The Alpha Plague 2 (15 page)

Chapter Twenty-Seven

When Rhys pressed his face to the small window on the door, his breath turned to condensation on the glass. It put a misty blur over everything. Shame it didn’t dilute the insanity. He rubbed the glass clean with his sleeve and looked out again, careful not to press his face too close.

Chaos tore through the square exactly as it had earlier, but on a grander scale. There must have been ten times the amount of people outside. The number of infected to uninfected weighed massively in favour of the uninfected, although that wouldn’t last.

With no Vicky, and minus the psychopath upstairs, Rhys had to do this alone.
 

The sun had sunk lower in the sky. It would be a few more hours until it was dark, but the place would be a fiery mess by then anyway.

As Rhys searched the square in the hope he’d see a route through, he caught sight of Oscar’s bike in his peripheral vision. It remained propped against the wall where Oscar had left it—it even had the Molotov cocktail in the drink holder still.

Maybe Rhys had a slight advantage over everyone else. After all, he knew what the diseased were capable of. Most of the people outside wandered the square, shell-shocked and panicked. Many hadn’t even worked out that they should run. Instead, they searched around, wide-eyed and slack-jawed. The diseased picked them off with ease. One after another, they tackled those too slow to react and bit into faces and torsos. Even the ones who fought back fell quickly. With so many diseased around, the only way to survive was to run. Because Rhys knew that, he’d be a much harder target than most.

As Rhys watched events play out in the square, his lungs tightened, and his breaths grew shallow. Despite his theory that he’d be harder prey, he could still fall like any one of the poor bastards outside.

A deep breath and hard exhale did nothing to still his hammering heart. He removed Wilfred’s card from his pocket and swiped it through the reader. The red light turned green and the door popped open. The hellish sound of a city dying rushed into the building.
 

As Rhys pushed the door wide, his entire body turned to gooseflesh.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

After he’d mounted Oscar’s bike, Rhys paused for a second and stared across the square. The quickest route was in a straight line to one of the alleyways on the other side… as long as he didn’t get taken out by one of the many diseased that stood in the way.
 

A tilt of his wrist and he looked down at his Superman watch. An hour and a half would have been a long time to get out of the city on a regular day, but with the insanity that surrounded him, and with Dave and Larissa to collect, it would pass in a heartbeat.
 

Rhys squeezed the bike’s rubber grips and looked across the square. A spectator at present, he’d have to take the plunge. One bad decision and he’d be dragged into the carnage. The pedal ticked as he wound it back to get it into the correct position. With it high enough, he rested his foot on top of it. Before one of the diseased had the opportunity to see him, Rhys gulped a mouthful of warm, arid air, and pushed off.
 

Although he had the alleyway as his final goal, Rhys focused on the next gap in front of him. He could only take one step at a time.
 

Two people screamed as they ran across his path and narrowly avoided a collision with his front tyre. Before Rhys could react, they were gone. His heart beat a frantic rhythm in the aftermath of his panic.

Rhys had to swerve to avoid three people who fell in front of him with a heavy thud. Two diseased had taken down an old man. His screams fell silent almost instantly.
 

When another diseased ran straight for Rhys, he lifted his foot from the pedal and kicked out hard. He connected with the monster’s chest. It drove it back and diverted Rhys on a wobbly path, but he remained upright as the diseased fell.

With the shutters gone, the low sun bounced off the reflective windows and lit up Summit City. The blood on the ground shone like a layer of molten wax. At seemingly random points, it had pooled into large puddles. When he rode through one of the puddles, the bike’s tyres threw blood up at him as a fine spray that he felt against his bare arms and hands.
 

The smell of the diseased hung heavier than before. It damn near choked Rhys as he rode. If it had levelled out, maybe he would become used to it, but with every passing minute, another person became infected and it smelled worse than before.

Rhys’ weak legs burned as he pushed on, his jaw clenched hard. His eyes stung from his refusal to blink.
 

On the next sharp turn, Rhys hit a particularly slimy patch of blood and flesh. The back wheel of the bike kicked out, and Rhys’ pulse spiked as he entered a wobbly battle to regain control.
 

With a jerk, he brought the bike into a straight path and focused on the alleyway out of the square. Any more sharp turns and he’d be on the ground with the diseased on top of him.

The wet slap of thrown punches joined the roars, screams, and cries around him. Rhys shut off to it as best as he could and kept his tunnel-vision focus on where he wanted to go. He’d travelled about twenty metres, and had about fifty left to the edge of the square.

Knocked down by a pack of crazed diseased, a woman crashed to the ground in front of Rhys. One of them latched onto the front of her neck, and as Rhys narrowly missed them, he heard the hollow pop of what must have been her windpipe. Before she was out of earshot, he heard a shrill gargle as she drowned in her own blood.
 

To Rhys’ right, an older gentleman became prey to several children. All dressed in the same school uniform, they swarmed over the man and latched onto him. He screamed over their snarls.

Rhys passed the water fountain. The water had turned a deeper shade of red since he’d last seen it. It looked more like a blood fountain now.
 

Rhys stood up to ride faster. The bike stung the inside of his knees as it whacked against them. Wherever he looked, he saw someone taken down by a diseased. The ratio of infected to uninfected seemed to have changed. Rhys now belonged to the minority.

The roar of a woman caught Rhys’ attention. When he looked over his shoulder, his legs almost stopped working. About his age, maybe slightly older, she ran straight at him. With her arms out in front of her, she moved quicker than he rode, despite her uncoordinated sprint. He had no chance of getting to the alley before she caught him.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Rhys rode so fast the wind blew his hair back from his forehead. He fought against his weakened legs and pushed harder. Lightning bolts of pain tore through him and he yelled out, which helped him find more speed.
 

Yet when he looked behind, he saw the woman had gained on him. Every ounce of his energy went into his escape, but she moved faster than he did. He had no chance against her.
 

The effort turned nausea over in Rhys’ stomach, and no matter how hard he breathed, he couldn’t pull enough oxygen into his tight lungs.
 

When the quick slaps of the woman’s feet against the ground stopped, Rhys turned around again to look. In mid-flight and with her hand stretched out, she’d jumped straight at him.

So close her fingers brushed his shirt, the woman failed to grab him, fell, and clattered into the bike’s back wheel on her way to the ground.
 

The bike flick-flacked and Rhys fought to keep a hold of the handlebars as they snapped from side to side.

So caught up in his attempts to remain on his bike, Rhys didn’t see the diseased in front of him until they’d collided. The shoulder barge into the creature ran a shock through him that sent a sharp pain across the base of his skull. The diseased he’d crashed into stumbled away from him.

The impact rescued Rhys and he straightened out. When he looked to see the diseased slowly get to its feet, he pedalled harder and focused on the alley.

 
As Rhys got closer to the edge of the square, the chaos thinned out a little. Although still surrounded by diseased office workers, taxi drivers, and even a builder in a high-visibility vest, he could see more space than before. A route to the alleyway opened up in front of him; ten more metres separated him and his escape.

With his focus on his exit, Rhys saw the pool of blood too late. Before he’d had the time to react, the back wheel spun and his legs slipped.
 

Rhys grabbed both handles again and managed to both hold on and remain upright. His pulse sped.
Focus Rhys
!

A metre or two from the alleyway and Rhys checked over his shoulder one final time. As if from nowhere, a horde of about twenty diseased—led by the man in the high-visibility jacket—had gathered and chased him. “Fuck it!”

A glance into the dark alleyway and a rock sank in his gut; something wasn’t right. He should go down the next one, but he didn’t have time. Rhys rode straight into the tight space.

The tick of the bike’s chain and his own short breaths bounced off the hard surfaces that surrounded him. Maybe he could outrun those behind.
 

Then Rhys looked up and wedged his brakes on. The bike came to an abrupt halt with a loud screech.
 

About fifteen diseased had blocked his exit from the alley. Each one looked freshly turned. Their eyes bled and their wounds gaped as each one focused on him. A look behind and the pursuing horde flooded in on his tail. They brought the roar of hunger with them.

Rhys looked at the crowd in front again. As if inspired by the furious mob behind, they set the air alight with their screams and ran straight at him.

Chapter Thirty

The alley may have been long, but the pinch of onrushing diseased from both ends narrowed it down fast. Despite the extra light that reflected off the thousands of exposed windows in the city, the onslaught turned the place dark. With his hand pressed against his chest, Rhys’ heart boomed as he divided his attention between the diseased both in front and behind him.
 

The slathering fury reverberated off the tight walls and the stench closed in. He’d come all this way to get taken out in a fucking alley! He should have listened to his gut and gone to the next alleyway along.
 

With both of his feet on the ground and the bike balanced between his legs, Rhys leaned down and pulled the Molotov from the drink holder. His hand shook as he fished his lighter from his pocket and lit the rag. The flame ate into it and gave off black smoke.

A glance in front, one behind, one in front again, and Rhys threw the bottle behind him. They seemed closer. The glass smashed seconds before a loud
whoosh
of petrol roared through the tight space. A ball of heat then rushed at Rhys and lifted the hair on his head.

A layer of sweat stood out on Rhys’ brow as he watched the flames force back the diseased behind him. Several of them screamed and raised their arms in front of their faces. The blood on their skin, and even their skin itself, hissed as the flames ate into them. The stench of rot mixed with that of charred flesh and the clothes of the diseased as they caught alight.
 

The diseased behind engaged in a fiery dance. Rhys shook his head to pull his attention away from the burning figures and turned to face the pack in front of him. As the mob closed in, he pulled his bag from his shoulders and rested it on the crossbar of the bike. A violent shake made it hard for him to even pinch the zip, let alone undo the bag. The diseased in front drew closer.

He finally got his bag open, and in one fluid movement, he removed one the rockets, lit the fuse, and held it away at arm’s length. He pointed it straight at the diseased in front of him.
 

The sparks from the back of the firework stung his hand like ant bites and the smell of gunpowder overpowered the stench of rot and seared flesh. He turned his head away and closed his eyes. The sound of the enraged diseased closed in on him.
 

The firework bucked and a loud
whoosh
shot away from him. Rhys opened his eyes to see a line of fiery colour run straight at the creatures. It stopped dead when it hit the first diseased directly in the chest. It caught in her clothes and kicked out a kaleidoscope of sparks. The other diseased backed away from it.

As Rhys removed another two rockets, the loud bang of the first one made him drop one of the fireworks. His ears rang and his head spun when he leaned down to retrieve it. The diseased in front of him backed away as one.
 

He held both of the rockets in one hand and lit them. Two kicks in quick succession, and they hurtled down the alley. One of them bounced off the close walls, but they both scored direct hits. Not that a direct hit was hard with the amount of diseased in front of him.
 

One of the diseased had taken a firework to the face, while the other took one to the groin. As the rockets fizzed and hissed on the floor, the mob backed off quicker than before.
 

Two more loud bangs sounded out.
 

The ring in Rhys’ ears made it hard to hear anything else, but he already had four more rockets lit and pointed at the monsters. Two went off at the same time, the other two shortly after. All of them whistled as they shot down the alley.
 

The pack had already backed off to the point where they’d virtually cleared his way. The four rockets pushed them clear of the alley.
 

The flames from the Molotov had died down enough for the diseased behind to find their courage again. Rhys removed one more rocket from the bag before he threw his backpack—with the remaining fireworks still inside it—into the flames behind.
 

Bangs, fizzes, and pops issued from the bag, and Rhys lit the last rocket. The diseased behind backed away, some of them tripping over their own clumsiness in the haste of their retreat.