The Cure, стр. 21

‘Is this what we’re fighting for?’ Zack held his hands up. ‘For monsters?’

Logan looked taken aback as if in that moment everything he thought they were doing had been a mistake and in those few seconds of pausing the others saw it too.

‘We don’t know that they are all like this,’ Tallulah came to his rescue. ‘In fact, the intelligence that we have back at the base would all but confirm otherwise. We’ve heard the stories sure, and there is no smoke without fire, but for all we know he could have been living out here in the wilderness by himself for days, maybe weeks or months. Imagine what that does to a person’s mind, without food or water.’ She looked down at Brad. ‘If we give up now then he died for nothing. If we go on and we all die then at least we died, like Brad, trying to do something good in this world. I’m going on and you can either follow me and finish what we started, or you can turn back and admit that you will never ever be in control of your life.’

‘I’m with you girl,’ Chuck bawled at Tallulah.

‘Thank you,’ Logan mouthed towards Tallulah. ‘Let’s bury our friend.’

***************

When Danny awoke, he was disorientated, and the night was drawing in around him. He pulled himself up against the motorcycle and squinting tried to put together the pieces of what happened before he passed out. His mouth was dry and sandy but as he went to put his water bottle to his mouth he instinctively stopped and instead of drinking he put the canteen to his nose and sniffed the liquid. The last thing he remembered was taking a swig of water and not long after passing out. The water didn’t smell out of the ordinary, but that wasn’t to say there was nothing wrong with it. Instead he took a half full bottle of Coca-Cola out of his jacket pocket on his bike and swilled the warm coke around in his mouth, spitting it out and then necking back the remainder of the bottle. His paranoia was kicking in and as he could think of no good reason why he would have passed out he had every right to be paranoid.

Danny looked at his watch to see how far behind schedule he was and clacked his tongue against the roof of his mouth in disapproval. ‘Never mind,’ he said out loud to himself. His part of the plan meant he had a bit of time on his side, but he needed to be in place when the call came, so he jumped to his feet and back onto his motorbike. The walkie talkie was tucked in the front of the bike and he pulled it out of its holder and turned it on.

‘Logan. Come in Logan, over.’ The radio crackled static.

‘Logan. Come in Logan, over.’ Nothing.

He wiped the sweat from his forehead and listened to the walkie talkie. Other than the crackling he could hear a buzzing, but it didn’t seem to be coming from the radio. A bird perhaps? He switched the walkie talkie back off and looked around. It was feint but he heard something in the distance that spooked him. He switched the walkie talkie back on.

‘Logan. Come in Logan, over.’ Silence.

He slumped over the handlebars dejected, when the radio feedback almost made him fall backwards off the bike. ‘This is Logan. Danny, are you there? Over.’

‘Thank God Logan. I thought this goddamn radio was busted. Are you ok? Over.’

‘We’re a bit busted up ourselves brother, but we’re still here, over.’

‘Are you at the city yet? Over.’

‘Not yet. We’ve had some transport issues. In that it blew up, over.’

‘Jeez! Is everyone ok, over?’

‘Brad didn’t make it man. Long story, but he’s dead. You ok?’ Logan let it hang in the air to give Danny a moment to take in what he just said ‘over.’ The radio went quiet.

‘You give him a good send off?’ Danny replied ‘over.’

‘Best we could. You not at the reservoir yet, over?’

‘Had a few issues of my own but getting back on track. Heading back on the road now, over.’

Danny heard the sound again, buzzing behind him, like the sound of another motorcycle but a good thirty miles away but carrying in the emptiness of the vast wasteland.

‘We’re going to get a couple of hours rest and then get back on it. Hope to be in the city by tomorrow at eleven hundred hours and head for the prison, over.’

‘Got a plan to get in there yet? Over,’ said Danny.

‘Swing and a prayer Brother, over.’ Danny felt Logan’s smile through the airwaves.

‘Look man, I got to get on the road. I’ve got a bad feeling that I’m not going to be alone for too much longer. I’ll be in touch tomorrow before you hit the city, over.’

‘Take care Danny. Be careful. Some of those horror stories you heard aren’t just stories, over.’

‘They never are buddy, they never are, over and out.’

Danny put the walkie talkie back into its holder, switched his headlight on and turned the key on the bike. He took one last look behind him and put his foot down on the gas.

***************

Back on the base the war room was full of governors and board members stood around talking frantically trying to get an update on what had happened. They had been called there because of an incident which involved two of the soldiers guarding the base being drugged. That was the limit of their knowledge and, as yet, they were unaware that the group led by Logan were missing.

The President pushed through the door flanked by Goldsmith and followed by Wanikiy. He looked flustered and stood behind his chair at