The Infected (Book 4): Wrecked

by Justin Gowland

  “Marc, we have to do something about Foxton.” Kathy said.

  This made me stop laughing and I looked at her before saying, “I thought that you and Foxton were an item.”

  “I’d rather lick the inside of Chris’ boot than have anything to do with him.” She said with an angry look on her face.

  “It’s true, Marc. Foxton would like something to happen, but Kathy is already spoken for.” Jane said.

  “Really?” Amy said.

  “Well, we might as well tell you all.” Jane walked over and held Kathy’s hand.

  “Not a fucking word from either of you.” Tessa said, looking at Chris and me.

  Mike just grinned and said “Can I watch?!”

  The look of shock on Tessa’s face was too much and it set everyone off laughing, including Jane and Kathy.

  In the end, it took Amy waving her hand and shouting before we could get ourselves under control. It actually felt good to have that laugh and I think everyone needed that release.

  “We still have the Foxton problem.” Chris said.

  Amy came over and sat beside me and said “I’ll sort it out tomorrow.”

  I shook my head and said “There is now way you’re going to see him on your own. I’ll be coming with you.”

  “No. You’ve got that busted shoulder, and if it turns ugly you won’t be any good.” She said.

  “I agree. So I think I’ll have to go as backup. Chris has his broken arm, David has his family to consider, so they are both out of the running as bodyguards.” Mike said.

  “Look, no one has to go talk to him.” I said.

  “So what do we do? Just let him get you kicked out so that he can take over?” Jennie said.

  “Look, if people want me to leave, I’ll just leave.” I said.

  Tessa stood up and walked over to me. Crouching down so that she was level, she slapped me across the face and said “Stop being a fucking wimp and kill the fucker.”

  Raising my hand to the side of my face, I could see Chris grinning over Tessa’s shoulder.

  “Look, if I thought I could get away with killing him, I would.” I said.

  “Challenge him!” A voice said from near the door.

  We all turned to look and saw Fleur stood in the open doorway.

  “Pardon?” Mike asked.

  “Challenge him to a duel.” She said, walking further into the room.

  “What do you mean? Like the wild west or something?” I asked.

  “Exactly. Look, I am sorry for what I said upstairs. Dr. Thompson told me everything and he was right. None of us would be here if it weren’t for you and Chris. Look, you might have damaged your left shoulder, but your right is still fine, and from what I have seen you are right-handed, correct?” She asked.

  “You know, she might have an idea.” David said.

  “I was right we are becoming a bad influence on you, David.” I said, grinning.

  “Look, Marc, stop pissing about. We are being serious.” Chris said.

  “Are you? Really? Because it sounds like you want me to go toe-to-toe against Foxton with guns.” I said, getting angry.

  Amy placed a hand on my good arm to calm me down and said, “It might be the only way to stop this from getting out of control.”

  I turned to look at her and I could see it in her eyes. She was thinking the exact same thing everyone else was thinking in the room, and that was if Foxton managed to turn enough people against me, there would be a large fight for control of the bunker and a lot of people could get hurt. I knew this but I still thought of it as murder but there was little or no alternative.

  “I want you all to understand something right now, and that is I am against having to doing this, but I can’t think of any other solution to it. So yes, I’ll do it.” I said, placing my head in my hands.

  Mike came over and placed his hand on my shoulder before saying, “Look, someone else would do it, but I honestly don’t think that Foxton would go for it. He really doesn’t like you and we know that just from what he has been saying. You know that we’ll be there no matter what happens.”

  Lifting my head, I said “What happens if he wins?”

  Everyone was silent at that statement. I looked from face to face trying to see what they were thinking but I couldn’t figure out what to make. I mean, in the long run I knew that Chris would take revenge for my death, but that would make it hard on him.

  “Look, I want to get this over and done with so can one of you go and have a chat with Foxton? If we can sort all this out for tomorrow then it’s over quickly either way.” I said.

  Mike stood up and headed for the door. He closed it behind him and we all sat in silence listening to his footsteps out in the hallway.

  “Well, this should be interesting.” Chris said.

  “Trust you to think something like this would be fun.” Tessa said harshly.

  I laughed. Here we were waiting to find out if I was going to have a shoot-out and there was Chris and Tessa having a small spat.

  “What you laughing at?” Jane asked.

  “Just these two having a small spat over my impending doom.” I said, laughing some more.

  Tessa and Chris both started to go red with that and that made me laugh even more. Amy just smiled and squeezed my hand. Once my laughter had stopped, we all sat quietly waiting for Mike’s return. It wasn’t long before we heard the sound of running feet outside in the hallway. The door burst open and Tom stood there breathing hard and his chest and arms were covered in blood.

  “Fleur! The Doctor needs your help right now!” He shouted across the room.

  “Why? What’s happened?” Fleur asked, rising from the floor where she had taken a seat.

  “Sorry for me to be the one to tell you, Tessa, but your dad has been stabbed.” Tom said near tears.

  “What the fuck?!” I shouted, standing up.

  “I heard raised voices in the dining room and walked in to see the new guy arguing with your dad, Tessa. I was just about to ask if everything was ok when the new guy stabbed your dad and ran past me and out of the room.” He said.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chris, David and I ran out of the room.

  Tom shouted up the hallway behind us, “I don’t know where the new guy has gone!”

  To tell you the truth, it didn’t matter where Foxton had gone. I was going to string him up by his balls when I got my hands on him. We reached the lift as Fleur ran up behind us.

  “What are you going to do?” She asked us.

  “First thing is to find the fucker, which is easy enough considering the bunker is covered with CCTV. Once we find him, I’m going to kill him.” I said over my shoulder.

  Chris turned as the lift came and said “I want to have some fun with the fucker first.”

  “I agree.” Came the quiet reply from David.

  We all crammed into the lift and I pressed the first and second floor buttons.

  “Fleur, please keep him alive.” I said.

  “I’m sure that the Doctor and I are going to do our best.” She said.

  “Good, 'cause I hate to see my brother deprived of a father-in-law.” I said, smiling.

  “Your brother?” She said, looking puzzled.

  “The stupid fucker means me.” Chris said from behind me.

  “Love you, too, bro.” I said.

  The doors to the lift opened on the second floor and Chris, David and I exited and walked down to the security room. I opened the door to find no one inside. Turning on each of the monitors, I was met with nothing but snow and static. I looked under the desks and saw that someone had torn out the cables.

  “David, go check the comms room... NOW!” I shouted from under the desk.

  I heard some running feet and tried to repair at least one monitor. I had just managed to get one up and running when he ran back into the room.

  “The door is closed and locked. I can’t tell you if anyone is inside.” He said, breathing hard.

  �
��Okay. First place to look is in there then.” I said, punching keys on the board.

  A black and white image showed the inside of the comms room, and, as usual, Jake was asleep with his feet up on the desk.

  Pressing a key, I spoke into the mic “Jake, wake up, you old fart!”

  He nearly fell out of his chair, which under any other circumstances would have had me laughing but today wasn’t one of those days.

  “Marc? That you?” Jake said, looking around the room.

  “Yeah, look, I’ll have to explain later but has anyone asked to use the comms today?” I asked with my fingers crossed.

  “Now that you mention it, a young lad came by earlier today and asked to use them. I said sorry, but he would have to ask you. He didn’t look too pleased, so after he left I locked the door.” Jake said.

  “Good job, Jake. Now, I don’t want that door opening unless either David, Chris or I ask you to. Is that ok?” I said.

  “No problem. I wouldn’t have let him use it without your say-so anyway. Can I ask what’s happening?” Jake asked through the speakers.

  I sighed before answering. “That young lad has stabbed Mike.”

  “The fucker did what?” Jake shouted.

  “Look, Jake, I would love to tell you everything right now but we really need to catch him.” I said.

  “Yeah, sorry, find the fucker and kick him in the balls for me, will you?” Jake said.

  I flicked the camera through as many channels as I could, as quickly as I could and still be able to see what was going on. I saw him heading for the lifts on the third floor with two other men. I keyed in the commands that I had used to stop the lifts when Tracy and her band of women tried to take over the bunker, but this time I stopped the lifts from going to the third floor. They would still go to any other floor, but they just wouldn’t go to the third.

  “Chris, David, do you fancy doing me a favour and quickly running down to the armoury and get us some weapons?” I asked.

  Grinning like two kids in the candy shop they headed out of the security office.

  I keyed the mic and said “Foxton, come in, Foxton.”

  He looked round and then up at the camera.

  “Hey, Marc.” He said, smiling.

  “You and your friends going somewhere?” I asked.

  He turned to look at the two young men with him and shrugged.

  “We thought we would go and help the people putting up the fence.” He said.

  “Oh! There was me thinking you were trying to do a runner.” I said.

  He actually tried to look puzzled. “Why would I do that?” He said, looking at the men with him.

  “Just that I heard you might have wanted a word with me.” I said, waiting for Chris and David to get back with some weapons.

  “It’s nothing. It can wait till later.”

  Chris came in with a pistol in each hand. He placed one down in front of me on the desk and pulled an extra magazine out of his trouser pocket.

  “Seriously, mate, we can have that chat now.” I said.

  “I think they need us up top.” He said.

  “Nah, they’re ok. You can’t go anywhere anyway.” I said, smiling.

  “What have you done, Marc?” Chris asked, leaning over my shoulder.

  “Watch this!” I said.

  Foxton leaned forward and pressed the call button again.

  “You stopped the lifts again, didn’t you?” Chris asked, smiling.

  “Yup, that fucker isn’t getting out of here anytime soon.” I said.

  “MARC!” Foxton shouted.

  “Yeah, mate?” I replied.

  “You’ve done something to the lifts, haven’t you?” Foxton said.

  “You know, if Mike dies, you and your little friends are next.” I said.

  “What are you talking about?” He said, trying to sound innocent.

  “You know, I thought that you might have changed considering I saved your arse back on that ship.” I said.

  Laughing, he said “We let you live back on the ship.”

  “Who let us live?”

  “Dr. Jackson and the board let you and your girlfriend live. They wanted to get your survivors as guinea pigs for their experiments with the infection.” He said, as he turned and stabbed both the young men with a large knife.

  I watched as they fell to the floor and he just smiled up at the camera.

  Chris watched open-mouthed before saying “How in fuck’s name was that supposed to help him get out?”

  “I don’t think he’s bothered about getting out.” I said.

  “You see, Marc, the board knew there was a large group of survivors somewhere near York. They had heard about you over the radio and they decided that you would come and rescue Jane and her bitch of a dyke. So they left me and Max there to, how shall we say, try to make rescue look real. You see, Max was supposed to get away and follow us back here. Then he was to radio the main ship out in the North Sea. They were then going to sweep in and gather you all up. But your bitch managed kill Max with her lucky shot. Leaving me without a radio and without a backup. So I tried to use the radio here in the bunker but that old fool wouldn’t let me and there were too many people in the hallway at the time for me to kill him and then use it.

  So my next idea was to try and change people’s opinion of you and then I was going to tell them that I knew how to get in contact with the remaining government. Which, of course, would be a lie. Then Mike came to me with your duel shit. Let’s just say I knew if I won, Chris or those other apes would kill me, so I sort of panicked and killed him. Then I came looking for these two idiots and said I knew of a better place than this. I was going to use them till I got somewhere with a radio to contact the ship for extraction and then come back later with the collection team and kill you and your friends. But I’m now stuck at the bottom of this bunker with no way out.” He said, laughing, as he kicked the two dead bodies at his feet.

  David must have come in whilst we were listening to Foxton rave because he said “I’ll kill him just for saying that he would give my family to those fuckers.”

  “David, you’ve really got to get a handle on your fucking swearing, man.” Chris said.

  David just grinned.

  Amy was right. When these two got together they acted like kids.

  “Okay, Foxton, what do you propose we do about our little stand off?” I said, pressing the mic.

  He stood there in front of the lifts for a few minutes before saying “Nothing.”

  Chris leaned over and pressed the mic button and said “What the fuck are you on about?”

  “Well, it seems that I am stuck. Even if I could make a deal, no one would let me go. You’d just kill me as soon as I left the lift.” Foxton said, kicking blood against the walls.

  Just then Amy walked in with Jane and Kathy. I left Chris to tell them what had happened. I was too busy thinking of a way to kill this lunatic that I had let into our home.

  “It’s a good thing the children are up in the school.” Amy said.

  I knew what she meant. If they had been in the barracks, then Foxton would have a valuable bargaining chip. Just then, a plan came to mind. It had been something Foxton had said at the beginning of the rant.

  Taking a hold of Amy’s arm, I lead her out into the hallway and out of earshot of the others. This was something I had to ask her privately.

  “Babe, you’re our best long range shooter apart from me. If you had to take a long shot, what’s the best distance you could do?” I asked.

  She cocked her head to one side and said “First of all, I am better than you are, and, secondly, about a hundred meters. Why?”

  I smiled and said “So if you were in the guard tower, you’d be able to shoot the bastard as he came out of the bunker?”

  “Shouldn’t be a problem. Again, why?” Amy replied.

  “I have a plan.” I said, walking back to the security office.

  I am sure I heard something along the lines of ‘
Oh, shit!’ as I walked away from her.

  The security room had another arrival when I returned. Tessa was standing in a large one armed hug from Chris. My face must have asked the question because as soon as I saw Tessa she said “He’s alive and should be ok. The knife missed everything really important. Dad was very lucky. Dr. Thompson said if it was half an inch to the right... well, you can figure out the rest.”

  My shoulders sagged. At least that was one thing off my mind.

  I was about to say something when Amy said from behind me “Marc has a plan on how to deal with Foxton.”

  Chris’ face just broke into a huge grin and David just put his head into his hands. Jane and Kathy looked at the others with puzzled looks on their faces.

  “What’s wrong with that?” Kathy asked.

  I again was going to say something in my defence but David butts in and starts to inform Jane and Kathy about the rescue at Thrisk and then about Thornton. I could tell they weren’t too impressed by their colour draining from their faces.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Keying the mic, I said “Oi, Fuckton, how about I come down there and become your prisoner. We take a little walk and then you let me go. No… hold on. I just had a thought about that you wouldn’t let me go, you’d kill me. Hmmm, okay, let’s think this through. You want out and we want you out. Okay, how’s this? We bring everyone in from outside and have them all wait in the dining room. I then let you have an express trip in the lift straight to the lobby with no stops. You leave with just the clothes on your back and the knife in your hand.” Turning his name into a swear word was a little childish but I didn’t really want him think straight and I knew having his name said wrong pushed the right buttons.

  Chris said “What are you doing? He’ll tell them where we are given the first chance he can.”

  “No, he won’t” Amy said, smiling “Now I know why you wanted to know if I could shoot from the guard tower to the bunker hatch.”

  I leaned over and kissed her on the lips and said “Well, now that you know why, go and choose a rifle and get your lovely arse upstairs.”

  Amy ran from the room and we could hear her small feet running in the hallway.