Date: 2014-06-08 04:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Horror; Zombies
Description: This is an alternate cover edition of ASIN B00KUI1O1Q Time is running out. The Wildfire virus has caused irreversible damage to the UK, and fleeing looks like the only option left. For Michael Evans, that represents a serious problem. Wheelchair-bound, and with the other survivors at the castle taken hostage by a maniac and her murderous followers, Michael alone must find a way to escape, and he will have to do it fast. Because the end is inevitable. And the clock is ticking... *** Reaction is the final installment of the acclaimed post-apocalyptic/zombie horror series Wildfire Chronicles by K

REACTION

K.R. GRIFFITHS

Copyright © K.R. Griffiths 2014
all rights reserved

Also by K.R. Griffiths

Wildfire Chronicles series:

Panic (Vol. 1)

Shock (Vol. 2)

Psychosis (Vol. 3)

Mutation (Vol. 4)

Trauma (Vol. 5)

Coming soon:

Adrift

Connect with the author:

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www.krgriffiths.org

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Prologue

The world ended not with a bang, but with a steady dissolve, like the final shot of a movie fading to black as the credits prepared to roll. It began suddenly and without warning, but the end of all things was ongoing; a process of steady decay that advanced and corrupted, growing like a malignant tumour.

All across the UK, as the new species created by Project Wildfire's disastrous genetic interference scoured the land, the resistance of humans was fractured and fragmented; weak and isolated as dead pixels on a vast screen.

There were a number of places that humanity could, if not thrive, then perhaps at least survive, but survival had become something of an abstract concept, and humanity even more so.

The new world had been born in fire and savagery, and the response of the few that had lived through the collapse of civilization was like a reflection in a cracked mirror. Violence and brutality came easily; for those that remained it made more sense than any other approach. Wildfire had created one species and driven another back to its primal roots, until a casual observer might struggle to distinguish one from the other, though of course there were no observers, casual or otherwise.

To Charlotte Elleray, 'civilization' wasn’t even a memory. In fact there were no memories.

Just the hunt.

Just the constant, insatiable need to locate and track; to eradicate the human stain from the land.

She had no more idea why she hunted now than she did when she had killed her first—her husband, who died in a frenzy of teeth and blood and bewilderment—or the many since. Tearing apart her own two young children had meant nothing to Charlotte, nothing beyond the fact that their presence buzzed with a peculiar intensity and filled her with a primordial rage. Their removal had been as necessary as amputating rotten flesh, as natural as breathing.

Charlotte had no idea why. The why didn't matter, and that fact gave her a freedom she didn't have the resources to understand.

Killing the children had been an act of shrieking fury and orgasmic release, but the event had faded from her mind, running like fresh paint in a rainstorm; draining away until there was nothing left.

Just the vacuum.

Just the hunt.

The creature that had once been Charlotte stalked the countryside, naked and barefoot, sometimes circling aimlessly like a bird of prey searching for its next meal and sometimes swooping forward and tearing at the humans she stumbled across, forever silencing the terrible noise of their presence. The noise that made her head feel like it was burning.

For weeks she wandered, and in the beginning the hunt was frantic and plentiful, and she was able to launch herself from one victim to the next without pause. Some fell and became like her: new siblings that comforted her and helped in her quest to silence the noise that seemed to be everywhere and everything.

Gradually the world began to fall silent, and increasingly the time between Charlotte's kills began to stretch out. Sometimes she could go several days without locking onto prey. The emptiness of the land underlined just how successful her hunt had been and might have satisfied her, but satisfaction was a human trait that she had left behind the moment her blood boiled in her veins.

She felt nothing other than the insistent need to press ahead, but the success of the hunt and the scarcity of humans did have one consequence: even with an altered metabolism which allowed her to function without eating for long periods, hunger eventually began to gnaw at Charlotte, and her movements began to slow and weaken.

The people she had killed outright had provided a few morsels of meat; scant drops of energy that sustained her for a time, but after that first glorious orgy of killing was over, she began to find that when she attacked she no longer had the strength or the speed to kill, merely to convert.

More hungry mouths meant less food, and slowly Charlotte began to die, a process as long and slow and catastrophic as the collapse of the world itself.

After an age of solitary wandering, Charlotte happened across a small herd, and discovered a sibling that was different to the others. It hummed, and she followed it in surprise, humming her own answer to a question she did not understand.

The leader of the herd taught her that she was able to eat beyond the meat her kills provided, and its humming both soothed and energised her. It showed her how to find fruits and berries on the trees, how to focus her attention on tracking animals that provided precious fuel.

Their meat was different, but it sustained her, and Charlotte felt her body growing strong once more.

In the increasingly infrequent encounters with the humans, the leader hummed constantly, orchestrating its brethren as best it could throughout the ensuing battles. The humans were cunning and dangerous, but with each encounter, marshalled by the humming of the leader, the herd swelled and life became easier.

For a time, when the number of humans nearby had dwindled to zero, the herd circled just as Charlotte had when she had been alone, pouring across the countryside like a toxic spill, rolling and searching.

Until the noise.

The roaring of an engine.

The shattering, violent cacophony of humans. A sound so loud in the endless silence that it seemed to shake Charlotte to her very bones, and the herd knew as one that the hunt had been renewed.

Driven by hunger and gene-deep necessity; directed by the insistent humming of its leader, the herd charged toward the source of the noise, and was engulfed in fire and another noise, far louder and more terrible than anything Charlotte's mind could comprehend. A shockwave ripped through her consciousness a fraction of a second before a concussive blast hammered into her body, and both did terrible damage.

For a time she rested on the cold ground, broken and burned and slowly dying, until her ears caught a sound in the distance, faint; barely-there. She dragged herself toward it through the agony, across rocks and rough ground that scraped and bit at her charred flesh until she suddenly felt smooth stone beneath her.

The noise was impossible to miss, now: an insistent clanging of metal on metal, ringing out rhythmically, like the beat of a drum.

A human sound; a sound that wanted to be heard.

A sound that beckoned her forward.

Summoning up the last vestiges of her energy, oblivious to the pain in her shattered body, Charlotte crawled in the direction of the noise, powerless to resist the magnetic draw of the creatures she was hardwired to kill, yet when the metallic clatter ceased it was like sight had been ripped away from her once more. There was no human. There was nothing but silence and the vacuum.

Charlotte moaned in despair and incomprehension, low and guttural. It was the sound of an animal in pain.

*

Jason Roberts stared down at the creature that had stopped a few feet away from him. It appeared to be crying. Somewhere deep in his broken mind, a spark of empathy tried to light the fractured darkness, but flickered away to nothing until all that was left was an incessant itch and a burning need.

He watched impassively for a moment, and then took a single step forward and swung the lead pipe. The blunt weapon lodged into the creature's head with a dull, wet thud, driving fragments of bone deep into its brain and ending its pitiful torment.

With a grunt, Jason heaved the pipe clear of the twitching mess and straightened. There was no victory in his eyes, no sense of satisfaction.

Just emptiness.

Just the hunt.

After a moment he extended the hand that clutched the gore-drenched pipe and began to tap out the rhythm on the dumpster once more, drawing the next one toward him.

Clang.

Clang.

Clang…

Chapter 1

You'll all have a chance to demonstrate your loyalty.

The old woman's words had provided at least a crumb of comfort to Michael Evans: she wasn't going to have them all executed on the spot.

Just John.

When she had finished bringing her people to the castle—Michael estimated there were around sixty in total—the woman had introduced herself to him as Annie Holloway. It was a pleasant introduction, delivered with a warm smile and a sympathetic glance at Michael's useless legs. Watching her act like a kindly grandmother making polite conversation, Michael thought it was almost possible to overlook the fact that she was a psychopath.

Almost. The old woman’s normality was a fleeting notion, evaporating like morning dew as soon as she turned her attention to other matters.

Immediately after the cordial introduction she had told her two sons to nail John's corpse to a cross in the centre of the courtyard, and told Michael that he would watch, and that he would hold the wood and the nails for them while they worked.

If he wanted to get along, Michael would have to make himself useful, she said brightly, as though she were demanding nothing more unusual than that he boil a kettle and make a pot of tea for everybody to enjoy.

Then she turned to a middle-aged man who hovered at her side like an advisor, and informed him that he was to have the boat that they had all arrived in sunk so that nobody would get any 'funny ideas’.

Crucifixion and wilfully destroying the only legitimate means of getting away from the castle, Michael thought grimly. And that's just day one.

There was no mistaking the dark chasms in her sanity then.

*

Michael sat in the courtyard of Caernarfon Castle, locked into place in the wheelchair, watching with grim fascination as the two men strapped together two enormous wooden beams to make the cross and began to strip John Francis’ body of its clothes.

The Holloway boys—Rhys and Bryn—looked to Michael like the sort of men that made a hobby of beating the shit out of people who accidentally bumped into them in pubs. Small town bullies; all sneering ignorance and low-level menace, suddenly vaulted into a position of power that they were clearly unequipped to handle.

They might be even more crazy than their mother, he thought, as he watched the two men pointing and laughing at John’s exposed genitals.

Things can’t get much worse.

He dropped his gaze to his paralysed legs for a moment, urging them to tremble; to move even a fraction of an inch as he was so certain they had earlier, but there was no response.

Frustrated, he lifted his gaze once more to see Rhys Holloway driving a handful of huge nails into the wooden cross to shore it up, and then the two men lifted the enormous structure upright, driving the base down into the soft earth of one of the castle’s once-pretty flowerbeds to hold it steady.

Michael wondered for a moment why Annie felt the need to have the grisly monument erected in her new home: all the people that had been at the castle—the people she presumably thought of as her enemies—had seen her execute what the old woman assumed had been their leader, and all but Michael and the children had already been locked up.

If spreading fear was the old woman’s objective, she had already accomplished it. It seemed like there was nothing further to be gained by decorating the courtyard in such an horrific manner. Certainly there seemed little point in putting on such a show for two young children and a man confined to a wheelchair.

Unless, Michael realised abruptly, the crucified corpse wasn't meant for them, but was instead a grisly message for the old woman's own people.

He thought back to the faces of the men and women that he had watched as they were being ferried across to the castle from the nearby island of Anglesey. Stilted, barely-controlled masks of stoicism that reminded him of Rachel’s face as she had stood, helpless, in an underground bunker with a psychopath’s arm around her waist like a lover’s embrace.

To Michael, they had been the expressions of people that were fully engaged in trying to prevent a scream from escaping their lips.

Holloway's small army of followers outnumbered Michael's people by roughly three-to-one, but he couldn't shake the feeling that most of them followed her in a state of numb terror. Ruled by fear.

This wasn't some marauding army, but a desperate battalion of the lost and the wounded, driven ahead of the Holloway family like cattle fleeing the sharp crack of a bullwhip.

The fear Annie wanted to create was designed for them.

Michael swept his gaze around the courtyard.

It certainly didn’t look like the castle held dozens of people now: all of Holloway’s people, other than those few that Michael thought of as her inner circle, had retreated to the castle's eight huge towers, hibernating and hoping that the storm of violence outside would pass while they remained hidden.

That gave Michael some hope. His first impression of Holloway had been that she was the leader of a large cult of demented and loyal followers, but it no longer looked like that was true. At least, not yet.

He stared at the cross in growing horror as Rhys Holloway drove the first of the nails through John’s wrist.

That’s clearly her endgame, though. Terror, intimidation and unassailable control. Leadership of an army of maniacs.

Michael guessed, from the way the people of Anglesey acted, that Annie had no more than seven or eight followers who were actually insane enough to follow her voluntarily. Not many, but in the new world, with survivors scattered and broken, even seven people could represent a powerful force.

All it took to secure the castle was a tiny group of people loyal to her and threatening enough to subdue any notions anybody might have of offering resistance. A couple of guns; probably with no more than thirty bullets between them. In the world that existed now, that was all it took to found an empire. Many of the old woman's people had a haunted not-quite-there look in their eyes that reminded Michael of his first meeting with Jason Roberts.

People with broken minds, he thought, could more easily be persuaded to follow.

Jason.

The big man, it turned out, was still alive, but also not.

The vacant misery in Jason's eyes had given way to something else: a fractured, opaque darkness. Holloway's two sons were snarling guard dogs, but Jason was a different weapon altogether: strangely separate from all the others, and apparently only able or willing to interact directly with the old woman.

Jason gave Annie Holloway power in a way Michael didn't understand. At least, not as clearly as he understood the hold she had over the big man: a firm grip that stemmed from the drugs she poured into his system constantly and the catastrophic fracture in his mind.

Michael remembered the way Jason had slowly faded away as the group of survivors entered Aberystwyth; remembered the big man calling Michael mum, like he was trapped in some parallel dimension in which he hadn't been forced to kill his own mother with a fragment of roofing tile.

Jason had been damaged then. In the period that had followed that devastating event, it seemed clear that the trauma he had suffered had only been exacerbated further. Michael saw the way Jason looked at Annie Holloway; watched in disbelief as the man nuzzled at her palm like a faithful pet, and he felt certain that on some level, Jason actually believed she was his mother.

Michael had heard of Stockholm Syndrome, and had always thought it sounded bizarre and far-fetched. The notion that somebody could grow to love the very person that imprisoned and tortured them; it sounded impossible.

Yet it was the only theory Michael had when it came to explaining the big man’s behaviour. Holloway tortured him until there was nothing left for him to do but love her.

Jason’s body was ravaged by scars. His tongue had been cut out. The old woman poured a cocktail of prescription drugs down his throat at every opportunity, sealing him off from the world in a haze.

Despite all that torment, the only time Michael ever saw a flicker of emotion in Jason’s eyes was when he looked at the old woman who led him around the castle on a leash like a mutt: a sickly sort of adoration. No, more than that: Jason appeared to worship Annie Holloway.

As baffling as Jason's attachment to Annie was, his survival bewildered Michael even more. He should have died in Aberystwyth, torn to pieces by a herd of Infected, and Michael clung stubbornly to that belief right up until he saw Jason shuffling into the castle, led like a dog by the old woman.

An explanation of sorts presented itself as soon as Annie sent Jason out through the castle's huge wooden gate and into the town of Caernarfon beyond the river with no more than a lead pipe for company for the first time, and the air filled with the distant sound of Infected shrieks.

She had sent him out there to take on the Infected. Alone.

What would have been a death sentence for any normal human being proved to be something else entirely for Jason.

A couple of hours later Michael was sitting in his chair, holding the tools for the two lunatics building a giant cross, when Jason returned, led by Annie’s bald advisor. The man pulled Jason into the castle, clutching the leash tied around the big man’s thick neck in white-knuckled fists.

Michael stared in astonishment. Jason was soaked in the blood of what looked like a lot of people. A lot of Infected.

Aberystwyth hadn't been a death sentence for Jason because the words normal human being did not apply to him. The big man was infected. Mutated, just as Gwyneth had been. The only question was how the virus had affected him.

Michael watched as Jason moved through the castle like a ghost in a dream, apparently unaware of his surroundings, until the bald man led him into the main tower and they both disappeared from sight.

What are you, Jason?

"Cripple. The nails."

Michael blinked the thoughts of Jason away, and stared at Rhys Holloway. The man who had sliced John's neck open, and who had driven nails through his wrists.

"Wake up, Cripple. I said I need nails for his feet."

Michael suppressed a shudder, and swallowed back the urge to strike out at the man; to clutch the nails tightly in a fist and see how far he could drive them into Rhys' pale, hateful flesh.

It would solve nothing, Mike, he thought. Not yet. Do what you have to do. Watch. Learn. Gain their trust.

Michael forced himself to nod meekly, and held out an outstretched palm. Two nails left: huge six-inch monsters that looked more like weapons than tools.

"Good boy," Rhys said with a sickening grin, reaching for the nails.

He paused.

"Tell you what, Cripple," he said. "I'll let you do the feet. This was your glorious leader, after all. So it’s only right that you should do the honours."

Rhys handed Michael the ancient mace he had been using as a hammer, and his eyes glittered with menace as Michael took the weapon silently.

A test, then, Michael thought. A chance to prove my loyalty. Or how far I'm willing to lower myself in order to survive.

Michael stared at Rhys for a moment, and saw the challenge in the man's gaze as Michael's fingers curled around the handle of the mace. He could well imagine what was running through Rhys Holloway's mind.

Go ahead, Cripple. I dare you. Try it.

Michael swallowed painfully, and felt bile rising in his throat. John had been right, and Michael hadn't listened. The castle was dangerous. People were dangerous, and Michael had stopped running too soon, and might never get the chance to run again.

Sorry, John, Michael thought.

And then he leaned forward as far as his damaged back would allow and drove the nails through John's dead flesh.

*

By the time Michael was allowed to return to the tower to see his daughter and get some sleep, he had a pretty good idea of just how he would be expected to demonstrate his loyalty to Annie Holloway.

After he was done with the grisly task of crucifying John's corpse, the old woman informed him that she was looking forward to having a conversation with him about 'circumstances in the castle', and that in the meantime he was to take bread and water to the prisoners in the cells, and to ensure that each cell had a slop bucket.

Which it would be his task to empty, of course.

Holloway didn't just want loyalty. She wanted fealty. She wanted willing slaves. Michael imagined she would let the others out of their cells one at a time, giving them the opportunity to integrate and adjust to their new reality. Time to indoctrinate and dehumanise them.

She wasn’t a cult leader. She was an aspiring cult leader. Somehow, that prospect seemed even more terrifying.

He had seen the scars that laced almost every inch of Jason Roberts' flesh. It didn't take a genius to work out how Annie felt persuasion was most easily accomplished, and how true obedience was obtained.

So I’m the test subject, he thought. I’m the one she will break first. Because I’m in a wheelchair and I’m the least threatening.

He carried dry bread from the stockpile of food that Shirley and the others had gathered during the raid on Caernarfon, and took it to the cells, accompanied by Rhys, who hadn't left his side for a moment. The man smirked and whistled cheerily as he opened the doors for the wheelchair to slip through, but Michael was under no illusions: Rhys gave the impression of being relaxed; bored even, but he watched like a hawk.

There were six cells in total, each crammed with anything up to six people. They weren't separated by gender, and Michael hadn't expected them to be: bullies operated on intimidation and humiliation, and the Holloway family conformed to the letter.

Forcing the prisoners to humiliate themselves in front of the opposite sex was probably on page one of the torturer's handbook.

He wheeled himself into each cell in silence, avoiding eye contact wherever possible as he handed out the food and the buckets. Only in the final cell—the one that held Linda and Rachel and Ed, the kid whose appearance had coincided with everything falling apart—did Michael's resolve weaken.

He looked at Rachel; at the impotent fury written on her face, and felt his heart break a little. It was clear from the fire in her eyes that she had watched through the bars set in the door as Michael had helped to crucify John's body.

Clear also that her confusion was matched only by her anger.

Michael gave a barely-discernible shake of his head and grimaced as he passed the bread and water to Linda. He desperately wanted to speak to Rachel, to reassure her that the trust she had built in him during the horror of the previous weeks hadn't been misplaced.

He didn't dare. With the eyes of Annie Holloway's son burning into the back of his skull, Michael took the bucket he had placed on his lap and set it on the floor apologetically.

Rhys wheeled the chair back outside and locked the cell door behind him, and Michael watched from the corner of his eye as he attached the key ring securely to his belt.

The only way to get those keys, Michael decided, would be if the man was dead.

So be it.

Chapter 2

When Michael's horrific work was finally done, Rhys wheeled him to the tower that had become Michael’s home.

"You get to take the rest of the night off," Rhys said amiably, as though he was the manager of a shop telling a cashier they could knock off fifteen minutes early. For his part, Rhys seemed to find it hilarious.

Michael felt his fingers clench involuntarily at his sides. Almost got away with it, too, but Rhys had razor-sharp eyes. He leaned in close.

"There it is, Cripple. Not as meek as you've been making out, huh? Something you'd like to do?"

Michael stared at Rhys for a moment, searching for an answer and a tone that wouldn't guarantee the conversation would head to a bad place.

Before he could say anything, Rhys whipped a knife from his belt and aimed it between Michael's eyes.

Michael found himself transfixed as he watch the blade dancing in front of his face, cleaving the air as the atmosphere thickened around it and became heavy with menace.

After a moment he lowered his head in surrender.

And saw the tip of the blade eat into his thigh.

Michael's eyes widened in shock.

Rhys snorted. It sounded to Michael oddly like rueful disappointment, as if the man had just lost a friendly bet.

"Not even a twitch. So you actually are a cripple."

Rhys shook his head and chuckled as he wiped the tip of the knife on his shirt and slid it into his belt.

"How the fuck did someone like you survive all this?"

Michael stared at the man, wondering if he expected an answer. Apparently not.

"Get inside," Rhys growled, and Michael turned the chair and entered the tower without a word. Only when he heard the lock engage loudly and the sound of Rhys' footsteps dissolved into deafening silence did he realise that he had been holding his breath for an eternity and allow his lungs to fill with air once more.

He let it out in a long trembling breath and stared down in wonder, focused on the dark bead of blood and the shallow wound in the middle of his thigh.

And the wondrous agony that blossomed from it, like petals opening to receive the rays of a long-absent sun.

The room was illuminated only by failing light that crept apologetically through a window that was no more than a scratch in the castle's stone flesh. When he was finally able to tear his gaze away from the cut on his leg, Michael squinted into the gloom, and felt his heart race. The tower looked empty.

"Claire?"

For a heart-stopping moment the silence and the darkness prevailed, and Michael let out a soft, trembling laugh of relief when he heard footsteps tumbling down the stairs from the level above.

His daughter appeared like a speeding train and braked only a little when she reached him, throwing her arms around his neck and hugging him fiercely.

He let her sob awhile, and found her outpouring of emotion infectious. Before long, tears ran freely down his own face and dissolved into her hair for several minutes, until Claire’s sobs became coughs and, finally, weary silence.

All I wanted was to protect her, he thought.

You kept her alive; no more than that. You protected her from nothing.

Michael blinked in surprise at the response he heard in his head: at the reproachful voice of his dead wife, twisted until he almost couldn’t recognise it; sagging under the weight of aching loss and sadness.

He pushed her words away, banishing the eager darkness that lurked between each syllable, beckoning him forward.

The depression Michael had inherited from his father had crushed the life out of his marriage, and Elise had hated the way her husband had slowly begun to focus inward, yet even as Michael had turned on himself she had never once joined in. He couldn’t remember a single time at which it felt like Elise Evans hated Michael as much as he himself did.

Which meant it wasn’t her voice he was hearing at all, but his own; camouflaged and insidious and familiar and terrible. The voice of the yawning dark chasm.

Stop that.

He pulled Claire away from him gently and looked into her eyes.

"Are you okay?"

She nodded.

"And Pete?"

She shook her head sadly.

"The old lady took him away. She said it wasn't proper for us to be 'sharing a room'."

Claire stared at Michael, puzzled, and her lack of years hit him like an invisible juggernaut. There were some things his daughter had no knowledge of; not yet. Ordinary, everyday things like why a boy and a girl approaching their teens shouldn't share a room.

Yet she knew death. Intimately. Childhood innocence was a thing of the past for Claire. Maybe for everybody.

"Do you know where she took him?"

Claire shook her head again, and Michael wiped a fat tear from her cheek.

"It's okay," he said. "I'm sure Pete's fine. She told me she wouldn't hurt the children, and I believed her. You believe me?"

Claire looked at him for a moment, and nodded.

"Good. And I'm going to get us out of here. You believe that too?"

Claire grinned through the tears and nodded fiercely.

"Good," he said, and held his daughter in his arms until sleep took her.

Eventually, despite him believing that it was impossible, sleep found him too.

*

"Pain is a construct, Mr Evans," the doctor said with a warm smile. "Think of it as nothing more than information. It’s just some part of your body sending an email to your brain which reads Hey! Pay attention to this!"

Michael looked at the doctor dubiously. The miniature apocalypse that seemed to have been unleashed on the lower part of his spine didn’t feel much like a construct. It felt more like someone had buried a serrated blade into his back, and every time he tried to move, they decided to twist it.

"Pain is a relic of an outdated phase of human evolution. It existed so that you would examine its source to determine whether it was likely to be life-threatening and requiring of immediate treatment. Well, now you have doctors to do that for you."

The doctor smiled again, almost eagerly, as if he’d said something particularly funny.

Ah, that was a joke, Michael thought. Good one, Doc.

The doctor’s face fell a little when Michael didn’t return the smile.

In truth, Michael couldn’t smile: ever since he'd wrenched his back even that bare minimum of movement felt like it was yanking a cord in his jaw that connected all the way down to his vertebrae, where it wrapped like razor wire around bundles of tender nerves and squeezed mercilessly.

So far the injury had kept him away from work for almost two weeks, and he was beginning to feel a little stir crazy.

"You’ve seen people walking on hot coals, right?"

Michael gave a hint of a nod, and immediately regretted the movement as a surge of information shot up his spine and detonated at the base of his neck.

"Same thing," the doctor said. "Those people are simply able to disconnect their conscious mind from the concept of pain. I’ve heard about people involved in accidents that suffered horrendous trauma which they weren’t even aware of until they were able to see it; until it became real in their minds. Only then did they feel the pain that accompanied their injuries. Pain exists only in the mind. Am I making any sense?"

"I guess," Michael said. "But how does that help me? Because I am feeling the pain."

"Your muscles need to move, Mr Evans. I realise that might seem illogical, but the swelling in your back isn’t helped by remaining immobile. When you keep yourself tense because you anticipate pain, or avoid movement or use incorrect posture, what you are actually doing is creating multiple other sources of pain that feed into the primary cause and slow down the healing process."

“Huh,” Michael said dubiously. He had hoped visiting the medical centre would result in a pocket full of heavy-duty painkillers, not a lecture.

The doctor reclined in his leather chair and ran a hand absently across his expansive desk like a spider.

"The human brain is powerful beyond our understanding, Mr Evans. Nobody can fully explain the placebo effect, for example. Nobody can really explain those feats of strength you see from entertainers, like those strongmen who pull along trucks with their teeth. But those people would tell you that they are aware of the pain; they can simply choose to ignore it."

The doctor delivered the words with a sort of practised sincerity that made Michael feel like they were well-rehearsed.

That was, he thought, probably true: humanity’s evolution seemed to be heading inexorably toward a state of blissful catatonia. Technological innovation almost seemed to be built on achieving an ideal of laziness: everything humans needed or desired was slowly being made more convenient, smaller; easier. Long periods of sitting, and letting the physicality of life fall by the wayside were an inevitable side-effect.

Hell, Michael thought, even my job mostly entails sitting down, now. And eating Carl’s doughnuts. And my job description is basically patrol, for Christ’s sake.

He imagined that Doctor Curtis had to give the same speech to several patients a week. Maybe more.

Virtually everyone Michael knew seemed to have a bad back, although that particular piece of data wasn’t entirely unbiased: Michael would readily concede that the majority of the people he knew in St Davids were ‘advancing’ in years.

A recurring topic of wry conversation among the inhabitants of the tiny city was the ongoing comparison of their various ailments. They treated it almost like a sport. A league table that ranked the likes of arthritis and heart disease and cancer in a way that was darkly funny.

Maybe that's the point, Michael thought. When faced by the dawning realisation that you were destined to lose the lifelong battle with your body, what else was there to do but laugh?

All mildly interesting, sure, but not as important to Michael as a fistful of Codeine would have been.

"So what should I do, then, Doctor?" Michael asked a little apprehensively, as it dawned on him that he wasn’t going to get the pharmaceutical relief he hoped for.

"You need to be active, Mr Evans. You need to push through the pain. You need to move."

You need to move.

Michael's eyes flared open, and he saw grey stone walls and smelled damp and age. He had slept in the chair, of course, and had woken with the usual aching neck after his chin spent the night getting acquainted with his chest.

He didn’t feel the ache in his neck though, because his eyes suddenly fixed on something that took all his attention: a faint trembling in his left foot. He blinked away the fog of sleep and focused on the moment until he was sure that he wasn’t still dreaming.

For a second there, he had seen definite movement.

Cold sunlight slipped into the stone room. At some point in the night Claire had extricated herself from his arms and had curled up on the floor next to his wheelchair underneath an ornate blanket.

He smiled at her sleeping face for only a moment before the dull click of the lock disengaging tore his eyes reluctantly to the door and the smile fell away.

"Morning, Cripple. Busy day ahead."

Chapter 3

For Ed Cartwright, the night in the cell had been spent in a state of constant terror and morning arrived like a thinly-veiled threat.

Every dreadful minute that passed had increased his certainty that either the old woman or one of her sons would recognise him and he would meet the kind of grisly end that the NPCs in his favourite videogames routinely endured.

After Annie had taken control of the castle, Ed had managed to fade into the crowd, keeping his head down and letting his tangled hair fall over his face as much as possible. When the Holloway boys—each now brandishing a gun along with the ever-present knives—began to herd people toward the cells, Ed moved eagerly; diving into a cell without complaint and installing himself in the thick shadows that clung to the corner furthest from the door.

But the morning brought light, and an insistent feeling of urgency in Ed's mind like a timer ticking down towards a terrible and significant zero.

It was just a matter of time before one of them realised that the guy huddled at the back of the cell was the same guy that had beaten one of their friends over the head with a rock and stolen their boat.

Ed thought there was a good chance that he had killed the man with the rock; certainly the way he had dropped to the ground said sack of meat as much as it said stunned human. Still, he couldn't shake the certainty that he had committed an even worse crime: knocking the old woman to the floor in his mother's kitchen before fleeing.

Everything about Annie Holloway's demeanour suggested to Ed that such a personal slight would be met by severe recrimination.

Please just let them keep us locked in the cells. Please...

Ed's cell held four people. Alongside himself there was a woman who introduced herself with a kindly smile as Linda, and a frightened young girl by the name of Emma, who seemed to have taken John’s death particularly hard, and had sobbed softly until sleep finally silenced her. And in the corner opposite the one he had made his home sat the woman whose fierce eyes and burning intensity made him wonder if he might be better off with Annie Holloway after all.

Rachel.

When he had first met her, Rachel had seemed intimidating to Ed. Following her imprisonment, she became something more. She sat, hugging her knees and staring at the filthy stone floor, and rage seemed to leak from her incessantly until the atmosphere in the tiny cell felt thick and heavy with tension. To Ed it felt like being caged up with a rabid dog.

Or a time bomb.

Rachel hadn't spoken a word all night, and hadn't responded to Linda's attempts to engage her.

Ed didn't know the full story, but he knew the big man that Annie Holloway had turned into a dog and kept on a leash was Rachel's brother, and he knew that John, who had seemed like the most confident guy Ed had ever met, had returned from the rescue mission with his hands tied and his throat waiting to be cut.

Understanding only half of whatever-the-hell was going on was par for the course in the new world, and Ed cursed himself for ever leaving the safety of his mother's house. Isolation and starvation had frightened him, but after a night spent in the cramped cell chewing on dry bread and terror, he would have happily accepted being alone and hungry once more.

Because if guys like John and Rachel’s enormous brother could end up so comprehensively fucked-over, Ed put his chances of remaining unscathed somewhere near the wrong side of none.

The cell door unlocked suddenly with a loud clunk, and the door swung open, bathing the cell in cold morning sunlight.

Ed's heart dropped.

The smaller of Annie Holloway's two sons.

Looking directly at him.

"You," Bryn Holloway rasped with a sneer as he pointed a dirty finger straight at Ed.

"Out."

*

The throne room.

By the standards of most castles, it was probably a little underwhelming. The seat itself was no more than a wooden chair with a high back: ornately carved, sure, but a far cry from the sort of solid-gold-and-jewel-encrusted affairs that Michael typically might picture on hearing the word throne.

The room was large—the largest in the castle—serving as what would once have been a general meeting chamber perhaps, or even a place of prayer: long, low wooden benches occupied the bulk of the floor space, lending the place the feel of a small cathedral.

For Michael, it was simply the room in which he had first been able to see threat lurking in Darren Oliver’s eyes; burgeoning realisation that the man would do whatever it took to maintain his grip on the castle.

It came as no surprise to Michael that the latest psychopath to take charge in the castle was to be found in the throne room: it seemed the ancient space exerted a gravitational pull over those who wanted to assert dominance over their peers. Maybe it had always been that way; maybe it was something inherent in the design of the room or, more likely, the people who inhabited it.

Darren Oliver had at least had the humility—or perhaps just the foresight—not to position himself on the throne itself; not to broadcast his intentions so clearly. Yet when Michael wheeled his chair into the room, he found that Annie Holloway had no such reservations.

She was to be the second maniac Michael would have a conversation with while entombed in the ancient wood and stone of Caernarfon Castle. One way or another, he decided when he saw her perched regally on the ancient seat, she would be the last.

The old woman’s small, dark eyes didn’t leave Michael for a second as he wheeled himself toward her. Only when he came to a stop before the elevated throne that she sat on without a trace of irony did she look at her son, who followed a few paces behind the wheelchair.

"That will be all, Rhys," she said. "Wait outside."

Her voice was thin and almost tremulous; wrinkled and coarsened by age, but her sharp tone left no room for debate.

Michael watched Annie carefully. Being left alone with a man whose friends she had just either taken hostage or had executed didn’t seem to bother her in the slightest.

Michael expected that Rhys would argue that he should stay put, to protect his mother perhaps, but there was no response beyond an acquiescent grunt and footsteps that receded until the door closed with a soft thump. The man's entire demeanour had changed as soon as he entered the room and saw his mother there. All the bristling confidence that exuded from him had suddenly evaporated.

Michael got the sense that leaving Annie’s presence was a source of relief for Rhys, and he felt his nerves tighten a little. Even the woman’s own sons—lunatics in their own right—were terrified of her.

Michael couldn’t shake the feeling that Annie Holloway had been insane long before the world twisted to mirror her.

"Michael, isn’t it?"

Michael nodded.

"I presume the others looked up to you."

Michael blinked in surprise.

"You had the gun, after all," Annie continued, when it became clear that Michael had no response to her words. "Interesting that they would let a man in a wheelchair have a gun, don’t you think?"

Michael shrugged.

"I assume I was allowed to have it because I was no threat to anybody. Even if I had decided I wanted to shoot someone, it’s not like I could just run away. I guess I was the one person that wouldn’t use the gun. Letting anyone else have it would have been more of a risk."

Annie pondered that for a moment.

"How did you end up in a wheelchair?"

"Car accident," Michael said flatly. The old woman’s eyes drilled into Michael, searching for lies in his answer. He met her gaze evenly. Apparently satisfied, Annie nodded.

"I suppose that’s one silver lining to come out of all this. No more people dying tragically in car accidents. Such a waste of young lives."

She shook her head sadly.

"In my experience, people tend to find ways to kill each other somehow," Michael said. "If not with cars, they just get a little more…creative."

"And just what is your experience, Michael?"

Michael forced a non-committal shrug.

"I doubt it’s that dissimilar to yours. I was in South Wales when all this began, and then Aberystwyth, and now I'm here. The towns are different; the faces are different, but the people have remained the same. All killing each other instead of working together."

"And yet none of them have killed you."

Michael said nothing.

"Despite your being something of an easy target."

Aware that the old woman expected an answer to the question she hadn’t quite asked, Michael felt his mind begin to race.

"I suppose it takes a certain kind of person to kill a paralysed man," he said finally. "Maybe I just haven’t met that kind of person yet."

He tried to keep his voice parked in neutral; tried to avoid pressing the accelerator on that final syllable. Judging by the flicker of understanding that flashed across Annie’s eyes, he didn’t quite make it.

"Maybe not," Annie said with a smirk. "You’re probably wondering why you’re not in a cell with all the others."

Michael nodded slowly.

"You could say that."

"The thing is, Michael, that I meant exactly what I said. I’m not a monster. I have no wish to kill for the sake of killing; not at all. Your friend in the courtyard—the man who was leading this group, I presume?"

Michael met Annie’s penetrating stare coolly and forced himself not to respond.

"Well," Annie continued, "I’m afraid he was dangerous. No doubt you liked him, and no doubt he was good to all you people. Still, he turned up on my doorstep waving a gun. Threatened to kill me. Did his best to kill the poor soul who was protecting us. Letting him live was not an option. You understand?"

Michael shrugged.

"Believe it or not I actually do understand that," he said. "What I don’t understand is why you don’t just let us all go. You wanted the castle and you have it. However John offended you—and I’m sure he did; he could be…abrasive—well, you’ve dealt with that. Why keep us here?"

For a moment a look of genuine confusion passed across Annie’s wrinkled features, as though Michael was a child asking a question with an obvious answer, something she hadn’t even thought it would occur to anybody to ask.

"Despite what you or some of the people I’m with might assume, Michael, this castle isn’t of huge significance to me. I had a good place. It might not have had these walls, but it was secure enough. At least, it was safe from the Infected people. I took the castle—once your friend John had so kindly alerted me to its presence—because of what was inside the walls."

It was Michael’s turn to look confused. Annie smiled benevolently.

"I’m no businesswoman," she said, "but I do understand the principle of supply and demand. I’m sure a smart fellow like you does, too, though you may not have given much thought to it in light of the way things have changed recently. The less there is of something—oil, gold, whatever—the more valuable it becomes. You know what occurred to me as I watched my friends and neighbours tear each other apart Michael?"

Michael shook his head, though a faint outline of an answer to her question had already begun to emerge in his mind.

"People, Michael. All of a sudden, they’re in quite short supply, wouldn’t you say? I didn’t want the castle for its walls. I wanted it for the people hiding behind them."

Chapter 4

"Wh-where are you taking me?"

Ed knew he shouldn't have asked, but sheer panic ripped the question from his throat. His answer, of course, was an open-palmed blow on the side of his head that made his eyes water and his ears ring.

Bryn had tied Ed's hands together as soon as he had pulled him from the cell. He tied the knot expertly, tightly enough that it dug painfully into Ed's wrist and felt like it cut off the blood supply to his fingers. The man didn't even look down as he worked the rope; his eyes never left Ed's. Something about his stare felt worse than the rope biting into Ed's flesh.

Bryn shoved him forward, and Ed fell to the ground. He heard the man chuckling and knew what the sound meant. Ed had pulled the same stunt once before, and it had ultimately resulted in his freedom. Bryn apparently hadn't forgotten being made a fool of.

This time, when Ed stumbled to the ground, he wasn't hauled back to his feet to have his bonds cut away. Instead, a hefty kick to the ribs persuaded him that he should get up of his own accord.

Ed's teachers had never described him as a fast learner; no one had. Turned out that learning was just a matter of motivation.

He was learning quickly now. Information had a way of sticking in even his dope-addled mind when knowing something might just mean the difference between living and dying.

He pushed himself upright, coughing out the dust he had inhaled after Bryn's boot had driven the air from his lungs. When Bryn prodded him forward once more, Ed watched his step carefully.

Bryn guided him to the rear of the castle's main tower, and an unobtrusive door set deep into the wall that Ed hadn't even noticed before.

When the man heaved the door open, and Ed saw steep, narrow steps leading down into thick darkness, and smelled damp air that felt like it had been trapped underground for many years, a dim flicker of understanding began to fire in Ed's mind, but he found himself unable to focus on it. Unable to focus on anything apart from one all-consuming word.

Dungeon.

*

People.

It was as simple as that. In the end the old woman differed to Darren Oliver only in the scope of her ambitions. Where he had wanted to draw people to the castle and keep only the ones that suited his needs, Annie Holloway was prepared to go out and get people. The only difference was the degree of power they sought. Darren wanted enough to preserve a life of authority and comfort for himself. Annie wanted it all.

"Do you plan on staying here?" Michael asked.

"I see no reason not to. Presumably the reason you had a signal fire on the tower was to bring people to you, and it worked, didn’t it?"

Annie’s leathery face split in a wry grin.

Michael grunted his acknowledgment.

"So it will work just as well for me, I think. The more people I can gather, the better, if we are to have any chance of surviving the way the world is now. Someone has to be in charge, and though you might not like it, or any of the people in the cells for that matter, I think I would prefer that person to be me."

For a moment Michael considered telling the old woman what Ed had said about Wylfa Power Station, but the satisfaction he would have found in bursting her little bubble would have been short-lived. The castle would soon enough see fire rain down on it; would see the air itself become toxic. If Michael failed in getting out of the place, he would die content in the knowledge that Annie and all her people would follow him from one Hell to the next in short order.

"We’re in agreement about one thing at least," Michael said. "Survival is all that matters. I tried telling that to John, but he wasn’t exactly what you’d call a people person. He had no interest in gathering people together; in strength in numbers. I don’t much care who is in charge, as long as my daughter is safe. It’s not like I can protect her beyond these walls by myself."

He fixed Annie with an earnest stare.

"You’ll have my cooperation, and I’ll do my best to get everybody else to fall in line if and when you let them out. I ask only one thing in return."

Annie seemed highly amused by the idea of Michael making demands.

"Go on," she said.

"There's a woman in the cells I'd like you to free. It will benefit you as much as me."

"Oh?"

"Her name is Linda. She's a doctor. I'm guessing you don't have one because the big guy you've got out there killing the Infected looks like he's got a lot of untreated wounds, and I'd say it won't be long before his own infections get to be too much for him. We have plenty of medication here, but unless you have a doctor that knows how to use it…"

Michael shrugged.

"We did have a doctor," Annie said thoughtfully, "but I’m afraid his attitude left a little to be desired and he is…no longer with us. In retrospect, that was, perhaps, a rash move on my part."

It didn't take much for Michael to picture what Annie Holloway's version of an attitude adjustment might be.

"Well, you do still have a doctor in the cells," Michael said carefully. "As far as I'm aware she had no particular allegiance to John, but of course, what you do with her is up to you."

Annie stared at Michael for a long, heavy moment.

"I'll consider letting your friend the doctor out next, though how soon that might be will depend on you. I must say, you are being very reasonable, Michael. Considering."

Annie’s eyes glittered darkly.

"But of course I am far too long in the tooth to take a man at his word. Especially a man who seems able to switch allegiances without batting an eyelid. I said you'd be given a chance to prove your loyalty, and you will. Right now."

Michael's jaw dropped a little.

"I thought-"

"You thought that putting a nail through a dead man's foot and passing out some bread might do it?"

Annie laughed. It was a mirthless, unsettling sound that set Michael's teeth on edge.

"Afraid not. There's no loyalty without sacrifice, I think. And no sacrifice without pain."

Annie sucked in a deep breath and yelled with as much power as her old lungs would allow.

"Rhys?"

Michael heard the door behind him opening and footsteps stalked toward his wheelchair.

"Michael here is going to be our first volunteer. Isn't that nice? Soon he will be like a part of the family."

Annie beamed at Michael, and he felt his gut begin to squirm.

Chapter 5

Dad must be on the battlements again.

In Claire Evans’ brief time at the castle, whenever she hadn't been able to locate her father immediately, she had eventually found him up on the wall, usually staring blankly into space. Claire didn’t like the look on his face when she found him up there; it looked to her like he was staring at things that she could not see.

When she had awoken on the cold stone floor to find the room empty, she had spent a few minutes assuming that she was locked inside the tower once more. Just like a princess in a fairytale, aside from the blood and the death and the constant terror.

Yet when she finally worked up the courage to try the door she discovered that it swung open easily, and she peered out into the courtyard, hoping that nobody would spot her. What she saw outside surprised her.

There were dozens of people in the castle now—Claire had watched them with wide eyes as they arrived in groups of eight or nine at a time—but the place actually looked more empty than it had previously. Of course a lot of people had been locked in the cells; all the people that Claire knew, in fact, but she found it strange that all the new people seemed content to hide in their rooms in the towers.

Maybe they're locked in, too.

Claire frowned, and stared up at the battlements. She couldn't see the wheelchair anywhere - usually if Dad made his way up to the wall alone, heaving himself up one step at a time, he left the chair at the base of the steps so he could easily return to it.

Maybe he left it somewhere else.

Yet when Claire ascended the steep steps she found the battlements deserted. The wall encircled the entire castle, and it was possible to walk all the way around it, passing through arches carved into each of the eight towers. She began to walk the perimeter, hoping to spot her father somewhere below.

Glancing down, Claire thought she understood why there was nobody to be seen: no one wanted to look at the grisly horror in the centre of the castle’s wide courtyard. A splash of terrible colour against the castle’s dull grey interior; a dark, queasy red stain that made her feel like she might be sick.

Claire had an idea that things were happening that were beyond her understanding, much like the vague memories she had of her parents splitting up. Conversations just beyond her earshot; pointed looks loaded with meaning that she was not supposed to see. She was a natural at puzzles, but the weirdness between her parents didn’t seem like a puzzle to Claire: it did not appear to be something that could be put back together.

She had given up trying to figure that problem out, and she figured the best course of action was to give up trying to work out what was happening at the castle, too. The new people were terrifying; understanding why didn’t seem to matter.

All that mattered to Claire Evans was that she was hungry, and cold, and scared. And that she missed her mother. Every time she thought about her, Claire’s heart ached in a way it never had before in her brief life. Eight—very nearly nine, her birthday was just a couple of months away—years of childhood innocence and happiness had been obliterated the moment her mother came for her, the ripped flesh of one of their neighbour’s cheeks hanging from her bloody teeth, her pretty face mutilated and twisted into a mask of rage and dark hunger.

The fear Claire had felt then had abated a little, but in some way she struggled to grasp, the constant sense of panic that had typified her time spent alone on the blood-soaked streets of Aberystwyth had been better than drifting aimlessly around the castle.

At first the castle had been source of endless delight. It was like living in a history book: every surface, every object older than Claire could imagine. Every item seemed to have a story to tell. She loved the ancient weapons and faded art and ornate furniture, and imagined herself to be like a princess in a fairytale, waiting in the castle for Prince Charming to rescue her and whisk her away on a white stallion. Now the castle was a place of pain: a place that gave her a whole lot of time to think, and inevitably that meant thinking about her mother.

Claire didn’t have a word for the way the loss of her mother felt, but she had become used to the sensation of terror, and she didn't think it was that which she felt in the castle. She had experienced genuine terror in Aberystwyth, on more than one occasion. She doubted that she would forget the way it had felt if she lived to be a hundred years old.

This was more like dread.

Claire had never understood the difference before. She thought she did now.

Terror had shoved her in the back and screamed in her ear, but it passed quickly. Dread seemed to harden in the pit of her stomach until she felt sick all the time, and it didn’t appear to be going anywhere.

Claire wasn’t sure which she preferred. Hard to choose when either emotion was tied so closely to watching people die horribly right in front of her.

She turned left on the battlements and began to walk along the wall, keeping an eye out for her father below, but trying not to look too closely. Trying not to see what was in the middle.

In Aberystwyth Claire had kept a count of the people she saw killed, totting up the numbers like jellybeans. It made the inexplicable chaos that unfolded around her seem almost like a game played on her mother’s tablet, as if she could somehow distance herself from the reality of it by avoiding thinking about it head-on. She definitely didn’t want to think about it head-on.

She finally stopped counting at number one-hundred-and-seven.

John would have been one-hundred-and-eight.

She saw the knife being dragged across his throat every time she closed her eyes; saw the obscene chasm in his neck as he began to fall backwards and the jet of dark blood that spurted across the stone floor. Now it seemed like head-on was the only way she could think.

When Claire reached the sharp left turn that would take the sea out of her sight and replace it with the town, she couldn’t help but glance down to the centre of the courtyard, as though her eyes moved of their own accord.

The body of John Francis.

Naked.

Nailed, upright, to a huge cross made of wood. At this distance, in the grey morning light, the dark blood that dried on his chest made it look like he was wearing an apron. You could almost believe he is alive, Claire thought. Apart from his neck.

Nausea tumbled in her stomach. John’s neck had been cut so deeply that bone was visible. His head hung at an impossible angle, as though it might topple off his body at any moment.

Claire looked away and took a deep breath.

Dread, Claire decided, was definitely far worse than terror. With dread, you knew what was coming and just had to wait for it to happen. You couldn’t miss it: dread was nailed up like a sculpture for everyone to see. To constantly remind them. Dread lingered in the shadows of every thought, infecting them and corrupting them until everything became frightening.

"Hello, girl."

Claire jumped, and nearly let out a scream. She had been so engaged in her own thoughts that she hadn’t seen Bryn Holloway ascending to the battlements. She had a sudden, overwhelming feeling that he had been up there all along, walking along silently behind her like a ghost. Closing in.

Of all the new people she had seen in the castle, Bryn scared Claire the most. He was slight, and quiet, and he hadn’t killed anybody. But there was something in his eyes, a sort of hunger that got under her skin and made her small hands shake a little.

"My mother would like to see you," Bryn said, with a smirk that Claire didn’t understand.

When Bryn put his hand on the small of her back and began to guide her toward the stairs that led down to the courtyard, and let his fingers linger there, Claire felt the oddly tender caress and had a sudden intuition that the memory of the man’s smirking grin would linger as long as the image of the terrifying hole that had been torn in John’s neck.

Chapter 6

"I won't do it. I can't."

Rhys had carried Michael down the narrow steps into the gloomy dungeon. It was an oddly intimate and profoundly unsettling experience, yet when the steps reached an end it was clear the uncomfortable descent was just an aperitif. The main course trembled and whimpered in front of Michael, tied and gagged and terrified in the damp and the dark.

Ed Cartwright wasn’t just shaking with fear. He was practically vibrating.

Even in the barely-lit dungeon, an almost tangible darkness sat between Michael and Ed. A shared understanding that Ed was meat just waiting to be carved, and Michael was the one holding the knife.

The weapon felt heavy and terrible in Michael’s hand; warm and clammy where Annie Holloway had gripped the handle before passing it to him with an expression of unsettling eagerness on her face.

She stared at him expectantly, and her eyes danced with amusement, as if she had just recalled a hilarious joke long-forgotten.

"I thought you might say that," she said serenely. "Lucky for you I'm not like those quiz show hosts. I don't have to accept your first answer. In fact, down here, I don't think I'll be accepting anyone's first answer, if you know what I mean?"

Michael felt his stomach attempt a somersault, and it botched the landing. Bile rose at the back of his throat.

He stared at Ed's wide, pleading eyes.

I can't do this.

"Why?" he asked in a thick voice.

Annie’s face split in a devilish grin.

"There are two answers to that. If you mean why him, well, let's just say Mr Cartwright here and I have a little history. He hasn't been a very good boy, have you, Mr Cartwright?"

Ed whimpered through the gag. Muffled. It might have been a word; might have been please, but Michael suspected that begging would amount to nothing in the dungeon. Down there, away from any set of eyes that might judge her, Annie’s power and insanity seemed to ramp up to dizzying levels.

"If you mean why in a more general sense," Annie continued, "I think you already know the answer. I expect loyalty. Obedience. Not an easy thing to guarantee from people who have just been part of a...hostile takeover."

She grinned, as if the analogy were the funniest thing she'd ever imagined.

"I've wracked my brain trying to think up a way to get all of you on side, and I find myself having serious doubts that it’s even possible. But I would like to try, and believe me, it’s better for you and your friends if I try. The alternative would be much quicker and easier, but a little disappointing, too. This seems like the best solution to me."

Ed whimpered again.

"To me," Annie repeated. "I understand others will have their own view, but as I told you, it's me in charge here. Only me."

Michael shook his head, trying to clear it of the lunacy that threatened to enter by osmosis.

"Don't worry, Michael. You're the first, but everybody will have their chance to cut something off Mr Cartwright in due course. Your friend the doctor will be up next. Call it a rite of passage."

"And if I refuse?"

Annie's eyes glittered in the half-light emanating from a single flickering torch attached to the wall. In the dancing illumination she looked less like a person to Michael and more like a demon.

"Then you will take your place alongside our friend here, and everyone else will be required to cut something off each of you. If I end up with every single one of you down here refusing to follow my instructions..."

Annie shrugged, apparently deciding that statement didn't require completion.

"The children can go last," Annie said brightly, as if the notion had just occurred to her.

She is utterly insane, Michael thought.

He had noticed the old woman's hands trembling involuntarily, and the way she tried to disguise the movement, and had filed it away in a mental notebook, wondering when the information might become useful. Maybe never.

Annie was old, and could well be suffering from Parkinson's disease; maybe Alzheimer's or some sort of dementia. None of it mattered. None of it was useful. Just terrifying. Annie wasn’t going to give him time to strategise and figure anything out. Instead she was going to plunge him straight into the deep end and let him decide whether he would drown or not.

He thought back to Darren Oliver. The man had run the castle in a brutal manner, but Michael didn't ever get the impression he had been full-bore crazy. Oliver had followed a twisted sort of logic, and in some ways Michael was convinced the man believed he was doing the Right Thing.

Annie was crazy though; demented as a return ticket to Hell, and maybe it was nothing to do with age or disease. Quite possibly, Michael thought, she had been born wrong and raised worse. Certainly the genes she had passed on to her sons had...issues.

He saw no way out.

Saw Claire in the dungeon, a knife clutched in her small fingers, being ordered to slice away her father's flesh. It couldn't be allowed.

"I'm sorry, Ed," Michael said abruptly, and Ed thrashed wildly against his bonds.

"Take the gag off him, Rhys," Annie said smugly. "I think it would benefit everybody to hear Mr Cartwright screaming.”

Michael choked back the vomit that desperately wanted to evacuate his stomach and reached out, taking hold of one of Ed's fingers.

"Predictable," Annie said, with a little disappointment in her voice. "The fingers. I suppose they seem like the part that Mr Cartwright will miss the least, but don't worry, Michael, sooner or later someone will have to cut off something a little more…vital."

Annie made for the stairs, and paused.

"In fact, let's make it sooner," she said. "You can go for the fingers if you wish, but I expect to see at least five of them gone when I come back. I don’t like the thought that ten of you will take a finger each. That’s no fun at all."

She nodded at her son.

"Stay until he is done, Rhys," she said. "And then let Michael stay awhile down here. Give it all time to sink in."

She chuckled as she ascended the steps, leaving Michael alone with Rhys and Ed.

Rhys glowered at him.

For a moment crazy thoughts ran through Michael's mind, dark visions of driving the knife into Rhys' belly and cutting Ed free, but they were no more than fantasies. If he was going to get Claire and the others—Ed included—out of the castle, it wasn't going to be like that.

Darren Oliver's words came back to him.

I've had to do terrible things, because someone has to do terrible things, or we'll all end up dead.

Michael dropped his eyes to the knife.

And the fingers.

Gritting his teeth and trying his best to block out Ed’s nerve-shredding screams, Michael began to cut.

*

Annie listened to the muffled explosion of screams as she made her way back to the main tower’s front entrance with a savage smile and glazed eyes.

When she stepped into the throne room, she found Bryn waiting for her; his hand on the shoulder of Michael's young daughter. Gareth Hughes stood as far away from Bryn as was possible without the distance becoming an obvious snub; his face contorted by concern.

Annie ignored Gareth. His advice had been invaluable over the years, but increasingly she was beginning to believe that he didn’t have the stomach for the way things were now. Never would Annie have expected a situation to arise in which her slow-witted sons were more useful to her than a man of Gareth’s intellect, yet that time had now come. What Annie required now was not counsel but obedience, and her sons had a lifetime of practice as far as that was concerned.

She focused her gaze on Michael’s daughter.

The crippled man was clever, but Annie had been around long enough to spot a liar at a hundred paces. No one simply let a cripple have a gun because they didn’t think he would be a threat. If you wanted to feel safe, you kept the gun for yourself. Simple logic. Giving such a weapon to anybody—regardless of the status of their legs—made them a threat.

Annie felt the weight of the revolver she had taken from John in the pocket of her skirt. She couldn't imagine giving it to anybody voluntarily. Nobody would do such a thing.

That meant the man in the wheelchair was a little more important to the group than he was letting on. Annie supposed she should have felt irked that she hadn’t killed the man outright; that he had fooled her, for a while at least, into believing that he was harmless, but in a way she was glad. If the others looked up to the paralysed man then it followed naturally that breaking him completely would break their spirits too.

Annie felt pleased with the way things were working out. Efficiency was always to be applauded, yet she reminded herself sternly that Michael wasn’t broken yet.

Having Michael torture Cartwright was a step in the right direction, but the wheelchair-bound man was slippery; he seemed to adjust to each new demand easily. Too easily. What Annie needed was a threat that she could hang over Michael’s head. Something that would disrupt his helpful butter-wouldn’t-melt demeanour and reveal his true colours.

The next step was obvious. Nothing could sway a person more than the wellbeing of their child. Annie knew that only too well, despite the fact that her own children had been crushing disappointments.

Blood, after all, was blood.

*

Claire watched the old woman nervously as she stalked into the throne room. Somewhere in the distance she could hear a man screaming. It didn’t sound like Dad, but Claire couldn’t be sure, and she felt her bladder loosen a little in apprehension.

She clamped her lips together as the old woman approached, reminding herself sternly that she hadn’t wet herself when her eyeless mother had tried to eat her in Aberystwyth, and so there would be no way she would start now.

Annie stepped forward, crouching down to Claire's eye-level as much as her old knees would allow.

“I always wanted a girl," Annie said, beaming. "And a grandchild, though there never seemed to be much chance of that."

She spat the last word out venomously, and for a moment her eyes became a little unfocused, as if she was staring straight through Claire and into the wall behind her.

Bryn coughed uncomfortably.

“At least, not until now,” Annie continued. “Now I think my boys will have their pick of the women. God knows, when it was the women doing the choosing, there was little chance of them ever having children. Isn’t that right, Bryn?”

Bryn did not respond.

Annie turned her attention back to Claire.

“You wouldn’t know about all of that though, of course. Too young.”

Claire saw a sort of unhinged craziness in the old woman’s eyes, and decided that since it hadn’t been a question and she had no idea how to respond, it would be best to keep quiet. After a moment Annie blinked and seemed to return to the present, and the warm smile reappeared on her lips.

It didn’t reach her eyes.

"Did you know your grandparents?"

Claire frowned. Her father's parents had died before she was born, but her mother’s parents had lived not far from Aberystwyth. She hadn’t even thought about them. And now they were gone, and she would never see them again. Her eyes shimmered.

Annie’s face dropped.

"You did. Poor child. It’s a terrible world out there."

Annie grabbed Claire and pulled her into an awkward hug. Claire stiffened.

"I need to talk to you about your father," Annie whispered, stroking Claire’s hair.

Claire’s eyes widened, and finally she was scared enough to speak in a thin, trembling voice.

“Is that...him?”

For a moment Annie seemed puzzled.

“Oh, the screaming? Well, yes and no.”

A fat tear escaped from Claire’s right eye and rolled down her cheek.

“Don’t worry, child, he is perfectly fine, but I do need to ask you about him. You want to keep him safe, don’t you?”

Claire nodded slowly.

"Then I just need you to answer a couple of questions, and no lying to me, right? I'll know if you lie, and if you do I will be forced to hurt your dad."

Claire stared at Annie in horror, and nodded again.

"Your father was important around here, wasn’t he? That's why he had the gun."

Annie pulled back and gripped Claire’s narrow shoulders, drilling a piercing, unnerving gaze into her. After a moment, Claire nodded.

"Was he in the army, too? Like John?"

Claire shook her head and sniffed, pulling away from Annie. Once she was free of the old woman’s grasping, bony fingers, she wiped her eyes and stared at Annie defiantly, pursing her lips.

Annie laughed.

"Raised himself a tough cookie, did he? It doesn't matter what your father was before. I know exactly what he is now."

She stared at Claire, and her face hardened, all the maternal pretence slipping from it.

"I have a message I'd like you to pass on to your dad. Just a little something for him to think about, okay? Will you do that for me?"

Claire decided that passing on a message didn't sound so bad, and if it got her away from the old woman and her strange son, she'd gladly do it. She nodded.

"Good girl. Tell your father that if I feel like I'm not getting his full cooperation, that I’m thinking of letting Bryn here have his way with you. Do you know what that phrase means?"

Claire furrowed her brow and shook her head a little.

Annie clapped her hands together and grinned.

"Perfect," she said brightly, and nodded curtly at Bryn before returning her glittering eyes to Claire. "Your father will."

Moments later, Claire shuddered as she felt Bryn's hands on her back once more, touching her almost tenderly, and she allowed herself to be guided back out into the courtyard.

As soon as she felt the crisp air on her skin, Claire wriggled free of the man’s touch and ran without looking back, straight to the tower that had become her home, and wished she had been locked in after all.

*

“Do you think that was wise, Annabel?”

Annie’s eyes narrowed dangerously. She hated anyone using her full name, and hated the thought that she was being questioned even more.

Gareth Hughes had always been a trusted advisor to her, and on the surface the question was no different to many others that he had asked across two decades as he helped her navigate the quagmire of small town politics. Yet under the surface, Annie detected something different in the man’s tone; something that had appeared only since the world fell apart. Something that bubbled up and seeped out until she felt like she was standing ankle deep in it.

Reproach?

Challenge?

“Our friend Michael,” she said in a low tone. “Would make an excellent poker player, I think. A man who would cut off pieces of a person when told to is either completely broken or very dangerous indeed. I don’t get the impression that Michael is broken, do you?”

Annie watched Gareth’s face closely as he pondered the question, searching for some visible clue as to what was going on in the man’s head.

“I…suppose not,” Gareth said finally. “Not exactly. But threatening a man’s child with…you wouldn’t actually let that happen, would you?”

Annie felt her jaw clench involuntarily.

Gareth Hughes was getting ideas way above his station.

She shuffled forward, closing the gap between herself and Hughes with speed that slackened his face in surprise. Hughes stood several inches taller than Annie, and she lifted her chin and stared up at him.

“Nobody has chastised me since I put my father in the ground,” she whispered. “Are you chastising me, Gareth?”

The expression of blank confusion on Gareth’s face resolved itself into something approaching understanding, and Annie felt a smirk building inside as fear and comprehension appeared to reach him simultaneously. The tone of the conversation had been radically altered, and apparently Gareth hadn’t been aware it was happening until it punched him in the gut.

“If I decide a threat needs to be carried out, then I will carry it out, Gareth. Do you understand?”

Gareth nodded hurriedly.

“Of course, Annab-”

Annie’s eyes narrowed.

“Uh…Annie,” he stammered.

“Michael is broken though, Ma.”

Annie turned to face Bryn and stifled a sigh. The boy generally took in conversations like a time-lapse camera. As usual, he was taking a while to catch up.

“His back, I mean. Rhys stabbed him, and he's definitely a cripple. I mean, even if this scares the shit out of him, what’s he gonna do?”

Annie frowned at shit, and Bryn stammered to a halt.

“You can tell a lot about a person by how they respond when their child is threatened, Bryn,” she said finally. “It’s very hard to conceal emotions behind a poker face when the stakes are that high, no matter how good a liar you might be. Michael’s reaction will be probably the only genuine thing that man ever does.”

Annie slumped down onto the uncomfortable throne.

“And it will help me to decide whether or not he has to die.”

Chapter 7

Precautions had been taken, but there was no way for Fred Sullivan to be certain that they would mean anything. After all, the mutation that Fred's research team assured him could be valuable beyond measure was an aberration that hadn't even existed until a few short days earlier.

It was impossible to ensure safety or to guarantee results when nobody truly knew what the thing was capable of.

Fred wondered idly how many of humanity's scientific advances over the centuries had felt like this. Was there someone standing in the shadows behind every leap forward, wondering if their experiment was going to eviscerate them and devour their innards?

Fred leaned against the handrail that overlooked the expansive deck of the aircraft carrier that now represented the UK headquarters—or perhaps more accurately the last refuge—of Project Wildfire and its creators.

High on the superstructure that loomed above the deck, buffeted by the icy wind that blasted across the North Sea, he watched as the far-away helicopter's blades began to slice through the misty air. The sound of the engine barely reached him; what was a thunderous roar up close was a faint whine at this distance.

Fred watched keenly for several seconds, until he saw Phil Sanderson appear below him. Wildfire's head of research scurried toward the vehicle that would carry him on a short journey across churning gunmetal waves, pausing every few yards as if waiting for someone to catch up.

Fred gave Sanderson a fifty-fifty chance of ever coming back, and in truth Fred had expected the man to attempt to flee or to pass the task on to one of his subordinates. That was exactly why Fred was wasting time leaning on a rail and taking in the view.

If he hadn’t seen Sanderson making his way to the chopper, Fred would have gleefully hunted the man down and ventilated his skull with a .38 round from the antique revolver he always carried beneath his silver jacket.

He nodded in satisfaction when he saw Sanderson. The mutation was a scary prospect. Not, it turned out, as scary as the thought of disobeying a direct order.

Sending the scientist to take a sample of the mutation's blood, and witnessing the frozen look of terror on his irritating face as Sanderson processed the order had been enormously satisfying, but Fred had to concede it was a little impetuous.

He'd been called impetuous frequently in his juvenile years, and hated the label. Loathed it for its vague hint of truth and for the way it implied weakness. The notion that anybody considered themselves sufficiently superior to him to offer such a withering analysis of his character had always made his blood boil in his veins.

The last person to label Fred impetuous to his face, when he had been no more than seventeen years old, had received a right hook which offered up a creative new look for his nose. If you were going to condescend to someone, Fred's youthful self had decided, you'd better be able to back your superiority over them. Better be able to show it.

That man hadn't been able to. Nor anyone since. Power, Fred discovered, wasn't bestowed on anyone. If you wanted it, you took it. And if no one took it back, then you took more. Darwinism at its purest; simple and elegant and brutal.

Fred had built his entire life—and his enormous wealth—on that one basic foundation: take more.

And just when taking more had seemed impossible; when it appeared there was nothing left to take, Jake McIntosh had turned up.

And everything had changed.

Wildfire was finished. The project had failed, or at least had evolved into something that was beyond Fred's control. Yet within the collapse of a project that had been decades in the planning, an opportunity had arisen, and like any good businessman, he was determined to seize opportunity wherever he found it.

Fred stared thoughtfully across at the huge deck that sprawled out below him.

The helicopter was far enough away that by the time Phil Sanderson reached it, he was no more than a tiny stick figure to Fred. Sanderson had paused next to the helicopter, apparently waiting for two men wearing security uniforms to join him. Presumably they were Sanderson's own personal insurance policy, for all the good it would do him.

Fred felt a vague twinge of irritation. He had been clear that Sanderson was to proceed alone, but he could hardly blame the scientist for at least trying to manufacture the illusion of safety. It was almost enough to persuade Fred that somewhere within Phil Sanderson’s wobbling mass there resided some sort of backbone.

Let him have his bodyguards.

A security team of Fred’s own choosing waited for Sanderson in the fat belly of the chopper: five weathered, battle-hardened soldiers that were under clear instructions that they were to escort the scientist to and from the ship and no more. If the pudgy bastard managed to fuck the situation up he was going to end up dead one way or another. Fred just hoped it would be him that got to pull the trigger if it came to it.

In any case, there was nothing left to be done about Sanderson and the mutation but wait.

In the meantime there were other things to take into consideration beyond the advancement of science or how Phil Sanderson might look with a large entry wound in the centre of his expansive forehead. Equally important things, like a small army of people floating on ships off the coast of northern Scotland, and the fact that most of them were hired grunts who hadn't even been informed that the world they had known was going to be destroyed.

Some of them weren't taking the news so well, and all of them had guns.

Yet another consequence of the interference that had doomed Project Wildfire before it began: the fleet—and the mercenaries that populated it—was meant purely for cleanup and peacekeeping after the virus burned itself out. The ships were the white horse that Fred would ride in on to clear up the aftermath of the disaster. It certainly wasn't meant to be a place for Fred Sullivan to take up permanent residence.

The collapse of the world had made everyone who hadn't been included in the plan until it had been set in motion jittery, and jittery people whose fingers were curled around triggers were, to Fred's mind, not good company.

With every passing hour that the ships spent holding their position, they began to feel more and more like floating pressure cookers. With nothing to do, and nowhere to direct their rage at the devastation wrought on their species, it was only a matter of time before the troops on the ships began to search inwardly for a target, and Fred had a suspicion they wouldn't look far.

If Sanderson couldn't make a breakthrough quickly, Fred would be left with no option but to destroy the creature and flee to the rally point, quite possibly abandoning the bulk of the increasingly mutinous fleet in the process. It would be a catastrophic failure, and worse, it would be the only path he could take.

Fred detested being stuck with no choice. A lack of choice was a lack of power, and he had spent his entire life building influence and accruing wealth in the billions to ensure that the one thing he would never be was powerless.

A mutiny within the fleet was something that Fred could handle. He had prepared for every outcome. What he could not handle was the prospect of running to Australia and finding himself with no more influence than the average pensioner.

Everything now hinged on McIntosh; on a creature of immense unpredictability with a predilection for savage violence toward humans in general and Fred in particular.

It was the things you left to chance, Fred thought, that would undo you in the end.

Fate, in his experience, could be controlled and tamed, its impact minimised almost entirely, as long as you had enough money. Yet there was always that sliver of light, that crack in the door through which luck could force an entry. To fail to acknowledge it was folly, and failure to prepare was, as one of the slightly nauseating slogans peppered around the gleaming London HQ of Chrysalis Systems would have it, to prepare to fail.

Those sort of trite clichés generally made Fred's teeth grind noisily, but that one contained more than a modicum of truth.

Far below him on the deck, the chopper’s blades had reached full speed.

There was nothing else to be done about the McIntosh problem now. Luck and chance had been eliminated as far as was possible, and even Phil Sanderson couldn't possibly fuck things up, but Fred didn't hold out much hope of the man being able to unlock the secrets of the mutation's blood quickly.

Which meant that Fred was going to have to deal with the growing dissatisfaction of the people aboard the ships himself, in the only way that he and they would understand.

As the helicopter lifted from the deck, Fred turned away, and made his way back into the ship.

He had a meeting to attend.

Chapter 8

The chopper speared up through the mist that clung low to the North Sea, and the all-consuming roar of the engine made it difficult for Kyle Robinson to think clearly.

That seemed to be becoming a recurring theme.

Only minutes earlier he had been engaged in the same argument he'd been having with his brother over and over, ever since they had first sneaked aboard the ship. Well, almost. Right up until Project Wildfire actually went ahead, the argument had been about how to stop it, but it turned out that knowing about Wildfire was one thing, while throwing a spanner into the works of the vast machinery that Fred Sullivan had created was another entirely.

Tom had fantasized ever-more bizarre and unlikely ways to stop Sullivan, including blowing up the entire fleet with no working knowledge of explosives whatsoever, or infiltrating Fred’s personal security and assassinating the man like James Bond, until his desperation and impotence became obvious even to him.

It became abundantly clear that stopping the apocalypse was the stuff of fantasy when Sullivan's satellites spat the Wildfire virus down onto the surface of the Earth, and humans everywhere began to tear each other apart. At that point Kyle and Tom's recurring disagreement evolved to focus more on just what the hell they were supposed to do next.

Kyle shifted his gaze to Phil Sanderson, who sat in the chopper with an anxious expression on his face and a stack of papers clutched in his sweaty palms.

The balding scientist had interrupted the brothers’ latest heated discussion, and had seemingly removed the decision of what they should do next from their hands entirely. For weeks they had pretended to be soldiers, replete in dead men's uniforms, and that had been fine. Heart-stopping occasionally, but fine.

Thanks to Sanderson, now Kyle and Tom would have to do some actual soldiering.

This will not end well.

Kyle scanned the rest of the helicopter's interior furtively.

There were a grand total of eight men in the chopper. Alongside Kyle, Tom and Sanderson, sat five men who clearly did know something about being in the military, and who for the most part stared at Kyle with barely-disguised disdain.

I must look like a rookie to them, Kyle thought. If only they knew. I'm not even that.

Kyle might have no experience of being in the armed forces, but he did have recent experience of killing. Experience that had been forced upon him by his brother, and which had left a dark shadow in his mind.

Following the failed attempt to kidnap Fred Sullivan's daughter, the brothers had fled London, heading north as far as the land would take them. There, they found a town that wasn’t supposed to exist, hidden among the craggy cliffs and barren, sporadic islands that comprised Scotland’s harsh northern coastline.

That was when Kyle saw the fleet for the first time.

Seventeen huge ships pockmarked the choppy waters, and a dozen smaller vessels clung to them like parasites, shuttling troops across from the coast. Among container ships and civilian ferries, Kyle saw a half-dozen battleships of varying sizes and one honest-to-God aircraft carrier.

And people. A lot of people. Most of them military in appearance, all of them looking like they were preparing for something big to go down.

For a town that didn’t appear on any map, the place sure was fucking busy.

Kyle had half-expected that they would find nothing when they travelled north; had hoped as much, though discovering a lack of evidence would have been a shattering blow to his brother’s precarious mental stability. But the existence of the town further reinforced Tom's delusion, until Kyle was pretty sure that it wasn't actually a delusion at all.

The ‘town’ was really no more than a tent city that had sprung up around a handful of ancient stone buildings that looked like they had been abandoned many years before and only recently refurbished.

It appeared to serve only as a way-station for the huge numbers of troops that waited to be shuttled across to the fleet, and Kyle imagined that when everyone had finally made it over to their new posts, the town would cease to exist. Maybe it would look like it had never been there in the first place.

Kyle and Tom had spent a couple of days camped out on the hill that overlooked the town, watching from the cover of trees, searching for an opportunity to somehow blend in.

In the end, opportunity came to them: a couple of soldiers in the now-familiar black uniforms that bore no insignia stumbled drunkenly towards them in the dark, laughing raucously.

We have to kill them, Tom had hissed at Kyle and, before Kyle had even had a chance to respond, he found himself watching in mute horror as Tom hurtled down the hill toward the men, pulling a flick knife from his pocket.

With a stifled curse, Kyle had taken the only option he had left, and chased after his brother.

By the time Kyle reached the bottom of the slope, Tom had already buried his knife in one of the men, and was struggling with the second.

And losing.

Even with the element of surprise on his side, Tom was no fighter, and his knees began to crumple as the stunned soldier wrapped his hands around the neck of the man who had appeared out of nowhere with a sharp knife and a set of bad intentions.

Kyle had no choice. He withdrew his own knife and charged forward, planting it to the hilt in the neck of the man trying to choke his brother.

He saw a dark spray of blood arcing into the night air, and a look of stupid surprise on the face of the stricken man as Tom stumbled away.

Kyle felt a light slap on his wrist that confused him, until he realised it wasn’t a slap at all; it was a splash, warm and sticky and terrifying.

An obscene torrent of blood pumped from the ragged tear in the soldier's neck, dousing Kyle's forearm up to the elbow.

Kyle’s eyes widened in horror, and for a moment he felt oddly connected with the face that loomed in front of him, linked together invisibly by a shared sense of shock.

The dying man opened his mouth, though strangely it didn’t look like he was about to scream in pain or horror or fury. He looked more like he was going to ask a question. Just some dopey question.

Kyle saw his brother reappear with his own knife, watched him plunging it into the man's back. The dying soldier fell away and the dopey question became nothing more than a sad gurgle.

"Quickly," Tom hissed, breaking the paralysing spell that had fallen over Kyle. "Their uniforms. You get that one."

Kyle blinked at his brother. Tom’s face was covered in blood. It made him look like a monster from a horror movie; like a cleverly constructed special effect.

"Kyle," Tom said sharply as he hauled up one of the leaking bodies at his feet. "It’s done. It had to be done. They are just a means to an end, that's all. We have to move."

A means to an end.

Kyle rubbed at the blood that covered his forearm, watching as it dripped to the ground, and couldn’t help but wonder if Fred Sullivan told himself the same thing to help him sleep at night.

Maybe not, he thought. Maybe when you plan to kill in the millions, death just becomes a statistic, like points on a scoreboard. Maybe it feels different when your arm is soaked in warm blood and you can see the light in the dying man’s eyes as it flicks off forever.

After they dumped the bodies in the woods a few miles south of the coast, the two brothers washed the uniforms clean of the blood as best they could in a stream, and put them on. They were ill-fitting, and to Kyle they looked ridiculous, but he had little doubt they would serve their purpose. There were hundreds, maybe thousands of identically-clad men and women in the tent city. The black uniforms would render Kyle and Tom all-but invisible in the crowd.

Wearing the uniforms and doing their best to wear a military attitude to match; and with credit-card style identity cards issued by Chrysalis Systems in their pockets, Kyle and Tom had made their way to the tent city, and ultimately to the fleet, and Kyle had spent his time ever since trying to remind himself that he and Tom were supposed to be the good guys.

Serial killers.

Good guys.

The world had become a fucked-up place weeks before Project Wildfire destroyed it.

And now, as Kyle sat in the chopper, surrounded by men for whom the military attitude he had tried to fabricate came naturally; drafted into a mission he did not understand, he thought once more about Tom's words on the hill, and wondered if they would ever stop feeling so relevant.

We have to kill them.

The chopper lurched as turbulence buffeted it. Or maybe that was just Kyle’s stomach, doing its best to warn him that things were careering out of control now, just as they had been when Tom charged down the hill in the dark with a knife in his hand.

Kyle couldn't help but wonder if he was charging down a hill after his brother once more, and death was waiting at the bottom.

Chapter 9

Fred Sullivan drummed his fingers on the polished table and idly daydreamed about the days when ship’s Captains were able to make the irritants they had aboard their vessels walk the plank.

He wasn’t the ship’s Captain, of course, but the man who was in charge of the boat understood the concept of hierarchy well enough, and had the good sense to appear terrified whenever Fred’s piercing eyes drilled into him.

Sitting in the makeshift boardroom, in what would be his last ever senior management meeting, Fred cast a glance around the seven familiar faces seated around the huge table and felt a twinge of regret that his revolver held just six bullets. Meetings had always been an infuriating time-sink, and he had often dwelled on fantasies of ending them in bloodshed.

You may never get another chance...

Fred shook the thought away. The people that sat around him had all been pivotal in the smooth running of Project Wildfire, and none of them was technically to blame for the way it ended.

Technically.

They had been the engine that had helped him to drive Chrysalis Systems toward its ultimate goal. Each of them had performed admirably in the past—which was why they were still breathing—but none of them seemed to be taking the spectacular failure of the project personally, and Fred wasn't sure they even realised how lucky they were to be alive and sitting on the boat.

‘Boat’ was, of course, a singularly underwhelming way to describe the ship that Fred had made his floating HQ after abandoning the underground base in Northumberland. The newly-renamed Conqueror had been one of the jewels of the French navy before Fred’s bank balance persuaded the government of the time that they needed to decommission it and begin work on a newer model.

The carrier was a shade under one thousand feet long. In its previous life it had been home to sixty fighter jets and fifteen attack helicopters, and had been the first vessel built outside the USA to allow for catapult-assisted take-off. Now ‘decommissioned’, it was able to comfortably act as a base of operations for the twenty-five Harrier jets and seven attack helicopters Fred’s company had procured. With around four thousand troops on board, the nuclear-powered ship was technically under-populated, yet Fred felt claustrophobic on his floating HQ. Trapped.

The Conqueror’s static weapons fell a little short in Fred’s opinion, but carriers had never been designed as fast-attack vessels. Instead, they sat back while destroyers got up close and personal, and utilised their long-range aircraft to rain death from the skies.

Still, even without satisfactory on-board artillery, the Conqueror was a floating fortress, and quite possibly the most powerful man-made object still active on planet Earth.

Only the American fleet boasted vessels that exceeded the power of the Conqueror, and, of course, contact with America had been plunged back into the pre-Columbus era. The sheer distance between Fred and whatever was left of the United States meant their power was worth little more to him than a whispered promise.

Sometimes Fred indulged himself in imagining how Wildfire might have gone down in America; a country with a vast and well-armed population. Messily, he suspected.

In all likelihood, he would never know. The New World might be nothing more than a continent of decaying corpses by now; a gargantuan graveyard spanning more than three thousand miles. Wildfire hadn't trimmed humanity as originally intended. Instead, Victor Chamberlain's global-level interference with the delivery system had rebranded the project as an extinction-level event.

That didn't bother Fred in the slightest. Most of the human race had been no more than worthless vermin, scrabbling around ineffectually in the cages of their unremarkable lives. For most, Fred would not even accept that what he had done to them was a crime. No, it was a mercy. Given another fifty years of the feverish expansion of the human race and the fucking cretins would have gladly eaten each other without any prompting from Fred.

No, what mattered to Fred now was what was left in the ashes of Project Wildfire. A vacuum. Power just waiting to be claimed. If Phil Sanderson was correct, Jake McIntosh offered him the opportunity to control humanity at a species-level. Even if the Americans did make it to the rally point before him, he felt certain they wouldn’t have leverage over him. Fuck their big ships. The mutation's blood was all that mattered now, and Fred was the one that had it.

“Fred?”

Fred blinked. For a moment there, lost in dreams of death and power, he had completely forgotten that he was in the middle of a meeting.

He glared at the woman that had interrupted his thoughts. Sandra Adkins, a prissy bitch with a nasal voice and almost comically ratty features. Adkins had been Director of Human Resources at Chrysalis, and her job title now seemed a little ironic to Fred. He fixed her with a stare that he hoped conveyed contemptuous disinterest.

"Uh, Fred, I was just asking what sort of measures are in place to protect the safety of the staff once you wake the monster up?"

Fred twisted his wrinkled face into a snarl. No missing the contempt. Not now.

The staff? For a fraction of a second, Fred wondered if Adkins was joking, but the businesslike expression on her face said otherwise.

"I have taken the measure of purchasing seventeen ships and putting my staff aboard them, Ms Adkins. I’d say the only thing threatening any of my staff is a proclivity for asking stupid fucking questions."

Adkins stared at him in shock for a moment but gathered herself quickly.

“It seems that the only questions left to ask are the fucking stupid ones, Fred,” she said curtly.

Fred chuckled. So few ever dared to spar with him.

“You don’t give any more of a shit about the staff than I do, Adkins. You want to know why your own bony arse is in danger, and just how much, isn’t that right? Come on, now, the time for boardroom bullshit is over, wouldn’t you say?”

Adkins flushed.

Fred stood. Age had done nothing to curve his spine, and when he drew himself up to his full height, he towered over the rest of them.

“You all want answers. Fine. Here are some truths for you.”

He turned to his left, fixing his gaze on Charles Ennis. A company man for twenty-five years, and a bona fide genius when it came to adding zeroes onto spreadsheets.

“Ennis, I haven’t liked your face for twenty-five years, and now I find that your skills are of little use to me.”

Charles Ennis’ mouth formed a perfect ‘o’ that matched his round features as Fred smoothly withdrew the revolver from its holster under his jacket and painted the wall with the man’s brains.

Fred let out a satisfied sigh as the roar of the gun echoed around the enclosed space. Damn, he thought, I do love firing that weapon.

“Let’s be clear about something," Fred said finally, breaking the silence that had settled over the room like radioactive dust. "Chrysalis Systems no longer exists. Your jobs no longer exist. This is to be the last of these meetings that I will suffer through. If you all wish to continue prattling away without my input, feel free, but I don’t want you to toil away under any illusions. None of you matter, not in the slightest. Your continued presence on this boat is a mild irritant, but I am willing to endure that much because the work you once did for me was useful."

Fred paused for a response. As he expected, there was none. Nothing underlined authority in a meeting quite like killing the attendees. He wished he had done it many, many years earlier.

"This is no longer a corporation. It certainly is no longer anything resembling a democracy. You’d be wise to proceed under the impression that this is in fact a dictatorship, and not a benign one. So here is what will happen: we will hold this position until the scientists give me something I can work with. If that does not transpire I will have all the various parts of this fleet that I consider to be redundant destroyed. Then I will give the order to move to Australia. Not before.”

Fred saw Sandra Adkins’ face contorting, as if she was trying desperately to hold something in. Eventually she failed.

“And what if we don’t have that long to wait?” she said cautiously, eyeing the smouldering corpse that sat to her right. “People are getting…anxious Fred. Most of the troops don’t even know what happened. They’re becoming…difficult to control. Unpredictable.”

“I am fully aware of the mutinous atmosphere on this ship,” Fred barked. “And it shall be taken care of. That is the end of the matter.”

Fred slipped the revolver back into its holster. It felt warm against his ribs.

"I hope I’ve made myself clear."

Fred turned and strode out of the thunderous silence of the boardroom, and couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed. At one time he had believed his senior management team to be brilliant people; the best and the brightest. Yet it appeared they were only just now concluding that an army of hired thugs who were slowly waking up to the fact that their payment was meaningless might prove to be trouble.

So slow, he thought. So reactionary.

The plan was never meant to involve them ending up on ships staffed with mercenaries, travelling to the other side of the planet. If the people that had once been his staff could not adapt to their new reality, they truly had outlived their usefulness.

Fred grimaced, leaving the boardroom behind him and stalked through the narrow steel corridors, making his way to the quarters of one of the very few people on board the ship that did matter.

Chapter 10

Rachel Roberts sat with her back against the cold stone wall, her eyes fixed straight ahead; seeing nothing.

She had been locked in a cell with three other people, including two that she knew at least moderately well—Linda and Emma—but their attempts to engage her had been like seeds dropped on concrete.

Lost in her thoughts, locked in memories both recent and long-passed, Rachel’s mind bubbled and spat like an active volcano. Her rage sought an outlet, trying to break free of her and inhabit the world like a living entity. Only by erecting isolating walls in her thoughts to keep her away from the people around her could she guarantee their safety.

The impulse to do harm—to lash out at the nearest person in the most violent way possible—was almost overpowering.

Finding the brother she had been certain was dead had been her one shot at clinging to some sort of hope; some faint semblance of an idea that the world had not sunk into a bottomless abyss of pain and horror.

The darkening of her soul that she had felt ever since the disastrous escape from Aberystwyth had not been lessened by finding Jason alive: instead it had hardened like cooling steel, until it felt like a part of her that she would never be able to remove.

Jason was alive, but Jason was also dead. Lost to her, corrupted by the old woman’s torture; broken in mind and spirit until he hadn’t even recognised his own sister.

It was Jason that had killed John, though he hadn’t been the one to slice his throat open. Yet it was Rachel who felt responsible. For forcing John to go to Anglesey on a hopeless rescue mission and bringing the psychotic old bitch and her people to the castle. For leaving Jason alone in Aberystwyth in the first place.

For giving up on her little brother when he had needed her most.

Rachel’s cellmates gave her as wide a berth as was possible in the tiny cell, and soon gave up trying to talk to her.

Rachel’s gaze was pointed at the stone wall, but what she saw was the emptiness in Jason’s eyes when she had run toward him in Anglesey. Not the same sad emptiness that had been there after he had been forced to kill their mother, but something darker. Something almost inhuman.

She closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath. The cell stank of damp and sweat and cloying fear. Worse, it smelled to Rachel of inevitability. She would never be freed, not unless the old woman decided to kill her. Rachel thought she’d be dead already if Annie Holloway was convinced that the grip she had over Jason was unbreakable.

It was just a matter of time before Annie was certain of Jason’s loyalty, or of the totality of her destruction of him. Rachel was on death row. Maybe they all were.

You can do this, Rach.

John’s final words haunted her.

Do what? There's nothing I can do.

Only when someone came to take Ed from the cell did Rachel's attention flicker back to the present. From the corner of her eye she watched the man as he bundled Ed out of the door. He was slight, balding.

And he carried the shotgun she had taken from Darren Oliver's men. The one she had used to save John's life.

She knew all too well that the gun had just one round in it. She had searched the castle for more shells and found none. If Darren had more ammunition he had hidden it well.

One shot.

She wondered if the man had checked the ammunition himself, and just how good a shot he might be. Not that it particularly mattered with a shotgun; not unless you were trying to use it at range. She had seen what the weapon did at close quarters. It ripped flesh apart like an explosive charge.

She lapsed back into dark thoughts for a time, and her mood only darkened further when she heard distant, muffled screaming. A man's voice. She couldn't tell whether it belonged to Ed or Michael.

Michael's desecration of John's corpse had shaken Rachel to her core, and she spent a good deal of time wondering if the police officer might just have joined up with the people now running the castle.

She wouldn't believe it.

Couldn't.

As vulnerable as the wheelchair left Michael, and as important as keeping his daughter safe was to him, Rachel didn't think the man who had helped her in St. Davids, and who owed her at least as much as she owed him, could be a turncoat. Not even if the crazy old woman offered safety for himself and for Claire.

Yet if Michael had a plan, Rachel could not see it; could not imagine how a paralysed man with no weapons could do anything against the forces that now held them all prisoner.

Despair began to creep into her thoughts; bleak and unending. Jason was lost to her. John: dead. Michael in no position to do anything.

And herself.

Blindsided by finding Jason alive, she had lost all her caution, had thrown it to the wind like confetti, and had ended up once more in the clutches of a psychopath. She wondered how long it would be before the men that followed the old woman decided they liked the look of the young women that were locked in the cells; questioned whether the old woman would stop them when it came to it. If she even could.

No one will touch me again, not like Victor did. If it comes to that, I'll make them kill me.

Lost in the dark country that her thoughts had become, Rachel barely noticed when the cell door opened and Michael was ushered in, carrying another load of stale bread and water. She didn't see the haunted look on his face, or the blood on his shirt.

But she heard him.

Heard the words whispered furtively, just quiet enough that the man who stood outside the cell watching Michael would miss them.

Listen to Claire.

Just three words, and Rachel could not piece together their meaning, but she read the intent in them. Michael was going to try something.

And she would be ready.

*

"Listen to Claire," Michael hissed.

It was all he could manage. Rhys Holloway had become a shadow that clung to Michael, a shadow that stank of sweat and intimidation.

Michael kept his voice low; hoped it wouldn't carry beyond the cell. He clattered the fresh slop bucket down onto the stone floor, masking the noise of his words as much as possible.

When he lifted his eyes, he saw that the message had been heard as he intended.

Linda stared at him quizzically, and when she gave a faint hint of a nod, he sighed in relief.

Nobody was going to let Michael talk to the prisoners; that much was obvious, but the old woman and her sons were so focused on observing him that they seemed to have forgotten all about Claire.

After all, what danger could a helpless little girl possibly pose to them?

Asking Claire to pass on a message for him was dangerous enough that Michael almost abandoned the idea, but he could see no other way. A vague notion of how he might be able to get everybody out of the castle was forming in his mind. It was a plan so insane that Michael was sure John would have approved, but it would all fall apart without Linda, and to get her to agree to her part in it would mean using Claire.

Michael wheeled himself away from the cell as Rhys locked the door behind him, and waited until he was told he could leave.

With a nod, Michael turned the chair away from Rhys and made his way back toward the tower that had become his home and his prison, and which he thought might yet become his tomb.

Chapter 11

The throne was hard and uncomfortable. Doubtless, Annie thought, pampered arses had once demanded that plush cushions be placed upon it, but the discomfort didn't bother her unduly. Her entire life had been hard and uncomfortable. That was simply the cost of prevailing.

She wouldn't dream of bleating about an uncomfortable chair, especially not a chair that conferred the status that the throne did. Appearances needed to be maintained, and an aching posterior was a small price to pay.

She stared at her son, who stood awkwardly in front of her, practically squirming as he had when he had been just a little boy trying to find the right words to confess that he had wet the bed.

"What is it, Rhys?"

"I don't understand why you don't just kill him, Ma."

Annie rolled her eyes and sighed softly. If she counted up the number of things her eldest son didn't understand, she couldn't help but wonder if she would run out of numbers or patience first.

He did have a point on this occasion, though, and Annie had thought about killing the man in the wheelchair; had given it serious consideration the moment she saw the cogs whirring behind his lying eyes.

"We need people, Rhys. Strength in numbers. It's the only way we'll survive this madness. If we just kill everyone we meet, we won't last long. Not even in this castle."

Rhys nodded sombrely, but Annie could tell he had failed to grasp the concept.

"We've already killed the man who was in charge here," Annie said. "And that leaves us with an uphill battle with these folks. Kill Michael, and we might as well kill them all. He was important to them, and if they will listen to him then maybe they will come around to our way of thinking.”

"Will he?"

Annie stared at her boy thoughtfully. It was a rare and insightful question.

The truth was that she had no idea if Michael could be persuaded to follow her—whether willingly or grudgingly—but the mere fact that he’d had possession of the gun meant the others had placed stock in him. His words must have carried sway within the group. If he led, they would surely follow.

She could break him, there was no doubt in her mind about that. A crippled man in a wheelchair, alone and vulnerable, with a young daughter to be used as leverage against him if necessary. Annie knew she could subdue the man, just as she had subdued the giant who called himself Voorhees. But a broken Michael wouldn't be a great deal of use to her.

Not unless she was prepared to break them all, and Annie already had more than her share of damaged people to look after.

"We've got another, problem, Ma," Rhys said hesitantly.

Annie stared at him, her eyes narrowing.

"It's Voorhees. I think he's sick."

Annie grimaced. She had seen the dark wounds festering on the big man's skin; had smelled the sweet fragrance of his slowly rotting flesh.

She doubted that Voorhees felt anything himself: whatever awareness was left in his fractured mind might be able to feel pain, but she continued to dose him with numerous painkillers to keep him pliant. Eventually she hoped she wouldn't need them, and that obedience would come as naturally to Voorhees as breathing, but that depended on him surviving.

The painkillers would do nothing to stem the infection that crept through his body. He needed proper treatment. A doctor.

How convenient, Annie thought, that Michael has just dropped one of those into my lap.

The man in the wheelchair was chasing a scheme that she could not see or understand; at least not yet. What she was certain of was that if Michael wanted the doctor—Linda?—freed, it was to satisfy some part of his own agenda.

Michael was trying to manipulate her, and that had never ended well for anybody other than Annie herself.

"We'll let this doctor Michael mentioned out soon," Annie said. "And I want your eyes on her the entire time she is out of that cell. When she's done tending to Voorhees, we'll put her right back. If she and Michael so much as look at each other, they'll both be joining our friend Mr Cartwright in the dungeon."

Rhys nodded and smiled happily.

Chapter 12

"We're going to have to get out of here, Kiddo."

Claire frowned, and with good reason. Michael couldn't remember ever calling her Kiddo in his life.

He stifled a sigh. Trying to make the conversation he was about to have with his daughter seem normal suddenly looked like a ridiculous proposition. It probably had been all along.

For a moment he was jarred by how much he had missed of her growing, and how quickly she had changed. It had only been a couple of years since Elise left, taking their daughter with her. Just a couple of years.

A quarter of her life.

When did she become so sharp?

"Sorry," Michael said with an embarrassed grin. "I guess that was me still thinking you are six years old."

Claire's frown deepened and she folded her arms across her chest.

"What's going on?"

Michael wheeled himself to the door, and listened intently. There was no reason to think Rhys or anybody else was standing out there in the silence, straining to catch his words. Still, he had been caught out once before, and had ended up shooting two people dead. One of them just a kindly old lady who had died with a look of sad confusion plastered across her face that he did not think he would ever be able to forget.

It didn't do any harm to make sure.

Outside the tower, he heard only silence.

After a few seconds he wheeled himself back to Claire. He kept his voice low.

"These people are very dangerous. I have to get us—all of us—out of here as quickly as possible. You understand?"

Claire nodded sombrely.

"I can't do it without your help," Michael said.

For a moment the frown clung to Claire's brow, and then she straightened suddenly, as if standing to attention.

"You can count on me."

Michael smiled. One thing he had known about Claire when she was six hadn't changed at all in the intervening years. In fact it had only become more apparent. She liked a challenge.

She'll do great things when she grows up, he thought.

If.

Michael's expression darkened. He had studiously tried to avoid thinking long-term; to push aside dark fantasies of what life might be like if they survived a year. Five. Twenty.

Yet the future stood right in front of him with an eager, determined expression on its face. Avoiding it was like trying to stay dry by walking between raindrops.

Claire wouldn't live to see another birthday in the castle. That much was certain to him. His resolve stiffened. Despite what Holloway might think, Claire wasn't a helpless little girl. She had survived the destruction of Aberystwyth alone for days, and seemed to take each new horror in her stride.

She will be okay.

"I'm going to distract them," Michael said. "And while I'm doing that, I need you to go and talk to Linda, okay? I need you to tell her exactly what I tell you to. Exactly. Word-for-word. Without getting seen. Will you be able to do that?"

Claire pondered the question for a moment, and nodded firmly.

"I'll have my way with Linda," Claire said.

Michael arched an eyebrow in surprise at the odd phrase. Like something Claire had heard somebody say and repeated it without fully understanding.

"What do you mean?"

Claire flushed, as if suddenly aware that she had said something wrong.

"Where did you hear that saying?" Michael asked, but the dark clouds gathering in his mind told him he already knew.

"The old lady's son," Claire said. "The little one. She said she would let him have his way with me."

Claire bit her lip and her eyes widened, and Michael realised that the expression on his face must have twisted to match the fury coiling around his gut. He took a deep breath and calmed himself.

"She told you to say that to me," he said softly. It wasn't a question, but a realisation.

Claire nodded.

For a brief moment Michael flirted with the idea of telling Claire to forget he'd said anything; of following the deranged old woman meekly. Anything to keep his daughter safe.

Then he thought of Rachel, alone at the mercy of a psychopath and still finding time to tend to Michael's damaged body while he lay unconscious. He was alive because of Rachel. Victor would have killed him without a second thought, and it was her intervention that had allowed him to survive. Without Rachel, Claire too would surely be dead already.

And what of John? He had saved them all more than once, and now John was dead and Michael had helped to crucify his corpse.

I owe these people.

He remembered once before mulling over whether to take the easy choice: when he was sitting on a pathetic scooter outside of St. Davids just as the town's population began to explode into violence. He had taken the hard option then. He could have run, and for a while he thought he should have run, but he hadn't. Instead he had done what was right.

Maybe that, more than anything, was what had kept him alive until now. If he turned his back on Rachel and the others after all they had done for him, he really would be no different to Darren, or even to Annie. He would no longer be able to tell himself that he had gunned down a scared old woman because he had to, but would know he had done it because it was the easy option.

He had to use Claire. Because it was the difficult choice, and because it was the only choice that might ultimately keep her safe.

Have his way with my daughter.

A fire began to burn in Michael's mind, and it consumed the self-doubt that had plagued him for what felt like an eternity. It spread from his thoughts, enveloping him, raging through his torso.

Into his legs.

Michael's face contorted in fury and pain, twisting with the effort as his mind screamed silently at his obstinate legs.

Pain is just a message. Just an email sent to the brain.

Michael received the message; got it loud and clear.

He sent one back.

You have to move.

And with gritted teeth and muscles that burned like they had been dipped in acid; like they were being used for the very first time, Michael pushed himself up from the chair, and stood before his shocked daughter, swaying slightly on legs that felt like they didn’t quite belong to him; euphoria coursing through his veins like a powerful drug.

Claire’s mouth dropped open and she stared at her father in astonishment.

For a moment Michael thought he would fall, and he put a hand against the wall to steady himself. The pain was enormous, but he embraced it like a long-lost friend.

When the agony finally abated a little and his vision began to clear, Michael looked down at his daughter’s beautiful face; at the eyes that had already lost too much of their innocence.

"We're leaving," he said.

Chapter 13

"It's fine, Mr Sullivan, uh, Sir. Nathan can be trusted."

Nathan Colston gritted his teeth and bit down on his desire to voice his disagreement.

No, Sir, I can't be trusted. Best all round if I fuck off somewhere else while you two have this conversation.

Nathan had served as part of Fred Sullivan’s security forces in the Northumberland base, and had held a position of slight authority and relative anonymity that had suited him perfectly. Near-invisibility was, Nathan believed, crucial to his chances of surviving any longer than the average British summer.

He had headed up a small team that reported ultimately to Simon Ripley, the head of security at the base. Ripley had been one-part dedicated soldier and at least four-parts raving lunatic, and Nathan had avoided him as much as it was possible to avoid a man who was technically your boss and who you were actually trapped in a hole with.

Insanity, Nathan figured, probably came with the job title. Head of Security, as it turned out, was just a polite euphemism for enforcer.

Or executioner.

Nathan didn’t envy Ripley his position at all, and had no ambitions toward getting himself promoted, and so it was unfortunate that Jake McIntosh’s massacre at the base had propelled Nathan so far up the ladder.

As the second highest-ranking officer left alive when McIntosh exited the underground base, leaving a trail of bodies in his wake, Nathan's resulting close proximity to the position of Head of Security had been inevitable. It wasn't something Nathan had earned—just a matter of his surviving; impossible to avoid, like defective genes or the onset of old age.

Pure, dumb, bad luck.

One more stroke of which could strike at any moment, and Nathan was painfully aware that he was only two promotions away from taking up a permanent position at the Pearly Gates.

Or the other place. After you became Head of Security for Chrysalis Systems, it seemed like the only way left to go was down.

The man who currently held the position that stood between Nathan and an all-too-early death was Richard Skinner. He had probably been a dependable soldier before he became a mercenary, Nathan thought, but he was a piss-poor hired gun.

Skinner still believed in the chain of command and studious deference in the presence of what he called 'my superiors', and he seemed to have a genuine problem when it came to forming his own opinion on anything.

There was a reason all the other men shortened his name to Dick, and it had nothing to do with affection.

And now Dick had shoved Nathan in front of the old bastard that had fucked the whole world up, and told him that this was a man Fred Sullivan could trust. It didn't feel so much like getting thrown under the bus as being tied to the ground in front of its wheels and made to wait.

Nice one.

Dick.

Nathan withered under the old man's gaze, and did his best to make himself look forgettable.

After a moment, Fred shrugged.

"If you say so, Skinner," he growled. "I'll have to take your word for it. That is why I'm here, after all."

Old fucker loves being cryptic, Nathan thought, but he saw through the veneer of bullshit. Fred Sullivan was consulting with Dick Skinner—a blustering cretin that the old man wouldn't have trusted to shine his boots a few short weeks earlier—because he was desperate, plain and simple. Because the mercenaries that Sullivan had bought and paid for were starting to wonder just why the hell they should give a damn about money when all the shops were full of demented eyeless cannibals.

Dick Skinner had been the head of security for all of five bewildering minutes when Fred Sullivan abandoned the base and fled to the fleet. Compared to Ripley’s command, the ship should have been a breeze.

Judging by Skinner's hopeless attempts to corral the men on the ship, it was proving to be anything but.

Tension was rising inexorably aboard the Conqueror, and the limited radio contact with the other ships in the fleet revealed a similar, and in some cases, even more precarious situation. Most of the troops Sullivan had hired to staff the vessels had known only as much as they needed to, which of course was the square root of fuck all. The majority had no idea what Chrysalis Systems had been planning, and that they were only ever meant to be a contingency plan.

A glorified clean-up crew.

Whatever Nathan or anybody else thought about Fred Sullivan, there was no denying that the old bastard was cunning, and seventy-plus years of money and power had only served to hone that intelligence until it was razor-sharp. The old man knew which way the wind was blowing, which was exactly why he had tasked Dick Skinner with tallying up how many men could be counted on for their loyalty if matters on the fleet should come to a head.

Sullivan loved his euphemisms.

Coming to a head, in this instance, was a vague way of accepting that violent bloodshed was brewing on the Conqueror—and almost certainly on every other ship in the fleet—and that Fred Sullivan wasn't prepared to let anyone else get the jump on him when it came to killing.

Skinner, after a typical period of dithering, had sought out Nathan's help. Together they had drawn up a list of around five hundred names that Sullivan would be able to count on when civil war broke out on the North Sea.

Just five hundred, most of whom had been present at the Northumberland base.

The Conqueror alone held close to four thousand troops. If it came down to a straight fight, those loyal to Sullivan's cause would be heavily outnumbered and outgunned.

The ship that had felt secure, detached from the violent chaos spreading across the UK, suddenly felt very dangerous indeed, and every bit as claustrophobic as the underground base had been.

Nathan's combat experience was limited, but not so much that he didn't recognise a deadly situation when it knocked at his door and waved a weapon in his face.

Like most of the people serving as a private army for Chrysalis, Nathan had been former military, before the world collapsed and everything became ‘former’ in one way or another. He had served a couple of tours in the Middle East, mostly as a peacekeeper in already-secured provinces rather than being involved in any actual front-line combat.

Some of the men and women headhunted by Sullivan were disgraced, discharged from the military under a cloud. By contrast Nathan hadn’t ever put a foot wrong during his time in the desert and his tour ended only when doctors discovered a congenital heart defect during a routine medical checkup.

He felt—still felt—as strong as an ox, but according to various charts and diagrams that Nathan couldn’t decipher, his heart was liable to stop pumping at any given minute. It was, for the army, too much of a risk to take.

He received a medical discharge and a full pension, but at the age of thirty-six, retirement seemed painfully ludicrous, and the thought of finding menial work in an office somewhere, tapping his life away at a keyboard, seemed far worse than the prospect of his heart giving out.

When Sullivan’s people had found him, Nathan had jumped at the chance to see action again.

No one ever told him just what sort of ‘action’ it would be. Not until he was holed up underground while civilization collapsed above him. Even then he only got the full story when a damned monster tore through the base, massacring scores of people.

He hadn’t felt sick at all before. But now, after it was done and there was no way back, Nathan Colston could detect the sickness in his chest; could feel it every time he drew in a breath.

This sickness didn’t feel congenital, though. It felt like Sullivan’s doing: as if the old man’s gnarled fingers had penetrated Nathan’s chest and were curling around his heart and beginning to squeeze…

"We believe we can count on around five hundred, Sir," Skinner said, and had the good sense to look mortified at the number as it spilled from his lips.

Sullivan's eyebrows lowered, almost obscuring eyes that flashed dangerously.

"Five hundred," he repeated flatly.

"Uh, it's difficult for us to ascertain a definite number, Sir. It's not as if we can just ask the men if they will help, and..."

Skinner trailed off, apparently aware that the tone he had employed might lead to him shortly having his forehead decorated with a bullet.

Nathan was mildly impressed.

At least Skinner hadn't bullshitted a number to make the old man happy. Surely now, Nathan thought, Sullivan would see the folly in trying to rid the Conqueror of dissidents through violence. Hell, maybe he would even finally give the order for the fleet to move. No one understood why they were holding position a few miles off shore while the apocalypse tore the UK apart. Some believed Sullivan was going to stage a land invasion and take the country back. Others whispered about a plan to flee to Australia, and according to the rumours, the virus hadn’t reached the land down under.

Most of the increasing hostility on the Conqueror would have been assuaged by the simple knowledge that they were doing something. If that something happened to be fleeing to safety and endless golden beaches under a sizzling sun, so much the better.

What nobody seemed to understand was just why the hell they were sitting there doing nothing.

"Then we'll have to act fast," Fred said through gritted teeth.

"Uh...Sir?" Skinner mumbled.

"Speak to everybody you know to be loyal. Tell them to be armed and ready. By tonight I want every person on this ship to be either loyal to this enterprise, or dead."

Nathan snorted.

Couldn't help himself.

If the old man thought five hundred men could take the Conqueror by force, he really was as insane as the whispered voices in the corridors of the ship suggested.

"You," Fred said, pointing a bony finger like a gun barrel at Nathan.

"Come with me."

Chapter 14

"We’ll be at the McIntosh ship in three minutes."

The pilot’s voice, crackling over the intercom.

The McIntosh ship?

The words meant nothing to Kyle. Once again he was being dragged into the unknown. It was starting to feel like whenever that happened, people ended up dying. It was a noticeable sort of trend; the kind that leapt around at the front of a person’s mind, waving its arms and yelling.

He took a deep breath and stared out of the small window to his right, trying to figure out why one of Fred Sullivan's ships was floating so far away from the rest; ostracised from the party like an aggressive drunk. No theories presented themselves, but it sounded like he only had three minutes to wait before he found out the truth.

He felt a sudden, lurching drop as the chopper began its descent toward the helipad on the deck of the McIntosh ship.

His heart sank at a different, more troubling pace.

*

Kyle ducked instinctively as he disembarked the helicopter, and realised immediately that he needn’t have bothered: the chopper was enormous, a far cry from the police helicopters he had occasionally seen buzzing over the London skyline, and the blades span far above his head.

Like all of the aircraft that ferried people between the ships that comprised the fleet, the chopper was huge and lethal-looking with forward-pointing 50-cal machine guns and rocket arrays that gave the front of the vehicle an aggressive appearance, like a snarling animal.

He watched as the silent security team dropped out of the chopper and moved away, remaining alert and watchful. None of them had uttered a word during the short trip between the ships, and it didn't look like they were about to start talking now. They clutched assault rifles, and the hard emptiness in their eyes made Kyle feel like they were itching to get a chance to use them.

As the security team lined up alongside the chopper, all resolute faces and well-practised don’t-fuck-with-us attitude, Kyle began to understand that they had no intention of leaving the vehicle, and muttered at Sanderson as the scientist climbed down onto the deck.

“What’s the deal with your security, uh, Sir?”

Sanderson blinked and snorted.

“You are my security,” he said with a wry grimace. “Mr Sullivan made it abundantly clear that I am to do this alone. Those men…well, I imagine they are here mainly to ensure that I do not abscond.”

Kyle arched an eyebrow.

“So if you’re meant to do this alone, what—”

“…Are you two doing here,” Sanderson finished. “That is my call. Mr Sullivan has no idea you two are here. None whatsoever.”

No kidding, Kyle thought, but he remained silent. As he moved clear of the chopper, his questions about the security team's motivations evaporated, replaced by something altogether more difficult to understand.

The ship was one of the smaller in the fleet, and of all seventeen vessels, it looked to Kyle to be the least military in appearance; and the least threatening. Yet as Kyle began to cross the deck toward the superstructure, he felt a strange dread growing in the pit of his stomach. Maybe it was something to do with being so close to whatever Phil Sanderson had claimed was vital to the success of Project Wildfire, and wondering if Tom was going to hold it together. Or maybe something else.

Something Kyle could not identify.

Far ahead, he saw a small group of people emerging from the ship. They were as military in appearance as the security team that Kyle had just travelled with, yet even at a distance he noticed that something about them seemed…different somehow. Something in the way they carried themselves.

A welcome committee, he thought. But they don’t look very welcoming.

He scanned the faces of the new group as they approached the chopper, and realised what was different about them. The churning he felt in his own gut was replicated on the faces of the handful of men and women that moved to greet the chopper. All of them looked…scared?

What the hell has Sullivan got on this boat?

"Looks like we have a welcome committee," Kyle said, nodding at the group moving toward them.

Sanderson nodded, cold sunlight reflecting off his expansive brow.

"The ship has a skeleton staff. That’s probably most of them right there."

Kyle glanced at his brother in surprise and saw his own confusion mirrored on Tom's furrowed brow.

"On a ship this size?" Tom asked hesitantly. "Why?"

Sanderson shrugged, and paused on the deck, as though the emphasis his words required was impossible to manufacture while walking.

"There’s only one thing on this ship," he replied. "Not much work for more than a handful of people. And besides, who the hell would volunteer for this job?"

Kyle felt the dread knotting his stomach tighten.

"What job? What’s on this ship…uh, Sir?"

Sanderson blinked.

"You don’t know?"

Kyle and Tom shook their heads in unison and Sanderson chuckled. To Kyle’s ears it was a nasty, sneering sort of noise, brimming with mockery and disdain. It sounded like Sanderson didn’t get a chance to lord his superiority over people that often, and he was relishing every second of their bewilderment.

"Then you’re in for a treat," Sanderson said with a smirk, and turned to meet the welcome committee.

Four men, two women. Kyle thought they all looked hard-bitten, like they had seen more than their fair share of combat in a previous life. None of them wore the masks of fear well.

What would scare these sort of people so much?

"If you’re here to relieve us, I hope there’s another chopper-full of you on the way."

The man leading the welcome committee didn’t sound like he respected Sanderson’s position in the slightest. He sounded tired, and pissed off.

And frightened.

"You haven’t had contact from Mr Sullivan?"

Kyle watched Sanderson closely as he spoke, and thought he saw a flash of genuine surprise pass across the man’s jowly face.

He’s almost as clueless as we are, Kyle thought abruptly. Dropped into something he wasn’t expecting.

Kyle’s jaw clenched involuntarily. With every passing moment on the ship, things were beginning to feel more and more wrong somehow. He felt an almost overpowering urge to leap back onto the chopper, and to refuse to disembark until it left.

"We’ve had no contact from Mr Sullivan since we were sent here," the man replied, and his thick eyebrows lowered. "You’re not here to relieve us," he said flatly. It wasn’t a question.

"I’m afraid not, Mr..?"

"Sykes," the man said with a weary sigh. "Just Sykes will do. I haven’t been a Mr for a long time, and it sure as shit doesn’t feel like I’m a corporal anymore."

Sanderson nodded absent-mindedly. "Phil Sanderson," he said, extending his hand for a moment before dropping it when it became clear Sykes wasn’t in a hand-shaking sort of mood. "Head of research," Sanderson continued, "and this is my private security detail."

He waved a hand in the general direction of Kyle and Tom. Sykes looked them over with cold mirth in his eyes that made Kyle feel uneasy.

"You ever see that episode of Road Runner, where Wile E Coyote has about two hundred boulders falling on his head, and he lifts up a little umbrella to protect himself before he gets squashed?" Sykes asked with a watery grin.

Sanderson stared at him, his mouth half-open, and said nothing.

"If there comes a time you need security on this boat," Sykes said. "Then these two greenhorns are gonna be your umbrella, Mr Sanderson." Sykes chuckled. "If you wanted security, you’d have been best off staying over there."

He pointed in the direction of the fleet, but when Kyle followed the gesture he saw nothing but the flat horizon.

Somewhere at the back of Kyle’s mind a faint alarm began to sound, and a question repeated itself, as if his mind was trying to underline it so he would pay it the proper amount of attention.

Why is this ship on its own, all the way out here?

Sanderson nodded at Sykes.

"Agreed. And believe me, I would have stayed over there if I could, but Sullivan has pressing business on this ship."

Sykes arched an inquisitive eyebrow, and Sanderson cleared his throat, seeming more than a little nervous.

"I’m here to wake McIntosh up," Sanderson said, and this time, it was Sykes’ mouth that Kyle saw drop open in mute astonishment.

Chapter 15

"Walk with me, Mr Colston."

Nathan opened his mouth to answer, and shut it again when he realised no response was required. Fred Sullivan had already turned on his heel and marched away at a brisk pace, with all the arrogance that stemmed from a lifetime of having his orders followed without question.

"I detest these metal boxes we are forced to live in, don’t you?" Fred said as Nathan scurried to catch up to the old man’s leggy stride.

"It’s not the luxuries I miss," Fred continued. "And God knows I had plenty of those before all this. No, it’s the space. All of us living on top of each other, breathing in each other’s stink, bumping into each other in the corridors. Sort of makes a mockery of depopulating the planet, wouldn’t you say?"

Fred shot a glance at Nathan and seemed amused at the confused look he received in return.

"That was a joke. Lighten up, Mr Colston. As yet, you haven’t given me any reason to become irritated with you. I’m not a monster or some deranged psychopath, despite what you might have heard to the contrary. What I am is a businessman who doesn’t like his time being wasted."

Those last few syllables seemed dangerous to Nathan, like Sullivan had spent decades sparring with barbed words and knew exactly when to employ a jab for maximum effect.

Here comes the point, Nathan thought.

Fred stooped to pass through a small doorway that led out onto the huge flight deck, and breathed in a deep lungful of fresh air.

In the distance, Nathan saw a team of mechanics tinkering with a harrier. The rest of the deck was largely empty. Not for the first time Nathan marvelled at the fact that the ship was so large that he felt no sensation of rocking as the harsh waves of the North Sea battered the hull.

After a few paces, Sullivan stopped and arched his back with a satisfied sigh, like a cat that had just been released after many hours trapped in a basket.

"You don’t agree with what we’re doing—or should I say: what we’ve done," Fred said finally.

"No, Sir, it’s not that-"

Fred snorted.

"It’s fine, Mr Colston. I understand perfectly. I’ve killed a lot of people. I certainly expect nothing other than vilification. I don’t expect you to agree, nor even to understand, really. Somebody had to initiate Project Wildfire, or something very like it. There were several arms manufacturers close to producing a weapon as powerful as mine. It was only a matter of time."

He shrugged.

Nathan frowned dubiously.

"Permission to speak freely, Sir?"

Fred's eyes twinkled with amusement.

"I’m not a military officer, Mr Colston, but…permission granted," he said.

"What about the people?" Nathan said, surprising himself a little with the bitterness in his tone. "Even if I buy the idea that the planet was overcrowded, that the people needed...pruning somehow, it doesn’t change the fact that you—we, I guess—acted outside the law. No government would allow—"

"Oh, please," Fred interrupted with weary sarcasm. "Governments? Is that where you think power resided before all this? I thought of our government as a mildly diverting puppet show. I suppose perception really is everything."

Fred began to stroll forward.

"Chrysalis had been retained by the governments of the world for decades to develop better and better weapons, and not one of them had the foresight to understand that letting others create weapons for you is a route to certain disaster. The governments of the world were more than happy for me to hold enormous power because I promised them that my work would be cheap, and would not be paraded in front of the media. What sort of businessman would I be if I didn’t leverage that power to secure the best outcome for my company? For myself?"

He stopped and looked Nathan in the eye.

"Do you know that Oppenheimer is said to have regretted creating the atomic bomb?”

Nathan shook his head. In truth he had heard something similar a long time ago, but he had a feeling the question was rhetorical.

“So they say,” Fred said thoughtfully, staring out to sea. “For myself, I think that is probably bullshit. Can you imagine giving birth to such power and wishing you had not? Can you imagine anything more pointless?”

The old man’s gaze flicked sharply back to Nathan, like a viper striking.

“What happens when somebody develops a weapon that is too dangerous to sell? The only thing left then is to use the damn thing, or destroy it and render the entire endeavour a pointless charade. Well, I don’t like charades. And I like pointlessness even less."

Nathan cleared his throat awkwardly. Increasingly as Fred spoke, he as beginning to get the impression that the old man was talking primarily to himself.

“I became attached to this project in the 1970s. Forty years ago. Hard to believe, isn’t it? I’ve handed over my entire life to Project Wildfire, but it goes back further than that. A long way back, way before I was even born.”

When Fred paused for effect, Nathan decided the best course of action was silence, and he took it.

“Mostly prior to my involvement it was just idle dreaming by fat men with a great deal of money and an even greater deal of time on their hands. Their dreams were small and messy, and seemed to inevitably gravitate toward starting petty wars with little thought of controlling the outcome. Such imprecise ways of achieving their goals.”

He’s not a psychopath, Nathan thought. What the hell is he?

“Most of them were too concerned with the aftermath, you see. Preoccupied with keeping their presence a secret; all of them worried that the masses would discover who really ran things, and would rise up to oust them. Thinking small. No vision."

Fred's hands were clenched into fists. Nathan edged away from the old man a little.

“My plan was perfect. Or, at least, it should have been perfect. But when you are forced to rely on other people...”

Nathan thought he detected a slight wistfulness in Fred’s tone as he trailed off; regret that the old man had tried to bury deeply but hadn’t quite succeeded.

At no point did Nathan hear even a hint of remorse about the genocide—or worse, the transformation—of billions. The only thing that seemed to matter to Fred Sullivan was that his immaculately-prepared scheme hadn’t been quite so immaculate after all.

Nathan shuddered involuntarily. The conversation had not gone as he had expected it would. Fred’s reputation for threats and intimidation preceded the old man by a long distance, but to Nathan it felt more like the man simply wanted somebody to hear his thoughts. Almost as if the old bastard somehow believed the end was near, and that somebody at least should know why he had done it.

"You can choose to think of me as a monster if you wish, Mr Colston. I don’t care. The only thing I care about at this point is your loyalty. I need to know that despite whatever…reservations you might have about all of this, that you can be trusted to carry out orders."

Nathan nodded.

"Of course. It’s not like there’s anything else out there anyway, right?"

Fred chuckled and clapped Nathan on the shoulder.

"Quite so, my boy. And I’m glad to hear it, because we have reached a crossroads, and I have to make a decision. Your input would be appreciated."

Nathan lifted an eyebrow in surprise.

"I’m not much of a tactician, Sir. I-"

Fred waved a dismissive hand.

"Phil Sanderson believes he can pull a rabbit out of the proverbial hat and turn this clusterfuck into something I can make use of. As useless as he is in most aspects, Sanderson knows his way around research."

Fred spat the last word out; laced it with contempt and poisoned the air with it.

"And so he may very well be right. However, given Sanderson's recent track record, it would be prudent to assume otherwise and to plan accordingly. So what I need from you is an answer on one simple question."

Nathan stared at Fred expectantly.

"How many people on this boat remain loyal to our cause? To my cause, if you prefer to think in those terms."

"Sir, I'm not sure I understand-"

"We've been getting along so well, Mr Colston. Don't throw it all away now. I know very well that there are...agitators on this ship. The only reason I can see for you to deny that would be that you are one of them. Is that the case?"

"No, Sir."

"Good," Fred said. "This is a numbers game now, Mr Colston, and I need to know how many I have. I believe implicitly in our friend Mr Skinner’s loyalty, but I have considerably less confidence that he has his finger on the pulse. The fact that he insisted on your joining our little meeting confirms that pretty clearly, I’d say, wouldn’t you?"

Nathan frowned.

"It’s just as Skinner said, Mr Sullivan. I'd estimate three to four hundred, but it could be less. Mostly those that came with us from Northumberland. But, Sir, even many of them are having doubts. If this turns violent I am honestly not sure how many people you could count on to back you."

Fred nodded, as if the news was not unexpected.

"If your estimate is correct we would be outnumbered by roughly six-to-one, at least."

"Outnumbered, Sir?"

Fred levelled his gaze at Nathan.

"The situation on this boat is going to escalate, Mr Colston. Accepting that truth as inevitable leaves me with a simple decision to make. And that is who gets to turn up the temperature: them or me."

Nathan nodded, and felt anxiety begin to unravel in his stomach. All Fred’s reminiscing suddenly seemed to have little to do with the past. Instead Nathan felt like it had been designed to test how he might react to the future that Fred was planning.

"Find the people that are loyal to me," Fred said. "Gather them together, and get them ready."

"Ready, Sir?"

Fred levelled his gaze at Nathan, and for a brief moment the legendary menace was more than evident in the old man’s eyes.

"For escalation."

Chapter 16

"You’re here to wake him up?"

Kyle didn’t think he had ever heard six words uttered in such a way; six little words that carried a slew of emotions on their back, spoken with an intensity that made the hairs on the back of Kyle’s neck stand to attention.

"It," Sanderson said, somewhat irritably. "Not him."

Sykes looked around at the rest of the welcome committee, and his stupefied gaze was met by four haunted stares and one nervous snort. When he finally returned his eyes to the scientist, the expression on the soldier’s face was how Kyle imagined somebody might look if they were told that they had just stepped on a landmine and they should not move.

"Are you insane? You do know what’s on this boat, right?"

Sanderson nodded impatiently and began to walk to the door that led from the landing deck into the ship itself. He waved at Kyle and Tom to follow. Kyle shot a questioning glance at his brother, and gritted his teeth at the noncommittal shrug he got in return. If Tom had picked up on the strained atmosphere, he wasn’t showing it.

Kyle fell into step behind Sanderson, listening intently.

"I know exactly what’s on the boat, Sykes," Sanderson said. "And I have to wake it up. I didn’t say I was going to free it. There is no need to be alarmed. Inventory the security protocols, please."

They entered the ship, and Sykes’ bewildered spluttering gave way to uneasy silence.

Inside, the vessel was sparse; echoing with emptiness. Functional steel corridors ran through the body of the ship like bones, and everywhere appeared to be deserted, giving the interior a funereal feel.

To Kyle's untrained eye the ship almost looked like a work-in-progress: exposed cables and ducting seemed to run everywhere, as though whoever had been building the ship had fallen at the final hurdle. It had been the same on the Conqueror, he realised abruptly, but had been less noticeable there because the ship had been full of people.

This one appeared like it had been abandoned.

Sanderson’s description of the McIntosh ship having a skeleton crew started to look to Kyle like an understatement. The realisation that the ‘welcome committee’ might in fact be the entire crew ran through his mind, and left nagging doubt in its wake.

Sykes moved alongside Sanderson, and Kyle noticed that the soldier’s posture appeared to have changed as soon as he entered the ship. On the deck Sykes had projected an air of authority, but with each step into the interior his spine appeared to bend a fraction and his shoulders drooped. Sanderson and Sykes began to speak in low, almost hushed tones and Kyle couldn’t hear what they were saying, but if he had to guess from observing their body language he would have said that the soldier who had been so bullish at first was now pleading. Begging.

Kyle felt the flesh on his arms begin to crawl, and he quickened his pace a little to catch their conversation.

"The subject is shackled and caged. It has been kept in a medically-induced coma since it arrived. We have low frequency emitters surrounding him…it," Sykes said. "Linked to motion sensors. Any movement more significant than a heartbeat will trigger a sonic pulse that should knock it back into a coma."

"It sounds secure," Sanderson said.

"It doesn’t feel secure."

Kyle couldn’t see Sykes’ face as he said the words, but it sounded like the man was pouting.

Sanderson nodded. "Yes. The creature continues to surprise. The defense mechanism the mutation is employing while catatonic is a little…unexpected. And I do appreciate how difficult it makes life on this boat," he said. "Once I’m done here, I will personally make sure you are all relieved. Please, show me the medication you have administered today."

Sykes waved an arm at a young woman who walked behind him.

"Patricia can talk you through all that stuff. I’m only here to point a gun if the need arises."

While the rest of the crew was dressed in unmarked uniforms identical to the one Kyle himself wore, the young woman who Sykes gestured at to join him and Sanderson was dressed in a white lab coat like a doctor.

Kyle would have placed her in her late twenties, but pallid skin and shadows cast on her face by obvious fear made her look older.

Sanderson motioned to an office, and followed the young woman inside, pulling the door almost closed behind him. When Kyle heard them begin to murmur, but found the words too faint to make out, he pulled Tom away from the rest of the crew firmly.

"There’s something wrong here, Tom," Kyle whispered quietly. "You feel it?"

Tom shook his head and stared at Kyle’s hand until the grip on his arm was released.

"Whatever Sullivan has got on this boat, it’s important," Tom hissed. "Maybe the key to stopping all this."

"It’s too late to stop this, Tom," Kyle growled, grabbing his brother's arm once more. "It’s already happened. Wildfire has happened. What’s left to stop?"

"Sullivan," Tom responded in a surprised tone. "He’s not done."

Tom shrugged off Kyle’s grip and stepped away, moving a little closer to the half-closed office door, tilting his head a little to listen.

Kyle gritted his teeth in frustration.

There it was again, that feeling. Drifting. Being pulled helplessly toward something terrible. Something that Kyle did not understand and could not stop. It felt like a pressure was building inside him, growing like a tumour.

Enough.

"Sykes," he said abruptly. The word tore itself from his mouth almost before he had given it permission to leave. He spoke loudly enough that everyone—even Sanderson and the doctor in the adjoining room—looked at him sharply.

"I've had more than enough of being kept in the fucking dark, and I’m tired of riddles. What’s on this ship?"

Kyle felt Sanderson’s gaze on him from the adjoining room, and he flicked his gaze at the balding man defiantly for a moment. Sanderson, apparently, decided that the conversation wasn’t worth his time, and returned to the clipboard the doctor held before him.

Kyle turned his attention back to Sykes.

"The mutation," Sykes said at last. "Something that was changed by the virus. It’s more monster than human. They say it moves so fast that it’s invisible to the naked eye. Powerful. Really powerful. It can’t be killed."

Kyle heard a loud snort from the next room, and his nerves began to dance on a razor’s edge of irritation.

"Something to add…Sir?"

Sanderson stepped back into the room.

"It is stronger than anything I’ve seen," he said, "and it’s true that the creature’s movement is extraordinary, but it can be killed. Everything can be killed. I could kill it right now simply by altering the drugs we’re pumping into it."

"So why don’t you?"

"Because it is not my call," Sanderson said with a trace of bitterness. "And because the creature represents an opportunity for a scientific leap that we may never see again. The information locked in the mutation’s genes could offer humanity the chance to make huge strides forward."

Sanderson waved an arm around the room. His voice began to rise in pitch.

"Let's not lose sight of what can be accomplished. I know what you are feeling, but everybody here is safe. The creature is something that nobody has encountered before, because it did not exist until we gave birth to it. I believe it is connected to the Infected as much to us. It is an incipient species."

From the corner of his eye, Kyle noticed his brother’s head whip up sharply when Sanderson mentioned the Infected. He ignored him.

"And, what?" Kyle snorted. "This creature of yours has superpowers?"

Sanderson sighed wearily.

"Do you know what an area of effect is, soldier?"

Kyle searched his memory banks. The phrase seemed familiar, but he couldn’t place it.

"I do, Sir," Tom said suddenly.

Kyle looked at him in surprise. In general, Tom didn’t talk much to people. Couldn’t. Kyle could not remember the last time he had seen his brother voluntarily address a group of strangers with such confidence.

"It’s a videogame term," Tom continued. "Weapons, magic spells, special powers. They only effect a certain radius around the character in the game."

Sanderson blinked.

"Exactly," he said, sounding more than a little surprised. "I believe the mutation has the power to affect the molecules around it in ways we do not yet understand. It has an area of effect. This allows it to move at incredible speed; to display incredible strength. It is not operating under the same rules of physics that we do. Maybe gravity affects it in a different way; we don’t know for sure. Yet."

Sanderson shrugged, as if that alone was enough reason for not killing the creature, no matter how dangerous it might be.

The dismissive gesture made Kyle’s jaw clench involuntarily, and for a moment he found himself wondering just how to operate the assault rifle he was carrying.

"What we do know," Sanderson continued, "is that when it is unconscious—as it is right now—it exhibits a defense mechanism across this area of effect.

"To us it feels like the atmosphere in the creature’s vicinity has been poisoned by…I suppose you’d say by fear. Very possibly it is emitting a pheromone that we have not encountered, something that triggers a flight response in would-be predators. A natural defense mechanism, like a hedgehog curling up behind its spines, or a toad that secretes poison on its skin."

Sanderson paused, as though he was used to having to wait for people to catch up with his thoughts.

"Those near to the mutation feel overwhelming dread, designed to convey one message: stay away. It is…unsettling, but we are in no danger. Not now. All of that might sound strange or supernatural somehow, but it is not. The properties the creature exhibits are found elsewhere in nature. Only the fact that those properties are inherent in something that used to be human makes it of interest."

Kyle shook his head, and almost snorted. Might sound strange?

"What you’re saying sounds like science fiction," he said.

Sanderson smiled.

"A lot of science does, right before it becomes science fact."

"So how is any of that even possible?"

Sanderson paused, apparently searching for the simplest way to put his answer in layman’s terms.

"How does a bee fly? How does a chameleon change the colour of its skin? How does an ant carry a leaf many times heavier than its body? Or a hummingbird beat its wings so fast that the human eye can barely perceive them? There are miracles all around us in nature. What we have become exceedingly good at is tapping into those miracles, and turning them into resources that we can exploit. That’s our miracle."

Kyle rubbed his temples. Either the area of effect was giving him a headache, or talking to Sanderson was.

Probably both, he thought.

"But you said this was a man who was infected. No human can do those sort of things."

Sanderson blinked.

"I don’t believe it is human; not any more, at least. It is something else altogether. If the Infected are a leap backwards on the evolutionary scale, the mutation is like a giant leap forward. Or perhaps sideways might be more accurate. I’d say the only thing it has in common with humans is its ability to think; its emotions."

"And doesn’t that make it human?"

Sanderson rolled his eyes, as though matters of philosophy were not worth spending much time thinking about.

"That makes it dangerous."

Kyle sighed. The conversation appeared to be meandering in circles, and getting straight answers out of Sanderson about anything looked unlikely. He let it drop.

Just get the job done, he thought, whatever the hell the job is—and get off this ship.

"What do you need us to do, Sir?"

Sanderson seemed to respond well to being addressed so formally. Kyle figured if he was going to get any simple answers from the head of research, it would be by deferring to him.

Sanderson took a final look at the clipboard and passed it back to the ashen-faced woman dressed like a doctor.

"You’re here for protection. Specifically, of me. We need a sample of the mutation’s blood. And unfortunately, chemical changes induced by its unconsciousness mean we need the blood when it is awake. And quite possibly when it is enraged. Though I don’t think that part will be a problem."

He glanced at the young doctor.

"Start reducing the dose, but do it slowly. I’d rather it wakes gradually."

The doctor nodded and left the room, her face stricken.

"Sykes," Sanderson said. "Check the emitters. Low frequency noise is the only thing we’ve found that slows the mutation down. I’d rather they were up and running at a low level before it wakes, just loud enough to keep it…friendly. I wouldn’t trust a motion detector to catch this thing if it gets free, and when it wakes up it’s going to be pissed."

"And what do we do in the meantime?" Kyle said.

"We wait. And make sure we have every weapon we can get our hands on pointed at the mutation until this is over."

Chapter 17

Like sand trickling through an hourglass, the inhabitants of Caernarfon Castle had finally begun to filter from the segregated safety of the towers. Slowly at first, in faltering twos and threes, the people formerly of the quiet town of Newborough crept into the courtyard and sought the comfort of the herd.

Michael’s door was unlocked, which he presumed was either his reward for engaging in the torture of a terrified kid or another test to see what he would do once free.

He cracked the door cautiously and watched for a long time as people began to enter the courtyard. It was like a dam cracking. As soon as those watching from the towers saw someone outside who didn’t terrify them, they added themselves to the trickle until it became a flow.

When there were around twenty people out there, he turned to Claire.

"Are you ready?"

Claire nodded.

Michael's instinct had been to wait before trying anything. To bide his time and look for the right opportunity. But caution had so far got him nowhere.

The element of surprise. John had been all about that. Attack before the enemy can settle. End the fight before they know it's happening.

Michael couldn't fight Holloway's people. Not directly. But he could surprise them.

It had to be done immediately. There was no telling how long he had before Linda was taken from the cells. And a darker reason for acting promptly lurked in Michael’s mind: every moment he delayed was a moment during which he might get to know the people standing in the courtyard talking in hushed whispers. A chance to discover that they were lost and terrified; no different to himself.

That would make it much harder to do what he had to do. Maybe even impossible.

It's now or never.

He checked the cells. Rhys and Bryn Holloway, along with an older man that Michael had seen hovering around Annie like an advisor, rotated guard duty between them. After a moment he picked out Rhys, leaning against a distant wall and keeping a bored eye on the people in the courtyard, occasionally glancing toward the cells.

"Okay," Michael said, pointing at Rhys, "watch him. When he leaves that spot, you go talk to Linda. The cell on the far left. If he doesn't leave, you stay here, right?"

Claire rolled her eyes.

"Got it, Dad."

Michael winked at her, and threw the door open. He pulled it nearly shut behind him, leaving just a crack for Claire to watch through, and wheeled the chair away from the tower without looking back.

Distracting the Holloway brothers was a course of action that had the potential for any number of poor outcomes. They seemed slow-witted, but they were suspicious. Any obvious effort Michael made to interact with them would be reported back to their mother. From there, anything could happen.

The best option was to play on their ignorance and their arrogance. Make them come to him.

He wheeled himself to the nearest set of the steps that led up to the battlements. Knew that Rhys' eyes were on him as soon as he appeared, but didn't acknowledge the man. When he reached the base of the steps, Michael placed his palms on a low wall and hauled himself from the wheelchair. He slipped and crashed to the ground.

And heard a snorted laugh.

Perfect.

He pulled himself onto his backside and dragged himself to the steps, heaving himself up them one by one, feeling a fire beginning to build in his triceps. After four steps, he made a show of slipping again, and threw himself back to the ground.

For a moment he remained on his back, staring up at the grey sky, and hoped he wouldn't need to do it all over again.

"Told you that you had to see this."

Rhys' voice.

A giggle.

"What is he doing?"

Bryn's voice.

Moments later, the faces of the two Holloway brothers loomed above him, blotting out the sky. Both wore a mask of sneering mirth.

"What the fuck are you trying to do, Cripple?"

*

Linda had stretched out across the cell and shut her eyes hours earlier, desperately trying to persuade her mind to retreat to a better place and failing miserably. Lying on her back, she was almost able to touch both walls of the cell that she had spent two freezing nights in. It turned out that it was difficult to go to your happy place when your current place was little bigger than a coffin.

She was starving, and frequently found herself daydreaming of chocolate, and she had been forced to defecate into a bucket in front of two complete strangers. Until a couple of weeks earlier her idea of a bad day had involved walking into a classroom full of unsupervised children. It was amazing how quickly things could change.

So far, the tiny cell and the bucket didn't even represent her worst day since days officially ended. Technically, this had actually been one of the better days.

The worst one had been the day of the amputations. The cutting up of the meat that would feed the horror that Darren Oliver kept chained up outside the castle.

No ordinary life would ever involve a day as bad as that. Linda couldn't help wondering how long that day would remain the worst in her memory. She had a nagging feeling it might be surpassed soon.

"Linda?"

Linda's eyes flared open and she sat bolt upright. She stared at Emma and Rachel. Both looked to be asleep.

"Dad told me to give you a message," Claire whispered through the bars set into the centre of the door.

Linda nodded.

"They're going to let you out next, and they are going to ask you to do something horrible and you must do it. Tell them you're a doctor, and they'll ask you to treat the big man. When you do, you have to get something, and give it to Claire."

Claire flushed.

"Uh, to me," she corrected.

Linda stared at the little girl.

"Get what?"

*

There was nothing to do but wait. Eventually Bryn and Rhys had grown tired of watching gleefully as Michael struggled to ascend to the battlements. They had laughed in particular when he told them that he just wanted to see the sights, but finally the joke had worn thin, and they had roughly bundled him back into the wheelchair and told him to fuck off in a tone that left no room for doubt that the fun was over.

Michael nodded and tried to look broken and humiliated. Inside his nerves hummed like a herd of Infected, and he focused all his efforts on keeping the anxiety he felt from reaching his face.

When he returned to the tower and saw Claire waiting for him he knew immediately from the look of eager pride on her face that she had done as he had asked.

And so they waited.

After an hour Michael watched as Bryn hauled Linda from the cells and followed her toward the dungeon, prodding her in the small of her back with a shotgun. It was another thirty minutes or so before he heard the screams, and guilt surged within Michael when he realised he was glad it was Ed's voice he heard, and not Linda's.

He didn't see Linda for a couple of hours after that.

Chapter 18

Linda stood at the door to the cell, trying not to give away the fact that she was waiting. She saw one of the old woman’s sons approaching soon enough, walking alongside a middle-aged man who wore a troubled look on his face that didn’t quite negate the importance of the knife that hung from his belt.

The younger one, who Linda was fairly sure was called Rhys, carried a rifle slung across his shoulder. Michael’s rifle.

Linda trusted Michael. If pushed she would have been hard-pressed to say why exactly. The man had darkness in his past that she thought reached his eyes a little too often, but there was a genuine tone to his words. The things he had confessed to her had been ripped from him, and even as he spoke Linda had the impression that he was trying to claw back the words, as if he wanted to force them back where they came from. It hadn’t been an act. No one could be such a good actor.

Still, as she watched the men approaching the cell, and knew from the businesslike look on Rhys’ face that they were coming for her, just as Claire—as Michael—had predicted they would, she could not help but feel some doubt.

The expression on Rhys' face chilled Linda, but it was the other one’s look of concern that troubled her most. The older one.

His was the expression of a man who knew he was about to do something that he wanted no part of.

Linda shrank away from the cell door as it opened, and when Rhys said you’re the doctor, right? Linda thought for a moment about denying it.

Only for a moment.

They led her silently to one of the castle’s huge towers, and up to a room on the second floor.

To Jason’s room.

*

Jason was unconscious on a four-poster bed that looked like something from a Disney fantasy, and a rope leash around his neck was tied off around one of the bed’s ornate pillars. To Linda, he looked like someone’s dog, chained up outside a store and waiting patiently for its master to return.

“What has he been given?” she asked Rhys, aiming for an authoritative tone and painfully aware that if Rhys started throwing the names of various medicines at her, she probably would not have a clue what they actually were.

“Uh…” Rhys stared at her blankly.

“Just painkillers,” the middle-aged man said. “A lot of painkillers. Some sleeping tablets too, I think. Zopiclone, I think they’re called.”

Linda nodded thoughtfully.

Never heard of it.

“Is this all of your medical supplies?”

She pointed at carrier bags full of bottles and packets, knowing full well that there was more. Everything in the castle had come from the nearby pharmacy, and Rachel had all-but cleaned the place out.

“I think so,” the middle-aged man said.

Linda suppressed a knowing smirk, and moved to the bags, searching through them and making a show of examining various bottles, scrutinising labels that meant nothing to her and tossing them aside.

Jason had wounds—a lot of wounds—that looked to have become infected by the filth that covered much of the man’s huge body. That much was obvious, and might explain his sickly appearance (and the smell), but whatever caused his bizarre, detached behaviour was beyond solving for her. Maybe for anyone.

Oddly, it looked to Linda like someone had tried to treat some of the wounds. A few appeared to be cleaner than the others and healing nicely, but the rest…

Jesus Christ...

Jason’s body was a roadmap of cuts: some thin and precise, as if somebody had attacked him with a scalpel. Others were long, ragged tears that glistened and oozed a noxious yellow pus.

Linda had no idea what sort of treatment the man might truly require, but it was obvious even to her that Jason needed antibiotics at the very least, and she knew the names of some of those. A teacher generally picked up tidbits like that, gleaned from the various ailments the kids brought into the classroom with them, and, in the case of the boys at least, took great delight in showing off.

Mostly though, Linda had seen or heard of antibiotics only in tablet form, and if that was all the bags contained, Michael’s plan, whatever it was, would fall at the first hurdle.

She almost yelled out in relief when she pulled a bottle of clear liquid from a bag and read the label.

Amoxycillin.

Perfect.

Linda stood, turning to face the two men who watched her like hawks.

I’m going to need to bathe him and dress his wounds properly,” she said. “And then I’ll have to give him a shot of this.”

She held up the bottle.

“Uh…I don’t know about that,” Rhys said dubiously. “I think I should tell Ma if you’re gonna stick him with something. Right, Gareth?”

He glanced at the middle-aged man.

Gareth held out his hand for the bottle, and Linda passed it to him.

After a moment of reading the label, Gareth handed it back to her.

“No need,” he said. “It’s just antibiotics. I never heard of that hurting anyone. Let’s just get this over with, shall we?”

Linda got the distinct impression that the man called Gareth wanted to stay as far away from Rhys’ mother as possible.

That makes two of us, she thought, breathing a soft sigh of relief.

Linda took a long time cleaning Jason up. Long enough that the two men watching her began to shift their feet in boredom. Neither paid much attention when she fished a syringe from one of the bags of medical supplies and tore it from its packet, before plunging it into the bottle and extracting a large dose of the antibiotic.

Neither noticed that once she was done injecting the medicine into Jason, she paused for a second before carefully withdrawing a measure of blood and dropping the needle quietly into her pocket.

“All done,” she said brightly. “He will improve in a day or so. Be fine in a week.”

Rhys snorted his disinterest.

“Uh…so, what now?” Linda asked.

“You’re not done, Doc,” Rhys said, and the bored expression on his face dissolved and became something else, a dark and intangible something that made Linda’s pulse race.

“Now it’s time for surgery,” Rhys said, and laughed as though he had been waiting an age to say the line, and he thought those might just be the funniest five words in the English language.

*

Michael’s heart sank when he saw Linda being led back toward the cells. The sense of crushing disappointment he felt wasn’t just that he had hoped she would be freed from the cells once she had treated Jason; it was the look on her face. The blood splashed across her coat.

They had taken her to Jason. And then they had taken her straight to the dungeon. To Ed, and to knives that gleamed dully in the half-light and to the sickening stench of blood and terror.

Fury welled up in Michael; a cold rage that had lurked inside ever since he had looked into Ed’s fearful eyes as he began to methodically slice off the fingers on the man’s left hand.

Michael had managed to block out the emotion during the cutting itself—he had focused exclusively on wondering whether or not the man was left-handed and if he played any musical instruments; mundane bullshit to occupy his thoughts while his hands did something terrible.

Still, the mere act of forcing himself to ignore Ed’s screams felt like it had twisted something out of shape inside Michael. The look on Linda’s face—shock, maybe, but disgust and self-loathing, too—reminded Michael of the squirming in his own gut.

He forced himself to focus.

If Linda had done as he had asked, she would be carrying the syringe on her person right now, and the question that really needed answering was how am I going to get it?

Linda was not being set free; she was being returned to the cells. That presented a huge problem.

Michael dropped his gaze from the window to the stone floor, lost in thought.

"I can go get it, Dad."

Michael stared at Claire in surprise. She had apparently read his mind.

"You keep that up and I'll have to start calling you Claire-voyant," Michael said with a grin.

Claire stared at him, puzzled.

"I don't—"

"Just a joke," Michael said, holding an apologetic hand up. "A bad one. They call those Dad-jokes. Better get used to them."

Claire nodded, but it was clear from the expression on her face that she was half-wondering if her father had lost the plot.

"They'll see you," Michael said.

"They might not. I can run fast. I know what you’re going to do."

“You do?” Michael said, surprised.

Claire nodded proudly.

“It wasn’t that hard to figure out.”

“And you’re okay with it?”

Claire shrugged.

“I don’t like these people,” she said simply, and Michael surprised himself with a laugh.

“Me neither,” he said. “Okay, if you think you can get to Linda and get back without getting spotted.”

Claire nodded eagerly.

“I’ll be quick.”

She stared at Michael solemnly.

"Okay, then," Michael said. "Do it, before I have a chance to think about what a bad idea this is. Just get back here quick. If they see you, get back here no matter what. Deal?"

Claire nodded and bolted from the room before Michael could say another word.

*

Claire slipped through the door and out into the wide courtyard, and for a moment she stood still, scanning the area for a sign that she had been spotted. Increasingly the courtyard was filling up, and most of the people there—none of whom she recognised—seemed to be busy conversing with each other in hushed tones. Nobody appeared to notice the little girl watching them.

When she was satisfied that she wasn’t being watched, she slipped away from the door, leaving it open a crack, and moved toward the row of cells to the right of the tower.

It wasn’t a long journey, but she forced herself to take it slowly, trying to appear as casual as possible. She hadn’t seen either of the old woman’s sons; nor the bald man who often seemed to be by Annie Holloway’s side, but Claire knew they were out there somewhere. Probably watching over the people who filtered slowly into the courtyard. Instinct told Claire to run, but running would be more likely to draw attention, so she bit her lip in concentration and walked slowly.

She didn’t take her eyes off the cells, as if she were hiding under a blanket, terrified of the monster that lived in her closet; certain that if she couldn’t see it, it couldn’t see her.

You’re not a baby anymore, Claire.

Her mother’s voice in her head, soothing and full of laughter. She could almost picture her eyes twinkling as she said the words, and she let the memory give her strength, trying desperately not to throw light on the thought that lurked in the shadows at the corners of her mind.

Mum’s eyes don’t twinkle anymore.

Mum’s eyes are gone.

Claire was grateful when she reached the cell unimpeded, mainly because reaching the cell meant breaking a train of thought that seemed like it was headed in a bad direction.

“Linda, did you get it?”

Claire whispered the words, and felt a little odd addressing the woman by her first name. Not so long ago all adults who weren’t her parents had been Mr-this or Mrs-that.

She heard a soft exclamation through the small viewing window.

"What the fuck?"

Rachel's voice. Claire was glad to hear it. Rachel was scary, but in a good way. Scary the way her mother had been that time when Claire almost wandered out onto the road in front of a speeding bus.

“What does she mean?” Rachel asked. “Get what?”

“I’ll explain.”

Linda’s voice.

Claire frowned and shot a worried glance behind her. This didn’t seem like a good time for Linda and Rachel to start having a conversation.

“Do you have it?” Claire whispered again, a little impatiently, rising onto her tiptoes to peer into the dark cell.

Linda looked startled to see Claire’s face appear right in front of her, and she opened her mouth to speak.

But the noise Claire heard didn’t come from Linda’s mouth. It was a man’s voice. Behind her.

“Hey, what are you doing over there?”

Claire felt the blood draining from her face.

"No time!" Claire yelled, thrusting her hand through the bars. "I need it now!"

She heard footsteps behind her, rattling across the stone courtyard like machine gun fire. Closing fast.

A small cylindrical object slipped into her palm.

“Be careful with th—” Claire heard Linda begin to say, but her words were drowned out by the deeper voice that spoke behind her.

“What have you got there, girl?”

Claire turned and saw Bryn Holloway standing a few feet away, staring fiercely at her; a hungry grin twisting his face into a frightening mask. She stood and stared at him, wide-eyed and unresponsive.

He took a menacing step toward her.

"I said what have you got there, girl?"

She held the syringe behind her back.

“Better hand it over, unless you want to get hurt.”

He took another step toward her. One more, she thought, and he would be able to grab her, and it would be over. She would let her father down.

Claire nodded, reached out a hand toward Bryn...and bolted past him.

She felt fingers clutching at her sweater, and for a moment thought that Bryn had enough of a grip to halt her in her tracks, but then with a jolt she was free, and running like she was back in Aberystwyth; like her mother was chasing her and death was coming at her from all angles.

*

Michael sat alone in the tower and cursed himself for letting his daughter go. In a lifetime of bad decisions, with every second that passed he became more certain that this was the worst of all.

Stupid.

Selfish.

There was no other way.

Sitting in the gloomy half-light, every second felt like an hour.

Until he heard the commotion outside; the hammering of footsteps. More than one set of feet was headed in his direction. All hopes of being able to plan his next move evaporated instantly, and he knew as the thumping feet approached that he was going to have to wing it.

For a fraction of a second he thought about John, and about how much he missed the man. John’s ability to fight had always been there; a stable foundation that ran underneath every action Michael took. He had always been able to rely on John if things turned physical.

But John was dead.

Michael’s heart began to keep pace with the approaching footsteps.

And then the door burst open and Claire hurtled inside, half-gasping for air and half-screaming.

She was just a few steps ahead of Bryn Holloway. Claire ran past Michael's wheelchair, cowering behind him as Bryn came to a stop in front of them, panting heavily.

He stared accusingly at Michael, and for a moment time seemed to stand still.

Do it.

"Good," Michael said almost amiably. "Don't get me wrong, the other one's a prick, too, but I sort of hoped it would be you."

Bryn's mouth dropped open.

"What the fuck did you say, Crip—"

Bryn was halfway through the word and reaching for the shotgun that hung at his hip when Michael sprang from the chair, praying with all his heart that his weak legs would not collapse underneath him, and slammed his knuckles into the man's teeth.

Before the awareness of pain had even reached Bryn's eyes, Michael gave in to the rage and the darkness and threw a flurry of punches from the past, all the way from the corridor of blood and bone into Bryn’s stunned face, raining his fists down onto the man before he had a chance to react.

Bryn slumped to the floor, and Michael fell on top of him spitting out jabs like a machine, slamming the man's head into the stone, barely even aware that the cracking noise he heard was Bryn’s skull.

He only stopped when Claire's voice penetrated the gathering fog in his mind.

"Stop, Dad, you'll kill him!"

She sounded scared.

Of me?

Michael paused, his bloodied right fist raised, and looked down at Bryn.

A bubble of blood and saliva burst on the man's ruined lips. He groaned softly.

"You're right," Michael said in a trembling voice. "He’s no good to us dead."

Claire nodded, her eyes wide and fearful, and she held out a shaking hand.

"They're not zombies, Dad. They're people. It won't bring them back." Claire said.

Michael blinked.

She hadn't been scared of him. Just that he might lose control and ruin his one chance.

She really does know what I plan to do.

He reached out and took the object that Claire held out to him, lifting it up to catch the failing light. A syringe filled with the blood of Linda's patient. Annie had taken the bait, as Michael had known she must. If Jason was sick; if she let him die of some common-or-garden infection, she would lose the most powerful weapon she had, the one thing that elevated her far beyond the people she controlled.

Michael did not doubt for a second that Annie had been suspicious about his suggestion that she release Linda, but he knew that sometimes suggestion had an allure that rendered people powerless to resist. Annie had released Linda because she had to demonstrate her control over Michael. She was compelled to take his own scheming and shove it back down his throat.

Michael had often got the impression that John Francis had thought him manipulative, and maybe he was. What else could a man without working legs in a world of relentless violence be?

Linda had come through for him. He didn't want to think about what she had been forced to do to Ed; about what effect it might have on her. In time she might come to hate him for including her in his plan, but there was no time for Michael to think about that. All that mattered was that now he had a weapon too, one that had been concealed inside Annie's own, like opening up one of those multi-layered Russian dolls to find a hand grenade hidden inside.

Jason's blood.

Michael studied it.

In the gloom it looked almost black. Toxic.

Like poison.

Chapter 19

It felt like waiting for the executioner’s blade to fall.

Kyle had been aboard the McIntosh ship for three hours in total, and around two hours since Sanderson and Patricia had begun to reduce the dose of drugs being administered to the mutation in tiny increments, and with each passing minute the pervasive feeling of dread began to increase.

Sanderson had theorised that as the mutation neared consciousness the pheromones being emitted would actually decrease in potency, and the feeling of creeping anxiety would naturally dissipate, but Kyle’s churning gut informed him that the scientist’s theory was bullshit.

He couldn’t shake the notion that everything Sanderson had said was bullshit. Far-fetched nonsense designed to conceal what was really going on. That would fit with Chrysalis Systems’ modus operandi perfectly.

It didn’t really explain the dread he felt on the ship, though. Nothing did. The only feeling that ever came close for Kyle was a one-off experiment with psychotropic drugs not long after high school had finished. Magic mushrooms, he had been told, were harmless and fun, but to him the experience had been one of out-of-control terror, like he was stuck aboard a driverless train travelling at full speed toward the end of the line.

Maybe I’ve been drugged, he thought.

Or maybe the dread he felt now stemmed more from common sense than drugs or Sanderson’s invisible area of effect. Common sense that raged inside him like an inferno; just his body’s way of trying to communicate to his mind that being aboard the ship—and by extension the entire fleet—was dangerous in the extreme, and that if at all possible he should investigate his options for getting the fuck away pronto.

For a while, upon deciding that the best course of action to quiet his racing nerves was to distract himself, Kyle tried to engage the tiny crew of the McIntosh ship in conversation, but was met with staccato answers and haunted stares that just made the tension knotting his stomach all the worse.

He discovered that there was a further crew member he hadn’t yet seen. That member—Rick—was currently on ‘watch duty’, which apparently consisted of sitting in a room adjoining the one that contained the mutation and scrutinising a bank of monitors and machines connected to the apparatus that held the creature in stasis.

It didn’t sound like a bad job to Kyle, but the hushed tones and furtive glances of the soldier who described the detail to him suggested otherwise.

Whether or not Sanderson’s farfetched story about some supernaturally powerful creature was true or not, it was clear that the crew on the ship believed it wholeheartedly.

Beyond hearing about Rick’s lonely, and apparently terrible duty, information was sparse, and had to be dragged from the crew word-by-reluctant-word.

The mutation, they said, had been brought in by chopper and its cage set up by a team that had since departed.

Sykes’ team had been flown in from the Conqueror and stationed on the McIntosh ship for ‘a few days’. They made it sound like a lifetime. They told him the bare minimum about the layout of the ship: mutation in a cargo hold at the front, living quarters in the middle, engine to the rear.

The few who answered his questions—mostly Sykes and Williams, a man that Kyle quickly came to regard as Sykes’ second-in-command—seemed happiest talking about the mundane. About the ship. Where they came from. The past. Anything that took their minds to some other place.

Just when they had begun to open up to him a little, a question popped into Kyle’s mind that seemed harmless enough; just one of those things that, once answered, prompted a nod and immediate storage in the part of the mind where forgotten memories go.

“What does McIntosh mean?”

Sykes fixed a horrified gaze on Kyle, and the atmosphere that had been slowly defrosting dropped back to somewhere near absolute zero.

“You don’t know? Who it is? Was?”

Kyle shook his head and Sykes let out a rueful chuckle.

“Fucking bastards. That’s how they operate, you know, the fuckers at the top. The ones that did all this and left us with the wreckage. Nobody gets to know the whole story. Everyone has their own little job to keep them busy. Just enough facts to get by. It’s not a secret when everyone involved knows a tiny piece of the story. Then it doesn’t exist at all. Compartmentalised, see?”

Kyle was surprised at the man’s sudden philosophising, but he didn’t let it show. He nodded encouragement at Sykes to continue. Despite the uncomfortable nature of the conversation, he had a feeling that he was finally getting the truth, or at least some part of it.

“You came from the Conqueror. I did too. Most of the people over there, the grunts like me and you anyway, know fuck all about anything. Just that the world’s gone to shit and we’re what’s left. Those who do know, well, they ain’t saying shit. But we did this. Sullivan and his people. This was all planned. Only when you run across people with information you weren’t allowed to have can you start to put it all together. This isn’t some terrible disease. Not even an accident. There are people on these ships that will tell you this is like that test they did a few years back, remember? Smashing atoms together or some shit and there was a chance they might destroy the planet?”

Sykes fixed his gaze on Kyle, and for the first time since they had entered the ship Kyle saw a flicker of something other than fear in the soldier’s eyes.

Sykes shook his head grimly.

“It’s nothing like that. Not some side effect. This was all planned. By the few fuckers that do know everything. And you know what that means?”

Kyle shook his head slowly.

“We’re not survivors. We’re the fucking bad guys,” Sykes spat bitterly. “The proof of that is caged up on this ship. McIntosh is—was—Jake McIntosh.”

Sykes studied Kyle’s eyes, apparently expecting to see recognition staring back at him.

“The Painkiller," he said plaintively when Kyle did not respond.

"The fucking serial killer from a couple of years back, remember? Papers were full of that bastard for an entire year. What they’ve got locked up here isn’t just some unfortunate bastard who happened to get infected. It’s the sickest fucker to ever walk the face of the Earth. That’s who we’re guarding. Now, you tell me: if we’re the good guys in all this; if we’re the plucky survivors, then what the fuck are we doing with a guy like that?”

Kyle lowered his eyes, searching his memory.

He had a vague recollection of the whole Painkiller thing in the press, partly because the name had always struck him as ridiculous, like the tabloid writers that revelled in conjuring up such stuff couldn’t even be bothered to try anymore.

He remembered a few lurid headlines that gleefully reported some of the sickest crimes Kyle could imagine. He hadn’t paid much attention at the time: the news was always full of the worst aspects of humanity, and with each year either humanity got worse or the news got more desperate and hysterical; in some ways it didn’t matter which. Either possibility just made him feel glum about the world.

In any case, Kyle hadn’t followed the story closely. He’d been too busy dealing with his little brother’s slow crawl toward a sheer cliff of paranoid mania, hoping he could claw Tom back from the precipice and ultimately following him over it.

And finding that the drop led to the truth.

Tom was right about everything, paranoid or not.

It’s not paranoia if they’re really out to get you. The phrase had once been a cliché, back before everything had fallen apart. Now it felt to Kyle more like a rock-solid, inescapable truth.

If there remained any chance of him doubting his strange little brother, Sykes’ earnest testimony put paid to it. The more Kyle learned about the ship and McIntosh and Project Wildfire, the less he felt he understood.

Tom did understand, though. He always had.

Kyle had a sudden intuition that Tom had abandoned all hope of stopping Project Wildfire the moment he had driven a tyre iron deep into Russian skull and brains in an underground car park. Maybe even before then. Perhaps Tom had always known that the chances of two brothers from South London affecting machinery as gargantuan as Wildfire were near-zero.

Kyle nodded at Sykes absent-mindedly, and stared thoughtfully at Tom.

As always, Tom sat alone, as far away from the nearest humans as possible. Kyle had serious doubts that, before the disastrous encounter with a Russian thug named Volkov, Tom had physically interacted with anyone other than his older brother in years.

Riddled with guilt that he had abandoned his little brother to deal with their parents alone, Kyle had been forced to care for Tom after their parents had died in a car crash.

If his mother and father had died at home, Kyle would have suspected that Tom had killed them, and he wouldn’t have blamed him for that one bit. Their parents were what some would once have described as stern or authoritative. As society had begun to focus more on—and better understand—child abuse, the Robinsons would have been bestowed with far less complimentary labels.

Except, of course, for the fact that society didn't give a shit about what went on in the Robinson house when the front door was locked at night.

But Tom hadn’t killed them. By the time Kyle’s parents wound up decorating the radiator grille of a speeding truck, Tom was already a shut-in. Kyle moving home to help his brother was inevitable.

Tom picked nervously at his nails, staring at the floor and apparently unaware of Kyle’s gaze.

Maybe me getting involved in all this was inevitable too, Kyle thought.

A fresh surge of guilt washed through him. Ever since Volkov, Kyle had erected an invisible barrier between himself and his brother, and that barrier had merely grown larger as the world became progressively more bizarre and dangerous. Kyle had been so wrapped up in his own thoughts that he hadn’t stopped to see things from Tom’s point of view.

The kid was like a walking Wikipedia page dedicated to explaining neuroses and anxiety; he always had been. He probably didn’t feel dread on the McIntosh ship because he felt it all the damn time.

And he was right.

About everything.

Kyle stood up and nodded a silent thanks at Sykes, who was intently focused on his own boots once more, and moved over to Tom, sitting heavily on a chair next to him.

Tom looked at him inquisitively.

“Okay,” Kyle said quietly in a tone that suggested a continuation of a debate that had been on pause for a long time. “Everything’s fucked, and we’re here. So what now?”

Tom studied Kyle’s face for a moment and broke into a rare grin.

“Now we do the only thing we can do,” he said.

“Which is?”

“We bring the whole fucking thing down on their heads.”

Chapter 20

This is insane.

The words had been rolling around in Nathan's head for several long minutes.

Ever since Dick Skinner had passed him the gas mask.

Some part of Nathan had held out hope that Fred Sullivan would see the folly in his plan to rid the ship of all dissenting voices. Even a civilian would surely understand that a force numbering no more than five hundred had no chance of defeating a force at least six times its size in a battle.

Only when Nathan saw the crate of masks did he realize that Fred Sullivan was no ordinary civilian. In fact, he thought, the old man could very well be Satan himself.

Hell, if Satan actually exists, he's probably watching Sullivan and taking fucking notes on how to most efficiently kill an entire species.

There would be no battle. Fred Sullivan was not the kind of man who engaged in simple fighting, fair or otherwise. He was a man that focused on outcomes, and how best to attain the ones that benefited only himself.

Nathan stared around the deck. All five hundred of the names that he and Skinner had decided would be loyal to the cause had been alerted that they were required on the flight deck for 'a drill'. There were a few dozen others who happened to be on deck too, including a couple that Nathan knew were very definitely not loyal; men who had muttered in dark corners that money was worthless, and that all that mattered now was power and those who had the balls to take it.

Nathan pointed them out to Skinner, and had received a shrug in return.

"By the time this is over, they will be the ones that are outnumbered," Skinner replied.

"And you think they'll just take this on the chin?"

Skinner looked at Nathan thoughtfully.

"They will if they want to live."

Fuck me. Spend a little time with Sullivan and even a hopeless case like Skinner turns into a ruthless bastard.

"Better put the mask on, Nathan. The...uh, drill starts in sixty seconds."

Nathan slid the mask over his face and tightened the straps at the back of his head. The world became suddenly muffled, distant and muddy as white noise.

He felt numb.

Sullivan had contingency built on contingency. The Conqueror was rigged: the air conditioning vents had been loaded with a deadly nerve agent ready to fill the lower decks with gasping, rattling death at a moment's notice.

Sullivan had planned for the eventuality of killing the entire crew before any of them had even set foot on the ship.

He wasn't a psychopath. He was a monster, every bit as bad as the one locked up on the ship that sat miles to the west.

The old man hadn't wanted a list of loyalists because he wanted an army to fight for him. He just wanted to know how many would be left when he was done with the killing.

What if it hadn't been enough to crew the ship?

It wasn't a question Nathan wanted to dwell on. He felt a strange, lurking certainty that if that had been the case, Fred Sullivan would have killed them all anyway. Better to die than to admit defeat.

In the distance, across the ominous sea of gas masks, Nathan heard a muffled voice counting down.

Ten.

Nine.

A couple of the soldiers on the deck shuffled awkwardly on the spot; doubtless they were the ones who had some idea of what was actually happening. Maybe they were picturing the clean-up they would be required to undertake over the next few hours, tossing the corpses of their friends overboard until their arms ached.

Eight.

Seven.

Six.

We're all utterly disposable to him. Every last one of us. No more than cattle.

Five.

Four.

Three.

Two.

I've got to get the hell off this boat.

One.

Below deck, air vents sighed poison into the narrow steel corridors; into the mess rooms and the sleeping quarters, filling every corner of the ship with a killer every bit as invisible as the one that Fred Sullivan's satellites had dropped onto the surface of the planet weeks earlier.

This was no sophisticated scientific apocalypse, though. There was no reshuffling of the genes; no extraordinary side-effects.

Just death.

Unlike Wildfire, the release of the gas proceeded without a hitch: humans had long ago perfected the art of simple killing.

Far above the deck, Fred stood on the viewing platform, breathing filtered air through a gas mask. There was very little danger of the toxin making its way to the deck, and even less likelihood of it proving deadly when the harsh North Sea wind dispersed it. There was virtually no chance of the poisonous cloud reaching Fred's position.

But only a fool would fail to prepare for the worst possible outcome.

Chapter 21

At first glance, the mutation didn’t appear to be much of anything, but when Kyle stepped into the cargo bay that had been retrofitted to become a very specific kind of prison, he felt the hairs on his neck stand up nonetheless.

The hold was a vast space, and for a moment Kyle was reminded of King Kong being shut in a similar cell while he was transported toward his inevitable Hollywood death.

Most of the huge space that greeted Kyle, though, was empty; a place of shadows that claimed all the corners, making the place feel dislocated and surreal as a bad dream. There was no giant monster.

In the centre of that empty space, lit by harsh floodlights that kept the gathering shadows at bay, stood an array of machinery that looked to Kyle like a blend of a high-tech hospital and an engineering bay. Blinking lights danced across metallic surfaces. He saw something that looked like a pulse monitor, and other displays that he didn’t recognise.

Tangled tubes and wires snaked from the equipment, all making the same short pilgrimage to the large table onto which Jake McIntosh had been placed.

From where Kyle stood, wreathed in the shadows, very little of the creature was visible. Enormous steel manacles covered the thing’s limbs almost entirely, and were reinforced by heavy chains. The creature looked roughly human-sized, if on the big side. A far cry from a fifty-foot tall gorilla.

Beyond the table, Kyle saw what looked like four banks of audio speakers, as though a rock band had set up their equipment in preparation for an ear-shattering performance to come. That must be the low frequency sound equipment Sanderson mentioned, Kyle guessed, though he could not fathom why such a setup might be required.

For good measure, the entire construction was locked inside a huge steel cage. Six-inch thick bars prevented Kyle from getting any closer than fifty feet or so away from the table that held the key to whatever the hell Project Wildfire was all about.

He stood a few feet back from the bars, peering through the gaps and trying to make out some part of the terrifying creature the crew and Sanderson had described to him, but could see nothing.

He took a half-step closer.

“Don’t,” Tom whispered at his side, and pointed at a discreet CCTV camera mounted on a nearby wall. “We’re not supposed to be down here. Stay in the shadows.”

Phil Sanderson was still locked in debate with the young female doctor, and the rest of the crew were apparently still locked in debates that were entirely more internal in nature.

Whatever happened on the ship, Kyle didn’t give the crew much chance of lasting long if Sanderson reneged on his promise to have them relieved. Somewhere below the general air of dread on the ship, Kyle could feel an undercurrent of something else. Despair, maybe. Crawling insanity. Something dark was written in the eyes of the crew members. Something permanent.

One way or another, things on the ship were going bad, rotting like a corpse in the sun.

When the brothers were finally alone, Tom finally seemed to relax a little.

"What do you think?" Kyle asked.

Tom stared thoughtfully at Kyle for a moment before responding.

"I think they're feeding us bullshit and trying to persuade us it's chocolate. It's like Sykes said, nobody gets to know the whole truth. That's how Sullivan operates. It always has been. This whole thing was built on the work of tens of thousands of people, most of whom didn't know a thing about it until it all kicked off. So all this stuff?"

Tom waved a hand around the cargo hold.

"I'd say that whatever this is, it's definitely not what they have told us. Or what they've told Sykes, for that matter."

Kyle nodded. It made sense, or at least as much sense as anything seemed to make these days.

"You think Sanderson knows what's going on?"

"Maybe. He probably knows more than anyone else here, sure, but come on, Kyle. Some kind of hyper-evolved monster? Incredible speed and strength? Something that doesn't operate according to the laws of physics as we know them? Doesn't it all sound like the kind of fairytale you'd tell a child to keep them away from something you don't want them to go near?"

"Yeah, could be," Kyle admitted.

"I wouldn't be surprised if whatever this sensation everybody is feeling on this ship turns out to be man-made either. Gas, maybe. And just look at all this security. Rather than being designed to keep something in, doesn't it seem more like it's here to keep people from getting too close? It's like the lion enclosure at the zoo. We can look, but only from a distance. Sanderson says he is here to extract the thing's blood. But maybe he is here to inject it with something."

Kyle rubbed his forehead as he tried to digest his brother's words. It felt like his headache had decided to take up permanent residence.

"So what else could all this be about?" he asked finally.

"It looks to me more like a life support system," Tom said. "I have no idea why, but if keeping this thing alive is so important to Fred Sullivan, I think we have to take it away from him. It's the chance we've been waiting for."

"Take it away how?"

For a long moment Kyle wasn't sure his brother had heard him. When Tom finally answered, his tone was a little hesitant, as though he was still working through it in his mind.

"Everything here runs on electricity, right?"

"I guess."

"So let's cut the power."

Chapter 22

Michael patted Bryn down and felt a surge of frustration when he discovered the man wasn't carrying a set of keys. As satisfying as it had been to rearrange the face of the man who had stared at his daughter in such an unsettling way, he found himself wishing it had been Rhys that had followed Claire instead.

Bryn chuckled through the blood filling his mouth, his humour dissolving into a hacking cough. He spat a gob of blood and saliva onto the floor.

"Ma will kill you for this," he mumbled thickly. Michael stared down at the man's grinning face, and saw broken, bloodied teeth. For a second he balled up his fist again and fought to suppress the urge to finish what he had started. Beating a man to death was easy; it was just a case of forgetting to stop. Michael knew that only too well.

"Thought you'd free your friends and run, is that it, Cripple? Heh...I guess I shouldn't call you that now though, right?"

Michael swayed a little on unsteady legs. He still felt mostly numb below the waist, and standing unaided was like trying to balance on a narrow beam that stubbornly refused to remain still.

"I need you alive, Holloway. I don't need you talking."

Michael let his legs tumble beneath him, and used his momentum to connect a final solid punch on Bryn Holloway's jaw. The back of the man's skull connected with the floor with a dull thud, and the light in his eyes flickered.

More importantly, he shut up.

Bryn still had Darren Oliver's shotgun tied to a makeshift holster around his waist. Michael retrieved it and popped it open. As Rachel had informed him several days earlier, the gun held a single shell.

I definitely won't be shooting my way out of here.

"Dad, what are you going to do?"

With his pulse thundering in his ears, Michael had momentarily forgotten that Claire was standing behind him. He frowned.

"Don't worry, Claire. The gun's not for him."

He cracked the door open and scanned the courtyard. It had filled up considerably since the last time he looked. He didn't see Rhys or Annie, but it looked like most of her people had now emerged from the towers. He saw a fire had been lit, and smelled the aroma of roasting chicken and his mouth began to water.

It seemed like only moments earlier that he had been sitting next to that fire himself, cooking up canned beans to serve as a celebratory feast. Sitting with Claire and Pete and Linda, and feeling almost like a family. Almost normal.

They're just people, he thought. No different to us. Sitting out there, terrified and hungry, wondering if the castle will keep them safe from the horrors outside the walls. Afraid of the horrors that might be lurking inside.

Just people.

Michael felt a surge of guilt and hesitated.

Can I do this?

He heard a faint moan. Bryn. Beating the man to a pulp had been the point of no return. Turning back now meant death. For Michael. For Claire. For everybody.

I have to do this.

"We have to hide, Claire, and we have to stay quiet. Just like in Aberystwyth, okay?"

Claire nodded, her eyes wide.

"Do it, Dad."

Michael pulled himself back to his feet a little shakily, marvelling at the legs that he couldn't quite feel, but which seemed to be gradually growing stronger. The pain in his back was a raging inferno, but he welcomed it with open arms.

With a grunt he bent and hauled Bryn to his feet. The man was punch drunk. Michael propped him against the wall, leaning his hip into Bryn to keep him from falling, and threw the tower door open wide.

Nobody in the courtyard seemed to notice. None of them would see it coming.

Michael grabbed Bryn's collar, and leaned in close.

"Say hi to the family for me, Bryn," he said.

And then he stuck the needle deep into Bryn's arm and filled his veins with Jason's blood. He pushed Bryn outside and closed the door, turning to Claire and pointing at the stairs."

"Up," he hissed.

Moments later, muffled by the heavy wood, Michael heard a noise that filled him with euphoria and remorse and familiar terror.

Shrieking.

*

The shriek snapped Rachel out of the fog of shock that had clawed at her ever since John had died, dragging her forcefully back into the present.

In the cell, the noise reverberated around the walls and chilled her. It almost sounded like it was multiplying.

Because it was.

Rachel bolted to her feet and stared through the narrow viewing window in the door. In the courtyard she saw a familiar and terrible sight: one eyeless monster giving birth to two more. And then to five.

Death swirled around the enclosed space; a vortex of blood and teeth.

Linda had told Rachel that Michael had asked her to take some of Jason's blood, and only now did she truly understand why. Stripped of all weapons, Michael had engineered a way of getting his hands on the most powerful weapon of all; the one that had destroyed the whole world.

It was a manoeuvre so reckless, so rash, that Rachel could only stare for a moment in stunned silence, wondering if it could possibly have come from Michael.

And then she grinned.

Michael had been resisting taking direct action ever since Victor’s bunker. Even as the knowledge that her brother's blood was poison reverberated darkly around the corners of her mind, Rachel couldn't help but feel that Michael—the Michael she had first met in St. Davids; the man that had been determined to stop the carnage—had finally returned.

Rachel was surprised to find tears stinging her eyes. Only now, as an extraordinary symphony of violence raged beyond the safety provided by the sturdy locked door, did she realise how totally she had abandoned all hope. Its unexpected return cracked open a door in her mind and allowed an emotion other than rage and hate to have its day.

She blinked the tears away angrily and scanned the crowd outside, ignoring the screams and the shrieks and the arterial spray that pumped into the air, like a dozen grisly garden sprinklers had been set off in succession.

She saw no sign of Michael, and hoped he was locked in somewhere safely, as she herself was.

When Rachel felt Emma's hand land softly on her shoulder, she turned and choked out a half-laugh, half-sob at the sight of the girl's wide, frightened eyes.

"Michael," Rachel said by way of explanation. Emma's confused expression informed Rachel that she hadn't quite put it all together.

"We might get out of this, yet," Rachel said, and returned her gaze to the massacre unfolding beyond the door.

Reckless and rash, and so flat-out crazy that it might just have a chance of working.

John would have been proud.

Chapter 23

By the time Annie had hoisted her old bones from the throne, one shriek had become many, and the blood had drained from her face.

She stared at Gareth Hughes for a moment in stunned shock, and he stared right back at her, his eyes wide.

"The door!" Annie hissed.

She was already moving, but Gareth's younger legs beat her to it by a distance. He cracked open the heavy door and looked outside, and Annie knew the truth of the situation from his trembling gasp.

"Shut it," she said, and tossed him the keys. "Lock it."

Gareth fumbled the keys, and nearly let out a pathetic scream when they tumbled to the stone floor with a clatter.

As he stooped to retrieve them, he watched the door warily, expecting that at any moment one of the creatures he had seen running amok in the courtyard would target the noise and smash its way into the tower.

After a second that felt like a lifetime, he slid the old iron key into the lock, panting in relief when it engaged with a dull click. For good measure, he threw the heavy deadbolt into place.

The door was sturdy and old, designed to protect against men with weapons. It would surely stand against the tide of inhuman fingers that would attack it in moments.

"I think we're okay," he breathed.

"Okay?" Annie's voice was high-pitched with either astonishment or contempt; Gareth wasn't sure. Maybe both.

"They are inside the castle? How the fuck did they get inside the castle?"

Gareth flinched. Annie Holloway cursing was in some ways just as terrifying as the bloodbath that was unfolding just a few inches of wood away from him. He had only heard her swear a couple of times in three decades. It had never been a good omen.

"I...I have no idea. Maybe it is airborne after all?"

Annie's eyes narrowed dangerously.

"It is not airborne. If it were, we'd all be dead already. It's him."

Gareth opened his mouth to ask who, but shut it again promptly. He had a feeling that the less input he had in the conversation, the better it might go for him. Neither of Annie's thuggish sons was in the tower, but she still had the revolver she had taken from the crucified man.

Gareth couldn't picture Annie Holloway firing a gun—it seemed like a ridiculous image from a movie to him—but his imagination failing to conjure up something was no reason to suppose it couldn't happen.

It is an extraordinary situation, Gareth thought. Has been for days. And Annie's response to the extraordinary has been to sink into malevolent insanity.

Suddenly he could picture Annie firing the gun; could see it all too clearly, like he had been briefly granted the power to see the future.

"The cripple," Annie hissed. "I don't know how, but he did this."

Gareth swallowed painfully as Annie pulled the revolver from her skirt pocket and clutched it between her trembling hands. He had noticed the trembling before: Gareth was one of the few people that Annie ever let her guard down around.

He had never brought it up, of course. To do so would have been to imply that Annie was weakening, letting age get the better of her.

The gun twitched wildly, but remained pointed at the floor. For a moment Annie's eyes looked foggy, as though she had no idea what to do next. She stared down at the gun, and then back to Gareth.

"Where is Voorhees?"

Oh shit.

If you throw your lot in with a temperamental maniac, Gareth thought, there are likely to be times when even doing exactly as they ask might provoke a catastrophic fury.

He had always been aware of Annie's…volatility. In the past the worst outcome to disappointing her had been a snarling, ear-shredding rebuke.

Gareth felt his eyes glued to the gun. Felt his nerves jangling and his blood thundering through his veins.

Times had changed.

Annie had left Gareth in charge of Voorhees. It was Gareth that ferried the frightening man across the river on the raft to the town. Gareth that brought him back. Gareth that administered the drugs that Annie believed kept the big man docile.

Gareth had done exactly as he was supposed to: Voorhees was locked inside one of the upper rooms in a nearby tower, recovering from the treatment the doctor had administered.

The big man was comatose, drugged to the eyeballs on exactly the cocktail of drugs that Annie had ordered he be given.

The one weapon we have against the Infected, he thought, and she has blunted it to the point of uselessness.

Annie wouldn't see it that way.

"He's...uh...in his room."

The statement sounded ridiculous as it fell from his lips. Like he was telling a mother where she could find her sullen teenage son after an argument.

"He's, uh, out of it."

They both knew that was Annie's doing; her insistence on continually pumping Voorhees full of painkillers and sedatives. Gareth saw a flicker of recognition pass over her eyes; felt the unspoken agreement crackling in the air like electricity. It didn't matter. Annie wouldn’t blame herself. She never did; never had.

Annie raised the gun, her bony old fingers trembling wildly.

And pointed it at Gareth.

"Then you are going to go and wake him up," she hissed.

*

Where the hell is Jason?

Michael cowered in one of the stately bedrooms with Claire, barely daring to breathe, and stared through the narrow window at the courtyard below.

Once again the place was painted with grisly bodies. Pieces of human flesh—some recognizable and some terrifyingly not—littered the enclosed space.

He had thought the old woman's response to an outbreak in the castle would be to send Jason out to put an end to it. Hell, his entire plan had been built on the Infected decimating the old woman's people and leaving him with a chance to end her with a gun taken from whichever of her sons he was able to launch his surprise attack on.

But Jason was nowhere to be seen.

Of the forty-or-so people that had been milling around the courtyard when Michael threw a man-shaped grenade into their midst, Michael estimated something like twenty had been dealt lethal blows in the violent storm that had Bryn Holloway at its epicentre.

That left roughly another twenty. The ones that had not been killed, but had instead been transformed and who were now pulsing around the courtyard like flocking birds.

Like caged predators.

Shit.

Michael scanned the human and once-human wreckage below him, and found his eye drawn to the most extreme example of carnage in his line of sight.

Rhys Holloway.

It looked like the man had been dragged through a gigantic shredder. Where others had succumbed to tears in their necks or their bellies, Rhys had been torn limb from limb. Ripped up and tossed aside like a bad lottery ticket.

Michael remembered Rachel describing to him the bloody mess she had seen in the farmhouse outside St. Davids. And hadn't Jason said something about his mother targeting her children specifically? Like somehow the family connection made the need to kill stronger?

That explained why Bryn Holloway was the only member of the Infected not circling aimlessly. The man that had started the carnage stood in front of the castle's main tower, pointing his empty eye-sockets at the door intently. He looked like he was trying to work out a particularly difficult puzzle.

Hope you get a chance to have a nice family reunion, pal.

Michael returned his gaze to Rhys' ruined corpse and felt frustration rising inside. In the centre of the smeared stain that the man's body had become, Michael saw his rifle. There would be a set of keys among the gore somewhere, too, but they might as well have been on the surface of the Moon for all the good they would do him now.

Annie's people had retrieved the antique weapons from the tower Michael occupied, but there was still an ancient suit of plate armour on display. For a moment he toyed with the idea of seeing if he could slip into it, and march outside to get the gun and the keys, wrapped in the safety of the iron. Like a tank.

Ridiculous.

Even if the armour protected him from the teeth and clawing fingers, the Infected would bring him to the ground through sheer weight of numbers.

There was no way out.

The people in the cells were safe. Michael was safe. But it wouldn't matter. They were all trapped, and once more Michael was faced with the prospect of the castle keeping him protected from the virus while he slowly starved to death inside it.

Frustration rolled around his gut.

What have I done?

A flicker of movement outside caught his eye, noticeable only because it was located so far above the whirling vortex of horror at ground level.

Michael squinted.

It was the man he thought of as Annie Holloway's advisor, exiting the door at the top of the main tower and moving out onto the battlements, creeping along as slow as evolution and clearly terrified.

Michael frowned as he watched the man's progress along the wall.

Now where the hell are you going?

Chapter 24

Getting out of the tower and onto the wall that ran around the castle felt bizarrely like a relief to Gareth, despite his sudden proximity to the horrors below.

Annie prowled around the inside of the tower like an angry scorpion. The Infected that circled in the courtyard far below somehow felt less threatening.

Until he stopped and actually looked at them.

The destruction of Newborough had mostly happened around Gareth, like movement caught only in the corner of his eye. He had been safely tucked away inside the town hall while hell was being unleashed on the streets outside.

He saw the obscene aftermath, of course; the decimated bodies and the stink of blood and death that accompanied the sight. But other than a snatched glimpse from an upstairs window, he had not seen the Infected up close.

The folly of his loyalty to Annie Holloway became apparent immediately.

Focused on killing and subduing each other, when creatures like this are out there, he thought. So short sighted. So human.

Gareth knew the creatures had extraordinary hearing, yet still he underestimated them. At first he shuffled quickly from the door onto the wall, aiming to get to the next tower as fast as possible. Within three steps he stopped dead as several eyeless faces whipped in his direction, and he realised that even the soft rustling of his shoes on the flat stone drew their hideous attention.

He held his breath, afraid that the sound of the air moving in his lungs would get him killed, and only allowed himself to breathe again when the creatures below returned to their aimless wandering.

All except for one.

Bryn Holloway.

Oh shit.

Staring at Annie Holloway's eyeless, blood-soaked son was like hearing the word of God. A revelation. When Annie discovered that her boy—possibly both her boys—had succumbed to the virus, her fury would be biblical.

She'll kill us all.

Gareth's mind raced even as he fought to keep his movements slow and measured. Getting Voorhees to wake up and dispatch the Infected was paramount, he decided. But returning to Annie was definitely not.

If he could get the big man out into the courtyard, and let him do…what he did, Gareth made up his mind that he would flee the castle the moment the last Infected body hit the ground.

The outside world frightened him terribly, but at least he would stand a chance out there. Inside the castle there would be an armed woman looking for brutal retribution, and Gareth would be her first, and maybe only target.

Gareth kept one sweaty hand at his hip, clutching the set of keys in his pocket tightly to keep them from jangling, and made his way inch by inch across the wall.

He had to travel around sixty feet to reach the tower that held Voorhees and the little boy that Annie had taken as her own.

Thinking about the boy, Gareth felt a pang of guilt. Leaving him there felt cruel, but Gareth knew he would not be able to protect him beyond the castle’s gate. He had grave doubts about his ability to protect himself.

Will she kill the boy?

Gareth doubted it. Most likely, he thought, Annie would simply replace her own dead sons with the little boy. She had already practically adopted him, cooing over him and stroking his hair with a faraway look in her eyes.

In some ways, he thought, that might be worse for him than death.

Thinking about the little boy, and how he was going to abandon the poor little bastard to endure Annie's wrath alone was making Gareth edgy. Making him sloppy.

Once more he felt the eyeless faces pointed in his direction, and he dismissed all thoughts of everything else and focused only on the path ahead, and on negotiating it without making any more noise than the frantic pounding of his heart.

Only when he reached the tower that held Voorhees did he allow himself to relax a little. He knew exactly which key opened the door, and managed to slide the bunch of keys from his pocket and select it without making any further sound. Disengaging the lock might attract some attention, but by then it would be too late for the Infected, and he would be safely inside. The next person to exit the tower would be Voorhees, even if it took several hours for Gareth to rouse him from his narcotic slumber.

When he finally closed the door behind him and stood on the dark, winding stone steps that led down into the tower, he let out an explosive gasp of relief. The air he sucked into his lungs felt like razors, and the sudden intake of oxygen that his terrified journey had denied him made him feel dizzy.

Made it, he thought triumphantly, and he scurried down the steps.

The boy was locked in the tower's top room. He had been there for several hours as punishment for calling Annie a crazy old bitch. Gareth had the impression that the kid had idolized the man whose throat Annie had ordered to be cut. He seemed like a pretty spirited lad, and Gareth imagined it would take Annie a while to break him.

He suppressed a shudder and continued down the steps, reminding himself that he was not there for the boy.

Voorhees occupied a room on the next level down. He was locked in, though Gareth and Annie had discussed the probability that the big man no longer needed securing. Each time Annie sent him out into the town to 'cure' the Infected, he came back willingly enough.

Still, Annie insisted on continuing with the regime of imprisoning and drugging him.

Gareth unlocked the door and stepped into the room. Voorhees was out cold, unmoving as his system worked its way through the handful of powerful painkillers Gareth had dosed him with only a couple of hours earlier.

Gareth tried shaking him gently, and got no response.

It was as he was debating whether slapping the man might result in both waking him and enraging him that Gareth heard the noise behind him. The sound of the door to the room being pushed open gently.

Not Infected, he thought as he turned, they would rush straight in.

His mouth dropped open, and he realised that in his eagerness to get to Voorhees, he had not locked the door to the battlements behind him.

And now he was not alone.

The cripple. Not crippled at all, but standing upright with a malevolent grin on his face.

And a shotgun in his hands.

Gareth raised his arms aloft in feeble surrender, frantically trying to think of the words that might mollify the man. It was all wasted effort.

Before he could even open his mouth, Gareth's vision was filled by the butt of the gun, and he had time to hear the crunch as it impacted with his jaw before the world became brief pain and long, slow darkness.

*

Annie felt like her mind was being stretched; being slowly extended to its limits. To the point of snapping.

She stood alone in the throne room, confronted suddenly by the very real possibility that everybody else could already be dead, and that she was just one old woman with hands that shook wildly and a gun that she had no idea how to use.

Years of building influence slowly. Decades of work. Surely it could not come down to this? Surely she had not been solely reliant on the brawn of her idiot sons?

She stared at the gun, lost in dark thoughts, and found relief washing through her when she heard Gareth returning.

She turned to the base of the winding staircase, and hoped the paralysing fear she had felt only a moment earlier was not written clearly on her face. A show of weakness would be seized upon, and a strong appearance might be all she had left.

When she saw who the footsteps belonged to, the fear returned.

Michael.

Not crippled at all, but standing in front of her as large as life, with Bryn's shotgun levelled at her.

"Drop the gun," Michael said evenly.

Annie didn't hear him.

All her thoughts had coalesced into one single terrible whole.

He has Bryn's gun.

My boy...

The revolver dropped from Annie's nerveless fingers and a pitiful sob escaped from her quivering lips. Somewhere deep inside, hatred at the display of weakness flared.

She felt a single tear rolling down her wrinkled cheek, and found that she could not rip her gaze away from the shotgun. From what she knew in her heart that it represented.

"Is he dead?"

There was no strength in her voice, no sign of the fortitude that had helped her to dominate the town of Newborough for decades.

"In a manner of speaking," Michael said grimly. "The other one, though. Well, he's definitely dead."

Annie collapsed to her knees, ignoring the fiery complaints of her ancient joints as they struck the hard floor. Finally she tore her gaze from the gun, and focused it on Michael's smug eyes, and felt an overpowering surge of hatred for the man.

"And now I suppose you think you've won," she spat.

"Won?" Michael's voice was filled with wonder. "I think we've all lost."

"And now what?" Annie snarled bitterly. "You murder me? Somebody had to take control, to give the people direction. People need organisation, Michael, don't you understand? People need leadership. Who cares if you don't like the way I do things? What chance would we have had to survive all this without clear leadership?"

Michael shrugged.

"Maybe none. I guess you'll never know."

Annie snorted.

"You think you have it in you to kill a defenceless old woman?"

Michael let out a mirthless chuckle.

"You'd be surprised," he said, and then he squeezed the trigger.

At close range the shotgun blew the top half of the old woman's body to pieces, and the blast ricocheted off the stone walls like a violent thunderstorm.

Chapter 25

When Michael returned to the room in which Jason slept, he found the man he had knocked unconscious coming to with a low, animal groan.

"You might be the last one left, pal."

"Gareth. My name is Gareth. You killed Annie?"

Michael nodded, and was surprised when Gareth let out a sigh of what appeared to be genuine relief.

"There might still be others hiding in the towers," Gareth said. "Not everybody was ready to come out. Too scared, even before…are you going to kill us all?"

He stared pointedly at the revolver that Michael had retrieved from the floor beside Annie Holloway's ruined corpse.

Michael felt an unexpected surge of anger welling up inside him.

"Of course I'm not," he snarled. "I take no pleasure in what I've done. I've had to do things I didn't want to in order to survive."

I sound just like Darren Oliver.

"Annie would have said the same," Gareth said morosely.

"Then Annie was fucking full of shit as well as insane," Michael snapped. “I told her I understood her killing John and I meant it. She thought he was a threat to her, and I get that, no matter how wrong I know she was. But that kid in the dungeon? Torture? Crucifixion? Threatening me with letting her sons rape my fucking daughter?"

Gareth's eyes widened, and he lifted his palms in surrender.

Michael fought to bring his anger under control.

"We live in a world where killing might be necessary now," Michael said eventually. "But for some people this is all just a license to act exactly how they always wanted to act. What about you, Gareth? Do I have to worry about you turning into a psychopath? Because if there's even a one per cent chance, I think I can do us both a favour right now."

He lifted the gun slightly.

Gareth shook his head firmly.

"I was about to run," he said. "I wanted no part of all this. Annie would have killed us all. I wanted to run."

Michael stared keenly at the man, and saw tears welling in his eyes.

After a long moment, he tucked the revolver into his waistband.

"Then I guess you'd better tell me what's going on with Jason. We need him awake. Or none of us are getting out of here."

*

Rachel had been watching through the bars set into the cell door for what felt like a couple of hours; maybe more. In that time she had heard a single gunshot, and she hadn't yet been able to tear her eyes away from the Infected that flocked around the courtyard.

Nor had she been able to tear her thoughts away from the certainty that everyone else was dead already. They had to be. She could see no reason why Michael hadn't yet appeared. And if the old woman was still alive, she surely would have sent Jason out to deal with the Infected that milled around the castle's grisly interior.

We're going to starve to death after all, she thought. It was almost funny. It felt like Rachel had been faced by a hundred different exotic ways to meet her maker, and in the end it would be an empty belly that claimed her. No different to billions of other humans that had died across the centuries. A mundane end.

Linda and Emma had given up trying to glimpse anything through the bars and were now slumped against the wall behind Rachel, locked behind invisible bars of despair.

When she saw a sudden flurry of movement outside, Rachel's heart leapt and sank simultaneously.

One of the tower doors opened and Jason charged out among the Infected like a bull, moving among the creatures that seemed unable to locate his presence and ending them. Jason had no weapon. There was no bloodlust on his battered face, and no sound escaped the lips that were no longer able to form words. The execution was almost serene; an act of nature.

One by one Rachel's brother snapped the necks of the Infected, and as she watched the slaughter Rachel knew that Annie Holloway had lived, and the nightmare would not end. Not until Rachel was dead.

She remembered telling Michael that she would throw herself over a cliff before she let the virus take her. It seemed now like the virus was humanity itself; it was Annie Holloway and her mania. It was Darren and Victor and who-knew how many other people who had responded to the loss of civilization with the destruction of their own kind.

Rachel wished fervently that there was a cliff available to her now. Even the single shell in the shotgun would be preferable to a slow, agonising death in a cage.

Just as she felt like she was falling into an endless abyss of despair, a miracle happened right in front of her eyes.

A miracle that wore a weary grin and carried a set of keys. A miracle that walked.

"Better step back if you want me to open this door, Rachel," Michael said.

And his grin widened.

*

"Since when can you fucking walk?"

Rachel's tone was half-accusation and half-joyous disbelief.

Michael smiled.

"I don't know when it started for sure. A few days ago, I think. I started to see movement...feeling came back yesterday."

He shrugged.

"Temporary paralysis?" He looked at Linda, who stood next to Rachel staring at Michael with an identical expression of disbelief. "That's a thing, right?"

Linda rolled her eyes.

"Not a doctor, remember?"

Michael laughed.

"Right. Sorry."

They stood in the courtyard, carefully avoiding stepping on the gore that was smeared across the stone, as if each chunk of torn flesh was a landmine with the potential to do terrible damage.

To their right, Jason stood, swaying slightly and staring around in confusion. With the Infected dead, Jason seemed to have no idea what to do next. He looked to Michael like a man trying to remember where he had left his keys. Or a machine awaiting the input of its next directive.

Michael caught the dark look in Rachel's eyes as she glanced at her brother, and knew exactly what she was thinking.

He's looking for Annie.

Michael could almost see Rachel's heart breaking; could see the devastating emotion that tried to crack her stoic face.

He was glad of the distraction when Gareth Hughes appeared in the courtyard. Glad that it took Rachel's mind off her brother, too. He saw her face darken with hostility.

"He's one of them," she spat.

"Not anymore," Michael said. "I think there might be a few of Annie's people left here, hiding out in the towers, but I'm not willing to punish them all for what she did. I think it's about time we stopped thinking in terms of us and them. We need to get the hell out of here, and the more people we have, the more chance there is that we might actually make it."

Rachel and Linda both seemed startled at Michael's tone, and he almost laughed. At one time or another, both of them had pleaded with him that he should cease the gloomy introspection that came to him so naturally and lead the people who were looking to him. Judging by the expression on their faces, neither of them had truly believed it would actually happen.

"How do we know we can trust him?" Rachel said finally.

"Can't trust anybody, remember?" Michael said with a sad smile. "We'll keep an eye on him. On all of them. And while we're on that subject..."

Michael strode away without finishing the sentence, and felt Linda and Rachel's eyes burning into him. He picked his way through the obscene mess on the floor until he found the rifle among the collection of parts that used to be Rhys Holloway. He bent down, feeling a twinge of protest in his damaged back, and scooped the weapon up.

Clutching the weapon once more felt like hugging an old friend.

When he returned to the two women, he pulled the revolver out of his waistband and passed it to Rachel.

"For me?" she said sardonically. "You shouldn't have."

"I shouldn't have done a lot of things," Michael said glumly. "But there's one thing I regret more than anything now, and that's lying to you."

Rachel froze, and her eyes narrowed.

"Full disclosure," Michael said. "I figure if we're going to get anywhere in this world, it might just be because we're honest with each other. I killed Gwyneth."

"What?" Rachel said. "I already know—"

"No. I killed her. Not an accident. The gun didn't just go off. I pointed it at her and I killed her, and she saw it coming."

Rachel's mouth dropped open.

"I did it because she was infected, Rachel. Not in the same way as these poor bastards were, but infected nonetheless. As long as she lived, and as long as she was in this castle with us, there was a danger that all this,"—he waved a hand at the once-human mess on the ground—"could have happened at any time."

Rachel stared at him, and Michael felt the bristling anger radiating from her.

"So John was right," she said. "He thought there was something off about Gwyneth dying."

Michael nodded.

"I guessed as much. He didn't exactly try to hide it."

"So why tell me now?"

Michael stared at her thoughtfully. There was, he realised, no point in trying to dress up the point he had to make.

"John thought Australia was clear of the virus. He told me to get there if I could. And I will," Michael said.

"And when I do, I won't be taking the virus with me."

Rachel stared at Michael blankly for a moment, and then he saw terrible understanding dawning in her eyes.

"Jason," she said softly.

"He's infected," Michael said. "I don't plan to do anything about that. That's down to you. But he can't come, Rachel. You can. Your choice. Or if you're furious about Gwyneth you can point that gun at me right now and make all this go away. I won't try to stop you."

Michael saw tears seething in Rachel's eyes. The proud, strong eyes that had dazzled him in St. Davids, and which had remained steely throughout everything. Through every terrible ordeal the world had thrown at the poor woman.

It was the closest he had seen Rachel come to genuinely breaking, and he hated himself for putting her through it.

Rachel stared at her brother. He was a barren island amid the growing sea of activity in the courtyard. As people emerged from the cells and the towers, gathering together to find out what was going to happen next, Jason seemed unaware of their presence. Seemed unaware of anything.

For reasons she could not explain, John's final words came back to her.

You can do this, Rach.

As she stared at her little brother, damaged beyond all repair, destroyed and poisoned by a world that he had struggled with long before it turned savage, Rachel found she could hold back the tears no longer.

"I need time," she sobbed.

"You don't have much. I'm burying John, he deserves that, but then we have to move. As fast as possible."

He pointed at the clouds that gathered over the battlements to the west.

At the column of smoke that rose in the distance. A column that had been faint — almost invisible — days earlier, but which was unmistakable now, like the tentacle of some great monster reaching up to attack the heavens.

Wylfa Power Station was burning.

"Our time is running out," he said.

Chapter 26

In his clearer moments, Ed Cartwright thought about how quickly civilization had been stripped away. Not just the civilization you could actually see; not the buses and the takeaway pizzas and the endless television channels. All of that was gone too, of course, but it wasn't the sudden lack of life's little conveniences that dominated his mind. It was the things that weren't visible.

Like safety.

It hadn't taken generations of hardship for humanity to revert to savagery. It had taken days. Civilization, it turned out, had been a collective fairytale that humans blithely told each other and chose to believe. An overwrought story of a world that didn't really exist; just a way to make people feel grateful for the dull light of reality.

Now the need to tell fairytales had crumbled away and all that was left was monsters and darkness.

It had happened so fast. One moment he had been sitting in his bedroom, thinking about the fact that he was running out of weed and cursing the certainty that his dealer was ripping him off; selling him under weight, just a little, every single time.

The next moment, he was running and there was death everywhere, and somehow he had ended up locked in a fucking dungeon waiting for people to cut parts of his body away like they were trimming the fat from a side of beef.

Those were his clearer moments, and they were brief, as fleeting as summer rain. The rest of the time—the majority of the time—he spent screaming.

He felt another scream building in his throat when he heard the dungeon door opening above him; heard it through the one ear he had left after Linda had sliced away the other, while the taller of Annie Holloway’s sons had cackled deliriously.

Linda hadn't wanted to do it, he could tell. The expression on her face spoke of remorse and pity, but that mattered little to Ed.

She'd cut him anyway. Just as Michael had.

As would they all.

Their reluctance and their pity meant nothing when you were the one watching pieces of your body being taken. All the prisoners would be given the same choice the man in the wheelchair had been given—torture or be tortured—and all would eventually pick up the knife.

Ed ran through the number of prisoners in his mind constantly like repeating a prayer, doing the terrible arithmetic again and again, and wondering which piece of his body the tenth of them would take. The fourteenth. The eighteenth. His fingers would be long gone by then, and probably his toes and his genitals, too. By the time the old bitch brought the tenth lucky contestant down the steps into the dark room, he imagined that even his limbs might be gone. After that where was there to go? Eyes? Organs?

Would number nineteen finally scoop out his brain and end it?

Ed wished fervently that he could just die; that he could persuade his heart that it would be in both of their interests if it just agreed to stop beating.

Faint light lanced apart the darkness, and Ed lifted his head as footsteps descended the stairs to the dungeon. The figure stood for a moment, silhouetted by the light from above and difficult to distinguish.

When Ed finally did recognise the person standing in front of him he felt his blood run cold. The young woman with the frightening, intense eyes stood in front of him. Rachel. She had scared the shit out of Ed long before he had been offered up to her like a blood sacrifice.

She has a gun.

Maybe this is the end.

Please, make it quick. Please.

Ed struggled to speak, but could not. Thirst raged in his mouth. No water for days. He found his cracked lips glued together; his dry, swollen tongue unwilling to comply with his request that it help him to start begging for her to end him quickly and mercifully.

It won't matter.

Begging hasn't helped so far.

Ed let his head drop, and tried to distance himself from the horror he knew was about to be done to him.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Rachel pick up a knife from a table that held a range of edged weapons, all of which Ed suspected he would get to experience.

He tried to sob, but it seemed there were no tears left.

And then suddenly his hands were free, and he was falling to the floor, and she was catching him.

"Come on, Ed. It's time for us to go," Rachel said softly.

The tears came then.

*

Ed stumbled out into the courtyard, squinting as the bright daylight lanced painfully into his eyes.

It looked like someone had set off a bomb in a butcher's shop. Blood and bodies everywhere. Ripped and torn, broken and twisted and smashed.

His feet slid on something slippery and he fought to control his balance, desperate not to end up on the ground among the dead things.

He felt Rachel's steadying arm on his shoulder, and he let her lead him to the stockpile of supplies he had helped to gather from Caernarfon. It felt like a lifetime ago. When she passed him a bottle of mineral water, Ed slurped it down greedily. It was the best thing he had ever tasted.

"Hope you don't hold a grudge, mate," Rachel said. Ed looked at her, puzzled. She nodded over his shoulder, and he turned to see Linda walking toward him.

"So do I," Linda said as she approached. "I'm sorry. About your ear."

Ed stared at the woman. He wanted to come up with a retort, but no part of his life had prepared him for how best to respond to a heartfelt apology from somebody that had recently mutilated him.

He stared at her dumbly, and nodded.

"Got to patch you up," Linda said. "Is that okay with you? Despite what you might have heard, I'm no doctor, but I guess I'm all you've got."

Ed nodded again, and let Linda take his left hand. All his fingers were gone, and the stumps oozed yellow liquid that he knew meant infection. A gift from Annie Holloway’s son Rhys, who had defecated into his own hand and wiped the horrific result across Ed’s weeping stumps, smearing it into the wounds like a dreadful ointment.

The man had laughed like he had just heard the greatest joke ever told. The memory of the humiliation made Ed’s cheeks burn.

"This will sting," Linda said, searching through the supplies and producing a bottle of antiseptic.

"Trust me," Ed said. "I've had worse."

Linda smiled.

Ed turned his gaze back to Rachel.

"What happened?"

"The Infected happened. Thanks to Michael," she said. "You don't need to worry. They're all dead. And we're getting out of here. Very soon."

"We are? But what about the Infected out there? Isn't it safer here?"

Rachel shook her head.

"You told us about Wylfa, remember? It's in that direction, right?"

Rachel pointed at the column of smoke drifting up toward the clouds.

Ed paled. He nodded.

"Our world is built on electricity, and electricity is gone," Rachel said. "Things are breaking down. There are some things we want to be a long way away from when that happens."

Ed gulped.

"So where are we going?"

"The plan is the same as it was before the old woman got in the way," Rachel said. "We get to the docks in Liverpool. Get a boat big enough to take us all, and we don't look back."

"Get to Liverpool how?"

"On foot."

"But what about the Infected? This is crazy, do you know how far away Liverpool is?"

Rachel frowned.

"Not exactly."

"It's...like...seventy-five miles away. It will take days on foot. And even if we get there...it's a big city. It will be overrun."

Rachel shrugged.

"I never said it was a great plan."

Chapter 27

"What do you think will happen?"

Kyle stood next to his brother, staring at the junction box. Neither of them had any idea how they might cut power to the entire ship, but Tom had suggested a more localised solution, and it seemed like it might work. They followed electrical cabling from the cargo hold until they found the junction box set near the roof about thirty yards down the adjacent corridor.

"I'm not sure. Maybe Sanderson wasn't kidding about the creature being telepathically linked to the Infected somehow. Maybe this is how Sullivan is controlling the Infected."

Kyle looked at him dubiously.

"I'm not sure anything is controlling the Infected."

Tom shrugged.

"You want to turn back?"

Kyle frowned in frustration.

"Look," Tom said. "The thing is locked up. If I'm wrong and it's not a life support system the worst that will happen is that it will be able to move about. It's still locked in a cage. Worst case scenario is that it kills Sanderson. I don't know about you, but I think that pompous prick could stand to do a little dying."

Kyle dropped his gaze to the floor. Increasingly it felt like his brother's agenda was simple revenge. He had a feeling Tom would kill every last person on this ship and every other if he could.

"Fine," he said at last. "Any sign of trouble and I'm getting to the chopper, and getting the fuck out of here. Are you with me?"

"Of course," Tom said.

"How will you cut the power?"

Tom dropped his gaze from the tangle of cables in the junction box to the assault rifle that looked so ridiculous clasped in his hands.

He shrugged almost apologetically.

"Oh," Kyle said. "I guess we're not keeping this quiet, then."

"I guess not."

Kyle sighed.

"Sanderson will be looking for us. I'll go find him. Once we're inside—"

"I know what to do," Tom interrupted. "It'll be fine, Kyle."

Kyle had a lurking suspicion that it would not be fine; that nothing would ever again be fine. He grabbed his little brother and pulled him into an awkward hug. It was, Kyle thought, quite possibly the first time they had ever had such intimate contact. He felt Tom stiffen and pulled away.

"If it goes wrong, Tom-"

"The chopper. I'll be there."

Kyle turned and left his brother in front of the junction box, making his way back toward the rest of the crew.

He couldn't help but wonder if he'd ever see him again.

*

"There you are. Where is the other one?"

Phil Sanderson was stressed. Hell, stressed didn't even come close. The thick soup of fear-inducing pheromones that the mutation emitted had finally dissipated a little, but when the manufactured fear departed, Phil discovered that it left a vacuum into which a more recognisable and natural sort of terror flooded.

He had seen the mutation in action; had seen it up close and personal as it smashed through a thick concrete wall. The thought of being in a room with the thing—even with all the safety precautions in place—was making him feel nauseous.

The fact that only one of the two men that he had recruited to act as his personal security team had appeared did not help the troubled writhing of nerves in his stomach.

The soldier—Kyle? Sanderson spent a moment trying to recall the man’s name before realising it didn’t matter in the slightest— shook his head and shrugged.

"No idea, Sir. I guess the, uh, pheromones got to him."

Phil bit back on his desire to rage uncontrollably at the news. When all this was over, he would find the deserter and have Fred Sullivan deal with him. For now, there was nothing to be done. At least, he thought, I've still got the one who actually looks like he might be able to fire a gun.

"It's almost time," Phil said, pointing at a readout on a monitor and overlooking the fact that Kyle clearly didn't have the first idea what any of it meant.

"Follow me."

*

When Sanderson led Kyle to the cargo hold, Kyle sneaked a quick glance down the corridor that held the junction box which supplied the power to the strange prison. There was no sign of Tom, but Kyle thought he could feel his brother's eyes on him, watching from the shadows.

He gave a slight nod of encouragement at the darkness as he left the corridor, and his nerves began to race. For a moment he was back in the van on a busy London street, sitting next to a psychotic Russian criminal, certain that the situation was spiralling beyond his control.

He shook the unhelpful memories away. Sanderson was prattling on about the mutation being almost ready for 'the extraction', muttering almost to himself while he opened a small case and withdrew a large, wicked-looking hypodermic syringe.

Kyle stared at it, fascinated. The needle looked to be a good six inches long. It looked more like a weapon than a medical instrument.

"Hey. Hey!"

Kyle blinked, and realised that Sanderson was now addressing him directly.

"Sir?"

"I want you right by my side, okay? And you keep that weapon pointed directly at the creature's face. If I say so, you execute it without hesitation, understand?"

"Yes, Sir."

Kyle wondered dimly if the assault rifle had a safety. Guns in movies had safety switches, didn’t they? If it did, he hadn't disengaged it, and would not have the first idea how to.

You'd better be right about this, Tom, he thought. If Tom's hunch was correct, he would cut the power and the creature would simply die, leaving Sanderson and Fred Sullivan's bizarre experiment in tatters.

If Tom was wrong...

He hasn't been wrong so far. About any of this.

So why is Sanderson so scared?

Kyle stared around the cargo hold. Sykes and his team stood like scarecrows, unmoving and pointing their weapons a little shakily at the cage. Judging by the looks on their faces, they were all terrified. Glassy-eyed and somehow vacant, as though they were busy watching their lives flashing before their eyes.

A nagging sensation that these people hadn’t been feeding him lies erupted in Kyle’s mind.

What if they were all telling the truth?

It couldn’t be. A super-powered monster. Impossible speed and strength. Area of effect. It had to be lies; had to be Sullivan’s way of ensuring that the people aboard the McIntosh ship followed orders.

Phil Sanderson waved a hand at the one-way glass that separated the hold from the small monitoring room, and moments later the gate to the enormous steel cell opened with a beep.

Sanderson stared pointedly, and, with some effort, Kyle persuaded his feet to move, following the scientist to the entrance of the huge cell.

Kyle stepped inside, and felt cold sweat begin to trickle down to the small of his back.

*

Phil Sanderson hadn't ever been considered brave; not by himself, and certainly not by anybody else. Even his academic peers had sneered at him, because despite the fact that Phil's intellect outstripped them all and they all knew it, he contented himself with mundane research, often doing no more than confirming the pioneering work of scientists who understood less than him, but were prepared to take some actual risks.

He had been working diligently on refining the process of genetically altering corn to produce bumper harvests—a field of study not so much well-trodden as thoroughly ploughed long before he got to it—when Fred Sullivan found him.

Phil never knew how he had come to Fred's attention. All that mattered was what Fred offered: a lab and equipment that left the phrase state of the art in its rear view mirror and wealth that would have made the Pope blush.

All Phil had to do, Sullivan had promised, was to continue conducting his work in genetics.

That had been decades ago. And Sullivan had been good to his word: Phil never had to do anything other than interfere with natural DNA. Of course, at some point the lines had become blurred and Phil's work became less about crops and more about humans. A different sort of harvest altogether.

By then it didn't matter. By then Fred had established utter dominance over Phil, and the work he undertook had nothing to do with salary or even with scientific recognition, and everything to do with being allowed to continue breathing.

Sometimes Phil thought that Sullivan had recruited him not for his knowledge or his expertise, but for his cowardice.

He tried to manufacture bravery as he approached the mutation, but with each step a life spent cowering in fear weighed him down like an anvil around his neck. Not for the first time he wondered if he could persuade someone else to extract blood from Jake McIntosh in his stead. He dismissed the idea, as always, because word would get back to Fred, and because Phil hadn't yet encountered anything that scared him more than the old man.

Not even the mutation.

Phil had ordered that the emitters should be turned on before he even stepped into the cage. They would pump out a low frequency sound that would enrage the mutation as soon as it opened its eyes, but the noise would also paralyse the creature.

Phil had stipulated that the soldier in the monitoring booth should keep his eyes on the creature at all times, and if he felt the need, he should turn the volume all the way up to eleven.

As he made his way to the apparatus that surrounded McIntosh, Phil thought he could feel the pulsing sound himself, though he knew that was logically impossible. The trembling he felt in his muscles had nothing to do with the emitters, and everything to do with his fear.

Don’t look at it.

He couldn’t help it. His eyes were drawn to the horrific face as if a powerful magnet pulled at them, leaving him powerless to resist. The creature was conscious, all the readouts had confirmed it, but its eyes remained closed.

Thank God.

Phil let out a breath that trembled like an earthquake had hit it, and forced himself to focus only on an exposed patch of flesh on the creature’s arm, a tiny section of its hideous body that had not been draped in restrictive steel.

He aimed the huge needle at the flesh, and it took all his strength to penetrate the skin that seemed to have the texture of thick leather. Slowly, agonisingly, the blood began to fill the syringe. Darker than ordinary human blood; thicker. Like a primordial sludge.

Phil’s eyes flicked up once more and he froze in terror.

The mutation’s furious eyes were wide open and pointed straight at him. It felt like the creature’s livid gaze was boring deep into his mind, drilling wildly into nerves that shrieked in protest. Phil felt his mind begin to swim as he pulled the needle clear of the creature; felt the humiliating warmth spreading from his crotch.

It’s done, he thought, now get the fuck out of here and never come back.

Phil had taken two faltering steps backwards, unable to tear his gaze from the mutation’s horrific eyes when he heard the sound of distant gunfire and the lights went out.

*

Tom is wrong.

Kyle knew it as he watched the scientist approaching the creature. Sanderson had done well to hide his fear during the hours he had spent on the ship, but now it poured off him in waves, so powerful and unmistakable that Kyle half-wondered if the man was emitting pheromones just like those he had described earlier.

Thoughts popped into Kyle’s mind like staccato gunfire.

He's terrified.

This is no life support system.

Sanderson was telling the truth about everything.

Kyle took a few steps backwards, and turned to run, praying that he would get to Tom before he cut the power.

He made it as far as the door of the cell before gunfire ripped the clammy silence in two and everything went dark.

He hadn't even had time to adjust his thoughts to the pitch-blackness that now wrapped around him like a shroud when he heard a sound that was utterly alien to him; a sound that he could only imagine was steel being torn.

A clattering in the darkness.

Heavy chains falling to the floor.

Kyle’s breath caught in his throat.

Emergency floor lighting clicked on, bathing the room in a faint crimson glow and giving it a nightmarish quality.

Kyle couldn’t help himself. He implored his muscles to keep running, but found himself locked in place by grim curiosity. He turned to see the mutation standing upright, seven foot tall; naked and wrapped in twisted, heavily-packed muscle, like an artistic impression of the human body painted by a slavering maniac in Hell.

The creature knocked Phil Sanderson to the floor with a dismissive flick of its wrist, like a lazy attempt to swat a fly.

It stared at Kyle.

Grinned.

Without thinking, Kyle lifted the assault rifle, all thoughts of whether the safety might be on long-forgotten, and squeezed the trigger, sending sixty bullets hurtling toward the creature in a matter of seconds. A fraction of a second after he began firing, Sykes’ entire team followed suit, emptying their weapons at the creature, and the vast dark space echoed to the roar of automatic gunfire.

The air around the creature seemed to shimmer like a heat haze.

Kyle didn’t see the thing move.

All he knew was that the bullets had hit nothing. As if the creature had somehow skipped out of their way, faster than Kyle’s eyes could follow it.

Impossible.

The mutation chuckled, a low and sickly sound that made Kyle’s heart feel like it was about to explode from his chest.

It switched its attention to Sanderson, who was pathetically engaged in an attempt to shuffle away from the monster on his belly. He didn’t make it more than a few inches. Kyle watched as the creature placed a foot on the man’s back, pressing him into the floor, like a bird pinning a worm with its talons before devouring it.

Finally Kyle’s subconscious mind took over, apparently deciding that it had seen more than enough, and suddenly he was running, sprinting from the cargo hold; baffled by the fearful whimpering sound he heard until it became terrifyingly clear that the noise was spilling from his own throat.

And then he heard a different sound. One that was easy to identify. A noise that made his blood turn to ice in his veins.

Screaming.

Chapter 28

Memories poured into Jake McIntosh's mind like acid, devouring and destroying everything in their path. The last thing he remembered was the old man and the noise that felt like it was tearing him apart cell by cell.

He heard the same noise now, and felt the same pain, though it was greatly reduced. He was pinned down to a flat surface, weighed down by metal that seemed to cover every inch of his deformed body.

And he was weak.

So weak.

The fatigue he felt reminded him of days back at Moorcroft; days when he had awoken after an indeterminate amount of time spent drugged and comatose. And it reminded him of waking for the first time after he had escaped the underground base, when starvation had attacked while he slept, debilitating even his extraordinary body.

Blood.

I need blood.

There was blood nearby. Jake could smell it. Warm blood, ripe with the stench of fear. Approaching him slowly.

He opened his eyes and found a spotlight burning into them painfully. It took a moment to adjust, and by then the other sense had kicked in. The new one that had been gifted to him by the blood of an Infected creature. He saw not with his eyes, but with his mind. Saw that he was in a vast space, and there were a handful of humans dotted around him, far away and indistinct.

And one that was standing right next to him.

Jake could not lift his head, couldn't move a muscle as the infernal sound poisoned him, but he was able to point his eyes towards the trembling scientist who stood inches away, holding a large needle that was buried deeply into Jake's arm.

The one that drugged me, Jake thought. The last person who had drugged him had their neck ripped open and their still-warm corpse desecrated. That had been when he had been human; back when he had been plain old Jake McIntosh, version 1.0. He dearly wanted to do much, much worse to the man who trembled alongside him now, but the wall of noise prevented it.

A bright star of fury went supernova in Jake's mind when he felt the blood being pulled from his arm, and he stared at the human, wishing with every corner of his dark soul that his hatred could kill.

And then he heard something else. Something that rode above the painful low noise that held him in agonising stasis. The clattering of gunfire.

And suddenly the world was dark, and the terrible noise had ceased.

Freedom.

For a fraction of a second Jake wondered if he might be too weak to escape the metal prison that pinned him down, but fury fuelled him, and he tore the steel manacles and chains that had pinned him apart, tossing them aside like confetti.

He knocked the scientist to the floor before the man’s face had even registered surprise, and paused for a moment as dim red lights flicked on, illuminating the group of human soldiers who surrounded his prison, pointing their pathetic weapons at him.

Jake laughed in delight as he saw the bullets floating toward him, drifting in his direction like feathers carried on a soft breeze. Avoiding them—even in his weakened state—was no more challenging than blinking or drawing in his next breath.

When the roar of the weapons gave way to confused, delectable whimpering and the frantic click of pointless reloading, Jake pinned the scientist to the floor, and felt the human’s heart beat once—a single glorious, deliciously terrified pulse—before Jake tore away the man's right leg and consumed it.

Energy flowed through his deformed veins, lighting him up like a city at night.

The man's screams were almost as delicious as his blood.

Jake heard retreating, scrambling footsteps as the soldiers beyond the cage took the only option left to them and ran.

Heard a human voice screaming lock it!

Another voice responding that it was impossible; that there was no power.

He smiled. No lock could hold him in any case. Not now that he had fed. And now that he understood the weapon they had used against him, no human would get another chance to use it again. Ever.

The human beneath his foot writhed and screamed as his body's precious fuel pumped out of the torn stump that had been his right leg seconds earlier.

Jake allowed himself a moment to drink it in; savouring the man’s agony like it was his first kill all over again, the one that had confirmed to him that he was different to everybody else. The one that told him he was something better, long before his body evolved and transformed belief into undeniable fact.

He stooped, until his face was inches away from the screaming man's pudgy mask of unhinged panic, and took a wrist in each of his huge hands. When he extended the man's arms fully, he saw horrified awareness replace the fear and pain that twisted his pitiful face.

"The old man," Jake rumbled. "Where is the old man?"

"On another ship," the scientist wailed.

"We're on a ship?"

"Yes, yes! Sullivan is with the main fleet."

Jake leaned even closer, until his face was almost touching the scientist's. He licked his deformed lips slowly before speaking.

"Where?"

"F-f-five miles east of here. Please, I-"

Jake ripped the man's arms away, taking an enormous bite from one and shuddering in ecstasy at the power the warm meat sent coursing through him.

There was more meat nearby. No need to gorge himself on this one.

He looked at the scientist's other arm for a moment; dangled it in front of the man's horrified face so he could see what had been done to him, and cackled when he saw the broken insanity boiling in the man's eyes.

So much fun.

Slowly and deliberately, Jake inserted the scientist's dismembered limb into his own mouth, forcing it down into his throat so that he too might understand just how delicious his flesh tasted.

As he filled the man's throat with his own arm, Jake doubted very much that the man understood.

But he did stop screaming.

Chapter 29

Kyle erupted into the corridor adjacent to the cargo hold, frantically searching for his brother and seeing nothing, when he heard Phil Sanderson's bloodcurdling scream cut off abruptly.

Sykes’ team followed Kyle out of the hold, and judging from the looks on their faces, all of their combat training had left them just as unprepared for what was happening as Kyle himself was. They bolted in all directions, scattering chaotically like someone had just called in a bomb threat in their vicinity.

Seconds later Kyle heard glass breaking, and knew that the mutation had smashed its way into the adjacent monitoring room.

There was no sign of Tom. Kyle hoped to God that his brother had already realised how wrong he had been, and had made for the chopper.

More screaming. It sounded like the soldier who had been monitoring the mutation had had his shift ended, though not in the way he hoped.

There was no time to think about Tom; about what might happen next. Kyle put his head down and pumped his legs, rocketing along the narrow corridor and hurtling up a set of grated steel steps to the next deck.

He heard a crash behind him.

It sounded like the creature was done in the monitoring room, and had decided that rather than exit through a door, it would simply smash through the steel wall.

Somewhere behind him, Kyle heard more screaming. And then more. At least three of Sykes’ team sounded like they had been put down in ways so painful that Kyle’s mind couldn’t even conceive what might have happened to them. Half the damn crew had already gone and Kyle himself hadn’t even travelled more than about forty yards.

The speed of the creature wasn’t just bewildering. It was impossible.

He tried desperately to increase his pace, urging his muscles to match the speed of his terrified thoughts. His breath began to feel like acid spewing from his throat and dark spots flashed across his vision as he pushed his muscles beyond their limits, straining every sinew to squeeze every possible ounce of speed out of his legs.

What the fuck is it?

The question burned his mind as the oxygen burned in his lungs, but on some level he knew it didn't matter what it was. All that mattered was getting as far away from it as possible.

Another scream that ended in something that sounded horrifically like a wet tearing.

It's too fast. You have to slow it down.

Kyle's eyes swivelled frantically as he ran. He thought about toppling things in his wake: that's what people did when they were being chased in the movies, and it tended to work for them.

Not if they're getting chased by something that breaks through solid steel like it's warm butter.

Kyle heard another crash behind him.

Much closer.

Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh—

PULL IN CASE OF EMERGENCY

The sign loomed in front of Kyle's eyes and he felt his heart leap.

Noise damaged the mutation; hurt it in a way that Kyle didn't understand. Sanderson had talked about low frequency noise, and a fire alarm wouldn't produce anything like that, but it was all Kyle had. The creature would be on him in a matter of seconds.

Kyle drove his fist into the safety glass and yanked the alarm lever down.

A half-second later an ear-splitting wail began to reverberate around the ship. Kyle didn't stop to see if pulling the lever had worked; didn't dare even to look back for fear that he would see the monster hurtling towards him.

As he ran, he thought he heard another noise mingled with the wail of the siren. A shriek that didn't sound like pain to Kyle's ears.

More like frustration.

*

The noise blinded Jake. It didn't have the same catastrophic effect as the booming, poisonous sound that the old man had introduced him to with a sneer, but it effectively blurred his vision and made bright sparks of rage burst chaotically across his mind. Where before he had been able to target the retreating human's footsteps as easily as tracing powerful spotlights on a dark night, he now found they were dissolved in an ocean of unrelenting sound; impossible to pinpoint.

Jake clapped his hands to his ears, trying to muffle the noise, trying to hear the sound of the human that he knew existed somewhere beneath the shriek of the siren, but he saw nothing. Everything was noise and light.

He howled in frustration.

It took several seconds for the rage that gripped him to ease up enough for Jake to think.

You have other senses. Use them.

He sucked in a deep breath through his deformed nose, and caught the scent. Faint, but unmistakeable.

Fear.

Following the trail by smell would force him to move much slower, but in some ways that didn't matter. In fact, he thought, hunting might be fun.

Grinning widely, Jake did his best to block out the shrieking noise of the siren, and followed his nose.

*

The problem with conspiracies, Nathan Colston had decided, was that nobody involved could trust anybody else, and everybody knew it.

Following Sullivan's gassing of more than three thousand men and women, Nathan's indecision about how best to proceed with his future had been cleared up nicely. He was going to get as far away from Sullivan as possible. As far away from the madness of the fleet and Project Wildfire and whatever the hell the old man was trying to accomplish with the horror on the McIntosh ship as he could.

The only possible way he could see to achieve that goal that was to take a chopper, and that meant finding a pilot.

Which was where the lack of trust came in.

Until a few hours earlier, Nathan could reliably have called on any number of potential pilots and been safe in the knowledge that word of his imminent desertion would not get back to Fred Sullivan until he was long gone.

Unfortunately those pilots were all dead, and in the process of being tossed overboard like chum before their corpses began to stink up the place.

He had an idea that the beaches along the northern coastline of Scotland would soon be awash with bodies, though it was unlikely anybody would be around to notice.

Maybe in the far future the sheer scale of the bodies entombed in the rocky sand would baffle archaeologists, though Nathan doubted that too: the blow that had been dealt to humanity by Fred Sullivan and Chrysalis Systems meant that even if humans managed to live through Sullivan’s apocalypse, it could well be millennia before people ever occupied themselves with frivolous pursuits like archaeology once more.

They'd be too busy trying to eke out a living. Trying to survive.

Nathan dismissed the line of thought as unhelpful and returned to more pressing matters. Thanks to himself, the people remaining aboard the Conqueror were all loyal to Sullivan, and Nathan didn't trust any of them not to squeal if he started asking questions about getting the hell away from the ship.

He considered the boats.

There were plenty aboard the carrier; lifeboats mainly, but most had engines and he would at least be able to control one all by himself if necessary. He could slip away quietly, make for one of the other ships, perhaps. He had a good idea that at least a couple of them were on the brink of all-out revolution and would gladly seize on an excuse to flee.

Informing them that Sullivan had just murdered thousands in cold blood would probably do the trick.

The trouble was that a boat would be slow. The chance of his departure being noticed was high, and the chance of Fred ordering someone to fire on him even higher.

Too risky.

"I think they could use your help, Mr Colston."

Nathan flinched and turned to see Fred Sullivan standing behind him on the deck. The old man's eyes glittered, and Nathan had the uncomfortable impression that his thoughts were emblazoned above his head like a speech bubble floating over a character in a comic book.

He flushed guiltily as Fred Sullivan pointed beyond him, across the deck.

When he followed the direction of the old man's finger, he saw a group of soldiers hauling the bodies of the men and women who had been their comrades only hours earlier up to the deck and tossing them over the side into the freezing water.

"Uh, yes, Sir," Nathan said.

As he walked toward a grisly duty that made his stomach do nausea-inducing back flips, Nathan resolved that he would take a boat as soon as it was dark enough for him to slip away. He had a feeling it would take a miracle for him to escape Sullivan's clutches, and miracles no longer existed, if they ever had.

Only suffering existed now.

A boat might end up getting him killed, but Nathan had a strong feeling that his days were numbered in any case, and the number wasn't that high.

He would give it until nightfall, and then he would take his chances.

Fred Sullivan watched Nathan heading across the deck toward the pile of corpses for a moment with an intrigued expression on his face, and then made his way back into the superstructure that loomed over the deck, making for the bridge.

Chapter 30

Kyle rocketed through the room that he had waited in earlier with Sykes and his team. He didn’t slow his pace for a second, tearing through the room toward the door that led to the deck.

He burst into the crisp air like a bullet fired from a high-powered rifle, travelling at a velocity that he hadn't believed his legs to be capable of.

Sullivan's security team—as utterly useless as they were surly—were still clustered around the chopper, waiting nonchalantly for the scientist to return with the precious cargo they had been told to escort back to the Conqueror. Judging from the expressions on their faces, they felt very little of the fear that had gripped the people inside the ship. If anything, Kyle thought, they looked bored. The realisation made him feel strangely furious.

Kyle closed the distance between himself and the chopper in what felt like a few enormous strides, and saw the stoic masks on the soldiers' faces crack, just a little. Presumably the terror that pulsed in his mind was written clearly enough on his face to unnerve even them.

"We have to go," he gasped as he neared them.

A large hand materialised in front of his chest and put a sudden halt to his momentum.

"Hold up, Sport. Go where? Where's Sanderson?"

Kyle shook his head, struggling to draw in the breath required to provide an answer.

"It's free," he panted. "It's out. We have to go."

"The fuck are you jabbering about, boy?"

"It's free!" Kyle screamed. "Don't you understand? Do you even know what's on this fucking ship?"

Kyle saw a sliver of doubt pierce the soldier's confident gaze, and understanding hit him so hard that he found all he could do was laugh. He was bordering on hysteria, but it felt like the only sane response.

Sullivan hadn't told them anything either. Project Wildfire wasn’t just built on lies and secrets. It was built on a rock-solid foundation of omitted facts and diligent ignorance. It was no wonder the world at large hadn’t had a clue what Chrysalis Systems was planning: even the people involved knew nothing.

Before he could begin to frame words that he hoped might persuade the security team that a goddamned monster was coming for them, the crackle of gunfire ripped through the misty air and did the job for him.

He saw the soldier's gaze flick across the deck in surprise. The entire team hoisted their weapons as one, pressing them into their collarbones and staring down the sights. It was a smoothly-practised manoeuvre that at any other time might just have engendered a feeling of safety in Kyle; a sense that these were trained guys who could handle any situation thrown at them.

The trouble was that Kyle knew what was coming and knew that bullets might as well be balloons for all the damage they did to the creature. The soldiers readying themselves like characters in some dumb action movie simply looked ridiculous to him.

You’re all going to die.

"Stay here," the soldier growled, and motioned at the others to follow him. They crept forward as one, heading for the ship’s small superstructure, their weapons trained on the door in front of them.

Kyle watched them go in stunned disbelief.

He turned to face the chopper and hauled open the door to the cockpit, staring pleadingly at the pilot. He received a grimace and a shake of the head in return.

"Not moving without orders, mate," the pilot said.

Kyle seethed in frustration and despair.

Behind him, he heard one of the soldiers cry out in surprise and span on his heel to see Tom sprinting from the door, making for the chopper at top speed. Somewhere behind Tom, Kyle heard another eruption of gunfire. Another scream.

How many is that now?

Kyle had lost count, but he had a feeling that Sykes’ entire team was gone.

Which meant the mutation had only one place left to go. One person left to follow.

Tom.

Kyle couldn’t understand what had taken Tom so long. He should have reached the chopper long before Kyle did.

“Run!” Kyle screamed, aware even as he did so that Tom didn’t need encouragement. His brother’s eyes were wide with terror, and he clutched the assault rifle like a security blanket as he ran.

When Tom was close enough that Kyle could hear him whimpering in fear—a sound that reminded him starkly of being back in the van with Volkov—Kyle ripped the gun from his brother's hands and pushed Tom into the belly of the chopper.

Once Tom was inside, Kyle leapt into the cockpit next to the pilot and jammed the barrel of the assault rifle into his neck.

"Now you've got your orders," he snarled.

*

Jake burst onto the deck just as the chopper lifted into the sky. He saw a group of humans dashing toward it, screaming for it to come back and laughed.

Some of the humans would get away, but it mattered little. The helicopter headed east as it moved away from the ship, and thanks to the dead scientist, Jake knew exactly what lay to the east. He had a feeling he would see the chopper again.

The group of soldiers turned to face him, putting all their faith in the weapons they clutched in trembling fingers.

Jake plucked the guns from their grasp before they could begin to squeeze the triggers, and he tore their soft bodies apart with ruthless efficiency. The ship was deserted now, and out on the deck, away from the hollering of the siren, he found himself able to think clearly at last.

Only one thought ran through his mind; burning brightly.

Sullivan.

Before the ruined bodies of the soldiers had even finished tumbling to the deck, Jake launched himself into the sea, clawing his way through the water, moving like a torpedo.

Heading east.

Chapter 31

This time, Michael thought, we do it right. No more panic. No more blind running.

He stood in front of the group in the courtyard, preparing to address them as he had once before. There were a few differences this time, though. This time there would be no splitting up; no underestimating the threat posed by the Infected.

Almost everybody present had dealt with the Infected at least once; they all knew exactly what to expect. Michael was confident that they would be able to hold their shit together.

Michael’s back ached like someone had driven a hammer into it repeatedly. Already the pain that he had been so grateful to see return was outstaying its welcome, and he couldn’t wait to be rid of it.

Funny how quickly that happened.

He had insisted on helping to dig a grave for John despite the growing fire in his spine. Adrenaline must have dampened the pain until the immediate danger had passed, but with safety came the realisation that his back wasn’t healed. Maybe it was healing, but it seemed determined to do so only by forcing him to push through a monumental wall of agony.

He tried to focus on the doctor’s words, all those months earlier. Distant words spoken in another life, to another person.

Pain is a construct Mr Evans. You have to push through the pain.

He pushed through it for John, and would maybe even have admitted that he relished the pain he felt as he dug a hole to lay John to rest. Relished it because it felt appropriate.

No, more than appropriate. Necessary.

John’s death was one among many, but it hung over Michael like a low cloud. It could have been prevented. If Michael hadn’t been so…lost, would John have felt he had to rush off on a rescue mission all by himself? Would Rachel have been compelled to go after him?

In the end several pairs of hands weighed in to help with the gravedigging, and Michael was grateful for that. Not just because it eased the burden on his damaged back, and the growing burden of guilt on his mind, but because it would speed the process along.

It might have been his imagination, but Michael could swear the column of smoke rising from the island of Anglesey was thickening by the hour.

He had no idea what a fire at a nuclear power station might do, but he was pretty sure that a lack of electricity would mean any safety protocols that had been in place would be effectively useless. Maybe the core—or the reactor, or whatever—could survive a fire, but it definitely did not strike him as the kind of thing anybody should try to confirm by living through it.

John was buried and Anglesey was burning.

Time to go.

The crowd stared at him expectantly as he straightened, rubbing his lower back and wincing. Forty-one people in total. A motley assortment of damaged individuals drawn together from the ruins of St. Davids and Aberystwyth and Caernarfon and Newborough.

A family.

Each and every person carried whatever supplies they could manage on their backs, strapped up with ropes and torn scraps of expensive bed linen taken from the towers to make improvised rucksacks. Some had flashlights and most had weapons of one sort or another: mainly knives, but Michael saw the occasional ancient sword or mace as well.

Scanning the group, Michael felt his spirits darken a little. At the rear of the crowd, towering above everybody else, he saw a scarred face and vacant eyes. Rachel hadn’t yet solved the problem of her brother, and had persuaded Michael that there would be no need yet; not until they reached Liverpool. He might even prove to be useful, Rachel had argued, and Michael hadn’t been able to disagree with that. A man who could move among the Infected unseen and execute them without endangering himself was a powerful weapon indeed. Annie Holloway had more than proved that.

Still, the big man’s presence made Michael uncomfortable. Not just because of his infected blood, or even because of the awkward emptiness that radiated off him, like he had ceased to be human altogether. No, it was the potential for damage to Rachel that Michael feared most. When the time came, he wondered if Rachel would be able to let go of her giant little brother. She was strong, Michael had no doubt about that. He wondered, though, if she was ruthless enough to cut Jason loose when she had to.

Not for the first time, he found himself wishing that John wasn’t lying cold and dead beneath one of the small gardens in the courtyard. John had always had a way of getting Rachel to listen to him; at least as much as anyone could.

Michael sighed.

Could really use your help now, John.

Somebody coughed awkwardly, and Michael realised he had been standing there, lost in thought, for far too long. Virtually every face in front of him looked pensive, if not completely terrified.

Good job inspiring the troops, Mike.

“Okay,” he said. “We all know what’s out there. The best way for us to survive this is not to lose our heads. We want to move quickly, but most importantly we have to move quietly. If that means we go slow, so be it. Nothing is more important than remaining undetected. I’m going to tell you right now that we will come across the Infected, so best prepare yourself for it. The thing to remember is that if you don’t make a noise they can’t see you. Not unless they are right on top of you, and we’ll all be keeping an eye out to make sure that doesn’t happen, right?”

A faint murmur of agreement.

“I can’t stress this enough,” Michael said. “The biggest threat to your survival now is panic. As long as you don’t panic, you’ve got a chance. More than a chance. If we all hold it together, we’ll get to Liverpool and we’ll get the hell away from this nightmare, okay?”

A slightly louder murmur.

“You have my word,” Michael said.

“We'll move single file. I want everybody within touching distance of the person in front of them. If you see anything; if you need anything, you touch the person in front. If you feel a hand on your shoulder, you touch the person in front. If we have a problem, no matter how small it is, we all stop.”

Michael paused.

“We ALL stop,” he repeated. “Most of us don’t know each other, and not too long ago some of us considered each other enemies, but listen to this. Listen to this. There are no enemies here, okay? There are not many of us left, and if any of you hope to survive, you’d better believe you’ll only make it if the people standing next to you do as well.”

Michael saw some enthusiastic nodding, along with what looked like grudging acceptance.

He wished he could find the words to make them all believe, to ensure that they would hold it together out there.

Maybe nobody could. Maybe those words did not exist.

Michael felt a powerful sense of deja vu.

“First step is getting across the river,” he said. “We’ll go in groups on the raft. Those who get to the other side first, wait. Stay quiet and stay alert. The town looks clear at the moment, but if you see anything, you get back to the castle immediately, okay?”

They stared at Michael silently.

“Uh, move out,” he said. The group began to file toward the castle gate.

All aside from Rachel, who Michael saw working her way through the cluster of bodies toward him.

“You think this will work?”

Michael grimaced.

“Honestly, no. I can’t see us all making it to Liverpool. Not like this, but what else have we got?”

“Some could take the boat,” Rachel suggested.

“Annie had it sunk,” Michael said. “But even if she hadn’t, I would have been reluctant. Who would have got to decide which people took the boat? Me?”

He shuddered.

“Some people love the idea of getting to choose who lives and who dies. I can’t think of anything worse. Better that we all go into this equally.”

Rachel nodded thoughtfully.

“It’s seventy-five miles, according to Ed,” she said.

Michael nodded glumly.

“That sounds about right.”

“Remember how long it took us to get to Aberystwyth from St. Davids? That was a lot less than seventy-five miles.”

Michael sighed.

“I don’t know what else to do, Rachel. If we stay, we definitely die, if we go, we maybe die. Maybe sounds like a better deal than definitely to me. At least there’s a chance the number of Infected along the northern coastline is reduced. According to Shirley, anyway. He said the area had almost emptied, right?”

“Sure, days ago.”

Michael gritted his teeth.

“What’s on your mind, Rachel?”

“Didn’t Darren say he got here by bus? Just kept on driving straight through them? The bus he used is still out there somewhere, outside the town, right? So why not try to use it? At least to get some of the way. As far as we can.”

“It’ll be noisy,” Michael said.

“Yeah. But it’s like John said: we move fast, we run into them. We move slow, we run into them. So fuck moving slow, right? We’ve got weapons. If a group of Infected stops the bus I think we can fight them off. And we do have Jason.”

“And if we run into a herd?”

“Then we’re fucked either way.”

Michael stared through Rachel for several long moments. She had a point.

“Okay,” he said finally. “We go and find Darren’s bus. If we can use it, we will. But if not we keep moving.”

Rachel nodded, and shrugged into a large pack that held as much food and medicine as she could carry without collapsing. She turned toward the gate and stopped, her eyes widening in amazement as she caught sight of the stash of supplies they were forced to leave behind.

“I don’t believe it,” she said.

“What?” Michael shot a glance around, as if he expected to see something terrible heading straight for him.

Rachel laughed, and scampered unsteadily over to the mound of supplies, stooping to retrieve something.

Moments later Michael heard a match striking and he saw Rachel inhaling deeply on a cigarette. A warm glow spread across her cheeks and her eyes glazed over a little.

Michael chuckled.

“You reckon you’ll be able to carry all that as well?”

He pointed at the small pile of cigarette cartons and packets of rolling tobacco.

Rachel shook her head and sucked in another huge lungful of smoke, letting it seep slowly from her lips with a satisfied sigh.

She dropped the half-smoked cigarette and crushed it out under her heel.

“Nah,” she said, blowing out the last of the smoke.

“I quit.”

*

Michael winced as the portcullis rose with its customary whine of metal on stone, but the town that clung to the opposite bank of the river remained deserted. Most likely, he figured, Jason had all but eradicated the Infected that shuffled aimlessly through the town when Annie had sent him out there, like a dog charged with tracking down foxes.

It would not remain deserted for long, though, he was sure of that. Already he imagined that there were some of the creatures nearby, drifting toward the outskirts of Caernarfon. Silence was paramount. It had become more than important; it was a way of life now.

He waited with Claire and Pete, watching as the people shuttled across the river in small groups.

So far, so good.

He hadn’t mentioned Rachel’s idea of finding the bus that Darren claimed to have left just outside the town to anybody. Not yet. Better if they thought they still had a long and arduous trek in front of them. The more cautious they remained, the better.

He glanced down at Pete, who appeared to be doing his best to make himself invisible. He hadn’t said a word since Michael had found him locked in the room above Jason’s in the tower. He looked fine, at least externally, but the expression on the boy’s normally excitable face spoke volumes. Michael hadn’t asked yet what Annie had put Pete through. Maybe he never would. There were some things better left buried in the past. Michael knew that all too well, though his heart ached to think that someone so young might also be preoccupied with trying to forget.

When everybody was safely on the opposite bank, Shirley pulled the raft back across for Michael and the kids.

It felt strange to be leaving the castle. Inexplicably, Michael found himself feeling that he would miss the place. He put it down to fear of the unknown road that lay ahead of him. For a while the castle had seemed like everything; had been like the ultimate prize.

Yet now here he was, heading back out into the open.

Vulnerable.

He shook the dark thoughts that tried to grip him away.

Things were different now. The world had no surprises left to throw at him. He knew the Infected, and knew how to deal with them. He tried to focus on the fact that he would be travelling with a large group of people, all of them armed in one way or another, and on the fact that his legs worked now. No longer would he be faced with the prospect of being carried, abandoned to the mercy and goodwill of those around him. If things went sour, he would be able to react. Protecting Claire was no longer a hopeless fantasy.

He glanced at his daughter, trailing her hand in the river as the raft bobbed across it, and felt a sad ache in his heart. In another world, in a parallel universe, maybe, Claire was drifting in a pedal boat under a warn, comforting sun, trailing her hand in the water and daydreaming. Safe.

For the longest time, Michael had struggled with the notion that he was a murderer, and that there was a rotten core to his soul; dark and poisonous. In a strange way, putting forty-odd people to their deaths had finally cured him of that misapprehension.

Not a murderer.

A father.

Just another of Earth’s creatures protecting its young.

When the raft reached the other bank, Michael scanned the people that waited patiently for him. Everybody remained silent as the grave, clustered together, waiting for direction. Michael was struck by the sudden similarity to the Infected he had seen flocking around the countryside.

This is a herd, too. Just like them.

We might just make this, he thought.

He pointed to the north, using the simple hand gestures that John had taught everybody. Everyone knew stop and go and wait here and get down. Maybe in time humans would have to evolve an entire gesture-based language.

Evolution had been tampered with, but Michael had an idea that tampering with a process like evolution was like throwing a stick into a river and expecting the water to change course. The introduction of Project Wildfire into the stream of human progression was violent only for those doomed to live through the ripples. Evolution would scoop everything up and mould it. The fittest would survive. Maybe that would be the Infected.

But Michael would be damned if he was going to go quietly. No, he would get to Australia somehow, and if it was free of the virus, he would expend every breath rallying the people of Australia to ready themselves; to prepare for the battle ahead. The battle to take the planet back.

Focus, Mike. One step at a time. You’d think a cripple would be able to grasp the concept.

Michael felt a wry smile creeping at the corners of his mouth.

But as he turned to leave, the smile fell away. Something was nagging away at the corner of Michael’s mind, and he held up a closed fist, halting the group’s progress before it had even begun.

What is it?

He turned and scanned the group again. Something was missing. No, not something.

Somebody.

Michael’s gut seemed to know what was happening before his mind did. But when realisation caught up with instinct, he knew that they wouldn’t be making their way to Liverpool unscathed, let alone Australia. They were not even going to make it out of Caernarfon without trouble.

No Jason.

The big man had slipped away unnoticed. That hardly surprised Michael: it was difficult to miss a man who was in effect absent even when he stood right next to you.

Clang.

Clang.

Clang.

The sound of a lead pipe hitting metal.

Jason had returned to his duty, still following the orders of a dead old woman. Still listening to voices nobody else could hear. Calling the Infected toward him. Toward all of them.

Michael’s heart dropped.

And the sky filled with distant shrieking.

Chapter 32

“Incoming.”

The word cut through the atmosphere in the control room like a scalpel.

Fred liked the bridge of the Conqueror. Liked the efficiency of it. Everyone performing their specific function with machine-like precision.

Giles Filborn’s function was to monitor the radar. Boiled down to its essence, his entire duty was to say that one word when the situation required it. Incoming. As far as military careers went, Fred thought, there were plenty of other, far worse jobs. Most of the time.

Incoming, he thought. Maybe nothing is worse when that word actually needs to be said, though.

“Is it the chopper?”

Fred burned his piercing gaze into Giles.

“Uh…I don’t think so, Sir. It’s coming too fast.”

Fred’s heavy brows lifted.

“Too fast,” he repeated, ladling on the emphasis. The two simple words became a complicated question. One to which an answer lurked somewhere in Fred’s mind already, hiding in the shadows. An answer he didn’t want to shine a light on.

He stepped closer to the radar display.

At the centre of the pulsing screen he saw a cluster of large dots that represented the fleet, and a smaller dot to the west, way off at the edge of the screen. Isolated.

And a tiny speck that arced between the two, heading unerringly straight for the fleet.

No. Two dots.

Fred stared at the screen, puzzled, and then back at Giles.

“That’s the helicopter, Sir,” Giles said, pointing. This one just overtook it.”

“How big?”

“It’s small, Sir. Very small. I think we're only picking it up because of the speed it’s travelling at.”

Giles frowned.

“Nothing natural moves that fast, Sir.”

“How long do we have?”

“I’d guess it’s going to make contact with the fleet in less than thirty seconds.”

Fred sighed.

Wearily.

It was a sigh that felt like it had been building for decades, prompted to finally escape his lips by the sudden understanding that the plan had been deeply flawed from the beginning. Project Wildfire never had a chance of succeeding. Not as long as humans were involved in the process.

The entire debacle would end in panic. Survival was going to be a roll of the dice, despite everything he had done to ensure that luck played no part.

The people aboard the Conqueror were going to have to fight for their lives. Gassing the majority of the crew suddenly looked like a terrible idea.

Impetuous.

“Battle stations!” Fred snarled.

Giles stared at Fred and blinked slowly.

“Uh…Sir?”

Fred glared at Giles.

“What are we fighting?”

*

Tim Flynn hadn’t expected the end of the world to be so boring. Life had never been boring before: there had always been the prospect of a roadside device livening the day up, or of stumbling blindly into a fire fight in what was supposed to be a family home. Hell, even if you were surrounded by kids, there was always the chance one of them would produce a battered AK from nowhere and begin rattling bullets at your head. Hard to be bored in that sort of environment.

Some thought it was terrifying, some wallowed in philosophical observations about how fucked the human race was if nine-year-olds were carrying guns and killing in the name of well, anything really. Tim was just grateful for the excitement.

It was why he’d signed up for the army in the first place. Because everything else was just so damned mundane.

He always hoped he would advance through the ranks, but never so far that he would be taken away from the action. He didn’t want the stifling boredom of command. Spec Ops would have been ideal; Black Ops was the fevered fantasy that teased him in his dreams.

What Chrysalis Systems had offered him sounded like the greatest under-the-radar mission ever undertaken. Accepting the challenge once his army career was done hadn’t even been a decision at all. At that point, faced with the prospect of finding work in private security somewhere—or worse, civilian work—Tim would probably have gladly signed up with the fucking mafia just to keep the adrenaline pumping.

Chrysalis Systems, Tim had been promised, would be like adrenaline injected right into his heart.

And it was boring.

Exciting at first; heady and intoxicating when it became clear that Chrysalis meant to survive the end of the world. But after that? Day after day of sitting on a goddamned boat going nowhere, hiding in the shadows while the real excitement went down just a few miles away, on the land. Enemies everywhere, a constantly-evolving theatre of war. No holding back. The entire world was now the textbook definition of fire at will. And Tim was doomed to sit around and daydream about getting involved, cooped up on a floating prison with hundreds of other bored bastards, none of whom even had the decency to be interesting.

Even the ship itself was an insult: the core of the fleet was all aircraft carriers and destroyers; at least if he had been aboard one of those ships he might have been able to maintain an illusion that he might see action at any moment. At least those ships had fucking guns.

On the former container ship Sea Star even delusion was out of reach. The ship was built for transporting cargo. Not a single weapon on board, other than the ones carried by the soldiers themselves. It was one of several ships within the fleet that had been designated for transporting supplies. Food, fuel, medicine. And, most ridiculously of all: at least half the ship was given over to transporting luxury items for the rich bastards who had tagged along for the ride. Tim had been down to the vast cargo decks, and had seen it all with his own eyes: supercars, works of art that he presumed were priceless, a huge library of old books.

The Sea Star was a Noah’s Ark dedicated not to preserving animal life, but pointless bullshit.

Tim had made his feelings on the matter known by pissing all over a large painting that he recognised vaguely. One by the guy who drew faces of people at ridiculous angles. To Tim the art didn’t look impressive; it looked like a half-wit had gone berserk with a set of crayons. The addition of his piss, he suspected, had probably improved the piece.

That had been the most exciting thing to happen on the Sea Star in days.

Until the strange explosion.

Tim was sitting in the cafeteria when it happened, chewing through a hunk of badly-cooked beef that he knew came from a can, but seriously doubted had ever been a part of an actual cow.

He stopped mid-chew when he heard the odd bang. It didn’t really sound like an explosion; didn’t have that rumbling quality that he associated with heavy ordnance. Instead it sounded more like a plain-old impact, like some giant had smashed a fist into the hull.

Everyone in the dining area entered a comical sort of freeze frame state: cups held against lips, forks paused on their journey from plate to mouth.

For a second, everybody stared at each other in confusion.

“Did we just run aground?” a voice to Tim’s left said.

The answer was automatic gunfire, muffled but clearly audible, rising from one of the lower decks.

A lot of automatic gunfire.

Tim swallowed the half-chewed beef and leapt to his feet.

Moments later a siren sounded; a long, almost mournful howl, and the ship finally became interesting.

Tim rocketed from the cafeteria, making his way back toward the dorm and the footlocker that held his until-now-pointless assault rifle. A tide of soldiers moved around him, and Tim felt the dizzying electricity in the air, the static charge that built up in men who knew they were about to engage.

His nerves raced frantically to keep up with him.

Once in the dorm, the clicking of footlockers being unlocked sounded almost insectile, a chattering cacophony, like a small army of crickets had descended on the room.

Outside the dorm, a fresh burst of gunfire shattered the silence. The sound mixed with a chorus of terrified screams.

Right outside the dorm.

Even Tim paused, his anxiety to engage whatever enemy had breached the ship stifled momentarily by the sheer horror evident in the screams that ripped through the corridor outside.

More gunfire. Further away. Receding.

Tim raced to the dorm’s main door and threw it open. He stared, stunned, at the scene that greeted him.

In the corridor outside the dorm it was raining blood; thick rivulets dripping from a ceiling drenched in the stuff.

He saw dismembered limbs everywhere.

Saw a hand sliding slowly down the wall opposite him, partially-glued to the surface by blood and gristle, before it finally fell to the floor with a wet splat.

Something had passed through the corridor. Something that had chewed up everything in its path like a lawnmower.

What was left no longer looked like a corridor on a ship. It didn’t look man-made at all; spray-painted with organic matter, the path that stretched out ahead of Tim now looked like a gigantic artery clogged with globs of glistening fat. Stepping out of the dorm felt like stepping out of sanity and entering a place of tortured madness.

For a second the shock locked Tim in place, and beneath his excitement he felt another message pulsing in his mind, desperately trying to be heard.

Run away you fucking idiot. Hide.

Only for a second, though. When his years of training and conditioning for combat came back online, he yelled out hoarsely.

“This way!”

Tim charged forward, oblivious to the fact that only a handful of people were stupid enough or dedicated enough to follow him from the dorm, and he followed the trail of blood and broken bodies, all the way back to the cafeteria.

When he kicked open the door, the sight that greeted him caused a fracture in his mind, like the first indication that an earthquake was imminent. Standing in the centre of the canteen, drenched in gore, Tim saw a creature born in nightmares, clutching a severed head and biting into it like it was an apple.

Tim looked at the creature.

The creature looked at Tim.

The assault rifle in Tim’s hand only had time to move a fraction of an inch. His mind was still conveying the order to his arm to lift the weapon when something inexplicably powerful gripped the top his head.

And began to twist.

*

Fred stood in the control room and watched through powerful binoculars as the Sea Star began to sink into the waves. McIntosh had punctured the hull below the waterline like a fleshy torpedo, and Fred could only guess at the havoc that had been wreaked on the ship. It would take a long time to sink; the container ship was gigantic, and was taking on water slowly. Far too slowly. If McIntosh had made it all the way to the fleet, hopping from ship to ship until he tracked Fred down would present no problem whatsoever.

“Fire on that vessel,” Fred barked.

The confused stares he got in response made Fred think seriously about pulling out his revolver and executing everyone in his immediate vicinity. Only the fact that there would be no one left to control the ship stayed his hand.

He gritted his teeth.

Fred heard a man's voice stuttering next to him.

Dick Skinner. Head of Security. Utterly useless, just like the rest of them. The man’s lower lip trembled like he was a teenage girl about to receive her first kiss from a boy, and Fred struggled to resist the urge to begin beating the man. He succeeded in doing so only because there just wasn’t time.

“Sir,” Skinner said. “The VIPs are on that ship. “Even the Royal—"

“There are no VIPs, Skinner,” Fred snarled. “The only thing that matters on that ship is the creature that is no doubt tearing your VIPs to shreds as we speak. Soon that creature will come to this ship. How important do you feel, Skinner? Very? Or not very?”

Fred leaned in close to Skinner and spoke in a low, dangerous whisper.

“Give the order to sink that ship, Skinner. Sink it. Now.”

*

The old man wasn’t on the ship. Jake hadn’t killed everyone on board; not yet anyway, but it was already clear to him that the vessel was full of the kind of people the old bastard would think of as disposable.

The ship hovered at the periphery of the fleet. In fairness, Jake thought, it would have been lucky to find Sullivan at the first attempt. Not that it was a problem: this attempt had been enormous fun, and he suspected every other would be, too.

He almost hoped that Sullivan would be on the last ship that he attacked. Something about letting the old man stew while Jake worked his way relentlessly towards him, cutting through thousands of bodies en route, made his deformed groin ache with pleasure.

Jake stood in the cafeteria and watched the latest round of corpses settling onto the floor, letting the warm blood swill around his mouth like fine wine before swallowing.

The intake of blood was overwhelming; the energy rushing through his veins felt almost dangerously out of control and his massive heart pounded rapidly.

Is it possible to overdose?

The thought struck Jake as highly comical, and for a moment he stood alone in the lake of gore and chuckled to himself.

In the distance he heard a sound that pulsed underneath the wailing of the ship’s alarm like a beating drum, and his laughter died.

A thunderous roaring, followed by a whistling shriek.

Jake began to run. Not in any particular direction; there was no need for him to know the layout of the ship in order to evacuate. Thrumming with the power the blood had given him, he was confident that smashing through the tempered steel walls would be like pushing through wet paper.

The weapons the humans carried were ineffectual, and so the old man had resorted to a larger variety. The distant booming and whistling Jake heard was presumably incoming artillery fire.

With a grunt, he kicked powerfully, rocketing through walls and exploding from the hull of the ship.

By the time enormous explosions tore the vessel in two, Jake was already a hundred yards clear, powering through the water. In his former life, swimming had been beyond him; now it was as straightforward as breathing. Just a matter of reaching forward to claw at the water and pulling himself through it. Slower that his movement on land, but somehow even more fun.

Judging by the arcing trail of smoke that hung in the sky, the shots had been fired from a ship that sat near the middle of the fleet. A destroyer that heaved under enormous guns and was probably staffed by a crew of Sullivan’s most highly trained and dangerous soldiers.

Jake hurtled toward it, and hoped they would offer up some sort of challenge.

Chapter 33

We might have stood a chance, Michael thought. If only everybody had stayed quiet. We could have slipped away and let Jason draw them to him.

If only the people huddled by the river when the shrieking started had remembered not to panic.

The first sign of the Infected had drawn a scream from someone in the group. A male voice. Michael had an idea the voice belonged to Gareth Hughes, and even as he began to process the chaos that unfolded around him, some part of Michael’s mind rebuked him sternly for not killing the man when he had the opportunity.

It wouldn’t have mattered. Michael had prepared himself for the eventuality that they would run into the Infected sooner or later, and that someone wouldn’t be able to swallow back their terror.

He had just hoped it would be later. Not while they were still standing within spitting distance of the castle.

Michael saw Jason in the distance, along the harbour front, putting an end to one Infected creature and blissfully unaware of the other two that streaked behind him.

There’s only a couple of them. We might be able to make it.

“Get back to the castle!” he roared, but his words were lost in a chorus of screams.

The group scattered, as though a live grenade had landed in their midst; rushing away in all directions.

Blind panic.

And then the Infected arrived.

Michael saw one of the young women that had been Darren Oliver’s prisoner freed at last, her throat torn away by the teeth of a pregnant woman with empty eye-sockets, and he wondered dimly what sort of horror might be lurking in the creature’s womb.

He turned away, feeling a powerful urge to vomit, and saw Rachel fall to the ground, dragged onto her backside by the grasping fingers of the other.

For a moment she scrabbled at the air helplessly like an upturned tortoise, weighted down by the heavy pack on her back, and  Michael watched in mute dismay as she pulled the revolver from her waistband and blew the creature’s head off in one smooth motion.

The noise of the report was deafening. Immediately the shrieking over Caernarfon seemed to multiply, and Michael could almost see the horrific figures hurtling toward them through the narrow, winding streets.

And then, in a frightening blur of motion he could see them.

Caernarfon wasn’t clear of the Infected; far from it. All Jason’s prolonged hunting of the monsters had accomplished was to draw more of them toward the town.

A small group surged along the harbour, some peeling away toward Jason.

Others making straight for the river.

There were far too many even for Jason to handle. The big man’s style of execution was slow, methodical. There was no need for him to rush; they couldn’t see him. Michael had no doubt that Jason would eventually kill them all, but eventually was a sharp word, loaded with deadly connotations.

For a moment Michael was paralysed once more; locked in place by an immobility that spread from his mind. His thoughts raced as chaos erupted all around him, and he struggled to process the options that would give him the best chance of survival.

Several of the group bolted into the nearest buildings, smashing their way through the windows when they found locked doors. To Michael’s left, he saw Linda leaping into a tiny restaurant, dragging Pete by the hand.

Noise.

So much noise.

To his right, from the corner of his eye, Michael saw Rachel hauling herself back to her feet, loosing off another precious bullet into the oncoming horde and then abandoning the fight. She streaked away, crashing through a doorway into a small waterfront cottage and disappearing from his sight.

She was too far away. Already the creatures were moving between Michael’s position and the building Rachel had taken refuge in. There was no way to reach her.

In the distance, he saw another small group of the creatures surging into sight, one of them sprinting directly into a swinging lead pipe that took most of its head off. And another. And another.

One made it past Jason. And then three. Five.

And then the time for thought was over and Michael was running on legs made of fire, heading to the left, aiming for the broken window that had swallowed Linda and Pete, grasping Claire’s small hand and dragging her along with him, praying feverishly that they would make it and knowing at the same time that the building could not save them. All the walls would accomplish was to slow the Infected down, to force them into a bottleneck.

As he leapt through the shattered glass and into the dark space beyond, Michael was already spinning, losing his grip on Claire and pulling out a blunt short sword he had taken from the castle.

Driving it back through the window and into the soft flesh of an eyeless face.

The creature fell backward, and the hilt of the sword was torn from his grasp.

And then there was nothing left to do but run.

*

Rachel exploded into the tiny cottage, cursing her brother and cursing herself for firing two of the only six bullets she had.

Stupid, Rach. Bullets are wasted on the Infected. Save them for humans.

The thought was surprising, but not shocking. Rachel supposed she had finally adapted to the idea that killing people was going to be a necessary part of her future.

She stared around the room frantically, looking for a weapon larger than the knife she carried, and less valuable than the revolver. She was standing in a tiny, cramped kitchen, and her gaze immediately fell on a knife rack. She scooped up a large carving knife to add to the one she already carried, but it didn’t solve her immediate problem: any battle she had with the Infected would be at close quarters if she used knives. Far too close. She longed for the baseball bat she had lost days earlier; for something she could swing in a wide arc to keep the creatures at bay.

Think, Rach.

She glanced back at the door through which she had entered. It had been unlocked, so there had been no need to smash her way in, but in the centre of the cheerfully painted wood sat a large pane of glass that would easily accommodate a standard-sized human. The cottage wouldn’t keep her safe; the door would not hold, but she threw across the deadbolt anyway, and hunkered down by the exit, peering cautiously through the glass.

By the look of it, none of the Infected knew where she was. That was no great surprise: the group of survivors had bolted in all directions, pouring into the nearby buildings for refuge. For the creatures charging along the street the sudden explosion of noise must have been confusing and disorientating, but not everybody had reached safety, Rachel could tell that immediately.

She knew it by the bloodcurdling screams she heard, and the sound of snapping jaws and flesh being torn apart.

Gasping for air, certain that there must be something wrong with her lungs that prevented her from getting enough oxygen, Rachel scanned the road next to the river and tried to calm her thundering pulse. Outside, the road looked clear.

For a moment.

An Infected body shuffled into the door, stumbling against the glass, and Rachel barely managed to catch the scream of surprise in her throat before it escaped and gave her position away.

She crept backwards, holding a knife in each outstretched hand, moving away from the door slowly and silently, and nearly leapt out of her skin when she heard a whispered voice somewhere behind her, barely audible above the pounding of her heart against her ribcage.

“Rachel?”

Rachel span around to see Emma trembling in the doorway that led into the lounge beyond the kitchen. She clutched a small knife in trembling fingers, and let out an enormous sigh of relief when she saw Rachel’s face.

It took Rachel a moment to realise that the terrified girl had probably assumed Rachel was infected, and that she had been just moments away from receiving a knife in her back.

Thank God you decided to check I was still me, Emma. I’m not sure I would have done the same.

She stared at Emma, wide-eyed, and put a trembling finger to her lips.

Behind her, Rachel heard another thump on the door, and she scanned the ground floor of the cottage frantically. Through the lounge she saw another exit, and wondered if she dared to leave the relative safety of the cottage and head back outside.

You have to, Rach. You've got to find Michael and the others.

She heard a thump behind her, and then a sound that made her blood freeze: the sharp crack as the glass panel in the door fractured. The creature outside had apparently decided that the door in front of it needed further exploration.

Fuck.

*

Ed made it about fifteen yards from the river before he felt fingers gripping his collar and pulling him off his feet. Before he could scream, a large hand clamped over his mouth and he breathed in a lungful of fear-ridden sweat that made him gag.

He twisted his head as much as he could, and saw the huge biker standing behind him, clutching Ed to his leather-clad chest in a bear hug that felt like it might well crack ribs at any moment.

“Shhh,” Shirley breathed into Ed’s remaining ear, and relaxed his grip when Ed made an attempt to nod.

At the entrance to the alley, Ed saw a young woman tearing past, screaming. A second after she disappeared from his sight two Infected bolted after her.

Moments later, her screams were silenced, and he heard a terrible wet snapping noise that he didn’t want to identify. He felt his feet meet the cobbled ground as Shirley lowered him gently and released him, and he turned to face the biker, praying that the big man had some sort of a plan to survive the next few minutes.

Apparently not.

Shirley pressed his huge frame back into the wall of the building behind him in a vaguely pathetic attempt to make himself small. It didn’t work. That, it appeared to Ed, was the extent of the big biker’s plan.

Close by, Ed heard a fearsome shriek that made his teeth clench so hard he thought they might shatter.

We can’t stay here.

After a moment spent persuading his feet that they still had the ability to move, Ed waved the hand that still had fingers, gesturing at Shirley to follow him, and pulled up short when the big man shook his head fiercely.

Why? Ed mouthed.

Shirley pointed to the pack strapped to his back, and Ed understood. The pack was makeshift: a ripped piece of bed linen tied together with some cord, and it had an enormous tear across the bottom where it had caught on the rough alley wall. Only the fact that Shirley kept pressed into the wall was preventing the canned goods inside from falling out and clattering to the ground.

Ed felt the blood draining from his face.

Go, Shirley mouthed.

Ed shook his head firmly.

No way, he thought. And then: shit, maybe I’m brave after all.

Chapter 34

Nathan stood on the deck of the Conqueror and watched in stunned silence as one of the ships at the western perimeter of the fleet dissolved in a ball of flame, cracking like an egg and spilling its contents into churning water.

One of the destroyers had fired on the ship, decimating the vessel, and Nathan had watched it all happening in a bemused sort of slow motion as he carted dead bodies up from the belly of the Conqueror to the flight deck and tossed them overboard.

How many bodies does the old bastard want to send to the bottom of the ocean today?

Nathan stood and watched the fireworks as the container ship in the distance went up; a pulsing lightshow that hurt his eyes and defied comprehension.

What the fuck is going on?

Moments later, he saw Dick Skinner hurrying from the superstructure, hauling an assault rifle that looked ridiculous in his hands. The man had been a soldier once, Nathan reminded himself, but it always seemed more likely that he would see Skinner with a clipboard or a radio in his hands than a gun. If the man was preparing for an actual battle then matters in the control room must have taken a considerable turn for the worse.

What’s worse than gassing most of the crew and tossing their bodies into the ocean? Nathan thought, but the question was quickly replaced in his mind by another, far more urgent in nature: who is there left to fight?

“Skinner!” he yelled, and the man stumbled to a halt, searching for the source of the shout. After a moment he focused on Nathan and smiled in relief.

“It’s you,” he said as he crossed the deck toward Nathan, wrinkling his nose at the pile of corpses laid out on the floor.

Nathan estimated that they had thrown roughly half of the bodies overboard, but much of the interior of the ship hadn’t even been investigated yet. Thanks to Sullivan, there were rooms—hell, maybe even entire decks—heaving with bodies that hadn’t even been discovered yet. If ever there was such a thing as a ghost ship, Nathan figured the Conqueror was probably it.

“Yeah, it’s me,” Nathan said, puzzled. “Who were you expecting?”

Dick looked flustered and shook his head.

“What’s going on, Dick? Did one of the destroyers just fire on that ship?”

He pointed at the billowing plume of smoke that snaked up toward the clouds in the distance.

Dick nodded.

“Sullivan’s orders,” he said, as if that was all the explanation Nathan could possibly require.

“What? Why?”

The question seemed to throw Dick, and he frowned, as if questioning Sullivan’s motives for anything had been beyond his remit until that moment.

“Dick, for fuck’s sake. This whole enterprise is going to shit, surely you can see that? Why the fuck is Sullivan sinking his own boats? Is this just his way of putting down dissent? Because—”

“No,” Dick said. “No, it’s not that. It’s…McIntosh. The mutation.”

Memories flashed in Nathan’s mind. He hadn’t personally seen the creature during the attack on Northumberland...well, not really: he had seen something, but it hadn’t been anything his mind had been willing to accept. Something that moved invisibly, like a ghost, as it ripped and chewed through bodies faster than his eye could follow it.

He definitely did remember the aftermath, though. The underground base had been huge, but it felt like every corner of the place had been liberally doused in gore. Even if the damage to the entrance could have been repaired, he doubted anybody would have wanted to stay: the place looked like Hell’s waiting room.

The mutation?

“What about it? It’s locked up miles away from here, right? It’s in a coma.”

Dick shook his head.

“It’s loose. It was on that ship.”

“So the response is to sink the fucking ship?” Nathan couldn’t keep the disbelief from his voice. “Don’t you think that’s overkill?”

“Maybe,” Dick said. “If it weren’t for the fact that sinking the ship hasn’t stopped the creature. It’s here, in the fleet, Nathan. Out there, on one of those ships. Could be coming this way right now.”

Nathan dropped his eyes to the assault rifle clutched in Dick’s trembling hands.

“And, what, you’re going to stop it with that? No offense meant, Dick, but if the thing just survived an artillery strike from a damn destroyer, I’m not sure an M27 is going to cut it, you know?”

“Oh, this isn’t for the mutation,” Dick said. “It’s for the next pilot I see. I’m getting the fuck off this ship, Nathan, even if I have to take someone at gunpoint to do it.”

Nathan gawped at Dick for a moment, stunned, and then he laughed.

“Now that’s something I can get on board with, Dick,” he said, peeling off the gloves that he had worn to carry corpses and tossing them to the deck.

“Fine,” Dick said. “The more the merrier, right? But next time you feel like calling me ‘Dick’, please remember that I am carrying an assault rifle, and I’m pretty sure I’ve lost my mind.”

Dick’s got some balls after all, Nathan thought, and chuckled despite himself.

“Deal,” Nathan grinned. “So where are the pilots?”

“Dead, mostly,” Dick replied, and turned to scan the deck, as though hoping he might see a queue of pilots waiting to be selected from. “I hoped I’d find one on the flight deck, but—”

“All you found is me,” Nathan finished.

Dick nodded.

A moment later, Nathan heard a distant engine. Faint, but unmistakable. He lifted his gaze up, scanning the sky over the western edge of the fleet.

“Not all of them are dead,” he said, and pointed.

In the distance, a chopper approached, dropping smoothly down toward the deck of the Conqueror, framed against a backdrop of black smoke and rolling fire.

Nathan searched through the nearby pile of bodies—the latest stack of corpses that waited to be tossed overboard—and saw what he was looking for immediately: a dead man in a corporal’s uniform, with a pistol in a holster attached to his hip.

With a grunt, he pushed aside a couple of the rigid bodies and retrieved the weapon.

Tucking it into his belt, he followed Skinner; racing across the deck toward the incoming chopper.

*

Kyle felt the blast rock the helicopter like a savage bout of turbulence as it approached the fleet, and the sky outside the windows darkened suddenly.

Outside, the world had been reduced to thick, rolling black smoke.

“What the fuck was that?”

The pilot shook his head and grimaced, fighting with the control lever to maintain a steady course.

“That was the Sea Star.”

When the chopper burst from the fresh cloud that had been created over the fleet, Kyle craned his neck to see the damage below. The ship had been cracked nearly in two, and the stern was already sinking into the grey ocean.

“I don’t understand,” Kyle began, but the pilot cut him off.

“Join the fucking club, kid. As far as I can tell, one of the destroyers just sank it.”

Kyle leaned forward to get a look out of the cockpit windows. He thought he could see a trail arcing from one of the heavily-armed destroyers; a faint whisper of smoke that suggested it had fired something at the sinking ship.

“Kid,” the pilot growled. “You think maybe you could get that gun out of my fucking face please? I’m flying the damn chopper aren’t I? All you’re doing at this point is pissing me off.”

Kyle flushed and lowered the weapon. Behind him he heard a snort of amusement. Tom.

He turned to face his brother, and felt hostility rushing through him, desperate for an outlet. Maybe it wasn’t right, maybe it wasn’t even fair, but Tom had fucked everything up. He had been right about Wildfire but wrong about everything else after all. There was nothing they could have done to stop it. They should have gone to ground, should have found a place to hide and ride out the apocalypse. Tom had lost himself in dark fantasies, and Kyle’s guilt had allowed him to drag them both down, and now there was nowhere to run and they were both almost certainly about to be executed.

“Got any bright ideas?”

“I’m sort of still focused on the fact that we just escaped from a fucking monster, Kyle. Whatever this is, it hardly seems to matter. Trouble’s been brewing on these ships for weeks.” He shrugged. “Nobody knows what’s going on. Some people are starting to realise they aren’t getting paid, and everyone is pissed off. Maybe that ship tried to make a break for it and that’s how Sullivan deals with mutineers.”

Kyle rubbed his temples.

“In that case I can only imagine how he’s going to deal with us," he said. “I don’t think he’s going to be happy that Sanderson isn’t with us. What’s our story when he asks? Got a smart answer for that?”

Tom slipped a pistol from a pocket and stared at it lovingly.

“Something short and to the point,” he said absently, as though the gun had hypnotised him.

Kyle gritted his teeth in frustration, and was about to shake his brother out of it—physically, if necessary—when the helicopter began to drop sharply toward the deck of the Conqueror.

Chapter 35

Rule one when it came to holding a sword, Michael had discovered, was keeping hold of the damn thing after you plunged it into somebody. Learning the rule by actually losing your sword was, he guessed, inevitable. Believing that didn’t improve the situation one bit.

“Go!” he screamed, turning from the creature that collapsed away from the broken window, taking the sword with it. He was relieved to see the Claire hadn’t waited for his prompt: she was already pounding her short legs and crossing the restaurant’s small dining room with surprising speed, through a pair of swinging doors that presumably led to the kitchen, and hopefully to the rear exit.

Michael took a step after her, and crashed to the floor as strong fingers reached through the window and clasped the makeshift rucksack on his back.

The impact as his backside met the floor sent a shockwave of white-hot pain travelling up his spine, and for a fraction of a second the terrible prospect that he would once again slip into paralysis made him whimper in terror.

With a grunt he shrugged out of the rope straps and away from the rucksack, scrambling back to his feet and offering a silent prayer of thanks when he found they still worked; pausing only to slide the rifle from the pack and smash the butt of the weapon into the ruined face of the creature that loomed at the window once more.

The creature fell away again, and Michael figured he had a second or two at most before it once again tried to scramble through the window.

He turned and bolted across the dining area, crashing through the doors, and almost colliding with Linda. To his left he saw Pete and Claire hiding behind a large refrigerator, their eyes painfully wide.

“Why aren’t you running?” Michael gasped.

“The back door is locked,” Linda replied grimly.

Michael dropped his gaze and saw the carving knife clutched in her trembling hand, and understanding uncoiled in his mind, dark and terrible.

This isn’t an escape.

It’s a last stand.

Somewhere behind him, Michael heard shards of glass clattering onto the floor.

Heard a thump as something heavy followed it a moment later.

Michael stared at the rifle dumbly.

Five bullets.

He pressed the butt of the gun into his collarbone and aimed it at the doors.

And waited.

*

Rachel grabbed Emma’s clammy hand and hurried to the rear exit of the cottage. Somewhere behind her, she heard another thud; louder this time. Either the Infected had heard them inside or somehow sensed that hunting inside the cottage would bear fruit.

Whatever the case, it was just a matter of time before the creature stopped beating on the wooden panels and focused on the large pane of glass set into the door and—

The sound of cracking glass suddenly became the sound of shattering glass; an almost harmonious twinkling of fragments rattling on a tiled floor.

Rachel had hoped to spend a moment studying the road outside the rear of the cottage, but moments had become valuable currency, and her purse was empty.

As the sound of the glass raining down on the floor inside the cottage reached her ears, Rachel took a deep breath and pushed the door open.

She stepped through, pulling Emma along behind her, muscles tensed and ready to flee for her life. Once outside, a quick scan of her immediate surroundings revealed no movement, and she closed the door softly behind her, sealing the creature inside the cottage and praying that it hadn’t detected the soft clicking of the closing door.

The shriek that erupted on the other side of the wood, just inches away from her face, told her that luck was in even shorter supply than time.

Please, let that be the only one. Please, don’t let any others hear that shrie—

An answering shriek, to her left.

Judging by the volume of the noise, the creature was about fifty yards away.

Without pausing, Rachel bolted to her right, trusting that Emma was following and expecting that at any moment she would feel hands clutching at her, dragging her to the ground, and then teeth…

As she ran, Rachel felt a scream building in her lungs, but it wasn’t a scream of terror, though there was plenty of that. No, this was a scream of rage and frustration, a primal roar that had been building inside for days. A scream that had wanted to be unleashed since the moment she saw her damaged brother pounding John’s head into the ground and knew that all hope was lost.

Little Jason. The shy guy who didn’t know his own strength, the kid who had always needed the protection of his big sister despite his intimidating size.

Harmless little Jason.

St. Davids’ gentle giant.

He’s killed us all.

She heard the rattle of footsteps on the street behind her and risked a look over her shoulder.

Emma was about ten yards behind Rachel, struggling to keep pace and slowly falling further behind. Beyond her, Rachel saw the Infected rounding the corner onto the street, and felt her heart leap. She counted six...no, seven. A couple of whom she recognised instantly as some of the young women that had survived Darren Oliver’s reign of terror at the castle.

They had survived Annie Holloway, too. In the end it had been Rachel’s own brother that had brought death to their door. After everything that had happened, after surviving Victor and Darren and Annie, nobody was going to survive Jason.

Rachel turned away and poured every ounce of energy into pumping her legs, praying that the uneven cobbles would not betray her.

Seven Infected.

Her mind immediately ran to a more terrible number.

Four.

The amount of bullets she had left in the revolver.

This is the end.

Get off the street.

Small boutiques and coffee shops blurred past as she ran, and her legs began to burn. Nothing offered itself up as a means of escape. Getting into one of the buildings might offer her a faint chance, she thought, but pausing to try a door only to find it locked would get her killed for sure.

Gasping for air, Rachel twisted her neck again, hoping to see some sign that she was pulling away from the Infected.

What she saw instead was Emma, now forty yards back, collapsing to the ground and exploding, her abdomen ripped wide open by clawing fingers and snapping teeth.

A shocking spray of blood erupted across the cobbled street. A glistening rope of something arced behind it; something that Rachel couldn’t identify for moment, until her mind finally offered up the obscene answer with a horrified scream: intestine.

She had seen the devastating effects of a human being encountering a single Infected, and they were horrific, but watching seven of the creatures bringing one young girl down was something else. Like a pack of starving hyenas, each desperate to tear away its fill before the meat ran out.

Rachel saw Emma open her mouth to scream; saw one of the Infected driving its snapping jaws down onto the girl’s lips. It was a kiss drawn from the depths of a nightmare. A kiss that ended with Emma’s tongue hanging limply from once-human teeth, torn out at the root.

Another jet of blood spurted into the air, painting the window of a nearby clothing store a grisly shade of red-black.

So much blood, Rachel thought dimly, but the blood wasn’t the worst part. Emma was still alive, still trying to scream as her eyes began to cloud over with a deep angry crimson and the virus raced with the Infected to claim her.

Still human until the last terrible second.

Without realising what she was doing, Rachel suddenly found the revolver in her hand, and she blindly loosed a couple of rounds at the seething mass of violence on the street, letting her rage at the obscenity of Emma’s death overcome her. For a moment she felt as blinded by emotion as the eyeless creatures that tore at the poor girl’s warm corpse, and the fog in her mind only lifted when she saw the Infected drop Emma’s body back to the cobbles, whipping their heads toward the deafening roar of the revolver.

Well done, Rach. Smart move.

With a chilling shriek, the Infected left Emma’s ruined body on the cobbles and lurched toward Rachel.

She turned to run with a heavy heart and aching legs, knowing that escape was impossible; unable to do anything other than try.

The small buildings huddled along the street became a blur once more, though less so this time. Rachel had spent a lot of time over the years jogging to keep fit, but she was built for endurance rather than speed. Maintaining a steady pace for many miles was one thing; terrified energy-sapping sprints another entirely. Already she was beginning to slow.

To her left, a small art shop with a single large pane of glass comprising its frontage caught Rachel’s eye, and without thinking she fired the gun one more time, shattering the window and hurtling through, praying there might be a door she could lock inside. Something—anything—to slow the creatures that hunted her.

There was nothing. Just an open-plan space designed to mimic a tiny gallery. Lots of paintings and small sculptures adorned the walls; local art that focused on the grim, desolate beauty of the Welsh coastline; art that no one would ever buy because art was history now. Like everything else.

The rear of the gallery held a small stockroom, but there was no door. Hanging beads divided the stockroom from the shop itself.

Beads.

Fucking hippies.

It was almost funny. Almost enough to split Rachel’s mind in two.

She came to a stop, panting for air, and heard the chorus of shrieks outside. Approaching fast.

There was only one thing left to do. The thing that she had promised Michael she would do if things ever went as bad as they possibly could.

The thing she had promised herself.

You won’t take me.

Rachel pressed the barrel of the revolver to her temple and turned to face the creatures that had chased her relentlessly, right up to the bitter end.

One bullet left. More than enough.

The first of the creatures appeared, bolting into the gallery, and Rachel squeezed her eyes shut, unwilling to look at the horror that streaked toward her. Her mind shrieked at her finger, demanding that it pull the trigger before it was too late.

Do it. Do it. Do it. Do—

The tearing fingers and teeth she expected to feel on her flesh did not arrive. Instead she heard a strange sound, a strangled yelp and a thud, and a huge shadow fell across her, and after an eternity Rachel pried open her eyes in disbelief and the scream that had been building inside for days finally burst from her.

*

Inch by tortured inch, Ed helped Shirley shrug out of the damaged pack, taking great care to cup his remaining good hand over the ragged tear, clasping the packets and cans inside that desperately wanted to fall out and ring a dreadful alarm around the small alley. His other hand had been heavily bandaged by Linda until it was no more effective than a stump.

In another time it might have looked like the two men were trying to act out some sort of comedy sketch; as if they were part of a movie that was being advanced frame-by-frame.

The rest of the world wasn’t moving in slow-motion, though.

Ed caught a can of soup as it slipped through the hole in Shirley’s pack and lowered it gently to the ground, and from the corner of his eye he saw another blur of motion at the narrow entrance to the alley.

Another of the Infected, streaking past toward something—some person—that was unfortunate enough to have attracted its full attention.

Poor bastard, Ed thought, and shuddered as he realised that he might as well be referring to himself. It was just a matter of time before one of the Infected stumbled across the two men cowering in the alley.

This is taking too long.

He focused intently on the ground, placing another errant can down noiselessly as it slid from the pack, and saw a shadow fall across the cobbles.

He froze.

It seemed to take an eternity to persuade his eyes to wrench themselves away from the ground.

At the entrance to the alley, another of the Infected had appeared, but this one wasn’t heading away on some bizarre and grisly mission. Nothing had attracted this one’s attention. Not yet.

The creature paused.

Swaying oddly.

Like it was trying to gather more data; to confirm that it had in fact just heard something nearby.

Paralysed by terror, Ed and Shirley stared directly into the creature’s empty eye sockets. It was a matter of feet away from them.

Ed held his breath, but knew that it was a temporary solution. Already the air in his lungs felt like it was catching fire. Soon enough, it would evacuate explosively. With each passing second, the effort of holding in the toxic oxygen increased the pounding of his heart.

It’s going to hear my pulse.

Ed had listened to Michael’s heartfelt speech back at the castle; he really had. Don’t panic. How could a simple two-word command be so impossible to follow?

With each beat, his heart seemed to get louder, and it began to feel like the various parts of his body were going to betray him all at once. He felt an overwhelming urge to cough, as though a lifetime of knowing how to breathe just fine had abruptly ended, and now it had become a task that required his full attention.

I’m choking. Can't breathe.

I have to cough.

I'm going to die.

Ed’s eyes slowly fell back to the ground. As they travelled, they spent a half-second pointed at Shirley, and Ed had a moment to absorb the man’s fearful expression; the faint shake of the head as the biker realised what Ed was doing. Ed hadn’t even realised himself; not until his eyes landed on the can at his feet again, and his fingers clenched around the cool metal almost involuntarily.

Before Ed could decide whether the course of action he had opted for was a bad idea or a terrible idea, the time for debate was over. He whipped the can forward, putting every ounce of strength he had into the throw.

The can sailed through the air.

The creature whipped its head up.

And then it crumpled toward the ground as the can caught it square in the forehead with a soft thud.

Ed stared, amazed, and part of him wanted to yell out his disbelief.

Great fucking throw!

But things were still falling, still making the journey toward the ground and the inevitable noise of landing.

Oh shit.

The now-dented can hit the cobbles with an impossibly loud metallic crash, and Ed’s breath finally forced its way explosively out of his lungs.

Shirley flung the remains of the ruined pack from his back, oblivious to the clatter as the rest of the contents rattled on the cobbles like a medieval alarm system, but Ed saw none of that.

He was already running.

The buildings that lined the narrow alley became a fear-drenched blur as Ed rocketed past them, focusing only on keeping one foot in front of the other. In a strange way, he had never felt so alive; so in tune with the rhythm of his body. He could almost feel the individual muscles working, the fibres twitching. Each movement was a perfect symphony, a hundred different parts of the miracle that was the human body playing the same frantic song.

And then one of the windows set high in a building overlooking the alley erupted, showering glass into Ed’s path.

Not just glass.

Something else.

A whimper escaped Ed’s lips, riding the current of painful breath that tore itself from his lungs, and he slammed to a halt.

A dark shape exploded into the alley. Right in front of him.

Huge.

Covered in blood.

Wielding a pipe.

Ed wanted to scream and laugh and cry in relief, but there was no energy left. Only enough fuel in the tank to stumble past Jason, and to turn and see the big man start swinging.

*

As Jason decimated the Infected that had been bottlenecked in the alley, Ed felt a presence beside him, and turned to see another figure climbing through the broken window that Jason had burst through seconds earlier.

A slight figure with eyes that burned with dark intensity.

Rachel held out a hand toward him as she clambered awkwardly across the broken glass.

“Little help would be nice,” she said with a crooked grin.

Ed nodded dumbly and offered her the hand that still had fingers, letting Rachel balance herself against his arm as she dropped from the window to the cobbles.

Once she was in the alley alongside him, Ed turned to see Jason dropping the last of the Infected that had poured into the narrow space with a blow that almost cleaved the creature’s head in two.

“Are you okay?” Ed asked a little hesitantly.

Rachel grimaced.

“I’ve been better. Emma’s dead. A few others from the castle, too. I saw them…turned, I guess. Changed. You know.”

Ed didn’t know what to say, and so he simply nodded. Rachel delivered the news with a matter-of-fact detachment, but he could tell from the shimmering intensity in her eyes that Emma's death had meant a lot more than nothing.

For the first time as he looked at her he felt something other than intimidation. Something that seemed a little more like sympathy.

She must have been through a hell of a lot, he thought, to be able to deal with this so calmly.

“Uh…is he okay?” Ed asked, pointing at Jason.

The big man was busily smearing Infected heads across the cobbles with mighty blows of the lead pipe, and seemed unaware that all of the creatures were already dead. He swung remorselessly, like a machine, until the bodies piled at his feet were reduced to little more than a horrific paste.

Rachel’s expression hardened, but Ed thought he saw something else in her eyes. Something broken.

“He hasn’t been okay for a long time,” she said hoarsely.

For a moment Ed, Rachel and Shirley stood and watched Jason silently, as if a dark spell had been cast over them. The big man, for his part, seemed utterly unaware of their presence.

“Okay,” Rachel said breathlessly, shattering the awkward silence, and staring pointedly at Ed and Shirley. “Where’s Michael?”

The answer to her question floated on the air, carried like driftwood on a fast-moving stream.

Gunshots.

Chapter 36

As the helicopter touched down on the deck of the Conqueror, Kyle toyed with the notion that he should once more jam the barrel of the rifle into the pilot’s neck and demand that he take off again.

It wasn’t the two armed men scurrying toward the chopper as the whine of the rotor blades began to lower in pitch that made his heart leap; hell, everyone seemed to be armed these days. Kyle had managed the best part of thirty years without ever seeing a gun; five minutes ago he had been threatening to blow somebody’s head off with one.

No, it wasn’t the guns that scared him. Not anymore.

It was the bodies.

In the distance, behind the approaching men, he saw a stack of bodies, like something from some grisly old photograph depicting the hideous result of a brutal war.

What the fuck happened here?

He stepped out of the chopper, half-wondering if somehow the game was up, and Sullivan knew he had two interlopers in his bizarre private army. Maybe the two men running toward the chopper were here to execute Kyle and his brother. Certainly Kyle couldn’t imagine them doing any arresting. Law and justice was definitely a thing of the past, and not a matter that Sullivan had overly concerned himself with even when it had meant something.

True to form, Tom remained in the chopper, presumably hoping that he could somehow make himself invisible and avoid the inevitable shit-storm to come.

And you thought you were going to kill Sullivan, Kyle thought bitterly.

He had often felt guilty for labelling his brother delusional, but not where that was concerned. Two men with no military experience and one gun that neither of them could fire with any degree of accuracy were never going to get anywhere near Fred Sullivan.

Kyle lifted his arms aloft in surrender as the two men reached the chopper, and grunted in surprise when the younger of the soldiers pushed him aside and leapt aboard.

“Wait,” Kyle said, “What’s going on?”

His answer was an ear-splitting roar, and he turned in astonishment to see one of the nearby destroyers unleashing a devastating salvo of rocket fire at a ship further to the west. Another huge explosion tore the air over the North Sea apart.

Even more incredibly, a second or so later, Kyle heard the noise of another crunching impact and felt a sudden tilting of the deck. No more than a degree or two, barely noticeable. Kyle wouldn’t have noticed it but for the fact that nothing caused the Conqueror to tilt. Previously, he had suspected it would have taken a tsunami wave to make the gigantic ship feel like it was actually at sea.

But he saw no tsunami.

“That’s going on,” the younger soldier growled, as the older one—clutching an assault rifle identical to Kyle’s own—hauled himself into the helicopter.

“The mutation is free,” the older soldier said. “And I think it’s just arrived.”

“Here?” Kyle said in astonishment. “But we just left it on the other ship.”

“You were on the McIntosh ship?”

Kyle nodded.

“Well,” the older man said. “A lot’s happened since then. It’s already been through two ships that we know of.”

“In five fucking minutes?”

“Yeah,” the younger soldier snarled. “Nice chat. Now get on the chopper or don’t, but you”—he jabbed the barrel of a pistol into the pilot’s neck—”get this fucking thing back in the air now.”

The pilot bristled.

“That’s the second gun I’ve had pointed at me in-”

“Then I guess you’re just unlucky, mate. Pilots are pretty valuable at the moment. Trust me, the way things are going on this ship, you’re going to have someone pointing a gun at you one way or another. You’ll be glad it was me, because I really don’t want to have to pull this trigger.”

The pilot stared at him, his eyes narrowing, and sighed. He fired the engine again, and the rotor began to howl.

“I don’t have much fuel. Where is it you want to go?”

“Not far. We’re landing on the fastest ship out there, and then we’re getting the fuck out of here before Sullivan kills us all.”

The pilot pouted almost comically.

“Well,” he said. “You could have just said that.”

Kyle heaved himself back onto the helicopter, and moments later he felt the deck of the Conqueror fall away. As the chopper rose into the sky, he stared down at the enormous ship. At a glance it looked quiet and still, and it was difficult to believe that anything at all was happening beneath the surface.

*

Jake stood in a shallow lake of blood, and felt a certain amount of disappointment.

The destroyer he had torn through like an Act of God hadn’t been the challenge he had hoped for after all, and after charging through two vessels without meeting meaningful resistance he had expected that the largest ship in the fleet—an enormous aircraft carrier—would also have the largest crew.

As fatigue began to set in it had taken him two attempts to punch through the thick steel hull, which was a little disconcerting, and what he had found inside was mainly corpses. It was as if the humans aboard the carrier had been aware of his imminent arrival and had formed some sort of mass-suicide pact.

All the bodies looked peaceful; unmarked, almost as if they had all just decided to go to sleep. As ever, the enormous energy expended by Jake’s preternatural movement had taken a massive toll, and the first thing he did was take a huge bite out of one of the bodies.

He spat the meat back out in disgust.

The blood of the dead had been poisoned. If this was the old man’s attempt to prevent the inevitable, Jake thought, it was poorly planned.

He wandered cautiously through the piles of bodies, until finally he registered some actual living humans nearby, and he made straight for them, tearing them apart eagerly and shuddering in ecstasy at the powerful rush of energy their blood provided. Yet there were only a handful.

Puzzling.

At least, once the energy began to course through him, he was able to move faster, but still Jake found himself hesitant to proceed. The ships and the humans he had encountered thus far had been entirely predictable in their reactions: they fired their ineffectual weapons until the bullets ran out, and then they died in spectacular fountains of blood that made Jake feel giddy.

Yet this was different.

Surely the old man would be on this ship: the biggest in the fleet; the one at the centre. Sitting at the middle of things like a fat spider on an enormous web.

Unless, just like a spider’s web, the aircraft carrier was a trap; just a big piece of irresistible bait to lure him in.

Jake had underestimated Sullivan once before, and the result had been catastrophic. The old man was cunning and ruthless. Charging forward blindly might well end in disaster and darkness and the horrific noise that had made his nerves shriek in agony.

The incessant need that burned in Jake’s twisted mind urged him forward, relentlessly exhorting him to give in to the monster that he had become, and to blindly pursue the blood and violence he craved so desperately.

Only the part that remained vaguely human held him back. The part that had once been a simpering coward that he detested with all his soul.

Controlling his impulses had always been a problem, but in the past it had been one that he had learned to overcome when necessary. He had never been the sort of lunatic that was completely blinded by their lust. Those sort of killers were sloppy; easily apprehended. Detachment and the intelligence to see the bigger picture were vital, he had always believed, if you were to forge out a successful life in the business of serial murder.

The thought that he was now in thrall to his own twisted genes and the addiction to the narcotic rush of human flesh; helpless as a shivering junkie, mortified and enraged him.

This is a trap.

You should run away.

Shut the fuck up, coward.

With an enormous effort, Jake forced himself to move slowly, creeping through the belly of the ship on high alert and conserving the energy that leaked away from him with such appalling ease.

The ship was gigantic, but he could sense the presence of humans not too far away. Somewhere above him. Fighting to suppress the dark desire that screeched in every cell of his mutated body, and refusing to acknowledge the familiar voice in his mind that told him to flee, Jake began to ascend.

Chapter 37

Sweat trickled down Michael’s brow, making him itch, and he had an overwhelming urge to brush it away before it ran into his eyes, but his fingers were locked around the rifle, and they didn’t appear to be keen to let go for anything.

Staring down the barrel at the door, he expected it to burst open at any moment, but instead he heard a familiar sound, one that took him right back to his first encounter with the creatures that had destroyed everything.

Sniff…sniff.

The creature was unaware of the people cowering in the next room, and was stumbling blindly around the restaurant’s dining area, trying to locate the prey that it knew had been there only moments before. With an effort, Michael pried his fingers from the rifle, and pressed his forefinger to his lips.

Maybe if we remain quiet. Just maybe…

He breathed in softly through his nose. Overwhelmingly he could smell coffee and cooking oil that had been re-used one too many times. By the smell of the place, the restaurant had done a rocking trade in bacon sandwiches and fried sausages, and the scent of the meat seemed ingrained.

He heard a screech of wood on tile. From the sound of it, the creature in the dining room had stumbled among the tables, and had bumped into a chair. Beyond the door, he heard a faint rushing noise; an expulsion of air that reminded him a little of a horse snorting out a breath.

The thing in the dining room sounded…disappointed.

Michael felt a chill running down his spine.

How human are these fucking things? he thought. How much do they think?

As if in response to the question, he heard a shattering of glass on the dining room floor.

It could simply have been the creature bumping into a table and knocking a wine glass from it, of course, but the image in Michael’s mind was of the thing sweeping an arm across the table and sending the glass to the floor.

Frustration.

He let out a breath, long and slow; a breath he hadn’t realised had been held in for several long moments, and slowly twisted his neck to face Linda and the children. With an effort he tore his left hand from the barrel of the rifle and held it up. One of John’s simple gesture commands.

Wait.

The swinging doors that separated them from the horror in the other room had no means of locking, but they did have handles. Just wide enough that Michael thought he could slip the rifle through to bar the doors.

And what then? Even if you can do that without making a noise, there’s no way out of this kitchen without the keys.

Michael’s mind boiled with frustration as he desperately tried to decipher the best course of action. Sooner or later the creature outside was bound to stumble into the doors and then it would be right on top of them, and the only options left would be shooting at point-blank range or dying.

Rushing out there to kill it—even if he could do that without resorting to firing the rifle—would surely mean making enough noise that more of them would come.

Barring the door was the only option. If the creature heard the rifle being inserted through the handles it would be battering at the door immediately, and would probably be joined by more of its ghastly brothers in no time, but Michael could see no other option. Moving carefully, he aimed the barrel at the handles, and began sliding it through.

Just like that old board game, he thought, the one where you operate on a man, and if your hand trembles a buzzer goes off. Except that this time, the buzzer will be the last thing you ever hear.

Michael heard another thump in the room beyond, and then an ear-splitting shriek, and he froze. His heart hammered against his chest.

In the dining room he heard what sounded like a scuffle, and then a loud thud. Moments later he heard a voice, whispering his name.

“Michael?”

Stunned, Michael motioned at Linda and the kids to stay put and cautiously cracked open the door.

In the dining room, swaying a little uncertainly and clutching a large rock stained with blood, he saw Gareth Hughes, and Michael felt his jaw slacken.

He stepped into the dining room slowly, scanning for any other movement and seeing none. On the floor to Gareth’s left, he saw the prone body of the infected creature, and finally allowed himself to breathe easier.

“It’s okay,” he whispered back into the kitchen, and moved toward Gareth with a grin.

“I guess you’re one of the good guys, now.”

Gareth smiled a little sheepishly.

“Any of the others with you?” Michael asked, and Gareth nodded. “A few, hiding next door. I saw it follow you guys in here, and I figured I had to…you know.”

Michael clapped Gareth on the shoulder.

“You did great, mate,” he said. “I honestly wouldn’t have thought you had it in you to kill one of those things.”

Gareth grinned.

“Neither would I,” he said. “I just shut my eyes and swung. A bit like when I played cricket at school. Never did make the team.”

Michael felt a laugh building in his throat, but there was something else building too. An apprehension that quashed all the humour.

Just one swing.

It could still be—

Michael span around just in time and far too late simultaneously. A fraction of a second later and he would have missed it: the infected creature—stunned and most definitely not dead—lurching upright and sinking its teeth deep into Pete’s calf as he stepped out of the kitchen.

“No!” Michael roared, but the word was lost in another scream, high-pitched and horrified, a young boy’s scream that twisted until it became a familiar bloodcurdling shriek. It was a sound that Michael thought he would hear in his nightmares for the rest of his life, however long that might be.

With a hoarse cry of despair, Michael aimed the rifle and squeezed the trigger, destroying the face of the creature on the floor.

When he looked up, he saw Pete’s eyes for the last time, clouding with blood and seeming to swell in their sockets.

And then the boy reached into his skull with his forefingers and ripped them out with a grunt of terrible relief.

Michael was still screaming; oblivious to the noise and the Infected that might hear it; a wordless roar of pain and despair as he lifted the rifle once more and did what had to be done.

*

Rachel moved through the streets warily, pulling along her giant brother by the hand. It felt like leading a horse. Jason was compliant but apparently unaware. He had slipped once more into what she thought of as his standby mode.

As heartbreaking as the emptiness on his face was, Rachel was glad that he had become so quiet. Her brother was able to detect the presence of the Infected somehow, she was sure. Just as Gwyneth had been. If Jason had once more retreated into his shell, it at least allowed her to believe that the immediate threat had passed.

At what cost?

As the small group headed back toward the river—and the sound of gunfire they had heard moments earlier—Rachel tried not to look at the corpses that littered the ground, but there were many she vaguely recognised, and soon enough she found herself examining every single body that she passed, dreading seeing a face that was more familiar to her.

Some of the dead she had seen only briefly before they met their grisly end: sad, silent men and women with haunted eyes that had arrived at the castle with Annie Holloway.

Some others, Rachel knew a little better: the young girls that Darren Oliver had harvested from Caernarfon to be his playthings. There was no sign of Michael.

Please be alive.

When they reached the river, right back at the spot that they had been gathered at when all hell had broken loose just a few short minutes earlier, Rachel found the ground awash with blood, and the town seemed eerily still.

She resisted the urge to shout Michael’s name. Jason might be able to detect the presence of the Infected, but Rachel had no idea how far such an ability extended. Maybe not as far as her voice would carry.

And besides, Jason’s response to the Infected was to draw them straight to him. If that happened again, Rachel didn’t think anybody would survive. At least, not anybody other than Jason. She pictured her brother alone, wandering the countryside like a ghost killing and killing, and felt bitter tears sting her eyes.

“There,” Shirley whispered suddenly, pointing at a restaurant with a smashed window to their left. Rachel watched as the a dark shape appeared at the window and Michael climbed out, followed by Linda, Claire and one of Holloway’s men.

Tears streamed openly down Michael’s face, and Claire’s narrow shoulders heaved with heavy sobs, and Rachel realised who was missing, and felt a lump in her throat.

Chapter 38

All told, eighteen people had survived the disaster on the riverbank in Caernarfon. More than half of the people that had set out from the castle had been killed outright, or had been executed by Jason once they had turned.

A trip that had been full of fear and trepidation now felt marked more by sadness and weariness. A pall of despair hung over the group. Seventy-five miles to travel, and their number had been cut in two before they had even travelled one.

They huddled together by the riverbank for a while and no one spoke, but Michael had an idea that they were all thinking the same thing.

We can’t make it.

He stared forlornly at Claire, who had buried her face in Linda’s coat. The sobs that had heaved through her had quieted, but Michael could still hear her snuffling.

It could have been her, he thought. It was just dumb luck that it wasn’t her.

Michael had felt like slamming the butt of the rifle into Gareth’s face after he had been forced to execute Pete, but the feeling faded quickly. It wasn’t Gareth’s fault. It was his own. He had let his guard down for just a second; long enough to overlook something so simple and so devastating.

He hadn’t been able to keep Pete safe. Nor John or Gwyneth or any of them. Even the ones still alive, like Rachel and Jason, had been damaged or broken entirely. Linda had once pleaded with him that the survivors needed Michael to lead them, but what good was he if he couldn’t even protect a child standing no more than a yard away from him?

The darkness that lived in his mind clawed at him, revelling in the moment.

All your fault, Mike.

Claire will be next.

And now you’re just sitting here, waiting for the power station to blow and end it all, because that is the easiest way out, isn’t it?

Michael blinked away tears that burned his eyes and tore his gaze away from the floor to find Rachel staring at him.

“We have to go for the bus,” she said flatly. “Darren’s bus. It’s our only chance, Michael. The noise of the engine might draw the Infected, but so what? They attacked the bus when Darren was driving and he made it. Nothing has changed. We get to Liverpool, get a boat and go.”

Michael stared at Rachel for a while and tried to find some hope in her words. Didn’t manage it.

“The bus probably doesn’t work. We don’t have the keys.”

“Then we’ll find something else,” Rachel snapped. “Goddammit, Michael, snap out of it. We have to go.”

Rachel was right, but Michael felt anger burning inside him nonetheless.

“And what about him?” he snapped, jabbing a finger at Jason. The big man sat apart from the rest of them, apparently oblivious to their presence.

“What about him?” Rachel said, surprised. “He comes with us, of course.”

She shrugged.

“Rachel, he’s not Jason anymore, don’t you see that? I’m not even sure he’s human! All he cares about is the Infected. He drew them to us, Rachel. He did that. He got people killed. Almost got all of us killed.”

Fire burned in Rachel’s eyes. Hot enough to melt steel.

“And what if he knew they were out there? What if he only did that because he knew there were Infected in the town? What if he was trying to keep us safe?”

“Then he failed,” Michael spat. “What happens next time? How many times is Jason going to get to keep us safe before there’s none of us left?”

Rachel opened her mouth, and snapped it shut again without speaking. Her eyes drilled into Michael furiously until he spoke. When he did, he found that that the brief flash of anger he had felt had already begun to dissipate.

“Rachel, you know he can’t come with us. Even if we take him now, sooner or later you’ll have to leave him behind. If Australia is free of the virus, and if by some miracle we can actually get there, do you really want to take the virus with you?”

“I’m not leaving him here, Michael. After the guy has just saved my life—maybe all our lives, I can’t believe you want to either.”

Michael sighed.

“Of course I don’t want to. I don’t want any of this,” he said bitterly. "I wanted to be a husband and a father, and to spend my life helping people. I wanted to be a good police officer and have a normal life. This is as far from what I want as it’s possible to get. I-”

“He’s my fucking brother. He’s coming. Unless you’re prepared to kill him?”

Rachel’s eyes flashed dangerously, and the emphasis in her words was unmistakable. Gwyneth.

“You’d better be prepared to kill me as well if that’s the case.”

Michael’s shoulders slumped.

And then went rigid.

In the distance, somewhere to the west, a huge rumbling noise ripped apart the tense silence, roaring for several terrifying seconds before dying away, like an advance warning of an impending earthquake.

Wylfa.

Michael stared at the sky above the castle. Somewhere beyond it, something on Anglesey was pouring a thick column of black smoke into the darkening sky.

She’s right. We have to move.

After a moment Michael stood, and glanced around the group.

Everyone was looking at him with hope on their faces. Waiting for him to tell them what to do.

Relying on me.

“Darren Oliver left a bus at the outskirts of town. Our best hope is to find it and get the fuck out of here. If we can’t find it, we’ll find another. Find something. Anything bigger than a car, something that won’t fall apart if—when—we have to drive through some Infected.”

All those faces staring at him. All those eyes.

He couldn’t help but wonder how long it would be until he saw them being torn out.

“Let’s go.”

Chapter 39

“The creature is on board the ship, Sir.”

Fred detected a tremble in the soldier’s voice, and felt it replicated in his own aged nerves. It had been a long time since he had felt anything resembling actual fear. The sensation was almost as bewildering as it was infuriating.

Two of the ships in the fleet were now slowly sinking to the bottom of the ocean, but the second time he had ordered a destroyer to fire on its own people the protests over the radio had been long and loud. They had acquiesced, finally, but had made it clear that there wouldn’t be a third time.

Fred’s position had been weakened irrevocably, and his obsession with Jake McIntosh had taken his eye off the ball. He had no control over the soldiers now; no leverage. The end would be weak and humbling. Mortifying. Even worse than the prospect of McIntosh tearing him limb from limb was the reality that the days of Fred’s orders being followed were officially over.

Already several of the smaller ships in the fleet were fleeing. Precious few knew anything about the mutation, but they didn’t need to; the only knowledge required was that the world had gone to shit and now the destroyers that were supposed to protect them had instead begun to sink them.

At least Isabelle is on one of those ships.

The thought surprised Fred a little. His daughter was a deluded imbecile, raised by money and parental absence to remain a selfish child forever. If she was to be his legacy, after everything he had accomplished, then his failure truly was monumental. The fact that he actually hoped she would survive merely underlined the hopelessness of it all.

“Sir?”

Several of the crew that had been on the bridge of the Conqueror had already fled. The couple that remained were, Fred suspected, not loyal so much as paralysed by their own stupidity. A life of following orders had left them unable to think for themselves. Doubtless, they were praying that Fred would order them to join the evacuation that they so dearly wanted to be a part of.

Fuck them.

“I want my helicopter ready to go in ninety seconds,” Fred barked.

“Uh…there aren’t many pilots left, Sir.”

“I only need one,” Fred snapped. “Where are they?”

His voice was rising in pitch, slipping away from his control. The sound of it in his own ears made him cringe. He sounded weak and pathetic. Frightened.

The soldier pointed silently at the window.

Outside, Fred saw a couple of choppers and a handful of the Harrier jets lifting off.

That's where the pilots are. Fleeing. Leaving me to die.

“What about you?” Fred snarled. “Can you fly a helicopter?”

The soldier shook his head slowly.

“Then what fucking good are you to me?” Fred screamed, and he pulled out his revolver and put a hole in the man’s sweat-drenched forehead. Turning sharply, he pointed the gun at the only crew member left on the bridge.

There was no point asking if the man could pilot anything; Fred knew exactly what the response would be.

Still got one hand left to play. All in, old boy, and let the chips fall where they may. Impetuous, indeed.

Fred moved to a glass cabinet on the wall next to the door and smashed it with the butt of his revolver, withdrawing a gas mask and slipping it over his face.

“Turn on the gas,” he snarled. “And stay out of the lower decks if you want to survive.”

The soldier stared at him in open-mouthed astonishment.

“Sir, shouldn’t we all be evacuati—”

Fred turned on his heel and strode from the bridge before the man could finish.

"I said turn on the gas," he snarled over his shoulder. In all likelihood, he thought, it was the last order he would ever give.

So be it.

It was a long walk to the engine room, and Fred knew that McIntosh was down there in the dark somewhere, prowling around the maze of steel corridors like the mythical Minotaur, so he moved cautiously at first, and only began to quicken his pace when he heard the hissing of the poisonous gas that seeped from the air vents.

The gas would clear McIntosh out of the lower decks, he was certain. At least for long enough to allow Fred to make his way to the twin nuclear reactors that powered the ship. Long enough to arm the device that represented Fred Sullivan’s final move in the great game.

Death wasn’t to be feared; death was nothing. Being bested—especially by a sub-human creature like Jake McIntosh—was another thing entirely. A legacy of failure. Utterly unacceptable.

The final word would belong to Fred Sullivan.

It always had.

*

Gas.

The old fucker was cunning all right, but it seemed he lacked a true understanding of just what Jake was. His ears caught the clicking of the air vents almost before it happened, and he heard the first puff of the toxic air as it wheezed from the ship long before it had any chance of reaching his lungs and doing any damage.

Somewhere high above him, Jake heard the clamour of humans and smelled the fear upon them, a ripe stink far stronger to Jake’s sensitive nose than Sullivan’s invisible attempt at an execution.

No point in conserving energy now.

With a grunt, Jake squatted low, tensing the muscles in his calves, and launched himself upwards, bursting through the ceiling and onto the deck above. His feet barely touched the cool metal floor before he pounced again, using his extraordinary momentum to drive up through the decks of the aircraft carrier like a spear thrown up from the depths of Hell itself.

Somewhere below him, the gas slowly expanded into the vacuum, as slow and pointless as a lifetime. Nothing Fred Sullivan did could threaten Jake. Not now. Gas was a pathetic last resort. A weapon that even a human could outrun if they saw it coming.

With a roar, Jake exploded into the open air and landed on the flight deck to see humans scurrying before him like insects; delicious in their terror; fleeing for the aircraft that could not possibly save them.

Some of the aircraft were already airborne; beyond his reach, but he saw a helicopter lifting off slowly and launched himself toward it, catching the vehicle’s skids in one massive hand and dragging the thing back down, launching it across the deck like a dart at a row of parked jets.

Screams.

Explosions.

Delightful.

Jake let out a high-pitched shriek and began the dance, crashing around the deck like a pinball fired from a rocket launcher, tearing and biting and killing. It was like moving through a field of statues. Many of the soldiers on the deck died before their expressions had even changed from confusion to fright.

It was killing for the sake of killing, and Jake barely derived any pleasure from it. There was no enjoyment in the feel of their pulsing organs or the warm torrents of blood that drenched his hands. Jake had never been what the authorities termed a mission killer; there was no underlying purpose to his murders, nothing beyond the burning desire to open up the human body and play with the innards; to inflict pain because pain was so much damn fun.

This, though, was different, and the murder of dozens of soldiers was tainted; ruined by the mission he now felt compelled to complete.

He ripped the head off a fleeing woman and tossed it across the sea at one of the distant retreating ships like cannon fire and bellowed in frustration.

“Ssssssssulllivannnnnnn!”

The old bastard wasn’t on the ship; probably he never had been. He had out-thought Jake once more, luring him toward the obvious target and now he was out there somewhere, on any one of a dozen or more ships that scattered like dust on the wind. Even with his astonishing speed, Jake knew he could not hunt down all of the vessels. The blood that sustained him was like sucking in a lungful of cocaine; the energy burned bright and fast. It needed to be replenished constantly to operate at the level he required to destroy an entire fleet. Maybe he could decimate a handful of the ships, but by the time he had worked his way through them, the others would be gone; adrift on the vast ocean and lost to him forever.

An atomic blast of rage rocked through him at the notion that he, too, would be left to drift, too far from land to swim without fatigue overcoming him. Mindlessly, shrieking like one of the pathetic Infected that had inherited the Earth, Jake began to strike out, smashing holes into the deck and destroying the remaining aircraft.

“A temper tantrum. What a waste of such enormous potential, Misters McIntosh.”

The voice behind him made Jake freeze. Deep and gravelly, grooves cut deep into the tone by the decades.

He turned slowly, expecting to find that the old man had cornered him in some unforeseen trap after all, but all he saw was Fred Sullivan, alone on the deck and still wearing a ridiculous silver suit, pointing a pathetic excuse for a firearm at him.

*

Fred saw the trembling of his hand; saw the barrel of the revolver shaking. If he had any intention of firing the weapon, it might have been a cause for concern.

The mutation rumbled a laugh.

“Do you know how many bullets I’ve had fired at me today, Sullivan?”

“More than the six I have, I’m sure. I—”

Fred blinked.

The hand that held the pistol out in front of him was gone. The whole arm was gone. The realisation hit before the pain did; the sickening knowledge that he hadn’t even seen the creature move, and yet there it stood, twenty yards away, gnawing at his dismembered arm like it was a strip of jerky.

Fred collapsed, darkly fascinated by the stump where his left arm had been; by the jet of blood that spurted from it. It looked like all the blood a human body could possibly hold.

And suddenly the mutation was hovering above his face, leaning in close, breathing the stench of death and rotten meat across Fred’s face, making him gag.

“Well, come on, then,” Fred snarled. “You move fast. So get it over with.”

The mutation laughed, and regarded Fred with inhuman eyes that seemed incapable of displaying mirth.

“You get to go slow, old man. Your sanity will be long gone before I let you die.”

Fred tried to pull away in horror as the creature reached its massive, deformed hand slowly toward his face, and only when he felt an almost tender pinching at his hairline did he understand, and he began to scream as Jake McIntosh slowly and precisely peeled his face off.

Fred felt his mind beginning to break as he watched the creature consuming his flesh and realised that the reason he couldn’t shut his eyes to block out the hideous sight was because his eyelids were gone; torn away, leaving him powerless to avert his gaze.

Fred laughed.

A high-pitched giggle that hadn’t been the tone he had aimed for, but which had the desired effect. McIntosh reared backwards a little. Fred thought he saw confusion on the fearful features; as much as the twisted muscles of the creature’s face would allow.

“Such a fast mover,” Fred wheezed through the blood in his mouth. “Extraordinary speed in every muscle except the one that counts. I wonder if there’s anything on Earth you can’t outrun.”

As final words went, Fred thought they were unremarkable, petty and vindictive, but it wasn’t his words that mattered, not now. It was the small remote control in the palm of his remaining hand. The one that had only a single button.

Fred’s thumb was on the button; had been from the moment he stepped out onto the deck and took what he knew would be his last breaths. He had seen the future of humanity, and he had taken steps to ensure that the terrible future brewing for the denizens of Earth would be averted, but now, at long last, he was done.

Let the fuckers fight over what remained. Wildfire wasn’t going anywhere; Wildfire was all there was now. Just Wildfire and Fred Sullivan's determination to ensure that a deformed monster like Jake McIntosh didn’t wind up as the winner of anything.

As the mutation’s eyes widened in fearful understanding, Fred released the button on the tiny, insignificant piece of plastic clutched in his palm, and the explosive charges that were his ultimate contingency plan drove teeth of fire into the Conqueror’s nuclear engine, and the world became pain and bright, unending white light.

*

Kyle Robinson was standing on the deck of the decommissioned destroyer Portsmouth Charger as it travelled southwest at full speed, staring back at the scattering fleet when the Conqueror became a searing ball of light. By the time the roar of the detonation reached his ears, the flash had already blinded Kyle, burning the nerves in his eyes to a crisp before he could even think to look away.

The explosion was enormous, engulfing several of the ships that had been too slow to flee, creating a chain reaction of smaller explosions, and giving birth to a tidal wave that smashed against the hull of the Portsmouth several seconds later.

Kyle began to fall as the ship rode the huge wave, before hands caught him in the sudden darkness and hauled him upright.

“Got you, brother.”

Tears streamed down Kyle’s face.

“I’m blind,” he sobbed, and heard a grunt of acknowledgement.

“I’d say that puts you in the majority, now.”

Kyle couldn’t decide if the noise that ripped from his throat in response wanted to be a laugh or a sob or a fuck you. Maybe a little of each.

He could still feel the staggering heat of the explosion, racing along the waves behind the Portsmouth, but falling behind as the ship powered forward, heading south.

Nothing could possibly have survived the destruction of the fleet's core. In a way, Tom’s mission had finally been accomplished. Project Wildfire—whatever the hell it had twisted into at the end; something insane—and those behind it, had been wiped from the face of the Earth. Only its pitiful creations remained, and they too would surely die out in time.

After a moment he felt Tom guiding his hands to the rail, and Kyle steadied himself against it. He could feel his brother’s presence right next to him, staring out to sea, but Kyle could not make out anything against the dark canvas that had been draped across his eyes: no shapes, no colours; not even the flash of movement as Tom held something aloft to catch the fading light.

“It’s beautiful,” Tom whispered softly. “Perfect.”

Kyle thought he detected something strange in his brother’s tone; something troubling. It didn’t sound like he was talking about the view.

“Come on,” Tom said. “Let’s get you inside and have a doctor take a look at you.”

Kyle nodded and let Tom lead him slowly away from the deck.

Chapter 40

It took around half an hour to find the bus that Darren Oliver had mentioned.

The vehicle was abandoned at the northern outskirts of town, presumably because it was far too large to successfully navigate through the narrow, winding streets of Caernarfon. Michael recalled his attempts to steer a police car around similar streets in St. Davids, and the bittersweet memory of Carl’s frustration each morning at the delays in getting him to what he called ‘a proper breakfast’ made him smile sadly.

The survivors had moved slowly and cautiously through the streets, pausing every few yards so that Michael could check Jason’s blank face for some sign that there were Infected nearby. Jason remained impassive, staring at whatever horizon his eyes saw, and Michael slowly allowed himself to accept that Caernarfon had been cleared of the monsters at last.

For a while, at least. More would come. They always did.

When they found it, abandoned in the middle of the road that led to the east, the front of the bus was covered in blood. It was just as Darren had described it: his journey to Caernarfon had included Infected throwing themselves in front of the vehicle, but the bus was sturdy enough to survive the suicide attacks and didn’t look too badly damaged. When the number of Infected had threatened to finally overwhelm the bus, Darren had got lucky, stumbling across a mutation that might have saved them all if the man could have brought himself to treat it like a sick human rather than an animal.

Michael had blamed Darren for that at the time, but things had become more complicated since then, and the notions of right and wrong he had struggled so desperately to cling to had become slippery; as elusive as smoke. He wasn’t sure any of it was important now. Only survival mattered.

The door at the front of the bus stood open and Michael stepped inside cautiously, letting the barrel of the rifle lead the way. He had three bullets left, and hoped more than anything that he wouldn’t need to use them.

The bus was empty.

The keys hung in the ignition.

Michael felt like punching the air.

“Okay,” he said. “It’s safe. Everybody on board.”

As the survivors filed onto the vehicle, Michael surveyed the empty road behind them, expecting at any moment to see Infected charging toward him or to hear shrieking in the distance, but Caernarfon was a town of the dead now; a massive open grave.

Just like St. Davids and Aberystwyth.

Michael wondered if there were any places left out there that hadn’t been reduced to stark monuments to a dead past, and couldn’t help but shudder at the thought of what might be waiting for them in Liverpool. A city with a population of over a million. In a way, he hoped there was nothing to find there but more death and emptiness.

Not that it should matter: the plan did not involve sightseeing. If it were possible, Michael intended to drive the bus right to the waterfront and get everybody on board the first suitably large boat they could find, leaving the UK behind forever.

He let the thoughts of Liverpool dissolve. No point thinking about the city when just getting there was a task that might prove to be impossible to accomplish.

Just wing it, he thought, and he smiled. John would have approved.

When everybody was safely inside, he pulled the door shut, painfully aware of how flimsy it was. The bus would offer safety as long as it was moving, but if it came to a stop; if they ran into a herd…

No point thinking about it.

He settled into the driver’s seat, taking a moment to familiarise himself with the controls and dragged in a deep, shuddering breath.

Once he twisted the key there would be no turning back. The town looked clear, but the virus would not be too far away, stumbling around out there in the dark fields, listening intently. The roaring of an engine would bring them quickly. The only hope was to be moving by the time they arrived.

Fuck it.

He twisted the key and the engine stuttered loudly for a terrifying moment before roaring into life.

“Buckle up,” Michael said grimly to nobody in particular, and he stamped on the accelerator, turning the huge wheel smoothly and putting the picturesque town of Caernarfon in the rear view mirror.

*

A single wide road would take them all the way to Liverpool: one long highway that snaked right across the northern coast of Wales and into England to the east. For the most part, the road was empty, and Michael found himself giving thanks that the virus had attacked so early in the morning, long before the roads could clog up with traffic.

There was very little sign of the Infected. Occasionally a lone creature would stumble onto the road and throw itself ineffectually against the side of the passing bus, and the people on board would freeze as the thing’s shriek of frustration gradually receded when Michael floored the accelerator.

A couple of times they appeared directly in front and Michael yelled at his passengers to brace themselves, but the isolated impacts did not trouble the huge vehicle unduly. Beyond the surprise of the steering wheel trying to tear itself from his grasp a couple of times, Michael could almost believe that he was running over nothing larger than a rabbit or a fox.

After about twenty miles, when Michael felt more reassured that the bus could handle the scattered Infected, the worst part of the journey seemed to be the fraught atmosphere aboard the bus.

Claire must have felt it too, because she was the one that broke the tension when she burst suddenly into a shaky rendition of the wheels on the bus go round and round. After a few stunned moments another voice joined her, and then another, and soon the whole bus was singing, like children heading off on an exciting school trip.

Michael couldn’t help but smile. For weeks these people had lived under an oppressive cloud of silence, terrified that even the slightest noise they made might mean a terrible death for them. Now, they belted out a simple song at the top of their voices, and it felt like it was a necessary release for all of them; like a heartfelt fuck you to the horror of the world outside the windows.

He had been driving for around an hour when he saw the first signs for Liverpool, and slowly he began to allow himself to believe that they might just make it.

Twenty miles to go.

Fifteen.

Ten.

Five.

And then, without warning, the engine cut out abruptly and Michael looked down at the dashboard in horror as the bus began to coast toward a stop. A couple of the dials on the dashboard were cracked, and he hadn’t paid them enough attention. Hadn’t checked them properly.

Behind glass that was little more than a spiderweb of fractures, the fuel gauge sat and taunted him for his stupidity and for daring to believe.

Empty.

Chapter 41

For a long, dreadful moment Michael stared at the flimsy door to his left. At the darkness beyond it. Then he turned to find Rachel staring at him, her eyes as wide as his own felt.

“How long since we saw Infected?” she whispered breathlessly.

Michael felt like telling her the time for whispering was over. Every creature for miles around would have been following the roaring of the engine, closing in on them inexorably.

He stared at the dashboard, but the clock was smashed; stuck at 05:29am. It could well have been, he realised, the time at which the bus had encountered the Infected for the first time. The moment at which the driver had smashed his head into the dashboard, immortalised forever.

“I’d guess maybe eight or nine minutes,” he said.

“Then we’d better move, and hope most of them are somewhere behind us,” Rachel said.

Michael hoisted the rifle.

“Everybody off,” he barked. “Silent. Single file. Fast.”

With that Michael swept back the door and let the night air in.

It brought snapping teeth with it.

Michael fell backwards, stunned, jabbing blindly with the butt of the rifle and sending the creature that leapt toward him crashing back through the door.

Move.

He sprang forward, catching the creature once more on the forehead as it charged at him, oblivious to the weapon. Didn’t catch it flush, though; just a glancing blow, and suddenly the creature was on top of him and only the rifle was blocking the snapping teeth and Claire was screaming and—

The creature’s head collapsed, crumbling inward like a controlled demolition as the lead pipe swung through the air only inches away from Michael’s face. He felt the air the swing disturbed, and a second later the terrible weight was lifted from him.

Paralysed once more, Michael could only watch in stunned amazement as Jason squeezed his huge bulk through the door without a word and moved outside to begin killing.

On the bus, drenched in the heavy darkness, the passengers sat and listened for what felt like an eternity to the melody of death; the shrieks of frustration and the wet snapping of bone, until finally Michael shook himself out of the trancelike state he had fallen into.

More would be coming. Maybe a lot more. And Jason could only do so much.

Michael stood on legs that trembled as badly as they had the first time he heaved himself out of the wheelchair, and motioned to the people huddled on the bus.

Follow.

*

Rachel exited the bus to see Jason felling the last of the creatures that had streamed toward the vehicle in the darkness. When the body crumpled to the floor, Jason stood and stared down at it blankly. It was almost, Rachel thought, like he couldn’t see them either. Not really see them.

She took his huge hand in hers, and led him away from the pile of eyeless corpses that littered the ground at his feet, directing him back to the bus.

In the distance, Rachel heard the sea.

No, not the sea. A river.

The Mersey.

So close.

It was as she was focused intently on listening to the sound of the water that she heard it. Somewhere behind them. A faint rumble of rolling thunder. The sound was odd, though. It didn’t seem to fade away as thunder normally did; didn’t recede as the atmosphere drew in its breath to bellow once more.

Rachel came to a dead stop.

It wasn’t thunder.

Shit.

*

Michael bristled when he heard footsteps approaching him hurriedly. Logic told him that Jason had killed all of the Infected, but still, as he turned to see Rachel approaching fast, he felt himself tensing up as if he expected an imminent attack.

“You hear that storm?”

Michael nodded. “It should help cover the noise of our movement, we’ll have to run the rest of the w—

“That’s no storm.”

Rachel fixed him with a meaningful stare.

“Listen,” she hissed.

Michael’s stomach lurched. She was right. The noise he heard didn’t have the undulating quality of thunder. The rumbling was enormous. Constant.

Getting louder.

Footsteps. Hurtling toward them.

“There must be thousands,” he breathed in a horrified whisper.

Rachel nodded.

“It’s getting louder, Michael. That’s the only reason I realised it wasn’t thunder. At first I thought the noise was behind us, but now it sounds like it’s everywhere. Listen.”

Rachel cocked her head for a moment, and jabbed a finger into the darkness.

“West.”

Jab.

“South.”

Jab.

“East.”

Michael’s eyes widened.

“We’ve driven into the middle of a fucking county-sized herd. They’re coming straight for us,” Rachel said.

For a moment Michael felt like his mind was a computer, and somebody had just hit the reset button. It was taking him some time to reboot.

“Do you know where we are? Where, exactly?”

It was a simple question, and one to which Michael had no ready answer.

“Not exactly,” he said. “The last sign I saw was for a town called Mold. I think that is pretty near the English border, just south of Liverpool. Hang on.”

Trying to make as little noise as possible, Michael stepped back onto the bus and searched the various compartments dotted around the driver's seat, sighing in relief when he discovered a roadmap.

He hadn’t needed to check a map while driving the bus: the roads were all clearly marked and well travelled. Getting to Liverpool had been a matter of just following the signs.

But on foot, and with the knowledge that there were Infected all around them, navigation became a different matter entirely. Following a road blindly now could well see them walking in the wrong direction and running headlong into danger.

He squatted, stifling a grunt as his back shrieked in complaint, and spread the map out on the floor, focusing the beam of his flashlight on it. After a moment, Rachel crouched down next to him.

“That would put us around here, right?” she said, pointing.

Michael followed her finger and nodded.

“This is the road we’re on,” he agreed. “And the last sign for Liverpool said it was five miles away…”

“Which means we’re here,” Rachel repeated, jabbing a finger at the map.

Michael followed her gesture and saw a peninsula that jutted from the Welsh coast, rising north until it was parallel with Liverpool. The peninsula offered a single way to reach the city, and as Michael realised what that route was he felt anxiety rising in his gut.

The Mersey Tunnel.

Three miles of claustrophobic underground darkness. One way in, and one way out.

Michael would have liked to avoid taking the tunnel even if he had still been behind the wheel of the bus. The risks were simply too great. There was no way of knowing if the tunnel was clear or not, no guessing what might be waiting for them at the exit. The only way to survive an encounter with the Infected on anything other than the smallest of scales was to run or to hide, and the tunnel severely limited the chances of either of those options being successful.

Now there was no choice.

And no time.

Just go.

Michael straightened, and turned to the frightened group of people that huddled by the bus, their confident singing long forgotten.

“They’re coming,” he hissed. “Follow me. Run!”

He didn’t stop to look back. Grabbing Claire’s hand and pulling her into motion beside him, Michael tried to ignore the shattering pain in his back, and put his head down to the wind, running blindly, panicking because it was the only thing left to do.

Behind him, he heard footsteps clattering as the group followed his lead, and further back still, a wall of noise that approached indefatigably. Two miles to the tunnel. Three miles through it.

Michael blanked the thoughts from his mind; blanked out everything except a single all-consuming directive.

Right foot.

Left foot.

Right foot.

Faster.

Chapter 42

The Mersey Tunnel connected the town of Birkenhead to Liverpool, running deep beneath the Mersey Estuary. When Michael saw it looming in the distance, he had already been running for nearly two miles, and the pain in his back had consumed his entire being. Nothing seemed to penetrate the wall of agony: no emotion, even fear, found a way through.

Until he saw the yawning blackness of the tunnel entrance, and his pace began to falter.

Birkenhead was a ghost town, as the entire peninsula appeared to be. That wasn’t surprising: the virus would have ripped through the isolated stretch of land in no time, and the Infected would have been forced to move south to find more prey.

Or north.

Into the tunnel.

Into the impenetrable darkness.

A handful of the group had flashlights; a couple of them had mobile phones taken during the raid on Caernarfon: pocket-sized communications miracles that were now useful only for the soft light the screen provided. When the batteries ran out, the phones would become fossils. The days of recharging anything were finished.

The thundering of footsteps behind them had maintained its volume, and was still heading north. Michael imagined the entire peninsula heaving with the Infected, scrambling across each other to get to the fleeing group of humans, a seething mass of death that stretched from one coast to the other.

Not helpful, Mike.

He felt the group begin to slow behind him, and heard the clicking of flashlights being turned on. Felt the fear, too, radiating off the people in sickening waves.

In the tunnel they would be as blind as the Infected. The monsters would have a clear advantage.

They need your courage now, Mike. They need somebody to follow.

Michael gritted his teeth, pushing back the agony and the terror, and beckoned to the group to pick up the pace.

Thirty seconds later he plunged into the tunnel, and the world was reduced to darkness and writhing shadows.

*

The world was pools of light that danced across an endless dark, but Claire could feel the walls of the place even without seeing them. The air in the tunnel felt still, and heavier somehow than it had outside.

All the flashlights did was confirm that they were underground; none was powerful enough to truly light the way forward.

Claire had been underground in the darkness once before, trapped inside a car when the power died. Things had moved in the darkness then. Things that still terrified her and tormented her dreams.

She felt like screaming.

The tunnel was wide, and when lit it had probably appeared unremarkable; white-tiled and sterile. Just another road. In the darkness it became something else; filled with intent, like the blackness wanted to wrap invisible hands around her throat. Like the air itself was alive with something dangerous.

After every few steps, Claire hesitated, until finally Linda stumbled into the back of her, and it was all Claire could do to keep the scream from bursting out of her throat. She felt Linda’s hand on her shoulder. The woman gave a reassuring squeeze, and Claire began to move forward again.

Far beneath the estuary, the tunnel curved and snaked toward Liverpool, and Claire could no longer see the frail light of the stars behind her. In front there was only darkness.

Darkness and emptiness, until the silence gave way to a faint grunting sound on the road ahead, and Claire suddenly crashed into something.

*

Michael had held up a closed fist, but of course no one had seen it. Everyone that had a light had it pointed outwards like a searchlight, as though scanning for the iceberg that might sink them at any moment. He gritted his teeth as Claire ran into him, and heard the ripple effect as it moved through the group. The faint whispering of frightened bodies coming into contact. Nobody spoke. There wasn’t even so much as a grunt of surprise.

We might just get away with that, Michael thought, and he froze, straining to catch any noise in the dark space ahead. He was sure he had heard something. A soft grunt.

His flashlight had a range of about thirty yards, and Michael could only properly pick out detail for fifteen of those, but he thought he saw something further along the road. A shape moving in the darkness.

He crept forward, and saw it after five steps, and his mouth dropped open.

Another grunt.

The rhythmic movement was unmistakeable.

It can’t be…

He took another step.

About twenty yards ahead of him he saw two of the Infected, pressed together. Thrusting and bucking. Mating.

No, not mating, Michael realised in growing horror. Breeding.

Breeding.

The hideous truth of Project Wildfire rolled out endlessly before him, and he saw it all with a sudden, piercing clarity.

The Infected would not just die out. They wouldn’t starve. Survival for humans was not just a matter of finding a safe place and waiting for the apocalypse to pass. It had been there in front of his eyes all along. The creatures were evolving. A new species a matter of weeks old. They were genetically wired to kill humans, but there was nothing supernatural about them; they were just mammals. They would adapt, they would procreate. Some had learned to communicate; some guided those less advanced than themselves. Some could swim.

A species in its infancy, rising inexorably, learning and adapting to the environment that they had inherited.

He understood suddenly just why the creatures were compelled to kill those who had been their blood relations before they turned. The virus compelled them to kill off their old family so that they could replace it with a new one. The world belonged to them and they weren’t going anywhere. They were thriving.

Even the animals could contract the virus. Wildfire was everything now, and everywhere; a part of the planet itself, as ubiquitous as water and air and death.

The world hadn’t ended. Hadn’t been destroyed.

It’s just been transformed. And there’s no place left in it for us.

It took only a moment for Michael’s brain to run through it all, but it was long enough. Just enough time to distract him from the fact that there was a noise behind him now. A pounding of heavy feet.

Jason charged past Michael, hefting the pipe and killing the first of the Infected with a single blow, but he wasn’t quick enough. Even as he pulled the pipe clear and began to swing again, the second Infected creature registered the sudden noise in the tunnel.

And shrieked.

The noise ended a moment later with an abrupt liquid crunch, but it seemed to echo off the walls of the tunnel forever, taking on a life of its own.

Michael held his breath and began to count.

One.

Two.

Three.

He expected the darkness to be split by an answering shriek, but there was no sound. He exhaled a long, slow breath and drew in another, shuddering.

“Bet you’re glad we brought Jason along now, huh?”

Rachel breathed the words into Michael’s ear and he jumped. He hadn’t noticed her moving alongside him in the darkness. He trained his flashlight on Jason, and even as he opened his mouth to speak he saw the big man stiffen suddenly, as a faint shriek reached his ear.

Fourteen.

“That was fourteen seconds away. Behind us,” Michael growled as Rachel’s eyes widened. He turned to the group that he couldn’t see, but which he knew were clustered behind him the darkness, holding flashlights that all poured in the same direction for once, bathing Jason and the dead Infected in a wide pool of light.

“They’ll be coming,” he hissed into the darkness. “They're not far away. They’ll come fast. We have to run.”

He half-worried that there might be debate or at least terror to slow them down, but Jason provided a dreadful punctuation that underscored his argument.

With a grunt, Rachel’s giant brother began to strike the road at his feet with the lead pipe like a metronome.

Clang.

Clang.

Clang.

It’s up to you now, Rachel, Michael thought, and with that he turned, grabbing Claire’s small hand, and began to run once more.

*

You can do this, Rach.

John’s final words blazed in Rachel’s mind clearly, as if bright sunlight poured across them and brushed away the shadows that had obscured their true meaning.

His message hadn’t been about Annie Holloway, or the Infected or Project Wildfire. It hadn’t even been about her survival, at least not directly. John had been talking about Jason. The one thing that he had known she would have to do if she was to have any chance of living.

Rachel remained frozen as the others began to sprint forward, leaving her alone with her giant brother. She studied his empty features, his eyes pointed at the unending darkness implacably, as though that was all they had ever seen.

You can leave him. You have to leave him.

Somewhere behind her the single shriek had become a wall of static; a meaningless cacophony that grew louder with each passing second. Soon the noise would enter the tunnel like a speeding train, and Jason would be there to meet it.

A huge sob wracked her body.

“I love you, Jase. I’m so sorry.”

It might have been her imagination, maybe just a mirage spotted in the desert of her mind. Just wish fulfilment, John would probably have called it, but as Rachel sprinted away from her brother, leaving him behind forever, she thought she had detected a flicker of something in his eyes. A vague flash of terror and loneliness that made her heart break.

*

By the time Jason began to swing, cutting into the tide of Infected that split around him like water crashing over a rock in the black tunnel, Rachel’s footsteps had long moved beyond his hearing. She was gone, and what remained of Jason Roberts wasn’t certain she had ever existed in the first place. Yet with each skull he crushed, there was a part of him, a fractured part buried deep somewhere that felt glad that she ran.

Chapter 43

When Michael saw a patch of lighter darkness up ahead, he almost screamed in relief.

The tunnel seemed to have curved around under the water for an eternity, until ridiculous notions surfaced in his mind that there was no exit after all; that the Mersey Tunnel was just some terrible joke played on the people of Merseyside.

No light reached him from the city, of course, but he saw faint starlight, and he redoubled his pace, struggling to keep up with the others. In a different time Michael would have bet on himself in a race against any of them, but in the terrible present, it was all he could do to give silent thanks to whatever god might be listening that his legs still obeyed his commands.

He exploded from the tunnel to find the others had stopped running, and he came to an abrupt stop, panting for oxygen and searching frantically for Claire. Only when he saw her, bent double and heaving air into her small lungs, did he relax a little.

But only a little.

Behind him he heard the terrible echoing of death approaching. The Infected had reached the tunnel, and there was no way Jason would be able to stop them. They had a few minutes at most.

“Why have you stopped?” he panted, as he pushed his way through the bodies, but nobody answered. There was no need.

Rachel pointed ahead silently.

Around fifty yards ahead, Michael saw a row of huge stakes driven into the gardens of the houses, spread out at intervals of around ten yards.

On each stake, an eyeless body had been hung like a grisly Christmas decoration. Even at this distance, Michael could see the banner that had been hung across the road. Foot-high letters daubed in blood.

WELCOME TO LIVERPOOL.

POPULATION 113.

People.

He felt a hand clutching at his shirt, and a moment later Rachel’s voice breathed into his ear.

“What the fuck is this?”

Michael shook his head at her. He was about to say that it didn’t matter, that the docks weren’t far away and they should just run through the grisly fence that had been erected around Liverpool and make their escape, when a sudden thought occurred to him.

Stifling the urge to grunt in pain, he bent low to pick up a small stone from the ground near his feet. A trick he had learned the very first time he had encountered the Infected. A simple test.

He hurled the stone toward the hanging creatures, and when it landed with a harsh click on the road, the fence burst into life. Ragged panting. Eyeless faces twisting left and right, searching for the source of the noise, before once more lapsing into silence.

An alarm system.

The horror of it drove needles of terror deep into Michael’s heart. The Infected were horrifying, but looking at the fence and wondering at the insanity that had caused somebody to build it, Michael realised that the most frightening thing about them was that they had once been human. Nothing was worse than humans. Maybe nothing ever would be.

Three miles behind and closing fast, a herd of killers raged through the tunnel like a pyroclastic flow. The herd would destroy everything in its path, and the hundred-and-thirteen sick bastards left in Liverpool, whoever they were, were about to discover that their time was up.

The only thing that mattered was that they didn’t get a chance to interfere with the survivors of Caernarfon before the surging river of death washed over them.

“Single file,” Michael whispered. “Straight through the middle. No noise. Move slow. Once you’re clear, you run. Don’t worry about anybody else, just run. The docks should be to the left. Whoever gets to a boat, get on it and go. Don’t wait. Got it?”

Michael stared around the group and saw frightened eyes staring back at him, but he saw understanding, too. The road into Liverpool was the point of no return. The choice had always been between death or survival, and the time had come to make it and suffer the consequences. No more hiding.

Silently and slowly, ignoring the screaming of his nerves that death was chasing him and that he should run for his life, Michael began to pad forward. One step at a time, barely daring to breathe.

The plan was doomed to fail.

Michael should have known it, but he was so focused on moving without making a sound, creeping forward by inches, that he had forgotten.

He was standing right between two of the horrific fence posts when he heard the noise that told him the game was up.

Sniff.

Sniff.

A shriek split the air right next to him, and then suddenly the entire world seemed to be screaming, as the fence came to life.

In the distance to his right, Michael heard a man’s voice shout: “People at the fence! Go!”

“Run!” Michael screamed, and he veered to the left, pouring every last drop of energy into pumping his legs, heading for the docks in the distance.

He was overtaken almost immediately. Even the larger guys, like Shirley and Gareth Roberts, men that he would once have beaten in a race without breaking sweat, swept past him, and Michael cursed his legs. After everything that had happened, his back was going to get him killed after all, right before he reached the finish line. It was so cruel, it seemed almost funny.

He watched the others disappearing toward the docks, and pounded onward, but he felt like a marathon runner in the final few paces of the race, hitting the wall.

He had to stop.

Had to draw in some oxygen.

“Michael, come on.”

Rachel’s voice.

He looked up in horror to see her coming back for him.

“Rachel, go,” he snarled. “I said don’t wait for anyone. Keep Claire safe.”

She stared at him hesitantly.

“Go!” he screamed.

He turned away from her. In the distance he saw shapes moving in the darkness, but the animal gait he had come to expect from the Infected was absent. This was a different sort of threat. Far worse.

Panting for air, he pulled the rifle from his back and took aim.

The shot rang out like thunder.

He had missed, of that he was certain. He had never been a good shot to begin with. But the roaring of the gun had stopped their approach. Michael counted ten men; maybe twelve, scattering for cover behind parked cars on the dark road.

“They've got a gun,” he heard a voice say, and Michael’s face split in a savage grin.

Well, not really, he thought.

Two bullets left.

He fired off another round when he saw the distant shadows creeping out into the road once more, and when they ducked back into cover, Michael drew in a huge lungful of air and turned away, pumping his legs through a thick lake of fire.

A few hundred yards to the docks.

It wouldn’t matter. The others would be gone by now, on a boat and heading out to sea. All that did matter was that Claire was safe. He just wanted to see the boat; to know that she was gone.

Footsteps behind him again.

Gaining ground.

He turned and fired his last bullet.

No more cards left to play, Mike.

Tossing the rifle aside, Michael focused all his thoughts on his legs once more.

And ran.

*

He heard the engine of the boat before the dock loomed into sight, and his heart sank. It sounded close. Far too close, like it had taken them a while to find a boat with a working engine and to get it started.

When he finally saw it, Michael’s heart leapt into his mouth. In the darkness, the boat was lit like a beacon, but it wasn’t far out at sea as he had hoped. It hadn’t moved at all. The engine churned the water and light spilled from every window, but it sat in next to the dock wall like it had not even been unmoored.

They don’t know how to move it, he thought in despair. He should have known; should have expected that it would all end so feebly. Get a large boat, he thought. So simple. Unless no one knows how to actually operate a large boat.

Michael slowed to a stop about twenty yards from the boat, and turned away from it. He waited on the dock, standing in the narrow alley that ran between large shipping containers and parked trucks. Only a second or two passed before the group of men that had been chasing him burst into his line of sight.

He saw knives.

Clubs.

Feral grins.

Michael balled up his fists. He couldn’t stop them getting to the boat, but he would make sure some of them didn’t get past him. Hell, he was going to make sure some of them didn’t go anywhere ever again.

The man at the front of the pack laughed savagely.

“Just you is it, mate? Everyone else on board the jolly roger over there?”

The man dropped his gaze to Michael’s fists.

“All out of bullets, too. Hope you’ve watched a lot of Jackie Chan films, fella. Or this is going to get pretty ugly for you. And for all them pretty girls you’re travelling with.”

Michael gritted his teeth as the man took a step towards him.

And then his jaw dropped in astonishment as the man’s head exploded and a deafening roar split the night air. Michael watched, stunned, as the headless corpse crumpled to the ground.

“Not just him. Me, too. And I’ve got plenty of bullets.”

Rachel stepped out of the shadows to Michael’s left, pointing the revolver at the group of stunned men.

“And we’ve all got plenty of knives. I even have this lovely mace. Any of you fuckers have a mace?"

Shirley appeared next to Rachel, grinning widely.

And then Michael saw Gareth Hughes. Linda. Ed. All of them.

Michael saw glinting knives and dead-eyed stares loaded with threat. He wouldn’t have believed them capable of it.

“Next one of you to so much as blink is going to end up in the same mess your mouthy bastard friend there found himself in,” Rachel said amiably, sweeping the revolver left and right. “Now we’re going to get on that boat, and be on our way. It’s up to you how many of you are left to wave us off.”

Michael saw hesitation on the faces of the men from Liverpool. Saw a couple of them take a faltering step backwards and his face split in a grin.

“I thought I told you not to wait for me,” he said as the men began to retreat.

“Yeah,” Rachel agreed. “You’re an idiot sometimes.”

*

Rachel kept her gun pointed at the road long after the group of men had slunk out of sight, and was still aiming it as the boat chugged slowly away from the docks.

“Good job you still had that thing,” Michael said, joining her on the small deck to the rear of the boat.

“Good job I still had one bullet left,” Rachel replied with a sly grin.

Michael’s mouth dropped open, and he shook his head in disbelief.

“Balls of steel,” he whispered in admiration, and Rachel laughed.

“You think we’ll make it?”

Michael shook his head ruefully.

“On this thing? To Australia? Honestly, no I don’t,” he said. "We barely got this thing moving and no one has any idea how to steer it, let alone how to navigate. Getting to the other side of the planet doesn’t seem likely.”

Rachel nodded sombrely.

“Oh,” she said.

“We’ll find somewhere. A small island. Somewhere safe. As far away as we can get.”

Michael shrugged.

“It’s all I’ve got.”

Rachel nodded.

“We’ll make it,” she said, and Michael almost believed her.

*

“Vessel to starboard, Sir.”

“Range?”

“One kilometre, Sir.”

Nathan’s ears pricked up. It had been several hours since the Portsmouth had fled the waters north of Scotland. He had spent most of that time on the bridge, explaining the events of the recent past to Captain Bertrand. It was made abundantly clear to Nathan that he was a guest of the Captain’s, and that he had no rank on this ship.

He was fine with that.

He spent a long time persuading the Captain that the rumours about Australia were true. It was Sullivan’s rally point. A place to flee if disaster struck the project. Once the Captain had heard enough, Nathan was told to remain in his seat, and the journey became a procession of uneventful miles that passed slowly.

The sighting of another vessel was the first bit of excitement he’d had in hours.

The Captain scanned the windows with powerful binoculars.

“Pleasure yacht,” he said, and Nathan thought he detected a little disdain in the man’s tone.

“Should we fire on them, Sir?”

Nathan looked at the radar operator in horror, and flicked his gaze back to the Captain. He knew what Fred Sullivan’s answer would have been. He hoped the man that ran this ship might turn out to be different. So far Bertrand had been businesslike and aggressive, with a ruthless air that made Nathan edgy, but he hadn’t seemed like a maniac.

Outside the Portsmouth, in the far distance, a small yacht bobbed on the choppy waves of the Irish Sea, lights flickering in the dark like fireflies, and apparently making little in the way of progress in any direction.

“What the fuck is wrong with you, Soldier?” the Captain snarled, and Nathan heaved out a relieved sigh. “No we should not fire on them. This is over, don’t you get it? All this secret mission bullshit is done. What we’re doing now is surviving. There is no us and them.”

He pointed behind him, back toward the dark shape of the mainland that had all but disappeared from sight.

“There’s us and them. Understand?”

The soldier flushed and nodded.

“Sound the horn. And get a lifeboat out there. Tell the medical crew to be ready. We’re taking on more passengers.”

*

The Portsmouth made steady progress, but the trip to Australia would be long, Michael had been told. They would give the land as wide a berth as possible, so they wouldn’t be taking the fastest possible route.

Adding extra time to the feeling of calm safety that being on the ship gave him didn’t seem like such a bad idea to Michael. Already he was beginning to wonder what they might find when they reached the only country on Earth that was supposed to be unaffected by the Wildfire virus. Nobody really knew if it was true; for all anybody knew they could make land and walk right into the very same horror they were running from.

He wouldn’t have minded staying on the ship forever.

After two days the power station at Wylfa finally collapsed upon itself, and the sky behind the Portsmouth was lit briefly, like a poisonous second sun had appeared, burning itself out in seconds.

Michael realised he couldn’t even be sure it had been Wylfa. Could have been any number of power stations around the UK. Might even have been an explosion tearing apart a different country altogether. France, maybe; Spain. It barely mattered. All around them, the land itself would burn as the remnants of civilization began to decay.

This fire would burn for decades. Centuries, maybe.

The fallout from the destruction of the nuclear industry might well kill off the Infected, but there was no way to know for sure. The creatures’ genes were a mystery, and might now remain so forever. Michael hoped so.

He leaned on the rail and stared at the endless peaceful ocean. They hadn’t seen land for a while. He smiled when he felt Rachel’s presence next to him.

“G’day, mate,” she said with a wide grin.

Michael arched an eyebrow.

“Figured I should practice the lingo,” she said with a shrug. “We’re all going to be Australians now, right?”

Michael cracked a smile.

“Oh, I don’t know,” he said. “When there’s only one place left, is there any point giving it a name?”

“It’ll just be home, then.”

Michael couldn’t disagree with that.

“I guess we’re still running,” Rachel said a little wistfully.

“I look at it more as regrouping,” Michael replied. “Australia’s a big place, but it won’t be long before it feels small. One way or another, we’re going to have to take this planet back.”

Rachel nodded thoughtfully, and stared down at the waves that washed gently against the hull of the ship.

“One way or another,” she agreed finally.

Michael followed her gaze and watched the sea passing underneath the Portsmouth, and wondered how long it would be before he saw land again. Saw people again.

He flinched a little in surprise when Rachel slipped her hand into his and squeezed gently. For too long, Michael's thoughts had been dominated by fear of humans; by the overwhelming urge to put as much distance between himself and others as possible.

After a moment’s hesitation, he squeezed back.

Epilogue

Brad heaved his board across the damp sand, panting at the effort it took to make progress under the energy-sapping heat of the blazing sun above. The surf had taken it out of him, more than he could ever remember. The waves had been fantastic, high and regular, each one persuading him that the fire in his muscles should be ignored for just one more run, and he had been powerless to resist the lure of the waves until finally he began to cramp and had no choice but to return to the beach.

A lot of people didn’t understand the narcotic rush of surfing. Brad felt sorry for them. Something about being carried along by the ocean made him feel humble and powerful; giddy and focused all at once. There was nothing quite like it, and on a day like this, when the sun that seemed to scorch the skies over Australia incessantly decided that it would be okay for the wind to get involved too, Brad would have bet that anyone—even the most ardent anti-surfer—would feel a twinge of addiction if they just tried it.

When he was about fifty feet away from the clear waves that lapped at the beach, Brad stripped his wetsuit to the waist and collapsed onto the soft, powdery sand, letting the warm breeze dry his hair and body.

He stared up at the empty sky, feeling his vision swim a little as his aching muscles engaged his mind in a heated debate about the wisdom of taking a nap.

Other than the whisper of the waves, there was no sound.

It had been like that for a couple of months, and no one in Australia seemed to know why. TV, radio and internet had disappeared simultaneously one day, and in the weeks that followed, as speculation reached fever pitch, the general sentiment in Australia was that something terrible had happened out there, beyond the endless crystal sea.

Nobody seemed to have heard from their relatives in the US or the UK, and even the closer countries—Japan, New Zealand—had fallen silent.

Brad had heard plenty of rumours: that some awful disaster had befallen the world—a war, perhaps; or maybe the day of reckoning had finally arrived and God had spared only Australia.

It was all nonsense, of course. The only rumour Brad paid attention to was the one about the military sending out recon flights that never returned, and even then only because his brother was in the military. If Shane said there was something to the rumours, then Brad figured he should probably listen.

Finally there was a rumour of a single plane that did return, bringing back a cargo of extraordinary tales about a world burning, lapsed into shocking violence, as though nuclear war had broken out across the rest of the globe all at once, and everything everywhere was affected.

Brad wasn’t sure he believed it, but he supposed it was plausible enough. The TV news—back when there had been TV news—was always full of some country squabbling with another, tearing each other down and delivering threats like schoolyard bullies.

Brad thought the world would have been a much better place if all those idiots in suits could just spend a little time out there on the surf, letting the rolling waves wash away their problems.

He shrugged mentally. It didn’t much matter to him what happened to the rest of the world. Australia could survive just fine on its own: very little of the country’s goods and services were imported because the place was just so damn far away from everywhere else that it made shipping most things impractical and inordinately expensive. The only thing they had really lost was the news and the internet, and in some ways the loss of communications had actually improved life.

He let his eyes close, daydreaming about catching up with Kimberly later for a barbecue. And the rest: today was Brad’s birthday, and he knew Kim had procured some special lingerie for the occasion.

Life was good.

He dozed.

*

Brad woke with a start sometime later, when the sun had passed overhead, and his first thought was that he hadn’t applied sunscreen, and that he should know better than to fall asleep on a blazing hot afternoon. He didn’t burn much, not anymore. But there was always the threat of skin cancer.

He reprimanded himself as he sat upright, and only then did he begin to wonder what might have caused him to wake so suddenly.

His mouth dropped open.

When he had fallen asleep, Brad had been alone on the beach. It was often like that: Australia practically had more beautiful beaches than it had people; there were plenty to go around.

But he wasn’t alone now.

An enormous battleship sat just offshore; long and sleek and laden with enormous guns that looked like they could blow a hole in the universe. Much closer, he saw a small boat powering its way to the beach, and realised that it was the noise of the engine that had caused him to stir.

He stood on the hot sand, swaying a little, filled equally with curiosity and apprehension.

What the fuck?

There were seven people on the boat. As Brad watched, six disembarked into the shallow water and splashed toward the beach, and the boat turned around and made its way back toward the distant ship. Further back, Brad could see similar boats approaching. It looked like the ship was unloading all its passengers, and pretty soon the beach was going to be crowded.

Brad trotted forward, open-mouthed, his surfboard forgotten behind him.

The first of the people to reach dry land was a man with a serious expression and a slightly underfed look about him. A woman followed behind, petite and attractive and with intense eyes that Brad found almost hypnotic.

“Is this Australia?” the man asked gruffly in an accent Brad could not quite place.

The question threw Brad a little.

“What? Uh…yeah, of course this is Aus—Dude, is that a fucking battleship? What’s going on?”

The serious man turned to the woman and grinned wryly.

“Looks like John was right about Australia being clear.”

The woman nodded and smiled wearily.

“Clear? Clear of what?” Brad stuttered. “Where the hell did you guys come from?”

The man grimaced.

“I think we’re what’s left of the rest of the world,” he said flatly.

Brad’s mouth had only just managed to shut. It dropped open once more.

“The rest of the world? What happened?”

The man shook his head ruefully and laughed, as if he didn’t even know where to begin.

“The end,” he said finally.

W I L D F I R E

C H R O N I C L E S

by

K.R. GRIFFITHS

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This one's for my family and my close friends (you know who you are), all of whom at least pretended to understand why I spent a year locked in a dark room tapping on a keyboard, and most of all for you, for reaching the end with me. I can't thank you enough, and I hope you enjoyed the journey as much as I did.

KRG June 2014

Table of Contents

- Prologue
- Chapter 1
- Chapter 2
- Chapter 3
- Chapter 4
- Chapter 5
- Chapter 6
- Chapter 7
- Chapter 8
- Chapter 9
- Chapter 10
- Chapter 11
- Chapter 12
- Chapter 13
- Chapter 14
- Chapter 15
- Chapter 16
- Chapter 17
- Chapter 18
- Chapter 19
- Chapter 20
- Chapter 21
- Chapter 22
- Chapter 23
- Chapter 24
- Chapter 25
- Chapter 26
- Chapter 27
- Chapter 28
- Chapter 29
- Chapter 30
- Chapter 31
- Chapter 32
- Chapter 33
- Chapter 34
- Chapter 35
- Chapter 36
- Chapter 37
- Chapter 38
- Chapter 39
- Chapter 40
- Chapter 41
- Chapter 42
- Chapter 43
- Epilogue