The Survival Chronicles (Book 3): Mercy Fall

by Nally, Fergal F.

  Two corpses pushed into the gate below nearly toppling her, she held on and lifted her other leg across the top and swung herself over. She looked down and kicked at the dead through the chain link pushing them back. She lowered herself from the top and dropped to the ground, her heart hammering. She stared at the dead, now massed on the other side of the gate, their bony hands clawing at the chain link.

  Not now, not like this—

  Mercy looked at her hands, her fingers were grazed and sore, the chain link had torn off one of her nails, she licked the blood and dirt off her finger and spat at the dead driving them to a frenzy.

  “That’s all you’re going to get,” Mercy whispered, her eyes dark.

  She turned and looked at the wasteland behind. A ghostly monochrome landscape stretched out, the dirt road from the gate continued as far as she could see. She contemplated taking the road but remembered the earlier warning of chemical contamination. She turned back to the fence and started walking along it. Something caught her eye, she bent down to examine the ground. Her eyes widened as she picked up an empty bullet casing, thousands of spent cartridges lay scattered on the ground.

  OK so the defenders fought to keep people or tropes out of the air force base, the virus is still active here. Wait a minute, why did the dead come after me? I’m supposed to be immune?

  Mercy stopped in her tracks and looked back at the gate, the dead were dragging themselves along the fence towards her. She looked at her hands, then her arms and her shirt. Understanding dawned on her.

  Shit, I’m covered in his blood. He must’ve bled out on me in the air. Mistakes, mistakes like that get you dead Mercy girl. Well there’s not much I can do now, I need new clothes, a wash in a river—

  The dead clawing at the fence broke her line of thought.

  Get moving, get away from these things—

  Mercy walked briskly through the old bullet casings putting distance between her and the dead. She stopped an hour later and checked behind, they were gone. She took a mouthful of water from the soldier’s canteen and looked around. She was far enough away from where she had landed, she should get some rest and recuperate. A rise loomed in the distance, set back a little from the fence. She would make for the rise, she turned to get her bearings and froze.

  Crap—

  A large section of fence was destroyed ahead, there was nothing between her and the ground outside.

  Move, move, move—

  Mercy pushed on towards the moonlit rise casting worried glances behind. There was no movement beyond the ruined section of fence. The rise came into focus as she grew near. It was not part of the landscape, it was an overturned petrol tanker. She stopped and stared, wary, the wind moaned over the wasteland. She turned taking in her situation, a pole with a sign attached stuck out of the ground a few feet away. She walked over to read it.

  MINES

  She froze, staring at the word.

  Christ—

  The moaning broke the spell, it wasn’t the wind after all. She could see shapes moving beyond the fence, heading towards the gap and her.

  Chapter 3 Guide

  Hell—

  Mercy’s instinct was to run, but to where? Every step could spell death, she watched as the dead made it to the gap in the fence, stepped through and lurched towards her. She couldn’t move, she had to move, there was no choice. She stood up and hesitated, she lifted her foot leaning forwards to take a step. A hand grasped her shirt and hauled her back. Adrenaline coursed through her, she turned bringing her pistol up.

  A small figure stood before her. A boy, with a shock of hair, a dirty face and ragged clothes. Her finger hovered over the trigger, where had he come from? He was unarmed except for a stick, she lowered her gun.

  “Who are you? I could’ve killed you—”

  The boy did not speak, he stared at Mercy then turned towards the approaching dead. His eyes went to her shirt, he pointed at it and mimed for her to remove it. He put his hand in his pocket and brought out a cigarette lighter.

  Mercy understood, she removed the bloodstained shirt and gave it to the boy. He placed the lighter against the fabric and lit it. It burned easily and he threw it to the ground. An explosion rent the air at the edge of the minefield, the boy pulled Mercy towards the overturned petrol tanker. He held her hand, guiding her. They reached the tanker, he brought her around to the other side and a ladder. He climbed the ladder and beckoned to her. She followed him. Her view opened up over the minefield, the explosion had wiped out a cluster of dead at the edge of the minefield and seemed to have thrown the others off her scent. The tropes were wandering aimlessly along the fence.

  The boy tugged at Mercy’s T shirt and pointed to the overturned tanker’s cab, its side window open. He pulled the ladder up securing it to the side of the tanker using rope, then he clambered down to the cab window and dropped through disappearing from view. Mercy took one last look around and followed him.

  She entered through the open window, her feet brushed against the driver’s seat, then the passenger seat. A torch flicked on, the boy was behind the seats, he ushered her down. She allowed herself to drop the rest of the way and stood up in the cabin. The boy was crouched in the sleeping quarters at the back. He had created his own basic refuge. It looked as if there had been two bunk beds once but they were now gone. Tins of food and a container of water lay in the corner. A sleeping bag and an assortment of blankets littered the floor.

  Mercy nodded, “Thanks for what you did back there. I didn’t realise it was a minefield—”

  The boy looked at her, his face blank.

  Mercy waited but he did not speak. “You don’t say much do you? My name’s Mercy, what’s your name?” Mercy paused but the boy did not respond, instead he lifted a blanket off the floor and offered it to her.

  Mercy took the blanket and looked at the interior of the cabin. “Not much room to lie down but I can sit here and this’ll keep me warm, thank you.” She tried again, “So where’s your people? You got friends, family? Or are you alone out here?”

  The boy crouched down and rummaged in the back. He turned a second later and offered Mercy a tin. She reached out and took it, “Thank you, let’s see… peaches, my favourite,” she said eyeing the boy. He smiled and produced a tin opener from a side panel.

  Mercy took the tin opener returning his smile. “You don’t talk much, you’re mute aren’t you? I can live with that. All I need is rest and time to think, I’m grateful for your help.” She hunkered down on the floor and tried to get comfortable, she found a sitting position that was bearable. She wrapped the blanket around her and opened the tin of peaches. The boy vanished behind the driver’s seat and the torch light went out. Mercy used her fingers to eat the peaches in the dark, when she was finished she curled up and closed her eyes. Sleep claimed her in minutes.

  Daylight woke Mercy up. She blinked. Her back was stiff, she groaned then remembered the events of the night before and looked around the cab. There was no sign of the boy but a shirt hung from the steering wheel above her head. It was clearly meant for her, she reached up and pulled it down. It was a man’s dress shirt, a few sizes too large, it would do. She pulled it on and tucked it into her trousers, she drained the last of the juice from the tin of peaches and stood up and looked out the cab’s windscreen. Standing in the overturned cabin was disorientating. She gazed at the wasteland outside, with the daylight she could see strands of old barbed wire marking out the minefield. The air base fence had looked old and neglected, it was a long time since this area had been maintained.

  Maybe survivors had planted the minefield once the fence had failed, who knows?

  Mercy scratched her head, her hair had grown, spikey strands hung down over her eyes, she brushed them away and rubbed her eyes. She turned to look behind the driver’s seat at the boy’s sleeping area, daylight revealed the back wall. She saw pictures and postcards on the wall covering every surface. Pictures from magazines; smiling faces, families, animals, swimmi
ng pools and blue skies. A post card caught her eye, a map, she reached back and pulled it from the wall reading the caption: COLORADO SPRINGS, THE ADVENTURE CAPITAL OF THE ROCKIES. Her eyes scanned the stylized map on the front of the postcard.

  There’s Peterson Airforce Base… so… I’m in Colorado Springs—

  Mercy’s eyes scanned the rest of the postcard: Bear Creek Regional Park, Manitou Springs, Seven Lakes, Pike National Park, Mount Rosa, Cripple Creek. Her heart sank, how was she going to find the others? Her mind went back to what the medic had said in the Chinook, something about arriving at the mountain. She looked at the postcard, the Rockies lay to the west of Colorado Springs.

  That’s where I’ll go, make it up as I go along. Cut through the city, keep to the highways, try and avoid the built up areas—

  A noise came from outside, someone was clambering on the outside of the tanker. Mercy returned the postcard to the wall and pulled out the Beretta. A few seconds later the boy’s dirty face appeared at the window above her head. He smiled and waved, then beckoned for her to join him. Mercy reached up and pulled herself out of the cab using the seats and door frame. The early morning sun made her blink, she took a deep breath of crisp air.

  The boy was sitting on the top of the petrol tanker looking down at her, chewing. She stretched up and clambered over to him, her muscles unknotting, she sat beside him and looked out over the scrubland. From her vantage point she saw the fence from the night before, and the remains of the dead that had been blasted to pieces by the mine. The other tropes were nowhere to be seen. In the other direction lay a wide expanse of wasteland, in the distance something glinted in the sun. Mountains filled the horizon as far as she could see. The boy nudged her and handed her a strip of beef jerky.

  “Hey thanks,” Mercy accepted the meat, took a bite and started chewing. The jerky tasted good, she savoured its flavour and swallowed, turning to the boy. “Listen, I get it. You can’t speak for some reason, you’re mute. I’m grateful for what you did last night. You obviously live here, you seem to be doing OK. You’ll know your way around, can you guide me out of the minefield?”

  The boy looked at her his eyes bright and staring, he was watching her face closely.

  “Of course you can,” Mercy continued. “Listen, I have friends, they’re being held by soldiers; Cobalt Biotech, New State Army. They took us from way out east, Halifax, Nova Scotia and brought us here. I escaped, got free, but my friends, they’re still prisoners. So you see I need to find them, quietly, I need to keep below the radar.” She looked at the boy, he was still staring at her, he had stopped chewing. He blinked and nodded, then pointed at the metallic glinting in the distance. He pulled a face, scratched his arm then spat onto the ground below.

  Mercy pulled the compass from her pocket and looked at the needle, they were looking at the Rockies. Flynn and the others had to be somewhere over there, she would find them.

  “So what am I going to call you?” Mercy asked the boy.

  He shrugged and looked away. Mercy gazed into the distance and allowed her mind to wander. A few minutes later the boy tugged her arm. She turned to him, he pulled up his sleeve to reveal a tattoo. She froze, two miniature flags were tattooed on his arm and beneath them a long number. The NSA flag she knew, the other flag showing the Cobalt Biotech symbol against a blue background, she remembered from Fort George’s underground lab. Mercy reached out and traced her finger across the tattooed numbers.

  “They did this to you?” she asked. “This is your serial number, they… experimented on you?”

  He nodded, his expression sad, he lifted his head and held his hand out. Mercy opened her arms and hugged him, he did not respond. Few things shook Mercy, few things pierced her armour, she had seen so much. This went straight to her heart, this was a soul ravaged, like hers, by the NSA and Cobalt Biotech. Mercy saw some of herself in the boy, in his silence. She had been silenced in so many ways, she too was made up of scar tissue. A memory came to her, a boy that had passed through the orphanage in the early days. She had made friends with him before he had been fostered out, he had not returned, she never found out what had happened to him. But she remembered his name, his spirit.

  “Sam, I’m going to call you Sam and we’re going to be friends,” Mercy released him from her embrace.

  He nodded, a serious look on his face. “Sam it is then. Come on Sam, we’ve got work to do.”

  Mercy dropped back into the tanker’s cab and retrieved the postcard of Colorado Springs. She showed it to Sam.

  “Can you take me here, to the Air Force Base?” Mercy pointed at the spot on the postcard. “I can go it alone after that.”

  Sam looked at the postcard and frowned, his hand went to the tattoo on his arm, he rubbed it hard as if to make it disappear. He made the skin red before he stopped. He looked at her and held her gaze for a moment before nodding.

  “They’ll be searching for me around the site where I landed, they’ll figure it out and widen the search area so time is critical. I’ve got to get to a good hiding place somewhere less exposed than here. I need to watch them and find a way to get to my friends.”

  Sam nodded. They retrieved food and water from the truck and climbed onto the engine housing. Sam led, clambering over the hood and radiator. He dropped to the ground and stepped carefully away, he used his stick to direct Mercy. She dropped to the ground and followed his steps, it was still early morning, her breath misted the air. Sam pointed to his eyes then his feet.

  “OK I get it, I’ll put my feet where you put yours,” Mercy said, her voice clear. They could not afford any misunderstanding.

  Sam turned away and began to pick his way through the minefield. Mercy allowed him space but watched where he placed his feet. She noticed rounded white pebbles at intervals along his route. Sam had a system, his trail of breadcrumbs through the minefield, a trail only he could read. She watched his back as they made their way one step at a time over the ground. It was obvious he had escaped from Cobalt Biotech. He probably could take her to the facility direct, but she would not ask him to. She would ask him to take her to the air base, she would find a way in.

  It took half an hour to reach the twisted single strand of barbed wire marking the edge of the minefield. Once they had crossed the boundary Sam relaxed and dropped his stick. They sat in the mid-morning sun and let the tension ebb from their muscles. Mercy checked the compass, they were heading due west, she checked the Beretta and chambered a round. The metallic glint in the distance caught her eye again, it was difficult to judge distance across the wasteland without a point of reference. She waited for Sam, this was his ground, she would defer to his judgement.

  Sam stood up five minutes later and started walking, changing direction. Mercy checked her compass surprised to see they were headed south. She said nothing and followed him, he would have his reasons. They walked away from the tanker, the minefield and the fence and twenty minutes later the tanker was no longer visible. If it wasn’t for the compass Mercy would have lost all sense of direction. Sam kept the same pace up and another hour passed.

  Sam stopped, crouching in the brush, he looked back at Mercy and brought his fingers to his lips, she nodded. Sam sniffed the air and frowned, he crept forwards and peered through the scrub. Mercy followed but Sam started back tracking. Mercy withdrew allowing him space. He shook his head and pointed back the way they had come. They retreated for ten minutes, finally Sam seemed to relax. He took a swig of water and stared at the sky.

  Mercy tapped his arm and lifted her hands in a questioning gesture. He leaned forwards and scratched in the dirt. Mercy watched until understanding dawned on her, Sam had drawn a dog emphasizing its teeth. Mercy stiffened, and looked around, her eyes narrowed, dogs were always trouble, they were usually infected, always hungry and survived in packs.

  Memory flashed through her, correcting her internal dialogue. Dogs were not always trouble, she smiled as she remembered Murphy the Doberman that had saved her life twice in Nova Sc
otia.

  There are always exceptions—

  Sam stood up pointing at Mercy’s Beretta, a glint in his eye. He gave her a look. “Yes Sam, I’m ready—” she answered, understanding what he meant.

  They gave their previous position a wide berth before returning to the original bearing. Forty minutes later the land dipped to the left. Sam headed down the slope, the ground became more broken. He disappeared around a rocky outcrop, Mercy followed, her eyes darting ahead. The ground dropped to a dried riverbed. Mercy studied the land and saw signs of erosion and previous flooding, a high water mark evident. A warning went off in the back of her head, she remembered watching the news on TV and seeing reports of flash flooding in similar terrain.

  Sam was standing in the riverbed, waving at her to follow. She looked up and down the bank and scrambled after him, she checked her compass when she reached the bottom, they were headed north west.

  Good enough Sam, good enough—

  They spent the next hour negotiating the riverbed. Finally Sam stopped, his hand raised, Mercy halted and crouched beside him. Sam put a finger to his lips and pointed up the slope to the edge of the riverbank. Mercy nodded. He dropped on all fours and crawled to the edge of the rise and lay listening. After a minute he peered over the top in both directions. He turned to Mercy and signalled for her to follow.

  Mercy scrambled up the slope following Sam’s slouching figure. The stench hit her as soon as she crested the rise, her eyes darted ahead and saw a high fence glinting in the distance. It wasn’t the fence that made her hesitate, it was the horde of dead pressing on it. The fence was two hundred yards away, her eyes took in the scene, she estimated the horde to be around five thousand strong. As she ran following Sam, her eyes darted back to the fence and registered a series of at least three parallel fences, each one higher than the last. Corpses hung from the wire and littered the ground in the gaps between the fences.