Twenty-Five Percent (Book 3): Vengeance

by Nerys Wheatley

  Leon was lying on one of the beds when Alex reached the infirmary. Pat was sitting in a chair next to him, holding his right hand. It reminded Alex of the time he’d spent in this same room three weeks before, sitting and waiting for Micah to regain consciousness after he’d been bitten. Except he hadn’t held Micah’s hand.

  Okay, maybe he’d held it once or twice, when no-one else was around. Just briefly. In a manly, I’m-here-for-you-bro’ kind of way. He didn’t cry or anything.

  Emma and Katie were sitting on the bed with Leon, both of them holding onto their father’s left hand. Leon looked exhausted and pale, but he was smiling at his daughters.

  When he saw Alex, his smile grew. “You look terrible.”

  Alex grinned. “Look who’s talking.”

  Leon began to laugh then grimaced. “Don’t. It hurts when I laugh.”

  “Tell me about it.” Alex dragged a chair next to Pat’s and sat. “How are you feeling?”

  “Like I got shot. You?”

  “Like I got beaten up by fifteen ridiculously large men.”

  Leon frowned up at the ceiling, appearing to consider the situation. “I think I win.”

  “Did I mention how large the men were? You know Brian and Ben? Imagine fifteen of them.”

  “Yeah, but I got shot. With a gun. There was an actual bullet inside me.”

  “He wants me to have it made into a necklace,” Pat said. “I told him I’d consider it.” She shook her head at Alex and mouthed ‘No’.

  Alex clamped down on a laugh as his ribs protested.

  “Is there anything wrong with wanting my woman to wear the evidence of how I took a bullet trying to protect my family?” Leon said.

  “Baby, you know I love you and I’m beyond proud of you.” She raised his hand to her lips and kissed the back. “But a bullet on a necklace is going just a little bit overboard.”

  “I’ll wear it, Dad,” Emma said.

  He grinned. “That’s my girl.”

  Pat rolled her eyes as she stood. “I can see I’m not going to win here. Come on, let’s go and make Daddy something to eat so he will get better.”

  Emma and Katie kissed Leon’s cheek in turn then climbed from the bed and came to hug Alex. He wrapped an arm around each of them, feeling a little overwhelmed. He may not have had any blood relatives in the city, but he did have a family.

  Pat leaned down to kiss Leon, lingering with her forehead resting against his as he touched one hand to the side of her face. Then she left the infirmary with the girls in tow.

  “I don’t know what I’d have done if I’d lost them,” Leon said when they’d gone, his eyes shining with moisture. “You and Micah, what you did, I don’t know how to begin to thank you.”

  Alex shook his head, somewhat embarrassed. “You would have done the same for us.”

  Leon nodded and cleared his throat. “So, I hear Hannah is here.”

  The smile Alex felt coming whenever he thought of her sidled back onto his face. “I almost can’t believe it. She’s a Survivor now too.” The smile grew. “She looks so beautiful with white eyes.”

  “You have got it so bad.”

  Alex waved a dismissive hand. “We hardly know each other yet.” He leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers behind his head. “Although she did just kiss me. With tongue.”

  Leon laughed then stopped abruptly, pressing a hand to his side. “I told you not to make me laugh.”

  . . .

  The hours passed. Alex and Micah stayed at the lab.

  Janie, Bates, Brian and those who weren’t in hiding for the invasion had returned to East Town. After what happened with the smaller horde getting in, extra spotters had been posted on the roofs of buildings all around the city. Everyone was on high alert.

  What remained of Boot’s horde had been pulled back to the very edge of the city soon after they’d detonated the buildings. Since then, no movement had been spotted from the invaders. No-one had seen any sign of the helicopters.

  They all knew the plan for the defence and each person’s role in it, but they discussed it again, more to reassure themselves than because they really needed to. Alex knew they were all ready, as much as they could be. He couldn’t completely banish his nerves though.

  The lack of any movement from Boot was putting him on edge. Why wasn’t he coming? Had he given up? Alex didn’t believe for a second that was the case, but it didn’t stop him dreaming. If only Boot would just leave, take his eaters with him, and never come back. They could go back to clearing up the city, organising supplies, preparing for whatever the future held.

  Most importantly, he could get some quality alone time with Hannah. She’d been working with the other doctors, keeping an eye on Leon in between analysing whatever was in her blood and the other samples they’d taken. Since his x-rays and the quite frankly phenomenal kiss, Alex had barely seen her.

  He was dying to kiss her again.

  “What are you doing?”

  Alex looked up as Micah sat down next to him on the steps outside the front entrance.

  He shrugged. “Just wanted some fresh air.”

  It was an unusually clear night for the beginning of October. He drew in as deep a breath of the chilly air as his still aching ribs would allow and looked up at the stars. Now the streetlights weren’t working, there were so many more of them.

  Micah followed his gaze. “Wouldn’t it be nice if Boot had just given up and gone home?”

  “That’s exactly what I was thinking.”

  “He won’t have though.”

  “No.”

  They sat in silence for a while. Alex knew something was on Micah’s mind; it was practically radiating off him. But he decided to let his friend tell him in his own time.

  Eventually though, after a few minutes, Alex got tired of waiting for whenever that time would be. “Spill it, what’s bothering you?”

  Micah leaned his elbows on his knees, clasping his hands, and stared out into the darkness of the street beyond the gates. “It’s the cure.”

  “You’re bothered about the cure?”

  “I don’t mean I’m not happy there is one. Lucy has a chance now. My sister has a chance to live. I can’t begin to describe how happy I am about that.” He sighed, dropping his gaze to the ground.

  “But?” Alex prompted.

  “It’s just, there’s a cure now. All the eaters we’ve killed, all the people we’ve killed because that’s what they are, I’ve got through it like you have, by knowing they would die anyway and that I was helping them by ending it. But now I know there’s a cure for them...” He shook his head. “Alex, how can I go back out there and kill any more? How can I decide who lives and who dies? I know I need to, to stop Boot and protect the people here, but I don’t know how. I need a way to keep going and I can’t see one.”

  Alex was silent for a while, collecting his thoughts. It wasn’t the first time today he’d considered the fact that they were now, and had been without knowing it, slaughtering people who could be saved.

  “I asked Hannah about the cure,” he said eventually. “She said she’s sure Boot doesn’t have more than a handful of doses. She also said that even if they had the facilities to start manufacturing massive amounts of it now, they’d still have to reverse engineer the drug to find out what’s in it and that could take weeks or months. These eaters, unless the new virus works differently, they will be dead in a month unless they feed. So that’s our choice: either the eaters live by killing the ones who aren’t infected, or they die anyway, whether they starve or we kill them.”

  Micah breathed out a long sigh. “Those options suck.”

  “I know.”

  They sat in silence for another few minutes. The temperature was dropping and Alex shivered, pulling his jacket tighter around him. His mind wandered to the coming winter and whether they’d be left to survive the freezing temperatures without any help from the outside world. Would eaters die of hypothermia?

  “I th
ink I’d like to go for option C,” Micah said.

  “What’s option C?”

  “That I’ll wake up with a terrible hangover and realise this has all been an epic, booze-induced dream. I’m not averse to there being a gorgeous, naked woman in bed with me when I wake up too.”

  Alex affected an offended look. “What, you’d give up our friendship in exchange for a naked woman and not having to fight for your life every day?”

  “In a heartbeat.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  “Okay, maybe not just one naked woman. But if she had a friend with her...”

  Alex nodded. “Fair enough.”

  There were a few seconds of silence during which he pondered the idea.

  “That happened to me once you know,” Micah said.

  “What, you woke up in bed with two gorgeous, naked women?”

  He nodded, smiling. “This was when I was still drinking a lot. I was maybe twenty-one. Had no idea who they were or how they ended up in my bed, but I can’t say that bothered me overly.”

  “So you...” Alex waved a hand vaguely, “...with both of them?” He was trying not to be jealous.

  Micah’s smile disappeared. He stared up into the sky. “Not exactly. I mean, I was all for it, obviously, but it turned out there was still quite a lot of alcohol left in my system.” He cleared his throat.

  Alex stared at him. “So you couldn’t...?”

  Micah sighed. “Little Micah just wasn’t playing ball.”

  Alex burst into laughter.

  “I don’t think you’re truly appreciating how distressing that was,” Micah said.

  His ribs were hurting, but he couldn’t stop laughing.

  Micah stared into the distance, a haunted look on his face. “Ever since then, I’ve been waiting for it to happen again, but it never has.”

  Alex wrapped his arms around himself, gasping, “Please, stop. You’re killing me.”

  30

  Someone was shouting.

  Alex clawed his way slowly to consciousness, too groggy to make out the words. Then a hand grasped his shoulder and shook him.

  “Alex, wake up! I swear you could sleep through an earthquake.”

  He opened his eyes and squinted up at Micah. “What?”

  Micah sat back down on the sofa he’d been using for a bed and began pulling on his shoes. “The spotters on the west side have seen the lights of the helicopters, and they can hear the horde. They’re coming.”

  Alex laboriously pushed himself up to a sitting position, wincing at the pain in his... everything. He looked at his watch. “It’s 6am! It’s not even light for another hour.”

  “I knew you’d be pleased.”

  “And I thought I couldn’t like Boot any less.”

  By the time Alex had put on his shoes, visited the little boy’s room, and grabbed a custard cream, everyone else was ready. They gathered in the lower lobby where the lifts and main staircase ascended to the entrance building overhead, exchanging goodbyes and last minute instructions to be careful.

  Reports were coming in every couple of minutes from the spotters now. The horde was approaching from the west and the general consensus was it looked bigger than it had been after they’d taken out a good chunk of it with the collapsing buildings. Perhaps that was why Boot hadn’t come after them straight away. He’d been gathering reinforcements.

  Hannah slid her arms around Alex’s neck, laying her head against his chest. For a moment he closed his eyes and tuned out everything going on around them. Laying his cheek against her unbrushed hair, he held her close and breathed in the faint, flowery scent of her shampoo.

  She raised her eyes to his face. “Please don’t die,” she whispered.

  “I will do my very best.”

  “I wish I was going with you.” It wasn’t the first time she’d said it.

  He shook his head. “You’ll be a target for Boot.”

  “He wants you too.”

  “But you’re important. You and Dave and Pauline and Larry can stop this outbreak. You need to stay safe. You’re far more important than me.”

  She frowned. “That is not true. Everyone here needs you, more than you realise. I need you. Besides, I’m a Survivor now. I have all this superhuman strength and speed.”

  She needed him. His chest may have puffed out a little bit.

  “Do you know how many times I’ve been stabbed since this all began? Five times. I’ve also been thrown off a motorbike, beaten, almost had my nose broken twice, and been kneed hard in the unmentionables. So superhuman strength and speed? Not as much as advantage as you might think.” He wiped his thumb across a tear creeping down her cheek. “When all this is over I will teach you how to fight and then you can be a kickass superhero in a skin tight black leather outfit whenever you want. But right now, I need you to stay here and be safe.”

  Her eyebrows rose. “Skin tight black leather?”

  “Or whatever.” He shrugged one shoulder. “It was just an idea. I’m flexible on the colour.”

  She laughed softly and he bent his head to press a lingering kiss to her lips. When he stepped back, he had to force himself to let go.

  She’ll be safe here, he told himself as he followed the others who were leaving up the stairs. Sam, Claire, Ben and Rick were staying with the doctors and Leon and his family, but they didn’t need the protection. They would be safe. They’d locked the whole facility down. It was the most secure place in the city.

  Hannah would be safe. They’d all be safe.

  . . .

  The Corn Exchange theatre lay to the west of the city centre.

  It had been chosen as the rendezvous point both because its convenient central location enabled travel to any part of the city relatively quickly, and because the old stone block building was more easily defendable in an eater related emergency than the glass-covered architecture of newer buildings. Also, everyone knew where it was, even in the dark.

  Alex and Micah had a very cramped ride in the APV to pick up their bikes from where they’d left them the day before at the flats, then they drove in convoy to the theatre.

  Alex climbed off his bike, pulled off his helmet and looked around. Sunrise was still almost an hour away and though the sky was already tinged with pink and purple, at ground level it was still gloomy. The shrouded, empty streets felt creepy, even to someone who could see in the dark.

  Micah’s radio crackled, startling Alex. He hugged his arms around himself and pretended he hadn’t just almost jumped out of his skin.

  “This is Eagle Three,” Pete’s voice said from the speaker. It sounded like he was whispering.

  Micah unclipped the radio from his belt. “What is it, Pete?”

  “The horde is passing me now,” he said. “One of the choppers is with it. No sign of the other two.”

  “Can you tell where they’re heading?”

  “That’s a negative. They’re just going straight along Bury Road. The horde definitely looks bigger, like they’ve picked up more eaters. I can...”

  His voice cut off.

  “Pete?” Micah said. “Pete, are you there?”

  “Sorry,” he said after a few seconds of silence. “Chopper just flew right past and I had to hide. Anyway, I could circle around them once they’re past and find another building to watch from.”

  Micah looked at Alex. Alex shook his head.

  “That’s okay, Pete,” Micah said. “Bates has got more people moving in that direction. You keep an eye out from where you are.”

  “Roger that. Over and out.”

  Micah replaced the radio on his belt. “He’s really getting into this, isn’t he?”

  “That’s Pete.”

  Dent climbed from the APV and walked over to them, her radio in her hand. “Bates is already setting up people along the horde’s projected route, but he can move them if needed. He’s extremely efficient. I wonder why he never joined the military. He’d have made an excellent officer.”

  Alex c
ould have told her Bates would never join the military because he was a paranoid conspiracy theorist who was convinced the government couldn’t be trusted and, until three weeks ago, had been convinced that Survivors were plotting to take over the world. But he didn’t. As uncomfortable as Bates still made him feel, Dent was right in that he was very good at this kind of thing and they needed him and his fellow nutjobs. He had the defence running like a machine whose operator owned shares in WD40.

  The sound of a car engine drew everyone’s attention and they watched a pair of headlights coalesce into a red Porsche. It was funny how everyone was going for the wildly expensive sports cars when they didn’t have to pay for them.

  Janie jumped out of the driver’s side door, Brian emerging from the passenger seat. Penny and Bates had to flip forward the seats to get out the back. Bates was talking on his radio, still co-ordinating everyone’s movements.

  Janie jogged up to Alex and Micah. “Thought you might want to see this,” she said, handing Alex an A4 sized piece of paper. “One of Boot’s helicopters flew over East Town ten minutes ago and dropped a load of them.”

  Alex smoothed out the crumpled paper.

  “What’s it say?” Ridgewell said, wandering over to them.

  Alex read the printed message out loud. “Residents of Sarcester, my name is Harvey Boot. You’ll no doubt have heard of me, although much of what you’ve heard is probably lies. I have no wish to harm you. The truth is, I want to help you. I can provide you with protection, food, and everything you will need to survive the coming winter. In return, all I require from you is your help. I am sure you are all reasonable people who understand the need for law and order at these trying times. I can bring that to you. There are two men, however, who have made it their mission to thwart my plans for peace. Their only desire is for violence and chaos and they need to be stopped before they can perpetrate more harm. I therefore request that you surrender Alexander MacCallum and Micah Clarke over to me. You have half an hour to comply.”

  “Wow,” Ridgewell said.

  Alex read it again. “Who uses the word ‘thwart’?”