Beyond These Walls (Book 5): After Edin

by Robertson, Michael

  Max’s mouth fell open. “What?”

  “Can one of you hit me? Missy didn’t see who jumped her, so if I go back with a bruise, I can pretend we were blindsided while apprehending you.”

  “Um,” William said. “I’m not sure—”

  Crack! Olga landed a punch square on Samson’s chin, his hair swinging as his head snapped away from the blow.

  While holding his jaw, Samson opened and closed his mouth and laughed. “Wow! I won’t be asking you to punch me again.”

  “If I punch you again”—Olga winked—“you won’t get back up. That was me playing.”

  Samson laughed. He continued to hold his jaw as he walked off. “See you in the morning.”

  Chapter 18

  Because Magma’s community sat in a valley, they had to climb a hill to get away from it. Like with everywhere else in this decrepit city, the numerous ruins provided cover for their escape.

  The hill’s gradient stole the conversation from the group’s lungs until Artan said, “I don’t trust him.”

  Olga led the way while William dropped back to walk with Artan. “Who don’t you trust?”

  “Samson.”

  “Why?”

  “I’ve just got a bad feeling.”

  “But he’s helped us loads already. He helped us get to you in the political district. He’s helped us get away from Magma’s community. I’m not trying to be rude, but if you don’t have any concrete reason other than a gut feeling, what do you expect or want us to do?”

  The crack of Matilda’s voice hit the back of William’s neck like a snapping whip. “What do you want from him? He’s got a bad feeling, so he’s sharing that with you.”

  It took William a second to catch his breath after following Olga and Max across a particularly wide gap back into hiding. He waited for Matilda and Artan to catch up. “I’m not trying to be disrespectful.”

  “Really?”

  “Look, Matilda, I get you want to help him, and you want to make sure he has a voice, but I can’t act on a bad feeling. Samson has helped us countless times, am I wrong?”

  They shuffled sideways, their backs scraping against a long brick wall. Olga then led them through an old doorway, higher up the hill.

  “Well?” William said.

  “No.”

  “And it’s not that I don’t take Artan seriously. He’s as important as everyone else in this group, and if he has a good reason not to trust Samson, I’m all ears. But we can’t leave Samson and Cyrus stranded based on a hunch.”

  Both Olga and Max were slimmer than William. Olga naturally so, Max from his time in the labs’ prison. So when Olga, and then Max, slipped through a gap in front of him, William paused. To go the long way around would make him visible to Magma’s community. The chances of anyone watching were slim, but why risk it? They were nearly away from the horrible place. He turned sideways and pushed through the crack in the wall, clamping his jaw against the stone cutting into both his chest and back.

  Matilda rejected William’s hand when he reached out to help her through. When she and Artan caught up to them, he said, “Before we move, we need a plan. I don’t want to be accused of not valuing anyone’s opinion. So what do we do about Artan’s feelings?”

  “There!” Max pointed in the direction of the large metal structure, the top of it rusting and jagged from where it had once been taller.

  William shrugged. “That’s where we’re going. So what?”

  “Not the metal tower. Next to it. A little way away. See that church and spire?”

  Not the tallest building over the hill, and they could only see the top of it, but the church remained standing and had a good line of sight to the metal tower. It had put up a valiant effort against the slow decay of time.

  “Because it’s not the biggest building around,” Max said, “it’s probably not the most obvious. We can hide out in it and get some rest. And we can see when Samson and Cyrus turn up—”

  “So we’ll be well hidden in case we see more of a reason not to trust them,” Olga said.

  When William looked at Artan, the boy offered nothing in response. “It does give us more time to decide.” He turned to Matilda and raised his eyebrows. “Do you have a better plan than that?”

  After she’d shared a look with Artan, Matilda shook her head. “No.”

  “Okay, Max, lead the way. Take us—”

  The multitonal shriek from lower down the hill damn near shook dust from the buildings around them. Their line of sight blocked by the ruins, Olga hopped across several rocks to reach what had once been a first-storey window. “Shit.”

  Artan and Matilda went right, Max joined Olga on their left, and William peered through the gap they’d just squeezed through. A glimpse and then it vanished. Then another glimpse. Diseased flooded the ruins, swarming through the downed buildings.

  “There’s hundreds of them,” Olga said. “I suppose it had to happen sooner or later. With the cage empty they had to get bored.”

  “They might not be chasing us,” William said.

  Olga again. “Does it matter? They’re heading this way. If they’re not chasing us now, they will be when they see us.”

  Matilda pulled back from the end of the wall. “You reckon we can get to that building in time, Max?”

  The boy nodded. “If we go now.”

  If they had a better option, no one offered it. The others waited as if they wanted William’s approval. He shooed Max away with his hands. “Go, Max. Go.”

  Chapter 19

  William tried to find his rhythm, his legs burning as he powered up the hill.

  Max might have picked their destination, but Olga took the lead. The girl crossed the landscape like a squirrel through trees, leaping from one lump of rock to the next, unerring in her judgement.

  After bursting through another doorway and out into what had once been an old road, William waited.

  When Matilda and Artan appeared, Matilda’s face reddened. “What the hell are you doing?”

  William took up the rear, the scream of the unseen diseased calling through the ruined city.

  Still about one hundred feet from cresting the hill, William tugged on walls, rocks, and the metal bars to help pull himself forward. The rough scenery tore at his palms, his hands alive with the electric buzz of hundreds of small cuts. He ducked through another doorway, sidestepped a large crack in the ground, and hopped over a rock. Heaving heavy breaths, his legs turned weak as the others opened up a lead on him. He lost sight of them for seconds at a time in the ruined maze.

  William skirted around a wall and ducked at the last moment, avoiding a metal bar destined to gouge out his left eye. He scraped his shin on another bar and yelled through clenched teeth. The pack behind grew louder; a plague on his heels. Their cacophony bad enough, whatever else he did, he shouldn’t look back.

  Olga vanished over the hill, Max next. Artan followed. Matilda stopped, waiting, her mouth wide from her heavy breaths, her face flushed. Her attention down the hill behind him, she winced and bounced on the spot, willing him to run faster. Anyone else and he might not have seen her urgency, but he knew Matilda too well. Her panic accelerated his already overworked heart.

  William reached the top, Matilda turning to run as he got to her. Don’t look back. Don’t look back.

  A slight decline, William’s feet slipped on the bricks, rocks, and dust. Matilda flew over the environment ahead of him. Olga, Max, and Artan had already reached the ruined building Max had earmarked for their safety.

  The wind at their backs, the collective reek of the diseased caught up to William.

  Don’t look back.

  The rattling breaths of the front runners gained on him.

  Don’t look back.

  William’s lungs couldn’t provide the oxygen he needed. The building about thirty feet away, Matilda reached it and climbed up.

  Don’t look back.

  William looked back.

  The diseased were eve
rywhere and just feet away. He wouldn’t make it. A wobble snapped through his tired legs, threatening to throw him to the ground.

  They screamed as if they knew they’d won.

  The wall of a building on his left, it stood at least ten feet tall. A window halfway up, he ran for it, jumped, and used the frame as a launch pad to climb to the top.

  The front-running diseased crashed into the wall, shaking the structure as he climbed just out of their reach.

  The beasts screamed and threw angry fists against the brickwork. They gnashed their yellow and black teeth.

  William reached the top and sat down, panting. He might be safe for now, and their efforts to knock the structure down might never yield fruit, but he’d just climbed on top of a wall. Nothing more. The building it had once been no longer existed. At only two feet wide, it gave him nowhere to hide from their sight. If it came down to a battle of wills, he stood no chance. The diseased would wait for him forever.

  At least twenty feet away from the old building where his friends waited, William took a moment to catch his breath. Sure, he had a chance to fill his lungs, but better respiration would do little against the sea of diseased just a few feet below him.

  Chapter 20

  The day wore on, the sky darkening with the onset of night. Dressed in a thin shirt, which had turned damp with his sweat, William hugged himself for warmth. A sea of ravenous diseased between him and his friends, they held him in their spotlight of crimson desire, their jaws working as if they could will him to fall with their insatiable hunger.

  Dripping with shame, William avoided eye contact with Matilda. She glared at him from inside the church’s roof and paced like a caged animal. He’d let her go first and now he’d ended up in possibly the most useless spot in the city: perched on a wall in plain sight, ensuring the crowd didn’t disperse.

  The others had made it to the church. It still had more than half its roof remaining. A wide structure only one storey tall, its spire stretched beyond that and also remained intact.

  Max then took Missy’s sword from Artan and slipped down through the gap in the roof while the others remained in the shadows. They had an evening and night to wait out, which would be plenty of time for the rancid freaks to piss off, were it not for William remaining in plain sight.

  It didn’t matter how many times he’d witnessed it, when Max walked among the diseased, William’s heart pounded in his throat. What if the rules changed and one of them bit him? Could his invulnerability wear off? Did it work with every diseased on the planet?

  Not only did the creatures pay Max no mind, but he also had to shove and elbow his way through them to make a path to the wall William perched on. The rancid and acidic curdling of flesh damn near smothered William several feet above. God only knew what it was like for Max so close to them, although his twisting face and occasional heave gave some indication. And not only the stench, but many of the creatures had glistening patches of tacky and open wounds. Maybe the milky sludge offered lubrication through some of the tighter parts of the mob.

  Max took a diversion, heading for a building close by. A tall metal pole, about eight feet long, hollow in the middle, and made from thick black metal clung to its side. He wriggled it free, the rusty clamps squeaking before the bricks gave them up with a small cloud of dust.

  When Max tapped the pole against a nearby wall, the hollow tube rang like a bell and rust poured from it like sand. One tap, two taps, he then brought it down on the head of a diseased close by. Tap, tap, crunch. Just to be sure, he did it again, playing a basic rhythm on the landscape. Tap, tap, crunch.

  Obviously strong enough, William took the pole Max offered up to him. The end glistened with the blood of Max’s victims. After turning it around and holding the dry end, he used his elevated position to drive the pole down like a spear, stabbing it into the diseased’s faces below. “Uh, Max,” he said, “while I appreciate the help, this could take a while.”

  “I brought it so you can bridge the gap to that building.”

  A six-foot gap between William and the neighbouring ruins, the pole would certainly bridge it, but … “There’s no way I can walk across this pole.”

  “No,” Max said, “but you can hang beneath it and shimmy across.”

  William opened his mouth to argue, but he had nothing. The fact remained; if he and his friends were to move on, he needed to get out of sight like the rest of them. In his current spot he’d continue to attract more diseased, making their escape an impossibility. Were it not for him, they’d all be resting up in the church’s loft by now.

  William dropped into a crouch, shaking as he took the weight of leaning the pole across the gap between him and the next closest building. The pop of grit ran along its shaft as it nestled into a nook in a crumbling brick on the other side.

  After he’d pressed on it with his weight, William found Max in the crowd. The only face he didn’t mind looking up at him. “You’d best catch me if I fall.”

  Max laughed.

  “Not helping!”

  “Neither’s talking about it. Get a move on, yeah? These things might not bite me, but that doesn’t mean I want to spend the evening hanging out with them. They stink!”

  The hard pole hurt William’s chest when he lay across it, his entire weight against the metal makeshift bridge. He shimmied out, his fingers interlinked and his feet crossed at the ankles. He screamed when he spun around, now hanging over the creatures. Their shrill excitement drilled into his ears.

  “Just don’t look down,” Max said.

  “Stop talking to me and I won’t!” William fixed on his destination, his palms sweating, his face twisted against the diseased’s stink.

  The structure on the other side as impractical a hiding place as the one he’d come from, but at least it took him closer to his friends. A long wall about eight feet from the ground and this one only a foot wide at the most. Wide enough to walk across as long as he didn’t look down.

  William’s legs hung down when he transitioned from the pole to the wall. A diseased hand batted his foot before he snapped it away. He scrambled up and dragged the pole towards him. The end farthest away fell into the crowd with a tonk! It knocked a diseased to the ground. Those around it filled the gap instantly.

  The diseased jostled and shoved around the base of the wall. William stabbed several of them in the face with the hollow pole.

  “What are you doing?” Max said.

  While clamping his jaw, William sank the pole into another diseased’s nose. “It’s making me feel better, okay? Let me have some power over them.”

  The gap to the next building stretched wider than the one he’d just crossed. He shook like before as he leaned the heavy pole across the space. He had it almost horizontal, fire streaking across his shoulders and twisting through his back. The end of the pole weaved, hovering in mid-air. It taunted him. Close to the wall, but not close enough.

  William’s arms gave out and he let the pole fall. It missed and scraped the wall on its way down, its momentum pulling him forwards. He let it drop so it didn’t take him with it.

  “Come on, William,” Matilda called over to him. She clapped her hands once with a sharp crack. “You can do this!”

  After Max retrieved the pole, his mouth moved, but the rowdy diseased drowned him out. William took the weaving end of the hollow metal tube when Max held it out to him, and waited while his friend kept a hold of the other side, lifting it above his head as he walked all the way to the other end.

  The wall opposite had been constructed from large grey rocks. Max found a place to step up and rest the end of the pole on the top. While he held it there, William did the same with his end, and Max tested it for him by hanging down from it. The pole stretched just a few inches longer than the gap. It would have to do. Overthink it, and he wouldn’t make the journey.

  As William fell around the pole, yelling for a second time while he hung down, he shook his head to himself.

  Halfway
across, the pole shifted with a clunk! William searched the wall on the other side. “What just happened, Max?”

  The diseased clearly sensed his fear, those closest stretching an extra few inches as if they could reach him.

  “You’re doing fine.”

  As soon as the words left Max’s mouth, the pole shifted again. Clunk! “Doesn’t feel like I’m doing fine.”

  “Trust me, you’re okay. But you might want to hurry up.”

  The pole dropped by half an inch. The diseased screamed louder. Their patience would pay off.

  William quickened his pace, hand over hand, dragging his locked feet along the rough pole.

  At the wall, William pulled himself on until he lay across the grey rocks. The rock they’d rested the pole on had a spider’s web of cracks running through it. William tapped it and the grey lump shattered, turning to shrapnel. The pole fell into the diseased with the miniature landslide.

  William paused for a moment to settle before he took the pole from Max again.

  He crossed to the next building without incident. Its walls remained intact. Rectangular and about fifteen feet in length by eight feet wide, the short back wall stood strong while its opposite end had collapsed where the door frame had once been. William walked along to the back wall, holding the pole horizontally like a tightrope walker.

  “You need to bring as many diseased into the building as possible, or around this side at least,” Max said.

  “What are you planning?”

  “We’re not far from safety.”

  “As the crow flies,” William said. “The problem is, I’m not a crow.”

  “And there aren’t any more buildings to cross to,” Max said. “I’m going to set up stepping stones between here and our hideout. There are enough rocks around.”

  “I’m not trying to cross a bog. The diseased will rip me off stepping stones in a heartbeat.”

  “Which is why you need to drag them back over here. Bait them so when you run, you can get ahead of them.”