The Alpha Plague 2

by Michael Robertson

  The closer they got to the bend, the greater the reek. The familiar stink of rot and excrement choked Rhys, and it felt harder to breathe than it had a few seconds previously. It didn’t help that his throat had dried to the point where he felt sick. A funky taste of morning breath and bile sat as a furry layer on his tongue.

  With the bend no more than a few metres away, the static hiss of Rhys’ walkie-talkie cut through the silence. Fuck! He’d left it on from when he tried to call Vicky! Rhys heart leapt and he fumbled to remove the device from his pocket. When he’d finally managed it, he turned the volume completely down. It had been quite low anyway, so maybe nothing heard them.

  He looked at Dave to see him chew his bottom lip as he stared at the black device in Rhys’ hand. The guy still held his coughs back.

  The pair stood in silence, stared at one another, and listened. Rhys watched the corner. One of the diseased would surely tear around it at any moment. He’d been worried Dave might give them away, but he’d left the fucking walkie-talkie on.

  But it was Vicky on the other side. He had to talk to her. Rhys led a retreat from the bend. He had to speak to Flynn too. A quick conversation and they could head to the drawbridge. But he had to have that conversation.

  When they’d pulled back far enough, Rhys turned the volume of the walkie-talkie up again. A press of the talk button cut through the quiet hiss of static. Rhys’ voice croaked. “Vicky, it’s Rhys, come in.”

  “Rhys?” Her voice crackled through the small speaker.

  “Why would someone from The East know your name, Vicky? What have you done?”

  “I… I don’t know, Rhys. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Why do you sound so fucking nervous then?”

  Dave’s mouth hung open as he watched on.

  Vicky didn’t reply.

  “Brendan told me to say hi.”

  The hiss of static answered Rhys.

  “Vicky? What the fuck’s going on? What aren’t you telling me?”

  “I’m sorry, Rhys. I’m truly sorry. If I’d have known it would have come to this, I wouldn’t have done anything, I swear. I’m so, so sorry.”

  Adrenaline surged through Rhys. It accelerated his pulse and pulled his guts tight. Just before he could respond, he saw Dave raise a shaky hand and point up the road. One of the group they’d smelled appeared from around the corner. But Rhys needed answers. “What have you done, Vicky? Where’s my boy?”

  “We’ve gotta split, dude,” Dave said.

  “Vicky?”

  Nothing.

  “Vicky? Where’s Flynn? What have you done to him?” The walkie-talkie shook in his tight grip and Rhys’ blood boiled. It took all of his effort not to smash the black handset on the ground.

  Dave clamped a hard grip onto Rhys’ shoulder, shook him, and pointed up the road again. “If we don’t go now, we’re fucked. Seriously, Rhys, we need to get a fucking move on.”

  Rhys looked up and saw the twisted, solitary diseased. It swayed from side to side as it walked. Oblivious until that moment, it turned and stared at the pair.

  Time froze.

  When the creature opened its mouth, Rhys’ skin turned to gooseflesh. He’d pushed his luck and now they had to pay the price.

  Dave spoke in a low voice, although the need to be quiet had already passed. “We need to go, Rhys.”

  Several quick nods and Rhys said, “I think you’re right, man.”

  The creature released the familiar primal call of the diseased. A braying, heaving cry that told any of them within earshot I’ve found prey.

  The pack answered with their usual thunderous roar.

  Rhys and Dave ran.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  By the time Rhys had turned around, Dave already had a lead on him. The wheezy smoke-damaged Dave of only a few seconds ago seemed like nothing but a distant memory now. And because Dave had taken the lead, Rhys had to follow. He’d already opened up a gap big enough that he wouldn’t hear Rhys if he called after him. The mob’s feet behind beat a war cry against the pavement. If that didn’t drown him out, their screams and roars would.

  They couldn’t run forever. They had to think of something. Or rather, Dave had to think of something; Rhys would have to go his own way if Dave made a bad choice.

  When they rounded the next corner, a tower block came into view. Rhys’ heart sank when Dave headed straight for it.

  “What are you doing?” Rhys called after him, but before the words had left his mouth, he’d given up any hope of being heard. Instead, he ran and debated as Dave ran across the road to the other side.

  Rhys’ gut told him to run past the building. The tower block would be full of dead ends and nothing else. Unless Dave knew better than Rhys, that is. After all, the guy did run the building management for his last tower. Rhys often joked about him being no more than a janitor, but maybe Dave’s knowledge would save them. Dave would trust Rhys’ judgment in this situation. A shake of his head and Rhys crossed the road after him.

  Like all of the other towers, Tower Eighteen’s front doors had been flung wide open from the mass exodus.

  Rhys entered the building about ten seconds after Dave. The large open foyer amplified both their hasty getaway and their heavy breaths. Dave barked a deep cough as he ran.

  The front reception desk sat empty, the floor all around littered with blankets, cushions, cups, mugs, and other paraphernalia associated with a long fucking wait. After the initial fear had subsided, it must have been so dull to be locked up in one of the towers. Unless you watched hundreds of people burn to death, that is. Dave undoubtedly would have chosen dull over what he saw.

  Dave looked like a man with purpose as he headed straight for the double doors on the other side of the room. A tilt to the side and he barged into one of them with a loud bang.

  The door closed before Rhys got to it, so he did the same. The heavy door stung his shoulder from the collision and ran a shock to the base of his still sore back, but Rhys forgot the pain in an instant when he crashed into his stationary friend on the other side. “What the fuck, man? Why did you st—”

  The drawn look of horror that hung from Dave’s face robbed Rhys of his words.

  Before he looked past Dave, he caught the rancid reek of rot. He heard the disgruntled murmur of what sounded like perpetual pain. He felt the combined focus of their collective attention. All of the hairs on his body lifted. At the end of the long corridor, aimless and restless, stood a herd of about fifteen diseased.

  “Oh fuck,” Rhys said.

  As one, their dark mouths stretched wide, and they released the hideous braying call Rhys had come to think of as their war cry.

  Being the closest to the door, Rhys spun on his heel and ran back into the reception area. He heard Dave follow but didn’t turn around to check. His attention had locked onto the mob that had rushed in through the front door.

  A door just next to the reception desk led down to the basement. Rhys ran straight for it.

  As the mob descended on him, Rhys grabbed the handle and yanked it open. He checked to see Dave close and ran through.

  A second or two later, Rhys heard Dave open the door behind him. When he turned and looked up the long flight of stairs, he saw his best friend slam the door shut and lock it. He then followed Rhys down.

  The dark concrete basement reeked of damp. Humid and cold, it felt like they’d just locked themselves in a fucking dungeon. Rhys pushed on regardless.

  Although Rhys had worked in an exact replica of this tower for years, he’d never seen the basement.

  A loud bang and Rhys stopped to look up at the door again. One of the diseased had crashed into it and now pressed its face to the glass. It bit at it as if that would be enough to get through. The chink of its teeth against the glass called down into the darkness.

  Several more thuds and more diseased fought for a space as they pressed up against the window.

  Soon the thuds turned into hamme
red fists against the door. They echoed and boomed like tribal drums. Like some kind of frenzied death ritual.

  Rhys made it to the bottom of the stairs and looked at his watch before he looked back up at Dave. “It doesn’t matter if that door holds or not. What matters is getting the fuck out of here. Where does this basement lead?”

  With his attention on his feet, Dave descended the stairs.

  “Dave,” Rhys’ raised voice echoed in the enclosed space, “where does this fucking basement lead?”

  Dave still looked down when he said, “How the fuck should I know?”

  “Because you ran a building before everything went to shit.”

  “That doesn’t mean I’ve been in the basement. I never had any need to go down in one.”

  “And no one went down into one when your building was on fire?”

  “No. We were too scared to get trapped down there.”

  “Well that’s fucking great isn’t it?”

  When Dave made it down, Rhys looked back up at the small window in the door. The glass had turned red with infected blood. “Why the fuck did you lead us into a building?”

  Dave fought to catch his breath and coughed several times before he said, “I… thought we could… hide from… them.”

  “What the fuck?”

  “I don’t know… I was scared. The tower seemed like the best place to run to. You were the one who led us down here.”

  A shake of his head and Rhys threw his arms in the air. “Well thanks, Dave. After all I’ve been through and I get fucked because I trusted your judgment.” Rhys pointed up the stairs. “If those fuckers don’t bust through, then the fire will get us.”

  Dave didn’t reply. Instead, he stared at his friend, his eyes glazed with tears.

  Rhys turned his back on him and watched the diseased at the top of the stairs.

  After a minute or so, Rhys said, “Look, mate…” but when he turned around, Dave had vanished. “Dave?”

  A moment later, Dave poked his head up from a dark corner. A wide grin spilt his face.

  “What are you so fucking happy about?”

  “Come and take a look at what I’ve found.”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  “If I follow you, who’s going to keep an eye on them up there?” Not that Rhys could see the diseased through the window anymore. Instead, he watched the blood currently smeared over it shift and change as faces, hands, and whatever fucking else rubbed against it. “We need to be ready when they get through.”

  While he continued to grin at him, Dave shook his head. “No we don’t, Rhys. Just come and look, yeah?”

  Another look up the stairs and Rhys shook his head while he walked over to Dave. The basement was so poorly lit that he only saw the stairs when he got close to them. Not as long as the ones they’d just descended, they ran a steep drop into an even darker space. Rhys shook his head. “What the fuck? Where do they go?”

  “Follow me,” Dave said and coughed several times before he ran down the stairs.

  Rhys’ legs ached as he followed his friend. The smell of damp increased the lower they went. The air grew teeth as the coolness nipped at him through his thin shirt.

  When they reached the bottom, a huge space opened up. About the same dimensions as an Olympic swimming pool, the concrete area had very little to offer. “What are you so fucking excited about?”

  Dave looked across at the far wall.

  When Rhys noticed it, he drew an involuntary gasp. The wall had a door in the centre of it. “Where does it go?”

  “Fucked if I know.” After he’d coughed into his hand several times, Dave said, “However, I did just open it. It’s more than a cupboard. Anything’s better than going back the way we came, isn’t it?”

  Rhys tilted his head so his ear pointed up the stairs. The bangs seemed to increase in ferocity, almost as if their disappearance fired up the diseased’s rage even more. Then he heard the pop of the window as it broke. The rush of glass hit the concrete steps on the other side and the screams of the infected flew down into the basement. When he looked at his friend’s wide eyes, Rhys dipped a sharp nod and said, “Let’s go.”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  After Dave opened the door, Rhys peered into the tunnel. He could only see a few metres in front of him before the darkness became impenetrable. He called into it, “Hello.”

  His echo responded.

  When he looked at Dave, his friend stared back at him, dumbstruck.

  “What do you think?” Rhys said.

  The sound of splintering wood came down to them from the door up in the reception area. After he’d looked in the direction of the stairs, Dave said, “Do we have any other choice?”

  It made sense. Of course it made sense; they had five minutes at the most before a flood of chaos came down the stairs at them. Nevertheless, that didn’t make the prospect of a dark tunnel any more exciting.

  Rhys poked his head inside the tunnel. Damp hung heavier in the air down there than in the basement. The temperature seemed to have dropped by a few more degrees. Rhys shivered.

  Another crash, louder this time, and the sound of the diseased’s feet descended the stairs. Within a few seconds, the ground shook.

  “It’s like a fucking army coming for us,” Rhys said. His nerves jangled.

  Without another word, the pair darted into the tunnel, slammed the door shut, and Dave lit up the space with the torch on his phone.

  “Thank god you’ve still got your phone,” Rhys said. “I dropped mine ages ago. I didn’t fancy running down here blind… especially with those fuckers chasing us.”

  Rhys pointed his baseball bat at the door they’d just closed. “Put your light on that will ya.”

  Dave lit it up.

  An overhead swing of his bat and Rhys knocked the door handle clean off in one hit.

  “What are you doing?” Dave said.

  A tight pinch on the square rod that connected the handles, and Rhys pulled it free. A metal chink sounded on the other side of the door as the handle fell to the floor. Another metal chink responded when Rhys dropped the rod on his side of the door. “It’ll slow them down if nothing else.”

  “Ah,” Dave said as he patted Rhys on the back, “clever. That’s why you’re the brains and I’m the looks.”

  An arched eyebrow and Rhys shook his head. “Whatever, Casanova. Come on, let’s go.”

  ***

  The men could just about run side by side down the cramped tunnel. A huge metal pipe, about a metre in diameter, ran along the wall in the top right hand corner. It limited the height on one side of the tunnel, but not to the point where either man couldn’t run beneath it.

  Before they’d gone far, Dave suddenly stopped. “Look at this, Rhys.”

  Reluctance weighed heavy on Rhys’ limbs, but he turned around and ran back to his friend. When he saw it, his breath left him. “Fuck.”

  Before he could say anything, Dave fell into another round of heavy coughs. The bark from his chest went off like a grenade in the tight tunnel. When he’d finally finished, he said, “It’s a map, Rhys.”

  “I can see that.”

  “The buildings are interconnected.”

  “I can see that too.” As he scanned the map, Rhys ran a finger across it. He felt the damp that clung to the walls. “We’re not far from Building Thirteen. If we can get there, we can get to the drawbridge easily.”

  “We’re going to get out of here, Rhys. We’re going to do it, man.”

  A scream sounded outside the door like a firework rushing toward them. It culminated in a loud bang as the first diseased crashed against it.

  Both Rhys and Dave jumped back and stared at it.

  “Come on,” Rhys said, “if we’re going to get out of here, we need to go now.”

  The pair took off again. Dave’s torch threw a hectic light around the place as his arms pumped. It brought the shadows to life and made it hard to see the way; not that it mattered in the mostly straight
corridors.

  ***

  When they reached another door, Rhys’ heart sank. “I knew it was too fucking good to be true. I bet it’s fucking locked.” But when he turned the handle, the door opened.

  Both men rushed through and Rhys did the same to this door as he’d done to the last. Again, he pulled the rod through to make it harder for the mob to follow them. Again, the handle on the other side fell to the ground with a chink.

  As Rhys and Dave ran, their laboured breaths bordered on embarrassing. Rhys may have been slightly fitter, but the pair of them still sounded like old asthmatics. It didn’t matter though; Flynn needed him and he’d push himself to collapse if he had to. If he could find Flynn again, that is. Rhys shook his head. It wouldn’t do to think about it now. Once they’d crossed the river, he’d get to his boy. If Vicky’s done anything to him… He shook the thought away again.

  At the next door, Rhys paused and listened to the call of the diseased. Although distant, it still gained on them. “They’re still chasing us. I’m pretty sure they’ve made it through the first door.” He pulled the next door closed and smashed the handle off.

  Before they set off again, Rhys heard the sound of rushing water. He reached up and placed his palm against the large metal pipe. It felt cold to touch. Condensation coated the outside of it. “No wonder the entire place reeks of damp.”

  “Huh?” Dave said.

  The pipe vibrated from the heavy water flow that ran through it. A couple of jabs with the end of his baseball bat and the pipe boomed. “Hear that? That’s the sound of a full pipe.”

  “Full of what?”

  “Water, I’d guess.”

  After a slight pause, Dave said, “So what? Come on, man, we’ve got to go.”

  The diseased’s screams grew louder and Rhys glanced at his watch. The hands glowed in the dark. In just over an hour, the entire place would be turned into one of the layers of Dante’s inferno.