Dead Ahead (32 page)

“Ten minutes, is that going to be enough time?” Cassie asked worriedly.

“That’s for the main reactor, we are quite safe here. But this one over here,” Caleb rolled his chair back over to the other computer, Cassie followed, “this is for Thorp,” The screen was already flashing the series of zeroes. Caleb looked to her with his sad brown eyes, “How long do you want to live?”

Chapter

25

The Flow of Blood

The question rang through her ‘how long do you want to live?’ surely he was joking. She looked back into his eyes, his expression hadn’t changed, “Wait.... wait just a minute,” she stammered, “What do you mean? You said that I could make it out of this.”

Caleb looked away with a resigned laugh that wasn’t at all sincere, “I did say that, didn’t I?”

“What did you mean?” Cassie asked after a moment.

“I don’t know if you have noticed, Cassie but you have something.... sorry,
are
something that is in short supply.”

“I don’t follow you,” she said, confused.

“You’re a
woman
, Cassie; and there are not many of you left.” she was left reeling, how could she have been so stupid? “While you are here concentrating on saving the world, those men out there are thinking on a much more primal level. They’re not here to stop you, Cassie; they’re here to catch you.

“But yes, you’re right; it’s not about how long you want to live, it’s about how long
I
want to live. When we open that door they will come in here and take you away, and most likely shoot me, I am surplus to requirement in their eyes.”

“Wait, Caleb, just wait. What if we
don’t
open the door?”

“Then you will die with me, and I won’t let that happen; Twenty minutes before the ground falls away from this place I am going to open that door and I won’t let you stop me; it will give you plenty of time to escape the area.”

“But what if we
don’t
destroy this place, what if we leave it be; we don’t
have
to destroy it do we?”

“It’s too dangerous to leave, a million and one things could happen in here that could cause disaster for the people who survive; for
you
, for Brandon. I can’t let that happen.”

Cassie could see in his eyes that he was prepared to do anything to keep his son alive, even if that meant him dying himself. There was something behind those big brown eyes that Cassie couldn’t quite put her finger on that reminded her of her father; maybe it was the reason that she felt so drawn to him.

“No!” She had already lost her father, she wasn’t about to lose him too.

“No?” Caleb asked quizzically.

“No, I won’t let you just give up. You are too used to only being able to rely on yourself, Caleb. You’re not alone anymore; Ethan and Jim are still out there, we still have hope, you can’t give up now.”

“I dunno, Cassie....”

“No, you
don’t!
So I’m
telling
you! We are going to get out of here alive!”

“Ok!” he said excitedly with a broad smile that lit up his face, “How we gonna do that?”

“Umm.... ok, how about through here?” Cassie said pointing to the large glass window that pointed out at the pool and gantry where they had escaped Harper.

“No chance. That glass could withstand a rocket being fired at it; we’d have a better chance trying to chew our way through the brick walls.”

“Oh; ok then, how about service ducts? There must be air flow getting to here from somewhere.”

“Well, yeah; there
is
the air con here,” he walked over to a large unit on the ceiling covered in vents, “but it is only fed through a four inch pipe. You do have a nice athletic figure, Cassie; but you ain’t that thin,” he said with a smile.

“I guess we could always just chew through the brick walls then?” she said exacerbated.

“Good plan; I think there is some salt and pepper in the cupboard over there.”

“You just don’t give up do you?”

“I tried to give up, but you wouldn’t let me.”

“I mean with the jokes,” Cassie sighed, “Even
now
you can’t help yourself,” she could feel herself welling up and the words caught in her throat a little.

“I’m sorry, Cassie; but if I’m gonna die,” he stepped forward, brushed her hair away from her face and wiped a tear from her eye, “I’m gonna die laughing, life’s too short”

Was that another joke? Cassie couldn’t tell; and she didn’t want to know.

Cassie took a step back. Men had a terrible way of clouding the mind. The wolves were baying at her door and all she could think about was
kissing
this man, that wasn’t her, she was no damsel in distress; and she wasn’t about to wait around for Ethan to save her either.

“Set the timer for twenty minutes. We’re leaving!” she said firmly.

“What? Wait....
What?
”

“Set the.... you know what? Never mind,” she walked over to the computer and punched in two, zero, zero, zero and hit return. The timer instantly turned from twenty minutes to nineteen fifty-nine and started counting down.

“What the hell are you doing, Cassie?” Caleb said in a panic.

“Leaving...!”

She strode over to the door and typed ‘Thorp’ into the alphanumeric keypad, as she had seen Caleb do before; not the best
secret
code in the world. She opened the door. Harper was stood there with his rifle up at his shoulder aimed right at her; he dropped the barrel a little, just enough to show her a leering grin and relaxing his trigger finger to the side of the gun.

“Come to your senses did you, Darlin’?”

“You could say that,” she replied flatly. Quickly she snatched her hand up and moved the barrel of the rifle away from her, pointing it at the wall, reached into her belt and pulled out the pistol that Ethan had given her and pointed it at Harper’s face; she drank in the range of emotions that spread across his face before she pulled the trigger, shock, fear and rage, all in a matter of seconds. She squeezed the trigger and he dropped in a spray of blood, leaving her holding the rifle by its barrel.

“Wow...!” Caleb said from behind her. She turned and passed the rifle to him, grabbed him by the collar and kissed him deeply.

“There will be more of
that
if we make it out of here,” she said with a smile when they finally unlocked their lips.

“With that kind of motivation, I’m sure I can do
anything
,” he said grinning ear to ear, “follow me!”

_____________________________

Jim took up his position on the rooftop of the huge black building sitting to the east of Thorp; it was in a prime position, taller than most of the other buildings around it and it had a good view down the road that Ethan and the others should be using on their approach.

He didn’t fully agree with Ethan using the Argo to draw the attention of the Zombies away from them while they approached on foot, but Ethan had been pretty confident that they would be safer if they could drop all the creatures before they got to them; and it all worked fine, till that bloody tank came along. Where the hell did they get that thing? He had tried to pick off one of the gunners earlier, while Ethan and the others fled, but the bullet just bounced clean off; it must have some pretty heavy bullet proof glass on it cause it didn’t even leave a mark. It was a pretty smart move from Greg to bail out the back when he did; his overly dramatic tumble down the beach didn’t fool Jim, but it seemed to work on Michaels and the lads in the tank, they didn’t even bother to look for the body.

So here he was, up in the heavens waiting for a target to appear; it wouldn’t be long now.

He spotted Ethan first, running round the corner of the building furthest on his left, then Cassie and then Caleb; they stopped, but not for long. The corner blasted open behind them as they ran and just as they reached the other corner they separated. ‘
There he goes again, trying to be a hero’
Jim thought to himself.

Ethan made it to the next building just in time; he must have made it as the tank started firing at the first floor,
‘Smart lad, trying to get them to exit the tank are you? Maybe I will get a chance to even the odds a little here?’
it wasn’t to be.

They flattened the whole building, in no more than five minutes it was down on top of him. Ethan didn’t have a chance. As the dust settled the rain began to ease off and the sun started to peek out from behind the clouds.

The tank rolled up to and along the front of Jim’s position, circling Thorp; he had to move. He packed up and scrambled up and on to the roof next to him to give him a view down the other side.

He dropped down and crawled on his belly up to the edge, gently he placed his eye to the scope and traced the route the tank had taken; there they were at the other end of Thorp pulling up to an army Land Rover – how the hell had he missed that? A soldier was stood outside waiting for them; it looked an awful lot like Sully.

Jim waited with baited breath as the back of the Tank opened; it was parked askew, pointing to his right and towards him so that he couldn’t see into the back. The soldiers didn’t matter, not so much really; it was either Knox or Michaels he was waiting for, without Knox the soldiers would never follow Michaels, and without Michaels, Knox would lose his objective; the big lummox would be lost without being given orders all the time. Michaels would never step out of the tank though, not when they knew Jim was somewhere out here, so Knox it is.
‘But where is he?’

“Shit!” Jim whispered to himself.

“Looking for someone?” The low rumble of Knox’s voice came from behind him.

He should never have taken that pot shot at the tank, he should never have taken up position on
this
rooftop, it was perfect, too perfect; it was bloody obvious. How could he have been such a fool? Another soldier emerged from the back of the tank and Jim trained the rifle on to him; it looked like White, he was a good man, and a good soldier; a better target than Sully. If Knox was going to shoot him then he may as well take out White in the process; one for one.

“I can quite legally shoot you, you know? What you’re doing is treachery.”

“What
you’re
doing is madness, Knox! The power plant has to fall.”

“Oh, I agree. Michaels has other plans now.”

“Can’t you see that Michaels is a madman?”

“Ha!” Knox barked, “We’re all madmen here, Ford!”

“We don’t have to do this,” Jim said still following White with the rifle, “We can sort something out; we just need to be rid of Michaels to do it.”

“
Treachery
, Ford” Knox said warningly.

“What is he without those stripes, harry? How is he on the battlefield?”

Knox paused for a minute, “He ain’t worth much,” he said eventually.

“So why follow him?” Jim said hoping that he was getting through to him.

“Cause he’s
got
the stripes!”

“And how did he get them? Did he get them from crawling through the dirt with bullets flying over his head, did he get them pulling men to safety, did he get them watching his friends die? Or did he get them because his daddy gave them to him, because he came from
good
stock? I think you know the answer!”

“You could be right, Ford; you could be right. But fact is, I agree with him, I agree with what we are doing here. There are too many cocks and not enough chickens. So tell me where the women are and I will pluck your feathers quick.”

“Is that what this is all about, the women?” Jim felt sick.

“Eminem promised me that tasty little redhead; I got a real sore spot for redheads, Jim. We already have Miss Foster, so tell me, where’s the women, Jim?”

There was no use in arguing, Knox had made up his mind and Jim would never tell him where Sarah was; they had reached an impasse, and something had to give. The rifle was silenced, maybe Jim could squeeze off a round before Knox noticed and spin around to tag him with one; Knox no doubt had a pistol trained on Jim’s head, he would have to be quick.

He breathed out and aimed for White’s head, he wanted the kill to be clean; Jim actually quite liked White, he didn’t want him to suffer.

The time was now.

Jim gently squeezed the trigger and the rifle kicked in his hands; the whole world lurched with a climatic boom,
‘What the hell was that?’
he thought as the building shook violently beneath them throwing Knox off balance, but helping Jim to roll over to his left, dropping the rifle and pulling his browning from the holster at his chest to fire a round at him. Knox was already half way to the floor when Jim fired, but he was pretty sure that the bullet struck true. The question was where?

Jim sat halfway up watching a good portion of Sellafield disappear into a hole in the ground behind where Knox lay; it must have been the main reactor. ‘Holy Zeus, they did it. Just in time too.’ he thought just before the bullet tore through his collar bone. Jim slapped back to the ground, landing uncomfortably on top of his rifle; a dark shadow approached him, the great looming mass that was Knox stood in front of the sun, blood soaking the chest of his camouflage jacket that didn’t seem to fit him quite right. Knox had been shot in the chest and he was still coming at him.