“But we’re still going to risk our lives to save it?”
“I’m going to, yes,” Flynn said. “I had a chance to kill the Queen and didn’t take it. I can’t walk away from that. I can’t put all the innocent people in Home in danger, just like I couldn’t kill the innocent people in the royal complex. You need to do what you think’s right.”
A sparkle in her brown eyes and she repeated, “But we’re still going to risk our lives to save it.” Before Flynn could reply, she laughed. “You’re not going to get rid of me that easily.”
Flynn couldn’t help but smile. “I was hoping you’d say that. We’ll be okay, won’t we?”
A shrug, and Rose smiled. “We’ve been okay so far.”
Flynn smiled too. “We have, haven’t we?” He led the way in turning his back on Home. He didn’t know what lay ahead of them. He didn’t know whether they’d even survive against the Queen. But he knew what was right and he needed to follow that. Thankfully, he’d have Rose beside him.
Ends.
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The Alpha Plague - Book 8
Edited and Cover By
Edited by:
Terri King
And
Pauline Nolet
Cover Design by:
Christian Bentulan
Michael Robertson
© 2017 Michael Robertson
The Alpha Plague 8 is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, situations, and all dialogue are entirely a product of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously and are not in any way representative of real people, places or things.
Any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Chapter 1
They’d walked no more than ten metres from the viewpoint overlooking Home when Flynn’s body wound tight. Reluctance pulled on his momentum. A rock balled in his stomach. Sure, he always had that, but this time, it had crawled all the way up into his shoulders and jaw. They’d killed Vicky. Should he be walking away from that without punishing them? A deep breath to try to calm himself, he looked across at Rose. She stared back at him, the wind tossing her long blonde hair.
Just looking at her helped calm him a little, and after he’d tried to release some of the tautness wound within him, he said, “Serj told me anger was like a hot coal.”
They continued walking, the swish of the long grass between them. Although Rose watched Flynn, she didn’t reply.
“He said no matter who you throw it at, you still get burned.” As much as he tried, he couldn’t keep the warble from his voice. The thought of killing his friend, as well as the anger about what had happened to Vicky, took nearly everything he had. Heat spread through his cheeks and his eyes itched. Several blinks and he fought back his tears. “I understand what he was saying, but I can’t forgive them, Rose. No matter how I try to think about it. I mean, I can see why they did what they did. Vicky started this whole mess, after all.”
“There is that,” Rose said.
“And they’re not evil people; I can see that too.” Flynn stared down into the valley they were heading into, fighting the urge to turn around and go back towards Home. “I mean, they’re not the Queen or Moira. They were acting in what they thought were the community’s best interests. But it doesn’t take away the pain.” The same lump he’d had in his throat for years lifted and Flynn coughed several times to try to clear it. “It doesn’t make it any less personal for me.”
Rose moved closer to Flynn and put a hand on his back. He wanted to melt against her touch as she spoke, her voice soft. “It’ll get easier with time. I’m not sure it’ll ever go away, but you need to focus on your pain and heal that. Anger is a secondary emotion, a reaction to the truth. You’re sad, and that’s okay, but deal with that. Don’t be a slave to your rage.”
No one had ever said that to him before, not in that way. Serj had probably tried to with his proverbs, but Rose spoke straighter than Serj. It helped. A nod and Flynn bit down on his bottom lip. After another deep inhale, the fresh meadow’s air filling his lungs, he said, “Maybe going back to take the Queen down will help. If I protect them by making sure the Queen can’t hurt them … I dunno, that compassion might make me feel some kind of forgiveness towards them, right? It might help me care for the people I want to hate.”
Rose shrugged and then squinted as she turned to look where they were heading. The setting sun shone in their faces. “Sure.” She didn’t sound convinced, but they both knew they had to do this. Neither of them could walk away knowing what the Queen had planned.
Before Flynn could respond, he heard a clicking sound from behind. Not quite a snapping stick, more the call of a strange animal. A hard tongue hitting a xylophone tooth. An animal he certainly didn’t recognise. He looked back up the hill to see them come over the brow of it. “Fuck!”
Rose then looked behind, her face turning pale, her jaw loose. “Nomads!”
The nomads, although about fifty metres away, had already seen them. Hard not to when they stood in plain sight. What appeared to be the leader of the pack—a large man covered in dirt and dried blood—raised his club. It looked to be the broken-off branch of a tree. It looked to be stained with blood. Stained with use.
Despite the distance separating them, his hiss called over the meadow as if it rang in Flynn’s ears. It reverberated around his skull and turned his blood cold. The near animalistic sound came close to paralysing him. So far away from any noise a human would make, he nearly gave himself over there and then.
The rest of the nomads joined in. They hissed like a nest of angry snakes. About twenty of them in total, they burst to life, rushing at Flynn and Rose as a stampede.
Flynn took off and heard Rose follow him. The swoosh of the long grass yielded in front of them. An uneven ground, he led the way over lumps of old road and muddy trenches. Hopefully they wouldn’t fall. A broken ankle and they had no chance of escape; even a trip would lose them their advantage.
At the bottom of the hill, Flynn’s heart beat treble time. He gulped at the hot evening air and continued up the other side of the valley.
Maybe they could outrun them, maybe not. A look behind and they already seemed to be opening the slightest lead, but they couldn’t run forever. And the pack of nomads undoubtedly had people with better endurance than Flynn and Rose.
When he reached the top of the hill, his legs on fire from the climb, Flynn gasped to try to fill what felt like rapidly shrinking lungs. A river with a bridge crossing it ran through the next valley. The only way out of there, he kept going, heading for it with Rose still at his shoulder.
Although Flynn heard the shrieks and cries behind them, a glance showed him they hadn’t appeared at the top of the hill yet. The incline had slowed their progress.
Gravity working in his favour, Flynn tried to relax and let his momentum carry him down to the bridge. Once they crossed it, they’d have another expanse of meadow beyond.
A thick tree line on either side of the river would temporarily hide them from view. Maybe they could do something
with that.
A few metres before the bridge, Flynn looked behind again to see a red-faced Rose, but not a single nomad.
Instead of crossing the bridge when he reached it, Flynn ran down the bank towards the water. Rose followed as he crawled beneath it and nestled into the dark and damp spot where the muddy bank met the wooden sleepers. The reek of wet earth and rot hung heavy in the air. It felt harder to breathe, almost as if the humidity stole the oxygen from their space.
The loud rush of the moving water made it impossible to gauge the nomads’ approach. Both Flynn and Rose sat in the darkness, gasping for breath. The coolness of the spot they’d chosen lay against Flynn’s bare and sweating arms.
The bandages Rose had wrapped around Flynn’s wrists remained. Dirty, his sweat gathered in them and burned his exposed cuts. The ropes had worn deep into his flesh, so the wounds would take some time to heal.
The water ran close to where they sat. Dark with both the fading light and its depth, the current surged through it. It dared Flynn to slip. It would relish the chance to drag him under with the hundreds of corpses that had no doubt already rotted on the riverbed.
So much water in front of them seemed to mock Flynn’s dry throat. Not that he could drink any; it probably had the plague running through every thimbleful of it.
In the past, Vicky had saved Flynn when he fell into the river. But he couldn’t think about that. They had about half a metre of muddy bank between them and the water. Not a huge amount, but enough.
As Flynn and Rose sat there, shoulder to shoulder, they waited for the nomads. Maybe it hadn’t been the best place to hide. Hopefully they wouldn’t look for them there. Hopefully they’d be too busy giving chase to stop.
Then Flynn saw it. Just the slightest shift to start with. It could have been his paranoia, but it looked like a small amount of the riverbank crumbled away and fell into the water. Nothing to worry about. If only someone told his quickening heart that.
Then another chunk fell off. He and Rose were too heavy for it. If the bank gave way, they’d be screwed. Knocked unconscious by the weighty sleepers above as the bridge collapsed, they’d drown in the deep river before they came to.
A full inhale and Flynn spoke as quietly as he could, his panic running a staccato through his voice. “Rose.”
She looked at him, her mouth wide as she fought for breath, her brow damp with sweat.
“I can’t swim. If I fall in …” Panic stole the rest of his words.
Before Rose could reply, another chunk of the wet earth fell into the river with a splash. They both watched it spin on the surface for a few seconds before the churning water ripped it apart. Then the thunder of the approaching nomads cut through the air.
While listening to the murderous pack approach, Flynn stared down at the dark blue chaos in front of him. They had no other choice but to wait. Wait and pray.
The thud of feet ran onto the bridge above them and Flynn looked up. The thick trees blocked out any light, so he couldn’t see through the gaps. Although, over the years, the gaps between the large railway sleepers had mostly clogged with mud anyway.
A train passing over them, the crowd of nomads streamed across the bridge.
Another chunk of riverbank split off and sank into the water. Already pressed against her, Flynn moved even closer to Rose.
When Rose reached out for Flynn’s hand, he reciprocated. The mud turned gritty where their fingers linked. As disempowered as he felt to rely on her, at least he knew she would try to save him if something happened and they fell in.
Chapter 2
Flynn continued to look up and watch the underside of the bridge. Anything had to be better than the watery death in front of him. The last footsteps had passed over it a few minutes previously and nothing since then. “Do you think they’ve all gone across?” he said to Rose, his eyes—as much as he tried to fight it—moving down to where the crumbling riverbank met the water.
With a shrug, Rose said, “I don’t know. It’s impossible to tell.” She spoke through a clamped jaw from where the cold of the damp space clearly affected her. They were both still dressed in just T-shirts and joggers. The wet ground had soaked through Flynn’s trousers; no doubt the same had happened to her.
“What if some have stayed behind?” Flynn said.
A moment’s pause, Rose shrugged again. “I suppose we have to take a chance by emerging at some point.”
Although they spoke, they didn’t raise the level beyond a whisper. The loud rush of the water in front of them would mask the sound of their voices. Hopefully.
Another chunk of the muddy slope in front of them fell away into the water and Flynn shook to watch it. He pressed back into the space where the bridge met the bank, hunching over with the pinch of the tight angle. It crushed his body and the smell of damp smothered him as he drew quick, panicky breaths.
It took for Rose to twist her hand before Flynn realised just how tightly he held onto her. “Sorry,” he muttered and completely let go, pressing into the damp ground to keep himself pinned in his spot.
But Rose grabbed his hand again and gave it a gentle squeeze as she forced a tight-lipped smile at him.
Still watching the fast-moving water, Flynn said, “I think we should get out of here now.”
When Rose didn’t reply, he looked across to see her nod at him. Although they’d spoken before, if they were about to move, they needed to communicate without words.
As he shifted to the right, Flynn suddenly froze. The thunder of footsteps returned, slamming down against the other side of the bridge. A rush of people ran onto it and he quickly returned to the cramped space he’d occupied seconds ago.
A deep inhale of the humid reek, Flynn shook his head as he whispered, “Fuck, that was close.” He looked up at the underside of the bridge. The nomads reached the middle and stopped.
Flynn tried to quiet his breaths as he listened to the group above. They communicated in a series of hisses and clicks. One of them sounded like they walked in circles, moving with a torturous monotony of stamping steps above them. “Do you think they know we’re here?” he whispered.
A shake of her head, Rose looked up at the underside of the bridge too. She then spoke from the side of her mouth. “At least, I hope not.”
Maybe they didn’t. Maybe they simply gathered on the bridge to plan their next move. Flynn had spoken to Serj about it several times before, and they’d concluded that ascribing human traits to the nomads didn’t make much sense. To try to judge their intentions based on normal human behaviour seemed like a waste of time. They were animals and needed to be viewed as such.
A twist of his wrists to try to ease the burn in them, a shuffle in the mud to relieve the aches in his body, a deep breath into his tight lungs; although Flynn did all of those things, his panic still threatened to drag him under. They might have to fight. He just needed to make sure he hadn’t beaten himself in his head before that happened.
A series of whistles and peeps then sounded above them. Moments later, the rush of nomads took flight, moving off the bridge as a pack, back towards Home.
“Maybe they’re giving up on us?” Flynn said.
Rose shrugged.
They needed to wait to be sure.
More of the bank fell into the water and Flynn pressed his feet so deep into the soggy earth his toes ached. God knew how long had passed. It felt like hours. “I think it’s been long enough,” he said as he watched the dark river in front of them. Breathless from his pulse racing, he added, “I think we should try to get out of here again.”
Rose shivered from the cold and nodded.
They both crawled out from a side of the bridge each. Flynn on the right, Rose on the left.
Cautious in his movement, Flynn poked his head up and looked around for nomads. The fading light and shadows created by the trees made it hard to be sure, but it looked clear. He couldn’t be any more certain than that.
As Flynn and Rose emerged and climbed up
onto the bridge, they both scanned their surroundings.
After a few seconds, Flynn released a long sigh. He reached out and held Rose’s hand again, their palms covered in the damp earth from beneath the bridge. “That was close.”
Rose shook her head. “It ain’t over yet.”
“No, you’re right.” Flynn led the way off the bridge in the opposite direction to where the nomads had just gone. Hopefully they’d given up trying to find them, but like Rose said; it ain’t over yet.
Chapter 3
They’d been under the bridge long enough for it to be much darker by the time they stepped out of the cover of the trees lining the river. Flynn could still see across the meadow in front of them, but just; much longer and that would be taken away from them too.
The wreck of the old town dominated the skyline as it always did. Although the years had eaten away at it, the skeleton of a previous capitalist existence remained. Not that they’d go anywhere near the place at night. The rats might have behaved themselves during the day, but at night all bets were off. The stories Flynn had heard … a shudder snapped through him.
“I suppose we need to head in the direction of the royal complex until we find somewhere good to rest for the night,” Rose said.
Flynn shook his head. “I wonder if we should stay away from there until we’ve got our energy up. If we get close and see her guards heading for the city where they have the games, we’ll have to follow them. We need to free the prisoners so we have an army to march on the Queen with. I’d rather not be presented with that opportunity until I feel rested enough to take it.”
The Alpha Plague - Books 1 - 8: A Post-Apocalyptic Action Thriller Page 121