Mutation (Twenty-Five Percent Book 1) (6 page)

“Didn’t you take some kind of oath to serve and protect?” Micah said.

“Actually, it doesn’t say protect anywhere and the only person I swore to serve was the Queen.  Anyway, why should I protect you?  You tried to kill me last night.”

“I wasn’t trying to kill you.”  He rolled his eyes.  “Sensitive much?”

It would be so easy to just push him out the door and let the eaters deal with him.  Alex sighed and moved away, back through into the main station.  High morals, that was his problem.

Micah followed him.  “Look, do you think I like being here with a white-eye?  If you hadn’t had me arrested, I wouldn’t be in this mess.  Now we both have to deal with your stupidity.”

“If you’re trying to convince me to help you,” Alex said, “your technique could use some work.”

Micah shook his head and turned away from him.  “Unbelievable.  I bet you weren’t any better before you got infected.”

“Okay,” Alex said, hiding his amusement, “let’s just get out of here and then we’ll never have to see each other again.  We can try the back entrance.  With any luck there’ll be less eaters there and maybe a cruiser will be left and the keys will be in the garage.”

They walked back towards the holding cells where the prisoner entrance was, stopping when they heard a metallic crash.

“What was that?” Micah said quietly.

A cacophony of moans followed, then another crash.  Shuffling feet scraped the tiled floors.

“The eaters in the cells,” Alex said, stepping backwards.  “The doors must have given way.”  He turned and began to head back the way they’d come.

“Isn’t there another way out?” Micah hissed.

“The only way is past the cells.  You can go and check if it’s clear if you want.  Let me know what you find.”

Micah huffed and followed him back into the waiting area at the front of the building, pulling the door closed, separating it from the rest of the station. 

“Someone here must have come by car,” Alex said, crouching to search the first body, a middle aged woman.  He tried not to look at her face.

“Don’t you have a car here?”  Micah lowered next to a man’s corpse, rifling through his pockets.

“I usually run in.  It’s faster than driving through the rush hour traffic.”

“If there’s one more than twenty years old out there, I could hotwire it,” Micah said, craning his head to scan the cars outside.

Alex stopped his search.  “Why does that not surprise me?”

Micah scowled at him.  “I just happen to know how.  I’ve never stolen a car, so keep your righteous indignation to yourself.  Bingo!” 

He pulled a set of keys from the man’s trouser pocket and held them up.  At that moment, a thud sounded on the door through to the station, followed by several more.  Moans filtered through to them.  Micah’s smile vanished.

“We need to get out of here,” Alex said, standing.

They crept to the door and Micah held out the car key.

“No, wait!” Alex exclaimed. 

Too late.

Micah pressed the button.  The lights flashed on a red Honda Civic twenty feet from the door.  It beeped twice. 

Within seconds, every eater in the car park was surrounding the car.

“Brilliant,” Alex said, turning away.  “How do you manage to tie your own shoelaces?”

Micah had the decency to look embarrassed.  “At least we have a way to distract them.”

Alex rolled his eyes and went back to his search for another car key.  Micah joined him.

The pounding on the door was getting louder.  Alex wasn’t sure how many eaters he’d seen in the cells, but it was easily over fifty, and it sounded like every single one was behind that door.  The wooden frame was beginning to creak.

“How do they know we’re here?” Micah whispered.  “Can they hear us?  Do you have superhuman hearing too?”

“No,” Alex said, “although they might be able to hear us anyway.  They might be able to smell us.  Or, more accurately, you.”

“White-eyes...” Micah began.

Alex flashed him a look.

“... sorry,
Survivors
, have superhuman smell?  I didn’t know that.”

“We don’t like to dwell on it.  Mostly it’s just unpleasant.  But you smell different to me.  And they can tell.”  He jerked his head in the direction of the shuddering door, then smiled as his fingers found a key in a woman’s handbag.  He held it up.

They returned to the glass double doors leading outside. 

“What make is it?” Micah said.

Alex studied the key.  “It just says Ford.”

They peered outside.

“There are at least four Ford’s out there,” Micah said.  “Once we unlock it, we’re going to have to find it and get there before those eaters notice us.”

“Yeah,” Alex said, again reflecting how much easier this would be if he was alone.

“How many guns do you have?”

Alex raised his eyebrows.  “You don’t expect me to give you a weapon?”

“Come on,” Micah said, “if we get into trouble out there, I can be more help if I’m armed.”

“Yeah, you can also shoot me in the back.”

“I told you, I don’t want to kill you.  I’m not a killer.”

Alex sighed.  This was getting worse and worse.  “Just don’t use it unless absolutely necessary,” he said, retrieving the Glock from his belt and a magazine from the bag.  “We don’t want to bring more of them down on us.”  He handed them over.  “Do you know anything about...?”

He stopped as Micah expertly loaded the magazine and chambered a round.

“I don’t even want to know,” Alex said.

“What I wouldn’t give for a skull-spiker right now,” Micah muttered, staring out at the eaters clustered around the Honda.  A few had lost interest and were roaming aimlessly again.

Alex gave him a sharp look.  Skull piercing stiletto knives had been illegal for ten years.

Micah affected an air of innocence.  “I’ve seen them on TV.  Maybe we should try the Ford key and see if it gets the eaters away from the Honda.  At least that one’s relatively close to the door.”

“And if half of them go and the other half stay where they are?”

“Then it gives you the opportunity to make another disparaging comment about my intelligence.”

“Tempting as that is, I don’t think...”

There was a loud, splintering crack behind them.  Both men turned to see the doorframe separate from the surrounding wall and buckle inwards.  The first eaters through the gap stumbled forward, falling into the room.  A few behind tripped, landing on top of them.  Seeing Alex and Micah, others clambered enthusiastically over their fallen comrades.

“Time to go,” Alex said, lunging for the door.

Grasping the horizontal steel handle, he yanked the door open and ran out, Micah close behind.  The eaters outside spotted them immediately.  Alex raised the key and pressed the unlock button.  There was no beep, but he heard the faint click of a lock releasing somewhere off to his right.

“Which one?” he yelled, darting behind a line of bushes for cover.  The eaters nearest to him lumbered into the prickly barrier.

“I’m not sure,” Micah said, “I didn’t see any lights.  Try again.”

The eaters inside the building were piling against the glass doors which, fortunately, opened inwards.  The eaters outside were all heading towards Alex and Micah.

Alex locked the car again.  “The blue one,” he said, pointing at a Ka whose lights had given a single flash.  He unlocked it again to be sure.  The lights flashed twice.  A nearby eater looked at it, shuffling over to investigate.

“I would have preferred the Honda,” Micah said.

The red car was closer and bigger, but the majority of the eaters were between them and it.

“Go for it,” Alex said.  “I’m going with the option that won’t get me killed.”

More eaters had reached the waist high hedge, which was dense, but buckling under the strain.  A myriad of tiny snapping branches rustled around them.  Without waiting to see what Micah would do, Alex took off towards the Ford Ka.  The eaters were much slower than him, but there were a lot of them.  He ducked under grasping hands and tripped up shuffling legs, clearing a path to the small blue car.  He didn’t know what Micah was doing and he didn’t really care.  

Feet from his destination, an eater snagged his left wrist and wouldn’t let go.  Alex was spun in a circle and the eater lunged its mouth at his face.  He dropped the bag and threw all his strength into a punch to the side of its head, twisting his arm from its grip.  It staggered to the side and he kicked its leg from beneath it, sending it tumbling to the ground.

“Hey!”

Alex turned towards the cry to see Micah pointing the pistol he’d given him directly at his head. 

“You bas...” he managed before Micah’s finger pressed the trigger. 

A streak of heat whizzed past millimetres from his ear. There was a thud behind him.  Micah lowered the gun. 

Alex turned to see an eater lying motionless on the ground a couple of feet behind him.  He turned back to see Micah smirking at him.

The man who hated him had just saved his life.  Or missed.  Alex wasn’t sure which, but he decided to give him the benefit of the doubt, for now.

“Come on,” he said.

The two of them ran for the car as the bulk of the eaters, their numbers swelling by the second, staggered after them.  Alex slid across the bonnet for the driver’s side.  Micah yanked open the passenger door and dived in.  As he pulled it shut, three eaters hit the outside, scrabbling at the glass.  Alex threw the bag onto the back seat and dropped into the driver’s seat.  Out of habit, he pressed the central locking button after closing the door.

“Less locking, more driving,” Micah said, glancing around them.  Several eaters were now surrounding the car.  Many more were approaching.

Alex jammed the key in the ignition and the engine roared to life.  He would have preferred something bigger.  They were rocking under the force of the eaters pushing at the car.  The tiny Ka felt like a single eater could lift it up and crush it.

Throwing it into reverse, he backed rapidly away from the growing crowd and spun the car around, away from the hungry masses and the main car park.

“What are you doing?” Micah yelled, twisting to look out the back.  “The exit’s that way.”

“We’ll never get past all those eaters in this thing,” Alex said, driving towards the back of the station and the staff car park.  “This goes around the back and from there we should be able to get across the courtyard and back around to the front on the other side of the building.”

He turned into the staff car park and sped past the car maintenance bays at the back.  No eaters had reached this side of the building.  Yet. 

“Are you sure about that?” Micah said as they rounded the far corner and came to an abrupt halt.

The tarmac came to an end at a kerb and pavement.  Thirty feet away lay the main car park.  In between was a courtyard flanked on one side by the police station building and on the other by a brick wall.  It was filled with flowerbeds and trees, metal benches and planters.  Several very large, concrete planters.  It looked like a picturesque tank trap. 

“Those are new,” Alex said.  The truth was he hadn’t been out here for over a month.  He was now regretting not wanting to get more fresh air.

Micah was craning his neck to peer behind them.  “I’m seriously beginning to doubt your ability to get us out of here.”

“You could have gone for the Honda.”  Alex studied the maze of benches and flowerpots on steroids.  “I think I can get us through there.”  He pointed to a chrysanthemum-filled space between two huge, square planters.

“I don’t know,” Micah said, frowning.  “It looks a bit tight to me.”

“Do you have any better ideas?”

He sighed loudly.  “Not now we’re stuck here, no.”

Engaging first gear, Alex carefully mounted the kerb, manoeuvred around a rowan, and lined the car up to go through the gap.  He felt a sudden pang of guilt at having to destroy the chrysanthemums.  They were very pretty, in shades of blue and red and purple.

“Are you going to sit and stare at the flowers all day,” Micah said, “or are you going to make any attempt to stop us from becoming a meal?”

Alex almost had to shake his head.  People were dying around him and he was worried about flowers.  He eased the car forward, crushing the flowerbed beneath the front tyres.  Metal scraped against concrete on his side.  He adjusted to the left, but it didn’t help. 

“Alex...”

“I know, I’ve got it.”

“No, they’re coming.”

Alex glanced in his rear view mirror to see what looked like a wall of eaters round the corner twenty feet behind them.  He edged the car forward.  Metal squealed and crunched as the car wedged between the heavy square planters.

“Alex...”

“I’m trying.”

“We need to go...”

“I said I’m
trying
.”  He eased down on the accelerator.  The car didn’t move.