Twenty-Five Percent (Book 2): Downfall

by Nerys Wheatley

  Sam released him and stepped back, wiping at his eyes and smiling. Alex felt a little like he’d just taken in an orphaned kitten. He climbed onto his motorbike and beckoned to Sam who got on behind him, sitting far closer than socially acceptable. A sigh tickled Alex’s ear. After a few seconds, Sam rubbed his cheek on his shoulder.

  Alex shot off the bike as if he’d sat on a porcupine. “Get off,” he growled.

  Sam looked at him in shock. “Did I do something to offend you? Please tell me what it was, so I can never do it again.”

  Alex looked at Micah, who was barely containing himself. “He’s not riding with me. You take him. And this is not funny.”

  10

  They drove for a couple of hours, stopping occasionally to check the map and once to eat the sandwiches Micah had made back at the house, which didn’t go very far split between three people.

  By one in the afternoon, the previous night’s ice-cream was a distant memory and Alex’s stomach was very pointedly telling him it needed filling. While driving along a single track lane between fields of contented looking cows, a light illuminated on his bike’s dashboard to tell him it felt the same way.

  Alex raised his hand to indicate he wanted to stop and pulled to the side of the road. Sam grinned at him from behind Micah as they stopped beside him.

  “Only swallowed two bugs this time,” he said.

  “We’ll get you a helmet as soon as we can. Or at least a scarf. Just try to stop smiling.”

  “I can’t help it,” Sam said, his eyes bright. “I’ve never been on a road trip before. It’s so much fun.”

  Alex climbed from his bike, his sore, stiff body protesting, and opened the seat.

  “We’re going to have to find somewhere to stop,” he said, studying the map. “Both me and the bike need to refuel.”

  Micah flipped up his visor. “Will petrol pumps work if the power is still out?”

  “I don’t know, probably not. But if we find a place that does repairs, they may have a store of fuel, or at least hoses so we can siphon some.”

  . . .

  The small town they found was bigger than it looked on the map. They entered along a street of expensive looking bungalows, following the road signs to the town centre. It looked like it had been a pleasant place to live, before the eaters came.

  It was obvious a large horde had swept through. Haphazardly strewn abandoned cars on the roads, suitcases and belongings scattered over the ground, once neatly kept flowerbeds trampled by thousands of heedless, shuffling feet. Torn clothing waved in the breeze, tangled around piles of blood stained bones. Alex heard a sniff as they slowed at a junction and looked over to see Sam’s head down, his eyes closed and forehead pressed against Micah’s back.

  They passed a small Sainsbury’s Local, but the windows were smashed and the shelves Alex could see were empty.

  After driving around for a while, they came across a vehicle repairs garage and pulled onto the forecourt. Alex climbed from his bike and looked around for any potential danger. Driven by the wind, a plastic carrier bag bounced along the pavement into a garden across the road, lodging in a rose bush. In the distance, a dog barked.

  Another sound caught his attention and he looked up into the overcast sky. “Hear that?”

  Sam walked up next to him and followed his gaze. “Is it a plane?”

  Micah hung his helmet on the handlebar of his bike and looked up, shielding his eyes with one hand. “Helicopter.”

  They watched the black chopper fly past high overhead.

  “Doesn’t look military,” Alex said, sneezing when his nose tickled.

  “Government?” Micah said.

  “Here? Why would anyone be interested in here?”

  Micah shrugged as Alex sneezed again. “Hay fever?”

  “I don’t get hay fever.” He rubbed his tingling nose as he wandered over to the garage, Sam at his side. “Let’s see what’s in here.”

  The big metal security shutter over the entrance was closed and Alex knocked on it, listening for any voices or moans. Hearing nothing, he bent to tug at the handle near the ground. The shutter rattled against the locks holding it in place.

  “Maybe there’s a door at the back,” Sam said, stepping back to get a wider view of the building.

  “It’s alright,” Alex said, “I’ve got it.”

  Wrapping both hands around the handle, he bent his legs and pulled upwards. For a few seconds Alex thought he might have underestimated the strength of the locks as they resisted, the metal bolts scraping in their holes. Then a series of clunks rattled the shutter as screws gave way and Alex stumbled forward when it suddenly rolled up.

  Sam stared at him in awe. “You are so cool.”

  Micah shook his head as he walked into the building, muttering, “Show off,” as he passed.

  Alex straightened his clothing and followed him inside. He couldn’t help it if Sam thought he was awesome. All he’d done was open the door of a building they needed to get into. He was ninety-nine percent certain that did not count as showing off.

  A quick search turned up no petrol, but Sam found a siphon pump and, eager to help, set about refilling the tanks of both bikes from a car in the garage itself and, when that ran out of fuel, a truck abandoned at an angle blocking the street, its driver’s side door left wide open. Alex noticed him studiously not looking at the large blood stain on the seat inside.

  Micah went in search of food, finding a house a little along the road with an unlocked door and emerging ten minutes later with two six pack bags of Hula Hoops, a pack of four Snickers bars, and three twin packs of Scotch eggs.

  With nothing else to do, and reluctant to leave Sam on his own, Alex plotted the next leg of their journey on the maps. At the sound of the helicopter returning, he looked up to watch it pass overhead again, this time lower. There was a small logo on the tail, but it was too far away to make out.

  “Same one?” Micah said, walking towards him while looking up at the retreating chopper.

  “Looks like it,” Alex replied. He grabbed a tissue from his pocket to sneeze into.

  Micah frowned at him. “You’re not getting ill, are you?”

  “I hope not. I feel fine, other than all the aches and pains. I’ll have one of the beef Hula Hoops.” He stretched out a hand for the packet.

  Micah backed out of his reach. “What kind of savage are you? Main course first.” He handed him one of the packs of Scotch eggs.

  “Oh yes, this is so much healthier. Give me the Hula Hoops too. If it makes you feel better, we’ll call them a side dish.” He open the Scotch eggs. “How are these still cold? Is the power on here?”

  “No, they were in the freezer. Another day or so and I wouldn’t have risked it.”

  Sam bounded up. “All done. Ooh, I love Scotch eggs.”

  “Go and wash your hands first,” Micah said.

  “Okay.” He ran off again, into the garage.

  “Are you channelling Mrs Doubtfire today?” Alex said.

  Micah ignored him, sitting on a nearby garden wall and ripping open his eggs. “He seems happier,” he said, nodding towards where Sam had disappeared into the garage employee toilets.

  “Maybe,” Alex replied, sitting next to him and taking a bite of hardboiled egg wrapped in sausage meat and breadcrumbs. “But I think he’s lying about sacrificing himself to the eaters. I think he just wanted to die. Two months after I finished my police training, I was called to a flat where a man was threatening to jump from a ninth storey window. I had to try to talk him down. He had the same expression of hopelessness Sam had when he was walking towards those eaters.”

  “So that’s why you wanted to bring him with us.”

  “Partly.”

  “Ha! So you admit it was partly because you like that he thinks you’re a superhero?”

  “I admit no such thing.”

  Micah chewed for a few seconds. “So what happened to the suicidal man on the ninth floor?”

 
“I failed. He jumped.” Alex stared at a red Japanese maple across the road, remembering what it felt like to watch, panicked, as the man disappeared over the edge of the window. “But on the way down he hit an awning which slowed his fall just enough that he survived. Broke most of the bones in his body and spent the next three months in hospital, but he survived. He ended up marrying one of the nurses who looked after him.”

  Micah stopped eating to stare at him. “Is that true?”

  Alex chuckled. “I swear it is.”

  Sam came jogging back from the garage. He was carrying two motorcycle helmets, grinning as he handed them to Alex. “Look what I found.”

  One of the helmets was blue and had obviously seen better days, its surface covered in scuffs and a couple of dents. The other was shiny and black and had orange flames running along the sides. Sam’s smile grew as Alex handed the black one back to him.

  “Wow, thanks.” He placed it carefully onto Micah’s bike, running his hands over it for a few moments before returning to them. “The water was weird. First it ran, then it stopped, then it started again. But I found wet wipes and some of that anti-bacterial stuff so I could do them properly.” He held his hands out to Micah for inspection, flipping them over. “See?”

  Micah handed him the third pack of Scotch eggs. “Good enough.”

  “I hope that doesn’t mean the water is going to stop altogether,” Alex said.

  “Could be something to do with the power supply,” Micah said. “They must pump it round the system somehow.”

  Alex sighed. “That’s just great. If the water stops, no more showers.”

  “No flushing toilets,” Micah said.

  There were a few moments of thought before Sam summed it up for all of them. “Yuck.”

  They ate for a while, listening to the occasional bird chirp or dog bark. A door opened some way along the street and a middle-aged woman stepped out, saw them, and ran back inside again. Alex thought he could hear the helicopter in the distance.

  Another sound wormed into his consciousness, faint to begin with, but increasing in volume as he listened. The sound was so unexpected that at first he wondered if he was imagining it.

  He could hear a vehicle approaching.

  Micah glanced at him, looking concerned as he chewed his last bite of egg. Alex felt the same apprehension. They’d seen no more than a handful of others travelling since they’d left Sarcester, and then only from a distance. He couldn’t help but feel someone heading straight for them might not be a good thing.

  Alex fetched his bike from next to the truck where Sam had been siphoning petrol into it, and moved it onto the garage forecourt beside Micah’s. Micah was packing the remaining food into his under seat storage.

  “What’s wrong?” Sam said, glancing around them nervously.

  “Probably nothing,” Alex said. “But we want to be ready to leave in case whoever is coming isn’t friendly.”

  “But they wouldn’t bother a Survivor,” he said.

  Alex wished that were true. “It’s just a precaution.”

  Seconds later, a military vehicle that looked like a Land Rover on steroids rounded a corner back along the road at speed, its tyres squealing on the asphalt. It careered towards them, breaking abruptly when it reached the abandoned truck blocking the road.

  Four soldiers jumped from the vehicle, ran for the truck and tried to move it, but sideways on it had no room to manoeuvre. Over the idling engine of their vehicle, Alex heard a faint sound, almost like rushing water.

  “Hey, you!” One of the soldiers, a man with ridiculously broad shoulders and blond hair buzzed so short he was practically bald, strode towards them, swinging his assault rifle from his back and aiming it at Alex.

  Alex noticed Micah’s hand move to the pistol beneath his jacket.

  “You, get over here,” the big soldier barked.

  Alex kept his arms loose at his sides, unthreatening. “What’s going on?”

  “Get over here and move this truck, white-eye.”

  Sam gasped. “That’s a disgusting word. You shouldn’t use it.”

  The soldier glared at Sam, moving the rifle to aim at him. “I’ll use whatever word I want, you little prick.”

  Anger boiled in Alex’s gut. He stepped in front of Sam. “If you want my help, you’ll lower the rifle and apologise to my friend.”

  The man looked like he couldn’t decide whether to laugh or shoot him. “I don’t remember saying you had a choice.”

  “Listen you muscles-for-brains moron,” Alex growled, “I don’t care who you are or how many big guns you need for penile substitution. You have insulted my friend. So my response is that you can go f...”

  “Hell, Hudson,” a second man said, jogging towards them, “we don’t have time for you to piss off every person we meet.” He stepped in front of Hudson, facing Alex. “There’s a big horde coming. They’ve been on our tails all day. So you really need to get out of here. And if you could give us a hand with moving this truck so we can get past, we’d appreciate it.”

  “Why don’t you just hide out in one of these houses until they pass?” Micah said.

  He shook his head, making his dark, curly hair bounce. “I know it sounds unbelievable, but this horde is following us. We’ve tried changing direction, hiding, even circling around behind them. They always know where we are.”

  The sound of rushing water was becoming louder, separating into thousands of shuffling footsteps.

  The soldier stepped forward and lowered his voice. “Please. We’ve already lost someone today.”

  “Stop being so damn polite, Ridgewell,” Hudson said. “Just make him do it.”

  “Be ready to go,” Alex said to Micah as he started towards the truck.

  Glancing in the window of their vehicle as he passed, he saw a blonde woman occupying the driver’s seat.

  At the truck, Alex bent to grasp the wheel well. “Everyone lift and push on three.”

  Hudson grabbed the base of the truck next to him, muttering, “Damn white-eye, think you’re so strong. I bet you can’t even...”

  “One,” Alex said loudly. “Two. Three.”

  With the other four men helping, the back of the truck lifted, rotating as they pushed until it was facing along the road instead of across it.

  “Alex.”

  He turned at Micah’s warning tone to see the first eaters come into view two hundred feet back along the road. He ran back to the bikes where Micah and Sam were already mounted, engine revving as Micah squeezed the throttle. Sam was staring back at the horde, looking terrified.

  “Thanks!” Ridgewell yelled, jumping back into their vehicle.

  Alex leaped onto his bike and switched on the engine, throwing a glance back at the horde. They were moving fast, for eaters, their lurching jog eating up the distance between them and their prey.

  He sneezed again.

  The soldiers pulled off, speeding away from them. Micah and Sam followed with Alex close behind, trying to ignore his itching nose.

  The road turned sharply to the left ahead and they followed it into an open area between a school on the left hand side and an area of scrubby grassland and trees on the right. A mass of eaters were approaching across the common.

  Ahead of them, the soldiers came to an abrupt halt, forcing Alex and Micah to swerve around them. Alex stopped beside them when he saw more eaters blocking the road ahead. If he hadn’t known better, he would have thought the hordes were co-operating to trap them. But eaters couldn’t do that.

  He sneezed again and motioned through the window. Ridgewell rolled it down.

  “The only way is the school,” he said. “I’ll get the gate unlocked and...”

  “Got it,” the woman at the wheel shouted as she pulled off.

  “No, wait!” Alex yelled.

  She didn’t. Bumping off the road onto the grass to the right, she swung around in a tight circle and drove straight at the entrance into the school grounds. A second later, the
eight foot high gates were twisted pieces of metal hanging lopsidedly from their support posts.

  “So much for using the fence to keep them out,” Alex muttered, taking off after Micah and Sam who were already halfway across the car park just inside the gate.

  He bounced up the curb onto the path leading to the wide, two storey building and came to a stop in front of the entrance.

  “Not the main doors,” Micah was shouting at Hudson who was striding up to the double doors looking like his only concern was whether to shoot the locks or punch them off their hinges. “We need a smaller door that’s easier to barricade after we break in.”

  Behind them, the first wave of eaters had reached the fence. It rattled under the onslaught. Hudson glared back at Micah, obviously not wanting to do as he said.

  “He’s right, Hud,” the woman shouted.

  Back at the destroyed gates, the eaters were flooding into the school grounds, trampling the manicured shrubbery beds around the car park. Without waiting to see what the others would do, Alex and Micah headed for the left side of the building.

  To the side of the school was a large seating area and they zigzagged the bikes through the maze of benches and tables. Unable to get their vehicle through, the soldiers stopped beyond the benches and clambered out, loaded down with weapons, none of which would make even a dent in the horde almost on them.

  The first eaters, those who had mastered the art of the unsteady jog, reached the vehicle as Alex and Micah got to the back corner of the building. Alex looked back to see Hudson, Ridgewell and the others dodging around benches. The eaters were crowding around the vehicle now, some of them tripping over benches and walking into tables, others lumbering between.

  Alex looked up to see the black helicopter hovering overhead. His attention snapped back down when one of the soldiers, a man with red hair sticking out from beneath his cap, tripped over a bench as he glanced back at the horde. He crashed to the concrete. An eater lurched towards him.

  Hudson reached the bikes and turned around, raising his rifle.

  “Don’t shoot!” Alex yelled.

  Sam leaned from the back of Micah’s bike and pushed at Hudson’s arm as he fired. The shot went wide.