Mutation (Twenty-Five Percent Book 1) (7 page)

A series of thuds sounded on the back of the car.

“Floor it!” Micah shouted. “Now!”

The mirror showed a sea of eaters slamming against the back of the car.

Alex jammed his foot on the pedal.  The engine roared, the wheels spinning in the dirt of the flowerbed.  The sides of the car groaned and buckled as the doors strained against the concrete.  The car began to rock as the eaters ploughed into it, their fingers squeaking across the glass of the rear window.  More eaters appeared ahead of them.

We’re not going to make it, Alex thought.

And then one of the planters shifted, just an inch.  The car jerked and then leaped forwards.  Alex struggled to get it under control as they bounced several inches off the courtyard onto the tarmac and barrelled into two eaters ahead of them.  One flew across the bonnet into the windscreen.  Micah yelped and threw his arms across his face as the glass spiderwebbed in front of him.  For one panicked moment, Alex thought the car might fall apart. 

They careened around the front of the building.  Only a smattering of eaters were left in the car park and he managed to mostly avoid them, just clipping one with a wing mirror on the way past.  He took the turn out of the car park at speed, tyres squealing, and floored the accelerator down the street. 

“Stop the car,” Micah said.

“What?  Why?”

“I said
stop the bloody CAR!”

Alex pulled to the side of the road and turned off the engine.  Micah scrambled out of his door and leaned his hands on the bonnet, breathing heavily.  Alex had to use some force to get his own door open.  The outside of the car was crushed and mangled, the paint scraped away. 

Micah straightened and jabbed his finger at Alex.  “You are
insane
.  You almost killed us back there.”  He ran one hand through his hair and looked up and down the road.

Alex wasn’t in the mood to argue that what he’d actually done was save his life, at the risk of losing his own.  “Well, next time I’ll just leave you to rot in that cell.” 

“I wouldn’t have been in that cell if it wasn’t for you.”  He leaned back against the car and looked up at the sky as he took a deep breath in and let it out again slowly.  “What is happening here?  Is this something to do with you lot?”

The sound of rapid footfalls drew Alex’s attention.  A man ran past them with barely a glance in their direction and disappeared around a corner.  Other than him, the street was deserted.

“With my lot?  Who’s my lot?”

“White-eyes.  We always thought something was coming, but nothing like this.”

Alex put his hands on his hips and stared at the ground, trying to count to ten before he spoke.  He only made it to three. 

“I have had it with morons like you.  I could have left you back at the station and you’d be dead by now.  Saving you almost cost me my own life, but are you in the least grateful?  No.  I just lost people I worked with, people I counted as friends, and you stand there accusing me of doing something to cause this?  You know what?  To hell with you. I’ve had enough.  Do whatever you want.  You’ve been nothing but a pain in my arse.  I never want to see you again.”

“Hey, I saved your life back there.  That eater was almost on you...” Micah stopped suddenly, focusing beyond him.  Alex turned to see a group of six eaters rounding a corner some way along the road.  Spotting the two of them, the eaters increased their pace from a leisurely shuffle to a purposeful lurch.

Alex ran back to the driver’s door and dropped into the car.  To his intense annoyance, Micah got in beside him.

“I don’t like it any more than you do,” Micah said, “but right now this car is all either of us has.”

Puffing out a breath, Alex fit the key back into the ignition and turned it. 

Other than a lacklustre click, nothing happened. 

Micah looked at him, eyes wide.  Alex tried again.  Still nothing.  He repeated the action several times with no change.

“Why me?” Micah said.

They both looked at the eaters approaching.

“Damn it,” Alex said, shoving his door open again and climbing out.

Micah followed him out onto the street.  Both men drew their weapons.  The eaters were less than thirty feet away now, moaning in anticipation, their hands already reaching for them.

“As soon as we do this, every eater nearby is going to be heading straight for us,” Alex said.

“I know,” Micah replied, raising his pistol.

Seven seconds later, it was over. 

Alex holstered his gun, staring down at the corpses.  Each one of the unfortunate people in front of them had got out of bed this morning the same as he did, expecting a normal day of family, work, friends. He glanced at Micah beside him.  His face was pale, the hand still clutching his pistol trembling slightly. 

“You okay?” Alex said.

Micah swallowed and nodded.  “Yeah, I just...  other than that one in the car park, I’ve never killed eaters before.  I thought it would be easier.”

Alex knew how he felt.  Over the years, he had rationalised what he’d had to do by telling himself it was their own fault, that they could have gone to hospital, but instead had chosen to put everyone around them at risk.  But the first few times he’d felt like a piece of his soul was dying.  And now, these people were innocent, at least where becoming eaters was concerned. 

He switched on the rationalisation mechanism again.  It had worked before, more or less.

“It was too late for them,” he said.  “We have made the city a bit safer for everyone left and put them out of their misery.  Believe me, I know.”

Micah glanced at him and then back at the bodies before turning away.  “We need to get out of here,” he said.

Alex grabbed the bag from the car and they took off at a jog. 

They both headed in the same direction, Alex wasn’t sure whether out of necessity or because they instinctively knew that staying together for now might be safer. 

The area through which they were travelling was mostly industrial, the streets lined with squat office buildings and small companies.  Eaters threw themselves at the glass of the windows and doors of some of the lobbies as they passed.  Alex still couldn’t believe how quickly the infection had spread.  They saw more eaters on the street, but managed to dodge around corners to avoid being seen.  Most of them were heading for where Alex and Micah had left the mangled car. 

They also saw normal people, some in cars, some on foot, all of them scared.  His natural inclination as a policeman to help was hard to suppress, but the truth was Alex didn’t know what to do.  He knew everyone’s best bet at survival now was to stay alone or in small groups.  A large group of people would not only be easier for any eaters to see, but would also concentrate their scent.  He could only smell the difference between a Survivor and a normal from a few feet away, but large groups were detectable from a greater distance.

After they’d been going for a few minutes and were sufficiently far away from where they’d shot the six eaters, they slowed to a walk, keeping close against the buildings on their side of the road.

The sound of an approaching helicopter made them look up and Alex watched another military chopper, or maybe the same one that he’d seen earlier, pass over a little way along the street. 

“Where are the rest of them?” he said, frowning as he watched it disappear into the distance.

“Who?” Micah replied.

“That’s the second one I’ve seen this afternoon.  Why aren’t they sending the army in to help?”

“You’re asking me?”

Alex shook his head and looked back at the ground ahead of him, still frowning.

“What are you going to do now?” Micah said.

Alex had been thinking about that, but any plans he had were half baked, at best.  He looked at the sky.  The sun had dipped below the roofs of the buildings around them.

“Inspector Parker said they’ve sealed off the city.  I’d like to find out what that means, but I’d rather not be outside after sunset.  I can see in the dark, but so can eaters.”

Micah watched another couple of cars speed past them.  “It looks like everyone’s trying to get out of the city.”

“Yeah.  Even if we had a car, the roads are going to be blocked leading out.  And add in a few eaters...”  He shook his head. 

“I wonder how many have turned since this morning,” Micah said.

“You still bothered about having to kill those eaters?”

“Just wondering how many more times I’ll have to do it.”

Alex was silent.  He was wondering that himself. 

A deafening smash ripped through the air as a metal chair crashed to the ground in a shower of broken glass in front of them.

Alex almost tripped over his feet in his haste to stop.  “What the...?”

“Sorry!” a voice called out.

He and Micah stepped out into the road to look up at the small three storey office building they were passing.  Several people were looking down at them through the remains of a broken second floor window.  A man in a grey suit smiled and waved.

“I was trying to get your attention,” he called, looking embarrassed.  “I thought the glass would be tougher.”

“Well, you definitely have our attention now,” Alex called back.  And probably the attention of every eater nearby, he thought.

“Um, well, we were wondering if you could help us?  Call the police or something?  There are eaters on the ground floor and we’re kind of trapped.  We don’t really know what’s going on.  All the phones are down and there’s no internet.”

Micah wandered up to the front door and peered inside.  A male eater immediately slammed up against the glass.  He walked back to Alex.

“How many are in there?” he called to the man, pointing to the lobby.

There was some discussion amongst the people at the window.  Alex looked around apprehensively, expecting eaters to appear at any second.

“There are eleven of us here and thirty-three people work in the building, so assuming everyone came in today, that’s twenty-one.”

“I hope he’s not in accounting,” Micah muttered.

A woman standing next to the man whispered to him.  “Twenty-two,” he said, giving a little laugh.

Alex carefully didn’t smile.  “Isn’t there a fire escape?” he said.

“There are two eaters in the corridor up here.  We can’t get to it.”

Alex turned away from the building.  “What do you think?” he said quietly.

“I think I don’t want to fight through twenty-two eaters,” Micah replied.

“We can’t just leave them there.”

“What do you mean ‘we’?  Since when are we a ‘we’?”

“Fine,
I
can’t leave them there.  You do whatever.”  He turned around.  “There are no police anymore,” he said, loud enough for the people to hear him.  “The city’s in chaos.  People are being bitten and turning within minutes.  We don’t know anything else.”

The people at the window were talking in frantic tones.  “Are you sure about all that?” the man said.

“Yes, I’m sure.  I’ve been out here all day.  I’m going to try to get you out, okay?”

The man glanced at the others and nodded.  “Thank you.”

“Where’s your fire escape?  I’ll try to bypass the eaters downstairs and come straight to you.”

“It’s in the alley at the side of the building,” he said, pointing, “that way.”

Alex nodded.  “Well,” he said to Micah, “if I don’t see you again, try not to get eaten.”  He turned away and headed towards the alley the man had indicated.  As he rounded the corner, he heard the sound of footsteps behind him.  “I thought we weren’t a ‘we’,” he said as Micah fell into step beside him.

“We aren’t a ‘we’,” Micah replied, “I just don’t need your death on my conscience.”

“You’d bother about the death of a Survivor?”

Micah sighed.  “Okay, I owe you.  You could have left me in that cell, but you didn’t.  That’s all.  Don’t make it into more than it is.”

Alex hid his smile.  “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

They reached the metal fire escape and Alex looked up at the fire doors to the floors above.  They all opened outwards and had no exterior handles.  Fortunately, though, they had windows.  He jogged back to the front of the building and picked up the slightly mangled chair, then returned to where Micah was waiting by the fire escape.

They made their way to the top floor.

“I hope they’re right about there being only two eaters on this floor,” Alex said, lifting the chair. 

Micah pulled his pistol from the back of his waistband beneath his jacket and simply nodded.

Alex drove one of the legs through the safety glass and reached in to push down the bar to open the door.  Hearing shuffling footsteps, he dropped the chair and pulled his gun from its holster.

The first eater, a middle aged man in a cheap blue suit, rounded the corner ahead of them before Alex had got the door more than halfway open.  Blood soaked the front of his white shirt, running up his neck and seeping from his mouth. 

Its
, Alex reminded himself.  Not his
, its. 
Thinking of them as no longer human was the only way he was going to get through this.

It
had obviously eaten well. 

Micah grabbed the door and pulled it wide open as Alex took aim.  A single shot to the forehead killed the eater instantly.  Alex winced as the gunshot reverberated around the corridor.  At least he didn’t have super hearing.

He listened for more approaching footsteps, but heard nothing.  Although his ears were still ringing slightly from the gunshot.  He began to tiptoe into the hallway before remembering he’d just made an incredibly loud noise.  Straightening, he continued at a normal walk.  Micah snorted behind him.

The corridor made a left turn a short way ahead.  Alex stepped over the body of the eater and peered around the corner, pistol ready.  There was a right turn after another ten or so feet and Alex stopped just short of reaching it.  An overpowering stench of blood and eater was coming from somewhere up ahead. 

Trying to calm his pounding heart, he crept around the corner. 

And almost threw up.

A woman’s body was lying on the carpeted floor a short distance away.  Or what was left of it.  He could only tell the unfortunate corpse had once been female because of the skirt.  Her face was gone.  So was most of her torso.  Blood and entrails were everywhere.  An eater knelt next to her, stuffing something red and squishy into its mouth.