The road ahead forked left and right around a huge office building. At least ten stories tall, the round front of the building faced them.
Vicky’s jaw fell loose as she looked up at the top floor. “The view must be amazing up there. I can’t imagine that space would have been cheap to rent when property had value.”
What used to be windows now stood as empty spaces. Each one had been smashed and there remained no trace of the glass that once filled them. The strong wind tore through the steel structure and a cacophony of tones wailed at them, a ghostly choir singing a dirge for the town.
So large and prominent, many of the buildings Vicky had seen from outside of the city now sat hidden behind the vast structure. “It must have been a sight before the world went to shit.”
Not quite as enamoured by the massive building, Hugh nodded as he looked around them. “It looked like many towns back then. Full of soulless offices made from steel and glass. It shone like a diamond but contained junk. Insurance brokers, traders, gas and electricity companies … they all added to the bullshit of the society we left behind. I used to watch the suited workers walk in and out of that place like they were serving time.”
“I know how that felt,” Vicky said.
Before she could say another word, Hugh snapped a hand across and grabbed her forearm. It took all Vicky had not to call out in fright. When she looked at Hugh, he pointed at the large building.
Although Vicky looked at the structure, she couldn’t make out what he’d seen. Clearly aware of her confusion, Hugh spoke from the side of his mouth. “First floor. There’s a fox.”
Squinting to see into the shadows of the first floor, Vicky spied the mangy canid and pulled her catapult from her back pocket. Once she’d loaded it with a marble, she went to take aim, but stopped when Hugh nudged her. “This is mine.”
“Will you hit it?”
A deep scowl and Hugh returned his focus to the ginger beast.
After she’d lowered her catapult, Vicky watched the man next to her and kept the marble pinched in the weapon.
With one eye closed, Hugh raised his catapult and looked down it into the building. His chest rose with a steadying breath before he loosed the catapult with a thwack. The marble whooshed away from them in the direction of the fox, but before it got to it, it caught one of the building’s metal window frames with a loud ting.
In the near silent city, the sound carried like an early morning church bell.
Before the ring had stopped, Vicky had lifted her catapult, pulled it back, and loosed her shot. The fox raised its head at the sound of Hugh’s marble just in time for Vicky’s to catch it square in its left eye. A wet pop and the creature fell on its side.
***
Swollen with the smug feeling of showing Hugh up, Vicky took off toward the building at a sprint. The marble had hit the fox true, but experience had taught Vicky about birds in the bush. She wanted this fucker in her hand.
The crossbow on her back swayed from side to side as she ran up to the office. It clipped the metal window frame when she jumped through the space, and the crunch of the broken remains of the window popped beneath her steps on the inside. She heard Hugh crush more of the broken glass when he followed her through.
The open-plan office sat laid out probably as it had before everything went to shit—old computers sat on desks with cheap chairs close to each one; yellowing bits of paper littered the office floor. Some desks had discoloured photos that had probably once shown the owner of said station a beaming picture of their loved ones. They would have provided photographic motivation as the workers endured the mind-numbing servitude to a capitalist master, a way to remember why they were there in the first place. As Vicky weaved through the desks, she glanced to either side. She couldn’t see any diseased, but experience had taught her not to take it for granted. The fuckers could come from anywhere at any time.
The double doors at the end of the office had the handles on Vicky’s side. There had been too many times where she’d tried to get through a building quickly and had shoulder barged a door that didn’t go the way she expected it to. She now looked for handles before she made that painfully bad decision.
When she got to the doors, she pulled one of them open and ran into the stairwell on the other side. Before the door fell closed, Hugh had followed her through.
The carpet that had once covered the stairs now sat torn and rotten in many places. Vicky watched her feet to make sure a flap didn’t trip her up.
On the first floor, she shoulder barged the door and burst through.
The ginger fox lay on its side close to the large window through which Vicky had shot it. As Vicky closed down on it, she saw its chest swell and deflate with its rapid, panicked breaths. Even unconscious it seemed to feel the fear for its life. Before it could feel anymore, Vicky came upon it and slammed her boot down on the creature’s head. Its skull cracked and crumpled as the fox fell limp beneath her heavy stamp.
Relieved at killing the beast, Vicky sighed and relaxed for what felt like the first time since she’d entered the town.
One of the straps on the harness wrapped around Vicky’s waist like a belt. She unbuckled it so both sides of it hung down. A quick shake showed her the harness seemed secure enough without it. Vicky then proceeded to tie the fox to one of the limp straps before she let the small beast hang from her. It might have been an extra weight, but it was the best way to carry it at that moment.
When she opened her mouth to address Hugh, who’d finally caught up with her, the shrill screams of several diseased stopped her dead.
Vicky walked over to the smashed window on the first floor and looked down at the road they’d used to enter the town. Her blood ran cold.
Twenty to thirty diseased gathered below; with their mouths open wide, they stared up through dried bloody eyes.
The glass crunched beneath Hugh’s feet as he came and stood next to Vicky. After a long exhale, he said, “Oh fuck.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
When Vicky got halfway toward the doors that led to the stairwell, she checked behind her and froze. Hugh hadn’t moved. Instead, he stared out of the window, his arms limp by his side.
The frenzied screams of the diseased got closer as they rushed at the building like a tsunami. A range of frequencies, they called and yelled, their feet beating thunder against the road outside.
“Hugh,” Vicky called, “hurry the fuck up, will ya?”
Nothing.
“Hugh!” This time so loud it tore at her throat.
Still nothing.
“Fuck it.” Vicky ran back at Hugh, weaving through the discarded office furniture to get to him.
When she caught up with him, she whacked him so hard with her open palm that he stumbled forward. “What the fuck are you doing, you fucking idiot? We need to run. Now!”
The sound of the diseased rushing into the building below seemed to break his fear-induced paralysis. Their cries echoed through the ground floor.
When Vicky took off again, Hugh followed this time. The pair ran back toward the double doors that led out into the stairwell.
The diseased had a head start on them, and as Vicky ran, the power left her legs. It seemed hopeless, and it had been made a million times worse by the fact that Hugh couldn’t get his shit together.
When Vicky reached the double doors, she grabbed the handle and yanked them wide. As she stepped out into the stairwell, she heard the mob crash into the doors below; a rattling smash ran up the stairwell as they tried to push them open.
Without breaking stride, Vicky ran up the stairs to the higher floors.
“What are you doing?” Hugh called up after her.
With her attention on where she headed, Vicky shouted over her shoulder, “I’m running away from them. You have a better idea, do you?”
Silence met her question. She then heard the heavy breaths and clumsy steps as Hugh ran up the stairs after her.
The doors on the ground
floor banged several more times as Vicky and Hugh climbed higher. The diseased, clumsy and uncoordinated, struggled to finally get the doors open. Their screams of frustration shrieked through the enclosed space when they eventually managed it.
By the time they’d reached the top floor, Vicky’s legs burned with fatigue and her lungs felt fit to burst. Stars swam in her vision from the effort, and sweat stung her eyes.
She waited outside the doors to the top floor until Hugh caught up with her and she watched him rush straight through them, but she didn’t follow. Instead, she pulled her crossbow from her harness and loaded up the first of her ten bolts.
The doors to the office reopened and Hugh poked his head out. “What are you doing?”
With one eye closed, Vicky bit down on her bottom lip and took aim. “I’m giving us a chance.” She squeezed the trigger and the crossbow kicked as it shot the bolt.
The projectile flew down the space in the middle of the stairwell and hit one of the diseased in the shoulder. It screamed, but didn’t slow down.
With shaking hands and out of breath, Vicky loaded another bolt and called to Hugh, “Go and find us a way out while I slow them down.”
Vicky kept her attention on the seemingly never-ending pack as they ran up the stairs. She pressed the crossbow stock into her shoulder again and let another bolt free with a loud crack! This one went straight through the eye of one of the lead diseased and knocked it backwards, sending a couple of its peers back down the stairs with it.
It only stalled their ascent; by the time Vicky had the third bolt loaded, the pack had resumed their climb. Another kick and another snap of the crossbow’s bolt and Vicky hit another diseased in the arm.
Four, five, six bolts, and the seventh scored another killing blow. Not quite the lead diseased, but one close to the front. It stalled the rush of the mob but nothing more than that.
Vicky stood on her own at the top of the stairs with three bolts left. Each bolt scored a more damaging blow to the snake of fury that rushed up at her, slowing the pack some more.
Just a couple of floors separated Vicky from the diseased. The concrete stairs seemed to vibrate with the stampede of the monsters. So close, their fetid reek of rot and decay swirled around her. A slight heave caught in Vicky’s throat, and she took off through the double doors that led to the top floor.
On the other side—the sound of the mob slightly diminished through the closed doors—Vicky put the nose of her crossbow on the ground. Several kicks later, she broke the bow away from the body and discarded it before wedging the body through the door handles to block the diseased from coming through. It didn’t look like it would hold them for long, but it would give them a little more time. She then ran over to Hugh at the other end of the top floor.
Like on the first floor, Hugh stood at the edge of the building and looked out over the town below them.
The curve at the front gave a panoramic view of the road and fields they’d crossed to get to the town. Because every window had been smashed and they stood so high up, the wind crashed into Vicky, blowing her hair back. “What are you doing, Hugh?”
The glazed look of fear had returned to the ex-army man’s eyes. Door-kicking in Mogadishu had sounded like utter tripe at the time, but now that she’d seen how he reacted in a tight situation, Vicky knew he’d been bullshitting her for sure.
However, when she looked out over the town below, she couldn’t see an escape route either.
Before she could say anything, Hugh finally spoke. “We have nowhere to go. We’re fucked.”
As if to drive the point home, the doors that led to the stairwell crashed and shifted inwards, pushing against the broken crossbow from the weight of diseased on the other side. They needed a plan and fast.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Several white bars ran like a row of bumpers around the edge of the building on the top floor. Each one slightly further out than the one before it, they spread out to form a ledge, the spaces between each one smaller than the length of Vicky’s foot. They stuck out from the building by about an extra metre. The whack of the double doors met the crossbow’s resistance again, and Vicky looked everywhere else for a way to escape, but she kept returning to the bars.
The slight rip of splintering wood tore through the room and Vicky spun around to look at the doors. They’d been pushed so far forward, a wide gap ran down the centre of them. Several arms reached through the space and dirty fingers clutched at the air. Screams, moans, and a rotten stench reached through with them. They only had one choice, and the sooner Vicky made it, the more time they’d have to execute it.
With the fierce wind blowing her hair out behind her, Vicky stepped toward the ring of white metal bars. Flecked with rust, each had a diameter of about ten centimetres, and they looked strong enough to hold the weight of an adult.
With Hugh frozen and gormless by her side, Vicky knew she’d have to do something where the Mogadishu door-kicker couldn’t.
Fuelled by the sounds behind her, Vicky edged forward. The strong wind shoved her back a step, but she dipped her head and pushed on again.
What used to be floor-to-ceiling windows now stood as a huge open space that made it easy for Vicky to walk out onto the white bars.
The first step outside threw Vicky off balance again. The wind had been funnelled straight into her by the building, but now it came at her from all angles.
At the end of the bars, Vicky sat down, her stomach lifting to the roof of her mouth as she looked at the ten-storey fall. She took several deep breaths and dangled her legs over the edge. A glance over her shoulder at Hugh and she saw he remained exactly where she’d left him.
“What the fuck are you doing?” he called at her.
“I’m getting out of here. I suggest you follow me unless you want to die.”
“I ain’t going out there!”
Another boom came from where the pack of diseased hit the double doors, and after he’d spun around to look at them, Hugh suddenly changed his mind and moved toward Vicky.
Vicky twisted around and grabbed the bars to her left with two hands. Her heart hammered its way to cardiac arrest.
Ignoring the shake in her arms, Vicky slipped from the ledge and let her body fall. Gravity tugged on her frame and she swung down. About halfway through the swing, her arms snapped tight and she twisted in the air so she faced the ninth floor below. The metre protrusion of the bars hadn’t seemed like much when Vicky had been on the tenth floor, but as she looked at her landing site on the ninth, it seemed like a mile.
With a strong grip on the bars, Vicky hung down, the wind swaying her. A few seconds later and Hugh seemed to have found his military courage, because he joined her, hanging at her side. The pair shared a glance before Vicky watched Hugh look into the ninth floor. He clearly understood the plan.
At that moment, the crossbow creaked and split, and the sound of the diseased flooded into the tenth floor. When Vicky lifted herself in a pull-up, she saw the rush of the monsters as they came at her.
In a matter of seconds, three of the front-runners sprinted out onto the bars and continued forward. One of them stood on Vicky’s hand as they all plummeted over the edge and fell to the ground below with a thump, quiet because of the distance of the drop. The others seemed more cautious. Despite the sting in her hand, Vicky held on.
Using her legs as a pendulum, Vicky rocked back and forth as she gripped onto the bars. The wind messed with her motion, and although her body went mostly toward the window space below, she certainly didn’t swing true.
With most of her focus on the ninth floor, Vicky noticed Hugh as he swung next to her, copying her every move.
The agitated cries of the diseased called at them from the tenth floor, but they persisted as they swung back and forth, gathering more momentum each time.
At full swing, her legs out behind her, Vicky looked down to see the three broken forms of the fallen diseased below. It served as a stark reminder of what an erro
r in judgement would cost her.
On her third swing forward, the wind in her ears, the diseased furious that they couldn’t get to her, Vicky let go, weightless as she leapt.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Every one of Vicky’s internal organs seemed to tense as she flew through the air toward the ninth floor.
When she crashed down, her legs gave way beneath her and she fell forward. Her knees smashed against the floor so hard it felt like she’d shattered both of her kneecaps.
Despite her pain, Vicky got to her feet and turned to Hugh, who continued to swing from the bars. “I can’t wait here forever, Hugh. If we don’t leave now, we lose our advantage.”
With his eyes pressed so tightly closed they threw crow’s feet around the sides of his face, Hugh muttered to himself.
Vicky bounced on the spot and listened to the diseased above. The sight of Hugh seemed to hold them in place, but for how long?
Once he’d opened his eyes again, Vicky saw a clarity in them that she hadn’t seen since the diseased picked up their tail.
On the next swing forward, Hugh let go and fell toward her.
As Vicky stepped aside, Hugh crashed down on the hard floor.
Without any time to waste, Vicky grabbed his arm and pulled him to his feet before she shouted, “Come on, let’s get out of here.”
Although clumsy in his pursuit, Hugh followed Vicky’s lead as she sprinted through the office to the stairwell doors at the end.
After she’d ripped the doors open, Vicky let Hugh run out first. The man flew past her and straight down the stairs to the lower floors.
Vicky gave chase, the sound of the infuriated diseased still above them.
Although their feet beat a tattoo down the partly carpeted steps, the sound paled in comparison to the slam of the ninth floor’s double doors. The loud crack echoed through the stairwell and the raucous diseased fell silent in response to it. Why hadn’t Vicky taken the time to close it quietly?
The Alpha Plague 5: A Post-Apocalyptic Action Thriller Page 11