“Daddy... don’t let me down”, she whispered to herself.
“Change of plan”, Terry announced, turning to Lizzy, “My daughter is in danger and I have to reach her fast”.
“What are your intentions? The roads are jam-packed with cars and there are twitchers everywhere”.
“Run”.
“Are you serious? Run where?”
“She’s not far from Bethnal Green”.
“Bethnal fucking green? Are you serious? You want to run all the way there?”
“My daughter’s life is at stake, I’m not about to let her die, not on my watch. I’ll fucking run all the way to West Ham if I have to”.
“Don’t be ridiculous, you’ll never make it and even if you do you’ll be so out of energy you’ll be useless”.
“Well what do you suggest?”
She glanced around and pointed towards a bike rack, bikes supplied by the city council years ago as an initiative to get more people riding around London as opposed to driving.
“Bike it? You’ll get there faster and with more energy to spare”.
“Good idea. Okay, I’ll lure as many away as possible, use that opportunity to go find a car, get to my wife, explain what happened and I’ll tell you where to pick us up”.
“Okay, get going. She’s waiting for you”. Terry nodded and took off, leaving Lizzy behind.
He rummaged through his pocket for his clam card and flashed it over the scanner pad to charge him for bike usage, releasing it from the security rack.
He grabbed the handle bars, perched himself upon the seat and pedalled his way to his daughter.
The sun was beginning to go down as seven thirty rolled on, beginning to shroud London in darkness. Given the circumstances, Ria didn’t want to be in the city during the night, not with a dead phone and no idea of where she needed to go. Where was her dad already?
Her mind wandered for a moment, she never got to ask her dad if her mum and brother were okay... stupid, she should have asked, but did her father prioritising her mean that they were safe now? She could only hope. She glanced down at her phone, five percent, calling them now would only kill her battery.
She placed her phone down and huddled back into a ball, hugging her knees tightly. Charlotte was dead, those men tried to rape and kill her, she didn't know where her family were and if they were okay, she had no idea where Lacey was or why she hadn't replied to her last message and the icing on the cake was that London was more than likely crawling with the infected, these were the realities she had to face and in top of that, she had been shot, a pain that refused to fade, but only the worst of many pains around her body.
Was she meant to survive? Was this the night she would die? Was this the last time she could inhale the fresh air, gaze up at the skies, feel the breeze caress her face?
This morning her only worry was whether her father would disappoint her again and waste her time; that felt like so long ago, a trivial perspective and almost laughable in contrast to now.
If she listened, she could still hear a convergence of different sounds seemingly coming from all around, none of them reassuring, but the one thing she could no longer hear were the voices of the two men.
She never should have trusted those monsters, she probably would have been better off just dragging Charlotte to safety herself. Charlotte... how Ria wished she could apologise to her for prejudging. Had it not been for Charlotte, they would probably be dead already. The memory of her choking on her own blood was so vivid, Ria could almost still hear her shudder-worthy choking on her own blood.
Smoke rose up into the skies and the smell carried through the breeze. Helicopters whizzed overhead, but none paid her any mind regardless of how much she waved and called out to them. Ember filled the skies and the scene she was presented with was the very depiction of hell.
She sat back down and there she remained huddled for what felt like another five minutes, before something disturbed the solitude.
Ria propped her head up as the sound of hushed voices commanded her attention.
She peered around an iron beam and spotted the two men on her floor approaching her direction.
“She's here somewhere, I heard her a minute ago".
“Just find that bitch, she stabbed me in the motherfucking eye! I'll see that she pays ten times over for this shit".
“You mean half see".
“Fuck off! Do you think this is a fucking joke?”
“No, I'm sure it's a bastard, but you've been bitching about it none-stop. Men have died for the cause and you're fucking whining about an eye".
“What the fuck have you lost then?”
What were they doing here? How the hell had they managed to get up without the escalator? They had every opportunity to escape London by now, why were they so persistent?
Panic stricken once more, she stood up and looked around. There wasn’t much in the way of hiding places.
She ran behind a doorway which led out to the exposed scaffolding and hid behind it. The two men drew closer
“We are wasting time on this brat”, Lugo insisted.
“Fuck that, I won’t be satisfied until I’ve checked every last fucking corner, found her and skinned her alive!”
Ria’s heart was pounding again. Why did she matter so much to them? If there was a God, did he want her to suffer?
She turned and looked down from what was intended to be a room, possibly an office and saw the expanse of the construction yard laid out below her, filled with machinery and vehicles and open underground walkways. This height was quite intimidating, but she might just be able to make it down to the lower level. If she managed to get down unnoticed, maybe they would find nothing and eventually leave.
She found a point of which to get down, but she had to be careful, one false move could see her plummet to a grisly death. Deliberating over the idea, she eventually decided to take the chance, it was now or never.
She slipped her legs over the edge and carefully tried to lower herself down, but as though the god of misfortune were toying with her again, five fighter jets roared overhead, followed by a deafening series of explosions, the darkening skies lit up as flames extended high into the air.
Startled, she dropped harder than she had planned, knocking down a bucket to the side she had been trying to avoid and cutting herself on exposed bricks upon her fall.
She didn't have time to pine over her cut, for the men above had heard the noise and run over to investigate, spotting her on the lower floor.
“There she is! I knew that bitch was here!” The driver snapped, looking down at her, “Shoot her!”
Lugo aimed, but Ria dived out of the way before he could fire, so instead he began lowering himself down, whilst his driver companion took off in the opposite direction.
Ria didn’t wait to see what would happen, she was up and running, circumnavigating the peculiar layout to find a way down to the next floor.
She ran to what looked to be a ledge down to the bottom, but before she could jump down, the driver seemingly popped out of nowhere and grabbed her by her hair.
“Caught you, little bitch!”
Ria screamed and flailed her arms as Lugo came running to join them. If he got his hands on her, their combined strength would eclipse any strength she had remaining, or any she would have had even without the handicaps. She had to break free and now, before they had a chance to work together.
She attempted to keep the driver between them, stopping Lugo from grabbing her and as the driver managed to get the pen knife from his pocket, she lashed out at his arm, knocking the knife out of his grip and sending it sailing through the air to the ground far below.
“Dammit!” The driver snapped and reverted to hitting her instead.
Feeling the aura of death looming over her like the weight of a sandbag, she was determined to stay alive long enough for her father to get to her.
Lugo grabbed one of her kicking ankles and held on tight, bringing her to th
e ground, but lost his grip as she fell.
Suddenly, Ria remembered something as the driver held on tightly to her hair, if there was one thing that Daniel had taught her well, it was how to defend herself and she knew exactly where to strike. She raised her fist and with all her might, punched the driver in the groin, knocking the wind out of him and forcing him to let go as he crumpled to the floor in agony.
Ria was up and before Lugo could grab her, she dropped down onto the level below with a thud, landing hard on to her uninjured arm.
The pain was seething and it was only as she stood up did she realise that she may have inflicted more damage to it than she had first thought. She could barely move her hand as tears welled up in her eyes. Had she fractured it? No, this was all she needed, more injuries.
“Fucking whore! Kill her, shoot her in the fucking face!” She heard the driver snap with venomous rage. Ria got up and begun running just as Lugo had begun climbing down. She ran through some open doors and scrambled down flight of steps towards the ground floor and ran across the construction yard, but not far before Lugo caught up to and lunged at her, grabbing her ankle, forcing her to the ground. He tried to pin her down, but she kicked at him, kicking him in the face and using the split-second opportunity to run. It was then that she just about heard her name being called and turned to see her father behind a mesh fence, the best face she had seen all day.
A few minutes prior to that, Terry had arrived in the general location sent to him by his daughter, but with less light available to him and twitchers prowling at every turn, finding her was going to be no easy task. To make matters worse, he had brought along a swarm of twitchers that he simply couldn't afford to waste time evading, with the hopes that he might be able to lose them along the way, to no avail, up at least until a few short minutes ago, but it was only a matter of time before they found him. He was only too fortunate it was summer, so sunlight still lingered and probably would remain so for another few hours, but he couldn't bet on that. If it got too dark to see, he was screwed.
Having ditched the bikes, he took cover behind cars, observing the movements of the twitchers in the vicinity. He had to keep his wits about him, for the ambition was to avoid further detection.
The twitchers muttered to one another, mostly appearing distracted by a series of very concerning explosions he and they had heard in the distance, shortly after jets flew overhead. Terry could only pray that those explosions weren't the beginning of some crazy sanction to level the city.
The desire to call out for his daughter was overwhelming, but if he did so, he’d be swarmed and killed before he even got the chance to reach her. He could only pray that she was alright.
Using debris as distractions to divert the twitchers away from him, he slipped into a side street and ran up towards the pointer on the maps. He came to a stop next to a building and a construction yard, just like his daughter had described, but where was she? Was she still at the top?
He circled the fenced off construction yard, looking for an easy way in and heard a scream. Was that Ria?
These safety fence obstructed him and his view, so he ran around until he found a mesh fence and spotted two figures up on the construction itself. He called out to them, hoping that one of them was Ria, but neither of them seemed to hear him.
He looked up and above the mesh fence and wooden panels was barbed wire. He certainly wasn’t going to get in that way, but for the others to have managed to get in, there had to be a point of entry.
He followed the fence around and stopped as the figures reached the ground, running across the construction yard. It was then that he recognised his daughter and she was running from someone, before being tackled to the ground. Terry witnessed the scuffle and his blood boiled. What were they trying to do to or with his daughter? He needed to find a way in and quickly.
She managed to break free and he called out to her.
“Ria!”
She only noticed him after the third call and the look of desperation in her eyes was unlike anything he had ever seen, fear beyond all fear and her yellow dress stained crimson red with blood.
“Daddy!” She screamed out to him.
“I’m here, Ria! Run to safety! I’ll get around to you!” Terry shouted through the mesh fence, trying his damndest to reassure his daughter.
“Help me!”
“I'm coming!”
Suddenly a gun was fired in his direction and the sound was more than loud enough to attract every motherfucker in the vicinity.
The bullet missed him, but the point was made clear, this assailant meant business.
He ducked back and Ria continued running as her pursuer fired off two more bullets one in his direction and another in hers.
That son of a bitch had tried to kill his daughter! He was going to make the fucker pay, he was going to rip his lungs out from him mouth and fucking strangle him with it. Terry had never felt so much rage, so much blind determination to risk his life for a cause, but this was his precious daughter, scared, alone and vulnerable, he was prepared to do what it took to protect her from those fuckers.
Getting up once the pursuer had disregarded him in favour of chasing after his daughter, Terry desperately began looking around for either a means to cut through the mesh or the way in. He would sooner die trying, then to let those opportunistic fucks lay a finger on his daughter.
He tried hitting the mesh fence with a disregarded metal shell of an extractor to his side to no avail, desperation wasn’t making him think clearly. He continued making his way around the side of the construction yard looking for a way to get in.
Ria dashed down into a pit with an open space that led to what looked to be an underground car park in the process of being built. Close behind her was Lugo, the next shot he took could be the fatal one.
She ran into the pitch darkness of the unfinished car park and outstretched her gunshot wounded arm to feel around for obstacles. It would take her eyes some time to adjust to the darkness, but until then, she was vulnerable to the dangers of the terrain.
“Where are you?” Lugo sang, his voice echoing throughout the empty space. “Are we playing hide and seek?”
Ria hid behind a pillar, if she ventured any further, who knew what she would encounter. She didn’t want to lose sight of the exit, nor injure herself trying to get away, but she would soon regret that decision if Lugo managed to grab hold of her in the midst of her risk aversion.
As his footsteps drew closer, her heart pounded harder. Where was she going to go? He’d find her and kill her, but just as his footsteps reached a metre or so behind her, she heard a second pair of footsteps running towards her. Was it her father? Was it the driver? Who was it?
“There you are!” Lugo shouted, spinning around and fired a shot in the direction, but missed. “Fuck!” He cried as the gunfire for a second lit up the face of Jack, who lunged at him and punched him in the face. They landed hard on the ground next to her.
“Ria! Go, get out of here!” Jack shouted and lunged for Lugo again. Where the hell had he come from and why did he come back? He could have been long gone by now.
“You wanna kill me? You wanna fucking kill me? Should have fucking joined us, Jack, now I’ll kill you along with her!” Lugo shouted. Ria ran towards the only exit she could see and for a second believed she was home free, but as her luck would fare, there blocking her way out stood the driver.
“Leaving so soon? You can’t leave, I haven’t repaid you for what you did to me”, he snarled.
The remaining light from outside shimmered on the pen knife blade he held. He found it? How?
“Just leave me alone, please”, she begged, “I really won’t tell anyone anything, I didn’t even see what you were doing”.
“I don’t fucking care about that anymore! This is personal! You took my fucking eye, I take your fucking life!”
Ria turned and ran back in the opposite direction, back into the depths of the abyss, praying that there was another e
xit. Her eyes having become a little more accustomed to the darkness made it slightly easier to manoeuvre around. She navigated around obstacles, listening out for the driver’s footsteps and leaving Lugo and Jack far behind. She jumped down to a lower level, but the noise was probably only alerting the driver to where she was.
Eventually she came to a ramp leading up to what she could only assume was the road, with a barrier and ticket machine, as well as a booth besides them. Beyond the barrier was a metal shutter, the last remaining obstruction between her and freedom.
Ria ran over to the shutter and attempted to open it, only to discover that it was padlocked.
“Oh, come on, come on!” She yelled in panic induced frustration, but quickly realised her efforts were futile.
She slumped down against the shutters and wept, feeling hope slipping away quicker than the sand of an hourglass. The sound of footsteps approaching her made her stand up and paste her back against the metal shutters. As the figure drew closer and she prayed that it was Jack or her father, her heart sank when she realised it was the driver.
“Nowhere to go, little piggy. What will you do now?” He mocked and to make matters worse, who should join him? None other than Lugo.
“Did you kill Jack?” The driver asked.
“Two bullets left in the chamber and he slipped away, if he turns up, he gets shot”.
“You should have fucking killed him, now he'll become a liability”.
“Don’t worry about him, he could barely move. He won't have the energy to take us both on. If he shows his face, we put a bullet in it. I'm more concerned about some guy that was calling out to her from beyond the security fences, so kill her first and then we'll hunt them down before the crazy brigade arrives”, Lugo replied.
Ria wept and pleaded with them, but her words went on deaf ears.
“Don’t you get it? Getting rid of you is doing the world a tremendous favour. I call it sterilisation. Just cleansing the world of the scum that infected it”, the driver replied.
“I didn't care to get you involved in this, but you made it a necessity. There are some things that simply have to be done and this cause superseded everything else, collateral damages. You were part of that".
Cryptophobia (Book 1): Outbreak [Fear The Unknown] Page 21