Mutation (Wildfire Chronicles Vol. 4)

by Griffiths, K. R.

  "That's not all they'd guarantee," growled a huge, tattooed man who went by the name of Shirley. Nick had taken that piece of information in straight-faced, and hadn't asked. He told himself he never would.

  Nick nodded.

  "Agreed," he said. "Cities are out of the question. I think there are a couple of places in North Wales that might hold annual air shows. Mostly they would just do displays of old aircraft, but they would have a runway, and anywhere that has a runway is our best shot at getting fuel. Failing that, we'd just have to get lucky and stumble across a tanker on the roads."

  "I think we've established that luck doesn't really figure for us," Ray said. "You know where any of these places are, Nick?"

  Nick shook his head.

  "Not exactly. But any of the local towns would have a tourist information bureau. They would have maps and local points of interest. We'd be able to find out there."

  Ray stood.

  "Looks like we're heading for town, boys," he said grimly.

  *

  In the end getting the fuel looked like it was going to be easier than Nick had anticipated. He still wasn't sure whether that was a good thing or not.

  When the bikes had roared away from the ramshackle camp, Nick rode with Ray, clinging to the man's wide back for dear life and feeling a heightened terror which he suspected might be more to do with being perched on the speeding bike rather than the outrageous noise the machine made and the possibility of it attracting the Infected.

  They made for the nearest town: a tiny one-road place called Mostyn, that was notable only for housing a surprisingly large dock that built the wind farms placed in the Irish Sea.

  When Nick saw the bones of one of the huge wind turbines laying in the dock, he thought wryly that at least the apocalypse had done some good: there would be no more human-induced climate change. He wondered if future generations would venture out into the seas and marvel at the massive, bewildering forests of steel jutting from the ocean, wondering what their purpose had been.

  The infection looked to have passed through Mostyn almost as everyone else had over the years: like an afterthought. Just scenery that blurred past on the route to some other, more meaningful destination.

  As the bikes slowed to a throaty growl, cruising into the tiny town on high alert, Nick saw a few scattered bodies, but on the whole the place looked almost untouched. There just hadn't been that many people there, Nick guessed. Just the few whose corpses now rotted on the streets, and the rest, who had doubtless joined the eyeless herds heading west. The sockets.

  That strange exodus puzzled Nick more than anything, but when he asked Ray about it, the biker simply shrugged, as if to say they gotta go somewhere.

  The group piloted the bikes to what looked like the centre of the 'town': a handful of tiny shops that mostly served food and supplies to the docks. When they killed the engines the staccato thunder of the bikes gave way to a roaring, deafening silence that was broken only by the soft whisper of the waves that lapped gently at the dock.

  For a full minute they waited, their eyes scanning every direction, their hands on their weapons, searching for some sign that the infection was creeping toward them.

  Nothing.

  "Looks okay," Ray said finally. "You can stop hanging on to me now, Nick." He grinned, and Nick flushed for a moment, before hopping off the bike, and biting back his gratitude at making it back onto the ground in one piece.

  He looked around. There was no hope of a tourist information bureau - Nick doubted the concept of tourism had made it to Mostyn - but he saw one possibility and pointed at a tiny gift shop, the sort of place that mostly sold plastic beach toys and faded memories.

  "There," he said. "If anywhere is going to have information on local attractions, that will be the place."

  "Local attractions," Shirley repeated in a low growl. "I'd say the only attraction here is the road out of this shithole."

  Ray chuckled.

  "Shirl," he said. "Why don't you go grab us some food from that store?" He pointed at a small grocery shop. "Nothing that will have gone rotten this time, okay?"

  Shirley snorted and heaved his bulk from the bike, delivering an ironic salute.

  "Come on, Nick," Ray said. "Let's get what we need and get the fuck out of here. This place gives me the creeps."

  Nick nodded. He knew exactly what Ray meant. It was the stillness of the town. Even before the virus it would have felt like a sad and isolated place. Now it felt like a relic.

  The inside of the gift shop felt dusty and claustrophobic. Even light struggled to find space inside: the windows were piled high with the sort of low-quality beach items that only the truly desperate would ever think to buy. Most of the stuff looked like it had been there for years; faded and tired.

  Nick saw what he needed immediately: a rotating rack that held postcards and leaflets espousing the virtues of attractions like Prestatyn Sands and Rhyl Seaworld. The leaflets tried their best to make the North Welsh coast seem exciting, but only succeeded in making Nick feel sad.

  He twisted the rack until he saw a pale blue pamphlet with a an ancient biplane emblazoned on the front.

  Visit Mold International Air Show!

  "Mold," Ray said, peering at the flyer over Nick's shoulder. "They have a place called Mold." It wasn't a question. Nick could tell from Ray's sardonic tone that if anything, he expected the name of the place was probably pretty apt.

  "About ten miles south of here by the look of this map," Nick said with a nod.

  "Hmph. Not so far. Further than we've travelled since we set up camp, but there's a good chance that place will have emptied out too. Come on."

  Ray turned and strode to the door, and paused.

  "Just how international you think this air show will be anyway?"

  "I think it probably means they have a picture of an old German bomber somewhere on the premises."

  Ray grinned.

  "That's what I thought."

  *

  With the sad little town shrinking fast in their rear view mirrors, Nick let his mind wander as he chewed on one of the stale pastries that Shirley had decided was the best food he could find in the grocery store.

  Not that Nick would complain about the dry, tasteless cake. It was, he realised, the first time he had eaten in hours. Days, maybe. The sugar rush seemed to give his tired mind a shove, and soon it was racing alongside the bikes.

  He liked the group of bikers. In truth, he felt more at ease with them than he ever had in the army. But they were on some mission that Nick thought had a faint whiff of suicidal about it: some strange yearning for revenge on a guy that had forcibly turned them away from the place they wanted to stay several days earlier.

  But there were plenty of places. And with a helicopter, they could take their pick. Whatever the place was that the bikers had lost, it surely wasn't worth heading toward a large number of the Infected to get to it.

  "Ray," he shouted, straining his lungs to be heard over the roar of the engine.

  "Yeah?" Ray hollered back, slowing the bike a little.

  "When we get this fuel...you certain you want to go back to this place that kicked you out?"

  For a moment Ray was silent, and Nick was not sure the man had heard him.

  "It's not a case of wanting to go there, Nick. It's about doing what's right. And it's not that they kicked us out."

  Ray twisted the throttle, and the bike lurched forward.

  "It's that they didn't let us in."

  *

  The air strip was exactly what Nick had expected: a single short runway surrounded by empty fields and a solitary hangar, just large enough to hold a small dual-propeller plane. He imagined that when the Mold International Air Show was in full swing, there would be a few hundred people from the local towns filling the fields, probably eating picnics; playing with their kids. It was the sort of idyllic scene that was probably now consigned to history.

  The bikes roared to a halt outside the chain-l
ink fence that surrounded the place, and they waited a moment while Shirley took a couple of heavy swings at the locked gate with his boot, smashing it open on the second attempt to a round of ironic applause.

  The bikes cruised inside, each rider still keeping a keen eye out for movement, but Nick could tell from the stillness of the place and the locked entrance that the airstrip was clear of the infection. He doubted anyone had been anywhere near the place when the virus erupted in the population; certainly there would have been no reason for the Infected to head for it. No prey inside.

  Prey, he thought. It was odd to consider human beings as the prey of anything. Mankind had conquered all but the most isolated parts of the planet completely. The only time a human became prey was when they were stupid enough to put themselves in situations that involved sharks or bears or poisonous snakes. Even then, the right equipment made such an encounter meaningless.

  It was following that train of thought that made him remember the way the monster at Catterick had responded when he had switched on the low frequency emitter.

  Every predator can be stopped with the right equipment, he thought.

  "Hey, Earth to Nick. You in there buddy?"

  Ray snapped his fingers in front of Nick's face, making him blink in surprise.

  "Sorry," Nick said. "Just thinking."

  "Ha! I thought we already discussed that," Ray said with a grin. "You think this place has got the fuel you need or not?"

  Nick pointed at the hangar.

  "In there, if it's anywhere," he said.

  Ray strode to the large sliding door. Padlocked.

  "Don't suppose you brought a hacksaw?" Ray quipped.

  It took them a few minutes to smash the lock away, Shirley bringing a large rock down on the metal with a jarring clang repeatedly until the padlock finally gave up its stubborn resistance. Inside they found a small plane, exactly as Nick had imagined they would. The type used most frequently for giving lessons to would-be pilots. Stacked at the back of the hangar Nick saw a wall of shelves lined with small tanks of fuel, and his heart sank a little.

  Some part of him, he realised, had still hoped they wouldn't find the fuel; that maybe the bikers would give up on their thirst for revenge and find somewhere safe to settle down. The fuel was there though, and Nick knew as he watched the bikers heaving it from the shelves that safety was the furthest thing from their minds.

  Like it or not, Nick was going to be a soldier again, flying a team off to battle. The familiar fear swelled inside him, and he did his best to throttle it before it overwhelmed him.

  "Didn't figure on these being so difficult to transport by bike," Ray said, nodding at the fuel tanks. "How many you think we need?"

  Nick stared at him a moment, lost in thought.

  You just need the right equipment, Nick-yyyy.

  "Take one," Nick said. "That will give us enough fuel."

  "For the whole trip?" Ray looked dubious.

  Nick shook his head.

  "Enough to come back here with the chopper," he said. "Then we can take them all."

  Ray's eyes widened.

  "All?"

  "You never know when we might need them," Nick said.

  Ray arched an eyebrow, and Nick could tell from his expression that it wasn't the information that surprised the biker as much as the confident way it was delivered.

  Nick slung a leg over the back of Ray's bike, clutching one of the small fuel tanks to his chest, and the bikes roared away toward the setting sun, and the chopper, and what felt like the beginning of the end.

  19

  The pain was like an insistent alarm clock: it let John know he was awake even before his eyes opened. Eye, more accurately: his left eye was swollen shut, and that entire side of his face felt like someone had to gone to work on it; someone with a grudge and a hot poker and oodles of energy. He tried to open the eye and found that even the merest attempt sent a shockwave of pain through his skull.

  Still alive, then.

  He breathed in deeply, letting the room swim into focus, and the breathing revealed a secondary pain; no less terrible: one of his ribs was cracked. It wasn't the first time he had suffered such an injury, and he gave silent thanks that at least he hadn't punctured a lung even as he told himself that being able to diagnose yourself because of familiarity with a multitude of types of pain probably meant your life wasn't going so well.

  Still, a cracked rib would heal just fine. Anything more serious than that, he was not so sure about.

  He lifted himself into a sitting position, wincing as his injuries voiced their displeasure at his decision to move. He was in a plush bedroom, resplendent with ancient-looking furniture and ornate decorations. After the hard floors and discomfort of the previous few days, the room felt strangely surreal, and he allowed himself a delicious moment of fantasising that it had all just been a bad dream.

  If only.

  One wall of the room was a stone semicircle, the window just a slit. The kind that once upon a time people had probably fired arrows from. He was still in the castle. He swung his legs over the side of the large bed, and felt a stab of fire in his thigh. He pulled back the covers, and saw the deep gash in his leg. Someone had stitched him up. It wasn't exactly masterful work, and it would heal to leave another scar on a body that already told a long tale of violent encounters, but John couldn't complain.

  The real question though, was who had stitched him back together. He remembered the fight in the boutique. Remembered Rachel appearing with the gun. After that, nothing.

  Judging by the way his face felt like it had swollen up to twice its usual size, he had probably been unconscious a while. When he pondered what might have happened in the castle while he was passed out, an apprehensive dread settled on him, and for a moment he considered curling up under the covers again, and trying to pretend that he was somewhere else. Anywhere. Even back out in the desert. At least there, he had a vague idea of what he was dealing with; what he was supposed to be fighting.

  Turns out you preferred having someone tell you what to do, John, he thought. Whether they were idiots and arseholes or not.

  He glanced at a dresser at the side of the bed. A glass of water sat atop it, alongside two small white pills. He eyed them suspiciously, and was still pondering their possible effects when the door to the room swung open and a tired-looking woman walked in.

  "Nice to see you up and about. John, right? I'm Linda. I'd say pleased to meet you but, well..."

  She shrugged, and John snorted a chuckle that sent a wave of fire coursing through his head.

  "Feeling's mutual," John said. "You the one that stitched me up?"

  Linda's weary face fell. She nodded.

  "It's good work," John said.

  She smiled a little, apparently pleased. "I preferred being a teacher. And I doubt 'good' is the best way to describe that mess. It'll scar, I should think."

  John nodded.

  "I'm still here. Makes it good as far as I'm concerned. Thanks. Are these painkillers?"

  "Yes," Linda said. "Strongest we've got for now. They have Codeine in them, might make you a bit drowsy. I'm afraid we don't have many, so-"

  "Keep them," John interrupted. "Likely someone else is going to need them far more than I do."

  "You sure?" Linda asked, sounding dubious.

  John smiled.

  "I've had my arse kicked before, Linda. I'll survive. Speaking of which, what's the latest out there regarding our ongoing attempts to kill each other?"

  Linda smiled despite herself.

  "Darren's dead," she said, and her tone left John in no doubt that she was happy about that turn of events. "Sam and Jack, too. Jack's the one you stabbed."

  John said nothing.

  "And the elderly lady you came in with, she's dead. I think that about covers it. I hope she wasn't someone special. The truth is I feel a bit numb to all the death now. Condolences, I guess."

  John waved the words away, and bit down on the sadness he
felt at hearing the news.

  I liked her, too. Fuck.

  "How did she die?"

  Linda leaned past John and picked up the painkillers, slipping them back into a small bottle she withdrew from the pocket of her jeans.

  "Gunshot," she said, and noticed the arching of John's eyebrows. "It was quick. Your friend in the wheelchair, he had the gun. Darren tried to kill him, she got caught up in it. That's all I know, really. You'd be best off asking your friend. He seems to be the one in charge now."

  John's head shot up, and he stared at Linda's face, his good eye narrowing.

  Oh, really?

  *

  When Linda left to tend to her 'other patients' - she couldn't keep the sarcasm out of her tone - John stood and tested his legs. The cut in his thigh had been deep, but he doubted it had done serious damage. Hurt like hell, though, and for a moment he considered dropping the bravado and chasing after Linda to get those painkillers.

  He was on the first floor of one of the castle's towers, and the steps took a little negotiating, but as he moved, John felt the pain recede a little.

  On the ground floor, he saw a mattress and the body of a young woman. He stepped closer to see if she was alright, and saw the nasty wound on her head that looked like it had become infected.

  He wondered if that was what had killed her. It was a reminder, John thought, that there was not only one virus out there that they had to worry about. There were others, far older; hardened and evolved by skirmishes with the human immune system that had lasted for hundreds of years.

  Something else to add to the list of things that will try to kill us, John thought. He wondered how many other unforeseen dangers were out there; dangers than humanity believed it had conquered, only for Project Wildfire to give them a new lease of life.

  In the end, John doubted any of them would be as dangerous as other humans. With a heavy heart, he pushed open the tower door, and stepped out into the morning air, with only one thing on his mind.