by Mark Walden
Heading back to the counter he looked around for anything that might give him some clue to where he still might be able to find the medication he needed. He spotted an empty trolley off to one side with a clipboard hanging from its handle. He picked it up and read the top sheet of paper. It was a list of medicines to be distributed to various departments of the hospital, and as he read it he saw that the majority of the antibiotics were sent to either the children’s ward or the geriatric ward. That made sense – the very young or the very old would be most vulnerable to infection. He just hoped that the Walkers hadn’t looted those wards as efficiently as they had the pharmacy.
He hurried back up the stairs, grateful to leave the darkness of the basement, and headed towards the reception area when he heard a sound that sent a chill down his spine. At first it was hard to make out, but slowly it became clearer. It was the sound of marching boots and it was getting louder with each passing second. That sound could only mean one thing: Walkers were coming. The boy looked around desperately for somewhere to hide. He hurried to the glass wall at the front of the reception area and looked outside. There, just a couple of hundred metres away, a column of marching people was entering the hospital car park. Their bizarre assortment of dirty clothes and long ragged hairstyles gave them a dishevelled appearance that was at odds with their strangely disciplined lockstep march. The boy knew that the other thing they would share was a haunting, vacant expression that showed no hint of the personalities they had all once had. There was nothing behind a Walker’s eyes, no indication of the humanity that had once been there.
He ran back into the shadows, leapt over the counter and tried to slow his breathing. As the noise of marching feet filled the reception area, the boy could make out another sound – a low, throbbing hum. He wasn’t surprised, every group of Walkers he’d seen had been accompanied by Drones, but he’d been very careful to never get this close to a group of them before. Suddenly, as a high-pitched, almost ultrasonic, whine filled the air he felt something he had not felt in months – a bizarre, uncomfortable sensation in his head, like having an itch in the middle of his brain that he couldn’t scratch. A second later it stopped and the sound of marching started again as the Walkers headed further inside the building, presumably to continue stripping the hospital of any supplies that they might need. The boy rubbed his forehead as the irritating sensation inside his skull faded. He still had no real idea what it was, but it certainly brought back unpleasant memories of the day all those months ago when the world had changed for ever.
The boy could still hear the Drone hovering somewhere nearby. For some reason it wasn’t following the Walkers into the building. In fact, it didn’t seem to be moving at all. The boy dared not risk sneaking a peek over the counter to see where it was; he knew all too well that if he could see it, it could see him and that would be a very bad thing indeed. He had learned a painful lesson the previous night about just how dangerous it was to not maintain a safe distance from those floating nightmares. He had no choice but to wait and hope that it would eventually move away.
For several long minutes the boy crouched, praying that the Drone would follow the Walkers further into the building. Just as he was starting to think that he might have to take a huge gamble and make a break for it, the pitch of the throbbing sound from the Drone increased and it began to move. For a few terrifying seconds the noise got louder, but then it began to diminish, heading further away.
The boy took a deep, relieved breath and, without warning, his chest convulsed as another coughing fit struck. He clamped his hand over his mouth, trying to stifle the sound, but it was too late. The hum of the Drone grew louder again as it returned, attracted by the unexpected noise. The boy darted out from behind the counter and sprinted towards the front door, all hope of remaining hidden gone. The Drone rounded the corner behind him and emitted a horribly familiar shriek as it spotted its prey. A short black tube on the top of the hovering creature swivelled towards the boy, and with a flash and a crackle fired a searing bolt of green light at him. The boy dived forward through the doorway as the energy blast struck the glass directly behind him. The huge sheet of toughened safety glass shattered into millions of tiny pieces all around the boy. He leapt to his feet and began running across the car park, dodging between the rows of dusty, abandoned vehicles as the Drone streaked across the reception area in pursuit, the low throbbing sound of earlier replaced by an angry-sounding whine.
As the boy reached the street, his chest felt like it was on fire, his lungs fighting desperately to suck in enough air. Another green energy bolt sizzled through the air, missing the boy by inches as he frantically zigzagged down the street, trying to keep the creature from drawing a bead on him. He ran behind a bus and down the pavement, cutting left into the entrance of a shopping mall. The sound of the pursuing Drone was getting louder all the time and he knew with a horrible certainty that he was never going to be able to outrun it. He certainly couldn’t fight it; his only choice was to hide. He ran into the central atrium of the shopping centre. Escalators on both sides led up to the upper levels and the whole area was brightly lit by daylight pouring in through the glass dome roof high overhead.
The boy was blown off his feet as a large map displaying the mall’s floor plan exploded right next to him. He tried desperately to force himself to his feet, still deafened by the ringing in his ears, but could do little more than roll over and crawl backwards, away from the hovering Drone. There was nowhere to run; he knew he was finished and he couldn’t help but feel a strange sense of relief that at least the nightmare he had been enduring for all this time was now, finally, over. As the Drone floated towards him, the boy closed his eyes, hoping that it would at least be quick.
The rattling sound of automatic gunfire suddenly filled the air and the boy’s eyes flew open in shock as the Drone was struck by a hail of bullets that tore ragged holes in its metallic skin and sent oily dark green liquid spurting out. It floated backwards, screeching as another burst of fire struck it and knocked it out of the air.
The boy watched in astonishment as a figure in black body armour and wearing a gas mask walked down one of the nearby escalators. The soldier raised an assault rifle and fired one last burst into the wounded creature, leaving it twitching on the ground in a pool of green fluid. Walking towards the boy, the soldier pulled off the gas mask. Beneath the mask was a girl who looked to be about the same age as him with long dark brown hair, pale skin and blue eyes. She offered him a hand and pulled him to his feet.
‘My name’s Rachel,’ the girl said in a soft Irish accent, a tiny smile tugging at one corner of her lips, ‘and we’ve been looking for you for a long time.’
The boy just stood there, his mouth agape. It was the first time he’d heard another human voice in over eighteen months. The boy’s mouth moved silently, struck dumb as he tried to pick which question to ask out of the thousand that had just sprung into his head.
‘So, do you have a name?’ the girl asked.
‘Sam,’ the boy replied in a whisper, feeling a dizzying combination of overwhelming relief and utter bewilderment. ‘Sam Riley.’
‘Pleased to meet you, Sam,’ Rachel replied, rolling the dead Drone over with her boot. ‘Now tell me, can you run?’
‘I think so,’ Sam replied. His head was still ringing from the explosion that had knocked him off his feet and the wound on his chest still felt like it was on fire, but he knew they had to get out of here as quickly as possible. Where there was one Drone, there were bound to be others. A sudden roaring sound made them both look up at the glass dome as a huge triangular black object cruised past overhead.
‘Good, because we need to move fast or we’re both dead.’
3
Sam ran after Rachel as she sprinted out of the mall and turned left, heading down the street outside.
‘Come on,’ she shouted over her shoulder. ‘We have to get out of here before that ship drops a Grendel on top of us.’
‘W
hat’s a Grendel?’ Sam asked, struggling to maintain the same pace as the sprinting girl.
‘You don’t want to know,’ she replied as she hurried to the side of the street and pressed close to the wall of a café so that she could peek round the corner into the next street. ‘Trust me, if you’d met one you’d understand.’
‘Big thing, giant metal claws?’ he said, thinking back to his narrow escape the previous evening.
‘Thought you said you’d not seen one.’
‘I haven’t, but I think I very nearly got to meet one yesterday.’
‘Then you’re lucky to be here at all. Come on, this way looks clear.’ She set off round the corner.
‘Listen, thanks for rescuing me back there,’ Sam said as he followed after her. ‘You saved my life.’
‘You’re welcome,’ Rachel replied, suddenly stopping with one hand raised. Her voice dropped to a whisper. ‘But we’re not out of this yet.’ She raised the assault rifle to her shoulder as Sam heard the familiar sound of approaching Drones coming from somewhere ahead of them.
‘Should we hide?’ Sam asked, taking a step backwards.
‘No,’ Rachel replied with a frown, lowering the rifle. ‘There’s only one way we’re getting out of here in one piece now that we’ve got a drop-ship looking for us and it’s in that direction. Ever used one of these?’ She pulled a pistol from the holster on her hip and offered it, grip first, to Sam.
‘Errr . . . no,’ Sam replied, taking the gun, ‘not something we covered in school.’
‘Well, consider this your first lesson,’ she said with a serious expression. She took his free hand and positioned it so that he had a firm two-handed grip on the pistol, then raised his arms until he was holding the weapon at eye level. ‘Safety’s off, round in the chamber, point it at what you want to hurt and squeeze the trigger. Just try to make sure that I’m not standing between you and whatever that is.’
‘OK,’ Sam said nervously. ‘Am I allowed to ask how you know all this?’ She couldn’t be more than a few months older than him, but she carried herself like a professional soldier.
‘Answers later, fighting now,’ Rachel replied as she raised her rifle and began advancing down the street.
Sam swallowed. The strong survival instinct that he’d acquired over the past few months was screaming at him to run. It would be easier just to find the nearest manhole cover and scurry back to his hiding place in the sewers. Like a rat, he thought to himself, feeling a flare of unexpected anger. Maybe it was meeting this girl and realising for the first time that he wasn’t actually alone or maybe it was the reassuring weight of the gun in his hand that was somehow giving him courage, but as he stood there he made a decision.
‘You know something? You’re right,’ he said, taking a deep breath. ‘Enough running.’
Sam followed Rachel down the street, weapon raised, as the sound of the Drones got louder and louder. Suddenly, fifty metres away, three of the hovering silver creatures floated out of a side street. Rachel didn’t hesitate, opening fire the moment that she saw them and hitting the lead Drone with a lethally accurate three-round burst. Sam took a deep breath and aimed at one of the other two as they turned towards him and Rachel, training their energy weapons on them. He squeezed the trigger and with a loud bang the pistol bucked hard in his hands. The shot went high, hitting the wall behind in a puff of orange brick dust. He lowered his aim slightly and fired again. This time the bullet struck home, hitting the Drone in the left-hand side of its silvery body just as it fired its own weapon. Sam felt a burst of intense heat in his side as the Drone’s shot flashed past him, punching a hole in his coat and searing the side of his chest. He yelled out in pain, but kept firing, hitting the Drone again and sending it spinning backwards, spraying green liquid in all directions. Rachel switched her fire to the last Drone and brought it down with two short, controlled bursts of fire. She advanced quickly on the wounded Drone as it floated drunkenly through the air, screeching angrily. She finished it off with a single shot and it crashed to the ground.
‘Nice shooting,’ she said with a slight smile and a nod.
‘Thanks.’ Sam felt slightly breathless as the adrenalin coursed through his body. ‘Beginner’s luck, I guess.’
‘I don’t think luck’s got anything to do with it,’ Rachel replied. ‘Some people are just better at this than others. You know, I think you’re going to fit right in with the rest of the gang.’
‘Gang?’ Sam asked. ‘You mean there are more people like you?’
‘Who do you think taught me how to do this?’ she said, as she set off running again. ‘Don’t worry, you’ll get to meet the others soon enough. Assuming we get out of here in one piece, of course.’
They continued their headlong dash through the deserted streets, Rachel in the lead with Sam close behind. As the adrenalin subsided, Sam began to feel the throbbing pain in his chest again. He was struggling to keep up with Rachel as she sprinted ahead of him, his breathing becoming more and more laboured. He started to slow and Rachel glanced back over her shoulder, slowing her pace to match his.
‘Are you OK?’ she asked, sounding concerned, as he jogged up alongside her.
‘Not really,’ Sam said with a frown. ‘I’m not feeling so good to be honest. I had an unpleasant encounter with one of those things and it cut me. I think the wound’s infected. I was trying to find some antibi—’
‘Show me,’ Rachel said, cutting him off.
‘Now?’ Sam asked.
‘Right now,’ she snapped back.
Sam pulled his T-shirt up to reveal the bloodstained dressing round his chest. The fine network of veiny green tendrils had spread even further and were now clearly visible all around the bandaged area. Rachel carefully lifted up one edge of the dressing and looked at the wound beneath.
‘When did this happen?’ she asked quietly.
‘Last night,’ Sam replied.
‘How many hours ago?’
‘I don’t know eight, maybe nine,’ Sam said. ‘Why is it so important?’
‘Because you should be dead,’ Rachel replied, looking him in the eye. ‘I’ve never seen anyone survive a Hunter sting for more than a few minutes. This doesn’t make any sense.’
‘A Hunter?’
‘Yeah, those floating silver jellyfish things that we just met. We call them Hunters.’
‘I’ve always called them Drones, you know because of the sound they make.’
‘Drone, Hunter, whatever, the point is that once they sting you you’re dead inside five minutes,’ she said, still inspecting the gash across his chest. ‘There’s no way you should even be standing up, let alone running around.’
‘Well, I’m not dead yet,’ Sam said with a slightly pained smile, ‘but I’ve felt better.’
‘We’ve got to get you to Stirling right now,’ Rachel said, gently replacing the bandage. ‘He needs to see this. It’s not much further. Do you think you can keep moving?’
‘Do I have a choice?’ he said, pulling the T-shirt back down.
‘Not really. Come on.’
She set off, jogging down the street again at a slightly more forgiving pace, and Sam did his best to keep up. As he ran, Sam couldn’t help but be distracted by how odd the streets looked now. Normally, his trips to the surface had been brief and made under the cover of darkness, and as he saw what the abandoned city looked like in daylight for the first time he had to admit that it freaked him out. The café with tables still neatly arranged on the pavement outside, the coffee cups sitting upon them now filled with rainwater. The delivery lorry with its tail lift down, surrounded by damp, sagging cardboard boxes. A pushchair sitting empty in the middle of the pavement.
‘Two more minutes,’ Rachel said. ‘Not far now. Once we get to . . .’
The rest of her sentence was lost as the front of one of the buildings twenty metres ahead of them exploded in a shower of shattered masonry and billowing grey dust. Both Sam and Rachel staggered backwards, shielding them
selves from the falling debris as an unearthly roaring howl came from somewhere within the cloud. Rachel grabbed the sleeve of Sam’s coat, her eyes wide with fear.
‘Grendel,’ she whispered. ‘Run.’
Sam didn’t need to be told twice and the pair of them sprinted back down the road.
‘This way!’ Rachel snapped as she dashed down a side street. Sam could feel a steady thudding vibration running through the ground beneath his feet as a huge, dark shape began to emerge from the swirling cloud of dust behind him. He quickly glanced over his shoulder just before he rounded the corner.
‘Oh my God,’ he said quietly, slowing to a standstill as he finally saw what it was that had caused the devastation. It was ten metres tall and covered in interlocking black armoured plates, their smooth, oily surfaces glistening in the light. Like the Drones it seemed to be neither wholly organic nor mechanical, but instead something in-between. Visible beneath the plates were flexible sheaths of thick, segmented cables that bulged and contracted like exposed muscles. The creature’s head hung low between the enormous carapaces on each shoulder, the red, glowing eyes set deep within its monstrous horned skull narrowing as it sighted its prey. It roared again, its mouth opening wide to reveal row after row of razor-sharp teeth. The creature advanced, sweeping a car in the middle of the road aside with one of its enormous claws, the talons tearing through the metal with ease. It began to move more quickly, ripping fresh chunks out of the road surface with each step of its huge clawed feet. Sam felt like a rabbit trapped in headlights as the Grendel thundered towards him, its blade-tipped tail sweeping from side to side. Rachel grabbed the sleeve of his jacket and hauled him into the side street, almost pulling him off his feet and snapping him out of his terrified daze.