Twenty-Five Percent (Book 2): Downfall (17 page)

Sheep may look like clouds on legs, but the moment one of them leapt at his chest, Alex found out they were really wool covered balls of muscle.

He crashed backwards onto the muddy grass, trying to shield his face from flying hooves. Rolling onto his front, he scrambled to his feet, ran for the fence and dived over the top.

He landed in a groaning heap at Micah’s feet.

“Are you alright?”

Alex sat up. “I hate sheep.”

“But you’re such a natural with them.”

With Alex out of the pen the sheep had calmed and they stood in a huddle against the far side, throwing him accusatory looks with their creepy eyes with the weird shaped pupils.

Alex climbed to his feet and glared at them. “I have just one thing to say to you - mint sauce. And wool makes me itch.”

Micah was smirking at him. “Oh yes, you are clearly the superior intellect when it comes to sheep.” His wrinkled his nose. “You smell terrible. What did you land in?”

“I am painfully aware of how I smell.” He looked down at the stains on his clothing and tried not to think about what they were. “But on the plus side, after we get them into the truck, you’re going to smell just as bad.”

Micah’s smirk disappeared. “Crap.”

“Exactly.”

“Let’s get it over with.” Micah walked towards the truck.

“Wait. I’ve had a thought.”

“You’ve really got to stop doing that.”

“Haha. What I thought was, the eaters are attracted by smell as much as movement, so we really need the truck to smell like human, not like sheep.”

Micah frowned at him. “I’m not going to like where this is going, am I?”

“Urine.”

“Sorry, what?”

“I think you should piss in the truck.”

Micah closed his eyes and shook his head. “And I’m guessing it has to be me because your urine smells different from mine.”

“Actually I’m not sure about that. For obvious reasons, I’ve never checked. But to be on the safe side, yes, it has to be you. And anyway, I don’t need to go.”

Micah heaved a sigh. “I am rapidly running out of dignity to lose.” He climbed back over the gate, then into the bed of the truck. “At least turn around,” he said, waving a hand at Alex.

Alex snorted and turned away, staring across the field until the sound of the stream hitting the metal truck bed stopped. “Ready?”

“As I’ll ever be. Let’s just get these sheep in.”

It took them half an hour of chasing, catching and lifting to get the eleven sheep they had in the pen onto the truck. Half an hour of running, lunging, falling, being kicked and covered in dirt and worse. But finally, they were loaded up.

“I bloody hate sheep,” Micah said. “I’m going to check the farmhouse. There must be a change of clothes and something to wash myself with in there somewhere.”

“Hold on,” Alex said, sniffing the air.

“What?” Micah’s eyes widened. “Oh, no. No. Don’t tell me I have to stay like this. Do
not
tell me that.”

“You smell like sheep manure.”

“I know that.”

“You don’t smell like an uninfected person. If we have to go near any eaters, that will only be a good thing.”

Micah huffed out a sigh and put his hands on his hips, staring across the field. “We live such a charmed life.”

They’d chosen a spot to the side of the Omnav compound, away from the guard hut at the main entrance and near to where the army vehicles were parked, which would hopefully afford them more cover once they got over the fence.

Prior to their sheep adventure, Alex and Micah had watched the compound for half an hour for guard patrols inside the fence. They didn’t see one single person. Who needed guards when you had an army of eaters to keep the world out? There were, however, security cameras on the external walls, so they planned to go in at a blind spot, behind a couple of parked canvas topped trucks. Once the eaters started to move, however, it would only be a matter of time before someone came out to check what was going on. They would have to be quick.

It wasn’t easy to push a truck a couple of hundred yards along an unsurfaced track through the woods to avoid being heard. Although it was easier than rounding up sheep. They left the pickup some way from where they planned on going in, pushing it to the edge of the undergrowth just shy of the mown, grassy area surrounding the compound.

Once they were in position, Micah loosened the tarpaulin they’d fastened over the truck to hide the sheep and Alex lowered the tailgate. The sheep, not able to see out, stayed where they were.

Alex kept an eye on the eaters, but so far none of them were paying attention to anything other than swaying and moaning. Hopefully, that was about to change.

After a nod from Micah to indicate he was ready, Alex thumped the side of the truck several times. The startled sheep began to scuffle around in the truck. There were a few baas.

Alex and Micah moved away from the truck to where they could watch the eaters without being seen, and waited. A few had lifted their heads and were staring at the truck. As luck would have it, at that moment the tarpaulin dislodged on one side, drifting down over the pickup’s woolly passengers.

This did not make the sheep happy.

A flurry of bleating and the melee of hooves on metal attracted more attention from the eaters. All those within sight had raised their heads. A few started to shuffle in the truck’s direction.

“I think we should go,” Micah said.

“I think you’re right.”

They made their way through the undergrowth towards a spot opposite where they intended to scale the fence. Alex glanced back to see more eaters breaking from the horde to lurch towards the commotion in the pickup.

Looking back where he was going, he almost fell over Micah who was bending down, muttering in irritation.

“What are you doing?” Alex hissed.

“I’m caught on something.” He tugged a branch free of his jeans. “When this is over, I am never going into a forest again.”

Behind them, the first eaters reached the truck. The sheep, still covered by the tarpaulin and freaked by the sound of moaning, were moving to the front end of the truck bed. Even to Alex it looked like there could have been people in there, huddling away from the eaters.

The eaters reached over the tailgate.

“Hurry up, the horde should be moving any second.”

Finally freeing himself, Micah continued onwards. The symphony of cracking twigs and crunching leaves made Alex wince, but the eater’s moaning and the baaing of the sheep was so loud the eaters didn’t seem to notice.

As they reached the place to wait, the majority of the eaters were still standing by the fence and Alex began to think that maybe their plan hadn’t worked. But then the sweet acid smell of pheromones reached him. En masse, the horde moved.

“Get ready,” Micah said.

“I was
born
ready.” Alex grinned. “I’ve always wanted to say that.”

Even though Micah was facing away from him, Alex could
feel
his eye roll.

The section of fence across from them was clearing as more of the horde headed for the truck. Eaters were surrounding it now, trying to get to the panicked sheep as the press of bodies rocked the pickup. Alex felt bad for the animals, unpleasant as his dealings with them had been.

“It’s almost clear,” Micah hissed.

Dragging his gaze back to the fence, Alex saw there were just a handful of eaters left, every one of them moving as fast as they could to join their brothers and sisters.

“Okay, let’s go.”

Alex and Micah walked from the cover of the trees. They kept their gait uneven, matching the movement of the eaters. As always happened around an eater horde, Alex had to fight an intense urge to run, but he knew to do so would mean attracting attention. They smelled enough like sheep to fool the eaters from a distance. As long as they didn’t panic, they’d be fine.

A few eaters passed them, intent on joining the excitement at the truck. None of them even looked at Micah and Alex. Alex considered the possibility that even the eaters were finding their smell offensive.

He looked towards the pickup. As he watched, one of the eaters managed to snag a corner of the tarpaulin and it slid from the backs of the sheep.

The sheep stared at the eaters. The eaters stared back.

Two sheep immediately charged at the end of the truck, landing in the horde in a tangle of arms, legs and hooves before barrelling through a forest of legs to freedom and taking off into the trees.

Their natural flocking instinct prompted several more to follow. One was caught by an eater which tried to take a bite from it, getting a mouthful of grubby wool in return. The sheep squirmed from its grip, kicked it in the face, and galloped after its friends.

As the final two sheep cowered in the truck bed, Alex saw the surrounding eaters losing interest. Their moans quietened and one by one they turned away. He breathed a sigh of relief, although only a shallow one because he and Micah really did smell exceptionally bad. He would have felt terrible if he’d had to watch a sheep being torn to shreds. Eaters had no taste for anything that wasn’t human, but in the midst of a hunger frenzy they could make a mistake. As the horde broke up, the two sheep leaped from the truck and hurtled into the forest, leaving behind an empty pickup and a lot of disappointed eaters.

Reaching the ten foot high fence, Alex gave Micah a boost and he vaulted over the top, landing in a crouch on the other side. Alex took a couple of steps back, ran, and jumped, catching hold of the top and propelling himself over.

The rapid movement caused his fly-attracting odour to waft in his face and he fought back a gag as he hit the ground.

Fifty feet away, a door in the main Omnav building banged open against the wall beside it.

The nearest cover was thirty feet away, one of the canvas topped military trucks. Micah took off towards it, Alex close behind.

At the door, a tall man in a black suit emerged, followed by another. Alex skidded around the end of the truck and stopped, trying not to pant. He peered through a narrow gap between vehicles.

“What on earth is going on with them?” the older of the two men said. He slid a pair of sunglasses onto his ruggedly ugly face and pointed at the horde with an automatic rifle.

His companion squinted at the milling eaters, lifting one hand to shade his eyes. His pristine white shirt stretched across one huge pectoral.

“Better get the bug gun,” tall, dark and ugly said.

“Should we tell Boot?”

The older man drew in a breath between his teeth. “We don’t want to bother him with nothing. The weirdo freaks probably just saw a deer or something.”

The younger man disappeared back into the building.

Micah tapped Alex’s shoulder to get his attention, then pointed between them and away from the man. Alex shook his head, pointing his index and middle fingers at his eyes then towards the man. Micah shook his head hard, pointing at them both, then drawing one finger across his throat, crossing his eyes and sticking his tongue out. Alex pointed at himself and then Micah then at the truck they were hiding behind. Micah frowned slightly and looked up at the truck.

The sound of footsteps cut the argument short and Alex peered carefully around the side of the truck again. The overly buff younger man had returned, carrying what looked like a mini rocket launcher. He fed a blue cartridge into the back end and pointed it into the air above the eaters. There was a muffled pop and a whoosh and the cartridge arced into the air. At the pinnacle of its trajectory, it detonated with a small bang. After a few seconds the aimlessly wandering eaters stopped and lifted their heads.

“Think one’s enough?” the younger man said.

“Better give it another one, just in case.”

He loaded up another cartridge. “How much of this stuff is there?”

The older man looked at him sharply. “You know that’s not the sort of question we need to be asking.”

“I just don’t want to use too much and run out. Those things give me the creeps.” Despite his casual reply, Alex didn’t miss the sudden tension in the younger man’s demeanour.

“You worry about keeping this place secure. The higher ups will worry about the rest. Besides, Boot’s got those new doctors working now.”

The younger man shrugged and launched the second cartridge into the air in a different direction, closer to where Micah and Alex were hiding.

Alex moved back from the edge of the truck. “New doctors”. It had to be Hannah and the others. They were here. Knowing for sure that Hannah was alive extinguished the aching fear he’d been harbouring ever since they found Jim’s body. The discovery made him feel almost physically lighter as he replaced the anxiety with a new determination. They were going to succeed. There was no way they couldn’t.

The eaters were already shuffling back to the fence when the second cartridge disintegrated in a tiny midair explosion. Alex and Micah watched as the gaps in the line of eaters filled in. Even though they were clearly visible from the fence, none of the horde even looked in their direction. What was in that stuff?

And then it hit Alex.

He clamped his hand over his nose and looked at Micah, panicked. Micah’s eyes widened and he shook his head vehemently. Alex’s eyes were starting to water. He looked around frantically for something that wasn’t covered in sheep dung. When he found nothing, he pressed both hands over his nose and mouth, unable to hold it back any longer, and sneezed twice.

“Did you hear something?” It was the grizzled older man’s voice.

Alex and Micah froze.

“What?”

“I don’t know, just a sound.”

“Chester, we’re surrounded by moaning eaters. Be more specific.”

A few moments of silence passed before Chester spoke again. “I think we should do a quick sweep of the grounds.”

“Whatever. It’s not like we have anything else to do.”

“You know, Brian, I’m sure if you asked Boot nicely, he’d send you to help at one of the labs.”

“No, thank you. I’m fine where I am.”

Micah jabbed his finger at the truck they were hiding behind. Alex nodded, rubbing his nose to stop the third sneeze that was threatening. They climbed into the back of the canvas topped truck as quietly as they could. Ten seconds later, they heard footsteps approach. Canvas rustled on one of the other trucks.

“What’s that smell?” Brian said.

Alex held his breath.

“Probably a farm somewhere around.”

“It’s gross.”             

“That’s part of the reason I didn’t become a farmer like my dad,” Chester said. “Well, that and the getting up before the sun every morning.”

The footsteps moved again.

“So, what do you think Boot’s planning once these doctors do whatever he wants them to do?” Brian said, his voice sounding far too close for comfort.

“Don’t know, don’t want to know,” Chester replied. “And if you know what’s good for you, you won’t want to know either.”

More footsteps, sounding closer. A hand slapped the side of their truck.

“But aren’t you worried about your family?”

“Of course I’m bloody worried about my family,” Chester hissed. “That’s why I didn’t leave to begin with, because I know how long Boot’s reach is. But if I play my cards right, I’ll come out of this on top. Stop asking questions and do what you’re told and maybe you will too.” The hand slapped the truck again. “There’s nothing here. We’ll do a quick check round the back and get back inside. These damn eaters moaning are doing my head in.”

The footsteps retreated and finally died away. Alex breathed out.

They waited for ten minutes before Alex peered through the gap in the canvas at the back of the truck. Brian and Chester were gone.

“I assume by Boot they mean that Omnav head honcho Lieutenant Dent mentioned,” Micah said as they climbed from the back of the truck. “They sounded scared of him.”

Alex dropped to the ground and rubbed his nose again, sniffing. “If those two giants are afraid of him, he’s probably someone we really want to avoid. But at least we know they did bring Hannah and the others here. Let’s see what we can find.”

Bypassing the huge brick building that Alex assumed was a vehicle maintenance garage, they headed for the first of the three small, single storey buildings set within the landscaped grounds behind the main building. Unlike everywhere else they’d been in their travels, the grass was perfectly mowed.