Right after he’d been a target in the desert, and right before he ended up being a target in the woods at night, Eric had been part of the security team working for an utterly nondescript businesswoman, the last person he would have imagined might require such protection. At the time, he had believed the job was too good to be true. He hefted the assault rifle, adjusting its weight, and did a jittery 360 degree scan with the night vision. So it proved.
There was no movement out there. Anything that was among the trees watching him was lurking, which under the circumstances Eric decided must be considered a good thing. They didn’t lurk.
Eric blew softly on his hands, trying to spread the warmth of his torso a little.
This duty was, in one way, unlike any of the other shit details he had undertaken previously though, and that was a thought that occurred to Eric a couple of hours into his fourth six-hour shift, and once it took root, it began to grow insistently, spreading like a weed.
Before the world had gone to shit he had been working for his country, and following that he worked private sector because he needed money. Both were perfectly fine reasons to take up arms. This was a different situation entirely.
What am I working for now?
If the crazy fuckers had actually done the things they claimed, when they briefed Eric on why he had been bundled into a chopper in the middle of the night, then plenty of people were going to start to realise that the pieces of paper and nebulous promises that constituted their payment for services rendered had no actual value. The world was gone.
Now Eric was providing protection, and putting himself in harm’s way night after night simply because they told him to.
Not for the first time, he let the thought roll around in his mind, like slowly swilling a fine wine.
The snapping of the twig nearby snapped him back to reality with a start.
He span swiftly in the direction of the noise, lifting the rifle, flipping on the night vision all in one smooth movement. Had the guy sighted in seconds.
Eric’s brow furrowed. The figure was thirty feet or so away, a young-ish guy, straggly blonde hair and stubble, handsome. An oddly familiar face. He was approaching slowly, arms raised in surrender, head down.
Sweat broke out on Eric’s brow. Silence was a weapon now; noise meant consequences. He felt his trigger finger slowly trying to squeeze a little harder on the trigger, lobbying his mind; calling for action.
The guy was familiar, maybe someone famous. Which could only mean he came from the base. He was dressed like a doctor.
Indecision raged in Eric’s mind.
Calling out ‘halt’ was as good as pulling the trigger and broadcasting his position. There was no knowing what would hear him. And killing some rich bastard that had somehow been stranded outside the base would have unfortunate consequences for Eric.
Shit.
“Just want to talk, that’s all,” the blonde man whispered when he got a few feet away. “Keep that pointed at me if you like, but I’m not here to harm anybody. I saw your helicopter.”
Eric grimaced. The helicopter. If he was their alarm clock, that was their fucking timer. Only a matter of time before someone, or something, followed it back to its source. A goddamned joke, it was. Anyone late to this party should have been told their name was no longer on the damn list. Every time the chopper lifted off, and they promised it would be the last, he’d wished that he had the sort of imposing physical presence his fellow patrolmen had.
Not for the first time, Eric wished he could have just grabbed one of the people steering this doomed venture by the throat and forced them to understand. Arrogance got you nowhere in war. They didn’t seem to see it; this wasn’t a war to them. More like a round of redundancies. Every time they allowed the choppers to leave, they were underestimating the world they had created.
The guy looked as harmless as he claimed, drooping shoulders, head bowed. After speaking, he shuffled nervously, rubbing his hands together.
Eric sighed mentally, and lowered the rifle.
“Uh, what happened, mate?” the blonde man asked. “I mean, everywhere is…you know, right?”
Eric nodded and grimaced.
“My wife,” the man said. “She…uh…she tried to fucking eat me, man! What the fuck’s going on?”
So he wasn’t from the base. Alarm bells chimed in Eric’s mind.
“You’re a doctor?” Eric said, nodding at the man’s ill-fitting, bloodied lab coat.
Jake’s eyes narrowed imperceptibly. Clever boy.
“Vet,” he said, but the question had caught him off guard momentarily, and that had been enough to shatter the illusion in the soldier’s eyes, Jake could smell it on him, the suspicion.
“But I do feel that it’s time to consider my career path.”
He struck like a snake, palm flat, driving the points of his fingers into the soldier’s throat, and then smashing his palm upwards into the nose. He’d have a moment, a brief second in which the soldier’s vision would blur with tears, just enough vulnerability. He snatched the rifle away from the man’s fingers and drove the butt into his jaw. The conversation was over.
He began to strip the soldier of what amounted to his ‘uniform’, all in a fetching shade of black, and featuring just enough straps and pockets to look authentically military. He smiled when he saw that among the other things attached to the man’s pack, wrapped in a sheath like a gift just for him, was a combat knife.
*
Jason tried to focus on the deep ache in his arms. Towing the trailer mile after mile was taking its toll even on his muscle-packed limbs. The pain, he hoped, would anchor him in the present, but still, whenever he let his attention drift, waves of memory lapped at him, pulling him into their insistent current.
The conversation around him: talk of weapons and potential places to take refuge once – if – they found Michael’s daughter, failed to hold his attention. It was the words of his mother that dominated his mind. The soft, coaxing words she had reserved for him when he was a boy, and when she seemed to be the only one that understood that Jason was fragile despite his size. And the poisonous words that leaked into his consciousness now, as her presence walked with him.
Gritting his teeth, he squeezed his eyelids almost shut, trying to banish the sight of her, but still the strange feeling remained, the odd rushing sensation in his blood. It made no sense, but it felt to his broken mind like he could actually feel the presence of his dead mother, like a vague itch.
Rachel walked ahead of him, a few yards distant. She had fallen quickly into a tendency to rotate positions with John, without them ever discussing it. Like nimble jets escorting a heavy bomber. John had done that; hadn’t ever brought it up, but had nudged things in that direction. Sitting in the cart, Michael noticed the subtle way John had altered the formation of their strides. Understood the value of it, but didn’t like it nonetheless. Couldn’t quite pin down why.
He focused on John, walking a few yards behind.
“Why do you think they did this?”
John sighed. “I told you, Michael, I don’t know any-“
“I’m not asking what you know John,” Michael interrupted. “I don’t expect you to know anything about this. I’m asking what you think.”
John blinked, as though an opinion wasn’t something he was used to giving.
“Profit,” he said with a sneer.
“Money? You think this is all about money?” Michael couldn’t keep the astonishment from his tone.
“Not just money, no. Though financial wealth will be part of it. Profit. Wars happen because one side sees advantage in them. Money, power, resources, geography. Whatever. And this is a war, whether you accept it or not.”
He shrugged.
“The people that did this expect to come out on the other side ahead. You know what power is Michael, what it really is?”
Michael stared at him.
“Knowledge. If it’s a cliché, it’s probably because it’s true
. Knowing about something – especially something like this – when everybody else remains ignorant: that’s power. The element of surprise.”
He squinted into the darkness.
“Those people who had the time to prepare for it – and you’d better believe, something like this, they’ve been preparing for years at least – none of them are getting attacked by crazy rats. None of them are getting towed along in some cart holding a rifle that might as well be a peashooter if there ever comes a time it actually needs to be used. They did this because they could, and because they knew that whoever could ride it out would be in charge when the dust settled.”
He shook his head with a grimace.
“Hundreds of years of civilization, progress, whatever you want to call it. The status quo wasn’t enough. So they gave it a shake, and now they’ll start again.”
Michael snorted.
“You sound like some lunatic conspiracy theorist. One of the foil hat brigad-“
“Take a fucking look around you, Michael. Any of this look like a fucking theory to you?”
Michael fell silent, his brow furrowed.
“There’s only one thing to do now,” John said, “and it’s the same fucking thing I’ve had to do my whole life.”
Michael stared at him quizzically.
“Survive.”
“And what about the people with you? How do they figure into that?”
John grimaced, and quickened his pace, leaving Michael behind with his thoughts.
*
There was more than one guard on patrol. Jake had ascertained that on the way in. He had watched for a good while, always maintaining a safe distance, gradually getting closer each time one of the choppers passed overhead. A mile perimeter, he had guessed. People tended to like those sort of milestone figures. One mile. A nice, round number. It sounded further than it actually was.
When he was roughly a mile away from the area he saw the choppers descending to, he climbed a tree and settled in to watch. It took a few hours, and he watched carefully, like a bird of prey. Eventually he saw the figure with the gun moving from left to right, carefully picking his way through the trees. The man looked like he had a large area to cover; there would be other men.
The man whose knife he now carried had been the second he encountered. Far smaller than the first sentry he’d seen, who Jake had let pass without incident. No point making things unnecessarily difficult at that stage, after all.
Now, having broken the flimsy line of their perimeter, Jake could see the base, or at least the portion of it that stood above ground: a long and nondescript flat slab of concrete masquerading as a building, sitting in the centre of a large strip of concrete that held a number of idle helicopters.
Two guards stood at the door. Killing them would accomplish nothing. Jake knew instinctively that the only thing in the building was another door, one leading down. Most likely the men on guard had no way in themselves without being let in. All killing them would do is ensure the doors remained shut. The situation required patience.
It was another two hours before Jake saw the first of the other men patrolling the perimeter return to the base. Within five minutes, two more had appeared. The shift was up.
Jake stood, and strolled casually from the trees and straight past the blank faces of the two doormen, and the doors of the base opened to him like a plant seeking light.
Chapter 11
Out-of-town retail parks had spread like fungus across the UK for around twenty years, slowly feeding on a swelling need to shop; thriving. The retail park just south of Aberystwyth was small by common standards: parking spaces numbering maybe one hundred. Local customers knew the Allthorp Retail Park simply as the horseshoe. A videogame store, hardware, pets, several clothing outlets, a small supermarket. A pharmacy. Electrical goods.
Opposite the shopping area, on the other side of the winding road that led ultimately to Aberystwyth, stood a large petrol station, the last place for heavy goods vehicles to fill up before they made their way some sixty miles down the coast towards the ferry port at Fishguard. A handful of lorries and trucks rested in the parking area next to the pumps, darkened and still.
“What do you think?” John asked, moving to stand next to Rachel.
They had walked all day. Mile after blister-inducing mile in a constant state of high alert, keeping conversation to a bare minimum. For the past couple of hours, Michael had maintained that they were close to their destination. A blanket of night had fallen by the time they reached it.
The park stood about a half-mile away. The shops themselves were dark, but the four enormous floodlights that stood like sentries in the car park lit the area well enough. It cast shadows up and onto the buildings. The U-shape for which the place was named looked like three sinister figures huddling around the warmth of a fire, trying to keep the night at bay.
“I think I spent several years wishing I could have this type of place to myself.”
John blinked, and Rachel grinned broadly.
“I think it’s perfect,” she said. “Lots of flat, empty land around it. We could see the things coming a mile off. Not too big, but big enough to retreat if we have to. Big enough for there to be other ways out. And a fence.”
John nodded. She was right. The place could be defended, and by a relatively low number of people if need be. It offered supplies. The petrol station would provide a virtually endless supply of fuel if there were just the four of them hiding out there, the trucks: a last-resort means of escape. Already he began to see that a tripwire could be threaded around virtually the entire complex. Removing the potential for surprise was a good start if you were looking for a place to hunker down and stay safe.
He was glad Rachel had spotted the importance of the fence. It looked sturdy; not enough to keep out any sort of sustained pressure, but if they could find some way to barricade the gaps that allowed the main road through the two halves of the retail park, they might be able to deter anything that hadn’t set its mind specifically on getting in.
Jason approached them, parking the cart carrying Michael next to Rachel.
“That’s the place,” he said, pointing at the hardware store. “Kitchen supplies. At the very least they’ll stock some pretty deadly carving knives.”
“And if that fails, they’re bound to have some heavy-duty frying pans,” Rachel said with a smile.
Michael and John both felt smiles creep across their lips.
“We should approach from there,” John said, pointing to the right of the complex. “That side of the place must be where they house the air conditioning. No windows.”
“Doesn’t look like there is anybody in the place, though,” Rachel said dubiously.
“Which is exactly how it’s going to look when we’re inside,” John said.
“Point taken.”
John took the lead, creeping around the retail park in a wide arc until he reached the spot he had pointed out to them. Rachel followed, and Jason came last, in his now-familiar role as Michael’s transportation. Taking the cart would be slow and cumbersome, John had argued, and no one had disagreed. Better to have to return to get the supplies they had brought with them, than to clumsily give away their approach.
When they were ready, facing as few of the complex’s windows as possible, John began to stalk forward, and the others followed. The fence would be an easy climb for all but Jason, carrying Michael on his back, but Rachel knew her brother would make it. With every step she expected some activity, some burst of the Infected, or maybe the crack of a sniper sitting in one of the stores, watching their every move, but none came. The retail park felt eerie, like the last place on earth.
John traversed the fence with the agility of a primate, up and over in one smooth, near-silent motion, dropping to the concrete on the other side in a low crouch, and scanning left and right for movement. Jason went next, clambering over with considerably less grace and more noise, accepting John’s hand for balance as he lowered himse
lf on the other side. Rachel saw her brother’s face flushing, and realised the weight of Michael, hanging from his neck, was slowly strangling him. When finally he touched the floor on the other side of the fence, he choked down some air.
Rachel climbed up and over the fence, and for a brief moment her mind filled with those memories of childhood that she tried to forget, of her best friend falling from the wall in her parents’ back garden, smashing into the greenhouse, nearly severing her leg. Setting her mouth in a firm line and banishing the remembered smell of blood, she flung her legs over, dropping to the floor alongside her brother.
The four of them waited for several long seconds, scanning the buildings nervously for any sign of movement; seeing none. They moved forward slowly, and Rachel marvelled at how quickly she had adjusted to the pressing need for silence. How they all had: even Jason, tortured by whatever was going on in his head, moved with a caution and stealth that belied both his size and the fact that he was carrying a fully grown man on his back. Michael clung to Jason’s neck with his left arm, sweeping the rifle back and forth with his right.
Amazing, she thought, how quickly we adapt when we need to.
They were next to a large pet store, and Rachel couldn’t help but wonder how many variations of her mother’s dog there were out there: domesticated furry members of the family suddenly altered, wild and dangerous. The supermarket next door to the pet store was smaller, one of those ‘quick-stop’ places rather than an out-and-out superstore. Plenty of food for the four of us, though, she thought.
John pointed at the side door as they approached and shook his head firmly.
Rachel stared at the door. Metal; heavy duty. It would be locked, and very difficult to open without creating far too much noise. John led them away from it, toward the rear of the shops, past dumpsters and loading areas, searching for an opportunity to avoid having to break into the place or enter at the front, where floor-to-ceiling glass would leave them wide open to anyone watching from inside. Finally he found what he was looking for: a half-open shutter, almost concealed by a delivery truck that looked to have been halfway through unloading when the shit hit the fan.
Wildfire Chronicles (Book 3): Psychosis Page 12