Unfed (21 page)

“This is your final chance.” The megaphone booms. “Stand up where we can see you!”

“Pervs. They want to see us.” Smitty chuckles. “You ready?”

I nod.

We raise our hands above our heads and get up slowly.

A gun pointing at us. The gun is attached to a man standing by the side of the tracks. The mystery man with raspy voice and shiny balaclava is in the middle of the tracks, arms folded.

“Wanna see what happens if I try and run ’em over?” Smitty murmurs to me.

“I wouldn’t do that if I was you.” A voice comes from behind. We whip around; a third man in black, a second gun. “Move yourselves.” He waves
the gun, and we gingerly move past, stepping into the first carriage. “Any more of you I should know about?” he says.

“No, we’re it,” I say. I hope we gave the others enough time to get away.

Through the doorway, I spot the two men who were on the tracks appear on the grassy verge below.
Damn!
Alice and Pete are also standing out there, and they’re looking up at us with really weird expressions on their faces.

Are they trying to tell us something?

Then it registers: Russ is nowhere to be seen. My heart sinks with the confirmation. He’s probably cozying up to the bad guys after all. He called them on the walkie, and now he’s delivered us straight to them.

The mystery man takes a step forward and opens the door. His eyes flash, but other than that I can’t see his face because of the stupid balaclava. But I kind of think he’s smiling. He waves up at me.

“Hello, Bobby. It’s good to finally catch up with you properly.”

Smitty looks at me.

“Friend of yours?”

The man glances at him. “Hello, Smitty.”

“Er, hello.” Smitty frowns at him. “Do forgive me; I can’t quite place your husky voice.”

For a moment I think I recognize that voice. Close-up, it’s muffled and rough-sounding, like he’s got some über-case of tonsillitis. But is there something familiar? No, it’s just ’cause he knows our names. They want Smitty, they want me. We’re two hybrids or half-breeds or something. We’re doomed to a life of being experimented on in some secret hospital far underground.

“How are you feeling, guys?” With some difficulty, the man climbs the steps up into the train. There’s not much room for us all in this little area beside the exit, so I kind of back into the carriage. The guy with the gun raises it at me.
OK, mister. Not going anywhere
. I slowly perch my behind on the edge of a table.

“You’ve done a good job running from us,” the man continues. “And you survived. That’s not to be underestimated.” His voice is really raw-sounding. Maybe that’s just the evil, like a job requirement. “I told them
you’d be resourceful. They didn’t believe me — said you were just kids — but you see, I was right, wasn’t I? I generally am. They’re beginning to appreciate that.”

OK, so this is getting weirder. His eyes — something about them, something familiar, I know it …

“Can’t tell you how glad I am we’ve finally all got this chance to talk.” He gives a kind of gurgling chuckle.

Smitty shoots me a look of pure flummox.

“We ended things on a rather ugly note back then when we were hanging out.” He gets really close, and I can see his eyes. Brown. And the skin around them, just red, bright red skin. “And I’d love it if there could be no hard feelings.” He raises a hand and touches my bald head, then carefully, almost with affection, runs a hand down my cheek.

Smitty springs forward to leap onto him, and instantly I’m transported back to the kitchen at the castle. A hand caressing my face. A dog fight between Smitty and one of the students. That déjà just won’t stop vu-ing. I know who this is, and it makes me sick to my stomach.

Smitty tussles with the man on the floor, and the guy with the gun jumps on top of them both. It’s not an even fight this time. Smitty’s outnumbered and outplayed. The guy with the gun pulls him to his feet, and the man on the floor starts laughing.

“You know who I am, don’t you, big man?” He turns from Smitty to me and raises his hand to his balaclava, ready to peel it off for the big reveal. “But you still look a little puzzled, Bobby.”

“Not so much, Michael.”

I burst his bubble before he can get to the payoff. His hand pauses, and he lets the balaclava stay in place.

“Sorry to steal your special moment.” I take a bold step forward. “You always were a little bit slower than us.”

His eyes narrowing, he whips the balaclava off.

“And this is what I’ve got to show for it.”

My stomach lurches, and a gasp escapes before I can stop it. Michael’s face is distorted beyond all recognition. One side has slipped, like the skin and muscles have been pushed down and stayed there. Red and black, his eyebrows burnt off, only tiny wisps of hair cover his scabbing scalp. His lips are wrinkled and his skin slick where the outer layer has disappeared. But it’s his nose that’s the most shocking: It’s gone. There is just the rise of nostrils, no tip left; it’s like it has melted clean away.

A victim of his own hand. In an attempt to scare the hordes away with a can of gasoline and a lit torch, he only succeeded in setting himself alight. The last time we saw him, he was a human inferno, and this is the result.

He looks worse than a zom, and that must really, really suck. And by the look in his eye, I know that he blames us for it.

“How did you … ?” I have to ask, I can’t help myself. “I thought you must have died.”

“Oh, I was lucky,” he swaggers. “I knew where there was a really, really good hospital.”

“They took you in?” Smitty shouts from underneath two gunmen. “Last time we heard, Xanthro wanted you dead!”

“Hmm, well, it’s amazing how these things turn out, isn’t it, Smitty?” Michael turns on him. “I was the last living connection to Osiris that they had. Grace missing-slash-presumed zombie, Shaq a crazy Undead, and her mother” — he jabs a finger at me — “in the wind. They knew the stimulant and the antidote were gone from the lab, and then they found
the stimulant at the site of the bus crash.” He turns to me again. “Thanks for just leaving it lying there, darling.”

I use every last ounce of strength trying not to react, and he sees it, and turns away, laughing. Something catches my eye down the train.

Russ, in the next carriage. The top of his head shows through the glass, like he’s ducked down. His eyes are wide, he’s clearly stressed to the max. And then I see why: Behind him, shadows loom. The lurching shapes of the Undead, and they’re at the far end of his carriage. He’s let them out, moved that barricade, and now he’s baiting them up toward us.
Bloody hell
.

Michael’s none the wiser. “So they get to wondering where the antidote has gone to. And then they put a bunch of security-camera images together, and some mobile-phone calls that they hacked, and what do you know? It turns out that Dr. Bobby’s Mummy is in the mix, and not only has she come back to save the day, she’s come to save her daughter.” He smiles at me.

“Yeah?” I try to look down the train again without him noticing. Russ is still there, and the figures are getting closer. He’s mouthing something at me. I raise an eyebrow at Michael. “Took you long enough to work it all out.”

“Would have taken them longer. They didn’t know who you were at first. But as I was there at the hospital, I was able to help them out.” He leans in. “Given your daddy’s special talents, they were really interested in you. They did a whole bunch of things to you while you were out cold. Have any exciting dreams?” His face close-up is raw and oozing. “You couldn’t do anything to stop it. Did you just lie back and enjoy the ride?”

Smitty yells, and I swing a hand back to punch Michael in his pus-ridden face. But for once he’s quick, and he knocks my hand aside. The
force pushes me over, and I hit the carriage floor. Smitty goes ballistic, and for a moment they’re all on him — even the man who was guarding Pete and Alice — and nobody is looking at me. It’s my chance. I leg it as fast as I can down the carriageway and punch the door open. Russ looks at me, and without words we fall together toward the carriage’s exit door, wrenching it open, tumbling out onto the grassy verge outside. I reach up and shut the door just as the first zom appears — the conductor. Unable to reach us, he spots some other folks in the train who don’t have tickets, and starts to stumble toward them.

“Smitty!” I cry. Russ and I begin to run up the outside of the train. Just as we reach where Alice is standing, bewildered, on the grass, Smitty appears, falling out of the door. Russ reaches up to slap the button, and the door hisses back automatically.

Gun shots ring out. At first I think they’re firing at us, but then I realize they’re shooting our travel companions, who are now making their way through the first carriage.

“Run!” I scream, pulling Smitty to his feet. It’s not exactly going to take long for them to press the button and open the door.

“Where’s Pete?” Russ yells.

A white Mohawk appears out of the door of the driver’s cab. Pete jumps down, grinning.

“Hoped my timing was right. Locked them in.”

“How?” I’m already running.

“The main carriage doors all have electrical locks,” Pete pants. “Pulled all the wires out and hoped for the best.”

He might have done something right, because for now, there are no bullets flying by my ear, and no men in black chasing me down. But I’m not going to hope those doors hold them for long, or that they’ll waste
much time getting out through the driver’s cab. And there’s the little matter of the helicopter, which, having left the track, is now circling ominously above us.

“Head to the harbor!” shouts Russ, up ahead. We run through a field of long grass, the wet stalks whipping my thighs as I plow through. There’s a five-barred gate, and a lane that curls around into a village green opening up onto a beach.

There in front of us is the fog. Rising off the sea and creeping toward us through the village — patches of clear air here and there on the beach and the harbor wall, but for the most part, thick and impenetrable.

We stop in our tracks.

“Can you hear the dead?” Alice breathes.

We don’t need to answer her — we can all hear them. The moans rising like the fog. Somewhere in that soupy gray of the harbor, there are bodies, many of them, jostling, stumbling, waiting for us.

The top of the lighthouse is just visible above the fog. Can’t go around, can’t go above or below. Have to go through.

“They can’t see us,” whispers Smitty. “Wanna play Freeze Tag, anyone?”

I look behind us. The train zoms and locked carriage doors will only trouble the men for a minute or two; they’ll be hot on our heels.

“Be quiet, be quick,” I hiss at everyone. “Lighthouse or bust.” I’ve got to lead by example; I take a deep breath. “This way!” I make the decision and peel off to the left into the mist.

I feel the fog envelop me like cold dread sliding down my skin. I’m blind, tiptoeing as fast as I dare through the fog. In all my adventures underground, I never felt as claustro as now. Hands out, no way of telling who’s ahead of me, to the side, who’s ready to loom out of that clammy blanket of white that threatens to suffocate. Unlike in the forest, I
know
they’re out there — sometimes mere feet away — I hear them, I smell them, and I catch glimpses of stumbling outlines, almost feeling their breath on my neck. My heart thumps in my ears, hot blood running to my head and prickling my outstretched fingers. I must focus on moving forward or I’ll freeze, my hands clawed as if I’m clutching at the last shreds of bravery that is fast leaching out into the mist.

Behind me I can sense that Smitty and Russ are near, and every now and then I hear a half-concealed squeal above the moans and groans. Alice is following. If she is coming, then I know Pete is there somewhere. We can only move forward, we can only keep going. Underfoot there are discarded fishing nets, curled ropes, and lobster pots; we must be almost at the harbor wall.

Please, Mother, be waiting for us. Please be in a boat, a fast one, preferably one that turns into a submarine and gets us out of here, out of the monsters’ way, far from the men with guns
.

I stub my toe against a low wall. I’ve reached the harbor — I can smell the sea lapping somewhere below. And then I see boats looming out of the mist.

Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream
,

If you see a zombie, don’t forget to scream …

I use the wall to guide me along the harbor until I see steps leading up. We’re here, we’ve found Elvenmouth Light.

I run up the steps in the fog. There’s a door, bright blue and thick with years of paint.
God, I hope it’s not locked
. I try the handle, and it turns easily. Score!

The others arrive at the top of the steps, ashen-faced. Without a word I slowly open the door, every nerve firing, thoroughly expecting to be faced with a monster.

But there are none. Just an empty lobby, with an iron-and-brass staircase winding upward beyond a modern metal gate, with a barrier above made of a lattice of bars. Russ rushes to the gate and turns the handle, pulling the door toward him. It doesn’t open. He rattles it, tries pushing, then turns to me.

“Key?”

I hold my hands out. “What key? I don’t have one.”

Russ turns to Smitty. “Did Bobby’s mum leave it with you?”

“No,” Smitty says. “Dontcha think I would have mentioned that by now?”

“Oh god.” I pace up and down. “Something we missed. Something at the shelter.” I take off the backpack and feel into the lining. Mum must have left us a key. She would never make such a mistake.

“Maybe it’s here,” says Alice, hunting round the featureless lobby, running her hands over the stone walls. “Or no. Under a rock outside. People always leave keys under rocks outside.”

“I’ll look,” Russ says, and ducks out of the door.

Meanwhile Smitty has climbed the gate and is pulling on the barrier above. Between gate and barrier is a gap of a couple of hands’ widths; he tries to squeeze through, but he’s too big.

I wouldn’t be, though.

“That’s how I’m supposed to get through,” I say, almost to myself. Before I can climb, Russ bursts through the door.

“The soldiers are out there,” he whispers. “Coming through the fog. They’re headed this way.”

“Can we keep them out?” I say. “Use something to keep this door shut?” But I know the answer. There’s nothing here. And besides, to what end? Once they know we’re in here, it’s not like we’ve got anywhere to escape to.

I move to the door, my hand in my pocket. “One of you get through that gap and light the damn lighthouse. Pete!” I fling out a finger at him. “You’re skinny enough and clever enough. Get on it!”