"Back!" John roared. "Swim out into the bay. I'll get you."
He didn't have time to check whether they had heard before he was driving his knife into an empty eye socket and the world exploded into motion.
12
The torture was unending. When Jason was awake, Hywel Holloway sliced endless shallow cuts into his flesh with the razor and rubbed rock salt gleefully into the open wounds until Jason howled like an animal and his brain disconnected from the horrifying reality his flesh was forced to endure.
When Annie appeared and spoke to him softly and gently, her presence was like a soothing balm. She gave him drugs to ease the pain, but then the darkness took him and the carousel of agony started up again. This time the cuts were invisible, laced across his mind by the poisonous words of his dead mother who scolded him for a coward and promised that Rachel was dead.
It was, his mother crooned, no more than Jason deserved. He was, after all, a murderer of the worst type: a boy who had killed his own mother. Jason twitched between reality and unreality, moving from one searing pain to the next, until his mind snapped like a brittle twig. He spent his time - awake and asleep - screaming, until eventually he couldn’t be sure whether he was conscious or not and the endless agony swallowed him whole.
For his part, Hywel Holloway seemed to enjoy his work. No, he loved it, as he had never loved anything in his entire life.
Hywel had always been a profound disappointment to his mother. He was slow and stupid - the runt of my litter - and apparently was the spitting image of dear old dead Dad. Hywel wouldn’t know; he had never met his father, but the shadow of the man his mother held in especially low regard had loomed over his childhood anyway, tainting the days like rust. Hywel took far more in the way of beatings than either of his older brothers, both of whom quickly came to realise that their mother hated Hywel, and so they began to beat him with impunity too.
He never cried, though, not once. Eventually his brothers stopped their attempts at torturing him because every time they put him down he would bounce right back up and stare at them defiantly until they became unnerved. Yet nothing stopped Annie. Even now, with her over seventy years old and Hywel in his early thirties and a good six inches taller than her, he still feared that she would lash out at any moment.
Torturing the huge man was the first time he had ever seen anything remotely like pride in his mother’s gaze, and so he approached the task with relish. Being on the other end of the pain he inflicted was deliciously intoxicating.
He enjoyed slicing with the razor most of all, because his wiry limbs lacked the strength to damage the heavily-muscled man with punches. He felt important, like a surgeon, as he carved out delicate patterns on the man’s hard flesh. He was particularly proud of a smiley face he had drawn in blood on the man’s chest: very nearly a perfect circle. It made him feel like an artist, and for a while he had simply stood back and admired his handiwork.
When the front of the man’s body was covered in lacerations, Hywel told his older brothers to tie Voorhees face down on the ground so that Hywel could work on his back, and they did it. They followed Hywel’s orders to the letter. He had never been so happy in his entire life.
Who’s the stupid runt now, you bastards?
Annie had been very clear that Hywel should give Voorhees time to rest, and told him the pain he inflicted would have a much greater effect if the man was given periods of calm in which he could foster hope that his torture had finally ended.
Hour after hour Hywel returned to the man, waking him up and breaking him, before retreating. It didn’t take long before Hywel began to cut into the rest periods just as he had cut into the man’s flesh. Before long letting the man rest at all seemed impossible to Hywel. When Annie poured painkillers into Voorhees’ slack mouth, Hywel would wait until she was gone and jam his fingers down the man’s throat until he vomited up the drugs.
Voorhees was no fun at all when he was asleep.
In the end, Hywel only took breaks from the torture to relieve himself in the bathroom.
As he stood in front of the mirror, washing away the blood that caked his hands, Hywel Holloway grinned at his reflection and didn’t recognise the proud, purposeful face that stared back at him. The change in his features made him feel euphoric, and he hurried back to the bar, and the prisoner, whistling cheerfully.
What began with a razor blade and salt quickly evolved. In a storage cupboard next to the bathroom, Hywel had found a small toolbox that contained a pair of pliers and numerous other items that he could think of a million ways to use to inflict pain. The possibilities seemed endless; it was going to be a great session.
Except that the man on the floor was dead.
Hywel knew it as soon as he stepped back into the bar and saw Voorhees, flat on his stomach with his head facing Hywel and his eyes sightless; fixed and empty.
Ma is going to kill me.
Hywel felt like wailing. He knew the man had lost a lot of blood in their last session but he was enormous; surely he had plenty to lose?
Stupid runt.
Hywel heard Annie’s voice in his mind so clearly that for a moment he thought she was standing right beside him, and he felt like running away. He glanced around the bar. Empty. He had to sort out the mess he had made all by himself.
Panicked, Hywel followed the lead of the doctors he had seen on television: pump on the chest and blow into the man’s throat, he thought. He retrieved a blade from his bag and sliced through the rope that secured the man’s right arm to a pillar several feet away and rolled him over onto his back. The man’s tongue lolled out of his mouth, and his gaze fixed on the ceiling.
Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit…
Hywel straddled the man’s wide torso and began to press on his chest with all his might.
One, two, three, four, five…
He pinched the man’s bloody nose and blew deeply into his mouth, feeling the man’s wide chest expand underneath him.
One, two, three-
The man’s eyes weren’t looking at the ceiling anymore.
They were looking straight at Hywel.
He pushed again on the man’s chest feebly.
Four…
Hywel didn’t get to five.
*
Jason stared at Hywel Holloway impassively as he clamped his bear-like hand onto the man’s scrawny neck and squeezed away his life like juice from an overripe fruit. Thin, reedy arms beat ineffectually at Jason’s thick forearm, and the blows simply made Jason squeeze tighter, until Holloway’s face turned puce and his eyes bulged out of his head, blood vessels bursting and turning the whites a deep shade of crimson.
Hywel Holloway didn’t die with a scream, nor even a whimper. He died with a gurgle and a click as his neck snapped. Jason kept his grip on the man’s throat for several long seconds, pulling the dead face near to his own and staring deep into the now-empty eyes, before finally tossing the man aside. Unblinking, Jason stood and began to walk away, jolting to a halt when the rope attached to his left wrist pulled him backwards. He fumbled at the knot without really seeing it, finally succeeding in freeing himself, and strode away toward the window that dominated the room. Lifting a chair and hurling it, Jason created a new doorway for himself and staggered through it, charging away from the hotel as blindly as the Infected that wandered the distant countryside.
13
John ripped his knife from the brain of the first of them and ducked low as the second leapt for him, twisting aside and letting the creature's momentum take it past him and over the wall into the sea.
He heard Rachel scream in what he hoped was surprise rather than pain, but there was no more time to think about the people he'd left behind in the water. He took off at a sprint, aiming for the boat, pounding along the cobbles as close to the edge of the harbour as he dared.
The Infected burst from the alleys and buildings like heat-seeking missiles, making straight for him. He threw himself into a forward roll to avoid two that leap
t at him and heard them splashing into the sea to his right.
As he came up to his feet he found something for his free hand to do: an abandoned bicycle on the ground near a bench that offered a peaceful view of the ocean. He grabbed the frame, using his momentum to propel the bike into the gathering swarm of Infected as they converged on him, and then he was running again, holding the knife in an outstretched hand like a relay baton, feeling the blade slicing through their flesh until it caught on bone and the handle was torn from his grasp.
Keep moving.
John poured every ounce of his energy into his legs, pumping them explosively. He had always been quick, since he was a kid; invariably he was the fastest in the various teams he had been a part of over the years, and his pace had kept him alive on more than one occasion. He felt grasping fingers claw at the sodden material of his shirt and didn't slow at all, letting his speed tear the fabric away and leaving the creature roaring impotently behind him.
The smell and the sound of them filled his senses, all guttural snarling and fetid meat, and the fifty yard dash seemed to take an eternity before he saw the length of rope he had left as a makeshift bridge to the boat that bobbed several feet away from the wall. With a final burst of energy he leapt for it, knowing he had only one chance to grab it. Knowing that missing meant death.
Time seemed to slow to a crawl, and he focused all his attention on the rope, pulling his legs up toward him like a long-jumper as he left the wall, straining to gain extra distance.
Behind him, he heard the Infected leaping from the wall; heard the outraged shrieks as their bodies slapped into the freezing water below.
His fingers found the rope, and he clenched them tightly as he swung from it, very nearly catapulting himself away into the water.
The rope sagged, and John's legs dropped into the sea, the cold water claiming his knees.
He snapped his hips upwards, aiming to hook his legs over the rope and start to clamber toward the boat.
His left leg complied, but his right didn't. It felt like it was glued to something heavy under the surface of the water. Something that was trying to drag him down.
Something that snarled.
*
It took a moment for Rachel to process John's shout, and to realise that she had to turn and swim away from the harbour. In that instant one of the Infected rocketed over the wall, landing with a splash right next to her.
She screamed, thrashing wildly at the water, desperately dragging herself away from the flailing creature.
More of them were pouring into the sea as she turned and pulled away from the wall, ignoring the shrieking complaint of her burning muscles. All around her she saw the others turning as well; heard Glyn's almost comical yelp of surprise at the sudden attack, and then she was clear, focusing only on the next stroke until she was twenty feet away from the wall and the Infected that dropped into the water like depth charges.
"Everyone okay?" she gasped at the others as they reached her. "Anyone bitten?"
As the others responded one by one she saw the movement of the Infected take on a rhythm that made her nerves howl. Several of them were thrashing in the water. No, more than thrashing. Swimming.
"Go!" Rachel screamed, and then she was swimming again, a powerful front crawl that felt like it was going to make her muscles cramp at any moment. The Infected were slow and clumsy, but they were coming. More and more of them; inexorable as the advance of age.
Swim out into the bay, John had roared, but the safer option would be to head back to the castle, where they might have a chance to fight off the group chasing them. The safer option meant abandoning John.
The retail park outside Aberystwyth loomed in her memories, the way she thought John had abandoned them all to die. The look of disdain on his face when she told him she had thought he had skipped out on her.
I was coming back, he had growled in an offended tone.
Rachel grimaced and turned away from the castle.
And swam.
She poured her last drops of energy into the swim, and headed out into the bay, praying with every stroke that the others were matching her pace, and that the Infected swam as clumsily as they walked.
She speared through the water for what felt like an age, until a raging inferno built in her lungs and she felt her vision doing a little swimming of its own. She had to stop. Panic could only fuel her engine for so long.
She turned, surveying the scene behind her. Ray, Shirley and Glyn were following close. All looked unharmed, and all looked utterly exhausted, their swimming reduced to feeble grasping at the incessant waves. She heaved in a few deep breaths, but the oxygen just seemed to stoke the fire in her chest.
Bobbing on the surface of the Irish Sea, Rachel scanned Caernarfon's picturesque waterfront and felt a cold seeping through her that had nothing to do with the freezing water.
The small yacht looked like a child's toy in the distance, but it was close enough for her to be sure that it was floating away from the harbour, and that its movement was aimless. The boat was under the spell of the waves, drifting away slowly.
He didn't make it.
She shot a glance at the Infected cutting through the water toward her. They had fallen maybe a hundred yards back, and they moved slowly, like a learner thrashing through the water for the first time. But they were coming, winding in the yards tirelessly. They either didn't feel fatigue, or they didn't care about it. Or maybe the compulsion to kill was so strong in them that nothing else mattered. It was the latter, Rachel realised with a dull sort of terror building inside her. The Infected cared only about killing humans. Nothing would make them stop. They would follow until their bodies gave up. Until death took them.
Rachel knew she was too far away now to make for the castle. Her muscles felt like they had been hammered by a meat tenderiser, and it was all she could do just to tread water. By the looks on the faces of the others, they faced the same predicament.
This is how it ends. Choose to drown or get torn apart by the sharks.
It was no choice at all. Rachel would dive to the bottom and stay there. If somehow that failed she would cut her own throat. The infection would not have her. Project Wildfire, and all the bastards behind it had inflicted enough on her already. She wouldn't give them that.
She felt for her knife, and slipped it from a makeshift sheath at her hip.
And cried out in triumph.
In the distance, a flash of white blossomed in the misty sky as the sails on the boat unfurled and shot up to catch the wind, and Rachel felt tears of relief running down her cheeks, finding their way home to the ocean.
*
It had taken three kicks for John to dislodge the Infected horror that clutched his ankle in the depths. Each time the water muted the force of the kick, neutering its potential for damage. In the end he had to pull the trapped leg with every ounce of strength he had, hauling the creature up to the surface, before he was finally able to deliver the blow required to shake it loose.
By the time he had pulled himself up onto the boat, the frantic battle on the rope had dragged the vessel much closer to the harbour wall, and one of the creatures leaping at the boat landed on the deck at the same time he did. He mustered up the last of his energy and shoulder-charged the thing, putting all his weight into knocking it over the side, and almost following it over before he caught the low handrail to steady himself.
Several more were leaping from the harbour, slamming into the hull and falling away, and John wasted no time in untying the rope, and unleashing a hoarse, victorious roar as the yacht bobbed away and out of their reach.
John wanted nothing more than to collapse to the deck and rest, but a nagging voice at the back of his mind had other ideas.
Rachel.
He rushed to the rail and leaned over it, scanning the grey waves for movement.
It took him a moment to see them, and it was the Infected that pointed the way. The chaotic splashing of their attempts to swim w
as easy to spot. Ahead of them, pulling clear, he saw the figures that made considerably less noise in their passage. He counted four. They had all made it. So far.
With a struggle, he turned his mind inwards, trying to remember how to get the sails up.
John despised the boat; had hated every minute of his first journey on the thing, hours spent pulling on ropes that seemed to do nothing, or pulling on ropes that had the weight of the sea and the wind pulling in the opposite direction. It had been exhausting and frustrating, and it wasn't an experience he had ever wanted to repeat. Yet now he had to, and he had to do it quick. By now the others would be suffering extreme fatigue. One way or another, they wouldn't last long.
John knew the basics of sailing. He knew that to sail into the wind meant tacking - sailing in diagonal lines toward the target to maximise the energy of the wind - but the boat was large and unwieldy. It almost certainly needed a crew of at least two to manoeuvre it and keep the sails positioned properly. He was going to have to wing it.
He repeated the steps that he had taken to get the main sail up outside Aberystwyth, and felt like punching the air when it released with a loud whump and caught the wind, rocketing the boat forward.
The wind was intense, and the boat began to pilot itself, heading to a point something like thirty degrees to the left of the spot that he saw Rachel and the others pull up at. Trying to turn directly toward them would be a disaster, and the oncoming wind would likely either capsize the yacht or drive it back into the harbour wall. Instead he aimed further left, and once the boat had the wind at its back, it bolted across the waves.
He glanced at the group in the water, gritting his teeth as he realised they probably thought he was leaving them for dead. The Infected were closing in on them. Time was running out.
Trauma (Wildfire Chronicles Vol. 5) Page 8