After twenty minutes or so, and at least six plays of The Birdie Song, the entire house was surrounded by a crowd of eaters. For a moment, Alex imagined them all spontaneously launching into the elbow flapping, butt waggling dance, like a real life, slightly stranger version of the Thriller video. He almost laughed out loud.
“That worked way better than I thought it would,” Micah whispered.
“Yeah,” Alex replied. “Now let’s get out of here. If I have to listen to that one more time I’m going to rip my own ears off.”
17
Micah led the way down the hill through the birches and willows in the park, past a small lake, then up another slope to a gate in a tall chain link fence, and back onto the streets.
For the most part they were able to dodge the roaming eaters, but on occasion found themselves unable to avoid them. They had developed a system whereby Micah would attract their attention while Alex darted in behind them and utilised the skull-spiker. It was well designed; in and out smoothly as if the bone was made of balsa, no peripheral damage, no spatter, wipe off the brain matter, next customer please. Effective.
Distasteful.
Half an hour after leaving the house, they came to a small huddle of three 1960s ten storey blocks of flats. Grey and uninspiring, they were separated by concrete paths, grassy areas with “No Ball Games” signs and the occasional sad looking shrub.
They ducked behind a low wall surrounding a children’s playground.
“Home sweet home,” Micah said, without enthusiasm.
Alex looked at an abandoned sofa rotting against the side of the nearest block. “It’s lovely.”
“It’s a dump. But it’s a cheap dump.”
“Which one’s yours?” Alex said.
Micah jerked his head at the furthest building. “Oxford Heights.”
A smattering of eaters wandered around the area, with almost no cover between the playground and the door. Alex looked up at the buildings. He saw scared faces at some of the windows, curtains twitching at others. There were probably hundreds trapped, terrified, in their flats.
“What do you say to clearing the area?” Alex said.
Micah raised his eyebrows in a silent question.
“We can’t clear the buildings, but we can give these people a fighting chance out here if they try to leave,” Alex continued.
Micah followed Alex’s gaze up to the windows. He opened his bag and removed a second black glove to add to the one he was already wearing, sliding it onto his left hand and tugging it up to his elbow. Then he flicked out both of his skull-spikers.
“Let’s do it.”
Leaving the bag by the wall, they stepped out into the open.
The closest eaters were only thirty feet or so away and they immediately began lumbering towards them. Micah ran forward, easily dodging the grasping hands of the nearest and spinning round to plunge a skull-spiker into its temple. Alex took care of the next one with much less grace, but just as effectively, as he swept one leg out from beneath it and dropped to one knee to deliver the killing strike through its forehead.
Scattered as they were, the eaters only came at them in ones and twos and it took less than five minutes to dispatch the fifteen or so wandering around the area. Breathing heavily, Alex watched a final eater shuffle towards Micah, but instead of stepping in and stabbing it with the lethal efficiency he’d used with the others, he stumbled back away from it.
It was a woman, maybe in her late sixties, short and plump, wearing a blue fleece and baggy grey trousers.
“Mrs Jacobs,” Micah gasped, shaking his head. “No.”
Alex ran towards them, grabbing the eater from behind and pushing it to the ground. He pinned it in place with a knee in the small of its back.
“Micah?”
A tear rolled down Micah’s cheek. He stripped off a glove and wiped at his eyes, still staring at the eater.
“She lives next door to me,” he said. “She bakes me cookies every Sunday.” His voice broke on the last word and he turned away, walking a few steps and stopping. “She doesn’t deserve this.”
Alex looked down at the woman beneath him as she struggled to push him off. “Do you want me to do it?”
“No, I...” He clenched his fists and turned back. “She has a son in Cardiff. She was going to move out there in a couple of months. She was really looking forward to it. She’s one of the nicest people I’ve ever met. We can’t just kill her.”
“Micah, she’s gone. She doesn’t even know her own name anymore.”
His expression hardened. “You were gone, but you came back.”
“I was being treated.”
“How do you know there isn’t a cure out there that can help her? Maybe that secret laboratory was working on a cure. You don’t know she can’t be helped. You don’t.”
Alex looked around at the bodies of the eaters they had killed. Each one of them had had people who loved them, just like Mrs Jacobs. He couldn’t allow himself to think there may be a cure, because if he did, he knew he was a murderer. Once someone turned, if they weren’t being treated they might as well have died. The person they were was gone forever. That was all there was to it.
But when he looked up at Micah, he knew it would be pointless trying to convince him. They were both coping in their own ways.
“Okay,” Alex said, “but what are we going to do with her?”
Micah looked down for a moment as he thought. “She gave me a key to her flat for emergencies,” he said. “We can leave her in there. Then if we can help her, we can come back.”
Alex nodded. “We need something to tie her hands with.”
Micah retrieved the bag from where they’d left it and pulled out one of the rolls of duct tape he’d taken from the house.
“Brilliant stuff, duct tape,” he said as he grasped Mrs Jacobs’ hands and crossed her wrists behind her, taping them together. “If there’s anything you want during a Meir’s outbreak, it’s duct tape.” He straightened. “And a large selection of weapons.”
Alex pulled her to her feet and Micah placed another length over her mouth. She tried to eat it.
Getting Mrs Jacobs to walk in the direction they wanted to go proved to be a problem, until Micah played the carrot, walking ahead while Alex kept hold of her arms as she strained to get to her neighbour, her moans muffled behind the tape.
Once inside, Micah headed for the door marked stairs.
“What about the lift?” Alex said, seeing the ground floor indicator lit.
Micah hit the up button as he passed. Nothing happened.
“They were supposed to fix it the day this all started,” he said. “I’m guessing the repair man had more pressing matters to deal with.”
“Which floor do you live on?” Alex said.
“Seven,” Micah said, his shoulders slumped.
Stairs proved to be as much of a problem for Mrs Jacobs as they were for the early Daleks. Even with Micah ahead of her to lure her upwards, she kept tripping and landing on her knees or her face. Then Alex would have to haul her upright again and they’d carry on.
During one fall, the duct tape over her mouth loosened and disappeared into her mouth. Her neck undulated.
“Did she just swallow that?” Alex said as she turned and snapped at him.
Micah shrugged and unzipped the bag, pulling out the tape. They used two lengths this time.
It was half an hour before they finally made it, exhausted, to the seventh floor. Mrs Jacobs looked like she’d gone ten rounds with Mike Tyson, but she was, of course, feeling no pain. Micah retrieved her key from his flat while Alex kept Mrs Jacobs company in the corridor, and finally they were able to deposit her in the comfort of her own home.
“If we can, we’ll be back,” Micah said to her, “I promise.”
They removed the gag and cut the duct tape from her wrists, leaving her in the bedroom and closing the door so she couldn’t access the rest of the flat. Micah wrote a warning note and taped it t
o bedroom door, then they left the flat.
“Mikey!”
Startled by the sudden shriek, Alex almost dropped the bag. He turned to see a young, blonde woman explode from a doorway on the opposite side of the hallway and throw herself at Micah, flinging her arms around him.
“I thought you were dead for sure,” she snivelled from the region of his chest.
Micah wrapped his arms around her. “I just got held up.”
She looked up at him and smiled. Alex noticed that, although she had been making sobbing sounds, her makeup was flawless and no moisture was evident on her cheeks. He also noticed her well developed bust, her perfectly proportioned body, her gorgeous face and her long, silky hair. In that order.
He’d have liked to say he wasn’t jealous of the man getting all her attention, but he’d have been lying.
“Oh, Mikey, I’m so glad you’re here,” she breathed.
Alex cleared his throat.
Micah glanced at him. “Uh, Brenda, this is Alex.”
Brenda unwound herself from Micah’s neck and looked at Alex for the first time. Eyes widening, she flinched away from him. Alex gave an internal sigh.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Brenda,” he said, smiling.
“Alex saved my life,” Micah said.
“Five times,” Alex added.
“Three,” Micah said.
“Oh, well then, I should thank you,” Brenda said, giving him a tiny smile.
“Bren?”
Alex tore his eyes from Brenda’s stunning features to see a man appear at her door.
“Rob, baby, look who’s back,” Brenda said, smiling widely. Alex hadn’t known the human mouth could contain so many perfectly white teeth.
Rob’s expression said that he wasn’t nearly as happy to see Micah as Brenda was. “Oh, you made it,” he said, without enthusiasm. “That’s great.”
Micah narrowed his eyes. “Good to see you too, Rob.”
Brenda was still smiling her hundred megawatt smile, either oblivious to the animosity between the two men, or uncaring. “Rob came yesterday, all the way from his place to take care of me,” she said, stepping in next to Rob. He put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close, giving Micah a small smirk.
“Really?” Micah said. “He came all the way from his flat half a mile away? Wow.”
Brenda’s smile grew even bigger. “Isn’t he brave? He said he had to fight off at least thirty eaters to get here. Isn’t that right, babe?”
Rob suddenly looked uncomfortable, muttering a quiet, “Yeah.”
“Wow,” Micah said again. “That’s unbelievable.”
Rob glared at him.
Micah smiled.
“Oh,” Brenda said, waving a hand in Alex’s direction, “and this is Alex.”
Alex took a step in Rob’s direction. “Nice to meet you.”
Rob swallowed and stepped back. “You too. Well, Bren, we should get back inside.”
“Oh, yeah.” She gave Micah another hug. “I’m really glad you’re back.”
Rob looked like steam might start coming from his ears.
“We’re not staying,” Micah said, keeping his hands on Brenda’s waist. “We have other things to do.”
She gasped. “Out there? But it’s dangerous.”
“Don’t worry about me,” he said, “I can look after myself.”
“Well, be careful.”
He smiled down at her. “I will.”
She reached up to kiss his cheek then stepped back into Rob’s arms. He almost pulled her back into the flat and slammed the door shut.
“That was entertaining,” Alex said as Micah bent to scoop up his post from the doormat and led the way into his flat, closing the door behind them.
“She’s a sweet girl,” Micah said, dropping the letters onto a coffee table.
“And hot.”
Micah grinned. “Oh yes.”
He walked into the small kitchen off the main living area and opened the fridge, removing a can of coke and holding it out to Alex, then taking another for himself.
Alex lowered into an armchair and flicked open the tab with a soft hiss. “Have you and she ever...?”
Micah gave an exaggerated sigh. “Sadly not. She was already with Rob when I moved in.”
“I thought, the way he was behaving...”
Micah took a long drink then shook his head. “He’s just paranoid about her. But if I had a girlfriend who looked like that, I’d probably be the same.” He placed his half empty can onto the small dining table. “I’m going to take a quick shower. If you want to replace those bandages, I’ve got medical stuff in the drawer in the kitchen. And there’s food in the fridge. I think I might have a couple of microwaveable pizzas in the freezer.”
Alex’s saliva glands went into overdrive at the mention of pizza.
“Micah?” he said as he headed for the bedroom. “How come I’m not even allowed to call you Mike, but Brenda calls you Mikey?”
Micah looked back at him. “When you grow long blonde hair, a pair of double D cups and legs that go on forever, you can call me Mikey too.”
. . .
The dressing on his arm seemed to be holding up okay, but the bandages on his hands were filthy and loose again. Alex was beginning to wonder why he ever bothered dressing them in the first place. He cleaned the cuts on his palms and re-bandaged them with what he found in the kitchen drawer, then found the pizzas and wandered back into the living room while the microwave did its thing.
He had a look around. Some might have called it snooping, he preferred to think of it as getting to know his enemy. Or his former enemy. Or whatever Micah was now. Alex wasn’t entirely sure, but he thought ‘friend’ might be stretching it a bit. “Person he trusted not to kill him in his sleep” was perhaps the most accurate description.
He studied the pile of letters on the coffee table without moving them, but they were mostly junk mail. A framed photo on the wall of a happy family showed Micah with an older couple and a teenage girl, the group smiling in front of a vista of green hills and fields.
There were two tall bookcases against one wall and he walked over to take a look. Micah had a wide variety of tastes in reading matter. There were novels, mostly thriller and science fiction, books on history, photography and martial arts, a few in depth textbooks on anatomy, and a selection of anti-Survivor propaganda.
The microwave beeped.
After a moment’s hesitation, Alex pulled one of the propaganda books from the shelf, fetched his pizza, set a second one heating for Micah, and settled down for a little light reading as he ate.
The title was cheery, The Meir’s Agenda: The Plot to Take Over Britain. After five minutes, his pizza was getting cold and his mouth was hanging open.
Micah walked into the living room. “What are you reading?” he said, going into the kitchen and returning with his pizza.
Alex lifted the book to show him the cover. Micah winced, running his hand over his wet hair as he sat in an armchair.
“Yeah, that one’s a bit extreme.”
“A bit? I thought I’d heard most of this stuff, but this one is insane. Do people really believe a secret organisation is building an army of Survivors?”
Micah shrugged. “Some.”
“Do you?”
“No, he’s completely out of his mind.”
Alex closed the book and put it down so he could eat. “So why do you have it?”
“Bates gave it to me a few years ago. He has some extreme views.”
Alex took a bite of lukewarm, microwaved pizza. He was so hungry it didn’t even bother him. “How’d you get mixed up with him anyway?”
Micah stared out the window for a while before answering. “There was a girl in university. Caroline. We met in my first week there and we became friends. She was beautiful and funny and way out of my league, but she liked me anyway.” He paused, closing his eyes. “We’d been together for six months when she was abducted one night by a white-
eye. They found her body the next morning. Because her family lived a long way away, I had to identify her. The things he’d done to her...” He took a shuddering breath, staring down at his plate. “She didn’t have a chance.”
It wasn’t what Alex had been expecting. A deep anger at the man who had used his second chance at life to do something so terrible burned at him. Some people didn’t deserve to be one of the twenty-five percent. Painting all Survivors with the same brush was undoubtedly wrong, but now he understood why Micah had done what he had. As he thought about it, he couldn’t say for sure that he would have reacted any differently in the same situation.
“Did they catch him?” he said.
Micah nodded. “He was a gardener on the campus. He got life. After Caroline was murdered, I was a mess. Dropped out of uni, tried to drink away the pain. Bates contacted me after the case was in the news. I was nineteen and angry and grieving. At the time, the things he said made sense to me. I thought he had the answers. Later I realised I was wrong.”
Alex didn’t know what to say. It didn’t seem like nearly enough, but he said it anyway, and meant it. “I’m really sorry.”
Micah glanced at him and smiled slightly. “Thanks.”
They chewed in silence.
“That looks like some heavy duty stuff on anatomy,” Alex said after a while.
Micah looked at the large tomes in the bookcase and smiled. “Yeah. I was planning to become a doctor.”
“You ever think of going back?”
He seemed to think about it. “Sometimes. If we get through this, maybe I will one day. Without all the Survivor-badgering, I’m going to need something to fill my free time.”
Alex looked at his final bite of pizza and smiled. “Sounds like a good plan to me. Any chance of more pizza?”
. . .
Altogether, they were in Micah’s flat for around an hour and a half.
It was nice to relax, get away from what was going on outside, if only for a short time. Alex’s head felt like it was spinning with the whole thing. But for a while it was just two men who weren’t going to kill each other, putting their feet up, eating pizzas and weighing up England’s chances in the next World Cup.
Mutation (Twenty-Five Percent Book 1) Page 18