Inferno (The Glitch Book 2), page 18
Alexis grabbed the flashlight from the desk, and moved to the door then swung the beam into the long narrow space outside but there was nothing there. “It’s empty. No one.”
“Is Brad there with the buses? Over.”
“Here… People are… Get back—” Shouting came from the radio’s speaker, then a crackling noise.
“Is it clear?” said Mike to Alexis.
“Yes… I think so.”
Mike looked back to the young man who was visibly shaking. “You ready to run?”
He nodded.
All three moved swiftly into the corridor, the flashlight sweeping across the walls and doors. One was open. Alexis held the beam on that room, the beam seemingly not wanting to penetrate the gloom inside. Rowland opened the door opposite and they ran through the small corridor and back to the top of the stairs, running down them. Mike looked at the streets around for any movement, but they were just as dead as before. He held the radio to his mouth. “Gill? What’s happening? Over.”
Rowland had already opened the small metal box, and handed Alexis a set of keys, then Mike, while he took another and ran to one of the silver mini-buses, jumping into the driver’s seat. Alexis and Mike did the same. Rowland’s bus was the first to reverse and turn in the lot and jolted forward before promptly skidding to a half at the exit. Three men were standing in front of the broken stores across the street.
Alexis pulled up behind and Mike behind her, their breaks screeching. Each of the drivers waiting for the watching men to react, which they did, sprinting forward, the smallest got to Rowland’s driver’s door first. Mike could see the young man scrambling to lock it, but failed because the door flew open and they fought to drag him out. Mike pushed his door open. He knew he only had eight more rounds, but couldn’t bring himself to kill a man in cold blood so instead he fired over the attacker’s head. No reaction came and Rowland was already pulled half out of the bus. The biggest of the three broke off and ran to Alexis’s bus and smashed his fist into the driver’s window shattering it. There were no more warning shots. Mike ran forward firing one round squarely into the large man’s ribs, dropping him instantly, then fired again at the second man with the same result, the first though had dragged Rowland out to the ground, and was kicking him, when the third shot floored him too. Mike ran to Rowland whose face was bloody and already swelling and pulled him up. It was obvious he was in no shape to drive. Alexis jumped out, ran to their side and they helped Rowland into her passengers sat. Both were quickly back in their vehicles and driving away.
The small convoy quickly arrived at a junction, not stopping. People poured out of a five story block on the opposite corner and immediately ran towards the buses smashing into the side of them, but each driver accelerated clear.
“Gill? Are you there? Over,” said Mike with his other hand on the wheel. They flew past people standing outside their homes and office buildings, as if they had been waiting, and then in unison ran forward. Alexis swerved around a woman, but struck a child sending them spiraling backwards. Her bus almost smashed into a stationary truck, but she turned away at the last moment scraping along the side of it.
The church tower came into sight, and both vehicles skidded around the final corner and into a scene of chaos. A sea of people were fighting to get on the buses and RV, while others were being pulled away and set upon by other groups. Alexis bumped up onto the sidewalk, Mike’s vehicle behind her, narrowly missing bodies as she thudded back down onto the road and stopped near the yellow buses. Instantly people ran to the back of their own vehicles and pulled the double doors open. The two FBI agents had no way of knowing who was friend or foe as each vehicle filled. Out of the corner of his eye Mike spotted movement, then went to duck as a man whose eyes sparked blue fire, raised a metal pole, ready to bring it down on the windscreen when a boom rang out, almost inaudible amongst the panic. Mike looked back up at Brad leaning out of the driver’s window of a bus, a smoking shotgun in his hand.
The school buses engines roared and Brad’s vehicle took off. Mike looked over his shoulder, at those fighting to be let on. “We’re leaving! Close the doors!” Others slammed into the side, trying to open his door, while more tried to climb on the hood. He was in the middle of a storm. Alexis’s bus pulled away, and he floored the gas pedal doing the same. He had no idea where they were heading. From every door people ran straight at the convoy, some being hit head on, others bouncing off the sides, each vehicle smashing against and over bodies. In the chaos he vaguely was aware of screams and cries from those that were crammed inside the limited space behind him, but there was no time to console them, he needed every inch of concentration to keep his bus on track, and following the others. He took a turn, and another, not knowing what part of the city he was in, or caring, he just wanted to keep moving forward. He felt like the buildings were growing less, and then the people fell away, and he realized they had left the city.
He glanced in the rear mirror. “Is anyone injured?” he shouted.
“There’s… A woman,” said a man. “She’s broke her leg, I think.”
“Sure have, and it hurts like a son-of-a-gun.”
Mike could just about glimpse a white-haired woman between the faces of the others. “Anything else? How many are in here?”
Hushed voices resulted in another man shouting that there were thirty-four. Silence came to the inside of the bus when suddenly a chill ran across him as he realized he had not seen Elias’s truck, but quickly pushed the thought away. The old guy was tough.
He made it.
Fast food places and the occasional store slid past, and in the fields between, distant figures ran towards the road. He looked to the darkening skies to the west, and went to hold his radio to his mouth, when Brad’s voice came from it anyway. The convoy slowed slightly. “Mike… Mike? I think we got a problem. Over.”
“Look! In the distance, up ahead!” shouted a woman behind Mike. Gasps came from some of the others, while he tried to make sense of what he was seeing.
“Mike! Are you there. Over!” repeated Brad.
Mike held down the transmit button. “I’m here… is that what it looks like?”
“Yup… the army have built a wall.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Whimpering and cries came from the vehicles behind Mike, Alexis, Brad, Gill and a few others. They all looked up at the thirty-feet in height of sand colored concrete.
“Modular blocks,” said Brad.
“There’s no gate…” said Alexis.
Mike followed the wall with his eyes from the east to the where it was lost in the gloom of the coming night.
“What the fuck are we going to do,” said Hanson. “We can’t go back to the city! It’s full of those things!”
Mike didn’t want to think about the city. He also didn’t want to think about what he was standing next to. Literally a rock and a hard place. Mostly he didn’t want to think about the mentality of the authorities who had decided to cut the town off from the rest of the country, or at least that part of it still not infected. But then… he couldn’t blame them. He just didn’t think it was going to work. The AI would find a way to circumvent a simple wall. For now though, stuck as they were in the desert with the onset of night he needed a solution which meant all of them not dying.
He turned to face the two Roswell police officers. “You know this road. We passed some places a few miles off. Any of them good to hold up in?”
Gill looked at his lieutenant. “There’s the meat plant.” She nodded and he looked back at Mike. “We passed it five miles back. We could secure it.”
“Then that’s where we’re spending the night. You lead the way.”
They were soon heading south, the flat landscape around them becoming even more featureless as the shadows combined with the overcast evening sky. A small series of rectangular forms jutted out of the desert a few miles to the left of the highway, and Gill driving the first bus turned off. Everyone else followed, the vehicles bumping along a dirk track, bordered by a frail wire fence.
“Where are we going to go after tonight?” said a twenty something man in the passenger’s seat next to Mike. He had learned his name was Noah Brevin, and had been a history teacher back in the city. He had also learned or had it confirmed that Elias did indeed make it, although his truck did not. He was driving the RV with a backpack of his supplies that he just about managed to salvage.
“One problem at a time,” said Mike, as the brake lights lit up on the minibus in front and the convoy slowed. They passed over a cattle grid, the ground then flattening out and he could see they were in a kind of parking area, with a truck sat in one back corner. To his left were single story warehouses, with what looked like an entrance to a small front office and to the side of that a closed shutter of a loading bay.
No windows, thought Mike. That’s good.
He stopped his bus and looked over his shoulder. “Everyone stay onboard until we have checked the place out. I don’t want to have to get everyone back on if there’s a problem.”
They agreed but people started piling off the other transports, then looked lost in the fading light.
Mike caught up with Gill, Brad and Hanson as they approached the office door, and with a hefty kick from Brad’s boot broke it open. Pictures of hanging slabs of meat with the proud owners of the business adjourned the walls, the rest of the space being two desks, a water cooler and some filing cabinets. They continued onto the next door, which Gill opened then with everyone else stepped back from. Mike recognized the stench which seemed to cling to the air. Rotting meat.
Gill’s face was contorted with disgust. “We need to get all of that out of there, otherwise no ones going to be spending any time in here!” Mike agreed and the chief told Hanson to go back outside and find people to clear the hooked and hanging carcasses. The young woman took a few steps towards the front door when thuds came from outside, then screams. People poured through the door, not stopping in the office but continuing all the way through the other door.
“What’s going on!” shouted Gill.
“It’s raining!” shouted one man running past.
Mike turned to Gill. “Get these people situated in the building, I’ll go with Brad to try and get everyone inside!”
Gill and Hanson ran to the left while Mike and Brad ran in the opposite direction, fighting their way through a wave of people fighting to stay dry. They ran out onto the dampening concrete, Mike being hit instantly by a large droplet, but ignoring it he waved for people to keep moving quickly. As the panicked mass crammed through the doorway, it was obvious they weren’t going to get the few hundred people inside before the clouds really let loose. “The loading bay!” he shouted to Brad. They both ran the few yards and jumped up on the step, then spotted the padlock. “Stand back!” Mike retrieved his gun from his holster and fired a few feet away from the lock. Without hesitation with Brad they pulled the shutter up.
The crowd behind them didn’t need any persuasion and a swarm of people ran to the larger entrance, scrambled onto the step and flowed inside.
*****
Mike stood near the loading bay looking out to a heap of brown and purple slabs of meat and bone, which the rain was doing its best to turn to sludge. Brad and Noah, both dressed in official meat packing overalls, emerged from the large hall which was lit by a few candles and lanterns, with a massive carcass between them and with a heave threw it out into the night, where it landed with a splat on the others.
Brad let out a breath looking at Mike. “Last one.” He then looked at the younger man. “Thanks for the help. The others wouldn’t get involved. Maybe they don’t like meat or something.”
Noah smiled. “I grew up on a farm, it’s fine. Happy to help.”
They both looked at the FBI agent whose gaze remained fixed on the wall of darkness outside. He then turned to the two men and smiled. “Good work.” He reached up and pulled the shutter closed, and all three walked back to the main area, the stench still strong enough to produce sounds of vomiting amongst the hundreds of people packed into the cavernous room.
Dawn emerged from a small crowd and walked to Mike as Brad and Noah did the opposite.
“Any sign of infection?” he said to her.
She looked over the groups huddled together and around a few small fires which were burning within metal barrels. “No obvious signs yet.” She looked at him. “You must have gotten caught by the rain as well?”
He looked at her directly, then away. “I’m still me if that’s what you’re asking.”
She nodded. “I had to ask…”
He placed his hand on her shoulder. “I know. It’s good you keep a close check on as many as you can, including me.” He spotted the tall, muscular man from earlier, across the room, who was attracting the attention of a number of young women. “Ed?”
She picked him out of the figures. “Yeah?”
“Did you watch him? See anything suspicious?”
“To be honest, I’ve had more important things to do, like stay alive and not become a zombie robot.”
Mike smiled. “I take your point.” He then saw Alexis talking to some others. “I think I’m going to get some rest. I’ll talk to Gill about posting people to take watch at the entrances.” She nodded and said she would do the same.
A short while later Mike found himself in the front office, the ceiling above him vibrating with the drum of heavy rain. He laid on the rough carpeted floor, his back up against the side wall and Alexis laying with her head on his chest. One of the desks had been put up against the front door. They both sat in silence, but he could sense the stuttering breath of the woman below him and did not need to see her face to know tears were running down it. “We’ll get through this…” She nodded and he closed his eyes, letting her presence calm him.
Mike was falling inside a void. His dreaming mind reflecting how he felt. He knew but didn’t care. He wondered if this is what it felt to be eaten by a black hole, falling into hell forever. A boom rang out, he opened his eyes to hands on his shoulders. Brad was shaking him awake. He looked down to an empty space where Alexis should have been.
“She’s gone Mike!”
He blinked, his mind still not certain he was conscious. “What… who’s gone?”
Gill suddenly came into the room. “He took one of the minibuses.”
Screams echoed at the back of Mike’s mind. He pushed himself up using the wall behind for support. “Who has taken one of the buses?”
“The guy that I picked up earlier,” said Gill. “Ed I think his name was. One of the guards saw him walk as easy as you like through the rain, out into the yard. He was dragging…”
Thoughts and images crashed together forcing his mind into clarity and he ran forward to the desk and tore it away, then pulled the door open. Outside was only dark, needles of rain slicing through a void waiting to devour him. Hands grabbed at his shoulders and pulled him back into the room…
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Mike looked into the flames that danced within a metal cylinder, a last chance to get some warmth. Hanson stepped between the shivering and sleeping until the light from the fire illuminated her face a few feet from him. “They’re ready.”
Mike nodded, pulling his backpack tight on his shoulder. It contained a few items he had managed to find within the building he thought might be useful. He took a step forward when a person with a small dog emerged from the shadows.
“I want to go with you,” said Elias. “When I was in the service, finding people was kind of my thing.”
Mike hesitated. The man in front of him was no doubt highly trained in his time, but he had seen how the years had taken their toll. There was also the fact of his son might still be rattling around the old guy’s mind, and he didn’t want to put either of them in danger… “There’s no guarantee we’ll be coming back.”
Elias snorted. “What am I going to do with my time anyway!”
Mike briefly smiled and nodded. Both men made their way to the loading bay where Dawn, Gill and Daryl where waiting. The RV was parked with its side door near the opening. Brad sat in the driver’s seat in the full white meat packers suit, and pulled the headpiece off.
“I wish I could go with you,” said Gill. “But I got to see these folks to safety.”
Mike nodded. “You should have enough fuel to go a few hundred miles north or south and find the end of that damn wall. At least find a town that’s not been—”
Dawn sprang forward and threw her arms around him, then pulled back. “I would go as well, but these people—”
“Need a doctor.”
She wiped a tear away and nodded.
He looked at Daryl. “Tell Sarah I’m expecting one of her roast dinners when I get back!” His old partner smiled and briefly hugged him. Mike looked at Elias. “Ready?”
Before the big guy could reply footsteps came from behind them. “Hey wait up,” said Noah. “You got room for one more?” Mike noticed another two behind the young man. Joan and the man he first met in the entrance of the church.
“Why do you all want to come?” said Mike.
“Will you be going to do damage to the thing that caused all this mess?” said Joan.
“If I can,” said Mike.
With the man, she walked forward and stepped on the RV. “Then I’m coming.”
Forty miles to the west, some thirty beyond the city of Roswell, headlights cut through the rain and night alike. Ed Dyer sat in the driver’s seat of the first tour bus. He looked at the semi-conscious woman to his right, her hands and feet bound and small spirals of blue light sparked within his eyes. “You still alive there little missy?” He beat the steering wheel with his hands. “You and I are going on the best adventure! We got things to do. Places to be and people who need correcting. Oh, I can tell ya, a whole load of people need that. Then we’re going to the promised land!”
