“I dunno, find a boat or something, there must be some islands the Infected haven’t got to yet somewhere.” His dad said as he took the cup from frank and lifted it to his lips, blowing over the top or it, adding “Cheers.” before trying a sip.
“I don’t think you will have much luck with boats mate,” Frank said as he handed a cup of steaming soup to Brandon.
“Thanks” Brandon whispered not wanting to interrupt Frank; he held the cup tightly in both hands, feeling the warmth flood through his fingers.
“Last I heard the navy were blowing boats out of the water that were trying to leave the country and scuppering any of those left in dock, trying to stop the spread of the disease or something, more like tryin’ to stop any of them biters getting on board any of their ships if you ask me. Either way it’s pretty smart, them navy boys are all set up for the long haul at sea, their stocks wont last forever mind and I doubt any of them brought a fishing rod with them either, ma right?” Frank gave a chuckle to his own joke and barely raised a smile from Brandon’s dad who looked deep in thought. They all sat quietly sipping their soups as Frank snipped the tops off of two silver packets and squeezed the contents into the soup pot. Brandon wasn’t sure the two packets contained the same flavour of rations but at this stage he didn’t care.
As the mystery concoction in the pot started to splutter and pop Brandon’s dad finally spoke “Do you have a map handy Frank?”
“Course I do mate,” He said reaching into his backpack, “It’s a bit creased and there is a bit of blood on it but it’s otherwise its ok; as long as you don’t intend going anywhere near Newcastle that is.” He handed the map over to Brandons’ dad, and went back to stirring the pot.
Brandon shuffled his chair closer to his father to get a better look at the map. Right enough there was a large blood stain covering the entirety of where Newcastle should have been. His dad was concentrating on the other side of the map though, and had his finger resting just below a small circle drawn on the map in red ink; Brandon could just make out ‘Blencogo’ in small letters next to it.
His dad stared at the map for a long time until Frank nudged his knee with a bowl of steaming stew, at which he looked up at Brandon and taking the bowl he said, “We need to get to Kendal.” Brandon was shocked at this, his dad hadn’t even mentioned going there since the whole ordeal had started and he was pretty sure he knew why.
“Why Kendal mate?” Frank asked while shovelling a lump of beef and dumpling into his mouth.
Brandon dragged his eyes away from his fathers, looked over to Frank and said “That’s where my grandparents live!”
Chapter
5
Dead in the Eyes
The day after the meeting with Major Michaels, Cassie was leaning nonchalantly against one of the army trucks in the loading dock of the complex, talking to a pair of boots sticking out of the front end of the vehicle.
“What are you doing under there anyway?” she asked.
“Just a little tweak here and there, a bit of jiggery poakery.” replied the boots.
“So there isn’t actually anything wrong with this…. Umm…truck? What is this?”
“Husky,”
“Husky?”
“Husky!” repeated the boots.
Cassie stepped back from the ‘Husky’ to get a better look at it. It was painted a sandy beige colour and had very large tyres, it was covered in what looked like grab rails and had a large frame on the back of it, but most important of all it had a very large gun attached to the top of it, it was just what she was looking for.
“How fast does one of these go exactly?”
“70, tops, but that’s over pretty much any type of terrain you can think of, it’s
powered by a MaxxForce D6.0L V8 that puts out 340hp.”
“Mmmmm, wow” Cassie tried to pretend she cared about the second part of what he had said, but the 70 mph, that would do nicely. “So, do you just drive it like any ordinary car or is it different?”
The pair of boots slid out from under the Husky to reveal, firstly a pair of olive clad legs and then an equally olive clad torso, lastly the grease stroked face of Sergeant Ethan Rigby appeared; he had a good square, clean shaven jaw, short brown hair that was graying at the temples and pale grey eyes, Cassie assumed that he was in his early forties but he could have been older.
“What’s with all the questions about the trucks Cassie? You never showed any interest in them before.”
She walked over, swept her lab coat behind her and crouched down beside him, tilting her head innocently to the side she said, “I’m just interested in what keeps you down this end of the complex so much.”
“C’mon Cassie, you can’t bullshit a bullshitter. What’s really going on?” He pulled himself swiftly to his feet and walked over to the workbench, pulling a rag from his pocket and wiping his hands on it thoroughly.
“Maybe I just would like to know how to get out of this place should I need to?” she said as she was rising “And maybe I don’t fully trust the all people I am stuck down here with?” she added almost under her breath but loud enough for Ethan to hear.
“Hmph, I hear you on that one, I think you have just found out exactly what keeps me down here so much.” Ethan pulled a face that looked somewhere between a grimace and a smile.
“What do you think of M&M’s plan to get rid of the zombies then?” Cassie moved closer to Ethan so as to speak quieter and get a better judge of his reaction.
“I think my opinion on his actions is pretty much mute by now. Don’t you? That’s us stuck down here together, forever.” He finished wiping his hands and threw the oily rag over his shoulder on to the workbench. “Still, could be worse, we could be one of the poor bastards stuck out there without a clue about Old Slim Shady’s plan to melt their faces off. Could you imagine it? Surviving that long out there, fighting off the undead just to die from nuclear radiation.” Ethan gave a visible shake and looked to the floor, he genuinely did pity those left alive. They both stood in silence for a while in their respective thoughts; Ethan no doubt thinking of family who were ‘out there’, Cassie started building up courage, till finally she broke the silence.
“Do you really think there are people still alive out there?”
“I don’t doubt it, not for a second.” he replied confidently.
Cassie looked him dead in the eyes, “What if I told you we could save them?” she almost whispered.
“What do you mean? It’s too late! Isn’t it?”
“We still have just over 7 days till the reactor goes into meltdown. I’m sure we could make it from Darlington to the plant in that time, especially in the husky!” she said with a determined glint in her eye.
Ethan stared at her stunned, “You’re serious aren’t you?”
“Deadly.”
“Well that’s an appropriate word to use, love! Getting from here to Sellafield in a week would be a piece of cake, even in an old Ford Cortina, if it wasn’t for the horde of undead beating at our doors; and then there is the question of what exactly do we do about a nuclear reactor going into meltdown when we get there? I don’t know if you had noticed, but we are a little short on nuclear physicists around here.” Ethan said, shaking his head at her in disbelief.
“My father and some of the other brainboxes are working on the meltdown problem, they seem pretty confident of reaching a solution in the next twenty-four hours; and as for the zombie problem, I am dealing with that.”
“Ha! Oh yeah? Haven’t you all been working on that the whole time you have been down here, how are you going to solve it in the next twenty-four hours?”
“By speaking to you” She said with a smile.
“Ha-ha!” he barked out a laugh, “You really are something else. You know that? You think I can kill every Zombie from here to the east coast?”
“You know I wouldn’t be asking you unless it was absolutely necessary, Ethan. But we simply can’t let M&M do this to the country,” She was getting flustered now, worrying he wouldn’t be willing to help them and all of their plans would be in vain.
“Say somehow we do manage to make it across the country, and say we do manage to stop the rector from meltdown, what’s to stop M&M from doing something else equally as stupid and killing us too?”
“Well that’s the other thing,” Cassie blushed at what she had to say next, “We have to compromise the base as we leave, we have to force everyone out of the complex and away from the command centre to ensure everyone’s safety, and the safety of everyone who is
out there.
”
“Everyone’s apart from those left in the complex that is?” Ethan said with a frown.
“Look, I know it’s a shitty thing to do, but can you think of an other way to get Michaels away from the command centre?” she said turning away from him. “Cant you understand, Ethan? It’s for the
greater good
.”
There was yet another long silence, and then Ethan finally said, “I have done a lot of terrible things in the name of the greater good.... I guess one more can’t hurt. I’m in! Besides, it can’t be any worse than being stuck down here with Michaels and Knox” Cassie spun round and leapt at him hugging him tightly.
“You won’t regret this, I
promise
you!” she yelped in his ear.
“Now, now, don’t make promises you can’t keep.”
“There is one other thing,” Cassie said holding him at arms length with both hands. Ethan rolled his eyes and exhaled at length. “Do you think there are any other soldiers you can rely on to help us?”
“I can think of a couple,” she gave him another hug and let go, heading for the door.
“You’re the best, Ethan. Be ready for this time tomorrow. We will meet you here!” She shouted back at him as she was running out of the door.
“Tomorrow...?” He shouted back at her, but it was too late, she was already gone. He slumped back onto the workbench and whispered to himself “Tomorrow...?” he exhaled sharply and shook his head. Then he headed for the door himself.
As Cassie was heading back through the various cold concrete hallways to see how her father was getting on with his side of the plan, and to tell him the good news about Ethan, she noticed one of the other soldiers heading towards her. It didn’t take long for her to realise exactly which one it was either. It was a particularly loathsome individual named Harper. She could tell it was him by the pathetic boyish swagger he adopted every time she was in the vicinity, and his swagger was carrying him directly towards her. She tried to ignore him but she knew it was in vain.
As he neared he put his hand against the wall to Cassie’s left, blocking her path, he swung his right leg round his left nonchalantly and smirked at her.
“Awright darlin’?” he said in what Cassie suspected was a faux cockney accent.
“I am fine thank you.” she replied as politely as she could muster, and tried to walk round him.
Harper, however, had different plans and pushed off of the wall to land his other hand on to the wall adjacent. “I was hoping to bump in to you I was.”
“Oh, really...?” Cassie said; folding her arms and taking a step back, she forced herself to look into is weasely grey eyes.
“Yeah! I was wondering what you and me are gonna do about.… this” as he said ‘this’ he pointed the index finger of his right hand downwards and moved it in a circular motion. He then ran his fingers through his greasy short curly hair and looked her up and down.
“This?” Cassie felt her top lip curl at the very thought of there being any form of ‘this’ between them “I’m sure I don’t know what you are talking about, but I am very busy. So if you don’t mind?” She made to go round him again, but quick as the snake he was his hands were on her shoulders and he slammed her back against the wall.
“Oh I don’t think so.” He snarled “How you gonna be busy when Emminem has dealt with the Zombies outside? No Zombies, no disease, no work! The only thing you got to be busy doin’ is me. Let’s face it darlin’, you an’ me have got to get down to repopulatin’ the earth, and to tell you the truth, I am pretty sick of the whole hard to get thing you got goin’ on. So lets just get down to it eh?” He moved in to kiss her.
Almost choking on the bile rising from her stomach due to Harpers absurd rant, Cassie quickly rammed her knee in to his crotch. As his head dipped and he squealed in pain, she reached up to her right shoulder with her left hand and grabbed his left wrist, instantly she quickly pulled his arm downwards and to her left causing him to face away from her and get tangled in his own feet, she then pushed on his shoulder and was quite happy to feel his face smack against the cold concrete beneath them. Once she had him pinned to the floor she switched her right hand for her right knee and held him there, fishing into her lab coat pocket.
“Get off of me you crazy fucking bitch!” Harper wailed, twisting his head to look at her over his left shoulder.
“Oh I don’t think so,” She snarled, mocking him, “Not until you have learned some manners at least. You don’t seem to grasp exactly
who
I am and
what
I do in this place
do you?
” she put to him, not waiting for a reply she added, “You see
I
am the one who is in charge of all the samples of M.L.R-V,
Oh
… that would be the
‘Zombie viruses’
to a simpleton like you, and you see, the best thing about being in charge of the viruses, is that you could
quite
easily just carry some of it around with you.” She pulled the syringe from her coat pocket, flicked the plastic sheath off of the needle with her thumb and moved it slowly towards Harpers ever widening eyes.
Harper started to thrash wildly in a panic, beating his free hand against the floor and kicking his feet.
“
Now
, do you think we have learned some manners today?” She asked.
“
Fuck
you, you
fucking bitch!
” was the only reply delivered to her.
“
No
, I thought not.” She let a drip fall from the end of the syringe and watched as it fell very close to Harper’s face.
“Ok, Ok!” he yelped.
“Sorry?”
“Sorry, sorry, I’m fucking sorry!” he cried.
“Now let’s hope we don’t have to have any
more
lessons, ok?” She put her left foot upon his hand and let go of his wrist putting all of her weight on it as she lifted herself up and walked away from him, still holding the syringe in her right hand and humming quietly to herself.
As Cassie rounded the corner she felt as if her heart was going to beat out of her chest. She sped up her pace till she got to her laboratory, burst through the door and locked it behind her. Leaning against the wall she looked at the syringe in her hand then threw it into the sharps bin next to her. It had only been saline in the syringe, salt water, Cassie wasn’t stupid enough to carry M.L.R-V about on her person but Harper was just stupid enough to believe her. She walked over and sat down on her stool; she leaned on the worktop and put her head in her hands. It had all started so promising this morning. Now she was afraid she may have kicked the hornets nest a little too hard. Hopefully Harper’s pride would stop him from mentioning her actions to anyone else, and hopefully he wouldn’t want any form of vengeance in the next 24 hours.
Later that day Cassie managed to build up enough courage to finally leave her lab and go in search of her father, she needed to see how he and the others were progressing with the plan. Before leaving the lab, however, she filled another syringe with saline, put a safety cap on it and placed it in the left pocket of her lab coat, in the right pocket she placed a small folding knife that Ethan had given to her some days ago; she hadn’t thought it necessary at the time, but he had insisted, and she was glad for its presence now.