Mutation (23 page)

Luke jerked next to me, gagging. He swallowed hard, fighting to get it under control.

‘Anyone else?' Calvin asked.

The guards stared at him in shock. Even Barnett was looking like this was all a bit much for him.

I stepped back, heels almost hanging over the edge.

‘All right then,' he said. ‘Let's get to it.'

No! This isn't supposed to –

BLAM!

Luke cried out. I opened my eyes.

Miller had grabbed Calvin from behind, dragging him back by the face. It looked like he was trying to disarm Calvin without hurting him, but Calvin was fighting back way too hard to let that happen.

‘SHOOT HIM!' Calvin screamed. ‘SOMEBODY!'

Luke stared at me, still trying to work out which one of us had taken the bullet.

‘Run!' I shouted, pulling him with both hands. ‘Luke – RUN!'

Chapter 28

T
HURSDAY
, J
UNE
25
49
DAYS

We ran. Straight through the gap Officer Miller had left in the line when he'd launched himself at Calvin. One of the other officers tried to step in front of me, but I dodged past him and charged into the bush, glancing back one last time to see Barnett wrapping his arms around Miller, trying to pull him off.

Past the edge of the clearing. We were heading north, away from town. Not that it mattered much where we running right now, as long as it was putting distance between us and Calvin.

Luke was struggling to keep up. Not as fast as me at the best of times, and probably concussed from Tank's beating. But he kept moving.

BLAM! BLAM!

More gunshots from back at the crater. I heard a roar of pain, but couldn't tell who it had come from.

Crashing movement behind us. Torch beams. The other two guards were giving chase. They might not have been willing to shoot us, but they'd seen enough to guess what Calvin would do to them if they let us get away.

The bush was thick up ahead, the ground crowded with rocks and bushes and more spiny knee-high grass. Shadows on shadows. A million things to trip on.

I took one look at Luke, who was half-running, half-limping. No way we could outrun the guards through all that. I darted away to the right.

‘Stop!' ordered one of the guards. ‘Phoenix Security!'

Yeah, that'll work.

I surged forward, pain rattling through my shoulder with every step. The terrain in this direction wasn't much better. The grass was gone, but the trees grew close together, and there were rocks littering the ground, waiting to trip us up.

I caught a flash of torchlight over my shoulder. The guards were gaining.

In front of us, a giant old tree had come down across a couple of boulders. There was a gap underneath. Impossible to tell how big it was in the grey light. Would that be faster than going around?

I took a chance, diving down between the branches, gasping with pain as my right hand hit the ground. I pulled myself through, fingers clawing in the dirt. I jumped as a hand brushed my leg. It was Luke, coming after me. I yanked him to his feet and we kept running.

The two security officers reached the tree. Circuited around it. It wasn't much, but it bought us a few more metres.

I scanned the bush. No plan. There was no going back to town now. Nothing to do but keep running and hope –

A blur of black to our right, darker than the shadows. Officer Calvin had broken free and was cutting across to meet us.

For a second, I lost focus. My foot hit a rock and I flew forward. I waved my arms, desperately trying to get my balance back.

I grabbed at a branch in front of me, caught myself, and kept running. Luke was a few steps behind me now. He kept looking back, fixated on Calvin. It was slowing him down.

‘Ignore him,' I said.

‘
Ignore him?
' he panted. ‘Are you –?'

BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!

I could hear the other guards behind us. Calvin had stopped moving to line up his shot, but he was after us again. I thought I'd been running as fast as my body would let me, but it's amazing what you can pull out when someone starts firing a gun at you. I ripped through the trees, Luke right behind me now, finally managing to get some more distance on the guards.

But then we ran out of trees.

We'd hit the bike path. I recoiled, jarred by the sudden lack of cover. I looked down into the dirt and saw the broken line of red security tape lying on the ground in front of me.

And suddenly, a million things rushed into my brain at once.

The crater. The explosion. The ground caving in. Slabs of old, crumbling concrete. And then the building from my vision. The one with the spiral on it. Concrete. Out here in the bush. Before there was any bush. Closer to town than the crater, but not by much.

It all flashed past in about two seconds.

I spun around, scanning the trees to my left.

What if they were connected? What if that was why I'd seen it?

What if that building was still there?

‘Come on!' Luke hissed. ‘What are you doing?'

I took one more second, trying to gauge where the building should be, then sprinted back into the trees. ‘This way!'

‘Jordan – no – what if –?'

But he was already following. We ran deeper into the bush, bashing through the long grass or reeds or whatever that had suddenly cropped up again.

BLAM! BLAM!

I looked back, but couldn't spot Calvin.

Could he actually see us or was he just taking pot-shots in the dark?

I strained forward, trying to block out the all-too-rational voice in my head telling me there was no way that building was out here, that it was too close to the town, that it would've been discovered ages ago. Asking me why I was pinning all our hopes on a crumbling old building anyway.

A second later, I was hurtling to the ground. I'd kicked a root or something buried in the grass. We'd come to the top of another slope, and I tumbled downwards, making enough noise to let the whole world know where I was. I rolled to a stop, grass towering above my head.

‘Over here!' shouted one of the guards, close behind.

Luke appeared, thrusting out a hand to pull me up. I took it with both hands and dragged him down instead.

‘Jordan –'

‘Shh!'

No time. I'd cost us too much ground. Our best shot was to stay as still as possible and hope they missed us in the dark.

Crunching movement from two directions as Calvin and his men closed in. Torch beams flickered above our heads. The sounds grew louder.

Calvin's head and shoulders appeared above the grass. I held my breath, sure we were dead.

But he hadn't spotted us. Not yet, at least.

‘Sir?'

‘Go,' Calvin ordered. ‘Find them.'

More crunching as the guards waded away through the grass. Calvin stayed right where he was. He waited until they were gone, then pulled his phone out of his pocket, snapping the last thread of hope I had left.

He was calling Shackleton.

Getting him to pinpoint our position.

Asking him to activate our suppressors.

Then all we'd have left would be to see how long we could hold in the screams.

Silence as Calvin waited for Shackleton to answer. Every second felt like ten. I could feel Luke shivering next to me.

The footsteps of the other officers had faded away. Just him and us now. But Calvin wasn't letting his guard down. Not this time. He held the phone in his left hand, gun still at the ready in his right.

More silence, impossibly long.

Calvin gave a sudden growl of frustration. He pulled the mobile from his ear, screaming down at it. ‘Answer your bloody phone!'

My mind struggled to catch up. I was so used to our plans going wrong that, for a minute, I couldn't see what was right in front of me.

Mr Weir. He must've had Shackleton distracted somewhere public, where he couldn't answer his phone.

Calvin tried the phone again. He stood with his back to us, shining his torch around in the grass, grumbling.

Another five seconds. Or fifty.

Calvin ripped the phone away again, jamming it back into his pocket.

He stomped off through the grass to find his men.

I stretched up, sticking my head just above the top of the grass. I counted four torches. It looked like Barnett had caught up with the search, which was probably bad news for Officer Miller.

They were all around us. But spread out. None of them closer than twenty metres.

I waved a hand at Luke, gesturing for him to get up.

‘Now what?' he whispered.

I pointed down the slope, in the direction where the building from my vision was supposed to be. A path that would take us down between two of the torch beams.

Luke grimaced, but didn't argue.

We continued downwards, going for stealth instead of speed this time, keeping a close watch on the torches. At the bottom of the hill, the grass gave way to a patch of denser trees and scattered, spindly bushes. We picked up the pace, taking cover behind the bigger trunks.

I stared through shadows. Still no mysterious building.

Luke froze. We'd come level with the two guards. One on each side of us.

The guard on the right was sweeping his torch across in our direction. There were plenty of trees between us and him, but a lucky glimpse at the right angle would still be all it took.

I crouched at the root of a tree.

The light swept past us. Stopped. Swept past again.

The guard turned and continued his search in the other direction.

We kept going.

I felt the panic starting to well up in my chest. We had to be almost back to town by now.

What if I was wrong? What if there was nothing out here? And even if there was, we couldn't keep running forever. It was only a matter of time before Calvin got in touch with Shackleton.

I glanced back at the torch beams. They'd formed a search line. All four of them were sweeping toward us. Trying to flush us out. I sped up, nearly stacking it on a hunk of pale rock looming up in front of me.

Why had I started trusting those visions in the first place? Because they'd shown us where to find Reeve?

Look where he'd ended up.

‘Ow!' Luke muttered. He was right behind me, rubbing his shin where it had collided with the rock I'd just stepped over.

But it wasn't a rock.

It was concrete.

A whole ragged line of it, running through the bush. I bent down, following it. After maybe fifteen metres, the concrete suddenly got taller, stretching up to almost shoulder height. It turned a corner, bending at a right angle and then sinking down into the ground.

‘Walls,' I whispered, rounding the corner. ‘These used to be walls! This was a building!'

‘Yeah, great.' Luke eyed the torches shining closer.

He stopped as a weirdly familiar noise broke out from the other side of the concrete.

A hiss of compressed air.

I checked to make sure the guards hadn't been close enough to hear, then jumped over the remnant of the wall.

Inside, the ruin was completely overgrown. There were trees almost as tall as the ones outside, and the ground was covered in grass and dirt and leaves. This place had been abandoned for a long time.

The hissing stopped, replaced by a rattling, clunking sound.

‘Jordan,' said Luke, pointing. ‘There!'

A few steps away, in the shadow of another half-destroyed wall, a perfectly square section of grass and dirt had just finished lowering itself into the ground, and was now sliding away into the side of a long, dark tunnel.

Chapter 29

T
HURSDAY
, J
UNE
25
49
DAYS

The square of earth finished shifting aside. Like the trapdoors under town, but older and clunkier.

I squatted down to peer into the tunnel, blocking out the sounds of Calvin and his men rustling through the bush around us. I could just make out the first couple of steps leading down into the darkness. Damp, mouldy concrete instead of glimmering steel.