Vengeance (Twenty-Five Percent Book 3) (27 page)

Penny laughed. Bates cleared his throat and Scott let go of her as if she’d grown thorns, shoving his hands into his pockets and looking anywhere but at her father.

“Well,” Micah said, “now that’s taken care of, somebody needs to tell me where Boot has gone with Alex.”

The floor outside the lift was littered with dead eaters.

Each one was so close when he shot it Sam knew blood had to be splashing onto him, but he kept firing anyway. It hardly mattered now.

If only Alex and Micah were there.

If only he was better, stronger, smarter,
anything
.

His pistol clicked empty. He pulled the spare magazine from his pocket Alex had insisted he carry. It took him a few seconds to remember how to reload and another ten to do it.

The lift doors inched apart. An arm reached through the space and Sam backed away until he was pressed against the far wall. He raised his gun, aimed carefully like Penny had taught him, and fired again.

The space between the doors was a foot wide now and growing by the second. Each eater that tried to push through, Sam shot.

Hundreds of eaters.

Nineteen bullets.

His life was nineteen bullets long. How long was that?

Make it last. Make each one count
. Sam forced himself to stop shooting.

The sound of gunshots continued.

He gasped in a breath. Someone was out there. “I’m here!” he shouted. “I’m in the lift!”

“Sam?” It was Sean Hudson’s voice.

Sam almost cried with relief. Sean was tough. He’d save him.

He shot an eater scrambling over the bodies of those he’d already killed. “I’m here!”

More shots sounded from out in the lobby, followed by Sean bellowing, “I need help down here!”

Some of the eaters at the back of the crowd were turning away. Sam edged to the side of the lift to get a better view and finally saw Sean. He was partway up the stairs, rifle raised. He opened fire, mowing down the front ranks of eaters. More turned towards him.

Two more eaters pushed between the lift doors, forcing them wider. Sam stepped back and fired twice. At least from this distance, he couldn’t miss. Both went down.

The gunfire from outside stopped. Sean ejected the empty magazine, replaced it with another and resumed shooting again. Half the eaters were now heading in his direction. He backed up the stairs, still firing, until the bullets stopped. Without missing a beat, he threw the rifle aside and pulled his pistol out.

More eaters were struggling across the bodies to get to Sam. He shot each one that got too close, until all he got was an empty click.

“Sean,” he called, “I’ve run out of bullets.”

A few seconds later, the gunfire stopped in the lobby. Sean lowered his pistol and looked at Sam. For the first time since Sam had known him, he saw fear in Sean’s eyes. “Me too, kid.”

They stared at each other across more than a hundred ravenous, super strong flesh-eaters.

Tears stung Sam’s eyes. “It’s all right,” he said. “You tried.”

An eater tripped and fell on the bodies surrounding the lift. The doors were almost fully open now and it crawled towards Sam, its blood-smeared mouth hanging open, moaning. More loomed beyond it.

Fifty feet away, Sean roared.

Sam looked up to see the soldier pull a knife from his belt and wade into the horde. He slashed and punched and stabbed. Eater after eater fell. He didn’t have Micah’s speed or Alex’s strength, but he kept going.

An eater grasped his arm, yanked it into its mouth and bit down. Sam screamed as he saw blood spurt between its teeth. Sean drove the blade into its ear and it slumped to the floor. Appearing to not feel the wound, he fought on.

The horde closed around him. More eaters managed to latch onto him before he could kill them. Blood soaked into his uniform, but he didn’t seem to feel the pain, his face set in a fierce scowl as he fought his way towards Sam.

The crawling eater reached the lift doors. Sam kicked at it, trying to knock it out. It grabbed his ankle and he fell to the floor. The eater bit into his shoe. Sam kicked at its face with his free foot, but it was too strong. It dragged his leg towards its open mouth.

A blood-covered form reared up behind it, plunging a serrated blade into the back of its skull. The grip on Sam’s foot went slack.

Sean stumbled into the lift, grabbing the waist height rail around the wall to steady himself. When he let go, blood smears marred the shiny silver surface.

“Help me,” he grunted, hauling at the bodies blocking the lift doors.

Sam pulled himself upright and together they lifted the eater that had tried to bite Sam and threw it out of the lift. Another eater approaching the door staggered backwards as the body hit it.

Others eaters were closing in. Groaning with the exertion, Sam pushed another body out of the way then helped Sean with a particularly large man, rolling it through the door into the path of two more eaters. They tripped over it, sprawling across the carnage.

With the doors finally clear, Sam hit the lift button. “Why is it so
slow
?”

He didn’t breathe again until the doors were finally closed. Hands pounded the outside as the lift began to rise.

Sean sagged against the wall, gasping in rapid breaths. His face was sheened with sweat, shirt shredded and hands and arms covered in bites, with at least two on his shoulders that Sam could see. Blood spattered every inch of him. 

“Are you...?” Sam stopped, not knowing what to say. “Why did you do that?”

Sean lifted his head and shrugged one blood-soaked shoulder. “You needed me. And it was time I stopped letting fear run my life.”

Sam must have been hearing things. “
You’re
scared?”

“All the time. But I met this kid who is brave even when he’s afraid. He taught me I could be the same.”

Sam thought for a moment. “Do you mean me?”

Sean smiled. “Yeah, kid. I mean you.”

A slight bump signalled their arrival at the ground floor.

Sean pushed away from the wall and clutched his knife. “Stay behind me.”

The doors slid open onto a pandemonium of moans, shouting and gunfire. A bullet pinged off one of the doors before it was even fully open.

Sean grabbed Sam and pulled him to the side, using the section of wall with the control panel as cover. “We’ll let them take this,” he said with a grim smile.

Sam clamped his hands over his ears, pressed himself into the corner, and waited for it to stop.

Alex watched the giant H of the helipad disappear beneath them as they landed on the roof of one of the buildings in the sprawling complex of Sarcester Hospital.

“Mr Jessup, Mr Pinner, wait for us here,” Boot said. “Mr Baxter, with me. Mr Frobisher, bring Mr MacCallum.”

Alex’s heart sank. He was hoping Jessup would be coming with them, even though his hope that he would help him was probably just baseless, desperate optimism. And if it was, did he really want someone around who could match him in strength if it came to a fight for his life? Maybe not.

Frobisher picked up a small metal case by his feet, opened the door next to him and climbed to the ground, then he grasped Alex’s jacket and pulled him unceremoniously out after him. Alex only just managed to stay on his feet with his hands bound behind him. He glared up at Frobisher. The huge man ignored his scathing look.

Boot climbed down on the other side and strode across the roof towards a set of double doors. Baxter jogged ahead and pulled one open. Frobisher gave Alex an ungentle shove to follow.

Baxter held the door as Boot walked in, keeping it open long enough for Alex to reach him, at which point he let go at just the right time for the door to swing and hit Alex’s shoulder.

“Sorry,” Baxter said with a smirk, in a tone that said he wasn’t sorry at all.

Alex quashed an urge to headbutt the man unconscious and continued inside.

They followed Boot down a flight of stairs and into a long, wide corridor on the first floor. Trolleys, pieces of medical equipment and other detritus were scattered over the floor of the quiet, gloomy hallway. They reached an entrance to a short corridor on their left, the sign projecting from the wall above proclaiming it ‘Christchurch Ward’. Ahead of Alex and Frobisher, Boot took one look along the corridor and carried on past. As they followed, Alex glanced at the double doors leading into the ward. The small windows were just large enough to see the room beyond full of silent, shuffling eaters.

Alex stopped, shocked, and took a few steps towards it. All of the eaters were severely emaciated, their clothing hanging from their skeletal frames.

One of them, a nurse by the uniform, saw him and shuffled to the window, a moan escaping her shrivelled lips and her bony fingers scraping pathetically at the glass. Her white eyes stared at him from the depths of their sockets, her cheekbones jutting sharp from above sunken cheeks. Her skin had a grey pallor, flaky and wrinkled. She looked like a walking corpse.

An ID hung around her neck. Her name was Heather. It was impossible to tell her age. She might have been pretty, once. Before she’d been infected.

“Interesting.”

Boot’s voice startled Alex. He hadn’t noticed the man joining him.

“Interesting?” Alex said.

“They’re obviously from the start of the outbreak and haven’t been able to feed. It shouldn’t be long now before they die of starvation.” A smug smile sloped onto his face. “I did have my scientists working on a way to shorten the time it took the infected to die without food, but judging by how this outbreak has progressed I think a month might be the optimum period after all. Maybe they can manipulate the virus to create strains that develop at different rates for different operating conditions.” He nodded to himself. “Hmm. I shall put some thought into that.”

Alex looked back at the nurse. Other eaters as atrophied as she was had joined her at the window. “You really are a monster, you know that?”

Boot glowered at him. “You are in no position to judge me.”

He stood just a few feet away. If Alex was quick enough, he could deliver a kick to his head that would kill him instantly. Baxter and Frobisher would no doubt shoot Alex, but this evil barbarian would be dead.

But then Alex’s friends back at East Town would be left trapped by the horde and the rest of Boot’s men in the helicopter.

The moment of opportunity passed as Boot turned away and walked back to the main corridor.

Alex looked a final time at the eaters trapped in the ward before turning away to follow. He wondered how many eaters there were in the hospital, starving to death. When all this was over they’d have to deal with it, one way or another.

That was if he survived the next half hour.

After passing four more wards Boot finally found what he was looking for and led them through an open door into a room containing a treatment couch, cluttered desk and three chairs. Dried blood stained the floor, browned from age. Whoever had turned in here, they were long gone.

“Clean it up, Mr Baxter,” Boot ordered, indicating the blue vinyl upholstered treatment couch. He nodded at a chair against one wall. “Alexander.”

Unable to sit back with his hands cuffed behind him, Alex perched awkwardly on the edge of the seat and did a quick scan of the room for anything that might help him. When that produced no results he did another, slower scan, with the same outcome.

Boot walked to the window spanning one wall while Baxter found a tub of anti-septic wipes and set to work on the bed.

“I’ve been waiting for this moment for a long time,” Boot said, gazing out into the early morning sky. “I would have preferred somewhere more... comfortable, but circumstances have forced my hand. I would also have preferred that you were here to celebrate with me, Alexander, but it is apparent our goals are very different.”

“What are you going to do with me?” Alex said.

Boot heaved a sigh and turned to face him. “You have become too much of a thorn in my side. You could have stood with me and found greatness, but you chose otherwise. I can’t allow your attempts to undermine my plans to continue, so my first act as a Survivor will be to kill you. If it’s any consolation, I will take no pleasure in it.”

“Gotta be honest, Harvey, it isn’t.”

Boot shook his head and returned his attention to whatever held his interest outside the window. Alex tried to watch Frobisher without looking like he was watching him. Maybe he could get the jump on the big man somehow, leap up, run at him and knock him out before he could get his hand on his gun. Of course, there would also be Baxter to deal with, and for all Alex knew Boot was armed too. With his hands bound, he couldn’t get to them all.

But maybe after Boot had been infected, when he was unconscious...

“It’s clean, Mr. Boot,” Baxter said, standing back from the bed.

Boot walked up to it and ran one hand over the surface. Apparently satisfied, he nodded to Frobisher. “Please secure our guest so he doesn’t take it upon himself to attempt an escape while I’m incapacitated.”

Frobisher walked over and, with Baxter keeping his eyes and gun pointed in Alex’s direction, used another two pairs of eater cuffs to secure his already bound hands to the radiator behind the chair.

So much for jumping them while Boot was unconscious.

Boot removed his jacket, folded it neatly over the back of a chair next to the treatment couch, then used a set of steps beneath the bed to climb up onto the surface.

“What about my friends?” Alex said.

Boot rolled his left shirtsleeve up above his elbow and lay back on the inclined bed. “As long as they don’t go against me, they will remain unharmed. Apart from Mr Clarke, of course.”

Alex frowned, leaning forward against the cuffs. “What do you mean, apart from Mr Clarke?”

Boot chuckled. “I can’t trust him any more than I can trust you, despite his promise to the contrary. The two of you are cut from the same cloth. Ringleaders and instigators, both of you. Cut off the head of the snake and the body will die, I believe is the appropriate expression.”

Desperation clutched at Alex. “Look, Micah’s not like me. He’s only interested in staying alive. If I’m not around, he’ll probably just leave. You don’t have to worry about him.”

“Now we both know that’s not true, don’t we?” Boot fixed him with an icy stare. “Don’t worry, I’ll make it quick. Neither of you will suffer. Much.”

“No! You don’t have to do this.” Alex jerked against the cuffs he knew he couldn’t break. “You gave me your word you wouldn’t hurt any of them, you lying bastard.”

Baxter strode over to him and backhanded him across the face, whipping Alex’s head around and slicing his teeth into the inside of his cheek. Alex turned back to face him and spat a glob of blood onto the front of his pristine white shirt. Looking down at the red splodge, Baxter growled, raising his hand again.

“That’s enough, Mr Baxter,” Boot snapped. “Alexander is mine.”

Baxter scowled at Alex, but backed off.

Boot held his hand out and Frobisher passed him the metal case he’d brought with him. “My mind is made up, Alexander. Don’t embarrass yourself.” He opened the case and withdrew a syringe filled with a viscous red fluid. Holding it up to the light, he smiled. “It’s funny, but I have to admit I’m a little nervous. But I suppose nothing really worth having is easy. Only those who are courageous enough to push through their fears will rise to the top.” He replaced the syringe in the case and handed the whole thing to Frobisher. “I won’t forget your loyalty, Mr Frobisher. When I am on top of the world, you will be with me.”

Frobisher’s mouth turned up in a small smile. “Thank you, Mr Boot. This is a great honour.”

Alex felt like gagging.

Baxter’s frowning gaze flicked between the two of them, obviously not appreciating being left out of the little love-fest.

Frobisher donned a pair of latex gloves he took from inside the case and, suitably protected, withdrew the syringe of blood. “Are you ready, Sir?”

Boot lay his head back on the inclined surface of the bed. “I’ve been ready for the last nine years. Do it.”

“Yes, Sir.” Frobisher pressed the tip of the needle to the skin on the inside of Boot’s elbow, pushed it into the vein, and slowly depressed the plunger until all the blood had left the syringe. “The infected blood is in, Mr Boot.”

“This is insane,” Alex muttered. Even though he’d known what Boot intended to do, he still couldn’t quite believe he was going through with it.

“Make sure you inject the cure at the correct time,” Boot said.

“Two minutes after you lose consciousness,” Frobisher said. “I’ll be ready.”

Boot nodded and closed his eyes, lying quiet for a while before speaking again. “I expect it’s just my imagination, but I feel quite invigorated. I can’t wait to try out my new super strength. It must feel so empowering.”

Another few minutes passed in silence. Alex wracked his brain for a plan, an idea, a vague inkling,
anything
.

“I wish my mother was here to see this,” Boot said suddenly, his voice slurring. “She always knew I would become great. She would have been so proud...” His voice faded, his head slumping to one side.

Frobisher sat on a chair, settled the case on his lap, and watched his boss. Baxter leaned against the wall, his eyes alternating between Boot and Frobisher.

Alex glanced at a clock on the wall opposite him. The seconds limped by.

One minute.

Surely there was something he could do. He glanced back at the radiator. Maybe, if he pulled hard enough, he could rip it from the wall. He gave an experimental tug. Baxter looked at him sharply.

“These cuffs are uncomfortable,” Alex said.

“So?”

Alex looked away. If he was going to do it, he’d only get one chance.

The end of the second minute arrived. Frobisher stood and walked over to the couch, gazing down at Boot’s comatose form. “I’ve been with Mr Boot for six years,” he said. “He gave me hope at a bad time in my life and I believed in him. I thought he was a great man. He achieved so much and at such a young age. Did you know he’s still only forty-one? I wanted to learn from him. I wanted to
be
like him.”

Setting the case on the bed beside Boot, he reached beneath his jacket, pulled out his pistol, and fired. Baxter barely had time to look shocked before he slid down the wall to the floor, his eyes fixed and glazed.

For a moment all Alex could do was stare at Baxter’s body, his brain struggling to catch up. Frobisher walked towards him. Alex tensed, ready to kick him as soon as he got within range. Frobisher’s hand again went beneath his jacket, this time emerging with a small key. Keeping out of range of Alex’s feet, he leaned over and pushed the key into his hand behind him. Then he backed up, his pistol still in his hand.

Alex used the key to remove the handcuffs and stood, rubbing at his wrists. He didn’t bother to hide his shocked confusion. “What on earth is going on?” 

“Boot’s going to wake up soon,” Frobisher said. “I suggest you use those cuffs to keep him from trying to eat us.”

Alex momentarily considered grabbing the gun from him, but at this point, with events apparently taking a turn for the better, he didn’t want to risk being shot.

He unlocked two pairs of handcuffs from the radiator and used them to fix Boot’s wrists to the frame of the bed.

“So,” he said when he was finished, “what’s going on? Are you going to cure Boot?”

Frobisher’s eyes moved to the unconscious form on the bed. “Chester told me today that Boot’s not evil, that he’s just lost his way. Funny, I would have said that about Chester himself. But not Boot. He was going to get us all killed and he wouldn’t have cared at all. So no, I’m not going to cure him.”