Ed turned his gaze back to Rachel.
"What happened?"
"The Infected happened. Thanks to Michael," she said. "You don't need to worry. They're all dead. And we're getting out of here. Very soon."
"We are? But what about the Infected out there? Isn't it safer here?"
Rachel shook her head.
"You told us about Wylfa, remember? It's in that direction, right?"
Rachel pointed at the column of smoke drifting up toward the clouds.
Ed paled. He nodded.
"Our world is built on electricity, and electricity is gone," Rachel said. "Things are breaking down. There are some things we want to be a long way away from when that happens."
Ed gulped.
"So where are we going?"
"The plan is the same as it was before the old woman got in the way," Rachel said. "We get to the docks in Liverpool. Get a boat big enough to take us all, and we don't look back."
"Get to Liverpool how?"
"On foot."
"But what about the Infected? This is crazy, do you know how far away Liverpool is?"
Rachel frowned.
"Not exactly."
"It's...like...seventy-five miles away. It will take days on foot. And even if we get there...it's a big city. It will be overrun."
Rachel shrugged.
"I never said it was a great plan."
Chapter 27
"What do you think will happen?"
Kyle stood next to his brother, staring at the junction box. Neither of them had any idea how they might cut power to the entire ship, but Tom had suggested a more localised solution, and it seemed like it might work. They followed electrical cabling from the cargo hold until they found the junction box set near the roof about thirty yards down the adjacent corridor.
"I'm not sure. Maybe Sanderson wasn't kidding about the creature being telepathically linked to the Infected somehow. Maybe this is how Sullivan is controlling the Infected."
Kyle looked at him dubiously.
"I'm not sure anything is controlling the Infected."
Tom shrugged.
"You want to turn back?"
Kyle frowned in frustration.
"Look," Tom said. "The thing is locked up. If I'm wrong and it's not a life support system the worst that will happen is that it will be able to move about. It's still locked in a cage. Worst case scenario is that it kills Sanderson. I don't know about you, but I think that pompous prick could stand to do a little dying."
Kyle dropped his gaze to the floor. Increasingly it felt like his brother's agenda was simple revenge. He had a feeling Tom would kill every last person on this ship and every other if he could.
"Fine," he said at last. "Any sign of trouble and I'm getting to the chopper, and getting the fuck out of here. Are you with me?"
"Of course," Tom said.
"How will you cut the power?"
Tom dropped his gaze from the tangle of cables in the junction box to the assault rifle that looked so ridiculous clasped in his hands.
He shrugged almost apologetically.
"Oh," Kyle said. "I guess we're not keeping this quiet, then."
"I guess not."
Kyle sighed.
"Sanderson will be looking for us. I'll go find him. Once we're inside—"
"I know what to do," Tom interrupted. "It'll be fine, Kyle."
Kyle had a lurking suspicion that it would not be fine; that nothing would ever again be fine. He grabbed his little brother and pulled him into an awkward hug. It was, Kyle thought, quite possibly the first time they had ever had such intimate contact. He felt Tom stiffen and pulled away.
"If it goes wrong, Tom-"
"The chopper. I'll be there."
Kyle turned and left his brother in front of the junction box, making his way back toward the rest of the crew.
He couldn't help but wonder if he'd ever see him again.
*
"There you are. Where is the other one?"
Phil Sanderson was stressed. Hell, stressed didn't even come close. The thick soup of fear-inducing pheromones that the mutation emitted had finally dissipated a little, but when the manufactured fear departed, Phil discovered that it left a vacuum into which a more recognisable and natural sort of terror flooded.
He had seen the mutation in action; had seen it up close and personal as it smashed through a thick concrete wall. The thought of being in a room with the thing—even with all the safety precautions in place—was making him feel nauseous.
The fact that only one of the two men that he had recruited to act as his personal security team had appeared did not help the troubled writhing of nerves in his stomach.
The soldier—Kyle? Sanderson spent a moment trying to recall the man’s name before realising it didn’t matter in the slightest— shook his head and shrugged.
"No idea, Sir. I guess the, uh, pheromones got to him."
Phil bit back on his desire to rage uncontrollably at the news. When all this was over, he would find the deserter and have Fred Sullivan deal with him. For now, there was nothing to be done. At least, he thought, I've still got the one who actually looks like he might be able to fire a gun.
"It's almost time," Phil said, pointing at a readout on a monitor and overlooking the fact that Kyle clearly didn't have the first idea what any of it meant.
"Follow me."
*
When Sanderson led Kyle to the cargo hold, Kyle sneaked a quick glance down the corridor that held the junction box which supplied the power to the strange prison. There was no sign of Tom, but Kyle thought he could feel his brother's eyes on him, watching from the shadows.
He gave a slight nod of encouragement at the darkness as he left the corridor, and his nerves began to race. For a moment he was back in the van on a busy London street, sitting next to a psychotic Russian criminal, certain that the situation was spiralling beyond his control.
He shook the unhelpful memories away. Sanderson was prattling on about the mutation being almost ready for 'the extraction', muttering almost to himself while he opened a small case and withdrew a large, wicked-looking hypodermic syringe.
Kyle stared at it, fascinated. The needle looked to be a good six inches long. It looked more like a weapon than a medical instrument.
"Hey. Hey!"
Kyle blinked, and realised that Sanderson was now addressing him directly.
"Sir?"
"I want you right by my side, okay? And you keep that weapon pointed directly at the creature's face. If I say so, you execute it without hesitation, understand?"
"Yes, Sir."
Kyle wondered dimly if the assault rifle had a safety. Guns in movies had safety switches, didn’t they? If it did, he hadn't disengaged it, and would not have the first idea how to.
You'd better be right about this, Tom, he thought. If Tom's hunch was correct, he would cut the power and the creature would simply die, leaving Sanderson and Fred Sullivan's bizarre experiment in tatters.
If Tom was wrong...
He hasn't been wrong so far. About any of this.
So why is Sanderson so scared?
Kyle stared around the cargo hold. Sykes and his team stood like scarecrows, unmoving and pointing their weapons a little shakily at the cage. Judging by the looks on their faces, they were all terrified. Glassy-eyed and somehow vacant, as though they were busy watching their lives flashing before their eyes.
A nagging sensation that these people hadn’t been feeding him lies erupted in Kyle’s mind.
What if they were all telling the truth?
It couldn’t be. A super-powered monster. Impossible speed and strength. Area of effect. It had to be lies; had to be Sullivan’s way of ensuring that the people aboard the McIntosh ship followed orders.
Phil Sanderson waved a hand at the one-way glass that separated the hold from the small monitoring room, and moments later the gate to the enormous steel cell opened with a beep.
Sanderson stared pointedly, and,
with some effort, Kyle persuaded his feet to move, following the scientist to the entrance of the huge cell.
Kyle stepped inside, and felt cold sweat begin to trickle down to the small of his back.
*
Phil Sanderson hadn't ever been considered brave; not by himself, and certainly not by anybody else. Even his academic peers had sneered at him, because despite the fact that Phil's intellect outstripped them all and they all knew it, he contented himself with mundane research, often doing no more than confirming the pioneering work of scientists who understood less than him, but were prepared to take some actual risks.
He had been working diligently on refining the process of genetically altering corn to produce bumper harvests—a field of study not so much well-trodden as thoroughly ploughed long before he got to it—when Fred Sullivan found him.
Phil never knew how he had come to Fred's attention. All that mattered was what Fred offered: a lab and equipment that left the phrase state of the art in its rear view mirror and wealth that would have made the Pope blush.
All Phil had to do, Sullivan had promised, was to continue conducting his work in genetics.
That had been decades ago. And Sullivan had been good to his word: Phil never had to do anything other than interfere with natural DNA. Of course, at some point the lines had become blurred and Phil's work became less about crops and more about humans. A different sort of harvest altogether.
By then it didn't matter. By then Fred had established utter dominance over Phil, and the work he undertook had nothing to do with salary or even with scientific recognition, and everything to do with being allowed to continue breathing.
Sometimes Phil thought that Sullivan had recruited him not for his knowledge or his expertise, but for his cowardice.
He tried to manufacture bravery as he approached the mutation, but with each step a life spent cowering in fear weighed him down like an anvil around his neck. Not for the first time he wondered if he could persuade someone else to extract blood from Jake McIntosh in his stead. He dismissed the idea, as always, because word would get back to Fred, and because Phil hadn't yet encountered anything that scared him more than the old man.
Not even the mutation.
Phil had ordered that the emitters should be turned on before he even stepped into the cage. They would pump out a low frequency sound that would enrage the mutation as soon as it opened its eyes, but the noise would also paralyse the creature.
Phil had stipulated that the soldier in the monitoring booth should keep his eyes on the creature at all times, and if he felt the need, he should turn the volume all the way up to eleven.
As he made his way to the apparatus that surrounded McIntosh, Phil thought he could feel the pulsing sound himself, though he knew that was logically impossible. The trembling he felt in his muscles had nothing to do with the emitters, and everything to do with his fear.
Don’t look at it.
He couldn’t help it. His eyes were drawn to the horrific face as if a powerful magnet pulled at them, leaving him powerless to resist. The creature was conscious, all the readouts had confirmed it, but its eyes remained closed.
Thank God.
Phil let out a breath that trembled like an earthquake had hit it, and forced himself to focus only on an exposed patch of flesh on the creature’s arm, a tiny section of its hideous body that had not been draped in restrictive steel.
He aimed the huge needle at the flesh, and it took all his strength to penetrate the skin that seemed to have the texture of thick leather. Slowly, agonisingly, the blood began to fill the syringe. Darker than ordinary human blood; thicker. Like a primordial sludge.
Phil’s eyes flicked up once more and he froze in terror.
The mutation’s furious eyes were wide open and pointed straight at him. It felt like the creature’s livid gaze was boring deep into his mind, drilling wildly into nerves that shrieked in protest. Phil felt his mind begin to swim as he pulled the needle clear of the creature; felt the humiliating warmth spreading from his crotch.
It’s done, he thought, now get the fuck out of here and never come back.
Phil had taken two faltering steps backwards, unable to tear his gaze from the mutation’s horrific eyes when he heard the sound of distant gunfire and the lights went out.
*
Tom is wrong.
Kyle knew it as he watched the scientist approaching the creature. Sanderson had done well to hide his fear during the hours he had spent on the ship, but now it poured off him in waves, so powerful and unmistakable that Kyle half-wondered if the man was emitting pheromones just like those he had described earlier.
Thoughts popped into Kyle’s mind like staccato gunfire.
He's terrified.
This is no life support system.
Sanderson was telling the truth about everything.
Kyle took a few steps backwards, and turned to run, praying that he would get to Tom before he cut the power.
He made it as far as the door of the cell before gunfire ripped the clammy silence in two and everything went dark.
He hadn't even had time to adjust his thoughts to the pitch-blackness that now wrapped around him like a shroud when he heard a sound that was utterly alien to him; a sound that he could only imagine was steel being torn.
A clattering in the darkness.
Heavy chains falling to the floor.
Kyle’s breath caught in his throat.
Emergency floor lighting clicked on, bathing the room in a faint crimson glow and giving it a nightmarish quality.
Kyle couldn’t help himself. He implored his muscles to keep running, but found himself locked in place by grim curiosity. He turned to see the mutation standing upright, seven foot tall; naked and wrapped in twisted, heavily-packed muscle, like an artistic impression of the human body painted by a slavering maniac in Hell.
The creature knocked Phil Sanderson to the floor with a dismissive flick of its wrist, like a lazy attempt to swat a fly.
It stared at Kyle.
Grinned.
Without thinking, Kyle lifted the assault rifle, all thoughts of whether the safety might be on long-forgotten, and squeezed the trigger, sending sixty bullets hurtling toward the creature in a matter of seconds. A fraction of a second after he began firing, Sykes’ entire team followed suit, emptying their weapons at the creature, and the vast dark space echoed to the roar of automatic gunfire.
The air around the creature seemed to shimmer like a heat haze.
Kyle didn’t see the thing move.
All he knew was that the bullets had hit nothing. As if the creature had somehow skipped out of their way, faster than Kyle’s eyes could follow it.
Impossible.
The mutation chuckled, a low and sickly sound that made Kyle’s heart feel like it was about to explode from his chest.
It switched its attention to Sanderson, who was pathetically engaged in an attempt to shuffle away from the monster on his belly. He didn’t make it more than a few inches. Kyle watched as the creature placed a foot on the man’s back, pressing him into the floor, like a bird pinning a worm with its talons before devouring it.
Finally Kyle’s subconscious mind took over, apparently deciding that it had seen more than enough, and suddenly he was running, sprinting from the cargo hold; baffled by the fearful whimpering sound he heard until it became terrifyingly clear that the noise was spilling from his own throat.
And then he heard a different sound. One that was easy to identify. A noise that made his blood turn to ice in his veins.
Screaming.
Chapter 28
Memories poured into Jake McIntosh's mind like acid, devouring and destroying everything in their path. The last thing he remembered was the old man and the noise that felt like it was tearing him apart cell by cell.
He heard the same noise now, and felt the same pain, though it was greatly reduced. He was pinned down to a flat surface, weighed down by metal that seemed to cover every inch
of his deformed body.
And he was weak.
So weak.
The fatigue he felt reminded him of days back at Moorcroft; days when he had awoken after an indeterminate amount of time spent drugged and comatose. And it reminded him of waking for the first time after he had escaped the underground base, when starvation had attacked while he slept, debilitating even his extraordinary body.
Blood.
I need blood.
There was blood nearby. Jake could smell it. Warm blood, ripe with the stench of fear. Approaching him slowly.
He opened his eyes and found a spotlight burning into them painfully. It took a moment to adjust, and by then the other sense had kicked in. The new one that had been gifted to him by the blood of an Infected creature. He saw not with his eyes, but with his mind. Saw that he was in a vast space, and there were a handful of humans dotted around him, far away and indistinct.
And one that was standing right next to him.
Jake could not lift his head, couldn't move a muscle as the infernal sound poisoned him, but he was able to point his eyes towards the trembling scientist who stood inches away, holding a large needle that was buried deeply into Jake's arm.
The one that drugged me, Jake thought. The last person who had drugged him had their neck ripped open and their still-warm corpse desecrated. That had been when he had been human; back when he had been plain old Jake McIntosh, version 1.0. He dearly wanted to do much, much worse to the man who trembled alongside him now, but the wall of noise prevented it.
A bright star of fury went supernova in Jake's mind when he felt the blood being pulled from his arm, and he stared at the human, wishing with every corner of his dark soul that his hatred could kill.
And then he heard something else. Something that rode above the painful low noise that held him in agonising stasis. The clattering of gunfire.
And suddenly the world was dark, and the terrible noise had ceased.
Freedom.
For a fraction of a second Jake wondered if he might be too weak to escape the metal prison that pinned him down, but fury fuelled him, and he tore the steel manacles and chains that had pinned him apart, tossing them aside like confetti.
Reaction (Wildfire Chronicles Volume 6) Page 15