“It’s a good weapon,” Alex said. “I’m not going to leave it, then later, when I’m being eaten alive, wish I’d brought it along.”
“It’s a health hazard. Just don’t use it anywhere near me. I’d like to keep all my limbs.”
“Yes, mum.”
On the other side of the street, a door opened and Janie walked out. She was carrying a small backpack, slipping her arms into it as she walked up to them.
“Morning,” she said. “I was beginning to think you were going to sleep all day.”
“One,” Alex said, “it’s only twenty past eight, and two, are you just here to berate me for wanting to sleep to a civilised hour? Which, by the way, I didn’t.”
He stared pointedly at Micah, who ignored him.
“I’m coming with you,” Janie said.
A panicked look crossed Micah’s face. “You are?”
“Yes, I am. I’m too cooped up here. Don’t get excited, it’s only to begin with. It’s time I found my son and brought him back here, where it’s safe.”
“I didn’t know you had much contact with him,” Alex said.
“I don’t, since his bastard father got custody and turned him against me, but I know where he lives and he’s coming with me if I have to carry him.”
Alex imagined her bringing home a struggling twenty-three year old man hanging over her shoulder. Her son didn’t stand a chance.
Janie smiled at Micah. “Don’t worry, I promise I won’t kill you unless you do something that deserves it.”
“Uh, could we maybe establish a list of things that in your opinion would deserve death?” Micah said. “I don’t want to look at you wrong and find myself with a hole in my chest.” He nodded at the scary-looking hunting knife tucked into her belt.
“We’ll discuss it on the way,” she said. “What happened to your face, by the way?”
Despite repeated scrubbing, not all of the flowers and butterflies had come off successfully the night before. Micah had been left with faint splotches of red, yellow and blue all over his face.
“Emma and Katie happened to his face,” Alex said, smiling.
Janie snorted. “It was a week before all mine came off.”
“A week?” Micah exclaimed in horror.
“I’m sure the eaters won’t mind,” she said. She turned away and strode down the road.
Micah sighed. “I can’t help thinking that this is not going to go well.”
“Do you want to tell her she can’t come?” Alex said.
“Not until I know it’s not on that list.”
Hearing a tapping sound, Alex looked up and saw Emma and Katie at their living room window, waving. Micah followed his gaze and they both waved back.
Alex couldn’t help wondering if he was doing the right thing, leaving his friends. It seemed safe here, but would it stay that way? But then again, did he really want to sit on his hands and wait for the danger to come, when he might be able to do something to stop it? He’d made his decision.
“Let’s go and find the bastards who did this,” he said, turning to follow Janie.
“Were you planning to drive or walk?” Janie said, once they were beyond the barrier of cars.
“The roads are terrible,” Alex said. “Lots of blockages. Even if we could get a car all the way there, the engine noise might attract eaters which would be bad if we suddenly got stuck. That’s what happened to the family we brought in yesterday.”
She grinned. “I have the perfect solution to that.”
. . .
They had to go out of their way to get there, but as they stood before the huge glass frontage, Alex had to admit it was worth it.
Surprisingly, the motorcycle dealership looked untouched. It was on the edge of an industrial estate not far from East Town and therefore out of the way of the casual looter. They made their way to the main entrance and pushed at the doors. Unsurprisingly, they were locked.
“I suppose we just break the glass then,” Janie said, scanning the ground for something that would do the job.
Alex tapped her shoulder and pointed at a sign mounted on the brickwork nearby.
Premises protected by Allsafe Security.
This building is alarmed.
“Maybe they just put it there to deter would be intruders,” she said.
He pointed at a box on the wall twenty feet above them.
“Maybe it’s fake,” she said.
“That’s a lot of maybes,” Micah said, looking around.
There weren’t any eaters in sight, and they hadn’t seen many on the way, but there were a lot of buildings surrounding them. A hundred eaters could easily be lurking nearby and they wouldn’t know it.
“We could knock,” Alex said. Micah and Janie stared at him. He shrugged. “There might be someone in there.”
“Go ahead,” Janie said.
Alex knocked on the glass of the door. Nothing happened. He tried again, louder. There was still no response. “Well, it didn’t hurt to try,” he said, a little defensively. “Let’s go round the back and see if there’s any way in there.”
The back wall was mostly taken up with a huge garage door and a small pedestrian entrance. Both were locked.
“I am not giving up on this,” Janie said when they were back at the front, looking through the glass at the shiny new motorbikes on display. “I’m just going to break in. We can grab the keys from the office over there,” she pointed at a door in one corner, “and be driving away before any eaters get anywhere near us.”
“One problem,” Micah said. “I have never ridden a motorbike in my life.”
Janie heaved a sigh and looked at Alex. “When does he start being useful?”
“I’m guessing long before you stop being a bitch,” Micah retorted.
She shook her head. “You explain to him how to ride and I’ll find something to break the glass.”
“If I haven’t killed her by the end of the day,” Micah said, “I will deserve a reward.”
“I heard that,” Janie called as she walked around the corner out of sight.
“You were meant to,” he called back.
By the time Janie returned, Alex had explained the basics of how to start, drive, and not fall over. He’d learned during his police training and had ridden on and off since, but he hadn’t been on a bike for over a year. The potential for falling off was significant. At least if he was eaten as a result, his embarrassment would be short lived.
Janie hefted the brick she’d found, preparing to throw it at the glass door.
“Wait, wait, wait,” Micah said. He closed his eyes and Alex watched his hands as he mimed what he would have to do to start the bike. “Okay, I’m ready.”
Janie rolled her eyes, drew her arm back and launched the brick at the door. Her target was thick safety glass, designed to not break easily. A normal person probably wouldn’t have been able to do much damage. But Janie was a Survivor.
The brick flew towards the door with tremendous power, the glass shattering on impact. Alex winced at the sound and looked around.
Janie ran inside, heading for the door in the far corner while Micah began pushing aside the glass from the entranceway with his foot. Alex stepped inside and managed to open the doorframe outwards with a couple of heavy kicks.
Glancing at the surrounding area, he thought he saw someone dart between two buildings some way away, too fast for an eater. He hoped whoever it was got to safety.
The alarm sounded. It was loud.
Really loud.
Hands covering his ears, Micah ran inside where it was marginally less ear-splitting. “Maybe it will actually drive the eaters away,” he yelled.
“Aaarrgh!”
Alex whirled around at the scream to see a middle-aged man in a grey suit running at him, clutching a crowbar above his head. He brought the makeshift weapon down in a clumsy swing and Alex danced back to avoid it. As he raised it to try again, Micah darted in behind him and grabbed it, almost pulling t
he man over backwards before he had the sense to let go. Janie was running back towards them.
“Sorry,” she shouted above the noise of the alarm, “he came out of the door like one of those springy snakes.”
“What on earth are you doing?” Alex yelled at him.
“You broke in!” the man yelled back.
“We knocked first!”
“I thought you were eaters.”
“Eaters that knock?”
“Or looters.”
“Looters that knock?”
“Can you turn this off?” Micah shouted, waving one finger around in the air. “Before it brings every eater in the city down on us?”
“Oh. Yeah.”
The man trotted back to the door in the corner, disappearing inside. A couple of seconds later, the alarm stopped. Sadly, the ringing in Alex’s ears didn’t. He tried rubbing them. It didn’t help.
“So if you’re not looters, what do you want?” the man said when he came back into the showroom. He stared at Micah for a moment. “What happened to your face?”
“While we’re not looters as such,” Micah said, ignoring the face comment, “we may not be a million miles away.”
The man blanched. “What?”
“What’s your name?” Janie said.
“Kenneth. My friends call me Kenny.”
“Well, Kenny,” Janie said, draping one arm around his shoulders, “we need to borrow three motorcycles to get across the city. I’d like to say you’ll get them back in one piece, but you probably won’t.”
Obviously recognising the futility of his situation, Kenny’s face dropped. “Why do you need to get across the city?”
“There’s a secret laboratory run by an evil corporation on the north side which may hold the answers as to what has been going on the last few days and how we can stop it,” Alex said.
Kenny stared at him. “No, honestly, why?”
“I need to find my son and make sure he’s alright,” Janie said, removing her arm from around his neck. He looked slightly disappointed.
“Oh.” Kenny looked at the motorcycles on display. “I don’t know. These bikes are worth a lot of money. If I lose them, Mr Jameson will probably fire me.”
“Does Mr Jameson live in the city?” Janie said.
“Yes.”
“Then the odds are he’s probably dead or an eater by now anyway.”
Kenny seemed to perk up at that. “You think so?”
“Uh, Alex?” Micah said.
Alex turned to see him staring out the window. Across a wide expanse of scrubland and car park, a smattering of eaters was beginning to emerge from between buildings. As he watched, more appeared.
“Kenny, we’re going to need to leave very, very soon,” he said.
Kenny took one look at the eaters and started to sob. “I’m going to die,” he said. “I’m too young to die. I haven’t even...”
Janie slapped him across the face. Kenny stopped sobbing and stared at her in shock.
“Kenny,” she said, grasping his shoulders and looking him in the eye, “you are not going to die. You are going to get us the keys to those two Hondas and the Suzuki and we are going to get out of here. Okay?”
He swallowed and nodded. “Okay.”
“Good,” she said. “Go. And bring us some helmets.”
She gave him a shove in the direction of the office. He stumbled for a couple of steps then found his balance and ran back across the showroom floor.
Alex walked over to one of the Hondas Janie had indicated and ran his hand over the leather seat. The new vehicle smell assaulting him was switching on all kinds of Y-chromosome related pleasure centres. Then he looked out the window at the growing crowd of eaters approaching, effectively switching them all off again.
He estimated they were about sixty feet away.
“Kenny,” he shouted, “now would be good.”
Kenny staggered from the office struggling to hold onto four black crash helmets. Janie ran forward to take two of them.
“Keys?” she said.
“In that one.” He pointed to one of the helmets she was carrying.
Janie pulled out three sets of keys. “What about you?” she said.
Kenny looked sheepish. “I just do the admin and accounts. I can’t actually ride one. If I could get a lift...?”
Janie actually smiled. “Kenny, you’ve given us three brand new bikes. I’d say you can get a lift.”
“I get abuse for not being able to ride,” Micah muttered, strapping his helmet on. “Kenny gets a smile.”
“Just be glad she hasn’t killed you yet,” Alex said. He raised his voice and called to Kenny, “Can we get out of here through the back?”
The leading eaters were only twenty feet away, the others not far behind, coming at them from every direction. They were surrounded.
“Yes,” Kenny said, “through the garage.”
He led them to a set of double swing doors in the rear wall of the showroom and held them open for the others to push their bikes through, casting nervous glances at the eaters who were now almost at the building. As Alex entered the corridor beyond the doors he heard a flurry of thuds and he looked back to see dozens of eaters slam against the windows, scrabbling mindlessly at the glass. Those at the broken doors simply walked in.
He flipped the stand down on his bike and ran to the swing doors as Kenny pulled them shut, grabbing the handles. Kenny slid bolts into the floor and top frame of one of the doors, but the other only had a keyhole, with no latch. Something heavy hit the other side, pushing the door open a few inches. Alex slammed his weight into it, pushing the eater on the other side back. More weight piled against it as Micah and Janie ran to help him.
“Where’s the key?” Alex growled as he struggled to find enough purchase on the smooth floor.
Kenny gasped in horror. “In the office.”
“Then get something to push through these handles.”
Kenny nodded and ran down the corridor ahead of them, launching himself through the doors at the far end.
“I have to say,” Janie said, her voice strained as she pushed at the door, “Kenny is dealing with this a lot better than I thought he would.”
The door suddenly surged open by several inches. They heaved it closed, Alex making a noise he usually saved for getting out of his chair after Christmas dinner.
Kenny burst through the doors and ran towards them. He was carrying another crowbar.
“Kenny,” Janie said as she grabbed the crowbar and jammed it through the two handles, “you’re alright.”
Kenny’s face did its best impression of a tomato as he smiled and looked at the floor.
Alex slowly let go of the door and waited for something to give way. But despite some rattling and shuddering and a few fingers pushing through the small gap that opened between the two doors, everything held. For now.
Grabbing their bikes, they headed for the far end of the corridor.
The big garage spanned the whole of the back side of the building. A couple of windows on one side let in light, but it was still gloomy. Several motorbikes slouched in various states of dismemberment in the repair bays. The large, metal door they’d seen from the outside took up more than half of the back wall. A smaller door to the outside sat in one corner.
Alex walked to the metal door and leaned his ear in close to its slightly grubby surface. He thought he could hear movement, but he wasn’t sure. Raising his hand, he lightly tapped twice on it with his index finger. Moans erupted on the other side, the door rattling as a plethora of hands scrabbled at it.
He returned to where the others were standing by their bikes. “I think we may have a problem.”
Micah poked his head through the doors back into the corridor. “I don’t think we have much longer before either the hinges or the handles give way back there.”
“I’m too young to die,” Kenny said with a sniffle.
“We know, Kenny,” Alex replied absently, studying
the far wall. The main garage door took up the right side of the wall. The small pedestrian entrance was in the far left corner, around fifteen feet away. “I have an idea.”
“Four words to strike terror into the hearts of men,” Micah said.
Alex filled them in on his plan.
“I stand by my previous statement,” Micah said.
Janie was staring at the doors. She grinned. “I’m game.”
“I think the assertion that Survivor’s brains aren’t affected by Meir’s must be a lie,” Micah said.
“Come on,” she said, “man up.” She clapped him on the shoulder.
He stumbled forward a couple of steps and glared at her. “I’m the one they’re going to go for first. Me and Kenny. And I’m the one who can’t ride.”
Kenny whimpered.
“Why don’t you have a practice in here before we go?” Alex said.
Micah heaved a sigh and climbed onto his motorbike. “I’m going to regret this,” he muttered, going through the starting process he’d been taught, finally clutching and hitting the starter switch.
The engine roared into life. The scrabbling on the garage door increased in volume. Micah shifted into first and squeezed the throttle.
The bike lurched forward a few feet and stalled.
With another sigh, he tried again. This time he managed to keep the bike running and did a couple of shaky laps around the room, followed by a couple of less shaky laps, then finally a couple of more or less stable laps.
“There you go,” Alex said when Micah came to a stop near the door in the corner with the rest of them. “You’re a natural.”
“Oh yeah, I’m fine as long as I don’t have to do anything complicated. Like change gear. Or if I go over a rock.”
“Try not to go over any rocks,” Janie said, climbing onto her bike. “Come on, Kenny.”
His eyes widened. “I... I’m going on yours?”
“Yes, you’re coming on mine. Just watch where you put your hands.”
Even in the low light, Alex could see him blushing again. He admired Kenny’s courage. He and Janie had been friends for four years and she still scared even him a little. But he supposed some men liked the strong, pissed off type.
Mutation (Twenty-Five Percent Book 1) Page 21