Second Activation (The Activation Series Book 2) Read online

  Jack rolled over a Nissan, and I heard a loud pop as he reached the other side.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Nothing to worry about.”

  I rolled over the Nissan and saw groceries spilling out of the car’s passenger door. Jack had landed on a large bag of chips and it had burst open around his boots. I took the opportunity to stuff my pockets with chocolate and a small bottle of water.

  “Over there,” a voice called out.

  We both froze on our hands and knees in an oily puddle. I looked at Jack. “That came from in front of us. They’re covering both ends.”

  “We’re trapped,” Jack said and clutched the Ruger to his chest.

  He scrambled underneath an SUV and gave me a nervous look.

  I leaned toward him. “We’ve only got one option: the last place they’d ever suspect.”

  “I know. I was going to suggest it, but . . .”

  I dropped to my belly and crawled eastward, toward the pit.

  2

  We left the formation of vehicles and moved through a low hedge on the opposite side of the highway. The rain eased off as I crawled across a small grassy area toward the pit’s verge. Hundreds of bodies were stacked close to the brim. Thousands of flies buzzed an incessant drone. A rat, startled by our appearance, disappeared into a hole. Birds perched indifferently on corpses, sporadically pecking at the exposed rotting flesh. A large yellow mechanical backhoe was parked to the left. A pair of blue-and-white-checked golf trousers hung limply from the toothed bucket.

  The distant shouting from the road continued. Had they captured Lea? I’d heard no gunshots since she split, so that was at least one positive sign.

  Jack grabbed my arm. “Are we going in?”

  “We can’t stay here—they’ll spot us immediately. Just in the edge and cover ourselves with clothes. As soon as it’s dark . . .”

  I covered my nose with my sweater and tried to block my mind from the fact that human life had been treated beyond contempt, dumped like last week’s garbage and left to rot. I’d seen a mass grave during a tour of the Balkans and had nightmares about it, but never imagined I’d confront something on this scale. Genesis Alliance’s atrocities even put the Nazis to shame. They were truly evil and had to be stopped. Adrenaline pumped through my body as I braced to descend. I vowed to find a way to effectively fight back and make them pay.

  “There’s going to be some scores to settle after this,” Jack said.

  I knew he would be thinking along similar lines. Our fight for survival had transformed into a mission for justice and revenge.

  I dropped three feet, and my boots landed with a squelch on the back of a large man. I pushed up, aghast at the bouncy bloated feel and smell of him; maggots wriggled around a wound on his temple.

  Jack jumped down and retched after his hand went straight through the chest cavity of a lady. He lurched up but couldn’t stop himself from vomiting a little.

  He spat to his side and licked his lips. “This is bloody horrible.”

  “Just remember, it’s saving our lives. Let’s get covered up.”

  I reached toward a body wearing an unbuttoned, short-sleeved shirt and attempted to yank it off his green torso. As my elbow sank into his stomach, a gargle and hiss came from his innards and escaped from his neck and mouth. The noxious gas made me reflexively vomit. I thrust my head up in an attempt to breathe in fresh air.

  My mouth filled with watery saliva. I swallowed hard, trying not to breathe in through my nose. Remembering the water in my pocket, I fished it out, carefully unscrewed the lid, and took a few gulps. I passed the bottle to Jack, focused back on the shirt, and managed to rip it free.

  The shouting from the road sounded more distant, but we still couldn’t take any chances.

  Jack finished the water, cast the bottle to one side, and tugged at a purple blazer. He tried to force the arm of the garment over the owner’s swollen hand.

  “For God’s sake, get off,” he muttered.

  Jack gritted his teeth, pulled hard, and toppled backward as the blazer came free. He landed back on the exposed chest cavity. The corpse let out a strange yawning sound.

  “I’m desperate for dusk,” I said. “The place will be riddled with disease, and I’m not sure how much longer I can take.”

  “Me neither. How long till dark?”

  “Three or four hours. Get covered and keep still.”

  Jack pulled the blazer over his chest and face. I pushed my legs under a body and lay back, covering my head and arms with the mottled shirt. Conscious of my recently acquired wound, and the diseases that would be rife around me, I dragged my arm through my sleeve and protected it against my body.

  Our pursuers’ voices had faded to nothing over the last twenty minutes. The only noises I could hear were from in and around the pit: the constant hum of flies and a strange low crackling sound from the corpses as they slowly decayed while maggots, birds, and rats fed. Something scurried onto my chest. I punched it through the shirt, and it quickly fled.

  For an hour, I thought about New York and the possibilities of creating a force to take GA down. I hoped Morgan and his group had survived, which would instantly boost our numbers.

  Two animals approached the edge of the pit, both rapidly panting. I slowly raised the shirt and peeked through the gap. Two stray dogs surveyed the area. One of them spotted my movement, tilting its head and staring with curiosity. I slowly lowered the shirt and prayed that it wouldn’t bark. They hung around for a few minutes before scampering away.

  “I’ve been thinking about things,” Jack said.

  “What things?”

  “The flight, New York, and home. I can’t decide whether we were lucky or doomed for getting into all this. I’ve never told you, but I was kicked out of the Army for punching a major.”

  “Why are you telling me this? It hardly matters now.”

  Jack sighed. “It’s something I’ve wanted to get off my chest for a while. I don’t want you thinking—”

  “Why don’t you tell this lot? I’m sure they’re bothered.”

  Typical Jack. He’d never had a sense of timing. The incident probably weighed heavy on his mind, and he would have stewed over telling me. Lying in a pit of dead bodies, it was the least of my concerns. The major probably deserved it.

  He raised the blazer a few inches and looked at me. “I suppose you’re right. Our history is irrelevant now.”

  “Remember northern England, Jack. We’ve still got a glimmer of hope.”

  Jerry had told us during his interrogation in Montgomery that the activation had failed in northern England. Ron’s reaction had seemed to back it up, but I’d refused to let myself get carried away. Killers could easily spread from the southern end of the island, Scotland, and Wales. Besides that, our priority remained immediate survival.

  Jack gasped.

  “What’s up?” I asked.

  “I think a rat bit my finger. I’m going to move toward you. I can’t stop myself from sinking here.”

  I heard a moist crunching sound and a twiglike snap as he shuffled across. “Don’t even think about telling me what that was.”

  “Don’t worry. I’m not looking.”

  I reached out and patted him on the shoulder. “We’ll be all right. If we can get through this, we can get through anything they throw at us.”

  He grunted. “We’ll see.”

  For the next hour and a half, we lay in still silence. A Genesis Alliance goon could arrive at any time to scan the area. Signs of movement would be easy to spot. Corpses don’t scratch themselves, cough, or flinch if a bird lands on their head.

  Eventually, the light began to fade, and we still hadn’t experienced any live human contact.

  “What’s the plan?” Jack mumbled through the blazer.

  “I’m still tryin
g to decide. The way I see it, we’ve got three options. Option one: We go cross-country, away from Monroe, and pick up a vehicle on the southbound highway. Option two: If the coast is clear, we sneak back and get the rifle to give us a bit more protection, then either take the Toyota or revert to option one . . .”

  “And the third?”

  “We try and find Lea, but I—”

  “No way, Harry. I’ve already thought about that. She sneaked away from us, and we have no idea how to find her. A betting man would put money on her being in Monroe, dead or alive. You know she went back to find Martina. It’s too dangerous.”

  “I kind of agree. We don’t owe her our lives. I think that’s why she did what she did, to save us making a difficult decision.”

  “We could always come back for her with a small army.”

  “Do you want to go back there?”

  “No.”

  “What’s your preferred option?” I asked.

  I felt regret about leaving Lea behind, but she had made her own move and taken the decision out of our hands. The first mission had to be getting out of this stinking pit at nightfall; the second, to move away from danger and come up with a plan. The longer I spent in the place, the more rage bubbled inside me about Genesis Alliance and their actions. They were pushing me to prioritize revenge over survival.

  Jack peeled the blazer away from his face. “I say we recover the rifle, hunt a goon, and gather some intel. What do you reckon?”

  I thought about it for a moment. Although it initially seemed an unnecessary risk, we needed to know about the prospect of a second activation. “Give it another half an hour. We’ll crawl along the hedge and sneak through the cars again. If we can’t find a goon before midnight, we go.”

  “Two would be perfect. I’m stiff and cold. We could both use some dry clothes.”

  I fully removed the shirt from my face, and rain spattered against it. I used the last few minutes of the fading light to gain my night vision and check our immediate surroundings. Without seeing any danger signs, I sat up, stretched my limbs, and shivered before rubbing my arms and legs to get the circulation going. If GA had fanned around the perimeter of Monroe, they wouldn’t be expecting what we were planning.

  I rolled to the edge of the pit. “Leopard-crawling all the way unless the shit hits the fan.”

  The Army had taught me to lose my silhouette in the background and not to expose it to the skyline. We only had a short distance to travel, and I was conscious that we wouldn’t last long in a firefight.

  I balanced my boot on top of a human head, hoping for a solid platform to haul myself out of the mass grave. I thrust upward and my sole slipped on the hair below it. My boot slid down the face and twisted the jaw into an unnatural position with a crunch. I composed myself, stood on the side of the same face, and successfully hoisted myself out. I’d never felt happier to be lying on wet grass.

  Jack clambered out a couple of feet to my left. He raised a thumb and crawled toward the hedge. He wriggled through the gap, and I followed him through, back among the clutter of cars.

  He held the Ruger forward in his right hand. Rain tinkled off the vehicles, and a slight breeze created background noise as the trees rustled on our right. Under the cover of the wet darkness, we snaked through the tangle and cleared the mass obstacle within minutes.

  My clothes were soaked. The sweater seemed to be very efficient at absorbing moisture, but I was glad of anything that might dilute the stink of the pit that we had brought with us.

  Jack crouched behind a stray vehicle at the end of the mass and pointed his Ruger. “Over there. Can you see it?”

  I squinted into the dark and picked out the shape of our Toyota, still in its original position. We had fifty yards to cover. Other vehicles, indiscriminately parked at angles on the road, were clustered around it, most likely from a continuing cleanup operation.

  We edged closer, ducking between cars. I caught sight of a red glow in my peripheral vision and grabbed Jack’s arm.

  He spun to face me. “What is it?”

  I held up two fingers and pointed ahead. Jack looked toward eleven o’clock from his position. The glow illuminated at regular intervals from inside one of the vehicles close to the Toyota. We shuffled behind an SUV.

  “Somebody’s having a smoke in there,” Jack said.

  I peered over the SUV’s hood to confirm. “It must be one of them. Who else is gonna be out here tonight?”

  “Okay, let’s take it.”

  “Check it out first. If it’s one person, we jump straight in. If it’s full, we leave it.” I glanced over again but couldn’t see inside the dark, rain-covered windows. “If the doors are locked, make sure they don’t get a chance to pull a gun.”

  Jack held up the Ruger. “If the doors are locked, I’m not fucking about.”

  Dark shapes of single-story houses ran along the right side of the road. Perfect for sneaking—level with the car for a quick assault. “Right flanking maneuver. Take them from behind.”

  I ran for the closest property, trying to stay light on my feet. At the back, I climbed over a six-foot fence, landed in a neighboring property’s back garden, and clattered into a child’s swing.

  Jack passed me and slapped my shoulder. “We’ll be heading away in no time. I can’t wait to get those heaters on.”

  We crossed one more garden and passed through an open ornate iron gate at the side of the house. I crept to the front and glanced around the corner. Our route had taken us around the occupied car, now around thirty yards away.

  I waved Jack forward and he crept toward an Audi, halfway to our target. He stooped by the driver’s door and glanced over the hood.

  Cigarette smoke drifted over on the breeze. The occupant took another drag, illuminating the interior. At this range, it looked like only one person in the car, unless they had a partner having a nap on the back seat.

  I moved across to Jack and crouched. “Go for it. They don’t exactly look vigilant to me.”

  “You go to the driver’s side; I’ll take the other.”

  He darted across the road and crouched by the rear of the vehicle. I edged toward the driver’s door. Ten yards away, an arm flopped out of the window, cupping a cigarette from the rain, and tapped ash to the ground.

  Before the smoker could react, I sprinted to the open window and thrust my arms through it, wrapping my hands around the driver’s mouth and windpipe. Jack ripped open the passenger door and held his pistol to the side of the driver’s head.

  Two small hands grabbed my left arm and weakly struggled. This person smelled far too sweet to be a man; smoke aside, the long flowing hair and small shoulders were also a giveaway. Her wide eyes shot from side to side, and she tried to suck in through my hand and blew hard out of her nose.

  Jack leaned to her right ear. “Scream and I’ll shoot.”

  The woman rapidly shook her head and tried to say something.

  He pulled an AR-15 from between the two front seats with his left hand. “We’ll be taking this.”

  “Are there any other people close by?” I asked.

  The woman shook her head and blinked several times.

  “Are you sure?”

  She nodded rapidly and tried to say something. My hand stifled her response.

  “We only want to talk; we’re not here to kill you,” Jack said.

  She nodded again, tears, snot, and saliva moistening my hand. I loosened my grip around her throat. “Pass me the Ruger, Jack.”

  He sat in the passenger seat and closed the door. I opened up the driver’s side, leaned over, and grabbed it from his outstretched hand.

  I looked into the woman’s eyes. “I’m letting go of your mouth. Shuffle across.”

  She edged between the two seats and balanced in the middle. I wedged myself in, squeezed the door shut, and raised t
he electric window. I wasn’t a fan of cars that stank of stale smoke, but like most of my previous minor irritations, I didn’t care anymore, and it was preferable to where we’d spent our last few hours.

  “I won’t say a word—take the rifle. Please don’t kill me,” she stuttered and wiped her mouth. No doubt to rid herself of the foul taste of death on my hands.

  “What are you doing out here?” Jack said.

  “Watching our southern flank . . . The radio on the dash—I’m supposed to use it if I see anything.”

  She wore a black jumpsuit, spoke with a southern drawl, had short sandy hair in a side parting, and looked around thirty years old.

  “They sent you out on your own?” I asked. “What time’s your change of shift?”

  She wiped tears from her eyes and sniffed. “I’m supposed to do a radio check every ten minutes. I’m here for another hour.”

  “Radio who—Jerry and Anthony?” Jack snapped.

  “They’re as much of a threat to me as you are . . .”

  Jack frowned. “Why are they a threat to you? Do you know how many GA are looking for us?”

  She pulled a folded piece of paper towel from her pocket and blew her nose. “They’re both psychos. I’m not sure how many of the local team are here—maybe forty.”

  “Were you outside Ron’s house today?” I asked.

  “I wasn’t, but Brett was; he’s on the other end of the radio. We won’t say anything.”

  “It doesn’t matter what you say,” Jack replied. “We’ve seen what you’ve done.”

  She shuddered and reached for a packet of cigarettes perched in a cupholder. “I’m not like those guys. We’re all from the Technology Department—not the local one. Let me call in Brett. He’ll tell you.”

  “No, you’re not calling anyone or lighting a smoke,” Jack said.

  “Not local? Technology Department? What are you talking about?” I said.

  “It’s all gone to shit here. The local team is late with the processing. We want to make sure we’re not tied to it all.”

  “You’re not making any sense. C’mon, we need more than that . . .” Jack said.