Mutation (Twenty-Five Percent Book 1)

by Wheatley, Nerys

  Pressed against the wall in that section, as far away from the eater’s grasping hands as possible, was...

  “Micah?”

  “Just do whatever she says,” he said, eyeing the eater warily. He was wearing a t-shirt and briefs, as if he’d just got out of bed.

  Kerry stroked her hand down Alex’s bicep. He shrugged her away.

  “The door between them is set on a timer,” she said. “If before,” she glanced at a clock on the wall, “half an hour or so I don’t key in the code to stop it, it will open and my gorgeous friend there gets a fresh meal. George will be very pleased. It’s been so long since he’s eaten live meat. He misses it so.”

  She walked up to the cage and the eater turned its attention to her, reaching through the bars. Keeping out of its grasp, she stroked its arm with something approaching affection.

  “How on earth did she get you in there?” Alex said, scanning for some way to get Micah out.

  Micah looked awkward, not answering.

  “Oh, he wasn’t as resistant to my wiles as you are,” Kerry said. “It wasn’t difficult to lure him in here.”

  Alex threw Micah a deprecating look. “Seriously?”

  “She was naked. What was I supposed to do?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, think with your brain instead of your dick?”

  “And how did she get a gun on you?”

  “She took me by surprise.”

  “Yeah, right, and how much clothing was she wearing when she surprised you?”

  “That had nothing to do with anything...”

  Kerry sighed loudly. “Alex, the timer is running down. If you want your friend to live, you will give me what I want.”

  “No,” he said.

  Micah gaped at him. “I’m about to be eaten in here! Give the crazy woman what she wants.” He looked at Kerry. “What do you want?”

  Kerry looked at Alex. “I want to bear his child.”

  There were several long seconds of silence. It was Micah who spoke first.

  “I’m sorry, what did you just say?”

  “She wants me to impregnate her,” Alex said. “Which I’m not going to do.”

  George moaned.

  “Look,” Micah said, “while I can appreciate your reluctance, under the circumstances could you not put aside your morals,” his voice suddenly rose to a shriek, “and just bang the loony chick so I don’t die in here!” The eater became excited at the shouting and Micah jabbed his finger at it. “And you can just shut up,” he yelled, sounding mildly hysterical.

  Alex was studying the cage. While the door between the two sections was on a timer, its control panel mounted on the wall behind Kerry, the doors leading out into the rest of the room were key operated. She didn’t appear to have the keys on her, but he knew they must be close. Maybe if he could lull her into a false sense of security, he could get the gun away from her and find them.

  “Alright,” he said to Kerry. “Let’s go back to your bedroom and I’ll do what you want.”

  “No,” she said, “in here.”

  Alex and Micah spoke at the same time. “What?”

  “I want to keep an eye on him,” she said, indicating Micah, “and besides, George always likes to watch. It’s very arousing.” She smirked.

  “I think I may vomit,” Micah said.

  Alex suppressed a shudder.

  She backed away from Alex to a sideboard beneath the timer panel and opened a drawer, rummaging inside. “Take off your jeans and put these on behind you.”

  She tossed him a pair of handcuffs. He caught them out of the air and looked at them. Once he had them on, there was no way he’d be able to overpower her while she had the gun. They didn’t look like the special reinforced eater cuffs the police used, so he’d probably be able to break them, but not before she realised what he was doing.

  If he was going to try anything, he had to do it now.

  Taking hold of the edges of his t-shirt, he pulled it off over his head, taking a couple of steps towards her as he did so. Her eyes travelled down his bare torso and she licked her lips.

  “Oh crap, I do not want to see this,” Micah muttered, turning away.

  Keeping his eyes on Kerry, Alex dropped his hands to the waistband of his jeans and unfastened the button slowly, taking another step forward. Her eyes fixed on his crotch. The pistol wavered slightly.

  Alex sprang forward, grabbing for the gun. Kerry yelped in surprise, jerking her hand up out of the way. The end of the barrel hit the control panel for the cage. With a barely audible beep, a green light went on.

  “Alex!”

  He glanced at Micah at the sound of his panicked voice in time to see the door separating him from George the hungry eater begin to slide open.

  Then his world exploded in pain.

  He staggered back, clutching at his crotch as Kerry lowered her knee. He would have felt stupid if he wasn’t busy feeling like his testicles were being incinerated from the inside. Stars flashed on the periphery of his vision.

  “Hurry,” Micah yelled.

  The bars were still sliding open. The eater hadn’t yet noticed that the gap was wide enough to get through, but it wouldn’t be long.

  Kerry raised the pistol again. Trying to ignore the agony, Alex lunged at her, grabbing the gun before she could aim. But she wasn’t letting go.

  “All I wanted was your sperm,” she spat out, “but you men are so afraid of commitment.”

  She tried to knee him in the groin again, but he shuffled back out of the way, his eyes still watering with the pain from the first time. He tried to pull the weapon from her grasp.

  The gun went off. Alex heard a metallic ricochet somewhere.

  Micah yelled.

  Alex glanced over to see him crouched and ready as the eater lurched through into his section. There was a bullet hole in the wall near to his head.

  With a shriek, Kerry kicked at Alex’s leg, connecting with his knee. Pain exploded in his kneecap. Ignoring it, he yanked the gun from her grasp with his right hand, drew back his left, and punched her squarely in the face.

  She dropped to the floor, unconscious.

  Micah grunted and Alex turned to see him plant a jump kick into the eater’s chest as it lunged at him. It staggered backwards, but rapidly regained its balance and came at him again.

  “Do something,” Micah growled as he dodged away from the eater’s grasping hands.

  Alex yanked open the drawer from where Kerry had pulled the cuffs, frantically searching for the keys to the cage. When he didn’t find them, he pulled open the two remaining drawers, with no luck.

  “I can’t find the keys,” he said.

  “Then shoot it,” Micah replied, landing two rapid punches into the eaters ribs followed by a roundhouse kick.

  “You’re too close,” Alex said, “you’ll be infected.” He limped up to the bars and banged on them, trying to attract George’s attention. It didn’t work.

  Micah was trying to avoid its grasp, but with barely any room to manoeuvre it wasn’t working well. The eater lunged at him and he was suddenly backed into the corner, grabbing its wrists. He grimaced, groaning with exertion as the eater pushed towards him.

  “I can’t hold it,” he wheezed.

  Alex pointed the pistol through the bars. “Go under its arms and get to the other end of the cage as fast as you can. Then cover your head.”

  He didn’t know if it would be enough, but they were out of options.

  Micah glanced at him and nodded in understanding. Abruptly, he let go of the eater’s wrists and darted beneath its arms as it stumbled forwards against the wall. He sprinted through to the other section of the cage, dropped into a ball against the far wall, and covered his head with his arms.

  George began to turn around. Taking careful aim, Alex fired at the eater’s head. The gunshot echoed around the small space. Blood spattered the walls. George dropped to the floor and lay still.

  Returning to where Kerry was lying unmoving on
the floor, Alex cuffed one of her wrists to a nearby radiator. Then he sank to the floor out of her reach and closed his eyes.

  He whimpered slightly.

  “Is there any blood on me? Tell me, is there any blood on me?”

  Alex grimaced at Micah’s panicked voice. “Could you give me a minute? My balls feel like they’re being blowtorched.” He curled into the foetal position, holding the throbbing part of his anatomy.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, is my imminent death inconveniencing you? If we’d known what wimps Survivors were, Bates never would have bothered.”

  Without moving anything else, Alex raised one hand in Micah’s direction and extended his middle finger into the air.

  He stirred a minute later when he heard Kerry groan, pushing himself to a seated position. Micah was standing in the cage glaring at him, arms wrapped around his torso. He’d removed his t-shirt which was now lying on the floor behind him, leaving him in just his briefs.

  “There was a spot on it,” he said. “I don’t know if it was blood, but I’m not taking any chances. Now could you find the key so I can get out of here? I’m freezing.”

  Hearing the handcuffs clink, Alex turned to see Kerry open her eyes and put a hand to her face where he’d punched her.

  “You hit me,” she mumbled. “I can’t believe you hit me.” She sat up, only then noticing that her left hand was cuffed. She frowned, turning towards Alex. “Hey, what...” And then she saw George’s inert form lying in the cage, blood dribbling from the wound in its head.

  She screamed. Not just a cry of distress, but an astonishingly loud, shrill note that went on for what seemed like forever and bored into Alex’s skull like a rusty drill bit. He hadn’t known the human voice could even make that kind of sound.

  Micah clamped his hands over his ears.

  Kerry stopped screaming, took a deep breath, and started again.

  “For goodness’ sake, stop her!” Micah shouted over the terrible sound.

  Alex got to his feet and walked over to her, stopping out of reach of any kicks she might send his way. “Kerry...”

  She stopped screaming and looked up at him. Her face twisted in hatred. “You killed him,” she snarled. “You killed my fiancé.”

  Despite the circumstances, Alex felt bad. Maybe the loss of the man she loved to Meir’s had driven her over the edge. “You were engaged to George before he turned?”

  She looked at him as if he was insane. “Of course not. George and I met after he’d been infected, when he’d reached perfection.” Her eyes welled up with tears. “Our wedding was in two weeks.” She slumped on the floor and began to sob, then looked up at Alex again and screeched, “I HATE YOU!”

  “Um, Alex?”

  He walked back to where Micah was standing in the cage.

  “Just a suggestion, but how about you find the keys and get me out of here before psycho bitch over there chews her own hand off to get free and slaughters us both. Hmm?”

  “Okay, I’ll check her bedroom. Don’t go anywhere.”

  “Ha. Ha.”

  Alex grabbed his t-shirt from the chair where he’d tossed it and slipped it on as he headed from the room. Throwing a final glance at Kerry, he found her staring at him with an expression of such malevolent loathing that his mouth went dry. If looks could kill, he would have been stretched over a raging fire while being flayed alive.

  Kerry’s bedroom was both surprising and yet not unexpected. Several pairs of handcuffs dangled from the headboard of the king sized bed. As he rifled through drawers, he came across a wide variety of sex toys. He didn’t even know what some of them were. Her underwear drawer would have made Ann Summers blush.

  The insanity and Meir’s fetishist thing was a pity; the rest of her quirks he could have lived with.

  He found himself thinking about George as he searched. Who was he? How long ago had he turned? How did Kerry manage to get him here? Was his name even George? And, most disturbing of all, how had Kerry been feeding him? The whole situation was unsettling. Were there others like her, keeping eaters locked up like pets in homes across the world? The thought made him shudder. No-one deserved to live like that, not even an eater. Especially not an eater. As far as Alex was concerned, only death was preferable to the non-existence of infection with Meir’s.

  After a few minutes of foraging, he finally found a keyring in a drawer in one of the bedside tables. Several keys were attached, some obviously for the handcuffs and a couple that looked like they might fit the doors on the cage.

  When he got back to the cage room, Kerry had transferred her stare of intense hatred to Micah, who was looking uncomfortable.

  “Finally,” he said when Alex appeared. “She is really beginning to freak me out.”

  Alex began trying keys.

  “Why didn’t you smell George in here?” Micah said, watching him work on the lock.

  “I’m not a bloodhound,” Alex replied. “It’s like the perfume section of Debenhams out there.” The lock clicked and he pulled the door open.

  “I am going to take a very thorough shower,” Micah muttered as he stalked from the room, throwing a glare at Kerry as he passed.

  After a few seconds of fiddling around with the buttons on the control panel for the cage, Alex managed to close the door between the two sections. He then stared at Kerry, trying to decide what to do. She stared back.

  He wanted to put her into the side of the cage without George’s body, but he also very much wanted to not have his testicles subjected to any more trauma.

  “Okay,” he said, “I want you to know that I’m not unsympathetic to those suffering from mental illness, but you did just try to kill Micah and force me to impregnate you, so I can’t have you running around loose.”

  “I’m not mentally ill,” she said, indignant. “There’s nothing wrong with my mind.”

  “Whatever. The thing is, I’m going to put you in the cage there and I would like to be able to do it without having to knock you out again. So, if I uncuff you, will you agree to just go quietly in without any struggle?”

  She stared at him for a couple of seconds in silence, then a smile spread over her face. All of a sudden, she looked like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. “Of course.”

  Alex sighed, briefly wondering if he should wait for Micah to get back. Then he imagined the ribbing he’d get for not being able to deal with the woman by himself.

  “I won’t hesitate to punch you again,” he said, without much hope the threat would work.

  The slight smirk on Kerry’s lips filled him with trepidation as he approached her. Giving her a wide berth, he circled around to the radiator and lowered onto one knee to try the keys on the handcuffs, tensed all the while for any sudden movement on Kerry’s part.

  “Give me your other hand,” he said when he felt the lock click.

  She obediently moved her free hand behind her back. Feeling more nervous than he ever had when facing an eater, Alex removed the cuff from the radiator pipe and locked it around her free wrist, fixing her hands behind her back. When they were secure, he let out the breath he was holding and stood, pulling her up with him.

  “Okay, that wasn’t so bad. Now...”

  Kerry rammed her head backwards, driving her skull into Alex’s nose. He grunted in pain, staggering back as he clutched at his face. His hand came away bloody.

  Then she stamped on his bare foot.

  He wasn’t certain, with the searing agony making it hard to know exactly what happened, but he may have screamed like a little girl.

  He lunged forward, grabbing her around the waist from behind, and lifted her up, her arms pinned at her sides. He tightened his grip as she struggled. When she tried to head butt him again, he jerked his head to one side. He couldn’t help feeling smug when she missed. The elation was short lived, however, as she kicked her right heel back and pain erupted in his shin.

  Agony throbbing from multiple points on his body, he staggered to the cage and, with a roar, threw he
r through the door. He slammed it shut and locked it behind her.

  Kerry ran to the bars separating her from George’s body and dropped to her knees, sobbing. Under other circumstances, Alex may have been touched. But those circumstances wouldn’t have involved him blinking back tears of pain and wondering if anything was broken. He gently probed his nose and was relieved to find it intact, if very, very sore.

  The door flew open and Micah ran in, clutching a towel around his waist, his hair dripping water onto his shoulders.

  “What?” he gasped, looking around frantically. “I heard a scream.”

  “Nothing,” Alex said, wiping the blood from beneath his nose and limping past him towards his bedroom. “It’s all under control.”

  . . .

  Alex winced as he flexed his foot, inspecting the bruise starting to form on the top. At least it wasn’t broken, but walking wasn’t going to be comfortable.

  In the past two days, he’d had his palms sliced and been stabbed in the arm, and in the last half an hour been head butted, kicked and possibly had his ability to father children compromised. All by normal people, at least on the surface of things. He was beginning to think that the eaters weren’t the real problem in this outbreak.

  There was a knock on the door.

  “Come in,” he called, still studying his foot as the door opened.

  “Eww, that doesn’t look good.” Micah leaned against the doorframe, his hands in his pockets.

  “Are you talking about my nose or my foot? If you could see the bruise on my shin, I’d add that as an option too.”

  “Maybe you should save something for the eaters,” Micah said. “At this rate, there’ll be nothing left of you to eat.”

  “Well, the next time there’s a crazed woman to deal with, you can take point.”

  “Hey, I fought an eater with my bare hands,” Micah said, the corners of his mouth twitching.

  “Yeah, and didn’t get a scratch.”