“Fertiliser? Paint thinner?” Ray had asked.
“Homemade explosives,” John said, “Get as much as you can carry. Michael’s talking about air-horns and fireworks, for Christ’s sake. We’re going to need something bigger. You get all this, and I’ll do the rest. No more bows and arrows.”
Ray ran with the paper burning a hole his pocket, and tried to focus only on committing the new shopping list to memory, but as soon as he left the wide open space of the river, and the town became claustrophobic and eerie, he found his mind turning to the possibility that the buildings he ran past were not empty.
The silence was heavy, weighed down by fear that rose with each passing step.
As he ran, Ray pulled his crossbow from his back. It was unwieldy, and made running awkward, but as the huddling buildings began to block out the faint light from the stars above, he decided there was no damn way he was going anywhere without a weapon in his hand. He loaded a bolt, and readied the firing mechanism, and tried in vain to suppress the image of the Infected pouring from the buildings around him as he ran deep into enemy territory.
When he finally saw the hardware store ahead, Ray let out an explosive gasp of relief. Just the thought of being inside a building again, surrounded by walls, helped to ease his nerves. He slowed his pace a little, mindful of the noise his increasingly frantic run was making, and almost screamed when he felt the fingers clutching at his arm.
*
The pharmacy was the closest of John’s high-priority targets, but also the most intensive: John had stressed that he wanted everything from the pharmacy. Food, he had argued, was something they could obtain from almost anywhere once they left Caernarfon and headed north to find a ship on which to escape the UK. Medicine would be far harder to come by.
He painted a vivid picture of surviving the Infected and the inevitable nuclear meltdown on Anglesey only to die from a common-or-garden illness simply because they had no medical supplies. It made sense, but still Rachel had felt like she wasn’t getting the whole story.
Rachel took three of Darren Oliver’s former prisoners - one of whom she recognised as the young woman she had spoken to on her first morning at the castle - and sprinted back and forth along the waterfront, filling carrier bags with pills and bandages and carting them back to Michael and Linda, who shuttled them across the river and dropped them off with Claire and Pete.
She was making good time, and the pharmacy’s shelves rapidly emptied. There was no sign of the Infected, and she began to relax a little. On her third trip back to the pharmacy, Rachel detoured to a small newsagent’s opposite and filled a bag with cigarettes and tobacco pouches, feeling her nerves race deliriously as they anticipated the influx of nicotine that had been absent for far too long.
She thought about how Jason would nag her for smoking, as he always had before, and smiled. Those things will kill you one day, he had always said, or mum will if she finds out. At that moment, Rachel figured that if she lived long enough for smoking to kill her, she would have done pretty well.
She raced across the street to the pharmacy, and filled three more bags. The shelves were all but empty. Only nappies and baby food and beauty products remained.
“That’s enough,” Rachel said, bringing her team’s raiding of the shelves to a halt. “Let’s go.”
*
Ray stared at Ed in disbelief, pulling the kid’s fingers away from his arm.
“You crazy, kid?” He hissed. “I came this close to putting a damn bolt in your gut.”
Ed pressed a finger to his lips and cocked an ear, listening intently, and Ray felt the blood draining from his face. He strained his ears, trying to pick up what Ed was hearing.
There was nothing.
“Sockets?” he breathed.
Ed shook his head and frowned.
“Something else. Listen.”
Ray fell silent again. Somewhere below the thundering of his pulse, he could hear something.
What is that?
Somewhere to Ray’s right, something sounded almost like it was crying.
Wide-eyed, Ray motioned to the others to stay put, and began to creep along the shop fronts until he reached a narrow alley. He peeked down it, and saw a parked car and a few overturned bins. It sounded like the noise was coming from them.
He advanced cautiously, keeping his finger crooked around the trigger of the crossbow. Sweat began to run down his temples.
It sounds like…it can’t be…
Ray passed the car and saw dark blood smeared across the radiator grille, and rounded the toppled bins at exactly the same moment as his mind put together the sound he was hearing. By then it was too late. By then he was standing right next to the overturned pram, and his thoughts leaked away like a plug had been pulled in his mind.
A baby.
He stood, paralysed, the crossbow dangling from useless fingers, and stared at the filthy baby in horror, stared deep into its empty eye sockets and didn’t move a muscle when it latched onto his calf muscle and clamped toothless gums on his flesh.
A wave of revulsion washed through Ray and he staggered backwards, frantically trying to shake the creature from his calf. Focusing entirely on the horror that tried in vain to chew through his leg, Ray didn’t even see the empty soda bottle on the ground behind him, and when his foot tried to find purchase on it, he toppled backwards into the pile of bins with a crash that sounded like drums pounding in Hell.
The sickening stench of rotting waste washed over him, making him gag. But there was something else too, an odour that hung beneath the stink of rotten food. The smell of blood.
Ray’s eyes widened, and he twisted his neck just in time to see the woman that had been pinned underneath the pile of rubbish. The woman whose spine looked like it was trying to free itself from the fleshy confines of her body. The woman with no eyes, who clawed herself on top of him and sank her teeth into his exposed midriff.
For a fraction of a second Ray felt like screaming, but the fear departed as quickly as it had arrived, and it took his eyes with it.
*
John pushed the door to the small police station cautiously, letting it swing open fully so he could stare into the gloomy interior for a second before stepping inside.
The trip from the castle had passed without incident, but stepping inside the two-storey building felt disconcertingly similar to the times he had breached buildings in the desert, expecting them to be fortified and full of enemy combatants; expecting to get a bullet in the face at any moment. Bullets weren’t a problem in Caernarfon, though John thought he might have preferred it if they were. At least bullets were quick.
He held a short sword he had taken from the castle’s armoury out in front of him. The blade wasn’t much bigger than a hunting knife, and it was far from sharp; probably it hadn’t been effective for centuries, but it would cut well enough if swung with enough force. If the sword let him down, he had a smaller knife attached to his belt.
He proceeded slowly, creeping forward until he was fully inside and his eyes adjusted to the dim starlight that spilled through the dusty windows.
The entrance opened out into a small waiting area which held three uncomfortable-looking plastic chairs, and a long enquiry desk. John breathed a sigh of relief when he saw the layout of the place. He’d had visions of bulletproof glass partitions and heavy duty doors that would bar any progress into the building itself, but the Caernarfon police station was a far cry from Scotland Yard.
He beckoned the others to follow him inside and vaulted the enquiry desk as quietly as possible.
His gaze immediately fell on a handful of large flashlights lining a shelf, and he scooped them up and passed them out, checking each to make sure the batteries worked. Once the building was bathed in the roving lights, John allowed himself to breathe a little easier.
Empty.
He saw two cells that probably housed drunks most of the time, and aimed his light through the small viewing windows. Both were unocc
upied.
The size of the place made John’s heart sink a little. One look around told him the chances of finding guns inside was probably zero, and he didn’t hold out much hope for riot gear, either.
A few desks with now-extinct computers sitting on them comprised the bulk of the ground floor, and John saw corkboards lining the walls, onto which were pinned pictures of missing children who would never be found.
John spotted a door to the rear of the room, next to the stairs that led up to the first floor, which was marked authorised access only. He moved to it slowly, keeping his eyes and the beam of his flashlight trained on the stairs, and gently tried the handle. Locked.
“Search the desks for keys to this door,” he whispered to Emma, who stayed close enough behind him that she was practically attached. “And wait here.”
“Where are you going?” Emma said, her eyes widening.
In response, John pointed his light at the stairs again, and put his finger to his lips. Emma nodded, and her face hardened a little in determination.
John smiled. When he had first met Emma, on the day she told him that Darren Oliver was waiting to meet the castle’s new arrivals, John thought he had never seen anybody look so frightened, or so damaged. The girl now standing in front of him looked like she was consciously modelling herself on Rachel, and he thought she just might make it.
He nodded at Emma and left the others to search the ground floor and climbed, thankful that the stairs were of the solid marble variety, rather than wooden and creaky.
When he reached the top he paused, and played the flashlight across a narrow corridor and two small offices that presumably belonged to whoever had been the senior police officers in Caernarfon.
There was no sign of movement. He heard desk drawers being opened stealthily below him and prayed the noise wasn’t carrying too far, and scurried into the first office, racing to the desk and opening each drawer in turn. He saw nothing of any value.
In the second office, which was far more opulent and must have belonged to Caernarfon’s Chief Inspector, he spotted a nightstick leaning against the wall and tucked it under his arm. One by one, he went through the drawers in the desk, and was about to give up and return to the ground floor when he found a small padlocked box hidden at the rear of the bottom drawer.
A set of keys sat on the desk, and John searched through them until he found the one that matched the padlock.
Inside the box, John saw a small handwritten note laid across a plush velvet pouch:
Congratulations on thirty years of distinguished service, no shots fired!
Enjoy taking it easy in Wales ;)
John set the note aside and unwrapped the velvet pouch. Inside he found a ceremonial revolver that looked like something John Wayne might have carried, along with six polished rounds. The gun looked like a gleaming museum piece destined to sit in a display cabinet, and clearly had been made without the intention that it would ever be fired.
Jackpot.
John loaded the rounds into the six empty chambers and tucked the gun into his belt. Intended or not, he had a feeling the gun would end up being fired sooner rather than later.
With a quick final glance around to make sure there was nothing else of interest on the first floor, John hurried downstairs to find that Emma had opened the locked door, and was handing out tasers and pepper spray. It looked like everyone had a nightstick. It was hardly the haul John had optimistically hoped for, but it would do.
“Let’s head back to Michael. Quickly, now,” John said, and jogged outside into the cold, grey light, making for the castle.
That’s when he heard the screaming.
32
Michael felt the blood draining from his face when the scream pierced the silence that hung over Caernarfon like a veil.
His arms ached like hell from pulling the raft across the river again and again and unloading the supplies that the groups raiding the town dropped off, but on hearing the blood-curdling cry he forgot the throbbing pain completely.
The scream seemed to go on forever, rising to a nerve-ripping crescendo before winding down and fading away like the whine of a circular saw.
Michael was on the castle-side of the river, unloading what felt like an endless supply of carrier bags and boxes that Rachel and Shirley’s groups dropped off as they shuttled between the river and the town. They had plenty of food already, and what looked like the entire contents of a moderately-sized pharmacy.
He had seen no sign of John or Ray. Their destinations were buried deeper in the town, and they planned only one trip, there and back.
Michael squinted across the river, trying to determine the source of the scream, and discern whether it sounded like it had originated in the voice box of someone he knew.
“Gun,” he barked at Claire, and she passed him the rifle he had left on the ground beside her, terrified of dropping it into the river and losing it. Without it, he was just a guy in a wheelchair. Helpless.
He slipped the rifle under his dead legs, praying his weight would keep it secure, and hauled himself back across the river, hand over hand along John’s improvised rope bridge.
The water flowing to the sea battled him, and drained away his energy at an alarming rate. He focused on Linda, waiting for him on the opposite bank, and registered the fear in her eyes. Doubling his efforts, he pulled on the rope until his palms burned, and grasped Linda’s hand when he reached the other side, letting her hold him steady, and readying the rifle.
A dreadful notion crawled into his mind.
What if none of them make it?
He nearly let off a shot in surprise when Linda cried out next to him and pointed toward the harbour. Michael heaved a sigh of relief when he saw Rachel’s group tearing toward him, still clutching a final load plundered from the pharmacy.
“Did you hear it?” Rachel gasped when she reached him.
“Yeah,” Michael said with a grimace. “Any idea who it was?”
Rachel shook her head, and drew in several deep breaths.
“Here, help me get off this thing,” Michael said, and leaned on Linda and Rachel to lever himself off the raft. He sat heavily on the ground, swinging the rifle left and right along the streets. “Get the stuff over the river,” Michael grunted. “I’ve got your back.”
Rachel had almost loaded all her items onto the raft when Michael saw Shirley racing toward him. He looked scared, but unscathed.
“Dropped the bags mate, sorry,” Shirley puffed as he approached with his own small group of followers. "Decided pasta is off the menu when I heard that.”
Michael grunted and nodded.
Two down, two to go.
Another scream. It sounded closer.
No, not a scream. A shriek. Michael knew what the noise meant. He had heard it often enough. It was the sound of the Infected locking onto prey.
“Rachel, Shirley, get everyone across,” Michael said, keeping his eyes focused down the barrel of the rifle. “Be ready to shut the gate. If this goes bad, you shut it, okay? And you keep Claire safe.”
He tore his eyes away from the streets and glared at Rachel.
“Keep her safe, Rachel. Please.”
Rachel stared at him for a moment, and nodded, and then she was gone, helping Shirley with the task of hauling on the rope and shuttling over everybody that had returned from Caernarfon and ushering them inside the castle’s main gate. Michael returned his gaze to the street, and saw movement.
He rested his finger on the trigger. He had only ever successfully fired the weapon at close quarters, and he knew he was no marksman. He had five rounds in the gun, and maybe another twenty stored in his room back in the castle. Every bullet counted. He had to wait.
The movement resolved itself into a single figure, barrelling straight toward him.
Infected?
Michael couldn’t be sure. The figure ran chaotically, the movements not unlike the strange, angular gait that signified infection. Stifling a curse, he squint
ed, letting the figure get closer. His finger began to squeeze the trigger almost by itself.
“Don’t shoot!”
Michael gasped and released the trigger.
The figure galloping toward him was the kid that John and Rachel had brought back on the yacht. Ed.
He was alone, tearing toward Michael with a look on his face that said he wasn’t running for the hell of it, and Michael’s heart sank.
“Behind me,” Ed shrieked as he reached Michael. He didn’t wait for the raft, plunging straight into the river. Michael heard the frantic splashing as he made his way across to the castle, and he pointed the rifle at the street Ed had sprinted down, and held his breath. Ed was alone, which meant that Ray and Glyn and the others…
Don’t think about it.
Michael heard Shirley pulling the raft back across the river behind him, and knew the big man was coming to transport him across to the safety of the opposite bank. Michael gritted his teeth. He would hold on until the last second.
Where are you John?
*
“Go!” John roared.
They had made it roughly halfway back to the castle when he saw Glyn rocketing toward him along a narrow road comprised mainly of shops that sold gifts and souvenirs, unleashing a shriek that echoed around the cobbled streets and made them all freeze.
No eyes.
Most of the others travelling with John broke into a terrified sprint immediately, but John became aware of Emma rooted to the spot next to him, her eyes wide with fright.
“Emma, go!” he screamed. “They won’t get past me. You have to go!”
John shoved her roughly away from him, half-worried that she would stumble to the ground. He let out an explosive gasp of relief when he saw her regain her balance and tear away after the others.
Seconds later, he heard the pounding feet and ragged breath as Glyn charged at him, and John fell to one side, raising a foot into the kid’s stomach and propelling him into the wall of the nearest building with an awkward approximation of a judo throw. As John rose to his feet, he saw Glyn bouncing back up, oblivious to the smashed nose his meeting with the wall had produced.
Trauma (Wildfire Chronicles Vol. 5) Page 19