by Frank Tayell
He ran to the ground-floor door, reaching it just as it opened. Another man came out. Again dressed in black trousers, though his were jeans. Again in a t-shirt, though his was splattered with blood. Again shaved-headed, again with that same tattoo of a branch with three leaves. The man saw Laurent, saw Bill, and swung his fist.
Ten months ago, it would have been no contest. Ten months ago, Bill would have died. But a year was a long time living a brutal nightmare. He ducked under the fist, skipping back a pace, trying to give himself time to think, but this wasn’t one of the undead. The man reached for his belt, his hand curling around the hilt of a knife. As it was drawn, Bill dived forward, right hand reaching for the knife, swinging his left palm into the man’s throat. The man staggered back, as the knife came free. Bill gripped his wrist as the man tried to raise the knife. The man’s hand curled around Bill’s throat. Bill slammed his left palm into the man’s neck. The man bent, wincing, coughing. As the man tugged at the knife, and as Bill pushed, the blade slid into the man’s stomach. He winced, eyes going wide, then let go of Bill’s neck. Reflexively, Bill pulled the knife free. Its blade was wickedly serrated. The man hissed. His hands desperately covered the wound as he fell to his knees, then to the ground, blood pouring around his fingers. Without emergency surgery, he’d die, and so the man was already dead.
Bill tossed the knife aside and bent down, grabbing the pistol at the man’s belt. The man reached for Bill’s wrist, but his grasp was already weak, easily shaken off. Bill stepped back, but didn’t fire. Instead, he ran inside.
The door led to a long corridor with doors leading to the left. He pushed the first open, revealing a narrow chamber containing two sets of bunk beds, and a narrow bank of lockers, the doors of which had been forced open. All the beds had sheets and blankets. Someone had been sleeping in there, and recently.
The next door led to a similar chamber, again with four cots, again with sheets, blankets and pillows. He opened the next door, and the next, checking that the rooms were empty until he reached the second room from the end. It contained a generator, still chugging away, and a score of fuel containers next to it. A cable led from the generator through a hole in the ceiling. He heard a cough. It came from next door.
The room was marked la salle d’eau. Outside, a shotgun leaned against a chair on which was a neatly folded jacket. Inside the shower-room a woman was tied to a chair.
Her face was bloody, with more blood trailing to an already clogged drain. A gag covered her mouth, but it was her hair that made Bill stop. Dyed blue and white, it matched the cover art on the Blu-ray box upstairs. Now he saw it on a living person, the style reminded him of the two young men whose bodies they’d found in the barn.
“It’s okay,” Bill said. “I’m here to help.”
She stared at him, unblinking, as he looked about for something to cut the ropes. He had plenty of choice. A ninety-six-piece toolset lay on the tiled floor, open, with the trays extended. Most of the tools were stained with blood, with equally bloody fingerprints left on the yellow plastic handles. He selected a thin saw.
The woman didn’t flinch as he cut through the ropes, nor did she move when her hands were free. Only when he’d dropped the saw and stepped backward did she finally remove the gag from her mouth.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
She spat a mouthful of blood on the floor. “La guette de l’ouest, sont-ils morts?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand,” he said. “I’ve got to check the rest of the building. I’ll be back soon.”
Outside, the man he’d stabbed was motionless. Laurent twitched erratically. Bill ran to the spiral staircase, and had made it upstairs to the fractured doorframe when the ground-floor door opened. The woman ran out. In her hands was the shotgun that had been leaning on the chair outside her cell. She limped over to the dead man, and fired, point-blank, into his face. She pumped another round into the chamber and shot Laurent, again in the face. She turned around, and looked up.
She was young, he realised. Under twenty, certainly. She met his eyes, then turned away, and ran for the gate.
“Wait!” Bill called, taking a step back down the stairs. The woman ignored him. She reached the gate, pulled on the padlock, then swung the shotgun up and blew the lock apart. She threw the gate open, and ran away without another backward glance.
“Damn it.” Bill turned around and headed back up the stairs, reaching the shattered doorway in time to see Locke heading towards him. She had a shotgun in her hands, another on her shoulder.
“Downstairs?” she asked. “It’s clear?”
“Clear. They had a prisoner. A woman. A teenager, I’d say. She was tied up. I cut her free. She took a shotgun, finished the other two, and then blew the padlock off the gate. She ran.”
“There were two of them?”
“The sentry and someone I’d say was a torturer.”
“I see. There was another man up here,” she said.
“What just happened?” Bill asked. “That was the grenade Khan gave you. You had it ready. What did they say?”
“It was what they didn’t say,” Locke said. “They were interested in us only until I revealed the plane had crashed and we had no way of communicating with the rest of our people. They were here for a few days, but lit the bonfire as soon as the plane came overhead. Look at that bonfire, it must have taken weeks to gather the wood. If they didn’t build it, who did, and what for?”
“The woman’s hair was dyed in a two-tone effect, the same as the Blu-ray case, the same as the people in the barn,” Bill said. “The bags by the door, those are similar to the bags we found in that crumbling barn.”
“I’ll admit I didn’t notice that, but I saw the bags, the firearms, the supplies. It didn’t tally with the number of people they claimed lived here. I assumed the others were hiding in the back.”
“Ah. There’s more, isn’t there?” he said. “That’s enough to be suspicious, and what I saw downstairs certainly confirms your suspicion was correct, but it’s not enough on its own to warrant throwing a grenade into their midst.”
“It was the tattoo,” she said. “You saw it?”
“Which one?”
“The three-leafed branch wrapped with barbed wire. I know that tattoo, and that particular variant is only inked in prison. It’s a story for later. The explosion and those shotgun blasts might summon the undead. Here.” She held out a shotgun.
Bill took it. “Gather what food you can, and ammunition, I guess. I want to check those outbuildings.”
He knew what he’d find, and he found them in the low building furthest from the gate. He took his time, looking at each barely decayed face. In death, all were ridiculously young. All had a two-tone effect in their hair. He counted nine. Men and women, though really they were boys and girls. All had been murdered. Stabbed and cut, and left to bleed out in agony. One by one, killed slowly so that the living could hear them die.
What was worse, somehow, was that theirs weren’t the only corpses. Twice the number of zombies lay beneath the bodies of the slain-living.
He closed the door, and left them in peace.
“More packets than cans,” Locke said, passing him a bag. “And more junk food than anything nutritious.”
“Calories are calories,” Bill said.
“I see that the movement towards healthy living passed you by,” Locke said. “They had hundreds of shotgun cartridges. None of the carbines had a silencer.” She slung her shotgun, walked across the slush and mud yard, picked up her rifle, and fired a shot into the trees. “Seems to work.”
“Was there any ammo for our rifles?” Bill asked.
“Not to speak of. Other than the shotgun cartridges, there’s ammunition for the pistols, some for revolvers, but it’s mostly ammunition for a hunting rifle.”
“Did you check the fridges?”
“From the smell, they had stored fish, though they were currently stocked with beer and wine.”
“Hmm. There’s fue
l and a generator on the ground floor. We should look for the young woman, and then get back before Sergeant Khan comes looking for us. We’ve been gone longer than we said. We’ll return for fuel and supplies.”
“Agreed,” Locke said. “I take it you found bodies in one of the outbuildings?”
“Nine of them,” Bill said.
“Plus the two we found in the barn and the woman who escaped, all are accounted for.”
“Based on the bags?”
“Based on the product description on the back of the Blu-ray case,” Locke said. “Twelve good vampires were tasked with holding off the forces of evil that, for some reason, opened a portal beneath their school.”
“Vampires holding off the forces of evil? They picked that story to define their lives after the outbreak?”
“Why not? It makes as much sense as a myth of knights, or a fable about democracy.”
Bill walked across the slush-covered, blood-smeared, ash-coated yard and picked up his weapons belt. He buckled it. “So tell me about this tattoo.”
“Later,” Locke said. “Let’s find that woman before she freezes to death.”
Chapter 8 - The Rosewood Cartel
The Mansion, Fleurines
“What happened to the young woman?” Sergeant Khan asked after Bill had recounted what had transpired at the farm.
“We tracked her footprints through the snow, but they disappeared into the trees,” Locke said. “Dressed like she is, in shock, in pain, with no supplies, she’ll die. We decided to stop chasing her in the hope that she’ll return to her former base and resupply.”
“And you knew it was a trap because of the tattoo?” Khan asked.
“A tattoo of three circular leaves on a single branch,” Locke said, looking at Chester. “Rosewood leaves.”
“You mean they were members of the Rosewood Cartel?” Chester asked.
“You know them?” Kessler asked.
“I doubt I know those specific criminals,” Chester said. “But I’ve heard of the cartel.”
“He won’t have known these individuals,” Locke said. “On their tattoo, the branch was entwined with barbed wire with eleven barbs. It’s a design specific to a prison in southern France.”
“Then how do you know about them?” Kessler asked.
“Because Lisa and I, and our organisation, tried to save the world,” Locke said. “Quigley and his cabal of politicians weren’t the only threat, nor was nuclear war. Global temperature rises, falling crop yields, antibiotic-resistant viruses; the threats were legion. Compared to those, the Rosewood Cartel was a mosquito, one carrying a particularly virulent disease, yet still an insignificant insect.”
“It’s some coincidence, isn’t it?” Sergeant Khan asked. “That these people you were tracking end up here of all places.”
“Sorry, I’m giving the wrong impression,” Locke said. “The cartel is more of a franchise operation. A union, even. They deal in the trafficking of drugs, guns, and people. Everyone from Colombian farmer to Parisian dealer was a member of the organisation, and there are tens of thousands of members. Membership doesn’t come with a magazine subscription or an annual conference. It’s simply a way of reducing unnecessary turf wars, hijacking of cargoes, and in the case of prisons, people turning evidence. Loyalty is absolute because the punishment for disobedience is death. This enables them to keep crime and violence within their territories, their streets, their estates, their slums, lower than surrounding areas, thus reducing the interest of police, and bolstering the standing of local politicians in their pocket.”
“And they all wear that tattoo?” Kessler asked. “I’d have thought someone would have noticed.”
“It’s a prison tattoo,” Chester said. “And in some prisons, you take whatever protection you can get.”
“And so recruit new foot soldiers,” Locke said. “At the top, the organisation is about money, power. To keep order at the bottom, they preach localised versions of ethno-nationalism. As such, the tattoo is worn by people with varying ethnic backgrounds whose history is one of conflict with each other. The tattoo itself has often been dismissed as simply a piece of prison art. Not by everyone, of course, but as I say, they are careful to keep the appearance of violence within their territories low, and so overworked police forces are less inclined to pay them attention. In case I’m not clear, I mean they were very good at hiding the bodies. Over the years, the cartel has replaced the police and politicians they first bought with their own members and fellow travellers. This gives them further cover, all in the pursuit of the almighty dollar.”
“It’s not a new idea,” Bill said. “Organised crime getting truly organised.”
“It just hasn’t happened on this scale before,” Locke said. “Mr Wright, do you recall the NATO exercises in the North Sea two years ago?”
“Probably not. Wait, you mean when the Russians sent a military convoy straight through the battleground, claiming they had every right since it was international waters?”
“I remember that,” Khan said. “We were put on high alert. One accidental shot could have started a real war.”
“And meanwhile, while the eyes of the world and their intelligence assets watched the North Sea, a freighter containing thirty tonnes of cocaine arrived in Spain.”
“They almost started World War Three so they could smuggle some drugs?” Kessler asked. “That’s insane.”
“How did they manage it?” Khan asked.
“Because it suited the cabal to increase global tensions in preparation for Prometheus,” Locke said. “The cabal and the cartel had a mutually beneficial arrangement. Both viewed honest politicians and inquisitive journalists as a threat. For the cabal, having a reporter killed in some random drive-by shooting, or a senator found dead of an overdose, presented far fewer questions than an assassination. The cartel received intelligence on coast guard patrols, and in some cases, the workings of the most secretive of task forces.”
“Are you saying their presence here has something to do with the outbreak?” Kessler asked.
“Not at all,” Locke said. “That tattoo, or a variant, was worn by hundreds within the French prison system, thousands more who’d been released, and tens of thousands across Europe. I don’t know which category these men fell into, but I know the cloth from which they were raggedly cut.”
“And on the basis of a prison tattoo, you pulled the pin from the grenade,” Bill said.
“Events proved me correct,” Locke said. “For the last fifteen years, while you played narcissistic games with the pettiest of differences, I fought a war with the very highest stakes. A war where there was no margin for error, no quarter, no opportunity for doubt. It was act or die.”
“And that young woman will die out there on her own,” Khan said. “I’m going to look for her.”
“You’ll chase her away,” Locke said.
“We don’t leave anyone behind,” Khan said.
“A nice sentiment,” Locke said. “Though I trust that courtesy doesn’t extend to those thugs.” She pushed herself to her feet. “I’ll show you the way.”
“I’ll come too,” Chester said. “I could do with stretching my legs.”
“On balance, no,” Locke said. “Meaning no disrespect, Mr Carson, but you don’t cut the most comforting of figures. Perhaps Private Kessler would like to join us? Seeing a young woman her own age might set her mind at ease.”
Bill stood on the up-turned chair propped against the gate, waiting until Locke and the two Marines were out of sight before climbing down and returning inside.
Scott was still asleep. It was better to assume it was sleep, and that he was healing. What was clear, even if it hadn’t been for the delay caused by the confrontation, was that they wouldn’t travel any further today.
Leaving Chester to unpack and sort through the bags they’d brought back from the farm, Bill went upstairs to keep watch from the upper storey, taking only his overly grim thoughts for company.
The upper level of the house had been designed around the view, the better portion of which was to the rear of the property. The master bedroom’s tall windows offered an unspoilt panorama of the snow-covered fields. That was not the direction from which danger would come. At the front of the house, on the other side of a wastefully large landing, was an office of sorts. It had an archaic writing table, a trio of high-backed office chairs, and a rotary phone. All the furniture and fittings were white. Not painted, nor plastic-coated, but made of some white material that, except for the colour, looked like wood. The phone had no cord, nor was there a light in the room, not even a switch, but there was a window that looked out over the front gate.
He pulled the chair close to the window, sat, and almost immediately regretted it. It was the most uncomfortable chair he’d ever come across. He decided the entire room was an art installation. As he scanned the road outside the house, he tried to focus on the underlying meaning in the room’s design, but his mind kept returning to the bitterly cruel reality that always settled after a battle.
If they’d arrived a few days sooner, they would have found the twelve youngsters before the murderers did. That, if the plane hadn’t malfunctioned, they would never have come to this corner of France, was beyond academic. It was the same in Ireland; if they’d arrived a few days sooner, they would have saved more than Siobhan, Colm, and their small group. It was the same everywhere, with every confrontation. If he’d acted sooner, more people would be alive.
The converse was that, if they’d arrived in Ireland a few days later, Siobhan, Colm, and the Irish children would probably be dead. If the plane hadn’t malfunctioned, the girl here in France would have been murdered. That wasn’t comforting because, looking at the monochrome landscape, he found his mind drawn back to a hot summer’s evening on Anglesey. For a few brief hours of utter joy, he, Kim, Sholto, and the girls sat in the sunshine, thinking the worst was over. They’d talked about searching for survivors, about building a radio mast, even of flying drones across Europe. The murder of David Llewellyn had distracted them. Then there’d been the ill-fated expedition to Ireland, the election, Bishop, and all the rest.