Clearly well-practiced, the three people shoved the new diseased forward, tripping it as they forced it into the shop, and dragged the shutter back down again with a loud boom.
Vicky’s guard slipped the padlock around the bottom of the shutter and snapped it into place before she stepped back and looked at the other people who’d helped contain the new diseased. All five of them panted from the effort, and then backed away without a word.
When the guard returned to Vicky’s cage, she wore a pained frown and held one of her hands with the other one. Vicky glanced down, and despite the darkness of their surroundings, she saw the blood glisten on her hand. The air left her lungs, and she spoke in no more than a whisper. “You’ve been bitten.”
The woman frowned at Vicky. “Shut the fuck up.”
“But you’ve been bitten.”
The woman turned on Vicky. Malice gripped her features as she scowled at her. “Do you want me to tell Zander you’re causing trouble?”
Vicky didn’t reply. Instead, she stared at the woman and the sweat that had already beaded on her brow. As she backed away, she pulled Flynn with her.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Vicky pulled Flynn far enough back in the cell so their guard wouldn’t feel pressured, but not so far back that she could forget about them, and watched on. What could she do? If she called to the others that the guard had been bitten, the guard would be taken out, and a new one would be instated to watch them. Although, should the woman change and infect the others, they could be stuck in the cell indefinitely. But maybe with everyone gone, they’d at least be able to make some noise in trying to escape. There had to be a way out—an air vent, or something like that. If the diseased ripped through this community, it would rid the world of a band of cannibals. That in itself had to be worth keeping her mouth shut for.
With Flynn so close he pressed into her side, Vicky watched sweat pour down the guard’s face. The woman wiped her blonde fringe away from her forehead, but the second she let it go, her fine hair fell again and stuck to her skin.
As the woman pulled at her collar, Vicky stepped forward a pace. Fuck knows why, but she could see this woman needed something. Comfort if nothing else. “How are you feeling?”
The woman growled as if fighting the disease’s possession of her. “How the fuck do you think I’m feeling?”
“Thank you for being kind to us.”
The woman spun around, her eyes rolling in her head as she tried to focus on Vicky. “I’ve not been kind to you.”
“You could have been worse. I can see you’re not like them.” When Vicky looked at the gathered crowd by the cooking man, she saw their clear excitement in their agitation. It looked like a fight could break out at any moment if they didn’t get fed.
A few seconds passed where the woman didn’t respond. Instead, she stared out into the mall and rode what seemed like waves of pain, her teeth clenched and her breaths heavy. With a trembling hand, she reached into her trouser pocket and pulled a key out. She held it behind her so Vicky could take it and spoke in a whisper. “Just wait for everything to change before you try to leave, okay?”
As Vicky stepped forward, she drew a dry gulp. “Thank you.”
With the same subtlety she’d used with the key, the woman continued to look ahead and passed a small bottle of water behind her through the gap in the bars. “Fresh water too. The seal’s not been broken, so you don’t have to worry about me poisoning you.”
“I didn’t think you would.”
“Well, you should. You shouldn’t trust anyone.” All the while, the woman stared straight ahead at the excited pack of cannibals.
Vicky remained quiet.
The guard’s face twisted. “I had a son about the same age as your boy when the virus happened. He must have been about eight when it all kicked off, right?”
“Six.”
The woman drew a deep breath. “I watched him get torn apart in front of me. It killed me; deadened me inside. I wandered for so long after that before I fell in with this lot. But I’m not like them, and thank you for reminding me of that.”
A nod and Vicky said, “You’re welcome.”
As the woman remained rigid at the front of the shop—her shoulders pulled back, her chin raised—blood leaked from her eyes. In just a few seconds, the kindness left her soft face, and she scowled against what must have been the pain of changing.
“What’s your name?” Vicky asked.
The woman snapped her head round, and a small amount of blood fell to the floor. “Huh?”
The sight of the woman—her face striped red with her bloody tears—forced Vicky back a pace. “Uh, your name, love? What name can I remember you by?”
What seemed to be the last bit of humanity remaining in the woman stared out from her bleeding eyes. “Amelia,” she said. “My name’s Amelia.”
“Thank you, Amelia.” With the key in her pocket and the bottle of water in her hand, Vicky withdrew into the shadows and pulled Flynn with her.
When her back hit the cold wall at the rear of the shop, she waited. A second later and a spasm twitched through Amelia that threw her right arm out and away from her body. She bent forward at the waist and rested her hands on her knees. A couple of deep breaths later and she released a low growl. When she stood up again, her form had twisted like every diseased Vicky had seen since the outbreak.
The woman then turned around and looked into the shop. The confusion on her face suggested she had some recollection of the people inside, but she couldn’t see them. She scanned the place, her head movements twitchy, her mouth hung loose.
When Vicky felt Flynn press into her side again, she put an arm around him and spoke in a whisper. “It’s okay; she can’t see us.”
“How do you—?” but before Flynn could finish his question, the woman spun on her heel and sprinted off. She headed directly for the cooking man and all of the people around the fire waiting for him to be done. With their attention so fixed on their meal, none of them seemed to see what bore down on them.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Although hunger gnawed away at Vicky, at least the woman’s water had quenched her thirst. It hadn’t completely satiated it, but it had taken the edge off. She’d given Flynn as much as she’d taken herself, so hopefully he felt some relief too.
The pair had slid down to the floor, the hard and cold ground turning Vicky’s arse numb, but it relieved the ache in her legs. About twenty minutes had passed. During that time, they’d watched the woman rush over to the first person by the fire and bite her. She moved on and got three other people before the cannibals had realised what had hit them. In the chaos that erupted, Amelia got several more bites in. By the time the gang had taken her down, the others had turned. At least eight diseased at that point; they overwhelmed the rest of the gang.
With the man on the spit untended, the smell of charred pork turned into thick smoke that caught in Vicky’s throat. The need to cough balled in her oesophagus, but she managed to hold it back. The diseased didn’t need to know they were there.
When one of the diseased ran straight into the shutters in front of them with a loud crash, Vicky jumped, making it worse for Flynn’s startled jolt next to her. The diseased man paced up and down outside the shop and looked into the darkness. He clearly knew that the shop held something of interest, but he didn’t seem able to grasp exactly what that was.
What felt like an age passed before the diseased man finally ran off again.
While the screams of the diseased echoed throughout the shopping mall, Vicky didn’t speak to Flynn. Instead, she wrapped an arm around him and pulled him in close her.
***
A few hours later, and with aches running from her bottom all the way up her back and through her shoulders, Vicky pulled away from Flynn. They hadn’t seen anyone for some time, so she leaned close to him and finally spoke. “You stay here. I’m going to check what’s happening out there. We may be able to leave now.”
Just a metre from the shutter and a crash exploded through it. As Vicky jumped backwards, her heart rate on overdrive, she tripped and landed on her arse. The jolt from the hard floor ran from her coccyx to the base of her neck and forced stars into her vision.
As she sat up, she looked at the large diseased man in front of her. The tall and gaunt figure—their leader, Zander—pressed against the shutters. The shutter bowed in against his pressure. Hollow cheeks, sunken eyes, long features, bloodstained skin, the man fixed his hunger—or lust, or whatever the fuck it was—on Vicky. She found him less intimidating now he’d changed, somehow less of a monster.
Despite the pain in her back, Vicky pushed off against the floor and shifted toward Flynn.
As she got farther into the shop and the protective umbrella of the shadows, she watched the fury on Zander’s face dilute. From his reaction, she saw exactly when she’d become invisible to him.
When she got close to Flynn, she reached out and hugged him again. “It looks quieter out there.”
“So what do we do?”
It would have been sensible to try to get some sleep, especially as Vicky hadn’t had any over the past few days, but she couldn’t relax enough to sleep. No matter how her body ached, she had to watch the outside of the shop.
“We wait until morning and judge the situation then.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
At some point, Vicky must have fallen asleep, because when she woke, it had gotten light outside.
Flynn still slept next to her, his head against her breast. He’d be so embarrassed to know he’d used her right tit as a pillow all night. She’d make sure she told him one day.
Before Flynn woke, Vicky moved away from him. As she pushed him upright, he opened his eyes and blinked away his sleep. “Huh?” he said.
“It’s morning, Flynn.”
He stretched up to the ceiling and twisted his face from the effort of it. Lucidity spread across his features, and he stared at the shutter. “They’re gone now, are they?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen anything move in a while.”
“Were you asleep too?”
Vicky shrugged. “Yeah, but I think I would have heard them and woken up.”
Although he didn’t reply, Flynn gave Vicky a skeptical look.
“I think we need to at least see what’s going on out there now,” Vicky said. “Most of them have probably fucked off. You know what the diseased are like; if they can’t see food, they move on. They only stayed at the containers because of all the noise we made.”
Vicky got to her feet and held her hand out to Flynn. The boy took it and stood up. They continued to hold hands and Vicky looked into his eyes. “I think we’ll be okay. Once we’re out of here, we can get out of the city and find Home.”
Flynn nodded at her.
The pair walked over to the shutters and peered out. “It seems abandoned,” Vicky said as she squinted against the bright sun that shone through the glass ceiling. The sunshine lit up the charred man on the spit, who smoked where he lay, the fire beneath him aglow with hot embers.
Vicky crouched down and put her hand through the bars to reach the padlock. Panic accelerated through her to have her hand outside of the shop; anything could grab it at any point. As she lifted the bottom of the large brass lock to face her, she slipped the key from her pocket. She shook as she pinched the small silver object.
“Are you sure we should do this? If we open that shutter, we could be inviting in God knows what.”
“I think the diseased have moved on.”
“Think?”
“What do you want from me, Flynn? We can’t stay in here forever.”
Vicky stared at Flynn for a few seconds. When he didn’t reply, she returned her attention to the shutter and did her best to still her pounding heart.
Painfully aware of Flynn’s focus on her, Vicky pressed the key into the lock. Or at least, that’s what she’d planned to do. As she applied pressure to the key, it hadn’t quite found the hole. She’d expected it to slide in, but instead, it popped away from the lock and pinged out into the mall.
As it skittered across the floor away from them, Vicky’s heart sank, and nausea lurched through her as she withdrew from the shutter and sat down. “Fuck.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
“Why do you have to breathe down my neck the entire time?” Vicky looked up at Flynn. “Well?”
“Um … I, um …”
“I, um isn’t an answer, Flynn. I’ve been protecting you for most of your life, and you start to question my decisions now? Jesus, what’s wrong with you?”
Instead of a response, Flynn stared at Vicky and his mouth hung loose.
In that moment, Vicky saw his dad; the Rhys that she’d rescued at the water fountain in Summit City. “I should have carried on running.”
“Huh?” Flynn said, his eyes glazed with tears.
Vicky shook her head and turned her back on him. Utter despondency pulled on her frame when she looked at the key about a metre away from her. In the middle of the mall’s walkway, she had no fucking chance of getting it. No fucking chance.
After a deep sigh, she slumped where she sat. She kept her focus on the key and softened her tone. “I’m sorry, mate; I’ve fucked up.”
Flynn sat down next to her and stared out at the key. The bright sun from the glass ceiling glistened off the small silver object as if to taunt their failed attempt at freedom.
Before either of them spoke again, Flynn got to his feet. Vicky watched him walk to the back of the shop and disappear into the shadows. A few seconds later, he returned with the empty water bottle they’d drunk from; the one given to them by Amelia.
Flynn looked like he had a plan, so Vicky said nothing as she watched him.
First, he removed the lid from the empty container. He then bit into the side of the bottle, which made a loud crunch of plastic that called through the deserted mall.
Despite her urge to tell him to be quiet, Vicky said nothing, tensed up and looked out into the shopping centre. It seemed clear, and even if it wasn’t, it hardly mattered now; they’d starve to death in the cage if they didn’t get out. Besides, if any diseased saw them, they wouldn’t be able to get through the shutter anyway.
Hopelessness weighted Vicky’s heart as she watched the boy bite the bottle with the side of his mouth. He looked like a dog. Each crunch ran through the shopping mall and lifted her tense shoulders to her neck. Just before Vicky told him to shut the fuck up, Flynn stopped and pulled the bottle away.
The same crackle of plastic sounded out when he dug his finger into the hole he’d made. After he’d wiggled it around for a few seconds, he pulled the hole bigger until he’d separated the top half of the bottle from the bottom.
“What are you doing?” Vicky asked, but Flynn didn’t reply. Instead, he slipped his shoes off and removed the laces. He tied them together and then threaded the lace in through the bottle neck before he dropped it out of the large hole at the bottom. He then tied it along the side of the plastic container.
For the first time since he’d sat down to make his contraption, he looked over at Vicky and pulled a tense smile. When he stood up, he pressed his face to the shop’s shutters and stared out into the mall. Vicky did the same; it seemed empty.
Louder than even the construction of his implement, the shutters rattled when Flynn leaned against them. With the bottle still in his hand, he shoved his arm through a gap all the way up to his shoulder. He seemed more focused on the bottle than on the potential danger of a diseased. Vicky watched the mall bey
ond them. Let him focus on his task; she’d drag him back if she needed to.
With half of her attention on Flynn, Vicky saw him swing the bottle at the end of the shoelace from side to side. Flynn built up a good swing with the pendulum before he grunted and changed the direction to thrust the bottle out toward the key on the floor.
The shutters rattled from where he lurched forward, and the half a bottle hit the hard floor with a crack. It missed the key.
As Flynn reeled it back in, Vicky leaned close to him. “Try to keep the noise down. We don’t know what’s out there still, and we don’t want to make too much of a commotion.”
But the boy ignored her. And rightly so. Noise and a key beat silence and starving to death in their prison.
The swinging bottle mesmerised Vicky. She shook her head to pull herself from the hypnotic daze. The shopping mall, empty and bright beyond their prison, still seemed abandoned. Although, seemed meant fuck all when you had to bet a life on it.
When Flynn grunted again as he launched the bottle, Vicky watched it land over the key. With her heart in her throat, she observed as he gently pulled on the shoelace. Because of the way he’d tied it, the bottle remained upright as he dragged it, and it brought the key back with it.
Patient beyond his years, Flynn pulled the bottle in an inch at a time and Vicky couldn’t help but smile. Maybe she needed to give him more credit.
With the key no more than two feet away, Flynn dropped to the floor and stretched his arm out. He pushed out so the bars ran up to his shoulder again.
Vicky watched him find millimetres more stretch as he got closer to the key.
When he finally touched the metal object, she jumped for joy and landed with a thud. But the thud hadn’t come from her. A glance to her right and Vicky saw it. About three metres from them, a diseased child of no more than about eight ran at them. Silent at first, when the girl locked eyes on Vicky, she screamed like a harpy.
The Alpha Plague (Book 4) Page 13