The beginnings of a panic attack shifted in Vicky’s chest as she walked. She breathed into her stomach to try to settle her frantic pulse. A headache still throbbed through her skull. The hole got closer with every step and bile lifted into her throat to look at it.
At the edge of the dark pit, Vicky peered in. Something moved in the shadows. A darker darkness shifting below her. But Vicky couldn’t make out the form of it.
“It looks like this is the end for us, sweetheart,” Moira said.
Aware of the guards moving in behind her, Vicky took control of her own destiny, drew one final breath—which had the tinge of diseased rot in it—and jumped in.
Chapter Fifty-One
The heat and stench of the pit hit Vicky before she hit the ground. The impact of landing ran a shock up her legs and sent shards of pain through her knees, but Vicky ignored it as best as she could and drew her knife from the back of her trousers.
Although dark in the pit, the moonlight did enough to give her an idea of what she faced. A space no larger than one of the bedrooms in Home, it had maybe fifteen to twenty diseased in it. No doubt a few more since the family had been dropped in there.
When one of the diseased came at her, Vicky swiped at it with her knife and caught the beast’s arm. It roared and withdrew.
Vicky couldn’t prevent herself from heaving at the stench of the pit, the hot cloying air drying her throat and lining the back of her tongue with a stale taste.
The sound of metal scraped over concrete above and the moonlight vanished. She needed a plan.
Now pitch black, Vicky took two steps backwards and found a wall. She then shifted to the side as the scream of a diseased rushed at her. It crashed into the space she’d occupied with a wet slap.
The diseased might have had numbers on their side, but they suffered with blindness just like Vicky did now the cover had been slipped across.
Hot and already gassed, Vicky did her best to calm her breathing down and listened to the sound of the beasts. Agitation clearly shimmered through them, but they didn’t seem to have Vicky’s location yet.
The clumsy steps moved closer to Vicky, who tightened her sweating grip on the handle of her knife and waited.
When one finally came close enough to her, she lunged.
A wet squelch as the knife stuck in the creature and it screamed in response. Not a fatal blow by any means.
The stench of the place seemed to wind up another level as the monster ran straight for her. This time Vicky lunged with the short blade. She aimed for head height and it worked. The knife sank into what felt like the thing’s face. It turned instantly limp and Vicky withdrew her blade from it as it fell away. Before she had a moment to think, the next beast came at her.
Although the monsters descended on her, they couldn’t find Vicky like they would have during the day.
Over the screams and rushing feet, Vicky did her best to hear the next approach. She located it and lunged forward again. Her blow met with a scream and the creature withdrew. She’d have to get better at this to survive.
The next blow delivered a popping squelch and turned another one flaccid.
Lunge after lunge after lunge. Some of them missed completely, and as Vicky pulled her hand back to reload for the next attack, she expected the sting of teeth to sink into her forearm.
Sweat ran into her eyes, she breathed heavily, and her head still pounded from the kick she’d taken to her face, but they hadn’t got her yet.
The metallic reek of the creatures’ blood changed the stench in the air and Vicky fought against her exhaustion to keep going. Someone had to lose. Hopefully it would be them.
Chapter Fifty-Two
Silence. Finally silence.
Well, not quite silence. Vicky’s heavy breaths called through the hot, sweaty, and cramped space. But from what she could hear, the creatures didn’t move—not a single one of them.
Not that Vicky trusted that.
Blind to the point where the darkness pushed in against her eyes, Vicky’s only sense of the size of the pit came from the echoes of her sounds.
With her back against the rough dirt wall, Vicky’s heart beat in her throat and she couldn’t pull enough air into her body to recover. Despite her desire to move, she leaned back and tried to slow her breaths down.
Even now, after what she’d been through, Vicky shuddered to think of the bugs in the pit. A small army of diseased and she worried about creepy crawlies turning the dirt alive against her back. What a wuss! She shuddered and stepped forward a pace.
***
It took what felt like a few minutes for Vicky to recover. She held her breath for a second and listened. Still no sound. She had to trust she’d beaten them.
Cramps ran up Vicky’s right arm from the fight. The grip she held on her blade made her knuckles ache, but she couldn’t bring herself to sheathe her knife. If this world had taught her anything, it was that she should never drop her guard. Ever!
It would still be night outside. The battle might have seemed to last forever, but it couldn’t have been any longer than ten minutes. Now would be Vicky’s best chance to get the fuck out of there.
The ground in front of Vicky would be littered with bodies. When she kicked out, she made contact with one. It didn’t move in response to her knock. It seemed like suicide, but she had to push forward. She put her knife in the back of her trousers and tried to find composure in the chaos swirling inside of her.
Vicky then reached down, grabbed the limp thing, and dragged it into what she guessed to be the middle of the pit. When she’d jumped into the hole, the moonlight gave her a snapshot of what the place looked like and she had to move based on that memory.
Vicky repeated the process with the next downed diseased, dragging it along and lying it over the limp body of the first one. Hopefully none of the fuckers would wake up. She shook her head. It would serve no purpose to think about it.
Each time Vicky kicked a monster to check for a reaction, and each time, when it didn’t react, she dragged it back to the mounting pile of bodies.
By the time she’d dragged the fourth one over, she had to lift it because of the height of the pile in the middle. But she managed it, even with the aches in her exhausted body.
Sweat ran down Vicky’s face again from the effort of moving the bodies in the hot hole. Every time she brought a new body to the pile, her confidence left her. Would this be the one she wouldn’t be able to lift to the top?
Now eight bodies high, the floppy, stinking mess of death and rot would hopefully be high enough. Because she’d stacked them crossing over one another, two bodies making up an X, then two more bodies making the same shape, she hoped the structure would hold.
Vicky dropped her hands to her knees and pulled breaths so hard into her body, her back arched to the ceiling of the pit. As she faced the ground, she felt her sweat fall from her.
Once she’d recovered again, Vicky grabbed on to the stinking pile of flesh, drew one last breath, and boosted herself up as she started to climb.
***
Vicky had nothing to lean against other than the ceiling, so she scrabbled up the bodies as quickly as she could. She found purchase at some points and slipped at others, but she kept her forward momentum.
The manhole had been cut into thick concrete, so the metal circle of steel only took up a fraction of the hole. Vicky grabbed for the excess stone and caught the lip, which she used to steady herself.
The structure of bodies wobbled, and when a couple of them groaned, Vicky nearly jumped from the pile. But she heard nothing more. Before the world went to shit, she’d known an undertaker, and he’d told her how air leaving a body could make them groan. Despite the shake running through her, encouraging her to jump down, she stayed still. They were dead. The diseased didn’t have the cunning to pretend not to be.
Another wobble as Vicky stood on tiptoes and reached up. The bodies still held. When she felt the cold metal of the manhole cover, her
nerves settled a little. One final deep breath and she pushed against it.
Chapter Fifty-Three
Although dark outside, the moonlight shone a torch into the void Vicky had existed in. Now had to be the best time to escape. Hopefully the guards would be asleep or at least on the other side of the complex. After all, no one ever got out of the pit, so they probably wouldn’t be watching it too closely.
Vicky lifted the manhole cover a little more and bit down on her bottom lip as she shifted it away as quietly as she could manage. Once she’d moved it clear enough, she lowered it, her hips moving and tilting as she rode out the wobble from the stack of cadavers.
When Vicky poked her head out of the hole, she looked at the alleyway leading to the guards’ accommodation. It seemed clear. She then looked over at the large cage. Every prisoner in there stared back at her. She made eye contact with Aaron and spun her index finger in a circle to indicate her surroundings. “Is it clear?”
The bug-eyed and emaciated Aaron nodded yes.
Vicky nodded back, bent her tired legs, and pushed off against the stack of corpses. The top body slipped as she forced herself away from it, but Vicky managed to hook her elbows against the top side of the concrete hole and pulled herself to the surface, the rough ground biting through the thin fabric of her shirt.
A wet thud and Vicky looked down to see the pile of bodies had come apart and spread out on the ground like a cake unable to hold its shape.
Now she peered into the hole at the mess beneath her, Vicky shook worse than before. How the fuck had she managed to survive down there?
A hiss from the cage pulled Vicky’s attention over to it and she saw Aaron, his eyes even wider.
One final look into the pit and Vicky saw the small figure with army gear on. The youngest of the family. A pain ran through her chest to see the glistening hole in the centre of the girl’s face. Poor kid. Although, like Meisha—hell, like anyone—once they’d been bitten, they were gone. She hadn’t stabbed a little girl, she’d stabbed a stinking diseased.
The prisoners were silent as they watched on, all of them leaning into the chain-link fence holding them back. They might not have said anything, but their body language told Vicky enough. Hurry the fuck up! She acknowledged them with a raised hand and scanned the area. It seemed to be free of guards.
Vicky then ran for the exit gate. A glance back at the prisoners in the cage and some of them seemed more agitated than before. They wouldn’t let her run without a sound again. After all the empty promises she’d brought to them in the night, she had to take them with her this time; otherwise she wouldn’t be going anywhere herself.
Vicky got to the rock she’d spied. It sat inside the complex, which saved her breaking out first. She lifted it from the ground and ran back over to the large cage. While moving, she raised the rock above her head and brought it down on the padlock with a heavy whack.
A loud splash of metal and the lock broke into pieces, tinkling against the hard ground as they fell. “Come on,” Vicky hissed at the prisoners. “They’ll be on us soon; we need to get the fuck out of here.” She’d given them all she could, so she turned on her heel and headed for the main gate. Hopefully, the prisoners would follow.
The lock to the main gates gave way with one whack too and Vicky threw their exit wide open. When she looked behind, most of the prisoners had caught up to her and followed her out of the gates to the steep overgrown and lumpy hill leading away from Moira’s complex.
Vicky wanted to run and leave them behind. She wanted to get back to Home and let the others fend for themselves, but she stood still at the open gates and waited for all of the prisoners to get out of the courtyard. She drew her knife, bounced on the spot to spend some of her impatience, and watched the alleyway for the appearance of guards.
Once every one of the weak prisoners had started their bid for freedom up the steep hill, Vicky followed them, taking up the rear and holding the slowest pace against every instinct in her exhausted body.
Chapter Fifty-Four
Impatience crawled over Vicky’s skin as she followed the slow prisoners in their shuffle up the hill away from Moira’s community. Step, stop. Step, stop. Step … If she had the strength, she would have pushed half the fuckers up herself.
Repeated glances behind and Vicky chewed the inside of her mouth after each step up the hill. It didn’t look like any of the guards had come to investigate the sounds of their escape. But then again, the night cast such a deep shadow over the complex, they could be hiding in it without her being any the wiser.
Step, stop. Step, stop. When a particularly slow man nearly halted in front of her, Vicky gave in and shoved his bony bottom. “Come on, mate. You need to keep moving. You can rest when we get to Home.”
He responded by taking his next step. A tortoise of a man, he slowly edged away from Moira’s community.
Not even halfway up the hill, Vicky saw some of the front runners crest it and disappear from view. Aaron seemed to be among them. At least one of them knew where to go.
Vicky’s head spun from how many times she looked behind to check the complex and then looked back up the hill again. Every time she checked, it still seemed clear. Surely Moira’s lot would be on their tail by now if they were going to chase them.
Another nudge to the man in front of her and Vicky watched more of the group reach the top of the hill before she looked to her left and right. For all the diseased that had been outside of Home, it seemed clear.
***
Once the slow man reached the top of the hill, Vicky did one final check behind. Still no movement. How the fuck they’d got this far without being caught, she didn’t know. Although, knowing Moira, the woman probably had a trap set for them somewhere. Make them feel like they’d got away and then fuck them over moments before freedom.
Far enough out of earshot, Vicky clapped her hands at the group and said, “Well done on getting up the hill, guys, you’ve dealt with the hardest part now. It’s either flat or downhill all the way to Home from here.”
It seemed like most, if not all, of the prisoners had waited for Vicky at the top of the hill. A quick check and she saw Aaron among them. “Can you lead the front-runners?” she asked him.
The darkness had turned his sunken eyes into two shadowed holes, and the silver highlights from the moon lit up his cheekbones. The shine on his face moved up and down when he nodded.
When the group set off again, Vicky remained on the brow of the hill with half of her attention down below. As she waited, she tapped her hands against her thighs and bounced on the spot again. Her heart beat with such a fierce kick, it rocked her where she stood.
Only when the slowest of the group had nearly gone from sight did Vicky follow them.
***
After a slow walk through the solar panels with the same man she’d followed up the hill, Vicky pulled his left arm around her shoulder and helped him down the short, steep drop leading to Home’s front door. The guy stank of the prison: rotten food and human waste. But she turned her face away from him as they descended and held her breath.
At the bottom, Vicky slipped from underneath him and nodded at the man. He nodded back. They were both okay.
The crowd parted to give Vicky a clear path to the front door. Keyless, she had to knock on the large wooden barrier. She made a fist and bashed the side of it against the door, sending a loud boom out across the landscape behind her. Another look into the dark and it still seemed free of the diseased.
When no one responded, Vicky called out, “Let us in!” Her voice went the same way as her heavy knock. Still no diseased.
Whether still Friday night or the early hours of Saturday morning, there wouldn’t be anyone in the canteen. Vicky stepped back and looked up at the white security camera above Home’s entrance. While waving her arms above her head, she jumped up and down on the spot. “It’s Vicky, guys. Let me in.”
For all the people around her, they stood as quiet as ghosts an
d Vicky paused again to listen for the murmur of the diseased in the distance. Nothing.
Just before Vicky could knock again, the click of the lock on the other side of the door snapped free.
A crack opened in the door, and when Vicky saw Serj’s face, her legs buckled beneath her.
“You’re back,” Serj said as he rushed out and helped get Vicky to her feet.
Not one for outward displays of emotion, Vicky hugged Serj when he pulled her up, the lump in her throat so large she could barely breathe.
When they pulled away from one another, Vicky managed to stand on her own. “Get everyone to the canteen,” she said. “We need a meeting now.”
A half smile lifted Serj’s face.
“What?” Vicky asked.
“All you’ve been through and you’re still thinking about the community.”
“I’m afraid we have to. If we don’t take care of Moira now, we’re fucked.”
Chapter Fifty-Five
Within just a few minutes, the first of Home’s residents stumbled into the canteen. Bed hair, bleary eyes, and walking as if they were the diseased, they shuffled into the space. Many of them found seats at tables and waited.
When Sally appeared, Vicky—who stood with the prisoners she’d rescued from Moira’s community—walked over to her. “Sally, can you take these people, please? They need to eat and get cleaned up.”
Pity twisted Sally’s features to look at the group. She then turned her attention to Vicky and nodded. “Sure.”
“Right, guys,” Vicky said, her voice echoing through the canteen, making some of the newly awakened arrivals flinch at the loudness of it, “if you follow Sally, she’ll look after you. She’ll get you some food, a shower, and some clean clothes.” For the first time, Vicky looked at the prisoners without guilt. A ragtag bunch of both men and women, their ages ranged from about twenty to about sixty. No children. It didn’t bear thinking about where they’d gone.
The Alpha Plague (Book 6) Page 17