dEaDINBURGH: Origins (Din Eidyn Corpus Book 3) (11 page)

Chapter 7

The volunteers traipse with heavy feet into the Kirk. All are silent, all are different people from the ones who had left minutes before.

The other survivors inside the Kirk look on anxiously as we file through into the main chamber. It’s clear from their expressions that they’re shocked at how few of us have returned. Some people begin to cry as it dawns on them that this is it; that there’s no more to come, aside from Spike and James. For such a large crowd of people the silence is penetrating, broken only by the shuffling of feet. Remaining volunteers move numbly towards their family or friends and accept their embraces. There’s a lot of damage been done to these people here tonight. Some of them may spend years in therapy. Few will recover.

The thought brings back the look in Spike’s eyes as I left him and James. He’d never spared a tear or even a thought for those enemies he’d dispatched in the line of duty but was always cut deeply when innocents suffered or died. Spike had fought and campaigned publicly for years, demanding that drones only be deployed when the civilian death toll could be guaranteed to be zero. Not one death of non-military personnel. That was his goal. Our superiors had yet to comply.

Tonight’s
enemies
, comprising what were essentially sick people, must be taking a toll on him.

It’s barely been three hours since we left Bannerman’s and dawn is crawling over from the east. We haven’t slept in two days and my brain fog is beginning to overwhelm me. I notice our phones buzzing away on the pew where we left them and scoop mine up.

Connecting the caller, I press the receiver to my ear and brace myself for a torrent of abuse from Melville. Instead of a live call, a series of messages plays through. My scrambled brain picks through the main points.

Beta Location no longer secure.

Evacuation of Beta Location commenced.

Heavy losses.

Grounds overrun.

RFMs 1 and 2 airlifted.

RFMs 3 to 5, status unknown, presumed dead or infected.

Quarantine protocol initiated.

Proceed to Alpha Location.

Consider infected extremely dangerous.

Avoid contact if possible.

I hit replay and close my eyes as I listen to the messages again. Holyrood Palace is filled with the infected. The Queen and Phillip are in the air. Spike’s other family members, in the city for New Year, are presumably in the Palace. They’re most likely dead or infected. The military are setting a quarantine around the city. First stage is kill and contain. No mention of rescue missions. This tells me that they’re not confident that they can contain the infection and the violence.

If they fail to contain it, second stage is to eradicate. They haven’t given a timeline for extraction at Alpha Location, which could mean that they’re unsure of its status.

Fuck.

I slump to the floor and rest my head against the pew behind me. Running my options through, I painfully figure out how I’m going to tell Spike that almost his whole family are dead. As I decide to go with blunt honesty, Spike and James re-renter the Kirk. Both look in bad shape emotionally, but otherwise unharmed.

As soon as Spike sees me, his face falls.

“What’s happened?” he asks.

There’s no point in lying. “Holyrood Palace is down,” I say bluntly.

“Your gran and grampa are in the air. They’re safe.”

His eyes are trembling.

“What about the others?” he asks, voice trembling also.

I shake my head. “Presumed dead or infected. I’m sorry, Spike.”

His face undergoes a startling transformation, rebuilding itself from melted shock into steely determination.

“No. They’re still there. Still alive,” he says, matter of fact.

“Spike, the messages were pretty unambiguous,” I say.

He shrugs.

“You’ll see when we get there, Cameron. My family are still alive.”

His facial expression is determined, calm. He’s slipped into analytical-solider mode. But more, that part of him I rarely see, the authoritative Royal, the assured confidence that he knows something I don’t, has slipped into place.
 
It’s not really him, this arrogance, but his upbringing gets the better of him at times. Whether he goes alone or with his friends, Captain Wales will make his way to the palace.

I sigh and glance over at James who gives me a curt nod, confirming that he’s seen the change too and he’s in the same mindset as I am.

“Okay, Spike,” I say. “Let’s move out.”

As I say the words, the power goes out. Some people are poking at their smartphones, complaining that all signal has vanished. Somehow the loss of this basic, meaningless resource has frightened them more than anything else so far.

We leave the main hall and the people behind and begin to gather our equipment.

As I’m packing my things together, the kid, Jenny, approaches me and sticks out a blood-encrusted hand.

“Thank you for what you did for us,” she says.

I take her hand and shake it firmly.

“You’re welcome… Jenny, isn’t it?”

She nods.

“Jennifer Kinsella,” she says.

I find that for the moment I can’t take my eyes from hers. She’s a pretty girl, clever, and so courageous, but it isn’t that. It’s the way she’s looking at me. Like I’m abandoning them. Which I am.

“Jenny, I have a duty to get that man,” I nod over at Spike, “him there, to safety.”

She nods, but obviously resents that Spike’s needs are being placed before those of the survivors inside the Kirk.

“His family is there, Jenny. He’ll go with or without us. My duty is to keep him alive. It’s really that simple.”

She finally blinks, breaking the stare and nods once more, looking a little resigned but less betrayed.

“It’ll take the soldiers a few days to get through what’s happening out there. Quarantine will be their first priority, and after that they’ll begin planning rescues. You won’t be here long, Jenny, a few weeks at worst.”

Her bottom lip wobbles. “I… we’re not like you guys. We haven’t been trained. All we can do is hide in here and hope for someone to come for us.” Her face hardens. “I don’t like being… vulnerable.”

I laugh, despite the tenseness of the moment.

“You’re anything but vulnerable, kid. You fought like a pro out there and took control of your own fear as well as of those around you. Listen to the padre. Follow his lead and learn from him until you’re rescued. You’re all heart, Jenny. Stay strong and you’ll be fine.”

I lift my equipment, signalling my intention to leave.

“Don’t forget us,” she whispers.

I reach out and lay a hand on her right cheek. She looks uncomfortable but doesn’t protest.

“I promise that we’ll see each other again, Jennifer Kinsella.”

Slipping through the graveyard at the rear of the Kirk, we approach Dunbar’s Close and spend a few moments crouched in the darkness of its walls. The Royal Mile is a straight shot downhill to the Palace, but with its narrow roads and pavements, sloping surface and flanked by tightly-packed buildings, it has become a flume for the infected. Thousands of them, moving like a disjointed wave, flow along the thoroughfare. We peer out from the shadows, searching the passing faces, looking for signs of anything other than rabid hunger and death.

We see none. Each passing face bears the predator’s snarl.

Looking out and along The Royal Mile, our hearts sink as we begin to accept that the city is infested. My face stays set in its grim mask of purpose, mirroring Spike’s. James’ face is somewhere close to horror.

The Royal Mile, our preferred route, is no longer an option. Spike spits out a curse, attracting a few of the infected. Snapping their heads round to face us, two men and three women sprint at the entrance to the Close.

Having dispatched a small number of the infected in the back alleys and graveyard since leaving the Kirk, we’ve learned that stealth is our best option. They can hear well, their sight is good, but not sharper than that of living humans, and they’ve proven to have a good sense of smell. We’ve been moving through the back yards as though we’re hunters, when in reality we’re hunted, but the principles of evasion remain the same.
Move lightly, stay downwind. Don’t betray your position unless you wish to.

Taking the creatures head on isn’t tactically difficult. They’re badly co-ordinated and too single-focused to evade our blows, but they’re also tireless and seemingly have infinite numbers.

Evade and avoid is our best tactic. Spike slips back through the Close whilst James and I work together to dispatch the nearest of our attackers. Back-pedalling, we crash through the gates at the rear of the Close as Spike clangs it closed behind us. Smoothly, he slips the bolt into place and fastens a cable-tie around the gate and its moorings as the group of infected smash themselves into the iron barrier.

In moments, the narrow Close is filled with the infected. The sounds of bones popping begins almost immediately as the infected, desperate to satiate their endless, ancient hunger, make pulp of each other against the stone and iron.

We don’t waste any time watching or waiting for the fresh wave of infected that the clamour will attract, and take off at a half-run around the rear of the row of buildings.

The same density, the closeness of the buildings out on front of The Mile, keeps any infected from reaching the rear of the buildings, except through alleys like Dunbar’s Close. So long as we move quietly, there should be few of the infected on our replanned route through the gardens and graves between The Royal Mile and Calton Road.

With only a few infected to dispatch en route, we reach the last building and break our way quietly inside. The building, a gift shop closed for the holidays, is mercifully free of the infected. Crouched down low, we peer out onto the roundabout outside.

The higgledy-piggledy jigsaw shapes of the Scottish Parliament reflect the early morning redness of the winter sun, bouncing it back off the frosty paths and roads. The glare makes me cover my eyes with a salute-shaped hand. Some of the infected lose their footing and slip around on the icy surfaces, crashing hard to the stone. None show any signs of distress or pain. They simply pick themselves up and begin shambling once again.

I scan along to the Queen’s Gallery and to the open gates of Holyrood Palace. The Lt Colonel hadn’t exaggerated the state of the grounds. Perhaps five hundred snarling infected tear around the grounds of the Palace, half that many stagger and pace the streets outside. Gore and blood and body parts lay scattered like gruesome leftovers everywhere.

The landscape slopes down to our left, meaning we’d scored a lick of luck as the downward momentum had led most of the infected along Abbeyhill, away from the Palace entrance. That still leaves a battalion in the Palace grounds, but we know the grounds and are faster than the infected.