King of the Natives: Book 3

Reign of the Natives

King of the Natives Book Three

Copyright © Clayton Black 2016

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means - electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise - without the prior permission of the owner. You must not circulate this book without the authority to do so.

All of the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is purely accidental.

British English is employed throughout.

Cover design by Sophie Major

http://sophiemajor.co.uk/

Recap

I managed to find a pen and paper. Thought it best to briefly jot down a report, then at least people will know what happened if we die.

Kade had us imprisoned, the greasy fried. But he would turn out alright. He helped us to escape what was left of the Leconfield RAF base when it came under attack from the original Joseph and his ravening horde of natives. He told us the coordinates of a safe place. That was the only hope we had.

It was a pretty close call escaping the base, Joseph was after us and he was determined to stop us, no matter the cost to himself. He chased us out of the base, we were in a truck, and he caused it to crash – but not before I filled him full of bullets.

With Joseph dead and the truck useless, we had to travel on foot. We were joined by Charlie and Bert, who had hitched a ride out of the base. There was another man too, but he chose to end it. Phil, I think he was called.

Despite the place crawling with natives, we managed to walk to Beverley where we found an old office building to take shelter.

The next day Holmes went out alone to recon the area. It was a bad idea, but Holmes was Holmes. When she didn’t return, I went looking for her, leaving Charlie, Bert and Em instructions to leave and find the place Kade had mentioned if we didn’t return by mid-afternoon.

Holmes had been observing a ruckus in the street. Some shoddily armoured women had been harassing people from a local stronghold. The women managed to ambush us and Holmes was abducted in the ensuing struggle.

Mia, one of the townsfolk from the stronghold, helped me track the ‘pigs’ down and I managed to rescue Holmes. From there, the two of us used the living woman – the other I’d killed – to find her camp. Crazy fried Soames had been abducting women for his breeding programme – we had to put an end to his macabre game, but we were outnumbered and outgunned and taken to their glorious leader, who decided to feed us to his pet children.

Finding ourselves in an underground warren of tunnels that were infested with ‘underlings’, we desperately fought our way out. Once we were safe, we decided we couldn’t let the place survive so we burnt the breeding house down. An original showed its face. We had no idea why the giant was there. We ran.

Because of our ordeal, when we eventually returned to our shelter in the town centre, Charlie, Em and Bert were gone. I wanted to rush after them to make sure they were safe, but there was the townsfolk to consider. First thing in the morning we found the stronghold to warn them of the giant and the hordes we’d encountered in the area. The plan was to warn them and then quickly leave to find Em. However, the place came under attack. The original we’d seen at Soames’s macabre lair had brought thousands of his little buddies to attack the stronghold.

Waves of natives pounded the gates. It was hopeless trying to fight them off. After a while they broke through and me, Holmes, Mia and some of the settlers managed to scramble to safety. Many weren’t so lucky.

Once the townsfolk were relatively safe, me and Holmes continued our journey to find Em, Charlie and Bert, and hopefully find a place of safety ourselves. However, that dream was shit on when we reached the place indicated by the coordinates and armed men surrounded us.

The soldiers swarmed around us, leaving us little room to manoeuvre, their guns throwing the prospect of a quick end our way. The threat tore through the fury roasting in my veins and all I could do was growl in frustration. Holmes grabbed my arm and I could tell by her incredulous expression she thought I might unleash a volley of fists. I was calm despite my anger and wet and cold, and wanted to see Em again, so I lowered my knife and Holmes put her gun down on the grass too.

The wind washed my face in a fine rain.

‘Hands on heads, stand still,’ a soldier shouted.

We complied and the soldiers searched us and ripped off our bags.

Once our hands were tied behind our backs, we were led through the long vegetation to the entrance of the subterranean lair. Through a rectangle cut into the earth, we descended down a rusty metal staircase, the thud of everyone’s boots concealing any other noises that might have been hunted down in the dimly lit corridor and provided clues to the nature of the base we were entering.

After we hit the flat walkway, we were shunted forward past guards and through corridors, the blink of CCTV cameras following our journey, until we were coerced into a brightly lit room, where we were left alone to stare at warped reflections in the off-white walls.

The floors were iced with dirt.

‘They took all my knives,’ Holmes said.

‘I’m not looking for a fight.’

‘Good, I’m exhausted.’

Through a hidden door cut neatly into the wall, figures suited in marked and scuffed biohazard gear transpired and surrounded us. The visor on one suit was cracked.

They touched panels in the walls and extracted restraints, which they clamped to mine and Holmes’s arms and feet, before tearing our clothes off.

‘Don’t you dare turn your head,’ Holmes said amid the clamour of activity.

‘My imagination works just fine.’

With no respect, they yanked and scraped and peeled and chiselled the rags off my body, and then disengaged my boots, which slurped off my feet. Holmes knew it was futile to resist too, and we were left naked and vulnerable, before the people withdrew hoses out of the walls and sprayed us with yellow water, eliciting a few coarse words from the both of us.

Cold and resigned, I tried to calm my shuddering jaws and asked about Em’s whereabouts, and whether the mysterious figures knew anything about Bert and Charlie. They all remained silent and barely looked my way as they tidied up the equipment and then slipped out of the room without a sound.

Holmes’s head hung between her arms and she panted.

I tested the restraints. They wouldn’t budge. Brown rust marked my arms where the restraints were.

We were left in that state for about ten minutes before another team of people entered the room and removed the shackles, keeping their distance while their armed escorts studied us carefully.

I rubbed my wrists and then used my hands to cover my glory.

‘Put these on,’ one of the people said, and we were thrown a pair of grey trousers and a grubby T-shirt each. We complied, turning to face away from everyone and trying to slip on the clothes in the most dignified way possible.

‘I just want to see Em,’ I said, throwing myself forward and bunching my fists. I was met by the mouth of a gun.

‘Back off grounder,’ one of the soldiers snorted. I couldn’t see his face, it was covered by the same design of mask that all of them wore.

‘Put these on and we’ll be on our way.’

We were tossed a couple of pairs of mouldy slippers.

‘What is this place?’ Holmes asked.

‘You’ll get answers.’

I glanced at Holmes and showed my irritation. She hooked an eyebrow at me, indifferently, and I huffed and did as I was told, not wanting to land myself in trouble and lengthen the wait for answers.

The guards were gentler this time and allowed us to follow the team of doctors or health workers or butlers without any pokes or prods in the back.

Once outside the room, the gloom was oppressive, and we marched deeper into the warren, passing more and more people, some of whom appeared fried, while others supported a more human façade. They were all ugly and grimy and smelly, in fact the whole place stank, especially now I’d been industrially cleaned.

‘You’ll reside here for now,’ a woman said, unlocking a door. ‘Malik will be with you shortly.’

‘I just want to see Em,’ I said.

‘If you want I could give you something to send you to sleep?’ The woman said, her voice flat and robotic through the mask.

I turned away and let her lock the door.

We glumly looked around the small space. There were two unkempt beds and an en suite bathroom that was held together by fungi and limescale. The walls were sheets of metal painted white. Rust bubbled through the paint.

‘I’ve stayed in worse,’ I said.

‘I don’t want to sleep. Afraid I’ll wake up an experiment.’

‘They want you scared. Don’t worry, in a day tops we’ll be strutting out of here with Em and the gang.’

‘Fuck,’ she said and kicked one of the beds, ‘I hate being underground. Don’t give me shit about escaping, I know you think very highly of yourself but we’re going to die.’

‘Aren’t people meant to get really horny if they think it’s game over?’

She struck me with a grimace and flopped on to one of the beds. ‘Please don’t talk to me for a while.’

‘I’ll have a shit then,’ I replied and walked into the bathroom.

An hour must have passed and we were laid on the lumpy beds trying to relax when the door opened and three soldiers trundled into the room and told us to follow them. Groggy and wary, we left the cell and walked down another gloomy corridor that skirted around a large central room, which we peered into through the small windows with a fear-stoked curiosity. I thought it was a laboratory.

The air was cool and damp and I could feel myself start to shiver under the thin clothes.

At the end of the passage, we slipped through a reinforced door that was locked behind us and then told to wait outside a door that was one of many that furnished the walls.

One of the guards disappeared and came back with an order: ‘They’re ready for you.’

Tentatively, me and Holmes rose and glanced at each other. I grabbed the door handle and pushed, ready for any grotesquery to greet me. However, we were confronted by two people, a man and a woman, both of whom appeared relaxed and pleasant.

‘Malik,’ said the man, ‘this is Aisha. Please have a seat.’

Malik was warm, his skin glistened and his breathing was fast and shallow. A grey, scraggly beard fell from his old chin, and wrinkles decorated his forehead and eyes. Aisha could have been younger, perhaps by a decade, and her lips were sore and cracked, along with the skin on her fingers. She wore a head scarf, its vibrant colours contrasting violently with her pale complexion.

‘Where’s Em?’ I asked.

Aisha began nibbling on a finger, and in between bites she said: ‘Safe. You’re here because we need your help. And you need our help.’

‘We don’t need your help.’ Holmes said.

‘You do. More than you can imagine. Those aberrations need destroying.’

‘You mean those big guys?’ I asked, clenching my eyebrows and watching them both closely.

‘What a euphemism,’ Aisha continued, ‘murderous beasts, retched vile monstrosities.’

‘I’m not disagreeing - how do we help you?’ Holmes asked, spreading her arms wide.

‘It might be best to start from the beginning,’ Malik said.

‘It’s too late for deception and lies,’ Aisha added.

‘The truth will have to do,’ Malik replied.

Their generosity was unsettling. It could have been because they were desperate or manipulative. I had no way of knowing.

‘What you’re about to hear is unknown to mankind proper, the grounders,’ Malik continued. ‘We had no resources for large-scale expeditions, and because mankind was broken, we weren’t sure whether we could even find the right people. We needed to contact the individuals in charge, otherwise there was no point – and that’s why you are important, because we know you can contact them. I will come back to that point later.

We aren’t innocent and we aren’t evil. Our research started decades ago; the goal, to find a cure for ageing. We were, are, an organisation of entrepreneurs, business leaders, politicians, and wealthy men and women who aspire to live forever. And why not? It is human nature to want to bend and break nature’s will.

After engaging the services of the world’s best scientists we were delivered little success for years and we grew impatient. But one virus showed promise. So much in fact we decided to begin testing on animals. The results were mixed, it was difficult to tell whether the virus had the desired effect straight away, so we tried to speed up the animals’ growth by tweaking their genes, again not an easy process, but we succeeded. With the virus and the gene therapy combined, we began testing on human tissue grown in the lab. Disaster. Not only did it have the opposite effect, but the virus worked in a different way and nobody knew why. Another year of research ensued and a few of our investors pulled out of the project. People expected immediate results. And it made us rush when we should have