Vengeance (Twenty-Five Percent Book 3) (5 page)

There were a few seconds when all he could hear were eater moans, the rumbling of the idling tank and his own footsteps. Then someone shouted.

“Help us!”

With the echoes it was difficult to tell the exact direction the call had come from. Alex made his best guess and picked up speed. Another sound joined the disparate noises, this one unmistakable. The crying of a baby.

Alex sprinted to the end of the aisle, turned left, and almost ran into a group of eaters. His skull-spiker was in his hand within a moment and he stabbed the first eater reaching for him and spun away from the second, sweeping its legs from beneath it before backing away to assess the situation.

Around ten eaters were clustered at the base of one of the giant shelving runs. Above them, huddled at the back of the first shelf roughly five feet off the ground, were seven teenagers, three girls and four boys. One of the girls held a crying bundle of clothing in her arms.

The eater Alex had tripped grabbed his ankle and he leaned down to plunge the spiker into its forehead before it could pull him over. When he straightened, two more had turned their attention to him. At the far end of the aisle a hundred yards away more were heading in his direction.

As Alex dispatched the next two eaters, pheromones puffed around him. The remaining eight turned towards him.

“Stay there,” he told the kids. “I’ll be with you in a moment.”

It took him a good thirty seconds to take out the rest of the mini horde and in the flurry of dodging, punching and stabbing, he ended up back around the corner, out of sight of the trapped teenagers. When he returned to their hiding place, they were gone, but he could still hear the baby. Jogging around to the next aisle, he found the group a little way along it, staring in terror at more eaters heading towards them.

“What on earth are you doing?” Alex said.

They turned to look at him. One of the boys stepped between him and the rest of the group. He looked around sixteen.

“Don’t come near us,” he said, his voice shaking only slightly. “We can defend ourselves.”

Alex huffed out a breath.
Teenagers
. “From them?” He pointed at the eaters rapidly closing in on them. “I’m here to help you.”

One of the girls planted her hands on her hips. “You brought eaters to us!”

“I didn’t know you were in here. You didn’t answer when I called.”

“We don’t know you, white-eye.”

The eaters were only sixty feet away now.

Alex plastered on a fake smile. “Hello, my name is Alex and I’m the one trying to save your lives. We can discuss who is at fault vis-a-vis the eaters being here when we’re all safe, how does that sound? Good? Good. Come with me if you want to live.”

He turned away, doing a mental fist pump. He’d been waiting to use that one since the outbreak began. He wished Micah had been there to hear it.

He waited out of sight around the corner while the teenagers wasted precious seconds discussing whether to follow him or not. If they decided not, he wasn’t sure what he was going to do. Finally, however, either common sense or terror of the approaching horde got them moving. They seemed startled when they rounded the corner and found him waiting for them.

“Let’s go,” he said.

“If you try anything, we’ll... you’ll regret it,” the boy who’d spoken to him first said. “You can’t take us all at once.”

Alex refrained from pointing out he’d just taken on ten eaters all at once. “Yeah, whatever. Just follow me.”

He led the way along the back wall of the building until they reached the corner, then peered towards where the tank still sat by the open door. To his dismay, some of the eaters had already reached it, too many to fight through. He addressed the group huddled behind him.

“Can you get back onto the shelf?” he said, pointing at the nearest unit. There were nods. “Good. Hide there and don’t make any noise.” He looked at the baby clutched in the girl’s arms. Its crying had reduced to little whimpering sounds. “At least, try not to. When the aisle is clear, get as fast as you can to my friend down there. His name’s Micah. You can’t miss him, he’s the one with the tank.”

Not waiting for an answer, he ran back in the direction they’d come. He didn’t want to leave them unprotected, but he had to get the eaters away from Micah and the door or none of this was going to work. He just hoped the horde did what he wanted it to.

Eaters were approaching down every aisle he passed as he sprinted for the far corner of the building until, fifty feet from the end, they poured into his path. He skidded to a halt and looked around. Far behind him, back at the corner, the kids had disappeared. At least he didn’t have to worry about them for now.

Which was good because at that moment eaters began pouring from the aisles behind him too. He was surrounded. Finally settling on up as the only direction that didn’t spell certain death, he climbed the nearest huge shelves as the horde closed in on him, getting ten feet off the floor before insinuating himself between stacks of plastic wrapped cardboard boxes.

Cupping his hands around his mouth, he shouted, “Micah!”

A couple of seconds later the reply came. “What?”

“A group of kids will be heading to you as soon as the eaters move. I’m going to try to get the horde to come to me. When you’ve got the kids, get out and close the door. I’ll get out the other end.”

“Are you sure you can get out?”

He wasn’t. “Yes.”

There was a pause. “Okay.”

Alex looked down at the growing throng of eaters below him. His mouth went dry as he flashed back three weeks to standing on the edge of the building by the barrier in Sarcester, Kerry ordering him to jump into the horde. He shook the memory away. Now was not the time.

“Alright you lot,” he said to the moaning eaters, “let’s smell those pheromones and get all your friends over here.”

He climbed back down so he was just above the sea of grasping hands and raised his voice to a shout. “Come and get it, eaters. I’m waiting.”

The eaters gathered around him reached up, their moans increasing in volume. The now familiar aroma of pheromones tickled his nose, coating the back of his throat and swirling in the air around him. It made him feel slightly light-headed. Or maybe that was the adrenaline rush.

He screamed, “
Yeah, baby
!”

Because it was that kind of moment.

“That’s right,” he yelled, holding onto one of the unit’s upright support columns with one hand and leaning out over the writhing crowd, “show me how much you want me!”

Their moans rose to a frenzy and they surged against the shelves, causing the structure to rattle as more and more filled the wide aisles around him. Alex stared down at their upturned faces, their vacant expressions gazing at him without any emotion or thought. Every one of their busy, complicated lives reduced to one single desire – to eat.

No love or hate, no fear or joy, no pain or pleasure.

Alex had been like that once, for the four weeks he lay bound to a hospital bed as he was treated and fed, his body fighting off Meir’s disease while he knew nothing.

Hannah was like that now.

Had Boot found her and killed her? Or was she still alive in that room where he’d left her, every part of the beautiful person she’d been as lost as all the people in front of him now? Men, women, children, now nothing more than vessels for the disease that had taken everything they once were.

Leaning out further, he brushed his free hand over the tips of their outstretched fingers like the lead singer at a rock concert. His adoring audience went wild, straining upwards to reach him.

It would be so easy, to just let go and allow them to carry him away...

A sound startled him, jarring him from his reverie. He snatched his hand back.

From across the warehouse he could hear the rattle of the loading door closing. The teenagers had made it. Now he had a job to do.

Without altering at all, the adoring crowd transformed into a baying mob.

How on earth do I get out of this
?

“Time to leave,” he muttered, pulling himself back onto a safer part of the shelving and beginning the long climb to the top.

The top shelf was at least forty feet from the ground and mostly clear. Judging by the layer of dust, it wasn’t used much.

Alex looked down at the horde gathered around him. “Later,” he said, throwing them a sloppy salute.

The line of shelves he stood on extended roughly halfway across the width of the building then stopped, leaving a gap of around ten feet before the next line began. Given sufficient run-up, Alex could easily clear ten feet in a single jump. But that was on the ground, when his life didn’t depend on making it and the leap wasn’t across more than a forty foot drop with eaters close by, ready to swarm onto him if he fell.

He gave it roughly two seconds’ thought before starting the climb down.

Reaching the floor, he peered around the side of the shelves, thinking that maybe he could run the rest of the way. The move turned out to be a mistake. The horde back in the direction he’d come from spotted him immediately and ran towards him. He barely had time to dart to the next unit and haul himself out of their reach before they got to him.

“You lot are fast, aren’t you?” he said, looking down at them.

They moaned their response which, had they been able to vocalise their thoughts, and if they
had
any thoughts, Alex imagined meant, “Yes we are and you are currently only hanging onto your paddle by your fingertips.”

Reaching the top shelf again, he walked towards the far end where the aisles opened onto the clear area they’d driven the tank through. It was then that he noticed the eaters following him. They were all looking up, tracking his every move. When he got to the end of the shelving run, so did they. He tried retracing his steps. The same thing happened.

Were they learning? It was a disturbing thought, but Alex didn’t have time to mull it over now because he was stuck. After walking rapidly back and forth on the shelves a few times and failing to lose his horde even once, he sat down at the end to think, dangling his feet over the edge. The horde took their place below him and stared up. After a minute or so they stopped moaning. The quiet was unnerving, especially as they were all still staring up at him. For half a minute he stared back, just to make sure they were blinking. They were. 

He tried to work out a way to lose his horde shadow. From here, at the very end of the shelves, he could see both ends of the warehouse. Both doors were shut. Micah must have circled round to close the one through which he’d entered with the tank.

If Alex waited long enough, would Micah and his new favourite toy come in to rescue him? But then he’d have to open the door, risking losing the eaters they’d worked so hard to trap in here. No, Alex needed to at least try to get out by himself. On top of everything else, it was a matter of pride.

He studied his potential escape routes. Going out the way Micah had was too far. Even if he made it there before the eaters, it would be impossible to get the door open, get out, and close it again before they caught up. The same went for the loading door the tank had entered through. So that left just one option - going back out the way he’d come in, past the offices and break room. The good thing about that was it was closer to where he was now. The bad thing was there were a lot of eaters between him and it. Not all the eaters were sticking with his horde. Many of them were wandering aimlessly through the warehouse, showing no interest in joining their comrades.

Alex made a mental note to tell Dave, Larry and Pauline about the new behaviour he was witnessing. They’d be thrilled.

Standing up, he looked down at the eaters. They jostled against one another in anticipation. Even though they were already rapt, he clapped his hands to get their attention.

“Okay horde, listen up. Much as I’ve enjoyed your company, I need to go. You know, things to do, people to see, eaters to kill. No offence. So what we are going to do is this: I am going to lead you back down this way...” He walked along the shelf towards the back of the warehouse. The horde obediently followed. “...and then when you’re all here, I’m going to run back there, leap to the floor, and hopefully not kill myself. I know you adore me and hate to see me go, but your co-operation in staying out of my way would be appreciated. Can I count on you?”

A few of the eaters moaned.

“I’m going to take that as a yes.” He raised his voice. “If anyone else is wondering if they should join the party, come on over. It’s where all the hip, happening, cool eaters are. Right guys?”

He waved his arms at the horde. More moans went up from the throng and the mob pressed forward against the base of the shelves. Pheromones wafted up to him.

He began to wonder if he was losing his mind. He also wondered if he really wanted to get them more riled up.
Too late now
.

He bounced on his toes a few times. “I can do this,” he murmured, “I’m a Survivor; I can do anything.”

With one final look down at the horde, he launched himself back along the shelving run. The metallic thudding of his feet lasted for five seconds, and then he ran out of shelf. Forcing himself not to slow down, he leaped into the air.