The Alpha Plague (Book 7)

by Michael Robertson

  A scaffolding pipe or something similar, Serj had landed on it back first. The old pole shone with blood as it pointed at the sky, an accusation to the gods for letting this happen.

  When Flynn grabbed Serj, his Indian friend winced and he shook his head. “Don’t,” he said, the word a wheeze more than anything.

  “What then?” Flynn asked as he turned his face away from the stench of Serj’s torn bowels.

  The deep mahogany gaze that had always been there for Flynn seemed to fade as Serj looked at him. Instead of speaking, the man simply shook his head.

  “No,” Flynn cried, his voice calling out through the quiet town. “There must be something we can do.”

  Again, Serj simply shook his head as he fought for breath.

  For a few seconds, Serj flapped his right arm in the direction of his hip. Clumsy with his rapidly draining essence, it took him a few attempts to clamp a hand on his knife. He shook as he worked it free and handed it to Flynn.

  “What’s this for?” Flynn asked, the knife’s handle sticky with Serj’s blood.

  “I need you to end it for me.”

  “What?!” Flynn’s voice startled a bird nearby, which took off and flew out through the open shopfront.

  “It’s no good,” Serj said. “I can’t get off this pole and I don’t want to try. This is the end for me.”

  “No,” Flynn said and dropped the knife. He held Serj’s right hand with both of his.

  The same serene stare Flynn knew so well fixed on him. “Please do this for me. I won’t make it back to Home. Look at me …” He stopped and winced, catching his breath before he added, “I’m bleeding out as it is. You pull me off this pole and I’ll split.”

  “Then I’ll go and get someone from Home to come and help.”

  “You think I’ll last that long? Besides, what do you think will happen when you leave me here?”

  When Serj looked up, Flynn did the same. There must have been at least fifteen to twenty kids hanging around. They were on the first floor of the shop, looking down through the huge hole Serj had made when he fell.

  Dirty faces, long hair, tatty clothes, and wild eyes. The rats ranged in ages from about six to twelve. If the rumours were accurate, Flynn could only see a handful of them. Apparently hundreds of them lived in the town—although rumours had a way of stretching the truth.

  It had been said that the kids moved in when their community fell to a vicious group of nomads. Every adult and teenager had been slaughtered, but the young children had been set free. Since then, a lot of local groups had fed them, but it would seem no one wanted the responsibility of taking them in. Serj had even sent people from Home to deliver them food. They left care packages in the centre of town, which the kids picked up after they’d gone.

  Some people believed they had adults with them and the kids were just a front to get charity. Flynn saw the logic in it; people did what they could to survive. The red paint on the walls was probably an attempt to fake childish illiteracy.

  Regardless of what he believed, Flynn shuddered to look at them. They were feral and gaunt. Desperate for sustenance in whichever way they could take it. They didn’t look ready to attack, but if Flynn left a wounded Serj, they’d gladly take the care package.

  Even as Flynn said the words, he understood just how empty they were. He had no hope against the army of kids. “They won’t fucking touch you. I’ll take them all down if I have to.”

  Fifteen to twenty pairs of eyes stared down at him. Who was he kidding?

  A look back at Serj and Flynn couldn’t see any other options than the one presented to him. Yet he still said, “I’m not killing you”—his voice shaking and his eyes stinging with the start of his tears—“I can’t.”

  Serj closed his eyes as he nodded. “You need to. You can’t leave me like this.”

  At that moment, Flynn got to his feet and shouted, “Fuck!” He kicked an empty plastic bottle, which skittered across the floor and clattered into one of the walls. Even louder than his previous shout, Flynn’s call echoed through the empty space when he screamed, “Fuck!”

  ***

  After he’d paced for a minute or so, Flynn hunched down next to Serj and picked his hand up again, but left his knife on the ground. Tears soaked his cheeks and he watched Serj close his eyes, his breaths coming more heavily than before. Every few seconds, a wince of pain twisted his friend’s face.

  When Serj opened his eyes again, it took him a few seconds to focus on Flynn. “Vicky would have done this for me.”

  “Fuck Vicky!” Flynn snapped back, his entire body pulling tight at the mention of her. “If she would have done it, I’m inclined to do the exact opposite. She lost my respect the second she walked out.”

  Several heavy breaths and Serj forced his words out. “She loved you more than anything, you know?”

  “If she loved me more than anything, then why did she leave me?”

  For the first time since Flynn had known him, Serj cried. His entire face twisted with fear and he shook where he lay. “Please, Flynn. Please do this for me.”

  The one person who hadn’t let him down in his life. The one person who’d always been there for him and never asked for anything in return. The one person who’d been there when Flynn needed him most. He drew a deep breath and lifted the knife. A glance up at the rats and he saw more had gathered around the hole.

  He turned away from the kids. They’d seen he had no choice; he had to do what his friend asked of him. A weak grip on Serj’s knife and Flynn raised it up. He looked down at his crying friend and he shook his head. “I’m so sorry, Serj. I love you, man.”

  Just as Flynn clenched his jaw and squeezed a tighter grip on the knife, Serj said, “Stop!”

  Flynn paused.

  After several heavy breaths, Serj forced his words out. “I need to tell you something about Vicky.”

  Chapter Seven

  As much as Flynn wanted to be patient, Serj didn’t have long left. His frame locked tight as he watched Serj gasp and splutter on the dusty ground. “What is it?” he said. “What do you need to tell me about Vicky?”

  It took a few more breaths before Serj found enough force to drive his words out. He shook his head as he said it, the shine in his eyes dimming. “She didn’t leave you.”

  The dirty, abandoned shop around Flynn seemed to shift as if his perspective of it went off-kilter. Hell, the entire fucking world jolted on its axis. “What do you mean?”

  Another shake of his head and Serj pulled several more breaths into his body. The smell of blood hung in the air. A rush of wind flew into the shop and Flynn caught movement in his peripheral vision—just a loose piece of paper flapping in the breeze.

  More rats gathered around the hole and peered down. Their already wide eyes had widened further. Their hunger seemed to be pulling them forwards as they all leaned over the hole and stared at the dying Serj. Apparently they preferred their meat alive. Although, like many stories about the rats, the rumours probably weren’t true. The adults, wherever they were, would probably cook the flesh once the kids brought it back to them.

  “She was forced out,” Serj finally said.

  “Forced out?!” Flynn noticed the rats flinch in response to his outburst. “Forced out by who?”

  A lethargic turn of his head and Serj stared straight at Flynn. He didn’t need to say it.

  “Brian, Sharon, and Dan? Because of their kids?”

  The pause only lasted a few seconds, but it felt like a lifetime. “No,” Serj said. “They found out.”

  A chill ran from Flynn’s head to his toes. “You mean about the virus? About her part in it?”

  Before Serj could respond, something fell from the hole and Flynn ripped his knife up and pointed it in the direction of the small girl. No more than eight years old, she had scruffy brown hair and a ripped nightie covering her skinny form. The way she stood there, hunched over, suggested she’d jumped rather than fallen.

  She stared at Fly
nn and then the knife before she pulled her lips back in a snarl, baring her yellow teeth.

  Her hiss ran needles into the base of Flynn’s neck and his shoulders lifted. When she snapped her hand out, he barely saw it move. However, he did see the bug in her pinch. A cockroach, it twisted and writhed before she put it into her mouth.

  They shared a look while she chewed on the insect and then she sprinted from the room through a door at the back. Fuck knew where it led, but as long as she left them alone, he didn’t care.

  After he’d glanced up at the others to make sure no more would come down, Flynn looked back at Serj. “They found out she helped set the virus free?”

  Serj nodded.

  “Because I said it in Home?”

  Serj nodded again, although even that seemed to be taking its toll on him now. His movements were weak, his sweating face pale.

  Although Flynn drew a breath to speak, Serj cut him off. “She wanted you to think she’d left so you’d stay safe in Home. She loved you and wanted to make sure you’d be okay. Home was the best place for you and she didn’t want anything to jeopardise that. She had to die regardless and saw no point in you having to leave also.”

  Already limp, Serj fell even more flaccid, every word taking its pound of flesh from him.

  Flynn looked up at the rats again before he glanced down at his boots. It seemed impossible that a body could lose so much blood and not be dead. “But why are you telling me now?”

  “You needed to know …”

  “The truth?” Flynn finished for him and looked up again at the rats.

  Serj nodded.

  Now he’d got the words from his friend, Flynn shook more violently than before. A mixture of hurt and rage swirled within him. “I’ll kill ’em,” he said. He shook his head as he stared down at the glossy pool of blood on the ground, the shifting silhouettes of the rats reflected in it. “I’ll kill all three of the fuckers. Suffocate them in their sleep. I’ll make sure they pay.”

  “Remember what I said about the hot coal?” Serj said, sweat running from his brow down either temple.

  “What the fuck are you talking about? They killed Vicky.”

  “But you killing them won’t bring her back. I wanted you to know …” Serj’s eyes closed for a second. When he opened them again, he said, “So you don’t think ill of Vicky anymore. She did the best for you.”

  Flynn watched Serj turn so pale his skin looked to be on the way to translucent. When he saw it in his friend’s eyes, Flynn said, “You think they were right to kick her out?”

  “They had to.”

  “Because she set the virus loose?”

  Serj dipped a feeble nod.

  “Because the world’s the way it is because of her?”

  Another nod.

  As much as Flynn wanted to argue, he couldn’t. The world had become this way because of her. The crowd of rats above should be in school now and worrying about friendships and the latest craze. Instead, they lurked in the shadows, waiting for things to eat. God knew what other things happened to them when they were with the adults who clearly directed them. The haunted looks in their eyes spoke of something much darker than cannibalism. But maybe Flynn imagined it. More speculation about a group of people he knew nothing about.

  A deep inhale lifted through Serj and he said, “Vicky said she would have done the same to someone else.” His eyes rolled in his head and he sweated more than before. “Once the decision had been made, she just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

  The world turned blurry in front of Flynn, but it didn’t stop his awareness of the ever-thickening press of bodies above. A glance, and even with his poor, tear-distorted vision, there looked to be double the amount again. They waited, but for how long?

  “I just want to make sure you know how much she loved you. And that she didn’t let you down.” Serj nodded at the knife in Flynn’s hand. “Please stop my pain now.”

  Flynn drew a deep breath, the metallic essence of Serj filling his senses again as he pulled the air in. He also smelled the dirt coming from the rats above him. If many more gathered up there, the ceiling would collapse beneath their weight.

  Several blinks cleared Flynn’s sight and he nodded at Serj, gripped the handle of his knife, and yelled out as he drove it into the top of his friend’s head.

  Physically, it felt no different than killing a diseased. The blade broke through the bone and sank into Serj’s brain, turning him off.

  When Flynn let go of his grip on the knife, it protruded from Serj’s head. His dead eyes were spread wide.

  It took all Flynn had to stand up. He stumbled back several paces before he looked up at the rats one last time. More still had gathered around the hole.

  Clumsy with his steps, Flynn turned his back on the shop and shuffled through the space that had once held the front window.

  By the time he’d stepped a few metres into the high street, he heard the rush of bodies swarming from the hole down towards Serj. At least they didn’t get to take him alive.

  Chapter Eight

  Not physically exhausted, but emotionally fatigued, Flynn’s legs trembled beneath his weight as he returned to Home. He’d walked over the new bridge crossing the river and currently moved through the long, grassy meadow outside their complex. The sun pushed down on the back of his head and the grass came up to his chest. On another day, it might have even been pleasant with the fresh meadow smell in the summer heat. But covered in the blood of his best friend and mentor and returning to a place full of enemies took away any appreciation he might have felt for the weather.

  The wall around Home stood as strong and indomitable as ever. As the years went on, they’d chopped down trees, stripped them of their bark and branches, and stood them in a line like soldiers. Each one had been buried at least two metres into the ground and had been butted so closely to the one next to it, it would take a tank to knock them down. Since they’d built the wall, they might have had gangs pass the place, but no one had tried to attack. Many communities fortified themselves in this way now.

  A sentry stood at either side of the gate, and when Flynn saw Brian as one of them, his stomach clenched tight as if jabbed with electricity. Bile lifted in his throat at the sight of the man, but he gulped down the bitter taste, clenched his jaw, and pushed forward.

  The gates opened before Flynn got to them and he strode through into the complex. The usual smell of sewage hit him the second he entered the place and he screwed his nose up in response to it. Since the solar panels had gone, Home had fallen into complete disrepair. They used the underground complex to sleep in and not a lot else now. Some suggested moving the toilets outside the wall to get rid of the smell, but that would put them in too much danger every time they needed to make a trip to the john.

  By the time Flynn had walked just a few metres into the place, Brian appeared at his side and said, “What happened?”

  Serj’s blood had dried against Flynn’s skin, so when he closed both of his hands into fists, it cracked.

  When Flynn didn’t respond, Brian said, “Where’s Serj?”

  A clenched jaw and quickened pulse, Flynn looked at the barn with the leaking chimney. “We didn’t get your lead.”

  “Our lead; it’s for the good of the community.”

  Flynn looked across at the bearded man and growled. “We didn’t get your lead.”

  Brian didn’t argue again. “So what happened? I’m guessing that isn’t your blood on your hands?”

  “You’d know all about that, wouldn’t you?”

  Impatience twisted Brian’s face and he focused a bitter scowl on Flynn. “What are you talking about?”

  “Never mind,” Flynn said and looked away from the man.

  Many of Home’s residents hadn’t noticed Flynn’s return yet. If he could keep it that way, it would save a lot of questions.

  As Flynn passed through the place—as out of sight as possible—he watched the people working the farmland. Everyone w
ho could work did. It made for a productive community. A community that would need to be saved from the tyrannical—or soon to be tyrannical—rule of Brian, Sharon, and Dan. Now Serj had gone, they had nothing stopping them. At least, they would think they had nothing stopping them.

  Flynn focused his attention on Home’s front door, hoping he’d remain invisible to the people in the community. It stood propped open as they always had it during the day. Now a dusty wreck of a place, they needed to ventilate Home as much as they could so when they locked it up at night it had at least been aired out.

  “Flynn!”

  A look to his right and Flynn saw some of the teenagers from Home.

  Maggie had been the one to call to him and she led the group of six over to him at a jog. Genuine concern lit up her face when she saw the blood on him. “My god, what’s happened? Is it Serj?”

  As the heart of the community, everyone loved Serj—especially the young people. He’d been one of the only adults to listen to them. He treated them like human beings while the other guards treated them like dumb kids.

  For a few seconds, Flynn bit down on his bottom lip to hold his grief back. He finally nodded. “Serj has gone.” He looked over to see Brian had come close to listen in. “He fell when we were trying to get Brian’s lead and he didn’t make it.”

  Where Brian would usually respond, he didn’t this time. He must have heard the thin ice cracking beneath his feet.

  The group walked with Flynn as he headed towards Home’s entrance. The door sat in the small hill, the once solar panel field behind it.

  Where the solar panels had been, Flynn could now see a complex twisting of tubes and funnels raised in the air. From a distance, it looked like a huge marble run like the one they had for the children inside. It had been set up to catch and store water. Without the filtration system and the electric pumps, they’d had to adapt.

  At the sight of Sharon and Dan, Flynn ground his jaw. They looked him up and down as they approached.

  “What’s happened?” Dan said.