The Drift, page 10
More thuds, and the scrape of claws, this time from further down the coach. Everyone’s eyes tracked the windows.
‘I thought wolves were scared of people,’ Ben said.
‘Usually,’ Hannah said. ‘But they don’t know we’re people. Right now, all they smell is prey.’
And animals that were desperate and hungry grew bolder and more aggressive. Infected animals even more so. But no point mentioning that just yet.
More scuffling on the roof. They were scenting, Hannah thought. Searching for a prey they could smell but couldn’t reach. And then a howl. First singular then joined by four or five more. For the first time, Hannah understood the meaning of blood-curdling.
A large figure stumbled down the coach. Daniel.
‘Do you know there are wolves out there?’
‘You catch on fast,’ Cassie muttered.
‘We know,’ Lucas said coldly.
‘What do we do?’
Lucas sighed. ‘We wait. When they realize they cannot reach us, they will look for easier prey elsewhere.’
‘But how long will that take?’
Lucas gave a small shrug. ‘Hard to say.’
‘What’s the time?’ Josh asked.
Lucas checked his watch. ‘Five fifty-seven p.m.’
Around two hours left, if their calculations were correct. Maybe longer. Maybe less.
Josh shook his head. ‘I’m going to keep tunnelling. We can’t waste the time.’ He crawled back into the snow.
The rest of them stood, ears straining, eyes trained on the roof of the coach. Aside from Josh scraping in the snow tunnel, it had gone quiet.
‘I can’t hear them any more,’ Ben murmured.
No, Hannah thought. And for some reason, that made her more nervous.
‘Maybe they’ve gone,’ Cassie said.
A faint scrabbling sound, this time to their right.
‘Or maybe not,’ she added.
The soft scrabbling continued.
‘They can’t reach us though?’ Ben said nervously. ‘I mean, there’s no way in.’
But there was, Hannah suddenly realized. The tunnel. Shit.
‘They can dig,’ she said, looking around.
‘What?’ Cassie asked.
‘Wolves. They can dig. They dig out prey.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes. I saw it on a documentary.’
‘Scheisse,’ Lucas hissed.
Hannah bent down. ‘Josh, get out of the tunnel!’
‘What?’
‘Get out. Now!’
Lucas grabbed Josh’s ankles and hauled him back into the coach.
‘What the hell –’
The tunnel collapsed in a small avalanche of snow. Cassie shrieked as a pair of snarling jaws burst through the white, smearing it with pink saliva.
‘Fuck!’ Josh yelled, scrabbling away.
Lucas kicked out at the wolf with his feet. Josh joined him, pushing back at the snow with his heels to block the probing snout.
‘Kill it, man!’ Ben screamed.
‘What the fuck with?’ Josh shouted back.
‘It’s just hungry and desperate. We need to scare it off,’ Hannah cried.
‘The phone. The alarm!!’ Daniel yelled.
‘Where is it?’
Josh reached into his pockets. ‘I must have dropped it,’ he said. ‘In the tunnel.’
‘Wait,’ Lucas said. ‘I see it.’
So could Hannah. Near Josh’s feet, half buried in the snow.
She dived forward. The wolf’s snout burst through the snow by her ear. Hannah felt its hot breath, saw the flash of yellowing teeth.
She raised the phone and pressed the alarm. The ear-splitting siren pulsed out. The wolf howled, but this time in fear, not fury. The snout and scrabbling claws retreated. Hannah kept her thumb pressed on the alarm. Eyes squeezed shut, heart pounding. She couldn’t stop, couldn’t move. Someone grabbed her. She turned and almost punched them. Daniel caught her arm.
‘Enough. It’s enough. It’s gone.’
Hannah released her thumb. His voice sounded oddly distant. Her ears were ringing. She sat back, breathing hard.
Everyone fell into a stunned silence. The wolves had gone. But so had the tunnel Josh had created. Snow had caved in on the broken window again.
‘Guess the tunnel is fucked,’ Cassie observed.
‘What do we do now?’ Ben moaned.
‘We dig it out again,’ Lucas said briskly, looking at Josh.
Josh nodded wearily. ‘This time I might need some help.’
‘You shall have it.’
‘What if the wolves come back?’ Daniel asked.
Lucas’s lips thinned. ‘We work fast.’ He nodded at Hannah. ‘And we still have the alarm.’
But for how long, Hannah thought, glancing at the phone. The battery was down to a quarter.
And then she realized something else. There was a new message. The phone must have briefly found some signal. She looked up. The others were preoccupied with the snow tunnel.
She clicked the message open.
When the storm eases, we will find you. Soon. P.G.
P.G. He could never bring himself to sign Dad, or even Father.
But he had received Hannah’s text. He knew they were alive.
We will find you. Soon.
Hannah debated with herself.
And then she quickly deleted the message.
They were running out of time, in more ways than one.
Meg
It was never like this in the movies. When disaster struck – a plane hijacking, terrorists taking over a skyscraper, the zombie apocalypse – no one ever stopped to say, ‘I really need a shit.’
Logistics were discussed. It was eventually decided that Sarah would ‘go’ in one corner, collect the deposit with one of her socks and dump it back out of the hatch. The rest of them stood in the opposite corner, facing out through the glass, staring at the rapidly darkening sky, trying to pretend they couldn’t hear any noises or smell the rank aroma.
A small part of Meg shared the other woman’s shame. Being forced to crap in the corner of a cable car marooned a thousand feet up in the sky was not on anyone’s bucket list. On the other hand, karma.
Finally, Sarah walked over, looking embarrassed. Sean pulled open the hatch and she dropped the soiled sock and its contents out of the car. The smell, and a faint smear of brown on the floor, remained.
‘Thank you,’ she mumbled to Sean.
‘Hey, we all have to do it.’
‘Yeah.’ She gave him a grateful look.
‘Y’know, perhaps we should consider this situation,’ Max said.
‘I’d really rather we just forgot about it,’ Sarah said.
Difficult, Meg thought, when the whole cabin smelled of shit.
‘What I mean is,’ Max continued, ‘if we’re going to be stuck here for a while, we may all need to relieve ourselves one way or another.’
‘Well, Max and I can just pee out of the hatch,’ Sean said.
‘Bully for you,’ said Meg. She looked around. They didn’t have any containers, no empty bottles. No food or water, she thought, which could soon be another problem.
‘Our boots,’ she said suddenly.
‘What?’
‘If we need to pee, we can pee in a boot, then empty it out of the hatch.
‘Oh, dear God,’ Sarah muttered.
‘Well, if you have a better idea?’ She stared at Sarah.
Sarah dropped her eyes and shook her head. ‘I suppose not.’
‘Hopefully it won’t come to that,’ Max said in a reassuring tone. ‘I mean, I’m sure people are trying to fix the power right now.’
Sean and Meg exchanged looks. She knew what he was thinking. ‘People’ weren’t as reliable as they had once been. Even those who worked for the Department. Everything was fractured now. Society, order, infrastructure. Add to that the fact that ‘the trials’ were secretive projects run by a select few. Officially, they were gradually being phased out. If anything happened, there were far fewer ‘people’ to put it right.
‘It’s probably best to be prepared for every eventuality,’ Sean said.
‘Fine.’ Sarah fingered her cross. ‘But I’ve said a prayer and I’m sure we’ll have power again soon.’
It was on the tip of Meg’s tongue to ask her if she had squeezed in the chat to God while she squeezed out her shit, but before she could speak there was a lurch … and the cable car began to move.
Sarah gave Meg a triumphant look. ‘See.’
The car crawled slowly upwards. Meg pressed her face to the glass. Ahead, she could see the tip of the mountain and a grey sphere jutting out that must be the upper terminal. Her heart began to lift. It could only be another few hundred feet. Closer and closer.
There was another lurch, a hideous screech of metal. Meg turned. The cabin swung wildly forwards then they were hurtling backwards, down the cables. The reverse velocity was so fast and unexpected Meg found herself lifted off her feet and flung against the opposite wall. Dazed, she scrambled for something to hang on to, fingers grabbing a pole. Max hit the floor hard, his head smashing into the side of a bench. Sarah hung on to another pole and Sean fell against Meg. There was a second jolt, throwing them all back the other way, and then the car ground to a halt, rocking gently. They remained clinging on to whatever they could, breathing hard.
For a moment, no one spoke. Sarah was crying.
‘Jesus,’ Sean breathed. ‘Everyone okay?’
Meg nodded. Sarah whimpered. Max groaned from the floor.
‘What happened?’ Meg asked.
‘I think there was a surge of power … and then the haulage cable snapped,’ Sean said.
‘Oh God. We’re all going to die,’ Sarah cried.
‘No,’ Sean said. ‘There’s a support cable. That jolt was the emergency brake kicking in.’
‘You seem to know a lot about cable cars,’ Meg said.
He shrugged. ‘Just basics.’
Max was attempting to sit up. Meg moved across the car to help him. His glasses were cracked, and he had a nasty gash on his forehead where it had struck one of the benches. Blood trickled down his face. Meg looked around for something to wipe it with and settled on the sleeve of her snowsuit. Fortunately, the wound looked shallow, and a bump was forming, which she vaguely remembered was a good thing with head injuries.
‘You’ve got a fair crack on your head there,’ she said. ‘You don’t feel sick, do you? You didn’t lose consciousness?’
‘No. Argh.’ He groaned again. ‘My wrist. That’s what really hurts.’
Meg gently took the man’s arm. She studied his wrist. It was bruised and bent at a slightly unnatural angle.
‘Can you move it?’
Max frowned then shook his head. ‘No.’
‘I think it might be broken.’ She looked around hopelessly. ‘We haven’t even got a first-aid kit.’
Sean started to unzip his snowsuit. Meg stared at him.
‘What are you doing?’ she asked.
‘First-aid.’
He pulled off his T-shirt. Meg noticed a tattoo on his chest. A girl’s face. Surrounded by wavy dark hair. Familiar somehow. She frowned. And then it was gone again as he zipped the suit back up.
He ripped the T-shirt down the seam, splitting it into two pieces of fabric, then crouched next to Max. ‘This might hurt a bit,’ he said.
He took the man’s arm and wrapped one part of the fabric around his wrist to keep it stable. The other half he fashioned into a makeshift sling, looping it around Max’s neck. He gently eased the man’s wrist into it.
Max winced but nodded. ‘Thanks.’
Meg eyed Sean curiously. ‘You’re a man of many talents.’
‘Not really.’ He offered a small smile. ‘I just know a little about a lot of stuff.’
The car rocked again, harder. Above them the cable creaked. They all raised their eyes to the roof.
‘You said there was a support cable,’ Max said. ‘If the power comes back on, will the car move, or do we have to wait for rescue?’
‘That I don’t know,’ Sean admitted.
Another gust of wind. The movement felt rougher. Only one cable now. All of their lives hanging, quite literally, by one giant steel thread. And then there was the thing that everyone was trying hard not to be the first to say.
It was Max who made it real: ‘What if rescue doesn’t come?’
They all looked at each other, but no one had an answer.
Which, of course, was when the lights flickered and the power in the car went out.
Carter
The takeover had happened before Carter arrived at the Retreat.
There had been an outbreak amongst the medical staff. A bad one – Choler variant. Within forty-eight hours most of the staff were dead. A few escaped. Some were contained in the chambers. To prevent the spread. And for other reasons.
Miles and the other survivors found themselves the Retreat’s sole caretakers.
And they wanted to keep it that way.
As far as the Department was concerned, the Retreat was a dead zone. The trials had been winding down for a while. There was talk that they might be abandoned altogether. To all intents and purposes, the Retreat had never existed in the first place. It was easier for everyone if it never existed again. Shutdown.
That was three years ago. So far, the Department had shown no signs of wanting to reactivate the Retreat. Perhaps they really had forgotten about it.
But that could always change.
Sleeping beasts could be awakened.
The Department might decide to send people in again.
Especially if they ever found out about Isolation Chamber 13.
The four of them gathered in the living area, settling on the sofas. Dexter perched on Carter’s lap. Caren had fetched candles from the storeroom and now she lit them while Miles recounted what had happened.
‘When the power cut, I headed straight down to the basement to check the security of the isolation chambers. When I got there, 02 was already outside her cell and 01 was on the floor. We know 02 has long exhibited advanced symptoms of Choler variant. I thought she had attacked him. Stupid of me to fall for such an obvious ploy, but it happened so fast. I trained my gun on her but then 01 was up. He knocked me over and bolted for the elevator. I got off some shots, but she charged me, and while I fought her off he made his escape.’
Because you only needed a pass to get down to the basement, not up from it.
‘How the hell did you end up inside a chamber?’
‘Under the circumstances, with an insane inmate trying to throttle me, it seemed the safest place. The doors lock automatically once they’re closed.’
‘You locked yourself in there?’ Caren said.
‘Of course. I presumed you’d find me eventually, if any of you were still alive.’ He eyed her shrewdly. ‘After all, I’m not the only one with a pass to the basement, am I?’
Caren met his gaze. ‘It’s just for back-up.’
‘Someone has to gatekeep the gatekeeper, right?’
‘Right.’
Miles nodded, then said in a harder voice. ‘I’ll need that pass, Caren.’
She hesitated. But not even perky Caren with a C argued with Miles. Reluctantly, she pulled the pass out and handed it over.
‘Thank you.’ Miles slipped it into his pocket.
‘What if we hadn’t found you?’ Carter asked, keen to change the subject.
‘I had my gun. A bullet would have sufficed.’
‘So you didn’t kill 02?’
‘No. In fact, I watched as she smashed her own brains out against the glass.’
‘She did that to herself?’ Welland exclaimed.
Miles shrugged. ‘We know what Choler does to the infected. She wanted to die. She was the sacrifice so that 01 could escape.’
‘He wanted to die too,’ Carter said. ‘But he wanted to take us with him.’
Miles nodded. ‘Understandable. If I was being kept down there, I’d probably want to do the same.’
They considered this. Mostly, Carter thought, they tried not to consider the occupants of the isolation chambers and what they were used for. Necessity might be the mother of invention, but it was also the father of fuck you.
Miles was the only one who went down there regularly, to extract blood plasma for the vaccines. Taken from living survivors of infection, it was the only way to provide reliable immunity. Traditional vaccine methods didn’t work. The Department’s scientists had tried and tried. The greatest minds. Billions of dollars. Secretive ‘trial’ centres such as the Retreat. But the virus always evaded them. Only plasma from the source could provide protection. And regular boosters were needed.
Hence the Farms. Huge detention centres outside the cities where the living infected were contained (for their own good) and ‘milked’ for plasma. For the greater good.
Funny, how many terrible things were done for the ‘greater good’. Carter sometimes wondered at what point the balance tipped. When did the greater good become the fortunate few – and screw everyone else?
But then, Carter wasn’t in any position to moralize. The Whistlers had been kept here for the exact same reason. Regular boosters. Supplies.
The blood groups had to match, of course, but they had been lucky. 01 was O+, 02 was AB+ and 03 was O– (the universal donor). Good donor bloods. But now they were down to one, weakened supply.
‘So, what do we do?’ Caren asked. ‘We only have 03 left. He’s almost done. That’s not enough.’
‘But there are only four of us left now,’ Welland said.
‘Yeah, let’s look on the bright side,’ Carter intoned drily, stroking Dexter.
Caren frowned. ‘What about Jackson?’ She looked between them. ‘Has anyone seen Jackson?’
Carter and Miles exchanged glances.
‘Jackson has left the building,’ Miles said.
‘What? How?’
Miles sighed. ‘It is likely that he was stealing plasma. He ran. He’s probably dead.’
‘Jackson?’ Caren said in the same disbelieving tone. ‘But he wouldn’t. He –’
‘He what?’ Miles pounced on the hesitation.
