Twenty-Five Percent (Book 2): Downfall

by Nerys Wheatley

  Micah jolted out of whatever thoughts he’d been lost in and glanced at him. “I didn’t for certain. It was just something about the way they held their rifles, like they couldn’t rely on them. I had a hunch.”

  Alex gaped at him in disbelief. “A hunch? You risked our lives over a hunch?”

  Micah smiled slightly. “It was a very good hunch. And I was right, mostly. I think we can say that in a very real way what I did was, in fact, save our lives.”

  “How about instead we say that in a very real way you are out of your mind?”

  “You don’t have to put it on the list after I’m gone.”

  A void tugged at Alex’s gut. This was what he was trying not to talk about, for both their sakes. “You’re not gone yet.”

  “You saw the blood. There’s no way I’m not infected.”

  “You know there’s a chance you’re immune after being infected the first time?”

  Micah looked back out at the fields. “I thought of that. But it’s never been tested, has it? Until now.”

  “So, as I said, you’re not gone yet.” Alex tried to sound confident and unconcerned. In truth, he was scared out of his mind.

  They sat in silence for half a minute.

  “At least if I am immune,” Micah said, “I’ll know about it and won’t have to wear those stupid evening gloves.”

  “I thought you thought they looked cool.”

  “That’s because I had to wear them. Now I don’t, one way or another, I can admit I think they look like evening gloves. It’s embarrassing.”

  Another minute passed. A bird sang in a tree nearby. Alex looked up at it. It was black, so he went with it being a blackbird.

  “You stopped to take the keys from the bikes before coming to check on me?” he said. It was one of the things he’d been thinking about while trying not to think about the imminent possibility of Micah turning.

  “A log in the road seemed fishy. I thought it was better to not risk it. I didn’t want to lose another bike.”

  “Well, good to know where I stand in your estimation. Just behind the motorbikes.” He waved his hand in a magnanimous gesture. “But under the circumstances, I’m prepared to let it go.”

  “How big of you.” Micah shrugged. “I have my priorities. If we hadn’t been carrying our guns already, I’d have picked them up too.”

  Alex sighed loudly. “After all I’ve done for you.”

  “Yeah, I don’t know how I would have coped without having my life under threat on a regular basis.”

  “I seem to recall you got us into more than one of those life-threatening situations.”

  Micah smiled. “Maybe we should start a list for that too.”

  “Maybe.”

  There were a couple more minutes of silence. Alex watched another black bird pecking at a round hay bale some way across the field in front of them. It was bigger than the singing black bird. A crow? No, this had white on it as well. He knew this one. Damn, what was it called?

  “Alex, if I turn...”

  Alex looked at him sharply. “Are you feeling unwell?”

  “No, but...”

  “Then don’t talk about it. If it happens, I’ll deal with it.”

  There were a few seconds of silence before Micah said, “Okay.”

  Ten minutes later, after seeing a possible sparrow, blue tit, and something pretty with a red face and yellow wings Alex couldn’t even hazard a guess at, he looked at his watch and let out a breath he felt like he’d been holding for a quarter of an hour.

  “So you’re immune,” he stated.

  Micah looked at his own watch. “Yeah.” He grinned. “Yeah!”

  “Let’s get going then. All this fresh air is getting a bit much.” He stood, just barely remembering to stifle his cry of pain. A whimper escaped.

  Micah frowned at him. “I think we should find somewhere to spend the night. You look like you’re about to fall apart.”

  Alex waved a hand. “I’m fine. It’s not even six. We have over an hour of daylight left.” He took a step and stopped, grimacing. Sitting down for so long may have been a mistake. It felt like every muscle had seized up.

  Micah stood. “Oh yes, you’re the picture of health. We’re stopping, no arguments.”

  Alex hid a smile. “Yes, mum.” He hauled himself painfully onto his bike. “Did you really bring your list?”

  “Of course.”

  “We’re on a rescue mission. How shallow are you?”

  “Are you telling me you didn’t bring your list?”

  “I’m not saying that.”

  “Thought so. And now I know I’m going to live, at least for today, my rifle hunch is going on it.”

  “I’m going to have to put serious thought into whether it’s going on mine.”

  “You do what you have to do.” Micah flipped his visor shut and started his bike.

  “Magpie!” Alex exclaimed.

  He flipped his visor back up. “What?”

  Alex grinned, suddenly feeling much happier. “Nothing.”

  . . .

  “There,” Alex said, pointing.

  The house was on the edge of a tiny village that was really no more than a smattering of homes around a crossroads. It was set back from the road in a large garden, a driveway leading to a garage separate from the house. The garage door was wide open. It was empty.

  The open window Alex had seen was on the left side of the house. They pulled into the driveway and parked side by side in the garage, leaving the door open in case they had to leave in a hurry, then made their way to the window. It opened onto a large kitchen with a door to the outside a little farther along. The door was locked.

  Micah moved a garden chair beneath the window and climbed onto it, pulling the window open as far as he could. A moan came from the far side of the kitchen and Alex watched a woman shuffle across the room towards them. Taking his spiker from his pocket, Micah waited until it was reaching across the sink for him, grabbed its hands and plunged the spiker into its forehead. It slumped to the floor.

  The eater dealt with, he climbed inside. A few seconds later, he opened the door so Alex could get inside.

  He looked down at the dead eater as he walked in. “Do you think they shut her in here on purpose?” he said, noting a closed door on the other side of the room.

  “I don’t know,” Micah said. “Let’s find out.”

  Alex locked the door to the garden while Micah carefully opened the door to the rest of the house. Beyond was a hallway with a staircase and an open door leading into a living room. Belongings were strewn all over the floor, books, clothes, knick-knacks. Alex stopped to pick up a blonde haired doll wearing a blue checked dress. In the living room, photos lined the mantelpiece over a gas fire. He recognised the eater Micah had just killed, or the woman it once was, with a dark haired man and a little girl of maybe eight.

  Micah was standing at the foot of the stairs, looking up. “I think I heard something.”

  Upstairs they found a long landing with five doors, all of them closed. Micah moved from door to door, knocking on each, listening, then opening to check inside before moving to the next. At the second from last one that he tried, there was a sound. Alex pressed his ear to the wooden surface, hearing light, shuffling footsteps. Something hit the other side of the door and slid down the surface. Then they heard the high pitched moan.

  “No,” Micah said, staring at the door in horror.

  Alex stepped back and closed his eyes, trying to banish the photos downstairs from his mind.

  “Maybe we should just find another house,” Micah said.

  “We were lucky to find this one. If we go back out, we’ll probably have to either break in, which means making noise and compromising the security of wherever we are, or sleep in the open.”

  Micah stared at the door. “I just don’t think I can do it.”

  Alex wasn’t sure he could either. “This won’t be the last child eater we come across. You need to stop t
hinking of them as children and remember they’re just eaters. You told me the same thing when we were in the river, remember?”

  Micah pursed his lips. “So you think you can do it?”

  “I...” Could he?

  He turned away from the door, took a couple of deep breaths, then turned back and thrust the door open. Whatever was behind the door was pushed backwards and at first nothing happened. Then a hand appeared on the door and a small body shuffled around it.

  She was barely recognisable as the little girl in the photos downstairs. Her face was cadaverous, her cheeks sunken, eyes deep in their sockets. The arms protruding from her pink, filthy dress were no more than skin stretched over bone. She was starving, the eater’s raised metabolism consuming her from the inside. And there was nothing they could do to help her.

  She gave a pathetic moan as she lurched towards them, tripping over a teddy bear on the floor and falling onto her face.

  Micah staggered back against the banister, covering his mouth, tears in his eyes. Alex felt like he was going to be sick.

  The little girl began to struggle to her feet. With an agonised cry, Alex lunged forward and plunged the spiker into the back of her head. The tiny body slumped back to the floor.

  Alex dropped the spiker and ran across the landing, yanking open doors, feeling the bile rise. When he finally found the bathroom, he threw himself at the toilet and vomited into the bowl. Tears streamed down his face, his stomach lurching and convulsing. When it was over, he wiped his mouth with toilet paper and flushed.

  He was still for a few seconds. Then he pounded his fist into the wall, over and over, screaming in rage with every hit, until his skin was torn and bloody and the tiles were cracked and broken. When his hand became too painful to carry on, he turned around, sagged against the wall and slid to the floor, his body wracked with sobs.

  He didn’t know how long it was before he stopped crying. When he calmed enough to be aware of his surroundings again, he saw Micah watching him from the hallway outside the bathroom door. Embarrassed, he wiped his face and stood up.

  “Do you need help with that?”

  Micah lowered his eyes and Alex followed his gaze. His hand was bleeding, the skin ripped open by the cracked tiles.

  He shook his head. “I can do it.”

  Micah disappeared along the hallway and Alex closed the bathroom door. When he emerged ten minutes later, the girl’s body was gone. Downstairs, her mother’s corpse was missing too.

  The blinds in the kitchen were drawn and a single candle was burning on the worktop. Micah was studying the contents of one of the wall cabinets.

  “Where did you put the bodies?” Alex said.

  “In the shed in the back garden.” Micah ran one hand over his hair and turned to look at him. “I was a bit useless up there. I’m sorry.”

  Alex shook his head. “Neither of us should have to do something like that.”

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  Alex felt a small smile creep onto his face. “Do you want me to?”

  A pained look crossed Micah’s features. “Not really, but if you need to, I’m here. That’s what friends are for. Do you need a hug?” He opened his arms and walked towards him, beckoning with his fingers. “Come on, let’s hug it out.”

  Laughing, Alex backed away. “Stop it, you freak.”

  Micah grinned and returned to his perusal of the contents of the kitchen cupboards.

  And just like that, the guilt and anger slipped away. Alex knew what he’d had to do would stay with him for a long time, maybe the rest of his life. But thanks to Micah, he was okay. Because that was what friends were for.

  “What’s with the ambient lighting?” he said, walking over to the fridge.

  “Electricity’s off,” Micah said.

  The air that puffed from the fridge wasn’t very cold, but nothing smelled bad inside so Alex assumed it hadn’t been long without power.

  Then he smiled.

  “Hey,” he said, “I found pie.”

  9

  Alex woke up with a stomach that felt like he’d eaten a bowling ball. He had to admit it was probably his fault.

  The electricity hadn’t come back on the night before and they’d found two melting tubs of Ben & Jerry’s in the freezer. Micah called it a day after half a tub of Cookie Dough, but Alex couldn’t leave any. It would have felt wrong. Having first eaten some cold leftover pasta and the apple pie he’d found in the fridge, then followed it with half a litre of Caramel Chew Chew and the rest of Micah’s Cookie Dough, he was willing to admit he might have had a problem with his self-control around ice-cream.

  He found Micah in the kitchen, making sandwiches.

  “How are you feeling after the B&J blowout?” Micah said.

  Alex groaned. “Next time, stop me. Shoot me if you have to.”

  “And how’s the...” he waved his hands vaguely around his own body, “...everything.”

  “The good news is, the bits of me that were hurting yesterday are improving. The bad news is, completely new bits have started to hurt in their place.”

  “You seem to have an unerring talent for getting yourself injured. I’m amazed you’ve survived this long as a police officer.”

  “It’s luck, mostly. Someone threw a knife at me once. It impaled on my wallet.”

  “A wallet stopped a knife?”

  “It was probably the many credit cards inside that did it. I was dealing with some debt issues at the time.”

  Micah smiled and tossed him a foil wrapped package. “You ready to go?”

  Alex looked towards the stairs, remembering the day before. During the night he’d dreamed of being surrounded by child eaters begging him to help them.

  “Yeah, I’m ready.”

  . . .

  The roads were no better than they had been the day before.

  Four times they saw large eater hordes. Twice they were far enough away to circle around without attracting their attention. The third time they rounded a corner and almost crashed into one, having to do a frantic u-turn to avoid the eaters and drive fast in the other direction. The last time, the horde was surrounding a farmhouse and surging in through the open front door. There were screams from inside. Alex and Micah drove away quickly.

  Not long after the farmhouse, they pulled over to the side of the narrow road, more out of habit than because any other vehicles were likely to come along. Ahead of them, the road entered a small wooded area and curved to the left.

  After the previous day, Alex was leery of anywhere in a forest he couldn’t see. The trees ahead were giving him a deeply unpleasant sensation of déjà vu. A dozen different scenarios of what could be around that corner were going through his mind, and none of them were good.

  And in addition to his natural trepidation, he could smell something.

  “Worried about another ambush?” Micah said.

  “No. Well, yes. But I can smell pheromones. It may be from the farmhouse back there...”

  “But there may also be another horde around that corner,” Micah finished.

  “I think we should check before we drive into something we can’t get out of.”

  Micah pulled off his helmet. “How long is this new, cautious Alex going to last?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” he replied, climbing from the bike. “Until I can sit without pain?”

  They walked along the road to the bend and crept forward until they could see around it. The eaters were about a hundred feet along the road, not a large horde, maybe forty or so, but enough to be a nuisance. In addition, it was clear they weren’t going anywhere anytime soon.

  In the centre of the road was a car. They were too far away to see if there was anyone inside, but from the eater’s behaviour, Alex knew there wasn’t. Not any more, at least. The eaters themselves were circling the car, shuffling round and round, each one following the one in front. He and Micah had seen this before. They were following pheromone trails, somehow trapped in a never endi
ng spiral until something, or someone, disturbed them and broke the chain.

  The problem was, they were blocking the road.

  Alex and Micah retreated back around the corner.

  “Now what do we do?” Alex said, keeping his voice low.

  “Well we can’t go back,” Micah replied, looking behind them as if he could see the farmhouse with its horde. “And we haven’t passed any other roads.”

  “And the bikes wouldn’t make it across the field,” Alex said. “So we can’t circle around there.” The fields on both sides of the road had been recently ploughed. The heavy bikes wouldn’t make it two feet before getting stuck in the soft earth.

  “We could scout out the wood, see if there are any paths or anything we could get the bikes along,” Micah said.

  They returned to the corner and split up, Alex going right and Micah left. After ten minutes of having his shins poked with brambles and not finding so much as an animal trail, Alex made his way back to the road, closer to the horde to get a better look. He crouched at the tree line, watching the men and women lumbering mindlessly after each other. If left undisturbed, he wondered if they would simply keep going until they died.

  After a couple of minutes, Micah appeared on the far side of the road. Alex raised his hands to the side, silently asking if he’d found a way through. Micah shook his head and pointed at him. Alex indicated with a shake of his head that he hadn’t. Micah sighed and studied the circling horde. After a few seconds, he looked back at Alex and began a series of hand gestures which Alex assumed were intended to convey what he wanted to do about the horde.

  Which would have been fine if Alex had a clue what the impromptu sign language meant.

  When Micah finished, Alex shrugged to indicate he didn’t understand. He shifted his feet, trying to relieve the discomfort in his ankles from crouching in the grass, and watched Micah go through the complicated and utterly incomprehensible series of hand gestures for the second time.

  Point at Alex; mime of scissors pointed downwards and cutting in a circle; point at the small horde of eaters; jazz hands; more scissors, this time quicker and in a straight line; point at himself; fist in the air jerking backwards and forwards.