Vengeance (Twenty-Five Percent Book 3) (4 page)

The tank’s engine rumbled into life. A few seconds later it lurched forward, stopped, then lurched again. Alex grabbed the edge of the hatch opening to keep from falling.

“How’s it going down there?” he called past his legs into the tank.

“I’ll get it. Just give me a minute. This isn’t as easy as it looks.”

“It doesn’t look easy at all.”

“My point exactly.”

A few more small lurches later Micah called out, “Okay, I think I’ve got it now. Hold on. And tell me which way to go because I can only see straight ahead.”

“Just go straight for now,” Alex said, looking towards the horde. He could already see heads turning in their direction.

The tank’s engine roared and they began to move, slowly at first, bouncing off the flattened car it was straddling and onto the top of another in front. Alex gripped the edge of the hatch tighter as they heaved and lurched.

He heard a giggle.

“Did you just giggle?” he shouted over the sound of the engine and the cracking of tortured metal.

“That was not a giggle,” Micah called back. “That was a masculine chuckle of joy.”

Alex watched as they mounted another car, its frame buckling beneath the tank’s treads, unable to stand up to the dozens of tonnes bearing down on it. It was a peculiarly satisfying sight.

“Turn right a little,” he shouted into the hatch.

Their direction changed.

“That way?” Micah called.

“Now straighten up. There are fewer cars over the other side. We’ll get onto flat ground quicker.”

They bounced over the central reservation, the crash barriers no match for the Challenger, and made short work of a silver Mercedes on the other side. A minibus with ‘Northgate Comprehensive’ written on the side forced Micah to practice tight manoeuvres as they edged around it.

The noise of the engine combined with the screeching metal carnage was deafening and Alex alternated his attention between working out a route through the crash and keeping an eye on the horde. They weren’t moving fast enough to outrun the infected yet.

Movement up ahead and to his left caught Alex’s eye and he rose up to check the horde again. Their noisy progress had not gone unnoticed. Eaters were heading in their direction.

“The eaters are coming,” he shouted to Micah.

Micah’s reply was laughter. “Bring it on.”

After what seemed to Alex like hours of jerking and lurching through the car graveyard, they finally reached the end of the pile-up and bounced down onto the road surface. Alex breathed a sigh of relief and looked back at the path of destruction they’d left through the abandoned vehicles.

“Okay,” he murmured, “that is very cool.”

“Uh, Alex? What do I do now? Should I speed up and get past them?”

Alex looked forward to see the horde scrambling, tripping and falling over the crash barriers and each other as they tried to follow them across the central reservation. One pioneering man had already succeeded and lurched into the path of the tank.

Micah yelped and swerved. The eater disappeared from view beneath the treads.

“Did I hit it?” Micah shouted. “Is it dead?”

Alex looked back at the slightly lumpy, but predominantly flat red smear on the asphalt, and immediately regretted it.

“I think ‘dead’ might be an understatement.” He watched the eaters attempting to follow them. “I think if you get a bit ahead of them and stop, then we can wait for them to catch up and do our Pied Piper thing.”

Micah drove a further fifty yards and stopped, the engine idling as they waited. With the eaters in this horde having all been turned at roughly the same time, they were all more or less at the same stage of development. Remembering the Co-op debacle of a week before, trying to lead eaters into the store and their disparate speeds causing such problems, Alex was grateful for that. He hoped this lot would stick together like the horde they were.

“How are they doing?” Micah said.

“They’re getting the hang of the crash barrier. At least, they’re getting the hang of falling over it and getting up again. They’ll make it.”

“Okay, just tell me when and I’ll get this baby moving again.”

Alex couldn’t help smiling at his tone. “You are having way too much fun.”

“I’m driving a
tank
!”

Alex watched the horde make their clumsy way towards them. Their movements had become uncertain, as if they weren’t sure if the tank was something of interest or not. Concerned they’d lose interest, he gave a wave of encouragement. The eaters focused on him, but still seemed reluctant to commit.

“Come on!” he yelled. “Let’s get this party started.”

That did it. Voices they knew meant food. The horde surged forward with a collective moan.

“Get ready,” he called down to Micah.

“Woohoo!” Micah shouted, revving the engine.

Alex shook his head. Definitely having too much fun.

He waited until the front of the horde was almost on them before giving Micah the order to go. They moved along the road, Alex waving his arms and yelling to keep the horde following while Micah stopped every now and then to allow them to catch up. Progress was slow and Alex was glad they only had a mile or so to travel.

Reaching the end of the bank where the land flattened out to the side of the road, Micah turned the tank and plunged into the field. Alex winced as they ploughed through rows and rows of ripening maize. If the whole outbreak thing hadn’t been cleared up by winter they would probably need all the food they could get. Behind them the horde extended the damage, but there was nothing they could do about it. Before they survived the winter, they had to survive Boot.

At the far end of the field they crossed a minor road, decimated a wide section of hedge on the other side, and continued into another field, this one already harvested. The eaters jogged after them, struggling through hedges, stumbling into ditches and getting a good soaking in a shallow stream, but never tiring in their quest to feed.

Alex’s voice, however, did begin to tire as they travelled. “I can’t keep shouting at them.”

“You want to swap?” Micah said.

Alex imagined the hundreds of eaters just a few dozen feet behind them swarming the tank while he blundered about trying to steer. “No, I don’t think we should stop.”

He watched the eaters following them and suddenly had an idea. He smiled, took a deep breath, and started to sing. He picked
Staying Alive
. It seemed appropriate and he knew all the words.

Inside the tank, Micah burst into laughter as Alex serenaded the horde with his inexpert, but enthusiastic rendition of the Bee Gees’ disco classic. As no one could see him, Alex added in some dance moves for the benefit of the crowd.

When he reached the chorus, Alex almost fell off his perch on the ladder when Micah joined in. By the time the industrial park came into view they both were laughing so hard Alex could hardly breathe and Micah’s driving was becoming increasingly erratic.

Alex was fairly sure they shouldn’t be enjoying themselves under the circumstances, but it felt good to laugh with such abandon. He was almost disappointed the journey was coming to an end.

“You ready?” Micah called when they were a couple of hundred feet from the nearest of the cluster of huge grey warehouse buildings.

Alex wiped the tears from his eyes and put on his serious face. “Yeah. Do it.”

The tank turned, stopping sideways on to the building. With a nervous glance back at the approaching horde, Alex climbed out of the hatch and pushed it closed. Then he slid down the side of the tank facing away from the horde, dropped to the ground, and sprinted for the building.

Directly in front of him was a huge grey sectional shutter door, big enough to fit the back end of a large lorry and certainly big enough for the tank. It was closed. A large sign high up on the wall proclaimed the warehouse to be Carneforth Retail and Office Outfitters Distribution Centre. Alex headed for a small door to one side. It too was closed, and locked, but a hard tug on the handle got him inside.

He looked back at the tank to see the eaters swarming around it, moaning and clawing at the metal hull. Micah was hanging out of the hatch, encouraging the eaters to stay around him. Some were making a rudimentary attempt to climb onto the top, but the tank towered above them, far too tall for their mindless efforts.

Inside, Alex passed a series of deserted offices and an employee break room before finding his way into the main area of the distribution centre. It was huge. For a few moments Alex simply stood and stared at the massive space. Three quarters of the floor space was taken up by towering aisles between giant shelves filled with cardboard boxes and other, plastic wrapped, items on wooden pallets. A battalion of forklift trucks stood off to one side. A dozen three foot square tall steel cages on wheels, the kind he’d seen used to move boxes of goods for restocking supermarket shelves, lounged against the wall far to his right alongside a couple of huge waste containers.

On the way, he’d been slightly concerned the eaters wouldn’t all fit inside. Now he saw the size of the place, he imagined once they were in, they’d be lost in here.

Cupping his hands around his mouth, he shouted, “Hello?”

His voice echoed back to him from every corner of the warehouse. It went unanswered.

He tried again. “If there’s anyone in here, you need to get out. I’m not here to hurt you, but this place is about to host a very large horde of eaters.”
...eaters... eaters... eaters...

Still no reply, but he wasn’t really expecting anyone to be here. Why would anyone choose to hide for weeks in a warehouse that didn’t even contain food?

There were two more loading doors leading out of the warehouse, one in the wall opposite where the tank would be entering and one on the side wall. A wide, open area ran the length of that side of the building, connecting all three doors. Perfect for the tank to drive through.

Alex jogged to the nearest door and searched for the lock. He was overjoyed to find the keys still inserted, looking like someone had left in a hurry. After making sure it was unlocked, he pulled the keys out and sprinted to the far end of the building where he opened the opposite door. Light flooded inside, reflecting off the motes of dust hanging in the air. A moment of calm before the storm.

Leaving the door open, Alex returned to the entrance closest to where Micah and the tank were waiting.

“Okay, now or never,” he muttered to himself as he hit the button to open the door.

The metal roller shutter trundled up, rattling in its channel as it moved. Moans filtered in from outside. The tank, right where he’d left it minutes before, was surrounded. Some eaters had somehow even managed to clamber onto the top. Micah was nowhere to be seen and for one panicked moment Alex thought something had gone wrong. But then, as the door reached the top of its movement, the turret swung round, dislodging the eaters clinging to it and throwing them to the ground.

Alex breathed a sigh of relief and moved back from the door, keeping to the shadows where he wouldn’t be seen. Outside, the tank started to move.

The eaters, as always blissfully unaware of their own mortality, failed to get out of the way. After watching for a few seconds Alex turned away, feeling sick.

The Challenger reached the door and drove in, the sound of its engine echoing around the huge space. It stopped for a moment for Alex to climb on before starting towards the door Alex had left open at the far end of the building. Behind them, the first eaters entered the door.

Alex started singing again, both to keep the eaters following and in case he didn’t get the chance again for a while. He wasn’t a stranger to the occasional bit of karaoke. He smiled as he sang, enjoying the acoustics of the space. It almost made him sound good.

As they reached the exit, the tank came to a halt, waiting for all the eaters to get inside. The hatch in the top of the tank opened.

“I don’t want to jinx it or anything,” Micah said as he appeared through the opening, “but this is going unusually smoothly.”

“Amazing, isn’t it?” Alex replied. “Maybe it’s my singing. Must have a magical quality.”

“Yes, I imagine it’s very good at making people disappear.”

“You’re just jealous you don’t have talent like...” Alex was interrupted by a scream. “You just had to say something, didn’t you?”

The shriek had come from inside the warehouse. Alex stood up on the turret, straining to see into the gloomy interior of the building.

Micah climbed from the hatch to join him. “Didn’t you check there was no-one in here?”

“Of course I checked. I shouted.”

“You didn’t sing to them, did you?”

Another scream was followed by a crash. Alex looked back at the eaters. They were halfway across the warehouse towards the tank, but many of them were now slowing and looking in the direction of the new sounds.

Alex jumped to the floor. “Stay here.”

Without waiting for Micah to answer, he ran along the aisle to his right and into the maze of giant shelving, calling as he ran. “Whoever’s in here, where are you?”