In The Blood (Book 2): The Blood Lies

by Lee Isserow

  There were only four aisles in the store. Ben was told to get three loaves of bread, and did so all too quickly. The aisles were shorter than he hoped, at no point was he completely obscured, and there was no chance of getting to a phone. He knew he should wait. Maybe the next time they went out there would be a chance to make the call, or the time after that. But he was growing impatient. Living in a dilapidated warehouse, for weeks, and now a krunked out house that was saturated in mould, he couldn't stand it. He was missing the comfort of the beds back at the Squad. More than that, he was missing Tess.

  Against his better judgement, he began circling the other aisles as soon as Ned and Samuel had left them, picking up a pad and pen from a small selection of stationary, scrawling a barely legible note with hands that were full of bread.

  “Hey!”

  Ben looked over his shoulder. Ned was standing at the end of the aisle.

  “We're done, bring the stuff up here,” he signalled to the counter.

  Ben dropped the pen and pad on a shelf and turned, taking the loaves up to the shopkeeper. He put on a polite smile as their supplies were put into plastic bags and Samuel paid for them in cash.

  Hiding the note in his hand, Ben took hold of as many of the bags as possible, attempting to prove himself as a useful beast of burden for the group.

  He took a step back, let Ned and Samuel lead the way to the door. As soon as they passed him, he glanced over to the shopkeeper. Unseen by the others, his eyes widened, he mouthed 'help', and dropped the note to the floor as he scurried out to join the two men at the door.

  The shopkeeper watched them walk away down the street, with one eyebrow firmly raised, fixed in position. He stared at the scrawled up ball of paper on the floor with suspicion, huffed, and left the counter to pick it up. The writing was a barely legible collection of chicken-scratch and spiderlegs, but he could just about make it out;

  HOSTAGE

  Call police

  Steve MacGaulty

  Nixon Ailes

  Blood Squad

  Only the first two lines made sense, and the man who left the note didn't exactly seem like a hostage from the way he acted around the two other men, but the shopkeeper reasoned that he had never actually seen a hostage before, and they can't all be like they were on TV.

  In most situations, he liked to stay out of other people's business, but a hostage situation, in his shop of all places, that seemed important. It might even bring more business, make the place a tourist attraction. So he dialled 999, told them what happened, and read what he could from the note. The operator understood the last three statements about as well as the shopkeeper. Neither of them would ever know how their brief conversation, an exchange of words that seemed so innocuous, would result in so much death.

  12

  Ben returned to the house with Ned and Samuel, and helped prepare for breakfast. In their absence, a camping stove had been set up, water boiling in a large pot atop the single ring cooker.

  As he tried to cut open a bag of porridge oats, Ben's hands were shaking, the scissors barely responsive between his fingers. He tried to quell his nerves, anxiety simmering under his skin. There were so many unknowns; would the cashier see the note, and if he did, would he take it seriously. It's not like their trip to the shop had any signs of a hostage situation, not at face value at least. He wasn't acting like a hostage, that's for sure. Trying to make the group trust him meant that he couldn't show any signs of rebellion, he had to appear as if his goals matched theirs.

  Then there was the question of whether a call to the police, mentioning those keywords, would actually get through to the Blood Squad. It was, after all, a top secret division. Ben re-reminded himself of the listening stations in the Operations Room. There were people eavesdropping on 999 calls, it would definitely be flagged. It had to be.

  He started to wonder if the Squad would be able to track him from the shop to the house. The location had probably been chosen because of the lack of CCTV in the vicinity. The group were smart, smarter than he would have liked. But the Squad was smart too. He just had to bide his time, and they'd come for him.

  “You're nervous,” said a calm, reassuring voice.

  Ben turned, to see Luke in the doorway. A unruly tide of unrest began to gurgle away in his stomach. “It's just the drive,” he said, the words sounding false even to him. “Through the night, you know? Didn't sleep a wink, and all that bumping around...”

  “I slept okay,” the child said, innocently.

  “You had Kat as a cushion...” Ben said, with a smile.

  Luke smiled wide, showing off the gap of his missing tooth. He turned and opened the bedroom door, just as Kat was about to walk out of it.

  “You ready to wash up for breakfast?” she asked him.

  He nodded, took her hand, and the two of them went down the stairs.

  “Got that porridge open?” Samuel said.

  Ben turned, he had forgotten his task, and slid the scissors through the package, pouring them into the pot. He looked at the scissors in his hand. They trusted him enough to have access to a blade. He could so easily slit a vein, kill and consume Samuel, go next door and have his 'goblins devour whoever was sleeping there, then make his way downstairs, neutralise this whole damn group himself.

  But he couldn't bring himself to make an incision. Not now, not yet. There were too many risks involved, he wasn't confident he could defeat all six of them himself. Seven, he reminded himself. Luke was the seventh. He had to die too.

  “Do you mind taking over?” Samuel asked. He had been stirring the porridge with two hands, and was growing tired of the circular motion.

  “Sure,” Ben said, grabbing hold of the large wooden spoon, as Samuel opened a bottle of milk and started pouring it in to the mixture.

  The porridge made sickly smacking sounds as the spoon swirled around in it, which wasn't helping Ben's stomach settle. He turned to Samuel, in a desperate attempt at conversation and distraction.

  “What happened to the guy?”

  “Guy?”

  “The one whose wound you put under the microscope...”

  “Oh, he saved all our lives.”

  “All?”

  “Not just my colleagues, but every one of us here.”

  “Was it Martin?” Ben asked, Martin had seemed like the de-facto leader of the group, even though their decisions were made democratically.

  Samuel stifled a laugh. “No, not by a long shot!” it was the first time Ben had seen the older man laugh. The winkles around his eyes snaked their way around his cheeks and up his forehead. He looked like a man that had at one time laughed a great deal, and was relishing this small moment of joy. “Martin was one of the last to join us. He just acts like the boss because he's taller and stronger than most of us. We placate him, but since Steve left, it's been leaderless democracy all the way.”

  “Steve?” Ben asked. There was movement up the stairs, he wasn't sure if he heard the name correctly.

  “Did you say Steve? You don't mean... Steve MacGaulty?”

  Kat and Luke came in, shortly followed by all the others. Each had bowls in their hands that were found in the kitchen, the first real bowls they had to eat from in weeks. As they lined up around the room, they could tell there was something in the air.

  “How do you know that name?” Samuel asked.

  “What name?” barked Martin.

  “MacGaulty.”

  “How do you know him?” Ben asked.

  “He was our friend!” Luke said, a look of consternation on his face. Ben had never seen the young boy look anxious before.

  “More than that,” said Kat. “He was our leader.”

  13

  Samuel had thought Steve was just a test subject at first, one of many that came in as part of his study. He had no idea that Steve was there undercover, learning from their research whilst he was being tested on.

  When an accident in the lab left Samuel and his colleagues infected, it was Steve wh
o saved them from the Blood Squad. As armed men burst into the building, he had them create a diversion. A fire, from various chemicals the scientists had lying around, and led them out. He helped them find an abandoned building to act as a sanctuary, and together, they scoured the news for more potential infected that they could save before the Squad came for them.

  Rob was an engineer for a company that made turbines for jet engines. Under Steve's leadership, the group got to him, dragged him out of his office just moments before the Squad's bullets tore the warehouse to shreds. They watched from afar as the building was burned to the ground. The fire was so bright and so angry, that to look at it from miles away, it seemed like the sky itself was burning. A pillar of thick, black smoke above funnelled up to the heavens. A few tabloid and 'weird news' websites posted the photos declaring it the end of the world.

  A few weeks later, the group read about Ned and Shauna in the papers. They were a couple that had been mugged. Rob was in the hospital with internal injuries that were healing abnormally quickly, whilst Shauna was under arrest for the mugger's brutal death. Steve's guidance was once again called for. They subdued police officers and stole their uniforms, taking them out before the Squad even had a chance to get agents over to the hospital or police station.

  The group came upon Kat and Luke by chance, the clinic where his mother died was on a list of potential infection sites they managed to steal from the Squad, and just happened to be there on the day Luke went in for his shot. Luke was unconscious when Steve carried him out. It took three of them to drag Kat from what was left of her sister's dessicated body.

  Time and time again, Steve had lead them, saved and rescued every single one of the group that was once thirty strong. If it wasn't for Steve MacGaulty, all of them would be long dead. But Ben couldn't help but think; as much as that was true, as much as they owed their lives to him, if it wasn't for Steve MacGaulty, most of those thirty wouldn't be dead right now.

  14

  Steve became their de-facto leader. He was, after all, leading the charge on the rescue missions, saving their fellow infected from the Blood Squad. That was their name for it, given that they didn't know what the official title of the division was called. It seemed as though they were winning, that they could continue winning, beating the government and it's kill squad at every turn. That is, until Martin joined them.

  Martin was a detective, based at New Scotland Yard. He was infected at some point during his work with the Murder Investigation Team, or at least that was his assumption. Walking into room after room covered in fluids was the most likely point of contracting infection, as far as he was concerned.

  The mission to save Martin wasn't under Steve's purview. By that point, he had started delegating to his senior lieutenants. He actually called them as such, and it was only later that the group realised how that alone should have sent up red flags.

  It took eighteen of them to storm Scotland Yard, incapacitating officers rather than injuring or killing them. They fought through to the holding cells, where they found Martin, passed out, still recovering after he got on the wrong end of a suspect's knife. The suspect's body had been ripped to shreds, what was left of him found decorating the hallway of the crack den Martin's partner found him in, unconscious.

  The group managed to get Martin out without a single casualty on either side. But when Steve opened the door to the building they were occupying at the time, he refused to take him in.

  “Can't trust a pig!” he insisted.

  The rest of the group were shocked at this statement. He had been accepting of all of them, no matter what occupation or gender, race or sexuality. It didn't sit right with a majority. It was only when Martin regained consciousness that they discovered Steve's mistrust was based entirely on self-preservation.

  He recognised MacGaulty instantly. Steve had been part of a MI5 investigation into a biological terrorist threat that had crossed over into a murder case that fell on Martin's desk. He was government then, and Martin had no reason to believe that he wasn't still working for the security services.

  Unrest spread amongst the ranks. The rescue missions ground to a halt as the group debated back and forth. Some making cases for Steve; that he saved them, that he kept them safe, that they wouldn't know how to continue without him. Others making cases against him; he never mentioned his government ties before, he often left for days at a time with no word of where he was going, that he was using them like a private research project of the infection. Everyone had an opinion. The discussions led to the group's very first democratic decision, a vote between the thirty of them to decide whether he should stay or go.

  Their tally of votes didn't matter. By the time they were counted and a resolution reached, he had absconded into the night.

  They moved location instantly, and moved every fortnight to keep off the radar. For weeks, they heard nothing from him. Then it was months with no sign. The next time they saw him, it would be after the door to their sanctuary was smashed in by a battering ram, followed by his blood chomping down on their friends. Thirty became twenty four..

  A few months later, twenty four became sixteen.

  Months later still, sixteen became seven.

  “Eight,” Ben reminded them. “I'm one of you now.” He meant every word. There was something about their story, something that resonated in his blood. He could feel the honesty coursing through them as they told him the tale of Steve's leadership and ultimate betrayal. These people, these so-called 'blood driven', were telling the truth.

  He realised then, all too late, that he had made a terrible mistake. Panic surged through him, he needed to tell them what he had done, but couldn't find the words, let alone get any sounds out over the lump in his throat. If he couldn't trust the Blood Squad, then all he had was this group, and he wasn't sure that they would ever be able to forgive him for sending the message out, leaving a trail of breadcrumbs practically to the front door of their temporary sanctuary.

  But it was too late for forgiveness. Too late for warnings.

  The door was breached, splinters of wood and clouds of dust flying through the air, pirouetting and cascading up the stairwell towards them. They could see Steve's silhouette as he stepped through the threshold, the billowing shroud of particles parting as he entered the house.

  Ben recognised the big, beaming smile on his mentor's face. A smile he had seen through their missions together, wide and calm, excited at the thrill of the hunt for monsters. He was surrounded by those monsters now, he was one of them, and knew full well that they were innocents caught up in a war they wanted no part of. This time, and perhaps for the final time, Ben felt as though he was on the wrong side of that smile. And blood was about to flow.

  15

  Ben froze at the sound of the door caving at the will of the battering ram. An unholy terror overtook him, the same terror from his nightmares, that latched his feet to the floor, and pulled the will from his limbs. He watched as everyone around him burst into action, pulling blades that were secreted in pockets, that for over two weeks had not been needed to shed blood and let the 'goblins loose.

  Kat shielded Luke whilst the others ran down the stairs. The two of them slipped behind the rest of the group and headed towards the back door. She pulled the door open, and found it blocked by a series of bulletproof plastic shields, held up against the door by tack officers. She turned back to the others, looking for another way out, but it was a terraced house, other than the front and back doors, there were no further exits.

  Martin stepped up against Steve, the blade of his Leatherman slipping into the meat of his wrist with ease. He was fast to bleed, but not fast enough. The blades on Steve's right glove were already deep in the flesh of his left hand, four angry 'goblins already coalescing from the eight holes, all digging their hard, brown teeth into Martin's blood creation before it had time to fully form.

  Martin watched in horror as the four demons drank him down. The knife fell from his grasp, and his le
gs gave way, sending him to the floor. Desperately, he tried to grab hold of it, to cut and conjure another 'goblin before all his fluids were sapped by MacGaulty's demons. But his weak, pale fingers didn't have a chance to grab hold of the knife. Steve cackled, as he watched the man who forced him to leave the group die at his feet, relishing every second of Martin's final moments.

  His enjoyment served as a distraction, enough time for Ned to leap towards him, flicking a box-cutter blade out and ripping it straight through his own gut. The heavy gush of blood coalesced faster than Steve could prepare for, the 'goblin taking the form of a dragon of dark reds and deep purples. The creature was fast, its teeth coming down with a wet snap, biting straight through the four small 'goblins coming out from Steve's palm. The monster reared its head, opened its long jaws, and roared an angry gargle. A jet of bright red liquid fire came for Steve, the fat man only barely rolling his mammoth frame out of the way to avoid being consumed by it.

  Ben watched from the top of the stairs, still unable to move, unable to speak or warn Ned. From the ground, it looked like MacGaulty was shaken, trying to recover. But from above, Ben could clearly see that both sets of glove blades were out and ready to bring forth a torrent of plasma out on the unsuspecting dragon-conjurer.

  Steve rocked up to his knees, his hands resting in the pit of his elbows. He looked up at Ned and smiled, pulling his hands apart, tearing jagged lines through his wrists, directing the coalescing fiends at at his unprepared foe.

  Two massive 'goblins came for Ned, each with a mouth full of foot long teeth that were desperate to taste his juices. Ben stared in horror, the beasts were larger than any he had seen before, at least six litres each. Steve had been devouring all that blood for all those years, carried it with him with every step he walked, Now, he was making good use of all that extra volume.