Mutation (Twenty-Five Percent Book 1)

by Wheatley, Nerys

  “Looks clear,” he said.

  Alex followed him in and closed the white UPVC door behind him, pushing up the handle to engage the bolts. Moments later, they heard thuds and clawing at the outside.

  “There’s no key,” he said, dropping the bag and sword and holding onto the handle.

  He looked around for a likely storage place for a door key. Feeling the handle rattle as an eater nudged it, he grasped it with both hands, wincing at the pain from his sliced palms.

  There was a sideboard close to the door and Micah started rummaging through drawers.

  “Got keys,” he said, then frowned. “Lots of keys.”

  He returned to the door with seven loose keys that looked like they might fit and began trying them one by one. Something heavy pushed at the handle from the other side and Alex gripped it tight to keep it from unlatching. The smooth plastic was becoming slippery with blood.

  Micah dropped the final key from the lock. “How come they have all these keys and none of them fit the door?”

  “Are there any more in there?” Alex said, glancing at the sideboard.

  “No, this is all there is.” He replaced the keys in the drawer and slid it closed.

  The pounding on the outside of the door continued.

  “I don’t suppose you can pick locks as well as hotwire cars?” Alex said.

  “Yes, but I left my lock picking kit at home.”

  Alex raised his eyebrows.

  “No, I can’t pick locks,” Micah said, exasperated. “Who do you think I am?”

  “Well, I can’t stand here all night.”

  “I’m going to see if I can find a key anywhere else.”

  Micah disappeared along the hallway while Alex slumped against the door. After few seconds he looked around. A chair stood against the wall next to the sideboard. Keeping one hand on the door handle, he reached towards it. When his arm wasn’t long enough, he tried a foot. He’d just got it looped around a leg when Micah returned, holding up a set of keys on a keyring.

  “They were in the back door,” he said.

  With a look of triumph, he inserted and turned the key. A satisfying click emanated from the door. Alex pushed down on the handle cautiously, letting go when he encountered resistance. Blood covered the white plastic.

  “You’re welcome,” Micah said.

  Alex grunted.

  “Will it hold?”

  “It should,” Alex answered. “These doors have five mortise locks. I might be able to break it down if I threw myself a few times at it hard enough, but not just by pushing it. And I’d probably break a bone or three at the same time. But you stay here, just in case.”

  “Yeah, right, I’ll just wait here for the eater horde to break through.” Shaking his head, Micah walked through a wide arch into the living room.

  A quick search of the ground floor revealed it to be a typical house, lounge, dining room and kitchen downstairs. Everything was tidy and well looked after. The remains of a meal lay on the dining room table, as if the occupants had left in a hurry. Either out of mother-taught habit or respect for the owners, Alex picked up some of the half-full plates and carried them into the kitchen, depositing them by the sink. After watching him, Micah did the same with the rest.

  Alex looked out of the window into the back garden. A patio gave way to a lawn surrounded by neat flowerbeds and a few trees. A large shed sat in one corner. There were no eaters, thanks to a six foot high wooden fence. It wasn’t strong enough to keep them out, but it was solid enough to stop them from seeing in.

  “We should check upstairs,” Micah said, pulling a paring knife from a wooden knife block on the worktop, frowning, and sliding it back in to find something more substantial. “I’d rather not have anything creeping up on me when I’m not looking.”

  They returned to the foot of the stairs in the hallway and Alex picked up the sword which he’d left near the front entrance, holding it gingerly and hoping he wouldn’t have to use it until his wounds were dealt with. The eaters were still outside, scuffling against the door and giving the occasional moan.

  They passed family photos on the wall as they made their way upstairs. A blond man, red haired woman and three blond children looking to be aged from around ten to early teens smiled out from an array of pictures. They looked happy. Alex wondered if they were still alive. He hoped they hadn’t been caught in the jam of cars up the road.

  Four of the five doors on the landing were open, leading to three bedrooms and a bathroom. Clothing and other items were scattered over the floors. Everything indicated a panicked exodus.

  Alex stood in the middle of a room decorated with all things pink and stared at a purple teddy bear lying on the floor.

  “Alex?”

  He dragged his eyes from the bear and wiped the back of one hand across his face. “Yeah?”

  “Come and look at this.”

  Micah was staring at the floor on the landing when he left the girl’s bedroom. Walking up beside him, Alex saw blood drops forming a trail that led under the only closed door.

  Micah lifted his knife and placed his hand on the doorknob, looking at him. With a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, Alex nodded.

  Please don’t let it be the little girl.

  Slowly, Micah turned the knob and pushed the door open. When nothing untoward happened, he stepped inside, Alex following. The room was another bedroom, obviously belonging to a teenage boy with its posters of sports cars and football teams. The trail of blood ended at a single bed. The room was empty. Alex breathed a sigh of relief.

  Walking to the window, he looked down at the road outside. If it was possible, he thought there might be even more eaters out there now than there had been when they’d come into the house.

  Micah joined him, staring silently down at the street.

  “I’m going to clean my hands up,” Alex said.

  The bathroom had a fairly well stocked medicine cabinet and after washing the blood from his hands Alex took a tube of antiseptic cream and some gauze and bandages back to the bedroom where Micah was still watching the eaters outside.

  Fortunately, the sword wasn’t very sharp and the cuts Alex had sustained were long, but shallow, the bleeding all but stopped. He sat down on the bed, dropped his supplies, and began to apply the cream.

  “How are we going to get out of here?” Micah said.

  “Haven’t we had this conversation before?”

  He leaned against the windowsill and looked at Alex. “Oh what, you’d be happy to go out there with that lot?”

  Alex shrugged in what he hoped was a nonchalant manner. In truth, the prospect of going outside made him more than a little nervous when he wasn’t sure he smelled sufficiently like the new eaters to get away with it. Although even if he did, he still didn’t want to go out.

  Micah took his silence, accurately, for reluctance. “Yeah, didn’t think so.”

  “We may be safe here for tonight,” Alex said, ripping open a pack of sterile gauze with his teeth and pressing the square of material to his left palm. “Things may be different in the morning.”

  “Yes, or they may be worse.”

  “That is a possibility.”

  “I think we should try to get out tonight,” Micah said.

  “Why? Do you have family in the city?”

  “No.” Micah turned back to the window. “I just think we should, that’s all. We’re near the centre of town here. More people here, so more eaters.”

  Alex finished the finicky process of bandaging his left palm one handed and started on the right. “I do have one idea.”

  Micah looked back at him and frowned. “Will it end in my gory death?”

  Alex shrugged. “I’d give it a thirty, thirty-five percent chance that it won’t.”

  “Wow, that high?” He walked over to sit on the bed. “What is it?”

  Alex looked at his hand as he wound the bandage around his palm, not wanting to look at Micah. “Well, if we can convince the ea
ters you aren’t a potential food source, we can both just walk out.”

  “And how do you intend to do that?”

  “By disguising your smell with mine.”

  “I’m afraid to ask, but how?”

  Alex cleared his throat. “By rubbing my skin over you.”

  “You want to what?!”

  If he hadn’t been so uncomfortable with the idea himself, Micah’s look of sheer horror would have been enough to make Alex burst into laughter.

  “It’s that or die, your choice,” he said. “Don’t think I’m thrilled about it myself.”

  Micah pursed his lips. “Hm. Yeah, how do I know you don’t just want to cop a feel?”

  “Don’t flatter yourself,” Alex said, “you’re not my type.”

  “Oh, what, you like brunettes?”

  Alex snorted. “Yes. I’m also partial to boobs and vaginas.”

  The hint of a smile flitted across Micah’s face before vanishing again. “Fine, just get it over with.”

  “Um, there’s just one problem.”

  “Only one?”

  Alex kept staring at his hand. “Thing is, I’m not absolutely certain that they won’t attack me.”

  Micah stared at him. “What?”

  “If this is a different virus, or at least sufficiently different, the way I smell may mean nothing to these new eaters. They might go after me as much as you.” Alex cleared his throat again.

  “But at the station, you said...”

  “Yeah, I just wanted to make you suffer.”

  Micah narrowed his eyes. “You know, I didn’t think it was possible you could be any more annoying, but here we are.”

  “If you’re looking for an apology, you’re barking up the wrong tree. You led a mob onto my street, remember?”

  “Oh what, so that means I deserve to be eaten alive?”

  “I can hardly be expected to cut you any slack...”

  “Cut me any slack? When have you ever cut me any slack? The whole day you’ve got me into disaster after disaster. It’s a wonder I’m still alive.”

  “I’ve got you into disaster after disaster? If it wasn’t for me having to drag you along, I’d be home by now.”

  “How on earth did you work that out? You don’t even know if they’ll attack you or not.”

  “They might not.” Alex wondered why he was getting so angry. He put it down to a long day of being chased by people who wanted to either eat him or simply kill him, and a severe case of caffeine withdrawal.

  “Well, it seems to me,” Micah said, “that the only thing to be done is for you to go out there and see whether or not they attack you.”

  Alex knew Micah was right, but the smug tone in his voice made him want to disagree with everything he said. “That’s a stupid idea.”

  “Do you have any better ones?”

  “I... just give me a minute.”

  Alex secured the bandage and tried to think of something else they could do. Anything else they could do. After a few minutes he’d come up with nothing, other than throwing Micah out of the window and making a run for it while the eaters outside dined on annoying smartarse á la carte.

  He groaned out loud. “Alright,” he said, “I’ll go out there. But if I get into trouble, I expect you to start shooting eaters so I can get back in.”

  “Of course,” Micah said, his expression neutral.

  Alex was fairly sure he was lying. “I mean it. I could just throw you to them as a distraction while I got away.”

  “If it makes you feel good to think you could do that, go ahead.”

  Alex sighed and stood up. After throwing one last glare at Micah, he headed for the stairs. Why, of all the people to get stuck with during a Meir’s outbreak, did he have to get him? He should have stayed with the blonde from the phone box.

  Reaching the living room, Alex peered out through the window. Down at street level, the eaters just feet away, it looked ten times worse. This was a stupendously moronic idea. He had no illusions that Micah would help him in any way if things went south. If the eaters decided he smelled good enough to munch, that would be it.

  He topped up the magazine in his pistol from a clip in his bag, then went to the kitchen and found a knife. He decided against taking the sword. If things went wrong, he needed something he could use in close quarters, not to mention something he was vaguely proficient with.

  Going to the door, he peered out the spy hole. The eaters had lost interest in the house, or forgotten they were in there, and had moved away back down the steps into the garden. They were now wandering around, those who hadn’t found the open gate confined by the wall which was proving too much of an obstacle to overcome without any motivation.

  Alex sighed, gripped his knife as tightly as he could without hurting the cuts on his hand, and turned the key. He opened the door enough to see out, making sure none of the eaters were paying him undue attention, then stepped through and pulled it closed behind him.

  He walked down the steps in front of the door, imitating the eaters with slow, clumsy movements. Most of them had moved away from directly in front of the house and were shuffling around the garden, heedlessly trampling the neat flowerbeds. Alex kept a careful watch for any reaction to him as he moved towards them.

  A few looked up and wandered over. Alex fought the urge to run screaming. At somewhere around five feet away, they paused, raising their heads. They didn’t actually sniff the air, but Alex knew they were mulling over his scent. He flicked his eyes back to the door, then up at Micah, just visible at the partially open bedroom window. If this wasn’t going to work, he was going to have to run.

  After several terrifying seconds when he saw his life flashing before his eyes, but only the bad parts, the eaters turned away and went back to their aimless shuffling. He breathed out and glanced up at Micah. The window closed.

  Alex took the opportunity to look around. Wandering over to the three foot high wall, he looked up and down the residential street. Lights were visible in some of the houses. Eaters, of course, were clustered around those houses more than the others. He wasn’t sure how they knew that light meant people. Maybe some vestigial, basic memories remained even when higher brain function left.

  He wished now that he’d learned more about what happened to the brain of a person infected with Meir’s, but before he was bitten he didn’t really care, and afterwards he didn’t want to think about it. He couldn’t remember anything from the month he had spent as an eater, shackled to a hospital bed surrounded by bars, but after he recovered he’d had dreams of feeling a deep hunger. It terrified him. For a while he was afraid he would turn again, even though he knew it was impossible. While physically he was cured, it had taken him a long time to get over the mental trauma. In some ways, he wasn’t sure he ever really had.

  He wished he could tell the people to hide their lights, but that would mean going out onto the road and he wasn’t sure if he was ready for that. Although if he did...

  He thought about it, about just leaving now and walking home from here. He had his gun and a knife. He’d have to leave the rifle and sword with Micah. The sword, especially, would be a wrench. He’d never owned a sword and his inner nine-year-old couldn’t contain itself at how cool he would look to be wielding it through an outbreak. But on the other hand, getting home would be nice. He was worried about his friends, especially Leon, Pat, Emma and Katie. If anything happened to those little girls, he would never forgive himself.

  And then there was Micah. He still didn’t know if he could trust him not to get him killed. Or to kill Alex himself. He felt a twinge of guilt at just abandoning him, surrounded by eaters, but he had no doubt Micah could take care of himself. And he would have a rifle and an uber cool sword.

  Alex took a step towards the gate.

  One of the eaters, a short, greying man, wandered past, its shoulder nudging his arm. Without thinking, Alex glanced at it. It turned its head towards him, lifting its face.

  There was
a pause. The eater sniffed.

  In a heartbeat, its expression changed from vacant to ravenous. Moaning, it lunged at him, mouth gaping wide.

  Alex leaped back, stumbling into another eater, this one a woman. It too opened its mouth and came for him, smudged red lipstick coated lips gaping. He shoved its shoulder and it spun away, falling. The commotion caught the attention of the other eaters in the garden, plus some on the road. Soon he was in the middle of a scrum of eaters scrabbling to catch hold of him.

  He pushed past a middle-aged man reaching for his arm. The man caught hold of his jacket and pulled. More eaters lunged for him.

  Shots rang out and several eaters dropped to the ground, thinning the press around him. But the man still clutched his jacket. Without any other choice, Alex pulled the knife from his belt and plunged it into the man’s ear. Its grip loosened as it fell, tripping up a couple of eaters behind it.

  Alex ran. He dodged an eater in front of the steps, bounded up the stairs and pulled the door open. He slammed it behind him and turned the key. Thuds rained on the outside of the door again.

  He ran through to the kitchen, dropped the knife into the sink and turned on the hot water. After ripping off his bandages, he grabbed the bottle of washing up liquid and squeezed a large puddle into his palm, scrubbing and rinsing repeatedly, ignoring the pain in his cut skin.

  Rapid footsteps descended the stairs.

  “What happened?” Micah said as he ran into the kitchen.

  “Check the cupboards for bleach,” Alex said, still washing his hands as he shuffled his feet to one side so he wasn’t blocking the doors beneath the sink.

  Micah pulled the doors open and leaned down to look, eventually straightening with a yellow bottle in his hand.

  Alex rinsed again and held his hands out over the sink. “Pour it on.”

  Micah looked at his hands, which had started to bleed again. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. Do it.”

  Micah upended the bottle, pouring bleach all over Alex’s hands. Alex clamped his mouth shut and whimpered as his wounds erupted in agony. Gritting his teeth, he worked the liquid into his palms then rinsed thoroughly.