The two weeks he spent there, without any fighting or terror or running for his life, sleeping in as late as he wanted to, did wonders for Alex. All in all, he was feeling pretty good and he almost didn’t want to go home. Eventually, however, the decision had to be made. Food was running low and there was work to be done back in Sarcester, even though neither he nor Micah were going to be doing anything strenuous for a while yet.
The drive home was uneventful, relatively speaking. Alex had harboured a secret hope that somehow things would have improved while they were hidden away, that maybe the government, wherever they were, had brought in the metaphorical cavalry and started cleaning up. But nothing had changed. Hordes of eaters still roamed the countryside and uninfected people, if there were any left, remained hidden.
Lucy was subdued, only once saying to Micah, “What if Mum and Dad are dead?”
He squeezed her hand, but didn’t answer.
Alex thought about his own family in Scotland the whole way home.
. . .
When they reached Sarcester, Alex couldn’t believe the transformation.
The first thing they noticed was the barriers from when the outbreak first began. They were going back up.
Micah stopped the car and he and Alex got out, staring at the huge metal constructions being re-erected in astonishment. A man jogged over to them. It turned out to be Pete.
“Mac!” he said, grinning. “You’re back! Hey, Micah, you’re looking a lot better.” He leaned down to look into the car. “And you must be Lucy!”
Alex couldn’t help smiling in the face of his neighbour’s exuberance. “Hello, Pete. What’s going on?”
Pete swept a hand towards the barrier. “We’re fixing these and getting them back up. Isn’t it great? One of the survivors, not Survivors like us, just a survivor of the outbreak, Ted, his name is, he’s an engineer. He’s helping us get life back to normal. Well, as normal as it can be. One of the things we’re doing is putting the barriers up so everyone inside will be able to walk around without running into an eater. Having all the spotters around is good, but not foolproof, especially at night. Ted’s designed a way to get the water running properly too. Cool, right?”
“It’s amazing,” Alex said, watching the work crew manoeuvring one of the panels into place with the aid of an excavator.
He felt slightly ashamed at being surprised things were progressing without him and Micah. It occurred to him that he might have developed a somewhat inflated sense of self-worth while saving the city from Boot.
As they continued into the metropolis, Alex’s astonishment grew. The roads were almost completely clear, both of debris from Boot’s invasion and, even more amazingly, of bodies. A huge amount of eaters had died in Sarcester and removing them must have taken a lot of tough and unpleasant work.
When they reached East Town the first thing Alex noticed was that both car barriers, or what was left of them after they’d been blown up, were gone. He had half expected them to be re-established and, having been there for so long, his home looked strange without them.
Micah pulled up outside Alex’s building and the three of them got out.
“This is way nicer than your place,” Lucy said to Micah, looking around.
“I don’t get that very often,” Alex said, “but having seen Micah’s place, I would have to agree wholeheartedly.”
Lucy giggled and held one hand up. He grinned and high-fived it.
“Alex!”
“Micah!”
Alex turned at the sound of his name just in time to brace himself as Emma bowled into him. She laughed as, ignoring the pain in his shoulder, he picked her up and spun her around. Katie headed straight for Micah, giggling as he swung her into the air and hugged her. There was more laughter as Alex and Micah swapped the girls without putting them down, hugged them, and placed them back on the ground.
“Are you Lucy?” Katie said, staring up at Micah’s sister.
Lucy looked down, hiding her eyes. “Yeah.”
Emma walked up beside her sister. “We’re glad you’re okay.”
Lucy looked up briefly with a small smile. “Thanks.”
“Well, look who decided to come back from their holiday,” Leon’s deep voice rumbled.
Alex turned. And lowered his gaze. A hole opened in his stomach at the sight of his friend sitting in a wheelchair. “Leon, you... are you...”
“I’m going to be fine,” Leon said. “I’m just still a bit sore and tired.” He grimaced. “Pat makes me use this thing.”
“For the first few days after Dad came home, Scott had to carry him up the stairs,” Emma said, grinning.
Leon gave his daughter a look. “I thought we’d agreed to not mention that.”
“Oh, yeah,” she said, still smiling.
“Welcome to East Town, Lucy,” Leon said. “We hope you’ll be happy living here.”
Lucy smiled, looking a little less awkward in the presence of another Survivor. “Thank you.”
Micah raised his eyebrows. “Um... living?”
“Alex! Micah!” Sam’s voice preceded him as he ran across the street from the direction of his building and flung his arms around Alex before moving on to Micah.
Claire reached them at a more sedate pace. “Welcome home.”
Sam stepped back and put his arm around her and she leaned into him, smiling.
“I was just about to tell them that Micah’s new living arrangements were your idea, Sam,” Leon said.
Micah looked between the two of them. “New living arrangements?”
Sam gasped. “Oh, yes! I thought, since you only have a one bedroom flat and it’s on the seventh floor and you were hurt, although you look much better now, and Alex said you didn’t really like your flat, and since you’ve been staying at Alex’s mostly anyway, that it would be nice if you moved into a place here. We got you some furniture, but we can help you move your own stuff in too. We painted it so it looks nice and Lucy has her own room.” He looked at Lucy and smiled. “Hello, I’m Sam. You have really pretty eyes.”
Lucy’s smile had grown. “Thanks.”
“We painted your room purple,” Emma said, “but you can change it if you want.”
“I love purple,” Lucy said.
Micah was looking stunned. “I... I don’t know what to say.”
“Come and see it,” Sam said, taking Claire’s hand and beckoning for the others to follow. “You’re really going to like it.”
Katie took hold of Lucy’s hand and pulled her after Sam and Claire, with Emma following. Leon wheeled after them.
As they went inside, Alex heard Emma say to Lucy, “You could come and see our room later. Do you like make-up?”
Micah wasn’t moving. Hands on his hips, he stared along the road into the distance and blinked rapidly a few times.
“I told you she’d be okay here,” Alex said.
Micah nodded and wiped one hand across his eyes. When things reached the awkward stage, Alex clapped him on the back.
“Come on, you wuss. Stop getting emotional and come and see your new home.”
Micah smiled, sniffed, and pushed Alex’s arm as they headed for the door. “You’re the wuss.”
“Am not.”
“Are too.”
. . .
Half an hour later, with Micah and Lucy settling into their new flat, Alex drove to the underground lab.
There was a sign taped to the front door headed ‘Clinic Hours’. The door was locked. Alex wasn’t sure anyone would hear if he tried knocking so he drove around to the back entrance, left the car in the warehouse car park, and went in through the shed.
The storage room at the bottom of the stairs smelled faintly of bleach. When he got to the lounge, Larry was making coffee. He jumped when Alex walked in, pressing a hand to his chest.
“You almost gave me a heart attack,” he said, smiling. “Bad things tend to come through that door lately. How are you? Are your wounds healing all right? No infectio
n? How’s your range of movement doing? Are you still in pain? I’d like to take a look.”
Alex waved him away. “Later, Larry. First, I’d like to find Hannah and say hello. Is she here?”
“Of course you do,” Larry said, winking. “She’s working in the lab.”
“Thanks, Larry.” Alex started towards the door leading further into the facility.
“And I’d like to check Micah over too, when he’s ready. Pauline will want to see her handiwork now the swelling has had time to go down.”
“I’ll let him know,” Alex said, without looking back.
He found Hannah alone in one of the labs in the original, ‘legitimate’ part of the facility, the part that hadn’t been used for Boot’s nefarious purposes. She was standing at one of the steel tables across the room, facing away from him as she peered into a microscope. Alex briefly considered tip-toeing up to her, putting his hands over her eyes, and saying, “guess who”, but decided against it. If she didn’t know who and he startled her she could do some serious damage.
Instead, he paused in the doorway, his gaze travelling slowly down her form and back up again. She was wearing one of the shapeless white lab coats so there wasn’t that much to see, but his imagination was filling in all the blanks without any trouble. His eyes lingered on the light reflecting in her dark hair as he imagined sliding his fingers through the silky strands.
As if feeling his scrutiny, she lifted her head from the microscope and turned. Her glasses were pushed up into her hair and she squinted at him as she pulled them down onto her face. When she saw him, her lips widened into a smile that took his breath away.
For a few seconds they simply stared at each other.
“When did you get back?” Hannah said finally, lowering her gaze briefly before looking up at him again.
It took a moment for Alex to find his voice. “Not long. I just dropped Micah and Lucy at their new flat.”
“How are you feeling? How’s Micah?”
“We’re both much better, thank you”
“And is Lucy okay?”
“She’s good. The cure worked perfectly. And she’s not looking so thin now she’s eating again.”
Hannah nodded, sliding a pen she was holding back and forth through her fingers. “That’s good. I was concerned that she’d been turned for so long that it might be hard for her to put on weight again, but I’m glad she’s recovering. Do they like the flat? We all helped with the painting and everything, even Emma and Katie, although Pat had to rein in a few of their more colourful suggestions.”
“They love it, and it looks great. It was a really good idea.” He smiled. “And it’ll get Micah off my sofa.”
“I thought you liked the company.”
Alex shrugged with his good shoulder. “It has its moments. Now he has a nice, newly decorated flat, maybe I’ll be over there all the time. It’s a lot nicer than mine.”
Hannah took a step towards him. “Well, maybe I could help you with yours.”
Alex moved a couple of steps closer to her. “I’d like that.”
She chewed her lower lip for a moment. Alex couldn’t help noticing, seeing as his attention was already on her mouth.
“I missed you,” she said.
He raised his eyes back to hers. “I missed you too.” He suddenly realised just how much he’d missed her. “A lot.”
She moved forward another step. Alex closed the rest of the distance between them.
His final thought as their lips met and he slid his hands into her soft hair, was how glad he was to be home.
55
Darren pushed the final pair of socks into his khaki green duffle bag and looked around the bedroom in the house he’d called home for the past four weeks.
Well, that wasn’t entirely true; he’d never actually called it home. The tiny one bedroom house he’d commandeered in Sarcester was nice enough, but he’d always known it was temporary. And now he was leaving and would probably never see it again.
He checked the wardrobe one last time, in case he’d forgotten anything. Not that he had much to forget. Thank goodness for the big and tall men’s clothing store in the city centre or he’d have been wearing jeans that stopped at his calves. Him and the rest of his fellow ex-Boot bodyguards, Brian, Rick, Ben, Ian, Tom and Charlie. Funny how when they were working together he’d never thought of them by their first names. Not that he regarded them as bosom buddies now, but things had become a little less... formal.
He briefly wondered where the others were, Pinner and the rest who had followed Boot to the bitter end and then run when they finally realised they were on the losing side. Darren had searched after Boot was dead, without any real idea what he was going to do if he found any of them, but he never did. The hotel where they’d stayed was deserted. Maybe one day he would come across a small horde of very tall eaters. He wouldn’t lose any sleep if he did. Survival, that was the name of the game now. They’d picked the wrong side.
He closed the wardrobe door on the black suit still hanging in there, did a final sweep of the bedroom, then ducked out the door and carried his bag down the narrow stairs.
The unnecessarily cheerful doorbell played its jaunty tune. Darren dropped his bag at the bottom of the stairs and opened the door.
“I hear you’re leaving.”
He stepped aside to let MacCallum in, leaving the door open. “Brian blabbed I take it?”
He looked down at the bag. “You were just going to sneak off?”
“Sneak off? What am I, a prisoner?” Darren walked through to the kitchen and began pulling a selection of small, high calorie items from the cupboards to take with him in case he didn’t find food immediately. Chocolate, mostly.
MacCallum walked in after him and leaned against the doorframe. He folded his arms across his chest then unfolded them again with a slight wince.
Darren noticed how he also favoured his right leg, but considering he’d been shot three times only four weeks previously, MacCallum looked in good shape. He and Clarke were ridiculously lucky to have made it out of the confrontation with Boot alive. Darren had been among those who rushed to them when they heard MacCallum’s call for help on the radio. Both of them had looked like they were dead already. The guilt he’d felt when he saw their bloody, bruised forms still bothered him. He didn’t like feeling guilty.
Maybe that was why he’d stayed this long, volunteering for every unpleasant, dangerous job there had been over the past weeks, first hunting down the rogue eaters still wandering the city streets, then enduring endless days of helping to clear the thousands of bodies littering the streets. The smell still lingered in his nostrils.
There was a possibility he’d been trying to work away his guilt at being part of the cause of all the suffering. But it still hovered in the back of his mind, no matter how hard he worked and how often he told himself he was just following Boot’s orders and trying to stay alive. He hated that.
“You could stay,” MacCallum said.
“No thanks. I don’t want to be part of this whole all for one and one for all thing you’ve got going on here.”
“People will forgive you, if you give them a chance.”
Frowning, Darren picked up the small pile of nutritionally void food items and pushed past him. “I don’t need their forgiveness.”
“If you say so,” MacCallum said, following him back to the front door.
Darren waved him off. “Has anyone ever told you how annoying you are?”
The corner of his mouth hitched up. “Once or twice.”
Darren packed the chocolate bars and crisp packets into the bag and zipped it closed.
“We could use you here,” MacCallum said. “I hope this will all be over soon, I really do. Hannah, Larry, Pauline and Dave are working on a way to mass produce the cure and somehow deliver it to hordes of eaters all at once, and maybe even before that help will come from somewhere. But if it doesn’t, we’re on our own, and most of the people here aren’t fig
hters. You’re one of the few who are. We need you.”
Darren slung the bag over his shoulder and turned to face him. If he had a moment of doubt about his decision to leave, he chose to ignore it. “Thanks for the offer, but no. I don’t belong here.”
He pushed the key into the outside of the door and stepped out into the chilly morning air, heading for the shiny new Jeep parked on the road beyond the small, overgrown garden. Opening the back door, he threw the duffle bag onto the seat inside.
“Where are you going?” MacCallum said from behind him.
Darren slammed the door shut. “Bristol, to find my parents and my sisters.” He didn’t add, if they’re still alive.
“Well, you’re welcome to bring them back here when you find them,” MacCallum said. He held out his right hand. “Thank you, for saving my life.”
“I didn’t set out to save your life, MacCallum. I ended Boot’s. Or at least I thought I did.”
“Call me Alex. And thank you anyway.”
His hand remained extended, hovering in the space between them. After a moment’s hesitation, Darren grasped it.
Alex smiled. “Be careful out there. There are things that will eat you alive.”
Darren was surprised to feel himself almost smiling back. “You don’t say.” He climbed into the driver’s seat, closed the door, and rolled down the window. “Good luck, Alex.”
“When you’re as good as me, you don’t need luck.”
Darren stared at him. “You’re kidding, right? You attract injuries like a magnet.”
“I prefer to regard that as a consequence of my naturally self-sacrificing personality,” Alex said, grinning.
This time, Darren did smile. “You are a weird person.”
The Jeep’s engine roared into life when he turned the key. With a last nod to Alex, Darren pulled away and headed down the road.
He didn’t look back.
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Twenty-Five Percent (Book 3): Vengeance Page 32