Vengeance (Twenty-Five Percent Book 3) (25 page)

The only way for Sam to go was back in the direction he’d come.

Fear made him run for the first ten seconds, before he realised he would lose the eaters in the underground laboratory’s maze of corridors if he didn’t slow down. Forcing himself to stop, he waited for the moaning horde to catch up and then continued at a pace they could match.

Claire was at the window when he got back to the door to the infirmary and he shook his head, waving her back. The leading eaters rounded the corner behind him and he started off again, hoping they would be too fixated on him to notice anything else. To his relief, they shuffled past the infirmary without a sideways glance.

He jogged along the maze-like corridors of the underground research facility, staying just enough ahead of the horde to keep them following him, but not so close that he was in danger. His plan was to lead them to the front entrance, warn the others when he got there, and get the horde back outside. After that, he wasn’t sure. He hoped he could find a way to get back in without being caught. Or maybe he could find somewhere to hide.

He couldn’t help thinking back to the last time he’d led a horde, in the school the day he met Alex and Micah. His plan then had been similar; lead the horde away, double back, escape. He hoped today the outcome would be different. He was on his own this time. If he got into trouble, Alex wouldn’t be there to save him.

He glanced back at the horde behind him. Shouldn’t he be used to the moaning and the blood and the death by now?

Trying to ignore his pounding heart, dry mouth and sweaty hands, he concentrated on keeping a steady pace and not tripping. On TV there was always someone who tripped and fell. It rarely ended well for them.

Finally, after what felt like hours with the eaters breathing down his neck, but in reality was less than ten minutes, Sam saw the corridor ahead of him opening out to where the stairs and lifts led up to street level. Not long now and they’d all be safe; through the lobby, up the stairs, to the front door and out.

He wondered why he couldn’t hear gunshots. Either he was too far underground to hear what was happening outside over the moans of the eaters following him, or they had already stopped the men Mr Boot had sent. Maybe his friends were just ahead.

Sam picked up his pace, his fear morphing into relief. They were soldiers, warriors. They would know how to get the horde out. He wasn’t alone.

Emerging from the corridor into the lobby, he turned towards the stairs to the right. The room erupted in moans.

His way out was blocked.

Eaters crowded the wide staircase that led up to ground level. Seeing Sam, they lunged forward, tumbling down the steps on top of each other until the entire space at the foot of the stairs was covered in a writhing mound of eaters struggling to untangle themselves and rise.

Sam backed away. Behind him, the horde he’d brought with him emerged from the mouth of the corridor. He spun in a circle, searching frantically for an escape. Across the room one of the lifts had its doors open. Sam sprinted for it, throwing himself inside and hitting the button to go up.

Nothing happened.

Beyond the open doors, a tide of bloody, moaning eaters lurched and jogged and crawled towards him.

He hit the button again, pushing it over and over.

“Please,” he begged, “please close. Please.”

Painfully slowly, the doors began to move. Sam backed against the wall, watching the eaters close in. The gap between the lift doors narrowed to a foot, six inches, five, three, two, one...

An eater slammed its blood-spattered hands over the contracting space. One finger flopped into the gap.

The doors stopped.

The eater pushed forward and a second finger inserted into the tiny aperture. Then a third. The crack began to widen.

Sam fumbled for the pistol in his waistband, nerves making him clumsy. It slipped from his fingers and hit the floor. Blinking away tears, he snatched it up and pointed the shaking barrel at the eater pressed against the doors.

When the gap reached four inches wide, he took a deep breath and fired. The eater dropped to the floor. Those behind it pushed forward, reaching into the space between the doors.

He pressed the ground floor button again, but there were too many hands in the way. He shot two more eaters through the slowly widening gap. Others took their place.

Not expecting anyone to hear, Sam screamed for help.

When Sean reached the front entrance to the lab facility the main doors to the outside were closed.

He could hear gunshots, but no moaning. That was a relief. Being shot at, he could deal with. He pulled the door open a crack and peered out.

The APV was parked sideways on in front of the entrance and blocking most of his view. Rick and Ben were sheltering behind it, using it for cover as they exchanged gunfire with adversaries Sean couldn’t see.

He slipped out of the door and ran down the steps to join them. “Status?”

“They’re ours,” Ben said. “Well, Boot’s. Four of them drove up in a car a couple of minutes ago.”

“We tried to talk to them, get them to come over to our side, but they wouldn’t listen,” Rick said. “Shockley is with them. He always did have his nose where the sun don’t shine with Boot.” He grimaced. “Oh, I wish I hadn’t said that. That’s an image I’m not getting rid of soon.”

There was a brief lull in the bombardment from the other side and Sean darted a quick look around the back of the APV. The gates leading into the area around the building were hanging open, a dark blue estate on the street beyond. He just made out four rifles pointed in their direction from behind the car before pulling back to safety.

“Are you guys going to have any problems shooting people you used to work with?” he said.

Ben glanced at Rick before answering. “We’ll do what we have to. So far, though, all they’ve done is open the gates and keep us pinned down here.”

Now the sound of gunfire wasn’t drowning it out, Sean could hear moans from somewhere not too far away. A shiver ran up his spine. “Think they’re keeping us here until the horde shows up?”

“That did occur to us, yes,” Rick said. “We really don’t want the eaters getting through those gates.”

“Then whatever it takes, we need to get them closed,” Sean said.
Before any eaters get here. Way before any eaters get here.

Behind him, the door to the building opened. The men at the gate opened fire again and Sean, Rick and Ben shot back, covering Dent, Collins and Porter as they darted to the cover of the APV.

Sean gave them a quick rundown of the situation.

“We’ll use the APV,” Lieutenant Dent said. “Collins, you drive and we’ll use it as cover to get to the gates.”

The gunfire stopped abruptly, leaving Sean’s ears ringing.

Shouts erupted from the direction of the gates. Sean risked a quick peek around the edge of the APV and saw the four men jumping into the car. When he looked along the road, he saw why. The horde had arrived.

The mass of eaters came at a speed Sean wasn’t expecting. For a moment he froze, unable to tear his eyes away.

“Get the gates!” Dent yelled, abandoning the cover of the APV, firing at the car as she ran.

The car engine roared into life, startling Sean into action. He sprinted after his colleagues, focusing on the gates. He just had to get to the gates, nothing else mattered.

One of the pheromone weapons was shoved through one of the car’s open windows and fired into the air. Sean slowed to watch its trajectory, seeing the red cartridge explode in the air above them with a small pop and a puff of greyish powder.

The car sped away.

The horde went wild.

The group running ahead of Sean reached the gates and pushed. They almost made it.

Inches from closing, the fastest few amongst the horde hit the other side. Arms reached through the steel bars for those trying to shut the gates. Porter cried out as an eater grasped the front of his uniform and jerked him against the metal bars, its face pressed into the gap, snapping at him. Sean ran up to him and slammed the butt of his rifle onto the eater’s wrists with all the force he had. Bones snapped, forcing its now useless hand to let go.

More eaters reached the gates. The fight to get them closed became a losing battle as the soldiers were inched backwards, boots scraping across the tarmac of the driveway.

As the number of eaters pushing against them increased, they were forced to let go.

“Get inside!” Dent shouted.

The metal gates slammed open, admitting a tide of eaters. Sean turned and ran with the others, the eaters snapping at their backs.

Halfway to the building Sean’s shirt was grabbed from behind, yanking him backwards. He crashed to the ground, gasping in a breath. A man in a bloody denim jacket loomed over him. Rick appeared to his right, shoving his pistol against its temple. Sean flung his arms over his face as Rick turned his head away and fired. The eater collapsed. Rick grabbed Sean’s arm, hauling him to his feet, and they took off running as more eaters reached them.

Sean was the last through the door into the building, joining the others inside. He whirled to push it shut and was startled to be face to face with the mob. He threw his weight into the door with the others, but it seemed like the entire horde was pushing back. The doors crashed open. The defenders scattered.

Several doors led from the lobby and Sean saw Dent, Rick and Ben dive through one on the other side of the room, slamming it behind them. Porter and Collins did the same with another. Sean ran to the first door on his left and grabbed the handle. It was locked. So was the next.

Panic closed in around him. He couldn’t breathe. All he could hear were frenzied moans and the pounding of his heart. His feet felt like lead. Someone called his name, but he couldn’t see where it came from.

Ahead of him, the freight lift stood open and he ran towards it, jamming the heel of his hand onto the down button when he got inside.

Out in the lobby the horde split, some heading for him, some pounding on the doors the others were hiding behind. Some were lurching for the stairs leading down into the facility. Sean could hear moans coming from down there and he dimly thought that couldn’t be right because all the eaters were still up here.

He hit the down button again, pumping it until the doors trundled towards each other.

As they closed, Sean heard the cry for help.

All along the car barrier, the firing began.

Alex aimed carefully, taking down one eater at a time, not wanting to waste a single bullet. Beside him, Micah was doing the same. The horde broke into what passed for a run among eaters, unconcerned with their companions falling around them, stumbling over bodies and struggling to their feet again.

Despite the desperate circumstances, the defenders’ aim was accurate and dozens of eaters dropped. But they couldn’t stop the sheer numbers of the mob. Fifteen seconds after the first shot was fired, the horde hit the barrier.

A sea of reaching hands filled the area in front of the upended cars. Driven into a frenzy by the attack pheromones, those in front were soon crushed by those behind, blood and bodies carpeting the road. The combined bedlam of gunfire and moans was deafening.

Alex stopped shooting, hoping against hope that the huge volume of eaters would do the work for them. It didn’t. The eaters still alive continued to push forward and, through either luck or skill, managed to clamber over the carnage.

The barrier scraped over the asphalt beneath it, metal squealing as the cars compressed under the combined strength of the horde. Alex grabbed the car in front of him for balance as the whole structure shifted beneath him. When it stopped moving, he resumed firing, even though he knew it was hopeless.

The helicopter that had brought the horde in hovered over the tops of the buildings, hanging back out of effective rifle range and letting Boot’s eater army do the work for them. Wires had been strung across the roads all around East Town, but it kept above the rooftops. They had obviously learned their lesson from the crash on the other side of the city.

Alex glanced back to the other end of the road and saw a second chopper appear. Without needing to see inside, Alex knew it was Boot, come to gloat over his victory. Fury gripped him and he almost ran towards it. Very deliberately, he turned away and resumed shooting into the horde.

Beneath Alex’s feet, the barrier shifted again. Somewhere to his left someone screamed. One of Bates’ men, Alex didn’t know his name, was teetering on his belly halfway across the barrier, an eater’s fingers clamped around his wrist. Alex and Micah turned their rifles in that direction, trying to clear the area below him. Those close by grabbed onto him, desperately trying to pull him back to safety as he slid towards the mass of gaping mouths. Then a second eater caught hold of him and he was torn from their grasp, instantly disappearing beneath a writhing mound of eaters. His screams didn’t even last five seconds.

Alex turned his rifle back on the horde and fired over and over, a roaring in his ears he was only dimly aware was coming from him. Eater after eater went down. The magazine in his rifle clicked empty. Three seconds later another had taken its place.

The helicopter hovering just out of reach rose higher and flew towards them. Alex switched his aim to the approaching black hunk of metal. He fired twice at the windscreen before movement beneath the body of the chopper caught his eye. The grenade launcher was swivelling towards them.

“
Grenade
!” he screamed.

The people at the barrier leaped off the cars and ran. Behind them, a huge explosion tore through their defences. Alex threw himself to the ground as the heated shockwave rippled across his back. When he lifted his head and looked round, one side of the barrier was in pieces.

Micah leaped to his feet nearby, shouting, “Run!” as the first eaters poured through the gap.

Around them, men and women scrambled to their feet and away from the horde.

Seeing the danger, those defending the other end of the road jumped to the ground and sprinted for Alex’s building, where they would make their final stand.  Another explosion pounded the ground as Boot’s helicopter opened up the other barrier. Eaters crowded through the breach.

The helicopter swooped over those fleeing and fired a line of bullets across their path, forcing them to change course. They met Alex’s group running from the other direction in the centre of the street.

“This way,” Janie yelled, starting towards her building on the other side.

A barrage from the other helicopter stopped her short, cutting off all escape. They were forced back into the middle of the road, eaters bearing down on them from both sides.

“Don’t panic,” Bates shouted. “Make every shot count.”

They clustered together in a defensive huddle, showering the horde with gunfire. Alex found himself back to back with Micah. When his rifle was empty, he dropped it and pulled out his pistol, aiming at an eater lurching towards him.

He didn’t pull the trigger.

Looking up, he saw Boot staring down at him from the window of the helicopter. Not at anyone else in the group, at him. Alex knew what he had to do.

Replacing his pistol in its holster, he raised his hands and walked forward.

“Alex?”

He looked back at the sound of Micah’s voice.

Micah took a couple of steps towards him. “What are you doing?”

“What I have to,” Alex replied.

“Alex, no, stop...”

Blocking out Micah’s voice, Alex walked away from the group, hands in the air, heading towards the mob of eaters.

A pop sounded somewhere overhead. A second later, his nose began to itch. The horde slowed to a standstill. The sound of gunfire lessened, then ceased altogether.

Alex looked up at Boot again and saw him say something, and then the helicopter began to descend. It manoeuvred carefully around one of the wires strung above them and settled into the space between the eaters and the people clustered together in the middle of the road.

Frobisher jumped out, a rifle in his hands. Boot climbed out behind him.

“My life for theirs,” Alex shouted above the sound of the slowing rotor blades.

“Are you trying to bargain with me?” Boot said, looking amused. “Because I don’t think you’re in much of a position for making demands.”

“It’s me you’re after. Just leave them alone and I’ll come with you without a fight. That’s what you really want, isn’t it?”

Boot’s eyes flicked to the group behind him. “Clarke too.”

“No,” Alex said. “I know you could just let the horde tear us to pieces, but I don’t think that’s what you want. You’ve made your point, you’ve won. You’re better than me. But you don’t want a slaughter, you want me. So I won’t fight, I won’t try to escape. You can kill me yourself and I won’t try to stop you. But it will be just me. No-one else.”

Boot shook his head. “Clarke is far too dangerous to leave to his own devices.”

“He will give you his word he won’t interfere with anything you do, as long as it doesn’t threaten the lives of the people here in Sarcester.” He turned to look at Micah. “Won’t you?”

Micah stared at him, shook his head slightly.

Please
, Alex mouthed.

Micah left the group and walked up to Alex. “Don’t do this,” he said quietly.

“I have no choice. We will all die here, you know that. Our luck has finally run out.” He smiled slightly. “To be honest, I’m surprised it lasted this long.”

Micah looked beyond him to Boot. “He’ll kill you.”

“Either I die here now and take you and everyone else with me, or I die later with Boot. Either way, I end up dead.”

“Then let me come. With both of us, maybe we can...”

“No. I won’t risk it. One of us needs to stay alive. One of us has to stop Boot.”

Micah stared at him for a couple of seconds and then raised his gaze to the sky, looking at nothing. “How can you ask me to just let you go off and be killed?”

“Because I have no other choice.” Alex swallowed the bubble of anguish rising in his chest. “Please. If I know you’re still here, it will make it easier.”

Micah’s eyes lowered to his, shining in the early morning light. “Don’t give up.”

Alex gave a small smile. “I haven’t.”

Micah released a heavy breath and moved his gaze to Boot. “I give you my word I won’t go against you, as long as you don’t try to harm the rest of us.”

“I’m not sure I believe you,” Boot said.

Micah stepped forward, jabbing a finger at him. “Listen you psychotic little prick, I hate you and everything you’ve done to us and if I ever get the chance, I will tear you apart limb from limb. But if Alex is willing to give up his life for us, then I have to be willing to do this for him. I don’t make promises unless I mean them. And I mean this one.”

Boot studied him for a few moments then nodded slowly. “I think I believe you. Alright, I accept your offer. Mr MacCallum, come with me please.” He turned and climbed back into the helicopter.

“If you can,” Micah said softly, “find a way to live.”

Alex tried to speak, but all he could manage was a nod.

Micah continued to stare at him for a moment longer, then turned away, walking quickly back to the group. Alex strode to the helicopter before he could change his mind. When he reached Frobisher the big man slapped a pair of handcuffs onto him without speaking. Alex climbed in, taking a seat next to Boot and another of his gorillas. Alex remembered him from the Omnav headquarters. Baxter. Raging anti-Survivor. No help there.

He moved his wrists apart and strained at the cuffs, just in case they’d made a mistake and given him the regular ones he could break. They hadn’t.

Frobisher got in last and pulled the door shut as the engine noise built, preparing to take off. The guard sitting beside the pilot glanced back and Alex was startled to see his eyes were white. Then he remembered what Hannah had said about a guard being the first to undergo the cure. He wracked his brain for the man’s name. Something beginning with J... Jessup, that was it. Or maybe the man was one of the guards to whom Boot had given the ‘gift’ of becoming a Survivor. Whoever he was, Alex wondered how he felt about what had been done to him, if there was any chance that, faced with a choice, he would offer Alex some support. It was barely a pinprick of hope, but it was all he had.

He felt a slight wobble as they left the ground and he looked down, watching his friends as Boot’s helicopter rose into the air. Micah was shouting something, but he couldn’t hear what it was. From the enraged look on his face, it was probably some choice words for Boot.

Once above the buildings, they flew away from East Town. The second helicopter stayed in position above Alex’s home.

“You said you’d leave them alone if I came with you,” he said, rounding on Boot.

“And I will, but for now my army will stay there to ensure you don’t try anything stupid.” He gave Alex a smug smile that made him want to pound his fist into Boot’s face over and over until every bone in his skull was crushed.

Biting back his reply, Alex turned away and looked down at the city.

Seen from above, it became horribly clear just how many eaters Boot had brought in with him. Thousands surrounded East Town, with no way through the writhing mass, the only thing holding them back the unreliable fake pheromones.

If something went wrong, if Boot changed his mind, if one single eater decided to break away from the crowd, his friends would be overrun.