The Alpha Plague 2 (5 page)

The paint on the thick pole coated it like a rubber film. When Rhys caught it, he stopped instantly. He couldn’t help but smile when he looked up at Oscar. “I made it.”

“I can see.” Oscar glanced over his shoulder. “Now
move
so I can follow.”

Rhys wrapped his legs around the pole and started his controlled slide to the bottom. Centimetres at a time, he eased himself closer to the ground.
 

Once he’d gone past the first floor, Rhys looked into the lower level. The diseased continued to rush into the car park, the line of them as dense as ever. In their single-minded pursuit of their prey, all of them concentrated on the stairwell. Even when some of them fell to the floor, they got back up and didn’t lose focus. They were oblivious to their meal ticket escaping right next to them.
 

Seconds after Rhys jumped off the pole, Oscar leaped onto it. The tall lamp swayed as if it would snap under the man’s considerable weight. When it held, Oscar shimmied down it.

At the bottom, Oscar jumped to the ground and failed to hide his awkward landing on his bad leg. He then glared at Rhys before he sprinted away from the car park.
 

A deep inhale and Rhys’ lungs felt like they could pop at any moment. One more breath and he followed after Oscar.

***

After they’d ducked into an alleyway a few hundred metres from the car park, Oscar and Rhys stopped.
 

Rhys dropped his hands to his knees and hunched over. His navel pulled up into his ribcage as he chugged on the air around him. Fire burned in his guts, and seconds later, he vomited acidic bile as thick as glue.
 

He looked up to see disdain spread across Oscar’s face. A wipe of his mouth with the back of his sleeve, and Rhys said, “I’ve never pretended to be fit.” He heaved again but didn’t vomit this time. “We got away; that’s the best I can do at the moment.”

“We need to find a better way to travel around this city,” Oscar said. “We can’t carry on like this. We’re lucky they haven’t caught us yet. I need to stay alive so I can rescue Adam.”

Rhys looked up at his new friend. “
Adam
?”

A slight flush ran across Oscar’s cheeks before his usual stoic expression replaced it. “Alan.”

“You said Adam.”

Oscar stepped forward and loomed over Rhys. He shook when he said, “Why the
fuck
would I say Adam?”
 

“I don’t know, but you did.”

A shake of his head and Oscar shot a blast of air from his mouth as if to dismiss Rhys’ comment. “I think all that running has gone to your head, princess. Why don’t you focus on getting your breath back so we can get the fuck out of here? Waiting for you is going to get me killed.”

He’d definitely said Adam. He’d definitely gotten his own brother’s name wrong.

Chapter Seven

Oscar had definitely said Adam, not Alan. If he’d have gotten someone—anyone else’s name wrong, Rhys could let it slide, but his
brother
…? And not only his brother, but—according to him—the most important person in his world.
 

A trickle of sweat ran from Rhys’ armpit down his side. Dryness spread to every part of his mouth and into his throat. The nausea that only heat and thirst could bring tightened its dizzying grip on him.
 

With each alleyway came the potential for yet another ambush, so Rhys wiped his brow and watched every one they passed. The occasional look behind showed him that the diseased from the multi-storey car park had yet to pick up their trail.
Thank god
.
 

A glance at Oscar, and Rhys saw he walked with what seemed to be a more pronounced limp than before. The run must have taken its toll on him. Rhys checked his brow—no sweat. His eyes—they seemed clear. The slight pull back of his lips—he couldn’t see that either. If he had been bitten and would turn into one of the diseased, he hid it well. But if he hadn’t been bitten, why did he go to so much effort to hide it?
 

Although Oscar didn’t look back at Rhys, he wore his usual scowl. It said ‘fuck off’ and ‘don’t fucking talk to me’. Not that Rhys cared about that. “So how old is your brother?”

“What?” The one syllable boomed from Oscar’s mouth like a cannonball.
 

“Your brother, how old is he?”

Oscar drew a deep breath that lifted his large chest. “I don’t want to talk about him anymore.”

Convenient!
Is that because you’re worried you might forget his name again?
Rhys kept the thought to himself.

“I’ve already let you too far into my world. Why don’t you just stay focused on what’s going on around us before we get jumped again, yeah?”

The man may have been much larger than him, but he couldn’t silence Rhys with aggression. As they walked, Rhys held eye contact with him and let his hand hit the pillars. Each gentle
ting
lifted Oscar’s shoulders closer to his ears. Rhys hit each one harder than the last.

A tut, and Oscar spun away to look in the other direction.
 

Rhys looked around too. Tower Seventy-two, the tower that he used to work in and currently contained Larissa and most of his colleagues, stood on the horizon. The large phallus, an industrial-looking stalagmite with its armoured shell, looked exactly the same as the buildings that surrounded it. The large pods that used to be towers littered the entire city as if dropped by an invading alien army. They could almost be huge hives set to open up at any point and release a violent and bloodthirsty race of beings.
 

A distant scream ran ice down Rhys’ spine.
Maybe aliens would be easier to deal with than those fuckers.
 

Not only did the shutters cast an otherworldly look over the city, but they also muted the sounds of the people contained within the buildings. An eerie stillness hung in the air like low-lying fog; it felt like walking through a graveyard.
 

Rhys hit the next pole a little too hard. The
ting
rang out and the tips of his fingers throbbed from the contact.
 

Oscar looked at him and Rhys dropped his attention to the ground. Dark bloodstains had sunk into the asphalt. Then Rhys saw something pink and his stomach twinged. He pointed down. “A severed ear, look. A small, severed ear. It must have belonged to either a tiny adult or, more likely…” he paused as the memory of the school bus massacre choked him. He cleared his throat and finally said, “A child.”

Oscar glanced at the ear; his face twisted with his own displeasure rather than any kind of concern for the victim. When he looked up again, he pointed at a building and said, “Fuck, another one.”
 

The lump of grief remained wedged in Rhys’ throat when he looked to where Oscar had pointed—another tower burned. Dark smoke like the kind released from burning plastic seeped through the gaps in the armoured plates. “If the smoke’s that thick,” Rhys said, “fuck knows what it’s like
inside
the tower.”

A shake of his head and Oscar’s shoulders slumped. “It’s a damn waste of people. Why are there so many fires?”

Rhys remained quiet as he watched the tall man. Something in the way he reacted rang false; almost as if it were an act, like he couldn’t really give a fuck if they burned or not. He had the external sheen of a psychopath well practiced in pleasantries.

When they got closer to the building, Rhys heard a raspy voice call out into the street. “I can’t breathe.”
 

A series of coughs came from the man, then he said again, “I can’t fucking breathe.”

Heavy gasps and the voice came again. Each word slightly quieter than the last. “I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. I can’t…”

Rhys and Oscar glanced at one another, but neither spoke as the man’s voice faded away.
 

The thuds of tired fists beat against the other side of the shutters.
 

Then another voice, this time that of a woman. “I’m too young to die. What about my children?”

Rhys’ chest tightened and his eyes stung with tears. If Oscar asked, it was because of the thick smoke. A deep frown darkened Rhys’ view of the building as he listened to the weakened female voice mewl, “I can’t breathe.”

Neither of them had called for help. They’d clearly given up on that pipe dream.

“I hope Larissa and Dave are okay,” Rhys said as he fought to get his words out past his grief.

When he glanced at Oscar, he saw the large man stare at the burning building. Crow’s feet spread away from the edges of his narrowed eyes. A watery glaze covered his eyeballs. The rare glimpse of emotion ran another wave of sadness through Rhys. A deep exhale did little to banish it, so Rhys looked at his Superman watch and said, “We have just over four hours left.”

Oscar didn’t reply.
 

The look at the watch ran anxiety through Rhys. He removed the walkie-talkie from his pocket and flicked it on.
 

Oscar stared at it. “What the fuck are you
doing
?”

Rhys depressed the talk button on the side. It banished the quiet hiss that came from the speaker. “Hi, it’s me. Can you hear me?”

After another glance around, Oscar turned back to Rhys. “Turn it off. You’ll make too much noise.”

“I’ll whisper.”

“You’ll still make too much noise.”

Before Rhys could press the button and try again, he heard Vicky’s voice. “Hi.”

Rhys’ arm shook and his voice wavered. “How’s my boy doing?”
 

He felt Oscar’s intense scrutiny burn into the side of his face.

Vicky spoke in a soft tone. “He’s good. We’re both good. It’s all quiet here. Well, I say quiet; the diseased are still waiting on the other side of the bridge, thinking they can get across. Stupid fuckers. Hopefully they’ll be gone when you come back. How are things with you?”

After a pause to look at Oscar, the man’s icy glare coming back at him with interest, Rhys shrugged. “I’m doing fine. I’m making good progress.”

Oscar tutted, shook his head, and looked away.
 

“Anyway, I don’t want to run the battery down. I just needed to check that everything’s all right. I’ll contact you again soon, okay?”

“Okay,” Vicky said.
 

“I love you, Flynn.”

“Love you too, Daddy.”

Grief weakened Rhys as he switched the walkie-talkie off. They both sounded calm and some of the tension left his body. Oscar may doubt her, but she can be trusted.
Fuck what Oscar thought
.
 

As the pair moved off, Rhys wedged the large walkie-talkie back in his pocket. Once he’d finished, he lifted his head. Oscar still stared at him.
 

“I dunno why the fuck I’m doing this,” Rhys said. “The boy’s mum has been a bitch to me for ages now. I should have just left her in the city and got as far away from here as possible.”

Oscar’s words lost their sharpness. “Yeah, but every little boy needs his mummy, eh?”

The moment of sensitivity caught Rhys off guard and it took a second for him to ask, “Do you have kids?”

Oscar shook his head and looked back at the tower in front of them. “No.”

Rhys looked the tall man up and down and a deep unease sat in his gut. Everything about him seemed to be covering up a lie.

When Rhys saw it, he stopped dead.

Oscar stopped too. “What? What is it?”

Rhys pointed to a shop on the other side of the road.
 

For a few seconds, Oscar looked from Rhys to the shop and back to Rhys again. “A bike shop, so what? We can’t get inside.”

Rhys removed the card Vicky had given him from his top pocket and waved it in the air. “We can with this.”

A crocodilian smile spread across Oscar’s wide face. “You fucking beauty,” the big man said. He gave Rhys a playful punch on the top of his shoulder. It knocked Rhys back a couple of steps. “Kept that one quiet, didn’t ya? With bikes, we can get to The Alpha Tower and back with no problem. That babysitter of yours has proven to be pretty darn handy.”

Despite the urge to rub his now sore shoulder, Rhys resisted. “She’s a good woman!”

The smile remained on Oscar’s wide face. “I can’t speak to that, but she’s certainly helped by giving you access to most of Summit City.”

What did it matter if Oscar could speak to it or not? He didn’t need Oscar’s approval. Rhys nodded in the direction of the cycle shop. “Come on, let’s go.”

Chapter Eight

Rhys’s hand shook when he held it near the card reader. Reluctance tugged on his muscles as if his body knew something he didn’t. He looked over his shoulder at the quiet city behind him. The diseased from the car park would be with them at some point. The longer they waited around, the more chance they’d have of bumping into them. He swiped the card and watched the red light on the reader turn green.
 

Several clicks as the shutter mechanism came to life and the steel barrier rolled up from the top. Made from horizontal strips of brushed steel much like the metal used to protect the towers, the bottom of the shutter lifted from the ground.

Although the process wasn’t slow, impatience ran through Rhys and he tapped his foot as he waited. He chewed on his lip and scanned the city behind him again. “Come on, this is taking
too
fucking long.”

Oscar ran a more languid surveillance of their surroundings and said nothing.

The sun set on the horizon and Rhys glanced at his watch. Just over an hour had passed since he’d left his boy. He drew a deep breath and exhaled hard.
 

The motors whirred and Rhys cleared his throat as he continued to watch the abandoned city. “Maybe we led every diseased in the city to the car park and they’re still there.”

Oscar looked back in the direction of the multi-storey and lifted his wide shoulders in a shrug. “As long as they stay there.”

When Oscar spoke, Rhys watched him to look for any chink in his façade. The response seemed natural but Oscar also seemed well practiced in the art of deceit. When he’d finally worked out Oscar’s angle, he’d be much easier to read. Until then, he’d just have to guess. He didn’t have a brother with Down’s, that much seemed clear. Or if he did, he wasn’t trapped in Summit City, and he wasn’t called Alan. As for Oscar’s injury…