Society: After It Happened Book 3 (9 page)

"Good work kid, really good" he said to Leah, prompting a smile of pride.

A noise made him look up, seeing the little car heading back to them. Marie drove, and the girl sat in the passenger seat, hugging her bag with eyes wide as she saw the mess in front of her and still gripping the gun tightly.

They stopped, and the girl stared at the carnage in front of her. She glanced at Leah and visibly did a double take at the child.

"These men were chasing you" said Dan "any idea why?" She shook her head slowly, unable to tear her gaze away from the pool of blood on the ground.

"Dan, this is Emma" Marie said. On hearing her name, Emma snapped out of her trance and looked at him.

"And this is Leah" she finished.

Leah kept her gaze over the sights of her gun still trained on the unconscious man, but said "'sup", trying to sound cool and succeeding.

Emma didn't recognise the men, nor did she know why they were coming after her.

"We'll take him back for questioning, Marie - can you drive mine with Emma?" Dan said.

Marie nodded, but the girl woke up from her daze again.

"No! I've got to keep going!" She said, almost believing it herself.

"Fine, but rest with us and go on after with supplies and a better car" Dan said. Emma didn't think she had much of a choice, and in the back of her mind she longed for a conversation with anyone but herself.

Marie sealed the deal.  "Hot showers" she said, leaving the rest to Emma’s imagination.

She shuffled off to the big car and let out a small scream as she saw a huge dog in the window displaying rows of big, sharp teeth. Marie gently reached out and took the gun from her unresisting hands, subtly checking that the safety catch had been on the whole time.

"Ash, heel!" Dan said with a smile, and he slunk out of the open door to stand by his feet.

"Watch him" he said quietly, pointing at the unconscious man. Ash turned a snarl on him, adding a snap of his teeth but got no response.

He turned to the adult women, and nodded "Leah can take me back with him"

They went, and Dan dragged the man to the boot of Leah's car, Ash following ready to attack if given permission or if he moved. Dan sat in the back, keeping a careful eye and a gun on their prisoner as she drove. He had a worry that this man was more than average dangerous.

FIRST RANGER'S QUESTION TIME

He told Leah to drive to the farm, a sadistic but effective idea forming in his head.

They pulled in and she went to search for Chris. Dan told him what he wanted, adding "you've read Silence of the Lambs?" Chris had and he looked puzzled, even a little disturbed but knew well enough not to ask now. Dan stripped the man and tied his black shirt tight around the ragged bullet hole in his leg. That got a pain response.

The naked man was tipped into a wheelbarrow and taken to a small shed where a litter of last year’s pigs ran. He tied him up and waited. He got bored of waiting and threw a bucket of dirty water in the man's face, forcing him back into consciousness.

Dan kicked him lightly in his wounded leg, and stood back as the cry of pain became a murderous look aimed directly through him.

Definitely more than averagely dangerous.

“Why were you chasing that girl?” he asked.

"Go fuck your mother" he said helpfully.

"I don’t have the time right now, I’m too busy about to fuck you instead" Dan retorted in an annoyingly calm manner. The man responded with a fairly legible rant about England, Dan, and his mother again along with other various subjects which rapidly bored him.  He even threatened Dan with what would happen when he gets out of his current predicament, before he lapsed back into his native language to better continue the obscenities.

Dan sighed, explaining that he obviously wasn’t going to untie him just so he could try and escape and have to have his arse handed to him a second time today.

“Only this time it won’t be done by a thirteen-year-old girl” he said with a smile and stepped close.

"I do hope you can understand me properly" he said as he leaned in closer to him.

"I'm going to really, really hurt you unless you tell me what I want to know. If you do, you might get a doctor. If you don't, I'll keep going until you die. Up to you" the man probably understood him, because he spat at Dan's face.

That was a mistake; he could handle being punched, shot at, stabbed, but he really disliked spitters.

He hit him in the body with four hard punches in quick succession, alternating hands as he did.

He stepped back, waiting for the man to catch his breath and abuse him again. He suddenly remembered that Leah was still there watching, and thought to send her away. He didn't; it wasn't like he could remove any more of her childhood as there was probably nothing left. The only reason he had someone to interrogate was because she'd had the foresight to intentionally wound him. If she wanted to from that distance, she could have put bullets through both eyes.

The head rose again, and Dan didn't wait for the next volley of obscene abuse. He stepped in and delivered another series of stinging blows. The man hung limply again, catching his breath.

Twice more Dan did that, trying to establish a pattern in the man's head that this wouldn't stop, no matter what he said. That way he wouldn't bother keeping anything back. That was the theory anyway.

Dan decided on a different approach as his impatience got the better of him, selecting a pronged fork for moving straw which he used to poke at the bullet wound, drawing screams of agony.

"You're going to die of infection and these pigs are going to eat you" he said nastily.

"No more! Please!" he said.

Dan asked him again. He gave his answers in gasps, his breath ragged from the beatings, finally giving up their intentions when Leah ended their pursuit.

"We follow her, waiting for her to hit roadblock"

“What else?” he asked, raising the pitchfork again.

“NO!  I tell you everything!” he screamed.

Dan doubted that, but he’d at least removed his suspicions that the girl was different to any other vulnerable survivor. 

Still, there was just something not right about her; she seemed too… new.

THE SCIENTIST

The prisoner was shut in a room on the farm.  Chris watched the door until Dan got back to the house and sent Joe up to take over.  He would have to deal with him soon, but not before he had found out more.  He wanted to ask the new girl her story before his suspicion go the better of him.

He walked into the house with Leah and Ash, to the sound of a baby crying.  He left Leah in Ops cleaning her carbine and full of pride, giving Ash a bowl of food and telling him to stay with her. 

She did well today, he thought.  He walked into the dining room looking for the new arrival, instead finding Marie with a hot drink.

“Where is she?” he barked.  Marie was not amused with his tone, and her face let him know that.

“Hello.  Where’s the new girl?” he said patiently with a smile and a tone of voice which showed far more deference.  She thought that was better.  “She’s showering.  She hasn’t had hot water in weeks”

“What did she tell you?” Dan asked, trying to get as much background as he could until he could speak to her.

“She was in a facility down south somewhere, underground.  Some kind of shelter I presume.  The power ran out and they went outside, she’s heading for Scotland.  That’s all she said” Marie told him.

“Something’s not right” he said, sitting down opposite her “Up for a little tag-team interview with her?”

~

Emma stood under the hot water, letting it soak through her greasy hair and wash the film of dried sweat from her skin.  She scrubbed herself clean twice over, letting the fear of the last weeks rinse down the plug with the soapy water.  She shaved and washed until started to feel human again.

She dried herself with a clean towel and dressed in the clean clothes they had given her.  She picked up her bag before walking out of the bathroom, making her way back downstairs.  Cara had laid out a selection of food, making her forget her normal hangups about people seeing her eat.  She ate hungrily, savouring real food again.  When she had finished, the man who she had pointed a gun at earlier stood and offered her coffee.  It tasted good.

“So, Emma” said the blonde woman, Marie, smiling “Tell us about yourself”

She paused, wondering why she felt the need to be secretive about her plans.

“It’s ok” said the man “We’ve all of us got a past, but something tells me yours is a little different”

What did he know?  She glanced at her bag, then back to them.  Dan resisted the urge to reach over and snatch the rucksack away and find out for himself.

“I need a plug point” Emma said quietly “To be able to show you properly”

The three of them went to Ops, where the laptop was plugged in and started its slow warm up.  She took her voice recorder and connected it to the USB port.

“I was involved in a virology research program as part of my doctorate” she said “When word first reached us that an epidemic was spreading they moved all of our research and most of the team into a facility in the city, there were others; politicians and military” her eyes glazed over.  Marie prompted her to continue.

“Most people sent to our site didn’t get in, it was only really the first ones who weren’t infected.  We locked down and watched the world fall apart from the cctv monitors, but we lost power in the end” she spoke softly, slowly, like it was all becoming real to her just now.

“Eventually the solar power and the generator fuel ran out, and we had to leave.  It was never designed to hold out indefinitely without being able to go topside.  We left, everyone got sick and died.  Except me” she decided not to mention the Colonel and his breakdown; she didn’t want to have to justify out loud leaving a human being to die.

“What’s in Scotland?” asked Dan.

“The main virology research centre.  It’s a top secret thing; even my team didn’t know about it until we spoke to them in the bunker.  We lost contact with them too” she said sadly, suddenly feeling very tired.  “I was hoping I could get there and find out what this is.  I have a theory, but you might not like it” she finished as she typed in a long password to log on to the computer.

“Go on” Marie urged her gently.

“This pathogen is very fast acting.  The gestation period to fatality is the quickest of all known lethal infections ever.  It’s like Spanish Flu on steroids” she explained as she turned the computer to show coloured graphs depicting something which Dan lacked the patience to comprehend.

Get to the point, he thought irritably.

“So?” he asked, when no further explanation came.

“So I think it IS Spanish Flu on steroids.  Don’t you see?” she brought up another chart showing times between exposure, symptoms becoming visible, and death.

“Nothing natural should be this lethal so quickly, but there must be a random element of natural immunity.  How are we all still alive?  I see no obvious genetic theme running in all of the survivors, so why didn’t we die?” Dan hoped the questions were rhetorical, as she was starting to lose him a little.

“So what are you saying?” he asked “In simple terms”

“I’m saying we were attacked.  I believe this to be an airborne biological weapon.  Possibly.” she said with a resounding finality. 

Dan’s mind swam with ideas and theories as he walked back to the farm.  Joe had taken over watching the unconscious attacker.  He had talked with Marie about what to do with him, not necessarily open to ideas other than putting him down.  It was Leah who pointed out that he had been bound, blindfolded and mostly unconscious when they brought him back, and that he had only seen the inside of a shed whilst there.

Dan agreed that he didn’t need to die, but dumping him somewhere with a bullet hole in his leg would be worse than killing the man himself.  He cleaned and dressed the wound, giving the man back his clothes and adding a bottle of antibiotic tablets.  His hands were tied behind his back and he was blindfolded again before being put in the boot of Dan’s Discovery, then driven around for over twenty miles of aimless driving just to confuse him before he was taken back to where his dead friend sat in the wrecked car.  He was handed the keys to the small vehicle Emma had been driving and told very firmly that if he was ever seen there again, they would kill him. 

He drove south without looking back.

SCIENCE TRIP

Emma agreed to stay for a while and recover her strength as her recent illness had left her weak.  Marie called a council meeting that night, and explained what had happened with Emma and what she had said afterwards.

The news of an attack using biological weapons being a possibility didn’t really affect any of them, which frustrated Dan.

“If this is a bioweapon, don’t you see the implications?” he asked the blank faces staring at him. “If we’ve been attacked by another country, ask yourselves why?” nobody spoke.

“What if it’s a precursor to invasion?” he suggested to them, finally getting some hint in their faces that they were beginning to grasp the point. “We have no idea if any other countries are affected by it; it could simply be that the island has been quarantined”

“Slight problem with that theory” offered Neil “If there were still other people, other intact governments, out there in the world then why haven’t we seen any aircraft?”

Dan thought about that one.  He hadn’t seen anything in the sky that hadn’t evolved to fly in almost a year, not even a faint vapour trail.  He assumed that if they were under quarantine there would at least be some kind of reconnaissance flights higher up, or even a broadcast on the radio.

“Granted” Dan said “So the other possibilities are that we’ve been attacked and are going to see Chinese tanks or whoever heading down the driveway soon, or the whole world is affected.”

“It doesn’t really matter what we think though, does it?” said Chris quietly “How are we going to know for sure?”

Dan took a breath, and told them of the conversation he and Marie had with their newest guest.  “Emma wants to go to some lab in Scotland where they tested stuff like this. She said she might be able to say whether the virus is synthetic or not”

Silence in the room as each considered the benefits.

“But what would the point be?” asked Chris again “How will it affect us?”

“Honestly?  I don’t know, but it may give us some answers.  I think there’s no harm in helping her” Dan said, waiting for the next question.

“Help her how?” said Marie.

“She’ll need a vehicle and supplies.  I also think she should have an escort” he left it there.

“Who?” said Marie, worrying what the answer would be.

“I don’t know yet” said Dan carefully “It would have to be a Ranger, obviously, and it would be their choice to go” meaning that it would probably be him.

“Shall we bring the others in?” Marie enquired.

“Please let me speak to them first” Dan replied “Shall we meet tomorrow?”

~

He sat at the table in Ops, having asked Leah to shut the door.  The door hadn’t been shut since the day they found the house. 

Dan finished the explanation and let the silence hang heavy. The same questions were floated around the table, and they weighed the benefits and risks of the journey.

"It's not like a cure is an issue; there's very few of us left" said Steve "knowing if it was deliberate or nature redressing some kind of balance is academic, surely?"

Lexi agreed, better to forget the past and concentrate on the future she felt.

Still something in the back of Dan's mind wanted to know more about what had happened to them.

"Are none of you interested to know if it's the same everywhere?   What if we're the only ones affected?" He asked them.

He sensed something from them, more nervous than apathetic.

"She wants to go, and I won't stop her" Dan said "but she has a better chance of surviving the trip and bringing back answers if she has an escort. She didn't even know she was being chased when we found her for God sake!"

"I'd go, but you probably won't let me" Leah offered.

"Correct" said Steve "you're not going. I will."

He looked directly at Dan and repeated himself. "I'll go"

"Ok" Dan said, seeing the relief on the faces of Lexi and Joe.

"Get me the location" said Leah "I'll start looking at a route"

They went to find Emma, to tell her what they had decided. She accepted the news quietly, shaking Steve's hand as they were formally introduced.

"I want to give you the best chance of making it there, that's why Steve is going to take you" said Dan "also, I'd like you to do some training with us so that you know what to do in different situations. Chances are the journey north will be dangerous; without us it's highly unlikely you'll make it there. Sorry to sound blunt, but it's the truth"

Emma accepted this, and asked when they would leave. Steve said it would take a week to prepare properly.

Emma closed the laptop and stood, indicating her readiness to start straight away.

Steve led Emma off to begin survival 101 after Dan asked for the location of the facility. He gave this to Leah as he passed, taking Steve's Defender to Neil's workshop on the farm.

An oil stained Neil looked up from the engine of a tractor with the diminutive Ewan assisting.

They greeted Dan warmly, giving the sense of being men happy in their work.

Dan told him what he wanted, making Neil's brain spin with the possibilities and problems.

"Extra fuel tank up top" he suggested, pointing to the roof rack "I'll have to strip the rear seats to make space for spare wheels and tools, but they'll still have to travel fairly light"

"Not a problem" said Dan "how long do you reckon?"

Neil thought for a while, and said five days. Dan knew he meant three; he just wanted to look good getting it done ahead of time. He thanked him and walked back to the house with Ash.