Olga only realised she was crying when she backed away from the hole. The creatures in the room below were as much her parents as they’d ever been. Diseased or not, she’d lost them years ago. At least she could finally mourn their passing.
As Olga looked out across the city she’d once called home, she dragged in a deep breath. Everything had changed and nothing had changed. She still had a debt to pay. She still had to get to Max. It wouldn’t be easy and wouldn’t be quick, but it wasn’t like she had anything else to do. A tightened grip on her baton, she wiped her eyes, faced the direction of the labs, and said, “Just hold on in there; I’m coming for you.”
Chapter 25
“Matilda?” William turned so hard it sent a sharp rod of electric pain into the base of his skull. He kept a hold of the seat as the carriage’s right wheels slammed back down again, bracing against being catapulted over the other side. The carriage shook and wobbled from where the spooked horse galloped, Hugh still clinging onto his neck.
Even with the bumpy ride, William slid from the driver’s seat to the roof of the carriage. “Matilda?” He saw her fingers gripping the side of the wooden vehicle, white with tension.
Pulling himself so he could peer over the edge, William saw her using the window ledge to stand on much like he had, her free foot driving back the snapping jaws of the diseased.
Nothing more than the weight of his body for leverage, William let his feet hang over the other side of the carriage, now lying horizontally across the wooden vehicle. He reached down and wrapped a strong grip around the back of Matilda’s right wrist.
William held on tightly enough to prevent Matilda from pulling away. A natural reaction to his unexpected touch, she looked up. The briefest of glances, she returned to kicking the diseased with more ferocity than before, each blow landing with a loud clop!
“Three …” It hurt William’s throat to be heard over the thundering escape. “Two …” On one, he pulled and she pushed off the window ledge, the diseased so desperate to get to her, many of them got dragged beneath the cart’s large wheels.
On the roof of the carriage, both of them breathing heavily, Matilda jabbed a finger in Hugh’s direction, her face nearly as crimson as a diseased’s stare. “He nearly got me killed.”
And were it not for the battle still raging between Hugh and the horse, the carriage still shaking and wobbling beneath them, William might have replied. Instead, he left Matilda to recover and shifted back towards the driver’s seat.
William pulled on the reins, slowing them a little. “What the hell are you doing, Hugh?” Although, even as the sentence left his mouth, he let it go. With the horse still trying to throw the stocky boy from its neck, neither the animal nor his friend would benefit from his rage.
Like he’d done so many times already, William reached over and patted the horse’s hide. The creature’s muscles tightened at his touch. “There, there, boy. Calm down. He’s just an idiot trying to get to safety.”
The diseased had caught up to them again, but the height and strength of the stallion as it flung Hugh around like a rag doll kept the stocky boy from their reaching hands. Although, it would just be a matter of time before one of them caught him.
William stood up and thrust his arms out for balance.
“What are you doing?” Matilda said. “Don’t put yourself in danger again. Not for him.”
With Artan as her first and foremost worry, she couldn’t see much beyond that. And William didn’t blame her, but they owed Hugh. They wouldn’t be here were it not for him. Besides, he’d calm down with time. They needed to stand by him until then. Were William in danger, Hugh would help him in a heartbeat.
Two wooden poles ran from the carriage to either side of the horse’s wide body. They attached the vehicle to the creature’s harness. They were lower down than the driver’s seat. Were the diseased not so focused on Hugh, William might have thought twice. Just one of the vile creatures could drag him from the poles. But as the stallion shook its head, the flinging Hugh served as the perfect distraction for the foetid mob. The horse now moving at a slow walk, William jumped down, kicked off the left bar, and landed on the animal’s back on his knees, tucking his feet beneath him.
For the second time, the horse reared up. The carriage lifted on one side, and Matilda shouted, “William!”
The large wheels slammed down with a crunch of breaking bodies, the weight of the vehicle making light work of the diseased.
Matilda had managed to hold on, so William reached out and stroked the horse’s neck. “Calm down, boy. We’ll get this lump off you, but you need to trust me.”
Like when he’d talked to the horse from the carriage, the animal’s ears twitched in response to his soft words, and the stallion settled.
While Hugh kicked out at the diseased grasping for him, William reached towards his friend. “Take my hand now.”
Their grips locked, William dragged Hugh clear of the mob. Both of them on the stallion, the horse lifted its front feet as if it might rear again. William’s stomach did a backflip; he had nothing to hold on to. But the horse resisted as if reassured by William’s presence.
The clawing hands of the diseased reached after Hugh as William let him past on the horse’s wide back.
“Thank you,” Hugh said and stepped onto one of the poles before jumping up to the carriage, his knees whacking the wooden side with a loud crack! The horse shifted at the sound, and William thrust his arms out for balance again.
The screams around them grew louder, the horse shaking as if about to explode. If William waited any longer, he’d be a goner. Too many diseased around the poles, he took a two-step run across the horse’s back and leaped for the carriage.
William landed on the footrest of the driver’s seat and spun around, sitting down on the bench, trembling from the adrenaline flooding into his system. A gentle flick of the reins sent the horse away.
When they’d broken into a canter, Hugh laughed. “That was a ride!”
Matilda responded through clenched teeth. “Just lie down, Hugh, before I knock you out and shove you off this carriage.”
Chapter 26
Matilda on his left, Hugh on his right, William now lay on his front on the carriage’s roof. He reached out to hold the stallion’s reins and guided them towards Trent and his friends on Phoenix’s dorm. The diseased might not have known why they followed the carriage, but they still had a group around them. Too many if they wanted to make good progress through the city.
As they drew closer, Trent stood up. “Finally, you’re coming to help us.”
Matilda spoke from the side of her mouth. Not that she needed to keep quiet; the sight of the tall boy riled the diseased around the hut, drowning out anything they might say. “How will we fit them all on here?”
“We could lock them inside,” Hugh suggested.
A few steps closer to Phoenix’s old dorm, the rest of the diseased around the carriage rushed over to the hut.
William had an awareness of Trent in his peripheral vision. The boy glared at him, awaiting an answer. But he didn’t look back, tugging on the horse’s right rein to guide them away from the small wooden building.
It didn’t take long for Trent to see his plan. “You’re a snake, Spike Johnson. You’ll get yours.”
The boy’s words had nothing on the corrosive guilt inside William. Matilda had already said it; they didn’t have room for all of them on the roof of the carriage, so they couldn’t take any. But they needed to shake off the diseased. As much as he didn’t want to, he looked at the boy who’d let them live when they were vulnerable. They owed him their lives. Unlike Trent, he didn’t glare rage at them. He stared betrayal. Confusion. Could they really leave them there? Who made them God, giving them the power to decide who lived and who died? The promise seemed like an empty one, regardless of William’s intention, so he didn’t make it again. But they would be back for them. They’d make sure they helped them off that roof. But first,
they needed to get to their loved ones.
As they walked through the gap where the gates had once separated the national service area from the rest of Edin, Hugh shook his head. “If only they’d left them up for another day.”
“If only you’d closed the gate behind you when you came to find us,” Matilda said.
The air damn near crackled, and before Hugh replied, William reached out and patted the stallion’s rump. “Goliath.”
It dragged the focus of his two friends away from their volatile conversation. “That’s his name.”
“How do you know?” Hugh said.
“Because I’ve just given it to him. A name befitting his stature.”
“And we’re lucky he has such a calm temperament,” Matilda said. “Otherwise, we’d all be dead.”
Before she could go any further, William said, “That’s enough. We’re clear of the national service area now. We’re where we need to be, so let’s move on, yeah? We can’t change the past.”
The metronomic clop of Goliath’s feet beat against the cobblestones as they passed the diseased, invisible to them on the roof. While lying on his front, the morning sun beating down on them, the muscles in William’s body relaxed, but his heart quickened as a warning. Whatever happened, if they lowered their guard, they were dead. They might have had a clear path to follow, but things could change in an instant.
The edge gone from her tone, Matilda said, “I don’t think those kids on Phoenix’s dorm will have wanted to come this way anyway. They’ll do much better getting the hell out of Edin. I can’t even imagine what we’ve got ahead of us.”
William shuddered at the sight of the shambling monsters on the main street. As much as he intended to return to the national service area, they’d have to survive this first.
Chapter 27
Goliath’s rhythm sent William into a trance, his hooves clopping against the cobblestones, his thick body moving with a hypnotic sway. The leather reins still in his grip, William stretched his eyes wide for what felt like the twentieth time in the past five minutes. The warmth from the spring day did little to dispel his fatigue.
Before William could talk to the others—anything to keep a conversation going so he didn’t drift off—Hugh tapped his side and pointed over to their left. “That’s the labs.”
The most private district in Edin, the labs were hidden behind a two-storey-high wooden wall that ran around the perimeter. A narrow corridor provided the only access to the place. Before Edin fell, the district had been manned by twice as many guards as any other. Very few citizens had the authority to enter, and those trying to gain unauthorised access risked their lives. Woodwork and the science labs: two places not even the kids in Edin bothered with. “I’ve never seen any more of the labs than this,” William said.
“They have to lock the place down. We were always testing on the virus and had so many live samples we couldn’t risk any mistakes. If just one of them escaped …” Hugh left his words hanging, the shambling chaos on Edin’s streets the obvious end to his sentence.
“Live samples?” Matilda said.
While nodding, Hugh continued to stare at his old district. “Yeah, there were always several diseased in captivity. It was the only way to test the virus.”
As they passed the labs, it gave them a clearer sight down the narrow road leading into the district. Diseased shambled around the tighter space like everywhere else—at least, everywhere else they’d seen so far. With canted stances, they stumbled on the edge of their balance.
“I suppose at least now we don’t have to worry about the disease getting out of there,” Matilda said.
William gripped the reins with his right hand and touched Matilda’s side with his left. She’d made her point; Hugh knew what he’d done. She needed to lay off him now.
If Hugh picked up on her jibe, he let it slide. “I think you’re missing my point.”
Before Matilda replied, William said, “Which is?”
“Max is in there.”
“We know,” Matilda said.
It killed the conversation. As if on cue, a crow cawed as it flew over the now dead city; even the scavengers knew Edin had been lost.
Hugh said, “Uh … we can’t leave him behind.”
Matilda said, “We can, and we will.”
“Tilly,” William said, “Hugh has a point.”
“What about Artan? What about your mum and dad? What about James?”
“We’ll still go to them.”
“So why risk our lives now?”
“We owe Max, like we owe Hugh.”
“You don’t owe me anything,” Hugh said.
Matilda’s eyes widened as if to tell William she agreed. Fortunately, she kept it to herself.
“Had Max not told us about Artan,” William said, “and then helped Hugh break out so he could get to us, we wouldn’t even be here. Just like we can’t leave Artan to rot in a cell—which is exactly what would have happened had Hugh not found us—we can’t leave Max.”
Matilda shifted across so his hand fell from her. “Sounds like you’ve already made up your mind.”
“There’s three of us here, Tilly, and two think it’s the right thing to do.”
For most of their conversation, William had watched Goliath’s swaying form. When Matilda didn’t come back at him, he turned to see tears in her eyes. The watery surface shook with her rage. “If this diversion puts Artan in greater danger, I will never forgive you.”
“We go back a long way, Tilly—”
“Yet you’re still prepared to do this to me. To Artan!”
“I hope I can trust you at some point like I want you to trust me now. This is the right thing to do.”
“It sounds to me like this conversation’s over.”
Even Hugh knew to keep his mouth shut at that point.
A gentle tug on Goliath’s left rein, William led them towards the entrance to the labs. He fought to keep his focus on what lay ahead. He could think about Artan, his parents, and James when they got closer to the political district. For now, they’d made the right decision.
Despite William’s certainty, his stomach still turned backflips. Had he just risked his future relationship with Matilda by delaying their route to Artan? Would entering the labs be a challenge they couldn’t overcome?
Chapter 28
Goliath’s steps and the squeak of the cartwheels bounced back from the close walls on either side of them. The steady rhythm served as both a signal of their intention and a desperately tense countdown to whatever lay ahead. Had William really thought this one through? What if the delay meant the difference between life and death for Artan? No use in questioning himself now; the decision had been the right one with all the information they had available.
The diseased who didn’t move were shoved aside by Goliath’s slow and unrelenting progress. Several were dragged beneath the cart’s large wheels like cockroaches beneath the sole of a boot. Tempted to look over the side, William remained flat against the roof with Matilda and Hugh flanking him. No sense in revealing himself to sate his morbid curiosity.
As they walked free of the tight entrance, the space opened up, Matilda gasping in response. “Wow,” she said.
Unlike anything they’d seen anywhere else in Edin, the complex stretched out like it belonged to a different city. A one-storey wooden building, it had many rooms with corridors linking them together. It took up a space that would have accommodated over two hundred houses in one of Edin’s residential areas. The district also had acres of wasteland to spare. What agriculture would have given for all that extra space. Like the dining room in the national service area, the complex had large windows running along its sides. Not only did they let light in, but they also revealed the building’s interior.
Morning had given way to afternoon, the bright sun bouncing off the panes of glass. “It looks empty,” William said, squinting to see in.
Hugh pointed in the direction of a pack of diseased.
“That’s the main entrance they’re gathered around. It looks like they haven’t made it in.”
Matilda lifted her head. “So where are all the people from this district?”
“She has a point,” William said. “Why can’t we see anyone?”
“We can’t see all of it. That down there”—Hugh pointed at the end of the large sprawling building to show a windowless section—“is where they keep all the test subjects. It’s also the safest place to hide out.”
“So you think Max is there? With the people from the labs?” William said.
“That would be my guess.”
William saw a skylight on top of the building and guided Goliath towards it. “Is that the only skylight in the place?”
“Yeah,” Hugh said. “Not much need for them with so many windows.”
“Do you think it’s our best way in?”
Hugh nodded.
When they got close to the roof, the top of the carriage level with it, William tugged on Goliath’s reins to halt him and stood up. The diseased responded to him with cries and shouts as they rushed towards them, slamming into the side of the wooden vehicle, rocking it from their impact.
Goliath added to the movement beneath William’s feet, small steps back and forth, the diseased clearly bothering him. “There, there,” William said as he jumped from the carriage onto the roof. A metal chimney close by, he hooked Goliath’s reins around it while the other two hopped over. They moved out of sight from the diseased while William walked along the edge of the building, leading the creatures away from his horse.
Collapse: Book four of Beyond These Walls - A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Thriller Page 10