Unfed (10 page)

“H-h-horrible!” Her body heaves. “Don’t … ever … make me do … that again!”

I persuade her to stand, but she clings to me still.

“We did it?” she says. “We fooled them?”

I just nod, not wanting to share how close it actually came. I assume neither of them could hear like we could, with their doors closed, and that’s probably for the best.

“What’s up with Pete?” Russ’s expression is concerned. I turn around, with difficulty as Alice is still suctioned onto me and is showing no sign of letting go anytime soon.

Pete is still lying there. On the slab, and not moving. Eyes still staring, only now I realize they’re not focused on anything.

“What?” Alice unclings for a minute to take in the situation. She sees Pete and screams, “No!” She flings herself down beside him, pulling him off the slab, so that his head falls
clonk
onto the tile, and she rubs his pale, pale face with her palms. When that doesn’t work, she shakes his shoulders, and when that does nothing, she starts beating his chest with the base of each fist, as if drumming on a barrel.

“Stop!” Russ goes to hold her back. But Alice clearly knew what she was doing. Pete takes in a massive breath and sits bolt upright, as if someone has jabbed adrenaline straight into his heart. He then starts to wheeze heavily, out of his daze, his eyes flitting around in distress and confusion.

“Inhaler!” Alice yells, shoving her hands into his pockets, searching. Pete looks nearly as distressed at Alice giving him a full body search as
he is at not being able to breathe. But Alice manages to fish out a small plastic tube and rams it into Pete’s mouth, his eyes bulging. Alice rubs his back until he sucks on the inhaler and the chemicals begin to do their job. His shoulders gradually lower, and his breathing becomes regular. His eyes are still popping out on stalks, but I think that’s more to do with Alice suddenly going paramedic.

“You’re OK?” Russ bends down to him and claps him on the shoulder. Pete nods. “Then we should get going.” Russ straightens up, grabs a bag from underneath a gurney, and quietly runs to the doorway. “They’ve gone up a few floors,” he tells everyone but me. “The bad news is, they are definitely looking for us. The good news is, they have orders not to shoot to kill.”

I look at him. He heard that part, then?

Pete frowns from the floor. “Why? What makes us so special? They’re killing everyone else.”

“I wouldn’t celebrate too soon.” I grab my chisel. “It sounded like not everyone got the memo. And out of those who did, some of them might shoot us anyway.”

Russ nods. “We should move now, go down and try and find the exit again, while the coast is clear. Get the hell out of this rabbit warren.” His eyes flick back to Pete. “Can you stand?”

Pete nods again, and scrambles to his feet, shaking off Alice. I turn to follow Russ, but someone grabs my arm from behind.

“Stop.” It’s Pete. His grip is surprisingly strong. “The phone!” he cries. “What happened?” He runs up to the counter, his pale hands moving over the surface frantically. He turns to me, desperate. “They took it?”

I shake my head. “I don’t know … I couldn’t really see anything. I heard them looking through stuff, searching for pills, I think.” They must have it. Because if they didn’t take it, who did?

“I wrote the numbers on some paper,” Pete says suddenly. “Where is it?” He frantically pats himself down with a panicked look on his face.

“Pete …” I start.

“Give me a minute.” He boils red and turns out his pockets.

“You’ve lost the numbers?” Russ’s brow crinkles in irritation.

“Did I say that?” Pete snaps. But he’s run out of pockets.

“Check the locker!” Russ flings the door of Pete’s fridge open.

“Here,” Pete shouts from the corner. He’s holding the paper. “It was just on the floor. It’s a little wet on one end; I think it got dropped in some … brain matter.”

“Give it to me!” I snatch at it, a dollop of goo flying dangerously off the paper. I pocket it in my coat.

“Now” — Pete runs to the door, full-on leader again — “it’s time to discharge ourselves from this bloody hospital.”

Pop. Pop. Pop-pop
.

As we head out into the stairwell again, we can hear muffled shots from upstairs somewhere. Sounds like popcorn. I hope they’re bagging zoms, not live people. I wonder briefly how many live ones are running scared, like us. For a second I think about if we can help them. Then I remember they’re probably Xanthro, which makes them the enemy. They’re on their own.

We retrace our steps back to the corridor with the exit sign; my heart is thumping like it’s going to burst, but it’s only partly the running. It’s the hope that hurts. The feeling that we’re so close now, but the hardest part may be yet to come.
Please
, I yearn,
please let us make it. It would be so unfair if we didn’t after all of this
.

“This way.” Russ is first, and fastest.

We round a corner and turn left down a short section of corridor, and suddenly there’s stuff underfoot. The momentum keeps us going for a few seconds, and it’s like an obstacle course where you have to run through the tires, except we’re picking up our feet and skidding and hopping over something much more grisly. As one, we come to a halt and look down at what we’re stepping in.

Bodies. And bits of bodies. Adults, children. I see faces, some stretched in pain. Cloudy eyes, skin sucked of color. These people, they have been chopped up. Someone set to and liberated hands from arms, and heads from necks. There is blood everywhere, pooling on the floor, splashed on the walls, dripping from the ceiling. The sharp smell hits me in the back of my throat, and the bright assault of red is blinding to my eyes. It’s unspeakable.

Alice starts to hyperventilate. Pete grabs her and tries to talk her down. I lift one foot, mesmerized by the thick, dark red molasses slopping off the sole of my boot. Bloody, bloody hell. It covers the floor, not one single inch of white floor remains. I have never seen so much blood; I didn’t know we had that much in us.

“We. Need. To. Keep. Going,” Russ gasps through clenched teeth, like you do when you’re trying not to be sick. “Don’t look,” he says. But if we don’t look at them, then where do we look? They are everywhere.

“It’s OK,” says Pete. “They were monsters.”

“All of them?” I say, pointing at a glint in the red. A round opal ring is drowning in ooze.

“Martha!” Alice gasps, sinking to her knees.

There’s nothing left of her except red, and the ring. I didn’t like the fact that she lied to me about my mother being dead, but I wouldn’t have wished this on her. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. I pick my way through to Alice, grab her shoulder, pull her with me. We have to go before we sink, before we drown in this sea of red, this nightmare that threatens to overwhelm us.

I can hear the others behind me, but I don’t look back. Alice and I reach the end of the corridor, make another turn, and the bodies thin out. We start to run again, slick feet against white floor, no doubt leaving
a trail of raspberry jam footprints behind us. We pelt flat out and skitter to a stop in a large room, which is completely empty apart from a circular desk at the far side.

“Where now?” wails Alice.

“There!”

Set into the wall to our right is a pair of huge, steel doors. I run to them, and before I can question the wisdom, smack the
UP
button on the wall.

“What do you think, Pete? This it?” I’m oh-so-conversational, like we’re taking a casual stroll and I’m asking him the way to the park. The smell of blood will stay with me forever now, the iron tang, the bitter and sweet taste in my mouth.

Before he can answer me, the doors open with a
ping
. A bright silver elevator. Without pausing, we run inside — me dragging Alice, Pete and Russ bustling each other in — and I push the button marked
SURFACE
. Nothing happens.

“Why isn’t this thing moving?” I hit the
UP
button over and over, like that will make a diff.

“Drat it!” Pete points to a circular hole beneath the button. “We need a key. The lift won’t work unless we find one.”

“What?” I scream, but already I’m running out into the room and heading for the desk. Where else would you keep an elevator key? If not here, then our only option could be to sort through the body parts in the corridor.

And the others know it, too. Pete is searching cubbyholes behind the desk; Russ looking on the floor, underneath potted plants and rugs. Only Alice remains by the elevator, sitting there, sobbing, holding the door open. And then she screams.

A single figure, dressed in black, is coming toward us.

Not Undead, very much alive.

But this is no soldier.

The figure steps into the room, and the light falls on wisps of golden hair that have sneaked out from beneath a black knit hat. The face is young, placid, beautiful — and it breaks into a full-on smile when she sees me.

“Bobby!” she calls. “Thank god I’ve found you.”

My jaw drops.

“They’re coming.” She moves toward me hurriedly. “We need to get out, now.”

I take a big step back, the desk between me and her.

Alice screams again.

Pete shakes his head. “No, no, no, no!”

“Who is this?” Russ straightens up.

I blink. I’m not imagining her.

“This is Grace.”

Once I’ve said it out loud, it sinks in. I make my run for the elevator.

“Who’s Grace?” Russ says, running after me.

“The enemy!” Pete gives a choked yell.

“It’s OK,” Grace calls out. “Bobby, you can’t go anywhere, you need a key!”

I get ready to bash at the
UP
button again.

“Hurry, hurry!” Alice screams beside me.

“Grace,”
says Russ. “One of the students at the castle? The ones who helped Bobby’s mum develop Osiris, and did the dirty on her with the bad guys. That’s right, isn’t it?” he asks Grace directly, slowly moving toward us, his saw held high in front of him. “I thought Pete told us you died.”

“Missing,” Pete corrects him. “Shaq was bitten, Michael went up in flames, but we never knew exactly what happened to Grace.” He looks at her. “What are you doing here?”

“She sold out to Xanthro, we know that much already,” I yell at Pete. “Get in here, Russ!”

“You need a key for the lift, Bobby.” Grace takes a step toward us. “You know you do.”

“Get away from us, you bitch!” Alice screams, brandishing her drill.

“It’s OK, Alice,” Grace says calmly. “I’m here to help.” She reaches into her jacket pocket and dangles something at me. “And I have the key.”

I leap toward her, but she snatches the key out of reach.

“Ah, ah, ah!” she says, shaking her head. “We’re going together. I’ve risked everything coming back here to get you out, Bobby. Now you have to trust me.”

“Coming
back
here?” Pete says. “This place is Xanthro, isn’t it?”

She smiles at him. “You’ve always had brains, Peter.”

“But you obviously haven’t,” he bursts out. “Last time we saw you, you wanted to put as much distance between you and Xanthro as possible. You said you knew too much about how they’d caused this outbreak. You said they’d kill you.”

“They will.” Grace’s mouth twitches. “It wasn’t my idea to come back. But somebody persuaded me it was in my best interest to be your escape squad.”

“Who?” Pete snorts, but I have an awful feeling I already know.

Grace looks at me. “Your mother, Bobby.”

“No way!” Pete cries.

“That makes no sense,” Russ says. “Why would Bobby’s mother trust you?”

“Because she had no option.” Grace lifts her chin. “Because she’d tried other means and it hadn’t worked, too much time had passed. I was her last hope. I knew the access codes to this place from when we spent time working here, I had a key, I knew my way around. I released the infected as a diversion to bust you out.” She looks at me. “It worked.”

“Diversion?” Alice screams at her. “You nearly killed us!”

“I’m sorry about that. This batch is different. Xanthro has been experimenting on them, tweaking things to get them to be more efficient killing machines. That way they’re more valuable; not only can Xanthro sell the stimulant, now they can sell the ready-made weapon, in human form.” Grace takes a step toward us. As one we form a line of weapons at the doorway of the elevator, blocking her way. She steps back again, her hands up in surrender.

“Look,” she goes on, “Xanthro is in pieces. The beast is wounded and desperate, and what’s happened has only made it more dangerous. They still don’t have a cure. And there are factions within the company who will stop at nothing to get their hands on you, Bobby, because you’re the ticket to securing your mother, who in all likelihood will produce the cure. I’m your ride out of here. You need to trust me. Besides, you’re not getting out without me, look at it that way.” She leans forward slightly, her cool eyes fixing me, her voice low. “Let me into that lift, and in a couple of hours you’ll be out of the danger zone and with your mum again.”

“You know where she is?” I ask her.

She nods. “I do.”

“And we’re picking Smitty up on the way?”

“Got it in one,” she says.

“You don’t know where he is.” I lean back into the elevator. “My mother wouldn’t trust you with that.”

“She did.” Grace’s eyes sparkle. “Didn’t you work out the little clues on your phone? He’s not too far from here, and he’s waiting for you to help him, Bobby. Are you going to leave him for these guys to stumble over? Or shall we go and rescue him now?”

It’s my turn to hesitate. Every bone in my body is screaming at me not to trust her, but I believe she’s telling the truth. Right now I don’t have the luxury of mulling this over. Right now I have to act, and live with the consequences later.

“OK, then.” I beckon her in to join us.

She sighs with relief, rolls her eyes in a self-mocking way. “Thought you’d never ask.”

There’s a
pop
, and a kind of
thud
, and Grace stares at us. I wonder why she isn’t moving. A trail of bright red runs out of her hat onto her forehead and trickles down into her eye, then onto her cheek, then runs off her chin and down onto her coat. Then she crumples and falls forward into the elevator with us.

“No! No! No!” Alice cries.

I don’t think. I snatch the key from Grace’s warm hand, tossing it up to Pete, who catches it deftly. I haul Grace’s legs into the elevator as Pete thrusts the key into its hole and thumps the
UP
button. Just as the doors close, I catch a glimpse of the soldiers rounding the corner. A masked man holds a rifle.

“Stop!” His voice is gruff and raw. “Stop now!”

It’s the same rough voice as the one in the morgue, the third guy who the other two hated.

As if we’re going to comply with his wishes.

We lurch as the elevator kicks into action and zooms upward, our ears a-popping, stomachs falling to our feet.

“Grace was shot,” Alice mutters. “They shot her. Is she definitely dead?”

“Definitely.” Russ has lifted her hat. I don’t want to look, but I can’t tear my eyes away from the neat hole in her temple.

“Oh god, hurry, hurry, hurry!” Alice slaps the elevator walls.

A pool of blood forms behind Grace’s head, growing. I press myself against the wall of the elevator. I don’t want it to touch my feet. Russ looks up at me. “We should search her. She may have been carrying something useful.” He unzips her jacket.

“I’ll do it.”

I don’t know why, but it feels like less of a violation if it’s me. Russ stands aside, and I carefully bend over her. In Grace’s inside jacket pocket, my hands close around a single key attached to a fat fob.

“Here.” I hold them up for the others to see. “We get outta here, we have transport.”

“Think she just parked at the front door?” Pete grimaces.

I check her other pockets, head down, swallowing back tears. She was shot. In front of us. I don’t care that she was the enemy; a few seconds ago she was alive, breathing the same air as us, with the same fear and hope in her heart.

“Are there any clues to where she was going to take us?” Russ says.

I shake my head. “Can’t find anything.” I wipe my hands down my jacket, as if cleaning them of Grace’s deadness. “I’m hoping if we find the car, it comes with a dirty great map and instructions.”

Alice is sobbing. “Are you … going to take … her leggings?” She points down to Grace’s legs, her face desperate.

“No.” I shake my head. “I can’t do that.” I’d rather look like a cheerleader than swipe Dead Grace’s clothing.

The elevator slows to a stop.

“Be careful, everyone,” Russ says. “We don’t know what’s out there.”

We brace ourselves. The doors
ping
and open onto semidarkness and the smell of damp cow. We’re in some kind of outhouse.

“What do we do with her?” Pete points at Grace.

I jump over the body, then carefully pull her half out, so that everything waist up is still in the elevator. If the doors can’t close, the elevator can’t move, and that should slow them down some.

“She wanted to help us escape. She got her wish.”