Extinction Game (2 page)

‘Alice?’ I called out, the words choked. ‘Have you . . . ?’

I stopped mid-sentence. Of course it hadn’t been her bootprints,
couldn’t
be. I looked again; there were three distinct sets of prints. They had stood here, walking back and
forth across the mud, studying the turbines, the shed and presumably the cables leading down to the house.

Three people. Three living, breathing human beings.

That’s when it really hit me. My heart began to thud so hard it hurt. I fell to my knees, tears rolling down my face.
I wasn’t alone
.

But then something else occurred to me. If I wasn’t alone . . . who, exactly, had come calling?

I thought, then, of Herschel Nussbaum, and his partner-in-genocide, Marlon Keene, both dead by my own hand. They had not been working alone.

I stood quickly, and cast a wild glance towards the poplars and the deeper woods spreading down the far slope of the hill, wondering just who might be looking back. The trees and the rusting
turbines took on a menacing quality they’d never had before. I had dreamed of an improbable rescue for years, and yet I had good reason to be very afraid of being found.

My shotgun
. It was still propped against the wall of the shed. I ran back in to retrieve it, but my hands were shaking so hard I fumbled with it at first.

I stepped back outside and saw Alice standing staring down at the bootprints. Her feet, I saw, were clad in cheap trainers, rather than boots.

‘Where the hell were you?’ I demanded, the strain evident in my voice. ‘Stay where I can see you!’

When she looked up at me, her face was shining. ‘Someone’s found us,’ she said, her tone full of astonishment. ‘Oh, my God, Jerry! Do you know what this means?
Someone’s come to
rescue
us—’

‘Then why were they wandering around here in the middle of the night instead of coming down to the goddam house?’ I demanded. ‘How long have they been out here, watching
us?’

Alice frowned at me, pulling her cardigan closer around her narrow shoulders. ‘What are you so worried about? I—’

‘Don’t you
understand
?’ I nearly yelled at her. ‘Who could they be, but Red Harvest? Who else could have the antidote? Who else could still be alive after they
poisoned the entire bloody planet? Don’t you
see
? Maybe they want revenge, for what I did to Nussbaum and Keene!’

‘You’re being ridiculous,’ she scoffed. ‘They’re all just as dead as everyone else; you know that. You found their base and they were all—’

I had travelled to the States a few years after the apocalypse. It had taken me nearly two years to get there, where I could once have flown to my destination in a matter of hours. Red
Harvest’s main compound and centre of operations had turned out to be deserted, bar a few hundred corpses scattered through dormitories and basement rooms.

‘No,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘I can’t be sure. Not
really
sure. Some of them could still be alive, if they had the antidote.’

Focus
. I took a deep breath, fighting off panic. I examined the bootprints again, studying the path they took. All three sets, I saw, encircled the nearest turbine. One of them had
stepped away, the grass flattened where they had approached the first of the fence posts that supported the power cables extending towards my house.

I ran back down and through the gate, and for the first time saw what I had missed on the way up: a single set of prints crossing a patch of snow just metres from my front door. I had entirely
failed to see them.

My blood froze as I wondered again how long they had been watching me. I needed to hide, to go to ground. I had a cache of supplies hidden in a church in Wembury; everything I would need to
leave this place forever.

And there was Alice again, by my side as always.

‘We need to head for the village,’ I said. ‘At least until we know who we’re dealing with.’

‘It can’t be Red Harvest,’ she insisted. ‘Not after all these years. Maybe—’

I raised a hand to stop her. ‘These people committed
genocide
. We can’t take any chances!’

‘But what if you’re wrong, and they’ve come to rescue us? Then we’ll never be saved!’

I looked towards the house, feeling panic’s black tide prepare to pull me under again. There was no time to retrieve anything. I had to move
now
.

But what if Alice was right . . . ? What if we
could
be saved, and there was some place out there that had escaped Red Harvest’s murderous attention? Somewhere with people in
their dozens or hundreds or even – dared I imagine it? –
thousands
.

Some part of me, I knew, would welcome even a death squad intent on torturing and killing me, so great was my desire for human contact. But the saner part of me drove me to make my way around to
the other side of the house, where a second gate gave access to a stream skirting the side of the hill. The stream was lined with trees and bushes that could give me cover as I made for the denser
woods on the hill’s far side. But where was—?

And then Alice was beside me, her feet crunching in the snow as we ran. I was so badly out of shape that my lungs soon began to ache. I splashed across the rocky stream, then followed an ancient
bridle path that would lead me deep amongst ancient stands of oak and birch, their roots thick with concealing briars.

I stopped for a moment, to fill my heaving lungs, and in that moment glanced back. Was it only my imagination that made me think I had seen something moving at the top of the hill, where I had
been only minutes before? Or . . . ?

I dived in amongst the trees and kept running, despite the growing numbness in my thighs. How could I have let myself get so unfit? I peered ahead as I pushed through the dense undergrowth until
finally I came to a road leading into Wembury.

‘Do you hear that?’ asked Alice, looking all around.

At first I heard only the sigh of the wind, and the rustle of branches. Then it came to me – a far-off yipping that aroused a primal fear in me. A pack of dogs.

‘We should turn back,’ said Alice. ‘We’ve still got miles to go, and we don’t know how many there might be.’

‘Let me think,’ I snapped. ‘We can’t turn back.’

‘For God’s sake, Jerry – the last thing we want to do is get attacked by wild animals just when we might have a chance of rescue. We need to turn back!’

I stared towards the nearest houses, still a good fifteen minutes away on foot, then back the way we had come. I knew from experience how dangerous even a moment’s hesitation could be, but
a succession of days that were identical to each other had made me slow.

I pulled my shotgun from my shoulder and patted the pocket of my jacket where I always kept spare ammunition. ‘We’re not turning back,’ I said. ‘I’ve dealt with
worse before. Now come
on
.’

One of the things I remember the most from those first months alone in the world is the sound of dogs crying out day and night. Most of them were still locked in their homes
with their dead owners – unlucky for them, lucky for me. As for the rest, they wandered the streets in search of food and – once they ran out of corpses to feast on – prey.

I started to move again, ignoring the pain in my lungs and chest. I was close enough now to the houses of Wembury to see their empty windows and the cars scattered across the road. The church
spire rose above the rooftops, like a beacon drawing me towards my cache of supplies.

I heard barking from somewhere behind me and knew the dogs were on my trail. I tightened my grip on the shotgun, despite the sudden dampness of my palms, and turned to see a heavyset canine that
looked as if its mother had mated with a bear come barrelling towards me, low and squat with legs pumping furiously. Its jaws gaped wide, its eyes white around their edges. I came to a stop and had
to fire twice before the dog finally tumbled to the ground and lay still.

I cracked the shotgun open and hurriedly fumbled two more cartridges into the barrel before snapping it shut again. There was no point in running any more; even if I tried, the rest of the pack
would catch me long before I reached the nearest of the houses. The best I could do was take a stand and hope for the best.

My heart grew cold when the rest of the pack caught up with their fallen leader. There were half a dozen of them: big, mean-looking sons of bitches with murder in their eyes, flesh clinging to
thin ribs. They surrounded me in a half-circle, snarling and growling.

I had, I realized, doomed myself. I had let myself panic, when under any other circumstances I would never have taken such drastic risks. I brought my shotgun to bear on the nearest of them,
determined not to let them take me easily. At least Alice would have a chance to get away.

In the next moment, I heard the roar of an engine. I whirled around, thinking perhaps Alice had managed to run back to the house and get our truck. Instead, I saw an armoured van come crashing
off the road leading into Wembury and onto the grass, before accelerating straight towards me. It braked to a hard stop and a figure leaned out of the passenger-side window, brandishing a rifle and
shouting something at me. It sounded like,
Get down
.

I didn’t need any further encouragement. I dropped flat to the ground, shots echoing overhead, thunderous in the still winter air. The dog nearest me seemed to rear back on its hind legs
as the back of its skull exploded. Three more of its compatriots rapidly followed, before those remaining took the hint and fled howling into the underbrush.

I lay there trembling in the dirt and snow, watching as the rear legs of the nearest dog twitched momentarily before becoming forever still. My rescuer jumped down from the van and I saw he was
dressed in a hazmat suit with a visored hood. Behind the hood I saw the face of an Asian man, with a thick handlebar moustache.

‘Run, you furry bastards!’ the man yelled towards the trees, firing one more shot into the air by way of punctuation. His voice was muffled slightly by his hazmat suit.

I didn’t allow myself time to think. I pushed myself upright and sprinted past him and towards the road, catching sight of his startled expression as I fled. I heard shouted curses and
another van door slamming open, followed by the sound of boots crunching on snow. I felt an awful terror at the thought that Red Harvest might get hold of Alice. I prayed she had done the sensible
thing and made her own way into Wembury and found some place to hide.

Someone tackled me from behind just as I reached the road, slamming me face-first onto the ground. I tried to twist free, but there were two of them, and obviously in much better shape than I
was. I couldn’t see their faces clearly because of their hazmat suits, although I caught sight of a severe crew cut as they hauled me upright before hustling me in the direction of the van.
My rescuer, his expression more sombre now, pulled open the doors at the rear as we approached. I was then half-thrown, half-pushed inside and the doors were slammed shut.

The outside world was barely visible through thick steel mesh that covered every window. Another sheet of mesh separated me from the front cabin, which was wide enough to take three seats. I
knew this because in the next moment three men climbed in the front. The engine thrummed into life a second later.

‘You comfortable back there, Jerry?’ one of them said over his shoulder. ‘You
are
aware we’re trying to save your worthless skin, right?’

My name. They
knew my name
. That clinched it. I no longer had any doubt they were Red Harvest; perhaps they had learned my identity from Nussbaum and Keene before I killed them.
Perhaps, then, they had spent all the years since hunting me down so they could take their revenge.

I wasn’t ready to give up, not yet. I lay on my back and braced myself as best I could, despite the bumping, swaying motion of the van, and started to kick at the rear doors as hard as I
could with both booted feet. The metal clanged hollowly as I battered at it with all my might.

The van lurched to a halt after half a minute. I kept kicking until the doors were suddenly yanked open.

I didn’t hesitate. I threw every ounce of strength and energy I had left into hurling myself straight at the figure standing silhouetted by the bright winter sun. He stumbled backwards as
I roared my anger and terror and ran past him.

The cold winter air bit at my lungs. We were still in the outskirts of Wembury, having covered barely half a mile. There were houses on all sides of me – any number of places I could hide
in. I dived into the gap between two buildings, and started to clamber over a rusted heap of a car that blocked the driveway just as something punched me in the shoulder.

Or at least that was what it felt like.

I whirled around to see who had come up behind me, but there was no one. I got up on the roof of the wrecked car, in preparation for dropping down on the other side, but before I could, my legs
folded beneath me. A terrible fatigue swept through my muscles with such speed that I slid backwards off the car. I lay there on the weedy gravel, panting with fear and exhaustion as shadows
crowded the edges of my vision. I listened to the voices come closer, wondering what they had shot me with.

I closed my eyes for just a moment, and that was all the shadows needed to reach out and swallow me entirely.

The next time I opened my eyes, it was to see faintly buzzing strip lighting directly overhead.

I jerked upright, to find myself in a hospital bed at one end of a boxlike room, its walls painted in that particular institutional shade of pink designed to soothe and calm the violent and
insane. I saw a sink to my right, white cabinets on my left. There was a single window covered over by a heavy black blind that allowed no light through. There were no clocks, or anything that
might tell me what time of day or night it might be.

Just beyond the foot of the bed stood a door with a broad window to one side, through which I could see another room of the same approximate dimensions as the one I occupied. It was empty,
however, apart from a row of lockers.