Inferno (The Glitch Book 2), page 8
“We’re… in hell,” said Alexis.
Mike nodded in agreement, but was determined to escape.
“Got them!” said Ruth holding up a few bunches of keys, which she then stashed in a small leather bag she had around her neck.
“Now let’s get out of—” Mike went to turn away from the window, when his itchy eyes caught something out in the dark. Across the field they had approached the school on, were bobbing points of blue sparkling light.
*****
“Nice neighborhood,” said Becky.
Flat smart homes slid by in the dark, only the truck’s headlights providing any light.
What you think?
Travis had his eyes closed.
Hey? You asleep?
“I don’t sleep. I’m keeping a constant simulation running of what I project to be the AI’s progress in, infecting all the necessary sources for human habitation.”
“Oh…” Elias swore on letting the word slip from his mouth. Becky looked at him as if he was crazy, which he was getting used too.
“She thinks you have mental health issues,” said Travis with a smile on his face.
Elias frowned.
Yeah I do. You.
He slowed and stopped near the end of a cul-de-sac, but let the engine running so the headlights would allow them to see the three single story homes with large front lawns, most of which were covered in fall leaves. Elias looked at the one to their right, which no light was coming from.
“Maybe they left already,” said Becky. “You call to tell her you was coming?”
“I don’t have a cell phone remember.”
“Yeah I know, but you have an old landline right?”
“Don’t need one.”
She sighed and looked back to the house, with the bench on the porch. “Well, if you had one, you could have saved yourself a trip.”
Brillo was up on the rear seat his tail wagging.
Elias looked over his shoulder. “Can’t let you out just yet.” He then looked at the street around them. The other homes were equally shrouded in darkness, but something that did stand out was a sedan parked at an off angle on one of the perfectly cut lawns. Seeing what was wrong with a location was something he had been trained to do, and was particularly good at.
“What’s your friend’s name?” said Becky still looking at the house.
“Madeline Russo.”
“Hey, there’s a light.”
Elias swung his head back to his old friend’s residence and at one of the front windows of Madeline’s house. A yellow light appeared, then disappeared. A series of flashes within the complete darkness that was the interior.
Becky noticed Elias was slightly nodding with each one. “You having a fit or something?”
“She’s saying—” said Travis.
I know what she’s saying.
“I’m reading… We have to get out.” He switched the engine off, while Becky unclamped her seat beat. Their headlights died and the neighborhood plunged back into darkness. They pushed open their doors, each taking a backpack and Elias placed a leash over Brillo’s head, then got out, closing the doors quietly and ran across the lawn to the right side of the property, with Becky close behind. He pushed a side gate open and they ran into an alley at the side of the property. Ripples in a rear pool caught the moonlight, but they both moved to the side door which was slightly open, and ran inside.
“What are you doing here?” said a middle-aged woman. Her rich black hair with flecks of gray was tied back and her face was lit by a single flame from a metal lighter she was holding aloft.
Elias looked around for Travis, then caught his dark form just visible as a shadow in the hallway beyond the small utility room they were standing in. Madeline started to look in the same direction. “I got a situation…” he said.
The woman who was wearing a brown military style jacket looked into the eyes of her old CO and nodded. “Then we should move into the basement.” She looked at the young woman looking awkward near the door. “Who’s this?”
“Just someone I picked up on the way.”
“Always picking up strays.” Madeline turned and walked into the hallway, the other two following. A number of doors were closed, but Elias remembered what was behind them from his last visit. He had also already visited Madeline’s ‘bunker’ as he used to call it. “Are you okay?” he said as she pulled open a door and descended some steps.
“As well as I can be with all the shit that’s been going down.” She briefly looked back up the wooden-planked steps to Becky. “Close and slide the bolts across young lady.”
Becky did as asked, then walked slowly down the stairs. “Whoa. You must have known something the rest of us didn’t.” The room below the ground floor was open plan and covered the same area as the space above, accept it was full of shelves, crates, boxes, and in one corner a desk which ran along the wall, to a single bed in a corner opposite.
Travis suddenly appeared making Elias jump slightly. The young man was standing over books and print outs covering the desk, then turned his attention to the computer monitor which was showing a map of the country. “Her assumptions about what is happening are… not completely inaccurate.”
“I’m sure she’ll be please to know that.”
Travis spun around to face Elias, as did the Madeline, but Becky just marveled at the supplies which covered the metal shelves. “Oh, you get used to it,” she said. “He talks to himself sometimes.”
Madeline, now with a look of concern on her face dropped the radio she had and walked closer to Elias. “Are you sure you are okay? I know you are pretty isolated out there…”
“You need to convince her quickly,” said Travis. “So we can leave. Our chances of getting to my father are—”
Elias looked past Madeline and waved his hand at the invisible teen. “Yes, stop bothering me. I have to do it in my own way.”
Travis sighed and turned back to the contents scattered across the desk, but the woman in front of him looked shocked.
Elias finally looked directly at her. “I know I look crazy, but I’m not. At least I don’t think so. What do you know of what’s been happening across the—”
“Put! That down!” said Madeline to Becky who had a small circular green object in her hand.
Becky turned it over in her hand. “What’s the big deal, it’s just a—”
“Landmine,” said Elias finished the young woman’s thought.
Becky’s eyes grew wide and she almost dropped the heavy green tin, placing it back on the shelf. Madeline looked back to Elias. “You were telling me how talking to yourself like there is someone standing at my desk, doesn’t mean you’re crazy.”
Elias frowned. “What do you know of what’s happening?”
“Aliens landed. Tried to build something. We blew it up. Although to be honest—” Her eyes tracked the younger woman’s progress around the room. “— I thought the whole alien story was bullshit. If the government are telling us it’s aliens, then it sure as shit has nothing to do with aliens.”
Elias smiled.
“So what is it then?”
Travis went to speak, but Elias held one hand up, stopping Travis from continuing. Madeline resisted looking behind her. “You’re right, it’s not aliens. It’s something else. Something we made.”
“Okay. Go on.”
“Some tech guys, made an AI.”
“Artificial intelligence?”
“Yup, and basically it broke out and tried to take over the world. That’s what was being constructed around the world. Like a giant prison for human minds.”
Becky monetarily stopped looking at the items around her, then frowned and continued.
Madeline sighed. “Would you like a drink? I got some good stuff—”
Elias could tell she didn’t believe him. Maybe it was his age, or the fact that he had lived alone for so many years that people presumed he had lost his mind, but he couldn’t blame her, it took a lot for him to believe it too.
“This is not working,” said Travis. “Come over here, to her computer screen.”
“How’s that going to help?” said Elias. More concern rippled across his friend’s face.
“Trust me. I can show her.”
“Okay… ” He looked at Madeline. “I’m told, I can show you. Prepare yourself, it’s a wild ride once you get on.”
Madeline had heard him use the phrase when they were doing tours in the middle-east, and she knew he was usually right. She nodded and watched him move to the desk, then grip the side of the monitor.
The screen went black, then a young man wearing a red and brown flannel shirt appeared.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Mike pushed the rear door at the back of the school open and peered into a wall of smoke. He limbs were covered in sweat despite the heat and he was glad for the semblance of fresher air outside. Yellow strips of fire crossed the landscape, peppered with larger sources, which he presumed were buildings. But he wasn’t concerned about any of that. He scanned the darkness for blue glows. There weren’t any.
He looked over his shoulder to Ruth. “Looks clear.”
She nodded. “Go right and follow the edge of the building. It will take you to the parking lot. There should be three buses.”
“Stay close.”
They ran across the sandy ground, doing as Ruth suggested. Mike dragged his hand across brickwork, using the light provided by the burning building above to light his path. A few moments before, from Ruth’s office they could see the tinnies a mile off, he reckoned at least forty, but there was only darkness outside of the reach of the flames.
His hand fell away on reaching the end of the wall, and three yellow buses sat in the parking lot just as the principle had said. Without hesitation he ran to the closest, while Alexis and Ruth ran to the next. He slid the key in the hole near the sliding door then pushed it to the side and ran up the steps and sat in the driver’s seat. A series of plain buttons were spread out before him. He spotted the ignition, slid the key in, turned it, and—
He flicked his Glock from its holster and had it pointing behind him along the aisle within a second of the feint sound repeating itself. He wasn’t alone on the bus.
“If there’s someone here, you better show yourself before I start shooting!”
In the flickering light from the building nearby a shadow near one of the seats moved, then grew into a shape of a small human. Mike strained his sore eyes to see any sign of blue.
“Don’t shoot, I’m just a kid!” said a young girl.
“Walk towards me slowly.” Mike kept his weapon trained on the child walking towards him. He needed confirmation.
The girl, maybe around the age of ten, had her hands and arms aloft and was trembling.
As Mike frowned and lowered his gun a horn rang out. He looked to his left at the other bus, whose engine was running, but Alexis was driving away just yet, instead she was anxiously pointing to the front of the lot.
He looked in the same direction as the kid stood to his side. Out in the darkness, blue glows swayed and jostled.
Here they come…
“They turn you to stone if they see you!” She ducked down. “Please sir, we have to leave! Don’t let them see you!”
He turned the key again, and the engine fired up. Alexis’s bus roared off, moving towards the oncoming horde. He pressed down on the gas following behind. “Hold on kid!”
“Close the door!” she shouted.
He realized it was still open, but couldn’t make sense of what levers to pull.
The young girl crawled forward as they tore out of the parking lot and onto the road, and pulled on the largest of the metal poles and the door slid closed.
She looked out into the night at the blue points of light that now appeared to cover the entire former football field near the school, but Mike kept his concentration on the road and not running into the back of the bus in front.
They turned onto a larger road. “What’s your name?” said Mike.
“Skylar Mills.”
“Nice to meet you Skylar Mills. I need you to stay on the floor by my side, and hold on. Can you do that?”
“Yes, sir. Are you here to save me?”
“Err… absolutely. We’re going to some other people now, and then we are getting—” He slammed on the breaks, almost doing what he was determined not too, rear end the other bus. They were on Main Street, with stores and office buildings burning out of control on both sides. He couldn’t see what Alexis could, but at least the flames gave them light to see if they were under attack.
“We should’t stay here,” said Skylar.
He pulled down the driver’s window and leaned out, his mouth falling open beneath his scarf. He hadn’t realized how close they were to the station, as it was clearly visible, thankfully not on fire, at the top of a slight hill about two miles off. A dark flat block against the forest inferno behind it, but that’s not what sent a shiver through him, for two hundred yards in front of the first bus, at a junction were tinnies, hundreds of them, some even on fire, but standing motionless, and all looking towards them.
“They’re going to get me! I was hiding, and now they’re going to get me!” shouted Skylar.
The first bus started to reverse catching Mike unawares, but he quickly did the same and the small convoy moved backwards along the street until reaching another junction. Alexis’s bus moved alongside Mike’s with her door open.
Ruth leaned out. “We go around!” she shouted.
Mike went to nod, but images of burning bodies, screaming in agony surged into his mind.
No time to go around…
“What are you doing? We have to go!” said Skylar.
“No…” He whipped his head back to the other bus which was reversing some more to take the exit right, when he leaned out and waved his arms trying to catch their attention. Alexis hit the breaks, and Ruth leaned out again.
“What?” she shouted.
“We have to go through them!” he shouted in reply.
Ruth looked over her shoulder to Alexis who Mike could just about make out in the shadows, until she appeared next to the principal.
“We can’t go through them!” shouted Alexis.
“I think they’re coming…” said Skylar, trembling again and pointing up the street.
“You have to trust me! There’s no time!”
Alexis looked confused, but then nodded and disappeared back up the steps.
“Right… I can do this,” said Mike.
Skylar huddled closer to his seat. “Don’t let them touch you. You become a zombie if they do.”
Mike put the bus in drive, and pushed down heavy on the gas. They bus lunged forward. “I want you to get on the floor in one of the seats behind me. Like how you were when I first saw you. Okay?”
Skylar held on to the leg of the large driver’s seat.
“No I want to stay here.”
Mike didn’t have time to argue as the bus was now doing forty, and about five seconds away from the mass of figures with blue sparks for eyes. “Hold on!” he shouted to anyone who would listen. He expected them to move, but instead he watched the former people of the town right up to the point where they slammed into the front fender and grill, the wheels bumping slightly as they crashed through body after body each face seemingly looking directly at him.
After a few seconds it was over and they were driving up the slight incline.
Mike smiled in relief. “Hey, we did—”
The headlights spluttered, as the engine coughed a few times then died and the bus slowed, only it’s momentum keeping them moving forward.
“What’s happening…” said Skylar.
The station was so close, only a few hundred yards away. He tried the engine again, but it refused to cooperate.
Alexis drove alongside, her door sliding open. “What’s going on?” said Ruth from the bottom step.
“I don’t know, it’s not—” suddenly the engine fired back up, including the lights burning bright. Mike smiled to Ruth. “It’s okay, we’re—” The bus started reversing. He slammed on the breaks but it had no effect, instead the vehicle was picking up speed. He tried the steering wheel but it remained fixed in place. “What the hell!” He turned around. At the bottom of the hill the tinnies were waiting, his trek through them only killing, if that’s what he did, tens of them. He then realized what was happening. The AI was controlling the bus, giving them gift wrapped to the things only a few hundred yards away. Without a second thought, nor giving her a chance to object, he flicked the door lever, scooped up Skylar and leaped from the bottom step into the gloom.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“Oh, so you dress up for the lady,” said Elias, noticing Travis’s change of outfit on the computer monitor. The slightly pixelated version of the young man frowned.
Madeline looked at her former commanding officer. “What is this? Why are you playing around Elias, this is serious!”
“Ahem,” said Travis from his home on the screen.
Madeline whipped her head to him. “That’s impossible, the speakers are not turned on.”
“I noticed, so switched them on,” said Travis.
Madeline reached for the table behind her, and sat on the edge.
“I know this must appear very strange, but I assure you, what Elias has told you is completely true.”
She looked at Elias, then back to the screen. “I… I don’t understand.”
“You don’t fucking say,” said Becky now standing alongside the other woman. “Who’s that on the screen?”
