Twenty-Five Percent (Book 3): Vengeance

by Nerys Wheatley

  “Huh,” Alex said, stunned.

  The moans of thousands of eaters shook him out of his adrenaline-infused haze. What looked like the entire horde was closing on him fast.

  He pushed himself up from the ground and pulled the bike upright, giving it a quick once over. The brand new shiny blue paintwork was scraped all along one side and the front mudguard was dented, but it seemed more or less in one piece. He pulled his helmet back on and swung one leg over the seat, wincing at the soreness in his left leg where he’d landed. One day maybe he’d be pain free, but it wasn’t today.

  He flipped the start switch. To his relief, the engine started. He didn’t fancy running almost a mile back to the buildings. The leading edge of the horde was almost on him now. With a final glance back at the building Micah had disappeared into, he started off.

  Micah was tough; he could take care of those eaters by himself.

  Alex was almost sure of it.

  15

  The eater’s head exploded.

  Wishing he hadn’t run out of ammunition for his pistol, Micah grimaced at the gory sight and kicked its body backwards into those on the stairs below. The Glock just made neat little holes. He didn’t know what kind of ammo was in the rifle Bates had given him, but at close range it made a horrific mess of anything he shot. It was just as well he was immune to the virus now.

  He ran up to the next landing then turned again to meet the eaters following him. The first two got bullets to the head. A third which had managed to squeeze past their bodies grabbed at him, latching onto his left arm and pulling towards its gaping mouth. He tried to yank himself from its grip, but he didn’t have a chance against its super strength. Dropping the rifle to hang from the strap across his chest, he took a skull-spiker from his right pocket with his free hand, flipped out the blade, and plunged it into the side of the eater’s head as its teeth scraped his fist. It let go and collapsed to the floor.

  Micah breathed out. That had been uncomfortably close.

  The three bodies had momentarily blocked the way for the eaters coming up the stairs behind them and he leaned over the rail to look down the centre of the stairwell. It was wall to wall eaters as far as he could see, all the way to the ground two floors below. Had the entire horde followed him into the building?

  He turned and ran up the next flight of stairs as the eaters leading the way stumbled past the bodies and lurched towards him.

  He tried to ignore the various aches and pains he’d acquired when his bike crashed. For the hundredth time, he wondered how Alex was. He’d heard the helicopter fly by and lots of gunfire, but the windows on each floor of the stairwell faced the wrong way so he couldn’t see what was going on. Micah knew Alex could look after himself, but he had an unerring ability to get into bad situations. And lately... well, since they’d got back from Omnav Alex seemed to have become even more reckless. Micah hated to admit it, but he was worried about his friend.

  Although for now, maybe he should be worrying about himself, he thought as he realised he’d run out of stairs. Behind him eaters spanned the width of the staircase, jostling against each other in their eagerness to be the first to take a bite out of him.

  Micah pushed through into the corridor, looking both ways for an open door, somewhere he could lock himself in. No such luck. He knocked at the first flat he came to. When there was no answer he ran to the next. By the time he’d reached the third, the horde was pouring into the corridor and shuffling after him. He sprinted for the far end of the corridor, as far from the horde as he could get.

  The final door on the top floor was pale blue and had a plaque at eye level with a rural scene and the number 18 in gold.

  “Please don’t be home,” Micah muttered as he raised his right foot and drove it into the wooden surface beside the lock.

  Despite what always happened on TV, the door didn’t fly open like it was made of balsa. Glancing nervously at the rapidly approaching eaters, he tried again. This time there was a crunching sound, but the door still held. Micah couldn’t help thinking that Alex would have been through the door in a second with barely any effort. Was he jealous? He would never admit it to Alex, but yes, he was. Especially at this moment.

  With the eaters no more than ten feet away and his leg throbbing, he kicked the door a third time. The frame splintered and it crashed open. Micah ran inside.

  The living room passed in a yellow blur as he threw himself into a bedroom and slammed the door shut behind him. There was no lock. He grabbed a nearby chair and jammed the back beneath the handle. Bodies thumped into the other side, hands scrabbling at the wooden surface and moans crawling through the too thin barrier.

  Micah turned and looked around the pink, frilly room. There were no other doors. He went to the window, opened it and looked down. The road below was on the opposite side of the building to where he’d come in and was clear of eaters. Unfortunately, it was also clear of anything he could climb down or jump onto from the third storey window.

  The handle rattled. Micah looked back to see it move downwards. He threw himself across the room, catching hold of the metal handle and pulling it back up before the door unlatched. When the pressure eased, Micah grabbed a stuffed bear from the bed and pushed it between the top of the chair and the handle to keep it in place.

  He began rifling through draws and cupboards for something to help him. Sadly, whoever lived in the flat wasn’t into anything kinky and he found no rope.

  As he tossed cushions off the bed in preparation for hoisting the mattress out of the window to give him something vaguely soft to land on, he heard a familiar sound above the hungry eater moans and creaking doorframe.

  He returned to the window and leaned out. Along the road, moving in his direction, was the APV. Leaning out as far as he dared, he waved his arms and shouted frantically.

  “Hey! Over here!”

  The APV stopped beneath the window and Hudson got out.

  “I’m trapped,” Micah shouted to him. “There’s a horde of eaters right outside the door.”

  At the sound of his voice the eaters grew more frenzied, their onslaught jolting the door in its frame.

  “What can we do?” Hudson shouted back.

  “Got any rope?”

  Dent and Ridgewell also climbed out.

  “Sorry,” Hudson said, “we did have. There was an incident.”

  The thudding against the door was getting louder.

  “Well, do you have anything I can use to get down? Like, fast?”

  Rick, Porter and Collins emerged and Micah briefly wondered how they were all fitting inside.

  “We might be able to...” Dent began.

  The doorframe cracked, buckling inwards. The chair inched across the shag pile carpet.

  “No more time,” Micah yelled. “Throw me a grenade.”

  Hudson reached into the APV and emerged with something green and spherical in his hand. Stepping back for a better angle, he tossed the grenade underhand towards the window. He had good aim. Micah snatched it out of the air.

  Inside the bedroom, he tipped the divan bed onto its side facing the door and stood behind it. The bedroom door, now only held by the wooden chair lodged beneath the handle, inched in further. Dirty, bloody arms pushed through the gap. Moans filled the room.

  Micah pulled the pin from the grenade and waited, heart thumping against his ribs. He suddenly regretted discarding his helmet on the stairs. It would have been useful.

  The chair gave way and the door slammed open. Eaters flooded in.

  Micah threw the grenade through the doorway and dropped onto his stomach behind the bed, pulling the mattress down on top of him and clamping his hands over his ears.

  “I’m sorry mum and dad,” he whispered. “I tried to survive.”

  Then the room erupted in noise, light, and blood.

  16

  Alex kept looking up into the sky as he drove ahead of the horde, expecting the helicopters to return, but he saw no sign of them.
<
br />   He had no idea what had happened to the last one, with its weird behaviour and sudden decision to leave. Not that he was complaining; whatever it was had saved his life. He glanced back at the horde following close behind him. At least, he was alive for now.

  Up ahead he could see the buildings Bates had rigged with explosives. He hadn’t doubted at the time that the disturbingly knowledgeable man could do what he said, but now it was about to happen, some uncertainty was creeping in. Too late now though. He just hoped he wasn’t left with the massive horde behind him and no way to stop them.

  As he got closer, he looked ahead to Reg’s block on the left of the road, hoping to see a sheet hanging from his window. There was nothing. Alex sighed and lowered his gaze to the road ahead.

  “I hope it’s quick,” he said quietly.

  His hands began to sweat as he drew level with the first building rigged to blow and he swallowed, wiping his palms one at a time down his thighs. With every fibre of his being he wanted to squeeze the throttle and get as far away as he could, but he didn’t want a repeat of the bridge debacle. He had to make sure the eaters were exactly where they needed to be when things got going, so he kept his pace slow and steady and tried to relax.

  A little farther along, he passed building number two, this one to the left of the road. He looked back. Moaning, ravenous horde thirty feet behind him, present and correct. As he reached building three, his heart rate kicked it up a notch.

  This was where Bates had told him he would have to get going in order to be far enough away when the detonations began. Alex had no intention of following the advice. This had to be done right.

  The final building, Reg’s block, drew level to Alex’s left. He looked up for one final check. Reg’s window was empty. He focused on the road ahead, putting the old man out of his mind.

  Squeezing the throttle gently, he gradually lengthened the gap between him and the horde. Just a little further...

  The frontrunners reached the building.

  Alex clamped his fingers tight and the bike leaped forwards.

  Ahead of him along the ramrod-straight road, a flower shop with a red awning marked the closest point where his safety was guaranteed. Now his life depended on reaching it, it looked very far away. He glanced behind him. A few more seconds and the horde would be in place. He wasn’t going to make it.

  At a corner too close to ground zero he veered off the road and jammed on the brakes behind a sturdy looking wall. Without knowing if he’d be heard, he flipped up his visor and screamed, “Blow it!”

  There were two seconds of dead silence then a percussive boom shattered the calm.

  Alex frantically fumbled to close his visor as the shockwave pounded his chest and the bike trembled beneath him. Clouds of dust billowed overhead.

  A second blast ripped through the air. The ground shook. Pieces of render cracked on the wall sheltering him, showering him with debris. He scrambled off the bike and backed away from it.

  The third detonation rocked both Alex and the wall. A few bricks dislodged. He moved away further and waited for the final explosion.

  And waited.

  Seconds ticked by and nothing happened. Reg must have changed his mind. Alex started to smile. So only the three buildings had gone down. It didn’t matter, Reg’s life was worth it.

  A thundering bang fractured the reprieve. The wall toppled, narrowly missing Alex’s bike. Startled, he leaped away and fell.

  With the sound of the collapse of Reg’s block of flats echoing around him, Alex lay on his back and stared into a sky shrouded with dust.

  After a minute of dazed inactivity, he sat up and pulled off his helmet. He immediately started to cough. His clothing was covered in a fine powder and he left an Alex-shaped void on the dark tarmac when he stood. He walked back out onto the road and looked towards the four destroyed buildings. Bates hadn’t been exaggerating; he did know what he was doing.

  From this distance details were hard to make out, but even through the thick dust that still hung in the air Alex could see the huge extent of the destruction. The four five storey blocks of flats which, judging from the design, had been standing since the 1960s had been reduced to piles of mangled steel and rubble. Extensive damage had befallen other structures in the immediate vicinity too, ranging from blown out windows to appearing so unstable they could fall down at any second. Other than the occasional piece of masonry shifting, there was no movement.

  A four wheel drive Land Rover came to a halt in the middle of the road behind Alex. Janie jumped out and strode up to him, an expression of relief on her face. At first he thought she was going to give him a hug, so he was unprepared when her hand shot up and slapped his face.

  He pressed a hand to his throbbing cheek and stepped out of reach. “What was that for?!”

  “You were supposed to speed up before the last block. You were supposed to be back there by the time it blew.” She pointed behind her to the red awning. “You were not supposed to leave it so late you almost got yourself killed by the blast. What were you thinking?”

  Leon and Brian climbed from the Land Rover, but didn’t approach. Cowards.

  Alex took another step back, just to be certain she couldn’t slap him again. “I was thinking that I wanted to make sure it worked as well as possible. If I’d gone too early the horde might have started to break up. I needed them to keep moving. It was worth the risk.”

  She glared at him. “To who? And where’s Micah?”

  Micah.

  Alex spun round and ran back to his bike, grabbing his helmet and quickly dusting off the seat before climbing on.

  “Where are you going?” Janie said.

  “To find Micah.”

  17

  Leaving Janie, Leon and Brian standing in the street, Alex sped back towards the scene of destruction. He skirted around the edge of the devastation, taking a back route to where he’d left Micah being pursued by eaters.

  When he reached the place where Micah had crashed five minutes later there were no eaters left on the road and the APV was parked in front of the building Alex had seen him enter. He could hear gunfire inside.

  Leaving his bike next to the APV, he ran through the front door then slowed to avoid tripping over the bodies scattered across the lobby floor. He reached the stairwell and bounded up, dodging around more sprawled eater bodies. Some of them bore the telltale small, precision hole of a spiker. There was no doubt Micah had come this way.

  Sporadic shots were still coming from somewhere up ahead, echoing around the enclosed stairwell.

  “It’s Alex,” he called as he ran. “I’m coming up. Don’t shoot me.”

  He was just past the second floor landing when a hand grasped his foot as he leaped over a twisted, bloody body. His foot jerked from under him and he grabbed the banister rail as he fell, ending up dangling awkwardly by one arm with the eater he’d thought was dead gnawing at his shoe.

  Pulling out a skull-spiker with his free hand, he dispatched the eater and stood, walking the rest of the way up with more care. On the top floor landing he found Ridgewell and Collins holding open a door leading to the corridor. Dent, Rick, Porter and Hudson were gathered beyond, facing to the left. Every couple of seconds one of them would fire a shot.

  “What’s going on?” Alex said. “Where’s Micah? And you missed one, by the way.”

  “Micah got trapped down there,” Dent said, indicating with her rifle. “We were outside. He set off a grenade, but we haven’t been able to reach him yet. We only just got here and there are still some eaters alive up there.”

  “I’m sorry, did you say he set off a grenade?”

  Alex edged past Collins and poked his head around the doorframe. The five foot wide corridor was filled with mangled bodies. Some of them were still moving. Four eaters were trying to walk through the mess towards them. A fifth was crawling because one of its legs had been blown off. Alex was surprised it hadn’t yet bled to death.

  He cupped his ha
nds around his mouth and yelled, “Micah!” There was no response. “How long since the grenade went off?”

  “Ten minutes maybe,” Rick said.

  Alex pushed past them all and walked along the corridor towards the eaters.

  “MacCallum, what are you doing?” Dent said.

  Alex ignored her and pulled another skull-spiker from his pocket to add to the one still in his hand. Ten seconds later, the five still mobile eaters had joined their dead colleagues on the floor.

  Reaching the end of the corridor and the only open door, Alex peered in. He immediately clapped a hand over his mouth and turned away. The overwhelming smell of blood had warned him it would be bad, but he wasn’t prepared for quite how bad. He took a few quick breaths through his mouth, reminded himself of why he was there, and stepped into the room.

  It was immediately obvious he didn’t need his spikers in here and he put them away. Nothing was alive in what he assumed had once been a living room. Much of what had been a very large number of eaters wasn’t even recognisable. Shredded body parts covered the floor. Viscera and blood coated the walls, ceiling, and the remains of the furniture. A mild breeze wafted through where the window glass used to be. The carpet squelching unpleasantly beneath his feet, Alex picked his way across the room to an open door and stepped through.

  He was in a bedroom. He knew that because what was left of a divan bed was on its side close to the far wall. Facing the door, the base had been all but destroyed, a gaping hole ripped through the wood and fabric. Chunks of metal, wood and bone shrapnel decorated the ruins of the bed, embedded into the wooden frame. He couldn’t see what was behind it.

  His heart feeling like it had crawled into his throat, Alex made his way to the bed, stepping carefully over pieces of eater. As in the living room, nothing was in one piece. Could anyone really have survived in here?