Downfall: Blood Survivors, #2

By Nerys Wheatley

Who controls the horde?

The barriers around the city have fallen and hundreds of thousands of eaters are loose. Slaughtering. Feeding. Their numbers growing as those who escape immediate death are infected.

A desperate plea for help takes Alex and Micah out into the eater-ravaged countryside, where hordes are everywhere and those not in hiding are dead.

Hounded by eaters and waylaid by the angry, the desperate, and the terrified, their difficult journey ultimately leads them into a confrontation with the man responsible for the outbreak. A man who may hold the key to controlling the eater hordes.

But he has his own agenda, and he’s not going to let Alex and Micah stop him.

** Downfall is book 2 of the Blood Survivors zombie action horror series. It is NOT a standalone novel. If you want to throw caution to the wind and read it first, go ahead, but you won’t understand much of what’s going on! Alternatively, you could get Mutation (Blood Survivors book 1) first and read the story in order. It will be more fun that way, I promise.  

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nerys Wheatley
• Release date: Dec 14, 2016
• ISBN: 9781386448051

Nerys Wheatley

Nerys Wheatley has an underabundance of excitement in her life and an overabundance of imagination which is constantly making up stuff in her head. She writes fast moving, action packed science fiction because she has to let the stories out somehow. She was born in the UK, which makes her spelling just that bit more thrilling. Her greatest wish is to wake up one day to find the remaining boxes from when she moved house two years ago have magically unpacked themselves. It hasn't happened yet, but she's still hoping.

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THE

BLOOD SURVIVORS

TRILOGY

Mutation

Downfall

Vengeance

BEFORE

Phone’s ringing, Micah called.

Can’t you get it? Alex called back.

Not really, no.

Alex sighed, wrapped the towel around him, and walked into the living room. Micah was exactly where he’d left him twenty minutes before, eyes closed, flat out on the sofa.

Where’s my bacon? Alex said, picking up the phone.

Micah waved a dismissive hand without opening his eyes.

Hello? Alex said into the receiver.

Alex.

A smile spread across his face. Hello, Hannah.

Alex, they’re here.

His smile vanished at her panicked tone. Who’s there?

Micah opened his eyes and looked up at him.

They killed Jim, she whispered, the hint of a sob in her voice. I’m hiding, but I don’t know how long...

Alex heard a crash, and Hannah gasped.

Then silence.

Hannah? he said, his heart pounding. "Hannah!"

1

To Alex’s intense frustration, the lights didn’t switch on.

He lifted his foot from the step and put it back down again. Then he tried the second step, and the third. Finally, he tried jumping up and down. Still no illumination appeared on the staircase descending into the underground laboratory.

Can you see anything? Micah said from behind him.

Stairs, he replied.

"I meant anything on the stairs. Specifically anything that might try to eat us."

No. But without power, we’re not going to last long if there’s anything down there.

You can see in the dark, Micah pointed out.

Yeah, but not if there’s no light at all. We’re not going to be much use to anyone if we die.

He stared down at the corridor leading away from the foot of the stairs. Even though he couldn’t hear any sounds coming from below, it didn’t mean nothing was happening down there. The underground facility was a big place. For all he knew, the little group of doctors they’d left here just two days before were somewhere in the darkness, fighting for their lives.

It was twenty minutes since he’d received the panicked call from Hannah. Twenty minutes on Janie’s motorcycle, picking their way through the vehicle snarl-ups blocking almost every road. Twenty minutes during which almost anything could have happened to Hannah, Carla, Dave, Larry and Pauline.

Hannah could be down there right now, in danger, waiting for him to rescue her. The thought made his gut clench. He’d only known her for a few days, but it was enough to know he wanted to know the pretty doctor for a lot longer.

My phone!

Alex jumped, startled by Micah’s loud exclamation. The mobiles aren’t working.

No, but I have a torch app. Micah pushed his hand into his jacket pocket and frowned. He patted his other pockets. I must have left it on your sofa. Do you have yours?

No. I didn’t think to bring it, with the signal down.

Micah planted his hands on his hips. We have got to start thinking ahead.

Alex looked at the door to the shed through which they’d entered. Maybe there’s something in there.

They returned through the hidden door to the main part of the shed and began searching the shelves of gardening paraphernalia.

Found matches, Micah said, holding up a box. We could make a torch out of something.

Or we could use this, Alex said, pulling a large torch with black rubber casing from behind a box of lawn fertiliser.

He pressed the power button, relieved when the light came on.

Those old torches guzzle battery power, Micah said. What if it runs out while we’re down there?

Afraid of the dark? Alex said.

If there are eaters in it, yes.

All we have to do is get to the generator and turn it back on. It can’t be that far.

"If it is the generator."

Alex headed back towards the stairs. Well, I’m going down. I have to know if Hannah’s all right.

He strode back into the small antechamber with the staircase and started down. Pulling one of the two skull-spiker stiletto knives he’d brought from his pocket, he kept the blade retracted into the handle, but clutched it ready, just in case.

Wait for me.

He looked back to see Micah following him, an aerosol can in one hand.

If things get desperate, he said, I want a way to make some serious light.

Okay, but let’s try not to burn the place down around us.

Alex led the way down the stairs and along the grey, featureless corridor to the entrance into the facility. The sliding security door was closed to within an inch of the frame, just like the first time they’d been this way.

That time, a body had been on the other side. He suppressed the fear that this time, it could be Hannah’s.

Handing the torch to Micah, he pushed his fingers into the gap and pulled at the door. The broken mechanism protested for a moment before releasing, the door sliding open with an unhealthy grating sound.

The storage room beyond was in darkness, just enough light filtering down the staircase to enable Alex’s Meir’s virus enhanced vision to make out the piles of stacked furniture dotted around. He stood for a few seconds, allowing his eyes to adjust and making sure there was nothing hiding in the shadows.

Anything? Micah whispered behind him.

Alex shook his head. Looks clear. Don’t use the torch until we have to though. It’ll ruin my night vision.

I can’t see a thing in here, Micah said, so give me a heads up if I’m about to get bitten or anything.

Will do.

Micah placed his hand on Alex’s shoulder for guidance and they made their way across the room to the door in the far wall. Alex peered through the inset window. The wide corridor beyond was empty, as far as he could see, although his field of vision was limited by the door. He grasped the handle, pushed the door open slowly, and flipped out the skull-spiker’s blade in case anything rushed in to attack them. When nothing did, he took a step in and checked either side of the door.

It’s clear, he whispered.

Then why are you whispering? Micah whispered back.

I don’t know. It just feels like I should.

I know what you mean.

Alex glanced back at him. Micah was staring straight ahead, his eyes unfocused, obviously unable to see anything. He looked nervous. Alex couldn’t blame him. He was nervous and he could see, just.

As they made their way along the corridor, Alex glanced at the doors they passed. All of them were closed and he couldn’t see anything but darkness through the windows set into each of them. He wanted to find Hannah, but they couldn’t scour every room in the dark. When the generator was back on they’d be able to do a thorough search, if they needed to.

They reached the door at the far end of the corridor and stopped. Beyond was the employee lounge where they’d first met Hannah and the other doctors. For some reason, opening this door filled Alex with dread. Visibility was getting so bad he could barely see any more. This far underground, with no windows and no light of any kind, even he had to admit defeat.

I think it’s time to use the torch, he whispered.

Thank goodness, Micah said. I’m not ashamed to admit, I’m freaking out here.

He switched the torch on and swept it around the corridor. Alex squinted, waiting for his eyes to adjust, and then opened the door. When nothing burst through it, he walked in.

Furniture was strewn about the room, chairs and tables overturned, a sofa tipped onto its front. The glass in the double doors on the far side of the room was shattered, covering the surrounding floor and making it sparkle in the torchlight. Alex spotted what looked very much like bullet holes in the walls.

Lying near the centre of the room was a body. It was James Lofton, the security guard at the underground government laboratory.

Despite only knowing him for a few days, Alex felt sad at his death. He was good company, something Alex had found out during the two days he’d spent in the lab waiting anxiously for Micah to regain consciousness after being bitten.

So unless they’ve learned how to fire a weapon, this wasn’t eaters, Micah said, crouching beside the body and shining the torch on the three closely grouped, bloody bullet holes in his chest. Do you think someone from outside tried to steal their supplies and Jim tried to stop them?

How many members of the general public know how to use a gun? Not to mention well enough to shoot an armed man with that degree of accuracy. Alex turned away from Jim and scanned the rest of the room. To his relief, there were no more bodies amongst the mess. Let’s get to the generator.

They crunched their way over the broken glass around the double doors into another corridor. The walls here on both sides were glazed from waist height up and Micah shined the torch into the labs beyond. But other than a couple more shattered windows, they appeared unaffected.

After traversing two identical corridors, they reached the double security doors leading into the Omnav-run section of the facility, where the corporation responsible for the nefarious part of the lab had developed the new strain of Meir’s Disease to turn the virus into a weapon and eaters into soldiers. The doors were closed, unlike the first time Alex and Micah had come here. Alex wasn’t sure what they would do if they were locked, but when he pushed the handle down, it opened.

Micah shone the torch along the corridor ahead of them, illuminating nothing. They continued in, letting the door close behind them. The atmosphere seemed thicker here, cloying. Alex detected the unmistakeable smell of eater, but he knew the cells where the scientists kept the unfortunate subjects of their experiments weren’t far. He hoped that was all it was.

Is it my imagination, or is this beam getting duller? Micah said, using the universal torch repair technique of smacking his hand against the rubber casing.

Alex glanced at the torch. No, I don’t think...

The torch went out.

Thick darkness engulfed them.

You were saying? Micah said.

Alex heard the torch switch being flipped off and on a few times, then a hand slapping against the casing again. They remained in the dark.

The blackness was so complete it was almost solid. Alex stared into the void, hoping his eyes would adjust, that he’d be able to see something. Anything. But with no light whatsoever, he was as blind as any normal person.

Maybe we can find something in one of the labs, he said, lowering his voice again, turn a Bunsen burner on or something.

Yeah, okay, Micah said. I think this torch is dead and gone.

Alex reached out and encountered Micah’s arm. Give me your hand.

You want to hold hands? Now who’s afraid of the dark?

I just want to make sure we stick together.

Fine, but if the lights go on now and everyone is watching us, you can do the explaining.

He felt Micah’s hand grasp his. Embarrassingly, it did make him feel a little better.

Smooth, Alex said. Do you moisturise?

Feel free to not talk.

Alex tried to ignore his rising heart rate as he felt his way along the corridor with his free hand. They were fine. It was just darkness. He was a grown man with superhuman strength. He was not afraid of the dark. He wasn’t.

He reached an open doorway and walked blindly in, feeling his way along a workbench running along the wall. He stopped and let go of Micah’s hand.

Something was wrong.

Are you breathing? he whispered.

What kind of question is that? Micah whispered back. Of course I’m breathing.

Stop.

Stop breathing?

Just hold your breath for a few seconds so I can listen.

He heard Micah take a deep breath and hold it. He did the same.

Slightly raspy breathing remained.

In.

Out.

In.

Out.

Please tell me that’s you, Micah hissed.

Alex swallowed. It’s not me.

Across the room, a piece of furniture scraped on the floor.

Do you have those matches? Alex said, trying to keep the tremor from his voice.

He heard rustling, then the rattle of a matchbox. At the same time, he heard the sound of footsteps dragging on the tiled floor.

Micah, he hissed.

The footsteps were getting closer.

Micah!

A match flared into life, illuminating a small area around them. The vacant face of an eater burst into the light with a grating moan, lunging at them.

Before Alex could react, Micah yelled, raising the aerosol. The match became a flamethrower.

With a dull whoosh, the eater was engulfed in flames. It didn’t slow down at all.

Alex pushed Micah out of its way and dived to the side, hitting a cupboard before crashing to the floor.

The eater, now a walking inferno thanks to being drenched with whatever Micah had sprayed on it, turned to face him. He scrambled to his feet and backed away.

Kill it, Micah shouted.

Alex darted behind a table as the eater advanced on him. "How am I supposed to kill it? It’s on fire."

I don’t know. A gun would be really useful at this moment.

The eater attempted to walk through the table. It tried to open its mouth to moan, but its lips were melting together. So much heat was radiating from it that Alex wondered if he still had eyebrows. Sweat dripped down his forehead.

Pity I used up all our ammunition saving your arse.

The table inched across the floor as the eater reached its burning arms towards him. Bits of skin peeled off and dropped in little smouldering heaps onto the Formica. Alex backed up against a bench, coughing. The stench was overwhelming.

I just knew you’d never let that go, Micah said, picking up a chair and smashing it onto the eater’s back. It staggered around and lunged towards him.

With the eater distracted, Alex darted from behind the table, panting from the heat. Micah threw himself across the metal surface of one of the exam tables, scattering medical instruments in his wake, and dropped to the floor on the other side.

Alex grabbed one of the operating theatre spotlights. Off the floor it was unexpectedly top heavy and he was pulled to one side, off balance. The eater started to turn towards him again.

I miss my gun, Alex muttered, adjusting his grip on the spotlight.

Right now, I miss your gun too, Micah yelled, waving his arms to get the eater’s attention back on him.

Alex turned the stand round so the bulbous light was towards him. He ran at the eater and shoved the splayed base at its torso, driving it to the floor. Ignoring the searing heat, he lifted the light into the air and smashed it down with all his strength onto the eater’s head.

Finally, it went still.

Alex dropped the spotlight and backed up to the far end of the room, as far away from the eater conflagration as possible. He tried to ignore the pervading odour of charred flesh. Micah joined him.

I think we’ve learned something here, Alex said, wiping the sweat from his face, "and that is to never set an eater on fire."

A moan from the corridor drew their attention.

On the plus side, Micah said, looking out the window at another eater shuffling towards them, we now have a source of light.

I’ve got it.

Alex walked out into the hallway, pinned the eater against the window behind it with his foot, and stabbed his skull-spiker into its temple. It crumpled to the floor.

More moans emerged from the darkness further along the corridor.

Micah walked out to join him, pulling his long, black, Meir’s resistant gloves from his pocket and tugging them on. We need to kill them all before the eater goes out.

Alex stared in the direction of the sound. He was scared, and not because of the danger the eaters posed. What if it’s them?

We do what we have to.

Alex didn’t know if he could do what he had to if Hannah came down that corridor.

The first eater entered the flickering circle of light in the corridor cast by the still blazing corpse in the lab. To Alex’s relief, it wasn’t anyone he knew. Micah stepped forward and stabbed one of the two skull-spikers he carried into the man’s temple.

Over the next half a minute, six more eaters shuffled into the light. Alex and Micah dispatched them with a skill and efficiency garnered from years of training and a week of fighting for their lives as their city was overrun. Alex had hoped that he would get more than a few days respite from slaughtering ordinary men and women whose only crime was falling victim to a virus he himself had once contracted. But as Micah said, they did what they had to.

Standing side by side in the corridor, they waited for more eaters to appear.

Is that it? Micah said.

Alex shrugged, staring down at the bodies littering the floor in front of them. The choking stench of flambéed eater was making it difficult for even his enhanced olfactory senses to smell anything else, but he was getting something.

I think these are all the original Meir’s strain eaters, he said.

I thought there weren’t any of those left.

Alex stared into the blackness ahead of them, remembering their first visit here and the room of cells built to hold the eaters the Omnav-paid scientists used for their experiments. Only a few.

Micah followed his gaze. The ones they were experimenting on here. But didn’t you say they had both originals and new strain?

Alex nodded, still staring into the dark. The extent of their illumination was closing in as the flaming eater in the lab died down and, thanks to his enhanced night vision being hampered by the light, he couldn’t see much beyond it. Had he heard something?

Micah raised his spikers. Well come on, he shouted. We haven’t got all day.

The patch of light contracted further. Alex could now only see seven or eight feet in front of them.

Micah glanced at him. If this doesn’t happen soon we’re not...

They came all at once.

Six eaters, spanning the corridor side by side, more visible behind them. Silent.

As the cloying pheromone fragrance wafted into the air, they attacked.

While still relatively slow, their reflexes dulled by the disease that drove their hunger for human flesh, these eaters were far more coordinated than Alex was used to. He chose the biggest as his first target, aiming a kick at its knee and plunging the spiker into its head as it fell. The eater next to it grabbed his right arm, pulling it towards its mouth. He twisted from its grip and slammed a heavy kick into its stomach, sending it tumbling into two more behind it.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Micah take down two in quick succession then dance back from the grasping hands of a third. While he didn’t have Alex’s Survivor strength, he made up for it with speed and dexterity.

Two more eaters lunged at Alex, forcing him to back up to give him room to manoeuvre. Ignoring their hands grasping his jacket, he drove a spiker into both foreheads at the same time. Their grip loosened as they fell. The last eater on his side of the corridor tripped over their bodies and he bent to finish it off before it could get back up.

Micah was further along the hallway, backed against the wall, the remaining three eaters almost on him. Alex started in his direction, stopping when Micah leaped into the air and caught hold of one of the service pipes running along the ceiling above him. Swinging forwards, he drove each foot into the chests of two of his attackers, knocking them to the floor as he let go, twisted in midair and landed beyond them. Spinning round, he drove a spiker into the side of the head of the eater still standing before it could turn, then dropped to one knee and stabbed both eaters on the floor at once.

Alex’s jaw dropped.

Micah stood up and grinned. Who needs super strength?

Show off, Alex said, rolling his eyes to hide how impressed he was.

They waited for another minute for any stragglers. Alex searched the faces of those they had killed, but none looked familiar. That meant there was a chance Hannah, Carla, and the other doctors were alive.

There was still hope.

2

When no more eaters appeared, they returned to the lab where the fire was running out of eater to burn.

Alex cast a glance at the gruesome sight and looked away. Thanks to everything in the room being made of metal or plastic, the flames hadn’t spread. But they were losing light fast.

We need to find something that will burn, Micah said.

They spent a few minutes rummaging through cupboards and drawers before Micah exclaimed, Yes!

He pulled something from a drawer and tossed it to Alex. It was an LED torch on an elastic strap, no doubt used during whatever inhuman experiments the Omnav scientists performed on the eaters they brought here. Micah produced a second head torch and pulled the strap onto his head, pressing a button to turn it on. A powerful beam of light shone from the cluster of tiny bulbs.

That’s a relief, he said. I thought we were going to have to set fire to some more eaters.

Not if we have to feel our way around here in the pitch dark, Alex said, settling the torch on his forehead and switching it on.  

They made their way past the corpses and continued along the corridor. The torches were very effective, lighting up everything before them. Alex’s nerves uncurled from their hidey holes and pretended they’d been brave all along.

They followed the hallway round a corner to the left and came to the room where the eaters had been imprisoned. The door was closed.

Micah grasped the handle. Ready?

Alex nodded, raising his skull-spikers.

Micah opened the door and stepped back. After nothing happened, he ventured in, Alex following.

No eaters were loose. The cells were open, which wasn’t a surprise as they’d just killed all the former occupants, although why anyone would let them out, Alex had no idea. And they had undoubtedly been let out. No eater could have forced their way from the ultra strong and secure clear polycarbonate boxes, and there was no evidence of any of the multiple bolts on each door having been damaged. This had been done on purpose.

Alex?

He turned to Micah who was staring into the far corner of the room. Alex followed his gaze and his stomach dropped.

Oh, no, he whispered.

Phil Heaton was still in his cell, his pale, vacant eyes locked on them, white coat grubbier than it had been seven days ago. He’d been one of the Omnav scientists. His wife, MI5 agent Carla Heaton, was the first person Alex and Micah met when they came to the facility.

Beside Phil, Carla stared out at them. Her mouth opened in a hopeless, ravenous moan.

Alex walked up to the cell. How could this happen?

Micah bent to pick up a piece of paper lying on the ground by the cell door. He read it before handing it to Alex.

Dear Hannah, Pauline, Dave, Larry, and Jim,

I’m sorry, I can’t go on. Phil was my life. Before him all I had was my career, but when I met him I learned to live. We never had any children and without him I have nothing.

I appreciate everything you’ve done for me. I know that you will be fine without me and that you will fix all this. Phil once told me he’d never worked with anyone as talented as the group of scientists in this lab. I don’t know why he did what he did, why he was a part of the cause of this outbreak, but I know he must have had good reason. He was a loving, good man and a wonderful husband.

Don’t be sad, this is what I want. Please leave us to die together.

Yours,

Carla

Alex dropped the letter, closing his eyes. She did it on purpose.

He knew she was devastated to find her husband turned, but he’d had no idea that she was on the verge of doing something so drastic. Could he have done something to stop her?

She must have let him bite her, waited until she was close to turning, then locked herself in there with him, Micah said, indicating a bite wound visible on her hand. What should we do?

Alex looked at the couple standing side by side. Leave them, like she wanted.

Micah nodded and they left the room, closing the door behind them.

They were subdued as they made their way through the facility, not saying anything. No more eaters were roaming the corridors and it didn’t take them long to reach the room containing the boiler, backup generator and fuse boxes. When they got there, they discovered the electricity had simply been