Mutation (Twenty-Five Percent Book 1) (19 page)

“Do you trust him?” Cutter said.

“At first I wasn’t sure, but he’s had my back since this all started.  So yeah, I trust him.”

“Good.  I’ve been sure you’d get yourself killed without me on damage control when you pull one of your stupid stunts.”  He looked at Micah with his daughters.  “But so you know, if he doesn’t stop flirting with my girls, I’m going to rip his arms off.”

Alex shrugged.  “Fair enough.”

Cutter stood and walked into the living room to where Beth and Carrie were laughing and Micah was leaning casually against a sideboard with his chest puffed out.

Cutter affected the most unconvincing smile Alex had ever seen.  “You three getting on okay over here?”

“Dad,” Carrie said, “Micah told us the funniest story...”

“Yeah, sounds fascinating.  Micah, I’m sure you’re a great guy and MacCallum trusts you, but I will say this just once.  Stay away from my girls.” 

Beth looked horrified.  “Dad, I’m twenty-two!” 

“I don’t care,” Cutter said.  “Right now I am in full on protective father mode and nothing is getting anywhere near the two of you, whether it’s hungry or horny.”

Alex stifled a chuckle as Micah straightened. 

“Sir, I... I wasn’t...”

“Of course you were.  I have two beautiful daughters and you’re a man.”  He smiled.  “Now, how about that brunch?”

. . .

They left the Cutters more than an hour later. 

Although Alex wanted to get home, it felt good to relax for a while in a place where he could be sure no-one was trying to eat or kill him.  And Micah didn’t offer any objections.

They headed in the general direction of East Town, keeping to the more residential roads where the roaming eaters weren’t so numerous.

“Do you know if Beth’s seeing anyone?” Micah said as they walked.

“Cutter hasn’t mentioned torturing anyone lately.”

“Torturing?”

“He’s very protective of them.  About a year ago he didn’t think this guy Beth was seeing was being good enough to her.  She’d mentioned some stuff, nothing serious, but where he was being a bit of a jerk.  Cutter had the entire station giving him traffic violation tickets for a week before he got the message and started treating her like royalty.  Although she dumped him two weeks later anyway.”  He smirked.  “But if you want to try, go ahead.”

Micah smiled.  “When this is all over, maybe I will.  I’m good with fathers.  He’ll come around.”

“Good luck with that.  You’ll need it.”

“Carrie seems to like you a lot.”

Alex shrugged.  “It’s just a crush.  It’s been going on for four years, since she was fifteen.”

“She’s certainly not fifteen anymore.”

“True, but I’m not suicidal. Cutter would saw my dick off and beat me to death with it.”

They turned onto a street with a small park sloping down away from the road on one side and a row of terraced houses along the other.

“We can cut through the park...” Micah began, stopping as three men stepped out of a doorway in front of them. 

“What’s in the bag?” one of the men said in a deep voice that could have given Barry White a run for his money.  The man’s appearance matched.  Black, head shaved, at least six five, with a build that made Alex wonder if he bench pressed shipping containers. 

He pointed at Alex’s bag of weapons with what looked like a bread knife.

“Groceries,” Alex said.  “We thought we’d stock up.  You know what people are like when the excrement hits the cooling system.”

“Well, this is our street, and the fee to pass is that bag,” one of the other men said, a marginally smaller white guy with a ponytail and a tattoo of the Greek letter
pi
on his left cheek.  Alex wondered if he knew what it meant.  The man casually hefted a kitchen chopping knife in his right hand.

“Hey, he’s a white-eye,” the third man said, a bleach blond with a buzzcut.

Barry’s face split into a grin.  “Well, so he is.  We have a special offer for white-eyes,” he said, looking at Micah. “The fee is the bag plus his life.  You can leave.”

Micah’s expression was unreadable. Alex surreptitiously unclipped his holster.

“Fine by me,” Micah said, “but I want the bag.  You can have the white-eye.”

“Bag’s ours,” Pi said. 

“This isn’t a negotiation,” Micah said, switching his skull-spiker to his left hand and pulling his pistol from where he had it tucked into his belt beneath his jacket. 

All three men lost their relaxed demeanours. 

“You can’t shoot all three of us before we get you,” Barry said, with far more bravado than Alex thought their knife-to-a-gunfight situation warranted.

“Maybe not,” Micah said, “but which one of you is willing to lay down his life for his friends?  And this bag?” He moved the Glock back and forth between them, aiming at each in turn.  The men glanced at each other.

“And, oh look, I have one too,” Alex said, drawing his own.

“No, you see Gaz, this is why I said we should do Milton Road,” Buzz said, throwing his hands into the air, “they’re all harmless weaklings down there.  And the women are hotter.”

Alex’s gut dropped. 

“Fine, just get lost,” Barry/Gaz said, shooing them away with his knife.

Alex and Micah circled around them, watching them closely until they were around a corner and out of sight.

Alex stopped.  “Were you really going to trade me for your freedom?”

“Of course not,” Micah said with a smirk.  “I was just trying to distract them so we could take them out, if necessary.”

“You know we can’t leave them there. What happens to the next person who comes along that road?  What if it’s a woman?”

Micah let out a slow breath and stared up at one of the military helicopters passing high overhead.  “I know.  But what are we going to do?  Kill them?”

Alex leaned against the wall of the house beside them and rubbed the bridge of his nose.  “Maybe we could appeal to their better natures.”

Micah snorted.  “It would almost be worth the risk of getting stabbed to see you try that.”

Alex closed his eyes.  What
were
they going to do?  Without jails and a working police force, there was only one viable option.  But however he rationalised it, that would definitely be murder. 

Nothing in his extensive police training could have prepared him for this.  Before the original appearance of the Meir’s virus, most of the police force in the UK didn’t carry firearms.  Until yesterday, he’d never drawn his gun against anyone other than an eater.  He didn’t even know if he could kill in self defence, let alone as a premeditated act. 

“Have you ever killed someone?” he said.

Micah’s jaw dropped.  “First you ask if I can pick locks, now it’s
killing
people?  What kind of life of crime do you think I’ve lived?”

“Just get over yourself and answer the question.  I’m not judging, I’m just asking.”

“No, I have never killed anyone.”

“Neither have I.  I don’t know if I can.”

Micah leaned against the wall next to him and wiped both hands down his face.  “If we don’t kill them and we can’t lock them up and we can’t leave them, what alternative is there?  Trap them in the house and let the eaters know there’s a free lunch inside?”

Alex’s eyes opened wide.  “You’re a genius,” he said, pushing himself away from the building.

“I know,” Micah said.  “But how exactly?”

Alex grinned.  “Come on.”

They’d left the back door unlocked, which was stupid in this neighbourhood whoever you were and whether or not the city was in the middle of a massive eater infestation.  But it was good for Alex.

He crept into the kitchen, hearing voices and laughter from the living room beyond a closed door.  The smell of cigarette smoke tickled his nose and he grimaced, rubbing it to stop himself from sneezing.  He’d hated the smell of cigarettes even before he was infected.  Now it drove him up the wall.  And he could smell the things from a good hundred metres away.

He placed the bag on a worktop and took his pistol from its holster, moving to the door leading to the rest of the house and looking at his watch. 

Ten seconds... five... four... three... two...

Yanking open the door, he leaped into the room and screamed, “
Don’t move!
”

Unfortunately, Gaz was right beside the door and had faster reflexes than his huge size would indicate.  He punched Alex in the face. 

As a small mercy, it wasn’t on his nose. 

His momentum, coupled with the impact from Gaz’s bowling ball sized fist, sent Alex spinning to his left.  His feet tangled in the edge of a rug and he crashed to the floor.  The gun skidded across the wood effect adhesive tiles and slid under a grubby beige sofa where Buzz was sprawled, frozen in the process of taking a mouthful of lager from a can.

“What the...?”

Before Alex could move, Gaz grabbed his shoulder and flipped him onto his back, raising his fist above him.  It was like looking up at a boulder about to drop on his head.  Alex grasped the massive fist with both hands as it plunged towards his face, grunting as it stopped just inches from his nose.

The big man roared, a gust of cigarette-soaked breath almost flooring Alex as effectively as the punch would have.  He formed his free hand into a second huge battering ram.  Alex jerked his head to one side and it hit the floor next to his ear.  Gaz let out a string of expletives. 

“Help me move this thing,” Buzz yelled as he scrambled off the sofa.  “His gun’s under here.”

Pi, who had been lounging in a chair on the other side of the room staring at the static on the TV, struggled to his feet.  As they dashed to either end of the sofa and started to lift, the front door slammed open.

Micah ran in and stopped, staring wide-eyed at the chaos.

“Stop them!” Alex gasped as, still clutching Gaz’s fist, he brought one knee up and rammed it into his side.  He didn’t have much leverage from his position flat on the floor, but it was enough to make Gaz grunt and fall back.  Alex let go of his hand and scrambled backwards on his elbows.

Micah pivoted on his right foot and planted a solid side kick into Pi’s ribs.  He grunted out an
oof
and dropped his end of the sofa, screaming when it landed on his foot.

Buzz let go of his end, bringing another shriek from Pi, and lunged into the gap he’d created behind the sofa.  From the corner of his eye, Alex saw him come up with the gun and aim it at Micah.

Gaz lunged towards Alex.  Alex brought his right knee to his chest and, with all the power he could muster, drove his foot into the huge man’s jaw.  He felt a crack.  Gaz slumped to the floor.

The room reverberated with the deafening sound of a single gunshot.

Alex twisted round to see Micah on the floor.  Fury flashed through his chest and he grabbed the skull-spiker from his pocket.  Then he saw Micah’s hand move to pull his pistol from his waistband. 

A second gunshot rang out.

Buzz shrieked as Alex’s gun went flying from his grip and hit the wall behind him, dropping to the floor.  He clasped his bleeding hand to his chest with a sob.

Alex climbed to his feet and retrieved his gun from the floor, taking a few deep breaths.

“I repeat,” he said, “don’t move.”

Micah stood and brushed his hands down the front of his jeans.

“You okay?” Alex said.

“No, I’m not,” Buzz sobbed.  “He
shot
me.”

Micah smiled.  “Fine.  You?”

Alex waggled his jaw side to side where Gaz had hit him.  It hurt, but it seemed to be in one piece.  “I’ll live.  What’s one more source of pain?”

“If I move this sofa, will you shoot me?” Pi said, his voice trembling. 

His pain-filled gaze was flicking between Micah and Alex.  Alex gestured with his pistol.  Pi reached down to lift the sofa from his foot, then limped to the front and collapsed onto the seat.

“Sit next to him,” Alex said to Buzz.

“I’m
bleeding
,” he whined.

“Just sit down,” Alex said, raising his voice and pointing his gun at him.

Managing a combination pout/scowl, he did as he was told. 

Alex walked over to stand next to Micah.  “That was a nice shot,” he said.

Micah cleared his throat.  “I was aiming for his chest.”

“Oh.  In that case, you could use some practice.”

“What were you doing on the floor?”

Alex motioned at Gaz’s comatose form.  “He can punch really hard.”

Micah raised his eyebrows.  “Really.”

“Seriously, look at the size of his hands,” Alex said, pointing.  “It was like getting hit with a bowling ball.”

“Gaz does have freaky big hands,” Pi said.