The Alpha Plague 2 (10 page)

The person on the other side of the shutter paused for a moment. “Yes, yes he is.” He turned away from Rhys. “Dave? This guy’s asking to speak to you.”

While he waited, Rhys looked behind and rubbed his eyes to try and clear his vision. It didn’t help; if the diseased wanted to rush the front of the building now, they’d find an exhausted, gassed, and blinded sitting duck.

When the damp eyes of his best mate appeared, Rhys’ lip buckled and grief wedged as a hot lump in his throat. It tightened his words. “Dave? Thank god you’re okay.”

Dave spoke with a croak in his voice. “I won’t be for much longer. You need to get us out of here, brother.”

“I will, I promise. What the fuck happened, anyway? This isn’t the first building I’ve found on fire. Is it some kind of electrical fault?”

“Some bright spark thought setting the building on fire would trigger a system to release the shutters.”

“Someone did this on
purpose
?”

After a heavy coughing fit, Dave said, “I know. Fucked up, right?”

“Well, I’m going to The Alpha Tower now. They have a room where I can override the defence system. That’ll set you free.” Rhys stopped to cough. “But you have to be ready to run the second the shutters lift. There are zombies out here. Real-life, crazed, lunatic zombies.” Before Dave could say anything else, Rhys continued, his voice strained as his throat tightened. “I ain’t shitting you. You just need to trust me, okay?”

After Rhys had coughed again, he listened to Dave say, “Okay.”

“So when the shutters come up, run for all you’re worth and get to Central Station. I’ll meet you there as soon as I can, and we’ll get out of this godforsaken city.”

Uncertainty hung on Dave’s words. “Okay. Please hurry, Rhys.”

Rhys nodded. “Hang on in there, mate. I’ll be as quick as I can. I love you, man.”

It came out as another feeble croak, but Dave replied. “I love you too.”

Chapter Sixteen

Although he currently saw the world through blurred vision, Rhys ran as fast as he could from Tower Twenty-one. With such poor sight, every step could trip him, but his head spun and he couldn’t breathe. He had to get away before he collapsed.

His eyes burned from the smoke damage. Tears moistened his cheeks and he had a thick lump stuck in his throat. Maybe grief played a large part in blinding him. Just the sight of Dave’s face… His friend’s usual self-assurance had gone, robbed from him by his dire situation. Rhys had never seen him so vulnerable.

A heavy sniff, his sinuses clogged, and he wiped his runny nose with the back of his sleeve. Dave needed him and Rhys would make damn sure he got him out of the tower. If Larissa died so be it; at least he’d tried for his son’s sake. But if he lost Dave… it didn’t bear thinking about.

Once he was free from the thick smoke, Rhys stopped. He leaned on his knees and coughed at the ground. The heavy barks bucked through his body and aggravated the ache at the base of his spine.
 

While he fought for breath—the taste of burned plastic at the back of his throat—he stood up straight and looked around. Although his eyes still watered, distance from the smoke made it easier to see. The area seemed free of the diseased.
 

The alleyway across the street led to the square with The Alpha Tower in it. When Rhys inhaled again, his lungs felt like they had half their capacity, at best.
 

He glanced at Flynn’s Superman watch. Two hours and forty-five minutes until the streets were flooded with fire. Another look up and down the street, and Rhys ran across it.

***

Rhys panted when he arrived at the end of the alleyway and looked into the square. He rubbed his face; his tears had driven some of the smoke from his eyes, which helped him to see clearer. The square seemed vacant but looks meant nothing with the city in its current state.

Another couple of deep breaths, and the tightness in his lungs eased. After several more blinks, his misty vision cleared some more. The chaos of just a few hours ago had gone, although the memory remained burned into Rhys’ mind in high definition. His heart raced as he looked at the open space.

The lowering sun lit up the square. When they opened the shutters, they’d be unleashing chaos on the city, but at least the shiny windows would return light to some of the dark crevices. If he never ran down a gloomy alley again, it would be too soon.
 

A final round of forced blinks, and Rhys rubbed his eyes yet again. When his vision cleared, he lost his breath. The vast expanse of concrete that paved the square glistened. Spilled blood covered what seemed to be every inch of it. The sun reflected off it
,
the blood deep enough that it hadn’t dried yet.

Not only had it painted the pavement red, but blood also coated the stone benches, and several of them had been broken clean in half. It must have taken a serious whack to break them; they looked like they could withstand a lightning bolt. Thank fuck he got out of the square when he did.

Every part of the open space had been stained or damaged by the diseased. Everywhere except The Alpha Tower and—his heart skipped—the fountain. The almost white concrete wall remained immaculate, even in the sea of blood that surrounded it. Jake wasn't in the water anymore either; although how the fuck he went anywhere with broken shins…
 

The only difference between the fountain in front of Rhys now and the one he’d left earlier that day was the water. The pump worked fine, it recycled the water as it should have. The water itself, however, had been dyed bright red.
 

Rhys squinted and his eyes ached at the sides from where the smoke had dried his skin. A look back at the ground again and he saw chunks of flesh scattered across it. Some pieces were so big and nondescript they could have been packaged up and served in the chilled section of a supermarket. Others retained their human form. A strip of skin lay to his right; about a foot long, muscle still clung to it. Short, curly hairs ran the entire length of it and Rhys saw the corner of a tattoo. It looked like it had been rent from someone’s leg.

Before he could think on it further, the thwapping of a helicopter blade vibrated through his chest and disturbed the air around him.

Rhys pulled back into the alley and watched a large black chopper come in over the top of a couple of towers.
 

The air forced down from the blades tousled Rhys’ hair and sent ripples over the surface of the layer of blood that coated the square.
 

The helicopter lowered over the middle of the square and stopped about ten metres from the ground. The loud rotors battered his eardrums, and the wind flapped so violently, Rhys had to blink repeatedly. Two men, dressed from head to toe in black and wearing helmets with tinted visors, lowered a large cage out of it.

After about thirty-seconds, the cage scraped against the concrete ground. The men pulled back into the helicopter and Rhys lost sight of them.
 

About the size of a small car, the cage remained still. The men had given the chain attached to it enough slack so it didn’t shift around with the bird above.

When Rhys cupped his hands around his eyes to protect them from the wind, he finally saw the contents of the cage and his stomach sank. Icy dread drained the strength from his muscles, and he shook where he stood. He could only manage two words. “Fucking hell.”

Chapter Seventeen

One side of the cage fell away and hit the concrete with a loud
crash
. It created an opening into the rectangular prison. It had clearly been designed as a trap; bait had been tied inside the cage on the far wall. The sound of the loud rotors had drowned him out, but since Rhys had seen him, he couldn’t help but hear the naked man’s screams. He yelled so loud his voice cracked and wavered. Rhys gulped against the taste of plastic in his own throat as he watched on.
 

In a matter of seconds, the scream of the diseased joined that of the man. A glance across the square, and Rhys saw the pack. Clumsy in their desire to get at the man, they sprinted straight for the cage. They ran like they always did—heavy footed and right on the edge of their balance. One misstep and they’d crash flat on their faces. Rhys did a quick headcount. Seven… seven diseased—all of them male.

It hadn’t seemed possible, but when the man saw them, he screamed louder still. Rhys’ sight cleared with every passing second, and he now saw him thrash more violently than before. His exposed penis shook. Lacerations covered his body. Maybe the disease would be a relief from what he’d evidently been through already. At no more than twenty-five, this man’s short life had reached a torturous conclusion.

As the diseased closed in on him, their roars grew louder.
 

The man’s screams changed into violent shaking sobs. With his hands, feet, and neck tied to the cage, he fell limp like a hung puppet. Hope had obviously left him.

With an accelerated pulse, Rhys watched on. In a perfect world, he would have done something. They didn’t live in a perfect world though, and he had too many people he loved that needed him.

One of the diseased had broken away from the pack. With no more than about ten metres between him and the entrance to the cage, it seemed to speed up.
 

The man looked at him. His mouth moved but nothing came out, almost like he screamed on a new frequency—a frequency that could only be heard in hell.
 

When the lead diseased entered the cage, the metal bars rattled as they bounced against the concrete ground. The other diseased entered behind him just as the one in the lead reached the naked man.

Metal clattered; both the diseased and the man screamed, and the rotors turned. Yet all of that paled in significance when Rhys heard the wet crack as two bodies collided.
 

The man cried out as the lead diseased bit into his face. As if the cage had been electrified, he shook and yelled as it chowed down. Seconds later, the other six crashed into him. Shortly after, his screams fell silent.

A cable that hung down from the helicopter snapped taut and the cage door slammed shut. It trapped the diseased inside the cage with the man—not that they noticed; they shared a single-minded purpose as they all chomped onto a part of the now flaccid corpse.

By the time they’d finished with him, the helicopter had lifted the cage several metres from the ground. The man had been reduced to a torn up piece of meat. The position of his shackles seemed to be the only thing that retained his human form. Covered in blood to the point where Rhys couldn’t see any of his skin, the man looked like he belonged in a butcher’s freezer.
 

Then he twitched and Rhys jumped. His sore throat turned arid.
What the fuck?
 

Another twitch and the man lifted his bloody face to stare at the other monsters in the cage. Where he’d been the focus of their interest only moments before, none of them even looked his way now.
 

Only when the man opened his mouth did Rhys see the orientation of his face. Skinned to the flesh beneath, his head didn’t even resemble a skull. It looked more like an overripe piece of fruit, juicy and fleshy beyond any kind of definition. Suddenly he vomited what looked like about a pint of blood.

When he’d finished, he opened one of his eyes. The other seemed to have been gouged out or battered shut. As the cage moved farther away, it became harder for Rhys to see the finer details.
Thank god
.
 

Another sharp jolt ran through the man and he released a wet roar. The dampness that gargled from his throat sounded like a man drowning.

His slow moment of awakening sped up as the jilted fury of the disease took over. He snapped his jaws and thrashed his head from side to side. Now too far away for Rhys to see anything other than his form, the man shook as if he thought he could break free of his bonds.
 

The helicopter continued to rise and took the man and his new friends with it. Rhys squinted against the downward wind as he watched on.
 

Once the helicopter had cleared the top of the buildings, it tilted in the sky and pulled away from the square.
 

A few seconds later, the thing had disappeared from view.

Rhys glanced at his watch. Only two and a half hours left. Whatever the people in the chopper were doing didn’t matter; Rhys had to keep on. At least the helicopter had drawn the diseased in the square out of hiding; hopefully it would be clear for him now.
 

The Alpha Tower stood shutterless and as indomitable as ever. He focused on his breath, but it did little to combat the tension that twisted his intestines, and his lungs continued to ache from the smoke that came from Dave’s tower. He checked around one last time. It looked clear. A nod to himself as he focused on the tower and Rhys ran out into the square.

Chapter Eighteen

Rhys slipped several times as he sprinted across the open square. Blood covered every inch of the ground, although, from what he could tell, all of the diseased had gone from the area around The Alpha Tower. Not that he could be sure of much in the fucked-up city.

The low sun forced Rhys to squint as he ran.
 

When he reached the other side of the square, The Alpha Tower blocked the sun’s glare and he saw Oscar for the first time. He’d obviously been there all the while and had watched Rhys run toward him. The large man leaned against the wall by the entrance and had propped his bike up next to him. He seemed almost relaxed, like someone waiting for a bus or something equally as trivial.

He’d only get a blank stare from Oscar until they were close enough to speak, so Rhys focused on the tower instead. He’d gotten so close that on a normal day, security would have shooed him away by now.

The Alpha Tower stood as the only skyscraper in the city that hadn’t been surrounded by steel shutters. Its white walls and blacked-out windows seemed even more imposing surrounded by the huge grey pods that had once been government administration offices, and were now prisons.