Inferno (The Glitch Book 2), page 3
The others came into view, he didn’t need to wave or shout for they saw what was thirty yards behind. Gary’s eyes grew wide and he jumped in the truck and slammed the driver’s door closed. Darlene was closer to Alexis, and both were now scampering for the open door of the motorhome which was the same point of salvation that Mike was heading for.
He suddenly realized he couldn’t sense Flo with him. As he left the road, struggling to climb the muddy slope to the motorhome, he looked back trying to see any sign of the women he had quickly come to like, but instead, the sight of a tsunami of nature about to crash into him jolted him forward.
“Come on!” shouted Alexis.
He ran up the vehicle’s metal steps and slammed the door closed.
She ran to the blinds and pulled them down over the windows, while Darlene stepped into the tiny shower room and locked herself in.
“Barricade the windows!” Mike shouted as the floor beneath them began to shake.
Alexis tore the seat tops free and piled them up against the large blinds, while Mike closed the door to the driver’s cabin. Flo’s face from just a few minutes ago kept wanting to push into his mind.
Something heavy slammed into the side of the vehicle, rocking it, then smaller impacts, a few at first, then a torrent as if they were caught in a hailstorm. The sound of cracking came from all over and the battering on the thin metal walls increased. An explosion of glass came from behind the flimsy door to the front cabin and instantly it started to nudge back. Mike placed his weight against it, but each hit pushed him away before he was able to push it closed again. At the other end the windows had already been penetrated and beaks and claw tore away at the canvas covered boards that Alexis desperately tried to hold up.
“I can’t hold them back!” she shouted. Mike looked back at her, seeing a feathered wing appear around the edge of the cushions, then a beak. He wanted to go to her, lend his weight to hers, but the flimsy door he was holding was similarly being smashed and splintered.
The air filled with the impacts on the motorhome, when just audible over it all was another sound, a repeating chopping noise.
The pressure on the door to the driving cabin dissipated, as did the other noises, just leaving the beating blades of a helicopter somewhere above them.
Mike looked at Alexis. A trickle of blood ran down her hand. He ran to her side and together they pulled down one of the boards she had against the window. A dark pulsing wave of creatures rushed up the mountain road, then spit in two. One half taking to the air towards the small chopper that was flying away and the other moving over the edge and out of sight. Both of them watched, both out of breath as the angry cloud pursued the aircraft that appeared to be trying to escape.
“They’re not going to make it,” said Alexis.
Mike looked at the truck still parked in the middle of the road, its windows filled with cracks and holes. “I’ve got an idea. We have to leave.”
“I’m not leaving!” screamed Darlene from the shower room.
Mike pushed the external side door open. “Then stay,” he said over his shoulder and with Alexis ran down the steps. The young woman scrambled out of the confined space and followed them outside. She nervously looked at the sky then ran after them.
Mike ran to where his backpack had been dropped, all the time looking to where the creatures had gone to, picked it up then ran to the truck and threw it in the bed.
“Is it over?” said Gary, hiding in the footwell.
“Take the hand break off and put it in second gear!” he said to the cowering younger man, who looked back with confusion.
“Quickly before they return!”
Gary sat up doing just that.
“They got them…” said Alexis. Mike looked in the same direction to just catch sight of the cloud smother the helicopter, and then see the craft drop from the sky. The animals though remained at the location, hovering.
“It won’t start!” said Gary, rotating the keys that were still in the ignition. “I tried already!”
Mike ran around to the back. “Pull the back doors open, and everyone help push!”
Alexis briefly smiled realizing his plan, and all four of them leaned into the body of the truck, which despite its weight started to roll forward.
“Come on! Harder!” shouted Mike. Groans and grunts came from them and the vehicle started to move faster. “Both of you get in!”
Darlene ran forward and jumped in the rear seats, shortly followed by Alexis. The vehicle was moving at a good pace, and Mike’s legs were feeling it. The road was also getting steeper.
“Get in!” shouted Alexis to him, leaning out of the rear door. Gary, near the driver’s, did just that and started to steer as the road curved.
Between breaths Mike looked back at the dark brown smudge in the sky. He was sure it was getting larger. The truck was now moving away from him and his lungs were burning. With a final effort he grabbed the tailgate, and heaved himself up and over into the bed, collapsing on his back trying to catch his breath. He slid to the left, crashing into the side panel as Gary steered heavily to the right, the road level continually dropping, then pushed himself up. He figured they were moving around thirty MPH, the young man having to periodically break as they took a sharp bend.
Houses appeared nestled amongst the tall pine trees as they moved lower into the valley. Suddenly both the women in the rear seats started pointing frantically to the sky behind Mike. He flicked his head up and saw the reason. The flock of creatures that would never naturally be together, were a few hundred feet above them.
Mike looked back to the direction they were traveling feeling the truck start to slow. The road was leveling out and a gas station was coming up on their right. He banged on the window and pointed towards it. With what momentum that was left, Gary steered them onto the forecourt. Of the two buildings, one lacked any windows. A car wash. Mike pointed again and the trucked slowed to a stop. Jumping out, he pulled the rear door open as the others got out. “The car wash! Help me get the—” He felt the air pressure change before the first bird slammed into his head, cutting into his scalp with talons. He covered his eyes, while trying to see the others. “Get inside the car wash!”
The air was now full of blurs. They all ran to the nearest metal shutter and ignoring the attacking creatures, heaved the door upwards enough for Mike, Alexis and Darlene to climb under. Gary was the last, rolling inside while the others held the shutter open, which then crashed back down.
CHAPTER FOUR
Mike looked at his watch. It told him they had been locked inside amongst the large brushes and pipes for an hour and it was early afternoon. The fury of noise which accompanied the metal and brick building being peppered with bangs and knocks only lasted twenty or so minutes, but each of them did not feel like venturing outside regardless, nor did they want to discuss the how of why they were imprisoned inside a car wash.
He looked at Alexis who had her eyes closed, but he knew she wasn’t asleep, because her mouth wasn’t open. A detail he had picked up over the past few days. “I’m going outside to get the packs from the truck.”
“Are you crazy?” said Darlene.
“We need food, heat, everything,” said Gary, who then looked at the older man. “And it should be me who goes not you. No offence but I can move quicker.”
He had a point, but Mike shook his head. “I’ll go. I need you three to lift the shutter again, as there’s no manual mechanism to open it.” Alexis frowned, not wanting to meet his eyes.
She knows…
Gary stood. “Ok, sure. Whatever, but I want my pack as well, it’s on the passenger seat.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
They all moved to the metal partition, straining their ears for any out of place sound, but there was none, then pulled the shutter up and Mike ducked under immediately lifting his hands to cover his eyes. The shutter crashed back down, the sound echoing out amongst the nearby pumps and beyond to the road and forest covered hills.
There was no sign of any animals, on land or in the sky. And the clear sky allowed the whole scene to look peaceful. He jogged to the truck, grabbed his pack from the back, then Gary’s, then the two women’s, and awkwardly placed them at the bottom of the shutter. He then banged on it, and it opened just enough for him to push them under with his foot. “I’m going to check out the store,” he said just as the shutter fell again.
Taking another sweep of the area, he jogged across the forecourt, past a parked silver sedan and the store’s darkened glass door, which opened first time trying.
The interior was cool and devoid of people. Five aisles mostly full, spanned from left to further left in front of him. He ran forward ignoring all his years of training of how to enter an unknown situation and skirted along the front of the store looking for what he was risking his life for.
Shelves of glass bottles came into view and immediately he felt better. His personal brand of snake oil was about to deliver him from his disorders, physical and otherwise. He grabbed a wide bottle of Bourbon, twisted the cap, and took a mouthful, then promptly coughed, spitting most of it back out, but undeterred drunk again. As a fire ignited within his stomach, the memories of death and impossibility quietened, and his own mind returned to sharp focus.
You’re an alcoholic…
He took another sip. “I need what I need,” he said under his breath.
The sound of the front door opening, almost made him drop the bottle. He peered around the end of the aisle at Alexis. She spotted him straight away.
“While you were getting the liquor, I thought I’d get some more useful items.” She pulled a plastic pack from a shelf near to her, then threw it underarm, skidding it along the tiled floor until it hit the wall next to him.
He looked down at a multi-packet of breath mints. Guilt tried to edge its way into his feelings, but he didn’t care. He needed what was in the bottle if he was ever going to make sense of the past week, let alone the coming days. “Th—” She had already disappeared down another of the aisles.
They were soon back inside the car wash, while two empty shopping carts sat outside.
Alexis munched on a candy bar, while trying to find anything other than white noise on her radio. Darlene looked at a glossy magazine which Mike had given her, and Gary kept packing and repacking his backpack.
“There’s nothing anymore,” said Alexis, continually twisting the knob on her radio. “Maybe it’s because we are in a valley.”
“There’s a small town roughly an hour’s walk, south from here,” said Mike.
“But it’s probably dark outside?” said Darlene, fear obvious across her face.
Gary stopped mid pack. “An hour? We won’t make it back out on the road!”
Mike looked at the young woman. “We’re not going anywhere until the morning.” Then switched his attention to Gary. “I didn’t see any sign of danger when we were outside. Maybe the animals have moved off.”
“You said there was lots of food in the store?”
“Probably a few months’ worth for a few people, and it’s all yours if you want it, but what you going to do after that?”
“A few months is long enough to get rescued.”
“I hate to break it to you. But we’re in the middle of nowhere and a nuclear bomb exploded twenty miles away. No one’s coming out here.”
Gary pushed another set of socks into his pack. “And what if there is no town when we get there?”
“It’ll be there, and we can go our separate ways.”
“You’re sure of that? Animals don’t do what… they did! There’s something wrong with everything! Can’t you feel it?”
Mike could and he hated that. He also felt responsible. Had showing his son’s anti-AI virus to the sphere, been the cause of all of this?
“It looks like we’re safe in here. We’ll head out around sun-up. Roughly 7 a.m if you want to come with us. If you do, get as much sleep and rest before then, and stay hydrated.”
Gary looked away and continued packing.
*****
Mike felt Alexis’s sleeping bag push up against his, and an arm flop across his chest. She was asleep and he was happy to feel her presence, but it did little to quell the thoughts racing through his mind. The alcohol had helped, but he was already at the point where further sips would take him from relaxed concentration to detachment, and in the current situation he knew that might mean death, not just for himself but for the woman he cared for. His right hand reached down and felt the metal cap on the bottle which he kept close. It was there if he needed it, that’s what mattered.
They decided to leave a flashlight on, one of a few they had brought with them. He looked at the florescent bulb. It was bright to look at, but contained no malice towards him. Unlike the glow that came from the eye sockets of Flo’s husband. The AI did not die, or whatever happens to a digital life when being turned off, it simply was broken into pieces, who knows how many, and dispersed through the air, sent across the fields, forests and mountains. Each silver part capable of infecting anything it touched. That was worse than when it was just inside his son. Much worse.
He remembered the dream of the ants, and how the insects were similarly taken over by the flowing mercury looking substance. He did not know it at the time, but it had been a warning and he was sure Travis had something to do with that.
He let his hand slide to his jacket and what was in the pocket. His phone. Touching it, like with the bottle also gave him comfort. His son’s animated face was locked within it and all he needed was to simply charge the device and he would see him again.
Questions had been piling up in his mind. What was the AI’s purpose in controlling the beings it did? And what were the authorities doing about it? He needed to get to the town of Pine Needles, and check back in with whoever would listen. He just hoped there wasn’t a warrant out for his arrest…
He awoke with a jolt and the smell of coffee. He hadn’t realized he had fallen asleep, and held his wrist up to see his watch. It was 7:24 a.m. Looking to his right revealed the two younger people still sleeping but Alexis was near the bottom of his bag, against the gray brick wall, watching over a pan on a camping stove.
“What’s for breakfast?” he croaked, then looked around for a bottle of water.
She held up a packet. “Said it was chicken soup, but now it’s in the pan I’m not sure what it is. Waters to your left.”
He shifted his body and immediately regretted it. Every muscle was stiff.
Alexis saw his obvious discomfort and smiled. “I’ll get you doing 10k runs once all of this is over.”
He smiled and made a lunge for the water, grabbing it on his second attempt. Once refreshed he looked back at his watch. Alexis brought a small bowl of soup to him, which he gladly accepted. She poured herself the same, but he could tell something was on her mind.
“You’re concerned about the walk?” he said.
“Not so much that. More everything else… If that stuff really is in the ecosystem now, then how are we going to get rid of it? Anyone can be infected at any time.”
Mike had been having the same thoughts. He took a slurp of his breakfast. “The military will figure something out.”
“But it will impact everything, infrastructure, communications, people’s lives…”
“Nothing will be the same,” said Gary sitting up.
Mike had more of his soup. “Right now we just know a whole lot of forest creatures have been affected and killed people.”
“And the woman’s husband,” continued Gary.
“But beyond that what do we know? We shouldn’t draw conclusions from a small amount of evidence.” He hoped his confidence sounded truthful. He needed those around him to believe the world still existed outside of the single room building they were in. He glanced at Alexis. Her eyes told him she didn’t believe his words either.
She looked at Gary and offered him and his girlfriend food.
It wasn’t long before they were all lifting the shutter open, and crawling outside with their packs.
Mike looked up at the gray sky. Some patches looked darker than others.
“Hell no,” said Gary, stepping backwards. “It’s going to rain!”
Alexis jogged off towards the store.
“Where you going?” said Mike.
“This won’t take long!” she shouted back.
Within a few minutes she was returning, four umbrellas in her hand, then handed them out. “Now you don’t have to worry about the rain,” she said to the young man.
Mike smiled, although he knew if they were caught in a downpour, a few millimeters of fabric wouldn’t probably stop them from getting wet, or worse. Still, it seemed to appease Gary. He looked back at him. “Keep an eye out for buildings, if it looks like it will rain we will make a dash for cover.”
Gary nodded and they set off along the two-lane road.
CHAPTER FIVE
Hundreds of dead fish bobbed up and down on the rippling waters of a lake. Mike and the others stood at the edge of a two-lane freeway looking at the lumps of flaking silvery skin, as a light breeze brought with it the stench of rot. Part of him expected the creature’s eyes to suddenly burst with light and stand upright in the gentle waves.
“You think it’s the radiation?” said Gary.
Mike wanted to believe it was, even if that also wasn’t a pleasant thought. They were only twenty miles from the detonation. The local ecosystem had to have been badly affected, not including the possessed animals. “Yeah… Lets keep moving.”
They had been on the road for over half an hour, all of them watching the dense forest and sky above nervously. The dark clouds were starting to group together.
“What’s that?” said Darlene as they moved around another of the winding road’s bends.
“Sign says ‘cafe’,” said Gary. “Maybe we should stop there.”
Mike pulled his map from his pocket and just as he unfolded it a large rain droplet landed smack in the middle of the page.
