When the quick slaps of the woman’s feet against the ground stopped, Rhys turned around again to look. In mid-flight and with her hand stretched out, she’d jumped straight at him.
So close her fingers brushed his shirt, the woman failed to grab him, fell, and clattered into the bike’s back wheel on her way to the ground.
The bike flick-flacked and Rhys fought to keep a hold of the handlebars as they snapped from side to side.
So caught up in his attempts to remain on his bike, Rhys didn’t see the diseased in front of him until they’d collided. The shoulder barge into the creature ran a shock through him that sent a sharp pain across the base of his skull. The diseased he’d crashed into stumbled away from him.
The impact rescued Rhys and he straightened out. When he looked to see the diseased slowly get to its feet, he pedalled harder and focused on the alley.
As Rhys got closer to the edge of the square, the chaos thinned out a little. Although still surrounded by diseased office workers, taxi drivers, and even a builder in a high-visibility vest, he could see more space than before. A route to the alleyway opened up in front of him; ten more metres separated him and his escape.
With his focus on his exit, Rhys saw the pool of blood too late. Before he’d had the time to react, the back wheel spun and his legs slipped.
Rhys grabbed both handles again and managed to both hold on and remain upright. His pulse sped. Focus Rhys!
A metre or two from the alleyway and Rhys checked over his shoulder one final time. As if from nowhere, a horde of about twenty diseased—led by the man in the high-visibility jacket—had gathered and chased him. “Fuck it!”
A glance into the dark alleyway and a rock sank in his gut; something wasn’t right. He should go down the next one, but he didn’t have time. Rhys rode straight into the tight space.
The tick of the bike’s chain and his own short breaths bounced off the hard surfaces that surrounded him. Maybe he could outrun those behind.
Then Rhys looked up and wedged his brakes on. The bike came to an abrupt halt with a loud screech.
About fifteen diseased had blocked his exit from the alley. Each one looked freshly turned. Their eyes bled and their wounds gaped as each one focused on him. A look behind and the pursuing horde flooded in on his tail. They brought the roar of hunger with them.
Rhys looked at the crowd in front again. As if inspired by the furious mob behind, they set the air alight with their screams and ran straight at him.
Chapter Thirty
The alley may have been long, but the pinch of onrushing diseased from both ends narrowed it down fast. Despite the extra light that reflected off the thousands of exposed windows in the city, the onslaught turned the place dark. With his hand pressed against his chest, Rhys’ heart boomed as he divided his attention between the diseased both in front and behind him.
The slathering fury reverberated off the tight walls and the stench closed in. He’d come all this way to get taken out in a fucking alley! He should have listened to his gut and gone to the next alleyway along.
With both of his feet on the ground and the bike balanced between his legs, Rhys leaned down and pulled the Molotov from the drink holder. His hand shook as he fished his lighter from his pocket and lit the rag. The flame ate into it and gave off black smoke.
A glance in front, one behind, one in front again, and Rhys threw the bottle behind him. They seemed closer. The glass smashed seconds before a loud whoosh of petrol roared through the tight space. A ball of heat then rushed at Rhys and lifted the hair on his head.
A layer of sweat stood out on Rhys’ brow as he watched the flames force back the diseased behind him. Several of them screamed and raised their arms in front of their faces. The blood on their skin, and even their skin itself, hissed as the flames ate into them. The stench of rot mixed with that of charred flesh and the clothes of the diseased as they caught alight.
The diseased behind engaged in a fiery dance. Rhys shook his head to pull his attention away from the burning figures and turned to face the pack in front of him. As the mob closed in, he pulled his bag from his shoulders and rested it on the crossbar of the bike. A violent shake made it hard for him to even pinch the zip, let alone undo the bag. The diseased in front drew closer.
He finally got his bag open, and in one fluid movement, he removed one the rockets, lit the fuse, and held it away at arm’s length. He pointed it straight at the diseased in front of him.
The sparks from the back of the firework stung his hand like ant bites and the smell of gunpowder overpowered the stench of rot and seared flesh. He turned his head away and closed his eyes. The sound of the enraged diseased closed in on him.
The firework bucked and a loud whoosh shot away from him. Rhys opened his eyes to see a line of fiery colour run straight at the creatures. It stopped dead when it hit the first diseased directly in the chest. It caught in her clothes and kicked out a kaleidoscope of sparks. The other diseased backed away from it.
As Rhys removed another two rockets, the loud bang of the first one made him drop one of the fireworks. His ears rang and his head spun when he leaned down to retrieve it. The diseased in front of him backed away as one.
He held both of the rockets in one hand and lit them. Two kicks in quick succession, and they hurtled down the alley. One of them bounced off the close walls, but they both scored direct hits. Not that a direct hit was hard with the amount of diseased in front of him.
One of the diseased had taken a firework to the face, while the other took one to the groin. As the rockets fizzed and hissed on the floor, the mob backed off quicker than before.
Two more loud bangs sounded out.
The ring in Rhys’ ears made it hard to hear anything else, but he already had four more rockets lit and pointed at the monsters. Two went off at the same time, the other two shortly after. All of them whistled as they shot down the alley.
The pack had already backed off to the point where they’d virtually cleared his way. The four rockets pushed them clear of the alley.
The flames from the Molotov had died down enough for the diseased behind to find their courage again. Rhys removed one more rocket from the bag before he threw his backpack—with the remaining fireworks still inside it—into the flames behind.
Bangs, fizzes, and pops issued from the bag, and Rhys lit the last rocket. The diseased behind backed away, some of them tripping over their own clumsiness in the haste of their retreat.
After he’d laid his baseball bat along the handlebars of his bike so it pointed straight at the diseased, Rhys then laid the rocket on top of the bat.
As he rode down the alley, the angry hiss of the rocket culminated in a sharp buck that sent the firework off in front of him. His hand throbbed from the shower of sparks.
Rhys peddled harder than before and dipped his head as he put everything he had into his escape.
He shoulder barged a couple of diseased on the way out. A weak hand tried to grab him, but he broke free of the confined space with no more than a slight wobble of his bike before he regained his balance.
The wide road on the other side of the alley didn’t have the poles in the middle anymore, and although infected and uninfected fought in the streets, Rhys had more space to ride through than he’d had in the square.
Hopefully Larissa and Dave had made it through. Rhys couldn’t wait in the city for too long. Trying to avoid the diseased was one thing, but he couldn’t outrun instantaneous fire…
Chapter Thirty-One
When Rhys arrived at Central Station, he couldn’t see another soul… infected or uninfected. The closest tower block was a few hundred metres away and the insanity hadn’t spread this far… yet. But the possibility was that neither Dave nor Larissa had made it either and with the clock ticking towards incineration, he couldn’t wait long.
Regardless of its apparent emptiness, Rhys rode over to the entranceway to the station and peered in. The escalators that led down into the seemi
ngly abandoned tube station sat motionless, like they had earlier. If Dave or Larissa wanted to hide, they could have gone down there.
Before Rhys could venture any farther, he heard his name hissed from a dark corner.
“Rhys.”
Dave stepped from the nearby shadows. Two tear lines streaked his filthy cheeks and he stared at Rhys through bloodshot eyes. The fire had clearly fucked him up.
“Are you okay, mate?” Rhys said.
Instead of offering a reply, his friend barked a deep cough into his hand and nodded. As he continued to walk toward Rhys, he searched around with wide eyes and kept his voice low. “Why’s it so quiet here?”
It did seem odd. “Dunno. I’m guessing we’re too far away from any of the tower blocks for the carnage to have made it here yet. I think that’s going to change pretty fucking soon,”—another look at his watch—“although the city might be ablaze before that happens. Besides, the station areas are never busy unless it’s rush hour. Who uses the trains at any other time?”
Dave looked far from convinced and continued his assessment of their surrounding area. “I think we’ll be mobbed pretty soon if we don’t get a move on.”
For a second, Rhys stared at the space behind Dave before he looked back at his friend. “Have you seen Larissa?”
While he continued his perpetual search of everything around them, Dave shook his head. “No.” The whites of his wide eyes flicked from side to side as if unable to settle on any one thing. “I don’t like it here, Rhys.”
“The entire city’s fucked,” Rhys said, “I’m not expecting you to like it anywhere, to be honest.”
Dave’s wild eyes finally settled on Rhys. “Where do you think she is?”
“Fucked if I know. She’s probably turned into one of them. What are the chances of both of you making it here unscathed? But how can I go back to Flynn without his mum? I promised him I’d bring her back,” Rhys looked at his watch again and shook his head, “but we can’t wait for her. If we do we’ll die, and I wouldn’t mind betting that burning to death feels a whole lot fucking worse than being infected.”
When Dave didn’t reply, still clearly shell-shocked as he continued his wide-eyed assessment of their environment, Rhys removed the walkie-talkie from his pocket. A twist of the power button and loud static hissed from the small speaker. Rhys jumped and shook in his panic to lower the volume. “Fuck!”
When he saw Dave stare at the loud device, he shrugged. “All I want to do is get a hold of Vicky.”
“Vicky?”
A wave of his hand to dismiss the conversation, and Rhys said, “I’ll explain later, but basically, Flynn’s with her.”
“You’ve left Flynn with a stranger?”
A look back to where he’d come from and the shrill call of the diseased ran a cold shiver down Rhys’ back. “Now’s not the time, Dave.”
Before the conversation could go any further, a solitary figure rounded the corner. It ran at a full, yet clumsy sprint.
Rhys got off his bike and leaned it against a wall. With his bat raised, he turned to Dave and said, “You need to learn how to kill these things.”
“But they’re people!”
“They ain’t people… very fucking far from it, in fact. They’re monsters. If you think of them as human, you’ll be one of them in a heartbeat.” Rhys stepped forward when the infected woman got closer. She ran with her head dipped as if she were about to fall forward. Her greasy black hair swayed from side to side with the motion of her staggered gait.
Rhys took a deep breath and unleashed a full-bodied swing of his bat. The metal ting of it connected with the diseased’s face. The sound rang out across the quiet city and drove the creature backward. A spray of blood shot away from her already bloody mouth in a long sticky line.
Rhys turned to Dave. “Now I’m sure this fucker’s already dead, but once they’re down, make sure you turn their lights out.” While he bit down on his bottom lip, Rhys held the bat above his head and drove it into the skull of the downed creature. The bone broke with a crack.
When Rhys turned back to Dave, he saw his friend watch on aghast and said, “They ain’t people any more. You need to get that into your head.”
Before Dave could reply, Rhys looked at an abandoned car to his right. The front had a dent in it from where it had obviously collided with a pole. The driver’s door hung open. Rhys walked over to it, leaned inside, and pulled the lever that unlatched the boot. A pop sounded out before Rhys walked around to the back of the car and opened it up.
After he’d pulled the carpeted board away and tossed it aside, Rhys looked down at the spare tyre. He then pulled the silver tyre iron out and handed it to Dave. “Here, use this.”
Another heavy bout of coughs and Dave took the weapon. He bounced it up and down as if to test the weight of it before he stepped forward and hugged Rhys. He gripped him so tightly that Rhys struggled to breathe. “Thank you, man. Thank you for coming back for me. You didn’t have to. I really appreciate it.”
With his arms pinned to his side, Rhys nodded and moved his face away from the strong smell of smoke on Dave’s clothes. “It’s cool, honestly, but you need to give me my arms back, dude. I’m no good without them.”
Dave let go and stepped back.
“Just promise me one thing,” Rhys said.
“Anything.”
“Don’t freeze, yeah? I need to know you can kill these things if you need to. I need to know you have my back. Otherwise, you’re putting both of us at risk. Do you understand? They ain’t people anymore.”
Dave nodded.
Rhys left his bike propped against the entrance to the station, and said, “Come on, mate, we can’t wait for Larissa. We don’t have any time left. I just hope she’s made it to the drawbridge.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Air moved in and out of Rhys’ lungs much more easily than it had over the past few days. The relentless exercise seemed to have made a difference. Although compared to Dave, he had the fitness of an Olympic athlete, so maybe that was the difference. When Rhys had been with Oscar, it felt like trying to keep up with a racehorse, even with the big man’s injury. Because Dave had spent the past few hours in a burning building, he coughed so hard that every few seconds he heaved. To be fair to him, he still ran while he coughed. Rhys would have stopped for sure.
Rhys talked as they ran. Dave listened and coughed some more. He’d only given Dave the briefest of versions but after a few succinct minutes, Dave had been roughly caught up on Vicky, Oscar, and the new information he’d been given about Vicky.
“So you still haven’t got a hold of her?” Dave said as his feet slapped against the hard ground. A rattle accompanied his breaths as he pushed himself on.
Rhys shook his head and swallowed an arid mouthful of hot air. All he wanted was to stop and rest, but they had to keep going. Besides, if Dave didn’t need to stop, then Rhys certainly didn’t need to either. He glanced at the Superman watch; in under an hour and a half the entire city would burn hotter than hell.
With the drawbridge close, the pair pushed on. They’d made good time and they’d be on the river before the place went up. Hopefully Larissa would be there too.
“I’ve always admired you,” Dave said before he broke into another coughing fit.
After he looked at his friend, Rhys looked ahead again. “Save your breath, man, you may need it if we run into a crowd of them.”
“I just wanted to say it; you always get shit done.” Sweat glistened on Dave’s dark skin. It tore trails down his face where he’d been previously marked by the smoke and soot. He fought to catch his breath before he said, “If I had to bet on anyone coming to save me, it would be you. You put up with all my bullshit, but you still treated me like a friend. A lot of people would have cut me loose a long time ago.”
A shrug and Rhys focused on his breath again. On a loop, he inhaled for four and exhaled for two. His lethargic steps played the beat by which he ran to.
>
“I’m so grateful you got me out,” Dave said. “Thank you. You’ve always been the strong one. Level headed. We’d go out on the piss but you always kept your wits, no matter how drunk you got. And that’s the thing. You never got wasted like the rest of us. You’ve got more class, man.” Dave’s voice wound tighter with each word until the inevitable coughing fit cannoned from him.
“Save your breath,” Rhys said again.
Dave shook his head as he coughed. “You never got in fights. Never got so pissed you couldn’t stand up. I was always a mess and you always held it together. And you know what? Even when you weren’t out drinking with us, just seeing you in the morning kept me on a level. You always made me want to be a better person than I was.”
Because Dave sounded on the verge on a panic attack, his breath so out of control he wheezed like a broken dog toy, Rhys tried to cut the conversation off. “Thank you.”
But Dave drew another breath to speak and coughed harder than before.
Before Dave could say anything else, Rhys stopped and grabbed Dave’s arm. Rhys pushed a finger to his lips and pointed up ahead. Dave looked up the road and got it straight away. When Rhys pulled him over to the side into the shadows, Dave moved without resistance.
As they waited, Dave still gasped for breath and Rhys watched him. He looked like he could cough again.
Out of breath too, Rhys kept his finger pressed to his lips. He sniffed the air. The reek of rot hung around them.
When Dave did the same, he screwed his face up at the smell.
Rhys pointed to the end of the street.
Dave looked like he did his best to stifle his cough and tucked in behind Rhys.
If his cough gave them away… Rhys didn’t need to think about it. One step at a time. Only deal with the issues directly in front of him.
With Dave behind, Rhys walked forward and fought to bring his breath back under control. He walked towards the edge of the building on tiptoes. His weak legs trembled from the effort.
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