Shock (Wildfire Chronicles Vol. 2) (6 page)

“
Get this thing going!” He roared as Ash clambered into the cockpit, and leapt back out onto the grass.

There were too many to count now, a seemingly endless stream of them gushing from the woods into the clearing, the nearest of them only thirty yards or so
away, closing fast.

As the helicopter’s engine hummed into life, blades gradually turning in the night air, picking up the pace, John levelled the weapon, arms shaking at the recoil as he poured bullets
into the damn things, his wordless yell of triumph barely audible above the chattering gunfire.

Still they came, clambering over their fallen comrades, slowly gaining ground. John slammed in another clip, and then suddenly there was
another roaring next to him, Ash, gun in hand, spitting lead across the clearing as the chopper’s blades approached full speed above their heads.

“What the hell are you doing?” John yelled as he squeezed the trigger. “Get this thing off the ground!”

“Helping!” Ash roared back.

John cursed. The things were getting closer,
pooling around the chopper like liquid. They were surrounded now, dozens of the infected coming at them from all directions. Fighting was hopeless, guns were hopeless. Escape was their only chance. He leapt back into the helicopter, still firing, and grabbed Ash’s collar, hauling the pilot aboard even as the grasping fingers clawed at him.

Ash was yelling, firing wildly right up until the moment that John slid the door shut,
wincing at the impact as the things outside crashed into the metal. John plucked the gun from the pilot’s grasp and threw him bodily into the cockpit.

“Go!” he scre
amed.

It took only seconds, the longest period in John’s life, and then the
ground began to fall away from them. He could feel the weight of the infected, the ones clinging onto the chopper, felt the machine wobble as they fell away, and then they were clear, soaring forward and up, just clearing the trees.

John collapsed to the floor, laughing hysterically.

He was still laughing when he felt the sudden change of course, when he heard the strange, strangled grunt from the pilot’s seat.

When he leant over into the cockpit, John saw Ash sitting dumbly, his hands away from the controls, staring in horror at the deep,
ragged wound on his forearm.

He looked up
at John and for a moment John saw pleading and despair in Ash’s eyes. Only for a moment. Then the whites began to fill with a livid crimson stain, as if the blood vessels within were bursting all at once.

As Ash leapt from the
pilot’s seat toward him, roaring, John didn’t have time to consider where he was, or that outside the windows, the ground was rushing toward him at sickening speed.

He snatched the flare gun from his waistband, stuck the barrel into Ash’s mouth, and set the world on fire.

Epilogue

The man awoke in a field of twisted wreckage and mangled bodies. There was blood everywhere, some of it his own, seeping from a large gash in his shoulder.

The wreckage was difficult to i
dentify: a plane? A helicopter?

Less difficult to identify were the dead: at a rough estimate he placed around twenty bodies in a radius around the burning wreckage. His jersey was smouldering, and he cried out in pain as he felt the fire licking at the flesh of his lower back, yanking the jersey off and tossing it.

Bare-chested, he felt the cold breeze hit him. It was a bitter wind, but it felt delicious on his scorched body.

He stumbled clear of the debris, catching his feet on blood
-soaked corpses.

What the hell had happened, he had no idea. More disconcertingly he had no idea where he was. Come to think of it, he had no idea
who
he was.

Gasping for breath, coughing, feeling the air sting his smoke-scarred lungs, the man stumbled from body to body, searching for any sign of life, and found none. Tears
of despair welled in his eyes.

Scanning t
he horizon, he saw no landmarks, just trees and fields under a dark, glowering sky.

Stumbling, the man made his way across the dark field, dimly aware that something was making its way through the trees toward the crash site, and with an unshakeable cer
tainty that he had to get away.

He fell into the trees, turning in time to see several people, drenched in blood, emerge into the clearing from the other direction. Screaming, the figures made directly for the crash site, some running straight into the burning wreckage as though they couldn’t even see it.

The man gasped and was sure, even at this distance, that he saw one of the silhouettes in the flames whip its head in his direction.

Holding his breath, careful to make no sound, the man picked his way through the trees and into the freezing night, walking for countless minutes.
He saw no sign of civilization.

Finally, the man heard something: the distant roar of the sea, and almost cried out in relief. There was something about the sound, something that reassured him.
Some primitive instinct maybe, an echo of a time when humanity depended on the landscape that surrounded it, when proximity to natural resources mattered.

The man slumped onto the floor, leaning against the cool bark of a tree, wincing as the rough surface m
et the burns on his lower back, and let his eyes close.

He might have slept, the man couldn’t be sure. But when he
next opened his eyes, he knew that he was not alone. There were voices in the woods. Close.

The man leaned to his left, craning his neck aro
und the tree trunk, peering into the gloom.

In the darkness, maybe thirty feet away, the man saw figures treading carefully through the trees, mumbling in a low whisper that obviously carried a lit
tle further than they realised.

The man frowned. There were three of them. A young woman, followed by the biggest guy the man could
imagine: a towering giant almost as wide as he was tall. On his back, the giant carried another man, whose legs dangled and swung behind the enormous man’s stride, as though they were injured.

The man searched for anything that he might use as a weapon
, but found nothing but useless twigs. Beyond the trees, he saw the figures settle down, the giant man collecting wood and starting a small fire. The man looked longingly at the tiny flickering flames, but felt a deep certainty that he was in some mortal danger. There was nothing to do but watch.

And wait.

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A word from the author

I wrote
Shock
primarily as thanks to all those people that bought, and read,
Panic.
In all honesty, I never believed anyone other than friends and family would end up reading my work. Hoped, sure, but
believed
? No chance. That strangers have shown an interest - even paying hard earned money to do so - is as humbling as it is mystifying to me.

Panic
was always designed to be the start of something bigger. When I wrote it, I wanted it to be short and fast, I wanted a book that reflected the nature of the events occurring within. I also wanted it to be focused on the lives of ordinary people as the world around them became extraordinary. As such, a part of the story that I wanted to tell necessarily fell by the wayside.

I’d always wanted to delve a little deeper into Project Wildfire, and the circumstances that surrounded Victor’s involvement, but doing so within
Panic
felt like it would slow the story down, and drag focus away from Michael Evans and Rachel and Jason Roberts.
Panic
was their story.

I’d already started work on the sequel,
Psychosis
, when
Panic
, for reasons I still can’t fully explain, started to gain popularity. I knew the character of John Francis would be important to the second novel. I also knew that telling his backstory would again slow up the story.

His was a story that I had resigned myself to not telling in full, but only hinting at during the course of
Psychosis.
It was as I searched for a means by which to express my thanks to those that purchased
Panic
that I came up with the idea for this novella. To me, it almost seems like one of those ‘bonus features’ you get on DVDs.

One day, when
Wildfire Chronicles
is complete, I may find myself re-editing the whole thing, and there may be a place to weave these chapters into the story as a whole. Until then, John’s story will remain the bridge between the events of
Panic
and
Psychosis.

If you’re still reading this, then you have my thanks. If you’ve already read
Panic
then maybe, like me, you’re just at the start of this, and I’m glad that we are in it together.

K.R. Griffiths

30 June 2013

Also by K.R. Griffiths:

Panic (Wildfire Chronicles Vol. 1)

Psychosis (Wildfire Chronicles Vol. 3)

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http://www.krgriffiths.org/index.html

If you enjoyed reading
Shock,
please consider rating/reviewing or dropping me a line. Any feedback - positive, negative or otherwise - is very much appreciated.

K.R.G.