Mutation (Twenty-Five Percent Book 1) (12 page)

Alex could hear low moans and a wet, chewing sound coming from the open back door that made him glad he hadn’t eaten breakfast.  Making his way to the gate as Micah climbed down from the shed roof, Alex peered out.  To his right the five foot wide alley led to the front of the house.  He could see the occasional eater wandering across his field of vision.  To his left, after forty feet or so the alley opened onto an access road running along the backs of the surrounding houses.  He saw no eaters in that direction.  The man had gone. 

Alex turned left.

A lone eater shuffled along some way away to the right, but otherwise the road was clear.

Alex strode out ahead of Micah.  Lifting the sword, he plunged the tip into the eater’s forehead.  It sliced through the skin, but stopped when it hit the skull.  The eater reached out its hands towards Alex, walking into the blade and pushing him back.  He sighed, shifted his grip and instead stabbed up under its jaw.  It collapsed to the ground, wrenching the sword from his grasp. 

He stood staring at it for a few moments.  If the sword was going to be any use, he needed practice, and some way to sharpen the blade.  That was if he made it through the next half hour. 

He pushed the thought to the back of his mind and bent to pull the sword from the eater’s head, taking a moment to wipe it clean on its striped shirt.

“There’s a window open in that house,” Micah said, walking up to him and pointing to the rear of a semi-detached house to their left. 

Alex nodded and jogged to the back gate.  A four foot high, neatly trimmed hedge surrounded the garden on all sides with a black wrought iron gate leading inside.  He made his way along a crazy paving path to the back door and tried it.  It was locked.  The slightly ajar window was to his right and opened onto a kitchen.  He knocked softly on the glass.

“Anyone home?” 

When there was no answer, he pulled himself up to the windowsill.  The sink was directly beyond the window, so squeezing through the narrow opening and clambering across the taps and dirty dishes to the floor was an awkward process.  His hand landed in a small pool of viscous red fluid on the worktop.  A quick sniff revealed it to be tomato sauce, to his relief, and he wiped it off on a tea towel. 

After letting Micah in, he walked to another door in the far wall. 

Micah closed and locked the back door then pulled shut the window through which Alex had come.  “Are you okay?” he said.  “You’re sweating.”

Alex touched his forehead, his fingers coming away slick with perspiration.  He wasn’t sure if he felt hotter than usual or if it was just exertion and anxiety.  Was his heart was pounding because he was going into more potential danger, or because his body was now flooded with the new strain of Meir’s?  He swallowed, his mouth dry.  Was that a symptom?  He tried to remember four years back to when he was infected.  Did he have saliva problems back then?

He tried to push down the rising panic.  “If I feel like I’m going, I’ll tell you.”

Micah frowned, but didn’t say anything.

Alex knocked on the inner door.  When nothing happened, he cautiously pushed it open.  Beyond was an open plan living/dining area.  It was neat and tidy.  It was also empty of people either trying to eat or slaughter him.

After a quick sweep of the ground floor, they made their way up the stairs.  Three bedrooms led off the landing, all empty.  A fourth door was closed.  Alex tried it.  It opened slightly then banged shut again.

He and Micah frowned at each other.  Alex tried knocking, without a response.  He pushed on the door again, and when it didn’t give way he pushed harder.  It suddenly flew open and he stumbled forwards, crying out in surprise as much as pain when something pierced his upper arm.

“Leave us alone!”

Face to face with a man holding a blood stained kitchen knife in his trembling hand, Alex took a step back.  Behind the man, a woman huddled into a corner with her arms wrapped around two young children, their eyes wide with fear. 

Alex looked down at his arm.  Blood was staining his shirt sleeve.

“You stabbed me,” he said, somewhat unnecessarily.  The wound didn’t feel deep, but it hurt.

One of the children, a little girl no more than four years old, began to cry.  “Is he going to eat us?” she sobbed.

Her mother held her tight, stroking her hair, while her brother, who looked not much older than her, stared at Alex in terror.

Alex deflated, stepping back further.  “I’m sorry,” he mumbled, “we’re not going to hurt you.  We didn’t know anyone was in here.”

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Micah replace his gun back into his waistband. 

“We’ll find somewhere else,” Micah said.

Alex turned towards the stairs.

“W... wait,” the man said.

Both of them looked back at him.  He lowered the knife.

“You’re bleeding,” he said.  “You shouldn’t be out there with
them
while you’re bleeding.  If you promise to not hurt my family, we’ll help you.”

Alex and Micah glanced at each other.  “We’re not here to hurt you,” Alex said, “we just needed to get off the street and your window was open.” 

“The window was open?” the woman said, raising her eyebrows at her husband.

He looked sheepish.  “I must have forgotten it.  Sorry.”

“Are those guns real?” the boy said, taking a step towards them.  His mother grabbed his arm and pulled him back to her, but his eyes were shining with interest.

Alex smiled.  “Yes, but don’t worry,” he pushed his jacket aside to reveal the detective’s badge attached to his belt, “I’m a policeman.”

The man and woman both seemed to relax. 

The boy’s eyes lit up.  “Cool!  I want to be a policeman when I grow up.”  He pulled out of his mother’s grasp and ran forward, stopping a few feet away and staring at the badge. 

Alex pulled it off and held it out to him.  “Take a look,” he said, smiling.

The boy reached out for it and cradled it in his small hand, running his finger over it.

“Are you here to help us?” the man said.  “Are there more of you?  Is it over?”

“I’m sorry, no,” Alex said.  “I’m just trying to survive, like you.”

The man deflated.  “Oh.”  He looked down at his son who was still examining Alex’s badge, and took in a deep breath, squaring his shoulders.  “Well, let me take a look at that wound.”  He reached towards Alex’s arm.

“
No!
” Alex and Micah shouted at the same time.

The children jumped, startled, and the man snatched his hand back

Micah stepped forwards.  “A few minutes ago, Alex got eater blood on him,” he said.  “You shouldn’t touch him, in case he’s infected.”

“But aren’t you immune?” the woman said.  “I thought Survivors couldn’t get infected again.”

She didn’t call him a white-eye.  The first nice people Alex had met since this whole thing had started and he was probably going to turn in their house. 

“I don’t know if that still applies with this new strain,” he said.  “It’s different.  People turn much quicker.  I may not be immune to it anymore.”

“If we could just stay for a while,” Micah said, “until we know.  If it happens, I’ll deal with it.  You won’t be in any danger.”

The man looked at his wife.

“Could you give us a minute?” she said.

Alex stepped back.  “Of course.”

As they closed the bathroom door, the boy, still holding Alex’s badge, waved.  Alex smiled and waved back.

“Maybe we should just leave,” he said, as muffled voices emanated from the bathroom.  “I don’t want to put them in any danger.”

“We can’t be on the street if you turn,” Micah said.  “And if you’re infected, it’s going to happen soon.  We don’t have time to find somewhere else.  It won’t be dangerous.  Don’t worry.”  He smiled.  “I won’t hesitate.”

Alex narrowed his eyes.  “Just make sure I have actually turned before you do anything.  I don’t want to doze off and suddenly wake up with my brains blown out.”

“I won’t do a thing unless I’m at least seventy percent certain,” Micah replied.

The bathroom door opened again before Alex could come up with a suitable retort.  The whole family filed out onto the landing.

“You can stay,” the man said, “but until you’re sure you won’t become one of those things, we’d prefer you to stay in the garage so you’re separate from the house.”

“No problem,” Alex said, “and thank you.  You are literally the nicest people we’ve met since yesterday.”

“I’m Maggie Carlson,” the woman said, “and this is my husband, Len, and these are Paul and Millie.”

Paul held out the badge to Alex, obviously reluctant to give it up.  Alex crouched down to eye level with him.

“Why don’t you hold onto it for me while we’re here,” he said.

The boy beamed, clutching it in both hands.  “Thank you.”

The garage turned out to be quite comfortable, with an old leather sofa against one wall and light coming through a window on the opposite side to the main house.  A complicated looking workbench stood in the middle of the space while one wall was lined with rack upon rack of every kind of tool imaginable.

Alex and Micah were settling in when Maggie brought them a tray with two steaming mugs of coffee, a plate of biscuits and supplies to clean and bandage Alex’s new wound.

“At this rate, by the time this is all over you’re going to look like the Mummy,” Micah said as Alex, having stopped the bleeding and cleaned the shallow laceration, applied a plaster and began winding a bandage around his bicep.

“Next time,” Alex replied, “you can lead the way into any unknown and potentially dangerous rooms.” 

After dressing his hands yet again, he threw his bloodied shirt, which was getting grubby now anyway, into a large steel rubbish bin in one corner and slipped on a shirt that Len had offered as an apology for stabbing him. 

Micah handed him a mug as he sat on the sofa and they sipped their coffees and nibbled on chocolate biscuits for a while in silence.

“In case I don’t get another chance to say this,” Micah said, “thank you.  What you did...”  He shook his head, a confused look on his face.  “I don’t know why you did that, but I want you to know how grateful I am.  You saved my life.”

“If I do turn...” Alex stopped, taking a shaky breath.  He took another mouthful of coffee before trying again.  “If you can, would you let my neighbour know what happened to me?  His name’s Leon Waterford.”

“The big, black dude who was with you in East Town?”

“That’s him.  He lives in flat twenty-one, 158, Market Street.  He’ll know how to contact my family.  I don’t want them to be wondering what happened to me.”

“I will, but you’re not gone yet.”

Alex nodded and they lapsed into silence, drinking their coffee. 

Waiting.

Alex put down his empty mug and closed his eyes.  No matter how he tried to relax, he could still hear the blood pulsing in his ears, counting each crawling second.

Five minutes passed.

Ten.

How long had it been since he’d been doused with the eater’s blood?  He opened his eyes and glanced at his watch.

“Forty-seven minutes,” Micah said.

“What?”

“It’s been forty-seven minutes since you got the blood on you.”

He hadn’t realised Micah was counting.  “Oh.  Right.”  His apprehension took it down a notch.

“Wouldn’t you have turned by now if you were going to?”

“If I was normal, yes.  But who knows how long it could take with a Survivor?  I’d like to give it a while longer.”

“How are you feeling?”

Alex leaned against the back of the sofa.  “Now I’ve had coffee and chocolate, a little better.”

The truth was, he’d probably be jumpy for the next week, but he was feeling more hopeful about it now that the initial period, during which he definitely would have turned if he wasn’t a Survivor, was long gone. 

The first few weeks after he was cured, he’d repeatedly had nightmares about tearing his parents apart with his teeth, unable to stop himself.  For two months he’d taken his temperature every few hours just to make sure he wasn’t relapsing.  When he caught ‘flu seven months later, he’d almost had a heart attack.

This time, maybe he could avoid being quite so on edge.

“You know,” Micah said, “I can’t work out if you’re really brave or really stupid, but I’m leaning towards the latter.”

Alex smiled.  “Didn’t I just save your life?”

. . .

After they’d been in the garage for over an hour, Len invited them back into the house.

Paul was showing imaginary bad guys his police badge in the living room while Millie crayoned diligently in a colouring book.

“Would you like to stay for lunch?” Maggie said, coming to the kitchen door.

“We’d love to, but we really should get going,” Micah said.  “We’re trying to get home.”

Despite being eager to reach East Town, Alex would have liked to have stayed.  The Carlson’s house was like an oasis of calm in a storm.

“Well, at least let me make you some toast for breakfast,” she said, walking back into the kitchen before they could object.

Micah took an armchair while Alex went to sit on the sofa near to where Millie knelt next to a coffee table.  Paul walked up to him and handed him his badge.