Mutation (Wildfire Chronicles Vol. 4) (12 page)

Those concerns were cast aside in a haze of shuddering fury when the pathetic creatures lined the wall in the distance and began to fire their weapons in his direction. All thoughts of caution were abandoned to the addiction. He
had
to kill them all. Philosophy did not enter into the equation.

When the pitiful weapons
the creatures held poured bullets at him through the misty air, Jake McIntosh had already moved. To him, the squeezing of their fingers on the trigger seemed to last forever, bones and ligaments creaking loudly in their flesh like rusted hinges, firing off long, slow warnings long before they fired projectiles. He saw the bullets heading toward him slowly, like a distant storm.

He was weakening; getting tired. The prudent course of action was to retreat, to leave them with the terror and damage he had inflicted and rest until he could return and attack at full strength.

A bullet whined past his head, the whining song of its passage an insult that bored down into the bubbling chaos of Jake’s mind and scattered his thoughts like dust on the wind.

He would have their blood. Every last drop.

With a roar of pure, unhinged fury, Jake put his head down.

And charged.

Michael could
not hide his relief when he saw John and Rachel descend the steps unharmed. Fantastic scenarios had played out in his mind, of Darren locking them in some room at the top of the tower like characters in a fairytale, or worse; pushing them from the roof before returning to kill the helpless cripple.

He immediately noticed the stunned look on their faces.

"What is it?" He said sharply.

John shook his head, his eyes far away.

"This place is under siege," Rachel said grimly. The Infected are all around Caernarfon, thousands of them, just waiting there."

"What? How is that possible?" Michael tried to keep a lid on the hysteria in his response.

"Not
waiting
," Darren said. "That's not it at all. They aren't waiting for anything. They are there because they can't come any closer."

"I don't understand," Michael said, frowning.

Darren sighed dramatically.

"Neither do I, not really. You wanted to know my story. I'll give you the truth, despite the fact you didn't give me the same respect."

Michael opened his mouth, but Darren waved away the protestation before it began.

"
Please
," he said, his tone heavy with sarcasm. "A family?"

He jerked a thumb at John.

"A
driver
?"

He snorted.

"I wasn't born yesterday. It doesn't particularly matter where you came from or what your story is. What matters is what you intend to do
here.
"

He sat heavily on one of the wooden benches, and gestured for Rachel and John to follow suit. After a moment's hesitation, they sat.

"As I told you earlier, Rachel, I was on Mount Snowdon when...whatever this is began. I first encountered the infection, the virus, when I led a group of climbers back down after we lost communication. We were set upon."

His voice cracked a little, his eyes lost in a terrible memory.

"Half the group were lost immediately. I didn't have the faintest idea what was going on, just that all of a sudden the group I was leading began to kill each other in...horrible ways."

He lifted his jaw and stared at them defiantly.

"I ran. Maybe that makes me a coward. I don't know. I'm not sure that even matters now. The only thing that matters is survival, right? I survived, along with six of my group. We got away by...well, we got away. Still didn't grasp the full extent of this thing though. We thought it was just happening there, at the bus station."

He shook his head ruefully.

"We took a bus, thought we were heading toward safety. Going to get the
police.
All we seemed to do was draw them to us. Eventually there were dozens of them chasing the bus. Every time we thought we'd lost them, more would appear. They ran in front of us, threw themselves under the wheels..."

He trailed off.

"We've seen the same thing," Michael said. "They are drawn to noise. They...hunt by sound. Travelling in a car, well, it hasn't worked for us."

Darren nodded.

"Smart to travel by boat," he said. "I wonder what happened to the people out there who were on boats when this started. Are there ferries out there? Battleships? Holiday cruises full of people wondering what happened? Or just boats full of insane killers, floating around aimlessly."

He shrugged.

"I don't suppose it matters. Unless one of them appears in the harbour. Anyway, as I was saying, we took the bus. We ran. And then, all of a sudden, they stopped chasing us. They just fell back. It was like some forcefield had been thrown around us."

John broke the man's
story with a sigh.

"So now it's
forcefields
. And zombies. I don't believe any of it. What is it then? God? Extra-terrestrials?"

"I said
like
a forcefield," Darren said, and his tone lowered, revealing just a hint of menace. "Because I don't know how else to describe it. But I do know it's got nothing to do with aliens, and I don't think God is involved either."

He stared at John.

"The girl you saw? The one tied up in the market outside?"

John's eyes narrowed.

"It's
her.
"

*

"Do you think there will be other kids here?"

Gwyneth smiled. Pete had been asking questions ever since Michael, John and Rachel had left the tower. She liked the boy's spirit, but she could also see the damage in his eyes. When the others were around, particularly John, the way Pete clammed up was noticeable.

Gwyneth did not like to think about the horrors the two children had been exposed to, or to dwell on how young minds might be affected by the violence that soaked the world now. Of course, the TV news had been full of dire warnings that children were becoming desensitized to murder and mayhem. Video games and movies and the internet were supposedly creating a generation of monsters.

She hadn't paid much attention to the news, other than to cluck at it disapprovingly at times. Every day
was a relentless barrage of information that seemed designed to terrify everybody, and parents especially. If it wasn't paedophiles and gangs, it was videogames. As it turned out, the television had been completely oblivious to the coming apocalypse. The generation of monsters had nothing to do with children hooked on cartoon aggression. The real monsters were the generations that went before them, the ones old enough to own the news stations, and to wilfully ignore the real dangers that grew in the shadows.

"Do you think this place has a
dungeon
?" Pete said in breathless excitement.

"Of course it does," Claire said. "It's a castle isn't it? It even has a moat. There's bound to be a dungeon."

Claire looked at Gwyneth for affirmation.

"I've no idea," Gwyneth said with a smile. "But it could have. It's certainly old enough.
But that's just the river, not a moat. A moat would surround the whole castle. Moats are man-made."

Pete's face lit up, and for a moment he looked ready to burst with excitement.

"Can we go see it? The dungeon? And the battlements?"

Gwyneth frowned.

Michael had asked her to watch the children, but he hadn't said anything about keeping them locked up in the tower until he returned.

She glanced around the room. It was barren and featureless, just a circle of cold stone and steps leading upward. It was no wonder the children were getting restless.

"I don't know if that's a good idea, sweetheart," she said. "We should probably wait until the others return before we start exploring the place. It might not be safe for us out there. If Claire's dad comes back and finds her gone, he'll worry himself to death, won't he?"

Pete looked devastated.

Gwyneth smiled sadly.

She had a child once. A little boy.
She hadn't seen him reach the age Pete was now. Thinking about him still made a part of her heart ache, a part that felt like the wound there had only happened yesterday, and it might never heal.

"Tell you what," she said. "I think we can at least climb
this
tower and see what the battlements look like, how about that? And later on, once the others are back, we'll go find the dungeons okay? Promise."

She smiled broadly as Pete brightened and leapt to his feet.

Gwyneth took a moment to haul her old limbs upright.

"I want you both to stay close to me, though. Deal?"

Pete nodded furiously, and Claire rolled her eyes a little at the boy's eagerness.

"It
is
safe though isn't it Mrs Blake?" Claire said. "I mean, you can't feel any of the crazy people out there, can you?"

"No dear, I can't. Can't feel anything at all as a matter of fact.
And I thought I told you to call me Gwyneth? Now come on."

She ushered the children to the foot of the winding stair, and kept her face low as they rushed past her, so they wouldn't notice her troubled expression.

The truth of it was that Gwyneth could not feel that familiar itch that indicated the presence of the infection nearby. But she could feel
something.
Something that troubled her deeply. Something far away, yet faintly connected to her somehow, in some way she did not understand.

She told the others that what she could feel when the Infected were near was their rage, and it was true. Whatever was out there though, it did not feel like the Infected.

But she felt its rage, and the enormity of it terrified her.

*

"What do you mean it's
her
?" John said. "How is that possible?"

"How is any of this possible?" Darren snapped. "I said I would give you all the answer
s I could. That one, I
can't.
We found her in the middle of the road. Thought she was just sitting there, crying. Only she wasn't crying, she was ripping her eyes out, just like they do. She was bitten. Infected. We were about to kill her when she started talking. Whatever she is, she hasn't turned into one of them."

John exchanged a troubled glance with Michael and Rachel, and hoped they understood the meaning in his gaze.

Don't mention Gwyneth.

"She is something else," Darren continued. "And whatever it is,
they
don't like it. She acts like...repellent. As soon as we got her on the bus they dropped back, and they've stayed back ever since. But more of them seem to come every day."

"So she's human. She is...
immune somehow," Michael said flatly. "Why do you have her tied up out there like an animal? Why not bring her in here?"

Darren shook his head.

"Two reasons," he said. "One: whatever this effect she has on them is, it doesn't extend very far. A few hundred yards. If she were in here, they'd be in the town, and for the moment the town is our only source of food and supplies, and even that won't last long. And two: whatever she is, she certainly is not
human.
Not anymore. She's not worth the risk."

Michael could feel anger begin to radiate from Rachel, like her rage was beginning to increase the temperature of the air around her.

"How long can this place hold out?" He asked hurriedly, anxious to move the conversation on before Rachel got involved.

Darren shrugged.

"As long as that girl is alive, I suppose," he said. "We are planting vegetables, as you saw. Building shelters. We have stockpiled some weapons. Nothing too lethal unfortunately, but we can fashion petrol bombs using the fuel from the generator if we need to, and there are plenty of blades here if we do need to defend ourselves against attack. Hopefully more people will join us, just as you did. We can go on looting the town for supplies until they run out. After that, your guess is as good as mine."

"It's not sustainable," Michael said. "You must see that. Everything hinges on a sick girl that you've got chained up in freezing weather
, and you don't even understand what this effect she has on them is. You have to fight them. Clear them away before they find a way to get to the walls of this place. Once that happens, once this place is under siege, it's just a matter of time."

Darren nodded.

"Of course," he said. "But our numbers are small, and not many people are willing to go out there and start executing the Infected. No one wants to get close. We're not certain that they won't decide that they can tolerate the girl's presence after all if we get too close and provoke them, or if we'll expose ourselves to infection just by being there. If you have any suggestions as to how we go about killing
thousands
of them, please, be my guest."