Page 2 of King of Lies (Mayhem Manuscripts Season One: 1nf3ction #6)

August

They followed me out into the cold and dark of night. They always did. For some, it was simple curiosity, the desire to uncover what the stranger in their midst was up to, why he lingered on the edge of their lives.

For others, it was something purer and more desperate that had them trailing in my wake: hope. I loved every one of them. They were my audience, the people this entire demonstration was meant for.

The rain had turned relentless now. Blood-red rain, my choice of a white shirt deliberate so it would stain and no one could deny it being the type that carried infection.

I stood at the edge of the wooden parapet that clung to the side of the building, while my followers remained huddled beneath the shelter. Their faces flickered to life with each fork of lightning. Good. A proper storm. Call me a drama queen, but I always had a soft spot for theatrics.

I stood in silence, letting the tension build until it was almost as oppressive as the storm overhead.

I waited until it was almost unbearable, mere seconds from someone telling me to get on with it.

Only then did I speak, my speech a practised one, tweaked and perfected until I could recite it in my sleep.

“You’re probably wondering why I’ve dragged you all out here when you’d much rather be inside?

” I left a space for the nods. “I’ve spoken to some of you over the last few days.

” No lie there. I’d spoken to as many people as I could.

Whoever first coined the phrase that knowledge is power hadn’t been lying.

Thunder cracked overhead, and I waited, not wanting any of my words to be lost. “Like many of you, I’ve felt this storm coming. Like we feel every red rainstorm coming. An ache in our bones we can’t soothe. An itch we can’t scratch. A thirst no drink can quench.”

A couple of people detached themselves from the back of the group and went back inside the bar.

Immunes, who’d decided that none of this concerned them.

Fine. They weren’t my target. “We cower from the rain, don’t we?

” More nods, these more enthusiastic. “We’re scared of the effect it has on us.

Terrified that each drenching might prove our last. The one that leads to full infection.

We’re always one step away from becoming mindless monsters who crave the taste of flesh. Am I right?”

A shuffling of feet on the wooden boards. Nobody liked it when I reminded them how thin the line was between who they were now… and what they might become. They liked to pretend they were safe behind their walls. That nothing and no one could touch them.

I stuck my hand out, my fingertips mere millimeters from the rain.

When the thrust of my hand coincided with another brilliant fork of lightning streaking across the sky, I rejoiced.

I couldn’t have timed it any more perfectly if I’d tried.

Even the weather was on my side tonight.

“Well, I… Tobias Breeze.” I’d almost said Florian McKenna, but that had been last week.

Or maybe the week before. It was hard to keep track.

Concentrate, August. You’ve waited days for this.

Don’t fuck it up. I cleared my throat, buying myself a few seconds of time to collect myself.

“I, Tobias Breeze, have come here to share fantastic news with you. News, I couldn’t in all conscience keep to myself any longer when a man has to sleep at night. ”

I pulled the autoinjector pen from my pocket and held it aloft, my other hand still hovering close to the rain.

Not quite touching, but close enough to keep the audience on edge.

“All those things that happen to you in the rain. The anger. The lust. The gluttony. That terrible feeling of no longer being the one in control. We’ve all felt that, right?

” More nods. “What I bring you today is a solution.”

“And what’s that?” asked a man with a thin black pencil moustache reminiscent of having a caterpillar stuck to his top lip.

“A suppressant.” I gave the pen a little waggle. “An injection that nullifies the effects of the rain. Not only that, but it prevents infection reaching a point where you might turn.”

I left another pause as people turned to each other, and muttered conversations started up. A heavyset woman crossed her arms over her ample chest and stared me down. “And where has this suppressant supposedly come from? We’d have heard if someone had come up with something like that.”

“Right,” the woman next to her agreed.

“Do you really believe that?” I allowed the merest hint of a laugh in my voice.

Not enough to be condescending, but enough to broadcast how ridiculous I found the idea.

“Remind me. What do the history books say about the start of the apocalypse? Do they tell a story of the people responsible for testing the biological agent readily holding their hands up and confessing to their part in creating this abomination, or is it a story of denial until they were tripping over their own lies and found culpable? Because I know what the ones I’ve read say.

And that story hasn’t changed in seventy-six years.

Is it really so difficult to believe, given the evidence, that laboratories wouldn’t be forthcoming, that they’d keep secrets from you? ”

“He has a point,” a pretty young woman with blue eyes and curly blonde hair commented. “I certainly wouldn’t trust them.”

I held the pen out in front of me, letting them get a good look at it. “They want to charge you the earth for this.”

A man at the front with more bald patch than hair cocked his head to one side. “And how did you come by it?”

“I worked at the laboratory.” I stood up straighter and stuck my chin out. “And I’m not ashamed to admit that I stole them. I couldn’t live with the injustice happening right under my nose any longer. Do you know what they were planning to do with the batch I stole?”

A collective shake of heads. Some of the audience shuffled closer, eager to hear what I had to say. “They were being sent to other countries. Made here and sent elsewhere. Can you believe that?”

A few muttered comments said they could believe that, the majority quickly coming round to my way of thinking.

“I don’t expect you to trust me,” I said. “Not when I’m a stranger to all of you. That’s why I waited until the rain came, so I could give you a demonstration.”

I took a step back, my foot hanging over the edge of the parapet.

“Don’t,” a kindly old woman said, her hand reaching out to pull me back.

“It’s okay,” I said, offering her a smile. “Because I have this. Just think of it as a little piece of liquid magic.”

A man stepped forward, his eyebrows the kind of bushy that could only come with many years of growth and zero grooming.

I almost wanted to applaud them. He had a knife tucked in his belt.

Concentrate, August. “If you turn,” he said without even a hint of friendliness, “we will put you down. Have no doubt about that.”

I doffed a pretend hat in his direction and dipped forward in an ostentatious bow.

“And I would expect no less, good sir. And for that, you have my eternal gratitude.” I pressed a hand to my chest. “It warms my heart to know that should things go disastrously wrong, you wouldn’t hesitate to save me from a fate worse than death. ”

The slight furrow of his brow said it hadn’t been the reaction he’d been expecting.

Before he could comment, I stepped off the parapet and into the rain, a collective gasp going up.

I backed off a few steps to place myself firmly in the shaft of moonlight that penetrated the otherwise dark courtyard.

Who needed a stage and a spotlight? If you were creative enough, you could make your own.

But then that was the problem with most people in this world; they couldn’t see beyond the ends of their noses.

They let themselves get too caught up in the daily grind of survival.

The rain tinged my shirt pink, making it sodden within seconds, and plastered my hair to my skull.

I lowered my gaze and stared into the puddle, letting waves of emotion wash over me.

Anger. Hunger. Lust. Just as I’d talked about.

The only sounds in the courtyard were the steady drip, drip, drip of the rain and the occasional crack of thunder, my audience too enraptured to move.

I let the time stretch, tension stealing over them once more.

When I finally lifted my head, the front row moved back, their instinctive reaction to put space between them and the furious countenance they were witnessing.

I glowered at them, letting hate pour out of my eyes.

My shoulders were tense, and my hands were curled into fists.

“Watch this,” I shouted to make myself heard over the rain. I lowered the autoinjector to my thigh and pressed the trigger. “It takes a couple of minutes to work.” I tipped my head back and let the rain stream over me as I silently counted the seconds, timing my breaths with each one.

When I opened my eyes, I was back to being the man who’d stepped into the rain.

Albeit a much wetter and colder version.

I held my arms up—no lightning this time, more’s the pity—and carried out a slow three hundred and sixty degree turn.

I didn’t speak again until I faced them.

“The effects are gone,” I shouted. “I could stay out here all day.”

A man surged forward, making sure to keep his hands out of the rain as they fastened on the railing. “How much? You said the laboratory wanted us to pay the earth for them. How much are you charging?”

My answer came without hesitation. “What can you spare?”