mercy raised an eyebrow.

  His tone… mindless bastards—

  Mercy frowned. She continued walking, her eyes focused on the road ahead. “Hey, Barnes? Yesterday… when you were going through cold turkey—”

  She paused.