Michael tried to spin the wheel, but too late. The butcher ran straight into the radiator grille as if it were nothing more threatening than a garden sprinkler, and disappeared in a cloud of blood that filled the windscreen.
The car lurched as it bumped wildly over the body, and the wheel slipped from Michael's grasp. The world seemed to hold it's breath for a fleeting second as the car flipped, and Michael had time to see the tarmac rushing toward the driver side window before everything became twisting, shrieking metal, and darkness.
*
Rat-a-tat-a-tat
Rat-a-tat-a-tat
Michael groaned, struggling to break himself free of oblivion, swimming against the insistent current that pulled him down inexorably.
Someone was at the door. Why wasn't Elise answering the damn door?
Rat-a-tat-a-tat
He struggled to open his eyes. They seemed glued together somehow, as if the lids had fused together. My god, how much had he drank?
Rat-a-tat-a-tat
Finally, his left eye opened, his vision swimming alarmingly, lurching, as though he were lying on a storm-tossed boat, not in his own bed.
And it was dark! Still, pitch black. Who on earth was hammering on their door at this hour?
Rat-a-tat-a-tat-a-tat-a
"Elise?" he tried to slur, but the words came out as a thick, gloopy moan.
And then a face was above him, a woman's face. Not Elise. The woman leaned close, shouting. Words he couldn't make out.
The darkness crept up and curled itself around him, pulling him back down into the depths, submerging him.
Chapter 11
"He's waking up! I think he's waking up! Michael, can you hear me?"
A woman's voice. Elise? No, Elise was gone.
"Take it easy Michael. Slowly, okay? You're safe."
Safe from what? His head was a deep, unending abyss of pain. Opening his eyes, he was sure, would only make it worse.
Had he been in an accident? Why hadn't they treated his pain?
He was lying on his back, his head resting on a cool pillow. Something else rose to the top of his list of priorities, something more urgent than the pain. Water. His throat felt like a sun baked desert.
"Water," he tried to say, but the word emerged as a dusty croak.
The woman seemed to understand, for a moment later he felt a soft hand slide carefully under the back of his head, inclining it ever so slightly.
Something touched his cracked lips and then the water cascaded down his throat, ice-cold, the most delicious thing he had ever tasted.
At last he opened an eye, just a crack. Bright light flooded his brain, slowly resolving into the face of a young woman, her face hovering a few inches over his. She was young, dark-haired, her grey eyes heavy with concern. She looked familiar.
Michael struggled to find his memories, felt them out there somewhere, hiding beneath layers of pain.
A name surfaced. Rachel.
The memories came back then, like a jolt of electricity. St.Davids. Death and chaos. The car flipping, the road rushing up to meet him.
"Rachel," he wheezed.
A smile of pure relief broke out across Rachel's face.
"You remember," she said.
Michael tried to nod, but the effort made him see stars.
"Where are we?"
"We're safe Michael. The man in the woods, the one you were looking for, he saved us. They can't get to us here. You need to rest, okay? Just focus on getting better."
Michael let his eyes close again, the pain and all-encompassing weariness inviting him back into the darkness.
The man in the woods had saved them. Michael thought the words sounded familiar, but fog had descended on his mind, obscuring everything.
As he drifted away into unconsciousness once more, his final thought was a question: why did the mention of the man in the woods, the one who had apparently saved them, awaken such worry deep inside him?
Darkness.
*
Rachel felt tears sting her eyes. She barely knew the man that lay bandaged and broken on the narrow bed in front of her, but the powerful rush of emotion she felt on seeing him break out of the comatose condition he had been in for days told her just how much she had riding on him. The realisation made her feel scared and isolated.
She had known there was something wrong with the man who had saved them almost immediately, had seen the look of disdain cross his face when she had insisted, after the last of the infected horrors had been mown down by the man's machine gun, that must carry Michael's inert body with them through the woods. It was an oddly childish look, the pout of a teenager who'd been instructed to do something he felt was pointless.
Rachel had hunted through the wreckage of the car, and got lucky: there had been some camping equipment in the boot, and she was able to turn a groundsheet into a makeshift stretcher. The man with the gun had begrudgingly helped her extricate Michael from the wreckage and onto the stretcher, before lifting him roughly.
Rachel grimaced. If Michael had any spinal injuries, hauling him through the woods in this manner were certain to exacerbate them, but she didn't see any alternative. Jason's strength would have helped in the task, but Jason, having rolled out of the wrecked car with no more than cuts and bruises, was lost, staring at the broken bodies of the people the man had gunned down.
The man with the gun had a place. Deep in the woods. A place they would be safe. It was as he had said these words to her, as something in his eyes sparkled unnervingly when he said the word safe that Rachel felt concern growing inside her that the new world might hold more dangers than roaming packs of the infected.
The 'place' he had described, at which they had arrived after a gruesome trip through a forest riddled with bodies, turned out to be even more bizarre, and troubling. A ramshackle outhouse, built to encase a hatch in the floor that opened when the man punched a code into a discreetly-placed keypad. A ladder leading down, into a world of concrete and fluorescent lights glinting off metal.
They had heaved the unconscious Michael down with a great deal of trouble, twisting his body awkwardly in the narrow space. Every time Rachel, clutching onto the sheet that they had wrapped him in, felt a bump against the walls of the shaft, she gritted her teeth. Once Michael was down, laid on the floor below, Rachel resurfaced to persuade Jason, who stood above staring at nothing in particular, to navigate the ladder. She had seen the man with the gun sneak a few glances at her brother. He had looked intrigued at first, and then, as Rachel had gently coaxed Jason to follow them through the woods she had seen something else. An odd look of satisfaction that unnerved her for reasons she couldn't quite identify.
Once they were all inside the strange bunker, sealed in by the closing of the hatch, Rachel took off her coat and bundled it under Michael's head. The man's face, a patchwork of scratches old and new, was deathly pale. She leaned in close, her ear hovering inches above his mouth. His breathing seemed steady, if shallow.
When she rose to her feet, she found the man with the gun standing in front of her, hand outstretched, face cracked in a grin.
“Victor,” he said pleasantly.
Rachel took the hand and shook it. It felt cold and limp in hers.
“I'm Rachel. That's my brother Jason. This is Michael.”
She motioned to the man laid on the floor. Victor nodded, looking slightly disinterested.
“Thank you for helping us. I don't know what we would have done-”
“Think nothing of it.”
Victor waved a dismissive hand.
“We need to stick together don't we? Those of us that haven't become...them.”
Rachel nodded.
“What were you doing out there in the woods?”
“Clearing my land,” Victor said with a sniff. “They had been converging on this place for a couple of hours. No real threat to getting in here of course – we're perfectly safe down here,” he looked earnestly into Rachel's eyes, “but the
thought of them milling around so close was making me...uncomfortable. I saw a group of them break away and head for the road. Heard your car I suppose.”
Rachel nodded again.
“Is there somewhere we can put Michael? A bed? Do you have any medical supplies here?”
“Of course.”
Victor seemed offended by the question.
“There is a bed, on the lower level. We'll take him there, and then I can give you the grand tour.”
Victor beamed, but the smile never reached his eyes. Rachel felt her skin crawl looking into those two vacant pools. Internal alarms began to sound, and she resolved to get away from this man and his strange underground prison at the first opportunity.
*
Once Michael was safely stowed on a narrow bed in what looked like a large storage closet, and Victor reassured her that his pulse was strong and steady, Rachel allowed herself to focus more on her surroundings. They stood in what Victor claimed was the lowest level of his underground fortress: two large rectangular concrete rooms that had an industrial feel, like a storage shed.
The impression was reinforced by shelves lining the walls, packed floor to ceiling with food and supplies.
“Enough to sustain a single person thirty months without resupply,” Victor said, noting her stare. “Not exactly Cordon Bleu, but everything the human body needs to survive an extended period.”
Rachel scanned the shelves: powdered milk in enormous sacks, vast quantites of rice, hundreds of cans of fruit and vegetables. Her eyes fell on the rectangular space in the centre of the larger of the two rooms. In it sat a battered armchair alongside a low concrete construction covered with a sheet of plywood. Her brow furrowed.
“The crowning glory,” Victor said smugly. “Under that sheet is a seven hundred foot well shaft drilled down to an aquifer.”
Rachel glanced at him, confused.
“An endless supply of fresh water.” Victor's face broke into another unsettling grin,
“Ah,” Rachel said, and noticed his expression darken from the corner of her eye. Something about the way he was describing his hideout made her think of a young child proudly showing a chaotic drawing to its parents.
She noticed, on the far wall, partially obscured behind a stack of cardboard boxes, a wall safe. Noticed too that Victor did not mention it.
Victor pointed to the narrow concrete steps that led to the floor above.
“Shall we?”
Rachel glanced at Jason. The big man was standing just inside the larger of the two rooms on the basement level, lost in his thoughts, eyes clouded. Gently, she grasped his hand and led him to the battered armchair, easing him into it. He sat wordlessly, his massive bulk filling the chair, his eyes coming to rest on the well in front of him.
“I'll be back soon, okay Jase?”
Jason remained silent.
Rachel turned and followed Victor to the steps, listening to the flat echo of her steps as she ascended.
“Your brother,” Victor said. “Is he..?”
“He's just in shock,” Rachel said flatly.
Victor nodded thoughtfully.
The next floor up, the middle of the three, was again divided in two. In the main space there were a few items of exercise equipment: an ancient-looking treadmill, exercise bike and rowing machine, along with some weights. To Rachel's right, the second part of the space was sealed off by a closed door.
“That's my little control room,” Victor said. “Controls for the heating and lighting, and some monitors. I've got CCTV cameras set up around the perimeter. Place like this needs an early warning system.”
“Early warning of what?”
“Anything. If there are people above trying to get in, you're better off knowing about it before they come through the front door. Fire, radiation. Eyes on the ouside world without exposing yourself is a necessity.”
“Looks like you're planning to survive a nuclear war or something. Why did you build this place?”
Victor paused for a moment.
“I'm the only one allowed in there,” he said, and strode toward the next set of steps.
Rachel followed, her sense of unease growing.
The top floor comprised of living quarters: a spacious living room and kitchen and separate bathroom and bedroom, all furnished nicely. Only the knowledge that the rooms were part of an underground tomb altered the impression of an interior of a normal house or apartment.
The entire structure, Victor proudly informed her, totalled around 2,100 square feet. From his tone, Rachel presumed this was an impressive statistic.
She was standing in the doorway to the bedroom, half wondering how comfortable the couch would be, and tuning out Victor's rambling about the construction of the bunker, and how he had found a company in America that specialised in such buildings following the terror attacks of 2001 and the subsequent panic.
Lost in her thoughts, it took her a moment to realise that Victor had stopped talking. When the sudden silence alerted her to the change in Victor, she had time only to curse her stupidity at being so easily separated from her brother and Michael before something heavy and solid crashed into the back of her head, and the lights went out.
*
When Michael broke the surface again, his eyes opened more easily. The pain was still there, an orchestra of it, wood wind, brass and strings playing a bombastic melody, but at least he found himself able to focus his thoughts.
It took him a moment to remember Rachel, to remember her words to him.
The man in the woods had saved them.
Alarm bells rang in Michael's head, briefly muting the chorus. The man in the woods was not to be trusted. He cursed himself for not telling Rachel more when he had the chance, for warning her, letting her know how his first encounter with the hooded man had gone. There just hadn't seemed to be the time.
It was dark in the room, which was almost featureless. Low ceiling, very little furniture other than the bed he now laid on. No windows. The air smelled stale and musty, heavy with the stink of sweat that he presumed belonged to him, but also a smell much older, more ingrained. As though the room hadn't received fresh air for a very long time.
He couldn't hear anything beyond the walls of the small room. It must be night time. They were asleep.
He struggled on the bed, tried to find the strength to lift himself upright. He was defenceless here; vulnerable.
The effort exhausted him, and the lure of sleep proved too irresistible.
Again he drifted away from consciousness, and again his final thought was one that planted seeds of concern, seeds that took root immediately and began to grow, dominating his fevered dreams.
Why couldn't I feel my legs?
*
Blood.
Filling her nose and mouth with a bitter metallic taste; riding her hacking cough like an unbroken horse.
Rachel forced open her eyes painfully, and when she saw what he had done to her body, closed them again and prayed for oblivion to reclaim her.
She was tied, naked, to his bed. Every inch of her body that she could see from her awkward angle was covered in bruises and long, shallow cuts that interconnected across her, forming a roadmap of his insanity.
She had struggled for the first hour, had even tried screaming for help at one point, though she knew none would come. He had stuffed her mouth with his filthy underwear then, silencing her, making the bile surge in her gut. Eventually, when it was clear that there was to be no fantasy rescue from the horror Victor was determined to inflict on her, she tried to follow Jason's example, attemped to submerge her consciousness and detach herself from the horror. It worked to the extent that Rachel was able to tune out some of the pain – or maybe just to become acclimatised to it – but she could not tune out the indignity, and it fuelled a burning, destructive rage inside her.
Rachel had no idea how long she had been tied to the bed – at least, not in hours. Time was now measured in her 'sessions' with Victor. T
hree times he had entered the bedroom: each time carrying some object that she quickly learned was to be inserted into her.
Each time, before the violence began, Victor would rant at her, rising in pitch like an evangelist, working himself up into a state of blind anger that seemed to be required in order for the torture to start. Always, the focus of his rants was what he called her 'education', the lessons she would learn before he could safely release her and put her to work.
She heard the bedroom door open and squeezed her eyes tightly shut, praying that the man entering the room would be Michael or Jason, but she knew immediately from the ragged, eager breathing.
When she dared to look, she saw Victor, a dark silhouette, naked and leering. Clutching a broken bottle in his right hand.
“Time to learn.”
*
It was the smell that woke him up a third time, a delicious salty aroma that writhed on the air like an exotic dancer, teasing him, inviting him forward.
His eyes opened. Daylight.
Nearby, he could hear the sound of cooking. The smell of the eggs, doused with pepper and salt made his mouth water and his stomach cramp.
"Hello?" Michael called out feebly.
He heard a clang, and moments later Rachel appeared in the open doorway, beaming.
"You're awake," she said. "Hungry?"
Michael nodded, noting that the pain had backed off a little. It was still there, stalking him at a distance, watching like a cat, but he found at least it was manageable.
Rachel disappeared, returning with a plate heaped with scrambled eggs and some bread.
"Victor made a run to town," she said. "He was pretty excited by the eggs. I think you'll be seeing a lot of them."
She smiled, but Michael noticed that the smile was not reflected in her eyes.
Michael reached for the plate, groaning a little as the pain stalked closer.
"Careful," Rachel said, her voice full of concern. "We think you've got a broken arm. Your shoulder was dislocated too, but Victor popped it back in while you were out."
Her nose wrinkled a little with distaste, as if remembering the sound of it.
Panic (Wildfire Chronicles Vol. 1) Page 16