Psychosis (Wildfire Chronicles Vol. 3) (25 page)

He left them before the beheaded body had even settled on the floor, bounding up two flights of stairs and into a large central hub, the walls lined with numerous elevator doors. A public area, like a grimly functional park built entirely of concrete and glass.

Jake saw the two armed men idly guarding the largest door immediately
, but then there was the siren. A mournful, mind-rending boom that arrived without warning and passed through him like a toxic shudder, and he couldn’t even bring himself to kill them.

G
et out.

He was halfway up the shaft leading to the surface before the men with guns had even realised that something had just smashed through the elevator they guarded, and then with a triumphant roar Jake was through the last obstacle and out on the grass and under the stars; pouring the last drops of his energy into getting away from the base, running
at impossible speed until his tank ran dry and he slipped into unconsciousness, crashing to a halt in the undergrowth.

*

ABERYSTWYTH: 3 MILES

“Where are they all?” Rachel asked in wonder, as the lorry powered past the road sign with a low growl of shifting gears. They had travelled a couple of miles from the retail park, making all the noise in the world, and hadn’t seen a single one of the Infected.

“Behind us.”
John said grimly.

“
All
of them? Don’t you think that’s weird?”

“I might need
weird
defined for me here.”

Rachel fixed him with an exasperated look.

“Weird for
them
.”

“They’re evolving,” Michael said, and Rachel jumped a little. They were the first wo
rds he’d spoken since the retail park had disappeared from the rear view mirror.

“What we saw, that first day, they were like…babies.
Squealing new-borns. But they’re growing by the day. Changing. Evolving behaviours. Communicating. That, back there, was more like a coordinated attack.”

Rachel nodded vigorously.

“Exactly. That first day they were total chaos, smashing into things, attacking wildly. Now they move differently, they’re more purposeful. They work together.”

John braked, slowing the lorry to take a bend that loomed suddenly on the dark road.

“Which helps us how?” He growled, smoothly spinning the wheel.

“I’m not sure it does,” Michael said.
“But the one thing that’s not changing is their objective.”

“Killing us,” Rachel said.

“Exactly. In that respect they are still mindless animals. You saw them, Rachel, crushing each other into that shutter. They don’t care about their safety. They’ll run straight toward death.”

Rachel thought about the way the things had lined up to die in order to tear down the barrier to their entrance to the hardware store. She nodded.

John’s mind handed over control of the truck to his subconscious. Michael was right. The single-minded attacks of the infected could be a weakness, if exploited correctly. The things would go for bait. Vague plans began to form in his mind.

As they talked, Michael focused on the countryside bisected by the snaking road: to the left, the sea. To the right, trees and farmland had given way to
barren hills. He scanned for a familiar landmark as they closed in on Aberystwyth, and finally saw it: the ruins of Aberystwyth castle, destroyed hundreds of years earlier when civil war tore the country apart. They were close to their destination.

Michael’s gut churned in apprehension.

Staring as the ruins moved beyond his view, he found himself wondering just how far civilization had been set back by the actions of a tiny minority.

And then the truck crested a final hill and the town hovered into view.

Aberystwyth had been a town locked in silent battle with itself even before Project Wildfire had been unleashed upon it, and dramatically upped the stakes.

Nestling against the Irish Sea, with empty rolling hills at its back, the town existed in
immaculate isolation that pleased the locals and dismayed the students that made up almost half of the town’s population of twenty thousand. A town divided, simmering with stale resentment.

Time itself
battled in the town: modern buildings gathered around forbidding medieval architecture in the form of the University and the National Library of Wales. For the students that arrived each year from big cities to discover that their new home had a tiny shopping area, no cinemas and no real nightlife to speak of, the place was a culture shock. Finding out that the nearest place that did contain such essential amenities was at least sixty miles away simply gave that shock a more permanent edge. To them Aberystwyth existed alone at the edge of the world.

The epicentre of the town was the small harbour lined with yachts around which pubs
and restaurants and the town’s two small clubs clamoured to achieve ‘ocean view’ status.

As John let the heavy vehicle roll down the hill and into the town, his foot lightly squeezing the brake
to control the descent, Michael scrutinized the dark streets, hoping despite himself to see the place unharmed.

It was immediately obvious that harm had been done to Aberystwyth. Near the centre of town a large fire looked to have all but burnt out, but had devastated a large part of the town’s small shopping
district. He saw a couple of much smaller fires. Burning cars.

There were cars everywhere, abandoned or crashed. An ambulance lay on its side as they neared the town’s borders, lights darkened, and the sight was somehow jarring, a stark reminder that the time of the ambulance was over.
Probably for good.

His wife’s flat wasn’t far from the burned area, close enough to the harbour that her presence on the fifth floor meant she could
view a thin sliver of the sea from her living room window.

“Left here,”
Michael said, and John smoothly turned the big wheel.

Getting closer was somehow like getting worse
; like a sickness spreading through him. Looking at the dark, empty town, at the carnage on the streets, Michael knew that his little girl was gone. The notion sent tendrils of yawning black depression into every corner of his thoughts. He hadn’t considered about anything beyond getting to Claire, but Claire was dead. Had to be. Nausea swept through him.

“Stop, stop here.”
He said.

John eased the lorry to a stop and
winced a little as the air brakes blasted sharp noise into the night.

“This is it?”

“No,” Michael said. “I just…I can get a wheel chair from there.” He pointed to a small health centre.

John’s brow furrowed.

“Fine. I’ll get it.” He said after a moment’s pause, and popped his door open, slipping out of the cab without further debate.

Michael
watched him canter toward the doors, crouching low. He couldn’t tell John that he wasn’t sure he could go on and find what he knew was waiting for him in Aberystwyth. Wasn’t sure he could go on
at all.

Outside,
he heard the muffled sound of glass breaking. In the gloom, Michael could just about make out John slipping into the building and out of sight, and was ashamed to find himself almost hoping for some catastrophe to intervene, anything that might delay him finding Claire dead, or worse. When John reappeared, carrying a foldaway wheelchair, Michael felt relieved and sick.

“It’ll be okay. She’ll be alright.”

Rachel squeezed his arm and smiled at him.

Michael took a deep breath and nodded.

*

“That’s the place.”

The small block of flats looked empty. Five floors. Nineteen residences. Elise Evans’ flat was located on the top floor.

Externally at least, the building
looked largely undamaged, though battle had certainly raged along street outside. The remnants of a market lay scattered among the corpses that lined the road like gruesome street art.

Staring up at
the dark building as Jason hefted him out of the truck, and started to set him in his wheelchair, Michael felt nauseous. A deep, churning despair worked his nerves at the thought that he would never be able to make things right with his estranged wife. He’d always thought there would be time.

“Wait,” Michael said, and flushed. “The elevator won’t work
without electricity, We’ll have to take the stairs. Sorry.”

“No problem
, Mum,” Jason said thickly, and Michael blinked in confusion.

Mum
?

Before he could frame a question, Michael
was hoisted onto the big man’s back and Jason started toward the entrance, following behind John and Rachel.

When they stepped into the building they saw the battle had indeed penetrated the walls: the doors to most flats stood open, some spattered with dark blood. There was a body on the third floor, awkwardly splayed across the stairs.

With each step leading up, Michael felt the thin thread of optimism he’d clung to begin to fray.

When they reached the top floor, Michael’s heart sank
and bitter recrimination burned in his mind at the ridiculous hope he’d nurtured. The door to his ex-wife’s flat stood open, as had the others. There were signs of a struggle in the corridor. He knew the flat was empty before he was even able to see the stillness beyond the doorway.

The feeling of desolation overwhelmed him, the hopeless despair pressing down on him; squeezing.

And then the door behind him opened.

It had been a full minute at least, and Michael still hadn’t been able to do anything other than smile mutely as tears made their way down his stunned face. Those sixty seconds had seen Claire burn through emotions like rocket fuel: crying, laughing, terrified, stunned; a torrent of feeling that flowed openly through her.

She’s alive
.

Michael clutched his daughter to him
in disbelief.

Standing just b
ehind her was a small boy, wide-eyed, looking like he might at any second burst if he didn’t blurt something out, and an elderly woman whose face was dimly familiar to Michael. It took him a moment to place her. Elise’s neighbour. She waved them into the flat, eyes widening as she saw the cuts and bruises, the weapons and the blood, and then closed the door firmly.

Jason set Michael down on the couch and Claire maintained an iron hug
on her father, like she expected him to slip from her grasp and somehow disappear.

“Is y
our mother..?” Michael began softly, and saw the answer written in his daughter’s eyes.

Claire buried her face in his chest, and sobbed, shaking her head.
Michael felt her warm tears soaking through his sweater, and bottomless anger filled him as he imagined what she had been forced to witness.

When the world had fallen apart, on that first day, Michael had chosen to try to do his duty as a police officer. He’d headed toward the chaos. It had been for nothing.

I should have been here
, he thought, and guilt flooded through him.

Watching the man reunited with the daughter
he had expected to find dead, John leaned toward Rachel.

“They’ll be coming,” He said
softly. “Staying still is not a good idea, not here. This place –“

“Oh don’t worry Dear, they’re all gone,”
Gwyneth interrupted with a smile.

John
stared at her.

“
Mrs Blake can
feel
them,” The young boy said quickly, and looked relieved to have finally spoken. “She was bitten, but she didn’t turn into one and now she can
feel
them!”

John stared blankly at the boy, and then at
Gwyneth.

“It’s true,” she said with a soft shrug. “Not all the time. I can
’t really control it, but after I was bitten I could sort of sense them out there, if I concentrate.”

“What d
o they feel like?” Rachel asked, shooting a thoughtful glance at Jason.

“Like an itch, physically. But
it’s more like I can feel what they are feeling, and that sort of tells me how close they are. The stronger the feeling, the closer they are, I think.”

“What are they feeling?”

“Rage.” Gwyneth shuddered.

“It’s not very pleasant.
I try to supress it whenever I can, but it’s difficult.”

John shook his head a little in disbelief.

“So they’re all gone. That makes sense. We saw as much coming here. But they’ll be coming back. That’s what they do. They’re drawn toward us no matter what. Can you feel
that
?”