Vengeance (Twenty-Five Percent Book 3) (28 page)

This was an interesting development. “Are you going to kill me?”

Frobisher narrowed his eyes as if considering the possibility, then re-holstered his gun. “Not unless you try to kill me. Then I would have some issues.”

“How do you know I won’t just kill you?”

Frobisher smiled without humour. “The first time we met I told you I knew you were a good guy. I still believe that. You’re too good. I, however, am not. You won’t kill me, but if you try anything I won’t think twice about killing you. And I wouldn’t regret it afterwards either.”

Something about the way he said it made Alex believe him. He glanced at Baxter’s body. That and the fact he’d just shot a man in cold blood.

Frobisher picked up the case and turned to go. 

“I need the cure,” Alex said. “The cure for fully turned people? I need a dose. More if they’re there, but at least one.”

Frobisher shook his head. “Sorry, but I’m pretty sure things are going to get rough from here on. I’m taking it.”

Alex took a step towards him. “I may be a good guy, but this is for someone very important to me. For him and the people he loves, I
will
kill you. And you know I can.”

They stared at each other. They were ten feet apart, but Alex knew, if it came to it, that he could make it to Frobisher before he drew his weapon. There was no way he was going to let him walk out with the cure for Micah’s sister.

Apparently making a decision, Frobisher sighed and set the case down on the desk. “I should have killed you when I had the chance back in Cambridge.” He removed a vial from inside and tossed it to Alex. “I knew I’d be paying for that.”

There was a steel thermos coffee cup on the desk. Alex unscrewed the lid and checked inside. It was empty. He stuffed cotton wool balls from a jar into the bottom, placed the vial in the centre and packed more cotton wool around it.

“Why
didn’t
you kill me?” he said as he worked.

“I knew Boot wanted to do it himself.”

Alex remembered all the other bullets that had been sent in his direction that night. “That didn’t seem to bother the other Boot goons.”

Frobisher snorted. “Boot goons?”

Alex finished packing the cup and screwed the lid back on. “Are you sure that was the only reason?”

“Why else?”

Something about the way he said it made Alex not believe him, but he decided not to press the issue. The man had just saved his life.

Behind him on the bed, the handcuffs clinked. Frobisher glanced at Boot and turned away.

“Wait,” Alex said as Frobisher headed for the door, “what about the eaters? What about the other helicopter?”

“I just gave our boss a death sentence and I have no idea how any of the others will feel about that.” He glanced at the body propped against the wall, the blood from the bullet hole in Baxter’s chest forming an expanding puddle of scarlet beneath him. “Except for him. Baxter would have shot me and enjoyed it. He was a worm. I probably should have killed him long ago. Anyway, I’m leaving. I suggest you do the same.”

“You can’t just walk away and leave them there,” Alex said. “What’s happening here is your fault too.”

Frobisher stopped, his hands clenching into fists. A moan made Alex look around. Boot’s eyes were open, their white irises pointed at him. The small man sat up, tugging against the handcuffs as he strained towards Alex and moaned again.

Frobisher opened the door and stepped out. Turning his back on Boot, Alex followed, pulling the door shut and jogging after Frobisher whose long strides had already taken him halfway along the corridor.

“There are children here,” Alex called, desperate. “My friends and I, we’re their only protection. Without us, with all these eaters in the city, they won’t stand a chance.”

Frobisher stopped walking.

“My neighbour,” Alex said to his back, “he has two girls. You met them when Boot had them and their mother kidnapped. Emma is eight and Katie is four and they are the sweetest, most loving little girls you could ever meet. Emma loves to play chess and she’s really intelligent and she has such a great future ahead of her, and Katie has the most adorable giggle and always wants a hug and likes everyone.” He barely noticed the tears that had begun to seep down his face. “Please, they’ll die if you don’t help. They will be torn apart and eaten alive...” His voice cracked, forcing him to stop.

Frobisher’s shoulders slowly rose and fell before he resumed walking. “Come on.”

Wiping at his eyes, Alex jogged after him.

They made their way back to the roof in silence. Frobisher drew his gun as they reached the double doors leading outside and for a moment Alex thought he was going to turn it on him, but he shoved the doors open and broke into a run, reaching the helicopter before Jessup and the pilot could react.

Not wanting to risk being left behind, Alex ran after him.

“What’s going on, Bish?” Jessup said from his seat inside the helicopter, his pale eyes fixed on the pistol Frobisher had aimed in his direction. “Where’s Mr Boot?”

“You know what Boot intended to do in there?” Frobisher said.

Jessup nodded slowly, his gaze flicking to Alex.

“It didn’t go as he planned.”

Jessup looked towards the doors leading from the roof down into the hospital. “Is he still alive?”

“Technically.”

“But the cure didn’t work?”

Frobisher didn’t answer.

“Where’s Baxter?”

Frobisher still didn’t answer.

“What are you going to do now?”

“I thought we’d go and get the others. After that, I plan on going home. But what I need to know now is how you feel about the situation.”

There were a few tense seconds of silence. Jessup focused on Alex. “What really happened in there?”

After a moment’s thought, Alex decided to go with the truth. “Boot wanted me to watch him become a Survivor before he killed me. He infected himself, trusting Frobisher to administer the cure once he was far enough along.”

“And?” Jessup prompted.

“And Frobisher apparently decided to grow a pair and let me go instead.”

Frobisher looked back at him and raised an eyebrow.

Alex stared him down, as far as he could at seven inches shorter. “I just call it like I see it.”

“And what did Baxter think about that?” Jessup said.

Frobisher stared him straight in the eye. “I didn’t ask.”

For a few seconds it looked like they might start shooting and Alex tensed himself to run. Finally, Jessup’s hand moved away from the holster beneath his jacket.

“As long as Boot’s gone, I suppose it doesn’t matter how it happened. It’s about time that lunatic got what was coming to him.”

The sudden change of heart took Alex by surprise. Jessup caught his look.

“He did this to me,” he said, waving at his eyes. “He let those eaters in and didn’t care what happened to us. How many of us have died because of him? He can rot for all I care.”

Frobisher climbed into the helicopter.

Alex followed, pulling the door shut behind him. “So all of you have been protecting that monster when you didn’t even want to? What is wrong with you?”

Frobisher ignored him.

Jessup looked away, muttering, “You weren’t there. You don’t know what it was like.”

Alex clenched his jaw and stared out the window as they rose into the air and headed for his home.

“The hospital? Why is he taking Alex to the hospital?”

Micah watched Scott and Janie carry the unconscious guard up the stairs without really seeing them. When none of the others he’d rescued from the helicopter responded, he turned around to face them.

Tom was sitting on a chair, his damaged ankle stretched out in front of him, and Ian was standing next to him, cradling his injured arm and staring at the floor.

Bates leaned against a wall nearby, arms folded, pistol in one hand, his whole demeanour saying, ‘I can relax because I’m so good I know that if you were to try anything, you wouldn’t stand a chance.’

Simmons was sitting on the floor, his back against a door which led out to the building’s parking garage, casting occasional glares at Penny. Micah wasn’t expecting to get anything out of him.

“Come on, Ian, Tom,” Brian said from where he was standing by the front door. “Boot’s not here.”

Ian ran one hand over his short, dark blond hair. “Yeah, but if he found out...”

“Wake
up
!” Micah exclaimed in exasperation. “Boot will get you killed sooner or later, if he doesn’t just shoot you himself. I just risked my life out there for you. Would he have done that?”

Tom glanced up at Ian with a sigh and said, “Boot said that he wants to go through the transformation to become a Survivor now. He’s doing it in the hospital although I’m not sure why. Maybe he wants all that medical stuff around in case something goes wrong. Bish used to be a paramedic. Anyway, he wants MacCallum to watch.” He swallowed and glanced at Brian, looking like he wanted some backup. “Then he said he’s going to kill him.”

Micah closed his eyes. He knew Boot wanted to kill Alex; he’d already tried to make Micah do it for him. But hearing that he planned to do it
now
made it horribly real.

Maybe Boot already had... no, he couldn’t think like that. He had to get out of here.

“Here’s what we’re going to do,” Bates said. “We’re going to get up to the roof, go down to the end of this run of buildings and make a lot of noise to attract the horde up there. Micah and Janie will go down to the other end and as soon as it’s clear, get out and go and rescue MacCallum.” He turned his attention to Tom and Ian. “Are you two with us or against us? And don’t lie to me, I’m very good at telling when people are lying.”

“He’s not joking,” Penny muttered. “My teenage years were a nightmare.”

Tom and Ian looked at each other. Then they looked at Brian. He rolled his eyes.

“We’re with you,” Tom said.

Ian nodded. “Yeah.”

Bates pushed away from the wall. “Good. Alright, everyone upstairs. We don’t have time to piss about down here.”

They moved towards the stairs. Tom pushed himself to his feet and with Brian and Ian’s help, began the slow journey up.

“What are we going to do with him?” Micah said to Bates, nodding towards Simmons.

“Take him with us. We’ll find somewhere to tie him up and work out what to do with him later.” He raised his voice to add emphasis. “Although if he tries anything again I’ll just save us all the trouble and push him off the roof.”

“Fine by me,” Micah said. “I’ll-”

Simmons leaped to his feet, grabbed the chair Tom had been using and swung it hard at the door. The latch ripped through the frame and it crashed open. Simmons ran out.

“Oh, hell,” Bates said, running across the lobby after him.

Penny and Brian ran back down the stairs as Micah followed him out.

The parking garage took up most of the ground floor of the building and was open to the outside, a steel fence front and back keeping it secure and eater free. When they saw the movement, the eaters milling outside shuffled closer, reaching through the bars.

Simmons was running from car to car, yanking on door handles.

“Give it up, Simmons,” Bates shouted as they dodged around vehicles to get to him. “There’s no way out of here.”

A door opened and Simmons dived into a silver Toyota.

“He’s got one of our escape cars,” Micah shouted, running towards it. They’d left a few vehicles unlocked with the keys inside, in case anyone needed to make a quick escape. He was regretting that now.

The engine of the car revved into life. Micah reached it, slamming his hands onto the back window as it pulled away.

“What’s he doing?” Micah said incredulously, throwing his hands into the air. “There’s nowhere for him to go.”

The car sped towards the far corner of the garage where there was an exit onto the service road behind the building. The way was blocked by a pair of seven foot tall steel gates, but the car wasn’t stopping. It wasn’t even slowing. As he ran towards him, Micah could swear Simmons was speeding up.

Bates opened fire from somewhere behind him and a hole appeared in the back window, a spider web of cracks radiating outwards. The car hit the gates a second later.

The metal gates crashed into the eaters beyond and scraped along the sides of the car as it burst through. The smattering of eaters were either thrown out of the way or crushed beneath the tyres. The bulk of the horde, however, was still approaching. Twenty feet from the gates the car ploughed into a thick wall of eaters, bouncing over bodies until it grated to a standstill. The horde contracted around it, the engine revving helplessly as the car disappeared in the crush.

Glass shattered.

Screams.

Micah stumbled to a halt as the eaters nearest him turned in his direction. They staggered over the bodies at the gate and poured into the garage. Micah spun around and ran for the door.

“Go!” he shouted, waving at Bates, Penny and Brian to get back into the building.

He burst through the door at speed, not stopping until he hit the wall on the other side of the lobby.

Brian slammed the door shut. It swung open again. He caught it and pulled it closed. The same thing happened. “It’s broken. It won’t latch.”

“Up,” Micah said, heading for the stairs.

They’d reached the first floor landing when moans echoed up the stairwell.

“You go,” Micah said, stopping behind the ancient, heavy wardrobe they’d left there against the eventuality of the horde getting in. “Get the others up to the roof. I’m going to try to block the stairs.”

“Don’t do anything stupid,” Bates said as he and Penny continued up.

“You’ll need help,” Brian said. “I’ll stay with you.”

“There’s no need for both of us to take the risk,” Micah said.

Brian rolled his eyes. “What is it with you and Alex trying to act the hero all the time? I’m staying.”

“Fine,” Micah said, shrugging.

The old wardrobe squeaked on the grimy floor as they pushed it into position at the top of the stairs. The eaters attempting to negotiate the stairs somewhere below them moaned louder.

“We don’t do it on purpose, you know,” Micah said as they waited.

“If you say so.”

“We don’t.”

“Okay.”

There was a short pause.

“I’m not saying we’re not heroic,” Micah said. “I’m just saying it’s not contrived at all.”

Brian focused over Micah’s shoulder. “Well, here comes an opportunity for some spur of the moment, not at all planned gallantry then.”

The eaters had reached the landing below them. Their moans bounced around the stairwell, giving Micah the disconcerting impression that he and Brian were surrounded.

Brian touched one hand to the back of the wardrobe.

“Not yet,” Micah said. “If we wait until they’re closer, hopefully it will take enough of them down with it to block the rest.”

Brian watched the approaching eaters nervously. “No problem.”

The eaters crowded up the stairs, their imperfect motor skills further hampered by the cramped space as they jostled against each other in their eagerness to reach fresh meat. Some fell. More scrambled over them. A tide of bloody hands and faces and noise.

Micah flashed back to his escape from the horde the day before, fighting his way up the stairs and breaking into the flat. The terror he was going to die as he threw the grenade.

“Now,” he said.

Together they shoved at the wardrobe. It was extra heavy, loaded down with breeze blocks they’d brought from a construction site a mile away, and for a second it teetered on the edge of the step as if undecided which way to go. Micah gave it an extra push and it pivoted forwards.

The wardrobe slammed into the approaching wall of eaters with a deafening crash, throwing them back down the stairs into those behind. It splintered and fractured as it bounced off the stairs and wall, breeze blocks tumbling out, battering heads and bodies with bloody force.

Brian looked away, his face pale.

“Don’t think of them as human,” Micah said. “It’s the only way to not lose your mind.”

Brian nodded, but still didn’t look back.

The landing below them was a mess, but the eaters still mobile were already struggling to get back up the stairs in their single-minded pursuit of food.

“We need to get out of here,” Micah said.

They jogged up to the next floor. A sofa leaned into a corner, propped up on its end.

“Could we wedge this across the stairs so they can’t get past?” Brian said.

Micah looked from the sofa to the stairs. “We could try.”

They manoeuvred the navy and terracotta striped three-seater onto the edge of the top step. Leaning over the edge, it threatened to slide away from them.

“I’ve got it,” Brian said, squeezing past to support it from below.

They twisted it at an angle, lodging it between the wall and the banister so it would stay in place and if it did dislodge, it would slide onto those below.

Brian studied their work and nodded in satisfaction.

“Let’s go,” Micah said. “They sound like they’re getting closer.”

Taking hold of the handrail to climb around the sofa, Brian suddenly yelped. “Something’s got me!”

A bloody hand was gripping his ankle through the banister. Brian jerked his leg, trying to kick it off, but it was clamped tight. He cried out as the eater yanked his leg against the metal uprights, pressing its face into the gap, teeth snapping.

Micah scrambled over the sofa and dropped to his knees on the stairs. Reaching a skull-spiker through the banister, he pushed it into the top of the eater’s head.

“There’s blood,” Brian said in a terror-filled voice.

Micah inspected his ankle. The dark denim of his jeans was stained darker where the eater had grabbed him.

“Keep still.” He took hold of the hem and carefully folded it up, putting a layer of clean material between Brian’s shin and the blood.

Behind him, eaters were shuffling across the landing just feet away.

“Go,” Micah said. “I’ll be right behind you.”

He turned to meet the first eaters as Brian climbed past the sofa, stabbing three then kicking a fourth into those behind it to give him time to scramble after him.

The eaters in the lead clambered over their dead comrades and tried to walk through the sofa. It wedged in tighter as Micah and Brian were hoping it would, but it couldn’t hold forever.

“Let me see your leg,” Micah said.

Brian sat on the lower steps of the next flight and stretched his leg out in front of him.

“Give me your knife.”

Brian’s eyes went wide. “You’re not going to cut off my leg, are you?”

Despite the situation, Micah snorted a laugh. “Well, I thought I’d start with your jeans then see how it goes from there.”

“Oh. Right.” Brian drew the ten inch bladed serrated knife from the sheath he wore beneath his jacket and handed it over.

With the eaters straining at the sofa only feet away, Micah set to work cutting through the fabric halfway up Brian’s calf. He studied Brian’s leg and then the inside of the material he’d removed, then held up the pale, unblemished inner surface so Brian could see. “I don’t think it got through. And I can’t see any on your leg.”

Brian breathed out. “Thanks.”

A loud thud was followed by a clank. Micah stood to check below them in time to see the sofa sliding down the stairs, mowing down eaters as it went.

He handed Brian’s knife back and waved at him to move. “Time to leave.”

Micah took the stairs two at a time. Ahead of him, Brian was doing three. The sofa was their last line of defence. Micah hadn’t waited to check, but from the sound he was fairly sure the horde had made their way past it.

They caught up with everyone else somewhere between floors three and four. Tom was struggling with the stairs, his face twisted in pain with each step on his injured ankle. One arm was over Ian’s shoulders, the other clinging to the handrail. Ahead of them, Janie and Scott were still carrying the unconscious guard. The rest of the group were somewhere ahead. Bates and Penny brought up the rear.

“We need to hurry,” Brian panted as he reached them. He pushed past Bates and grabbed Tom’s free arm. Together, he and Ian practically lifted Tom off the stairs.