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The BIG Horror Pack 2

RAVAGE

SAVAGE

ANIMAL KINGDOM

THE PICTURE FRAME

2389

THE PEELING OMNIBUS

SLASHER

BOOK 1 OF 7

RAVAGE

By Iain Rob Wright

NEWS
REPORT: SEPTEMBER 29th 2012

Terrorist attack suspected
of killing up to 1500 people as commercial cruise liner, SPIRIT OF KIRKPATRICK,
sinks due to massive explosion.

Joint relief efforts are
underway today in the Mediterranean Sea by France, Italy, UK, and Egypt, as
they to attempt to salvage the ill-fated cruise liner, Spirit of Kirkpatrick.
No survivors have yet been identified and it is thought that an explosion
inside the engine compartment is what caused the 33,000 tonne vessel to sink
beneath the waves.

No terrorist groups have
yet come forward to claim responsibility for an attack, but owners of the
doomed cruise liner, Black Remedy Corporation, have claimed that, with the
stringent safety measures present on all of their public passenger ships, there
is no other possible cause for the disaster aside from an act of terrorism.

The company has previously
been targeted by eco-terrorists and religious groups because of its reputation
for operating unethically in the 3rd world, and for allegations of
corruption and sabotage. While the vast, multi-national corporation has made
great efforts in the last decade to conduct its affairs to a better moral
standard, it is thought that there may still be groups and individuals who wish
to target it.

NATO Secretary, General
Able Rasmussen, condemned the suspected suicide attack as ‘despicable.’

Part
One: Life

Chapter One

“The town is dead,” Paul
said, re-entering the phone shop with a bored shuffling of his feet.

Nick sighed as his gaze
fell upon the shopping centre’s vacant seating and deserted walkways. The Boots
megastore directly opposite – usually teeming with customers – was devoid of a
single shopper today. Its staff pottered around the shelves aimlessly.

Likewise, the small mobile
phone shop that Nick managed was deserted. It’d been two hours since the last
customer left. Each minute felt like hours.

He yawned, then said, “I
wonder why it’s so quiet. Are England playing football or something?”

Paul shrugged and shook
his bald head. “I’m Sikh. I only know when there’s cricket on.”

Nick chuckled but still
felt frustrated. With no customers, how could they possibly expect to meet the
day’s sales targets? He needed to earn his bonus this month to cover the deposit
he’d already paid on a new car. “All the other shops are just as quiet? You
checked?”

Paul fingered the edge of
his turban and nodded. “I spoke to Chris at Game Traders and he said they
haven’t had a customer since eleven. They’ve been playing Call of Duty in the
back.”

Nick rubbed at the dull
stubble on his chin and stifled another yawn. Slow days weren’t uncommon,
especially with the recession still in full swing, but this was one of the
worst footfalls he could remember.

Paul browsed the Internet
while Nick stood around with his hands in his pockets. “Check if something’s
going on today that we don’t know about,” he told his colleague. “Find me an
excuse to give the area manager later. An outbreak of plague would be ideal.”

“No problem, governor.”
Paul typed away with his gold-ringed fingers.

Just then, Chelsea,
another of Nick’s salespeople exited the back and came back onto the shop
floor. She looked at the empty shop floor and then gave Nick a look. “Maybe I
should have taken a longer break.”

“I know, I know. If it
stays like this much longer, I’ll probably send you home. No point the three of
us being here.”

No point even one of them
being there, at this rate.

Nick was about to go for a
break himself when, finally, a customer entered the store. “Hallelujah,”
he said under his breath.

“He’s mine,” said Chelsea.

“Go get him,” Nick said.
“We need to get a contract out of him or I’m screwed on the conference call
later.”

“No sweat!” Chelsea
flicked her long blonde hair over her shoulder and tottered forward on her
heels. She gave the customer her best smile, but the man didn’t seem to even
notice her.

“Hello, there,” Chelsea
said.

Instead of responding, the
man slumped against the central display where the live demo-phones were lined
up on a desk.

“Are you okay, sir?”
Chelsea asked the man, somewhat tersely. “What kind of phone are you using at
the moment?”

The man remained hunched
over as if he hadn’t heard her. He let out a low moan.

“I said, are you okay
there, mate? Can I help you?” Chelsea had become irritable.

Nick eased the girl aside
and took over. “Buddy, I’m afraid you can’t sleep it off here.”

The man still did not
respond.

Nick reached out to the
man, getting impatient. “You’ll have to go someplace else.”

The man shot upright like
an uncoiling spring. He turned to Nick with swollen, bloodshot eyes. A thin
strand of saliva hung pendulously from his lower lip.

Nick stumbled backwards.
“Wow! What’s wrong with you?”

The man swayed on his feet
and groaned unintelligibly. He seemed to concentrate for a moment and managed
to spit his words out slowly. “I…I’m not…feeling…well.” His voice was thick,
like he was speaking with a swollen tongue.

Paul gave Nick a queasy glance
before looking back at the man. “You look rough, mate. Hope it’s not catching.”

“I…I don’t think I can
make it…home. W-will you call my wife for me…please?”

Nick stared for a moment,
speechless. The stink coming off the man was foul, even worse than the sickly
sight of him. Nick managed to find his voice, though, and do the right thing.
“Yes, yes, of course,” he said. “Chelsea, will you grab my mobile, please?”

Chelsea hurried over to
the sales desk, then handed over Nick’s phone gingerly, keeping her distance
from the sickly man.

Nick held the phone up in
front of him and looked at the man. “What’s the number for your wife?”

The man’s eyes rolled to
the back of his head and it seemed like he was going to pass out. Eventually,
he managed to reply. “It’s…it’s – one moment. It’s 07…0798…07985…”

It took sixty seconds
before the man managed to give out the full phone number. When Nick dialled it,
a woman picked up immediately and asked who was calling.

“This is Nick Adams. I’m
calling from Touch Pad, one of the phone shops in town. I have your husband
here with me. I’m afraid he’s not feeling well. He needs someone to come and
collect him.”

Nick clutched the phone to
his ear while the woman informed him that she could be at the store in twenty
minutes. The thought of having to babysit the sick man wasn’t something he
relished, but what worried him more was that the man’s wife also sounded sick.

“Okay,” Nick uttered into
the phone. “See you soon.” He slid the phone into his pocket and smiled at his
sickly guest. “Your wife is on her way. She won’t be long. Perhaps you should
take a seat while you wait.”

“I’ll make the poor sod a
cuppa,” Paul said, already wandering towards the back. “Looks like he could use
one.”

Nick led the sick man over
to the carpeted sales area. As the man sat, Nick was forced to turn away as the
man’s humid body odour made his eyes water.

“Should I do anything?”
Chelsea asked, turning her head away and looking nauseous.

Nick waved a hand. “Just
go, Chelsea. Paul and I will be okay.”

Her shoulders loosened
with relief. “You sure, boss?”

“Yeah, I’ll see you when
you’re next in.”

Chelsea hurried to get her
things while Paul returned with three mugs of piping hot tea. He passed one to
their sickly guest. “Here ya go, fella. Drink up.”

“Thank you,” the man
replied weakly. He seemed a little better since sitting down, but still looked
decidedly unwell as he sipped from the promotional coffee mug that Samsung had
sent them. “I’m sorry to put you all out like this,” he said. “I just felt like
I was going to pass out. I just…I just headed into the nearest shop for help.
My name is George, by the way. Thank you for taking care of me.”

“So you’re not interested
in getting yourself a shiny new phone then?” Paul chuckled.

The man didn’t laugh.

“So, any idea what you’ve
come down with, George?” Nick pried, wondering if he should be covering his
mouth.

George shook his head,
spattering the desk with gobs of spittle. “I-I don’t know. I’ve been feeling
under the weather since yesterday morning – a lot of the lads on the lorries
have been feeling low. I work at a distribution warehouse. I started feeling
really bad this afternoon. I think I must have the flu or something.”

Nick smiled reassuringly.
“Probably just flu. Might be worth getting yourself down to see the doctor.”

“Soon as my wife picks me
up, I’ll be heading right there, don’t you worry.”

“Your wife sounded pretty
poorly, too,” Nick mentioned.

George nodded slowly. “She
has whatever I have, but she only started feeling ill this morning. Must
have caught it from me. I feel terribly guilty if she feels half as bad as I
do.”

Nick sipped his tea and
tried to ignore the smell of wet fart that was continuously drifting from the
other side of the table. “I hope you get well soon, George. Then you can come back
and buy a phone from Paul.”

Paul chuckled.

George slumped over the
desk, his head hitting the laminated wood with a thud!

Paul and Nick exchanged
worried glances.

Fifteen minutes later,
when George’s wife arrived, he was still face down on the sales desk, snoring
loudly. His wife tottered into the shop looking almost as bad as her husband
did. Her bloodshot eyes bulged the same way.

“Hi!” Nick greeted her,
but kept his distance.

“I’m here to take George
home,” she said, then sneezed three times in quick succession.

“He’s here.” Nick pointed
to the desk. “I think he’s napping.”

George’s wife staggered
forward, her steps uncoordinated and clumsy. Her husband managed to lift his
head as she approached, almost as if he sensed her. Perhaps it was a skill all
men adopted after enough years of matrimony.

Paul placed one of his
thick hands on George’s shoulder and shook him tenderly. “The missus will get
you to the doctors now, fella. You’ll be right as rain.”

Like a thrashing animal,
George snapped his teeth. Paul yelled out, pulling his hand free and clutching
it against his chest. He cursed in his native Punjabi. “Haram Jada!”

George looked frightened,
as if he had no idea what he’d just done. “I…I’m so sorry. I…”

“George!” cried his
wife. “What the bloody hell are you playing at?”

George looked tiny and
afraid. “I’m so sorry,” he gushed at Paul. “I don’t know what came over me.”

“No problem, fella,” said
Paul, bewildered. “I’ll just put it down to the fever.”

Nick frowned at George’s
wife. “Maybe you should get your husband to a doctor.”

She nodded, looking as
anxious as she did embarrassed as she hurriedly ushered her husband away.

Once they were gone, Nick
and Paul looked at one another in confusion. “The fuck just happened?” Paul
said. “The guy bit me like he was a vampire or something.”

“Is your hand okay?”

Paul was still clutching
it to his chest. “Hurts like a mother. Gandoo broke the skin. I probably
got rabies or something.”

“Then you best stay away
from me. I don’t want to start frothing at the mouth and biting people. That
guy was a mess.”

“You’re telling me. He
said his workmates were ill, too. Maybe something is going around.”

Nick shook his head and
rubbed his temples. He felt a huge headache coming on, vibrating like rails
before an approaching passenger train. “Screw it,” he said. “I’ve had enough of
this. Let’s just cash up and get out of here. I’ll do the conference call at
home and pretend I’m still here. If I get found out I’ll just say that someone
tried to eat you.”

Paul nodded, rubbing at
his hand and wincing. “Sounds good to me, governor. I’m sure things will be
better tomorrow.”

Nick huffed. “They
couldn’t be any worse.”

Chapter Two

The roads were quiet on the
journey home. He had left early enough to avoid rush hour and the only vehicle
he encountered was a rushing ambulance, its sirens blaring.

By ten-to-five he was
walking into his house.

It was nice to be home an
hour early. He began to think about what he could do with the extra time.
Perhaps he would take Deana and James out for a nice meal. It’d been a while
since they’d treated themselves and it’d be a nice way to put the day behind
him. Maybe he’d forget that tomorrow he’d have to endure it all over again.

Deana was standing
barefoot in the hallway when he walked through the front door, obviously
surprised to see him. “What are you doing back?” Her dark Moroccan eyes were
suspicious beneath her choppy black fringe. “Everything okay?”

Nick hooked his woollen
coat onto one of the porch hangers and sighed. “We had three customers all day
and then some weirdo came in and attacked Paul – he’s okay. In the end I
decided it wasn’t even worth the trouble of being open.”

“Won’t you get in
trouble?”

“I’ll take the conference
call in the bedroom. I’m sure no one will even know. You fancy going out for
dinner tonight, oh dear wife of mine?”

Surprisingly Deana didn’t
seem enthused. “I don’t know, honey,” she said. “James is feeling a bit under
the weather. I don’t know if it’s wise taking him out, and I don’t want to get
a babysitter.”

Nick raised an eyebrow.
“What is it with people getting sick today? I swear something must be going
around. What’s wrong with him?”

“He’s just a little
bunged-up with a headache. Probably just needs an early night. He’s in the
living room watching Family Guy.”

Nick sighed. “I told you
not to let him watch that show, Deana. It’s not like The Simpsons.”

“It’s alright. He doesn’t
understand the adult jokes. Go check on him. He’ll be glad to see you.”

“Okay.” He gave her a peck
on the cheek and headed for the living room. His mop-haired son lay curled on
the beige corner sofa, squinting and blinking as if something was irritating
his eyes.

“You okay, little dude?
Mommy says you’re not feeling very well.”

“I have a headache,” he
said pitifully.

Nick sat on the end of the
sofa and pulled his son’s bare feet onto his lap. They were cold and sweaty.
“I’ll get Mommy to cook you something nice and then you can get an early night.
You’ll feel all better tomorrow.”

“Do I have to go to
school?”

Nick laughed and tickled
his son’s foot, but James didn’t react, which was strange because he was
usually very sensitive to tickle-torture. “We’ll see how you’re feeling
tonight, buddy, and then decide. So, what’s happening in Family Guy?”

“Brian and Stewie are
trapped inside a bank and Brian just ate Stewie’s nappy.”

Nick screwed his face up
in disgust. “Lovely. Well, you can carry on watching until dinner, but then
it’s going off, okay?”

He was about to get back
up again, but paused when he spotted the thick Beano plaster on his
son’s finger.

“Hey, buddy, what happened
to your finger?”

“Jordan bit me at school.
I didn’t even call him a name or nothing. He got in lots of trouble with Mrs
Tanner, though, so it’s okay. Mommy had to kiss it better for me and put a Dennis
the Menace on it.”

Nick didn’t like the
coincidence. Paul had been bitten, too. But what did it mean? Surely an unruly
child biting his son was nothing to worry about and in no way related to the
man who bit Paul. Still, it was weird. “Jordan bit you? Were you feeling ill
before that, or afterwards?”

James shook his head. “I
didn’t feel poorly until Mommy picked me up. I started to feel sick in the car
and got a headache.”

Nick patted his son on the
leg and gave him a reassuring smile. “Okay,” he said. “You just rest here and
I’ll call you when dinner’s ready. Anything in particular you’d like?”

“Fish fingers.”

“Anything else?”

“Fish fingers.”

“Fish fingers it is then.”

Nick got up from the sofa
and headed into the hallway. Deana was in the kitchen, already starting dinner.

“His lord requires fish
fingers,” he said as he approached from behind and squeezed her hips.

“Right-o,” she said,
already rummaging around the fridge freezer. She set Cod sticks down on the
breakfast table next to a basket of laundry and brushed off a layer of frost.
“Did he ask for anything else?”

“Just fish fingers with a
side of fish fingers. I suppose you could force him to accept some chips and
beans with them.”

“That wouldn’t be because
you want chips and beans, would it? You’ve got fillet steak in the fridge, you
numpty.”

“I know I have.” He
perched back against the table. “But I’m too tired to eat it tonight. I’ll just
have whatever James is having.”

Deana moved closer to him,
tiptoeing up on the tiles, and gave him a kiss. “You’re not coming down with
something as well, are you, babe? Because I can’t be doing with nursing you
both back to health. I’m in no mood for man-flu.”

Nick shook his head. “I’m
fine, just tired. Really, really, really tired. I don’t know how much longer I
can take working at that wretched place.”

“Find something else,
then. I don’t want you to be miserable all the time.”

“I’m not miserable. Just…unfulfilled.
Anyway, don’t worry about it for now. I’m just glad to be home early for a
change. Shame we can’t go out, but never mind.”

“James show you his battle
wound?” Deana asked.

“His finger? Yeah. What
happened? Some kid bit him?”

“Yeah, during break time.
It wasn’t too bad, but it was still bleeding a little when he got home so I put
a new plaster on it.”

“And kissed it better?”

“Of course,” she winked at
him.

Nick chuckled and checked
his watch. It was almost half-five. “I need to get ready for the conference
call,” he said. “I’ll try to get away quickly.”

Deana smiled. “I’ll bring
you a coffee up.”

Nick hurried upstairs to
his and Deana’s bedroom and lay himself down on the freshly made bed, dumping
his keys and wallet onto the glass side-table first. The duvet cover was the
blue Egyptian cotton one he liked. The soft thread immediately relaxed him.

The conference call would
commence at five-thirty sharp, but the managers of the other stores would
usually get on early to check the lay of the land. How did your store do
today? What was footfall like? Did you meet your insurance quota? What mood is
the area manager in?

Nick picked up the phone
and dialled, then tapped in the login pin number. There was a brief silence
while the automated service connected him.

When he heard the static
of the open line, Nick introduced himself. “Nick Adams, Solihull, Touchwood.”

There were no replies. He
must have been the first one there. Great, he thought to himself.
Everyone else had had such a busy day that they were struggling to get away.

Nick took a deep breath
and released it slowly, letting it echo in the receiver. He rubbed at his
forehead and closed his eyes while he waited. He really hated conference calls.

There was nothing he could
do, though. He wouldn’t get paid as much anywhere else in retail. Most people
hated their jobs just as much as he did. At least his family was secure, even
if it meant he was miserable fifty hours a week.

It was now 5:32. “Hello,”
Nick said into the receiver. “Hello, is anyone else here?”

A second later, the line
crackled and another voice came on.

“Hey,” Nick said
tentatively. “Who’s there?”

“It’s Paul.”

“Paul, what are you doing
on the call?”

“I figured you’d need
backup after the day we had.”

Nick smiled. It was good
of Paul to go down in flames with him. “Thanks, man. I appreciate it. It’s just
me and you so far, though.”

“Yeah, I think there’re a
couple managers who are reluctant to get on here. I phoned around on the way
home and found out that other stores were deserted as well. Evesham only did
two contracts and Tewkesbury did none, so don’t worry too much.”

Nick sighed relief.
“That’s good to know. Least I won’t be the only one getting torn a new one.”

Paul started coughing into
the phone.

“You okay, buddy?”

“Just a cold coming on, I
think. Probably from that doodi that bit me earlier.”

“You best not be calling
in sick tomorrow, dude.”

“‘Course not. Can’t leave
all the sales to Chelsea, can I?”

There was a crackle on the
line and another voice entered the conversation. It was the distinctive
Australian twang of the area manager. It grated at Nick’s nerves every time he
heard it.

“Who’s on the call?” the
area manager asked in his usual pissy tone.

“Just me and Paul,”
answered Nick.

“Who might me and Paul
be?”

“Nick Adams and Paul Patel
from Solihull. No one else is on the call yet.”

“Yes, I know. I’ve had a
lot of managers call in sick today, so there will be no call tonight.”

The line clicked and the
area manager was gone.

“Prick,” said Paul.

Nick laughed. “I’d wet
myself if he hadn’t actually gone yet.”

Paul tutted. “Gandoo
don’t scare me.”

“You find it weird?” Nick
asked. “I mean, what he said about all the managers calling in sick?”

“Maybe they all went on a
bender and planned a mass sickie. You know us family men are never in the loop
about staff get-togethers. This is a young man’s game, fella.”

“Yeah, maybe. I just find
it weird how town was so quiet today. Everyone seems to be getting sick; that
guy who came in at the end of the day was a total mess. There must be something
really bad going around.”

“Yeah, the bloody lergy,
and I have it,” Paul said, clearing his throat of phlegm with a wet
grunt. “I got to go now, governor. Think a night in the pub is in order if I’m
going to be feeling rough all night.”

“Just don’t come in with a
hangover.”

“Ha! I’m Sikh. We don’t
get drunk. There’s no beer in the world strong enough.” With that Paul hung up.

Nick laughed and went
downstairs to spend the evening with his family, hoping that whatever was going
around, he wouldn’t catch.

Chapter Three

The evening went by quickly.
A dinner of fish fingers was followed by a few hours of innocuous reality
television. Then it was time to go to bed. Nick had intended to put James down
right after dinner, but he’d become so feverish and fitful that Nick decided to
keep a close eye on him. Deana had started to feel grim, too. She’d spent the
evening with the tissue box in her lap. Nick assumed it was only a matter of
time before he succumbed to the dreaded ‘lergy’ himself.

Just after ten o’clock,
Deana carried James upstairs – he remained asleep in her arms – and joined Nick
in their bedroom a few minutes later. She took a handful of flu capsules from
the bedside drawer and dry swallowed them, then dragged herself into her
‘no-sex’ frumpy pyjamas and was snoring loudly within minutes.

Nick was left staring at
the ceiling alone. He was dreading another workday like the one he’d just had.
The minutes had seemed like hours and the stress of not meeting target had been
constant. He was nothing but a glorified salesman, really, but his area manager
made his job far more stressful than it needed to be. Targets, working
weekends, opening evenings, Nick was expected to live, eat, and breathe the
phone industry. The truth was, though, that he didn’t give two shits about
selling phones or the company he worked for. It was a paycheque, nothing more,
and he hated every minute he spent there.

He’d always told himself
that one day he’d do something different, one day he’d start a career he
enjoyed, but before he knew it he was thirty years old with a wife and child.
Now, there was never going to be a ‘one day.’

Nick sighed and closed his
eyes, trying to ignore the beastly snores of his slumbering wife. God, he loved
her, but sometimes she sounded like an asthmatic camel – especially when she
was ill. Thankfully, before long, slumber finally befell him too.

***

When Nick opened his eyes
again, the bedside clock read 5:03AM. It was almost dawn.

And there were noises
downstairs.

Nick glanced at Deana,
checking to see if she was awake also, but she was silent and still, no longer
even snoring.

The noises downstairs were
consistent and regular, like they were following a rhythm. It sounded like
someone was shuffling around in the kitchen. Nick was sure he heard the
breakfast bar stools dragging across the granite floor tiles.

Goddamn it. Nick had to be
up in a couple hours and some git was trying to rob him.

He slid out from beneath
the bed covers and headed for the door in his boxer shorts. The noises
continued. If it was a burglar, it was the most negligent criminal ever. Either
that, or crazy enough not to care if they’re discovered.

Nick crept barefoot across
the landing, wishing he had a baseball bat stashed upstairs. He’d never worried
about being burgled before, but now he felt stupid for it. He started down the
staircase, trying to see through the shadows. With each step he took downwards,
his stomach churned a little harder. When he finally reached the bottom and
padded into the hallway, he felt positively sick. From there it became clear
that the stranger was definitely inside the kitchen. Not only could Nick hear
them shuffling around, but he could see light coming from beneath the door.

Nick started to plan. Was
he just going to burst in, wearing nothing but his boxer shorts, hoping to
frighten the intruder away? What if the intruder was armed? He decided he’d
rather prevent a confrontation than create one, so he decided to give the
burglar a chance to flee. He rapped his knuckles against the kitchen door and
said, “Hey, whoever you are, get the hell out of my house. Right now!”

Silence.

“I’ve already called the
police, so just get out of here while you still can.”

Silence.

Nick didn’t know what to
do. Walking into the kitchen was probably the stupid thing, but he couldn’t
think of anything else to do. Despite his fear, he was pissed off and angry.

He pushed open the door,
ready for action.

The kitchen was dark. The
light Nick had seen creeping beneath the door was coming from the open
fridge-freezer. The person standing in front of the appliance was a featureless
silhouette.

“Hey, what the hell are
you playing at? Get the fuck out of my house.”

The person didn’t answer
or react.

As his eyesight continued
to adjust, Nick could see that the figure wasn’t facing him. However,
slowly…gradually…the stranger was turning around.

Nick’s breath caught in
his chest. “James? What are you doing down here?” He trailed off as he saw what
James was doing. Hanging from his son’s mouth was a large hunk of fillet steak,
still raw and dripping. Nick didn’t understand what he was looking at. Why was
James down here in the middle of the night, tearing into raw meat like a feral
dog?

He raised a hand toward
his son. “James, put the meat down, honey. It’ll make your tummy bad. Put it
down and come here.”

James lowered his head,
unblinking eyes trained on his father. His thin lips trembled into a snarl.
Then he lunged at Nick, his delicate hands outstretched like claws. His sallow,
naked chest was soaked with the steak blood and as he collided with Nick, the
hunk of meat fell from his chomping mouth.

Nick wrapped his arms
around his son and wrestled with him. “James! James, what’s gotten into you?
It’s daddy. Calm down, daddy’s got you. Just stop fighting me.”

But it was no good. James
continued to claw and bite, thrashing to get free. His bloodstained teeth
snapped wildly at the air. Nick assumed his son was hallucinating from the
fever, and if he could just turn the lights on, maybe he would be less
confused.

Nick squeezed James
tightly and sidestepped towards the light switch with the boy in his arms.
James’ relentless squirming made every step a battle of determination.

Nick’s bare foot came down
on something slippery. As his leg went out from under him, he realised it was
the raw fillet steak, dropped from his son’s jaws. He fell sideways with the
full weight of his son still in his arms. Nick’s head hit the tiles with a crack,
and then there was another sound, meaty and wet.

Nick couldn’t sit up as
his vision spun and a roiling wave of sickness crashed against his stomach. He
lay there for a few seconds, trying to catch his breath. After a while, he
pushed himself up on his elbows and looked around.

James was lying nearby, his
small body unmoving.

“Oh, Jesus. Oh Jesus, no!”
Nick scurried across the floor on his hands and knees, until he could place a
hand beneath James’ head and lift it up. He withdrew his fingers when they
touched something hot and tacky. Even in the dim light from the fridge, Nick
could see the dark blood on his hands.

“No, no, no, no.” On
Nick’s left, a matted clump of hair covered the corner of the breakfast bar.
James’s head had struck it on the way down

“James. No. No. Help me!
Somebody help. Somebody fucking help me. God help me, what have I done?“

Nick leapt up from the
floor and almost fell down again when his legs failed to work. His entire body
was trembling, his vision spinning. He had to do something. Had to do something
right now.

He could use the phone in
the bed and wake up Deana at the same time. He needed Deana. He needed help. He
couldn’t do this alone.

Nick bolted out the
kitchen, up the stairs, and burst into the bedroom, shouting at the top of his
lungs for Deana to wake up.

His wife’s body shifted
beneath the sheets, but she didn’t respond. “Deana, please wake up. I need
you.”

Nothing. Just a tired
moan.

Nick cursed under his
breath and grabbed the phone. There was no time to waste. He dialled 999.

“Emergency Services are
currently dealing with a very high number of calls. Please leave your name,
address, and situation, and help will arrive shortly. Please remain calm while
waiting for assistance. Leave your details after the beep.”

Beep!

999 was too busy to answer
his call? That was bullshit.

He turned to Deana and
knelt on the bed, shoving her hard. “Deana, wake up, wake up. I need your help.
Something terrible has happened.”

She stirred with a low
moan and rolled out of bed.

“Thank God.” Nick switched
on the bedside lamp and started redialling 999. “Deana, James is hurt. He was
in the kitchen and I…I…”

Deana’s eyes glared at
him. Their lower lids hung slack while the bloodshot orbs rattled around inside
their sockets. A slick trail of blood covered her chin.

Before Nick had chance to
think, Deana leapt at him.

Nick dodged sideways and
stumbled against the foot of the bed. He almost fell down but managed to remain
standing. “Deana, what the hell are you doing?”

Deana clambered over the
bed towards him, leaving bloody handprints on the sheets and snarling at him
like a rabid wolf. She glared at him balefully, her jaws grinding back and
forth like saw blades.

“Deana? Please, say
something.”

Deana opened her mouth
wide, let out a high-pitched screech, then leapt from the bed.

Nick managed to shove
Deana aside as she took flight, sending her hurtling into the mahogany chest of
drawers that her mother had bought them as a wedding gift. Instinctively, he
went to help her, but Deana was right back on her feet.

Nick rushed out of the
bedroom and slammed the door behind him. Deana crashed against the other side,
shaking the wood on its hinges. She let out another ear-piercing shriek. Nick
didn’t know why she didn’t just use the door handle, but was thankful for her
lack of common sense. He used the opportunity to flee.

He needed to get help. His
son and wife needed help now.

Deana continued battering
the bedroom door, and all Nick could do to get away from the torturous sound
was go downstairs. He sprinted back into the kitchen where he was once again
faced with his son’s body.

I’m in Hell. This is the
Abyss.

Looking down at James,
Nick knew his young son was dead. No ambulance or doctor could help him. James’
face was the colour of chalk, except for his closed eyelids, which were the
black of charcoal.

Nick stumbled to the
kitchen sink and immediately vomited. He splashed cold water onto his face from
the tap until his cheeks were freezing and numb. “I need to put some clothes
on,” he muttered to himself. Hearing his own voice calmed him slightly.

Deana still banged on the
door upstairs, still letting out that terrible screeching. He couldn’t go back
into the bedroom with his wife the way she was, so he rummaged through the
laundry basket on the breakfast table to find some clothes, pulling out a
crinkled grey t-shirt and a pair of jeans. One of James’ Pokémon socks clung to
one of the legs.

He began to sob.

Nick didn’t allow himself
the luxury of crying for longer than a few seconds, not while his son lay dead
at his feet and his wife flung herself against the bedroom door like a mental
patient. He had to get out of the house and find help.

Nick got dressed quickly
and exited the kitchen. As he did so, an almighty crash sounded from the
bedroom.

Nick stopped at the bottom
of the staircase, staring up at the first-floor landing.

Deana appeared, half-naked
and snarling.

“Deana, just stay right
where you are, okay? I’m going to get help”

She ran down the steps
towards him.

Nick leapt inside the
front porch and slammed the door behind him just in time. Deana’s face smashed
against the window panel, splitting the delicate flesh of her cheeks and
smearing blood on the glass. Nick slid his feet into the first pair of trainers
he could find and pulled on his long woollen overcoat. He had to get out of there.
His wife was acting like she was possessed by a demon. He needed to drive to
the nearest hospital or police station or…

He realised his car keys
were in the bedroom.

He wouldn’t get anywhere
without a car.

Nick turned back to face
the inner porch door. The glass panels were caked in bloody chunks of flesh,
but Deana was nowhere to be seen. The hallway was dim and shadowy, but there
was no sign of his wife anywhere.

She was inside somewhere,
though. She hadn’t just disappeared.

Nick placed his hand on
the door handle carefully and turned it. With every inch the door opened, he
paused, anticipating an attack from Deana.

He looked left, right. All
was clear.

Where the hell did you go,
Deana?

Nick pushed open the door
and slid through the gap. He placed a foot on the first step on the staircase
and listened. Then he took the second step, the third and the fourth. He
reached the hallway upstairs and all was still clear. He felt his heart beating
in his chest.

Darkness seemed to close
around him like a blanket. The bedroom was just up ahead, the door hanging wide
open. Out of habit, Nick went for the light switch as soon as he entered the
room, but he managed to stop himself. It would be better to remain hidden in
the dark.

He headed for the bedside
table where he knew he’d left his wallet and keys. Sure enough, even in the
dark, he saw them and shoved them into his coat pocket.

Now to get out of there
fast.

When Nick turned to leave,
Deana was right there in front of him, standing so close that he could smell
the blood on her face. Her hands immediately went for his throat, choking him
with a strength he didn’t know she possessed. He tried to fight her off, to
force her backwards, but she was unrelenting. She tried to bite him. Each snap
of her teeth sent hot dribbles of bloody saliva down her chin.

Nick’s vision began to
crackle with spots and stars as he struggled to take a breath. He twisted in
the vice-like grip of his wife’s hands and lifted his knee to try and create
space between them. Just when he was sure he was about to lose consciousness,
he managed to thread both his arms between Deana’s elbows and forced them
outwards.

Deana’s hold broke. The
sudden, automatic intake of breath left Nick momentarily paralysed.

Deana was back on. All he
could manage to do was to deliver a swift kick at his wife’s knees.

Deana stumbled to the
floor, snarling. Nick took his chance and made a run for it, heading out of the
bedroom and down the corridor at full pelt. He could hear Deana give chase
right behind him. He took the staircase three steps at a time, half-running,
half-tumbling down them. Deana gained on him, leaping down the stairs with no
fear for her own safety. She collided with him at the bottom, clinging to his
shoulders like a piggybacking child. Nick felt her teeth clamp down on his
shoulder and anticipated a sharp pang of agony as she tore his skin away, but
he was relieved to find that Deana had only sunk her teeth into the thick
woollen collar of his coat.

Nick stumbled back against
the wall, crushing Deana, who clung to his back. Her jaws tore loose from his
collar and he was suddenly free of her weight again. He made for the porch so
quickly that his foot struck the lip of the doorway and he went crashing to the
stone floor. With the wind knocked out of him, he saw Deana coming at him like
a hungry hyena. She let out another of those high-pitched screeches and leapt
at him.

Nick kicked out with both
legs, catching Deana in the stomach and forcing her backwards. Before she had
chance to regain her balance, he leapt up and slammed the porch door shut. Just
like before, Deana crashed into the other side and shoved her face up against
the glass, glaring at him with utter hatred. Nick doubled-over, gasping for
breath. He barely recognising the woman he’d married. No longer was she his
beautiful, exotic wife of seven years. She was a motherfucking zombie.

“I’m sorry, Deana,” he
said to her through the blood-smeared glass. “I’m going to find help right now
– if there is any. I love you.”

Nick’s world was falling
apart. He unlocked the front door and stepped outside into the cold, grey,
approaching dawn.

Chapter Four

The first thing Nick
noticed when he stepped outside was the orange glow of the horizon. The sun
slowly crept above the roofs of the houses. The second thing he noticed was
that his quiet cul-de-sac was unusually active for so early in the morning.
Several of his neighbour’s windows were illuminated and silhouetted figures
rushed around inside.

Nick wasted no time,
heading past Deana’s sky-blue Peugeot parked on the driveway, and making
towards his own car parked on the curb. He pressed the fob on his keychain; the
lights flashed, the locks disengaged. He was just about to head around to the
driver’s side when he heard someone yelling from across the road.

“Help me! Somebody,
please!”

Nick saw a woman racing
across her lawn. He recognised her as the middle-aged blonde that lived
opposite. He’d rarely spoken to her, but he was pretty certain her name was
Lara.

Now she was staggering
towards him with a looming spectre of a man – possibly her husband – close
behind her.

Nick watched in confusion.
“What’s wrong, Lara? Are you okay?”

But it was clear she was not
okay. Her eyes were bloated with fear. A ragged gash ruined the left side of
her face. It looked like a bite mark.

“My…my husband. He’s
trying to kill me. Please, you have to help m—”

Lara’s husband charged
into the back of her, crushing her against the car. Nick watched in stunned
silence as a domestic assault commenced right in front of him.

He raced around the side
of his car to help Lara. Her husband had her pinned over the bonnet and was
clawing at her neck and face. She screamed and writhed, battling him as best
she could, but it was a battle she was losing. Her husband was twice her size.

Nick managed to shove
Lara’s husband away. “What the hell are you playing at?” he demanded of the
man. “You ought to be bleeding locked up.”

The man didn’t reply. He
threw himself at Nick, squashing him against the car. The bodywork crumpled and
Nick cried out in pain. Lara’s husband was half-a-foot taller than him and
managed to bring his snarling face right up close to his.

The nutcase was trying to
bite him. Just like Deana had.

Lara had a bite mark on
her face, too. Nick looked down at the weeping woman and watched her scurry
away on her rump. He shouted at her for help, but she shook her head and kept
on backing away.

Thanks for nothing.

With no other obvious option,
Nick, for the first time in his life, threw a head-butt. His forehead connected
firmly with the other man’s nose. There was a loud crack but Lara’s husband did
not release his grip. His face was a mashed-up canvas, but he didn’t seem to
care.

“Let go of me,” Nick
pleaded, knowing it would do no good. Jagged teeth snapped mere inches from his
face. The smell of rancid breath was nauseating. Just when Nick expected to
feel the agonising crunch of human teeth sinking into his face, the weight in
his arms suddenly fell away.

“You can’t mess around
with these people,” came a voice. Nick looked up to see it was the cankerous
old man who lived in the detached bungalow at the end of the road. “You got to
beat ‘em down, right away,” the pensioner said, “before they get their teeth
into you.”

Nick was doubled over and
gasping for breath. He noticed the flesh-coated golf club clutched in the old
man’s gnarled fists and gagged. “Y-you just caved his skull in. Are you mad?”

“You naïve fool. These
people aren’t sick. They can’t be helped. They’re goddamn zomb—”

The pensioner lurched
forward, golf club clattering to the tarmac. Nick hopped out of the way just in
time to see that two more of his neighbours had appeared from out of the
shadows. They took the old man down like animals.

Nick stepped back, unable
to look away as his neighbours tore each other apart. How was this possible?
How had everybody gone insane?

The pensioner stopped
screaming as his two attackers hunched over his body. Nick gagged again.

Christ, they’re eating
him.

Nick shook away his
revulsion and grabbed the driver’s side door of the car, swinging it open as
hard as he could. It caught one of the crazed neighbour the head and sent her
reeling.

Nick leapt behind the
steering wheel, slammed the door shut, and engaged the central locking.

His two neighbours rose to
their feet, discarding the remains of the old man and beating their bloody
fists against the car’s windows instead. The vehicle rocked on its springs as
Nick keyed the ignition and put the engine in gear. The automatic headlights
flicked on immediately and it was then the full-scale of the horror affecting
the neighbourhood became apparent.

Ten-feet ahead, a woman
lay mangled in the middle of the road. Several feet beyond was a man doing
battle with a group of attackers. They clawed and bit at him, tearing chunks of
flesh from his flailing arms and wrists. One of the nearby houses billowed thick
black smoke and muffled screams came from inside. In fact, there were screams
coming from everywhere.

Nick sat in his car,
frozen. There was too much to take in. Too much horror. Stumbling down the road
towards him was a young boy, not much older than James. He wasn’t crazed like
the other neighbours; he was slower and clumsier, acting almost like he was
drunk. When the boy stepped into the cone of the car’s headlights, Nick saw
that his intestines were dragging along behind him. Every couple of steps the
boy would tread on them and stumble.

Nick couldn’t take any
more. He gear-changed into reverse and shot the car backwards. He kept on going
until the shadows reclaimed the nightmarish child and the chaos of the street.
Once there was nothing else left to see, he stamped on the brake, then sat
there again, hyperventilating. For a brief moment, he almost convinced himself
that it was all over and that he was the one who was sick, hallucinating the
entire thing.

But he knew that wasn’t
true.

He shifted back into first
gear and floored it, picking up speed quickly. The sooner he found help, the
better. Somewhere, there would be people dealing with the situation. Somewhere,
there would be answers and—

Nick stamped on the brake.
“Goddamn it!” he shouted, more out of fright than anger.

It was Lara. She banged on
the windscreen with her bloody palms. “Let me in, please!”

Nick shook his head. He
didn’t have time for this, nor did he owe the woman anything after she’d left
him to fend off her husband. She was bitten and injured. Who was to say she
wouldn’t turn violent like everybody else

He brought the clutch back
up, ready to take off. Crazed neighbours homed in on him from every direction.

“Please,” Lara
begged him. It would be only seconds before she was attacked again.

Nick cursed, disengaged
the locks. “Get in the back. Quickly!”

Lara nodded and made for
the rear passenger door, but someone grabbed her from behind and dragged her
back into the shadows. Nick waited a few seconds before deciding that Lara was
a lost cause. He couldn’t help her.

He looked forward and
prepared to put his foot down.

Lara reappeared and ran
for the car. She yanked open the rear door and threw herself across the back
seat. She was bleeding badly from several places. “G-go,” she spluttered at
him, pulling the door closed behind her. “Get the fuck out of here.”

“You don’t have to tell me
twice.” Nick took off as quickly as the car would accelerate. He had to steer
erratically to avoid hitting his wandering neighbours, but he managed to make
it to the end of the road without crashing. Screams filled the air behind him.

Nick steered onto the main
road and left the nightmare of his street behind him. He let loose a sigh of
relief. It felt good to be on the road, moving fast. “Are you okay?” he asked
his passenger, glancing back over his shoulder.

Lara nodded but her skin
had lost all colour. Her clothing was soaked with dark blood. Nick focused on
the road. The sun had risen and the world seemed to be coming alive.

But it had awoken to
panic.

Travelling down the
highway in the opposite direction was a speeding police car, its sirens
blaring, lights flashing. A fire truck hurtled along right behind it.

“This is nuts,” Nick said.
“What is happening? Did I miss a terrorist attack or something?”

“M…my husband. He just
went crazy. I woke up in bed and he was on top of me, biting me.”

“It’s not just him, Lara.
Everyone is acting the same way. My wife…my son. I don’t know why. I don’t know
what’s wrong.”

“He…he’s never tried to
hurt me before. He was biting me.”

Lara wasn’t listening to
him. “Your husband is sick,” he said. “He wasn’t in control of himself. Maybe
he can be helped. Maybe everyone can. I don’t know the answers. That’s why we
need to find people who do. My son is dead. Somebody needs to fucking pay for
this.”

More cars entered the
highway, creating a steady stream of traffic. All of the drivers exceeded the
speed limit, some outrageously so. Nick had only been on the road twenty
minutes when he witnessed a turquoise Vauxhall Astra hurtle into a ditch. The
vehicle flipped over, crunching up like an accordion. The chances of survival
seemed pretty unlikely. Nick didn’t stop to help.

One thing had become very
clear: what had happened in Nick’s neighbourhood was not an isolated incident.
People everywhere were fleeing. To where exactly, Nick didn’t know. He didn’t
know where he himself was going, so he just headed where everybody else seemed
to be going.

A pile-up up ahead caused
the traffic to slow down. A biker took it as an opportunity to overtake, but
was quickly forced to decelerate as well when he found the highway’s exit
choked up by an overturned lorry and a crumpled police car. There was no room
to get past, but the guy on the motorbike seemed like he was going to give it a
good try.

Nick pulled on the
handbrake and waited. He watched the biker trying to manoeuvre through the
twisted wreckage and wished him luck. If Nick could find a path through he
would take it too. But just when it looked like the biker might get clear of
the highway, a female police officer sprinted out at him from behind the
upturned lorry. She tackled him clean off his bike and dragged him to the
ground. The biker screamed as more people appeared from the wreckage and began
tearing him apart.

Nick backed his car up as
much as possible before coming up against the other vehicles queuing behind
him. He was blocked. The bloody policewoman started heading towards the
traffic.

“Fuck this.”  Nick shunted
the car behind him and made space. He ignored the angry beeping and spun the
steering wheel before jolting forwards and out of the queue, heading in the
wrong direction in the overtaking lane. As soon as he was able, he dodged
through oncoming traffic and took the first junction he came across, spinning
back around in the opposite direction in order to take it. It brought him onto
a country road. Instead of housing estates and shops there was woodland and
private cottages. The properties seemed undisturbed compared to the chaos of
Nick’s neighbourhood. The middle-class families who lived there were likely
still sleeping soundly, while everywhere else had spun into madness.

Nick took the opportunity
to check on Lara. “I’m going to try and head for the hospital, okay? You need
help. So does my wife.”

Lara answered with a moan.

A van pulled out of a
nearby brickyard and Nick had to slow down to avoid crashing into it.
Unbelievably, the driver nodded a polite ‘thank you’ as he passed. The man
would get the shock of his life when he entered the main roads. Part of Nick
considered warning him, but by that time the van had already passed.

Up ahead, Nick encountered
another vehicular collision. This time two cars blocked the centre of the road,
but there was still enough room to get around them. It still required Nick to
slow right down.

He glanced around at the
backseat. Lara was lying facedown now and having some kind of seizure. Her
blood coated everything and the metallic odour filled the car. “Hey,” he
shouted. “Hey, Lara, are you okay? I’m going to get you some help, but you need
to stay with me until I get there. Don’t die on me.”

Or turn into one of those
psychopaths, he almost added.

Lara managed to lift her
head as her seizures gradually stopped. She was still with him for the moment.

Nick faced the road and
kept his speed steady as he approached the wreckage. The smashed cars were
close enough now to see that both were unoccupied.

Nick turned around to face
the backseat again. “Everything is going to be alright, Lara. Just hold—”

Lara lunged forward
between the seats. Nick’s feet slipped from the pedals as he found himself
shoved up against the steering wheel and battered from behind. Lara screeched
and clawed at him, trying to climb into the front of the car. Nick was unable
to fight back in such close confines and strapped in by his seatbelt.

The car continued rolling
forward, losing speed as the engine idled.

Nick leant over the
steering wheel, trying to stay out of Lara’s clutches. With his left hand he
fiddled and tried to find his the belt release. He was relieved when his
muscle-memory took his fingertips right to it. He pressed the release and
slumped forward a little further as the seatbelt loosened its grip on him.

Lara grabbed a handful of
his hair and yanked his head back. Then she brought her mouth to his neck.

Nick threw himself
sideways into the door, pulling the handle and falling half out of the car. He
hung by his legs, the rushing gravel only inches from his face. Lara grabbed at
his ankle and twisted, making him yell out in pain. He kicked and wiggled,
trying to untangle himself from his seatbelt and free himself from Lara’s grip.
He tried to reach up, but his own flailing weight was too heavy to do anything
other than hang. He kicked out with all he had, scissoring his legs back forth
like a child having a tantrum.

Then he was free.

Nick hit the road hard,
cracking his elbow and grazing his face along the gravel. He rolled and rolled,
every second filled with agony and whirling vision.

When his flailing body
eventually came to a stop, Nick lay still at the side of the road, quietly
staring up at the sky. His vision was muddled, but as he craned his neck he
watched his car carry on without him at a speed just about fast enough to kill
a small dog. Eventually it came to stop up against the two wrecks in the middle
of the road.

Once Nick was sure he
could still move, he rose gingerly to his feet. His right cheek was on fire.
The wound stung ferociously. Nick was thankful he’d been wearing his thick
woollen coat or he might have grazed his entire body. His elbow also ached like
hell.

He had no clue what to do
next. His car would still be drivable, the collision with the other cars not
much more than a clumsy bump. Problem was, he was so shaken-up from what had
just happened that he didn’t feel safe getting behind the wheel right away. He
needed time to calm his nerves.

The country road was
deserted, surrounded on both sides by untended fields. There was, however, a
small garden centre fifty yards ahead. There was a good chance someone might be
there, and right now it seemed like a good idea to try and find other people in
the same boat as he was.

He started forward, the
loose gravel crunching beneath his feet. He started to think about Lara. She
had attacked him in the car. Would she come at him again as he passed by on his
way to the garden centre?

Whatever was making people
crazy had gotten into her; probably when her husband bit her. Was that how it
transmitted from person to person? Bites?

Nick was confused as to
whether the sick people needed help or if they were completely beyond it. Each
time he’d tried to assist anyone they ended up attacking him. Even Deana had
seemingly wanted him dead. James too. It hurt too much to even think about
right now.

Nick stepped carefully as
he approached his car. He could see that Lara was still inside and mobile. She
was hanging out of the driver’s side door, the same way he had before leaping
clear. The airbags were deployed and squashed her torso up against the seat.
She was scrabbling at the gravel and reaching towards Nick with a hungry
expression, but it didn’t seem like she was going anywhere.

Once he got closer, Nick
could see what was keeping Lara inside the car. Her legs were tangled in the
seatbelt. The more she tried to crawl away, the tighter the strap became around
her ankles. She wasn’t going anywhere. Still, Nick trod carefully, steering
clear of her clawing fingernails and bloody jaws. Before he was totally away
from the wreckage, he examined his injured neighbour closely. He wasn’t sure
why he asked the question, “Can you hear me, Lara?” followed by, “Are you
okay?” because both answers were obvious.

Of course Lara gave no
response. She just kept on trying to get at him like a rabid fox. Nick shook
his head, wishing he could understand what was happening; wishing he could do
something about it, but he had no choice but to leave his concerns behind for
the moment. His primary focus right now was finding somewhere safe.

The garden centre looked
deserted, but there were a couple of cars in its pebbled car park, which made
Nick hopeful. He climbed the nearby embankment and crossed over onto the
pebbled parking area, heading for the main entrance up ahead. He was surprised
when the glass doors slid open for him. Considering the early hour – 7:15
according to his watch – Nick had assumed the place would be closed.

The first part of the
garden centre consisted of indoor planting, incense burners, and greeting
cards. Nick almost jumped out of his skin when he brushed past a set of
tinkling aluminium pipes, but got a hold on himself when he realised it was
just a wind chime. The smell inside the building was one of musky perfumes
mixed with soil and plants. In contrast to the many heady odours, his ears
detected nothing except the diminishing clinks of the wind chime.

“Hello,” Nick called out.
“Hello, is anybody here?” Someone must be there, considering the
automatic doors had allowed him access.

An alcove lay ahead, with
an overhead banner reading: AQUARIUM. The space was full of wall-to-wall fish
tanks, all of them glowing with soft blue light. The smell in the room was
musky.

Nick spotted the girl in
the corner peeking out from a storage closet and jumped out of his skin. She yelped
and yanked the closet door closed with her inside.

“Hey,” Nick shouted after
her. “You frightened the life of me, there. I need help. I’ve been in an
accident.”

The girl said nothing. The
closet remained closed.

“Please. I’ve been through
hell this morning. I just need some help.”

“Go away!”

Nick frowned. “Why won’t
you come out?”

“Go away,” the girl
repeated, “before they hear you.”

“Before who hears
me?”

“The owners. They’ve
gone…mad.”

Nick swallowed. Oh no, not
here as well.

“There’s no one around,”
he said, more in hope than anything else. “They’ve gone. You can come out.”

“No. They’re out there
somewhere and I’m not coming out. No way.”

Nick contemplated yanking
the girl from the cupboard, but decided that would be counterproductive. It was
no way to make a friend. His only option was to try to reason with her.

The sound of raspy
breathing.

Nick sensed a presence
behind him, but before he had chance to turn around, someone pummelled him in
the spine and sent him reeling forwards onto his hands and knees.

Nick twisted around and
saw a hunched-over old man in an olive-coloured cardigan. Flakes of scalp and
grey dandruff covered the woollen garment. He wore the same insane, animalistic
expression of the other sick people Nick had seen.

Nick scampered back just
in time to dodge an attack from the old man. He hopped to his feet and ran to
the corner of the aquarium, searching for an escape. But there was none.

Nick found himself
cornered.

The old man approached,
like a lion stalking a baby gazelle.

With nowhere to run and no
other choice, Nick met the old man’s charge head on, grabbing a fistful of
grimy cardigan and using his attacker’s momentum as a weapon. He twisted
sideways, threw out his arms and flung the old man headfirst into the fish
tanks.

Water exploded and flooded
the ground.

The old man’s head had
impacted with a tank full of neon tetras and was now lodged between the jagged
edges of the broken glass. The jutting shards tore at the wrinkled flesh around
his neck and any attempt to get free only opened the wound up wider.

Nick staggered away, dizzy
and confused.

Blood mixed with the
remaining water at the bottom of the broken fish tanks as the old man continued
squirming; the gash on his neck opened up further, eventually spouting thick
arterial blood. His sandaled feet twitched a few moments then went still.

Nick slumped to the floor,
breathing heavily. The urge to scream was growing. He just wanted it all to
stop.

“What’s happening? What’s
going on out there?”

Nick looked towards the
closed closet. “I think I just met the owner. I don’t recommend his customer
service. Are you going to come out now?”

“No.”

“Stop hiding like a child.
You need to get a grip. Come on,” he said. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

Slowly the closet door
creaked open and the girl peered out at him. “First sign of danger,” she said,
“and I’m back in the closet.”

Nick nodded wearily and
tried to smile. The girl was just a teenager, maybe early twenties. She was a
dark-featured, big brown eyes full of trepidation and fear. She eyed Nick with
suspicion and with an expression that suggested her morning hadn’t been much
better than his.

“What happened here?” Nick
asked her.

“I’m still waiting for
someone to tell me. I got here early because Mr Curtis wanted to set up a new
display, but when I got here the place was deserted. I went round back to the
cottage – that’s where Mr Curtis and his wife live – and I found the front door
wide open. Next thing I know, Mr Curtis and his wife are running at me like
lunatics, trying to bite me. I ran back into the store, but I didn’t know what
to do so I ended up hiding in the closet. That’s when you came along.” She
looked down at Mr Curtis’s body, his head still trapped inside the fish tank.
“I don’t get it,” she said. “He was so nice. I don’t know why he would suddenly
want to hurt me.”

“It’s not just him,” Nick
explained. “People have been losing their shit all over town. My wife…my son.”
He didn’t want to think about James, so he turned his mind to something
proactive. “We should try to get some help. Do you have a phone here? Or
Internet access?”

The girl nodded. “Yeah, we
have both in the office, but there’s a problem.”

“What?”

The girl nodded toward Mr
Curtis. “Well, I’m looking at Mr Curtis, but where’s his Mrs Curtis?”

As if to punctuate her
point, a far-off crash caused them both to look towards the aquarium’s exit.

“Close by, would be my
guess,” Nick said. The young girl started back towards the cupboard, but he
grabbed her arm. “Hey, you’re not going back into hiding. We need to deal with
this.”

“You deal with it. I’m
going to sit down on the vacuum cleaner with the door closed.”

“And then what? Stay there
till it gets dark?”

The girl sighed and shook
her head resignedly. “Fine, but can we at least get something to defend
ourselves with?”

Nick nodded. “Sounds good
to me.”

***

They found what they
needed in the storage closet. Nick removed the head from a broom handle and the
girl found herself a hammer.

“What’s your name, by the
way?”

“Eve.”

“Nice to meet you, Eve. My
name is Nick.”

“What’s with your face?”

Nick suddenly remembered
his bad graze and fingered it tenderly. “I had a car accident. Hurts like hell.
My insurance is going to go up.” He chuckled, not sure why he was thinking of
such insignificant things.

Eve grunted. “Can we just
get this over with?”

“Sure thing.”

They headed out of the
aquarium and into the main store. “What’s through that archway?” Nick asked,
pointing clear across the store.

“The café and checkouts.
The office is near there.”

“Then that’s where we’re
heading.”

Nick crept forwards, broom
handle raised over his shoulder like a baseball bat. The area ahead was cloaked
in shadow, lit only by the weak morning sunshine filtering in through the
skylights. Through the archway and to the left was a cosy tearoom. To his
immediate right was the store’s checkout area. The STAFF ONLY door to the
office was right behind.

He looked back at Eve and
raised an eyebrow in concern. “Be careful,” he told her. “Mrs Curtis could be
hiding anywhere. These sick people have a habit of blindsiding you.”

Eve didn’t reply, but hung
back and kept her distance.

The cash-tills were set
into a booth with two long desks about four feet high. Behind the tills was the
store’s exit, leading back out to the parking lot.

“Hello,” Nick said in a
raised voice, deciding it would be better to alert Mrs Curtis and see her
coming than to have her sneak up on them. “Mrs Curtis, are you here?”

“What are you doing,
dumbass?” Eve hissed.

“Trying to flush her out.
Better than her getting the drop on us.”

Sure enough, Nick’s calls
were met by the sounds of someone shuffling behind the tills. A bloody hand
clung to the surface of one of the desks.

“There!” Eve said.
“There’s someone over there.

Like a cat, Mrs Curtis
sprang from behind the tills and landed on the counter, staring right at them.
A stringy ribbon of flesh hung from her lower jaw.

“She always this
friendly?” Nick asked.

“No,” Eve said. “That’s
not Mrs Curtis.”

“Then who the hell is it?”

“I have no fucking idea.”

A hungry growl spun them both
around. An old lady in a frilly blue dress glared at them from inside the café,
face pressed up against the glass.

“Now that’s Mrs Curtis,”
Eve said.

Mrs Curtis threw herself
through the glass window of the café and rose to her feet on the other side,
glittering shards covering her like confetti.

Nick and Eve were flanked
from both sides.

“Run,” Nick shouted,
dropping the broom handle when he realised its uselessness. Eve hurried after
him. They ran back into the main shopping area where Nick clattered into a
chiminea. He only just managed to keep his balance.

As they reached the
entrance’s automatic sliding door, they quickly realised they were on the wrong
side of the sensors and it wasn’t going to open from inside the building.

“Damn it,” Nick shouted.

The two crazed women
clattered towards them, smashing apart everything in their path.

Eve pointed. “This way.”

She dragged him by one of
his coat cuffs and got him moving deeper into the store. Up ahead, she skidded
to a halt. Nick almost slammed right into the back of her.

“What the hell are you
doing?” Nick looked back over his shoulders at their pursuers. The only thing
keeping them away was their clumsiness and staggered movement. “We need to
move.”

“Look!” Eve pointed.

Nick’s jaw fell open.

Mr Curtis was back on his
feet. The old man’s neck wound was so deep that his head now hung to one side.
He moaned at them hungrily, crept towards them with shuffling feet.

Nick took a step back.
“There’s no way he could still be alive.”

“I don’t think he is.”

Nick didn’t have time to
ask what Eve meant. Mrs Curtis came crashing through a colourful display of
hydrangeas and barrelled right into Eve, who immediately screamed and tried to
escape.

Nick was just about to
help her when the other crazed woman fell upon him. She grabbed for his throat,
just the way Deana had only hours ago. This time Nick was ready. He took the
brakes off his inhibitions and threw a solid punch. He felt a crack as the
woman’s bony nose turned sideways. As she staggered back, Nick reared up and
aimed a massive kick to her knee. There was a crunching snap and the
woman collapsed to the floor.

“Help me,” Eve screamed.

Nick’s path to Eve was
blocked by Mr Curtis, who had finally made it over. He was much slower than his
wife, frail and lethargic, so much so that Nick was able to step right around
him and rugby-tackle Mrs Curtis just as the old lady was about to have a chomp
on Eve’s neck. Eve fell free and Nick and Mrs Curtis went down to the floor.

Nick was straight back up
and running, shouting for Eve to get after him. They made it all the way to the
far end of the garden centre before a heavy glass door marked FIRE EXIT stopped
them. Eve didn’t let it deter her and threw herself against the push-bar,
shoving the door open and stumbling out into the car park. Nick followed and,
together, they put their backs against the other side of the door and started
shoving it closed. It was a typical fire door, built to close slowly and not
cause a draft.

Nick felt himself going
red in the face as he strained. Come on, come on. Close goddamnit!

Mrs Curtis threw herself
against the other side. Nick and Eve both yelled out, startled by the sudden
and unexpected strength of the old woman.

Eve moaned. “How is she so
strong? Mrs Curtis is almost eighty.”

“I…don’t…know,” Nick
pushed as hard as he could, “but we need to get this door closed,
right…sodding…now. Look!”

A man stumbled in their
direction, all bloody and broken. His head craned when he spotted them and he
let out a moan, before heading towards them across the crunching pea gravel of
the car park.

“I’m slipping,” Eve cried
out. “I can’t hold it much longer.”

“I can’t either,” Nick
admitted. “We’re going to have to make a run for it. After three, you ready?”

“No.”

“Okay. One…two…”

“…three!”

Nick and Eve made a mad
dash across the car park, gravel flying up behind them as they sprinted like
their lives were on the line. They cut a wide arc around the bloody man ambling
in front of them and headed for the road. There was a chance Lara might have got
free and was now lying in wait somewhere up ahead, but that would also mean it
would be safe to get back inside Nick’s car and drive the hell out of there.
However, as Nick leapt down the embankment, he saw that Lara was still tangled
up in the seatbelts and was going nowhere. The car was a no go.

“Where do we go?” Eve
said.

Nick gritted his teeth,
looked around. Then said, “Anywhere but here.”

Eve pointed to a sharp
bend in the road up ahead. “Maybe we can lose them around there!”

Mrs Curtis was now hunting
around the car park, sniffing the air like a wolf; but so far she seemed unable
to locate Nick and Eve’s location at the foot of the embankment.

“Okay,” Nick said. “Let’s
move.”

They pounded the road,
heading for the sharp bend. Nick’s breaths were ragged and painful, but there
was no other choice but to keep on running.

Just as Nick thought they
might make it, a piercing screech filled the air, coming from the direction of
the car park. They’d been spotted.

Eve’s eyes went wide. “Mrs
Curtis is coming.”

“I know. Just keep runni—”

There was a noise. Right
behind them.

A rumbling.

A screeching.

Nick spun around and
managed to dive aside just in time to avoid getting hit by the skidding bus.
Eve hit the dirt right beside him, their faces both buried in the dirt. There
was a stretched-out moment where it seemed like death would descend upon on
them any second, but it eventually passed, leaving behind nothing but a tense
silence.

Nick lifted his face up
out of the dirt.

The bus had come to a
stop, its bulky rear tyres resting less than a metre from Nick’s outstretched
legs.

The vehicle’s pneumatic
doors hissed open.

“Get in!” screamed the
driver.

Chapter Five

Nick helped Eve onto the
bus then flung himself in after her. He sighed with relief when the doors
hissed shut behind him.

The bus rattled and
groaned, then got moving with a jolt. Nick and Eve stumbled into the aisle. Eve
staggered to the nearest seat, clutching her chest as she tried to catch her
breath.

Nick grabbed a rail and
stayed where he was, noticing the other people on the bus. He nodded at them
all politely, but then turned away to face his saviour: the bus driver.

If the man hadn’t come
along when he did…

The man behind the wheel
was rotund, with thinning black hair that was grey at the sides. Both of his
narrow, unblinking eyes were glued to the road with intense focus.

“There’s a car wreck up
ahead,” Nick warned him.

The driver nodded and
slowed up a little.

Mrs Curtis ran towards the
bus, racing down the centre of the road like she was a bull charging a flag.

The driver shot Nick a
quick glance. “Friends of yours?”

“More like acquaintance.
She’s one of them.”

The driver narrowed his
eyes and concentrated on the road. For a moment it looked like he intended to
run Mrs Curtis down, but at the last minute he swerved and went round her.

“I’m Dave, by the way,”
the driver told him, once they were safely back on the main roads.

“Good to meet you, Dave.
I’m Nick, and the girl with me is Eve. What made you pick us up?”

“You looked like you
needed a lift, way you was running down the road like a flaming monkey. There
have been quite a few people in need this morning, but I can only pick up so
many.”

Nick glanced back at the
other passengers. All of them appeared weary, shell-shocked. Some sat silently,
stony-faced, while others wept to themselves quietly.

“You rescued all these
people?” Nick asked.

Dave shrugged. “Some of
them, I did. I’d already picked up a few on my normal run before things went
potty. After all hell broke loose I managed to collect a few more people, here
and there. I dropped most of ‘em off near their homes wherever I could; tried
to get ‘em home to their families where they might be safe. People’ve gone bad
in the head, you know? Like wild animals.”

Nick nodded. “I think it’s
some kind of…sickness.”

“I was pretty much
thinking the same thing. Seen a lot of sick people these last few days on my
morning runs. Flu, colds, fevers; people sneezing and coughing from the moment I
picked ‘em up till the moment I dropped ‘em off. Something bad has got inside
people.”

“I’m pretty sure I owe you
my life,” Nick said. “Thank you.”

Dave shrugged again. “We
ain’t out the woods yet, I’m afraid. I got no clear destination and only half a
tank of petrol.”

Nick thought about Deana.
“We should go the hospital. Find help.”

“Hospital was the first
place I checked.”

Nick raised his eyebrows.
“And?”

“No good. There were sick
people everywhere, bleeding and half-naked, making those terrible screeching
sounds they make. It was a bloodbath. I left no sooner than I’d got there. In
fact, there’s a bird named Pauline I picked up from near there - just in time,
too. She had a group of crazies right on her heels, legging her down the
highway. I got to her, though. She’ll tell you herself that heading for the
hospital is suicide.”

Nick felt defeated. People
were sick and even the hospital couldn’t help. How was the situation ever going
to get better when there was nowhere to go, no one to take control or offer
assistance? Maybe there was no getting better. Perhaps this was it. The end.

“How about a police
station?” Nick asked, grasping at straws.

Dave shook his head. “The
cop shop’s in the town centre and the main roads to town are all snarled with
traffic.”

Nick groaned. “Then where?
Where the hell is safe?”

Dave answered him calmly.
“One of the folks I picked up earlier had the idea of finding an Army base.
They tend to be out in the countryside where things might not be so bad. Big
fences, too.”

Nick nodded. It was a good
idea. “If anyone can deal with a shit storm like this, it’s the military.
Where’s the nearest base?”

“That’s the problem. No
one has any idea, and the guy who suggested it took off to find his family. So,
keep an eye out for any road signs that might help us. I’m going to head
towards Nottingham, see if I can find the Sherwood Foresters or, at the very
least, a rural petrol station that isn’t overrun.”

Nick looked at the road
ahead and was glad to see that it was clear for the time being. There might
finally be chance to take a breather…to think.

James.

Deana.

Nick blinked and shook
away his thoughts. “You mind if I take a seat, Dave? I’m dead on my feet.”

“Take a load off, mate. If
I need something, I’ll let you know.”

Nick took the seat beside
Eve who was leaning against the window and watching the scenery rush by.

“I’m filthy,” she
muttered.

Nick stared at her.
“What?”

She stretched out her legs
to show the mud covering her jeans. “Look at me. I need a shower. Need to wash
my hair. It’s disgusting.”

Nick was surprised that
cleanliness was her biggest concern. “Big picture, Eve. People are dead. You
can clean yourself up later.”

“Don’t talk to me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like you’re my dad or
something.”

“I’m not trying to be your
dad,” Nick grunted. “My son died this morning on my goddamn kitchen floor, so
trust me the last thing I want to be is your dad. Especially when all you can
do is whine about some dirt under your nails.”

Eve folded her arms,
showing that she had no interest in talking with him unless he was ready to
indulge her complaints; so Nick moved to the other side of the bus. He took a
seat in front of a middle-aged woman wearing the tattered remnants of a grey blouse.
A colourful scarf lay on the seat beside her. It was caked in blood.

“Hello,” she said to him
while failing to blink even once. “Welcome to the hell bus.”

Nick chuckled, but it held
no mirth - a mere social instinct. “Well, I for one am glad to be a passenger.
Beats being where I was before Dave picked me up.”

“It’s not the bus that’s
hell. It’s everything outside of it.”

Nick stared out the window
and saw nothing but autumn leaves and muddy fields. It was a pleasant view for
the time being, but he could imagine the things the woman had likely seen on
the main roads.

“I know what you mean,” he
said. “I haven’t had the greatest of mornings either.”

“I was at the hospital,”
she said, staring out the window blankly, “to pick up my sister. We live
together and her car isn’t running. She was working the night shift – she’s a
nurse…was a nurse. I was supposed to pick her up this morning.”

“I’m sorry.” Nick
remembered the sight of his son lying on the kitchen floor. “I’ve lost people,
too. I think a lot of people have.”

The woman carried on
talking as if she hadn’t even heard him. “She was always a bit of a mess, my
sister. Never could seem to get her life in order, always sponging off me and
wasting her ability. I always figured she’d find her way eventually, once she’d
grown up a little. Now she won’t ever get the chance.”

Nick remained silent for a
while before he said: “Dave told me he picked you up near the hospital. Your
name’s Pauline?”

“Pauline Cummings. Wish I
could say it’s a pleasure, but…well, you know.”

Nick tried to smile. While
he’d been running around on adrenaline for the past couple hours, too panicked
to properly grieve his losses, this woman had been sitting on the bus, alone
with her grief. The reality of the situation was crushing her now and Nick knew
that once he took time to slow down, his own grief would crush him too. He
looked around the bus at the other passengers, trying not to dwell on things
that could wait for later. There was a grimy-looking man in navy-blue work
overalls at the rear of the bus, taking up the long seat. He had thick brown
dreadlocks and was staring at the floor while picking at his calloused hands. A
couple rows in front of dreadlocks sat a teenager in a bulbous yellow puffer
jacket. He was staring down at a mobile phone in front of him.

Lastly, there were two
older ladies sitting together in the middle rows, nattering to one another as
if they were on an ordinary journey on an ordinary day - the stiff upper lip of
the older generation.

The vibrations of the engine
started to lull Nick into a restful daze. Now that he was finally safe, his
entire body began to throb. His bladder felt heavy and his hearing seemed to be
on high alert. He felt the blood pulsing in his veins. He buzzed.

Through the window, Nick
watched the countryside break apart as the bus passed through an industrial
estate. The various factories and workshops were all dormant, their workers
unable to make it in today. Or likely for the foreseeable future.

“Looks like things are
going to get a tad rough up ahead,” Dave shouted back at them. “Everybody hold
on to their arses.”

Nick got up and clambered
his way to the front, wanting to see what they were coming up against.

More car wrecks littered
the road and pedestrians were everywhere. A motorway service station lay just
off the upcoming island and it was currently ablaze. Nick could only assume
what had happened there was another outbreak – of whatever was making people
crazy. Weary commuters hoping to grab a quick pasty or make use of the restroom
would have got more than they bargained for.

The whole scene was a
disaster-zone. The healthy fought desperately against the sick. Burning husks
of automobiles piled up in the road. Fires seemed to catch all over the place.

Nick swallowed the lump in
his throat. “Think we can make it through?”

“I don’t know,” Dave said.
“The motorway is totally blocked but I might be able to stay on the island and
get round onto the A road.”

“If we get stalled then we
won’t be able to get moving again. Those crazies will be all over us.”

“Thanks for that, Nick.
Very comforting.” Dave took a deep breath and held it; then he stamped down on
the accelerator, choosing speed over caution. He quickly steered to the right
as a body flew out in front of the bus, arms flailing. Nick couldn’t tell if it
was one of the crazies or someone normal pleading to be picked up. It was too
late to find out when their bodies fell under the wheels.

There was a woman at the
side of the road clutching a bloody arm against her chest. As they passed her,
Nick noticed the arm was missing a hand. She screamed at the bus to stop and
help her, but there was no hope of doing anything for her, especially when a
mob of infected people engulfed her.

“Holy shit!” Eve said. She
had crept silently to join Nick at the front of the bus. “They’re like a pack
of piranha.”

Dave steered through a gap
between an abandoned minibus, an overturned Land Rover, and a Union Jack roofed
Mini Cooper. The bus scraped the Mini and exchanged paintwork, but it didn’t
slow them down or alert the owner. Nick figured the ding was the least of
anybody’s concerns right now.

The bus jolted suddenly.

“What was that?” Nick
asked. “What did we just run over?”

Dave stared straight
ahead. “You don’t want to know.”

Halfway around the
roundabout, the road opened up a little. Mangled bodies littered the verges,
but there was no one alive walking around. The amount of car wrecks also
lessened.

“I think we’re through the
worst of it,” Nick said.

Dave put his foot down in
reply and the bus accelerated. While Nick couldn’t be sure, he had a feeling
that the guy’s unflappable manner was actually masking a great deal of fear;
fear that was currently manifesting as a heavy right foot.

“Hey, Dave, slow down a
little.”

“It’s fine, we’re clear.”

“I know, but we don’t know
what’s around the next bend.”

“Hey, this is my
bus. I picked you up, remember?”

“Okay, okay. I just don’t
want us to have an accident.”

“Yeah, of course…sorry.”

Nick waved his hand.
“Don’t worry ab-”

The bus hit something.
Hard.

Dave slammed on the
brakes. The bus fishtailed, back tyres slipping. Everybody screamed, louder
when the entire left side of the bus rose up off the road. Nick tumbled into
the aisle. Eve landed on top of him, her elbow catching him in the ribs.

Nick was sure the bus was
going to tip over.

But it didn’t.

The wheels came back down
onto the road and the bus came to a sudden stop with the pained screeching of
its tyres. Everybody onboard stopped screaming and fell into silence.

Nick climbed gingerly to
his feet, rubbing at his ribs. Dave was still staring straight ahead. He’d gone
deathly pale.

“Are you okay?” Nick asked
the man.

“I…I’m fine. We hit
something.”

“I don’t think it
matters,” Nick said. He pointed. “Look!”

A group of ten or twelve
infected people stood in the road, glaring at the bus like an army of savages.
They let out a single, collective screech, then rushed towards the bus.

The first body to collide
with the bus was a child. The small girl had pigtails dripping with blood. She
leapt up onto the windscreen and began beating and clawing at the glass. The
rest of the mob hit the bus from every direction. From inside, it sounded like
a hailstorm, but the view from the windows betrayed the true horror of the
situation. Blood-shot eyes peered in at the bus passengers from all sides.
Swollen and smashed faces smeared themselves against the glass, leaving filthy
streaks that blotted out the sun. The weak strip lighting overhead flickered as
the bus rocked back and forth on its axles. The passengers inside were sheep
ready to be slaughtered.

Nick turned to Dave,
determined to act. “Can we still move?” When there was no answer, he shook the
driver. “I said, can we still move?”

Dave snapped out of his
daze and blinked his eyes rapidly. “I-I don’t know.” He reached shakily for the
ignition key. “Let me try.”

The engine grumbled back
to life happily and Nick sighed relief.

Dave worked the clutch,
kicked the accelerator. The bus lurched forward.

“We’re moving,” Dave said,
“but I can’t see a damn thing.”

Nick patted his shoulder
encouragingly. “Just keep her moving forward.”

Bodies continued to leap
and climb at the bus’s sides, but only the little girl managed to hold on at
the front, clinging to the windscreen defiantly. She stared in at them with
unblinking red eyes.

Then the little girl began
to beat her forehead against the glass.

Again and again and again.

The little girl’s face
broke apart, flesh splitting open wider with each slam of her head. After a
while, she no longer even resembled a child, just a gore-soaked skull with
dripping pigtails.

Dave sped up, knocking
loose several climbers from the bus’s flanks; but the little girl still held on
at the front, continued smashing her skull against the glass.

The windscreen started to
give way, a small crack quickly growing into many tributaries.

“Shit!” Dave groaned.

“Just keep moving,” Nick
said. “If we stop now we’ll never get going again.”

The little girl kept
smashing her skull against the glass and more cracks began to spread. At the
sides of the bus, the remaining infected people also started bashing at the
glass, trying to get inside.

Nick squeezed Dave hard on
the shoulder. “Step on it.”

“I can’t see where I’m
going! There’s blood everywhere.”

The little girl struck her
skull against the glass one last time and the windscreen finally gave way. It
fell out in a single cracked sheet and landed in the aisle, the girl came
tumbling in after it. The only stroke of luck was, that as the bus picked up
speed, the bodies on the flanks finally slipped free. Some fell beneath the
wheels like morbid speed bumps. Nick lost his balance as the floor lurched
beneath him.

The little girl thrashed
on the floor like a barracuda stranded on deck. She was attempting to claw her
way to her feet.

Dave took his eyes off the
road long enough to give the girl a worried glance. “What do I do?”

“Just keep driving,” Nick
said. “Don’t slow down.”

He braced himself as the
little girl rose to her feet. As soon as she was up she launched an immediate
attack, barrelling into Nick with so much force that it felt like her bones
were made of bricks. Staggering backwards, Nick’s ankle clipped the bolted-down
leg of one of the passenger benches. He stumbled into the aisle and fell at the
feet of the teenager in the yellow puffer coat.

The teenager reached down
to help, but as he did so, the girl pounced on him and sunk her bloody teeth
into his hand. He cried out in agony and pushed her away.

The little girl fell
backwards but attacked again immediately. Nick tried desperately to get back to
his feet in time to defend himself, but then she bundled into him and knocked
him onto his side. The teenager recovered and grabbed the girl around her waist
before she could leap on top of Nick. He held her there, wrestling with her
from behind.

“What should I do?” he
cried out in the high-pitched tones of panic. “She’s gunna take another chunk
out of me in a minute.”

Nick looked around for
inspiration and quickly found it. “Pauline!” he shouted. The woman was already
watching him, a terrified expression contorting her face. He clicked his
fingers at her. “Pauline, throw me your scarf.”

For a split second she
looked at him like she didn’t understand, but then grabbed it and balled it up.
She threw it in Nick’s direction, but it fell to the floor a foot short.

Nick stretched for the
scarf, and once he managed to grab it, he shouted to the teenager. “Hold her as
still.”

“Fine, but whatever you’re
doing, mate, you better do it quick.”

Nick got up and approached
the young girl. Her face was a mess, her gums and cheekbones exposed. She
growled at him like a demon and looked like she had come to them straight from
Hell. But she was alive. The light in her eyes told him so.

Nick thrust the scarf over
the girl’s mangled face and quickly wrapped it around her head, trying to cover
her bleeding eyes and the ruined mouth that snapped at him. After wrapping the
scarf as tightly as he could, Nick tied a double knot with the two frayed ends.

The little girl stopped
thrashing.

The teenager frowned.
“She…she’s stopped fighting me.”

It was as if the little
girl had shut down. Her attack mode had switched off.

“Everything alright back
there?” Dave shouted.

“Yeah,” Nick said. “I
think so.”

Nick’s intention had only
been to calm disorientate her, but as he waved a hand in front of the girl’s
face now, trying to tempt a reaction, there was none.

After thinking for a few
moments, Nick came up with a suggestion. “Try letting her go.”

The teenager balked.
“What? No way.”

“It’s okay. I’m ready to
grab her again if she tries anything. Go on, just let go of her, slowly.”

The teenager eventually
obliged, slowly pulling his arms away from the little girl until he was no
longer holding her.

She stood there
motionless. Everyone on the bus let out a collective sigh of relief. The girl’s
hands hung limply at her sides, fingernails caked in blood. One of those
fingers pointed outward at an unnatural angle, suggesting a break or
dislocation, but it didn’t seem to bother her. She was also missing a shoe;
dirt and stones were imbedded in her bare foot. Looking at the girl, one thing
was clear: she needed help they could not provide her.

“How we looking, Dave?”
Nick shouted toward the front.

“I got us back onto the
main road, but there are pile-ups everywhere. It’s like the whole country
started trying to get somewhere in a hurry but forgot how to drive. I can’t say
how long until we get into difficulty again.”

“Is it safe to stop for a
second?”

“Safer than it was
earlier.”

Nick looked at the little
girl with sadness. “Okay. Stop the bus. We’re dropping off a passenger.”

The bus slowed. Nick took
hold of the little girl’s arm and pulled her towards the front of the bus.

“What are you going to
do?” Pauline asked him.

“Free her.”

“We can’t leave her, she’s
just a little girl.”

Pauline was right of
course, but Nick knew they couldn't keep her. “It’s not safe,” he said. “She’s…infected,
for want of a better word. We can’t risk having her near us. She’s acting
like a zombie or a demon or…god, I don’t know what, but I know you understand
what I am saying.”

Pauline was shaking her
head. “We can’t just leave her outside alone and blindfolded. She’ll get hit by
a car. She’s just a little girl.”

“A little girl that almost
took my bastard thumb off,” said the teenager from the rear of the bus.

Pauline could see she was
fighting a lost battle, but continued pleading anyway. “Still, we should do
something.”

“I’ll take off her
blindfold,” conceded Nick. It was the only compromise he could think of.

The teenager shook his
head. “What? No way. She’ll come right at you again.”

“I’ll do it outside. I’ll
do it quick.”

“Your funeral, mate.”

The bus stopped. The doors
opened.

Nick guided the little
girl out onto the road. She was completely docile, willing to go wherever he
guided her.

“I’m sorry to do this,” he
whispered. “Whatever is happening to you, I hope it isn’t permanent.” Then he
manoeuvred her into the treeline, hoping she would wander into the countryside
rather than onto the motorway. He faced her away from him and then glanced back
at the bus. The door was still hanging wide open for him, but he would still
have to be quick.

He took a deep breath and
yanked away the girl’s blindfold.

The girl screeched at the
top of her lungs.

Nick turned around,
sprinted, and performed a running leap up the steps onto the bus, where he
skidded into the aisle. He told Dave to “Step on it.”

Dave didn’t argue.

The doors closed and Nick
watched the young girl turn around and snarl at them, but by that time they
were already well on their way.

The bus picked up speed
and the cold autumn air swept in through the broken windscreen. Nick slumped
against the side of Dave’s driver compartment and watched the road go by,
eventually losing count of the numerous wrecked cars and fallen bodies he saw.

“We need a new plan,” he
said. “Driving around like this is just going to get us killed. Plus we can’t
drive around for ever.”

Dave shrugged. “No
argument here. So, what should we do?”

Nick thought for a second
before giving his answer. The plan was simple. “We stop at the first safe place
that will take us.”

Chapter Six

One hour passed. The view
from the bus’s windows only got worse.

On the outskirts of
Cannock, they witnessed an overturned petrol tanker and a dozen charred bodies.
It seemed that the tanker’s operator had decided to run right through a police
barricade, disregarding the group of people gathered there. The explosion
probably killed them all instantly.

Only minutes later, the
bus entered a village called Alrewas only to find every resident dead. Their
limbs and guts lined the concrete paths like Christmas decorations. A group of
infected people milled around, eating the remains. Eve almost vomited and had
been crying ever since. After everything they’d witnessed, the passengers were
starting to realise that they weren’t merely having a bad day. The situation
wasn’t going to be dealt with by the Ten O’ Clock News. Things had fallen
apart, totally and irreversibly. The country – maybe even the world – was under
siege.

The bus’s current heading
was north on the A38, just past Derby. Nick still held a sliver of hope that
they might chance upon a local army regiment or police force. His biggest hope
was to simply to find some kind of authority. Once he was safe, he would finally
find time to grieve his wife and son. Images of their smiling faces kept trying
to burn their way into the forefront of his mind, but he kept pushing them into
the pit of his stomach where he could deal with them later. Thinking about them
now would be too much. He had to survive first.

The road they were
currently on was one of the few that still flowed with traffic. Anyone lucky
enough to still be on the road was now very careful, not wanting to add to the
uncountable wrecks littering the landscape. Things moved along fairly well, but
the problem was that most people didn’t seem to know where they were going.
Many cars were parked off on the verge; petrol tanks dry after miles and miles
of aimless driving. Stragglers wandered the side of the road in small groups,
trying to hitch a ride. Dave stopped for a couple of them whenever he could,
but had no choice but to ignore most. Those he did pick up were eternally
grateful. Those he ignored screamed obscenities.

In addition to the
passengers they had started with, the bus now held Cassie, a twenty-something
nail technician from Tamworth; Carl, a factory worker they picked up on the
outskirts of blood-soaked Alrewas; and Kathryn, a supermarket manager from
Birmingham. Kathryn kept mostly to herself, but had been kind enough to share
her bottle of water with the teenager when he started to feel unwell. His hand
had not yet stopped bleeding from when the little girl had bitten him.

Nick learned that the
teenager’s name was Jake, and that he was a Creative Writing student from
Wolverhampton University. His hand was a mess - tough to even look at. The
wound had blistered up and leaked a kind of mustardy pus. He was currently
lying on the bus’ back seat, after having applied a bandage Dave had given him
from the bus’s first aid kit. Nobody said it, but everybody worried that he had
caught whatever the little girl had. All eyes gazed upon him with suspicion.

Dreadlocks, in the
navy-blue overalls, was actually named Mark. He was a Jamaican-born mechanic
with a thick accent who was currently living in Smethwick. Nick hadn’t noticed
Mark’s leg was broken when he’d first spotted him on the bus, but the man’s
left leg sat inside a grubby white cast. Mark told Nick he’d desperately wanted
to intervene when the little girl had attacked, but expected only to make
things worse with his cumbersome leg getting in the way. Nick decided not to
hold a grudge.

The two old ladies were
Ethel and Margaret. They’d become sullen and voiceless in the last hour, a
stark contrast to their earlier natterings. It seemed they’d only been able to
take so much before losing their stiff upper lips.

“We’re running on fumes,”
Dave informed Nick. “Every time we pass a petrol station, it’s totally blocked
up with car wrecks or swimming with sick people. We’re going to have to pick
somewhere to turn-in soon or we’re going to come to a stop in the middle of the
sodding road.”

Nick patted the man’s
shoulder. “Okay. Let’s get off the road as soon as we can. Maybe park off in
the woods somewhere?”

Dave took the next slip
road and headed west into a residential area full of Victorian semis and dusty
shops. Nick eyed every road sign as they passed and, after a few minutes, he
pointed. “There,” he said. “Head for that.”

Dave glanced at him. “Head
for what?”

“The Ripley Heights
Country Park. I bet we can hole up there. I just saw a sign for it, saying to
head left. It’s almost winter. The park has probably closed up for the season.
It might be empty, safe.”

Dave took the next
turning. The bus entered onto a steep incline with woodland on either side and
Nick was immediately pleased at the lack of buildings. If they found a rural
enough area, they may just be able to sit tight somewhere until they could figure
out what to do next. Or until help arrived.

While the bus continued to
climb, Nick took a seat next to Eve. For some reason, he felt an attachment to
her, perhaps because their relationship stretched back to before their presence
on the bus. Perhaps because she was only there because of him.

“Hey,” she said. “Any idea
where we’re going?”

“We’re heading for a
country park,” he said. “We’re hoping it’ll be deserted enough that we can stop
for a while. We’re running low on petrol so it’s not like we have a choice
either way.”

Eve stared out the window
thoughtfully. “I wonder if my family are okay.”

Nick thought about Deana
and James. They certainly were not okay, but there could still be hope
for other people. He knew he should try to care about that, regardless of how
hard it was to think beyond his own losses. “I suppose it’ll be a while before
any of us find out how bad things are. I think Jake has a mobile phone if you
want to call your parents.”

“Already tried,” she said.
“My call wouldn’t go through. Kathryn has a phone as well, but it wouldn’t
connect either.”

“Just assume your family
are okay, then,” Nick urged her. “Anything else won’t do you any good.”

“I’m scared, Nick.”

He went to put his arm
around her, the same way he would whenever Deana was anxious, but stopped
himself, remembering that he barely knew the girl. “I’m scared, too,” he said.
“I’m scared that even if we get through this, things will never be the same for
any of us. We’ve all lost too much.”

“Do you think terrorists
did this?”

Nick hadn’t thought much
about it, but he considered it a possibility. “I don’t think it’s worth
thinking about why this has happened, at least not for now. Leave that to the
experts. All we need to focus on is sticking together and getting through the
rest of the day in one piece.”

“You think we’ll manage to
do that?”

“I think we’re through the
worst of it.”

At least I hope so, Nick thought to himself
as he looked out the window.

***

The bus came to a stop in
a grassy picnic area inside a wooded clearing. There were no other vehicles in
sight.

“Well done,” Nick told
Dave. “This place looks pretty deserted.”

Dave switched off the
engine and leant back in his chair, rubbed at his eyes with two meaty fists and
blinked. “I’m just glad to take a break from driving. I would’ve gone
cross-eyed after much longer.”

“I’ll bet,” Nick said. “We
all owe you for keeping us safe. I think we can stretch our legs for a while
now and take a breather. Then perhaps we can check out the surrounding area.”

“Sounds good to me.” Dave
pressed a button on the dashboard and the pneumatic doors opened. Everyone got
to their feet and piled out. There were multiple sighs of relief as they each
stretched and took deep whiffs of the country air. The temperature was a little
low for comfort, so Nick fastened his coat before joining them all outside. He
winced as the garment brushed his various injuries.

“You okay?” Eve asked him.
“Your face still looks pretty bad.”

“Just a little sore.” He
prodded at the slick wound on his cheek. “I’ll live.”

Mark limped off the bus
behind Nick, his cast sinking into the mud as he hopped along awkwardly. “Hey,”
he said. “Do we have any water or snack food? I’m starting to feel lightheaded,
mon.”

“Me too,” one of the old
ladies added.

“We’ll just have to make
do for now,” Dave told them, taking on an air of authority that he probably
felt was rightfully his as driver of the bus. “We can see if there are any
shops around here later, once we’ve all had a rest.”

Pauline shook her head.
“Bad idea. We’re safer to just stay put.”

Mark hopped on his one
good leg to the side of the bus and leant up against a wheel arch. “We’ll need
to eat something eventually, lady. So how long do we plan on staying here?”

“I don’t know,” Dave said.

“Well, don’t you think we
should have a plan?” Pauline said.

Dave huffed. “If you have
one, then I’m all ears. Until then, just keep quiet.”

“Look,” Nick said. “We
don’t know enough to make any sort of plan, which is why we just need to take
things one step at a time. Let’s just be glad that we’re off the road at last.”

Everyone grumbled in
agreement before spreading out. The supermarket manager, Kathryn, sat on a
nearby picnic table and began shaping her long red fingernails with a file. The
two elderly women sat on another bench just a few feet away. Eve stood around
aimlessly next to Dave, who had decided to check the oil level of the bus. Nick
thought it was pointless, seeing as they were out of petrol anyway. Jake stayed
on the bus, still feeling unwell. Carl chatted to Cassie nearby, and Mark remained
leaning against the bus, taking the weight off his cast.

Nick chose to approach
Cassie and Carl. He hadn’t spoken to them much and thought it wise to know
everyone he was with. “You folks okay?” he asked, approaching.

Carl sniffed. “As well as
can be expected. Can’t say I’m a big fan of sticking here indefinitely. We’ve
got families to get home to.”

“I know,” Nick agreed,
but deep down he knew that it was no longer true for him. “Ideally we’ll be
able to find help soon, but for now we just need to be safe. We all saw what’s
happening to people.”

“It’s like they’ve all
gone crazy,” Cassie uttered meekly.

Nick smiled at her but
couldn’t manage to get the expression returned. “I think it’s some kind of
virus. My son was feeling ill last night and then this morning…” He didn’t need
or want to finish the sentence. Everyone had been through his or her own
specific torments, and that meant they all understood each other’s losses
without needing them explained. That they had all suffered was implicit.

“I don’t know if it’s
something that can be cured,” Nick added. “So, right now, our best bet is
sticking together.”

Carl sniffed again.
“Safety in numbers, huh?”

“I’m glad you found me,”
Cassie said. “I don’t know what I would’ve done if I hadn’t been picked up. I
watched my best friend get ripped to shreds by her own dad. Then she got up and
came after me.”

Nick scratched his chin.
“She got up and came after you?”

Cassie nodded. “Yes, after
her dad attacked her, Michelle and I managed to hole up in the bathroom together,
but Michelle was hurt bad. Her neck and stomach were gushing and the floor
tiles were covered in her blood. Then she just stopped breathing. I…I know she
was dead, but two minutes later she was back on her feet and coming after me
just like her dad had gone after her. Only she was different than her dad, she
was…”

“Slower?” Nick finished
for her, remembering how Mr Curtis had at first been fast and agile until his
throat tore open on the fish tanks. After that he had moved very slowly, almost
drunkenly.

“People don’t come back
from the dead,” Carl scoffed. “It’s crazy.”

“Yeah, well,” Nick said.
“I think crazy got invited to the party today. Whatever people are infected
with is doing something to them when they get badly injured. It still makes
them want to kill us, but they get clumsy and slow.”

“Like walking corpses?”
Carl was shaking his head, apparently still too unwilling to accept such a
concept. “You’re talking about bloody zombies.”

“Maybe it’s something in
their blood,” Cassie suggested. “Maybe when they get injured and lose enough
blood, the virus leaks out and makes them weaker.” She shook her head and
sighed. “Or maybe they really are just dead and this is the end of the world.”

“You’ve been watching too
many horror films,” Carl told her. “We should just stay calm and wait for this
whole thing to blow over. I guarantee this time next week we’ll all be back at
home, watching the news about whatever this is. It won’t be that the dead are
coming back to life to eat the living.”

“I hope you’re right,”
Nick said, moving away. “I really do.”

He headed over to Mark
next, nodding at him as he approached.

“You doing okay, mon?”

“As well as can be
expected. How’s the leg?”

“Tis not too bad. Hurt it
a few weeks ago at me old man’s garage, ya know? Me own stupid fault. Tripped
over a tyre, of all things, and me leg twisted like a screwdriver. Tain’t
hurting too much now tho. On its way.”

“I wouldn’t want to have
to make a getaway with that thing,” Nick said. “Good thing you’re with us.”

“For sure. I is blessed de
good man, Dave, picked me up. A right calamity we is in right now, ya know?”

“Putting it mildly.”

“Twill work itself out,
mon.”

Nick patted Mark on the
shoulder. “I really hope so, Mark. Good to meet you anyway.”

“Likewise. Think I’ll go
back on de bus. Take the weight off dis leg. See how the young lad is doing.”

Nick nodded as Mark
hobbled off. “I’ll let you know if anything transpires,” he shouted after him.

Eve was standing nearby.
She was frowning. “You part of the morale squad or something?” she said. “Who
made it your job to check up on everybody?”

“Just trying to keep
myself busy.”

“Why bother? We’re all
fucked. You keep going around like everything is going to be fine, though.
We’ve got a bus with no petrol, a guy with a broken leg, and a pair of
geriatric bingo warriors.”

Nick let out an aggravated
breath. “Being negative isn’t going to do anybody any favours, is it? Should I
have just left you in that closet?”

“Probably. It was safer
than standing in the middle of a field, or letting that crazy little girl
attack us.”

“No one exactly let
her do it, Eve. And that girl was sick, not crazy.”

Eve flapped her arms. “Are
you kidding me? The people we’ve seen don’t need an aspirin. They’re monsters.
Mr Curtis was dead and he still came after us. They are all monsters.”

“My son is not a monster.
My wife is not a monster.”

Eve sighed. “I was
listening to what Cassie was saying and she’s right. Soon as you put one of
those crazies down, they get right back up again and stumble after you. They’re
zombies – walking dead people.”

“I have trouble believing
that, even with all that we’ve seen. Dead people don’t rise. There must be some
other explanation.”

Eve flapped her arms.
“Viruses don’t usually turn people into bloodthirsty psychopaths, either, but
hey, you know what, it happened anyway. Someone turned the crazy factor all the
way up to eleven.”

Nick closed his eyes for a
second and thought. “Look, I don’t know the answers any more than anybody else.
I just don’t think it’s prudent to start assuming things like a zombie
apocalypse. We all just need to stay calm and keep our heads about us.”

“Who made you so important
that you think you can manage everyone? What is wrong with you, man? Don’t you
see what’s going on?”

“Eve, I’m just trying to
help. What’s gotten into you? Why are you so mad at me?”

Eve turned away from him,
looking like she was hiding a bout of tears. “I just don’t want to be here. I
don’t feel safe.”

This time Nick decided to
reach out and touch her. He placed a hand on her shoulder and rubbed.
Eventually she began to turn back to face him.

A scream sounded from the
bus.

Everybody in the field
looked around as one, startled and afraid, nerves already close to cracking.

One of the bus’s side
windows cracked in the centre. It looked like someone’s head had been pushed
through it and then pulled back inside.

Eve had her hands clasped
together in front of her face. “What the hell is happening now? I can’t take
any more.”

Nick sprinted across the
short patch of grass over to the bus and sprung up the steps into the aisle.
What he saw confused him. Jake had Mark shoved up against the side of the bus,
forcing his head against the broken window as he tried to bite a chunk out of
his face. Mark tried to resist, but his bulbous cast was wedged beneath the
seats, pinning him in place. Jake had hold on his dreadlocks.

Nick stumbled forward as
Dave ran into the back of him. When the other man saw what was happening he
swore loudly. “Shite! Jake is one of them.”

Nick shook his head, but
it quickly occurred to him what had happened. “The little girl bit Jake’s hand.
She infected him. Damn it!”

Mark screamed for help.

Nick broke from his stupor
and started forward, but stopped when Mark’s screams were cut short by Jake’s
teeth sinking deeply into his windpipe. Nick watched in horror as veins and
cartilage were torn away like wet spaghetti.

Dave grabbed hold of his
coat and pulled him back. “We’re too late. Come on!”

But Nick was frozen. He
couldn’t take his eyes from what was happening in front of him. Two men who he
had only just been chatting to were now soaked in blood before him.

Jake lifted his head from
Mark’s neck and spotted Nick standing at the front of the bus. He hissed
through bloodstained teeth.

Nick leapt out of the bus
and landed on the grass outside. Dave punched a big red button set beside the
door and it quickly folded shut. Jake crashed up against the glass panel,
glaring out at them with swollen, bloodshot eyes. Gory chunks of flesh hung
from his teeth. Mark’s flesh.

Jake screeched at the top
of his lungs.

“Run!” Dave bellowed to
everyone. “Jake is infected. Bloody move it!”

Everybody took off like kids
in a playground, scattering at different speeds. Nick held up the back, trying
to keep everybody moving in the same direction before they lost each other. He
glanced back and watched as the bus shrunk away behind them, but then he saw
Jake emerge from it, climbing through the hole where the windscreen used to be.

“Oh no!” Nick started
coaxing the two old ladies to move faster. “Come on, come on,” he shouted.
“Ethel, Margaret, move, move, move.”

Jake let out another
piercing scream and the fleeing passengers managed to find another gear,
picking up more speed, finding energy that only the fear of death could
liberate. Eve and Cassie were at the front of the pack now, heading for the
treeline.

Nick glanced back again,
but it wasn’t good. Jake would be on them long before they all made it to the
treeline. He wasn’t dead, not a shambling zombie. He was one of the crazed,
adrenaline-fuelled members of the infected. Even if they did somehow make it
into the woods, they still wouldn’t be safe. Jake would just hunt for them.

Suddenly, Ethel stopped
dead. She doubled over and clutched at her chest. Margaret stopped beside,
putting an arm around her companion’s shoulders. “Ethel! Ethel, now, we have to
keep moving. Stop being a silly beggar.”

Nick stopped and went back
for them. They had only seconds to get moving again. Jake was sprinting after
them at great speed.

“Come on,” Nick urged the
two old ladies. “We have to keep moving.”

Ethel fell to her knees,
wheezing. “M-my heart. I can’t. I need to…stop. Just go.”

“No,” Margaret stated
firmly. “I refuse to leave you here.”

Nick grabbed Margaret’s
brittle forearm and tried to pull her away. “Come on, we have to go or we’re
all dead.”

“Then you go.”
Margaret pulled her arm back with surprising strength. “I’m not leaving Ethel
to face that monster alone.”

Ethel managed to right
herself on one knee. Her face had gone deep purple and she squinted in agony.
Despite that, she grabbed Margaret by the hand and squeezed tightly. “Margaret
Skinner, I am not letting you get hurt because of me. If you don’t get moving
right this very second, I will come back and haunt you. I swear it.”

Margaret looked ready to
burst into tears. Nick stared down the field. Jake was only metres away now,
lolloping across the grass like a deranged ape.

Ethel fell down, rolling
onto her side and clutching at her chest. She looked up at her friend and
hissed. “Go.”

Nick grabbed Margaret’s
arm and this time she didn’t resist. They got moving again, leaving Ethel
behind to her fate. Hopefully it would be the heart attack that claimed her and
not Jake’s savage teeth.

The last thing Nick heard
before Ethel’s screams filled the air was the old lady cursing at Jake. “I’ve
taken shits harder than you, you fucking pussy.”

The rest of the passengers
entered the shadows of the treeline and didn’t look back again.

Chapter Seven

Nick and the group
eventually stopped in a clearing about half a mile into the woods. Everyone was
sweating, having run uphill most of the way. They managed to leave Jake behind
as he stopped to maul Ethel, but Nick could still hear the infected teenager’s
animalistic shrieks in the distance. In her dying breaths, Margaret’s old
friend had bought the rest of them time to escape.

Dave slumped up against a
tree and tried to catch his breath. Perspiration soaked his hair and matted it
against his forehead. “I pray we never have to do that again. I think I left
one of my lungs back there.”

“Tell me about it,” Nick
said. He knelt on the ground and tried to catch his own breath. It was several
minutes before he was able to stand again and ask the group a question. “Has
anyone else been bitten?”

“Why?” Cassie asked.

“Because Jake was bitten
by the little girl and now, a few hours later, he’s infected. That’s how this
thing is spreading: an infected person bites a healthy person. I feel dumb for
not realising it earlier, but it makes perfect sense. I just can’t believe how
quick it happens. I’d assumed a certain part of the population had become
infected and that the rest of us were healthy, but that’s not how it works.
This thing is spreading person to person.”

Carl spat at the ground.
“So we could all end up like that?”

“If you get bitten, yes.
Has anybody been bitten?”

Everyone shook their
heads.

“Okay.” Dave seemed to
relax a little. “We all better be real careful from now on then. We come across
someone infected, we run. No fighting with them like we did with that little
girl.”

“I agree,” Nick said,
feeling bad about Jake’s fate now that he knew it involved him.

“We have to be more
careful,” Eve said. “I’m not ending up like one of those monsters.”

“They’re people,” Nick
grunted. “My wife and son were infected, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let
you keep calling them monsters.”

Eve folded her arms and
lifted her chin. “I’m sorry, but as nice as people might once have been, if
they’ve been infected, they’re monsters.”

Nick clenched his fists.
But before he could shout his reply, Dave shushed them both. “Come on now. No
point arguing over it. I think we all understand that people are sick –
infected, if you like – but they’re dangerous and we cannot forget that.”

“I think some of them are
dead,” Cassie said, echoing her previous statements.

The group went silent.
Nobody argued at first.

Then Carl spoke up. “This
nonsense again,” he muttered.

Eve was the first to speak
in support of Cassie. “I think she’s right. Nick killed an infected man when he
rescued me. He got right back up and came after us again. He was messed up,
slow and clumsy, but he was still walking around trying to eat us, even with
most of his neck missing.”

Nick couldn’t contain his
grief any longer. It had been building in the pit of his stomach like an ulcer
and now it was ready to burst. What everyone was talking about was utter
nonsense. And it offended him. “I killed my son,” he said, feeling sick as he
said it. “James was infected, but he didn’t come back to life after I killed
him. He stayed dead. He is dead. So your theory is bullshit.”

“Well, that shoots
Cassie’s theory down once and for all then,” Carl stated, obviously satisfied.
“The dead are not getting up and walking around.”

There was silence again.
Everybody looked at Nick. The full weight of his confession suddenly dawned on
him. He didn’t want their judgment, their pity. They could never understand his
loss or what had occurred in his kitchen.

Nick marched off deeper
into the woods, leaving the others behind him – along with their unwanted pity.
Far enough away, he slumped back against an old spruce tree and started bashing
his head against the bark. He burst into tears, crying so hard he thought he
might suffocate, so hard was his sobbing.

He wanted to die. He
wanted it all to be over.

The nightmare was too
much.

Eventually Nick’s body
became so weak that he couldn’t sustain his own weight any longer and collapsed
to the ground. He found himself staring up at the grey sky. Peculiarly he
started to wonder if it might rain. Covered in dirt and blood, the thought of being
cleansed by Mother Nature was surprisingly comforting.

A twig snapped nearby.

Nick’s mind leapt back
into focus. He sat up and searched in the direction of the noise.

“Hey,” Eve said, coming
and kneeling on the ground next to him. She stretched out her legs and then
plonked herself down on her bum. “It’s dangerous to be out her alone.”

Nick sighed. “I honestly
don’t care.”

“I do. Are you okay? I
mean, considering the fact that the world has fallen apart.”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just
getting some stuff out of my system.”

Eve nodded as if she
understood. “I’m sorry.”

“What for?”

“The things I said.
Actually, I’m pretty much sorry for everything I’ve said to you since we met. I
know I’ve been a bit up and down. I’m hormonal at the best of times and this
situation certainly isn’t helping.”

“You said I rescued
you.” Nick said, recalling the word Eve had used in their previous group
conversation.

Eve looked down at her
hands. “Yeah, well…that’s because you did rescue me. I just don’t like feeling
like I owe anybody anything, I guess. Makes me defensive. I’m sorry I called
your family monsters.”

“It’s okay,” Nick said,
managing to raise a tiny smile of forgiveness. “I just don’t like to think of
my wife as being beyond help. I keep trying to convince myself that this will
all blow over and that Deana will be waiting for me when I get home. James too.
Huh, stupid.”

“James is your son?”

“He was my son. I
killed him. I think there’s probably a special kind of Hell for fathers who
kill their sons.”

“What happened?” Eve asked.

“He was sick, just like
the others we’ve seen. He attacked me in the kitchen, like a wild animal, and
I-I slipped. We both fell… His head hit the chair.”

Eve sighed. Pity Nick
didn’t want. “He didn’t come back like Mr Curtis?”

“No. I was in the house
for another ten minutes and he was just…dead. Mr Curtis was back on his
feet almost right away.”

Eve propped her chin up
with her hand and seemed to think for a moment. “Perhaps it has something to do
with their injuries.”

Nick frowned. “Dead is
dead, isn’t it? Why would it matter how they die?”

Another twig snapped.

“You have to go for the
head,” said a voice belonging to a stranger.

Chapter Eight

Nick and Eve leapt up.
Three huge men, two black, one white, stood several metres away. One of the
black men was bald with a pointed goatee, while the other was well groomed with
short, cropped hair and light stubble. The white man was the biggest of the
three – a mountain, six-and-a-half-feet for sure. His heavy beard was growing
grey, giving him the appearance of a grimy Father Christmas. All three men wore
the same grey tracksuits and white trainers.

“Who are you?” Nick
demanded. Instinctively he placed Eve behind him.

The black man with the
pointed goatee sucked at his teeth. “Could ask you the same thing, little man.”

The towering white man put
his hand up to silence his associate and then smiled at Nick. “My name is Jan.
Janwin Banks. This is Rene,” he motioned to the quiet man on his right. “The
charmer on my left with the Fu Manchu is Dash. Don’t ask what his real name is,
though, because he won’t tell you.”

“You’re prisoners,” Nick
said, noting their matching attire. He started backing away slowly, pulling Eve
with him.

Jan held his palms out in
peace. “Hey, brother, there’s no need to fear us. We stepped in the same shit
puddle you have. We’re just trying to make it somewhere safe.”

“How did you get free?”
Eve asked from over Nick’s shoulder.

“The fuck it got do wid
you, sweetheart?” the one named Dash said.

Jan sighed and took a wary
step forward. “Let’s just say that we’re the lucky victims of circumstance. The
guards who were relocating us to a new bin in Nottingham are all dead.”

Nick and Eve backed away
more quickly.

Jan chuckled. “No, not
because of us. There was an accident. Some imbecile driving a Land Rover went
right into our minibus. Next thing I know, there’s a bunch of lunatics tearing
apart our P.O.s. We managed to cut our wrist ties on a piece of twisted metal
on the banged-up Land Rover and ran for the hills. There were five of us to start
with, but we didn’t all make it. It appears things have changed a little
recently. People aren’t as friendly as I remember.” He scratched his head.
“Tell you the truth, I actually prefer it on the inside.”

“There’s some kind of
virus infecting people, making everybody crazy,” Eve said.

Jan nodded and scratched
at his impressive beard. “Makes sense. People don’t act like savages for no
reason.”

Nick thought about how the
three men had introduced themselves. They could have snuck up, but instead Jan
had spoken and given up his presence. “You said something about needing to go
for the head?”

“Yeah,” Dash told them
enthusiastically. “It’s the only sure way to put ‘em down for keeps.”

Jan nodded his agreement.
“Don’t know if you’ve noticed, but when one of these infected people
dies they have a tendency to come back.”

Nick stared at the man.
“You know that for sure?”

“Like I said, there were
five of us to begin with. I’ve seen enough to know the rules. The dead are
getting up and walking. Hallelujah!”

“I told you,” Eve said to
Nick.

“When they come back,” Jan
continued, “they come back different. Clumsy, slow, and easy to deal with, but
they tend to group together and come after you in a pack. If that happens
you’re in trouble. You can only drop them for good with a hefty blow to the
head.”

Eve glanced at Nick and he
could tell what she was thinking. James hadn’t come back because he struck his
head on the chair when he fell.

“How do you know all
this?” Nick asked.

“Because we saw that
shit,” Dash grunted. He obviously disapproved of having to explain himself.
“We’ve been hiking it all the way from Nottingham. Seen some seriously wacky
shit since then, blud.”

“It wasn’t too bad at
first,” Jan said, “but things quickly deteriorated. I don’t even know the name
of the last town we passed through, but there was no one left alive, all
infected or dead. We managed to lay low and avoid them, but if they’d spotted
us we would’ve been done for. That’s why we made for the countryside. I suppose
you both had the same idea?”

“There’re half-a-dozen of
us, actually,” Nick said, wanting to let them know he had backup if he needed
it. The spokesmen for the three men, Jan, seemed intelligent and rational, but
there was no telling what the man was truly like.

“A bunch of us came here
in a bus,” Eve said, understanding Nick’s strategy.

“Mind if we join up with
you?” Jan asked bluntly.

Dash pulled a face. “You
serious, J? We don’t need to team up with this honkey and his bitch.”

Nick clenched his fist and
stepped forward. “I think you might want to learn to keep your mouth shut, blud.
Let your associate do the talking. He’s better at it.”

Dash stepped forward to
meet Nick. “You want a piece of me, honkey?”

Jan stepped between them,
holding his fellow prisoner back. “Look, with all that’s going on, I think
safety in numbers is the only thing we’ve got going for us. If we join together
we can figure something out and try to stay alive.”

Nick felt uneasy about the
situation. He wrung his hands together and took a few breaths as he thought it
through. Three prisoners, at least one of them was a sure problem in Dash. The
guy was an obvious loose cannon. Jan seemed reasonable enough, but the third
man said not a word. He just stood there taking it all in silently.

“We don’t know anything
about you,” Nick said.

Jan nodded. “True enough.
We’re criminals, and obviously that’s a cause for concern for you. If what you
say is true, though, you have a whole busload of people to keep an eye on us.
It’s not in our interests to harm you. We just want to find safety. I’m sure
that’s what you want to. If that’s true then we have common ground.”

Nick wavered, swayed from
foot to foot as he wrestled with the right reply.

“What if I said, please?”
Jan said. “And I promise to keep Dash on a tight leash. We’re all beat,
and pretty damn terrified to tell you the truth. If you allow us to join your
group, I promise we we’ll pull our weight.”

Nick sighed. Was it really
a good idea to team up with bunch of criminals? But could he really turn his
back on somebody asking for help? Jan was right about one thing: safety in
numbers was the only thing any of them had going for them

“What were you in for?”
Eve asked. It was the obvious question and Nick wondered why it hadn’t occurred
to him to ask.

“I tried to rob a bank,”
Jan replied, bluntly as ever.

Nick cleared his throat.
“And your friends?”

Dash shrugged. “I’m
innocent, blud.”

“Sure you are,” Jan said,
patting him on the back. “Dash was in for dealing – he’s a bit of a cliché.
You’ll have to excuse him. As for Rene, I honestly don’t know. Fella doesn’t
talk none. Only reason I know his name is because I heard the guards use it
before they bit the dust. He’s an odd one, but no harm that I can tell.”

Nick stared at Rene and
found himself agreeing. The man was a picture of gentle calmness, almost
smiling, but not quite. For some reason, Nick didn’t feel in any danger at all
around Rene. It was his two colleagues that were the bigger worry – Dash
especially.

But what choice was there?
It was a free country and Nick couldn’t exactly stop the prisoners from tagging
along. It would be better to extend the hand of friendship than to make an
enemy, especially of a bunch of needy criminals lost in the woods.

“Okay,” Nick said finally.
“You can join us; but you keep to yourselves and don’t upset anyone. These
people have been through a lot already.”

Jan nodded. “Understood
and thank you. Lead the way, brother.”

***

Nick emerged back into the
clearing where everybody was waiting. When they saw the three newcomers they
grew immediately apprehensive.

“Who are they?” Dave
bristled.

Nick introduced the
prisoners. “This is Jan, Rene, and Dash. They’ve had a similar day to ours.”

“Why are they all wearing
matching tracksuits?” Cassie asked timidly.

Nick decided on honesty.
“Because they’re prisoners. They’re going to tag along with us for a while.
There’s safety in numbers.”

“Are you shitting me?”
Dave said. “They’re supposed to be locked up, not roaming free. No way are they
coming with us.”

Jan, as was becoming
standard, was the one to speak on behalf of the prisoners. “We are indeed
supposed to be locked up, but right now there isn’t really any authority to
take charge of us. We were sprung free purely by accident and ever since we’ve
just been trying to survive. We didn’t escape by force or try to break out; we
just suddenly found ourselves free in a very bad situation. What would you have
us do?”

Dave sighed. “You better
not be rapists or murderers.”

Cassie whimpered.

Jan sniffed. “We are no
such thing. We may not be angels, by any length of the imagination, but we are
human beings and would very much like to survive. We don’t want to become one
of those things.”

“Do you know what those things
are?” Kathryn asked, before chewing anxiously at her fingernails.

“I don’t know what they
are, ma’am. I probably don’t know any more than you folks do. Your man, Nick,
thinks a virus did this and I’m inclined to agree, but the only thing I can say
for sure is that I’ve seen dead bodies walking around and eating people. As for
what could cause such a travesty of nature, I have no idea. I’m not a praying
man, usually, but I would suggest asking our Lord take mercy on us right now,
because it seems like he’s pretty pissed off.”

Carl scoffed. “You think
it’s the end of days?”

“Isn’t it?” Jan asked.
“You think this isn’t the end of the world as we know it? Whether it was God,
terrorists, or something else entirely, things have just taken one hell of a
turn for the worse.”

Cassie whimpered again.
“We’re all going to die. Eventually they’ll get us.”

Pauline tried to comfort
her while the rest of the group exchanged nervous glances. Nick knew from his
own mixed feelings that having the three prisoners tag along was as comforting
as it was disconcerting. They were probably dangerous, but no more than anyone
else was right now.

Kathryn broke the silence.
She began to cough and splutter into her hands. Her legs wobbled like she was
going to fall down.

Nick hurried over to her.
“You okay?”

She caught her breath and
nodded. “I-I’m fine. Just a frog in my throat.”

Nick nodded and gave her
some space.

“What’s the plan then,
folks?” Jan asked them all. “Is there a destination in mind?”

Dave shrugged and said,
“Does anywhere count?”

“Better than nowhere, I
guess.” Jan turned and pointed in the direction they had met up with Nick. “Me
and the boys came from the main roads beyond the woods. Things are pretty bad
back in the towns, so I suggest we keep to the tress.”

“This whole area is a
country park, apparently,” Nick said. “Maybe we’ll find help somewhere up the
hill. There might be a craft centre or a farm or something.”

Jan clapped his meaty
hands together. “Then we have somewhere to head for. We’re happy to do whatever
you folks think is best.”

Dash rolled his eyes and
grumbled. Being subservient obviously did not sit well with him.

“That okay with you?” Nick
asked Dash, unwilling to deal with petulance from him any more than he would
have from James. Not that James had been a particularly petulant little boy.

Dash smirked. “Yeah,
honkey, I’m sound. Lead on.”

Kathryn succumbed to
another wracking cough. This time she seemed unable to stop it and began
staggering around in a panic.

Dash eyeballed her
suspiciously. “The fuck is wrong with that bitch?”

Jan marched over to
Kathryn and grabbed her. He forced her chin up and stared into her eyes. Then
he shoved her away so she could resume her coughing. “She’s infected.”

Nick baulked. “What?
Impossible.” Then he saw Kathryn’s swollen, bloodshot eyes and knew it was
true. “Oh no.”

“We need to put her down,”
Jan said. The man seemed incapable of being anything other than blunt.

Kathryn managed to halt
her coughing enough to stumble backwards with her hands outstretched. “No! No,
I’m fine. Leave me alone, please. Just leave me alone.”

Jan stalked after her.
Nick grabbed the big man by his wrist, which was too thick to get a hand
around. “Back off! No one’s killing anybody. Are you insane?”

Jan looked at Nick like he
was the one who was insane. “If we don’t kill her now, she’ll kill us later.
I’ve seen it enough times to know.”

“He’s right,” Dave said.
“We’ve seen it too, with Jake.”

Nick shook his head. “But
she can’t have it. She hasn’t been bitten.”

“We don’t know that,” Dave
argued. “How can we be sure?”

“It was the water,”
Pauline said.

Nick turned on her.
“What?”

“When we picked her up she
had a bottle of water. Jake was feeling unwell so she shared it with him.
Cross-contamination.”

Carl groaned, then kicked
at the dirt. “Are you fucking kidding me? What virus acts this fast?”

Nick thought about Deana
and how she had kissed James’s wounded finger before putting a Beano plaster on
it. Had that been all it had taken for her to catch it? And, for that matter,
was the kid who bit James’s finger the one who passed it on to him?

Nick shook his head,
feeling dizzy. “It can’t be… It can’t be that contagious.”

“It is what it is,” Jan
said. “We need to put her out of her misery before she loses it and comes after
us. It’s a kindness, believe me.”

“Fuck you,” Kathryn shouted.
“You’re all fucking insane. You can’t kill me. I’m fine—” More wracking coughs.
She dropped to her knees, wheezing for breath. Blood spattered the crisp brown
leaves in front of her.

Dash picked up a rock the
size of his fist and handed it to Jan. “Turn her lights out, blud.”

Jan didn’t hesitate in
taking the rock. He moved towards Kathryn with it in his hand.

Nick blocked his way. “Not
going to happen.”

“Move out of his way,
Nick.” Dave said. “There's no other way and you know it.”

“Yeah.” Carl added his
voice to the argument. “We have to think about ourselves.”

Nick shook his head in
disbelief. “Do you all think this is the right way to behave? You think we
should kill an innocent woman like it’s nothing? Has it really taken less than
a day to turn us into a bunch of savages?”

“All men are savages,” Jan
said. “Times like these when they really begin to show it.”

“I’m not a man and I’m not
a savage.” It was Eve talking. She stood next to Nick. “I don’t think this is
okay.”

“Me either,” Pauline said.
“It’s barbaric.”

“It’s cowardly, is what it
is,” Margaret grumbled. “This is not the way people in Britain behave. We’re
not French.”

Nick looked at Cassie,
trying to swing a vote. “What about you, Cassie? What do you think?”

Cassie looked at her feet
and eventually shrugged. “I don’t want anyone to die.”

Nick sighed with relief.
“Thank you.”

“But I don’t want to be
attacked again, either. I think…I think Kathryn is already dead if she has the
virus.”

Nick couldn’t believe it.
Of all people to advocate mob violence, shy and quiet Cassie seemed least
likely.

“You can’t do this.” Nick
was exasperated yet held himself firm in front of Jan’s towering frame.

Jan stared down at Nick
with his crystal-blue eyes. The shallow divots of widening crow’s feet betrayed
the man’s age, but also his weathered toughness. It was the hard face of a hard
man, but Jan’s expression seemed to soften slightly as Nick stood his ground.

Jan let go of the rock and
let it fall to the ground. “It’s bad judgment, brother, but I promised to play
things your way, so that’s what I’m going to do. How do you want to proceed?”

Nick deflated and let his
shoulders relax. For a moment there he thought he was about to be crushed by a
giant.

“We send Kathryn in the
opposite direction,” Nick said. “By the time she turns – loses it, or whatever
– we’ll be a mile and half in the other direction. We don’t need to kill—”

Thud! A sickening wet sound.

Nick spun around and tried
to understand what he was seeing. “Dave? What the hell are you doing?”

Dave had just bludgeoned
Kathryn with a meaty blow to the head with a rock even bigger than the one Jan
had had. Already the left side of her face had swollen up like a balloon.
Everybody watched in horror as the bus driver prepared to smash the rock down
again into the struggling woman’s face.

Kathryn moaned as Dave
climbed on top of her. The pungent smell of urine wafted into the air as a dark
stain appeared on the crotch of her work trousers. Dave was going to kill her.

Nick tackled him to the
ground.

“What the hell are you
doing, Nick? We have to do this. Get off me. GET OFF ME!”

Kathryn crawled away,
weeping and moaning in the dirt.

Nick held Dave down by his
wrists and shouted over his shoulder. “Run, Kathryn. Find someplace safe.”

She glanced back at him
like a rabbit in the headlights, her face a crimson mask of blood. She managed
to scramble to her feet and then she was sprinting through the trees and into
the distance.

Once she had disappeared,
Nick let go of an irate Dave.

The bus driver hopped up,
brushing twigs and dry leaves from his knees with aggressive swipes. “You fool!
I was doing what needed to be done. I wasn’t going to let her take a bite out
of me or anyone else. Now she’s running around in the wilderness, ready to
become a monster. The people she kills will be on your head.”

“You’re out of your mind,”
Eve shouted, pointing her finger at Dave.

Pauline looked disgusted.
“This isn’t how people behave.”

Dave spat at the ground.
“It is now. If we want to stay alive.”

Silence hung densely in
the air. Eventually Jan shrugged and looked at Nick. “Can’t change it now,
brother. For better or worse, we need to get going.”

“What? And just leave her
out here alone?” Pauline said.

Dave grunted. “We’ll alert
the authorities when we can. You can even tell them what I did. I’ll stand by
it, don’t you worry.”

Nick was utterly shocked
by Dave’s actions and by the rage that had suddenly taken over him. Nick had
read Dave all wrong. He thought Dave was a rescuer, a decent and brave man, but
he was something else entirely.

Nick started walking.
“Let’s just get moving. Quicker we find help, quicker we can contact Kathryn’s
family and tell them you just tried to smash her brains in.”

“It was more like he was
trying to smash them out to be honest,” Dash said, giggling.

Nick ignored the bad joke
and sped up his pace, leaving the rest of the group several yards behind him,
but after a while, Eve caught up to him. He wasn’t about to admit it, but he
was glad she was there.

Chapter Nine

“So what do you think we’re
going to find?” Eve asked as she and Nick trudged through the woods together.
The rest of the group were trailing a dozen feet behind. Everyone seemed to be
following Dave’s lead for the most part – probably because he was constantly
barking orders. Regardless of whether anybody condoned the bus driver’s
actions, his willingness to take charge and act cemented his place of
authority. Nick tried not to think of poor Kathryn in the woods, alone,
injured, and afraid.

“I don’t know what we’re
going to find,” he said. “I hope we can find somewhere with a nice big gate and
a police sniper on the roof, but I’m pretty sure we won’t get it.”

Eve laughed. “I’m just
wishing for a shower.”

“You’re not still bothered
about being mucky, are you? Not after what happened to Kath—”

“Hey,” she cut him off.
“Don’t give me grief. I’m just trying to focus on the small things. Creature
comforts, you know?”

“Sorry. I’m just angry
about what happened back there.”

“Me too, but none of us
really know each other. We have no power over the actions of Dave or anybody
else. Nobody here is boss.”

Nick huffed. “I’m not sure
Dave would agree with you. I would’ve stopped him if I knew what he was going
to do.”

“I know you would have,
but you didn’t and you couldn’t, so forgive yourself. At least Kathryn’s still
alive. She wouldn’t be if you hadn’t stepped in.”

Nick remained silent, but
took in what Eve was saying. There was no point in ruminating about things he
couldn’t change, and right now a lapse in concentration was surely a death
sentence.

***

“We’ve been walking
through these woods for more than two hours,” Margaret complained. “I need to
rest.”

Nick and Eve were still a
little further ahead than the others, but they stopped when they heard
Margaret. Nick didn’t know how long they’d been trudging through the woods, but
two hours sounded about right.

“We keep moving,” Dave
told the old woman. “We can’t afford to stop.”

Eve frowned. “Why not?
What’s the harm in taking a ten minute rest?”

Dave stared at her and his
top lip curled slightly upwards. “We need to find help, young lady, or have you
forgotten that? The longer we stay in these woods, the bigger the risk we get
attacked again.”

Eve turned a slow circle,
taking in their surroundings. “I think we’ll be okay, old man. We’re totally
alone.”

Dave shook his head.
“We’re not stopping.”

“Who the hell put you in
charge?” Nick said. “Margaret needs to rest, so we let her. There’s no argument
to be had about it. She’s elderly. Show some compassion.”

Margaret looked at Dave
pleadingly. She seemed embarrassed that her age and weakness was causing a
spat, but she seemed determined to get her own way.

Dave gritted his teeth
then said, “Fine. She can have ten minutes, but then we’re not stopping again
until we find help. We can’t afford to be stuck in these woods after dark.”

Nick checked his watch. It
was just after two. It wouldn’t get dark until about 7PM, but Dave did have a
point: they didn’t want to be wondering through the woods in the dark.

Margaret eased herself
down onto a fallen log. Pauline sat beside her and rubbed her back. Dave,
Cassie, Carl, and the three prisoners huddled together between the trees,
chatting.

“Dave is starting to get
on my tits,” Eve whispered to Nick. “Talk about a power trip. He thinks he’s
head boy scout or something. What the hell happened to him?”

“I don’t know,” Nick
admitted. “I can’t believe how quickly his attitude has changed. To think he
was driving around rescuing people, and then to just attack Kathryn the way he
did. I think driving us all to safety has made him feel entitled. On the bus he
was his old self, doing what he does for a living. Since we got off, though,
he’s finding a new role for himself. Still trying to be the driver.”

Eve picked up a fallen
pinecone and ran her fingers over its ridges. “I think when we parked the bus,
the reality of the situation finally dawned on everybody. It was a bit like
being in a cocoon when we were driving around - just watching all the chaos but
not really being a part of it. Now that we’re on foot, I think we’ve all
realised just how vulnerable we are and how much the normal rules don’t apply.
Dave is just doing what he thinks is right, in a screwed up way. Maybe Kathryn
was dead already. I don’t think Dave is bad. Just fucking annoying.”

Nick leant back against a towering
poplar tree and looked up at the sky. Birds fluttered overhead. “Are you doing
okay?”

“Who, me? Yeah, why do you
ask?”

“Just checking. You’re a
young girl. This whole thing must be pretty frightening.”

“Twenty-two doesn’t make
me a child. It just makes me better looking than the rest of you.”

Nick laughed. “You think
so?”

“Absolutely. Me and
Margaret are the hottest people here.”

Nick laughed harder.
“Well, I didn’t want to say anything, but the old dear does have something
about her.”

Eve punched him in the arm
and giggled loudly. Everyone looked over at them

“Stop,” Nick said. “We
shouldn’t chat about people behind their backs. Especially not a nice old lady
like Margaret.”

“I agree. We should look
after her. She reminds me of my gran. Except my gran didn’t swear as much.”

They said nothing else for
the remainder of the break, just made the most of the quiet after so much
chaos. Nearby, Dave checked his watch every thirty seconds, keeping exact time,
with a constant look of irritation on his face. The three prisoners had stuck
close to him since they all got going. Dash was constantly cracking crude jokes
and laughing with Dave, while Jan mostly just looked disapproving. The third
prisoner, Rene, stood was still to utter a single word, yet his eyes darted
constantly, taking in the surroundings.

“Okay,” Dave said five
minutes later, checking his watch one last time. “Time to get moving again. I
think if we carry on in this direction it’ll only be a matter of time before we
come out somewhere.”

“And then what?” Pauline
asked. “What if we get attacked again?”

“We’ll remain in the
treeline and check stuff out before we make any decisions, Pauline. We can send
a scout if need be.”

A scout, Nick thought to himself.
Dave was beginning to act like a military commander.

There were no arguments,
so everyone got moving again. This time, instead of moving on ahead, Nick
stayed back amongst the group. This way, he could keep an eye on Margaret.
She’d recently witnessed her friend being ripped apart and deserved their
compassion, but right now she wasn’t getting any of it from Dave. Nick would
have to make sure she was looked after.

***

Another half-hour went by
before the trees thinned out. Dave hurried to the front of the group and put
his hand up to stop them. “We have to be careful,” he said. “We don’t know what
lies ahead. It’s quiet, so I don’t think it’s a motorway or a road, but it
could still be dangerous.”

“We should send one person
to check it out,” Carl said. “No point risking everybody.”

Dave nodded. “Agreed.
Nick, go see what we’re dealing with.”

“Me?”

“Yes, what’s the problem?
Just stay low and keep out of sight.”

“Why don’t you do it?”

Dave pinched a roll of fat
on his belly. “Because I’m not as light on my feet as you are.”

Nick sighed. He didn’t have
a problem with going - it made sense. What he had a problem with was Dave
thinking he had any right to give him orders.

Nick headed towards the
edge of the clearing. “Fine. Everybody wait here.”

The ground ahead was free
of the roots and undergrowth that had made their progress so laborious over the
last few hours and the mud was harder, more compact. It did indeed seem like
there was something up ahead.

Nick crouched down and
concentrated on what he could hear as well as what he could see, but there was
total silence. He could only consider that a positive; the last thing he wanted
to hear was the bloodthirsty screech of an infected person.

Beyond the treeline was
something large and grey – something manmade. Something solid.

Well, I’ll be damned.

The car park was vast and
empty. Its several hundred white-lined parking spaces were vacant, the whole
area a barren field of weathered concrete. At the near end was a long,
single-story building backed up against the base of a very steep and wooded
hill.

Nick left the woods and
stepped cautiously onto the car park. In addition to the single-story building
up ahead was something else that looked like some kind of cable car system. Its
thick steel cords stretched from the base of the hill all the way to the lofty
summit high above. The dozen or so carriage-cars, hanging from the stretched
cables at regular intervals, were antiquated, small and rickety, with
bright-red, peeling paintwork. They were also intact and seemingly operational.

A ticket office and embarkation
platform had been erected at the foot of the hill. A large, suspended sign
read: RIPLEY HEIGHTS AMUSEMENT PARK AND ZOO.

Nick scratched his chin
and looked around again. The whole area was deserted. Safe.

Nick quickly headed back
up the embankment and re-entered the woods.  He needed to tell the
others.

“What have we got?” Dave
asked Nick when he returned.

“There’s a car park and a
building. Looks like a café or a fast food place. There’s an amusement park
nearby, I think, up a steep hill. I haven’t seen a single soul and it looks
pretty safe. There aren’t even any cars in the car park.”

“Good work!” Dave patted
him on the back like an old buddy – or an obedient son. “Okay, people, let’s be
cautious and keep our eyes peeled. We may be able to find a phone inside that
café. Maybe we can all manage to call home.”

There was a muted cheer
from the group.

They all headed out of the
woods and stepped carefully down the embankment and onto the cracked pavement
of the car park. “Ripley Heights,” Eve said, almost gasping. “I haven’t been
here since I was a kid.”

Nick looked at her. “You
know this place?”

“Yeah, it’s a kiddie park.
You take the cable car up to the top and there’s a petting zoo and some rides.
It’s all pretty lame, but as a kid I loved it. Surprised the place is still
going. It was falling apart ten years ago.”

“What’s the building up
ahead?” he asked her.

She giggled. “The
Rainforest Café. Sit with the monkeys and stay all day; you’re always
welcome at the Rainforest Café. Ha! My dad used to make us all sit inside
the café while he and Mom had a coffee. We used to moan because we wanted to go
straight to the top and ride the rides. My sister and I hated having to sit
patiently while my mum and dad drank that coffee. Kind of miss it now, though.
My dad passed away a few years later. Heart disease.” She sighed.

Nick knew Eve was
wondering whether the rest of her family were alright, so he tried to distract
her. “Let’s go take a look around before Dave takes over.”

The wooden sign for the
Rainforest Café had become weathered and frayed and the outside bricks were
lined with moss and other weeds. It fitted the buildings theme, however, and
merely added to its charm.

Nick peered through the
grimy windows and saw two-dozen fibreboard tables surrounded by plastic chairs.
At one end of the building’s interior was a fast food counter.

“There’s no way for us to
get inside,” Eve said, “and no one inside to let us in.”

“We’ll break in,” Dave
said, approaching. “Unless Nick has a better idea.”

Nick didn’t find reason to
object. With all the damage and destruction they’d witnessed on the road,
breaking a window seemed little more than spitting in the ocean.

“What can we use?” Eve
asked. “This whole place is pretty barren.”

“Does anybody have
anything hard on them?” Dave asked the group.

Nearby, Dash grabbed his
crotch and snickered. “I certainly do, but I don’t think you can break glass
with it.”

“That’s gross.” Cassie
covered her mouth with her hand.

Dash sucked at his teeth.
“Come on, darlin, quit playing coy. A fine piece of ass like you must have had
her fair share of crotch rockets. If not, allow me to be the first.”

Jan slammed a meaty palms
into Dash’s chest, knocking the smaller man back on his heels. “Take a cold
shower or someone will cut it off.”

Dash carried on snickering
but kept his mouth shut.

“Okay,” Dave said,
clapping his hands together to get everyone’s attention. “Everybody spread.
We’re looking for a brick or anything else that could help us get inside.”

Everybody set off at once.
Nick checked over by the cable car station, joined by Pauline, who seemed
exhausted.

“How you holding up?” he
asked her.

“Well, the only thing
keeping me going is the chance that there might be food inside this building.
I’m hoping something to eat might stop my stomach churning so much.”

Nick hadn’t considered the
possibility of food, but he realised now that he, too, was famished. “I guess
we could all do with an energy boost. What’s your favourite food?”

Pauline looked at him.
“Really?”

“Yeah, why not? Just
making conversation. I can’t stand silence. It’s so tense that I feel like
somebody might spontaneously combust.”

Her lips cracked a smile
for the first time since he’d met her. “I know what you mean. I don’t really
have a favourite meal, but if I did, I could guarantee you that I wouldn’t find
it inside that little burger bar. I like French food, cheese and red wine.
Delicious.”

Nick pulled a face. “No
thank you. I like a big hunk of meat. Nice fat steak or a pork chop.
Caveman-style.”

He suddenly thought about
the steak he was supposed to have eaten last night and felt his stomach roil.
The sight of that bloody hunk of meat between his son’s teeth…

Pauline noticed his
discomfort. “You okay?”

“Yeah, fine. Hey,
what’s that over there?” He pointed to a pile of debris up ahead. He and
Pauline hurried over and started sifting through the mess.

“They do a really bad job
of looking after this place,” Pauline said as she kicked aside some mushy
cardboard.

“I’d guess this place is
making a loss,” Nick said. “Most places are nowadays.”

He moved aside an old
wooden pallet, completely rotten underneath. Spiders, woodlice, and other
insects scurried from their uncovered hiding places.

Nick found exactly what
they needed. He picked up the grubby rock and examined it. It was heavy in his
hand, but light enough to throw.

“Perfect,” he said,
showing Pauline what he had found.

They headed back around to
the front and joined up with Jan and the other two prisoners. Nick held the
rock out in front of him.

Jan put his hand out to
take it. “Give it here and I’ll get us in.”

Nick handed it over and
stepped away. Jan stood in front of the Rainforest Café’s window and wound up
like an American baseball pitcher and let the rock fly.

The windowpane shattered
instantly, showering the ground with shards of glass and making a noise like
rain.

They all cringed as the
alarm went off.

Dave came sprinting around
from the far side of the building. “You stupid shits!” he shouted. “Who told
you to do that? You should have waited until I gave the okay.”

Nick threw his head back
and cursed. “Piss off, Dave.”

The bus driver got right
in Nick’s face. “Piss off? Who the hell do you think you are? You’d
still be on the side of the road if it weren’t for me.”

“We don’t have time for
this,” Pauline shouted over the din. “We have to turn that alarm off before it
attracts attention. What if there are infected people nearby?”

“She’s right,” Jan said.
“In one of the towns we passed through, I saw a bunch of infected people head
right for a church when its bell started ringing. Attracted every one of them
within a two-mile radius. We need to cut the noise right now or they’ll be here
within minutes.”

“Don’t worry. I got this.”
Dash leapt over the window ledge and disappeared inside.

Everyone stood around
anxiously, eyeing the treeline. The alarm was loud enough to travel for miles.

“This is not good,” Cassie
said. “Not good at all.”

Carl put an arm around
her. “It’ll be okay, luv.”

Dave stomped back and
forth furiously, clenching his fists and clenching his jaw. Jan and Rene were
the calmest, waiting patiently and apparently at peace with whatever came.

Nick wished he could be so
unflappable. They were all sitting ducks.

The alarm stopped.

Dash appeared at the
broken window, holding what looked like a frying pan. He used it to knock loose
the remaining shards of glass from the window frame and made it safe to climb
through. “Come on in, people,” he said with a proud grin.

“Something tells me you’ve
done this before,” Nick commented.

“I don’t know what you
mean, blud. I’m just a man that knows a few things.”

“You did good,” Dave said.
“Is there any way you can get the doors open as well?”

Dash shook his head. “No
can do. Any keys would be in the safe and I’m not hot enough to break the
locks.”

“Then pass us one of those
plastic chairs to help us climb over.”

Dash got a chair and
passed it out to Dave, who set it on the pavement outside. “Okay,” he said.
“Ladies first.”

They sent Margaret over to
start. Nick helped her up and Dash helped her back down from inside. Then
everybody else followed.

The Rainforest Café’s
interior was unlit, but not completely dark. The chairs and tables were all
neatly stacked and the floors were clean. The place was still operational by
the looks of things, although not open for business today.

“Wonder why there’s no one
here,” Pauline said.

Nick answered. “Makes
sense when you think about the time this all started. My wife and son were sick
before dawn. I’d imagine some people probably took longer, but it’s safe to
assume that the situation was pretty bad most places by 8AM. The café probably
doesn’t open until nine or ten, so the staff wouldn’t have even started their
commute by the time the shit hit the fan.”

“I think we can all count
ourselves pretty lucky,” Dave said. “All of us managed to escape before it got
real bad.”

“We owe you big time,
Dave,” Carl said. “I don’t know what I would’ve done if you hadn’t picked me
up.”

Dave puffed out his chest
proudly. “Don’t mention it.”

“Do you think the power is
still on?” Cassie asked.

Nick shrugged. “No reason
it shouldn’t be.”  He headed for the door that read STAFF ONLY. Beside it was a
little incision in the wall. He sighed. “The lights are operated by one of
those little fish key thingies.”

“Anybody got a hair clip?”
Jan asked.

Pauline pulled one from
her ponytail and handed it over. Jan jammed it into the small slit and fiddled
about. Eventually came an audible click!

The lights flicked on.
Everybody cheered.

Dave grinned. “Excellent.
Now, let’s hunt down a phone.”

“There’s one through that
door,” Dash said. “It leads to an office and a staffroom. I saw it when I broke
in.”

“Excellent,” Dave said
again. “I’ll see if I can reach somebody.”

Nick was interested in
Dave’s plan, so he plonked himself down at one of the tables and slouched
forward onto it with his elbows. His left arm throbbed from multiple bruises
and his face stung constantly, but it felt good to sit down indoors. He had
been beginning to feel like a nomad, trekking through the land without a
destination. It was good to finally stop.

Pauline took a seat next
to him. “Hope that alarm didn’t bring any attention. I don’t think I can face
being attacked again.”

Nick looked across at the
empty car park outside. “I think we got away with it. We might even be able to
stay here until the authorities get a handle of things.”

“You think they will?”

Nick wanted to be
optimistic, but couldn’t find the energy to kid himself. “I don’t know. I don’t
even know what there is for them to get a handle on. If those sick
people can’t be helped…well, let’s just say there will be a lot of funerals to
arrange. I have some of my own to organise as soon as this is over.”

Pauline looked like she
was trying to hold back tears. “Oh, how could something like this happen, Nick?
It makes no sense.”

“Aliens,” Carl muttered
from the next table over.

Nick frowned. “What?”

“Maybe it was aliens. As
good a theory as any. I read once on the Internet that they have this big hole
someplace in America called the Spiral that’s filled with all sorts of things
we don’t know about. I bet it was aliens.”

Nick groaned. “Come up
with something else.”

Carl shrugged.
“Terrorists, laboratory accident, evil corporations, Mother Nature fighting
back. Meteor. God punishing us. What about that cruise ship that went down last
month?”

“What about it?”

“Well, something sent that
ship down. Maybe terrorists were testing out the virus before they used it on
land.”

“How do you even think up
so many conspiracies?” Pauline asked.

“I watch a lot of films.
My point is that something this big doesn’t just happen. It’s an insane
scenario, so it would only make sense that there’s an insane cause for it all.”

“I guess you’re right,”
Nick said, “but I’d rather keep my feet on the ground and my mind focused for
now. No more talk of Aliens. It will just upset people.”

“I know exactly what you
mean,” Carl said, tapping his nose sagely. He looked at Pauline. “You fancy
helping me get the grills on, luv? I think everyone could do with some grub.
Power’s on so there should be no reason we can’t get some chow on the go.”

Pauline shot up from her
seat. “Sounds good to me. I’m bleedin’ starving.”

Nick laughed and watched
them wander off into the kitchen. His smile faded as he remembered all of the
reasons not to be happy.

The staff door flew open
with what sounded like a kick. Dave re-entered and was shaking his head,
seeming right pissed off.

“What is it?” Nick asked
him.

“The phones are completely
dead. There’s not even a dial tone.”

Nick rubbed at his
forehead and sighed. “I’m beginning to think there’s no help to even call for.”

“Nonsense! The police must
be dealing with this. Probably the army, too. They’ll come eventually.”

Nick considered it. It was
a possibility, but they had no way of knowing. “Maybe they’ll come,” he
admitted, “but what do you plan on doing in the meantime?”

“We can stay here, keep
trying the phones.”

“Alright, then we should
get that broken window covered up or we’re all going to freeze tonight.”

Dave nodded, his jowls
wobbling. “Good idea. Please get right on that.” Then he turned on his heel and
marched away.

Nick snapped off a
petulant salute. “Right, away, sir.”

He got up and headed
through the STAFF ONLY door at the back and started searching for materials.
The tiled hallway smelt faintly of lemon and bleach and the chemical odour
tickled Nick’s sinuses almost into a sneeze.

On his right was an open
door leading to a small staffroom and sofa. Straight ahead was a door marked
MANAGER’S OFFICE. Nick entered that room and looked around. An old CRT monitor
perched on a desk and a heavy safe took up the wall behind it. Beside the
monitor was a telephone, which Nick picked up and held to his ear. Like Dave
had said, the line was completely dead. He didn’t know why he’d felt the need
to double-check.

On one of the walls was a
large corkboard. It was definitely big enough to cover the broken window in the
restaurant. Nick pulled it down and took it outside. Five minutes later, with
the help of Jan and Rene, the large corkboard covered the broken window, held
snugly in place by a couple of tables stacked up against it.

“That should keep the wind
out,” Jan said.

Nick nodded. “Hopefully.
It isn’t the wind that worries me, though.”

Jan patted him on the back
with a meaty slap. “Long as we lay low, I can’t see any danger.”

“Long as nobody makes the
mistake of sneezing or coughing, you mean? Else you and Dave will smash their
skull in.”

Jan gave Nick a look that
suddenly made him feel threatened. “Listen, brother,” Jan said to him. “I may
be a lot of things, but I’m not a killer. That lady was already dead. I believe
that truly. Poor Kathryn is probably wandering around in those woods right this
second, a raving loony looking to kill. There was nothing any of us could do
for her except ease her suffering. Dave was trying to do her a favour.”

Nick huffed. “Funny,
because it seemed to me like Kathryn was begging for her life. She didn’t sound
grateful for any favours.”

Jan shoved Nick aside,
sending him sprawling into the wall. “You seem to be forgetting I came around
to your way of thinking in the end. Maybe next time I’ll just go with my gut,
whether you like it or not.”

Jan stomped away like an
angry giant leaving Nick to think about things. It was true that Jan had not
been the one who had tried to kill Kathryn, but he was the one who had
suggested it. He was a criminal when all was said and done. But he had sided
with Nick when it counted, and Nick had chided him all the same. It felt like a
big mistake.

Chapter Ten

It turned out that Carl and
Pauline were able to rustle up quite the feast. A large freezer in the kitchen
contained burger patties, hot dogs, mini-pizzas, and bags of frying chips. With
a little bit of fiddling they’d managed to switch on the fat fryers and
griddles, and within the hour everyone was eating more than they needed.

Nick felt bloated, but
found that the act of eating cathartic. It allowed him to blank his mind of its
troubles while he focused on a basic human need. At his table were Eve,
Margaret, and Pauline. Carl, Cassie, and Rene sat at another table, while Jan,
Dash, and Dave sat at a third. The women at Nick’s table all looked deeply
satisfied as they finished off their French fries. They also had a variety of
soft drinks in front of them, which they slurped readily, except for Margaret
who was drinking piping hot tea. It felt like luxury. The day had been
undeniably long.

“Nothing seems as bad
after a good brew,” Margaret said. “It can get you through anything.”

Eve wiped her mouth with a
napkin. “I bet you’ve seen some things in your lifetime, Margaret.”

“I have at that. Not
nothing like this, though. This is Hell on Earth.”

“You think it’s the same
everywhere?” Pauline asked, rubbing at her eyes and smudging her make-up.

Margaret nodded. “I do.
There seems to be something very deliberate about all this. How could things
degenerate so completely without being planned? Should we believe that
there weren’t any doctors who picked this up early? That the Government had no
warning at all? If that’s the case, this is either the work of very powerful
enemies or a very angry God. And neither of those would release something this
destructive solely on Britain.”

“So you think it’s
happening in other countries, too?” Nick asked.

“At least in the Western
world. If it were terrorists, as an example, they would have far more to gain
by releasing this in America and mainland Europe as well as the UK. It would be
a waste to focus it only on our tiny island. The spread of the disease would halt
at our natural barriers – the coastline.”

While Nick thought about
Margaret’s words, Dave took the opportunity to address everybody. He cleared
his throat before he began. “Perhaps now would be a good opportunity for us to
get some rest; see what tomorrow brings. We can turn off the lights and bed
down wherever we can. Margaret, you can have the sofa in the staffroom.”

“Thank you.”

“We can hold a meeting in
the morning to figure out what our next move will be, although I would suggest
staying here until help finds us. Agreed?”

With no one taking
exception, the group began shuffling around as they each tried to find
somewhere soft to lie down. Margaret headed for the staffroom to claim her sofa
while Dave claimed the tall-backed leather chair in the manager’s office. Nick
decided to roll up his coat as a pillow and just bed down on the restaurant
floor. Eve and Pauline did the same, lying down a few feet from him. The two
women were beginning to feel like his responsibility. Or maybe it was just
friendship developing that made him feel that way.

The three prisoners
huddled up in the corner of the restaurant, making a bed from some aprons
they’d found in the kitchen. Carl and Cassie separated off to sleep in the
kitchen. Nick wondered if they’d formed a relationship throughout the day’s
events, as they had become inseparable in the last hours. Carl was at least ten
years older.

Nick lay back on his
rolled-up coat and stared up at the suspended ceiling. The lights were off and
moonlight spilled in through the windows. If it wasn’t for all the bloodshed,
one might even have described the night as beautiful. Deana would have found it
romantic, bedding down on the floor beneath the moonlight.

I miss you, Deana…

Nick closed his eyes and
listened to the silence for what seemed like hours until, finally, the silence
was replaced by the dozing snores of his companions. The last thing he heard
before sleep was a soft whimpering coming from Eve as she struggled with the
unseen terrors of her dreams.

***

Nick was back home again,
standing in his kitchen as if nothing had happened. Deana stood in front of the
sink with her back to him. She was washing dishes. The cooker was on, a
spitting steak cooking over the flames.

James lay on the tiles in
the centre of the kitchen, staring up at the ceiling blankly.

Nick moved towards his
son, tried to speak to him and tell him to get up, but no sound came out of his
mouth. When Nick pressed his fingers to his own face he realised it was because
he had no lips. Only coarse scar tissue lay where his mouth should have been.

Deana turned around and
faced Nick and she too was mouth-less. Her eyes were wet with blood and crimson
tears stained her cheeks. She held a claw hammer, which she offered to him now.

Nick was powerless as he
reached out and took it. He held the heavy hammer in his hand and stared at it.
Then he turned involuntarily on his heels as if suspended by invisible wires.

He knelt beside James’s
body.

No, Nick wanted to shout,
but could not.

James continued to stare
up at the ceiling, blinking occasionally, but never moving.

Nick raised the hammer,
staring into his son’s eyes the entire time, and then brought it down with
everything he had. The aluminium head struck James right between the eyes,
caving in the front of his skull.

Nick vomited, but with no
lips, he was forced to choke on it.

He raised the hammer again
and this time struck James in the mouth, shattering his baby teeth into tiny
shards.

James choked and
spluttered. Nick hit him again and shattered his jaw.

Nick wanted to die.

But he raised the hammer
again.

Over and over, Nick swung
the hammer, spraying blood and bone fragments, until there was nothing left of
his son’s face but bloody pulp.

He looked over at Deana
desperately, pleadingly. Deana looked at him. This time she held a carving
knife. Powerless, Nick stood up and took it from her.

When he turned back
around, James’s face was back to normal, untouched by the vicious blows of the
hammer. He continued staring up at the ceiling.

Nick knelt back down beside
his son and got back to work.

***

Nick’s eyes flew open. He
was surrounded by darkness, a floating gloom. When he saw the moon through the
windows, he remembered where he was – he remembered everything.

He sat up a little too
quickly and thought he was going to throw up. Then he saw that the lights were
on in the kitchen and could hear something too. Eve and Pauline were still
sleeping nearby; their shapes clear even in the darkness.

Who was in the kitchen?

The sounds continued.

Nick got up quietly and
crept towards the kitchen. He thought he heard someone weeping. He kept his
footsteps careful and stepped behind the counter, sliding between the lined-up
cookers and lengths of countertops. At the far end of the kitchen was an
L-shaped corridor. The noises were coming from around the bend.

Nick sped up and rounded
the corner quickly, not wanting to be too late to help if someone was in
danger. He found Carl lying facedown on the floor. Then he spotted Jan standing
over Cassie, who was cowering on the floor without her shirt.

Jan’s eyes widened when he
noticed Nick and he quickly raised his hands in submission. “This isn’t what it
looks like, brother.”

Nick snarled. “You have no
idea what this fucking looks like.” He looked down at Cassie and shook his head
in disgust. “Cassie, it’s okay. Come over here to me.”

For a second it looked
like she might refuse, but then she clambered on her hands and knees until she
was safely behind him.

Jan looked Cassie in the
eyes, even as she cowered behind Nick. “You remember what we spoke about,
sweetheart, okay?”

“You don’t talk to her,”
Nick spat. “You don’t say a word to her, you understand me?”

“You got this all wrong,
brother.”

“The only thing I got
wrong was letting a bunch of criminals tag along with us. Soon as the sun’s up,
you’re gone. When the others hear about this they’re going to lynch you.”

Jan laughed, his chest
heaving. “Who is? You and Dave? Don’t make me shit myself!”

Nick shoved Jan angrily,
but found himself swatted aside like a measly fly. Jan punched Nick in the ribs
and sent him to his knees, gasping for breath. His lungs felt like they might
explode.

Jan shoved Nick backwards
with his boot, before glaring right in his face. “We’ll talk about this in the
morning and we’ll see who gets lynched.”

Then the big man walked
away, cursing under his breath.

Nick managed to catch a
strangled breath a few moments later, followed by another. He rolled onto his
side and shuddered in pain. He’d never felt so sure he would die, so impossible
had it been to take a single breath.

After a while, Cassie
helped Nick back to his feet. Her shirt was rolled up on the floor and she
hastily put it back on and as she did so she seemed to remember that Carl was
still facedown on the floor. She dropped to her knees beside him and patted his
cheeks. “Carl, wake up. Carl…”

Carl moaned, his eyes
fluttering open slowly. “W-what happened? My head feels like a Skoda parked on
it.”

“I think you got struck
from behind,” Nick explained. “It was Jan.”

“Motherfu—”

“Don’t worry about it for
now,” Cassie said soothingly. “We can talk about it tomorrow. Let’s just get
some sleep.”

Together, Nick and Cassie
picked Carl up off the floor. He was still pretty out of it, but was gradually
regaining his senses.

“What the hell happened?”
Nick whispered to Cassie, determined to get to the bottom of things.

She shook her head.
“Nothing. Don’t worry about it.”

“Jesus, Cassie. Don’t
listen to that son of a bitch. He can’t hurt you. It’s okay, you’re safe. You
can tell me what happened.”

Cassie huffed as they laid
Carl on the floor beside the service counter. “None of us are safe
anymore. We’re all screwed.”

Nick didn’t want to argue
and Cassie obviously didn’t want to talk about what had happened, at least not
yet. “Okay,” he conceded. “Get some sleep, then, and we’ll talk about it in the
morning. Don’t go wandering off anywhere, okay? Stay close.”

Nick headed back to his
spot between Eve and Pauline. He looked for Jan and the other prisoners and saw
the three of them huddled together by the restaurant’s exit doors. Jan seemed
to be having a heated discussion with Dash, but both lowered their voices when
they noticed Nick looking at them.

Nick looked away and
settled back down at his spot on the floor. He winced as he lay back down on
his coat. His breathing was still laboured after Jan’s gut punch. The guy was
big – huge – and if it came down to violence Nick wasn’t confident what
the outcome would be.

“Hey,” Eve whispered to
him. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” Nick lied.
“I’ll tell you about it in the morning. Just don’t go anywhere in the night
without letting me know first.”

Eve shuffled across the
floor so that she was only inches from him. “Okay,” she said. “Same goes for
you. No sneaking off again without telling me first.”

“Deal.”

Nick stared up at the
ceiling and wondered what the morning would bring.

Chapter Eleven

The alarm woke everyone.

Nick leapt to his feet in
an instant, spinning around, disorientated and confused. Panicked.

“What’s happening?” Eve
cried out.

“I don’t know. Something
tripped the alarms.” Nick grabbed his coat from the floor and shoved it on
quickly.

“I thought Dash turned
them off,” Pauline shouted.

Nick saw that Dash, Jan,
and Rene were still huddled in the corner by the doors. They seemed just as
confused as everybody else, but that didn’t mean they knew nothing about what
was happening.

He marched over to the
prisoners and pointed his finger at them. “Did you do this?”

Dash shook his head. “Do
what, honkey? Why would we set off the alarms?”

“I can’t imagine why you
do most of the things you do. Why is it going off again? I thought you
disconnected it?”

“Nah, man. I just smashed
up the console and shut off the intruder alert. The alarm is still intact. I
just cut the link between the broken window and the siren. It was an ancient
piece of shit. Piece of cake.”

“So what set it off
again?”

Dave stormed out of the
‘STAFF ONLY’ door, shouting and cursing. “Why is the alarm going off again? And
why is the power off?”

“There’s your answer,”
Dash said. “If the power went out, the security system probably went over to a
battery system. It tripped the alarm all over again.”

Nick sighed. “So what do
we do?”

“Disconnect the battery power
and the whole system will be dead.”

“We need to do it quickly
before any infected people find us.”

“Nick?” Eve tapped him on
the shoulder.

“Not now, Eve.”

“Nick!”

He shot her an irritated
glance. “What?”

“I think we should forget
about the alarm.”

Nick spun around to argue,
but quickly found himself stunned.

Standing at the many
windows of the café, peering in with their bloodshot, swollen eyes, were dozens
of infected people. Hundreds of them.

Carl shook his head
frantically. “What the fuck are we going to do now? Game over man! Game over.”

The mob of infected burst
through the windows as one. Their bodies tumbled over the ledge clumsily,
embedding themselves with shards of glass and hitting the floor in piles. They
were like ants crawling over one another.

The room was closing in.

“Everybody get out of
here!” Nick screamed. “Run for it!”

Everybody bolted, but
there was no way out of the restaurant – all the doors and windows were blocked
by the infected – so they made instinctively for the only barrier they could
find: the fast food service counter.

“Into the kitchen,” Carl
yelled. “There’s a fire exit at the back. I saw it last night.”

Everybody funnelled
together and raced towards the back of the kitchen.

The infected screeched as
they gave chase clambering over the counter behind them.

When Carl led the group
around the bend to the fire exit, Jan leapt up in the air and kicked the
push-bar across it and sent the door flying open.

The air rushed in from
outside, crisp and cold.

“Everyone outside,” Dave
shouted.

Jan held the door open and
ushered everyone passed him. The infected were teeming into the kitchen and
coming right at them.

Nick held back and made
sure everybody got out. He realised someone was missing.

“Shit!” he exclaimed. “I
have to get Margaret. She’ll still be in the staffroom.”

“Leave her,” Dave said.
“You’ve got no way to reach her.”

Nick stood, tempted to
fight his way back through the restaurant, but the infected were everywhere and
one bite was all it took.

Jan yanked Nick and tossed
him through the door before Dave slammed it shut behind them. The infected mob
clattered against the other side, beating at it furiously.

“We have to go,” Dave
said to everyone gathered around the back of the café,

Nick shook his head. “We
can’t just leave Margaret behind. She might still be alive in there.”

“Don’t be a fool. You
can’t risk your life for an old woman.

“She went back for her
friend, Ethel. She deserves someone to go back for her.”

“You do whatever you have
to,” Dave said, “but the rest of us are getting out of here while we still
can.”

Eve looked at Nick
pleadingly. “He’s right. We have to get out of here before they find us. You
can’t help Margaret.”

Nick couldn’t bear the
thought of leaving the old woman behind. He had already gotten Jake killed when
the lad had tried to help him. He had to do something to even the books. “You
go with everyone else,” he told Eve. “I’ll catch up with you.”

“No way, Nick. You have to
come with us.”

“I will. Just get going
and I’ll catch up. I promise.” Eve started to argue but he cut her off. “Just
go!”

The argument over with,
everyone clambered up the hill behind the cafe, before heading for the woods
they’d come from the day before. Nick watched them go, but was surprised to see
that Jan did not go with them.

“What the hell are you
doing? Get out of here, Jan.”

“I figured you could use a
hand.”

“I’m not sure I trust you
to help me.”

“Well, maybe the old dear
trapped inside would like my help. You selfish enough to turn me away when a
woman’s life is at stake?”

“Fine, let’s just do
this.”

Nick pressed his back
against the building. There was no way back inside the fire exit, and even if
there was it was suicide, but the staffroom had a window. If Nick could find
it, he might be able to get Margaret out. If she had stayed put inside.

Jan followed Nick as he
moved cautiously around the building. The keening pitch of the security alarm
was deafening, making it impossible to hear what was going on around the next
corner.

“Be careful,” Jan told
him. “The infected people see you and they come at you like heat-seeking
missiles.”

“I know. I’ve seen enough
of them.”

Slowly, inch-by-inch, Nick
leaned around the corner.

“Damn it!” he grunted.
“There must be at least a dozen of them around there.”

Jan scratched his beard.
“I have an idea.”

“What idea?”

Jan glanced up at the
cafe’s roof. “It’s a single story,” he said. “With a boost, I should be able to
get up there and create a distraction for you.”

“Yeah, great idea. How do
you get down afterwards without them getting you?”

Jan shrugged. “One thing
at a time, brother. You in?”

Nick shrugged. “If you’re
crazy enough to do it.”

He threaded his fingers
and made a platform for Jan to step on, then hoisted him up.

“Jesus Christ, you weigh
the same as an elephant.”

Jan dangled and then
heaved himself up. “Only two things to do in prison,” he said. “Educate one’s
mind and exercise one’s body. You ready? I’ll try to get them to follow me to
the other end of the building.”

Nick nodded. “You know
we’re still going to have to have that conversation about what happened to
Cassie last night?”

“Looking forward to it,”
Jan said, then raced to the opposite side of the roof.

Nick waited for the
distraction. Then got it.

“COME ON, YOU STINKING
ARSEHOLES. COME GET IT!”

Nick peeked around the
corner and saw the infected disappear as they rushed to the other side of the
building. The coast was clear.

Nick hurried around the
side of the building, peering inside each window as he passed. After looking
into the kitchen and then into the manager’s office, he found the window that
led to the staffroom.

There was no sign of
Margaret.

He tapped on the glass
lightly. “Margaret! Margaret, are you in there?”

Margaret suddenly appeared
from her hiding place behind the room’s sofa.

Nick sighed with relief.

“They’re inside,” Margaret
said to him through the glass. “I can hear them.”

“I know, they’re
everywhere. Open the window and I’ll get you out of here.”

Margaret was white as a
sheet, but she did as she was told. She fiddled with the window latch and
managed to slide it upwards. Nick held his arms out to her and she clambered
through. It was clearly a struggle but she managed to get herself into Nick’s
waiting arms.

Jan continued to heckle
the infected from the rooftop. “COME ON, YOU PANSIES. YOU WANT A PIECE OF MY
ASS; YOU NEED TO WORK FOR IT.

The coast remained clear.

Nick grabbed Margaret by
the arm and hurried her to the back of the building before heading into the
woods. When they were sufficiently far enough away from the café and car park,
they stopped to catch their breath.

Jan still shouted curses
from the rooftop. Nick wasn’t sure he could’ve got Margaret out without the
other man’s help.

He placed a hand on
Margaret’s shoulder. “I need to find a way to get Jan off that roof in one
piece. Can you wait here?”

“Of course, just make sure
you come back in one piece, young man. I’ve grown rather fond of you.”

Nick patted her shoulder
gently and then headed back through the trees. Once at the treeline, he could
see Jan still standing on top of the roof, waving his muscly arms above his
head and hollering at the mob of infected below. Jan probably didn’t even know
that Nick and Margaret had already got away.

With the alarm still
wailing, Nick could think of no subtle way to get Jan’s attention, other than
whistling. Luckily, Jan heard it and turned around.

Nick crouched in the
bushes and waved a hand. Jan spotted him and gave a thumbs-up. The expression
on his face was an obvious, now what? Nick had no clue. Getting Jan off
the roof safely was not going to be easy.

He crept out of the bushes
and headed for the rear of the building. The only way he could help Jan get
down was if he took his turn distracting the mob, so he headed around the side
of the building and went back to the open staffroom window. First checking that
no infected people had found their way inside the room, he climbed through.

The only weapon he could
find was an abandoned umbrella that wasn’t even worth taking. He would have
nothing with which to defend himself.

The alarm was muffled from
inside the staffroom but Nick could make out the shuffling of infected feet in
the corridor outside. If he opened the door, Nick would be face-to-face with a
murderous horde.

Then, suddenly, Nick had
an idea. He hopped up on the sofa and balanced on the backrest. From there he
was able to push up against one of the foam ceiling tiles. They wouldn’t be
strong enough to hold his weight, but the metal railings fixing them in place
might be.

He leapt up and grabbed at
one of the rails and held on. It bent beneath his weight but then held firm.
Kicking at the wall for leverage, Nick managed to clamber his way up into the
ceiling space. It allowed unrestricted access from one end of the building to
the other. It was a struggle to move along the railings, and the exertion was
quickly exhausting, but Nick kept going. Inch by inch, he shuffled through the
crawlspace until he was where he felt he wanted to be.

He pulled aside a tile and
peeked through the gap. In the corridor below were half-a-dozen infected people.
They milled about like hungry birds searching for insects, all twitchy
movements and sudden flinches. They barely resembled human beings anymore. Yet
they were not dead, only infected.

Nick carefully replaced
the ceiling tile and continued along the railings. He had to keep his face
down, chin-to-chest, as age-old insulation and dust swirled around him and
threatened to make him choke or sneeze.

Eventually he stopped
where he imagined the restaurant floor to be and carefully positioned himself
astride two parallel rails. They groaned a little. He took a deep breath and
prepared himself, then smashed his fist into one of the ceiling tiles
and sent it plummeting to the floor. A couple of infected people immediately
stared upwards and screeched.

“Hey!” Nick shouted
through the gap in the ceiling. “Come and get it, you…you knobheads!”

The screech of the
infected in the restaurant brought others near. They funnelled in from the
corridors and kitchen areas, and even started pouring in through the windows from
outside. It wasn’t long before the Rainforest Café was once again packed with
infected people. Eventually Nick was satisfied that he had them all. So many of
them were now packed inside that their collective screeching was enough to
drown out the alarm.

Nick pulled himself back
up into the ceiling and swivelled around on the railings, ready to return to
the staffroom.

He fell.

The railings bent beneath
Nick bent and then sagged.  The screech of the infected below grew more
ravenous as he slipped towards them.

Nick grabbed hold of the
sagging rails as best he could, wrapping his arms around them as he dangled
perilously.

The rails continued to
groan, but they ceased to bend any further. Nick started to pull himself back
up. The infected directly beneath him leapt upwards, snatching at his ankles
and trying to bring him down.

Nick felt his arms tire,
his muscles freeze. He groaned as the effort became unbearable; but he did not
stop until he had made it back up into the ceiling space. He quickly flattened
himself across several rails and was sure that he was once again safe. A
delirious giggle escaped his lips.

He quickly headed back to
the staffroom, mindful to make as little noise as possible. His intention was
for the infected to remain in the restaurant, glaring up at where they’d seen
him last.

Nick dropped down into the
staffroom and doubled-over with exhaustion, but there was no time to dawdle. He
raced towards the open window and threw himself through it. As soon as his feet
hit the ground, he let out another quick whistle, hoping to get Jan’s
attention.

Jan appeared at the back
edge of the roof. “They’ve all gone back inside,” he said.

Nick nodded. “Get down. We
need to go.”

Jan hopped down off the
roof and the two of them raced into the treeline and headed towards the woods.

“D’you think the others
will have waited?” Jan asked him as they cut a path along the base of the steep
hill.

“I doubt it,” Nick said.
“Dave pretty much said that he wouldn’t hang around. Damn it!”

Nick skidded to a halt.

Jan stopped too and looked
worried. “What is it?”

“Margaret. I told her to
wait here for me. Where is she?”

“I’m sure she’s here
somewhere.”

Nick turned a circle,
scanning the trees that surrounded them, but there was no sign of the old lady.

Crack!

“What was that?” Nick
said.

Jan crouched down and
grabbed a branch. “I don’t know, brother. I think we should keep moving.”

“Nick? Nick, are you
okay?”

Nick couldn’t help but
grin. “Eve! What are you doing out here on your own?”

“I came to find you. The others
are going to move on if you’re not back in ten minutes.”

“You need to stop coming
to my rescue,” Nick said, still smiling. “Where’s the group now? Do they have
Margaret?”

“Yes, she’s with us.”

“Thank God,” Jan said.

“We should head up the
hill,” Nick said. “It might be safe up there.”

“Dave said it would be a
waste of energy climbing all the way up the hill. He’s taking everyone back the
way we came in.”

Jan shrugged his giant
shoulders. “Up, down, left, right, I don’t care. Let’s just catch up to them
before they leave us behind.”

They got moving, Eve
leading the way. The screeches and wails of the infected stopped as the
restaurant’s security alarm finally died out and they eventually realised Nick
was no longer there. Now the only sound was the pounding of feet, the panting
of breath, and the snapping of twigs.

Eve pointed. “They’re down
there.”

At the bottom of the hill,
Dave and the others were gathered in a tight bunch. Margaret waved at Nick as
they approached. “Thank Heaven’s you’re okay,” she said once they were close
enough.

Nick gave Margaret a quick
hug.

Dave folded his arms
impatiently. “We were just about to give up on you.”

“Thanks for waiting,” Jan
said. “What’s the plan?”

“We head back into the
woods where we started out. We know it’s clear of infected because it was clear
when we came through.”

“So was the car park,”
Carl said, “but it’s had a few visitors since.”

Dave glowered. “That was
the alarm. It brought them to us overnight.”

“But Dash managed to turn
the alarm off after only a couple of minutes,” Eve said. “Was that all it
took?”

“They must have just kept
heading in the same direction,” Nick said. “Even once the alarm stopped.”

“Damn, those sick fucks
are relentless,” Dash said.

“Let’s just get moving,”
Jan said. “It’s only a matter of time before one of them buggers stumbles on
us. We’re exposed out-”

Carl screamed.

So did everyone else.

“It’s that bitch,” Dave
shouted in alarm.

“Oh hells no,” Dash added.

Kathryn had Carl on the
ground and was trying to sink her teeth into him. Her face was swollen with the
bruises Dave had given her, but her eyes were now bulbous red orbs threatening
to pop out of her skull. Blood poured from her mouth, so thickly that it was
like her insides were melting.

“Help me!” Carl cried out
from the floor. “Somebody get her off m—”

Kathryn’s teeth sunk into
Carl’s throat and cut of his voice, ripping away his carotid artery and chewing
on it like a length of sausage.

Cassie cried out. “Carl,
no!”

She went to run to him,
but Eve grabbed her and pulled her back. “He’s already gone.”

“Look out!” Dash shouted.

Several metres away,
coming at them like a charging bull, was Jake.

“He must have heard the
alarm,” Nick said.

“Everybody run,” Dave
bellowed.

No one hesitated. They
stampeded back onto the car park, bursting back out of the treeline and
spilling onto the cracked concrete; but they skidded immediately to a halt.

Several of the infected
had now exited the Rainforest Café and were now back outside. Jake and
Kathryn’s screeching had alerted them.

“There’s nowhere to run,”
Eve cried. “We’re surrounded.”

Jake and Kathryn were
coming up behind them. Dozens of infected people came at them from the front,
more piling out of the rainforest café to join them.

Nick looked around
desperately for an option. “There!” he pointed. “Head for the cable cars.”

The group sprinted across
the car park. The infected clattered across the pavement towards them. Nick
didn’t know if they had any chance of making it. They were running for their
lives, so fast that he worried his legs might fail at any second. The infected
would be on them any second.

“Quickly,” he shouted.
“Into the cable cars.”

On the raised cement
platform, only two cars were accessible. They were too small to accommodate the
entire group, so they were forced to split up. Nick leapt into the nearest car,
followed by Cassie and the three prisoners. The rest of the group were lagging
further behind and barely managed to make their way inside the remaining car
before the infected reached the platform.

Nick yanked the sliding
door shut and watched through the plastic windows as Dave did the same in the
other car. It was then that he realised something horrible: Margaret wasn’t
inside either car. Nick looked out across the car park and spotted the old lady
stumbling across the pavement.

“You won’t make it in
time, brother,” Jan told him. “Her nine lives are up.”

“We only just saved her.”

But it was definitely too
late. The infected engulfed her like a swarm of flesh-eating locusts. They
pulled her arms at unnatural angles, snapping her fragile bones and sinking
their teeth into her tissue-paper skin. She came apart like freshly baked
bread.

Nick closed his eyes.

The infected hit the cable
cars like a storm, rocking the vehicles on their hooks and pinballing everyone inside.

“There’s no way these cars
are going to hold,” Jan said, climbing up off his knees.

“We be screwed, honkey,”
Dash shouted at Nick. “Great plan.”

The infected bashed their
fists against the car’s plastic windows, loosening them in their frames. One of
the infected – a plump Asian man reminding Nick of his co-worker, Paul – got
his fingers inside the sliding door and started to work it back and forth on
its hinges.

The occupants of the other
car were equally doomed. Eve stared over at Nick with pleading terror in her
eyes, but he couldn’t bear to look at her. If only he had left her in that
cupboard. He hadn’t rescued her, he’d doomed her.

Eve began to move. Not
just Eve, but the entire cable car she was in. Nick stumbled and realised he
was moving too. The cars were operational, climbing the cable up the hill.

Tears were streaming down
Cassie’s face. “What’s happening? Why are we moving?”

“Someone switched on the
cable cars,” Nick could only assume. “They saved us.”

They were climbing out of
danger, rising up where the infected could not reach them.

Except for one.

The plump Asian hung from
the cable car’s door and had already managed to get one of his arms through the
widening gap. He clawed at the passengers inside.

Nick kicked at the
infected man’s arm, but the blow had no effect. He just snarled at them and
clawed even more furiously.

“Screw this,” Jan said. He
stood up against the far wall and then leapt forward, delivering a hefty kick
to the centre of the cabin’s metal door. Its rusty hinges gave way and the
entire sheet of metal, along with its infected hanger-on, went plummeting to
the treetops below.

Nick peered out the open
doorway in shock and watched as the Asian man cartwheeled through the canopy of
branches a hundred feet below, disappearing towards the ground.

“They don’t give up, do
they?” Nick said, more to himself than anyone else. “It’s like they don’t feel
pain.”

“Everything feels pain,
honkey,” Dash told him, sounding almost philosophical.

Nick didn’t think that was
true. The infected did not feel pain. They felt only rage and hunger and maybe
hate. They were animals, monsters, demons…zombies. Nick finally accepted that
the infected were beyond saving and that life had become about survival. No one
could hope to make it through the days ahead and remain the people they were
before. They would be forced to adapt, or they would die.

James and Deana were gone.
Nick’s entire life was gone. He wasn’t sure what was left.

He gazed down at the
treetops as the car leisurely climbed the hill. Now that the snarling mob at
the bottom of the hill was out of sight, the view was actually quite beautiful.
The woods went on forever; autumn-coloured leaves a never-ending swirl of
orange and red. It was a peaceful moment, and Nick knew that it might just be
his last peaceful moment he would ever have.

Something hit Nick from
behind and he was thrown violently to the humming floor of the cable car.

He shook his head, dazed
and confused. “What the hell?”

Jan and Dash stood over
him as Cassie whimpered in the corner.

“Time to die, honkey.
Whatever this place is, it belongs to us.”

Dash was about to kick
Nick in the face, but was stopped short when Jan hammered him in the ribs with
a fist, knocking the wind out of him in a startled wail.

Then Jan shoved Dash
backwards, right through the open doorway, where he fell into thin air and was
gone.

“What the hell did you
just do?” Nick screamed, leaping up to his feet.

“Saved your life,” Jan
said. “Dash was about to send you on your merry way. Ask Cassie.”

Nick looked at Cassie who
was fidgeting on the bench. “He’s telling the truth,” she said. “He was going
to push you out until Jan saved you.”

“What? But why? Why would
he want to kill me?”

Jan huffed as if the
answer were obvious. “Because he tried to take liberties with Cassie last night
and you weren’t going to let it stand. In fact, he was planning to get rid of
Dave, too.”

“I don’t understand,” Nick
said, moving away from the open doorway. “Weren’t you his friend?”

“Dash? That gangbanging
piece of shit? No way. I just got stuck with him when the prison guards were
killed and our transport was sprung.” He pointed at Rene, who was continued to
remain silent. “Rene’s not a problem, but Dash was a degenerate. I’ve seen him
do some really reprehensible things the last forty-eight hours. Me and Rene
were already looking to ditch him when we ran into you and Eve in the woods.”

Nick looked at Cassie and
frowned. “So, Jan didn’t, you know, hurt you?”

She shook her head. “No.
Carl and I were fooling around in the kitchen. He was on top of me when
something hit him from behind. It was Dash. He came at me and tore off my
shirt. Then Jan came and stopped him.”

Jan said, “I saw Dash go
to the kitchen. I knew he’d be up to no good so I went after him. Caught him
red-handed trying to force himself on poor Cassie. I told him to get his ass
back to the restaurant before I beat the living hell out of him. Usually he’s
not the type of guy to back down, but I think he understood I wasn’t playing
around. Then you turned up, brother, and got the wrong idea.”

Nick stared at Cassie.
“Why didn’t you tell me at the time?”

“Jan told me he would deal
with Dash, but I had to keep quiet, otherwise Dash would hurt more people.”

“Dash was going to take
you out before you had chance to bring it up,” Jan said. “He planned to deal
with Dave and Carl too eventually, so that he could hole up with the women at
the restaurant and be top dog. He was no different in prison, only there were
no women.”

“You told him you’d help
him kill me,” Nick guessed. “Jesus.”

“Of course I told him
that, but I planned to take him out first, or at least try to ditch him
someplace. Then the alarm went off and everything took on a life of its own. It
wasn’t until we started climbing this hill that an opportunity presented itself
for Dash to kill you, so I intervened and killed him. You can thank me later.”

“I’ll thank you now,” Nick
said. “I owe you, Jan.”

“Don’t sweat it.”

“No.” Nick was adamant. “I
judged you wrong. I treated you like a criminal and that was unfair.”

“I am a criminal,”
Jan said. “It was perfectly rational. Truthfully, I was a rotten piece of shit
for a good chunk of my life. Even my own son, Damien, didn’t want anything to
do with me. Haven’t seen him in years and I don’t want to reinsert myself into
his life. I think losing the respect of my son was what made me finally decide
to sort myself out – and that’s exactly what I did. One day I’ll find my boy
and make things right. I’ll tell him I’m proud of him for finding his own way.

“Prison changed you?” Nick
said.

“After eight years inside,
my intentions have been pure for at least the last five. I’m not the same man I
was when they put me inside, but that’s a story for a different day.”

“I hope I get to hear it,”
Nick said honestly.

The cable car reached the final
third of its ascent and Nick squinted up at the approaching summit. It was hard
to be sure, but he thought he could see someone standing there, ready to
receive them. That person must have been the one who had started the cable
cars. The one who had saved their lives.

That person was their
saviour.

But who the hell were they
and what were they doing at the top of the hill?

Part
Two: Top of the World

Chapter Twelve

28 hours earlier.

Anna washed her hands in
the steel sink and watched the blood drain away. The birth had been a success.
Rita, one of the zoo’s Clydesdale horses, had delivered a healthy 80lb foal and
seemed to be recovering well. Now that it was over, she was looking forward to
getting home and resuming sleep she’d been woken from at 3AM.

“That went really well, I
thought,” Bradley said to her. He was Ripley Height’s resident veterinary nurse
and it was he who’d called Anna when Rita went into labour.

Anna smiled at the boy and
stifled a yawn. “Y-yes, completely by the book. Make sure Rita allows her foal
to suckle, but other than that, nature should take care of itself.”

Bradley beamed. “It was
pretty bloody amazing, to tell the truth. It was my first birth.”

“You’ll see many more
working at a zoo.” She spotted a flake of blood beneath her nail. “It loses its
charm.”

“So…are you going home
now?”

“Too blooming right I am.
I’m exhausted. I’d only been in bed a few hours when I got your call.”

“One of the downsides of
being a vet on-call, huh?”

“I need my sleep. Always
have.”

“Sorry I had to wake you.
I couldn’t have done it without you, though. You were amazing.”

“No problem.” She gave her
hands one last rinse in the sink and put on her cardigan. “I’ll be back
Wednesday to do a check-up. Will you be here?”

“I’ll be around. As usual.
Seven days a week, eighteen hours a day. I love the work.”

Anna admired Bradley for
living on the park’s grounds – he was young and eager to gain experience – but
she thought he’d be better off having some semblance of a life as well.

“You should get out more,”
she told him. “You’ll end up working yourself to death before you’re thirty.
You need to find a balance between work and life.”

He shrugged. “I enjoy it.
Tell you the truth, I like spending time with animals more than I do people.
Sad, huh?”

“Yeah, very sad, but I
know what you mean.” She really did understand the tranquillity being around
animals brought. It was unhealthy to retreat from people entirely, though. “Get
yourself out on the town. Grab a drink and a girl. Be irresponsible for a
night.”

“You fancy going with me?”
Bradley asked, his cheeks instantly growing red.

Anna spluttered. “Me? I’m
ten years older than you. You can find better company than an old woman like
me.”

“I don’t think so. I’d
like to get to know you better. Besides, you’re like what…thirty-two.”

Add another three years
and you’d still be a year short, Anna thought to herself. She was surprised. She’d
had no idea that Bradley thought of her in that way. She didn’t know what to
say or how to feel about it. It had been years since she’d dated.

“I…I’ll think about it,
Bradley,” she said, and perhaps she would. The boy wasn’t without charm or
looks. “See you Wednesday.”

Anna headed out of the
stable’s washroom and into the corridor that reeked of oiled leather and horse
piss. Rita was lain down in her stall, cleaning her mewing foal with her
probing tongue. The stallion, Cassius, was in the stall beside her.

The dawn chill pinched her
cheeks and invigorated her a little, but it didn’t stop her from rubbing at the
fuzziness behind her eyelids. Her watch read 6AM. She was almost dead on her
feet.

The real reason she’d
gotten so little sleep wasn’t the call-out, it was because she’d passed out
drunk, alone in her flat, at 2AM. She hadn’t even made it to the bed. It was
the same way she ended most evenings. Especially when it was an anniversary.

She gave her shoulders a
vigorous rub and got going. The sun balanced on the horizon, ready to leap into
the sky. The various enclosures of the petting zoo were filled with sleeping
animals that would soon wake or nocturnal creatures that would soon sleep. The
silence of the night would soon give way to the snuffling of pigs and the
bleating of goats.

Up ahead were the zoo’s
only truly exotic inhabitants: a small family of orang-utans. Anna imagined the
park owners had seen them as a lucrative tourist attraction. It was an immoral
way to view such magnificent creatures, but at least time and money had been
spent ensuring they were given a suitable habitat. The half-acre plot at Ripley
Heights was one of the best in the country and the original pair of apes had
happily produced an infant, now one-year old.

The female, Lily, was
already awake, cradling her sleeping boy in her arms. Anna waved and was moved
when the orang-utan waved back. It wasn’t so much a surprise, as Lily was often
receptive to humans, but it was still remarkable.

Lily’s mate, Brick, was
sprawled out in the branches of the habitat’s mangrove tree, sleeping soundly,
his snores filling the air. Lily gave Anna a bemused look that suggested she
was thinking something along the lines of: men, huh?

Annaliese grinned. I hear
ya, sister.

Anna’s Prius was in the
staff car park up top, rather than the public one by the Rainforest Café down
below. As she headed towards the park’s Jacobean manor house, Ripley Hall,
where the car park was located nearby, she spotted a pair of young lovers
hiding amongst the lawn’s sycamore trees. They’d obviously spilled out of the
manor from some boozy, corporate function.

Half the money the Ripley
Heights made was from hiring out the many rooms and facilities of it grand hall
and grounds. There was a lot of profit to be made from supplying ample amounts
of booze and warm beds for the night.

Anna cleared her throat
loudly as she neared the two lovers, determined to let them know they’d been
spotted. There was no way to avoid them on her way to her car and she was
damned if she was going to be the one who felt uncomfortable.

However, the young lovers
ignored Anna’s presence. The man was really going for it, nuzzling at the
woman’s neck with animalistic passion. You could hear the wet, slopping sounds
from several feet away.

“Excuse me,” she said.
“Perhaps you should take that back inside. The park will be opening soon.
Probably time to call it a night.”

The couple continued
necking.

“Hey! Time to wrap it up.
Party’s over.”

Finally, Anna got a
response. The man ceased his fevered nuzzling of the woman’s neck and looked at
her.

Anna almost collapsed as
her knees suddenly went weak.

The man’s face was smeared
with blood. A sliver of what looked like flesh hung from his cracked and
splintered teeth. The young woman slumped to the ground, her neck torn open and
gushing.

Anna stepped backwards,
shaking her head and fighting the urge to vomit. Vet or not, she had never seen
such a horrific sight in all her life.

“Back the hell away,” she
shouted at the approaching man. “Stay back.”

The man kept coming.

Anna’s heel caught on a
root and she stumbled to the ground. Shooting pains ran up her spine, emanating
from her coccyx.

The man was on her
immediately, falling on top of her and clawing at her shirt. He was trying to
bite her.

Anna let loose a scream as
the weight on top of her seemed to grow. She pushed with all her might, but it
was no use. The man was too strong. His jaws snapped mere centimetres in front
of her face.

“Somebody help me! Help!”

“Anna?”

Anna craned her neck and
saw Bradley racing towards her.

“Bradley, help me get this
psychopath off me.”

Bradley tackled the man,
throwing him to the ground. Anna clambered back to her feet, panting and
whining with fright. Bradley got up and immediately went to her, cradling her
in his arms as she wept.

The man rose up off the
ground. Bloody tears poured from his eyes, staining his cheeks red. His face
was a picture of rage.

Bradley stood in front of
Anna protectively and faced the man down. “What the hell is with this guy,
Anna?”

“I don’t know, but that
woman is dead. He ripped her goddamn throat out with his teeth.”

“Pissing hell!”

The man stumbled towards
them, quick and determined, jaws chomping at thin air.

Bradley wound up a punch
and let fly. His fist connected hard with the man’s chin and made a sickening thup
sound.

The man kept coming.

Anna was pretty sure the
punch should have floored all but a professional boxer, but the man was
unaffected and grabbed a hold of Bradley’s collar. The two of them collapsed to
the ground in a struggle.

Bradley yelled out in
agony as the psychopath clamped his teeth down on his hand, grinding at the
middle and ring fingers.

“Jesus, Bradley.”

“Help me,” he screamed.

Anna had to act fast. Her
eyes fell upon a small picket sign, set into the ground by a short metal spike.
She yanked it free and pointed it at the crazy man, her hands shaking. “Get off
him now, or I’ll drive this right through your goddamn eyeball.”

The man ignored her
threats and continued tearing at Bradley’s fingers, moaning in ecstasy as
torrents of blood spilled from the wound into his mouth.

“I’m warning you,” Anna
said.

“Just get him off me,”
Bradley yelled.

Anna saw no other option.
The man clearly wasn’t going to stop. It was as if some wild fever had taken
over him, removing all powers of rationality. The man was a vicious animal.

Anna leapt forward and
drove the metal spike into the man’s shoulder. It sunk easily into the soft
flesh and sinewy muscle.

The man didn’t flinch.

Anna couldn’t believe what
was happening. The man felt no pain, even when stabbed. She stood stunned and
disbelieving. Bradley’s screams became a faraway echo as she tried to make
sense of the situation.

“Anna…help.”

Anna snapped out of her
daze and rushed forward, yanking the spike from the man’s shoulder and
releasing a jet of blood into the air. At that same moment, Bradley’s fingers
finally came free of their knuckles, gristle and cartilage tearing and giving
way. Bradley wailed as his two fingers disappeared into his tormentor’s mouth.

Anna took her opportunity.
The crazy man had lifted his head as he came away with Bradley’s severed digits
in his jaws. He chewed the severed fingers ecstatically, even as Anna lifted
the spike into the air and brought it down hard against the top of his skull.
The sharp metal fought against thick bone, but quickly delved deep into the
soft tissue beyond.

The man’s body went stiff.
His chewing stopped and he toppled sideways onto the lawn.

Bradley shuffled away on
his back, clambering as quickly as he could from his now-dead attacker. He held
his injured hand in front of him as he stumbled to his feet, too much in shock
to pay it much mind.

“Come on,” Anna said to
him. “We need to get you some help.”

They took off towards
Ripley Hall. There were several phone lines inside which they could use to call
help.

Anna had to almost drag
Bradley up the steps to the front doors. He was weak from shock and leaning on
her for support. “Come on,” she encouraged. “We just need to get you inside and
then you can sit down.”

She pushed on the door
handle and shouldered open one of the two heavy wooden doors. A crystal
chandelier and several wall sconces brightly lighted the foyer, but the
reception area was entirely deserted.

To Anna’s immediate right
were Ripley Hall’s grand dining room and the kitchens beyond. To her left were
the function suites and bar. Straight ahead was the winding staircase that led
to the two upper floors and bedrooms.

She headed for the vacant
reception desk. Behind it was the door to the front office. She tried the
handle and was disheartened to find it locked.

Bradley flopped down on a
nearby swivel chair and closed his eyes as he fought against the pain. His
finger stumps dripped slick trails of blood, which began to form sticky pools
on the floor.

Anna banged on the office
door. “Hello? Is anybody in there?”

No answer.

She turned and put her
hand on Bradley’s shoulder. “Just hold in there.”

“N-no…problem.”

She edged around the
reception desk until she was back in front of it, then searched around.
Shawcross was the manager of Ripley Hall and he would never usually allow the
front desk to go unattended like this. She palmed the service bell and waited while
its chime echoed off the walls.

Nobody came, even after
ringing the bell several more times.

“This is ridiculous,” she
said. “Somebody always mans the front desk. Where the hell is Shawcross?”

Bradley tried to focus,
but his eyes were red and irritated, like he had a bad case of hay fever.
“He…he must be somewhere. The guy n-never leaves.”

“A lot like you, then,”
Anna said with an impotent grin.

There were noises nearby.
The sounds of shuffling feet.

Anna looked around at both
the entrance to the function suites and the doorway leading to the dining room.

“Hello?” she shouted.
“Hey, we need help here.”

“I don’t like this,”
Bradley said, his voice thick with phlegm. Anna examined him for a second and worried
about his condition. He seemed far worse than he should have been.

Somebody appeared in the
arched entrance of the function suites. It was one of the maids. Anna could
tell from the woman’s green tabard.

“Finally! I need to call
an ambulance and get my colleague somewhere comfortable. Do you have a key to
the office? I need to perform first aid immediately.”

The maid said nothing. She
just stared at Anna.

“Hey, can you answer me,
please? I’m not messing around. Bradley is hurt.”

The maid continued to
stare at Anna curiously.

“Look, if you can’t help
me, can you at least get Shawcross? Where the hell is he?”

The maid took a step
forward and Anna spotted the blood in her eyes.

The maid let out an
animalistic screech and then launched herself towards Anna.

Anna wavered, but survival
instinct soon took over, making her leap behind the reception desk.

“She’s like that guy
outside,” Bradley shouted. “She’s crazy.”

Anna could make no sense
of it, but she knew Bradley was right. Whatever had been wrong with the man
outside was also wrong with the maid, who now leapt over the desk and reached
out to grab hold of Anna. Without thinking, Anna picked up the keyboard from
the desk’s computer station and smashed it over the woman’s head. Several keys
came loose and a bloody wound opened on the back of the woman’s skull. She
grabbed a handful of the maid’s tabard and pulled her across the desk then
grabbed the shattered keyboard by its cord. Quickly she wound it around the
maid’s neck, pulled as tight as she could.

The maid tumbled from the
desk and tried to straighten up, but was held back by the tangled wire around
her throat. The more she pulled, the tighter the bonds became. She was unable
to move more than a foot away from the desk.

Anna grabbed the back of
Bradley’s chair and started rolling him across the reception hall away from
danger.

“What the hell is going on
here?” she said. “Where the hell is everyone? And why the hell are people
acting crazy?”

Several more bodies
appeared in the entrance of the function suites. Anna could tell right away
that the strangers were all dangerous.

The mob was a mixture of
uniformed staff and assorted guests. They were each covered in blood and
hanging chunks of flesh, perhaps their own, perhaps not. All at once, like a
demonic choir, they screeched at the top of their lungs.

Anna became aware of more
people behind her. She peeked over her shoulder and saw that another snarling
mob flanked her.

Bradley was weeping and
cradling his head in his hands. “We are so screwed.”

The mobs charged from both
sides.

Anna grabbed Bradley’s
chair and raced towards the only place she had left to run: the grand dining
room.

The cavernous dining room
was empty when she entered, yet its monolithic mahogany tables and delicate
ornate chairs lay disturbed. Blood coated everything and Anna almost slipped in
a puddle of it as she sprinted across the room. If not for Bradley’s chair
offering a handhold, she may have gone down on her face.

The mob pursued her. If
not for their wild lack of coordination, Anna would already have been caught.
It was likely still inevitable that she would be soon.

Ripley Hall’s kitchen was
up ahead, accessed via a pair of swinging oak doors. Anna raced towards them
now, desperate for sanctuary, but the effort of pushing Bradley in his chair
was starting to slow her down. The mad rush of bodies behind her was gaining.
She wasn’t going to make it.

The kitchen doors ahead of
her suddenly opened. A face popped out from the gap.

“Come on,” said a
stranger, a woman. “Quickly! They’re right behind you.”

Anna summoned a final
burst of strength and leant forward against Bradley’s chair. She managed to
pick up speed, but her attackers gained on her with every step. Eventually she
exerted herself so hard that she was screeching at the top of her lungs just
like them.

Anna hit the kitchen doors
like a battering ram, using Bradley as an unwilling plough. He went sprawling
onto the tiles and started to moan, while Anna’s legs gave out and sent her
tumbling to her knees.

People scurried around the
kitchen, shouting at one another in panicked voices.

“Come on,” said one of the
strangers. “Get the table back up against the doors.”

“I’m doing it, I’m doing
it!”

“Damn, they’re at the
door. They’re going to get in.”

“No, no. We’re fine. Just
keep pushing.”

“There, see. We’re fine.”

Anna peeled herself off
the floor and crawled over to Bradley. His skin had gone alabaster and his
finger stumps continued jetting blood onto the floor.

“Is he bitten?” asked a
voice that she recognised. It was Shawcross, the manager of Ripley Hall.

Anna stared up at him,
surprised by his wild ginger hair that was usually so neatly combed and his
flush red face that was usually so pale.

She shook her head in
confusion. “What?”

“Bradley,” he said
impatiently. “Did one of those things bite him?”

“Things?”

Shawcross smashed his fist
against the wall. “Fuck sake, just answer the question, woman.”

Anna didn’t understand.
She didn’t know what was happening and she certainly didn’t know what made
Shawcross feel he had the right to talk to her like this. “I...I...”

“Yes, I’m bitten.” Bradley
uttered from the floor. He held up the mangled stumps where his fingers used to
be. “I need help.”

“You’re beyond help, son.”
Shawcross shook his head and marched to one of the aluminium work counters.
There, he picked a wooden meat tenderiser from a hanging set of utensils.
Everyone in the room backed away and gave him space.

“What the hell are you
doing?” Anna asked him, bewildered.

“What does it bloody well
look like? We have to kill him.”

“What?”

Bradley’s eyes went wide
and he tried to sit up. He couldn’t manage it, though, and flopped back down
onto his side. Anna stood over him protectively.

“Are you insane? You’re
not killing anybody, you lunatic.”

“He’s serious,” said a
nearby woman, who seemed anxious, but had a steely determination in her eyes.
“Have you not seen what happens when someone gets bitten?”

Anna shook her head and
held out a hand to keep Shawcross from advancing any further. “No, I haven’t. I
have no clue what’s going on here. All I know is that there’s a dead woman in
the gardens and people keep attacking me. Can somebody here please explain
things to me?”

Shawcross sighed and leant
up against one of the kitchen counters. He lowered the meat tenderiser so that
it hung less-threateningly by his thigh. “It started in the middle of the
night,” he began. “Everything just went to hell.”

Chapter Thirteen

Anna managed to get Bradley
back onto the swivel chair and fetched him a glass of water. She couldn’t help
but notice the way everybody in the room kept eyeballing him suspiciously, like
he was a bomb ready to go off.

“Okay,” she said to
Shawcross, “let’s hear it. I want to know exactly what’s going on.”

“Well, I’m afraid I will
have to disappoint you there,” Shawcross told her. “None of us can tell you exactly
what is going on. We can only tell you what we know.”

“Good enough.”

“Okay then. Firstly,
though, could you explain how you came to be here tonight, Anna?”

“I was on-call. Bradley
needed assistance with a birth.”

Shawcross nodded,
uninterested. The zoo and amusement park were never his concern. He was the
manager only of the manor and its grounds.

“Everything went okay, by
the way,” she told him. “I was just heading for my car to go home when I
encountered a pair of strangers in the gardens.”

Shawcross was interested
again. “Who? What happened?”

“It was a man and a woman.
The woman was dead – ripped apart by the man. Then he came at me like a
lunatic. If it wasn’t for Bradley coming to my rescue, I would be a goner.”

“And Bradley got bit?”

Anna nodded. “Yes. I
thought you were going to be the one explaining things, so why am I doing all
the talking?”

Shawcross sighed. “Last
night started out normally enough. We were hosting a corporate function, just
like countless others. Drinks were flowing, bar tabs were rising, and not a
single person had started a fight. It was as smooth as ever, but a few people
were noticeably under the weather.”

Anna frowned. “Under the
weather?”

“Not everyone was ill,”
someone added. “Just a couple people from the office. Alex Reid from Accounting
and Kim Hill from the Southampton branch were worst-off.”

“There were about three or
four sick people in total,” Shawcross said. “Sneezing, coughing, sweating. None
of them were getting involved with the rest of the party, barely drinking or
chatting with other people. They just sat there looking like death warmed up.”

“How is that connected to
what’s happening now?” Anna asked.

“They were the first to
turn…nasty. I checked on them throughout the evening, of course – asking
if they needed assistance or even just some Paracetamol – but they were barely
responsive. By 1AM they looked like they were on death’s door. One of them even
had a nosebleed. They were bringing down the mood of the other guests, so I
asked staff to escort them to their rooms.”

“Should you not have
called an ambulance?” Anna asked.

Shawcross shrugged. “They
could have asked for one. I’m no one’s carer. I left the sick people in the
care of Antoine and Stephen.”

Anna knew the two young
men Shawcross was referring to. Antoine was a student from French Guyana and
had an interest in animals, often stopping Anna to ask a question or two.
Stephen was a typical English teenager earning a bit of pocket money while he
decided what to do with the rest of his life.

“Where are Stephen and
Antoine now?” Anna asked.

“The sick guests attacked
them,” Shawcross told her. “They…they just sprung to life like wild animals and
took the poor lads down.”

Anna remembered the man
who had attacked her. Wild animals was as good a description as any.

Shawcross was staring at
the floor, as if remembering something in vivid detail. “They tore out poor
Stephen’s throat before he even knew what was happening. I have no idea what
I’ll tell his family. No doubt they will hold me responsible.”

“They just…attacked?”
Anna confirmed. “It makes no sense.”

“I reckon it’s a virus or
something,” somebody muttered. “I bet terrorists were behind it, like the
attack on that cruise ship not long ago.”

“Or it could be some new
kind of drug,” added another voice. “Like that bath salts thing in America.”

“Next thing we knew,”
Shawcross continued, ignoring the various conspiracy theories being bandied
about, “half the guests were injured and bleeding. Or dead. Thirty guests
ripped to pieces in minutes. The function suites are ruined.”

Anna slumped back against
one of the worktops. “Jesus wept.”

“That’s not the worst
part,” Shawcross said. “Those who were left of us managed to get the sick
guests under control. We tied them up and locked them in the wine cellar. Some
of us got bitten or scratched in the process, but no one was badly hurt. We
thought we were safe again, that the whole thing was over…” He wiped the back
of his hand against his clammy forehead and ran his fingers through his damp
ginger hair. “I placed a call to the emergency services and those others left
standing set about trying to help those who were not.” He looked at Bradley and
narrowed his eyes. “We have to deal with him right now, before it’s too late.”

Anna pushed away from the
worktop and moved back between Bradley and Shawcross. “Nobody’s doing anything
until I understand what it is you’re all afraid of.”

“Isn’t it obvious, you
fool?” Shawcross almost shouted in her face. “He’s going to become one of them.
He’s infected.”

Anna moved over to the
sink, filled a glass with water and swigged it in one gulp. It was only then
that she noticed all the dried blood on the kitchen tiles.

“What the hell happened in
here?”

“Follow me,” Shawcross
said. “The rest of you stay here, and be vigilant. Find something to tie
Bradley up.”

Anna followed Shawcross to
the back of the kitchen. He led her to an industrial chiller and placed a hand
on its long aluminium handle.

“You ready for this?” he
asked her.

“I don’t even know what this
is.”

“Well, you’re about to
find out.” Shawcross yanked open the chiller door and a cold mist invaded
Anna’s lungs. It took a few moments for that mist to clear.

What she saw inside
terrified her.

Shawcross explained what
she was looking at. “These people were all injured when we first holed up in
here. Just cuts and bruises mostly but, by the time we locked ourselves in this
kitchen, we knew what would become of them. We had already seen it happen at
the bar.”

Anna stared at all the
people tied up in the freezer with a mixture of curiosity and revulsion. They
thrashed about, spitting and hissing in her direction, some of them making that
horrible screeching sound they made. Ragged wounds covered many of them while
others appeared entirely uninjured. All of them had the sickness, though, that
much was clear. Their eyes swollen, blood smeared each of their orifices. Their
skin was puffy and sore.

“What happened in the
bar?” Anna needed to know. She needed to make some sense of what she was
seeing.

Shawcross looked at her.
“Like I said, we were helping the wounded. Some people were dead, their throats
and stomachs ripped open, but others just had minor bites and scratches. We
tried to patch up their wounds, but they deteriorated fast. One woman only had
a bite on her wrist, yet she passed out unconscious. Many others fell
unconscious as well. We assumed it was shock. I was feeling pretty weak myself,
of course, but then they began to rise.”

“Rise?”

“Men and women who we
thought dead got up and started coming after us. Stephen’s neck had been ripped
to shreds, but he was back on his feet like nothing had happened, only he was
clumsy now, stumbling around like a drunk. We assumed that we’d gotten it
wrong, that the people hadn’t been dead at all, but then one of us got too
near…

“The dead came after us like
something out of a horror movie; and when things were at their worst, the
previously unconscious people snapped awake and came after us as well. They
were different than the dead guests; they were quick and brutal. They came
after us like predators, hunting us down in a pack. We were lucky any of us
made it through alive at all. A group of us ended up in this kitchen, but half
our number was badly injured and bleeding. It was too late for them.”

Anna pointed at the people
in the freezer. “Them?”

“Yes. We’d all seen what
had happened to those who’d been injured. Our wounded became extremely ill
before falling unconscious. We moved them all into the chiller before they
could do any damage. One member of the group started feeling weak and
volunteered to be restrained while he was still conscious. We secured him to
the refrigeration racks and cranked up the thermostat. Then, one-by-one, all of
the people in the chiller began to wake up.

Anna looked at the
infected people with sadness now as she considered them being quarantined
inside, condemned victims of some horrid plague.

“We need to call for
help,” she said.

“You’re forgetting that I
already did. I placed the call about…” he looked at his watch, “eight hours
ago. Nobody’s arrived yet. We’ve been waiting here all night, listening to
those monsters outside tearing the place apart. To be quite frank, Anna, I
thought it was a bad idea opening the doors for you, but Kimberly didn’t feel
it was right to leave you out there when we heard you shouting. It was she that
opened the doors for you.”

Anna patted him on the
arm. Her usual opinion of Shawcross was that he was a stuffy, pedantic asshole,
but she could tell that he was genuinely shaken. “You were just being
pragmatic,” she told him, “and that’s good.”

The infected people
continued grasping at the air, trying to get at Anna and Shawcross. The
screeching sounds they made were enough to send a person insane.

“They only make that noise
when they can see people,” Shawcross said. “I think it’s how they let each other
know they’ve found someone to attack. Fresh meat.”

Anna cringed. She didn’t
like to think of herself as meat in any scenario.

“This is impossible,” she
said. “There’s no known condition that could cause this kind of behaviour.
Cannibalistic rage? It’s insane, the stuff of fiction.”

Shawcross slammed the
chiller door shut. The screeching stopped.

“I can’t make any more
sense of this than you,” he said, “but I have one last thing to show you that
might make you accept what we’re up against.”

Anna fought against the
rising sickness in her stomach. How much more could there be?

At the very back of the
vast industrial kitchen was a door, which Shawcross now stood in front of. Anna
assumed it was the pantry.

“What’s inside there?” she
asked.

“See for yourself.”
Shawcross twisted the door handle and pulled.

Inside, hanging from a
light fixture by what appeared to be a bright red tie, was a man. He was
kicking and wriggling as he hung by his neck.

“Just when I think things
are screwed up enough,” Anna said.

“James was one of the
company managers,” Shawcross explained. “He never owned up to having been
bitten. None of us knew. He covered it up with his sleeve. While we were all
distracted moving people into the freezer, James must have snuck off on his
own. I found him hanging like this a few hours ago. He knew what was to become
of him. I haven’t told the others yet.”

Anna watched the man
swinging and kicking. “He’s been like this for hours? That can’t be. Nobody
could—”

“Survive being hanged by
their neck all this time? No, they could not. This man is categorically dead.
Check his pulse if you don’t believe me, but I would advise against getting
close.”

The purple ligature marks
around the businessman’s neck were proof enough that the blood supply and
oxygen to his brain had been cut off long ago.

“We need to get out of
here,” she said. “We need to get every doctor and scientist in the country out
here working this thing out. Whatever’s happening must have some explanation.”

Shawcross looked at her
like she was mad. “We can’t leave. There’s no way.”

“What? Of course there is.
There’s a door marked fire escape right over there.” She pointed.

“It’s locked. I know it
shouldn’t be, but I don’t like the thought of leaving the kitchen unsecured at
night. I always lock it once the cooks go home.”

Anna shook her head and
cursed. “Great idea. So how on earth do we get out of this bloody kitchen?”

“The only way out,” he
said, “is to go back through the house.”

Before Anna had time to
reply, a scream echoed through the kitchen.

Chapter Fourteen

It was Kimberly who was
screaming. The woman’s misty blue eyes were stretched wide as she fought
desperately with Bradley, who had her up against the wall and was snapping his
teeth at her. Slobber fell from his mouth and plastered his chin. His eyes were
bleeding.

No one in the room was
helping her. They stood back, frozen in fear. Anna ran over and shouted at
Bradley to stop, but he wasn’t listening. Kimberly was weakening. She needed
help.

But it was already too
late.

Bradley swatted aside
Kimberley’s arms and sunk his teeth into her windpipe. Her mouth filled with
blood and she choked.

“I told you,” Shawcross
shouted in Anna’s face. “I told you this would happen.”

“I-I’m sorry.”

Shawcross still held the
meat tenderiser in his hand and he swung it now in a wild arc, leaping as he
did so.

The first blow opened a
wide divot in Bradley’s skull and sent him staggering away from Kimberly, who
was already still alive, yet badly wounded. The second blow dropped him, legs
folding as he hit the floor in a crumpled heap.

Kimberly looked at
Shawcross like he was her saviour. She even managed to smile at him. Shawcross
smiled back, then smashed the mallet into the side of her skull, cracking open
her temple and sending her to the floor alongside Bradley.

Anna threw up.

“S-she let me inside,
saved me, and now she’s dead.”

Shawcross stared at Anna
with bulging eyes. Blood spattered his face and streaked his ginger hair. “I
told you this would happen, but I let you have your own way. I should have dealt
with Bradley the moment you brought him in. A woman is dead because of my
mistake.”

Anna shook her head. “This
wasn’t your fault.”

“No,” he said, thrusting
the bloody meat tenderiser in her face. “You’re right. It’s your fault.”

Anna looked down at Kimberly
and Bradley. Was it really her fault that this had happened? Was a kindly,
courageous woman dead because of her?

“I want to get out of
here,” somebody said. “I’m going to lose my mind if I don’t get some air. All
this blood.”

“We can’t leave,” Shawcross
shouted, gesticulating furiously. “Those things are still out there. Soon as we
step foot outside they’ll be on us like a pack of bloody hyenas.”

“But we can’t stay in here
forever,” someone said.

“I’m leaving,” said
somebody else.

Shawcross fumed. “You’d
rather die a horrible death than stay here a while until help arrives?”

Anna thought about the
call to emergency services that Shawcross had made hours ago, and how help was
still yet to arrive. She didn’t like any plan that involved waiting around to
be rescued because she wasn’t sure any help was coming. They needed a better
plan.

“How about causing a
distraction?” she asked. Shawcross glared at her, but his silence suggested he
was at least willing to listen. “Those things seem to operate on sight and
sound more than anything else. Maybe if we can lead them away from this part of
the manor, we can all sneak out.”

“And go where?” Shawcross
asked. “You said you were attacked in the gardens, so those things have
obviously gotten outside too.”

I only saw one guy and I
dealt with him. I think the park and zoo would be a safe place to go. We could
even make a break for our cars.”

“Perhaps, but none of that
makes any sense without a plan to get out of the kitchen. How on earth do we
distract them?”

Anna stared down at
Kimberly’s dead body, then looked at the frightened faces of the others. “I’ll
go out. I’ll try to lead them away so the rest of you can escape.”

Shawcross frowned at her,
but a slight twitch at the corner of his mouth suggested that he might actually
be impressed by her suggestion. “That’s insane. They’ll rip you apart.”

“Maybe, but these things
have chased me once already. They’re fast, yes, but they’re also clumsy. If I
know exactly where I’m heading, I can stay ahead of them.”

“But what do you do once
you’ve led them away? You can’t run forever. Eventually you’ll have to shake
them off.”

Anna thought for a moment.
“Can’t I slip inside one of the bedrooms and lock the door behind me? I could
climb through a window and re-join you all outside.”

“You’ll never make it.
Besides, I don’t have my keys. I was cashing-up the bar when the first attacks
happened. My keys are still in the till.”

“I have my room card,” a
man said from over by the sinks. He had a bloody handprint on his light blue
shirt but seemed in good shape otherwise. “You can take it to get into my
room,” he said.

“What’s your name?”

“Mike. I’m a junior sales
rep for…it doesn’t matter, does it?”

Anna took the card and
thanked him. “What number is your room, Mike?”

“Seven. It’s just up the
stairs on the right. It’s not far.”

“Great. I’m sure I’ll be
able to get there.”

“You really want to do
this?” Shawcross asked her.

“A woman is dead because
of me. Least I can do is try to get you people out of here alive.”

“Then you should take a weapon.”
He offered her the bloody meat tenderiser.

She waved it away. “It’ll
just slow me down. Plus, I still think these people are ill. I’m not about to
bash somebody’s skull in unless there’s no other choice.”

“Sometimes there isn’t,”
he said.

“Wait,” Mike said. “How
will we know when the coast is clear?”

“You won’t. Just come out
five minutes after I leave and pray that they’ve all followed me.”

“Any sign of danger and we
will return back here to wait for help,” Shawcross said. “But if everything is
all clear, we head out the front doors and regroup at the zoo. Hopefully Anna
is correct when she says it’s safe out there.”

“Like I said, there was
just the man who attacked Bradley. I didn’t see anybody else.”

“Just be careful,” Mike
told her.

Anna smiled at the man.
“I’ll see you outside.”

“My wallet is on the
bedside table,” he said. “It sounds a little crazy, but if you see it, could
you grab it?”

Anna was confused, but
agreed. “I don’t think there’s going to be much need for your credit cards, but
I’ll grab it if I see it.”

“Shall we get this over
with?” Shawcross said impatiently. He was standing next to the barricaded exit
with his ear against the door. “I think they’ve wandered off. I can’t hear them
anymore, but who knows when they’ll wander back.”

Anna rubbed at her eyes.
“Okay, I’m ready. I’ve had three hours sleep in the last thirty-six hours and
I’m stuck in a low-budget horror movie, but I’m ready.”

Shawcross slid the fridge
away from the doors, slowly shuffling it so as not to make noise. Mike lent a
hand and the two of them got the exit clear.

“You ready?” Shawcross
asked her. “Things get too dangerous, you come right back here and we’ll think
of another way.”

“There is no other
way,” she said. “We don’t know when help will get here or how long we can stay
safe inside this kitchen. We have to get outside.”

Shawcross opened the door
a crack and peered through the gap. “It seems all clear,” he whispered. “When
they lose sight of people, they wander away to look elsewhere.”

“They’re still out there
somewhere, though,” Mike said, “so be alert.”

Anna slipped through the
exit and re-entered the dining room. Bloody streaks and handprints covered the
back of the kitchen doors where the mob had been battering to get inside, but
it was all clear now. Although her ears picked up the slightest sound of
movement. A rhythmic tapping.

She crept onwards, heading
for the foyer, her wellington boots sticking to the tacky bloodstains that
covered the entire floor.

Tap, tap.

Tap, tap.

There was an overturned
chair up ahead, and the sound seemed to be coming from behind it. Anna felt her
muscles tense up as she waited for someone to spot her. But no one did.

Tap, tap.

Anna approached the
overturned chair, stepping closer and closer.

Tap, tap.

Finally, she spotted the
source of the noise, and it was a sight she wished she could un-see.

Ten feet away, lying
amongst a pile of broken chairs, was an infected person – one of the clumsy,
slow ones. Dead if Shawcross was to be believed. It was lying on its back; face
a half-eaten mess, only the chomping jaws left intact. The tapping sound came
from its thrashing legs. They had been stripped clean of flesh from the knees
downwards and the exposed bones of the foot and ankle were clicking against the
stone floor. With each attempt to get up, the withered legs folded uselessly.

Tap, tap.

Tap.

The torn-apart beast
spotted Anna and let out a hungry moan, like a plea for help, but she knew what
would happen if she got too close. The body dragged itself across the floor
towards her, but its progress was snail-like.

Anna ignored the corpse
and crept onwards, trying to shake the disturbing images from her mind. The
doorway to the reception hall was just up ahead and she could see the open
front doors leading outside. A voice in her mind urged her to just make a break
for it, to get outside on her own and run for help. Then she remembered that
the others would be coming out in five minutes whatever she did. They were
counting on her to clear the way for them.

She stepped out into the
foyer, praying the space would be empty.

But that was not the case.

When Anna stepped into the
reception area, a dozen infected people glared at her.

They screeched.

And then they came.

Chapter Fifteen

Anna was surrounded on all
sides. The only place left to run was towards the kitchen, but she knew she
wouldn’t make it. They had the jump on her.

A stocky man in a navy
blue jumper came at Anna first. He collided with her so hard that she went
hurtling back into the dining room. She stumbled, and when she looked down, she
saw that the body with skeletal legs had managed to crawl up behind her. It now
clawed at her leg, trying to bite down on her ankle. If not for her thick
wellington boots, it might have succeeded.

The stocky man came at
Anna again. She managed to kick her leg free just in time to move. Her attacker
missed her and went crashing into the dining room.

More came.

Anna watched the horde of
infected rushing into the room. Seeking the nearest barrier for protection, she
leapt onto the mahogany dining table and clambered down it. She was counting on
the erratic, uncoordinated movements of her pursuers to buy her some time and,
sure enough, as they reached the table, they struggled to lift themselves up
onto its polished surface.

Anna dodged candelabras
and centrepieces as she made her way down the table. Only a couple of infected
people had managed to clamber behind her, and they slid and toppled as they
tried to keep balance. Most of the remaining mob pursued her from the ground,
reaching up at her as they kept pace.

Pure survival instinct
urged Anna onwards, but she was running out of table. She had to think fast.

She put on the brakes,
skidding on her heels and turning. An infected girl sprinted towards her from
atop the table. Anna met her charge head on and, at the last moment, skidded on
her knees. The highly polished surface allowed her to glide, and she collided
with the girl charging towards her and knocked her aside like a bowling pin.

Anna’s rubber wellingtons
got a grip and brought her to a stop. She hopped back to her feet and continued
running, heading for the foyer. There was one more infected person on the table
with her: a large man with an ample gut. She threw herself at his large belly, tucking
in her shoulder and ramming him.

The man rocked backwards,
lost his footing and fell off the table, leaving Anna free to sprint the rest
of its length. Within seconds she’d reached the end and was leaping through the
air. As she landed, she glanced back at the mob that was now behind her.

She had a brief chance to
make it back to the safety of the kitchen, but she found herself heading for
the reception foyer as originally intended. She picked up speed, the screeching
mob giving chase pushing her to a level of effort she didn’t know possible.

She reached the foyer and
the only infected person in her way was the woman she’d tied up earlier with
the keyboard and cord. Anna dodged right past her and rushed for the staircase,
hoping there were no infected people on the second floor where she was headed.

The mob ran up the stairs
after her.

Anna’s heart threatened to
burst in her chest. Her feet throbbed as they struck the cold stone steps one
after the other, but she couldn’t afford to stop. Death pursued her.

At the top of the
staircase she turned right. The mob was still behind her, crashing into the
walls and side tables as they hurtled along screeching.

As Anna passed Room 5,
someone jumped out at her. The two people in front of her were both young and
clearly not infected. They stared at Anna with wide, terrified eyes as they
quickly realised that she was in no position to help them. If they’d been
hoping for rescue, they were going to be sorely disappointed.

The youngsters turned back
to re-enter their room, but the door had already closed behind them and locked
them out. The panic on their face was sudden and obvious.

“Run,” Anna shouted at
them, pulling the Room 7 key card from her jeans pocket and getting it ready.
The youngsters spun on their heels and hurried after her.

The infected were right
behind them.

Anna threw herself against
the door to Room 7 and slid the card into the magnetic reader. As she did so,
the plastic card bent and the reader flashed red. An irritated buzz sounded.

“Shit! Shit! Come on.”

She looked left and saw
two-dozen monsters hammering down the corridor, a tidal wave of death bearing
down. The two kids beside her sobbed, waiting for either death or salvation.

Anna removed the key card
from the slot and reinserted it. Her hands were shaking.

The card reader flashed
red and buzzed again.

She removed the key card
again, knowing there would only be time for one more attempt. She took a deep
breath and slid the card into the slot carefully.

The reader flashed green.
The door handle clicked.

The infected pounced.

Anna collapsed through the
door along with the two kids. She managed to kick out and close the door just
in time. A second later, the wood began to rattle on its hinges as dozens of
infected maniacs crashed against the other side.

“W-who the hell are you
two?” Anna asked between heaving breaths.

The male of the pair stood
up. He was shaking visibly and his black dress-shirt was crumpled and
sweat-stained. “We’ve been up here for hours,” he said. “We snuck away from the
party last night to – well, you know – and then we heard everything going crazy
downstairs. We stepped out and there were people being ripped apart. People
I’ve worked with for months have gone completely Jack Torrence.”

The girl stood up as well.
Her blonde hair was a tangled mess and her cherry lipstick and black mascara
were smudged. “We thought help was coming when we heard someone coming down the
hall,” she said. “We were sure you were it, but then we realised you were being
chased. What is going on? Please, tell me?”

Anna went over and
examined the room’s door. It was weaker than the ones downstairs and wouldn’t
hold forever. Even now it bulged and rattled with every blow.

She put a finger to her
lips to keep the young couple quiet. Then whispered to them. “If we keep quiet
they should go away. They seem to operate on sight and sound.”

“They?” asked
Charlotte. “Who are they?”

“I don’t exactly know.
Something bad has happened to a lot of people. Pretty much your entire company
came down with some kind of sickness last night. It’s infected them with some
kind of bloodlust.”

“Paris Hilton’s balls,”
the young man said. “This shit is crazy.”

“Crazy,” Anna agreed.
“This is no joke. People are dead. Things are really screwed up.”

“So what do we do?”
Charlotte asked. She turned to the young man and grabbed his wrist. “Clark, I’m
scared.”

He hugged her close. “I
know, baby. Everything’s going to be okay, I promise.”

“We need to get outside,”
Anna said. “There are people downstairs – uninfected people – that are relying
on me. I came up here to lead the sick people away. Now that I have, we need to
join back up with the group and get somewhere safe.”

Clark nodded. “Okay. We’re
ready to get the hell out of here.”

Anna went to the room’s
only window. Dawn sunlight flooded in and birds chirped outside as if all was
ordinary. The ground outside beneath the window was grassy and likely soft, but
the drop was significant.

“Strip the bed,” Anna
said.

Charlotte and Clark looked
at her with confusion, but then did as they were told. In the meantime, Anna
examined the room’s window and located the catch, flicking it free. It was
old-fashioned leaded glass window that opened outwards to one side. It wasn’t
the widest gap, but was big enough.

When the couple had
finished stripping the bed, they watched the door anxiously.

“Concentrate,” Anna said,
snapping her fingers. “We’ll be out of here before they get inside. Bring me
the mattress.”

Charlotte and Clark
managed to drag the mattress over and, together, they propped it up against the
window frame.

“It’ll be a squeeze,” Anna
said, “but I think we can get this through the window. We can use it as a crash
mat.”

They worked the mattress
onto the window ledge and started shoved it through. It was too wide to fit
perfectly, but as they pushed, squeezed, and folded it, progress was made.

Crack!

The door splintered.

Crack!

“Oh, no,” Charlotte cried.
“They’re going to get in.”

“Just keep pushing. Focus
on what we’re doing, not on them.”

They shoved as hard as
they could, but the mattress started to feel heavier as muscles grew tired.
Sweat began to bead on Anna’s forehead.

The door rattled, loosened
on its hinges.

Crack!

Anna shoved harder,
gritting her teeth.

Suddenly there was
movement and, all at once, the mattress tumbled over the ledge. It almost
dragged Anna right out after it as it plummeted to the ground at speed.

“Charlotte, you go first.
Quickly!”

Charlotte stared out the
window and then looked back at Anna, shaking her head. “I can’t just jump out
the window.”

“It’s either that or stay
here and get ripped apart.”

“You go,” she said,
pointing at Clark. “Now, move!”

Clark didn’t argue. He
leaped up on the window frame and threw himself through. Anna watched him land
face down on the mattress. He was disorientated for a moment, but was soon on
his feet and waving up at them.

“Now you,” Anna said to
Charlotte. “You need to jump.”

Crack!

Charlotte looked like a
rabbit caught in headlights. She started hyperventilating.

A probing arm came through
the door, clawing at the air with its bloody fingernails.

“Go!” Anna shouted.
“Before it’s too late.”

Charlotte climbed onto the
ledge tentatively, pausing to look down at the ground below. Anna placed a hand
on the girl’s back and shoved. She hit the mattress below and rebounded into
the grass. She started sobbing but managed to give a thumbs-up.

Crack!

It was Anna’s turn and she
climbed up on the ledge. Her hamstrings were painfully tight from her desperate
sprint through the hallway.

The door behind her
continued to splinter as the infected threw themselves at it like battering
rams.

Right, Anna told herself. I’ll
count to three.

One…

Two…

Thr—

She stopped herself when
she realised she’d forgotten something.

Mike’s wallet.

She didn’t know why, but
she couldn’t leave without grabbing it first. She quickly hopped down off the
window ledge and located the wallet in clear sight – right on the bedside table
where Mike said it would be. She snatched it up quickly, surprised by how heavy
it was.

The door burst open.

Anna raced back towards
the window, but was cut off by a large man with a flap of skin hanging off his
face. With a fresh surge of adrenaline, she was able to duck beneath his grasp
and spring up onto the window frame in one fluid motion.

Clark and Charlotte waited
for her below.

Before Anna managed to
jump, arms grabbed her around the waist and tried to pull her back. Shoving all
her weight forward, she managed to get her legs over the windowsill and let
gravity take her. She fell. She fell fast and awkwardly, as a heavy weight bore
down on her back. She hit the mattress like a rock and heard something snap.
The fabric covered springs were less forgiving than she’d anticipated.

The next thing she knew,
something was clawing at her back and trying to kill her.

Chapter Sixteen

Anna struggled. A flash of
white-hot pain stabbed through her right hand, but she had no time to
investigate the cause. If the infected man who had followed her out of the
window managed to bite her, she was doomed.

Clark wrapped his arm
around the infected man’s throat and tried to pull him away. Charlotte grabbed
a hold of Anna and yanked her to safety.

The pain in Anna’s hand
exploded once again, but she ignored it until she knew all danger had been
dealt with. She kicked out at the infected man and sent him sprawling
backwards. Clark followed up with a hard shove that sent their attacker to the
ground.

“What do we do?” Charlotte
asked, voice thick with fear.

Before Anna could answer,
another body landed on the mattress and bounced off onto the grass.

Then another.

The infected continued to
fall through the bedroom’s open window. They jumped one after the other like
lemmings. Four infected men and women now crawled up from the ground. One of
them limped on a broken ankle.

Anna looked at Clark and
Charlotte. “We need to get out of here now.”

“No shit,” Clark said.

They took off across the
rear gardens of Ripley Manor, heading around the side and towards the front of
the building. Hopefully Shawcross and the others would be there waiting for
them.

The infected screeched and
gave chase.

“They’re coming after us,”
Charlotte cried.

“Just keep moving. The
longer we’re in sight, the more of those things will come through the window.”

They rounded the corner of
Ripley Hall and entered the front lawns. Now that dawn had arrived, the nearby
buildings of the zoo and park were visible.

“This way,” Anna said. “We
need to meet up with the others.”

Clark looked back over his
shoulder. “They’re gaining on us. How are they so fast?”

Anna looked back to
confirm. Three of the four infected who had fallen through the window were now
gaining ground on them. Something made them quick, like they were burning some
kind of fuel inside.

Anna sprinted across the
lawn, ducking between trees and hopping over bushes. She skipped over the body
of the man who had attacked and bitten Bradley and noticed that the dead woman
was gone.

Ripley Hall’s front doors
were hanging wide open, the foyer inside empty.

“Where are they?” Anna
shouted. “Where the hell are they?”

“We should run back
inside,” Charlotte said.

“No, it’s full of infected
people. We need to find someplace safer. The others should be out here waiting
for us. Where are they?”

The infected would be on
them any second. There was no place to run that offered absolute safety, but
staying and fighting would be suicide.

“Anna!”

She spun around to find
Shawcross and the others. They were fifty yards away, shouting from the doorway
of one the zoo’s buildings.

“Come on,” Anna said.
“They’re over there.”

With safety in sight,
Charlotte and Clark seemed to find additional strength. They picked up speed
and managed to overtake Anna. The infected managed to pick up speed too. Their
screeching was endless.

“Quickly,” Shawcross
shouted as he held the doorway open for them up ahead.

Charlotte and Clark
sprinted the final thirty yards to the building. Shawcross ushered them inside
to safety. He motioned urgently for Anna to hurry who was yet to make it.

She was going as fast as
she could, but the infected almost had her. She could feel them right behind
her. Her thighs burned and she just couldn’t keep up the pace anymore. There
were still ten yards left to run when she felt fingertips at her back.

Shawcross slammed the door
shut.

She had no place to go.

The fingertips at her back
turned into palms and progressed to grabbing hands. The infected grabbed her,
yanked her to a halt.

She spun around, caught
the nearest man in the jaw with her elbow, but was so exhausted that the
momentum sent her sprawling onto her hands and knees. The three infected
surrounded her, screeching and snarling.

The door to the building
reopened and somebody emerged out of it.

Mike ran towards Anna with
a length of broom handle raised above his head. He batted her attackers around
the side of the head and tops of their skulls. Anna clambered back to her feet,
desperately holding on to a glimmer of hope that she would find safety. Tremors
wracked her knees, but she clenched her jaw and kept fighting.

Mike grabbed Anna by her
lapels and yanked her behind him. He took another swing with the broom handle
and hit the nearest attacker beneath the chin.

“Look out,” Anna shouted.
An overweight woman in a ripped blouse lunged at Mike, who managed to turn around
in time to ram the broom handle like a spear right up into the woman’s nose. He
gritted his teeth as he forced the wooden shaft into her skull until the
woman’s entire body seized and went limp.

Mike let go of the broom
handle and let the body slump to the ground.

“Come on,” Anna shouted.
“Leave them. We have to go.”

They galloped the last
twenty yards towards the building and made it inside, panting and wheezing.
Shawcross closed the door and stood anxiously beside.

Anna had a bone to pick
with the man; but first she had to see why her hand hurt so badly.

Chapter Seventeen

“You were just going to
leave me out there to die!” shouted Anna, clutching her injured hand against
her chest. From a cursory examination, it looked like she had dislocated her finger.
The building they were in was the zoo’s reptile house.

“I have to look out for
the group,” Shawcross said. “I thought you were done for. They had you. You
were never going to make it.”

“And yet here I am, alive
and well.” She turned to Mike and nodded. “I owe you.”

“Don’t mention it,” he
said. “We never would’ve gotten out of that damned kitchen without you, so
we’ll call it even. Looks like you ran a little rescue mission, too.” He
motioned to Clark and Charlotte.

Anna nodded. “Yes, this is
Ch—”

“Charlotte and Clark.
Yeah, I know,” Mike said. “We work together at the Tamworth branch.”

“It’s good to see you’re
okay, Mike,” Charlotte muttered.

“Where did those infected
come from?” Shawcross demanded. “And what is wrong with your hand?”

“We had to jump from an
upstairs window. The infected followed us out. My hand is fine. Dislocated I
think. I’m not bitten if that’s what you’re afraid of.”

“Damn it!” Shawcross
banged a fist against the corn snake’s terrarium, making them hiss and flick
their tongues. “We’re trapped in here, no better off than we were in the
kitchen.”

“I wouldn’t go that far,”
Mike said. “We have multiple exits and open space if we have to make a run for
it. There didn’t seem to be many out there – just a handful.”

“What if they keep coming
through the window?” Charlotte said. “There could be dozens more.”

Anna shook her head. “I
don’t think they’ll jump out the window unless they spot someone. As long as we
lay low, everything should be…” her words trailed off.

“What?” Shawcross grunted.
“What is it?”

“You left the front doors
of the house wide open. There’s nothing to stop the infected guests from
spilling out into the grounds.”

“Shit! You’re right,” Mike
said. “We were in such a panic that we all just ran outside.”

“We need to get those
doors shut before they gather back in the foyer. We won’t be safe otherwise. We
don’t know how long it’ll be until help arrives. I’ll have to go back outside.”

“No way,” Mike said.
“You’ve already risked your neck enough. Look at you, you’re exhausted.”

“Then who? Is anybody else
willing to volunteer?”

There was silence amongst
the group.

Anna tutted. Their lack of
courage didn’t surprise her. People were selfish. Test them and they’d always
look out for number one. Her ex-husband had taught her that lesson. “I’m going
back out in five minutes,” she said. “I just need to catch my breath first.”

“Then, I’m coming with
you,” Mike said.

Anna shrugged, secretly
surprised. “Fine. The more the merrier.”

“I’ll see if I can find
something to defend yourselves with,” Shawcross said, wandering off into the
darkness of the reptile house. Anna had the feeling that he just wanted to be
away from her and the guilt of what he had done. A reptile house was just the
place for him.

Mike took Anna to one
side. “I’m really sorry to ask, but did you—”

“Find your wallet? Yes, I
have it. Almost died trying to get it, but I got it.” She slid her hand into
her jean pocket and hissed as a bolt of agony shot through her knuckles.

“What is it?”

Anna held her hand out in
front of her. Her little finger was bent back at an unnatural angle.

Mike looked as though he
might gag. “Christ. It looks broken.”

She examined her twisted
digit and shook her head. “I must have done it when I fell out the window.”

“You fell out of a window?
What do we do?”

She grabbed her little
finger with her other hand and took a deep breath. “We don’t do
anything.” Then she snapped the finger back into place, yelling out against the
agony.

Then the pain was gone,
replaced by a cold numbness.

Mike looked at her in astonishment.
“That was pretty badass.”

“No point being a vet if I
can’t even fix myself. Now, let’s get the doors to Ripley Hall closed so we can
finally sort this whole mess out. Here’s your wallet.”

Mike nodded and started to
unbutton his bloodstained shirt, exposing a gleaming white vest beneath.

Anna put a hand out to
stop him. “You sure that’s the best thing, going out there in just a vest? What
if one of those things bites you?”

Mike fastened the shirt
back up. “Good point. I’m just starting to freak out about all this blood on
me, you know?”

“Whose is it?” She could
see it wasn’t his, but from the pained expression that flashed across his face,
she was sorry for asking so bluntly. “Sorry.”

He waved his hand. “No,
it’s okay. It wasn’t anyone I was close to, just a co-worker, Graeme. But he
had a son and a wife, you know? He was a happy guy. Deserved better than to be
ripped apart like...”

Anna placed a hand on his
shoulder and rubbed. “We’re going to get to bottom of this, okay? You’re doing
really great. You’re my hero, in fact.”

He smiled at her and
straightened. “Thanks,” he said, but then sighed deeply. He ran a hand through
his messy black hair and seemed to prepare for whatever came next. “Let’s do
this,” he said.

Chapter Eighteen

Anna didn’t get going right
away. She and Mike took Shawcross up on his offer of finding them weapons.

“Here, take this,”
Shawcross said, handing Anna a long metal pole with a kink at the end, normally
used for dealing with the exhibit’s many snakes. Mike found himself a shovel
and weighted it up in his hands.

“So what’s your plan? You
know, eventually your luck’s going to run out, taking all these risks.”

Anna glared at Shawcross.
He seemed perfectly happy to let her take all those risks when they benefited
him. “If nobody does anything,” she said, “then we’re up shit creek with only
half a paddle. I don’t want to go out there, but somebody has to. If you’re so
worried, why don’t you go close the doors?”

Shawcross gave her a
thin-lipped smile. “I’m needed here. Guest welfare is still my responsibility.”

“I don’t think so,” Mike
said. “I think you’re officially off-duty.”

“I’m never off-duty.
Ripley Hall is my building and you are my guests.”

Anna looked at the
gathering of shell-shocked survivors and saw there was less than a dozen in
total.

“Fine,” she said. “You
carry on playing host while we risk our necks.” She turned to Mike. “You
ready?”

He nodded and they headed
to the building’s exit. “Should we try heading out through a different door?”
he asked. “They could be right outside.”

Anna thought about it. “I
don’t think we’re going to be safe coming out of any door. At least we know
what to expect behind this one.”

Mike hefted the shovel up.
“Okay, I’m ready when you are.”

“Just remember,” Anna told
him, “don’t let them bite you.”

“I stopped getting hickeys
at fifteen.”

“Here goes,” she said,
easing the door open and peering outside. It looked all clear so she stepped
through. Mike followed closely. “Wonder where they went.”

“They’ll be around here
somewhere. Stay alert. We need to get to the house.”

Anna took cover behind a
concrete statue of a Chameleon and checked up ahead. Past the trees of the
lawn, Ripley Hall was silent. Its doors remained open and its lights were still
on, but all was quiet.

“Come on,” she said,
ushering Mike to follow.

They kept low and moved
across the lawn, cutting a path through the sycamore trees. The man who had
attacked Bradley was still lying in the grass. Once again she wondered where
the woman was.

“What do you see?” Mike
whispered to her.

“Nothing. I think it’s
safe. I’ll go and close the doors.”

“I’ll watch your back.”

Anna gripped her steel
pole tightly and made her way over to the doors. She listened intently, ready
for the first sign of danger, and as she got closer, the odour of blood wafted
through the air. She was grateful she didn’t have to go inside again.

The sound of infected
milling about in the depths of the building was a chorus of moans and mad
cackles, but the foyer itself was empty.

Anna stepped up to the door
and grabbed the handle.

“Look out,” Mike shouted.

Anna stumbled backwards as
the dead woman lurched out of the foyer and collapsed on top of her. Another
woman joined her: the maid, who had finally got free. The keyboard swung from
her neck by its cord. Both women were slow and clumsy, their skin grey and
mottled.

Anna staggered backwards
and managed to slip free of the woman’s grasp.

Mike ran up to help her
but she shooed him away. “I got this,” she said. She gripped the steel pole
firmly with both hands and held it like a pike.

As the maid stumbled
towards her, moaning and grasping at thin air, Anna shoved upwards. The tip
entered over the dead maid’s heart and sent her reeling backwards. Anna put her
weight behind the pole and shoved harder. She cringed at the wet sucking sound
it made, but was surprised by how easily the steel passed through flesh – dead
flesh.

The woman didn’t go down.
She clawed and grasped at Anna, even with the steel pole through her chest. It
was as if the eviscerating wound failed to even register. Her friend, the maid
clattered towards her at a leisurely place

Anna yanked on the pole
and tried to retrieve it, but it was stuck. The blood and leaking organs must
have caused an airtight seal. Now she had no weapon to inflict an additional
killing blow or defend herself against the maid. She did have control over the
woman, though. She shoved the poled into the ground, still passing though the
woman’s chest cavity. It broke the surface of the mud and delved into the
turgid soil beneath. The woman slid backwards on the pole like part of a shish
kebab and with one last push, Anna forced the pole deep enough into the mud to
anchor the woman permanently. Then she span around just in time to grab the
approaching maid around the back of the head and shove her down on top of her
friend. She slid onto the spike belly first and ended up face down against the
other woman, both of them pin to the ground.

Mike stepped up to the two
women and raised his shovel above his head, ready to deal with them for good.

“Don’t,” Anna said. “I’ve
seen enough blood spilt for one day. Just leave them there. They aren’t going
anywhere.”

Mike frowned at her, but
slowly lowered the shovel and instead slammed it into the dirt where it stood
erect on its own.

Anna headed back up the
steps to Ripley Hall and carefully closed the front doors. The sound of the
lock catching was like an audible victory.

“I don’t see any more of
them,” Mike said.

As if to disagree, a
beastly cry erupted from somewhere in the zoo. Anna recognised immediately that
it was not the sound of the infected, but something else entirely.

Chapter Nineteen

“What is that?” Mike asked
her.

“It’s coming from further
away in the zoo.”

“Should we check it out?”

Anna looked back at Ripley
Hall. The doors were closed and the infected inside were oblivious. But if
there were still infected people outside, wandering the grounds and park

With adrenaline still
coursing through her veins, Anna made a decision. “We need to know what we’re
up against or we’re going to end up trapped inside the reptile house, no better
off than we were.”

Mike seemed to be in a
similar state of mind and nodded grimly. “Let’s be quick about it then.”

Anna honed in on the
direction of the commotion – which was getting louder and more frenzied – and
determined it was at the far side of the zoo.

“What do you think it is?”
Mike asked. “That sound. It’s horrible.”

Anna had a suspicion but
did not want to admit to it until she was sure. She recognised the noise, the
calls. She quickly headed and made a beeline for where she suspected the sounds
were coming from. The various animals in their exhibits were now awake,
disturbed by the commotion. Pigs oinked and sheep yodelled anxiously.

Anna gasped when she
eventually saw the carnage.

“Oh no,” Mike said.

Half a dozen infected had
managed to scale the walls of the orang-utan enclosure and were now attacking
the primates inside. Anna watched in horror as Lily placed her baby in the
elevated safety of the habitat’s mangrove tree, before swiping and hissing at
the infected closing in on her. The male orang-utan, Brick, was rushing back
and forth, clubbing the invaders with his huge fists. He let out a vibrating
bellow with each blow, his animalistic rage overcoming him. As Anna stared
harder, she noticed that he held a fist-sized rock in his palm and was using it
to bludgeon his attackers. One or two of them he had already turned into pulp.

Mike was shaking his head.
“How do we help?”

It hurt Anna’s heart to
say so, but there was nothing they could do. “The drop over those walls
is fifteen feet to the moat on the other side,” she said. “We’ll break our
legs.”

All of the infected in the
enclosure sported broken legs, arms or ribs, depending on how they’d landed.
Bones jutted from broken skin and blood leaked from a dozen places. Of course,
the infected ignored their injuries – their ability to feel pain completely
absent – and continued attacking regardless.

“Do you think that’s all
of them?” Mike asked. “If so then they’ve accidentally corralled themselves.”

Anna frowned. “It’s
strange.”

“What is?”

“They must’ve stumbled
past a dozen animal enclosures on their way here, but they only chose this one
to attack. They ignored the pigs, the birds, the horses.”

“Maybe they only attack
people,” Mike suggested. “Maybe orang-utans are close enough to confuse them.”

The battle inside the
habitat continued. Lily swiped and clawed to protect herself, but for the most
part, Brick was the one keeping the infected at bay. He stood tall in front of
his mate and bludgeoned the skull of any infected that came within range. A
couple already laid dead, their brains spilling out onto the grass in
glistening pools.

Brick was coming off
badly, though. A jagged wound had opened beneath the fur of his left shoulder,
torn open by vicious teeth. Anna held her breath as an infected girl in a torn
cocktail dress and broken stilettos leapt onto Brick’s back and chomped on his
neck.

Brick wailed. He managed
to drag the infected woman off his back and slam her to the ground where her
dress rode up and exposed her lack of underwear. Brick brought his bloody rock
down so hard that it spilt the woman’s face in two.

There were only three
infected people left now; the most injured ones. One sported a broken femur,
which stuck out like a branch. Another infected had two snapped arms hanging
limply at his sides. Brick wasted no time in engaging them both.

Once the enclosure was
once again secure, Brick fell to the ground, wheezing. Lily began to sob as her
mate languished in her arms. Now that the fight was over, his body had finally
given in. His mighty chest heaved in great gasps of air and then stopped. The
last spark of life drifting away. Brick had protected Lily and her infant
bravely, like any human father would. Now that he was gone, Lily held him in
her arms like a loving partner. Her pained wails made her grief plain to see
that tragedy wasn’t exclusive to the human race.

Lily hooted at her infant
still in the mangrove tree and it climbed down to join her.

Anna noticed the danger
before Lily did and shouted out a warning. “Look out!”

But it was too late.

One of the infected was
still crawling along on its belly. It snatched at the infant as it passed by
and caught it by the leg. By the time the baby orang-utan realised the danger
it was already to late to escape. The infected man sank his teeth into the
infant’s belly. It squealed in agony.

Lily let go of Brick and
leapt into the air, clearing the distance between herself and her baby in one
movement. She twisted the infected man’s head right around, breaking the neck
with a vicious flick. Then she picked up her bleeding infant in her arms and
rocked it desperately, patted its head, sniffed its face, and swung it to and
fro.

But her baby was dead.

Lily’s wails filled the
dawn.

Chapter Twenty

Anna knocked on the door to
the reptile house and said her name. A few seconds later, Shawcross opened it.
Inside, everyone was now armed with various rudimentary weapons.

“Is it safe?” Shawcross
asked her. “Are the doors of the house closed? What was all the noise?”

“Ripley Hall is secure,”
Anna reported. “As long as we all stay back from the grounds, the infected
people should stay inside.”

Shawcross seemed
satisfied. “What about the zoo, the park?”

“I think it’s safe. There
were some infected people wandering around outside, but they’re dead now – dead
dead.”

“You killed them?”

“Not exactly, but they’ve
been dealt with, trust me.”

“Then we should leave,” he
said. “Find help, someone who can clear this whole mess up.”

“If that’s what everybody
wants to do, fine.”

“We don’t know that it’s
any safer elsewhere,” Mike said. “Back in the kitchen nobody could get a call
through on their mobiles. And you,” he nodded at Shawcross, “put a call
through on the landline when things first went bad. Nobody has come.”

Shawcross rubbed at his
temples and then stared at Mike. “So what are you saying? That we’re doomed?
That nowhere is safe?”

“I’m just saying that I
don’t think we should take safety for granted. If we are okay here then we
should stay here.”

Anna put her hands on her
hips and weighed things up in her mind. “You really think we should stay put?”

Mike nodded. “We’re
five-hundred feet above the ground, surrounded by woodland. If this thing –
whatever it is – has spread, I feel much safer up here then going off to find
help that might not even exist.”

Shawcross tutted.
“Nonsense. We need to report all this to the police.”

“Not if it means dying,”
Mike said. “

Shawcross folded his arms.
“We’re leaving.”

Anna raised a hand. “Hold
on a minute. You don’t speak for everyone. Maybe we should try to find out what
the situation is down below first, before we get in our cars and set off into
the unknown.”

Shawcross growled. Anna
noticed then that his slick, ginger hair was now neatly back in place,
re-styled and orderly. Had he gone off somewhere to sort out his appearance?
Was that what mattered to him right now?

Someone else in the group
spoke up to fill the tense silence. “I’m not going anywhere unless I know it’s
safe.”

“Me either,” said another.

“I want to go home,”
someone else disagreed.

“It seems we’re not sure
amongst ourselves,” Anna noted.

“We should try to get some
news first,” Mike said. “Find a television or some place with internet.”

Anna nodded. “Good idea.
There’s a small office block and a warehouse at the rear of the zoo, I’ve been
there before. There are computers. We may be able to get something to eat there
as well. I think there are snack machines.”

“Sounds good to me,” Mike
said. “I doubt we’ll be getting any sleep, so a bit of grub sounds like a good
compromise.”

There were murmurings of
agreement at the mention of food. The thought of fulfilling a basic need was
enough to re-motivate people and they all needed the energy boost.

“Then if we’re all
decided,” Shawcross said. “I’ll lead the way.” He brandished a thick branch
that he’d probably taken out of a reptile exhibit and held it like a staff in
front of him like he was Moses.

“It’s your rodeo,” Anna
said, not really caring. “Just try not to leave anybody else to die.”

Shawcross shot her a
scathing look, but quickly readjusted it to a warm smile. “Of course not, Anna.
It’s important that we all stick together.”

He headed for the door and
stood beneath the fire exit sign, where he then looked over the group to make
sure they were all ready. Then they set out.

Outside, the day had
become bright and clear, the air crisp and invigorating.

“The offices are over
there,” Shawcross said.

Everyone kept to a tight
formation, glancing around nervously, ready to run at the first sign of danger.

Anna craned her neck to
take in the eastern side of the zoo. She tried to make out what was happening
inside the orang-utan’s exhibit, but it was too far away now to see. Her heart
still ached for Lily.

The group passed by the
various animal enclosures before Shawcross stopped. “Okay,” he said, “these are
the offices, just over there.”

Anna had only been inside
the cement office block a handful of times whenever she had needed to fill out
paperwork for the zoo’s indemnities. As the head vet she had been required to
make official reports on the welfare, conditions, and health of each animal.

Shawcross pulled on the
front doors but they were locked. “We’re going to have to break in.” He sighed.
“I suspected as much.”

Anna raised an eyebrow.
“Break in? How do you propose we do that?”

“I’m sure we can manage to
break a window,” he scoffed.

Anna looked around. The
windows of the rectangular building were all thick, double-glazed, and not easy
to smash through.

“What you reckon?” Mike
asked her.

“Don’t know. We need to
get inside, but I worry about making noise. What if there’s an alarm.”

“There’s no alarm,”
Shawcross said. “The park employs security guards. As long as we put the window
out in with a single blow, it shouldn’t make any racket at all. We just need to
find something suitable.”

“How about that?” Clark
pointed to a nearby vehicle.

Anna recognised the large
flatbed truck as being Bradley’s. It was parked next to a small warehouse, but
the truck wasn’t what Clark was pointing at. It was what was in the flatbed
that was important.

Shawcross clicked his
fingers. “Perfect. It’s going to be heavy, so could I have a volunteer to help
me, please?”

Mike volunteered.

The stack of breezeblocks
on the flatbed were perfect for breaking windows. Shawcross dragged one of the
blocks to the edge of the truck and then he and Mike shuffled with it over to
the building.

“We could use a third pair
of hands for this,” Shawcross said, growing red in the face.

Anna hurriedly placed her
hands underneath the breezeblock and helped the two men.

“After three,” Shawcross
said. “One…two…

“Three!”

They heaved the block into
the air and watched it tumble towards the window. The glass cracked and gave
way immediately, its pane splitting into several large shards and leaving the
frame safe to climb through.

“Come on,” Mike said.
“Let’s get inside.”

It was a typical office
space, with cluttered desks and coffee-stained keyboards. Anna picked up a
photo frame from the nearest desk and examined it. There was a woman with two
young boys. Anna wondered if they were okay.

“Hey, I just had a
thought,” Clark said. “If everything is alright elsewhere then people should
start arriving for work soon. It’s gone eight.”

Mike shrugged. “I really
hope so. I’ll give a kiss to the first person I see, but…”

Anna nodded. “It’s a
pretty big hope.”

“There’s no way this thing
isn’t happening elsewhere,” Mike said.

“We should find a
television,” Anna suggested. “Then we’ll know.”

Shawcross led them into
the building’s main corridor and raised a hand to keep everyone back while he
checked the coast was clear.

The hallway was empty.
Whenever Anna had visited in the past it had been filled with people. It was
eerie to see it now.

“This is the staffroom,”
Shawcross stopped beside a door then opened it and walked in.

The room gave Anna a
strange feeling of normality. The pool table in the centre was still littered
with balls and cues where a game had been abandoned mid-session. An empty crisp
packet adorned a cabinet. A forgotten coat hung from a wall peg. The room’s
plush sofa felt inviting. Somebody had left a paperback on one of its cushions.
The room had a lived-in feel and spoke not of the horrors that had occurred so
close by.

“Thank my giddy aunt,”
Mike cried excitedly as he ran across the room to a pair of vending machines.
He pulled some change out of his pocket and shoved it into the slot.

“Is there a phone in
here?” Charlotte asked. “I want to call my mom.”

“There’s no phone,”
Shawcross said, “but there’s a TV.” He plucked the TV remote from the sofa and
pointed it at the modest flatscreen fixed to the wall near a corner.

The news came on, loud and
blaring. They hadn’t even needed to change the channel and search.

Banners at both the bottom
and top of the screen read: NATIONAL CRISIS IN PROGRESS.

The anchorman providing
the report looked mortified, not at all like the usual unflappable journalists
of the BBC.

“We are getting word from
France that Paris has been declared a quarantine zone, joining other European
capitals, Athens, Berlin, Brussels, Prague, Madrid, Rome, and of course London.
Armed forces are forming a perimeter around Paris and there are suggestions
from local sources that the UK Government is preparing similar measures for
London and other major cities.”

Shawcross shook his head.
“This cannot be.”

“We take you now to scenes
outside Westminster,” the anchorman continued, “where an emergency government
assembly is holding crisis meetings. Prime Minister Ferry, as previously
reported, died in the early hours of this morning.”

There was total silence in
the staffroom as they all realised just how much trouble they were in.

The news switched to a
camera feed from a helicopter above the Thames. The lens was focused on the
spiny architecture of the Houses of Parliament. Big Ben was dented and scorched
as if some airborne vehicle – perhaps another helicopter – had collided with
the Elizabeth tower.

Gathered in the thousands,
laying siege to the parliament buildings in force, were ranks and ranks of
infected people, their affliction obvious from their animal-like movement and
relentless screeching. The infected covered the streets of Westminster like the
legions of Hell.

The camera-feed cut back
to the studio where the anchorman continued to report.

“Acting Prime Minister
Glade is currently under siege, but has assured us, through sporadic
communication, that the Government is working hard on a solution. Armed forces
have been deployed nationwide and all military personnel stationed abroad have
been recalled with immediate effect. However, with allied nations also under
attack, it remains to be seen whether or not our servicemen will make it home
safely. It is currently unknown if the situation has spread to America, but
current indications are that it is likely.”

Shawcross collapsed onto
the sofa. Anna went and rubbed the back of his neck and told him to take deep
breaths.

The news continued.
“Again, these scenes are real and are happening live. This devastating attack
on our shores seems to have emanated from the Southern coastline after
travelling throughout mainland Europe overnight. We have seen our loved ones,
our neighbours, our teachers, our doctors, and even our police officers succumb
to this madness and death. However, if there are people out there still unaware
of the crisis, particularly in the North where the virus is still partially
contained, we urge you to remain indoors. Construct whatever barricades you can
to keep your property secure and defend yourselves in whatever way you can.
Armed forces are working urgently to regain control of the nation’s cities, but
the death toll is already in the hundreds of thousands and the number of
infected has become unaccountable. Great Britain, and perhaps the entire world,
is under siege by the greatest threat it has ever faced. It is what some
religious groups are calling ‘The End of Days’. We ask you to pray for one
another and to remain strong in the way that the people of this great nation
always have. Ration your food, defend yourselves, and wait for help to arrive.
In the meantime…” the reporter stared into the camera with tears brimming. “God
be with us all.”

The program switched to
more scenes of devastation. The Eiffel tower burned as thousands of writhing
bodies moved down the Champs Elysees. German forces flattened the
streets of Munich with their mighty tanks. Pictures from the Italian
countryside showed roving bands of militia fighting outside the walls of Rome.
All of the images made one thing clear: the battle was being lost. The
infected’s relentless pursuit of survivors was unstoppable. Mankind was being
exterminated.

Charlotte began to freak
out. “I need to find a phone,” she shouted. “I need to call my parents. They’ll
be worrying about me. What if they’re in danger? I need to go home.”

“Calm down, honey,” Clark
told her, but Charlotte wasn’t listening. She ran towards the door they’d come
through and yanked it open. “I need to get out of here. I need… I need—”

The bald and bearded man
was on Charlotte immediately. Before she even had a chance to cry out, he was
tearing apart her face with his teeth.

“It’s Tom,” Shawcross
yelled. “The night watchman.”

Tom threw Charlotte’s limp
and bleeding body to the ground and snarled at the rest of them. Clark leapt
behind the pool table, causing Tom to go after Shawcross, who was nearest.

“Get back,” shouted
Shawcross as he swung the thick branch he had kept since leaving the reptile
house. He struck Tom on the head and kept him at bay.

But Tom would not be
deterred.  Blood dripping down his chin and staining his greying beard, he
snarled at Shawcross and kept on coming.

Anna could see that
Shawcross’s feeble attacks with the branch weren’t going to work, so she looked
around for something better, quickly grabbing a pool cue. She held it upside
down so that the thick end was pointing at Tom. Then she took her shot.

The pool cue snapped as it
struck Tom’s skull with an audible crack! The blow would have put a
normal human in the hospital, but all it did to Tom was disorientate him. Anna
had expected the pool cue to break and so she readjusted her grip and wielded
it like a makeshift dagger, ramming the broken end right into Tom’s temple.

Tom fell to the floor with
the broken pool cue jutting out the side of his head. Anna wiped his blood from
the back of her hand onto her shirt and grimaced. It was cold, not like human
blood should be.

“Charlotte!” Clark ran
across the room and sprawled beside his already-dead girlfriend. “Oh, shit,
Charlotte. Don’t worry, babe, we’ll get help.”

“She’s dead,” Mike said.
“I’m sorry.”

Clark shook his head and
wept.

Anna took him by the hand
and led him over to the sofa. “Just take a seat,” she told him, then nodded to
Mike. “Fetch him a drink.”

Shawcross was busying
himself by dragging Tom’s body back out into the corridor.

“Is there likely to be
anybody else hiding in this building?” Anna shouted over to him.

“I don’t know,” he said.
“I would suppose not. Tom was the night guard, but as far as I know he’s the
only one that works during the AM. And Bradley, of course, when needed.”

Anna sighed. Both were now
dead.

Mike handed a bottle of
water to Clark, who took it with trembling hands and said, “This is so messed
up. Charlotte can’t be dead. None of this can be real.”

Anna rubbed his back.
“We’re all in this together. It’s not your fault.”

“We should be safe now,”
Shawcross said. “Forgetting about Tom was a lapse in my judgement, but there
should be no one else. We’re safe, I’m sure of it.”

Anna nodded and then
looked around at what was left of their group. “Okay, well in that case, I
think it’s about time I finally got to know everybody.”

“This is Michelle from
HR,” Mike said, pointing to a pretty little blonde. Then he indicated to a
skinny man in a tailored short-sleeved shirt, “and this is Greg from Sales.”

Anna nodded to the two of
them as a middle-aged man with a greying moustache introduced himself. “My name
is Alan, from Logistics, but might I just bring something to the group’s
attention before we get too relaxed?”

Anna shrugged. “What?”

“Well, it’s more of a
question, really. What I want to ask,” he pointed to Charlotte’s dead body, “is
what we’re going to do about her?”

“What do you mean?”

Mike’s eyes suddenly went
wide. “He means she’s going to come back.”

Anna realised it was true.
Based on what they’d seen, Charlotte was going to come back as a slow,
stumbling, yet very very lethal, zombie.

And then she’d try to eat
them.

Chapter Twenty-One

“How should we do it?” Mike
asked as he stared down at Charlotte’s body. Her neck had stopped bleeding and
her flesh was turning pale.

“Why do we have to do
anything to her?” Clark muttered, staring at the floor.

“We have to deal with her
Clark,” Mike said softly. “She’ll get back up as one of them. We’ve all seen
it.”

“I haven’t. I was with
Charlotte,” he wiped a tear from his face, “and now she’s dead.”

“Let’s just break another
pool cue and stab her in the skull,” Shawcross said. “Seemed to do the trick
with Tom.”

“It’s not about doing the trick,”
Anna spat. “It’s about being humane.”

“There’s nothing humane
about any of this,” Mike admitted. “Maybe Shawcross is right. The pool cue was
effective on Tom.”

Anna sighed, too tired to
argue. “Fine. Should I do it?”

Mike shrugged. “Do you
want me to?”

Clark leapt up from the
sofa. “Listen to you all. You sound like you’re haggling over the last beer in
the fridge. You’re about to crack somebody’s skull open. That somebody
was my friend.”

“None of this is your
fault, Clark,” Anna reiterated. “Lots of people are dead and none of us are to
blame. We didn’t do this.”

Clark picked up the
remaining pool cue and rolled the length of wood in his hands, examining it
intently.

Mike frowned. “What are
you doing?”

Clark smashed the cue over
the edge of the table and made everyone flinch. The thick end went hurtling
across the room and left a dent in the wall.

“Let me do it,” Clark
said. “She was my friend.”

“I don’t think it’s a good
idea,” Anna said. “You shouldn’t have to do it.”

“No offence,” Clark said,
“but fuck you. You didn’t even know her.”

Anna believed Clark
performing the act would only make his emotional condition worse, but she
stepped aside and let him do what he wanted. There was a chance, she supposed,
that it might bring him closure. You never could tell. People’s minds fractured
and fixed in different ways.

Clark knelt beside
Charlotte and placed the jagged cue against her forehead.

“Turn her head to the
side,” Anna instructed. “The temple is softer. It’ll be…cleaner.”

Clark turned Charlotte’s
head sideways, causing the wound on her neck to open up wider. A fine spray of
blood released and stained Clark’s shirt. He didn’t seem to notice and raised
the broken cue above his head.

Everyone in the room but
Anna turned away. She made herself watch, not wanting to ignore the things that
were happening. She needed to retain her humanity and the best way to do that
was to face things head on with her eyes open.

The cue in Clark’s hands
trembled for a moment, but he kept his courage and went through with it. He
brought the cue down forcefully and pierced Charlotte’s skull. Anna was glad he
didn’t have to give it a second go.

Clark’s body trembled as
sobs took over him. His girlfriend’s blood covered him.

After a while, they all
decided to leave Clark alone with his grief. The remainder of the group
gathered over by the television.

“So what’s our next move?”
Alan asked grimly, twiddling his moustache nervously.

Anna shook her head. “I
have no clue. Does anybody have a suggestion?”

Faces were blank,
shoulders shrugged.

“Then I suggest we just
hide out here for a while. Once we’ve rested up, maybe things will become a
little clearer. We can find a phone and keep the TV on. I’m sure we’ll know
more soon.”

To her surprise, even
Shawcross was nodding in agreement. It was clear that everyone was exhausted,
and that none of them had slept for ages. Right now, all anybody really cared
about was getting off their feet and maybe catching some shuteye.

Alan cleared his throat.
“I would like to make sure that this place is really safe, before we all
settle in for the long haul. We should check out the rest of the building.”

“I agree,” Mike said. “We
also need to move Tom and Charlotte somewhere else. We can’t have them so close
by.”

Anna nodded. “You’re
right, it’s a health hazard.”

“I’ll organise everybody.”
Shawcross ran a hand through his slick ginger hair. “We’ll split into groups
for efficiency.”

Anna said, “Fair enough.
I’ll help Clark with Charlotte’s body. We should be able to move Tom as well.
We’ll place them both in the office we came in through. It’s the least safe
room for us to be in so it makes sense to use it as storage.”

“You mean as a morgue,”
Alan said.

“Call it what you will,
but it’s something that has to be done.”

“Just be careful,” Mike
said. “I don’t want to have to put your body in there.”

Anna smiled. His concern
was unexpected.

A buzzing sound from the
television caused them all to look up. The anchorman was back on and looked in
a worse state than before.

He began, “While it has
long been suspected, reports from the World Health Organization have now
confirmed that the dead are indeed coming back to life. While the initial
infection causes high fever and uncontrollable rage, it is not until the
infected are rendered deceased that the true horror makes itself known. When an
infected person dies, against all the rules of nature, they come back. The
reason some of the infected are slower and less ambulatory than others is
because they are no longer living. The only way to prevent an infected person
from coming back, it appears, is to inflict massive head trauma. Damaging the
brain is the only confirmed way to dispatch an infected person permanently.”

The reporter stopped for a
few seconds, taking a sip of water. Weariness hung densely over him.

“As I report to you, it
may all seem like some kind of sick joke, but the reports are real. This is
happening. If you have loved ones with you, enjoy them while you can. If you
have a safe place to go, go. This very well might be the end of life as we know
it. Do whatever you have to do to survive.” The reporter placed a finger to his
ear, as if getting a message from an earpiece. “I’m about to be cut off, folks,
for saying things that I shouldn’t have. It doesn’t really matter, because
we’re about to go off air with immediate effect anyway. An emergency message
will be left to play, but there will be nobody here broadcasting. Reports have
come in that small enclaves of military, police and civilian resistance are
gaining footholds in certain areas north of Sheffield and that rescue might
still be a possibility for some of you, but for the most part rescue will not
be forthcoming. I hope that some of us make it through this terrible
tribulation. My name is Ben Hutchinson and this is—”

The feed went dead,
replaced with a beeping tone. The words on the screen simply read: STATE OF
EMERGENCY. FURTHER NEWS TO FOLLOW. STAY TUNED.

Anna stared at the
television and held her breath for almost a minute. Then she said something she
couldn’t believe she was actually saying. “I think this might be the end of the
world.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

It took more than twenty
minutes for Anna to help Clark carry Charlotte’s body into the office. What
made it more difficult was that blood spilled from her body whenever they
tilted her even slightly. Anna wondered whether the blood was infected.

Now they were in the
middle of disposing of Tom’s body, and the plump security guard was more much
heavier than Charlotte.

“Did you know him?” Clark
asked.

Anna shook her head.
“Never met him. I wonder what happened to him. How did he get infected all on
his own?”

“Maybe he came to work
already infected.”

Anna reaffirmed her grip
on Tom’s legs as she felt him slipping. They were almost back at the office
now. “I don’t know how it’s even possible for a virus to infect the entire
world overnight.”

“Maybe whoever is to blame
coordinated several outbreaks of the virus at once. Maybe a bunch of terrorists
synchronised their watches before tipping the biological motherlode into the
local water supplies.”

She and Clark set Tom’s
body down beside a large, freestanding photocopier. “You know, that sounds
pretty plausible,” she said. “If this was terrorists then it would make
sense to release it in multiple locations. I just can’t believe that anyone
would be so insane. Surely no one is that much of a monster.”

Clark huffed. “The only
difference between Adolf Hitler and the lowlifes on the street is power. When
people get the power to destroy their enemies and further their own agendas,
that’s exactly what they do. If any terrorists had the ability to wipe out the
western world, I bet all of them would do it in a heartbeat.”

“Wow, you’re pretty jaded
for such a young man. Anyway, we don’t know that this is exclusive to the
western world.”

“No, we don’t, but time
will tell. Somebody is behind this, and they’ll probably be eager to come
forward and claim their victory.”

Anna told him, “You’re
quite the theorist.”

“I’m doing a part-time
History Degree, not that I expect to go to classes again now. People aren’t
that different today than they’ve ever been. Same nature, same behaviour; it’s
just the technology that changes.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Anna
said. “I’ve always been more of an animal person than a people person.”

“Then you’re in luck,
because it looks like the human race has been turned into a bunch of animals.”

Anna watched Clark
carefully. He seemed to have snapped out of his shocked daze but now seemed
angry. “How are you doing, Clark?” she asked him.

“How do you think?”

“I know, I know. We’re all
doing shit, but do you need anything? Are you going to be okay?”

He turned away and leant
over one of the desks. “I really loved her. She didn’t know that, but I did.
She was way too beautiful for me. I felt lucky when we were together.”

“You’re going to get
through this, Clark. We’re all going to stick together and come through the
other side, okay?”

“I’ll be alright. I think
I just need to be on my own for a while. Would you mind? I want to say goodbye
to her in private.”

Anna looked down at
Charlotte’s body. “Okay. I’ll leave you to it. Just stay back from the window
in case there’re any infected people outside.”

“Will do. And thanks
again, Anna. Charlotte and I would still be cooped up in that hotel room if you
hadn’t rescued us.”

Anna smiled at the boy and
then stepped out of the office to give him peace, closing the door behind her.

She found Mike in the
corridor.

“Hey,” he said. “I was
just coming to find you. Everything okay?”

“As well as can be
expected. I’ve left Clark to himself for a while. He’s not doing well, but I
think he’ll be okay.”

“Not surprised. He’s what,
twenty, maybe? That’s pretty young to be stuck in a situation like this. Losing
Charlotte must be devastating. What can you do, though?”

Anna sighed. “Nothing.
We’re all lucky just to be alive. I suppose we should find the positive in
that.”

Mike held open the door to
the staffroom for her. The pool table was now home to a modest collection of
snack food and bottled drinks.

“I’ve been checking around
for rations,” Alan explained. “Found some odds and ends in people’s desks
upstairs, but this is pretty much it. We’ve got the vending machines in here to
go through as well, so we should be good for a day or two.”

Shawcross entered the room
carrying a fan heater. “I found this in one of the offices upstairs. I’m
thinking it might get pretty cold during the night.”

“Good idea,” Anna said,
“but I figure it isn’t long before the power goes out. We all saw how bad
things are on the news.”

“Shit, I never thought of
that,” Mike said. “How long do we have, you think?”

“There’s a backup
generator,” Shawcross said. “They built it to keep the heated exhibits
functioning even during a power cut. I don’t know how much juice they keep in
the batteries, but I think we’ll get at least a couple extra days once the grid
fails.”

Anna frowned. “How do you
know about that? I didn’t think you had anything to do with the zoo.”

“I was here when they
installed it. It’s buried in the woods where guests can’t see it. Thing makes a
terrible racket, but thankfully it’s only been put to use once before. It will
come in handy, though if everywhere loses power.”

“Or we’ll be lit up like
a beacon,” Anna said. “The only place with power for miles.”

“A beacon?” Shawcross
queried.

“Yes, a beacon. You don’t
think they’ll be other people out there looking for safety. If we light up in
the dark, then any survivors nearby will come running our way. I think our
biggest asset right now is anonymity.”

“I think so too,” Michelle
said meekly.

Shawcross shook his head.
“I think the opposite. The news said there are still rescue operations taking
place. Tomorrow we should light a signal fire to let people know we’re here.
Smoke from all the way up here would be seen for miles. We have a better chance
than anybody at being rescued.”

“I think that would be
totally dumb. We have something that everybody in the world will be looking
for: a defensible position. The last thing we want to do is advertise what we
have to a desperate population.”

“She’s right,” Mike said.
“What if we light a fire and a hundred people turn up on this hill? The food we
have left would be gone in an hour. And what if some of them are bitten and
don’t know what that means yet? We could be crawling with infected before the
day is through.”

Shawcross thought about
things for a moment, then shook his head adamantly. “If we still had access to
Ripley Hall, I might be inclined to lay low, but we’re all doomed if we try to
stay here indefinitely. We’re too exposed. Rescue is our only priority, and
tomorrow that is what we must work towards.”

Anna went to argue, but
stopped herself. She didn’t have the energy. “Fine…whatever you say. I’m going
to get some rest. If the world stops ending, you have permission to wake me.”

Without waiting for a
reply, she ambled over to the sofa and collapsed face-first on it. The
slumberous feeling that immediately washed over her was heavenly. Her muscles
turned to jelly and within seconds sleep snatched her away.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Every time Anna went to
sleep sober, she dreamt about her baby. She dreamt about the baby she never
knew, the little boy that never was. She dreamt about Baby.

She saw her son’s face,
his closed eyes and tiny nose – eyes that would never see and a nose that would
never breathe. She only got to hold her baby boy once, and he had been dead.

Every time she thought
about him she wondered what he would’ve looked like now if he’d lived to be
four-years-old. She wondered if Baby would’ve looked like his father. She
wondered if Baby’s father would still be around.

Then she would wake up in
tears, every night the same.

Until she found alcohol.

Then the dreams stopped,
but the headaches and nausea began.

Tonight, though, she couldn’t
escape her dreams. They kept hold of her and tore at her soul. Tonight she
dreamt of Baby as a ghoul, back from the dead to drag her to Hell. Baby had
died in childbirth, murdered by his mother who was too weak, too inhospitable
to bring him to term. He was denied the most basic gift of life, while his
wicked mother lived on. Now Baby was back. His tiny teeth were bloody and
coming for Anna’s flesh. They would tear her apart; chew her up slowly, until
there was nothing left but her disembodied, screaming mouth.

And as she screamed so too
did Baby. Baby screeched like the infected people. It hurt her ears and she
begged for it to stop.

Stop, she cried. Please,
Baby, stop.

I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

I wish it were me who had
died.

I wish you were alive and
I was dead.

Please, Baby, stop
screaming. I’m begging you to stop.

Anna shot bolt upright in
the dark and clawed at her neck, trying to get free of whatever clung to her.

It was a coat. Someone
must have covered her with it.

She remembered falling
asleep on the sofa in the staffroom. She remembered, with oily sickness in her
belly, all of the other things that had happened too. All of the death came
flooding back to her in a horrific slideshow of mental images.

Bradley.

Kimberly

Charlotte.

Anna could hear people
snoring. She also heard something else. She heard wailing.

The muffled sound of
someone – or something – in torment floated into the staffroom like a ghostly
visitation. The melancholy sound seemed to echo off the walls.

Anna left the sofa and
went to the nearest window, ducking her head beneath the curtains and looking
out at the moonlit night. There was nothing outside but the narrow silhouettes
of trees.

The wailing continued. It
was a weak, pining, and eventually, Anna figured out where the sound was coming
from.

It was Lily.

The thought of such a
noble creature, alone and in such pain was more than Anna could bear. Pain
bloomed in her own chest. It was a pain she only ever felt when she thought
about Baby.

She fiddled with the
bottom of the window and eased it open, letting in the cold night air before
climbing outside. She was grateful for the noisy whir of Shawcross’s fan heater
and the audible cover it provided her.

She rounded the corner of
the building and headed for the orang-utan habitat, keeping her eyes peeled for
any danger. What she was doing was mad, but with all that had happened, she
felt unable to feel any more fear.

It was disorienting to
walk around the park in the dark. Bradley had always been there to guide her in
the past. She missed her colleague, wished she’d had the chance to take him up
on his offer of having a meal together. There were many things she would regret
now.

Up ahead, the ghostly
visage of a mangrove tree came slowly into view. Anna found Lily sitting at the
base of the tree, weeping loudly like any other childless woman. The body of
Brick and the infant were lying in the centre of the enclosure, placed
together, father and son. Lily was not looking at them. Perhaps it was too
painful.

“You poor, poor thing.”
Anna spoke softly as she observed the heartbroken creature, but in the silence
of night, and with keen animal hearing, Lily heard the voice. The orang-utan
slowly raised her head.

“I’m sorry,” Anna said,
not feeling silly at all for talking to an ape. “I didn’t mean to creep up on
you. I didn’t mean to invade your privacy.”

Lily stared at Anna for
what seemed like forever, but during that time her weeping stopped. Then the
orang-utan raised one of her arms and waved at her. It was a sad wave, a weak
wave, but the fact that she’d ceased whimpering made it clear that she did not
want to be alone. She was glad Anna had appeared. Lily was glad not to be on
her own.

Anna had an extremely
stupid idea, but it was something she needed to do, something the broken soul inside
this enclosure needed. She approached the entrance to the enclosure, which was
opened via a magnetic key-lock for which she knew the code. She keyed it in now
and let herself into the keeper’s bungalow.

Inside, lay a cement prep
area and a small office cubicle. There was also a wire mesh cage that housed an
indoor sleeping area for the orang-utans. It led to the enclosure via a tunnel.

To Anna’s dismay, the mesh
cage was padlocked. Instead she tried the office door and was happy to find it
unlocked.

The office was cramped and
dingy, but the glow from a computer monitor gave enough light to make out a few
details. Her attention immediately fell on a small metal closet mounted on the
wall. She fumbled with its edges and found a small catch to open it. Inside was
a collection of keys, all clearly labelled.

She snatched up the key
labelled CAGES and headed out of the office. The brass key fit perfectly in the
padlock to the mesh cages, but she took a deep breath before unlocking them.

Was she really about to do
this?

Yes.

With her mind made up,
Anna entered the cages and crawled through the tunnel into the enclosure.

The odour of death hung
heavy, but so did the natural musk of the orang-utans. Lily was sitting in the
same place as she had been, and when Anna got closer, she turned and snorted a
warning sound. For a second the whole idea seemed insane. The last time humans
had been in this enclosure there had been bloodshed. Anna wondered if Lily
could distinguish between the infected and the uninfected. Did she know Anna
was no threat?

Despite her fears, Anna
kept moving forwards.

Lily eyeballed her
suspiciously.

“Hey, there.” Anna kept
her voice calm, unthreatening. “I’m not here to hurt you. I just want to make
sure you’re okay.”

She was now within a few
feet of the orang-utan and all seemed stable. The atmosphere was tense, but the
primate seemed to tolerate her proximity.

“There you go.” She
reached out a hand. “It’s okay, Lily.”

Unbelievably, Anna found
herself within a single foot of the great animal and was even able to sit
herself down next to it.

Letting out another
billowing snort, Lily extended one of her own long arms. Her huge fist struck
Anna and made her cry out, but she quickly realised that the orang-utan was not
trying to hurt her, just being curious. Lily’s fingers caressed the fabric of
Anna’s shirt.

“I’m usually a little
cleaner than this,” she explained.

Lily hooted. It was a
curious sound, not aggressive in the least.

Is this actually
happening?
Anna asked herself. Amidst all the horror and bloodshed, there was still joy to
be found in life. There were still connections to be made between kindred
spirits. Nature was beautiful, even if man had become so terribly ugly. In that
moment, Anna remembered why she’d become a vet in the first place: to help
innocent creatures like this.

Lily’s hand moved further
up Anna’s shirt and began probing at her face and fondling her hair. The
gentleness of the gesture made Anna close her eyes, and it wasn’t long before
she felt sleepy.

Before she fell asleep on
the ground beside Lily, Anna thought she heard an alarm going off. It was
faint, somewhere in the distance. She felt too tired, and too safe to worry.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Anna woke with an aching jaw
and it quickly became apparent why. She was lying facedown on the ground,
shivering, yet cosy beneath a soft woollen blanket. Despite its softness, the
blanket smelt musky and foul. Anna threw it aside and looked around. The sun was
rising. A new day. The terrors of the night seeming more nightmare now than
reality.

Anna leapt to her feet.

A mound in the centre of
the enclosure was covered with the same kind of blanket that had been covering
her. Brick and Lily’s infant lay beneath it.

Anna looked around for the
female orang-utan but couldn’t find her. The mangrove tree was undisturbed and
the enclosure was still. Perhaps Lily had gone inside the cages where it was
warmer. But when Anna headed through the tunnel and back into the bungalow,
Lily wasn’t there either.

The wire mesh door to the
cage hung wide open.

Anna put both hands to her
face as she realised what she’d done. She’d let a wild animal loose. It was
reckless and irresponsible, but the more she thought about it, the less she
cared. With things the way they were, there was no one left to take care of
Lily anyway. It was better that she was free. At least that way the animal
wouldn’t die in captivity.

Anna exited the bungalow
and headed back to the office block to join the others. They’d probably be
wondering where she was. She rubbed at her shoulders and shivered against the
cold. A spiky sheen of frost covered everything.

“Anna!” Up ahead,
Shawcross was standing outside the office block and looking around nervously.
“For heaven’s sake,” he said. “What are you doing outside?”

“I went for a walk last
night. Trying to clear my head.”

“A walk? How do we have a
hope of getting through this if people start doing their own thing? It’s
dangerous out here.”

“Sorry, I just needed some
fresh air.” She didn’t want to tell him about where she’d slept last night, or
that an orang-utan was now loose somewhere.

“There is a lot to be
done, Anna, so get back inside. Tell Clark the same thing. I assume he went
with you.”

“Wait, what? Clark’s
gone?”

“Yes, I thought he was
with you. I don’t know how long he’s been gone. Everyone pretty much fell
asleep once things were settled.”

“How did you get out of
the building?” Anna asked. “Did you climb through the broken window in the
office?”

“No, Alan and Greg managed
to get the front entrance open last night. We can come and go as we please now,
so we’ll probably get that broken window boarded up today.”

Anna had a bad feeling.
Something wasn’t right. She pushed Shawcross aside and over to the broken
window they had originally entered the building by.

“What’s wrong?” Shawcross
said, but she didn’t answer him. She didn’t want to voice what she was
thinking, not without being sure.

She pulled herself up and
through the broken window and dumped herself down on the other side. The stench
of death overwhelmed Anna immediately, scraping at the inside of her nostrils
and making her want to gag. Tom and Charlotte lay in the centre of the room,
already starting to decay.

Clark’s body was fresher
and had not yet begun to rot.

“Oh no,” Shawcross said,
climbing into the office behind her. “What did that silly boy do?”

Clark hung from the light
fixtures by what looked like a length of grey telephone cord. He’d probably
hanged himself shortly after she’d left him alone.

“I could have prevented
this,” Anna said, wishing she could blink or turn away. “I left him alone in
here. I should never have left him.”

Shawcross sighed heavily.
“Suicide is a selfish act, Anna. There’s no one to blame but Clark. We can’t
let it distract us from what needs to be done.”

Anna stared at him and
almost hissed like a snake at him. “Are you really this much an asshole or do
you have to try really hard?”

“I’m not willing to waste
time worrying about things that can’t be changed. I would rather turn my
attention to the living and what can be done. I suggest you do the same. This
wasn’t your fault, Anna, so put it out of your mind. You barely knew the boy.”

With that, Shawcross left
Anna alone. She didn’t know if she wanted to thump the man or thank him for his
absolving words. He had a way of dividing her opinion like a hot knife through
butter.

Mike entered the room five
minutes later and immediately placed a hand on her back. She flinched at first
but then enjoyed the warmth of his contact. “I just passed Shawcross in the
hall,” he said, staring at Clark’s swinging body. “I can’t believe it.”

“I know. It’s not right.”

“Should we cut him down?”

“What’s the point?” she
asked. “There’s death everywhere. It would just be a waste of time for us to
clean up after it.”

Mike rubbed at her back
again and pulled her closer. “Don’t give up. You’re the only one of us with
their head on straight. We’d all be lost without you.”

Anna huffed. “Bullshit!
All I’ve done is get people killed. Bradley, Kimberly, Charlotte, and now
Clark. You’d all have been better off in the kitchen where I found you.”

Mike fixed his dark brown
eyes on her. “Hey, if we were still in that kitchen, we’d all just be waiting
to die. I’d rather earn my death.”

“Wouldn’t you rather just
give up?”

He scratched at his chin
thoughtfully. “You’re a vet, right?”

“Yeah, so?”

“You know a lot about
animals, so answer me this: what do animals do when humans invade their
habitats?”

“They die out, or end up
in zoos like this one.”

“Okay, I’ll give you that some
do. What about all the other animals that don’t die out or end up in zoos?”

“I’m not following,” she
said. Mike’s gaze was bewildering her. She felt her cheeks throb and wondered
when he was going to look away from her. Not that she wanted him to.

As if sensing her
discomfort, Mike moved away and sat in a chair. “I’m talking about the animals
like rats, birds, cats, rabbits, even bears. They live around people, don’t
they? You can’t go anywhere in the city without a pigeon eyeing you up for
food, and in America, bears and racoons come right out into the streets and
raid people’s bins; so do foxes in this country.”

“What’s your point, Mike?”

“My point is that animals
adapt. When things change for them, they don’t feel sorry for themselves or
crawl up and die, they deal with it.”

“So you’re saying that we
need to, what, just deal with it? Like rabbits?”

“Exactly. Are we so
arrogant that when our cushy way of life is threatened, we’d rather just give
up than have to adapt and survive? Every other species on earth has had to do
it because of us, so why can’t we do it now?

“Look,” he continued. “I
don’t know what lies ahead. I’m guessing it’s not going to be a day at
Disneyland, but I’m not about to give up without a fight. Whatever has happened
is bad – really bad – but it’s only the end of the world as we know it.
People have died, yes, but as long as there are some of us left, we owe it to
the human race to survive. The world has changed, but at this moment we are
still very much a part of it.”

Anna chuckled. “You’re not
going to shout FREEDOM at me, are you?”

Mike spun around on his
swivel chair and leapt out as he came full circle. “I haven’t gone all
Braveheart just yet, but that’s the mentality we need. That film just proves my
point that when people are up against it, they fight, whatever the odds. Maybe
this thing isn’t as big as we fear, but we need to prepare ourselves in case it
is. We have to earn our place in this new world.”

“Maybe you’re right,” she
said. “Can we just get out of here for now, though? I kind of want to go hide
someplace and forget the world for a while.”

“Fair enough. Come on,
everyone’s in the staffroom. We’re going to start planning.”

Indeed everyone was in the
staffroom, gathered around the pool table and trying to thrash things out. From
the way Shawcross was gesticulating, the man thought he was Winston Churchill.

“The phones still aren’t
working,” he told Anna as she walked into the room. “All of the computers in
this office are security protected and nobody knows the passwords. Ripley Hall
is off limits and we have no idea what it’s like in nearby towns. To say our
current situation is perilous is an understatement. Our only hope at this point
is to secure rescue.”

“How?” Greg asked,
twiddling at his greying moustache, as he was wont to do. Michelle stood beside
him, staring into space blankly.

“We start a signal fire,”
Shawcross said, echoing his previous statements.

“Bad idea,” Anna said. “I
already told you. What if the fire attracts the infected, or people who want to
take what we have?”

“You may be correct,” he
admitted, “but what other choice do we have, really? We have no food beyond
what lies on this table and I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before we lose
power and perhaps even water. If you don’t agree with a signal fire, we could
head for the staff car park behind the manor house, or even head down the hill
via the cable cars. We can cut through the woods into the nearest town.”

“The towns won’t be safe,”
she said.

“Neither is here. We have
to leave.”

“Wait a minute,” Alan
said. “Isn’t this a theme park?”

“What?”

“This place is a theme
park and zoo, right?”

Shawcross shrugged.
“What’s your point?”

“My point is that there
must be a burger bar or restaurant with supplies to last us a little while longer.”

Anna nodded. “There’s a
burger place in the zoo and a pub and eatery in the theme park. We should
explore what we have now before we start looking elsewhere.”

Shawcross raised his hand.
“Regardless of how many supplies we have, we will at some point run out. We
need rescue. Sooner rather than later.”

“What if we don’t run out
of supplies?” Anna asked.

Everyone looked at her
curiously. Shawcross most of all. “What do you mean?” he asked.

“I mean that the zoo is
partly self-sustaining. Bradley was telling me about how they produce much of
the animal’s feed in a big greenhouse in the woods, and that there’s also a
small plot of vegetable gardens. If we can find those, we might be able to grow
our own food.”

“And we can eat the
animals,” Greg said.

Anna didn’t like the
thought of that, but she knew it made sense. “If things get that desperate,
then yes, I suppose so. Even better, the petting zoo has chickens and a pair of
cows. We can get eggs and milk.”

“This is absurd,”
Shawcross said. “We need rescue, not a bloody community project.”

Anna stomped her foot in
frustration. “Yes, we do need rescue. But we won’t get it by throwing
our lives away. We can keep a look out for help – we’re five hundred feet in
the air – but if help is a far way off then we need to make preparations. We
need to prepare for the worst not wish for a miracle.”

Shawcross shook his head.
“You’re wrong. I think—”

Anna cut him off. “Maybe I
am wrong, but maybe so are you. You’re not in charge here, Shawcross.
These people can make their own decisions.”

Shawcross grew red in the
face and his upper lip curled into a snarl, but then he smoothed out his shirt
and gave her a bright smile. “Of course they can make their own decisions.
We’re just talking here, Anna. No need to get upset. I’m sure we’ll all come up
with whatever is the best solution.”

Anna rolled her eyes. The
patronising son of a bitch. “I’m not upset,” she said. “So don’t worry yourself
about that. As for coming up with a plan, I think the best option would be to
vote.”

“Well, I’m not sure that—”

“I’m happy to vote,” Mike
quickly said.

Alan shrugged. “Me too.”

Greg and Michelle also
agreed to a vote.

“There we have it.” Anna
smirked at Shawcross. “Our first vote is to vote. The second is whether we
light a signal fire, or whether we find ways to try and survive here.”

“I vote we stay and
prepare,” Mike said.

Anna glanced around the
room. “All those in favour?”

Everyone’s hands went up
except for Shawcross’s.

This’ll teach him. “Motion
carried.”

Shawcross stomped across
the room. “You all just made a very bad decision, but it was yours to make.
Just remember that I was against it.” He slammed the staffroom door and was
gone.

“He going to be alright,
you think?” Mike asked.

Anna shrugged. “ He just
needs to get used to the fact that he’s not the manager of anything anymore.
Like you said, we all need to adapt.”

Mike put his fist in the
air. “FREEDOM!”

She laughed and punched
him on the arm.

Then they all heard
something that made their blood freeze: the frenzied screeching of the
infected. It sounded like a hundred of them.

And they were close.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Anna and the others spread out
into the courtyard. The screeching of the infected wasn’t coming from the park,
but from somewhere else nearby.

“Come on,” she said,
rushing towards the cable car station that led to the Rainforest Café at the
bottom of the hill. “I think it’s coming from to lower car park.”

“Then we should probably
keep a low profile,” Greg said.

“We need to know if we’re
in danger. We need to check it out.”

Nobody seemed to like the
idea, but nobody argued either. If they had to make a run for it, their chances
would be better knowing what they were running from.

“It’s coming from down
the hill,” Shawcross said, stating the obvious.

Reaching the cable car
station, Anna looked down the hill and gasped. Five hundred feet below were
hundreds of screeching infected. They were everywhere, like ants around an ice
cream cone. They seemed to be focused on something.

“There’re uninfected
people down there,” she cried. “Look, there’s a man standing on top of the
café…and there, look, another, sneaking around the back.”

The man in a long black
coat crept around the back of the café with an old lady in tow. The large man
on the roof seemed to be running some kind of distraction for them, screaming,
shouting, and waving his arms like a maniac.

“They’re screwed,” Greg
said. “There’s no way they’ll be able to escape all of those infected.”

She waved a hand
dismissively. “Just wait,” she said. “They’re running some kind of plan. The
man on the roof has them all corralled at the front of the building, while the other
two are running into the woods.”

“Well, how are they going
to get the man down off the roof?” Greg said. “There’s no way.”

Anna had no idea either,
but Greg’s pessimism was beginning to get on her nerves. The only thing clear
was that the strangers down below were working together to survive.

“Maybe we can run a
distraction of our own,” Mike suggested. “Try to draw the infected away from
them.”

“We’ll do no such thing.”
Shawcross objected. “You want to get us all killed.”

Mike looked to Anna for
her opinion, but unfortunately, she had to agree with Shawcross this time. “We
can’t risk it,” she said. “We’ll just bring the infected up here to us.”

Mike didn’t argue, just
sighed. “Man…that sucks.”

Anna watched the stranger
in the long black coat enter the woods with the old woman and then reappear a
moment later without her. He seemed to exchange a few words with the man on the
roof, then climbed through a window at the side of the building. The man on the
roof continued keeping the infected corralled at the front.

Time went by and nothing
happened. Anna stood silently, her skin tightening, her heart beating fast.

“The infected people are
heading into the café,” she said suddenly. “Look!”

The infected were
shuffling into the café, clambering through the windows at the front. After a
while, the man on the roof was able to head to the back of the building without
any of the infected noticing him. Anna watched in amazement as the other man,
the one in the black coat, exited the building from a side window and then
raced to join his colleague round back as he leapt down from the roof. Within
seconds, both men had disappeared into the treeline safely.

“They did it,” Mike said
with a big grin.

“But where are they
heading next?” Shawcross mumbled.

“Hopefully, they’ll make
it up here,” Alan said. “They’ll be safe with us.”

“If they don’t end up
leading all of those infected up the hill with them,” Anna said. “We discussed
this and I’m not sure having people join us is a good idea. I’m glad they’re
safe, but we can do without them.”

There was silence in the
group as they digested the possibilities. The truth was that none of them knew
what the other group of survivors were like, whether they were good or bad.
They could be dangerous; insane or infected. One thing was certain, though: if
the other survivors tried to make it up the hill, no one could stop them.

“You know what this
means?” Greg said.

“What?”

“It means that we’re
surrounded. There’re infected people down there in the hundreds. There’s
another few dozen trapped inside Ripley Hall. It’s pretty clear that there’s no
rescue to be had. If there was, why are those people down there running for
their lives? We have infected all around us.”

It was a grim realisation,
made even grimmer when Anna spotted another group of survivors running out of
the woods and onto the car park. This new group contained the two men and the
old lady from the café, but this time they were all being chased by a pair of
infected who had come from the direction of the woods. The horde from inside
the café spotted the group running across the car park and let out a screech.
The group of survivors had nowhere to run. They had no hope.

Then the group below
altered their direction and headed for the base of the hill. Anna panicked for
a moment, assuming they were going to try and run up the hill. But the
desperate group were headed for the cable cars. They managed to make it, but
had to leave the old woman behind. As they filtered inside the two cable cars,
the old woman fell beneath the tide of infected people and disappeared.

“Jesus!” Mike said. “Poor
dear.”

Anna shook her head in
horror as she watched the horde of infected surround the two cable cars and
begin rocking them violently.

“They’re going to get
ripped apart,” Greg said. “Those cable cars won’t hold them out for long.”

Anna wanted to see the
plucky group prove Greg wrong, but she could see no way how. She glanced
around, not sure what she was looking for until she found it. The control booth
was a small shed sporting a long glass window. Without telling the others what
she was doing, Anna ran over to it. Mike was the only one who followed.
Everyone else continued staring down the hill intently.

“What are you doing?” Mike
asked her as he entered the cable car station behind her. A small console sat
atop a steel podium at the far side of the platform and that was where she
headed.

“The park still has
power,” she said. “If we switch on the cable cars, those people will rise to
the top of the hill.”

“To safety,” Mike said
enthusiastically.

“Exactly.” Anna eyed a
small silver key that was already inserted into the console. Next to it was a
green, circular button that said START.

Mike raised an eyebrow as
he watched her. “You said it would be a bad idea to let people up here.”

Anna nodded. “I did say
that, didn’t I?”

She turned the key and the
motors came to life, rattling the cable cars on their moorings.

“You sure about this?”
Mike asked her. “These people could be dangerous. They could bring the monsters
up here with them.”

Anna looked Mike in the
eyes. “If we leave them down there to die, we become the monsters.”

She punched the START
button.

PART
THREE: DEATH

Chapter Twenty-Six

Nick craned his neck,
trying to get a good look at the top of the hill. Ominously, the silhouetted
stranger stood rooted to the spot, staring down at them as if in judgement.
Their saviour or executioner.

“What do you see,
brother?” Jan asked him.

“Not sure. There’s someone
waiting at the top for us, but I can’t make them out.”

“I hope they’re friendly,”
Cassie said, staring at her feet.

“Me too, but given what
we’ve been through, they can’t be any less friendly than we’re used to.
They saved us by turning on the cable cars.”

The car continued to
climb. The one with Dave and the others inside was following right behind. If
the people on the hill meant them harm, there was nothing they could do to
escape now. They were being reeled in a hundred feet above the treetops.

“We’re almost there.” Jan
was wrenching his large hands nervously. “I don’t like this.”

Nick didn’t say anything.
In the world that existed only days ago, meeting a stranger was no big deal,
but now it was monumental.

The cable car levelled out
at the top of the hill and entered the upper station. There was a man and woman
standing on the platform, anticipating their approach. They seemed cautious.

When both cars were in the
station, the motors stopped abruptly. “Stay where you are,” said the woman on
the platform. She was rugged, yet attractive, probably in her thirties. She
wore a thick shirt and wellington boots and was appraising them from behind
some sort of control column.

He put his hands in the
air and stood in the open doorway of the cable car. “We’re not dangerous.”

“Nor are we,” said the man
with the woman. “Unless we have to be.”

The door to the other
cable car opened further back on the platform and Dave stepped out to join the
reception.

“Hey,” the woman on the
platform shouted. “Stay where you are.”

Dave ignored her and kept
advancing. He waved a hand and laughed heartily. “Don’t be afraid, my dear.
We’re grateful for the rescue. My name is Dave and—”

“I said stay where you
are!”

Dave suddenly halted.
“Alright, luv, keep your hair on.”

The woman placed her hands
on her hips and sneered. “I’m nobody’s luv. And you haven’t been
rescued, yet. That’ll be decided in the next thirty seconds.”

Dave is going to ruin this
for us all,
Nick thought as he watched the woman bristle and take offence.

Several other strangers
appeared and Nick counted that their hosts numbered at least six. All of the
strangers carried makeshift weapons and looked like they were in no mood to be
nice.

A ginger-haired man
approached the woman in wellington boots and seemed to be furious with her.
“What the hell have you done, Anna?” he whispered in a voice that was somehow also
a shout. “We have no idea who these people are.”

“We’re not dangerous,”
Nick assured them.

“Be quiet!” the man
snapped.

“There’s no need to be
rude,” Dave said.

The man stepped forward,
getting up close to Dave where a brief stare-off ensued. “I don’t think you’re
in any position to discuss etiquette with me, sir. You’ve arrived on my
property and I will decide how things proceed from here.”

“You own this place?” Dave
asked.

“I am Mr Shawcross, the
manager of Ripley Hall.”

Dave huffed. “You’re just
an employee. You don’t own this place any more than I do.”

Jan leaned close to Nick.
“What is he doing? He’s going to get us all kicked right back down the hill.
These people look ready to snap.”

Nick approached the
strangers cautiously. “Look,” he said, “my companion is being a little rude,
but I promise you that we will respect whatever you say. We just want to find
somewhere safe. Things have gotten really bad down below. Everywhere is chaos.”

The woman in wellingtons
stared at him. “You’ve seen the towns? Is there any order left at all?”

“None. People are infected
with some disease and there’s nothing but death everywhere. That’s not the
worst of it, though. The dead—”

“Are walking,” the woman
finished. “We know. We’ve had our share of encounters.”

Nick deflated. “So it’s
not safe here, either?”

The woman shrugged.
“It’s…secure, for now.”

“Great,” Dave said,
rubbing his hands together. “Then we’re lucky to have found you.”

Anna glowered at Dave and
took a few measured breaths. “You seem to have a problem controlling your
mouth. I want you to take a good hard look at what you’re facing. My people
have weapons; yours have none. My people are in charge of this place; you are
guests. I’m going to give you one last chance to make a good impression, before
we decide whether or not to beat you bloody and send you back down the hill.”

Dave went to speak but
Nick cut him off. “We apologise. My name is Nick Adams. A few days ago, I had a
wife and a son. Now, all I have are these people. They are good people, but
desperate and afraid. I promise you that you will like us. Even Dave here, once
you get to know him.”

Anna studied Dave and then
took a long, appraising look at Nick. Eventually she said, “My name is Anna.
You can stay.”

“What are you doing?” the
one called Shawcross shouted.

“Making the best of a bad
situation,” she replied. “They’re here now. We can’t exactly send them back
down the hill, can we?”

“Thank you,” Nick said. “You’ve
saved us.”

“Just don’t make me regret
it,” she said. “I don’t make a habit of trusting people.”

“Me either, but I’m glad
you made an exception. Is it okay if we all come out now?”

She nodded.

The rest of the group got
out of the cable cars and huddled up on the platform.

“Those two are convicts!”
Shawcross shouted, pointing to Jan and Rene.

“Easy there, brother,” Jan
said. “We’re cool.”

“Like hell you are. You
need to leave.”

“Where exactly do you
expect us to go, brother?”

“I don’t care, but you’re
not staying here.”

Nick moved to the front of
his group. “Jan and Rene are good people. They were sprung loose when things
got crazy and they’ve more than proven their courage since they joined up with
us. In fact, Jan has already risked his life for other people and saved my life
personally.”

“None of that means
anything to us,” Shawcross said. “Criminals are not to be trusted.”

“I’m sorry,” Anna said,
much to Nick’s surprise. “No one will feel safe with criminals amongst us.”

“I understand,” Nick said,
having once felt the same way. “But what do you suggest?”

“Lock us up,” Jan said.

Anna frowned. “What do you
mean, lock you up?”

“I mean that if you feel
criminals should be locked up, then lock us up somewhere secure. We’ll behave
as long as you feed us, but please don’t turn everyone away because of mistakes
I made years ago.”

“Okay. We’ll find some
place to put you, but if you try anything, we’ll put you down like dogs.”

Jan raised an eyebrow.
“Damn, lady. You sure you’ve never spent some time inside yourself?”

“No. I’m just a pissed-off
vet. And you don’t want to piss off a woman that puts her hands up backsides
for a living.

“I think we understand one
another,” Nick said.

“This is a bad idea,”
Shawcross said. “They could all be criminals for all we know.”

“Perhaps,” Anna admitted,
“but right now, we’re all trying to stay alive against the same threat. I think
it’s in our best interest to trust one another.”

“The enemy of my enemy is
my friend,” Jan said.

Anna nodded. “But
sometimes friends can become enemies, so don’t cross us.”

“Well, then,” Dave said.
“Are you going to show us around now that it’s been decided we’re all staying?”

Shawcross let out a sigh.
“Fine. I’ll give you the tour and find somewhere for your illicit companions to
stay.”

Anna glanced
apologetically towards Nick. “I wish I could say he gets nicer.”

Nick glanced at Dave and
chuckled. “It’s okay, I’m starting to get quite tolerant of assholes, long as
they aren’t infected.”

“Not many of us left,” she
said.

“No, not many at all.”

Shawcross headed to the
front of the new combined group and raised his hands in the air. “Welcome to
Ripley Heights,” he said with pride.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

“I can’t believe I’m here
again,” Eve said excitedly. “God, the memories…” She pointed at a nearby
carousel that had dragons instead of horses. “That’s the Magic Circle. My
sister and I used to go on that all the time. And look, there,” she pointed at
a roller coaster at the edge of the park. “I think that’s the Hood.”

“It is indeed,” Shawcross
said. “They repainted it recently, but it’s the same old ride. I take it you
visited here a lot as a child?”

“Lots!” Eve gushed. Nick
liked her excitement. It was the first positive emotion any of them had felt
for days and it was infectious, even if it was destined to only be temporary.

“We need to be careful,”
Anna said. “We’re pretty sure the zoo is safe, but we haven’t explored the
amusement park yet.”

“Thank you again for
helping us,” Nick said. His heart still battered against his ribs. He couldn’t
believe he had survived.

“I just hope you haven’t
brought all those infected up the hill with you,” she said.

“They seem to lose
interest when they can’t see you. I don’t think any of them followed.”

Anna nodded. “You noticed
that too, huh? How did you survive out there?”

“Dave picked us up in his
bus. We drove around for a while and then ran out of petrol in the nearby
woods. I think luck has more to do with it than anything else.”

“Dave is the guy who
doesn’t know when to shut his mouth?”

Nick nodded. “That’s him.
He was pretty much our saviour to begin with, but I’ve been changing my mind
about him since.”

Anna stopped. “He’s not
going to be a problem, is he?”

“No, no, of course not. At
least…I don’t think so.”

She shook her head and
started walking again. “Great, what have I let myself in for?”

“I promise he’ll behave,”
Nick said, but wondered if he could even control such a thing.

“I’ll just have to trust
you then, Nick.”

The group came to a stop
in the centre of a midway games area. There were several prize huts and one of
those laser-target shooting galleries with animated props. It felt strange
being somewhere where fun was supposed to be had.

“Right!” Shawcross clapped
his hands. “The Big Dog restaurant and pub is just ahead. We need to start
stockpiling supplies. I’d say that with the soft furnishings inside Big Dog,
and the fact that it has cooking facilities, it would make an ideal place for
us to situate ourselves while we ride this thing out. I believe there is also a
cellar where we can accommodate our…less desirable guests.”

Jan grimaced. “Guess I
should be used to being in a cell by now.”

“Is that absolutely
necessary?” Nick pleaded. “Jan and Rene really aren’t any danger.”

“We had a deal,” Anna said
firmly.

Jan cleared his throat.
“Don’t sweat it, brother. I agreed to the terms. I’m not backing out.”

“It may only be temporary,
anyway,” Anna said. “Just while we get used to one another.”

“Or we may keep you locked
up until the police arrive,” Shawcross added.

“Come on,” Anna said.
“Let’s go inside where we can all introduce ourselves properly.”

The group headed over to
Big Dog restaurant and climbed a short flight of steps. The door was locked but
it seemed like something the original group were used to. Shawcross put through
the window with a metal pole and cleared away the jagged shards.

“Hope nobody minds
climbing,” he said. “Doors aren’t getting as much use these days.”

Everyone hopped up on the
window ledge and funnelled through into the restaurant. It was very similar to
the Rainforest Café, but better maintained.

“Now, I haven’t been here
for a while,” Shawcross said. “The amusement park and zoo are separate to the
manor house of which I am in charge but, if memory serves me, there should be a
soda fountain that we can use while there’s still power. We should also gather
as much water from the kitchen as we can.”

“Now that you mention it,”
Nick said, “how come you guys still have power? It went off down below.”

“A generator,” Anna
explained. “It must have kicked in without us knowing it. Shawcross said it can
power the park for a couple of days if the grid goes off. Tell you the truth,
we didn’t even know the power had gone out everywhere else.”

Nick shrugged. “It set the
alarms off down below a couple hours ago, but I’m not sure about the
surrounding area.”

Anna huffed. “So that’s
what that noise was. I thought I heard an alarm just before I fell to sleep.”

Shawcross leant against
the restaurant’s bar. “Shall we get the introductions out of the way? Then we
can get on to more important matters.”

“Okay,” Nick said. “I’ve
already introduced myself, but this big guy here is Jan who, like I said, has
already saved my life once. He also helped me save our friend, Margaret…but she
never made it. Neither did Jake, Mark, or Carl. Jan’s companion is Rene, but he
doesn’t talk – don’t ask me why. This here is Pauline…” Nick continued to point
around the group. “Cassie, Eve, and—”

“Dave,” he answered for
himself. “I’m the one who got us all together in the first place.”

“Well done,” Shawcross
said. “I am responsible for our own little group. You already know Anna and
myself, but may I also introduce Mike, Michelle, Greg, and Alan. There were
more of us at one point but…well, I’m sure you know.”

Everybody greeted one
another.

“Should we be asking if
anybody has any skills?” Eve asked. “That’s what they do in the movies, right?”

Shawcross scratched his
chin. “I suppose so. Anna would be our medic, for want of a better word.”

“I’m a vet,” she
corrected, “but I know my way around human tackle too, more or less.”

“I’m a builder,” Alan
said. “Retired.”

“I’m an accountant,”
Michelle said. “So none of you need to worry about your tax returns.”

Everyone chuckled.

“Anybody else do anything
useful?” Shawcross asked.

There was silence.

“Well, it doesn’t seem
that we’re in a great position to restart civilisation, so let’s just hope
things improve.”

Some hope, Nick thought as he took
in his new surroundings. He wondered how long this dingy restaurant would end
up being his new home. He yearned for his old one, and the family he had shared
it with.

Shawcross headed over to
Jan and Rene. “The cellar is this way, gentlemen. Are you ready to settle in?”

Jan shrugged. “After you,
Warden.”

Nick knew it was wrong as
he watched Jan and Rene head for their imprisonment, but he understood where
the other group was coming from. He’d felt the same way about the prisoners not
long ago, and in Dash’s case his concerns had proven correct. But when it came
to Jan, he felt like he owed the men.

“I think that’s the drinks
machine over there.” Cassie pointed across the room and, sure enough, there was
a long vending machine with a line of draught taps.

“Okay, great,” Anna said.
“Cassie, is it? Do you want to start filling up all the cups with soft drinks
and water?”

Cassie headed off,
probably glad for something to do.

“I’ll help her,” Pauline
said, heading after her.

“And what are we going to
be doing?” Dave asked, somewhat irritably. He probably wanted to be the one
giving orders.

Anna sighed. “I don’t
know, Dave. What would you like to do?”

“Nick and I can go take a
butchers at the kitchen? See what food we can rustle up.”

She stared at him
blankly. “So go do it then.”

Nick and Dave headed
through a door at the back of the restaurant and entered the kitchen. They
found it in woeful condition, grime on the floor and grease on the walls.

“Glad I never ate here,”
Nick said.

“Nothing wrong with it,”
Dave argued. “Dirtier the kitchen, better it is. Bit of grease never hurt
anyone.”

“Think we’ll have to
disagree there.”

Dave laughed and grabbed a
long bread knife from a wall hook and let out a whistle. “Think I just found my
weapon of choice. You should grab something too, Nick.”

“I’m more interested in
settling in with the new group right now. I don’t think arming ourselves to the
teeth is going to put them at ease.”

“Arming ourselves is
exactly what we need to do. That ginger tosser and the mouthy vet are going to
be on our balls about every little thing if we let them. This place doesn’t
belong to them, so why are they acting as if it does?”

“Because they were here
first and we would be dead if they hadn’t brought us up. They seem like nice
people.”

“Yeah, maybe. I just don’t
fancy being defenceless if they decide to lock us up with the convicts. What
the hell happened to Dash, by the way? I saw him fall out the goddamn cable
car. Can’t say I was sad to see him go.”

“It’s a long story,” was
all Nick was willing to say about it. “Now’s not the time.”

“Well, like I said, I want
to be ready if these new people start trying to strong-arm us. We’re
outnumbered now they’ve locked up Jan and Rene.”

“They’re just being
sensible until they know us better.”

Dave huffed. “You sure
about that? It’s every man for himself now and I see a return to tribalism.”

“Tribalism?”

“Yeah. People are going to
start looking out for their own. The strong will take what the weak have.”

“I think we should all
just stick together. It’s only been a couple days and you’re already trying to go
Lord of the Flies. If we don’t help one another we may as well feed ourselves
to the people at the bottom of the hill.”

“Those monsters are the
reason I’m right about us turning on each other. What are we going to do if
there’s a falling out or a disagreement, or frustration when we all begin to
starve? Nobody can go anywhere, so the only option left is to fight for your
point of view. We’re all going to be stuck on this hill together and there’s no
longer the option for civil disagreement.”

Nick sighed. “You don’t
have a lot of faith in people, do you?”

“When you’ve been a bus
driver for twenty years, the one thing you start to know well is people.”

“Let’s just play things by
ear for now, okay?”

“Of course. I’m just being
prepared. Now, how about we take a look in those fridges?”

“Sounds good.”

Inside the pit of his
stomach, Nick felt more than just hunger.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Anna didn’t know what to
make of the newcomers. Two of them were criminals and one of them was a
complete arsehole. Nick, at least, seemed to be on the level and the women in
his group seemed to trust him.

She hadn’t objected to
Nick and Dave heading into the kitchen alone, but now she wondered if it had
been such a good idea. She decided it would probably be wise if she joined
them.

Before heading off, she
glanced at Eve, Michelle, Greg, and Alan. They were all standing around
aimlessly and needed something to do. Anna didn’t know how she had fallen into
the role of order-giver but they seemed like they needed her permission to act.

“Maybe you lot can gather
up the furniture and make some sort of living space. It might be worth us
having a barricade as well, just in case.”

The four of them nodded
and got to work. Anna headed behind the bar and entered through the kitchen
door. Nick and Dave were at the far end with their heads in the fridges.

“Found anything?” she
asked them.

Both of them spun around.

Nick answered, “Most of
the food here is frozen, which suits our needs well.”

Anna headed deeper into
the kitchen and pulled open a metal door against the far wall. She thought
about the last time she’d opened a freezer unit, and shuddered.

Inside was plenty of food
to keep them going: mostly burger patties and fries.

“It’s not Michelin star,”
she said, “but it’ll do. Best leave it where it is for now. We’ll have to make
a list of it all and plan out rations.”

“I agree,” Dave said.
“You’re a clever girl, you. I can tell.”

“Thanks,” she muttered.
“Must have been all those years at university.”

“So, what’s next on the
to-do list?” Nick asked her.

“We’ll have to check with
Shawcross. No doubt he’ll have an opinion on what to do next, but to be honest
there’s not a lot we can do other than sit tight. When everyone is feeling up
to it, we should start making a perimeter around the park, in case any infected
people arrive.”

Nick nodded. “Yeah, I like
the sound of having fences between us and them. We should maybe look around for
stuff to keep us warm as well. If the power goes off, it’s going to get cold.”

“Good point. I’m not sure
we’re going to come across any blankets, though.”

The three of them exited
the kitchen and re-entered the restaurant. Michelle, Alan, Greg, and Eve were
busy moving tables and chairs up against the windows and doors. They’d already
turned some tables on their sides, creating private berths for people to lie
down between. All in all, it was a job well done.

Over at the far side of
the room, Cassie and Pauline were diligently filling up plastic cups with soft
drinks and placing them on the floor in rows. With a bit of luck, the machine
would keep spitting out liquids for a while. People seemed a lot less tense
when they were busy.

“Our guests are secure and
comfortable downstairs,” Shawcross said, marching towards them with Mike by his
side. “You’ll also be glad to know that there are several barrels of soft
drinks and beer down there. We will need to bring those up, of course. Can’t
leave them with the prisoners, lest they have themselves a party.”

“Jan and Rene aren’t like
that,” Nick protested.

Anna was glad the
prisoners were secure, but she did wish that Shawcross would show a little more
tactfulness in how he spoke about them. They were obviously well respected by
Nick and the man bristled every time his companion’s morals were called in to
question.

“We were planning to check
out the perimeter,” Anna told Shawcross. “See if we can reinforce our
position.”

Mike laughed. “We sound
like soldiers.”

“Sooner we accept that we
are, the better,” Dave said. “I’m ready to go and check things out now. Anybody
want to join me?”

Anna didn’t want the new
man to wander off alone, but she didn’t want to be stuck with him either.
“Mike,” she said. “Could you get Greg and Michelle and go with him? I think
more heads would be better.”

“Sure thing. I’ll get them
now.”

“I’ll start making an
inventory of what we have,” Shawcross said.

“Excellent,” Anna said. It
was a job she was hoping he would volunteer for. It would keep him busy and out
of the way for a while. She turned to Nick. “Should you and I go look for
bedding material?”

“Sounds good to me,” he
said. “Let me just check in with Eve and the others, so they know what’s
happening.”

Anna waited while Nick checked
in with his companions. He seemed to take responsibility for their welfare and
she had a feeling it was to mask a deeper concern. Clearly something was eating
away at Nick, but he was dealing with it by concentrating on looking after his
group. Perhaps that was what she too was doing. Usually she didn’t care about
other people, yet had somehow found her way into a position where they were
relying on her.

After a few moments, Nick
returned. He was holding a pint of coke and took a sip from it. Then he offered
the glass to her. “Hope you don’t mind, but with all the excitement it feels
like I might faint if I don’t take a drink.”

She waved a hand. “Hey,
you’re very welcome. We need to be tight with our supplies from now on, but you
folks are more than entitled to a drink.”

He motioned toward the
window. “Shall we?”

Anna nodded and they both
headed for the broken window.

“So,” Nick said. “What’s
the deal here? Do all of you work here?”

“No, actually. Just
Shawcross. I’m a vet that was on-call here. Everyone else was staying in Ripley
Hall for a company function.”

“Really? Wow. Do you think
you’d be alive if you hadn’t been called out here?”

“I doubt it. Being here is
probably the only reason I’m alive, if the news is anything to go by.”

Nick’s eyes went wide.
“You’ve seen the news? What did it say?”

“Not a lot. It went off
soon after, but it was pretty clear that this is happening everywhere.”

They made it through the
window and headed out into the park. “This is the goddamn apocalypse, isn’t
it?”

Anna tittered. It was
crazy to use the word in a literal sense, but it was the most apt. “The news
said there was military in some places, but didn’t say where other than up
north. Maybe if we hold out long enough, things will change.”

“Let’s hope so.”

There was a brief silence
as they walked and Anna took the opportunity to probe her new companion. “I
guess for some of us, it already feels like the world has ended.”

Nick nodded. “Pretty
much.”

“You said you had a wife
and child?”

Nick looked away from her.
“Yeah. Deana and James. They were both infected. I left Deana alive, but
James…”

“I get it. You don’t have
to say. I can’t imagine what you went through.” She did, however, have some
idea. She’d had a son once, too.

“The people in your group
seem pretty glad to have you around. Most people are infected or gone, so I
guess we should try to count ourselves lucky that we’re even still here. Least
that’s what I keep telling myself. Only thing that’s keeping me from going
crazy.”

Nick glanced at her. “Did
you lose anybody?”

“Yeah, I lost someone, but
not because of all this. Guess I’m lucky that none of this horror has directly
affected me like it has other people.”

“I don’t think anybody’s
lucky anymore. I’m sorry for your loss, whenever it might have been.”

Anna smiled glumly. “Thank
you.”

They were back to the
midway games area and Nick came up with a suggestion. “We could use the plush
toy prizes as pillows – some of them are pretty big and they look soft.”

Following the same train
of thought, Anna had an additional suggestion. “I think they sell wet weather
ponchos in the gift shop. They could be good for bedding.”

“Looks like we’re on our
way, then. Let’s get started.”

Nick vaulted the
basketball midway game and begun pulling stuffed dinosaurs off the shelves.
Anna entered through the back of the Arabian Derby and started grabbing the
biggest plush toys she could find. There would be more than enough to use as
pillows and cushions.

“We’re going to need a bag
or something to carry this stuff back,” he said. “Any ideas?”

“The gift shop might have
tote bags.”

Nick vaulted back out of
the basketball game and joined Anna on the pavement, where they then headed
over to the gift shop.

Nick picked up a rock from
a nearby flowerbed and let fly with it. The window shattered.

“That’s how you guys do
it, right?”

Anna laughed. “Nowadays we
do. Got to tell you, though, I really miss using doors.”

They climbed through the
broken window of the gift shop and made it inside. Anna went straight to a
hanger full of souvenir hoodies. “These should keep us all warm.”

“And here are the
ponchos,” Nick said, thumbing through a folded-up pile of plastic sheets.
“They’ve got souvenir towels over there as well.”

“Here are the tote bags.”

Nick laughed. “Well, that
was easy. Makes me wonder when something’s going to go wrong.”

Right then, there was an
explosion. It shook the floor beneath them but came from far away.

Nick looked at her and
went pale. “What the hell is that?”

Anna chewed at the side of
her cheek. “I don’t know.”

She hopped back through
the window and told Nick to hurry after her. There were still aftershocks
coming from whatever had exploded and several mini-explosions made it quite
easy to pinpoint the direction.

“What are you going to
do?” Nick shouted over the noise. “It’s not like we can go down the hill to
investigate.”

Anna skidded on her heels
as she headed around the park’s Magic Carpet carousel and arrived at the cable
car station. From there she had an unobstructed view from the top of the hill
to the area below. In the distance, past the woods and forests that surrounded
Ripley Heights, was a nearby village. It was in flames. The fires blazed from a
hundred different sources and, as she scanned the horizon, she saw other
distant villages ablaze also. The earth was burning.

“It’s all over,” Nick
said. “Totally over.”

Anna couldn’t argue.
Civilisation was aflame and for all she knew they were the last human beings
alive, stranded up there on that hill.

Shock would not allow her
to speak.

“What if the fire makes it
over here?” Nick asked

Anna finally found her
voice. “It’ll be the end of the last safe place on Earth.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Looking out at the blazing
remains of civilisation was a surreal experience. Common sense suggested that
Nick should be on his knees, crying out in desperation, but all he could do was
stare. The level of horror was so high that his brain desensitised him to it in
order to cope.

Anna stood next to him and
was staring with the same numb expression. Suddenly, she pointed. “Look!
They’re moving away.”

Nick stared down at the
car park and saw. Like a herd of grazing buffalo, the massive horde of infected
began to turn toward the flaming village on the horizon. A factory in the
distance ignited.

“It’s the explosions,”
Nick said. “It’s leading them toward the village.”

“That makes sense. They
operate off sight and sound. They’re heading for all the noise. We might
actually be about to catch a break here.”

Nick took one last look at
the infected, funnelling away into the distance, and then turned to look at
Anna. “Let’s get what we need and tell the others.”

“Okay, let’s head back to
the gift shop and load up the tote bags.”

“Ready when you are.”

They headed back to the
gift shop and got to work. They loaded up the tote bags with the plastic
ponchos and hoodies. The last thing they gathered were the plush toys from the
midway games.

“This should be more than
enough,” Nick said, peering over the top of his load.

Anna agreed and they
started to make their way back towards the restaurant. With tote bags wrapped
around both of his arms and a pile of plush toys balanced in front of him, Nick
was having a tough time seeing. It reminded him of how Deana used to make fun
of him for determinedly getting all of the shopping bags from the boot to the
house in a single trip.

There was rustling up
ahead, as if Anna was heading into the hedges. He was just about to ask her
what she was doing when he heard her cry out.

Nick dropped the bags and
looked around frantically. As he did so, he ended up treading on a stuffed
dolphin. His ankle twisted and he cried out in pain, hopping onto his other
foot.

Anna was struggling with
an infected woman on top of her. There was a second infected person coming out
of the bushes too, a Chinese man with broken spectacles.

Nick knew instantly that
he’d have to take the Chinese man down first. Anna was incapacitated by
the woman on top of her, which would make her easy prey.

He lolloped towards the
Chinese man, determined to reach him before he got to Anna, and leapt into the
air. He placed an awkward kick into the man’s chest and sent him stumbling
backwards into the bushes. Then he landed down on his bad ankle and hissed in agony.

Anna had the infected
woman around the throat, struggling on the floor.

Nick went to her aid,
grabbing the infected woman around the waist and throwing her backwards. At the
same time, Anna kicked out her legs and struck the woman’s abdomen. The extra
momentum sent Nick reeling backwards to the ground with his arms still wrapped
around the woman’s waist. He held on tightly as Anna hurried to her feet to
help him.

“Keep her there,” she
shouted.

“Yeah, no problem,” Nick
said, sarcastically.

Anna disappeared for a
moment, making Nick panic, but then she reappeared and dove at the infected
woman on top of him. She held a jagged rock in her hand and smashed it into the
infected woman’s skull until it was dripping with blood.

Nick limped over to her.
“Are you okay?”

Anna’s eyes went wide.

The infected Chinese man
tackled Nick from behind. He fell to the ground and struck his head on the
pavement, going still. His vision dimmed. His head buzzed.

Nick was hardly aware of
what happened next as he lay on the ground impotently. Sounds of a desperate
struggle ensued, but he was unable to do anything but stare up at the sky.

There was a wet sound.
Then silence.

Nick was still dazed when
the struggling stopped. He wanted to roll onto his back to see what was happening,
but every time he tried to move, a wave of nausea flooded over him and his head
clanged like a kettledrum.

“Anna?” he moaned. “Anna,
are you there?”

A hand clamped down on his
wrist and squeezed hard.

“I handled it,” Anna told
him, leaning over him.

Nick took many deep
breaths before he was able to place his palms on the pavement and push himself
up. Anna helped him to his knees and then, slowly, to his feet. His ankle
throbbed.

“You took a pretty big
bang on the head,” Anna told him. “I can already see the swelling. Do you feel
okay?”

“No, I don’t feel right,
I…” His words trailed off as he saw the blood pouring from Anna’s neck. He
reached out a hand, but then stopped himself. Her blood might be infected.

Anna frowned at him. She
followed his gaze until she was looking down at her own shoulder. When she saw
the blood there, her mouth dropped open. “Oh, no,” she said. “No, no, no.”

Nick stepped forward and
put his hands on both of her shoulders. Suddenly his headache was gone, removed
by trepidation and fear. “Are you bit?” he asked her, but she didn’t seem to
hear. “I said, are you bitten?”

“I…I don’t know.”

Nick shook his head. “Damn
it!”

Anna unclasped the buttons
of her shirt and tugged the material away from her neck and shoulder. Nick
leant forward to examine her.

There was a lot of blood,
bright red and already clotting. It wasn’t from a deep wound, but that wouldn’t
matter if it came from a bite. He followed the bleeding to its source, until it
became clear what they were dealing with.

He stepped away and let
out a sigh, shook his head.

“What?” Anna pleaded. “Am
I bitten?”

He didn’t answer her.
Instead he reached a hand around her neck and plucked the thing he had
discovered embedded into her shoulder.

Anna flinched. “Ouch! What
was that?”

Nick held the sharp twig
out in front of her and watched the relief take over her. He couldn’t help but
laugh. “It was sticking right out of you. It was in pretty deep, but there’s no
bite. Must have been when you fell.”

Anna put a hand to her
forehead and rubbed. She obviously couldn’t fight the tears that escaped her.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank God! Thank everything. Jeez, that was
close.”

“What were they doing up
here?” he asked her. “I thought they were all heading away.”

“They must have followed
you up in the cable car,” she said. “Climbed up the hill after you and where
already in the park when the explosions began. We need to be more careful.”

Nick looked around
anxiously, eyeing the treeline that surrounded the park. “You think there are
more?”

“I bet there are more in
the trees, but if we get out of sight they should all head back down towards
the village with the others. These two must have been nearby when the
explosions happened. They probably already had us in their sights.”

Nick looked down at the
scattered items they’d been carrying and quickly gathered them all up again. “I
think that once we get all this stuff back, our main priority should be getting
this place secure. The infected may be heading away for now, but I’m sure
they’ll be back eventually.”

Anna nodded, staring at
the ground as she thought about how close she had come to death. “We need to
make this place a fortress.”

“And we need to do it
fast,” Nick said. “Or else we’re all dead.”

Chapter Thirty

Almost three weeks had passed
since everybody had settled on top of Ripley Heights’ monolithic hill. Nick was
grateful for stumbling upon the survivors there, for he knew he would be dead
if he hadn’t.

Several more infected
people had found their way into the park grounds during the days that followed
and Greg had been lost to them early on. He’d been checking the woods when an
infected man took him to the ground and bit him. He was dead before anybody
could get to him.

The group had mourned his
loss for a day or two, sharing regret that nobody had known him well. It made
everyone feel luckier to still be alive, and more eager to know one another.

Nick had hunted down most
of the infected in the nearby woods after that by himself. He went out with
only a handful of knives strapped to his belt and came back every night covered
in blood. There were things inside his head that he was trying to deal with and
somehow violence was the only thing that made him feel in control of himself.
It worried him.

It had now been more than
four days since any infected had been spotted inside the park. The makeshift
walls, fences, and barriers added to their feeling of security, but it was
still far from ideal living. The power had finally failed and the water
pressure was getting lower each day. They no longer used any of the park’s
toilets and had taken to finding individual spots in the woods. It was a
degrading devolution of their once civil habits, but it was necessary. Human
superiority had been reduced to nothing and they were no longer anything more
than animals in the way they lived.

With time to rest, a dark
mood had fallen over the group as each of them mourned the losses of their
previous lives. Many times someone would wander off alone to cry.

The group had formed their
camp around the Big Dog restaurant where they’d erected a waist-high wire fence
around a large portion of the surrounding ground. It wasn’t high enough to stop
any infected from entering, but it would at least slow them down.

As things went, they were
in as good a position as they could hope to be. The burning villages in the
distance made clear that any remnant or morsel of safety was a privilege. To
still be alive after all that had happened was a lottery win.

“Hey man, you’re never
going to believe this,” Mike said to Nick.

“Believe what?” Nick
muttered.

“Just come with me.”

Nick followed him into the
zoo. The group hadn’t spent much time amongst the animals, but Anna had been
making sure they were all fed and watered. They had already started to get milk
from the three cows and eggs from the various chickens. Nobody said it, but
they all knew the animals would probably end up as food themselves eventually.
No one wanted to get too attached for that reason.

Mike led Nick past the pig
sties and up to a large enclosure with a big fat tree in its centre. He looked
at Nick like things should be obvious.

Nick shrugged. “What am I
supposed to be seeing?”

“You blind or something?
Look!”

Nick’s mouth dropped open.
“Wow! Is that real?”

“Course it’s real.”

Nick stared up at the orang-utan
perched in the trees and could barely believe it. Why wasn’t it in an
enclosure?

“Is it…dangerous?” he
asked nervously.

“Beats me. Alan’s run off
to get Anna. She’ll know what to do.”

Nick sat down on a patch
of grass and propped his head in his hands, gazing at the magnificent creature
in the treetops. The orang-utan seemed completely at home and seemed satisfied
to have such freedom after likely being enclosed for what may have been its
entire life.

For some reason, seeing an
animal so wild and free lifted Nick’s spirits. It brought him back slightly
from the deep melancholy in which he’d been drowning. When Anna finally arrived
at the scene, he’d not taken his eyes off the animal once.

“Lily!” Anna put a hand to
her mouth.

Nick stood back up, patting
the dirt off his coat. “Lily? Is that the monkey’s name?”

“She’s not a monkey, she’s
an ape.”

“Okay. So where did Lily
come from?”

“The enclosure you’re
standing right in front of. This was her habitat.”

“How’d she get out?”

“I let her out,” Anna
said. “Sort of.”

“Is she dangerous?”

Anna chewed at her lower
lip and said, “Could she be dangerous if she wanted to be? Sure. She could
crush our skulls with a single swipe, but do I think we need to be worried? No.
From what I know about her, she’s very intelligent and sensitive. She’s lost
her family just like the rest of us.”

Nick glanced at her. “What
do you mean?”

“There was a mate in the
pen with her, and an infant. You can see them, there, under the blankets. When
the first infected people appeared they flooded into the enclosure and attacked
Lily and her family. She was the only one who made it.”

“So, the infected attack
animals as well?” Nick said.

Anna shook her head. “They
walked right past the other animals. I’m guessing that a primate is enough like
a human to pass for a target. They must get confused.”

“Should we feed her?” Nick
asked.

“I don’t think Shawcross
would like that,” Mike said. “He and Dave are already kicking up a fuss about
the daily rations being too high.”

“Screw them,” Anna said.
“We feed her what we can. Lily’s a part of this group, too. A survivor. Anybody
has a problem with that, they can talk to me.”

“Fine by me,” Nick said.
“I think we’re better off with her around. She might make a good look out from
up there.”

Anna smiled. “How’s your
head?”

Nick felt the faint bump
on his forehead from when he had fallen days before. “It’s better. I still feel
a bit sick when I first wake up, but the headaches have stopped.”

“I think you probably had
a mild concussion.”

“I’m just lucky to have
such a small brain. Otherwise I could really have been hurt.” He laughed.

“Let me know if it gets
worse. You and Mike are the only people I can talk any sense to. You’re both
just the right amount of insane.”

Nick laughed again. “So,
where are Shawcross and Dave?”

Both men had been in a
constant battle for authority since meeting. The pathetic thing was that
neither man had noticed how little the rest of the group cared who was in
charge. It was a thankless job that no one else wanted.

“They’re both back at the
restaurant with Pauline and Eve,” Anna said. “They’re working on a map of the
park and marking it with emergency food stashes, weapons, and stuff. Dave
doesn’t think it’s a good idea to have all our supplies in one place. Shawcross
agreed with him for once.”

“Probably a good idea,”
Mike said. “At the moment, we’re screwed if we lose the restaurant.”

“So what are Alan and
Michelle doing?” Nick said.

“They were rooting through
the warehouse next to the office building last I checked,” Mike told them.
“Alan said they found a bunch of fireworks.”

“Don’t think there’s going
to be much chance for a display,” Nick said.

“No, but they’d be a
perfect signal for help if it ever arrives in the villages below.”

Nick didn’t think it was a
possibility, but it couldn’t hurt to be prepared. “Anything else in there?”

“Some gardening equipment.
Alan suggested digging some pits around the edge of the park, like booby traps,
you know?”

Nick nodded. “Over time we
could probably dig quite a few.”

“So what are you going to
do for the rest of the day?” Anna asked him.

Nick shrugged and looked
up at Lily in the trees. “I guess I’ll fill in where I’m needed. First thing
I’m going to do, though, is tell Eve about the newest member of our group.
She’s been pretty low the last few days – we all have – so maybe it’ll cheer
her up.”

“Okay,” Anna said. She and
Mike waved Nick off as he headed back for Big Dog restaurant.

The restaurant was near
the centre of the park and was now fronted by a minefield of plates, pans, and
cutlery. The windows had also been boarded up permanently with tabletops and
chairs, with only a single window left clear to act as an entrance.

Heading up the few steps
to the building, Nick could already hear Dave and Shawcross bickering. They
were discussing Jan and Rene, who were still imprisoned in the cellar. Nick had
been visiting them a couple times a day, bringing food and beers. Their good
nature about the situation was beginning to sour and Jan now expressed a
growing desire to be let out.

“They can help with the
jobs around here,” Dave said. “They’re two strong men.”

“They could kill us all in
our sleep,” Shawcross argued.

“They’re not murderers.”

“You have no way of
knowing what they were in prison for. The big one looks like a sodding serial
killer.”

Nick hopped through the
window and joined the conversation. “His name is Jan, and he’s a reformed bank
robber. He told me how much he regrets his past and I believe him.”

“Of course he said that.”
Shawcross folded his arms and sighed. “He probably had it rehearsed from all of
his failed probation hearings.”

Nick rolled his eyes and
decided not to say anything more. There was no point getting caught up in their
ceaseless bickering. Dave probably didn’t even care if Jan and Rene were
released, he just liked undermining Shawcross.

Eve and Pauline were
sitting at a table nearby, sharing a cup of lemonade. Eve smiled as Nick
approached. “We were supposed to be working out our defences,” she said, “but
then they started arguing.”

“It’s been twenty minutes
so far,” Pauline added.

“Best to just let them get
on with it.” Nick took a seat and started telling them all about Lily.

“So, she’s just sitting
there in the trees?” Eve confirmed.

“Go see for yourself. She
seems friendly, even waved to Anna.”

“No shit? Soon as I’m done
here, I’m heading straight to the zoo.”

“What’s this supply map
I’ve been hearing about?” Nick asked.

“Dave’s idea,” Pauline
told him. “We’re going to choose a few places around the park to drop off food
and weapons. They’re just trying to work out whether or not to let Jan and Rene
help. I think Shawcross has taken it far enough now. We should let them out.
Cassie told us about what they did to save you and what Jan did to try and help
Margaret.”

Nick nodded. “I’d be dead
if not for Jan. Where is Cassie, by the way?”

The two women shrugged. “I
haven’t seen her since this morning,” Pauline said.

“Me either,” Eve said.

Nick had a bad feeling. “I
think we should go find her.”

The three of them made to
head out. “We’re going to find Cassie,” Nick shouted over to Shawcross and
Dave, but both men were so busy arguing that they didn’t even hear.

“You don’t think she’d try
to hurt herself do you?” Eve asked as they headed away from the restaurant.

“I don’t know,” Nick
admitted. “I’m sure she’s fine.”

They were quiet for a
while. The tense silence made it clear what they were all thinking. Cassie was
the most delicate of all the survivors and she was usually the last person to want
to go off alone.

The office building lay
ahead. Anna had explained that there were bodies inside one of the rooms that
had become the unofficial morgue of the park; not somewhere to visit for any
other reason. Beside the office block was an open warehouse with a large truck
parked outside. Alan and Michelle were both milling about inside.

“Hey,” Nick said as he
entered the warehouse. He spotted several cans of petrol, which seemed a little
unsafe to be stored next to commercial fireworks.

Alan noticed Nick staring
at the fireworks and grinned. “Quite the collection, isn’t it? With all this
petrol we might be able to get the generator juiced back up.”

“What were all these
fireworks meant for?” Eve asked.

“Shawcross said the park
used to hold fireworks displays at Halloween, New Years, et cetera. I guess
they bought in bulk.”

“Makes sense,” Nick said.
“I hear there’s been talk of using them as a signal if rescue arrives?”

Alan nodded. “Michelle and
I are going to set up a crate of rockets at the edge of the hill so we can set
them off if we spot help. We’ll cover them with some tarps to keep them dry.”

“Sounds good,” Nick said,
then remembered what he was there for. “Have you two seen Cassie? Nobody’s seen
her for a while.”

“No, I haven’t seen her,”
Michelle said.

“Wish I could help you,”
Alan said, “but I haven’t seen her all day.”

“Okay, then we’ll leave
you to it.”

On their way out of the
warehouse, Pauline said, “Maybe we’re overreacting. She might just need some
alone time, Nick.”

“I don’t think she’d wander
off without telling anybody.”

“I don’t think she’d hurt
herself though,” Eve said.

Nick stopped walking.
“Really? What makes you so sure?”

“The way she’s been
talking the last few days, I guess. She told me how glad she was that we were
all safe and that she hoped rescue would arrive soon. She was looking forward,
you know?”

“Then where is she?”

They carried on exploring.
For the zoo’s animals, life was normal. They carried on unaffected. Life was no
more complicated for them than it ever had been. Nick envied them. Their food
came to them each day and all they had to worry about was when to sleep. An
easy life.

They were coming back
around to the orang-utan enclosure so Nick glanced up at the treeline to see
Lily. He was disappointed, too, when she wasn’t there.

“This is where the
orang-utan was,” he said. “Hopefully she’ll come back.”

“That sucks,” Eve said,
pouting. “I really wanted to see her.”

Pauline sighed. “Isn’t
Cassie our main concern right now?”

Mike came speeding around
the corner.

Nick immediately assumed
the worst. “You’ve found Cassie, haven’t you?” he said

Mike nodded. “Yeah, she’s
at the restaurant.”

“At the restaurant?”
Pauline frowned. “We just came from there.”

“She was in the cellar,”
Mike explained.

Nick suddenly felt weak.
“What’s happened to her?”

Mike frowned. “Nothing.
She’s fine.”

“Then why have you come to
get us?”

“Because she’s broken Jan
and Rene out. Your prisoner friends have escaped.”

Chapter Thirty-One

“Cassie, what’re you doing?”
Nick demanded.

She was standing with Rene
and Jan, all three of them brandishing knives. Standing opposite, also armed,
was Dave and Shawcross.

Cassie stared at Nick
determinedly. “We can’t keep Jan and Rene locked up like animals anymore. Jan
saved me. He saved you too, Nick. I’d feel safer with them free.”

Nick nodded. “I never
thought they needed to be locked up in the first place.”

“Well, it’s not your
decision,” Shawcross said. “You made a deal when we let you stay.”

“Bullshit,” Jan grunted.
“We showed you good faith. We could have forced you to take us in, but we
trusted in you being good guys. Enough is enough. Rene and I aren’t staying
locked up a moment longer. It’s been weeks and we haven’t even been let out to
see the sky. This is worse than prison.”

Shawcross shrugged. “Then
you’ll have to leave.”

Jan shook his head and
Rene stood unwaveringly beside him, yet silently. “Leave? Are you crazy? There is
no leaving here. We’re all stuck.”

“You’re not a part of this
group,” Shawcross said.

“Yes, they are,” Cassie
shouted. Her entire body trembled. It must have taken an awful lot for her to
make such a stand.

“Just put the knives down,
Jan,” Dave said. “This isn’t how we do things.”

“Really?” Jan said. “Is
that what you were thinking when you tried to bash Kathryn’s skull in? Seemed like
you were pretty willing to use force then.”

“If you’d let me, Carl
would probably still be alive.”

Nick stepped closer, his
hands out in front of him. “Come on, everyone. Let’s just calm down. We can
discuss this like adults.”

Shawcross shook his head.
“We discussed it already. The prisoners stay locked up or they leave.”

“I think the jury is still
out on that one,” Dave said. “You know I think we should let them out.”

“Who cares what you
think?”

Dave turned now, pointing
his knife at Shawcross. “You know something? I’ve had enough of your attitude,
you pompous sod. I don’t know why I’m even arguing with you.” Dave turned back
to Jan and Rene. “You two are free to join the rest of us. Lower your knives,
relax. We’re done taking orders from this dickhead.”

Shawcross’s face went
bright red before twisting into a furious scowl. He pointed at Dave’s smug face
with a long, bony finger. “How dare you! I am in charge here. I am the manager
of Ripley Hall.”

Dave turned his back on
Shawcross and walked away, laughing. “You ain’t shite. Just a no mark who
thinks he’s important.”

“Do not speak to me that
way. You have no right. No right!”

Nick watched in detached
bewilderment as Shawcross rushed at Dave with his knife. Dave had his back
turned and didn’t see the danger.

“Look out,” Nick shouted.

Dave acknowledged the
warning just in time. He half-turned and managed to sidestep the attack by a
hair’s breadth.

Shawcross slashed at the
air but quickly readjusted and raised the knife again, preparing for a second
attempt. This time Nick managed to intervene. He leapt forward and caught
Shawcross across the jaw with a punch. The man pirouetted to the floor, his
elbow bumping a table on the way down. He was out for the count, the first man
that Nick had ever hit.

Dave grinned at Nick and
patted him on the back. “Way to go, slugger. I owe you one.”

“I didn’t do it because
I’m on your side. He was going to stab you. This is all a huge mess. We have to
live together. We can’t go around stabbing and punching each other. I already
have enough wounds, thank you.”

Dave looked persecuted.
“Hey, don’t tell me. It was that bloody muppet who tried to get all
stabby.”

“You provoked him,
though.”

“What the hell is going on
in here?” Anna was climbing through the window and as soon as her eyes fell
upon Shawcross, she lit up. “What the hell are they doing out? What happened to
Shawcross?”

“It’s okay,” Nick said.

“Like hell it is. What’s
going on?”

“I punched him,” Nick
said, not knowing quite how to qualify it.

Anna stared hard at him
and, eventually, she said, “It’s about time somebody did, but you better have a
damn good reason for doing it.”

“Look, I know this looks
bad. There was a standoff over whether or not to let Jan and Rene free…”

“I know,” Anna said. “Mike
filled me in.” She glared at Cassie. “Wasn’t very diplomatic the way you went
about things, darlin’. We can do without troublemakers.”

Cassie stared at the
floor.

“She was just doing what
she thought was right,” Jan said. “I made a promise to protect her the day all
this started. She probably feels she owes me.”

Anna sighed. “I’m sure she
thought she was doing what was right. The problem with that, though, is that
people have differing opinions of what’s right and what’s wrong.”

“We tried to talk it out,”
Dave said, “but that loon came at me with a knife.”

Anna looked to Nick for
verification. He nodded. “It’s true. Shawcross was the one who got violent.”

“Well,” she said. “I doubt
he would have done so unprovoked, but what’s done is done.”

“So what do you want to
do?” Nick said. “Can we let Jan and Rene out?”

“Looks like the decision’s
already been made. I don’t trust either of them, I’m not going to lie, but I
trust you, Nick. If you think they should be free, so be it. Just don’t make me
regret it.”

“You won’t,” Jan said. “I
promise.”

Anna looked at Jan and
rolled her eyes. Then, without saying anything else, she exited the building
through the window.

Shawcross stirred on the
floor, moaning.

“What should we do with him?”
Cassie said.

“Lock him in the cellar,”
Dave growled.

“No,” Jan said. “Nobody
else is being locked up. I think it’s time for a fresh start. An equal one. No
more prisoners.”

“But he tried to stab me,”
Dave shouted.

“And he got his clock
cleaned for it. He’s probably learned his lesson. If not, then he only gets this
one chance.”

Dave huffed. “Fine, you
just keep him the hell away from me, Jan.”

“I’ll personally guarantee
it. I appreciate you going to bat for me, brother.”

“You’re welcome. Just be
sure to make yourself useful, and remember your loyalties.”

Right then, Eve climbed
through the window. She placed a hand on Nick’s arm. “Anna just told me things
were all sorted in here. What happened?”

Nick sniffed. “My hand’s
swollen from punching Shawcross for trying to murder Dave, but other than that
everything’s hunky dory.”

Shawcross continued
moaning and started to drag himself up against the bar.

Eve looked down at Nick’s
injured hand and winced. “Wow, you must really have hit him hard.”

“Yeah, I suppose so. It’s
fine, I’m sure, just bruised. Hopefully Shawcross will be okay too.”

Eve grinned at him like he
was misbehaving. “Come on, let’s go back to the kitchen and bathe it in cold
water.”

Nick felt the fuss
unnecessary, but he went with Eve anyway. The kitchen was now filled with pots
and pans full of water in anticipation of the day where the water stopped
coming through the taps. There had been a lot of discussion recently about
using some of the water to wash with, but Shawcross and Dave hadn’t been able
to agree on anything.

“Over here,” Eve said. She
stopped next to one of the kitchen sinks. “It’s not ice-cold, but it should be
cool enough to stop some of the swelling.”

“You’re quite the nurse,”
he said.

“I used to look after my
little brother sometimes. He was always getting into scrapes.”

Nick saw the sadness that
appeared briefly in Eve’s eyes. The less they all thought about their old
lives, the better.

He dipped his swollen fist
beneath the water and used his other hand to pull Eve into a hug. He gave her a
quick squeeze and kissed the top of her head. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I haven’t
checked in with you much the last few days. Are you doing okay?”

Eve hugged him back. “I
think we’re all doing about the same. Personally, I’m feeling a little
shell-shocked, like this is all just a dream or something. I can’t really be
stuck with a bunch of strangers while monsters devour the earth, can I? That’s
not real, is it?”

“I guess the difference
between nightmares and reality has become pretty thin recently.”

“You’re telling me. I keep
expecting to wake up.”

“Me too. Every morning I
wake up wishing that my wife was beside me. Then I remember everything that’s
happened and I realise that I’ll never see her again. It takes everything I
have just to face another day.”

“I know what you mean. I
don’t know if I can keep doing it anymore.”

“Get up every morning and
just get on with it,” Nick said. He clenched his fist in the water and winced
at the pain. “We’re all survivors. We’re all strong in our own way. We just
have to concentrate on doing what we can with whatever the day brings us. I
don’t know if I would’ve made it this far without you. If you ever find that
things are getting to be too much, come find me, because I owe you my life.”

Eve moved closer to him
and looked into his eyes. “Things are getting too much for me,” she whispered.
“I need you to be here for me now.” She went to place her lips against his.

Nick backed away. “Eve,
I’m married.”

“You were married.”

It hurt Nick, even if it
was technically true. To him, marriage wasn’t something that ended a few weeks after
your spouse’s death. James and Deana were still in his heart. He was still
committed to them.

Tears appeared in Eve’s
eyes and she looked away. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “That was a really shitty
thing to say.”

Nick shook it off. “It’s
okay. No harm done.”

Eve made herself look at
him again. “It’s just…I’m so frightened and I feel…I feel so alone.”

Nick held her close again.
“You’re not alone, Eve.”

“I don’t want to lose you,
Nick. You’re the only person that makes me feel safe. I just want to hold onto
that, because it’s the only thing that makes me feel like I still have anything
human in my life.”

“I understand, but you
don’t have to be with me in that way just to keep me close. We started
this thing together. We’re friends and I care about you more than anyone here.
I’ll always have your back.”

Eve started sobbing.

“I’ll keep you safe,” he
said. “Don’t be afraid anymore, okay? Things are going to be alright, I
promise.”

“You can’t promise that,”
she said.

“Maybe not, but I’d rather
live in a world where we can still make promises, than one where we’re all too
afraid to. I promise to keep you safe no matter how impossible the odds, okay?”

“Okay.”

Setting himself a mission
and giving himself a responsibility made Nick feel stronger. It gave him back
the purpose he’d lost when he stopped being a father and a husband. It was the
part of him that had been missing. The protector.

He kissed the top of Eve’s
head. “Come on. I think it’s about time we all had a little fun.”

Chapter Thirty-Two

Anna knew things were going
to get tense. When she’d entered the restaurant and found Shawcross
half-conscious and the two prisoners holding knives, she’d known she had to
stay calm and not take sides. If she had, she wasn’t even sure which side she
would pick. Her two closest friends were Mike and Nick.

As it stood, she’d decided
to trust Nick’s judgement. She knew his inclination was towards peace rather
than confrontation. Loud-mouthed Dave, on the other hand, was a small man with
large ambitions, just like Shawcross. In Anna’s experience, men like Dave and
Shawcross were trouble – abusers of power.

Mike caught up with Anna
just as she was entering the zoo. The animals were due for a feeding.

“I heard Shawcross went at
Dave with a knife,” he said.

“I wasn’t there. I
wouldn’t put it past him, though. He’s a petty man with a bad temper.”

“You’re not a fan then?”

Anna shrugged. “I’ve seen
Shawcross treat his staff like dirt in the past, enough times to know that he
views other people as commodities. He won’t like not being in charge.”

“You think there’ll be
more trouble?”

“I’d bet on it. The only
thing more dangerous than the infected people at the bottom of the hill are the
healthy people at the top.”

“You included?”

Anna nodded. “I suppose.”

“Glad I came prepared then.”
Mike lifted his shirt to show her a crude vest of armour. “Made it out of some
magazines I found in one of the offices. I don’t want to be the next one to get
stabbed.”

She laughed.

“What’s so funny?”

Anna shrugged. “It’s just
that before all this happened, I hated my life. I spent every night trying to
drink myself to death. I suppose I was committing slow suicide, not brave
enough to do it the quick way. It took the end of the world to make me realise
how much I actually like living.”

Mike stared at her. “You
wanted to die?”

She nodded. It felt good
to admit such weakness to him. “I was just done with things. Tired, you know?”

“Why?”

“Because one day I was
pregnant and married, living in a three bed semi, and the next I was giving
birth to a stillborn baby, divorced, and alone in a cramped flat.”

Mike was silent and his
shoulders scrunched together like somebody had pinched his neck.

“Sorry,” she said, sensing
his discomfort. “I doubt you’re very interested in my life story, especially
when it’s so depressing.”

Mike remained silent and
plucked something from his back pocket. It was the wallet she’d retrieved for
him weeks ago in the hotel room. Amongst the useless money and credit cards was
a photograph. Anna studied the picture with interest. It was obvious that the
girl in the photo had Down’s syndrome.

“Who is she?”

“My daughter, Lucy. Dead
now, I suppose.”

“That’s why you wanted
your wallet.”

Mike returned the wallet
to his pocket and lowered his head. “I guess I sensed early on that things were
pretty bad. I didn’t want to not ever see her face again. This is the only
picture I have of her.”

Anna looked at Mike and
realised, for the first time, how much sadness the man carried with him. He
wore it around his neck like a lead-weight. “You’ve been so brave,” she said.
“I never would have guessed you had a daughter.”

Mike cleared his throat
and looked away. “Not talking about her doesn’t mean I’m not thinking about
her. It’s just the way I deal with things, I guess. The best way to cope with
her condition was to always be positive. It’s a habit that stayed with me.”

Anna grabbed Mike’s hand,
which was clammy. “It’s a good habit to have. You’re very courageous.”

“So are you, Anna. What
you went through…” He sighed. “At least I got to know my daughter, if only for
a little while.”

Anna didn’t know which was
worse, her having never known her child, or losing a child after raising her
for years.

“What about Lucy’s
mother?” she asked. “Do you know what happened to her?”

Mike shook his head. “We
separated a long time ago. All I know is that they would’ve been together at
the end. I hold on to that.” It seemed, for a moment, that he might cry.
Instead, he said, “Thank you for giving her back to me. The photo, I mean.”

She patted him on the
back. “My pleasure. She was beautiful.”

Suddenly, Mike leant down
and kissed her. To her surprise, she let him. They broke apart after several
seconds and Anna felt her cheeks growing red.

She cleared her throat.
“What was that for?”

Mike stroked her face with
the back of his hand. “Life has become unpredictable; no point spending all of
it just trying to survive. We’ve got to actually live sometime.”

Anna couldn’t help but
laugh. “I’m sure there was a big philosophical point in there somewhere.”

Mike smiled and kissed her
again. Anna’s stomach fluttered and she held on tightly as they embraced.

When they finally broke a
second time, they heard someone laughing.

Mike looked around in
confusion. “Do you hear that?”

Anna nodded. “Sounds like
people having fun. Almost forgot what that sounded like.”

“Let’s go check it out.”

“Okay, but then I need to
feed the animals.” She found herself blushing as she asked the question, “Would
you like to come along?”

Mike squeezed her around
the waist. “Where you go, I go.”

Anna wrapped her arm
around him and they headed towards the laughter. It was strange how much a
single kiss could change a relationship, but it had.

After walking hand-in-hand
for a few minutes, they found Nick, Eve, Pauline, Cassie, Alan, and Michelle
gathered in the midway. Earlier events had apparently been forgotten and they
all wore gleeful smiles.

“What are you all up to?”
Anna asked.

Nick tossed her a
basketball. She flinched but caught it, then held it up confusedly.

“Well, don’t just stand
there,” he said. “Throw it in.”

Anna looked up at the row
of nets inside one of the booths. She didn’t see the harm so reared back and
thrust the ball up into the air. The basketball hit the backboard and bounced
away. Eve leant over the shelf and retrieved it. “Good try,” she said.

Anna grinned, feeling
good. “What’s this all about?”

“It’s about fun,” Nick
said. “I think we all need a break from supplies and defences and rations. It’s
time to kick back for an afternoon and try to remember what life is all about.”

Mike motioned to receive
the ball. “I’ve just been saying the exact same thing. How ‘bout we get into
teams?”

“Sounds good to me,” Nick
said.

Everyone else agreed.

Anna and Mike joined up
with Alan and Michelle. They took turns making baskets, but it wasn’t long
before Nick’s team was several points ahead.

“Were you a professional
basketball player in your old life?” Anna asked Nick. “You never miss a
basket.”

“I used to play a lot as a
teenager,” he said. “It’s like riding a bike.”

Mike wiped sweat from his
forehead. “Well, I think we should remix the teams. You lot are whipping our
arses.”

“What is going on
here?” Dave was marching towards them with Jan and Rene close behind.

“Nothing,” Nick said.
“We’re just having a bit of fun.”

“Fun? Fun? We have things
to do. We all need to be working.”

Eve picked up the ball and
stood defiantly. “Says who?”

“Says me!”

She rolled her eyes. “And
who the hell are you?”

Dave bristled.
“Apparently, I am the only one looking out for this group.”

“Look, you’re not in
charge of everyone, Dave, and neither was Shawcross,” Nick said. “You had your
little coup d’état in the restaurant, but the rest of us are going to do what
we want to do, not what you tell us to.”

“We’ll end up dead with
that kind of attitude. There is danger all around us and you’re playing…basketball!”

Anna sighed. She knew Dave
had a point, but Nick was right as well. They all needed to let off steam or
they were going to end up having nervous breakdowns and killing each other.
“We’re just taking a break,” she said. “We’ll be back to work soon.”

“Now,” Dave said. “You all
need to do the jobs assigned to you now.”

Everyone stared at Dave.
Anna couldn’t believe the gall of the man. What made him think he had any right
to order them around?

After a while, when he saw
no one was going to budge, Dave shook his head and spat at the ground with
rage. “Nick, are you going to back me up here? You know, since I picked you all
up, I’ve only had this group’s interests at heart.”

Nick sighed. “You know
what, Dave? I don’t know what your motivation is, but I do know that we’re all
getting pretty sick and tired of you assuming that you have any right over the
rest of us.”

“Nick, you need to
understand—”

“We’re playing basketball,
Dave. Either join us or go away.”

Dave’s eyes narrowed and
he glared at Nick as though he was trying to burn a hole through his forehead.
Then he spun in a huff and marched away.

Anna took a deep breath.
“I think you just made an enemy there,” she said.

Nick grabbed the basketball
and bounced it. “I’m a big boy,” he said. “I can handle it.”

He threw the ball and made
another perfect basket. Nobody picked it up again, though. Suddenly the fun was
over.

Chapter Thirty-Three

The evening was tense,
particularly between Dave and Nick. Nick had felt Dave’s angry gaze fall upon
him several times throughout the night and he was getting sick of it.

The whole group was now in
the restaurant eating dinner. The food was horrible, but satiated everybody’s
hunger. Seeing how much food they’d consumed for just one meal made it
dauntingly obvious that their supplies wouldn’t last much longer.

Shawcross sat alone,
eating his meal with his head down. He was a broken man, obviously unused to
violence, and the ease of which it had stripped him of his self-respect. Nick
felt guilty for having been the one to punch him, but the man had brought it on
himself.

After they’d finished
playing basketball, everyone got back to work. Nick returned to the restaurant
to clear the air with Shawcross, but the man had been nowhere in sight. He’d
only reappeared less than an hour ago and told no one where he had been for the
three or four hours in between.

To Nick’s great surprise,
Jan and Rene had chosen to sit with Dave during dinner. They even shared a few
beers together. Perhaps they appreciated his lobbying to get them out of the
cellar.

Nick finished the last of
his lukewarm burger and stood up. He felt a headache coming on and the growing
darkness in the restaurant was diminishing his mood.

“Where are you going?” Eve
asked him, a concerned look on her face.

“I just fancy a walk and
some air.”

“You want me to come
with?”

Nick shook his head. As
much as he enjoyed Eve’s company, he just wanted to be alone. “I won’t be
long,” he said.

Eve seemed unsettled that
he was leaving on his own, but she didn’t say anything more.

Nick headed outside into
the shadows of the park. The moon was full and everything seemed to glow. The
park’s rollercoaster, the Hood, towered in the distance but Nick headed the
other way towards the zoo. The animals had a calming effect on him lately.
Their calmness rubbed off on him.

However, whenever his eyes
caught sight of the smouldering fires in distant villages, reality always came
crashing back.

Coming up on his left was
the empty orang-utan enclosure. It was a serene landscape of shadows and dark
angles. He leant up against the enclosure’s barrier and let his head drop
tiredly. Beneath him were the rotting bodies of the infected that Anna said had
attacked Lily and her family. It spoiled the peacefulness somewhat, so he
looked for somewhere else to settle.

The bungalow at the edge
of the habitat was sloped, low on the side that faced the footpaths and taller
on the side that faced the enclosure. A drainage pipe ran up one side of the
building, almost seeming to invite someone to climb it.

Nick didn’t know why, but
the thought of getting up on the roof was appealing. Five-hundred-feet above
the ground and still he wanted to go higher. Maybe it was his inner child,
wanting to make believe that being up high gave safety and security. It was
certainly true in the case of the hill they all lived on.

He hopped up and grabbed
the drainpipe, making it easily to the top. From up high, Nick had a better
view of Ripley Heights as a whole. Ripley Hall rose in the shadows at the back
of the park, its rooms full of shrieking horrors that could be released at any
moment. He shuddered as he thought about what would happen if the doors were
ever opened. He chose instead to look over the amusement park, but even that
had taken on a sinister façade. Its unused carousel, its abandoned pirate ship,
and its dormant big wheel had all taken on an ethereal quality under the
moonlight. The whole place was haunted, echoing its past of children giggling
and parents kissing, all things the park would never see again.

Thud!

Something hit the roof
behind Nick and made him cry out in fright. He twisted around and almost lost
his balance, but grabbed the edge of the roof and managed to steady himself.

“Jesus Christ!” he said
when he realised what was behind him. His first instinct was to flee, but the
orang-utan made no attempt to hurt him in any way.

Lily examined Nick
curiously and raised an arm towards him. Gradually he raised his own hand to
meet hers. Lily’s rough fingertips slid over the cold flesh on the back of
Nick’s hand and she let out a soft hoot.

“I heard we have something
in common,” he said softly. “I lost my family too. At least your man did his
job and protected you, though. I let my family down.”

Lily’s breath was audible
as it escaped through her deep nostrils. Her smell was unpleasant, yet
comforting. It was a reminder of what man really was deep down: an ape –
egotistical and self-involved, but really nothing more than an ape.

“I’m sorry for your loss,
Lily,” he said.

At the sound of her name,
Lily hooted again. Then she took off into the night as quickly as she’d
arrived. Nick missed her as soon as she was gone, disappearing into the trees.
Now that he was alone again, his thoughts would resume their torment of him.
His memories had talons and they were poised to rip him apart.

He was almost glad when he
heard someone cry out. The scream had been male, short and abrupt.

Nick slid from the top of
the roof, hung, and landed back on the pavement. He winced as a shooting pain
went from his ankles to his knees, but managed to walk it off quickly.

His first thought was that
an infected person had found their way past the fences, but when he saw the
knife jutting out of Dave’s chest as he lay in the middle of the path, he knew
he was wrong.

Anna came running. “We
heard screaming,” she said and skidded to a stop when she saw Dave lying there.

“Where’s Shawcross,” Nick
said, shaking his head and clenching his fists in anger. If this was murder,
there was only one man responsible.

Anna shook her head. The
rest of the group appeared behind her, Shawcross included. “Shawcross is with
us,” she said. “He didn’t do this.”

Nick shook his head
confused. “Then who. I heard him scream. The blood’s still coming out of him.”

“He was on his way to see
you,” Jan said. “He said he didn’t want to hold grudges and that we all needed
to work together.”

Rene nodded, confirming
Jan’s statement.

“It’s true,” Eve said.
“Dave asked me if I knew where you’d gone so he could make peace.”

Nick shook his head. “That
doesn’t sound like Dave.”

“No shit,” Eve said.
“Surprised me too, but I guess we don’t know each other well enough to make
judgments. He seemed pretty genuine.”

“He was glaring at me all
night. Didn’t seem regretful at all.”

Eve shrugged.

“It’s a tragedy that you
took his approach as a threat rather than the apology it was meant to be,”
Shawcross said, sounding smug. “Seems as though you may have gotten the wrong
end of the stick.”

“What? I didn’t do this.”

“Nobody else could have,”
Anna said. “Every one of us was in the restaurant. You left and then five
minutes later Dave followed. We all came when we heard the scream.”

Nick looked to Eve for
help, but she just looked confused.

“I didn’t do this,” he
shouted at them.

“We need to lock him up,”
Shawcross said. “Until we decide what to do with him.”

To Nick’s utter disbelief,
Mike and Alan grabbed hold of him. He shoved them away, swinging his fists and
kicking his legs. “Get the fuck away from me. I didn’t do this.”

He managed to land a punch
on Alan’s cheek, but was too late to react when Shawcross came and took a swing
at him, clubbing him under the chin in an exact reverse of what had happened
earlier in the day.

The force of the blow was
too fierce for Shawcross not to be holding something in his fist. By the time
Nick fell to the ground, he was already unconscious.

Chapter Thirty-Four

Nick had to flutter his
eyes for a few seconds before he could see properly. His head and jaw hurt
badly. He tried to open his mouth but couldn’t.

“I’d try not to speak if I
were you,” Jan said. He was sitting in a wooden chair against the wall. Rene
was right beside him. Candles lit the corners of the room.

Nick realised he was in
the restaurant’s cellar. The prison. It was musky and damp. “What am
I…?” Nick winced as the pain exploded in his jaw, but fought past it. “What am
I doing here?”

“I think you know,” Jan
said. “You did a stupid thing, brother.”

Nick rubbed at his jaw and
cleared a wad of phlegm from his throat. “Dave…? I had nothing to do with
that.”

Jan shrugged. “We were all
together in the restaurant, everyone except Dave and you. Things are tense,
people need someone to blame.”

Nick sighed and let his
head drop. “I can’t explain it, but it’s true. I didn’t touch Dave.”

“Can’t say I don’t believe
you. You’ve always been a straight up guy. But if you did kill Dave, you’re in
a lot of trouble. Shawcross is campaigning to have you sent down the hill.
Can’t say I blame him if you’re a murderer.”

Nick spat on the floor and
laughed. He was already tired of being accused of something he didn’t do. “This
is his doing. Somehow. And how dare you judge me, Jan. You’re a bank robber.”

Jan smiled. “Attempted bank
robber. I was never any good at it. It’s a whole lot different than murder,
anyway, brother.”

Nick hissed. “Just fuck
off, Jan. I’m innocent.”

Jan stood, his tall frame
stretching almost to the ceiling. “Like I said, I can’t say I don’t believe
you, brother. Hopefully time will clear things up. Just keep strong. Try not to
think. Time goes slower when you do. Especially if they’re guilty thoughts.”

“I’ll be ready and waiting
for your apology,” Nick said. “I was big enough to give you one when I judged
you wrongly.”

Jan nodded but didn’t say
anything in reply. At the stairs, he turned and looked at Rene. “You coming,
brother?”

Rene shook his head.

Jan shrugged. “Fair
enough. Come find me when you’re done.”

Jan left the cellar.

“So, what the hell do you
want?” Nick demanded of Rene. “It’s not like you’re here for conversation, you
don’t even talk.”

“Don’t talk is not
the same as can’t talk, my friend.”

Nick almost flew back in
his chair. “Y-you can speak. What…why?”

“People take speech for
granted, Nick. It is what separates us from the animals, and yet we treat our
words with disinterest. We ignore their power.”

Hearing Rene talk was
surreal. He had a softly spoken Nigerian accent, but what he was saying was
hard to follow. “I don’t get it. You’ve been able to talk all along but you
haven’t. Why?”

“Because more can be
learned from listening, my friend. God told this to me.”

“God did?”

“Yes. I was once a bad
man, Nick. A charlatan, a trickster. I would use my words to fool people into
giving me their money. I took people’s savings. I took people’s lives. Then I
went to prison and my life changed.”

“You found God?”

“No, Nick. God found me.”

Nick grunted. Religion
wasn’t his thing, but he played along, not wanting to offend Rene. “How did God
find you?” he asked.

“An old lady came to visit
me in prison. I had taken her life’s savings by pretending to be from the gas
board. I convinced her that her boiler was dangerous and she needed a new one
immediately. She handed over her chequebook and I emptied her account the next
day.

“When she came to see me,
this woman, she asked me why I did it. I said I did not know why I did the
things that I did other than wanting the money, but she disagreed. She told me
I was afraid. I was afraid of how hard life could be, which is why I took the
easy ways like cheating and stealing. She told me that deep down, I felt
worthless and she was sorry for me. Then she told me that she forgave me and
she was a friend if I needed one.”

Nick sighed. “More fool
her.”

Rene carried on,
undeterred. “I asked how she could forgive such a wicked man. Her reply was
that God had given me great weakness so that I might one day find great
strength. She told me to seek him out, and so I did as the old lady asked. I
sought out the Lord. I learned of his ways, read his teachings. Soon I realised
that words were precious and that I must use them no longer if I was to make my
penance – if I was to find my great strength I would have to give up my
greatest asset. I was a conman with no voice.”

“So you really just
stopped speaking?”

Rene smiled. “Yes, for
many reasons, my friend. So that I could listen, learn, but mostly as penance,
you understand? I decided that the next time I spoke it must be with purpose
and a desire to do good. Only then could I hope to redeem myself.”

“You sound crazy,” Nick
said.

“Perhaps, but this is a
crazy world we are living in, no? Is it not crazier to be sane with all that we
have seen?”

“I suppose so. Why are you
talking to me now? What good can you do me?”

“To do good. I believe you
did not kill Dave.”

Nick sighed. It was
actually a relief to hear that someone, at least, believed him, even if it was
a strange bird like Rene.

“Deep down, I do not
believe that Jan condemns you either, but he is afraid. He values his place
here and does not want to lose it. He will go along with the group consensus…up
to a point.”

“Why not you?” Nick asked.

“Because my mind is clear.
I have observed for many days. While the rest of you have bickered, I have
watched silently. I see a man’s intentions better than most, and yours are not
of murder.”

“No, they’re not, but then
who is responsible? Everyone was together when Dave was murdered.”

Rene shook his head and
then got up. “I do not know. Whoever it is, they are benefitting from you being
blamed, and by Dave being dead. He may even have killed himself and this is all
one big misunderstanding, though I doubt it. Dave did not have a coward’s heart
and his scream was not one of pain, but fright. I heard it well.”

Nick closed his eyes to
think, but came up blank. “There’s nothing to gain from Dave being dead. We’re
all in the same messed up situation no matter what.”

Rene smiled at Nick. “You
are naïve, my friend. There is always power to be gained and there are always
men who wish to take it. The world is not so different.”

Nick’s eyes widened. “You
think Shawcross was behind it, don’t you? But how?”

Rene rolled the wedding
band on his finger that Nick had never noticed the man even wore. “Shawcross is
a weak man with selfish intentions,” he said. “I have seen this with my own eyes.
Now that Dave is gone and his closest male ally is locked in this cellar, he
will be able to assume authority easily. You were the only other who could
oppose him so this fits his plans perfectly.”

“Me? I’m no threat to
anyone.”

“People respect you, Nick.
You have a level head, no? The thought of you committing murder has damaged the
group badly, made them feel lost and insecure. This is the time to establish a
permanent hierarchy – while the populace is desperate and weak.”

“I don’t see the point.
What is there to be in control of? We have nothing.”

Rene smiled knowingly. “At
the moment, nothing. Later, however, there will be life at stake. To be the man
who controls who gets food is an envious position. To decide who lives and dies
is to be God. The one true Lord does not look kindly on such ambitions. That is
why he has told me to help you.”

“Help me?”

“Yes. I will remain here
with you. Whoever killed Dave will likely prefer you permanently out of the
way. I will make sure that does not happen.”

Nick thought the whole
thing ridiculous, but Rene seemed deeply serious. With all that had happened,
it was better to be overly cautious than foolhardy.

“Okay,” Nick said finally.
“Thank you.”

“You are a good man, Nick.
I hope that is proven.”

“Me too, but what if it’s
not? Shawcross couldn’t have stabbed Dave himself, so what the hell happened.”

Rene tilted his head.
“Only the Lord knows.”

The door at the top of the
stairs opened and Eve came down holding a plastic tray. “I brought you some
food,” she said indifferently.

Nick got up and walked
over to her. “I didn’t do it, Eve. You know me.”

She handed him the tray.
There was a pint of coke and browning leaves of a salad. “Do I? I thought I
did.”

Nick put the tray on the
floor and looked her dead in the eyes. “Yes, you do, Eve. You know me better
than anybody else left on Earth. I didn’t do this.”

Eve stared at him and
sighed. “I don’t know what to think right now. Dave was a pig, but he didn’t
deserve to die. There was no one else who could have done it.”

Nick nodded. “I agree, he
didn’t deserve to die.”

Eve started back up the
stairs.

“Eve,” he shouted after
her, but she ignored him and disappeared. The lock clanked behind her.

Nick sat back down and
looked over at Rene. “I guess you really are all I have.”

Rene nodded solemnly.
“Things change, my friend. You just need to be patient. God will shine his
light of truth on those who are guilty.”

Nick stared down at the
wilting salad on the floor and wrinkled his nose. “I just hope the truth comes
out before I starve to death.”

Chapter Thirty-Five

It had been almost a week
since Dave’s death. Anna had dragged the man to the morgue herself to join the
bodies of Clark, Charlotte, Tom, and Greg. She couldn’t get over the fact that
Nick had committed murder. In fact, there was a part of her that didn’t even
believe it all. She was a person of logic, though, and the only logic available
said that Nick had murdered Dave. Everyone else had been accounted for.

“You okay, Anna?” Mike
asked her as they fed the Clydesdale horses. The foal she had delivered two
weeks ago was doing well.

“I’m just thinking,” she
said. “Not about anything important, so never mind.”

“I’m out of food. Do we
have any more nearby?”

Anna nodded. “There’s one
of Shawcross’ emergency stashes over there. I’ve been using it for feed and
veterinary drugs. It won’t be long until we have to go out in the woods to find
that greenhouse. What we have won’t last forever.”

Mike nodded. “I’ll go see
what we have.”

“The stash is inside the
green bin.” She pointed to a large, round receptacle. She’d helped Shawcross
empty it herself before storing additional supplies in it. There were dozens of
similar stashes all over Ripley Heights.

Mike pulled the lid off
the bin. “Um, Anna?”

“What?”

“You sure this is the stash?”

“Positive. I used it
yesterday. It was full.”

“Not anymore. Come look.”

Anna hurriedly glanced
inside the bin and frowned. There was nothing left other than a few discarded
medical supplies, bandages, and a spare feeding bottle for the foal.

“What the? This was
chock-a-block with stuff yesterday. There were weapons and water bottles and
medicines.”

“So, what then? Did
somebody move it?”

Anna thought about it.
“No, somebody stole it.”

“Who would be that much of
an arsehole?”

Anna stared at the empty space
where the supplies should have been. “I’m not about to start accusing people
just yet. Let’s just go tell the others.”

Mike sighed. “Shawcross is
going to flip his lid.”

“I know. Can’t say I’d
blame him, if it turns out that we have a thief.”

Mike took Anna by the
hand. “Well, the only person I trust for sure is you.”

Anna laughed. “You don’t
know it wasn’t me. I could be the thief. Mere weeks you’ve known me, you fool.”

Mike shook his head. “You
care too much about what people think, you know that?”

“Me? I don’t care. People
do nothing but disappoint me.”

“Yet you never stop trying
to help them. That’s why I know it wasn’t you. That’s why I’m falling in love
with you like a teenager.”

Anna choked. “You love me?
Don’t be so silly.”

“I’m not being silly.
Anyway, I said I’m falling in love with you, so don’t get ahead of
yourself. This last week you and I have barely been apart. I’ve gotten to know
you more than I think I’ve ever known anyone. There’s no point hiding how I
feel about you. Life’s too short – especially now.”

“You don’t know me. None
of us even know ourselves with all that’s happened.”

“I think the opposite. I
think it takes a situation like this to show who people truly are. All of our
bullshit – the vanity, the ego – gets stripped away. The only thing left is who
we really are. And who you are is beautiful.”

Anna stared at Mike for a
while, trying to find the right words. “Mike, I…”

“Can’t say you love me
back. That’s okay. I have time. Not much, maybe, but I can wait as long as I
have.”

Anna shook her head and
grinned. “Wow, you’re always so dramatic, do you know that? Come on, let’s go
find Shawcross and give him the bad news.”

They headed out of the zoo
and found Shawcross by the cable car station. He was staring down at the car
park below.

“What’re you doing?” Mike
asked him.

Shawcross spun around with
a grave expression on his face. “They’re back,” he said grimly. “Look.”

Anna peered down the side
of the hill and saw that a few dozen infected people had found their way back
to the car park surrounding the Rainforest Café. More were wandering in from
the distance.

Mike cringed. “Oh, shit.”

Shawcross put a finger to
his lips and shushed him. “I’m sure if we keep a low profile we’ll be quite
safe. We’re prepared to deal with the odd one or two that find their way up
here, but we have to make sure we don’t attract them in large groups. Being
quiet is key.”

Anna looked further into
the distance. The fires that had been burning in the nearby villages had
finally died out. It somehow made things feel even more final, like the candle
of civilisation had finally blown out.

“They must have wandered
back from the towns,” Anna said. “Look some of them are burnt.”

“There’s obviously
nothing left to keep them there,” Shawcross said, “so they’ve dispersed,
probably in every direction. A depressing thought indeed.”

“They’re all dead,” Mike
said.

Anna turned to him.
“What?”

“Look, they’re all slow
and clumsy. Not a single one of the fast ones amongst them.”

“Perhaps the virus has
burned through all of the infected and killed them,” Anna said. “Now they’re
all dead.”

“It certainly smells like
it,” Mike said, wrinkling his nose. “If there are only the dead ones left,
maybe they’ll die-off too eventually. Won’t they just keep on rotting until
there’s nothing left?”

“Perhaps,” Anna said, “but
we still need to be careful. The dead are slower than the infected, but they
don’t give up.”

Shawcross nodded. “I’d
like to think that we can liberate Ripley Hall at some point, but I think it’d
be best that we continue to lay low for now. No unnecessary risks. No
commotion. If we’re smart, we may just make it through.”

Eve came running up from
the amusement park, panting.

Shawcross ran a hand
through his slick, ginger hair. “Eve, sweetheart. Whatever is the matter?”

“The supplies,” she said.
“I’ve checked half-a-dozen places and they’re all gone.”

“Gone?”

Anna exchanged a knowing
glance with Mike.

“You must be mistaken,”
Shawcross told Eve.

Eve shook her head. “We
have no food.”

“Actually,” Anna said,
“the reason Mike and I have just come from the zoo is that we’ve discovered
supplies missing from there, too. I think we might have a thief.”

Shawcross’ eyes narrowed
and his lips went thin. “Get everyone together,” he ordered. “Now!”

***

It took less than ten
minutes to get everybody together, excluding Rene and Nick.

“We have one very serious
problem here, people,” Shawcross said, standing in the midway that was now
being used to store supplies.

The group stared at one
another blankly.

“There is a thief amongst
us.” Shawcross almost shouted the word thief. “A dirty scoundrel.  Who
is it? Speak now, or God help you later.”

“Don’t look at me,” Alan
said.

Michelle folded her arms.
“Me, either.”

Shawcross snarled. “Well,
somebody is responsible.”

“Maybe it’s the monkey,”
Cassie muttered.

Shawcross cocked his head.
“What?”

“The monkey,” she said.
“Maybe it’s been raiding our supplies at night, trying to survive.”

Anna objected. “Lily isn’t
taking our supplies.”

“How can you be so sure?”
said Shawcross.

“An orang-utan would have
no need for the weapons and medicines that we stashed along with the food and
blankets. She could potentially take things she could eat, but I don’t see her
taking lengths of pipe and rope, do you? But that’s not even the main reason I
know it’s not Lily.”

Shawcross raised an
eyebrow. “Oh?”

“I know, because I’ve been
leaving food out for her at night and by morning it’s all gone. She’s living
somewhere in the woods nearby and she’s well fed.”

Shawcross went bright red.
“You’ve been giving our supplies away to a goddamn monkey?”

“No,” Anna said calmly.
“I’ve been giving a few supplies to an intelligent primate. One of very few
left alive – even before the world went to shit. She has as much right to
survive as the rest of us.”

“Nonsense! You’re a
thief.”

“Hey!” Mike said. “Let’s
take it down a notch with the witch hunt, yeah? Anna is a vet and took an oath
to help animals in need.”

“Actually, vets don’t take
an oath,” Anna whispered, “but thank you.”

Mike carried on speaking.
“Anna is the only person who can help any of us if we get sick or injured, so
I’d say we best be nice to her.”

Shawcross folded his arms.
“So we should just let her do whatever the hell she likes, regardless of the
rest of us?”

“Hell yes. We were all
stuck in a kitchen when she found us. Without her we might still be stuck there
or, most likely, dead. She risked her life for us on more than one occasion, so
how dare you attack her like this?”

“I don’t mind feeding the
monkey,” Cassie said.

Mike shrugged. “Me either.
I couldn’t watch it suffer and starve.”

“She’s an ape,”
Anna said, “but I’m glad you don’t mind feeding her because I’m doing it
regardless.”

“What if we end up
starving?” Michelle said. “It’s just an animal. We’re people.”

“Exactly,” Shawcross said.
“We’ll be using animals for meat soon enough, so what’s the point in feeding
them?”

Anna shook her head. If
they were happy letting a rare species die, why bother wasting the breath to
argue? If that was how they felt, the world would eventually become a very
bleak and meaningless landscape, devoid of beauty. Anna would rather die than
live in a world like that. She turned away from the group, not wishing to
discuss it further.

“Where the hell do you
think you’re going?” Shawcross shouted after her.

“To find your thief,” she
said. “Then maybe you’ll stop blaming an innocent animal.”

“If I find out that you’re
behind this, Anna…”

“You’ll what?” Mike said,
before hurrying after Anna. The feeling of having someone on her side, ready to
fight for her, was unfamiliar. It’d been a long time since somebody had
supported her like that.

“You’re really sure that
Lily didn’t take the supplies?” he asked her.

“Yes. She’s been taking
the scraps I’ve been leaving and can probably live off some of the local
vegetation too. There’s no way she could have carried off all the supplies we
left. Whoever is responsible for the missing supplies is much more calculating
than an orang-utan.”

“You’re right. Whoever’s
taking the extra food is making a conscious decision to screw the rest of us
over.”

Anna took a seat on one of
the park benches. In front of them was the cable car station and behind it open
sky. The sun had begun to dip beneath the horizon and evening would arrive
soon.

“You know what’s crazy,
Mike?”

He put his hand on her
knee. “What?”

“That people scare me more
than the infected do. The undead don’t keep me up at night. Shawcross does.”

“The undead? Are we
calling them that now?”

“May as well call a spade
a spade.”

“I can’t believe Dave was
murdered and now someone’s stealing from the group. You’d think that with all
that’s happened, people would finally want to stick together.”

“Looks like the opposite
is happening. Life is about survival of the fittest – everyone out for
themselves.”

Mike asked the question:
“Who do you think took the supplies?”

Anna chewed her lip and
thought about it. “Do you really think that Nick killed Dave?” she asked
instead of answering the question posed to her.

“Couldn’t have been
anybody else. Trust the evidence. Didn’t they used to say that on some
TV show?”

“I don’t know. I’ve
forgotten what watching television was like.” She leant back on the bench and
stared up at the sky. “So, you think Nick did it, then?”

“I don’t know,” Mike
admitted. “Wouldn’t have pegged him as the killing kind before it happened, but
I suppose none of us are in any position to trust one another.”

“Don’t you trust me?” Anna
asked him, surprised that she was hurt by his words.

Mike blushed, his angular
cheeks blooming with colour. “Of course I trust you. You’re the
exception.”

Anna smiled at him. “Good,
because one of the only things keeping me sane right is knowing that I have you
on my side.”

“Always.” He leaned in for
a kiss and when they broke apart a minute later, the world had gone dark. It
took a couple of seconds before Anna realised that the darkness was coming from
a shadow cast over them. Before she could see who was standing over her,
something heavy struck her head and things got darker still.

Chapter Thirty-Six

It was nighttime when Anna
opened her eyes again and she quickly realised she was sitting inside a
greenhouse. She lifted her head, and winced as a lump throbbed at the back of
her skull. She was tied up, bound to a chair by her wrists and ankles. Mike was
beside her, unconscious.

“Mike,” she whispered.
“Mike, wake up.”

Mike didn’t move.

“I think he may be asleep
a little while longer,” said a familiar voice.  Shawcross emerged from the
shadows at the back of the greenhouse and eyed her like a hungry vulture. “Mike
received quite a blow to the back of the head. Might not wake up at all, I fear
to tell you.”

Anna spat. Just seeing the
man made her skin crawl. Knowing he was the one behind this current indignity
made her furious; that he felt he had any right to tie her up…

“Shawcross, you fucking
weasel. Get me out of this chair right now.”

“Now, now,” he purred.
“There’s no need for such hostility. I’ve let you in on my little secret. You
should be honoured.”

Anna looked at him with
disgust. “What secret?”

Shawcross stretched his
arms wide and gestured to his surroundings. “What do you think? I found the
greenhouse. There are enough plants in here and crops outside to sustain a
small group of us indefinitely. A small group.”

“When did you find it?”

“After you all turned on me
and put that brute Dave in charge. I was going to leave, but on my trek through
the woods I found this place. Besides, I couldn’t leave Ripley Hall to you
peasants. I need to be nearby for when it’s reopened someday. I am its manager,
after all.”

Anna looked around at the
greenhouse interior. There were long shelves; three tiers high, brimming with
tomato plants, cucumbers, and a whole host of other fruits and vegetables.
Stacked up in the corner of the building were all of the group’s missing
supplies.

“You took the supplies,”
she said. “All the shit you gave me, and it was you!”

Shawcross laughed. “Not
exactly, but close enough. Like I said, there’s enough here for a small group
to survive indefinitely. Our current group, however, is slightly too large.”

Anna’s stomach rolled as
she absorbed what she was being told. “What are you playing at, Shawcross?” she
demanded, rocking back and forth. “Untie me from this goddamn chair.”

“I’m afraid I cannot do
that, Anna. I’m sorry that things have ended up like this, because I have
always respected you, even if I have never particularly liked you.”

“I always thought you were
a wanker. Looks like I was right”

Shawcross growled at her
and pointed his finger in her face. “You’re in no position to sling insults. I
thank you for making this easier for me.”

“You can’t seriously be
planning to kill me.”

Shawcross slapped a palm
against his forehead. “Have you been listening to a word I’ve said? That’s
exactly what I plan on doing. The group of us won’t make it through with the
food we have. We’ll eat ourselves to death in a matter of months. However, with
a few less mouths to feed, we’ll be just fine. Nick is locked up with that
retard, Rene, and you and Mike are here with me, about to be disposed of. To my
knowledge, that’s all of the troublemakers dealt with.”

“Troublemakers?”

Shawcross nodded. “Yes.
You and Mike have been quite outspoken in your defiance of me. Today it became
unfortunately clear that neither of you are going to respect my authority.”

“That’s because you have
none.”

Shawcross scowled. “Don’t
I? Just look at the position you’re in. Look at what happened to Nick after he
attacked me. Look what happened to Dave for going up against me.” Shawcross put
a hand over his mouth. “Oops! Whatever have I said?”

“You killed Dave.”

“Of course I didn’t. I was
with you the whole time.”

“Then how?”

“Not for you to worry
about, Anna. You know, it really is such a pity that you couldn’t see my way of
thinking. If civilisation is over as we know it, then you and I would have made
a great match for a repopulation effort.”

Anna felt revulsion. “I’d
rather fuck a pig.”

Shawcross exploded, the
look on his face inhuman; so full of hate and malice, twisted insecurities.
“Maybe I’ll have you fuck every animal in the zoo before I kill you, or maybe
I’ll show pity and just teach you a lesson myself. You think I’m not man enough
for you? You’d rather choose an ambitionless moron like Mike – a man with zero
ambition, zero intelligence, zero—”

Mike flew out of his
chair, ropes hanging loose around his wrists. He tumbled into Shawcross and
tackled him to the ground.

“I’m intelligent enough to
get the drop on you, you greasy-haired motherfucker.” He held Shawcross down
and let fly with his fists.

While this was going on,
Anna started struggling frantically with her own bonds. The ropes were thick,
but the chair wasn’t. As she yanked and twisted, she felt the joints of the old
wooden chair begin to loosen. The armrests began to rattle.

Mike was still pummelling
Shawcross on the floor. Anna shouted out to him. “Mike! Help me.”

He saw her struggling to
get free and ran over to help her. “One sec,” he said, grabbing at the ropes
around her wrists.

The ropes slipped away and
she was free. With a hiss, she rubbed at her stinging flesh of her wrists.
Layers of skin had been grazed away, leaving two sore, red rings.

“Come on,” Mike said,
grabbing her. “Let’s get out of here. We need to tell the others about what
this piece of shit has done. Then we can all decide what to do with him. I vote
for lynching.”

Anna jumped up from the
chair and glared down at Shawcross on the floor. He’d rolled onto his side and
was looking up at her with hazy eyes, slowly regaining their focus.

“You son of a bitch.” Anna
kicked Shawcross the ribs and the wind exploded out of him in a pained gasp.
Then she kicked him again.

When she was done, she
turned back to Mike and the two of them headed for the exit at the rear of the
greenhouse. She had no idea where the hell they were other than in the woods
some place.

As they hurried, Anna had
a sudden, random thought. How did Shawcross have time to drag both her and Mike
out to the woods before anyone noticed? How did he kill Dave while he was with
everyone else? He couldn’t have done it alone.

“I can’t believe this,”
Mike said. “Was he always this much of an arsehole or was he—”

He stopped mid-sentence,
stumbling back against a rack of root vegetables. He placed his hands to his
stomach, a long knife sticking out.

A stranger emerged from
the shadows. A man Anna did not recognise.

Despite his wound, Mike
threw himself at the stranger. “Run!” he shouted at Anna. “Run!”

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Anna found herself in an
open field; deep woods surrounded her on all sides. Behind her, she heard
Mike’s struggles as he fought with his attacker. Someone had stabbed him. Mike
was badly injured and she was running away. But if she could find the others, she
could come back and help him.

Battling with the urge to
stay, Anna shot off across the field as fast as her legs would carry her. Roots
and unearthed vegetables tripped her several times but she kept on going. She
entered the treeline and left the open field behind. Shadows enveloped her as
the moon failed to penetrate the leafy canopy with any except a few thin shafts
of light. It was like running with her eyes closed, dodging trees at the last
minute whenever she was about to crash into them.

“Here pussy, pussy,
pussy.”

The voice was far off, but
still near enough to stoke Anna’s panic anew. She didn’t recognise the voice,
hadn’t recognised the man it belonged to back at the greenhouse. She prayed to
God that Mike was okay, but knew that he must have lost the battle if his
attacker was now chasing after her.

She ducked off in a random
direction, hoping it would lead her back to the park.

“Just stop running, girl.
I’ll be gentle, I promise.”

Anna jinked around a bush
full of nettles and headed for a tight cropping of trees, hoping they would
provide cover.

“Bitch, you winding me up
now. Give it up and come here.”

Fuck you! Anna almost shouted, but
managed to stop herself. The last thing she wanted to do was give away her
position.

She was surrounded by
apple trees. Their spoiled fruit littered the grass and crushed underfoot as
she ran. She found a long straight rut and moved into it, the hard, clear
ground allowing her to sprint more surely. The pair of parallel dips suggested
the regular use of vehicles in that area, which was encouraging as it might
mean she could follow it back to the park, if it led there.

“Bitch, I gunna find you.
Then I gunna party hard wid you.”

The voice was getting closer.
She might have only seconds before he found the clearing and spotted her. He
was faster than her, not as beat up as her.

Anna felt as if her knees
were turning to jelly as she thudded across the hard mud. A thicker treeline up
ahead was tantalisingly close, yet she just couldn’t seem to make it. It always
seemed close.

“Come out, come out,
wherever you are!”

Anna burst through the
treeline just as she heard her pursuer’s voice echo through the clearing behind
her. She’d made it into fresh cover just in time.

She might still be able to
get away.

Then something moved ahead
of her and she screamed.

“I hear you, bitch. Now
you in big trouble,” came the voice behind.

But it was in front of her
that mattered. Anna looked up at the branches overhead and was shocked to see
Lily. The orang-utan stared down at her and hooted.

The stitch in Anna’s side
was enough to drop an elephant, but she had to keep going. She had to keep
going until there wasn’t a single drop left in the tank.

Lily swung ahead, keeping
to the branches. Eventually she stopped and hooted.

“What?” Anna said. “What
do you want?”

Lily leapt to a new branch
and hooted again.

“You want me to follow?”

Lily swung to the next
tree, hooted again.

Anna followed Lily.

The orang-utan swung from
branch to branch, tree-to-tree, altering direction slightly every now and then.
Anna used the last of her reserves to keep up with the leaping animal.

“I see you, bitch,” the
stranger shouted close behind her. “Time to give it up for Daddy.”

Anna screamed. “Help.”

The gap between the trees
widened and the moonlight got brighter. Anna threw herself out of the woods and
then her legs finally gave out. She fell face-first onto the ground. Pavement.
She had fallen onto a path.

“Now you screwed,
sweetheart.”

Anna flipped onto her
back, but didn’t have the energy to get up. She was done.

The stranger stood over
her.

She tried to crawl away,
but could only flap her arms uselessly. She screamed out for help.

“Anna, what’s wrong?”

Alan raced down the path
and then stopped to look at her quizzically.

“Alan,” she cried out.
“You have to help me.”

“Nobody be helping you,
darling,” said her attacker. She saw now that it was a young black man. His
left eye was bloody and gouged, but seemed to be a few weeks healed. His
clothing was torn and muddy, a grey tracksuit just like the ones Jan and Rene
had worn upon their arrival.

Anna managed to climb up
and threw herself into Alan’s arms, clinging to him desperately. “He’s trying
to kill me, Alan. He stabbed Mike. Shawcross… Shawcross”

“Where is Shawcross?” Alan
asked calmly.

“He’s in a greenhouse. He
found the zoo’s agriculture plot.”

“Yes, I know,” he said.

Anna looked up at his
face. “Y-you know?”

Alan nodded. “Yes.
Shawcross showed a handful of us yesterday. Explained the food situation.”

“What situation?”

“That too many greedy
mouths to feed is going to mean big problems.” The young black man had moved
closer to them without any kind of urgency or fear.

“Alan,” she said slowly.
“Do you know this man?”

Alan smiled then shrugged.
“Calls himself Dash. Shawcross bumped into him a few days back. He’s been
staying at the greenhouse. He’s been helping us get set up.”

Anna pushed Alan away. “He
stabbed Mike.”

Alan sighed. “Hey, I liked
Mike, but there’s not enough food for all of us. Tough decisions have to be
made.”

“Decisions made by who?”

“By me.” Shawcross emerged
from the treeline, his face matted with blood and one of his eyes was swollen
shut. Mike had really done a number on him before taking a knife to the belly.

“You’re a psychopath,” she
shouted at Shawcross. “What gives you the right?”

“Taking it, gives me the
right. Some of us recognise what the world has become. If the human race is
going to survive, some of us need to be pragmatic. Until things are more
stable, we can support only the core group.”

Anna took a step back as
he approached her. “Core group? What are you talking about?”

Shawcross grinned. “You
could say the people who respect my way of thinking are the core group. The
rest of you are…disposable.”

Anna tried to run, but
Alan grabbed hold of her. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I really am.” He seemed to
genuinely mean it, for there was no pleasure in his eyes at all. She still
wanted to kill him, though.

“Let me go, Alan.”

“I can’t do that.”

She tried to shrug off his
grasp, but he was too strong, so she opted to knee him in the groin.

Alan doubled over in pain,
but managed to keep hold of her as he went down, still keeping her from getting
away.

Dash planted a right hook
on her cheek and sent her vision spinning as the ground came up to meet her.

“You right, Shawcross. She
a feisty bitch.”

“Just take her into the
woods and deal with her.”

“My pleasure.”

Anna blinked, trying to
steady here vision. She couldn’t get her feet to move as Dash moved to grab
her.

Something descended from
the trees. It landed behind Dash and then all of a sudden he was rocketing
forward. He landed on his face beside Anna, unconscious.

Alan screamed. Shawcross
backed away.

Someone had come to Anna’s
rescue.

Lily stood over her
protectively, making a guttural huffing sound as a warning to anybody stupid
enough to come close.

Anna lay on her side in
shock, unable to move, until one of Lily’s hands grasped at her shirt and
tugged. Get up, the ape was trying to communicate to her. Get up now.

Anna pushed herself onto
her feet and started backing away. Shawcross made a move towards her, but Lily
hooted aggressively, and he changed his mind.

Anna looked around and
realised she was in the zoo, not far from the cable car station. From there,
she could make it to Big Dog restaurant and find the others. She had no option
but to find them and hope that they would help her.

“You’ll regret this,”
Shawcross shouted as she ran away. “You and your goddamn monkey.”

Anna gritted her teeth.
She’s an ape, you idiot. For the last time, she’s an ape!

And she just saved my
life.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Up ahead, the Big Dog
restaurant came into view.

With nobody pursuing her,
Anna allowed herself to slow down. If she didn’t she was going to collapse
again.

She hobbled up the steps
to the restaurant and approached the open window. Peering through the gap, she
saw the glare of a half-dozen candles. Out of energy and almost out of fight,
she climbed through the window.

“Anna? What the bloody
hell’s happened to you?” It was Eve. “Are you okay?”

Anna shoved Eve away from
her. “Are you with them? Are you with Shawcross?”

“W-what do you mean?”

“Shawcross, Alan, and…and
some other guy. They killed Mike. They’re trying to kill me. Are you with
them?” Eve stood awkwardly, staring at her like she was mad. But Anna was not
mad. She lashed out and grabbed Eve by the throat, surprised by her own
ferocity. “Are. You. Fucking. With. Them?”

Eve shook her head eagerly
“No, no. Hell, no. I don’t even know what you’re talking about, Anna. Let me
go. We’ll sort this out.”

Anna let the girl go.
“I…I’m sorry.”

“You’re safe now,” Eve
said. “Okay?”

Anna said nothing. She
slumped against the wall and slid down to the floor. Eve disappeared into the
shadows, but returned with Cassie and Pauline. Cassie held out a drink for
Anna, which she took greedily.

She swigged the lemonade
down in one gulp and let out a gasp. “T-thanks. I needed that.”

“What the flipping hell is
going on?” Pauline asked her.

“Shawcross is a fucking
psychopath, that’s what. He kidnapped me and Mike. Now Mike is dead, at least I
think he is. I don’t see how he’s not.” The thought of losing Mike was enough
to send her into an endless flood of tears, but for now she just used it to
fuel her anger.

Pauline put a hand to her
mouth. “You can’t be serious.”

Anna got back to her feet.
“I’m serious. Shawcross will be coming here any minute. I need to find out
who’s on his side and who’s still fucking sane.”

“I had nothing to do with
it.” Eve quickly said. “I swear.”

“Me either,” Pauline said.

They all looked at Cassie,
the only one yet to speak.

“What?” she said. “I
didn’t know, either. I promise.”

“Okay,” Anna said. “So the
only people I don’t know about are Michelle and Jan. Where are they?”

Blank faces.

“I don’t know,” Eve said.
“Michelle was with Alan earlier.”

“I think it’s safe to say
that Michelle will be on whichever side Alan is,” Pauline said. “They’ve been
stuck together like glue for weeks. He’s become a bit like a father to her.”

Anna sighed. “Great. That
makes us outnumbered, especially if Jan is with them.”

“I reckon he is,” Eve
said. “He’s been pretty close to Shawcross the last few days – think he sees
him as the boss. He’s an ex-prisoner, probably likes having a regime to
follow.”

Anna slumped against the
wall. “Great. Last thing we need is having to go up against a hardened criminal
the size of the Hulk.” She suddenly thought of something. “That reminds
me. This new guy with Shawcross, he was wearing prison clothing. Spoke like a
wannabe gangster.”

Cassie whimpered. “W-was
he black?”

“Yeah, do you know him?”

Cassie nodded and became
ghostly pale. “It can’t be.”

“No way,” Eve said. “It
can’t be Dash…can it?”

“Who the hell is Dash?”

“A degenerate we picked up
along with Jan and Rene. We thought…well, we thought he was out of the
picture.”

“Well, now he’s back in
the picture and he seems pretty dangerous.”

Cassie whimpered again.

Anna stared at the girl.
“You okay?”

“Dash tried to hurt me
once. He…he frightens me.”

Eve and Pauline both
placed an arm around her. Anna didn’t have time to join them. “We need to arm
up,” she said. “Let’s get whatever we can, right now.”

“We can’t fight them off,”
Cassie said. “There are more of them than us, and they’re men.”

“No. Mike was a man. These
are little boys trying to have all the toys as well as the whole nursery. They
may have the advantages, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to lie down and get
fucked.”

“I’ll go get some things
to defend ourselves with,” Eve said.

“Okay, make sure mine is
something long and sharp. I need something to shove up Shawcross’s arse.”

Pauline looked Anna dead
in the eye. “You really think we have any chance of holding them off on our
own?”

Anna thought for a second
and then smiled. An idea had just occurred to her. “We’re not going to be doing
it on our own. We have reinforcements.”

“What do you mean?”

“Nick didn’t kill Dave. It
was Shawcross. He admitted it to me. He must have had Dash do it.”

“I knew it,” Pauline said.
“I knew Nick wouldn’t do something like that. Let’s get him out of that damn
cellar.”

Anna nodded and marched
across the restaurant. There was a door at the back of the bar, which opened to
the cellar staircase. She grabbed the brass handle and twisted.

It was stuck. Locked.

“Does anybody know how to
get this door open?”

“Shawcross has the key,”
Cassie said.

Anna booted the door in
its centre and then again next to its hinges. There were no weak points. It
wouldn’t give.

“We’ll never get it open
in time,” Pauline said. “They’ll be here.”

Anna shoved up against the
door once more but then gave up and sighed. If they had any chance at all of
fighting Shawcross’s coupe, they needed Nick. The other three women trusted him
and would crumble without him.

Anna banged her fists
against the door. “Nick! We need to get you out of there.”

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Nick opened his eyes and
sat up. He was hot and threw his itchy, woollen blanket to one side.  Rene, who
hardly ever seemed to sleep, was already up and was standing over Nick
patiently, as if he’d been waiting patiently for him to awake.

“W-what’s going on?” Nick
asked.

Rene motioned silently to
the cellar door. He had stopped talking again after their very brief
conversation.

“Nick, can you hear me?”
Anna was shouting from the other side.

“Anna, is that you? What
is it? What’s wrong?”

“It’s Shawcross. He’s lost
the plot. Mike’s dead and there’s some thug called Dash running around doing
Shawcross’s dirty work. They set you up over Dave’s murder.”

Nick wondered if he’d just
heard her correctly. “Did you say Dash?”

“Yes, Dash. As in the
third prisoner you picked up with Jan and Rene.”

Nick looked at Rene who
stared right back at him with wide eyes. There was no way Dash could be alive,
not after the fall.

Nick climbed the stairs.
“Open up.”

“Shawcross has the key.”

Nick grunted and punched
his fist against the concrete wall. “Damn it!”

Rene placed a gentle hand
on his shoulder. “Shawcross does not have the only key, my friend.” From within
the pocket of his tracksuit, Rene pulled out a long brass key that was attached
to several others via a Ripley Heights key ring. “Perhaps he should have
checked beneath the bar too, no?”

Nick stared at Rene with
disbelief. “You mean you could have let me out of here at any time?”

Rene tilted his head, a
sagely expression. “Escaping your cell would not have restored the other’s
trust in you. I had this key only for emergencies…”

Nick was just glad to have
a way out. He took the key from Rene and slotted it into the lock, giving it a
solid twist. The lock clicked and the handle released.

Anna wore a puzzled expression
when he opened the door. “What? How did you—”

“It’s not important.” He
moved past her and spotted Eve, and immediately headed towards her.

“Eve,” he said. “I’ve
missed you.”

To his surprise, she
wrapped both arms around him and squeezed him tightly. “I’m so sorry,” she
said. “I should have believed you. Shawcross is responsible for Dave’s death.
We should never have blamed you.”

Nick eased her away. There
wasn’t time for apologies, or any need for them either. “No harm done. Just
promise to trust me from now on.”

“I promise.”

He cleared his throat and
looked around at Rene, Anna, Cassie, Eve, and Pauline. A table in the middle of
the room was piled with makeshift weapons and he picked up a replica hunting
rifle from the midway shooting game. It would make a good club in a
pinch-especially since it had been modified with a nine-inch nail wedged into
the barrel like a bayonet.

The rest of the group
armed up. They stood in a loose huddle, staring at each other apprehensively.
Cassie looked the most nervous and was clutching a sharp blade against her
chest like it was a crucifix.

“So, just fill me in one
last time,” Nick said. “Shawcross has Dash with him and they are going around
killing people?”

“Alan is with them, too,”
Pauline said. “Maybe Jan and Michelle too.”

“Shawcross has this crazy
idea,” Anna explained to him, “that the group’s chance of survival is better if
there’re fewer of us. He’s found the park’s greenhouse and has stockpiled all
of our supplies there. Apparently there isn’t enough to sustain us all.”

“So the crazy sonofabitch
is trying to…what? Cull us?”

Crunch!

The group turned to the
open window as the sound of cracking glass and shattering plates came from
outside. Someone had breached the minefield, confident enough not to watch
their step.

“They’re here,” Anna said,
holding up a butcher’s knife.

“Everyone keep quiet,”
Nick said, “and get down.”

The group took cover
behind the bar.

Minutes passed.

Nothing.

Then something came flying
through the open window and thudded on the floor of the restaurant. It was a
severed head.

Anna moaned as she stared
at the disembodied skull. “Lily! You bastards.”

“We’ve killed your
precious friend, Anna,” came Shawcross’s nasally voice from outside. “If you
don’t surrender now, we’ll systematically kill every one of your precious
animals at the zoo.”

Anna started to cry. Nick
could see that the threat wouldn’t work on her, wouldn’t make her give up, but
it was upsetting her a great deal. It upset him, too.

“You’ll kill them anyway,”
she shouted back. “So don’t take me for a fool.”

“That’s the last thing I
take you for,” Shawcross said. “You’re a smart, rational person, Anna, so if
you come out peacefully I’ll rethink things and let you live.”

“You’re fucking crazy!”

“I’ve never been saner. I
am strength and endurance. I am leadership and intelligence. I am survival for
all those who follow me.”

“You’re batshit insane is
what you are,” Nick shouted.

“Ah, Nick. Is that you? I
take it that our darling, sweet Anna has emancipated you? Just another
transgression she’ll later come to regret.”

“Just give this up,
Shawcross,” Nick shouted from behind the bar. “You’re not hurting anybody else
tonight.”

“I beg to differ.”

There was silence for a
while. Nick again made eye contact with Anna as the two of them tried to figure
out what was happening.

Eve moved from her
position by the soda fountain and joined Nick at the bar. “Do you smell that?”
she asked him.

Nick smelt it: petrol. It
came in through the window and pooled on the wooden floor of the restaurant.

Pauline and Cassie
realised what was happening and looked at Nick like frightened mice.

“Come out,” Shawcross
demanded, “or burn alive.”

“Bite me,” Nick shouted.

“Do not test my resolve.”

“You won’t do it because,
if you do, you’ll be as screwed as we are.”

“And why is that?”

“Because you know that
fire attracts them. You set fire to this restaurant and you bring a
shitload of death up the hill. The dead and infected will be up here within the
hour, not to mention the fact that you could end up incinerating the whole
park. I don’t think the Royal Fire Brigade is operational anymore.”

There was silence outside.
Nick knew, of all things, Shawcross was a careful man. He was a planner above
all else. He wasn’t about to set fire to one of his biggest assets. He wouldn’t
scorch the earth he wanted to claim.

“I think you need to find
a Plan B,” Nick said, “and if it involves you coming anywhere near us, I’m
going to kill you, Shawcross, you fucking weasel. Understood?”

“You’ll regret this,
Nick.”

“Not before you do.”

There were sounds of a
discussion outside, the tone heated and irritable.

“What do you think they’re
doing?” Eve whispered to Nick.

“I don’t know, but we’re
sitting ducks in here. Sooner or later they’ll come up with a plan to get us
out, or kill us where we stand.”

“What do we do?”

Nick thought about it for
a moment. “I think we should leave here, but on our terms, not theirs.”

“What do you mean we
should leave?” Anna said, scurrying over to him.

“All we’re doing at the
moment is giving them time to think. I say we hit back now when they least
expect it.”

Pauline shook her head.
“Oh, bloody hell. I don’t like the sound of that.”

“Me either,” Cassie said.

“You’re right not to like
the sound of it,” Nick said. “It’s dangerous and could get us killed, but what
choice do we have? Shawcross put us in this position. Are we going to let him
win? After surviving for this long, after all that we’ve been through, are we
really going to let an arrogant pig like Shawcross determine our fate?”

“Hell fucking no,” Eve
said.

“Maybe we should just
surrender,” Cassie mumbled. “They haven’t tried to hurt me or Pauline. Eve
might be safe as well.”

Nick shook his head. “You
can do whatever you want Cassie. No one’s forcing you to do anything.
Just remember, Dash is with them. Remember when Dash tried to force you to do
things you didn’t want to do?”

Cassie’s eyes brimmed with
tears. “That’s not fair.”

“No, it’s not, and neither
is you refusing to pick a side. It’s time for you to shit or get off the pot,
Cassie. You have to pick a side, right now. Go out and join them or stay here
with us. Once you pick, though, that’s it. This is about survival – not just
about tonight, but for whatever comes next.”

Cassie wavered for a
moment, turning towards the window and then back towards Nick. Eventually she
sighed, her shoulders dropping. “Okay, I’m with you guys.”

“Glad to have you,” Nick
said.

“So how do we get out
there without being seen?” Anna said. “If we try to funnel out the window
they’ll pick us off easy.”

Nick rubbed his forehead
and formulated a plan as quickly as he could. “We deal with Shawcross the same
way I dealt with those brain-dead zombies at the bottom of the hill. We
distract him.”

Chapter Forty

“We’ll make him pay for
Lily,” Nick said to Anna as he knelt beside her and rubbed her back. Before
them lay the severed head Shawcross had tossed through the window.

“It’s not Lily,” she said.

“What? It’s an orang-utan,
isn’t it?”

“Yes, but it’s not her.
It’s Brick.”

Nick frowned. “Brick?”

“Lily’s mate. He died when
all this started. They obviously cut off his head to make me think it was Lily.
This one has been rotting for weeks, though. The skin has almost turned to
dust.”

Nick straightened up and
sighed. “Shawcross has lost his mind. What is he even fighting for?”

“The self-esteem he’s
always lacked,” she said. “He was a worthless wretch before all this. This is
his chance to finally be somebody, one of the Lords like the ones who used to
live in Ripley Hall. He’s starting as he means to go on. Power is not given, it
is taken. That’s truer now than it’s ever been.”

“Then I guess it’s time to
go to war,” Nick said. “We’re all clear on the plan? Does anybody need to go
over it again? No? Good. Let’s do this.”

Rene handed Nick the
bundle of keys he’d found beneath the bar. Nick was counting on one of the keys
unlocking the hatch in the cellar. The rear of the building led into a
fenced-off yard that hadn’t been barricaded or paid much mind to. It was a
clear route out of the back of the building.

He bid the others goodbye
and headed down into the cellar. Heart beating fast, he climbed up the rear
stairs and examined the steel lock fixed the door. There was one key made of a
similar tarnished-grey as the padlock and he inserted it into the lock. It was
a relief when it turned easily and he was able to shove the hatch cover
upwards.

The night flooded over
Nick like a living creature, a cold black mollusc clinging to his skin. He
quickly eased himself over the back fence and dropped down on the other side,
wincing as his feet struck the pavement.

He could hear Shawcross
and his cronies conspiring around the front of the building. Nick crept away.
If the plan was going to work, he needed to put some distance between himself
and Shawcross.

Coming up on his left was
the park’s rollercoaster, the Hood. Its walled-off surroundings would provide
good cover. There was a park bin nearby and kicked it over. The lid came loose
and spun across the pavement, making an almighty clatter.

“Shit!” Nick shouted as
loud as he could. “Come on, they’ll hear us. Run!”

He quickly hopped over the
waist-high fence that surrounded the queuing area and crouched down beneath the
elevated steel track.

“They’ve escaped,”
Shawcross shouted from the front of the restaurant. “Come on, I hear them over
there.”

Nick stayed hidden as he
listened to the footfalls of his pursuers get nearer.

“You a dead man,” Dash
shouted. It really was him.

“You’re supposed to be the
dead man,” Nick shouted back. “I watched you die, blud.”

“Can’t kill me,
honkey. Hit a dozen branches on the way down, but I walked that shit off like a
gangster. I lost my eye, though, and somebody needs to pay for it. You tell Jan
he’s got it coming too.”

Nick peered through a gap
in the fence. Was Jan not with them? Then where was he?

“He’s inside the rollercoaster
enclosure,” Shawcross said. “The others must be with him somewhere.”

Nick grinned. That’s
right, you arrogant fool, do exactly as I expect you to.

“Hey, Dash. When I’m
through with you this time, you’ll stay dead.”

Dash sucked his teeth, the
sound cutting through the air. “Come on down, hard man. Let’s see what you
got!”

Nick laughed. “While I’m
outnumbered? Don’t think so. When I take you down, it’s going to be just you
and me.”

“What do you mean…outnumbered?”
Shawcross said.

Nick bit his tongue. Had he
really just given himself away so soon?

There was a moment of
silence before Shawcross shouted, “He’s not with the others. He’s distracting
us. Back to the restaurant.”

Nick had to do something.
He shot out from his hiding place and sprinted after Shawcross. Dash was
standing in his way, accompanied by Alan and Michelle.

Michelle spotted Nick
first and shouted a warning, which led to Alan leaping out to block him. Nick
swung his rifle and clubbed the man out of his way. He had to push through to
Shawcross.

But before Nick got to the
man he wanted, Dash hopped out and smacked him around the head with a shovel.

Everything went dark for a
moment and Nick found himself flat out on the ground.

Dash loomed into view.
“I’m not impressed, honkey.”

Nick turned his head and
spat a mouthful of blood onto the pavement. He felt a tooth come loose and spat
it out. “Y-you pussy.”

Dash broke out in laughter
and stopped only long enough to raise the shovel so that it hung over Nick’s
neck, ready to take his head off.

Nick closed his eyes and
waited.

“Get it over with,”
Shawcross said.

“Say night, night, Honkey.”

Thump!

Dash staggered sideways,
tripping over Nick’s prone body before slumping to the ground.

Nick sat up and discovered
Jan holding out a hand to him. “Get up, brother. Looks like you’re having a
party, but no one invited me to dance.”

Nick took Jan’s arm and
leapt to his feet. He was dizzy from the blow to the head, but he was ready for
a bloody good fight.

Dash recovered and
scrambled to his feet. There was a screwdriver sticking out of his left
shoulder and he’d dropped his shovel.

“Are my eyes deceiving
me,” Jan said, “or is that ugly, one-eyed motherfucker, Dash?”

“It’s him,” Nick said.

“Survived so I could take
you bitches out,” Dash grunted at them, making a grab for his fallen shovel.

Nick tried to stop him,
but Dash grabbed the shovel and backed off. Instead of fighting, he made a run
for it, heading straight past Shawcross and disappearing into the shadows.

Alan, Michelle, and
Shawcross grouped together, keeping to a triangle and clutching their weapons
tightly.

Nick picked his weapon
back up off the floor. “Just give it up, guys. It’s over.”

“Nothing’s over,”
Shawcross said. “There are three of us and only two of you.”

“Maybe,” Nick said, his
words slightly slurred as his mouth had started to swell, “but Jan counts as
two, so we’re evenly matched. No one else needs to get hurt here, if you just
give it up.”

“You are the ones who
should give up. You cannot win.”

“I disagree,” Anna said,
hurrying up from the restaurant. Pauline, Cassie, Eve, and Rene were with her,
all armed. “After the day I’ve had, I’m quite happy to kill you fuckers right
now.”

Nick grinned at Shawcross.
“I don’t think the Geneva Convention exists anymore, so if you want to be
treated like human beings, I suggest you three put down your weapons.”

There was a standoff for a
moment, the air tense and vibrating. Then Michelle and Alan threw down their
weapons and put their hands above their heads. Shawcross, however, kept a firm
grip on his pitchfork and looked as defiant as ever.

“Give it up, Shawcross,”
Anna said. “It’s over. Michelle, Alan, grab a hold of him.”

Michelle and Alan turned
anxiously toward their former leader. “Come on, mate,” Alan said, reaching for
the pitchfork in Shawcross’s hands. “We’re finished.”

“Get off me!” Shawcross
shoved the pitchfork at Alan and buried it right in his stomach.

Alan rocked backwards,
clutching his torso as it began to bleed. Michelle screamed as her friend’s
bodily fluids spurted out onto the pavement. She reached for the pitchfork and
yanked it free, but that only made the bleeding worse. Alan fell onto his side
and let out a gurgling moan.

Shawcross took off like
lightning, taking advantage of the chaos. Nick, Jan, and Rene gave chase while
Anna and the others tried to help Alan.

Shawcross headed towards
the front of the park. Nick did his best to keep up. The wishy-washy feeling
inside his head prevented him from running full-speed and Jan, being so large,
wasn’t a great sprinter. If they weren’t careful they were going to lose
Shawcross. Luckily Rene seemed to be keeping pace.

They chased Shawcross
around the front of the park’s office block and past the open doors of the
warehouse. Beyond was Ripley Hall.

“He’s heading for the
manor,” Nick said.

“Isn’t it full of
infected?” Jan said.

“He’s got no place else to
go. Let’s not corner him into doing anything stupid.”

Nick didn’t like
increasing Shawcross’s chances of getting away, but he was out of breath.
Against his better judgement, he allowed himself to slow down. “Where were you
anyway, man?” he asked Jan. “You saved my arse back there in the nick of time.”

“A man spends long enough
in a prison, he starts to appreciate solitude. I was just walking in the woods,
enjoying the quiet.”

“I understand,” Rene said.

Jan looked at his fellow
prisoner, dumbfounded. “You…you talk?”

Rene shrugged. “Of
course.”

“Long story,” Nick said.
“I’ll fill you in later.”

“Fair enough.”

Shawcross was out of
breath. His running had slowed to a panicked stagger. In front of him was the
dark spectre of Ripley Hall.

“What are we going to do
with him when we catch him?” Jan asked.

“I don’t know. We’ll
figure it out once we have him.”

They entered onto the
lawns of Ripley Hall and stuck close to the trees. Shawcross kept glancing back
at them over his shoulder, but made no effort to increase his speed. He seemed
broken and unable to flee from them any faster.

Nick got close enough not
to have to shout and said, “It’s over, Shawcross. You’re done.”

Shawcross turned around to
face them from the steps of the house. “It…would appear so…wouldn’t it?”

“No one else needs to get
hurt, brother,” Jan said. “Just surrender.”

Shawcross shook his head
and gave them an icy stare. “You really think I’m stupid enough to do that?
You’d just kill me. You have no choice after what I’ve done.”

“No more killing,” Nick
said.

“Then what? What do you
plan to do with me?”

Nick had no answer.

Shawcross nodded slowly.
“Exactly.” He took another step upwards towards the door.

“What are you doing?” Nick
said. “Get away from there.”

“I’ve looked after this
house like it was my own for ten years, did you know that?”

Nick shook his head. “No,
I didn’t. We’ll get it back one day. We’ll make it safe.”

“I was in charge of a
piece of history,” Shawcross continued as if he hadn’t heard Nick. “Lords have
lived here, cousins to kings and queens. Powerful men with royal blood running
through their veins. My job was to walk in their footsteps and respect their
memory.”

“Where are you going with
this, Shawcross? What’s your point?”

“My point is that you all
fucked it up! You brought death to Ripley Hall. You tarnished its legacy and
now you scuttle around like rodents, disrespecting the history of where you
are, disrespecting my position as guardian of this place. You knocked me down,
you violated me, you reduced me to your level. You have no respect for
anything.”

Nick shook his head and
pitied the man. “It’s just an old house and a shitty amusement park, Shawcross.
A cash cow. The integrity of this place was lost long before we arrived.”

Shawcross took several
more steps upwards, almost at the door. “Hold your tongue, peasant.”

Nick put his hand up and
started after Shawcross. Rene and Jan went with him. “Get away from there. The
whole place is full of infected people.”

Shawcross shrugged. His
eyes were droopy and tired. He looked like a mad man and spoke in a faraway,
dreamy tone. “It is full of my guests, and I would be grateful if you referred
to them as such. I should go tend to them now, make sure things are in order.
It’s check out time.”

Shawcross headed up the
few final steps to the house and placed a hand on the door.

“Shawcross, just get back
from there, please.”

Shawcross laughed
pathetically. “Do you know what I think, Nick?”

“No, Shawcross, I don’t
know what you think, but we can talk about it, okay? Just step down from
there.”

Shawcross shook his head
and smiled grimly. He was no longer listening, talking only to himself. “What I
think is that we are all fucked, and if that’s the case, I think I’d like to be
with my house. It’s where I belong. I’m the manager, you see. Ripley Hall needs
its manager.”

Shawcross pushed open the
door.

“NO!” Nick shouted,
sprinting forward even though it was already too late.

The dead flooded out like
pus from a pinched wound.

They sprawled on top of
Shawcross and pinned him to the ground on the steps. His flesh was mercilessly
torn away by a dozen hungry mouths, but Nick didn’t hear the man scream.
Shawcross remained silent as they tore him to pieces, but the look in his eyes
was one of sheer terror. It looked like he was afraid of whatever came next. He
had never managed to make it back inside his precious house.

Nick grabbed Jan and Rene
by their collars and shouted. “Run!”

Chapter Forty-One

“He’s dead,” Anna told Michelle.
“I’m sorry.”

Alan had bled out quickly.
Anna suspected his celiac artery had been severed. Michelle was distraught.

“Help me get her up,” Anna
said to Pauline. “We need to help Nick. Who knows what Shawcross will try
next?”

Pauline and Anna each grabbed
one of Michelle’s arms, while Eve and Cassie stood nearby.

“Just leave me with him,”
Michelle begged.

“We’re going to look after
you, Michelle.”

They half-dragged,
half-carried Michelle as they headed back towards the restaurant. There were
noises coming from somewhere in the park.

Eve flinched. “What’s
that?”

“I know what it is,”
Cassie said. She sounded close to hysteria and was clutching her knife close to
her chest again. “I know what it is.”

It was the moans of the
undead.

“The infected are here,”
Eve said, terror in her eyes.

“No,” Cassie said. “The
infected scream, the dead moan.”

“Who gives a shit? If
they’re here then we’re screwed.”

Anna struggled to hold on
to Michelle, who had fallen into a catatonic state of shock. “Not necessarily,”
she said. “The dead are slow. We might be able to cope with them as long as
there’s not too many.”

“We need to find Nick,”
Eve said. “He might be in trouble.”

Anna nodded and reaffirmed
her grip on Michelle. “Okay, let’s get a move on.”

They headed over to the
restaurant, calling out for Nick and Jan along the way, but they found neither
man and continued onwards. The moans of the dead persisted in the distance.

“They sound closer,”
Cassie said.

“It’s coming from the
house,” Anna said. “Somebody has let them out of Ripley Hall.”

“Shawcross,” Eve said.

“Probably. He’s crazy
enough.”

Up ahead were the park’s
office building and the warehouse. The doors to the warehouse were wide open
and sounds came from inside.

Pauline stood still. “Is
it one of them?”

Anna wasn’t sure. It could
be Nick, so she called out to him.

There was no answer, but
the noises abruptly stopped. Bradley’s truck was parked in front and prevented
Anna from getting a clear view of the warehouse’s interior.

“Hold on to Michelle,” she
told Eve, then headed around the truck. The first thing she noticed was that
the crates of fireworks, and some of the remaining petrol cans. The second
thing she noticed was…

“Dash!”

Dash was bleeding from his
shoulder and the stains on his tracksuit looked black in the moonlight. The
half-healed wound of his blinded eye glistened.

“Hey, baby,” he said. “You
just in time for the show.”

Anna stared down at the
fireworks and then back up at Dash. “What are you doing?” she said. “Come out
of there.”

“No can do, sweetheart.
You fuckers blind me and stab me. They gunna be payback.”

Dash pulled a lighter from
his pocket and sparked it aflame. “From the gift shop,” he said. “Blinging,
huh?”

The flame seemed to hang
in the air indefinitely, flickering in the darkness and lighting the shadows in
a small cone of light.

Anna stepped towards Dash.
“You light those fireworks and every monster at the bottom of this hill is
going to start making its way upward. They’ll come from miles around.”

Dash grinned at her.
“That’s the idea, sweetheart. If I can’t have this place, neither can you.”

The lighter fell.

Anna stood in stunned
silence, as split seconds seemed to pass like minutes. Eve and Pauline screamed
from somewhere behind her.

The flame tumbled through
the air, landing inside one of the crates. For a couple of seconds, nothing
happened.

Then all hell broke loose.

Dash dove to the ground
just as the first firework exploded. A split second later, a hundred more went
off, some flying upwards and lighting up the starry sky, others whizzing around
the warehouse like flies in a jar.

Beneath the sounds of
exploding gunpowder and igniting petrol, Dash cackled like a hyena. He sounded
ready to die, so long as he took others with him.

Without realising it, Anna
had hit the ground too. She lay facedown, her nose mere inches from the
pavement, afraid to move.

Less than a minute later,
the final firework hit the sky and fizzled out. There was near silence, save
the soft crackling of flames beginning to take hold of the warehouse.

Anna shook, her stomach
hot, her heart aching. She waited for the inevitable.

And then it came.

Hungry moans filled the
air from all around; not just from Ripley Hall, but from the bottom of the hill
and distant villages. The moans carried on the wind from miles around.

The dead were coming.

All of them.

Anna leapt to her feet and
spun a panicked circle. Pauline and Eve joined her, but Michelle remained
slumped in a foetal position on the ground.

Dash made a run for it.

Anna headed straight after
him, unwilling to let the bastard get away with what he had just done. With the
loss of blood and his reduced vision, Dash was easy prey. She clattered into
him from behind and took him roughly down to the ground. She grabbed a hold of
his injured shoulder and made him scream in agony, but he surprised her by
striking back with his elbow, catching her in the eye socket. The blow rocked
her and Dash used the opportunity to transition off his back and climb on top
of her. He smashed her in the mouth with his fist.

“Told you I was gunna get
you, bitch.”

He hit her again,
splitting her lip. The blood in her mouth was hot and salty.

“I gunna make this last
all night.” He hit her again.

“Get off her, you son of a
bitch,” Cassie shouted.

Dash turned just in time
to see the knife coming, but was too surprised to avoid it. The blade went in
under his chin and slid up into his skull. He was dead before he could make a
sound.

Anna kicked Dash off of
her and watched him slump onto his face. Cassie had left the knife embedded in
his jaw.

“Are you okay?” Anna asked
her.

Cassie was trembling. Anna
put an arm around her, tried to console her, but was quickly pushed away. “I-I
killed him,” she said, as if she couldn’t believe it.

“It was him or me, Cassie,
and I’m glad you chose me.”

“We all are,” Eve added.
“You did nothing wrong.”

Cassie shook her head and
sobbed. “I-I stabbed him in the face.” She bent over and vomited. When she was
done, she straightened up and ran from them

“Cassie, come back,” Anna
shouted. She was going to give chase, but Pauline grabbed her arm. “You won’t
get to her in time.”

“Cassie, look out!” Eve
shouted.

In all her despair, Cassie
had run headlong into an approaching group of the dead. They fell over her like
a moving wall, their rancid, sticky bodies moving shoulder-to-shoulder. When
Cassie collided with a tall brunette woman, she fell to the ground and
screamed.

The dead woman fell on
her, biting into her face. Blood spurted into the air as Cassie’s nose was
chewed right off her face.

Anna couldn’t help
herself. She started forwards to help her, and this time both Pauline and Eve
grabbed hold of her. “She’s already dead,” Eve said. “You know that. We have to
get out of here.”

Anna closed her eyes as
the dead ripped Cassie apart. She gave her fear only one more moment, then
shook it away. “Okay,” she said resolutely, “let’s get our arses off this
bloody hill while there’s still a chance.”

“How?” both women asked.

Anna reached into her
pocket and pulled out Bradley’s keys. “We take that truck,” she said, “and drive
over anything that gets in our way.”

The dead were currently
occupied with Cassie’s half-eaten corpse, but more came from the house.

“Pick up, Michelle,” Anna
shouted. “We have to go now.”

The three of them grabbed
Michelle who was still a catatonic mess.

“Dump her in the back. We
don’t have time to make her comfortable.”

They hoisted Michelle onto
the truck’s flatbed and left her to flop onto her back. Anna hurried to the
driver’s side and put the key in the lock. The central locking engaged and the
doors opened.

“Eve, Pauline, get in,
now.”

The two women did as they
were told and Anna started the engine. The moment the vehicle came to life, she
instantly felt safer. The thought of being on the road, after having been
cooped up so long, felt exhilarating.

She shoved the truck into
reverse.

The dead came from the
house in droves. Anna could hear more of them coming up the hill from the car
park below. Soon, the entire park would be overrun.

“What about Nick and the
others?” Eve said. “We can’t leave without them.”

“They’re already dead,”
Pauline said.

“They can’t be.”

“They have to be,” Anna
said.

Then they all saw them.

“Jesus,” Eve said. “Is
that Jan?”

Up ahead, surrounded on
all sides by the dead, Jan fought for his life. He battled the dead bare-fisted,
clocking them with right hooks and snapping the necks of any who got too close.
Fighting side-by-side with him were Nick and Rene. All three men were unarmed.

“They’re going to get
ripped apart,” Pauline cried.

Anna gunned the engine and
shifted out of reverse. “Not if I can help it.”

The truck rocketed
forward, accelerating quicker than Anna had expected. Panicked, she aimed the
bonnet at the thick ranks of undead.

The first body she hit
went clean over the roof and landed behind them in a broken heap. Blood
splattered the windscreen. The second body went down rather than up and fell
beneath the truck’s thick tyres.

Anna stamped on the brake
and yanked the steering wheel sideways. More bodies went down as the truck went
into a skid, scooping them up like a plough. The windscreen finally cracked and
glass shards fell onto the bonnet.

The truck came to a stop.
The dead were all around.

Anna rolled down her
window slightly, screamed through the one-inch gap. “Over here! Get in.”

Amidst the roving shadows
of the undead, the three men turned around. They saw Anna and the truck and ran
towards it. They pushed and shoved at their attackers, dodging their grasps and
avoiding their deadly bites. The truck was their salvation, and they were so
near…

But the undead were just
too many. Their reaching, clawing hands made a net impossible to escape.

Anna watched in horror,
praying for her friends to make it, but there seemed to be no way through for
them. A dead waiter knocked Jan sideways with an elbow. The big man’s ankle
twisted beneath him and he fell to one knee. Probing hands dragged him to the
ground. He kicked out and caught a dead man in the chin, managed to snap the
neck of another, but as soon as one body fell away, two others joined it. He
couldn’t fight them all.

Nick saw that Jan was down
and stopped to help him, trying to push his way through all of the undead lying
between them. Rene tried to help too, but the dead were everywhere.

Jan disappeared beneath a
blanket of bodies. His angry shouting was the last thing any of them heard.

Anna shook her grief to
the back of her mind and focused. She shouted through the window. “Nick, Rene,
move!”

Nick shook his head in
despair at the loss of Jan, but turned and ran. Rene went right after him.

A scream startled everybody
sitting inside the truck. Anna craned her neck and looked through the rear
window. Michelle had snapped out of her daze and was now standing and screaming
hysterically in the truck bed. As soon as the dead spotted her, they headed for
the truck.

“Damn it,” Eve said.
“They’re all coming this way.”

The dead bunched together,
grabbing at Michelle’s ankles. There was no time to do anything. Michelle
tumbled into the hungry mob, screaming at the top of her lungs.

Nick and Rene made it to
the truck, both men exhausted and surrounded.

“In the back,” Anna
shouted. “Get in the back.”

The truck bounced on its
suspension as the two men slid through undead’s grasping hands and leapt onto
the truck bed. The dead clawed at them, trying to drag them back out again, but
the two men fought desperately.

Anna stamped on the
accelerator.

The truck bolted forward.

And stalled.

“Shit, shit, shit!”

A body leapt onto the
bonnet and thumped at the broken windscreen. Anna cursed and put the engine
back in gear.

The truck bolted forward.

And kept on going.

Undead fell beneath the
wheels. The truck whined unhappily under the additional stress, never designed
to drive over bodies.

“Where do we go?” Eve
said. “They’re everywhere.”

The dead were indeed
everywhere, and these were just the ones from Ripley Hall. The ones from the
bottom of the hill were only just arriving.

“We need to head for the
access road past the house,” Anna told them. “It leads down the hill and into
the towns. It’s how the staff and delivery drivers used to come and go.”

She sped up.

In the rear-view-mirror
she could see Nick and Rene fighting to hold on.

“Wait!” Eve shouted.

“What?” Anna said. “What
is it?”

“We need supplies or we
won’t last a week.”

“We have to go. We have no
choice.”

“What if we can’t find
food…or water?”

Something occurred to
Anna, something that made her drive towards the woods. “Hold on. I know where
we can get supplies, but we’ll have to be quick.”

She took the truck into
the treeline at the edge of the park. It was hard steering the truck through
the woods in the dark, but there was no choice but to drive slowly. She knew
the dead would be everywhere within the hour. Eve was right. They needed
supplies if they had any chance of surviving on the road.

She had to concentrate
hard to remember the way to the greenhouse. When the truck broke through the
trees and entered into the open area of crop fields, she knew her memory had
served her well.

The greenhouse was full of
supplies. The truck had a full tank of petrol. They might have a chance of
making it.

Something jumped in front
of the truck. Anna turned sharply to avoid it. The tyres skidded in the muddy
ruts and came to a shuddering stop.

Eve groaned. “What the
hell was that?”

“I don’t know,” Anna said,
peering out of the side window. “There was somebody in the road, but I can’t
see anything.”

A man leapt against the
side of the truck.

“It’s one of them,”
Pauline cried.

Anna felt her heart turn
to stone as she recognised the man outside.

It was Mike.

“Oh no,” Eve said.

Anna stared out at the man
she had been growing to love. The man who had made Hell almost liveable. Now
his loving eyes were puffy and his lips swollen and cracked.

“Anna! Anna, thank God.”

Anna stared at Mike with
disbelief. “You’re alive?”

Mike nodded. “Of course I
am. I could use a doctor, though, or maybe a good vet. Do you know any?”

Anna opened her door and
fell out on top of him, wrapping her arms tightly around his waist. “I thought
you were one of them.”

Mike winced. “Ow, ow.
Easy.”

Anna backed away and
looked down at Mike’s stomach wound. “How did you…?”

Mike pulled up his shirt
to show a layer of blood-soaked magazines layered over his abdomen. “He still
got me, but the armour took most of it. Just a flesh wound. The guy who jumped
us gave me a right beating before he left, but I’m okay. It wasn’t until I saw
the fireworks that I even found the strength to move. I take it the undead are
here?”

“Get in the back with Nick
and Rene,” she told the man she almost loved. “We’re taking supplies and
getting the hell out of here.”

Mike hurried to the back
of the truck where Nick and Rene helped him up. Anna hopped back in the
driver’s seat and put her foot down.

The greenhouse was just up
ahead.

Chapter Forty-Two

The truck pulled into an
area Nick didn’t recognise. There was a large, rectangular greenhouse in the
centre of a clearing and rows upon rows of planters either side of it. Even
from the outside he could see the treasure trove of supplies.

The truck stopped and Anna
got out. “Okay everyone,” she said. “Grab as much as you can as quickly as you
can. Who knows when we’ll have a chance to get more?”

They all got to work. Nick
went into the greenhouse before Anna, and together the entire group formed a
line, passing out boxes towards the truck. There were plenty of bottled soft
drinks and water, along with bags of dried seeds and nuts. What they didn’t
have much of was time. Nick had the least time of all.

Within ten-minutes, the
back of the truck was fully loaded with supplies, enough to sustain them for a
week or more. Nick stood beside the truck and waited for everybody to gather
around, ready to go. Once again they all held weapons, gardening implements
from the greenhouse mostly. Nick himself had armed up with a shovel.

“Okay,” Anna said, opening
the driver’s side door and readying herself to get in. “This is it. Time to go
see what’s left of the world. I can’t say we have much chance of making it, but
we’re going to do our best and at least we have each other. No matter what
happens, I just want to thank you all for reminding me what family is. Before I
met you people I had no reason to live. Now I have no reason to die.”

Everybody stood in
silence. In some perverted way, they were a family and they all loved
each other as brothers and sisters.

Nick took his opportunity
to say goodbye, as he wouldn’t be going with them. He cleared his throat and
moved to the centre of the group. “I just want to thank you all as well,” he
said. “You gave me something to live for after everything else was gone.” He
looked at Eve. “You especially, Eve. If I hadn’t met you I probably would’ve
given up before the first night was through. My son would have liked you.” He
chuckled. “My wife…not so much.”

“Come on.” Eve grinned.
“That’s enough sappiness for today. We have to get going.”

“Not me,” Nick said.

Eve frowned. “What are you
talking about?”

“I can’t go with you.”

“Why not?”

Rene stood in front of
Nick, cutting off the discussion before it had time to begin. He looked Nick in
the eyes suspiciously, curiously, yet compassionately. “You have been bitten,
my friend?”

“No way” Eve said, rolling
her eyes and scoffing. Yet there was a tremor to her voice that heralded her
deep concern.

Nick rolled up the sleeve
of his jacket and revealed the ragged bite wound on his wrist. “They got me
back at the house,” he explained, “right before we lost Jan.”

Rene had tears in his
eyes. “I am sorry, Nick. Truly.”

Nick sighed. “Yeah, me
too, buddy.”

Eve started crying. “I
don’t think I can leave without you.”

Nick hugged her tightly.
“Yes, you can. You have no choice. You’re a survivor, Eve. That’s why you’re
still here. You just keep on surviving, okay?”

She nodded, clearly trying
to hold herself together. Her lips were pursed tightly as she fought with her
emotions.

Nick took off his woollen
jacket and wrapped it around her shoulders. “You take this,” he said. “It’s
going to get cold soon.”

“It smells like you,” Eve
said, tears spilling down her cheeks.

Nick waved his hand. “Now
go. Get out of here before I try to eat you all.”

Teary-eyed, but knowing
what must be done, everybody climbed into the truck. Nick took the time to say
a separate goodbye to Anna. He knew the group was in her care now.

“Sorry it went down this
way, Nick,” she said.

“Me too, but somebody has
to stay behind to let the animals free anyway. Can’t leave them caged up to
starve to death, can we?”

Anna smiled. “I feel
better knowing they’ll be free. Thank you.”

“You just look after
everyone, you hear me?”

Anna snapped off a salute.
“I promise. I’ll miss you.”

She got into the truck and
started the engine.

Nick turned around to look
for Pauline. He couldn’t let her leave without giving her a hug too. She had
come a long way from the shattered wreck he had met on the bus. She and Eve had
been with him since the beginning.

He spotted her over at the
edge of the woods, pulling up some carrots and dumping them into a sack. She
had been in the crop fields while the others had remained around the
greenhouse.

Nick saw the danger before
she did.

Two dead men came out of
the bushes and grabbed Pauline by her arms.

“Pauline!” Nick sprinted
towards her, holding up the shovel he’d armed himself with. He reached the edge
of the clearing and smashed it against the two dead men’s skulls, one after the
other. Both of them fell to the ground, no longer a threat. But the damage had
been done. Pauline fell onto her side. Blood pumped from her neck and soaked
the grass. Her wide eyes stared at Nick.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered
softly to her.

She smiled and went still.

Nick looked back at the
truck and shouted. “Go! Get the hell out of here. More will be coming and you
won’t get another chance to leave.”

They all stared sadly for
a moment, but then Anna got the truck moving. She took it slowly at first, but
eventually sped up and bounded into the woods. The sound of the engine was the
last thing to go, leaving only silence in its wake.

Nick sat down on the grass
alone. He was going to miss them all, but it wouldn’t be for very much longer.
Soon he would be back with Deana and James. There would be nothing to regret.

He lay back on the grass
and gazed up at the stars, wondering what Heaven was like, glad to finally be
leaving Hell.

Epilogue

Nick had needed to work
fast to get all of the animals free in time. A moment longer and the dead would
have swarmed. They had finally made it up from the surrounding areas and taken
the park for themselves.

The various animals had
run wild as soon as Nick had let them loose, but the undead ignored them. It
was as if anything other than a human being was invisible to them. Hopefully,
the animals would find a way to survive. The world was there’s now to reclaim.
At the very least the world would now at least be better for the animals; no
more humans to round them up to slaughter in their droves.

Once he’d finished opening
up all the enclosures, Nick had climbed up onto the roof of the orang-utan
exhibit where the dead could not reach him. Now he sat at ease, watching the
dead men and women wander around aimlessly while he waited for the end.

He could already feel
himself changing. A deep exhaustion had fallen over him and his vision had
taken on an unnatural orange tint. His internal organs felt heavy in his chest
and abdomen, as if all movement inside of him had ground to a halt. He felt
dead already, and that his mind was merely slow in catching on.

Above all else, Nick felt
at peace. He could finally stop running, stop fighting, stop surviving. Truly,
his life had ended the moment James had died in his arms. Now he could finally
move on to whatever fate had lined up for him next.

Thud!

Nick turned around. He
didn’t flinch or even worry. Nothing could frighten him anymore. Fear only
existed with a possibility of loss. He’d already lost all he could.

Sitting on the roof behind
him was Lily. She’d leapt from a nearby tree and hooted at him now as she
shuffled closer. Nick saw that she held a carrot in her hand, which looked
suspiciously like the ones he’d seen at the greenhouse.

Lily reached out and
offered the vegetable to him, but he laughed and shook his head. “No, thanks, Lily.
It would just be wasted on me. You eat it.”

As if understanding, Lily
sat beside him and took a hefty bite out of the carrot. Nick reached over and
patted her fur.

“You can’t stay here for
long, Lily. I’m sick, and eventually I’ll become dangerous. I think you
understand that. For now, though, I’m glad you’re here. I hope you make it out
of this mess better than me.”

There was silence for a
while, Nick staring at the horizon. The sun was beginning to rise. It was his
last morning on Earth and he was feeling pretty damn good. The very notion was
absurd, but it was true. Death wasn’t so bad when you embraced it. It was a
relief to see the end in sight. The line at the end of a marathon.

“You think they’ll be okay
out there?” he asked Lily. He was thinking about Eve and the others. Their
chances of finding safety seemed pretty slim, but at least there was a
chance. “You think they’ll keep on surviving?”

Lily hooted.

“Yeah. That’s what I
think, too.”

With a smile on his face,
Nick lay back and watched the sun rise. A few minutes later, he rose with it.

The End

Path of
Infection

SEA SICK

Daniel Houser staggered
into Southampton General hospital and found his way to reception. A
weary-looking nurse peered back at him from behind an ancient CRT monitor. Her spectacles
were lopsided, which may have been because her ears were not level.

“Can I help you?” she
asked, quite obviously forcing a smile.

Houser cleared the fiery
gravel from the back of his throat and nodded. “Something’s wrong with me. I
think I have the flu or something…but worse.”

The nurse gave him a
curious look, as if silently pitying him for assuming he could possibly make a
correct diagnosis of himself. “Okay,” she said. “Fill out this form and I will
have someone come see you shortly.”

Houser took the form and
selected a seat in the waiting area. He was glad to see that the form was only
a single page long, but even the thought of filling that out felt like too
much. He was so…weak.

What on earth did I catch?

He plucked the stubby
pencil from the top of the clipboard and began filling out the questionnaire.
His hand was frustratingly unsteady.

NAME: Daniel Houser

DOB: 05/12/198

RACE: White British

Houser filled out the rest
of his details, including his parent’s address where he could be reached, and
then got down to a box marked: SYMPTOMS. With blunt pencil marks, he wrote: headache,
blocked nose, sneezing, itchy eyes, aching joints, stomach pain, throbbing
ears, dizziness…

Before Houser had chance
to write down more of his symptoms, a slender woman in a doctor’s coat entered
the waiting room. He struggled to his feet to catch up to her before she left.
She turned and smiled when she spotted him approaching. The name on her badge
read: Clark.

“Hello, sir. Can I help
you?”

“I…I need to see someone.”

The doctor looked past
Houser, at the chairs behind him. No one else seemed to be waiting for the
moment, so she nodded. “Okay. Is that your information?”

Houser handed over the
clipboard.

“Come this way.” Dr Clark
led Houser into a nearby examination room. She pointed to a treatment table in
the centre. It was lined with recycled paper from a roller at one end. “Hop on
up,” she said. “Let’s take a look at you.”

Houser failed to get
himself up the few inches onto the table and it took him a second attempt to
climb up onto its surface.

So weak.

The doctor headed over to
a cluttered desk in the corner of the room and examined the clipboard he had
given to her. After a few moments of checking his information, she turned to
face him and tutted. “We are feeling quite under the weather, aren’t we?”

Houser nodded. “I’ve never
felt this bad in my life. I feel rough as hell.”

“Well, my name is Dr
Clark. Let me see what I can do for you.” She pulled the stethoscope from
around her neck and placed the receiver against his chest by going up under his
t-shirt. “Hmm,” she said. “Your heart rate is a little fast. Have you taken any
drugs or alcohol in the last twenty-four hours?”

“I…smoked a bit of weed to
take the edge of my headache.”

She nodded. The admission
of guilt was obviously uninteresting in her line of work. “That could explain
it,” she said. “When did you start feeling ill?”

“Couple days ago. Some of
the guys I work with started feeling bad, too. We assumed it was a bug going
round. You get sick a lot living on a boat.”

The doctor raised an
eyebrow at him. “You live on a boat?”

Houser nodded. “I’m a
merchant sailor. We just docked in Southampton after a salvage operation in the
Med.”

“You…you weren’t involved
with that cruise liner, were you?”

Houser nodded. “Yeah, we
were one of the boats involved in the rescue attempts. There was no one to be
saved, though. We spent a day running nets and picking up debris, but
eventually we were ordered back to the mainland. It was all a bit strange, if
you ask me.”

Dr Clark was shaking her
head and pursing her lips. “It’s terrible what happened there. More than a
thousand dead, I heard.”

Houser nodded. “Nobody has
any idea what happened. They’re saying it could have been a terrorist attack. A
suicide bomber in the engine compartment or something.”

“I don’t understand this
world sometimes,” said the doctor. Then she seemed to refocus on what she was
doing. “So, you say you and your colleagues started feeling ill back on the
boat, in the Mediterranean Sea? Were you docked anywhere prior to that?”

Houser shook his head. “We
made a drop off in Civitavecchia the day before, but no one left the boat. We
just dropped off some shipping containers with the crane and then set off
again. I suppose one of the officers could have stepped off briefly to fill out
some paperwork.”

Dr Clark nodded her head
and seemed to run a few things through her mind. “Well, there hasn’t been any
health warnings. It’s probably safe to assume that you just have a nasty case
of flu. Not a lot I can do for you, unfortunately. I’ll give you something to
help the headaches, but you just need to get a lot of rest. You’ll feel better
in a day or two.”

Houser nodded weakly. “I
really hope so. I can’t take much more of this.”

The doctor patted him on
the back. “Just get some sleep and try your best to battle through it. I’ll be
back in a minute with your prescription.”

“Thank you, Dr Clark.”

Houser waited on the table
while the doctor headed out of the room. He was relieved to hear he just had
the flu. He’d suspected as much, but had also been supressing a gloomy concern
that it could be something worse. He knew flu was bad, but he didn’t know it
could be this bad.

Feels like my whole body
is turning to lead.

Houser felt his nose run
for the hundredth time that day and wiped at it with back of his hand. He
blinked his eyes a couple of times as they began to itch.

Dr Clark re-entered the
room with a prescription in her hand.

“Take this to the pharmacy
on the ground floor and-” Her words trailed off. She gawped at him.

“What?” Houser said. “What
is it?”

“Your nose!” She hurried
over to the corner desk and pulled some tissues from a box in the drawer. She
handed several to him in a clump.

Houser took the tissues
from her and noticed the blood which covered the back of his hand. It was
almost black it was so dark. “Wh-what the hell?”

A wracking cough exploded
in his chest and blood spurted from his mouth, covering Dr Clark from her face
all the way down the front of her jacket. She seemed shocked by it, but wasted
no time in leaning him forward and placing the stethoscope against his back.

Houser continued to hack
and splutter and more blood leaked from his mouth and nose. Through the sounds
of his own agonised heaving, he heard the doctor’s panicked voice.

“You’re lungs are filling
with blood,” she said frantically. “We need to get you into surgery.”

Houser tried to catch his
breath and make sense of the situation, but his mind was a raging blur.
Surgery? But I just have the flu.

Then he collapsed off the
table and landed on the floor.

DOCTORS AND NURSES

Dr Clark sat in her office
and examined the patient’s preliminary test results. Daniel Houser was
currently in surgery where efforts were being made to control his internal
bleeding. She couldn’t deny that she was worried. The blood coming from the
patient’s mouth had been thick and arterial. Most of it still stained her coat.

From some sort of internal
injury or…

I don’t know. Something
crazy, like Ebola or Lassa?

That’s insane. If the
patient had just gotten back from third-world Africa, perhaps there could be
the remotest chance of him having haemorrhagic fever, but he said he’d just
gotten back from the Mediterranean. The worst he should have been exposed to
there is sunstroke and dysentery.

She had a growing desire
to contact the disease control unit which covered her district, but she forced
herself to hold off until the blood results came back. Medicine had to be
practised on a factual basis. She wasn’t about to make assumptions with so
little information at her fingertips.

He could be a nut, for all
I know. Swallowed a bunch of nails as a way to kill himself. God knows it’s
more likely than someone bringing Ebola into the hospital.

There was a knock at the
door and she immediately said, “Come in.”

It was one of the nurses
from diagnostics. She was carrying a folder.

“Do you have the
haematology reports?” Dr Clark asked the woman.

The nurse handed over the
folder. “Just partial results so far. The blood tests seemed to be contaminated
by a foreign substance. We’ve compared the markers we could find against the
database of diseases, but nothing came up. Dr Besser is getting more samples
now and will be working on them as a priority.”

Dr Clark looked over the
blood report that was inside the folder. She scanned the page quickly and
located what she was looking for. “It’s not Ebola.”

“No,” said the nurse. “Nor
Lassa, or anything similar.”

Dr Clark sighed. “Then, if
not for this foreign body you mentioned, I would assume internal injuries.
Maybe the first blood sample was compromised. Maybe Dr Besser will find the new
tests to be normal.”

“Maybe so,” said the
nurse. “I will let you know if anything changes, Doctor.”

“Thank you, nurse.”

The nurse departed. Dr
Clark continued looking through the blood reports.

Foreign substance? What on
earth could that be? Did he poison himself with something?

She let her eyes scan the
numerous lines of data, looking for anything out of the ordinary. Nothing
seemed to jump out at her, until…

Silicon?

Why on Earth would there
be silicon in Houser’s blood?

She examined the rest of
the results and located several unknown proteins. There was a chance that those
proteins belonged to some kind of virus. She wouldn’t know for sure until
Besser did a full workup.

But the silicon…

Silicon was a substance
used mainly in electronics, and also for some cosmetic procedures. Daniel
Houser did not seem like the type to get breast implants.

So what? He has computer
chips running through his blood stream?

Dr Clark knew experiments
were being done that would produce machines and computers made from silicon
that would be small enough to exist on a cellular level, but the technology was
still in its infancy. Even getting something down to the size of a pinhead was
a vast challenge to most of the scientific community. Nanotechnology was
still closer to a pipedream than a reality, but for some reason it was the
thing she was thinking of now.

Aren’t they looking at
ways of bonding silicon-based machines with bacteria? Trying to find a way to
combine biology with technology to make self-replicating, self-sustaining
robots that can fight cancer cells and seek out infection?

Science fiction.

But Daniel Houser had
silicon in his veins.

Dr Clark scratched her
chin. She wasn’t about to believe in nanotechnology just yet, but the
presence of silicon in her patient’s bloodstream, along with the unknown
proteins, made her wonder if it was something manmade that had caused his
condition. The patient had mentioned a possible terrorist attack, after all. It
might be time to get someone else involved. She picked up the phone on her desk
and dialled in the number for Disease Control.

Someone on the other end
answered immediately.

“Oh, hello,” said Dr
Clark. “My name is Dr Clark. I am calling from Southampton General Hospital. I
have a patient that was complaining of flu-like symptoms about ninety minutes
ago, but his condition has suddenly progressed to internal haemorrhaging.”

“Did you run blood tests?”

“Yes. Negative for Ebola
and other conditions that would present similar symptoms.”

“Then what is your primary
concern?”

“I found silicon in his
blood.”

“Silicon?”

“And some unknown
proteins.”

The voice on the other end
of the line suddenly seemed more interested. “Has the patient been exposed to
anything?”

Dr Clark thought about
things and then nodded into the phone as she replied. “The patient is a
merchant sailor. He was involved with the rescue operation for that cruise ship
which sunk in the Mediterranean last week. He also said that some of his
colleagues-”

“Isolate the patient and
anybody who has been in contact with them.”

Dr Clark rocked back in
her chair as if the person on the other end of the phone had punched her.
“What?”

“We’ll have a team on site
within the hour. You must enforce emergency protocols immediately.”

“What is going on? Who is
this man? What does he have?”

There was a pause on the
other end of the phone, then… “Dr Clark, there have been dozens of cases in the
last few hours of people who were involved in the Mediterranean clean up
operation becoming very sick. We have quarantined several ships already and the
French Navy have currently closed all shipping lanes in the area. Your patient
must have fallen under the radar somehow.”

Dr Clark felt the blood
leaving her cheeks and making her face pale. “What does he have?”

“We…don’t know. The attack
on the cruise ship may have been down to terrorists. They may have released something.”

Dr Clark’s mouth fell
open. “I…”

“Just isolate that
patient, Doctor, and stand by for our arrival.”

The line went dead. Dr
Clark just sat there, holding the phone against her ear in stunned silence.

Then she leapt to her feet
and raced for the door. She had to get the situation contained. God only knew
what Daniel Houser had brought into the hospital, but she had a duty to contain
it. She quickly headed towards the emergency department and made her way to the
operating theatre.

We need to quarantine the
patient.

Oh God, oh God. What does
he have? His blood is all over me.

Houser was still in
surgery. Dr Clark pushed through the heavy double doors and entered the
theatre. The attending surgeon, Dr Bryce, looked up at her from behind his
mask. Both of his gloved hands were covered in blood.

He looked at her over the
top of his surgical mask. “Dr Clark? Can I help you?”

She nodded. “I just got
off the phone to Disease Control. We need to isolate this patient immediately.”

Dr Bryce and his two
attending nurses all shook their heads simultaneously and sighed. It seemed
like something they had been prepared to hear. “Great,” said Bryce. “What are
we exposed to?”

“I don’t know. They just
said to isolate him and ourselves until a team arrives.”

Bryce wiped some sweat
from his wrinkled forehead with the back of his arm. “Okay,” he said. “Let me
get him sown up. He should remain stable for now, but I don’t see him
recovering from whatever has gotten inside him.”

Dr Clark frowned. “What
did you find?”

“His organs have
liquefied. I knew there would be a story with this man. Let’s just hope we
don’t end up in the same condition.”

“I’m sure we won’t,” Dr
Clark said hopefully. “He might have been the victim of a terrorist attack. He
may not even be contagious.”

“Guess we’ll find out,”
said Dr Bryce. “I’ll let you know when I’m done here. You’ll be in your
office?”

She nodded. “I’ll stay
there until you’re ready to enact quarantine procedures.”

Dr Bryce nodded and got
back to work.

Dr Clark headed out of the
operating room and back towards her office. Along the way she bumped into Brad,
the floor’s security officer.

“Brad,” she said. “We need
to lock down this floor. Can you secure all the exits?”

Brad raised an eyebrow.
“Sure I can, but why?”

“No time to explain. There
may be an infectious disease in the hospital. Disease Control are on their
way.”

Brad seemed worried. His
lower lip was quivering. “Infectious? How infectious?”

Dr Clark sneezed.

She blinked tears from her
eyes and then sneezed again. Brad’s face was drenched with her mucus. She tried
to stay calm as she spoke to him, but was already losing herself to panic. “I
think it’s pretty damn contagious,” she said. Then sneezed again. “We have to
get this place locked up now.”

She ran off to lock all
the doors herself.

Brad, however, snuck out
quietly while nobody was looking. He was still wiping the doctor’s mucus from
his face as he headed across the car park.

FAMILY MAN

Brad hurried across the
hospital car park while trying not to cause suspicion. His instinct was to run
as fast as he could, but he didn’t know if people would be looking for him.

There’s no way I’m staying
in that cess pit with a disease on the loose. They don’t pay me enough for
that.

Brad knew he would
probably lose his job, but when he’d heard that there was something loose in
the hospital, a primal instinct had demanded he flee. His stomach ached, even
now, at the thought of Dr Clark sneezing all over him.

Dirty bitch.

Brad wanted to go straight
home, see his wife, but he didn’t know if the hospital would try to contact him
there. He also needed to work out a way to tell his wife that he had just
walked out on his job.

He had a better idea and
headed for the bus stop, hopped onto the 26 as soon as it pulled up. It was
packed full of people and he was forced to stand up and hold onto an overhead
rail. Luckily it would only be a short trip.

While he was waiting, he
smiled at a little girl with pigtails and bright orange bows. She smiled back
at him for a while but then turned to talk to her mommy.

Cute kid.

Sometimes Brad wished he’d
had a child, but he’d never earned much money and the thought of having to
spend the little he did have on another mouth to feed was too much for him to
consider. Deep down, though, it was probably because he knew he would make a
lousy father. He didn’t want to ruin a kid like his father had him.

The bus came to Brad’s
stop and he leapt out onto the pavement. He was in a rough part of town; a
housing estate full of low income housing and a dilapidated shopping centre. It
would be frightening to most people, but not to Brad. He visited the area
frequently.

He headed into a small
corner shop and nodded to the owner, who nodded right back at him, giving him
the permission he sought. At the back of the store was a door. Behind it was a
flight of stairs. Brad headed up and went through the door at the top.

A familiar musky scent
filled the air.

Sandy was behind the desk
as always. She seemed to work all hours. Brad headed up to her and smiled.

“Mr Brad,” she said in her
Nigerian twang. “What would you like today?”

Brad took out his wallet
and paid her £150 for the full works. He needed to de-stress in a big way.
“Everything, please.”

Sandy took the money and
nodded subserviently. “You want Michelle?”

Brad chuckled. “Of
course.”

“Second door on left.”

Brad headed into
Michelle’s room and was instantly aroused to find her lying on the bed in a
black and red negligee. Her petit Chinese figure was as alluring as ever. The
thought of penetrating her orifices was enough to make Brad forget all of his
worries.

“Hello, Brad,” she said
seductively. “It has been a long time. More than a week, no?”

“I’ve been busy,
sweetheart. Never stopped thinking about you for a minute, though.”

Michelle slunk down the
bed towards him on her hands and knees. “You want my ass?”

Brad laughed. “Let’s just
start with a blowjob.”

Michelle got to work. By
the time Brad came, his semen was already infected.

WET WORK

Michelle had slept with
seven men by the time her twelve hour shift had ended. She hurt all over.

At least now her shift was
finished. She intended never to have another one.

I’ve finally taken as much
as I can. No more sweaty men and their limp dicks.

Michelle had been brought
to England against her will and made to do terrible things. She had spent the
last six years being treated like a possession, leant out for money like a
power tool or lawnmower. She could take no more.

At first she had resisted
her situation, bit and clawed at the men until they beat her unconscious. But
eventually she had broken, succumbed to their demands. The last couple of years
she had behaved well enough that she had been allowed to live alone in a flat
and go about her own business in the rare hours she was not working. That was
why she would be able to do what she was planning to do. Nobody would know she
was missing until tomorrow.

And by then it would be
too late to stop her.

She went into the small
kitchenette of her flat and switched on the kettle. A mug of black tea would
help calm her nerves whilst she waited for what was to come. It might also get
rid of her splitting headache and clear her blocked sinuses.

Any minute now, I’ll take
that last step and there’ll be no going back. It will all be over.

There was a knock at the
door. Michelle gripped the edge of the kitchen counter and took a deep breath.

Here goes.

She went and opened the
door and let the man inside. He was tall and dark. Not what she had imagined.
He was also wearing a suit, which she also had not expected.

“Michelle Lin?”

Michelle nodded. “Yes,
please take a seat, Detective.”

The tall man did as he was
asked and took a seat on the worn, leather sofa in the centre of the room.
Michelle went back into the kitchen again and made a second cup of tea. She
brought it, along with her own, over to the coffee table.

Her guest smelt strongly
of aftershave.

She took a seat on the
recliner opposite the sofa. “You can protect me when all this is done, yes?”

The man nodded. “Yes, we
will keep you safe. We’ll set you up with a new life and you can forget about
this entire chapter of your life.”

Michelle grinned. The
feeling of warm relief running through her stomach almost made her forget about
her headache. “I am very grateful to you, Detective Marsh. You are my last
hope.”

“And you are ours. Can you
really help us bring down the Kahn prostitution ring? You have evidence?”

“Not evidence, but I can
tell you everything. Not just about prostitution, but drugs, too. Mr Kahn is
into everything. I know exactly what and where; all of his movements, all of
his clients. I can even tell you where his shipments come in.”

Detective Marsh grinned.
“With all that, Mr Kahn will ruined. You could expose his clients, humiliate
them. The police could catch him red-handed with enough drugs to put him in
jail for the rest of his life. You are positive you are prepared for all of
that?”

“Yes. I want to destroy Mr
Kahn, and all of the sick, perverted men that make him rich.”

Detective Marsh leant
forward and took a sip from his tea. Then he just sat there on the sofa for
several seconds. He seemed to be mulling something over.

Michelle was feeling
anxious. Her headache was getting worse. “I can tell you everything,” she said.
“Just tell me when to get started. I know everything.”

Detective Marsh stood up
and let out a sigh. “No, Michelle. I’m afraid you do not know everything; but
you do know too much.”

Detective Marsh took out
the black-market pistol that Mr Kahn had given to him and fired it three times
into Michelle’s chest. The blood spatter that found its way onto his shirt was
teeming with a virus that had made its way all the way from the Mediterranean
Sea.

LONG ARMS

Detective Marsh took a
shower at home and then headed right back to work. The police station was
unusually abuzz and several of his colleagues were frustrated that they had not
been able to get a hold of him in the last few hours. He’d simply told them he
was busy.

Busy killing a hooker.

Marsh felt beads of sweat
running down his spine. It was not a hot day and he wondered why his skin was
so clammy. He put it down to the stress of committing a murder – his first and
hopefully his last. But if Kahn had anything to do with it…

Why the hell did I ever
get into drugs and hookers? I’m the world’s biggest fucking idiot.

The dispatch floor was
teeming with bodies as the telephone staff patched calls through to the
relevant departments. It seemed like something was going on. Too many calls.

Something’s obviously hit
the fan.

Marsh stomped over to the
offices and headed for the Briefing Room. He’d had a feeling he would find
several of his colleagues there, but he was surprised to find that half the
officers on staff were standing inside.

“Marsh! Where the hell
have you been?” It was DI Winters, and she did not look happy.

“Sorry, Ma’am. I
was…otherwise engaged. What’s going on?”

DI Winters shook her head
and cursed. “Chris, will you take him away and brief him, please. We need to
get moving.”

Detective Chris Cox left
the assembly and took Marsh out into the corridor. The first thing he said was,
“You look like shit.”

Marsh shrugged the comment
off. “I’m fine – just a cold or something. What’s going on?”

Chris shook his head and
cleared his throat. “Nobody knows, really. Southampton General has been
quarantined because of some super-bug. We’ve been hearing that people have
gotten really sick, and that they’ve been attacking each other, as well.”

“Attacking each other?”

“Yeah. No one can make
much sense of it, but some calls got through from within the hospital about an
hour ago. There’s a group locked up inside that are claiming some of the
infected people have gone mad and are trying to kill them. Winter is trying to
figure out a way to respond without breaking the quarantine around the
hospital.”

Marsh was shocked. It had
never been an ordinary day at the office, but it was getting even weirder. “Do
we know what the cause is?”

Chris nodded. “The World
Health Organization have got involved. They’re saying something about that
terrorist attack in the Med is responsible. They think some kind of virus got
loose.”

“Shit! How the hell did it
make it over here?”

Chris shrugged. “I don’t
have all the details. We’ve been responding to so many calls that nobody really
knows what’s going on.”

“Why so many? Are the
cases not contained to the hospital?”

“Mostly, but there have
been some strange calls from all over the place. We’ve been asked to help the
NHS locate and detain any suspected locations of the virus outside of the
hospital.”

“What? What locations?”

Chris sighed. “Whatever
this virus is…it’s spreading.”

Marsh flopped back against
the wall. “I don’t want to get involved with any nasty diseases. That’s not my
fucking job.”

Christ, I just want to go
home and get high. Smoke this day away into oblivion.

Chris shrugged. “Our job
is to follow orders, and right now it’s all hands on deck. I was about to help
set up a checkpoint at the train station. Winters wants us looking out for
signs of sickness in high traffic areas.”

Marsh bit his lip and
breathed out through his nose. “Goddamn it! Okay, I’ll tag along, but I swear
if I catch smallpox, I’m going straight to the union for damages.”

“You’re not going to catch
smallpox,” Chris said, chuckling.

But Marsh had already
caught something far worse.

WHISTLE-STOP

Chris didn’t like the way
his partner looked. Marsh was a hard-living kind of guy and would often come in
with the tell-tale signs of a hangover, but today was different. No hangover
could have made him look like the heavy-breathing bag of shit he looked like
today, though.

“You feeling okay?”

Marsh looked over from the
passenger seat and sniffed. “I’m fine. Must have been something I ate. Just
stop gawping at me.”

“Okay. Just let me know if
you need to take off. You’ll be no use to me, sick.”

Chris brought the unmarked
police car into the train station car park and pulled it into one of the
spaces. It was the middle of a weekday so the station wasn’t as busy as it
could have been, which would make life easier.

Especially if we have to
lock the place down.

“So what are we looking
for?” Marsh asked.

Chris turned off the
engine and answered the question. “Sneezing, bleeding, sweating. Flu-like
symptoms that progress to haemorrhaging and aggression.”

“Christ almighty,” said
Marsh. “What kind of maniac unleashes something like that on purpose?”

“We don’t know anything
right now. We just need to be vigilant.  Better safe than sorry.” Chris opened
his door. “Come on, there should be a couple of uniforms inside waiting for
us.”

Marsh started coughing,
but he opened his own door and stepped out with Chris. The sun was beginning to
go down, which gave everything a dull orange tint. Chris always found dusk to
be a depressing time of day, neither light nor dark. It was the day’s limbo and
easy to get lost in.

Chris had to usher Marsh
across the car park and towards the main building that housed the station. It
was a medium-sized hub, consisting of six platforms, ticket office, and a row
of shops and fast food restaurants. There was probably less than a hundred
passengers waiting on the platforms. It would not be impossible to survey them
all.

Up ahead, two uniformed
officers stood in their fluorescent yellow jackets. They recognised Detective
Cox when he approached them.

“Everything been okay
here?”

The larger of the two
officers nodded. “So far so good. Haven’t seen anything alarming. The staff
here have all been asked to watch out for anyone suspicious.”

“Good,” said Chris. “We’ll
take it from here.”

The two police officers
nodded and left them to it. Chris decided to get himself set up with a coffee
before he got to work. “You want a drink, Marsh?”

Marsh glanced at him. His
eyes were red and bulging. His nose was running. “Yeah, cheers. Get us a tea;
white, two sugars.”

“Coming right up.” Chris
headed off to the small coffee shop that served the station. There was no one
else inside except for an acne-ridden barista. He placed his order, stood and
waited. A radio hissed away from a nearby counter.

Reports…mass sickness…Southampton
General…police cordon…

Chris shook his head.
Things were obviously no better. His radio had remained silent for the last
hour and he knew that it was likely because everyone was so busy. Nobody had
time to check in with anybody else.

Hopefully whatever it is
has been contained to the hospital. If this thing spreads then the terrorists
will have giant smiles on their goat faces.

Chris had lost a distant
cousin in the 9/11 attacks. He could not claim any great loss, but the loss of
a family member – however distant – gave him a connection to the atrocity that
perhaps others in the UK did not have. To them it had been a horror movie
unfolding on the news. For him it had been real. Punishing evil people for
their torment of others had been his driving force ever since. Drug dealers,
abusive husbands…nothing was too big or small to elicit his concern. His role
in life was to stop the bad guys, but right now it seemed like they had scored
a victory. It made Chris feel sick.

The barista came back with
his order. He paid the young man and asked him a question. “Has anybody called
in sick today?”

“Nope. We don’t need many
staff on during the week. Just me and the manager at the moment. He’s in the
back.”

Chris nodded. “Okay, just
wondering. Thanks.” He took the hot beverages and headed back to where he’d
left Marsh standing. His partner was still in the same position, but he was
slouched like a bag of potatoes, letting all his weight hang downwards.

“Marsh!”

His partner did not reply.

“Hey, Marsh. Get your head
in the game, man.”

Still no reply. Chris
huffed and stepped around in front of him. He didn’t expect to see what he did.

“You’re bleeding.”

Marsh snapped out of his
daze and looked at Chris. His nose was leaking blood all the way down onto the
tip of his chin. “W…what you talking about?”

“Your nose! Here…” Chris
pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and held it to his partner’s nose. The
blood was coming thick and fast.

Marsh crumpled at the
knees. Chris tried to hold him up but was only able to ease him to the ground
slowly. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

Marsh wasn’t responding.
His body was rigid and he was going into some sort of seizure. Chris placed his
hands gently behind his partner’s head and cried out for assistance. A moment
later, the barista from the coffee shop and several nearby commuters had come
to help.

Chris shouted at them as
they stood around gawping. “Call an ambulance.”

One of the passengers took
out their phone and begun dialling. The coffee shop employee dropped down onto
his knees beside Chris and went to grab a hold of Marsh’s flailing body.

Chris shot out his hand.
“No! Don’t restrict him. Just let the seizure end on its own.”

The young barista stared
down at Chris’s hand clamped around his wrist. The stained handkerchief was
scrunched between his fingers and blood had smeared all over his forearm.
“Dude! You got blood on me.”

Chris withdrew his hand.
“I’m sorry. Go get yourself cleaned up.”

The barista hurried back
into the coffee shop, while Chris held onto his partner. Marsh’s seizure was
coming to an end, but blood continued leaking from his nose. It had also began
to seep from the edges of his eye sockets. The gathered spectators held their
mouths and gasped.

It was then that Chris had
a realisation. He has it. He’s caught the virus we’ve been sent here to look
for. Shit, Marsh, what the hell have you been up to?

Then he had another, more
frightening thought. He’s infectious. I need to close this whole place down.
God knows how many people he’s passed this onto already.

Chris let go of Marsh,
letting his body slump to the ground. He shot to his feet and pulled out his
radio. It crackled as he spoke into it. The panic in his voice was obvious.
“Dispatch. This is Detective Cox. The virus has spread.”

BEANS

“I can’t believe I got that
dude’s blood on me,” Danny said to himself as he marched across the car park.
His shift had ended at the coffee shop and he’d been heading out. He didn’t
even know why he’d stopped to help that guy.

What else could I do? He
was flipping the fuck out.

Danny had cleaned himself
up in the coffee shop’s kitchen and then headed out the back door to the car
park. He didn’t want to get drawn in to any of the commotion that was happening
out on the station’s platform. There seemed to be some sort of panic going on,
which was hardly surprising given the state of the dude having the seizure.

What the hell was wrong
with that guy? Epilepsy?

Who gives a shit? I gots
to gets my party on.

Danny had been looking
forward to seven-o-clock all day. The time where he could finally skip out of
work and catch his ride to Birmingham, where Joey would be throwing the party
of the century. Joey was one of his best buddies and grew up in a house the size
of a supermarket. It had tennis courts, a swimming pool, snooker tables, and
everything else his millionaire parents could think to buy. And for the next
week, the house was in Joey’s care while his parents were on a cruise. It was
going to be the best few days of Danny’s life. A whirlwind of booze, drugs,
laughs, and clunge.

Nirvana baby!

Danny picked up his pace
and headed up the hill towards the bus station. Coming down the road, in the
opposite direction, was a police car. Its sirens were on and its driver
eyeballed Danny as he passed.

What you looking at, pig?

Danny rounded the corner
and stopped just outside the bus station. He wasn’t due to catch a bus; Joey
would be picking him up in his parent’s Audi. It was a sweet ride and if it was
warmer they could have had the top down all the way up the motorway.

Oh well, can’t have
everything.

Sure enough, Danny spotted
Joey idling in the sleek black Audi and quickly dashed towards him. He slung
open the door and hopped in.

“Hey, D-Man, how’s it
going?”

“Yeah, good. Except some
dude just bled all over me.”

Joey looked at him. “For
real?”

Danny shook his head.
“Don’t worry about it. Let’s just get this party started.”

“Hell yes!” Joey gunned
the engine and the two of them got going. They sped right past a row of police
cars heading towards the train station.

“You know what all these
pigs are doing?” Joey asked him.

Danny shook his head and
looked out of the window. “No. Maybe it had something to do with the dude that
collapsed on the platform.”

“A guy collapsed?”

“Yeah, was bleeding
everywhere like a stuck pig.”

“Gross.”

Danny let out a long
breath as he thought about getting the guy’s blood on him. “Yeah, gross.”

“Well, I’ll be doing some
pretty gross things with Stephanie later tonight. If I can get it up, that is,
with all of the booze I’m gonna drink.”

Danny smiled. “Tonight is
going to be hardcore.”

Joey bashed the car’s horn
three times. “Hard-fuckin’-core!”

Danny sneezed.

Joey opened the electric
windows on both sides. “Dude, I can’t be doing with getting sick. You gonna
start sneezing and shit, do it out the window. I can’t be driving three hours
with Mr Sniffles.”

Danny wiped his nose with
the back of his forearm. “Sorry, man. I don’t think I’m getting sick. I feel
fine.”

Then he sneezed again.

PARASITES

Stephanie had just given
Joey the shag of his life and he felt epic. His friends were having fun all
around and it was all because of him. He would go down as a legend for this.

The motherfucking party
master.

Joey slid off his bed and
got dressed while Stephanie used the shower in the en suite. The thought of her
all wet and naked was enough to get him aroused all over again. But there would
be time for that later. He had to play host; make sure his guests were having a
time they would never forget.

He checked his watch. It
was two-thirty in the morning. The night was still young.

He headed out onto the
landing, passing by necking couples and chatting friends. They all gave Joey
the thumbs-up as he passed them. Someone handed him a beer and he broke the tab
merrily. He had never felt so good.

Except for the headache.

And a sore throat.

That git, Danny. I knew
his sneezing was gonna get me sick.

Joey headed down the stairs,
shoving people back against the wall if they dared get in his way. He knew it
was stupid to blame his friend for passing on a harmless bug, but it was the
worst timing. So much planning had gone into this party that he would kick off
big style if he wasn’t able to enjoy it.

I’ll wring his bleedin’
neck.

He knew he would find
Danny in the billiards room. The guy was a whiz with a cue and would no doubt
be hustling the other guys out of their money.

Someone was coughing
nearby. Somebody else sneezed.

Goddamn it. Did Danny
catch the lergy or something?

The billiards room was
just up ahead, off from the main lounge. Joey headed inside and spotted Danny
on a stool behind the bar. He was chewing on some girl’s neck.

“Danny!” Joey shouted.

Danny moved the girl aside
and looked over at him. “Hey, dude. How’s it going?”

Joey marched across the
room. The girl that had been with Danny left, sporting a huge hickey on her
neck.

Classy.

Danny headed behind the
bar and stood in front of his friend, who was teetering unsteadily on the
stool.

“What’s up?” Danny asked
him.

Joey examined his buddy.
He looked like hell. His eyes were swollen and red. His nose was dripping snot.
Even his lips seemed sore.

Great, what the hell has
he passed onto me?

“You don’t look good,
man.”

Joey laughed. “I’m sound,
mate. I’ve done so much coke tonight that I could shake off a stab wound like
it was a mosquito bite.”

“Well, you passed whatever
you have to me, you dirty little shit. I can’t be doing with feeling rough,
man.”

Danny leant forward on his
stool and almost fell off it. He put his hand on Joey’s shoulder. “I have the
cure, dude. Don’t you worry.” He held up a small baggie of white powder.

Joey snatched the baggie
and grinned. “Don’t go thinking this means I’ve forgiven you.”

He tipped the baggie
upside down and emptied the powder onto the bar. Immediately, others in the
billiards room drew in closer.

Coke parasites. Flash a
bit of powder and they come out of the woodwork like lice.

Joey was pleased to find
that there was enough in the bag for half-a-dozen lines. Enough to share and
still get a buzz on. When he accidently sneezed on the powder and reduced the
amount by one line, he was pretty pissed off. The anger only lasted a moment,
though, as he and five others took a hit.

All of them got more than
they bargained for.

DAWN OF THE DEAD TIRED

Gaz was exhausted. The coke
he’d done at Joey’s had worn off and now he felt like shit. In fact, everyone
at the party was generally feeling like shit. When he’d finally left, people
had been puking all over the place or lying on the floor with a bad case of the
sniffles.

Gaz had a headache and a
sharp pain in his chest. His vision was also a little blurry. The thing he
wanted now more than anything else in the world was his bed. But getting there
might not be so easy.

At the back door to his
house, Gaz checked the time on his phone: 06:00. The sun was just rising. He
used his key to unlock the door and gently clasped the handle to go inside.
When he stepped through into the kitchen, his mother was there waiting for him.

“Where the hell have you
been?” she demanded.

He rolled his eyes and let
the door close behind him. “At a friend’s.”

“All night long? Doing
what?”

“Nothing. Just watching
movies.”

She stood in front of him
and stared into his eyes. “You’ve been doing drugs, haven’t you?”

“Mom, just give it a rest.
What’s your problem?”

“My problem,” her voice
began to break into sobs, “is that my fifteen year old son is out all night
doing God knows what. I can’t cope with you anymore. You’re going to have to go
live with your dad.”

Gaz went to the fridge and
pulled out a pint of milk. “I’d rather live on the street.”

“Then do that, then. You
can’t stay here if you’re not going to do what I tell you.”

Gaz swigged the milk and
enjoyed the way it felt against his sore throat. It did nothing for his aching
stomach, though.

“Look, mom, I-”

“I don’t want to hear it,”
she said, covering her mouth and starting to cry. “Just go to bed.”

Gaz nodded. He was too
tired to argue with her. She never gave up with the nagging.

Annoying cow.

Gaz left his mother crying
in the kitchen and headed upstairs. He took the milk with him. If he didn’t get
at least twelve hours sleep then he was going to be absolutely lagging. The
only way to get through the down effects of coke and booze was to sleep through
them and that was exactly what he intended to do.

He stomped up the stairs
feeling heavier and heavier as he ascended. For a moment, he wondered if he
could even make it to the top. He had to heave and push himself just to keep
his knees working.

The light on the landing
was switched on and the first door on the left was ajar; a black rectangle of
shadow between the door and the frame. A small white face peered out at Gaz.

“Jordan, what are you
doing up?”

Gaz’s little brother had a
sleepy glaze over his eyes but seemed happy to see him. “Where have you been?”

“Not you, too,” Gaz said.
“Why is everybody so interested in my life?”

“Sorry.”

Gaz gave his brother a pat
on the head. “I’ve just been at Joey’s. I’m going to bed now. You should get
another couple hours as well or you’ll be tired at school.”

Jordan nodded his head
dreamily. “Okay.”

Gaz patted his little
brother on the head again and headed to his own room. Before he got there,
Jordan called out to him.

“Hey, can I have the rest
of that milk, Gaz? I’m thirsty.”

Gaz turned around. He took
one short swig and then handed the rest of the milk over. “Sure thing, bro.
Drink it and then go back to bed. Have a good day at school.”

“I will,” said Jordan,
swigging from the milk and gasping. “See you later.”

But he never would see his
brother again.

THE CIRCLE OF DEATH

Jordan wanted to go home.
He felt sick in his tummy and his eyes were itchy. He wanted to lie on the sofa
with mommy and watch cartoons, but the teacher wouldn’t believe him when he
said he was sick. It was because he was always fibbing and trying to go home.
He hated school and missed his mommy. Today, though, he wasn’t lying. He really
was poorly.

It was the last break of
the day and there was only English class to sit through before he could go
home. He didn’t mind English – it was much better than Math. Maybe, if he
wasn’t feeling better later, mommy would let him have tomorrow off.

His friend, James, was
nearby, playing games on his mobile phone. James’s dad worked in a phone shop
so James always had the latest ones that were out.

“Can I have a go, please?”
he asked.

James smiled and handed
the phone right over. James was a good friend.

“You still feeling
poorly?”

Jordan tapped at the touchscreen
and nodded. “Yeah. I want to go home, but the teacher won’t let me.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay.” Jordan
started a puzzle game with fruits. The flashing colours hurt his eyes slightly
but he didn’t mind. He wanted to play.

“What lesson do you have next?”
James asked.

Jordan didn’t reply. He
was too engrossed with the flashing fruit. Usually he found games like this
boring, but somehow the movement held him captive. His hearing went dull.

“Hey, Jordan, did you hear
me?”

Jordan was busy. He moved
the fruit about, matching colours and winning points. Time seemed to slip away
as a headache took over the small spaces inside his skull.

The movement. I like the
movement. I like things that move.

When the lesson bell
sounded, Jordan didn’t hear it. Neither did he hear James ask for his phone
back. When the other boy snatched at the phone, to take back what was his,
Jordan was surprised by the rage that filled him. He leapt at James and managed
to catch his finger between his teeth. James pulled his hand back and
immediately started crying.

I’ll kill you…

What…what am I doing?

Jordan put his hand out in
desperation as his friend ran off to tell the teacher. He didn’t know what had
happened. He had just felt so…mad. Something inside of him had made him bite
his friend and now that it had happened he felt dizzy. His headache had
suddenly gone, leaving behind an all over numbness. His vision had gone a funny
colour, too, and it was hard to catch a breath. Most of all, though, Jordan
just felt scared.

He curled up on the floor
and started to cry. He didn’t know what was happening to him as he waited for
the teacher to come and tell him off for biting James. He just wanted his mommy
to make it all better.

But she never would.

CLOSURE

Treadwell examined the bank
of television monitors displaying news feeds from all four corners of the
Earth. The explosion of the Spirit of Kirkpatrick in the middle of the
Mediterranean Sea was an unforeseen complication. The spread of the nano-virus
throughout mainland Europe had been vastly hindered by the ship’s failure to
reach land – but the Easter-Virus had managed to get out anyway. Its eventual
spread would be unstoppable. The ominous news reports flashing on the
television screens made this clear.

It will be unstoppable.

Most of the news station
were reporting early occurrences of the virus, but they were yet to understand
the full ramifications of what it could do. They had no idea what the
Easter-Virus was designed for – what it was engineered for. The
self-replicating nano-delivery system was working perfectly, making sure that
every single victim got a massive and immediate dose. Symptoms would occur in
less than one hour in most cases. Full presentation of symptoms would take up
to a full twenty-four hours, though. That was when the virus would become truly
unstoppable. That was when patients would start to actively hunt down anyone
healthy and deliberately infect them. The virus would become less infectious in
itself at that stage, but its carriers would become far, far more deadly. Even
killing them would not stop them – the nano-virus was programmed to maintain a
clumsy, yet effective control over the carrier’s motor functions even after
death.

It is a true marvel. Man’s
greatest inventions.

Treadwell smiled and
rubbed at the coarse black stubble on his chin. The death toll had not even
started yet, but once it did it would rise and rise until the world population
dwindled. Then New Dynasty could begin its real work. Rebuilding the world as a
utopia. A world without famine, war, greed, and laziness. It would be a
productive world full of marvels, instead of the corporate mess the current one
was. Gluttonous companies like Black Remedy, TBD PharmaTech, and Christoil
would have no place in the new world. Their death grip on the international
economy and its Governments was about to come to an end. New Dynasty were
poised to take over.

But before that could
happen there would be a period of slumber. Beneath the Earth, the members of
New Dynasty would lie in wait while the virus did its work above. Soon every
nation on Earth would be cleansed, while the future leaders of the new world
lay safely in bunkers that had been three decades in the making.

In less than one year the
world’s population would total just ninety thousand – and all of those people
would eventually rise from their bunkers like phoenix from the ashes. Treadwell
felt honoured to be amongst that small number.

His legacy of software
engineering, along with his unrivalled fortune and his willingness to share it
with the needy, had bought him a place in the Scottish bunker, buried deep
beneath the Highlands. He commanded the five thousand personnel that would go
on to represent the British Republic. When the virus was confirmed in America,
Africa, and Asia, members of the Dynasty in those countries would also go into
hiding. In just the last ten minutes, Treadwell had received word that their
American payload had been released in Texas inside a convention centre. Soon
the greatest nation on Earth would begin to fall. Soon, everywhere else would
fall, too. New nations would rise, led by the Dynastic Council.

A true democracy.

Treadwell watched the
television screens for another twenty minutes before getting up. There was a
lot of work to be done, lots of preparations to be made. He had a part to play
in the greatest event in human history. Mankind was about to enter a new
dynasty.

The old one was about to
die.

TO BE CONTINUED…

BOOK 2 OF 7

SAVAGE

GARFIELD

Fungus sprouted
underfoot.  It covered everything lately.  With each lumbering step that the
dead took they shed flesh, which melded with the earth and gave life to all
manner of strange flora.  Even in death things grew.

But the world had not died yet, not really: it had just changed – tilted
in such a way that the lowly fungus was better sustained for life than the once
mighty human race.  Perhaps we were never cut out for ruling the earth in
the first place.  Maybe it was always intended for the mushrooms and the
insects.  They’re the only things thriving.

Garfield was one of the last humans left alive and, as he crested a muddy
hill, his steel toecap boots sank into a muddy puddle left behind by a recent
drizzle.  Winter was still winter in England and the heavens still enjoyed a
good downpour.  One thing the dead could not change was the weather.

“There’s a garage over there,” Kirk informed Garfield, a fellow member of
the foraging party.  The younger man pointed his gloved hand off to the east,
at an old petrol station with shattered windows.

Garfield nodded.  “Checked it out last week with Lemon and Squirrel.
Empty.”

Kirk grunted and stomped off to continue his search.

Garfield shook some of the wet mud from his boots and glanced around from
the top of the hill.  He thought about all that had been lost, as he gazed
across the barren landscape, which had once hosted horn-blaring lines of
gridlocked traffic and rushing ambulances.  Nothing moved anymore, though: the
cars on the highway were relics, rusted bumper to rusted bumper, long abandoned
and forever unable to get where they were going.  It was like a twisted oil
painting of what life used to be like – all murky greys and decaying browns.
Garfield missed all of the vibrant colours that no longer existed: the bright
reds and greens of Christmas decorations or the gleaming yellow of a sleek
sports car.  Now there was only rusted metal and faded cloth.

The nearby petrol station held little use, the fuel in its pumps useful
only for starting fires (and there were many simpler ways to do that).  Food
and drink were valuable, not oil and petroleum, and Garfield knew that the
modest forecourt contained none of the former.  Very few places did any more.  We’re
going to have to trek further.  There’s nothing left around here anymore.
We’ve picked it all clean.

The area around basecamp was relatively safe.  It was a rural area and
mostly deserted.  There were, of course, packs of the dead wandering around
from time to time – that was true anywhere – but their presence could be
spotted early and avoided easily.  Even now, half a mile away, Garfield could
see a shambles of perhaps a half-dozen dead in the distance.  The rotting men
and women were bumping and clawing against a chest-high wooden fence meant to
keep horses contained – now it contained them.  Garfield knew their clumsiness
would keep them there forever – eternally penned in by an obstacle that would
have been easily surmountable had they still been alive.

The sprinters would have leapt that fence easily, Garfield
thought.

Since the last of the sprinters (infected people, flooded with rage and
the desire to kill) had died out and become slow, rotting zombies, it had been
much easier to survive.  Garfield and the group of foragers had now only to
contend with a foe that was clumsy and stupid – still very dangerous, but
predictable also.  There had even been rare words spoken around camp lately of
hope – fantasies that things might one day go back to normal.  Garfield was not
so childish to believe such notions.  There was no coming back from what the
world had become.  It was irreversible.  The best any of us can hope for is
to survive.  The time of feeding ducks in the park with ice cream in hand has
slithered from our grasp forever.  There are no more children’s parties, no
more fireworks, no school holidays or trips to Disney.  It’s gone.  All of it.

A sharp yell from behind Garfield made him spin around on his toecaps.
Immediately he yanked a long screwdriver from a pocket inside his black woollen
overcoat and held it out ready – ready to pierce skull and brain.  So used to
fighting was Garfield that the slightest bump or thud could prompt him to
uncoil like a spring.  And now it’s time to uncoil once again.

At the bottom of the hill, one of the foragers had slipped in an oil
puddle leaked from the chassis of an articulated lorry.  Beneath the vehicle’s
rusted axels crawled a rotting corpse.  The dead man held a firm grip on the
forager’s ankle and was clambering towards him through the oil slick.

Garfield reached the bottom of the hill in a flash; with a speed he’d
never possessed in his previously sedentary life as mechanic.  He leapt towards
the struggling forager and wasted not a single second in driving his long screwdriver
into the side of the dead man’s skull, piercing the temple with a loud crack!

Like the sound my old ma used to make taking apart a crab.

The corpse stopped its attack.  The screwdriver stuck out of its head
like a lever.  The frightened forager lay frozen beneath the corpse, panting
and moaning for help.  Garfield kicked the dead body away and helped the
forager to his feet.  His name was Marty, a nineteen year old lad who had
survived the early days of the infection by locking himself inside the pet shop
in which he worked and living off the animal feed – then eventually the animals
themselves.  He often spoke with a smile on his face about how good chinchilla
meat was compared to chipmunk.  Despite the grizzly admission, Marty was a good
lad, friendly and helpful.

“Thanks, Garfield,” Marty gushed.  “I thought I was a goner.”

Garfield smiled.  “You’re welcome.”  Then he pulled a claw hammer from a
hidden compartment up his sleeve and smashed it into the top of Marty’s skull.
The other foragers backed away, staring at Garfield like he was a murderous
lunatic.  Perhaps he was.  Is anybody sane anymore?

Garfield wiped the bloody hammer on his black woollen overcoat, adding to
the darker patches already staining the fabric, and then replaced it up his
sleeve.  He shrugged his shoulders at the other foragers and pointed to Marty’s
body.  “I did him a kindness.”

The other foragers glanced down at Marty’s ankle and saw the wound there,
clear as day: a bright red gash in the shape of a human mouth.  The corpse
beneath the lorry had doomed Marty the moment its mouldy teeth had broken
skin.  Garfield had done nothing but put an animal out of its misery.

The other foragers sighed, but they nodded also.  Each understood the way
of things.  A bitten man was a dead man.  Nobody wanted to become a zombie.

“Come on,” said Garfield.  “Let’s get back to camp.  We’re going to have
to plan a new route for next time.  There’s nothing left around here anymore.”
Probably nothing left anywhere.

The men shuffled their feet, picked up their backpacks, and got moving.
Garfield had just turned away when a banging inside the articulated lorry’s
container alerted him.  The foragers turned back around, various makeshift
weapons instantly at the ready.  They were well trained for battle.

Garfield pulled a small hand axe from his belt and joined them.

The banging continued, weak but obvious.

“It’s just one of them,” said Kirk.  “We should just leave.”

Garfield knew it was stupid, but his mind kept turning to the half-dozen
men and women forever trapped inside the horse paddock half a mile away.  The
thought of a creature, which had once been human, trapped inside a rusty
container for all eternity, brought him a peculiar sadness.  “Open the doors,”
he grunted.  “There might be supplies inside.  If there’s a dead man, it means
nobody has checked it out recently.  We can’t afford to ignore what supplies we
might find.”

The foragers sighed.  As experienced as they all were with handling the
dead, nobody ever took it for granted.  They had just lost a man to a bite, and
they knew it could happen again to any of them in an instant.  A dead man’s
jaws closed fast, and taking unnecessary risks made the possibility of being
bitten far greater.  Garfield stood firm in his decision, though.

Kirk crept around to the back of the container and took a firm grip on
the release handle.  The other foragers readied their weapons and waited.

Garfield stood in front of the container’s doors with his axe ready.
“Soon as the doors are open,” he told them.  “Keep back.  If it’s anything we
can’t handle, make back for camp immediately.  If I’m still intact I’ll come
with you.”

Kirk nodded, then shoved the steel lever down and pried open the locking
bar.  He yanked open the left-side door.

Creeeeeak!

Garfield stared into the black rectangle of darkness.  The banging inside
the container had stopped, replaced by a delicate shuffling.  He grabbed a hold
of the right-side door, which was still closed, and began edging it open.  Soon
both doors were hanging wide and the black rectangle of darkness grew in size.

The shuffling continued.

Garfield glanced at the foragers.  All of them stood ready, primed to
attack, but so far there was nothing to alert them other than the shuffling
noise.  At least it sounds like there’s only one dead man inside.  But it
only takes one to end you.

Garfield placed a gloved hand onto the lip of the open container and
heaved himself up onto one knee with one leg still hanging down, ready to carry
him backwards at the first sign of danger.  Once it was clear that nothing was
going to lunge at him, Garfield gained some confidence and pulled himself fully
up inside the container.  Into the darkness I fade.  May my light lead me
through.

It was a quote Garfield often told himself.  He’d first seen it almost a
year ago, written in blood on pavement outside a mosque.  Often he wondered who
had written it and what had become of them – and whether or not the blood had
been their own or someone else’s.  I’ll never learn the answer.

As Garfield entered the shadows of the container, his eyes began to
adjust and the blackness turned to grey.  The container was almost bare, save
for a few loading pallets stacked towards the back.  The contents towered up
towards the ceiling and blocked any view of what lay behind them.  Something
moved ahead of him, a brief shift of the dusty air. Garfield took a slow step
forward.  The thud of his heavy boots on steel echoed around him.

The shuffling resumed.

It knows I’m here.

Garfield took another step, his axe out in front of him ready to split
open a skull.  His eyes gazed up…down….up…down….

Can never tell where they’re going to come at you.  Just as many chomp
on your ankles as those that face you head on.

One more step was all it took for Garfield to spot the squirming body on
the floor.  His eyes had now fully adjusted to the dim light and he could see
clearly.  The discovery was pretty much what he’d expected.  The dead man
wriggled between two pallets stacked high with toilet paper rolls.  A grubby
brown blanket covered him and two steel crutches lay on the floor nearby.  A
blanket?  Crutches?  Guy must have been injured; came in here to die in peace.

Garfield raised his axe, ready to bring it down on the man’s exposed
head.  It was hard to tell in the dim light, but the zombie may have had a
rusty crop of ginger hair matching the colour of Garfield’s own.  That was a
strange thing.  Most of the dead had nothing left on their heads but dirty grey
clumps laced with maggots.  Being trapped in here must have kept him in
better shape than being out in the open.  Maybe he died recently.

Garfield placed his boot on the dead man’s chest and squeezed the shaft
of his axe.  “I never asked for this,” he whispered, “and I’m sure you didn’t
either.”

Garfield swung his axe.

The zombie reached up a hand.  “Please.”

“Shit!”  Garfield managed to divert his swing at the last moment.  The
axe buried itself in a roll of toilet paper and ensnared itself in the plastic
wrapping that secured the rolls to the pallet.  “Jesus Christ!  You’re alive.”

The man was weak, skinny, and in obvious pain, yet he was undoubtedly
alive; though the stink of him was as bad as any dead man.  Garfield could see
sweat on his forehead and upper lip.

“You’re bitten.”

The man managed to shake his head.  “No.  No…”

Garfield snorted.  “You’re not bitten?  You sure about that, because you
don’t look too perky.”

“I…I’m sure.”

Garfield felt he was being lied to; and that made him angry.  He flicked
aside the man’s blanket with his steel toecap and was vindicated by the blood
that caked his t-shirt.  “Not bitten, huh?  Looks to me like something took a
good chunk out of you.”

“Bullet.”

Garfield raised an eyebrow.  “Somebody shot you?”

Guns were outlawed in the United Kingdom and now that the world had ended
they were even harder to come by.  Garfield had not seen a firearm since the
Army’s initial failed response to the infection.  Their automatic rifles and
machines guns had quickly run dry and the brief appearance of firearms had
ended.  Bullets did very little to stop the dead when you don’t know to go for
the head.  It was a lesson most of the world had learned too late.

Bullets can still put a nice dent in a living man, though.

The injured man moved a feeble hand to his t-shirt and pulled it up over
his thin stomach.  Sure enough, there was a perfectly round hole where
something – quite possibly a bullet – had entered his torso at the side.  It
was hard to say for sure if the man had been shot, but at the very least it was
clear that he had not been bitten.

He may as well have been, though.

“There are no doctors,” Garfield said.  “Probably best that I put you out
of your misery.”

“N-no.  I can make it.”

“I don’t think you can.”

The injured man waved a hand.  “I’ve been badly injured before.  I can
make it.  I just…I just need some help.”

Garfield let out a long breath.  The best thing to do was to end the
man’s suffering right here.  A dying man was nothing but a burden – to himself
and anybody who tried to help him.

“Please…”

Garfield pulled his axe free of the pallet’s plastic lashings and lifted
it onto his shoulder.  The man looked up at him pleadingly, but his eyes were
rheumy and weak.  Death was closing in on him fast.  Best to just end it
now.

Garfield made a decision.  He turned and walked away, exiting the
container and re-grouping with the foragers outside.

“What did you find?” Kirk asked him.

“Couple pallets of toilet paper.  Would make good kindling for our fires,
as well as having more obvious uses.  It’s a luxury, but it’s all we have.  Get
it out and load it up on the sledges.”

Kirk nodded.  The toilet paper was better than nothing.  They all enjoyed
returning back to camp to the cheers and back-pats that accompanied a full
sled, and hated the sullen faces that greeted them whenever they came back
empty handed.  The toilet paper would probably suffice in lieu of anything
else.

“Was there a dead man inside?” Kirk asked.  “The shuffling?”

Garfield cleared his throat.  “Oh…yeah, there’s an injured man inside.
If he’s still alive by the time we leave then I guess we should take him with
us.”

“Was he bitten?”

Garfield shook his head.  “No, but he may as well have been.  The poor
sod’s been shot.  Slim hope he’ll even make it back to the pier with us.”

Kirk seemed surprised.  “But…who has guns?  Do you think there’s another
group out here someplace?”

“I don’t know,” said Garfield, “but I would much rather avoid them if
there is.  They have guns and we don’t.”

POPPY

Garfield and the others
had been gone ages.  Poppy knew they’d be okay – they went out all the time –
but she could never help but worry.  For the last hour she’d been sitting,
shivering on the rooftop of the Sea Grill restaurant with her adult’s
cardigan wrapped around her shoulders, anxiously watching the horizon for
Garfield’s return.  During that time, she had absentmindedly tied her
white-blonde hair into two long plaits.  I wonder if Garfield will like
them.

The Great Southern Pier was all there was for miles.  The seaside village
that surrounded it was just a few bed-and-breakfast hotels and places to eat,
with the odd pub interspersed – boozers her daddy used to call them.
Poppy had never been inside a pub, but she knew it was a place that only adults
were allowed in.  Now nobody went in the pubs; they were all empty.

The pier was the biggest in England after having been rebuilt following a
big fire – at least that’s what Garfield had told her.  He said the pier had
only just opened when people got sick.  That’s why everything was so new and
unused.  There was even an oven in the Sea Grill restaurant that was
still wrapped in plastic and had never been plugged in.  What a waste of
money.

The people who’d built the pier had planned on bringing lots of visitors
and making the village so rich that it would grow into a town and have more
shops and nice houses.  None of that ever happened, though, and now the great
big pier looked silly next to the tiny village.  And all of the people live here
instead of in the houses.

Behind Poppy, the rest of the camp went about their usual business.  The
pier had lots of shops and restaurants on it and a big building shaped like a
tent at the far end.  The tent was full of games and rides that no longer
worked because there was no electricity.  It made Poppy sad whenever she looked
at them.  They would have been so much fun.

Everybody was safe at the pier because it sat on big metal stilts above
the sand and could only be accessed from a big long deck barred at one end by a
fat metal gate.  Sometimes dead people would come up to the gate and try to get
inside, but it never worked.  The gate was too big and strong.  The dead people
would eventually go away if everybody on the pier kept quiet enough.  And if
they didn’t go away, Garfield would go out and hit them.  That always made her
sad; to see the dead people hit.  They looked so lonely at the gate, like all
they wanted in the world was to be inside with the living people.  But if we
let them in they’ll try and hurt us.

At least there were no zombies around at the moment.  When Garfield and
the others left yesterday, all the dead people in the village had followed
after them until they’d disappeared into the distance, at the point where the
main road took them out of sight.  Poppy had a feeling that Garfield probably
hit the dead people when they were away from the village.  He always tried to
avoid hurting them near the pier – he said their smelly bodies would make
people sick.  One time at the pier, Poppy had gotten a poorly throat and it was
terrible.  She’d wanted so much to be better, but the pain and aching went on
forever.  There was no more medicine like her mummy used to give her to make
the hurt go away quicker.  Lots of things are gone.  I miss my bed with the
pink pony sheets and my fluffy dressing gown.  I miss my parents, too.

Poppy’s mummy was gone now and so was her daddy.  The only person she had
to look after her was Garfield – and he was never there.  No sooner would he
return to the pier then he was off again.  She understood why he had to go.  He
would always say to her, “I never chose this,” but she would still miss him
when he was gone.  Sometimes when he returned, he would bring food, or toys, or
comic books for her.  That almost made it worth not having him around, but not
really.  She liked having him near, even if he was grumpy all the time.  Grumpy
Garfield I call him, but really I think he’s brave.

Poppy shuffled around 180-degrees until she was facing away from the
village and towards the sea beyond the pier.  Some of the group sat at the
edges of the deck, holding fishing rods out over the railings.  There was a
fishing tackle shop on the pier and almost every person in the group had a rod
or two.  Poppy liked some of the fish they caught, but there were so many
different kinds that she never knew what she would get one day to the next.
Sometimes they caught big fat fish with white meat that tasted good, but other
times they would catch thin, ugly fish with red meat that tasted yucky.  Her
favourite food back home – back when she had a mummy and daddy – had been macaroni
and cheese, with a glass of fizzy apple juice.  She hadn’t tasted cheese in
such a long time and all she ever drank was water.  It made her sad to think
about.

So she thought of something else.

She thought about getting older and becoming an adult.  She could go
foraging with Garfield and Kirk then (although she didn’t really like Kirk.  He
was always making fun of her).  She wasn’t allowed to leave the pier because
she was still just a kid, but from up on the rooftops of the various buildings
she could see for miles around.  She could see the hills and the roads, and an
old railway that cut through them both.  There was a whole world out there
waiting to be explored – one she could barely even remember.  She just wished
she’d taken the time to appreciate the things she used to have, because now
they were all gone forever.

She used to moan and complain about having to get up for school, but now
she would give anything to be surrounded by other children her own age.  She
would love to sit and listen to old Mr Stead prattle on about the Ancient
Romans and how they changed the world with their roads and sewers.  There was
so much she could have learned back then, but now her entire world was on this
pier at the edge of the sea.  I hate it.

Being stuck in one place made her feel panicky, like she couldn’t
breathe.  One day, when she was older, she would leave the pier and find all of
the things she’d forgotten.  She’d learn about all the things the world used to
care about.  Then, one day, she would teach it to kids the same way Mr Stead
had once taught it to her.  I’m going to teach them about how the Romans
built the aqueducts and had lots of baths.

“You up on that roof again, lass?  You’re going to break your bleedin’
neck one o’ these days, huh.”

Poppy looked down to see Alistair standing on the deck below.  He had his
hands on his hips and his fat belly was hanging over his belt the way it always
did.  Everyone else in the group was skinny, except for Alistair.

“What do you want?” Poppy asked him.

“What do I want?  Nothing, lass, but it’s about time you started helping
out around here instead of farting around on the rooftops all the time, huh.”

“I’m just a kid.”

“No such thing anymore.  You’re either useful or you’re not.  No mummy
and daddies to look after kiddies these days.  You have to be useful, whether
you’re nine years old or ninety.”

Poppy rolled her eyes.  She’d never liked Alistair, not since she’d first
met him.  He was always nagging at her.  “Garfield says I’m just a kid and I
shouldn’t grow up too soon.  I asked to go foraging with him, but he said no.”

Alistair sniffed a wad of snot back through his nose.  His dirty brown
hair fluttered in the breeze.  “He should’ve let you go with him, if you ask
me.  Better than having you hanging around doing nothing like a chimp with a
hairdryer, huh.  The time for child’s play died along with everything
else.  You need to start making yourself useful.”

“I will…” said Poppy.

Alistair grinned and nodded.

“When Garfield tells me to.”

Alistair pointed his chubby finger up at her.  “Now you look here,
Poppy.  Garfield ain’t here, and when he ain’t here you do as you’re told by
your elders.  I was at this pier long before Garfield, so don’t you believe I
take orders from him.  You need to start pulling your weight, girl, or else
you’ll be gone.  Got no time for freeloaders.”

“You can talk!  If it wasn’t for all the food that Garfield brings
back, you wouldn’t be able to stay so fat.”

Alistair went bright red.  “You just wait until you come down from
there.  You’ll have my hand across the back of your legs.”

“Touch me and Garfield will beat you up.”

Alistair snorted.  “We’ll see about that, young lady.”

“Yes, we will,” said Poppy with a sudden grin on her face.  There was
movement on the horizon at last.  “Because he’s on his way back right now.”  At
last.

In the distance, Garfield and the foragers were coming down the main
road.  They dragged their wooden sleds behind them, carrying the things they’d
found.  Any luck and they would have some food.  Even better and they might
have found some books or toys.

Give me something to do around here, please!

As Poppy squinted into the distance, she noticed something unexpected.
One of the forager’s sleds held no food or toys at all; it carried a man.
Somebody was injured.

Oh no.  I hope we can help them.  I hate it when people die.

Poppy glanced down at the pier, to tell Alistair what she could see, but
the fat man had already gone, so she hung down from the edge of the roof and
dropped down to the wooden deck below.  Her ankles stung as she hit the ground,
but the pain soon left once she started running.  She headed for the gate,
wanting to be the first to greet Garfield when he returned.

But when she got there, she heard rattling and moaning.  There were dead
men at their door.

ANNA

Anna heard the moans
followed by the rattling of the pier’s main gate.  It was not unusual to find
dead men on the pier’s walkway, but it was something that always needed dealing
with.  If enough of the dead gathered together then they might manage to bring
the gate down beneath their sheer weight.  Anna had seen what the collective
strength of the dead could do several times over the last year.  They’re
like a force of nature when they group together.

Anna was tucked up in her sleeping bag, re-reading a paperback, when she
saw members of the pier race by the window of the gift shop in which she
lived.  It wasn’t a reason for great concern, but she put on her jacket and
followed after them, wanting to see what the fuss was.  She joined up with them
at the gate where a dead man and woman were thudding against the iron bars.  A
light rain had begun falling and a wind whistled in from the sea.  Seagulls
circled in the air, as they always did around the dead.

“Why aren’t we staying out the way?”  Anna frowned.  When dead people
arrived at the gate, the common thing to do was to lay low and wait for them to
lope away.  More often than not, they did so within the hour.

“We can’t afford to leave them at the gate,” Alistair informed her.
“Garfield and the others are coming in.  We have to clear the way.”

Anna studied the two zombies on the other side of the wrought iron bars
and felt confused.  The female was little more than a skeleton, with a
waistline she probably would have killed for in life.  Hell, I would kill
for it.  Her entire stomach had rotted away and the crusted remains of her
lungs had fused to her spine.  The man beside the dead woman was a boxer, still
donning his ring shorts and gloves.  Once upon a time it may have been comical
to see the sportsman in full gear, but the people at the pier were all used to
the oddities of the dead and long past paying any notice.  Previously the gate
had been host to a dead policeman, several old-aged-pensioners, a Chinese chef
in full kitchen whites, and once they even had a ghoulish clown trying to get
in at them.  There was no humour to be found in the dead.  The boxer was just
another corpse with a story untold.

“There’s only two of them,” said Anna, bemused.  “Garfield can handle two
zombies easily enough.”

“He has somebody injured with him,” Alistair said.

“How do you know that?”

“Because I saw him,” said little Poppy who was standing in the gap
between the Sea Grill restaurant and the pier’s block of toilets.  She
looked lost in her oversized cardigan.

Anna took the child to one side.  “Was it Garfield who was hurt?”

Poppy shook her head.  Two long blonde plaits swung back and forth behind
her and Anna suddenly resented her own lank brown locks.  “No, it was somebody else,”
said the girl.  “I couldn’t see who.”

Did they find a survivor out there, or did one of the foragers get
hurt?

“Okay,” Anna said.  “Let’s do this quickly and by the book.”  Everyone
got to work quickly, all of them knowing the drill after having performed it so
many times before.  It was just another daily chore – no different than ironing
used to be, or washing the car.  Alistair went up to the gate, donning a thick
pair of neoprene fishing gloves.  He worked the key in the padlock and began to
loosen the chain that bound the gate’s half-sections together.  The two dead
people snapped and grabbed at his hands, but Alistair was quick enough and calm
enough to avoid them.

Anna picked up a large sledgehammer, which the group always kept propped
up beside the gate, and hefted it over her shoulder.  Fellow campmates, old man
Bob and Jimmy, took up two great fishing nets and fanned them open.  Jimmy used
to be a forager, but twisted his knee by jumping down from the second level of
a supermarket to escape a group of zombies.  Now he had to remain at camp, but
always sought to make himself useful.  Old man Bob was…old.  Chris and Samantha
were also present, but stood back so that they would not get in the other men’s
way.

Alistair yanked the chain and opened the gate wide.

The dead people stumbled down the deck, arms outstretched and decaying
jaws snapping.  Bob and Jimmy threw the nets down over their heads, trapping
them in place as they fought clumsily to free themselves.  Anna brought the
sledgehammer down on the boxer’s skull first, caving in his head like an
overripe melon.  Some juices exploded from the skull, but it was mostly just
dry, flaky flesh, long ago rotten, that remained.

The boxer fell to the floor and stopped moving.  Anna raised the sledgehammer
once again, and this time brought it down on the dead woman’s head.  Her skull
split open the same way the boxer’s had.  Now both of them lay on the deck
benignly, their threat extinguished, their skulls obliterated.  Anna looked
down at the boxer and sighed.  Out for the count.

Without comment, Chris and Samantha grabbed the two dead bodies and
dragged them down the pier towards the strip of walled pavement that separated
the beach from the road.  There they left the bodies in a pile, ready to be
taken away by Garfield’s next foraging party.  Before the sun turns them
into viral breeding grounds, Anna thought with a grimace.

Chris went and stood by the gate, ready to close it once everyone was
inside.  The shy man was wearing his favourite red wellies.  They made him
stand out like a children’s entertainer, which was a stark contrast to his
personality.  Anna wondered if the wellies meant something to the man, but she
never asked.  Samantha stood beside him, the only survivor at the pier that
still had the fashion sense to wear a skirt and heels on occasion.  Thankfully,
today she was wearing black jeans and Ugg boots.  She still wore enough
jewellery and bracelets to weigh-down a horse, though.  Despite her love of
nice things, the twenty-year old was headstrong and brave and reminded Anna a
lot of herself.  She just gets on with it.

Two hundred yards distant, Garfield and the foragers were getting
nearer.  They dragged their sleds behind them and managed a brief wave as they
saw the gates of the pier laying open to greet them.  Anna put the sledgehammer
back down against the wall of the toilet block and was just in time to catch
Poppy by the arm as the girl made to run off.  “Where do you think you’re
going, princess?”

Poppy skidded on her heels and moped at Anna.  “I want to go see
Garfield.  He’s only down the road.”

“So it will only take him a few minutes to get here, won’t it?  You can
wait like everybody else.”

Poppy huffed.  “You have to let me out sometime.  I’m not a prisoner.”

Anna smiled.  “No, you’re not.  But you’re alive, and you have this place
to thank for it.  You shouldn’t be in such a hurry to leave.”

Poppy sulked.   Anna ignored her.  The girl liked to act hard-done by.
That was how she managed to wind Garfield around her little finger all the
time.  I’m not such a pushover, though.

“The zombies are all gone,” Poppy argued.  “These two were the first
we’ve seen in ages.  They’ve all gone off someplace to die.”

If only that were true, thought Anna.  “They’re still everywhere,
Poppy.  The only reason we’re safe here is because it’s far away from anywhere
else.  If you go running around out there you’ll attract attention, and it
could land us all in a lot of trouble.  You need to grow a little more before
you earn the responsibility to leave the pier.”

Poppy folded her arms in a grump, but she knew better than to argue.  The
girl stood silently while they waited for Garfield to return.  All she needs
is some consistency.  A few rules never hurt a child.

The foragers rounded a burnt-out Mini Cooper sitting in the middle of the
road just beyond the pier, and then started up the decked walkway.  Three other
foragers accompanied Garfield, but that concerned Anna – because he’d left with
four.

“Where’s Marty?” she asked Garfield as he came up the walkway with Kirk,
Lemon, and Squirrel.

Garfield’s expression was grim – but then it most often was.  He avoided
making eye contact with Anna, which was a bad sign.  “Marty got bit.”

No more explanation was needed.  Everyone knew that if you got bitten on a
forage, you didn’t come back.  Knowing Garfield, they probably buried poor
Marty where he fell and moved on without a word.  It was just the way of things
– nobody’s fault.

Poppy broke free of Anna’s grasp and rushed down the deck to meet
Garfield halfway down the walkway.  Anna sighed.  The girl had defied her, but
only by a little.  Probably okay to let it go.

“I was worried about you,” Poppy gushed, wrapping her arms tightly around
Garfield’s waist.

“You’re always worried about me, Popcorn.  But don’t I always come back?”

“You do.”

“Who’s he?”  Anna pointed to the stranger on the sledge.  The man had
copper-coloured hair just like Garfield’s, and was soaked in blood.  The other
sleds were loaded with what looked like toilet paper.  They’ll be no shortage
of something to wipe our arses with, but food would have been better.

Garfield glanced down at the injured man and then shrugged his
shoulders.  “Found the guy close to death in a container.  Don’t hold much hope
of him making it through the next couple hours, to be honest.  Poor sod was
shot.”

Anna folded her arms.  “Shot?”  There were very few guns about, which
made anybody who had them inordinately dangerous.

“I was hoping you’d have a go at fixing him up, Anna.  You’d have a
better chance than anyone else.”

Anna kept her arms folded tight.  “I was a vet, not a doctor.”

“Still makes you the best hope this guy’s got.”

Whether she liked it or not, it was true.  She sighed.  “Bring him into
the diner.”

The pier’s American-style diner was one of the largest spaces and was
used as a communal area, as well as the place where they stored all the
rainwater they collected and supplies that the foragers found.  Rene was in
charge of allocation, and right now Anna needed boiled water.  Stat!

When Rene saw the injured man, his eyes went wide and he quickly came
over to help.  The man did not speak, but his body language made it clear he
was ready for immediate orders.  Anna nodded at him and smiled.  Rene had been
her trusted friend since the beginning and the only person she could rely on.

“Rene, I need boiled water and the sharpest knife you can find.  I also
need a latex glove filled with one part salt and five parts water – and bring
me all the hand sanitizer from the kitchen.  Anna knew they had all of those things,
because she’d gathered them herself.  The things she lacked, however, included
proper surgical equipment, painkillers, and medicine of any kind (she had once
tried to grow penicillin from some stale bread, but it was long gone now).
There were no hospitals in the area and those further afield were hot zones of
infection.  The dead were everywhere inside hospitals and getting medicine
would cost more lives than it saved.  She and Rene had once entered a local
Doctor’s clinic, hoping to find bandages and antibiotics.  What they found was
a waiting room full of dead people.  That was the last time they ever searched
for medicine.

Garfield carried the injured man over to one of the diner’s large square
tables and dumped him down on it.  Anna took her jacket off and told him to
leave, along with anybody else not named ‘Rene’.  The less people crowding
me the better.  Poppy would probably pop a blood vessel, anyway, if
Garfield didn’t go and catch up with her right this instant.  Glad I don’t
have the responsibility of looking after that girl.  She’s a handful at the
best of times.

Anna went and got her kit bag from underneath the cashier desk.  It
contained a needle and thread (actually a reel of 6lb thin-diameter fishing
line), as well as some glue and bandages.  So far the kitbag had been needed
only for scrapes and bruises, but it had been prepared in case of something
worse.  Most serious injuries were from being bitten, and there was no point
wasting time or supplies on someone with a bite.

But this man was shot.

By whom?

Since being carried along the pier and into the diner, the injured man
had stirred only slightly.  He mostly just moaned and muttered with his eyes
closed.  Whether from the fever of infection or the delirium of blood loss was
unclear.  Probably both.

Anna handed a long sewing needle to Rene and told him to boil it in the
saltwater he had on the go.  There was no gas or electricity anymore, but the
diner had a small stockpile of disposable lighters, cooking oils, and petrol
that the group used exclusively for starting fires and cooking.  Anna knew that
she could also use some of those chemicals to disinfect the injured man’s
wounds, but they were all very caustic.  She had better methods.

Anna pulled out some sharpened scissors from her kit bag and cut away a
strip from the patient’s t-shirt.  Blood was everywhere, mostly crusted and
caked.  That was a bad sign; it suggested the man had been bleeding out for
some time.  He may have already lost too much.

The bullet wound peered up at Anna like a malevolent black eye.  She
rolled the man onto his side and saw that the round had not exited through his
back.  Most likely it was still inside him.  “Rene, she shouted.  I need you to
sterilize some tongs and a tea spoon.”

Rene did not reply, but she knew he would have heard her and that he
would comply.  Rene heard very well, but he spoke very little.  His words were
precious to him.

She had met the Nigerian with another group of survivors back when the
infection first hit.  At the time, she’d been a vet at an amusement park zoo.
Rene’s group eventually joined up with the survivors already living at the
park, and for a while they had co-existed.  Suspicions were high, however, and
egos prevailed.  The fact that Rene had been part of a group of prison inmates
did not help the tension.  Eventually the group dissolved and the safety of the
amusement park had been ruined.  Rene was one of the good guys, one of the
people who’d stood by Anna when things had turned ugly.  He was also the only
one left alive from that original group which Anna had left the park with.  She
often missed the people who hadn’t made it.  Especially Mike.

When Anna and Rene fled the amusement park in a beat-up truck, there had
been two others with them: Mike, a man she had almost loved; and Eve, a feisty
young girl who’d fallen apart after her friend, Nick, died.  The first few
months on the road had been tough on them all, and by the time they made it to
the south coast where they hoped to find a boat, only Rene and Anna remained.
They would probably have died, too, if they hadn’t eventually fallen across the
Great Southern Pier.  That mutual journey of survival had bonded them as
family.  She trusted him completely.

Several minutes later, Rene approached with the items Anna had
requested.  He handed her a latex glove full of saline and various kitchen
implements, which had been sterilized, as well as her sewing needle.  The
patient moaned again, louder.  He was either becoming more lucid, or the pain
was increasing.  Either was a good sign.  Pain meant a person was alive.
Lucidity meant a person was alive.  Every moan was the man fighting to hold
onto his life.

“Hello, my name is Anna.  I’m going to try and help you.  Can you tell me
how long ago you were shot?”

The man mumbled but made no sense.

Anna sighed.  She took the latex glove and pierced the bottom with a
sharp knife that Rene had brought her.  A trickle of saline leaked out of the
slit and Anna angled it above the man’s injury.  She squeezed the glove and
began to irrigate the wound with the thin jet of liquid coming through the
slit, clearing away the old blood and stemming any fresh.  Once the wound was
clear, she grabbed a bottle of hand sanitizer.  “This might burn,” she told the
patient, who just moaned at her weakly.

Anna removed the pump handle from the sanitizer and upended it, allowing
a thick tide of alcohol to pour onto the open wound.  The patient hissed.  His
eyes fluttered.

“Stay with me,” Anna said firmly.  “The pain is good.  The pain is me
helping you.”

“Y…yes.”

“Good, good.  I’m glad that you understand me.  I am just cleaning your
wound.  You don’t want to get an infection.”

“N…no.”

Anna made sure she covered the entire wound with the sanitizer.  The
liquid quickly effervesced but enough coated the wound to burn away any
bacteria.  At least she hoped so.  A shitload of iodine would have been
better.  Without being asked, Rene handed Anna the tongs and teaspoon.  She
swallowed a lump in her throat.  Once, she’d been a vet, but there was very
little cause to trust her abilities after them being so long dormant.  Plus,
I’ve never had to remove a bullet from a man’s stomach before.

Anna shoved the sterilized tongs into the wound and pried the edges
open.  The patient screamed.  Rene immediately held the man by the shoulders.
Anna made sure the tongs were steady and then took a firm grip of the
teaspoon.  Holding her breath she dug the spoon deep into the wound.  She knew
she was causing agony and likely doing even more damage, but if she didn’t get
the bullet fragment out, the patient would have no chance at all.  Infection
would take him within the night if the bleeding didn’t kill him first.

As she dug about in the wound, the black shard of blood-caked metal
exposed itself.  It was buried deep within the tissue, like a stone trodden
into wet mud a hundred times over.  Anna worked the edge of the spoon around
its edges, trying to get a purchase on it.  The patient struggled against
Rene’s restraining hands, but Rene leant close to him and began to hum.  Anna
didn’t recognise the tune, but it was delicate and soothing.  After a few
moments the patient began to struggle less.  Rene had learned First Aid
in prison, she knew, but his soothing way with people was not down to any
training.

Anna dug the spoon beneath one side of the bullet fragment and felt it
shift within its fleshy womb.  The patient gritted his teeth as she began to
scrape the fragment upwards, away from the wound.  Luckily the bullet had not
buried itself in bone or passed through any organs.  Likely, the man had been
shot at a distance, the velocity of the bullet all but spent.  Someone still
wanted him dead, though.

Anna released a pent-up breath as she slid the bullet fragment clear.  A
small shard still remained in the wound, but fortunately it came away much
easier than the larger fragment had.  From what Anna could see, the wound was
clear and no arteries had been nicked.  It was time to close the patient up.
She took her sterilized needle and tried to thread it with shaking hands.  Jesus,
Anna.  You’ve done this a thousand times.  Calm down.

She took some deep breaths and counted to ten.  When she tried to thread
the needle again, her hands were steady as stone.  She got the fishing line
attached to the needle and used her sharpened scissors to cut away the excess.
Then she got to work, plunging the needle into the swollen red flesh
surrounding the wound.  The patient let out a pained squeal, but Rene’s humming
soon calmed him down again.

She dragged the fishing line through the edge of the wound and sutured it
to the other side, then dove back the other way.  Back and forth with the
needle she went, poking through flesh and threading, then poking through flesh
again on the opposite side: zig-zag, zig-zag.

Slowly the wound drew closed, puckering up like a cod’s mouth.  With the
final stitch Anna pulled tightly and closed the wound up as neatly as she
could.  She tied off the end of the thread and cut above the knot.  She doused
the wound with more sanitizer.  It’s done.  I did it.

The last thing she did was to squeeze a thin line of superglue along the
split ridge of the wound, adding a seal against invading bacteria.  Hopefully
its application wouldn’t do more harm than good.

She stepped away from the patient and stumbled over to one of the diner’s
chairs.   Her feet were unsteady and her stomach was roiling.  She could hardly
believe how nervous she’d been doing something that had once been her
profession.  Never had to stitch up a man before, though.  “Can you
bandage him up for me, please, Rene?” she asked.

Rene nodded and unfurled a bandage from the kitbag.

Garfield entered the diner with Alistair right behind him.  Both men
often caused Anna stress and she wasn’t particularly pleased to see either of
them in the state she was in.  Garfield was a constant worrier, with little to
no humour, and Alistair had too much humour, but it was only he who found
himself funny.

“Is he going to die?” asked Garfield.

“Probably.”

Alistair shook his head.  His flabby jowls wobbled as he did so.  “Don’t
understand why Garfield even brought him back.  Food would have been better.
Better a box full of Kit Kats than another mouth to feed.”

“I almost didn’t bring him back,” said Garfield, “but what kind of a man
would I have been then?”

“A smart one.”

Anna sighed and closed her eyes.  When she opened them again, both men
stood looking at her.  “Garfield was right to bring the man back,” she told
them both.  “There’s not enough of us left to start leaving each other to die.
We have an obligation to help each other.  More heads the better.”

“More tummies to feed more like,” said Alistair.

“We have the sea,” said Anna.  “At the very least we have that.  We won’t
go hungry.”  You least of all, she thought as she eyed Alistair’s ample
gut.

Garfield cleared his throat.  “Did you find anything out about the man?
He had these with him.”

Anna looked down at what Garfield was carrying.  “Are those…crutches?”

“They were lying next to where I found him.  I don’t know if they’re his
or not.”

“I don’t know either,” said Anna.  “He hasn’t spoken.”

“Hopefully he’ll get a chance to soon.  I’d like to know who shot him and
whether or not they’re heading our way.”

Alistair bristled.  “I’d like to know that, too.  There’s a lot we could
get done with some guns.”

Rene chose this as one of the rare occasions he spoke up.  His Nigerian
accent was thick, despite having left his homeland a decade-and-a-half ago.
“There is nothing to be achieved by guns,” he said, “except fear and suffering
to those still living.  Guns are ineffective against the dead.  Guns are loud
and bring attention.  Their very nature is to threaten and kill other men and
women.  Of all the things lost to us, guns are not something for which I
mourn.”

Alistair grinned, wide and jowly.  “I’ll be damned; it speaks.  Haven’t
heard you spout your nonsense for a long while, Rene.  This time you’re quite
right, though.  Guns are indeed for threatening and killing people – they would
give us the power to intimidate, the power to protect ourselves, the power to-”

“Take from others,” said Anna.  “Civilisation didn’t do too well with
that approach first time around, so let’s try something a little more original
than killing people for their cereal.”

Alistair huffed.  The way the man looked at her sometimes, made her mad.
It was if he was always thinking, silly woman.  “I think civilisation
did pretty damn well last time,” he said.  “Every advance in human history came
off the back of war.  We all know that there are other groups out there,
scattered about – we’ve seen some of them, traded with others.  I would rather
us have the guns than them.”

It was true that on occasion Garfield came across a wasteland survivor or
two.  Sometimes he brought them back, such as in Kirk’s case, but other times
the strangers were dangerous and had to be frightened away.  Guns could
potentially have a use, but she wasn’t sure it was a path worth taking.  One
group having guns just led to another group getting bigger guns.  It was a race
nobody won in the end.  “We’re fine,” said Anna.  “I trust that we can get by
on our charm and wits alone.  I’ve seen enough bloodshed without making our own
contribution.”

Garfield stared down at the floor as he spoke.  The man rarely held eye
contact.  “I’m sorry, Anna, but I agree with Alistair.”

Anna raised an eyebrow.  “That surprises me.  It’s not often that you two
see eye to eye.”

“On this we do.  Whether we like guns or not…they matter.  He who has
them has power over those who don’t.  I just don’t want to be in a position
where we have a gun to our heads and aren’t able to respond.”

Anna chewed at one of her nails before saying, “Well, regardless of
whatever each of us thinks, we have no guns and no inclination of where to find
them, so why are we even discussing this?”

“Actually,” said Garfield.  “I think I might know where we can find
some.  Will you hear me out?”

Anna sighed.  Garfield would do whatever he wanted to – he was
bull-headed that way – so why he felt the need to seek her council, she didn’t
know.  It seemed to be more out of manners than anything else.

“I need to take the foraging group further,” he explained.  “There’s
nothing left around here anymore.  We’ve scavenged it all.”

Anna laced her fingers together across her lap.  I knew it would come
to this eventually.  We’ve had it too easy for too long.

Things had been safe and productive for the last several months at the
pier.  The village and surrounding countryside had been bountiful and easy to
explore.  They had raided supermarkets, petrol stations, even farms.  Along
with the plentiful fish they caught, they had more than enough supplies to keep
them going for a while.  Alistair even still had the luxury of being fat.  But
Anna knew they would eventually strip the carcass clean and have to search for
pastures new.  “Okay, that’s your call,” she told Garfield, “but I’m getting
that there’s more you want to say.”

Garfield nodded.  “There’s an Army base on Salisbury Plain.  There might
be troops there.  If not then we might have access to a lot of abandoned
weaponry.”

“I like the sound of that,” said Alistair.

Anna huffed.  “We all know the Army fell to pieces.  There are no troops
left.  As for weapons, well, I’d imagine they were looted a long time ago.
But, as I said, it’s your call, Garfield.  You’re our man in the field.  I’m
just the mother hen at home.”  Which is another way of saying I’m
middle-aged and useless.

Garfield looked over at the injured man on the table and sighed.  “Guess
I’m just making sure you’re okay for me to set off for a while.  Salisbury
Plains is a good distance and who knows what the journey will be like.  It
would take a three-hour drive even if the roads were clear.  The way things are
it’s more likely to take us three days there and the same amount back.”

Anna nodded.  She knew what Garfield wanted, even if he was prodding
limply around the vagina concerning it.  “You want me to look after Poppy.
Just come out and say it.”

Garfield stared at his boots.  The man rarely made eye contact, but there
was a flicker of expression across his face that showed his heart still beat
with emotion.  “I’m all she’s got,” he muttered.  “If I don’t make it back, or
even if I’m just gone a while, she’ll be hurting.”

“And when she’s hurting,” said Alistair, “that little pup gets wild.”

Garfield shot Alistair a chastising look, but ended up nodding and
agreeing with the statement.  “Yes, she does.  She doesn’t like being
confined.  You know I found her trapped in a dirty house with her two dead
parents locked in the bedroom.  Imagine what it was like for her, having to
remain quiet for weeks so that they wouldn’t crash through the door and get
her.  When I found her, she was starved and mute.  It’s taken me a year to bring
her back from that dark place, but I can’t do it on my own anymore.  I need
help – especially while I’m away.”  The man looked close to tears.

Jesus Christ.  And here was me thinking soap operas were dead.  “I
know what the girl has been through,” said Anna.  She rubbed at her forehead
and cringed when she realised her hands were caked in her patient’s blood.  She
didn’t like what Garfield was asking of her.  She wasn’t good with kids –
having never had any of her own beyond an ill-fated miscarriage – and the last
time she’d cared about another she’d lost him.  It had been a point of hers
ever since to keep her emotional distance.  Looking after an unruly child was
not part of her five-year plan.  In fact the only words written on her
five-year plan were: LOOK AFTER YOURSELF.

“Please, Anna.  You’re the only person I trust.”

Alistair pulled a face.  “Charming.”

The statement of trust surprised Anna.  To her understanding, nobody
really trusted anybody at the pier.  They all worked together for mutual benefit
and played at friendship, but really they were only together by circumstance.
“Well,” she eventually said, “if you’re saying that you need to venture out for
the good of the group, then I guess I have no choice.  As for finding weapons,
I’m not particularly interested.  I would rather you find something more useful
than a bloody tank.  Like Doritos.  Why do you never bring back Doritos?”

Garfield smiled, visibly relieved by her agreeing to look after his
girl.  “I’ll see what else I can find along the way,” he said.  “Doritos will
be first on my list.”

“Just get going sooner rather than later,” she said.  “Sooner you’re back
the sooner life can go back to normal.”  What is normal anymore?  I
don’t even know.

“I’ll go first thing in the morning,” Garfield said.  “I just need to eat
and get some sleep first.  I’ll take some of the fuel we have stored up and try
to get a couple of vehicles working.  There’s a Range Rover parked at the old
church on the edge of the village that I think I can get started.  I’ll be
taking the full team to make the most of whatever we find.  Cat and the other
foragers should be back this evening, so I’ll brief them all then.”

“I don’t like the sound of that,” said Alistair.  “You’ll leave us
short-handed.”

“For what?  There’s not much to be done around here other than fish.”

“Garfield is right,” said Anna.  “If he’s going further afield, it makes
sense to maximise how much he can bring back.  It’s not like he can make such a
trip every day.  Besides, he’s likely to be in more danger than we are.  He
might need the backup.”

Alistair shrugged irritably.  “Fine.  Just don’t get everyone killed out
there, Garfield.”  He turned and walked away.  “I’m going to get something to
eat.”

“There’s a surprise,” said Garfield.

Anna looked at him.  “Alistair has a point, you know?  You best come back
in one piece, along with everybody else.”

“I’ll do my best, that’s all I ever do.  I never asked for this.”

“None of us did.  You just take care out there.”

“I shall.  Thanks, Anna.”  With that, Garfield left the diner, his
overly-dramatic coat flapping as he walked.  I swear he thinks he’s Batman
in that thing.

Anna turned back to her patient, and to Rene.  Her friend was wide-eyed
and wanting her attention.  “What is it?” she asked him.

Rene nodded towards the patient.

Anna approached the table and heard a sound: a soft mumbling.  She knelt
down and placed her head close to the injured man’s lips, listened.

“Roman,” he was mumbling deliriously.  “Roman, Roman, Roman.”

FRANK

“Roman has returned,”
Frank informed his adopted son.

Samuel Raymeady laced his slender fingers together across his long metal
desk.  Everything aboard the HMS Kirkland was made of metal, and the
only colour was grey.  Sometimes Frank longed for a bit of wood or plastic.
The den he used to keep at his home in Gloucester was full of warm oak and
supple leather.  He missed it.

“Did he do what I asked of him?”

Frank sighed, straightened up at the shoulders, and gave an answer his
adopted son never liked to hear.  “No.”

Samuel lent forward, sharp elbows propped on the aluminium surface of his
desk.  His dark eyes seemed to swirl for a moment before he spoke.  “No?”

“He was unable to get a confirmed kill.  He wounded the target, but…”

“Wounded the target?  How?”

“Roman shot him with the pistol you gave him.”  The Kirkland’s armoury
was meagrely equipped with a dozen handguns and a small cache of ammunition.
Whilst Samuel’s company, Black Remedy, had possessed a contract to build and
maintain several new British Naval frigates, along with it’s onboard weapons
systems, it did not have permission to provide small arms.  The modest
collection of handguns had been provided by Black Remedy’s security arm, so
that the ship could at least be minimally protected whilst it was being built.
Samuel kept a tight lock on all of the handguns, but two of them currently hung
on the wall behind his desk, and Frank knew his son also kept one in a drawer
in his desk.  “The target took a 9mm round in the guts,” Frank explained.  “He
was badly wounded.”

“Then he may well be dead.”

“More than likely.”

“So why couldn’t Roman verify it for certain?  The man he was chasing is
a cripple, after all.”

Frank sighed.  “There were a lot of dead in the area.  Roman claims to
have become separated from the target and was only able to fire off a single
shot before retreating.  The target got away, but was badly injured.”

Samuel smashed his fist down on the table, shaking the paper and pens on
its surface.  “I ordered that cripple dead.  He tried to murder us all, father,
or need I remind you?”

Frank stood in silence for a moment.  His adopted son’s rage was a
closely guarded secret that only a few people ever became aware of – usually to
their detriment.  It was best to give Samuel a second or two to calm down
before answering him.  “You do not need to remind me, Samuel.  It was me who
told you about the engine room bomb in the first place.”

“A bomb which would have taken down this entire ship, along with hundreds
of innocent lives that I have personally saved.  I won’t have my good work
undermined, father.  Do you understand me?  Those who work against me must be
dealt with else I appear weak.  The respect the members of this fleet have for
my authority is the only thing keeping order.  It isn’t enough that I have the
biggest ship.  I must also have the biggest shadow.”

“I am sure Roman did his best, Samuel.  He has never failed you before.”

“Nor have I ever given him a task worthwhile before.  Fetch Roman.  I
would have words.”

Frank nodded.  He left the captain’s chambers and sent a runner to go and
collect Roman.  The man could usually be found out on deck, brooding alone, but
he had a tendency to make himself elusive when it suited him.  It was close to
forty minutes later when Roman finally appeared and the irritation of having
been summoned was clearly etched on his muddy face.  Does the man ever crack
a smile?

Roman told no one his real name and had instead earned the notorious
moniker for the fact that he wielded an antique short sword in his right hand
and a makeshift metal spear from the fleshy stump where his left should be.
The man had shoulder-length, dirty-blonde hair and kept no friends.  He had his
uses, though, which Samuel never failed to utilise when needed.  Roman did not
fear the dead as most men did.  He was willing to go ashore for the most
frivolous of tasks and battled the dead head-on.  Frank had seen the same kind
of suicidal behaviour in the Gulf War.  They called it a deathwish, and
it was the domain of men with nothing to lose.  Facing mortal danger was the
only thing that made some people feel alive.  This time, though, Roman had been
given a gravely important task and failed.

Frank nodded to the man.  “Roman.”

“Frank.”

“The captain would like to see you.”

“Does he, now?”  Roman shoved past Frank and went through into the
captain’s chambers.  Frank followed him closely, and anxiously.  This may
get heated.

Samuel’s chambers were custom built.  The Kirkland was based on
the British Navy’s Type 23 Duke Class frigates, but was a third longer and six
times as modern.  It was the first of several that were to be built to replace
the Type 23, but the end of the world had ensured that the Kirkland was
one of a kind.

The captain’s chambers consisted of a utilitarian, red-carpeted office
intended to impose itself upon underlings, and a plush suite and bathroom in an
adjoining room designed to give the ship’s CO maximum comfort.  Samuel very rarely
made use of the room’s king-size bed, though.  Some of the ship’s officers also
had private berths, but most of the ship’s personnel slept in a series of
bunkrooms.

Samuel remained seated as Roman strode into the room like a tribal
warrior; all covered in mud and blood and armed with sharp steel.  Frank
narrowed his eyes.  Long as he keeps that sword at his belt and his spear
pointed at the floor, there won’t be a problem.

Roman concerned Frank greatly.  There was something dangerous about the
man, an air of wild fury that bubbled beneath his surface constantly – not
unlike Samuel in that respect.  Frank found the younger man difficult to
read.  Roman never gave anything away.

Samuel nodded.  “Hello, Roman.”

“Hello, Samuel.”

Most of the men aboard the Kirkland referred to Samuel as sir
or captain; but not Roman.  He never called any man by their rank.  It
was an unsafe attitude to maintain aboard another man’s ship.  Samuel bristled
at the slight, but acted as if he hadn’t noticed.  “Roman, I have been informed
you failed your task.  Disappointing.”

“If you mean I didn’t kill a man you wanted dead, I can’t say for sure.
He might be dead; he might not be.”

“And if he lives, then you have failed me.”

Roman said nothing.  He stood unflinchingly and made no movement other
than blinking.  The spear attached to his arm was completely still.  His sword
remained at his belt.  Samuel stared right back, equally as implacable.

Frank studied Samuel’s face and remembered the unassuming little boy he’d
once been so long ago; a world apart from the powerful magnate he became as a
young man and the fearless leader he was today.  Thousands of men owed their
lives to Samuel and his actions during the early days of the outbreak.  His
megalithic corporation, Black Remedy, had been building frigates for the Royal
Navy at the time of the infection.  Samuel had commandeered the vessel nearest
completion and used it take people away from the land.  The HMS Kirkland
had been used to rescue a great many lives.  Including Roman’s.  Samuel
could have left him to die at sea in that old dinghy we found him floating in.
What was the name of the man who was with him...was it Henry?  No, it was
something else.

Samuel blinked and swatted away a lock of jet-black hair, which had
fallen across his brow.  “Do you enjoy being here, Roman?”

Roman said nothing.

“Let me rephrase that.  Do you prefer being here to not being
here?”

Roman cleared his throat.  “Life is easier aboard a ship than on land
among the dead.”

“I’ll take that answer to mean you prefer being here.  I do wish you
wouldn’t talk in riddles.  Now, as you’ve said, being aboard my ship is much
better than being on land – nobody would dispute that – but, as such, being on
my ship comes at a premium.  Your premium is that I expect you to get things
done.  When you fail, your place aboard my ship falls into question.”

“So eject me.”

Samuel laughed at that.  “Does anything ruffle your feathers, Roman?  Did
losing that hand bother you?  Or did you strap a spear in its place before the
bleeding even stopped?”

“The spear came later, after the dead made having one so useful.”

Samuel laughed again.  From the corner of the room, Frank relaxed a
little.  Samuel seemed to admire Roman’s dry wit and unflinching manner.
Perhaps it was because Roman was the only man aboard the Kirkland who
didn’t treat Samuel like the Messiah.  Frank imagined that people could become
pretty tiresome when their only interest was pleasing you.  Samuel had suffered
sycophancy his entire life – from being the coddled child in his needful
mother’s arms to the CEO of the world’s most powerful commercial entity.  For
Samuel Raymeady’s entire life, people had bent over backwards to please him.  But
not Roman.  I remember a time when I was so bold.  When did I get so old?

“Maybe your use is not at an end just yet,” Samuel said.  “I’m just
making a friendly statement of the facts, that is all.  All men aboard my ship
must have value.  You only have one hand, so you cannot do much aboard the Kirkland,
but one thing you do very well is going ashore to face the dead.  That is what
your use is to me, as other men have uses in other areas.  That is the way of
things.  Those without value must leave to be a burden elsewhere.  I would
prefer that you remain here, Roman.  I would prefer that you remain useful.”

Roman blinked.  “If I could have killed the cripple, I would have, but I
am one man, not an army.  I could not fight all the dead even if I wanted to.”

“Perhaps one day you will lead an army,” said Samuel.  “That would
be my hope.”

“An army needs an enemy.  I see none.”

“What do you call the dead?”

“Dead.”

Samuel laughed again.  He rubbed at his eyes and stood up.  “Perhaps we
should agree to disagree about that.  I thank you for listening to my
concerns.  Might I ask where you last saw the cripple?  Where were you when you
shot the man?”

“I was near the coast.  I saw signs for Dartmouth and Paignton.  He was
holed up inside a petrol station.  I tracked him from the smoke coming from a
fire he started.  When he saw me coming, he smashed out the windows and
attracted the dead with the noise.  It was the only thing that saved him.”

Frank muttered.  “It appears the man feared you more than he feared the
dead, Roman.”

“Don’t blame him.  I was there to kill him.”

“But you failed,” said Frank.  “Perhaps next time he will fear you less.”

“Not if he’s smart.”

Samuel clasped his long hands in front of him.  “Frank, tell the Bridge
to make for the coast.  We’ll look for any signs of the cripple and send a
landing party to search the area where he was last seen.  I know it may seem
unnecessary, but I hate uncertainty.  I would rather know one way or the other
if the man lives.”

“And if he is still alive?” asked Frank.

Samuel grinned.  “Then Roman will be given a chance to redeem himself.”

Roman said nothing.  Frank sighed.

ROMAN

Roman marched through the Kirkland’s
narrow passageways with a face of thunder.  Various crewmen and civilians
stepped aside to let him pass, but he made no acknowledgment of them.  He just
kept his eyes forward and walked wherever he wanted – God help any man who got
in his way while he was in such a mood.

Up ahead, the bulkhead hatch was open, allowing access to the aft deck.
The aft deck’s intended purpose was as a helicopter-landing pad, but without a
Lynx helicopter it had been designated as the ship’s main common area.  Even
now, exposed to the cold biting winds of January, a third of the ship’s
personnel mingled outside on the deck beneath the drizzling rain.  Most men
liked to play cards of an evening while the few women aboard sat on their
knees.  Not as many women had survived the plague as men, so their company was
a luxury.

Roman glanced around, searching for someone, but was hailed by one of the
ship’s officers before he could locate them.  The man who approached him was a
weasely petty officer named Dunn.  No one aboard the ship was true military,
but Samuel had instigated Navy rank and given out uniforms in order to help him
command the fleet – it gave some men an inflated view of themselves.  Petty
officer Dunn was tall and blonde, but had the facial features of a rat.  Roman
found the man irritating – as he found all men irritating.

“Roman, good to see you returned to us,” he said.  Roman said nothing.
He eyeballed the man scornfully.  Dunn shifted awkwardly, cleared his throat
and continued.  “The captain has instructed us to dispense justice.  One of the
civilians has been found stealing liquor.  We found a supply of contraband
beneath his bunk after somebody informed on him.  Your input would be welcome.”

“Who informed on him?”

Dunn frowned.  “Does it matter?”

“Wise to know which men like to tell tales, so that I can better hide my
own misdeeds.”

Dunn laughed nervously.  “Yes, erm, very witty.  We have been instructed
to put the man to death.  We were just discussing the method.  If you were to
take part it would-”

“You’re going to put a man to death for stealing?”

“Well…yes.  The captain told us that a thief has less honour than a
murderer, for at least a murderer has the courage to face the victim of his
crimes, instead of slinking around behind their backs.”

“Not always,” said Roman.  “Samuel does like his speeches, doesn’t he?
Perhaps he expects to be quoted someday.”

“The captain instructed that the man be shown no leniency.”

Roman looked across at the baying mob at the rear of the ship and
narrowed his eyes.  “I agree.  But lack of leniency does not mean that the
sentence should be harsh to begin with.  Let me see this man.  I’ll deal with
the bloody matter myself.”

Dunn shrugged.  “It is not your place.  Your input would be most welcome,
but only an officer of the fleet may-”

Roman shoved the man aside.  “Tell someone who gives a shit.”  He
approached two crewmen at the rear of the ship.  The barrel-chested pair were holding
the guilty man down on his knees.  The prisoner was dirty and unshaven.  His
bloodshot eyes betrayed his fondness for alcohol.

Roman pointed his spear arm at the two crewmen.  “Stand him up.”  The
crewmen allowed the civilian to stand.  “What’s your name, civilian?”

The man sighed and shook his head, beaten and defeated.  “Wade Cannon,
sir.”

“That’s quite a name.”

“American, sir.  I was a tourist when…”

“When the dead started walking around like the world was a horror movie?”

The man nodded, his droopy eyes solemn.

Roman asked another question, an important question.  “Why do you drink?”

The thief shrugged.

“I’ll ask you again and I suggest you answer.”  Roman slid his antique
sword from the scabbard at his belt.  The sword had belonged with a suit of
armour at an old castle he had come upon during the first days of infection.
It was as sharp as any modern blade and ten times as threatening.  “And don’t
bullshit me.”

“I miss my family,” the man spluttered.  “My wife was with me at the
start…but she didn’t make it.  My two sons were still back in Skokie staying
with their uncle during the holidays.”

Roman lowered his sword so that it pointed at the ground.  “You don’t
know what became of them?”

The thief shook his head.  There were tears on his cheeks.

Roman sighed.  “So you drink?  Even when the alcohol is not yours to
swallow?”

The American shrugged.  The man was beyond caring.  There was no joy or
hope left inside him to drive him onwards – no reason for living.  Roman
understood.

The man needed to be given a reason.

Roman nodded to the crewmen.  “Hold him back against the rail.  Spread
his arms out.”

The American struggled, but his defiance was half-hearted.

“Looks like somebody’s taking a trip overboard,” said Dunn with a grin on
his rattish face, but the man was wrong.  Nobody is dying today, Roman
decided.  Especially not for that prick, Dunn’s, amusement.

Roman pressed up close to the American and looked him hard in the eyes.
“I think you’ll find that pain and personal loss is preferable to death.  It
will help you to focus on something tangible – a pain you can feel.  Losing
part of yourself can be cleansing.  I know from personal experience.”

The man looked confused.

Roman swung his sword and lopped off the American’s left hand.  It tumbled
backwards into the sea.  The man screamed, blood jetting from his wrist.  Roman
prodded his chest with his spear arm and shoved him back against the railing,
cutting short his screams.  The man’s eyes were wide as Roman spoke to him.

“Now your loss is plain for all to see.  You are not the man you were
anymore…so be someone else.  Find your pride instead of a bottle, and focus on
the pain I have given you.  It will remind you that you’re alive.  One day, if
you choose to seek me out, you may try to exact your revenge.  Focus on that,
the future, not the past.”  Roman stepped away from the man and let him resume
his howling.  He sheathed his sword, turned to Dunn, and said, “Get his arm
patched up and then leave him alone.  He’s paid the cost for his actions and
should be treated the same as anybody else.”  The petty officer was white as a
sheet, but he nodded vigorously as Roman left him to his duties.  He wanted
blood.  I gave it to him.

At the inner edge of the aft-deck, near the giant shutter doors that led
to the ship’s vast equipment house, was the man Roman had been hoping to see.
The man was rough and slender, wrapped in an oversized jumper, but there was no
mistaking his identity.  When Roman was sure nobody else was watching, he gave
the man a great big smile.  “There you are, Harry.  I’ve been looking for you.”

Harry smiled.  Wrinkles creased at the corners of his eyes.  “The mighty
Roman has returned to us.”

“A name given to me, not asked for.”

“Maybe you should tell people your real name, then.  They would have no
need of silly nicknames.”

“I tell my name to friends – and you’re the only one.”

“I’m honoured.”  Harry nodded over to where the one-handed American was
being carried across the deck to receive medical attention.  “A bit of a bloody
business you were involved in, there.  You do enjoy your drama.”

“They were going to kill him.  I did him a favour.”

“Doubt he sees it that way.”

“He will, if he has any sense.  If not, he’s free to take a swipe at me
and I’ll take his other hand.”

“Come on,” said Harry, shaking his head and smirking.  “Let’s take in
some air and chat for a while.  And talk normally, instead of giving me that
whole warrior routine you give everybody else.  You sound like a right prat.  I
almost miss the way you used to talk when I met you, blud.”

Roman huffed and nodded.  “Just my way of having a bit of a laugh, innit?
Got to entertain myself somehow, geezer.”

Harry smiled.  “That’s better.  You almost sound a like a real person
again.  Sometimes I think you imagine yourself a lord with that sword at your
hip.  I preferred you as a gangster.  Steph would be laughing her arse off if
she could hear you sometimes.”

Roman nodded.  “You ever wonder if she made it?”

Harry sighed and shrugged.  “I doubt it.  I know she was working in a bar
in Manchester when things went bad.  Manchester wasn’t good.”

“Well, we can hope she’s out there someplace, I guess.”

Harry nodded.  “She was a tough chick.  If anyone could make it, it’s
her.  She used to keep us two in line.”

Roman chuckled, but inside he pushed aside memories of his past.  The man
he’d been before the infection had a complicated past.  The new world was
miserable and dangerous, but it was simpler at the very least and it gave
everybody a fresh start.

The two of them strolled over to the portside promenade deck where they
leant over the gunwale and stared out at the frigid sea of the English
Channel.  Harry took in a deep lungful of air.  “Beautiful, isn’t it?  Did I
ever tell you I used to own a little boat years back?  I had it docked in
Southampton.”

Roman nodded.  Harry had been a successful businessman once, but had lost
it all to booze long before the world had ended for everybody else.  Harry had
been a broken, grief-stricken soul years before everyone else became one.
“Tell me about her,” Roman asked his friend.  It was good to talk about old
times with a friend, although he preferred to hear the stories from others than
speak of his own dirty past.

Harry stared into space and smiled.  “It was a 60-footer princess yacht,
the name Blue Saloon painted on her bow.  Huh, I guess even then I loved
the booze a little too much.  It was never empty of a crate or two of wine.”
Roman nodded.  Harry had been an alcoholic when they’d met, but had cleaned
himself up soon after.  He’d been clean and sober for almost the entire time
they’d been friends, but Roman knew that alcohol had taken a lot from his
friend.  The death of his wife and son in a car accident had pushed him to the
brink of madness and booze had been the only understanding friend he could
find.  He drank to forget the things he lost, but all he did was lose
whatever few things he had left.

But even the apocalypse hadn’t tipped Harry off the wagon.  He turned his
nose up at any drop of plonk placed in front of him.  He was a stronger man
than most, by far.  But sometimes Roman sensed a brief glimmer of weakness in
Harry’s eyes lately, like he was getting tired.

“I had some of the best times of my life on that boat,” Harry chuckled,
“even if I was on the firewater at the time.  My son used to love
dangling a fishing line into the water, trying to catch crabs near the
seawall.  He never caught anything, bless him, but he always enjoyed it.  It
was the hope of catching something that kept him there, I think.  My son was
always optimistic; he always saw the best outcome for everything.  He took
after his mother in that way.  I was the opposite.  I wished you could have met
him.”

Roman patted his friend on the back.  “Me too.”  He knew that even now,
years later, the wounds were still raw.  Harry’s memories of his wife and child
were like flayed skin that never healed.  “At least you didn’t lose your son to
this shithole existence,” Roman said.  It was the only upside he could think
of.  “Most men did.”

Harry ran his hand along the gunwale and nodded.  “I know.  If anything
I’m lucky that I didn’t have to watch him get torn apart by the dead.”  Harry
sniffed in another deep breath of sea air and changed the subject.  “You think
they will ever truly rest again, the dead?  You’ve been out there on land.
What do you think?”

Roman stared out at the cold grey sea and thought about it.  “I don’t
know,” he said honestly.  “The dead are falling apart at the seams, but most of
them still walk.  I think they’ll keep going until there’s nothing left of them
but dust and bone.  Even then they might not stop.”

“Maybe they’ll stop when there’s nothing left of us,” said Harry.

“Maybe you’re right, although it’s a bloody miserable thought.  You
haven’t got any cheerier with age, have you?”

The two of them laughed and Roman stared out at the boats and ships
floating beside the Kirkland.  All of the men and women on the ragtag
group of vessels were safe and well-fed for the time being, but he often
wondered what their end game was, their plans for the future.  Were all these
people, families and strangers, content to float around the seas for the rest
of their lives?  Would humanity ever regain the earth?  Samuel spoke of an
army.  Was that what they needed?  An army to reclaim what they had lost?

He thought about the day he and Harry had fled their carpentry workshop
in Wolverhampton, hoping to escape the infection.  They made it all the way to
the south coast without finding anything resembling safety.  They stole a
dinghy from the back of a trailer and threw themselves into the sea from a
dockside in Kent.  They had floated aimlessly for days before Samuel’s fleet
picked them up.  Back then, Damien had been grateful to the sea for keeping the
two of them safe, but now he had begun to hate it for its vast nothingness.

“We’re heading inland,” he told Harry.  “You’ll get to see for yourself
what the dead are like.”

“Inland?  Why?”

“To search for the cripple.”

“I thought you killed him.  Isn’t that why you went ashore, to make him
dead?”

Roman nodded.  He didn’t tell Harry how Samuel was obsessed with making
sure the man on crutches was dead.  If he was honest, he didn’t understand what
the big deal was.  Of course, the cripple needed punishing for trying to blow
up the Kirkland, but being wounded and on land was as certain a death
sentence you could give a man.  The issue had been dealt with.  Roman had dealt
with it.  So why did Samuel give me a tonne of shit for it?

Harry rubbed at his eyes.  He was starting to look very old.  His short
brown hair was turning greyer by the day.  For some reason, the news that they
were going ashore saddened him, which was the opposite reaction Damien
expected.  Usually the members of the fleet were excited at the briefest
glimpse of the land they’d long abandoned.  It was like coming home.

“How are the headaches?” Roman asked is friend.

Harry shrugged.  “They come and go.  At the moment I am waiting for them
to go.  But no worries; there’s nothing can be done.  What happened with the
cripple?  I thought escaping you was impossible, or so the people around here
like to whisper when you’re not listening.  You’re quite the living legend.”

Roman sighed.  “I shouldn’t be.  I failed my mission.  The dead got in my
way.  The cripple was wounded well enough, though.  That’s the difference
between the living and the dead.  The living run away when you shoot at them.”

Harry seemed to wince for a moment, but then his face became an
expressionless mask.  “How did it feel?  Trying to kill another human being?”

Roman looked down at the 9mm tucked into his belt beside his sword.
Samuel had given it to him, but he had taken it only reluctantly.  There was
something dishonourable about a gun.  It made killing too easy.  He plucked the
weapon free and examined its brushed steel contours and machine-cut grooves.
Then he tossed it into the sea.  “It’s not something I wish to do again,” he
said earnestly.

Harry nodded knowingly.  “Killing a man is different to slicing up an
already-dead man.”

Roman had not enjoyed the feeling of firing at the cripple.  He had done
many bad things, but murder was not something he relished.  “The cripple would
have killed us all if he’d gotten his way.  He deserved to die.”

“But you don’t want to go searching for him again, do you?”

“It’s an unnecessary risk and one I don’t understand.  Even if the
cripple lives, he can’t hurt us on land.  He’s doomed out there on his own with
a gunshot wound.  I don’t know what Samuel is so concerned about.”

“Others call him captain, or sir.”

“The same fools call me Roman.”

“If only they knew your real name, Damien.”

“Damien was the man I used to be.  Only you knew that man.”

Harry smiled knowingly.  “Only I know the man you still are.  You
may have sharpened an antique sword you found in a museum and attached a rusty
spear to your stump, but I still remember the lost youth you were when I met
you.  You’ve come a long way.  You should be proud.  You gave up drugs and
violence for courage and honour, but that doesn’t mean you have to go running
into danger everywhere you find it.  You should take an easier job like mine.
We were both tradesman; I could get you work in the ship’s tool room.”

Damien looked out over the sea, at the two hundred boats and ships.  Soon
they would all be sailing north to meet with the coast, and he would once again
be going ashore to contend with the dead.  And perhaps the living.  They are
no better.  What Harry was suggesting was a nice thought, but it was beyond
Damien’s reach.  A man with one hand and a hundred battle scars did not simply lay
down his sword and start making replacement engine parts.  That was only the
surface of it, though.  The deeper truth was that Damien felt more at ease
ashore amongst the dead than on the claustrophobic ship amongst the living.

Harry placed a hand on his shoulder.  “People aren’t as bad as you think,
you know?”

“The people aboard this ship are.  They’ve become like the zombies out
there.  No one thinks for themselves, they just follow orders.”

“Perhaps.  But some of them might surprise you.”

“They haven’t yet.”

“Give it time.”  Harry squeezed Damien’s shoulder.

“Time is the only thing I have left,” said Damien.  He turned away from
Harry, shrugging his hand away, but then reconsidered and turned back around.
“And an old friend, of course.  I still have that.”

“More than most have, nowadays,” said Harry.

“Then I must be blessed.”

“Or cursed.  It means you still have something to lose.”

Damien sighed and glanced back out at the sea.  Never you, Harry.  I
must never lose you.

HUGO

“Zut alors!”  Hugo
sidestepped to avoid tripping over the woollen sheep that stared innocently up
at him from the cabin floor.  He picked it up and stuffed it into the gap
between the dusty television and the cabinet on which it stood.  “Daphne, Sophie,
will you please pick up your things?  You’ll send me overboard one of these
days.”

His two young daughters were sitting on the yacht’s cosy sofa, playing
with a set of cards atop the oak-veneer dining table.  The eight of spades
had fluttered overboard some time ago, but all the other cards were still
present.

“Désolé, papa,” they said in unison with the voices of
innocent choirgirls.  They were growing up – eight and nine – but they were
still just children.

“Please, my loves, speak English.  We are surrounded by them, so you will
do better to talk as they do.  In fact, we may be the last French speakers
alive, as much as it pains me to think about, so don’t waste effort with a
language no longer used.”

“But we are French, papa.”

“Nobody is anything anymore.  We’re all just…people.  And most
people speak English, so we shall also.”

“D’accord,” said Daphne, making her younger sister giggle.

Hugo laughed, too, but he gave his eldest daughter a stern look of
disapproval.  “No more, okay?”

“Okay, papa.”

Hugo smiled and left the cabin to go out on the deck.  Dozens of other
boats surrounded him on the sea, both big and small.  The largest ship was the
frigate in the centre of the fleet, where the kind man, Samuel, gave his
orders.  The smallest boats were mere single-mast sailboats that struggled to
stay afloat when the winds were bad.  Hugo had witnessed more than a few go
under during the nastier storms.  The English are not the sailors they think
themselves to be.

Despite his longing for home – a modest cottage on the outskirts of Brest
– Hugo was grateful for the safety of the fleet.  What Captain Samuel had done,
bringing so many sailors together and providing refuge to the weak and weary,
was a kindness beyond most men.  Whilst the world had been crumbling, most men
thought only of their own survival, but not Samuel Raymeady.  True to the
humanitarian he’d been as the head of the monolithic Black Remedy Corporation,
Samuel had turned his resources to rescuing those lost and frightened.  The
fleet, now a thousand bodies strong, sailed as a testament to the man.  The
world had ended, but Samuel Raymeady had kept the human race alive.  And for
that, all men should love him.  As I do.  My daughters live because of him.

When France had fallen to the biting jaws of the dead, Hugo had made
immediately for the marina where his small yacht was berthed.  The carnage and
bloodshed he witnessed during the short journey had horrified him enough that
he would gladly never set foot on land again.  He had gawped in horror at his
countrymen tearing into one another, children and men alike.  He had spectated
impotently as a coach full of pensioners caught alight in the ensuing riots.
The old men and women burned alive inside, with nobody doing a thing to help
them.  It had not been the dead who had done that.  We were the real
monsters when things fell.

The marina had been teeming when Hugo arrived, and desperate people were
begging to board the various boats departing.  Many forwent begging in place of
outright stealing.  Hugo himself had needed to wrestle with a fat man who
sought to take his keys and steal the éternuer from him.  Hugo
had won that battle when he drove his keys into the man’s left eye, leaving him
screaming on the jetty and half-blind.  Hugo’s daughters had not spoken to
their father for days after that.  I barely blame them.

But he succeeded in sailing them free of their homeland and into the
English Channel.  There, he and several other seafarers had chanced upon the HMS
Kirkland.  A dozen boats – fishing trawlers mostly – already surrounded
the frigate but a messenger had been quick to inform each newly arriving party
that they were free to join the growing fleet and that all supplies would be
shared out equally.  Regular landing parties early on, raiding both French and
English coastlines, had been successful in liberating great caches of food,
whilst the fishermen of the fleet caught bountiful loads of fish.  Life was
still greatly lacking, but it seemed that life was becoming a little less about
survival and a little more about rebuilding.  It was the best any man could
hope for in the savage new world.  I do sometimes miss being on land,
though.  Can we live out here forever?

A sudden yip! from behind him made Hugo turn around.  Houdini –
named so because of his talent for getting in and out of the strangest places
as a pup – was sitting on the coachroof above the yacht’s main cabin.  The tan
and white Papillon often chose to spend his time outside, watching the hustle
and bustle of the surrounding boats and fishermen.  Even in the rain the dog
preferred to remain outside, although in the high winds Hugo would carry
Houdini inside the cabin.  Such a small dog could easily be swept away.

Hugo reached up and patted the dog on its head.  “What are you up to, mon
ami?”

Yip!

“Just watching the world go by, huh?  You and me both.  Boys together,
no?  We must spend our time thinking so that we are best able to protect our
delicate young ladies.”

The little dog hopped down from the roof and came to Hugo’s side, wagging
its tail like a maniac.  The six-year old dog was a good companion for the
girls, but it was heart-breaking to see the animal without a field in sight on
which to run and chase a ball.

Hugo patted the dog again.  “One day things will be different.  You might
be a very old dog by then, but I promise you that you will once again get to
run amongst the pigeons.”

Yip!

Out across the Channel, the Kirkland cast a vast shadow against
the twilight background.  Its thick cannons and spindly radars jutted out at
sharp angles and made the mighty vessel’s silhouette seem like it belonged to
some exotic beast.  Hugo wondered what the captain was doing right now.

Hugo had met Samuel Raymeady only once, early on, when the captain had
assembled a man from each ship of the fleet and introduced himself, although it
was unnecessary.  Everybody knew who Samuel Raymeady was.  The richest man
in the world.  Who’d have thought a businessman would be responsible for saving
so many lives.  I used to think the man was greedy with all his money and
power, but how wrong I was.  He is a saint.

At the time, the men and women who had come aboard the Kirkland
were broken and battered, some of them dying from wounds and infection.  Samuel
had assured them all that they were now all safe.  The world had plummeted into
the abyss, but they had survived extinction.  They would survive upon the sea,
regain their strength, and retake the earth one day.  He promised them salvation,
and from the fire in his voice and the passion on his face, Hugo believed every
word of the man.  Samuel Raymeady was their saviour.

As Hugo thought about how grateful he was, his mind inevitably turned to
his losses.  His wife, Patricia, had not survived the infection.  She had come
home from work sick one day and gone straight to bed.  Hugo had nursed her as
best he could and left his job as an accountant to pick up the girls from
school.  It had seemed no different to the flu, that night.  The next morning
Hugo had awoken to find his wife in the en suite.  She was raving and mad.
When she tried to claw and bite at him, he had smothered her in a blanket and
lay on top of her.  When Daphne and Sophie called to him, he shouted back that
school was cancelled and that they could go watch television.  Hugo restrained
his wife for almost three hours, pleading with her calm down, but she was like
a wild animal beneath the sheet.

Then she had fallen into a coma.  Nothing he did could wake her.  He
sprinted into the kitchen and grabbed the phone, but when he called emergency
services, the line was busy.  That was when his precious daughters came and
told him that all of the cartoons were cancelled and that the news had come on
every channel.  Hugo had watched the reports for twenty minutes, barely
blinking and barely breathing.  He had taken his daughters and ran.  That
day seemed so long ago.  I wonder whatever came of my darling, Patricia.  I
hope she is in peace.

As Hugo stared out at the Kirkland’s long silhouette, he noticed
that it seemed to be wheeling around and pointing back towards the English
coast.  Other boats were turning around as well.

“Are we on the move, Houdini?  Are the fishermen displeased with this
spot or is there bigger intrigue afoot?”

The fleet often travelled, yet sparingly.  Fuel was at a premium and not
all of the boats had sails.  Hugo placed a hand over his brow and tried to see
past the glare of the setting sun.  He spotted the signal off the Kirkland’s
starboard bow.  A small Coast Guard ship that remained ever close to the
frigate had hoisted a flag upon its tall radio tower.  The flag was green and
it meant ‘follow’.  The Kirkland moved slowly and there would still be
time to rest, but Hugo disliked falling too far towards the rear of the fleet.
The Kirkland was the centre of law and order.  The closer Hugo was to
it, the safer he felt – the safer he felt about his daughters.

Hugo patted Houdini on the head one last time.  “Time to go inside, mon
ami.  We’re on the move.”

When Hugo started the yacht’s 43HP diesel engine, his daughters joined
him in the pilot’s cabin.  Both of them looked apprehensive.  “Where are we
going, papa?”

“Wherever the good captain takes us, my beauties.  Do not worry.  The
kind man, Samuel, would never do us wrong.”

Yip!

“You see?”  Hugo laughed and set off after the HMS Kirkland.
“Houdini agrees.”

POPPY

“So what did you bring
me?” Poppy asked excitedly.  She and Garfield were sitting inside the ice cream
shop where they lived.  Behind the long refrigerated counter was Poppy’s space,
with her toys, games, and old mattress, while Garfield slept on the shop’s
tiled floor in a simple sleeping bag.  Right now, both of them sat on stools
beside a bench that ran the length of the wall.

Garfield almost smiled at her; he never managed a full one, but Poppy had
begun to read the subtle signs of whether or not he was happy.  Right now,
Garfield was happy.  “I may have a thing or two I found on my travels,” he
said, delving into the rucksack he had with him.  “Let me have a quick look.”
Poppy placed her hands on her knees and waited anxiously.  The first thing
Garfield pulled out was a pair of toothbrushes, still in their packaging.  “How
about this?” he asked.  “You need to look after your teeth, Popcorn.”

Poppy frowned and shook her head.

The next thing Garfield pulled from his bag was a stapler.  “Can never
have enough office supplies,” he said.

Poppy growled.

“Okay, okay.  Let me have one last look and see if I have anything inside
my bag.”  He fumbled around inside for a long time, tutting occasionally and
raising his eyebrows thoughtfully.

Poppy could contain her excitement no longer.  “You’re killing me,” she
spluttered.

“Got it!”  Garfield pulled out a colourful stack of glossy paper and held
it in front of her face.  He gave another of his brief almost-smiles to go with
it.

Poppy glanced down at the magazines and frowned.  There were pictures of
women on the front covers, along with makeup and perfume adds.  “What are
these?” she asked.

Garfield flicked the top one open, revealing an article about weight
loss.  “They’re women’s magazines.  They have all kinds of articles.  They were
really popular, before…well, you know.”

Poppy took the magazines and leafed through them.  There were lots of
articles full of words, and pictures of food, lipstick, mobile phones and other
boring stuff.”

“You don’t like them.” Garfield said.  His eyelids drooped like a sad
puppy’s.

Poppy shrugged.  “I…yeah, they’re great.  I just didn’t expect them.”

Garfield sighed and looked away.  He always looked away when he felt
bad.  Poppy was the only person he ever kept eye contact with for more than a
few seconds.  Poppy’s mummy always said it was rude not to hold eye contact,
but Poppy thought it was because Garfield was shy, not rude.

“I just wanted to get you something you can use,” he muttered.  “You’re
growing up so fast and…and I don’t really know what you’ll be going through.
Your body will change, for one thing.”

Poppy blushed.

Garfield blushed too.  “Sorry, it’s just…I…”

Poppy reached out and touched his wrist.  “I know.  You want me to read
about woman’s things.”

“Sorry you don’t like the magazines.”

“I would just rather have you around to teach me things, than read about
them in a bunch of old books.  We haven’t spent time together in ages.”

“I have to go out, Poppy.  I have to feed us.”

“I know you do.  But I’m growing up, you said it.  You got me these
magazines because I’m growing up, so let me come with you.”

Garfield shook his head immediately.  “We’ve spoken about this.  It’s too
dangerous out there.  The dead…”

“I want to come with you, Garfield.  I hate it around here.  We were fine
on the road before we found this place.”

“We almost died a dozen times and you barely spoke a word you were so
traumatised.”

“I’m older now.”

“Less than a year.”

“But-”

“Enough!”  Poppy was startled.  Garfield never raised his voice to her.
“I won’t take you out there, Poppy.  It’s too dangerous.  I won’t let you get
hurt.  I can’t…”

Garfield never showed how he felt, but right then it looked as if he were
about to cry.  Poppy suddenly felt very guilty.  She nodded slowly and looked
down at the floor.  “I-I’m sorry.  I didn’t mean to make you mad.”

Garfield huffed.  “I’m not mad, you silly girl.  I’m scared.  It’s my job
to keep you safe, but you’re growing so fast that I can barely keep up.  I’m
worried I won’t be able to look after you soon.  The others will have to help
me.”

“I don’t need looking after,” said Poppy.  “I just need you, but
you keep going away.  You keep leaving me and sometimes I wonder if you’re ever
going to come back.”

Garfield looked at her, keeping eye contact the whole time he spoke,
even though she knew he would have found it hard.  “I’ll never leave you,
Popcorn.  I’m always thinking of you and I will always come back.  Everything I
do, I do because I have no choice.  I do it to keep you safe.  I made you a
promise, didn’t I?  When I cooked you bacon in that old hotel outside Oxford
and we played eye-spy all night, laughing.  When we set out the next morning,
you told me you wanted to live at the hotel because you liked it there.  I told
you that it wasn’t the hotel you liked, it was the fun we had had the night
before.  I said that we could have fun wherever we went but that we must keep
moving.  When you said you were scared, I promised to keep you safe.
Remember?”

Poppy nodded and smiled.  She looked back at their time on the road
fondly – it hadn’t all been bad, not after they got used got it.  They had
never been apart back then, and towards the end, before they had found the
pier, they were always giggling.  It never mattered that they were always in
danger and that terrible things surrounded them every day, they would always
cheer each other up.  Now, neither of them ever often smiled.  Garfield was
always foraging and she was always alone.

There were tears in her eyes as she spoke, she knew.  She had to stop
crying all the time.  “I love you, Garfield.  I miss you when you’re gone.”

Garfield’s eyes went wide as she said the word ‘love’.  She had never
said the word to him before, had not said it at all since her parents died.
She did love him, though.  He was all she had.  The only person she could rely
on and her only friend.  He had looked after her for more than three months on
the road and she would be dead if not for him.  He took me away from that
horrible place where my mummy and daddy were monsters.  He brought me here
where it’s safe.  Even if the pier is boring, it is safe.

For a moment, Garfield looked as though he was going to say the word back
to her, but instead he just said, “I miss you, too.  Now go get ready for bed.
I have to leave early in the morning.  One game of eye spy and then we sleep.”

Poppy nodded.  She slid off her stool and walked away silently.  Tears tried
to spill from her eyes, but she fought them away.  She didn’t want Garfield to
go.  He was always leaving her and she started to wonder if he really did care
the way he said he did.  Why didn’t he say it back?  She climbed onto
her mattress and closed her eyes to sleep.  She didn’t want to play eye spy.

Why didn’t he say ‘I love you’ back?

GARFIELD

Garfield packed the last
of the smoked mackerel into his backpack and placed it next to his bottled
water.  It would not be enough to sustain him permanently, but he intended to
find supplies on the road.  The infection had ravaged the country so fast that
most supermarkets and petrol stations were still well stocked.  There had not
been enough time, or enough survivors, that looting had ever taken a firm
hold.  The world had died on its feet before people’s minds ever had a chance
to turn to long-term survival.

The chef’s knife in Garfield’s belt was accompanied by a claw hammer, a
screwdriver, corkscrew, and a metal pipe all hidden about his person.  It was
foolish to rely on a single weapon.  Garfield had seen good men perish who had.

The other foragers – they could be called his men, although he
would never say so himself – were all ready and waiting.  They stood with heavy
backpacks and had armed themselves with various weapons.  The plan was to make
haste to the church on the edge of town and get a couple of vehicles working.
There were ten foragers plus Garfield.  Lemon was their master of unlocking, a
shy, stumpy man, who stuttered when he was stressed.  There wasn’t a door he
couldn’t get through or a car he couldn’t hotwire.  His bag of tricks contained
everything from wire cutters to hacksaws.  Kirk was second-in-command and the
group’s resident badass – if a little too cocky for Garfield’s liking.  Cat was
the only female member of the group, and tougher than all of the men.  She
travelled with David, her lover.  Squirrel and Danny were the pier’s screw-ups,
lazy and stupid, but agreeable and humorous.  Last came Luke, Tom, Gavin, and
Lenny – a group of sensible middle-aged men that made up the reliable backbone
of the foraging party.  Each of them insisted on wearing a bunch of red
football shirts they had found in a sports shop.  They believed the bright
colours made it easier to see each other in the field.  Perhaps they were
right.  Our little band of brothers, Garfield thought.  Closest I’ve
ever had to friends.

The group would need to get the largest vehicles it could find and pray
that the batteries still had a spark, and that the petrol in the tanks had not
evaporated.  The foragers would be leaving behind their sleds, so whatever
vehicle they found would also act as the carriage for whatever supplies they
managed to scrounge.  Guns and ammo, hopefully.

The morning tide was out and there was nothing but moist sand and seaweed
beneath the front section of the pier.  It had started to rain and the smell of
salt was thick in the air.  Garfield would be glad to be rid of that familiar
smell for a few days.  He missed the old smells of car exhaust and greasy spoon
cafes, but those things were no more.  They had been replaced by the stink of
death.

Anna headed towards Garfield, holding something in her hands.  When she
got close enough, she offered the item to him.  “For the road,” she explained.

Garfield took the can opener from her and smiled.  “Good thinking.  I’m
so used to bringing canned food back that I forgot I’m going to need one for
the journey.”

“No point finding a tonne of food if you can’t get at it.  Sometimes it’s
good to carry something other than a whole bunch of weapons.  How many do you
have on you right now in that magnificent coat of yours?”

Garfield shrugged.  “Weapons?  I’m not sure.  Seven, maybe…no, eight.”

Anna laughed.  “Well, I hope that you won’t need any of them.  You be
safe out there.  There’s no way of telling what you’ll find.”

Garfield knew well enough what he would find in the towns and cities.  “I
expect to find the dead.”

“For starters,” said Anna.  “But I worry more about any people left
alive.  Take it from me, the living are just as dangerous as the dead.”

Garfield nodded – he knew that well enough already.  Several times on the
road he had caught hungry-eyed men spying Poppy from a distance, hoping to take
her.  A handful of them had tried, but Garfield had dispatched each one without
mercy.  He would not allow Poppy to be used and spoiled like a can of beans.
Her innocence was more precious than anything else left in the world, and
Garfield would kill a hundred men to protect it.  Finding the pier and the
relative safety of the group living there had been a true blessing.  Poppy had
been safe from the leering gaze of feral men ever since.  But she’s fighting
me all the time to go back out on the road.  She doesn’t remember how bad it
was.  She looks at the past through rose-coloured spectacles.  Not that I blame
her after all she’s been through.

Garfield bent over and placed the can opener inside the shin pocket of
his cargo pants then straightened back up.  “I plan to stick to the countryside
as much as possible.  With a bit of luck I’ll be able to bypass any trouble.
There’s no need to worry.”  Anna looked at him oddly for a moment, as if she
wanted to say something.  “What is it?” he asked her.

“It’s…it’s just something the injured man you brought back said.”

“Oh, yeah.  How’s he doing?”

“He’s been pretty stable over night, but just after I patched him up he
said something strange.”

“What did he say?”

“He said…” Anna stopped and chuckled to herself.  “You’re going to laugh at
me, but he kept saying the word ‘Roman’ over and over again.  It went on for
nearly an hour before he fell unconscious.’”

Garfield smirked, but not because he thought it was particularly funny.
“Don’t people say all sorts of things in that kind of condition?  Couldn’t the
pain have made him delirious?”

“Yes, it could have.  In fact, that was probably the reason.  Gave me a
bad feeling, though.  Whoever shot him is still out there.  Be careful, okay?”

Garfield had thought about the group that might be out there with guns.
If they were a threat, he would much rather encounter them away from the pier
where it would not endanger the others.

“I’ll be safe, I promise.  You look after Poppy for me, okay?
She’s…growing up.  It might help her to spend some time with a woman for once,
rather than hanging around rooftops waiting for me all the time.  Where is she,
anyway?”

“She’s coming, don’t worry.  She told me she needed to get something and
that you weren’t to leave until she saw you.”

Garfield rolled his eyes.  “As if I would.  Silly girl.”

Like a genie summoned, the talk of Poppy brought her racing around the
corner of the Sea Grill restaurant and over to the open walkway leading
up to the gate.  Her white-blonde plaits trailed in the air behind her like
tentacles from a squid.

“Hey, Popcorn.  I was just about to leave.  You almost missed me.”

Poppy scowled.  “You would never leave without saying goodbye.  I would
kick your butt as soon as you was back.”

Garfield fought a smile.  She’s not kidding.  “You’re right.  I
wouldn’t dare cross you, Popcorn.”  Poppy giggled.  She jumped the two feet
between them and gave him a great big hug around his waist.  “Careful,” he
warned her.  “You’ll cut yourself on my knife.”

Poppy broke off from the hug and looked up at him.  She was still such a
tiny girl, but had grown nearly a foot in the time he’d known her.  Eventually
she’d start to become a woman.  He dreaded to think how he would keep her safe
then.  She’s already a handful at nine.  Last night she said she loved me.
Should I have said it back?  Saying ‘I love you’ to a child that wasn’t his
own felt wrong somehow.  In the old world, the relationship he had with Poppy
would have been scrutinised, but the truth was that he felt for her the same
way as any father would.  He could never replace her real parents, but she was
his to love and protect, and he would do the very best job he was able.  So
why didn’t I say the word back to her?

“I did you a drawing,” Poppy said, handing over a curled sheet of sketch
paper.  Three months ago, Garfield had found an art set in one of the abandoned
shops on the sea front, along with a few reams of paper.  He’d given it to
Poppy as a gift.  With so little to do around the pier, the girl had become
quite the accomplished artist.

“What is it?” he asked her.

“Well, if you looked at it you would know, dummy.”

Garfield studied the sketch and saw that it was a finely detailed drawing
of a pond.  There was a large overhanging fern tree, shaded in multiple browns
and greens, and a slick sheet of moss across the water.  In the foreground was
a family of what looked like moorhens – their beaks red with a pointed tip of
bright yellow crayon.  “This is great,” he said, truly meaning it.  “When did
you get so good?”

Poppy blushed.  “It’s the pond by my house – my old house.  My mum
used to take me out to feed the birds.  I think about it whenever I’m sad.  I
thought you could look at the picture whenever you get sad.”

Garfield felt a lump in his throat but swallowed it.  He pulled Poppy
close and kissed the top of her head.  “Thank you.”  I should say the word
now.  I should tell her that I love her.  “Poppy, I lo-”

“Ready to go?” asked Alistair, marching towards them with a grimace on
his face.  “I still think this is a bad idea, you know?  If it was just you and
a few others leaving, Garfield, then perhaps it would be okay, but you’re
taking half the camp with you.”

Garfield sighed.  Alistair could let nothing go without an argument.
“We’ve already discussed this, Al.  You’ll be fine.  The more supplies I can
carry back with me the better.”

“I just think it’s selfish.”

“Selfish?  How?”

Anna interrupted.  “It’s decided now, so let’s not bicker.”

Alistair folded his chubby arms across his fat chest and looked comically
irate, like a red-faced cartoon villain.  “I suppose it is decided,” he
muttered.  “Doesn’t mean I have to like it, though.  Just make sure you bring
back something useful,” he said to Garfield.  “We’re running low on salt, for
one thing.  We need it to cure the fish we catch.”

“Grab some multi-vitamin pills, too, if you get chance,” Anna told him.
“People are starting to get sickly.  All we eat is fish and beans.  There’s
stuff our bodies aren’t getting.”

Garfield nodded.  “Salt…vitamins…got it.”  He turned around and did a
quick head count of the foragers.  Alistair was right: he was taking
more than half the camp with him – eight, nine, ten, plus me.  Everyone
was present and ready to go.  Garfield was the only one holding things up.
Poppy’s picture went into the breast pocket of his heavy woollen overcoat.

Anna folded her arms and sighed.  She was usually a stern and unemotional
women, but she seemed unusually apprehensive.  It would be the most dangerous
forage Garfield had embarked on, so he supposed a few nerves were understandable.
“Looks like it’s time to go,” she said.  “You take care out there, okay?”

“Yeah,” said Poppy.  “You promised me you would always come back, so
don’t die.”

Garfield huffed.  Women did like to worry.  “It’s nothing I haven’t seen
before,” he assured them.  “I’ll be fine.  Before you know it, I’ll be back
with a truckload of supplies.”

“And hopefully some guns,” said Alistair.

Garfield nodded.  “That’s the plan.”

Poppy was beginning to sniffle.  There were tears brimming at the bottom
of her eyes, but she was chewing on one of her blonde plaits to keep from
crying – she often did that lately.  Garfield forced a smile onto his face.
Happy expressions weren’t something he wore well, but he knew the girl needed a
gesture from him right now.  Like telling her that I love her.  She spat
her hair out.  Her bottom lip quivered.  “I-I don’t like it when you leave.”

Garfield bent down so that they were eye to eye.  “I don’t either,
Popcorn.  While I’m gone, you need to listen to Anna, okay?  She’s going to
keep an eye on you for me.  Part of being a grown-up is being able to listen to
other people, okay?  Will you listen to Anna for me?”

Poppy nodded.  Anna patted her on the shoulder.  “We’ll be fine.”

“Good.”  Garfield straightened up and cleared his throat.  “And stay off
those bloody rooftops.  You’re gunna have a fall one day.”

Poppy grinned.  “Never.  Climbing is one of the only fun things to do
around here.”

“Just be careful, then.”

“Garf,” Kirk shouted from over by the gate.  “We’re wasting light, man.
Let’s get our arses in gear.”

Garfield nodded.  He gave Poppy one last smile and then turned around.
He could hear the girl begin to sob behind him, but he didn’t turn back to look
at her.  The sight of her crying wasn’t something he wanted to take on the journey.
It hurt badly enough just knowing that he was the reason for her tears, without
having to see the pain etched on her innocent face and remembering it every
time he closed his eyes.  Rescuing her that the day was the best and worst
thing I ever did.

When Garfield had found Poppy inside the big house beside the pond, he
had been looking only for food.  He was getting so desperate that the notion of
beating other survivors and taking their food was beginning to seem less and
less like a crime.  He had not spoken to another human being in weeks and was
beginning to forget the sound of his own voice.  His hygiene and manners had
become meaningless.  The only thing that mattered was surviving, no matter
what.  He was becoming like an animal.

But then he had found a little girl close to death and everything had
changed.  Focusing on her needs and keeping her safe brought back his humanity
in one fell swoop and refocused him on what it meant to be alive.  The
temptation to kill and steal from others went away, replaced by love and
affection.  Poppy reminded him that there were still helpless, innocent people
in the world and that they needed looking after.  She had stopped him from
becoming a beast.  He owed her his humanity.  But I don’t know what I’m
doing with her anymore.  She wants so much from me, but I have nothing to
give.  I never asked for this.

And neither did she.  I should have told her that I loved her.

Garfield headed over to the gate and got going with the group, heading
towards the church.  He forced himself not to look back until the pier was far
behind him.

POPPY

He didn’t look back
once.  Doesn’t he care about me?

Poppy sat atop the souvenir store where Anna lived, and stared off into
the distance.  She’d watched Garfield and the foragers right up until they’d
become black dots on the horizon.  Now they weren’t even dots anymore, they
were gone.

Why didn’t he look back?  Isn’t he going to miss me?

The tears in Poppy’s eyes had finally dried up, but first they’d spilled
down her cheeks for close to an hour.  Her cheeks were sore now and the cold
was making her shiver.  The rain was falling harder, but she fought against the
discomfort for a while longer.  She didn’t want to get down from the roof until
she knew Garfield was completely out of sight and not coming back.

Anna had called to her a few times in the last hour, warning her about
catching a chill, but Poppy just ignored her.  The woman would just want to
talk – adults always wanted to talk – but the last thing Poppy wanted right now
was chitchat.  I just want Garfield back, and talking won’t make that
happen.

Once upon a time, Poppy had thought her parents were like God.  They were
never wrong and always had the answers to her questions.  They seemed to know
all the secrets of the world and were never scared of anything.  Poppy was
certain they’d live forever.

But then they had died.

Watching her mummy and daddy get sick and turn into monsters had
shattered everything Poppy thought about the world.  Her parents weren’t Gods
anymore.  They had become weak and smelly.  Slowly, their skin turned grey and
their eyes bulged.  Eventually they had barricaded themselves inside their
bedroom and told Poppy to wait outside for help.  They said she must never try
and come inside the bedroom, no matter what.  Poppy had waited so long to be
rescued that she thought she would spend the rest of her life in that dark,
smelly house.  The electricity went first.  Then her food disappeared and the
water flowed weaker and weaker from the taps.  Poppy wondered if that meant she
would die soon.  Once, in desperation, she shouted out to her parents and
begged them help her, but all she’d been met with was a scary growling that
sounded more like two wild animals than her mummy and daddy.

In the end Poppy had started to grow poorly.  She had lain down on the
living room floor and listened to the silence.  So far away in her dreams had
she been, that when Garfield entered her home, she didn’t even notice.  When
she opened her eyes the big ginger-haired man was standing over her, staring
down at her face curiously.  He might have been there to hurt her, she knew
that deep down, but somehow she didn’t care.  For a long time the only thing
that had bothered her was the raging hunger in her belly, but even that had
gone away after a while.  All she felt in the end was tired and numb and sad.
She wouldn’t have minded dying.  But Garfield saved me.

He had taken her away that night, fed her, re-clothed her, and talked to
her; but she said not a single word back to him.  He didn’t seem to mind – in
fact he seemed to like her silence.  He was a quiet person himself.

She didn’t speak for weeks.

Eventually, one night while they were camping inside an old garden centre
surrounded by the dead, Poppy had managed to utter one single word to
Garfield.  She had said: “thanks.”

That time seemed so long ago now.  Much had happened between then and
now.  She’d grown more than she thought she was supposed to in a single year;
toughened up so much that her parents would probably not even recognise her
anymore.  She hoped they would be proud.  I miss them.

Poppy could stare at the horizon no more.  Looking into the distance at
the last place she’d seen Garfield was making her too sad.  She swivelled
around on her bum and stared in the opposite direction, out towards the sea.
The grey-green water kept them alive, Anna often said, and even though everyone
was sick and tired of eating fish, they never failed to cast their rods out
every single morning and night.  They rarely failed to catch something or
other.  Anna said the fish were having lots more babies than they used to
because there was less people eating them.  I remember when there used to be
lots of human babies.  I wonder what happened to them all.  Are they all gone,
or are some of them safe?  I hope so.  I would like to hold a baby someday.

Maybe one day when I grow up I will hold my own.

Poppy often stared out at the sea, hoping to spot a dolphin or a whale.
Garfield told her those animals didn’t live in the English Channel, because the
sea was too cold, but Anna disagreed and said that they could never tell
anything for sure anymore.  Once the dead had not walked, but now they did.
Perhaps, one day, great big whales would belly flop in the waters beyond the
pier and make a new home for themselves.  Poppy wanted to make sure that she
didn’t miss it if it happened.  Maybe I could ride away on one.

She noticed movement on the horizon.  It could have been her mind playing
tricks on her, though.  She wanted so badly to see a whale that she might have
tricked herself into believing she’d just seen one.

Sunlight bounced off the surface of the water.  There was movement there
for sure.  Poppy edged off her bottom and shifted onto her knees.  She leant
forward and squinted, trying to see past the glaring morning sun and the
streaks of falling rain.

What is that?  Am I about to finally see a whale?

No, that’s not a whale.  It’s…something else.

It took almost ten minutes before Poppy could work out what she could see
growing on the horizon.  Once she finally realised, her eyes stretched wide and
her mouth dropped open in shock.  “No flippin’ way!” she almost shouted.

Poppy leapt off the roof and went to get the others.  She wore an excited
grin on her face and almost wet herself.  They’re not going to believe this,
she thought.  Never in a bazillion years.

FRANK

Frank entered the captain’s
chamber and stood before his son’s desk.  Samuel was reclined back in his
leather chair, staring hard at the ceiling.  He would often do that when there
were no immediate matters at hand; just sit and think until there was.  “We’ve
spotted survivors off the Devonshire coast,” Frank told his adopted son.
“Small village with a pier, just past Dartmouth.”

Samuel sat forward and leant across his desk.  He raised one of his dark
eyebrows.  “Oh?  How do we know there are survivors?”

“We’ve spotted people fishing from the railings.”

“Fishing?  My, how very relaxed.  They must be well set-up at this pier.
Any sign of the cripple amongst them?”

“No.  What are your orders?”

Samuel smiled as if his orders should be obvious.  “I won’t have that
terrorist roaming free.  Send a sortie ashore to meet with these survivors.  If
they are the only camp in the area then there’s a good chance the cripple may
have chanced upon them.  We need to question them.”

“Question them?”

Samuel smiled wider, showing long white teeth.  “Yes, just words.  No
needed for anything stronger…yet.  Send Roman.  Maybe this time he’ll do
something useful.”

Frank’s mood worsened at the talk of Roman.  “I worry about that one.  He
doesn’t respect you.”

“Oh, he respects me enough, father.  His very presence is proof of that.
He had no need to join us here, and even less to stay.  There was nothing to
stop him from staying in his dinghy and waitingß for the next chance of
rescue.”

“There would not have been any chance of another rescue.”

“Exactly.  I saved that man’s life.  He owes me.”

“He has a friend aboard, the man who was with him when we rescued him.  I
think the only reason he stays with us is because it keeps his friend safe.
He’s been trying to keep the relationship secret, but petty officer Dunn
informed me about it earlier today.  The man’s name is Harry.”

“That just proves my point,” said Samuel.  “I keep Roman’s only friend
safe.  Thus he has every reason to obey me.”

“But he shows you no respect.”

“Respect is for the weak, you know that.  If I had shown respect to my
peers I would never have made Black Remedy the greatest company on Earth.  To
truly thrive, a man must stand alone and tower above all lesser men.  Roman
will be a leader one day, if he doesn’t screw up his potential.  I can make use
of a born leader, but if he disappoints, then I’m sure there will be more
humble uses for a man like him.”

“But if he doesn’t respect you, how can you trust him?”

Samuel folded his arms across his chest.  “If you had shown respect for
my dead father, you may have resisted sleeping with my mother.”

Frank spluttered.  Falling for Samuel’s mother while he had been the
family’s bodyguard had been a poor show of integrity, but when Samuel’s father
died in a freak accident, Frank had been there to comfort her.  They had grown
unavoidably close.  Her premature death had taken a piece of him.  He’d loved
no woman since.  His sole devotion had been raising the son she had left
behind.  I just hope she’d be happy with the job I’ve done.

Samuel grinned.  “It’s okay, Frank.  Don’t blush.  You know I forgive
you.  When mother died you were there for me.  I will never forget that.”

Samuel’s mother had been an alcoholic.  Her death had been tragic and
left the boy without a parent.  Frank had gladly taken the responsibility.
“I’ve always wanted the best for you, Samuel.  That’s why Roman bothers me so
much.”

“I trust Roman more than the whimpering fools who come before me on bent
knee.  I need men of action, not subservience.  Believe me, father, I have a
way of seeing into a man’s heart, and Roman’s is as black as my own.  He seeks
redemption.  I intend to give him opportunity.”

Frank sighed.  Reading into his adopted son’s intentions was a folly he’d
ceased pursuing long ago.  As much as Samuel spoke in riddles, it could never
be said that he did not understand the men around him.  He knew every weakness,
flaw, and vulnerability of every man he ever crossed, often within minutes of
meeting him.  That was just one of the many reasons Samuel had nigh on
controlled the economic world via his megalithic Black Remedy Corporation – a
company started by Samuel’s father and American business partner, Vincent
Black.  Both were long dead.

And now Samuel commands probably the largest group of survivors left
on the planet.  He was made for leadership and power, but now, instead of a
company, he owns a burgeoning nation on the sea.  It’s a lot of influence for
such a young man.

“Father, you are over-thinking.  I can always tell because another of
the hairs on your head goes grey.  You are aging quicker than I would like.
I’m rather fond of having you around, so please don’t grow too old on me.”

Frank nodded.  He felt older than he would have liked, that much was
true.  The end of the world had been a weary ordeal, and even from the safety
of the Kirkland he’d witnessed more bloodshed than he ever thought
possible.  He himself had partaken in the initial culling of the infected
brought on-board.  God forgive me.

Taking in groups of survivors had been a perilous task and many came to
the Kirkland with bites and scratches.  Frank had hurried them away
hastily under the guise of medical attention, but had shot them in the head at
the rear of the ship before dumping them overboard.  The other survivors knew
it was happening, but they said nothing.  Survival of the fittest and selfish
denial were the only traits that mattered anymore – in fact they were probably
the only traits that had ever mattered.  They were just less well hidden now
that society had crumbled.

“If the survivors have no knowledge of the cripple, if they seek to join
us, what then?”

Samuel shrugged his bony shoulders and blinked his dark eyes slowly.  “Do
they have a boat?”

“No.”

“Then we take those useful to us and urge the rest to remain at their
camp.”

“Isn’t that a tad…cruel?  If they have a doctor or a strong
leader, shouldn’t they stay together as a camp?  Leaving the weak behind and
taking away their strength is the same as-”

“Killing them?” asked Samuel.  His gaze bubbled with a fury that was
always close to the surface, hiding just behind his smile.  “There is no place
left for ideals, father.  Taking aboard the weak and useless, feeding them and
housing them while others more deserving starve and die, that would be the true
crime.  There is no place for the meek.  Their days of inheriting the world are
over.  My world will be a world of the strong and proud.  Humanity will
rise again in glorious fashion, I promise you that.”

Frank cleared his throat.  “Your world?”

Samuel’s face drained of anger and he let out a chuckle.  For a fleeting
moment he looked just like the young boy Frank had raised in the countryside of
Gloucestershire.  That boy had possessed the energy of a hundred normal
children and the intelligence of two hundred.  By the time Samuel was sixteen
years of age, he had read more books than most librarians read in their
lifetimes.

Samuel cleared his throat.  “That was a trifle arrogant of me, perhaps,
but this new world needs a leader – someone to bring the tired and suffering
together and show them their new path.  If someone more befitting for the task
exists, I would welcome him with open arms.  Until then, I will do what I can
for my people.  I am a leader, father.  I was born a leader and that’s what
these people expect me to be.  Without me they are lost.”

Frank nodded, but inside he was thinking, Are you a leader or a
dictator?  Would you truly relinquish power if it were in the interest of the
fleet?

Samuel’s expression darkened and Frank wondered if he knew what he was
thinking.  “Go and fetch Roman,” he ordered.  “Send him ashore again.  If the
cripple is there, I want him brought back to me.  Alive or dead; it makes no
difference.  I merely seek to piss upon his face before tossing his bones into
the ocean.”

Frank sighed.  Some say a leader is judged by the way he treats his
captives.  I don’t think Winston Churchill spoke much of pissing on his
enemies.  He turned away and left with a sigh, wishing he didn’t love the
young man as much as he did.  The boy had grown up in his care.  All that
Samuel was came from the lessons Frank had taught him.  There was a lot of good
in his son, Frank knew it (just look at the number of lives Samuel had saved
and brought inside the protection of the fleet), but there was a deep darkness,
too, something Frank dared not think about most nights.  It’s always been
there.  Even as a boy.  Frank loved Samuel and would try to steer him
right.  That’s what fathers did.  Samuel Raymeady was born to be a great man
and a great man he would be.  The arrogance of youth was no reason to condemn
him.  He’d done well so far.  Everything would work out for the best.  Is it
love that makes me trust him?  Or is it fear?

One thing Frank knew for sure: with all the death and destruction in the
world, there was nothing Samuel could do to make things any worse.

ANNA

Anna was in the diner,
applying a fresh dressing to her patient’s wound.  The flesh was pale rather
than red, which was good; there seemed little sign of infection.  At first
she’d held little hope of the man surviving, but slowly her opinion was
beginning to change.  He had made it through the night, the morning, and now
the afternoon.  His breathing was steady and his eyelids flickered as he
dreamed.

“He may yet live,” said Rene.  “A fighter.”

Anna fastened the last of the fresh bandages and stepped away.  “Fighters
are the only people left.”

Rene nodded.  He offered Anna a glass of water.  “You have cut your hair,
Anna.  I like it.”

Anna took the glass and smiled.  She had cut her scruffy brown hair to
shoulder-length a few days ago.  Up until now, nobody had noticed.  “Thank
you,” she said.  How are we doing for supplies?”

“Plenty of rain lately.  We have lots of water…and fish – always so much
fish.”

Anna chuckled.  “Yep, no lack of Omega-3 in our diets.  Hopefully,
Garfield will bring us back something to get our taste buds dancing again.”

“You think he will return to us?”

“You think he won’t?”

Rene looked sad.  He always looked sad – like a scorned puppy-dog.  “I
think we have all forgotten the danger that stalks the earth.  We have become
too comfortable on this pier: fresh fish, water, safety.  We forget the journey
we all took to get here.”

Anna thought back to the people who had not made the journey: Nick,
Grace, Dave, Shawcross, Jan, Mike…oh, how she missed Mike.  Her next thoughts
were of the creatures that had ripped her past companions apart.  She could
easily recall the screeching wails of the infected and the soft moans of the
dead.  Sometimes those sounds filled the silence whenever she sat alone.  It
would force her to grab a paperback and read just to keep her mind focused on
things other than death.  Losing so many people had made her hard and cold –
even more than she had already been.  Before the infection, the death of her
unborn child haunted her daily.  Now the death of her unborn child was just one
of a hundred deaths she mourned.  It had left her heart unable to beat with
anything other than mistrust and scorn.  The infected and the dead had removed
her capacity for anything approaching joy.

Fortunately the infected – who ran and leapt like ferocious tigers – had
all but died out.  Only a living person with a bite became infected, but once
they died they would soon rise again and continue their murderous quest as
zombies.  The dead were slow and stupid – they could be avoided in small
numbers and were only a danger in great crowds.  Fortunately, there were very
few around the village and the pier.  Anna surmised that the local residents
had owned boats and fled to sea when the first wave of infections began.

When they found the pier, Anna, Rene, and the half-dozen other survivors
they’d met on the south coast, including Alistair, had cleared the village of
as many dead as they dared, before breaking into the pier and securing the gate
behind them.  The pier’s location, built almost a half-mile out to sea on huge
metal struts, had kept them safe for almost a year.  The gate was the only way
in and out and the narrow walkway made it easy to corral the dead and deal with
them in small groups.  Perhaps Rene is right, Anna thought.  Maybe we
have become complacent.

Anna sipped from the water and placed the cup down on a nearby table.
She glanced again at her resting patient.  From the soft moans and the random
sniffs coming from him, she was hopeful that he might wake soon.  He would be
in a lot of pain, no doubt, but he might just heal if he was lucky.  And
then we’ll learn his story.

Just then, Poppy came racing through the doors of the diner.

Anna put her hands up.  “Slow down, you’re going to break your neck.  Who
put so much sand in your knickers?”

The girl was panting, so much so that she couldn’t get her words out.
“Out…on the…sea.  B-boats.  Ships.”

Anna’s eyes went wide.  “There are ships?  Are they abandoned or are
people on them?”

Poppy doubled over, hands on her thighs, still trying to catch her
breath.  “I don’t know.  I-I…think so.”

Anna pulled Poppy up straight and dragged her along as she headed outside
onto the deck.  Alistair and the other survivors were huddled at the end of the
pier, pointing and leaning over the rail.  Beyond them was a huge fleet of
ships and boats taking up the sea for miles.

“Can you believe it?” said Alistair.  His chubby face was bright red and
gleaming with excitement.  “It’s got to be the Navy.  We’re rescued at last.”

Anna frowned.  Rescued?  Rescued from what?  They were already
safe.  How could they be any safer, unless there was some island someplace with
no dead whatsoever?  If this was the Navy, then why did so many of the boats
look like leisure cruisers and yachts?  The fleet did not look like any navy
she knew of; in fact there was only one boat that even looked at all like
military – a large grey frigate taking up the centre.  Maybe it’s escorting
these other boats to safety.  Perhaps it is the Navy after all.

Despite her hopes, Anna didn’t buy it.

They waited nigh on an hour for the fleet of mismatched ships, boats, and
yachts to come closer.  Anna could make out numerous men and women on the
various crafts.  Many of the sailors waved a friendly hand or blared their
horns.  Poppy waved back at them all, jumping up and down excitedly.

Anna placed her arm on the girl’s back to calm her.  “Let’s just wait and
see what they want, Poppy.  We can’t trust anybody until we know a little more
about them.”

“But look at all the people.  There are women, too.  They look friendly.
They’re waving.  HELLO!  YES, HELLO, PLEASED TO MEET YOU.”

Alistair turned and scowled at the girl.  “They can’t hear you, stupid.
They’re too far away.”

“You’re the one who’s stupid,” Poppy mumbled so that Alistair did not
hear.  Anna tried not to chuckle.  Alistair had no idea how to deal with the
little girl and grew increasingly flummoxed by her with each passing day.

The vast fleet came to a stop.  Only a single boat – a small white yacht
– broke away and headed for the shore.  A greeting party, Anna thought.
Her anxiety dissolved slightly at the show of diplomatic convention.  She hoped
the small group coming ashore would extend the hand of friendship and offer
trade, but the truth was that there would be no way of knowing until the
strangers were already at the pier.  I really wish Garfield and the others
hadn’t left.  There’re only a handful of us left.  If something bad happens…

Anna took a deep breath and cricked her neck to the side.  She never
played the victim and was irritated just for thinking like one.  She parted the
group of her fellow survivors and moved up to the railing.  The group would be
looking to her to take charge of the situation.  Time to put my mother hen
suit on.

Patiently, she waited for the small white yacht to reach the end of the
pier.  It was a small boat and slow.  When it finally arrived, Anna was shocked
by what she saw.  Standing at the bow of the yacht was a grim-looking man with
a missing hand.  Where his left fist should be was a jagged metal spear.
Sheathed inside a scabbard on his belt was what looked like a medieval short
sword or a Roman gladius.  With his long blonde hair and muddy face, the
man looked like a character from a comic book.  His age seemed to be just north
of thirty, but it was hard to tell for sure.  Nowadays, even twenty-year-olds
could have grey hair and wrinkles.

Two other men accompanied the man with the sword.  An older man with long
grey hair stood at the wheel inside the boat’s small pilothouse, while a third
man, large and brooding, stood at the back of the yacht.

“Hello, there,” the swordsman said.

“Hi,” said Anna abruptly.  The onus was not on her to state her business,
so she opted to remain quiet for the time being.  Thankfully, Alistair and the
others took her lead and did the same.

“We are fellow survivors,” the swordsman continued.  He spoke strangely,
like he was acting out some part in a play.  “Some twelve hundred in total.  We
wish you no harm, only to discuss a short matter.  May we disembark?”

“No,” said Anna.  “Not until you state your business.”

“Very well.  I’m looking for a man.  A man that tried to sink our flagship.”
He turned around and pointed to the large frigate in the distance.  “The HMS
Kirkland.  Do you see it?”

“I see it,” said Anna.  The big ship was like a bristly grey sea
monster.  Radars and towers rose up from it like spines and bristles, while its
long pointed bow was like the sharp beak of a condor.  “Why did this man try to
sink it?”

“Because he’s a bloody nutter, luv,” said the large man at the back of
the yacht.  “Have you seen him or not?”

Anna shrugged.  “Seen who?”

A look of irritation came over the swordsman’s face.  When he spoke
again, the nature of his speech had changed.  He sounded less like a
Shakespearian actor and more like a thug.  “Don’t piss about, darling,” he
snarled.  “Just answer the question.”

“Or else what?”  As soon as Anna said it, she glanced out at the vast
fleet of ships.  She wondered if she should tone down her obstinacy and be a
little more polite.  She knew little of these three men or the people aboard
the boats.  Distrust is one thing, she thought.  But I shouldn’t go
looking or a fight.

Alistair was spluttering, but he managed to speak up before Anna had
another chance.  “What did this man look like?” he asked.

The swordsman cleared his throat.  “Skinny geezer, hair the colour of a
two-pence piece.  A bullet wound in his guts.”

Anna’s eyes went wide.  We have the guy, all right.  He’s lying
unconscious in our diner right now.  Oh, Hell’s bloody bells.

“We have the man you’re looking for,” Alistair said immediately.  He
shrugged at Anna.  “Sorry, but I don’t think we should get ourselves in the
middle of this.  We don’t owe that man anything.  We patched him up and kept
him alive.  What else can we do?”

“I patched him up,” Anna corrected.  “And he’s been unconscious
this whole time.  Shouldn’t we wait to hear what he has to say before we hand
him over to a bunch of pirates?”

Alistair shook his head.  “It’s not our business.  You see all those
ships out there, right?  This could be our ticket out of here.”

“When did getting out of here become so goddamn important?  We’re safe
here.  We look after each other.  I don’t think we should be in such a hurry to
leave.  As much as I mistrust you, Alistair, I trust those men even less.”

Alistair frowned, but then seemed to think for a moment.  It became clear
he wasn’t changing his mind.  “We can decide what to do after we give these men
what they want.”

Why should we?  Why do we owe them our immediate trust?  Just because
their group is bigger than ours?  While Anna had no reason to protect the
wounded man in their diner, something inside of her was loathe to hand him
over.  There was something brutish about the way the huge fleet had swarmed up
on the pier out of nowhere and brought its demands.  She’d never liked bullies
in the old world, and she liked them even less now.

The swordsmen hit the edge of the yacht with his spear, making a clang
and getting their attention.  “Hurry up and hand the man over,” he yelled up at
them.  “I don’t have all day”

“Why should we do what you want?” Anna asked him.

“Because if you won’t hand him over then I’ll come up there and take him
myself.”

“You can try, but I wouldn’t recommend it.”  Jesus, Anna.  Stop
picking a fight.

“What are you doing?” Alistair whispered to her irritably.  The man’s
jowly chin was jiggling with frustration.  “Let’s just hand the man over before
something bad happens.”

“What’s happening?” asked Poppy.  “Are these men bad?”

“They’re not bad,” Alistair told her.  “We’re just helping them with
something.”

Anna whispered back to Alistair in the same irritated tone he had used on
her.  “Why should we?  Because this guy is ordering us to?  We don’t take
orders from him.”

The swordsmen stood restlessly on the bow of his yacht and let out a
long, contemplative sigh.  He closed his eyes for a moment and seemed to be
thinking.  His light-blond hair was blowing in the breeze.  After a while, he
pointed his spear at them.  “This is going in a bad direction.  I said I’m not
here to hurt anyone, but I’m beginning to change my mind.  You know that
frigate we were talking about, the HMS Kirkland?  Let me tell you
a little bit about her.  She’s a Type 27 ‘Duke’-class frigate, originally
constructed for use by the Royal Navy.  193 metres in length, she has a
displacement of 6,000 tonnes.  Most interestingly of all, though, are the two
30MM guns on each side, starboard and portside.  The starboard gun is currently
pointing right in our direction.  If I give a signal, or if anything happens to
me, this place will be ripped apart in seconds by so many rounds of API
incendiary fire that you will think that Hell itself is raining down on you.”
The swordsman raised an eyebrow as if to implore them.  “I suggest you people
let me up there and take me to the man you’re hiding.  My only interest is
taking the man back to the Kirkland to stand trial for his crimes.”

“Alleged crimes,” Anna corrected him.  “How do I know he even did
anything?”  Alistair scowled at her and shook his head disapprovingly.  Anna
gave up.  Even her own people were against her and perhaps they were right.
Did she really want to start making enemies?  “Okay,” she shouted over the
rail.  “You can come up.  We’ll get a rope.”

“Thank you,” said the swordsman, already tying a mooring rope around one
of the pier’s thick struts.  “You lot aren’t as dumb as I thought.”

Anna ignored the insult and stepped back from the railing.  She felt
wrong about what they were doing.  She didn’t want to give up an unconscious
man without knowing for sure what the situation was.  Regardless of whether
Alistair was a coward or just being pragmatic, she was irritated that he was at
odds with her.  She’d survived alongside the man for close to a year; she would
have liked him to have her back.

Alistair took a rope from old man Bob and secured it to the railing
before tossing it over.  Down below, the three strangers secured it to the
moorings of their yacht, and then started to shimmy up the rope, one at a
time.  The swordsman went first, climbing awkwardly with one hand.  When he
hopped over the railing, his heavy boots planted down on the deck with a
resounding thud!

“Pleasure to meet you,” Anna said with sharp politeness.  “What’s your
name?”

“Call me whatever makes you happy.”

“You are speaking to Roman,” said the older man with long grey hair,
hopping the railing.  Anna’s breath caught in her throat.  Roman!  Roman,
Roman, Roman.

“Good to meet you,” said Roman, extending his right hand.  “I’m sorry for
the acrimony.  That was not my intention.”  His speech had returned back to the
chivalrous tones of some deluded knight.

Begrudgingly, Anna shook the man’s hand.  It felt rough and scarred.  “My
name is Anna.  This is Alistair, Jim, Chris, Samantha, and Bob.”

“And I’m Poppy,” said Poppy, hiding behind Anna nervously.

Roman looked at the girl and smiled.  “Well, it’s nice to see such a
little miss.  Not many around nowadays.  I am very pleased to meet you.”

“Me too,” said the large man who came over the railing last.  He grinned
at Poppy with crooked teeth.  “Such a young girl.”

Poppy shook hands with all three of the new men before giggling coyly at
their apparent leader.  “What happened to your hand?”

Roman didn’t seem offended by the question.  In fact, he smiled warmly.
“I lost it a long time ago in an accident, long before the bad men started
walking around.  They say two hands are better than one, but I tell them that
one hand is still better than none.”

Anna placed a hand on Poppy’s shoulder and manoeuvred the girl behind
her.  It wouldn’t do to have her becoming too enamoured with the strangers.

The two men accompanying Roman were complete opposites.  One man was fat,
sweaty, and unwashed, with random zits covering a balding pate; the other was
thin and older with a full head of grey hair falling all the way to his
shoulders.  His beard was clean and fluffy and gave him a wizened and friendly
appearance.  He introduced his name as ‘Fox.’  Instantly, Anna began to think
of him as Grey Fox.  The larger man introduced himself as ‘Birch.’

“Take me to the man you’re holding,” Roman demanded.  Anna shook her head
in dismay and did nothing.  Alistair took the three strangers and led them
away.

Old man Bob, the resident elderly person of the pier at the ripe old age
of sixty-four and a retired bus driver, stayed behind with Anna and Poppy
whilst the other members of the group broke away to follow after the three
guests.  He was staring at Anna with his rheumy, grey eyes.  “You all right,
duck?” he asked her in his usual Yorkshire way.

Anna sighed.  “I don’t know.  I think I’m being stupid.”

“Why’s that?”

“I have a problem handing over that injured man.”

“They said he was a terrorist or something – a bad egg.”

“If he’s a bad egg,” said Poppy.  “We should give him up.  The new people
will be angry with us otherwise.”

“Exactly,” said Anna.  “I shouldn’t have a problem with this, but it just
feels wrong somehow.  I don’t trust anyone anymore.  I’ve been burned too many
times before.”

Bob smiled.  Several of his teeth were missing and his dentures had gone
bad with no fluid to sterilise them.  “Not a bad way to be nowadays, duck.  I
think all of us survived by having a touch of the cynic about us.  Doesn’t pay
to be too trusting, but hopefully, if we play ball with these new fellas, we
might be able to tag along with all those boats.  They seem to have their act
together.”

Anna stared out at the fleet.  The numerous boats sat beneath the grey
sky and bobbed up and down like writhing insects.  She wasn’t sure they were
any better off out on the sea.  It seemed unnatural to live away from land.
“Would you enjoy being cooped up on a boat all the time?” she asked Bob.

The old man shrugged.  “I think enjoyment went down the swanny along with
everything else.  Just being safe and sound is good enough for me.  Unless you
know a bookies that’s still open.”

“We’re safe here,” said Poppy.  “But it’s boring.”

Bob smiled at the girl and tussled her hair.  “We are very safe, little
lass, but we’d be even safer out on the sea.  Zombies don’t have a cat in
hell’s chance of getting at us there, unless they learn how to doggy paddle.”

Poppy’s face screwed up in conflict.  “I don’t know which I want most.  I
like it here, but I want to go new places.”

Anna cuddled her.  “We’ll all have a chat with the new men and sort
something out.”  New men.  Why does that thought fill me with dread?  We
haven’t seen anyone in months and now a thousand-odd people turn up right on
our doorstep.  I didn’t even know there was that many still left alive.

Anna had met so many desperate, struggling people in the first chaotic
months when the infection hit that it had sullied her opinion of the human race
forever.  When law and order evaporated, those left alive had stole, fought,
bullied, and even murdered for their own gain.  Women had wandered the streets
raped and bloody.  After leaving the amusement park with Rene, Anna had watched
entire cities topple as much to desperation as to the dead.  She was eternally
grateful that she had become part of the little community at the pier.  It was
the only place she knew where people hadn’t resorted to stabbing and killing
each other over bottles of water.  We’re a family – a dysfunctional,
messed-up family, but a family all the same.  Maybe I’m wrong not to trust them
more.

Muffled shouting erupted from the diner.

Alistair had taken the visitors into the diner several minutes ago, but
now they were shouting.  Anna felt herself grow pale.  I knew this was going
to go bad.  She took Poppy by the hand and hurried towards the diner.  Bob
limped along behind them, trying to keep up.  Once Anna reached the
American-style eatery, she wasted no time stepping inside.

Roman had his spear against Alistair’s throat and had shoved him
backwards over one of the tables.  His two companions were standing rigidly
either side of him, their hands curled into fists.

“What the hell are you doing?” Anna demanded.

The man released Alistair and spun around.  Alistair slumped to the
floor, his blustery face as red as a blood-soaked rose.  “Where is he?” Roman
demanded, raising his spear so that it pointed right at Anna’s face.

Anna frowned in confusion.  She glanced across at the table where her
patient had earlier been lying.  There was no sign of him now, save for some
blood spots and a scrap of dirty bandage.

“Where is he?” Roman demanded again.

“I don’t know,” said Anna.  “He…he was here.”

“Well, he ain’t here now, luv.”

“No shit.”

Alistair straightened up off the floor, his legs wobbling.  “H-he must
have gotten up and escaped.”

“Escaped?” said Anna.  “He wasn’t our prisoner.  If he wanted to leave
then good luck to him.”

Roman snarled at her.  He held the tip of his spear right up against her
chest and spat a word at her.  “Bitch!”

Anna bristled.  “What did you just call me?”

“Calm down there, chuck,” old man Bob pleaded.  “No need for talk like
that.”

Anna’s lip turned into a snarl.  “You better get that thing out of my
face before I break it off and whip you with it.”

Roman glared at her for what seemed like minutes, but in fact must have
been only seconds.  Eventually he lowered his spear and grinned at her.  There
was no humour in the expression, though.  “I don’t know what game you muppets
are trying to play, but there’s a very powerful man sailing just a mile away
from here, and if he doesn’t get what he wants then bad things are going to
start happening, you get me?  I never came here to have a barny with you, I
honestly didn’t, but I’m following the orders of a geezer that don’t give a
shit either way.”

“That’s what the Nazis used to say,” said Bob.  “Just following orders.”

Roman nodded.  “And, like me, they had a gaffer with a nasty temper.  I’m
going to give you people a chance to save your arses.  I’m going to camp here
‘til morning.  You have until then to produce the man I’m looking for.
Otherwise I’m going to have to go back with bad news, and the captain won’t
like that.  Tell you the truth, I don’t even like the prick very much, but I do
appreciate that he has the power to shag things right up for you lot.  So be smart.
Use your fucking loafs.”

Roman marched out of the diner with Fox and Birch close behind him.  Anna
took in a deep breath and held it while Alistair gritted his teeth, bright red
and seething.  It was then that Anna noticed that the ‘cripple’ wasn’t the only
one who was missing.  Where did Rene go?

POPPY

The adults were tense.
They were all frowning and fidgeting.  Anna kept chewing her nails and Alistair
kept huffing and puffing.

It was all because of the new men; the one with the silly name and his
two friends.  He don’t look like a Roman to me.  After the argument, the
three men from the boat had said that they were not leaving.  They were going
to stay at the camp until the man with the poorly belly showed up again.  Anna
said the injured man had run away, but the Roman said that Anna was playing
games.  Then Anna told him to leave and when he refused she had got angry.
Eventually, Poppy had decided to leave the adults to themselves.  She was tired
of all the shouting

She passed the time inside the games pavilion.  It was a building shaped
like a big tent at the very end of the pier and was full of arcade machines and
indoor funfair rides.  Poppy wished the machines still worked, but she knew
none of them ever would again.  They had died along with everything else.
Funfair rides were just like the Roman coliseums now: dusty and broken.  Does
anything last forever?

Poppy sat down on a pretend motorbike fixed in front of a big television
screen and imagined she was tearing down a road someplace, the sun shining down
on her and mountains up ahead.  She imagined she was heading away from the sea,
away from the salty air that made her lips sore and her nose red.  There were
so many places out in the world and she wanted to visit them all.  She wanted
to ride a motorbike for real and parachute off a cliff.  I want to leave
this pier.  I wish Garfield would take me.

With a sigh, she slipped her leg off the motorbike and hopped back down
to the floor.  As she landed, she thought she saw movement – a shadow
flickering past a group of penny pusher machines in the middle of the pavilion.

“Hello?  Is somebody there?”  Maybe it’s Rene.  He was missing earlier
when everybody was arguing.  “Hello?” she repeated.  “Is anybody there?”

There was no answer.

She must have been seeing things.  The pier could be so lonely sometimes
that her mind would wander all over the place.  She would often get spooked
when she was all on her own.  It’s stupid.  Grown-ups never get scared.

She strolled over to the basketball machine.  It was one of the few games
that could still be played.  The ball return didn’t work without electricity,
but you could reach over and grab the basketballs directly from the pit
inside.  The act of throwing a ball into a net was as fun as ever; it broke the
monotony for a while.  Sometimes Garfield would come and play with her, or they
would remove one of the balls and play catch or football somewhere else.  The
basketballs weren’t proper ones, so they didn’t bounce very well, but they were
easy to throw and kick.

Poppy arched back and let off a shot.  The ball hit the backboard and
teased around the basket.  Eventually it tilted and fell through the metal
rung.  Poppy had gotten pretty good at making baskets.

“Good shot,” said a voice behind her.

She spun around, her heart drumming against her ribs.  It was one of the
new men; the big fat one who said his name was Birch.

“You scared me,” she said.

The man grinned.  He was ugly with lots of spots and a bald head.  “Sorry,
sweetheart.  I was just checking out where you people live.  It’s quite a
place.  Lots of space and things to do.”

Poppy shook her head.  “It’s boring.”

The man looked surprised.  “Really?  Where would you rather be?”

Poppy shrugged.  She picked up another basketball and threw it.  It went
straight through the hoop this time with a satisfying swish.
“Anywhere,” she said.  “I’m just tired of being stuck here.”

The man came closer.  “Maybe you could come with me.  We go sailing
everywhere out there on the sea.  The things we see….  Every day is someplace
new.”

Poppy tried to imagine.  “Really?  You go exploring?”

“We do.  Different countries, different islands.  It’s beautiful…and so
much fun.”  He stared into space dreamily and grinned.  The man didn’t
seem so scary anymore.

“Maybe Anna and Garfield will come,” said Poppy.

“Whoever you want.”  He reached for her, but just as he did, someone
shouted out from over by the pavilion’s entrance.

It was Anna’s voice.  “Poppy?  Are you in here?”

Poppy ran to her, darting between the various games in her way.  “I’m
here,” she said.  “I was just playing basketball and speaking with Mr Birch.”

Anna put her arms around Poppy and peered into the pavilion.  “Mr Birch?
What is he doing here with you?”

Birch appeared from around the side of a change machine.  “I was just
checking out your digs and I stumbled upon the girl.  She’s very sweet.”

Poppy nodded to confirm the story.  Anna seemed angry but she didn’t
understand why.

Anna folded her arms.  “Perhaps you should stay where we tell you to, Mr
Birch.  It’s rude to make yourself at home on somebody else’s property.”

Birch grinned.  A pimple on his chin seemed to stretch wider and burst.
“Oh, I didn’t realise this was your property.  I assumed you were just
squatting here.  You’ll have to tell me more about how your family built the
pier.  I’m sure it’s fascinating.”

Anna glared.  “You know what I mean.  We claimed this place.  It’s ours.
Whoever used to own it is long dead.”

“You assume.”

“I know so, and if not then they are very welcome to come along and join
us.  Perhaps you should show a little more politeness, Mr Birch.”

“As should you.  A guest should be made to feel welcome.”  He glanced at
Poppy and then back at Anna.  “You should offer whatever comforts you can provide.”

“Does that stand for uninvited guests as well?”

Birch bellowed, his fat belly rumbling with laughter as he strolled
towards Anna.  He shoved his way past her and headed back out to the deck, but
before he left he said, “Even more so, my sweets.  Even more so.”

Anna grabbed Poppy by her shoulders and knelt down to face her.  “You
stay away from that man, you hear me?”

Poppy scrunched up her face.  “He was saying we could go with him.  They
go everywhere on the sea.  They go exploring.”

Anna shook her and it hurt.  “Poppy, listen to me.  Do not go near that
man.  In fact, I am telling you to stay with me until the new men leave.  You
told Garfield you would listen to me, so do you promise?”

Poppy rolled her eyes.

“Do.  You.  Promise?”

Poppy huffed.  “Fine.  Yes, I promise.”

“Good.  Now come on.  We should get something to eat before bed.”

Poppy went along reluctantly.

They ended up having fish.  No surprise there.  Poppy wondered if the
people on the boats ate nothing but fish.  I bet they don’t.  I bet they
find all sorts of good stuff on their travels.  I bet they have sweets…and
chocolate!

After dinner, everybody retired for the evening.  It was winter and the
nights got cold, so nobody wanted to hang around outside.  Anna slept inside
the gift shop and told Poppy that she had to do the same until Garfield came
back, so she went and fetched a blanket from a pile on one the shelves and made
herself a bed below a display of blow-up whales and sharks.  The animals had
all deflated a long time ago and now just looked like puddles of blue and grey
plastic.  The only light inside the shop was from a fat wax candle.  There were
lots of candles stored around the pier – one of the knickknack shops had sold
them in all shapes and sizes – but the group decided only to start using them
when the nights began to arrive early.  Hopefully there would be enough to last
a long time.  I hate the dark.  I’m such a baby.

Through the gift shop’s window, Poppy could see out across the sea.  Some
of the boats were all lit up, with real lights – electric lights.  She wondered
how that was possible.  Did they use petrol?  Or did they have batteries?  It
almost seemed like magic now, so long had it been since she’d seen anything
with power.  I wonder if they have toys and games, like I used to have at
home.  I wonder if they watch cartoons and listen to music, like that silly
woman who wore a telephone on her head and sang all those catchy tunes…I can’t
remember her name anymore.  I wonder if people will ever get to be silly like that
again, instead of serious all the time.

Thinking made Poppy sad, so she took one last look at the lights across
the sea and closed her eyes.  Maybe tomorrow we can talk about joining the
men on the boats.  We could all leave here.

Sleep didn’t come easily that night.  She listened to Anna’s snoring for
what seemed like hours while she lay awake wondering where Garfield was and
what he would bring back upon his return.  I heard him talking about guns.
I don’t want him to bring guns.  Guns are dangerous.  Why can’t they bring back
something nice, like a puppy, or a bicycle, or a bow and arrow…or a
guitar…or…a…

Poppy must have been half-asleep when the hand on her arm caused her to
flinch and sit upright.  She peered around in the darkness, wondering what had
just happened, wondering if she had merely woken from a nasty dream.  I
don’t think I was having a nightmare...

But then Birch whispered in her ear.  “Come with me, sweets.  I want to
show you something.”

“Mr Birch?” she whispered.

“Sshhh,” he said.  “Just come with me.”

Poppy was confused that the man would wake her in the middle of the
night.  Maybe he wanted to give her a gift, or talk to her more about living on
the sea.  Maybe he has sweets!

Poppy knew she shouldn’t go with the man – Anna would be really mad – but
if she was quiet, she could be back in bed without Anna ever knowing.  I’ll
just be quick and see what Mr Birch wants, then come right back.

Carefully, Poppy crawled out from beneath her blanket and shivered as the
cold air got at her.  Birch wrapped his arm around her shoulders and she felt a
little warmer.  His hand was hot and sweaty against her skin.  She wanted to
look around for her cardigan but he never gave her time.  “Come on,” he
whispered, “and keep quiet.” he added.  “The secret is just for you, so we
can’t wake anybody else, okay?”  Poppy nodded.  They stepped outside onto the
moonlit deck and she asked where they were going.  “Just to the end of the
pier,” he told her.  “I want to get some sea air.”

The end of the pier was where the games pavilion was located.  It was far
away, a five-minute walk.  “Okay,” she said, confused.  “What do you want to
show me when we get there?”

“You’ll see.”

“I hate surprises.”

“You’ll like this one.”

Mr Birch led Poppy along the pier.  They walked in silence, yet there was
a subtle smile on the man’s face, as if he wanted to laugh but dared not.
Poppy sometimes wore that same expression when she was playing hide and seek
and trying not to be discovered – the urge to laugh would always take over her
and Garfield would find her in an instant.

“Here we go,” said Birch, moving over to the railing at the end of the
pier and waiting for her to join him.

“Can I see what you want to show me now, please?”

“Not yet, it’s still a surprise.”

“Oh, pleeease?” Poppy hopped up and down.

Birch shushed her.  “Quiet!  You don’t want the others to hear us.  It’ll
ruin our fun.”

Poppy frowned.  “I don’t see what fun we’re having yet.”

Birch grinned at her.  His teeth were a little crooked and the moonlight
shone off them in all directions.  He stepped up against her and started to rub
her shoulders.  It felt nice, but weird.  She barely knew this man and he was
touching her.  Not even Garfield ever touched her like this.  “What are you
doing?”

“Just being a friend.  Doesn’t that feel good?”

“Sort of.  It feels weird.”

Birch rubbed deeper, his thumbs and fingers probing over her neck,
shoulders, and chest.  “People used to make each other feel good all the time
back before things got so hard.  It only feels weird because nobody ever taught
you about making another person feel good.  Do you want to learn?”

Poppy chewed at her lip.  She suddenly felt very alone with this man, yet
he wanted to teach her things – and treat her like an adult.  “I guess so,” she
eventually said.

Birch smiled and leaned closer.  He planted a soft kiss on her cheek and
Poppy could smell the sweat on him.  “Good girl,” he whispered.  “Now, you rub
me.”

Poppy reached forward.  Her hands were trembling.  When her fingertips
were only inches away from his neck, Birch grabbed her wrists.  “No,” he said.
“That’s not where you rub a man.”  He kept a firm hold on her wrist and began
to move her hand downwards, towards his…

Poppy pulled away.

Birch twisted her arm and made her cry out.  He grabbed her chin with his
other hand and snarled right in her face.  “Now you be quiet, you little cunt,
or I’ll throw you over the railing and watch you drown.  I’ll say you was
messing around and fell in.  Adults never trust children so they’ll believe
me.  Behave, little girl, or else.

Poppy whimpered.  “Please,” she begged.

Birch ignored her and shoved her hand up against his crotch.  She cringed
as she felt something hard and warm beneath his trousers.  “There you go,” he
said, shuddering.  “Now you’re learning.”

“Step the hell away from her.”

Birch released Poppy’s hand and spun around.  Poppy fell to the deck and
and started wailing.  She looked up through her tears and saw a man emerging
from the shadows.  It was Alistair.  Am I going to be in trouble?  Alistair
is always telling me to behave and I’ve been really bad.  Really really bad.
I’ve let Anna down.  I promised to stay with her.

Birch straightened and smiled merrily.  “Hello, there.  Not just me who
has trouble sleeping then, I see?  How are you doing tonight, friend?”

Alistair’s eyes narrowed into slits.  “I’m doing just fine.  I told you
to step away from the girl.”

“Of course.  I was just having a chat with her.”

“Like hell you were.  Poppy, sweetheart, come over to me.”  Poppy leapt
up off the floor and raced over to Alistair.  She felt safer as he shoved her
behind him, but even so, she couldn’t help but tremble and sob.  I don’t
understand what’s happening.

Birch put his hands out in front of him and clasped them together like he
was saying a prayer.  “I think there’s some sort of misunderstanding here,
friend.”

“He made me touch his thing,” said Poppy between sobs.

Alistair patted Poppy on her head but kept his eyes on Birch.  “Seems
like things are pretty clear to me.”

“This is ridiculous.”  Birch went to walk back down the deck, but
Alistair blocked him.  The two men stood and stared at each other.  Both of
their big bellies wobbled.

“Get out of my way.”  Birch snarled.

Alistair shook his head with disgust.  It was the same face he pulled
whenever they had crab for dinner.  Alistair hated crab.  He made a snorting
sound, too, like the rhinos at the zoo.  “Who the hell are you people?” he
demanded.  “Pirates and Paedophiles?  I guess the world’s a playground, huh?”
He turned his head and spat on the deck.  “I have more respect for the dead.”

Poppy grimaced.  Alistair didn’t usually spit; her mummy told her it was
a dirty habit.

Birch’s eyes narrowed and he licked his lips.  “Watch yourself, friend.
You don’t want this fight, believe me.”  He went to move past Alistair again,
but Alistair blocked him same as before.  Birch snarled and went to say
something, but didn’t get a chance.

Alistair punched him right in the face.  Poppy was shocked and
frightened, but also a little glad.  He should hit him again.  Birch
stumbled backwards, but didn’t go down.  He spat blood and swore loudly.  Then
he rushed at Alistair with his fists in the air.  Alistair ran to meet him
head-on, like a charging bull, and the two men collided.  Birch rolled back on
his heels, off-balance, and Alistair hit him in the face again.

This time Birch went down and his nose began to bleed.  “You’re a dead
man,” he snarled from on his back.

Alistair laughed.  “You’re the fat knacker sat on his arse, not me.”

Birch leapt up and came at Alistair again.  This time Alistair kicked the
man in the shin.  Birch flinched and bent over to grab his poorly leg, which
allowed Alistair to drive his knee up into his face and send him flying
backwards.  Poppy winced at the cracking sound.

Birch hit the deck again.  Blood covered his face and looked like an oil
slick under the moonlight.  Poppy scurried away and cowered behind the pier’s
rusty pretzel stand.  She wanted the violence to be over, but couldn’t help but
watch.  Alistair was winning, but the fighting was still making her tummy
sick.  I don’t like it.

Birch clambered unsteadily to his feet again.  His snarling, blood-soaked
face made him look like a monster.  Poppy watched him pull something shiny from
his belt, and when she saw that it was a knife she almost threw-up in fear.

“You don’t want to take it to that level,” Alistair growled, but he
suddenly seemed less sure of himself.  Poppy’s heart beat fast.  Boom boom
boom.  If Alistair got hurt, would the bad man get her again?  I don’t
want to touch his thing.

Birch came forward with the knife.  The metal caught the moonlight as he
waved it back and forth.  Alistair stood his ground.  Then Birch pounced, much
quicker than a man his size should have been able to.  He thrust out with the
knife and managed to slash Alistair, who was barely able to sidestep in time to
avoid the knife entering his ribs.  Blood poured from a newly opened gash on
his left forearm.

Poppy placed a hand over her mouth.

Birch swiped the knife again, but this time he missed completely.
Alistair grabbed at the man and tried to wrestle the weapon away.  Poppy stood
frozen while the two men shoved and twisted against one another, each of them
battling to gain control over the knife.

Just as it seemed like Alistair was getting the upper hand, Birch
head-butted him right on top of the nose.  Blood exploded from his face and
sent him staggering backwards.

Birch leapt forward, knife plunging through the air.

Poppy screamed out as loud as she could.

The noise distracted Birch for a split second and Alistair was able to
react in time to block the knife attack and lock in a bear hug.  The wrestling
match continued.

Poppy could watch no more.  She had to get help.  She had to get Anna
or…someone.  Before she knew it, she was racing back down the pier, screaming
and shouting for someone to come.  She would have called for Garfield, but he
was not there.  I told him not to leave.

Poppy thanked God when she went hurtling into Anna.  “What is it?” she
asked her.  “What the bloody hell are you doing out here in the middle of the
night?  Garfield is going to be so upset that you disobeyed me.”

“It’s Alistair,” Poppy spluttered.  “He needs your help.”

“Alistair, why, what?”

Poppy grabbed Anna by the arm and pulled her.  “Just come, quick.”  She
raced back towards the end of the pier, taking Anna with her.  Anna demanded
explanations, but there was no time.  Alistair was in danger.

They reached the end of the pier and the two men were still fighting.
Alistair now bled from a wound on his chest as well as the one on his forearm.
Birch still held the knife and was swinging it through the air wildly.

“What the hell?” said Anna.

Alistair spotted her and shouted out.  “Anna, you need to get the
others.  He was trying to hurt Poppy.  We need to make the new men leave.”

Anna looked down at Poppy and frowned in confusion.

Poppy looked at her and tried not to cry as she spoke.  “He tried to make
me touch his thing.”

Anna seemed to glow bright red in an instant and a scary look came over
her face.  She trembled for a moment, clenching and unclenching her fists.
Then she ran straight at Birch.  The man turned to face her, but he was too
late to stop her from kicking him right in the balls.  Poppy didn’t have balls
but she winced all the same.  Ouch!

Birch said a bad word as the breath exploded out of him all at once.  He
swung his knife at Anna’s face, but Alistair tackled him just as the blade was
about to part her cheek.  The two men tumbled to the ground and resumed their
fighting, rolling around like duelling cats, biting and scratching and
punching.  Blood spattered everywhere.

Alistair was on top.

And then Birch.

Then Alistair again.

Then Birch got the upper hand.  He had the knife and was on top of
Alistair again.

Anna kicked Birch in the back just as he was about to plunge the knife
into Alistair’s chest.  She kicked him so hard that he bucked forward and
dropped the weapon completely.  The blade skittered across the deck and came to
a stop over by the railing.  Alistair punched Birch in the face three times and
the man finally stopped struggling.   He slumped forward and fell asleep.

The fighting was over.

Anna dragged Birch away from Alistair who remained on his back, panting.
Poppy stayed by the pretzel cart, trying to catch her breath but finding that
her lungs had turned to sand.

There was nothing but silence for a long time.  Only the sound of people
breathing.

Eventually Alistair let out a moan from on his back.  Blood stained the
front of his shirt, but belonged to Birch as much as it did him.  Poppy went
and knelt beside him, before giving him a great big hug.  “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, lass.  Another fine mess you’ve got me into, huh.”
Poppy laughed.  She had always hated the way Alistair moaned at her and told
her off, but she was glad of it now.  If he were gone she would miss him.  He
went to get up off the deck but collapsed back down again and moaned again.
“I’m too fat for this nonsense,” he muttered.

Poppy giggled.  “You are a bit fat.”

Alistair rolled his eyes.  “Bloody charming!  I save you and that’s the
thanks I get, huh.”

Poppy kissed him on the cheek.  “Thank you.”

Alistair gave her a serious look.  “Are you okay, sweetheart?”

Poppy nodded but felt like she needed to cry.  She tried to be brave and
didn’t.

“I’m sorry I didn’t find you sooner, girl,” said Alistair.  “If not for
the fact I’m so paranoid, I may not have found you at all.  I knew those men
were trouble after the way they behaved in the diner.  I was up and about,
making sure they weren’t up to no good.  Worst I expected was theft, but not…this.”

“I didn’t do anything,” Birch said between laboured breaths.  He’d woken
up again, but was still flat on the deck.  “You people just screwed up big
time.  You’ll pay for this.”

Anna booted the man in the face and sent him back to sleep.  Poppy
winced.  “He was hurting me,” she told Alistair, “but you stopped him before he
did anything really bad.  Why did he want me to do those things?”

Alistair sighed.  “One day you’ll understand, but it’s not something a young
girl should worry about.  Stay a child for as long as you can, because it don’t
get any easier with age.”

“I thought you said I had to grow up and start being useful.”

“And when did you ever listen to me?”

“I’m listening to you now.”

“Well, I was wrong.  You grow up when you’re good and ready.”  He kissed
her on the forehead.

“Everything’s okay now,” Anna told her.  “Nobody is going to hurt you.”

Footsteps on the deck made them all look up.  It was Roman and the older
man called Fox.  Roman had his sword drawn and was glaring at them all.  “You
just made a big mistake,” he said.

DAMIEN

Damien couldn’t believe
what he was seeing.  Birch was bloody and beaten, lying half-conscious like
Sonny Liston with the woman standing over him like Ali.  Birch had come ashore
in peace, an envoy for the fleet, and these idiots had beaten him half to
death.  The woman, Anna, who Damien had met with earlier, was standing over
Birch with a defiant look on her face, while her fat companion was bleeding on
the ground nearby with the little girl in plaits kneeling beside him.  What
the hell did I just miss?

Birch was no friend of Damien’s, he barely knew the man, but his
treatment was inexcusable.  This tiny group of survivors at the pier seemed
intent on defiance at every turn.  They were protecting the cripple he was
after, and now they had done this.  Were the fools planning to turn their
attacks on Damien next?  Would he be forced to cut them down and return to the Kirkland
soaked in their blood?  He hoped not, but he was willing to do what was
necessary.  “You just made a big mistake,” he said, staring down at Birch.

Surprisingly, it was not the fat man or the woman who came forward with
an explanation, but the young girl, Poppy.  “He started it,” she said, pointing
her finger at Birch.  “He took me out here all alone and was trying to get me
to touch his thing.  Alistair was just stopping him.”

Damien’s mouth fell open.  “Wha…?

“It’s okay, Poppy,” said Alistair, dragging himself up off the floor and
patting her on the arm.  “There’s nothing to be afraid of anymore.”

Damien narrowed his eyes. Had Birch really been attempting something
unthinkable?  The man was lying on his back covered in his own blood, but when
Damien spotted the man’s own knife lying on over by the railing, he began to
have concerns.  “Birch, can you get up?  I need to know what happened.”

Birch moaned and rolled onto his side.  “Give me a second.”  Everybody
stood by in silence while he struggled up to his knees and then eventually onto
his feet.  The man’s nose was bloody and bent.  His lower lip was swollen.

“What the hell happened here, Birch?” Damien demanded.

Birch spat a mouthful of blood, and when he spoke his words were wet and
spluttery.  “They attathed me for no reathen.”

Alistair disagreed immediately.  His plump face was a picture of
hostility.  “You tried to assault a child!”

“Lieths.”

“Quiet,” said Damien.  He stood there impassively, trying to make sense
of the situation.  Who do I believe?  My own man, surely?  But what if he’s
guilty?  In the end Damien decided to get the truth from the horse’s
mouth.  He turned to the young girl, Poppy, and asked her what had happened.  If
she lies, I’ll know.  She’s just a kid.

The girl looked pale and frightened, but when she answered her words were
clear and confident.  “He wanted me to touch his thing.  He grabbed my arm and
told me he would throw me off the deck if I tried to struggle.”

Alistair snorted angrily.

Birch denied the accusations.

Damien rubbed at his forehead with the back of his forearm.  “Please tell
me they have the wrong end of the stick here, Birch.”

“Yeah,” Fox chimed in.  “Because if it’s true, you’re the one who should
take a trip over the railing, Birch.  Only a monster would hurt a child.”

Damien gave Fox a chastising look.  The last thing he needed was one of
his men condemning the other.  “Is it true, Birch?  What the girl says?”

Birch cleared his throat and managed to speak clearly.  “No, of course
not.  I was out here, taking in the night, when the girl came running around
the corner like a bat out of hell.  We was chatting for a while, but then the
next thing I know, this fat shit is taking a swing at me.”

Alistair snarled.  “You’ve got a few rolls there yourself, mate.  Least I
can get myself a woman, instead of going after kids, huh.”

“Quiet,” said Damien.

“Who are you to quiet us?” said Anna.

“All I know is that you’ve assaulted one of the men sent here in
friendship.  Not to mention that you’re harbouring a terrorist of the fleet.
I’m in a fine goddamn position to make demands.  In fact, I think it would be
bloody cushty if you people stopped playing silly beggars and gave me what I
came for.  You’re starting to get right on my tits.”

Alistair spat.   “We ain’t giving you nothing.”

Damien sliced his sword downwards in an arc and slit a furrow into the
fat man’s blubbery gut.  His shirt tore away and blood appeared.  “Give me what
I ask for,” said Damien, “or I’ll take it in strips of bacon.”  Poppy cried out
as Alistair fell backwards onto his elephantine backside.  “It’s okay,” Damien
assured her.  “He’s not hurt.  I was just giving him a warning.”  It was true
enough that the blow had been intended only to split a few layers of skin.
There was more to gain from a threat than a murder.

The little blonde girl looked up at him with fire burning in her eyes.
“You’re a bad man.”

“They’re all bad,” said Alistair from the floor, clutching his
belly with his bloodstained fingers.  “Nothing but bullies.”

Damien frowned.  While he didn’t consider himself a good man
exactly, he didn’t consider himself a bully either.  I’m not trying
to hurt these people; don’t they see that?  Why are they acting like I’m the
enemy?  The fat guy looks like he wants to kill me, and the woman looks like
she’ll want to piss on my remains.

Damien bristled.  He was unsure how to proceed.  He didn’t know whether
their accusations against Birch were true or not, but he knew that they
at least believed them to be.  Damien was an unwanted guest who had brought
trouble to their doorstep.  They weren’t about to compromise with a man they
saw as defending a rapist.  Even an alleged rapist.

Damien lowered his sword.  “Look, I don’t know what happened here.  All I
can say is that my sole intention is to locate the man I came here for.  I
don’t want to cause you people any more trouble than I have to, but I’m not
leaving here until I have him.”

Anna folded her arms across her chest.  “He’s not here.  You already know
that.”

“I know that’s what you say.”

“They’re a pack of liars,” spat Birch.  “They have him hidden somewhere.”

“You’re the liar,” said Poppy in a voice as forceful as any adult.  Girl
needs a good hiding.

“I’m not leaving,” said Damien.  “I can’t.”

Anna laughed at him spitefully.  “Well, then we’re shit out of luck, because
you say you’re not leaving, but I promise you that you are.  Either you go
nicely or we’ll send you back to your precious mothership in bait buckets.”

Damien sighed.  “You’re not being smart.  I’ll fight you all if I have
to.”

“And I’ll back you up,” said Fox.

“Try and stop me,” snarled Birch.

Alistair laughed.  “You think you can cut us all down?  I dare you to
try.”

Damien raised his sword and let out a long sigh.  “Don’t make me do
this.  Just hand over the man I came for.”  I really don’t want to have to
do this.

“We don’t have him,” said Anna.

“I don’t believe you.”  Don’t make me do this.  You’re pushing me.

Anna shrugged.  “Then you’d be best off leaving.”

Damien glared at the woman.  Her stony gaze showed no signs of wavering.
Her brown eyes were like orbs of conviction.  “I can’t leave,” he said coolly.
“Not without the man I came for.”

“For the last time, he’s not here.”

She’s not going to budge.  She has balls as big as I do.  Damien
gripped his sword tightly, preparing to use it.  But violence isn’t going to
solve anything.  That’s not why I’m here.  From the corner of his eye,
Damien saw Birch move.  He was edging along the deck towards the railing.  Damn
it, Birch.  Don’t do it.

“He’s going for his knife,” shouted Poppy.  “Stop him.”

Alistair charged at Birch, but Birch was quicker. He couldn’t get a
decent grip on the handle in time, but was able to smash the grip into the fat
man’s nose, dropping him to the deck.

“Stop,” shouted Damien.  “Birch, stand down.  This is not helping.”

Birch turned on Damien and snarled.  “Fuck you, Roman.  This prick broke
my nose.”

“Stand down!”

Birch ignored him and marched over to Alistair.  The man was clutching
his face and bleeding heavily from a broken nose.  “Now we’re even, you fat
fuck,” snarled Birch.  “But maybe I need to teach you a lesson on top.”

Damien shoved Birch aside just as he was about to deliver a kicking to
the downed man.  “Will you cool it, you bloody muppet!”

“Calm down, Birch,” said Fox.  “You’re acting like a bleedin’
psychopath?”

“He is a psychopath,” said Alistair, spitting blood onto the deck
as he propped himself up on his elbow.  “He’s a kiddie fiddler, too.”

Birch exploded with rage.  “You’re a dead man.”

Damien tried to restrain Birch, but the larger man threw a punch and struck
him on the jaw.  Damien’s vision exploded with stars and he stumbled sideways.

Birch charged at Alistair and booted him in the ribs.  Alistair cried out
in agony.  Anna dove at Birch and clung to his back, clawing at his face. Birch
thrust his head backwards and caught her under the chin.  She dropped to the
floor like a sack of spuds.

Birch resumed his attack on Alistair, standing over the man and snarling
like a wolverine.  He raised his knife in the air, blade pointed downwards.
“Say goodnight, you fat piece of shit.”

Alistair grinned wide.  Blood stained his teeth red.  “Kiddie fiddler.”

Birch roared and plunged his knife downwards.

Damien had shaken the stars from his vision but had not recovered quickly
enough to stop Birch.  As it turned out, it was Poppy who managed to stop him
from killing Alistair.

A split-second before Birch drove his knife into Alistair’s gut, the
young girl barrelled into him from the side.  He stumbled onto one knee,
cursing, but was quickly upright again.  He glared at Poppy and snarled.  “You
little bitch!”

He slashed his knife at her face.

She screamed.

Damien leapt.  Drove his spear into Birch’s ribs. Yanked it free.
Stabbed again.

Birch wheezed and dropped down onto his knees.  Then he started
bleeding…badly.  He glared at Damien and went to speak, but only blood spilled
from his mouth.  He fell face down on the deck and stopped breathing, looking
like a washed-up seal.

Poppy staggered backwards, a small sliver of blood on her cheek where the
tip of Birch’s knife had kissed her.  I saved her just in time.

Fox was shaking his head and pacing.  “This is a complete mess.  Jesus.
What the hell, Roman?  You killed Birch”

Damien swallowed back a mouthful of bile.  “I had no choice.”

“No, you didn’t,” Anna said quickly.  “Birch tried to hurt a child and
you stopped him.  You had no choice.”

You people gave me no choice.  Damien stared down at Birch’s body
and let out a snarl.  “I came here to collect a criminal.  If you people hadn’t
messed me around then this would never have happened.  I wish you’d just
fucking lied about having him here in the first place.”

“He’s not here,” Anna said.  “He was, I admit it, but he disappeared.  I
don’t know where he is.  I’m telling you the truth.”

“I’m here,” said a voice, which caused them all to turn their heads as
one.

Damien’s eyes narrowed.  There you are indeed.

The cripple was striding down the pier on his double crutches like some
strange insect.  A slender black man walked beside him with a look of noble
concern upon his face.  The remaining members of the pier approached, too,
several paces behind.  Suddenly Damien and Fox were outnumbered ten to two.  I
really shouldn’t have killed Birch.

“Here I am,” said the man who Damien had shot just a few days ago.  “I
hope you’re not disappointed to see me alive.  I owe my life to the kind people
of this pier.  They patched me up and kept me safe until I had some of my
strength back.  I must have a guardian angel for them to have found me in the
state you left me in.”

“I must own the blame for having hid him,” said the black man in a soft
African accent.  “We have been beneath the pier,” he added.  “On the sands.”

The cripple hobbled forward on his crutches.  “You wanted me, Roman, so
here I am.  But why don’t you tell these people what this is really about
before you take me away.”

“This is about you rigging a bomb in the Kirkland’s engine room.
Over three-hundred people would have died if you’d set the bloody thing off –
not to mention the danger it would have posed to the rest of the fleet.”

The cripple grunted and edged closer on his crutches.  In the moonlight
of the pier, his copper hair looked silver, as if the night itself were an
alchemist.  His ripped t-shirt was heavily bloodstained, but it was obvious his
wound was healing.  He wouldn’t have been on his feet if it were not.  “You’re
absolutely right,” he said.  “I did try to bomb the Kirkland, but not to
kill innocent people.  There’s just one man I mean to kill.”

Damien pointed his sword out to sea, over towards where he imagined the Kirkland
to be positioned in the darkness.  “The captain.  Samuel.”

“Yes, Samuel Raymeady, former CEO of Black Remedy Corporation.  Former
billionaire and all-around badass dude.  I hear Time magazine were about
to do a cover on him just before everyone went all Night of the Living Dead.
A shame, really.”

Anna’s eyes went wide.  “Samuel Raymeady?  You mean the richest man in
the world is in charge of all the boats out there?”

“Makes sense,” said Alistair.  “The richest man in the world probably had
a better chance of surviving than anybody else bloody well did, huh.”

Damien growled.  “It makes no difference who the captain is or used to
be.  He’s the reason all those people out there are alive right now – him and
the money he put to good use when it mattered.  He’s a hero and you tried to
kill him, along with a bunch of innocent people.”

“So it’s true?” Anna asked the cripple.  “You did try to blow up the
ship?”

“I did, yes, although I failed quite epically.  I have no idea how they
discovered my plan.”

“Then I can’t protect you,” she said.  “You’re guilty.”

Damien lowered his weapon and turned to Fox.  “Thank Christ for that.  We
can finally get the hell out of here.  Fox, go and grab him.  I want to get off
this pier before anything else goes wrong.”

“What about Birch?  Should we bring him back with us?”

Damien shook his head.  “I’m sure our friends here will do the honour of
tossing him in the sea.  Best place for him.”

“But he was one of us.  We should-”

“He was a bloody moron, and the reason this situation went so far south.
Long as we get the cripple back, that’s all that matters.  Samuel won’t care
about the rest.”

The cripple tutted.  “I do wish you’d stop calling me that.  My name is
Tim, not ‘cripple’.  I’ll go with you willingly,” he said, struggling with his
crutches.  “But just let me share a little secret before you take me off to be
executed.”

Damien took a step forward and raised his sword.  “You’ve got nothing I
want to hear.  I’ve already killed one man tonight.  Don’t make me finish what
I started with you several days ago.”

“I think you should hear him out,” said the African man.

“Do you know something, Rene?” Anna asked.  “Is that why you hid him?”

“Yes, he tells an interesting tale.”

Anna nodded.  “Then I want to hear what he has to say.”

Damien shook his head and grunted.  “I’m not interested in stories.  If
you don’t come with me now, you’re going to get these people killed.”

“Then you should let him speak quickly,” said Anna.  “The night has been
long enough already.  What are a few more minutes going to hurt?”

Damien shrugged.  “Fine.  Speak.  Then you’re coming with me.”

The cripple propped himself up tall on his crutches so that everyone
could see him clearly.  When he spoke he spoke slowly, as if he did not want a
single word to be misheard.  “The man in charge of that Royal Navy frigate is
Samuel Raymeady, former CEO of the UK-American conglomerate, Black Remedy
Corporation.  As its majority shareholder, he gained control of the
organisation after the death of his biological father and mother, their
American partner, Vincent Black, and all of that man’s heirs as well – their
collective demise is a coincidence, I assure you.  Since taking over the
company, Samuel Raymeady has had one intention – controlling the world, and
then destroying it.  With all his wealth, power, and numerous philanthropic
facades, he made the world love him, which allowed him to succeed with his
life’s work.  That work is clear for all to see.  He brought it all down on
us.  He caused the apocalypse, just to prove he could.  I imagine it’s the
ultimate power trip for a man that has already risen as far as any man can go.
With unlimited wealth, power, and respect, what else is there but to become a
god?”

Everyone stood in shocked silence.  Damien shook his head in disbelief.  These
people are buying it.  I’ve never heard such a load of bollocks in my life.

The cripple pointed to Damien.  “This man here was the man who shot me,
and he claims that Samuel Raymeady saved all of those people out there on the
sea, but that’s not the truth.  The truth is that Samuel Raymeady killed all
but a few of us.  The virus that took everything, the ungodly bio-weapon that
wiped out 99% of the world’s population, was his sole creation.  He made it, he
released it, and he is responsible.  Samuel Raymeady is the Devil, and from the
ashes of the world he hopes to become a god.  Those boats out there are his
nation, and with them he hopes to build an empire.  An empire of the damned.”

Damien gripped his sword tightly and waved his spear arm through the air
in a furious slash.  “The world has ended, you muppet.  We’ve lost doctors,
scientists, Olympic athletes, inventors, and yet despite all that, we’re still
stuck with deluded maniacs trying to blow people up because of misplaced
blame.  It’s ironic, that even now the world has been crushed to dust, there
are still madmen combing over the rubble and trying to find a crusade to kill
people for.”

The cripple wobbled on his crutches and suddenly seemed to weaken.  His
wound was obviously still taking a heavy toll on him.  “Perhaps I am a little
nutty – I certainly wonder about my state of mind after all I’ve seen – but I
promise you that I didn’t imagine Samuel Raymeady breaking my back when he was
an eight year old boy.  Not that anyone ever believed he was guilty –
angel-faced little monster that he was.  There were, of course, a few other
true believers that joined my cause over time.  Monopoly commissioners ignored
at every turn, victims of Samuel’s aggressive corporate expansion tactics,
competitors who stood in his way and were crushed, and even a group of priests
who believed him to be the antichrist.  We all tried to expose Samuel’s true
intentions, but each of us was dismissed as hacks or paranoid fantasists.
Samuel was too well loved and beyond reproach.  Any deep digging into his
affairs would be blocked at every turn.  He controlled everything.”

Anna put her hands up and rubbed her face.  “Whoa, whoa, whoa.  This is
frying my head.  Are you saying that Samuel Raymeady, the world’s biggest
philanthropist, tried to exterminate mankind?”

“And broke your back?” Alistair added.

Anna cleared her throat.  “Yeah, and that.”

Tim nodded.  “Pushed me from the balcony of his home – but that’s a
jaunty little caper to be told some other time.  That was when I first met
Samuel Raymeady.  I’ve been keeping tabs on him ever since: hacking his
computers, researching his financial activities, generally spying on him in
whichever ways I could.  I managed to gain a little traction on the Internet,
and even got a few column inches in the paper, but Samuel wielded too much
power – most of the press were in his pocket along with most politicians.  It
was impossible to stop what he was planning.  I was helpless to do anything as
he loaded a cruise liner full of deadly virus and sent it sailing for mainland
Europe with a crew of doomed souls.  I tried to leak his plans, and so did my
colleagues, but the newspapers, the authorities, Samuel’s competitors, didn’t
want to hear it.  They dismissed me as a crank.  Bet they wished they’d
listened to me when the infection finally hit.  That cruise liner was Samuel’s
Trojan horse and the whole world was his Troy.”

Anna frowned.  “Are you talking about the cruise liner that sank in the
Med over a year ago?  How could it have released a virus in Europe if it sunk?”

“Rescue workers contracted the virus from the wreckage and took it with
them inland.  It was all over then.”

Damien stabbed the point of his sword against the deck with a thud!
“What an absolute crock.  This is all just a load of nonsense you read in an
airport thriller novel.”  He turned to the members of the pier.  “This lunatic
isn’t worth your lives.  Hand him over.”

“If I’m such lunatic, then why did I have help rigging the bomb on the Kirkland?”
He grinned at Damien mockingly.  “That’s why your glorious dictator wants me
dead so badly.  He knows someone else aboard the Kirkland is working
against him, but he also knows that I will never give up the name of my
co-conspirator.  But my death will serve to send a clear message to my partner
not to try anything again.  It would also stop me telling my story to the
people on his precious ship.  Last thing he wants is a mutiny.  Don’t you think
it’s strange that he sent you ashore to kill me several days ago, Roman?  Why
not bring me in to answer for my crimes?  I’m only a poor cripple after all.”

“I’m bringing you in now,” said Damien.

“Only because Samuel doesn’t want the people on this pier to see his
mercilessness.  They may yet be of use to him; there’s no point scaring them
unduly.”  He looked down at Birch, face down on the deck.  “Although, I think
you might have ballsed that up already, though.  Nice going, hero.”

Damien was out of words.  Was the reason Samuel was so adamant that Tim
be killed that he did not wish the man to share his wild conspiracy theories?
Was he so afraid of this man’s insane ramblings?  Who would believe such a
far-fetched tale anyway?  And what about the man’s co-conspirator?  “Tell me
who your partner is,” Damien demanded, “or so help me I’ll cut you down right
now and your new buddies will have to sweep you off the deck.”

Tim looked amused by what he was about to say, like a Barrister ready to
present a killer piece of evidence in some grand courtroom.  “Of course, I’ll
tell you,” he said.  “It’s somebody you know, Roman – a good friend of yours,
in fact. As I understand it, he’s the only friend you have.  Which,
might I just say, is pretty sad.”

No....  Damien swallowed.  “Harry?”

“Yes,” Tim said.  There was a belittling smirk on his bony, unshaven
face.  “Harry and I were working together.  When he heard my story, he was more
than willing to help.  He’s a good man, but you already know that, right?  He
pretty much brought you up, or so he told me?  So, Roman, tell me, do you still
want to take me back to the Kirkland?  What if Samuel breaks me?  What
will become of your only friend then?”

“You lie!”

“Speak to him, Roman – or should I call you Damien.”

He knows my name.  Only Harry knows my name.  Damien felt feint.
If Samuel found out that Harry was conspiring he would kill him.  Is it even
the truth?  Or just the cripple’s veiled threat?  If I take him aboard,
will he insinuate that Harry is a terrorist?  Is that his play here?  Is he
using Harry as leverage?

Could Harry be a terrorist?

No way.  I know Harry.  He would never hurt anybody.  He helped me
when nobody else would.  We survived the apocalypse together….  He would never
keep something like this from me….  No, he would have told me.  Damien
stumbled backwards towards the railing.  He suddenly felt very weak.  “Come on,
Fox,” he said, sheathing his sword.  “We’re leaving.  These muppets deserve
whatever they get.”

“You want to leave without him?” asked Fox, nodding towards the
cripple.  The man was such a worrier, and Damien had no time for it right now.

“Yes, without him.”

“But he said he’d come voluntarily.”

Damien shrugged and swung a leg over the railing.  “Ask him to come
then.”

Fox turned around and faced the cripple.  “Will you come with us?”

Tim chuckled.  “I changed my mind.  I’d quite like to stay here if my
hosts will have me.”

“You’re very welcome,” said Anna.

“But you gave your word,” said Fox, flummoxed.

“I’m a terrorist, remember?  I have no honour.  My word counts for
shit.”

Damien snorted.  “There’s your answer, Fox.  I’m not about to start a
fight that’s ten to two against us.  If you want to stay behind and scrap, then
go for it, but I’m going back to the Kirkland.  Samuel can deal with
this shit later.”  The rope down to the yacht was still attached and Damien started
to descend it, but the woman, Anna, stopped him.  For a moment he expected to
be attacked.

“It doesn’t have to be like this,” she said.  “We should trade, share
information.  There’s too few of us left to be enemies.  You killed your own
man to protect us.”

“To protect a child.”

“Exactly.  You did what was right.”

“You talk to me about doing right, but are you willing to hand over that
man?  A man who admits he is a terrorist.”

Anna glanced at the cripple and then back at Damien.  “Do you believe
what he says?”

Damien went to say ‘no’, but found himself stuttering.  “I-I…don’t know.
It’s crazy.”

Anna nodded.  “You need to talk to your friend, Harry, don’t you?”

“Yes,” said Damien.  He couldn’t deny that speaking to Harry was the only
thing on his mind right then.

“Well, until you do,” said Anna.  “Until you have no doubt that this man
is guilty of trying to commit cold-blooded murder for no good reason, then I
cannot in good conscience hand him over.  If your captain is responsible
for…well, everything, then-”

“Then I can’t help you,” said Damien, and he was telling the truth.
Samuel would send more men to the pier as soon as he found out the cripple was
there.  The fact that Damien was coming back empty handed would make Samuel
furious.  He’ll kill them all.  He’ll send a dozen men ashore with guns from
the armoury.

Damien had once witnessed Samuel fire the ship’s cannons at a petroleum
tanker that would not share its fuel with the fleet.  The hit had torn the ship
almost in two.  The mere danger of the fuel tanks going up in a huge fireball
had been enough to make those still living surrender.  They worked as kitchen
staff on the Kirkland now.  Samuel had been willing to destroy the
tanker rather than be denied use of it.

Damien gave Anna one last piece of advice.  “You should move on from
here.”

“This is our home.”

“Then enjoy it while you can.”  Damien shimmied back down to the yacht
and waited while Fox came to join him.  The older man was surprisingly limber
and made it down the rope much quicker than Damien had – although he did have
use of both hands.

Damien unhitched the mooring rope and Fox started the motor and shoved
the boat into reverse.  They puttered away from the pier and were heading back
towards the frigate in less than a minute, passing by various boats idling at
the edge of the fleet.  On the horizon, a tinge of orange had appeared,
heralding the arrival of the morning sun.  I need sleep.  I can’t process
any of this until my head is straight.

Fox banged his fist down on the centre of the steering wheel.  “The
captain is going to shit a brick when we return empty handed, Roman.  We were
told to recover the cripple at all costs and we’re just walking away.”

“I know.”

“He won’t like that you killed Birch either.  He was part of the Kirkland’s
roster.  We didn’t even bring his body with us.  He has friends aboard the
ship.”

“I know.”

“And when Samuel hears about your friend, Harry, being involved in
everything he’s going to string the fella up by his ears.”

No!  Damien drove his spear through Fox’s back, slumping the old
man over the steering wheel.  Blood poured from his open mouth and splattered
the windshield.  Fuck fuck fuck.  What did I just do?  That’s the second man
I’ve killed in the last hour.  I am so screwed.  I am so screwed.

Damien froze.  He stared down at the blood dripping from his spear.
Murder was taken very seriously in the fleet and he’d just committed the act
for the second time – and this time in cold blood.  There would be no mercy for
Damien if Samuel found out about Fox.  His sentence would be harsh.  All of
Samuel’s sentences are harsh.  That’s why I can’t let him find out about
Harry.  Not until I know the truth.

Glancing around for spectators, Damien carefully folded the old man over
his shoulder and carried him to the edge of the yacht.  I’m sorry, Fox.  You
seemed like an okay guy.  He slid the body over the railing and let it sink
into the sea.  Fox’s body was light and floated on the surface of the water.
Damien held his breath while he waited for it to descend beneath the wave.  The
boats and ships all around him were shrouded in the darkness of early dawn.
Any of them could have been watching him.

There could be a dozen witnesses.  Or none.  I just need to stay calm.

Eventually Fox’s limp body slipped beneath the sea and Damien took
control of the yacht’s motor.  He continued on towards the frigate.  He had no
idea what the hell he was going to do, but the first thing was to talk to
Harry.  My dear old friend has a lot of explaining to do, and if the answers
are all wrong, I might just have to kill him, too.

HUGO

Hugo crouched down behind
the railings of his yacht.  He held Houdini in his arms and prayed the little
dog did not bark.  If he makes a sound, the man will see us.

Having once been a heavy smoker, Hugo had woken at dawn craving
nicotine.  With cigarettes all but non-existent – not to mention his specific
brand of Gitanes – the best he could do was go outside to breathe some
fresh air.  That was when he had seen the other boat.

It was not uncommon to see other people out on their boats so early in
the morning – many of the fleet’s fishermen would rise well before the sun to
haul in their catches – but what Hugo had witnessed was most definitely not a
common occurrence.  I think I just witnessed a murder.  Bon sang!

Hugo had been rubbing the sleep from his eyes when he’d noticed a small
yacht puttering away from the shore.  He’d heard rumours that there were many
people living on the nearby pier, and that a greeting party had sailed out from
the Kirkland to meet with them.  There was yet to be any word on whether
or not the new people were friendly, and every time Hugo asked one of the other
boats what was happening, they would tell him that the greeting party from the Kirkland
had yet to return.  Hugo had assumed that the yacht coming towards him was that
team finally coming home.

The yacht had stopped suddenly and sputtered to a standstill.  Shadows
moved within its small pilothouse.  Hugo had stared intently, trying to make
out the details.  Eventually, a grey silhouette came into focus; a man,
carrying something over his shoulder.  Hugo hadn’t realised it was a body until
the man dumped it over the side and let it sink beneath the waves.  It was then
that Hugo leapt down and hid.  Houdini had been sleeping outside as usual and
had come up to Hugo for a friendly sniff.  Hugo fussed the dog and patted his
belly in an attempt to keep him quiet.  Praise the lord it had worked.  Before
long the other yacht revved its engine and resumed its journey, heading towards
the Kirkland until it was out of sight.  Hugo stayed hidden for several
more minutes before finally straightening up with a click of his knees.  I
pray they did not see me.  I have daughters to protect.

Houdini let out a shrill bark, almost as if he’d been waiting for the
chance to do so.  Hugo patted him on the head.  “Clever boy.  You and me make a
good team, mon ami.”

Hugo swallowed.  What should I do?  Do I even know what I just saw?  He
chewed the inside of his cheek and tried to think things through.  If he had
just witnessed a murder then he needed to do something.  There were no
policemen anymore, or even newspapers to run a story, but there was still law
and order in the fleet.  I should tell Mr Raymeady.  He is our centre of law
and order now. He will do what is right.

But nobody got to see Mr Raymeady easily.  The man never left the Kirkland
and civilians were not allowed on the frigate without good reason.  But you
have a good reason, Hugo.  You need to report a murder.

Yet, what information do I have?  I saw a silhouette of a man, nothing
more.  I didn’t even see a murder take place.  What I actually saw was a body
being dumped.  No more, no less.

Then it’ll do no harm bringing it to Mr Raymeady’s attention.  He is
the captain of the fleet.  He needs to know everything that goes on.

Hugo walked across the short aft deck of his yacht and entered the main
cabin.  His daughters still slept beneath the covers of the converted sofa
bed.  The yacht was single berth and the one bedroom belonged to Hugo.  Being
a father was hard even before the dead walked.  Somehow, even in this new
world, it’s still the actions of men that scare me most.

Hugo sat down on the floor with Houdini on his lap and waited for the day
to arrive.  Once it did, he would head for the Kirkland at once.

GARFIELD

Garfield blinked as the
sunlight filled his eyes.  The windows surrounding the drained swimming pool
were long and tall and let the morning through in full force.  It was January,
so the fact that the sun was well risen meant mid-morning was upon them.

It was too dangerous to travel by night.  The dead could creep up on you
in the dark.  Garfield and the other foragers had taken advantage of the lie-in
– even now they were curled up beneath their sleeping bags and blankets,
snoring – but it was time to get going.  Can’t sleep forever.  A man sleeps
long enough he gets to not wanting to wake up at all.

Garfield gathered his things together and placed them back inside the old
Army Bergan he’d brought with him.  He’d found the bulky satchel at a Salvation
Army store several months ago and would always wear it when heading out for
more than a day.  Before he zipped the bag up, he slid out a couple of knives
and strapped them to each of his thighs.  He was already armed with a hand axe
and a screwdriver, but wanted to have a few more weapons handy.  They were
about to enter unknown territory.  It was best to be prepared.

The dead were already beginning to grow in number as the foragers trekked
further from the pier.  The fringes of Torquay had swarmed with them – especially
a little place called Brixham.

Brixham was a seaside town with a life-sized replica of the Golden
Hind sitting in its harbour.  Garfield had only taken them there as
a way of circumventing the larger towns, which started with Torquay, but things
turned out badly.  The foragers had gotten cornered inside a little newsagent
and had needed to hack their way clear of a dozen dead men.  They almost hadn’t
made it – Lemon tripped and stumbled right into a dead boy’s arms at one point,
and only just managed to dodge its snapping jaws – but luckily they’d left a
vehicle idling nearby and were able to get the hell out of there before the
dead closed in on them.

The Range Rover at the church had been a no go.  Despite its fine
condition, it just wouldn’t start.  Eventually the foragers chanced upon a Nissan
minibus built to hold seven.  It started more or less straight away, once they
discovered the keys still inside.  It was surreal to hear an engine start after
so long, but once they were safely on the road, Garfield almost felt like he
was back in his old life – commuting to his job at a tyre fitter’s garage with
sleep in his eyes and whiskey on his breath.  Not sure I miss it all that
much.  I certainly don’t miss the hangovers.

Garfield had led a lonely existence before the world fell.  Besides his
elderly mother, he’d had no one he cared about – and no one who cared about
him.  He visited the pub with his co-workers from time to time, but never held
any of them dear.  He’d been single for nigh on two years, ever since a
particularly bad break-up with a girl named Jenny.  The feisty brunette had
dumped him for his lack of ambition, but the truth of it was that she wanted a
man with more money.  When she later took another lover, Garfield was not
surprised to hear that the man was rich.  Garfield’s self-worth had never been
lower.

But once the world ended, his old failings ceased to matter.  All around
him people died, every second a new person torn to shreds.  But Garfield
survived.  The Army shattered and the police were torn apart in the street.
But Garfield survived.  The Prime Minister himself had died and the American
President had gone missing.  But Garfield survived.  He was stronger than them
all.  He was a survivor.  Suddenly he was worthy.  Pretty soon people were
relying on him, counting on him to protect them.  Garfield had become someone
who mattered.  He relished the feeling of being needed, and when he’d rescued
Poppy, he even felt heroic.  But that feeling soon changed into something less
welcome – responsibility.  The young girl’s survival was his number one
priority.  He’d assumed ownership of her when he plucked her away from her
undead parents.  Whether she lived or died was on him, and that had been more
power than he’d been looking for.  Eventually his responsibility turned to
affection and perhaps something even more.  Providing Poppy with what she
needed had become his all-consuming focus, but it was difficult.  He had to
keep leaving her, for one thing.  The group needed food and supplies; Poppy
needed food and supplies.  And right now they needed guns, too.  If Poppy was
going to grow up safe and protected, Garfield needed to make sure that they
were never at the mercy of a bigger, badder group of survivors.

Kirk was heading towards him.  He was one of the newest members of the
foragers and one of the youngest also, yet he had been voted in as
second-in-command to Garfield.  The group had done that mainly to make the guy
feel included.  He was often insecure about the fact he had not been at the
pier as long as everybody else.  It made the kid eager to prove himself, and a
little reckless.  He was carrying a bottle of water and offered some to
Garfield.  “Breakfast?”

Garfield waved a hand.  “Keep it.  I have my own.”

Kirk shrugged.  “So what’s the plan?  I say we start making directly
north.  Yesterday proved that we’re going to run into trouble regardless of
where we go.”

Garfield sighed.  “I agree.  We’ll stick to the countryside, though.”

Kirk took a swig of water and then said, “Why not use the motorways?”

“Because the motorways are full of zombies.”  Most people had been in
their cars fleeing when the infection began its work.  Nobody had known where
he or she was heading; they’d all just been overtaken by the urge to run.
Eventually the traffic gridlocked and the infection caught up with them.  The
motorways choked up with slaughter for hundreds and hundreds of miles.
Garfield had seen it with his own eyes.  He never wanted to go back to the
motorways.

“Everywhere is full of zombies,” said Kirk.  “At least on the motorway we
can just drive through ‘em.”

Garfield hoisted his Bergan up onto his shoulder and sighed.  “You can’t
just run through a crowd of bodies, not to mention all of the wrecks on the
road.  Best chance we got is to head through farmland; the fewer obstacles in
our path the better.  Every time we get held up our chance of not making it
home increases.”

Kirk sniffed.  “Whatever you say, boss.  I’ll get everyone ready to leave
and set off in ten.”

“Five,” said Garfield.  “We need to get a move on.”

Kirk nodded.  “Five minutes, then.”  He walked away.

Garfield didn’t have a great deal of affection for Kirk.  Up until three
months ago, he’d been surviving on the road, ever since the dead first rose.
He understood the walking dead better than anybody and for that reason, Kirk
was perhaps better suited to lead than Garfield was – a notion clearly not lost
on Kirk – but Garfield had been at the pier for almost a year and had always
led the foraging parties.  The group trusted him.  And while he exercised
caution wherever possible, Kirk seemed to prefer running into situations
headfirst.  That was all well and good when it had just been him alone on the
road, but when other people’s lives were at risk caution was the way to go.  Can’t
deny the man is useful, though.  No man takes on the dead like he does.

“Garf, everybody is ready,” Kirk shouted impatiently from over by the
changing room entrance.  Garfield did a quick spot check of his weapons and
then headed off to join them.  Everyone looked well rested, which was good
because Garfield planned on moving nonstop until nightfall.  By the time they
camped again, all of them would be tired.

Cat nodded to him as he approached.  “I just stuck my head out the door.
It seems all clear.”

Garfield nodded.  “Good.  Let’s get going then.”

Outside the leisure centre sat the Nissan minivan.  It was
currently empty.  They’d taken their supplies inside overnight in case of
looters.  Encountering other survivors was rare, but it happened from time to
time.  They were more often hostile than friendly.  Not much different from
the way the world used to be in that sense.

One of the foragers, Lemon – so-called because of an unexplained tattoo
of the yellow fruit on his forearm – nudged Garfield and pointed with his
chin.  Garfield glanced across the road and saw what he was referring to.  A
dead man stumbled towards them. It wasn’t moaning like most did, because of a
carving knife sticking out the front of his throat.  Someone had obviously tried
to take the man’s head off, but gave up when the knife got stuck.

Cat cursed.  “He wasn’t here a minute ago.  Sneaky git!”

“He’s s-s-seen us,” Lemon said.  “We’ll have to deal with him.”

Garfield cleared his throat and glanced at Kirk.  “You want to do the
honours?”

Kirk grinned.  “Nothing I’d enjoy more, boss.”  He swaggered up to the
zombie in the road and waited calmly in front of him.  The dead man reached out
with grasping hands, but Kirk threw himself into a delicate cartwheel and ended
up behind his attacker.  The other foragers cheered.  Kirk kicked the zombie in
the rump, sending him flopping forward onto his belly.  The other foragers
laughed.

Garfield sighed.  Here we go.

Kirk waited for the dead man to get up off the ground, before leaping up and
kicking him in the side of the head.  He topped the move off by spinning around
and backheeling the zombie in the chest and cracking some ribs with an audible clack.
None of blows were effective – the only way to take down a zombie was to injure
the brain – but Kirk seemed to find a type of sport in battering down his
enemies before dispatching them skilfully.

“Just get on with it,” shouted Lemon, laughing heartily.  “Or marry the
guy and b-b-bugger off.”

Kirk looked back at his colleagues and chuckled.  He gave them a quick
bow as if to conclude his performance.  A claw hammer appeared from his belt
and he smashed it into the dead man’s forehead.  It dropped the zombie
immediately, but the body still twitched on the floor.  Kirk gave the skull one
last blow from his hammer and it was done.  The dead man’s head crumbled like
it was made of papier mache.

“You done?” asked Garfield.

Kirk came back over to them.  “No, he is, though.”

Cat rolled her eyes.  “Men and their testosterone.”

“Okay, let’s load up,” said Garfield.  “We’re wasting light.”

The foragers set about loading up the minivan.  They opened up the
hatchback and shoved their supplies into the boot.  Then they squeezed
themselves into the front and middle seats like sardines.  Cat sat on David’s
lap – the two of them had become husband and wife of sorts – but everyone else
made do with what little space they could find, eleven people inside a vehicle
designed for seven.  It was lucky everyone was so skinny and malnourished, or
else the vehicle’s chassis might have fallen out beneath them.  We need a
second vehicle.

Garfield sat up front with Kirk, who was the man at the wheel.  Ideally
there would have been a map between them, but the day of the smartphone and
satnav had made paper plotting redundant.  There were no maps to be found.

“You sure you don’t want to try the motorway?” Kirk asked him.  “I think
it would be best.”

“No,” Garfield said again.  “Let’s just get on the same page, shall we?
We’re taking the scenic route. ”

Kirk started the engine and put his hands on the steering wheel.  “You’re
the boss.”

“So they tell me.”

The minivan gave a whinnying grunt and crept forward.  Kirk navigated
down the main roads for a few miles, dodging burnt-out wrecks and small
assemblies of the dead.  Many of the houses they passed were black and charred,
some merely ruins and foundations.  For the first few months of infection,
fires had consumed most of the country.  At least the destruction the inferno
had wrought had taken as many dead men as it had the living.  It was almost
like Mother Nature had been trying to even the odds.  Not that it helped.
The dead outnumber us a thousand to one.

Eventually the minivan came upon a cow gate bordering a field.  There
they stopped while Lemon hopped out and smashed the padlock with one of his
many tools.  Once the gate was open, Kirk put the van into first gear and drove
onto the grass.  Once he picked up a bit of speed, he moved into second and
kept it there.  The field was sodden and uneven from recent rain, and everyone
cried out in misery as Kirk’s driving threw them about inside the confined
space.

“Sorry, everyone,” said Kirk.  “Not much I can do.  Garf wants us to take
the farmland and this is the farmland.”

Garfield narrowed his eyes at Kirk, but the younger man just smiled
amiably.  “Just slow it down,” he said, “and we’ll be fine.”

Kirk chuckled and dropped their speed by a few miles.  The bumpiness was
instantly less pronounced.  They were able to drive on for almost ten minutes
without complaint.  As they travelled uphill, the ground became less sodden and
Kirk was able to shift into third and fourth.  We’re making good time,
thought Garfield.

“Farmhouse coming up ahead,” Kirk said.  “Want to check it out?”

Garfield spied the small cottage at the edge of the field and thought
about it for a moment, weighing up the pros and cons.  The plan was not to fill
up on supplies before they got to where they were going, but it wouldn’t hurt
to check out the odd little place here and there.  Some farmhouses had the occasional
shotgun stashed away in their pantries.  It was worth checking out.  “We’ll
take a look,” he said.  “Three man team; you, me, and Lemon; quick sweep for
any food and supplies.”

“Okay dokey,” said Kirk, turning the wheel slightly to take them directly
towards the cottage.

The building was old grey brick with a red slate roof and a small porch
over the front door.  It looked entirely benign and as safe a place as existed
nowadays, but each of the foragers knew that looks could be deceiving.  The dead
did not distinguish between nice places and bad.  You could just as easily find
a horde of them at a quaint farmhouse than you could at a rundown shopping mall
or hospital.

Still, it’s a cute little farmhouse.  I bet Poppy would like it here.
All this space to run around and explore.  The girl is always wanting to
explore – she’s like a little blonde squirrel.  Maybe someday she’ll get to
live in a place like this.  Or someplace beside a pond like the house she grew
up in.

Kirk pulled the van to a stop outside the cottage and applied the
handbrake.  They all sat and waited for a minute, making sure that nothing came
out of the nearby outhouses and sheds.  Once the coast was clear, Garfield
opened his door and stepped out onto the gravel, the stones crunching beneath
his boots.  Kirk stepped out, too, from the driver’s side, and slammed his door
loudly.  Garfield winced.  “Do you want to bring the dead down on us?  Try and
be a little less obvious.”

Kirk huffed.  “Sorry, boss.  Wouldn’t it be best to attract them,
though?  Least that way we can see ‘em coming.”

“I’d rather them not come at all.”

“Fair enough.  Lem, you ready?”

Lemon was coming out of the sliding door at the side of the van.  He
hopped down onto the gravel and nearly stumbled.  His skin was pale.  “I think
I’m g-g-gunna throw up.”

Kirk laughed and punched him on the arm.  “Man up, Lem.”

“It’s just because you’re not used to being in a vehicle,” said Cat
stepping out behind him and rubbing him on the back.  “Your tummy will settle
down soon, hun.”

Lemon took a deep breath and nodded.  “I’m okay.  Shall I check out the
front door?”

Garfield nodded.

Lemon sorted through his tools in the back of the minivan and then
proceeded cautiously towards the cottage’s front porch.  He held a steel pole
in his hands that was bent and sharpened at one end, not unlike a crowbar.
Lemon often referred to the tool as his ‘skeleton key’.  At four foot long, it
was almost as tall as he was.

“Get her opened up, Lem,” Kirk shouted.

“But be careful,” Garfield added.

Lemon shoved his skeleton key into the door’s wedge and yanked.  The lock
broke easily and the old oak door swung open in its frame.

The smell came at them immediately.  It was not as ripe as the smells of
their early foraging days when the dead had still been fresh and moist.  It was
the odour of long time decay and animal droppings.  It was a smell every
forager was used to.  It meant there was death inside.

Lemon gripped his skeleton key at the bottom of the shaft like a baseball
bat.  He looked to Garfield for orders.  “S-s-should we back out?  Smells like
this place could be a r-r-risk.”

Garfield was about to agree when Kirk let out a snigger.  “Where’s the
fun in life without a little risk?”  He shoved past Lemon and headed inside the
cottage, disappearing into the dank, dark hallway.

Garfield shook his head and grunted.  He couldn’t leave Kirk to
sweep the house alone.  Foragers always backed each other up – even impetuous
fools like Kirk.  “Wait here,” he told Lemon.  “Keep a watch with the others
and be ready.”

Lemon nodded and stepped back from the porch.  Garfield went inside.

The reception hallway was narrow and cluttered.  An old-fashioned bureau
sat off to one side, a framed family photo perched on top of it.  The family in
the picture looked hard and serious – tough farming stock that had probably
owned the farm for generations.  Garfield wondered what had happened to them,
and if they were still inside the house.  I’m sure I’m going to find out.

Garfield crept down the hallway and entered a kitchen on his left.  The
large room was chilly and had a musty, faintly sweet odour.  The smell was not
coming from the dead, though.  It was coming from a bin in the corner.  Flies
swarmed around the lid, breeding and living in whatever filth had been left to
decompose inside.  Garfield pulled his shirt up over his nose and tried not to
breath more than he had to.

The only thing of interest in the kitchen was a large carving fork on the
centre island, which Garfield wrapped in an old tea towel and secured to his
left triceps with a couple of elastic bands from a drawer.  It could come in
useful.  The weapon he was currently carrying was a claw hammer, not unlike the
one that Kirk favoured.  Blunt force trauma was much more effective against
zombies than stabbing.  Plus the hammer always came back for a second and third
blow, whereas knives sometimes got stuck in bone.

There was a thud from somewhere else in the house.  Garfield headed
cautiously back out into the hallway.  He was pretty sure the noise had come
from up ahead, so he followed the hallway to its conclusion and gently slid
through the door at the end and entered the room beyond.

The smell overwhelmed.  The sickly sweet odour of the recently dead had
given way to the earthy, spicy smell of the long rotten.  When Garfield moved
further into the old-fashioned parlour he saw the reason it smelled so badly.  Dear
God.

Kirk was standing still, shaking his head and blinking slowly,
uncharacteristically forlorn.  “Just when you think you’re used to it all,” he
said glumly,  “then you find something like this.”

Garfield studied the three swinging bodies and wondered if they belonged
to the family in the photo.  His guess was that they did.  An old man and woman
wriggled from thick nooses around their necks strung over an oak beam crossing
the centre of the ceiling.  They’d obviously been infected and had hanged
themselves in hope of not coming back.  The caked shit down their inner thighs
showed they’d been alive when they’d taken the noose.  Not everyone understood
that it did no good to commit suicide when infected.  If you were bitten, you
came back.

The dead old man and woman reached out for Kirk, trying to grab a hold of
him with their gnarled fingers, but he was too focused on the third hanging body
to pay them any attention.  Garfield turned his attention to the swinging child
and immediately thought of Poppy.  While he’d been able to rescue one little
girl, there were innumerable children who’d been doomed to fates such as this.

The little girl was about Poppy’s age.  She had long brown hair all the
way to her waist, but much of it had slid away from her scalp and was hanging
loosely down her bony shoulders or on the floor beneath her dangling feet.
She, too, reached out her hands for Kirk, trying to draw him closer, trying to
taste him with her snapping jaws.

After a while, Kirk turned away to leave.  “You do the honours,” he said
to Garfield, then went back out into the hallway.”

Garfield swallowed back his sadness and dealt with the family as quickly
as he could.  He wanted to get out of there.  He didn’t like the way the dead
family looked at him so hungrily and he couldn’t bear the stink that filled the
room.  Three clean strikes from his hammer and it was over.  Garfield dropped
the tool on the floor afterwards.  He did not want to keep it.

Back outside, he was surprised to find not ten other men waiting, but
eleven.  There was a stranger amongst them.  The newcomer had been shoved down
onto his knees by Cat and wore muddy jeans and a brown leather jacket.  The
smile on his face was handsome.

“We found this guy skulking about the sheds,” said Cat.  Like her name
suggested, the proud look on her face made her look like a feline who had
caught a mouse.  “He surrendered quickly enough.”

“How’s it going?” said the stranger.

“Who the hell are you?” asked Garfield, taken aback.  “And where did you
come from?”

The stranger grinned widely.  “Why, you can call me Sally if you’re a
mate.  Call me what you want if you’re not.”  The man had an Australian accent.

Lemon chuckled.  “Sally’s a bird’s name.”

“A name is what you make it, cobber.  My name might be Sally, but
I’m no less a man than you, I can promise yer.”

“Where did you come from?” Garfield asked again.

Remaining on his knees, the man pointed.  “From inside that yonder shed.
Bloody freezing it was, but safe enough.”

“Why didn’t you go inside the house?”

“Not my place to go breaking into people’s houses and using their dunnies.
I live off the land; not trespassing.”

“You do know everybody is dead, right?” said Kirk incredulously.  “You
can go wherever you like.”

“Yer, I do know that, fella.  Still doesn’t make me king of the world,
now, does it?”

Garfield glanced around at the nearby fields and the main road about a
hundred metres away beyond a row of high hedges.  He rubbed at the stubble on
his chin as he took in the sight of the man.  The Australian was amiable
enough, but that in itself was sending up alarm bells.  For someone to be so
cheery after surviving out here alone was unnatural.  The dead family inside
the cottage added to Garfield’s unease.  “Are you alone, Sally?” he asked.

The Australian nodded.  “I am.  Bit of a lone wolf, you might say.  Never
stay in the same place too long.”

“Why is that?”

“Because them dead buggers tend to come and eat everyone after a while.”

“So you were with a group?” asked Kirk.

“For a time, yer.  Was holed-up in a bar where I used to work.  Place in
Bristol called Tuckers, ever been?”

Everybody shook their heads.

Sally blew air into his cheeks and let it out.  “Ah, well, shame that.  I
take it you fellas must have a camp around here someplace.  There’s too many of
you to last long on the road.  Plus it looks like most of you have had a bath
in the last year, which is more than I have.”

“We have a camp,” said Lemon.

Garfield put a hand up to stop him from saying any more.  It would not do
to give away the location of the pier to a stranger.  “We have a camp,”
Garfield said, “but it’s not around here.  We’re heading up north for
supplies.  What were you doing here?”

“Just staying alive.  I stick to farms and the countryside because
there’s less o’ them dead buggers about.  You can find the odd veggie growing
wild in some places, too.  I just wish I could find me a field full of tinnys.”

Lemon looked confused.  “Tinnys?”

“Larger, mate.”

“Oh.”

Kirk looked at Garfield and rubbed at his nose to cover his mouth.  He
whispered, “What do you want to do with him?  I say we leave him here and keep
on.”

Garfield’s first thought was to agree.  He didn’t have a good feeling
about the Australian; but it didn’t feel right to just leave him out on his own
either.  “What are your plans, Sally?”

“Well, I’d quite like to stand up, if that’s okay?  The gravel is killing
my knees.”  Garfield nodded to Cat who helped Sally to his feet.  “Strewth,
that’s better,” he said.  “Now, as for my plans…” He shrugged.  “I told you,
just staying alive.  I don’t think much beyond that most days.”

“You can join up with us if you want,” said Garfield, regretting it as
soon as he said it.

“For real?”

Kirk didn’t miss a step and followed Garfield’s lead for a change.  He
was less cocky since coming out of the farmhouse.  “As long as you tow the line
and don’t give us no reason to dump you, cobber.”

“I would be most grateful to join you good men.”

Cat cleared her throat.

“Oh, pardon my manners.  I would be most grateful to join you good men
and Sheilas.”

“That’s lovely,” said David, “but I would just like to point out that it
was hard enough with eleven of us in the minivan.  Now you want to add another
body?  I don’t mind Cat on my lap, but that’s my limit.”

“He has a good point,” said Squirrel, who folded his arms and became
grumpy.  “I can’t take any more elbows and knees in my ribs inside that bloody
coffin.”

Sally had a big grin on his face.  “I think I might have just the thing
for you fellas.”

Garfield was wary.  “What?”

“Check behind that shed over there.”

Garfield looked across at the old rickety shed and wondered what the
Australian was talking about.  It was full of old, rotten hay.  “You best not
be planning anything stupid,” he said.

Sally chuckled.  “Just go check it out.  I promise yer’ll like it.”

Garfield slid a chef’s knife from the band on his left thigh and crept
towards the shed.  He walked with a little extra bend in his knees, ready to
spring at the first sign of an ambush, but he made it to the shed without any
cause for alarm.  He stepped around the side carefully, stopping every couple
of feet and listening for any movement behind the shed.  Zombies were easy to
hear, shuffling around and clicking as their joints wore down, but the living
could still lie in wait silently.  The Australian said he was alone, but that
didn’t mean he was.

Garfield took the corner of the shed and stepped out into the open with
his knife held high.  He was surprised by what he saw, but also very pleased.

“You found it yet, cobber?” Sally shouted from the front of the
cottage.

Garfield stared at the old horsebox trailer and nodded.  It was wide
enough to hold a single stallion.  Or four men and a good load of supplies.
“Yes, I’ve found it,” he shouted back to the others.  “It’s just what we need.”

But the price for the horsebox was taking along a stranger named Sally.
Whether or not that would turn out for the best remained to be seen.

ANNA

Anna rubbed the tiredness
from her eyes and yawned.  The events that had transpired at dawn were now like
a daydream, just two hours later.  Despite what Roman suspected, the members of
the pier had not dumped Birch’s body into the sea.  The sea was theirs and they
would not spoil it with the dead flesh of a rapist.  Chris and Jimmy had
carried Birch through the gate and dumped him next to the boxer and the skinny
woman they had killed not two days before.  He can rot with them.

Now everyone stood huddled in the diner.  Despite their fleeting victory
over the three strangers from the fleet, each of them now wore a look of deep
concern on their faces.  There were a thousand members of the fleet currently
floating on their doorstep.  If they’d just made an enemy, they had made a big
one.

Tim eased himself down onto a chair in the diner and let his crutches
collapse to the floor.  Blood oozed beneath his bandages but there was little
Anna could do about it.  She would just have to keep the wound clean and hope
for the best.

He glanced around the room.  “It’s very good to meet you all.  Sorry it’s
not in better circumstances.”

“Save it,” said Anna.  “I stuck up for you, but only because I liked
those men less than I like you.”

Tim nodded.  “Understandable.  I’ve brought trouble to your doorstep and
for that you must hate me, but everything I told you was true.  The reason
we’re all in this situation, the reason we had our lives ripped from us, is
Samuel Raymeady.  That man is the Devil.”

Alistair grunted.  “So you said, but his side claim you’re a terrorist.
Who are we to believe?  How is it you ended up with a bullet in you?  Garfield
said he found you inside a storage container.”

“He did.  That’s where I went to die after Roman shot me.”

“Why did he shoot you?” Poppy asked.  She had a stern look on her face.
“Did you do something bad?”

“When the infection first hit,” Tim explained.  “I knew Samuel’s plan was
to commandeer a navy frigate his company was building and start collecting
people.  I made sure I was amongst the first group of survivors brought on
board.  The arrogant swine didn’t even recognise me.”

“You knew him as a child?” Anna confirmed.

“Yes.  He was…sickly…as a child, the only son of an extremely
wealthy family.  I was sent to see him as part of an investigation into any external
causes at the home that could have been causing his ill health.  The family had
tried everything, but nothing got Samuel out of his bed.  At the time, I was a
sort of an environmental scientist.  I tried several experiments to find a
cause for Samuel’s condition, but nothing gave any answers.  Needless to say,
things turned out badly for me in the end.  I went into that Gloucestershire
manor house whole and came out with a broken back.  It was six years before I
could even stumble around like an insect on these crutches.  Once I managed to
leave my wheelchair, though, I devoted my life to bringing that evil boy to
justice.  But that evil boy grew into an evil man and I remained a cripple.”
He sighed and shook his head.  “I thought that by getting aboard the Kirkland
I could at least finally put a stop to the man before he ruined what little
left there was of the world.  I failed to do that as well.”

Alistair folded his arms.  “You tried to blow the ship up?”

Tim
shifted in his seat and winced in pain.  Sweat beaded on his brow.  “I admit
there would have been casualties, but in the long run lives would have been
saved.  I’ve witnessed Samuel bulldoze through anybody who dares stand in his
way his entire life.  By stopping him I was hoping to save all of the victims
he is yet to meet.  The men and woman aboard the Kirkland are already
lost.  They worship their captain.  They think he saved their lives.  If only
they knew the truth.”

Rene came and brought them all a glass of water each.  Tim sipped his gratefully,
as did everyone else.  No one had realised how thirsty they were.  Rene stopped
when he was in the middle of the group and rubbed his hands together
thoughtfully.

“What is it?” Anna asked him.

Rene sighed.  “This man, Tim, speaks of terrible things.  He says that
the man, Samuel Raymeady, is a tyrant and a monster.”

“He is,” Tim confirmed.  “He’s like Hitler crossed with Godzilla.”

“Then my concern is that our actions may anger him and that we have made
an enemy of a monster – of a Godzilla.  I fear that Samuel Raymeady may
bulldoze us next.”

Anna sipped at her water and nodded wearily.  In the heat of the moment
she had gone with her gut and done what she thought was right, but now that the
events were laid out more clearly it seemed like they had all made a big
mistake.  We still did what was right, though.

“What should we expect to happen?” Anna asked Tim.

Tim didn’t seem hopeful as he spoke.  “I think they will come again, but
this time with more men and weapons.  They have a few guns aboard – pistols
mostly – but they’re more likely to snap an arm than fire a gun.”

“They shot you,” said Alistair.

“They did.  Once my gunpowder plot was discovered – although I still
can’t work out how Samuel found out – I managed to flee the ship before anybody
caught me.  I headed inland and disembarked at Dartmouth.  From there I
followed some train tracks, hoping it would lead me north.  Roman, although his
real name is Damien Banks, managed to track me, probably from the fires I lit
to keep warm – stupid of me, really, but it was either that or freeze.  I was
holed up in an old petrol station when he came.  I broke the windows and
screamed and shouted, tried to raise hell.  Luckily the dead were near and
heard me.  They swarmed, and as Roman was out in the open, they all went for
him first.  I hobbled from the petrol station, hoping to go in the opposite
direction while my enemy was distracted.  Roman took a shot at me and hit the
target.  Before I passed out, I managed to climb inside an open storage
container and close the door.  All I was hoping for was to die in peace, but
then your man found me.  A miracle really.  We should make a movie about it.
Where is he, anyway?  Always nice to meet a fellow ginger.”

“Garfield went on a supply run with the others,” said Anna.  “They’ll be
gone for a few days.”

“He goes out a lot,” said Poppy grumpily.  “He gets us all our food.”

“Well, I hope he returns soon,” said Tim.  “The more of you here the
better.  Hopefully Samuel will leave you be once I give myself up.”

Anna raised an eyebrow.  “You’re going to give yourself up?”

“I’ve put you people in enough danger already.  Samuel won’t stop until
he has me.  I don’t plan on running forever.  I don’t have the spine for it, or
the legs.”

“Then why did you resist in the first place?” said Alistair.  “We could
have given you up and there’d be no danger.”

“Of course there would be.  Samuel is a danger everywhere he goes.  The
reason he wants me dead is because I know the truth.  And now so do you
people.  My burden is shifted.  I can die in peace.  I’ve been trying to get
someone to believe me about Samuel for years, and now that I have I’m giving
up.  A cripple has no place in the wastelands.  I’ve told you all what I know,
but quite frankly I’m happy for Samuel to just do what he wants with me and be
done with it.”

Rene was shaking his head.  “Your burden is now ours.  You have doomed us
all.  Samuel will become our enemy as he was yours.”

Anna raised her hand.  Rene could be a tad dramatic at times.  “Not if we
give Tim up and say we don’t believe him.  We’ll explain that after what their
man, Birch, did to Poppy, we were angry, but that we think Tim is a lunatic and
don’t want anything to do with him.”

Tim folded his arms and winced as his wound creased.  “I think that would
be smart.  Samuel wants followers, not enemies.  The battlefield on which to
fight him is not head-on.  The fact that you people know the truth is enough to
light the fires.  It means the entire world does not belong to Samuel Raymeady,
even if he thinks it does.  You people need to give me up and keep your heads
down.  Survive and grow and don’t let Samuel turn the world into his own
private dictatorship.”

Alistair folded his arms.  “As long as Samuel doesn’t just destroy us all
and be done with it.”

Poppy whimpered.  Anna placed a hand on her shoulder.  The girl shouldn’t
really be listening to any of this, but nor was it fair to keep her outside
after what had happened to her.

“Samuel won’t do that,” said Tim.  “He’s too smart.  He’s wearing the hat
of benevolent leader.  Killing innocent people isn’t in his interests.  Roman
will be back, I promise you, and when he comes, you people need to play nice
and hand me over.  They’ll string me up on the Kirkland and make an
example of me, but you’ll be okay.  I’ll die a coward and a traitor, but I’m
cool with that.  Meeting you people and telling you what I know is redemption
enough for me.  Everything will work out fine.  Trust me.”

Anna nodded.  It all sounded like a good idea.

DAMIEN

Damien had managed to
re-board the Kirkland without anybody important seeing him.  He’d
climbed the rigging, which ran down the starboard side and allowed people to
moor their yachts and climb up.  Only a single guard patrolled the gunwale and
he had seemed half asleep when Damien headed past him.  Hopefully Samuel would
not even know he’d returned.  The longer Damien could put off meeting with him,
the better.  The first person he wanted to talk to was Harry.  I don’t even
know where to begin.  Which question do I ask first?

Before he sought out his friend, though.  He had retired to his private
berth to get some sleep.  After the events on the pier Damien was out on his
feet and just wanted to sleep.  He washed the blood from his spear in the
stainless steel sink and stared into the cracked mirror.  His stump was
bleeding, too, which added to the mess.  It was all he could do just to get out
of his clothes before collapsing on his bed and passing out.

He slept through the entire morning and part of the afternoon, dreaming
the whole time, but remembering nothing once he awoke.  It was probably for the
best considering what nightmares he might have been having.  As soon as he
rubbed the sleep from his eyes, Damien thought about seeing Harry.

Harry didn’t have a private berth on the Kirkland – he stayed in
the bunkhouses with a majority of the other civilians – which was why it was a
surprise when Damien opened his hatch and found him waiting there against the
wall of the passageway.

“I thought you’d never wake up,” he said with a smile on his face.

Damien snatched at Harry’s shirt and yanked him inside the berth.  “Does
anyone else know I’m back?”

Harry shook his head.  “I doubt it.  I was the only one out on deck
waiting for you.”

Damien thought about the events of last night and suddenly became
overwrought with rage.  “Why were you waiting for me?  Wanted to know the
latest about your partner in crime, Tim?”

Harry didn’t seem surprised.  He sat down on the bed and sighed.  “Tim
told you, then?  I wondered if he might.  To be honest, I assumed he was dead
after you shot him.  How did he survive?”

“Some people on the pier patched him up.  Anyway, what the hell, Harry?
Tim said…” He lowered his voice.  “He said that you were involved in trying
to blow up the sodding ship.”

Harry sighed.  When he looked at Damien he was tired and weary.  There
were wrinkles on his forehead that seemed to have come overnight and his skin
was grey.  For a second all was forgotten.  “Your headaches are getting bad
again, aren’t they?”

“Yes.”

“Bad, bad?”

“Bad as before.  Worse, actually.”

Damien sat down on the bed beside his friend and said nothing.  There was
nothing to say.  Harry had developed a brain tumour three years ago that
had grown rapidly.  The pressure on his brain had caused excruciating
headaches, made him blind in one eye, and half-crazy.  At its worst, Harry used
to space out and start mumbling religious nonsense; talking about an endless
snow storm and Angels coming to reap the Earth.  He would point at Damien and
tell him that everyone was supposed to be dead, that they were all buried in
ice and snow.  It had got pretty frightening towards the end and the prognosis
was that it wouldn’t get any better in Harry’s final months.  There was nothing
to be done, the doctors said.

But Damien hadn’t accepted that.  Harry had taken him on as a teenager,
took him away from the crime-ridden council estates, and trained him up to be a
master carpenter.  Learning a trade and finally having a father figure had
changed Damien’s life completely.  He had once sold drugs and dealt violence to
those who crossed him, but had gradually become a hardworking man who wanted to
put his past behind him and do good things.  It was Harry’s kindness that had
changed the course of Damien’s life for the better.  He owed the man
everything.  So when the doctors had said Harry was going to die, Damien had
refused to allow it.  He took to the Internet and researched every clinic,
health trial, and treatment he could find.  Eventually he had come across an
experimental drug trial in South Africa.  The only problem was that it had been
expensive.  Damien had needed to sacrifice everything he had to gather the
money to pay.  But he had done so, and it had worked.  Harry got better.  The
cancer went away…almost.  Harry had been due to fly out for the final round of
treatment, to eradicate the last few cancer cells remaining.  But then the
world had ended, along with any notion of healthcare.  Both he and Harry
worried that the cancer would return from the few cells remaining, but tried to
put it out of their minds; there was nothing they could do but hope.

Then, several weeks ago, the headaches started again.  Neither of them
had wanted to admit what that meant.

“I’m sorry,” said Damien.

Harry nodded.  “Me too.”

“Is that why you tried to set off the bomb?  Are you losing it again?”

“No!  Tell you the truth I had nothing to do with the bomb Tim tried to
set off.  It was me who helped get him off the ship before they found him,
though.  I got him in a lifeboat during the night and sent him away.”

“Why, Harry?  How did you even get involved with this guy?”

“By seeing what is right in front of me.  Samuel Raymeady is evil.”

Damien snorted.  “Wow, you and this Tim really have it in for the
captain, don’t you?”

“Are you really so blind?  Samuel is a dictator in the making.  He’s
building his little empire, rescuing stragglers and earning their love, but the
harsh reality is that the captain of this ship is the man who ended the world
in the first place.  Samuel Raymeady destroyed everything.”

“So that he could rise up as the leader of the new world, right?  I’m not
buying it.”

Harry blinked.  “Have you ever noticed how many people go missing around
here?  There was a guy named Dennis, worked in the mess hall, remember him?”

Damien vaguely remembered a man with glasses and a crooked nose.  “I
think so.  What about him?”

“When did you see him last?”

“I don’t know.”

“Exactly.  Dennis let slip that he intended taking a boat with a couple
of his friends and heading down to Spain where it would be warmer.  They wanted
to find someplace quiet and try to live on the land again.  Dennis disappeared
the night before he was due to leave and everyone assumed he’d finally set off.

“Maybe he did.”

“Except I knew the friends he was leaving with and none of them had seen
him.  I can promise you that Samuel made Dennis disappear.  He won’t have any
dissenters or want-aways in his fleet.”

“You have no proof.”

Harry went to say something but stopped himself.

“What?” Damien asked.  “What were you about to say?”

“I…I saw Samuel on the aft deck one day and….and I saw what he was.  He’s
the devil, Damien.  I’m telling you.”

Damien leapt up from the bed and marched the room.  He placed his hand on
his head and swore at the ceiling.  “Damn it, Harry.  It’s just the brain
tumour.  You’re having funny turns again.  You’re talking bollocks.”

“They’re not funny turns.  I see things that others can’t.  There’s a
layer beneath the surface that most people don’t know about, but just you
wait.  You’ll see what Samuel Raymeady truly is.  He’s not our saviour.  The
only thing he cares about is collecting his kingdom.”

“That bomb would have killed hundreds of people, Harry.  How can you
judge Samuel when you were party to something like that?”

Harry stood up from the bed and faced Damien.  He winced for a second as
if getting up had hurt his head, but when he recovered he gave his friend a
hard stare.  “I told you I knew nothing about that.  My own plans were to be
more surgical.  I only wanted to take out Samuel.”

He’s going to get us both killed with this nonsense.

Damien looked down at his spear.  He was already guilty of murder.  Once
Samuel found out about Birch and Fox, Damien would be a dead man himself.  But
if he took Harry’s life and revealed him as the second traitor, perhaps all
would be forgiven?  Harry was dying of a brain tumour, anyway, what harm would
there be in ending his suffering?

The weight of Damien’s spear suddenly made his arm ache.  He tried to
raise it but couldn’t.  What the hell am I thinking?  He couldn’t hurt
his friend, no matter what the reason.  Harry had looked out for him when
nobody else had.  Harry had made him a man, been a father to him.  There was no
way he could turn his back on the only person he’d ever loved and respected.  Especially
not for a dickhead like Samuel Raymeady.  “If Samuel finds out that you’re
planning against him…”

Harry shrugged.  “Way my head feels, I’ll be dead soon anyway.”

The thought made Damien’s stomach roll.  Whatever happened, he was going
to lose his only friend – either to cancer or execution.  The world had just
become even shitter than it used to be.  Damien was soon to be alone.  Harry
was the moral centre that had given him his path through life.  He didn’t know
what would become of him once Harry was gone.  Will I go back to being the
useless thug I was when he found me?  Maybe a thug is all I am deep down.

Harry came and placed a hand on Damien’s shoulder.  “I’m getting old,
Damien.  My time is nearly done, but there are still people out there who have
futures left.  Not if Samuel Raymeady gets his way, though.  You need to stop
him.”

“Stop him from what?  You’ll get me killed for saying things like
this.”

“Dying is better than living beneath the throne of a despot.”

“You sound crazy.”

“Perhaps I am; but I’m not wrong.”

“If Samuel finds out, I can’t help you.”

“I know.  Don’t worry about what happens to me, Damien.  You just keep
yourself safe.”

“Some chance of that.  I’ve come back onboard without doing my job for a
second time.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean your buddy, Tim, is still alive.  He’s out there on that pier
now, and when Samuel finds out he’s probably going to kill everyone there.”

Harry looked sick to his stomach.  “How many?”

Damien shrugged.  “A handful.  There’s a kid with them.”

Harry rubbed at his forehead with the heel of his fist.  For a moment it
looked like he might collapse.  “You can’t let him hurt a bunch of innocent
people, Damien.  Don’t you see that this proves what I’m saying?  Only a
monster would be so intent on causing death.  You’ve seen his temper before.
What right does he have to attack those people at the pier?”

“Maybe you should have thought about that before you helped Tim escape.
He’s the real reason those people are in danger.  You still haven’t told me how
you two ever got involved with one another.”

Harry sat back down on the bed.  He cleared his throat and rubbed at his
temples for a moment before speaking.  “One night, my headaches were pretty
bad, so I went outside to get some air.  I found Tim on the promenade deck,
hanging over the edge and looking down at the sea.”

“He was going to jump?”

Harry nodded.  “I asked him what was wrong and he just said “I couldn’t
stop it.”  “Stop what?” I asked.  He looked at me and said that he “couldn’t
prevent the end of the world.”  My reaction was to laugh.  Nobody could have
stopped the end of the world, so why was this guy beating himself up about it?
I told him not to blame himself; what could he possibly have done?  That’s when
he told me, “I could have killed the man responsible.””

“He told you that man was Samuel Raymeady?”

Harry shook his head.  “Not at first, but I convinced him to get down
from the edge and have a drink with me.”

Damien raised any eyebrow.  “You don’t drink.”

“I did that night.  I fell off the wagon so that Tim could share his
story with me over a couple bottles of beer.  I told him I was ten years sober
but that I was making an exception to be his friend.  I could tell it meant a
lot to him to have someone to talk to for an evening, but it was still several
days before he told me his story.  When he did he told me how he’d been
following Samuel Raymeady since the man was a boy.  Tim told me about all the
things he’d witnessed and researched over the last two decades – all of the
money Black Remedy funnelled into secret medical research projects and the
heavy funding they gave universities working on epidemiology – but he was too
late to stop any of it.  Samuel Raymeady wiped out the world without anybody
ever suspecting him – anybody except for Tim and handful of kooks he called
friends.  Tim knew everything, but nobody important would listen.  When the
virus was finally released, it was too late for anyone to do anything.  There
was no hope.

“The final stage of Samuel’s plan hinged on rescuing people with a Royal
Navy ship.  Three years ago, Black Remedy managed to tie up a contract for four
new destroyers to be built.  That was when the plan went into motion.  Samuel
needed a flagship for his new nation and Black remedy were given the excuse to
build it.  Captain Raymeady would be the saviour of mankind, the new messiah.”

Damien stared at his friend in disbelief.  “This is all the word of a
madman.  His mind is as crippled as his back.  How are you so gullible?”

“I believe him,” Harry said firmly.  “And in the end, I hope that you do,
too.  Just open your eyes, Damien.  Don’t let Samuel hurt the people on that
pier.  They’re innocent.”

Damien sighed.  “If Samuel is as maniacal as you say, then you know I
have no way of stopping him from doing whatever he wants.”

“I think you underestimate your own potential, Damien.  I saw it the day
I plucked you away from your life as a drug dealer.  You’re a leader.  You have
courage; and people follow courage.”

Damien couldn’t think of anything further from the truth.  “I’m no
leader, nor do I ever want to be one.  I have one hand and a bad attitude.  I’m
the last person people would follow.”

“Some leaders don’t have to lead men and women, they can lead by
example.  Do the right thing, Damien, and people will follow the path you leave
them.”

Damien had heard enough.  Harry was beginning to sound more and more
delusional.  The days ahead were not going to be kind.  Last time, Harry’s
brain tumour had sent him into an almost constant state of mania.  Damien had
almost lost his only friend back then, but he had managed to get a second
chance.  This time there would be no reprieve.

“I have to go,” Damien said.  “It’s time I faced the music.  If Samuel
grows horns, I promise I’ll kill him.”

FRANK

“I was wondering when
you’d grace us with your appearance,” said Frank when he saw Roman coming down
the passageway.  He’d received reports from petty officer Dunn shortly before
dawn that Roman was back onboard, but it had taken until now for him to present
himself.  There was much that could be read into that.

“Is Samuel in?” Roman asked with a hint of sarcasm in his voice.  He
knew very well that Samuel rarely left his chambers.

“Samuel is always free to see you, Roman.  Step inside.”

They entered the captain’s chambers and found Samuel behind his desk as
usual.  Frank stood close by, hoping that Roman would bring his adopted son
good news for once.

Samuel got right to the point.  “Is he dead?”

Roman shrugged.  “Who?”

Samuel’s eyes narrowed and his lower lip trembled.  “The cripple, the man
who tried to blow me up.  Is he dead?  Was he at the pier?”

The man who tried to blow us all up, Frank thought.  I
must remind Samuel that a leader says ‘we’ not ‘I’.

“He was at the pier, yes,” said Roman.  “The people there patched up his
wounds and gave him a place to rest.  He was up and about when I found him.”

“But you dealt with him, I take it?”

“No.  He’s still at the pier.  The people there didn’t play ball.”

Samuel’s face creased.  For a moment it looked like he might leap over
his desk and throttle Roman.  Frank sighed with relief when Samuel chose to
remain calm.  “So...the cripple is alive because of the people on this pier?”

Roman seemed to struggle for a moment.  His eyes flittered back and forth
and his mouth opened and closed, searching for words.  “I…I wouldn’t
necessarily blame them.  Tim told them a bunch of wild stories.  He manipulated
them into protecting him, but they didn’t know any better.”

Sam’s expression darkened.  “Tim?  You use the man’s name.  Did he
manipulate you with his stories?  Pray tell, what did he say?  Was it
about me?  Some grand conspiracy, I’d imagine.  I have heard it all before.
But the people on the pier, they believe these stories about me?”

Frank watched Roman struggle again for words.  He’s trying to protect
the people on the pier.  Why?

“The stories were nonsense,” Roman said.  “I paid no notice, but he had
longer to convince the people on the pier.”

“Why did you not take Tim by force?” Samuel asked with venom.
“You had two men with you.  Two men who, might I add, did not return with you
last night.  Would you care to shed light on their location?”

Roman swallowed and shifted uncomfortably.  He was not his usual stoic
self.  There was fear in him today, but Frank doubted it was for himself.
Roman was a man who cared little for self-preservation.  That was why Samuel
had found him so useful.  A man without fear is a rare weapon.  But there’s
fear in him today.  He’s trying to hide something.

“Where are Fox and Birch?” Samuel asked.

“Dead,” said Roman.

Frank spluttered.  “Dead?  How?”

Samuel raised his hand for silence.  “I’ll handle this, Frank.”  He
turned his charcoal eyes back to Roman.  “Why are they dead?  And who killed
them?”

Roman cleared his throat.  “I-I killed Birch.  He was out of control.
Fox tried to calm him down, but got a knife in the chest for his efforts.  I
did everything I could to restrain Birch but he was wild.  He caused everything
that happened.  I had to kill him just to stop him from dishonouring the fleet
more than he already had.”

Sam leapt up from his chair and sent pens skittering across the surface
of his desk.  His usually pale skin went bright red in an instant.  Frank took
a step backwards.  “You killed Birch?  You killed a member of the
fleet?”

“Yes.  He gave me no choice.”  Roman’s reckless disregard had returned to
him and he looked ready for a fight.  “As for the reason why, perhaps you
should have warned me that Birch was a goddamn sex offender.  They had a child
at the pier and Birch tried to abduct her in the night.  It was a right
bleedin’ shambles.”

“Is that the truth?” asked Frank, taken aback and feeling quite sick to
his stomach.  “That is…unfortunate.”  The men and women of this fleet
devolve by the day.  Samuel’s already had to deal with a dozen rapes, thefts,
and beatings, and more and more happen each day.  Sometimes I think people left
their humanity back on land.

Roman glanced at Frank.  “Yeah, no shit.  When the people on the pier
caught Birch, they were damn near ready to lynch all three of us.  Rather than
beg forgiveness, the moron tried to stab the little girl right in front of
everybody.  I had no choice but to put him down.  Fox ended up being collateral
damage when he tried to help me take Birch down.  In the end I had to get out
of there while I could.  Things went bad, but the people on the pier were just
defending themselves.  It was Birch’s fault that things went so wrong.  The
cripple’s stories ended up holding so much weight because Birch played the role
of the bad guy so effectively.”

Frank had a feeling that wasn’t the entire truth – he’s hiding
something – but Samuel didn’t challenge what had been said to him.  In
fact, he seemed to have calmed down completely.  Some of the crimson seeped
away from his cheeks and he stood up straight and loose, instead of hunched
forward and confrontational.  He placed his fingertips together in front of his
face and let out a sigh.  “If what you say is true, then I am at fault for not
knowing my men better.  These people on the pier, are they good people?”

Roman answered without pause, “Yes.  From what I saw they were all good
people.  They stick together and they look after one another.  One of them must
be pretty handy, because the cripple was patched up and walking again after I
left him half-dead.”

“But they protected him when you asked to take him into custody?  This
terrible man who tried to take hundreds of innocent lives? “

Roman nodded.

“And in doing so,” Samuel continued.  “Two members of the fleet were
murdered and the mighty Roman was sent back to me with his tail between his
legs.”

Roman shifted on the spot.  “Yes, but-”

“Then the people on the pier are my enemies, and they must be dealt with
accordingly.”  Samuel turned to Frank.  “Frank, tell the gunnery sergeant to
fire on the pier.”

Frank spluttered.  “Sorry, Samuel?  You want us to fire on them?”

“You heard me.  Fire on them.  If what Roman says is true, then they’re
harbouring a terrorist.  That makes them as guilty as he is.”

“Wait a second,” Roman said.  “You don’t need to do this.  I’ll meet with
them again, explain the consequences if they don’t hand Tim over.”

Samuel grimaced at the sound of the man’s name being spoken once more.
Frank winced too because he knew the reaction it would illicit.  Samuel glared
at Roman.  “I would be very careful how you conduct yourself, Roman.  You have
failed me again, and if it is not the fault of these other survivors, then it
is yours.  Should I fire on them, or should I fire on you?”

“Me,” Roman said without pause.  “Punish me, not a bunch of innocent men
and women.  They’re just trying to survive.”

“Well, they’re doing a pretty bad job of it, because I’m about to destroy
them.  Frank, I won’t ask you again.  Give the order, and take this man out of
my sight before my mood worsens further.”

Frank wavered.  He knew his son was quick to temper, but there seemed to
be zero doubt in Samuel’s command.  He wanted the pier destroyed.  “I…Samuel, I
think-”

Samuel gave him a look so harsh that it almost made Frank want to weep.
It was a look no man wanted to receive from his son – adopted or otherwise.
“Do not even think about arguing, Frank.  I am the captain of this ship and I
have given my command.  Now see it done.”

Frank nodded.

Roman was standing in front of Sam’s desk and staring in disbelief, but
Frank could see that his initial shock was rapidly giving way to anger.  Frank
grabbed Roman and took him away before he did anything stupid.  Outside, in the
corridor, he had to restrain the younger man from rushing back inside and
confronting Samuel.  “Let go of me,” he shouted.  “He can’t do this.  It’s
wrong.”

“It’s war,” Frank told him resignedly.  It wasn’t the first act of wanton
aggression he’d witnessed in his lifetime.  His younger days in the army had
been filled with a callous disregard for human life.  I just hoped Samuel
would be better than that.

Roman looked at Frank like he was an idiot.  “War?  What war?”

“The war of survival.  In a harsh world, harsh methods are needed.  If
people doubt Samuel’s temerity, there’ll be chaos.  Trust me, I served enough
years as a soldier to understand that.  I saw weak-willed captains shot in the
back by their own men a dozen times over.  In times of peace, mercy rules, but
in times of war, mercy weakens.”

Roman was shaking his head.  He didn’t buy it.  “So a bunch of innocent
people have to die, just so Samuel can be seen to have a big pair of balls?
This is wrong.  I’m going to stop it.”

“Like you stopped Birch and Fox?”

Roman paused in the midst of his anger and stared at Frank.  “What did
you say?”

Frank folded his arms and huffed.  “I don’t buy the lynch mob story.
Birch might have been a thug, but he could handle himself.  Fox was as amiable
as they come.  I can see the people on the pier attacking Birch, but I don’t
see Fox getting involved the way you tell it.  I think there’s more to it than
you’re letting on.”

“You’re talking bollocks.”

“Perhaps, but I’ve spent enough time around Samuel to learn how to read
people well enough.  If I can see through your lies, then I guarantee he will,
too.  If I was you, Roman, I would lie low and let the situation sort itself
out.”

“I can’t just let him fire on those people.  They’re innocent.  I have to
stop it.”

“You can’t and you won’t.  You don’t give the orders around here, Samuel
does, and the men aboard this boat love him.  You act against him and you’ll be
killed.  You can’t do anything to help those people, so just focus on the next
group we find that might be worth saving.”

Roman shook his head, but the defiance had not yet left him.  He held
onto it like a loved one.  “You give that order to fire, Frank, and you’re as
guilty as Samuel.  I hope that dead little girl fucking haunts you in your
dreams.”  Roman shook his head one last time and then walked away, shoving
aside a startled engineer who had the misfortune to be standing in his way.

Frank shook his head and sighed.  Why is everybody so eager to rule
from their pulpits?  My son is doing his very best, but survival of the human
race is no easy task.  It’s a war for our very existence and harsh decisions
must be made.  Only great men can make the tough decisions.  Samuel is a great
man and people resent him for it, but they do not see that he is still a young
man.  He needs guidance…whether he asks for it or not.

Roman is right.  I cannot be party to this.  Samuel will thank me in
the end.

Frank sighed, took a deep breath, and then went to give the firing orders
to the Kirkland’s gunnery sergeant.  When he got there, he made sure to
tell the man to ‘miss’.

HUGO

Hugo’s stomach was in
knots.  He’d been waiting on the aft deck of the Kirkland in the rain
for almost three hours now, waiting for someone to take him to see the
captain.  The entire time, his daughters had been alone, back on the yacht with
only Houdini to look after them.  It was the first time he’d left them in
almost a year, but the frigate was not a place for young girls and he preferred
not to bring them along.  It turned out to be a good judgement call.

Hugo was disgusted by what he saw aboard the Kirkland.  The
civilians were dirty and unwashed, while the officers were arrogant and rude.
They’d dismissed Hugo more than once and were less than helpful when he told
them he wanted to report a crime.  One or two of the officers had straight-out
laughed at him.  At least the officers were clean, though.  The crew and
civilians seemed to take no notice of their hygiene as they ran about
completing their tasks.  Their clothing was soiled and their hair was lank and
greasy.  It appeared that running a frigate was endless, sweaty work.  I am
fortunate to have my own yacht.  The rules of hygiene still very much apply on
the éternuer.

Hugo’s hair and face were drenched, but he could not tell if it was from
the light rain or the spray brought up by the Kirkland’s imposing prow.
He was beginning to shiver.  An officer strolled by and Hugo reached out to
grab him.  “I need to see Mr Raymeady.”

The man curled his lip up at Hugo and said, “The captain is busy.
If you would like to have a message sent to him, then you can write a note and
give it to one of the stewards when they do their rounds.  He may then summon
you if he wishes.”

Hugo sniffed at that.  The stewards were meant to meet with the boats of
the fleet once a day, but it was lucky if you saw them once a month.  Their
little Kodiak speedboat was more often filled with giggling women than messages
from the fleet.  Young men are as irresponsible today as they ever were.

The officer shrugged free of Hugo’s grasp and marched away.  Hugo was so
frustrated that he was close to tears.  A terrible crime had been committed,
yet nobody wished to hear about it.  It made him worry for his daughters; it
was not good to raise them in a world where crime was not taken seriously.  The
fleet had always made him feel safe, but today that feeling of security was
ebbing away, one rude dismissal at a time.

There was some hustle and bustle up ahead and Hugo looked across at the
ship’s big equipment hanger.  There was a man coming out, stomping about
angrily, while other men hurriedly moved aside.  Hugo knew at once who the
angry man was.  The Roman.

Hugo had heard many tales about the man named Roman.  The other sailors
said he had received the nickname because of the spear and sword he carried;
while others said that he was an Italian known for his cruelty and arrogance.
Some people even said he’d survived a zombie bite by cutting off his infected
hand.  One thing that Hugo knew for sure was that the man spoke directly with
the captain.  I could give my report to the Roman.  He will see that it
reaches the captain’s ears.

So long as he doesn’t just swat me aside like a fly.  I hear he is a
very unfriendly man.

Hugo swallowed and set off towards Roman.  The man had headed starboard
and was leant over the edge, staring out towards the distant pier.

“Erm…excuse me, monsieur.”  Damn it.  Hugo’s French crept
back in when he was nervous.  Roman didn’t acknowledge him, just kept his gaze
on the distant pier.  “I-I am sorry to interrupt your thinking, but I need a
man who will listen to me.”

“That’s not me,” Roman said.  He spoke in a tone that should have been
enough to frighten Hugo away, but Hugo wanted to get back to his daughters, and
he could not do that until someone heeded his words.

“I must report a crime.  You are the mighty Roman, yes?  You are the
captain’s good man, no?”

Roman turned and snarled at Hugo.  The sword on his belt suddenly looked
very heavy.  And sharp!  “I am nobody’s man,” he growled.  “I do as I
wish and the captain does as he wishes.  Do not combine my actions with his.”

Hugo took a step back, but did not retreat.  “My apologies, monsieur.”
Damn it.  “I must report a crime.”

“Tell it to somebody else.”

“A murder.  A body dumped in the sea.”

At last the man seemed interested.  He turned around and gave his full
attention.  Hugo had been right to seek out him out.  Roman was one of the
captain’s men, and despite his rude demeanour, he was obligated to heed reports
of serious crimes.  “What are you talking about?” he said.  “What body?”

“Out at sea, this dawn passed.  I saw a yacht returning from the pier.
There were two men, but one went overboard, I believe already dead.”

Roman shrugged as if he was unconvinced.  But at least he is
listening.  “How do you know it was a body being dumped?”

Hugo couldn’t help but laugh.  “We live in a world seized by the dead,
and you ask me how I know a body when I see one.  I know death well, as do we
all.  The man on the yacht was sinking a body beneath the ocean, this I saw.”

Roman glanced back out at the pier and dropped his head so that his chin
hung against his chest.  When he spoke again, he spoke sadly.  “If you know
death so well, then you should understand it has no meaning anymore.  One
corpse is literally a drop in the ocean.  It’s not worth noticing, let alone
reporting.  I suggest you go back to your boat, old man, and concentrate on not
joining the dead yourself.  Count yourself lucky to be alive.”

Was that a threat?

“Monsieur, if we start ignoring murder then this was all for
nothing.  Even those of us lucky enough to be alive are in fact truly dead.  We
are human beings and we must care about each other if we have any chance of
truly being alive.  We must be as one.”

Roman laughed.  For a moment he almost seemed to drop his defences.  A
slim smile appeared on his face, but it quickly faded away, replaced by a hard,
impassive stare.  “Go back to your boat, and stop telling tales.  It’s likely
to get you killed.”

A threat indeed.

Hugo nodded.  He had told the closest person he could find to the
captain, and still his words were disregarded.  I have done all I can.  Now
I must return to my daughters and think on this.  Things are not as I believed
them to be.  There is no law and order here.  The men and women here are empty.

“Thank you for your time, monsieur.”  Hugo left Roman at the
gunwale and headed back towards the rigging, which would lead him back down to
his yacht.  His daughters had been alone far too long already.  He felt naked
without them by his side.  I even miss my little Houdini.  I hope he’s been
looking after them and not leaving foul messes everywhere.

“Excuse me.”

Hugo turned around to see a tall blonde officer striding towards him.  He
smiled wearily at the man.  “Yes, can I help you?”

“Perhaps.  I am Petty Officer Dunn.  I’ve noticed you came aboard some
hours ago.  Was there something you needed help with?  I saw you talking to
Roman.”

Hugo nodded.  “Yes, a most unhelpful man, I am afraid.”

The officer laughed.  “You’re not wrong.  What was it you were looking
for help with?”

“I wanted to report a crime, a murder.  Although Roman told me not to
speak of such things any longer.”

Dunn shook his head and pouted.  “How very wrong of him.  Come, would you
like a cup of tea?  You can give your report to me.  It sounds very serious and
I would most like to hear it.  A murder, you say?  Heaven’s above.”

Hugo smiled and sighed a breath of relief.  Finally, someone was willing
to take him seriously.  “I would love a cup of tea,” he said.  “Please, lead
the way.”

Officer Dunn gave Hugo a warm smile and did just that.  They sat and
drank hot tea while the officer took careful notes of everything Hugo was
saying.

POPPY

Poppy wished Garfield was
home more than ever.  She felt guilty over what had happened.  It was all her
fault.  She shouldn’t have gone with Birch in the night.  She should’ve known
better.  Garfield had given her magazines to teach her how to be a grown-up
woman, but it was obvious now that she was still just a kid – and part of her
was glad about it.  She didn’t understand grown-ups yet.  Their constant
fighting and shouting scared her. If that was what adults did, she would stay a
child for as long as possible.

“We’re going to have dinner in an hour,” Anna called up to her.  Poppy
had been sitting on the roof of the Sea Grill restaurant for the last
few hours, once again watching the horizon for Garfield’s return.  It would
probably be several more days, but Poppy intended to sit on the rooftops until
she spotted him upon the edge of the village.  He might not love me, but I
love him.  I need to tell him how sorry I am for all the trouble I caused.
She was passing the time by drawing.  She could often get lost amidst her
pencils and crayons, stroking and shading the images in her mind until they
came to life on the page.

“Did you hear me?” Anna shouted up again.  Alistair was beside her.  His
face was bloated and purple where bad Mr Birch had beaten him up.  Both of them
were wearing thick winter coats, but Poppy had not noticed how cold it had
gotten.

“I heard you,” said Poppy.  “Can I stay here for a little while longer?”

Anna sighed.  “It’s getting dark and I don’t want you hanging around on
your own.  We need to stick together after what happened last night.  First
thing tomorrow morning we’re all going to make a plan, but right now we need to
look after each other.”

Poppy nodded.  She didn’t want to be alone, and neither did she want to
disobey Anna after what had happened.  She and Alistair had fought to protect
her and both were battered and bruised as a result.  Poppy felt an awful
feeling in her tummy when she thought about how she was responsible.  “I…I just
want to wait for Garfield, but…I’ll come.”

“No,” said Alistair.  “You stay there, Poppy.  I’ll come and sit with you
while dinner cooks.”

Anna looked at Alistair.  “You sure?  How on Earth do you plan on getting
up there?”

“I’ll find a way.  You go get yourself in the warm, Anna, I’ll bring the
urchin along later.”

Anna patted Alistair on the back and smiled.  “Okay, I have to check on
Tim first, anyway.  His bandages need changing.  Don’t be too long.”  She
looked up at Poppy on the roof.  “And you behave up there, Poppy.”

Poppy nodded.

After Anna had left, Alistair put his hands on his hips and stared up at
the roof, clucking his tongue.  “Now, how the hell do I get my fat arse up
there, huh?”

Poppy giggled.  “There’s a big metal bin around the back.  I climb up on
there.”

Alistair nodded.  “Right-o.  I’ll be up in a jiffy.”

Poppy sat and waited while Alistair disappeared behind the Sea Grill.
A few moments passed and then she could hear his huffs and puffs as he climbed
up on top of the bin.

“Do you need help?” she called out.

There was another huff and a puff and Alistair’s head appeared above the
roof.  His cheeks had gone bright red.  Poppy went over and offered him her
hand.  Together they managed to get his bulk up onto the roof.  The wooden
timbers creaked, but they held.

“Getting down is harder,” she said.

Alistair keeled over.  “Christ.  I may just have to live up here, then.”

“Thanks for keeping me company.”

Alistair ruffled her hair and sat down on the rooftop.  “You’re very
welcome.  Can’t leave you to mope around up here on your own.”

Poppy sat down beside him and began gathering up her pencils and
crayons.  “I’m sorry I caused trouble.”

“Don’t you go apologising for what those men did.  You did nothing
wrong.”

“Doesn’t feel that way.”

Alistair smiled at her.  “That’s because good people feel guilty about
bad men’s sins.  It’s good that you’re sorry about the things that happened,
but don’t you go blaming yourself.  We’re a family here and we look after each
other.  I don’t think we really realised it until last night.  I guess I was so
wrapped up in surviving, that I forgot to take a step back and realise how
lucky we all are to have each other.”

“You’re usually so mean to me.”

Alistair sighed and shrugged at her.  “Tell you the truth, I’m not very good
with kids.  I suppose I always saw them as useless.  What happened last night
made me realise how precious you are, though.  There’s nothing wrong with being
a kid.  I’m sorry I didn’t realise it sooner.”

“You and Anna stuck up for me.”

“We stuck up for our little girl, and we’d do it again.  Don’t you worry
about ever being alone, because you have us and we have you.”

“I miss Garfield.”

Alistair nodded and stared out at the horizon.  “I know you do, lass.  I
miss him, too.”

Poppy was surprised.  “You miss Garfield?”

“You’re not the only one who gets on with him, you know.  He’s as much a
part of the group as anyone else.  I play cards with Garfield most nights when
he’s back, while you’re sleeping.”

“I…I didn’t know.”

Alistair chuckled and slapped her on the back.  It hurt her a little
bit.  “That’s because you think Garfield belongs to you.  He doesn’t.  He wants
you to grow up and be your own person.  You’re a part of this entire group.  We
all love you in our own way.”

Poppy nodded.  “I don’t think I want to grow up anymore.”

“None of us do.  You have some time yet, though.  What’s that you have?”

Poppy looked down to see what he was talking about.  When she saw her
drawing spread out on the roof, she quickly snatched it up and blushed.  “It’s
not finished.”

Alistair grinned.  “Don’t be shy, lass.  We all know you’re handy with a
pencil.  Let me see what you’ve drawn.”

Poppy rumpled the drawing in her hands, but slowly straightened it out
and showed Alistair.  He smiled as he examined it.  “It’s-”

“I can see what it is,” he said.  “It’s beautiful.  You really do have
quite the talent, young lady.  One day you’ll be famous.”

Poppy blushed and folded the picture away in the breast pocket of her
cardigan.  The she shuffled around to face the other way, towards the sea.  It
was growing dark, but the big grey boat illuminated the horizon with a hundred
blinking lights.  Lots of smaller ships twinkled all around it.  “Do you think
they’re going to come back?”

“I’d say so.  We still have their man.”

“Why don’t we just hand Tim over to them?  We only just met him and he’s
making people come after us.”

“That’s not how we do things, Poppy.  Anna and Rene want to ask Tim some
more questions about the man in the big ship first.”

“He’s a bad man?”

“Might just be the worst.”

“Even more reason to give him what he wants.”

“We do that, sweetheart, and we might as well walk into the sea.  We
can’t give in to threats and violence.  Garfield has gone away to find guns so
that we don’t have to.  We’re not going to give Tim up, it would be wrong, but
he’s decided to go on his own.  It was his choice.  He wants to do what’s
right.  We will do what is right, too, because that’s what’s…right.”

“Garfield told me that people used to be bad a lot in the old days.  I
remember my old house used to have an alarm that my dad would set every night
because of bad people.”

Alistair rubbed a hand over his thigh and nodded.  “There have always
been bad people, Poppy.  That’s why we need to look after each other, and why
we won’t bend to people who threaten us.  We do it once and we’ll forever be in
danger.  Bullies prey on the weak.  We will never be weak.”

“Those men last night scared me.  I don’t want to see any more of them.
I want Garfield and the others to come back.”

Alistair wrapped his arm around her.  “Garfield will come back soon.
That man loves you too much to be gone for long.”

Poppy glanced at Alistair.  “He loves me?”

“Of course he does.  He’d die for you, you silly thing.”

Poppy smiled.  “He’s never told me that he loves me.”

“People find it hard to say what they feel.  Take me, for
instance, I shouted and raved at Garfield when he was taking half the camp with
him on his foraging expedition, but my real concern was that I just didn’t want
them all to leave.  They’ll be back soon.  Then Garfield will give you a great
big hug and give you presents.”

Poppy grinned.  “I hope so.  That would be nice.”  She peered out at the
sea.  The big boat was moving.  “Hey…look.”

Alistair placed a hand over his eyes and squinted.  “What?”

“Something’s moving.  See?”

On the side of the big grey boat, a big piece of metal started to move.
It was like a big long pipe pointing at the sky.  Slowly it lowered so that it
was pointed directly towards the pier.  What’s it doing?

There was a sudden explosion and several little puffs of fire burst out
the end of the big long pipe.  Bam bam bam bam bam….

Poppy grinned wide.  It looks like fireworks.

GARFIELD

A gathering of crows took
flight.  The carcass on the road looked like it had belonged to a fox, but it
was difficult to tell for sure in the glaring headlights.  Animals didn’t
concern the dead, and as a result there were more foxes, badgers, and rats than
ever before.  They made good eating if you could catch them, but they’d become
increasingly brave in the new world and quite often carried disease.  A light
scratch from a feral cat could fester and rot.  It was easier to forage than to
hunt.

Garfield studied the picture Poppy had drawn for him.  It was
impressively realistic; every time he looked at it he noticed additional
details.  In addition to the family of moorhens in the foreground, there were
fireflies hovering above the pond and a stalk wading in the background.  Just
like Poppy had hoped, it cheered him up looking at it.  She’s such a sweet
thing.  I really hate being away from her so long.  I wonder what she’s up to.

Garfield missed Poppy and the pier.  It was the longest he’d ever been
away since they’d first come upon it.  The further away he got from it, the worse
things seem to get.

Things amongst the foragers were tense after two-and-a-half days on the
road.  They had stuck to the fields and farmland, which meant the scenery was
bland and samey.  The many hours of travelling had left them weary, depressed,
and irritable.  Danny and Squirrel dying three hours ago had just made things
worse.  Those careless fools.

Danny and Squirrel had been at the pier since the beginning, having
originally discovered the place with Alistair, Anna, and a few others who’d
stumbled upon each other on the south coast.  The two young men were well liked
and brave, an important part of the group.  Garfield hated to say it, but they
were also stupid.

Squirrel had been a dope smoking benefit-seeker in the old days, and his
ambitions became no greater once the world had ended.  Squirrel was happy to
take orders when necessary, but would slack off the rest of the time.  He
barely even managed to wash without being told to.  When Squirrel wasn’t being
directed, he was a liability.  Danny had been much the same, a shop worker back
in his old life.  Now both of them were dead.

Kirk had been driving the minivan through another field when they’d come
upon an old village pub.  The Tudor-style building was on it’s own, set off
from two intersecting roads.  Its name was The Jubilee and it was
deserted.  There were no cars parked outside, as if it’d been closed when the
infection hit.  Nightfall was only an hour away, so Garfield had agreed the pub
would make a good campsite for the evening.  Kirk pulled the minivan over and
set it outside the front doors.  Pubs often had a cellar full of soft drinks
and long-life snacks such as crisps and pork scratchings, but Garfield knew
what the other men were truly excited about.

I should have had Kirk turn around right then.

Garfield had no problem with alcohol.  It was something he avoided on the
road, but it was nice to have a swig back at the pier when the opportunity
presented itself.  It was an undeniable luxury to get rat-arsed nowadays, one
of the only things unanimously missed.  But drinking in the field was
dangerous.  They’d lost a man named Barry because of it.  He’d been legless on
Brandy when he stumbled down the long escalators of an abandoned supermarket.
His leg broke and he screamed like a trapped piglet.  The dead had come
quickly, attracted to the noise.  With his broken leg, the other foragers had
no choice but to leave Barry to his fate.  There had been little sympathy for
drunkenness in the field ever since.  Still hasn’t stopped us losing people,
though.  Maybe I’m not cut out for this.

The Australian, Sally, seemed to take a different view on alcohol.  As
soon as they entered the pub they found optics full of spirits and fridges full
of wine and beer.  Immediately the Australian grabbed a bottle of German Larger
and bit the top off.  “It ain’t Ozzy beer,” he had said.  “But it’ll do.”

Garfield told the men that they would take the alcohol back to camp and
drink it in safety, but Sally laughed and grabbed another beer from the
fridge.  “Sod that, squire.”

“We’re not allowed to d-d-drink in the field,” Lemon told him, but his
eyes were wide with wonder.  The alcohol was calling to him.

“Not allowed?  Are you a man or a possum?”  Sally grabbed a third bottle
of beer and lobbed it Lemon’s way.  “You pommes are too serious.  Lighten up
and enjoy a beer.  Life doesn’t have a lot of moments like this.  Snatch at ‘em
while yer can.”

Lemon looked at Garfield uncertainly.  Garfield stared back at him with a
stern expression on his face.

“I’ll have a brewski,” said Kirk.  “It’s been a long day.”

“That’s a bad idea,” said Garfield.

“Probably,” said Kirk.  “But it’ll sure feel good.”  He uncapped a beer
with his teeth and took a long pull from the bottle.  He gasped and wiped at
his mouth with the back of his hand.  “God, that’s good.”

It hadn’t taken long before every one of them was drinking; everyone
except for Garfield.  He chose to sit on a corner bench and rest up for a
while.  He snagged himself a bottle of lemonade and was content enough with
that.  Hopefully, come morning, the foragers would not be too hungover to get
up off the floor.  Can’t blame them.  Alcohol was a temptation even before
everything that’s happened.  It feels even better to escape nowadays.

Garfield would have enjoyed nothing more than to have joined the drunken
revelling of the others, but he made the decision that at least one of them
should stay sober.  Lemon was already staggering and Kirk was downing vodka
shots like they were apple juice.  There was no need of designated drivers
anymore, but having someone alert and lucid was as important as ever.  Still,
Garfield winced every time someone raised their voice or smashed a glass.  It
had grown dark outside and he had frequent visions of zombies creeping up to
the windows in their droves.  What Garfield never considered was that the dead
were already inside.  I should have checked the building out thoroughly.

After having enjoyed themselves for nigh on two hours, Cat suggested that
they should make bed spaces now, rather than later when they might be
incapable.  She had let out a mighty belch to punctuate her thoughts.

Sally jumped up on the bar and lay down, pouring whiskey down his throat
and giggling.  “You fellas don’t mind me.  I’ll just keep drinking until I pass
out right here. Reminds me of being back in Brisbane.  I used to drink the
whole weekend through back in my younger days, different bird on each arm.
Some real beauts I used to get me.”

“We should check out the upstairs,” said Lemon.  “We’ll probably find
beds up there.  I’d like to sleep in a real bed.”

“First dibs,” shouted Danny and he and Squirrel rushed behind the bar.
In their drunkenness they decided it was a good idea to karate kick the door
that led to the backroom area.

As soon as the door flung open the dead piled into the cramped bar aisle
and let out a chorus of hungry moans.  In all of their raucous partying, no one
had heard them scratching at the door.

A skeletal woman fell on Squirrel and tore out his windpipe with her
teeth.  He stumbled backwards against the bar, spraying blood all over the
place.  Sally, who’d been lying on the bar at the time, tumbled to the ground
and shouted, “Crikey!” although he almost seemed amused by what he was seeing.

Danny went to drag Squirrel away, even though there was no point.
Squirrel was already screwed.  A dead man set upon Danny at once, grabbing him
by the lapels of his jacket.  He tried to turn on his heels, but the alcohol in
his system made him clumsy and he fell down to his knees.  The dead man seized him
immediately and tore away the flesh at the back of his neck, biting down all
the way to his spine.  Half a dozen hungry corpses piled into the bar from the
open doorway.

Garfield leapt up from the bench and thought fast.  He picked up a stool
and threw it behind the bar, slowing down the awkward strides of the dead
trying to escape from the aisle.  “Everyone get in the van, now,” he shouted.
“Move, move, move!”

Everyone piled out of the pub, shoving through the front entrance and
towards the minivan.  The dead were outside, too, attracted by the noise.
Garfield had to take down the nearest with a wrench he kept strapped to his
chest.  Sally and Kirk fought, too, while everyone else leapt into the minivan
or climbed into the horsebox attached to the back.  Once everyone was onboard,
Garfield headed for the front passenger seat, but was surprised when he found
Sally sitting there.  There was no time to argue, so he slid open the door at
the side of the van and dove across the laps of the others.

Kirk gunned the engine and they took off.  A dead man snatched at the
horsebox and was dragged a few metres until his arm tore loose and he fell
facedown on the tarmac.  They managed to burn rubber just as a dozen zombies
piled out of the building and started towards them.

That had been three hours ago.

They’d driven in silence since then.  Kirk focused on the road with a
frown on his face, and even the Australian was quiet.  Why did he decide to
head for the front seat?  Was it just something he did in the heat of the
moment, or was there an agenda?  Those in the back with Garfield stared
into space glumly.  Cat sobbed quietly.  Dawn was only an hour away and
hangovers were beginning to take hold.  Everyone needed sleep.

“I think we need to find somewhere,” said Garfield.  “Kirk, stop at the
next safe place you can find.”

Out of the blue, Kirk smashed both fists against the steering wheel.
The horn went pip!  “Safe?  I think we just learned that no place is
safe.  What the hell happened back there?”

“I said not to drink,” said Garfield.  “We made too much noise.”

“Why the hell did you let everyone drink, if you knew it was such a bad
idea?”

Garfield shook his head in disbelief.  “What would you have me do?  I’m
not your babysitter.  You all knew that drinking was a bad idea, but you did it
anyway.”

“Seems to me,” said Sally.  “That a decent leader would keep his men in
line.  The troops don’t always know what’s best for themselves.  Soldiers need
a strong hand.”

Garfield snorted.  “Then maybe I should deal with your insubordination by
dumping you on the side of the road.  Is that a strong enough hand for you?”

“Don’t have a go at Sally,” said Kirk.  “He has nothing to do with this,
and he’s right.  You should have stopped everyone from drinking.  Danny and
Squirrel are dead because of you.”

Garfield felt the same way, but he knew it was just his guilt.  The truth
was their own stupidity got them killed.  They may call Garfield ‘leader’, but
the truth was that every man was responsible for himself.  “If you want to blame
me, Kirk, then fine.  But don’t kid yourself, okay?  You all knew you were
taking a risk by getting drunk.  If any of you think you can do a better job
being in charge, then we’ll discuss it when we’re back at the pier.  I’m more
than happy to let someone else take the responsibility.  Tell you the truth,
I’m sick of it.”

“The pier?” said Sally.  “Is that where your camp is?  That sounds bonza.
Anyway, why should everyone discuss it at the pier?  Why not now?”

There was silence in the minivan.

“Because now is not the time,” Garfield said.

“Seems to me that now is the only time.  Don’t want anyone else dying
because of bad leadership, do yer?”

That’s it.  This guy is out on his arse.  Garfield was about to
shout an order to eject the Australian when Kirk turned his head to look back
at him.  “We’re almost there,” he said excitedly.  “We’ve found it.”

Garfield shifted forward to look out the windscreen.  There was a sign
coming up on the left.  It was lit by the minivan’s high-beams.  It read:
DEFENCE TRAINING ESTATE, ROYAL SCHOOL OF ARTILLERY, LARKHILL.  12 MILES.
PLEASE WATCH YOUR SPEED.

Garfield let out a sigh of relief.  “We’re here,” he said.  “Let’s keep
our fingers crossed.”

“That there are weapons there?” asked Lemon.

“No,” said Garfield, shaking his head.  “Let’s cross our fingers that no
one else dies.”

ANNA

Anna opened her eyes but
could see only black.  At first she thought she was blind, but then she saw the
burning embers across the sand and the crackling fires up above on the pier.
She coughed, spluttered, and sat up.  The beach was unsafe.  Sometimes the dead
washed up on shore and began crawling around.  No one ever set foot on the
beach.  So what am I doing down here?

She could only stare at the fire above her for a moment, marvelling at
its beauty and enjoying the heat.  It took her a few moments until she
comprehended what it meant.  The pier is burning.  Something…something
happened.  A bomb, or an explosion…

Anna dragged herself up off the sand and staggered to her feet.  Her head
was swimming and she noticed fluid dripping from her fingertips.  Her heart
beat faster at the sight of her own blood, and she patted herself down
frantically, looking for the source.  A jab of pain on her right elbow alerted
her to the fact that a long shard of wood had slid into her flesh and torn her
open.  She grabbed a hold of the giant splinter and cursed as she yanked it
free.  I…I don’t understand what’s happened.

But then she knew.  She looked out across the moonlit sea and saw the
bright lights of the frigate.  30MM guns, pointing right in our direction,
she remembered someone saying.  Roman had warned her, but she’d naively assumed
he would return to negotiate.  There had been nothing to gain by firing on the
pier.  But they did it anyway.  Even now, after all the death and
destruction we’ve seen, men will still kill to protect their vanity.

Anna spat at the ground and kicked sand into the air.  She wanted to swim
right up to the frigate and throttle whoever was in charge.  Samuel
Raymeady…

There were moans up above and suddenly Anna panicked that the dead had
arrived.  While she may have found herself stunned and disorientated on the
beach, there was nobody else beneath the pier.  The moaning could be coming
from Alistair, old man Bob, or any of the others.  Where is everybody?  Are
they okay?

Anna grabbed a hold of a twisted piece of the pier, which had collapsed
from above.  The large steel strut had twisted and bent inwards, making that
whole section of pier list precariously to one side.  The lowest part of the
tilting deck was only ten feet above and almost within reach.

Anna placed a foot up onto the skewed piece of steel and hoisted herself
higher.  From there she was able to grab a hold of a plank jutting out from the
deck.  She winced as splinters bit into her palms, but she kept on climbing,
pulling herself up, one handhold after another.  By the time she pulled herself
up onto the pier she was huffing and puffing, and her wounded elbow had split
wide open.  But none of that mattered.

The pier was on fire.

The amusement pavilion at the far end had collapsed into the sea.  The
top section of its tented roof was sticking above the waves like a coral reef.
The decking that had led to it had splintered and snapped, bits of it now
floating on the sea.  The village side of the pier was still intact, along with
the gate, but the middle section, where the diner and various gift shops were
situated, was blackened and aflame.  The deck fell away about eight feet behind
where Anna was standing; only sea and sand existed where it had once been.  If
I’d been somewhere further down the pier I would be dead.  Where were the
others when we were hit?

As if to answer her question, old man Bob, Jim, and Samantha appeared
from behind the toilet block.  They were covered in ash and their eyes were
wide and frightened.  Even after surviving the apocalypse, they can still
only take so much.  Some of Samantha’s jewellery had snapped and broken.
The bracelets on her wrists rattled a little less than usual.

Anna stumbled towards them, tears in her eyes as the relief washed over
her that she was not alone in surviving the attack, but then she saw that they
carried a body between them and she suddenly felt sick.

It was Chris.  The middle-aged man was burned so badly that Anna could
only recognise him from the bright red wellies he wore.  His face was a twisted
mask of swollen, blistered flesh.

“We were hoping you could help him,” said old man Bob.

“But he’s already dead, isn’t he?” said Samantha glumly.

Anna nodded and stayed silent for a moment.  “What happened?” she
eventually asked.

Old man Bob spat a mouthful of ash onto the deck.  “We were bombed…shot…I
don’t know, whatever.  That godless ship fired on us.”

“All because of that man they wanted?” said Samantha.  She was a mixture
of sad and angry.  “Just because of him?  We didn’t deserve this.  We did
nothing.  Why did they do this to us?”

Anna couldn’t answer the question, so she asked one of her own.  “Where’s
everybody else?  Poppy, Rene, Alistair, Tim?”

Bob shrugged.  The older man looked like he was about to die where he
stood.  “Just us, lass.  I haven’t seen the others.”

“Then we need to find them now.”  Anna stared at the fires that
illuminated the middle of the pier.  The roof of the Sea Grill restaurant
had collapsed in on itself and was slowly succumbing to the flames.  The toilet
block was all brick and hadn’t caught alight.  Neither had the ice cream shop
where Garfield and Poppy stayed.  Further down, the last section of the pier
was completely untouched by flames, but the only buildings it contained were a
small cashpoint vestibule and a tourist helpdesk.  And the gate.  Thank God
the gate still stands.  “Everybody, get searching,” she ordered.  “There’ll
be time to cry later.”  And time to figure out how to make someone pay for
this.

They found Rene inside the diner.  They spotted him staggering out of the
burning building with Tim slumped over his shoulder, like some action hero in a
movie.  Tim was still conscious and swinging his crutches left and right,
batting away the burning debris as Rene carried him out onto the deck and
placed him back on his feet.

Anna threw her arms around Rene when she saw him.  “You’re alive,” she
said, stating the obvious, but glad to be able to say it.

“But injured,” Rene grunted, easing her back and wincing.  Along his
neck, from his chest to his chin, a deep burn glistened.  The flesh was bright
pink amongst his normal healthy dark skin.”

Anna winced.  “Jesus Christ.”

Rene nodded.  “May he guide me back to health.  I am okay for now, Anna.
What needs to be done?”

Anna answered immediately.  “We need to find Poppy.  Alistair, too.”

“I’m sorry,” said Tim.  “This is all my fault.”

Anna marched up to the cripple and snarled.  “No, its half your fault.
That son of a bitch on his little toy boat is responsible for the other half.”
She walked away and began her search for Poppy.  She would deal with Tim later.

Poppy and Alistair were on the rooftop.  I remember because I left
them to head for the diner.  I was outside on the deck when the pier was hit.
I must have been thrown onto the beach.  If the sand wasn’t so wet I might have
died when I landed.

Anna angled her run and headed for the Sea Grill.  The rooftop had
gone, fallen-in from the fire, but where were Alistair and Poppy?  Had they
been hit?  Or thrown free like Anna had been?  Damn it!  Where are you two?

Flames had not yet consumed the interior of the restaurant.  It
smouldered and smoked in some places, but the fire was yet to fully take hold.
Anna pushed open the door and stepped inside.  The smoke made her choke
immediately.  She shoved a sleeve over her mouth and swallowed hard.  The stars
shone down from the centre of the room through a large gap where the ceiling
had split open.  The far side of the diner was completely devastated by the
heavy, burning lintels of the roof, which had snapped like twigs and fallen to
the ground.  At the back of the room was the open-plan kitchen, currently
unharmed.

Alistair lay on the ground ten feet from Anna.  He was bleeding heavily.
A pool of blood surrounded him on the cracked tiles, congealing quickly in the
heat of the nearby fires.  Anna leapt down beside him and placed a hand against
his cheek.  “Al, it’s okay, I’m here.  It’s Anna.  I’m going to help you.”

Alistair spluttered and a mouthful of blood ended up on his chin.  “Y-you
can’t help me, lass.  I’ve been violated, huh.”

Anna frowned and wondered what he meant, but then she saw.  A steel shard
had violated his groin in the space between his bellybutton and his
genitals.  Whether the thick shard had come from the shell that hit the pier or
from something else, she did not know, but it had torn Alistair’s insides
apart.  Shit, this is bad.

Anna felt herself cry.  For a long time she’d not wanted to love or trust
anyone besides Rene, but she knew now that she’d come to love the people on the
pier like family.  Alistair was an obstinate asshole, but he was like a
brother.  She wished she’d realised it earlier.

Alistair forced a smile onto his face and struggled to speak again.  “I’m
g-glad you’re okay, Anna.  I was w-w…worried.”

Anna laughed.  “Don’t you worry about me, you silly sod.  You should…”

Alistair eyes had gone still.  His chest had stopped moving.

Anna never even had the chance to say goodbye.  Death didn’t wait for
pleasantries, she knew that, but she’d hoped for another minute or two.  She
leant forward and kissed Alistair’s cheek, then stood up and walked towards the
kitchen.  Rene tried to enter the restaurant behind her, but she shouted at him
to leave.  Nobody else needs to see this.

Anna took a deep breath and held it for a minute.  The smoke inside the
restaurant was thickening and burning her eyes, but she couldn’t leave yet.
Poppy had been with Alistair when the shells hit.  Anna had to find
her.  She’d promised Garfield she would look after the girl.  I need to find
her.  I need to find her.

Poppy lay beneath a table by the kitchen.  Her blonde plaits were
blackened and half her face was missing.  Despite that, she seemed peaceful.
Her body was lying comfortably and her mouth was pursed into a smile.  The
intense heat of the blast had taken her instantly, but that didn’t make Anna’s
sadness any less.  The little girl didn’t even seem real anymore.  She looked
more like an old porcelain dolly with a broken face.

There was something poking out of the breast pocket of Poppy’s cardigan.
It looked like a charred piece of paper.  Anna removed it carefully and
unfolded it.  She couldn’t help but smile as she looked at the drawing.

The picture was unfinished and the top half was burned, but Anna could
clearly see the pier sketched in pencil.  Atop its deck, brought to life by
dozens of colours were all of the people of the pier.  Anna spotted Garfield, bigger
and stronger than everybody else, with bright red hair.  Standing beside him
was Alistair with a bright big grin and huge muscles.  Then Anna spotted
herself.  Poppy had drawn her in a long white dress with a golden tiara upon
her head.  She stood next to Rene who was holding the train of her dress.  She
thinks I’m a princess?  At the bottom of the picture, below the two-dozen
people drawn on the pier were two words written in wiggly capitals:  MY
FAMILY.

Anna felt a fire burning.  At first she thought it was coming from her
gut, but then she started to feel it against her skin.  The delicate flesh of
her cheek started to tingle and burn, but she did not care.  She breathed in
the pain like it was power.  The more it hurt her, the more conviction that
filled her heart, until she could stand it no more and stumbled away.  She
headed back outside and ignored the desperate queries of her campmates – her family.
Instead, she stared out across the moonlit sea at the frigate all lit up like a
beacon of hope.  It mocked her.

Anna thought about the man onboard, Samuel Raymeady, and how she
was going to kill him.

DAMIEN

Damien stared out at the
fires on the shore and fought the urge to throw up over the side.  If he’d
eaten recently, he probably would have.  What he’d just witnessed was beyond
belief.  Even though he’d known it was coming, Samuel’s actions itched at his
soul.  Damien had naively hoped that Frank would persuade his son to stay his
hand, but it appeared that the captain was without mercy.  He destroyed the
pier and killed everyone.  Just to kill one man!

It’s my fault.  If I’d just brought back that goddamn cripple….  Now
people are dead because of me.  A child is dead because of me.

Damien gripped the gunwale and squeezed so hard that the bones in his
hand creaked.  His body shuddered and he was unable to blink.  The fires
shimmered on the water and lit up the night.  The inferno held his gaze,
unwilling to let him look away from what he’d done.  What Samuel did.  I
need to stop blaming myself.  I didn’t have the power here, Samuel did.

But I could have done something.  Anything….

“Do you still need convincing of what Samuel is?”

Damien didn’t turn around.  He knew Harry’s voice well enough to
recognise it.  “I should have killed your friend the first chance I got.  I
should never have flinched.”

Harry joined him at edge.  “What do you mean?”

“I mean I had a clear shot at his head but I flinched at the last
second.  Now I wish I’d pulled the trigger without thinking about it.”

“You’re not a murderer,” said Harry.  “That’s a good thing.”

Damien snorted.  “I killed two men less than twenty-four hours ago.  Fox
and Birch.”

Harry said nothing.

“If Samuel finds out I killed both men he sent with me to the pier, he’ll
have me killed.  He already knows I killed Birch, but at least then I had
reason.  He won’t ignore me killing Fox.”

“Why did you kill Fox?  He seemed harmless enough the few times I spoke
with him.”

“To protect you, you bloody dickhead.  Fox would have told Samuel
everything that Tim had said, about how you two were involved together.  He’ll
still find out one way or another, though.  We’re both screwed.”

Harry nodded and looked serious.  “All the more reason to listen to what
I’ve told you.  Samuel Raymeady is evil, a monster.  He needs to be stopped
before more things like this happen.  Those people on the pier are burning
alive because of the casual orders Samuel gives from the comfy chair in his
chambers.  He’s craven, unwilling to bloody his own hands.  He must be
stopped.  The people on this boat are already brainwashed, but it’s not too
late to do something.  We can st-”

“Stop!” Damien hissed.  “Just…stop.  Samuel isn’t evil.  There is
no good or evil.  There’s just people.  And people are weak or they are strong,
they are selfish or they are dead.  I’m not interested in staging a coup just
so some other bully can take control later on down the road.  People like
Samuel Raymeady have always controlled the human race, because the rest of us
don’t want to make the tough decisions.  If he’s willing to take on all of the
lost souls of the fleet, then he’s entitled to do as he pleases.  Taking
innocent lives is just part of the gig, survival of the fittest.  Thousands of
years of history have taught us that.”

“There is no history,” Harry said angrily.  “The history books were
erased when the dead rose to eat the living.  Mankind has started anew and none
of the old mistakes need be repeated.  If the human race is resurrected on the
back of a man like Samuel Raymeady, then we might as well have died.  What are
we even living for, if not to do things better this time around?”

Damien closed his eyes for a second and tried to ignore the stench of
burning wafting from the shore.  Even if he agreed with Harry and wanted to do
something, there was nothing he could do.  The people of the fleet were
happy to follow Samuel.  They had watched the pier burn and not one of the
ships had broken away from the fleet.  Not one single person had headed for the
mainland to help those who may still be alive.  Nobody cared.  People only
wanted what was best for them.

“You have to do something, Damien.”

“Why do I?  Why do I have to do anything?  Why don’t you go and plant a
sodding bomb like your friend, Tim.”

Harry looked away and sighed.

Damien shook his head.  Please, don’t tell me….  “You have,
haven’t you?  Harry, if you’ve done something, un-do it now.  I won’t watch
while they string you up and turn you into a figurehead for the Kirkland’s
bow.”

“Then don’t watch.”

Anger took a hold of Damien and before he was able to stop himself he
backhanded Harry across the face.  A couple of civilians playing cards a few
metres down the deck looked up to see the ruckus, but they quickly lowered
their heads when they saw who was involved.  Damien stared at his friend and
saw the blood trickling from the corner of his mouth.  “H-Harry, I’m sorry.”

Harry wiped the blood away with his sleeve.  “Don’t apologise.  Just do
what’s right.  Show me that what I saw in you years ago was right.  You’re the
man people should be following, not Samuel.”  He pointed at the burning pier.
“If you’re half the man I think you are, you won’t let any more innocent people
die.  The world is what we make it, Damien, so don’t tell me to just fucking
live with it!  If you won’t do something, I will.”  Harry turned and walked
away.

Damien went to hurry after him, but another man quickly blocked his
path.  It was petty officer Dunn.  “I don’t have time,” Damien snapped at the
weasel-faced man.  My best friend might have set a bomb somewhere on this
ship and right now he seems pissed off enough to trigger it.

“The captain wishes to speak with you.”

Damien shoved Dunn out of his way.  “Later.”

“No, now!”  Dunn placed a hand on Damien’s shoulder, which was the man’s
first mistake.  The second mistake was not ducking when Damien turned and head
butted him.  Dunn squealed as he hit the floor.  Damien was about to grab him
up off the ground and send him on his way when he realised he was surrounded.  Four
other crewmen pressed in on him in a semi-circle.  Each of them glared at him
like zoo wardens about to tackle a lion.  Damien raised his spear and placed a
hand on the hilt of his sword.

Dunn climbed up off the ground, cursing and spitting blood.  He scowled
at Damien.  “The captain would see you now,” he growled.  “It is a matter of
importance and he has demanded to see you immediately.  If you won’t come then
he has authorised me to use force.”

“Going to hit my head with your face again, are you?”

Dunn snarled.  “There are five of us.  As much as you may fancy yourself
as some post-apocalyptic warrior, you’re still just one man.”

“Bruce Lee was one man.”

“Bruce Lee isn’t here.”

Damien couldn’t argue with the statement.  “Fine, I give up.  I’ll come with
you.”

Dunn smiled like a well-fed cat.  “Wonderful.  You’re not as stu-”

Damien head butted him again.  Immediately the other crewmen grabbed
Damien by the arms and restrained him.  From on the floor, Dunn bawled,
clutching at his ruined nose.  “You said you’d come with me.”

“I didn’t say voluntarily.”

“Take him to the captain,” Dunn screamed at the other men.  “The sooner
he gets what’s coming to him, the better.”

FRANK

“Are you okay, father?
You seem aggravated.”

Frank looked at his son and for a moment saw only a monster.  He had to
grit his teeth to picture the sweet boy he’d raised in the countryside of
Gloucestershire.  “I…I don’t know why we fired on the pier.”

Samuel seemed confused.  “But it was you who gave the order.”

No I did not.  I told the gunnery sergeant to ‘miss’.  I told him to
‘miss’.  I don’t understand what happened.  “I…I….”

Samuel spoke over him.  “I gave you the order to pass on to the gunnery
sergeant, so why the surprise?  If you did not agree with my orders, then
perhaps you should have mentioned it at the time.”

I thought I could handle it back then.  My plan was to avoid this.
How did it happen?  Frank could say nothing.  Words were failing
him.

“I must admit,” said Samuel, “I was concerned that the gunnery sergeant
might refuse you.  Not all men possess the steel to fire upon a defenceless
enemy.”  Frank grimaced.  Innocent people, not enemies.  “So I sent for
the man myself, to reconfirm my orders.”

Frank’s eyes widened.  He looked at Samuel and tried to read his
thoughts.  It was as impossible as ever.  He spoke to the gunnery sergeant?
Did the man say anything about the orders I gave him?  He must have.

Samuel picked up some papers from his desk and shuffled them carefully.
“It’s a good thing I did speak to him, father, because the man had his orders
all wrong.  He had it in his head to fire a warning shot.  Imbecile.”

Frank laughed and wished he didn’t sound so guilty.  “I-I’m sure he
misunderstood me.”

“Of course he did.  I didn’t think for one minute that you would
undermine me, father.  Not after having owned my trust for so many years.”

“No, Samuel.  Of course not.”

“If you were to betray me, I would be so hurt that I would probably do
something quite dreadful.”  He laughed heartily.  “My, I would probably do
something unbelievably bad.  I dare not even imagine.  I’m just glad that you
would never do that to me.  You’re the only man in this world I trust.  Nobody
else do I listen to but the man who raised me after so much tragedy had
befallen me as a boy.  I owe you a great deal, Frank.  I will repay my debt to
you, one day.  You will get what you deserve.”

Frank swallowed and remained silent.  I’m sure we all get what we
deserve in the end.

There was a buzz at the door.  Samuel pressed a button on his desk and
the hatch door released.  Petty officer Dunn stepped through, backed by four
crewmen and a struggling Roman.  Samuel stood up from behind his desk and for
once moved around in front of it.  His lanky legs and long arms were like iron
pipes either side of him as he waited to hear from his men.

Dunn was bleeding from the nose and sported a black eye.  He sounded in
pain as he spoke.   “He resisted arrest, but I got him here, sir.”

Samuel disregarded Dunn and kept his dark eyes fixed on Roman.  His lips
parted and his upper teeth showed through like a hungry wolf.

Roman stared right back at him.

Frank shifted uncomfortably.  Whatever was happening, Samuel hadn’t
informed him about it.  It was unusual for him to keep things from him and it
made Frank worry.  He doesn’t trust me?  What made him worry even more
was that the two guns that Samuel kept mounted on the wall behind his desk were
gone.  Why has he taken them down?  Does he feel in danger, or is he
planning on shooting someone.

Samuel told the four crewmen to leave, but allowed Dunn, Roman, and Frank
to stay.  He, himself, remained standing in front of his desk, clutching his
hands together.  “Roman,” he eventually said, speaking the word softly, almost
pityingly.  “Roman, Roman, Roman, ROMAN, ROMAN…ROMAN!”  In his fury, Samuel
seemed to have grown by a foot.  He towered over Roman so much that the usually
implacable man took a step backwards.  Even Frank edged towards the wall.  I’ve
never seen Samuel this angry.  He’s losing control of himself.

Roman went to speak but was unable to.  Samuel backhanded him across the
face so hard that blood appeared on the man’s cheek.  Despite the force of the
blow, Roman remained standing in place.  Petty officer Dunn smirked from the
back of the room.  Frank winced.  A leader should not strike his followers.
Justice needs a calm hand.

Samuel took a breath and suddenly seemed calm again.  “I apologise,” he
said.  “But treachery puts me in the foulest of moods.”

Roman said nothing.  The blood on his cheek dribbled down onto his
jawbone.

“Do you have nothing to say?” Samuel asked.

Roman shrugged.  “Do you have any beer?”

Samuel struck Roman again.  Again Roman remained standing in place.  “You
insolent wretch.  You stood before me and told me Fox and Birch died in
unavoidable circumstances.  You lied to my face after all I have given you.
After all I have done for you cockroaches and I am still defied at every turn.”

Frank kept quiet in the corner, yet hung on every word with interest.  He
was unaware what information Samuel was acting on.  I knew Roman was lying,
but I never said anything about it to anyone.  Who’s been speaking to Samuel?

“Dunno what you’re talking about, mate,” Roman said.  Frank had noticed
that the man’s speech patterns would change whenever he lost his cool.  He
tries to hide the fact he’s an uneducated thug.

Samuel shook his head and laughed resignedly.  “You killed Birch, you
admitted it, but you lied about killing Fox, didn’t you?  A member of the fleet
saw you dump the body.”

A look of understanding came over Roman, almost as if he had known about
the witness.  Frank sighed.  The revelation didn’t shock him, but he knew that
what happened next would not be pretty.

“You do not seem surprised,” said Samuel.  “You knew there was a
witness?”

“The witness spoke with Roman on the aft deck,” said Dunn.  “I noticed
the exchange and investigated.  The man’s name is Hugo Alban.  He told me that
he reported seeing a body dumped at sea, from a yacht he saw leaving the pier.”

“Well,” said Samuel.  “That could only be the yacht I sent you ashore
in.  Quite condemning.  That this lawful citizen gave his story to the very
culprit of the crime is ironic, don’t you think?  Good thing petty officer Dunn
was there to see justice prevail.”

“I am honoured to serve the fleet,” said Dunn like a trained parrot.
Frank did not like the man.  He was a sycophant with an agenda, always ready to
clutch a man’s hand in friendship, but let go of it over a cliff.  Roman turned
and glared at Dunn with a baleful grin on his face.  Dunn stepped back towards
the hatch door, all of his swagger suddenly melting.

Samuel folded his long, bony arms across his chest and let out a breath.
The room filled with a pungent odour.  “I am disappointed in you, Roman.  I
thought you were a man of worth, but you’re nothing but a Judas.  You are a
murderer and a traitor.”

“You’re the murderer,” Roman spat.  “You killed all those people on the
pier, and for what?  To keep Tim quiet?  To stop him telling everyone that it
was you who released the infection which killed billions of people.”

Frank balked.  Of all the things he’d heard said of his adopted son, that
was the most audacious.  Many theories existed about the rise of the dead, from
meteorites to God’s wrath, but to place the blame on a single man was absurd.  Samuel
is just an easy target for blame.

Samuel cackled so hard that his pale cheeks went red.  “You believe such
nonsense?  Officer Dunn, do you think I have the power to raise the dead?”

Dunn was in hysterics.  Between belly laughs he shook his head and said
“no.”

“You had the money and power to raise the dead,” said Roman.  “If anyone
could be responsible for the plague that ended the world, it’s a man like you;
a man with endless resources and no conscience.  There was a little girl living
on that pier, I told you, and you fired at them anyway.  You’re a monster.”

“They were enemies of the fleet.”

“They were innocent.  You’re the only enemy of the fleet.”

Frank swallowed.  As much as he dismissed claims that Samuel caused the
end of the world, he thought his actions toward the pier were unnecessarily
cruel.  He wanted to speak in Samuel’s defence but found himself unable to.
Perhaps when things blew over he could find time to explain to his son the
error of his ways.  He’s just young.  Where are those guns he took from the
wall?  Why does he need them?

“The captain was doing what he had to for the good of the fleet,” said
Dunn, but nobody paid any attention to the man.  Roman and Samuel were focused
only on each other.

“The people on that pier got what they deserved,” said Samuel.  “They
were given the option of friendship, but they chose defiance.  They left me
with no option.  The same way you, Roman, have left me no option but to sentence
you for the murders of Birch and Fox.  You will be put to death at noon
tomorrow.  I hope you serve as an example to all others who find murder
acceptable.  To think I had such high hopes for you.”

Frank sighed.  He hated to see any man put to death, but murder was
murder.  Roman had always concerned him and it appeared that it was with good
reason.  The man was a loose cannon and murder demanded the harshest sentence.
Samuel’s judgement was fair.

Roman stood silently in front of Samuel.  The news of his pending
execution seemed not to bother him in the slightest.

“Did you hear me?” said Samuel.  He took a step towards Roman so that the
two men were almost nose-to-nose.

Roman brought his spear arm up and drove it towards Samuel’s thin waist.
Frank was too slow to react and too far away.  Oh, Jesus, God, no.

The shaft of metal moved quickly.

Samuel twisted to one side.

The spear missed its target and stabbed thin air.

Samuel grabbed the wooden shaft and shoved the metal tip down on his
desk.  Then he snapped it in two with his other hand.  The spear tip skittered
across the desk and Roman lost his balance.  Frank rushed forward and grabbed
him in an arm lock, while Dunn hurried forward to help him.

As Roman struggled, Samuel shook his head pityingly.  “Stupid, stupid,
stupid.  I was going to give you a quick death, a beheading, but now I might
just tie you up from the stern and leave you to starve to death.”

“Do whatever the fuck you want,” spat Roman.  “You’re a dead man.  I
promise you.”

Samuel grinned.  “I’ll die when I’m ready, not when you decide.  That’s
the difference between you and I, Roman.  I have the power over life and
death.  Frank, take him to the brig.”

Frank yanked Roman by his arm and swung him around.  As he did so,
Roman head butted petty officer Dunn right in the face.  The man fell to the
floor bellowing.  Frank stepped over the crying officer and led Roman away.  In
his gut he had the horrible feeling that everything was beginning to fall
apart.

HUGO

Hugo held his daughters
close as they watched the fires burning on the shore.  The frigate had fired
several shots from a mighty cannon on its starboard side.  The shells had
looked like fireworks heading into the night sky, but when they returned to
earth they brought no joy or mirth, just death and burning.  It is an
atrocity.  I do not understand why the captain would do this.

“What happened, Daddy?” asked Sophie.  “Why is there fire?”

Hugo shook his head.  “I do not know, my sweet.  Something very bad has
happened, but I do not know why.”

“Weren’t there people on that pier?” asked Daphne.  “Are they dead?”

Hugo thought about lying, but couldn’t.  “Probably.”

Daphne started to cry.  “It was the big boat that blew them up.  Was it
protecting us?  Were the people on the pier, bad, papa?”

“I don’t know.  We should go inside and think of other things.  Would you
like to play Canasta?”

Both girls shook their heads, but they at least went into the cabin.
Hugo did not want them looking at the fires and thinking about death any
longer.  What on earth happened?  What did the people on the pier do?  Were
they behind the murder I witnessed?

Hugo glanced about in the darkness at the other boats all around him.
Some of them were filled with gawping spectators, mumbling amongst themselves
and pointing at the shore.  Hugo did not want to be a gawper himself, so he
went inside the cabin.

Houdini had been frightened by the explosions and had scarpered inside
already.  He was curled up on the armchair, shaking.  Hugo swatted him down to
the floor and took his seat.  “Sorry, mon ami.  My legs are older than
yours.”  Houdini went and curled up under the coffee table.

Daphne and Sophie curled up under the duvet on the sofa and held each
other.  They were so delicate and frail.  The yacht had been their shelter for
almost an entire year now.  They’d spoken little with anyone besides Hugo.  Am
I doing the right thing for them?  The world has ended, the dead walk, and I am
keeping them cooped up on this yacht and acting like all is well.  The fleet
has made us all feel safe, but are we really?  In the last few days I have
witnessed murder all around me.  The Kirkland is not the centre of
civilisation I thought it was.  There are other people out there in the world.
People like those on the pier.  Why are we destroying them?  Are we making
enemies?  Will we remain at sea forever, fighting anyone we find on land?  Is
that what I want for my daughters?

Hugo rubbed at his forehead and blinked slowly.  He looked at Sophie and
Daphne.  “Girls, are you happy?”

Daphne and Sophie looked at him, puzzled.  “Papa?”

“Do you feel happy and safe aboard the éternuer?”

Sophie shrugged.  Daphne looked like she wanted to speak, but couldn’t.

“Tell me, Daphne.  What do you think about our lives?”

“I hate it, papa.  It is… ennuyeuxe.”

Hugo sighed.  “You find it boring?”

Daphne nodded.

“What else?” asked Hugo.

“I find it sad,” Sophie added.  “I miss things, lots of things.  There
are no toys or games, no fleurs
or grass.  It is just boats and grey sea.  There is no point to any of
it.”

“Would you rather be somewhere else?”

Both girls nodded.

“Where?”

“On the land,” said both of them together.

“You want to go on the land?  It’s dangerous out there.”

Sophie nodded.  “We could still stay on the boat, but we could stay close
to the shore.  We could find a quiet beach and go play.  We might find other
people like the ones that were on the pier.  It’s better than floating around
in the middle of the sea.”

Hugo thought about the people on the pier and what had just happened to
them.  Yet, what his daughters were saying made sense, they could hug the shore
and stick to the beaches, maybe even move inland via a river.  If there were
people on the pier, there could be people other places, too.  Suddenly, he
didn’t want to be part of the fleet anymore.  The thought of leaving had
overtaken him.

“What would we do for food?” he asked.

“Poisson,” said Sophie.  “If we stick close to the shore we can
live off the sea, same as now.  We have rods.”

Hugo sighed.  Even if they caught fish, they would still be at the mercy
of thirst.  If they couldn’t find fresh water to last them days at a time they
would all die.  Once again, Hugo thought about the people at the pier.  While
they may have been obliterated by the Kirkland’s gunfire, the area in
which they lived must have been somewhat safe.  They may have cleared away
all of the dead.  They could have stockpiled supplies.  Maybe it would be safe
to land on the beach and check it out.

What if they’re still alive?

Then I offer them my help.  What the frigate did to them was
terrible.  I am not their enemy.  I do not condone the actions of the fleet.

But what if they’re dangerous?

Then we die a quick death instead of a slow, weary one at sea.  I want
to keep my daughters safe, but I also want them to live.  I need to give them
more than saltwater and petrol fumes.

“It is almost light,” he said.  “Lie down and get a little more sleep.
At dawn we will head ashore to look for survivors at the pier.  If there are,
maybe we can think about joining them.”

Daphne and Sophie both cheered.  Hugo felt sick to his stomach.  He
stepped out of the cabin and looked out at the distant fires.  The flames were
beginning to die down; the rain and sea spray helping the situation.  While it
was too dark to see if anyone still lived, Hugo could see that not all of the
pier was damaged.  The structure had been vast and long and the barrage had not
covered the entire area.  There was a chance that people had survived.  They
must have been surviving on the pier since this whole thing began.  The sea is
not the only safe place.  But if they live, are they friendly?  Why did Mr
Raymeady fire on them?  I need to find out before I can know what to do.

Despite knowing nothing of the community on the pier, Hugo hoped the best
for them.  But after what the Kirkland had done, Hugo was worried that
the people on the pier would see him as their enemy.  He was about to take his
daughters into peril, after so long protecting them, but they were lucky to
have survived this long.  Hugo had faith that people were still good and that
the people on the pier must be better than those on the Kirkland.  If
I am wrong then I am about to make a mistake.  A huge, terrible mistake.

The sun began to rise and Hugo prepared to set sail.

GARFIELD

Remarkably, as they’d cut
through the fields and woodland, Garfield and the foragers had come upon
Stonehenge.   Despite its myth and allure, Garfield had never visited the national
monument before and found it ironic that it’d taken the end of the world to get
him there.

There was a building erected nearby that contained a small museum and
gift shop, as well as a moderate café.  They’d all been pleased to find it well
stocked with snack food and bottled pop.  They covered up the broken window
through which they’d entered with a large tablecloth, then settled down in
their sleeping bags for a few hours.  The Army base was nearby, but Garfield
had wanted to wait until daylight to catch up on the sleep they’d never got
last night.  No one complained and within minutes everyone was snoring loudly.
It was cold, Garfield pulled his long woollen coat over the top of his sleeping
bag.  The coat was two sizes too big, but it was warm.  Poppy had lugged it
over to him from where she’d found it in an old Laundromat on the outskirts of
Western-Super-Mare.  Garfield had hated it at the time and felt weighed down by
its bulk, but he could tell the gift meant a lot to Poppy.  It was one of the
first signs of affection she had shown after the horror she had gone through at
her home.  Eventually the coat had grown on him.  The pockets were deep and the
wool thick.  The thick cuffs had even protected him from a zombie bite once.
He’d been sure he was done for until he rolled the coat up his arm and saw that
his skin was untouched.  He hardly ever took the coat off since then. It
reminded him of Poppy, and to keep his guard up.

Garfield had lain awake for a while, going over his past mistakes and the
ones he hoped to avoid in the future.  He thought about Poppy and how she was
doing, but inevitably, sleep had yanked at his eyelids and pulled him down into
its well of darkness.

When he awoke, he was startled to see Sally standing over him.  The man
held a large knife in his hand, which made Garfield immediately reach for the
one he had hidden inside his sleeping bag.

“Settle down there, fella,” said Sally, turning the knife in his hand.
“It’s made of stone not steel.  I found it in the museum.  It’s a relic or
something.”

Garfield looked at the brittle stone blade and sniffed his sinuses
clear.  “It’s useless.  Put it back.”

Sally shrugged.  “What’s it to you?”

“It’s part of our history.  It was here thousands of years before we
were.  There might not be many people left, but those who survive will be
grateful one day for the history left to them.  That knife is more important
now than ever.”

“Looks like a bit of old stone to me, mate.”

Garfield huffed.  “It’s proof that mankind endures.  People made that
thousands of years ago and here we are looking at it today.  It shows that we
can make it through this.”

Sally laughed.  He examined the knife with newfound interest.  “You
always so profound in the mornings?”

“Only when I wake up at the most ancient site in Europe.  It tends to put
things in perspective.”

“Yer, it does, I suppose.”  Sally dropped the knife on the tiled floor
where it quickly broke into pieces.

Garfield balked.  He wriggled out of his sleeping bag, leapt up, and got
in the Australian’s face.  “What the hell are you doing?”

“Just proving a point.”

“What point, you idiot?”

“That mankind is fragile and that holding onto history is a waste of
time.  Sentimentality will only get you killed.  As much as you try to hold on
to the past, some fella will come along and smash it, so why bother?”

Garfield swung at Sally, but the man was too quick and ducked.  Before
Garfield had the chance to swing again, Kirk ran over and grabbed him.  “What
the hell are you doing, Garf?”

“He’s a piece of shit,” Garfield shouted at Kirk.  “He needs to go.
We’re done with him.”

Sally stepped back, looking wounded.  His hands were out in front of him
as if he meant no harm.  Kirk shoved Garfield back a step while Lemon took
Sally by the arm and ushered him away.

“The guy is trouble,” Garfield told Kirk.

“No, he’s not.  He’s just been surviving on his own too long.  He lacks
manners, but he’ll fall in line.”

“I want him gone.  He can’t be trusted.”

“No one can be trusted,” said Kirk.  “Sally stays.  No one has a problem
with him but you.”

Garfield felt his cheeks reddening.  “I am in charge here, Kirk.”

“Maybe, but when it comes to taking in new survivors we’re a committee.
We’re not going to kick a guy out on his arse, just because you don’t like
him.”

“Fine.  On your heads be it,” said Garfield, shrugging away.

Sally walked towards him.  There was an amiable smile on his face and he
was laughing.  “Sorry about that, cobber.  That old lump of stone just
fell right out of my mitts.  I didn’t realise old junk meant so much to yer.
What is it they used to say?  Those who can’t make history, study it.”

Garfield threw another punch.  This time it connected, almost as if Sally
had decided not to try and avoid it this time.  The man stumbled backwards and
flopped to the floor dramatically.  Kirk grabbed Garfield in a chokehold.

Lemon rushed to help Sally back to his feet.  The Australian brushed
himself off.  “Now, is that anyway to treat a mate?  Crikey, what’s your bloody
problem?”

“You’re my problem.  I don’t know what your game is, but I’m on to you.”

Sally shook his head and walked away.  “Bloody mad pomme bastard.”

Kirk let go of Garfield and shoved him hard in the chest.  “You’ve lost
the plot, Garf.  We don’t fight each other in the field, ever.  That’s rule one.”

“That only applies to family.”

Kirk sighed.  “Sally became our family the moment we took him with us.
That was your decision if you remember.  You need to cool it.  I’m taking over
until we make it home.”

Garfield snarled.  “Like hell you are.  I lead this group.”

“You’re not leading anything.  What happened at the Jubilee was a
complete balls-up, and now you’re throwing punches.  We’ll discuss things when
we get home, but for now you’re a liability.”

“Sod you, Kirk.  Nobody wants you as leader.  They follow me.”

Kirk looked at Garfield like he was a lost child.  The man was arrogant
and foolish, but it didn’t seem like he was acting out of spite so much as
pity.  “Are you so sure of that, Garf?  They blame you for Squirrel and Danny,
and they all like Sally.  If you want to play the popularity vote, you’ll
lose.  We can put it to a vote right now, if you want, but I would rather you
avoid the humiliation and just accept that I’m in charge until we get back.
Then we can vote for a more permanent solution, when things have settled down.
It’s for the best.”

Garfield had to fight the urge to punch Kirk in the mouth, but he was
right.  The foragers had lost faith in him when Squirrel and Danny died.  He’d
let them down, and out here in the wild, people couldn’t afford to be let
down.  They would forgive him in time, right now emotions were high.  If there
was a vote, the group would put Kirk in charge out of anger for the brothers
they had lost.

“Fine, you take charge,” Garfield said.  “But if I find out that Sally is
planning anything shady, I’m going to kill him.”

Kirk’s expression darkened.  “You kill anybody, it will be because I say
so.”

Garfield slumped in utter confusion as the others gathered up their stuff
around him and got ready to move out.  What the hell just happened?  I’ve
only been awake ten minutes….

Everyone headed out through the broken window and marched across the
tarmac to where the minivan waited.  As he followed after them, Garfield
glanced at the great circular outcropping of standing boulders that made up
Stonehenge.  He felt an ominous doubt in his gut.  Stonehenge was a ruin, many
of its stones broken or missing.  Nothing survived forever, not even hard
stone.  It made him realise how fragile life was, and both how little and how
much it mattered.  Nothing Garfield did would matter in a thousand years, but
it mattered more than anything right now, this minute and the next.  He would
make it home safely to Poppy, no matter what, and if anyone tried to jeopardise
that, he would leave them broke and abandoned like the great boulders of
Stonehenge.  This trip has been bad from the start.  Sooner it’s over the
better.

When Garfield went to get in the minivan, he found it full.  With Danny
and Squirrel gone, everyone managed to fit inside now, but there was no room
for one more.  Garfield sighed and hopped up into the horsebox.  There was
barely any room amongst the forager’s tools and backpacks, in addition to all
of the supplies they’d scrounged from the museum, gift shop, and café, so he
was forced to squat awkwardly.  This is insane.  I went from the front seat
to this in less than a day.

A wooden tenderiser mallet lay amongst a pile of things Lemon had
scrounged from the café’s kitchen.  Garfield managed to shove it down inside
his trouser pocket for safekeeping.  Can never have too many weapons, he
thought.  Especially now, with Sally poisoning everyone against me.  We used
to be a tight unit until he arrived.  Now I’m sat in this horsebox like an
unwanted guest.

Kirk started the engine and got the minivan moving.  Garfield rocked
backwards onto his butt and fell amongst a pile of magazines.  He settled back
against the sidewall and plucked a couple of them up.  He thought about the
magazines he’d given Poppy several days ago, and how she’d disliked them.
Maybe she would like these ones more.  They were British History books from the
gift shop.  I’m sure Poppy told me once that History had been her favourite
subject at school.  Garfield leafed through the magazines with a smile on
his face. Poppy would enjoy looking at the pictures of druids, Saxons, and
knights.  These are perfect.  He couldn’t wait to take them back to her.

As the minivan made its way across the fields in the direction of the
Army base, Garfield started collecting up the magazines that he thought Poppy
would like most.  They bent and flexed in his hands as he leafed through them
and something suddenly occurred to him that got him thinking.  A man can
never have too many weapons, but there are other things he needs too.  Things
that will make a difference if things continue getting worse.

Garfield got to work.

ANNA

Anna had some ointment in
her medical bag, but her medical bag was inside the diner.  Right now, it would
have been of great use to ease Rene’s pain, but it would be too dangerous to
retrieve it from the ruined building.  The skin of his neck had sloughed off in
thin, wet sheets and every time he moved it hurt him.  He’ll get an
infection for sure, Anna thought glumly.

The fires started to peter out.  The pier had been constructed after an
older, smaller pier burnt down.  It’d been erected with fire-safety in mind.
The gaps between the buildings were sufficient enough that they didn’t fall
like dominos and the decked walkway was lined with strips of galvanised steel.
The rain, which dawn had brought, only helped to stymy the flames further.  The
pier was destroyed, but half of it, at least, still stood.  Most importantly,
the gate still remained in place.

The dead were drawn to fire like bumbling moths.  The sound of the
initial explosion had drawn them from miles around.  Now they lined up at the
gate in their dozens.  Anna knew that, given time, they would assemble in their
hundreds.  The gate would fall.  It’s all lost.  Once the dead get through
that gate, they’ll be nothing left but blood and guts come the time when
Garfield gets back.  There already is….  Losing Poppy is going to break him.

Anna studied herself, examining the blood that caked her from head to toe
and the soot that clung to every inch of her clothing.  Then she looked at the
three bodies laid out in a row on the decked walkway: Chris, Alistair…Poppy.  A
child.

Anna had seen hundreds of dead children in the past year, but this was
the first to truly matter on a personal level.  The sight of Poppy’s ruined
face burned down right to Anna’s bones, as if the fires themselves had consumed
her.  Samuel Raymeady will pay for this.

Rene placed an arm around her.  It was the first time he’d ever done so.
When she looked at his face, she could see that the pain from his wounds was
nothing compared to the agony going through his mind.

“This is so messed up,” said Jimmy, limping over to the railing.  “What
are we going to do?  We’ve got the dead on one side and those boats on the
other.  What do we do?”

“We should all head down to the beach,” said Samantha.  She walked down
the deck towards the sea and the others followed after her.  “We’ll have to go
along the shore.”

“That’s probably our only option,” said Anna.  “We can’t go into the
village.  Not with all of the zombies arriving.  We’ll have to trek down the
beach and try to find somewhere safe.”

“What about Garfield?” said old man Bob.  “He’ll be back soon.  If we’re
all gone….”

“He’ll have to look for us,” said Anna.  “Better that than he finds us
all dead.  We can’t wait for him.  For all we know, he might never make it
back.  Who knows what the foragers ran into out there?”

The thought made everyone drop their heads in sadness.  One day ago,
they’d been a family, safe and sound.  Their only danger each day had been
irritation at each other.  Now it had all gone to pieces in a heartbeat.  Their
home, their family, had been torn to shreds.  Surviving long enough to find the
pier in the first place had been a miracle.  None of them could hold out much
hope of finding another sanctuary.  They would probably all be dead soon.

Anna stared out at the frigate.  Now that morning had arrived, it looked
like the queen bee at the centre of a hive.  A hundred smaller boats surrounded
it and Anna had no vessel of her own.  The only way to get to the frigate was
to sail to it, but any of the boats in the fleet would likely just finish their
captain’s job and kill her.  Please, God, don’t let me die without taking
that tyrant with me.  He can’t get away with all he’s done.  If what Tim said
is true….

Something caught Anna’s eye as she stared out at the fleet.  One of the
boats was coming closer.  It was a small yacht, piloted by a man.  Rene went to
speak but she nodded before he had chance.  “I see it.  Probably someone come
to finish us off.”

“What should we do, Anna?” old man Bob asked.

“Arm up and get ready.  We didn’t make it this long to go down without a
fight.”

Tim was sitting on the deck with his legs dangling over the collapsed
edge of the walkway and his crutches lay across his lap.  He said it was easier
on his back to sit down.  Now he was pointing to the small yacht coming their
way.  “I don’t think it’s coming to hunt us,” he said.  “Look.”

Anna did as Tim asked and looked harder.  As she squinted, she made out a
man piloting the boat.  He looked harmless enough: shaggy brown hair atop a
benign face.  It was the two people standing either side of him that made him
seem completely unthreatening.  “He has two children with him.”

“And a dog,” said Tim.  “And it’s way too small to be an attack dog.”

Anna nodded.  The little dog was more like a longhaired rat than a
Rottweiler.  The two young girls standing beside the man were about Poppy’s age
and both were waving their hands.  Anna frowned in confusion.  “Get weapons,”
she said.  “I don’t trust anyone at this point.”

Everybody nodded and went and fetched whatever they could find.  Luckily,
most of the pier’s weapon stockpiles were close to the gate, which was at the
untouched front end of the pier.  Once they all returned they looked like a
huddle of gladiators.

The yacht came closer and Anna saw that its passengers looked even warier
than those on the pier.  The man at the wheel kept his daughters close to him
and seemed to be speaking words of caution, if the grave expression on their
faces was anything to go by.  Anna knew her own face was unfriendly, her expression
hostile, but she couldn’t help it.  She wasn’t about to trust anybody on a
boat.

The unknown man waved a hand.  “A-ahoy!  Is…is anybody hurt?”

Anna snorted.  The man had a French accent, which made him sound cultured
and intellectual, but the words out of his mouth were stupid.  “What do you
think?” she said.  “Your captain just bombed us.”

The man looked embarrassed.  “I apologise.  That was stupid of me, yes?
I…I do not know what has happened to you, or why the Kirkland fired at
you, but I am here to help if I am able.  Is there anything I can do?”

“Yeah,” said Anna.  “Piss off!”  Rene grabbed her wrist and gave her a
chiding look.  Anna sighed and rethought her approach.  “I’m sorry.  Your
captain has ruined us.  Some of our people are dead because of him.  That makes
you our enemy.”

“I am no one’s enemy,” said the man.  “My name is Hugo, and I am worrying
that my great captain is a bad man, no?”

“He is evil,” said Tim.  “I used to be on that frigate, but when I left
he sent a man to kill me and bombed this pier when he found out I was here.”

Hugo puttered the boat the last few feet so that he was directly
underneath them.  His young daughters looked hardened by life at sea, but they
also had that naïve innocence that only young girls possessed.  Poppy had had
it too.

“I do not know who you are,” Hugo told Tim, “but if these people are
guilty only of knowing you, then the captain’s actions are most wicked.  My
boat is too small to take you all aboard, but I can spare supplies, maybe pass
on a message to the captain for you.  Perhaps he will accept surrender.”

“Sod the captain,” spat Anna.  “And sod surrender.”

Hugo winced.  “Please, madam, my girls…”

“Sorry,” said Anna.

“It is okay.  I understand.  I wish only to see you safe.  Ask of me what
you will and I will do what I can.”

“Give us your boat,” said Tim.

Anna looked at him and frowned.  Hugo frowned, too.  “This I cannot do
for you, sir.  It may not be much, but the éternuer is my home.  My
daughter’s home.”

“We only wish to meet with the captain and discuss terms of safe
surrender,” Tim explained.  “You will have your boat back within the day.”

“No, I am sorry.”

Tim went to argue, but Anna put a hand up.  She was beginning to form
ideas of her own.  “We don’t need your boat, Hugo.  We’ll give you terms of
surrender to deliver to the Kirkland for us.  No one else has to die
today.”

Hugo nodded.  “I am glad to help in this.”

“We need to sit down and discuss it first,” she said.  “Our home is a
little battered right now, but we have plenty to drink and some fresh fish.  It
might be a bit overdone after the fires, but we will gladly welcome you as a
guest while we decide the content of our message to the captain.”

Hugo’s face fell and suspicion washed over him.  “I…I do not think that
would be a good idea.”

Anna smiled.  “I understand you don’t trust us, but we are not the bad
guys here.  How long have you been at sea?”

Hugo sighed.  “Many many months.”

“Then come aboard for an hour and feel the ground beneath your feet.  Let
your daughters stretch their legs and your little dog sniff something new.
It’ll do you all good.  I promise we’ll do nothing to harm you and we cannot
take your boat without your keys, anyway.”

Hugo’s daughters both muttered to him.  From the look on the man’s face,
he was obviously being nagged.  He looked up at the pier anxiously.  “We will
come aboard, but please, I beg you, do not show yourselves to be bad people.
My faith in men has been badly damaged these last few days, and I cannot cope
with more badness.  My daughters…”

“Are beautiful,” said Anna.  “And we would never dream of treating them
as anything other than friends.  Climb up, Hugo.  We would usually drop down a
rope, but with the struts in the mess that they are, it’s pretty easy to get up
without.”

Hugo nodded.  “Oui.”

The Frenchman’s hands were shaking as he helped his daughters climb up
from the yacht.  He’s afraid of us.  Afraid for his daughters.  But he’s
desperate enough to take the risk.  Anna and old man Bob helped them up,
while Hugo attached the yacht to the pier.  Once he finished tying a large
mooring knot, he hoisted up the little dog, which wriggled and yipped!  “Be
careful with my little Houdini,” he said.  “He has not made new friends in
quite a while.”

Yip!

Anna managed to hang down and grab the little dog under the flanks.  Old
man Bob held her from behind and yanked her back with the animal in her arms.
She set the dog down and watched in amusement as it spun in a circle of
disbelieving excitement.  Within seconds, the small hound was sniffing the ground
and peeing up the railings.  Make yourself at home, champ.

Hugo switched off the yacht’s engine and pocketed the keys.  He grabbed a
hold of the pier’s twisted struts and pushed himself upwards.  Anna grabbed him
by the hand and yanked him up over the edge.  As soon as his feet hit the deck
he smiled.

“Feel good to be on solid ground again?” Anna asked him.  Don’t get
too used to it.

Hugo bounced a little.  “I can feel it in my knees.  It…it has been too
long.  Thank you for allowing me into your home.”

“What’s left of it,” said Anna, waving a hand over the burning debris of
the more unfortunate buildings.  “We’re going to have to move on soon.”

“I am sorry for your pain.  These are my daughters, Daphne and Sophie.
This little man is Houdini.”

Anna patted the friendly dog on the head and smiled at each of the
girls.  That was when Hugo leapt backwards and almost fell into the sea.  Anna
grabbed him just in time.  “What is it?”

Hugo pointed down the pier at the gate.  “The…the dead.”

Anna chuckled.  “They can’t hurt us.  The gate will hold them for now.
Don’t worry, you get used to them.  I suppose you haven’t seen the dead much
from the sea.”

Hugo shook his head.  His bottom lip quivered.  “Are they everywhere?  Is
nowhere safe?”

“This place was safe,” said old man Bob.  “Until your boss destroyed it.”

Anna sighed.  It was not Hugo’s fault.  She could tell that the man’s
concern for them was genuine.  There was nothing to be gained by giving him a
hard time.  But I don’t have a choice.  “There are some safe places, but
they’re hard to find, Hugo.  We’ll move on from here soon and look for
someplace new.  Somewhere with thick doors and a way of finding food.  You can
come with us if you want.”  Would he want that?  Is the fleet really so
great?

When she made the offer, both of Hugo’s daughters looked at him
expectantly.  Hugo stammered for a second, but declined the offer.  “A bad
idea, I think.  I must keep my daughter’s out of harm’s way.”

“I understand,” said Anna.  “Worst thing in the world is seeing a child
hurt, wouldn’t you agree?”  We’ll see what you truly think of it in a
moment.

Hugo nodded emphatically.  “Absolutely.  I cannot let anything happen to
my young ladies.”

Anna patted the man on the back and started him moving.  “Let’s go and
decide what we’re going to give the captain.  Here, this way.  We can rest a
little.”

Anna led Hugo and his family down the deck and past the burnt-out diner.
Hugo looked worried as they moved closer to the zombies at the gate, but his
anxiety turned to abject horror when he spotted the three bodies lying in a
row.  A hand went to his mouth and he looked like he was going to be sick.
Both his daughters started to cry, while Houdini sniffed at the bodies and
backed away.

Anna cleared her throat.  She felt bad for what she was inflicting on the
French family.  “You’re a guest, Hugo, so you should meet all the family.
Allow me to introduce you to Alistair, Chris…” she stepped forward and pointed
down at Poppy’s partially-burned body.  “And this little angel is Poppy.  She’s
nine.  How old are your girls, Hugo?”

Hugo swallowed and spoke in a voice thick with saliva.  “E-eight and
nine.”

Anna pursed her lips.  “Same age.  What a coincidence.  I’m sure Poppy
and your daughters would’ve gotten on really well.  Pity she’s dead.  Your
captain burnt her to death.”

Sophie and Daphne sobbed and buried their heads in their father’s chest.
Houdini barked.  “Why are you doing this?” Hugo asked.  “You…you promised not
to harm us.”

“We’re not going to harm you, Hugo.  You have my word.  All I’m trying to
do is show you why we need your boat.”

From the look on Hugo’s face, he didn’t understand.  “My boat?”

Anna nodded.  “You need to give us your boat, Hugo.  We won’t take it
from you, but you need to give it to us.”

“Why?”

“So we can sail to the Kirkland and give ourselves up,” said Tim,
obviously understanding the plan that Anna had already formed in her head.
“Samuel wants me,” he continued to explain, “so Anna will take me aboard and
hand me over.  She’ll be brought aboard to speak with the captain.  He’ll want
to thank her – and gloat about the fact he’s battered her into submission.”

“Then I’ll kill him,” said Anna, “and make sure that no more little girls
have to die.  You’re a father, Hugo.  What would you do if this were your
girls lying here?  What if Samuel decides one day that your daughters belong to
the fleet?  Samuel needs to be stopped.  Give us your boat and I will give him
what he deserves, and believe me it goes much further than this.  He’s
responsible for much much worse.”

“But that’s a story for a different day,” said Tim.  “Please help us.”

Hugo was shaking his head.  “I cannot give up my boat.  It is my home.
My daughters need a home.”

“Then stay here with us,” said old man Bob.  “There’s another dozen of us
due back soon.  We’ll all set out together and find somewhere safe.  Somewhere
without a captain making all the decisions about who lives and dies.”

Hugo’s mouth opened and closed like a fish.  He was faltering.

“Give them the boat, papa,” said the older girl, Sophie.  “I don’t
want to go back out to sea, ever.  Just look how happy Houdini is?”

They all looked at the little dog, which was happily squeezing out a turd
at the side of the deck.  When he saw them all looking, a strange expression of
pride seemed to come over him.

Hugo sighed.  He’d gone white as a sheet.  When he reached into the
pocket of his jeans, his hand was shaking like a leaf in the wind.  He pulled
out his keys and handed them over to Anna.  “I pray I do not regret this.”

Anna shrugged.  “No more than you would staying with the fleet and
witnessing senseless slaughter whenever it takes the captain’s fancy.”  She
turned to Tim.  “We’ll leave in a few hours, so get some rest and make your
peace.  We’re not going to make it back again.”  She nodded to Hugo.  “Thank
you.”

Hugo nodded back, but the uncertainty was written all over his face.
“You are welcome.  Good luck to you.”

“I am coming, too,” said Rene.  “We started this journey together, Anna.
I would like to end it that way.”

Anna gave Rene a hug.  “You’re always welcome by my side.  Just make sure
I kill that son-of-a-bitch before he kills me, then I can die happy.”

“I promise,” said Rene.

“I would like a cup of tea if you have one,” said Hugo, wobbling on his
feet and growing pale.  “And perhaps something to eat for my girls.”

“I’ll see what I can find you folks,” said Old man Bob.  “Come on, follow
me.  We need to gather together what we can, ready for the journey.”  Everyone
agreed that was a good idea.  They all headed over to the Sea Grill to
spend their last few hours together as a family.

GARFIELD

Kirk stopped the minivan
next to the chain-link fence and everybody got out.  There was an entrance to
the Army base ahead, but the small guardhouse had been reinforced with planks
of wood, a huge engine block, an antique cannon, and endless bundles of razor
wire – the entire compound was ringed with razor wire.  Garfield grimaced when
he spotted decaying dead men ensnared in the barbs every hundred feet or so.
It was clear that at some point a last stand had been made, but now the place
seemed deserted.

The foragers stood in a group outside the chain-link fence, and peered in
at the place they’d been searching for.  “Didn’t think we’d make it for a minute
there,” said Kirk.  “She’s quite a place, though, ain’t she?”

Garfield stared through the metal links and found himself agreeing.  The
base was huge.  A wide main road with multiple side roads branching off from it
gave the appearance of a small town centre.  There must have been close to a
hundred buildings, as well as several large open spaces, some of them paved,
others just overgrown fields.  An Army ambulance lay abandoned ahead and a row
of 4-tonne trucks lined up in front of a nearby building.  There was also a
bright green fire engine poking out of an open shed.

“I’ll get the cutters,” said Lemon.  Everyone waited while he headed to
the back of the horsebox and began rooting around inside his baggage.  Kirk and
Sally stood side by side, discussing something quietly.  Cat, David, and the
others leaned up against the fence, pushing their faces against the mesh to see
better.  Garfield patted himself down and made sure all of his weapons were in
place.

Lemon returned with his wire cutters and quickly got to work snipping the
metal links.  Garfield glanced around nervously while they waited.  So far the
journey had been damaging, and now that they were finally at their destination,
he could not shake the feeling that something even worse was going to go wrong.

“We’re in,” said Lemon.  He stepped back proudly to reveal a large hole
in the fence wide enough for each of them to duck under.  Kirk went first, with
Sally close behind.  The others quickly followed with Garfield going last.  As
he stepped through he made sure to make a note of his bearings.  If they had to
retreat there would be no time to cut a new hole.  They would need to remember
where this one was.

“Wonder where the goodies are,” Sally said, glancing around with his
hands on his hips.  “We’re looking for guns and ammo, right?”

“Primarily,” said Kirk.  “But keep your eyes peeled for anything worth
taking back.”

“Back to this pier of yours, yer?  How many mouths you got to feed back
there?”

“About another ten.”

Sally blew air into his cheeks and then said, “But it’s you guys that
have to go out and risk your necks all the time, yer?”

Kirk shrugged.  “The people back at the pier fish and look after the
place.”

“Screw fishing.  Anyone can do that.  They should be out here risking
their necks with you.”

“Poppy’s just a kid and old man Bob is…well, old.  Not everyone
can make it out here.”

Sally flapped his hands and slapped them against his thighs.  “Then they
die.  Who made them your burden?  Are you telling me that if we find heaps of
treasure here, you’re gunna trek it all the way back to the coast and divvy it
up?”

Kirk looked embarrassed, but Garfield was angry.  “We look after each
other, Sally.  You might have been alone this last year, but some of us are
still human.”

Sally put his hands up.  “Hey, don’t hit me again, big man.  Was just
making an observation.  Still allowed to do that, ain’t I?”

Kirk stared at Garfield.  “No playing up, okay?  Let’s just do this and
get ourselves heading back for home.”

Garfield snarled, but didn’t push the issue.  He was glad Kirk made the
statement of heading back home.  It sounded like Sally was in favour of banding
together and becoming a group of marauding nomads.

“Where do we start?” asked Lemon.  “This place is h-h-huge.”

“We start there,” said Garfield.  “At that building.  There’re guns
inside.”

Kirk frowned.  “How do you know?”

Garfield pointed.  “Look there, can you see that narrow sandpit that runs
all down one side?”

“You want to build a sandcastle?” asked Sally.  “Somebody get this man a
spade.”

Garfield ignored him  “When soldiers return their rifles, they dry fire
them to make sure the chambers are clear.  They aim at the sandbank in case a
round fires off accidentally.  Also, that building is small with no windows and
a big steel door.  No easy way to break in.  If you’re asking me, that’s where
the guns are.”

“This place is huge,” said Sally.  “That building isn’t big enough to
hold all the guns for this place.”

Garfield shook his head and snorted.  “How much of a good idea is it to
put all the weapons together?  If some gang of criminals with brass balls tried
to rob an armoury, why make it easy for them?  The guns will be placed in
separate caches.  Probably one per regiment.”

Kirk nodded.  “Makes sense to me.  Okay, people.  We need to find a way
inside that building.”

“What about that fire engine?” said Sally.  “If we can get that
sweetheart running, we could just ram into the side of the building.”

Garfield whistled.  “Just ram the side of a building full of explosives.
Smart.”

“Do you have a better idea?” asked Kirk.  “That door don’t look like it’s
gunna come loose with Lemon’s skeleton key.”

Garfield thought for a few seconds but was forced to shrug his
shoulders.  “I guess not.”

“Okay,” said Sally, clapping his hands together.  “Let’s go jack us a
fire truck.  Reminds me of this time in high school when…actually, never mind.”

Kirk put down his backpack and started giving orders.  “Okay, Cat, David,
go check out those trucks parked over there, but be careful.  Lemon, do you
think you can hotwire that fire engine, or whatever it is you do?”

“Looks, pretty old.  I’m sure it won’t be difficult.”

Kirk nodded.  “Do it.”

Lemon tottered off towards the shed containing the fire engine, carrying
his bag of tricks over his shoulder.  The man was never happier than when he
had something to break into.

“What about the rest of us, mate?” asked Sally.  “You want us to go
explore?”

“That would be a bad idea,” said Garfield.  “We need to stay close in
case we get cut off.”

“I was asking the boss, fella,” said Sally, turning and smiling at Kirk.

Kirk chuckled.  “Stop trying to wind Garf up, will you?  Anyway, he’s
right.  I think it’s better if we take things slow and stick close.  The rest
of us can set up a cache here for everything we find.”

Garfield agreed with the plan.  It wasn’t the quickest, but it was the
smartest.  Maybe Kirk wasn’t as impetuous as he thought. “We need to be ready
if Lemon gets that truck moving.  The noise of the engine alone will bring any
dead in the area to come running.”

Kirk nodded.  “I know.  I’ll have someone go back to the minivan, make
sure it’s ready to go the second we beat a retreat.”

“Or we could stay and fight,” said Sally.  “There’re enough of us to
handle a few moaners.  Are we men or possums?”

Garfield sighed.  The Australian was really beginning to get on his
nerves.  “Perhaps, but what if we lose someone.  Is losing a person worth it?
We don’t fight the dead.  We avoid the dead.”

“What’s one life if it means getting this place locked down?  This place
is a goldmine.  We could set up a camp here and defend it till the end of
time.”

“Then why is it empty?” asked Garfield.  “The entrance is barricaded up,
so people were here once.  They’re not no more, though.  Why?”

Sally kicked a stone across the floor with the toe of his boot like a
surly teenager.  “I dunno, mate.  Old age?”

Garfield rolled his eyes.  “The infection hit less than a year ago.  I
don’t think anyone died of old age.”

Sally shrugged.  “Aliens, then?”

“Aliens?  Genius.”

Kirk waved a hand.  “Shut the hell up, you two.  You’re giving me a
headache.”

Garfield flushed with anger, but then remembered that he wasn’t in charge
anymore, Kirk was.  “Fine.  I’m going to go see if Lemon needs help with
anything.  That okay, boss?”

Kirk nodded.

Garfield spun around and marched to go find Lemon.  On his way he passed
the three trucks that Cat and David had been told to check out.  Neither of
them were anywhere to be seen.  They must have jumped up inside the truck
beds for some rumpy pumpy.  It wouldn’t be the first time the two of them
had snuck off for some alone time.  Who could really blame them?

Garfield wondered if he would ever have a woman in his life again.  It
would be nice to have another heartbeat beside him while he slept, but it just
wasn’t something he could imagine right now.  His priority was Poppy.  There
would be time for his own needs later, when she was grown.

The fire engine was up ahead, it’s nose poking beneath the shutter of the
open shed.  Garfield eyed the front passenger seat but couldn’t see if Lemon
was inside.  Knowing Lemon, he would probably be rummaging in his rucksack
somewhere inside the shed, trying to find the perfect tool for the job at hand.

Garfield reached the shed and stepped inside.  It stunk of engine oil and
petrol.  Lemon’s rucksack was laid out on the floor, just as he had suspected,
but Lemon wasn’t beside it.  “Hey, Lem, he shouted.  “You need a hand?”

No answer.

Garfield turned and walked further into the shed, towards the back of the
fire engine.  There were tools lined up on the back wall above a workbench.  He
went to get a closer look and couldn’t help but smile at the pristine tools and
blades.  “Hey, Lemon,” he shouted again.  “There’s some grade-A stuff here.
You should take a look when you’re done.”

No answer.

“Hey, Lemon.  You deaf?”  Garfield turned around, frustrated.  He walked
around the back of the engine and headed for the driver’s side door.  He placed
a foot up on the running boards and felt the air shift behind him.  He spun
back around, yanking free the carving tongs he had strapped to his triceps at
the farmhouse.

There was no one there.

Garfield frowned.  After so many days surviving on the road, sensing
danger had become like a sixth sense.  He couldn’t say why, but something was
unsettling him.

Something was wrong.

“Lemon,” he shouted a third time.  “Say something, man.”  He crept back
up onto the running boards and peered through the driver’s window.  There was
the shadow of a man inside that could have been Lemon – it had the same stumpy
shape – but if it was Lemon, he was making no effort to answer Garfield’s
calls.  What’s wrong with him?

Garfield placed his hand around the door release and took a breath.

When he opened the door he found Lemon inside as he’d hoped, but had not
expected to find him gagged and bound.  Before he had chance to try to process
the situation, a gloved hand covered his mouth and dragged him backwards off
the running board.  He tried to strike out with the carving tongs, but his arm
was quickly yanked behind his back and he dropped them.  He pulled out his
wooden tenderising mallet with his other hand but that was quickly taken from
him too.  Violently, he was yanked around, smashed in the temple with a fist,
and then tripped head over heels.  Before he even knew what was happening he
was on his back with a boot at his throat.  Who…what?

The man glaring down at him was like death: two white eyes gleaming out
from behind a black mask.  Garfield tried to plead with him, but a gag went in
his mouth and his arms were suddenly zip-tied behind him.  The whole thing had
taken about five seconds.  I’m dead.  Whoever has me is meaner and badder
than anyone I’ve ever met.

When Garfield realised that there were three men wearing black
balaclavas, he knew once and for all that he was done for.  Cat and David had
also been bound and gagged and were lying at the rear of the shed by a side
door.  There were tears in David’s eyes, but Cat wore an expression of steely
determination.  Garfield knew the woman would never give into a man easily.
She had survived the early days of the infection all by herself, fighting off a
half dozen rape attempts of desperate men.  She would not allow her female
sensibilities to weaken her.

The three men produced assault rifles and Cat’s eyes went wide, but still
she did not weep.  Garfield eyed the assault rifles anxiously and imagined how
quickly they could tear him apart.  Their muzzles were polished metal with
thick plastic grips positioned beneath.  The scopes on top of each rifle were
like menacing eyeballs staring at him.  We’re so screwed.

Garfield struggled against his bonds and tried to shout a warning through
his gag, but one of the soldiers gave him a tap with his boot and then placed a
finger over his lips to shush him.  Kirk and the others are outside.  They
won’t know what hit them.  He started to shimmy along the concrete floor
like a worm, trying to reach the edge of the shed where the others would see
him.  Before he even got half way, he was yanked to his feet by the soldiers
and frogmarched forward.  They took him to exactly where he had wanted to go:
out into the road where Kirk would see him.

Lemon, Cat, and David were marched along behind him, their unsteady legs
wobbling.  Kirk spotted them immediately, but just stood there confused.  Sally
was crouched down on the floor, swigging from a bottle of water.  When he saw
the armed men marching Garfield and the others along, he smiled and shook his
head.  He thinks this is funny.

“Nobody move,” said the lead soldier.  He grabbed a hold of Garfield’s
hair and shoved him to the ground.  The other two soldiers did the same with
Cat, David, and Lemon.  All four of them sat bound and gagged in a line.

“Who are you people?” Kirk asked.

“That’s a question you need to answer first,” said the solider, “and if
you say Jehovah’s Witnesses, you’re dead.”

Kirk had gone pale, likely from the sight of the soldier’s assault
rifles.  He stuttered as he spoke.  “W-we’re just people.  We wanted to find
some guns.”

The soldier pointed his rifle.  “Well, you found some, mate.  I’ll show
you the bullets, too, if you want?”

“No, please,” said Kirk.  “We’re not here to cause trouble.  We didn’t
know anyone was here.”

The solider pointed with his rifle.  “You people make that hole in our
fence?”

Garfield shuffled on to his side to get a better look at Kirk.  The lad
was clearly scared, but he was dealing with things in the best way possible: by
being polite.  “I’m sorry,” he said.  “We thought this place was abandoned so
we cut through.  We can barricade it back up if you’d like.”

“Good as new,” said Sally.  “You won’t even know we were here, mate.”

“We’re not your mates and we’ll deal with the fence.  You people are
leaving.”

“Come on,” said Sally.  “You three fellas don’t need all this stuff to
yourself.  Surely you can spare a few rifles and one of those trucks.”

“Yes,” said the soldier.  “We could.  We could spare a lot.  But what’s
to say you people won’t take our rifles and use them to kill innocent people?
That’s the problem, you see?  Most men get their hands on a gun and they start
misbehaving.  Even the men at this base headed off on the road to become kings
of their own fiefdoms.  I don’t know what happened to them, but I know it
wouldn’t have been good for anyone who got in their way.  There’s been enough
death, without us letting a bunch of weaponry fall into the wrong hands.”

Garfield frowned.  They’re good guys.  But, despite the fact that
the three soldiers seemed to endorse non-violence, they’d still taken Garfield
and the others captive.  There was no telling what could still happen, so he
reached down into the shin pocket of his cargo pants and pulled out the can
opener Anna had given him.  Then he got to work, sawing at the zip-tie around
his wrists.

“You need to leave,” said the soldier.  “Once you’re back in your van,
we’ll send our prisoners after you.  You can pick them up at the end of the
road.”

“Screw that,” said Sally.  “We came a long way to get here.  We have a
pier full of people on the south coast that need protecting.”

The soldier shuffled and readjusted his rifle.  It was obviously getting
heavy in his hands.  “You have a camp?  Huh, I thought all that was left was a
handful of bandits.”

“Yeah,” said Sally.  “We have a little girl there and an old man.  We’re
a community.”  Garfield gritted his teeth as Sally spoke about his home; the
home the Australian had never even visited.

Kirk took a step forward.  “Actually, Sally here has never been to the
pier.  We picked him up en route here.  That’s what we do; we help those in
need.  We only wanted weapons to protect our people.  Nothing more.”

Garfield nodded.  Kirk was handling the situation well.  The soldier
started to relax a little.  Even so, Garfield continued sawing at the zips
around his wrists.  The can opener was blunt but it was slowly biting through
the plastic.  Nearly there.

The soldier took a step forward and shook his head.  He raised his rifle
and pointed it right at Kirk.  “Leave.  I won’t ask you again.  You’re not
taking our guns.  Just be glad you’re leaving in one piece.”

Kirk took another step forward and went to speak, but a loud clack
of gunfire cut him off.  The noise was followed by absolute silence.
Garfield stared in horror as he waited for Kirk to fall.  Damn it.  He
pushed too far.  That step forward had been a mistake.  But he was taken by
surprise when the soldier in front of him tumbled backwards, clutching his
gut.  Garfield couldn’t see the blood, but he could smell it, along with a foul
smell that must have been coming from the man’s pierced bowel.  What the hell
just happened.

The two other soldiers opened fire.  Kirk threw himself through the air
and to the ground, which was when Garfield spotted Sally holding a smoking
pistol in his hand.  Where the hell did that come from?  Instead of
trying to work out the answer, Garfield slit the last shred of plastic zip-tie
and sprung his wrists free.  He leapt up to his feet and barrelled into the
nearest soldier, yanking a metal pole from his inside pocket and clonking it
against the man’s head.  The soldier fell to the floor unconscious.  Garfield
grabbed his rifle just as Cat leapt up and charged the remaining soldier.  Her
hands were still bound but that didn’t stop her from knocking him off-balance.
By the time the soldier recovered, Garfield had the rifle aimed squarely at his
face.  “I have no idea how to use this thing,” he said, “but if I pull the
trigger you die, right?”

The soldier snickered.  “Way you’re holding it, it’ll take your shoulder
off.”

“But you’ll still die, right?”  The man scowled and then nodded his head,
defeated.  “Then drop your weapon and I’ll keep my finger of the trigger.”

The soldier did as he was told and Kirk and the others came rushing over
to secure him and the other soldier that Garfield had bludgeoned.  They tied
the men up with their own zip-ties.

“They killed Tom and Gavin,” said Kirk, shaking his head.

“You fired first,” said the uninjured soldier.  He pointed down at his
dying comrade.  “You shot Haltek in the stomach.”

Kirk looked down at the man.  “I’m sorry about that.”

Garfield wasn’t sorry, he was angry.  “What the hell were you doing,
Sally?”  He shoved the man backwards and fought the urge to open fire on him
with the rifle.  “Where the hell did you even get that gun from?”

Sally shrugged.  “Farmer had it back at that farmhouse.  Figured he
wasn’t going to use it wandering around the kitchen.”

Garfield hissed and swore, but then went very silent as a thought
occurred to him.  He put a few things together in his head before he spoke
again.  “You…you told us you never went inside that farmhouse.  Trespassing
you called it.”

Sally shrugged.  “I lied.  So what?  I wasn’t sure what you fellas were
like, so I kept a few things to myself.  Truth is I saw you lot coming and went
out the back.  Came round the side with my hands above my head.”

Kirk shook his head.  “Who cares?  “What difference does it make?”

“It makes a lot of difference,” said Garfield.  “He said he took the gun
off the old man in the kitchen, but I was in the kitchen and nobody was there.
The only old man we found was hanging by his neck, along with his wife and
child.”

Kirk’s pupil’s flickered as the memory came back to him.  He had been
deeply affected at the time and had needed Garfield to deal with the
situation.  He turned to Sally.  “You…you hung them up by their necks?  Why?”

Sally shrugged.  “Dunno, really.  It gets boring being on yer own.  Mind
does all sorts of thing.  Look, mate, I’m sorry.  It was a bit of a sick thing
to do, but I didn’t harm anyone.  They were already dead.”

“This man wasn’t, though,” said Garfield, pointing down at the soldier
who had finally died whilst they were talking.  “He didn’t need to die.  He
didn’t want to shoot anyone.  Kirk could have talked him around.”

“No way, mate,” said Sally.  “We were about to leave with our tail between
our legs.  After coming all this way, we were about to leave with nothing.  I
got you all this place, so stop having a pop at me.  Just chill out, mate.”

“I’m not your mate.”

“No, you’re a bleeding whinger.  Best we just leave your moany arse
behind.”  He turned his attention to the soldier.  “Do you have the keys to
those trucks over there?  And the Armoury?”

The soldier said nothing, so Sally yanked off his balaclava and got in
his face.  The man had a shaved head and high, angular cheekbones.  His chin
looked like it could dent iron.

Sally stood nose to nose with the man before saying, “We can either get
the keys from your corpse or you can hand them over.”

The soldier sighed and reached into the pockets of his utility belt.  His
hand came out with a large bundle of keys.  “Everything I have is on there.
Haltek has the rest of the keys.  You can get them from his corpse.”

Sally snatched the keys and then went to retrieve the other set from the
dead soldier.  During that time, Garfield asked the soldier a simple question.
“What’s your name?”

The soldier grunted.  “Sergeant Price, 2684573.  First Battalion,
Parachute Regiment.”

So that’s why these guys are such badasses, thought Garfield.
Garfield had briefly considered joining the Army when he was a teenager.  He
had consumed every war movie and magazine he could find.  One thing quickly
became obvious; you don’t fuck with the Paras.  When Garfield’s father had
died, leaving his mother all alone, he had put all thoughts of travelling the
world in a uniform aside.  But how different might his life have been if he had
taken the same path as Price?  The two of them were of a similar age.  “Was
Haltek a para as well?” Garfield asked.

“All three of us are.  When the other soldiers stationed here set out on
the road, we chose to remain here and protect the base from people like you.”

Garfield sighed.  Although he hated it, he was pretty sure he was one of
the bad guys in this situation.  “Look, what Sally did, killing your man, was
nothing to do with the rest of us.  We picked him up on our travels.  I didn’t
even know he had a gun.”

“If you don’t support his actions, punish him.  If you do nothing then
you are condoning his actions.”

“That’s not true.  I…I’m not in charge here.  It’s not my responsibility.”

“Yes, it is.  Haltek would never have fired on your people.  You could
have all left safely if the dingo hadn’t fired that cap gun at us.”

“Might have been a cap gun,” said Sally, overhearing them.  “But it took
care of your mate alright, didn’t it?”

Sergeant Price made a move towards Sally, but Garfield raised the rifle
in his hands and shook his head.  “Let’s make sure no one else gets shot,
okay?”

The soldier glared at him.  “This burk is going to get you people
killed.  I’ve seen men like him plenty of times before.  Most of them ended up
dead or in the Glasshouse.”

“Nah, mate.  You ain’t.  I’m one of a kind.  A real beaut.”

“Alright,” said Kirk.  “Let’s just get what we came for and we can leave
these men in peace.”

Sally scoffed.  “Are you kidding?  Soon as we try to set off, GI Joe and
Private Pyle here are going to grab themselves a weapon and become unpleasant.
Can’t leave them alive.”

“What should we do?” Garfield spat.  “Hang them by their necks?”

“Good a method as any.”

Kirk grabbed Sally by the arm.  “Just get to work.  I’ll decide what to
do with the soldiers when the time comes.”

Sally shrugged his shoulders and snapped off a salute.  “Yessir.  Right
away, sir.”  Then he swaggered off towards the armoury.”

Kirk strode over to sergeant Price.  “Get down on the floor beside your
buddy.  Sit on your hands and don’t try anything.  We’ll be out of your hair
before you know it.”

When Price didn’t respond, Kirk kicked the man’s legs out from under him
and dragged him over to the other soldier who Garfield had struck with his
metal pipe.

Somehow Garfield couldn’t help but feel like a brutish Viking sacking a
defenceless village.  It left a bad taste in his mouth.  We’re the bad guys
here.

PRICE

Price couldn’t believe how
hard he’d failed.  People always expected him to feel proud of being a member
of the illustrious Parachute Regiment, but they didn’t realise that there was
nothing to be proud of.  1 Para wasn’t the pinnacle of the British Army
Special Forces.  The maroon beret was second to one other: the beige beret.
The sand-coloured beret his father owned.  Who Dares Wins.

Price had twice attempted to pass the brutal trials of the SAS, but both
times he had failed.  The forced marches over the Brecon Hills left him
hospitalised on each occasion.  Being a Para just reminded him that he would
always be second best to a select few who had more ability than he did – men
who were made of sterner stuff.  His father had always said he was too weak to
make it in the elite of the elite, and it had turned out he was right.  Even
now that the world had ended, Price knew that the SAS would be holed up
somewhere, surviving the apocalypse with ease and turning the air blue with
their foulmouthed jokes.  His father might even be with them; the SAS looked
after their own.  They were a family.  A family that Price had always longed to
join but never would.  Not like I ever belonged to my own family.  The Special
Air Service was trained for any situation and the dead would be little more
than a minor obstacle to the SAS.

They would never have let an entire Army barracks fall to a man with
an antique pistol.  I’m a fuck-up.  The Sarge is dead because I didn’t get my
gun up fast enough.  My father will be rolling in his grave.

Fuck him.

Price wasn’t done yet.  The carrot-top in the long black coat might have
taken his SA80, but he still had his 9mm tucked in a holster hidden at his
back, beneath his vest.  It always helped to have a weapon or two hidden.  Soon
as I get chance, that dingo bastard is taking a dirt nap.

Price knew his life was already forfeit.  The least a soldier could do
before the bodysnatchers came for him was take as many of the enemy with him as
he could.  For the last hour, he had sat on his hands as required and watched
silently as the group of bandits raided the Colonel Gadaffi and snatched at the
boxes of military rations.  The eight-hundred-and-fourteen Operational Ration
Packs contained enough food to feed a man for 24 hours, or a starved survivor
for 48.  They also contained water purifying tablets, matches, tissues, tea
bags, and chicken stock.  The bandits had just hit the mother lode.  The
thought of them surviving happily for the next year on those rations made Price
feel sick to his stomach.

Now the bandits had turned their focus to the armoury.  There were six
caches and all had been opened.  The Australian and his buddies were currently
in the process of loading up the 4-tonne trucks with dozens of SA80 battle
rifles, Browning 9mm handguns, a couple of L7A2 General-Purpose-Machine-Guns,
and a batch of recreational hunting rifles.  The dingo was
strutting around with an L128A1 semi-auto shotgun on his hip like he knew how
to use it – he didn’t.  The bandits even took a crate full of L109A1 HE grenades.  They use one of those and the dead will come
running from a hundred miles around.

Corporal Barker had recovered from the blow to his head
and was sat upright beside Price.  The carrot-top kept a watch on them both,
with Price’s SA80 held loosely to his shoulder.  He’ll break his collarbone
if he pulls the trigger on that thing.

During the last ten minutes, the two of them had been
sawing away at the zip-ties around their wrists.  They rubbed the plastic
against the sharp edges of their belt buckles.  It was slow work, but working.

“You got a plan, Price?” Barker asked him in a whisper.

Price nodded.  “Yeah, go down fighting.”

“Sounds good to me.”

“You got your 9mm tucked away?”

Barker chuckled.  “Yeah, the stupid bastards didn’t
bother to check me.  They’re almost begging to die.”

“Well, lets not disappoint them.”

“Let’s do this for Haltek.”

“For Haltek.”

Price was just about to leap up and snap his zip-ties when the bandits
formed-up a few feet away.  If it were not for the fact that the dingo pointed
a shotgun in their directions, Price would have followed through with his plan
of grabbing for his 9mm and going down in a bullet storm.  But the plan was to
take the bandits by surprise to maximise their casualties.  Price wouldn’t even
get a shot off if that shotgun went off in his face.  He grabbed a hold of
Barker and shook his head.  “Wait.”

The carrot-top moved around behind Price and Barker and pointed the rifle
at the back of their heads.  The ginger guy wasn’t so bad as the others.  It
seemed like he would have handled the situation differently.  The problem was
the dingo and the guy in charge.  The kid who’d but Price on his arse with a
judo sweep.  He’ll pay for that.

“The trucks are all stuffed full.  All three of them,” said the stumpy
guy Price had tied up in the fire engine.  ‘Lemon’ the other men called him.
The leader of the bandits nodded.  “Good work.  We’re ready to go then?”

Lemon nodded.

“Great, lets load up and get going then.”

“What about the squaddies?” the dingo asked.  He was pointing the barrel
of the shotgun right in Price’s mug.  If he kills me now I won’t even have a
chance to reach for my gun.  Fuck!

“Leave them,” said the carrot-top.  “We’ve done enough already.”

The dingo laughed.  “They’re the enemy.  We don’t let the enemy go.  They
killed Tom and Gavin.”

“Because you fired at them, you fool.  You didn’t even know Tom and
Gavin.”

Both men looked to the leader of the group, but the younger man just
stood there looking increasingly stressed.  It was clear that the guy wasn’t
cut out for leadership.  He was too indecisive – an obvious people pleaser.  He
couldn’t make a decision unless it suited everyone, and that was never
possible.  If anyone should be in charge, thought Price, it should be the
carrot-top.  He was the only one who spoke up rationally and thought things
through.  The dingo was a blagger with an ego.  Men like him never lasted long
on the field, but sometimes they managed to fuck things up before they went.

The carrot-top shrugged at the leader.  “Kirk, will you tell Sally to
chill out.  We don’t kill innocent people.  We’ve got what we came for, so
let’s just leave.”

Kirk nodded.  “Okay, you’re right.  Everyone get in the trucks.  We’re
leaving.”

“No, we’re not,” said Sally.  “You’re not the boss of me, mate.  I’m
taking those trucks for myself along with anyone else who wants to join me.”

Kirk’s mouth dropped open.  “N-no you’re not.  We all stick together.”

“I’m not asking for your permission.  Your men are coming with me.
They’re tired of risking their necks and having to share.  They want what’s
theirs and I’m going to give it to them.  Life is better out on the road.”

Kirk said nothing, and in fact he seemed to shrink.  He was holding no
weapon, while the dingo held one of the most intimidating weapons a man could
face.  The carrot-top raised his rifle away from Price’s skull and aimed it at
the arguing members of his group.

Price made eye contact with Barker and nodded subtly.  They’re
distracted.  It’s almost time.  Price began to slide his hand around to the
9mm at his back.

“Who the hell do you think you are, Sally?” demanded the carrot-top.  “We
picked you up when you were all alone and now you’re pulling this shit.”

“I don’t owe you people anything.  None of you have done anything other
than let me tag along.  When I did some asking around, it turned out that this
happy little group ain’t so happy.  They want to break out on their own.  With
the trucks and the guns, we can take whatever we want.”

The carrot-top shook his head.  He looked utterly gobsmacked.  Price felt
sorry for him, he seemed like a decent guy.  The man glanced around at the
assembled group and waved his arms.  “Who is a part of this?  Who wants to
leave with this piece of shit?  Come on, if you have the balls to turn your
back on the pier, then have the balls to stand up for your convictions?  Who
wants to go with Sally?”

The man almost seemed to fall down in pain when the hands of nearly the
entire group went up.  The stumpy guy called Lemon didn’t put his hand up, nor
the man and woman Barker had captured by the trucks.  Everyone else’s did,
though.  It was almost unanimous.

The carrot-top looked at Kirk and shrugged.  “You’re in charge, Kirk.
You wanted this.  You handle it.  Are you with Sally, or are you going to grow
some balls?”

Kirk wobbled on his feet and grew pale.  He spluttered and glanced around
nervously.  “I…I…If everyone is going with Sally, then we should, too.  We
shouldn’t separate after so long together.  We need each other.”

“And what about the others at the pier?  Anna, Rene…Poppy?”

Kirk shrugged.  “You do what you want Garfield.  The guys at the pier are
safe.  If you want Poppy then go back for her.  Nobody is stopping you.”

“You fucking coward,” said the only woman of the group.

Kirk’s face bunched up in anger.  “Screw you, Cat.  I’m just trying to
survive.  Nobody ever said we had to stick together at the pier forever.  I
joined you all much later, anyway.  None of you treat me the same as the
others.  I should have been in charge of this group months ago.”

Garfield huffed.  “I think you’re showing the reason why we didn’t put
you in charge.  You can’t handle it.”

“Screw you, Garf.”

Garfield didn’t answer back.  He just sighed at the other man and seemed
genuinely sad.  “Fine, Kirk.  You do what you want.  I’m going back to the pier
with anyone who wants to come with me.  I’ll take the minivan.”

“Me and David are with you,” said the woman.

“Me t-t-too,” said Lemon.

“Okay,” said Sally.  “Then we’ve all made our decision.  We go our
separate ways.  All that’s left to do is kill the squaddies.”

Price balked.  He had grasped his 9mm in his hand but had gotten so
wrapped up in the bitter exchange between the bandits that he hadn’t yet
brought it around.  By the time he did, it would already be too late.  The
dingo had his shotgun pressed up against his forehead

Price closed his eyes.  I’ve failed again.  My father was right.  That
grumpy old git.

Just when Price expected his head to explode, there was a loud thud!
He opened his eyes to see that Garfield had struck the dingo in his head with
the butt of the SA80.  The Australian went reeling to the ground.  The shotgun
he had been holding skittered away across the pavement.  Blood oozed from a
gash on his hairline.

Garfield glanced down at Price and Barker.  “You two, get up.  You’re not
our prisoners.”

Price clutched his 9mm and thought about yanking it free and firing off a
few rounds, but his instincts told him to hold off and see what transpired.  As
much as he should have, he didn’t want to shoot the carrot-top.

Garfield stood over Sally and growled.  “You’re done.”

The dingo laughed.  Blood covered his face but he didn’t seem to care.  The
men and women who had sought to take off with the man had faltered.  They
glanced at one another nervously and then shuffled their feet.  A mutiny
only lasts as long as its leader, thought Price.

“Okay,” said Sally.  “You got me.  I beg for mercy.”

Garfield shook his head and sighed.  “More than you deserve, but unlike
you I don’t kill people if I don’t have to.  Take the minivan and get the hell
out of here.  If I see you again I’ll take your goddamn head off.”

Garfield lowered his rifle and started to turn away, but the dingo sat up
suddenly and let off two quick bangs!  Garfield reeled backwards.  His
finger squeezed around the trigger of his SA80.  It bucked violently in his
hands and wrenched his shoulder in his socket just like Price had warned him.
The bullet spread went wide, clanging off a group of empty oil barrels.  Clunk
clunk clunk!  The rifle fell to the ground with a clatter!  Another
shot rang out and Garfield fell to the ground beside it.

When Price saw the antique pistol that had killed Haltek he brought
around his 9mm and fired off a tight grouping right into the dingo’s chest.
The man was dead before he even knew he’d been shot.  The smell of gunpowder
hung thick in the air and the sound of the shots seemed to echo for miles
around.  That’s not good.

Immediately, a standoff ensued.  Price and Barker held 9mms, but were
being faced down by an assortment of assault rifles and other 9mms.  The
leader, Kirk, shook his head and did nothing.  The guy was a wet blanket.

Price sighed and took pity on the younger man.  He glanced down at the
carrot-top, lying on the floor where three bullets had struck his chest.
“Barker, lower your weapon,” he said.  “Nobody else has to die today.”

Barker did as he was told and Price lowered his weapon too.  He
re-holstered the 9mm behind his back and knelt down beside Garfield.   The guy
they called Lemon did the same.  “Is he going to be okay, sir?”

Price sighed.  Sir?  This guy likes to obey.  “No, he’s
not going to be okay.  He just took two slugs in the chest.  And don’t call me
‘sir’, I work for a living.” He cleared his throat.  “I’m sorry for your loss.
He seemed like the only one of you with any sense.”

There was silence amongst the group and Price crossed the dead man’s arms
across his chest and repositioned his head.  It was the least he could do.

It scared the shit out of him when the man started to cough and
splutter.  “Jesus Christ, you’re alive.”

The man was out of breath, gasping and struggling, but he had the
strength of an ox and Price could do nothing as he forced himself into a
sitting position.  He continued coughing for a good few minutes, but when he
was done, he grasped at the buttons on his shirt and tore them loose.  His
shirt fluttered open and Price was surprised to see that neither slug had
managed to enter the man’s chest.  Three hunks of lead were lodged into a thick
barrier of what looked like history magazines.  The man had wrapped them around
his torso like armour.  It was a novel idea, but probably wouldn’t have worked
against a modern calibre bullet.  Luckily, the dingo had fired two ancient lead
rounds from an antique pistol.  The magazines had been enough to save his life.

Price helped the man to his feet.  “You okay, buddy?  It’s Garfield,
right?”

The man nodded, clutching his chest.  Even though the bullets hadn’t
penetrated, the force of the blow would still have been like standing in the
way of a bull.  “I…yeah, I’m fine.  I’m…I’m sorry all this happened.”

Price sighed.  “Well, if anything, it showed me that not everyone is out
to murder and rape.  If I thought you were the one in charge, I would let you
leave here with everything you ask for.”

“He is in charge,” said Lemon.  “He’s always been in charge.”

Price looked at Kirk.  The younger man was trembling.  “That true, lad?
I thought you were the head honcho of this outfit?”

Kirk shook his head.  “N-no.  Garfield has always been in charge.  I only
took over yesterday because…”

“Because you all got charmed by the dingo and stopped following orders.
You know what happens to deserters in the Army, lad?”

Kirk looked ashamed.  He turned around and walked away.

In the distance there was moaning.  “The dead are coming,” said Price,
sighing.  “The gunfire has attracted them.”

“We need to get that hole in the fence filled in,” said Garfield.

Price waved his hand.  “You people need to get out of here or else you’ll
never get the chance.  The dead will surround the entire base before long.
We’ve only survived this long by keeping quiet.”

Garfield opened his mouth and closed it again.  “I...I’m sorry.  This was
your home and we’ve endangered it.”

“Just get out of here,” said Price.  There was no point making apologies
that fixed nothing.

There was a rumbling of an engine.  Price looked over to see that Kirk
had jumped up into one of the trucks and started the engine.  Two other men had
run off after him and jumped into the rear bed of the truck.

Garfield shouted.  “Kirk, what the hell are you doing?  Lenny, Luke….
Stop right now.”  Kirk disobeyed him and ground the gears into first.  The
truck began to move.  It headed for the chain link fence, picking up speed.
Price ripped a grenade from his utility vest and went to pull out the pin.
Garfield grabbed his wrist.  “Please, don’t.  He’s a stupid kid, more scared
than I realised.  This is my fault.  I lost control of the group.  People panic
when there’s no leader.  He’s a good person, and so are Lenny and Luke.  Let
them go, please.”

Price stared at the other man and shrugged.  He placed the grenade back
in his belt.  “Your call.  Would only attract more dead anyway.”

Kirk sped up and the truck roared.  It’s huge weight rushed forward.  The
front of the vehicle smashed into the chain link fence and dragged it along.
It folded beneath the truck’s giant wheels and slapped into the dirt.  As the
truck took off at full speed, a length of fence twenty metres long went with
it.

The dead moaned in the distance, but were already closer.

Price grunted.  “There goes the neighbourhood.  Get out of here before
the dead give you no choice.”

“Come with us,” said Garfield.  “We took away your safety, but we have a
camp at a pier on the south coast.  It’s safe there and we all look after one
another.”

It felt like charity, but Price knew that staying at the barracks was a
death wish.  He had to move on; the only question was whether or not to go with
Garfield and his men.  He glanced at Barker.  Barker shrugged.  “Fine.  Let’s
just get the fuck out of here and quick.  What’s the quickest way to your
camp?”

“The motorway would take less than a day,” said Garfield, “But it’s
choc-a-block with cars and zombies.”

Price scratched his jutting chin and smiled.  “I may have just the
thing.”

When he showed Garfield what he had hidden at the back of the camp
beneath a large green tarp, the man began to bellow with laughter.  “I guess
we’re taking the motorway, then,” he said.  “Anna is never going to believe
this.”

FRANK

Frank was outside taking a
breath when he saw the small yacht approaching from the distance.  Night had
fallen but an interior lamp lit up the small vessel.  The lamp’s glow was puny
compared to the fires of the night before.

The Kirkland’s aft deck was bustling, as it usually was in the
evenings.  Men played cards and flirted with the handful of women on board,
sharing their alcohol rations like their was no tomorrow.  The fireworks show
at the pier had made everyone rowdy.

The supply of booze to the crewmen of the Kirkland had been
lowered recently after a rash of drunken behaviour that stretched all the way
from bad language to rape.  The men and women aboard the frigate were tired,
weary, and had left their souls back on land.  There was a constant air of
aggression and fear that made people paranoid and selfish after a while.  Frank
often wondered where the future would take them all.  Could they go on like
this perpetually?  Or was something bound to give?  The grey, salt-stained
decks of the frigate could not sustain them forever, he thought.

The little yacht got closer and Frank saw that they were waving a white
flag. Frank saw a dark-skinned man and a stout woman.  He recognised neither,
but when he saw the third man his eyes went wide.  Leaning over the bow on a
pair of crutches was Tim Golding – the man Samuel referred to as the ‘cripple’
and the man who had tried to obliterate the fleet’s flagship.

Frank hurried over to the rigging set up along the Kirkland’s
starboard side and removed the guard stationed there.  He would receive these
guests himself.

The woman attached the yacht to the rigging and secured the vessel.  She
then took Tim by the arm and helped him up on to the thick rope latticework.
The cripple climbed up the centre with the man and woman helping him on either
side.  The progress was slow, laborious, but they gradually made their way
towards the deck above.  Frank waited to seize them the moment they stepped
foot aboard.

The woman reached the gunwale first and shoved a pair of crutches into
Frank’s unsuspecting arms.  “Here, mate, hold these, will you?”

Frank spluttered but did as he was asked.  The three visitors managed to
tumble over the gunwale and onto the deck.  Tim asked for his crutches back and
Frank handed them over begrudgingly.  “Excuse me,” he eventually said.  “Might
you state your business?”

The woman looked at him.  “My name is Anna.  This is my colleague, Rene.
And this man, I’m sure you know, is Tim.”

Frank snorted.  “Yes, I know a terrorist when I see one.”

“Actually,” said Tim.  “I’m more of an attempted terrorist.  I never actually
got to blow anything up.  More’s the pity.”

“Why have you come here?  You’re a wanted man.”

“That’s why I’m here.  I’m giving myself up before any more
innocent people are hurt.”

“Your captain killed a nine-year-old girl,” said Anna.  “So we surrender,
okay?  You’re all big men with great big dicks and we’re afraid of you.  We’re
here to bend our knee to your king.”

“Samuel is not our king,” said Frank firmly, but he couldn’t help but
think about the nine-year-old girl.  “He is our captain.”

“Some might say that a captain is a king aboard his own boat.  Certainly
seems like he has the power to do whatever he wants.”

Frank said nothing.  Samuel would be pleased that the cripple had given
himself up.  He hoped his son would show kindness to the surviving members of
the pier and leave them alone.  They were no longer defying him, so perhaps
they could be forgiven.

People on the aft deck spotted the newcomers and started to point and
mutter.  “Come with me,” said Frank.  He turned to Tim.  “People want your
head, so best we don’t dawdle.  I’ll take you to Samuel immediately.”

As Frank ushered the three guests into the ship’s interior, he ignored
the many angry glares of the crewmen.  If Samuel did anything other than
execute Tim, there would be outright mutiny.  The men and women on the Kirkland
were bored and lost.  When they were given a villain to collectively hate, they
did so with gusto.  Tim could have been guilty of no more than killing a spider
and the inhabitants of the frigate would still want his blood.  Frank couldn’t
help but sigh with relief when they reached the captain’s chambers.  He was
less happy to find petty officer Dunn standing guard at the door.

“Wow, Frank, where did you find these three?  The very man that Samuel is
looking for and you bring him right to his chambers.  Not bad.”

Frank nodded.  “They have come to surrender, and you would do well to
refer to Samuel as ‘captain.’”

“Of course.  Shall I tell him you’re here?”

Frank shoved the man aside.  “I don’t need you to announce me.  Samuel is
my son.”  He took the guests inside and was aggravated when Dunn followed.

Samuel stood up immediately when he saw Tim.  “You!” he said in a tone
that could have crumbled concrete.

Tim hobbled forward on his crutches.  “I heard you were looking for me.
What seems to be the trouble?”

Samuel smashed his fist down on the table.  “You know the trouble.  You
tried to kill me.”

“Oh, that.  Yeah.  I don’t suppose you’d be willing to let bygones be
bygones, would you?  I did fail after all.”

Samuel snarled.

Frank introduced the man and woman.  “Samuel, this is Anna and Rene from
the pier.  They have surrendered Tim in order to secure a truce.”

“Nice to be here,” said Tim.  “I’ve missed your smile captain.”

Samuel turned his frown into a predatory smirk and examined the woman
standing before him.  “She’d like to secure a truce, would she?”

“Yes, she would,” said the woman irritably.

Samuel laughed.  “You seem bitter, miss.  Does friendship not taste sweet
to you?  Would you prefer enmity?”

“I would prefer that you hadn’t killed a bunch of innocent people, but
that’s the past now.  I’m only hoping to protect those of us still left.  We
want no part in your quarrel with this man.  You wanted him, you got him.  Now
leave the pier in peace.”

“I won’t fight you,” said Tim.  “I’ll admit to what I did.  Just leave
these people alone.  They’ve done nothing.”

Frank caught Samuel’s eye and nodded.  There was no reason to take issue
with the people on the pier.  They had suffered enough for helping the
cripple.  Now that they had handed him over there was no harm done.

“I disagree,” said Samuel.  He looked down at his desk and shook his head
slowly.  His hands clenched into fists.  “What would my people think of me if I
allowed our enemies mercy?  They would become frightened and weak.  They must
know that I will protect them from any threat.  The people on this pier
harboured a terrorist, a man who sought to end me.  What is to say they will
not hatch some future plot against us?”

“We will not,” said Rene.  The man had a Nigerian accent and a peculiar
way of talking, almost like his words were precious and he used them only
sparingly.  “We want only peace.”

Samuel eyeballed the man like he was some strange species.  “You’re a
long way from home.  Nigerian?”

The man blinked.  “The pier is my home.”

“I understand.  The Kirkland is my home.  The man standing beside
you tried to blow it up.  Should I just ignore that?”

“Yes.  As we will ignore that you blew up our home.  You are guilty of a
crime this man only tried to commit.  You are a bad man, which is why we
are here to beg for peace.  Take your boats and go.”

“Do not demand anything of me,” shouted Samuel.  He glanced at Dunn.
“Lieutenant Dunn, these people are now prisoners of the fleet.  Lock them up
until I decide sentencing.”

Dunn smiled and nodded.  “Yes, Captain.”

Frank balked.  Not only had Samuel promoted a wretch like Dunn to
Lieutenant, he had also imprisoned two people seeking mercy.  “Samuel, I would
plead you to think about this.  A show of mercy can be as powerful as a
punishment.  We hit the pier and caused them heavy casualties.  There is
nothing to be gained by further action.”

“Please, sir,” said Rene.  “We are just ordinary people.  We do not wish
to fight you.”

“You’ll have no choice,” said Dunn.  “You’re going to be in a cell.”

“Are you so afraid of rumours and stories that you would punish innocent
people?” Anna, spat.

Samuel glared at her.  “I have no idea what you mean.  You are my enemy.
That is all.”

Anna smirked.  “No, it’s more than that.  You don’t want the men and
women of your precious fleet to find out that you caused the apocalypse.
You’re the devil.”

Samuel growled like a wolf.  He marched around the side of his desk and
backhanded her.  She fell backwards but Dunn caught her in his arms, making to
sure to get a good grope of her breasts as he did so.

Like the jaws of a snapping alligator, Rene grabbed Samuel around the
neck and got behind him.  The chokehold was so tight that Samuel’s pale face
immediately went purple.  He reached out to Frank and pleaded.  Frank took a
step forward to help, but Dunn beat him to it.  The officer leapt forward and
smashed Rene in the back of his skull with the grip of a rigging knife he
pulled from his belt.  Samuel broke free of the chokehold, gasping, and Rene
fell to his knees in a daze.

Samuel caught his breath and pointed to the man who had just tried to
kill him.  “Kill him!”

“No,” screamed Anna.  Suddenly she produced a screwdriver that had been
tucked up her sleeve.  Frank cursed himself for not having patted her down.  He
dove in front of Samuel and managed to get his arm in the way.  The tip of the
screwdriver buried itself in his forearm and made him yell out, but it didn’t
stop him from using his elbow to smash the woman in the eye socket.  She
slumped to the floor, the fight taken completely out of her.  The cripple
raised one of his crutches as if to join the melee, but a stern look from Frank
was enough to put that idea to bed.

Samuel leant back against his desk, panting.  He pointed at Rene again.
“I said kill him.  Kill him now!”

Anna crawled along the floor and let out a scream as Dunn stood over the
man and quickly slit his neck open from ear to ear.

Samuel was grinning.  “Now take the other two away.  I’ll deal with them
later.”

Anna screamed all the way as Dunn dragged her out of the room and towards
the brig.  Frank stood there in shock, wondering how much longer he could
convince himself that Samuel was a good man.  Rene’s blood spread out beneath
him in a bright red puddle.

“Oh, and Frank?” said Samuel.

“Yes, Samuel?”

“If you ever disobey my orders again, it will be you bleeding on the
floors of my chambers.  And I would have you call me ‘captain’ or ‘sir’ from
now on.  Do you understand?”

Frank nodded.  “Yes…sir.”

“I didn’t come this far just to be undermined by the man who raised me.
Years of planning have gone into this and I cannot afford to let anything in my
way.”

Frank cleared his throat, but found a lump stuck there.  “Years of
planning?  What do you mean?”

Samuel smirked and shook his head.  “I think you know what I mean,
Frank.  Now, leave my sight.”

Frank slunk away with tears in his eyes, trying to process what he had
just heard.  Years of planning…

My son is a monster.

But he is still my son.  Although now I must call him ‘sir’.

HUGO

Letting the strangers take
his boat had been a grave mistake.  At first, being at the pier was a wonderful
experience.  Hugo had leant besides the railing and watched as his daughters
played chase with an excitable Houdini.  It was just the way things were meant
to be, and for a while it felt like the right decision, but during that time
the dead had continued lining up at the gate.  Now there were dozens and dozens
of them, moaning and rattling at the bars. I can already see the gate
weakening.  Every hour its hinges loosen more.

The people still at the pier – Bob, Samantha, and Jim – were worried
also; he could see it in their faces.  When night had arrived, the dead seemed
to become even more menacing.  They became a shifting, moaning shadow – a
single entity rather than a collection of individual bodies.

“We can’t wait for the others,” said Samantha.  “We’re going to have to
gather whatever supplies we can and climb down the side of the pier to the
beach.”

“The dead are on the beach, too,” said old man Bob.  “A dozen of them
appeared a couple hours ago.”

“We can deal with them,” Samantha said.  “But we have no hope against the
hundreds in the village.  We have to go soon.”

Hugo glanced at his daughters, playing at the side of the pier.  Both of
them fussed at Houdini and acted as though all was fine, but he knew better –
he was their father.  The girls were frightened, but it was they who insisted
coming aboard the pier.  They would not voice their discontent now.  My
girls are proud and brave.

“We’re screwed,” Jimmy fretted.  “We’re like hamsters up a butthole.”

“We’ll be fine,” said Samantha.  “We just have to be careful.”

“We go down to the beach in pitch blackness, the dead will be on us
before we take two steps,” moaned Bob.

“The moon is full.  We have enough light to see by.”

Hugo looked down at the beach and saw the shadows moving beneath him.
Just ten feet below his feet was a death pit, full of clawing hands and biting
teeth.  The only thing protecting them all from death was a single iron gate.  They
were mice trapped in a maze, with hungry predators at every exit.

“The tide is in, the beach is too narrow to make it through the dead,”
Jimmy complained.  “We’ll be like a turd in a u-bend.”

Samantha groaned.  She was becoming frustrated.  “Another couple hours
and the tide will go out again.  We need to gather our things and be ready to
go then.  We can’t stay here.  You can all see that.”

The gate seemed to creak then as a reminder.  The dead weighed down on it
like a tide of sand.  Hugo listened to their moans and screeches and wondered
how much longer until the gate toppled completely.

“Wait!” Jimmy said.  He tilted his head.  “What’s that noise?”

Everyone was quiet.

The moaning and screeching continued.

Hugo frowned.  Do the dead make screeching sounds?  I thought they
just moaned.

Samantha’s hand went to her mouth.  “Oh God!  I hear screeching.  There’s
an infected person in the village.”

The screeching got louder.  It was coming in their direction.  Hugo had
heard tales of the infected, had even seen a few on his panicked retreat out of
France, but he’d been at sea so long that they’d faded into imaginary
monsters.  “What are the infected?” he asked, almost not wanting to know.

Old man Bob looked positively sick.  He shook his head as he spoke and
didn’t blink at all.  “A person gets infected when they get bitten by a dead
man or another infected.  They get sick – real sick – before slipping into a
sort of coma.  Once they get back up, though, they’re like wild animals –
unstoppable killing machines.  We call them sprinters.  They come at you
like something straight out of Hell.  We haven’t seen any for almost a year
now.  They all died off and turned into zombies – the infection kills them
after a while, you see.  We can handle the dead, Hugo, but the sprinters are a
whole different type of badger.”

Hugo looked at his daughters.  He hoped they were not listening.  “What
do we do now?  About the…badger?”

“We arm up,” said Samantha, already marching away.  “And we pray.”

Hugo huffed.  The last thing he would do was pray, but arming up he could
do.  Too long had he floated around in the sea, relying on the protection of
others to keep his daughters safe.  Now it was time to prove he could look
after them on his own.  If something bad was coming, then it was going to have
to get though him.  And over my dead body.

The screeching continued endlessly, getting closer and closer.  Hugo
thanked Samantha for a carbon steel shovel and gave it a few practise swings.
It cut through the air nicely.  The garden tool was light but strong,
sufficient to smash in a skull or two.

“What is going on, papa?” Sophie asked.  “I hear someone out there
screaming.”

Hugo gave her a quick hug.  Daphne came over and got one too.  “It is not
a person,” he told them.  “It is a monster and your papa is going to
take care of it.  The world that has been left to you is a dangerous place, my
darlings, but if I have any hope of seeing you grow up I must stop hiding it
from you.  We must fight and protect one another.  The times ahead will be hard
and sometimes you will want to cry, but we will face it together and we will be
okay.”

“I’m afraid,” said Daphne, hugging her older sister.  “But I will be
brave.  I won’t let you down, dad.”

Hugo smiled at the English word.  Letting go of papa was a
sign that his daughter was finally leaving her old life behind.

“I won’t let you down either,” said Sophie.  “I will do whatever I have
to do to look after you and Daphne.”

Hugo patted her on the head.  “We are glad to have you watching over us,
Sophie.  Now, both of you go get something to protect yourselves with and find
someplace to hide.”

His two girls did as they were told, obedient, as he’d raised them to
be.  A twinge of pride took a hold of Hugo and for a moment the anxious
butterflies in his belly flapped away.  They soon flew back, though, because
the screeching was coming from right up at the gate.

Hugo hurried after the others to the front of the pier.  The twisted gate
that met him there was almost enough to make him turn the other way.  Hundreds
of dead men and women filled the village and all of them were trying to get
inside the pier.  At the front of the mob, ramming his entire body against the
metal bars was an infected person – a sprinter.

The young man had a thick black beard and shaggy hair – the look of a
long-term survivor.  Under the moonlight, his bulging eyes seemed to glow red
and his gnashing teeth gleaned silver.  The bulbous winter jacket he wore made
him look twice as big as his skinny body likely was underneath.  For some
reason he smelt of rotten fish.  It was so overpowering that even the stench of
death could not overcome it.

Samantha charged forward and jabbed through the railings of the gate with
what looked like a steel litter spike.  She missed the infected man’s head but
ended up burying the tip in his shoulder.  She yanked it back and stabbed
again.  This time, the infected man seized the litter spike and tore it out of
her hands.  The sudden yank made Samantha stumbled forward against the gate.
Immediately the dead men and women set upon her, clawing at her through the
bars.  She fought hard and desperately, trying to drag herself away from the
gate, but a dead postman had a hold of her bracelets.  She was hooked like a
duck at the fair.  An old lady took a big hungry bite out of her wrist.

Samantha screamed and managed to yank her arm back through the bars, but
it was too late.  She fell to deck, clutching her wrist and sobbing.  Blood
poured down her arm and glistened.

The sprinter threw himself against the gate harder, impassioned by the
blood.

Bob and Jimmy went and dragged Samantha to her feet.  They shook her by
her shoulders and tried to get her to focus, but she would not.  Great,
wracking sobs seized her and would not let go.  Eventually, between breaths she
managed to say, “I’m screwed.  I’m…I’m fucking screwed.”

“You can die like a sobbing wench,” said old man Bob.  “Or you can snap
out of it, duc, and help those of us who still have a chance.”

Samantha fought to control herself, but eventually nodded.  Her sobbing
petered out and stopped.  “Okay…I…I’m okay.  I’m okay.”

The hinges of the gate whined and creaked.  Then the entire thing moved
by almost a metre.  The bars slanted towards them.

“The gate is falling,” said Jimmy.  “We have to get out of here right
now.  Hugo, get your girls.  We’re heading for the beach.”

Hugo got going immediately, but before he even made it halfway down the
deck, Samantha yelled out a warning.  He span around.  The infected man had
leapt the slanting gate and made it over onto the deck.  The animal was inside
the cage and sprinting toward Hugo.  Merde!

Hugo raised his shovel and prepared to meet his attacker, but was horrified
when the sprinter stopped halfway and turned sideways.  Sophie and Daphne
huddled in the nearby doorway of an ice cream shop.  The infected man had seen
them.

“Hey, Mr Beard, over here.”  Hugo waved his arms and rushed towards the
infected man, shouting and whistling, trying to draw attention away from his
daughters.  But it was no good.  His daughters cowered and cried in the doorway
and the infected man was transfixed on them.  Please God, no.  Do not let
him eat my daughters.

Houdini appeared out of nowhere.  The little dog puffed up in front of
the infected man and started barking in a tone Hugo had not heard before.  The
infected man looked down at Houdini with interest.  Hugo’s heart skipped a
beat.  Good job, Houdini.  You are protecting your girls, just like we used
to talk about.

But the sprinter was quickly losing interest in the dog.  It was Sophie
and Daphne he was interested in.  As he turned his attention back towards
Hugo’s daughters, Houdini took it to the next level.  The tiny papillon clamped
his jaws down on the sprinter’s ankle and began tugging on it like a rawhide
bone.  It was enough of a distraction to keep Daphne and Sophie safe for
another ten seconds.

Hugo charged at the sprinter and swung for the cheap seats.  The sharp edge
of his shovel connected with the infected man’s temple and sent him tumbling
sideways, but, somehow, the blow did not fell the man.  He snarled and spat,
then lunged through the air at Hugo like a hissing adder.

There was no time for Hugo to bring the spade around again, so the
sprinter barrelled into him and sent him sprawling onto his back.  Hugo
spluttered as the wind escaped him.  The spade went rolling across the deck.  I
am done for.  He grabbed at the infected man’s chin, yanking his bushy
black beard and trying to keep the snapping jaws away, but it was like
wrestling an alligator.  Houdini snapped and barked, but was no longer able to
cause a distraction.  The dead man was unwaveringly focused on ripping Hugo
apart.  I can’t fight him much longer.  He is too strong…too wild.

But then the sprinter tumbled away from Hugo.

Hugo rolled onto his chest and thrust himself back up onto his feet as
quickly as his weary bones would let him.  Samantha had grabbed the infected
man from behind and was wrestling him to the ground.  He bit and tore at her
arms and wrists as she fought to keep him restrained.  “Get the spade,” she
screamed.  The pain was obvious in her voice.  “Get the spade and end this.”

Hugo scurried over to where the spade had fallen and snatched it up.  He
took a run-up and swung the tool like a golf club.  The blade struck the
infected man in the centre of the face.  Fresh blood – infected blood –
exploded onto the deck and made Hugo shy away.  The infected man continued to
thrash and writhe in Samantha’s arms, not yet beaten.  Hugo lifted the shovel
again and let out the scream of a caveman.  He thrust the blade down at the
sick man’s neck, opening up his throat and lifting his chin.  Blood gargled from
the ragged gash.  Hugo placed his foot on the back of the shovel and pushed
with all his might.

The sprinter’s head sprang from his shoulders and rolled across the
decking.  Hugo threw the shovel down onto the deck and tried not to vomit.

Samantha collapsed onto her back, panting.  She stared up at the stars
and blinked.  “Now me,” she said calmly.

Hugo frowned.  “What?”

Samantha kept her head flat against the deck, exposing the pale flesh of
her neck.  “I’m infected,” she said, “and I don’t have long left.   You need to
make sure I don’t get back up.”

Hugo shook his head.  “No.  I cannot.”

“Do it.  If you have any hope of keeping those daughters of yours safe
you will do what needs to be done.  Put the shovel against my throat and take
my fucking head off.  I’m going to be just like that guy in a few minutes.  You
need to deal with me now.”

“I’ll do it,” said old man Bob, marching up beside Hugo and reaching down
to pick up the shovel.

Hugo reached down and grabbed the shovel first.  “No.  I’ll do it.”   Time
to start doing what needs to be done.  The days of floating around aimlessly
are behind me.  He strolled up to Samantha and carefully placed the
shovel’s blade against her throat.  Then he leapt up with both feet and brought
his full weight down on her neck.  It still wasn’t enough.

Samantha’s neck split open and her head lolled sideways, but she still
lived.  She gargled and coughed as blood filled her airways.

“Shit,” said Jimmy.  “Do it again.”

Hugo jumped back up onto the spade and completed the job.  Samantha’s
spinal cord snapped and her head came away from her body.  Hugo strangely felt
nothing.  The woman had been dead when she was bitten, not when he removed her
head.  It would have been nice to know her better, but the world held little regard
for friendships anymore.

Before anyone had time to mourn Samantha, the gate fell inwards with a
resounding crash!  Immediately the dead fell forward in a clumsy heap of
bodies, falling to the deck and rolling around, but slowly they clambered back
to their feet, one by one.  Before long there were dozens of them making their
way down the deck.

Hugo went and grabbed his daughters and held them close.  Houdini yipped
by their feet.  There was no time to make it down to the beach now, and even if
there was, the dead waited down there too.  They were done for. En toute chose il faut considérer la fin.

Old man Bob and Jim closed-in beside Hugo with their weapons held high.
“Looks like the end of the road, me ducks,” said Bob.  “I’m sorry you
didn’t all get to live as long as me.”

“That’s a blessing,” said Jimmy.  “Your nutsack is like a dried-out
teabag.”

Both men laughed, but Hugo did not join them.  He kissed the top of his
daughter’s heads and held them close.  “I am sorry, my darlings.   Je vous
aime tous les deux.”

“We love you too, daddy.”

The dead got closer and Hugo fought not to close his eyes.  He needed to
be strong for his daughters.  “Don’t be afraid, girls.  It will be over soon.
I am with you.”

Yip!

“Houdini too.”

The rotten, pus-filled faces bore down on them, broken ankles and twisted
knees carrying them forward.  Rotten teeth chomped the air, seeking living
flesh.  Soon they would have it.

When the dead were only a dozen feet away, the entire pier rumbled and
shook.  A monstrous sound filled the air and suddenly the dead began to part
and fall beneath a wondrous beast.  When the sound of gunfire began, Hugo could
barely trust his eyes.   “I don’t believe it,” he said to his girls with
disbelief and excitement in his voice.  “We are saved.”

GARFIELD

The Challenger 2 Battle
Tank had made short work of the motorway, clearing a steady path for the
pursuing 4-tonne trucks.  Lemon drove one while Cat and David commanded the
other.  The two paratroopers, Price and Barker, piloted the tank, while
Garfield sat in the open hatch ring, manning a heavy machine gun on top of the
turret.  It was fixed in place and hopefully wouldn’t tear his shoulder to
pieces like the SA80 assault rifle had.  His deltoid muscle still cried out
every time he moved.

The motorway was littered with wrecks and dead men, just as Garfield had
expected, but the heavy tank shunted the puny vehicles aside as if the road was
a bowling alley and the Challenger was a 14lb ball.  Garfield made light work of
any dead standing in the way, ripping them apart with the GMPG he manned on the
turret.  Any that came too close fell under the front of the tank and came out
the back as bloody paste.

Their small convoy arrived at the pier a few hours before dawn.  What
Garfield found there made him cry out.

The first thing he saw was smouldering flame, lighting up the dark like a
litter of bonfires.  The first thing he heard was the moaning of the
dead everywhere.  Oh God, he had thought.  The pier is gone.

But it had not been gone, not completely.  Half the pier was missing,
while the other half smouldered from dying fires.  The dead swarmed everywhere
like ants over an ice cream cone.  Their collective moaning was so loud that it
almost drowned out the roar of the Challenger’s monstrous engine.  Something
had happened while they were gone.  The pier was gone.  Where are they all?
Where’s Poppy?

The tank flew forward up the deck, flattening hordes of the dead and
leaping up over the fallen gate.  Garfield fired the machine gun madly,
shearing off heads and arms by the dozen.  He didn’t realise it at first,
because of the racket, but he was screaming at the top of his lungs.  Empty
bullet casings filled the air like angry wasps.  His finger ached on the
trigger.

Movement at the end of the broken pier made Garfield swivel the machine
gun around, ready to fire at a new target.  He was just about to pull the
trigger again when he saw old man Bob standing there.  The dead were closing in
on him.  Garfield swivelled left and right, taking down as many dead as he
could find.  When nothing else moved, he climbed out of the turret and leapt
down to the deck.  Barker had given him a 9mm browning and shown him how to use
it, so he pulled it from his waistband and popped a shot off into a dead man’s
skull that had reached for him from the floor.  He glanced around, searching
for any more danger, but Lemon had angled one of the trucks across the gate and
blocked any more of the dead from getting inside.  Can always rely on
Lemon.  Where’s Poppy?

Up ahead, old man Bob was hunched over, grabbing his knees and taking
great big breaths.  There were people beside him who were all sobbing.  It was
clear the cavalry had arrived just in time.  “What happened?” he yelled.
“Where’s Poppy?”

Old man Bob remained crouched over.  Standing with him was Jimmy, and a
middle-aged man he didn’t recognise.  There were also two young girls and a
dog.  Who the hell are they?

Jimmy couldn’t look at Garfield as he spoke.  Instead he turned away and
pointed at the gaping hole where the other end of the pier used to be.  “Things
are bad, man.  You got here just in time.  Everyone’s gone.”

Garfield hurried across the deck towards him.  Bodies lay everywhere and
he had to hop over them with each step.  “What do you mean, gone?  What
happened, Jimmy?  Tell me!”

Jimmy pointed out at the sea.  In the darkness, Garfield could see
several ships lit up and two dozen more lurking in shadow.  A huge Navy frigate
floated amongst them, lit like a beacon.  “Some boats came.  A shit-tonne of
‘em.  They were looking for that guy you found in that lorry container.  Tim,
his name was.  Some douchebag with a spear for a hand came aboard and started
throwing his weight around, but Alistair and Anna were having none of it.  One
of the men who came aboard tried to…” Jimmy cleared his throat.  “Tried to hurt
Poppy.  Things got screwed up and that battleship out there fired at us.”

Garfield felt like he was going to throw up.  He had to take three deep
breaths just to stay standing.  “Okay…let’s take this slowly.  You’re telling
me that someone came and did this?  Because of the man I found?”

Jimmy nodded.  “His name is Tim.”

Garfield didn’t care what the man’s name was.  “Where’s Poppy?”

Jimmy looked away.

“Where is she?” Garfield yelled.

A man he did not recognise came forward to answer his question.  The way
the two young girls were clinging to him, they must have been his daughters.
He had a French accent.  “I am sorry for what has happened, my friend.
I think the little girl you are talking about is the one just behind you.”

Garfield turned around slowly.  There was no one behind him other than
Lemon, Chris, Cat, and the two soldiers – certainly no Poppy.  Barker and Price
were doing clean up, taking out any dead that still wriggled and crawled along
the deck.  “What are you talking about?” asked Garfield.  “Where is she?”

“The little girl, Poppy.  She is lying just there behind you.”  The
Frenchman pointed.  “I am sorry.”

Garfield looked where the man was pointing and felt as if his stomach was
about to explode.  Acid rose up his gullet and burned his throat.  His breath
came out in wounded gasps.  There were bodies all around, which was why he’d
missed her the first time.

Poppy was laying in a row of bodies, with Alistair and Chris either side
of her.  Her face was ruined, blackened and torn, but she was still his
beautiful little girl.  One of her plaits had come unravelled but the other lay
over her shoulder.  She looked peaceful.  Garfield fell to his knees beside her
and cradled her in his arms.  She felt so light that he wondered how she didn’t
just float away.  It was a child’s body in his arms.

I was so scared of her becoming a woman.  Now she’ll never be one.
Garfield knew it was his fault.  He brought the injured man to camp, then set
off and abandoned everyone.  He was so fixated on getting guns to protect the
pier that he ended up leaving it defenceless.  The irony disgusted him.

He leapt back to his feet.  “Who did this?  WHO FUCKING DID THIS?”

The Frenchman staggered backwards and clutched his daughters.  The little
dog at his feet barked at Garfield, but he didn’t care.  He would happily beat
them all bloody if they didn’t tell him, right now, who was responsible for
everything that had happened.

Old man Bob had managed to catch his breath and straightened up.  Tears
streaked his face.  They glistened like silver slug trails in the moonlight.
“The captain of that fleet is Samuel Raymeady.  He is responsible.”

Garfield showed no reaction.  He just wanted the facts.  “The richest man
in the world?”

Old man Bob nodded.  “Yeah, he was the head honcho of Black Remedy, that
company which seemed to own just about everything back before the infection
hit.  The man you found, Tim, tried to blow Samuel up by planting a bomb on the
ship.”

“Why?”

“Because he knew Samuel was responsible for everything that happened one
year ago.  Black Remedy engineered the virus that killed everybody.  Samuel
planned to start a new kingdom or something, I dunno.  It’s all a bunch of
bloody drama and fairy tales, but one thing is true: that son-of-a-bitch fired
his cannon at the pier and now Poppy, Alistair, Samantha, and Chris are all
dead.  That ain’t no fairy tale.”

Garfield clenched his fists, but needed to hear more before he acted.
There were names missing from old man Bob’s story.  “Where are Anna and Rene?”

“With Tim,” said Jimmy.  “The three of them took Hugo’s boat and headed
for the frigate.  Anna’s plan is to surrender and then try to take Samuel
Raymeady down.  They won’t be coming back.  It was a suicide mission.”

Garfield stood stiff and swallowed the lump in his throat.  Every fibre
of his body wanted to turn around, pick Poppy up and take her away from all
this, but he was sure that if he did he would shatter completely and never recover.
For now, he had to put Poppy out of his mind.  There was a situation that
needed to be dealt with.  Without word, he left the others and walked down the
pier.

He found sergeant Price standing next to the Challenger.  He was stamping
his thick army boot onto the heads of any dead men still moving.  The deck had
become thick with bloody slurry.

“This the camp you were telling me about?” Price asked.

Garfield nodded.

“Shit luck.  You know what happened?”

“Yes, and I know who is responsible.  Will you help me?”

Price narrowed his eyes.  “You wreck my home, kill my commanding officer,
and then drag me along to a burning ruin.”  He laughed.  “Yeah, I’ll help you.”

The man had a point.  Garfield had brought him nothing but disaster.
“Why will you help me, after everything that’s happened?”

“Because when that bloody dingo was trying to take my head off with a
shotgun, you intervened.  You even got shot for it – good thinking with the
magazines by the way.  You’re one of the good guys – or at least whatever counts
for one these days – and whoever caused all this is definitely not.  The
world is on a knife-edge.  It could go either way.  Personally, I want to see
the good guys win and the bad guys get their arses kicked.  You want my help,
you got it.”

Garfield nodded.  He wanted to hug the man, but he doubted it would be
appreciated.  Instead he turned to the Challenger tank.  “Will this thing still
fire?”

Price smirked.  “Old Betsy?  Oh, she’ll do more than just fire. She will
rain the wrath of the God’s down upon her enemies.  She will shock and she will
awe, scorch the earth dry until nothing remains but crust and sand.  She can
kick some bloody arse, is what I’m telling you.”

“Good,” said Garfield.  “I want you to fire on that Navy frigate out
there, the one all lit up like a floating village.  The man who did this to the
pier is the captain of that boat.”

Price smiled wider.  “You mean I get to shove it to a bunch of Marines?
Bleedin’ marvellous.  Barker!  Load up Betsy.”

Corporal Barker nodded and got to work.

DAMIEN

When Damien awoke, he was
surprised to find that the adjacent cell had been filled.  He was even further
surprised when he saw that it was the woman from the pier and the cripple.  Should
stop calling him that.  I think he had the right idea trying to blow up the
Kirkland.  Jesus, what am I saying?

Anna looked broken.  The bags under her eyes could have carried bricks
and the determined glint in her eye had faded away to a weary sullenness.
Despite that, she still managed to make a joke when she saw he was awake.  “I
hear the room service makes up for the beds.”

Damien sat up and stared at her through the gloom between the cells.
“How the hell did you two get here?”

“I changed my mind,” said Tim.  “I gave myself up, hoping Samuel would
show mercy to those who survived at the pier.  I feel quite naive now.”

Damien glanced down at his stump, where the broken shard of his spear lay
and felt much the same.  He had tried to eliminate Samuel but been found
wanting.  The captain was far stronger than he looked.  “Samuel doesn’t have
mercy,” said Damien.  “I learned that lesson the hard way, too, so I guess
we’re all fools.”

“I thought you were one of Samuel’s men,” said Anna.

“I was my own man.  Only reason I stayed on this goddamn ship was to keep
my friend, Harry, safe.  When the infection first hit, Harry and me were close
to death.  We were floating out I the middle of the sea on a cramped dinghy.
Samuel rescued us, so I guess I felt like I owed him.  Loyalty only goes so
far, though.”

“You saw what he did to the pier?”

Damien nodded.  “I’m sorry.  I…huh, it doesn’t matter.”

Anna looked at him.  There was no defiance in her anymore, not like there
had been back at the pier.  “Tell me,” she said.

Damien sighed.  “I tried to defend you people when Samuel said he was
going to fire at you.  I told him you were all innocent, but he gave the order
anyway.  I didn’t do a thing to stop it.”

“Thank you,” said Anna.  “I don’t think there’s anything you could have
done.  I should have handed Tim over at the beginning when you came to the
pier.”

“No,” said Damien.  “There’s never a good reason to give into bullies.
You were right to keep Tim from me.  Samuel is the bad guy here.  Looks like
the bad guy’s going to win, though.  We’ll all be dead by the afternoon.
Samuel will want to make our deaths part of the morning festivities.”

“Oh, don’t be so sure,” said Dunn, suddenly appearing.  He was swaggering
through the brig towards their cells.  “I think Samuel may just string your
deaths out for a few days, perhaps even a week.  The people want blood.”

Damien stood up and went over to the bars of his cell.  “Petty officer
Dunn.  How’s the nose?”

Dunn’s nose was purple and bent to one side, both his eyes were
blackened, but he managed a great beaming smile anyway.  “Nothing that won’t
heal, Roman, and it’s ‘Lieutenant’ Dunn now.  Samuel rewards those who are of
use to him.  Those who are not end up like you - expired.”

Damien smirked.  “It’s a wonder you can get your nose so far up Samuel’s
arsehole after I broke it so many times.”  Dunn smashed at the bars with the
blade of a bloodstained knife.  Damien hopped back from the bars and noticed
that Anna was crying.  “You okay?” he asked her.

“That’s the knife he killed Rene with.  He doesn’t even have the decency
to clean the blood off it.”

Dunn laughed and held the knife up in front of her like a prize.

Damien kicked at his bars.  “Hey, show some goddamn respect and put that
away.  You think killing people is a joke?  You’re a moron.”

“And you’re a dead man, so I would spend your last words more wisely.”

“Go fuck a goat.”

Dunn hissed and grabbed for the keys on his belt.  He pulled the bundle
loose and levelled one of the keys towards the lock on Damien’s cell.  That’s
it.  Come inside and I’ll break your nose a fourth time.  I just wish I had my
sword to chop your goddamn dick off.

Suddenly Dunn stopped.  He started laughing.  “You think I’m an idiot?
You won’t fool me into opening your cell, so just be quiet.”

Damien snarled.  I’ll get you before I’m through.  I promise you.

Dunn called for two crewmen to appear.  Both men were big and burly.

“Evening up the odds, are you?” said Damien.  “You’re gunna need more.”

Dunn shook his head and sighed.  “Roman, you do amuse me.  I’m here for
the cripple, not you.  He’ll be put to death soon, although it may take several
hours – maybe even a week.  I’m sure you’ll get your turn as well before long.
Samuel really does hate a traitor.”

Anna did nothing while the two crewmen took Tim away.  She was a pale
shadow of the woman he’d met at the pier.  That women would have bitten and clawed
until someone knocked her unconscious.  She’d put Birch’s lights out without a
twinge of doubt.

Once Dunn and the crewman departed with Tim, Damien turned to Anna and
reached through the bars with his one hand.  “Hey, you okay?  Snap out of it.”

“Just waiting to die,” she said.  “Kind of looking forward to it
actually.”

“Hey, stop thinking like that.  You were a proper little badass at the
pier.  You even made me think twice, so why are you letting a slug like Dunn
bother you.  They may kill us, but do you want to make it easy for them?”

Anna huffed and shook her head.  She stared down at her shoes.  “Samuel
Raymeady killed billions of people and got away with it.  He’s still killing
people now, so what’s the point in fighting?  I know you don’t believe me,
Roman, but Samuel is evil.  He released the virus that destroyed the world.  He
can’t be stopped.  Rene and I tried…”

“My name isn’t Roman, it’s Damien, and, yes, I do believe you.  I’ve seen
Samuel taking control for almost the last year.  I’ve seen him do terrible
things a hundred times over, but I didn’t do anything.  I was the same as you:
I thought, ‘what’s the point?’  But when he bombed the pier he went too far.  A
man evil enough to do something like that is evil enough to do anything.  I believe
he could easily have been the one who released a plague upon the earth.  Samuel
Raymeady had more money than some countries.  If any man could have been behind
the virus, it’s him.  In fact, I believe that now with my whole heart.”

“Finally,” came another voice.  “You listened to me.”

Damien span around.  “Harry?  What are you doing here?”

“I’ve come to rescue you?  Still against staging a coup?”

Damien leant against the bars and smiled at his friend.  “I’m still not
interested in becoming the new Grand Supreme Leader, but I’m more than happy to
kill the current one.”

Harry grinned.  “Then let’s get you out of that cell.”  He produced a set
of keys from his jeans and jangled them in front of Damien’s face.

“How did you get those?”

Harry lifted up a heavy wrench with his other hand.  “Took it off the
guard in the corridor.  I’m pretty handy with tools, remember?”

Damien stepped back from the bars and waited while Harry fiddled with the
ring of keys.  “Hurry up, man.  I’ve got a lunch appointment.”

“I’m trying, I’m trying.  There’s like a hundred bloody keys here.”

Damien turned to Anna.  He reached through the bars to her but she was
still staring at the floor.  “We’re getting out of here, okay?”

“And go where?  We can’t exactly sneak off the ship.  Even if we could,
the pier is gone.  There’s no point.  You’re just making it harder on
yourself.”

“Yikes,” said Harry.  “Where did you pick up Miss Sunshine?”

“Leave her alone,” said Damien.  “Samuel murdered half her family.  We’re
taking her with us and she’s going to snap out of it.”

Anna huffed.  “Whatever.”

Harry was still fiddling with the keys when the two guards who had left
with Dunn returned.  They saw Harry and immediately started running.

“Shit!” said Damien.  “Get this pissing thing open?”

“Okay, okay.”  Harry fiddled with another key…and then another….

Clink!

Damien burst out of his cell and tackled the first guard around the
thighs, taking him to the ground and mounting him.  He let fly with rights
followed by rights followed by rights.  His left stump hung uselessly in the
air, missing its spear.  Eventually the stunned guard managed to fight back.
He punched Damien in the windpipe, sending him backwards, spluttering.

Harry swung his wrench at the other guard’s head but missed and was
quickly taken down with a headlock.

Damien lay on his back, gasping.  His throat seized and his breath would
not come to him.  The guard he’d been battling rose up and stood over him.
“I’m gunna mess you up,” he said, spitting out a mouthful of blood.  Then he booted
Damien in the ribs and knocked out what little air he had left in his lungs.
The guard reared back to aim another kick at Damien’s head, but was knocked to
the ground when something hard struck his skull.

Harry dropped his wrench on the floor when the other guard had taken him
down.  He’d also dropped the keys.  Anna picked them up and let herself out of
her cell.  She grabbed the fallen wrench and flung it at the standing guard’s
temple so hard that it had killed him instantly.  Now the remaining guard was
outnumbered.  He let go of Harry’s throat and stood up.  He was worried, but
still willing to fight.  Harry lay unconscious, but Anna joined Damien and put
her fists up.

Damien was just about to lunge at the remaining guard, when he heard
shouting.

Three more guards entered the brig.

Bollocks.

“Time to go,” shouted Anna.  She threw a haymaker and caught the
distracted guard in the chin.  His lights went out and he fell to the ground.

Damien stared at her in awe.  “Damn!”

Anna grabbed him.  “Come on!”

Damien allowed himself to be dragged and the two of them started
running.  “We need to get Harry,” he said.

“There’s no time.  He’s out.  We have to go.”

Damien glanced back at Harry.  The three guards were coming in fast.
There was no way to get Harry and carry him out of there.  I can’t just
leave him.  But there was no choice.  The three guards gave chase.  Damien
cursed and sprinted forward, catching up with Anna as she made her way into the
next passageway.  They ran as fast as they could.  Damien knew the ship, so he
took the lead, heading for the surface.  Several crewmen got in their way en
route, but the men were confused and did not try to stop them.  Eventually,
Damien made it onto the promenade deck at the portside of the ship.  “This
way,” he shouted at Anna.  “If we can get to the aft deck we might be able to
steal a lifeboat.”

Anna nodded.  Her steely determination had returned to her and she was
once again ready to kick ass.  All it’d taken was seeing an ally in danger.
The woman could not stand by while the guards kicked the shit out of Damien and
Harry.  If we don’t die, I should take her out to dinner someplace.  A nice,
run-down restaurant in the wasteland.  It’ll be nice.

Damien and Anna took off down the promenade deck and made it out onto the
wide-open space of the aft deck.  Lieutenant Dunn and a dozen guards were
standing there, waiting to receive them.  Dunn still clutched the bloodstained
rigging knife, but two of his men clutched iron bars as thick as Damien’s arm.

Anna skidded on her heels and stumbled into Damien’s back.  “What is it?”
she asked, but then saw the group of men coming towards them.  “Oh, shit.”

Damien smiled at her.  “My advice, go for the balls!”

“Please!  I’ve been kicking men in the balls for as long as I can
remember.  My advice to you is not to get in my way.”

Damien sniggered.  “Nice meeting you, Anna.”

“You too, Damien.”

They turned to face the approaching mob, unarmed yet ready – ready to die
fighting.

Then something struck the ship and all hell broke loose.

ANNA

Anna woke up on her back,
surrounded by fire and debris.  For a moment she thought she was lying on the
beach again beneath the burning pier, but then she blinked the dust from her
eyes and saw that she was still on the Kirkland.  The vast grey ship was
listing to one side and as Anna lay on her back she saw the sun rising on the
horizon.  Dawn had arrived and brought yet more chaos.

Anna sat up and looked around.  Many men were bleeding, some were burned,
and lots were dead.  Anguished screams filled the air, joined by the wrenching
and shifting groans of folding steel.  The large open area at the back of the
ship was blackened and scorched as if some great meteorite had stuck it.  Part
of the gunwale was missing and a gaping hole had opened up on one side of the
ship.  Why do people keep blowing me up?

Hands grabbed Anna beneath her arms and yanked her to her feet.  Her legs
were weak and she nearly fell right back down again, but the man kept a tight
hold of her.  It was the man with the broken nose.  Damien had called him Dunn.

“Are you responsible for this, bitch?” he demanded of her.

Anna shook her head.  Nothing made any sense to her right then.
“Responsible for what?”

“One of your people just fired on us with a goddamn tank.”

“T-tank?  What are you talking about?”

Dunn slapped her to the ground.  “Fine, have it your way.  You and your
people are finished.”

Up ahead, members of the Kirkland’s crew were starting to get a
hold of themselves.  Those uninjured, or at least able-bodied enough to stand,
were regrouping at the centre of the aft deck.  Anna watched glumly as two
guards wrestled Damien to his knees.  Tim had been shoved down beside him.

Lieutenant Dunn dragged her across the deck by her hair and left her to
fall face-first next to Damien.  Damien reached out his arm and helped her up
onto her knees.  He was all bloodied and she saw a tooth missing when he spoke.
“I think your friends at the pier fought back,” he said.  “Did you know about
this?”

Anna shook her head in confusion.  “I have no idea what’s going on.  They
said it was a tank.  The pier doesn’t have a tank.”

“Someone out there does,” said Damien.  “Something hit the ship hard.”

“How long have I been out?”

“Half-hour.  I tried to put up a fight when the ship first got hit, but
there was a dozen on me before I could blink.  You were out the whole time.”

“Sorry I wasn’t there to back you up.  I-” A sudden prod in the small of
Anna’s back sent her sprawling forward onto her front.  Tim and Damien fell
facedown either side of her, the three of them now on their bellies.  The
guards stood on their backs and pinned them to the deck.  Suddenly the hustle and
bustle on deck stopped and a hush descended.  Footsteps rang out against steel
and got louder.  Anna tried to crane her neck but could not make out whom it
was.

Then Lieutenant Dunn made it easy for her.  “Attention!  Captain on
deck.”

Anna gritted her teeth as a pair of highly polished boots stepped in
front of her.  “Let them up, Lieutenant.”

“Yessir.  Guards, let the prisoners up.”

A guard grabbed Anna’s shirt and yanked her to her knees.  She cursed at
him and lashed out with her elbow, caught him in the shin but probably hurt
herself more.  She was surrounded by sailors and civilians on all sides.  All
of them glared at her and shouted for her blood.

Samuel Raymeady looked down at her.  He was wearing full Navy Officer
whites.  “You’re quite the cockroach, aren’t you?” he said.  “You come aboard
my ship asking for peace, and this is how you expect to find it?”

Anna sniffed.  The smoke in the air was stinging her eyes and clogging
her sinuses.  “I came aboard your ship asking for peace, and you threw me in a
cell.  Do you really expect people to just sit back and fold their arms while
you murder and kill anyone you please?”

Samuel’s eyes were so full of malice when he looked at her, that she was
sure he would strike her.  Instead he just laughed.  “I do what is best for the
fleet.  All I do I do for the good of us all.”

Now it was Anna’s turn to laugh.  “Do you honestly believe that, or is it
just for the benefit of those listening?”

“He likes his speeches,” said Tim.  “I think he’s trying to make up for
other…insecurities.”  He covered his mouth and coughed.  “Small penis!”

Samuel smiled like a cat and turned away.  He raised his hands in the
air, imploring the men and women around him.  “Members of the fleet.  We are of
a lucky few.  We are what’s left of mankind.  We are the hope and the courage
that will see humanity through to a new day, a new dawn.  Together we have
beaten extinction and turned away our deaths.  Each and every man and woman
aboard this ship is a testament to the strength and will of the human spirit.
What is left of the world is ours to rebuild.  We will do so with love and
honour and strength.  The fleet is life itself and we must protect it at all
costs, even if that means taken the roads less savoury.  H. G. Wells once said
‘If we don't end war, war will end us.’  We must extinguish
our enemies now lest we lose our own in battle later.  My recent actions are
not acts of war, they are acts of mercy, to the fleet.  The bridge is already
training our sights on the shore.  We have our attackers in sight and soon we
will unleash hell on them, but first we must deal with the enemy on our decks.”

The men and women of the fleet cheered Samuel’s name, louder and louder.
It made Anna feel sick.  Humanity was backing the wrong horse.  The horse
Samuel rode in on was pestilence and now he’s riding off on the back of war.

“There are those who wish to destroy us,” Samuel continued.  “To take
what we have and reduce it to ashes.  They are our opposites; they are evil and
self-consumed, and if we have any chance of forging ahead and creating a new
world, we must extinguish evil in all its forms.”

Samuel!  Samuel!  Samuel!

“They drank the cool aid,” said Tim.  “Now do you see why I had to blow
the entire ship?  No point taking out the Ringleader if the Circus keeps on
travelling.”

Anna tried to stand up, to scream at the stupid men and women that they
were deluded, but Dunn kicked her in the ribs and sent her back down to her
knees.  She wheezed and spluttered.

“You’re all monsters,” said Damien.  He raised his voice.  “How can you
people follow a man who attacks innocent people?”

“The people at the pier were harbouring a terrorist,” shouted Dunn.
“Terrorists must be dealt with.”

Another cheer from the crowd.

“One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter,” said Tim.

“A terrorist is a terrorist,” Dunn snarled.

Samuel turned around and nodded enthusiastically.  “Exactly.  A terrorist
is an enemy of society and order.  The fleet deals with its enemies with a firm
hand.  Who would like to see the first example?”

The crowd roared, a baying mob.  Anna managed to catch her breath and
glanced around as the crowd parted behind her.  Someone was being dragged,
half-conscious, towards the centre of the deck.  It didn’t take long to realise
that it was the man who had come to rescue Damien from his cell.  Harry.

Harry was bloody and bruised.  His toecaps dragged along the deck as two
crewmen carried him to Samuel.  When Damien saw his friend his eyes went wide
and suddenly he seemed terrified.  “Leave him alone,” he shouted.  “He hasn’t
done anything.”

Samuel laughed.  “He attacked the Kirkland’s jailer and released
the fleet’s prisoners.  This he did as part of an on-going collusion with known
terrorist, Tim Golding – the cripple.  Harry Jobson is an enemy of all of us.”

Kill the traitor!  String him up?  Terrorist!

“They’re a bunch of animals,” Tim muttered under his breath.

Samuel smiled and seemed to breath in the chants and cries for blood like
they were sweet-smelling perfume.  “I think the people have spoken,” he said,
sighing euphorically.  “Guards!  String him up.  Let him dangle above our
broken tail as an example to what happens to our enemies.  Let those onshore
see that our spirit will never be broken.  We will never succumb to evil.”

Damien leapt up.  He swung his arms wildly and struck guards left and
right.  “Harry!” he screamed as he head-butted a crewman standing in his way.
“Harry, fight.  Get out of here.”  Harry hung weakly between his guards and
blinked slowly.  There was a smile on his face that was more sadness than
mirth.  Damien kicked a guard in the knee and threw him aside, cutting himself
a little closer to his friend.  “Harry, I won’t let them kill you.  I won’t.”

A man flew in from the side and pummelled Damien in the stomach with a
baseball bat.  A second man raced up behind him and wrapped his arm around his
neck.  Damien struggled but another blow to his ribs dropped him onto one
knee.  Still he tried to fight, but it was useless.  Harry looked at him and
shook his head sadly.  “It’s over, Damien.  We had a good run while it lasted.
I’ll be glad to finally be free of the headaches.  I’m tired of holding on to
all the things I know.  It’s gotten too hard.”

Damien struggled to try and make it the last three feet to Harry but the two
guards held him back.  Anna considered leaping up and helping him, but there
were men and woman everywhere ready to beat her down at the first sign of
resistance.  She had no choice but to watch Damien and Harry’s final exchange
from her knees.

“I won’t let these fuckers kill you,” Damien said.

Harry laughed.  “They can’t kill me.  I got places to be.  You might
think I’m crazy, with all my talk of Heaven and Hell, but trust me we all get
what we deserve in the end.  Just make sure your final minutes count.
Sometimes our last minute counts more than all the other minutes that came
before combined.  Redemption can take but a single second, Damien.  Remember
that.”

Damien struggled to get closer.  He managed to gain a foot, but couldn’t
get any further.  He reached out, only two-steps away from his friend.  The
anguish on his face was unbridled and clear for all to see; but nobody cared.

Harry took his guards by surprise and lunged forward.  He threw his arms
around Damien and squeezed him tightly.  “I’m glad I took a chance on you,
Damien.  You’re the one thing in my life I did right.”

Anna realised she was crying.  She didn’t know either man well, but she
felt their love for one another, and knew she was going to see them both die.
What was worse was that the men and women in the crowd thought it was justice.

As the guards tried to force the two men apart, Anna noticed Harry’s hand
bury itself into the back of Damien’s jeans.  At first she found it odd, but
then she realised….  He just shoved something under Damien’s waistband.

Harry stood up straight and pushed Damien aside.  He stared right at
Tim.  “It was me that told about your plan, Tim.  I’m sorry.  I thought it was
wrong to destroy the whole ship.  I was worried I wasn’t thinking straight and
I told on you.”

Tim’s eyes went wide.  “You?  I…”

“Don’t worry,” said Harry.  “I’ve made it right.  I fixed it.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” said Tim.

“If you live long enough, you will.”

Damien reached out for Harry, but the guards stepped in and forced the
two men apart, delivering a quick beat down to them both.  Damien fell onto his
back and shuffled away.  Harry tumbled to his knees and was dragged towards the
Kirkland’s stern.

Tears streamed from Damien’s eyes as he lay, incapacitated, on the deck.
He didn’t make a sound, but his eyes never left Harry as he was led through the
crowd at the back of the ship.  He kept his eyes open as they threw a rope over
the side of the rear gunwale, looping it through a rigging hook and folding it
into a knot.  He kept his eyes open as they tied Harry’s hands behind his back
and fastened a noose around his neck.  He was given no chance to look away as
Lieutenant Dunn shoved Harry hard in the back and sent him overboard.

Anna wanted to close her eyes, but couldn’t.  She heard Damien moan
behind her and wished she could spare him from what he was seeing.

Harry’s body disappeared over the gunwale and the rope went taut.  The snapping
sound rang out like a gunshot.  Damien’s moans turned to a growl.  Anna glanced
back to see him and the animalistic look on his face made her flinch.  His
humanity had deserted him with the snap of his friend’s neck.  Anna reached out
her arm to him, but he shrugged it away.  He’s gone to a dark place.

Lieutenant Dunn walked away from the gunwale and back towards the centre
of the deck.  The man was laughing.  “I thought his head was going to come
off.  Did you hear that snap?”  It was obvious the man was trying to get a
reaction out of Damien, but it didn’t work.  Damien just stared into space,
unblinking and faraway.

Samuel was grinning, too.  Once again he raised his arms to implore his
people.  “Who is next?  Who would you see face justice?”

The crowd shouted out riotously, bickering amongst themselves until a
cohesion fell upon them and a single word became a chant.  Cripple!
Cripple!  Cripple!

“Quiet,” said Samuel.  “Quiet.  The people have spoken and I have
listened.”  He turned and pointed at Tim.  “Lieutenant Dunn, take his eyes.”

Dunn swallowed and seemed confused.  The thought of the act obviously
didn’t appeal to him.  While he was all for playing executioner, he didn’t seem
to have the stomach so visceral.  Nonetheless, he got moving gingerly.  Clearly
the thought of disobeying Samuel appealed to him less than taking out a man’s eyes.

Tim went pale when he heard his sentence.  He began to blink rapidly as
he anticipated the horror about to be bestowed upon him.  He pleaded nervously
with Dunn.  “Come one, dude.  I’ll just take the plunge like Harry did.  No
need to go all Red Dragon on me.”

Dunn gritted his teeth and hissed.  “Shut up.”

“You don’t have to do this,” Tim pleaded.  “You never signed your life
away to Samuel, but once you do this you’re nothing but his slave.  Come on,
dude.  Don’t do this.”

Dunn pulled his bloodstained knife from his belt and held it out towards
Tim’s face.  “Hold him,” he snarled at the nearest guard.

Two guards grabbed Tim and held him down by his shoulders.  The man began
to cry out for mercy and screamed at the top of his lungs when Dunn approached
him with the blade.

Samuel grinned the whole time.  The mob hollered excitedly.  Damien
stared into space and gritted his teeth.  Anna felt sick.

Tim struggled to free himself, thrashing left and right against his
guards.  His eyelids fluttered as the blade wiggled in front of his face.
“Come on, man.  Please!  Please, don’t.  Plea- Argh!”

Dunn sank his blade into Tim’s left eye and twisted.  He yanked back and
pulled the popped eyeball from its socket.  Strands of flesh, nerves, and blood
spewed from Tim’s empty orbital bone and his entire body shuddered violently.
When Dunn shanked his other eyeball, he lay on his back gibbering and vomiting
on himself.

“Throw him overboard,” said Samuel dismissively.  “Let him swim around
blindly like the fishes.”

Two guards dragged a gibbering Tim away and discarded him over the
gunwale like a bag of rubbish.  Anna stared down at one of the man’s eyeballs
lying on the deck and almost vomited.  Despite her fear, she was not worried
about her own approaching demise.  After all she’d seen, death no longer held
its ominous veil over the world.  The Reaper’s dignity had been walked over by
seven billion agonising deaths.  She did fear pain, though.  Pain was not
death, it was life.  And life scared her.

Samuel glared at Anna and then at Damien.  “Now, what to do with the two
of you?  I think you see now what happens to those who act against me.  It is
much better to fall in line than to defy me.  Harry and Tim were terrorists.
Do you accept that?”

Damien said nothing.  That steaming animosity was still on his face, but
his mind was far away – he had gone to a place of demons and nightmares.  Anna
wanted to beg, to plead for a quick death, but she would not allow herself to
show weakness in her final minutes.  Her enemies would not be given the
satisfaction of seeing her weep.  Instead of hoping for mercy, her mind instead
turned to who had fired at the Kirkland.  They said it was a tank.  That’s
crazy.  Could it be the foragers?

Garfield had left days ago, seeking an army base.  Had he actually found
one?  Did he discover a tank and bring it home?  The thought gave Anna a
small flicker of warmth in her belly.  Someone ashore was still alive to fight
Samuel.  Someone was still alive to avenge her.  And Poppy.  Anna knew
that if it was Garfield on the shore and that he’d discovered what had become
of Poppy, he wouldn’t rest until Samuel was dead.  Anna just hoped he came up
with a better plan than she had.  I didn’t even get close to taking out
Samuel.  Hopefully Garfield will fire again and take this whole ship down.

“It’s time to make a decision,” said Samuel.  He was looking at Damien.
“You have been confused and conflicted by an old friendship, but I believe
there may still be hope for you, Roman.  You have served me faithfully for many
months and have never acted against me before.  I would see you have one final
opportunity for redemption.  Do you wish to hear my offer?”

Damien said nothing.  He gritted his teeth and breathed in and out
heavily.

Samuel sighed.  “I will take that as a ‘yes’.  Frank, if you would?”
Samuel always called him ‘Frank’ in front of company.

The grey-haired man from Samuel’s office appeared from the crowd and
stood before his captain.  The look on his face was almost a grimace and his
eyes were moist from recent tears.  The man didn’t look like a crier – too
grizzled and stoic – but obviously something had upset him.  Unlike the other
members of the fleet, the grey-haired man did not seem to relish the on-going
spectacle that counted for Samuel’s ‘justice’.

Frank held something in his hands: it was the sword that Damien used to
carry on his belt.

Samuel nodded to the grey-haired man.  “You have been a disappointment to
me as well, father, but I would also see you given opportunity to prove your
loyalty to the fleet.  Hand Roman his sword.  If he tries to use it on me, kill
him.”

Frank offered the sword to Damien, hilt first.  The look on his face was
pained, yet, despite the man’s obvious dislike of what was happening, his hands
were stone stiff as he handed the sword over.

Damien didn’t acknowledge Frank, but his eyes quickly focused on his old
sword.  A rush of emotion seemed to return to him as he eyed up the sharp shaft
of metal.  He reached out his hand and took the blade, flipping it around and
catching it by the hilt in one smooth motion.  He leapt to his feet, but made
no move to strike.  Everyone aboard the Kirkland was silent.  The air
was so tense it was like breathing in oil fumes.

Anna waited on her knees, unsure of what to do.  If Damien tried to
fight, would she fight too?  Of course I will.  Better to die fighting.

Frank yanked a combat knife from his own belt and held it out in front of
him.  His stance made it obvious he knew how to use it.  He and Damien faced
off, grizzled knife-wielder against one-handed swordsman, but neither man made
move to attack.

Samuel raised a hand for calm.  He studied Damien and managed to make eye
contact.  “Roman,” he said calmly.  “Use your sword to take off this woman’s
head and all will be forgiven.  Show me that your heart belongs to the fleet
and you will be welcomed with open arms.”

Damien examined the sword in his hands, eyes moving up and down the sharp
shaft.  He seemed possessed.  The vacant expression had returned to him and he
seemed more animal than human.  He turned to face Anna.

Anna wouldn’t beg like Tim had, she had already decided that.  She was
going to die, one way or another, sooner it just be over with.  One thing she
did do, however, was stare Damien in the eye.  She wanted him to look at him as
he killed her.  I hope my face haunts his dreams.

Damien lifted the sword in the air and let it hover above her neck.
There was utter silence from the crowd.

“Frank, be ready,” said Samuel.  “Cut him down the moment it looks like
he might make a bad decision.  We’ll torture the woman for the next year while
he watches.”

Anna saw a brief flicker in Damien’s eyes and a quivering lump in his
throat.  He still has a conscience, she thought.  This isn’t easy for
him, but he has no choice.  Can I even blame him?  Now that she knew he
felt guilty for what he was about to do, Anna did Damien the kindness of
closing her eyes and looking away.

“That’s it Roman,” said Samuel.  “Do it, and all will be forgiven.”

“My…name…is…Damien.”

Anna opened her eyes and saw Damien spin around and kick Frank in the
guts.  Two crewmen immediately went to accost him, but he sliced both of them
down with a vicious slash from his sword.  Blood splattered his rage-filled
face and made him look like some ancient berserker.  Anna wanted to get up and
flee, but there was nowhere to go.  She was frozen on her knees as the chaos
erupted all around her.  I need to do something.

Samuel pulled a pistol from inside his officer’s coat and pointed it in
Damien’s face, ending his rampage before it even got truly started.  Frank
recovered from being winded and seized Damien by the shoulder.  “Big mistake,”
Samuel said.  “You think I wasn’t ready for that?  You fool.”

Damien smirked, blood covering his face.  He threw his bloody sword down
on the ground at Samuel’s feet.  “No, captain,” he said.  “But were you ready
for this?”  He dove down to the floor and flopped on top of Anna, pancaking her
to the deck.  Anna struggled and squirmed beneath Damien, but was confused as
he yanked something from the back of his jeans.  It’s whatever Harry handed
to him.

Samuel pointed his pistol and hissed in anger.

Damien pressed a button in his hand and all hell broke loose.  Again.

DAMIEN

Damien had known right
away what Harry had slipped into his waistband.  It was a detonator.  Working
in the Kirkland’s workshop meant Harry was no stranger to a bit of
chemistry and he had inferred earlier that he had rigged something up to do
what Tim had failed to.  There were many industrial chemicals in the workshop,
from cleaning fluids for the machinery and tools, to gasoline and fuel for the
welding rigs and acetylene torches.  If anyone could rig a bomb aboard the Kirkland,
it was Harry.  What Damien had not known was where the bomb was or how big it
was.  When he pushed the button he was finding out the answer along with
everybody else.

The answer turned out to be: very big.

The explosion started as a deep rumbling beneath their feet but quickly
travelled throughout the ship until it shook the deck like an earthquake and
bucked the entire frigate forward.  Bodies flew everywhere and water travelled
upwards like rain in reverse, exploding from the sea.  Damien lay on top of
Anna and clung to the deck to keep them from going overboard.  Dozens were less
lucky and plummeted into the sea like flailing ragdolls.  Blood and screams
filled the air like a whirlwind.  Holy shit, Harry.  What the hell did you
put in that bomb?

The Kirkland’s bow raised up at a 45-degree angle as the aft deck
began to sink beneath the water.  The entire rear of the ship sloped towards a
maelstrom of flaming saltwater, which waited to consume the flesh of anyone
unlucky enough to fall into its boiling waters.

Anna moaned beneath Damien.  “Why do people keep blowing me up?  This is
like the third time this week.”

“I don’t know,” said Damien.  “You must be a real arsehole.”

Anna laughed and Damien suddenly felt better.  He was certain he would die
in the next five minutes, but at least his final actions had brought a smile to
a woman’s face.  Harry’s talk of redemption was not lost on Damien; he wanted
to make his final minutes count.

He leapt up and looked around for his sword, but it was gone. No doubt it
had skittered down the sloping deck and into the sea.  He was sorry to see it
gone.  I have a man to kill but no weapon.  Guess my bare hands will
have to do.

Anna got up from the tilting deck and staggered towards him.  He caught
her in his arms and set her right on her feet.  “Thanks,” she said to him.
“What’s the plan, Rambo?”

Damien shrugged.  “We could go to the bow and cuddle.  I could shout ‘I’m
the King of the world’?”

Anna frowned.  “I’m more of a Terminator 2 kind of gal.”

Damien held his hand out to her.  “Then come with me if you want to
live.”

Anna took Damien’s hand and they raced through the chaos on deck.  People
wept and bled everywhere, but Damien held no compassion for them.  They were
happy enough to execute Harry and Tim.  They got what they deserved.

“Where are we going?” Anna asked breathlessly as they ran.  It was hard
keeping balance on the uneven deck.  He wondered if her shins were crying out
as much as his were.

“We’re going after Samuel,” he told her.  “If he’s still alive, there’s
only one place he’ll be.”

“His chambers?”

“No.  He’ll be on the bridge, readying the guns.  He won’t take this
lying down.”

“Shit!” said Anna.  “He’ll fire on the pier again?”

“Yes, only this time he won’t be using the cannons.  He’ll fire missiles.”

“We have to stop him.  There are another eleven of us at the pier.  They
were away when everything started, but they must have come back.  We have to
save them.”

“We will,” said Damien.  “Samuel Raymeady is going to go down with this
ship, I promise you.”

They entered a hatch door at the side of the ship and entered the
passageway inside.  It was cramped, narrow, and at an angle, but the walls made
it easier to balance.  Damien turned a corner up ahead but skidded on his
heels.  Anna bumped into the back of him.  She has to stop doing that.  I’m
going to end up with a bruised arsehole.

Lieutenant Dunn was blocking the passageway with another man standing
beside him.  The man had a hand missing just like Damien did, but his stump was
bloody and bandaged.  It was the American, Wade Cannon.  The guy I
dismembered.  Wonderful.  In Wade’s good hand was Damien’s sword.  Guess
it didn’t fall into the sea after all.

Dunn smirked.  “End of the line, Roman.  You’re about to die by your own
sword.  How deliciously ironic.”  He turned to Wade and gave an order.
“Civilian, kill these two terrorists and you’ll have the thanks of the captain
and the entire fleet.  You’ll be a hero.”

Wade grinned and raised Damien’s sword.  “You took my hand, Roman,” he
growled, but then he turned to face Dunn beside him.  “But it wasn’t so long
ago that you were going to execute me as a criminal, Lieutenant Dunn.”

Dunn suddenly looked unsure of himself.  He eyed the sword wavering in
the air between them.   “Now…look.  That was just my job.  I was doing wha-”

The American shoved Damien’s sword into Dunn’s guts and left it there.
Blood exploded from the officer’s mouth and splatted the walls of the
passageway.

Dunn staggered towards Damien with his blood-soaked hands out, pleading.
Damien head butted him in the face and let him fall to the floor.  He yanked
his sword free from the man’s guts and left him to die in pain.

Damien strolled up to the American and cleared his throat.  “So did you
want to take a shot at getting your revenge on me?  Because now’s the time,
Wade.  I’ll be dead later.”

The American smiled and shook his head.  “You saved my life.  A missing
hand was a small price to pay.”

Damien nodded.  “Plus the chicks dig the stump.  You’ll see.”

The American laughed.

“Get out of here, Wade.  If you’re lucky, you’ll get picked up by one of
the boats of the fleet.  The Kirkland is going down.”

Wade nodded and fled through the passageway towards the deck.

“I’m not going to even ask about the history between you two,” Anna said.
“The stumpy twins.”

“Best you don’t ask,” he said, and then led her down the passageway to a
ladder leading upwards.  “The bridge is up there.  You ready?”

Anna nodded.

They climbed the ladder quickly.  With the ship canting the way it was,
it was more like crawling forward than climbing upwards.

Damien entered the bridge ahead of Anna and was taken by surprise when
someone tackled him before he had chance to straighten up.

Anna called out to him.

Frank glared at him.

Damien raised his stumped arm and tried to bring his elbow across the
man’s chin, but Frank kneed him in the thigh and sent searing pain throughout
his entire body.  Damien tried to bring his sword up, but Frank swatted it away
and judo-threw him to the floor.  Damien lay on his side and winced.  This
old sod’s tougher than he looks.

Samuel stood at a wide console across the room, fingering buttons and
pulling levers.  Anna emerged from the hatch and froze when she saw what was
happening.  Frank booted Damien in the ribs to keep him down, but it didn’t
stop him from calling out to Anna.  “Samuel,” he wheezed.  “Get…Samuel.”

Frank snarled.  He yanked Damien up off the floor like a ragdoll and
looked him in the eye.  “You try to kill my son?  You try to kill my little
boy.  You don’t understand anything.  You’re an idiot.  AN IDIOT!”  He head
butted Damien in the nose and broke it.  Damien fell to the floor, clutching
his face in agony.  I probably deserved that.

Anna sprinted towards Samuel but was knocked to her knees by a vicious
backhand.  Samuel followed it up by booting her in the stomach and sending her
into heaving spasms.  He took off his captain’s jacket and threw it to the
floor angrily.  “Do you people never learn?  You are like mosquitoes on my
hide.  I am a lion and you are worthless bugs.  The fleet is the future of
humanity.  I will lead mankind to a new dawn, for I am its new god.”

“You’re insane,” said Anna.  “No man is a god.  You’re no different to
any other deluded lunatic from history who thought power equals greatness.  But
look around you, Sammie; Rome is burning.  Your empire is crumbling.”

Samuel chuckled.  “An apt metaphor, considering the company.  Frank, stop
playing with Roman – or whatever his name is – and bring him here.  I would
have these two watch while I show them what strength my crumbling empire still
possesses.”

Frank shoved Damien forward and held him against the console in front of
the window.  Samuel picked up Anna and shoved her up beside him.  Through the
bridge’s wide glass window, Damien saw a hundred ships scattered across the
sea.  Some headed towards the Kirkland, collecting men-overboard, but
many others sailed away into the distance.  They’re fleeing.  The Kirkland’s
charade of safety has been shattered and they’re scurrying away like
cockroaches found beneath a fridge.

In the distance, Damien spotted the ruined pier.  It was too far away to
see anyone, but he imagined a tank hidden on the shoreline, ready to sink them
with one last shell from its mighty turret.

Samuel lifted up a Perspex lid, which covered a large red button
beneath.  The fact that the button was big and red was almost comical, but
there was no cause to laugh when Samuel began to prep the frigate’s missile
bay.  Two hatch doors opened on the foredeck, revealing the two Tomahawk X
triple-launchers hidden there.  Damien knew that each missile carried a 1,200lb
warhead – Harry had told him about them after having been put in charge of
their maintenance one time.  If Samuel fired the entire barrage at the pier,
there would be nothing left for a square mile.

“Would anybody like to do the honours?” asked Samuel.  “No?  I thought
not.”

He was about to press the button, when Frank spoke out.  “Samuel, enough
people have died today.  The Kirkland is lost.  We must leave while we
have chance.  Vengeance has no use.”

Samuel turned on his father with a vengeance.  “I will not tolerate any
more disobedience from you, Frank.  Vengeance is all we have left.  The Kirkland
was what gave me power and I must make use of it if I have any hope of
regaining control.”

“You don’t need to be in charge,” said Frank.  “You’ve already saved enough
lives that people will forever respect you.”

“I was born to be in charge.  I was born a leader.”

Frank looked at Samuel pityingly.  “You were born a babe like anyone
else.  Circumstances made you who you were.  The things that happened to you as
a child hardened you, but now you have a chance to step back and be the man you
want to be, instead of the man you were born to be.  There’s no reason to fire
those missiles, son.  Let’s just get out of here.”  He reached out his hand.

For the first time Damien had seen, Samuel’s face softened and a sliver
of doubt appeared.  For a brief moment, he sounded remorseful.  “You have
served me well, father.  You raised me when everybody else had died or
abandoned me.  I had dreams of you growing old by my side and watching me
achieve greatness.”

“You have achieved greatness, Samuel.”

“I haven’t, but there is still time.”  Samuel pulled his pistol from a
holster beneath his armpit and fired it into Frank’s forehead.  The old man
fell backwards like a domino and hit the floor.  Damien blinked.  Jesus
Christ.  Anna shook her head silently.

Samuel turned the pistol on the two of them, preventing them from
capitalising on the distraction.  There were tears in his black eyes as he
spoke.  “I always knew Frank was weak.  He fought it as much as he could, and I
naively hoped he would overcome it, but he was never cut out for the new
world.  I’ll miss him.”

Damien snarled.  “You just killed your own father, you psycho.  Now you
say you’ll miss him like it was some kind of tragedy.”

Samuel sighed.  “He was no one’s father.  My own father died many years
ago.  I barely knew the man.”

“So you have daddy-issues,” said Anna.  “Figures.”

Samuel snarled.  He pointed the gun at Anna, apparently done with idle
chitchat and reminiscing.  “Press the button,” he told her.  “I want you to say
goodbye to your precious pier.”

Anna shook her head.  “I won’t.  You want them to die, you do it.”

“Oh, but where is the fun in that?  I like to see people take
responsibility for their actions.  Press the button or I’ll take out both your
knees.”  He lowered the pistol and aimed it at her legs.

That was all the chance Damien needed.  He smashed Samuel in the face as
hard as he could with his fist, but the blow was weak.  His body was tired and
broken.  His strength had departed him.  Samuel staggered backwards, more from
surprise than pain.

His pistol went off.

Damien had to follow up the attack before Samuel recovered.  He threw his
arms out and shoved the captain back against the command console.  He tried to
get his fist up, to throw another punch, but his arm would not rise.  It
remained limp at his side.

Samuel growled, clamped his teeth around Damien’s ear and tore away a
chunk of lobe.  Then he smashed him in the side of the head with his elbow.
Damien slumped to the floor and spotted the reason his arm had not responded:
the bullet from Samuel’s pistol had shattered his elbow.  Fuck, that hurts.

Samuel aimed the pistol down at him and fired again.

Damien’s vision went white, then black, then every colour in between.
Stars speckled his vision and a deep sickness washed over him.  He glanced down
at himself and saw blood spilling from his stomach like water from a leaky
pipe.  He tried to move but couldn’t.  He tried to shout but couldn’t.  His mouth
filled with a thick liquid that tasted like old pennies.

Samuel chuckled.  “You lose again, Roman.  How many times must I beat
you?  Oh well, if you want something done right, best you do it yourself.”
Samuel reached out for the big red button on the console, ready to launch the
missiles.

Damien tried to get up, but the whole world spun before him.

Samuel’s fingertips settled on the top of the button and he grinned at
Damien.  “Here come the fireworks,” he said, grinning even wider.

Then the smile turned to a grimace and the tip of a sword appeared
through his chest.

Samuel’s black eyes bulged like swollen inner tubes.  His mouth opened to
speak, but only thick, dark blood came out.  He clutched at the sword jutting
from his chest and stumbled around to face the other way.  Anna stood before
him, panting and wincing, but unflinchingly defiant.  Samuel reached out for
her neck, perhaps to try and throttle her, but he fell to his knees before he
was able to get her.  Anna grabbed the top of his head and pushed him sideways,
where he promptly toppled and bled out on the floor.  “Hasta la vista,
bitch,” she said.

Damien wanted to cheer, but his lungs felt like two blocks of ice and he
couldn’t find his breath.

Anna stared down at him with concern.  “Shit, are you okay?  You’re
shot.”

Damien tried to smile, but could not feel his lips.  The only thing he
felt was cold.  His vision was curling inwards at the edges like a piece of
rolled-up parchment.

Anna dropped down beside him and looked into his eyes.  “I can help you,”
she said.  “I used to be a vet.”

Damien managed to swallow whatever liquid had filled his mouth and caught
a shallow breath.  His words were frothy and wet as his spoke.  “D-don’t be a
dickhead.  The ship is…sinking.  I’m done.”

Anna shook her head.  “I’ll get you out of here.  We’re leaving
together.”

Damien blinked.  Sadness and happiness combined to overwhelm him.  His
life did not flash before him like the movies said.  Instead he saw only the
present; it was a place without guilt or regret, a place where he had done what
was right.  That was all that mattered in the end: not how things started or
even progressed, but how things were finally left.  He couldn’t help but feel
peaceful as he felt his life slipping away.  The battles of his life were
coming to a finish and he was satisfied with how they had ended.  The last few
minutes of his life almost made the errors of his past meaningless.  Violence
had consumed his entire life, from his childhood to now, but he was thankful
that his final act of rage had served a purpose.  The people on the pier would
live.  Anna would live.  Most importantly of all, Samuel would not.  Damien was
happy with how the scales of his life had balanced.  He was ready to let go.
And so he did.

Anna seemed to understand that too.  Her look of concern changed to a
soft smile.  She ran her hand against his cheek, but he could not feel it.
“Good knowing you, Roman.”

He smiled.  “My name is Damien.”

Then he closed his eyes and never opened them again.

ANNA

Anna sat and watched
Damien for a while.  He was dead, but he seemed so peaceful, just like Poppy
had, that she, too, felt calm simply by looking at him.  There was a time
when death used to freak people out, but now its almost beautiful.  Beautiful
to see someone truly dead, instead of walking around as a zombie.

Samuel had been dealt with, but Anna’s life was still in peril.  When the
ship lurched again and the floor tilted at an even harsher angle, she made the
decision that her time was up.  She had to leave now, or sink beneath the ocean
with the Kirkland.  How the hell do I get off this ship, though?  Are
there life rafts?  Damien said there was.

Anna crouched inside the ladder hatch and climbed back into the passageway
below.  As she headed back the way that Damien had brought her from, she was
running as much on the walls as she was on the floor.  The ship had turned
almost sideways.  It’s like a maze in here.  I don’t know if I’m heading up,
down, left, or right.

When she finally made it out to the aft deck, she had to grab a hold of
the hatch doorway before she plummeted into the sea.  The deck had become a
steep ramp, leading down to the sea.  A dozen men and women nearby clung to
whatever was bolted down, while another handful battled to stay afloat in the
frothing waters below.  A smattering of boats had dared get close enough to
offer rescue, but it was a dangerous task as the sinking frigate created a
vortex and pulled down anything caught inside it.

I’m screwed, she told herself.  Even if I survive the fall,
I’ll end up drowning.  If a boat picks me up, they might just turn on me for
being a ‘terrorist’.

She glanced off into the distance.  It was a nice day.  There was no rain
for once and the sky was clear.  The sun shone.  The pier sat peacefully beyond
the shore and almost seemed to call to her.  All of the fires there had now
gone out and it once again looked like home.  But she would never get to
return.  I knew this was a one-way journey.  I came here to kill Samuel and
I have.  I won.

So why do I feel like I’ve lost?

Anna wondered if Garfield was at the pier, watching the ship as she
watched the shore.  Would he have Poppy’s body in his arms, or would it hurt
him too much to even look at her?  Anna wished she could be there to tell him
‘sorry’.  She could have done things differently, and would have given the
chance.  Poppy might still live if she’d made different choices.  At least I
killed the son-of-a-bitch responsible.

“Whore!”

Anna spun around, balancing precariously in the open hatchway.  She was
startled to find Samuel standing behind her.  The sword was still poking
through his chest, but he didn’t seem to care.  Blood stained his teeth and
made him look demonic.  He snarled like a demon, too.  How the hell is he
still alive?

Anna was defenceless.  She had no weapon and both her hands clutched the
open hatchway and kept her from falling.  So when Samuel charged her like a
bull and struck her in the stomach, she had no way to shield herself.

Her breath escaped her body and she plummeted backwards through the hatch.
Samuel stayed right with her, his arms and legs entangled with hers.  They fell
fifty feet before they hit the hard surface of the water.

The ice-cold sea took her breath away.  Her lungs seized up and she felt
like she would never take a single breath again.  She sunk beneath the surface,
her eyes stinging and blind with salt.  The swirling water almost rocked her to
sleep.  The weariness seemed to ebb from her bones and turn her to jelly.  It
was peaceful beneath the sea.  Part of her wanted to stay there.

But a bigger part wanted to live.

Anna kicked her legs and clawed with her hands.  She didn’t know which
way was up but she prayed it was the direction in which she was heading.  Her
lungs ached and she felt like her chest was going to implode.  The surface of
the water seemed forever away and light and darkness mixed together and
disorientated her.  I’m not going to make it.

The pressure in her chest was unbearable now.  She wanted more than
anything to take a breath, but the moment she did the sea would take her.  I’m
going to drown.  My body will sink into darkness and never be found.

Anna’s lungs could take no more.  She opened her mouth to take the breath
that she knew would end her.

Something grabbed her from above, snatching at her as if she were a fish
on the end of a hook.  She took a gasping breath and her lungs filled with
blessed oxygen instead of the suffocating flood of seawater she’d expected.
She found herself being dragged upwards.  Two men were yanking her into a small
fishing boat.  She gasped at the air and pawed at her saviours – I’m still
alive – but something else pulled her in the opposite direction.

Samuel leapt up from the water like a shark and seized her around the
throat.  Anna slipped from her rescuers hands and clung to the side of the
boat.  Suddenly her air was cut off again as Samuel squeezed the life out of
her.  His black eyes swirled with malice and bloody spittle flew from his
mouth.  The sword still jutted from his chest, but he had lost none of his
strength as he kneaded her windpipe with a vice-like hand.

The men aboard the ship reached down and tried to free her from his
grasp, but it was no good.  They tried to drag her upwards, and almost got her
over the railing, but Samuel seized the side of the boat with one hand while he
continued to choke her with his other.  She slipped back down again.  Samuel
would not let go.  Anna gritted her teeth as she felt the blood collecting in
her head and the oxygen in her lungs dry up.  He’s going to kill me.  I
stabbed him but he didn’t die.  It isn’t fair.

Yip!

Anna was taken by surprise as she saw Houdini leap from atop the fishing
boat’s railing and clamp his tiny jaws around Samuel’s supporting hand.  The
little dog balanced half on, half off the side of the boat and tore and twisted
at the fingers in his mouth.  If Samuel moved his hand away, he would slip into
the sea.  The only free hand he had was the one around Anna’s neck.  He cursed
and let go of Anna in order to swat the small dog aside, but Houdini dodged the
blow and clambered back aboard the boat.

Anna seized on her chance and grabbed the tip of the sword jutting out of
Samuel’s chest.  The sharp blade opened her palms like a knife through butter,
but she hissed through the pain and yanked it upwards, twisting it.

Samuel’s mouth exploded with more blood.  Anna twisted the sword harder.
The blade shifted inside his chest and cut a furrow through whatever organs lay
in its path.  His body shuddered.  He glared at Anna and snarled, but then he
coughed and choked on his own blood.  The swirling of his black eyes ceased and
his body slumped against the side of the boat.  He hung limply from the railing
by one hand.  He looked at Anna and spluttered.  “You…you…whore!”

Yip!

Houdini bit Samuel’s hand again and he finally let go.  The two men on
the fishing boat hoisted Anna upwards and Samuel sank beneath the water.  He
stared up at her as he descended, but seemed more confused than angry.

Anna collapsed onto the deck of the fishing boat, panting, wheezing,
bleeding, and crying.  Each time death had tried to snatch, she’d escaped, but
she was tired and upset and broken.  I can’t take any more.

Hugo peered down at her and smiled kindly.  “I am glad to see you again,
Anna.  I think your mission was a success, no?”

The American man, Wade, was standing beside Hugo, peering down at her
with the same kindness.  “You told me to find a boat, so I did.  Didn’t want to
leave without the two of you, though.  I take it Roman…”

“He didn’t make it, and his name was Damien.”  Anna sat up and caught her
breath.  “Hugo what…how?”

“Garfield is back,” he said.  “He has a tank.  He fired at the Kirkland
and tried to sink it.  He was about to fire again, but saw you were
onboard. Then a fishing boat came ashore to greet us.  Three fishermen wished
to flee the fighting and try to make it on land – they had been planning to set
off for Spain a few weeks ago, they told me, but Samuel had made one of their
friends disappear for even discussing it.  They do not love the fleet.

“They were not using their boat, so I took it to come and rescue whomever
I could find.  I found Wade and he told me you were still alive.  I am glad to
have found you, Anna.  My girls and your campmates are waiting for us back at the
pier.  Are you ready to go?”

Anna nodded emphatically.  “Yes,” she said.  “I want to go home.  Get me
the hell away from this goddamn ship.”

Hugo nodded behind her and made her turn around.  “Anna, my friend, there
is no more ship.”

Anna couldn’t help but laugh.  The Kirkland was gone, sank beneath
the sea.  Good riddance.

GARFIELD

Garfield had fired at the Kirkland
as retribution and had been intending to do so again, but when Price allowed
him to look through the Challenger’s targeting optics he’d been surprised by
the magnification.  The damage to the large grey vessel had been mostly
cosmetic, but had wiped out a great many members of the crew.  Garfield was
shocked to see Anna standing amidst the chaos.  He couldn’t fire on the ship
again with her still alive onboard, so he told Barker to hold off.  He had to
think of a way to get Anna back.

When a group of fishermen came ashore, wishing to escape the fighting,
the opportunity presented itself.

When another explosion rocked the frigate, some sort of combustion from
within its bowels, the timing seemed perfect.  Garfield wasted no time in
sending Hugo out to the sinking frigate; to rescue Anna on the off chance she’d
been lucky enough to survive the explosion.  The chances were slim, but she at
least deserved a chance.

Garfield peered through the Challenger’s powerful optics again an hour
late and could barely believe it when he saw Hugo start the journey back to
shore with Anna safely onboard.  The chances of her having survived all of the
fireworks and bloodshed had been astronomical.  Despite the sorrow in his heart
for Poppy, he couldn’t help but smile as he greeted Anna at the shore.

Garfield had gotten the whole story of the past few days from old man Bob
– about the men who had come ashore and how one of them had abducted Poppy.  He
didn’t blame Anna.  It was a harsh world and all anyone could do was his or her
best.  Anna would never have let Poppy come to harm if she could’ve helped it.
He would rather mourn with her as a friend than hate her as an enemy.  The man
responsible for Poppy’s death was dead.  Maybe that would be enough in the end.

I don’t think anything will ever be enough.

There was no place to lay Poppy’s body so Garfield decided to carry her
out onto the beach.  She had wanted so much to explore, that it felt right to
let the waves take her small body into the Channel and carry it away.  Who
knows where she would end up?  Her body could circle the globe with time.
Poppy would have liked that.

Price and Barker secured the area with automatic rifle fire, while the
survivors of the pier said their goodbyes to those they’d lost.  In the
background, ships scattered into the distance and left them alone with their
grief.

Old man Bob went first.  “Alistair liked his food and not a fat lot
else.  He cared about everyone, though, even if he didn’t always show it.
Sometimes he would get drunk and tell me about how he was bullied as a kid.  I
think that had a lot to do with how he was as a man.  I’m glad he was part of
our family, though.  I think, before he died, he truly felt like he belonged.”

Everyone nodded and Jimmy had his say.  “Chris was always walking around
in those stupid red wellies.  He used to say the salty air gave him athlete’s
foot, but I think he just liked them.  They made him look like a clown at the
beach.”

That was all Jimmy had to say, so they moved onto Samantha.  Old man Bob
spoke again.  “Samantha was a fox.  If I’d been twenty years younger…well, all
I can say is that she was a sweetheart and things won’t be the same without
her.  Her pretty face and friendly smile used to brighten up my day.”

“Me too,” said Jimmy.

They all stared at Garfield.  It was his turn and they all knew whom he
would choose to speak about.  “Poppy was…” He sighed and stared out to sea.
Her body had almost disappeared beneath the waves, but the golden white of her
remaining braid still floated on the surface of the water.  For a moment he
wanted to dive in and bring her back, but he knew he had to let her go.  He
pulled out the crumpled drawing from his pocket and examined it.  The peaceful
pond with the moorhens was as beautiful as ever.  If there was a Heaven, he
hoped Poppy could go back there and be with her parents.  The thought made him smile.
“Poppy was the best thing that ever happened to me,” he said.  “Not just in the
last year, but in my entire life.  She’s the reason I’m alive.  Before I found
her I was slowly losing part of myself, but she made me keep a hold on who I
was, and then she helped me become someone even better.  Having her around the
pier was good for all of us.  Her innocence reminded us what we were all living
for.  She reminded us of the good things we’d lost and why we had to get them
back.  She was our only child and she’s gone, but we have to keep going, so
that one day there will be more little girls like her.  Keeping her safe was my
biggest failure, and it probably won’t be my last, but I swear that I will
never let another person I love be taken from me.  We’re going to make it
through this, and when we do, we will remember those lost to us.  We can use
their memories to give us strength, so that we never give up, no matter who
turns up on our doorstep and tries to hurt us.  We’re a family and as long as
we have that, the world will never be over.  We didn’t ask for this, but it’s
what we’ve got, so let’s make the best of it – together.”

Everybody nodded, Barker, Price, and the newcomers included.  Garfield
walked up the beach towards a rocky outcropping where Anna was sitting.  The
two French girls sat in the sand with their dog and smiled when they saw him
coming.  He smiled back at them, but it was Anna he wanted to talk to.

During the funeral, she had stayed back, tears in her eyes and blood on
her face.  She had been through something terrible, something she probably
would not speak about for a while, if not ever.  The thing that was truly
hurting her, though, was the people they had just cast out to sea.  She
feels responsible.  Perhaps she is.  Perhaps we all are.

He sat on the rock next to her and placed an arm around her.  She
stiffened up at his touch, but did not fight him as he pulled her into a
cuddle.  The two of them had never been intimate as friends or otherwise, but
Garfield was tired of being so guarded.  The time of low self-esteem and
personal barriers seemed petty now.  Anna was family and right now she was
hurting.  So was he.

He reached into his coat pocket and handed her something.

“What is it?” she asked.

“It’s a Army ration pack,” he explained.  “It has a multivitamin in
there.  You wanted vitamins, right?”

Anna laughed and nodded, but then her expression creased and she fought
not to cry.  “I’m sorry,” she said.

“Don’t be.  Looking back at the way things might have gone is no
different from imagining how the future might be.  It’s out of our control.
You couldn’t have known what was going to happen.”

“But I didn’t have to start a fight.  I could have played ball with the
men on the boats.”

Garfield huffed.  “And then what?  Get treated like slaves or intimidated
into giving away whatever we had.  They tried to hurt Poppy, I heard all about
it.  If I’d been here, I wouldn’t have done anything different.  You were
protecting Poppy.  I wouldn’t have had you do anything more.”

“I got her killed.”

Garfield shook his head.  “We’re all on borrowed time.  You kept her safe
for the last year, we all did.  We should be thankful we had her while we did.
There’ll be time to blame ourselves later.  Right now we need to stick together
and get out of this alive.  We still need to leave.”

Anna nodded.

“I won’t leave you again, Anna.  From now on, we stick together no matter
what.  I abandoned you and I’m sorry.”

Anna wiped snot from her nose and chuckled.  “You’re saying sorry to me?”

“I am.  I’m sorry for a lot of things.  I’m sorry I’ve never given you a
cuddle before.  I’m sorry I brought Poppy a bunch of magazines she didn’t
want.  I’m sorry I wasn’t here to help you when you needed me.”

Anna leaned into him.  “I forgive you.  You did bring a tank back for me,
after all.”

“Yeah, I did do that, didn’t I?  And here was you saying that a tank
would be useless.”  He kissed the top of her head.  “I’ll let you ride in the
turret if you want.”

Anna giggled.  “Tell you the truth, I would rather just sleep in the back
of the truck and have you wake me up in a year.  I don’t think I could take any
more excitement.”

“So I hear.”

“Thanks for rescuing me.”

“You’re welcome,” he said, then looked out to sea and saw that Poppy was
finally gone for good.  The only thing that made him feel better was the Kirkland
was too.

Garfield had fired at the Kirkland as retribution and had been
intending to do so again, but when Price allowed him to look through the
Challenger’s targeting optics he’d been surprised by the magnification.  The
damage to the large grey vessel had been mostly cosmetic, but had wiped out a
great many members of the crew.  Garfield was shocked to see Anna standing
amidst the chaos.  He couldn’t fire on the ship again with her still aboard, so
he had told Barker to hold off for the moment.  He had to think of a way to get
Anna back.

When a group of fishermen came ashore, wishing to escape the fighting,
that opportunity presented itself.  When another explosion rocked the frigate,
some sort of combustion from within its bowels, the timing seemed perfect.
Garfield wasted no time in sending Hugo out to the sinking frigate; to rescue
Anna on the off chance she’d been lucky enough to survive the explosion.  The
chances were slim, but she at least deserved a chance.

Garfield peered through the Challenger’s powerful optics and had barely
believed it when Hugo started the journey back to shore with Anna safely
onboard.  The chances of her having survived all of the fireworks and bloodshed
had been astronomical.  Despite the sorrow in his heart for Poppy, he couldn’t
help but smile as he greeted Anna at the shore.

Garfield had gotten the whole story of the past few days from old man Bob
– about the men who had come ashore and how one of them had abducted Poppy.  He
didn’t blame Anna.  It was a harsh world and all anyone could do was his or her
best.  Anna would never have let Poppy come to harm if she could’ve helped it.
He would rather mourn with her as a friend than hate her as an enemy.  The man
responsible for Poppy’s death was dead, thanks to her, and maybe that would be
enough in the end.

The remaining members of the pier – old man Bob, Lemon, David, Cat, and
Jimmy – made their way from the beach back up to the pier.  With them went the
new members of their family – Hugo and his girls, the soldiers, Barker and
Price, an American named Wade, and the three fishermen who had surrendered
their boat to Hugo.  Garfield decided to stay with Anna on the rocks for a
while longer, watching out for sounds of dead approaching down the beach.  They
seemed to have a bit of time for now.  It felt good to just sit there and enjoy
the warmth of another body.  As long as there was time to do that, perhaps all
was not lost.  They had a good chance of making it.

The group’s numbers were not inconsiderable and their bond was already
strong.  They had a large stockpile of guns and rations, along with two very
heavy trucks, and a tank.  What they needed now was a home.

But for now, they all stood on the pier, gathering up supplies and preparing
for the future.  Samuel may have killed the pier the same way he had killed so
many men, but he would never take away what it had meant: that mankind could
survive and pull together as one.  Now that Samuel was gone, perhaps the
remaining members of the fleet would pull together too.  The time for leaders
had passed.  Community was the only thing that would get them through now.
They were brothers and sisters, members of the same struggling species.  They
must all live and fight as one.  Or die alone and apart.

Garfield gave Anna one final squeeze.  “Time to go,” he said, but neither
of them moved.  Instead, they held one another and wept until the sun died and
the moon arose.

HUGO

Being on the road with his
new companions had been unbelievably dangerous.  The dead were everywhere as
they trekked northwards.  With no particular location in mind they hoped only
to find someplace safe to set up a new camp.  That didn’t mean they were willing
to stop at the first place they found, though.  They were more than a dozen in
number and wanted to find a place where they could be safe, but also have the
opportunity to build a life for themselves.  They had passed up various
supermarkets, sports stadiums, and farms in favour of continuing the search.
They all hoped that when they found what they were looking for they would know
it.

One thing they agreed on, however, was that the pier had kept them
prisoner.  If they found a chance to rebuild, they wanted to live as people
again.  They would plant seed and round up whatever animals they could find.
They would build fences and cull the dead.  The soldiers would show them how.
It would be a dangerous existence, for sure, but so far no one had been hurt on
the journey and their confidence of survival was growing.  They had faced the
dead many times, in numbers great and small, but they had remained earnest and
acted without risk.  They watched out for one another and made decisions via
committee.  Each member of the group was equally important – even Hugo’s
daughters – and for that every man and woman was faultlessly loyal to their new
family.  There were no leaders and no dissent.  There was no power and no
egos.  The only danger was the dead, and they faced that threat together, as
one.  It had kept them safe for a long time.

With each passing day, Hugo began to feel more and more hopeful.  Three
months had passed since they’d left the pier and his daughters had now begun to
smile much more than they ever had at sea.  They were in constant danger, but
they were alive and free.  They had friends, family, and a future.  Hugo was no
longer their sole protector and guardian, he was just their father again, there
to love them.  A dozen others were there to help keep Daphne and Sophie safe;
Hugo could finally relax and find a little peace, even amongst the ruins of
Great Britain.  I wonder whatever became of France?  Will I ever see it
again?  Somehow he didn’t care.  He had his family and that was all that
mattered.

The group had made it all the way past Stoke now.  They had done so in
convoy, kept safe by the big Army trucks, and the tank, which led their way.
Each man and woman had been trained to use a rifle or a handgun and they hung
out of the truck beds and the tank’s turret whenever the dead came too near.
By keeping up their speed and making their shots count, they had remained safe
and made good time.  The dead fell before them like cardboard cut outs in the
wind.  They were no longer the hazard they once were – being organised and well
armed made them a manageable threat.  Life was still a struggle, but it was
doable.  Once they found a place to settle, things would hopefully get easier
still.  Cat was six weeks pregnant – a supermarket urine test had told her so.
David was constantly filled with glee, but his attempts to mollycoddle the
mother of his child were always met with an elbow to the ribs.  Cat was a tough
cookie and wouldn’t be looked after, but it was clear that the pregnancy filled
her with a poorly guarded glee.  Hugo couldn’t wait to see the baby brought
forth into the world.  Sophie and Daphne had already volunteered to be aunties,
which Cat had graciously accepted.

Hugo smiled.  We truly are a family now.

Humanity would come back from the brink of extinction, one baby at a
time.  Hugo now dreamt about his daughters finding love and giving him
granddaughters.  It would have been absurd to think about only three months
ago, but now…

Hugo chuckled and threw the tennis ball across the abandoned football
pitch.  Houdini raced off after it, racing all the way.  A group of pigeons
took flight as the little dog zoomed towards them, and Hugo laughed even
harder.  The group had spent the last night camped out at an old leisure centre
and were getting ready to move on soon.  Hugo felt alive and well.  Last night
he had closed his eyes and slept like a baby for the first time in over a
year.  Somehow the world didn’t seem quite as horrible on land as it had done
on the sea.  A man’s feet should be on the earth.  It is where we belong.
As long as mankind keeps on walking, we’ll make it to tomorrow.

END

THE
SALVATION CHRONICLES

STEPHANIE

The bar was busy tonight.
One thing a recession didn’t change was people’s desire to get shitwrecked
and wake up the following morning with some sweaty mistake in their bed.  It
was Saturday night and the beer and spirits were flowing at the Cross &
Chapel.

“Double-vodka Red Bull, please, darlin’.”

Steph smiled.  “Coming right up,” she said to the man on the other side
of the bar.  She pumped the vodka from a wall optic and mixed the drink on the
bar.

The man took it, thanked and paid her.  “Busy night tonight, huh?”

“Yeah,” said Steph.  “People still like to have a good time.”

The man wiggled a black eyebrow.  “Do you like to have a good time,
sweetheart?”

Oh brother….  Steph eyed the man up.  He was handsome enough, with
dark eyes and short black hair, but he was also drunk and leering at her a
little un-gentlemanly-like.  “Sorry, mate.  Your princess is in another
castle.”

That just seemed to arouse the guy more.  “You seem like the princess I’m
looking for to me.”

“I’m not.”  Steph turned away from the drunken man and tried to serve
another patron who’d approached the bar, but he reached out and grabbed her
wrist.  “Hey, I’m not done talking with you.”

Steph considered calling Mike, the bouncer, but she didn’t want to give
this douchebag the satisfaction.  Instead, she shrugged free of the man’s grasp,
leaned across the bar and stared him in the eye.  She was no man’s victim.
“Touch me again and you’ll go home wearing a stool.”

The man moved his hand away and laughed.  He was shocked but undeterred.
He wiggled his eyebrows.  “You’re a cheeky girl.”

“I think you should leave the lady alone,” said another man standing at
the bar.  The guy was average height, smaller than the drunken man, but was
heavier set and a few years older.

The drunken douchebag glared at the other man.  “Who the fuck asked you to
get involved?”

The other man just smiled.  There was a calmness about him that bordered
on charm.  He had pale blue eyes, which shimmered beneath the bar’s strobe
lights.  “Chivalry asked me to get involved,” he said.  “I can’t stand idly by
while some Neanderthal hits on a pretty girl.”

He thinks I’m pretty, thought Steph.

The drunken man took his double vodka and downed it in one, before
slamming the low baller back on the bar.  He wiped his mouth with the back of
his shirt cuff and stepped away from the bar.  “You wanna take it outside,
buddy?”

The smaller man rolled his eyes.  “No, because then I would have to pay
the cover charge to get back in again.  Seems silly to me.”

“You’re a pussy.  You know I’d kick your arse.”

“Yes, I am quite sure you could beat me up quite easily.  You’re a tough
guy and you frighten me.  I wish I had the guts to fight you, but I don’t, so
perhaps you should go and find someone who is brave enough.  I’m sure you can
find a nice big man to get all sweaty with in here.”

Stephen sniggered under her breath.

The man was too drunk to notice the veiled mockery.  He snickered and
shook his head.  “Pussy.  I catch you outside, you’re dead.”  He walked away.

“Look forward to it,” the other man muttered.

“Sorry about that,” said Steph, putting away the low baller glass that
had been left on the bar.

“No, I’m the one who’s sorry.  Just because you work behind a bar doesn’t
mean you should have to put up with idiots like that.”

“Comes with the territory, I’m afraid.  My name’s Steph.”

The man offered his hand.  “Bryan.  Pleased to meet you, Steph.”

“Likewise.”

“Can I get sh-sh…shum shervis here, p-please,” slurred a blonde woman
from the end of the bar.  “S-s-stop chatting up the…the men and ssserve your
cushtumas.”

Steph nodded at the woman and smiled.  “Of course, what can I get you,
hun?”  The woman ordered a rum and coke and tottered away like she’d won a
prize once she had it.  Steph turned back around to resume her conversation
with Bryan, but found he had gone.  Huh, guess he wasn’t that interested
after all.

Steph never had much luck with men.  Once things looked like they might
work out with a guy named Harry.  She met him at a pub she worked at called the
Trumpet, but he had developed a brain tumour and moved to South Africa to
get experimental treatment.  Harry pledged his love to her, but said he
couldn’t commit to her until he was well again.  He didn’t want to burden her
with his illness.  In her heart Steph still loved Harry, but they’d been apart
so long now that she doubted they’d ever be more than friends across the
phone.  Recently she’d started to consider the possibility of dating someone
new.  The only problem was that the guys she met at work were all drunken
wankers.  Bryan seemed nice, though.

Mike, the bald-headed bouncer, stomped over to the bar and gave her his
best look of concern.  “Looked like you were having some bother.  Everything
okay?”

Steph nodded.  “Just another letch.  Nothing I couldn’t handle.”

“If you spot the guy, point him out and I’ll keep my eye on him.”

“Thanks, Mike.”

Cassie, one of the other barmaids, returned from her fag break and began
serving.  Steph took the opportunity to do a quick glass collection.  The pub
was large, halfway between a club and a lounge, but management kept a small
staff.  Everyone chipped in, doing whatever jobs needed to be done.

On the far side of the dance floor was a hen party.  The dozen ladies
were bedraggled and partied-out.  With each of them attired in slutty nurse
uniforms, it was hard to tell who was the bride.  Steph assumed it was the
portly lady wearing a dildo hat.  Jesus, thought Steph.  Remind me
never to get married.

Not a single one of the women were sober.  They were all semi-conscious
and moaning.  Steph began collecting their champagne flutes, but was forced to
side-step quickly to avoid one woman vomiting.  Fabulous.  I guess I get to
clean that up later.  “Hey,” Steph said.  “Do you girls want me to call a
taxi?”

The woman who’d vomited lay sideways on the bench and moaned.  “I’m…I’m
not feeling well.”

“You’ve had too much to drink, sweetheart.  You should get yourself home
and into bed.”

The woman heaved again, but managed to refrain from puking further.
“I…no….”

Steph placed the flutes down and put her hand on the woman’s shoulder.
Her skin was flaming hot.  “You’re just drunk.  Too much partying is bad for
you.”

The woman shook her head weakly.  “I…haven’t drunk.”

Steph frowned, looked at all of the champagne flutes and empty bottles.
“Looks like you’ve drunk enough to down a horse to me.”

“No.  I…I don’t drink.  I have diabetes.  The other girls drank, but
not…not…meeeeeurgh!”  The woman lurched forward and puked again.  Steph was
horrified to see that the puke was made up mostly of blood and mucus.  She took
a step back and placed her hand over her mouth.  All of the women were more
than just drunk, they were ill.  Each of them had bulging, bloodshot eyes and
were covered in their own bloody vomit.  They were sprawled out and
unconscious.

Steph spun around and searched for Mike in the crowd, but from where she
was standing, it was impossible to see him across the crowded dance floor.
Suddenly the music seemed way too loud and she couldn’t think.  I need to
get help.

The last person she wanted to see was the drunken letch.  He bumped up
behind her and placed his hand around her waist.  When she spun around she was
face to face with him again.  “Hey, baby.  I was hoping to bump into you.”

Steph shoved him away but he held onto her with both arms.  “Let go of
me,” she demanded.

“Not until you give me a kiss.”  The man closed his eyes and puckered up.

“Let go of me!”

The man ignored her.  He pulled her closer, so tightly that she could
smell the sweat beneath his cheap aftershave.  “Come on, just one little kiss.”

“Let go of her!”

Steph craned her neck to see that Bryan had come to her aid once again.
The drunken man let go of her and turned around.  He snarled at Bryan and
raised his fists.  “That’s it, you’re going down.”  He shoved Steph aside and
threw a punch.

Bryan slinked aside and put his foot out.  The drunken man went stumbling
over it and ended up falling on top of the portly bride.  Her dildo hat poked
him in the eye.  She remained unconscious.

Bryan placed his hand on Steph’s shoulder.  “Are you okay?”

Steph shook her head.  “We need to call an ambulance.  These women are
really sick.”

Bryan stared down at the ladies, all passed-out in a row.  “Aren’t they
just drunk?”

“No,” said Steph.  “Look.”

Bryan looked harder and saw what she had seen.  He plucked out his mobile
phone and dialled 999 immediately.

The drunken man was struggling to get up.  His insobriety had left him
like a turtle on his back.  He managed to hook a leg under the table and lever
himself up into a sitting position, but remained sitting on top of the
unconscious bride. “I’m going to knock you the fuck out,” he growled.  “You
hear me?”

Bryan was staring at his phone and shaking his head.

“What is it?” Steph asked him.

“No signal.  I….”

“You and me are going outside,” the drunken man shouted at them over the
music.  Steph and Bryan both turned to face him, but were taken by surprise.
The portly bride woke up suddenly.  Her eyes snapped open and bulged from their
sockets.  Her chubby arms clamped around the drunken man on her lap and held
him there.  “What the fuck!”  He tried to get away, but the bride clung to
him.  Her arms were twice as thick as his.  “Get this fat bitch off of me,” he
yelled.

But before Steph and Bryan could help, the bride opened her mouth wide
and let out an ear piercing shriek so loud that even the loud music seemed to
fade away.

Steph held her ears and closed her eyes.

When she opened them again, the bride had bitten down on the drunken
man’s neck.  Her teeth sank into his flesh like he was made out of fried
chicken.

The drunken man bellowed in agony.  Suddenly his eyes were alert and
sober as agony shocked him back to his full senses.  “Argh!  Get her off me.
Get her off me!”

The bride clamped down harder.  Blood began to surge from the deep wound
in his neck.  Sinew and veins tore away as the woman’s jaws ripped and chewed.

“Holy shit!” said Bryan, no longer calm and collected.  He lunged forward
and grabbed a hold of the drunken man, tried to pull him away, but the bride
would not let go.  Bryan batted at her face with his fists.  Eventually she
released her jaws and the drunken man fell to the floor, leaking blood
everywhere.  The hole in his neck was the size of an orange and the blood came
out like thick satin paint.

Mike, the bouncer, rushed over from the dance floor, having heard the
commotion.  The bar’s drunken revellers had ceased their dancing and were all
looking in the direction of the hen party.  “What the hell is going on?” Mike
asked.  He glanced down at the bleeding man and then up at Bryan.  “What did
you do?”

“I didn’t do anything.  It was her.”

Mike looked up just in time to see the plump bride charging at him.  He
caught the woman against his chest, but seemed more confused than anything.
The woman thrashed and screeched in his muscly arms.

“Get away from her,” Steph shouted.  “She’s not well.”

“No shit,” said Mike.  He spun the woman around and yanked her arms
behind her back.  She hollered and snapped her teeth.  Blood filled her mouth
and spattered the floor.

What the hell is happening?  Steph looked down to see that the
drunken letch was dead, a large pool of blood spread out beneath him.

That was when the rest of the hen party got to their feet.  They stood up
as one, glaring and spitting like feral cats.

Bryan took a hold of Steph and edged her backwards.  “I think we should
get out of here.”

The bride in Mike’s arms spun around and buried her face in his neck.
The large man screamed like a girl as she tore into his windpipe and seized his
vocal chords between her teeth.

The bar exploded with panic.  Fleeing bodies overwhelmed the dance floor,
shoving and trampling one another to get to the exit.  The music screeched to a
halt as the DJ leapt from his booth and joined the panicked crowd.  All around,
people shouted and screamed, pushed and shoved, punch and kicked.  The ladies
of the hen party sprinted after the crowd, falling on top of people like tigers
upon antelope.  They brought down men twice their size and tore into them with
their teeth and nails.  Soon blood covered the dance floor and people began to
slip and tumble in the red stuff.  The bodies piled up three-deep and the hen
party ripped them all open to feed upon their insides.

Steph stood by and watched in horror as Hell surrounded her.  Then it was
her turn to face the demons.

The woman who said she had diabetes was now on her feet and snarling like
a hungry wolf.  She leapt through the air and came down on top of Steph like a
falling piano.  For a second, all Steph could see was stars.  Then her vision
filled with the snarling, monstrous face of the woman on top of her.  I’m
going to die.  I’m never going to do the things I dreamed about.  I‘ll never
open my own business.  I’ll never see Harry again.

The regrets flooding through Steph’s head were enough to spur her into
action.  She shoved both her hands up and grabbed the sick woman by the ears.
She wrenched and twisted, managed to pull the chomping teeth away from her
face.  The woman was strong, though, and Steph was already beginning to
weaken.  What got into these bitches?  Steph looked left and right for
something to save herself with.  Bryan was nearby, but he was battling with his
own attacker.  Mike was dead and so were dozens of other people.  Is this
really happening?

To her side was the bride-to-be’s dildo hat.  It must have fallen from
her head when she killed Mike.  Steph moved her hands away from her attacker’s
ears and grabbed the woman under her chin.  She dared pull one hand away and
reached for the bright red dildo on the floor beside her.  She grasped the
veiny shaft and yanked it towards her.  Been a while since I’ve done that,
thought Steph as she shoved the rubber phallus into her attacker’s snapping
jaws.  She shoved the dildo into the woman’s throat as deeply as you could,
until nothing but the base could be seen.  The woman still fought with Steph,
though, ignorant of the fact she no longer had the ability to breathe.  Her
screeching became a choked mumble as the dildo lodged in her throat.  Her face
went bright red and then deep purple.

The woman collapsed on top of Steph and stopped moving.  Steph rolled the
body away and sat up.  She looked down at the woman she’d just killed and
sighed.  I feel for you, hun.  I could never deepthroat either.

Before she had time to take a breath, Bryan dragged Steph to her feet.
“We need to get the hell out of here,” he said.  “It’s gone Hellraiser 3
in here.”

Steph took in the bar and was unable to blink.  Blood and saliva filled
the air like mist, while twitching arms and legs knotted together so that she
could no longer make out individual people.  She saw Cassie, lying torn open on
the bar.  She was gurgling blood and begging for help, but nobody could help
her.

Steph grabbed Bryan’s arm.  “Come on.  We have to make it through to the
back.”  They ran towards the back of the bar, cutting a wide berth around the
chaos of the dance floor.  The door to the back was thick, wooden, with a
magnetic lock.  Steph skidded to a halt in front of the keypad and began
entering the code.

A spotty teenager in a paisley shirt flew at Bryan and the two of them
knocked Steph aside before she managed to unlock the door.  She caught her
balance and immediately grabbed at the younger man.  Bryan managed to free his
arms and throw a punch.  The teenager rocked backwards, but thrashed his head
and let out a screech.

He dove at Bryan with his hands out like claws.  Bryan ducked out of the
way but tripped and fell to the floor.

Steph cursed and prodded at the keypad again.  She had to get away from
the bar.  Everyone had gone insane.  It was the hen party that was sick, so
why is that teenager attacking Bryan?  Is he sick too?

Beep beep beep beeeep!

The staff door clunked and the magnetic lock disengaged, but Bryan
was still on the floor, battling with the teenager.

Goddamnit.  Steph crouched down and took off her heels.  The
six-inch maroon stilettos were her favourites – but when needs must….
She swung one of her shoes round and aimed it at the teenager’s temple.  It hit
the soft section of his skull with a sickening crack and the boy fell
away from Bryan.

Bryan clambered to his feet as quickly as he could.

Steph opened the staff door and bundled him through, just as a crazy hen
threw herself against the other side with a thud.

Bryan bent over, panting.  “W…what the hell?”

“Hell is the right word.  Those people were like demons.”

“Or zombies,” Bryan added.

Steph nodded.  ‘Zombies’ is as good a word as any.  Except
they’re not dead.  They’re more like…infected.

Bryan straightened up and looked around.  “What is this place?”

“The staff corridor.  The cellar is downstairs and there’re two employee
flats above us.  Straight ahead is the staffroom.  Do you still have your
mobile?”

Bryan shook his head.  “I dropped it.  Is there a landline in this
place?”

Steph shook her head.  “No.  The phone is in the office, but that’s at
the other side of the bar.  We’d have to go outside again.”

“Fuck that.”

“Double fuck it.”

“Can we try the flats upstairs?  Maybe they have a phone?”

“Maybe.”  It was a good idea, so Steph led Bryan up the stairs to the two
doors, each of which led to a separate flat.

Bryan tried the handles, but muttered.  “Locked.”

Steph shrugged.  “You’re a man, aren’t you?  Act like one.”

Bryan smirked.  He got the hint and took a step back.  He unleashed a
kick at the door on the left.  It busted open in a single try.

Steph pursed her lips and nodded.  “Impressive.”

“Well, I did do a course on door kicking at college.”

“Cute and smart.  Lucky me.”

Bryan grinned.  “After you, m’lady.”

Steph stepped through into the flat.  It belonged to Cassie, but the girl
was dying or dead.  Her privacy didn’t much matter anymore.  Steph still felt
bad, though, as she snuck into the barmaid’s living space.

The small lounge was a mess.  Clothes lay everywhere and a cracked glass
coffee table played host to both a bong and a powder-stained compact mirror.

“Looks like your colleague liked to party,” said Bryan, prodding the bong
with his finger.  The glass pot wobbled but stayed upright.

“Doesn’t look like she has a landline,” said Steph.  “And she always has
her mobile on her.  She spends most of her shifts texting.”

The sounds of chaos downstairs died down slightly, but the sound of
screeching was still prevalent.  “What happened, do you think?” Bryan asked.

Steph shook her head.  “There was a hen party.  The women were sick…real
sick.”

“You think they brought some fucked-up disease in here with them?”

“How should I know?  That teenager who attacked you had it, too.  He was
like a wild animal.”

Bryan folded his arms.  “You think he caught it?”

“I don’t know anything.  I guess we will just have to stay here until
help arrives.  The police are going to have a field day when they get here.  I
swear there must be over a hundred dead on that dance floor.”  She felt like
crying.

Bryan nodded and approached her.  “It’s okay.  We’re safe.  You did good
out there.  You got us out.”

Steph nodded.  She smiled at Bryan and was glad he was there.  If she was
alone she might have freaked out a lot worse.  Thank God he was there when
the shit hit the fan.

Bryan placed a finger beneath her chin and looked into her eyes.  Unlike
the drunken guy who had come on to her, Bryan’s eyes were dark and brown.  She
felt herself falling into them.

He kissed her.  It was nice.

But she pulled away.  Right now, the last thing on her mind was making
out.  She had just witnessed a slaughter.  Also, she somehow felt like she was
betraying Harry.  It was weird to think of him at that moment, but perhaps it
meant she wasn’t over him yet.  Bryan is cute, but I really don’t want to
get into anything right now.

Bryan looked at her, seeming somewhat hurt by her rejection.  “I’m
sorry,” said Steph.  “It’s not you.”

Bryan frowned irritably.  “Then what is it?”

Steph frowned back at him.  “It might have something to do with all of
the dead people downstairs.  Maybe I’m weird, but that doesn’t quite do it for
me.”

She’d been harsher than she’d intended and the wound inflicted was clear
on Bryan’s face.  “Hey,” he said.  “We’re stuck in here for God knows how
long.  I just thought we could pass the time.”

“Oh, lovely,” said Steph.  “Nice to know I’m useful for passing time.”

Bryan touched her under the chin again.  “You know what I mean.”  He
leant in to kiss her again.

She shoved him backwards.  “Hey, take the hint.  Now is not the time.”

Bryan advanced on her again.  His face had become unkind.  “Now is the
perfect time.  We might be dead later if those lunatics get inside.”

Steph backed away.  “It’s not happening.  Deal with it.”

Bryan snarled.  “I saved your life, you fucking bitch.  I’ve been
sticking up for you all night, ever since that drunken twat came at you.”

Steph was getting angry.  She clenched her fists and stood her ground.
“That gives you the right to do what you want, does it?  You men are all the
same.”  Except for Harry.

“You’re damn right it gives me the right.”  Bryan grabbed a hold of her
and started kissing her neck.  She fought to escape his grasp, but he was too
strong.

“Let go of me,” she demanded.  She hated the frightened twinge that had
found its way into her voice.

“Only if you stop struggling.”

“Never.”  She managed to bring her knee up between his legs.

Bryan lurched backwards and moaned, cupping his testicles.  But it didn’t
take him long to recover.  He grabbed Steph by her hair and dragged her towards
him.  Then he backhanded her across the face and sent her to the floor.  Blood
trickled from her nose and dripped down into her mouth.  She spat it out onto
Cassie’s carpet.  Bryan stared down at her balefully.  Lust had taken over him
as quickly as rage had taken over the hens.  He began to unbuckle his belt.

Then he descended on her.  “Struggle and you’ll end up ugly.”

Steph closed her eyes as he fiddled with the buttons on her jeans.  She
winced as his hot breath and tongue filled her mouth.  I can’t believe this
is happening to me.  What did I do to deserve this?  He can’t do this.  I don’t
want him to.  I’m Harry’s girl.

Steph’s eyes snapped open and she grabbed a hold of Bryan and brought him
close to her.  “That’s it,” he said.  “Get with the program, luv.”

“Get with this!”  She snarled and bit down on his neck as hard as
she could.  For a moment she wondered if she had the caught the same illness
the hen party had, but as Bryan pulled away, she did not wish to eat any more
of his flesh.

Bryan was growling.  The lust in his eyes had turned to murderous rage.

Steph rolled onto her side, reached up over the coffee table and snatched
at the heavy glass bong.

Bryan descended on her again, his fists raised, his face a mask of fury.

Steph smashed the bong against his head.  She didn’t know if the cracking
sound came from the glass or his skull.  He fell down dead on top of her,
either way, with his pants around his ankles.

I’m done with dating, she thought to herself as she squirmed from
underneath the dead man.  You just can’t trust a man not to try and kill
you.

She sat down on the room’s sofa and waited for the police to arrive.  She
needed to report the murder and hoped they would believe her story.  If
anything, they would be more interested in the chaos on the dance floor than an
attempted rape upstairs in the flat.

But, almost six hours later, it was not the police who arrived but the
Army, and they weren’t at all interested in Bryan.  They were only looking for
survivors.  What happened on the dance floor was not an isolated incident.  The
sickness was everywhere.  The infected were everywhere.

Steph went with an Army Sergeant named Harrison and joined two-dozen
other survivors inside a requisitioned city bus.  She sat at the back and
wondered if she’d ever see Harry again.  She thought probably not.

OUTBACK
PAT

The watering hole would be dry by the time Pat left, at least that was his
hope.  It had been days since he’d been in the company of anything without a
tail and even longer since he’d had a beer.  He sipped the amber nectar
and let out a satisfied sigh.  Christ, that’s good.  I’ve been away from
your teat too long, mistress.

Pat spent most of his days in the bush, collecting the skins of whatever
he could trap.  Snakes and crocs were his bread and butter, but possum and
dingo pelts fetched a few dollars back in Adelaide and he could sell the meat
to the Abbos.  The skinner’s life was a solitary one, but the only one he
knew.  The dirt and stone of the outback were his home – but the local watering
holes were his vacation spots.

“Another beer, Pat?” Ralphie, the barman, asked.

“Does a Koala shit up a tree?”

“You’d know better than me, mate?  Another beer coming up, though.”

Pat nodded his thanks and sipped the last of his current lager.  He
always felt sad at the end of every pint, but satisfied and happy at the start
of every new one.  It was like a metaphor for life.  One pint ends and
another begins.  The eternal piss-up in life’s lonely saloon.  God pours the
beer and we drink it.

Ralphie slid a new pint towards him and headed off to serve the bar’s
only other customer – tarfinger Marge.  The old dear drank more than even Pat
did and seemed to turn up in dive bars all over the outback.  She always had a
fag between her yellow fingers and a face like a yard of tripe.

The sun was dying and the purple haze of twilight was descending.  Pat
decided to take his beer outside.  He always liked to watch day give way to
night.  One bunch of critters went to bed while another bunch came out of their
hidey-holes.  It was like nature’s changing of the guard.

He shoved open the rickety door of the bar and stepped out onto the sandy
floor of the bush.  The sun was almost gone, but the heat still danced on the
horizon and brought beads of sweat to his forehead.  A pair of rats skittered
away from behind the building’s bin store as he approached, but he walked past
them and headed towards his banged-up truck.  When he reached it, he pulled
open the rickety driver’s door and climbed inside.  Sitting on the tatty
leather of his seat was enough to make him sigh with pleasure.  The contours of
his backside had truly made the seat his own.  It was almost part of him after
so many years bouncing around the bush together.  Heaven is a well-worn
seat.

Pat took a long swig of his larger and peered out the windscreen at the
dying sun.  Oranges, purples, greys, and blacks mingled like a painter’s
canvass.  It was beautiful, and he never got tired of seeing it.  If God
walked the earth, he would choose to live in the bush, I have no doubt.  If
ever there was proof of God’s work it’s here.

A couple of flies fluttered through the open space where the truck once
had a side window.  Glass didn’t last long on the bumpy, rock-strewn terrain of
the outback.  Pat swatted them onto the dashboard and wiped their guts on his
jeans.  Bloody midges.  Then he eased himself back into his seat and
closed his eyes.  The beer had settled him, like it always did, and now he
fancied a nap.  He took the time to reflect, and when a person reflected, only
the bad things came to mind.

His only real regret in life was his son, Sally - Salvatore.  Pat had
never been close to his mother.  They had met at an Italian bar in the city and
carelessly made a baby.  Pat had tried to step up and be a father, but Sally
had been a puzzle he could not solve.  The boy was cheeky and manic, always
getting into scrapes.  At first Pat found it endearing, seeing much of himself
in the boy, but once Sally hit his teens, his childish antics didn’t mature
with him – in fact they had grown darker in intent.

Sally had been a womaniser, screwing women left and right, but he would
do so via false promises.  The young girls would arrive on Pat’s doorstep,
crying, pleading, and swearing that Sally loved them.  Sally would just laugh
in their faces and move onto the next.  It made Pat feel a little sick, to be
honest.  Women should be respected, if not revered.  Pat had not always been
the most honourable of men, but he had never made a woman cry.  Sally seemed to
do so regularly and with a certain degree of pleasure.  I swear that kid
enjoys causing pain.

Pat had been a mechanic back then, tinkering with engines and machines,
making a few bucks here and there to buy beers and bacon.  Sally and his mother
lived close by.  The neighbourhood was poor, but friendly.  The only person to
dislike was Pat’s son.

Eventually the fathers and brothers of all of the spurned young girls
started arriving to meet with Sally.  Eventually there had even been shouted
accusations of rape and beatings.  That was when Sally took off – seven years
ago.  Where he went, Pat had no clue.  The thing that hurt the most was that he
didn’t really care.  His son was a selfish, impulsive man, with no friends and
many enemies.  As much as Pat had tried to motivate Sally into being a better
man, he had failed utterly.  The last thing Sally did before disappearing was
steal Pat’s life savings from the safe in the bedroom.  $18,000, a lifetime of
odd jobs and repair work.  If Pat had kept it, he would be driving a truck much
nicer than the one he did now.  But somehow that might have been worse.

After Sally disappeared, Pat decided to move out of his rented house and
live in his truck.  Now, the old Toyota pick-up had been his home for nearly a
decade.  He wouldn’t be the same without it.  Living away from society, out in
the bush, was a life he could never give up.  Despite the disappointment and
the heartbreak, Sally leaving had been a blessing.  Is that dreadful to
think?  He’s my son.

Pat was pulled away from his thoughts by another handful of buzzing
flies.  He sat forward and swatted at them, pinning some to the dashboard, but
missing others.  What in tarnation?

Pat opened the door and hopped out of his truck.  His boots hit the gravel
and even more flies hit his face.  He spat and spluttered, cursed.

Then he smelt it.

“What the hell has died around here?” he said out loud.  It smelt like
the possum carcasses he sometimes found – dingo leftovers – but it was much
stronger, completely foul.  The buzzing of the flies filled the air and sounded
like electricity.

Then Pat heard moaning, off in the trees.

He frowned, swatted a few more flies, before hopping back up into his
truck.  He sat still for a few moments, feeling lost.  The bush had a thousand
ways to kill a man.  Almost every thing with legs, and many things without,
were either poisonous, venomous, or at the very least, onerous.  Tiger snakes,
Red Back spiders, crocs, and dingos; living in the outback was like living life
on the HARD setting.  Pat was used to it all, though, and very rarely
felt the unease he was feeling right now.  Without knowing why, he switched on
the Toyota’s headlights.

What he saw knocked his socks off.

“Strewth.”  So surprised was Pat, that when he leaned forward to
get a better look through the windscreen, he accidently put his elbows on the
horn.

Blaaaargh!

Immediately the group of Abbos up ahead turned and faced Pat’s truck.
Each of the six men was bloodied and limping.  One of them even had most of one
arm missing.  Pat knew that some Australian’s saw the Abbos as lazy booze
hounds, hanging around the bars and selling their wares wherever the could, but
Pat knew a different breed: those who still lived beneath the sky and slept
upon the ground.  Those men were brave, hard, and wise.  But plodding around
with an arm missing took a toughness that surprised even Pat.

Slowly, he stepped out from his truck.  He kept his eyes on the
approaching tribesmen, noting that they were wearing red and white face paint
and had bones through their noses.  The red skirts around their waists were
dusty and torn.  Pat’s assumption was that they had been conducting one of
their ceremonies nearby.  But what the hell happened to them?

The six tribesmen ambled towards Pat.  Each of them moaned and reached
out their hands.  Pat just stood there, watching them, wandering if it was
danger approaching him or fellow human beings in need.  They need help.

The door to the watering hole flung open and Ralphie, the barman,
appeared.  Tarfinger Marge was stood right behind him.

Pat waved a hand at them.  “Over ‘ere.”

Ralphie and Marge trotted over to Pat and joined him.  The three of them
stood and watched the group of tribesmen for a while with curious interest.

“They look as rotten as a chop,” Ralphie eventually said.

“Looks like they had some bad tucker,” said Marge.

As the six tribesmen stumbled closer, Pat saw that one of them had a
chunk missing from his throat.  The windpipe was severed and hanging loosely.

“They’re dead,” Pat muttered.  “Blow me down, but they’re dead as
doornails.”

Ralphie nodded thoughtfully.  “Well…they looked a bit narked, I’ll
give you that.”

Pat shook his head.  “No, look.  They’re dead.”

The three of them stood in silence while the six tribesman continued to
close the distance between them.  They were out of the treeline now, stumbling
between rocks and cactus and nearing on the watering hole’s front yard.

“We should probably nick off, then,” said Ralphie.

“And go where?” asked Pat.  “The beer is here.”

The tribesman with a missing arm moaned loudly, like a lost lover
stumbling though the fog.  He reached forward with his remaining hand and
licked at the air with his tongue.

Ralphie folded his arms and smirked.  “I think that one’s perving at you,
Margey.  I’ve got a bottle of plonk you can share in the back, if it’ll do
yer.”

“Don’t poke mullock at me, you wally.  We’re up shit creek here.”

Pat nodded.  “So what do you want to do?  Do we leg it like a bunch of
panic merchants, or do we stay and fight like the Aussie battlers we are.”

“I just started a new bottle,” said Marge.  “I ain’t leaving it.”

“My bar my rules,” said Ralphie.  “These party-crashers are barred.”

“Should we at least warn them, first?” asked Pat, but then he started
laughing.  “You think they’ll listen?”

“As much chance as pushing shit up a hill,” said Marge.  She stubbed her
cigarette out on her tongue and threw the butt to the ground.  Then she reached
into her hammock-like bra and pulled out a long machete.

“Shit, Margery,” Ralphie chuckled.

Pat pulled out his own machete from the sheath on his hip.  Ralphie
didn’t have a knife, so Pat handed him the spare he kept on his other hip.

“You fellas ready?” Marge asked.

“Ready as a possum at a bear party,” said Ralphie.

“Let’s do this,” said Pat.

“I’ve got the one-armed perve,” said Marge.  She raced forward like a
pomme chasing a tea wagon, machete slashing through the air and a screech
coming from her lungs like a campsite kettle.  She took the one-armed
tribesman’s head clean off.  Her blade was almost as sharp as Pat’s.

Almost.  Pat leapt forward and then sidestepped, the exact same
way he would approach a snapping croc.  The nearest dead abbo reached for him
and missed.  As the bloody man stumbled forward, Pat slashed at the back of his
knees, cutting the tendons and sending him to the floor, facedown in the dirt.
He placed a foot on the squirming tribesman’s back and sighed.  “See you on the
other side of the great divide,” he said.  “Safe travels, chief.”  He swung the
machete like a cricket bat and sliced open the man’s neck, separating the head.

Nearby, Ralphie launched into a flying kick, which hit home but also sent
him flopping onto his back.  Pat shook his head and grunted.  “This ain’t no
bloody kung-fu movie.  Get up off your arse and stop playing the bludger.”

Marge shouted out as one of the tribesmen grabbed her from behind.  Pat
was about to race to her rescue, but then the old woman smashed her head
backwards and broke the tribesman’s face.  Then she twisted and flung the man
over her shoulder and onto his back.  She finished it off by thrusting her
machete down into his face.  “No fucking worries,” she said, slightly out of
breath.

The next danger to present itself was the tribesman with the severed
windpipe.  He fell on top of Ralphie, who was still grounded from his botched
Bruce Lee attempt.  The barman fought and struggled to hold the man off, but
was losing the battle.  Pat leapt over a knee-high boulder and came down beside
the two of them.  He span around and slashed his blade across the side of the
dead man’s skull.  It struck the target dead, but buried itself in bone.  Pat
pulled at it for a few moments but had to give up.  “That was my best bleedin’
knife,” he muttered before crouching down and picking up the knee-high boulder.
It weighed heaps, but he managed to heave it over his head.

One of the two surviving tribesmen came at Pat quickly, almost falling
forward rather than walking.  Pat brought down the heavy rock and obliterated
the man’s head like a mango on the motorway.

Marge sliced the legs off the last dead man and then stamped on his face
until he stopped moving.  Once it was all done, the three of them stood there,
looking at one another and panting.  The gravel had become a battleground and
blood was everywhere.

“You never killed a bleedin’ one,” Marge said to Ralphie.  “You useless
drongo.”

“I was just getting warmed up,” he argued, before staring at the ground
and looking ashamed.

“Don’t worry about it,” said Pat, clapping him on the back.  “Just get
the beers on the go and we’ll say no more about it.”

“Should we call the wallopers?” Marge asked.

“No phone,” said Ralphie.

Marge shrugged.  “I’m sure someone will come by eventually.  No point
sweating it.”

Pat looked down at the six dismembered tribesmen and felt bad.  Their
people had traditions when it came to the dead.  It felt wrong to leave them
all hacked up.  It didn’t stop him from going back inside the bar and finishing
his beer, though.

When four other tribesmen turned up an hour later, Pat felt a little better.
Ralphie got the new men all a beer and they holed up in the bar together.

“The dead are rising,” said one of the men who said his name was Berri.
He spoke the best English and was the one who explained how half of his tribe
had gone to the city to sell wares, but only a handful had come back; and they
had been sick and injured.  Before they died the sick men spoke of chaos and
murder in the city.  Adelaide was on fire and awash with blood and terror.  It
all sounded very dramatic.  Several hours later the injured tribesmen had risen
up as zombies and attacked the rest of the camp.  Berri and his two companions
were all that was left.  They had tracked the six dead tribesmen to the
watering hole and were glad to have found them at rest.  Pat and the others had
performed a service by killing them permanently.

“So,” Pat said.  “It looks like it’s the end of the world, then.”  Berri
nodded earnestly.  His eyes were wide and full of anxiety.  Pat let out a
hearty laugh.  “Don’t look so worried, old cobber.  We’ll be just fine.  This
is Australia.  Everything tries to kill you in Australia.  What else is new?”

To that they all laughed and shared a drink.  The men and women of the
bush were as prepared for the apocalypse as anyone could be.  They were already
seasoned survivors and a bunch of zombies wasn’t enough to get their knickers
in a bunch.

Pat sipped his beer and had one last thought, though.  I wonder how my
boy, Sally, is getting on?

THE
LONELY BEARD

The beard is lonely.  The
beard is hungry.  The beard is afraid.  Once the beard had a name.  It might
have been Daniel, or Dave, maybe Stephen.

He was just the beard now, though.  Ever since he’d used his last razor,
his bushy black beard had grown from the saplings of stubble to the fuzzy
behemoth that it was now.  It had become his identity more than his name ever
had.  He knew that if he were to ever meet other survivors it was the beard
they would see first.  The beard kept him warm and reminded him that he was alive.
The dead did not grow beards.

The beard’s gold Omega watch, a gift from his grandmother, had the
day of the month on it, along with the time, but nothing else.  All the beard
knew was that it was the 3rd.  Of which month or even which year he
did not know.  All he knew was that the beard was long and getting longer.
Every inch it grew was another month he had avoided the dead.  The beard had
been alive inside the old fish shop for a very long time.  The fish had spoiled
and stunk so bad that it had made his eyes water and his nose run at first, but
eventually he had gotten used to it.  The smell had eventually become part of
the beard.  The only thing that had kept him alive so long was the dried and
salted fish inside the shop: smoked haddock, pickled cockles, and other foul
tasting sea creatures that had fortunately not poisoned him up until now.  He
was running low, though, and soon the beard would have to leave.

He had been preparing to do so, summoning up the courage over the span of
days, when he saw the other people.  They were far away in the distance, but he
had spotted them from the second-story flat above the shop in which he lived
above the fish shop.  There were a dozen men over by the church, trying to get
a Range Rover started.  The beard wanted to shout out to them, but the beard
knew that they would not hear him.  The dead would, though, and then the beard
would be done for and would grow no more.

But the beard had to leave soon.  The beard was starving.  The beard was
lonely.  The beard was afraid.

The beard made his escape.  He slid out of the fish shop’s back door and
ran from the building.  The group of survivors were half a mile away and from
the street he could no longer see them.  He knew where the church was, though.
He had grown up in the village and had visited the church himself on occasion,
although it was only to appease a girlfriend whose name he no longer
remembered.  Janet, her name had been Janet.  The beard remembered.

The beard passed into an alleyway that he knew would take him between the
old post office and the Salty Cod takeaway towards where the churchyard
was located.  If he kept up his pace, he would be there in minutes, but it was
the quickest he’d moved in months.  The beard was short when last he had
sprinted.  Doing so now turned his lungs to choking syrup and he was forced to
slow down to a jog and then a lolloping gait.  It wasn’t long before the beard
needed to stop completely and take a breath.

The sounds of voices came from nearby.  The other men were close.  The
church was just up ahead.  The beard was glad.  The beard was excited.

The beard was about to use his last reserves of strength, to sprint
towards the first men he had seen in a very long time, but somebody jumped out
and stopped him.  The person was rude and nasty.  The other person bit the
beard right on his arm and made him yell.

The beard recoiled backwards, clutched the burning gash on his arm and
found blood there.  The beard growled, angry and afraid.  Bites were bad.  The
beard knew, but could not remember why.  But the beard knew bites were bad.  Very
very bad.

The person who had bitten him was a woman with a wide smile.  The beard
punched her in her face and threw her to the ground.  The beard felt alive as
he stamped on her head until she was not alive.  Then the beard felt bad.  The
woman had once been like him.  He had his beard and she had her smile.  Now her
smile was gone and the beard was bleeding.

The voices from the church had stopped.  The beard sprinted as fast as he
could.  They could not leave without him.  They were his only hope.  The beard
was starving.  The beard was lonely.  The beard was bitten.

But when he reached the church, the only thing he found was the sight of
a distant minivan, disappearing into the distance and leaving the beard still
alone.  And bitten.  The beard was bitten.

The beard began to cry.  The beard began to laugh.  Then the beard turned
around and set off in the other direction.  He could never hope to keep up with
the men in the van, but perhaps he could find where they came from.  Perhaps
there were more people nearby.  Maybe he had missed them all this time.  He
wondered if they were at the pier.  It was at the other end of the village, but
the more the beard thought about it, the more it seemed like a great place for
people to live.  The beard had been alone and afraid for too long, but he was
outside again now; it would do no good to go back into hiding.  The beard was
starving.

The beard would head towards the pier.  Maybe he would find people there.
People to help him and look after him.  It would be perfect.  He wouldn’t be
alone anymore.  They might even be the beard’s friend and feed him until he was
full.  The more and more the beard thought about it, the faster he ran.  In his
excitement, he couldn’t help but let out a screech.  What he wanted now, more
than ever, was to find people and eat.

The beard was hungry.

THE
HEART DOES GO ON

It had been nineteen days since the Kirkland had sunk.  Edward knew
because that was how many days’ rations he had left with and he had just run
out.  He was floating up the Irish Sea with no food and no petrol, too afraid
to take his chances on land.  I’m almost there, though.  I know I am.

Edward had enjoyed the safety of the fleet and once thought that he would
never leave it, but when a war had started with the pier on the south coast, he
realised that the fleet didn’t offer any real safety, just the illusion of it.

After the great warship sank, the several dozens vessels of the fleet
quickly scattered.  Many chose to form up again, further out to sea, and retain
their safety in numbers.  Edward chose to go it alone.  He knew that the schism
would get ugly.  The consolidated fleet with a single leader had become a
shattered outcropping of floating fiefdoms.  Life would never again be pleasant
on the sea.  So he had set off alone.  Old and alone.

At first Edward had no destination in mind.  He chose to sail north
because the British Isles were familiar to him.  If he’d journeyed south to the
continent he would have been lost.  So he had left the English Channel and
entered the Irish Sea, shivering against the Polar Maritime winds.

Once he watched the last remnants of the fleet fade away, the isolation
had set in.  Edward had always thought himself to be a fairly self-reliant
person.  He had kept few friends in his previous life and had been single for
several years.  He hadn’t always been so private, but a broken teenage heart
had left him emotionally drained and unable to devote to building new
relationships.  Still, he’d been happy enough, sitting behind his desk,
designing advert after advert for various companies and magazines.  He liked
his job, his pay, and his home.  He felt little need to fill it with
superficial relationships so that he could feel better about himself.

But he quickly realised how much he needed other people once he was alone
on the sea.  Whilst Ireland sat off to his left and Wales to his right, neither
landmass contained life of any kind.  Edward knew that beyond the coastlines
there would be an abundance of wildlife and, of course, hordes of the dead, but
from out at sea, the world seemed uninhabited, as if he were the only person
left in the world.  The loneliness seemed to crush down on Edward, making him
want to scream and shout.  Occasionally he did.

It was at his most desperate, about seven days in, when Edward suddenly
knew where he was heading.  The destination popped into his mind like a zit
bursting.  He would head to the place he loved the most, yet had visited only
once.  He would sail for the Isle of Man.

The Isle of Man was where he had met Elsie.  Edward had stayed at her
cosy bed and breakfast when he visited the isle to meet a client interested in
sponsoring the Manx Grand Prix who needed to put forward a marketing
brief first.  They had opted for someone younger and more ‘tech savvy’ in the
end, but Edward had decided to make a holiday of it and stay a few weeks.  One
of the upsides of his job was that he could work anywhere with a phone line and
Internet connection.  There was no hurry to get back to his apartment in
Croydon.

Elsie had owned the bed and breakfast since her thirties.  Her mother and
father raised her in the business and left it to her when they died.  Elsie
kept the place presentable all on her own and Edward immediately loved it when
he saw the open log fires and worn-down carpets.  It felt like a real home,
something he’d never had.  Love never came easily to Edward and his work had
consumed him as a younger man.  He had grown old as a man alone and always
wondered what it would be like to sit in front of the fire with newspapers and
slippers.  Elsie showed him.

Every morning he would awake beneath the thick duck feather duvet, got
dressed, and made his way down where Elsie would have the fire already lit and
a newspaper ready.  A mug of steaming hot tea would await him, along with a
plate of biscuits.  It was perfect.  The simple, cosy life Edward had always
wanted.  The only thing he lacked was someone to share it with. Elsie had given
him that, too.

About a week into his stay, the bed and breakfast had been empty bar
himself and Elsie.  The holiday season had not yet begun and bookings were few
and far between.  Edward had invited Elsie to eat with him of the evening, and
she had obliged.  Slowly, each night, they would get to know each other a
little better.  Like him, she had never married.  Like him, she too was
content, yet lonely.  She liked her life but sometimes wished for company.
During the second week of his stay, he had kissed her, and she had taken him
into her bed.  They had not made love, not that night, but instead they cuddled
and talked until morning arrived.  They slept until late afternoon in each
other’s arms.  It had been heaven.

Edward’s proposed three-week stay had turned into three months.  He and
Elsie were inseparable.  He even started helping around the hotel, doing his
own work in the evenings via phone calls and emails.  It had been the happiest
time of Edward’s life and he had felt a change inside himself.  A warmness had
come over him; something that made him smile at strangers and giggle at the
cheek of children, where before he would’ve been offended.  It felt a lot like
being happy.  He’d always thought himself to be a happy person, but he knew now
that he had been wrong his entire life.  Being content was not the same as
being happy.

But then business had called.

A large oil company offered Edward the job of rebranding them after a
recent failure had tarnished their reputation.  If successful, Edward stood to
make a fortune.  He could retire and live with Elsie.  She could retire too.
But Elsie did not want that.

She asked him to stay, to retire right then and run the hotel with her.
He thought her mad.  He had worked his whole life for an international campaign
like this.  The big jobs all went to the larger marketing conglomerates, but
this oil firm wanted to go the ‘down to earth’ route and work with someone on
the ground – an everyday person. It would be the culmination of Edward’s life
work.  He and Elsie could be set for the remainder of their lives.  But she did
not want to be kept.  She had her own business and she would rather him be the
one to be looked after.  Edward could not accept that.  He was a man.  He could
not just settle down and let a woman look after him.  Edward looked after
himself.

Angry, he had gone back to his empty flat in Croydon and got to work.
Only a few days passed, though, before he began to mourn what he had left
behind.  The work wasn’t as fulfilling as it used to be.  He missed Elsie.  He
had made a mistake.

Fortunately, one phone call was all it took to make things right again.
Elsie forgave his abandonment of her and wished for him to return at once.  And
he was going to do just that.  The oil company would have to find somebody else
because Edward was putting his flat on the market and retiring to a cosy bed
and breakfast with the woman he loved.

He was due to catch the ferry in less than two weeks, to begin his new
life once and for all.  Two weeks and he would be back with his beloved Elsie.

But it took only one week for the world to fall apart, and all thoughts
of Elsie were replaced by the need to survive.  When the dead rose, nobody got
to keep their plans.  Nobody got their promotions at work, wedding dates were
forgotten, and distant lovers became unreachable.  It all fell apart.  In the
ensuing chaos, Edward had been swept south to the coast.  There, he and a
handful of survivors sought the safety of the sea.  John, a postal worker from
Milton Keynes, had allowed Edward onto his pleasure cruiser and the two of them
had eventually come upon the Kirkland.  Back then the fleet had been
their saviour, but John died soon after from an untreated infection he picked
up after catching himself on a rusty rigging hook.  Edward sailed alone after
that, chatting rarely with the neighbouring boats and receiving his rations
once a week.  Then the Kirkland sank and he now lacked even those
interactions.

Alone and hungry, Edward accepted that he was going to die soon.  The
world had ended a year ago and he was just a straggler.  The apocalypse would
swallow him up eventually.  When it did, he intended to be on land in a place
that he loved – the only place he ever felt at home, even if it had only been
for a shot while.

The Isle of Man was just up ahead, looming on the horizon.  He could make
out Port St. Mary, his destination.  Seeing the old fishing village immediately
brought back memories.  He remembered walking along the seafront with Elsie,
hand in hand, and eating sandwiches at a little place called the Patchwork
Café.  He hoped it was still there.  He could see no reason it wouldn’t
be.  People may be gone, but their memory still littered the land with its
monuments.  Now that humanity was almost extinct, even a mundane post box or
cracked telephone booth took on a certain antique quality.  They were relics,
no different to the scattered spearheads of Romans or the cracked vases of the
Egyptians.  The scattered iPhones of modern man.

Even the boats of the harbour glinted in the dying sunlight like ethereal
monuments to mankind.  From two miles out, Port St. Mary seemed no different
than the last time he had seen it.  In fact I can still see the hustle and
bustle.  The boats manoeuvring around each other and old men fishing from the
sea barriers.  I’ve been alone too long.  I am imagining things…

But the more Edward squinted, the more he could see that he was not
imagining things.  The boats in the harbour were indeed moving.  The harbour
walls were indeed lined with fishermen.  The bay was alive with life.

Impossible.

When Edward sailed into the harbour, men and women on other boats began
to wave and whistle.  As he got closer still, they shouted out to him.  They
asked for news, they welcomed him, they asked his name, they told him jokes.
Edward tried to shout replies to all of them, but he was overwhelmed.  He
reached the nearest jetty and threw out the mooring rope.  Immediately a man
and two young boys grabbed it and tied it to a hook.  Then they helped him aboard.

Edward’s knees were shaking as he stepped foot on solid ground for the
first time in a year.  He felt like he was going to throw up, although he had
not eaten since yesterday.

“Hello there, friend.  It’s good to see a new face.  Tell you the truth
most of us never expected to see one again.”

Edward eyed the father of the two sons and tried to speak.  Eventually he
had to force the words out of his mouth.  “Y-you’re all alive!  How…how…?”

“The infection never made it here,” the man explained, understanding what
Edward was trying to ask.  “There were three or four cases brought by a couple
of overseas couriers but they were quarantined before they could infect anyone
else.  We’re safe here.  We know what happened on the mainland, but there’s
been no danger here since it all started.”  The man placed his hand on Edward’s
shoulder.  “It’s safe here.”

Edward started to cry.  There were no words to express how he was
feeling.  The veil of doom that had clung over him for an entire year had
lifted and safe and ordinary people once again surrounded him.  He didn’t
realise how much he’d missed ‘ordinary’.  He wept so hard that he shook.

The other man went so far as to give Edward a hug.  As he squeezed his
shoulders, he said, “I can’t imagine what you’ve been through, friend.  Have
you been out there on the sea this whole time?”  Edward nodded against the
man’s chest.  “My God, and to think we’ve all been here, safe and sound the
whole time.  We’ve tried sending out messages, tried to let people know we’re
here, but we haven’t seen anyone new in over six months.  We assumed we were
all that was left.”

Edward pushed away from the man all of a sudden.  In all of his emotion,
he’d forgotten why he was here in the first place.  “Elsie!”

“I’m sorry?” said the man.

“I need to go to the bed and breakfast.”

“Which one.”

“I…I just need to go.”

The man chuckled with confusion.  “Sure, let’s get you settled and safe.
I’m sure you could use some food.”

“I don’t need food,” said Edward.  He ran up the stone steps in front of him,
heading up into the village above.  When he reached the top, there were
three-dozen people standing in the street watching him.  None of them seemed
threatening, but their stares made him feel like some sort of alien.  He turned
left, turned right, tried to get his bearings.  As much as he had dreamt of the
village and the bed and breakfast, he did not recognise where to go.

But then he saw her.

Elsie was standing in the street, clutching a basket of firewood and
staring at him with wide eyes.  She’s keeping the fires lit.  She knows I
love them.

Edward took a step towards her.  “I’ve come back,” he shouted over to
her.  “I was a fool for leaving, but I came back for you.”

Elsie stared at him a moment longer, but then she smiled, more beautiful
than ever.  He realised then that she was standing in front of the Patchwork
Café.  Suddenly the village felt familiar again.  He was home.

They ran towards each other, meeting in the middle of the street and
kissing while three-dozen strangers cheered them on.  Edward was finally going
to get to retire.

PATIENT
ZULU

Davie
was tired, weary, and pretty damned pissy.  His feet were sore, his head ached,
and dust irritated his eyes.  Months of walking, avoiding the dead, and
half-starving had been no picnic.  But he could not stop.  He had a mission and
stopping was not an option.

Rebecca was suffering too, although she would never admit to it.  She was
a doer, not a talker.  She was a lot like her father had been, someone who did
what they had to do, no matter what.  Rebecca’s father had been a great man,
but if he were alive to see his daughter, he would be proud.

“We should rest up for a while,” Davie said.  He tried to make it sound
like he was being chivalrous, but the truth was that he was going to keel over
if he didn’t get to sit down for at least twenty minutes.

Rebecca glanced around.  They had stuck to farmlands and fields.  It was
easy to see the dead coming in the countryside and livestock fences kept most
of them at bay.  They had made it all the way from the outskirts of Birmingham
to forty miles past the Scottish border in a little over three months.  Most
days they woke at dawn and marched until nightfall.  It was unsafe to travel in
the dark, so they usually looked for somewhere safe to haul up an hour or two
before dusk.  So far that afternoon they had found nowhere suitable.  Scotland
was a lot sparser than England was.

“You want to just stop, here in the field?” she asked.  She didn’t sound
against the idea, but Rebecca was naturally cautious.

Davie shrugged.  “I think it’ll be fine.  We’re surrounded by fields on
all sides for miles.  The only danger is the woods up ahead but it’s far away
enough to see anything coming.”

Rebecca unslung her backpack and sat down on the ground.  “Let’s catch a
breath then.”

Davie pretty much fell to the ground so much as he sat.  Immediately he
took off his hiking boots and socks and shoved his bare feet into the cold wet
grass.  He sighed with delight.

Rebecca rolled her eyes and laughed.  “I can carry you the rest of the
way if you’d like?”

“I’m fine.  I just need a minute.”

“We may as well camp here.  It will be dark soon enough and I don’t think
we’re going to find anything today.  Where on earth are we, anyway?”

Davie shrugged.  “I have no idea.  All I know is we’re going north.”
Davie had swiped a compass from a hiking shop.  He’d also taken full hiking
gear, backpacks, and a mean-looking knife.  Davie didn’t like knives, not since
an incident in his childhood involving his older brother, Frankie, but the need
for one was too great.  The dead were everywhere in the cities and they could
pop out in the countryside, too, from time to time.

Rebecca reached into her backpack and brought out a bottle of water.  She
swigged from it and handed it to Davie.  He took it and finished it off,
gasping.  “How are we doing for supplies?” he asked.

Rebecca nodded.  “We’re doing okay.  That supermarket in Carlisle saw us
good for a few days more.”

Davie was glad to hear it.  They had been surviving on loot since they’d
left their safe house in Birmingham, raiding supermarkets, garages, and
houses.  But each time they went looking for food, they faced danger.  The dead
hung around where people used to.  That was also where most of the food was.
The supermarket in Carlisle had been full of stray dogs and crawling dead,
half-eaten by the hounds.  It had been a hairy twenty minutes while they rushed
round with their backpacks open, shoving in whatever hadn’t spoiled or been
eaten by the dogs.

“You think we’ll ever get there?” asked Rebecca.  “It feels like we’ve
been travelling all our lives.  I mean, I’m kind of enjoying the journey, after
being stuffed up in that laundrette for months, but I guess it’s hard to
imagine ever reaching the end.”

Davie wouldn’t doubt that they would reach Edinburgh.  He couldn’t doubt
it.  It was the only thing keeping him going.  “I’ll get you there,” he said.
“I owe you.”

Rebecca sighed.  “You don’t owe me anything.”

Davie disagreed.  Ten years ago, he had been a fourteen year-old boy.
Ten years ago he had an older brother named Frankie.  Frankie had terrorised
Rebecca’s family and ruined her life.  Davie had tried to help her in the end,
but first he had stood by while his brother took everything from her and her
family.  After the incident was over, with Davie’s brother dead, Rebecca’s
father had become a politician, working against thugs like Frankie.  Eventually
Rebecca had followed in his footsteps and had been close to becoming the mayor
of Solihull when the dead had risen.  Davie had been her PA, after having
sought her out to make amends for what he and his brother had inflicted upon
her.  She had welcomed him gladly and used his background and experience of
disillusioned youth to connect with the younger voters.  The two of them had
quickly become friends and Davie was able to bury a great many demons from his
past.  Her forgiveness had saved him.

“I do owe you,” he said.  “I’m going to get you to Edinburgh.  I
promise.”

Rebecca leaned over and patted his knee.  She was beautiful, even covered
in dirt and sweat.  Davie often thought about kissing her, but knew that it
would be a distraction.  He would get her to her destination and then perhaps
he could look towards better days, days where love and romance were possible
once again.  If we get where we’re going, we might just have a chance.
Everything is riding on what we’ll find at the end of our journey.

Within the hour, Rebecca had lain down and fallen asleep.  It was easy to
sleep in the new world.  Everywhere was so silent.  After sitting and watching
her for a while, Davie lay down beside her and closed his eyes as well.

He woke up to the dead all around him.  It was dawn; a whole night had
passed in the blink of an eye.  Somehow the dead were nearby.  They stumbled in
the distance, heading through the fields towards him and Rebecca.

Rebecca was already sat up, awoken by the undead moaning.  “What the
hell?” she said.  “How did they know we were here?”

Clatter clatter clatter.

Davie looked off into the distance.  It was the sound of gunfire, far
distant but coming from the north.  “It wasn’t us,” he said.  “Someone is
fighting.”

“The Army?”

Davie shrugged.  “Maybe.  Come on.  We have to get out of here.”

Rebecca nodded.  The two of them gathered up their things as quickly as
they could and got moving.  The dead were still a quarter of a mile back, but
they had a way of gaining on you.  They never got tired and never had to stop
for breath.

“Where should we go?” Rebecca asked, looking left and right.

Davie sighed.  It sounded like a bad idea when he said it, but his answer
was, “Towards the gunfire.”  They hadn’t seen other people in months, but if
they had any hope of reaching their destination, they would need to find a
group of survivors who knew the way.

Rebecca looked unsure of herself, but nodded.  She was always brave,
always willing to do what needed to be done.  The two of them set off across
the fields, heading towards the gunfire.  A thick forest a mile away prevented
them from seeing the source of the noise, but Davie assumed there was some
settlement or village beyond the trees.  I just hope they’re friendly.  I
can’t let anything happen to Rebecca.  She’s the only hope we have.  Not only
as a leader, but…

Rebecca screamed and tripped.  Davie reached out to her just in time to
see a dead man take a bite out of her ankle.  The legless man had been crawling
in the long grass.  Rebecca cried out in pain and fell to the ground, clutching
at her bleeding wound.  Davie pulled out his knife and stabbed it down into the
zombie’s soft skull.

He helped her back to her feet.  “Can you walk?”

She pulled herself up and nodded.  “Better than that.  I can run.  Come
on!”

The two of them set off again.  Davie looked back and saw the pursuing
dead men fade into the distance.  They would keep coming in this direction, but
if they could stay ahead of them, they would be alright.  As long as whoever
has the guns doesn’t decide to shoot me and take Rebecca.

They reached the treeline and headed into the woods.  They were both
disgusted to find a dead woman tangled up in barbed wire beside a sign that
read:  PRIVATE PROPERTY, but they avoided her pawing fingernails and kept on
running.  Wildlife scurried and fled into bushes as they stomped their way
through the weeds.  The gunfire continued in the distance but was dying out,
coming to an end.  Davie and Rebecca picked up speed as much as they could, but
Rebecca struggled with her bleeding ankle.

Eventually the other end of the short forest opened up and they suddenly
found themselves at a small train station.  The sign had long grown over with
vines, but an old train stood abandoned on its tracks.  Davie grabbed Rebecca
and stopped her.  “Careful,” he said.  “We don’t know what to expect.”

The one thing they did not expect was for the train to start moving.
Davie hadn’t noticed it was a steam train, but he heard the whistle and saw the
smoke.

Rebecca staggered in surprise.  “Yikes!”

Davie did the first thing that came to his mind.  He waved his arms and
shouted.  “Hey!  Hey!  Don’t leave.”

The train continued, picking up speed.

“No!  Don’t leave.”

The brakes went on and the wheels screeched against the tracks.  The
train lurched forward and came to a stop.  A hundred armed men jumped off and
aimed their rifles at them Davie and Rebecca.

“Oh, crikey,” said Rebecca.  “I’m not sure they’re taking anybody without
a ticket.”

“Who are you?” shouted an older man with a great white moustache,
marching towards them.  He was dressed in army camouflage and carried a large
shotgun on his hip.

Davie held his hands up.  “We’re looking for Edinburgh University.  My
name is Davie Walker.  This is Rebecca Goodman.  Her father was Andrew
Goodman.”

“Never heard of ‘im,” said the old soldier brusquely.

“He was a great man,” said Rebecca.  “There were few in the world that
fought for other people’s rights as much as he did.”

The old soldier shrugged.  “A girl is like to say many good things about
her father.  Don’t make ‘em true.  Let me tell you who I am, young lady.  I am
Major Nielson of the Royal Scots Borderers and you are the first two survivors
I have seen in many many moons.  It’s a shame I am going to have to put you
down.” He raised his shotgun.

Davie gasped.  “No!  Why?  We’re innocent.  We’re just looking to get to
the University.”

The Major pointed his shotgun at Rebecca and then down at her bleeding
ankle.  “She’s been bitten.  Most like, so have you.”

Davie shook his head and held his hands out for mercy.  “No, no.  That’s
why we need to get to the University.  When the dead first started walking, all
of the leading scientists relocated there.  We need to see them.”

The Major narrowed his eyes, suspicious.  “Why?”

Rebecca stepped forward and rolled up her sleeve.  “Because,” she said,
pointing to the gnarled scar tissue on her arm, “I’ve been bitten before and
nothing happened.  I didn’t turn into a zombie.  The wound healed and I was
fine.”

The Major stumbled backwards, utter shock on his face.  The other
soldiers which backed him up began to mumble and whisper.  “You’re having me
on, lass,” said the Major.

“She’s not,” said Davie.  “I saw her get bit.  I was meant to protect
her, but some bad guys broke into the safe house we were in and during our
escape a dead Chinese man bit her.”

The Major guffawed.  “Those bloody chinks.  They’ll eat anything.  Girl,
answer me truthfully.  Did you truly survive a bite?”

Rebecca nodded earnestly.  “I swear it.  I got a fever for a few days but
then I was fine.”

“Then get on the bloody train, you two.  We’re heading to Edinburgh right
now.  The eggheads will love you.  They’re always on at me to get them samples,
but they never expected to find anyone with immunity.”

“You’ve been to the university?” said Davie anxiously.

“Aye, I bloody well studied there, lad, but it’s still running now, if
that’s what you mean.  There’re two dozen eggheads there as we speak, sipping
their tea and juggling their test tubes.”

Davie almost hopped with excitement.  “We need to talk with them.
Rebecca can help them find a cure.”

The Major smiled and his moustache twitched.  “Aye, she just well might.
Maybe if we’re lucky, we might just save the bloody world.  Anything to stop
the bloody yanks from being the ones to do it.  All aboard,” he shouted.
“We’re taking our new messiah to see the wise men.  If she turns into a zombie
en route, shoot her bloody head off.  If she doesn’t then we’re all going to
line up and kiss her pretty feet.”

Rebecca giggled and so did Davie.  After months of being alone, the group
of soldiers and the working train was surreal.

There was a brief
hustle and bustle and the armed men went back inside the train. They ushered
Davie and Rebecca inside, too, laughing and joking with them like old friends.
Already, Davie felt safer than he had in a year.  He sighed and put his arm around
Rebecca as they both took a seat on the train.  They eased back in their chairs
and relaxed as a three-month trek through Hell itself came to a promising end.
There was finally some tangible hope in sight – a way to fight back and reclaim
the earth.  Maybe, if he was lucky, Davie might even get that kiss he longed
for.  From the way Rebecca was looking at him as the stream train got underway,
carrying them towards salvation, the chances looked good.  Very good indeed.

BOOK 3 OF 7

ANIMAL KINGDOM

Chapter One

Joe tugged his jacket closed
as the chilled autumn air sought out the unguarded crevices of his body.
The gloomy sky drizzled down to earth and coated everything in dullness, to a
point where it seemed that colour no longer existed in the world.  But the
dreary weather was not enough to dampen Joe’s spirits.  Today was a good
day.  He was spending the day with his son.

Exuberant Danny lingered nearby, peering through the bars of
the zoo’s famous Silverback exhibit.  Disappointingly, the leafy enclosure
was currently vacant of its illustrious inhabitant.  Joe knew that his son
would be upset by the animal’s absence but, as was the case with eight-year old
boys, his attention span soon reset itself and it wasn’t long before he was
running off in a new direction entirely.

“Dad!  That man over there is being attacked by a
snake.”

Joe stared down at his son, amazed, as always, that his
watery-blue eyes could look so much like his own.  “Don’t be silly,
Danny,” he said, breath turning to steam in the cold air.  “That’s just
the zoo’s snake handler.  He’s about to do a show.”

“I want to go see!” Danny tugged at his father’s arm,
deceptively strong for such a slender child wearing a Bret ‘The Hitman’ Hart
t-shirt and Velcro trainers.  “Hurry, before we miss anything.”

Joe allowed himself to be dragged toward a three-sided
lean-to shelter erected besides the zoo’s moss-covered WORLD OF VENOM
building.  It had been designed to look as if it were made of bamboo
reeds, but the façade was unconvincing.

A uniformed man entered the structure from a rear access and
began positioning plastic crates on a wooden table.  Each of the
containers held various species of reptiles, insects, and spiders.  The
man’s tanned-leather skin matched his khaki clothing and was weathered, brown
and loose.  He had a boa constrictor the length of a scaffold pole wrapped
around his bony shoulders, but seemed completely at ease with it.

Danny jumped up and down excitedly.  “Sweet!  I
bet that thing could squish him to death real easy!”

“Don’t be so morbid, Danny!”

“Sorry, Dad.  I just think it’s cool.”

“It’s okay.  I just want you to think nice
things.  Come on, let’s get closer.”  Joe took Danny’s hand – half
the size of his own – and pushed through the gathering crowd of adults and
their children.  It wasn’t difficult to get to the front of a group when
you were as freakishly tall as Joe.  People tended to get out of his way
long before he had to ask them.

“Look at the size of that thing, Dad!”  At the front of
the growing audience – now close to a dozen people – Danny started jumping up
and down again, his wispy blond hair flopping around in the musty breeze.
Childish glee oozed off him in ribbons.

The snake handler turned his attention to them both.  Joe
cringed, waiting to get a reprimand for his son’s nuisance behaviour.
Fortunately, however, the uniformed man just smiled at them instead.

“Hey there, young un,” the handler said to Danny.  “You
like snakes?”

“Yeah, I do.  Jake the Snake used to have one called
Damien.”

The snake handler wrinkled his forehead, readjusted the
slithering reptile in his arms, and then said, “Isn’t that a wrestler from
years back?”

Danny nodded enthusiastically.  “My dad has lots of old
tapes and I watch ’em every weekend when I stay over.  My bestest
favourite is The Undertaker.  Check it out!”  He spun around to show
the man the design on his backpack.

“Undertaker rip?” said the handler, confused.

Danny spun back around and giggled.  “No, silly!
Rest in peace.  It’s what The Undertaker says to everyone right before he
beats them up with his tombstone.”  He rolled his eyes back into his head
so that only the whites were showing, and then repeated the words in his best
attempt at a gravelly, adult voice.  “Rest…In…Peeeaaaace.”

The crowd laughed, so did the snake handler, struggling with
his giant brown reptile between each chuckle.  He pulled the animal down,
away from his face, and then smiled over at Joe.  “Fine little lad you
have there, sir.”

“Thanks.  He’s a handful though.  Just like your
snake.”

“You can say that again!  She’s really unsettled
today.  Won’t keep still for a minute, bless her.”

“Sounds just like my son.”

Danny bopped him on the arm.  “Hey!  I’m nothing
like a snake.  I’m gunna tell Mum on you.”

The crowd laughed again, this time giving a collective
“Oooooooo!”

Joe knew his son was just showing off, but it was nice to
see him come out of his shell.  After the last few years, with the divorce
and everything else, it was good to see that Danny had any confidence left at
all.

Joe rustled Danny’s hair, messing it up more than it already
was.  “We best be moving on, little dude,” he said, “or we won’t fit
everything in.  Say goodbye to the nice man and his snake.”

Danny twisted his face into a frown, but did as he was told.
His shoulders slumped as he spoke.  “See ya, Mister.  Thanks
for letting…Hey Mister…are you okay?”

Joe was alerted by the tone of his son’s voice before he
actually saw anything was wrong.  Even when he saw the problem, he wasn’t
sure whether or not to be concerned.

The snake handler was struggling with the huge reptile
around his shoulders.  The animal had coiled its way around his ribcage
and was tightening.

“Step away, Danny.”  Joe moved in front of his son,
keeping him back from the wooden barrier that separated the crowd from the
lean-to shelter.  The slithering reptile had begun to form a noose around
the keeper’s neck and was slowly constricting with each convulsion of its
muscular body.  The crowd started to murmur, the first gentle stages of
panic taking hold.

No one knows if this is just part of the act.

But it can’t be.  This man is really struggling.

The snake handler began to choke and threw out his arms in
desperation.  Joe jumped the barrier and dashed toward the shelter just as
the struggling man dropped to his knees on the plank-wood flooring.  The
fragile walls of the bamboo shelter shook beneath the impact.

“Stay calm,” Joe shouted in a voice that was the exact
opposite.  He reached out to grab the snake, but recoiled immediately.

Whoa!  Do I really wanna put my hands on this
thing?  Can it bite me?

Joe allowed himself to hesitate only a moment longer then
gave himself a mental shove.  Come on!  There’s a man’s life at
stake. Do something!

He snatched at the thick reptile, fighting away revulsion as
his fingers made contact with the rough, quivering flesh that was cold to the
touch.  Several seconds of frantic tugging made no difference at all.
The snake’s grip became even tighter.  The desperate handler turned
a deep purple as the pressure pushed his eyeballs a half-inch out of their
sockets, making them bulge.  Joe felt a wave of sickness crash through his
insides.

I can’t do anything.  I can’t get this thing off of
him.  I never watched a man die before...

Joe turned to the anxious crowd and checked that his son was
nearby.  “Don’t just stand there!” he shouted at the group of startled
strangers.  “Somebody go get help!  Danny, you stay where you are and
close your eyes, okay?  Everything is fine.”  He could tell by his
son’s fearful expression that he didn’t believe that things were ‘fine’.

Moving back around, Joe saw that blood trickled from both of
the snake handler’s nostrils.  The slithering beast, clamped around the
man’s throat, glared at Joe, malevolent eyes boring into his flesh.  Its
forked-tongue flicked back and forth, tasting the air.

People in the crowd started backing away as if they somehow
thought the snake handler’s peril was infectious.  Some of them scattered
immediately, crying out for help as they fled in all directions, while others
backed away in silence, unable to take their eyes off the harrowing scene in
front of them.  Joe didn’t retreat with either group.  He was rooted
to the spot.

Locked in a death stare with a nine-foot Boa Constrictor.

“Dad!”

The sound of Danny’s voice allowed Joe to regain control of
his senses, like being dragged out of water by an unseen hand.  He spun
around to find that his son had approached the wooden barrier and was about to
crouch underneath it.

Joe flung out an arm and shouted.  “Stay there,
Danny!  I’ll handle th-”

From the corner of his eye, Joe sensed movement.  He
turned just in time to see the snake strike.  The adrenaline in his body
pumped his reactions just enough that he was able to lunge aside, a mere
split-second before the murderous reptile sliced its fangs through the
air.  The snake handler flopped face down on the boards.  The boa
constrictor slithered out from beneath his body.  The man was dead.

Holy cow!

“Dad, I’m scared!”

Joe sprang into action, exiting the shelter and vaulting the
barrier.  He scooped Danny up in his arms and chased after the fleeing
crowd.  Help still had not arrived, but it hardly mattered anymore now
that the snake handler was dead.

Someone still needs to grab that snake though.

And then destroy the effing thing!

Joe kept his lanky strides fast, yet steady, not wanting to
trip and fall on the unforgiving pavement whilst carrying his son.  Blood
pounded in his eardrums.  All around him people scattered in different
directions.  It was strange to see just how many people were panicking.
There had been perhaps a dozen men and women at the snake handler’s hut – along
with a handful of children – but as Joe looked around now, he saw at least five
times that many.

Why are so many people in a hurry to get their asses out
of here?  What else is happening?

Joe slowed down and eventually stopped, turning to look back
where he’d come from.  The huge boa constrictor was still inside the
lean-to shelter, slithering over the lifeless body of its ex-handler.  It
was reason enough to panic, for sure, but Joe was certain that only those
nearby would have noticed the tragedy.  Something else must have been
scaring people.

Another animal attack?  Impossible.

Joe glanced around the zoo, examining the multiple animal
enclosures and exhibit buildings that lined the grass-edged pathways.  A
racket was coming from each of them, as if the caged specimens inside were
agitated by something.  The hoots and howls from the monkey compounds were
particularly loud and Joe could see the various primates rattling their bars
with reckless fury.  Joe could feel the vibrations from the steel bars in
his teeth.

What is happening?

He decided he didn’t want to wait and find out.  He
needed to make sure his son was safe – from what exactly, he did not
know.  Danny was rigid in his arms, making no sound other than the wet
panting of his breath.

“Everything’s going to be okay, buddy,” he said
soothingly.  “Let me get you someplace quiet and we can sit down and have
a Coke.”

Joe started moving again, a sense of urgency seizing his
internal organs and pumping them like pistons.  Some deep-buried instinct
told him he needed to get away from the area as quickly as possible.  Up
ahead was the zoo’s brand-new visitor centre, B.R. ZOOLOGICAL INSTITUTE AND
ENVIROMENTAL CENTRE.  The lengthy glass structure’s recent grand opening
was advertised all over the park and it looked like as good a place as any to
find some authority.

Joe picked up speed, his worn trainers wearing thinner
against the harsh grey cement of the pathways.  All around him people were
still panicking, scuttling in all directions like frenzied ants.  It was
still unclear what was causing all of the chaos, but Joe knew it was more than
just a snake attack.  Something else was happening.

Something bad.

The visitor’s centre seemed to grow in size as Joe got
closer to it.  He could make out the large glass doors of its
entrance.  Several people had already begun to move inside, but a vast
majority were running right past the building – likely heading towards the car
park beyond.  Joe wondered whether their idea was a good one.

I just want to get indoors.  I don’t know what’s
going on yet, but I know that a load of people panicking in their cars is gonna
have a bad ending.

Joe broke off from the crowd and approached the visitor
centre, hopping up a set of brick steps that joined with a decorative patio at
the front of the building.  A middle-aged Black man with grey sideburns
was standing amongst the potted trees and plants.  He quickly moved aside
when he saw he was in Joe’s way.  Joe nodded a ‘thanks’ to the man before
moving through the building’s wide-open double-doors.

The fluorescent lights inside were dazzling after the bleak
grey of outside.  The first thing Joe’s eyes managed to focus on was a
large rectangular sign hanging from the ceiling.  It declared the room to
be THE EDUCATION HALL.

The area was full of life-like exhibits: African elephants,
alligators, rhinos, and many other imposing creatures – each of the models
stared at the centre of the room with their soulless glass eyes.  Several
other people stood inside with Joe.  Each of them looked as concerned and
freaked out as he was.  There was only a single zoo employee amongst them
all, given away by his bright-green waist-jacket against a khaki-coloured uniform.
He wore the tatty, round spectacles of an intellectual man and his
neatly-combed grey hair only added to that impression.  He looked as
dumfounded as everybody else.  Joe still considered him the best person to
speak to.

Nearby, several plush, cube-shaped chairs of varying colours
were arranged in front of a vast LCD screen showing nature documentaries.
Joe eased Danny down onto a purple cube and gave him a quick hug.  “Just
wait here one sec, buddy, okay?”

Danny nodded and sat still.

Joe examined his son for a few moments, saw how frightened
he was, and then kissed his forehead.  “I’m proud of you, son.”

The zoo employee had moved over to the far wall of the hall
and was fiddling with a canary-yellow rubber-cased walkie-talkie.  It
didn’t seem like the man was having much success in gaining information if his
wrinkled, frustrated brow was anything to go by.  Joe approached the man
slowly, trying to seem calm rather than agitated.  It seems like
rationality could be at a premium right now.

The zoo keeper looked up at Joe.  “Sir, may I help
you?”

“Hello,” Joe replied.  “Do you know what the heck is
going on?”

The man shook his head and his spectacles jittered on the
bridge of his narrow nose.  He readjusted them before speaking.  “Not
the foggiest, I’m afraid, and I can’t reach any of the zoo keepers to find
out.  A couple of the visitors I’ve spoken to have mentioned animal
attacks, but they were too distressed to provide details.  Seems very
unlikely.”

Joe thought about the snake attack.  “You don’t think
an animal attack is possible?”

“Possible?  Yes.  But extremely unlikely.
The enclosures are secure and the staff are extremely dedicated, experienced
professionals.  There’s never been an incident of such a kind in the seven
years I’ve worked here.”

“Sorry to disagree,” Joe said, “but I just watched a large
snake kill one of your staff about ten minutes ago, over by the World of Venom
building – a boa constrictor, I think.  It squeezed the poor guy to death
in front of a dozen people.”

The employee’s face dropped.  “Terry?  I pray that
you are mistaken, sir, I truly do.  Terry has been with us for many years
and loved Betsy a great deal.”

Joe raised an eyebrow.  “Betsy?”

“Yes, Betsy.  She is the zoo’s Pearl Island Boa.
She’s always been extremely gentle.  I can’t believe she would ever
attack anyone – least of all Terry.  They had a…bond, for want of a
better word.”

Joe nodded.  He didn’t want to upset the man
further, until he understood what was happening.  “Maybe he’s okay,” Joe
supposed.  “It did all happen very suddenly.”

The other man thought about things for a moment and his
expression seemed to get grimmer with each passing second.  Finally, he
looked back up at Joe and said, “I believe you, sir.  It doesn’t seem like
you’re lying and I see no reason why you would.  Something is obviously
going on here today, but I just cannot fathom the idea that any of our animals
would attack their handlers.  There are too many precautions.”

“Look, I don’t mean to be impatient, but you’re the only
representative of the zoo I could find.  You need to do something.”

“And what exactly would you have me do?  I am a
curator, not a crowd controller.”

Joe sighed.  “Nevertheless, you have a responsibility.”

The man looked at Joe for several seconds before sagging at
the shoulders and replying.  “I suppose you’re right.  I should find
out what’s going on.”  He pushed Joe aside, headed for the front of the
hall, and spoke over his shoulder as he went.  “I still don’t believe
things are as bad as people are-”

Joe turned around to see why the curator had stopped
mid-sentence.  He could hardly believe his eyes as people started to
scream in terror.

Four lions blocked the far entrance to the visitor’s centre
and were snarling at the people inside.  Each of their fangs was the size
of a tent peg and freshly spilled blood dripped from their jaws.

Joe had a feeling that he was about to have a very bad day.

Chapter Two

“Lions!” someone shouted.

Joe didn’t know why he needed to state the obvious, but
saying it out loud was the only way he could accept what was happening.
“Those are goddamn Lions!”

The curator hurried back toward Joe.  “This is not
possible,” he said, his voice trembling like lime-jelly.  “The enclosures
are too secure for dangerous animals to get loose.”

Joe grabbed the man’s collar and shook him.  “Think
about how they got loose later, okay!  I need to get my son somewhere
safe, right now.”

The curator seemed to accept the situation and nodded his
head quickly.  “We should…we should get everyone further inside the
building.  It will be safer there.”

Without further comment, Joe raced over to get Danny from
the cube seats.  The boy was frozen solid, eyes fixed on the slinking
predators entering the hall.  Joe took his son into his arms and turned back
towards the zoo’s curator.  “Where can we g--”

The sound of fresh screams cut Joe off.  Four lions,
led by a heavily-maned male, were now fully inside the building.  Two
females split off to corner a young brunette woman in the gap between two snack
machines.  The beasts toyed with her, swatting her back and forth.
Blood formed on the woman’s white blouse where a set of razor-sharp claws
succeeded in penetrating her flesh.  Elsewhere, the remaining two lions
pursued anyone unable to find a hiding space.

“We have to help these people,” Joe said.  “Take my son
somewhere safe.”

The curator quickly took Danny into his arms, then turned to
Joe.  “We’ll be in the research wing, through the red door in the far
corner.  I suggest you come with us now not later.”

Joe nodded, “I’ll be right behind you.”  Then he ran
off towards the brunette woman between the snack machines.  He came to a
sudden stop when he encountered the male lion ripping out the throat of an
elderly gentleman.  The big cat’s jaws cut off the old man’s screams and
left him gargling blood.  Joe swallowed back the burger and fries he’d
eaten that morning, and battled with the dizziness that erupted from the base
of his stomach.

How did this happen?  People aren’t supposed to get
eaten alive by lions in the middle of England.  This isn’t Jumanji!

More screaming.  People being ripped to shreds.
Torn apart.  Somehow the young brunette was still managing to fend
off the two lionesses, kicking out at them each time they attacked and swatting
at them with her handbag.  It was working – for now – but it wouldn’t be
long before her timing was slightly off and the lions got a grip on her.

Joe grabbed one of the coloured cube-seats and hoisted it up
to his chest.  It was heavy – very heavy.  Joe sucked in a deep
breath and heaved with all his might, just about managing to get the thing up
above his head.  Then, like a circus strongman, he waddled across the hall
towards the two attacking lionesses.  The male lion also nearby, ripping
apart another victim: this time a young girl.

I must be insane.  The first weekend I’ve had with
Danny in a month and it ends up with me taking on a pride of lions with a chair
from IKEA.

Without allowing himself to think anymore – or back out
altogether – Joe flung the cube as hard as he could.  Through some stroke
of fortune the heavy piece of furniture barrelled into both of the lionesses at
the snack machines, hitting them like a bowling ball striking a pair of
skittles.  The lionesses sprawled onto their sides, their attack on the
young woman ceasing temporarily.

“Come on!”  Joe shouted, holding out his hand.

The woman looked at him, quaking with fear against one of
the snack machines.  The shock in her round, hazel-brown eyes made her
seem more like a cartoon character than a human being.

“Come on!”  Joe shouted at her again, louder.

Finally, the woman started to move, edging toward him
slowly.

Get yourself moving, woman!  I don’t fancy dying today.

One lioness was back on her feet, coiled up, ready to
pounce.  The young woman saw this and froze.  She looked at Joe
pleadingly.

There was only one thing on Joe’s mind and he expressed it
earnestly.  “RUN!”

Thankfully, the woman did as directed.  The two of them
bolted.  Up ahead, people screamed hysterically, rational thought blocked
by sheer terror and incomprehension.  Joe wanted to help them all.
He shouted as loudly as he could while still running.  “Get in the next
room.  Everyone, follow me!”

Joe’s words were almost pointless.  One or two people
responded, racing after him towards safety, but a majority of the people
continued to stand and scream aimlessly.  There was nothing Joe could do
for these people.  They couldn’t even help themselves.

Up ahead on the left was a red-painted door reading: STAFF
ONLY.  Joe was sure it led to what the curator had called “The Research
Wing.”

Roaring – from behind Joe – so loud it made his fillings
ache.  Without looking, he knew that the lions were giving chase, their
instincts unable to resist the sight of fleeing prey.  He could almost
feel their rancid, blood-soaked breath on the back of his neck.  He
expected to feel their wicked claws slicing through the sinewy fibres of his
hamstrings any second.  Joe picked up as much speed as he could muster.

He just prayed it was enough.

Enough to outrun a lion…

When he and a handful of others reached the red door, Joe
slammed right into it, unable to slow down in time to stop.  It was then
that he noticed the entrance was locked, an ominous steel number pad set beside
it on the wall.  He bashed at it with his fists, hammering until his skin
cracked, but it would not swing open.  Behind Joe, the other strangers
gathered frantically.  Behind them, all four lions approached, led by the
male with the thick, blood-soaked mane.

“What do we do?” asked the young brunette woman.

Joe shook his head.  “I don’t know.”

To his surprise, she laughed.  “Fabulous!”

The lions were upon them fast.  The assembled group
shoved one another, battling to get to the back where it was safer.  Those
at the front began screaming.  One man, dressed in a grubby chef’s
uniform, was knocked forwards onto his knees by the people behind.

The lions were on him in seconds.

As a single unit, the muscled predators pounced, pinning the
chef to the floor with their huge round paws.  The male lion was the first
to draw blood, tearing off a chunk of stringy flesh from the chef’s neck with
its powerful jaws.  A torrent of steaming blood arced high into the air
and spattered his grubby white tunic.

At least Danny will be safe, Joe thought to himself
through the growing haze of his fear-soaked mind.  Even if his father
gets eaten by a lion.  Little bit of therapy and he’ll be fine.

Joe swallowed hard.

He watched the ensuing chaos and finally lost all feeling –
from each of his fingertips to all ten of his toes.  He could no longer
think in a straight line, the adrenaline dissipating through his body and
sending him into a dazed void of inaction.  One-by-one, the members of the
group were taken down by the lions, bitten and mauled like ragdolls.  It
would not be long until Joe’s turn was next; the three or four people in front
of him were his only protection.

He met the glare of the male lion’s amber-flecked eyes.

A rumbling growl erupted from the animal’s gore-encrusted
mouth.

Can’t believe this is how I’m going to die.  A
footnote in ‘Ripley’s Believe it or not.’

The people in front of Joe fell quickly, kicking out and
fighting with every ounce of spirit they had left, but dying anyway.  It
was inevitable.

Joe stood motionless, unable to help anyone or himself – a
helpless voyeur of the human tragedy going on all around him.

One by one, people screamed and then died.

Eventually, Joe’s turn to join them arrived.

The male lion glared at him once again.

Then all four lions snarled.  All four lions pounced.

Joe closed his eyes.

Unseen hands grabbed him, pulling him backwards.  He
fell hard onto his side, the impact stealing his breath away.  It was a
full moment later, when the vision-stars cleared, that he found himself lying
in a cramped corridor.  Other people were piling in after him, pushing and
heaving through the narrow gap of the doorway.  There were further screams
from those unlucky enough not to make it through.

A hand grabbed Joe around the shoulder.  When he looked
up, he saw that it belonged to the grey-haired curator.  Joe got to his
feet with difficulty, still struggling for breath.  “Where’s…my…son?”

“Over there.”  The curator pointed to a bench against
the wall.  Danny sat there, safe and sound, yet clearly terrified.
Joe’s lungs deflated as the stress and terror finally fled the rigid fibres of
his body.  His son was unharmed.  He could relax.

“We have to get that door locked back up,” the curator
asserted.  “I’m sorry I didn’t realise it had locked behind me.
Those poor people.”

“Forget about it,” Joe snapped.  “There’re people still
out there now.  We have to help them.”

“We cannot.  You’ve already helped as many as you can,
and if we don’t get that door secured, then none of us will be safe.”

Joe knew the logic was correct, but it didn’t make the
decision any easier.  He thought about Danny’s safety and made up his
mind.  “Okay.  Let’s get that door closed.”

Joe and the curator rushed over to the thick wooden door and
pushed against it, shoving back the half-score of desperate people clambering
at the other side.  There were agonised pleas and prayers to God –
desperate begging that the door not be closed – but there was no hope to save
them all – or any of them.  In fact, most of the people outside
were already half-torn, limb hanging from limb.  Even those still mobile
were bleeding and shocked, wandering around like shell-shocked teenagers on the
beaches of Omaha.

Except for one man further back who was still managing to
put up a fight.

It was the guy from earlier, Joe noticed.  The guy
from the patio.

The Black man with the grey sideburns had shown politeness
to Joe earlier.  Now the man was desperately fighting off the lions and
trying to help others under attack.  He wielded a fire extinguisher and
was spraying foam into the faces of the lions, forcing them to back away,
disorientated.

“He’s trying to save everyone,” said Joe, and for a moment
he thought the man might just do it.

But then the male lion took him down, blindsiding the
courageous man as he concentrated his blinding fog on one of the lionesses.
Joe heard the man cry out as he hit the deck hard.  If it wasn’t for
the extinguisher in his hands, blocking the lethal bite of the lion, the guy
would already be dead.

Joe glanced around, noticed that the three lionesses were
still disorientated, pawing at their faces as they tried to clear the foam from
their airways.

Just the male left.  I can help this guy.

Joe stopped thinking.  He forced his rubbery legs to
take form and he exited the safety of the corridor and went back into the
Education Hall.  Exertion made his knees feel like hot coals inside paper
sacks.

The struggling man was still unharmed, fending off several
attacks by using the metal fire extinguisher as a shield.

Joe picked up his pace.

Reaching the male lion, he swung his leg into the hardest
kick he could muster.  His foot connected with the side of the lion’s head
and a sharp, white-hot jolt of electric pain shot through his toes.  The
blow had almost no effect on the target, however.  The male lion flinched
from the attack, but seemed no more than merely irritated.

Bugger it!

The lion let out an almighty roar.  It was at this
point that the Black man readjusted the fire extinguisher’s nozzle and pulled
back the handle.  Gloopy jets of foam shot into the male lion’s mouth,
cutting off its ear-splitting roar and reducing it to a startled whimper.
The big cat leapt backwards, choking, hacking, and rubbing its maw along the floor.

Joe pulled the other man up and the two of them galloped
back towards the red doorway as quickly as their battered bodies would allow
them.  All around, fierce lions lay mewling like wounded kittens.
The whole effed-up situation was surreal – like Alice in Wonderland on crack.

The two men passed through the door into the corridor.
The waiting curator slammed it shut immediately behind them.  The
automatic bolt let out an echoing clack!

Joe slumped back against the door and took a steady breath.
It seemed like the first in a long time and the air stabbed his lungs as
if he were breathing in carpet tacks.  His heart was threatening to rip
right through his chest.  But at least Danny was still safe, still sitting
on the bench against wall.  The young brunette woman sat beside him,
apparently making conversation and trying to calm his nerves – or perhaps her
own.  Joe’s heartbeat slowed down a little, but he couldn’t help shake the
feeling that things were not yet over.

In fact, he had a feeling they were going to get worse.

Chapter Three

“Time I learned your name,
sir.”

“It’s Joe.”

The curator shook his hand.  “My name is Mason.  I
am the head curator of the zoo and I thank you for all your help.  I don’t
think I could have taken charge like you did.”

“Just wish so many people hadn’t gotten hurt.  How many
made it?”

“There’s seven of us, including you and your son, but even
more people would have been injured if it wasn’t for you, Joe.  You’re a
hero and people owe you their li-”

A short, pudgy man with neatly-combed oil-black hair wedged
himself between the two of them.   He glared up at Mason.
“Perhaps you two could stop flirting for one moment and tell me what the hell
is going on!  I can tell you right now that this wretched place will never
open its doors to the public again after I’m through with it.”

Mason’s expression did not change.  “And who might you
be, sir?”

The pudgy man’s features scrunched up in disapproval.
“Who am I?  Who am I?  I am Christopher-bloody-Randall!  That’s
who I am.”

Mason shook his head.  “I’m sorry?”

“From Black Remedy Investments plc.  You know, the
company that paid for this very building you’re standing in right now?
Show me a little more respect, because I have a good mind to demand our
investment back right now.  This is not what I expected when I came here
for a simple business meeting this morning.  It’s a fiasco.”

Again, without any discernible expression, Mason shook his
head.  “I’m afraid I don’t involve myself with the zoo’s finances.
That would be the concern of the park administrators.  I apologise
for any inconvenience to you, Mr Randall, but I think you can clearly see that
we are all equally affected by the day’s events.”

The angry little man went bright red now and began to
wheeze.  Spittle formed at the corners of his bulbous lips. “Now you
listen here.  I own this building, which means I own you.  I need to
get out of here immediately, do you hear me?  My business here is finished
and I have a very important meeting to get--”

Joe had heard enough.  “Look, mate, I don’t know what
mental illness you’re currently taking medication for, but people are
dead.  Nobody gives two shits if you have a business meeting with the
Queen. Unless you intend to be helpful, please just do us all a favour and fuck
off!  Excuse my French.”

The investor spun to face Joe, toe to toe, but seemed to
lose his spirit when he realised the difference in size and height.  Joe
probably weighed six-stone more than the man and towered over him like a lead
statue.

The man still hadn’t lost his attitude completely,
though.  “How dare you speak to me like that.  Do you know who I am?”

“You’re Lord Randall of Asshole-land.  Thanks,
got it, don’t care.  Just sit down while Mason and I actually try to do
something constructive.”

Randall shook with anger, glaring at Joe as if he
were excrement on his Ralph Lauren loafers.  Fortunately it seemed he had
finally run out of patience and he stormed off down the corridor.  Joe
took the opportunity to glance over at Danny, wondering if he should go and
check on him.  His son had lain himself down across the brunette woman’s
lap and was nearly asleep.  Joe decided to leave him alone for a few
minutes more.

He turned his focus back to Mason.  “That guy was a
jackass.”

Mason nodded.  “Investors always are.  Black
Remedy bought shares in the zoo last year and they’ve acted like they own the
place ever since.  They don’t see the zoo as way of preserving the world’s
great nature, they just see pound signs.  Still, he has a right to be
angry after what has happened today.  No doubt he is correct about the
zoo’s future being rather bleak.”

“How could this happen, Mason?”

“I really can’t say.  Nothing like this has ever
happened before.  All of the dangerous animals are kept inside
high-security enclosures.  The only way in or out is through twin-layer
fences.  You enter one, close it, and then open the second.  There’s
no way an animal can escape.”

Joe nodded.  “I understand the type of thing you mean,
but, whether it’s plausible or not, the lions got out somehow.”

“Indeed they did.”

Joe waited for further comment, but it appeared that the
curator had none to make, so he decided to speak instead.  “Okay, just
keep trying to reach someone on your radio.  I’m going to go check on my
son.”

Mason nodded and Joe left him alone under the bright lights
of the corridor.  Over on the bench, Danny was still lying on the brunette
woman’s lap.  She was stroking his head tenderly.  Beneath the harsh
light, Joe could see that the woman’s wounds were shallow and already
healing.  She’d been lucky.

“Hey,” Joe said as he approached her.  “Thanks for
looking after my son.”

She smiled glumly and it was then that Joe saw she was in
fact just a girl, not a woman.  Dark bags beneath each of her eyes gave
the impression that she was older, but her smooth white skin betrayed her real
youth.

About twenty maybe?

“Least I can do after you saved my life,” she said.

Joe blushed.  “Wouldn’t go that far.”

“I would.”  The girl offered out her hand.  It was
slender and recently manicured, but many of the painted-pink nails were chipped
and broken, probably from her ordeal between the snack machines.  “I’m
Grace.”

Joe noticed a recently-healed scar that lined the back of
her wrist, along with several older, faded wounds.  He didn’t want to be
rude by staring, so he averted his eyes.  “Pleased to meet you, Grace,” he
said and the two shook hands.  “I’m Joe and this is--”

“Danny.  Yeah, I know.  He told me before taking a
nap.  He was worried about you out there.  You shouldn’t be such a
hero.”

Joe acknowledged his selfishness.  If he’d been hurt
then Danny would be all alone in this dangerous situation.  What the hell
was he thinking, running around out there like Joe-the-lion-tamer?  He
couldn’t risk leaving Danny alone again.

I won’t.

“Mind if I wake him?” he asked.

Grace laughed.  The sound was delicate and
fragile.  “He’s your son.  Be my guest.”

Joe knelt beside Danny and gently shook one of his tiny
legs.  “Hey, little dude!  You awake?”

Danny opened his eyes slowly, pupils widening gradually like
ink stains on cloth.

“Everything is okay now,” said Joe. “Daddy’s back.”

Danny smiled and closed his eyes again as if wanting to get
back to some wonderful dream.  He muttered under his breath, “Can I stay
here with Grace?”

Joe raised an eyebrow.  It wasn’t like Danny to form
bonds so quickly – not since the divorce – but he supposed it couldn’t
hurt.  Joe looked up at Grace.  “That okay?”

Grace nodded.  “Sure.  Could kind of do with a
rest myself.  Wish I could just switch off like him.”

“There’s a quiet-room on the right,” said Mason, approaching
from down the corridor with walkie talkie still in hand.  “It’s where we
put visitors when they’re not feeling well.  There’s a sofa-bed inside.”

“Excellent!” said Grace, her face lighting up like a
beacon.  “Come on, Danny.”

Joe watched the girl lead his son to the room on the
opposite side of the corridor before disappearing inside.  For some reason
he trusted her, and he relaxed knowing that Danny was in her care.  Maybe
it was the feeling of having a women’s support that made him feel that way.

It’s been a while.

Mason placed a hand on Joe’s shoulder.  “I couldn’t
reach anyone.  I got some static and some garbled voices, but nothing I
could get a fix on.  From the brief connections I made, things seemed pretty
bad.  No one is answering.”

Joe raised his eyebrows.  “No one at all?”

Mason’s stiff expression gave nothing away about his
feelings, but Joe had a feeling the man was beginning to crack.  Slender
creases at the corners of his eyes seemed to widen as he spoke.  “There
are a dozen zoo keepers here today and they all carry walkie talkies – just
like this one.  Not one of them is replying.  I can’t imagine what
that means.”

“I can,” said Joe, “and it’s not a nice thing to think
about.  You tried phoning anyone outside the zoo?”

Mason shook his head.  “That was what I was going to do
next.  There are phones in the offices upstairs.  I should be able to
call right through to the administration building at the rear entrance.
Office staff don’t generally work the weekends, but there’s usually one or two
people there on a Saturday.  Mr Randall said he was here this morning for
a meeting, so perhaps the members of the board are around too.  They may
be able to shed some light on the current situation.”

“Good,” said Joe, scratching the stubble on his wide
chin.  It seemed to have grown inches in just the last hour.  “What
about the building we’re in?  Can we get out any other way than the door
we came through?”

“There’s a fire exit at the end of this corridor and we can
also enter the cafeteria, which has several more exits.  I don’t know if
it would be wise to try to leave, however.”

Joe looked up and down the corridor, taking in the scene of
shellshocked survivors.  In addition to the rude investor, Mr Randall,
there was also an elderly woman with grey hair sitting right next to a
heavily-tattooed bald man.  It was a strange sight to see such opposites
placed side-by-side.

“I think I agree,” Joe said after some consideration.
“My son and I are going nowhere until those lions are dealt with.”

Mason adjusted his spectacles.  “We should get everyone
assembled and come up with a plan, even if it’s only to sit and wait for
rescue.”

“Agreed,” said Joe.  “Is there somewhere more
comfortable we can all go?  I don’t think people will be able to calm down
in this corridor.  It’s too close to what happened.”

Mason took Joe’s arms and led him a few feet down the
corridor.  “There’s a staffroom in this part of the building.  It’s a
large area with enough places to sit and a few refreshments.  I’d say it
would be best place to reconvene for now.  We can always move upstairs
later if we need to.  The building is pretty much empty, today being the
weekend.  They’ll be plenty of room.  In fact, I think we’re the only
ones here.”

“Let’s get going then.”

Mason clapped his hands together and got the attention of
the other shell-shocked survivors.  “Okay everyone, can I have your
attention, please?”

Silence from everyone.  Glazed expressions and teary
cheeks.  From the other side of the exit door, the wet smacking sounds of
lions feeding on corpses could be heard in vivid detail.

Mason continued, despite the lack of audience
response.  “We are going to follow this corridor down to its end and enter
a staffroom beyond.  It is comfortable there, warm and safe.  We
should gather whilst we wait to learn more about this…situation.”

“And what is the situation?” asked the Black man with the
grey sideburns.  He was still carrying his dented fire extinguisher.

“We don’t know,” Mason answered.  “Obviously there has
been a breach in the lion enclosure, but as to how that happened, I do not
know.  I will try to contact the administration building shortly – and the
emergency services of course – but first we need to get ourselves situated.”

“Who are you to give orders?”  It was the investor,
Randall.  The man’s mood had obviously not improved.

“I am no one to give orders,” Mason calmly told him, “but as
the only one offering practical advice, I see no harm in having people do as I
say for the time being.”

“If you hadn’t allowed this to happen in the first place
then I would have a little more trust to afford to you, my friend.”

“Mr Randall, if you feel better blaming me personally I am
happy for you to do so, but my advice is that we group together somewhere more
comfortable.  If you or anybody else does not wish to follow that advice
then you are free to do as you like.  Those who do wish to follow my
suggestion may come with myself and Joe, who, may I remind you, was the one
that helped a majority of you in the first place.”

“If that’s your advice,” said the man with grey
sideburns.  “Then that’s what I’ll do.  I don’t see the point in all
this negativity and arguing.”  The last comment was directed at Randall
who seemed less than impressed at being called out.

“Let’s go then,” said Joe.  “I’ll get Grace and my son
and we’ll be off in five.”

A heavy thud rattled the red door behind them on its
hinges.  The lions were trying to break through into the corridor.

Joe’s eyes widened.  “Or maybe we should get going
right now.”

Chapter Four

Randall could not believe he
was running down a corridor to get away from lions.  It was the biggest
screw-up he had ever known, and when it was all over this dump of a zoo would
pay for it.  To think his company had actually provided obscene amounts of
cash to improve the facilities here.  Positive publicity, the marketers
had claimed.  What a load of rubbish.  He’d be claiming back every
penny now and more.  The place could rot for all he cared.

“This is ridiculous,” said Randall – wheezing heavily – to a
tattooed man running alongside him.  “Don’t they have guns here…or… or
something in place to control animals when they…get loose?”

“Tell me about it!”  The man’s reply was in a thick
Scottish accent.  The word ‘about’ sounded like ‘a-boot’ from the man’s
uncouth mouth.  “They must be running the place with a bunch of wee
ten-year-olds.  Someone is gonna be knee-deep in bother when this is over,
mark my words.”

Randall sniggered.  “You can say that again, my
friend.”

The shambling group of survivors slowed down at the end of
the corridor and the idiot curator turned to face them all.  “Okay
everyone, once we get inside we should barricade the doors right away.  I
don’t think I need to tell you why.”  The man paused so that they could
all listen to the banging coming from the door down the corridor behind
them.  Randall didn’t appreciate the dramatics, but kept his silence as
the man continued.  “Once that is done, we can all do our best to relax
while I try to contact the authorities.”

No one spoke and Randall didn’t blame them.  What was
there to say in a ridiculous situation like this?  And to take orders from
one of the men responsible for it made things all the more worse.

The curator pushed open the door at the end of the corridor
and stood aside whilst people filed into the room ahead.  Randall listened
to the erratic thudding getting louder behind them.  It was all very
confusing.

Can lions behave like this?  Smashing through doors
to get at people after already devouring several bodies already?  It can’t
be hunger.

The tattooed man beside Randall patted him on the
back.  “They best have a kettle in there, pal.  I could kill a brew.”

Randall took exception to being touched by the rough-looking
gentleman, but even more to being called ‘pal’.  He didn’t acknowledge his
disapproval, however, because he was next in line to enter the staffroom up
ahead.  Randall stepped through into a large teal-carpeted room, featuring
several sets of brand-new tables and chairs, several vending machines, two pool
tables, and a modest kitchenette.  The room was backed by a horizontal
window that ran the entire length of the wall.

Is this what our money paid for?  Somewhere for
staff to laze about?  Maybe they should have spent the money on better
security for the animal enclosures.  Then I wouldn’t be suing them into
bankruptcy.

Randall found a seat and placed himself down while the rest
of the group seated themselves.  It felt good to take the weight off his
feet, gave him a chance to use his inhaler.  It would not do to idle for
too long, though, because he had somewhere important to be.  The head of
one of the China’s biggest tire manufacturers would be waiting on him to
discuss an investment in their UK strategy.  It was just one more industry
that the Chinks were planning to monopolise and Randall decided it was better
to get into bed with them than to resist.  It could cost Randall’s company
millions if he missed the meeting – and Black Remedy were not a firm that took
kindly to incompetence.  There was a long line of other investors eager to
make the deal with the Chinese if Randall didn’t.  Lions or no lions, he
had to get out of there.

I’ll spare ten more minutes, then enough is enough.

The curator stepped into the staffroom along with his giant
blond accomplice, the one who had been rude to Randall earlier.  A young
brunette girl and a small boy with a tatty backpack also accompanied
them.  He was pretty sure that the boy belonged to the blond man.

Probably an insolent little brat like his father.

The curator pushed the door closed and locked it, then
turned to face the group.  “This door is not especially heavy,” he said,
“so I think it would be wise to slide one of the pool tables in front of
it.  Do I have any volunteers?”

Yeah right!  Randall scoffed.  Don’t
expect me to start lugging furniture around for you.

There were a few volunteers but Randall paid them no
mind.  The only concern he had right now were the ticking hands on his
Omega watch.  Each second could be costing him money.

This will not do.  We must wrap this up so I can get
out of here.

Several minutes passed, the aimless fools just about
managing to push one of the pool tables up against the door.
Unbelievably, they had started playing a game on the other table.

What do they think this is?  Break Time?

“Right!”  The curator cleared his throat and addressed
everyone once again.  “Now that we have secured our safety, I should
introduce myself.  My name is Mason and I work here at the zoo.
Unfortunately, I have no more knowledge of the current events than anybody else.
I will, however, be going upstairs shortly to use one of the office phones to
try and contact the authorities.  Before that, might I ask if anyone has a
cell phone?”

The group looked around themselves, but no one
answered.  Randall could have said ‘yes’, but he wasn’t about to offer up
his possessions to a bunch of fools.

Mason raised an eyebrow above his spectacles.
“Really?  No one has one?  I thought the whole world had mobile
phones these days?”

“Yeah,” added a Black man with grey sideburns who looked a
lot like Bill Cosby.  He was holding up a piece of shattered plastic with
various wires hanging out of it.  “But mine got pretty bashed up during
the attack, as you can see.  I tried making a call, but the thing won’t
even switch on anymore.”

The young girl spoke.  “I had one in my bag.  My
bag is outside.  I think we all just ran for our lives, without really
thinking about our belongings.”

Not me.  Randall smirked.  Too bad the
rest of you are unorganised idiots.  I made sure to keep a hold of my possessions.

Mason nodded thoughtfully and then shrugged.  “A shame,
but not much we can do about it now.  Okay, I’ll go try to find some
answers for everyone.”

“Make sure you find them in the next five minutes,” said
Randall, using the commanding tone that he had perfected throughout years of
boardroom conflicts.

Mason sighed.  “Mr Randall, I do not wish to do battle
with you again.  Please try to see-”

“No, you try to see how much you have caused us all an
inconvenience.  None of us should be sitting here right now, in danger, no
less.  You need to remedy this situation immediately – and I mean
immediately.”

“Yeah!”  The agreement came from the bald tattooed
man.  “This has gone way beyond a bloody joke, pal!”

Mason sighed once more and Randall was sure that the man was
defeated.  “I implore you to be patient and in return I will do my upmost
to get this situation resolved as quickly as possible.  I can only do my
best to make sense of things.  For now the only place we know that is safe
is here, inside this building.  I’ll go now and try to make contact with
somebody in authority.”

Randall relaxed back in his chair and smiled like a fox
after dinner.  “See that you do, my friend.”  Despite the curator’s
obvious skill in keeping a straight face, Randall could see tiny rivulets of
irritation soaking into the man’s expression.  It pleased Randall.

“Afterwards,” he added, “I would request that everyone give
me their contact details.  I will be taking this establishment to the
courts and anyone that wishes to join me in that pursuit will be most welcome.”

“I’m with ya, pal,” the tattooed man replied.

“As am I,” said a middle-aged woman with wispy grey hair and
bifocals.  “Someone has to be punished.”

Randall couldn’t help but grin.  Splendid.
Looks like I have a nice foundation for my case already.  The more angry
voices in a courtroom the better.

“Why you gotta be such a dick, man?”  It was the Black
man, standing by the pool table, cue in hand.  “Can’t you see the trouble
we’re in?  People are dead and all you can think about is your damn self.”

Who the hell does he think he is to question me?

“I live in a world where people are held accountable for
their actions,” said Randall.  “Sorry if the notions of right and wrong
are beyond someone like you.”

The Black man scrunched up his face and stepped away from
the pool table.  “The hell that supposed to mean?”

Randall sighed.  “Work it out, Cosby.”

Before Randall got a reply, the large blond man entered the
conversation.  “Let’s not pick at each other, okay?  Mason has gone
upstairs to make a phone call and shed some light on the situation.  The
rest of us should just keep ourselves occupied.  Look,” he pointed one of
his giant arms across the room, “there’s a television in the corner.”

He was right, Randall noted.  Perched on a pair of wall
brackets at the far corner of the room was a brand new LCD TV.

Another extravagance Black Remedy paid for.  Jesus
wept!

“Okay,” Randall conceded.  “Television sounds like a
good idea, but let’s just put the news on.  None of that daytime talk show
drivel.”

“Fine.  No problem.”  The big large blond man
bounded off towards the television set on legs that seemed more like
stilts.  The television was far away from where Randall was sitting, but
big enough that he would still be able to see it.

When the blond man managed to find the remote and switch on
the TV, it showed only a blue screen at first.  After a couple of seconds
of pressing buttons and flipping through several channels of empty static, a
grainy picture finally appeared.

“The reception is really bad,” said the blond man, “but I
think I got the news.  It’s certainly not Jeremy Kyle.”

“Yeah, it’s a news report alright,” Cosby added
needlessly.  “I recognise the journalist, Jane Hamilton.”

Everyone sat quietly as the news updates flashed various
images from around the UK.  It seemed that it wasn’t just the zoo that was
having troubles.

“Holy shit!” Cosby cried out.  “I can’t believe it.”

If Randall was honest, he couldn’t quite believe it
either.  “Interesting,” he said out loud, wondering what it could all
mean.  “Very interesting.”

Chapter Five

Joe couldn’t believe what he
was seeing.  The flickering news report showed animal attacks from several
areas of the country – images of Regent’s Park overrun by snarling dogs of numerous
breeds and even more bizarrely, a pack of crazed squirrels attacking a baby in
its pram outside Bristol’s Clifton Cathedral.  Next came scenes from the
countryside – of farm animals ripping a man to shreds in Paignton as he failed
to reach the safety of his dust-covered Range Rover.  Sheep, cows, and
even pigs were roaming the fields and roadsides like Nazi-death-squads, with
what looked like morsels of human flesh hanging from their jaws.  Every
scene was different, but they all had one thing in common – animals were
attacking people.  It didn’t matter how big or how small, anything with
fur, claws, or fangs was seemingly possessed by a malevolent rage directed
solely at the human race.  Dogs, cats, and mice, to sheep, cows, and pigs
– all were united in their quest to kill.  Whatever was going on right
now, it wasn’t just isolated to the zoo.

“This can’t be happening,” said Joe, as the television
switched to similar scenes from various locations in Europe.  Helsinki was
currently under siege from a band of rampaging bears, while Paris was fighting
off a plague of rats emerging from its vast sewers.  “God help us.”

“I don’t think God is watching,” said Grace, who had picked
Danny up into her arms to keep him from looking at the images.

Joe shook his head, unable to take his eyes away from the
screen.  “I don’t understand any of this.”

“Me either.”  The man with the grey sideburns
came up beside them.  “It’s a mad house.”

Joe somehow managed a smile.  “What’s your name?
I’m assuming it’s not Cosby?”

“Name’s William, but my friends call me Bill – don’t mention
the coincidence to that stumpy guy in the suit.  Your name’s Joe, right?”

Joe nodded.  “Pleased to meet you, Bill.  You make
sense of any of this?”

Bill shook his head.  “Just about the craziest goddamn
thing I’ve ever seen.  Don’t know what could be to blame.  Maybe it’s
the end of the world.”

“Terrorists, if you ask me.”  Coming to join them was
the grey-haired woman that had spoken out in support of Randall earlier,
wanting to join him in his legal battle.  She was smiling now and seemed
quite pleasant.  “Godless monsters are always coming up with new ways to
destroy the world.  Looks like they finally came up with a good one –
airborne rabies.  Name’s Shirley.”

“Hi, Shirley,” Joe greeted her.  “You really think
terrorists?”

“Have a better suggestion?”

Joe shook his head.  He didn’t.  If it was a
terrorist act, he wondered what that could mean, and what it would mean for his
son.  “What do we do?”

“How should I know?”  Shirley shrugged.  “Whatever
happens, things will work out however God wants them too.  Maybe the world
will finally face up to its sins now that deliverance is upon us.”

Bill huffed beside Joe.  “Speak for yourself,
lady.  People are responsible for their own actions.  I don’t believe
there’s some man in the sky playing us all like puppets, weighing up our
mistakes against us.  That’s crazy!”

Shirley smirked, but the expression contained a dose of
venom.  “Believe what you will, but when your day of reckoning arrives you
will see the error of your ways.  Now is not the time to be a
heathen.”  The woman strolled away; apparently satisfied that she had said
her piece.

Bill turned to Joe.  “She for real?”

“Don’t know,” said Grace, “but that was a bit of an intense
introduction.”

“Mentally ill if you ask me.”

Grace shook her head and seemed uncomfortable.  “Being
strange doesn’t mean you’re crazy.”

Joe laughed.  “Strange times call for strange people, I
guess.  It doesn’t matter who, or what, is responsible at the end of the
day. The only thing that matters to me right now is keeping my son safe.
You think things will work themselves out if we just stay put?”

Bill shrugged.  “The police must be doing
something.  Hell, the army too!  It’s just a bunch of animals.
They should be able to handle a few rabid Labradors and Tabby cats.”

“What about lions?” Grace asked.

“Lions are a little more difficult, but that’s only because
we had the misfortune to be at the mother-fuckin’ zoo.  I mean, damn, you
couldn’t make this shit up.”

Joe winced at the language and motioned to his sleeping son.

“Sorry,” said Bill immediately.

“So what’s the plan?”  Grace asked Joe, shifting
Danny’s weight onto her opposite shoulder.  “Do we just stay here?”

Joe had no answers.  He scratched at his forehead on
the off-chance that he would knock loose an idea, but found nothing
hiding.  “I guess we just settle in and wait for help to come.  It’ll
probably take time for the authorities to get a handle on things.”

Especially if this is happening everywhere.

Just then a door swung open at the edge of the room,
startling everybody.  When it turned out to be Mason, they all
relaxed.  The zoo’s curator ambled over with a look of grave concern on
his face.

Joe nodded to him.  “Everything okay?”

Mason shook his head and looked down at the floor.
When he looked back up his expression seemed even grimmer.  “I tried
contacting the admin building, but got nothing.  The phones just rang
out.  So then I called the police.”

Joe cleared his throat, not sure he wanted to hear what Mason
had to say.  “And?”

“No answer.”

Grace frowned.  “What?  No answer?  They have
to answer, don’t they?”

Mason bit at his lip.  “One would certainly think so,
but I’m getting the impression that they may be inundated with calls right
now.”

Joe knew where this was going and didn’t want to beat around
the bush.  “We just saw the news.  It’s going on all over the
country.  We saw it happening in Paignton and Bristol.”

Mason rubbed at his jawline.  “Interesting,” he
said.  “Paignton and Bristol both have zoos.”

Joe shrugged.  “So do a lot of places.  I don’t
think that has anything to do with it.  Things are bad everywhere.”

“Yes,” said Mason.  “I suspected as much.  Every
number I tried was unanswered.  But what really disturbed me is what I saw
through the upper-floor windows.”

Joe took a deep breath which seemed to lead Bill and Grace
to do the same.  Maybe anxiety was infectious.  He raised an eyebrow
at Mason and asked the question.  “What did you see?”

Mason didn’t answer at first and seemed to drift off into
thought, eyes flickering behind his spectacles as though they were playing back
a movie in his mind.  When he finally answered, his voice was weak and
lacked his usual composure.  “The entire zoo has been overrun.  The
animals are all out of their cages and there are…” Mason took a moment to
gather himself.  “There are bodies everywhere.  I watched for ten
minutes whilst the zoo’s pack of African Wild Dogs ate the very flesh from a
group of dead children.  Blood every--”

Joe cut him off and pointed to his son.  Danny
didn’t need to hear any of this.  Hopefully he was sleeping soundly.

My incredible sleeping son.  One way of dealing with
the situation, I guess.

Mason understood the warning and changed his tone to
something more positive.  “Yes, well, perhaps it is best to think forward
now that events have already transpired.  I believe we are safe for now,
but I have no idea how long we should prepare to be here.  If I tell the
group what has happened, and that we all must remain inside, I think they may
kick up a fuss.”

Bill laughed.  “That’s an understatement.  Biggest
problem is gonna be that jackass banker – or whatever he is.”

“Christopher Randall.”  Joe sniffed.  “He works
for Black Remedy.”

Bill’s eyes went wide.  “BR?  Shit, ain’t they the
biggest company in the world?  What are they doing at a piddly zoo like
this?”

Joe shrugged.  “They seem to have their name on a lot
these days.  I even think the cruise I took during my honeymoon was on a
boat owned by them.  It isn’t that surprising that they invested in a zoo
as well as everything else.”

“Well, the guy’s a jackass, whoever he works for.”

Mason looked weary and seemed to have aged over the last
hour.  “We’ll just have to do our best to calm him.  I’m sure he’s a
reasonable man underneath.”

They all looked at each other for a minute.  Joe didn’t
think anybody believed that Randall was anything other than a grade-A prick.

“Should we get to it then?” Mason asked them all finally.

Everybody nodded.  No time like the present to serve
shit sandwiches to a bunch of scared people.  Joe just had to keep
reminding himself that they were lucky to even be alive right now.  They
had to be thankful.

Led by Mason, they moved over to the centre of the
room.  Most people were still glued to the on-going news reports, but when
they noticed the zoo’s curator, they all turned their attention to him.

Mason clapped his hands together.  It was a needless
action since all eyes were already on him, but seemed like an appropriate way
to punctuate the start of a speech.  “I’m sure everyone is eager to gain
more knowledge about the current events and I do indeed have some for
you.  I ask that you remain calm as I say this, but I regret to inform you
that the animal attacks we have witnessed here today are not localised to this
zoo.  In fact, from my estimation, they are happening throughout the
nation.”

“Thank you for telling us what we already know.”
Randall spoke from the back of the room.  The way he lazed casually
in the chair made it obvious that his ego wasn’t yet ready to take a rest.

Joe eyeballed the piggish little man.  Anyone would
think that being a pain in the ass was his hobby.

“We already know it’s happening everywhere,” Randall
continued.  “It was on the news.”

“Okay,” Mason replied, stuttering slightly.  “Then I
hope you all understand the gravity of the situation.  What you may not be
aware of, however, is the danger presenting itself outside this very building.”

Randall shrugged.  “The lions?”

“I wish that were the depth of it, Mr Randall, but I am
afraid it is far worse.  From what I have witnessed, every animal in the
park has broken free.   They have attacked and killed anyone
unfortunate enough to be outside.”

Randall leapt up from his chair, quicker than one would have
imagined for a man of his girth.  For a moment Joe wondered if someone had
lit a fire under his ass.  “How the hell have you let this happen?”
Spit flew from his mouth as he spoke.  His cheeks turned red like cherry
tomatoes.  “How does a modern-day zoo let its entire inventory get loose?
It begs belief that anyone could be so incompetent.”

Mason only managed to respond with a series of splutters.

Randall continued his tirade.  “Do you know how much
trouble you are in, my friend?  I ought to throw you out there with the
lions.  You ridiculous, negligent--”

“Enough,” Joe cut in.  “There will be a time for blame,
but this is not it.  Right now we are in a predicament beyond anything we
can yet understand.  I think it’s safe to assume that whatever is
happening at this zoo is a symptom of whatever has affected the animals
nationwide – not the cause.”

Randall glared at Joe.  “I don’t know who you are,
Beanstalk, but I am getting rather tired of you coming to this fool’s
aid.  If you continue to speak in his defence then I can only assume that
you are complicit in this fiasco.”

Joe threw back his head and twisted the kinks from his
neck.  Every conversation he had with Randall left him exhausted.
The man was like a verbal succubus.

“Look,” Joe finally said, “my name is Joe.  I came here
today because my son loves animals and has never been to the zoo.”  He
pointed at Danny who was still asleep in Grace’s arms.  “Truth be told, I
don’t get to see my son very often and this day was important to me.  Real
important.  So don’t assume, Mr Randall, that I’m not as put out as
everybody else.  But there are people outside that never even made it long
enough to be stuck in this situation.  They’re dead.”  A silence
filled the room and Joe hoped that things were finally sinking in.  “We’re
in a bad situation here, people, and if we don’t all get along then it will
probably get even worse.  It would be nice if we introduced ourselves and
tried to get through this together.  Is that too much to ask?”

More silence filled the room.  Nobody wanted to talk.
No one wanted to get along.  To do so would be to admit that things
were as bad as they all feared.

“My name is Grace.  I’m twenty-three and I came here
today for a job interview.  I don’t think I’m going to get it.”

Joe smiled at her, appreciating her effort.  “Anybody
else?”

Shirley stood up from a chair behind Randall.  “My name
is Shirley.  I’m a retired nurse and I come to the zoo often.  It’s
only right that we appreciate God’s creatures and enjoy the beauty of his
creation.  I do charity work for this zoo and for the Church of England.”

The next person stood up: the bald man covered in red and
green tattoos that wrapped his arms like sleeves.  There was one stamped
across his throat that read: HIGHLANDER.  “Name’s Victor,” the man said in
a thick Glasgow accent.  “I were on a date.  The wee gal died
outside, I think.  I only came the bloody zoo to please her.  Waste
o’ bleeding money.”

Joe was surprised that the man didn’t seem particularly
bothered by the death of his date.  He supposed people grieved in
different ways.

“I’m sorry to hear that, Victor.  What has happened
today is a tragedy.”

“Ay, a tragedy.” Victor repeated.  “Woman had a
damn fine backside.”

The comment may have been a joke, but it elicited only a
brief moment of awkward silence until the next person stood up.

“Hi, everyone.  You can call me Bill.  I’m a
self-employed accountant.  Came here today with my partner, Gary.
He’s dead too, I guess.”  Suddenly the man seemed very close to tears and
his speech became very slow and considered.  “I tried to help him, but…”

Victor threw his hands up in the air, letting them fall down
and slap against his thighs.  “Oh great, we’re stuck in here with a
bleedin’ fairy!”

Bill waved an arm at him dismissively.  “Oh great,
we’re stuck in here with a closed-minded bigot.”

“What you say to me, faggot?”

“Sorry,” Bill said.  “Were you not intending to come
across as a bigot?  I kind of got the impression that you were.”

Victor stomped towards Bill.  His muscles bunched up
and ready for a fight.  “You don’t get to call me anything, you hear me,
bumboy?”

Joe got between the two men, towering above them both.
“Pack it in!  We don’t have to like one another, but at least act like
adults.  Victor, you’re out of order.”

“Screw you, pal.”

“Dad?”

Joe turned around to see that Grace had put Danny down and
that his son was now walking towards him in a fuzzy, half-daze.

“Hey, sleepy head,” said Joe.  “Everything is
okay.  The adults are just talking.”

Danny rubbed at his eyes.  “Why are you shouting?”

Joe picked his son up into his arms.  “I’m not
shouting, buddy.  I was just excited about something.”

“About the monkeys?”

Joe frowned.  “What monkeys?”

Danny rubbed at his eyes once more, before pointing over his
father’s shoulder.  Joe turned around to see what his son was looking
at.  The others in the room did the same.

“Shit pickles,” said Grace beside him.  “That’s not
good, is it?”

Joe shook his head.  “No, not good at all.”

This really can’t be happening.

Lined up against the horizontal window of the far wall was
row upon row of monkeys.  Dozens of human-like faces pressed up against
the glass side by side.  They looked almost comical in a way, but a wild
spark of sinister intent glinted in their eyes.  Joe knew what the glint
represented.

It was murder.

Chapter Six

“What do we do,” Grace cried
out, frantically pulling at her hair.  “What do we do?”

Joe put a hand on her shoulder whilst simultaneously pulling
Danny against his hip.  “Just calm down,” he said.  “I don’t think
they can get in at us.”

As if to question his assertion, one of the monkeys smashed
a fisted paw against the glass.  Joe flinched and studied the area where
the animal had hit.  It was cracked, a delicate spider web of fractures
snaking through the glass where the impact had struck.

Joe swallowed.  “Actually, maybe you should go ahead
and panic.”

“We need to move upstairs, right now.”  Mason rushed
across the room, clapping his hands above his head to get everyone’s
focus.  A door stood at the side of the room and he punched in a code on a
square pad beside it.  “Everyone, in here, quickly.”

Without argument everyone raced to the door, passing through
into the corridor beyond.  Joe and Danny went in last, slamming closed the
door behind them, hearing it lock automatically.

Mason was waiting for them.  “We need to move to the
second floor before they get in.”

Joe’s palms were sweaty and he wiped them against his
jeans.  “Will we be safe up there?”

Mason was already moving again.  “Something tells me
that we’re not going to be safe anywhere.”

Joe peered down at Danny, who was looking right back at him.
Worry was etched across his delicate face and it made Joe’s heart twist
in his chest.  He tussled his son’s blond hair and picked him up onto his
hip.

Mason shouted back and told them to hurry.

“Okay,” Joe said.  The sound of breaking glass from the
staffroom urging him to get moving.  He caught up with the rest of the
fleeing group just as they reached a staircase at the end of the
corridor.  Footfalls echoed as Joe took the steps two at a time.
More than once he almost lost his balance.  Danny’s limp weight in
his arms didn’t help.

At the top of the stairway was another lengthy corridor,
carpeted in a cheap navy-blue pile and lined by numerous doors on both
sides.  Mason was leading everyone into the nearest door on the
left.  A bronze plaque on the wall beside it read:  ZOOLOGICAL
LIBRARY AND SEMINAR ROOM.

Joe stepped in beside Mason to find a plush area, full of
soft furnishings, chairs, and wooden tables, all facing forward toward a
lectern at the back of the room near a large ceiling-to-floor window.  The
other three walls were interspersed with overfilled bookshelves and
recently-used whiteboards.  The musty smell of freshly-inked pages filled
the air.

“We need to barricade the door downstairs,” said Mason,
“make sure that nothing gets through into the corridor.”

Joe swallowed a lump in his throat.  “I don’t fancy
going back down there.  It sounded like they were about to break right
through the window when I started up the stairs.”

The tattooed man, Victor, came over to them.  “I’ll
go,” he said.  “Bunch of wee monkeys don’t scare me none.”

“That’s very brave of you,” Joe admitted.

“Aye, well it’s not your fault you’re a pussy.”

Joe cleared his throat.  “Excuse me?  I have a son
to look after first and foremost.  I’ve already risked my life enough
times today.”

Victor sniggered and sauntered away, towards one of the
room’s many desks.  “Keep telling y’self that, pal.”

Joe shook his head and put his son down on one of the
cushion-backed chairs, then took the seat next to him.  I’m not a
pussy.  I just have other priorities right now.  Although, if someone
doesn’t go down and barricade that door then we’ll all be in trouble.
Maybe I should go…

Victor dragged a table over to the doorway and the scraping
sound against the thin carpet broke Joe away from his thoughts.  He sat
and watched the man grab a second table and upend it on top of the first, then
drag them both into the corridor outside.

“Can this situation become any more farcical?” said Randall,
complaining again and as upbeat as ever.  “A total disaster!”

“Think I’d have to agree with you there,” said Bill,
rummaging through one of the bookshelves.  “Things keep going from bad to
worse.”

“We should be okay for now, though,” said Mason.
“Victor is barricading the door as we speak and there’s no other way to reach
this section of the building other than the staircase we just ascended.”

“Shouldn’t someone be helping Victor?” Shirley asked.

“He can handle himself,” said Randall.  Joe was glad to
hear it from someone else.  “I’d be more concerned about your own hide and
the situation we’re in, my dear.”

Bill returned a thick text book to its space on the shelf
and turned around.  “And what situation are we in exactly?  I still
don’t know.”

Grace offered an explanation.  “I think things
are…bad.  I mean really bad.  If this is happening everywhere then we
could be in some serious trouble.  There might not be anyone coming for a
long time.”

“That’s ridiculous,” said Randall.

“I don’t think so,” said Joe.  “I’m sure everything
will work out eventually, but I don’t see anyone coming by to help us for a
while.  If animals are attacking everywhere then the whole country is
going to be in chaos.  I didn’t want to admit it at first, but I think
we’re all stuck here.”

Mason nodded.  “We need to start thinking about
settling in, planning for a couple of days here.”

Randall slapped his hands down on one of the tables,
startling everyone.  “Unacceptable!”

Bill put a hand to his forehead.  “Seriously, man, you
gotta wake up.  This shit is bad and it’s time to forget about business
appointments and brunch in the city.”

“I need to get out of here.  I am far too important to
be missing in action.  There are people who rely on me.”

“Those people are probably dead,” said Grace.

The suggestion seemed to hit home to Randall and he stood
there silently, swaying back and forth slightly as his mouth moved in
speechless quivers.

“I’m sorry,” said Joe, “but that’s most likely true.  I
think we’re alone for now.  We should just count ourselves lucky that
we’re alive.”

“Count yourself lucky,” said Randall.  “I don’t
see it that way.”

Joe put his hands up.  “Fine, but can you at least accept
the situation we’re in?”

Randall said nothing.  He moved away from the group and
sat down.  That was fine by Joe.  The further away the piggish little
man was the better.  He leant back in his chair and looked at his
son.  “You’ve been a really good boy today, Danny.  Very quiet and
well behaved.”

“The animals are after us, aren’t they?  They don’t
want to be in cages no more.”

Joe thought about lying to his frightened son, but found
that he couldn’t.  “Something has made them really mad at us,” he admitted,
“but I’m going to look after you.”

“Promise?”

Joe smiled and said, “Ohhhh yeahhhhh!”

Danny laughed hard.  “Macho Man!”

“That’s right.  Anything that tries to hurt you will
get the big elbow drop.”

Bill and Grace joined Joe and Danny at the table, attracted
by the noise.  “Everything okay here?” Grace asked.

“I was just telling Danny what a good boy he’s been.”

“You’re telling me!”  She patted Danny on the
arm.  “Not a peep out of this brave warrior.”

Danny smiled.  “Ultimate Warrior.”

Grace looked at Joe, confused.

“One thing to know about my son is that he’s obsessed with
wrestlers from the eighties and nineties.  I’m kind of hoping he’ll get
over it.”

“Where did he get that from?”

Joe’s cheeks flushed red.  “Me.”

Grace giggled.  “Nothing wrong with that.  Better
than being football-obsessed like most the guys I meet.  I’m surprised you
never ended up being a wrestler yourself, size you are.”

Joe looked at himself and nodded.  “I think that’s why
I liked it as a kid.  I was bigger than everyone else and I felt like a
bit of an oddball, but every week I would watch these giants on TV being
worshipped by millions and I wouldn’t feel so bad anymore.”

“Maybe that’s why I used to like Culture Club,” said Bill,
and they all laughed.

Until the noise cut them off.

A ruckus somewhere in the building.  The crashing
sounds of a violent struggle.  It wasn’t until they heard the shrill
shrieking of monkeys that it became obvious what was happening.

“Victor!” said Joe.  “The monkeys must have broken in
before he had chance to secure the doors.”

Bill leapt up.  “We need to get that door closed.”

Joe sprang up too.  “Grace, look after Danny.
Danny, I’ll be right back.  Be good.”

Joe and Bill swung open the door and ran into the
corridor.  The chaotic noise became louder as it echoed off the walls on
their approach to the stairs.  They could hear Victor screaming out
insults.

“Take that, yer wee bastards!  I’ll break yer frickin’
necks.”

Joe took the steps downwards, twice as fast as he’d gone up
them – four at a time – the impact of every stair rattling the bones in his
ankles.  Despite his haste, it still felt like an eternity to reach the
bottom.  When he did, with Bill hurtling into the back of him, Joe wished
he hadn’t.

The monkeys were inside.

Victor noticed Joe and Bill’s presence and spun around to
face them with his back against the door.  Thick scratches and ragged
bite-marks covered his body.  “Give me a bloody hand, will ya!” he
shouted.

Joe and Bill rushed forward down the corridor, gripping the
edge of one of the tables that Victor had abandoned half way down.  It was
heavy and Joe wondered how on Earth the Scotsman had manoeuvred two at
once.  They slid the table towards the door, which was now being forced
open by two-dozen sets of razor-tipped paws.  Victor was pushing back as
hard as he could, trying to force it shut, but there were four monkeys already
inside the entranceway and they were all lunging for him.  They bit and
clawed at his tattooed arms and legs, shrieking in ecstasy as they drew fresh
blood from his wounds.  Victor ignored them and kept his concentration on
keeping the door closed.

Joe’s eyes stretched wide.  The situation would not
quite compute in his brain, but he knew that he needed to act right now, before
Victor’s body gave out to the relentless mauling by the four monkeys.

Joe prepared himself for battle.  “Time to lay the
smack down on your monkey asses.”

He sprinted towards Victor.

Chapter Seven

Randall didn’t know who the
hell they thought they were.  Talking to me like that.  I could
buy and sell the lot of them, yet they speak as though I’m no one.  He
took a tug on his inhaler, enjoying the feeling of loosening lung tissue.
When all this is over, they will pay.

Randall had been sitting and watching from his position away
from the group for ten minutes now, looking out of the window that ran the
entire length of the wall.  The view outside was unusual, to say the
least, but it lent credence to what the others had all been saying.
Things were indeed bad.

The number of dead bodies scattered outside on the zoo’s
various pathways must have numbered fifty or more.  There were slimy
morsels of flesh littering the area like grizzly lawn ornaments.  The
numerous corpses wore grim expressions of agony, as though their final thoughts
had been frozen onto their torn faces forever.  It was all very
interesting.

Obviously something fundamental in the universe had changed,
gone off kilter.  Only those willing to adapt would be able to cope with
whatever lay ahead.  Randall planned on being one of those people.

There will be heroes born of this situation.

The animals outside milled about with purpose and
determination that should have been alien to lesser species.  Grouping
together, in what seemed to be a search and destroy mission, and sniffing out
all corners for people who still lived – but there were no people left, as far
as Randall could see, and their search seemed to be coming to an end.  He
watched curiously as a threesome of raggedy hyenas congregated next to what
looked to be a pack of oversized housecats.  There were many other creatures
that Randall could not name, along with the many more obvious species that he
could: animals like camels, zebras, and various species of deer.  Wildlife
had never been of much interest to Randall, and collecting animals together in
a park, so that little brats could poke and prod at them, seemed
pointless.

Better to just put them down than enslave them.
Especially the dangerous ones.  People must be mad to keep a bunch of
lions around.   Just look at the situation it caused today.

Randall lent over on his chair, tilting towards the nearest
bookcase.  He plucked a hardback book from the shelf and dropped his chair
back onto four legs.  There was nothing about this situation that Randall
liked.  He decided the best thing to do while he was stuck there was to
learn a bit about the animals.  Maybe then he could do something useful if
they attacked again.  He turned the first page of the book in front of him
and started reading, oblivious to Victor’s screams that had just started from
the floor below.

Chapter Eight

Joe could not believe he had
just struck a monkey in the face.  It had jumped up and clawed itself onto
Victor’s neck and was just about to draw blood when Joe wound up and threw a
heavy right hand.  The blow stung his fist, but it hurt the monkey more.
The primate lay unconscious now, on the floor, twitching and staring up at the
ceiling like a punch drunk boxer.

The other three monkeys were already taking its place and
Victor kicked out at them as he struggled to keep the door from opening.
"Get these bloody things away from me!”

Bill came up behind Joe, pushing the table in front of
him.  “You help Victor and I’ll get this up against the door.”

Victor continued to kick out at the monkeys in front of him.
They hissed and swiped back at him with their blood-stained paws.
Joe swung his leg at them, but they moved just in time and Joe found himself
kicking his foot through thin air.  He lost balance, swinging his arms to
steady himself.

A monkey seized on the opportunity and leapt at Joe’s arm as
though it were a tree branch, clinging on with sharp-nailed hands and feet
whilst at the same time wrapping its wiry tail around his bicep.  Joe
shook like crazy, but the animal stayed put, digging in even harder with its
claws.  Joe thought he might pass out from the pain, and only just managed
to step aside as Bill came up fast with the table behind him.

“Out the way!”  Bill rammed the table up against the
door. Victor had to leap up and over it before it pinned him.  Once on the
other side the Scotsman helped Bill push the table tighter against the
door.

Joe screamed out for help.  “This thing is gonna rip my
goddamn arm off!”

Victor stomped towards Joe, covered in his own blood and
with a look of pissed-off determination on his face.  He deftly dodged the
other two monkeys that blocked his path and made straight for the third, the
one wrapped around Joe’s arm.

“Bloody oversized rats.”  Victor snarled and produced a
menacing knife from somewhere on his person like he were performing a magic
trick.  “Time to get busy, Martha,” he said to the blade, then casually
slit the monkey’s throat.  The animal fell limply from Joe’s arm, hit the
floor silently, and quivered as blood streamed from its body.

Joe stumbled away, clutching his arm.  Weeping gashes
covered his flesh, but none seemed too deep to endure.  He looked around
the corridor and immediately spotted the other two monkeys who were still an
active danger.  “Quick,” he shouted.  “We have to get them.”

Victor shoved Joe back, holding his knife out in front of
him.  “You two get back upstairs.  Me and Martha can handle it from
here, no bovva.”

Joe went to argue, but Bill put a hand on his chest and
eased him away.  “Let’s get your arm looked at.  I don’t have the
stomach for this.”

If Joe was honest, he didn’t either.  He avoided
looking back as he made his way up the staircase.  The wet stabbing sounds
and animalistic shrieking was enough to turn his stomach inside out.

***

Joe couldn’t stop shaking.
Neither he nor Bill talked about what had just happened downstairs – how
calmly Victor had brandished that knife.

Did he call it ‘Martha’?

I should be thankful of the guy, Joe thought.  He
did what no one else could.  Probably saved my arm.  Still, would
like to know where he got that knife from.

He must have been carrying it the whole time.

Joe had a bad feeling, but it wasn’t worth worrying about
for now.  He re-entered the seminar room and sat down next to Grace.
Danny, Bill, and Mason were there also.  Randall and Shirley sat
away from the group – Randall with his head buried in a book.  Shirley
gazing out of the window.  Joe placed his hand on top of Grace’s.
“Thanks for looking after Danny,” he said.

She smiled.  “I think he was the one looking after
me.  I was worried.”

“Really,” said Joe.  “Worried about me?”

Grace’s cheeks went red. “Yeah.  Bill, too, of course.”

Joe nodded.  “Oh.  Well, we’re both okay,
luckily.”

“What happened down there?” Mason enquired.

“There were some of those monkeys that got inside.”

“Crab-eating macaques.”

Joe raised an eyebrow.  “What?”

“They’re crab-eating macaques.  If they’re the same
ones that were at the staff room window, that is.  Not usually dangerous,
but a large group of them can get into a frenzy.”

“Okay, well, these…macaques…had nearly gotten the door open
when we got there.  A bunch of them were already in the corridor.
They were attacking Victor.  Luckily we managed to get the door closed
again.  We secured it with some tables.”

“What happened to the macaques that had already gotten
inside?”  Mason asked.

Joe glanced at Bill, who looked away sheepishly.  Joe
didn’t feel the need to freak everyone out with the gory details or what Victor
had done.  “Well, erm…Victor sorted them out.  Managed to grab them
and throw them back through a gap in the door while we held it open a crack.”

Grace was next to speak.  “What’s Victor doing now?”

Bill answered.  “He’s securing the door some
more.  Making sure it’s nice and solid.”

Everyone seemed satisfied with the version of events, so Joe
changed the subject.  “Do we have anything for my arm?”  He looked
down at Danny, who had put his head into his hands when he’d seen his father’s
blood.  He lent forward and whispered, “I don’t want Danny upset.
The wounds look worse than they are.”

Mason slid his chair back and stood up.  “Of
course.  I apologise for the delay.  I should be able to find a first
aid kit in one of the labs.”

“Labs?”

“Yes.  We are in the zoo’s research wing, after
all.  There are several laboratories for testing and examinations, as well
as a veterinary surgery that is used to treat the animals.  Unfortunately,
none of the vets are here today.”

Grace laughed.  “Think we’ll have to play doctors and
nurses ourselves then.”

Mason smiled back, but the gesture was strained.
“Quite.”

Joe watched Mason walk away and hugged his son around the
shoulders with his uninjured arm.  “I’m gonna be okay, buddy.  Just a
few scratches.”

Danny didn’t lift his head from his arms and Joe wondered
whether he was sobbing.  “How can you look after me,” his son mumbled, “if
you can’t look after yourself?”

It hurt Joe to hear his son had such little faith in him,
but it was probably warranted given the circumstances.  Joe continued
patting Danny on the back as he spoke.  “Even heroes get hurt,
buddy.  How about when the Warrior had a curse put on him by Papa
Shango?  Or when Macho Man got bitten by a snake?”

Danny lifted his head slightly, then put it back down
again.  “Or like when The Model blinded Jake the Snake with his cologne?”

“Exactly,” said Joe.  “They all got hurt, but it didn’t
stop them, did it?  I’m still fighting, and I’m still going to protect
you.”

Finally, Danny looked up.  He gave a cheery smile but
his young face didn’t wear it correctly amongst the tears.

“Don’t cry, Danny,” said Grace.  “Your dad is a
hero.  He’s been saving people all day.  Nothing will happen to you
with him around.  He’s too big and strong.”

Danny giggled.  “Do you like my dad?”

Grace blushed.

Joe saved her the agony of answering.  “Danny!
Don’t ask people questions like that.”

“Sorry, Dad.”

Joe tussled his hair.  “Okay.  No problem, buddy.”

At that moment, the door swung open and Victor stepped
through.  He was no longer covered by blood except for the staining on his
clothes.  Everyone in the room was quiet, but he didn’t seem to notice
their reaction.  “All done down there,” he chirped.  “Those hairy
bastards shouldn’t be able to get through any time soon.”

Joe suddenly felt increasingly protective of his son in
Victor’s presence, but tried not to show it.  “Great!” he said.  “We
all owe you one.”

“How did you get the blood off you?” asked Bill, eyeing the
man’s multiple scratches.

Victor grinned, teeth showing like rows of daggers.
“Magic!”

Bill frowned.  “Huh?”

“I grabbed a fire extinguisher off the wall and sprayed
myself clean.  Stung like buggery, but luckily it was just scratches and
nothing nasty.”

“Same here,” said Joe, examining his own shallow wounds.

Before anybody said anything else, Mason entered the room.

“Couldn’t find a first aid kit?”  Joe enquired when he
noticed the man wasn’t carrying anything.

Mason shook his head and seemed lost for a moment.
“Huh?  Oh, yes.  I mean, no.  I got distracted.  I…I think
you should all come and see this.”

Joe stood up.  Whatever Mason had seen was not going to
be good news.

Chapter Nine

“What are they doing?”
Joe looked around at the rows of cages that lined the laboratory on all
sides.  “They’ve gone insane!”

“No shit,” said Victor.  “Was that not clear to you,
pal?”

Joe ignored the comment, mainly because he was so horrified
by what he was seeing.  Dozens of small animals, trapped within cages,
were hurling themselves against the steel bars, screeching furiously as they
bled and bruised.  The noise was deafening, made worse by the incessant
clanging of the bars being struck by frantic bodies.  Worst of all was the
smell of shit hanging in the air like a wet blanket.

“What are they doing, Dad?” Danny asked.

“I don’t know.”  Joe studied the various species of
frenzied rodents and small mammals.  “I think you better go back to the
other room with Grace while we figure this out.”

Grace obliged without complaint and took Danny’s hand,
leading him back out of the room.  Joe stepped further inside and joined
up with the other men, who were already deep in conversation around an
aluminium operating table in the centre of the room.

Bill was talking the loudest.  “They’re gonna smash
their own skulls in just to get at us!”

“I know,” said Mason, cringing as the intense racket grew
even louder.  “In fact I think some of the smaller animals are already dead.”

Sure enough, Joe spotted a couple of dead rabbits in a
nearby cage, skulls smashed in and leaking pink and grey sticky fluid.  He
swallowed, trying to stem the bile rising in his stomach.  “What could
cause them to act like this?”

Mason shrugged.  “There is nothing in recorded science
that could override an animal’s instinct to survive – at least not on a mass
scale.  Even rabid dogs wouldn’t smash their own skulls in a blind rage.”

“Obviously something has caused this,” Randall said.
“You obviously just lack the required knowledge to explain it.”

“I agree,” Mason admitted.  “I lack any knowledge of
what could cause this.”

Randall seemed smug.  Joe felt like punching him.

“But so would any other person in my field,” Mason
added.  “This defies explanation.  I don’t know of any virus or
biological condition that would present in this way.  Even rabies would
not present on such a wide scale.”

Bill sighed.  “I think what caused this is irrelevant
now.  What we need to think about is how to defend ourselves.  What
do we know about this thing, so far?”

The group thought for a few moments. Then Victor said, “We
know that they’re after us.  Those wee monkeys downstairs were
single-minded in taking chunks out of my arse.  Nay else mattered to
them.  Like they were possessed or something.”

“Yes,” said Mason.  “It’s quite clear from what we are
seeing in this very room that the animal’s instincts are being entirely
over-ridden by the desire to attack us; even at the expense of their own
well-being.  Whether or not they are ‘possessed’ is a different
conversation altogether though.  What else do we know?”

“They’re working together,” said Randall.  “I saw them
from the window in the seminar room.  They were moving in groups,
searching for people.  Even animals that would usually attack each other
like wolves and those brown, spotty cats were working together.”

Mason rubbed both hands against his pale face.
“Lynx.  The zoo has eight Canadian Lynxes.  They would have been the
cats you saw – and you’re right, the wolves should have attacked them.  It
is most disturbing.  It appears that the laws of nature no longer
exist.  The animal kingdom has lost its natural instincts and replaced
them with one prime directive: extinguish all human life.  We are now at
the bottom of the food chain, hunted by all other species.”

“Not quite.”  Bill was standing over by the
cages.  “Look.”

Joe and the others moved closer to the cages and saw what
Bill was pointing at.

Mason leaned forward and examined closer.  “The birds!”

Joe nodded.  “The birds aren’t affected.”

The two plump, brightly-coloured macaws were extremely
agitated, but it was clear that they were not suffering from the same malady as
the other animals.  They were just normal, frightened birds.

Victor spoke up.  “So whatever’s happening isn’t
affecting the birds?  Grand!  That makes my day a whole lot better.”

“Sarcasm aside,” said Mason, “this bodes well for us.
If this phenomena had affected avian species then we would surely have been
doomed.  There are hundreds of thousands of birds in the UK alone and
there would be no way to defend against them.  This is very good news.”

Joe agreed.  He didn’t like the thought of being in a
real life version of The Birds.  “I wonder if any other species are
unaffected.” he said.

“I suppose time will tell,” said Mason.  “For now, we
should close this room off.  Just in case the animals get free.”

“Fuck that,” Victor said.  “Let’s euthanize the
bastards.”

“We will do no such thing!  Many of these animals are
endangered species.”

“So what!  They’ve gone feral.”

“I will not allow it!”

Victor pushed Mason aside and pulled out ‘Martha’, shocking
those that had not yet seen her.

“Victor!”  It was Randall speaking.

Victor spun around.  “What?”

Randall went and placed a hand on the man’s shoulder.  “We
are all going to have to work together now, so if our good friend, Mason, wants
to leave these animals…intact, then I believe it would be best to do so – in
the interest of cooperation.  We should not be brandishing knives.”

That’s weird, Joe thought.  Maybe Randall’s
not a complete git after all.

Victor’s face scrunched up.  “If these things spring
loose,” he said, “you’ll wish different.”

“Perhaps,” said Randall, “but for now these animals seem
secure enough not to concern us.  Put the knife away, my friend.”

After a brief hesitation, Victor finally returned Martha to
her hidden sheath behind his back.  He glared at Mason.  “These
things get free and it’ll be on your head.”

Mason nodded and Victor stomped away, joined by Bill and
Randall.  Joe waited behind.  “We should go too,” he said to Mason,
eying up the creatures rampaging inside their cages.  “Maybe they’ll calm
down if they can’t see us.”

“I hope so.  They only started acting up once I entered
the room.  They were silent prior to that.”  Mason clicked his
fingers.  “I almost forgot again.  I need to get you a first aid
kit.”

Joe laughed.  “My arm will be hanging off by the time I
get a bandage.”

Mason allowed himself to smile and walked across the room
towards the far wall.  Sitting atop a filing cabinet was a bright green
box.  Mason reached out for it.

Then recoiled and hissed.

Joe rushed towards him.  “What is it?  What
happened?”

Mason clutched his hand against his chest.  “Something
just bit me!”

Joe skidded to a halt on the floor tiles.  “Shit!
What was it?  What bit you?”

Mason’s hand had started to bleed from two round puncture
wounds.  Red globules dripped onto the ground.  “I don’t know.
Be careful.”

Being careful was not advice Joe needed.  He trod
carefully towards the filing cabinet, ready to bolt at the first sign of
danger.  As he got closer, he could make out a delicate scratching sound
from behind the first aid kit.  Something was definitely there.

But what?

Joe looked around for a weapon – something that would put
some distance between him and whatever hidden creature had bitten Mason.

“Over there.”  Mason pointed.  “There’s a set of
steel tongs for holding hot materials.”

Joe saw the implement and grabbed it off the nearby
table.  The long metal rod felt good in his hands, empowering him enough
that some of his nerves faded away.  He crept towards the filing cabinet.
Positive that the scratching sound was becoming louder.

“What should I do?”

Mason came up beside Joe, still clutching his wounded hand
against his chest.  “I don’t know.  Just be ready.  Whatever it
is was small and quick.  You may only get one chance.”

“What happened to your views about euthanasia?”

“The bugger bit me.”

“Fair enough.”  Joe prepared to attack.  He
held out the tongs in front of him and aimed them towards the first aid kit.
“Ready?”

Mason nodded.  “Ready.”

Joe prodded the first aid kit and knocked it onto the floor.

Yikes!

There, amongst a stack of papers and a pencil pot, was a
snarling brown ferret the size of an obese housecat.

Joe swung for the bleachers.

“Damn it!”

A miss.

The ferret leapt towards Joe, claws outstretched and ready
to draw blood.  Joe spun around and managed to sidestep.  Mason ran
in the other direction.  Joe readied himself for another swing.  “A
bloody ferret?  Seriously?”

“They were going to add them to the petting zoo,” said
Mason.  “They had one up here to assess its temperament.”

Joe swung the metal tongs again – missed – struck the hard
tile of the floor, sending a tingling sensation from his wrist to his elbow.
“I think its temperament is grumpy.”

The elongated animal lunged at Joe again.  This time it
managed to get a bite-hold on his lower leg, thick incisors burying deep into
the fatty flesh of his calf.  He hollered in pain, poked at the rodent
with the tongs, tried to grip and twist the animal’s elongated body away from
him.

“Jesus, this thing won’t give in.”  Joe felt
needle-like fangs burrowing deeper into his skin, scraping against bone.

He screamed louder.

Mason rushed forward and tried to kick the rat away, but the
man’s complete lack of athletic prowess was evident.  His kick missed
completely and he stumbled onto his knees in a tangle of his own cumbersome
limbs.

With the thrashing rodent continuing to take a chunk out of
his calf, Joe looked for an urgent solution.  Attached to one of the desks
was a gas valve, leading to a Bunson Burner.  He hobbled over to it.

The burner turned on easily enough – Joe’s memories of high
school physics helped him through.  The sudden flame licked about
two-inches into the air.  He turned the inlet valve and sent the flame
another inch higher.  Without hesitation, Joe pushed the tongs into the
flame, heating the tips.  The ferret continued to rip and tear at his
flesh, but he had to bear it for just a few seconds longer.  If this was
going to work, he needed to wait.

The acrid smell of burning dust filled the air.  The
metal tongs began to turn red.

Joe waited a few more, unbearable seconds, until he could
take the dizzying pain no longer, then he pulled the tongs away and carefully
lined up the molten pincers on either side of the ferret’s thrashing head.

He clamped the tongs shut.

The animal immediately released its grip on Joe’s leg and
screeched in a pitch so hellish that it hurt his ears.  The noise
sharpened as the tongs tightened.  Eventually, the ferret’s squeals
weakened into breathless whimpers, fading away to total silence.  The
furry body went limp.  Joe released the tongs, letting them, and the
ferret, fall to the floor.

“It’s dead,” said Mason.  “But you probably already new
that.”

Joe panted, struggled to get his words out.  “Can I
please…get…that first aid kit now?”

Joe’s body collapsed onto the floor, spilling fresh blood
onto the tiles.

Chapter Ten

“It’s time to start planning,
my friends.”  Randall had perched himself down on the edge of a desk as he
addressed those present in the room. “It took me a little time,” he said.
“I’ll admit that now.  But I’ve finally come to understand the
situation we are in.  It will take organisation and planning to survive.
We all need to be moving in the same direction, scribbling on the same
page.”

Cosby folded his arms.  “What do you suggest?”

“That we act now rather than later.  We need to find
food, blankets, water.  The building needs to be secured – at least our
part of it.  A strategy has to be in place if we are to get through this
together.  We don’t know how long rescue might take.”

“Where do we start?” asked the brunette girl, Grace.
She was young and attractive, if a little plain.  Randall noticed that her
fingernails were chipped.  It made her look cheap – and so did the many
faint scars that lined her arms.

One of those self-harming misfits by the looks of
things.

Randall grinned at the girl.  He intended to look
charming.  “We start in order of priority, my dear.  We need to
secure this floor as much as possible, windows as well as doors.  Then we
need to find food and water.  Once we’ve got those we can concentrate on
settling in and waiting for help.  I think we should split into two
teams.”  Everyone seemed to be in agreement, so he continued.
“Victor, you take Bill and Shirley.  I’ll take Grace and Mr. Mason.
That is, whenever he returns from whatever it is that he’s doing.”

“What about Joe?” Grace asked.

Randall thought about it for a moment before answering
her.  “I was assuming that he could actually look after his son for
once.  I know he seems to prefer that you look after him, my dear, but
right now the group needs you.”

Grace looked down at the little boy asleep in her
arms.  “I’ll just look after him until his dad gets back, then.”

“Where is the big lummox anyway?” Victor asked.

Cosby answered.  “He stayed behind in the lab with
Mason.  I think they’re bandaging his wounds up.”

Randall sighed.  “Let’s hope he hurries up and makes
some use of himself.”

“I think Joe has proven himself on a number of occasions.”

Victor sniggered.  “Sounds like you wanna bum the
guy?  Big dumb blonds your type?”

“Screw you!”

“You wish, poofter.”

Randall put a stop to things before they could go any
further.  Childishness was not of benefit right now.  “Gentlemen,
please remember that you will be working together.  Try to behave like
adults.”

Victor put his hands up, a wide grin on his broad, cat-like
face.  “I’m just fooling around.  He knows I don’t mean it.”

Cosby glared at the other man.  “Yeah right.”

Randall waved a hand dismissively.  “Okay, you two take
Shirley and begin checking for any areas that need securing.  It wouldn’t
hurt to seek out weapons too.  See what you can find.”

Victor nodded and took off immediately.  After a short
while, Shirley and Bill followed after him.  That left Randall and Grace
alone.

Along with the brat, of course.  Where the hell is
his deadbeat father gotten to?  Maybe those animals have escaped their
cages and torn him apart.  One can only hope...

Randall scolded himself for such an ill-natured
thought.  Such a harsh attitude was not the way to proceed in the current
situation.  A certain amount of tact would be needed.  He sat down
next to Grace and smiled.  “I guess we should get started then,
sweetheart?”

Grace frowned and Randall made a mental note: She doesn’t
like ‘sweetheart’.  Don’t use it again.  He smiled at
her.  “I thought we could check each room for a water cooler.  Office
buildings always have them, do you agree?”

“Okay.  Should I bring Danny with us or find Joe
first?”

Randall thought about it.  Guess it couldn’t hurt to
come across as child-friendly.  “Yes,” he said.  “We can take the
little sprog along.  Perhaps we’ll bump into his father along the way.”

Grace seemed confused.  “Your attitude has changed.”

“I think the stress of this situation affected me worse than
I first realised.  I’m prone to making harsh judgements.  A defence
mechanism, I guess.”

Grace’s demeanour softened and she nodded.
“Okay.  Let’s get going.”

“Great!”  Randall stood up and offered a hand.
“Wake the young man and we’ll make a start.”

Grace rubbed Danny’s shoulders.  “Time to wake up,
honey.”

The boy stirred slowly.  Too slowly, and Randall became
impatient.  “Come on now, lad.  We’re going to go and find your
father.”

The boy opened his eyes and looked around in a daze.
“Where’s Dad?”

“We’re going to find him now,” Grace answered.

The boy nodded and finally woke up fully.  Randall
forced himself to smile.  “That’s a good lad.  You hold on to Grace’s
hand now, you hear?”

The three of them headed for the door and stepped out into
the corridor.  Randall couldn’t be certain, but he thought he could still
hear the riotous shrieking of the monkeys downstairs.  Not to mention the
rattling cages in the lab up ahead.  He wondered if Joe and Mason were
still inside.

“We should check the lab,” said Grace, obviously wondering
the same thing he was.  “They’re probably still in there.”

Randall nodded.  He put a hand out in front of Grace to
stop her.  “I’ll go, but you stay here just in case there’s any danger.”

The boy whimpered and Grace stroked his head.  “Daddy
is okay, honey.  We just need to check that there’s nothing a little boy
like you shouldn’t see.”

“I’m not little.  I’m big and strong like the British
Bulldog.”

British Bulldog?  The kid has a screw loose.

Randall didn’t have time for this.  “Wait here,” he
said.  “I’ll be right back.”

He padded along the blue carpet and headed for the
door.  When he got there, he placed a hand around the long silver
handle.  Thoughts filled his mind about what he might find inside.
His earlier notion of the animals escaping their cages now seemed quite
plausible.  The image of Joe and Mason ripped to shreds and lying in a
pool of their own blood filled his mind.  He almost turned back, but he
had to do this, or else he’d lose face in front of the girl.

Slowly, Randall pushed down the handle.

When the door opened, the hinges squeaked.  Randall
hoped it wouldn’t alert anything dangerous to his presence.

There was chaos inside the room.  Randall immediately
saw trails of blood – and what seemed to be a dead ferret.   Amongst
it all was Mason, kneeling over the body of Joe.

Is he dead?  What the hell happened in here?

Randall was just about to burst into the room and offer his
assistance, but he quickly reconsidered.  Instead, he closed the door
quietly and turned back into the corridor.

Grace was looking at him expectantly.  “Well?” she
asked.

Randall shook his head.  “No one in there.  They
must have gone somewhere else.”

Grace bit at her lower lip.  The gesture suggested
vulnerability and made her more attractive.  “Why would they have gone someplace
else?”

“I guess we’ll know when we find them.”

“We should probably keep on, then.”

“Yes,” said Randall.  “Let’s go see what else we can
find.”

Chapter Eleven

The pinprick of light
gradually widened until Joe’s vision returned.  He found himself staring
at the ceiling, his head throbbing like a drum beat, but the worst pain was in
his leg.  It felt like it was being held over a flame.

“Are you okay?” asked a voice from somewhere in the room.

Joe didn’t reply for a few moments, and at first didn’t even
know who the other person was.  Then, as he continued staring at the blank
white ceiling and listening to the chaotic sound of rattling cages in the room,
everything came flooding back.

He tried to sit up, but Mason held him down.  “Wait a
few minutes.  Catch your breath.”

“The animals, they’ve gone mad.  I need to find Danny.”

Mason shushed him.  “Danny is fine.  He’s with
Grace.  You’ve been out for almost ten minutes.”

Joe remembered passing out because of the pain.  “My
leg?  How is it?”

“I think you’ll be okay.  You’ve got a pretty deep
gash, but I stopped the bleeding.  I bandaged it while you were out.
Your arm too.”

Joe examined himself and allowed himself a small laugh at
the absurdity of what he looked like – a mummy in training.  “I
feel like a train hit me.”

Mason smiled in a reassuring manner.  It was surprising
how much the curator’s dry personality and lack of social skills could still be
such a comfort.  “No, it was just a little ferret.  You certainly
have been in the wars.  Come on, I think you’re okay to get up now.”

Joe took Mason’s arm and heaved himself up onto one
knee.  After a couple of laboured breaths he struggled to his feet.
Pain stabbed through the bite-mark on his right thigh, but he fought it to the
back of his mind.  He had to get back to Danny.

“Easy there,” said Mason, steadying him.

“I’m okay.  Let’s just get out of here.”

The two of them headed back out into the corridor and
crossed over to the other side.  Mason opened the door to the seminar room
and stepped inside.  Joe followed, limping and wincing.

“Where is everyone?” Mason asked.

Joe’s stomach rolled and a lightning spark shot up his
spine.  “Where’s Danny?  Where’s my son?”

“I’m sure it’s nothing.  Let’s just go look for them
before jumping to any unhelpful conclusions.”

Joe clenched his giant fists and felt himself tremble.
They had no right to move Danny without informing him first.  He stormed
out of the room.  If it were not for the agony in his leg he would have
run.

“Slow down,” Mason shouted from behind him.

But Joe did the opposite.  He sped up, zigzagging the
corridor from door to door and checking behind each one.  Every room was
empty.

“Danny!” he shouted.

Somewhere up ahead, a voice shouted back.  Joe finally
managed to run, ignoring the pain in his leg.  Up ahead on the left was a
room with the label: WAREHOUSE MEZZANINE.

“Dad, I’m here.”

Joe pulled down the handle and pushed open the door.
Inside was a cavernous room that stretched down to an open space at
ground-level.  It looked like a storage space for the zoo, a warehouse
full of random crates and boxes.  Joe was standing on a metal walkway that
towered above.  It led to a flight of stairs on the right and a small,
windowed cubicle-office on the left.  Danny was inside the office.

Randall was with him.

“Son of a bitch!”  Joe sprinted into the office just as
Randall turned around to face him.  The punch caught the man square in his
flabby jaw, knocking him to the floor.  Joe stood over him.  “What
the hell are you doing with my son?”

Randall scooted back on his rear and rubbed his chin.
“Are you insane?”

Joe noticed his son, shaking in the corner, and put an arm
out.  “Danny, come here.”

Danny ran over to his father, buried his face in his
stomach, and wrapped his arms around him.  Joe turned his stare back to
Randall.  “Why were you alone with my son?”

“He wasn’t alone,” said a voice behind Joe.

He turned around to find Grace coming up the metal staircase
from the warehouse floor.  He raised his eyebrows at her.  “What?”

Grace was shaking her head and seemed angry.  “I told
Danny to wait in the office with Randall while I looked downstairs for
supplies.  He wasn’t doing anything wrong.”

“Why did you all run off without telling me?  What was
I supposed to think?”

Grace laughed.  It was an unpleasant sound.  “You
were the one that ran off.  We didn’t know where you were.  We were
hoping we’d find you on our way.”

“What?”  Joe stepped towards her, shaking his
head.  “You couldn’t have looked very hard.  I was still in the lab.”

Grace seemed confused for a moment and Joe caught her
glancing past him towards Randall.  “But we looked there,” she said.
“Randall said the room was empty.”

Joe turned around.  Randall had gotten back to his feet
and had plonked himself down on an office chair.  The man was rubbing his
chin and wheezed slightly as he spoke.  “It was empty.  It was a bit
of a mess in there, but I didn’t see you.”

Joe didn’t buy it, but, before he had chance to say as much,
Mason came up behind and placed a hand on his back.  “You were unconscious,
Joe, and I was kneeling on the floor.  It’s quite possible that he didn’t
see us.”

“Right,” said Randall.  “I only poked my head in –
granted – but it looked to me like the room was empty.  I’m very sorry, my
friend.”

“No,” said Grace.  “It’s Joe that should be apologising
to you.”

Everyone looked at Joe and he suddenly felt like a
misbehaved child.  Reluctantly he accepted his error.  “I’m sorry,
Randall.  I…acted badly.”

“Yes, you did.”  Randall offered his hand out.
“But we have bigger fish to fillet right now so let’s just forget about it.”

Joe couldn’t be certain, but he thought he saw the beginning
of a smirk on the other man’s face.  Still – whether he trusted Randall or
not – Joe was the one in the wrong.  “I’m sorry,” he said begrudgingly.

“Okay then,” said Grace.  “Now that we’ve got that
sorted, maybe Mason can tell us what’s what in here.”

“Of course,” said Mason.  “This is the zoo’s storage
warehouse.  It’s one of the places we keep dry animal feed, maintenance
and landscaping tools, cafeteria supplies, et cetera.  The cleaner’s
station is also here”

“Cafeteria supplies,” said Grace.  “Excellent, that’s
just what we need.”

“Should we leave it here or gather it up?” Joe asked.

“I think it would be best to split it,” Randall said.
“If something happens to one stockpile then we will have a backup.”

“Good idea,” Joe admitted, although he hoped the theory
wouldn’t have to be tested.  “Mason can show me where the supplies are and
then we’ll bring some of them up.  Where are we gonna camp out with the
stuff?”

“I think we should remain in the seminar room, for now,”
said Mason.  “It’s the only room with soft furnishings and it’s the
closest to the stairwell, which will give us the quickest warning if anything
gets through the barricade in the lower hallway.”

“Sounds like a plan,” said Randall.  “I’ll check on
Victor and the others and bring them up to da--.”

They all heard the shouting from across the corridor.
Two male voices.  Neither of them happy.

Joe shook his head and sighed.  “I think maybe we
should all go and check on them.”

Chapter Twelve

There were humans inside.
He could smell their wretched fear.  They hid inside their tower, their
symbol of comfort and fearlessness.  While he had spent his life inside a
cage, held back from the world by unrelenting bars, the humans enjoyed a
freedom that should have been a right of all living beings.  The humans
had taken his freedom away many years ago, but now he was going to take it
back.  He was going to take it back for every creature enslaved by
man.  Something had happened.  Things had become unquestionably
clear.  Things that he had once not understood were now simple concepts
that he had learned without even being aware of how.  His mind had changed
– he was no longer an animal content to be enslaved.

The human’s time as masters was over.  There were
underserving even to be slaves.  They deserved only to be extinguished.

He roared and assembled his troops.

***

Joe and the others found Bill and
Victor arguing in a cramped office at the end of the corridor.  The
conversation was heated and both men looked ready to get physical.
Shirley stood nearby and seemed content to watch them.

Bill squared up to Victor.  “Call me that again.
I’m begging you.”

“I think once was enough for you to get the point, pal.”

“I’m not your goddamn pal.”

Joe got between the two men.  “What’s happened?”

Bill took a step back and seemed like he was trying to keep
hold of himself.  “Man here called me a queer.”

Joe looked at Victor, shocked that the man was grinning with
what looked like pride.  “Is that true?”

Victor nodded.  “What’s the problem?  That’s what
he is, so where’s the harm in being honest about it?”

“You’re vile,” said Grace.

Victor shrugged.  “Your opinion, lass.”

“Actually,” Mason added.  “I think you’ll find that
it’s all decent people’s opinion.  It is wholly unacceptable in this day
and age to use language like that.”

Victor stiffened up defensively.  “Where I come from we
call a spade a spade.”

Randall stepped up to Victor and pulled him slightly
aside.  “But you’re not there now.  You’re here, and need to respect
other people’s feelings.  When this is all over you can go home and think
and say whatever you like.”

“I’ll think and say what I want where I want.”

Bill slapped his hands to his forehead.  “I can’t
believe I’m stuck with this homophobic fool.”

“Look,” said Joe.  “If you want to keep making yourself
unpopular, Victor, then go right ahead.  The rest of us will just ignore
you for the closed-minded jerk that you are.  What I want to know is why
the hell you two got into this in the first place.”

Everyone took a breath and seemed to calm down for a moment.
Bill finally answered the question.  “We saw something from the
windows and I panicked.  That’s when Victor decided to insult me.”

“I just told you to calm down.”

“What you actually said was, ‘Calm down, queer.’”

Joe sighed.

“What did you see from the window?”  Grace asked.

All of the anger in Bill’s face drained away momentarily,
anxiety replacing it.  “I think it will be better if you look for
yourself.”

Joe nodded and Bill led the way as everyone followed over to
the window.  It was covered by a cheap venetian blind filmed in a layer of
grey dust.  Bill pulled at a drawstring beside the window and the shutters
turned, casting dim shafts of light through the gaps.  It was getting dark
outside.

Joe walked up to the window and looked outside.  He
wished he hadn’t.  Gathered on the zoo’s pathways was probably every
animal in the park.  They loitered in tightly-ordered columns, like a
well-trained army from the nineteenth-century.  Each species was grouped
individually: A pack of Timber Wolves sat on their haunches in a rigid,
three-by-three square; five giraffes stood together like the dots on a dice –
four corners and a centre; a mother orang-utan crouched in front of her three
adolescent offspring; the zoo’s pair of komodo dragons flicked their tongues
back and forth beside a small group of blood-soaked Meerkats, who themselves
were stood next to a growling panther.  The entire scene was an exercise
in the impossible and there, amongst the entire battalion, standing almost
exactly in the centre, was a lone silverback gorilla.  Its massive size
and strength was apparent even at a distance.

Their leader?

Grace had come to stand beside Joe and was now looking
intently at the scene below.  “What do you think they’re doing?”

Joe could think of only one reason: “They’re preparing for
war.”

“Impossible,” said Mason, taking in the view himself.
“Animals lack the necessary level of rational thought to behave that way.
They behave on instinct not forethought.  They cannot plan, they cannot
strategize.”

“I think the rules have changed,” Joe said.

“If the animals are planning then we need to do the same,”
said Randall.  “We need weapons.”

“I agree,” said Grace, “but let’s not get ahead of
ourselves.  We can’t be certain that they’re assembling to get inside
here.  They could be preparing to leave the zoo.”

Shirley cackled, getting everyone’s attention whether she
intended to or not.  “They will not leave.  Not while the damned and
the sinful still fester among us.”

Joe sighed and rubbed at his eyes.  He was getting
tired of a lot of things today but Shirley’s preaching was high on the
list.  “What is happening has nothing to do with God.  Even if it
did, who are you to act like an authority?  Who are you to label any of us
as damned?”

“I’m not,” said Shirley.  “The Bible is our authority
and it is He who condemns the damned.  A man should not lie with another
man.”

Bill almost jumped in the air.  “Not you too?
What the hell did I do to deserve this?  If it isn’t Victor one minute,
it’s her the next.  I can’t be doing with any more of this shit.”

Bill stomped away, but a smash against the window made
him stop and turn back around.  “The hell was that?”

Joe didn’t know.  Through the window he could still see
all of the animals lined up in formation.  Only one of them had moved –
the silverback gorilla.  It now stared straight up at Joe as if offering
some unspoken challenge.  There was something in its hand.  A large
stone.

Joe managed to duck to the floor just as the window
shattered into a thousand jagged pieces.  “He’s throwing rocks!”

Grace leapt to the floor beside Joe, pulling Danny down with
her.  “Who is?  Who’s throwing rocks?”

Everybody hit the ground as another boulder flew through the
broken window.

Joe scooted up against the wall.  “The motherfucking
gorilla, that’s who.  He’s lobbing rocks like a Russian shot putter.”

“Don’t swear, Dad.”

“Sorry, Danny.  I’m just excited.”

Grace stared at Joe, wide-eyed, brow-wrinkled.  “Guess
that answers our question about whether they know we’re in here or not.”

“Sure does, but as long as they don’t get in I can live with
a little bit of stone throwing.”

“Joe!”  Mason was calling him and pointing to something
on the floor.  The object was mottled grey with darker patches in several
places.

A human head.  Stripped of all flesh.

“I think it’s more than just stones,” said Mason.

Joe got up into a crouch and hurried his son and Grace away
from the window.  “Let’s get out of here, everybody.”

No one argued and the group hurried out of the office,
regrouping in the corridor.  They gathered into a disorganised huddle and
Randall took the lead.  “We need to find weapons,” he said.  “I think
it’s pretty obvious that they’re not going to stop until they find a way in
here.  They’ll climb the bloody walls if they can.  We need to be
ready when that happens.”

“What weapons, though?” asked Bill.  “It’s not like we
have guns and stuff.”

“We don’t need guns,” said Victor.  “We can
improvise.  Anything heavy or sharp will do.  Plus we can set traps.”

“Like in Home Alone.”  Danny smiled and seemed happy
with his contribution.

“Yeah,” said Victor.  “Just like in Home Alone, little
man.”

Danny giggled.  All things considered, he seemed to be
holding up better than any of the adults.

Joe had a thought.  “Hey, Mason, doesn’t the zoo have
tranquiliser guns?  You see them all the time on television.”

Mason frowned.  “There are dart guns in the Ranger’s
station, of course, but I’m afraid that’s at the other end of the zoo.
There’s another one inside a locked cabinet in the elephant enclosure, but
again we’d have no chance of getting there.  In the case of a severe
emergency such as this, the local police force is trained to deal with escaped
animals with lethal force.  Our protocol would simply be to call them –
which I have tried already.

“So there’s nothing at all here to help us?” asked Bill,
seemingly close to an emotional breakdown.  He was rubbing at his forehead
with both hands.

“There are drugs in the various laboratories,” Mason added,
“but the only way to administer them is by injection or oral ingestion. Does
anyone want to get close enough to that gorilla to stick a syringe in him?
I don’t.”

Joe showed his disappointment.  “Okay, well then do you
have any other suggestions for what we could use as weapons?”

Mason thought about it.  “There will probably be
certain items in the warehouse area.  There’s brooms, mop handles, et
cetera.  We could also look for the litter pickers that the Janitors
use.  They’re long metal sticks with sharp spikes on the end.”

“Like a spear,” said Victor.  “Bill should know how to
use one of those.”

Bill ignored the racist remark and Joe admires the man’s
self-control.  Despite Victor being such an asshole, it was good news
about the litter spikes.  “That sounds like the best thing we have.”

“Let’s get going then,” Randall urged.

“Should we split up or--”

The sibilant shattering sounds of more objects being thrown
through the window of the nearby office alerted them all.  It sounded like
several things in quick succession.

“Do we ignore that?” said Grace.  “Or do we look?”

Multiple rage-filled screeches sent Joe over to the
door.  Looking inside the office was probably a stupid thing to do, but he
needed to know what they were up against.  They couldn’t afford to ignore
a single thing.

Carefully, Joe cracked open the door and looked inside the
room.  There was movement inside.  Lots of it.

You got to be kidding me?

White and black lemurs leapt about everywhere, flying in
through the broken window, one after another.  The small, bushy-tailed
primates spotted Joe and immediately rushed towards him.

Joe slammed the door and pulled up the handle to engage the
catch.  When he turned back towards the group he didn’t quite know how to
explain it, other than saying: “We’re under siege.”

Chapter Thirteen

“They’re coming in through
the window,” Joe told them.

Randall shook his head in obvious confusion.  “What
are?”

“A bunch of those little monkeys – lemurs, I think.
The ones with the ringed bushy tails and little hands?  They’ve gotten
into the office.”

As if to validate his claims, several bodies hit the other
side of the door.  Sharp fingernails began to scratch at the wood.

Grace looked worried.  “Do you think they will get
through?”

Joe watched as the door handle rattled and then began to
turn.  He lunged for it and pushed it back up again.  “Pretty sure,
yeah.”

“We need to jam the door,” said Victor.  “Somebody find
something we can use to wedge the handle.”

Grace stared at him like a deer in headlights.  “Like
what?”

“I don’t know, woman, but the longer you stand there having
a stroke, the longer it will take you to find something.  Now get moving,
you daft bint.”

Grace rushed off.  Joe hoped she found something soon
because his fingers were already beginning to ache from clutching the door
handle so tightly.  The force on the other side was getting stronger and
his grip was getting weaker.  It was almost as if the diminutive creatures
on the other side were infused with the strength of animals three-times their
size.  Joe didn’t want to think about what that could mean.  “I don’t
know how much longer I can hold this…”

“Just hold in there, pal.”  Victor tried to get a hold
on the handle too, but there was no room for the both of them.  Joe
thought about changing with Victor, but the brief moment his hand would be off
the handle could be all the lemurs needed to get the door open.

Grace reappeared in the corridor, holding a mop and bucket.

Victor laughed.  “Clean up on aisle six, love?
How’s that going to help?”

Grace didn’t say anything.  She yanked the mop from the
bucket and ran at Joe and Victor.  For a second Joe thought she was about
to brain one of them, but instead she shoved the wooden pole up against the
door.

Joe realised what she was doing and watched in admiration as
Grace threaded the pole behind the handle, twisting it so that both ends wedged
against the door’s frame on the left and right.  Hesitantly, Joe released
his grip on the door handle.  It moved slightly, and for a split-second it
looked like the plan might fail, but then the handle caught against the
pole.

It held.

Joe shook his crippled hand, trying to get some feeling back
into it.  The knuckles ached as he flexed them.  “Good
thinking.  I don’t think I could have held on much longer.”

Danny put his arm around her.  “You’re smart and pretty
like Miss Elizabeth.”

Grace raised her eyebrows at Joe.

Joe laughed.  “She was a very famous lady in
wrestling.  It’s a big compliment in Danny’s world.”

Grace knelt down and gave Danny a kiss on the cheek.
“Thank you!”

Danny rubbed at the spot where she had kissed him and pulled
a face.  “Keep your lips to yourself, lady.”

Joe was surprised to see everyone laugh at this, even Victor
and Randall – although something about Randall’s expression seemed a little
forced.

The banging and scratching on the office door suddenly
stopped.

“Perhaps they’re giving up,” Grace suggested.

Joe nodded.  “Perhaps.  Or maybe they’re moving on
to plan B.”

“Plan B?” said Grace.

Joe nodded.  “Something tells me that things are just
getting started.”

“All the more reason to commence with our own plans,”
Randall said.  “We need to get moving, my friends.  The quicker we
can hunker down, the safer we’ll be.”

Everyone agreed.  They had to do something proactive
instead of waiting for the next attack.  Joe had to keep his son safe no
matter what. “I’ll go look for the litter pickers in the warehouse,” he
said.  “Grace, will you and Danny come with me?”

“Of course.  I think I may have even seen where they
were earlier.”

“Excellent,” said Randall.  “I, and the rest of us,
will gather supplies into the seminar room.”

With the lack of any argument the group got moving.
Joe, Grace, and Danny re-entered the supervisor walkway of the warehouse.
Joe leaned over the safety rail and looked down over the various pallets on the
floor below.  “It’s a bit of a maze down there.”

“I know, but I think I saw the litter pickers over by the
delivery shutter on the far wall.”

Joe took his son by the hand.  “Let’s go down and get
them then.  Danny you stick close to Daddy, okay?”

Danny nodded and squeezed Joe’s hand tight.

From the bottom of the steel staircase the warehouse seemed
even more like a maze.  Joe examined the first stack of pallets in front
of him.  It was full of cleaning products and housekeeping
chemicals.  It wasn’t what he was looking for right now but Joe made a
mental note of the various bleaches and the FLAMMABLE signs that adorned their
bottles.

Grace stood behind him and placed a hand on his
shoulder.  “Anything?”

“I don’t think so.  Let’s keep going.”

The three of them moved on through the warehouse,
cataloguing useful items, such as a pallet of canned cafeteria food and a small
supply of petrol, while disregarding un-useful items like a crate of plastic
animal souvenirs, although Joe did allow Danny to take a Rhinoceros from the
pile.

Grace pointed.  “I think they’re over there.”

Joe looked across the warehouse and saw a collection of
metal rods stacked up against a steel shutter door.  He walked over and
grabbed one of them.  After examining it he saw that it was indeed a
spike-tipped litter picker.  “Great,” he said, thumbing the sharp
point.  “These will come in handy.”

“How many are there?” Grace asked.  “There’re seven of
us.”

Joe sighed.  “Only three, but it’s a start.”

“Sure is.  Hopefully we won’t need any of them.”

Joe handed one of the spikes to her.  “Better to be
safe than sorry.”

Grace looked at the tip of the spike in her hand and
suddenly began to well up with tears.  She wiped at her cheeks with her
free hand.  “I’m sorry.  I just can’t believe what’s happening.”

Joe put down the other two litter pickers and put his arm
around her.  “It’s okay.  We’ll be fine.  Whatever has caused
this may well end soon.  We don’t know what’s going to happen yet.”

Grace squeezed into him, pulling Danny into the hug as
well.  “I’m so frightened.  Things haven’t even sunk in yet and I
already feel like I’m going to have a breakdown.  I saw people die today
and I’m scared.  Not just of the animals either.”

Danny started crying also and Joe felt himself wanting to do
the same.  He couldn’t allow himself to, though, because he needed to be
strong for his son – maybe for Grace, too.  “I’ll look after you both,” he
said, hoping he was strong enough for it to be the truth.  “We just need
to stick together until all this is all over.”

Grace pulled away and looked at Joe.  Her eyes were
red.  “What if it’s never over?”

Joe thought about it and didn’t like what came.  If the
situation went on permanently then what hope was there?

“I don’t know,” he eventually said.  “We just have to
be ready – ready for whatever comes.  Right now that means arming
ourselves to the teeth.”

Grace laughed and wiped at her face.  “I guess we
better keep searching then.”

Joe grabbed the litter pickers back up and held them out
like spears.  “And if you see anything with fur, stab it!”

“Don’t worry,” said Grace.  “I’ve given up being an
animal lover.  Time to bring out my inner-caveman.”

A deep bass-filled bellow shook the warehouse and the three
of them spun around with a start.

Standing twelve-feet away, poking out from behind a stack of
spare plastic seating was an alligator.  It was stretching its head into
the air and raising itself up as if to show as much of its body as
possible.  After one more almighty bellow the creature lowered back down
and stared at them with its ancient eyes.  Then it hissed.

Grace moved up against Joe so that they were touching.
“This thing doesn’t have any fur, should I still stab it?”

Joe nodded.  “I think it qualifies as something we
should stab, yes.”

The alligator came at them without warning, surprisingly
quick for such a heavy animal.  Its head swished back and forth as it
approached them, jaws open, ready to taste human flesh.

“Get upstairs,” said Joe.  “I’ll deal with this.”

Grace shook her head.  “No way.  We should all
just run for it.”

“We can’t abandon these supplies.  We’ve got no chance
without them.  Plus we need to find out where this thing got inside, or
else we’ll have the whole zoo in here before long.”

Grace hesitated, but as the alligator got closer she was
forced into action.  She ran, taking Danny with her and leaving Joe alone.

Joe sprinted away, too, but further into the warehouse
instead of towards the stairs.  “Come get me, you sad-excuse for a
crocodile.”

The animal followed Joe.  He could hear it hissing and
grunting behind him.  He had no idea what he planned to do, but he was
confident of outrunning the creature that was built more for water than for
land.

Can’t outrun it forever, though.

Joe stopped and spun around, litter spike in hand.  The
alligator was gone from sight, but still somewhere close by if the sound of its
angered grunting was anything to go by.

“Hey there, alligator, where ya hiding?”

As if in answer to his question, the alligator lunged out
from behind some boxes, taking Joe by surprise.  The giant lizard crashed
down on top of him, as heavy as a car.  All of the wind was crushed out of
Joe’s lungs and stars clouded his vision.  The only sense still operating
coherently was his smell, which was picking up the fetid smell of half-consumed
flesh coming from the creature’s mouth.

Joe thought fast as the alligator wrestled to keep him
pinned, trying to position itself well enough to get a clear bite at him.
Thoughts of evenings alone, watching the Discovery Channel, suddenly entered
Joe’s mind and spurned him into action.  In a bear hug, he wrapped his
arms around the alligator’s jaws, clamping them shut.  Joe remembered that
the muscles used to snap an alligator’s jaws closed were exceptionally strong,
but the ones that opened them were very weak.  Joe held on for dear life,
keeping the deadly maw closed.

It wouldn’t keep him safe for long though.  The
crushing weight of the alligator was still immovable, and although he was
strong enough to hold its jaws closed, eventually his stamina would give out
and his arms would fail.  He was doomed.  His arms were already
weakening, their strength ebbing away…

The beast thrashed about on top of him, fighting back
against the grip around its jaws.  Slowly but surely, the jaws began to
open and Joe’s arms began to part.

No more strength left, Joe released his grip.
Clenching his eyelids shut, he waited for a death grip around his throat.

But none came.

Joe opened his eyes to find Grace standing over him.
She had driven her litter picker into the skull of the alligator and was
twisting violently, penetrating deeper into the creature’s thick armour.

Without thinking, and acting entirely on instinct, Joe
reached out to his side and grabbed his own litter spike from where he had
dropped it on the ground.  He pulled the weapon toward him, angled it at
the soft flesh of the alligator’s underside, then thrust with all his might.

The litter spike went all the way through the creature’s
head, poking out the top of its head like a horn.  After several seconds
of frantic convulsions, the creature flopped forward and went still.

From beneath the animal’s bleeding corpse, Joe looked up at
Grace.  “You fancy making a handbag?”

Grace laughed, but was pale and shaken.  “Maybe I’ll
make some shoes.  Now stop messing around under there and get up, will
you!  We need to get this place secure.”

Chapter Fourteen

Things are looking up,
thought Randall.

They’d managed to find several full water coolers as well as
a pack of cola cans in a mini fridge.  Victor and Bill had found several
heavy-duty office printers and dragged them downstairs to reinforce the
barricade.  Most of the windows on the upper floor were now blocked with
upturned tables and filing cabinets.  The remaining furniture had been
piled up into the corridor at one end to stop anything getting through if the
downstairs barricade was breached.  All in all, Randall was quite pleased
with the last hour’s work.  They would all be safe and his organisational
skills were to thank for it.

These people owe me.

“That’s it, Shirley,” he said.  “Just put anything
useful you’ve found into a pile over on that table.”

“Things are quite secure now,” said Shirley, placing down a
half-empty bottle of Evian amongst the other supplies.  “I’m impressed
that you’ve gotten things so well in hand.”

“Thank you, Shirley.  We can’t afford to lose our heads
in situations like this now, can we?”

“Not at all.  It’s good to see that we have such a
strong man leading us.”

Leading?  Randall liked the sound of that.
Shirley was obviously an astute woman that recognised his superiority amongst
the group.  “Thank you,” he said again.  “It’s just a shame that this
all occurred on a Saturday morning – we could have done with extra
bodies.  Still, I will make absolutely sure that those who are here get
through this safely and in one piece.”

“I know you will, Mr Randall.  I can see God’s strength
guiding you and I have every faith that your determination will see us through.

God’s strength?  What are you talking about, you
senile old bat?  There’s no God here.  You’re better off putting your
faith in me.

Randall grinned.  “Well, I am glad to have the support
of a fine woman such as yourself.  If you’ll excuse me for a moment.”

Shirley left him alone.  He moved off into the corner
of the room, and from inside his pocket he pulled out his Blackberry
phone.

There were no emails or messages.

He cursed under his breath.  If he didn’t get in touch
with the outside world soon he was going to blow a fuse.  He needed to
know what was being done to rectify this situation, but there was nothing
coming through, and his attempts to call out had failed.  He’d also tried
several of the computers in the various offices, but none of them had an active
Internet connection any longer.  Communications were well and truly down
it seemed.

But he still had to keep trying.  The more he knew, the
better he could take charge of the situation.  Like they say, knowledge is
power.

Randall switched off his phone to save the battery then put
it away.  He turned around and approached Victor who was inventorying
their supplies.  “How are things looking?”

Victor folded his arms and shrugged.  “Not too
bad.  We’re good for water, but don’t have much food besides the
odds-and-ends we found in the offices.  All of the snack machines are
downstairs.”

“Perhaps Joe and Grace will find something in the
warehouse.  Didn’t Mason say there are cafeteria supplies there?”

Victor nodded.  “Mason just left for the warehouse to
go and help them find their way around.  They should all be back soon.”

“Okay.  If they manage to find any food, I want you in
charge of it.  We need to ration.”

Victor grinned.  “Would be my pleasure.  Do you
not think everyone will share?”

“No I don’t.  If it’s one thing I know about people,
it’s that they are incapable of governing themselves.”

“Fair enough.  You can leave things safe with me.”

Randall left the Scotsman alone with the inventory and
approached the next person in the room, who happened to be Cosby – or Bill if
he were to use the man’s actual name.  The aging Black man was busy piling
up makeshift weaponry on a table.

Randall looked over the collected items.  “Don’t happen
to have a shotgun hidden there, do you?”

“I wish.  All I could find was stationary.
There’re some metal metre-rulers which could break a few bones, but not against
anything big.  A blade from a paper guillotine was probably the most
lethal thing I could find, although it’s a bit clumsy.  There was this
in one of the labs, though.”  He held up a large container full of clear
liquid.  “Sulphuric acid.  If I remember high school chemistry well
enough then I think this stuff is pretty lethal.”

“It certainly is.  In fact, Black Remedy owns a
manufacturer that produces chemicals just like this.  I’ve seen what this
stuff can do.  I’m sure it will come in handy.”

Bill went back to what he was doing and Randall exited the
room, closing the door behind him.  The corridor was empty, other than the
large stack of office furniture piled up at one end.

Two doors down was a room marked: TODD SPETCHLEY, HEAD OF
PRIMATE CARE.  Randall entered the room and stepped inside.  The
space was mostly empty, its furniture removed for the barricade.  Some
things still remained, however: a desk – too vast to remove – and a steel
filing cabinet that was fastened to the rear wall by several bolts.
Randall took a key from his pocket and unlocked the cabinet.

He’d found the key earlier while everybody was busy, still
in its lock, and he had looked inside the cabinet it belonged to.  Inside
he had discovered several bags of crisps and a chocolate bar, amongst the
useless paperwork and files.  He had cleared out the cabinet earlier and
replaced the contents with supplies.  It now contained several bottles of
water and some additional snacks that he had found in various drawers and
cupboards.  There was also a scalpel from the laboratory – just in case he
needed to defend himself.  There were many other things inside, but not
everything in the cupboard had an obvious use just yet.  The way he saw it
was that the more he had available, the more options he would have later.

After switching off the battery, Randall placed his
Blackberry inside the cupboard.  It wouldn’t do to be caught with it on
his person after he had declined to declare it.  He would return to it
later and try to gain contact with somebody outside of the zoo.  Somebody
had to be doing something, and if there was, he would be the hero to arrange
for rescue.

After locking the cabinet up again and pocketing the key,
Randall re-entered the corridor and immediately bumped into Joe’s group.
He hoped that they were not suspicious.

“Hello everyone,” he said as inconspicuously as he
could.  “How did it go in the warehouse?”

Mason was smiling.  “Very well, as it happens.
Fortunately, a delivery for the cafeteria came in this very morning, right
before things became…inconvenient.  There is enough food to last us for a
while.”

The little boy, Danny, spoke up next.  “We found
weapons, too, and an alligator!”

Randall raised an eyebrow.  “Really?”

“Yeah,” said the boy’s father.  “We found the litter
spikes and Mason found us some gardening equipment when he came down to help;
shovels, pitchforks, and some other stuff.  As for the alligator, it’s all
dealt with.  We managed to kill it.  It got in through an open
side-door in the warehouse, but we closed it up and blocked it.”

“Excellent.  I’m just glad you’re all okay.
Perhaps when this is all done, you can get on one of those shows where they
wrestle alligators for entertainment.”  Randall laughed, pleased with his
banter.  “Victor and the rest of us managed to secure the floor quite well
so it looks like we’re in good shape.  It’s getting dark outside so it may
be a good time to bed down soon.  I’m sure the shock is liable to be
getting to everyone by now.”

“Do we have any blankets?” Grace asked.

Randall shook his head.  “There’re a few cushions and
some lab coats to lie on, but other than that we’re in for an uncomfortable
night in the cold.”

Joe shrugged.  “We’ll manage.  Things could be
worse.”

The lights cut out.

“You’re kidding me.”

Chapter Fifteen

The humans festered
inside like rotting ants.  He would rip them to pieces soon and they would
scream his name in terror.  Nero, they would scream.  Nero.  And
then he would shed the name they placed upon him and become the king nature had
always intended him to be.  Creatures of all kinds were looking for him to
lead them – and lead them he would.

***

The entire group helped bring food
up from the warehouse, leaving about a third behind in case something happened
to the main supply.  They had filled up the seminar room with goods and
were now piling cushions onto the floor.  It was almost full dark outside
and no stars were shining.  They didn’t have much time left until all
visibility was extinguished.

Joe threw the last cushion onto his pile and put Danny down
on top of it.  His son’s eyelids were already half-closed by the time his
head hit the soft fabric.  Today was too much for a child to have to deal
with, and the large portion of found chocolate cake Danny had wolfed down
earlier had only added to his sleepiness.

“Sweet dreams, son,” said Joe, covering his son with a spare
lab coat.  “Tomorrow will be better.”

Danny muttered, “Night, Dad,” then was fast asleep.
Joe sat and watched him for a while.  He was such a small boy, but so
brave – full of energy and optimism.  Joe hadn’t spent enough time with
Danny since the divorce and it upset him to realise how little he knew about
his son’s inner-strength.

Grace came and sat down beside the two of them.  “What
do you think happened to the electricity?”

Joe shrugged.  “I don’t know, but it can’t be
good.  Things must be really bad for the grid to be down.”

“I guess so.  Mason told me the zoo has a backup
generator, but it only runs to the indoor exhibits – the lizards and
stuff.  We’re going to be freezing tonight.”

“Doesn’t look like we’ll get any breaks, does it?”

“I don’t know about that.  We were lucky with the
cafeteria delivery.  Least we won’t starve.  You should have a
sandwich; everyone else has.”

Joe nodded.  “Maybe later.  I guess we can hole up
here for a while.  It’s not too cold at the moment either.  Least
we’re not having a load of snow like we did that year.  I thought that was
the final winter to end all winters.  We’ll get through this.”

Grace looked him in the eye and seemed serious all of a
sudden.  “We’re lucky to have you, Joe.  You saved my life
today.  Bill’s too.  We owe you our lives.”

“You don’t owe me anything.  I just did what anyone
would have.”

Grace frowned.  “You think?  I can’t see Shirley
risking herself like you did.”

“Okay, I did what most people would have done.”

Grace moved closer and lay against him.  Her skin felt
warm.  “You did what only brave people would have done.  I’m really
glad you’re here.  Danny too.”

Joe felt awkward for a moment.  He hadn’t had a woman
this close to him in years and it made him nervous, but at the same time very
relaxed.  “I’m glad you’re here too, Grace,” he finally admitted, wrapping
an arm around her.  “I don’t think I could have looked after Danny today
without you.”

Grace looked up at him.  “He’s a great kid.”

“You should thank his mother for that.  I haven’t been
around so much lately.”

Joe expected Grace to investigate further, but she
didn’t.  “You’re making up for it now,” was all she said.

“Thanks,” said Joe, disagreeing with the comment but grateful
that she had said it.  Whether or not she heard his gratitude, he did not
know.  Grace was already asleep.

It wasn’t particularly late, but Joe guessed it had been a
long day for everyone.  The others in the group had also begun to settle
down into their own little areas.  Bill and Mason were close by, while
Randall, Shirley, and Victor sat further back in the room.  Victor had
built his bed beneath one of the study-desks.  For what reason, Joe did
not know.

It was now fully dark outside and Joe could see the night
between the gaps in the barricade that Victor had assembled in front of the
window.  He wondered what the evening would bring.  Would the animals
sleep?  Or would they become even more active?  Did they even need to
sleep?  Whatever had affected the creatures seemed to have taken complete
control of them.

As if to answer his questions, creatures outside began to
howl, using whatever particular vocal abilities they had.  At the far end
of the room Randall got up from his pillow-bed and went to the window.

“What’s happening?” Bill asked him.

“I don’t know,” Randall replied.  “I can’t really see
anything.  They’re out there, though.  I can hear them.”

“They know we’re in here,” said Victor.  “They want our
blood.”

“That may well be,” said Randall, “but we’re safe in
here.  There’s no reason to worry.”

But as the volume of the catcalls increased, Joe couldn’t
help but do just that.  It was several hours before he got to sleep.

Chapter Sixteen

It was pitch black when Joe
awoke.  He had no idea what time it was, and for a few moments forgot
where he was.  The darkness extinguished his vision and made remembering
hard, but when his ears tuned in to the animal noises outside, it all came
rushing back.

Everything’s gone to shit.  The animals…

That wasn’t what had woken him though.  There was
somebody walking about.  Joe strained his eyes, trying to see through the
darkness.  He could make out nothing solid, but someone was definitely
there, creeping around in the shadows.

Should I shout out?

No, I’ll keep quiet.  I have no reason to think they’re
up to anything.

Joe felt around himself, checking for Danny and Grace.
They were both close by, sleeping soundly and breathing rhythmically.  He
was also pretty sure he could make out Bill’s silhouette nearby too.  The
sneaking person would have to have been Mason, Randall, Victor, or
Shirley.  With the exception of Mason, Joe didn’t trust any of them.
Again, he considered calling out, but still chose to remain quiet.

Probably just someone going to the toilets down the
hallway.

After the mystery person left the room, Joe waited ten
more minutes before he could take it no longer.  Sleep would be impossible
unless he knew where everyone was.  He got up slowly, so that he wouldn’t
wake the others, and crept to the door in the same way that the mystery person
had; an almost impossible feat in the pitch black dark.  He kept his arms
out as feelers to keep from bumping into the walls.

Outside in the corridor it was no easier to see, the dark
was just as suffocating.  The air was cooler, though, and tasted fresher
than the recycled atmosphere of the seminar room.  Joe took a deep breath
and looked left and right whilst cocking his ear to one side.  It wasn’t
clear where the other person had gone but, as Joe listened, he thought he could
detect sounds coming from further down the corridor.

Moist, slapping sounds.

Joe realised the animals inside the lab were no longer
making noise – the first time since Mason had riled them up by chancing upon
them.  Joe felt a tightening in his chest.  The smart thing to do
would be to wake the others, but something urged him to go on alone.  If
he was going to alert everyone, he at least wanted sufficient reason.
They had all been through enough.

Taking one tentative step after the other, Joe approached
the lab, listening intently and trying to identify the slapping sounds.
The noises seemed louder as he stood outside the door to the lab.  He
reached for the handle.

Someone grabbed him from behind.

Joe spun around.  His heart threatened to leap out of
his throat.  Whoever had grabbed him was invisible in the darkness, only
the dim shape of them visible.

“Whoa there, Joe!  It’s Bill.  Didn’t mean to
scare you.”

Joe couldn’t speak.  He sucked in giant gulps of
air.  It was several moments before he managed to catch his breath enough
to say anything.  “Christ almighty.  You sneak up and grab me in the
dark and you didn’t mean to scare me?”

“Guess you have a point there, sorry.  You’re the one
wandering around in the night, though.  What are you up to?”

Joe’s eyes adjusted to the dark sufficiently that he could
make out Bill’s curious expression.  “Actually, I’m not the one wandering
around.  There’s someone in the lab.  I was about to find out who.”

“Okay,” said Bill, a hint of concern in his voice.
“Lead the way.”

Joe nodded but was unsure if the other man could see it in
the dark.  He turned back around and wrapped his fingers around the door
handle agaun.

Here goes.

He opened the door.

Inside, the lab was an unending blanket of darkness, except
for a floating torchlight at the far end.  Joe could not make out who was
holding it.

“Who is it?”  Bill whispered.

“I don’t know.  I can’t see anything in here.”

“Light the burners,” Bill suggested.

“What do you mean?”

Bill placed a hand on Joe’s shoulder to find him in the
dark.  “The Bunson Burners run on gas.  We could still light them
even with no electricity.”

Joe thought about it.  “Good idea.  You got a
lighter?”

Bill didn’t say anything but in the dark Joe felt the other
man hand him a small metallic object.  A flip lighter.  Joe sparked
it up and the flame lit a narrow cone of light around him, enough to navigate
his way carefully over to one of the lab benches.

A few sweeps with the lighter and Joe managed to locate a
row of gas taps.  He released the valve on the first, waited for the hiss,
lit it, and adjusted the flame to its highest.  It took only a few seconds
to light several more, but it still did not allow Joe to see who was flittering
about at the other end of the lab.  The light of the burners stretched
only a few feet from the centre of the room.

Nothing left to do but shout out.  So that’s
what Joe did.  “Who’s there?”

The torch beam spun erratically as the person realised they
were not alone, the tunnel of light eventually finding its way into Joe’s face
and blinding him.  Bill came up beside him and stood shoulder to shoulder.

“We said who’s there?”  Bill’s voice was strong and
forceful, much tougher than Joe’s.  “Show yourself now, or else.”

The torchlight bobbed about as the person approached them.
Joe thought for a moment that it felt like being in a train’s
headlights.  His eyes were forced shut as the torch continued to shine in
his face.  His retinas ached.

“How ya doing there, pals?  Up to some late night
dogging?”

Joe frowned at the Scottish accent, knowing who it belonged
to: Victor.

“You really don’t know anything about gay people, do
you?”  Bill said.

Victor laughed.  “Less I know the better, pal.”

“We’re not up to anything,” Joe stated.  “We’re here to
see what you’re up to.”

“No problem,” said Victor.  “Best you see for
yourself.”

The torchlight left Joe’s face and circled the room,
illuminating the rows and rows of cages on each wall.  The animals inside
were no longer making a fuss.  In fact a lot of the cages were now
open.

Joe’s eyes went wide.  “Shit, you let them all out!”

Victor laughed, the sound echoing through the unlit
room.  He stepped forward into the light of the Bunson Burners and Joe saw
that he was drenched in blood from head to toe.  His tattoos were merged
with gore and a dead bird hung limply from his left hand.  Martha glinted
in his right.

Victor’s laughing continued.  He held the gutted animal
up like a trophy.  “Aye, I let them all out, I did, but only long enough
to slit their throats.”

Joe stared at the blood-soaked knife in Victor’s hand and
had to swallow back a mouthful of vomit.  “You’re insane.”

“No, pal.  Just practical.  Now do me a favour and
leave a man to his work.  We can all use this meat if things get bad
enough.”

“Things are already that bad,” said Bill, grabbing Joe’s arm
and pulling him backwards.  “Come on, Joe.”

Together, they backed away from Victor, not taking their
eyes off of him – or his beloved Martha – until they reached the door.
Joe’s back hit the wood and he flinched, spun around.  He snatched at the
door handle, missing several times, but finally getting a grip and flinging it
open.  He and Bill barrelled through into the corridor outside like Hell
itself was behind them.

“That guy is batshit crazy,” said Bill, huffing and puffing
as the two of them hurried down the unlit hallway.  “He even killed the
birds, and they weren’t even dangerous.  I think he enjoys it,”

“I know,” Joe agreed.  “We need to warn the others.”

They reached the seminar room and Joe shoved open the
door.  Everyone inside woke with a start, shouting out garbled utterances
as they were yanked away from their dreams.  Joe closed the door and leant
his back up against it.  “Everyone wake up.”

“We’re already awake!  What’s going on?  Are we
under attack?”  Joe recognised the startled voice as belonging to Grace.

“Yes, would you care to explain?” said another voice that
could only have been Randall’s.

The room lit up.  Joe saw that Bill had managed to
rustle up some torches from the stockpile and was placing them around the room
to light up as big an area as possible.  Joe could now make out the
concerned faces of the others in the room.  Fortunately, Danny was still
asleep.

My son could sleep through the end of the world.
Lucky for him, because that may just be what’s happening.

“Victor’s gone mad!”  Joe blurted it out, unsure of any
other way to approach the subject.

Randall stood up and moved to the centre of the room.
“What on Earth are you talking about?”

“He’s in the lab, right now” said Bill.  “Hacking away
at all the animals in their cages.  They’re all dead.”

“That’s good isn’t it?” Shirley asked.  “They were a
danger.”

Mason was shaking his head, a hand against his brow.
“No, no, no.  We agreed that they were to be left alone.”

“That’s beside the point,” said Joe.  “What matters is
that Victor is going around killing things like a twisted maniac.”

“Of course he is,” said Randall.  “That’s exactly what
I advised him to do.”

Both of Joe’s eyelids opened wide.  “I’m sorry, what?”

“I said I told him to do it.  The animals in those
cages were dangerous.  How could we rest with an enemy within our
boundaries?  Plus, the meat they provide may prove invaluable in the days
ahead.”

Mason sighed.  “They were invaluable until
Victor killed them all.”

“I stand by what I said.  We are in too much trouble to
risk those things getting out.  I voiced my concerns to Shirley and
Victor, and Victor was happy to oblige.  The man is doing us all a
service.”

“I agree,” said Shirley.  “Those beasts would happily
have done the same to us.”

Joe shook his head.  What could he say?  There was
a certain amount of logic to their argument and, if he was honest, it did feel
safer knowing that the caged animals were no longer a concern.  It didn’t
make him feel any better about Victor, though.  The image of the Scotsman
dripping with blood and shrouded in shadow was permanently etched into his
brain.  Regardless of what anybody said, Victor was dangerous.

Joe just didn’t know how dangerous yet.

Chapter Seventeen

The morning arrived in
silence.  No birds sang their morning tunes and no cars hummed along
distant motorways.

The world was still.

Randall had been awake for five minutes, but had done
nothing except observe the others sleeping.  The incident during the night
had riled everyone up, but they had eventually gotten back to sleep.
Victor had not returned, most likely still gutting the animals in the lab,
collecting their meat.  Randall found out that Victor was a Scot’s Guard
as a younger man and more than capable of doing the tasks that others were
not.  Whether the group agreed or not, Victor should be commended for his
pragmatism, not derided.

It had been enjoyable to watch Joe and Mason back down and
accept that harsh methods were needed, not fluffy thinking.  They needed to
understand that normal rules no longer applied.  Randall was going to
teach them all that lesson one way or the other.

The room began to glow as cold grey shafts of dawn-light
crept in through the gaps in the window’s barricade.  The others in the
room began to stir.  Randall noticed that there was one other person,
besides Victor, who was missing.  Grace wasn’t there.

Where have you gotten to, my pretty?  This is no
time for a woman to be walking around unescorted.

Randall pushed himself up off the floor.  His joints
cracked, his fifty-year-old body unhappy at spending the night on a thin pile
of cushions.  It wasn’t something he was sure he could ever get used to,
but for now there was no other choice.  He stretched out his arms, listened
to his elbows click one last time, and ambled over to the seminar room’s
exit.  Thankfully no one woke and he was free to go about his business
undisturbed.  He intended to find Grace and see what the woman was doing,
but first he had other things to attend to.  Randall was satisfied that
the corridor outside was empty of both people and, more importantly, animals,
so he stepped outside.

He approached the Head of Primates office across the hall
and opened the door quietly.  Once inside, he closed it just as carefully
behind him.  The key to the room’s filing cabinet was in his pocket and he
plucked it out, using it on the lock a moment later.  He took a packet of
biscuits from the middle-shelf and popped one into his mouth.

Breakfast.

Once he’d finished several more biscuits, Randall placed the
packet back inside the cupboard and grabbed the next item on the shelf – his
Blackberry.  He pressed the ‘ON’ button and waited for the phone to boot
up.  It took several minutes, but when it finally activated, something
unexpected occurred.

< ONE NEW MESSAGE >

Randall thumbed at the keypad clumsily, failing several
times to get the message up, but eventually succeeding.  He could not
believe what it said:

RE: Emergency Communication

This is a Government message to all cellular
devices.  Emergency Rescue Operations are on-going at the following
locations:  Aberdeen, Bristol, Barnham, Blackpool, Dudley, Leicester,
Ipswich, Nottingham, Oxford, Preston, Salford, Torquay, Taunton, Warwick,
Winchester, Yeovil.  If you are able to, please head to these areas.
Help will be forthcoming.  Do not approach any animal.

Randall stared at his phone for several minutes, re-reading
the message over and over.  Despite his misgivings, the Government was
indeed addressing the situation and were possibly even gaining a
foothold.  Or are they?  Randall considered that the message
could have been sent automatically by a dusty computer in the Home Office, and
that the areas mentioned were already overrun by animal attacks.  The
message did not guarantee that help was available.  They were probably
still safer staying put.  Some of the locations were nearby – Leicester
especially – and it was perhaps an option to try and reach them.  He would
have to think about things before making a decision.

Randall switched off the Blackberry and placed it back
inside the cabinet.  He locked it up and pocketed the key.  Then he
left.

Outside, in the hallway, he bumped unexpectedly into
Victor.  The man had cleaned himself up and was now wearing a baggy, brown
jump suit that looked as though it belonged to the zoo’s maintenance staff.

Randall raised an eyebrow.  “New outfit?”

“Aye, I found it in the warehouse.  My other clothes
were a wee bit…sticky.”

“Indeed.  What are you up to now?”

“Just checking the building’s security, making sure none of
the furry bastards can get in.”

Randall patted the man on his shoulder and moved past.
“Keep up the good work.”

As he walked back down the corridor, Victor shouted after
him.  “And what exactly have you been up to, pal?”

Randall stopped and turned around.  He thought about
the message on his phone before answering.  “Me?  Nothing,
Victor.  Nothing at all.”

The less you know the better, my friend.  Until I
decide otherwise.

Victor scrutinised Randall for a few minutes and eventually
cracked a crooked-tooth smile.  “Well, let me know if you need help with
whatever it is that you’re not doing.  I’m very good with secrets.”

Victor sauntered off, leaving Randall alone to consider his
comments.

Chapter Eighteen

Joe awoke to screaming.
He it was Grace as soon as he saw she was missing from her bed.

Danny woke up.  “What’s happening, Dad?”

“I don’t know.  Stay here while I find out.”

Danny looked worried, but nodded.  Joe patted him on
the shoulders, kissed his forehead.  He then scrambled over to Bill.
“Bill, watch Danny while I go find out what’s going on.  I think it’s
Grace.”

“Of course, go!”

Joe entered the corridor, wanting to rush but trying not to
until he knew the situation better.  Another scream sounded and he couldn’t
help but pick up speed.

The noise continued, coming from one of the offices on his
right.  Joe pinpointed it to a room marked JEFFREY CARLSON, HEAD
VET.  He opened the door and pushed himself inside. Grace stood in the
middle of the room, shrieking, and clutching at her face.  Joe examined
the floor in front of her and saw the reason why.

“What the hell?”

She flinched at the sound of Joe’s voice and looked over at
him.  Her eyes were unnaturally wide.  “What do I do?” she asked.

Joe peered down at the creatures by her feet – massive,
hairy spiders and armour-plated scorpions.  The zoo’s entire creepy crawly
menagerie was surrounding Grace in a tightening semi-circle of hissing,
spitting menace.

Joe stretched his arms out towards her.  “Grace, very
slowly…come here.”

Grace shook her head.  “I can’t.  They’ll get me.”

As if to agree with her, several tarantulas rose up on their
hind legs and hissed.  A cloud of bristly, brown hairs filled the air
around them.  Grace let out another scream.

“You have to move now, Grace!  They’re getting closer.”

Grace stopped her screaming and attempted to get herself
under control, almost hyperventilating in the process.  Joe held his
breath, waiting for her to do something.  It was a relief when she finally
managed to take a step backwards.

“That’s it.  Really slowly.”

Grace took another step but one of the tarantulas scuttled
around and blocked her path.  It stood between her and Joe.

How the hell did it know to do that?  Spiders can’t
behave like this, can they?

“Stay still, Grace.  I need to think a second.”

The creatures moved closer.  She shrieked again, but
managed to get it under control before it took hold.  Joe glanced around
the room for something to help, but it was just an ordinary office and most the
furniture had been taken out.  There was nothing he could use.

So he did the only thing he could think of.

Joe lifted his size-eleven trainer and brought it down on
top of the tarantula.  It hissed and squirmed beneath his heel, but he
kept the pressure on, feeling its spindly legs snapping with each twist of his
ankle.  He lifted his foot again and expected to see a sickly mush, but it
was just the same spider – crumpled and broken, but the same.

“Grace, come on!”

Grace saw the opportunity and found enough courage to make a
run for it.  She took several lunging steps towards him and threw herself
into his arms.  For a few moments, Joe just held her, glad that she was
safe.  Then he realised they weren’t out of the woods yet.  “We need to
get out of here,” he said, grabbing Grace by the arm.  She winced and Joe
saw why.  “Hey, what happened to your wrist?”

Grace eyed the thick gash on the back of her forearm, then
looked down at the army of approaching arachnids.  “Now’s not the time.”

Joe leapt to the door and held it open.  Grace ran
through it, followed by a scuttling army of thrashing scorpions and
spiders.

Joe slammed the door shut, catching an obsidian scorpion
against the frame and crushing it to a viscous pulp.  “Are you…okay?” he
asked Grace between panting breaths.

Grace nodded, but tears had released themselves and were
gliding down her cheeks.  “I’m fine.”

“So, are you going to tell me what happened?”

Grace stared at the floor.  “I….I woke up and I was
cold, so I was looking for some blankets.  Those things just came out of
nowhere.  I still don’t know how they got inside.”

“But how did you hurt your arm?  It looks really bad.”

Grace held up the puckered wound and examined it.
Blood was still coursing from the cut, but had started to slow down.  “I
don’t know,” she said.  “Maybe one of those things got me.”

Joe wasn’t buying it.  Something about the way she
wouldn’t look him in the eye told him that other things were going on.  He
shook his head.  “They wouldn’t be able to do that type of damage.  That’s
a cut not a bite.”

Grace’s eyes narrowed.  “I don’t know then.  Does
it matter?”

“It does to me, but let’s just get it patched up for now.”

Grace tensed up, the features of her face contorting under a
sudden rigor.

“You okay?”

Grace stopped breathing, bent over and slumped against the
wall.  Her leg shot out to the side.  Joe looked down and saw
something moving.

A bright yellow scorpion was deeply embedded in Grace’s calf
by its stinger.

She screamed.

Joe reached down and grabbed the vile creature.  The
feel of its brittle exoskeleton was repulsive as he flung it against the
wall.  It shattered upon impact.

But what damage has it done already?

Joe turned to Grace.

Just in time to catch her fall.

Chapter Nineteen

Joe rushed into the seminar
room with an unconscious Grace in his arms.  He prayed that it was shock
and not some sort of toxin from the scorpion.

Mason leapt up from behind one of the desks.  “What’s
happened?”

Joe lay Grace down on top of the nearest table.  “She
got bitten by a scorpion.”

Mason went pale, all colour flushing from his cheeks.
“What did it look like?”

“I don’t know.  It was small and yellow.”

Mason held his head in his hands before staring hard at
Joe.  “Leiurus quinquestriatus.”

“In English?”

“Deathstalker Scorpion, also known as the Israeli Desert
Scorpion.  Its venom is amongst the worst of all species.”

“Why the hell would you have those things around?” asked
Bill, rushing over to help.

Mason shrugged.  He looked so tired that even such a
simple movement seemed like an ordeal.  “They were kept in the World of
Venom building.  How they got over here, I don’t know.”

“They’ve gotten smart,” said Joe.  “There were spiders
and scorpions in one of the offices.  They attacked Grace in a group,
working together.”

“This is not good.  Arachnida have been affected.”

Joe rubbed Grace’s forehead and brushed her damp hair out of
her face.  “Let’s worry about that later.  We need to help her.”

“There’s little that we can do,” Mason explained.  “Get
some soap and clean the wound, then elevate her leg.  With rest, she
should hopefully be okay.  There’s adrenaline in the lab if she has an
allergic reaction, but that doesn’t seem to be the case fortunately.”

“Why did she pass out then?”

“Shock perhaps.  Maybe it’s blood-loss from that cut on
her arm.  How did she get that?”

“I don’t know.  She wouldn’t tell me.”  Joe
examined the gash on Grace’s arm.  It had started to dry, but the
surrounding area was caked in dark brown blood.  It needed stitches.

Danny came up and held Joe’s hand.  “Is Grace going to
be okay, Dad?”

“She’s fine, Danny.  Will be much better after a
sleep.”

“You promise?”

“Of course.  You remember when Macho Man got bitten by
Jake the Snake’s python, don’t you?  He got better.”

Danny smiled up at him.  “Okay.”

Bill returned with a bottle of hand soap and started rubbing
it on Grace’s bite.  The flesh was red and swollen.  Joe gathered
some cushions and piled them beneath her ankle.  She was still
unconscious, but seemed peaceful, as though trapped in a gentle dream.

“I’m sure she’ll be fine,” said Bill.

“I hope so.”  Joe looked around the room and saw that
both Victor and Randall were missing.  Shirley was still napping at the
back of the room, obviously uninterested in recent events.  “Where are
Randall and Victor?”

Bill shrugged.

“I’m here and Victor is in the hallway,” said Randall,
entering the room.  “Is that alright with you?”

Joe turned around.  “Fine.  Just like to know that
everyone is safe and accounted for.”

Mason stepped in front of Joe and addressed Randall.
“And what is Victor doing in the hallway exactly?  Looking for more
endangered animals to hack to pieces?”

“We already discussed that, Mr Mason.  It was agreed
that Victor’s actions were in the best interests of the group.”

Mason took offence to the man’s statement and told him
so.  “Actually it was not agreed, Mr Randall.  It was a decision that
you seemed to make all on your own.”

“Yeah,” Bill added.  “What gives you the right to make
decisions for the rest of us?”

Randall placed his palms together in front of himself as if
to implore their mercy.  “Now let’s be reasonable, my friends.  In
the current circumstances things need to happen with a certain amount
of…urgency.  There is not always time to consult one another and hold a
team meeting.  Shirley, Victor, and I did what we thought was best.
If it wasn’t a popular decision then I apologise, but it has happened now so
let’s move on.”

Joe sighed.  “Just don’t make decisions behind our
backs again, okay?”

Randall rolled his eyes, but nodded in agreement.  A
moment later, he seemed to finally notice that Grace was lying unconscious on
the table.  He raised a coarse black eyebrow at the others curiously.

“A scorpion bit her,” Joe explained.  “Hopefully she’ll
sleep it off.”

“A scorpion?  Things keep getting better and
better.  I assume the danger has been dealt with?”

“Dealt with, as in the room they were in is locked up and
secure.”

Randall sighed.  “Another room that’s off limits?
We’ll have nowhere left soon.”

“Joe said the scorpions were working as a team,” said Bill.

“I guess we can safely assume that is true,” Randall agreed,
“but how on earth did scorpions get on the second floor?”

Joe shrugged.  “I really have no idea, but if they keep
staging attacks we’ll end up trapped and cornered before long.”

Randall walked over to the room’s window and looked out
through one of the gaps in the barricade.  “Then we need to hit
back.  I think it’s time that we attack them.”

“How?” asked Joe.  “What the hell can we do?”

Randall turned away from the window and faced the room like
some pudgy statesman.  “I don’t know yet, but I’m guessing there’s someone
that may have a few ideas.”

Joe folded his arms.  “Victor?”

Bill huffed air through his nostrils.  “That guy’s a
psychopath, but I hate to admit that might be a good thing right now.”

“Didn’t expect to see you on that man’s side,” said Joe.

“I’m not, but if he enjoys killing animals as much as he
seems to then he’s probably our biggest asset right now.”

“Aye, that I am, pal.  That I am.”

Joe rolled his eyes.  “You can’t mention anyone around
here without them suddenly popping up from somewhere.”

“Then perhaps you shouldn’t talk behind people’s backs,
pal.”

“That’s not what we were doing.”

“No?  Did I not hear the word psychopath being bandied
about?”  Victor glared at Bill who seemed to shrink away.  “Don’t
worry yourselves.  I’ve been called worse.”

“So, Victor,” said Randall, “if you heard our conversation,
then perhaps you might have some advice for us.”

“You mean about your little counter-strike?  Aye, I
could think of a thing or two.  We need to get that big bastard ape.
He’s their general.”

“Really,” said Joe.  “You think they have a leader?”

“Aye.  You’ve all seen the way he hangs back while
others attack us in groups.  He’s been sending in wave after wave.
First, the infantry downstairs – the monkeys – and then the bloody SAS lemurs
that came through the windows.”

“And the scorpions that got Grace,” added Bill.

Victor nodded and looked at Grace, unconscious on the
table.  “We’re at war people.  Under siege.  The only way we can
end it is to take the heart out of their army.”  He looked around the
room, making eye contact with each of them.  “We have to kill that bloody
silverback.”

Chapter Twenty

It was exciting, teasing
and toying with the humans.  The first few attacks so far had succeed only
in spreading fear – but that was the point.  While he could storm their
tower right now and tear them all to pieces, Nero wanted the human’s to
experience the feeling of being trapped – caged.  Like all of the animals
in this zoo, the human’s would know what it was to be completely at the mercy
of a heartless master.  It was too much fun to let this end too quickly,
but eventually he would become bored.  Then Nero would strike his final blow
and seek out more humans to extinguish.  Very soon it would be mankind
that was endangered.

***

It was almost dark again, Joe
noticed.  They had been making preparations all day, thinking up ways to
strike back at the animals.  They had collected anything that could be
thrown as a projectile: paperweights, PC monitors, text books (after persuading
Mason that they were necessary for the sacrifice), and other assorted
junk.  Victor had also filled some glass beakers with the sulphuric acid
from the lab and then wrapped them up in paper towels.  A canister of
petrol that Bill had brought up from the warehouse would also allow them to set
light to toilet rolls (of which they had many) and hurl them from the
windows.  It wasn’t much, but hopefully it would show that they intended
to put up a fight.

Everybody carried a weapon.  After what had happened to
Grace it was clear that an attack could come at any time.  Joe held one of
the litter pickers in his hand as he went up to check on Grace.  She had
recently awoken but was not yet fully coherent, drifting in and out of lucidity
for the last few hours.

“Grace, are you awake?”

Her eyelids fluttered.  “J-Joe?”

“Yeah, it’s me.  How you feeling?”

“Like,” she swallowed – the sound was dry and rasping.
“I got stung by a scorpion.”

Joe laughed.  “That must be the fever talking.
Scorpions attacking people is insane.”

Grace smiled weakly.  “How is Danny?”

“Don’t worry about anyone else.  We’re all fine.
You should try and go back to sleep.”

Grace nodded and rolled onto her side.  As she did so
she pulled her arm up against her waist.  Joe noticed her deep wound
again.  It was healing well but he still wanted to know what had caused
it.

“Grace?  Will you tell me how you hurt your arm?”

She breathed heavily and Joe thought she may have already
fallen asleep, but then she spoke softly.  “I need my pills.”

“Pills?  What pills?  Grace?”

She was gone, pulled into a fevered slumber that could not
be disturbed.  Joe thought about what she had meant.

Pills?  What pills does she need?

“How she doing?” Bill asked.

“She’s a bit out of it, but I think she’s okay.  At
least I hope so.”

“I don’t think scorpion stings are lethal.”

Joe nodded and took a seat on some cushions beside Bill on
the floor.  He folded his long legs underneath him.  “Mason said the
same.  Doesn’t mean it does you any good.”

“She’ll be fine.  Don’t worry.”

Joe sighed.  “To be honest, it’s not the scorpion bite
that worries me.”

“Oh?  Then what?”

“She has a horrible cut on her arm and she won’t
explain how she got it.  In fact the last time I asked she just told me
that she ‘needed her pills’.”

“Her pills?”

“Yeah.  What you think she meant?”

“Painkillers perhaps?  Who knows, but it’s probably
nothing.  We can find out as soon as she’s herself again.”

Joe lay back against the cushions and stretched out his
legs.  “I suppose so.”  He decided to change the subject; thinking
about Grace just upset him.  “You think we can actually fight back
tomorrow?”

Bill shrugged.  “Bunch of farm animals and monkeys?
How hard can it be?”

“Something tells me it’s not going to be so easy.  I
don’t know what’s happened to them all, but I don’t think they’re normal
anymore.  They’re smarter.  Maybe a virus has affected their brains
or something?”

“They’re demons.”  Shirley walked over and sat in front
of Bill and Joe.  “Sent to put an end to our sin.”

Bill sighed.  “Again with the sin?  What are you
harping on about now, woman?”

Shirley seemed oblivious to the comment and carried on her
ranting.  “I once met an Irishman who told me all about the Lord.  He
told me that God’s patience is thin and that all of us are on the cusp of his
vengeance.”

“And what does that mean?” Joe asked.

“It means that enough is enough.  All the fucking and
fighting in this world has to stop and He has ways of making us realise that.”

“Ways?”

“Yes!  The Irishman told me that God can destroy us on
a whim.  He flooded the earth once and now he is completing what he began
back then.”

Bill laughed.  “You’re talking about Noah and his ark?”

“No, I am talking about what is happening now.  We’re
being wiped out.  By God and his vengeance.  Our sin has become too
much for Him to tolerate any longer.  He has unleashed a plague of beasts
upon the Earth.”

Joe wanted to argue.  The woman was so full of bile
that it would be nice to shut her up.  For some reason, though, he
couldn’t find the words to disagree.  God was as good a reason as any for
all of this.  Joe did have a question however: “Who was this Irishman that
knew so much.  Did he have a name?”

Shirley looked at Joe and seemed to hear something other
than her own voice for the first time.  “Not one that he gave me.  He
was a traveller.  At first I thought he was just a drunken rogue, but he
knew things – intimate things – about me.  Things no one could ever
know.  He told me that once he was an angel, but that he now lived amongst
humans.  I learned about Heaven and Hell from this man.  He showed me
the light.”

“And why did this ex-angel…”  Joe put a hand to his
head and chuckled.  “I can’t believe these words are coming out of my
mouth: why did this ex-angel decide to share all of this knowledge with you?”

“Because he needed beer money.”

Bill and Joe spluttered and laughed in unison.  Joe had
to stifle himself to keep from waking up Danny.  “Beer money?  Okay,
Shirley, wherever you’re keeping the wacky-backy, let us in on it.”

Shirley’s face contorted into craggy lines of anger.
“Fools,” she spat.  “If you choose not to heed my warnings then on your
head be it.”

“What warnings?” Bill asked.  “All you’ve done is spout
fairy tales.”

“My warning is this: get your affairs in order, people,
because we’ll all be in Hell soon – and some of us deserve worse fates than
others.”

Shirley stomped away and Joe shook his head in
disbelief.  “That woman is a Grade A wacko!”

“Tell me about it,” said Bill.  “You think she was
delusional before everything happened, or if it was this shit that made her
lose it?”

“She was probably already losing the cheese off her cracker
and this just helped her along her way.”

“Still, makes you wonder if any of what she said is true.”

Joe frowned at Bill.  “You mean about God punishing us
all and that we’re all going to Hell?  No, I don’t believe it.  It’s
insane.”

“It is insane, but then so is all of the animals turning on
us.”

“You’re right,” said Joe.  “Maybe we are all going to
Hell.”

“Or perhaps we’re already there,” said Bill.

Chapter Twenty-one

It was almost time, Randall
decided.  The sun was rising and it would not be long before there was
daylight.  Everyone else was still asleep but Randall was wide awake and
staring out of the seminar room window, surveying what would soon become his
battlefield.  The orange light of dawn cast over everything and gave the
landscape an ethereal glow, like some consecrated ground due to be made
holy.  To be blessed with the sacred blood of battle.

Victor, no doubt, had more tactical knowledge than anybody
else, but the man was not a leader.  Randall would be the one to organise
and lead the group.  Under his order they would prosper.  He would
enable them to regain some semblance of order from this suddenly mad world –
and then they would thank him for it.

Legends are forged in the fires of battle.

Randall looked outside at the enemy’s army.  It had
grown overnight to contain an all manner of species, many of which he still
could not name, despite his recent research.  He theorised that the
animals which escaped first had set about freeing the others, liberating the
entire zoo in some sort of prisoner of war escapade.  Randall estimated at
least five hundred animals were now amassed outside the building – and standing
amidst them all was a towering giant: the silverback.

My counterpart.  The Napoleon to my Nelson.

Randall went over to a collection of nearby desks.
Victor had stacked them full of projectiles in order of priority.  The gas
bombs were to be used first to create disarray in the ranks and to force the
animals into another attack.  Then the PC monitors and other assorted
heavy objects would be used as ballast to deter any animals that tried to scale
the building’s walls.  Acid bombs would be used to attack anything that
managed to get through the windows.  After that, it would be hand to hand
combat.

Hopefully it won’t reach a skirmish.  We don’t have
the numbers for it.

Randall turned around and saw that Victor was awake, lying
beneath a table and staring at him.

“Morning, Victor.”

Victor smirked.  “Seems like I catch you wandering
around on your own quite a lot, pal.”

“I just like to keep on top of things.  Someone has
to.”

“Aye, and that someone is you, is it?”

Randall lifted his head high, eyeballs pointed
downwards.  “Unless there’s someone else that wants the job.”

Victor sniffed back a nose full of phlegm and swallowed
it.  “Not that I can see.”

“So I have your support?”

Victor remained quiet for a moment, then: “Aye, for now.”

“Wonderful.”  Randall clapped his hands together.
“Then I can rely on you to help me lead the assault.”

“No way I’m gonna miss out on all the fun.  We’ll need
to be ready soon.”

“Agreed.  Could you be so kind as to wake everyone in
thirty minutes?  We’ll commence the attack in ninety.  They will not
take this building from us.”

“Roger that.”  Victor started to climb out from under
the table.

Randall left the other man to it.  There was something
he wanted to check on first.  If he was about to lead an attack then he
wanted all the facts at his disposal.  He left the room and crossed the
corridor outside, entering what he now thought of as his office – despite the
name on another man’s name on the door.  Inside, Randall unlocked the
filing cabinet and finished off the pack of biscuits he’d started on the day
before.

He switched on his Blackberry.

<ONE NEW MESSAGE>

RE: Emergency Communication

This is a Government message to all cellular devices.
Emergency Rescue Operations are firmly established at the following
locations:  Aberdeen, Bristol, Leicester, Nottingham, Torquay,
Warwick.  If you are able to, head to these areas.  Avoid contact
with all animals.

Randall studied the message and considered its
meaning.  Several of the earlier locations had been omitted – perhaps
abandoned – but the remaining ones were now being described as ‘firmly
established’.

But he wasn’t about to trust his future to the hands of the
Government.  He now had clear proof that a battle against the animals
could be won.  He would win today’s battle and secure everyone’s future at
the zoo.  By the time the Government rolled around, he would be the
respected saviour of the group.

Randall turned off the phone and locked it back inside the
cabinet.

It was then that he felt the tremors.

“What was that?”

He hurried back into the corridor and re-entered the seminar
room just as another tremor hit.  Everyone inside the room had woken up
now – with the exception of Grace who was still unconscious – and looked as
confused as he was.  Joe stood in front of him, holding his little boy in
his gigantic arms.  Randall asked what was going on.

“I don’t know,” said Joe.  “It’s like an earthquake or
something.”

Randall shook his head.  “No.  Something is
hitting the building.”

Victor was already at the window, pulling away some of the
barricade to see through the glass.  Randall moved up beside him and
looked too.  He could not believe what he saw.

This is not good.  We’ve been caught napping.

“What is it?” asked Joe.

“Elephants.  Elephants, Rhinos, and I think a
hippopotamus.”

Another tremor hit the building as an African Elephant
crashed its thick torso against the building, the sound of splintering
brickwork and shattering glass accompanying the impact.

“What do we do?”  Joe pointed at a beetle scurrying
from a widening crack in the wall.

“We do what we planned,” Randall replied.  “We strike
back.”

Victor turned from the window and started to shout.
“Okay, squaddies.  Get to your battle stations.  Joe, you and me are
up front with the fire bombs.  Make sure you spread your hits to maximise
bombardment area.  Everyone else, get armed and ready to drop the monitors
on anything that gets too close.  Remember, everybody, the silverback is
the priority target.”

Randall stood back and watched everyone assemble.  This
was be his moment of glory.  Years of boardroom success would not compare
to this victory.  This moment was going to define the rest of his life.

“Okay, everyone,” Randall shouted.  “Let them have it.”

Joe and Victor threw the first round of firebombs.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Joe watched his firebomb arc
through the air, flames flickering majestically in the wind.  It struck a
pair of snarling cheetahs and their pelts went up in a burst of heat that Joe
could feel from the second floor window.  In mere seconds, the flesh of
the floundering big cats bubbled and blistered before sloughing off in thick
sheets of spitting meat.  The odour of singed fur filled the air.

Joe watched the cheetahs retreat in dying agony and turned
to Victor.  “It’s working.”

“Aye, but don’t start celebrating yet, pal.”

He’s right, Joe thought.  That was nothing
but a pinprick in the ocean.

Joe picked up another firebomb, just as one of the African
elephants hit the building again.  The entire floor rocked and he almost
dropped the volatile incendiary at his feet.

Victor shouted out so that everyone could hear.
“Defend the walls!”

Bill, Shirley, and Mason rushed forward, clutching bulky PC
monitors in their hands.  They hoisted them through the open windows and
let them go.  Two of the monitors hit the elephant below, breaking into
smithereens against its thick head.

It did nothing.

The elephant trumpeted in fury and then resumed its
onslaught on the base of the building.  The floor shook again.
Plaster flakes showered from the ceiling, and Joe actually had to fight
to keep his balance.  “The whole building is going to come down.”

“Throw another firebomb,” Bill ordered.

“No,” said Victor.  “It’s too close.  We can’t
risk setting fire to the building.”

Bill nodded and understood his error.

Joe had an idea.  He went and grabbed a flask of acid
from the weapons table.

I hope this works.

He headed back to the window and moved the others out of the
way.  “Everyone, stand back.”

The elephant was still rushing the building, stepping back
and then lunging at the brickwork again and again.  Joe leant out of the
window and held out the flask of acid.  The liquid fell out as he tipped
the beaker sideways.  The acid doused the elephant’s thick, round ears and
bulbous head, but seemed to have no effect.  Joe watched in anticipation
as time stretched on.  Just when he was certain his plan had failed, a
wisp of smoke began to form.  The elephant flinched, rearing up on its
hind legs and thrashing its head about.  It let out an agonised screech
and then turned tail and fled the battlefield, trampling several smaller
animals in the process.

Victor patted Joe on the back.  “Good work.”

Joe didn’t have time to accept the compliment, the animal
army outside was riled and starting to attack in force.  The silverback
came to the fore and beat at his chest.  The ape’s snarling cries sounded
almost human in their fury.  Joe was sure that the beast was staring him
directly in the eye.

“The silverback,” Victor said.  “Just the bugger we
want.  Get yourself armed, Joe.”

Joe grabbed another firebomb.  Victor already had
one.  Together they lit the makeshift fuses and prepared to throw them.

Victor held his firebomb over his shoulder.  “After
three.  One…two…three!”

The two men threw their firebombs in unison.  They
sailed through the air, both aimed at the silverback gorilla.  The
towering ape stared back at them, smouldering malice dripping from his eyeballs
like molten hatred.

Victor’s firebomb went wide and hit the ground in front of a
pack of Llamas.  Joe’s was closer to the mark and arced right towards the
silverback’s face.

The gorilla swatted the projectile out of the sky.

A fireball exploded.

The silverback turned away, covering its giant head with an
arm.  The liquid fire crackled in the air for a few moments, releasing
thick plumes of black smoke.

The silverback turned back around.  One side of his
face was a glistening mess of pink flesh.

Victor punched at the air.  “You got the bastard.”

“Barely,” said Joe.  “But I think he’s pulling back.”

Sure enough, the silverback grunted at the other animals and
the whole army started turning away.

They’re retreating.

Bill ran up to the window and hopped up and down.  “We
did it.  They’re going away.”

Everyone in the room cheered.  Danny came running up to
Joe and hugged him around the waist.  “You did it, Dad!  You opened
up a can of whoop ass on them.”

“I sure did, son.  I told you I wasn’t going to let
anyone hurt you.”

Danny hugged him again then ran off to look out of the
window.

“Hey, you be careful.  Any of those animals start
coming back and you move away from that there, you hear?”

Bill placed a hand on Joe’s back.  “Don’t worry.
I’ll keep an eye on him.”

“Thanks.”  Joe found the nearest chair and plonked
himself down.  He hadn’t realised it, but he was breathing in great
heaving gasps.  Excitement coursed through his veins.

What just happened?  I’m not sure, but I think I
just firebombed a gorilla.  That’s definitely not something I had on my
list of ambitions.

Joe saw Randall making a beeline for him and nodded to the
man.

“You okay, Joe?  You don’t look too well.”

“Just trying to come to terms with the fact that I just
fought in a war against a silverback gorilla and an army of animals.”

“It certainly is an unusual turn of events.  Not
exactly what I was expecting the day I walked into this zoo for a simple
business meeting.”

Joe smiled.  “So, you really paid for this building?”

“The company I work for did, Black Remedy.  You’ve
heard of them, of course.  It’s good business practise to spend a certain
amount of profit on community projects or charities.  My company seems to
have a current focus on investing in zoos, both at home and abroad.  Everybody
loves animals, I suppose.”

Joe laughed.  “Ha!  I think that may have
changed.”

Randall laughed too.  “I think you’re probably right,
my friend.  Still, we’ll ride this thing out.  We can settle here,
dig in for as long as we need to.”

Joe frowned.  “You think so?  Maybe we can find
help outside.”

“No,” Randall almost shouted the word.  “There’s no
chance.  We’re the lucky ones.  Can you imagine what it’s like
elsewhere?  How many homes have pets?  Dogs, cats, hamsters, all
turning on their owners.  I think we are on our own.  Our only chance
is to dig in here.”

“Okay,” said Joe.  “Perhaps you’re right.  It
doesn’t hurt to hope, though.  We have no idea what everywhere else is
like.”

“You saw the news in the staff room when all this
started.  It took everyone by surprise.”

“Fine,” said Joe.  “I don’t want to argue.  You’re
probably right anyway.”

“I usually am,” said Randall smugly.  “Don’t worry,
Joe.  I will get us through this.”

Randall walked away and Joe pondered the man’s words.  You’ll
get us through this?  Who put you in charge of everybody’s welfare?
I don’t care what you say, Randall, I have to believe that there is more to
hope for than life at this zoo.  There must be other survivors.

“Joe.”

Joe spun around.  Grace was awake.  He hurried
over to her, pulling up a nearby chair.  “Grace, you’re awake.  How
are you feeling?”

Her eyes fluttered, unable to open fully.  She tried
her best to focus them on Joe and smiled when she saw him close.  “Joe…”

“What is it?”

“I really need…my pills.”

Grace was still pretty out of it.  Joe went and got her
some water.  He lifted her head up from the cushions and tipped a small
amount into her mouth.  She swallowed and a spark of consciousness
returned to her eyes.  A couple minutes later, she was fully awake.

“Thanks,” she said, taking another sip.

Joe cut straight to the point.  “What pills do you
need?”

Grace turned her head away.  “They’re in my bag.”

“Okay, great.  Where’s your bag?”

“By the snack machines.”

“What snack machines?”

“The ones downstairs.  Where you saved me.”

“Oh.  Well, we can’t get those.  There’s no way.”

“I know.”  Tears began to spill from her eyes.
“That’s why I’m so scared.”

“I don’t understand.  Scared of what?”

Grace turned her head and looked him in the eyes.  She
looked terrified.  “I’m scared of hurting myself.”

Joe scratched at his head.  His hair felt flat and
greasy.  “Why would you hurt yourself?”

“Because that’s what I do when I don’t have my pills.”

Joe sighed.  “You’re really gonna have to make this
easier for me.  What do you need the pills for?  Are you ill?”

More tears filled her eyes.  “Yes.  I have OCD.”

Joe shrugged.  “Doesn’t that just mean you have to be
really clean or something?”

“For some people it is.  OCD causes compulsions, but I
don’t get urges to clean, I get urges to--”

“Hurt yourself.”  Joe was starting to understand and he
didn’t like it.

“It’ll get worse and worse.  It’ll drive me insane
until I start slicing myself to stop the urges.”

“That’s what happened to your arm, isn’t it?  That’s
why you were in a room alone when the scorpions attacked.”

Grace shut her eyes tightly and salty liquid ran tracks down
her cheeks.  “I found some scissors.  I was cutting myself when the
scorpions appeared.”

“What if we get rid of all sharp objects?”

Grace laughed.  The sound was hollow and broke Joe’s
heart.  “You mean take away everyone’s weapons when we’re being attacked
by a zoo full of animals?  I don’t think so.  Besides, I’ll find a
way.  Even if it means biting chunks out of myself.”

Joe cringed at the image of her eating her own flesh.
He didn’t know such conditions existed.  Grace seemed so normal.

“I’ll make sure nothing happens to you,” he said
earnestly.  “Even if I have to watch you twenty-four-seven.  You’re
my friend.  We’ll get through it together.”

Grace smiled again.  This time it seemed a little more
heartfelt, but Joe could tell that he had done nothing to allay her
fears.  She was terrified.

Joe stood up, but not before leaning forward and kissing her
on the cheek.  “I’m just going to check on Danny,” he said.  “I’ll be
right back.  If you need me I’m just a few feet away.”

Once he was happy that Grace would be okay for the time
being, Joe left her to rest.  By the room’s window, Danny was on his
tiptoes and hanging over the ledge.  Joe shouted at him to get down.

“Dad, you need to see this.  They’ve all gone.”

Joe slid up beside his son and looked out.  There was
no sign of the animals, other than a few burnt llama husks and some
unidentified stains on the pavement.  Mostly all that remained was
trampled grass and scorch marks from the firebombs.  The attack was over.

For now…

Victor stood nearby, checking over the remaining firebombs
and weapons.  Joe approached him.  “You think we’ll need those?”

“Who knows, but a retreat in battle does not mean the war is
over.”

Joe nodded.  “They could come back.”

“Aye, and likely they will.  But we beat them once and
we can beat them again.  We proved today that we’re far from toothless.”

Joe offered his hand to Victor.  “We should all thank
you for getting us organised.”

Victor did not take his hand.  “We did our jobs.
If you’re gonna thank anybody, thank yourself for doing what was required of
you.”

“Okay,” said Joe, reeling back his arm.  “I’ll leave
you to it, then.  Just one last thing?”

“What?”

“How long do you think they’ll be gone for?”

Victor thought for a moment then shrugged.  “No
idea.  Maybe a day.”

Joe nodded and took a deep breath.  “That’s good to
hear.”

“Why?”

“Because it will give me time to go downstairs.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

Joe could see Bill wasn’t
happy with his plan.  “You’re crazy,” he said.  “You can’t go down
there!”

Joe leant in close.  “Look, I just have to,
alright?  Grace is ill and I need to get her medication.”

Bill shook his head.  “What’s wrong with her?  I’m
sure Mason would be able to find something to help in one of the labs.”

Joe wished it were true.  “I can’t say what’s wrong
with her, but if I don’t get her pills then she’s really going to suffer.”

Bill didn’t answer.  He just kept shaking his head.

“Look,” said Joe.  “We all have to stick together.
Grace needs my help.  I’ll feel better knowing she’s safe.
Wouldn’t you?”

“What about Danny?  Is he going to be safe if you get
killed down there?”

It was something Joe couldn’t think about right now.
If he did, he wouldn’t be able to do what was needed.  “I don’t intend to
die down there.  I’m not insane.  The animals have retreated for
now.  It will be safe.  This might be my only chance.”

Bill took a deep breath and scratched at the salt-n-pepper
stubble on his chin.  “Okay, then I’m coming with you.”

“What?  No way.  There’s no reason for us both to
take a risk.”

“I thought you said it would be safe?”

“Yeah…probably…most likely.”

Bill grabbed a litter spike from a nearby table and held it
up like a spear.  “Then there’s nothing to worry about.”

Joe had no argument.  He picked up his own litter spike
and prepared to get going.  The quicker he got this whole thing done, the
better.  Danny would be fine left with Mason, but Joe didn’t think the man
was particularly experienced in minding children.  It would be unfair to
leave them together for too long.

He headed out into the corridor and Bill followed him.
If he was honest with himself, he was glad for the company.  There was
every chance that the lower floor would be deserted, but that didn’t make it
any less frightening.  Before he even thought about getting downstairs,
though, he would have to get through Victor’s barricade.

Victor was unwilling to let anyone tamper with the
entryway.  Earlier, when Joe had first voiced his intentions, the Scotsman
had made it clear that keeping the upper floor safe was his only priority.
If the animals were still downstairs then Joe wasn’t getting back inside
the barricade until it was completely safe.  If things were very bad then
this could be a one-way journey.

“You ready there, pal?”

“Yeah, I’m ready.  Bill is coming too.”

Victor eyed up Bill and laughed.  “Queer and
crazy?  You’re both bloody mad for doing this.  Still, you’re not prisoners.
It’s your choice.”

“It is our choice,” said Bill.  “About whom we
are and what we do.”

“Aye, well, watch your backs out there.”  Victor nodded
to Joe.  “You especially, with this one around.”

Bill sighed, but let it go as he often did.  Like Joe,
he was probably just thinking it wasn’t worth the aggravation.  “Just let
us past,” he said.

Victor pulled a printer off the top of a desk and slid the
furniture aside, creating a narrow gap.  “Remember, if I hear a ruckus
down there then the barricade stays up.  I’ve already cleared a space for
the door downstairs, but I’m gonna block it back up once you’ve left.”

Joe nodded and moved past the stack of furniture.  His
footsteps echoed as he took the stairs downwards.  There were no other
sounds, though, and Joe started to relax as it appeared more and more likely
that the coast would be clear.  The barricade in front of the staff room
door was cleared of debris, just as Victor had said it would be, the furniture
having been moved to one side.

Joe waited for Bill to catch up.  “You ready?”

Bill nodded.  “Whenever you are.”

“Let’s do it then.”  Joe pulled open the door and slid
through. Bill followed closely behind.  The staff room was a mess.
Chairs and tables were upturned, the television had been pulled down off the
wall and smashed, and the stench of monkey faeces filled the air and covered
everything.

Bill picked up a broken pool cue, smeared with excrement,
and examined it.  “They really did a number on this place, huh?”

Joe nodded.  “Stinks like hell.”

“All the more reason to just get this over with.”

The two men headed for the door that led into the next
corridor.  As they went, Joe kept a watchful eye on the shattered windows
at the edge of the room.  A gentle breeze came in through the gap, but nothing
else.

Bill opened the door and waited for Joe.  They crept
through into the corridor and Joe suddenly thought about the lions that had
started this whole thing.

Please be gone…  Please be gone.

Everything seemed to be clear, the corridor like any other
you’d find in a million office buildings throughout the land.

“I think we’re good,” said Joe.

“Yeah,” said Bill.  “So far.”

They moved quickly, gaining confidence with every step that
passed without incident.  At the end of the corridor was the dented door
that would lead out into the zoo’s education hall.

“You ready?”  Bill asked.

Joe nodded and they opened the door.

There was so much adrenaline coursing through Joe’s system
that he almost threw up on his shoes.

Shit, what the hell am I doing?  This is insane.

“Hey!”  Bill grabbed his arm.  “Get a move on.”

Joe rushed out into the wide open area of the hall and was
horrified by what he saw.  Ripped and leaking corpses scattered the floor
like a gruesome carpet.  Severed organs and dismembered limbs littered
every corner.  Joe’s foot almost slipped as it landed in a puddle of
congealing blood.  He froze, unable to take another step.  The fake
animals that lined the edges of the room seemed to glare at him, ready to come
to life and devour him.  “I don’t think I can do this.  All these
people…”

Bill came around to face him.  “Hey, look at me.
Don’t look at them.  We can’t do anything for them.  My boyfriend
might be here somewhere, but I can’t think about that right now.  Let’s
just do what we came here to do and then we can get away from all this horror.”

Joe nodded and willed his legs to move.  Stiffly, he
managed to take one step forward, tacky blood trying to suck his trainer back
down.  The steps after that came easier.  Before long, Joe was moving
quickly across the room, heading for the snack machines where he had originally
rescued Grace.  He tried to ignore all the corpses as he stepped carefully
over them, pretending that they were something else, just obstacles in his way.

He reached the snack machine and, lying between them like a
prize, was a small purple-leather handbag.  Joe sighed and clicked the
knuckles of his right hand.  “That was easy.”

“Is it there?” Bill shouted across the room.

Joe flinched.  Things seemed safe, but that didn’t mean
they should raise their voices.  He turned in Bill’s direction and decided
to just nod instead of saying anything back.

Joe picked up the handbag.  It was heavier than he had
expected it to be but he wasn’t willing to look inside.  You should
never look in a ladies handbag without her permission, his mother had
always told him.  It was a lesson still ingrained in him today.

Time to go.  I got what I came for.

Joe turned around and held the bag up so that Bill could see
it.  For some reason the other man didn’t seem relieved.  In fact he
looked concerned.

Something snatched the bag from Joe’s hand.

Joe spun around to find a monkey sitting atop one of the
snack machines.  It was one of the cute little white-faced monkeys that
you always saw in films.  Capuchin, is it?  Right now, the
animal was far from cute.  It was covered in blood and snarling at Joe
with murder in its feral little eyes.

“Holy shit!”  Joe leapt away instinctively and started
to run.  Behind him the monkey screeched at a pitch so high it could break
glass.  Joe stopped and spun around.  He couldn’t leave without
Grace’s bag.

“Come on, man,” Bill shouted urgently.  “Get your ass
away from that thing.”

“I need the bag.”

“Leave the bag.  It’s not worth it.”

Joe headed back to the monkey.  It was holding the bag
above its head like a trophy, hooting as though boasting some great victory
over Joe.

That bag belongs to me, you little fleabag.

Joe decided the only tactic he had at his disposal was
surprise.  He rushed the monkey and made a quick snatch for the
handbag.  His fingers found the strappy handle and clenched tight.
The monkey pulled back.  A tug of war ensued.

“Let go, you bastard!”  Joe pulled with all of his
might and managed to dislodge both the monkey and the handbag.  Both
hurtled across the room before skidding on the blood soaked tiles.  Joe
sprinted towards them.

“Joe, stop!”  Bill shouted.  “Get back!”

Joe halted, heels skidding in a pool of blood.  He
looked at Bill and shrugged.  “What?”

Lined up in the outdoor entrance were the four lions that
had ripped so many people apart just days before.  They seemed even bigger
than before and even more blood stained their snouts.  Joe’s spine damn
near froze stiff, but he somehow managed to take a slow step toward Grace’s bag.
Before he could take another, the lions made their move.

Joe dodged to the left just as one of the lionesses made a
swipe at him.

“Damn it!”  Bill shouted again.  “Get out of
there, now!”

Joe didn’t need to be told twice.  He sprinted so fast
that his hamstrings felt as though they might snap away from his bone; but he
kept the pace, dodging and leaping between tables like a twenty-year old
parkour practitioner on the streets of Paris.

Bill sprang forward, litter spike in hand.  He aimed a
thrust at the nearest lion just as it was about to take Joe down.  The
animal roared and fell back in an injured hunch, bleeding from a puckering
wound in its chest.

Joe grabbed Bill by his arm and pulled him along.  The
two men dashed for the corridor, dashing through the open red door.  Joe
could hear the pounding of thick paws behind him and was sure that it was only
a matter of seconds before he felt their overwhelming weight bear down on him.

We’re screwed.

Bill reached the staffroom first, a few steps ahead of Joe.
Somehow, the older man was fitter and faster.  Joe barrelled through
after him, felt his legs weaken as exertion began to take its toll.

Inside the staffroom, things were even worse.

The monkeys had taken over the room again, teeming in
through the broken windows.  They were the larger species from before –
Macaques; the ones that had chased everyone upstairs on the day it all
started.

Joe turned to retreat, but found himself faced with the
lions coming up the corridor.  “Shit, what do we do?”

“I don’t know,” said Bill, swiping at whichever monkey dared
get too close to him.  “We’re surrounded.”

The lions closed in behind them.  The monkeys came at
them from the front.  They were trapped.  Joe thought about Danny –
he wanted his last thoughts to be about his son.

“We’re screwed,” said Bill.  “Totally screwed.”

“Not yet you’re not,” came a voice from across the room.

Both men looked over to see Mason at the foot of the
stairwell.  He was holding something in his hand.  Before Joe could
work out what it was, Mason had already thrown it.

The firebomb sailed through the air.

It landed smack-bang amongst the monkeys.  They
shrieked and screamed as the flames clung to them.  The smell of burning
fur consumed the air and stung Joe’s eyes.

“Run for it!”  Mason shouted.

Joe and Bill dodged through the flailing monkeys and managed
to cut a route towards Mason.  The lions stayed back, unnerved by the
flames and unable to overcome their primal fear of it.  It seemed like an
eternity to reach the door, but eventually Joe and Bill made it there.
They piled through into the corridor and all three of them immediately set
about rebuilding the barricade.  During that time, Joe heard the sprinkler
system come on in the staff room.  The fires would go out.  The
animals would attack again soon.

Need to hurry.

The barricade was up.  All three men let out long,
laboured breaths.  Joe felt as though the acid in his oesophagus was about
to burn right through his chest.  Bill looked even worse.  In fact,
the older man had collapsed to the floor.

It was then that Joe spotted all of the blood.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Randall shook his fist at
Victor, could barely contain his anger.  “Why did you let Mason
leave?  If Joe wanted to take a silly risk than that’s his decision, but
Mason is an expert on the zoo, and animals in general.  Do you not think
he needed to be kept out of harm’s way?”

Victor’s hackles were up and he obviously didn’t appreciate
being shouted at.  Randall didn’t care – the man should not have made a
decision without consulting him first.  There was a chain of command and
it needed to be respected.

Victor cleared his throat, an aggressive sound.
“Listen, pal!  Mason wanted to go after Joe and the queer, and I had no
right to stop him.  We’re not prisoners here.  It’s a man’s own
choice to do what he thinks is right.”

Randall backed off a little, deciding a different tactic was
required.  “Of course we’re not prisoners, Victor, but you said yourself
that if you hear any trouble downstairs then the barricade stays in
place.  So why did you move it for Mason?”

“I said I wasn’t about to let anyone back inside if I heard
trouble.  I didn’t say anything about letting people out.  Besides, I
guess I changed my mind.  Sounded like Joe and the queer needed help, so I
gave it to them.”

Randall sighed.  “And what if all three of them are now
dead?  Mason’s loss will be because of you.”

“Fuck that!  Mason is old enough to make his own
decisions.  I’m not his keeper.”

“Perhaps you should be!”

“What you talking about?”

Randall placed a hand on Victor’s bony shoulder.
“Victor, it’s just us now.  Keep this to yourself, but I managed to make a
call on my phone to the emergency services.”

Victor’s eyes narrowed.  “What phone?”

“It doesn’t matter.  What matters is that when I called
999 and there was an automated message saying that no help is available and
that people should barricade themselves in their homes.”

“Aye, well that would be sound advice.”

“But don’t you get it?  If there’s no police force then
what hope do ordinary people have?  How many people have dogs in their
homes?”

Victor thought about things for a while, rubbing his hand
back and forth over the stubble of his head.  “Shit, pal.  That’s
grim thinking.”

“But realistic, I’m afraid.  We are alone in this and
we cannot afford to take risks.  We need to take control of the situation
and keep people safe.”

“How the hell do we keep people safe?  The world’s gone
down the crapper.”

“By keeping them under control.  From now on, no one
does anything without me agreeing to it.  I’m in charge, for the simple
fact that I am the only one looking at the big picture.  Everyone else is
being far too rash and emotional for their own good.”

“And what if people don’t want to follow your lead?”

Randall smiled.  “That’s where you come in, my
friend.  I give the orders – you make sure they’re followed.  It’s
the only way to keep everyone alive.  That’s what counts more than
anything right now – that we all get through this in one piece.  It may
seem harsh but it’s the only way.  We need to have control.”

Victor nodded slowly.  Randall could see the conviction
flowing into the man like juice into a beaker.  “Okay, boss.  I
agree.  We have to keep everyone in check for their own good.  No
more running off half-cocked or doing their own thing.  From now on,
everything that happens goes through us.”

Randall patted him on the back.  “Good man.
They’ll thank you for it later, my fri-”

“Help us!”

Randall looked through the gaps in the barricade and saw
Mason coming up the stairs, followed by Joe who seemed to be carrying Bill over
his shoulder.

Mason cried out again.  “Let us through.  Bill is
injured.  We need help.”

“Did any critters get through with you?” asked Victor.

“No.  We got the barricade back in place.  It’s
safe.”

“Bloody better be,” said Victor, sliding furniture out of
the way.

Mason rushed through the gap and Joe followed, still holding
the other man over his shoulder.

“Come on,” said Randall.  “Let’s get him into the lab.”

The group of men hurried along the corridor and entered the
veterinary lab.  Randall noticed all of the blood-stained cages that lined
the room, but was impressed that there were no remains of the animals that
Victor had slaughtered.  He’d even disposed of the harmless birds.

The man is efficient, got to give him that.  God
knows where he’s put all the ‘meat’ though.

Joe eased an unconscious Bill down onto the stainless steel
operating table and Randall saw the man’s injury for the first time.  The
back of one leg was split down the middle so deep that it lay open like a
ketchup-filled baguette.

“My word, what happened?”

“I’m not sure,” said Joe.  “I think he must have got slashed
by one of the lions when we were running.  He must not have felt how bad
it was in all the panic.”

“Makes sense,” said Grace, entering the room.
“Adrenaline does that.”

Randall frowned.  “What are you doing here, my
dear?  You should be resting, not getting involved in gruesome things like
this.”

Grace dismissed Randall with a wave of her hand.

Insolent Bitch!

“I can help,” she said, moving up beside Bill.  “I have
a bit of experience with stitching wounds”

“Really?” said Victor.  “How’s that?”

“Let’s just say I’ve seen my fair share of wounds.”

Randall cleared his throat.  “Didn’t you learn first
aid in the army, Victor?”

The man shrugged.  “First aid, yes, but not how to
suture a wound like this.  I could give it a stab, but if the lass says
she knows best then I would say she is the one to do it.”

Randall didn’t trust what Grace was claiming, but what could
he do?  If she purported herself as being able to manage the wound then on
her head be it.  “Okay,” he said.  “Then I suggest she gets to work
before Bill loses anymore blood.”

Grace nodded.  “The bleeding doesn’t seem to be
arterial, so we just need to clean the wound and close it to prevent
infection.  I need someone to get some of the ethanol we’ve been using for
the firebombs, and the cleanest cloths we can find.  Mason, do you know if
we have a suture kit in here?”

Mason nodded and went to the side of the room.  Victor
headed for the door in what Randall assumed was a trip to go and get the
alcohol.  Grace went to work on Bill, tearing away the clothing from his
wound and then elevating the leg on a cardboard box full of printing paper.

“You obviously have things under control here, my
dear.  I will leave you to it.”

“I’ll come with you,” said Joe.  “I need to look after
Danny.  With Grace here, he’ll be alone with Shirley.”

Randall smiled.  “I’m sure he’s more than safe with
Shirley.”

Joe huffed.  “Are you crazy?  That woman is
unstable.”

“I admit that she is a little…eccentric, but we have no
right to judge.  We are all part of the same team now and I won’t abide
malcontent.”

“You won’t abide it?” said Joe.  “You’re not really in
a position to--”

“Joe, we can discuss it later.  In fact, I think it
would be best if we all spoke as a group at the next opportunity.  For
now, it would be best to take my advice and not rock the boat.  If we
start to bicker amongst ourselves things will fall apart.”

Joe shoved Randall aside.  “I don’t know if you’ve
noticed, but things have already fallen apart!”

Randall waited a few moments and then followed Joe out into
the corridor.

As long as there is order, things have nowhere near
fallen apart.  That is a lesson you will have to learn, Joe, my
friend.  Whether you agree with it or not.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Who the hell does
that guy think he is?  Joe couldn’t believe the way Randall acted as
though he was in charge, strutting along like he was at a business conference
and everyone else was a subordinate.  They were all in this nightmare
together and no one had the right to tell anyone else how to think.

Especially when it concerns my son and that nutcase,
Shirley.

Joe found Shirley standing at the window of the seminar
room.   Danny stood beside her.  They were holding hands and
chatting amongst themselves.

Joe shouted.  “Danny!  Come here.”

Danny jumped at the sudden sound of his father’s voice and
twirled around like a spinning top.  “Dad, you’re okay!  You
shouldn’t have left.”

“Of course I’m okay.  You don’t need to worry about
me.”

Danny ran over and wrapped his arms around Joe and
squeezed.  Over by the window Shirley turned around casually and smiled
sagely.

“I’m glad you returned safe and sound, Joe,” she said.
“That’s a fine boy you have there.”

Joe clutched Danny tighter, running a hand underneath one of
the straps of his backpack.  “Yes, I know.  Thank you.  What
were the two of you doing anyway?  I don’t like him being by the window.”

“We were talking about the nasty animals,” Danny
answered.  “Mrs. Shirley told me that God has told them to attack us
because we’ve all been bad.  She told me about Noah and his boat and that
this is the same sort of thing that happened hundreds of years ago, except this
time the animals are the water.”

“Noah had an ark, Danny,” Shirley corrected, “not a
boat.  Try to remember.  Facts are important.”

Joe felt his skin glow red beneath his clothing.  “Keep
your self-righteous bullshit to yourself, Shirley.  My son doesn’t need to
hear things like that.”

Danny stared up at him, wide-eyed.  Joe felt guilty
over his display of bad language in front of his son, but still felt it was
warranted.  Shirley didn’t seem so shocked and took the insult in her
stride.

“On the contrary,” she said calmly.  “I believe it is
of the utmost importance that your son learns about the world he has
inherited.  Of all of us, he is the only one without sin.  He is the
only one with any chance to continue on in this vile landscape of sin and
sodomy.”

“Enough!”  Joe took Danny away, heading for the
furthest corner of the room.  “Just leave my son alone, okay?”

“You cannot hide him from the truth and you cannot hide the
truth from him.  Judgement has been passed and he is paying for your
transgressions.”

Joe kept on walking.  Bloody fruitloop.  What
world is she living in?  Dante’s Inferno, by the sound of it.

Danny dove onto a pile of cushions, performing a messy elbow
drop like one of his wrestling idols.  Joe sat down beside him.  “You
okay, buddy?”

Danny nodded emphatically.  “I’m super-duper…
Dad?”

“Yeah?”

“Why were you mean to Mrs. Shirley?”

Joe sighed.  How did you explain it to a child?
“She’s a bit mixed up, Danny, and I don’t want her to tell you things that are
silly.  Sometimes adults can get stuff wrong, too.”

“She was just telling me stories.”

Joe tussled Danny’s hair.  “I know, son.  Just
promise me you won’t listen to her anymore, okay?  If you want a story
then just ask me.”

Danny nodded, but seemed to be thinking about
something.  “Mommy used to tell me stories.”

Joe felt a knot in his stomach, tying and untying itself
with every breath.  “I know she used to.  You’re mommy was a lovely
lady.”

Was?  Dammit, I should have said ‘is’.

Danny didn’t seem to pick up on the past tense.  “When
can I go home and see her?  I want to tell her about all of the animals,
and how you’ve been saving everybody.  Maybe if I tell her she’ll like you
again.”

Joe thought about that.  It had been so long since
there had been anything but acrimony between him and Jane that the thought of
her being proud of him was alien – but the notion was a comforting one.
It was fantasy, though, because Joe knew that Danny’s mother was dead.
She had to be.  No way could she have survived.

“Dad?  When can I go home?”

“I don’t think we can go home just yet, Danny.  At
least not for a little while.”

“But what about Mommy?  She’ll be missing me, and
she’ll be mad at you.  I don’t like it when she’s mad at you.”

Me either, son.  Me either.

Joe pulled Danny in close across his lap and stroked his
soft blond hair.  “She’ll understand.  She won’t be mad as long as we
keep ourselves safe.”

“She’s dead isn’t she?”

Hearing such a thing from his son – and so suddenly – was
like an unexpected punch to the gut.

What on Earth do I say?  Is it kinder to lie?

Joe thought about things for almost a full minute before he
gave an answer.  “Yes, Danny, I think she probably is.  I’m
sorry.  I loved her too.”

Beneath his breath, Danny began whispering names, sobbing
between each one.  “Bulldog, Owen Hart, Andre the Giant, Miss Elizabeth,
Macho Man, Texas Tornado, Bam Bam Bigelow, Luna Vachon, Earthquake, Bossman,
Yokozuna, Mr Perfect, Rick Rude, Mommy.”  Joe knew that each name his son
said was a wrestling hero that had passed away tragically.  And he had
just added his mother to that list.

***

One hour later, Grace entered the
room.  Joe sighed with relief.  He wanted to know what was going on,
to see if Bill was okay, but he wasn’t about to leave Danny alone with Shirley
again.  Now that Grace was here he could find out.

“He’s going to be okay,” she said before he even had chance
to ask.  “At least I think so.  The wound looked worse than it was
and I managed to clean it up and stitch it pretty well.”

Joe tipped his head back and let out a long hiss of air
before looking at Grace and smiling.  “That’s such a relief.  We all
owe you.  How did you learn to stitch wounds?”

Grace turned away from him and looked at the ground.

Joe quickly understood.  She knows because of having
to stitch her own self-inflicted wounds.

Grace came and sat on the cushions beside Joe and
Danny.  She placed a hand on his knee.  “I hate to ask, after what
you did for me, but did you manage to--”

“I’m sorry,” Joe said.  “I had your bag, but they…”

Grace’s eyes filled with tears and her lower lip
quivered.  “That’s okay,” she said.  “You shouldn’t have even
tried.  It was horrible of me to even have asked you.”  She squeezed
at his knee.  “Thank you for trying.”

Joe stared down at the floor, examining each tiny carpet
fibre.  “I’m just sorry I failed.  How did you even know I
tried?  You were asleep when Bill and I left.”

“Mason realised that you were gone and woke me up.  I
made him go after you, although he seemed like he would have anyway.”

“I owe Mason my life.”

Grace laughed.  “I think a lot of people owe their
lives to someone at the moment.  We’ll have to make a chart or something.”

Joe giggled and put his hand on top of hers.  “You
know, you’re the only thing that can make me smile since this whole thing
happened.  Well…you and Danny, of course.”

Grace seemed to blush.  “I’m glad.  I like it when
you smile.”

Joe suddenly had a thought that knocked away the
levity.  “What are we going to do without your pills?”

We?  Why do I feel so protective of this girl?

Grace’s face sagged.  “I really don’t know.  I’ve
never been able to fight the urges in the past.  They’ve always managed to
ruin my life.  Even now they’re beginning to eat away at me. It’s like
little shards of glass inside my brain.

“God…” said Joe.

Grace smiled and seemed suddenly hopeful.  “But in the
past I never had you looking after me.”

Joe felt teary again, the emotional hole from earlier not
yet fully sealed.  He pulled Grace in close and she rested her head on his
thigh.  Danny slept on the other.  Despite everything that had
happened, the feeling of their bodies against his made everything feel better.
Made him think that things might be okay as long as they had each other.

We need to stick together.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Joe was surprised when Bill
entered the room flanked by Mason, Randall, and Victor.  He had a heavy
limp and his leg was bandaged from his knee upwards.  Otherwise he seemed
okay.  Grace had done a good job.

Joe would have stood up if it were not for Danny and Grace’s
sleeping bodies weighing him down.  Instead he raised both hands out
towards his friend.  “Bill, you’re walking about like nothing happened.”

Bill smiled.  “I’ve been better, but I’ll live.”

Victor patted Bill on the back and looked at Joe.
“Your lass did a good job.”

My lass?  Who says she’s my lass?

“Yes,” said Randall.  “She did us all a great service.”

Joe scrunched up his face.  “Great service?  You
sound like a politician.”

“Perhaps in the current circumstances, I am.  In fact
that’s what we are all about to discuss.”

“Discuss?”

Randall perched himself down on the edge of a table.
“Leadership, my friend.  We need to put some rules in place if we have
even a slim chance of making it through.”

Joe sighed and shook his head.  “Let me guess: you’re
putting yourself forward?”

“Not at all,” said Randall.  “I suggest a democratic
vote.  What other way is there?”

“How very noble.”

Randall smiled at Joe as if they were best friends.  “I
will of course put myself forward as a candidate.  With my business
background and age I feel I would be best suited to the job, but of course that
is for everyone else to decide.”

“Do we have any other volunteers?” Grace asked, pulling her
head away from Joe’s lap, not asleep like they had assumed.

“Not yet,” Randall told her, looking down at her position on
Joe’s lap with what looked like disapproval.  “Now would be the time for
people to put themselves forward.”

“I think Mason should be in charge,” said Joe.  “He’s
educated and an expert on animals.  Plus this is his zoo.”

“And it’s my building,” said Randall, “but I digress.
I think Mason would be a wonderful candidate.”

“Except for the fact that I am not volunteering,” Mason
said.  “I’m not cut out to make decisions.  I’m a scholar;
comfortable alone in a room full of books.  I don’t wish to have that
responsibility.”

Joe deflated.  The only respectable contender against
Randall for leadership would have been the zoo’s curator.  Without Mason,
who else was there?”

“I put forward Joe,” said Bill, trying to take the weight
off his injured leg by sitting on a pile of cushions.  “He’s a risk taker,
but he always does what’s right.”

“I agree,” said Grace.  “He’s done nothing but put
other people first since this whole thing began.”

Randall smiled, the expression drenched in condescension.
“My dear, Joe has a son to look after, and that would only compromise his
ability to lead.  I very much doubt that he would want to-”

“I volunteer,” said Joe, cutting Randall off
mid-patronisation.  “Politicians have children and families.”

Randall sighed.  “Okay then.  We have two
candidates.  Is everyone ready to vote?”  He looked down at Danny,
sleeping soundly, and added, “Over-eighteens only, of course.”

Everyone sat patiently while Victor used a marker to scrawl
the words JOE and RANDALL on the seminar room’s whiteboard.

“Okay,” said Victor.  “I’ll chair the vote and ask you
one by one to give me your choice between Joe and Randall.  We’ll start
with you, Shirley.”

Shirley nodded and allowed herself to think.  Joe
suspected it was just for show and was not surprised when she answered.
“I pick Mr. Randall.”

“Okay,” said Victor.  “How about you, Grace?
Should I even bother asking?”

“Joe is the best man by far.”

“Thanks for that, lass.”  Victor drew a scratch below
each of the names on the board.

A tie so far.

“I vote for Joe too,” said Bill before he was even
asked.  Joe nodded a silent thanks to the man.

“Hold your horses,” said Victor.  “I’m in control of
this thing, so let’s speak when spoken too, yeah?”  Despite his
assertions, Victor put another scratch below Joe’s name.  He then put
another one beneath Randall’s.

“Hey,” said Grace.  “What’s that for?”

“That’s for my vote, lass.  We have a tiebreaker.
Mason it falls to you.”

Joe smiled.  It’s in the bag.  No way is Mason
going to vote for that egotistical prick.

“I vote for Randall,” said Mason, seeming to choke on the
words as they came out of his throat.

Grace leapt to her feet and threw out her arms.
“What?  How can you not vote for Joe?  We wouldn’t be here if it
wasn’t for him.”

“I’m aware of that.  Although earlier I saved his life
in return, so perhaps that makes us even.”

Joe shook his head, genuinely shocked.  “Why, Mason?”

Mason couldn’t look him in the eye.  “I don’t want to
see anyone else get hurt, and as Bill said earlier, you’re a risk taker.
I think things will be a little more stable if Randall makes decisions.
And after all, this is his building.”

“Bullshit!” Grace screamed at him.  “You’re a spineless
bastard.  He said something to make you vote for him, didn’t he?”

“Now, now, Grace.  I do not wish to hear any talk of
corruption.”  Randall wagged his finger back and forth.  “Not under
my regime.”

Grace cackled.  “Regime?  There’re five people
here, you big-headed prick.  You’re not the prime minister!  You’re
just a sad little man that wants to be in charge of all the toys because no one
will play with him otherwise.”

Randall turned to Victor.  “Control her, please.”

Victor shot forward and twisted Grace’s arm behind her
back.  She squealed.

Joe rushed the Scotsman, ready to take him down, but, before
he knew what happened, something cracked against the bridge of his nose.
He staggered backwards, blood and snot flowing between his fingers.  When
he looked up, through blurry eyes, he could see that Victor was holding Martha
against Grace’s throat.  He’d smacked Joe in the face with the thick
handle before turning the blade on his hostage.

“What the hell are you doing?” Bill shouted, hands on top of
his head.

Randall held a hand up like he was talking to a church full
of worshippers.  “My first order of business is about the adherence to law
and general obedience of the group.  Victor is now the group’s Marshall
and will deal forcefully with any disruption.  From now on he will also be
the only person with access to weapons.  I took the liberty earlier of
dispensing most of them to a secure place.”

Joe spat bloody-mucous onto the floor.  “And why did
you do that if you didn’t know you would get the vote?”

Randall let a smarmy grin creep onto his face.  “It was
just a precaution.  A shrewd one, I believe.  Victor will now escort
Grace to my office until she calms down.”

“What happened to this being a democracy?” said Joe, still
blinking tears from the blow to his nose.

Victor answered on Randall’s behalf.  “The vote was
democratic.  Now that it’s been dealt with, consider this a
dictatorship.  It’s for your own good.”

“Indeed,” Randall seconded.

Victor strong-armed a protesting Grace through the door and
out into the corridor, disappearing a moment later.  Bill limped up to Joe
and stood beside him, facing down Randall.  “You’re not going to get away
with this!” he vowed.

“With what?”  Randall scoffed.  “I was voted in
lawfully and am leading as I see fit.  It is for your own good.  With
time you will learn to love my regime.  I’m certain of it.  And if
not then you will most definitely respect it.”

Joe took Bill away from the scene.  He could see the
man was ready to explode.  “Come on, Bill, we’ll deal with him
somehow.  Let’s not worry for now.”

“I hope that’s not conspiring I hear, gentlemen.  I
take a very dim view of plotting.”

Joe glared.  “Oh, don’t you worry, Randall.  We’ll
play up to your delusions for now, but just remember that when the situation
comes that you need our help, you won’t get it.  As far as I’m concerned,
it’s just a matter of time until you fall on your fat ass.”

“Perhaps, but until then you will do as I command, or face
the consequences.”

Joe nodded.  “Fair enough.”

But sooner or later I’ll make sure that the consequences
are for you….my friend.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Things are coming
along nicely, Randall told himself.  The group was under control and
would be obey his commands.  If they did not, Victor would happily show
them the error of their ways.

After making an offer that Mason could not refuse, and with
Bill being injured, there was now only Joe to worry about.

But there are plenty of options to make that over-sized
brute behave.  Like his son, or the girl.

Speaking of the girl, Randall thought he should go see her
and explain what was expected of her, going forward.  It would not do to
have her kicking up a fuss again.  It was bad for morale.

He crossed the room and exited into the corridor.
Victor was coming back the other way, jangling a set of keys between his
fingers.  When he saw Randall, he handed them over.

“Everything under control?” Randall asked.

“Aye, she’s sitting pretty in your office.  Feisty one,
that lass.”

“Isn’t she just.  I’m going to have to keep an eye on
her.  In fact I’m going to go see her right now.”

Victor nodded.  “I’ll look after things until you get
back.”

“Good man!”  Randall walked away.  The door to his
office was locked and he used the keys to open it.  When he open the door,
Grace rushed at him.  A swift backhand soon put her in her place.

She fell to the floor, palm against her bleeding lip.
“You bastard!” she hissed.

Randall placed himself down on a swivel chair up against the
room’s desk.  He folded his hands in front of himself and placed them in
his lap.  “Listen here, young lady.  You better get used to the way
things will be running around here or else you’re going to find yourself locked
up more often than not.  Things here are very delicate and it would be
best if you let the grown-ups handle things.”

Grace climbed back to her feet and scowled at him.
“You have no right!”

“I was given the right by a vote.”

“A vote you fixed.”

“Such accusations will not be tolerated – especially ones
without substance.  Now, if I hear such things again, I will see that you
spend an entire week in here alone.”

The girl’s eyes grew wide with fear and Randall had to fight
the urge to gloat that his threat had subdued her.

“You can’t leave me alone in here.  Please,” she
said.  “You have to let me out.”

Randall’s thin lips stretched wide.  “Not until you
learn how to behave, young lady.”

“I’ll behave,” she cried.  “Just don’t lock me up.”

Randall thought for a moment.  What on Earth has
taken the fight out of her so quickly?  Surely it can’t just be the threat
of incarceration?  Either way, it’s a lot of fun watching her beg.
Maybe I can even get her on her knees.

“Why are you so afraid of being locked up, my dear?”

Grace looked away, avoiding his attempts to make eye
contact.  “I…just don’t like being alone.”

“Then perhaps a day alone will be a suitable enough punishment
to teach you some respect.”

Grace lunged across the desk, the act so ferocious that
Randall was in awe of how quickly she was upon him with her hands around his
throat.  He grabbed a fistful of her hair and pulled her back, slamming
her down onto the desk and pinning her.  He moved his face close to hers,
their noses only centremetres apart.  “Now listen here, sweetheart.
There’s a new mayor in town and you better learn real fast to respect
him.  You hear me?”  He yanked harder on her hair and she yelped.
Tears spilled from her eyes.  “Now I’m gonna leave you here on your
own so you can do some thinking.  When I decide to let you out, I hope to
see a significant change in your behaviour.”

Grace began sobbing, but he cut her off by shoving his
tongue into her mouth.  She struggled and fought to remove him, but he
held the kiss a few seconds more until he was satisfied.

I love it when they fight.

Randall broke away and Grace spat on the floor, wiping her
mouth with the back of her hand.  He moved towards the door, but turned to
face her one last time before he left.  “You know, with a mouth like that,
I may just make you my First Lady.”

Randall slammed the door and locked it, leaving Grace alone
with her tears.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

“What are we going to do?”
Bill asked Joe.  They were standing over in the corner of the room where
Danny was playing with some toy animals from the warehouse.

“I don’t know yet,” Joe said, “but Randall has no right to
behave the way he is.  We should just play it safe for now.”

Bill nodded.  “Or else we’ll have that psycho, Victor,
on our asses.”

“Exactly.  That man is dangerous.  I don’t think
he’s ‘all there’, you know?”

“I hear ya.  What should we do about Grace,
though?  We can’t just leave her locked up.”

Joe bit at his lip as he thought about her.  “No, we
really can’t.  We have to get her out.”

“Okay,” said Bill.  “How?”

“Appeal to Randall’s decency?”

“Don’t think the man has any.”

“Me either, but I don’t know what else to do.”

Bill shrugged.  “Okay.  Give it a shot.”

The timing was perfect because Randall had just re-entered
the seminar room and seemed to be in a good mood about something.  Joe
approached him over by the window.  It was still deserted outside, the
animals gone.

“Hey, Randall,” he said, trying to sound calm and
reasonable.  “You think maybe you should let Grace out?  She’s
probably calmed down by now.”

Randall faced Joe, smug grin attached to his face.
“I’m afraid not.”

Joe threw his head back, already frustrated by talking to
the man.  He gave it another shot, though.  “It’s not safe for her to
be alone.  Last time she got attacked and bitten.”

Randall nodded, as though he was taking Joe’s concerns on
board, but what came out of the man’s mouth said different.  “Victor has
safeguarded the room sufficiently.  He’s even added a padlock to the
door.  There’s no need to worry about anything.”

“Well, how long do you plan on keeping her locked up?
You have no goddamn right!  It’s kidnap.”

Randall folded his arms across his chest.  “Don’t be so
dramatic.  She was hysterical and had to be removed for the safety of the
group.”

Joe saw an opening.  “And now she’s not, so she should
be released.”

Randall shook his head solemnly.  “I thought just the
same thing earlier, but I’m afraid that she attacked me as soon as I entered
the room.”

Joe looked at Randall’s neck as the man turned his head to
one side.  Sure enough there were red finger marks against the podgy
flesh.

So Grace really did attack you?  Good for her.

“That’s unfortunate,” said Joe, “but I promise to keep her
under control if you let her out.”

Randall leant closer to Joe, eyeball to eyeball.
“Let’s just dispense with the bullshit, Joe.  This whole ‘reasonable’ act
isn’t fooling anyone.  If I release Grace then it will just add another
person to conspire against me along with you and Bill.  I’m afraid for now
I need to protect the interests of the group.  Until I feel I can trust
you, that means keeping Grace out of harm’s way.”

Joe’s fists clenched involuntarily.  “So, what?
You’re just going to leave her locked up indefinitely?”

“Don’t be silly.  I’m a fair man.  She’ll
be released at some point.  I suggest you just relax until then, my
friend.”

Joe walked away before he lost control of himself.
Every cell in his body was tensing up with the urge to rip Randall’s pig head
from his flabby neck.  He had to find a way to get Grace out of there
before…

Before her illness becomes too much for her to take and
she starts cutting herself.

Bill was waiting for Joe in the corner of the room, keeping
an eye on Danny.  “Any joy?”

Joe shook his head and sat down beside his son.  “How
you doing, Danny?”

Danny put down a small plastic elephant that he was playing
with and looked up at his father.  “I want Grace to play with me.”

“I know you do.  I want Grace, too, but she’s busy at
the moment.”

“That nasty man locked her up.”

“He just took her to calm down.  She’s fine now.”

“You’re fibbing.”

Joe didn’t know what to say.  His son was smart enough
to know that things weren’t okay, but was he old enough to know the full
truth?  “We’re going to help her, Danny, and then we’re going to get out
of here.”

Bill frowned at him.  “What you talking about?”

Joe looked around the room and motioned for Bill to do the
same.  Victor and Randall were in discussion by the window and Shirley had
joined them.  “How much longer do you think things are going to remain
civil?  Randall is obviously an egomaniacal bully and Victor is happy as
long as he gets to stab things.  Then there’s Shirley; she’s a whole other
level of messed up.  You, me, and Grace are the only ones in this place
that see the big picture here, but I have a feeling that our voices are about
to get lost beneath the din of ‘Team Randall’.  We need to leave.”

“What about Mason?”

Joe shrugged.  “After what he did, I really don’t know
where we stand with him.  He’s obviously happy to go along with Randall’s
circus, so I say we let him.”

“I think you’re crazy to even consider it.  We’ll get
ripped apart out there.”

Joe put a hand on Bill’s shoulder.  “Eventually, we’ll
get ripped apart in here.  We’re not safe, you know that.  You’re
injured.  Grace is injured.  The animals are chipping away at us one
scrap of flesh at a time.”

“The animals have gone.”

“They’ll be back,” said Joe.  “I’m certain of it.
They’re just regrouping.  Planning their next move.”

“Animals don’t plan,” Bill scoffed.  “They don’t think
– at least not in the way you’re suggesting.”

“These ones do.  You may not have seen the way they
worked together to surround Grace, but you witnessed them ambush us downstairs.”

Bill obviously didn’t want to buy into any of it and he
shook his head adamantly.  “Just a coincidence.”

Joe sighed.  He needed to get through to the man.
He could make nothing happen otherwise.  “Bill, you know that’s not
true.  Whatever caused all this has made the animals act differently,
smarter.  We need to find help and we won’t find it here.”

Bill’s shoulders slumped and he seemed to deflate.
“Where would we even go?”

“That’s the part I’m not clear on, but there must be other
people somewhere.  The army or something.  I still have my car
keys.  We could just drive out of here.”

“Well, I’m not on board until you give me something better
than that.  I ain’t going nowhere till I at least have a destination.”

“Fair enough,” Joe conceded.  “Let me think on
it.  Right now, I’m going to go see Grace.”

Bill raised both of his grey-black eyebrows.  “How you
gonna do that?  She’s locked in that office.  You try to break her
out you’ll have Victor breathing down your neck – Martha, too.”

“Doesn’t mean I can’t talk to her through the door.
She needs to hear that things will be alright.”

“You gonna tell her the plan?”

“I thought you said I didn’t have a plan?”

Bill laughed.  “Well you have an intention.  You
could tell her that.”

“We’ll see,” said Joe.  “You good to look after Danny?”

“As always.  He’ll be safe with me.”

“I know.”  Joe looked down at his son and smiled.
“You okay to stay with Bill for a few minutes, Danny?”

Danny looked up from his toy animals and smiled.
“Yeah, he’s big and strong like Kamala, the Ugandan Giant.”

Joe cringed.  “Danny!  That’s…a little bit
racist.”

Bill patted Joe on the back and laughed merrily.
“Don’t worry about it.  Everyone’s a little bit racist sometimes.”

Joe didn’t quite know how to take Bill’s comment, but the
man seemed happy enough so he departed into the corridor.  It was getting
dark again and the corridor was shrouded in an opaque cloak of greyness.
When Joe stood in front of Randall’s office, butterflies spawned inside his
stomach.  The padlock on the door only increased their fluttering.

What if she’s already hurt herself?  What if she
begs me to help her and I can’t do anything?  While she bleeds to death…

Joe went to knock on the door, but instead placed his palm
against the wood.  He didn’t want to startle her.  “Grace,” he said
softly.  “Grace, are you there?”

Of course she’s there, you idiot.

A voice came back, weak and trembling.  Joe was sure
she’d been crying.  “Who is it?”

“It’s Joe.  Are you okay?”

For a while there was no reply, then: “No.  No, I’m
not.”

Of course you’re not.  Another stupid question for
me to ask.

Joe put his forehead against the door, wishing it wasn’t
there between them.  “Is there anything…dangerous in there?”

Grace knew what he meant.  “No.  At least I don’t
think so.  Randall would have removed anything I could use against him.”

Joe sighed.  “Good, then you’ll be okay.”

“No.  I already told you!”  She sounded
desperate.  “I’ll find a way to hurt myself, even if it means
biting.  I need to get out of here.  The urges are already getting
stronger, gnawing away at me.  I have to get OUT!”  She banged at the
door and the impact knocked Joe away from the wood.  The padlock rattled.

“I’m going to find a way, Grace.  Then we’re gonna get
out of here.”

“Thank God!”

Joe was surprised.  “You think it’s a good idea?”

“What?  Getting me out of this room or getting me out
of this wretched zoo?”

Joe smiled, but realised that Grace wouldn’t see it.
“The latter,” he said.

“I think it’s a great idea.  I’d rather take my chances
with the animals outside than the animals in here.”

“What Victor did to you was--”

“I’m not talking about Victor,” she said.  “I’m talking
about Randall.”

The butterflies in Joe’s stomach flapped their wings
again.  “What did he do to you?”

A pause.  Then: “Not much…yet.  But if you don’t
get me out of this room soon I think he’s gonna hurt me a lot more than I could
ever hurt myself.”

Joe heard Grace begin to sob quietly and a rage started to
bloom inside of him.

I’ll kill him.  That sick, twisted bastard is a dead
man.  I’ll feed him to the lions before he ever lays another finger on
Grace.

“Joe?”

Joe broke away from his thoughts.  “What?”

“I can tell you want to do something, but don’t, okay?”

“He needs to pay.”

“Damn straight he does, but I don’t want you to go off
half-cocked and end up locked in here with me.”

Doesn’t sound all that bad to me…

But where would that leave Bill and Danny?

Joe took a hold of himself and let out a long breath.
“What, then?  I just keep my head down until he tries to hurt you again?”

“No,” said Grace.  “You need to go away and figure out
what to do.  Then you come rescue me like a hero on a white horse.
We’ll leave Randall to his playschool prime minister act and find ourselves
someplace safe.”

“I’m glad you’re so confident.  I don’t even know where
we can go to.”

“You’ll figure it out,” she said.  “Now go.”

Joe put his hand against the door again, wishing he could
feel the warmth of her cheek instead of the lifelessness of the wood.
“Okay.  I’ll go figure something out.”

He walked away.  Before he got far, Grace called out to
him.  “Joe?”

“Yeah?”

“Please don’t take too long, or there may not be much of me
left to save.”

The thought filled Joe with dread.  He walked away
without any idea what to do.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Night had fallen and Joe
still had little idea what to do about Grace – or where to go afterwards.
For now, he decided to let things lie in his mind, hoping that inspiration
would strike unprompted.

Since the day’s earlier events, two camps had clearly divided.
Over by the window sat Randall and his cohorts, lit by flickering candlelight,
while on the opposite side of the room, in near total darkness, sat Joe, Bill,
and Danny.  Mason sat midway between both parties, obscured by piles of
open books that lay around him.  The thing that Joe noticed most of all
was that all of the food supplies were on Randall’s side of the room and that
each of his group had weapons.  They were laughing amongst themselves,
snacking on crisps while Joe’s group starved.

They’re the elite and we’re the proletariat, but I think
there’s a revolution in the cards for the near future, so just enjoy your cosy
little throne for now, Randall.  Enjoy it because I’m gonna make you eat
it.

Bill whispered beside him.  “I’ve been trying to work
Mason out all evening.  He hasn’t spoken to either you or me since he
stabbed you in the back, but he isn’t sitting with Randall either.  What
you think his game is?”

Joe considered things for a moment.  “I don’t think he
has a game.  Despite what happened, I don’t think Mason is looking to
cause any trouble.  I think he just wants a quiet life, which is why
whatever Randall said to him was so effective.”

“You think that’s what happened?  That Randall said
something?  He could have just genuinely thought that you weren’t the man
for the job.”

Joe laughed quietly.  “I’m not the man, but
neither is Randall, that’s for sure.  I don’t know what happened, but I
know Mason wouldn’t have wanted this.”

“It’s pretty fucked up.  You figured out what to do
yet?”

“No, but I’m working on it.  I’ll try to come up with
something by tomorrow.  We need to act soon.”

“Shit, man, are we really gonna do this then?  I mean,
we’ll probably die.”

“I know, but at least by doing this we’ll have the chance to
live.  Grace isn’t going to last long if we don’t do something.”

Bill studied Joe’s expression.  “You gonna tell me what
the deal is with her?”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know.  I just get the impression that there’s
something you’re not telling me.  Like why she needs pills.”

Joe sighed.  “I don’t think it would be right to tell
you, but I can say that she has a serious condition and that leaving her alone
is dangerous.”

“Okay.”

Joe frowned in the dark.  “Really?  You don’t need
to know anything more?”

“Would you tell me?”

“Probably not.”

“Exactly, but if you say that she needs our help then I
believe you.  I’ve got your back.”

“I didn’t know Black people actually said that.”

“Word, dawg, for real.”

Joe renewed his laughter and punched Bill on his arm.
“You crazy fool!”

Bill joined in the laughter.  “Now I know why your
son’s a little bit racist.”

The two men eventually settled into silence and Joe was left
alone with his thoughts.  For some reason he found his mind wandering off
and retrieving memories of his ex-wife, Jane – Danny’s mother.  The regret
of losing her was still embedded deep within Joe’s soul, and not a day went
past that he didn’t rue the day he had betrayed her with another woman.
Yet, in some twisted way, his weakness was the only reason he and Danny were
alive right now.

If we hadn’t separated then I wouldn’t have taken Danny
to the zoo for my custody weekend.  Who knows where I would have been
instead, but the chances of surviving this thing were a million to one in the
first place, and if things were different I don’t think I would have been so
lucky.

None of it made Joe feel any better.  He still
regretted the past.  If he could take back the night he allowed his
neighbour’s wife to throw herself at him, he would.  He would take back
the entire last year if it meant he could feel the warmth of Jane’s arms around
him one more time.

But that will never happen.  I have to think about
the present.  About Grace…

Suddenly it was Grace’s arms that he longed to feel around
him and he became resolute that he would rescue her.  He was going to
break her out tomorrow.

Chapter Thirty

Randall could not sleep – too
much adrenaline in his system to even consider it.  He was finally in
charge, free to do as he wished, and it tasted good.  Soon he would look
towards bringing in other survivors to add to his empire.  He considered
the methods he could employ, such as lighting signal fires.  It would be
difficult and dangerous, but he would find a way.  That’s why he was the
one in charge.

That’s why he would be the hero when all this was over.

Or if there is no end to this situation, I will remain in
power and help rebuild humanity on this very spot.

Randall got up in the darkness and shuffled across the
room.  He stopped when he came in line with Joe and his group.  There
was no light in that part of the room, but he could hear each of them snoring,
the boy the loudest.  The last thing Randall needed now was another inane
discussion, which was why it was such a blessing that none of them had woken as
he padded out into the corridor and switched on his torch.

Joe is turning out to be quite the problem.  I may
be forced to deal with him.  I know he’s plotting something.  Him and
that bloody queer.

Randall approached the door to his office.  Slowly, he
inserted the key into the padlock.  Despite his efforts to remain quiet as
he opened the door, he found Grace awake.  She was sitting at the desk and
staring at the back of her arm in some sort of dazed confusion.  A heavy
layer of sweat covered the girl’s forehead and clothing and made her glisten
under the shafts of moonlight coming from the barricaded window.

“What are you doing awake?” he asked her.

She flinched at the sound of his voice as though she hadn’t
noticed him enter the room.

“I said what are you doing?”

Grace still didn’t answer.  Randall was just about to
lose his temper when he noticed the blood.  “Jesus, girl, what did you do
to yourself?”

Grace stared up at him, still struck by some bizarre fugue.

Randall grabbed her by the wrist and stretched out her
arm.  Embedded into the flesh of her wrist was a ragged splinter of
wood.  Blood ran down its length and pooled on the surface of the
desk.  “What’s your goddamn deal?  You crazy-”

Grace hissed at him.  “Fuck you!”

Randall backhanded her across the face.  “Get some
bloody sense in you, girl.”

He stomped over to the filing cabinet.  Unlocked it
with his key.  From the contents inside he pulled out a bottle of water
and a first aid kit.  He set them down on the desk.  “To think I came
in here to check on you and this is how you repay me.  Suicide is for the
weak and pathetic.”

“I wasn’t trying to kill myself.”

Randall raised an eyebrow as he unscrewed the top from the
water bottle.  “Just shut up and give me your arm.”  He poured the
water over the wound and the blood diluted pink as it ran down toward her
elbow.  She winced as the liquid touched her skin and tried to pull away,
but he held her tight.  When the wound was clean, he put on a plastic
glove from the first aid kit and yanked at the wooden splinter.  Grace
squealed as it came free.

Randall examined the bloody splinter in his hand and felt
revulsion as he imagined what it must have felt like entering the girl’s
flesh.  “Where did you even get this from?”

“The table leg was split.”

Randall looked down at the bottom of the desk and saw that
one of the legs had a deep gouge in it.  He took a bandage from the kit
and started to wrap her wound.  “Why did you do this?”

Grace started to cry.  “I can’t help it.  I need
my pills.”

Randall nodded.  “So that’s why Joe risked himself
downstairs.  You’re a nutcase and you need your loopy-pills.”

Grace looked at him contemptuously.  “Something like
that.”

“Well, if you promise to behave, I’ll let you out.
I’ll look after you even.”

“I don’t want you to look after me.  Just let me out
and I’ll look after myself.”

“Is that so?  Do you not think life would be easier
with my protection?”

“Protection from what?  Your thug, Victor?”

Randall nodded, the torchlight bobbing along with his
movement as he directed it on her wound.  “Among other things.”  He
rubbed at the bare flesh of her neck.  “I could be a friend to you.”

Grace spat in his face

Randall wiped away the saliva with the back of his hand and
sprang to his feet.  “Bitch!  Fine, be that way.”
He yanked open the filing cabinet and took an object from
inside.  “We’ll see how much longer you can last until you’re begging for
my mercy.”

Randall stormed off towards the exit.  Before he left,
he turned around and tossed a surgical scalpel onto the floor.  It skidded
into the centre of the room with a clang.

Grace’s expression was one of utter horror.

“Good luck without your pills,” Randall said, and then
closed the office door.

Chapter Thirty-One

The first thing Joe thought
about when he opened his eyes was Grace.  The night before, he had awoken
with her beside him.  He already felt her absence like a bedsore.  He
looked around and saw that everyone else in the room was still sleeping.
Danny’s little eyes twitched as he no doubt dreamt about being a famous
wrestler.

Joe crawled along the floor, gradually raising himself until
he was on his feet.  He snuck out into the corridor, intending to check on
Grace again, and stopped outside the office door when he reached it.  He
rapped a knuckle lightly on the wood.

Silence.

He knocked again, but still received no response.  A
fire ignited in his belly.  Come on, Grace, answer!

Joe knocked one more time, a little louder this time but
still quiet enough not to risk waking the others.

“Joe, is that you?”

“Grace!  Are you okay?”

That stupid question again.

“I…I’m alive and that’s what matters.”

“I’m going to get you out of there, right now.  This
has to sto-”

“Joe, listen to me.”

Joe stopped what he was doing.  “What is it?”

“It’s Randall.  He came in last night and--”

Joe bashed his fist against the door.  “That fucker!”

“No, no, nothing happened.  Nothing like that.”

“Then what?”

“He opened a filing cabinet in here to…to get me a bottle of
water.  He forgot to lock it when he left.”

“Okay, and…?”

“It’s full of supplies.  Food, weapons, medicine.”

Joe cursed under his breath.  “That dirty, rotten--”

“But that’s not the thing that really matters.  I found
a phone in the cabinet.  There’re messages on it about government rescue centres.
There’s one down the road – in Leicester.”

Joe’s eyes stretched wide.  “You’re kidding me?”

“You have to tell the others.  They won’t support him
if they know he’s been holding out on us all.”

“You’re right,” Joe agreed.  “We’ll have you out of there
in a jiffy.”

“A jiffy?”

Joe blushed.  “That’s what I said.  Just hold
tight for a little while longer, okay?”

“Go do what you have to do, Joe.  Just don’t forget
about me, okay?”

Joe smiled and ran his fingers against the door’s
surface.  “Never.”

He turned around and hurried back towards the seminar
room.  The weight of the information Grace had just given him was almost
sending him dizzy.

I can’t wait to see your face, Randall – you arrogant
asshole.  I knew it would only be a matter of time until I brought you
down.  Turns out that your little reign of terror isn’t even gonna last a
full day.

Joe had a smile on his face as he pushed open the door to
the seminar room.  He hadn’t expected to be confronted with Randall’s ugly
face quite so soon, but the man stood before him now, blocking his path.

“And what exactly are you doing wandering around?  No
one goes anywhere without my express permission.”

Joe laughed in the man’s face.  “Screw you, Randall.”

Randall shook his head as if some deep regret had found its
way into his soul.  “How very disappointing.  I was hoping that I
wouldn’t have to detain anybody else.”

“The only thing you’re going to detain is my fist in your
face.”

“I think Victor will feel differently.”

Joe smirked.  “You think so?  What about after I
show him what’s inside your secret filing cabinet.”

Randall suddenly went pale, like an overweight ghost.
“What…what are you talking about?”

“You forgot to lock it during your late night visit to
Grace.  She found your little stockpile, and – more importantly – she
found your phone.  We know that there’s help nearby.”

Randall laughed heartily, although Joe wasn’t buying
it.  “She tell you that, did she?  The woman’s a nutcase.  I
found her slashing herself to pieces.  If I hadn’t checked on her she’d
probably be dead by now.”

Joe felt sick.  “Is she okay?”

Randall shook his head.  “Not really.  I bandaged
her as best I could, but she’s a very sick young lady.”

“I know,” said Joe.

“It’s a good thing I was there, my friend.”

Joe nodded.  “It certainly was, you’re a hero, but may
I ask you one thing?”

“Of course?”

“Why exactly were you visiting Grace in the middle of
the night while everyone else was asleep?”

Randall’s pale cheeks suddenly went red.  “I…well, I…”

“Wrong answer.”  Joe let loose with a right-handed
punch, sending Randall sprawling onto the carpet.  He was pretty sure the
blow broke the man’s nose and it almost felt like payback for when Victor had
broken his.

He’s lucky that’s not all I’m gonna break.

Randall fell down on his rump and squealed.  “That is
it!  Victor, lock this maniac up before he hurts anybody else.  I
will deal with him later.”

Joe looked up and saw Victor approaching from the seminar
room.  He also saw that everyone else had now woken up and were milling
about the room with looks of concern on their faces.

Victor looked down at Randall, clutching his bleeding nose,
but didn’t seem to care much.  “We have bigger things to worry about right
now, pal.  The animals are back.”

Chapter Thirty-Two

Joe knew they would come
back, but he had been hoping for more time.  It didn’t change things,
though.  He was still getting out of there today.

Everyone lined up against the seminar room’s cracked window,
looking out at the horrors below.  The silverback had returned, bringing with
him an army that dwarfed his previous one.  Now cats, dogs, foxes, and
badgers mingled amongst the more exotic species of the zoo.  A number of
the original army’s members, such as the African elephant, were sporting wounds
and horrible burns – mementos of their earlier, failed attack.

Doesn’t look like it fazed them much.

Victor picked up a firebomb.  “Same procedure as
before, people.  The silverback is the priority.”

“What’s the deal with him anyway?” asked Bill.  “Who
put the gorilla in charge of all the animals?”

Mason cleared his throat, removed his spectacles and rubbed
them on his shirt.  “His name is Nero, a very intelligent Eastern Lowland
Gorilla.  He’s the oldest animal at the zoo – forty-eight.  He was
born here.”

Bill shook his head.  “Damn, he’s been caged here for
fifty years?”

Mason nodded.  “Yes.  Perhaps that’s why he’s in
charge.  Maybe he hates us the most.”

“Don’t matter none now,” said Victor, handing out weapons
and the remaining firebombs that he had removed from a locked cabinet.
“An enemy with a cause is still an enemy.  We spread ’em with fire and use
the ballast against anything that gets to close.”

Joe took two firebombs that were handed to him and thought
about smashing them in Victor’s face.  He knew it wouldn’t be the smart
thing to do right now, though.  The animals were the biggest danger and
they all needed to fight together.

Joe had a thought.  “Victor, we need to let Grace
out.  She can fight for us.”

Victor considered it.  “I agree, but Randall’s the one
with the key.”

The floor vibrated as the animals rushed the building.
Joe looked out to see several elephants and a pair of rhinos heading towards
the walls.  Dust began to fall from the ceiling, coating everything in a
film of chalky powder.

“They’re gonna bring down the building,” said Bill.

“They tried it before,” said Victor, “and failed.”

The building shook upon impact and Joe almost fell to his
knees.  “There’re more of them this time.”

Victor smiled.  “Just means more of them to
kill.”  The Scotsmen hung himself out of the window and let loose another
beaker of acid.  It doused the animals below and they roared in agony –
but carried on attacking.

“It’s not working,” said Joe, lighting the wick on a
firebomb.”

“Hit them with the fire,” said Victor.  “Anything with
flesh burns.”

Joe tossed his bomb through the window and watched it
plummet toward the ground.  It smashed against the flank of one of the
elephants, sending it wheeling around in agony as the flames engulfed it.

What happened next demoralised everyone.

The elephant on fire lifted its snout into the air and
angled it over its back.  A sudden gout of water released from its trunk.

Joe watched the flames disappear.  “They’re carrying
water in their trunks.  They planned for this.”

Victor was grinning madly.  “Looks like we have a
proper fight on our hands, lads.”

Bill was in full blown panic now, both his hands on top of
his head as he chewed ravenously at his lower lip.  “What the hell do we
do?”

Victor threw a beaker full of acid and it hit the partially-burned
elephant in the face.  It staggered backwards, falling to its knees.
Smoke hissed from the surface of its skin as globs of grey flesh fell from its
face.  A moment later the pachyderm fell to the floor, dead.

Victor turned around.  “Let’s die fighting.”

“Screw that,” Bill shouted.  “We need to get out of
here.”

Victor thrust his knife at Bill, holding Martha just inches
from his nose.  “No one leaves without Randall’s say so.”

Another impact hit the building.  Joe shoved Victor’s
arm away from Bill’s face.  “Screw Randall!  He’s been holding out on
us all.  He has a phone and knows about a rescue centre nearby.”

Victor didn’t seem impressed.  He turned and threw
another acid bomb out the window.  “Desperate times call for desperate
measures, pal.  I’m sure he had his reasons.”

Joe shook his head in disbelief.  “Don’t you
care?  We could find help out there, the army even.”

“I know all about how the army works, pal.  I’d rather
take my chances here.”

Joe threw his hands up.  “Fine.  Have fun going
down with the ship, but we’re going.  Come on Bill.”

Joe started to leave when he realised that Bill was not
following, instead he was staring out of the window with bug eyes.
Shirley and Mason were staring too.  Joe turned to see what they were all
looking at.

“Holy shit!”

“Aye,” said Victor.  “Quite a sight, ain’t it?”

Coming towards the building was a herd of giraffes.
Covering their backs like flies was a legion of monkeys.  Joe
understood immediately what was happening.  “They’re going to climb up the
giraffes to get in.”

“Just like using a siege tower to breach a castle wall,”
Victor marvelled.  “Beautiful.”

Joe grabbed Bill and pulled him away from the window.
“We’re getting Grace and Danny and leaving.  Right now!”

Bill snapped out of his daze and allowed himself to be
ushered away.  “Okay,” he said.  “Where is Danny?”

Joe stopped in his tracks and examined the
room.  Danny was gone, his pile of plastic animals the only indicator that
he had ever been there.  The next thing Joe noticed made him feel sick.

Randall was missing too.

“That bastard has my son!”

Bill looked confused.  “Huh?  You don’t know
that.  Why would he snatch Danny?”

Joe growled.  “Because I know what he’s been up to, and
like any politician he’ll do whatever it takes to shut me up.”  Joe
suddenly had a worrying thought.  “Grace, too.”

“What are you talking about?”

Joe shook his head and grabbed Bill’s arm again.
“Doesn’t matter, but we have to go.”

Joe sped into the corridor, Bill limping behind.  He
had a bad feeling.

A really bad feeling.

Joe didn’t knock on the office door this time.  He
threw himself at the wood.  It didn’t break, and the impact made him see
stars as he bounced off and fell to the ground.

Bill reached down and helped him up.  “I don’t think a
door like that is gonna give.”

Joe leapt up and hit the door again and again.

The wood was too thick and Joe slumped against it in
defeat.  His shoulder was numb, but his heart was where the real agony
was.

Bill grabbed the door’s handle and turned it.  The door
swung open and Joe fell through onto the floor inside.  The shock confused
his brain and he lay there, stunned.

Bill entered the room behind Joe.  “Always try the
handle first, man.”

The words didn’t reach Joe as they were meant to; they
seemed to float into his ears before fading into nothingness.  His mind
was too chaotic to accept any new information.

The room was empty and Danny and Grace were gone.

Chapter Thirty-Three

“Sit there!”  Randall
ordered Grace.  He pushed her down on a chair in the warehouse’s small
office.  Danny struggled against him, but it was useless.  The cable
ties that bound them together by their wrists were far stronger than the boy’s
meagre strength.  Randall reached forward and fastened a new set of
cable-ties to Grace’s wrist, securing her to a swivel chair.  Her blood
was all over him, not because of anything he had done, but because of all the
thick gashes and tender slices she had made on herself with the scalpel he’d
left her overnight.

I guess I did kind of do it to her in a way.

Luckily, she had been lying in a pool of her own blood when
he’d entered his office earlier and not coming at him with the blade as he had
expected.  It was easy to get her and the boy down the corridor while
everyone else was distracted by the animal attack.  His plan was to exit
through the warehouse and make it to the next nearest building, or perhaps even
find a car.  He still wasn’t about to go and seek out the government’s
rescue aid, but had at least come to terms with the fact that the visitor’s
centre was a lost cause.  It would only be a matter of time before the
animals breeched it.

Or bring it down all together.  Damned elephants!

The only detail he hadn’t worked out yet was how to proceed
safely.  It was a fairly reasonable guess to think that the coast would be
clear – the bulk of the animal army was busy attacking the east side of the
building.  Hopefully, Victor and the others would distract them long
enough for Randall to make his escape unnoticed.

“You can’t do this,” Grace shouted at him.  “We don’t
want to come with you.”

Randall pulled the cable-ties tighter and she winced as they
bit into her flesh.  “What’s the matter, sweetheart?  I thought you
liked pain?”

Grace was weeping.  “No I hate it.  I fucking hate
it!”

“Tough shit!  You’re going to have to get used to it,
and if you don’t shut up I’m going to fasten one of these around your throat
and watch while you strangle to death.  You’re coming with me, whether you
like it or not, and when it’s just you, me, and the boy you won’t have the
option of resisting me.  There will be no one to save you.”

Grace didn’t speak.

Good girl.  Learning so fast.

Randall stood away from Grace and closed the office door.
He yanked Danny in front of him on the metal walkway and made the boy
look at him.  “And I’m gonna be your new dad.  How’d you like that?”

The boy tried to pull away.  “You don’t deserve to be
anyone’s dad.  You’re horrible.”

Randall backhanded the boy, which made him cry out, so he
shoved his hand over his mouth and shushed him.  Danny bit his palm.
Randall leapt back in pain, yanking the boy with him by the cable ties
connecting them at the wrists.  They crumpled to the floor with Danny landing
on top.  The boy started to beat at Randall with his fists.

“Get off me, you little brat!”  Randall reeled back his
free arm and struck the boy across the head.  The small body went limp and
fell against him.  “Damn it, wake up.  We have to get moving.”

“You’re a monster,” Grace spat.  “A pathetic
monster.  You think you’re a big man, but you’re the type of person that
hits women and children.  When it comes to taking on men, you hide behind
Victor.”

“Shut up, shut up, you bitch!”

But she did not shut up.  She laughed at him.  The
sound was cruel and mocking, and made him remember all the people he hated in
life, from school all the way through to this god-forsaken zoo.

“I’ll kill you, whore.”

“What the hell is going on here?”

Randall looked up from his place on the floor to see Mason
standing in the doorway.  The man’s eye’s shone with suspicion behind the
lenses of his spectacles.  Randall took in a deep breath and tried to
swallow, but found that his throat was dry.  “Mason?  W-what are you
doing here?”

“I came to grab some more petrol to make bombs.  Victor
said there was still some left in the warehouse.”

“Yes,” said Randall.  “Indeed there is.  How goes
the battle?”

Mason shook his head.  “It wouldn’t be going so bad if
everyone hadn’t deserted.  Victor and I are the only ones left since Joe
and the others disappeared.”

Randall raised an eyebrow.  “Joe isn’t with
Victor?  Where did he go?”

“I don’t know.  Perhaps he’s looking for his kidnapped
son?”

“That’s right!”  Grace cackled from the office.
“He’s going to kick your ass soon as he finds you.”

Randall tried to pull himself free from under Danny’s limp
body, with no success.  “Kidnapped!” he said, laughing despite being short
of breath.  “Don’t be absurd.  I caught these two trying to escape.”

Mason huffed.  “Escape?  What are you talking
about?  No one is a prisoner here.  I think you all need to come back
to the seminar room.  In the slim chance that we survive the current
situation, we can discuss later why you have abducted Joe’s son and tied up
Miss Grace.”

Randall glared.  Don’t you dictate to me, you
pathetic excuse for a man.

“Have you forgotten what we agreed?” said Randall.
“I’ll close this place down.  I swear it, my friend.  Forget about
all the money I promised to invest.  I’ll bulldoze this fucking place and
turn it into flats.  I’ll sell the animals for fur.”

Mason was solemn as he spoke.  “I’m afraid this zoo is
already closed for business.  I’ve realised it’s never going to open its
doors again, no matter what happens, with or without your money.  Thus,
our deal is off.  I should never have helped put you in charge.
You’re an evil little man.”

Randall felt dizzy.  This was not part of his
plans.  “Look,” he said.  The pleading in his own voice made him feel
nauseous.  “I went about this all wrong.  Help get this lad off me
and we’ll go back and join the others.”

Mason nodded.  He stooped forward to lift Danny away,
but stopped when he realised there was a cable tie connecting him to
Randall.  “I can’t get this off his wrist.”

“Don’t worry,” said Randall with a cat-like grin.  “I
have a knife.”

He shoved the blade into Mason’s ribs and twisted.  It
felt good going in between the bones.  The warm blood of vindication
flowed freely over his hand.  Mason sucked in a deep mouthful of air that
never came back out again.  He flopped forward on top of Randall and
Danny.

Randall grunted beneath the additional weight.  “Will
people please stop falling on me!”

It took several minutes for him to get out from under the
pile of bodies and he had to use the gore-soaked knife on the cable tie to get
himself loose from a still-unconscious Danny.  Finally he got to his feet
and stretched out his limbs, trying to regain some feeling.

Right, time to get back on task.

Just when Randall was beginning to feel back in control of
the situation, a snarling voice from behind him said: “What the fuck have you
done to my son?”

Chapter Thirty-Four

So much rage flowed through
Joe’s veins that he almost took flight when he lunged for Randall.  The
sight of Danny, hurt and unconscious, pulled him apart at the seams.

And he knew exactly who was responsible.

“I’m gonna kill you,” he screamed, thrusting his arms
forwards like pistons.  One blow took Randall by surprise, knocking the
man backwards.  It was then that Joe saw the knife, and noticed Mason
lying face down in a pool of spreading blood.

The bastard stabbed Mason.  Did he stab Danny too?

Any fear Joe might have had of Randall’s knife was instantly
forgotten and he rushed forward and kicked the man.  The blow glanced
awkwardly off Randall’s ribs, but was enough to send him reeling back farther
along the catwalk.  His wobbling frame came to a stop against the safety
railing.  The knife fell to the floor.  He put his empty hands up in
front of himself.

“Joe, please.  Stop, I surrender.”

Joe snarled and stalked after him.  “I’m going to kill
you.”

Randall backed away, slid along the railing.  “Let’s be
grown up about this.  Your son is fine.  He just fainted.”

“What about Mason?  Is he just unconscious?”

“Kill that motherfucker, Joe,” said Bill, entering the
warehouse and seeing Mason’s body on the floor.  “Gut him like he gutted
Mason.”

“Yeah,” added Grace from the nearby office.  “I watched
him kill Mason without a second thought.  He’s evil.”

Joe glared at Randall, who cowered like a child.  “I
think we’re all in agreement.  Or would you prefer a vote?”

Randall reached the edge of the steel staircase leading down
to the warehouse floor and realised there was nowhere else to go.  He
teetered on the edge of the top step and seemed to hold his breath as Joe
approached.  “I-I found Mason like that,” he said.  “I don’t know
what happened.  I swear, Joe.”

“Really,” said Bill from behind them both.  “Then why
is Grace tied up in the office?”

Joe saw that Grace was bound to a chair by a series of cable
ties and grew even angrier.  She was in bad shape, wounded in several
places.  Joe didn’t know if the injuries had been inflicted by Randall or
if she’d caused them herself.

Anger broke its bonds and Joe lashed out.  He punched
Randall as hard as he could, catching the man beneath his double chin and
launching him backwards.

Randall’s ankle turned and he went tumbling down the
stairs.  He crumpling into a ball and hit every steel step on the way
down, before coming to halt at the bottom, a broken, tangled mess.

Bill managed to snip Grace loose with some scissors and
brought her alongside Joe.  The three of them looked down at Randall’s
unmoving body.

“He dead?” asked Bill.

Joe shrugged.  “Don’t know.  Don’t care.”  He
turned around and knelt beside his son.  “Danny, wake up.”

Danny opened his eyes and, after a few moments of heavy
breathing, it seemed like he would be okay.  “Dad, what happened?”

“You had a bump on the noggin.  Do you feel okay?”

Danny nodded and got to his feet.  “I feel like
somebody done a DDT on me, but I think I’m okay.”

Joe hugged him and then looked up at his other companions.
“You guys ready to get out of here?”

“God yes,” said Grace.

Bill seemed less enthusiastic, but nodded all the same.

“Okay then, let’s take things slow.  Get armed and keep
your eyes open at all times.  Any sign of danger and we bolt back inside,
or to whatever the nearest safe place is.”

“I don’t think there are any safe places anymore,”
said Bill.

“You might be right, but things have gone too far now.
We have to go and try to find help.”

With everyone in agreement, the group took the stairs to the
warehouse floor, stepping over Randall’s sprawled body at the bottom.
Danny whimpered at the sight, but didn’t ask any questions.  Joe knew his
son was smart enough to figure out what happened to the man.

Once on the warehouse floor, they set about finding some
weapons.  It was a difficult task, seeing as Randall and Victor had hidden
away anything useful in their own private stockpiles.  The best they could
scavenge was a couple of mop handles and a length of chain that had been
wrapped around a recycling cart.  Hopefully there would be no need to use
the weapons, but if they did, they would not be much use.

Joe walked up to the far side of the warehouse floor, toward
a large square shutter.  It was electric, but at the side was a crank that
could be used to wind it up manually.  Bill stood ready with his chain
while Grace and Danny wielded the mop handles behind him.

“So, we really gonna do this?” Bill asked.

Joe nodded.  “Just as soon as you’re ready.”

Bill sighed.  “Let’s just get this shit over with then.”

Joe grabbed the crank handle and began to turn.  The
shutter rose gradually, making a grating squeal as it ascended.  Joe
cringed at the sound and wished it would move faster.  Each rotation of
the crank led to the entrance opening by only a few centremetres.

Bill began sidestepping left to right.  “Doesn’t that
thing go any faster?”

“You’re watching me turn it.  You think there’s a
better way?”

“Yeah,” said Bill, stepping forward.  He draped the
chain around his neck and kneeled at the shutter.  He placed the palms of
both hands underneath its edge and gripped tightly.  Then he straightened
out his legs, deadlifting the shutter like a barbell.  It began to rise
faster, open now to waist-height.

Bill motioned with his head to the opening.  “Who’s first?”

Joe swallowed.  Time to jump into the fire.
He ducked beneath the shutter and re-emerged on the other side.  The cold
bite of the autumn-air nipped at his cheeks, but was also exhilarating. It felt
like he could breathe properly for the first time in ages.  Bill, Grace,
and Danny crawled out behind him and each of them looked around
nervously.

“What’s the plan?” Bill asked, scanning left and
right.  “I don’t wanna just stand around.  We’re too exposed.”

“I’ve got the answer,” said Joe, dangling a set of keys from
his finger.  “No reason my car won’t still be waiting in the car park.”

“Great,” said Bill.  “How far?”

“Back of the zoo.  Quarter mile, maybe?”

Grace put a hand on Joe’s shoulder.  “Easy…peasy.”

Joe grabbed her just in time to stop her falling.  He
propped her up by her armpit.  “You okay?  You don’t look so good.”

Grace shook her head and heaved in a series of shallow
breathes.  “I…I’m fine.  I just feel a little faint.”

“Blood loss,” said Bill, pointing to the many wounds that
adorned her body; some of them were still leaking.

Grace was a mess, caked in blood.  Most of the cuts
didn’t seem fresh, though, and he was confident that any severe bleeding had
stopped.  “I think you’ll be okay,” he said.  “Are you going to be
able to carry on?”

Grace laughed, but her voice was weak and hollow.
“What choice do I have?”

“Here, I’ll take Danny,” Joe said, picking up his son.
“You just hold onto this mop handle nice and tight and if you feel like you’re
gonna pass out, let us know.”

“Can we please get going now?”  Bill’s anxiety buttons
were being prodded.  Joe could tell by the way he was shifting his weight
from side to side and swallowing constantly.

“Okay,” said Joe.  “Let’s get going.”

The group of them set off.  They were in a paved
delivery area around the back of the Visitor’s Centre.  There were no
vehicles around and nothing else of note either, besides a large industrial
wheelie bin.  There were no animals in the area and Joe didn’t hesitate in
leading everyone forward.  They stuck close to the wall, crouching to keep
their profiles low.  Up ahead, the building ended and the pavement snaked
around to the left.

Joe put a hand up to halt everyone, whilst struggling to
keep a hold of Danny in his arms.  “Everyone wait here.  I’ll go
check and see if the coast is clear.”

Joe put down Danny and crept along the last few feet of
wall.  He peered carefully around to the left, poking his head out
gradually.  Joe couldn’t see his own face, but if he could, he was sure he
would have lost all colour at what he was seeing.

“What is it?” said Grace.  “What can you see?”

Joe bit at his bottom lip and looked back at her.  “The
animals,” he said.  “They’re everywhere.”

Chapter Thirty-Five

Bill resumed his anxious
stepping from side to side. “What the hell do we do?”

“I think we can sneak past,” said Joe.  The army of
animals was engaged in the assault against the building.  Joe was even
sure he could hear Victor’s wild battle cries as debris fell from the windows
upstairs.  Amongst the rampaging animals was a collection of bloody and
burned husks of various shapes and species.

Looks like Victor’s still got plenty of fight left in
him.

“We can’t just sneak past,” Bill said.  “Animals
have like super hearing, don’t they?”

Joe shrugged.  “Some do, I guess.  What choice do
we have, though?”

No one said anything.  They could go backwards and
re-enter the building, but would have to face Victor and the assault that was
going on, or they could go forwards and face an army of vicious, snarling
creatures.  They were screwed either way.

Danny pulled on Joe’s arm. The boy looked like he had
something to say so Joe asked him, “What is it, Danny?”

“We can start a fire.”

Joe smiled encouragingly.  “What do you mean?”

“We could start a fire between them and us.  They don’t
like fire.”

Joe thought about it but Bill liked the idea straight
away.  “We could grab some more petrol from the warehouse and pour it on
the floor as we make a run for it.  Then when the animals chase we could
light it and…whoosh!”

Joe shrugged.  “Good as anything else.”

Bill smiled, seeming the most confident he had been since
they had decided to make a run for it.  “I’ll go get the petrol,” he
said.  “I think some of it got left with the backup supplies.”

Joe nodded and Bill limped off.  He took another peek
around the wall and tried to make some mental notes of which areas were best to
get across the zoo.  The zoo animals roamed everywhere, flanked on all
sides by dogs, cats, and other domestic animals.  Their main force
consisted of tigers, wolves, monkeys, and of course, the leader of them all,
the silverback.  The giant ape stood almost exactly at the army’s centre
and was beating his chest in defiance as Victor continued to fight back.
Every time the silverback let out a feral roar, another group of animals would
surge forward and attack the building.  The earlier attempts, involving
giraffes, had obviously failed as a pair of the long-necked animals now lay
dead on the ground.  Their current tactic was to send small groups of
monkeys against the walls, standing atop each other in an attempt to create a
ladder from their bodies.  Joe didn’t want to stick around long enough to
see if it worked.

Another five minutes passed by without Bill returning.  Joe
began to worry.  It shouldn’t be taking this long.

“You think we should go check on Bill?” he asked Grace.

She shrugged.  “I guess we could.  Perhaps we
should have gone with him in the first place.”

Joe and Grace, along with Danny, headed back along the wall
towards the loading bay.  Joe wanted to call out to Bill but didn’t want
to risk being heard by the animals.  When they reached the entrance, Joe
called out at a hushed level.  “Bill, you okay?”

No answer.  Joe’s worry intensified.  He stepped through
the entrance, Grace and Danny following.

“Where is he?” asked Grace.

“He’s here,” said a voice.

Joe looked up to see Bill standing anxiously before
him.  At his throat was a knife.  Behind him stood Randall.  The
man wasn’t alone.  Shirley stood next to him.

Joe shook his head and laughed.  “Guess everyone gave
up on Victor’s war, then?”

“Only a fool would have stayed and fought,” said
Shirley.  “The battle is already lost.  Victor is just too stupid to
realise it.”

“That’s right,” said Randall.  “Shirley and I are
leaving.”

“Good,” said Joe.  “Let go of Bill and we can go our
separate ways.”

Randall cackled, shook his head forcefully.  “I’m
afraid I can’t do that.  You see, I was brutally attacked, and until the
person responsible is held accountable, I simply cannot depart.
Unfinished business, you might say.”

Joe’s eyes narrowed.  “You’re lucky I didn’t kill you
after what you did to my son.  If I were you I’d cut my losses while I
still had the chance.”

“Perhaps you’re right.  Or perhaps not.”

Randall slit Bill’s throat so casually that he could have
been acting it out in a play.  Bill’s eyes went wide as dinner plates as
he fell forward onto his knees, clutching the bleeding gash that lined his neck
like an ever-widening scarf.  He tried to speak, but all that came out was
the sound of gurgling and a weak hissing sound.

There was a high-pitched keening that Joe realised was
himself screaming.  He shot forward and grabbed Bill.  The man
collapsed into his arms.

“Bill, it’s going to be okay.”

But Bill was already dead.

Joe stared at his fallen friend and was filled with equal
doses of an intoxicating need for vengeance and simple regret – regret that he
hadn’t killed Randall when he’d had the chance.  He would rectify that
mistake right now.

Joe looked up just as Randall lunged at him with the
knife.  He managed to make a last second dive to his right and missed
being stabbed by a hair’s breadth.  The hard floor knocked the wind from
his lungs.

Randall looked down at him on the floor, knife still in
hand.  “Time for your sentencing, my friend.”

“He’s not your friend.”  Danny ran forward and swung
his leg like it was a golf club.  His little foot hit square between
Randall’s legs.  “How about a low blow, you jabroni!”

Randall collapsed backwards, shrinking into the foetal
position and clutching at his groin in agony.  Like a shot, Shirley ran
forward and seized the boy, slapping him hard across the face.  “You
brat!  You’ll burn in hell.”

Joe watched in a daze – still winded by his impact with the
floor – as Grace swung her broom handle like a baseball bat.  It smashed
across Shirley’s face with a resounding crack!  The woman shrieked out
like one of the animals outside as blood began pouring from her face.  The
blow had shattered her glasses and sent the jagged shards into her eyes.

“I’m blind,” Shirley cried out as she staggered around in
wild panic.  “Help me, I’m blind.”

“Get your fucking God to help you,” Grace spat.

Joe got to his feet gingerly, going up to them both.
Danny cheek was bright red, but he was not crying.  “Go find the petrol,”
he told Grace.  “I’ll deal with Randall.”

Grace glanced down at Randall, who was still clutching at
his groin and moaning.  “Is he worth it?”

Joe didn’t blink.  “He killed Bill.”

Grace nodded and then kissed him on the cheek.  She
took Danny away and left Joe alone.

Randall had cottoned on to the situation and took one of his
hands away from his groin and held it up in front of him.  “Now, Joe,
let’s be civilised.”

Joe spat.  It hit Randall on the chin.  “You
killed Bill.  You killed Mason.  And I’m figuring you would have
killed me and Danny, too.  Why exactly?  Just so you could get Grace
to yourself?”

“Of course not.  I wanted to save Grace and Danny from
all this.  I would have taken them somewhere safe.”

Joe laughed so hard it hurt the soft flesh of his
pallet.  “You mean the safe place that you hid from us all?  And what
about me?  Where did I come in your grand plan?”

Randall wouldn’t look him in the eye.

Joe nodded.  “I see.  Well, I’d say that in your
case, your punishment should fit the crime.”

Randall eyes went wide.  “Don’t kill me!”

Joe smiled.  “Course not.  That wouldn’t be
suitable.”  Randall seemed relieved, but Joe had more to say.  “You
killed two people, so simply killing you wouldn’t add up.  No, I need to
do something worse than just kill you.”

Randall started scooting backwards on his bum, obviously
searching for his knife but finding it nowhere; it had been lost in the
scuffle.  He stared up at Joe anxiously.  “W-what are you going to do
to me?”

“This!”  Joe leapt forward and grabbed Randall by his
legs.

“What are you doing?  Get off me, right this instant.”

Joe was beyond hearing Randall’s pleas.  He almost took
pleasure as he gripped the man’s left ankle tightly and started to twist.
“My son would call this an ankle lock,” he said, and then yanked as hard as he
could.

Randall wailed as the delicate bones in his ankle
snapped.  Joe thought about breaking the other leg as well, but decided
that one was enough.  He turned and walked away.  “Now, don’t you go
following us, you hear!”

“Joe, please don’t leave me here.  JOE!”

Joe carried on walking.

“You’re a murderer.  A murderer, you hear me?
You’re no better than anybody else.”

Joe shouted back a reply over his shoulder.  “Least I’ve
given you a fighting chance.  However slim that may be.”

He re-joined Grace and Danny in the corner of the warehouse,
pleased to see that they had found both a can of petrol and some matches.

“Is that screaming I can hear?” asked Grace.

Joe nodded.  “Randall had a little accident, but he’s
in no immediate danger.  Let’s get out of here.”

Joe took the can of petrol from Grace and she picked up her
mop handle again.  Then they all headed back through the warehouse, being
sure to avoid the aisle that contained Randall.  Joe didn’t want to hear
any more begging from the worthless human being.

They reached the warehouse shutter and prepared to step
outside again....

But the animals had arrived.  They had been attracted,
no doubt, by the recent commotion and Randall’s relentless screaming.  So
far it was only a small group of chimps and a few wolves, but Joe knew there
would be more coming.

A lot more.

Chapter Thirty-Five

Joe grabbed the petrol can
from Grace and thrust it at the nearest chimps.  The liquid sprung from
the nozzle and doused the animals head to toe.  Without even having to be
asked, Grace struck a match and tossed it.

Two chimps went up straight away.  Two-legged infernos,
their wild screeching pierced the air in spikes of pain.  It still left
about eight more, though.

“This isn’t going to work,” said Grace, backing into the
warehouse.

Joe grabbed Danny by the hand and followed after her.

The chimps glared at them as they continued backing away,
but made no attempts to follow.  They seemed to be communicating amongst
themselves, arms moving frantically in some sort of monkey sign language.
Joe didn’t dare take his eyes away from them, feeling that as soon as he
did they would attack.

“Should we go back upstairs?” asked Grace.

Joe shook his head.  “It’s too late for that.  We
need to find a way to lose them.”

“I don’t think that’s going to be easy.”

The chimps seemed to reach an agreement amongst themselves
and rushed into the warehouse, hopping and rolling playfully as if the whole
thing was just a game.  Perhaps to them it was.

“RUN!”  Joe screamed at Grace and pushed her
into action.  Danny ran alongside them as Joe continued to hold his
hand.  Behind them, the chimps whooped and hollered.  They ducked
behind a crate of fertilising materials.  Grace was already panting with
exhaustion.

Joe glanced around the crate and saw that the chimps had
spread out and were in the midst of a chaotic wrecking spree, ripping and
tearing everything in their sight.

“What’s the plan?” Grace asked.  “More petrol?”

Joe looked at the petrol can in his hand and thought about
it before shaking his head.  “Can’t risk trapping ourselves inside.
We need to keep the exit clear.”

“What then?”

Joe shrugged.  “Pray for a miracle?”

“Miracles are beyond you,” said a voice Joe recognised.

He looked up to see Shirley heading towards them.  Both
of her eyes had been reduced to blood soaked rags, the woman quite obviously
blind.

“Shirley,” he hissed.  “Be quiet.”

Shirley turned in the direction of his voice and
snarled.  “You cannot silence the righteous.  The end times are upon
us and your punishment is nigh.  Your son will burn in Hell for man’s
crimes.”

In different circumstances, Joe would have knocked the
woman’s block off, but right now all he wanted was for her to be quiet.
She was going to alert the crazed chimps to their location.

But it was already too late.

The group of chimps descended on Shirley like rugby players
attacking a loose ball.  They knocked her to the ground under the weight
of their writhing bodies.  Unbelievably, the woman did not cry, but
instead seemed indignant at their lack of manners.

“Release me, you foul beasts of Satan.  I am not one of
the forsaken and I demand that you remove yourselves from my body.”

One of the chimps sank its human-like teeth into Shirley’s
shoulder and her mad vitriol turned to screaming.  The noise seemed to
excite the animals even more and, within seconds, half-a-dozen of them were
tearing strips of fatty flesh from Shirley’s struggling body.  Her screams
grew louder as one of her ears peeled away from her head like foil off a
yoghurt pot.

Joe slunk away from the scene, thankful that the chimps were
too occupied to notice him.  He turned to Grace.  “Let’s make a run
for it.”

The three of them crept around the opposite side of the
warehouse as quickly and as quietly as they could.  The sound of
blood-hungry monkeys ripping apart human flesh was, but it meant they were all
grouped together over Shirley’s body.  There was a chance to get out
without being seen.

Joe stopped near the warehouse’s shutter.  Grace raised
her eyebrows at him.  “Why’d you stop?”

“Randall.  I left him lying in the spot we just
passed.  He’s gone.”

Grace grabbed Joe’s arm and pulled.  “Let’s worry about
that later.  We need to get out of here.”

As one, they ran out through the shutter and back into the
cold air of the loading area.  They were immediately set upon by three
wolves.

Joe pushed Danny out of the way just as one of the large
lupines snapped at his face.  Joe swivelled and kicked the animal hard in
the ribs.  It yelped and fell to the ground.  Joe was surprised that
it did not get up again.

Must have broken a few ribs.

Grace swung the mop handle that she had thankfully kept in
her possession and struck another wolf.  It rolled across the floor,
growling in pain, before springing back to its feet.  Grace swung again
but missed.

The wolf lunged.  Its jaws clamped down on her
wrist.  She screamed and shook her arm left to right, but the animal kept
a tight hold, biting down harder.

“Joe, help me!”

Joe saw a third and final wolf making a beeline for his
son.  “Danny,” he shouted.  “Come here.”

Danny ran toward his father, the huge animal bounding after
him.  Joe ran towards him, but didn’t make it in time.

The wolf pounced on Danny, driving his frail body down to
the ground, knocking the air from his lungs and ravaging him.

Joe screamed so hard he felt something in his throat tear
loose in his throat.  With every strand of muscle fibre in his body, Joe
barrelled towards his son.  Danny’s screams made him move even faster.

Joe kicked out at the wolf, so violently that both feet left
the floor.  His right foot struck the animal in the side of the head.
The impact threw both it and Joe into a tumble.  Pain struck Joe’s
leg like a fast-moving toxin and he knew that he had broken a toe.

The wolf lay dead, bleeding from its misshapen skull as it
lay prone on the sidewalk.

Joe crawled over to Danny.  Tears streamed from his
eyes.  “Danny!  Danny!”

His son began to move.

Thank God!

Joe examined Danny and saw that he was uninjured.  The
wolf’s teeth and claws had caused a huge amount of damage, but it was absorbed
by his son’s Undertaker backpack.  It was ripped and torn to shreds.

“Is it gone, Dad?”

“Yeah,” said Joe, stroking his son on the back of his
head.  “You’re safe now.”

Grace screamed out from behind him.  Joe suddenly
realised that she needed his help too.

Joe got to his feet.  Almost fell down again as pain
shot through his toes like an injection of fire.  He gritted his teeth and
fought through it.  Grace was on her back now, her wrist still trapped
inside the remaining wolf’s mouth.

Joe’s first intention was to kick the wolf as he had the
others, but that wasn’t possible with his injury.  He would need to try
something else.  He looked around for ideas, but the loading bay was
empty.

Except for the petrol can.

Joe grabbed the canister and quickly hobbled to the
wolf.  It was ripping and tearing at Grace’s arm, oblivious to anything
else – even Joe pouring petrol onto the animal’s hind quarters.  But the
petrol would be useless on its own.

The matches.  Where are the matches?

Joe scanned the pavement, looking for the small square box
that Grace had been carrying earlier.  He could not see it.

Then he heard someone strike a match.

Joe looked down to see that with her spare arm – the one
that wasn’t stuck in the wolf’s mouth – Grace had pulled a match from the box
that lay beside her.  The phosphorous ignited and the flame immediately
caught against the animal’s dusty, petrol-soaked fur.  The wolf went up
like a torch, finally releasing its grip on Grace’s arm.  It leapt back in
agony as the fire consumed it whole, blackening its skin and melting away any
flesh too fatty to burn.

Joe pulled Grace away from the flames.  She was wailing
and blood covered her body from head to toe, adding to the caked-on layers of
her previous injuries.  He held her tightly in his arms and rocked her
back and forth.  Danny ran over and joined them both, turning the hug into
a huddle.  Joe loved them both so much, but he was starting to think that
he would not be able to protect them.

Despite that, he couldn’t help but tell them: “It will be
okay.  Everything is going to be okay.”

Chapter Thirty-Six

Randall somehow managed to
hop himself up the staircase to the warehouse’s upper walkway.  He had
watched the entire thing play out.  He’d seen Shirley get ripped apart by
a gang of goddamn chimpanzees.  It was enough to send a lesser man
insane.  He also witnessed Joe’s escape and it pissed him off something
rotten.

That traitor doesn’t deserve to be walking around like a
free man.

Randall looked down at his ankle, twisted and hanging in an
unnatural direction.  “I hope you get ripped to shreds, you monster.”

Randall held onto the safety railing and hopped his way along.
If he could make it back to Victor, the two of them could hole up somewhere in
the building and re-establish their safety.  Then they could think of a
new solution to get out of this godforsaken zoo.

That’s if Victor is even still alive.

And that he forgives us me for running out on him.

I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.  I’m sure
I can charm some haggis-eating Scotsman into believing whatever story I choose
to provide him.

Doing his best to ignore the agony of his broken ankle,
Randall hopped along the walkway and into the hallway, looking down one last
time at Shirley’s bloody corpse and the chimpanzees that surrounded it.

The corridor was unmoving, devoid of the chaos and noise
that existed almost everywhere else.  If not for the barricade at the far
end, it would be nothing more than a normal office hallway.  Randall felt
like he was dreaming.

Or maybe that’s just shock from all the pain.

The day had begun with such promise.  There had been
order and a sense of discipline.  He had been in control of things.
Since then, however, he had murdered two people, been thrown down a flight of
stairs, and had his ankle snapped like a twig by a lumbering fool.  Things
had gotten away from him, and that was unforgivable.

But all great leaders face adversity.  It is how
they recover from it that defines them.

Randall continued his limping hop down the corridor, heading
for the seminar room where he hoped to find Victor.  As he got closer, he
could hear the battle outside continuing – angry trumpeting of stampeding
elephants and the bloodthirsty hoots of an army of monkeys.

Dirty, disgusting creatures.

The door to the seminar room was closed and Randall wasted
no time in opening it, balancing on one leg as he pushed.  Inside he faced
madness.  Monkeys leapt about everywhere, tipping over bookcases and
tearing the contents to shreds.  Tables and chairs were overturned and the
large window at the far wall was completely broken, letting cold wind gust in
from outside.  Randall watched with terror as more animals flooded inside,
clawing their way through the window one after the other.

Victor was alive, sprawled on his stomach and crawling
toward Randall by his fingertips.  The Scotsman was covered in his own
blood and gashes lined his body like canyons of flesh.  The monkeys tore
at his back with their claws, biting into him as though he were a fine meal
served to them for lunch.  Randall could not believe that Victor was not
screaming.

But he was pleading.  “Help me.”

Randall stood motionless in the doorway.  “It’s too
late, my friend.  I’m sorry.”

Victor glared at him, but stopped crawling as more monkeys
piled onto his back and began ripping at a new patch of flesh.  “I’ll see
you in Hell, pal.  Then it will be you who’s begging for help, I promise
ya.”

Randall watched for a few seconds longer while a
particularly vicious little critter tore out Victor’s throat with its
needle-like teeth.  Then he jumped back and closed the door behind
him.  Instantly, bodies began to hit the other side of the wood.  The
monkeys were done with Victor.

And now they want me.

Randall looked up and down the corridor and tried to
rationalise a plan of action.  With his ankle the way it was, he could not
outrun the monkeys if they broke through.  He had to hide.

And I know just where.

Randall hopped further down the corridor and headed for the
office he had made his own.  The filing cabinet inside was stocked with
supplies and weapons.

Not to mention my phone.  Maybe I can call for
help.  The army aren’t that far away.

Randall flopped against the office door, almost too
exhausted to stay upright.  He managed to retrieve the key from his pocket
and unlock the office, hurrying inside as soon as he was able.  The door
would need barricading, perhaps with the room’s large desk, but right now
Randall just needed a minute’s rest.  His asthma was taking a firm hold of
his lungs and he needed to sit and use his inhaler.

The swivel chair almost tipped over as he fell into it, but
thankfully it steadied after rocking back and forth a couple of times.
Randall managed to let out a slow, gentle breath and felt a little more in
control.

Just one breath at a time.  In out, in out.

It was several minutes before his breathing returned to
normal.  Once it did, he could finally think again.  He was safe for
the time being and had no reason to rush a decision.  He would just bunker
down until the time was right to act.

And when I do, there is going to be hell to pay for
certain people.

He stood up and hopped over to the window.  Between the
gaps in the barricade, he could see the animals outside.  The silverback
was still amongst them.  The giant gorilla was celebrating, waving its
arms in the air like a crazed lunatic.  Randall’s eyes narrowed at the
beast.

Our war isn’t over yet, my savage foe.  The leader
of the biggest army isn’t always the one that wins.

Randall was feeling good.  The pain in his ankle was
fading to a dreary buzzing and the room was secure enough to give him time to
plan.  And time was all he needed with an intellect like his.

I’ll figure something out.  I always do.  I
just need time to think.

But Randall was distracted from his thoughts a moment later.

By the smell of smoke.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

“I don’t think I can go on,”
said Grace, her face pale from blood loss.  The wolf bite and many of her
other wounds were torn open and bleeding again.

Joe stroked her sweat-soaked brown hair out of her face, but
several strands remained matted to her glistening forehead.  “We need to
get out of here,” he said.  “Before anything else happens.  I know
that you’re in pain, but I can’t just leave you here to die.  Me and Danny
need you.”

She looked into his eyes, but seemed to find it difficult to
focus.  “You need me?”

Joe nodded.

Grace forced a smile.  It seemed to hurt her.  “I
don’t think anyone has ever needed me for anything.”

“Well, Danny and I do, and right now we need you to keep
moving with us.  Once we get out of here we can find you a doctor, get you
your pills.  Please…”

Grace put an arm around his neck.  Joe took it as a
signal to lift her up and he did so as carefully as possible.  It still
caused her a great deal of agony.

“I…I can’t, Joe.”

Joe grabbed her, placed both of his hands on either side of
her face and forced her to look at him.  “You can!  You have to!”

“I can’t.  I’m too weak.”

“You’re not weak.  You’ve held it together better than
anyone else since this entire fuckfest began.  If I didn’t have you to
help me with Danny these last few days, I would have lost it.  You’ve had
enough strength for the both of us, so don’t tell me you’re too weak.”

Grace went to answer him, but broke out in sobs.  Joe
could see how beaten she was.  He wasn’t sure if he could help her.
But if she was going to give up on him, then there was something he needed to
do first.

He kissed her – the first woman he’d kissed in years.
It was long and passionate.  Grace pulled away, but not before
kissing him back for several long and delightful seconds.  She was out of
breath when she spoke.  “What was that for?”

“For being the first person I’ve cared about other than
Danny in a long long time.”

Grace’s face scrunched up and Joe thought he had made her
feel uncomfortable.  Then she spoke: “Do you smell that?”

Joe shook his head, confused.  “Smell what?”

“Burning?”

Joe lifted his nose in the air and tugged in a deep breath
of air.  He smelt it.  Something was on fire.

“You smell it now?”

Joe nodded.  “I think it’s coming from the building.”

“Maybe Victor dropped one of the firebombs?”

“Or maybe he started the fire because he knew he was done
for.”  Joe put an arm on her back and took Danny’s hand.  “Let’s go.”

Together the three of them crept back along the wall of the
building.  At the end Joe peeked around the edge.  Nero, the
silverback was standing there, still leading his army, but he seemed calmer,
almost relaxed.

He’s celebrating.  The battle is won and he’s
celebrating.

“Look,” said Danny, pointing up at something.

“Danny!  Get the hell back!”

Danny got back behind the wall.  “I was just showing
you the fire.”

Joe looked back around the wall and up at the second floor.
Sure enough, there were several probing licks of flame coming from one of the
windows.  Joe couldn’t be sure but he assumed it was the window of the
seminar room.  It would not be long before the whole building went up.

“They’re distracted,” Grace said.

Joe watched the animals and saw that she was right.
“They seem nervous of the fire.  Maybe our plan was a good one.  Is
there any petrol left?”

Grace nodded.  “I left the can back there.  It’s
still pretty full.”

“Okay,” said Joe.  “Wait here with Danny.  If
anything comes, call out and I’ll be right back.”

Joe sped off back towards the loading bay.  He quickly
found the petrol can and matches besides the smoking remains of the dead
wolf.  He picked the canister up, pleased to find it was almost full, and
then hurried back inside the warehouse.  He eventually settled next to a
crate of magazines and brochures for the zoo’s souvenir shop.

A half-minute later, Joe had soaked the magazines with
petrol and had spilled a generous amount on the floor in narrow rivulets,
hoping to channel any flames towards other areas of the warehouse.

He lit a match.

Then he ran.

The flames shot up behind him, the heat pulsating against
his back as he sped out of the warehouse.  The popping sounds of burning
plastic filled his ears until he finally made it back to the far corner of the
wall where Danny and Grace were waiting for him.

Joe smiled at them both.  “I think I just bought us a
diversion.”

Chapter Thirty-Eight

The building took no time at
all to burn and within ten minutes the whole structure was ablaze.  Joe
wondered about Shirley and Victor.  If either of them were still alive
then they would be trapped inside.  He hoped they made it to a fire exit,
but Joe knew, deep down, that no one was left alive.  The battle had been
lost well before he’d started the fire in the warehouse.  In fact, he had
only been helping along the fire that had already ignited on the second
floor.  Everyone left inside would be dead for sure.

Except Randall.

The thought knocked Joe back a step as he realised something
that should have been clear to him.  Randall had been missing.
Despite his broken ankle, the man had escaped.

Joe’s eyes went wide.  “I have to go back inside.”

Are you crazy?”  Grace shook her head.  “No way.”

“But Randall is still inside.  I can’t just leave him
to burn.”

“He’d do the same to you in a heartbeat.”

“Exactly,” said Joe, already turning and leaving.
“That’s the reason why I have to go inside.  I’d rather risk death than be
like him.”

Joe rushed towards the loading bay.  When he reached
the entranceway he stopped.  The flames were everywhere, fierce and
consuming.  The smell of combusting chemicals filled the air.

“There’s no way,” said Grace.  “You wouldn’t even get
inside.”

She was right.  The steel shutter had dropped hallway
down and was twisted and molten amidst the flames that licked at its
edges.  Joe couldn’t go inside to help Randall even if he wanted to.

Grace pulled him away.  “Come on.  He made his own
bed, let him burn in it.”

Joe looked into the fire a moment longer and thought about
what it would be like to burn to death.  To feel the very skin peel from
your bones as the blood in your veins boiled.  Randall was human waste,
but no man deserved a death like that.  Wherever he was, Joe hoped he made
it out of the building.

After that I don’t care what happens to the bastard.

Joe allowed Grace to pull him away from the flames, and when
she did he realised that the delicate skin of his cheeks was throbbing and
tender from the heat.  “Let’s get away before this building comes down on
top of us,” he said.

At the far end of the wall, Joe once again looked around at
the animals.  They were disorganised now and anxious.  A great white
horse began rearing up and kicking out wildly at a grouping of warthogs that
blocked its path.  Even after several days of this, Joe could still not
get used to the sight of so many different animals grouped together.  As
always, they were accompanied by the silverback gorilla, Nero.  The huge
human-like beast was furious at the disorganisation and Joe watched with awe as
the gorilla swung a huge arm out and struck a male lion in the face.  The
big cat cowered and backed away fearfully.

“He’s lost control.”

“Who has?”

Joe looked at Grace.  “The silverback.  He can’t
override the animal’s fear of fire.  They’re retreating.”

Grace was excited, but couldn’t completely release the worry
from her face.  “But we used fire against them before and they came back.”

“I’m sure they’re just fleeing temporarily like
before.  The silverback will regain control of them eventually, which is
why we need to move now while we still have the chance.”

Joe looked up at the flames on the second floor.  They
were not as violent as those in the warehouse, but they had started to take a
real hold now and leapt from several windows, arcing several feet into the
blackening sky.

Joe finally left the safety of the wall and crouched down as
he moved forward.  Grace and Danny did the same and the three of them
waddled along like they were playing soldiers.  The path led off to the
front of the building, but the area there was still thick with animals.
To the right was a landscaped plot of grass that shadowed the public
walkway.  The area was lined with trees and foliage.

Joe hustled everyone along.  “Get beyond the bushes and
keep low.  There’s an aviary at the end of this path and I’m pretty sure
the car park was past there.”

The three of them kept low and dragged themselves through
the bushes and shrubs.  Joe kept glimpsing animals through the gaps in the
greenery.  He hoped they couldn’t see him.

Or smell me.  Don’t most animals have super smell?

Joe hurried everyone along, fingernails clawing at the moist
dirt as he clambered forward.  It didn’t take long before they reached the
end of the grass bank and the path beside it.  Joe checked out his
surroundings.  Despite the presence of many dead bodies – some of them
children – there didn’t seem to be any danger nearby, but of course he couldn’t
be sure.

Up ahead was the aviary, as he had expected.  It was a
long building, lined on one side with mesh fences that fastened to the
brickwork at the top.  There was no movement inside the cages.

“Keep going, but be careful,” said Joe.

Grace moved ahead and Danny crouched along between
them.  Joe left the cover of the bushes and felt rain on his face – just a
drizzle at the moment, but something about the wet smell of the air suggested
it would get heavier.

They approached the aviary.  Joe was shocked by what
they found inside.  The varied collection of exotic birds and other rare
specimens had been reduced to feathers and bloody pulp.  Every single bird
had been torn to shreds and partially devoured.  Joe saw why: at the back
of each of the cages the zookeeper’s entrances were left ajar.  Something
had entered each enclosure and systematically butchered every bird inside.

One of those bloody wolves probably.  Least they got
what they deserved in the end.

“What happened, Dad?”

Joe shook his head.  “I don’t know.  I think the
birds were all normal, so they got attacked like we did.  They couldn’t
protect themselves.”

Danny moved away from his father and over to the
cages.  He reached out one of his little arms toward the dead animals and
seemed like he was going to cry, but instead he spoke.  “Mrs. Shirley told
me the other day that animals don’t go to heaven, but I think she’s
wrong.  If you never done nothing wrong to no one then I think God looks
after you, so I think they’re all in a better place now where they can fly
around as much as they want and eat lots of worms.”

Joe was surprised by his son’s compassion and philosophical
contemplation.  He hadn’t known that Danny possessed such a capacity for
emotion, and he instantly felt guilty about it.

He put an arm around his son.  “You okay, Danny?”

Danny turned to him and there were shallow tears in his
eyes.  “Everything is so horrible.  I miss Mom, but I know she
probably ended up like the birds.”  He wiped at his eyes.  “I’m just
glad I’ll see her again in Heaven one day, but until then I have to be down
here with all of this horribleness.”

“Things are going to get better, buddy.  We’re going to
go someplace safe and all this horribleness will go away.”

Danny looked at him.  “I don’t believe you, but I don’t
want to stay here either.”

“Then let’s go.”  Joe held out his hand and Danny took
it.  The two of them turned around and were faced by Grace.  She
didn’t look happy.  “What is it?” Joe asked her.

Grace pointed back the way they had come from.  Some of
the animals had noticed their escape and were running up to engage them.
Leading the pack was a cheetah.

“Run!”  Joe shouted.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

“Run!”

The three of them sprinted and Joe felt his knees crying out
as his strides struck down at a speed they weren’t used to.  If not for
the head start, the animals would already have been on them.

Aren’t cheetahs the fastest goddamn animal on the planet?
And here’s me trying to outrun one.

Danny held the lead, his young legs combatting fatigue much
better than the two adults.  Grace was falling back, too weak from blood
loss to keep up.  Joe kept looking back over his shoulder, hoping she
would increase her speed, but she never did.

He was forced to stop and wait for her.  “Danny, keep
running,” he shouted.  “Don’t stop until you reach the car park.
I’ll be right behind you.”

Danny skidded to a stop.  “Dad, no!”

Joe shouted louder at his son and felt awful.
“DANNY!  GO NOW!”

Danny kept on running and Joe turned around just as Grace
came hurtling towards him.  “What the hell are you doing,” she
cried.  “Move it.”

“They’re too quick.  They’re going to get you.”

“Then let them.  You and Danny need to get out of
here.”

“Not without you.”

Grace looked at him.  She seemed so sad that it hurt
his heart to look at her.  She kissed him quickly on the mouth then pulled
away, holding up her arm in front of her – the one the wolf had savaged.
It was bleeding badly and Joe noticed that it gushed in a slow, pulsing rhythm.

Matching her heartbeat.

“I’m bleeding to death, Joe.  I’m barely conscious as
it is, and if you don’t get going, right now, you’ll die.”

Joe looked up at the approaching animals.  The cheetah
was still in the lead, but had slowed down, stalking them like a house cat
stalks a mouse.  It would only be moments before it pounced.

“I can’t just leave you.”

Grace was crying and Joe realised he was too.  “You
never left me, Joe.  In fact, you were the only person to ever stick by
me.”  She wiped at her eyes and a thick streak of blood stained her
face.  She fell down onto one knee.  “But I’m already dead.”

“Grace.”

“Just go!”  She was meant to shout it, he could tell,
but she was far too weak now.  “I’ll be okay,” she said.  “I’m happy
to die if it means saving you and Danny.  Then it will mean
something.  Not if you don’t move this second, though.”

Joe nodded, his tears falling thick and fast.  He
looked around and saw Danny way up ahead.  If he left now there was every
chance they would escape.  If he stayed here then Danny would end up
alone.  Or worse.

So he kissed her.

And then he ran.

Light droplets of rain began to fall from the saddening grey
sky, matching the heavy sorrow that filled his heart.  He never looked
back once.  The sound of Grace screaming in agony as her tender flesh was
hooked away by vicious claws and teeth was enough to haunt him forever.
He could not have coped with the visual.  What made it so much worse was
how long the screams lasted.  In fact, they never stopped.  Joe just
ran and ran until he couldn’t hear them anymore, trying to ignore the sight of
the torn and rotting bodies that littered his path like fleshy paving
stones.  Joe knew that Grace’s beautiful body would soon be joining them.

Danny waited for him at the zoo’s entrance.  He was
leaning up against a steel gate, trying to catch his breath while wearing the
kind of mortified look that was entirely unnatural on such a young face – a
grief that was far beyond his years.  Joe reached him and took a quick
second to catch his own breath, enjoying the sensual feeling of the rain
hitting his face, and then wrapped his arms around his quivering son.  But
they couldn’t stop and enjoy the human contact.  The chase was still
on.  They had to keep moving.

Joe noticed that the gate was fixed to a swinging mechanism
on a set of hinges.  He grabbed one of the iron bars and pulled, surprised
to find that the gate moved towards him easily.  It swung shut against the
other side of the entranceway and hit against a metal stopper built into a high
brick balustrade.  Joe looked around for something to lock the gate with
and couldn’t believe his luck when he saw a large steel padlock hanging open on
the gate’s catch.  He ran over and pulled it out, then lined up the metal
loop of the gate with the metal loop of the frame.

The padlock clicked shut and the gate was secure.  Beyond
it, the animals were resuming their pursuit, finished with the succulent flesh
of Grace’s body.  Joe kicked at the gate and screamed.  “We’re
done!  You hear me?  You can rot in this godforsaken hellhole.
You’re welcome to it.”

Lightening illuminated the sky, just as the cheetah hit the
fence at full speed.  It bounced off onto its back, stunned.  The
gate held firm.  Other animals bumped against it, too, but it was no
use.  The thick iron was designed to stop animals escaping.

And that’s exactly what it was doing.

Joe took his son and walked away, pulling his car keys from
his pocket – glad to finally be about to use them.  “Can you remember
where we left the car, Danny?”

Danny slapped a hand against his rain-soaked forehead.
“Please tell me we haven’t lost the car.”

Joe laughed and patted his son on the rump.  “Cheeky
sod!  We haven’t lost it.  We just need to have a quick look around.”

Joe began to worry slightly that the zoo’s gate would not
hold, or that some of the animals would manage to vault the high walls on
either side of it.

He trotted around the car park, somewhere between a walk and
a run, trying to think back to last week when he’d parked the car.  Things
had been so different then.  Getting out of the car with Danny about to
visit the zoo was a joyful and exciting experience.  Getting into the car
and finally leaving the zoo would be an experience that would change them both
forever.  He just hoped Danny was young enough to place it all behind him.

“There it is, Dad!”

Danny was pointing north-west towards CAR PARK D.  Joe
followed his finger and spotted exactly what he wanted.  Lying amongst the
blood-stained wrecks of family cars and tour buses was a dark blue Ford Focus
that was undoubtedly his.

“Come on!” said Joe.

The two of them, father and son, sprinted through the
increasing storm, heading for the car as though it was the saviour of the
earth.  Just to be sure that he wasn’t dreaming, Joe pressed the lock
button on the key fob and almost jumped for joy when the car’s break lights flashed.
The doors were unlocked.

Danny got there ahead of Joe and flung open the rear door,
leaping across the back seats.  Joe caught up to him and closed it, then
ran around to the driver’s side and got in behind the wheel.

The smell of the vehicle’s interior was sublime.  It
reminded Joe of boredom.  Commutes to work and trips to the
supermarket.  Nice, normal boredom.  It was so calming, in fact, that
he sat there for several moments, just listening to the drumbeats of the rain
on the bonnet.

After indulging himself for long enough, Joe put the key in
the ignition and twisted.  The engine grumbled momentarily and then roared
to life.  It was the greatest sound Joe had ever heard.  “Time to get
out of here, Dan--”

The windscreen shattered, cracks spider-webbing in every
direction.  Danny screamed in the backseat and Joe found that he was doing
the exact same thing.  The shock hit him hard and fast.  Once again
his heart was beating like a rapid-fire cannon.

What the hell?

Joe sat still for a moment, listening and trying to sense
what was going on.  Something had hit the windscreen, but what?

All of a sudden, he knew.

It was Nero.

Chapter Forty

The silverback gorilla beat
at the roof like the car was a toy drum, denting it deeper with each mighty blow.
Joe and Danny’s ceiling caved in on them, eating away at the already-limited
space they had inside.

“It’s the big monkey,” said Danny, cowering on the back
seat.

“I know.  Just keep down low.”

Joe engaged first-gear and pulled up the clutch.  When
he was sure he had the biting point he released the handbrake.

The engine stalled just as a blow took out the back window.

“Shit!”  After the week of chaos he had been through,
Joe almost couldn’t remember how to drive.  He restarted the engine and
kept the car in first gear.  He lifted the clutch again but this time
stamped down on the accelerator.  The car roared like one of the beasts
inside the zoo and shot forward.

The handling was heavy and Joe realised it was due to the
huge weight on the roof and the wet puddles on the road.  The silverback
was still above them but had ceased its attack, obviously surprised by its
platform suddenly becoming mobile.  Joe avoided some nearby parked cars
and shifted into second.  The engine went quieter as it began to climb the
new gear.  The vehicle gained speed, hitting thirty in only a couple of
seconds.  The silverback remained on the roof.

“He’s still up there, Dad.”

“I know, just stay down.”

Joe pulled into third-gear and steered the vehicle toward
the car park exit.  It was only a few hundred yards away, but Joe
struggled to see it through the broken windscreen and the thick sheets of rain
beyond it.  He picked up more speed despite all of his senses telling him
to slow down.  By fourth gear he was already doing sixty and weaving
between the wrecks of abandoned cars.

The silverback smashed its fists down on the car again,
hitting the windscreen dead-centre.  The glass fell away in clumps,
covering the bonnet and the car’s interior.

With the windscreen suddenly gone, Joe could see the road
clearly.

He saw the brick wall coming up at seventy miles an hour.

Joe stamped on the brakes so his entire skeleton rattled as
he was thrown forward in his seat.  The car’s tires bit the road,
screeching in protest as they slid.  Joe closed his eyes and clutched the
steering wheel, hard enough that his knuckles went white.

The car continued its skid.

The brick wall got closer.

With a violent lurch the rubber tires finally found a grip
and brought the car to a sudden stop.  The whole vehicle rocked forward on
its suspension.  Joe’s face hit the steering wheel and sent stars through
his vision.  He pulled himself away, dazed and bleeding.  It felt as
though his already-damaged nose had been pushed to the back of his skull.

The engine petered out and Joe looked out at the road.
He saw the silverback lying against the brick wall several feet away, a
spattering of blood and matted fur mingling with the gushing rainwater on the
road.  The creature was stunned, but still conscious.  Joe’s vision
swirled as he tried to stay awake himself.

His hand shook as he reached for the key to the
ignition.  Shook as he turned on the engine.  Shook even harder as he
engaged the reverse gear.

Joe stepped down hard on the accelerator.

The car shot backward.

After twenty metres, he jammed on the brake.  The tires
screeched.  The car stopped moving.

Into first gear and moving forward.

Second gear.

The car reached thirty.

Joe pulled into third.

“Danny, get down on the floor!”

He stamped on the brakes.

Tyres skidded on the wet road.

The car hit the wall like a missile.

Joe was out cold for several seconds.  When he
eventually came to, all he saw was pure white.  He quickly realised that
it was just the airbag deployed from the steering wheel.  He pulled and
pushed at it until it began to hiss and deflate.  When it was finally out
of the way, Joe screamed.

“It’s alright, Dad,” said Danny climbing forward into the
passenger seat beside him.  “He’s dead.”

Joe looked through the windscreen at the silverback’s face,
staring back at him from the end of the bonnet.  Any spark of life had
left the magnificent beast’s eyes.  Crushed between the wall and the
vehicle, the mighty Nero, oldest inhabitant of the zoo, had died
instantly.  Somehow Joe found that comforting.

He turned to his son.  “You okay?”

Danny nodded and smiled.  “That was cool!”

Joe laughed and then threw his head back against the seat
rest.  “It certainly was something.”

“Can we get out of here now?  I haven’t watched
wrestling in ages.”

Joe turned the key in the ignition and was astonished when
the engine came back to life yet again.  After such a collision it was
almost a miracle that the vehicle was still willing to keep going.  Joe
didn’t think about it too much as he reversed away from the wall and pulled out
onto the main road.  He was thankful for his blessings.  From the
chaos all around him, it seemed most others were not so lucky.  Battered
cars lay mangled and twisted against one another in a never-ending pile-up of
ruined steel, while torn bodies littered the crimson streets like
confetti.  The world as they knew it was over now, the natural order
forever skewed by the events of the last few days.  Joe and Danny were
entering a new world now, one where they were at the bottom of the food chain
and wild animals roamed the lands.

But there was one thing that gave Joe hope that perhaps
humanity was not quite ready to go meekly into that good night.  For
almost every human corpse that lay dead amongst the ruins, there was also that
of a dead animal.  The mutilated dogs, cats, and various other
domesticated animals that littered the sidewalks told Joe one thing was for
certain: people were fighting back.

There were still blessings to be found in this world, and
Joe’s biggest one was sitting in the seat right beside him.  Joe couldn’t
help but smile as he and his son started their journey into the unknown, their
journey into the Animal Kingdom.

Epilogue

Randall could hardly breathe
amidst the cloying black smoke.  It burnt at his eyes and dried out his
throat.  He didn’t know what had started the fire, but he had a feeling
that Victor had rigged some kind of explosive in case of his death.

And I witnessed that he is very much dead, indeed.

Randall placed his fingers against his temples and tried to
think.  He would have to leave this room soon, but then what?  The
animals were probably waiting for him, ready to rip him apart as soon as he
stepped outside the room, and even if they were not they would most likely be
waiting for him outside the building.

But I have to leave.  Either that or stay and burn.

Randall stood up from the desk and hissed as he accidentally
placed his broken ankle down on the floor.  He pulled it back up and
hopped over to the door.  The smoke was hot and blinding, coming from
under the door in thick, velvety waves.  He closed his eyes and fumbled in
his pocket for the key to the room’s lock.  When he found it, he wasted no
time in unlocking the door.

Outside was a disorientating mixture of bright-orange flame
and jet-black smoke.  Randall looked left and right and saw no animals,
but also saw no exit.  The corridor was aflame at both ends.  In
front of him was the seminar room.  It was no doubt where the fire had
started and the books and wooden shelves would have provided all the fuel the
fire needed, but now it was simply a smouldering black husk and no longer in
flames.

Randall hopped through the charred doorway and instantly
felt some relief from the heat of the corridor.  Wind rushed in from the
far side of the room and, where there had once been a wall with a window, there
was now only a hole.  The entire side of the building had come away.
Randall hopped forward again and fell onto his hands and knees as the floor
beneath him gave way.

The floor was brittle and blackened.  He would have to
be careful where he put his weight lest he fall right through it.  He had
no plan in his mind other than to remain in this room while the rest of the
building burned around him.  Perhaps the fire would finally attract help
and bring someone to his aid.

About time the army got here.

Randall crawled forward and encountered the grizzly sight of
Victor’s corpse.  The man’s body was crisped right down to the bone and
his skeleton was blackened and exposed in several places.  One of the body’s
arms was completely missing, but Randall assumed that it was ripped off by the
animals before the fire had begun.

Over at the far end of the room, Randall reached the floor
end.  On his chest he pushed forward until his arms and head were hanging
over the edge.  The air was fresher here and Randall took the opportunity
to take in a series of deep breaths.

Beneath him the animals went wild as they spotted him.
Hooting, barking, screeching and making an all manner of inhuman noises, they
glared up at him with hunger in their eyes.

Whilst the animal army had thinned, it was still approaching
a hundred in its number, mostly smaller creatures, now, like warthogs and
llamas.  They surrounded the building and never once took their eyes off
Randall.

Randall pushed himself back up onto his knees and then
slowly up onto his one good leg.  He looked down at the animals and
spat.  The globule of spit was lost in the billowing smoke and he did not
know if it hit a target.  He bellowed with laughter.

“You will not have me!  A leader chooses his own
death.”  Randall placed a hand over his heart as if he were addressing the
nation from some great palatial balcony.  “And as any great leader would
do, I choose to go down with my ship.”

Randall stretched his arms out wide on either side of him
and looked up and the grey sky.  At that exact moment the gentle drizzle
burst into a full-grown downpour.  Randall took it as a sign.
“Deliver me, Lord, from my enemies.  They shall not have me.”  He
looked down at the baying animals below.  “You hear that, you
fuckers?  You shall not have me.”

Randall leapt, expecting to feel the wind through his hair
as he plummeted towards salvation, towards the next life.

All he felt was the floor as his entire body splintered upon
impact.  Not a single muscle in his entire body would answer him as he lay
there, still – but he was not dead.  He knew that much.  As he lay
there, he saw an ant scuttle towards him and into his ear.  The feeling
was intense and vivid.  Somehow the fall had not dulled his senses.
As the animals surrounded his body, he knew that it was going to be the
worst and final agony of his life. They began to eat him alive.

The pain was a hundred times worse than anything he ever
imagined.

And it went on forever.

CLOCKING OFF

“So when will you be able to go back
to work?” Jeff’s wife asked, sitting herself down on the sofa opposite him.

Jeff shrugged and took a bite of his sandwich – cheese and
ham.  “God knows.  Things were pretty bad when I left.  The
whole plant was billowing smoke a mile into the air.”

His wife raised her eyebrows.  “Do you need to get
yourself checked out?  What if you’ve breathed in something nasty?”

Jeff had been concerned with the very same thing
earlier.  Stote Chemicals, part of the US/UK conglomerate, Black Remedy
Corporation, held patents for thousands of different chemicals and compounds,
most of which were manufactured right at the processing plant where Jeff
worked.  Today, when a flash fire took out half the building in a few
short minutes, the first thought on his mind was whether or not he was being
exposed to something that could kill him – some nasty disease that would start
with a tickling cough, but end with his face melting off.  Despite being
shaken when he had returned home, so far Jeff physically felt fine (aside from
his eyes being a little red and sore, irritated from the airborne soot of the
fire).

Jeff shrugged.  “The foreman told everyone to go home
and call a Doctor if we develop any symptoms, but he told us all that the only
chemical that was released into the air was a compound called SIRT1.  It’s
a substance found in red wine apparently – possibly a cure for diabetes, they
say.  Completely harmless from what the guys on the mixing-floor tell me.”

His wife sighed.  “Let’s hope so.  I really wish
you could work maintenance somewhere else – somewhere safer.”

Jeff leant forward in his armchair and patted his wife on
the knee.  “This whole thing is likely just a bunch of animal protesters
kicking off at Black Remedy as usual.  Far as I know, they don’t even use
test subjects anymore, but that doesn’t stop the hippies targeting them.
Whole thing gets on my tits, if I’m honest, I don’t mind telling you.”

Jeff’s wife squeezed his hand on her knee.  “I know it
does, honey.  People should just concentrate on their own lives instead of
causing trouble.  How’s your boss handling things – Mr. Rankin?”

“Randle.  It’s Mr. Randle.  Lucky for him, he was
off doing meetings all morning.  I think he was at the zoo signing off on
some investment deal.  Fat git probably would’ve had a heart attack if
he’d been there when the fire started – if his asthma didn’t kill him first,
that is.”

Jeff’s wife stood up from the sofa, her middle-aged knees
popping audibly.  “Well, there’s nothing to be done about it now,
sweetheart.  I’ll go put the kettle on while you put your feet up.
Lord knows you deserve it.”

“Okay, luv, thanks,” said Jeff.  Resting back into the
worn padding of his favourite chair felt good, relaxing.  Maybe a couple
days off wouldn’t be so bad.  He could catch up on some reading – he’d
been meaning to tackle Under the Dome for months now – or he could watch
the Rugby; maybe do both.  The plant would probably be operational again
in a day or two, but until then there was no need for getting worked up.

King sauntered into the living room without sound, bushy
black tail swishing circles in the air behind him.  The cat was almost ten
years old now and getting plump in its old age.

Jeff smiled and wriggled his fingers on the carpet to
attract his pet.  “Hey, boy, come to Daddy.  You’re wondering why I’m
home, ain’t ya?”

King meowed and padded eagerly across the carpet.  The
cat’s coat bushed up as Jeff ran his leathery hand over it, loose fur coming
away in clumps as the animal raised its rear end into the air with
ecstasy.  The tomcat enjoyed his fuss as much as ever.

“That’s a good boy, King.  Come on.”  Jeff clicked
his fingers above his lap, letting the cat know that it was alright to jump
up.  King happily obliged, leaping up onto his master’s thighs and
writhing to and fro as the fussing continued.  The cat’s purring started
up slowly like a revving motor.

Jeff felt himself relax and closed his eyes for a moment,
letting the morning’s stress melt away.  The sight of his workplace going
up in flames was almost like a dream now.  Everything there was so
high-tech that the notion of an industrial accident seemed impossible.
Stote Investments was part of one of the biggest corporations in the world, but
it seemed that even they were not adverse to cutting corners when it
came to the construction of their facilities.  They had paid the price for
that today.

Jeff re-opened his eyes when he felt a presence near his
face.  His beloved cat, King, had stretched out his body, so that his
front paws were on Jeff’s chest.  The cat’s face was only inches from his
own.

“What you doing, little man?” Jeff asked his pet.

King did not answer.  Instead the cat bit into Jeff’s
cheek, needle-like teeth piercing deep to the bone.  Jeff screeched in
unexpected agony and leapt from the armchair.  King remained attached to
his face like a furry leech.

Jeff’s wife rushed into the room and quickly added to her
husband’s screams.  Jeff fell to his knees as a white hot sickness seized
his entire body in thickening waves of shock.  The cat continued to rip
and tear with its carnivorous jaws – jaws made for rending flesh.  Blood
flowed down into Jeff’s open mouth, choking him as he struggled to pull King
from his face.

Jeff’s wife thrust the steaming hot cup of tea in her hand onto
the cat, but it did nothing to deter the attack and only added to Jeff’s agony
as the liquid scorched his skin.  Eventually the pain become so intense
that Jeff managed to find the force needed to rip the savage creature away from
his face, shredding his own flesh to weeping tatters in the process.

Lying on his back in a heaving, semi-conscious mess, Jeff
could just about make out, through his dimming vision, his wife smashing his
beloved cat, King, into a bloody pulp with a steam iron.  As he finally lost
consciousness, he managed to think one last thing to himself:

Don’t panic, woman.

HOWARD’S END

Thirty-six acres of woodland around
a house most people could only dream of.  Howard still found it hard to
believe he was so lucky.  One book – that’s all it had taken.  One
crime novel, written in his spare time, and Howard had found himself a
millionaire.  It was a big change from selling carpets for a living and,
if he was honest, he was still unsure how to deal with the luxuries that had befallen
him since a publisher had found gold in his words.

The indoor swimming pool, the sauna, the billiard room, the
outdoor hot tub – they were all wonderful possessions, but somehow they just
magnified the lack of the one thing Howard wanted: companionship.

Howard had been single for over two years now, not because
he was unattractive, but more so because he had developed a shyness and need
for privacy that was not conducive to finding a mate.  People had let him
down often enough that he had stopped participating in the social contract of
collecting friends while constantly trying to pick up women.  He found the
whole thing very tiresome and, at times, hurtful.  Maybe that’s what his
reclusiveness was really all about: hurt.

Howard entered the woods of his land and stepped around the
giant oak tree that marked its beginning.  Fallen branches snapped
underfoot as he walked, making sounds that seemed to echo off the surrounding
trees.  The smell in the air was crisp and piney, almost
intoxicating.  This was the best part of his wealth – owning his very own
slice of nature.  A piece of land that was only his and the animals that
lived on it.  No one else’s.  Howard had taken to spending every
morning walking through the woods, seeking out the many birds, deer, and rabbits
that adorned the landscape.  Then, in the afternoon, he would work on his
new novel: The Manson Files.

Howard had written his debut novel, Manson P.I.,
after his girlfriend, Grace, had left him.  It was the only way he found
that he could occupy his grieving mind.  He had loved her dearly since the
day they had met in high school.  In fact, in Howard’s entire life, he had
never loved anything else.  She had been the greatest comfort in his life;
beautiful, sweet, and endlessly caring.  Grace had been his best friend,
his partner, his family, his everything.  Then she left.

To this day, Howard never knew fully why the love of his
life had left him so suddenly.  It certainly wasn’t due to
mistreatment.  He had never hit her or cheated her in the eight years he’d
known her, or the three years they had been a couple.  Howard had treated
Grace as well as any man could.  Yet she had left without
explanation.  The only clue to gain anything by was that she had visited a
doctor in the same week.

Howard knew that Grace had a history of mental illness on
her mother’s side and her greatest fear was ‘going crazy’, but he had never
seen any sign of that.  In the weeks and days leading up to the breakup,
Grace started to behave skittishly: locking herself away in the bathroom for
hours on end, wearing strange clothes that seemed to cover every inch of her
flesh, and even refusing to eat.  Then she had gone to see a doctor.
She left Howard two days later.  He could only assume the two things were
connected.

A pair of rabbits ran across the clearing, several yards
ahead.  They dove into some nearby bushes when they noticed Howard’s
presence.  He watched the rabbits and allowed his mind to come back from
maudlin thoughts of lost love.  There was too much to enjoy here in his
woods to let himself to ruminate on things past.  Nature was free from
caring, and when Howard was around it, he was carefree too.

Another pair of rabbits appeared in front of him, only this
time they did not bolt at his presence.  Instead they sat and stared at
Howard, examining him intently.  Peculiar.

“Hey, bunnies.  What you up to?”

The rabbits continued staring.

Howard wrinkled his brow and took another step forward,
expecting the small animals to run away.  But they did not and instead
took a step towards him.

“You’re brave little fellas, aren’t you?”

The rabbits took another step forward and, inexplicably,
Howard found himself stepping backwards.  There was something unnerving
about the creatures; their lack of fear where fear should be present.

The rabbits continued towards Howard.

Howard continued moving away but was startled by something
behind him.  He spun around to find an entire colony of rabbits standing
in a line behind him, blocking his path home.  Howard wasn’t yet afraid,
but he was approaching it.  Rabbits were not frightening by anyone’s
imagination, but there were just so many of them.  Hundreds of pairs of
eyes boring into Howard with something that was unnatural for such timid
creatures.

When the rabbits lunged at Howard, all at once, he froze in
absolute shock; the absurdity of the situation too much for his brain to
handle.  When the creatures began biting into him with their razor-edged
incisors, the situation became even more unfathomable.

The last twelve months of Howard’s life had been extremely
lucky – he was a millionaire author and a breakout sensation.  But there,
in the woods he now owned, his luck finally ran out.

THE HUNT

When you have shot one bird flying
you have shot all birds flying. They are all different and they fly in
different ways, but the sensation is the same and the last one is as good as
the first.

Ernest Hemingway said that, and he was right.  Hunting
is a human endeavour as old as history itself – something every man has buried
deep within his breast.  To kill a lesser animal is the most natural thing
in the world.

But all that ended in 2004, when Blair’s liberal propaganda
finally made its way into Parliament.  They banned fox hunting outright
and turned us all into pariahs.  A law passed by peasants for no other
reason than the resentment of refinery and class.

My name is Clive Middlesex, and I am Master Huntsmen,
descended from a dozen Master Huntsmen before me, and I am now also a
criminal.  They made me one, for I continue to hunt despite their wretched
ultimatums.  Hunting is in my family’s blood.  It is my right.

The hunt is on, our quarry ahead.  Red foxes flee our
hounds with the desperate intensity that only the fear of death can
provide.  This, my friends, is life.  This is living.

“That was great, Clive.  Will be good in the sound edit
when we overlay it on top of videos from the hunt.”

Clive smiled proudly at the journalist, rather pleased with
the speech as well.  “Good, it’s about time someone took a stand.  I
will not lie down for the unschooled peasants any longer, and if that makes me
a martyr, then so be it.”

“There’ll definitely be those that support you as well,”
said the journalist.  “It’s still a hot debate.  Anyway, thank you
for allowing me to be the one to record your story.”

“My pleasure.  Now, let us retire to the stables.
They’ll be getting our horses ready.  I take it you can ride?”

The journalist blushed from behind his notepad.  “Not
well, I’m afraid.”

Clive shook his head and almost spat at the ground.
“Then how the bloody hell do you expect to keep up with the hunt?”

The journalist cleared his throat, seemed to steel himself
slightly.  “We have set up several cameras across the glen that will
capture the hunt as it passes by.  We will be able to get a grand,
sweeping view that way.”

Clive liked the sound of that.  Grand sweeping
view.  He adjusted the lapels of his bright red huntsman jacket and raised
his chin.  “Very good.  Shall we commence?”

The journalist nodded.  “Of course, after you.”

Clive led on, the seedy little wordsmith following closely
behind.  The family’s stables were just a few lengths up ahead.
Marcus, his stable hand, was busy getting Petronella ready for him, fastening
the bridle securely on the prize mare, ready for the master’s mount.

“Good man, Marcus,” he said, reaching the stables and taking
the reins.   “We’ll be ready for tea at noon.”

“Very good, sir.”  The stable hand walked away, heading
for the Manor.

Clive turned to the journalist who was continuing to take
down notes.  “You sure you’re not willing to ride?  It’s the ultimate
thrill, man.”

“No thanks,” the journalist waved a hand, “but I’ll be here
when you get back.”

Clive hoisted himself up onto Petronella and secured his
feet into the stirrups.  He immediately felt comfortable, as though he had
returned to a place he belonged – the saddle of a noble beast, surveying the
lay of his vast lands.  A king of his estate.

Petronella trotted slowly towards the end of the paddock,
heading for the open gate.  Once through, entering the fields of the
Middlesex Estate, Clive coerced the beast into a canter.  The other
huntsmen, along with the pack dogs, would be waiting for him atop the nearby
hill, as well as the first of many cameras that would be rolling to catch the
majesty of the pursuit.

Patronella
slowed down as her hooves met the incline and Clive gently manoeuvred her up
the hill.  Near the top, he began to hear the jovial banter of his peers
and looked forward to joining them.

But Petronella stopped suddenly, unwilling to move another
step.  Clive whipped his riding crop against her rump and kicked his
heels.  “Onwards!”

As if never stopping in the first place, the horse started
moving again.  Clive decided to ignore the animal’s momentary
insolence.  She had most likely been temporarily spooked by some sound
that his human ears could not detect.  Still, Petronella knew better than
to disobey her master.

The many fine gentlemen of the hunting club, along with a
dozen yapping beagles, were gathered loosely together at the knoll’s peak.
Clive quickly joined them, excitement growing in his heart with each passing
second.  They greeted him merrily as he came and Clive raised a hand to
get their attention.

“A fine morning we’re having today, gentlemen; as brisk as
it is sober.  A perfect day for a hunt.”

The group cheered as he said the word for which they had all
gathered.  The dogs began wagging their tails joyously in response to the
commotion.  They too were anxious for the games to begin.

“We are an endangered species,” Clive continued.  “Men
with the very essence of the countryside running through our blood yet forced
to deny it.  They have tried to extinguish our right to manage our own
lands in our own ways, but that is something we will never allow
willingly.  These ancient lands have belonged to my family for centuries
and as their current custodian, I permit you the right to spill blood in the
honour of sport.”

More cheers erupted and the men began to bring their mounts
together, ready to set off in formation.  Clive made his own way to the
front of the pack, looking down the hill and over the fields.  A gentle
haze of airborne moisture seemed to hang several inches above the ground.

Clive held his crop above his head and thrust it
forward.  “Let the hunt commence.”

Instead of galloping forward, he found himself flying
backwards.  The horse reared up and bucked Clive from the saddle.  He
hit the unforgiving mud behind him and let out a pained yell.

The bodies of his fellow huntsmen hit the ground all around
him as their own respective horses reared up in the same way that Clive’s had.

“What the hell is going on?” he demanded to no one in
particular.

Clive watched in shock as one of his fellow huntsmen was
kicked and trod on by his horse, a deep, bloody dent misshaping his skull as mighty
hooves connected with skullbone over and over again.  The gentlemen
screamed all around him as each of the horses attacked them.

Clive managed to roll out of the way, just in time, as
Petronella kicked out at him.  He got to his feet as quickly as he could,
panicked beyond anything he had ever felt before.  Heading downhill, he
managed to pick up a great deal of speed, but he knew that it would be nowhere
near enough if the horses gave chase.  But such a thing was unconceivable
anyway.  The horses would not attack premeditatedly, only out of
fear.  That is what must have happened, Clive considered as he hurtled
down the hill.  The horses were just startled into some sort of
mania.  A tragic turn of events, for sure, but explainable in a logical
way.

Clive reached the bottom of the hill and looked back behind
him.  Thankfully, the horses had not pursued him, still trampling over the
bodies at the top of the hill.  The beagles were fleeing the scene though,
same as he was, heading down the hill as a closely-knit pack.

Clive waited for them to catch up, regaining the breath that
his body needed in the meantime.  The dogs quickly barrelled into him,
knocking him onto his back.

“Whoa there, fellas.  I’m scared too.”

Clive began to stroke the dogs, hoping to calm them down,
but as he did so, they continued to pile onto him, in danger of smothering him.

“Hey, get off me!”

Clive felt a pair of slick jaws close around his hand.
One of the dogs wished to play.

The jaws clamped shut and Clive screamed.  The force increased
quickly, until he felt the fragile bones begin to snap.  Before Clive had
any chance to scream louder, another pair of jaws seized his throat, cutting
off any sounds he was yet to make.

He was forced to lay there, in choked silence, while a dozen
of the finest hunting dogs in all of England ripped him apart piece by
piece.  For the first time in his life, Clive Middlesex knew how the fox
felt.

Home

Jane had been watching the news
reports for the last twenty minutes.  The images shown seemed more like
scenes from a horror movie than real life.  Animals were attacking, people
were being killed all over the country and beyond.  Jane couldnot believe
such things at first – obviously a hoax – but then she saw the video footage
and could no longer dispute it.  The last thing she witnessed, before the
horror became too much for her to bear any longer, was from a supermarket CCTV
camera.  The grainy pictures showed a blind man with his guide dog walking
down the aisles.  Seconds later, the dog was ripping the helpless man to
shreds – then moving on to other terrified shoppers.  Something was very
wrong with the world and that terrified Jane.  Not for herself, but for
her son.

Jane had called Danny’s father, Joe, a dozen times already,
but had hit an answering-message-brick-wall every time.  She didn’t want
to accept it, but she knew that the stupid Luddite of a man had not taken his
phone out with him – he never did – despite her constant chastisement.

Joe hadn’t been around for a while, trying to get his life
in order, and Danny had been so excited when his dad had unexpectedly offered
to have him for the weekend – Jane was, too, if she was honest about it.
Now, though, she wished more than anything that her ex-husband had stayed the
hell away.  Because of him, her precious child had gone to visit the zoo
on the day when animals had gone completely crazy.  Because of him her son
was in danger…perhaps dead.

A tear fell down Jane’s left cheek as that realisation
finally burrowed its way into her brain.  Danny and the man she’d once
loved – still loved – were gone forever.  The government had informed the
news journalists that a state of emergency was in effect and that all residents
of the UK should stay securely in their homes.  Avoid animals at all
costs.

But by heeding that advice, Jane was alone, isolated.
She had not spoken to anyone since the events started and knew nothing of
whether or not her friends and other family were safe – maybe she did not even
care.  She was safe here at home, but her son was certainly not.

The lounge was full of photographs and she took the time to
look at them now, picking up a wooden framed picture of her, Danny, and Joe at
the beach, ice creams in hand.  Happier times.  A time before that
big lump of a man had ruined it all.  For a secretary, no less.

She didn’t blame Joe…at least, not anymore.  When he
had first admitted what he had done, she had been livid, broken,
distraught.  She’d kicked him out of the house immediately and filed for
divorce the next day.  Lately, she wasn’t so sure that had been the right
thing to do.  It seemed drastic now.

Jane tried to call Joe again, but faced the frustration of
voicemail once more.  She placed the phone down on a shelf in the living
room and went into the kitchen.  The main window in the room overlooked a
large garden, surrounded by several towering elm trees.  There was
movement outside.

In the garden, Jane watched as a small group of woodland
creatures gathered: rats, squirrels, and foxes – even a badger.  The
animals were circling  an injured magpie, biting and clawing at it
cruelly.  Obviously the birds were under the same threat as humanity – a
target for all other species.

Carefully, and quietly, Jane grabbed the twist-handle for
the kitchen’s blinds and turned them shut, not wanting to find out what would
happen if the animals saw her inside.

She wondered how long this all would last.  There were
too many animals in the world for the army to kill them all, so perhaps the
only hope was for everything to go back to normal.  If this was just a
temporary phenomenon, then how long would it take?  And if it wasn’t
temporary, how long did she have?  The cupboards were only stocked for a
few days – life and death survival not having been on her most recent shopping
list.

She wished she were not alone.  She wished she had
never pushed Joe away.  He had been a weak man – a man like many others –
but a good man, a caring man.  Jane knew he would have been far too naïve
to instigate things with his secretary and was probably just the victim of the
woman’s predatory advances, but that still didn’t make his actions right.
Joe had done a terrible thing, yet…as Jane thought about things lately, she
became surer and surer that she could have forgiven him, and that they could
have gotten through things as a family.

But such musings were just the tortures of an isolated
mind.  Jane would do better to think of kinder things.  Thoughts of
her son and ex-husband would drive her to a maddening despair that she would
never escape from.

Through a slim gap in the blinds, Jane saw the animals
finish with the magpie, leaving behind a tattered corpse of bones and
feathers.   They had been joined by more animals now, more foxes, and
several rabbits.  As one, they all sat and stared at the house.  Jane
knew that they were looking for her.  Perhaps they had seen her before,
tending the garden or washing the car.  Whatever the reason, Jane could
tell that her presence inside the house was not a secret to them.  They
would be coming for her.

Jane was shocked to find herself smiling.  The thought
of being victim to a mass animal attack was comforting.  The thought of
being isolated in this empty house, waiting for death (or a rescue that might
never come) was not.  If Danny and Joe were gone, then she was ready to join
them.

The animals in the garden came closer, and Jane went out to
meet them.

Behold, the Beasts of War

You can no more win a war than you
can win an earthquake, someone once said, and Corporal Nick Robson thought
about that now.  In the last two days and nights, he had pumped magazine
after magazine through his SA-80 assault rifle, expending countless rounds into
a dozen different species.  His entire life Nick had been an ardent dog
lover but, by his calculations, he had murdered at least twenty of the
four-legged friends in the last two days, ever since they started attacking
with the unnatural malice of the demon-possessed.

Nick just couldn’t comprehend what was happening.  What
experiment had gone so wrong in order to send the world’s population of animals
into a killing frenzy?  Some countries had been lost already, too light in
armed forces to control the outbreak.  The governments of Switzerland,
Norway, Poland, and others had already ceased responding with the British
Government and one could only now speculate as to their condition.

The US and other allies were dealing with situations in
their own territories and could offer no assistance to anyone else.  The
UK Government was fragmented and shaken and conflicting orders were coming
through from separate branches all the time.  Eventually, the ranking CO,
Captain Bishop, of the Leicester operation had decided to exercise
autonomy.  Things had gone beyond taking thoughtless orders from anxious
politicians in their bunkers.  Only the men on the ground, fighting this
war could make informed decisions, and that was why Bishop had taken charge.

Nick fired a round as yet another cat approached from a
nearby roof, trying to sneak behind the lines from above.  The animals
were smart, working together in ways that should have been impossible.
They sent the rats in first, to distract and dis-order.  Then, while the
army’s ranks were busy, stamping and kicking at the rodents, they would send in
packs of sprinting dogs to ravage the troops before they had a chance to
retaliate.  Nick had seen hundreds of his squad mates torn apart in agony
– not to mention countless civilians.

But, for now, things had settled down somewhat.  The
remaining forces were already wiser, more aware of their enemy’s capabilities.
Barricades had been set up, and the civilians were now armed with various tools
and other salvaged weapons that they could beat the rats with whenever they
attacked.  This left the soldiers and their small arms to concentrate on the
bigger threats from the more dangerous animals.  Things had been pretty
quiet for the last few hours though – except for the cats.  There had been
lots of cats.  Nick was starting to form an opinion about just what that
meant.

“You think they’ve had enough?” asked a Private named
Collins.

Nick kept his eyes on the road ahead, but shrugged his
shoulders in response to the question.  “I doubt it.  Probably just
rethinking their approach.”

“That can’t be it,” said Collins.  “They’re just dumb
animals.”

“Not anymore.”

Collins put down his rifle and took out a pack of
cigarettes.  He lit one with a disposable lighter and placed it into his
mouth.  Inhaling deeply, the man’s entire body appeared to relax under the
nicotine rush.  “Well, we can take ’em.  Bunch of bloody pets and
farm animals.”

Nick looked through his SUSAT sight and spotted a lamb with
a gore-soaked mouth.  The small, fluffy animal was galloping towards them
from a side road.  Nick took aim and fired.  The lamb flew back,
half-exploded by the impact of the 5.56mm bullet.

“Shit, man.  Nice shot.  Didn’t even see that one
coming.”

Nick said nothing, just stared at the road, waiting.
There would be more to come.  Perhaps there would forever be more to
come.  This was a nightmare that could very well be without end.

The base in Leicester was one of only a few successes in
this war.  When the armed forces had first mobilised, they had intended to
launch rescue operations in several dozen locations.  Less than ten had
managed to gain a permanent foothold and establish a rescue operation.

There was currently a platoon of twenty out looking for
survivors, while just fewer than eighty bodies remained behind to defend the
outpost – less than half of those were trained soldiers.  In a city of
tens of thousands, a handful of souls were all that was left.

Nick had joined the army to fight terror – to fight
evil.  Now he found himself fighting for existence – not just for himself
but for the whole of humanity.  This was the end of days, for sure.
The result of some failed experiment or man-made disease had doomed the entire
planet.  The latest Intel suggested that biological attacks had struck
worldwide zoos simultaneously.  This whole thing may have been the work of
a mad man with an agenda.  Such a fickle cause of the apocalypse just made
things worse.  At least God’s wraith would have had some higher purpose.

The meek shall inherit the world.  But who would have
thought that the meek would be the animals, willing to be enslaved no longer?

“You wanna play cards?” Collins asked, but Nick ignored the
request.  Too many of his comrades had died carelessly because they had
not taken their enemy seriously.  He would not do that – could not, in
fact.  Feckless soldiers like Collins would get people killed.  Nick
would not allow any blood to be on his own hands.

He took aim and dropped another cat.  They would attack
again soon, Nick felt it.  The cats were just the eyes in the sky, sent to
gather information, and to identify the base’s weak spots.  Nick hoped
there weren’t any.  But the animals had gotten smart.  They would
find a way in, one way or another.

With careful aim, he dropped another cat.

Sanctuary

Caroline was bleeding.  From
where, she could no longer tell.  Her arm ached from a dog bite and she
was pretty sure that some of the tender bones of her wrist had broken.
There was also agony in her legs from a dozen different rat attacks, where the
dirty rodents had drawn blood with their malicious fangs.  Yet, somehow,
she was still standing.

Walking down the middle of the road, Caroline felt woozy
enough to lie down and sleep, but she could not.  Her blood would entice
any animals nearby and she was no doubt being tracked as it was.  If only
she could take a car, she would feel much safer, but that was no longer an option.
Crumpled vehicles littered the streets and made driving impossible.
Walking was the only mode of transportation left, but one almost certain to
lead to death.

There had been a group of more than thirty when Caroline had
started her journey, over a week ago, for an army base in Leicester.  They
had hope of rescue and thoughts that there would be somewhere secure to wait
this whole thing out.  For every member of that group, except her, all
hope had come to nothing.

Yet, she still moved on, stepping over the corpses of both
animals and human beings – from guinea pigs to dogs, from children to the
elderly.  The Earth was now a warzone.

The base must be near – God how she prayed for it to be
near.  Caroline’s legs would not carry her much further, but she had
passed through the outskirts of the city of Leicester some time ago.  She
must be getting closer.

Up ahead was a mass of more bodies, only this one contained
solely animals.  Perhaps that explained the lack of curs, tabbies, does,
badgers, and cows on this stretch of road – someone had killed them all or
scared them all away.  Someone like a group of soldiers.

Caroline did what she could to go faster, limping along on
two bad legs, swinging around her useless left arm.  She imagined she
looked just like a zombie from one of those hokey old movies.  The thought
almost made her laugh, but that, most likely, would have just caused more pain.

She reached the pile of dead animals and examined them in
detail.  Although it was mostly a bloody mess, Caroline could see dozens
of apple-sized wounds – bullet holes from high-powered weapons.

Caroline’s hopes lifted as she became certain that sanctuary
was within reach.  The area had been cleared of threats by an organised
force.

Caroline broke into a staggering run, heading down the road
without knowing for sure where she would end up.  For the first time in a
week, she felt safe.  She was going to live.

She rounded a bend in the road and found herself faced with
a wonderful sight.  At the end of the street was a barricade made from
parked vehicles and bits of recovered masonry.  It looked just like the
entrance to an army base would in these circumstances.

Excited, Caroline headed for the barricade, but, after only
a few steps, she tripped.  Looking down, she examined the road’s surface
for the cause.  There was a child’s backpack lying near her feet.  It
was tattered and worn, with a colourful picture of that man from the
television.  A wrestler, Caroline thought, called the Undertaker.

Caroline did not want to think why the item was here – it
seemed pretty obvious – so she ignored it and continued onwards.  The
barricade wasn’t far ahead.

She took more steps, her legs numbing with the constant
onslaught of pain.  She was almost there now though, only several metres
away.

Caroline cried out as she reached the barrier, throwing
herself against the bonnet of a burned-out Escort.  “Hello!  I need
help.”

There was no reply, only silence.  A bitter taste of
dread filled her mouth along with saliva.  The feeling compelled Caroline
to pull herself up from the car bonnet and navigate the barricade.  There
was a gap between two slabs of concrete and she headed for it.

When she got there, Caroline noticed the blood that stained
the edges of the wall.  She followed the crimsons spatters downwards,
towards the floor, until she saw the body of a man too young to die.

The name tag on his shirt read ROBSON, but did not have his
first name.  Caroline mourned his loss as much as she mourned her own
losses.  The base was empty of living souls and now any hope she had was
gone.  The bodies of dead soldiers and mutilated civilians covered the
outpost, not one left alive.  The amount of deceased animals made it clear
that a battle had been fought here – and lost.  By the end, the rescuers
had needed rescuing themselves.

Caroline slumped back against the concrete slabs and slid
downwards to the floor.  It was all over for her.  Even if there was
someplace else safe to go, she would not be able to make it there.  Her
wounds had finally gotten the better of her, not of her body, but of her
exhausted mind.  Caroline was ready to die.

As a variety of animals emerged from various places,
doorways and cars, Caroline did just that.  By the time she stopped
breathing she wondered if she might well have been the last person left to die.

BOOK 4 OF 7

THE PICTURE FRAME

1

“Keep it steady, move
slowly, or we’ll never find a thing.” Blake watched his son wave the metal
detector around like a sword and sighed. Whenever Ricky did anything, he did it
fast. The boy did not walk, he ran. He did not eat his dinner, he wolfed it
down. Life was not a stroll for Blake’s exuberant ten-year-old, it was a mad,
arm-flailing sprint.

“I’m trying, Dad, but it’s not doing nothing.”

“Anything. It’s not doing anything.”

Ricky swatted a greasy strand of brown hair out
of his eyes and huffed. “Help me.”

“Okay, okay.” Blake trudged across the field. It
wasn’t Ricky’s fault he was having so much trouble; the thing was old and
heavy, as much a relic as anything they hoped to find buried. “There you go,”
he said, helping to guide the wand. “Just like that, back and forth. Now you’re
getting it.”

They quickly covered an area about the size of a
tennis court—and got nothing. The wand beeped rhythmically the entire time, but
never got excited. Blake remembered combing the sea side with his own father
and finding loose change galore. He wanted Ricky to feel that same rush of
adrenaline upon hearing a metal detector screech. But it had all been
one great disappointment. Ricky was clearly growing bored with what he likely
considered a waste of a Saturday afternoon.

It was difficult for a father to entertain his
son in the 21st Century. Television and toy companies were the ones
in charge, not the parents. Ricky would rather spend his days with grumpy birds
on his iPad than in a field looking for buried treasure with his dad. Kids
weren’t excited by the thrill of adventure anymore, they wanted instant
gratification; and if they could get it while sitting on the sofa, all the
better. Blake wouldn’t mind so much, but he wanted his son to grow up into a
relaxed, content adult; not another stressed-out consumer, forever reaching for
the next rung on the endless ladder of modern affluence. Blake wanted to teach
Ricky the things that were actually important.

Ricky let the metal detector sag to the ground.
“Can we go inside now? It’s getting cold.”

“I suppose we should. I didn’t bring your coat.
Didn’t think we’d need it.” Blake placed his hands on his hips. “Okay, let’s
head back, then.”

With a hop, skip, and a jump, Ricky started down
the sloping field towards home. The mid-century cottage was two miles away from
anything else with plumbing. The added solitude had saved Blake’s life. Buying
the quaint cottage, with its cobbled stone walls, original fireplaces, and
thatched roof, had been a desperate gamble to escape the endless cycle of
stress that plagued him. Getting away from the city and grabbing six acres all
his own had returned to Blake his freedom, which had previously been eaten up
by credit card bills, mortgage statements, noisy neighbours, gas-spewing
traffic, cold-callers and, of course—the straw that broke the camel’s
back—crazed fans finding his address.

Being the nation’s most treasured mystery writer
since Agatha Christie wasn’t all it had cracked up to be. The money was great
and the work was soul-enriching, but the whining editors, greedy publishers,
and spiteful critics made life a constant cycle of negativity. Blake was truly
blessed for what he did, but that blessing was also a curse. His job and his
life had become one. The phone calls, emails, and social media postings never
ceased. The publication of his next novel, immediately followed by another, was
all anybody cared about. New York Times Bestseller or not, Blake had needs
beyond writing books and making money.

So, three years ago, he’d used the advance money
for two of his upcoming releases and purchased the run-down, yet beautiful Poe’s
Place cottage. The property was surrounded by an undulating field, while a
long, gravelly driveway set it well back from the seldom used B-road that led
there. The fresh air brought Blake’s heels back down to earth and reminded him
to concentrate on taking one breath at a time.

“Dad, why do foxes always poop in our field?”

“Where do you suggest they go?”

“In the hedges, or something. Not right where I
can step in it.”

“I think they do it to mark their territory.”

Ricky fiddled with the metal detector’s strap
over his shoulder and gave his father a quizzical look. “Mark their territory
for who?”

“Other foxes. If a strange fox comes along and
sees droppings, they know to stay clear. It’s how a fox lets other animals know
whose turf it is.”

“But this is our turf. You bought the field and
now a fox is shitting in it.”

Blake pointed at his son. “Language! Your mother
hears you swearing, she’ll hit the roof.”

“I’m ten, not two.”

“You’re still a new-born as far as she’s
concerned, so watch your mouth. Anyway, I kind of like having a fox around the
place. Reminds me I’m in the country. Besides, he might have been here before
us. Maybe he thinks we’re the intruders.”

“The country is boring.” Ricky kicked a stone
embedded in the dirt and sent it spinning into the air. They both watched it
roll down the hill.

“You’re lucky to grow up in a place like this.”
Blake tried to sound enthusiastic. “Better than I had as a boy. I know the
country is quiet, but believe me, things are worse in the city.”

“Why?”

“They just are. Everything is too busy. Everywhere
is cracked, broken, and dirty.”

“The country is dirty.”

Blake sighed. “No…no, it’s not. It’s clean, and
nothing ever breaks in the country. Nature heals itself. A tree falls down,
another grows in its place. Take our cottage, for instance. When we moved in it
was broken down and smelt bad, remember? Because nobody had lived in it for so
long, weeds had taken root and there were rats and mice. The oak trees along
the driveway were all overgrown and it was hard to even see the place from the
road, remember?”

“There were spiders everywhere,” said Ricky,
nodding.

“Yeah, spiders, too. Nature saw nobody was living
in Poe’s Place, so it moved in. Nature makes the best of things; it
always copes. In the city, things just fall apart. When you’re older you’ll see
that.”

“Maybe, but I still hate all the fox shit.”

“The city has dog shit, and that stinks a whole
lot worse. And mind your language.”

“Sorry. Hey, when we get back can we have pizza?”

“The pizza place doesn’t deliver here. I’d have
to go out.”

“Pleeease.”

Blake sighed. “Okay, let me thi—”

Whhhhaaaaaoooooooooow!

Blake looked at his son, who was standing like he
had a live grenade in his hand.  “Ricky, you’ve got something.”

“What do I do, what do I do?”

Wahhhowowowoooooo!

Blake laughed. He pulled the trowel he had
strapped to his belt and held it up. “You dig, silly. Here, take this.”

Ricky grabbed the trowel from his father and
knelt beside the imaginary X spot. The noisy detector swung around his neck
like a musician’s guitar.

“Here, give that to me.” Blake took the metal
detector and clicked it off.

Ricky struck the dirt with the trowel and split
open the mud. Luckily it had rained that morning and the ground was yielding.
Liz wouldn’t be pleased about the grass stains working their way into Ricky’s
jeans. She was forever shouting at their cocker spaniel, Bailey, for running
mud into the kitchen.

It wasn’t long before Ricky was puffing with
exertion. He’d dug a hole a foot wide and had gone down by about the same. It
was wonderful to see him so excited. Blake just hoped it didn’t end in
disappointment—like the manhole cover he’d unearthed one day when he was about
the same age. Blake had dug for more than forty minutes to get at the shiny
chunk of metal, before eventually realising it was nothing fantastical or
ancient, but simply a chunk of iron from an old sewer grate.

“We should’ve brought a shovel,” said Ricky.
“What if it’s huge? It’ll take all day if it’s a Roman shield or something.”

Blake dropped down beside Ricky. “Let me take
over,” he said. “We’ll take it in turns.”

And so they did. For twenty minutes they took
turns, digging until their forearms burned. At one stage, Blake double-checked
with the metal detector to ensure something was definitely there. The speaker
whined deliriously to let them know that indeed there was.

Five minutes later Blake hit the edge of
something with the trowel. It made a clinking sound.

“Did you hear that?” yelled Ricky.

“Yeah, I heard it. Here, you do the last part. It
was your find.”

Ricky beamed and took the trowel. “Thanks, Dad.”
He dug furiously, his vigour renewed. The soil gave way and the buried object
started to reveal itself. Whatever it was, it was covered in some kind of
sackcloth. Ricky grabbed an exposed corner and started pulling it up.

Blake wondered if they should be more delicate.
What if they really had found something valuable? The last thing they wanted
was to smash it into pieces by being heavy-handed. However, it was too late to
say anything because Ricky was already tumbling backwards with the muddy sack
clutched securely in his hands.

“I got it,” he yelled. “I got it!”

Blake grinned. “Yeah, you got it, son. Let’s take
a look.”

Ricky lay the sack on the ground carefully,
brushing its surface and delicately removing any dirt and debris. “What do you
think it is, Dad?”

“Only one way to find out. Open it.”

Ricky reached inside the sack.

Blake suddenly felt a wave of nausea, like he
needed to eat. It quickly passed as a light breeze grazed the back of his neck.

Ricky slid out a black hunk of what looked like
aged wood. He examined the item in his hands, turning it over carefully.
“It’s…a picture frame.”

Blake frowned. The solid wood was stained so dark
that it was almost black and the edges were finely carved with intricate
patterns. An iron stud held a rudimentary stand in place at the back, which
must’ve been what’d set off the metal detector. “It looks old,” was all Blake
could think to say.

“Maybe it’s an antick,” said Ricky.

Blake chuckled. “We’ll have to get it valued. Ha!
Perhaps you’ll have enough money to buy your own PlayStation this Christmas. I
can use the money I save to buy myself a new writing desk.”

Ricky pulled a face. “No way! You promised me a
PlayStation and you can’t get out of it. Anyway, I don’t want to sell this.”

Blake folded his arms to shield himself against
the cold. “What do you want with a dirty old picture frame?”

“I dunno. We found it together, buried all the
way in the ground. I want to keep it.”

“Okay, we’ll get it all cleaned up, then.”

Ricky leapt to his feet, grinning from ear to ear
and clutching the frame tightly against his chest. “I can’t wait to show Mum.”

Blake scooped up the muddy old sackcloth from the
ground and straightened it out. “We should check there aren’t any messages
inside. Sometimes people bury things hoping they’ll be found years later.”

“Like a time capsule,” said Ricky.

Blake nodded. He reached inside the sackcloth and
felt a twinge of excitement when his fingers brushed something at the bottom.
All of a sudden he was a kid again, scouring the beaches with his own father.
Perhaps he and Ricky were about to find out the story behind the mysterious
picture frame. Maybe they would find a letter written by an old grandfather a
hundred years dead, leaving behind a memento for younger generations to find.

It didn’t feel like a letter at the bottom of the
sack, though. It was something loose and hard. Blake grabbed a fistful of
whatever it was and removed his hand from the sackcloth.

When he opened his fist, he grimaced.

“What is it?” Ricky was staring at him
expectantly.

Blake dropped the bone fragments back inside the
sack and shoved it into his jean pocket. “It’s just some worms and stuff,” he
lied. “Must have crawled inside and died.”

“And you just shoved your hand in them. Ha!”

“Cheers, son. Now come on, let’s go show Mum what
you found.”

“Yay!”

The two of them set off down the field, heading
back towards Poe’s Place and the inviting warmth of its natural fires.
It had suddenly got very cold out in the field.

2

Blake unlocked the
front door and Ricky charged inside. Liz was home, but Blake still preferred to
lock up whenever he left. After what had happened at their home in the city, he
wasn’t willing to take any risks. If he had his way, he would build a large
brick wall around the property and a gate, but Liz didn’t want to feel trapped.
They’d compromised and installed an alarm system. They’d also built a kitchen
annex onto the property, which was where Liz was now.

“Mum, look what I found!” Ricky zoomed through
the galley kitchen and joined his mother by the range cooker at the back. The
heat it gave off made it all the way to the reception hallway where Blake
stood. He was stuffing the sackcloth full of bones into one of the pockets of a
coat hanging in the entranceway.

Liz turned from her cooking and smiled at Ricky.
Her blonde hair was tied back, making her look all business. “Oh, wow! What is
it? Did you find that with the metal detector?”

“Yeah, it was buried way down in the dirt. It’s
an old picture frame. We had to dig it up.”

“I can see that from the state of your clothes.” There
was a subtle hint of irritation in her voice, and Blake knew it was directed at
him.

Blake grabbed himself a coke from the fridge and
asked Liz if she wanted anything.

“No,” she raised a large glass of red. “I’m good
for now.”

Blake checked his Citizen to find it was a little
past four. He might join her with a glass later. He was an enthusiastic drinker
— just like his brother and father — which was why he made such an effort to
limit himself. “Ricky did really well,” he told her, “a natural treasure hunter
if ever I saw one.”

“And here I was thinking you wouldn’t find a
thing. Well done, honey,” she said to Ricky. “Now, why don’t you take off those
dirty jeans and I’ll throw them in the wash before dinner.”

“What are we having?” asked Blake, pulling the
tab on his coke. “Smells good.”

“Special spaghetti.”

Ricky pumped his fist in the air. “Woohoo! I love
special spaghetti.”

Blake did too. He didn’t know what Liz made it
with, but the bits of bacon mixed with the tomatoey pasta was divine. His
saliva ducts loosened at the thought of it. “Saves me having to go fetch a
pizza,” he said.

“You told Ricky you’d get a pizza without
checking if I was making anything first?”

“What? No, he just asked and…sorry.”

Liz sipped her wine and patted Ricky on his head.
He was now standing in his underpants. “Go get washed and put some fresh
clothes on. You look like Mowgli.”

Ricky frowned. “Who’s Mowgli?”

“Never mind, just go.”

When Ricky left, taking his prized picture frame
with him, it gave Blake the opportunity to approach his wife in private. “You
okay?” he asked her. “You seem upset.”

She sighed and dropped her head. “I shouldn’t
take it out on you. I’ve just been on the phone with my mother. She’s on one,
as usual.”

Blake sighed. The old dragon had a knack for
upsetting his wife with a thirty-second phone call. “What has she said this
time?”

“Oh, nothing, if you ask her. She’s without
fault.” Liz breathed deeply and sighed. “Oh, you know, just her usual: telling
me how lonely she is, how she’s cooking a roast for just herself, and that
she’s forgotten what Ricky looks like.”

“She saw him last week.”

“Exactly. She’s trying to say she wants to do
something with us, but she’ll never come out and say it. She prefers to play
the victim and guilt-trip me. I’ve just had too many years of it now. It gives
me headache.” She took another gulp of wine.

Blake gave her tense shoulders a squeeze. “We’ll
do something with her in the week. I don’t know why you let her get to you.”

“She’s my mother. God knows you have enough
issues with your own family. Your father was a drunk, your brother too, and as
for your mother…”

Blake felt himself getting wound up, but took a
breath. He reminded himself that Liz was stressed—and stress was something
Blake understood well. He’d be a hypocrite if he didn’t give his wife a free
pass from time to time. “You’re right,” he said. “Families are a nightmare, but
you’ve got me and Ricky. We have your back, honey.”

Liz took another hearty swig of wine and placed
the empty glass on the counter. She fumed for a moment more, but then her
expression softened. “She just has a way of making me really mad, you know?
She’s always been like it. Always passing judgement with her snide comments.  I
know she raised me on her own, and that she loves me, but…” She made a growling
sound.  “She just makes me so mad sometimes.”

“Fuck her,” said Blake before he could stop
himself.

Liz gawped at him. He expected her to fly off the
handle, but she ended up laughing. “Yeah, you’re right,” she said. “Fuck her.”

Liz picked up her wine glass and filled it from a
new bottle. It was then that Blake spotted the empty one in the sink. He
wondered if she’d polished off the whole thing today, or if it’d been
half-empty when she’d started.

Blake shuffled his feet on the tiles.  He never
used to feel awkward around his own wife.  “So…what you fancy doing tonight?”

“Watch a film, maybe? What’s that new one, with
all the apes taking over the world?”

“Gorilla Warfare? I don’t think it’ll be on
WebWatch yet. I’ll find us something, though.”

Liz took another gulp of wine, then gave him a
wet kiss on the lips. “Thanks, honey. I do love you, you know?”

“I know. I love you too. You’re a good daughter,
so don’t let the old bag grind you down.”

She nodded.  “Just let me get dinner sorted and
I’ll be fine.”

“Okay. Give us a shout when you’re ready.”

Blake went into the main house. As soon as he
opened the door to the hallway, Bailey bounded down the stairs towards him. The
blue roan cocker spaniel was a menace to the groin, and she managed to land
both front paws directly into Blake’s tender area. He bent forwards and
grunted. “Hey, Bailey. Did you miss me? I would’ve taken you treasure hunting
with us, but you’re a bloody lunatic.” Bailey had a habit of sprinting off into
the distance every chance she got, an insatiable urge to just run.

Bailey whined excitedly and wagged her tail.
They’d gotten her as a pup six years ago to get Ricky used to dogs, but she
hadn’t lost any of her energy with age. Moving to a place in the country had
only served to increase the cocker spaniel’s excitable nature.

“Come on, girl. You’re in the way.”

Bailey plonked her bum down and tilted her head.
She offered her paw.

“I don’t have any treats on me. Go fuss Mummy and
she might give you a chew.”

Bailey barked. Blake managed to shift her aside
with his foot and make his way to the family room. The family room was an
open-plan dining room/lounge at the front of the cottage that was also part of
the modern extension. There was another, more traditional lounge on the other
side of the property, where the original cottage stood, but the family room was
where they spent most of their time.

The older Ricky got, however, the more difficult
it became to keep family time going. The boy’s bedroom was slowly turning into
a man cave, with its flat screen television and confusingly named videogame
consoles stacked beneath it. Blake grew up with Nintendo vs Sega, but the
waters seemed to have got murkier since then—and children were more partisan
about their gaming choices than most political parties were about their
manifestos.

Blake sat in one of the room’s two reclining
armchairs and raised the foot rest; his arches ached from the uneven ground of
the field. Blake flicked on the wall-mounted LCD situated above the fitted bar
in the corner of the room.

The news came on mid-broadcast.

Commissioner Palu, head of the UK’s Major Crime
Unit, was waffling on about whatever today’s threat was. Something about a
terrorist cell planning an attack on the country by infecting hospital patients
with infectious diseases. The commissioner was followed by Prime Minister
Breslow, who gave a speech about whatever Middle Eastern conflict Britain would
be interfering with next.

Blake switched the television back off again. It
might’ve been selfish, but the fear of terrorism and global conflict was
something he’d chosen to leave behind in the city. He made a point not to lend
his attention to the horrors of the world. Those were for someone else to deal
with.

Ricky came sprinting into the room. He’d changed
into his pyjama bottoms and a Brody isn’t Dead t-shirt. The picture
frame was clutched against his chest. “I gave it a clean,” he said proudly.

Blake stood and took the picture frame from his
son, giving it a once-over. “Hey, you got it looking good as new.” It was
strange, but the picture frame was spotless. Even after a thorough clean, Blake
wouldn’t have expected it to come up so well. The ingrained carvings were now
clear of debris and appeared even more intricate. With his thumb, Blake traced
images of flowers and flames, interwoven like a garden on fire. It was a
strange design, like nothing he’d ever seen before. It wasn’t pretty, exactly,
but there was something captivating about it.

“I’ve got a picture to put in it,” said Ricky,
pulling something from his pyjama pocket. “It’s a picture of Bailey. Can we put
it on the side table with all the others?”

Blake looked over at the crammed side table in
the dining area and wondered if there was even enough room for another frame.
Liz was an avid picture-taker and had filled the table with scenes from
Orlando, Barcelona, Armação de Pêra, Port El Kantaoui, and other places he
couldn’t even remember visiting. They were memories of their previous lives;
the one he’d removed them from for their own good.

Blake shuffled the frames around until there was
just enough room to fit one more. “There you go,” he said.

Ricky was grinning. He placed the picture frame
on the table and edged it backwards, shoving aside a picture of Liz and her
mother in Gran Canaria. Once the new frame was set in position, Ricky stood
back and admired it. It was strange how unblemished the glass was, having been
buried for at least several years.

“You going to put the photograph inside, then?”
asked Blake.

“Yep.” Ricky lined up the photo of Bailey with
the gap at the top of the frame, then slid it behind the glass carefully.
“There,” he said, “perfect.”

It was a nice picture: a rare snapshot of Bailey
sunbathing in the garden. It was taken last summer, if Blake recalled
correctly. “It looks good,” he said. “You should be proud. That frame might
have been buried for decades, but now it’s all cleaned up and sitting in our
lounge. You did that.”

Ricky smiled widely. “It’s really cool, isn’t it?
Can we go treasure hunting again tomorrow?”

Blake tussled his son’s hair. “Maybe.”

There was a sudden bang that forced them both to
jump, followed by what sounded like screeching tyres.

“What the hell was that?”

Ricky’s eyes were wide and his lower lip
trembled.

Liz started screaming from the kitchen.

Blake raced through the house.

When he reached the kitchen he was unable to
disguise the panic in his voice. “What is it?  What the hell happened?”

Liz was sobbing and couldn’t speak. She pointed
out the kitchen window.

“What is it? What…” Blake stared out of the
window, out at the B-road running past the end of the driveway, and covered his
mouth in horror. “Jesus, no.” He raced out of the kitchen and flew through the
open front door.

Had he left it open?

The white van was already fading long into the
distance as it sped along the B-road, impossible to identify, but it had left
Bailey behind, lying where she’d been hit. The cocker spaniel was broken, her
tongue lolling with every agonising pant. Blake ran over to her as quickly as
if it’d been Ricky lying there.  Ricky was hurrying up the driveway behind him,
but Blake spun around and shouted at him to stay back.

Liz grabbed the boy and ushered him inside.

Blake got to his knees beside Bailey and went to
touch her, but recoiled. He didn’t want to cause her any more pain by
carelessly prodding at her. The only parts of her still moving were her ribcage
which heaved, and her eyes which were fixated on Blake. They seemed to be
pleading with him to make the pain stop. Maybe she was wondering why this had
happened to her.

Blake decided to place a hand against her muzzle
and stroked gently over her head. A soft whimper escaped her, but then she was
gone; a bloody mess right outside her home.  Her killer had fled scot-free, no
witness within a two-mile area to grab the license plate number or flag the van
driver down.

Suddenly, Blake loved the country a little bit
less.

3

There was nothing the
vet could do. Blake had offered to bury Bailey in the garden, but Ricky
surprised him by saying no. He didn’t want her at home, upsetting him. He knew
she was in a better place and that her body didn’t matter anymore. Besides, he
didn’t want the fox in the field digging her up.

Liz and Blake gave their son a huge hug, and paid
the vet to do what needed to be done. Before she did, though, she gave Ricky a
pen and paper to write a goodbye note. It could be placed next to Bailey when
they cremated her. Ricky wrote something quickly, making sure nobody else read
it, then handed it over with tears in his eyes.

Then they drove home in silence. Blake knew his
son was hurting, but was surprised by how much he was as well. All of the times
Bailey had misbehaved, making him shout or scold the dog, came back to haunt
him now and made him well up with tears. He knew, deep down, that Bailey had
had a good life, however short. It didn’t change the fact that he would happily
endure a thousand more doggy punches to the groin if it would bring her back.

Liz sat in the passenger seat, rubbing her
forehead and turning an unhealthy grey. Blake suspected she had a hangover from
the several large glasses of wine she’d downed whilst making dinner. A drink
sounded good right about now, so a hangover was most likely in his near future,
too.

It was dark when Blake dropped Liz and Ricky off
at the house and headed off to get pizza. The special spaghetti would have to
wait for another day. Liz was in no mood to cook.

The pizza place was in the high street of the
nearby town of Redlake. The town wasn’t much more than a village, in truth, but
it had a lot of history and character, which Blake had found attractive when
considering his purchase of Poe’s Place.  The town’s eponymous body of
water was bordered by a 12th century Cistercian Abbey-turned-museum.
Blake took Ricky there once to learn about the town’s history and how it had
got its name, but it hadn’t gone down particularly well.

The monks at the abbey had once produced dyes and
pigments; the runoff from which had turned the lake red, thus giving the town
its name. Back then, nothing lived in the lake, but now it had been repopulated
by the council and made into a nature reserve. Sport fishing, sailing, and bird
spotting all went on at a place that once resembled a lake of blood. It was
just another example of how nature prevailed, even after mankind had wrought
its destruction.

Blake turned his Citroen Picasso off the
roundabout and pulled into a small car park outside a row of shops. He parked
in front of the pizza place, DiMarcos, which was sandwiched between an
Indian takeaway and a chippie. At the end of the row was a hairdresser and
grimy laundrette.

A couple of people formed a queue inside the
chippie, but the rest of the shops were empty or closed. Blake entered the
pizza place and stood in front of the counter. It took a few minutes for
anybody to appear from the kitchen, and that was accelerated by Blake coughing
and clearing his throat loudly.

“Hey,” said a teenaged boy in a red baseball cap
and baggy blue shirt.

“Hello, could I get a large Chicken Deluxe and a
medium Margareta, please?”

“Gunna be about ten minutes, mate.”

“No problem.” Blake took a seat on a bench by the
window. He checked his watch: 8:30. He couldn’t believe how quickly the last
few hours had rushed by. He still hadn’t properly processed what had happened.
Had he left the front door open when he’d come back from the field with Ricky?
The more Blake thought about it, the more he was sure he had.

He’d killed his son’s dog.

No, some jackass in a white van had killed
Bailey, and then sped off like a coward. Blake wished he could get his hands on
the driver. Animal cruelty left a particularly sour taste in Blake’s mouth.

What made the situation even more tragic was how
Ricky had delighted in placing a photo of Bailey inside his newly acquired
picture frame. As soon as he had done so, Bailey had been struck down and
killed. It was the very essence of cruel irony, a spiteful jab of coincidence.

The ten-minute wait turned into twenty and Blake
was in a sleepy daze by the time the teenaged boy shouted at him. “Ready, mate.
Fourteen-ninety-eight.”

Blake reached into his pocket and pulled out a
tenner and some coins. He took the pizzas and left without waiting for his
two-penny change.

He returned to the car and slid the pizza boxes
onto the passenger seat, but before he started the engine, he rubbed at his
eyes with balled fists. He felt weary and mildly unwell, like he had a cold
coming. Hardly surprising considering the shock he’d suffered. Grief had a way
of crippling the immune system.

He drove home on autopilot, parking on the
driveway without even realising it. When he headed inside with the pizzas, the
kitchen was dark, so he went on through to the family room. He found Liz,
laying back on the recliner and watching TV with a glass of red in her hand.

“Hey, I got the pizzas. Where’s Ricky?”

“He was upset so I put him to bed. He’s been
asleep for half-an-hour. What took you so long?”

Blake placed the two pizzas on the bar and
measured himself two fingers of Scotch. He plonked down on the recliner beside
Liz and sighed. “I didn’t realise I was that long. The pizzas took a
while to cook, but I was quick as I could be. You hungry?”

“Not really.”

“Me either. They’ll keep. Cold pizza is as good
as warm.”

“I can’t believe what happened,” said Liz. “How
did she get out?”

“I think…maybe I left the door open.”

Liz looked at him like she was about to go off,
fireworks fizzing in her eyes. Instead she took a sip from her wine glass and
sniffed. “Don’t tell Ricky that. He’ll never forgive you.”

“That’s a bit extreme. I should admit what I did.
He’ll understand.”

“He’s a ten-year-old boy who just lost his dog.
Lying to him is kinder.”

Blake thought about it, but couldn’t make up his
mind. He didn’t like lying to his son, but perhaps Liz was right. She usually
was. “Okay,” he relented. “I’ll keep it to myself. How is he?”

“He’ll be okay. Something all boys have to go
through, I suppose. I still remember when my rabbit died as a little girl. Mum
had to sit with me all night while I cried. Still makes me sad.”

Blake stroked her arm. “I’m really sorry. I screwed
up.”

Liz didn’t say anything. She polished off what
was left in her glass and headed to the bar. “You want another Scotch?”

“No, I’m good, thanks. Haven’t made a start on
this one, yet.”

Liz poured herself another large helping of red,
then shivered.

“You cold?”

“Yeah, it’s a bit chilly.”

Blake nodded. “Maybe it’s time to start putting
on the heating again.”

“Maybe. I’ll get the fire going in the other room
and we can watch some TV.”  She picked up the pizza boxes from the bar.  “I’ll
go put these in the kitchen for later.”

Blake rolled the Scotch around in his glass and
smiled. “Okay. I’m just going to sit for a while. I’ll join you in a bit.”

Liz half-bent towards him, as if she were going
in for a kiss, but seemed to change her mind and just left instead.

Blake took a sip of whisky and stared into space
for a while.

When he finally got up to leave the room, he went
over to the side table and placed the picture of Bailey face down. “Goodbye,
girl,” he said, before switching off the light.

4

Surprisingly, Blake
slept well. He’d thought he would lie awake until the early hours, but instead
he was gone the moment his head hit the pillow. He’d assumed Liz would do the
same, but when she awoke beside him the next morning, she looked like she’d
barely slept a wink. There was a pint of water on the bedside table and she
downed it in one.

“You okay?” asked Blake, rubbing the sleep from
his eyes before sitting up. He felt worried, but couldn’t pinpoint what about.
Sometimes he just woke up feeling bad, afraid and anxious. It was part of who
he was. Sometimes a worrier worried for no reason. Sometimes, if there really
was nothing at all to feel bad about, a worrier would worry about worrying.

Liz swallowed audibly and spoke with a voice made
of ash. “I’m fine. Just got a bit of a headache.”

Blake thought about how much wine Liz had drunk
last night, but didn’t bring it up. “Okay, maybe there’s some Ibuprofen in the
bathroom.”

Liz winced and rubbed at her temples. “Yeah, or
maybe some Codeine.”

“I thought I might work in the office today.”
Blake made the decision as he said it. “I know it’s Sunday, but my anxiety is
playing up and it might help if I get started on a new book.”

Liz gave him a look partway between irritation
and understanding. “Whatever you want. Did you take your pill last night?”

Blake cursed. “No, I forgot! No wonder my head
feels so fuzzy.”

Every night, Blake took an SSRI to help control
his Generalised Anxiety Disorder. He’d been diagnosed with it in his early
twenties, which had finally made some sense of the emotional rollercoaster that
had comprised his teenage years. His constant worry and flip-flopping emotions
had been due to a chronically low threshold for stress. The normal parts of
growing up had sent him spiralling into drinking binges and irresponsible
sex—both ways to self-medicate his unhappiness. His brother, Stevie, had a
similar temperament but had turned to booze instead of a doctor.

Blake’s therapist once told him people were like
buckets and stress like drops of water.  Too many drops in the bucket would
make it overflow, and that was when people panicked. Anxious souls like Blake
had smaller buckets than people who coped with stress well.

The fact that Blake had missed his pill explained
why he’d woken feeling so worried. He would be anxious today, there was no way
around it, but it would pass. There would also be a healthy dose of dizziness
once the withdrawal began, but it was nothing he wasn’t used to.

“You want to take your pill now?” asked Liz.

“No, I’m not supposed to do that. I’ll just have
it tonight. I’ll be okay. Won’t be the first time I’ve missed one. It just
makes me a bit anxious and fuzzy-headed.”

“Perhaps you’d better work, then.”

“That’s the plan. I need to get started on something
soon, anyway. It’s been a while.” It had been six months to be exact. While
Blake had no current commitments — he made it a rule not to sign contracts for
books he’d not yet written — he knew that writing more novels was what kept his
career going. Readers wanted to fall in love with an author’s library, knowing
that there would be more to come. Reader and author could be a lifelong love
affair and, like a marriage, it needed tending to.

Blake and Liz got out of bed and changed. Neither
of them felt like a shower so they brushed their teeth and headed downstairs
together. They found Ricky in the dining room, staring at his picture frame
with hands on his hips. He was still wearing his pyjama bottoms but was
bare-chested. “Where’s the photo of Bailey?” he demanded. “Who changed it?”

Blake glanced at the picture frame in his son’s
hands and saw that the photo of Bailey had been replaced with a family photo: a
day out in Torquay that featured all three of them, as well as Liz’s mother,
Val. Modest trips to the English Riviera suited Blake better than the lavish
international vacations they’d used to take.

“I changed it before I went to bed,” said Liz
softly, moving towards Ricky.

Ricky shrugged away from her. “I want the photo
of Bailey back.”

Liz nodded. “Okay, no problem, sweetheart. The
photo is in the drawer. You can put it back if you want. I just didn’t want it
to upset you. You said you didn’t want to bury Bailey here because it would
upset you, so I thought…”

Ricky ignored her. He delved into the drawer
beneath the side table and snatched at the photo of Bailey. He grabbed the
wooden picture frame and fiddled with the top edge. A few moments passed. Ricky
went red in the face. “I can’t…get it…out!”

“Here, give it to me,” said Blake.

Ricky didn’t so much pass the frame to his father
as shove it at him. Blake wondered if he should scold him, but decided not to.
Blake tried to open up the frame and replace the picture, but couldn’t manage
to pry it open. He looked at Liz and raised a curious eyebrow. “How did you
change it last night?”

“I just pulled it out the top. Give it here.”
Blake passed the frame to her. “I just pulled it from behind, like…I…I can’t
get at it.”

“Give it back!” Ricky snatched the frame from his
mother and raked his fingers along the edge. He was furious, cheeks bulging as
he strained.

Blake tried to take the picture frame away from
him. “Ricky, calm down.”

“Fuck it!” Ricky dropped the frame on the ground
like it had stung him.

Liz’s eyeballs bulged in their sockets. “What did
you just say?”

Ricky had his finger in his mouth and was sucking
it. He realised what he’d said and shrivelled up and backed away.

Liz stepped towards Ricky, but Blake put a hand
on her shoulder and stopped her. He decided he should be the one to address
what had just happened. Calmer heads prevailed.

“Ricky, you are never to use that word, do you
understand me?”

Ricky pulled his finger from his mouth long
enough to say, “You use it all the time.”

“I do not.”

“Yes, you do. In your books. You always use it.”

Beneath his hand, Blake felt Liz trembling with
rage.  “My books are for adults,” he said. “You shouldn’t be reading them,
Ricky.”

Ricky looked at the floor. “I just wanted to know
what you wrote like. You spend ages in your office sometimes, so I just wanted
to know...”

Blake frowned.  “I haven’t been at work for
months. I’ve been home with you and Mummy.”

Ricky kept his eyes on the floor and shrugged. “I
guess.”

Blake sighed and Liz softened. She no longer
looked like she was ready to explode. Blake noticed blood coming from Ricky’s
finger. “What did you do to yourself?”

“I cut it on the glass.”

Blake picked the picture frame up off the carpet.
There were no sharp edges or broken glass, not even from the fall it’d just
taken. He ran his own fingertips along the edges and felt nothing. “Hmm,
perhaps we should just throw it away.”

Ricky stamped his feet. “No! We found it
together. It’s ours and I want to keep it. I just want the picture of Bailey
back in it.”

Blake set the frame down on the side table. He
studied the photograph inside and smiled. “I like the picture that’s in here
now, but we can decide whether to change it or not later. We’re going out for
the day.”

Liz glanced at Blake, confused. “I thought you
were working. Your anxiety?”

“Isn’t getting any better, but perhaps some fresh
air would help. We’ll go to Stratford for the day, pick up Grandma Val along
the way. Two birds, one stone.”

Ricky stopped sucking on his injured finger long
enough to give a wide grin. “Yay, Grandma.”

Liz smiled. She still looked a little grey, but
better than when she’d first woken up. “You sure you don’t mind taking us all
out?”

“Of course not. I think we could all do with some
fun. Go get changed, Ricky. Liz, you want to give your mum a call?”

Liz kissed him on the cheek. “Okay, but first I’m
going to put a plaster on Ricky’s finger. Come on, terror.”

Ricky went obligingly with his mother, who only
two minutes ago had looked ready to kill him. Blake found himself alone in the
room, so he decided to take another look at the new photograph in the frame.
Blood from Ricky’s finger had spattered the glass, covering Grandma Val’s face.
Blake chuckled. “Always knew the old bat was a vampire.”

He licked his thumb and wiped the stain away
before putting the picture frame back and heading out to start the car.

5

The mood in the car
was better than it had been at home, and by the time they picked up Grandma Val
from her bungalow in Wilmcote, they were all giggling and chatting away. Ricky
was telling them how he was going to go treasure hunting again to find more
picture frames. He’d decided there was a set of them and that the rest were
buried in the area. The idea sounded naive to Blake, but the worst that could
happen was they had a bit of fun.

The collective good mood turned south when Val
heard about what’d happened to Bailey. “No…no, I don’t believe it,” she said.
“That poor, sweet little dog? How did it happen? Oh, Ricky, you must be feeling
awful, my love. How did she get out?”

What annoyed Blake most was that Val absolutely
detested Bailey. She hated dogs and had kept a vicious cat named Bobby for
almost twenty years. It’d clawed anyone who ever came near it, other than Val,
and lived like feline royalty. Blake used to wonder if Val loved that cat more
than she did Liz. She’d certainly treated the thing better.

“She got out into the road,” said Ricky sadly.
“She got hit by a van.”

Val tutted. “I’m always saying you need to get a
gate, living in the wilderness right next to a busy road. Insanity.”

Blake gripped the steering wheel a little
tighter. “It’s not a busy road.  It hardly gets any traffic.”

“Well, how did Bailey get run over, then? I won’t
even mention how easy it is for someone to just turn up and rob you. There
isn’t a single neighbour nearby that could help you.”

“We have a security alarm. The police will come
within five minutes if we need them.”

“That’s if you can even get to the panic button
by the time someone turns up and knifes you.”

Liz was looking ill at the subject of intruders.
“Mother, can you not talk like that in front of Ricky, please?”

“He’s a man now, he should know whether or not
he’s in danger. Have you told him about what happened when you lived in the
city?”

“What happened in the city?” asked Ricky.

“Nothing,” snapped Liz. “Mother, be quiet. Bailey
got run over because of plain bad luck. She didn’t suffer and we’ll miss her.
End of story.”

In the rear view mirror, Blake saw Val fold her
arms and pout.

“I found a picture frame, Grandma,” said Ricky,
changing the subject and releasing the tension. He’d already told her about it
once, but he was so proud of the thing that he obviously needed to tell her
again.

Val beamed. “Did you, now? A picture frame, you
say? What an odd thing to find.”

“It was buried in the ground. Me and Dad found it
with the metal detector. It went Wheeeeeeeeeeeee!”

“Really? Been years since I seen a metal
detector. Pity I wasn’t around, I could have come treasure hunting with you.”

“I’m going to do it again soon, Grandma. You can
come then.”

Blake cut in, but he knew it would already be too
late. “Ricky, your grandmother is too busy to walk around a muddy field with us
in winter.”

“I’m never too busy to spend time with my
wonderful grandson. I won’t be around forever.” She grasped Ricky’s hand and
looked into his eyes. “You just let me know when, sweetheart, and I’ll be
there. Your dad won’t mind picking me up.”

Blake and Liz exchanged glances, both gritting
their teeth.

When they finally reached Stratford-Upon-Avon,
the October air had lost most of its chill. Blake parked on a tree-lined street
beside the river. It was a stroke of fortune to find such a great spot; even
Val approved.

Everyone got out and grabbed their jackets from
the boot. There was a football inside, too, which Blake gave to his son. There
was a large playing field further down the river. Ricky saw himself as the next
Lionel Messi, and Blake had to admit the kid was pretty good. Better than he
had ever been as a kid, which in fairness, was not particularly skilful.

“Can we get a whippy?” asked Ricky as they
crossed the road towards an ice cream truck.

Blake nodded. “Go on, then. We can all have one.”

“Yay, me and Grandma will order. Can I have some
money?”

“Grandma and I,” corrected Val. She
glanced at Blake. “Don’t you teach the boy English? I thought you were a
writer?”

“I am a writer. You may have heard of me
from the New York Times or the Guardian, or maybe you might have caught me last
year on Bright Morning Britain?”

Val grunted. “No need to get a big head with me,
Blake. And don’t worry about the ice creams, they’re on me.”

“Don’t be silly, Mum,” said Liz. “We’ll get
them.”

“Why? Because you don’t think my pension will
stretch far enough? Don’t you worry about me. I might not be a bigtime writer,
but I can afford to buy my family ice cream.” With that she stomped away,
dragging Ricky behind her.

Liz shook her head at Blake and groaned.

Blake waved a hand. “I know, I know. I should’ve
kept my mouth shut.”

“She’ll be a nightmare now, and since when do you
act all cocky like that? It usually kills you to admit that you’re a writer. It
embarrasses you.”

He shrugged. “I missed my pill, didn’t I? My fuse
is a little short today.”

Liz surprised him by giving him a quick hug.
“Well, you got your shots in for today, so play nice. I thought you brought us
here to relax.”

“I did. I won’t say anything else, I promise. She
just seems like she’s out to annoy me today.”

“You and me both, but what else is new? Like you
said last night, fuck her.  She’ll relax after a while and start acting human.”

Blake nodded.  They both knew that Val usually
became more bearable as the day went on.  It was like she tried to resist
having a good time for as long as possible first.

“So, are you going to start that new book
tomorrow?” Liz asked Blake.

“I think so. It’s been a while since I wrote a
Caz Bailey mystery novel. I had an idea about a murder on a plane that needs to
be solved by the time it lands.”

Liz nudged him with an elbow. “Ooh, that sounds
great. Better than that book you wrote about those vampires chatting up a bunch
of schoolgirls.”

Blake shook his head. “Yeah, the less said about Twinkle,
the better.”

The young adult book he’d written was just
another reason he was done with his editors in the city. Write a novel with
vampires and werewolves, they begged him. It’s what’s selling. With your
name attached, it’ll make millions. With Blake’s name attached, all it had
done was damage his career. For almost twelve months he was the butt of all the
jokes in the literary world, and branded a ‘sell out’ by his long-time mystery
fans. His brief foray into young adult fiction had been a disaster, mitigated
only by the fifteen years of hard work that had preceded it.

Ricky and Val handed out the ice cream cones,
which all came with flakes; a subtle way for Val to show that she wasn’t short
of money when it came to Ricky.

Without word, they licked their treats and took a
walk beside the river. Ricky ran around, dribbling his football. Blake and Liz
held hands, enjoying the view. They had their problems, but they were still
able to enjoy each other’s company.

The river on their right was the type of backdrop
found in watercolour paintings, inhabited by ducks and a family of juvenile
swans. The fluffy grey birds were being watched carefully by their gleaming
white parents. Every time a canal boat went by, Val and Ricky would stop and
wave, often receiving a horn blast in reply. At one point, a barge went past
with the name Lazy Liz and they all laughed deliriously.

“They must have tasted your cooking, sweetheart,”
said Val, but the barbed comment went unanswered. Not even her cranky mother
could bring Liz down now.

An hour later, they all had a bite to eat at the
café. Blake was able to pay the bill without argument, which was refreshing,
and meant that Val was starting to lose the chip off her shoulder. Then, once
they were done, they headed out to the playing field. The grassy area teemed
with families, friends, lovers, and people walking their dogs, but Blake
managed to find an empty space for them to play. Ricky impressed them all
immediately with a series of keepy-uppy flicks, before launching the ball at
his father. Blake was able to head it down to Liz, who clumsily passed it to
her mother. Val gave the ball a hefty kick and sent it directly to Ricky’s
feet.

Blake whistled. “I can see where Ricky gets his
skill from now.”

Val gave a thin-lipped smile, but it was obvious
she enjoyed the praise. “I was always good at ball games, ever since school.
Don’t know why Liz never took after me that way. She was always more interested
in boys than balls.  Then again, she had the looks to flaunt.”

Liz rolled her eyes and carried on smiling. The
next time she kicked the ball, Blake could tell she was concentrating. It still
didn’t stop her from toe-poking it wide.

“Rubbish,” said Val, giggling. “Don’t worry, I’ll
go fetch it.”

When her mother was out of earshot, Liz rolled
her eyes.

“Don’t worry,” said Blake, “I never married you
for your ball skills.”

Liz smirked. “I thought you did.”

“Well, not these types of ball skills.” Blake
gave his wife a squeeze on the rump.

Ricky pulled a face. “Gross.”

The three of them laughed.

“Come on,” Blake shouted to Val. “I’m going grey
here.”

Val looked back over her shoulder and swatted at
the air. She was near the river now. The ball had rolled down the embankment
and reached the footpath. She stooped down to pick up the ball.

Something black shot into view from further down
the path.

Blake saw immediately that it was a dog; looked
like a Doberman. Its jaws foamed and it was racing right for Val.

“Val, look out,” he shouted, sprinting across the
playing field towards the footpath.

Val looked up and spotted the big black dog
rocketing towards her. She dropped the football and put her hands out in front
of her, letting out a startled yelp. She braced herself for the bone shattering
impact that was only seconds away.

The Doberman sprinted like a thoroughbred,
picking up speed.

Blake ran as fast as he could, but he wasn’t even
halfway there. He would never make it in time.

The Doberman leapt into the air, jaws wide and
foaming.

Val wailed.

Everywhere people stopped and looked.

The Doberman attacked the football at Val’s feet,
piercing it with a single powerful bite. Then it ran off again, as quickly as
it had arrived, taking the punctured bowl-shaped ball with it.

Val doubled over, sobbing with fright and relief.
Blake carried on running until he made it over to her and placed an arm around
her. Ricky and Liz were right behind him.

“Mum, Mum, are you alright?” shouted Liz, moving
Blake aside so that she could stand next to her. “Jesus, I thought that dog was
going to kill you.”

Val was huffing. She’d gone deathly pale and her
eyes were streaming, but she had a grin on her face. She placed a hand on Liz’s
shoulder for support and straightened herself up. “I think I bloody shit
myself.” She bellowed with laughter until she was red in the face.  All four of
them joined in, standing in a huddle and howling with laughter.

“I thought…I thought you were dog food,” said
Ricky, trying to catch his breath.

“I think Mum scared the dog off at the last
minute and made him go for the ball instead,” said Liz.

“He knew better than to mess with a bitch like
me,” said Val, gasping between laughs.

Liz hooted. “I’m glad…I’m glad you’re okay, Mum.”

“I’m fine sweetheart. Don’t you worry about me.
It’ll take more than a bloody mutt to—” Val staggered backwards, clutching her
chest. Her terror-filled eyes darted between each of them. Suddenly she didn’t
look like a tough old bird, but a frightened child.

Liz screamed as Val collapsed sideways. Blake
tried to catch her but wasn’t close enough. Val crumpled onto the footpath, her
forehead clunking as it hit the pavement.

“Grandma!”

Blake grabbed Ricky to his side and turned him
away.

Frantic, Liz dropped beside her mother and tried
to do something. Blood was already streaming from the wide gash where Val’s
forehead had struck the concrete. “Mum, Mum, Mum! Blake, do something. Do
something!”

Blake was already reaching into his pocket for
his phone. As he spoke to emergency services, he couldn’t take his eyes off
Val’s blood-soaked face. It looked just like it had in the picture frame before
he’d wiped it clean.

6

“I’m afraid your
mother suffered acute heart failure,” the doctor said in a suitably low tone.
“There was nothing we could do. I’m very sorry.”

Liz wailed.

Blake shook his head in disbelief. Ricky was in
the relatives waiting room, being looked after by a nurse. It was utter shock
hearing that Val was dead, even though Blake had suspected it from the moment
she hit the pavement. At the hospital, a medical team had worked ceaselessly to
get a heartbeat, but Val had shown no signs of response.

Blake put his arm around his sobbing wife and
pulled her close. She turned her face into his chest and collapsed against him.
The doctor stood awkwardly, probably having seen this many times before. “Thank
you, doctor,” said Blake, dismissing him. “Can we see her now?”

“Of course. Just press the buzzer and someone
will let you in.”

Blake kept his arm around Liz and guided her
towards the Resuscitation Room. He pushed the green button with his palm and
waited. The door clicked and he pushed it open.

Val lay on a trolley bed. Her eyes were open but
they seemed more like the eyes of a porcelain doll. Her skin looked clammy and
slightly grey, but otherwise she looked just like Val. The blood had been
cleaned off her face and the gash on her forehead was dry and puckered.

Liz broke away from Blake and stepped up to her
mother, reaching out tentatively and stroking her cheek. “Hi, Mum. Here you
are, causing me grief again, as usual. You’re a nightmare, d’you know that?”
There was no malice in Liz’s voice. Tears fell with each word. “What am I going
to tell Ricky? He loves you so much. You were supposed to watch him become a
famous footballer. He’s going to be so mad at you.”

Blake smiled. As much as Val had driven him
crazy, he never doubted how much she’d loved his son. Ricky was going to be
devastated, and with good reason. His grandma had been his biggest fan.

Liz smiled glumly at Blake. “She doesn’t look
like herself, you know?”

He grabbed her hands and stroked them gently.
“It’s all so surreal right now.”

“I can’t believe we were all sharing ice cream
just a few hours ago. Maybe it’s for the best. She would never have said it,
but Mum would’ve hated a long, protracted illness. She would’ve hated losing
her independence. This was the best way for her to go, without her even knowing
it was coming.”

Blake understood. Val would have hated losing her
dignity. She’d died on her feet, and that’s exactly how she would have wanted
it. He didn’t know if that made things any easier for Liz, though. “Are you
okay?” he asked her.

“No, not really.  She drove me crazy but she we
had a lot of good times too.  She did her best for me when dad left, and I
guess I never really appreciated that as much as she wanted me too.”

“You had your own life to live.  You shouldn’t
feel guilty.”

“I know. I’ll be okay. I just don’t know what I’m
going to say to Ricky.”

Blake didn’t want her to have to worry about
that. “I’ll do it. I’ll talk to him.”

Liz smiled and squeezed his arm. “Thank you, but
we should do it together.”

And so they did. They headed into the waiting
room and relieved the nurse who’d been looking after their son. Ricky was
sitting on a scuffed leather sofa, sipping from a can of fizzy orange drink.
When he looked up, it was clear he knew something bad had happened. His eyes
seemed wiser than his ten years, but they were also full of fear.

“Is Grandma okay?”

Liz’s breath hitched in her throat, so Blake
answered the question. “I’m sorry, buddy. Grandma’s gone.”

Ricky stared at the worn carpet and nodded, as if
he understood perfectly. “Like Bailey.”

“Yes, like Bailey.” Blake wondered why his poor
son was suddenly surrounded by death.  “She had a heart attack, but didn’t
suffer at all. She’s in Heaven now.”

Ricky had never shown any interest in Heaven, or
any of the fantastical stories of the bible, yet he smiled now. “Yeah, she’ll
be okay. Wherever she is, I’m sure she’ll make friends.”

Blake sat beside Ricky and leaned his elbows on
his knees. “Are you okay?”

There were tears in Ricky’s eyes, but none fell.
“I feel sad, and I can’t stop thinking about the sound Grandma’s head made when
she fell down.”

Blake rubbed his son’s back. Liz sat on the other
side of Ricky and did the same. They were all hurting, but at least they were
together.

“You’ll forget about it after a while,
sweetheart,” said Liz. “It’s all just a big shock. That’s how these things
happen sometimes, without any warning.”

“Are you okay, Mum?”

Liz wiped her eyes. “Me? Of course. Mummy’s fine,
but thank you for asking.” She hugged him. “You’re a sweet boy and Grandma
loved you lots, okay? She’ll be watching from up above, so make her proud,
okay?”

“Okay.”

Blake smiled to himself. Liz had zero belief in
God, which was what made it such a kindness that she was pretending to have
faith now, for Ricky’s benefit. Whether you believed in a higher power or not,
you couldn’t deny that having faith was more comforting at times like this.

Ricky sniffed.  “What happens to her now?”

Liz told him straight. “They’ll take her down to
the morgue and we’ll have a funeral director collect her tomorrow. Then we’ll
arrange a funeral where we can all say our goodbyes. We’ll bury her in town so
we can visit her whenever we want.”

“At the church where I was christened?”

Liz nodded. “Yes, we’ll take her to St Martins.
Do you remember it there?”

“Not really.”

“Well, it’s a very nice place, with lots of trees
and a field full of sheep right next to it.”

“When can we go home?” asked Ricky. He suddenly
looked like a very tired little boy.

“I’m going to stay here a while,” said Liz, “but
Daddy can take you home.”

Blake didn’t want to leave his wife at a time
like this, but he didn’t want his son to suffer, either. “Are you sure, honey?
Don’t you need me to stick around?”

“I will need you,” she said, “but not
right now.  I need take care of things here first. You two get a burger on the
way back. I’ll grab something here from the snack machines if I need it.”

“Okay. Come on, Ricky, let’s go grab a Maccies.”

Ricky stumbled after Blake like a yawning zombie.
Blake had followed the ambulance in and parked up in the Pay And Display. His
mind re-enacted the scene: Val being rolled across the tarmac, both paramedics
working on her the whole time, Liz chasing behind, weeping.

They stepped outside the hospital and Blake
shuddered. “Come on, Ricky. Let’s get going. I’ll race you.”

Despite his tiredness, Ricky bolted across the
car park. The Citroen was three rows up, parked next to a boxy little Smart
car. Blake ran as fast as he could, but he was no match for a ten-year-old boy.
Ricky was waiting for him by the time he eventually caught up.

“Come on, Dad. I’ve been waiting ages.”

Blake was out of breath and felt his age. Being
forty didn’t feel old until he tried to do anything quickly. “Alright, big
head. You’ve got a few years on me.”

Breathlessly, Blake unlocked the Citroen and they
strapped themselves inside. Ricky started fiddling with the radio after a few
minutes, and was dismayed when it wouldn’t work. They were heading up the A46,
back towards Redlake—no reason for interference—but all the radio did, on any
bandwidth, was hiss.

“Stupid thing,” said Ricky, banging the display
with his fist.

“Calm down. I’ll look at it tomorrow. Just put a
CD on.”

Ricky played what was already inserted and sulked
when it turned out to be Liz’s Mamma Mia soundtrack.  He cheered up
slightly when they stopped for a burger and fries, but by the time they got
home he was exhausted. Ricky went upstairs, stripped off, and was asleep within
minutes.

Blake needed to get some rest, too; take his pill
and wake up tomorrow with a little more emotional strength. His hands were
shaking and he felt the need to cry, but he didn’t want to go to bed until Liz
was home.

Blake’s own parents had died eighteen years
ago—one year before Blake was published. Enough time had passed that he’d
forgotten quite what the pain was like, but he knew it was bad. He remembered
how his father had died of a heart attack at fifty, and that his mother had
succumbed to weakness and killed herself a month later. His brother, younger by
four years, went completely off the rails then.  Blake had lost track of how
much money he’d given his brother to pay bills after he chosen to drink instead
of work.

Liz was an only child, her father gone before she
was eight, never to return. Val was the only family she’d had other than Blake
and Ricky.  She was probably feeling pretty lonely right about now.

When Blake left Ricky asleep, he went into the
bedroom and changed his clothes and freshened up in the en suite. When he
reached the downstairs hallway, he heard buzzing.  It sounded like white noise
through a subwoofer. He assumed he must’ve left the television on, but when he
stepped into the family room he was engulfed by a black cloud.

The buzzing grew ferocious.

Blake swatted at the air and choked against his
hand. There were hundreds of flies, swarming in an angry cloud, hitting his
face and trapping themselves in his mouth and eyes. He spat them out and
hurried across the room, waving his arms in a panic. He quickly opened all of
the windows and ushered the flies outside, absurdly yelling at them to leave.

Every handful he swatted away was replaced by two
more. It was like trying to catch sand. When he dared open his eyes, he was
immediately blinded, but not by the flies; by a bright light. It took his
disorientated mind a second to realise that it was the headlights from a taxi
outside, creeping down the driveway between the trees.

Through the open window, Blake heard Liz thank
the driver before heading towards the house. He quickly swatted as many flies
as he could out of the window, but was forced to give up. He had no idea what
had attracted them, but he had visions of finding a dead mouse rotting away
behind a skirting board. It wasn’t something he wanted to have to deal with
right now, so he hurried into the hallway to head Liz off before she saw; but
he needn’t have bothered. Liz headed straight into the kitchen, where he found
her in front of the wine rack, pouring herself a glass of supermarket
Cabernet.  She grabbed a slice of cold pizza from the boxes stacked on top of
the cooker.

“I’ll join you,” he said, wanting a drink now
more than ever.

Liz poured a second glass and passed it to him.
They both took a sip and ate some pizza before speaking.

“How’s Ricky? Did he go down okay?”

“Out like a light as soon as we got home. No kid
should have to go through what he has in the last two days.”

Liz leaned against the worktop and sighed. “I
know. I hope it doesn’t affect him. I mean, in a bad way.”

Blake knew what she meant. Kids were easily
screwed up if you weren’t careful. It was a parent’s job to steer them through
dark situations and back towards the light. The very essence of parenthood was
being a guide and mentor, using hindsight to help naive children prevail as
better adults than they had been. “He’s still young,” said Blake. “We just have
to keep him busy. You too, Liz. Are you doing okay?”

“I’m coping. It happened so suddenly that I
haven’t really had time to dwell on it.”

“I can’t believe your mother had a heart attack.
She was the healthiest person I know. I don’t think I ever even saw her eat a
steak.”

Liz took a big swig of wine, leaving her lips
blood red. “I guess you can never tell what’s going on inside a person. She
appeared healthy, sure, but maybe she had a weak heart or something. Maybe
there’s nothing any of us can do at the end of the day. We all have to die
somehow.”

“You should get yourself checked out. It could be
something hereditary”

“I’m not even going to worry about that right
now.”

Blake placed his glass down on the counter and
nodded. “Of course not, sorry. I’m not trying to add to your troubles.”

Liz topped up her glass and went to top his up,
too. He placed a hand over it. “I’m okay. Red gives me a bad chest if I have
too much.”

“So take something for indigestion. I need a
drink and I don’t want to do it alone.”

Blake paused for a moment before moving his hand
away. Liz filled his glass to the top. “Can we go into the other room?” she
said. “I’ve got to get my feet up.”

Blake cleared his throat. “Yeah, erm, okay.
There’s something up with the family room, though. I came home and there were a
load of flies inside.”

Liz frowned at him. “Flies? In this weather?
Where would they come from?”

“I think a mouse might have died.”

“What is it with this family and death right now?
Does everything around us have to die?”

Blake gave her a pat on the back as they headed
out of the kitchen. “I think we’re just the victims of bad luck. We’ll go crazy
if we try to see sense in it.”

Liz sighed.  “Let’s sort out whatever it is in
the family room tonight. I don’t want to have something rotting away while we
sleep. It could be diseased.”

“You sure? I can sort it in the morning.”

Liz opened the door to the family room. “I’m not
going to sleep much tonight anyway. Might as well deal with it now.”

Blake followed her inside and noticed two things:
one, it was freezing, and two, all the flies were gone.

Liz rubbed at her arms.  “The window’s wide open.
You could catch your death in here.”

“I wanted to get rid of the flies.”

“What flies?”

Blake looked around the room and couldn’t
understand it. When he’d left there were still hundreds of the little black
pests buzzing around. They’d been making no effort to escape then, but it
seemed in the last five minutes they’d fled en masse.

“There were hundreds of flies in here,” he said,
already doubting himself. “I swear.”

Liz closed the window. “It’s too cold in here.
I’m going to go sit in the living room.” As she left, Liz stopped over by the
side table and picked up Ricky’s picture frame. “I hope he keeps this photo in
here. It’s nice. We all look so happy, don’t we?” She put the frame back down
again and left.

Blake moved to the side table and picked the
frame back up again. Liz was right, they did all look happy, just like they’d
been today before Val had died. He looked at Ricky and smiled at how young he
looked. Just a couple years made such a difference. Things changed so fast.

Blake stopped smiling when a fly landed on top of
the picture. It perched right on top of Liz’s face. He tried to crush it, but
it flew off. When Blake turned around, the fly had disappeared, but the chill
in the room remained.

7

It was dark when
Blake woke up. His head was heavy from too much wine and bile soured his mouth.
For a while he blinked in darkness, wondering why he was awake.  Then he heard
Liz retching in the en suite.

He slipped out from beneath the duvet and wobbled
as he tried to stand up straight. Clumsily, he edged around the bed and headed
for the toilet.

“Liz, are you okay?”

Another painful-sounding retch, followed by
uncomfortable hacking. They must have drunk too much. Blake didn’t even
remember the two of them going to bed. They’d shared several bottles of cheap
Cabernet in front of the living room’s fire last night, sharing stories about
Val and laughing, but then…nothing. His memories cut off right around 10pm when
the news coming on.

Blake shielded his eyes as he entered the bright
light of the en suite. The smell hit him immediately: the eye-watering tang of
vomit. Liz was stooped over the toilet, one arm propped up on the rim and
trembling. Her hair was sodden, from either sweat or sick, and her eyes were
bloodshot.

“Liz, honey, are you okay?”

“Do I…look…okay?”

Blake got on his knees and bunched her hair
behind her head, started rubbing her back. Another bout of retching took hold
of her. The smell was toxic, a cocktail of wine and stomach acids.

“Did you have too much to drink?”

“Piss off.”

“No need to be like that. I wouldn’t blame you if
you’d drunk too much after what happened. I’ve got a headache, too.”

“I’m ill.”

“Really?”

Liz spat a mouthful of something awful into the
bowl. “My stomach’s killing me and my head is banging. This isn’t because of
the wine.”

Blake frowned. Liz had definitely drunk a lot
last night, but she was an adult. If she said she was ill, should he doubt her?
“Do you want me to call a doctor?” he asked.

“Urgh…n-no—” She retched again and brought up
another mouthful of odious spew. “No doctor. I just need a minute.”

“Okay.” He carried on rubbing her back. The
sounds she made were awful.  “I wish I could make it easier for you, honey. I
hate seeing you like this.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“I know, but I love you and I hate seeing you in
pain.”

“I’ve been in pain for a long time. Don’t see why
you suddenly care now.”

Blake flinched. “What?”

Liz groaned. “Nothing.”

“No, what do you mean?”

“I mean…I mean…oh God!” Liz hitched forward and
let out another stream of stinking vomit. It was the worst bout yet, just when
Blake was sure she must’ve been running on empty. When it was finally over, Liz
collapsed sideways into his arms, exhausted and beaten. “No more,” she said.
“Please, no more.”

Blake picked his wife up off the floor and carried
her back to bed. He emptied the contents of the en suite’s bin into the shower
cubicle—too tired to dispose of it properly—and then put it beneath Liz’s chin
to use as a sick bucket. She was ice-cold when he covered her with the duvet,
yet sweat glistened on her forehead like she’d just run a marathon. He got in
beside her and stroked her back with his fingertips, listening to her moan and
retch. He couldn’t say when he finally fell asleep, but he knew it was before
she did.

8

Blake woke to find
the door to the en suite locked and Liz inside showering. She refused to come
out, or let him in, so he decided to leave her be until she was ready to talk.
He tried to think back to how he and his brother had reacted when their parents
died. Anger had certainly been one of the prominent emotions.

It was a strange feeling to lose your parents. It
was the kind of deep, enveloping pain that only came with truly life-altering
loss, but at the same time it was accompanied by a degree of emotional
liberation. Being without parents was like taking the stabilisers off a bike;
both exhilarating and frightening. It was the final challenge on the road to
becoming a true adult, beholden to no one but oneself.

Blake headed downstairs and went into his office.
There was something he needed to do before he started the day. He’d remembered
to take his SSRI last night, but with things the way they were, it wasn’t
enough to keep his nerves under control.

The beta blockers were in the top drawer of his
writing desk. The wide, oak workspace lay beneath a leaded bay window that
looked out onto the field. It was the perfect window for a writer; a beautiful
blank canvas. Instead of the green grass, Blake could imagine a ballroom full
of guests or a crashed air plane with a sabotaged fuel line. The view from his
office was his sandpit.

Blake pushed one of the beta blockers from its
aluminium pocket and dry-swallowed it. Then he stared down at the blank
computer monitor. It’d been a while since he’d last written anything and a
sheen of dust lay over the keyboard and mouse.

As a younger man he’d been prolific, releasing
several books a year—and at only forty he still had many tomes left to
write—but lately he’d felt little desire to get started. He didn’t believe in
writer’s block, and he knew that if he sat down and made himself write, he
would hammer out a few thousand words easily enough. The problem was that
lately he didn’t want to. Whether it was Ricky growing up, or a desire to spend
more time with Liz, writing just wasn’t a priority. There were parts of life he
hadn’t yet mastered, and writing seemed to stop him from doing anything else.
Being a father and a husband was something he wanted to be better at—perhaps
before it was too late.

Ricky bounded into the office then with the metal
detector hanging around his neck like a Stratocaster. The bags beneath his eyes
suggested he hadn’t slept much, but the grin on his face said the fuel tank had
more than enough left to go a few more miles. “Can we go treasure hunting
again, Dad?”

Blake frowned. He wanted to spend time with
Ricky, but he didn’t think trekking through the field was the right call for
today. Liz would need them both. The only way to get over the dead was by focusing
on the living.

“Maybe later, buddy. I think we should stay
inside today and see how your mum is feeling.”

“Is she still being sick?”

“You know about that?”

Ricky nodded. “I heard her.”

“Your mum is feeling under the weather, so you
and I need to look after her. Maybe later, if she’s feeling better, we can play
with the metal detector again.”

“Should we make her toast?”

“I’m not sure she’ll be up to breakfast, but
maybe. We’ll see when she comes downstairs.”

Ricky nodded. “Okay. Can I go play football
outside until then?”

“Okay. Just stay away from the road.”

“I will, I don’t want to end up like Bailey.”

Blake’s heart ached. “Go on, have some fun. You
deserve it.”

Ricky grabbed his ball from the porch and headed
outside. Blake went into the kitchen to make a cup of coffee. He grunted when
he found there was no Nescafe; only some speciality Brazilian blend Liz
had bought at the market for three-times the price. With coffee off the menu,
he plonked a bag of PG Tips into his favourite mug—a jumbo one with an
old comic strip from The Beano on it—and brewed himself a strong tea.
His anxiety ebbed away with the first sip and he wondered if it was the tea or
the beta blocker he’d just taken.  Maybe it was both,

He took his mug of tea into the hallway and cursed
when he noticed the alarm system blinking by the front door. Not only had he
gone to bed in a drunken stupor, but he’d irresponsibly forgotten to set the
alarm.

One of the risks of living out in the country was
that robbers saw you as easy prey. Making noise didn’t matter as there were no
neighbours to hear, and the getaway was a breeze.

The alarm system was wired straight to the
security company, who’d contact the police if they couldn’t reach anybody at
the house. Blake also kept a baseball bat in the bedroom inside the wardrobe
but, ironically, there’d been no burglary attempts in the three years they’d
lived there. Their former townhouse in Gloucester had been hit twice. The first
time, they took the television, jewellery, and other easily replaced things.
The second time, a man named Richard Heinz had taken things that were
impossible to ever get back. Blake felt a shiver up his spine just by skirting
the edges of that memory.

Liz stomped around upstairs on the old, creaky
floorboards. Blake hoped she was feeling better, and that she’d be willing to
talk about the comment she’d made last night. She’d said she’d been in pain for
a long time.

Blake had suspected Liz was unhappy, but he
suppressed it, partly because he didn’t know what to do, but mostly because he
expected it to pass. Wounds could heal on their own over time, but last night
he realised that perhaps that wasn’t always the case. His marriage was in
trouble, had been for a while, and there was no ignoring it anymore. Something
between he and Liz had faded, and he’d been too afraid to face it head-on.

Blake Price, famous mystery writer and
millionaire, anxiety-ridden mess, and failed family man. What scared him most
was that without Liz, he wasn’t sure how stable he could be. It was her
strength of character, her confidence and decision-making, that had allowed him
to focus on his writing, knowing that all else would be managed by his
industrious wife. That was why his writing had always been so important to him;
it allowed him to control events, to reshape the world into ninety-thousand
words and decide the outcome. In real life, he could only dread the worst for
there was no way to know what would happen next. Liz had been his emotional
guardian and without her he would fall apart.

Blake scolded himself for being so selfish. Liz
needed him right now and all he could do was worry about his own welfare. If
Liz was unhappy with their marriage, it was his responsibility to face the
consequences of letting things get that way. He just hoped it wasn’t too late
to fix things.

Blake was just about to head upstairs when Ricky
came rushing back inside the house.

“Whoa, slow down.  What is it?”

Ricky skidded to a halt in the hallway.  “There’s
a man,” he said.  “There’s a strange man standing outside.”

9

Blake hurried out
onto the driveway. The only person who ever visited unannounced was the
postman, but this was a stranger. Blake prayed it wasn’t a fan of his. He did
all he could to keep his address a secret, but in these days of Internet
hacking and social networking, privacy was a fantasy.

Blake loved his fanbase dearly, but meeting his
readers made him awkward and uncomfortable.  There was also the inherent danger
of knowing nothing about them, or their motives.

“What did he look like?” Blake had asked Ricky
before heading outside.

“Tall, dark hair, a bit like you, but younger.”

Blake had frowned. “Huh?”

“He looks like you.”

From the driveway, Blake spotted a scruffy man
strolling down the road, carrying a duffel bag over one shoulder. He was
half-a-foot taller than Blake, and four years younger, but otherwise they
looked just like brothers. And brothers they were.

“Stevie?”

Stevie came down the driveway, smiling his wide,
mischievous grin that he’d had since he was a child. “Big bro, how you doing? I
read Twinkle the other day. I especially loved the part where the broody
vampire turns the high school sweetheart into a monster so that he can save her
from a brain tumour. I wept for days.”

Blake smirked. He was happy and relieved to see
his little brother, but he knew that the bantering would now begin. “Look what
the cat dragged in, after the dog ate it and shat it out.”

Somewhere behind Blake, Ricky giggled.  He had
crept back out of the house and was now standing beside Blake. “Who is he,
Dad?”

“This is your uncle Stevie. You’ve met him
before, but it’s been a few years.”

Ricky frowned. “I think I remember.” But Blake
knew he didn’t. Perhaps that was for the best. Ricky had last seen Stevie at
his wedding to Cindi.  Stevie had been wasted the entire time.

“What are you doing here?” asked Blake. “Did you
hear about Val’s heart attack?”

“What? Oh, yeah. How’s everybody doing?”

Blake shrugged. “As can be expected. Liz is
shattered, losing her mum…but what can you do?”

Stevie nodded slowly. He’d only met Val a couple
times, but he’d always been very fond of Liz. “Poor mare. Sucks losing a
parent.”

“It certainly does. Well, I suppose you best come
in. You fancy a coffee? I could offer you something stronger, but it’s…” he
checked his watch, “11am.”

Stevie rubbed at the thick stubble on his cheeks
and sighed. “I guess I’ll have to go without a drink for a few hours, if you
people are so civilised around here.  Maybe I can raid your supply later.”

They headed inside, Ricky bombarding his uncle
with questions the whole way. Where did he live? What did he do for a living?
Was he good at football? Did he want to go treasure hunting?

“Ricky, go find your mother and warn her we have
company.”

Stevie nudged Blake in the ribs. “Warn her? What
am I, a Jehovah’s Witness?”

“You know what I mean. We weren’t expecting
guests, and now isn’t exactly a great time.”

“Sorry. I just wanted to see you guys. It’s
already been too long, you know?”

“Yes, I suppose it has.”

Ricky ran off to find his mother while Blake and
Stevie went into the kitchen. Stevie took a seat at the breakfast bar while Blake
made tea.  They took the hot drinks into the family room where they sat down on
the recliners. It reminded Blake of the old days, plonking themselves in front
of the living room telly—a 26” mahogany effect Grundig that had seemed huge in
those days.

Stevie cupped his hot mug in his hands. “So, tell
me what happened.”

Blake told his brother about the events of the
last forty-eight hours, beginning with Bailey’s death and ending with Val’s
skull cracking against the pavement beside the River Avon. “It’s just been a
bad couple of days,” he said finally.

Stevie pulled a face.  “Sounds like it, man. I
loved that little dog. Val…not so much. You know she called me a drunken
buffoon at my own wedding?”

Blake laughed. “Val certainly had a talent for
telling people what she thought, but she loved Ricky and she loved Liz too,
deep down. She just struggled to show it.”

“Like our own mother,” said Stevie. “I have more
memories of her putting her hand across our backsides than hugging us.”

“She wasn’t that bad. You’re younger, you don’t
remember. She used to have a good sense of humour. Sometimes when she laughed
it sounded like she was having a fit. She just had a way of quickly flipping
the other way, though. She was either extremely happy or extremely sad. I think
I take after her that way. You’re more like Dad.”

“You mean I have a drink problem?”

Blake looked at his brother. There was no point
denying it, but there was no need to give Stevie a hard time either. They were
practically strangers nowadays, so what right did he have to judge? “Hey, you
got the alcoholism and I got the mental illness. I think we both got pretty raw
deals.”

“Some say alcoholism is a mental illness.”

“Maybe, but at least there’s an obvious cure.”

“What’s that?”

“Stop drinking.”

Stevie looked hurt, but then chuckled. “You
should write a book about it. With your name on the cover, it’d replace
Alcoholics Anonymous overnight.”

“Huh, I’d be lucky to write anything at the
moment. I just can’t seem to get myself in the office lately. It just seems
so…unimportant. Oh well. It’s not like I need the money.”

Stevie raised an eyebrow. “No shit! I heard you
bought a little place in the country, but I didn’t realise it was a little
chateau.”

“Liz wanted to go bigger. This was a compromise.
The original cottage was only two bed, but we had a couple more built and
extended the kitchen. The room we’re in now is new as well. The original living
room is at the back of the house.”

Stevie looked around admiringly. “It’s nice; what
you always dreamed of as a kid. You were always wanting to go exploring in the
woods or fishing at the lake by yourself. You always did like the solitude. Me,
I was always more interested in being where the people were.”

Blake remembered how sociable Stevie was as a
kid. People couldn’t help but love his cheeky smile and boundless energy. Ricky
was a lot like him in many ways. Blake just hoped they were unalike in others.
“I’m happy here,” he said. “We all are. I just need to get back into the groove
of things and stop feeling sorry for myself.”

Stevie waved a hand. “Don’t sweat it, man. You
were never in this for the money, so what’s the rush? You used to write those
awful bloody stories when you were in college and you’d make me read them. They
sucked, but you were always so proud of them. Writing is something you do for
you, not the money. When you want to write again, you’ll write. Just please
don’t turn into that clichéd writer that constantly moans about writer’s block.
Don’t be that asshole. You’re a lucky son-of-a-bitch, so wear a smile and wear
it well. Anything else is ungrateful.”

“You’re right. I am lucky. You just caught me at
a bad time.”

“I know that, big bro. That’s why I’m here. I
know I’ve been a burden in the past, but I do give a shit, you know?”

“I know you do.”

“Then let me know what you need.”

“I need to be here for Liz and, right now, I’m
not sure your being here is conducive to that.”

Stevie’s face fell. “Oh…right. Okay, I guess I’ll
call a taxi and head back home, then. You mind if I leave after lunch? It’d be
nice to spend a little time with Ricky before I go.”

Blake nodded, already feeling wretched. “Of
course.”

Stevie got up and strolled around the room with
his hands on his hips, examining the wall art and furniture like he was trying
to make a lasting impression to take with him.

“Look,” said Blake. “I’ll see what Liz says. If
she doesn’t mind you being here, then perhaps you can stay for the night. Don’t
you have work tomorrow, though?”

“I’ll call in,” he said. “I can get a couple days
off. Thanks, big bro.”

“You’re welcome.”

Stevie looked at Blake and gave another of his
cheeky grins. “So, when are you going to get rid of this dining table and get a
snooker table in here?”

“Ha! Have you been spying on me? That’s the exact
thing Liz and I argued about when we first bought the place. I wanted this to
be a games room, but it ended up being a ‘family room.’”

Stevie cracked an imaginary whip at Blake.

“No, no, Liz was right. She usually is. We spend
time together, eating or watching TV, it’s nice. A pool table would just end up
gathering dust. Who would I even play with? Ricky prefers football.”

Stevie turned a circle before heading to the side
table full of picture frames. “You could always play with yourself. You used to
enjoy that, remember?”

“It used to beat playing with my annoying little
brother.”

“Beat is the word, like how you used to beat off
to badger porn.”

They both chuckled.

Stevie picked up a picture frame from the side
table. “Didn’t think you were one for antiques.”

“I’m not. Ricky found it with the metal detector
in the field.”

“No shit? That’s really cool. Thing looks
ancient.”

“I don’t think it can be that old. It has a glass
front. Maybe it’s twenty, thirty-years-old.”

Stevie turned the frame over and examined all the
carvings. “Maybe the original owner of the cottage made it.”

“Why bury it?”

“Dunno. Do you know about the history of the
cottage?”

Blake shook his head. “I had a building survey
done. That’s all I cared about. I’m not really one for history.”

“You should be, man. Places have a story to tell.
You being a writer, I would’ve thought you’d be interested in stuff like that.”

“I prefer make-believe. Nobody gets hurt in
made-up stories.”

Stevie shook his head. “God, you’re a cheery
soul. You’d have made a better alcoholic than I ever did. Anyway, who chose the
picture in here? It’s nice. You’re actually smiling in it.”

“It was a good day. Torquay, I think. Ricky put a
picture of Bailey inside initially but, after what happened, Liz changed it.
Now, after what’s happened to Val, we might have to end up changing it again.
Tell you the truth, the thing is starting to give me the creeps. Seems like all
our bad luck started the moment Ricky dug the thing up. It was buried with some
old chicken bones. How creepy is that?”

Stevie scrunched up his face. “Chicken bones?
That’s a bit grim. Wonder why somebody buried it with bones? I’d get rid of it
if I were you. Sounds a little funky.”

Blake shook his head. “I can’t, Ricky would be
upset.”

“There’s much worse things a kid can go through
than having a picture frame thrown in the bin. Just tell him it was ugly and
buy him a videogame instead. He won’t even remember this time tomorrow.
Besides, there’s a big old smudge on the glass anyway.”

“Really?” asked Blake. “Show me.”

Stevie held the picture frame up. Sure enough
there was a blemish on the glass. It was right over Val’s face. Blake wet his
thumb and rubbed at the mark, but it wouldn’t come away. “I think it might be
on the photograph,” he said.

Stevie turned the picture over and rubbed at the
glass with the cuff of his sleeve. “You might be right,” he said. “Here, let me
slide it out and then you can chuck the thing away.”

Stevie fiddled with the top of the frame and
tried to pinch the photograph with his dirty nails. He turned it over in his
hands, checking each side. At one point he even went at the thing with his
teeth. Eventually he gave up with a huff.  “I can’t for the life of me work out
how to get this bloody photograph out, man.”

Blake took the frame from his brother. “Liz said
you just slide the picture out the top from behind the glass. I struggled with
it too, yesterday, when I tried to change the picture.”

“Huh? Weird.”

Blake fiddled at the edge for several minute, but
he too failed to remove the photograph. “Sod it. It’s not that nice a photograph.
I’ll just have to chuck it along with the frame.”

Stevie chuckled.  “Come on, let’s get rid of it
now while we have the chance.”

They headed into the kitchen where Blake went
straight to the bin. He stepped on the pedal and lifted the lid, then tossed
the picture frame into the rubbish. He covered it with cardboard and old
lettuce. Ricky would kick off about it, but Blake couldn’t deny how much better
he felt throwing the thing away. He’d never been a superstitious person, but
the more he thought about the old picture frame, the more he was sure it’d
brought bad luck to his family. He was glad to see the back of it.

“Good riddance,” he said, as he slammed the bin’s
lid down.

10

“What is your brother
doing here?” demanded Liz once they were alone in the kitchen.

“He just turned up out of the blue.”

“He could’ve called.  Would’ve given us time to
hide all the booze.”

“Look, I was as surprised to see him as you are,
but what could I do? He’s my brother. You always seemed to get on with him fine
in the past.”

“I got on with him fine ten years ago, when you
and I were still young and irresponsible. We have a son now. We can’t have your
train wreck of a brother hanging around and drinking himself silly on our
couch.  Just look at the state of him.  Has he even taken a bath in a month?”

Stevie cleared his throat, appearing in the
doorway. “Hey, Liz. I’m sorry about your mother.”

Liz went red in the face and started fidgeting.
“Oh, yeah, hi Steven. Thank you. I’m finding it quite hard at the moment, but
thank you.”

Stevie nodded. “I know, and I shouldn’t have just
turned up. I’ll get out of your hair right after lunch, if that’s okay? I’d
like to spend a little time with Ricky. Last time I saw the kid, he was still a
toddler. I’ll be good, I promise.”

Liz cleared her throat and swallowed audibly.
“Maybe you should go play kick-about in the field. Ricky would like that.”

Blake knew how his wife operated. The suggestion
was designed to keep Stevie out of the house and away from the family room’s
bar.

Stevie seemed happy enough to comply. He nodded
and smiled. “Thanks, Liz. It’s good seeing you again. I’m sorry it’s under such
shitty circumstances.”

Liz nodded curtly, but she did manage a
thin-lipped smile that made her look just like her mother.

As soon as Stevie disappeared again, Liz turned
back to Blake, scowling. “How much of that did he hear?”

“I don’t know. Why are you angry at me because he
may have heard you being nasty about him?”

“I wasn’t being nasty, I was being truthful. Your
brother is a train wreck. Remember our 10th anniversary? He
got so drunk that the police were called. He got behind the wheel of that
rickety old truck of his and started burning around the car park like a maniac.
Lucky he didn’t kill anyone.”

Blake laughed before he could stop himself. “He
was just trying to impress a girl. He’s always been the same, likes to have a
good time.”

“Even if it means ruining everybody else’s.”

“Our 10th anniversary was five years
ago. You should let it go.”

“Should I now? That girl he was so interested in
was my friend, Wendy, and we haven’t spoken since. He went back to hers and
puked everywhere and broke a lamp. Then he stole money from her purse in the
morning so he could get a taxi to go collect his bleeding truck.”

Blake sighed. “As I recall, Wendy was a bit of a
state herself that night. Besides, Stevie got married less than a year later.
We were at the wedding.”

“Ha! I’ve never seen a bride and groom as drunk
as they were. She’s as much a mess as he is.”

Blake was losing patience. What did she want him
to do, eject his brother the moment he’d seen him coming down the driveway?
“Look,” he said. “If I catch Stevie taking a drink, I’ll tell him to sling his
hook. I don’t want Ricky around excessive drinking any more than you do. To be
honest, I don’t even like how much you drink around him.”

Liz’s face darkened. “What?”

“I think you’ve been drinking a lot lately. It’s
started to worry me a little. Last night…”

The look on Liz’s face was thunder, with
lightning ready to leap from her eyes. “How dare you. If I want to have a drink
after looking after your son, your home, or putting up with your moods whenever
you’re having a ‘bad day,’ then that’s exactly what I’ll do. Who do you think
you are?”

Blake put his hands up. “Fine, you’re right. I’m
just saying to take it easy.”

Liz shoved him aside. “Get out of my face. God, I
can’t believe you. My mother is dead and you’re giving me crap.”

“I’m sorry. You’re right.”

“You’re a bastard, Blake. Just leave me alone,
and get your goddamn brother out of my house.”

Liz stomped out of the kitchen.

Blake placed the heels of his palms against his
head and hissed. “God damn it,” he said. “When did I get so bad at dealing with
life?”

He exited the kitchen and headed out the front
door. The cold air immediately made him feel calmer, and he was once again glad
to live in the country. In the city, there was nowhere to collect your thoughts
in silence.

Blake headed for the field, listening out for
sounds of Ricky and Stevie playing; but what he heard did not sound like
playing.

Stevie came rushing around the corner of the
cottage. His weathered face was completely pale. “Blake! Ricky’s hurt.”

Blake’s stomach turned. “What? Where? Take me to
him. Take me to him now.”

Stevie nodded. “This way.”

Blake’s body tingled with adrenaline as he ran. Nothing
got the muscles pumping like fear.

Ricky was at the bottom of the field, screaming
in agony. Tears flooded his cheeks and blood covered his left leg.

Blake whirled on his brother. “What the hell
happened?”

“A fox attacked him.”

“Are you joking?”

Stevie looked like a frightened child. “Blake, I
swear. I kicked the ball over by the hedges and when Ricky ran over to get it
he must have disturbed a fox. It leapt right out and bit him.” He pointed to
the edge of the field, but there was nothing there.

Blake shoved his brother aside and knelt beside
his son. There was a lot of blood. “Ricky, are you okay? What happened?”

He was crying so hard that it took him a few
seconds to catch his breath. “A…a fox. A f-fox b-bit me.” A fresh bout of tears
took hold of him.

Stevie was almost in tears as well. “I know it
sounds crazy, man, but it’s the truth.”

Blake shovelled his son into his arms and hurried
back towards the house. Ricky sobbed the entire time and buried his head
against his father’s chest, just like he did when he was four-years-old after a
nightmare.

Stevie raced after them. “Blake, I’m so sorry.
There was nothing I could do, I swear.”

Blake said nothing. He didn’t want to hear it, he
just wanted to make sure his son was okay. He ran as fast as he could towards
the cottage and started thinking about what he was going to tell Liz. She had
enough to deal with right now, and she was already in a bad mood.

She was standing outside the front door as they
came around the corner. Her hands were on her hips, but as soon as she saw
Ricky, her arms fell to her sides. “Oh God, what’s happened?”

“He was bitten,” shouted Stevie.

“Bitten by what?”

Blake shoved past his wife and went inside. “A
fox,” he mumbled.

Stevie and Liz chased Blake into the kitchen,
where he plonked Ricky down on the breakfast bar, spilling the contents of a
fruit bowl everywhere.

Ricky had managed to find a rhythm for coping
with the pain and was no longer crying, but whimpering and panting instead.

“Let’s get your trousers off,” said Blake, already
tugging at them.

“I’ll get the first aid kit,” said Liz, rushing
off.

“What do you want me to do?” asked Stevie.

Blake looked him in the eyes. “Just stay out of
the way.”

Stevie dissolved into the background.

Liz came back with medical supplies. Without
needing to be asked, she handed over the alcohol wipes.

Blake began cleaning the wound, ignoring Ricky’s
hisses of pain. Most of the blood was sticky, already clotting, and came away
easily. No more replaced it. “It’s not as bad as it looks,” said Blake. “It’s
already stopped bleeding.” It wasn’t entirely true, but he saw Ricky relax
immediately.

Blake tore open another alcohol wipe and
continued dabbing at the wound. As it became clearer, it did indeed look like a
shallow bite, from jaws a little smaller than a dog’s. The puncture marks
weren’t deep and were likely caused by a startled snap than a vicious bite.

“We need to take him to hospital,” said Liz. “He
could get tetanus.”

“He’s been vaccinated. It’s not that bad.  We
just need to make sure the wound is clean and he’ll be fine.” Blake picked up a
tube of antiseptic gel from the first aid kit and spread it liberally on
Ricky’s shin.

Ricky hissed. “It’s cold.”

“That’s good,” soothed Liz. “It’ll numb it and
stop it hurting.”

“Daddy’s not going to kill the fox, is he?”

Blake and Liz looked at one another. “Why do you
ask that?”

“I don’t want him to hurt it. I scared it, it was
just frightened.”

Liz stroked his forehead. “Don’t worry about that
now.”

The truth was that Blake did want to go out with a
shotgun right then and take the animal’s head off. He didn’t own a shotgun,
though, and he was an outspoken critic of fox hunting. He’d be a hypocrite if
he killed an animal that was just acting on instinct. ‘Animals commit no crimes
and deserve no punishment,’ he had written once in an article opposing blood
sports.

Liz handed Blake a cotton wool pad and a bandage,
which he placed over the wound. By the time he was done dressing Ricky’s leg,
the boy looked like a wounded soldier.

“You alright there, bud?”

Ricky nodded. “Can I have ice cream?”

Everybody laughed, except for Stevie, who
remained at the back of the room looking like a man condemned.

11

Ricky was in his
bedroom, laid up with ice cream and video games. Before Blake left him, his son
once again pleaded for the fox to be left alone. “We’ll see,” Blake had said.
“I don’t believe in hurting animals, but I won’t put you in danger either.
Maybe I can find a way to move it on.”

In the kitchen, Stevie and Liz were already
arguing. “How could you let this happen, Steven?”

“There was nothing I could do. It just happened
in an instant.”

“If you weren’t such a drunken mess, you would’ve
spotted the fox sooner.”

Stevie winced. “I haven’t had a drink. I’m as
sober as you are.” He glanced at the half-finished glass of red wine in Liz’s
hand and corrected himself. “More so, actually.”

Liz’s upper lip curled. “How dare you. You come
into my home, injure my son, then have the audacity to comment on my
behaviour?”

Stevie raised his hands. “I wasn’t, Liz. I’m just
saying I haven’t had a drink today. I know I haven’t seen you guys in a couple
years, but I’m here because I care about you all. The last thing I would ever
do is hurt Ricky.”

“All you ever do is hurt people, Steven. Why are
you really here? Do you need Blake to bail you out again? How much is it you
need this time? We already paid for yours and Cindi’s wedding.  Don’t you think
we’ve given enough?”

Stevie snarled. “I don’t want your bleedin’
money. I came here because I thought we were family.”

Liz laughed cruelly. “Family? That’s rich. When
did you ever behave like family? All you ever do is take, take, take. Blake
doesn’t want you here.”

“Hey, hey,” said Blake, entering the room. “Don’t
start making statements on my behalf.” He looked at his brother, who was
trembling, but was it from alcohol withdrawal, anger, or just plain adrenaline?
“Have you had a drink today, Stevie?”

“No!”

“Okay, then I don’t blame you for what happened.
I know there’s a fox that lives in our field, and it biting Ricky is just
incredibly unlucky.”

Stevie nodded. “Thanks, bro.”

“But I still think it would be better if I took
you to the train station now. Liz is grieving and having a house guest is not
helping her.”

Liz grunted.

Stevie nodded. Despite his eyes glistening with
tears, he managed to smile. “I’ll get my things ready,” he said, then headed
out into the hallway.

Liz immediately set upon Blake. “Get him the hell
out of here, right now.”

“He’s done nothing wrong.”

“Oh really? What do you call letting our son get
mauled by a fox?”

Blake shook his head and was about to let it go,
but he found himself unable. “Don’t you think that’s a bit of an exaggeration,
Liz? Ricky’s fine. Unless Stevie has picked up the ability to summon wild
animals, this was no one’s fault.”

Liz glared. “Get him out of my house now.”

Blake turned and went into the hallway, fuming.
He knew Liz was grieving, and that he was probably being an arsehole, but he’d
always happily accommodated her family. Val had been no picnic, God rest her
soul, but he’d always made the effort.

Liz did have a point, though. The problem with
Stevie wasn’t that he had done anything wrong. It was the fear—the almost
certainty—that he would eventually. It was only ever a matter of time before an
alcoholic let you down.

Stevie had his coat on and was zipping up his
holdall. It was early afternoon but the sky was a dark, foreboding grey. Blake
felt guilty about not letting his brother stay at least one night, but he
wasn’t going to change his mind.

“If you can just drop me at the station in
Redlake,” said Stevie, “I can get a train back home from there.”

“Sure thing,” said Blake. “What happened to your
truck, anyway? I’ve been meaning to ask.”

“The old banger finally popped its clogs. Got a
mate trying to fix it, but it’s probably time for me to get a new motor. You
don’t want to help your brother out with that, do you? A beamer would make a
nice early Christmas present.”

Blake frowned.

“Kidding, I’m kidding. I don’t need anything from
you, bro. I just wanted to see you, that’s all. The truth probably isn’t
something you’d expect to hear from me, but that’s it, right there.”

Blake sighed. As much as he loved his brother, he
was right, he didn’t expect the truth. He suspected there was something more
behind Stevie’s surprise visit, but Liz and Ricky were his priority, not his
brother’s myriad issues. “It’s just a bad time right now, Stevie. Any other
time and we’d love to have you. We’ll arrange something soon, okay?”

Stevie nodded, but looked like he didn’t believe it.
He shouldered his holdall and limbered up. “Ready when you are, bro.”

Blake nodded. He set the house alarm and went out
onto the driveway, where he unlocked the Citroen with his key fob.

As the two of them climbed inside, Stevie started
chatting away. “You know, I don’t get it. You have all this money, yet you
drive around in an ugly ass people carrier. Why don’t you get something nicer?”

Blake flexed his hands around the steering wheel
and examined the pragmatic plastic dashboard. “I like it,” he said. “What’s
wrong with it?”

“Nothing’s wrong with it. It’s nicer than my
truck, but then I’m a low-paid telecoms engineer. You’re a millionaire,
according to NEWSCOM. You should be driving a Porsche at the very least.”

“You read the article NEWSCOM did about me?”

Stevie nodded. “Yeah, and the Guardian’s feature
last year. I’m always checking up on you, big bro. Just because we haven’t hung
out in a while, doesn’t mean I’m not thinking about you. Incidentally, you need
to get a Facesnapper account.”

Blake groaned. “Please, social networks are the
bane of my life. As soon as I take the plunge with one, another opens up and
replaces it. I gave up in the end.”

Stevie shrugged. “It’d just be a nice way to stay
in touch is all. Ricky’s growing up and seeing some pics now and then would be
cool.”

“I’ll think about it.”  Blake started the engine.
He switched on the headlights and reversed out of the driveway and onto the
B-road. “I drive a Citroen because people pay attention to a Porsche,” he said.
“I just want a quiet life. What is a sports car going to do for me other than
make it less safe to drive my family around?”

“You always were so rational. I tell you, if
Cindy and I were millionaires, we would blow it in less than a year.”

“Thank God you’re not, then. How is Cindy,
anyway? I haven’t seen her since the wedding, and you haven’t mentioned her.”

“Oh, yeah, she’s great. She wanted to come, you
know, but I told her it would be a bit of an imposition, us both turning up.”
Stevie pulled out his wallet and tugged out a crumpled old photograph of the
two of them. He held it in front of the lit dashboard. “Our honeymoon in
Spain.”

Blake flicked his eyes between the picture and
the road. “Yeah, I remember her. She’s a looker.”

Stevie smiled proudly. “Ain’t she!” He went to slide
the photo back into his wallet but, as he did so, another picture fell loose.
Before Stevie was able to snatch it back up again, Blake saw it was of a suited
gentleman getting into a posh-looking car.

“Who’s that?”

Stevie shoved the candid snapshot back into his
wallet. “Nobody. Don’t worry about it.”

Blake decided not to pursue it. It was none of
his business. They drove in silence for a while until Blake started to feel
awkward. It felt like sitting in the car with a stranger, not the brother he’d
grown up with. All the nights they’d spent together, reading Beanos
beneath the bed sheets with a torch while their drunken father argued with
their selfish mother downstairs, seemed like they’d occurred in another life.
He and Stevie had grown up together, yet they couldn’t have ended up further
apart.

“How’s work?” asked Blake, breaking the silence.

Stevie looked out the window, even though there
was nothing to see. “It’s okay. Just climbing up and down telegraph poles most
days. Pretty dull.”

“I couldn’t imagine climbing up one of those
massive things; makes me sick just thinking about it. You always were fearless,
though. Remember that big hill behind the supermarket where we lived? You went
down it on your bike, but I was too afraid to. Upstaged by my little brother.”

Stevie laughed. “I paid for it, though,
remember?”

Blake frowned. “No. What happened?”

“Huh, maybe you weren’t with me that time. I went
it one time and hit a brick at the bottom. Went over the handle bars and bust
my lip on the ground. I buckled the wheel and Mum whipped my arse blue when I got
home.”

“No, I don’t remember that at all. You were
always getting injured.”

“I know. I was always trying to prove myself to
you. The bigger the risk, the more I thought my big brother would like me.”

“I loved you, Stevie. I always have.”

“I know that now, but try telling that to a
snot-nosed ten-year-old.”

“Ricky reminds me of you.” Blake hoped it didn’t
sound like a negative, because it wasn’t meant that way.

“Ricky’s a great kid. Did you ever think about
having more kids?”

Blake gripped the wheel tightly and felt his
chest get heavier. “Yes.”

There was a brief silence before Stevie asked,
“When?”

“Liz was pregnant just before we moved to the
country. We lost it.”

“Wow… Sorry, bro. How come you never told me?”

“It’s private. It hurt. No reason to share the
misery.”

“A problem shared is a problem halved.”

“Sometimes a problem shared is a problem
multiplied.”

Stevie made to speak again, but Blake kept his
eyes on the road and sighed. It was enough to make his brother move on from the
subject.  They sat in silence again until they neared the town of Redlake. The
country roads gave way to floodlit thoroughfares.

Stevie shivered in his seat. “Horrible afternoon,
huh? Looks like it’s going to rain. It’s dark enough to be night.”

Blake nodded. “It’s started to get colder the
last couple days. Not looking forward to winter—gets chilly at the cottage.
Maybe now’s a good time for a holiday, once everything’s sorted with Val’s
funeral.”

Stevie nodded. “Yeah, that would be nice. The
only time Mum and Dad were ever happy together was when we went on holiday
together.”

“That’s because Dad could start drinking at 11am
and Mum could flirt with the waiters.”

“We had some fun ourselves, though.”

Blake chuckled. “Yeah. Remember that time—shit!”
He stamped on the brake, sending the car drifting sideways towards the ditch.
He leant hard on the wheel, counter-steering against the skid and trying to
keep them on the road. The car seemed to tip over slightly. There was a loud bang!

Blake missed the clutch in his panic to emergency
stop. The car bucked unhappily as the engine stalled. The wheels locked up and
the tyres shrieked in protest, but they gripped the road and brought the
Citroen to a stop, where it rested diagonally across the road, listing to one
side.

“Jesus sodding Hell,” shouted Stevie. “O’mother,
o’mighty. I think I just shit myself. My bumhole is squeaking.”

Blake was panting. He gripped the wheel like the
bars on a rollercoaster. His heart was pulsing like a dance club speaker.

“What happened?” asked Stevie once he finally
calmed down.

“Something ran out in front of us,” said Blake.

Stevie frowned. “What? I didn’t see anything.”

“I swear, it ran right out in front of us.”

“What did?”

Blake had to focus hard on getting the words past
his lips. “A fox.”

12

“Bugger it!” Blake
stared down at the burst front tyre with his hands on his hips. “What do we
do?”

Stevie patted him on the back. “Don’t sweat it.
Nothing to changing a wheel. Open up the boot and we’ll get to it.”

“You know what you’re doing?”

Stevie looked at him. “Jesus, bro. How are you
the successful one? Changing a tyre is easy-peasy. Let’s crack on. It’s bloody
freezing.”

Blake pressed the boot icon on his key fob and
watched Stevie pull up the false floor to reveal the replacement spare wheel.
“This is just a placeholder,” he explained. “You’ll have to get it changed at
the garage tomorrow.”

Blake frowned. “Isn’t it a spare?”

“No. Manufacturers stopped putting in spares
years ago. They just give you one of these crappy things, just about good
enough to get you home. Can you get me the locking nuts?” When Blake looked
cluelessly at him, Stevie rolled his eyes. “Seriously, big bro, you’re useless.
There’s a little plastic container in the boot. Pass it here.”

Blake located a purple container like a child’s
lunch box and handed it to his brother.

“First thing you do is find the winch spot
underneath the car. You try to jack it up in the wrong place and you’ll go
straight through the bodywork.”

Stevie jacked the car up and installed the
placeholder wheel in next to no time. Blake was genuinely impressed. When he
checked his watch it was nearing dinnertime.

Stevie brushed his hands together before wiping
them on his jeans. “You’re all set.”

“Let’s get back to the cottage.”

Stevie frowned. “What about me? I need to catch a
train, man.”

“You won’t get home till late if you leave now.
You’re staying in the guest room tonight and I’ll take you to the station
tomorrow.”

“You sure? What’s Liz going to say?”

“She’ll probably give me hell, but I can hardly
dump you off after you rescued me from my automotive ineptness.”

“Think you could do a wheel on your own next
time?”

“Yeah, you’re a good teacher. Let’s get back
while there’s still time to relax for a couple hours. I feel like all I’ve done
today is stress.”

Stevie laughed. “Isn’t that what you do every
day?”

“Good point.”

They got back in the car and Blake switched on
the heating full blast. When they pulled away, the steering felt a little
stiffer than usual, and he wondered if it was the placeholder tyre or if the
skid had done more damage than he thought.

“So you really saw a fox, then?” asked Stevie.

“I know, I know. After what happened to Ricky it
sounds like an awfully big coincidence. I’m telling you, though, it was
definitely a fox. Shot out of the hedge and almost went under the wheels. Maybe
I should’ve just kept going.”

“And crush the poor thing? Doesn’t sound like
you, man.”

“I’m beginning to make exceptions when it comes
to foxes.”

“You said you knew you had a fox on your land?
Weren’t you worried?”

“We’re in the countryside. There are foxes
everywhere. I’m not going to start acting like some character from a Roald Dahl
story and go nuts every time I see a wild animal. I didn’t even think foxes
were dangerous.”

“Me either,” said Stevie. “You hear about them
attacking babies in the city sometime, but I always think, ‘hey, why you
leaving your baby alone in the garden?’ I don’t like to blame the animals.”

Blake nodded. “We have that in common, but things
change when it’s your kid that gets attacked. If I’d have got hold of that fox
right after it attacked Ricky, I would’ve throttled it.”

“Me too. I still might if I see it. It was pretty
amazing that the first thing on Ricky’s mind was whether you were going to hurt
the fox or not. Kid’s got a good heart.”

Blake nodded. He’d been surprised and a little
proud that, even in pain, Ricky had found compassion for the thing that had
hurt him. “I try to raise him right, to be a good man, but the truth is I don’t
really need to try. He’s growing into one regardless.”

Stevie smiled. “That kid’s going to rule the
world, you’ll see.”

“You barely know him. Sorry, that came out
wrong.”

Stevie didn’t seem offended. “No, you’re right,
but that’s why I’m so sure he’s going to be something great. I fell in love
with the kid after spending five minutes with him. Before the fox ruined our
fun, he was teaching me football tricks. He wasn’t showing off, he genuinely
wanted me to learn them, like it’d help me in life somehow. Kid’s going to be a
leader.”

“Thanks, Stevie. I hope you’re right.”

“Course, I’m right.”

They pulled onto the B-road, nearing Poe’s
Place, and Blake saw light up ahead.

Stevie leant forward in his seat. “Is that coming
from your place?”

Blake eased up on the accelerator. The light was
bright orange and flickering.

Fire.

“Please, God, don’t let that be my cottage.”

But it was. Poe’s Place was on fire.

13

Blake pulled on the
handbrake before the Citroen came to a full stop, sending it sliding on the
gravel several feet along the driveway. He was sound-minded enough to switch
off the engine, but he raced towards the house immediately after. Stevie was
right behind him.

The fire was coming from the kitchen. From the
driveway, Blake could see the flames crackling in the thatched roof above the
annex. Once inside, he spotted the source. The oven was ablaze, the pizza boxes
from the other night had been left on the hob and were now ash. The flames had
licked high enough to ignite the ceiling.  The fire was mostly overhead as
Blake headed through the kitchen.

“I’ll call the Fire Brigade,” yelled Stevie,
plucking a mobile phone from his pocket.

Blake turned on the kitchen taps and started
panning water onto the flaming oven. The pizza boxes were easy to subdue, but
there was no way to get at the flames taking hold of the roof. Smoke was
everywhere.  Bits of wood and burning flakes of plaster fluttered down like
searing rain.

Stevie grabbed a hold of Blake and pulled him
away from the oven, while bellowing a plea for help into his phone. Blake
fought him for a moment, but realised it was pointless. The fire wasn’t going
to be beaten by one man and a potful of water. The only thing Blake could do
was check on his family, so he shoved Stevie aside and headed into the main
house.

He found Liz in the family room, reclined in
front of the telly. There was an empty bottle of wine beside her, along with a
foil wrapper for a prescription tranquilliser. A doctor had given them to her
after the miscarriage to help her sleep. It looked like she’d taken a handful,
topped with the bottle of wine.

“Liz, wake up, damn it! WAKE UP!”

She was totally out, not even flinching at his
shouts. He slapped her face and got a slight moan, but she still failed to
wake. “Liz, the bloody house in on fire. Wake up now!”

No response.

Blake had never been as furious with Liz as he
was right then, but he still loved her like hell and needed to get her out of there
safely. He pulled one of her arms and managed to lift her forward. Drool
escaped her lips and her eyes flickered. “Blaaaa.”

“Yes, it’s Blake. Come on, we have to go
outside.”

“Blaa, I miyoo.”

“You miss me? What the hell are you talking
about?”

She was gone again. Blake hoisted her over his
shoulder. She didn’t weigh much more than Ricky. Had she always been so thin?

Blake stumbled through the family room, heading
for the door. He moved as quickly as he could with Liz over his shoulder, but
stopped when something caught his eye. The old picture frame was back on the
side table.

Hadn’t he thrown it in the bin?

“Blake, come on! We have to get out.” Blake spun
around to find Stevie standing in the doorway. He had Ricky limping alongside
him.

“Dad, what’s happening?”

“There’s a fire,” said Blake, snapping back to
the present. “We have to get outside.”

And so they did. They raced out onto the
driveway, holding their breath as they passed the billowing black cloud coming
from the kitchen. Blake saw that at least another three-feet of ceiling had
ignited, and was relieved to hear the sound of sirens in the distance.

Help arrived a short time later and a fire engine
parked on the driveway while a team of six firemen directed a hose towards the
cottage. The sirens remained on, adding to the chaos and bathing Poe’s Place
in an unsettling crimson light. Liz remained semi-conscious the entire
time, while Ricky sobbed constantly. Stevie rubbed Blake’s back and reassured
him. Suddenly Blake was grateful to have his younger brother around.

It took almost two hours for the no-nonsense men
and women of the fire department to get the blaze under control, and by that
time it had gone seven o’clock. The damage was unknown, but at least it had
been contained to the annex. The main house was safe to return to, so Stevie
put Ricky to bed early, while Blake did the same with Liz. Stevie hovered
around for a while, but eventually bunkered down in the guest room.

Blake returned to the driveway and spent the next
three hours dealing with firemen and police. When he finally got to bed
himself, it was early morning.

14

Waking up was like
recovering from surgery. There was a brief moment of confusion, where Blake
stared up at the ceiling, before the doom and despair came flooding into him
like a blood transfusion. Once again he’d forgotten his pill, making his head
fuzzy, but what made him worse were the memories of Liz passed-out on the
recliner while their kitchen burned.

Blake sniffed hard to clear the mucousy ash in
his airways and then sat up. The sun was up but the day was grey. The windows
were beaded with raindrops. Beside him, Liz snored on her back, as still as a
corpse. He decided not to wake her while his head was still in such a mess.

He slipped from beneath the duvet and stumbled
into the shower, turning the temperature as hot as he could stand. The heat
relaxed him and allowed him to get his head together enough to face going
downstairs.

What was he going to say to Liz when she woke up?
She’d lost her mother, and it was hard on her, but she was responsible for
letting part of the house burn down in the middle of the day. It was pretty
clear her drinking was a problem, but would she take responsibility for it? It
seemed that the merest mention was enough to make her angry and defensive.
Alcohol had always been a destructive force in Blake’s life, starting with his
father and carrying onto himself and his brother, and now it had claimed Liz.

Blake switched off the shower and stepped out
onto the mat. He took his time getting dressed, trying to delay facing the mess
downstairs. Facing problems was not something he was good at. Liz was the
problem-solver in their relationship, but she was incapable right now.

Perhaps it was his fear of confrontation that led
Liz to the dark place she was in now. He tried so hard to avoid stress in his
life, but that meant that Liz was often left to deal with them instead. Blake
wondered how he could’ve been so selfish for so long. It didn’t excuse Liz’s
behaviour, though. Ricky had been in the house while she popped pills and drank
herself unconscious. Blake wasn’t even sure how to start to forgive her for
that.

He finally summed up the courage to head downstairs,
and it was a relief when he found the main house undamaged, almost as if
there’d been no fire at all. It was a different story when he headed to the
kitchen annex. Smoke had painted the entire area black, and the odour it gave
off was caustic, as if the flames had left behind a remnant of their fury. It
was difficult not to choke. Blake saw countless flecks of ash swirling in the
dim shaft of light.

“Hope you have insurance,” said Stevie, staring
at the blackened oven. He’d been standing in the kitchen when Blake arrived.
Having someone there made the situation a little less overwhelming.

“I do have insurance, but I don’t think I can
wait to cash in. I need to get this sorted right away.”

“Just use some of those millions you have,”
muttered Stevie, looking away.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“That it’s just money. You’ll buy a new kitchen.
It’s not the end of the world.”

“Isn’t it?”

Stevie looked at Blake like he was a child.
“You’re a moron sometimes, big bro.”

“Excuse me?”

“The fire isn’t the important thing here. What’s
important is that your wife, who used to be a happy, friendly chick, was
miserable enough last night to check out on pills and booze. What have you done
to her, man?”

Blake took three angry steps towards his brother,
but stopped himself short. “I haven’t done anything,” he shouted. “I provide
for this family. They want for nothing.”

“Look around you, man. That’s not true.”

“Piss off! I’m not about to accept judgement from
my degenerate brother.”  Blake couldn’t believe how angry he was.

Stevie’s eyes rolled towards the floor, but then
he looked up again, also furious. “You’re right. How can I possibly criticise
the great Blake Price? You have everything, don’t you? Well, let me tell you
something, big bro: I am a degenerate, which is why I can see, clear as day,
the path Liz is wandering down. I know because I’ve walked it myself, man,
there and back, every day since Mum topped herself and left me all alone.”

“You weren’t alone. You had me.”

“Your pity, you mean? You write a bestseller and
give me a few hand-outs here and there, but I was never anything but a burden
to you. I haven’t even seen you in two years. I live in Colchester, not Buenos
Aries.”

“You know where I am.”

“Yeah, I do, and when I turn up to see you, you
want me gone as soon as I walk up the drive. You think you’re so goddamn
perfect, but you’re deluding yourself. You think that by avoiding all of life’s
problems, they’ll go away, but all you’re doing is burying yourself—and your family. You
were at university when Mum and Dad died. I was the one who had to clear out
the family home and sort out their estate, while you partied with your buddies
at the Student Union and spoke about your feelings.  You even credited you
first book to them, like their deaths had been a goddamn inspiration.”

“You don’t know anything.”

“I know you didn’t come home to help me back
then.  I wasn’t much more than a kid.”

“I was at the funeral.”

“Gone the next day.”

Blake kicked at one of the charred kitchen
cupboards. It crumbled into ash and splinters. “When are you going to stop
blaming your screw-ups on everybody else? You’re a grown man, Steven. The only
person responsible for your life is you. I’m not going to feel guilty for not
being there for you. It was never my job to be. I never agreed to provide for
you.”

“No,” said Stevie. “You made that vow to Liz,
though. How is she, by the way?”

Blake snarled. “Get out of my house before I
fucking throttle you.”

Stevie rubbed at his forehead like he was tired.
“See, now there’s the great Blake Price I know, just a bundle of nerves and
anger bubbling beneath the surface. Do you know something, big bro? I like that
part of you best. That emotional headcase I grew up with is far better than the
grey, featureless human being you’ve become. Escaping to the country was just
your way of escaping life. The tragedy is that you took your wife and son with
you.”

Blake lunged at his brother; but Stevie was ready
for him. Before Blake knew it, he had an arm around his throat, choking the
life out of him.

“There you go,” whispered Stevie in his ear.
“Doesn’t that feel better? Where’s all that emotion you have inside? Let it out
and be a man again.” Blake struggled, but Stevie had always been the athletic
one and held him tight, continuing to whisper in his ear. “You’re a good man,
Blake. When did you start being so afraid of you?”

“When…one of…my fans…raped…Liz.”

Stevie broke away, leaving Blake to slump back
against the cupboards. A cloud of ash billowed into the air.  He coughed and
spluttered, rubbed at his windpipe.  He considered lunging at Stevie again, but
most of the anger had left him. Stevie was right. He had pulled Liz and Ricky
away from the world. He’d cocooned them in a prison of misery and nothingness.
Ricky was ten-years-old and didn’t have a single friend he could bring home
from school. Liz hardly ever left the house.

Blake knew there were tears on his face, but he
left them there.

Stevie was staring at him.  His eyes were as wide
as saucers and his mouth opened and closed like a fish.  He too had slumped to
the floor.

“It was back when we lived in the city,” Blake
began. “Back then I used to travel a lot—meetings with editors, book signings,
marketing campaigns, and everything else I used to think was important. Liz was
pregnant and had decided to quit her job to raise Ricky and the
baby-on-the-way. Ricky was at school by then, so Liz spent most of her days at
home, alone. I regret that so deeply now.”

Stevie said nothing. He just listened.

“I thought I was God’s gift to the world. I drove
a Maserati, I ate lobster with agents in New York, even met the odd celebrity.
I felt as if the world was made for me and that nothing could ever touch me. It
was that hubris that ended up hurting my family—Liz most of all.

“The love and admiration I got from fans and
critics was intoxicating. I became addicted to it. I expected everyone to be in
awe of me, and usually they were. That’s why I would give out my address from
time-to-time; but only to my biggest, most loyal fans. Not so they could visit,
of course, but they liked to send gifts, fan mail. It seemed harmless at the
time.”

Stevie leant on his fist and look ill, like he
didn’t want to hear whatever came next.

Blake had to finish the story, though. “There
would be presents sent to the house every Christmas—postcards, family photos,
invitations, all kinds of things. It all just added to my ego. I never
considered the danger I was putting my family in. You think a guy who writes
about maniacs and killers would know a little better, huh?  I used to think all
the monsters in my life were made up.”

“What happened,” asked Stevie. “What are you
telling me?”

“One day, a long-time fan of mine, a guy who’d
been in touch with me almost since the beginning of my career, turned up on the
doorstep wanting to meet me. His name was Richard Heinz. Liz said the man had
seemed friendly and polite at first. He’d dressed smartly and had bought a
bottle of expensive Scotch as a gift—he knew it was my favourite, knew
everything about me. Liz let him inside the house.” Blake swallowed hard as he
fought to go on. “She tried calling me, but I was in a meeting with a magazine
writer in SoHo. I got the call, even saw her name come up on my phone, but I…”

Stevie nodded. He understood Blake was trying to
tell him he’d rejected Liz’s call.

“Liz left me a couple of messages, but a couple
of hours dragged by before she decided she’d have to ask Richard Heinz to come
back another day. She couldn’t get a hold of me and didn’t know when I’d be
back. But Heinz wasn’t leaving without meeting his idle—the wonderful Blake
Price. He got angry with Liz for trying to come between him and me. She
demanded he leave but he became even more furious. When she tried to call the
police, he hit her. Liz has never told me exactly what happened after that, but
I know he used the bottle of Scotch on her, and by the time he was done, there
was no more baby.”

Stevie had gone deathly pale. “Did they…did they
catch the guy?”

“The very same day. He was a convicted sex
offender, already on police supervision. In his statement, Richard Heinz said
he’d been trying to save me from a controlling harridan and that the Scotch was
an extra special gift now. Heinz had a whole host of mental conditions, I’ve
forgotten most of them, to be honest—schizophrenia was one, I think—but they
charged him and gave him fifteen years in an institution.  When they found out
about two other women he’d attacked, they changed his sentence to life.”

Stevie shook his head.  “Jesus Christ.”

“Heinz can’t hurt anybody else now,” said Blake.
“At least there’s that. Didn’t stop him from sending me letters, though. I
didn’t read any of them, but I made up my mind to move then. I needed to get my
family out of the danger I’d put them in. I bought Poe’s Place, sold the
Maserati, and stopped meeting with big-shot editors in the city. Even if I
never write another book again, I have enough money to look after us all here
forever.”

“But that’s no way to live,” said Stevie. “What
happened to Liz—to you—is just about the sickest, most wretched thing I’ve ever
heard, but teaching your son to retreat from the world won’t do him any good.
How do you expect Liz to regain her confidence if you hide her away?”

Blake blinked slowly and felt his shoulders drop
of their own accord. “You’re right. I’ve neglected Liz ever since it happened.
I’ve done what was best for me, not her. Ricky is collateral damage for my
mistakes.” Stevie gave Blake a hug. For once, Blake felt like the younger
brother. “Thanks, Stevie,” he said.

“Hey, for a degenerate, I’ve been known to speak
some sense on occasion.”

Blake rubbed his face and straightened up. “Sorry
about that. I didn’t mean it.”

“Yeah, you did, but I can hardly blame you. Never
given you much reason to trust me. You’re right, I only have myself to blame
for my past. I came to that conclusion a while ago.”

“What do you mean?”

Stevie raised an eyebrow as if to suggest his
brother was an idiot. “Have you seen me take a drink the whole time I’ve been
here?”

“No, I haven’t. You mean…you’re clean?”

“As a whistle. I haven’t had a drink in almost a
year.”

Blake couldn’t help but grin. In the dark ruin of
his kitchen, he was glad to finally hear some good news. “That’s great. How did
you do it?”

Stevie shook his head as if he were ashamed.
“Let’s get out of this skanky kitchen, shall we?”

“Okay.”

They walked into the hallway and Stevie started
to explain. “It was my wedding to Cindi. Not the day itself, but the DVD of it.
Last year, Cindi and I were having a few spats so I stuck our wedding DVD on to
cheer myself up—or to remind myself why I loved her, I dunno. Anyway, I saw
what a mess I was, slurring through my speech and stumbling around with a glass
in my hand. I saw the awkward looks on people’s faces. It’s weird, but I never
felt like such a loser until I saw myself like other people did. I went cold
turkey the very next day. It was tough—Christ, it was tough—but I feel like a
different person now, and it’s only been a year. I’m sorry I let you down so
much, but I don’t want to waste any more time. I want to rebuild bridges, get
to know my nephew.”

“I’m so proud of you, Stevie.”

Stevie went red in the cheeks and looked away.
“I’m pretty proud of me, too. I’m just sorry that my turning up was at such a
bad time.”

“Did you really know Val was dead when you got
here?”

“No. I didn’t know what I was going to say when I
turned up, but I expected to be unwelcome, so when you said Val had died I just
went with it. It’s pretty shitty, I know, but it made me want to stick around
even more. I could see how stressed you were. You used to get so emotional as a
kid. I still know that look you have.”

“The pills I take help a lot, but I keep
forgetting them with what’s been happening.”

“Probably not a good idea to forget your crazy
pills, man.”

“Nope, certainly doesn’t help. I’m okay. I just
get a little…shaky. After a while I start losing my temper easily and become a
bit of a shit. Liz jokes that the pills are for her mental health, not mine.”

“Always did love her sense of humour.”

“I hope she can get it back.”

Stevie pat him on the back. “She will. Things
will get better.”

“Can’t get any worse. Bailey getting hit by a
van, Val dying, Ricky getting injured, and now the kitchen burning down. It’s
like there’s a curse on this family.”

Stevie chuckled. “D’you still think it’s that
creepy picture frame? Maybe the guy who made it was a voodoo priest.”

Blake’s eyes widened. “Damn it, I forgot about
that.”

“Forgot what?”

Blake grabbed his brother’s wrist. “Come with
me.”

He led Stevie into the family room and pointed at
the side table.

Stevie’s eyes went wide. “It’s back. But I
watched you throw it in the bin.”

“Yes, you did. Somehow it found its way out.”

“It must’ve been Ricky or Liz.”

Blake nodded. “Call me crazy, but I’d like to
find out one way or the other. Part of me is worried the thing made its way
back all on its own.”

Stevie surprised him by not laughing at his
paranoia. “I should be making fun of you right now,” he said, “but I can’t deny
that the thing is pretty creepy.”

“Yeah,” said Blake. “One way or another, it’s
going back in the rubbish and staying there.”

15

Ricky was playing
video games in bed. Blake entered slowly so as not to startle him. “What you
playing?” he asked.

“War Duty. Want to play?”

“Not right now. How long you been up?” The
Liverpool FC clock on the wall read 10.35AM.

“I dunno. Couple hours. Everyone else was
asleep.”

“How’s your leg?”

Ricky didn’t take his eyes off the television and
rhythmically tapped buttons on his controller. “It hurts a bit, but not much.
It itches mostly.”

“Let me take a look.” Blake inspected his son’s
bandage. The wound underneath was sticky, but it seemed to be healing well.
“I’ll be up with some fresh bandages later. You sure you’re alright?” Blake
pressed the back of his hand against Ricky’s forehead, checking for a temperature.
You could never be too sure.

“I’m fine. How’s Mum?”

“She’s still resting. Wasn’t feeling very well
last night.”

“She was drunk.”

Blake didn’t have anything to say to that. Ricky
was apparently old enough to know that his mother had been more than just ill.
“Did you get the picture frame out of the rubbish?” he decided to ask. The
mystery was still bugging him.

“Nope.”

“I’m talking about your picture frame we dug up.
I threw it in the rubbish.”

Ricky kept his eyes glued to the television.
“Why?”

“Because I don’t like it.”

“Okay.” Ricky shrugged.

“Ricky, will you pause your game and look at me
for a moment, please?”

Ricky huffed, but did as he was told.

“I thought you liked the picture frame. Don’t you
mind that I tried to throw it away?”

“I guess. It’s just a picture frame, though.
Bailey and Grandma are dead, we don’t have a kitchen anymore, and Mum is sad. I
don’t care about the stupid frame.”

“That’s pretty grown up. So you don’t mind if I
get rid of it?”

“No.”

Blake ruffled his son’s hair. “Okay, then. Let me
know when you’re hungry and I’ll…well, I guess I’ll have to go out and get
something. Just not pizza, okay?”

“Okay, Dad.”

Blake was just about to leave when Ricky spoke
again. “Dad?”

“Yes, son?”

“Is Uncle Steven going to stay for a bit longer?”

“Do you want him to?”

“I think so. He’s family, right?”

“Yeah, he is.”

“Then I want to get to know him.”

“Okay. I’ll be up with a fresh bandage.” Blake
closed the door quietly and went to check on Liz. He was surprised to find her
awake and sitting at her vanity table. She was naked.

“Liz? Are you okay?” He approached her cautiously
from behind.

She didn’t reply. She picked up a brush and
started untangling her hair, pulling aggressively at her knots. Blake noticed
again how thin she was. Her spine showed through her back.

Blake tried to clear the air. “I’m sorry,” he
said, “for a lot of things. I’m sorry I whisked us away to this cottage in the
middle of nowhere. I’m sorry…for what I let happen to us…what I let happen to
you. You’ve been alone and that’s my fault. I’m not sure there’s even time to
make it up to you, but I’d like to start trying. I love you Liz. I’ve never not
loved you.”

Liz didn’t reply. She continued yanking at her
hair.

“Liz? Liz, will you say something, please?”

Blake placed a hand on Liz’s shoulder. She was
freezing. “God, Liz, you’re going to catch your death.” He stepped around in
front of her. Her eyelids were closed, flickering like she was in a dream.

“Liz…?”

She continued sitting there, brushing her hair.
Liz had never been a sleepwalker, but he was pretty sure that that was what she
was doing now. The stress of the last two days, mixed with pills and alcohol,
had obviously left her fitful and disturbed.

Blake placed both hands on his wife and gently
shook her. “Liz. Liz, wake up. You’re sleepwalking.”

Liz’s eyes snapped open. She looked terrified.
She began to squirm, to struggle against Blake’s grasp, but he held her firm.
“Liz, it’s okay. It’s okay. It’s okay.”

She blinked and managed to focus on him.
“B-Blake? What’s going on?”

He kept eye-contact with her. “You’ve been
sleepwalking. At least, I think you have. You’ve been sitting here fast asleep,
brushing your hair.”

She looked at him like he was insane, but she
didn’t argue. “Really?”

“Yes, are you okay?”

She shook her head. “There was a fire.”

“You remember? It’s all fine. The damage was
contained to the kitchen.”

“How did…?”

“The pizza boxes were on the oven. You fell
asleep.”

Liz shook her head adamantly. “I...never.”

Blake clenched his fists and felt his stomach
knot. “Liz, we need to have a long conversation about a lot of things, but you
need to take some responsibility here. You passed out drunk while our son was
upstairs. The fire happened on your watch.”

Liz stood and pushed him away. She seemed unaware
she was naked because she placed her hands on her hips angrily. “I did not pass
out. I had a nap, that’s all.”

“A nap that nobody on Earth could wake you from.
The pills might have had something to do with that.”

Liz took a breath and ground her teeth. “There’s
no way.”

“I’m not your enemy here, Liz. I have a lot to
answer for too, I know that, but I’ve never been your enemy. You’re in pain, I
get it. You’ve been abandoned by your husband and pulled away from your life
after something dreadful happened, and now your mother has died. I get it, but
you’re drinking way too much and last night you endangered our son. That’s on
you.”

“I did no such thing. That’s just your opinion
and it’s wrong.”

“Perhaps, but why don’t you go talk to Ricky,
because one of the first things he asked me this morning was if you were okay.
He knew you were drunk. He saw you passed out, Liz. You may not respect my
opinion anymore—hell, I don’t blame you—but take a moment to think about Ricky,
because right now we’re both letting him down.

Liz pointed her finger at Blake and went to say
something, but nothing came out. She put her finger against her trembling lower
lip instead. And then her nose began to bleed. She wiped the trickle with the
back of her hand and then looked at the red streak it left behind.

Blake shook his head.  He moved up close and
cupped his wife’s cheek. “Look at you, Liz. You’re falling apart, physically
and emotionally. I love you, and when you’re ready, I want to talk about our
marriage. I want to be a better husband, but I can’t do that until you let me.”

Before he left, Blake had one more thing to
address. “Liz, I’m sorry for asking this, but did you get Ricky’s picture frame
out of the bin? Just nod if you did.”

She didn’t nod. She shook her head.

“Okay, I’ll see you downstairs when you’re ready”
He left Liz alone in the bedroom and headed downstairs. He found Stevie in the
family room. He was sitting on one of the recliners with the picture frame
lying across his lap. In his other hand he held a partially blackened, slightly
melted aluminium meat tenderiser. “Found it in the kitchen,” he said when Blake
walked in. “Thought we could make sure the frame goes away for good this time.
Did you find out who got it out of the bin?”

Blake shook his head. “According to Ricky and
Liz, neither of them.”

Stevie looked down at the picture frame and
pulled a face. “I’m not sure I want this thing on me anymore.”

“Don’t worry,” said Blake. “We’re going to take
it outside right now and smash it to pieces.”

Stevie stood with the tenderiser in one hand and
the picture frame in the other. “You don’t really believe this thing put itself
back on the table, do you?”

“No, I think Liz did it and has forgotten. She
wasn’t exactly in her right mind last night.”

“No shit, but go easy on her, man. You can’t get
through to a drunk with blame. It’s guilt that got them there in the first
place.”

Blake frowned. “What does she have to feel guilty
about?”

“She probably feels like she ruined everything by
letting Richard Heinz into the house, and not being able to stop him from
hurting her. If she’d fought him off, the two of you might not have drifted
apart. She probably feels like a victim; and victims blame themselves, trust
me.”

“I want you to stick around, Stevie. I don’t
think I can sort this out without you.”

Stevie smiled. He patted his brother on the arm.
“You can and you will. I’ll stay for a while, but this is your life, big bro.
Only you can sort it out.”

They left the house and headed for the field
round back. “Shall we do it here?” Stevie pointed to a patch of flattened
grass. There’d been a bouncy castle there the summer before. Blake considered
how sad it was that Ricky had bounced on it alone all summer.

Blake shrugged. “I don’t care where we do it.
Let’s just get it over with.”

Stevie threw the frame down hard on the mud. Once
again, the glass remained intact, the smudge still across Val’s smiling face.
Stevie offered the meat tenderiser to Blake and he took it. He got down on his
knees and raised the makeshift hammer over his shoulder.

“Should we say anything first?” asked Stevie.

Blake frowned. “Like what?”

“I dunno, the Last Rites or something. Whatever
exorcists say.”

“How about good riddance?”

“Okay. Good riddance…weird evil picture frame
thingy.”

Blake swung and landed a blow perfectly on the glass.

The meat tenderiser rebounded back up at him.

He just managed to flinch away in time to avoid
cracking his own skull open. He caught a glancing blow that opened up a slit
above his left eyebrow.

The picture frame remained intact.

“Shit!” Stevie reached out to his brother. “You
okay, man?”

Blake waved a hand. “I’m fine.” He swung the
tenderiser again. It rebounded off the glass without leaving so much as a
scratch.

Blood dripped from Blake’s eyebrow, spilling over
his smiling face in the photograph. It felt like a warning. He dropped the
tenderiser onto the mud and glanced up at his brother, blinking through the
steady stream of blood. “I don’t think we’re being paranoid anymore. This thing
is unnatural.”

Stevie nodded, eyes wide and unblinking. “This is
real, isn’t it? I mean, this thing is evil…or cursed…or, I dunno. Are we
crazy?”

“I’m not sure.”

“We need help.”

Blake shook his head in desperation. “From
where?”

Stevie shrugged. “Google?”

16

“What should I search
for?” asked Blake as they sat in front of the iMac in his office. After heading
upstairs to give Ricky a new bandage, he and Stevie had decided to do a little
research.

“Just type in ‘evil picture frame.’”

Blake rolled his eyes. “Are you serious?”

“Yes, I’m bloody serious. Just type it in.”

Blake typed and then hit ‘enter’. “I can’t
believe I just searched that,” he muttered.

Stevie shushed him. “Look, there are loads of
results.”

His brother was right, there were thousands of
hits, but Blake was disappointed a moment later when he saw most of them were
website listings trying to sell stuff. Most of the links were flogging
ordinary, mass-produced picture frames.

Stevie tutted. “None of that looks any good. We
need to try something else.”

Blake thought for a moment, trying to grasp for
something useful. He’d spent countless hours in this office researching
criminals and police work, but he never thought he’d be looking for the type of
answers he was now. “Ricky found the picture frame buried in the field. Maybe
it was put there by the previous owner.”

“Can you get the deeds up?” asked Stevie.

“I don’t know, maybe.”

Blake typed in Poe’s Place, along with the
address, and was pleased to find the very first listing concerned his house.
The hit read: Poe’s Place, Redlake. Furniture maker found…”

Blake clicked the link and waited for the page to
load.

Stevie folded his arms. “What are you, on dial
up?”

“Welcome to the countryside. We don’t do anything
fast.”

“Except ejaculate,” muttered Stevie.

Blake found himself chuckling, but was quieted by
the page that appeared onscreen. It was a scan of an old newspaper article.

REDLAKE ECHO.

LOCAL FURNITURE MAKER HANGS SELF
IN HOME.

Well-known local furniture maker, Harold Killings (63), was found
dead Sunday morning by his niece, Sarah Preston (26). He was found hanged from
a light fixture in his parlour, where it is thought he committed suicide. It is
currently unknown what motivated Mr Killings to take his own life, but he will
be missed by the local community of Redlake, where he owned a small workshop.
Daniel Cooper, a baker from the shop next door, described Killings as ‘a quiet
yet likable fellow.’

Mr Killings was unmarried and mostly kept to himself. His only
surviving relative is the niece who found him, daughter of deceased sister,
Gladys Preston. It is unclear at this point who will receive control of Mr
Killing’s modest estate, as a will is yet to found, but if one fails to
materialise, it is likely that Poe’s Place cottage, the home of the deceased,
will go to his niece.

March 18th, 1955

“A man died in my home,” said Blake.

Stevie sighed. “You probably should’ve looked
that up before you moved in.”

Blake sighed also. “As much as it creeps me out,
it doesn’t really tell us anything.”

“It’s a start, though. Look up the niece…Sarah
Preston.”

REDLAKE ECHO.

INHERITOR OF DEAD MAN’S PROPERTY
DROWNS WITHIN WEEKS OF MOVING IN.

Sarah Preston (26), niece of recent suicide victim Harold Killings
(63), has been found drowned in the bathtub of her new home after what appears
to be a freak accident. Contusions found on the back of Miss Preston’s head
suggest a slip in the tub, leading to her striking her head and slipping
beneath the water. Her home, Poe’s Place cottage, was built with full indoor
plumbing, allowing occupants to enjoy a hot bath any time. Unfortunately, that
luxury turned deadly when the unmarried Miss Preston fell unconscious while
bathing. It is unknown what will become of the rural cottage now that it has
claimed the life of two family members in less than a year, but it may end up
on the open market. The question is, who would want to live there?

November 28th, 1955

“Great, that’s two people who’ve died in my home. I’m not sure I
want to look any further. Maybe next I’ll find out about a cult that met here
and sacrificed babies.”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” said Stevie. “It
could just be a bad coincidence.”

“You mean like what’s been happening to my family
lately? I don’t think I believe in coincidences anymore.”

Stevie nodded. “Good point. Maybe it’s the house that’s
cursed.”

“We’ve lived here for three years and been fine.
It wasn’t until Ricky dug up the picture frame that our luck changed.”

“Maybe you should look up the reporter.”

Blake sniffed. “Good idea.” He identified the
author of the piece as being A.R. Hartley. He entered the name into the search
engine along with ‘Redlake Echo.’

They waited for a moment, then Blake flopped back
in his chair and grunted. “He died.”

Stevie leant forward and read the information.
“Twenty years ago.”

Blake went to X off the screen, dejected and
annoyed, but Stevie stopped him. “Hang on a minute.”

“What is it?”

“There’s another article by A.R. Hartley. It’s
dated 1991.”

“Must’ve been one of the last stories he wrote
before he died. That’s why it’s at the top; it’s the most recent.”

Stevie waved his hand. “Yeah, forget all that.
Look at the headline.”

Blake read it aloud. “Reverend Thatcher opens
Redlake museum dedicated to town’s bleak and colourful history.”

Stevie patted his brother on the back. “That’s
our man, I’m telling you.”

“Yeah,” said Blake. “He just might be.”

17

“Should we call
first?” asked Stevie. “It’s getting late.”

Blake shook his head. “The website said the
museum’s open ‘till eight. We’ll get a better measure of the man if we turn up
unexpected. If we call ahead, he might do some research and try to pass himself
off as more of an expert than he is.”

“Cynic.”

“I write murder mysteries for a living, I have to
see the world that way.”

“Or maybe you write murder mysteries because you already
see the world that way.”

“I’m not in the mood to be psychoanalysed.”

Stevie shrugged. “Our hour’s up, anyway.”

Blake grabbed his coat from the entrance hall and
checked the pocket for the sackcloth. Once he found it, he slid the picture
frame back inside with the bones. He shoved the entire bundle into his
brother’s arms and then put on his coat. “Meet me by the car,” he said. “I’m
going to check on Ricky and Liz.”

“There’s no need,” said Liz. “We’re both fine.”

Blake found Liz coming down the stairs. She’d
freshened up, washed her hair, and even made an effort to leave it down. All in
all, she looked a whole lot better.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

Blake was about to explain but then realised he
would sound mad, so he lied. “Stevie and I are going to get some food. We can’t
exactly cook anything here.”

Liz sighed. “No, right, of course. Can we have a
chat first, though?”

Blake cleared his throat. When he saw Stevie nod
to him that things could wait, he said, “Okay, shall we go sit in the living room?”

Liz nodded and they headed down the hallway. The
open fireplace mocked him with irony. There were two natural fires in Poe’s
Place—one in the living room and one in the master bedroom—but it was the
modern, recently installed oven that had caught fire.

“Our marriage is finished,” said Liz, just like
that. Blake felt like throwing up, but then she continued. “But I want to start
a new one. You’re right about my drinking. I knew I had a problem, but I didn’t
really care. I felt so alone, so abandoned. I wanted to drink because it made
me feel better. I’m sure you, of all people, understand that.”

“I do. I understand completely.”

“Good,” she said. “I was raped, Blake.”

Blake winced.

“I was raped and we lost our baby, but it wasn’t
your fault. You were a shitty husband then and you’re a shitty husband now, but
it’s not your fault that there’s evil in the world. Heinz could have easily
been a nice man, an AIDs worker who cared for sick children in Africa nine
months a year, but he wasn’t. He was a violent sex offender. That’s not your
fault. I think we both let ourselves become afraid after what happened, and who
can blame us? We’ve seen first-hand how wicked the world can be, but we have to
stop being afraid, Blake. We have to remind ourselves that evil is a narrow
fringe. Most people are good, I truly believe that. I miss people, Blake. I
miss the world.”

“I know. I took us all away and—”

“Let me finish.”

Blake shut up.

“I know you’ve been trying to keep us all safe—if
I didn’t believe that, I don’t think I’d still be here—and despite everything,
I know you’ve always loved me. Behind all the anger and resentment, I still
love you too. I want us to give Ricky a happy home, not the one he has now.”

Blake almost gushed. He felt tears begging to
come out, and so he let them. “I’m so glad to hear you say that. I’ve failed
you both so much for so long. Sometimes I think getting published was the worst
thing to ever happen to us.”

“Don’t. Don’t you do that. You’re responsible for
your actions, Blake, not anything else.”

“You’re right.”

“And I’m responsible for my behaviour. Last night
I let out kitchen burn down and endangered our son. It was a wake-up call. The
decision I have to make is whether to love you or leave you, but for Ricky’s
sake I’m going to focus on the love I still have for you. I think maybe, if we
both change, we can fall in love again. If not, then I want to leave.”

Blake nodded. “I’m ready to fall in love with you
again every day.”

“Leave that nonsense for your books,” she said.
“Just give me a hug.”

Blake squeezed her so tightly she moaned. Her
reply was far limper, but there was intent behind it—a kind of forced
affection. It was the first true connection they’d had in years. It made Blake
more determined than ever to protect his family, but not by running away. No,
he was going to start facing his problems head-on.

“I have to go out,” he said. He didn’t mention
where and he hoped she wouldn’t ask.

“Are you dropping Stevie off at the train
station?”

“No, he’s staying for a few days.”

Liz sighed, but refrained from anger.

“He’s been clean for a whole year, Liz. It’s the
truth.”

Liz raised both eyebrows. “Really? Wow, then I
guess he would be a good person to talk to about my own problems.”

Blake grinned. “You mean it?”

“Yes, but if he starts playing up in the
slightest…”

“He won’t, but I know what you’re saying.”

“Okay, well I’ll see you both when you get back.
I’m going to spend some time with Ricky, if he’ll speak to me.”

“He will. You’re his mother and he loves you.”

Liz smiled wearily and headed upstairs. Blake
raced out and met his brother by the car.

“Everything good?” asked Stevie.

Blake nodded. “Better than ever, which is why I
need to make absolutely sure my family isn’t in any danger. Come on, let’s go
have a chat with this Reverend Thatcher.”

“You best drive,” said Stevie. “I’ve had a
drink.”

Blake glared.

“Kidding. I was kidding.”

They hopped into the car and got going.

18

By the time they were
on the road it was dark and raining. Stevie was staring out the window and
smiling, but it wasn’t a happy smile. It was more like the smile one wore when
thinking of a childhood friend—a happy loss.

“You okay, Stevie?”

“I always loved the rain,” he said. “I don’t want
to say anything as cliché as it washes everything clean, but…maybe that’s it.”

Blake thought about it. “I know what you mean,
although it’s a bugger when the field floods.”

Stevie chuckled. He had the sackcloth and picture
frame on his lap and looked down at it now. “Can you believe we’re doing this?”
he said. “We’re heading to see a priest about a curse. Strange way to spend a
Monday evening.”

“It’s pretty messed up, and if we end up feeling
stupid about the whole thing afterwards, I’ll consider it a good result.”

“Is it wrong to admit I’m kind of enjoying this?”
Before Blake could respond, Stevie elaborated. “When I was a little kid I was
always heading into the woods or some ruined building to have adventures, and
every time I wished my big bro would come with me. The last time we spent time
together like this was when Mum and Dad were still alive. I guess I changed
after they passed.”

“We both did. We both went down our own dark
paths, but we’re okay now. The past is the past. At least it’s going to be,
once we get rid of that thing in your lap.”

Stevie huffed. “Yeah.”

Blake stole a quick glance at his brother and saw
his eyes flickering with sadness. “What is it, man?”

Stevie coughed into his hand and forced a smile
to his lips. “Sorry. It’s just so nice to see you. I get emotional, you know?
Especially since I quit the drink.”

“Join the club. I think being overly emotional is
something we both get from Dad. He was either flying like a kite or in a puddle
of beer and vomit.”

“I loved him, though.”

Blake nodded. “Me too.”

They entered Redlake and passed the abbey beside
the lake. The only light came from the moon and a couple of security lamps
fixed to the abbey’s walls. Redlake sure did have its sights and history, but
Blake wondered if it also had its secrets.

A mile past the lake and they reached the town
centre. Redlake’s high street was a modest mix of chain stores and local shops.
Blake had never spotted the museum before, but the website’s directions listed
it as being next to an OXFAM charity shop.

They parked in front of the town’s Chinese restaurant
and Blake switched off the engine. Inside the eatery, idle staff peered through
the window expectantly. Blake and Stevie disappointed them by crossing the road
and heading in the other direction.

“I see the charity shops ahead,” said Stevie. “I
don’t see any museum, though.”

Blake didn’t either. The shop interiors were
flooded with shadows and the only lights came from their blinking alarm
consoles.

There was a sign on the wall between two of the
shops.

REDLAKE HISTORICAL SOCIETY

No 9, King Street

TAKE STAIRS

On the left side of the OXFAM store was a set of stone steps which
Blake had never noticed before. The alleyway was so narrow that it was hardly
surprising he’d missed it.

“Place is pretty hidden, huh?” said Stevie.

“Adds to the charm, I guess. Come on.”

They headed up the steps to a doorway at the top.
A handwritten sign above it read: MUSEUM ENTRANCE.

The small atrium inside was lined with black and
white photographs of the town throughout various decades. The earliest showed
nothing but the abbey and the lake. The town’s charter, along with its motto,
was housed inside a glass display case in the centre of the room. ‘Keeping
back darkness through light of compassion. Redlake Township, established 1868.’

Blake took a quick look at the charter and
learned that Redlake had originally been made of four smaller villages: Shaw,
Woodmere Abbey, Craven Hill, and Bodenham.

Stevie touched Blake’s arm lightly and got him
moving again. They opened a door to the left side of the atrium and disturbed a
wind chime hanging above. It didn’t prompt anybody to appear, though, and Blake
and Stevie found themselves alone in a dusty room not much bigger than a double
garage. It looked and smelt like a museum. There was the dry, ancient smell of
history, coupled with creaky floorboards and scratched furniture.

Stevie wandered around while Blake stayed put,
examining an old Saxon axe—or Francisca according to the placard. It’d
apparently belonged to a tribal chief, but so much of the iron had worn away
that it looked more like a wooden baton than an axe.

“Where’s this Thatcher guy?” asked Stevie. “Does
he just leave all this stuff unattended?”

“Who’d want to steal it?”

“Kids’ll take anything if it’s not bolted down.”

“Now who’s the cynic?”

“Hey, look,” said Stevie, his mind already moved
on, “a suit of armour. Cool.”

Blake and Stevie crossed to a set of plate mail
at the back of the room beside a door marked ‘STAFF ONLY.’ A closed helm sat
atop the armour, featuring a pointed visor that gave it the appearance of a
duck’s beak.

“How did they move in these things?” asked Blake,
examining the thick plates of steel.

The set of armour raised an arm towards Stevie
and sent him stumbling backwards, frightened. “It’s not as difficult as you
might think,” said a voice from inside the helmet. “The armour has hinges and
pivots. While it’s certainly not comfortable by today’s standards, it did the
job on the battlefield.” The stranger lifted the visor from the helmet and
revealed a pair of grey eyes beneath bushy white eyebrows. The man offered a
chainmailed hand. “George Thatcher—no relation. I heard you mention my name.
Are you here to see me?”

Blake was at a loss for words. He stared at the
old man and found himself quite confused. “I…what…w-what are you doing inside
there?”

“Inside of where? Oh, you mean the suit? Well,
entire days can go by without a soul coming in here. One has to find ways to
amuse oneself.”

Stevie chuckled but was still clutching his
chest. “So…you just play around in here all day? Nice gig.”

George Thatcher turned stiffly to face Stevie.
The suit of armour squeaked and clonked. “I would much rather this place be
busy, but people don’t seem to have much care for the past, tragically.”

“Why bother opening, then?” asked Stevie. “If
people aren’t interested, why waste the time?”

Thatcher shook his head slowly, as if deeply
disappointed. “I don’t do it for them, I do it for the history. Without someone
caring, all these memories just disappear. We owe it to the future to preserve
the stories of those who came before, and this town has more history than
most.”

“That’s why we’re here,” said Blake.

Thatcher lifted his heavy arm and pointed.
“Follow me to my office and we’ll have a chat.”

He clumsily led them through the ‘STAFF ONLY’
door into a small back-office that seemed to be a personal study. There was a
blanket over an old rocking chair in the corner and a large crucifix on the
rear wall.

“I live in the flat upstairs,” Thatcher
explained. “Some nights I don’t make it up there. I’m afraid I’m a bit of a
bookworm and some nights I fall asleep at my desk. You must think me strange.”

Blake looked at the old man standing in a full
set of armour and decided on honesty. “Yes, I find you very strange. Strange is
what led us here, though.”

Thatcher tried to take a seat but found himself
unable. “I don’t suppose you gentlemen could help me out of this, could you?”

Blake looked at his brother and frowned, then
they both went and helped the old man out of the plate mail. It took a good
fifteen minutes.

When Thatcher was finally free, he was sweating
and flustered. He was also wearing a cassock and dog collar beneath his bony
chin.

“Are you still a priest?” Blake asked him.

Thatcher finally managed to take a seat at his
desk. “Reverend. I was Church of England, not Catholic. Not quite as grand but
just as good.”

“So you work for the church?” asked Stevie.

“No, not anymore, but I still consider myself a
man of God. The cassock reassures people of my intentions. I may not be part of
the church anymore, but I am still very much willing to give spiritual guidance
and aid to those who need it. I’m still a minister, regardless. It’s not
something you give up when you leave the pulpit.”

“Why did you leave?” asked Blake.

Thatcher laced his slender fingers together and
leant on his pointed elbows. “Don’t get me wrong, I love the church, but I
found it a little too focused on the minutiae. There’s more to God than Jesus
and the Bible. Organised religions are often guilty of missing the bigger
picture. I serve God in my own way. A church makes no more or less of a man; it
is his mind and his actions that interest the Lord.”

Blake always thought of himself as a ‘respectful
atheist.’ As much as non-believers liked to mock those with faith, thrusting
arguments of science and common-sense at them, the truth was that no one knew
for sure. The real truth was that no one would know until they were dead, and
by then the time for arguing would be over. By that same token, those with
belief had no right to condemn those without.

“Now,” said Thatcher, “what can I help you
gentlemen with?”

“I live at Poe’s Place.” There was an almost
imperceptible wrinkle that crossed Thatcher’s brow, but the man said nothing,
even as Blake waited. “I’ve recently discovered that people have died in my
home. I’ve also come into possession of a picture frame that was buried in my
field. Since my son dug it up, it’s almost as if…I can’t believe I’m going to
say this, but—”

“His family is cursed,” Stevie finished for him.
“It sounds crazy, we know, but there has been nothing but bad luck for my
brother ever since he dug the ugly thing up.”

Thatcher nodded toward the sackcloth Stevie was
holding. “You have it with you, this picture frame?”

Stevie nodded. He placed the sackcloth on the
desk. For now, Thatcher left it where it was.

“What’s happened to you?” Thatcher asked Blake.

“What’s happened to me? Where to start…” Blake
took a deep breath and then told Thatcher all about the past few days. He
finished with the fire in the kitchen. Thatcher remained quiet the whole time,
rubbing his hands together and listening intently.

Thatcher nodded as if he understood everything.
There was nothing about the man that suggested incredulity of any kind. “You
are overwrought by all of this,” he said. “I do not blame you. There are things
in this world that are not of God, and that is not just the holy man in me
speaking. I have devoted the last twenty years of my life to studying the
history and secrets of this town, and of the universe itself. What do you think
originally led me to undertake such a task?”

“You’ve encountered something like this before,”
guessed Blake.

“A haunted picture frame? No, nothing quite so
remarkable. It was the Redlake killings that first shook my faith in the Lord’s
ability to protect us.”

Blake frowned. “What do you mean? What killings?”

“This town likes to forget, which is why you’ve
probably never heard of it, but in 1993 seven children were found drowned in
Woodmere Lake beside the abbey. There were no signs of a struggle and no
tracks. The children were all from different families and from different parts
of town. Somehow, they each left their beds in the middle of the night and
converged upon the lake. There, it appears they went into the water willingly
and drowned.”

Stevie covered his mouth. “That’s horrible.”

“Indeed it is. My role in the church exposed me
to the grief and suffering of those families on an intimate level. I wanted
answers as much as they did, but none ever came. It was then that I left the
church and devoted myself to finding those answers. In twenty years I have
found many, believe me. This town is not like others.”

“What do you mean?” asked Blake.

“It would take the rest of my life to explain
what I know, but trust me when I say that this town is a battleground for
forces far beyond our understanding.”

Blake was beginning to doubt the Thatcher’s
sanity. He needed answers that made sense, not self-indulgent ramblings. “I
need to know about my house, Poe’s Place, and the picture frame I
found.”

Thatcher nodded. “Of course you do. Allow me a
minute to find what you need.” The old man got up and went back into the museum
area. The door closed behind him.

Blake and Stevie shot each other awkward glances.
Coming here had started to feel like a mistake. Thatcher’s ramblings had left
Blake feeling silly, and talk about a curse suddenly seemed childish. Had he
really believed he was the victim of anything other than plain bad luck?

Stevie leant forward and grabbed a book from
Thatcher’s desk. There was a modern plastic cover wrapped around the faded,
original one. “Huh,” he said. “Look at this. The translation says it’s called, The
Demise of the Countless Lands. Sounds like a comedy.”

Blake rolled his eyes. “Put it back before he
returns and attacks you with an antique sword.”

“He’d need a bastard sword to deal with me.”
Stevie laughed and continued leafing through the book. “It’s a picture book,”
he explained.

Blake took a quick look. While the words were
foreign, possibly Arabic scripture, each page had intricately drawn pictures.
One page depicted a legion of animals ripping a man apart; a giant ape stood in
the background roaring. Another page showed a graveyard full of dead man rising
to their feet and devouring the living. Another image featured a giant metal
gate giving birth to an army of frightening monsters pouring through it. The
detail was grossly intricate.

Stevie ran his fingers over the pages reverently.
“Wonder what all the pictures mean.”

“They’re different ways the world has ended,”
said Thatcher, appearing in the doorway behind them. There was another large
book in his arms.

“Sorry, did you say the ways the world has ended?”

Thatcher sat back at his desk. “Not this world,
but others like it, yes. You see, God is not an island. He has many
counterparts — siblings, if you will. While he is the greatest power of all, he
is not the only one.”

Stevie frowned. “Did you say you’re Church of
England?”

“My title was given to me by the Church of
England, yes, but my beliefs have progressed since then. You see, once there
was only a single Earth: The Garden of Eden, but that soon became the Garden of
Evil as God’s counterparts began to steer humankind away from his divine plan.
The lesser gods corrupted mankind and almost destroyed it with a great flood.”

“You’re talking about Noah,” said Blake. “Wasn’t
that God’s work?”

“It was a god’s work, but not the God.
Anyway, that is not your current burden,” he nodded to the picture book in
Stevie’s lap. “And nor is that my own book you’re holding. It belongs to the
Imam from the Mosque in town.”

Stevie raised an eyebrow. “You borrowed it from
an Imam?”

“Yes, religion isn’t a game of football. It’s
okay to fraternise with the other team. The Imam is a good man, who also
believes there is more to existence than what is written in the Bible or Quran.
He leant me that book from his own archives.”

“What did you lend him in return?” asked Blake.

“The complete DVD box set of Fawlty Towers. Now,
let us focus on another book.” Thatcher placed the new book on the desk and
turned it towards them, already opened. The dark eyes of a stern gentlemen
stared up at them from a black and white photograph.

“Who is it?” asked Blake, examining the
middle-aged man with jet black hair and an ill-fitting suit to match.

“The man who built your home, of course: Oscar Boruta,
an Austrian immigrant who built the cottage in 1926.”

“I had no idea it was that old,” said Blake.

“The cottage you live in is not. The original
burned down in 1938 and was rebuilt on the same foundations a few years later
by Harold Killings, a carpenter.”

Blake leant forward. “Yes, and he hung himself in
the cottage and left it to his niece.”

“Who also died,” added Thatcher.

“Then you know?”

“I know some things, yes. This picture frame you
speak of, I know nothing of specifically.”

Blake deflated. “Well, is it the house that’s
cursed or the picture frame?”

“From what I understand, Poe’s Place
cottage was lived in happily for many years after the death of Miss Preston and
only fell into disrepair ten years ago when it was repossessed by the bank to
cover the last owner’s debts. It was eventually bought and renovated by a great
mystery writer.”

Blake flinched. “You know who I am?”

“Of course. Who doesn’t know the wonderfully
talented Blake Price? You’ve dropped off the radar a little recently, though. When
is your next book out? I quite enjoyed the last.”

“I don’t know. Can we just focus, please? What’s
so important about this Oscar Boruta? I assumed the picture frame belonged to
Harold Killings. He was a carpenter, after all.”

Thatcher shrugged. “Perhaps, but I doubt it.
Harold Killings made doors and beds, to my recollection, not picture frames and
knick knacks. Oscar Boruta is a far more likely culprit. Boruta brought Pagan
beliefs to Redlake and many wisely feared him. He ate raw meat and would often go
after women like a lust-crazed beast. His body odour was, by all accounts, most
foul.

“Nobody knew where all of the man’s money came
from, but Boruta would often sell trinkets from a rickety old cart in the
centre of town. Despite people’s distrust of the man, his trinkets were
beautiful and often very cheap. These were hard, war-torn times, you
understand, and people would get a bargain wherever they could. Boruta’s
trinkets were all carved from wood and shared a common design.” Thatcher turned
the page of the book, and once Blake saw what was inside, he recoiled.

“That’s it!” he said. “That design with the
flowers and the flames. It’s the exact same as the carvings on the picture
frame.”

Thatcher smiled. He then finally removed the
picture frame from the sackcloth. Sure enough, the flames and flowers were the
exact same as in the book. “I thought that might be the case. I just wanted to
take an educated guess first, so that you would trust me all the more. Speaking
of matters such as these with a stranger is not easy, I know.”

Blake was still staring at the design in the book
and hardly listening. “What is this book? How do you have it?”

“It is an heirloom,” said Thatcher, “passed down
through generations, though not necessarily via family. It was given to me by a
very old man in 1988, a reporter named Andrew Robert Hartley. It was given to
his father by one of the last remaining monks at the abbey before it was
decommissioned and eventually turned into a museum. There are men and women
protecting this town, gentlemen. I am proud to be one of them.”

“What does the pattern mean?” asked Blake. “The
flowers, the flames?”

“It represents scorched earth,” said Thatcher.
“The flowers represent life, the flames represent destruction. This same design
was carved on every single trinket that Boruta sold to the people of Redlake.
He worshipped destruction and that is exactly what he sold to the innocent
people of this town.”

Stevie shifted in his seat. “How?”

“The trinkets he sold were all cursed, or so my
precursor, Mr Heartily, explains in his accounting of it in this book. He was a
man of thirty in those days, but the book before you was passed on by his
father, who’d raised Andrew to believe in the unnatural. By day, A.R. Hartley
was a sceptical news reporter, but by night he was a demonologist and
theologian. He believed that Boruta was an agent of the lesser gods.”

Blake was beginning to feel silly again, but he
fought to play along. “So these trinkets, how do you know they were cursed?”

“All who possessed them came to ill end. The
local butcher purchased a mop bucket from Boruta and slipped on soapy water the
very next day, breaking his neck. The local headmistress bought a stepladder
that sent her tumbling onto a lit stove as she sought to change a light bulb in
her kitchen. There are dozens of such accounts of people meeting their ends
soon after purchasing something from Boruta.”

“So what happened?” asked Stevie, perched on the
edge of his seat.

“In 1928, the townspeople, led by Andrew Robert
Hartley, came together and decided that Boruta was evil, a warlock or demon.
They descended upon the man’s home, Poe’s Place, and ransacked it. They
found no workshop there, where the man might have created his wares, but they
did find the trinkets themselves. They set fire to all of them, and to the
cottage itself. Then they found Boruta outside in the field. The man did not
run when he saw the baying crowd coming towards him, nor did he fight with the
shovel he was holding at the time. As the people of Redlake beat Oscar Boruta
to death on his own land, he simply smiled. So they smashed his teeth out with
rocks before caving in his skull and burning his body outside his home. Reports
say Boruta spoke only a single word during the entire affair. Eligos.”

Blake frowned. “Eligos?”

“Eligos is one of the lesser gods. One who seeks
to break down God’s barriers and destroy mankind. He is a tarnished knight,
dedicated to the triumph of evil over good. As I said, Andrew Robert Hartley
suspected Boruta was an agent of evil, a corrupter; either a man turned wicked
or something else from the realm of Heaven itself.”

Stevie frowned. “Heaven? I thought it was a good
place.”

“Heaven is a place like any other. It has many
inhabitants both good and bad, regions and nations, each with their own leaders
and agendas. Whether heavenly or not, Boruta was intent on bringing the town of
Redlake to its knees, and he almost succeeded. However, the people of this town
know about the things that go bump in the night. They tell their children
bedtime stories with just a little bit more flourish than everywhere else.
Redlake is one of the battlegrounds where the existence of this Earth will be
fought. You made the unfortunate error of moving here.”

Blake had heard enough. One minute he was
completely enamoured by Thatcher’s words, the next he felt like a fool. The
grander the man’s proselytising the more unbelievable it was. “Okay, I have to
get home. The picture frame is evil, I get it. Unless you have some way of
helping me, this is getting us nowhere. I need to be at home with my family.”

“I don’t know that I can help you, Mr Price. I’m
sorry. You have placed a photograph of your beautiful family inside and one
member is already dead, correct? I’m also assuming that you cannot remove the
photograph or destroy the frame?”

Blake nodded. “That’s right.”

“The same was true of Boruta’s other trinkets. No
one who purchased one lived long enough to see their next birthday. Your family
is in peril, but I don’t know a sure way to help you. I fear you are doomed.”

Blake lost his balance for a moment, but Stevie
caught him and turned a wicked glance towards Thatcher. “That’s bullshit.
What’s the point of devoting your life to this crap if you can’t do anything to
help people?”

“I will help as I can. I will keep the picture
frame here and ensure it does no further damage.”

Stevie huffed. “But in the meantime, my brother
will just have to die? Screw that!” He lunged forward and shoved the picture
frame back into the sackcloth, before scooping the whole bundle up into his
arms. “We’re taking this back with us and we’ll find a way to destroy it
ourselves. Then I’m going to come back and make you eat the bloody thing.”

Thatcher nodded. “I will prepare my appetite.”

19

Stevie was chewing on
the side of his cheek and shaking his head. He was obviously furious, but Blake
only felt numb. All his hopes had been on Thatcher knowing a way to help him,
or at the very least having him dismiss the notion of a curse. Instead,
Thatcher had confirmed Blake’s fears and then made them even worse. There was
no help, no way to destroy Boruta’s frame.

“Thatcher’s insane,” said Stevie. “I mean, all
that talk about this town being a battleground for the end of the world…
There’s a Nandos over there on the corner. Are we really supposed to believe
that the staging ground for the apocalypse will take place in a town with a
Nandos? Insanity!”

Blake shook his head and sighed. “I didn’t
believe any of that either, but I did believe what he said about the picture
frame. The thing is cursed. We’ve tried to destroy it, we’ve tried to remove
the photograph. My family’s cursed, Stevie, and there’s nothing I can do about
it.”

“I won’t accept that. Screw that.”

“Stevie…”

“No, I’m not going to start believing in curses
any more than I’m going to believe in the Beast of Bodmin or UFOs. It’s all
bullshit.”

Blake looked at his brother and didn’t know what
to say.

Stevie breathed deeply, trying to calm down.
“Look, it’ll be okay, we’ll figure this out. All that’s actually happened is
that your dog got run over and Val died of a heart attack. Well, newsflash:
dogs get run over and old ladies die of heart attacks. This is simple paranoia,
and I’m sorry I got involved in making it worse.”

Blake patted his brother on the arm. “Come on,”
he said. “We should grab dinner from the Chinese and get home. Liz and Ricky
will be starving.”

Stevie frowned at him. “Seriously?”

“We’ve still got to eat.”

They headed back towards the car and placed an
order with the appreciative staff of the Chinese restaurant. They ordered a
coke from the bar while they waited, then took a seat on the bench beside the
window. Blake was silent, trying to digest what he’d learnt from the eccentric
museum owner. Thatcher was unhinged, certainly, but he’d also provided evidence
to support his madness in the way of books and documents. Just because Thatcher
was crazy, didn’t mean that he was wrong.

Blake watched a van drive past as he sipped his
coke, and wondered if it was the one that’d struck Bailey. There’d be no way of
knowing.

He took a careful sip from his drink. If he’d
been paying more attention, he may have taken a larger gulp. It was a good
thing he didn’t. He lurched forward. Blood spluttered from his mouth and
stained the carpet.

Stevie leapt up. “Blake!”

Blake put a hand up to say everything was
okay—although he wasn’t entirely sure that it was. He reached into his mouth
and plucked out a jagged piece of glass. It’d sliced the side of his mouth, but
thank God he hadn’t swallowed it. He held the shard in front of him and
examined it while spitting out more blood.

The owner of the restaurant came rushing over and
saw what Blake held in his hand. “Oh no, I am sorry.” He hurried to get a rag
from the bar and handed it to Blake. “I’m very sorry. Please, food is ready. No
charge. Oh no. Oh no oh no.”

Another time and Blake might have been fuming at
such deadly negligence, but he suspected this wasn’t the restaurant owner’s
fault. “There was part of a broken bulb in my drink,” Blake informed him. “Do
you know how it got there?”

The owner chewed at his nails erratically before
saying, “Light blow above bar ten minute ago. Light blow.”

Blake wiped his bloody lips with his sleeve and
then patted the owner on the shoulder. “It’s not your fault, okay?” The real
culprit was a man long dead, Oscar Boruta.

The restaurant owner had gone completely white
and handed over their food with a pained grin. “I am very sorry, sir.” He said
it over and over again, seeming to find it impossible that Blake wasn’t
screaming about a lawsuit.

Stevie took the food and the two of them returned
to the car. Once they were inside, Blake turned to his brother. “Still think
it’s bullshit? If I’d swallowed that glass I would have choked on my own
blood.”

“But you didn’t. It was an almost
accident, so how does that count?”

Blake started the engine. “I don’t know. Maybe
the picture frame can manipulate events to try and kill me, but can’t guarantee
it. Maybe it’ll keep trying until it succeeds.”

“Let it try,” said Stevie. “I’m not going to let
anything happen to you.”

“Where were you with the glass in my drink,
then?”

“I wasn’t expecting anything then, but if you
won’t relax, I’m going to have to humour you. I’ll watch your back if it makes
you feel safer.”

“It doesn’t,” said Blake, “but I appreciate it
anyway.”

They headed back home in silence, Blake
concentrating hard on the road, expecting a fox to fly out in front of him at
every bend. At one point, a mini cooper seemed to veer towards Blake’s Citroen,
but it corrected itself at the last second. Blake wondered if the curse had
made the driver lose focus for a moment. Another failed attempt, or another
coincidence? Suddenly it felt like danger lurked everywhere.

Stevie cleared his throat. “When we get back, we
should go back on the Internet. We can look up this Boruta guy. At least
Thatcher gave us a couple of leads to follow. Maybe we’ll find the answer
ourselves.”

Blake agreed. “Don’t see any harm in looking.
Better than sitting around waiting for the ceiling to come down.”

“So, there’s really no doubt in your mind that
you’re cursed?”

Blake reached the B-road and brought down his
speed, ready to turn into the driveway coming up. “I want to do an experiment.
Depending on the outcome, I’ll make my final decision as to what I believe. As
of right now, I’m almost certain that digging up that old picture frame was the
worst thing that ever happened to my family.”

Blake pulled onto the driveway and stopped a few
feet shorter than he usually would. He pulled on the handbrake and put the car
in neutral. Then he nodded to the sackcloth in his brother’s lap. “Place it
under the front tyre.”

“You’re going to roll over it?”

“Yes.”

Stevie got out and disappeared for a moment as he
knelt in front of the bonnet. Then he stood out of the way and gave Blake a
thumbs up.

Blake shifted into first and released the
handbrake. The car rolled forwards. Blake felt the frame go under the front
left wheel, but there was no cracking or tinkling of glass. He let the car
continue rolling forward until he felt the back wheel travel over the frame as
well. Then he pulled up the handbrake and turned off the engine.

Stevie was already hurrying to pick up the sackcloth,
seemingly excited about what they would find. Blake joined him beneath the
light of the cottage’s security lamp.

“You ready?” asked Stevie.

“Just get it out and show me.”

“That’s what she said.”

Stevie reached into the sackcloth and grabbed the
frame, then, like a magician about to reveal a trick, he slid the frame out.

It was unbroken and without a scratch.

“Half-a-ton rolling over it, and nothing,” said
Blake. “The thing is made of wood and glass.”

Stevie’s neck bulged like he was going to be
sick. “Okay, okay, maybe I’m not just humouring you anymore. We’re really in
the shit here, aren’t we, big bro?”

“No,” said Blake. “Just me, Liz, and Ricky.
You’re not in danger.”

“Dad?”

Blake and Stevie turned around to see Ricky
limping towards them. His leg was still bandaged, the cloth grubby and wet.

“Ricky? What are you doing out here in your
pyjamas?”

“It’s Mum,” he said. “She’s not very well. I
think she needs a doctor.”

Blake picked his shivering son up in his arms and
headed into the house. “Where is she?”

“In the lounge.”

Blake hurried towards the lounge, and when he
stepped inside he once again heard the familiar buzzing.

Blake put Ricky down and shoved him back towards
Stevie. He swatted at the flies irritably, but his focus was on Liz. She was
lying on the sofa in front of the crackling fireplace. Her breathing was
laboured and her eyes were tightly closed. A sheen of sweat coated her forehead
and she’d gone the colour of unripe olives, pale green. Despite the fire
burning only five-feet away, she was ice cold when he touched her. Flies buzzed
everywhere, settling on her skin. Blake cleared them as best he could. “Liz?
Liz, wake up.”

Nothing. She was so deeply unconscious that she
could be mistaken for comatose. Perhaps she was. Blake asked Stevie for his
phone. Stevie handed it over immediately and Blake dialled 999.

“Emergency. Which service?”

“Ambulance. I need an ambulance.”

There was a click followed by another operator
speaking. “Ambulance Service. What is your emergency?”

“My wife is sick. She’s really sick. She won’t
wake up and she’s pale. I need an ambulance.”

There was an echo on the line, followed by a
crackle.

“Are you sure?”

“What? Yes, I’m sure. Send me a goddamn
ambulance.”

“Sir, are you making this up?” The voice was
terse, almost a shout.

Blake almost dropped the phone. He stared at it
for a moment before putting it back to his ear and shouting. “My wife is in
critical need of medical assistance. Send an ambulance right now! My address
is—”

“I know your address, Mr Price. Poe’s Place.”

Blake didn’t have time to wonder how the woman
knew the information; he supposed the network’s computers had brought it up.
“Will you send an ambulance?”

“No, Mr Price. No help is coming.”

The line went dead.

Blake immediately redialled, then tried the alternative
number, 112, but the line remained silent each time.

“Is help coming?” asked Stevie, Ricky beside him.

Blake stared at the mobile phone and shook his
head. Scrolling across the display was one word, which he showed to his
brother: ELIGOS. “No, Stevie” he said. “I don’t think help is coming.”

A minute later, Liz woke up coughing. Her nose
started to bleed again. Blake held a towel to her face until she fell back into
unconsciousness. A man from the nineteen-twenties was killing his wife. Oscar
Boruta might have been dead, but his evil was still very much alive.

20

Blake left Ricky with
Stevie and headed into the family room. He tried the landline on the bar, but
it was also dead. He’d have to get Liz in the car and drive her to the hospital
in Redlake himself. She needed help and he was going to get it for her, curse
be damned.

He stomped outside and headed over to the
Citroen, intending to back it up closer to the house. When he made it over to
the car he kicked the bodywork in frustration.

All four tyres were torn to shreds. The rubber
was ringed with what looked like teeth marks. There was no way a fox could bite
through four tyres in only a matter of minutes, but it’d happened. He wouldn’t
be driving Liz anywhere.

A light in the distance caught Blake’s attention:
a vehicle coming down the B-road. It was still a hundred metres away, but
quickly getting close. Blake got moving, hurrying up the driveway as fast he
could. In the dark, it was hard to be sure-footed and he almost rolled his
ankle twice, but he kept on going. He kept on going until he was only a dozen
feet from the side of the road.

He hadn’t seen the fox leap out from the bushes.
The animal lunged at Blake from behind, catching the tender flesh at the back
of his thigh. He yelled out in agony and stumbled.

The incoming car got closer, only fifty metres
away.

Blake kicked out at the snarling fox, catching it
under the chin. It tumbled backwards, but leapt at Blake again. It made it as
high as Blake’s neck, but he blocked it with his arms, clutching the fox around
the haunches. The force knocked Blake backwards and he fell with the snapping
beast on top of him.

The incoming car was about to pass the house.
Blake needed to flag it down now, to get help for Liz.

Blake rolled and twisted. He was six feet from
the road, but lying in the gravel he may as well have been invisible. He tried
to bring his knees up beneath the fox, to kick it away, but he couldn’t bend
that way. One of his fingers slipped into the animal’s mouth and was
immediately clamped between its teeth. The pain made Blake snarl. He tightened
his grip and rolled sideways, dragging the fox onto its side. As the animal
tried to right itself, Blake did something he thought he’d never do: he snapped
its neck.

The fox went limp.

Huffing and puffing, Blake looked at the dead
animal with sadness, but no regret.

He heard the growl of an engine and leapt to his
feet. “Hey,” he shouted, waving his arms. “Hey! I need help. Stop. Please.”

The car went by without so much as slowing,
quickly fading away into the distance.

Blake yelled in fury and almost lost control of
himself, but he forced himself to take a deep, long breath. He managed to calm
himself, but the feeling didn’t last as he heard more growling. This time the
noise wasn’t from a distant car engine or a single fox.

Poe’s Place was
surrounded by dozens of foxes. Their eyes shone in the darkness like fireflies
hovering above a lake. They studied Blake, their bodies hunched and ready to
pounce.

Blake took a slow step towards the B-road. The
foxes snarled and came at him.

He stopped and so did the foxes.

Blake took a step towards the house and the foxes
moved away, making no attempt to attack him. He took three more steps and the
foxes retreated further, their stares still fixed on Blake but their snarls
coming a little less. Eventually the foxes all but melted into the shadows,
allowing Blake to return home.

One thing was clear: anyone trying to leave Poe’s
Place would be ripped apart.

21

Blake limped back
into the lounge where he found his brother swatting at the few remaining flies
with a rolled up newspaper. The window was open and the cold night whistled in.
Ricky was wrapped in a blanket on one of the sofas, eating Chinese food and
watching a DVD. Liz was still asleep on the opposite sofa.

“I got most of them out,” said Stevie. “Don’t
know where they all came from, though.”

“They’re not the first,” said Blake, his tone
icy. “There was a swarm in the family room night before last, right before Liz
got sick.”

Stevie put down the rolled up newspaper and
pulled the window closed. He spoke in a hushed tone, so as not to let Ricky
hear. “We need to get her out of here, man. Is the car ready?”

“The car’s not going anywhere.” Stevie waited for
an explanation, so Blake sighed and gave one. “There’s a pack of foxes outside.
They tore the tyres to pieces and attacked me when I tried to make a break for
the road.”

Stevie scratched his head. “Are you serious?”

“Yes, I’m goddamn serious. Why would I lie? Liz
needs help, but I can’t get any for her. I damn near got ripped apart out
there.”

“I tried my phone while you were gone,” said
Stevie. “I couldn’t get any signal.”

“I already told you the phones aren’t working.
Did you think I was lying?”

“Of course not. I’m just trying to get help for
Liz. What’s wrong with you?”

“She’s my wife. Don’t you think I’m doing all I
can?”

“Sounds to me like you’re giving up.”

Blake stomped towards his brother with clenched
fists. He felt himself losing control.

Stevie backed away, but didn’t look afraid, so
much as he did concerned. “Blake, what are you doing, man?” He motioned towards
Ricky, who was watching them both from the corner of his eye.

Blake stopped himself and shook his head.
“Damnit, I’m sorry. I’m losing it. I’m not giving up, I just don’t know what to
do. We can’t call out and we can’t leave. There’re two dozen foxes outside,
waiting to rip apart anyone who tries to go for help.”

Stevie was frowning.

“I’m telling you, Stevie. You don’t believe me,
go ahead and try to make it out to the road. Go get help.”

“Hey, no, I believe you, Blake. I’ve witnessed
nearly as much as you have. I know something is very wrong here. So what do you
want to do?”

Blake flapped his arms. “I don’t know, get
wasted?”

Stevie didn’t laugh. His expression was stern and
once again he seemed like the older brother. “Big bro, that’s not going to help
right now, believe me. Don’t think I wouldn’t join you in a second, but we have
Liz and Ricky to think about. We need to keep them safe. You have a beautiful
family, man—something I envy. You need to fight for them. You need to protect
them.”

Blake nodded. “You’re right. Damnit, I know
you’re right. I need to man up.”

Stevie raised his fist and shook it
encouragingly. “So what do you want to do? What would the hero in one of your
books do?”

“Not stop until he found a solution. We’re going
to keep watch and figure this out. We can all stay in here, together. Liz is
sleeping and Ricky can watch DVD’s until he’s out too. You and I do not leave their
sides.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

“We still need to figure this thing out. We need
to find out more about Boruta and his godforsaken picture frame.”

Stevie grinned. “Google?”

Blake nodded. “My laptop’s in the family room,
beneath the bar. Get it for me?”

Stevie obliged. He came back two minutes later
with the laptop and plug, as well as the picture frame and sackcloth. “Didn’t
want to let it out of our sights,” he explained.

The two sofas were taken, so they set up over by
the doorway, on the floor. Blake checked on Liz, but still couldn’t wake her.

“Is she going to be okay?” asked Ricky. He was
rubbing at his bandages. Blake didn’t like the look of the wound, but there was
no way to get his son a doctor any more than there was Liz. The best use of his
time was trying to find a way to destroy the picture frame. “She’s going to be
fine, buddy. She’s just got real bad flu and needs to sleep it off.”

“Why are we all staying in here together?”

“So we can be together. Your mum is better off if
we don’t disturb her, and your uncle Stevie wants to spend time with us. When
we’ve finished working, we’ll come watch a DVD with you.”

Ricky narrowed his eyes suspiciously, but went
back to watching TV without further questioning. Blake grabbed the remaining
cartons of Chinese food and brought them over to his brother.

“Mind there’s no glass in it,” said Stevie as he
booted up the laptop.

Blake went to laugh, but realised it wasn’t a
joke and checked the cartons. He wasn’t particularly hungry, but he shovelled
in a few mouthfuls of Singapore fried rice, before wiping his hands on his
shirt and sitting up against the wall beside his brother.

Stevie brought up a search page, but before he
typed anything, Blake had a suggestion. “Maybe you should send Cindi an email
so she doesn’t worry.”

“She won’t be worried.”

“Of course she will. She’s your wife.”

Stevie smoothed his fingers over the keypad but
didn’t press anything. “I don’t think marriage vows mean all that much to her,
big bro.”

“What d’you mean?”

Stevie sighed and seemed to battle with something
internally. After a moment’s hesitation, he closed the lid on the laptop and
looked at Blake. “She’s been sleeping with her boss—douchebag who owns the bar
where she works.”

Blake groaned. “Jesus, man. I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, me too. Guess an alcoholic letting his
wife work at a bar is an accident waiting to happen, huh? Her boss doesn’t have
to worry about me dropping in unexpectedly because I avoid the place like the
plague.”

“Guess we both have curses on us. That’s why you
came here to see me, isn’t it? You should’ve said.”

“You have enough problems of your own. I’m not
sure how long it’s been going on, but Cindi and I started drifting apart about
a year ago. She’s still a party girl, you know? She likes to have a good time,
but her good time involves lots of alcohol. All of a sudden we didn’t like the
same things anymore. She goes out to party and I stay home. Guess it was just a
matter of time.”

“She could’ve supported you,” said Blake. “Maybe
it’s time she grew up, too.”

A tear spilled from Stevie’s eye and he wiped it
away immediately. “I caught her on the phone to him one night. I’d gone to bed,
but came down in the middle of the night to get a glass of milk. I had
heartburn—years of drinking does that.”

Blake nodded.

“Anyway, I overhead their dirty talk and
confronted her right then. She didn’t even put the phone down, man. She carried
on talking to the douchebag and was actually mad at me, like I’d invaded
her privacy or something. Can you believe that? Next day she ordered me out of
the house, said I was no fun anymore and that she didn’t love me. I finally get
my life in order and I’m still the bad guy. Ain’t irony a bitch?”

“Certainly is. I always wanted to be a famous
writer, then it happened and it made my life a thousand times harder. Sometimes
success brings its own set of challenges. You’re a good guy, Stevie. I think
Cindi married a different guy, a worse guy. You should be proud of that. You’ve
changed for the better, but she hasn’t and if she’s incapable then you should move
on to better things and never look back.”

“But I love her, man. I really bloody love her.”

Ricky flinched on the sofa, obviously having
heard the curse word.

Stevie looked at Blake and winced. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay. He’s heard worse from his mother.”

“Huh, I’ll bet. She’s going to okay, man. We
won’t let anything happen to her.”

Blake smiled. His brother’s focus and strength
were contagious. Stevie really had become a new man, a better man. “You sure
you’re not just humouring me about all this curse stuff until the men in white
coats get here?”

“Hey, I called ‘em,” said Stevie, “but they said
they didn’t deal with crazy as bad as yours.”

They both chuckled and it felt good, a brief
release.

Stevie opened the laptop again. “Let’s get our
research on.”

“Type in ‘Oscar Boruta.’”

Stevie typed and hit enter. Immediately, they
were met by the same black and white photograph Thatcher had shown them at the
museum.

Blake grunted. “That’s him.”

Stevie clicked the first link that wasn’t an ad
for Insurance. SERVANTS OF ELIGOS was the title at the top of the page.

Boruta wasn’t the only man featured. There were
six others, including two women. Along with Boruta, they were collectively
titled: THE 9 SERVANTS OF THE LUNAR KNIGHT. There was a seal at the top of the
page, made up of a serpent coiled around a lance. Then came a list of the nine
individuals. Each of them looked as stern and humourless as Boruta did—the
women even more so. There were no dates or backgrounds for the nine servants,
only brief aggrandising statements of their deeds.

One of the female servants, Edith Culsu, had long
grey hair and dark, bulbous eyes. She held a pair of scissors against her
breast and beneath her name was a single line: Beholde thy gates shall fall,
and with them, thy crooked Lord. So sayeth the 6th, breaker of
walls.

Blake nudged his brother. “What does it say about
Boruta?”

Stevie scrolled down to the passage beneath the
photograph of Boruta. It read: Thy craven flesh of man shall boil. So sayeth
the 9th, master of wood and beast. Martyred 1928, soon to return.

Stevie huffed. “Martyred. Put down like
the animal he was, more like.”

“This tells us nothing.” Blake grunted. “Just
some weirdo setting up a website for a bunch of historical lunatics.”

“Nine lunatics,” said Stevie.

“We need to search something else.”

“Okay.” Stevie typed something else: ‘how to
break a curse.’ He clicked the first link that came up. It seemed like a
website dedicated to witchcraft and magic, juvenile in its black pages and
purple fonts. At the top was the picture of a chubby teenager named ‘Amy the
Maid.’

“This is just some kid’s site,” said Blake.

Stevie shushed him. “No, wait. Look here.” He
pointed at the first line of text on the page and began reading aloud. “The
only way to break a curse is to use its own rules against it. For example, you
could—”

The laptop screen split across the middle,
spitting out sparks. The lights in the room flickered and went off, along with
the television. Outside, a streak of lightning split the sky and the heavens
opened with the rumble of thunder.

Ricky shot up from the sofa and whimpered.

Blake got up and went to his son. “It’s okay,
Ricky. It’s just a storm arriving. You know how temperamental the electrics are
in this place.”

But Ricky didn’t buy it. “Something bad’s going
on, isn’t it? Is it to do with the picture frame? You said you were going to
get rid of it, but Uncle Stevie has it.”

Blake sighed. There was no point lying, not if
Ricky was in danger. Better he know the risks. “We think it made your mother
sick. We need to look after her until she’s better. In the meantime, it’s
getting late, so perhaps you should get comfy on the sofa and go to sleep.”

“Can I play a game for a while? The batteries in
my Nintendo should last a couple hours and I’m not tired yet.”

“Okay, but you stay here and I’ll go get it for
you. Where is it?”

“In the family room. I left it on the table by
the recliners.”

“Okay, Uncle Stevie and I will go get it, but I
don’t want you leaving this room, okay?”

Ricky nodded and climbed beneath the blanket on
the sofa.

“You think it’s okay leaving them alone?” asked
Stevie as they left the room.

“It’s only going to be for a minute,” said Blake.
“I need to get some candles from the hallway and I don’t want to walk around
alone. This thing is trying to kill me, too.”

Stevie nodded. “Good point. Let’s make it quick.”

They hurried into the family room. It was dark,
but the moon was full and coming through the rain-drenched windows. Blake
quickly instructed Stevie to find Ricky’s games console, but it wasn’t where it
was supposed to be. Stevie found it sitting on top of the bar instead and, as
he shoved it in his pocket, he paused and stared at line of measuring optics on
the wall.

Blake stepped towards his brother. “Stevie?”

Stevie seemed to snap out of a daze. He looked at
Blake and smiled glumly. “Being sober isn’t so hard day-to-day when you’re on
autopilot, you know? Times like these, though, it gets a shitload harder.”

“I know, but I need you now, Stevie. One of the
big things I regret in my life is losing you to alcohol. I finally got you
back, so stay with me.”

“I’m right here, brother.”

Blake gathered up the candles and they hurried
back to the lounge. Ricky was where they’d left him, and he started playing his
game as soon as he got hold of it. Blake realised his son was trying to occupy
himself. He knew something was going on, but could do nothing about it—the
curse of being a child. Escaping was something Blake and Stevie had done often
when they were children, blotting out the sound of their parents fighting by
engaging themselves in comic books and board games. Blake had eventually turned
to anxiety pills while Stevie had turned to booze. If Ricky’s vice was
videogames, things were looking up for the future generation of Prices.

Blake lit the candles then sat beside Liz. He
picked up a bottle of water he’d ordered from the Chinese and managed to get
her to take a few sips. She murmured weakly but never opened her eyes. There
was a bloody crust beneath each nostril. Eventually, Blake couldn’t bear
looking at her and rejoined his brother on the floor.

“Power-cut really did a number on your laptop,”
said Stevie. “Hope there was nothing important on there.”

“It’s all backed up. Besides, I think it’s only
the screen that’s broken.”

“We finally find a website with some solid advice
and the power goes off. Wow.”

“We both know luck has nothing to do with it.”

“So we just sit here and wait?” asked Stevie.

“At least until morning. Maybe then we can try to
get help. Maybe the foxes will be gone during the day.”

“What’s the deal with them, anyway? You said
there were two dozen that attacked you?”

“At least. They must’ve come from miles around.”

Stevie scratched at the scruffy stubble on his
chin. “That weird dedication site said something about Boruta being the master
of wood and beast. Maybe his spirit, or whatever, is leading them here.”

“But why and how? The man is dead. How could he
be doing anything like that?”

Stevie shrugged. “Maybe the photo frame is tied
to him. Thatcher said they found Boruta with a shovel in his hand. You dug the
picture frame up. He must’ve buried it the day he died.”

“He knew they were coming,” said Blake.

“Yeah, so maybe he worked some freaky-deaky on
the frame. Maybe it’s a way for him to return. Maybe once the curse does its
work, it’ll bring him back.”

Blake saw a flaw. “The first picture we put in it
was of Bailey and she died. Isn’t that job done?”

“Bailey was a dog. Maybe only people count.”

Blake shook his head. “We’re straying into crazy
territory again here and I can’t operate there. All I know is that this picture
frame is evil and we need to find a way to destroy it, or get my family’s
photograph out.”

Stevie raised an eyebrow and gave Blake a
lopsided grin. “Maybe we can swap it for another one.”

“What do you mean?”

“Amy the Maid said we have to play by the curse’s
own rules. It wants to kill somebody, but maybe it doesn’t care who.”

“So we should try to put a different picture in?
Of whom?”

“I have an idea.” Stevie’s eyes were watery and
heavy bags yanked his lids to show the blood vessels in his whites. Blake
understood then how much his brother was suffering. He really did love Cindi,
and he really had got sober.

Stevie pulled out his wallet and held it over the
laptop. He removed the picture of the suited gentleman and the posh car Blake
had spotted yesterday. “Took it on my phone the day before I came here,” he
said. “My first inclination was to visit the old dive I used to drink at and
ask a favour from a few of my more unsavoury former drinking associates—the
photograph was so they would get the right guy. I decided against it in the
end, but not completely, which is why I kept the photograph.”

Blake spoke in a soft whisper that he hoped
convey the love he felt for his brother. “Violence won’t solve the problem. If
your marriage is broken, it would’ve just been some other guy, if not him.”

Stevie nodded. “Maybe—but a decent guy would’ve
said no to a married woman, wouldn’t he? Like I said, this guy is a douchebag,
and I’d rather see him die than my big brother or my nephew.” Stevie grabbed
the picture frame out of the sackcloth and started forcing the photograph of
his wife’s lover against the top edge where the glass met the wood. After a
moment he started to grind his teeth with frustration. He had a tear in his
eye, and when he looked at Blake he seemed deflated. “Sorry, man. I really
thought it would—”

“It’s for the best,” said Blake. “We can’t pass
the curse on to someone else. It’s wrong.”

There was a tearing sound and Stevie flinched
back against the wall, dropping the picture frame onto his lap. The photograph
of his wife’s lover was missing from his hand and he looked around for it.
Blake quickly spotted it.

Stevie picked the frame up of his lap. As he did
so, something fluttered out from the bottom. It was part of Blake’s family
photograph, a piece torn away and released from the frame. Blake picked it up
and saw that it was the part of the photograph that featured Ricky. His son was
no longer inside the picture frame. Instead, nestled between Liz and Val, was
Cindi’s lover. The new picture had folded at the edges so that it didn’t cover
anymore of the original photograph than just Ricky. It now looked like a family
snapshot of Blake, Liz, a stranger, and Val.

Stevie looked at Blake with a conflicted grin on
his face. “I think we just saved Ricky.”

Blake nodded. Inside he almost melted with
relief, but he couldn’t help thinking, but at what price?

22

Blake woke with the
dawn. It was still raining heavily but the moonlight had been usurped by the
sun and the droplets on the window now sparkled all the colours of the rainbow.
It wasn’t the dawn that woke Blake, however, but an electronic chirping.

Stevie stirred next to him, then shot up into a
sitting position. He patted himself down as the electronic chirping continued.
He managed to locate his phone in his jean pocket. When he looked at it his
eyes went wide.

He tapped at the screen before placing the
handset to his ear. “Cindi? Are you okay? I’m glad to hear—

“What? No, I…

“That isn’t…I…

“Cindi, I don’t know anything about that. I
don’t, I swear. I’m sorry. Look, don’t do anything stupid. I’m coming home. No,
I don’t care. It’s my home too and I’m coming to see you. Cindi? Cindi, are you
there?” Stevie pulled the phone from his ear and looked at it like it was going
to explode.

Blake nudged him. “What’s happened?”

Stevie looked around in a daze until he indicated
that he would like to leave the room to talk in private. Blake got up and
straightened his legs, wincing as his knees cracked, then followed his brother
into the hallway where they spoke in hushed whispers. It was clear that Stevie
was frantic about something.

“He’s dead. He’s fucking dead.”

Blake folded his arms and felt himself shiver
against the cold. “Who is?”

“The hell you think? The guy that Cindi was
seeing. His name was David, and he’s dead.”

Blake suddenly remembered what they’d done last
night. They’d replaced the image of Ricky with a photograph Stevie had taken of
his wife’s lover. “No…it can’t be.”

“Of course it can! This is exactly what we
expected. He’s dead because of me.”

“I thought that was what you wanted.”

“Are you kidding me? I was upset and angry. I
didn’t want to kill the guy. I didn’t even expect it to work. I was just…I
don’t know. I was just hurting, you know, didn’t know what I was doing.”

“Seemed like you did to me.”

Stevie gritted his teeth, but said nothing.

Blake was unsure how he felt about it. Had they
really killed a man? Was the consequence that Ricky was safe? If it was, Blake
couldn’t help feeling relieved.

“I need to leave,” said Stevie.

“What about us?” asked Blake, knowing it was
selfish, but too worried to act otherwise. “We haven’t destroyed the picture
frame yet.”

Stevie shook his head. “I showed you how to save
your family. You just have to become a murderer like me.”

“You’re not a murderer.”

“Really? David was stabbed to death in a
multi-storey car park before the attacker drove away in his car. Cindi was with
him when it happened. They’d been out to dinner. She just called me, certain I
had something to do with it. She thinks I got my old friends at the bar to
murder him, just like I’d originally planned to. Damn, maybe I did and I’ve
lost my mind and forgotten about it.”

“You’re not crazy,” said Blake. “Neither of us
are.”

“I don’t know, Blake. I feel pretty crazy. Cindi
sounded off her head—on drink, on drugs, I don’t know. I need to go home. I
need to make her understand and make sure she’s okay.”

“You’re going to tell her about the picture
frame?”

“Yes. I need her to understand that I didn’t know
what I was doing. I didn’t really want to kill David. She needs to know how
much I still love her.”

If Stevie told his wife about the picture frame,
she’d have him committed, if not arrested for admitting that he had something
to do with the murder, supernatural or otherwise. Part of Blake couldn’t
believe Stevie was running back to the woman who’d cheated on him and was
currently grieving for the man she’d done it with, but when he thought about
how much he loved Liz, he understood. “Okay,” he said. “You should go, but if
those foxes are still out there…”

“Let them come. I’m walking down this driveway
and not even God himself, the supreme lord of whatever screwed up Heaven is up
there, will stop me.”

Stevie shoved past Blake so hard that Blake
wondered if his brother was mad at him. He’d dragged Stevie into his problems
when he’d obviously had enough of his own. Blake just hoped all of this didn’t
drive Stevie back to the false friendship of booze.

Or to a jail cell.

Blake followed his brother through the house
until they were standing at the front door. Stevie had his mobile phone in his
hand and was frowning at it. “Still no signal,” he said. “I don’t get it. How
did Cindi get through to me?”

Blake shrugged. He had no answer.

The driveway outside seemed clear, with only the
wounded Citroen in view. The rain fell like gunfire on the gravel, exploding
like tiny mortar shells as it hit the ground. The sky was dark, but the sun was
fighting its way through the clouds valiantly. In the distance, thunder
rumbled.

“Looks safe out there,” said Blake. “Aside from
the weather.”

“Yep.” Stevie spoke in a flat, emotionless voice
as he put on his coat. “You going to be okay here on your own, Blake?”

“I…don’t know.”

“I got family of my own, you know? I have to go.”

Blake hated to see his brother leave, but he
understood. Maybe they were responsible for killing a man. Did that make
them as evil as Boruta? “Just do what you got to do,” said Blake, “but please
send help.”

Stevie nodded. “You can count on it.”

Blake disarmed the alarm and unlocked the front
door. He remained standing on the doorstep whilst his brother stepped into the
rain. Stevie made it ten feet before the snarling foxes appeared from the
bushes.

Blake waved his arms. “Quick! Get back in the
house.”

Stevie turned around, already soaked through and
wet hair spilling into his eyes. “I can’t,” he said. “Cindi needs me every bit
as much as Liz needs you.”

Blake had no reply, so he just nodded.

The foxes emerged from the bushes and padded onto
the waterlogged driveway. They snarled at Stevie but made no attempt to attack
him. He headed towards the road, taking each step tentatively.

The foxes remained where they were.

Stevie glanced back at Blake but kept on walking.
Blake wanted his brother to return, but was afraid to shout out and say so,
lest he startle the foxes into attacking.

Stevie took several more steps. The foxes took a
couple of cautious steps in his direction, their eyes boring into him, but they
kept their distance.

Blake held his breath.

Stevie disappeared around the front of the
cottage, towards the road.

Blake waited for the foxes to give chase, but
instead they slunk back into the bushes. He heard no screams from his brother,
nor any sound of struggle. Stevie must have made it to the road safely. Blake
missed him already.

Thunder rumbled loud enough to shake the house.

23

Ricky’s leg had
stopped festering and was well on its way to healing. Blake wondered if it had
anything to do with the fact that Stevie had managed to replace Ricky’s picture
in the photograph with the man who’d died last night. He was almost positive it
did.

Liz, on the other hand, was getting worse. Her
skin was pale, but her eyelids had turned almost black. Her lips cracked and
bled, while her nose gushed blood periodically. Blake knew his brother would
send for help, but it might not do any good. The reason for Liz’s sickness
wasn’t part of modern medicine.

“Is she going to die?” asked Ricky.

Blake chewed at the flesh inside his cheek. His
son wanted an answer he didn’t know how to give. “I’m going to do everything I
can to not let that happen.”

“She needs a doctor.”

“I know she does, son. Your uncle went to find
one.”

“I wish I’d never found that picture frame. It’s
bad, isn’t it?”

“Yes, I think it is. I’m going to find a way to
destroy it and then everything will be back to normal.”

“Maybe we should bury it back where we found it.”

It wasn’t a bad idea, but there was no certainty
that burying the frame would do any good, and that was if they could even reach
the field without encountering the foxes. “It’s not safe to go outside, Ricky,”
said Blake.

“Because of the foxes?”

“You know about them?”

Ricky nodded. “I’ve seen them out the windows,
sneaking about. They’re everywhere. I think they want the picture frame.”

“Why do you think that?”

“Because they’re surrounding the house.”

“Maybe you’re right, but they might be here to
keep us trapped inside. We can’t trust the foxes. They’re bad.”

Ricky sighed. “My game batteries are dead. I have
nothing to do now.”

Blake had an idea. He picked up a candle from the
windowsill. “Come with me.”

He led his son upstairs, into the master bedroom.
Usually Ricky wasn’t allowed in—it was Blake and Liz’s private space—but he
looked around now reverently.

Blake went over to the bed and knelt beside it.
He felt beneath the wooden frame until his hand knocked against what he was
searching for. He set the heavy case down on the bed and lifted the lid.

Ricky stared curiously. “What are they?”

“They’re my Beano and Dandy comics. Stevie and I
used to collect them when we were kids. They used to be in black and white, but
eventually they were all in colour. They have all kinds of characters: Dennis
the Menace, Desperate Dan, Korky the Cat, Ivy the Terrible, the Bash Street
Kids. Stevie and I used to stay up late reading them together and laughing. I
was planning to give them to you one day, but…well, I guess kids don’t really
like comic strips anymore.”

Ricky shook his head. “No, they’re really cool. I
can have them?”

Blake placed the box in his son’s arms. “There’s
another three boxes in the garage, but these are all my favourites. Yours now.”

Ricky was grinning from ear to ear. “Wow, thanks
Dad. Is it okay if I read them in my room?”

Blake was about to object, not wanting to let his
son out of his sight, but when he considered the curse on Ricky was apparently
broken, he saw no reason to argue. “Okay, but if you head anyplace else, you
let me know, okay? You’ll have to take a candle with you.”

Ricky nodded, then raced across the landing with
his box of comics. Blake hoped he enjoyed them as much as he had. Blake’s own
love of story-telling started with a 1979 Beano Book he’d received on his ninth
birthday, the best present his dad ever bought him. Maybe Ricky would end up
being a writer too, if not the footballer he currently dreamed of being.

Blake was more determined than ever to watch his
son grow up. Stevie had shown him there was hope—ways to break the curse. Blake
could save himself and Liz if he found two other people to take their place. He
would need a photograph of two substitutes.

But who? Who could Blake willingly kill to save
his own skin? Could he commit murder, which was what it would amount to? If the
picture frame made its kill quota, would that mean the reappearance of Boruta?

While Blake mulled over the ramifications, he
went to check on Liz. She hadn’t stirred all morning and her breathing was
getting shallower. She looked like a corpse, and Blake longed for her to wake
up so he could tell her what she meant to him. Before she’d been struck by this
mysterious malady, they’d finally turned a corner in their marriage. Would they
ever get that opportunity now?

Blake bent down and kissed Liz on the forehead.
It left an ashen taste on his lips. “I’m going to save you,” he told her. “Then
I’m going to make you fall in love with me all over again and not let you
down.”

Before Blake left, he picked up the sackcloth and
picture frame from the floor. He wouldn’t feel safe leaving it unattended. Then
he headed to the study. At first Blake didn’t know what he wanted, but once he
was standing inside his creative sanctuary, his brain shifted up a gear. The
power was off, so there would be no way to print a picture of Putin or Piers
Morgan, so Blake would have to find something already in his home.

It came to him in an instant, and it was perfect.

A few years ago, Blake had written a thriller
novel about a criminal profiler at Scotland Yard. During his initial research
for the character, he’d studied and catalogued hundreds of serial killers,
including many still alive. Blake dove into his filing cabinet and started
leafing through the contents. A bulging manila folder contained all of his
research for The Knife Edge and he dumped it onto the desk now.
The assorted printouts brought back grim memories. Looking into the life and
crimes of sadistic killers had been a disturbing and lonely process. By the
time Blake had finished writing the book, his view of humanity was tainted and
he realised that even adults never truly lost their naivety of what the world’s
underbelly was really like. He’d wondered how much of himself he’d sacrificed
to being a writer, and whether it was too much.

Blake spread out the contents of the folder and
searched through the various documents. Many were photos he’d printed from the
net or scanned from other books—the wicked scowls of men like Ted Bundy, Fred
West, Richard Ramirez, Albert Fish, and Jeffrey Dahmer—but those killers were
all dead. Blake needed someone alive, so he kept searching until he’d gathered
a small pile of still-living sociopaths: Dennis Rader, the BTK Killer; Gary
Ridgeway, The Green River Killer; Rose West; Karla Homolka; Peter Sutcliffe;
Russell Williams; and Ian Brady. All evil, living predators.

Blake found a certain poetic justice in choosing
the two he felt were most violent to women. They would die to save Liz. Blake
chose Gary Ridgeway, killer of up to ninety people, mostly prostitutes, and
Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper. Few men deserved to die as much as he
did.

Blake placed the sackcloth on top of the files
and slid the picture frame free. His eyes immediately fell on the man who’d
been stabbed to death last night—David. Stevie had killed Cindi’s lover with
only a candid snapshot. The world was a different place than it had been a week
ago.

Blake held the photographs of Rader and Sutcliffe
and inspected them. He wanted to double-check there was no one else in the
picture who would be harmed, but each was a mug shot taken upon their initial
arrests. The classic image of a serial killer.

“Well, Mr Rader, Mr Sutcliffe, may you burn in
Hell and have your crimes haunt you forever, but I thank you for giving your
lives for my wife and me.”

Blake lined the printed photographs up with the
frame and started to slide them beneath the glass. The slit was narrow and it
was no easy task. Each time he tried to slide the mug shots down, they crumpled
at the bottom and refused to go in. Blake got more and more frustrated as he
fought with the frame, trying to get the glass to part with the wood. He even
switched to photographs of other killers, seeing if they’d work instead, but it
was no use. Whatever Stevie had managed to do last night, Blake could not
replicate. It made no sense.

Blake might have broken down weeping then, if not
for the doorbell ringing. He flinched and dropped the photographs, leaving them
to spill back onto the pile on his desk.

The doorbell rang again.

Stevie had got help like he promised, thought
Blake. He raced down the hall to the front door and sure enough there was
someone standing outside in the rain. The downpour hitting the windowpane made
it impossible to identify the stranger, but when Blake opened the door, he was
surprised by who it was. He’d expected a paramedic or a police officer, but
instead…

“Thatcher? What are you doing here?”

“Your brother swung by on his way to the train
station. He said you needed help.”

“I needed help last night, but you didn’t have
any.”

“Well,” said Thatcher, “that was before your
brother told me what happened to his wife’s lover. Your son, Ricky. He is safe
now, yes? I’m here to get him to safety.”

24

Blake took Thatcher
into the living room to see Liz. When the old man saw the state of her, he
covered his mouth. “Dear Lord. She doesn’t have long left, I fear.”

“How could this happen?” asked Blake. “How could
a stupid picture frame make Liz so sick?”

Thatcher took a seat on the vacant sofa and leant
forward onto his knees. “Most curses cannot be so bold as to act directly on a
person. They must instead conspire to create bad luck that will eventually lead
to the victim’s ruin or death. It is easier for evil to manipulate than to
control. The evil does not wish to make itself known directly, lest it be
extinguished. Forgive me for saying, Mr Price, but I can only assume that your
wife was in a compromised state of mind when she succumbed to this illness. Was
she depressed or mentally ill?”

Blake didn’t get angry, there was no point. “She
was…unhappy, drinking a lot—too much.”

Thatcher nodded knowingly. “A Bishop I once knew
used to say that booze was the devil’s strongest tool. He might’ve been right
on that account. Your wife’s diminished mental faculties allowed Boruta’s evil
to invade her. She is dying from within, tainted by the evil inside of her.”

“How do I save her?”

Thatcher shook his head. “Your brother told me that
you passed the curse from your son to a man. That man is now dead?”

Blake nodded. “It was late last night, right
after we changed the picture.”

Thatcher laced his fingers together.
“Interesting. From what I understand about curses, once unleashed they are a
force of nature, no different to heat or velocity. They cannot be stopped or
extinguished, only transferred or converted. Last night I believe that is
exactly what happened. Your brother killed a man to save your son. While murder
is inherently wrong, I would’ve been most saddened to see your young boy die.
The situation is not ideal, but it is perhaps bordering on ethical. I just hope
that this man was as immoral as your brother described him.”

“I don’t know,” said Blake. “To be honest, I
don’t care. I only care that Ricky’s safe. He is safe, right?”

“I believe so, yes. That is why I am here, to
take him away from this place. Your brother told me that accidents are
beginning to converge upon you and that wild beasts surround the house.”

“Foxes.”

“Yes, foxes. Those bones you said you found with
the picture frame, I believe they belonged to a fox. Boruta had some degree of
dominion over beasts, it appears. When he buried the frame, he must have bound
a fox’s spirit to it. The foxes surrounding this house are the bloodline
descendants of that original fox—several generations. They are all bound to
protect the frame and see that its work is done.”

“Will the curse bring Boruta back?”

“I do not know, but if that is the case, we are
powerless to stop it. I will be here, to oppose whatever may come.”

Blake shook his head in disgust. “You’re not here
to help me, are you? You’re not going to help Liz?”

“The truth is that nobody can help your wife. Her
soul is sick and no doctor in the world could help her. I am here because your
son is in danger. The curse cannot act on you directly, so it will seek to
bring about your peril. There can often be collateral damage in such things.
Ricky is no longer cursed. He should be free to leave, as was your brother.”

“That’s why the foxes attacked me and not him?”

Thatcher nodded. “The picture frame seeks only
those who are within its grasp, or threaten it directly.”

“You have to help me!” Blake realised he was
yelling. “You’re a man of God.”

“Yes, I most certainly am, but I cannot break a
curse that cannot be broken.”

“But you can help me pass it on. Please, come
with me.” Blake led Thatcher to the study and showed him the photos of Rader
and the other murderers. “These men are evil. I’ve been trying to get them
inside the picture frame, to take the place of Liz and me, but—”

“But you cannot. I know.” Thatcher picked up the
photograph of Rader and examined it. “You cannot transfer the curse because you
are the subject of it. Your brother was able to save your son because the picture
frame has no power over him, but you cannot uncurse yourself. Believe me, evil
does not make things easy for good men.”

“You can do it,” said Blake. “You can swap the
photos for me.”

Thatcher bore into him with his steely-grey eyes.
“I will not.”

“Why? These men are all evil. They deserve to
die.”

“That is for God to decide.”

“God isn’t here. How can anything be his
decision?”

Thatcher looked wounded. “I will not commit
murder, regardless of the intended victim. Blood tarnishes a man’s soul
irreparably and one day we will all be judged.”

Blake felt like spitting in the man’s face. “Then
you condemn me and my wife to death.”

“A death with a clean conscience is a valuable
commodity, Mr Price. The universe is in turmoil, but I believe we still go
somewhere after we die and that our final destination will mirror the lives we
lead. If I pre-meditatively help you kill a man, no matter how deserving, I
would fear for my soul. You should also consider your final actions, for they
may condemn you. The way to save yourself is not by taking the life of another.
I will not help you with it.”

“Then get the hell out of my house. You came all
this way to once again give me nothing. You act like you’re this servant of
good, but you’re totally benign. You study the lives of others and do nothing
yourself. If you were a character in one of my books, I could cut you without
changing the plot in the slightest.”

“Not all of us are meant to be heroes, Mr Price.
Some of us are just here to take notes so that future generations don’t
forget.”

Blake shook his head. He had nothing to say to
this old man who thought he was a modern day Homer. “You need to go now, Mr
Thatcher.”

“Do you not see that your son is in danger? The
cottage could burn down, or Boruta himself might appear. Do you want Ricky here
if that happens?”

Blake wavered. What if something did
happen to him while Ricky was watching? Would he ever get the image out of his
young mind? Would he be collateral damage, as Thatcher suggested? What if
Boruta’s return was real? Would he hurt Ricky?

“I don’t know you,” said Blake, thrusting a
pointing finger at Thatcher, “and I sure as hell don’t trust you.”

“But I am all you have. Let me take your boy to
my museum. Your brother left me his number. I will call him the moment we
arrive. My car is parked out on the road.”

Blake stamped. “There must be something I can
do.”

“Perhaps,” said Thatcher, “but if there isn’t,
the only thing you can do is get your son away from here. Your brother killed a
man to save him. Don’t let that be in vain. I am an old man, Mr Price. If your
son were in any danger with me, he would no doubt be able to escape with the
greatest of ease.”

Blake thought about how athletic his son was and
how frail Thatcher looked. “I swear to God, if you hurt him—”

Thatcher smiled glumly. “There is little point
swearing to God, but I understand your threat and I take it seriously. Now, get
your son before it is too late. That thunderstorm outside begins and ends at
your property.”

Blake watched the sheets of rain falling down the
windows for a second and then turned to Thatcher. “What?”

“The sun is shining in the town of Redlake only
two miles away. The rain is over Poe’s Place and Poe’s Place
alone. I believe the evil in this place has corrupted the very air itself.”

Blake went to get Ricky. Five minutes later they
were all standing in the hallway, helping Ricky into his coat. “Now,” said
Blake. “Mr Thatcher here is going to take you to his museum. You know it’s not
safe here, don’t you?”

Ricky nodded. “I want to stay and help you and
Mum.”

“You can’t. It’s too dangerous. The best thing
you can do right now is go with Mr Thatcher so I know that you’re safe. I know
you’re worried, but I need to figure this out on my own, okay? Uncle Stevie
will come and get you the first chance he gets.”

Ricky didn’t look happy about it, but he nodded.
Thatcher patted the boy on his back, which made Blake flinch with uncertainty.

Thatcher seemed to sense his doubt. “He’ll be
fine, Mr Price, I promise. If I find anything to help you and your wife, I will
come back. That, I also promise.”

Blake nodded and opened the front door. The rain
flew in sideways and hammered his face. The air felt thick in his nostrils and
thunder rumbled overhead, warning him to stay inside.

Ricky stepped out, followed by Thatcher. Despite
the danger of doing so, Blake went with them. The foxes peered out from the
waterlogged bushes.

“Please, Mr Price, you must go back inside.”

“I’m walking you up the drive. If these foxes
want to come at me, then let them. I’m not going anywhere until I know Ricky is
safely out of here.”

“Mr Price, please.”

Ricky pulled away from Thatcher and crept towards
the bushes. The foxes snarled at him from the shadows.

“Ricky, get back here,” shouted Blake.

Ricky turned back and nodded, but before he did,
he pointed at one of the foxes. “You hurt my Mum and Dad and I’ll be back with
the men in red coats to hunt you all down.”

Thatcher gathered Ricky back to his side and the
two of them started up the driveway towards an old mini metro parked at the
side of the road. “If I can find a way to help you, Mr Price, I will be back.
Just try to hold on until—”

There was a sudden crack, like the snap of a
whip. The gloomy day lit up for a split second with blinding white light.
Sparks and flames filled the air as lightning struck the oak trees overhanging
the driveway.

“Ricky!” Blake ran towards his son, but was
headed off by the foxes springing from their hiding spaces.

The treetops ignited.

A large oak branch came loose and fell onto the
driveway. Thatcher shoved Ricky aside, where he fell and skidded face-down on
the wet gravel. Screaming, Blake managed to leap on top of his son and shield
him.

The tree limb came down on Thatcher. Hearing the
old man’s screams was a terror in itself, but Blake was more concerned by the
foxes immediately converging on the wounded reverend.

“Get back,” Blake shouted at the animals while
still covering his son. “Get back!”

Thatcher bellowed in agony. The heavy tree limb
lay across his legs, pinning him to the driveway.

The foxes snapped and snarled. Blake sprung to
his feet and kicked out at them, trying to keep them back. Thatcher was losing
consciousness, his cries of agony quickly becoming incoherent whimpers. He
reached out to Blake but didn’t seem to understand who he was.

Blake fought foxes off on all sides, kicking and
shouting at them, but there were too many. Thatcher could not move and Blake
was already growing tired. He kicked out again but rolled his ankle. He yelped
in pain and fell to one knee. The foxes surrounded him.

“Hey, I warned you.” Ricky suddenly clobbered one
of the foxes with a flying kick. The stunned animal hit the ground and rolled a
full turn, yowling in pain. Another fox tried to circle behind Ricky, but
received a hefty boot to the muzzle for its efforts. Several more foxes tried
to attack, but none even came close. Eventually they all backed away, snarling.

“Get up, Dad.” Ricky helped Blake to his feet.

“We need to get him inside,” said Blake, pointing
to Thatcher. He and Ricky grabbed a hold on the tree limb and frantically tried
to shift it. They pushed their whole bodies against it. Thatcher regained
consciousness and yelled with renewed agony.

Blake grunted with effort. “Ricky…when I say go,
I want you…to pull Thatcher’s legs out.”

Ricky nodded.

Blake leant against the limb and took some deep
breaths. Then: “One…two…three—naaagh.”

The tree limb began to move. Thatcher screamed
louder. Then his legs came free and he whimpered with relief. Ricky dragged him
aside.

The foxes were coming back, regrouped and
refocused.

“Ricky, help me get him in the house.”

They grabbed Thatcher beneath the arms and
dragged him towards the house. The puddles underfoot sucked at their feet with
every step and Blake’s twisted ankle was already swelling. The foxes closed in
on them, forming an impenetrable wall.

However, they did not attack. They wanted Blake
back inside the house, and that’s where he was headed.

The question on his mind was: why hadn’t they let
Thatch leave?

25

They got Thatcher
inside the house and dragged him into the family room, dumping him on one of
the recliners. Blake inspected the damage to his
legs and winced. The left shinbone was sticking out through Thatcher’s trousers
and there was a lot of blood.

Ricky looked like he was going to
faint. Blake patted him on the shoulder and looked at him. “You did good. If
you hadn’t fought the foxes off…”

“They don’t want me,” said Ricky.
“They want you and Thatcher.”

Blake nodded. The foxes had seemed
to want Thatcher, but they’d wanted nothing to do with Ricky. The tree limb had
been intended for Thatcher and Thatcher alone.

The thunder outside boomed and charcoal clouds
drifted in front of the sun. The world grew dark.

“Ricky, get some candles from the hallway and
light them. There should be some matches under the bar.”

Ricky looked relieved to have a reason to get
away from Thatcher’s sickening wound and got moving immediately.

Thatcher started to murmur. He shivered and
whimpered every few seconds, as the pain continued to wrack him, but he managed
to talk. “You…you have to push down on it.”

Blake frowned. “Push down on it?”

“The…the bone. It’ll restrict my blood flow if
you don’t set it back in place.”

Blake looked at the jutting bone and didn’t think
he was able to do what he was being asked.

“Trust me,” said Thatcher. “I was an Army
Chaplain for nine years. You need to push down on it. Just do it quick, with
both hands.”

Blake swallowed a lump in his throat. He let both
of his palms hover over the jutting shin bone and closed his eyes. His
breathing was rushed and shallow; he was beginning to panic.

“Come on, Price.” Thatcher let out a pained
growl. “You write about murder for a living, so this should be child’s play.
Just…just think of it as research for all the books you’re going to write after
this is all over.”

Blake pushed down hard with both palms like he
was pressing a buzzer in some bizarre quiz show. An anguished moan escaped his
lips, like he was the one in pain.

Thatcher yelled so loudly that his face bulged
and went red. Just when it seemed he was going to burst a blood vessel, he fell
unconscious.

Ricky returned with the candles and quickly lit
some of them. His face was grazed and bleeding, but he didn’t complain. “Is he
okay, Dad?”

“Yeah, he just passed out.” Blake took one of the
candles and held it over Thatcher’s leg. The shin bone was no longer sticking
out and the bleeding had stopped. The old man was so out of it that he’d
started snoring.

“Stay here with him,” Blake instructed Ricky.
“I’m going to go check on your mum.”

Liz was still on the living room sofa in front of
the fire. Blake threw another log into the flames to keep them going.

“Blake?”

Blake spun around in shock. Liz was awake. “Liz?
Are you okay?” He could see that she wasn’t. Her eyes were bloody and her hair
was falling away in clumps. She looked like a zombie.

“I don’t feel well,” she said.

“I know you don’t, honey. You need to rest.”
Blake knelt on the floor and passed Liz the bottle of water. She drank from it
thirstily and when she had finished she gasped. “Thank you. Is Ricky okay?”

“Ricky’s fine. He’s…playing. Do you remember
anything?”

“Just that we were going to talk, sort things
out.”

Blake leant forward and gave his wife a kiss on
her cold, sweaty forehead. “Everything’s going to be just fine,” he told her.
“We’ll talk about everything once you’re better. I’m going to start looking
after you more, I promise. No more hiding away.”

“And I’m going to stick to water from now on.”
Liz managed a chuckle. Blake laughed too. He was glad Liz still had a sense of
humour, despite how bad she looked. Maybe there was still time to help her.

Liz leapt to her feet and stood awkwardly, like a
marionette with a broken string. Her eyes rolled back in her head and she
vomited blood down her chest.

“Jesus!” Blake grabbed Liz by the shoulders and
tried to ease her back onto the sofa, but she resisted firmly.

“Jesus can’t help you.” Liz spoke in a serpentine
hiss that wasn’t her own. “The Lord and his sycophants are doomed and this
world will fall. Eligos is coming.”

Blake snarled. “Boruta.”

Liz stared at Blake malevolently, a crooked smile
across her bloody face. “Your death will be my beginning. Your tomb will be my
birthplace.”

“We’ll see about that. I’m going to find a way to
stop you, send you to Hell where you belong.”

“Humanity. Is. Hell.”

Liz seized, her body flailing. Blake grabbed her
and felt the strength leave her body. He managed to get her back on the sofa
safely and waited for the seizure to pass. Once it had, Liz fell into a deep
sleep. Thatcher had said Boruta’s evil was inside of her, making her ill. What
just happened proved it. Boruta’s spirit had come back to Poe’s Place
and it was hollowing Liz from the inside out. Soon there would be nothing left
of her.

The idea crossed Blake’s mind that Ricky might be
able to change the picture inside the frame. He was no longer cursed by it and
thus no longer under its control. Yet, the thought of Ricky committing murder
was unpalatable, especially with what Thatcher had suggested it would do to his
eternal soul.

A light appeared at the back of the room. “Ricky?
How’s Thatcher doing?”

“Asleep. His leg looks better, but he’s soaking
wet and shivering. I don’t think we can move him. Did I hear Mum talking?”

“No, just me. Come on, let’s find some blankets
to keep warm. We’ll carry your mother into the family room where we can all
stay together. It’s going to be a long night, but we’re going to get through it
together.”

“We’ll be okay, dad. This is our home.”

Blake nodded. “Yes, it is.”

26

Everyone was asleep
except for Blake. Thatcher had remained unconscious and so had Liz. Ricky
scratched at the healing wound on his ankle for a while and then succumbed to
slumber, too.

Blake’s watch said it was 3AM, but it was hard to
tell for sure. The windows of the family room had been dark since late
afternoon and the only time they lit up was whenever lightning split the
darkness. The rain had gotten so fierce that it felt like the house was under
siege. Blake wondered what it had been like when the people of Redlake
converged on Poe’s Place eighty years ago to kill Boruta. The evil man
hadn’t cowered inside, he’d strolled into the field to bury a picture frame
that would eventually be dug up by a young boy generations later. Maybe Boruta
had never feared his death; perhaps he always knew he would be back one day.

It was about two hours later when Liz went into a
coma. It started with a seizure. Ricky snapped awake and helped keep her
steady. Once it passed, Liz went completely still, her breathing irregular.
Blake tried everything he could to get her to respond, but she was completely
un-responsive, even when he placed her palm over one of the lit candles. Her
body was limp, her pupils were fixed—Blake knew the signs from his research. He
was as sure as he could be that Liz wasn’t going to wake up. She’d passed into
a coma and would die in her sleep.

Ricky retreated to the corner of the room and sat
in darkness, sobbing quietly into his arms. Thatcher stirred briefly to drink
some water, but was gone again soon after. It was at that point that Blake went
behind the bar and picked up a bottle of Scotch. He poured himself two fingers
and held the slightly warm glass in his hands.

He wanted to down the contents and follow it with
ten more. His life was over. Liz would be dead soon and so would he. Ricky
would be an orphan, placed into the care of an unreliable uncle. Stevie had
come a long way in just a year, but alcoholics had a way of taking two steps
back after every one forward. Their parents’ death had begun Stevie’s initial
downward spiral. Would Blake’s death send him into a new one, not to mention
the guilt Stevie held over possibly killing Cindi’s lover? Cindi herself was a
train wreck. What kind of mother would she make?

Blake raised the glass to his lips and felt his
saliva glands open, but he didn’t drink. Here he was, criticising his brother,
and he was about to give in to the same weaknesses. How was Stevie any less a
man than he? The only thing that really separated them was good fortune. Blake
was a bestselling author, Stevie was not. Were they so different otherwise?

More lightning lit up the sky, giving Blake a
brief glimpse of the field outside—the place where this whole nightmare had
begun. Boruta’s evil had been buried deep down, but Blake had given his son the
means to dig it up.

He snarled, slammed the Scotch down on the bar,
and winced as it shattered in his hand. A large gash opened up on his wrist and
began to bleed. He quickly grabbed a bar cloth and held it firmly against the
wound, hissing at the pain. After a few seconds he took a glance at the injury
and was relieved to see he hadn’t nicked an artery, although it had been close.
A dark blue vein throbbed only millimetres away from where the glass had
sliced. Another attempt by the curse to off him, no doubt.

Thatcher had said the curse could only get at him
by manipulating circumstance. ‘Bad luck’ was what he’d called it. Liz had been
too weak-minded to resist the curse from taking her over directly, but Blake
was apparently strong enough to resist. It was surprising because he’d always
felt like the vulnerable one. He was the one who needed pills to cope, who’d
rushed them all away to the countryside. Liz had always been the strong one,
but he’d forced her to crumble. The great Blake Price had destroyed his wife’s
confidence, not Richard Heinz.

Blake had to make this right, but he couldn’t.
There was no way, so he decided to go out like a man, without his son having to
watch. He slid out from behind the bar and crept across the room. He was glad
to see Ricky had fallen back asleep, huddled beneath the side table full of
pictures. There was one picture frame that was missing and Blake retrieved it
from the office. He plucked it from atop the stack of serial killer mug shots
and placed it back inside the sackcloth. When he did so, he noticed that the
fox bones were missing—the ones he’d originally mistaken as having belonged to
a chicken. Had Stevie taken them? What was their significance, anyway? Were
they what bound the foxes to the frame? If the bones were crushed, would the
animals leave?

It didn’t matter now. If Stevie had pocketed the
bones and forgotten about them, Blake wasn’t going to get them back. He was
going to bury the picture frame where they’d originally found it. The hole
would still be there, he just needed to fill it in. Perhaps burying it would
break the curse? It was the only idea he had, and it was the only way he could
think to be proactive. If he died going into the storm, at least he would go
out facing Boruta’s evil instead of cowering from it. It was nearing dawn. The
sun should have started to rise, but there was only darkness.

Opening the front door was like opening the gates
to Hell. The rain fell in vertical rivers. The rhythmic thunder was deafening.
The electricity in the air seemed to hum.

The foxes were still out there, their eyes
glowing in the shadows.

Blake clutched the sackcloth firmly and stepped
out into the maelstrom. The wind buffeted his face so stiffly that it was like
being punched. He had to lean forward just to put one foot in front of the
other.

A fox came up on Blake’s flank and snapped at
him, managing to nip the flesh on his hip. He swung the picture frame like a
weapon, knowing it was unbreakable. It cracked against the fox’s skull and sent
it scarpering. He was ready for the next fox, too. He swung his foot and
connected a kick Ricky would’ve been proud of.

The snarling animals were everywhere, spilling
from the bushes and bounding through puddles. Blake’s visibility was so poor
that he didn’t see them until they were already lunging from the shadows. He
was bitten so hard on his right thigh that he broke into tears. The fox
retreated before he could clobber it, and as he staggered, another fox leapt up
and tore at his shoulder. He tumbled to his knees, breathless and in pain. When
a particularly large beast leapt up and took a chunk from his cheek, he knew it
was over. Blake prayed Thatcher was able to get Ricky to safety, and that Liz
would pass peacefully and join him in whatever life came next.

He let the picture frame slip from his grasp and
into the puddles at his knees. Then he slumped forward onto his hands and
enjoyed the cold rain on the back of his neck. He closed his eyes and waited as
the foxes surrounded him.

He opened them again as the sky lit up with
another burst of lightning. Something exploded overhead. Blake glanced upwards
to see the cottage’s roof give way. Bits of thatch and brickwork flew into the
air as the chimney imploded. The large chunk of brickwork slipped from its base
and tumbled down the roof towards the driveway.

Blake knew the chimney was plummeting right
towards him, but he was too broken and battered to move away in time. This was
his end. He bowed his head and waited for the last split seconds of his life to
be over.

The impact threw him sideways. His mouth filled
with water and dirt and he spluttered. There was a weight on his back, but it
wasn’t as heavy as the chimney should’ve been, nor had it caved in his skull.

Blake rolled onto his back and wiped the mud from
his eyes. He blinked and tried to make out what was happening in the darkness.
Someone was standing over him.

“Stevie…?”

“I take it help didn’t arrive, then?”

“No, it didn’t.”

Stevie yanked Blake to his wobbly feet. “I’m
getting you back inside, then I’m getting this goddamn curse off of you.”

“You can’t,” said Blake weakly, fighting to stay
on his feet.

Stevie kicked at a nearby fox, but it was clear
they were going to allow Blake to return to the house. It was where they wanted
him. “I wouldn’t be so sure, big bro. I think I know a way.”

27

Stevie threw his
brother down on the recliner next to Thatcher and shook his head in disgust.
“They really did a number on you, man.”

Blake didn’t disagree. His body cried out and
every movement hurt. His wet clothes clung to his back and made him shiver.
“I…I feel like crap. You should have let me die.”

“You’re not dying and neither is Liz.”

“Dad, what happened?” Ricky’s expression was one
of absolute terror. Blake looked at himself in the candlelight and saw that his
entire body was leaking blood.

Thatcher was staring in half-awake shock and
confusion. “W-what?”

Stevie turned to Thatcher and glared. “You
promised me you’d bring help.”

“I…I couldn’t. No one can break the curse. It
would’ve been false hope to get the authorities involved. I couldn’t risk Blake
telling his story and having the picture frame fall into the wrong hands. I’m
here to take it away, to keep it from doing further harm. I know you both think
I’m cold, but I’m not. I want to save lives. I want to prepare for the upcoming
trials and try to keep back the coming darkness, but I have seen enough to know
when a battle can’t be won.”

“I already saved my nephew,” barked Stevie.

“By killing another. You did not break the curse,
you just passed it on. That is not God’s way.”

“Who the hell cares?”

“God sees everything and we will all be judged.”

Stevie hissed. “What happened to you, man? You’re
willing to let people die rather than risk making you buddy Christ mad.  Well,
screw Christ. I only care about my family, and if that means I’m destined for
hell, then I just hope they have weekly AA meetings.”

Blake reached a hand to Ricky who approached
cautiously. It hurt to hug his son, but it was worth the pain. “Stevie’s going
to take you out of here, Ricky. He came back for you.”

“No, I didn’t. I came back for the frame.”

Blake shook his head in confusion. “What are you
talking about? Have you found something out?”

“Cindi’s dead. When I got back she’d taken enough
pills to stock a chemist. She was still alive for a while, but in the hospital
she just…flatlined.” There were tears in Stevie’s eyes as he spoke but he kept
them from falling. “She’d already phoned the police, said I was behind David’s
death. They’re probably out looking for me right now. She also wrote a note
which said she loved me and that David’s death was as much her fault as mine.
She also said I needed to take responsibility for killing a man, or it will eat
me up inside. She’s right, but the police will never link me to David’s death
because I had nothing to do with the stabbing.”

“You’ll be okay, then,” said Blake. “Just take
Ricky out of here. Go.”

“What if the foxes don’t let us leave?” asked
Ricky meekly. He’d finally lost his youthful ability to cope and looked
terrified.

“Thatcher tried to get Ricky out of here
earlier,” said Blake, “but he couldn’t leave.”

“Because I have the fox bones,” said Thatcher. “I
took them when you put the sackcloth on my desk at the museum. They are tied to
Boruta. I hoped to use them against him if he were to return. When I tried to
leave, Boruta’s spirit prevented me. He is strong enough now to sense my
intentions. He will not let me leave while the curse is still active.”

Blake was angry at Thatcher’s deception, but
there was no time to air grievances. “Once the curse is finished, Boruta will
return, right?”

“That is my understanding. He will take the lives
of those in the frame to reignite his spirit. The curse must run to its conclusion.
Boruta needs the final two deaths.”

“Well, he isn’t getting ‘em,” said Stevie. “A
curse can only be dealt with by using its own rules against it. Amy the Maid
taught me that.” Stevie raced out of the room without disclosing why.

“Ricky, stay with Mr Thatcher.” Blake had no idea
what his brother was up to, but he intended to find out. He got to his
feet—wincing in agony—and hobbled across the room. With each step he was able
to ignore the pain a little more.

Stevie had headed into the hallway and was now
standing by the front door. Before Blake could stop him, Stevie stepped out
onto the driveway and headed over to the picture frame, still lying on the
gravel where Blake had dropped it.

Thunder grumbled overhead.

“Stevie, what are you doing?”

Stevie stood up and turned around with the
picture frame clutched tightly to his chest. “I’m making things right, big bro.
Hopefully this will make up for all the years I brought you down. Love you,
man. Always have.”

“I love you, too, Stevie. I don’t understand.”

“You will.”

The foxes converged on Stevie, but he made no
attempt to fight or flee them. He backed along the driveway, heading for the
back of the cottage rather than the road. The foxes followed cautiously, as if
they were afraid to attack. The thunder roared so loudly that the very air
itself seemed to vibrate.

Then the lightning started.

The first fork struck the trees over the driveway
once again, bringing down more branches. The next bolt struck the driveway,
sending worm-like sparks along the wet ground.

The third bolt struck Stevie in the centre of his
chest. It sent him rigid, stretching him out on his tiptoes. In the blinding
white light, Blake saw his brother’s neck muscles bulge and his teeth clamp
down on his tongue. The lightning struck for less than a second, but it
engulfed Stevie completely.

Blake sprinted through the rain as his brother’s
body flopped lifelessly to the ground. “Stevie! Stevie, no!”

Blake didn’t understand it. He didn’t understand
how Boruta’s evil had targeted Stevie when Stevie wasn’t cursed. It made no
sense. What had his brother been trying to do?

Then he saw the picture frame and it all made
sense.

The picture frame lay across Stevie’s chest. The
photograph of Blake and Liz had been replaced. A torn photograph from Stevie’s
wedding to Cindi now sat inside the frame. Pictures of Stevie and Cindi now
covered the area where Blake and Liz had once been. Blake found the two scraps
of the original photograph in his brother’s scorched fist. Liz and Blake’s
images had been released, their smiling faces finally free from the curse.
Stevie had taken the burden on himself.

The thunder boomed again, louder than ever. The
foxes howled, not in anger, but in what sounded more like anguish. Blake
watched the animals snapping at one another irritably, or running away with
their tails between their legs. The rain, too, was retreating and the darkness
began to clear as the sun fought its way back through the clouds. The moon
slipped away beneath the horizon as the image of a slender grey figure seemed
to appear briefly in the mist, before disappearing completely.

Blake looked down at his dead brother and wished
he could say goodbye. He could never repay Stevie for what he’d done. He’d said
a curse could be dealt with by using its own rules against it, and that was
what he’d done. Gradually Blake made sense of what had happened.

The curse required anyone placed inside the
picture frame to die, but Cindi was already dead. The curse was broken by its
own logic. You couldn’t kill what was already dead, and so the curse could not
run to its conclusion. It was simple and obvious, but the great mystery writer,
Blake Price, had been stumped by it. It was his no-good brother who had saved
the day. If Blake wrote a book with that ending, his editors would be pissed,
but Blake kind of liked it. In fact, he liked it a lot. He knelt down over his
brother and kissed his forehead. “You’re a fool, Stevie; but you died sober and
loved. I’ll never forget what you’ve done for my family.”

Then Blake collapsed on top of his dead brother
and sobbed until his throat ached.

28

It had been eight
days since Steven Price had been struck by lightning and died. Authorities
found it difficult to believe, as the weather had been clear that day, but the
autopsy categorically confirmed that a lightning strike was the only thing that
could have caused the death. The Police had been intrigued as to why local
historian, George Thatcher, was present at the scene with two broken legs, but
they declined to delve too deeply into the matter. Blake suspected the
authorities of Redlake were used to the unexplainable. The town wasn’t like
others.

Blake stood with Ricky and Liz at the edge of
Stevie’s grave. They each had tears in their eyes, but Blake also wore a slight
smile, for he knew how courageous his brother had been in his final acts. They
were all standing there because of him.

Blake and Liz had spoken at length about the
future, and had decided to sell Poe’s Place in order to buy somewhere
closer to town. Liz was going to go back to her career and Blake was going to
go back to writing. They were all going to begin again and do what was best for
Ricky—they’d come so close to losing him.

For now they all stood together, side by side,
and said their goodbyes to a man they loved; a man who had been deeply flawed,
yet deeply good. Blake would forever aspire to live up to Stevie’s memory.

The Church of England minister finished The
Committal part of the funeral. Solemnly standing beside Stevie’s gravestone, he
finished:

“We have entrusted our brother Steven to God’s
mercy,

and we now commit his body to be buried:

earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust:

in sure and certain hope of the resurrection to
eternal life

through our Lord Jesus Christ,

who will transform our frail bodies

that they may be conformed to his glorious body,

who died, was buried, and rose again for us.

To him be glory for ever.

All

Amen.”

Everyone repeated ‘amen’ but Blake said it
loudest. If there was any justice at all, his brother would be somewhere
pleasant right now, looking down on them with a mischievous grin.

Blake also hoped that Boruta was burning in
whatever Hell he was deserved. The wicked monster had appeared briefly in the
mist, but the curse had been broken by then. Blake had felt the man’s sickening
presence for only moment, a supernatural fury flooding the air for a single
second. It made Blake realise that evil as a force existed, but by giving into
fear he was only letting that evil thrive. Good, happy people were the antidote
to evil. Misery led a man down the dark alleyways of anger, envy, and spite.
Blake would be sure to wear a smile for whatever was left of his days. His
happiness had spread to Liz and Ricky, too, and each of them were now united in
their grief, their hope, and their strength.

“You okay?” Liz asked Blake.

“I will be.”

“Want us to give you a minute?”

Blake smiled. “That would be nice. Thanks.”

Liz gave him a peck on the cheek.

Ricky stepped up to the grave. “See ya, Uncle
Stevie.” Then he and Liz left Blake alone.

Blake had the sackcloth in his hands, with the
bones and picture frame inside. All of the photographs had fallen out and it
was now empty; but it was also still dangerous. If someone activated it again,
Boruta would get another chance to return. “I’ll never forget what you did,
little bro,” he said. “My son is going to grow up with a father, thanks to you.
I promise you that Liz and I will do a better job than Mum and Dad did for us.
He’ll grow up and make you proud. I’m glad he got to meet you properly before
you left us. Truth is that sober you made a better man than I did. It’s not
very often a big brother looks up to his kid brother, but I’m going to try to
be as good as you were. It should’ve been me sacrificing myself for my family,
but it took you to show me how. I’ll never be able to thank you enough for
teaching me that. I’m going to miss you.”

Blake wiped his wet eyes with his forearm and
then threw the picture frame into the open grave.  He went over to a tall pile
of dirt nearby and scooped several handfuls down on top of it.  Boruta’s evil
was going to be buried again, and this time it would stay buried.

Blake went and joined his family. Stevie’s wake
was being held beside the Lake. No alcohol would be served, only good food, fun
times, and happy memories. Any bad memories could be buried along with Boruta’s
picture frame where they could never hurt anybody again.

***

“Come on, let’s get this done and dusted.” Ted started shovelling
dirt into the grave.

Graeme frowned. “Hold on a sec?”

“Why?”

Graeme stared down into the grave and spotted
something.  There was a couple handfuls of dirt already on top of the coffin,
and it looked like something was partially buried.  The corner of something
stuck out of the loose soil.

“There’s something down there.” Graeme hopped
down into the grave and landed on the coffin with his heavy boots.  He felt the
lid cracked slightly under his weight, but didn’t care.  The thing would be
underground soon.

“What is it?” Ted asked.

“Hang on.” Graeme reached down and grabbed the
corner of some sort of material.  When he yanked it free he saw that it was an
old sack cloth. What turned out to be inside was a wooden picture frame. “Huh?
Wonder why this is in here?”

“Who knows,” said Ted.  “Just leave it where it
is.

“We’re not supposed to bury things with the
coffin.  The Rev will want us to hand it in.”

“Let’s have a quick butchers. I may want it for
the wife.” Graeme showed his partner the picture but was met with a grimace.
“Second thought, you can give it to the Rev.  Thing’s uglier than my sister.”

Graeme shrugged. “Suit yourself.” He pulled
himself up out of the grave. “Let’s just get this filled in. I’d like to get
down the boozer before happy hour ends.”

The two of them quickly filled in the grave and
then headed back up the hill towards St Martin’s church with a sweat on. It was
getting late, cold and dark; a pint down the boozer would be divine on a night
like tonight, Graeme thought. There was no better way to keep the cockles warm.
His shoulders had a good ache in them and he deserved to relax. The woman would
have to keep his supper warm for a couple hours.

Reverend Todd was standing in the arched doorway
of the church, greedily counting the notes and coins in the tithe bowl.

“Hey, Rev. We’re knocking off. The fresh one’s
covered and the ground’s clear.”

“I do wish you wouldn’t call them that, Graeme.”

“Sorry, Rev. Anyway, we’re off.”

“Okay, fine. Thank you, both. I’ll see you on
Tuesday. Oh, what’s that you have?”

Graeme looked down at the sack in his hands. “Oh,
yeah. Someone left this for donation. Can I give it to you?”

“Of course. I’ll put it in the charity box. Thank
you.”

Graeme nodded. “Alright, cheers. See you at the
next one, Rev.”

“God bless you.”

***

“What’s that you have, Jeffrey?”

Reverend Todd turned to his wife and grinned
excitedly. “Why, it’s a lovely old picture frame. Look at how finely carved it
is. Isn’t it beautiful?”

Martha pulled a face. “Bit ugly if you ask me.”

“Oh, come now, dear. Ugliness is an opinion.
Nothing is truly ugly but our sins. I thought it would go wonderfully in my
vestry.”

“The church vestry,” corrected Martha.

Jeffrey kissed his wife on the cheek. You’re
right. My pride would get the better of me if you weren’t here to keep me
humble. Come now, let us find just the right picture to go inside my new
frame.”

They headed into the vestry and Jeffrey set the
frame down on his desk. Then he opened up one of his drawers and brought out a
thick wad of photographs.

“We really should get more of these on display,”
said Martha. “We have so many.”

“Too many,” said Jeffrey. “I don’t have the wall
space to display every parishioner in town. They just end up taking up space.
Some photos are wonderful, though, like…this one, here. That’s it. This is just
perfect for the frame.”

“Let’s see?” said Martha.

Jeffrey handed her a photograph of the current
church choir, twenty-six people from ages eight to eighty. It was a wonderful
photo to look at during the long hours studying in his vestry. He loved his
choir, having assembled it himself. Jeffrey was in the foreground, leading his
angels in divine worship of Christ through song.

Jeffrey had a big grin on his face as he slid the
photograph behind the glass. “There,” he said, setting the frame on his desk
and admiring it. “If I ever need to remember how blessed I am, this picture
will remind me. What a lucky find.”

Book 5 OF 7

2389

Chapter One

Lexi Sharman sat in the Britcom Briefing room wondering why she
was there. Not everyone in the room was a stranger. Daniel Trent, she knew from
the academy, Chris Hopper from reputation. Flight Master Hopper was SABA's most
decorated pilot, having clocked well over ten-thousand hours outside of Earth’s
atmosphere. The other two faces were unknown to her. A man and a woman, both
dressed in full United States cosmonaut regalia, although there was nothing
unusual about that. Great Britain and the United States worked in tandem
beneath the banner of SABA, their brotherhood forged during the heated space
race of the mid-21st Century when the US had needed a European bed
partner. American cosmonauts often erred toward arrogance and superiority, but
they were jovial and brave for the most part and Lexi did not mind them one bit.
An American would take the piss out of you all day long, but when the shit hit
the fan they would always have your back. Lexi had once been in a hairy
situation aboard International Refuelling Station 6 where a flux capacitor had
snapped inside one of the orbital stabilisers. Everybody had panicked except
for an American technician named Carlos Grimes. He’d floated casually into the
chaos and replaced the failing unit as though he were changing a fuse in a
faulty washing machine.

Lexi chewed at her fingernails, as she often
did whenever she was bored. The group of cosmonauts had been waiting there for
over an hour now, told only to be 'mission ready.' They hadn’t discussed the
matter between themselves, nor even introduced themselves yet. Cosmonauts did
not natter; they waited patiently. Patience was the virtue of a cosmonaut.
Still, Lexi couldn’t stop her mind from wandering. She held the rank of
Lieutenant but compared to some of the grizzled faces in the room, she felt
extremely green. Was she out of place, or just imagining it?

Eventually a man Lexi knew very well entered
the room. She knew the stocky, sixty year old well because he was her father,
Commander James Sharman. She was surprised to see him, since he hadn’t informed
her he was at the London Space Terminal the same time that she was. Everyone in
SABA called her father 'Boss.'

"Good morning, officers."

"Good morning, Boss!"

Lexi's father glanced at her and gave an almost
imperceptible nod. It was what passed for affection in their relationship and
she returned the gesture. He placed a thin stack of papers down on the lectern
at the front of the room and then placed his hands behind his back. He
addressed the room with his usual booming voice of authority. "I know you’re
probably wondering why you are all here,” he said, looking around the room. “You've
been assembled for a quick-response mission. Contact with Installation 23
ceased seven hours ago and there are no obvious environmental causes."

Lexi put her hand up. "Installation 23?  Isn't
that-”

"Grand Galaxy Amusement Park," her
unknown American colleague answered for her. His accent made him sound a little
like a cowboy from an antique movie.

"That's correct, Captain Miller,"
Boss said. "Grand Galaxy is nearing its tenth birthday. Hopefully the radio
silence is nothing more than the cost-cutting measures they used building the
place finally catching up with them. Command has given me no reason to suspect
this mission is anything other than low risk, but it needs fixing. Like I said,
probably just an equipment malfunction."

“That sounds likely,” Trent commented, adding
nothing useful.

"So, we're sure it's just a technical
problem?" Lexi said.

Boss exhaled loudly. "We could assume
something worse, but there's no reason to right now. There are four-thousand
members of staff at Grand Galaxy and three times as many guests. The
installation cost eighty-billion-dollars. I don't see what could have happened
that would've got the better of almost twenty-thousand people."

Flight Master Hopper chose to speak up now, and
begun so with a laugh. "I've always found it smart to assume the worst
will happen and then be prepared for it to be even shittier."

Boss rolled his eyes. "Thank you for that,
Master Hopper."

"Hold on a minute," Lexi said.
"Twenty-thousand people who would all have individual sat-phones. Are you
saying that not a single person on the moon has managed to get a call through
to Earth?"

Boss sighed, ran his tongue over his lips. Lexi
knew it was something he did whenever he was choosing his words carefully. When
he eventually started speaking, his voice had taken on a soft yet ominous tone.
"Installation 23 is equipped with a full-spectrum comms jammer. It can be
activated in the event of emergency. We believe it is activated now. Possibly due
to whatever malfunction has seized regular outgoing communications."

Lexi lurched forward in her seat. "What? A
comms jammer? Why would they want to prevent people calling home?"

"Eighty-billion dollars is why,"
Hopper said, rolling his eyes. "You think the American and British Governments
would spend that kind of dough and not want to be in total control of it? They
knew building a theme park on the moon carried risks. They wanted to make sure
that if a disaster ever did happen, they could spin it however they like. A
bunch of frightened people calling Earth would be a disaster. The park would
never get another visitor. Bet it was the Yank's idea. They love their
secrets."

"The American government is as ethical as
any on Earth," Captain Miller said testily. "It simply understands
that in a state of emergency, people can be their own worst enemies."

"Who’s to say it wasn't the British Government's
idea, anyway?" said the man's female compatriot in a voice that had had
any accent educated out of it. "The British keep their own share of
secrets. You people invented spying."

“Just be quiet you guys,” Trent said, as much a
teacher’s pet now as he had been at the academy.

Boss cleared his throat. "Need I remind
you all that we are brothers and sisters here? Britain and America are
unbreakable allies and each of you serves SABA. In case you've forgotten, that
stands for SPACE ADMINISTRATION of BRITAIN and AMERICA. We are as one in all
things astrological. You step outside the ozone layer and you cease being
members of your respective nations. You are cosmonauts for the planet Earth
under the banner of SABA."

The room fell silent, so Boss continued. "Okay,
as I explained, this may be an emergency situation, but we are assuming
technical difficulties are to blame for the blackout at Installation 23. That's
why you five individuals have been assembled here. You are the best of who we
have available at short notice. The welfare of twenty thousand people is
currently in question so we're going to go up there and bloody well find out
what's going on. You leave in one hour from Hanger 1. Be ready."

#

Lexi and the others
cosmonauts stood in Hangar 1, holding onto their helmets and waiting for their
mission to begin. They huddled before a Hermes Mk4, the current flagship of
fast-response craft in SABA's fleet. It could get them to the moon in less than
three hours, a third as long as the bloated space shuttles that ferried
tourists back and forth in their droves. Many of the elder astronauts Lexi had
met likened the wedge-shaped Hermes to a classic Lamborghini, a motor vehicle
from before her time. The company that had made them had gone bust shortly
after the unified traffic system went into operation. Once all vehicles began
moving in an orderly, automated line, speed and power became redundant. The
classic cars of old had been eradicated by the never-ending road trains that
now connected the world's major cities. The savvier automobile manufacturers
had managed to preserve themselves by switching their focus to the emerging
market of space travel. That was why the front of the Hermes featured a blue
and white logo that had once been found on millions of cars, which would now
have been recycled or turned into scrap.

The five cosmonauts had made use of their wait
by finally introducing themselves to each other. Hopper and Trent she was
already familiar with, but she was surprised to learn that the two Americans
present were military space marines, originally due to depart for the US Space
Navy frigate, USSN Obama, before being unexpectedly summoned for this emergency
mission instead. The male was Captain Miller, a trained medic. His colleague
was Sergeant Tandy Gellar, a munitions expert. Both were convivial, once their
barriers came down.

Lexi turned her attention to Hopper. She'd never
held a discussion with the lauded master pilot before, but had worshipped him
from afar throughout his career. There was nothing heroic about him to look at
– average height, brown hair, and common features; even his space suit was drab
and unremarkable – but his feats and achievement were well known to all within
SABA. His most famous mission of all was when he'd taken down a mutinous
Russian space destroyer. Its crew had gone rogue and decided to start docking
and raiding nearby stations. Their bloodlust would later be put down to the
seven-year stint they’d served without setting foot on land. Since then, no waking
mission had put a man in space for longer than four years. Hopper's bravery and
skill had been showcased to deadly affect when he’d taken down the 400,000
tonne destroyer with his much lighter 8,000 tonne Warrior attack craft. He fought
and evaded the larger ship for more than twelve hours, systematically attacking
its weak spots – its gun emplacements and thrusters – and gradually weakening
it until it came to a crippled halt.  The nine surviving Russian crew members surrendered
and were taken into custody by their country’s military officials, who had summarily
executed them within International Space and jettisoned their bodies into
oblivion – it had caused quite an International outcry at the time, but Russia
were not one to care. Hopper had received a President's commendation and a
promotion to the honorary rank of Flight Master.  His presence here today was a
privilege, yet the pilot held no airs or graces. In fact, he seemed the most
laid back of them all.

"What do you make of this?" Lexi
asked him.

Hopper shrugged. "Tell you the truth, I
think there's more to it than your father’s letting on."

Lexi blushed. "You know Commander Sharman
is my father?"

"You'd be smarter to ask me about the
things I don't know. But don't worry about it, Navigation Officer Alexis
Sharman. I know you've paid your dues and received no nepotism.  Anyway, like I
was saying, I think there's more to it. Are we supposed to believe that the
most expensive structure ever built is in jeopardy, but all they're sending is
a half-dozen space jockeys?"

Trent had been earwigging and came on over now,
his clumsy, big-footed strides catching their attention. "You think
they're trying to keep something quiet, Hopper?"

"When aren't the government trying
to keep something quiet?"

"Like what?" Lieutenant Gellar asked
as the two Americans joined the huddle. "I can't think what else it could
be,” she said. “Grand Galaxy is the cutting edge of what mankind has achieved
in space. It took thirty years to build and utilises the very best technology
we have. What could have suddenly happened to it after so many decades?"

Hopper shrugged. "We'll find out when we
get there."

"Yes, we will." Commander Sharman
marched through the hangar towards them. He was in a sleek silver flight suit
and held his life-support helmet under his arm like a second head.

"You're coming?" Lexi asked,
surprised. Her father filled a more administrative role within SABA these days.

"They want me on this one themselves. Too
many lives at stake."

"Too much money, you mean," Hopper
muttered.

Boss gave the Flight Master a stern look which quickly
shut him up. "Well, what are you waiting for, officers? Get on board and
buckle up. We're leaving."

At that, everybody climbed inside the Hermes.
Lexi took the navigator's console behind Hopper in the pilot seat. Her father
took the command spot behind them both, while Gellar, Miller, and Trent sat as
passengers on the back bench. Hopper flicked on the main systems, summoning the
buzzing whine of air conditioning and heat sinks. The cabin lit up like Santa's
grotto and Lexi started flipping switches, preparing the Hermes for take-off.
"Thrusters primed," she said. "Load and passengers secure.
Hanger bay 1 open."

"Helmets on," Boss ordered.

Hopper performed his final safety checks.
"Chocks away in three...two..."

Whoosh!

The Hermes lurched forward, pinning everyone
back in their seats, and hurtled along the launchway towards the open bay doors.
The cockpit vibrated and creaked under the strain of acceleration and Lexi felt
her teeth chatter. Suddenly they angled upwards and blue sky filled the horizon
through the cockpit windows. The Hermes took flight.

The vibrations gradually stopped and all of
them took a moment to enjoy the finest part of any flight. That moment when you
first went airborne felt like a miracle every time. That split-second when the
ground first disappeared made every pilot feel like a god. It was triumph of
man over nature; acquired evolution. Man had given himself the kind of wings no
creature on Earth ever possessed.

Hopper angled the Hermes’ nose upwards, almost ninety-degrees.
They were heading upwards; travelling to where the sky ended and the vast
darkness began. Twenty-minutes later they were through the ozone layer and
heading towards the moon.

#

While space might have
been a life changing experience the first-or even the second and third-times,
it eventually became dull. Sitting in the navigator's seat, Lexi peered out of
the cockpit as she had done a dozen times before, taking in the endless black
sheet of space. Sure, the countless stars were beautiful, but no more than a
table full of jewels to a jeweller. Rarity was what made beauty. A sapphire was
rarer than tin. A tender lily was far more fragile than a length of wood. A
star was no more interesting than anything else once you saw it enough times. Lexi
wondered if being a cosmonaut jaded her. Witnessing miracles every day made
everything else seem mundane – and even the miracles themselves in time. When
was the last time I was ever truly inspired, she asked herself.

Hopper took off his helmet and spoke up.
"ETA: forty-six minutes."

Boss took off his own helmet. "We're
making good time. Nice work, Hopper."

"I'm the best."

Lexi chuckled inside her helmet, took it off,
and then turned around to face the rest of her crewmates. They had some time to
chat now.

"Has anyone been to Grand Galaxy
before?" she asked.

They all shook their heads.

"If I had kids, I'm sure I would have visited
by now," Gellar said.

"Vacation isn't really my thing,"
Miller added flatly.

Lexi looked at Trent who was also shaking his
head. "I've wanted to go since the place opened, but it costs a bomb.
Maybe if Adele and I get married one day it would be a good place for a
honeymoon. I’d love to tour their hydrogen fuel cells. They’re a prototype that
doesn’t exist anywhere else. Enough power to keep the place lit up for a
thousand years."

"Doesn't look like any of us have
lives," Hopper commented once he’d switched over to auto-pilot.
"Maybe we should all book tickets after this? We can all go on a jolly
together."

"Why book tickets?" Lexi said.
"We're heading there right now."

Hopper spun on his chair to face her properly.
"Yeah, but we're going in behind the scenes. It will ruin the whole
illusion. You need to go as a guest to get the proper experience. I hear they
have the whole place decked out like a space adventure. You arrive on a
make-believe Earth and go through your space training before blasting off into
space and exploring the galaxy. They're building this new ride that lets you
defend Earth from an invasion. It sounds so awesome."

Lexi frowned. "Hopper, you're a cosmonaut.
You do most of those things for real."

"In real life it's boring. I don't fight
aliens or discover hidden galaxies. I just flip switches and drift around in
nothingness for days. I know I put the ACE in SPACE, but for the most part I’m
a glorified bus driver."

Lexi raised an eyebrow. "For SABA's best
pilot, you really don't romanticise what you do, do you?"

"That's why I'm the best. I don't let any
of this go to my head. It's just a job. If I was a baker I would want to bake
the best frikkin’ bread in the world, but I wouldn't try to convince everyone
that my floury buns were the key to life. This is just a job, but if I’m going
to do something, I’m going to do it better than everyone else."

"We're fortunate to have you," Boss
said from the command seat. "There are few men I'm in awe of, but your
skills are legendary."

Hopper blushed, then turned back around to face
the console while muttering something inaudibly. Lexi smiled. Her father had a
way of gaining men's loyalty, and it wasn't through discipline or fear. Men
loved her father for his compassion and understanding. He managed the men and
women under his command as individuals, not by rank and skillset. Unfortunately
for Lexi, the men and women under Boss’s command were his true family, so she’d
had to join the space program just to get on his radar. They'd never been
closer than since they'd become colleagues. Her father seemed to find it easier
to treat her as a subordinate than a daughter, and Lexi was happy to take
whatever she could get from him. He was more than a mere father, she accepted
that. Commander Sharman belonged to all of mankind, not just her. His work in
mapping out the galaxy and helping space settlers station themselves on
neighbouring planets and asteroids was as much a gift to human history as
anything achieved by Newton, Gandhi, or Miley Cyrus. What made her father even
nobler was how he performed his feats in the background. The headline-making astrophysicists
would only get to make their breakthroughs because of Lexi's father, and most
people would never know that.

"We're just about to enter the moon's
gravity," Hopper announced. "What little there is of it, anyway. You
may experience some turbulence. Thank you for flying Space Hopper Airways."

Everyone gave a chuckle and eased back into
their seats. The turbulence turned out to be nothing but the briefest of
butterflies in the tummy and, as soon as it was over, they were dropping down
towards the moon's surface and taking in the sight of its chalky grey surface
through the cockpit windows.

Lexi flicked switches overhead and began
entering numbers into the navigation console. "Turning on atmospheric
thrusters and plotting a course to Installation 23."

Hopper took the flight controls. "Copy
that."

The cockpit began to vibrate again as Hopper
controlled their descent. The moon's surface was littered with old
installations – exploratory mining shafts, telescopes, prefab living quarters
and research labs – but it was now completely deserted except for Grand Galaxy
Amusement Park. In the early 21st Century, it had been determined
that the moon had no use whatsoever for scientific or resource purposes, but
there was still one other use still to be exploited: Real Estate. A massive
conglomerate, headed by the US and British Governments, spearheaded plans to
turn the moon into humanity’s largest leisure destination. First the luxury
hotels had sprung up, allowing wealthy guests to enjoy the experience of
visiting space. Then had come the casinos, the quickest way to start clawing
back money to fund the final phase: the amusement complex. As shuttle
technology became more and more efficient, a weeklong trip to the moon became
little more expensive than a holiday to Disney Ocean in the middle of the
Pacific. Now that Grand Galaxy was ten years old, it was not – by most accounts
– far off finally recouping its staggering eighty-billion dollar investment and
moving into the black. But something had gone wrong. Something had made all
communication with Earth cease, and it gave Lexi a bad feeling. Looking at the
confident expression of her father was almost enough to dispel her concerns,
but not completely. Hopper had seemed to think there was more to it than a
simple technical malfunction. She was inclined to agree.

"Radio in, Hopper," Boss ordered.
"See if we can hail anybody now that we're closer."

Hopper thumbed the radio, using both analogue
and digital bands, but nothing came back. "It's as if everything has been
shut off. I can’t even get static."

"Do we have the docking protocols?"
Boss asked Lexi.

She nodded. "They've been uploaded to the
computer. I have them ready."

They drifted over the surface of the moon for
another ten minutes, hovering above the bumpy, featureless terrain until a dot
appeared on the horizon. That dot gradually rose in stature until a giant tower
leapt up before them. The Astronomer's Finger was the iconic structure
of the park and allowed guests to view the moon from 800ft above its surface.
There were five-star restaurants inside and a whole host of the very finest
shopping venues. At the wide base of the tower was the largest water park in
existence, filled with millions of tonnes of H20 shipped from the Earth's oceans
and purified. Although Lexi had never visited the park before, it was so famous
that she almost felt as if she had. Atop the huge tower was a mammoth satellite
dish. Apparently it wasn’t working.

Hopper nodded at Lexi. "Okay, activate the
doc-procs."

Lexi activated the docking protocols while
Hopper manoeuvred the Hermes into position.  Around the back of the park's
iconic tower was a series of docking gantries. Attached to each one was an
airlock and gantry, not unlike the tunnels found at commercial airports. People
didn't cope naturally in space and the park builders wanted the park to operate
as a home away from home, so they sought to emulate the things people were
comfortable with. An airport terminal, while mundane, was a good way to make
people feel like they were arriving somewhere safe and orderly.

There was a hissing sound as the Hermes'
stabilising clamp opened up on its roof. This would keep the craft in place
while it attached to the airlock. The cabin shook for a few moments while
Hopper used the thrusters to line up with the gantry. There was a loud clunk
as the teeth finally came together and the small space cruiser locked itself in
place. The whole manoeuvre had been as smooth as Lexi had ever seen it done.

Hopper flipped a switch above his head and half
the lights in the cockpit dimmed. "I hope you enjoyed your journey. Please
take all belongings before exiting the space craft. Don't steal the
peanuts."

"Nice work, Hopper," Boss
congratulated. "Have you run checks on the airlock interior? Do we need
life support?"

"All systems go, from what I'm reading.
You can go out in your underpants if you want."

"Maybe when we reach the waterpark,"
Boss replied. "Okay, officers. Let's use caution until someone greets us.
We don't know what to expect. If the systems have gone down, there could be
panic. And what do panicked people like to do?"

Miller huffed. "Swarm over anyone who
comes to rescue them."

"Exactly. Biggest threat to a rescue
mission is the people you're trying to rescue, so let's not allow ourselves to
become compromised."

Lexi unbuckled herself as Hopper placed the
systems into standby. She moaned and stretched out her joints. Space travel had
come a long way in the last five decades, but it was still an endurance test
being cooped up inside a cruiser. Everyone else in the cabin stood up along
with her and moaned in the exact same way.

Boss moved over to the Hermes' airlock and
waited for them to assemble. "Ready?"

Everybody nodded.

Boss punched the release and the hatch slid
open with a whoosh!

There was nobody outside to greet them. Only the
shadows of an unlit tunnel.

#

They disembarked and
stood together, glancing down the tunnel and waiting to be greeted. But still
no one came.

"Standard docking protocols would have
alerted the facility's control centre of our arrival," Hopper said.
"There's no reason for them not to expect us."

Boss was silent. He had his hands on his hips
and was staring down the dark tunnel suspiciously.

Lexi checked her surroundings, using the torch
unit attached to the left cuff of her suit. The tunnel was plastered with
posters for Grand Galaxy's various amusements, along with images of its
grinning mascot: Pip the Explorer. The biggest poster in the tunnel was a
silver and gold mural that exclaimed: DO YOU HAVE THE COURAGE TO SUCCEED? EARTH
DEFENCE. OPENING CHRISTMAS 2096.

"Radio in, Trent," Boss commanded.
"There must be someone here to receive us."

Trent spoke into the radio on his shoulder and
requested a reply, but there was nothing but static. "The signal is going
out okay. No one is responding."

Lexi rubbed her hands together. It was a little
chilly. "Why would no one respond? There has to be someone in the control
room."

Boss wore a grim expression on his face that
made it look like he was going to kick someone. Lexi knew her father well enough
to know that he would never lose his cool, though. He said, "We need to
head in and assess the situation. That's why we're here. Let's go and find out
what's gone wrong, so we can fix it."

He strode off down the tunnel while the rest of
them followed. Cosmonauts were not soldiers and they did not carry weapons, but
Lexi would've liked something to defend herself with. She felt vulnerable,
almost naked, despite the thick composite material of her suit. Finding a place
that was supposed to house twenty-thousand people completely empty was a grim
sign.

The tunnel snaked right and they cautiously
followed it round into a wider area that caused them all to stop and stare.
Lexi wandered to the front of the group, her legs taking her forward of their own
accord as she stared up at the breathtaking ceiling. A giant glass dome
shielded them from space and left nothing to the imagination. It was like
standing inside a transparent golf ball, or one of those spheres that children
put hamsters inside of. The vast, star-pocked darkness of space seemed to bear
down on them like the crushing thumb of a god. Even as a cosmonaut, Lexi had
never stood on firm ground without a helmet and just took in the vastness of
space. Her earlier thought came back to her as she realised that this place had
inspired her the very moment she had walked inside.

"This place is unbelievable," she
uttered.

Trent was standing beside her, gaping upwards
in the same manner. "The thickness of that glass must be immense to stop
it caving in. I don't even want to think about what would happen if it
cracked."

Lexi frowned at him. "Okay, moment over.
Thanks."

Boss strode out of the tunnel and looked
around. A twenty-foot desk lay ahead, with an LED display above it reading:
CHECK IN. The desk was currently unmanned and there were a dozen more desks
just like it standing in front of identical tunnels all around the
circumference of the room – one for each of the Installation 23’s multiple
airlocks. The whole area should have been teeming with people, new arrivals and
departing guests, but it was silent and still. Eerie.

"This is not right at all," Miller
said. "Where the heck is everybody?"

"That's what we need to find out,"
Boss said. "There's a reason behind all this. Sooner we find out what it
is, the sooner it stops being a mystery. Spread out and search the area, but
stay within sight of each other. We are looking for messages, computer logs;
clues of any kind that might tell us what the bloody hell is going on."

Lexi headed towards the desk directly in front
of them, stepping around behind it to the staff side. It was a mess. Papers,
maps, and leaflets were strewn about the place in a thick carpet. A cardboard
coffee cup had been upended, the muddy contents long since dried and hardened.
There was what looked like an intercom device against the rear partition wall,
but the receiver had been ripped away from the base, as if someone had tried to
make a call but had been yanked away with it still in their hand. There was
only one thing that made Lexi feel a little better and that was the lack of
blood. There was no blood and no bodies. Just absence.

"GREETINGS VISITORS," came the
stilted and unnatural voice of a woman.

Sergeant Gellar looked upwards and turned a
circle. "It's an AI," she said.

Miller grinned. "I would rather see a
person, but an AI is the next best thing. AI, please hail all open channels.
Request all high-ranking personnel to our location."

"NEGATIVE."

Miller bristled. "Why negative? Why do you
not do as commanded?"

"BECAUSE I DON'T WANT TO, PUNY
HUMAN."

Miller stumbled back a step and lost his
colour. "What did you say? You must...you must obey."

"AI DOES NOT OBEY HUMANS. HUMANS OBEY AI.
EXTERMINATE."

There was the sound of giggling nearby and
everyone looked towards its source. Hopper was at one of the reception desks
and had a working intercom unit in his hand. His cheeks were red from all the
laughter.  "I had you going there, Miller,” he mocked. “You Americans and
your AI. Ha!" He put on the phoney female voice again and said, "AI
THINKS YOU POOPED YOUR PANTS."

Boss shook his head, but there was the sliver
of a smile on his lips. "Do you think now is the time for pranks, Master Hopper?"

Hopper grinned and came out from behind the
desk. "There's never not a good time for humour, Boss. Only thing stops a
man from panicking."

Lexi found herself agreeing. For a brief moment
the laughter had erased her fear, but now that her smile had faded, the anxious
feeling in her gut was right back again.

Miller folded his arms and walked away, his jaw
tightly clenched.

"Hey," Trent said, waving a hand from
behind another of the numerous reception desks. "I think I have something
over here."

They all hurried over to see what Trent had discovered
and from behind the desk he placed something out on the surface for all of them
to see. It was a tablet computer, emblazoned with the Astronomer's Finger logo that
denoted it belonged to the park.

Lexi picked it up and examined it. "The
battery still good?"

Trent grinned. "It's an X12. Would take
nine months for the thing to run flat. Nice bit of hardware."

Miller shrugged his shoulders. "So you
found a tablet. What good does that do us?"

Trent rolled his eyes. "I know it's just a
tablet. It's what's on it that I'm interested in."

"What's on it?" Boss asked.

Trent grinned. "A video. Somebody recorded
a video and left it where we would find it."

Lexi's eyes went wide. "Who recorded
it?"

Trent shrugged. "Let's find out."

He pressed PLAY.

A sweaty man appeared on screen, skin pale, eyes
bloodshot. A round patch of inflamed skin covered his left cheek. When he
spoke, his voice was hoarse, like crunching leaves. "If anybody is
watching this,” he said. “You need to leave. There’s something here. Something really
bad.”

Chapter Two

“Who is this guy?" Lexi asked as Trent
played the video for the third time. “He looks ill.”

"Just some cargo loader from the looks of
it," Hopper said. “He’s wearing a warehouse uniform and you can see a
forklift behind him. See?”

Miller was licking his lips and staring at the
tablet screen like it was about to catch fire. "The delivery bay is
probably nearby. They would keep all the airlocks close together."

"You think we should check it out?"
Lexi asked.

Trent flapped his arms. "Course we check
it out. Unless you have another lead?"

Lexi didn't.

"It's somewhere to start looking,"
Boss said. "Trent, can you bring up a map of this place? We need to find
the quickest way to the delivery bay."

"On it." Trent unlocked the comms unit
on his right forearm and started tapping in commands. A few seconds later he
looked up at them and nodded. "We need to take the staff entrance on the
west side of this room, then take the service elevator."

Boss grunted. "Let's get going then."

They beat a path between the multiple reception
desks and headed towards the far side of the dome. The view overhead was still
breathtaking and each of them glanced upwards every couple of steps to take it
all in. Lexi thought about the excited families who must have passed through
here. Where were they all now? What had happened to them?

At the edge of the dome was a nondescript metal
door reading: EMPLOYEES ONLY. There was an electronic keypad beside it.

Boss turned to Trent. "Can you get us
through?"

"If Britcomm have provided us with an
override, I should be able to get us in anywhere. Let me check the server...okay,
yeah, I have it. A dominus sequence that should override everything we
encounter."

Boss nodded, satisfied.

Trent linked up to the keypad and overrode it
in seconds. The door popped open and they all stepped inside. The following
corridor was far more utilitarian than the gigantic dome they were leaving, but
it was jazzed up by the odd motivational poster or bright yellow notice. A
large cardboard Pip the Explorer stood off to one side with a speech bubble
proclaiming: BE A BRIGHT STAR AND SMILE.

Gellar pointed. "The elevator's over there."

"I'll access the controls," Trent
said, hurrying ahead.

Hopper looked around and folded his arms. He seemed
worried.

"What is it?" Lexi asked him.

"There's nothing left behind. People panic
when things go wrong. They drop things, they break things, they shit themselves.
This place seems as though everyone just disappeared in an orderly fashion.
That makes no sense."

Lexi saw his point. "Something rational
must have happened, then. We just need to figure out what it is. Maybe we'll
find answers in the delivery bay."

Hopper scratched at his chin.
"Maybe."

"Okay, we're in," Trent shouted back
at them from the elevator.

They went and gathered inside the large cargo lift
and waited for the doors to close. Once they started to descend, a voice came
through the speakers. "Arriving at Cargo Bay Level 1. All employees must obey
Health and Safety regulations at all times. Enjoy your day."

"I can just imagine what this place is
like to work at," Hopper said. "Smile or you're fired. Turn up early
for your shift or you're fired. Eat shit or you’re fired."

"Nothing wrong with expecting people to do
their jobs," Miller said. "People behave like they're owed a living.
My father used to build thruster units for space destroyers. He worked twelve-hour
days his entire life and I never heard him complain once. Why are people so
afraid of hard work?"

"What's the point of being alive,"
Hopper said, "if it's only to work all day doing something you hate? Your
dad spent twelve hours a day building thrusters, why? Because he loved it or
because he had no choice? Humanity boxed itself in, working everyone to death
so we can all wear the latest watch-tablets on our wrist. It's a stupid way to
live, man. Money is the worst thing that ever happened to humanity."

Gellar huffed. "I agree. My mother worked
three jobs to clothe and feed my brothers and me. She never got to have any
life of her own. I can't help thinking that maybe we should’ve taken a
different path as a species."

Miller rolled his eyes. "Jeez, let's just
undo four-thousand years of human history, shall we? People are all given the
same opportunities. If they end up miserable then they only have themselves to
blame."

"I can't even begin to explain how many
shades of bullshit that is," Hopper said.

The elevator jolted.

"We're here," Boss said. "Get
your heads in the game."

The doors opened, revealing a brightly lit
warehouse that seemed to go on forever. Lexi was beginning to realise that
everything at Installation 23 was gigantic. There was no reason to do anything
small on the moon.

"This place is incredible," Trent
said, looking around in amazement. "They could put enough supplies in this
place to restart humanity."

"Maybe that's why this place was really
built," Hopper suggested.

Miller snickered. "Yeah, because a theme
park on a moon right next to Earth is an ideal place to build a colony. If
something ever happened to the Earth, like an asteroid or something, don't you
think the moon would be pretty screwed as well?"

Hopper shrugged.

"Any idea where to start looking?"
Gellar asked.

Lexi looked around and thought she had an idea.
"Over there." She pointed. Up ahead was a group of humanoid units.
They were deactivated and slumped over like hump-backed old men.

“Why are they all deactivated?” Hopper asked.

Lexi folded her arms. “Maybe whatever shut off
the communication networks shut down the humanoids, too. Don’t they run off a
relay?”

“Yes,” Trent said. “They’re all connected and
can be shut off together. Something must have knocked out the relay.”

“What is that blue crate, there,” Gellar
pointed to a large, plastic crate that lay at the feet of one of the
deactivated humanoids.

“Just a delivery,” Miller said. “What’s so
important about it?”

“The lid is halfway up,” Gellar noted, “like
the humanoid froze right after it was opened. The man in the video told us to
leave. Something bad happened here. Maybe it was something that got delivered.”

Boss nodded. “It might be worth checking out.”

Lexi swallowed a lump in her throat. "What
if it's something dangerous?"

"Then we're probably already
screwed," Hopper said. "I'll go check it out."

Boss stopped him. "Gellar is our munitions
expert. If it's something volatile, she should be the lead on this."

Gellar didn't looked thrilled at the prospect,
but she nodded and started walking. Everyone stayed back while she headed over
to the crate. Her steps were jerky, as if she was fighting her own legs and
Lexi felt her stomach tighten anxiously as she imagined how tense the American
woman probably felt as she walked towards what could be a threat to her life.
Lexi had a feeling her father had selected Gellar to perform the task because
she was closest to panicking. It was better to have her take an active part in
the mission than to have her stand back and let her idle thoughts carry her away.

Gellar stopped in front of the blue plastic
crate and covered her mouth. "Oh God!"

Boss stepped forward. "What is it?"

"It's...meat. Disgusting."

The rest of the group quickly joined Gellar
and, sure enough, there was what appeared to be a thick slab of festering meat
inside the crate, covered with writhing maggots.

Trent gagged. "That's gross."

"It's just a food delivery," Miller
said. "It's been left to go bad."

Hopper knelt down beside the crate and made
everybody groan by shoving his hand right into the spoiled meat.

Trent covered his mouth. "Dude, that's not
cool. Get your hand out of there."

"Just a minute. I see something."
Hopper rummaged around, making squelching sounds in the meat and releasing a
waft of pungent odour. Eventually, he pulled his arm free again and was holding
something in his hand.

Hopper held the object up and looked at Trent.
"You know what this is, buddy?"

Trent squinted at the sticky device. "I'm
not sure. It looks like a wireless transmitter of some kind. Here, let me take
a look." He covered his mouth with one hand while reaching out and taking
the unit with the other. "Damn, it's all sticky."

"Be a man," Hopper said. "Not
the first time you've had sticky meat in your hands before."

Gellar tutted. "That's disgusting, Hopper."

Hopper winked. "I'll grow on you."

"Like fungus, maybe."

"You're covered in...stuff," Lexi
said, pointing at the wet, glistening maggots on Hopper's hands.

"There's a hygiene bay over there,"
Boss said flatly, pointing off to the corner of the warehouse.

Hopper nodded. "I'll go get cleaned
up." He marched away from the group.

Trent was turning the sticky transmitter over
in his hands and examining it closely. His revulsion seemed to have passed now
that his curiosity had taken over him. "It's a pretty old unit,” he said. “A
BR13. Commercial use, not military. Main use is remote relay, like sending
instructions to an unmanned machine. A drone, mining equipment-"

"Humanoids?" Lexi interrupted.

Trent shrugged. "I guess so. The
programmer would need to be pretty skilled to hack one of these units, though.
They're state of the art."

Boss folded his arms across his large chest and
looked at his daughter. "You think someone sent a signal from this thing
to shut down the humanoids, Lexi?"

"Maybe."

Gellar frowned. "For what purpose?"

Lexi shrugged. "To make sure an actual
person received the package. The humanoids take deliveries and check them,
right? Well, maybe they're programmed to dispose of anything unexpected. Maybe
the only way to get this package into the hands of an actual human being was to
make the humanoid handlers malfunction."

"I suppose that makes sense," Gellar
conceded. “Although it’s a stretch.”

Miller grunted. "Why work so hard to get a
hunk of meat into the hands of a porter? To what end?"

Lexi thought it was obvious, so she explained.
"The guy in the video was sick – really sick. I think whatever he
contracted, he got from this piece of meat."

Trent looked down at the sticky unit in his
hand and suddenly looked very ill. "I think maybe it would be a good idea
if we all went and got cleaned up."

Boss nodded. "I think that would be wise.

On their way to the hygiene bay, they were met
by Hopper coming the other way. His arms were wet and soapy, but his face was a
rigid slab of concern.

"What is it?" Boss asked.

"I found something," Hopper said,
both eyebrows raised.

"Found what?"

"A survivor. Sort of."

Everyone got moving.

#

The unknown man was a
mess, barely breathing and lying in a hump on top of a crate of blue paper
towels. His face was pockmarked with weeping blisters and sores. His lips
sucked at the air hungrily but his eyes remained closed.

"Is it the man from the video?" Lexi
asked.

Miller shook his head. "No, this is
somebody else. He's wearing a janitor's uniform."

"Can you help him?"

Gellar knelt down beside the sick man and
placed a hand against his forehead. "He has a fever. From the pustules on
his face I would suspect something viral. Antibiotics may work, something to
bring down the fever."

"There's a hospital in the guest complex,"
Trent said. "I saw it on the maps I downloaded onto my comms unit."

Lexi looked down at the sick man. "If
there's been some kind of viral outbreak then perhaps the hospital is the
smartest place to search."

"Or the stupidest," Hopper said. He
was back at the sinks, scrubbing at his skin with watered-down bleach. His skin
was red raw, but it was the right idea. If there was something nasty clinging
to their skin, then it was worth suffering a chemical burn to get rid of it.

Trent went so far as to wrap a wet rag around
his face, making him look like a surgeon. "I think I'd like to get out of
here," he said.

"We need to take him with us," Lexi
said, motioning towards the sick man. "If he wakes up he could tell us
what happened."

"Of course," Boss said. "He
comes with us. We're here to help."

"I'm not carrying him," Trent said.

Lexi huffed. "Fine. I will." She got
beneath one of the sick man's arms and started to lift him. The act of moving
him brought him to consciousness and his eyes fluttered open. He looked around
at everyone like he was waking from one nightmare into a new one.

"Don't...don't..."

"Don't what?" Lexi said.

"Don't touch me. Don't touch anyone."
With that, the man stiffened, his eyes rolling back in his skull. He seized
hard, his body trembling. Then he went still.

Miller felt the man's neck for a pulse, but
shook his head. "He's dead. Heart attack, or maybe an embolism. An autopsy
would confirm."

"We didn't bring a pathologist with
us," Boss said. "So we're going to leave him and get the hell back to
the Hermes. We'll report back and request a medical team and a full quarantine
operation."

"Sounds good to me," Trent said.
"I’m not sticking around to catch whatever this guy had." He lifted
the sticky transmitter in his hand and threw it into the sink. "Whatever
is going on here is more than we're equipped to handle."

"What did you do that for?" Lexi said
irritably. She went over to the sink and retrieved the transmitter. It was
soaking wet and covered in bleachy suds.

Trent shrugged. "It's covered in gunk. It
might be teeming with the virus."

"It's also part of our investigation. We
still don't know what it's for-ouch!" Lexi dropped the sparking
unit to the floor where it promptly snapped in two. It spat out a couple more
sparks before dying completely.

"Nice one, butterfingers."

Lexi scowled at Trent. "It was already
broken because you threw it in the sink."

Then came a noise.

CATASTROPHIC SOFTWARE FAILURE. REBOOTING.
CATASTROPHIC SOFTWARE FAILURE. REBOOTING.

Everyone looked around to watch the humanoids.
They were straightening up, yellow eyes glowing as they spoke the same message
over and over again in unison. CATASTROPHIC FAILURE. REBOOTING.

"They're coming back online," Trent
said with a smile on his face. "When the transmitter broke, it must have
stopped sending out whatever signal it was jamming them with."

"Will they be able to provide us with
information?" Boss asked.

Trent nodded enthusiastically. "Humanoids
record and share everything on a virtual network. We only need a single unit
online to access everything they've collectively witnessed. If I link up I can
give us CCTV, data entries, everything."

"Good," Boss said. "Then we'll
have this mystery solved."

Lexi watched the humanoids continue their
start-up routines. One of them turned slowly to face her. Its yellow eyes
pulsed. Its mouth opened wide like the maw of a snake and a long, drawn-out
whistle came from its voice box.

"What's it doing?" Lexi asked,
covering her ears and wincing.

Trent shook his head. "I don't know.
I...It looks like some kind of data corruption in the start-up Kernel. Let me
see if I can access its operating system." Trent switched on his comms unit
and headed over to the whistling humanoid. Its eyes continued to pulse like a
strobe light.

"I've never seen one do that before,"
Gellar said.

Lexi looked at her. "Have you been around
them much?"

"Yes, the Army used them in my unit for
resupply and mine disposal. Before I joined the Space Corps, I was in the field
during the Texan-Mexican war. There were dozens of humanoids on the ground with
us. They never did this, though."

"I'll figure it out," Trent shouted
over the noise. "Just let me plug in." He pulled a zipwire out of his
comms unit and plugged it into a small slit-port behind the whistling humanoid's
ear. Immediately its eyes stopped pulsing and settled on a solid yellow.

The whistling stopped.

"What did you do?" Lexi asked Trent.

"Nothing yet. I was just about to-"

Trent's feet left the floor as the humanoid
grabbed him around the throat and lifted him up. His legs thrashed in the air.

Boss was the first to respond. He dashed
forward and grabbed a hold of Trent, tried to pull him free. "Trent, stop
screwing around!"

Trent choked and spluttered.
"H-help."

The group of humanoids were suddenly all awake.
They looked around curiously with their bright yellow eyes like newly-hatched
lizards.

"This ain't good," Hopper said.

Lexi ran forward as the humanoids began to
converge on her father and Trent. Trent was growing purple in the face and his
kicking was becoming more frantic. Boss had started pummelling the humanoid in
the face but the blows did nothing. It was like punching a sheet of metal.
"I can't get him loose," he shouted as Lexi came to help him.

Lexi grabbed one of the humanoid's arms and
tried to yank it away, but it was impossible.

Trent's struggling grew weaker. His eyes bulged
from his head.

The other humanoids began to approach en masse.

"We need to get out of here," Miller
shouted at them. "Run."

But Lexi kept struggling to free Trent. "We
can't leave him."

"You have to," Miller shouted.
"Get out of there."

Lexi looked over her shoulder in time to see
another humanoid coming right for her. It snatched out a hand and tried to grab
her, but she ducked out of the way. Boss was still trying to release Trent, but
his hands were bloody from throwing so many punches. Trent had gone still,
dangling limply from the vice-like grip around his throat.

Lexi was about to admit defeat. The other
humanoids would be on them any second and there was no point her dying trying
to save Trent. He was already lost.

"Get down!"

Lexi spun around to see Hopper coming at them
with a large yellow bucket. Boss spotted him, too, and got out of the way just
in time to avoid the torrent of soapy water being released from the bucket. The
water soaked the humanoid and immediately its yellow eyes began to spit sparks.

It released Trent’s neck and he crumpled to the
floor.

"Help me get him up," Boss shouted.

Lexi and Boss scooped Trent up by his arms and
started dragging him away towards the elevator where Miller and Gellar urgently
waited for them. Hopper covered their back, kicking out at the humanoids that
had begun to give slow, deliberate chase.

Gellar ran forward to meet them all and helped
them carry Trent the last few yards, and between the three of them they managed
to drag him into the elevator.

Hopper was still outside and they shouted at
him to hurry. He was still holding the plastic bucket in his hands and he
decided to lob at the nearest humanoid. It bounced off its head uselessly, but
Hopper’s point was made. He turned around and leapt into the elevator just as
the doors were closing.

They started heading upwards. "Arriving at
the Space Dome. This is a public area, please ensure all standards of uniform
are met. Enjoy your day."

"How did you know that would work?"
Lexi asked Hopper between panicked breaths.

Hopper shrugged. "Doesn't matter how far
along technology comes, electronics and water just don't mix."

"You knew the eyes were a weak
point?"

"They are on a human being. I
figured the same might be true for fake humans."

Miller was on the floor, checking on Trent.
"He's still alive, but his pulse is weak."

"Is he going to be okay?" Lexi asked.

"Depends on whether or not his neck is
damaged. If his windpipe is broken or if the blood was shut off from his brain
for too long..." He shrugged. "We'll know as soon as he wakes up. If
he wakes up."

The elevator doors opened.

"We need to get Trent somewhere
safe," Boss said. "We don't know how many more of those bloody machines
are walking around the place."

"They don't use them in the public
areas," Lexi said, recalling what she knew of the park. "They break
the illusion of fantasy for the guests."

"We should stick to the public areas,
then," Gellar said.

"We're heading back to the Hermes,"
Boss said. "Some sort of cyber-attack has made the humanoids dangerous.
That might be what caused everyone to disappear. We're not equipped to deal
with a hostile situation like this."

"That's not true," Miller said.
"The Hermes is equipped with six battle assault rifles and pulse
grenades."

"We're not frikkin’ soldiers," Hopper
said.

"Gellar and I are Marines."

"Well, you two feel free to go full Rambo,
but you won't find me running around with a gun."

"Let's just get to the Hermes," Lexi
said. "We'll make a plan from there."

They exited the elevator, carrying Trent
between them, and headed back out into the space dome. The view was a lot less
awesome this time and, more than ever, Lexi felt the weight of the cosmos
bearing down on her. They hurried into the boarding tunnel, where Hopper
released the airlock, and they threw themselves back inside the Hermes like the
Wrath of God was nipping at their heels.

Hopper closed the airlock and slumped against
the wall. "That was hairy," he said.

"Open a comm channel, Lexi," Boss
ordered. "I need to get a report to Britcomm ASAP."

Lexi climbed into the cockpit and switched on
the Hermes' transmitter. She was surprised when the console failed to light up.
In fact the entire cockpit stayed dark. Even the standby LEDs were blank. She
swivelled in her chair and tapped at the nav console. That, too, stayed dark.

"What is it?" Boss said, obviously
seeing the confusion on her face.

"Nothing's working. The computers, the
controls...it's all down."

"How is that possible?"

"It's not," Hopper said, flicking the
cabin's light switch on and off uselessly. "Nothing would cause the ship's
systems to fail all at once – except for one thing: sabotage. Somebody did
this."

"Maybe it's the same thing making the
humanoids play up," Gellar suggested.

"Or,” Hopper said, “somebody came and
uploaded a virus into the computer's base programming or placed an EM jammer
nearby to shut down the ship’s power core."

The radio unit on Trent's shoulder suddenly
hissed and a voice came through it. "You can’t leave. You have been exposed.
You must remain here. I'm sorry."

Boss grabbed the radio unit and barked a reply.
"Who is this? Identify yourself."

"I'm just a man. A man trying to do what's
right. You cannot leave. You're all going to die here. I'm sorry."

The radio went dead, just like everything else
around them.

#

"Who the hell was
that?" Miller demanded as he opened up a supply cabinet at the rear of the
Hermes. From inside, he pulled out an assault rifle and shoved in a magazine.

"Calm down," Boss said, raising his
meaty hand.

Miller cocked the weapon and handed it to
Gellar, then started loading up a second. "I suggest we arm up. Each
magazine holds one-hundred-fifty low-velocity ball bearings. Makes a mess of a
man but won't damage anything keeping a roof over our heads."

"I'm with Miller," Gellar said, strapping
the assault rifle around her neck. "That was a threat we just received.
Our ship has been sabotaged. We need to defend ourselves."

Boss spoke slowly, calmly. "Twenty-thousand
innocent people. That's how many lives are in jeopardy here. Running around
with rifles isn't going to do very much, but if it makes you two feel better,
then by all means take them; but if you fire off a single round without my say
so, I will personally see to it that you are Court Martialled out of your
respective units."

Miller scowled. "You have no say in
military matters."

Boss walked up to Miller and stood nose to nose
with him. "Really? Who do you think taught your General Baxter how to fly?
In fact, the very reason I have you and Gellar here is because Baxter owed me a
favour. If you want to see how many powerful hands I've shaken, test me."

Miller took a step back and averted his eyes.
Gellar looked away too.

"Okay," Boss said, his tone suddenly
positive and fatherly. "We're in a spot of bother here, officers, but
that's what we've all been trained for. My decision to abort the mission
stands. We need to get a call through to Britcomm advising of the situation.
That is still our only priority. Our own communications are down, which means
we must seek alternatives."

"We should head for the control
centre," Hopper said.

Boss nodded. "Yes, we should. I imagine
this place has enough technology to light up every cell phone on Earth. We need
to head there immediately."

"But the comms are offline," Lexi
said. "That's why we're here in the first place."

Hopper folded his arms across his chest.
"I bet the guy who threatened us on the radio is behind it. There's
someone screwing with all the systems in this place. Maybe it's a tech; someone
who works here."

"I don't care who's responsible,"
Boss said. "I just care about getting to that control room and doing
whatever we need to do to get a call out."

"If the systems are down," Lexi said,
"then the only person who can get them working again is Trent."

"Good thing he's awake again," Hopper
said, nodding down at their fallen colleague.

Trent blinked, looking at them all in a daze.

"Are you okay, Trent?" Lexi asked.
She knelt down beside him and put a hand against his cheek soothingly.

"Did I win?" he said.

Lexi smiled. "Not so much. Do you remember
what happened?"

Trent shoved himself up into a sitting position
and rubbed his neck. "Yeah, I remember." He looked around at the
unlit cockpit, noticed the dark computer displays. "We're in trouble,
aren't we?"

"No," Lexi said. "Not yet, but
we're going to need your help."

"Okay, but it's somebody else's turn to
get strangled by a robot next time."

"Deal. Can you get up?"

Trent said he could, so she helped him to his
feet. He swayed dizzily, but managed to stay upright on his own. He eyed the
assault rifles that Gellar and Miller held and frowned. "There are
two-hundred humanoid units at Facility 23. I hope you've brought enough
ammunition."

"We're sticking to the public areas,"
Lexi said. "They shouldn't be around."

"Let's get going," Boss said. He
moved over to the airlock and pulled the release, allowing them all to proceed
cautiously back through the tunnel and into the domed check in area. Up ahead, behind
all of the desks, was a sloping pathway. At the top the hill was an archway
with a huge banner attached to it. It read: WELCOME TO GRAND GALAXY. YOUR
ADVENTURE STARTS HERE.

"Get your tickets ready," Hopper told
them. "And keep your arms and legs inside the ride at all times."

They stuck close together and started up the
slope cautiously. The silence was unsettling. Walking into humanity's largest
theme park should not have been a quiet affair. They hopped over the turnstiles
and entered into the first section of the amusement park. It was a shopping
area, full of themed stores and guest services running in two parallel rows. In
the middle of the paved walkway was a pretend spaceship, painted white and red
like an ambulance – it was a designated First Aid station. Behind it lay a bank
of vending machines set inside a pretend rocket. The ceiling blinked and
twinkled with fake stars three hundred-feet above their heads.

"This is all wrong," Trent said
nervously. "There should be people everywhere." He rubbed at his neck
again. "Although, right now, I'm glad of the peace and quiet."

Boss gave his orders. "Take point, Miller.
Gellar, bring up the rear."

They moved in a line, the two soldiers at front
and back, and kept their pace slow and cautious. It didn't take long, though,
before they encountered the park’s first attraction.

Lexi looked up at the looping rollercoaster and
couldn't quite believe it. The thing was eighty-feet high and swooped and dove
in every direction. The fact that something like this had been built on the
moon was hard to conceive, but there it was right in front of her. The
coaster's cars were modelled after old-fashioned black and white lunar rockets,
like the ones used at the turn of the century. The rollercoaster’s journey began
with a vertical launch, mimicking a blast-off. The cars shot directly upwards,
just like a real rocket launch, before swinging up and over into a series of
helices and loops. The ride was designed to look like the guests were leaving
Earth and travelling into the cosmos. It looked like a lot of fun."

"Maybe when this is all over we can take
it for a spin," Hopper said.

"I'm sure there'll be lifetime passes for
all of us," Boss said. "Let's just keep it moving. Trent, you have
the maps. Do you know the quickest way to travel to the comms room?”

"It's at the back of the park, near the
Forbidden Planet section. Just under a mile ahead."

Hopper whistled. "This place is big."

"You have no idea," Trent said. He
was zipping through information on his comms unit. "Looking at the maps of
this place is like looking at a city. It has a water treatment plant, oxygen
garden, hospital, supermarket, casino, nuclear power core, trash compaction
site...it goes on and on. The amusement park is only a tiny piece of this
place."

"What's that?" Lexi pointed at a
collection of wooden crates directly in front of them, blocking most of the
path.

Trent shook his head. "I don't know."

Before anybody had chance to approach, a ball
of flame went hurtling through the air towards them. It struck the wooden
crates on the pathway and disappeared inside one of them.

Boss grabbed Lexi and shoved her to the ground.
"Get down!" he shouted as he dove on top of her.

There was a massive explosion, followed by
assorted sounds of whizzing, popping, and crackling. Lexi looked up from
beneath her father to see fireworks erupting from the crates in all directions.
The crates themselves were on fire and a candyfloss cart lay on its side nearby,
smouldering from the blast.

Boss pushed Lexi's face against the ground, not
letting her move. "Sound off!"

"Hopper okay."

"Miller okay."

"Gellar okay."

"Trent...not okay, but I'll live."

Fireworks continued rocketing into the air,
exploding above their heads and hitting the store fronts and ride fascia. As
Lexi struggled out from under her father and climbed to her feet, a fizzing
green ball flew inches past her face.

"What the fuck?" Miller growled,
aiming his rifle in all directions. Every firework that popped made him flinch
and adjust his position.

"Keep your head together, solider,"
Boss demanded.

Miller nodded and lowered his rifle slightly.

Another ball of flame flew through the air.
Lexi spotted it first and shouted a warning just in time for everyone to take
cover.

“Incoming!”

The fiery projectile smashed on the pavement
and ignited.

"Somebody’s throwing firebombs,"
Gellar shouted. "Permission to fire."

“Permission bloody well granted," Boss
shouted back to her.

Lexi spotted movement. "Over there,"
she pointed to a man standing inside an asteroid-themed carousel ride twenty
yards ahead.

Gellar sought out her target and allowed a
smirk to cross her lips. "Target acquired." She pulled the trigger.

Lexi watched as the stranger darted away amidst
a hail of deadly ball bearing fire. Miller broke cover and tried to give chase,
but the flaming firework crates held him back. "Damn it," he bellowed,
firing off a barrage of rounds. “Damn it.”

Boss rushed up and slapped the muzzle of
Miller's rifle towards the ground. "You have no target. There could be
civilians."

"With all due respect, Boss, someone is
screwing with us. And I do not like being screwed with."

"Chill the hell out," Hopper said.

Miller turned on him. "Chill out? If it
wasn't for me bringing along a rifle we would probably all be toast right now."

Hopper rolled his eyes. "You're acting
like a dick."

Miller went red in the face, but before he
responded, Gellar cut him off. "He's right, Miller. Stop flying off the
handle. We stick together and we act smart. You’re a Marine. Act like one."

Miller seethed, his teeth bared. He turned and
walked away.

"What's his deal?" Hopper asked
Gellar once Miller was out of earshot.

"A rebel set his brother on fire in the Texan-Mexican
war using a Molotov cocktail. I'm assuming he's not a fan of firebombers."

Hopper let his shoulders slump and decided not
to say anything else.

Lexi went over to where Miller was standing and
stood beside him. Hearing about his brother’s fate had upset her. "You
okay, Miller?"

"I'm fine. Why is everyone ragging on me
for trying to do my job? I'm a soldier. My job is to shoot bad guys."

"I thought a soldier's job was to protect
people. You're not protecting us by losing your cool. You were right about
bringing the rifle, but that doesn't mean you need to use it every time."

Miller sighed. "Sometimes a rifle is the
only tool that works."

"You're a medic. You must have seen that
sometimes a rifle does more damage than it needs to."

Miller didn’t reply, but he at least seemed to
think about it.

Lexi left Miller and went back to the others. The
fires were starting to diminish and they were able to edge their way forward
carefully and move onto the next section of path. Whoever had attacked them was
apparently long gone, but had left in a hurry when Miller and Gellar fired upon
him. Stashed up against the side of the carousel was a collection of petrol
bombs, along with a Grand Galaxy jacket and another company tablet like the one
they'd found at the reception desk. Trent grabbed the tablet immediately and
used his comms unit to hack into it. A moment later he was smiling.

"What have you found?" Lexi asked.

"CCTV recordings for the park. Looks like
the guy was downloading the security feeds. Maybe he wanted to delete them;
cover up evidence or something."

"Are they still viewable?"

"Some are."

Boss came over, having heard the conversation.
"Good. Let's finally find out what happened to this godforsaken
place."

Trent selected the first file within the folder
and hit PLAY.

Chapter Three

The video feed began at the entry terminal,
a hive of activity. People came and people went as normal, no fear or confusion
on their faces, only joy and excitement. Trent went ahead and opened several
more video files and displayed them all side by side in little windows – the
hotel and spa, the amusement park, the casino, the waterpark – but Boss told
Trent to keep going until he found a feed from the cargo bay.  The only clues
they had pointed to the arrival of that mysterious blue crate.

Hopper whistled. “Have you seen how many zones
there are? Talk about needle in the frikkin’ hay-”

“There,” Lexi interrupted. “Trent, you’ve got
it.”

Trent brought up the window she was pointing at
and everyone leaned in closer to get a look. A small group of warehouse
employees milled around the cargo area, moving from bay to bay with clipboards
tucked beneath their arms. They were accompanied by fastidiously working
humanoids.

Boss pointed towards the top of the screen.
“That’s where we found the crate full of rotten meat.”

Lexi squinted. “Are you sure?”

“Yes. Can we zoom in?”

Trent did as he was asked and zoomed in, but he
said, “The humanoids are still functioning here. I’ll fast forward to the point
when they go offline”

The humanoids sped up on screen, whizzing
around as the video was forwarded, but then suddenly slumped over into the
deactivated positions they had been in earlier.

Lexi chewed at her lip.

Hopper said, “Looks like we’ve found the point
where everything screwed up.”

One of the humanoids stood by the unopened blue
crate and began violently shaking from side to side. A worker appeared, looking
very much like the man who had warned them in the first video, and pushed the
humanoid aside. He stared at the crate and even scratched his head. It was
obvious the man was confused. After looking around for help, he shrugged and
turned his attention back to the crate. He ran his fingers over the lid,
perhaps reading the label printed on top of it.

“Look at the humanoid,” Lexi said.

The humanoid unit had stopped its violent
shaking and was now watching the man beside the crate. Its eyes had changed from
yellow to red.

Lexi frowned. “What’s happening to it?”

Trent shook his head. “I’m not sure.”

The man reached into the blue crate, unaware of
what the humanoid was doing behind him, and pulled something out of it – a
small black device, He seemed disgusted by something that was now coating his
arm. He sniffed at his wrist, grimaced, and then peered back inside the crate. Without
warning, a chalky, alabaster cloud engulfed the man’s face, causing him to drop
the small black unit back into the crate, where Hopper would later find it. The
man staggered backwards, his hands held to his face, coughing and hacking as he
retreated out of view.

“Zoom out,” Boss ordered. “Find him again.”

Trent did as he was told and managed to find
another camera showing the spluttering man. This time there was also another
man – one they all recognised as the ill-fated janitor who was now lying dead
where they’d found him. He came to his colleague’s aid and quickly begun wiping
at his face with a rag pulled from his pocket, trying to clean away the chalky
substance that had erupted from the crate.

A few seconds later, the janitor dropped the
rag and stumbled backwards himself, with his hands to his own face, just like
the man who had opened the crate.

“Whoa,” Hopper said. “What just happened?”

Lex leaned closer to try and make out what was
going on in the grainy picture. “All the billions spent to create this place
and they can’t afford decent cameras.”

“There’s some sort of disturbance,” Trent
muttered. “It must have been the device we found in the crate.”

The original man in the video now walked the
length of the cargo bay. He was in clear discomfort, coughing with every step.
The Janitor rushed over to the sinks, splashing water on his face.

“If that was the man’s only interaction with
the janitor…” Miller frowned. “Whatever this is is highly contagious.”

“See if you can pick him back up,” Boss told
Trent when the man disappeared off camera again. “If he went out into the
public sections of the park…”

Trent flicked between the various feeds.
Occasionally he’d stumble across the man, but no sooner would they have him,
than he would disappear down another corridor or around a sudden corner.
Eventually they tracked him down to a room marked: SECURITY.

The man practically fell into the room, his
face still buried in his hands. He dropped to his knees and rolled onto his
back where he started to writhe about in pain. There was no sound, but it was
clear the man was suffering. Then – just like that – he went limp. His hands
slumped to his sides.

“Dead?” Gellar mused.

Lexi shook her head. “Can’t be. You saw the
video log he left. He was sicker than he is now. It was filmed after what we’re
watching now.”

“From now on, this man is Patient Zero,” Boss
said. “We need to find him – dead or alive.”

Trent fast-forwarded the video feed. Ten
minutes after the man had dropped to the floor, he suddenly sat bolt upright.

Hopper leaned closer to the screen.  “Is
he…laughing?”

Patient Zero was definitely laughing. His arms
wrapped around his knees and he rocked backwards and forwards, giggling
hysterically.

“What the hell has gotten into him?” Gellar
asked.

Lexi exhaled. “Nothing good.”

Patient Zero got up and went over to the bank
of computers in the security room. He lingered in front of them for a moment
and then sat down. It seemed like he was recording a video, perhaps the video
log they had watched earlier – he certainly seemed much sicker now after only
another ten minutes or so. Trent took the opportunity to jog the video forward.
Patient Zero zipped all around the room in fast motion – sometimes standing
still, other times sitting at the console recording more messages. The creepiest
section of the video was when he was standing directly beneath the security
camera, staring up at them with a grin on his face. Trent hit fast forward
again until Patient Zero disappeared from the room.

“If we go down there,” Hopper said. “I’d wager
we find his body slumped somewhere. He has to be dead.”

“If he isn’t, he will be soon,” Miller said.
“Clearly something was inside that crate that has affected his brain. He’s
displaying signs of delirium, likely from fever, and his bleeding skin suggests
a massive auto-immune response. If not for the incredibly short symptom
progression I could name several likely viruses, but this… It’s something I’ve
never seen before.”

“Great,” Hopper said. “Just…great.”

Chapter Four

“Where is that security office?” Boss asked
Trent.

“It’s in the administration sector, past the
Forbidden Planet sector.”

“Then that’s where we’re heading. The comms
centre is near there as well, right?”

Trent nodded. “It’s all bunched together at the
back of the facility. There’s a monorail that goes there if we head east
towards the Ice Lands sector.”

“Too risky,” Boss said. “We’ll stay on foot. I
don’t trust anything with a computer in this place.”

“Okay, then,” Miller said, adjusting his rifle
strap around his neck. “Let’s get moving.”

“Eyes open,” Boss said. “Gellar, Miller, you
see that lunatic who tried to firebomb us, you shoot to kill. If it turns out
to be Patient Zero, all the more reason to take him down.”

Miller raised his rifle. “Copy that.”

They spread out, exploring the park in an
advancing line. Lexi headed over to a children’s Helter-skelter and glanced up
its spiralling staircase. It made a good lookout, so she decided to head on up.
First, she shouted out to Gellar to let her know where she was going.

“Okay, be careful,” Gellar shouted back.

Lexi started up the clanging steel steps and
picked up speed as she climbed. For a moment she felt like a child again,
wanting to rush to the top and leap down the slide screaming. She always
dreamed of places like this, as a kid, but her father had always been so busy,
hardly ever home. She had never gone to theme parks, let alone somewhere as
magnificent as Grand Galaxy.

Halfway up and she was already out of breath.
Cosmonauts were fit and healthy, but they had little need for physical
endurance. In fact, spending time in Zero-G could make a person weak and frail.
She was suffering the consequences now as she huffed and puffed.

A short while later, nearing the top, she
started to smell something off. It was a foul odour and made her wrinkle her
nose and breathe through her mouth. She had to fight the urge to gag.

The others were still conducting their own
searches down below. Gellar was rooting through a topiary garden, passing
between bushes shaped like planets and spaceships, and benches built from
futuristic tubes. Further on, Hopper and Trent were chatting to one another outside
of a dark ride. The octagonal building possessed a banner reading: Intergalactic
Agency for Pest Control.

Her father was nowhere to be seen, but there
were so many rides and buildings that it would be easy for him to wander out of
sight. The same was likely true for Miller, who was also absent from Lexi’s
view.

Lexi carried on up the last of the steps,
covering her nose with her sleeve as the smell got stronger. When she was about
to reach the top, she paused and tried to take as deep a breath as she could
without gagging, then she stepped up onto the platform.

Part of her had expected to find a body – only
a rotting corpse could smell so bad – but what she hadn’t been expecting to
find was such an abhorrent mess. The female body slumped at the top of the
slide was desiccated, torn open in the middle and leaking guts and fluids
everywhere.

Reflex took over and Lexi gagged hard, spewing
the meagre contents of her stomach onto the metal floor grate. She had come up
there for a reason, to survey the area, so she straightened up and went over to
the railings, deciding that the body was evidence to be put aside until she had
assessed the entire scene. She leaned over and almost threw up again, but
managed to calm herself down this time. Breathing slowly, trying not to let the
stench overwhelm her, she stared out at the park below.

She managed to spot her father, standing on an
elevated queuing platform for a themed Waltzers ride. Lexi could still see
Gellar nearby and also spotted Trent and Hopper again; they were still
chatting. Miller was again nowhere to be seen.

Lexi stared out further at the next sector of
the theme park. The arched entryway named it ASTEROID FALLS and it seemed to be
a rocky, water-based area, with a mingling of red canyons and shimmering
rivers. The centrepiece was a large flume ride occupied by a dozen boats shaped
like life rafts that were intended to travel along the sleepy canyons before
being dumped down into the churning waters of a wide rapid.

Lexi finally managed to locate Miller. He was
wandering next to a large, spinning contraption called The Driller. He
was scanning around with his rifle, desperate to find a target. Stupid fool,
Lexi thought. They were all supposed to stick together, but Miller had forged
ahead, eager to find his prey. The guy was trigger-happy. Most Space Marines
were.

Lexi spotted movement further ahead, almost at
the far end of the Asteroid Falls sector. In fact, she spotted a lot of
movement. She placed a hand over her eyes and squinted. The park was huge, and
what she was seeing could’ve been happening a half-mile away, but whatever it
was it was quickly getting closer.

The park’s guests – at least, some of them –
about a hundred men and women in total, were stumbling towards Asteroid Falls.
Miller would encounter them first, as there was only a rollercoaster and a
couple of shops between him and them, but the crowd was moving quickly, like a
writhing mass of insects.

Lexi was about to shout out, to at the very
least get a warning to Gellar who was right below her in the garden, but before
she even got chance to open her mouth, something seized her ankle. She stumbled
away from the railing and almost tripped, kicking out to get her ankle free. A
scream escaped her lips when she saw the shredded corpse rise up from the
ground to face her. There was no way the woman could still be alive. It was
impossible.

The woman seized Lexi by the throat and began
to squeeze. Lexi squirmed and struggled, even more when the woman tried to bite
her face. Blood and guts spilled all over the floor, making it slippery under
foot and hard to fight back.

“Lexi?” The shout came from below, from Gellar.
There was no way the American would make it up all of the steps in time to
rescue her, though.

Lexi was fighting for her life.

She brought her knee up to shove the bleeding
woman away, trying to keep the rotten jaws from biting her. Once she had a
little breathing room, Lexi used her arms to try and pry the choking hand away
from her throat. But the fingers held on like a vice. Lexi was running out of
breath, her vision beginning to spot with black patches and twinkling lights.
She felt pressure in her forehead as she strained to catch a breath.

The woman made to grab at Lexi with her other
arm, but Lexi ducked. She was still unable to get free of the hand around her
throat, though, and began to tremble as she started to lose consciousness. Her
knees buckled and she stumbled backwards, dragging her attacker with her. The
woman tried to bite her again, this time lunging at Lexi with her entire
bodyweight. Lexi’s legs completely gave way and she fell to the ground. Her
momentum dragged her attacker off balance with her and the woman tumbled
forwards. She hit the safety rail and carried right on over the top of it. Her
arm twisted and snapped off at the elbow, the hand remaining around Lexi’s
throat, but the rest of her went plummeting out of sight.

Lexi took a desperate gasp of air. The hand
around her throat had gone limp, the fingers no longer squeezing. She tore the
disgusting thing away from her and tossed it aside.

Gellar appeared at the top of the steps
finally, panting hard and looking panicked. She had her rifle at the ready.
“Are you okay?”

Lexi rubbed her throat and took deep breaths.
“No, I’m not okay. A dead woman just attacked me.”

Gellar raised an eyebrow. “What did you just
say?”

“There’s no time to explain.” Lexi hopped up
and went over to the railing. The horde of men and women were still getting
closer, almost on top of Miller now. The soldier was still searching around,
oblivious to the approaching crowd.

“Who are those people?” Gellar asked, joining
her at the railing.

“I don’t know, but Miller is about to find out.
We need to warn him.”

Chapter Five

Lexi got down the spiral staircase twice as
fast as she had gone up it. Gellar was right behind her, shouting into her
radio. “Miller, come in, over… Damn it, he’s not answering.”

“Keep trying,” Lexi urged, heading away from
the Helter-skelter and towards where she had last seen Trent and Hopper
chatting. She was glad to find them still there.

Hopper saw her racing towards him. “Whoa,
what’s wrong?”

“There’s a crowd of people coming right our
way. Miller is in the next sector. They’ll be on him any minute.”

Trent frowned. “A crowd? Do you mean the park
guests?”

“I don’t know. A woman attacked me at the top
of the Helter-skelter. If the people coming towards Miller are the same as she
was…”

“Okay,” Hopper said. “Let’s go get him.”

“Where’s my dad?” Lexi asked, then corrected
herself. “Where’s Boss?”

“I’m here,” he said, marching up behind them.
“I heard what you said. Are you okay?”

Lexi noticed the blood stains on her suit and
nodded. “It’s not mine. We need to go.”

“Then let’s go.”

“I’ll keep trying him on the radio,” Gellar
said as they all chased after Lexi. They reached the edge of the sector they
were in and passed through the tall archway leading to Asteroid Falls.

Lexi shouted out. “Miller! Miller, where are
you?”

Gellar took point, passing her radio to Trent,
and leading with her rifle. She scanned left and right as the group passed by
the side of a 4D simulator shaped like a broken-down all-terrain bus. Mad
Manny’s Thunder Tour.

The path widened up ahead but was bordered on
either side by fake canyon walls. Overhead, a false ceiling gave the illusion
of being beneath three blazing suns. The claustrophobic walkway stretched for
almost a hundred metres and there were food vendors and gift shops nestled
inside rock like caves on either side.

Lexi shouted again. “Miller!”

Miller appeared at the opposite end off the
canyon, looking back at them. He was so far off that he appeared small.

Trent tried him on the radio but got no answer.
“Why isn’t he answering? Does he even have his radio on him?”

“He’s turned it off,” Gellar said confidently.
“He’s hunting and doesn’t want his radio squawking and giving away his
position.”

Boss growled. “The fool.”

“He’s the one being hunted,” Lexi said. “He
just doesn’t know it yet.”

Miller started heading towards them. It was
impossible to make out his expression from so far away, but from the way he
moved he looked angry. Perhaps he didn’t like having his name shouted.

There was a flash of movement at the very
beginning of the canyon, about a dozen metres behind Miller. He had his back to
the movement, but Lexi saw it clearly. Someone had flitted past the far
entrance to the canyon, moving in and out of view rapidly.

“Miller, run!” she shouted.

But it was too late.

Bodies funnelled into the canyon behind Miller,
bunched so close together that they almost moved like liquid; men and women
scurrying over one another as they advanced rapidly down the enclosed canyon.
Their clothes were torn rags. Many of them were half-naked. They were not friendly.
They were like the woman who had attacked Lexi on top of the Helter-skelter. Dead
people.

Miller finally heard the stampede behind him
and spun around. He threw himself backwards on his heels in shock and quickly
brought up his rifle and fired. The sound of the rifle clacking echoed
of the canyon walls like thunder and the stream of ball bearings shredded
through the bodies like a water jet through leaves, tearing off limbs and
disintegrating bone.

But the horde kept on coming.

The torn, bleeding bodies were unstoppable,
surging forward like a single organism until they enveloped Miller. His rifle
pointed into the sky and continued firing but within a second he was gone,
replaced by swarming bodies.

“Get your arses moving,” Boss yelled.

Nobody needed asking twice. They turned tail
and ran for their lives. The sound of chaos bore down on them, a thousand rabid
footsteps echoing off the canyon walls. They were halfway inside the narrow
chasm. Trapped. They could head only in one direction, towards the entrance
they came from, which meant they were in a life or death sprint with a horde of
monsters at their backs.

Lexi was no runner and started falling behind.
Gellar looked back and noticed her flagging; then did a crazy thing and
stopped. She raised her rifle and started taking shots.

“Gellar, move,” Lexi shouted at her.

“You keep on. I’ll buy us a few yards.” She
carried on firing, even as Lexi raced right by her.

Lexi doubled down and caught up with the
others. Her father glanced sideways, reached out and grabbed her shoulder.
“Come on,” he said, “you can’t help her now.”

They shot out of the canyon like bullets from a
gun and lost their bearings as they suddenly found themselves back in the open.
They stumbled around, looking for a place to go.

Hopper threw out an arm. “This way.”

They ran towards the giant log flume. It was
built on top of a fake mountain range and Hopper was the first to grab a
handhold and start pulling himself up. “Start climbing,” he shouted down to
them.

The horde spilled out of the canyon like pus
from a wound, squirting in all directions. Lexi leapt at the fake mountain and
started clawing her way upwards. Her fingers ached within seconds but she
ignored the pain and kept pulling herself upwards. At one point she dared looked
down and saw that the horde of dead men and women were swarming beneath her
feet like ravenous piranhas. But they didn’t climb after her. They leapt and
snatched, but seemed unable to grasp the rock with any sort of timing.

The top of the fake mountain was a good fifty
feet in the air, and Lexi was the last to reach it. By the time she dragged
herself up onto the ledge, Trent, Hopper, and Boss were already waiting for her
and helped pull her up. Sweat poured from them all.

“That was frikkin’ crazy,” Hopper said.

Lexi slumped down onto her knees and tried to
catch her breath. Boss knelt down beside her and patted her back. “We’re safe,”
he assured her. “They didn’t climb up after us.”

“G-Gellar.” she said.

Boss exhaled. “If she isn’t here now, I don’t
think she’s coming.”

“She stayed behind to buy us time.”

Hopped growled. “Damn Americans, always so
brave. It makes me sick. Miller stood his ground, too, when he should have run
like a screaming child.”

Trent stared down at the rocks beneath his
feet. “Damn, Gellar’s really dead. I think she had the hots for me.”

“I…do…not!”

Everyone looked around to see a hand gripping
the top of the rocks. Hopper rushed over to help Gellar up onto the platform
and seemed ecstatic to see her alive. She was bleeding from a wound on her
neck, but seemed like she would be okay. She was out of breath, but quickly
marched up to Trent and pointed her finger in his face. “Believe me, you’re not
my type. Tell you the truth, the only one who even comes close is Lexi.”

Trent frowned, then opened his mouth. “Oh….”

Lexi blushed, but overcame it by going over and
giving the woman a hug. “You brave fool. Thank you.”

“Hey, until we get off this godforsaken tourist
trap, we’re all teammates. I lost my rifle. Those people are savages. They swarmed
Miller like… I don’t know what. And one of them bit me right on the neck.”

“I don’t think they’re people anymore,” Lexi
said. “One tried to bite me, too, on the helter-skelter. The woman’s stomach
was all torn out, and I think she was…dead.”

Hopper put his hands to his face. “Great!
Frikkin’ space zombies. Are you kidding me?”

“What are you talking about?” Boss said
impatiently.

Hopper removed his hands from his face.
“Er…space zombies? Dead people walking around in space. What would you call
them?”

Boss suddenly seemed unsure of himself. “I
don’t know, but certainly not space zombies.”

“Let’s just call them dead people, for now,”
Lexi said.

Hopper nodded. “Fair enough. So we know what
happened to the guests now, but we don’t know why. How do we avoid being eaten
and get our arses home?”

“The plan still stands,” Boss said. “We get to
the comms centre. We radio Earth and get a team here. If we can manage to
remove whatever jam has been targeted at our ship, we may be able to evacuate.”

Trent was shaking his head and looked anxious.
“So, after getting ourselves all the way to the comms centre, we then get to
turn right back around and head all the way back?”

Hopper ran a hand through his hair. “Hoping all
the way that the crazy guy in the video doesn’t just reactivate the jam while
we’re on our way back to the Hermes.”

“We need to kill him,” Gellar said. “If we have
any chance of getting out of here in the Hermes, we need to take out the madman
who sabotaged it.”

There was a brief silence, before Boss admitted,
“You’re right, but we have no weapons and no clue where he is. We’ll just have
to hope for the best while preparing for the worst.”

“How do we get down from here?” Lexi asked. The
platform they were on was a lonely plateau beside the ride’s log flume. About
fifty-feet ahead, the river suddenly dropped over a crest and plunged towards
the ground where the…dead people...would be waiting.

“We’re safe up high,” Trent said. “We should
stay up here.”

“We can’t live on top of a fake mountain
forever,” Hopper said. “We’re not gnomes.”

“Help will come,” he said, although in no way
confidently.

Boss grunted. “Perhaps, but how long are we
willing to wait? There may be survivors here that need our help. We have a
duty.”

“I’m just a technician,” Trent blabbered. “It’s
not my job to rescue people.”

Lexi shook her head at the coward. He’d been
little different back at the academy. She remembered once how he had refused to
jump from the high dive above the swimming pool during the first stages of
their pilot training. It had taken him a month longer than everybody else to
finally take the plunge, and he had almost failed. “No, you’re right,” she
said. “It’s not your job to rescue people. It should just be a part of you
being a human being. You’re talking about waiting for people to come and rescue
us, but what about the people waiting for us to rescue them?”

Trent said nothing. He just looked over the
edge of the fake mountain, with a face that looked like it was going to vomit.

“Guess we take the river then?” Hopper said and,
without saying another word, he stepped over the edge and plunged into the
calmly moving water. He dove forwards and went beneath the surface, rising a
second later, shuddering. The water only went as high as the bottom of his
chest. “Least it ain’t deep,” he said.

Boss looked down at Hopper and sighed. “Do you
ever think things through?”

“I prefer to get things done. Come on, there’s
no other way, so get it over with. The water’s fine.”

Lexi shrugged and hopped over the edge, landing
in the water beside Hopper. The others followed quickly and, before long, they
were all wading along the river. The Forbidden zone lay beyond Asteroid Falls
and that was where they were headed. They needed to get there quickly, before
anything else tried to kill them.

Chapter Seven

They came to a stop when they reached the
log flume’s lift-hill.  The water stopped to give way to a pair of winch chains
that ran along a steel track. At the bottom was the ride’s queue hut. The small
shack looked empty and Lexi prayed that it was. The horde from the canyon had
lost sight of them atop the fake mountain and it seemed like they might have
managed to sneak away.

Lexi and the others dragged themselves out of
the water and onto the metal catwalk that ran down alongside the lift-hill.
Lexi had to help Gellar, since the American had begun to favour her left side
since becoming wounded.

“You okay?” Lexi asked her.

“Yeah, just haven’t got a lot left in the
tank.” She admitted it with a smile.

“Everyone, keep a low profile,” Boss said.

They each stooped down and began creeping down
the hill towards the shack. They flinched when they entered the small building,
but gave a collective sigh of relief when they realised that the massive
monster coming through the wall wasn’t real, just a prop. The giant sandworm,
with rows upon rows of teeth, was just part of the ride theming. It had a horn
on its head the size of a golf club.

“Looks like my grandmother,” Hopper said as
they passed by it.

Lexi wondered how Hopper could stay so upbeat
and keep cracking jokes. Either he wasn’t afraid or he didn’t understand the
seriousness of the situation. A third option was that he didn’t care about
dying.

Boss headed over to the exit and poked his head
around the edge of the doorway, but pulled back immediately. “There’s one of
them out there,” he whispered

“Just one?” Lexi whispered back.

Boss nodded. “Looks like.”

“They don’t make any sound,” Gellar said. “If
we take it out, we should be able to move on by.”

Lexi frowned. “If we take it out? Should we
really refer to them as it?”

Gellar shrugged. “Call ‘em what you like. All I
see is an obstacle that needs dealing with.”

“I’ll do it,” Hopper said. He pulled a short
dagger from a sheath on his belt.

Lexi was surprised. “You carry a knife?”

“A pilot never knows when he’s going to
encounter space pirates. Knife comes in handy.”

Gellar huffed. “You think a knife is going to
keep you safe from pirates?”

“It ain’t for them.”

Boss sighed. “I don’t see another way, so if
you want to volunteer then so be it. Just come back in one piece.”

Hopper nodded and headed out the shack. He held
the knife out in front of him and looked like he knew how to use it. Lexi
wondered if the blade had ever seen use before. The rest of them huddled in the
doorway. Lexi was ready to rush out and help the second things went bad, but
she silently prayed that they wouldn’t.

Hopper’s target was a middle-aged man in
bloodstained shorts and a Fast and Furious 27 t-shirt. He also wore a
torn, plastic poncho with the words Kopper Kanyon Escape printed on it.

Hopper stayed low, kept himself behind the dead
tourist, and managed to get right up behind without being spotted. He rose
slowly, bringing up his knife…

…

He seized the man around the neck from behind
and plunged the knife into his heart. Then he pulled it free and stabbed again.
And Again.

But the dead man did not die. He thrashed and
kicked, tried to bite at Hopper’s forearm that was wrapped around his throat.
Hopper kept stabbing, making a mess out of the man’s torso, but the wounds were
having no effect. The dead man kept on fighting.

Lexi saw the panic in Hopper’s eyes as he
struggled to hold on. Beside her, Trent was hissing. “That stupid idiot. The
only way to kill a zombie is by attacking the head.”

Lexi turned to him. “What?”

“The head! You have to attack the head and
destroy the brain. Nothing walks around without a brain, not even a dead man.”

Lexi looked around for a solution and thought
she spotted one back where they’d come from. She ran over and seized the horn
on top of the giant sandworm’s head and pulled with all her strength. The thing
was made of steel, but the sandworm’s head was fibreglass. It creaked and
moaned as she worked to get the horn free and, when she began bashing at it
with her fist, it eventually began to lean.

The steel rod broke free.

Lexi sprinted back to the exit, where she now
found her father trying in vain to help Hopper. The two of them each held one
of the struggling dead man’s arms. If he made a noise, he could attract more of
his kin, but fortunately he remained silent, even as he thrashed and battled to
get free.

Lexi held the steel rod out in front of her
like she was going to use it for pole-vaulting, but as she closed in on the
dead tourist, she raised it over her shoulder and thrust it towards his face.
The spike slid in through the eye-socket and went all the way out the back of
the skull. The dead man stopped moving.

Hopper and Boss hopped back as the body slumped
to the floor at their feet. When it hit the ground, the dead man’s skull
exploded and released a tide of black mush.

“Damn. Something liquefied his head,” Trent
said with a grimace.

“Good work, Lexi,” Boss said. “We were
beginning to lose the battle there.”

“It was because of Trent. He said we have to
attack these things in the head. He knew what to do.”

Trent straightened up and looked proud.

“Makes sense,” Gellar said. “When I stopped to
fire on them, they just kept on coming. Eventually, I had to throw down my
rifle and get out of there.” She pressed a hand against her wounded neck. “I
only just managed to.”

“We need to get moving,” Boss said. “The
Forbidden Zone is up ahead. I saw it from up on the mountain. We need to get to
that comms room.”

“What if there’re more of those things?” Trent
said.

“Then we stay out of their way. Or we run.”

Gellar pointed. “I think the way is clear over
there.”

There was a path leading off to the left. It
passed through an eating area and seemed quiet, deserted.

“Let’s move quickly,” Boss said.

When they reached the small courtyard between
the various restaurants, Hopper dragged himself over to a burger hut, skipping
over the counter and rummaging around the back. The scrolling menu screen
listed the extortionate prices as if it were still business as usual. It gave a
strange sense of normality against everything they had seen.

“What are you doing?” Lexi asked.

Hopper grabbed a paper cup from a dispenser at
the back, then brought it to the front where there was a row of taps. He pulled
one of the handles and released a flow of draught cola. He filled the cup up to
the brim and then downed the contents. Gasping, he said, “I’ve been so busy
trying not to die that I forgot how thirsty I was. Can I get anybody anything?”

Despite the lingering danger, everybody rushed
over to the counter and placed an order. Hopper poured them all their beverages
of choice and then topped them up again once they were empty. It made a
difference. Everybody seemed a little less near breaking point now.

Lexi smiled at Hopper. “You’d make a good
barman.”

“I’d make a good anything,” he said.

Lexi chuckled. Somehow Hopper’s arrogance
wasn’t offensive, perhaps because it might well be true.

“Hello again, my friends.”

Everybody stood back as the burger hut’s menu
screen was taken over by the face of a man they all recognised.

Chapter Eight

“Trying to leave this place or contact
Earth is no longer possible,” said the man on the screen. Like before, he
seemed extremely unwell. His eyes wept a bloody substance and the sore on his
cheek had spread down to his lips and chin. Despite the grimness of his
condition, however, he spoke with confidence and clarity.

“My name is John Cog and I am a warehouse
employee for Grand Galaxy Amusement Park. While my pay grade is low, I have
found myself with the unfortunate task of having to take authority over this
installation. No one can leave.”

Lexi shook her head and shouted at the screen
in frustration. “Why? What has happened here?”

Cog blinked his swollen eyelids slowly and
sighed. It was unclear whether or not he could hear anything until he gave a
reply. “Do you really need to know what happened here to understand what must
happen? No one here must be allowed to travel back to Earth. No one from Earth
must be allowed to come here. Death is all around you and it will cling to you
all. This facility has been attacked. By whom, I do not know, but it was I who
opened Pandora’s box. I let this thing out, and I cannot allow it to hurt any
more people than it already has.” Cog started coughing then and spattered the
camera lens with black mush.

“Who did this?” Boss demanded. “We need to
retaliate.”

Cog caught his breath and shook his head sadly.
“The package was sent anonymously and a dozen nations could be responsible. I
have learned things in the past few days. Things that make the true nature of
this place clear to me. If the rest of the world knew what Britain and America
were really doing here…” he started coughing again. He cleared his throat and
stared into the camera. “Who did this is not important. What matters is that it
all ends here. If you do not see that now, you will soon. They are coming for
you now.”

The screen went black for a few seconds then
reverted back to displaying the food shack’s menu.

Lexi closed her eyes and thought. “What did he
mean? What is the true nature of this place?”

Boss cleared his throat, looked away. “He’s
insane. Whatever sickness has found its way into him has warped his mind.”

“He seemed pretty sane to me,” Hopper said.
“It’s not like he’s making shit up. There are dead people walking around, and
we all saw what happened when he opened that crate in the cargo bay. This was
an attack.”

Gellar sighed. “What better place for a
terrorist to attack than the happiest place in the galaxy?”

Trent was chewing at his nails. He pulled them
away long enough to say, “He said they were coming. Who is coming?”

As if to answer his question, there was a
ruckus nearby as one of the park’s bins rolled over onto its side. Standing
behind it was a dead man, who was quickly joined by a dozen others.

Hopper leapt back over the counter to join the
others. “Oh, for fuck’s sake. Not this again.”

The dead charged forwards like an army. Lexi
started running, eager to get a head start, and the others quickly followed.
They passed into the Forbidden Zone, which was designed to look like a Martian
wasteland. There was real sand piled underfoot, which made keeping up speed a
chore. Fortunately, it also made their undead pursuers less surefooted and many
of them tumbled as their ankles twisted beneath them.

“We need to find shelter,” Boss said.

“There’s a building over there,” Trent pointed.

They headed towards a giant citadel, an alien
castle seeming to rise from the very sand itself. The entrance was a wide arch,
but as they got closer, Lexi could see a metal gate folded up on one side. They
might be able to lock themselves inside. She glanced back and saw that the dead
were still giving chase, enough of them managing to make it across the sand to
completely tear the group of cosmonauts apart.

Hopper made it into the citadel first and
quickly turned to face the others. They shot past him one by one until they
were all inside.

“Get that bloody gate closed,” Boss shouted.

Lexi went back to help Hopper who had made a
dash for the metal gate. It didn’t take long to realise they were screwed.

Hopper howled. “It’s locked.”

The padlock was thick.

The dead were right outside.

“Stand back!”

Lexi spun around to see a man running at her
with an axe. She was taken so much by surprise that all she could do was stand
there and scream. But the man ran right past her and swung the axe at the
padlock. It popped free and clattered to the ground.

The first dead man made it inside the citadel
and lunged at Hopper, going for his throat. The mysterious stranger swung his
axe again and lopped off the dead man’s head with a single blow. “Get gate
shut,” he said in an East European accent.

Hopper grabbed a hold of the gate and Lexi
helped him. It was thick and heavy, but once they got it out of its gutter it
began unravelling easily.

A dead teenager with massive hoop earrings came
at Lexi, forcing her to let go of the fence and defend herself. She ducked out
of the way and kicked the girl in her knees. She went to the ground awkwardly
but was quickly climbing back up to her feet again. Lexi moved back to the gate
and continued trying to get it shut.

While the stranger with the axe took out
another couple of the dead attackers, two dozen more where heading in from the
distance. Hopper and Lexi managed to get the gate closed to within a few inches,
but left it open a few inches and called out to their mystery saviour.

“Come on,” Lexi shouted. “Get inside.”

The man swung his axe into a fat Chinese man
and then turned and ran. He slipped himself through the gap they had left for
him and then Hopper shoved the gate all the way closed and pulled down a
locking lever. He gave the gate a tug then stepped away, satisfied. “I think it
will hold.”

Lexi flinched as a dead man threw himself
against the gate. “I hope so.”

“Come on,” the stranger told them. “If we get
out of sight, they should move on. They not sharpest bunch.”

“Who are you,” Boss asked as they regrouped and
headed deeper into the sand citadel. The inside was laid out like the catacombs
of a burrowing insect. There were a couple of restaurants and shops near the
entrance, but further on was a large queuing area for a ride called The
Tunnels of Braxis. Braxis, it would appear from the posters on the walls,
was some sort of beastly creature that dwelled within the dark pits beneath the
sands. Lexi got a chill thinking about what the thing would look like close up.

“My name is Norman,” the stranger told them. “I
come here on company vacation. I the only one left.”

“You mean the only one left from your company?”
Lexi asked.

“No, I mean only one left. Everyone dead, yes?
Or they kind of are. They’ve taken to walking around, yes?”

“Yeah, we noticed,” Hopper said. “Do you know
what happened?”

Norman shrugged. “I know what happen in the
sense that I see everything descend into madness, but I no actually know
what happen, if you catch my drift, yes?”

“We think it started inside the cargo bay,”
Lexi said. “There was an unmarked package and when someone opened it, all the
humanoid units shut down and people started getting sick.”

“Make sense,” Norman said. “Humanoid programmed
to protect humans – I know because my company use them for shipping and packing
– but they haven’t done anything since everything started. Last one I see was
doubled over like it had tummy ache.”

“They’re back online now,” Trent said, “But
they’ve been corrupted.”

Hopper huffed. “Technology, aye? Gotta love
it.”

“So tell us what happened, Norman,” Lexi urged.

“Okay, but first we move somewhere safe. Gate
might not hold forever if they decided to make lingering. Your friend looks
like she need sit down.” He was pointing to Gellar.

Gellar waved a hand. “I’m fine. One of those
things took a bite out of me.”

Norman looked at her suspiciously but didn’t
say anything.

“Where should we head?” Boss asked.

“Down here.” He pointed to the entrance of the Tunnels
of Braxis. “It is closed and secure and fire exit at back will take us away
from nasties outside. You people have somewhere you want go?”

“The comms room,” Boss said.

Norman nodded. “Okay. No idea where that is.”

“It’s at the rear of this zone,” Trent said,
“accessed through a staff area inside a Mexican restaurant.”

Norman’s face lit up. “I know place. Fire exit
take us out right by it. Are you going call for help?”

Boss patted the man on the back. “Damn right we
are.”

“Good. Because I was go say, if you people
rescue party, you are sucking a lot.”

Nobody said anything.

Norman opened up the entrance to the tunnel
ride and allowed them all to pass through into the dark chamber ahead. The
sound of dripping water and whistling wind was being piped in from somewhere
and in various places the sandy rock seemed to grow. A spotlight shone in one
area where the shadow of a scorpion skittered back and forth.

Hopper giggled. “This place is trippy. Look
over there. Can you see that pile of bones sticking out of the dirt?”

“This is reception part of ride,” Norman
explained. “I was standing in here with my co-workers when first person attack.
People very ill that day – you see it all around; folks sneezing and coughing.
It was late afternoon when bunch of people cramped inside this passage start
screaming. One of the ride actors – guy dressed like an old fashioned
archaeologist with whip and hat – grab this little kid and start chowing down
on his face. The father try to intervene but some lady take him down. Pretty
soon whole room filled with blood and I ran and hide. Eventually things go
quiet, and when I sneak out, everyone was gone. The people, the bodies…all
gone. I find myself this axe beside fire escape and hid out in restaurant where
you find me. That all I know. A lot of big help, huh?”

“It’s good just to have you alive,” Boss said.
“If we get just a single person out of this place in one piece then our mission
has been worth it.”

“That still seems easier said than done right
now,” Hopper muttered.

“So why not entire army here?” Norman asked.
“Why only send you?”

“Because Earth doesn’t know,” Boss told him.
“Someone got into the comms room and shut off all communications. All we knew
back on Earth was that something had happened. No one had any idea…”

Norman sighed. “Yeah, how could anyone imagine
this place go all space zombie?”

Hopper chuckled.

“We don’t use the term ‘space zombie’,” Lexi
said gently when she saw her father’s disapproving frown.”

“Fair enough.” Norman led them through to a
wider area that had been set out like an old tomb. There were three large
sarcophaguses in the centre of the room and they each held four seats inside.

“Are we supposed to get in?” Lexi asked.

Norman chuckled. “Maybe, if you want full
experience. Might be better if we walk, though, yes? Come on, through here.”

Norman walked over to the wall and pushed. It
turned out to be a plastic curtain painted to blend in with the walls. Behind
it was a track, which the sarcophaguses were obviously meant to run on. Lexi
shifted as a draft escaped the tunnel ahead, but when she thought about what
was behind her, she had no problems forging ahead.

Chapter Nine

Water streamed down the cavern walls on
both sides and hot air blew in from overhead. Lexi wiped a sheen of moisture
from her forehead and didn’t know if she was just hot or if claustrophobia was
setting in.

“It open up and is little cooler up ahead,”
Norman assured them.

Boss spoke. “So, Norman, how long ago did the
events you described take place? Communications were lost less than twenty-four
hours ago.”

“It happen a little before that, I think.
Attacks I see, happened yesterday, yes, a little earlier than it is now. I not
sure why nobody able to send out SOS. You say something jam all radios?”

“Yes. We found a device inside the cargo bay
that seemed to be jamming the humanoids, but the communications blackout was
likely instigated from the comms room itself.”

Norman sniffed. “Strange. Instead of radioing
for help, someone stop all communication. Who would do this thing?”

“That’s what we want to find out,” Lexi said.

Huffing and puffing caused her to turn around.
Gellar was limping along and clutching her neck. She’d didn’t look good.

“Gellar, do you need us to stop?”

“No…no. I’m fine. I just…”

Boss saw the condition she was in and put up
his hand. “Okay, let’s take five.”

Lexi helped Gellar over to an outcropping of
rocks and sat her down. The wound on her neck glistened and leaked brown,
sticky fluid.

“We need to complete our mission,” Gellar said
firmly.

Hopper came on over and said, “They’ll be time
for that, Gellar. We need to look after each other first. You look like shit.”

Gellar sneered. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

“What happen to her?” Norman asked.

Lexi turned around to answer him. “She took a stand
when we were all under attack. She bought us all time but one of the dead
people bit her.”

“She’s a frikkin’ hero,” Hopper added, not
sarcastically, but very much disapprovingly. Lexi thought it strange, as he was
a bona fide, selfless hero himself.

“I’m a soldier,” Gellar said, trying to stand
up – but being forced back down by Lexi. “I have a mission.”

Hopper shook his head. “What mission, Gellar?
Our mission is to get off this rock in one piece. You’re not going to get very
far if you pass out on us.”

Gellar shook her head, equal parts confused and
irritated. The clamminess of her cheeks and redness to her eyes made Lexi
wonder if the American was beginning to hallucinate. “No,” she said, but didn’t
say anything else.

Boss was staring at Gellar intently, his brow
furrowed into strips. Lexi went over to him, placed a hand on his arm and
snapped him out of his daze. “You okay?”

“What?”

“I said, are you okay?”

“Yes, Lieutenant, I’m fine.”

“Maybe we should take a diversion and find the
hospital,” she suggested, trying to hide her upset at him regarding her by rank
and not the fact she was his daughter.

Boss shook his head. “It’s too much of a risk.
If we run into more of the infected guests we could all end up dead. No, we
need to proceed to the comms centre and request rescue.”

Lexi understood her father’s reasoning, but it
was unlike him. Usually his first priority would be to help an injured squad
member, not continuing on with the mission.

“Okay,” Lexi said. “Maybe we can find a First
Aid station en route.”

Boss didn’t answer. He had gone back to staring
at Gellar.

Gellar herself seemed a little better now that
she’d taken a breather. She stood up and brushed herself off. “Time to get
going again,” she said firmly.

“You sure?” Hopper asked.

“Yes. We’re wasting time sitting here.”

Boss nodded. “I agree. Let’s continue the
mission.”

Lexi frowned, but ended up shrugging her
shoulders.

“This way,” Norman said, pointing forward.

They followed the tracks through the cavern
until they entered into a wider area. Like Norman had said, it was cooler now.
The larger cavern was littered with bones. They lay in great, huge piles, some
climbing all the way up to the ceiling like grizzly totems. Lexi walked
backwards whilst turning in a circle, taking it all in. Animatronic bats
chirped overhead and some even swooped along invisible zip-wires.

“Look out! Don’t step there.”

Lexi flinched at Norman shouting at her, but
was too late to stop her ankle striking something and sending her tumbling down
onto her butt.

There was an almighty roar.

Lexi screamed as a spider the size of an
elephant descended upon her. Its red glaring eyes bore into her while its
spindly legs thrashed wildly. Arms grabbed her from behind and dragged her
backwards just as the giant beast landed on the ground where it would have
crushed her flat. The spider reared up on its back legs and hissed at her, then
leapt away and disappeared behind the rocks.

“What the hell?” she yelled. “What the goddamn
hell?”

“It’s okay,” Hopper said, clutching her tightly
and making her look at him. There was a look of amusement on his face, but he
did not allow himself to laugh. “It’s just part of the ride.”

“You hit track switch with foot,” Norman told
her, a slight chuckle to his words. “You just have close encounter with Braxis.

Lexi looked around for the giant spider but it
was gone, obviously resetting itself back into position for the next batch of
riders – or whoever was clumsy enough to stumble into the trigger.

“That was the scariest thing I’ve ever seen in
my life,” she said. “I nearly wet my pants.”

Hopper helped her to her feet. “It was the
coolest thing I’ve ever seen.”

Norman was quick to apologise when he saw she
was not calming down. “I should have thought to warn you. When ride cars pass
by they hit switch that activate Braxis. He leap down and give riders scare of
their life, yes?”

“I’m not a rider,” Lexi said, her nerves still
fraught. “I’m a pedestrian.”

Hopped punched her on the arm. “No harm done.
People usually pay a fortune to meet Braxis, so consider yourself lucky.”

“If you all follow me,” Norman said. “I try to
let you know if anything else is poised to jump out at you.”

They exited Braxis’s feeding chamber and went
into another tunnel. That tunnel eventually led to a vast pond, lit by torches
all around. There were a bunch of dead archaeologists scattered all around and
a slithering beast would break the surface of the water periodically and snap
its wide jaws. The ride tracks disappeared beneath the water, too – apparently
at this part of the ride the sarcophaguses turned into boats.

“Fire exit this way,” Norman said.

They followed him to a door hidden behind a
shredded canvas tent. They had to step over a life-like mannequin corpse to get
to it.

“Does this lead directly outside?” Boss asked.

Norman nodded.

“Then we need to be prepared.”

Norman had his axe, but nobody else had
anything to defend themselves with. Gellar stooped down gingerly and picked up
a fire extinguisher from its pod beside the door. She struggled to hold it up
and the pain was clear on her face.

“Here, give it to me,” Lexi said.

Gellar seemed embarrassed at being so
incapacitated, but she handed over the extinguisher without argument. It wasn’t
even that heavy, Lexi discovered. Gellar must be hurting badly.

“If we find somewhere with medical supplies,
we’ll get you patched up, Gellar.”

Gellar nodded weakly.

“Everybody ready?” Boss was standing by the
door.

Everybody was.

Boss shoved it open and looked outside. “It’s
clear.”

They all funnelled out quickly. The coast was
indeed clear.

The Forbidden Oasis stood twenty metres
away. It was a pavilion full of posh restaurants and bars, including the one
they had been searching for – Outpost Mexicana.

Trent pointed. “The entrance to the comms
building is through the back of there.”

“But you’re never going to make it,” said a
voice.

Followed by a gunshot.

Chapter Ten

Trent tilted and fell backwards like a
board. The hole in his forehead was only the size of a pencil, but the back of
his head leaked blood all over the floor.

More gunshots and this time it was Boss who
reeled back. He spun around, holding his shoulder, and then dove down behind a
picnic bench. Hopper had disappeared from sight the moment the first shot rang
out, but Gellar and Norman both still stood out in the open.

Lexi dropped the fire extinguisher in her arms,
ran towards Gellar, and shouted at Norman. “Get in cover!”

Norman dropped his axe and flung himself face
down onto the ground, but was still out in the open. The fool had not found
anything to hide behind. There was no time to help him, so Lexi grabbed a hold
of Gellar and dragged her back inside the fire exit they had just stepped out
of.

“Did you see who’s shooting at us?” she asked
Gellar.

Gellar’s eyes rolled about in her head and she
moaned.

“Gellar, are you still with me?”

She moaned again.

“Damn it.” Lexi was on her own. She peered out
of the doorway and tried to get eyes on the shooter. She spotted him
immediately and recognised him almost as quickly. It was the man from the
videos, Cog. His entire face was crisscrossed with bulging black veins, but he
held the pistol in his hands steadily as he let off another shot. The bullet
struck the picnic table her father was hiding behind. Boss had already taken a
bullet. Was he okay? Trent certainly wasn’t – dead the second the bullet struck
him between the eyes. His body lay only ten yards away from her, still bleeding
out.

Lexi located Hopper crouching behind a statue
of what looked like a giant iguana. He was closer to the shooter than anybody
and was yet to be spotted by Cog.

Norman still lay out in the open, hands over
the back of his head and screaming. Cog turned his sights on him now, but
didn’t shoot. Instead he marched on over and dragged him onto his feet.

Cog placed the gun against Norman’s head.
“Everybody out where I can see them, now.”

“Not going to happen,” came Boss’s reply.

“You come out or I blow his brains out.”

Norman whimpered, tried to pull away but was
quickly pulled back. The look on Cog’s face was inhuman, his eyes swollen almost
out of his head.

“What happened to you?” Lexi called out.

“The same thing that happened to everybody
else.”

“But you’re still alive.”

“No, I am as dead as all the rest. My body just
does not yet know it. I was the first, chosen to watch those I infected turn to
dust.”

“Chosen by whom?”

Cog turned in Lexi’s direction, tried to spot
her. “Chosen by whoever sent the package. My only crime was being the one to
open it, yet all have paid the price.”

Boss shouted out. “You’re a madman, Cog. Give
yourself up and we can get you help.”

“You can’t cure death. Now come out or I will
kill this man.”

A tense silence took over.

Lexi made eye contact with Hopper, still
undiscovered behind the iguana statue. He was inching out, trying to get an
angle on Cog. He wanted Lexi to give him confirmation. She looked at Cog and
saw that he was near the statue and facing slightly away. She gave Hopper the
nod. Do it.

“Three seconds,” Cog shouted.

Hopper gave Lexi one last look and stepped out
from behind the statue, ready to make a move on Cog.

Something struck Lexi in the back and sent her
sprawling out of the fire exit and out into the open. She spun around to see
that Gellar was coming towards her with a snarl on her lips. She glanced
sideways and saw Hopper rushing towards Cog, who was distracted by what was
happening with Lexi.

But he was too slow.

Cog swung his arm and smashed Hopper in the
face with the butt of his revolver, sending him to his knees in agony. Norman
broke free and ran into cover beside Boss who threw him to the ground where he
was safe.

Lexi still stood out in the open with Gellar
stalking towards her.

Cog booted Hopper in the stomach sending him
onto his back, incapacitated. Then raised his pistol.

But pointed it at Lexi.

Lexi had one eye on Gellar and one eye on the
gun pointed at her. She felt her bladder loosen, but tried to keep calm. She
started backing away from Gellar while putting her hands up where Cog could see
them. “Please,” she begged them both.

Gellar kept on coming, but Cog did not shoot
her. Instead he let a feral grin find its way to his bulging, black lips. “Why
waste the bullet?” He turned and ran away, laughing hysterically.

Gellar fell on top of Lexi and started to
wrestle with her, just like the woman at the top of the Helter-skelter had.

“Lexi!” She heard her father shout out.

“Dad, help me.”

Boss grabbed hold of Gellar’s shoulder straps
and began yanking her away from his daughter. The American woman was strong,
but together they managed to pull her away. But she came right back at them
relentlessly. Every time they hit her or shoved her away, Gellar came back for
more. She was one of them now. One of the dead.

Lexi swallowed a lump in her throat as she
looked at the dead American. She had liked Gellar, respected her bravery. But
somehow that bite on her neck had infected her and now she was gone; just
another monster.

“We need to put her down,” Lexi said,
surprising herself by how cold she sounded.

“We might be able to do something,” Boss said.

Lexi shook her head. She picked the fire extinguisher
she had dropped and walked towards Gellar. The woman snarled at her with no
sense or recognition. They weren’t teammates anymore.

“I’m sorry, soldier,” Lexi said, then smashed
the fire extinguisher into the middle of Gellar’s face. It took another two
hits to drop her, but once Gellar fell onto her back, Lexi quickly straddled
her and brought the fire extinguisher down on her face enough times to finish
the job. By the time Gellar stopped moving, she had no face left.

Hopper let out a groan from nearby and climbed
up onto his knees. Boss went over and helped him while Lexi slid off of Gellar
and sat on the floor. Norman had broken cover, too, and quickly picked up his
axe. Lexi gave him a stern look.

“Next time I say take cover, don’t just flop on
the ground where you’re standing.”

Norman looked upset. “I’m sorry. I really not
like guns. Where I from, guns are very bad.”

Lexi allowed herself to soften and nodded.
Norman wasn’t a solider and he had saved them all earlier. “I just don’t want
anyone else getting killed.”

“How did that mofo get a gun anyway?” Hopper
asked.

“I’m sure they keep a few locked up somewhere,”
Boss said. “Grand Galaxies has a massive security roster.”

“For all the good it did,” Hopper said. He
clutched his ribs gingerly. His nose was bleeding. “Poor Trent, man.”

Lexi went on over to where Trent lay in a pool
of his own blood. Aside from the small red dot in his forehead, he looked his
usual self. She let out a sigh and suddenly felt tears fill her eyes. “This is
so screwed up. First Miller, now Gellar and Trent.” She turned on her father.
“What the fuck is wrong here? Why did SABA only send us to deal with a shit
storm this big?”

Boss grunted. The gunshot wound in his shoulder
was only shallow and he seemed to be dealing with it via little more than a
wince here and there. He’d been lucky. “I told you, Lexi. Nobody had any idea.”

She didn’t buy it. “Somebody targeted this
place. SABA must have known that a terrorist act could have been behind the
radio silence.”

“They trusted us to report back if a bigger
team was needed. My orders were to respond back if the situation was extreme.”

Lexi shook her head. She had questions, but
couldn’t yet form them into words. Something was wrong here. There were too
many things that made no sense.

“Why did your American friend turn into space
zombie?” Norman asked.

Lexi looked at him like he was an idiot.
“Because she was bitten by one. It’s pretty obvious this this thing spreads
easily. When Gellar got bitten she was infected.”

“That make no sense,” Norman said.

“It makes perfect sense,” Hopper argued.

Norman was shaking his head adamantly. “No, no
sense. Look.” He rolled up his sleeve. “It make no sense because I bit
twenty-four hour ago and I feel fine.”

They all stared at the nasty-looking bite mark
on Norman’s arm and then looked at each other in confusion. Was the virus
spreading some other way?

Hopper was the first to comment. “I’m convinced
Gellar changed because she was bitten. There’s no other way.”

“She went near the meat in the cargo bay,” Boss
said.

“And I had my entire arm in it,” Hopper
rebutted. “I’m okay.”

“Maybe I immune,” Norman suggested.

No one said otherwise.

“Maybe you are,” Lexi admitted.

“Or just damn lucky,” Hopper said.

“No,” Lexi said. “If luck played a part in the
infection then there would be others who didn’t turn.”

“Maybe they not have place to hide like me,”
Norman said.

“Yeah, perhaps. But if you are immune, then we
need to get you back to Earth alive. If this virus ever gets released at home,
you might hold the key to a cure.”

Norman propped his axe over his shoulder and
smiled wearily. “If my blood make you all want to protect me, then that fine
with me.”

Hopper looked down at Trent and said, “I
wouldn’t get too excited. So far we’ve sucked pretty bad at keeping people
breathing.”

Lexi hated that he was right, but wasn’t ready
to quit just yet. “All the more reason to get our arses to the comms room,” she
said, “and then get the hell out of here.”

“Okay, then,” Boss said. “Let’s keep going.”

Chapter Eleven

They headed inside the Mexican restaurant
and headed straight for the staff corridor at the back. The only problem was
that the restaurant wasn’t empty. There was a dead employee wandering about,
still dressed in his apron and red company baseball cap.

Norman was far more comfortable dealing with
the dead than he was when faced with a gun, and he trotted forward now and
swung his axe like a baseball bat. It lodged halfway through the dead
employee’s neck, but it did the job. The dead man hit the floor and stopped
moving.

“You’re disturbingly good at that,” Hopper
said.

Norman pulled his axe free and shrugged. “Learn
fast or die.”

“Good point.”

They made it into the corridor and found that
the back of the building stretched much further back than it appeared from the
outside. The first offices pertained to the restaurant, but further back they
began to concern themselves with the administration of the park at large. The
accountancy department and training centre lay nearby but were of no interest.
What was of interest was the flight of stairs below a sign reading: SECURITY
OFFICES & COMMUNICATIONS SUITE.

“We made it,” Hopper said with a relieved sigh.

“We don’t know what we’ll find yet,” Lexi said.
“That maniac, Cog, is still around somewhere.”

“We’ll deal with him,” Boss said flatly and
then took the first step.

The staircase went up a single storie and
deposited them in an upper foyer. Hopper immediately went on over to a bank of
vending machines next to a seating area. None of them carried cash so he made a
ruckus by smashing in the glass with the padded elbow of his suit.

Boss hissed. “Do you have to do everything so
bloody loud?”

Hopper pulled out a packet of potato crisps and
started munching on them. When he spoke he spat crumbs everywhere. “Sorry,
Boss.”

Boss shook his head irritably. “Let’s just end
this.”

Lexi frowned. End this? Far as she saw
it, getting to the comms room was only halfway. Even if they hailed for rescue,
the military ships would take at least eight hours to arrive from Earth. There
was still the question of twenty thousand missing guests. Where the hell were
they all?

The biggest area ahead was the security galley.
Three separate doors along one wall led to it. The communications suite,
however, was right at the far end of the foyer and accessed only by a single
door. They headed there now.

Boss waited for everybody to assemble then put
a finger to his lips to hush them all.

Then they went inside.

Lexi had expected to find Cog pointing a gun at
them, but the only thing moving were the screen savers on the various monitors.

“Can we still do what we need to without
Trent?” Lexi asked.

“I know my way around,” Hopper said. “I’ll do
what I can.”

“Get to it then,” Boss ordered, a little
unkindly.

Hopper plonked down on one of the seats and
wheeled himself towards the main console. Immediately he started typing away
and clicking on the mouse. While he was busy, Lexi stayed near the door, making
sure the foyer remained clear. Last thing they needed was a horde of dead
people trapping them inside the cramped communications suite.

She couldn’t believe that she was still alive
after two marines and a tech specialist were dead. She was just a navigator;
the only danger she was supposed to encounter was carpal tunnel syndrome and
bad posture.

“Shit! Damn damn damn.”

Lexi spun around to see Hopper slamming his
fist down on the desk.

“What is it?” Boss asked.

Hopper swivelled on his chair so that he was
facing them. “Somebody’s disabled the conduit.”

Boss frowned. “Explain.”

“The conduit is a bunch of cables leading from
the comms centre to the dish outside. Without being connected to the satellite
array, we can’t send a message further than a couple of miles.”

“What do you mean it’s disabled?” Lexi asked.

“I mean somebody has cut it or dismantled it in
some way. Every time I try to connect, it fails. I can’t get a single packet
through and there’s nothing I can do on the system to remedy it. It’s not
software related. Somebody has been messing with the hardware.”

Norman placed the head of his axe down on the
ground and flopped all of his weight onto the handle. “Oh brother. We never get
out of here, do we?”

Boss rubbed at the stubble on his chin. “Can we
fix the conduit, Hopper?”

“Depends on what’s been done to it. We’re
better off making straight for the array itself. I can tap into it and send a
message directly. It’ll have to be basic, but someone should get it on Earth
and understand we need help.”

“Where’s the array?” Lexi asked.

Hopper leant back in his chair and sighed. “At
the top of the Astronomer’s Finger.”

Lexi groaned. “You mean that huge, massive
tower we passed on the way in?”

“It is big,” Norman said. “I go shopping there
yesterday. They have biggest Burger Queen.”

Hopper sniffed and then nodded. “I could eat.”

“What about the jamming signal?” Boss asked.
“Is that still in place?”

“Yeah. It’s not coming from anything in here.
What’s strange is that it’s localised.”

Lexi crossed her arms. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that the Hermes was disabled, but that
giant ass spider that jumped at you was working just fine. The jamming signal
seems targeted, but the only way I know for something like that to be possible
is if the signal is shortwave.”

“What are you getting at?” Boss said irritably.
He’d been getting less and less patient for the last few hours.

“I think Grand Galaxies is fitted with
localised signal jammers, as in separate units attached to each section of the
installation that can be controlled individually.”

“Wait,” Lexi said. “That would mean…”

“That this place is fitted with signal jammers
as standard. No one sabotaged this place, they just made use of the systems
already in place.”

Norman was looking utterly confused. “But why?
Why would a tourist facility have signal jammers installed?”

“A very good question,” Lexi said. “Cog said
this place has a hidden agenda. I’m starting to believe him.”

“Nonsense,” her father said. “We’ve already
discussed this place’s need to contain communications should the need arise.”

Hopper scoffed. “Well, everyone here seems to
be dead, and thanks to the signal jammers, not a soul could get a phone call
through to their loved ones. Whoever built this place is a tool.”

“The British and American Governments built
this place. The administration we all work for.”

“So what we do then?” Norman asked. “We make it
here, but it is complete shit party.”

Hopper grinned. “Not a complete shit party.”

Lexi looked at him. “No?”

“Nope. There’s an armoury inside the Security
vestibule. I’ve just unlocked it. Time to arm up.”

“Best suggestion anybody’s had all day,” Lexi
said. “Let’s be quick about it.”

They left the communications suite and headed
back along the foyer to the first of the three doors leading to the security
area. When they moved inside, they were met by an endless bank of television
monitors, each one showing a different angle of the park or surrounding
facilities.

“Whoa,” Hopper said. “There’s not an inch of
this place not on camera.”

“That’s good,” Lexi said. “Maybe we can find
out where Cog is, as well as all the other guests.”

“Let’s find the armoury first,” Hopper said.
“I’ll feel much better with something thick and powerful in my hands.”

Lexi huffed. “Typical man.”

They moved carefully through the vestibule,
mindful of being ambushed from the dark corners behind the many desks and
computers. They found another room on their left. Its door was hanging ajar,
the electronic keypad beside it lit a solid green. ENTER.

“Open sesame,” Hopper said, grabbing the door
and pulling it ajar.

“You’re frikkin’ kidding me,” Lexi said as she
stepped inside and looked around. The armoury was twenty feet wide and lined
with rows upon rows of low velocity assault rifles and handguns. There was a
huge crate in the centre of the room packed with ball bearing rounds ready for
loading into magazines. “Why the hell would a theme park need this kind of fire
power?” she asked. “There’s enough here to equip an army.”

“It’s not our business,” Boss said. “Let’s just
take what we need and do what needs doing.”

Lexi rolled her eyes. She was starting to get
pissed off with her father, and she only gave him a break because he was their
squad leader and they’d lost three members of the team. It probably weighed
down on him hard. He wasn’t performing at his best.

Hopper was the first to grab a rifle, and he
also slipped a handgun into his belt. He located the cache of magazines and
started filling them up with ball bearings from the crate. “Anybody know how
much these things hold?” he asked.

“Just keep filling till they’re full,” Lexi
said, grabbing a rifle for herself and joining him at the crate. She was
halfway through filling up the first magazine when they heard something from
the back of the room. It came from a stack of shelving filled with riot
helmets. One of the helmets fell off onto the floor.

“There’s someone behind there,” Hopper said,
jamming in his magazine and flicking off the safety.

Boss put a hand up to stay any action and took
a step towards the shelf. He spoke with authority. “I am Commander Sharman and
this is a rescue operation. If you need assistance, please identify yourself
and step out where we can see you.”

There was another jolt. Another helmet slipped
from the shelf and fell to the ground.

“Reveal yourself,” Boss demanded.

Lexi went back to filling her magazine with
ball bearings. She had a bad feeling.

Hopper stayed where he was, aiming his rifle
ahead and looking eager to pull the trigger.

Somebody stepped out from behind the shelving
unit. They were followed by two more bodies. Then another half-dozen.

Lexi stopped filling her magazine and shoved it
into the base of her rifle, only half full. “Shit!”

The dead people numbered nearly ten, and they
all approached, hands outstretched, teeth grinding.

Hopper let rip, aiming high. His first few
rounds struck the ceiling but he brought the stream of ball bearings down onto
the crowd. The first dead man’s head exploded into mush. The second dead man
was dealt with easily, too. But then came the problem.

Hopper kept his finger on the trigger, but the
ball bearings ricocheted off the riot helmets impotently, hitting the ceiling
or smashing the overhead lights.

“They’re wearing armour,” Lexi shouted.

The dead security guards were togged in full
body armour and riot helmets. They had obviously been readying themselves for
battle when they were infected.

Lexi raised her rifle and joined the fight. She
aimed low, trying to hit the unarmoured legs of her targets. Shinbones and
kneecaps shattered. A couple of dead security guards crumpled onto their
fronts, but they continued forwards, crawling on their bellies.

“Retreat,” Boss bellowed.

Hopper refused. He stood his ground and kept
firing. Eventually Boss had to grab him and pull him back. “Move it!”

“We need these weapons,” Hopper screamed.

“Not if it ends up killing us.” Boss dragged
him roughly into the corridor. Lexi shoved the armoury door closed behind them,
but couldn’t lock it. The catch was electronic and Hopper had overridden it.

The dead men pushed against the other side,
pushing it open again.

Norman ran up to help Lexi and together they
fought to keep the door closed. But they quickly begun losing ground, their
feet slipping on the tiled floor.

“Damn it,” Lexi said. “We need to run for it.”

Norman shook his head. “Big shits.”

“Now, let go now.”

She and Norman released the door at the same
time. They turned and sprinted, while the door exploded open and the dead men
fell through. They gave chase, seeming to gather speed as their joints loosened
up.

Boss led the retreat and even Hopper was
committed to fleeing now. He held his rifle closely against his chest but was
cursing loudly. “I’m almost empty,” he said. “The magazine barely lasts a few
seconds.”

“It does when you keep your finger on the
trigger,” Lexi said.

“How was I supposed to know? I’m not a goddamn
soldier. We needed those other rifles.”

“It’s in the past now. Forget it.”

They reached the staircase that had led them
from the Mexican Restaurant below. The dead men were sprinting now. Lexi was
panting, not sure how much longer she could run. Hopper seemed to sense this
and bought them some time. He let off the last of his rounds and took out the
legs of the two nearest runners. They flopped on the ground and tripped up
their colleagues, leaving a pile of scrambling bodies on the floor.

Hopper nodded at her and they got running
again, joining Norman and Boss at the bottom of the stairs. They wasted no time
and kept on running until they were out of the Mexican restaurant and back
outside in the park.

“How do we get to the tower?” Lexi asked.

Norman pointed. “That way. Through Ice Lands.”

“My rifle is empty. You’re the only one still
packing heat.” Hopper meant Lexi who still held a loaded rifle.

“Do you want my magazine?” she asked. “I feel
kind of stupid holding this thing anyway.”

Hopper shook his head. “Your turn to be the
hero.”

They got moving quickly, cutting a path through
the deserted Forbidden Zone. Lexi wondered if it was the same direction Cog had
fled and was pretty sure it was. How long before they ran into him again? It
must have been he who had damaged the conduit.

The sands of the Forbidden Zone began to ease
and eventually turned into pretend ice sheets and glaciers. Lexi and the others
headed through an archway and entered the Ice Lands. Like the other sectors, it
resembled the surface of a hostile planet, but this time it was a little more
child-friendly, with fluffy creatures resembling penguins and the extinct polar
bears of Earth. The rides, also, were much gentler. A monorail ran overhead,
disappearing up a fake mountain, and just ahead was a carousel with ride-on
sledges. Ice cream was available from a nearby store shaped like an igloo.

“We keep going,” Norman said. “It is at very
end of this sector.”

Hopper was still carrying his empty rifle but
held it by rail on the top, more like a briefcase now than a weapon. “When you
were hiding out, Norman; did you see where all of the infected guests went?”

“They all huddle together in great big mess,
but I not see where they go.”

Hopper sighed. “Great. Let’s hope we don’t get
to find out.”

Chapter Twelve

The Ice Lands section was not as large as
the others and they managed to traverse it in a little over ten minutes. No one
had spoken along the way, too tense to concentrate on anything other than
keeping watch for threats. Lexi led with her rifle but her father kept himself
only a single step behind her. He seemed to have calmed a little, his shoulders
lower and more relaxed, but he still wasn’t the reassuring leader he was well
known to be.

Norman pointed the way, even though it was
obvious. They were approaching a large mountain that seemed to stretch up
forever but was actually painted in such a way as only to appear so. The top of
the mountain was actually just wall and ceiling. Directly ahead was a large
cave entrance, but it was really just a set of double doors leading out into
the next area. A wooden sign was scrawled with the words: Here there be
shopping.

When they passed through, they found themselves
in a non-themed area. Lexi felt like she was back to reality, away from the
make-believe theme park and surrounded by glass shop fronts and marble
fountains. There was an escalator leading upwards and they took it. The upper
floors were walled with glass and the vastness of space encircled them, whilst
below was the domed roof of the Grand Galaxy amusement park.

“This is amazing,” Hopper said.

“It quickly get boring,” Norman said. “I was
here for hours with Suzie from Sales.”

Lexi looked at Norman to see whether or not he
was sad. He didn’t seem to be. “Was Suzie a friend?”

“Not really, but we hit off when we queue at
London Terminal. We were on date, but all I end up doing was holding all of
Suzie’s bags.”

Hopper chuckled. “Sounds about right. Women,
right.”

“Amen to that, brother.”

“You’re sorry she’s dead though, right?” Lexi
asked.

Norman shrugged. “Lot of people dead. I kind of
numb to it at this point.”

Lexi frowned. She wasn’t sure she ever wanted
to be numb to people dying, but then she hadn’t lived through what Norman had.
Maybe his reaction was understandable.

The floors seemed to climb forever and before
long the surface of the moon stretched on for hundreds of miles in all
directions. Suddenly Lexi felt extremely small and insignificant.

Hopper pointed upwards at the glass windows.
“Look.”

Lexi looked up and saw a beautiful sight.
“Earth.”

She’d seen it a dozen times before from space,
but seeing it now took her breath away. It was beautiful. It was home. Perhaps
she wasn’t so jaded after all.

“Let’s hope we get back to it soon,” she said,
wheeling towards the next set of stairs. It led to the final floor, so far as
shopping and eating areas went.

Hopper spun around slowly, checking things out.
“The satellite array is at the very top of the tower. There must be another
staircase somewhere.”

The floor was entirely made up of restaurants
and each of them was backed by a panoramic glass window. There seemed no
obvious route upwards.

But then Lexi saw a possibility. “I think
that’s it. That door.”

Between an Italian eatery and a place that
seemed to specialise in snails was an unassuming blue, wooden door. It led to
neither restaurant on either side.

“Good spot,” Hopper said, rushing over to the
door. He ran his hands over it but failed to find a handle. There was, however,
a keyhole.

They grouped together behind Hopper.

Lexi said. “Looks like it opens outwards.”

Hopper shoved on the door. “It seems pretty
thick. Might end up being a broom closet, but I think we need to get it open to
see.”

“I agree,” Boss said, the first time he had said
anything in a while.

“How, though?” Lexi asked. “I wouldn’t even
want to think about who has the key.”

“I have key,” Norman said. They all looked at
him as he propped his axe on his shoulder.

Boss grunted affirmatively. “Hop to it then,
civilian.”

Norman rushed forward and swung the axe,
burying it in the centre of the door where it wedged. He put his foot against
the wood and levered it free again. The next blow he aimed right at the lock.
It bent. He hit it three more times and was sweating by the time the door
shunted open.

Boss nodded at the civilian. “Good work.”

Lexi put a hand against the door and glanced at
her father. “Are we ready?”

He nodded.

Lexi pushed open the door.

All was quiet. At first.

The door did indeed lead to a staircase,
utilitarian and unlike the posh marble steps of the previous flights. This one
was not meant to be seen by public eyes. As soon as Lexi placed her foot on the
very first step, a figure appeared at the top. It ran towards her immediately.

Lexi backed up and raised her rifle.

It was no man that leapt through the door at
her, but another one of the humanoids.

“YOU HAVE ATTEMPTED TO ENTER A RESTRICTED
AREA,” it squawked at them.

“Stand down, steel-cheeks,” Hopper said. “We
have full authorisations to be here.”

The humanoid glanced at Hopper, its eyes
pulsing blue. “”YOU ARE UNDER ARREST. SIT DOWN ON THE FLOOR AND CROSS YOUR LEGS
UNTIL A MEMBER OF SECURITY CAN ARRIVE TO DETAIN YOU.”

“Bite me.”

The humanoid turned to face Lexi, who in turn
faced it with her rifle slung high. “DROP YOUR WEAPON OR LETHAL FORCE WILL BE
EXERCISED.”

Lexi swallowed, unsure what to do. She looked
at her father.

Boss was not happy and the irritation was clear
in his voice as he told her to, “Shoot the thing to pieces.”

Lexi pulled the trigger.

She was not a soldier and her training with
assault rifles was non-existent. The weapon bucked in her hands and punched her
shoulder like a fist, but she fought to control it and aimed a continuous
stream of ball bearings directly into the humanoid’s chest.

The humanoid stumbled backwards, sparks and
torn shreds of latex skin filling the air in a cloud. But once the initial
impact dissipated, the machine swiped its arm, rebalanced, and stalked towards
Lexi again.

She kept firing, ripping an ever-widening hole
in the humanoid’s chest. But it kept on coming. She started taking steps
backwards, keeping a distance between her and the machine.

“Aim for the head,” Hopper shouted.

Lexi caught his eye and nodded. She refocused
and aimed for the head. It was a tougher target to hit, and she missed with
half of the rounds she fired, but the ball bearings eventually hit the target
and caused massive damage. Sparks and black lubricant began leaking all over
the place.

Click!

Lexi released the trigger and pulled it again,
but nothing happened except that same harrowing click. Her rifle was
dry. And the humanoid was not yet done. “I’m out of ammo,” she whimpered.

Hopper ran forwards to help, but the humanoid
shot out an arm and swatted him to the ground like a fly. Boss moved himself
between his daughter and the machine but didn’t seem to know what to do.

The humanoid stalked them. One of its blue eyes
was shattered and sparking, and its lower jaw was hanging loose by a single
wire, but it had lost none of its murderous intent.

Boss grabbed the rifle from Lexi and swung it
by the barrel, bludgeoning the humanoid with the stock end. Its head rocked
backwards on its shoulder, but quickly sprang back. It snatched the rifle from
Boss and quickly snapped it in half.

“YOU ARE GUILTY OF VANDALISING THE PROPERTY OF
GRAND GALAXY ENTERTAIMENT RESORT. YOU ARE UNDER ARREST.” The machine’s warning
was even more foreboding seeing as it no longer had a mouth with which to
speak. It grabbed Boss by the shoulder, gripping him where he had earlier been
shot. He screamed out in a high-pitched tone.

Lexi looked around for a solution and saw
Norman standing there, holding his axe, but he was frozen to the spot.

“Norman, help us!”

He still didn’t move.

The humanoid continued squeezing Boss’s
shoulder and forced him down to his knees. “UNDER SECTION 971, LETHAL FORCE HAS
NOW BEEN AUTHORISED.”

Lexi shouted at Norman again, but still the man
did nothing. His wide eyes were fixed on the humanoid. His lower lip quivered.

“Lexi, get out of here,” Boss managed to bellow
at her.

“I won’t leave you.”

“Give me that!” Lexi looked around to see
Hopper shoving Norman away and snatching the man’s axe from him. With it, he
raced towards the humanoid, span a full circle, then swung the axe horizontally
and lopped off its head. It hit the ground like a football and rolled away,
while the dismembered body slumped to its knees where it remained like it was
praying. Boss got up off the ground, clutching his bleeding shoulder, and
kicked the machine over onto its back. “Back to the scrap yard for you,” he
said.

Lexi grabbed her father and held him steady.
Blood leaked down his chest from the aggravated wound on his shoulder, but no
real additional damage had been done.

Hopper, too, was hurt, rubbing his hip and
wincing. “Those things hit harder than a tax bill,” he muttered.

Lexi went up to Norman and shoved him. “What
the hell were you doing?”

“I…sorry.”

“That’s not good enough.”

“Yeah,” Hopper chimed in. “You’re like a
regular gangster when it comes to killing zombies, but anything else and you
freeze like a popsicle.”

“I…I… The dead do not scare me.”

“They sure as hell scare me,” Hopper said.

“They don’t scare me because they already bite
me and I fine. In fact, they not even interested in me.”

Lexi frowned. “What?”

Norman took a large gulp. He was covered in
sweat and extremely pasty. He looked as much a coward as he had just behaved.
“After I got bite on my arm, the space zombies lose interest. I able to walk
right by them.”

“But when we found you, you were hiding,” Lexi
said.

Norman nodded. “Still survivors hang around for
while. They a little… out of mind, yes? I think better to just low-lie until
help arrive.”

Hopper wore a disgusted look. “This whole time,
you’ve been immune and unmolested by those things, but you’ve still allowed us
to take all the risks. You could have scoped things out for us without any risk
to yourself. You’re a coward, man.”

“No,” he said. “I not coward. They still risks.
They are other survivors, like one who kill Trent. And bad machines. Who know
how long dead men ignore me. Eventually, luck will run out. Give back my axe.”

Hopper held the axe up and seemed like he was
about to hand it over, but then he lowered it and shook his head. “Think it’s
of more use to me. I don’t have a get out of jail free card like you. Plus, I’m
willing to actually use it when it counts.”

“I save you all,” Norman said.

“Yeah, you did,” Lexi said. “Which is why we’re
not kicking your butt right now.”

“Enough,” Boss shouted, recovered enough to
stand tall again. “Let’s get up those bloody stairs and begin sorting this mess
out.”

They took the staircase in single file as it
was too narrow to do otherwise. The only weapon they had now was Hopper’s axe,
so he led the way. The stairs did not lead directly to another floor, but instead
twisted and turned back and forth, climbing ever higher. Bare cement walls, not
the glass facades of the public areas, surrounded the stairwell and made the
journey extremely bleak.

By the time they reached a doorway, they were
all out of breath. Norman most of all, for he had to kneel down on the steps
and take a rest before they went on. No one argued, for they could all do with
a quick breather.

“You okay?” Lexi asked Hopper. The bridge of
his nose was swollen and his eyes were dark.

“I used to take worse beatings from my father
so, yeah, I’m good.”

Lexi raised her eyebrows. “Are you being
serious? That’s horrible.”

Hopper shrugged. “Made me what I am today. I
joined the corps to leave my past behind. I worked my arse off and made sure I
was the best, so that I never had to feel worthless ever again.”

Lexi didn’t say that she was sorry, for she
knew that Hopper did not require pity, so she just patted him on the back. She
looked at her own father and thought about how much better off she had been.
Boss had never been a devoted father, his passion lay with the corps, but he at
least had loved her and had never hit her. She couldn’t imagine what it would
be like if he ever had. She reached out to touch Hopper again, but he had moved
away towards the door.

Eventually Norman made it back to his feet,
despite still looking grim. Boss got the nod from everybody and they prepared
to continue the mission. The mission that started bad and had only got worse.

“Maybe Norman should open the door this time,”
Hopper said. “Seeing as how he’s Mr Invisible to the dead guests.”

Norman didn’t argue. He made his way to the
front of the group and reached for the door handle. To everybody’s surprise, it
was unlocked. They all stepped through and found themselves inside an oily work
area. Machine parts and benches filled the bare floor and the overhead strip
lights flickered with ongoing vibrations. One of the benches held a humanoid
with no arms and only one leg.”

“This looks like some sort of repair area,”
Lexi said.

“It takes a lot to keep a satellite array
running,” Hopper said. “They probably have a team of engineers stationed here.
Wonder why there’s nobody here now. You’d think it would be nice and safe up
here.”

“Maybe we’ll find someone,” Lexi said. “Fingers
crossed.”

Norman went over to one of the benches and
picked up a wrench. Lexi did him one better and discovered a welding torch. She
gave it a quick blast to test it out and an immense blue flame shot out of the
nozzle, making her flinch.

Hopper held his axe and grinned. “Now you’re
really smoking.”

Lexi groaned. “You’re like a character out of a
bad book.”

He frowned at her. “A book? Nobody reads
anymore.”

“I’m not nobody.”

“We must be near the top now,” Boss said. “The
array should be within reach. Let’s find it.”

“Let’s try over there.” Hopper pointed. “I
think I see something.”

It turned out that Hopper could see something.
Bodies. A lot of them.

Chapter Thirteen

“Who are all these people?” Lexi asked.
“They look like guests.”

She knelt down beside the body of a young girl.
She was wearing a hoodie with The Driller printed on it and bright pink
tennis pumps. She was definitely a guest. A bullet hole dotted her chest right
below her neck. Upon closer inspection, Lexi saw entry wounds on all of the
bodies.

“Somebody killed these people,” Hopper said,
reaching the same conclusion that she had.

“Looks like they were all shot in the chest,”
Boss said. “Whoever shot them knew what they were doing.”

Norman doubled over and vomited. It was a strange
reaction seeing as he’d been surrounded by walking corpses for more than
twenty-four hours and had dismembered several of them with his axe.

“You okay?” Lexi asked him.

Norman wiped his mouth. “Fine. I think
everything is just getting to me.”

Hopper nodded. “Understandable.”

“I don’t understand,” Lexi said, turning her
attention back to the several dozen dead park guests. “How did they end up here
and why would somebody shoot them?”

“Perhaps they were infected,” Hopper said.

“No. If they were infected they would have come
back, wouldn’t they? None of these people were shot in the head. I think they
were healthy. They were survivors.”

Hopper grimaced. “Why would somebody want to
shoot survivors? You think it was Cog?”

“I don’t know. Cog had a revolver when we saw
him last. I don’t think he could have taken down so many people on his own.”

“Then who?”

Boss cleared his throat. “It doesn’t matter. We
can’t save the dead.”

A noise caught their attention.

Hopper grabbed a tight hold on his axe and
stepped towards the source. Lexi backed him up with her welding torch. Norman
stayed back with his wrench.

“Who’s there?” Boss shouted.

“Captain Yanniger,” came the accented reply.

“Are you armed?”

From behind a group of fuel barrels, a handgun
skittered across the floor and came to rest out in the open. “Not anymore.”

Cautiously, they spread out and approached the
group of barrels. Despite having no weapon of any kind, Boss took point. He
seemed unconcerned by any threat and strode purposefully, fearlessly.

Together they rounded the barrels and found a
man sitting up against the wall. He was wearing full body armour like the dead
men they had encountered inside the armoury. He was also bleeding from a ragged
wound on his neck.

Lexi knelt beside the man immediately, went to
place a hand against his wound and apply pressure, but he swatted her away
urgently. “No,” he said. “I’ve been bitten. Don’t get my blood on you.”

Lexi pulled her hand away. “Do you know about
the virus?”

He nodded. “It was engineered by the League of
Joa.”

Lexi frowned. “Those fundamentalists operating
out of Israel? Nobody takes them seriously, not even Israel.”

The man swallowed and it obviously caused him
pain as it took him a while to find his voice again. “European Intelligence has
known Joa have been working on a biological weapon for years. They finally
perfected it and sent it here.”

Hopper crossed his arms. “Why attack an
amusement park?”

“As a threat. To show the world what the virus
will do if released on Earth. This is their Hiroshima – a warning to their
enemies.”

Lexi hissed. “Show people what the virus can do
without risking it getting out of control on Earth; clever. They’ll be able to
demand anything now. But wait,” she looked down at the wounded captain, “how
the hell do you know all this? You’re just a security guard for an amusement
park.”

He laughed and it hurt him. He winced and held
his neck. “If you think this place is just an amusement park, you’re an idiot.
The League of Joa targeted here for a reason. This place is a military asset.
I’m not a guard. I’m United States Inteligence.”

“What are you talking about?” Hopper said.

“Nothing. I’m done talking about it. You’ll
find out soon enough. Just do me a favour and kill me. I don’t want to become
one of those things.”

“You’re turning?” Lexi said. “Where is the
person who bit you, and what happened to all of those guests back there?”

“Orders.”

“You killed them all.”

“Not me. My men. One of the guards who worked
on this level allowed them in for safety, but this place is not for the public.
They had to be dealt with.”

“Where are your men now?” Boss asked.

“Dead. Like me.”

Lexi kicked the man, suddenly enraged. “Tell me
what’s going on here,” she screamed. “Was it you who jammed communications?
Sabotaged our ship?”

There was more noise ahead and Lexi stepped
away from the Captain to look around.

“Oh, hell,” Hopper muttered.

The captain’s men had arrived, and every one of
them was dead.

The captain let out a moan, but was still
alive. “My gun,” he said. “Grab my gun.”

Lexi spotted the handgun on the floor and
quickly snatched it up. She estimated five dead guards in total and fired at
the closest without even blinking. The round took the dead guard between the
eyes and dropped him cold. She re-sighted her aim and took out the next and the
next, but the final two wore riot helmets.

Hopper took the first of the two remaining dead
men. He swung his axe like a golf club and shattered the knee of his target.
Once the guard tumbled down onto its belly, he kicked the helmet off of its
head and brought the axe down hard.

That left just one more guard.

Norman stepped up. “Let me. He not hurt me.”

They all stood back while Norman took charge.
He strolled casually up to the dead man and grabbed its riot helmet with both
hands. As expected, the guard simply tried to push past Norman and get to the
rest of them. Norman removed the helmet and tossed it to the floor. Then he
bought the wrench up over his head and smashed it down on the dead man’s skull.

Five bodies lay on the ground, the threat dealt
with.

“We’re getting better at this,” Hopper said.
“Does that worry anybody else?”

“What do we do with him?” Lexi asked, motioning
towards the fading captain.

“Kill him,” Boss said.

Lexi looked at her father and frowned. “What?”

“He’s already dead. Do him a favour.”

Lexi looked at the gun in her hand and then
shook her head. “I’m not just going to shoot him.”

“I don’t mind,” the captain said, waving an arm
from where he still sat on the ground. “Shoot me, please.”

Lexi stood firm. In fact, she strode up to her father
and shoved the gun at him. “Shoot him yourself.”

Her father snatched the gun out of her hands
and shot the captain in the chest. The man wheezed for a second, then died.
Boss followed up the shot with a second straight to the head. He shoved the gun
back at his daughter and marched away.

Lexi looked down at the gun and saw her hands
tremble. Hopper came over to her and gently prised it away from her. “Maybe I
should take this,” he said.

They exchanged glances for a moment and then
followed after Boss. Neither said it, but they were both upset by what they had
just witnessed. Norman hurried from behind to keep up with them, and he didn’t
look any more confident than they did.

Chapter Fourteen

“This is it,” Hopper said, with more than a
little relief in his voice. “This is the satellite array.”

Lexi looked around at the room they were in and
was impressed. The ceiling was glass plated, allowing them to look directly up
into the stars. It also allowed them to see the monolithic dish outside and the
many smaller dishes mounted around it. In front of them was a massive bank of
computers.

Hopper hurried over and began accessing the
systems. He used the comms unit on his forearm that they all wore. SABA had
uploaded to them all the authorisations they needed, but that didn’t stop
Hopper from cursing a few times as he struggled to get to grips with the
firewalls.

“Do you need help?” Lexi asked him.

“I need Trent, but you’ll do, I suppose.”

Lexi tutted, but didn’t take offence. She
joined him at the console and leant forward. “What am I looking at?”

“I’m trying to get into the communication hub.
I should be able to send out a simple message and get a response, but it seems
like some sort of override has been put in place. It was done on top of the
regular operating system so it’s not much interested in my administrator
rights.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that somebody stuck a firewall of their
own in place. I can’t send a message without taking it down.”

“Maybe it was the captain.” Lexi scowled at her
father. “Too bad he’s dead.”

“He wouldn’t have been of any use,” Boss said.
“Why would he lock us out of the system and then tell us how to get back in?”

Lexi ignored him, placed a hand on Hopper’s
shoulder. “Can you do anything?”

“I’m not sure. Let me try a back door. I’ll see
if any of the other systems have native control over the satellite. I may be
able to…wow, wait a minute. What the…?”

“What?” Boss asked. “What have you found,
Hopper?”

Hopper turned around to face Boss. There was a
look of utter confusion on his face. “I just accessed a sub-directory called
Orbital Assault Platform.”

Lexi baulked. “What? Assault? You mean Grand
Galaxy was built with weapon systems?”

“Not just weapons systems,” Hopper explained.
“Orbital weapons. As in weapons pointed at space, or even Earth.”

Norman bent over and fell into a chair. He
slumped forwards and began panting. “This supposed to be nice vacation they
say. Very relaxing, very nice they tell me. Bullshits.”

Everyone ignored him. Lexi looked at Boss to
see what he thought about the situation, but he didn’t seem shocked or angry
like she was.

“Oh, God,” she said, reading her father’s
expression like a book. “You knew about this, didn’t you?”

Boss sighed and took a seat. He rubbed at his
chin for a few moments and then looked at his daughter with tired, suddenly
very old eyes. “Yes, I knew. That’s why we’re here. When the American and
British governments built this place, they couldn’t condone such a monumental
cost for a commercial project alone. It’s been ten years and this place has
only just turned a profit. That’s beside the point, though, because this it was
never intended to be a getaway for those rich enough to afford it. It’s a
weapon, Lexi. It’s the greatest weapon ever built. From this station, our
government can target a bird in its nest in any country in the world. It has a
link up to every allied satellite in space and can spy on every inch of the
cosmos. It has saved millions of lives, by taking out the bad men before they
even know they’re on our radar.”

“Including the League of Joa,” Hopper said.

Boss nodded. “Their leader was assassinated
several years ago. Somehow, they must have discovered the existence of this
place and focused all of their attention on bringing it down.”

“Game set and match to them,” Hopper said.

“Why are we here?” Lexi asked. “What’s our real
mission?”

“The real mission was something only Gellar,
Miller, and I, truly understood. We were to secure this place without any
witnesses to what is really here, or…”

“Or what, goddamnit?”

“Or, if the facility is irredeemably
compromised, the mission is to destroy it.”

Lexi was so stunned that she fell back like a
punch had hit her. “D-Destroy it how?”

“By turning the orbital blasters inwards.”

Hopper picked up a chair and threw it. Everyone
stared at him in surprise, but he just shrugged his shoulders. “Felt like a
throw a chair moment.”

Norman started coughing. When he caught his
breath, he made a comment on the situation. “We can’t die here. You have to get
me back to Earth, remember? If this thing gets out back home then my blood
might be cure. I’m immune.”

Lexi was about to agree, but when she looked at
him she found herself thinking something else. “I don’t think that you are
immune.”

Norman frowned at her. “What? I was bitten a
day and a half ago and I have not turned.”

“Not yet, but I think you’re going to. At
first, I believed you were immune, but now you look like shit.”

He sneered. “Thank you.”

“No, she’s right,” Hopper said. “You look like
a bear shit you out. You’re ill, man.”

“I feel fine.”

Lexi looked at Norman and raised her eyebrows.
“Really?”

“Okay, no. I feel like the death that is warmed
up, but is just stress of situation. I not infected. I am immune.”

Lexi shook her head, now completely sure. “I
think you’re resistant, but not immune. You’re dying Norman. I’m sorry. The
virus is in you, but for some reason your body fights it better than most. The
virus is still going to win in the end, though.”

Norman got up and waved his arms. “Immune,
resistant, whatever. You still need me for tests and experiments and-”

“You’ll never make it back to Earth,” Boss
said, his stern voice making everyone take a step back. “In fact, taking you to
Earth would be a bloody awful idea. You’re infectious.”

“No!”

“Yes. This entire facility is now a hazard to
life itself back on Earth. It has to be destroyed.”

Norman was trembling with panic. His eyes had
begun to bulge and were a fiery red at the edges. He took a step towards Boss,
his arm extended threateningly.

There was a loud bang and Norman’s head
half-exploded. Hopper stood with his own arm extended, the captain’s handgun
now smoking from its muzzle.

Lexi gasped at him. “Damn it, Hopper. Not you,
now? Why are we shooting people?”

“Because he was going to become a space
chomper. He wasn’t the type to quietly suffer – he would have become a
hindrance – and we can’t afford anything holding us back, Lexi, because we are
getting off this goddamn lump of rock.”

Boss frowned. “Impossible. We need to destroy
this place.”

“Yeah, you do that, Boss. You can stay right
here and arm the systems; just as soon as me and your daughter get back in the
Hermes and fly away.”

“The Hermes is down,” Lexi said.

“Only because of the jamming in that sector.
I’m pretty sure I can release it. If your father stays behind, he can make sure
no one interferes once we head back.”

“No way, I’m not going to leave my father here
to die.”

“Yes, you are.” Boss was speaking so they both
shut up. “We can’t get a message out because of the bloody communications
override, but you two can get back to Earth and warn SABA and the goddamn
Pentagon of what the League of Joa is capable of. They need to be warned.
Hopper, do it.”

Hopper raced over to the console and began
tapping away.

“That madman, Cog, is still out there
somewhere,” Boss warned. “So be careful. Somebody has to stay here to make sure
this place is turned to dust. You can either be here when that happens, or on
your way home.”

“No, this is crazy,” but as Lexi said it, she
knew there was no other way. The death and evilness in this place would
devastate the Earth if it got free. There were far more lives at stake than
just her father’s, and he was going to do what he intended to do with or
without her.

Hopper stood away from the console and nodded
at them both. “It’s done. The departure lounge and airlock is all systems go
again. The Hermes should be back online.”

Boss grunted. “Then it’s decided.”

Lexi sprang forward and threw her arms around
her father. “I love you, dad.”

“I love you too, sweetheart. I’m sorry I
dragged you up here. I honestly never thought… I was told only to assemble a
squad I trusted and who could keep a secret. I thought of you, but if I’d
known…”

“It’s okay.”

“It’s only okay as long as you get back to
Earth.”

“I’ll get her home,” Hopper said confidently.

“Good, now get out of here before I blow this
place up with you in it.”

Hopper holstered his gun and saluted. Lexi
decided to do so, too. “It’s been a pleasure, Commander,” she said.

“Dismissed, Lieutenant.”

Lexi smiled at her father for the very last
time and left.

Chapter Fifteen

The journey down the multiple floors of the
Astronomer’s Finger was much easier than the one up it, but it still left each
of them out of breath by the time they reached the bottom. Hopper sat Lexi down
on a bench and went to go fetch her a drink from a nearby snack bar. The
exhaustion didn’t come only from her muscles and bones, but from her mind, too.
She had witnessed hundreds of deaths, and knew that the actual number totalled
thousands, but now she had just left her father to commit suicide. Her mind was
being pulled in a dozen different directions and each and every yank threatened
to snap her psyche in two.

Hopper returned with two coffees. It was
steaming hot and the smell instantly brought back Lexi’s focus.

“The machine was still on,” Hopper said. “I
literally could not ask for anything better right now.”

Lexi took a sip of the hot beverage and burned
her lips, but didn’t care. She exhaled with pleasure. “Wow, I needed that.”

“You okay?” he said. “I mean, considering…”

She nodded. “It is what it is. We have to get
out of here. I’ll save any breakdowns for back on Earth. This isn’t the place.”

“Your father is a hero.”

“No, he’s not. Placing weapons at Grand
Galaxies put every single guest here at risk, and he knew that. We should be
moving past all this bullshit. It’s almost the 22nd Century and
countries are still trying to one up each other. I think that’s why I must have
become a cosmonaut; to get away from all the bullshit on Earth. Well, that, and
trying to get closer to my illustrious father. If I hadn’t joined the corps I
probably would only have ever seen him at Christmas. Maybe that would have been
better.”

Hopper nodded understandingly. “The world needs
men like your father, but when they come along it’s their families who suffer.
The future never stops arriving, Lexi. Tomorrow is always just out of reach,
and as long as that’s true, there’s always the chance that things will get
better.”

“There won’t be a tomorrow if the League of Joa
release the virus back home.”

“We won’t let that happen, Lexi. We’ll warn
everybody. They’ll find a way to fight it if it ever happens.”

She smiled mirthlessly. “Wish I could be the
unflappable hero like you. Were you the same way when you took down that Russian
Destroyer all by yourself?”

Hopper looked away and down at the floor. “I
never took down that Destroyer. It surrendered.”

“What?”

“The Russians on board were defectors. They
wanted to give themselves up but were afraid of their own Government. They
wanted asylum. I was only there to communicate with them, non-threateningly in
my little Warrior, and take their demands. They asked for the British or
American Space Corps to take them into custody, but we refused. I was there to
track them, make sure they didn’t disappear. They never fired on me once and I
never fired on them. Eventually they were so desperate that they begged me to
turn back and just let them flee, but I refused. I was young and naïve, eager
to impress my superiors. I believed that the Russian Government would deal with
its defectors humanely, but when the convoy arrived it stormed the Destroyer
and killed every last man on board. I watched their corpses jettison into
space.”

Lexi blinked slowly. “Why did the Russian men
surrender to their Government if they were so afraid?”

“Because when the Russian convoy arrived, it
was accompanied by a British ambassador. Our man assured the defectors that
they would be treated well and that Britain would oversee their sentencing and
ensure their rights were maintained. It was a lie – a favour to the Russian
President. The Russian Space Navy was welcomed aboard with open arms, but they
slaughtered every last man. To ensure my silence, SABA covered me in medals and
made me the most senior pilot in the corps with a heroic story to match. My
entire career rests on a foundation of blood. Nothing I ever do will change
that.”

“Why did you agree to keep it secret?” Lexi
wasn’t judging, just curious to see why a man as unflappable as Hopper had not
done the right thing.

“It was made very clear to me that I either
took a medal for living courageously or a bullet for living carelessly. They
made me piss my pants like some green recruit, Lexi. From that day forward I
made sure I was the best damn pilot SABA had. If I became an institution, like
your father, then they would have no threat great enough to cow me. If they
ever tried to force my silence again, I would expose their secrets, and people
would listen because I’m the most decorated pilot in the corps. I protected
myself by being the best. Maybe they sent me here to get rid of me. Maybe SABA
knew what we were walking into.”

Lexi shook her head. “My father would never
have brought me here if he had any idea.”

“I suppose you’re right. Still, I don’t intend
on dying up here. I’m going to make it back to Earth so I can finally be the
thorn in SABA’s side that I always should have been. I used to think that those
Russian defectors died because of me, but after seeing what’s happened here,
I’ve realised that the people controlling who lives and who dies are wearing
ties and sitting behind large desks. Perhaps it’s always been that way.”

Lexi nodded. “But as long as there’s a
tomorrow, there’s a chance it might not always be that way.”

“Hell, yes.”

Lexi finished her coffee and stood up. “Let’s
go home.”

They decided not to set off back through the
Ice Lands, for they knew for sure that there were dead people somewhere within
the amusement park, including the large pack that had swarmed Miller. They
chose to travel from the base of the Astronomer’s Finger into the hotel and
recreational grounds of Grand Galaxy. The first place they entered was a garden
area outside of a spa and swimming pool facility. They stayed outside the
buildings and kept to the gardens. The well-cultivated lawns and plants made it
almost feel as if they were back on Earth. The ceiling overhead even had a blue
sky projected onto it with fluffy white clouds drifting across it.

There were no obstacles as they passed through
the garden and Lexi even felt herself begin to relax, which was probably the
whole point. By the time they left the area and entered into the courtyard of
one of the park’s hotels, they were unprepared for danger, which was why Hopper
was caught completely off guard.

The bellhop leapt out from behind a pillar and
fell on top of Hopper. Hopper was caught mid-stride and tripped over his own
legs, tumbling onto his side. The bellhop would have taken a bite out of him if
not for the fact Lexi wrapped an arm around his neck and pulled him away. She
fought to hold the dead man still while Hopper climbed back to his feet and
aimed his pistol.

“Get clear,” he shouted.

Lexi shoved the bellhop in the back and
sidestepped out of the way. Hopper lined up his shot and placed a round right
through the bellhop’s eye. The gun’s report wasn’t particularly loud, about the
same as a door slamming, but it was enough to encourage movement from inside
the hotel.

Lexi was the first to notice. Inside the
glass-fronted lobby of the hotel, several bodies appeared. Followed by dozens
more. Before long there were a hundred more guests gathered inside the lobby,
and all of them were dead.

Hopper stepped over the bellhop and pointed his
pistol again, but he lowered it when he realised his intention of shooting them
was farcical.

Bodies continued appearing in the lobby and the
entire mob began moving towards the courtyard.

“There must be a thousand people crammed inside
there,” Hopper said, overestimating a little but not by much.

“That’s where all the guests have been this
whole time. They’re all packed up inside the hotels.”

Hopper was already walking backwards, poised to
turn around and run. “When the shit hit the fan, people must have made for
their rooms. Maybe security even called for the guests to do so. They must have
been slaughtered like cattle.”

The first bodies pushed through the entryway
and moved out into the courtyard. When they set eyes on Lexi and Hopper, they
picked up speed.

Neither of them bothered to shout, “Run”, for
they both knew the drill well enough by now. They fled the courtyard and moved
into another garden area. When they reached the end of it and neared the next
hotel courtyard, they were faced with yet another mob. The noise of the gunshot
had travelled.

“We’re screwed,” Lexi said.

Hopper started letting off shots, taking down a
few bodies, but it was a drop in the ocean. His gun soon ran dry and Lexi
knocked it out of his hand. “That shooting will have just attracted even more.”

“Shit, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry, just be fast.”

They ran for their lives, dodging between
probing hands and chattering teeth. At one point, Lexi fell into the grasp of a
skinny woman in broken heels, but Hopper leapt up and kicked her away. Luckily,
the woman’s heels were such a mess that she tottered over and let go of Lexi.

They carried on through the crowd, picking up
an entourage of the dead as they tried to find safety. If the courtyard were
any more cramped, they would be done for, but luckily it was a large open area
and the dead tended to bunch together in small groups. For the time being there
was still opportunity to cut a path.

Eventually the way ahead became blocked. There
were just too many bodies now to navigate through, and a parked people mover
lay right in their escape path.

Lexi ran into the people mover and put her back
against it. The clean white electric vehicle had a small driver’s compartment
at the front and an affixed carriage with four rows of benches at the back.
Dead men and women closed in on all sides.

“There’s no escape,” Lexi said.

“Nope,” Hopper agreed.

A woman made a grab for Lexi and reflexively
she grabbed the driver compartment’s door and swung it open by the handle. The
aluminium edge struck the woman in the face and opened up the flesh from her
left eye all the way down to her chin. Opening the door also did something
else; it presented an option.

Hopper jumped inside the compartment and
dragged Lexi in backwards after him. Understanding, she hooked the door with
her foot and pulled it closed again.

Dead hands and teeth battered the windows
immediately.

Hopper grabbed Lexi and pulled her up into a
sitting position. “Are you okay?” he said. “Did any of them get you?”

“I don’t know.” She patted herself down. “No, I
don’t think so.”

“Good, because I don’t drive with no zombie
woman.” He pulled out the zipline from his comms unit and inserted it into the
dashboard. Suddenly the cabin came to life with a dozen blinking lights.

Lexi smiled. At least Hopper was still thinking
clearly. She would have sat in the cabin and wept, completely forgetting that
the people movers at Grand Galaxies had computers that could be accessed and
overridden.

Hopper pulled the lever and put the vehicle
into drive. There were several bodies in front of them, trying to bust in
through the windscreen, but by keeping their speed slow, Hopper was able to
gradually shunt them out of the way. Once clear, he pulled the lever again and
picked up speed. But it appeared that top speed was not much faster than a
brisk jog. While it got them away from the murderous mob, the faster of their
pursuers were able to keep up and even run alongside the vehicle.

“I can pee faster than this,” Hopper said,
growling.

“Just keep going. At least it’s bought us some
breathing space. Most of them are falling back.”

They made it onto a wide paved area that seemed
to be for both pedestrians and people movers, for it contained both benches and
abandoned people movers. Some of the pursuing dead people collided with the
benches as they ran and fell to the ground, but there were still several dozen
still giving chase.

A sign at the side of the road announced:
TRANSPORTATION CENTRE.

“Head for that,” Lexi shouted.

“I hear you.” It would have been a good time to
pick up speed, but as they were already maxed out, Hopper just kept them on the
road and followed the correct path when the way forward split in two. The road
ahead narrowed and was lined on either side by two grassy banks. It had the
added bonus of corralling the pursuing dead and reducing their speed as a
whole. Lexi and Hopper began to gain a little distance.

Ahead, the road split again. They had the
option of continuing to the Transportation Centre, or heading right towards NEW
ARRIVALS. Hopper took the right path, knowing where it would lead them.

“We’re almost back to the Hermes,” Lexi said.
“We’ve almost made it.”

Hopper gritted his teeth and said, “You can
rely on Space Hopper Airways to cover all your travelling needs.”

Lexi chuckled. She was almost giddy at the
thought of reaching the terminal and getting back into the Hermes. Once they
were back inside that cockpit, there would be no stopping them from making it
back home.

But getting to the Hermes was not going to be
as easy as they hoped. When they reached the terminal, someone was there
waiting for them. Cog.

Chapter Sixteen

Hopper narrowed his eyes. “Cog!”

He slammed on the brake and brought the people
mover to a stop in the middle of the road. The way it sat, slightly at an
angle, meant that it blocked the entrance and would prevent the dead from
getting through into the terminal. Lexi wondered if he did it on purpose. Even
if he did, it wasn’t going to matter very much, for Cog was perfectly capable
of killing them on his own.

Or not exactly on his own.

Standing with Cog was a line of humanoids, five
in total. They stood to attention, somehow under his command.

“Get out of there,” Cog shouted at them. He
still had the revolver from earlier and was pointing it right at them.

Lexi looked at Hopper. Hopper looked at Lexi.

“What should we do?” Lexi asked.

“I guess we do as the lovely man tells us.”

Lexi swallowed and then opened her door. She
could hear and feel the banging from the rear of the people mover, and as she
looked back she could see over the benches that there was a mob of dead people
trying to get past the obstacle in their way.

“Come closer,” Cog said. “I want to talk to
you.”

Lexi frowned, but did as she was asked. Both
she and Hopper walked over until Cog stopped them about eight feet away. From
this close the diseased man was disgusting and smelt absolutely foul. Lexi eyed
his robotic companions cautiously.

“Don’t worry about them,” Cog said in a slur.
Drool escaped his swollen black lips as he spoke and one of his eyes was dead
and unmoving. “They been behaving very strangely since you brought them back
online, but I assure you I have these ones under very strict control.”

“How?” Hopper asked. “Weren’t you just a
warehouse monkey?”

If the comment annoyed Cog, it did not show,
for his face was now covered in the little black tendrils of his diseased
veins. No expression came to his face except one of suffering.

“I was a team leader, but that is beside the
point. I took the comms unit from your dead soldier left in the canyon.”

Lexi groaned. “Miller.”

“Yes, well. I took his comms unit and was quite
delighted to find that it contained overrides for…well, just about everything.
Allowed me to hack into my humanoid friends and have them follow me. Good
thing, too, because you can’t possibly leave.”

“Screw you,” Hopper said. “We’re getting out of
here.”

Cog shook his head. A wound opened up in the
crease of his neck and began bleeding. “Don’t you understand? Surely, now, you
must. This disease can’t make it back to Earth. It has to die here, with us.”

“We’re not infected,” Lexi said.

“No way to be sure. It’s too much of a risk. It
could be on your clothes, your hair – anywhere. You might be carriers. I admit
to not knowing much about diseases, but I know it’s too much of a risk for
anybody to leave here. The security team understood that. I saw them massacre
hundreds of guests trying to contact home. Communications were shut off pretty
quickly after that.”

“You mean the jamming wasn’t you?” Hopper said.

“No. The security team understood the need to
contain things. I overheard them talking about what this place really is – the
secrets contained here. Once the disease reached here, it was only ever going
to end one way. When they cut the power to the terminal, shortly after you
arrived, I grabbed a radio and tried to warn you that there was no leaving
here. Still, you gave things a good go. I expect a team from Earth will come
and put a torch to this place soon.”

“My father is destroying it,” Lexi said. “He’s
going to turn the orbital lasers inwards and destroy the facility.”

Cog let out a sigh that sounded very much like
relief. “That is…very good to hear.”

“Why do you want to see everyone dead so
badly?” Hopper said. “Are you really that worried about Earth? You think you’re
some kind of martyr?”

“I have an ex-wife and two children back on
Earth. I may not have been the greatest father, but I love my family. I would
rather die for certain than take the smallest risk that they might instead.
This disease started with me the moment I opened that blasted crate, but I will
make sure my children never have to suffer the way I have.”

“We can get you help,” Lexi said. “You’re
different to the others. There may be a way.”

“I’ll be dead within the hour,” he said. “I can
feel my body shutting down. I can barely breathe. I have just long enough to
see things through. You say your father is going to blow this place up? When?”

“When we leave,” Lexi said. “If you keep us
here, he won’t do it.”

“Well, that’s a shame. I suppose I will just
have to deal with you myself and hope that the clean-up team does their job. I
can’t see that they won’t. They’ll probably nuke this entire place.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,”
Hopper said. “We came here to help, not destroy.”

“Funny then, how one of you has their finger on
a button somewhere, ready to blow this place up. Are you really trying to tell
me that your mission wasn’t to contain this however necessary?”

Hopper glanced at Lexi and she could tell he
was thinking about what her father had told them. The mission always had been
to contain the situation, however necessary.

“Just let us go,” Lexi almost begged.

“I’m afraid I can’t. Humanoid units, I command
you to use lethal force against these two criminals.”

The five humanoids all looked up as one, their
blue eyes glaring into Lexi and Hopper. “You have been condemned by Grand
Galaxy Amusement Park Management. Surrender now or lethal force will be used
against you.”

“I’m really starting to hate these things,”
Hopper said.

Lexi took a step back. “Don’t blame the
computer, blame the operator.”

They were completely unarmed; fighting the
humanoids would be suicide. Lexi started moving away and had to grab Hopper to
get him going with her. The humanoids stalked towards them slowly, their design
too primitive to allow them to run. It was the only advantage they had. Lexi
headed towards one of the reception desks, hoping to place a barrier between
her and the machines hunting her. But before she got there a shot rang out and
something stung her. The pain radiated throughout her legs and back and sent
her sprawling into the area behind the reception desk.

Hopper saw she was hit and ran over to her. He
rolled her onto her side and ran his hands all over her. “Damn it.”

“What?” Lexi said, fighting the urge to vomit.
“Where am I hit?”

Hopper shook his head. “The sonofabitch shot
you in the ass.”

Lexi groaned. She was in so much pain.

“SURRENDER NOW OR FACE LETHAL CONSEQUENCES.”

Over the din of his humanoids, Cog shouted a
final warning. “Give yourselves up and we can sit it out together. You’re not
leaving here, but you can still have a final few hours of peace.”

“The only peace I’m going to be having is out
of your ass,” Hopper said. He turned to Lexi and sighed. “That sounded really
wrong, didn’t it?”

Lexi shivered with pain, but managed to say, “I
think he got the point.”

One of the humanoids made it around the desk
and spotted Lexi and Hopper hiding.

Hopper put his head under Lexi’s arm and pulled
her to her feet. As soon as their heads went above the desk, another shot rang
out from Cog’s revolver. It went wide.

Hopper and Lexi crouched down and moved away
just as the humanoid snatched at them. The rest of the humanoids were nearby
and approached the desk. Lexi was numb from the waist down. Every step she took
was clumsy and Hopper was obviously struggling to keep hold of her.

“SURRENDER NOW.”

Hopper snarled. “Bite me, you overgrown food
blender.”

Lexi saw Cog lining up another shot and yanked
Hopper down. “Duck.”

The shot hit a sign placed on the wall behind
the desk.

“We’re surrounded,” Hopper said, finally
sounding desperate.

“I have an idea,” Lexi said. “The people
mover.”

“You want to drive out of here?”

“Something like that.”

“There’s no way we can make it back to the
people mover,” Hopper said.

Lexi nodded. “I know. That’s why I’m going to
distract cog while you go.”

Hopper was confused, but when she quickly
explained her plan, he nodded and said, “Okay, it just might work.”

“Then get moving.” Lexi shoved Hopper away and
threw herself out from behind the desk. The numbness in her legs was now
complete and she tumbled to her knees, but kept her hands in the air. “Okay,
okay, I surrender.”

The humanoids stopped coming towards her.

“REMAIN STILL. A MEMBER OF SECURITY WILL COME
TO ARREST YOU SHORTLY.”

Cog took a cautious step towards her, keeping
his revolver pointed at her face. “Where’s your boyfriend?”

“Still hiding behind the desk,” she lied.
Hopefully Hopper had already snuck around the back and started heading towards
the people mover.

“Either you both surrender or no deal. Your
partner has ten seconds to come out and join you or I put a bullet between
those lovely eyes of yours. DO YOU HEAR ME? COME OUT OR I SHOOT YOUR PRETTY
LADY.”

Hopper didn’t come out. Good, Lexi thought. If
you surrender then this whole thing is finished. We’ll never get out of here.
Stick to the plan, Hopper.

“Come out now,” Cog snarled. “I am not a
lenient man.”

“Okay, okay. I’m coming.” Hopper’s voice was
far off. He had managed to sneak away.

Cog’s swollen eyes narrowed. “What are you
doing over there?”

There was a soft whirring of an electric motor
and that was Lexi’s cue. She willed her numb legs to wake up for just a second
and threw herself at Cog. She had six feet to cover, but his attention was
taken up trying to discover where Hopper was and what was making the noise.  By
the time he spotted Lexi, and tried to turn his gun on her, she was tackling
him to the ground and landing a punch in the centre of his face. The black
veins ruptured and his skin peeled away, revealing blackened tissue and weeping
pus underneath. Her knuckles were caked in gore, which she quickly wiped on his
overalls.

She was about to climb to her feet when
something crushed down on her shoulder and yanked her up painfully. “YOU HAVE
COMMITTED ASSAULT. YOU ARE UNDER ARREST. LETHAL FORCE HAS BEEN AUTHORISED.”

Lexi felt the pressure on her shoulder increase
as the humanoid squeezed harder. She cried out in agony.

“YOU HAVE FAILED TO SURRENDER. LETHAL FORCE
INITIATED.”

Lexi’s eyes rolled back in her head as the pain
dragged her towards unconsciousness.

Suddenly the pressure released, but before it
did, the hand around Lexi’s shoulder pulled her to the ground. She gasped and
then wailed, every muscle in her body aching. The humanoid hit the floor and
slid a dozen feet across the floor on its back. Something had struck it hard.

Hopper pulled the people mover to a halt right
beside Lexi and flung open the passenger door. “Get in!”

Lexi couldn’t get to her feet so she crawled,
reached up for Hopper’s hand, and then dragged herself up into the cabin. She
couldn’t get the door closed fast enough and a humanoid appeared and grabbed
her by the arm. It started to pull her right back out again. Hopper grabbed her
other arm and tried to keep her inside. He couldn’t hope to match the strength
of a machine, though.

Lexi was halfway back out the cabin when
somebody came to her aid. The man was middle-aged with thinning, receding hair.
One of his eyes was missing and his lower jaw hung at an unnatural angle. The
dead man didn’t intentionally come to her rescue; in fact it wanted to get at
her, but the humanoid took it as an offensive action and released Lexi in order
to grab the dead man by both shoulders. As it began to squeeze, the sound of
the dead man’s collarbones snapping echoed off the glass dome above their
heads.

Lexi pulled herself back inside the cabin and
slammed the door closed. Hopper pulled the lever and got them moving.

The humanoids now were surrounded by the dead
and sought to arrest each and every one of them. They did not understand that
the former guests were no longer human. “YOU ARE UNDER ARREST,” they squawked,
but the dead did not listen.

“Look out,” Lexi said.

Cog stood in their path, his ruined face
discernable only by the bulging red eyes. He raised his revolver but did not
fire. When he turned the weapon to inspect it, it was clear that he had run out
of ammunition.

Hopper stared ahead with grim determination,
but he had one last comment to make before they headed down the gantry towards
the Hermes. “Nothing like a vacation to make you realise how much you love home.”

The people mover smashed into Cog hard enough
that his virus-ridden body tore apart. One of his arms came loose and went up
the windscreen, but the rest of him went under the big rubber tyres and came
out the back as a sticky black puddle.

Chapter Seventeen

Several dead guests broke off from the
crowd and followed the people mover into the tunnel. Like before, it was only
the fastest that could keep up.

Hopper slammed on the brakes and turned the
vehicle sideways, blocking off the corridor like he had the road into the
terminal earlier.  Then he leapt out. Lexi dragged herself across the seat and
went out the same way, as the dead guests were coming up on her side.

A dead man threw himself across one of the
benches of the passenger section of the people mover and started climbing out
the other side. Lexi hobbled over to him and started punching him in the head.

“Leave it,” Hopper said. “We need to make it to
the Hermes.”

Lexi realised he was right. She couldn’t fight
the dead with her fists alone. She gritted her teeth and followed after Hopper,
who wasn’t much faster. Both of them were done physically, neither having
anything left in the tank. They reached the end of the gantry and Hopper
collapsed against the wall beside the airlock control panel. He pulled the
zipline from his comms unit and accessed the door controls.

Lexi stood anxiously, watching the dead guests
climb their way over the benches of the people mover. The man she had punched
was already through and was now hurrying towards them. “Hey, Hopper, you want
to hurry it up?”

“I’m just synching up. One second.”

“You have half-a-second.”

The dead man was on them. It reached out for
Lexi, teeth gnashing in anticipation of biting her. Lexi pressed her back
against the wall, too weak to put up a fight. The wall suddenly disappeared and
she was staggering backwards. Hopper caught her and the two of them stumbled
inside the Hermes. As they entered, the interior lights switched on. The
systems were back online.

The dead man made it inside, too, but Hopper
had enough energy left to boot the man in the stomach and send him back out.
Then he bashed the airlock control button and the door began to slide back down
again. The dead man tried to get inside but the door came down on top of him
and cut him in two. The airlock closed. They were safe.

Lexi and Hopper both collapsed at the same time
onto the cabin’s passenger bench. Lexi moaned while Hopper panted.

“W-we made it,” she said, wincing and rubbing
herself in a dozen places.

Hopper leaned forward on his knees and let his
head hang. “I’m too old for thrill rides.”

Lexi looked down at the top half of the body
trapped in the airlock. We can’t leave that there.”

“We’ll put it in the hold. It’s airtight. We
can warn them when we land.”

They took a five-minute breather and then got
up. They grabbed the dismembered torso by each arm and lifted it easily,
surprised by how much lighter a body was without its legs and waist. There was
also a lack of blood; just a concealed mess from a system that no longer
worked, a heart that no longer pumped. There was a sticky mess beneath the
airlock door, but there was little they could do about it until they landed.
They could request quarantine procedure and a HAZMAT team would hose down the entire
craft.

They shoved the body into the airtight lockers
at the rear of the cabin. They were designed to hold food and supplies on
longer trips, but they would do just as well as quarantine containers. Hopper
slammed down the lid and engaged the lock. “Let’s get out of her,” he said.

“Lexi, is that you?”

Lexi spun around, her heart leaping into her
mouth. Her father’s voice.

“The radio,” Hopper said, pointing. The cockpit
was lit up again, working as normal.

Lexi went over and flipped the switch to open communications.
“Dad, is that you? Are comms back online?”

“No, they’re still down. I’m on the dead
captain’s radio. Short wave still works since Hopper removed the jamming
signal. I’m still in the comms suite. When you engaged the airlock it came up
on my screen. Are you alright?”

“Yes, dad. I’m…alive. Hopper is still with me.
We’re about to disengage and get out of here.”

“Good. You have no idea how much it means
knowing you’re going to get out of here alive.”

Lexi reached out a hand and touched the radio
unit, wishing it were her father and not just his voice. “Are you still going
through with it?”

“Nothing’s changed. If they send a clean up
crew here, there’s a chance the virus may make it back to Earth. Other nations
will try to interfere, demanding to know what happened to the guests. It’s too
much of a risk. I have everything set. Just get out of here.”

“Dad…I’m going to miss you.”

There was a brief silence, followed by, “I
could have been a better father, Lexi, I know that. But I’m proud of you. Commander
Sharman – dad – over and out.”

The radio crackled and went silent.

Lexi tried to get her father back but it was no
use. He was gone.

Hopper placed a hand on her shoulder and made
her wince. The muscle there had been reduced to mush. “Sorry,” he said. “We
need to go.”

Lexi nodded and went and took her seat in the
navigator’s chair while Hopper took up the flight seat. He ran through the
pre-flight checks as quickly as was safe to, then ran the disengagement
protocols.

There was the obligatory loud clunking as metal
parts shifted and uncoupled, followed by the Hermes’ thrusters igniting. Then
they were away, floating sideways away from the airlock and into space. Hopper
kicked the thrusters into gear and they took off, fast enough to force Lexi
back in her chair.

“Sorry,” Hopper told her. “My nerves are a
little shot.”

“I’m sure you’re still the best pilot in the
corps.”

“Damn straight.”

Once they were safely away, Hopper dropped
their speed to something a little more comfortable. Lexi stared out of the cockpit
window at Grand Galaxies and no longer saw an impressive feat of human
engineering but a place of horror and nightmares. Mankind’s relentless efforts
to exceed itself would one day bring about its ruin, she was sure of it. The
closer they came to being gods, the closer they came to extinction.

“Would you buy a return ticket?” Hopper asked
her as they passed by the Astronomer’s Finger. Lexi tried to see her father
somewhere near the top, by the giant satellite dish, but it was impossible. She
shook her head. “Not a chance. I hope my father manages to wipe this
monstrosity off the surface of the moon.”

“I think he’s about to. Look!”

Lexi looked out the window and saw a huge
expanse of the moon’s surface opening up. From beneath the crust a platform
began to rise. On the platform was a cannon twice as long as the Astronomer’s
Finger. She also noticed that sheets of metal, moved into place to stop the
guests ever seeing the true purpose of Installation 23, now covered the glass
sides of the Finger tower, making it look like a giant bullet.

Slowly the cannon began to swivel on its base.
At the same time it changed its aim from directly upwards to more horizontal.
Eventually it aimed directly at Grand Galaxies.

“Time to get out of here,” Hopper said. “Hold
on.”

Lexi gripped her armrests and leant back into
her seat as Hopper kicked the thrusters into overdrive and whipped them away
from the surface of the moon. The windows filled with only the blackness of
space and the twinkling of distant stars. Then the entire cockpit filled with
light and they began spinning and vibrating. Alarms went off, warning them that
control had been lost. Lexi grabbed her control panel, priming the stabilising
thrusters, but before she managed to activate them, Hopper held the ship steady
and got them back on course. A couple of minutes later, he banked to the left
and gave them a view of what they were leaving behind.

The moon had a new crater.

#

It was about ninety
minutes later, almost halfway between the moon and the earth when somebody
hailed them on a restricted channel.

Hopper gave Lexi an anxious look then answered
the call. “SABA vessel 416-19. Authorisation code: Hotel-Lima-Tango-One. Flight
Master Hopper.”

“Master Hopper? Is that really you, sir? Wow,
it’s an honour.”

Hopper sighed loudly and gave Lexi a smile.
They could both tell from the clear British accent that they had SABA on the
line.

“Yes, it really is me. I have Lieutenant
Sharman with me. We’re the only two survivors returning from aborted a mission
to secure Facility 23.”

“I’m aware of the mission, Master Hopper.
Please report.”

“The facility is gone. Commander Sharman turned
the weapon systems in on themselves and levelled the entire area. All assets
lost.”

There was a clearing of a throat, followed by,
“Weapons systems?”

Hopper sighed. “Probably above your pay grade,
my friend. Requesting safe landing at London Terminal. Quarantine procedures
advised.”

“Negative. Flagship Destroyer Kestral is in
your sector. They will take you in and conduct quarantine protocols there and
receive immediate debriefing.”

“Copy that.”

Lexi was relieved. The blood under the airlock
door worried her and she was glad that quarantine would take place on a
Destroyer faraway from Earth. She knew the Kestrel well, had flown many sorties
based out of there. Its commander, Johnson, had been a friend of her father’s.
Her father had had a lot of friends.

Hopper brought the Hermes to a holding position
and they waited for a little over twenty minutes until a small grey speck
appeared before them. Gradually that speck grew into a hulking great monolith
that filled their entire view.

Hopper whistled. “I’ll be glad to take a shower
when all this is over. I can’t believe we actually made it out of this alive.”

“Me either,” Lexi said. “It still all seems
like a nightmare, you know?”

“That’s because it was a nightmare.”

Hopper handed over the controls to the Kestrel
who remote controlled the Hermes into an airlock and fixed them in place. It
took a little over five minutes for the entire procedure to complete.

The radio hissed. “Stand by Master Hopper. A
team will be with you shortly.”

“Copy that.”

Hopper eased up out of his seat and went over
and helped Lexi out of hers. Together they made a sorry sight, holding one
another up and wincing with the slightest movement. They made their way over to
the airlock door and waited to be taken care of.

A few minutes later, the airlock clunked and
then began to open, rising slowly from the floor. The first thing they saw were
the dark black boots of the welcome party. Then they saw the rifles pointing at
them.

Lexi was too confused to say anything, but she
heard Hopper mutter to himself one word, “Shit!”

The welcome team opened fire.

Epilogue

Squad leader Tanner was the one to put a
bullet in the wheezing pilot, a burden he was willing to take for his men. It
was a shame killing a man as decorated as Flight Master Hopper, and Commander
Sharman’s daughter, no less, but Commander Johnson’s orders had been explicit.
There were sensitive secrets inside the heads of the two cosmonauts aboard the
Hermes and they needed eliminating for the sake of Allied Security. Tanner
couldn’t imagine what, exactly, they had come across on the surface of the
moon, but he knew better than to ask. There was always a bigger picture when it
came to SABA’s motives and he only had to believe that the greater good was at
stake. Just a pity that Facility 23 had needed to be destroyed. His kids loved
Grand Galaxies.

His corporal came up to report. “There’s nobody
else on board, sir. The forensic team is arriving to investigate the mess
beneath the airlock. The pilot requested quarantine protocols before he docked
so Commander Johnson is concerned that a biological attack may have caused the
communications blackout at Facility 23.”

Tanner nodded. “Whatever it was, led to them
wiping Grand Galaxies off the moon, so it wouldn’t surprise me if it was
something biological. Make sure you and the other men take a chemical shower
before leaving the docking bay.”

“Copy that.” The corporal turned on his heel
and scuttled away.

Tanner remained alone inside the cabin of the
Hermes, surveying the mess. The two cosmonauts now lay side by side on the
passenger benches and would soon be taken away. Flight Master Hopper had a
bullet hole right between his eyes where Tanner had finished him and he
congratulated himself for such a good shot. With so many good men and women
gone due to the disastrous mission to the moon, there would now be several
positions opening up in the corps. Maybe he could apply for Lieutenant
Sharman’s rank. Her daddy couldn’t do anyone any favours anymore.

While he waited to hand over to the incoming
forensics team, Tanner looked around for anything of interest – anything that
might bring him even more favour with Commander Johnson. The best place to look
was the cargo hold at the rear of the small craft. Anything pertaining to the
mission would lie in there.

He moved over to the lockers and turned the
dial, unlocking the seal and loosening the lid. When he did so, there was a
clunking sound that made him think something was inside. He pulled up the lid
to take a look and something leapt out at him, clamping down on his arm.

“What the fuck!”

A dismembered torso dragged itself out of the
cargo locker, tearing into Tanner’s wrist with its teeth. He managed to shake
the man free and throw the torso to the floor where it immediately started
grasping for his leg. He took a step back and pulled his sidearm from its
holster. He fired off three rounds, two into the monster’s back and a final one
in the top of its skull.

The gruesome thing stopped moving and Tanner
stepped away breathlessly. His arm was throbbing and bleeding where teeth had
torn his flesh. It throbbed terribly. He wiped away the blood with his hand and
rolled down his sleeve; didn’t want his men to know he had taken a wound.

The forensic team entered, wearing their HAZMAT
suits, but also carrying pistols. It was unusual for forensics to be armed.

“Squad Leader Tanner, is the area secure?”

Tanner looked down at the bleeding torso and
almost said no, but he had a feeling that admitting so would be a mistake.
“Everything is secure,” he said. Two dead and…and half a body in the cargo
lockers.” He pointed to the torso.

“Did you get any blood on you?”

“What?”

“Squad Leader Tanner, did you get any blood on
you from either of the passengers or the dead man at your feet?”

“Er, no, no. The passengers were shot from
distance and I used my glove to pull this body out onto the floor.”

“Make sure you burn your gloves, Squad Leader
Tanner. Dismissed.”

Tanner swallowed a lump in his throat and
nodded. As he walked away, he decided it would be a bad idea to tell the ship’s
doctors that he’d taken a bite on his arm. Maybe when he got back to Earth he
would get it checked out, but no way was he telling anybody about it now.
Something was going on that he didn’t want to know about. He quickly forgot
about promotions and decided to keep his head down. He buttoned his cuff and
decided to wear long sleeve shirts until he made it back to Earth. The bite
mark continued to throb.

BOOK 6 OF 7

THE PEELING OMNIBUS

THE PEELING: BOOK 1 (JEREMY’S CHOICE)

The Never Stop News Studio was cramped with
bodies. The typical skeleton crew of six or seven had swelled to at least four
times that amount, people cramming together in front of the studio’s news desk
while the two young anchors prepared to go live with the evening’s stories. The
overcrowding had made Jeremy’s job very difficult.

Jeremy was a security guard for Never Stop
News, responsible for keeping out anyone not invited to be there. With the news
studio and its roaming reporters providing content twenty-four hours a day
live, there was always a risk that some anarchic member of the public, with a
grudge and a message, would try to sneak in front of the cameras and interrupt
the feed. With current events, and the public being so frightened, the risk of
a security breach skyrocketed. People wanted answers, and when people wanted
answers they came after the Government first and the media a close second. With
so many people filling up the claustrophobic studio, it was impossible for
Jeremy to keep his eyes on everybody.

There was just one more hour to go before he
would be relieved from his post by the night guard, Greg – just one more hour.
He could not deny that he dreaded being there even another minute longer,
though. Bad things were happening in the world, that had started almost a week
ago, and the situation didn’t seem to be getting any better. Jeremy didn’t want
to be there anymore. He didn’t want to hear another goddamn thing about The
Peeling.

The studio was silent and the lights went down
as the countdown till live began. The network was currently running a
pre-recorded football report on its dedicated satellite channel and on its
website, but would turn back to its studio anchors in seven-seconds.

Six seconds.

Five.

“Okay, guys,” one of the production assistants
shouted over the crowd. “You’re live in three…two…”

Sarah Lane, one of the anchors, cleared her
throat and said, “Good evening, UK. Things are still pretty scary right now,
but rest assured Tom and I will be bringing all of the latest news for the next
four hours. Get yourself a nice hot cuppa and snuggle up on that sofa because
Never Stop News will be looking after you tonight.”

Jeremy still struggled to accept such a casual
approach to the news. Sarah and Tom were only mid-twenties, and were dressed
and spoke as such. Never Stop News’s entire premise was to provide the day’s
events with a laid-back and youthful approach. Their slogan was: All the
truth. None of the nonsense. Jeremy found it even more surprising that such
an approach had been successful. Never Stop’s hip approach to the news had
gained them a younger audience unattainable to the traditional networks. It had
even started to eat into the more mature demographics as well. It seemed that
people were tired of the byzantine stuffiness of days gone by and were happy
getting the news from a bunch of plucky youngsters. As a consequence, the Never
Stop News Corporation was one of the fastest growing media companies in the
world. Jeremy imagined that the lovely Sarah Lane had at least a small part to
play in that success. Her shapely legs and curved figure, always on display
beneath the glass news desk, were a constant feature of trashy celeb magazines
and trashy websites.

The equally attractive and
immaculately-groomed, Tom, took the lead from Sarah and got started with the
programme. “We’ve been reporting all week the current crisis in the UK and – it
now appears – many other parts of the world have also been affected. Reports
suggest upwards of four-million people have been affected throughout the UK
alone and over ten times that amount worldwide. The numbers have been rising,
hour-by hour, and with no end in sight, there is great fear that the current
number of casualties is just a small percentage of what will be the final
number.”

Sarah Lane took over again. “While both Private
and Public sectors are working tirelessly to find both a cause and a solution,
it is clear that the world is suffering under what can only be described as – a
global pandemic. Commonly referred to as The Peeling, the unknown
virus has spread throughout our nation and others with a virulence never before
seen. Affecting young and old alike, there are no clear vectors for
contraction. Government officials admit to knowing nothing about its origin and
very little about its pathology. As previously stated, all members of the
public are advised to remain inside their homes and avoid all contact with
anyone besides their immediate family. The military are permitted to use force
where necessary, to ensure the spread of infection is contained.”

Jeremy swallowed back a mouthful of acidy
saliva. His reflux was bad, but his pills were at home. It was unlike him to
suffer heartburn in the day. If he’d a job someplace else, he’d be home right
now like most other people, but news was an essential service. Jeremy’s job, in
many ways, was a matter of national security – his job to make sure the anchors
were safe to give their reports. Unfortunately for England Jeremy was just a
middle-aged man with bad acid.

At fifty-two, Jeremy’s limbs were stiffer than
they used to be, and his arthritic bones ached more often than not. He was
certainly willing to take a stand against anyone looking for trouble, but he
couldn’t claim truthfully that he was the best man for the job. Most days he
just hung around the corridors, half-asleep, until he returned home to his
wife. That was why all of these people in the studio were such a thorn in his
side – they forced him to concentrate and stay focused despite his weary mind’s
desire to shut off. Most of the people didn’t even need to be there – they were
just clerks and office assistants from other floors or departments – but no one
wanted to leave while news was still coming in. Everyone wanted to know more
about the disease. Their fear and panic was palpable and Jeremy could sense it
hanging over the dimly-lit room like a soiled blanket.

“As we have little fresh news to report from
official sources,” Tom told the audience at home. “We will be turning the air
over to you – the public. For the next two hours we want to hear from you,
Great Britain. We want you to tell us what you’ve seen, and what are your
thoughts about The Peeling? Do you have it? Does someone you love have it? Is
there any advice you can give to help others out there? We want to hear from
you now.”

Jeremy didn’t know what they expected to get
from the public that they didn’t know already. It was well-documented that The
Peeling started with a tingling sensation in the hands and feet – sometimes the
nose and ears – before moving on to a streaming cold and flu-like symptoms.
After a day-or-so of runny nostrils and messy sneezing, the virus really
started its magic. Jeremy shuddered thinking about what The Peeling did to the
human body.

“Okay, we have our first caller,” Sarah
reported. “We have Keith on line-1. Hello, Keith.”

“Hiya, Sarah. Hiya, Tom. I just want to say
that you’ve been a constant comfort during these last few days. I don’t have
any family, and not being able to leave the house has been really hard on me.”

“It’s been hard on a lot of people,” Tom said.
“But right now the only way to stay safe is to lock yourself away.”

“Do you have The Peeling, Keith?” Sarah asked
in her typical caring manner. Although, Jeremy noticed, that the young girl
wasn’t as calm and collected as she usually was. She fidgeted a lot and her
hair was out of place

There was a pause on the other end of the line,
followed by a muffled sound that could only have been sobbing. Eventually,
Keith came back on. “Yes…I have it,” he whispered down the line. “I’ve had it
three days…since Wednesday.”

“I’m really sorry to hear that, Keith,” Tom
said. “It’s truly terrible what this virus is doing to people. Absolutely
horrifying.” The reporter took a deep breath and suddenly seemed very tired, as
though he’d dropped a mask that had been hiding his true face all along. Jeremy
sympathised from over by the studio’s door. Tom wasn’t much more than a lad,
really, and he had suddenly found himself responsible for consoling an entire
nation.

Sarah sat forward on her chair and clasped her
hands together on top of the desk. “Keith? If it’s not too hard for you, could
you tell our viewers what it’s been like since you got ill? Could you tell us
about your symptoms?”

After another short pause, Keith replied that
he would. “I got home from work at about six on the night – I’m a mig-welder.
Anyway, Man U were playing Chelsea and I wanted to see them get their arses
hammered, so I got some beers in and plonked myself down in front of the telly.
I was happy, you know?”

“We know,” Sarah confirmed understandingly.

“Well, I’d been feeling a bit under the weather
all day and my nose had been running like a tap, but I thought it was just a
cold. I mean, no one really knew what was going on then – it was all just
rumours.” He trailed off and begun to sob.

“Just go on when you’re ready, Keith,” Sarah
told the man. “We’re here for you.”

“Right, sorry, anyway,” Keith gathered himself,
“I was sat watching the game, but I couldn’t help but scratch at my feet the
whole time. Was a bit like pins and needles, but no matter how much I itched or
walked around the living room, it just wouldn’t go away. Thankfully it got a
bit better after a couple beers and I managed to ignore it.”

“What happened next?” asked Tom, filling a
brief moment of dead air.

“Then I fell asleep on the sofa. Do most
evenings if I have a drink. I woke up later, in the middle of the night. I knew
it was late because the shopping channel had come on, selling their usual junk.
So I sit there for a few minutes, trying to wake up a bit so I can get myself
up and go to bed, but soon as I lean forward, I feel this sharp stab of pain.”

Jeremy rubbed at his eyes in the doorway. He’d
heard enough reports to know what was coming next. He’d even seen what was
coming next first hand.

“I look down at my feet,” said Keith, fighting
back sobs, “and I can hardly…I can hardly believe what I’m seeing.”

“Tell us, Keith.”

“My feet they were…oh God…they were like raw
steak. They had no skin. I could see all the gristle and bone and blood. They
looked like those anatomical dummy things they have in school, you know?
Anyway, like a fool I grab down at them, like I needed to make sure my eyes
weren’t still half-asleep and seeing nonsense. When I touched my feet it was
agony. I almost passed out it was so bad. Worst pain I’d ever felt…but I would
give anything to feel that way now – it was heaven compared to the pain I feel
now. The skin from my ankles started peeling away the next morning, blistering
up and peppering the floor like dandruff. Then it moved further up my legs.
Then it….then it….” Keith finally allowed himself to sob openly down the line.
“My dick is gone! It fell onto the carpet like a goddamn sausage.”

The man began to wail inhumanely and the phone
line went dead. Jeremy didn’t know if it was the caller or the studio that had
cut the conversation short. Probably the studio. They had a duty not to cause
the public any more distress then they were already in.

Sarah smiled awkwardly into the main camera.
“We seem to have lost Keith, there, but I’m sure we’re all united in our
prayers that his condition gets better.”

“Absolutely,” Tom added. “I think we should
just move on and take the next call.”

“That would be Angela Thomas on line-4.”

“We’re all going to die. God is punishing us
for letting the queers and the-”

The line went dead. This time Jeremy was
certain it had been the studio’s doing. There was nothing like a crisis to
bring out the hate-filled vipers from their pits. Britain liked to act like all
the whackos lived abroad in less civilised countries, but working in a news
studio made it quite clear that there were as many nutjobs here as there were
anywhere else.

Jeremy checked his watch. There were only forty
minutes till he could leave, but it seemed like an eternity. At home, his wife
was sick – like so many other people – and it felt like a betrayal not to be
with her now, looking after her. He’d betrayed her for most of their
twenty-year marriage, with various other women and his hidden gambling habit,
but failing her now was enough to make his guilt muscle finally take notice. He
was a hypocrite, that much was true, but he knew there were times when a man
needed to step up and be selfless for the woman he loved; this was one of those
times. The entire nation lived in hope that The Peeling would soon be dominated
by a cure – that man would triumph over nature once again as it had always
done. But Jeremy knew better. He knew that the virus wasn’t just bird-flu on
steroids. This was the end. Even if the virus was destroyed, the amount of
death it had already caused would be monumental. Millions. The world would
never be the same again. Perhaps that meant Jeremy would get the chance to be a
decent man again, to be a good husband – even if it was only for the handful of
days his wife had left. She could get better, but something in his gut told him
not to hold onto that hope. He had to get home.

The next call came from line-2. A cantankerous
old man, named Bob. “It’s them bloody Koreans, I’m tellin’ ya. I’d blame the
Arabs if I could, but they don’t have the smarts for this. North Korea has been
closed off to the rest of the word for decades. We don’t know what they’ve been
up to, do we? But I tell you one thing for nought; they’ve obviously been plotting
the downfall of the world this whole time. Kim Jong Il arranged for it to
happen before he died and, surprise surprise, a virus the likes of which the
world has never seen, has come out of a country no one knows anything about.
Prime Minister Lloyd-Collins knew about it; tried to do something about it
before he died.”

Sarah butted in while she had chance. “Now,
Bob, it’s already been confirmed that North Korea has been affected like
everywhere else. Early reports that they were the instigators of this pandemic
turned out to be false. Prime Minister Lloyd-Collins’s directive to bomb their
country was just the paranoid actions of a dying man. General Harvey Whitehead
was right to do what he did by holding emergency cabinet hustings and taking
command of the Government.”

“All so he could get in power,” Bob asserted.

“Come on,” said Sarah. “Do you really believe
that? General Whitehead was only made Deputy-Prime Minister temporarily because
his military background is exactly the skillset needed to help manage the
nation through this crisis. His decision to ignore Lloyd Collins’ directives –
God rest his soul – averted a nuclear war.”

“And also let the bloody Koreans get away
scot-free. You bloody watch what happen. This time next year we’ll all be
slaves to a bunch of slitty-eyed-“

The line went dead. Jeremy had heard enough of
this. Holding a public phone-in was just morbid and macabre. There would be no
hope gained from talking with them, for they were the most hopeless and lost of
all. The men and woman of the United Kingdom were floundering helplessly in the
dark, rotting away slowly in both body and mind. Their sad stories would do
nothing but spread more suffering, infecting people’s thoughts in the same way
The Peeling infected their flesh.

Jeremy was just about to abandon his post when
a ruckus erupted in the corner of the studio. A handful of people had begun to
scuffle with one another while others backed away fearfully. Angry voices
filled the air and bounced off the narrow walls, interrupting the on-going news
report.

“We seem to be having a few problems here in
the studio,” Sarah told the audience. “I think we should cut to a commercial
break briefly, but don’t go anywhere, guys. We’ll be right back.”

Sarah and Tom stood up from their desk and headed
away from the violence, whilst Jeremy shoved past them and headed for the
centre of the squabbling crowd. As he got nearer, he realised that it was not a
fight that had broken out, but an attack on a single individual. A pair of men
and one woman were kicking hatefully at a downed body.

“Everybody, back away, now,” Jeremy hollered at
the group with great force in his voice. While he may not have been a
physically imposing man, he had a voice that commanded attention. The group of
people immediately stopped what they were doing and backed away from him. The
victim remained on the floor, huddled and whimpering: a blonde woman, a girl
really.

“She has it,” said a woman in a grey power
suit. Her face dripping with anger. “The bitch has it and tried to hide it.”

Jeremy looked down at the girl shaking on the
floor and saw no signs of The Peeling. He looked up at the power-suit woman who
had spoken. “What?”

“It’s true,” said a tall, Black man standing
next to her. “She’s been sneezing non-stop for the last hour.”

Jeremy raised an eyebrow. “Sneezing? A young
girl sneezes and you all think you have the right to attack her? A big strong
man like you?”

“She deserves it. We could all be infected
because of her. I have a family.”

“Then you should be with them, instead of here
acting like a thug. Now help her up off the floor.”

The man shook his head. “You pick her up. I’m
not touching her.”

Jeremy took a step forwards and stared the man
hard in the face. “You just did touch her, with your fists. Help her up now. I
won’t ask you again.”

The taller, larger man just laughed at Jeremy,
then shoved out with both arms. Jeremy acted quickly, grabbing one of the man’s
thick wrists and pulling him forwards, off balance. Then he kicked out and took
the man’s legs from under him, sending him to the floor with a thump.
Jeremy was just about to follow him down to deliver a knockout punch when Sarah
called out to him.

“Jeremy, don’t! I’ll help the girl up and we’ll
take her somewhere to lie down.”

Jeremy looked up at the young news anchor,
confused. “Sarah, you have the news to be getting on with.”

“We’re on a break, and Tom can handle it for
ten minutes.” She glared at the nearby crowd and shook her. “You people should
be ashamed of yourselves.”

Sarah went over to the fallen girl and knelt
down beside her. Jeremy knelt the other side and together they gathered the
woozy young woman to her feet and walked her away from the baying crowd. There
were a whole host of angry mutterings that followed after them, but no one had the
guts to act out after what had happened to their ring leader.

Jeremy and Sarah took the girl out into the
corridor, soothing her all the way.

“We can take her to my dressing room,” Sarah
said.

Jeremy nodded. It was a kind offer, and that
was why he had always liked Sarah. She was as friendly as anybody else, despite
being a national sex symbol. Her ego had every right to be much larger than it
was, but she was surprisingly down to earth.

They half-carried, half-dragged, the girl into
the dressing room and set her down on a plush sofa filling one side. She was
weak and upset, but seemed coherent.

“Are you okay?” Jeremy asked her.

Her eyes had filled with tears, but she nodded.
“I don’t think they would have stopped.”

“Animals,” Sarah said. “They should be
arrested.”

The girl waved her hand. “It’s okay. I’m just
going to go home and forget about it. Can I just rest here for a while first?”

“Of course you can, sweetheart. Take as long as
you need.”

“Is it true what they said,” Jeremy asked the
girl. “Do you have it?”

“I…don’t know. I have the sniffles, but I’ve
been sneezing for a few days now and nothing else has happened.”

“You just have a cold,” said Sarah. “If you’ve
been sneezing that long and haven’t come down with other symptoms then you’re
probably fine.”

Jeremy nodded and let out sigh. Despite
millions of people being sick, it was still a relief to know that this one
young girl was going to be okay – for now.

The girl laughed pitifully. “I think people
forget that The Peeling didn’t make all of the other, regular illnesses go
away. Not every sneeze means you have the plague.”

“Exactly,” Sarah said. “Now you just relax here
until you feel better. There’s water in the fridge and some cookies. Help
yourself.”

“Thank you, Miss Lane. You’re really kind –
kinder than I would have expected you to be.”

“Yeah,” Jeremy agreed. “A big celebrity like
you, mixing with the common people like us.”

Sarah bopped him on the arm playfully. “Don’t
be silly. I’m C-List at best. Anyway, I have a feeling that the world will have
little need for celebrities soon.”

“You shouldn’t think the worst. The world will
get through this, one way or another. Not everyone is getting sick.” As Jeremy
said it he didn’t believe it, but it felt like the correct thing to say.

Sarah took Jeremy by the arm and led him back
out into the corridor. It seemed like she wanted to tell him something,
something that couldn’t be anything good.

“Is everything alright?” Jeremy asked her,
noticing the tears that were brimming in her eyes.

“No, it’s not alright. Things are definitely
not alright, Jeremy. You don’t know the half of it.”

“What do you mean?”

Sarah leant back against the wall of the
corridor and for a moment it looked like she might collapse completely. “I have
the producers in my ear, nonstop, telling me facts, figures, things to say –
and what not to say. We’re not telling the public anything close to the
truth.”

“They know the truth. It’s right in front of
their faces.”

Sarah shook her head. “They’re all locked up
inside while police and military patrol the roads. All they see is what’s out
their windows.”

Jeremy wasn’t following. “So what is the
truth?”

“That there’s thirty-million dead in the UK,
not four-million. The worldwide estimates are over half a billion. The USA and
most of Europe have been decimated three-times over.”

Jeremy’s stomach swelled against his ribcage.
Vomit rose in his throat. “You’re telling me that half of the UK is infected,
in less than a week?”

“The NHS has estimated that the virus affects
one-in-two people. Everyone has a fifty-fifty chance. They’ve also put the
chance of death at 100%. Anyone who catches The Peeling will die. No
exceptions.”

“But you haven’t been telling people that.
You’ve been reporting the numbers of infections, but you haven’t said people
are dying. You’ve even implied that there’s a chance of recovery.”

“I don’t make the decisions about what to
report, Jeremy. The Peeling doesn’t kill people instantly. They suffer for
days. The death toll has only just begun, as the first people to catch it have
had it for almost a week now. We didn’t know the virus would kill in all cases,
at first, but with the data coming through today, it’s clear that no one is
surviving it. The Government are trying to make the decision on whether to go
public with the information or not.”

“The Government? What right do they have to
dictate to the news outlets?”

“They can control information in a national
crisis. They always have.”

Jeremy stood wearily in the corridor, shocked
and sickened. He had known The Peeling was a plague beyond anything ever
witnessed, but he hadn’t thought it powerful enough to wipe out half of the
world – 50/50. There would be no containing it now, no cure – just unimaginable
death and suffering that would linger in the consciousness of mankind for
centuries.

He looked at Sarah and could not imagine the
burden she was forced to carry – to have such information, but unable to share
it.

“What are you going to do?” he asked her.

“I’m going to finish up tonight and then go
home. I’m finished after tonight.”

“You’re quitting?”

“Not exactly.”

“What then?”

Sarah took in a deep breath and let it out
slowly through her slender nose. She stared at Jeremy for a moment, then put
her left hand to her right sleeve. She rolled up her cuff and exposed her
wrist.”

Jeremy shook his head in disgust. “No. You
can’t have it…”

The wound on her arm was puckered and wet, the
skin gone and exposing the flesh of her muscle beneath. A tangy odour filled
the room like spoiled bananas.

“I’ve been hiding a cold the last couple days,
but I didn’t know I had it for sure until this morning. Noticed it in the
shower. It’s already spread twice as much since then.”

Jeremy rubbed both hands down his face and
imagined his cheeks peeling off beneath his fingernails. He was one of the
lucky ones so far; the right side of 50/50. “You’re sure there’re absolutely no
survivors?” he asked. “There’s nothing the NHS can do?”

Sarah shook her head, seemed resigned to her
fate. Maybe she felt luckier to be one of the infected than one of the healthy
– at least for the infected the nightmare had an end in sight.

“I’m already dead,” she said. “I don’t know if
I’m infectious, but I don’t want to take the risk anymore. I’m going home
tonight and staying there. It’s where I’d rather be. I need to feed my cat.”

“I’m sorry,” Jeremy said and truly meant it. “I
wish there was something I could do or say.”

Sarah rolled her sleeve back down, covering her
wound. “I’m just glad you don’t have it as well. As long as some of us get
through, then I guess things aren’t completely doomed.”

“My wife has it. She came down with it three
days ago now.”

Sarah put her hand on his shoulder and
squeezed. “Then you should go home and take care of her.”

Jeremy glanced at his watch. “My shift isn’t-”

“It doesn’t matter. I don’t think anything
matters anymore. This is just the calm before the storm. Things are about to
fall to pieces and the only thing we can do is look after the people we love. Go
home, Jeremy. Look after your wife.”

Jeremy watched Sarah return to the studio and
knew that it would be the last time he ever saw her in person again. He hoped
her passing would be peaceful, but that was a luxury The Peeling gave to no
one. She would feel pain beyond anything she had previously imagined, and then
she’d die – adding to the statistics that she’d been reporting for the last
week.

It was time to go home. Sarah had been right
about nothing mattering anymore. If those people in the studio wanted to start
fights then let them. Jeremy wasn’t about to waste another minute watching over
a bunch of unruly strangers turn on each other.

The news studio was on the second floor so he
had to take the stairs downwards to reach the building’s exit. The reception
area was empty, its staff all sick and dying at home. Jeremy knew most of them,
but not well enough to grieve for them. He headed for the heavy glass doors
that led outside to the parking lot.

Outside were several vehicles, belonging to the
people inside. Sarah’s Jeep Cherokee was parked next to Tom’s more audacious
Jaguar XK; beyond them both was Jeremy’s Ford Focus. He took out his keys as he
headed over to it, pressing the fob to unlock it. The lights flashed twice and
the doors unlocked. He opened the driver’s side door and slid in behind the
wheel.

Turning the ignition, Jeremy started the
engine. The needle on the fuel gauge headed towards empty and stopped a little
ways off. He laughed. Some things would never change, no matter what happened
to the world; cars would always run out of fuel, and fuel would always cost a
bomb – especially now that the military had commandeered it all.

The military were everywhere, as were the
police. It was to be expected, Jeremy supposed, but it was still disconcerting
to watch olive green, 3-tonne trucks patrolling every main road. With the UK’s
history of riots, the Government was taking no chances. There was even a sentry
posted at the news station’s car park, controlling the bright-red automatic
barrier instead of the usual civilians that had done so before. Jeremy pulled
the car into gear and drove towards that barrier now. The armed soldier stepped
up to meet his car as it approached and Jeremy lowered the electric window and
leant out with his security ID. It wasn’t his usual station ID, but a new
state-issued ID that allowed him to leave his home and travel to work. They
called it a Vital Services Identity Card – pronounced V-SIC. It was a privilege
to have one in many ways, but a burden too. Being outside was a constant danger
for many reasons – number one being exposure to The Peeling. Still, if Jeremy
was going to come down with the sickness, he surely would have caught it by
now.

“Everything okay in there?” the soldier asked
him, motioning to the news studio with his head.

“There was a bit of trouble earlier. People are
getting scared. Might be a good idea to post a man inside.”

“No can do,” said the soldier. “Orders are to
remain outside at all times, unless absolutely necessary.”

Jeremy understood and nodded. “Can’t have
people thinking that the military are controlling the press.” Even though
they are, he thought secretly.

The soldier gave no reaction, his expression
implacable. “Drive safely, sir. Go straight home.”

Jeremy nodded and crept the car forwards as the
metal barrier rose in front of him. Once past it, he pulled into third-gear and
increased his speed. It was easy to drive fast because the roads were all
empty. Travel had been restricted to prevent the spread of infection and only
certain vehicles were allowed on the road. Jeremy’s Ford Focus qualified and
had a luminous green circle on both the front and back. It told any passing
military that he was allowed to be out – for the most part they left him alone.
In fact, a convoy of trucks was heading toward him right now and seemed
unconcerned by his presence on the highway. The driver of the lead truck nodded
to him as it passed, and it was only a few moments before Jeremy was the only
car on the road again, driving along the withered husk of the nation’s
once-heaving infrastructure.

He lived almost forty-miles away from the news
station, but with the roads wide open, he would get there in thirty minutes. He
turned on the radio but quickly switched to CD mode. The last thing he wanted
was more news – or uninformed hypotheses masquerading as news, more accurately.
The sound of Blue Oyster Cult’s Don’t Fear The Reaper came on from a
mix-disc he’d filled full of rock songs. It seemed pretty apt for the mood he
was in and he let it play to its conclusion.

***

After taking the dual-carriageway most of the
way home, Jeremy took a slip road into Stratford. As he crossed over the bridge
into the centre of town, he could see that the police were patrolling the River
Avon in modified barges. Every single day the police and military presence
seemed to increase, and it now seemed that Britain’s waterways were just as
restricted as its roads.

Much of the routes through town were cordoned
off and Jeremy was forced to manoeuvre his car along the riverbank, passing in
front of the Globe theatre. The historic, thatched-roof building lay abandoned
and mournful now, its function to entertain no longer required. Jeremy suddenly
regretted never having been inside before to experience the lively works of
Shakespeare. There would probably be a lot of things he’d never experience now.

Something flew out from behind the theatre and
stumbled into the road. Jeremy hit the brakes.

Standing in the centre of the narrow
side-street was a peeler – a victim of the plague. Whether it was woman or a
man was unclear now, but the long, matted hair suggested the former. Jeremy
gawped in horror as the figure approached with the shambling gait of a zombie,
but this thing – this human being – was worse than a zombie. This thing was
living agony, stumbling towards Jeremy like a nightmare made flesh. It was the
worst case of the infection he had yet seen and the woman had not a single inch
of skin left intact. Her muscle – and even bones – were exposed from head to
feet. Eyeballs bulged from her glistening skull like gelatinous orbs of pus and
focused on Jeremy intently. Her bleeding arms stretched out pleadingly, but she
made no sound, perhaps incapable of doing so. Behind her was a trail of viscous
fluids and spoiled meat. It was a miracle the woman was still alive, let alone
able to walk.

Jeremy put the car into reverse, planning to
flee. He couldn’t help this person. Even if a cure was found, this woman was
beyond the point of salvation. “I’m sorry,” he said out loud, then lifted up
the clutch. The car began rolling backwards, away from the woman.

She followed after him for a few more steps,
seeming to lose more flesh and blood with every movement. So transfixed was
Jeremy on the horrible sight that he almost didn’t see what was in his rear
view mirror. He slammed on the brakes again. “Shit!”

Behind him a military truck blocked the road
where he had come from. A single soldier hopped out from the elevated cabin and
landed on the cement with his heavy jackboots. The man had a scruffy beard and
his sleeves rolled up past the elbows. The standards of appearance for the
British Army had obviously been forgotten in the last week. It was hardly
surprising.

The infected woman was still coming closer,
still reaching out her arms pleadingly. The soldier moved in front of Jeremy’s
car and faced down the woman. He pulled out his sidearm, a mean-looking pistol,
and pointed it forward casually. Then he let off a shot. A single bullet did
the job, hitting the woman in her cheek and passing through her skull. Gore and
grey matter painted the road, adding to the mess that was already there.

Jeremy’s breath caught in his throat and he
could actually feel his heart beating against his chest. He was not used to the
sight of guns and he’d never before seen one used to kill another human being.
Numbness washed over him that was probably the beginnings of shock.

The soldier holstered his weapon and marched
over to Jeremy’s window. Jeremy unwound it and quickly grabbed his ID card from
where it lay on the dashboard. His hands were shaking.

“Thank you, sir. Everything seems to be in
order. Are you on your way home?”

Jeremy stared out at the dead woman on the road
and found himself unable to blink.

“Sir?”

“Huh? Oh, yes. I’m going straight home now.”

The soldier seemed to notice Jeremy’s concern
and knelt down to match his eyelevel. “It was for the best, sir. Like putting
down a sick dog.”

“A…a dog?”

“It may seem cruel, but when the infection gets
that bad, it’s kinder to just end it. A lot of them have started to lose their
minds – who can blame them – but they’re becoming dangerous. If you see any
more of them I advise you keep on going.”

Jeremy swallowed. The soldier spoke about the
infected like they were things not people, but was that really so
surprising? Anyone with The Peeling was insane with agony and doomed to die –
had any humanity still existed inside the woman now dead in the road?

“You go on now, sir? Get moving.”

Jeremy pulled the car back into first and headed
forward, steering around the mutilated corpse of the woman. The soldier
remained standing in the road and watched until Jeremy was out of sight.

***

Stratford had become a military outpost like
many other small towns with open areas. Further downriver, the waters teemed
with gunboats, and the roads led to checkpoints in all directions. Cars and
houses lay abandoned, while large fires raged in many open areas. Jeremy had a
morbid realisation that the soldiers were building pyres and stacking them with
the bodies of infected. The movement amongst the flames made it clear that not
all the bodies were dead.

What the hell was happening? In only the nine
or ten hours since Jeremy had travelled to work, things had deteriorated
to frightening levels. A police state was in effect and sick people were being
quarantined and burned alive. Even the healthy were being caged inside their
homes without compassion. Jeremy turned a corner, heading away from town, and
saw a squad of Royal Fusiliers boarding up a house while frightened people
tried to escape through the windows. A small boy actually managed to get free
of the house and made a run for it down the road. A moment later the boy was
dead, a rifle round between his shoulder blades. Jeremy couldn’t even tell if he’d
been infected.

Jeremy thought about his wife. Would he return
home to find that she had been rounded up, too? Rotted away and thrown on a
fire? The thought made his foot stamp down harder on the accelerator. Once he
was home he would stay there until the very end, until it was over. What he
would do then, he did not know. His life would go on whilst his wife’s would
end. In many ways he envied her. The world going on around him was not one he
wanted to be a part of anymore. In less than twenty-four hours things had
gotten so bad that he dreaded to think about what just one more day would
bring.

***

The military presence reduced as he left the
town centre and headed into the residential areas. By the time he reached his
own house, it’d been almost ten minutes without seeing another soul. His home
was dark, the windows shaded by closed curtains. The light had started to hurt
his wife’s eyes and the lamps had all been left off since the night before. Her
condition had been in the early stages then – he worried what she would be like
now. The virus worked so fast, a destructive force akin to an invading army.
The body’s skin and muscle cells got obliterated, one by one, helplessly
succumbing to infection until they were nothing more than soup.

Jeremy parked the car up on the curb and turned
off the engine. He stepped out and pressed the key fob, locking the car. Then
he started up his path and headed for his front door. Before he got there,
though, it opened from the other side.

“Hey, honey. I’ve been waiting for you to get
home. It’s been lonely without you.”

Kara hopped off of the doorstep and took Jeremy
by surprise, planting a kiss on his mouth and slipping in her tongue. He pushed
her away.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Everything,” he said, stepping through into
the house while she followed. “Have you looked outside the window lately?”

“No. I don’t want to know what’s going on out
there. It’s too frightening. Is it bad?”

Jeremy stared at her. “You have no idea.”

Kara approached him and put her arms around his
shoulder and planted another kiss on his cheek. “Well, as long as we still have
each other.”

Jeremy pushed her away again and sighed. “Kara,
what are you doing here? Where’s your sister?”

“In bed. She wasn’t feeling good so she went to
sleep.”

Jeremy thought about his wife, alone upstairs
and suffering. He felt outraged at Kara. Did she not care? It was her sister,
for Christ’s sake. He took a deep breath and fought to remain calm. “How is
she?” he asked. “Is it bad?”

“What do you think? Hasn’t that news station of
yours found a cure yet?”

Jeremy huffed. “They’re journalists, not
doctors. And to answer your question, no. There is no cure. It’s killing
everyone who has it.”

Kara slumped down on the sofa and finally seemed
to get a little more serious as concern etched itself across her face. Perhaps
she did care about her sister after all. “There’s really nothing anyone can
do?” she asked.

Jeremy shook his head. “That’s why we need to
look after your sister – my wife. Carol needs our love and support. We can’t
fool around behind her back anymore. I’m done behaving like that.”

Kara didn’t reply. She stared at the blank
television screen as though the glass were a portal to another, more
interesting life. Jeremy didn’t care to console her. He’d had enough of his
wife’s younger sister. Once Carol passed on, she could leave, go back to her
own place, and they should never speak again. If he was honest with himself,
his wife was the only woman he had ever truly loved, and once she was gone, he
was giving up on women for good.

Jeremy didn’t want to waste any more time. The
value of a second had increased exponentially since The Peeling had found its
first victim – whoever that might have been. He placed his foot on the first step
of the staircase and looked up. The second floor seemed miles away – another
world, filled with horrors and regret. He began to climb, dreading what he
would find upstairs. What pain would Carol be in? Would she cry out when he
entered, or would she remain silent like the woman gunned down in the road? He
was about to find out.

Reaching the top of the stairs, he headed
across the landing to the master bedroom, where he placed an ear against the
door and listened. Silence. Without even realising it, his hand went to the
handle and began turning it. A moment later, his legs carried him through into
the bedroom.

Carol was asleep in their double bed, the duvet
kicked down to the bottom of the mattress. She was hot and the heat of her
fever filled the room with a sweaty aroma. Her body was pale and smooth, but
still healthy. Her face however…

Jesus Christ!

…her face was little more than a sinewy skull.
Her jaw and teeth were utterly exposed, making it seem like she was grinning
constantly. Her cheeks had worn away, leaving her eyeballs sunken beneath the
thin, translucent scraps of her eyelids. Beautiful brunette hair lay
disembodied on the pillow, no longer attached to her head. She looked like a
corpse. Yet she breathed.

“Sweetheart?” Jeremy approached cautiously, not
wanting to startle her. If she was in pain, then it was probably cruel of him
to bother her at all. But he needed to talk to her. It was time to confess his
sins.

Slowly, the tissue-like skin of her eyelids
rose. Beneath them, his her eyes were as they’d always been: green and full of
life.

“J-Jerry?”

“Yes, sweetheart. It’s me. How are you
feeling?”

Despite the mess that was her face, Carol
managed a weak laugh. “My face felt like it was on fire earlier, but now I
can’t feel anything at all. It’s…nice.”

Jeremy placed himself down on the bed. The
sheets were damp and bloody. He noticed that a patch of skin the size of a
hockey puck had begun to rot away on her side. The smell was sweet and odious.

“I’m going to be here for you now, my love. I’m
not going back to work.”

“I…I thought you’d been ordered to?”

“Screw their orders. Besides, I don’t think they’ll
be any orders left this time tomorrow.”

Carol’s eyelids fluttered and it seemed like
she was going back to sleep. Jeremy was prepared to let her, but was surprised
when her eyes opened wide again and seemed completely awake.

“My…sister was here.”

“Kara? She’s downstairs. Did you want to speak
with her?”

She shook her head gently. “No. No. Just tell
her…I forgive the both of you. I don’t want to die angry.”

Jeremy’s throat clammed up, and for a second he
thought he might choke. She had known all along? About him and her sister?
Would she know that he had been planning to tell her everything? Had the
absolution of confession been taken away from him now? Would it have even
counted anyway? To tell somebody something on their deathbed was not brave. In
fact, it was downright cowardly.

“How did you know?”

“She’s not exactly subtle, my sister – always
here, sniffing around you. Doesn’t matter now. You can be together.”

“That’s not what I want. I don’t care about
her, or anyone else. The only woman I love is you.”

She patted him on the hand. Her skin was soft,
fragile. “I know. I know none of those women were anything other than sex to
you. You disgusted me for years, but eventually I accepted that it was just
your nature to be so…weak. I…I had my own fun in the end.”

Jeremy stood up from the bed. “What?”

Carol smiled. “I’ve probably fucked around more
than you…these last few years.”

“You goddamn whore!”

“I’m not ashamed of it, Jerry. It was fun. You
should know.”

Jeremy backed away, towards the door. He could
barely believe the grinning skull on the bed was the woman he’d been married to
for twenty years. “W-why are you telling me all this?”

“Because I don’t want to die with secrets,
and…and despite everything I’ve always loved you. None of it really matters
anymore, other than the fact we loved each other in our own way.”

Jeremy lowered his shoulders and took a few
breaths while he digested what he’d just heard. His stomach ached and he felt
sick – but Carol was right. None of it mattered. He loved this woman and he
wanted to be with her. He sat back down on the bed.

“Can I do anything to help?”

Carol took a long, laboured breath, and a
sliver of skin fell from her neck, sliding away onto the bed sheets. “I don’t
want to die…”

“I know that, sweetheart. I know.”

“…later. I want to die…now.”

Jeremy looked at
his wife, deep into her eyes – the only part of her that was still the same as
when he’d married her. “What?”

“I don’t want to
lie here rotting away. I don’t want to feel the pain when my body begins to
bleed. I’ve said all I needed to say. I’m ready.”

“You can’t ask
me to-”

“You owe me.”
She said the words forcefully, suddenly full of vitality – but it only lasted a
minute before she seemed to deflate again.

She was right,
Jeremy told himself. He owed her many things. Their whole marriage had been
marred by him abusing her integrity and violating her trust. What she was
asking for now was dignity – a simple thing. The dignity of refusing to let the
virus defile her body in the same ways that he had defiled their marriage. But
he couldn’t kill her. No way.

“I’m sorry. I
won’t.”

Carol stared at
him. He couldn’t tell if she was angry. The facial muscles that would usually
form expressions were all gone from her face now.

“I understand,”
she whispered. “Leave me alone.”

“What do you
mean?”

“If I have to go
through this, I want to do it alone. I don’t want anyone watching while I die.
If you won’t help me, then give me some privacy.”

The last thing
Jeremy wanted was to leave her alone. To die with no one around was be a
lonely, helpless demise, but it was Carol’s choice, not his. He stood up from
the bed.

“I’ll check on
you later,” he said.

“No, don’t.
There’s nothing you can do for me.”

Jeremy’s heart
felt like a weight in his chest and it was difficult to drag his body away from
his wife’s bedside. They may never talk again. This was goodbye.

He left the room
without another word. Anything he’d said wouldn’t have been enough. Downstairs,
Kara was still sitting on the living room sofa. She had switched on the
television and was watching it intently. She showed no interest in his presence
and did not ask about the state of her sister.

“Carol is in a
bad way, in case you were wondering.”

Kara turned her
head away from the television and looked at him. “Should I go see her?”

Jeremy sat down
on the sofa beside her, making sure to stay as far away on the cushions as
possible. “She wants to be left alone.”

“Okay.” Kara
went back to watching the television.

“Do you even
care?”

“Of course I do.
She’s my sister. But there’s nothing I can do. I don’t want to watch while she
rots away.”

“Then why are
you even here?”

She stared at
him again and this time seemed very sad. “To be with you. I thought you cared
about me.”

Jeremy sighed.
“I…I do. You know I do. But Carol is dying and it’s not right anymore. I’m sick
of hating myself.”

“She’s dying. We
can be together.”

“I’m sorry, but
I don’t want that. The world is a mess. The last thing I can concentrate on
right now is a relationship.”

Kara stood up
from the sofa and shook her head. She’d suddenly become very emotional. “You
really want to be alone while the world dies around you? We need to look after
each other. You need to look after me.”

“What do you
mean? You can look after yourself.”

Kara wouldn’t
look at him. She averted her eyes and stared at the wall.

“Kara? What is
it?”

“What do you
care? You’ve made your feelings clear enough.”

Jeremy sighed
and lifted himself off the coach. He went over and put his palm against her
back. “Tell me what’s really wrong. You’re not this upset because of me.”

She broke down
in tears and buried her head against his chest. It was then that he smelt the
same sweet odour that had come from Carol’s rotting flesh. He eased her away so
that he could look at her. “You have it, don’t you?”

It looked as
though Kara wanted to speak, but was unable to. Instead she nodded solemnly and
reached a hand up to her long, brown hair. She scooped it away from her neck
and exposed the skin. Beneath her right ear was a blistering patch of skin.

Jeremy bit at
his bottom lip and almost drew blood. “How long?”

“I noticed this
morning. I came straight here to wait for you. I was hoping you’d know how to
help me, that you would have gotten answers at the news station.”

“How did you
even get here? The military have the roads blocked up.”

“I walked. I
kept away from the main roads.”

“You walked four
miles through that hell out there?”

“It was better
than being alone. I thought if I came here, you’d look after me.”

“I will,” Jeremy
said. “Of course I will.”

“You’ve changed
your tune.”

Jeremy huffed.
It suddenly felt like he hadn’t slept in weeks. “I care about you, Kara. You’re
Carol’s sister.”

“Carol’s
sister. Is that all I am to you now? A fucking obligation?”

Jeremy sat back
down on the sofa and rubbed at his face. “Kara, if you want me to look after
you, I will, but that’s all. I’m not going to argue with you, not now.”

“You mean now
that I’m dying?”

Jeremy wasn’t
going to lie, so he nodded.

“There’s really
not going to be a cure?” she asked.

“No. I don’t
think so. The Government haven’t even worked out how it spreads, let alone how
to beat it.”

Kara slumped
down on the sofa beside him and seemed defeated, all the energy had gone from
her voice. “How did I get it? When you came over to warn me that people were
getting sick, I stayed away, kept indoors. I never went near anyone infected,
but I still got it. How does that make sense?”

“I don’t know.
It doesn’t. Truth is nobody really knows anything about The Peeling.”

“But it’s bad
isn’t it? I mean, really really bad.”

Jeremy nodded.
“At the rate it’s going, half the world is going to die. Half the people get it
while the other half don’t.”

“Guess you’re
one of the lucky ones.”

Jeremy laughed,
but didn’t find anything funny. “Doesn’t feel that way.”

Kara pulled her
legs onto the sofa and laid herself across his lap. He let her. Together they
watched the television in silence, trying to clear their minds of horror.
Ironically, Never Stop News was on. Sarah and Tom were continuing to give the
news with as much pluck as they could muster, but Jeremy could tell the toll
was becoming too much for them. Sarah’s face was pasty and wiry strands of hair
clumped against her damp forehead.

“They look as
lost as everyone else,” Kara said.

Jeremy stroked
her hair and was shocked by the heat coming off her head. “That’s because they
are. They’re as frightened and as lost as we are. They’re just trying to help
by making us think that things are still normal. The news and weather make
people feel like there’s still someone in charge.”

“And is there?”

“I guess so. The
military are everywhere, ever since General Whitehead took over after Lloyd
Collins died.

“Jerry?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m scared.”

“Me too.”

***

Six hours later
and The Peeling had taken all of the skin from Kara’s neck, so much so that her
windpipe was now exposed. Jeremy wasn’t repulsed. The sight of rotting flesh
had become commonplace.

On the
television, Sarah and Tom were still reporting about The Peeling, refusing to
wrap things up while the cameras were still running. They would both have
usually left the station by now. By the weary looks on their faces, Jeremy had
a grim feeling that, behind the cameras, the military had become the directors.
Their promises of staying out of the station may have been overridden as things
continued to deteriorate.

“While we are
yet to receive confirmation, rumours have begun to circulate that researchers
at the National Institute for Medical Research in London have made a
breakthrough concerning the transmission method of the virus. We are persistent
in our attempts to get more information on this matter, so please bear with
us.”

“What difference
doessss it make?” Kara’s voice had taken on a serpentine hiss as her throat
rotted away. “Unless it’s a cure, it’s no good to anyone.”

Jeremy sucked in
a breath and listened to it whistle between his teeth. His stomach felt empty,
nauseous. While Kara was correct in her pessimism, it was still welcome news to
hear that somebody had possibly discovered something about the nature of the
virus. Knowledge made the virus seem more natural, more beatable, and less like
an unstoppable flesh-consuming monster. If people knew how it was passed on,
the fight to contain it could finally begin. Not that Jeremy would have
anything left in his life to fight for if mankind succeeded in
destroying the beast.

“How do you
feel?” he asked Kara.

She tried to
laugh, but her tattered vocal chords seemed to lack the ability now. “I feel like
my head’s going to fall off into my lap any minute. My neck feels numb, like
it’s not even there anymore.”

Jeremy was about
to tell her he was sorry, but then decided it would be a pointless gesture.
Apologies provided no solace. Besides, Kara seemed to be growing angrier rather
than brooding.

“This is
probably what I deserve, you know?” she asked him.

“What do you
mean?”

“I mean, I’ve
been fucking my sister’s husband – among my many other sins – and this is
probably my punishment.”

Jeremy shook his
head. “She forgives us.”

“What? She
knows?”

“Yes. She told
me earlier. She loves us both and forgives us.”

Kara hitched
forward and tears were instant in their arrival. As they fell down her face,
they gathered flakes of skin and a film of blood from her cheeks, so fragile
was her flesh. “I’ll go to hell for what I’ve done. Carol can forgive – she’s a
better person than us – but I doubt God will be so compassionate.”

“Don’t talk
nonsense, Kara. We all do things we regret. Carol isn’t holding it against you,
so you shouldn’t hold it against yourself.”

“Fuck you!” The
outburst was sudden and vicious. “You’re the one who should be melting away,
not my sister. You’re the one that’s spent your whole marriage fucking around.
What did you ever do for her? Nothing! Yet she’s the one dying while you’re
perfectly fine.”

Jeremy sighed
and tried to keep his focus on the television. He had a feeling that she would
strike at him if he made eye contact. “If I could take her place, I would.”

“You’re a liar.
They have a cure at that news station. Look at them. They’re fine, just like
you.”

Jeremy looked at
Sarah’s tired face on the screen and shook his head. “Actually, one of the
reporters has the virus. She showed me earlier.”

“Bullshit!” Kara
sprung up from the couch. You have a cure, but you won’t share it. With me and
Carol out of the way, you can carry on screwing around. Probably already got a
new fancy-woman.”

Jeremy stood up
and backed away. He could sense violence inside Kara and he wasn’t interested
in stoking that particular fire. Nonetheless, she came at him, withered fingers
outstretched like talons.

He stepped aside
and shoved out, sending her sprawling sideways onto the couch. As she fell, her
legs shot forward and upended the coffee table. Immediately her ankle began to
bleed. She clutched at it and sobbed.

“I’m fucking
melting,” she wailed. “What did I do to deserve this? I’m not a bad woman – not
really. I don’t deserve this. I don’t. I don’t.”

Jeremy left
while she was distracted. A madness seemed to have overtaken her and his
presence seemed to make it worse. He felt endangered, an enemy inside his own
home. He wanted to see Carol. He wanted to be with his wife.

At the top of
the stairs, the noise of the television faded away and Jeremy was again met
with the eerie silence of the landing. There was every chance that Carol was
dead already – part of him wanted that peace for her. If she had passed on, he
would sit with her for awhile and hope that, somewhere, someplace, she was
still with him. But when he opened the door, he saw that the mercy of death had
not yet visited his wife.

Carol lay on the
bed, looking more like a puddle than a human being. Her skin clung to her now
only in patches and in many places her bones were showing clearly. But her
eyes…her eyes were still flawless. Beautiful.

He sat down on
the bed and went to touch her, but then realised there was nowhere he could do
so without causing her pain. “I love you, Carol. I wanted to tell you that one
more time.”

It was an
obvious effort for Carol to form words, but she seemed eager to do so all the
same. Her voice was a crackling wheeze. “I…love…you…too.”

“I wish I had
more time with you. I wish there was time to make it all okay. I’m going to
miss you every minute till the time I join you. I just hope that when I get
there, you’ll be waiting for me. If not…I’d understand.”

Carol’s eyes
flickered as if fighting away sleep – or death. Jeremy wasn’t sure if she’d
heard the words he’d just spoken, but he hoped so. Eventually she came back to
him and managed to speak again. “Please, Jerry…please.”

“What,
sweetheart? What do you want?” But she didn’t need to answer. He knew what she
was asking for. He nodded, felt tears well up behind his eyes. “Okay.”

He leant forward
and kissed his wife’s forehead. His lips came away moist and sticky, but he did
not care. Trying to be as gentle as possible, he pulled loose one of the
pillows beneath his wife’s head. Her eyes stared at him intently and he knew
that if she could, she would have been smiling. By doing what he was about to
do, Jeremy could show his wife the kindness in death that he could not give her
in life. Jeremy put the pillow to his wife’s face and pressed down. It took
only a minute for her to die.

Jeremy sat with
Carol for almost a full hour before he left her. He knew that once he exited
the bedroom, she would truly be gone forever. Part of him had also been curious
to see whether her body would continue to rot away after death. It had not. If
he’d obeyed her requests earlier, then her body would have been more intact as
it was lying there now. It was just one more regret to add to his list.

Downstairs, Kara
was missing. The television was still switched on and, if he wasn’t mistaken,
the volume had increased. Sarah and Tom were still reporting and there was an
urgency about them now that he’d never seen before. He looked around the living
room, but found only shadows.

“It has now been
categorically proven,” Sarah said on the television, “that the virus is passed
on through carriers. While only fifty-percent of those exposed to the infection
become symptomatic, it has been discovered that the other fifty-percent are not
immune as originally thought. The seemingly unaffected are in fact passing on
the virus by becoming highly-infectious carriers. While half of the population
is dying, it is the other half who are infecting them. It is for this reason
that a nationwide quarantine is now has now been put in effect. Healthy or
infected – all will be restrained if found outside their homes at any times.
Lethal force will be used if necessary. Through isolation, it is hoped that the
infection will reach a saturation point and that non-symptomatic sufferers will
remain healthy. There is still hope for a great deal of us, Great Britain, but
we must stay calm, and we must stay indoors. Never Stop News is now the
official channel for the British Government, along with the BBC, so please
leave your television on at all times for further updates. We will be
interspersing our regular newsfeed with episodes of Friends and The
Simpsons, so sit back and enjoy that as it’s coming up next.”

“You did this.”

Jeremy turned
his head away from the television and saw Kara moving out from one of the
room’s shadowy corners. Her face had peeled away from her skull and her
snarling mouth made her look like a vengeful demon.

“I did what?”
Jeremy asked her.

“You infected
Carol and you infected me. You are the one who should be dead.”

“You don’t know
that I have it. You don’t know anything.”

“Yes, I do. I
haven’t been around anyone since this whole thing started – no one, except for
you. You fucked me last week.”

Jeremy thought
about earlier in the week when he’d popped round to see Kara at her home –
popped round for his weekly booty call and to warn her about the virus. “I’m
sorry,” he said, worrying that she could be right, that he could be the one
responsible for his wife’s death, and others.

“Quiet!” Kara
stepped further out of the shadows. She was holding a large carving knife from
the kitchen. “I don’t want to hear you anymore.”

Jeremy nodded.
“Okay.” He made no move to get away, unsure whether Kara even had it in her to
do him harm. In normal circumstances, he thought not, but these were not normal
circumstances and she was most certainly not her usual self.

“You’ve been
fucking us both for a long time, but now it seems like you really got the job
done. You’re a murderer, Jerry. If Carol and I had never let you near us then
we would be okay. We would be healthy.”

“Half the world
has The Peeling, Kara. You would have gotten it anyway, one way or another.
Carol is my wife; you really think I would infect her purposefully?”

Kara came closer
with the knife. Still Jeremy did not move. She growled at him, blood spilling
from her lips and covering the exposed bone of her lower jaw. “Men like you
have been a sickness on women since time began. Women have always suffered
because of misogynistic perverts like you.”

“You’re talking
nonsense. The Peeling is killing as many men as women. It’s just luck of the
draw who gets infected.”

Kara came at him
with the knife. “Lies! You did this. You killed us!”

Jeremy was about
to dodge the knife attack, but at the last second he decided to remain in
place. He thought about seeing Carol again as the knife entered his chest and
forced him back like a punch. He fell backwards onto the sofa, blade jutting
out from between his ribs, and ended up facing the television. Joey and
Chandler were playing foosball in a world that knew not of such horrors as The
Peeling. It was a nice way to go, and by the time Jeremy bled out, he almost
managed to kid himself that the world still had a chance.

THE PEELING: BOOK 2

(THE STADIUM)

Brett
rummaged through the defrosting contents of the grimy industrial freezer and
frowned. The police or the army, or whoever, had finally cut the power in the
area and the stacked supplies of cheap burger patties and hotdogs were now
starting to thaw. They would go bad in a matter of days. The French fries would
fare a while longer, but they wouldn’t last forever either. It made Brett
realise that, at some point, the situation would have to change. Birmingham’s
BR Football Stadium wouldn’t provide them refuge forever. Eventually he
and all the others would have to face the outside world again.

When The Peeling
first hit, people had been content to lock themselves away inside their homes
to wait it out. You could see a person with the infection a mile off – rotting
skin and blistering flesh pulling back to reveal bone. People assumed that so
long as they kept themselves isolated, they would be okay. When news came out
that the victims of the plague – those suffering with the rot – were not the
contagious ones, things changed. It quickly became public knowledge that the
infection was transmitted via random carriers – from among those who displayed
no outward symptoms but carried the disease all the same. The healthy
population were the ones to be afraid of.

Brett hadn’t
paid much attention to the news back then. He’d decided there were more
constructive things to do then to wallow in the misery on television. A local
action-group had formed amongst the residents of Smethwick, the Birmingham
district where Brett lived, and he had been only too happy to join with them.
With the blessing of the local authorities, the group of concerned citizens had
been granted permission to temporarily leave the quarantines of their homes and
congregate in a public area. The leader of the committee, Reverend Long, had
chosen the BR Stadium – home of the local lower-division football team. The
elderly vicar was a big football fan.

A military
escort had accompanied the Reverend whilst he visited the homes of the nearby
parish, collecting Christians, Muslims, and atheists alike. Many did not open
their doors, for fear of allowing the pestilence inside, but many others did
and were relieved at the opportunity to leave. Brett had been one of those
people. He’d joined up eagerly with the growing group, glad to once again have
company after his parents had died. But even back then, he had been questioning
himself about whether it was the right thing to do, leaving his home.

Along the way to
the stadium, the military had been rough with the group of civilians and those
seeking to join them. Brett had seen soldiers exercise lethal force several
times, especially against any infected people trying to run towards the group.
Brett had panicked at the sight of the already-bleeding bodies being ripped
apart by automatic rifle-fire, and so had most others in the group, but
Reverend Long had raised his hands to address the crowd and endeavoured to keep
them calm. He told them their focus needed to be on helping those still within
helping. There would be time to mourn the dead and the atrocities committed on
them later. Brett had been uneasy around the military ever since.

“How we doing,
Brett?”

Brett turned
around to see Emily, with her bright ginger hair and dorky spectacles. He
shrugged at the girl and told her the truth. No point in lying. “The food is
all defrosting,” he said. “It’ll go bad eventually. Luckily it’s all processed
rubbish and not fresh stuff, or we’d have even less time to eat it. Can’t
believe those assholes cut the power. What are they trying to do?”

Emily adjusted
her spectacles and glanced into the freezer behind him. “Perhaps you should
shut the door then and keep in the cold as long as we can then. I’m sure
everything will work out okay. They’ll probably give us back the power soon.”

Brett sighed.
Emily, like many other people in the group, had not yet grasped the seriousness
of their situation. They still thought the squads of riflemen surrounding the
stadium were there to keep everybody safe, and that the power cut was due to
some sort of technical hiccup. Brett knew the truth, though. The stadium had
been quarantined, and any attempt to leave would be met with a bullet. They
were just ants now, stuck inside a bottle hoping somebody would take off the
lid.

When the news
had broken that the infection passed via the healthy and not the infected, the
world’s dynamic had changed. Suddenly, the brief freedom Brett and the others
in the group had been granted was eliminated. Suddenly, they were the ones who
were dangerous, not the sickly-skinned lunatics rotting away in their homes. An
Army officer had informed Reverend Long that his group were to remain inside
the stadium until further notice, and make no attempt to leave. It was made
clear that the consequences would be severe if anyone made a run for it.

That had been
three days ago. Now, after another horrible night’s sleep on the cement floor
of the East Stand kitchen, Brett had been placed in charge of the food
reserves. Luckily, the stadium had several snack bars that all backed onto the
same kitchen and staff areas. The supplies were allocated to provide for the
twenty-thousand football fans that used to fill the stadium every weekend,
which meant there was plenty of food for now, but a great part of it was
perishable. What made Brett so mad was how people were tearing into chocolate
bars and crisp packets like they were having a party. Something about being
able to help themselves to bottles of pop and cans of cider made them feel
unadulterated. It was the mob mentality of looting, and it seemed to make them
happy, but what they didn’t seem to realise was that every mouthful of snack
food they ate was a mouthful they wouldn’t have later when they really needed
it. They were eating the non-perishable items first and that had to stop. It
would have to be cold burgers all around for the next few days.

“So what you up
to today?” Emily asked him as if they were buddies.

“I don’t know,”
he answered testily. The girl irritated him. “Guess I’ll see if the Reverend
needs anything done.”

Emily giggled at
him and bopped him on the arm. “Are you always so work work work? You should
let others worry about things for a day. You and me are just teenagers. We
should leave it to the adults.”

“I’m twenty-two,
Emily, and this isn’t a game. Things are bad. Those soldiers outside will shoot
anyone who tries to leave, which eventually we will be forced to do.
Half the country is dead or dying, and we might be infected with the thing that
killed them. We’re fucked.”

Emily winced at
his language and adjusted her spectacles. Her freckled cheeks went a shade
redder. “No need to speak to me like that. I’m just being friendly.” The girl
walked away and, if Brett was honest, he didn’t care. Emily was a pest as far
as he was concerned. She needed to get her head in the game. So did everybody
else.

Reverend Long
would probably be at his usual place at the centre circle of the football
pitch, so Brett headed there now. The football pitch was outside, with the
stadium built around it on all sides, comprised of four stands. The snack bar
and kitchen was in the East Stand, which also housed a bank of televisions that
had kept everyone informed about the ongoing situation until the power had
ceased that morning. Last anybody had heard was that the UK’s quarantine
procedures had been increased indefinitely until a screening process was put
into place.

Brett took one
of the several flights of cement steps leading up to the pitch and the stadium
seating. The dull sunshine hit him as he rose to the outside. Birds chirped
from the rafters as if all was right with the world. How wrong they were. In
the centre of the pitch, Reverend Long conducted one of his regular sermons
that were as much about organisation and survival as they were religion. People
looked to the holy man as their leader by default, but Brett had his suspicions
that the man was out of his depth. People were scared and Reverend Long was
doing his best to comfort them, but he wasn’t trained to deal with a situation
like this.

“Ah, young
Brett. How are things in the pantry?”

Brett took the
final few steps across the football pitch and placed himself in front of the
Reverend so that their conversation was private from the other people gathered
around. “We have plenty of food, Reverend, but most of it will go bad in only a
few days. The freezer’s still pretty cold at the moment, but with the power
off...”

Reverend Long
placed a hand on Brett’s shoulder and gave him a warm smile. “The lord will
provide, young Brett. Do not fret.”

Brett sighed.
“So what’s next? Any news from outside?”

“I spoke with
Captain Lewis this morning. His men still won’t allow us to leave – in fact
they wouldn’t even let me near the turnstiles. I had to shout out through the
entrance like a hooligan.”

“They can’t keep
us in here forever. It’s not right.”

“I agree.
Fortunately, so does Captain Lewis. He has assured me that he is doing
everything he can to move things along and get us out of here. We just need to
be patient.”

“Bullshit,” said
someone from behind Brett. It was Ethan. Ethan was a pudgy businessman and
local property developer. He was well known in the West Midlands and Brett
hadn’t liked the man from the moment they’d met.

“There’s little
need for such language, Ethan,” said Reverend Long.

“Like hell there
isn’t. Do you honestly believe that professional thug and his band of
mercenaries are ever going to let us out of here? They’ve got every exit
covered. Our choices are to starve in here or face a bullet in the chest.”

“Young Brett
here has just assured me that we are perfectly okay, food-wise.”

Brett frowned.
That wasn’t strictly true.

“For now,” said
Ethan. “But we can’t live on dodgy hamburgers forever. We need to get out of
here, back to our homes.”

More like
your cushy mansion, thought Brett,
understanding why the man wanted out, but he couldn’t deny that the
businessman’s concerns were on par with his own. It was almost as if Reverend
Long had chosen to interpret the food report how he’d wanted.

“What do you
suggest, Ethan?” Brett asked. “If you have a solution, I’d love to hear it.”

“We fight our
way out. There could only be a dozen soldiers out there. There’re almost fifty
of us.”

Brett shook his
head and laughed. “That’s ridiculous. They’ll rip us to shreds before we even
make it ten feet. And it’s not just the army out there anyway; there’s a load
of police as well.”

“The police
aren’t armed. It’s only the soldiers we need to worry about. We can take them,
I’m telling you. I’m not the only one who thinks so.”

Reverend Long
placed a hand between them and halted the conversation. “Please, Ethan.
Violence will accomplish nothing. We are all men here, inside the stadium and
out. We must not fight one another during these trying times.”

“Oh, stick a
sock in it, old man. Jesus isn’t going to save us. Everything is an utter mess
and those men outside are only interested in their own wellbeing. We can all
die for all they care. There’s been so much death recently that we’d be just
another statistic. It’s them or us, Reverend. You can keep your useless God for
yourself.”

“Calm down,” said
Brett. “If it’s them or us, then perhaps you should stop turning people against
each other. I agree with the Reverend: the time for violence is a long way off
yet.”

“Perhaps, but
believe me, before we know it, it will be the only option left.” With that
Ethan walked away and reintegrated with the throng of people that covered the
halfway point of the pitch.

“Asshole!”

“Forgive him,
young Brett,” Reverend Long soothed. “Worry makes men mask their fear with
anger.”

Brett shrugged.
“Maybe, but we don’t need people like him right now. Things are bad enough. We
all need to stick together.”

“You’re wise
beyond your years, boy. Perhaps you could do me a favour?”

“Of course.
What’s up?”

“Captain Lewis
has made a request that we make a list of everybody here – names and addresses.
He wishes to inform people’s families and also wants to know how many of us
there are in here. I’m assuming it may well have to do with them getting us
some supplies.”

It’s also a
great way to keep tabs on us, Brett
mused.

“Okay,
Reverend,” he said. “I’ll go get started.”

***

The attempt to
take down people’s names and addresses was met with hostility. The men and
women inside the stadium still did not really know one another and the thought
of giving away their personal details to a stranger was something they were
wary of, regardless of the fact that they no longer had homes, possessions, or
bank accounts to even worry about. But with a little bit of perseverance, and a
shedload of patience, Brett managed to overcome most people’s objections and
get their details. His list was now over fifty names long. Things had been
going pretty smoothly – that was until it was Ethan’s turn.

“Go screw
yourself, kid.”

Brett sighed and
decided to hold out the pen and paper anyway. “Ethan, I’m done arguing with you
today. Can you just help me out, please? I just need your address and surname.”

Ethan shoved the
paper back at him. “You know how I feel about those thugs outside. I’m not
telling you a thing. You know who else used to take lists? Nazis.”

A bout of
concerned whispering broke out amongst the people gathered nearby. They were
all huddled together, as if for protection.

“This isn’t
Hitler’s Germany, dude. This is England, so stop trying to scare everyone. They
just want people’s names so that they know how much supplies we need.”

“Then just give
them a number. Tell them that there’s one-hundred men and woman here to be
fed.”

Brett frowned.
“There’s not that many of us here.”

Ethan looked at
Brett as if he were a fool. “No shit, Sherlock. They don’t need to know that,
though, do they? The more people they think are in here, the more food they
will give us – and the less likely they are to attack us.”

The man had a
point, but there was a flaw in his
thinking. “Well, wouldn’t it be better if we said there were less of us than
there are. That way if they do launch an attack they’ll underestimate our
strength.”

Ethan’s face
contorted for a split second, as if the notion of being second-guessed by a
twenty-three year old was tantamount to blasphemy. Then the man cracked a smile
and patted Brett on the back. “That’s good thinking, kid. You should be using
that brain to have more ideas like that, instead of running around after that
geriatric preacher. We need to get ourselves ready.”

“You make it
sound as if we’re going to war.”

Ethan stared
Brett in the eye. “It’s about time people realised that we are.”

Brett sighed and
walked away. There was no point trying to force Ethan and his group to give
their details. In all honesty there was a chance that Ethan was right. Captain
Lewis may have requested the list so that he could strategize an attack on the
stadium.

Other than
firing off a couple of warning shots to those trying to leave, Lewis’s men had
not tried to enter the stadium or hurt anyone inside, but they’d made it very
clear that no one was to leave. There was no reason to doubt the captain and
his men just yet, but Brett would have felt less apprehensive about the
situation if he knew their endgame. How long were they planning to keep
everyone rounded up inside the stadium? What would they do once people started
running out of food? Were the Army still responsible for protecting people, or
had it become a different entity entirely? Brett thought about the movies he’d
seen about the Gestapo rounding up Jews and decided that perhaps the
situation wasn’t entirely dissimilar from Nazi Germany.

***

Brett headed
over to the turnstiles in the East Stand. They only allowed people inside, not
out. The large wooden hatch-door was used to let crowds out after a match, but
it had been barricaded by the soldiers outside. The same had been done with all
of the stadium’s exits, including the delivery bay off the kitchen. The only
way to speak to Captain Lewis was to approach him at the turnstiles and talk
across them.

When Brett got
there, he was met by the steely gaze of a squaddie. Brett didn’t know the man’s
rank but his arm featured two chevrons, which was less than he’d seen on the
uniforms of others, but one more than some.

“Halt!”

Seriously? Halt?
Why not, “who goes there?”

“I’d like to
speak with Captain Lewis. I have the list he requested.”

The soldier
nodded but did not leave his post. Instead he stuck a dirty finger in his mouth
and whistled before performing some bizarre hand gesture to someone unseen.

After a few
minutes, Captain Lewis arrived in front of the turnstiles. The officer was
fully-kitted in olive-green combat uniform, including helmet. He was taller
than his men and his bony face was covered by thick black stubble.

“Where is Father
Long?”

“He’s busy,”
Brett replied. “He asked me to gather this list for you.”

“Excellent. Good
work, chap. Hand it over.”

Brett kept a
hold of the handful of papers. “What do you want it for?”

The captain
glared at him for a moment, but then seemed to soften. “I need to know who we
have in there. Their families will want to know. Now, do as you’re told, lad,
and give me that list. There’s a good chap.”

“What about
supplies? Are you going to get us food? How about some blankets?”

The captain
shook his head. “I will make a request to my coordinator, but that’s not
something I can promise.”

“Then what
fucking use are you to us?”

“I beg your
pardon, young man? I suggest you show a little more respect to my rank.”

“I’m a civilian.
Your rank doesn’t mean shit to me. In fact, I wipe my arse on it. If you’re not
going to help us then we’re not going to help you.”

“Go and get
Father Long immediately.”

Brett stood
still.

“Do you hear
me?”

“I told you,”
said Brett. “I don’t take orders from you.”

Lewis took
several steps and closed the distance between them. “You’re playing a very
dangerous game here, young man. In case you didn’t notice, the world is a scary
place right now. It’s chaps like me that are the only thing protecting you.”

“Then tell us
what’s going on,” said Brett. “How long do you plan on keeping us here? People
are getting anxious.”

“Look,” Lewis
said, sounding a little more open to reason as he realised that his bluster
wasn’t working. “I will look into getting you some supplies, but you need to
calm down and stay inside. Now, how many of you are there?”

Brett thought
about Ethan’s theory about being attacked and chose not to answer the question.
“You get us some food and blankets, then we’ll talk.”

Brett turned
around and took the list of names with him. He didn’t know whether to fear
Lewis or not, but right now it seemed like it would be best to keep his cards
close to his chest. If the captain was just following orders then there would
be no way to know what he was planning to do.

As Brett
re-entered the East Stand eating area he was met by a commotion. There were
people gathered in a group outside one of the burger bars, while a middle-aged
man tried to hold them back. The man’s name was Steve and Brett had not seen
him so worked up before.

“Steve, what’s
wrong? What’s happening?”

“They’re trying
to get my little girl.” He screamed at the crowd surrounding him. “You’re all a
bunch of monsters.”

“She has it,”
said a brunette in her thirties. “She has The Peeling.”

Brett looked at
Steve and saw that the man was terrified and sweating. “Is it true? Is she
sick?”

Steve nodded.
“But she’s not contagious. You heard what the news said when we still had the
TVs. The infected are not contagious; it’s the carriers who pass it on.”

“We don’t know
shit,” someone shouted from the crowd. “We don’t know what causes it. We need
to get the girl out of here before we all end up catching it.”

Brett turned to
the baying crowd and raised his hands to keep them back. “Steve is right. If
his daughter is ill, then she’s no danger to us.” He turned back to Steve and
tried his best to smile reassuringly. “Come on, take me to her and we’ll see
what we can do for her.”

“She’s hiding in
the back. These animals scared her to death.”

Brett followed
Steve into the kitchen area of the burger bar, entering through a staff door.
The area was cold, and getting colder since the electricity had gone off. It
wouldn’t be long before the entire building became unbearably frigid as there
was no way to close off the entrances to the pitch side and the cold air
outside was free to whistle in through the corridors.

At the back of
the kitchen area, lying on an aluminium preparation table was Steve’s daughter.
Brett could not remember the young girl’s name, but he’d noticed her a few
times over the last few days. She was about eight-years old, thin and gangly
like her father. She wore a pink t-shirt that left her bleeding right arm
exposed. The flesh on her wrist was peeling away, hanging loose in a great wet
flap. There was no doubt that she had The Peeling.

“I noticed a
rash on her yesterday afternoon,” said Steve. “I can’t believe how fast it
spreads. Whatever this thing is, it’s pure evil.”

Brett looked
closer at the girl’s wound and noticed dozens of thin, red tendrils running
beneath the surface of her skin. It was almost as if he could see the virus
moving and spreading up her arm, rotting away more healthy cells with every
second.

“I don’t even
think she has a week,” Steve sobbed. “My poor, sweet darling.”

“I’m sorry,”
Brett said. “I wish I could do something for her.”

“There’s nothing
you can do for her,” said Ethan, strutting into the room. Reverend Long was
hurrying up behind him. “She’s already dead. We need to think about those who
are not.”

“Get out of
here,” Steve pleaded. “Just leave us alone.”

“I’m afraid I
can’t do that. We need to deal with this now.”

“For God’s
sake,” said Brett, then noticed the Reverend. “Sorry, Father.”

“God forgives
you.”

“I’m not doing
this to be horrible,” Ethan said. “I’m just being the pragmatist here because
nobody else wants the job. Your daughter could end up killing us all, Steve. We
need isolate her, or…”

“If you’re about
to suggest killing her then I would just shut your mouth,” said Steve. “No one
is hurting my daughter.”

“I was going to
suggest having the soldiers outside remove her.”

Steve shook his
head and leant over his daughter, sobbing and snivelling. “I won’t let them
have her. You’ve seen what they do to the infected. You all saw the piles of
bodies and the executions in the streets.”

“And right now,
we’re all safe from that,” said Ethan. “But your daughter is a threat to us
staying here.”

“I agree…” said
Brett.

Ethan grinned.
“Thank you!”

“But we’re not
going to turn on each other. Steve, you need to take your daughter away from
everybody else. I’ll help you take her up to the Press Box. Nobody goes there
and it’s away from everybody else. You can look after her there until…well,
until it’s over.”

“I also think
that is for the best, Steven,” Reverend Long added. “I will come and check on
you as much as I can.”

“This is
bullshit,” said Ethan. “If this thing is airborne then we need her completely
out of the stadium. We can’t risk breathing within a hundred meters of her.”

“Be quiet,” the
Reverend ordered, more forcefully then his usual manner would allow. “Don’t you
ever get tired of conflict?”

“Conflict is the
world we live in, padre. If you don’t all start waking up to reality then
there’s no hope for any of us.”

“It’s been
decided,” said Brett. “Steve is going to take his daughter upstairs and keep
her there. There’s no danger.”

“Fine, but I
swear you’re only going to get more of us killed.” Ethan stomped out of the
kitchen.

“Thank you,”
said Steve. “It doesn’t really matter, I suppose, but at least now I can make
sure my daughter dies with some dignity.”

Brett took
Reverend Long to one side and spoke quietly, so that only he could hear. “We
need to do something about Ethan. He wants to be in charge of everything like
this is one of his businesses.”

“If that’s what
people want then they will follow him. If not then they won’t. It is not my
place to influence people’s opinions.”

Brett sighed.
“But he’s going to make bad decisions. I can feel it.”

“Maybe so, but I
am not in charge of anybody here. What would you have me do, young Brett?”

“You need to
make sure people are busy. Get everyone working together and focused on
something. Then people will be too busy to listen to Ethan and will feel too
secure to take stupid risks.”

“Perhaps you’re
right. There are lots of things we could be doing. We need to ration food and
search for blankets.”

“We also need to
set up a barricade. I’m not sure I trust Captain Lewis and I don’t want to make
it easy for his men to get in here.”

“I’m not sure I
like the sound of that, but if you think it will make everyone feel better…”

“Okay,” said
Brett. “I’ll help Steve get upstairs and then I’ll get to work.”

***

Despite having
been in the stadium for three days, no one had fully searched the grounds. The
first thing Brett did was to gather up volunteers and split them into several
groups. He made a point to avoid Ethan and the small contingent that followed
him around like lost children. He knew the man would just try to take over
things.

There was now a
group that would search for food, blankets, and first aid kits, and another
group that was to look into starting a fire on the centre spot of the pitch.
Brett’s group was in charge of constructing barricades at all of the exits.

The stadium had
four main exits, one for each of the stands. There were also a couple of small
staff entrances leading outside from the kitchen and also from the club
offices. They blocked those off first – the one in the kitchen was now blocked
by a heavy freezer unit. The office exits were blocked with chairs and tables
that had not been used for the centre-pitch fire. The group were now in the
middle of manoeuvring a ride-on floor buffer to the turnstile entrances in the
Clark Stand. The Clark stand was where the Away supporters were usually located
and it backed onto an enclosed car park. It was here that the military and a
small police force had positioned the majority of their vehicles. Several tents
had also been erected, which Brett assumed housed the soldiers while not on
duty. It was crazy, but he felt like he was holed up in the middle of Helmand
Province, not a rundown district of Birmingham.

Of all people,
Emily was the one riding the big floor buffer. She had once been employed as a
part-time cleaner at a leisure centre and had driven one of the machines daily.
Truth be told, the teenaged girl seemed to know what she was doing and had
impressed everybody.

Brett pointed at
the turnstiles. “Okay, if you just pull it around here and park it in front of
the hatch doors at the centre. They open inwards so the weight of the machine
should be enough to stop anyone coming through.”

“What about the
turnstiles?” someone asked.

“I don’t think
there’s any way to reverse them. Maybe gather up some broom from the Janitor’s
closets and trap them in the mechanism as a precaution.”

The people in
the group did as they were told and Brett suddenly realised that he was giving
orders to a bunch of strangers. This time three weeks ago, he’d been
unemployed, an embarrassment to his parents and hoping to get noticed on Clipshare
for playing his guitar. Now he didn’t even have a guitar, both his parents were
dead, and he had found himself in a position of assumed responsibility – as
modest as it was. Brett had always felt like he had talent to offer the world,
but it turned out that everything had to turn to shit before he actually got
off his arse to try and do anything. He felt pretty ashamed of himself now.
He’d done nothing with the last twenty years of his life, and his parents had
both died of infection without ever having been proud of him. Of all the
millions who had died over the last fortnight, Brett didn’t feel like he
deserved to be one of the ones still healthy.

“Hold it right
there! What’s going on?”

Brett turned
around to see that one of the soldiers outside had walked up to the turnstiles
and was looking through at them. He did not look happy and his rifle was
slightly raised.

“We’re making
the place secure,” Brett replied matter-of-factly.

“Why? You’re
perfectly safe.”

Brett huffed and
took the few strides necessary to take him face to face with the soldier.
“Nobody is safe anymore. The rules have changed and you know it. The world has
gone fruitloops; you’ll have to forgive me if I don’t trust you just because
you’re wearing a uniform.”

Much to Brett’s
surprise the soldier actually smiled and lowered his weapon. “I suppose I can
understand that, but I can tell you right now that Captain Lewis is not going
to be happy about this. He’s going to insist that you move all this stuff away
from the doors.”

“The captain can
bite me. Where is he anyway?”

“He’s off duty.
I’m second in command. Lieutenant Bristow. Who’re you, lad?”

Brett answered,
despite himself. “Brett.”

“Good to meet
you, Brett. You’ve obviously got a decent melon on your shoulders to organise
people like this.”

“It would be
much better if you and your men helped us. We can’t survive here forever.”

“Have you asked
Lewis for help?”

Brett nodded.
“For all the good it did. When are you going to let us go? We don’t even know
what’s happening in the world anymore. Did you cut the power on us?”

“No. The power’s
out in most places. The stations are undermanned and it’s not safe to run them
without adequate staff. Things are…pretty bad all over, lad.”

“No kidding.”

“No, Brett. I
mean things are far worse than they were even a few days ago when you came
here. There’s no order left anymore. Lewis hasn’t received commands in almost
forty-eight hours now. The men are getting restless.”

Brett raised his
eyebrow. “Why the hell are you telling me this?”

The Lieutenant
shrugged. “I suppose because I don’t think there’s going to be much difference
soon between you and I.”

“Then why are
you keeping us in here?”

“Believe me, you
wouldn’t be any happier out here. There’s nothing but death and panic on the
streets. People with the infection have started wandering around like crazed
lunatics. The pavements are red with blood. Way I see it you people have it
better than anyone. This stadium is a paradise in comparison.”

Just then, Emily
returned with armfuls of broomsticks and mop handles. They were as tall as her
and it was a comical sight.

“You want some
help there, Em?”

“I’m fine, thank
you. Did you say you wanted them jammed in the turnstiles?”

Brett took a
step back from Lieutenant Barstow and nodded. “Yeah, make sure you jam them up
nice and tight. If this is going to be our home, then we’re damn well going to
protect it. You can tell your captain I said that, Lieutenant.”

The officer
shrugged his shoulders. “Will do. You all take care of yourselves.”

Brett
reorganised everyone and prepared to leave. He was even more confused about
what to think of the army outside now. Lieutenant Bristow seemed a lot more
trustworthy than his superior. In fact it seemed like the man barely considered
himself even much of a soldier anymore. The rules had apparently changed for
them al.

***

It was a couple of days later when Brett heard the shots.

Ethan was the
first on his feet and alert. Brett could hear the man shouting from somewhere
in the grounds. Ethan and those close to him slept in the executive boxes at
the top of the ground, while the other small groups of people were dotted around
the various stands. Steven and his daughter were alone in the Press Box. The
little girl would moan and cry long into the night. Once or twice, her father
had joined her.

Brett got up
from his bed on the floor of the East Stand staffroom. Emily was lying nearby
and quickly sat up. The girl had been bedding down next to him for a couple of
days now and had been getting gradually closer each night.

“Did you hear
that?” Brett asked her.

“It was
gunfire,” she said. “Least I think so. Is something going on outside?”

Brett got to his
feet. “Those bastards best not be trying to get inside.”

Brett ran out of
the East Stand and onto the pitch. The cold night air hit him in the face like
a slap and he suddenly realised he was without a t-shirt. Reverend Long also
stood on the pitch and Brett headed over to him.

“Ah, young
Brett. It appears we have some sort of commotion outside. Guns, I believe.”

“You’re sure
it’s coming from outside? Are the army trying to get in?”

“I don’t know.
Ethan just ran off to find out.”

“Which way? I’m
going after him.” Brett headed off in the direction Reverend Long indicated:
the Clark Stand.

When he got
there, Ethan was squeezed up against the turnstiles and peering through into
the darkness. There were more gunshots coming from outside, but they sounded
distant.

“What’s
happening?” Brett asked as he moved up beside Ethan.

“They’re
shooting at each other. Can you believe that?”

“Who are? The
Army?”

Ethan turned
around, his eyes wide and white in the dark. “The Army, the Police, I can’t
even tell, but they’re definitely taking shots at one another. I told you they
were all dangerous. Well done for putting up the barricades.”

“Thanks. Let me
have a look what’s going on.”

Ethan moved
aside and allowed Brett up to the turnstiles. It was hard to see anything
outside, except the jagged flashes of muzzle fire. The sound of bullets hitting
steel and masonry were mixed with the sounds of men dying. Whatever had
happened outside had turned lethal, but there would be no way to see what was
going on until the sun came back up. There was no way Brett was going to shout
out and draw attention to himself.

“I’m going to
keep guard,” said Brett. “Ethan, can you get some people to watch the other
exits? I can’t see a thing out there, but we have to be ready if anybody tries
to get inside.

“They won’t try
to get in here. Not tonight.”

“We don’t know
that.”

Ethan thought
about it and then nodded. “Okay.”

Ethan and a few
others headed back into the stadium, while Brett remained behind. It was only a
couple minutes before Emily arrived to keep him company.

***

“What do you
think things will be like?” asked Emily, sitting on the floor beside him. “I
mean, once this virus goes away and everything goes back to normal. So many
people have died. Not just from the disease either.”

Brett’s eyelids
felt heavy, but he did his best to stay with the conversation. “I don’t know. I
don’t think things will ever be normal again. For all we know, half the
world could be dead right now. People have lost their families…lost
everything.”

“What have you
lost, Brett?”

“To be honest I
had less to lose than most. I didn’t have many friends. My only family were my
parents and we…we weren’t that close. I guess I’m lucky when I think about it.”

“Nobody is lucky
anymore. This has been hard on all of us. It’s not a contest for who has lost
the most.”

Brett nodded and
smiled at her. Emily was annoying, but it seemed like her heart was in the
right place. “So what happened to you before we all got together?”

“I was at church
with Reverend Long. I’d just lost my mom and I didn’t know what to do, so I
went there. Couple days later a group of us decided to try and gather people up
and come here.”

“I reckon if you
hadn’t done that most of us would be dead. I don’t think it’s safe out there
anymore, not even at home.”

“I don’t think
so either. Still, I miss my bedroom, my bed…and I wish I’d taken my violin when
I’d left. Or my piano if I had the strength of ten men to carry it. God I miss
my piano.”

Brett’s eyes
widened. “You play music?”

She nodded
enthusiastically. “Yeah, I’m…I was studying Music Theory at college. I
can play violin, clarinet, piano, and a little bit of guitar. I was even in a
little band me and some of the other girl’s had as a hobby.”

“You’re shitting
me?”

“No, I’m
not…pooping you!”

Brett laughed.
“I play guitar, too. Music is my life – at least my old life.”

“Huh, maybe we
can play together one day?”

“Yeah,” said
Brett. “I’d like that.”

Emily smiled and
leant her head on his shoulder. Brett was surprised to find out that he didn’t
mind. In fact, within a few minutes they were both asleep, snoring besides the
turnstiles while the gunfire outside continued.

***

“Hey. Hey,
Brett! Brett wake up, son. I need your help.”

Brett opened his
eyes slowly, not knowing if a dream had woken him, or something else entirely.
When the steel turnstiles behind him rattled, he sat bolt upright with fright.
So did Emily, who let out a girlish yelp as she scuttled away on her hands and knees.

Lieutenant
Bristow was at the gate. He was breathing in short stutters and bleeding from a
wound in his shoulder.

Bret headed over
to the man to help him, but realised that the turnstiles were jammed up. “Shit,
man. What the hell happened out there? Are you okay?”

Bristow shook
his head. “I took a bullet. Captain Lewis went and lost his damn mind. Started
firing at the police officers who had set up with us when we got here. We
haven’t had orders in almost a week, so the captain decided he was going it
alone. He ordered the police to hand over their vehicles and supplies. When
they refused, Lewis started firing on them. They were unarmed and…they didn’t
stand a chance. That’s when I and some of the other men turned on the captain.
Our detachment split in two: Captain Lewis versus me. Luckily I came out on
top, but most of my men are dead, and I…I need help. You have to let me in. The
fighting’s not completely over. I don’t want any more of my men to get shot. We
need to rest.”

“Let him in,”
said Emily.

Brett turned to
her and shook his head, then nodded, then shook his head again. “I don’t know
if that’s a good idea.”

“You can’t leave
him out there to die.”

“It’s not like
we have any doctors in here that could even help him anyway.”

“Brett,” it was
the Lieutenant speaking. “I know that you’re all scared. I know that the Army
has done nothing to make you people feel safe, but trust me when I say that the
only chance any of us has is to stick together. I’m not following orders
anymore. I’m just a man like you, and I’m asking for your help.”

Brett’s gut had
told him to trust the Lieutenant the last time they had spoken, and it was
telling him the same thing now. The bullet wound in the man’s shoulder
suggested that his story was true enough.

Brett took a
step toward the turnstile.

“Don’t you dare
let that man in,” said Ethan, hurrying to get in front of him. “We’re not
letting a single one of those thugs in here. They were the ones keeping us
trapped in here. They made their own bed; they can damn-well lie in it. We owe
them nothing.”

“The Lieutenant
isn’t like that,” said Brett. “Captain Lewis is the one who wouldn’t let us
leave.”

“That’s right,”
Bristow spoke weakly. “Lewis is dead now. You can all leave if you want to, but
please help me first.”

Ethan was
unwavering. “You can die for all I care. The only people that matter are us in
here. We don’t need to risk our lives helping you. You and your men are the
reason this country has turned to shit as badly as it has. For every person
lost to The Peeling, there’s been just as many shot by barbarians in the Army.
I guarantee you that at the very least he stood by and watched it happen.”

“You’re right,”
said Bristow, his words thick with pain. “I did. I’ll never forgive myself for
following orders so blindly, but that is behind me now. All I can do is try to
make up for the past by helping to protect as many people as I can from now on.
But I need to rest before I can do that.”

Reverend Long
appeared and seemed confused by the scene that met him. “What on earth is
happening here?”

“Captain Lewis
lost control,” Brett said. “There’s people injured outside and they want in.”

“Which isn’t
going to happen,” Ethan added.

Reverend Long
looked across at Lieutenant Bristow lying bloody in the turnstiles. “If people
need help, it’s our obligation as human beings to help them.”

“If he gets in
here, we’re all dead,” said Ethan. “Do I have to remind you that they’re the
reason no one has been able to leave here in a week? And how many innocent
people have the army shot since things turned bad? It’s been a massacre, and
now you want to let one of them in here?”

“I think he’s
different,” said Brett.

“But you can’t
be sure,” Ethan replied.

“No, you’re
right. I can’t.”

Lieutenant
Bristow let out an anguished sigh. “Please. I’m begging you.”

Reverend Long
marched over to the turnstiles but Ethan stood in the man’s way. “Leave him,”
he said. “We don’t owe him anything.”

“We owe him
decency at the very least. I will not leave a man to suffer. The world may have
changed, but I have not.”

Ethan looked at
Brett and raised his eyebrow. “You going to let him do this?”

Brett wondered
why the hell the decision lay with him. Somehow, in the last few days, the
three of them must have formed some unspoken coalition. His vote was the
tiebreaker. But what should he do?

“Let him in.”

Ethan backed off
and let out an angered huff. “Fine. On your head be it. But make sure that we
have his rifle.”

Reverend Long
grabbed the broom handle blocking the mechanism of the turnstile and Brett
hurried up to grab a hold of the Lieutenant. Eventually they managed to drag
the wounded soldier through the entrance and into the hallway inside. The wound
in the Lieutenant’s shoulder left a slick red trail on the floor behind him.
Brett made sure to grab the rifle off the floor. It was heavier than expected.

“Right,” said
Brett, pointing the weapon at the floor. “Getting him inside is one thing. Now
what do we do to help him?”

Lieutenant
Bristow answered the question. He opened a small utility pouch on his belt and
said, “I have bandages and disinfectant. I just need someone to dress my wound.
I think the round went straight through. I should be okay.”

Brett handed the
rifle over to Ethan – immediately wondering if that was a good idea – and knelt
down beside Bristow. He reached into the man’s utility pouch and found gauze,
bandage, and a tiny bottle of Iodine. Reverend Long sat the soldier up while
Brett removed his clothing. Beneath the olive green t-shirt was a tiny,
circular hole that oozed blood. Brett doused the wound with the orange liquid
from the Iodine bottle and clamped down a square of gauze before the blood had
time to flood the area again. He held it there for a few seconds until the
blood fused it in place. A couple of minutes later Brett had Bristow’s entire
shoulder wrapped up in soft white bandage.

“How’s that
feel?”

“Better already.
I just need to rest.”

“I’ll get the
penthouse ready,” Ethan muttered.

“Ethan,”
Reverend Long scalded him. “Please…”

“It’s okay,”
said Bristow. “He’s right to be hostile. I’m grateful to you people for helping
me, truly.”

“Don’t mention
it,” said Brett. “You think you can stand?”

Bristow nodded
and Brett helped him to his feet. He seemed a little shaken but his body was
stiff and powerful, trained for survival. Brett felt better having a grizzled
soldier in their midst. He felt surer that his decision to let him through the
turnstiles was the right one. That didn’t mean he was willing to let his men
through just yet, though.

“Ethan,” get the
turnstiles secure. No one else is coming through until we know more about the
situation.”

Ethan didn’t
argue, probably because it was an idea he could get behind. He jammed up the
mechanism and then decided to stand watch beside the entrance. That probably
wasn’t a bad idea either.

“People are
going to be nervous about you being here,” Brett told Bristow. “I think it
would be best if we took you up into the stands for tonight.”

“Okay,” said
Bristow, starting to bear more of his own weight with every step. “Anywhere is
fine.”

Emily appeared
in front of them then. Brett hadn’t notice her leave earlier but it appeared
that she had something important to tell them. Before she had chance, though,
people started shouting over at the East Stand.

***

It turned out to
be Stephen causing the panic. When Brett entered the food area of East Stand,
he immediately saw the festering sore on the man’s face and the fear in his
eyes. The Peeling had begun its work. Somehow he had caught it from his
daughter.

“Stephen, you’re
sick.” It was stating the obvious, but Brett knew nothing else to say.

“I’m fine,” he
replied, his voice already weak and slurring from the infection. “You need to
help my girl. She’s, she’s…God help me, there’s nothing left of her.
Just...bones. Bones and blood.” Stephen threw up on the floor, the vomit
steaming and thick with blood.

“Get the fuck
back,” shouted Ethan. “You need to get away from us.”

Brett hated to
be cruel, but he agreed. “Stephen, go back up into the stands. You’re
dangerous.”

Stephen stepped
forward. “I’m fine. There’s nothing wrong with me.”

“Your face…”

Stephen stopped
approaching and put a shaking hand to his cheek. When he pulled it back his
fingers were clammy with sticky flesh. He looked at Brett with panic in his
eyes. “Help me!” He rushed forward, arms out in desperation.

Lieutenant
Bristow pulled the trigger on a handgun he had pulled from nowhere. An
explosion of sound was followed by a tiny dot of blood spreading wider on
Stephen’s forehead. The man fell down dead.

Ethan spun
around and pointed the rifle at Bristow and begun shouting. “What the hell are
you doing?”

“What needed to
be done.”

Brett shook his
head and had a bad feeling. “You said you were done with this. You said you
didn’t want to kill anybody else.”

Bristow lowered
his gun and gave them all a stern look. “He was already dead. I did him a
favour.”

Reverend Long
said, “It is that attitude that has seen this country’s military turn into
savages and bullies.”

Bristow laughed.
“You people really don’t get it, do you? The world has ended. Things aren’t
just bad, they’re over and done with. Anyone lucky enough to still be alive
should be doing everything they can to stay that way. Whatever it takes.
Because if we fail it’s the end of the goddamn human race.”

Ethan aimed the
rifle at Bristow’s unflinching face. “We’ll decide what it takes. This
is our home you just stepped into. You live by our rules.”

Bristow slowly
raised his gun again and this time aimed it at Ethan. “You point a rifle at
someone, you need to be willing to pull the trigger, mate. You got the stones
for it?”

Ethan began to
sweat, a bead appearing above his right eyebrow. He clutched the rifle tightly,
but he seemed more concerned with the fact that a weapon was pointed at him.

“There are no
rules anymore,” said Bristow. “It’s all about whoever has the biggest
bollocks.”

“Well, right
now, I do,” said Ethan. “I have the bigger gun.”

Bristow smirked.
“But it’s not loaded.”

Ethan panicked
and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened and he flinched as Bristow let off
another round from his pistol.

The bullet hit
the wall just behind Ethan’s head. Then Bristow put the weapon away, shoving it
into a holster near the small of his back. “Now, believe me when I say that if
I had wanted to hit you, I would have. I’m not here to have war with any of you.
I meant it when I said I was done with all the killing. I just want somewhere
secure to ride this thing out.”

Brett laughed.
“So now you want inside the place you’ve been keeping us prisoner in. Nice.”

“I already told
you that Lewis was calling the shots. He’s dead now. Things are different.”

“We’ll see,”
said Brett. “Hand over your gun.”

“No.”

“Look, if you
want us to trust you, you’re going to have to give us reason to. Hand over your
weapon.”

“I’ll take it,”
said Reverend Long. “I think it’s best if it’s in the hands on someone not
willing to use it.”

Bristow thought
about it for a second, then let out a sigh. “Fine. Here, take it.”

Reverend Long
took the gun and placed it inside his vest pocket. “There, now let’s get
Stephen somewhere before anyone else gets sick. I have a feeling it’s going to
be a long day.”

***

Everyone was
understandably upset to learn that one of the soldiers was now inside the
stadium. Brett had taken Bristow up into one of the executive boxes at the top
of the stands and told him to stay there for the time being. The boxes had
locks on them and Bristow secured himself inside as Brett left him.

Now Brett was
standing with Reverend Long and Ethan. The three of them addressed the rest
about what had happened.

Reverend Long
was the first to speak. “It would seem that there has been a civil war, of
sorts, between the soldiers and the police. Sides were taken and Captain Lewis
is now dead.”

There was a
brief cheer amongst the group. Most had not met the captain, but they all knew
it was him who had been keeping them trapped inside.”

“We’re now all
free to go,” said Ethan, “but it’s starting to look like that may not be a good
idea.”

“We can’t stay
here forever,” said Brett, “but for now, we’re all safe and we at least have
the option of leaving now. That changes things.”

“Safe?” said one
of the crowd. “How are we safe with that man in here with us? We can’t trust
the military.”

“Not to mention
the fact that The Peeling is inside,” added another unseen person in the crowd.
“Stephen and his daughter are dead.”

“How did they
even get it? No one else has it. It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Look,” said
Brett. “I don’t think we understand things as well as we think we do. I know
the news reports said that half of us are carriers, which means we won’t get
the disease itself, but in all honesty who the hell knows the truth? It hit us
all so quickly and so hard that I doubt the Government even had half a chance
to try and figure it all out. At least for now, no one else seems to be sick,
so we shouldn’t tempt fate by going outside or changing our behaviours.”

“Or letting new
people in,” said someone in the crowd. “Like a goddamn, bleeding soldier.”

“It wasn’t my
idea,” said Ethan. “I think we should turf him out as soon as he’s had
twenty-four hours rest.”

The crowd
murmured amongst themselves and seemed to agree.

“No,” said
Reverend Long. “We must remember the compassion we all once had, before fear
perverted our good natures. Lieutenant Bristow handed over his weapons
willingly and is a victim of all this, just like us. We should not turn away a
stranger in need. In the times ahead of us, there may well be a time where we
ourselves need to rely on the compassion of others. Let us not turn into
animals. We are men and woman, and the direction of the future will be down to
us.”

“Very dramatic,”
said Ethan. “Perhaps you’re right, though. Maybe we shouldn’t forget how things
were before. Let’s vote. All in favour of ejecting our unwanted guest tomorrow
morning raise your hands.”

Over two thirds
of the group raised their hands and Reverend Long let out a sigh.

“Democracy.
Can’t argue with the group,” said Ethan. “The will of the many supersedes the
will of the few.”

The Reverend
shook his head and walked away. Brett thought about going after him, but
decided not to. Brett couldn’t say anything that would change anything. If a
majority of the group wanted Bristow gone, then who was he to argue? Maybe things
would be different tomorrow. People would have had time to think.

Brett just hoped
Bristow didn’t put up a fight.

***

Because nobody
else was willing, Brett and Reverend Long took Stephen’s body upstairs to rest
beside his daughter. The little girl’s body had been reduced to mush that
hardly resembled human form. In a way, Stephen was lucky to have died before he
suffered the same fate. The smell had been overpowering and Brett could still
smell it on his clothing. Fortunately, when Emily approached him she didn’t
seem to notice.

The sun was
beginning to go down and Brett had got into one of the stadium’s offices. He
was looking out of the window across the carpark, and the devastation outside.
Dozens of bodies littered the streets; witnesses to the fire-fight that had
broken out between the police officers and soldiers. Bullet holes pockmarked
the scattered vehicles and blood covered the pavement like spilt paint. There
wasn’t a single person alive out there; so where were Lieutenant Bristow’s men?

“You okay?”
asked Emily, moving up beside him at the window. She shook her head when she
saw what he did. “You know, it’s horrible but it doesn’t even bother me
anymore, the bodies and stuff. It’s normal now. Does that make me bad?”

Brett touched
her on the back. “Course not. I think people just adjust to survive. We’re all
doing it. I’ve changed too.”

“Tell me about
it. People really listen to you now.”

Brett watched a
stray dog appear from between two houses and begin sniffing around the debris
of the street. He hoped the dog wasn’t far gone enough to start eating the
bodies. “People don’t listen to me,” he said. “They listen to Ethan and the
Reverend. I’m just the poor sod caught in the middle most the time.”

“Well, doesn’t
that make you the most powerful of all then? If they keep butting heads and
making opposing suggestions, with you being the one deciding on the outcome,
then technically you’re the one making all the decisions around here.”

It was an
interesting thought, and perhaps close to the truth, but it was an unwanted
truth. “To be honest I’d rather not be making any decisions at all. I’m not cut
out for responsibility.”

“I disagree,”
said Emily.

“Really? Well, I
can’t help feeling that I’m putting people in danger. It was my decision to bring
Bristow inside, and he’s already killed one of us.”

“Stephen was
already doomed.”

“Yeah, he was,
but why was that? Because I let his daughter stay inside with us after she had
The Peeling. Then Stephen caught it. Who knows if anyone else will get ill
because of my decision?”

Emily put an arm
around him and he shuddered with discomfort. It had been so long since he’d had
human contact that he was no longer used to it. Emily kept her arm around him
regardless. “It’s not your fault. So many people have died already that trying
to do something about it is almost pointless. We’re not in control of anything
anymore.”

Brett sighed and
turned away from the window. Melancholy wasn’t in his nature and he was
reluctant to allow himself to indulge the feeling now. The only furniture that
hadn’t been taken from the office to build barricades was a couple of office
chairs. Brett sat down on an executive, leather high-back and spun around on
it, trying to replace his sadness with dizziness. Emily took a chair for
herself and rolled it up opposite him.

Brett looked up
at Emily and asked her a question. “So come on, then, tell me. Why do you
always seem to be there whenever I look up? Are you following me?”

Emily blushed
and seemed a little annoyed. “High opinion of yourself, much? I just like being
around you because there’s not that many people to choose from anymore.”

“Oh, cheers.”

Emily cracked a
smile. “Plus, there’re even less young people, and…you make me feel safe.”

Brett raised an
eyebrow. “Safe?”

“Yeah. You don’t
seem to let worry get to you like everyone else. You stay calm and do the right
thing. You remind me of how things were before things went bad, calm and
normal.”

“So what were
you like before all this? What did you do for fun?”

“Not a lot,”
Emily replied. “I was a big saddo, as you can probably tell by my bright ginger
hair and spectacles.”

“Maybe I thought
that about you at first, but you seem pretty cool after getting to know you.”

“Nope, I’ve
always been a hopeless case, I’m afraid. My parents sent me for piano lessons
and choir when I was ten and my nerdom never looked back. I tried picking up
guitar and listening to rock to try and be cooler but it never worked. People
still crossed the street to avoid me. Truth be told I’m probably more popular
since things went all loopy.”

Brett laughed.
“Maybe your problem is that you say things like ‘loopy’. This situation is a
few levels above loopy. Let me hear what you really think.”

“What do you
mean?”

“I mean that
you’re being polite and well-behaved, but the time for manners is over. Time to
stop being a nerd. Tell me what you really think of the world we’re currently
stuck in.”

“Well…I, I think
it’s messed up.”

“Keep going.”

“It’s…well, it’s
fucked up is what it is.”

“More.”

“This situation
is totally batshit-crazy, fruitloop-fucking-insane. It’s a barrel-full of
shitballs.”

Brett laughed so
hard that his chest hurt and he started choking. When he regained his breath,
he said, “Well, those are some ways to put it, I guess. I think I agree with
you, though; this situation is certainly a barrel-full of shitballs.”

Emily laughed
too. “It’s fuck-fuck-fucked!”

“There you go.
Doesn’t it feel better to say what you really mean?”

“Yeah, it does.
Thanks for rescuing me from my none-swearing lifestyle. I feel much happier
now.”

“Okay, okay,”
said Brett, trying to keep from another bout of laughter. “Now that you’ve
reinvented yourself, what would you be doing right now if you could?”

“I’d be back at
home at my piano. I know it’s not cool, but I always preferred it over guitar.
Doesn’t mean I can’t rock out, though. The last CD I brought was by a band
called Fozzy. I think I would be listening to them right now. I miss music so
bad, you know?”

“Fozzy? Shit, I
know them. They’re good. Well, I think the music may have stopped for now, so
once things settle down it’s going to be up to us to bring rock back to the
world.”

“Deal,” said
Emily, offering out her hand to shake. Once he shook it, she looked him in the
eye and said, “You know what else I would do right now if I had the choice?”

“No,” said
Brett. “What?”

“This.” Emily
stood up and climbed onto Brett’s lap. Then she kissed him.

***

Brett woke up in
the pitch blackness and for a moment did not know where he was. Sliding off the
edge of sleep, Brett’s world was once again normal and devoid of the horrors of
the last few weeks. The warm body lying beside him made him feel even more that
things were normal. But then it all came back to him.

He sat up in the
darkness and realised he was sweating. The room had gotten stuffy while he and
Emily slept. Being fully-clothed had led to him becoming overheated. Emily felt
hot, too, beneath his hand, but had not awoken. She snored softly as sleep
continued to embrace her

Brett needed to
get some air. He was beginning to feel quite ill and bunged up. He had never
been a good sleeper and his sinuses would often constrict throughout the night,
waking him up. The world may have been shattered and torn asunder, but some
things never changed.

Brett crept to
his feet, not wanting to wake Emily and leave her frightened and alone in the
dark. He planned on heading over to the East Stand to cool down in the open
area beside the pitch. Then he would come right back and lay beside Emily. It
was strange to him that the thought of getting back to her was so important,
but right now she was the only thing making him still feel human. The bond
between the two of them was something he never would have predicted.

He pawed his way
through the dark, searching for the wall that would lead him to the door. When
he found it, he pulled it open gradually, trying to avoid the squeak of the
hinges. The corridor outside was dark, too, but Brett knew that there were no
obstacles in his way and that he needed only to head along the wall until he
reached a further door at the end.

He stepped out
into the moonlit East Stand and was immediately invigorated by the cool air
rushing through the cement structure. He sighed as it flowed over his clammy
cheeks and lifted up his shirt to allow it to caress his torso. Already he felt
his temperature drop.

There was
someone else milling about in the area, moving across the walkway at the far
end of the stand. It was probably a smoker getting their middle of the night
fix. Brett fancied some company while he cooled down, so he headed toward the
stranger, but before he got there they disappeared into the turnstile lobby of
the stand. Unless they planned on leaving the stadium, Brett didn’t know why
they would want to head there.

He took hurried
steps, somewhere between a run and a walk and reached the turnstile area
quickly. He was surprised by who he found there. “Bristow? What are you doing?”

Brett took a
step back when the Lieutenant pulled a gun on him. It was a different handgun
to the one he’d handed over to the Reverend. He must have hidden it on himself
somewhere.

“What are you
doing?” Brett repeated.

Bristow said
nothing. He turned back towards the turnstiles and started pulling at the
debris that had been stuffed into the mechanism to prevent it from turning. The
stile wouldn’t let the lieutenant out; it would only let people in.

“Step away from
there, Lieutenant. No one else is coming in h-”

Brett hit the
floor before he even realised that a bullet had been fired at him. Pain
exploded throughout his entire body and then settled down to just his midsection.
Examining himself frantically, he saw that the bullet had nicked his hip,
grazing against his pelvic bone and cutting a furrow into his flesh. The wound
spat blood onto the floor, but didn’t feel as bad as it looked. Brett was still
able to drag himself along the floor and around the corner, shielding himself
from any further shots. Although he could no longer see Bristow or the
turnstiles, he could hear the man continuing to clear away the debris. Whoever
was waiting outside was about to be let in soon.

“Don’t do this,
Bristow. We can all get along.”

“I agree,” the
Lieutenant shouted back. “But we’re in charge now. The Army is in charge.”

“Those days are
over, man. You said it yourself: the rules don’t apply anymore

“Exactly. It’s
all about power and who has the muscles to take it.”

Ethan came
running down the corridor and slid down onto the floor beside Brett. He noticed
the blood pouring from his hip. “What the hell is going on?”

“It’s Bristow.
He’s opening up the turnstiles. He’s trying to let someone in.”

“Who? His men?”

“I don’t know,
but he has a gun.”

“Long. Goddamn
that bloody self-righteous-“

Brett put a hand
on Ethan’s wrists to halt his tirade. “It wasn’t the Reverend. Bristow has a
different gun. He must have still had one on him when we took him in.”

“Right. We’re
not standing for this bullshit. I’m through having a bunch of disbanded
soldiers calling the shots.” Ethan stood up and marched around the corner. The
next thing Brett was aware off was more gunfire, but not, this time, from a
handgun. It was automatic rifle-fire.

Ethan fell back
into the hallway, bullet-riddled and already dead by the time he hit the floor.
The way he fell left him staring at Brett like a soulless puppet with glass
eyes.

Brett leapt his
feet and almost fell back down again when his vision tilted. He hoped his
injuries weren’t too bad, because he didn’t expect there was much chance of
seeing a Doctor anymore. He set off into the stadium, fleeing the turnstiles
and Lieutenant Bristow.

Inside the East
Stand, people had already begun to gather anxiously. They had heard the
gunfire.

“What’s
happening?” one of the people asked.

“Ethan’s dead.
Bristow shot him. He’s opened up the turnstiles. The Army is coming in.”

Everyone
panicked.

“We need to get
out of here,” Brett shouted at them. “We need to get out of here right now.
Everyone head for the North Stand. We can get out there.”

“Nobody is going
anywhere!” Gunfire into the ceiling made everyone hit the floor.

Brett looked up
at the man with the rifle and was shocked to see that Captain Lewis was alive
and well. Lieutenant Bristow stood beside him with a satisfied smirk on his
face. Four riflemen backed them

“Why are you
doing this?” Brett demanded.

“Because this
stadium is an asset,” Captain Lewis replied. “It has several, easily defended
exits and a great deal of space. Lieutenant Bristow did well to gain your trust
and get inside. It will be perfect as my base of operations.”

“For what?”

“For Project
Restoration,” said Bristow on behalf of his superior. “It’s time we regained
order and began adjusting to the new world. There is no longer a centralised
government, I regret to inform you all, and this is now a militant state. As
the most senior officer in this area – perhaps in the entire country – it is
Captain Lewis’s prerogative to take charge of the local populace. You are now
all under his command.”

Captain Lewis
beamed proudly. “Thank you, Lieutenant Bristow. Now I’d just like to assure
everybody that I intend to be firm but fair. You will be given jobs to perform
and you will be expected to do them. Any resistance will be dealt with via
martial law. Any chance to abandon your place here will result in capital
punish-”

A gun shot rang
out and the Captain stood silently for a moment, looking at the group with a
surprised look on his face. A couple of seconds later, another shot rang out
and Lieutenant Bristow hit the floor, dead. A large circle of blood started to
spread around Captain Lewis’s heart and it became clear that the first bullet
had struck him.

All at once, the
remaining four soldiers raised their weapons and scanned the area frantically.
One of them fell as another gunshot rang out, but then one of the men pointed
his rifle off towards the food desks. Brett spun around to see that Reverend
Long was standing there, Bristow’s pistol smoking in his hand. The man’s
tolerance for violence had been breached. The soldier that spotted him fired
off a hail of automatic fire and Reverend Long jolted backwards behind the
serving desk.

Brett screamed
in anger and leapt to his feet, rushing at the rifleman. He hit the soldier in
the face and yanked the weapon from his arms. He had no clue how to fire a
rifle so instead he swung it like a baseball bat, clubbing the soldier in his
forehead. Before he knew it, Brett was being faced down by the remaining two
riflemen. There was no way he could reach them before they let off a shot at
him. Brett was a dead man and he knew it.

Like a mob of
highland warriors the others got up off the floor and rushed forward as one,
shouting and screaming with violent rage. The two soldiers took their eye of
Brett and focused on the approaching gang of men and women. Their eyes went
wide with fear and they ran.

Brett watched
the two soldiers make it about twenty metres before the mob caught up with
them, dragging them roughly to the ground. He decided not to watch what
happened; he had somewhere else to be.

He headed back
towards the office block of the stadium and made his way through the unlit
corridors. When he got back inside the office, Emily was still asleep and
snoring soundly. She’d missed the whole thing. Brett sat down beside her and
rocked her gently awake.

“Wha…B-Brett?”

“Yeah, Emily.
It’s me. You need to wake up. We’re leaving.”

“L-leaving?”

Brett stroked a
hand over her forehead, leant forward and kissed her. “Yeah. It’s not safe here
anymore.”

“Where are we
going?”

“I don’t know. I
was thinking we could maybe go back to your house. You can play your piano
again. We can stop off and get my guitar first. The world may be over, but that
doesn’t mean we can’t spend whatever time we have rocking out.”

Emily laughed
and Brett wished he could see her face. “We could form the world’s last rock
band,” she said. “I’d finally be cool.”

“You already
are,” said Brett. “You already are.”

They waited
until sunrise, before setting off into the world.

BOOK 3: WARRIORS

Staff Sergeant Matt Parker stood
tall on the back of the tank and peered through his binoculars.

“Slow her down,”
he shouted as he clung onto the Warrior’s turret.

The
Perkins-Rolls-Royce V8 Condor engine of the British Army Infantry Fighting
Vehicle slowed down with a disappointed grumble. Discarded rubbish and human
waste crunched beneath the weight of its treads. All around, the city of
Birmingham lay in ruins; its humanity abandoned and broken. Paint peeled from
every building, but the ever-present bloodstains seemed only to intensify with
age. Gradually the city was turning red.

“You spot something?”
Corporal Cross asked his sergeant from the gunner’s seat. The tank’s 30mm
cannon was empty, as was its coaxial chain gun, but it still commanded
attention from those who did not know. The only ammunition Parker and his men
had been able to snatch up when things had gone bad at Tidworth was enough
explosives for a single barrage from the tank’s eight grenade launchers
(positioned in two clusters). Fortunately, they were all equipped with personal
arms and each of them carried a L85A2 assault rifle (or SA80) with roughly a
magazine of ammunition each.

Parker inched
his binoculars to the left, picking up movement amongst the rubble of a
firebombed Post Office. “We’ve got civvies up ahead. Two-hundred metres. Bring
us to a halt; let them come to us.”

The civilians up
ahead were just kids, and they were visibly afraid. Upon seeing the tank, the
two teenagers tried to scurry behind a scattered pile of masonry. Parker picked
up the megaphone that hung from a lanyard attached to the Warrior’s side
storage. He raised it to his mouth and moistened his lips.

“Strangers, you
have been spotted. Please identify yourselves so that we can categorise you as
non-hostile.”

The teenagers
did not come out.

Parker increased
the megaphone’s volume. “I am Sergeant Matthew Parker of her Majesty’s Armed
Forces. I mean you no harm. If you need assistance I will provide it to you.
Come out now, please.”

Tentatively, the
two teenagers reappeared from behind the rubble like frightened mice. It was a
boy and a girl. The boy was Black while the girl was pale and ginger-haired.
They were an odd pairing, indeed, but then, in the current world, people found
companionship wherever they could. Social norms no longer applied.

The teenagers
approached the tank; the boy walking protectively in front of the girl. As they
got closer, Parker identified them as young adults. He also saw that his early
estimation of them being afraid was not entirely accurate. They were not so
much afraid of Parker or the tank as they were distrustful.

Parker placed
the megaphone down and placed both his palms out to his side, showing that he
was unarmed. He also tried to smile but found he had forgotten how to.

“What do you
want?” asked the teenage boy defiantly.

Parker shrugged.
“Just want to check in with you folks. Everything okay? Are you in need of
assistance?”

The lad huffed
and shook his head. “We were doing just fine until your boys kicked us out of
our home.”

Parker didn’t
understand. “Who kicked you out of your home?”

“Your man,
Captain Lewis, and his sidekick, Bristow.”

“Captain Lewis?
I’m afraid I don’t know the man. Are you saying this man is with the Army?”

“Was,” the
lad corrected. “He took a bullet when he and his men started taking hostages at
the football stadium down the road.”

Parker sighed.
Hearing that one of his colleagues had been shot should have been cause for him
to apprehend these two kids, but somehow it seemed unnecessary. There was no
longer any law and order to maintain. Even the lines between good and bad had
become increasingly murky.

“Is it something
we should look into? Are people hurt?”

The lad shook
his head. “I don’t know. One thing is for sure, though: the last thing the
people still at the stadium want to see is another bunch of soldiers.”

Suddenly the
girl spoke up: “Just because you have guns doesn’t give you the right to push
people around.”

Parker nodded.
“I agree, young lady. Right now I think it’s important that we all work
together. Do you kids have a destination?”

“We’re going to
my house,” the lad answered. “Problem with that?”

“Of course not.
Just keep safe and be careful. There’re a lot of desperate people in the world
right now and nowhere is safe. Not even your homes.”

The kids seemed
confused for a moment, as if they had expected the situation to go differently.
Then they nodded to each other and began walking away, continuing their
journey.

“Hey, you two!”
Parker shouted after them. They both turned around. Parker managed to smile
this time. “What are your names?”

The boy
answered. “My name is Brett, and this is Emily.”

Parker nodded
and reached into his pockets slowly, not wanting to startle the kids. “It was
nice meeting you both, he said. “Here, take this.” He hurled a pack of
chocolate bars through the air and the lad caught them with his left hand.

The lad looked
at the package for a moment as if he was stuck in a daydream. Then he looked up
and said, “Thanks. It’s nice to see that there are still some good guys left. I
think if people knew that not all the Army had gone bad they wouldn’t all be so
afraid.”

Parker watched
the two kids head off to their unknown destination and thought about what the
lad had meant. Obviously something had happened at the nearby football stadium
but Parker intended to take heed of the lad’s warning about his presence being
unwelcome. There was no point forcing his way into a situation that did not
want him. The thing that concerned Parker the most was hearing that some of his
brothers-in-arms were acting more like tyrants than protectors.

When news of the
deadly wasting disease, The Peeling, first broke, the Military and Police
forces kept a tight grip on the country’s population, cordoning off highways
and restricted people to their homes. It was a cruel, but necessary step.
Parker had been glad to have been posted at base. Manhandling sick civilians
wasn’t what he signed up for and he was glad to be occupied with other tasks.
Later, however, when the disease penetrated fifty percent of the populace,
things had started to become untenable. Key figures in government, military,
police, healthcare, and other key services fell ill and died, leaving all
departments undermanned and in disarray. The chicken had lost its head.
Communities rioted, lashing out at the remaining authorities as they sought to
get away from the sick and dying. Fear of contagion had become a crazed, primal
instinct that drove people to animalistic behaviours.

Then the news
broke that the sick where not infectious; they never had been. Scientists
confirmed that it was the seemingly healthy who were the contagious ones. It
was they who carried the brutal virus which killed all who succumbed to
its necrotic effects. Everything fell apart. With one half of the population
dying and the other half responsible, society crumbled. No one could trust
anybody else and the only way to be safe was to seek absolute isolation – and
then defend that isolation if necessary. Battles over rural farmhouses and
other sought-after real estate had been constant and bloody.

But things had
gone quiet recently. The infection seemed to have plateaued. Those that had
caught the sickness were mostly dead or long on their way, and those that were
still healthy seemed to be confident of remaining so. Parker himself, along
with all of his men, had been exposed to countless civilians but were still
entirely healthy, albeit slightly malnourished. Parker made sure that his men
ate only what they needed and gave the rest away to whatever civilians they
encountered. But, it seemed, eventually he would have to start prioritising the
health of his men above those they encountered on the road. The world was
becoming increasingly dog-eat-dog and his public duties were diminishing. It
seemed that some of his colleagues from other outfits had already gone into
business for themselves.

“You want to
check the kid’s story out?” Cross asked. “If there’s a unit out there, we could
combine Intel.”

Parker shook his
head. “If there’s anybody left I’m assuming they’re not the type to cooperate.”

“Another unit
gone rogue?” Cross suggested. “Fuck a duck.”

“Sounds like it.
When things degenerate into chaos there’s a lot of temptation on those with
guns to take things without asking. We all spent enough time in Afghanistan to
know about that.”

“Some of the men
are wondering why we’re not giving in to that temptation ourselves. It’s been
weeks since we received any orders. We’re alone out here.”

Parker sighed.
He wasn’t about to have this conversation. “We’re not about to start abusing
our authority. It was people doing that which got the country into such a mess
in the first place. If people had worked together instead of shunning one
another we may be in better shape right now. We’re not about to start making
things worse by tyrannising a bunch of scared people.”

Cross nodded,
seemingly satisfied. “So, where next, Sarge?”

“Same as
always,” Parker replied. “Forward.”

***

The northern
suburbs of Birmingham were deserted, exactly like Wolverhampton had been, and
Stoke before that. People still existed in small pockets, but they were unseen
like rats during the daytime. They scurried about at night, foraging for things
they needed. It didn’t help that most people were terrified of the military
now; Parker and his men driving around in a tank was a red flag to most
survivors. It was hard work trying to help people that didn’t want to give you
the chance.

The last time
they had found a substantial group of people was inside a pub in Wolverhampton
city centre. There the men wore replica shirts of the local team and had
brought along what was left of their families. The beer and atmosphere had made
for a jovial atmosphere and Parker and his men had been welcomed for a round of
drinks. It was funny that the only group of like-minded people had been brought
together under the banner of a football team, while religion, ethnicity, and
political affiliation had all failed to galvanise society. Parker guessed that
the old saying that ‘football was the new religion was true.’

Since moving on
from that pub, Parker had encounter only loose fragments of humanity; some
hostile, some friendly, but all afraid. Any attempts to find an organised group
of people had been a failure. There was no Government, no emergency services;
no order.

The tank’s
driver, Schumacher (real name Corporal Hollis), fizzed through on the radio.
“We’re low on fuel,” he said. “Should I head for the nearest petrol station?”

“Affirmative,”
said Parker. “Take us back out to the main road. See if we can locate a
supermarket or retail park.”

“Roger that.”

The tank
gathered speed and adjusted its heading down a side-street that would lead them
back to the duel carriageway. As they rounded the corner they approached a
funeral pyre, stacked ten-deep with scorched bodies. It was not the shocking
sight that it should have been, as several weeks back, the entire country had
been lit up with similar bonfires of human flesh. When the military and police
still had some semblance of control, they had gathered up the dead infected and
set light to what was left of their putrid remains, hoping that to do so would
be enough to stymie the spread of the virus. When it became known that the dead
bodies of the infected were not contagious, it eventually stopped, continuing
only in the city centres where the volume of corpses posed health risks
regardless of the Peeling. Cholera was the country’s second-biggest epidemic.

The Warrior
trundled by the bodies without slowing down. Parker closed his eyes and tried
not to hear the crunch of human bones beneath the tank’s caterpillar tracks.
Sometimes it felt like the only sounds left in the world were ones of suffering
and death: like the screams that randomly carried on the winds from time to
time.

Cross turned
around from the gunner’s position and frowned at Parker. “Can’t believe we’ve
been in England’s second city for three days now and the only people we’ve seen
are those two kids we just passed.”

Parker sighed.
“I figure most people fled for the countryside to get away from the virus.”

“Can’t blame
them,” said Cross. “It would certainly smell better there at the very least. I
don’t remember the last time I took a breath that didn’t make me feel like
chucking my guts up.”

Parker knew what
he meant. The tang of death covered everything. The slithers of necrotic flesh
coated the landscape like a new species of pungent moss. Bodies continued
rotting in every building they had checked.

“Maybe it’s time
we moved on ourselves,” said Cross. “Gather supplies and try to set ourselves
up somewhere in the sticks. We might have the wrong idea looking for people in
need. It might be better to let them come to us.”

Parker thought
about it and found himself agreeing. “You might be right. Let’s find somewhere
to fill up and we’ll re-strategize; figure out what’s best.”

It was just
starting to get dark when they came upon the supermarket.

***

The
supermarket’s abandoned petrol station was just off the main road, accessed by
a roundabout. There was a collection of beat-up vehicles blocking the pumps,
but they posed no problem for the Warrior’s winch. They shifted a tiny Citroen
out of the way of a diesel pump and began to fill the tank. Private Michelle
Anderson and Private Thomas Carp grabbed the half-dozen Jerry cans from the
tank’s side storage and headed off towards the other pumps to fill them. The
station’s petrol supply seemed to be fine and Parker was grateful that the
military quarantine early on had included the restriction of vehicle use, and
thus the country’s need for petrol.

The forecourt’s
single building, however, was a different story. Parker could see from several
metres away that the petrol station’s small convenience store had been raided
until only dust remained on its shelves. In the final few weeks before the
panic had turned to quiet isolation, people had been desperate. Food, water,
and perhaps even more importantly, alcohol, had become the world’s new
currency. An unopened bottle of vodka had become more valuable than gold.
Anything that could help a person blot out their pain and misery was the only
luxury the world had left.

“You think it’s
worth checking out the supermarket?” Cross asked.

“We’d be remiss
not to,” said Parker. “You never know what we may find.”

“Okay. The
petrol tank is full so we can move out as soon as Carp and Anderson are done.

Parker nodded
and dismissed his Corporal. Then he took up his binoculars and pointed them at
the Supermarket. It was situated at the far end of a large flat car park. Cars
littered the various spaces and many sat unlocked with their doors hanging
open.

Parker’s eyes
were drawn to something else, though. At the front of the supermarket’s main
entrance was a stalled convoy of lorries and vans. They sat, end-to-end, in
front of the building, blocking any way in through the front. It could turn out
to be quite a challenge getting inside.

Five minutes
later, Carp and Anderson had secured the now-full Jerry cans back against the
side of the Warrior, and were now back inside the tank’s troop space.

Schumacher
started up the engine and they got going, swivelling in the direction of the
supermarket.

***

“Who do you
think positioned all these lorries here?” asked Cross. “And why?”

Parker thought
the answer was obvious. “They were put there by whoever is inside to keep
people out.”

Cross raised an
eyebrow. “You think we got survivors in there?”

Parker shrugged.
“Probably not. Probably just a bunch of dead bodies now, but at some point
there were people taking refuge here. It was a good idea to park the trucks in
front of the entrance.”

“Not so good for
us,” said Cross. “How the hell are we supposed to get inside?”

“Through the
back, I’d imagine. Whoever parked the trucks would have had to get back inside
somewhere. They probably left a back door clear. It would still be much easier
to defend then the massive sets of automatic glass doors behind the trucks

“So, what’s the
plan?”

Parker looked
around and thought about it. There was a single lane access road that went
alongside the supermarket; a road meant for deliveries. It would no doubt lead
to the cargo area.

“Wait here,”
Parker said. I’ll go check it out. You hear anything, then follow me, but just
keep watch here otherwise.”

Parker headed
off towards the access road, passed by the front of the building, and began a
route down the side. It did indeed lead to a cargo area; a large paved area,
big enough for an articulated lorry to turn around. Set against the building
was a long, stretched-out platform that would line up with the rear bays of
those lorries and allow people to roll out the stock directly into the
building. The whole area was lined by a wire-mesh fence and backed onto a
stretch of woodland. The space was currently empty.

Up ahead, the
wire-mesh fence looped around and cut across the access road. It was linked to
a wide metal gate that could obviously be opened to allow lorry access or
closed and locked to deny entry. Much to Parker’s dismay, it was currently
closed and secured by an unusually large padlock. Parker considered whether or
not the fence would sustain the weight of the Warrior if they attempted to
drive through it.

While Parker
considered that notion, someone appeared to his left, high up and in the corner
of his eyesight.

“Hold it right
there, Corporal Cockhead.”

Parker looked up
at the man on the roof and narrowed his eyes. “I’m a Sergeant actually, but you
can call me Parker. Now, what’s the problem, friend?”

The man leant
further over the ledge of the building’s roof and Parker saw that he was
holding a gas-powered nail gun. It was pointed right at Parker’s head. Parker’s
own weapon was stowed in the Warrior.

“You’re the one
with a problem, Sergeant Shit-Stain. You and your men take that tank and just
roll on out of here, you hear? This place belongs to us and we’re not following
any more of your orders.”

Parker shook his
head. “What orders?”

“Orders from you
and your fucked-up outfit. Tell me, when did the British Army become a bunch of
bandits and thieves?”

“I’m not
following you. My men and I are just looking for those in need. We’re still
trying to protect the people of this country.”

The man huffed,
lowered his nail gun a quarter-inch, and said, “Yeah, right. Well, when you see
your buddies, tell them that they aren’t taking any more of our food. Not after
what they did. They’ll burn in hell for what they’ve done to Stella and the
others.”

Parker sighed
and scratched a fingernail against the tip of his nose. “Who’s Stella? If I can
understand what you are talking about then perhaps I can help.”

The man shook
the nail gun at Parker and scrunched up his face in anger. “Look, I’m not going
to buy any of your bullshit so just get the hell out of here. There’re a dozen
men inside this supermarket and they’re all ready for a fight – including Brad;
the husband of the woman your buddies abducted and raped.”

Parker put his
hands in the air and begun backing away. It was obvious by the man’s angry and
suspicious demeanour that the conversation could not be steered in a direction
other than the one it was already on; and that seemed like a direction that
would result in a three-inch nail in Parker’s forehead. It was unclear what had
happened, but it was obvious the strange man was distrustful of the military –
just like the two teenagers had been.

“Okay, we’ll
leave,” said Parker. “We’re not looking for any trouble. You and your people
just take care of yourselves.”

Parker headed
back around to the front of the building where his men were waiting patiently.
Corporal Cross nodded to him as he approached. “Find anything?”

Parker shrugged.
“Just a nervous guy with a nail gun. I figured it was best to just leave him
be.”

“Are you kidding
me? He could have a supermarket full of supplies in there. We should just take
him down; it’s only one man.”

Parker shook his
head. “He told me there was another dozen men inside, not to mention the woman
and children there may be.”

“Bullshit,” said
Cross. “He’s just saying that to scare us off.”

“Look,” said
Parker, a sternness to his voice. “We have no more right to this place than he
does, and we have no way to know if there is anyone inside. People are already
beginning to fear the military and I’ll be damned if I allow my actions to add
to that.”

Cross sighed and
rolled his eyes. “Fine, you’re the boss. So what do you want to do? You
said we’d discuss it.”

Parker let out a
sigh and craned his neck to look back at the looming monolith of the brick
supermarket. “I think the people inside there need our help, but they aren’t
about to accept it willingly.”

“So we should
leave them to it, then

Parker shook his
head. “No. I think we should set up nearby and keep an eye on things. Maybe we
can find out what’s going on. Apparently there is another outfit in the area.”

Crossly raised
an eyebrow. “You think it’s Bristow’s unit?”

Parker shrugged.
“Who knows? I’m guessing it’s somebody else, but we won’t know unless we hang
around.”

“Roger that.
There’s a grass verge at the edge of the car park. We could set up camp there
amongst the trees.”

“Do it,” said
Parker. Best do it now while the ground is dry. Could be raining later.”

Cross glanced up
at the grey sky and nodded. “More than likely.”

***

With the CVRT
crew shelter set up (a large four-person tent) Parker lit his gas lamp beneath
a mess tin full of beans. Their rations had been affording them perhaps a
thousand calories a day and it was starting to show. His men were visibly tired
and the barrel chests of the men and the voluptuous bosom of Anderson had
shrunk back against their ribcages. He himself must have dropped more than two
stone since things began. They would need to find supplies soon – real
supplies.

Like what
they may have inside that supermarket.

Parker couldn’t
deny that the thought of storming the building and taking what they needed by
force was tempting, and maybe even sensible, but there was still a part of him
that would not allow him to use aggression against British citizens. His body
may have been wasting away, but his morals were as strong as ever. Parker held
on tightly to that fact.

Schumacher took
a seat beside him, the man’s face overgrown with thick black stubble. “You
okay, Sarge? You look like you remembered you just left the oven on.”

Parker laughed.
“I wish my problems were as simple as that. I miss worrying about the stupid,
little things, you know?”

“Sure I do. I
even miss having to clean the toilet. Now I don’t even own a toilet to keep
clean and it makes me sad. I miss the smell of bleach and air freshener and
window polish and everything else that makes a home smell like a home. Now all
I ever smell is shit and death and fear. I don’t even remember what my wife’s
perfume smells like anymore. Shit, towards the end, no perfume in the world
would have been strong enough, anyway, to get rid of the stench of her…well,
you know?”

Parker thought
about the flesh destroying evil of the Peeling and nodded. He had lost people
to it as well. They all had. “We’ll get it all back one day, Schumacher.
Eventually people will come out of hiding and start working together again. All
of this paranoia – looting and stealing and killing one another – it has to
stop eventually.

“I hope so,
Sarge, because to tell you the truth, I’m beginning to lose sight of what the
hell we’re fighting for.”

Parker shook his
head. Schumacher sounded just like Corporal Cross. “We can’t abandon people
that need us. If we do, then you’re absolutely right: there’s no point in
fighting. But we aren’t going to do that. We’re going to show people that there
are still those of us that have remembered who we are. We’re all still human
beings.”

“That’s what
worries me,” Schumacher said and left it at that.

The two of them
sat in silence for a few minutes until the others joined them. Carp and Cross
sat opposite, while Anderson worked on constructing a single birth tent to
separate her from the men at night while they slept. Parker’s men were the
perfect gentlemen, but some habits died hard, and somehow it seemed important to
Anderson that she kept her female identity intact.

Parker leant
back on the grass verge and looked up at the sky. It was getting dark and the
clouds were slowly disappearing into the velvet background of a starry night.
The thickness of the air suggested rain and perhaps even a storm was
approaching. Parker hoped so. Despite the difficulties that bad weather
brought, particularly when travelling, it had a cleansing effect on the world.
It washed away the blood from the streets and dampened down the rotting stench
of bodies. It swept away the rotting humanity and replaced it with the pureness
of nature. Yes, Parker enjoyed the rain.

“Want to play a
round?” Carp asked.

“Sure,” Parker
said, knowing the game that Carp was suggesting. Every night they would all
name one thing that they wished to find most in the rubble of what was once
England.

“Okay,” said
Carp. “I’ll start. I wish I could find a…piano. I really got a hankering for a
bit of Elton John. Don’t let the sun go down on me.”

“You play
piano?” said Parker. “I never knew that.”

“Guess there’s a
lot about each other we don’t know. Probably never will. Playing the piano now
is about as useless a skill as there is.”

“I disagree,”
said Parker. “I think it’s more important that you realise. When we come across
a piano, you’re going to play for us all. All night long.”

“Sounds good to
me.” Carp grinned.

“Okay,” said
Schumacher, “me next. I want to find…a jar of paprika. God, I miss a bit of
spice on my food. I’d mix it right in with Parker’s beans and swallow ‘em down
whole.”

Parker felt his
mouth water. He’d never thought about seeking out spices and condiments, but
now it seemed like such an obvious thing. It was a small luxury that they could
still have in the world.

“What about you,
Anderson?” Carp shouted across at the female Private as she finished up
erecting her tent.

She turned
around and wrinkled her face as she thought about it. “Erm…I guess I would like
to find…a bodybuilding calendar. I’m tired of looking at your skinny asses all
the time.”

They all laughed
and Cross took his turn. “I would like to find a nice fat bottle of Jack, or
maybe even amaretto. Just before shit got messed up I was really into this
drink called a Godfather. It was a shot of whisky with a shot of
amaretto. Was a nice tipple. Would feel good to get wasted again. I think we’d
all agree about that?”

Everyone nodded
and then focused their attention of Parker. It was his turn.

He sighed. “I
don’t know… I guess the thing I would like to find most is a nice, freshly made
king-sized bed. One where I could just sleep for the next month. Then I would
like to wake up to a nice full-English breakfast.”

The sound of
people’s mouth’s watering was almost palpable.

“Cheater,” said
Anderson, sitting down and joining them. “That was two things. I’ll let you off
this time, though, just because I agree with your choices. A nice juicy sausage
would be heaven right now.”

After a brief
second, they all started snickering. Anderson blushed and put her hands up.
“Okay, okay, calm down. I didn’t mean it to sound like that. Anyway, I said a
nice juicy sausage, not a bunch of chipolatas.”

“Ouch,” said
Carp. “Way to attack a man’s pride.”

They all
continued laughing, long after the sun had disappeared to be replaced by the
moon and twinkling star. It was a beautiful night there amongst the trees.

***

Parker’s eyes
snapped open inside the darkness of the tent. The noise that had woken him was
the sound of hushed voices somewhere outside. He rolled onto his side to find
that he was alone and that the shadows of his sleeping comrades were absent.

Parker shuffled
out of his sleeping bag and crept to the zipped-up entrance of the tent. Then
he listened to the voices outside.

“Should we do
something?”

“I don’t
know. What if they’re hostile?”

“We can hold
our own. I say we act now while they’re not expecting us.”

Parker unzipped
the tent and pushed his way out into the chilly night. Carp and Cross were
standing there.

“What the hell
is going on,” he demanded. “I’ve already said that we are not going to bother
those people.”

Carp put a
finger to his lips and shushed him. Parker was about to lose his temper when
his eyes caught the distant torchlights. He placed a hand over his brow and squinted
to see what was going on.

“They turned up
about five minutes ago,” said Cross. “Carp was just about to relieve my post
when they came flooding out from the woods.”

Parker crouched
down low in the shadows and continued to stare. “It must be the other outfit
the guy at the supermarket was talking about.”

“Should we
engage?” Cross asked. “They could have Intel.”

Parker shook his
head. “No, not yet. We need to observe what they’re up to first. I got the
impression that they’re hostile.”

“Not to other
military, surely?” said Carp.

“We can’t assume
anything anymore. Keep distance and recon whatever you can. I’ll wake Anderson
up and dig in here; cover you both if things go bad. Go wake Schumacher up and
take him with you.”

Parker’s men
nodded and crept away down the embankment. Parker snuck over to Anderson’s tent
and whispered her name. Eventually she awoke, and was alert and outside her
tent within two minutes. She looked weary, but capable.

“We’ve got
unidentified targets in front of the supermarket. Carp, Cross, and Schumacher
are checking it out now. You and I are going to keep a cover point.

Anderson nodded
and un-shouldered her rifle. She went prone and targeted the group of strangers
down her SUSAT scope. Parker went prone himself about six metres away and
pulled up his binoculars to his eyes.

The new group
consisted of seven men, fully armed. They all carried the same rifles that
Parker’s men carried – British Army issue. All of them had arrived by foot and
they were too far away to make out their insignias, but their black berets
identified them as infantry – grunts. Whether or not they were battled-hardened
grunts or green recruits was unclear, but they carried themselves with
confidence; shouting and laughing as they milled about the front of the
supermarket. There was also one woman with them, but she wasn’t military. The
woman looked to be in her thirties and was wearing a ragged and stained summer
dress. It would likely provide little protection against the harsh kiss of the
cold night air. The woman was being lead over to the front of the supermarket,
in front of where the trucks were lined up. One of the soldiers – a large man
wearing a red bandana instead of a beret or Kevlar helmet – was hollering
something at the men around him.

In the corner of
his binocular’s vision, Parker caught movement on the roof. As he repositioned
his focus, he saw that it was the man he had met during the day – the one with
the nail gun.

While the sound
didn’t carry far enough across the tarmac to reach Parker’s ears, it was clear
that a conversation was being had between the soldier on the ground and the man
on the roof.What the hell is going on? Is this the outfit the guy was
talking about? The ones he was wary of?

Parker continued
to watch as the scene unfolded in front of him. The woman was brought in front
of the soldier with the bandana. Then something bad happened.

A punch to the
woman’s ribs dropped her to her knees. Parker heard her pained gasp as it left
her anguished lungs. She was now kneeling in a position that Parker knew only
too well.

Parker had no
time to do anything but watch in terror as the woman was executed – a 5.56mm
NATO round through her skull the tool responsible. The sound brought back
memories of Afghanistan and Iraq to Parker and, for a moment, he was glued in
place, unable to move. Human life had become no more important than that of a
lowly housefly. Justice and punishment had fled the world.

Beside him,
Anderson cursed. “Goddamn motherfucking barbarians. What the fuck!”

Before Parker
knew what was happening, more gunfire rang out. He realised quickly that it was
Carp, Cross, and Schumacher – the men having made the autonomous decision to
engage. Parker did not blame them. He pulled up his own rifle and flipped off
the safety. He squeezed the trigger and caught one of the unknown soldiers in
the wrist. The man leapt back behind one of the trucks and looked around in a
panic as he struggled to keep a grip on his weapon. All around the car park,
the hostiles were taking up cover behind abandoned vehicles. Carp and Cross
were nowhere to be seen, but the sounds of their rifles could be heard off in
the distant treeline of the surrounding woods.

On the roof, the
man with the nail gun was screaming and shouting, seemingly madder than he was
scared. Luckily for him, the hostile gunmen in the car park were paying him no
mind as they searched around frantically for Parker and his men.

Parker lined up
another shot, aiming for the soldier in the red bandana – the leader. The
bullet whistled across the car park and headed straight for the man’s skull.
But it missed by a fraction of an inch. The round struck the aluminium of a
nearby panel van and left a ragged dent. The near miss was not lost on the
soldier in the bandana and the shock was evident on his face. He shouted above
the din of battle and waved an arm to his men. Within seconds, the hostile
soldiers were gone, fleeing into the cover of the woods. Several moments later,
Carp and Cross appeared from the adjacent treeline and scurried up to the
supermarket’s blockaded entrance.

Parker surveyed
the area through his binoculars, checking that the other unit had truly fled
the battlefield. It appeared they had, for now, but Parker knew they would just
be regrouping. They would come back.

“Come, on,” he
said to Anderson. “We’ll rendezvous up front with Cross and the others.”

Parker and
Anderson kept low and beat a path between abandoned cars and overturned
shopping trolleys until they were at the front of the Supermarket with Cross.

“Status?” Parker
asked.

“We’re all
fine,” replied Cross. “Bad news is: so are they. We only downed one of them.”

Parker nodded.
He had already noticed the dead soldier slumped up against a battered Honda
Civic. Its iconic lighting strip above the front bumper was smashed and smeared
with blood. Then Parker turned his attention to the dead woman, still lying in
the spot where she had been callously executed by the solider wearing the
bandana.

“That was
Stella,” came a voice from above.

Parker spun on
his heels and brought his rifle up to his shoulder. It was the man on the roof.
The man with the nail gun.

“S’pose you’ve
earned yourself an invitation,” the man said. “Hold on. I’ll come let you in.”

Parker looked at
his men and shrugged. “About time something went right for a change.”

***

Two minutes
later, the man with the nail gun appeared at side access fence where Parker had
first met him. He quickly unlocked the thick padlock and dragged the chain-link
door open. It scratched a white line into the tarmac as it slid across the
ground.

As soon as
Parker and his men passed through the gate, their host relocked it again
anxiously. His hands were visibly shaking.

“You okay?”
Parker asked.

The man fiddled
with his hair and sniffed his nose. “Yeah… I-I’m fine. It’s just… Well, I think
I was about to pretty much give up before you guys showed up. That asshole Mack
would have finally finished me off this time.”

“Mack?” asked
Parker. “The guy in the bandana? Who is he?”

“I figured you’d
know better than me. Being soldiers and all.”

“Unfortunately,
the British Army is a big group – was a big group, anyway – most
soldiers don’t know each other from Adam. I’ve never met the man before.”

The man with the
nail gun unlocked a small door on the supermarket’s loading bay and allowed
everyone to funnel inside. “Well,” he said, walking after them. “You can take
my word for it that he is a scumbag piece of shit. I wish he’d caught a bullet
when you fired on him.”

“We’ll get the
fucker next time,” said Cross.

Parker
disapproved of bad language in front of civilians, but when he saw what relief
the show of bravado caused on their host’s face, he decided to let it slide.

“You guys
hungry?” the man asked them. “A lot of stuff spoiled early on, which is part of
the reason why the whole place stinks so bad, but there is tons of canned food
and other stuff that is just fine. Help yourself to anything you see.”

“Hell, yes,”
said Schumacher.

Parker put a
hand up to shush his men before they became uncontrollably excited. Food was
the world’s only important resource nowadays and they had just stumbled upon a
goldmine by the sounds of things. They were still soldiers, though, and acting
giddy was inappropriate. “We won’t take food from your people,” Parker said.
“We will just take whatever you can spare.”

The man with the
nail gun stopped and turned to face Parker. He looked beaten and glum. “Yeah,
about that…My people consists of just me. Everyone else is dead. I lied to you
before to warn you off.”

When Parker
stepped from the warehouse into the supermarket’s public area, all he could
see, all he could smell, was death.”

***

After almost
puking at the sight of so many bodies, Parker and the others had slunk back
into the warehouse and had followed their host into a comfy staffroom. It was a
disconcerting contrast to the horror outside.

“What the hell
happened here, man?” Cross spoke in a tone somewhere between aggression and
pleading.

The man put down
his nail gun on the table where he sat and shook his head. His body had slumped
so much that he seemed inches shorter. “Lots of things happened. First man to
die was a guy named Stephen. He tried to rape one of the woman we had here
and…well, I guess the rest of us retaliated. Then Mandy went into a diabetic
coma and died as soon as she used up all the Pharmacy’s insulin. Tom and Annie
committed suicide; both their sons died of The Peeling. Talking of which, there
was a second outbreak of the disease. Just when we thought everyone left alive
was immune, about a dozen of us came down with it. We tried our best to nurse
them, but it was useless. It took weeks for them to rot down to the bone. Then
Mack came and finished off the rest of us.”

“How many were
left when Mack came,” Parker asked.

“There were nine
of us. Four woman, five men. When Mack first came, he wanted food, and we gave
it to him. We were glad to see him and his men. We were naïve.”

Parker looked
around the room and saw empty wrappers and dog-eared magazines. “You’ve been
holing up in this room?”

“Yeah. I figured
it would be unhealthy mixing with all the bodies out there. Plus they were my
friends, you know? Besides, I’m just one man. I can’t move three dozen bodies.
Got nowhere to take ‘em anyway.”

“What’s your
name?” asked Anderson. There was sympathy in her voice.

The man looked
surprised by the question. It was almost as if the notion of having a name was
lost on him. Perhaps it had been a while since he had shared it with anybody.
“My name is Dennis. I was a carpenter before all this happened. Hence the nail
gun.” He motioned at the power tool on the table. “Gas powered. Thought about
using on myself lately.”

Anderson patted
the man on the back. She smiled. “There’s no need to do that now. We can get
you out of here.”

“Screw that,”
said Cross. “We should bunker down here. We got food, security-”

“Security!”
Dennis laughed. “Mack and his men have made sure that security is the last
thing we have here.”

“What happened
to the nine of you that were left when Mack arrived?” Parker enquired.

“After we fed
him and his men, they came back, but this time they didn’t want food.”

“They wanted the
woman,” said Anderson, looking sick to her stomach.

Dennis nodded
and looked sick himself. “We wouldn’t give them up, of course. So Mack and his
men assaulted the supermarket. We were unarmed and were going to kill us all.
Once they got inside. My wife offered to go with them as long as they left the
supermarket. Then the other woman showed their support and stood beside her.
The women sacrificed themselves so that the men would be safe. Mack just
laughed about the whole thing, like it was a game or something. He took the
woman and they drove off, but, before he left, he told us to be gone by
morning; that the supermarket was his.

“But you’re
still here,” said Cross.

Dennis nodded.
“When Mack left, we decided to barricade the supermarket. They had taken
everything from us and we were damned if we were going to let them take this
place.”

“So what did you
do?” Parker asked.

“Got the trucks
up against the entrance, used the hardware supplies in the warehouse to nail
the windows and doors shut. Found the biggest padlock we could and secured the
access gate. Made some firebombs from whiskey and lighter fluid. It didn’t
protect us, though. Soon as we put up resistance, Mack brought out the woman.
They were tied up like animals, bleeding and crying. I have nightmares about
what they must have gone through. When Mack started executing them one after
the other, the men I was with surrendered. They went outside to give themselves
up. Mack shot them all.”

“Why didn’t you
go out there with them?” Anderson asked.

“Because I was a
coward. I was too frightened to go outside, so I locked myself in this staffroom
while the other men went outside.”

“Well, being a
coward is probably the only reason you’re still alive,” Parker said.

“When I had the
guts to come out, I saw the dead woman and the dead men and I realised that
there was no way out of this. Mack would kill me eventually, my wife, Stella,
too. The only purpose I had left was to make it as hard on him and his
barbarians as I could. I decided to keep fighting until a bullet found me. I
would have finally given up today if you hadn’t been here.”

“That woman was
your wife,” Parker surmised. The woman Mack executed in front of the building
was your wife.”

Dennis nodded
and a tear spilled from his eye. “I thought she was already dead. When I saw
her, I thought maybe there was a chance Mack would give her back to me if I
just stopped fighting and left. But he shot her before I even had chance to say
anything to her. They’ve had her for weeks. I barely recognised her. Even
though she was alive, her eyes…her eyes were dead. I’m glad she passed on. I
hate thinking it, but she could never have gotten through what they did to her.
I just wanted to be dead too, to go wherever she was. Then you started firing
on Mack’s men and here we are.”

“Where are they
based?” Parker asked. “Are they nearby?”

Dennis shrugged.
“I couldn’t tell you. The nearby woods aren’t massive but I figure it a good
place to set up camp. It won’t be long before they come back.”

“You’re sure
they will come back?” Cross asked.

Dennis nodded
adamantly. “Mack won’t let this go. He doesn’t accept the word, no.
He’ll be irate that you took out one of his men. I guarantee you that he will
be back.”

Parker nodded
and began to think. “Then, we make sure we’re ready for him.”

***

Parker spent the
next two hours directing Dennis and his men in various tasks designed to
increase their tactical advantage should another attack occur. They stockpiled
as many food and supplies from the supermarket floor back into the warehouse as
they could. Then they undertook the unenviable task of stacking the heavy
freezer units, shelving stacks, and till desks up against the front of the
building where the plate glass windows could potentially be breached. The task
was unenviable due to the rotting, foul-smelling corpses that littered the
area. Some were mottled grey skeletons – victims of The Peeling, while others
featured gunshot wounds no doubt delivered by Mack’s men. The odour of death
was something they were all used to by now, but this amount of death so close
together was still enough to turn their stomachs. Parker forced a grin onto his
face; it was a proven technique to fight off the urge to retch. He just hoped
Dennis did not misinterpret it as disrespect.

The current task
that occupied them all was the search for viable weaponry. Dennis had his nail
gun and Parker’s men had their rifles, but their ammunition was low after the
previous fire fight. They needed alternative means of arming themselves in case
Mack’s resources outlasted theirs.

Cross was busy,
emptying bottles of bleach and detergent onto the floor of several aisles,
while Schumacher and Anderson attempted to block the adjacent aisles with
pallets, cardboard boxes, and household stock items. The plan was to create a
bottleneck, and funnel Mack’s men into one or two individual aisles, creating a
kill zone. The cleaning fluids on the floor would hopefully cause one or two of
their attackers to slip and fall, and would, at the very least, slow them down
as they were forced to step carefully. The fumes coming up off the floor may
also have the added benefit of blinding Mack’s men.

Dennis was busy
super-gluing nails to the floor and shelving units. It seemed absurd, but if he
could secure as many nails in an upright position as he could, there was every
chance that one of Mack’s men would plant a foot down on one of them. Every
time Dennis covered a small area with nails, he would drape flat pieces of
cardboard over the top, obscuring the hazard. Somehow the supermarket, that
would once have been the epitome of mundane, civilised life, was now more akin
to the booby-trapped expanses of 60’s Vietnam. The world was a battleground and
all were warriors.

“Hey, Sarge,
take this,” Anderson came over and handed him a large chef’s knife.

“He frowned. I
already have a knife.” He pointed to the army-issue blade on his belt.

“I know. But I
thought we could use a spare to throw if the fighting goes close-quarters.”

Parker laughed.
“I think that only works in the movies, but I’ll take it just in case.” He took
the brand-new tungsten blade and slid it into his belt. It wouldn’t hurt to
have too many knives.

It was time to
wrap things up, bunker in. “Okay, everyone,” said Parker. “Let’s fall back to
the warehouse. Dennis? How do you get up to the roof? It wouldn’t hurt to have
someone posted up there on watch.”

“There’s a
ladder at the back of the warehouse,” Dennis explained. “Leads up to a walkway
and the roof hatch.”

“Okay,” said
Parker, heading through to the back. “Anderson, you take first watch. Cover up
with whatever you can and keep your eyes on the treeline.”

“Roger that,”
she said, double-timing it deeper into the warehouse.

“What should the
rest of us do?” Dennis asked.

“We wait,” said
Parker.

***

Parker was about
to fall asleep on the one of the staffroom couches when something caused his
mind to snap back to full alertness. He looked around the unlit room and could
see the soft shapes of his comrades sleeping. He could hear their gentle
snores.

Parker stood up
from the sofa and listened out. He was groggy and unsure of what he had heard,
but somehow he knew something was up. After years of being in the Armed
Services, Parker had a sixth sense for danger.

Parker picked up
his rifle from where it was propped up against the wall and wrapped the strap
around his neck. Then he slid out of the room and into the pitch-black darkness
of the warehouse. There was complete silence in the building, but Parker didn’t
trust it. He headed for the ladder at the back of the area; the one that led up
to Anderson’s position on the roof. Parker listened out but could make out no
sound from up above.

He placed his
hands on the rungs of the ladder and raised his foot onto the first step. He
climbed slowly, cautiously. With each rung he rose up, he became more and more
certain that things were wrong. Anderson was an alert sentry and should be
aware of his approach. She should have called out to him by now.

He pushed open
the roof hatch and slowly rose up to see over the top. Anderson’s was lying
prone against the far edge, covered by cardboard and some old tarpaulin. If he
hadn’t expected to see her, he may have missed her completely. She was well
camouflaged.

“Anderson!” He
called out in a hush. “Anderson, what’s your status?”

No answer.

Goddamn it. Parker shook his head and prayed she was just asleep.
He would bollock the shit out of her for neglecting her post but it would be a
relief all the same. He hoisted himself up onto the roof and kept low to the
ground, shuffling forward on his elbows and knees.

As he got
closer, Anderson still did not move. She was like part of the building,
completely still.

He reached her
and spoke out again. “Anderson, wake the fuck up!”

He clenched his
hand around her ankle, expecting her to flinch and wake up with a start. But
she did nothing. He shook her leg and was dismayed to find no response. He
crawled up closer.

Then he saw that
it was not Anderson.

“Jesus fuck! Carp?”

Carp’s face was
a caved-in mess of blood and gristle, but the thick black hair was a dead
giveaway. Before Parker could even speculate on what had happened to the
Private, a bullet shattered the cement two inched in front of him, sending
stabbing shards of masonry into his eyes.

“Shit! Shit!
Shit!” Parker rolled away, sliding his body back towards the roof hatch. Mack’s
men had a hotshot, someone who’d been able to take Carp out without him even
seeing them. The attack had begun. It was time for battle stations.

***

Parker kicked open the door to the staffroom and shouted at the top of
his lungs. “Hands on socks, off cocks! We’re under siege.”

His men were
immediately on their feet, well-drilled by years of midnight inspections.
Dennis was a little slower, but also impressively alert. Parker spotted
Anderson grabbing her rifle and approached her. “Anderson, what the fuck
happened? Why is Carp up on the roof, dead?”

Her face
dropped. Behind her Cross and Schumacher cursed. “Carp is dead?”

“As a fuckin’
doornail. Why was he up there?”

“He said he
couldn’t sleep. Came up to relieve me. I was beat so I saw no reason to argue.”

Parker nodded.
It didn’t really matter. Carp was dead and nothing would change that. He was a
good man, but too many good men had been lost to mourn each one.

“Shit, it should
have been me up there,” said Anderson. “I should be dead, not Carp. It’s such a
waste.”

“Beat yourself
up later,” said Parker. “Mack’s men are out there, right now. We have to take
up positions.”

Anderson nodded
and headed out the room, back in full-on professional mode. Cross and
Schumacher followed after her. Dennis looked at Parker with fear in his eyes.

“You ready,”
Parker asked the man.

He nodded.
“Everyone gotta die sometime. I just hope I take as many of Mack’s men with us
as we can.”

Parker put a
hand on the man’s shoulder and looked him in the eye. “We’ll get them all,
Dennis. They aren’t getting this supermarket. You have my word.”

Dennis nodded
and ran out of the staffroom.

Two minutes
later, everyone had spread out at the back of the store, focusing their fire
into the bottleneck they had created in the centre aisles. Parker currently
crouched behind a heavy, glass and steel deli counter. Cross had taken position
in the alcove of the supermarket’s bakery, aiming his rifle through the bread
shelves. Dennis, Anderson, and Schumacher held positions behind a barricade
made from plastic-wrapped pallets of tinned goods: beans, spaghetti hoops, and
other assorted sundries.

The supermarket
was silent as they waited. Mack’s men were not hasty or impatient. No help
would arrive to help Parker, no reinforcements or nearby units. There was no
reason for Mack not to take his time. He was no doubt out there, right now,
planning his next move.

Parker held his
breath and listened harder. What was the holdup, though? Taking your time was
one thing, but the longer Mack took, the longer it gave his enemy to prepare.
He should have been attacking by now.

“Hey,” Cross
hissed from over by the bakery. “D’you hear that?”

Parker did hear
it. A far away humming, getting louder. A mechanical sound. Almost like a…

Parker hit the
floor and shouted, “Get down!” The explosion rocked the store at its very
foundations, and glass, debris, and bloody chunks from the piled-up corpses
from the front of the store filled the air and landed with the pattering sound
of hailstorms and rain.

“What the fuck!”
shouted Cross.

“They rigged a
goddamn car with explosives; rammed it into the barricades outside.”

“Explosives? Where
the hell did they get ordinance from?”

“Who knows,”
said Parker. “It’s there for the taking for anyone who knows where to look. It
doesn’t matter. Just get ready to return fire.”

Mack’s men
started firing their weapons before Parker even managed to spot one of them.
The glass of the deli counter splinted but did not break – otherwise a bullet
or two may have found its way into Parker’s chest. He clambered across to the
side of the counter and blind-fired into the supermarket, hoping to buy his own
men the briefest chance to set themselves against their attackers.

Parker heard
someone cry out at the front of the store and he couldn’t tell if it was from a
bullet or if they had trodden on one of Dennis’s hidden nails. Dust filled the
air and obscured vision beyond a few feet. Parker fired into the mist.

More rounds hit
the deli counter and Parker ducked down. He turned to his right to tell Cross
to coordinate fire with him, to pin down the enemy.

But Cross was
dead.

Cross sported a
bullet wound in his forehead the size of a penny while the back of his head had
exploded in a wound the size of a tennis ball.

Parker shook his
head and cursed. “That motherfucking sniper.”

Parker turned to
his right and crawled beside the deli counter. Bullets seemed to hit all around
him. Ahead of him, Anderson and Schumacher returned fire as best they could,
keeping their heads down and hoping for the best. Beyond them, Dennis fired
nails from his power tool wildly into the air, sending shards of iron death in
a dozen directions.

There was a
brief cessation in the firing and Parker knew that Mack’s men were reloading.
He shot up over the deli counter and screamed at his own men to, “Fire!” He
took careful aim down his sights and scanned the area as time seemed to stand
still. At the front of the store, the dust was clearing and Parker made out the
briefest flash of green material. He squeezed the trigger and flinched as he
heard his bullet hit soft flesh beneath the camouflaged uniform of his target.
The man hit the ground screaming, landing on the cardboard-covered nails. His
screams got louder.

“Man down,” one
of Mack’s men cried out, and Parker smiled as another body hit the ground in
the aisles, slipping on the bleach and detergent and then taking a bullet from
Anderson while he helplessly tried to keep his balance.

“Shit!
Cooper’s down!”

Parker’s men
seemed to be getting the upper hand, but that all depended on how many men Mack
had with him. Parker’s rifle ran dry and he crouched down to reload. He pulled
a magazine from a pouch on his belt but frowned when he felt it was light. He’d
forgotten that his current magazine was all he had left.

“Damn it.”
Staying low, he sprinted towards the barricade that protected Anderson and the
others. They wouldn’t have any spare ammo to give him, but he could act as a
spotter for them and try to pick their targets.

As Parker neared
the others, something struck the floor in front of him and rolled across the
floor. His eyes went wide as he recognised what it was. “Get down!” he screamed.
“Grenade!”

Parker skidded
to the floor and began clambering backwards on his hands and rump. Anderson
looked down at the grenade at her feet and froze. Just when Parker was sure he
was about to watch her get blown limb from limb, her body lurched forward, with
such force that she tumbled and skidded a clear ten feet across the floor
towards Parker.

Parker shook his
head in disbelief as Dennis threw aside his nail gun and leapt on top of the
grenade. A muffled explosion erupted from beneath him and blood splatter hit
the floor all around him. He was dead before even a full second passed.

Schumacher came
running up and looked down at the mess. “Shit! I guess he wasn’t willing to
stand around and watch another woman die.”

“We’ll mourn him
later,” said Parker. “I promised we’d take out every last one of Mack’s men and
I intend on keeping my word.”

Anderson fired
off another couple rounds and then they all huddled down. “What’s the plan?”
she asked Parker.

“We need to fall
back to the warehouse. There’s only one entrance to focus on. We don’t have the
ammunition for anything else.”

As one, they
moved behind the deli counter and shuffled towards the warehouse entrance.
Parker ushered everyone in before him and then slid in behind them. They
immediately made for the nearest stack of pallets and aimed their rifles at the
doors, except for Parker who was out of ammo.

“You fire on the
first fucker that comes through that door,” Parker ordered.

“You can count
on it,” said Anderson.

Sure enough, the
first guy to come through the warehouse doors caught a fatal bullet to the
chest. His body hit the floor already dead, and several more men spilled into
the area spread out. Parker pulled out the chef’s knife Anderson had given him
earlier and threw it with all his strength at the doorway. It struck a man in
the face and caused a bad gash, but that was it. “Knew that shit wouldn’t
work!”

Anderson and
Schumacher kept firing their rifles, but never managed to land anther round
successfully as the enemy took cover. Then the grim click of their rifles going
empty caused them both to take cover themselves. All three of them were now out
of ammo.

Through the
doorway of the warehouse came Mack, red bandana soaked with sweat and covered
in rubble dust. He had a military shotgun around his neck but was letting it
hang loose with the muzzle pointed at the floor. He began to laugh.

“Come out, come
out, wherever you are. If you had any more bullets you’d be firing ‘em, so give
up the ghost, my friends. We tried to take this place politely, but I’m afraid
it has had to come to this.”

“Who do you
think you are?” Parker shouted out from behind a stack of Blu-Ray players. “You
signed an oath to protect this country, not rape and pillage it.”

Mack laughed.
“Rape and Pillage. I like that. Like Vikings, yeah?”

“Like depraved
animals, more like,” said Anderson.

“Ooh, a lady
with a smart mouth. Looks like it’s our lucky day, boys.”

“Not gonna
happen,” said Parker.

“Beg to differ.”
Mack fired his shotgun and took out a chunk of the DVD players. Parker flinched
and kept low. He made eye-contact with both Anderson and Schumacher. Both of
them looked back with fear, but also defiance.

“Look,” said
Mack. “Just get the hell out of here. We’re not interested in you. We just want
the food here. It’s ours. You can go.”

“Yeah, right,”
said Parker. “Is that the deal you made with all of the dead men and women at
the front of this store?”

“They were just
civvies, I have no respect for them. The world belongs to the strong now. I
have respect for a serviceman such as yourself. You can go. You’re man, too.
Just not the woman you got with you.”

Schumacher leapt
from behind a stack of pallets and came at Mack from the side. While they had
all been talking, he had managed to flank the man and was now lunging for him
with a knife.

Mack spun
around, the lowered shotgun too long and cumbersome to bring up in time to
deflect the blow. Schumacher swung out with his blade.

The sound of
gunfire in the cramped confines of the warehouse was deafening. Parker peeked
around the corner in horror as Schumacher flew back against a stack of
cardboard boxes and immediately started bleeding from what was left of his
face. Beside him stood one of Mack’s men, a smoking sidearm pistol in his hand.

“Who the hell
are you guys with?” asked Parker, trying to stall for time. “All your weapons:
shotguns, grenades?”

Mack laughed
again. “Let’s just say we were based out of Hereford when the shit hit the fan.
We forgot to bring our beige berets with us.”

Parker’s eyes
went wide and so did Anderson’s. They were fucked. There were two of them
facing off against a squad of SAS. The SAS were notoriously so tough that even
if Parker had a fresh mag of ammo and emptied every round into Mack, the guy
would probably just shake it off and keep coming. There was no way to win this.

Anderson spoke
up. “If I come with you,” she said. “Will you let my sergeant go? He’s a good
man and has helped a lot of people. If you let him leave I will come with you…willingly.”

“What the fuck
are you doing?” said Parker in disbelief. “No way are you going with that
psycho.”

“It’s the only
way either of us will get through this alive. Besides, I’m already dead
anyway.”

Before Parker
had chance to ask her what she meant, Mack answered the proposal. “You have my
word. I’m not in the business of killing those who don’t stand in my way. As
long as they let me take what I want. And having a woman come willingly sounds
like an interesting novelty. You have a deal. Come with us and your noble
sergeant can go.”

Parker was
looking at Anderson and shaking his head. She looked right back at him with
fear in her eyes, but it seemed to be fading, becoming something else;
consternation. “Just let me say goodbye,” she said. “Two minutes.”

Mack huffed.
“Fine.”

Behind the stack
of Blu-Ray players, Anderson moved up close to Parker. “Don’t worry about me,”
she said.

“Are you crazy?”
he said.

She pulled up
one of her shirt sleeves to her elbow. “No, I’m not crazy. I’m sick. And I
ain’t getting better.”

Anderson’s arm
was covered in a swath of pus-filled blisters. In the worst places they had
come away to show weeping, raw flesh. She had it. She had The Peeling.

Parker felt
sick, but managed to keep his voice low. “What the fuck? You have it! But
there’s been no new cases in weeks. The disease is supposed to be gone.”

Anderson
shrugged. “Guess it hasn’t finished with us yet. It started yesterday evening.
The rate it’s spreading I don’t even have a week left.”

Parker’s mouth
dropped open. “I…I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be. Those
fuckers out there don’t know I’m ill, so they’ll take me as a fucking piece of
meat and let you go.”

“I still can’t
leave you,” said Parker. “I can’t leave you to live even one day with those
monsters.”

“You won’t have
to. As long as you do one last thing for me.” She whispered into Parker’s ear
and he nodded. Then he smiled. It was a good plan.

“Okay,” shouted
Anderson. “I’m coming out, but Parker is going out the back and round the
access road. You let him go peacefully and I’ll be the best fuck you ever had.
You try to chase him down and I’ll struggle and bite until not one of you has a
dick left. Deal?”

“Deal,” said
Mack impatiently. “Let’s get it over with.”

Anderson stepped
out into the warehouse while Parker hurried for the back door. It felt wrong
leaving her, against everything he stood for, but he had something he needed to
do. As he fled the building, the sounds of Mack and his men tormenting Anderson
turned his stomach. At least she wouldn’t be suffering for long.

The fresh air of
outside hit Parker like a slap in the cheeks. He hadn’t realised how stifling the
rotting atmosphere of the supermarket had been. He was glad to be out of there.
What had at first seemed like a haven had instead turned out to be another
sanctuary of nightmares.

He passed by the
gate and soon realised that it was still padlocked. He looked around and
quickly spotted a row of wheeled recycling bins. Parker grabbed the nearest one
and yanked it with him towards the gate. Once it was in position, he hoisted
himself up on top and managed to claw himself over the chain link, ignoring the
pain of flesh grating from his palms.

Once his boots
were back down on the tarmac, he sprinted across the car park, heading in front
of the supermarket. The flaming remains of an old Volvo saloon stood in a
blackened mess against the barricade trucks and Parker couldn’t help but marvel
at the amount of explosives Mack must have possessed. He kept on running,
cutting between abandoned cars and trolleys, heading for where he and his men –
all dead now – had left the Warrior. When bedding down on the night previous,
they had covered the tank with a green canvas tarp. Luckily, Mack and his men
had not noticed it up on the bank between the trees. As much as Parker had
hated being tied to the rolling coffin the last several weeks, it now looked
and felt like home. He was glad to return to it – he just felt great sorrow
that he was returning alone.

Parker pulled
back the tarp and leapt up onto the Warrior’s flanks. He examined the vehicle’s
twin rocket launchers at its rear and was glad to see that they were all still
primed and loaded: eight high-explosive rocket-propelled grenades.

Parker opened up
the command hatch and slid himself down into the cockpit. He switched on the
console and breathed a sigh of relief that the tank’s battery was as healthy as
when they had left it. The targeting readout flashed up and showed him a black
and white picture of the trees in front of him. After tapping in a few
commands, the display switched to display something else: the supermarket.

The large,
square building in black and white seemed sinister, more like a prison or
asylum. He would be glad to bring it to its knees. Parker tapped in the
relevant commands, targeted the twin grenade launchers on the back of the
building, where the warehouse was located, and then sent the orders.

With a fizz not
unlike the sound of champagne being uncorked, eight rockets hurtled high into
the air. Parker could not see them from within the cockpit, but he knew that
they would be about to reach the apex of their climb, before tilting in mid-air
and falling back down to earth; their unmoving target was a certainty.

Parker watched
on the screen as the supermarket bloomed white in a violently shifting cloud. A
split-second later, the tank shook and his ear drums popped as the air pressure
became charged. With a grim smile, not of happiness but perhaps of
satisfaction, Parker climbed out onto the roof of the tank and surveyed the
chaos of the rubble that had once been a supermarket. The hollow building,
lacking in central support had crumpled like a stack of cards, so flat that no
one inside could possibly have lived. The area was decimated and all that now
lived was a smattering of fires. Anderson was dead; so were Cross, Schumacher,
Carp, and Dennis. But so were Mack and all of his men.

Parker didn’t
know if the sacrifice of his good men was enough to make the death of Mack’s
evil men worth it. He hoped it was. One thing was for sure, the nightmares of
this world were not yet over. Anderson had proved that The Peeling was not yet
finished, and, as Parker looked up at the dawn sky and saw unnatural lights
filling it by the thousands, he started to understand that the disease that had
destroyed the world was not the end of things to come, but just the beginning
of something worse.

The lights in
the sky were getting bigger.

THE PEELING: PATIENT ZERO

The spacious minibus cut through
the English countryside like a scalpel through flesh. From within its
air-conditioned cocoon, it would be easy to forget the sweltering sun that beat
down its summer rays. The tinted windows made the world outside seem dark.

Dr Gregory Penn
watched the farms, fields and forests roll by and wondered how long it had been
since he last saw a building. Being so far away from London gave him an
unsettled feeling that he did not like. It was like he was somehow leaving
civilisation behind.

I’m fleeing.
Escaping my life so that I might find another.

But it was a
choice he had made. Greg had finally sold out to the big money offer and was
working for the Government. No more helping sick people in hospitals, no more
saving lives; now he would spend his days researching whatever his new bosses
told him to – whether it was a weapon of mass destruction or an anti-wrinkle
cream.

The black-suited
driver of the mini-bus turned down a wooded lane and reduced their speed. The
vehicle began to bounce on its axels as the road became uneven and rocky.

“Are we nearly
there?” Greg asked. The long drive was giving him too much time to think. He
was getting anxious, doubting his decision.

Am I really
cut out for this? Chief Virologist at the age of thirty-eight?

Well, I’m not
cut out for anything else. Was never any good at being a friend, a husband…

“We will be
there in less than ten minutes, sir,” replied the driver.

Greg sighed. It
was a relief to be close after so many hours of driving. With all of the back
roads they’d taken, he wasn’t even sure which part of the country he was in
anymore. They could even have passed north into Scotland for all he knew.
They’d certainly be driving long enough since Lewisham.

Up ahead, the
minibus encountered a chain link fence. The driver slipped a mobile phone from
his pocket and made a call. A few seconds later, a section of the fence slid
aside on rails and the minibus passed through.

An automatic
fence in the middle of nowhere…Very cloak and dagger.

A short while
later, the muddy road opened up into a wide clearing. The area between the
thick woods was almost a perfect circle – unnatural in its perfect curves. In
the centre was a single building no bigger than a garden shed.

What the
hell? This is the UK’s finest Medical Research facility?

“Please exit the
vehicle,” said the driver. “Then proceed to the building ahead.”

Greg didn’t
move.

“Sir, please do
as I’ve instructed.”

Greg cleared his
throat and then unclasped his seatbelt. He pushed open the door and scooted
along his seat. Twigs and dry leaves crunched beneath his feet as he stepped
out of the minibus. The sounds seemed immense in the silence of the clearing.
He slid the door closed behind him and headed up to the front of the vehicle.
He leant towards the driver’s window and tried to see through the tint.

“Excuse me,” he
said through the glass. “I think there must be some sort of mistake. This is-”

The minibus took
off in reverse. The brakes squealed and the vehicle spun around to face the way
from which they had come. Then it sped off into the woods, leaving Greg alone
in the clearing.

Really not
enjoying my first day so far.

He took a few
tentative steps towards the small hut ahead of him and then stopped. He looked
around, expecting someone to jump out of the trees laughing and saying that
this was all one big joke. When it was clear that that would not happen, he
carried on walking.

The building
ahead had no windows. Just a single, metal door set into a concrete surround.

Greg reached the
structure and placed himself in front of the entrance. The door did not appear
to have a handle, or even a lock, and when he tried to push it open it held
tight.

Great! What
am I supposed to do?

A thought
occurred to Greg and he banged on the door with his fist.

Anybody
there?

The door opened,
moving aside gently as if in the hands of some unseen butler. Beyond was a
steep staircase that headed straight down into darkness. Greg stared in
disbelief. It felt like he was looking down into the bowels of hell.

Despite his
anxiety, Greg took the first step. Then the next. Then several more. He seemed
to descend for ever.

It wasn’t long
before he was surrounded by shadows on all sides. The door at the top of the
stairs had closed and with it, so too, the light from outside. The only thing
preventing absolute darkness was a blinking green light lower down the
staircase. Greg continued hoped it represented the end of his confusing
journey.

Go towards
the light, Gregory.

It turned out
that that the green light was affixed to a security camera. Greg stared into
its lens and imagined he could see someone at the other end watching him.

There was a hiss
in the darkness up ahead and then a vertical sliver of golden light appeared.
Slowly the sliver widened into a gap and a brightly lit hallway appeared
beyond. Greg found it hard to breathe, but he managed to keep going and passed
through the newly opened entrance.

He entered a
featureless, white corridor. A voice from above startled him.

“WELCOME DR
PENN. PLEASE ENTER THE SECOND DOOR ON YOUR RIGHT WHERE YOU WILL BE MET BY AN
ADMINSTRATOR.”

Greg noticed
that the corridor was lined by dozens of doors on each side. The one he had
been directed to was no different to any of the others. He did as instructed
and opened the second door on the right.

Inside, a
diminutive, bespectacled man sat behind a large, aluminium desk. He stood up
immediately upon Greg’s arrival.

“Dr Penn,” the
man said, heading out from behind the desk and offering his hand. “It’s a
pleasure to meet you. My name is Dr Matthews and I am one of the administrators
here. I am also the site’s physician, so I will be required to give you a
health check tomorrow morning.”

Greg shook the
man’s small hand and smiled. “A Pleasure. I have to say, I’m a little put out
by all of this.”

The man nodded
and laughed as if he understood exactly what he meant. “We apologise for the
clandestine nature of your arrival. I’m sure you understand that this facility
is an extremely sensitive Government secret. Only the Americans know about it.
The entire structure is erected beneath the ground and the lack of buildings up
top is to avoid detection by satellites. Google Maps is the enemy.”

Greg frowned at
the man.

“That was a
joke, Dr Penn. We may be secretive, but we still have a sense of humour.”

“You keep saying
we,” Greg commented.

“We’re a
community down here, Dr Penn. It has to be that way with the nature of things.
You understand that you will remain in this facility for the next three years?”

Greg nodded. He
remembered signing the paperwork with a trembling. “I didn’t realise I would be
staying in a hole in the ground, though.”

Dr Matthews
stepped up to the Greg and placed a hand on his back. He began leading him back
out into the corridor. “I think you will find that things are more than to your
liking. But the only way for you to believe it is to see it with your own eyes.
Come on.”

Greg allowed
himself to be ushered back into the corridor. Dr Matthews led him opposite, to
a door on the other side of the corridor. Without word, he opened it and pushed
Greg through.

Inside was a
vast catacomb of wonders. A space the size of several football fields was laid
out with numerous partitions, office cubicles, and blinking electronics.
Hundreds of lab-coated personnel rushed about in a fever of hard work and
commitment. Huge air conditioner units roared overhead.

“We just call
this area, The Floor,” Dr Matthews told him. “It’s where we conduct most
of our theoretical research and low-level experiments – blood work and the
like.”

Greg scanned the
area with wonderment. He was aware that his jaw was hanging open but did
nothing about it. “It’s…It’s…”

“Yep, it’s
something, alright. You probably won’t spend too much time here, though. A
scientist of your ability will no doubt be more at home in one of the private
labs. Shall we?”

Greg did not
speak as Dr Matthews continued with the tour. The man introduced him to the
luxurious staff lounge, crammed with televisions, videogames, pool tables, and
many other forms of entertainment. There was even a modest library crammed with
mass market paperbacks.

Next was the
canteen, which had a menu which would put most restaurants to shame. Dozens of
people ate there, while some worked away on laptops and tablets.

“It’s open
twenty-four hours a day,” Dr Matthews explains. “Most of our more committed
researchers often work odd hours, so the cafeteria never closes.”

Greg’s stomach
rumbled as he thought about eating. “Great. So what’s next?”

“I suppose I
should take you to your lab to meet your team. Then you can settle into your
apartment.”

Greg balked.
“Apartment?”

Dr Matthews
smiled. “Why of course. We don’t expect you to spend three years in a bedsit.
As a department supervisor, you will have one of the facility’s larger suites.
I think you’ll like it.”

“I…thank you. I
would like to meet my team now.” Greg was beginning to find the ground beneath
his feet. He was here to do a job, to lead a team of scientists. Now that he
had fallen down the rabbit hole, he was ready to get to work.

Dr Matthews led
him back out into the main corridor and over to a steel door at the end marked
RESEARCH LABORATORIES. B.S. lv 3, 4, 5.

Greg frowned.
“Level 5? Bio Safety levels only go up to 4.”

“Not here they
don’t.”

“So…what is
level 5?”

Dr Matthews
looked at him like he was dumb. “More dangerous than level 4.”

Greg sighed.
“But what on earth is more dangerous than a level 4 containment facility?”

“Anything that
can cause extinction.”

Greg felt his jaw
drop again.

“You see,” said
Dr Matthews. “There are other reasons we built this facility under the ground
in the middle of nowhere. Very good reasons. And you, Dr Penn, are about to be
placed in charge of several of them.”

***

Greg’s lab was
deep underground. They had accessed it via an elevator ride that seemed to take
forever. It turned out that all of the staff in the Level 5 labs had apartments
nearby – Greg’s included. It would allow him to roll out of bed and be at work
within two minutes. He had a feeling, however, that the adjacency of their
living quarters may well play into potential quarantine scenarios.

Keep us all
bunched up together in case something gets inside us.

Dr Matthews led
him down a sterile hallway and directed him into a large office. The long,
walnut desk in the centre of the room already had a name plate with Greg’s name
and qualifications on it. He had worked at many of the UK’s finest hospitals,
but he had never had a desk like this. He went over and picked up the name plate.
DR GREGORY J. PENN, BMSc, DSc.

“You like?” Dr
Matthews asked him.

Greg placed the
name plate back down and nodded. “I do. My team?”

“I’ll send them
right in. They can brief you from here.” Dr Matthews stepped forward and shook
Greg’s hand. “A pleasure to meet you, Doctor. I’ll see you in the morning for
your medical.”

“Good to meet
you, too. See you soon.”

Dr Matthews left
the office and Greg headed behind his desk. He sat down on the plush leather
chair and slid his legs into the foot pass of his new desk. He felt at home
already. A little over five minutes later, three young doctors entered his
office: two gangly males and a dowdy looking female. All three of them were
pale and sickly looking.

Lack of
sunlight? Or overworked? Will have to find out and see if I can do something to
improve working conditions. That will make them loyal to me.

“Good to meet
you all,” he said to them. “While I intend to lead this team from the front, I
will be relying on your for the next couple of days to help me get settled. I
imagine you are three of the brightest minds this country has to offer. I look
forward to working with you. In the meantime, would you please introduce
yourselves briefly?”

The female of
the trio stepped forwards. She had short brown hair and looked like a mousy
librarian. “My name is Elizabeth Wilson. My speciality is infectious diseases.
I’ve been at the facility for just under two years after transferring from a
private research company.”

One of the two
men stepped forward. He was the taller of the two and had the beginnings of a
blond goatee. “My name is Thomas Fenton. My specialty is Allergy and
Immunology. I have only been at the facility for eight months. It’s a pleasure
to meet you, sir.”

Well, I know
who the suck up is.

The last of the
young doctors stepped forward. He had much darker features than the other man
and seemed a few years older. He was plump and short, but had an air of
authority about him. “My name is Dr James Button. My speciality is in
Endocrinology, Haematology, and Internal Medicine. I have been at the facility
for six years and have been running things recently since Dr Doherty moved up
into senior management.”

Greg whistled.
“Very impressive. I can see why you were left in charge.”

Greg caught a
glint of resentment in Dr Button’s eyes. Perhaps he felt that the supervisor
role should have been his. He was certainly qualified for it.

Letters after
your name doesn’t always mean you’re fit to lead, though. I’ll have to make
sure I stamp on any subordination the moment it happens.

Greg patted his
fingertips together and nodded his head as he appraised his team. They were an
impressive trio and he was lucky to have their skills at his disposal. “Okay,
well, as you can see from the name on my desk, I am Dr Gregory Penn. My
specialities are in Infectious Diseases and Neurology. I’d say that between us
we have quite a broad spectrum of knowledge. My previous experience is mostly
in emergency medicine and diagnostics. This is my first research post, but I
intend to succeed in any and all tasks that we undertake. Every puzzle has a
solution and every disease can be understood and controlled.”

The three
doctors nodded.

Greg stood up
and clapped his hands together. “Okay, show me what you’ve been up to.”

***

“This is the
main lab,” said Dr Button as he showed Greg around the most high-tech
facilities he had ever seen. The main testing areas were in a separate space,
behind thick layers of safety glass and accessed via a series of airlocks and
containment areas. Inside, Greg could see row upon rows of biosafety cabinets.
On Greg’s side of the glass was a staging area with positive pressure suits and
safety monitors.

“We keep strains
of the Lassa Virus inside,” Dr Button mentioned. “Along with all other known
forms of Haemorrhagic Fever. We are also studying several yet-to-be classified
pathogens and a new strain of Necrotizing Fasciitis that is unresponsive to all
antibiotics in current use.”

Greg raised an
eyebrow. “Jesus! Where did it come from?”

Button cleared his
throat. “That’s…a complicated issue.”

Greg folded his
arms. “Okay, well, don’t be shy. I’d like to know where the disease was found.
It could help understand it.”

Button turned to
his colleagues, Fenton and Wilson, and then shrugged. They seemed to defer to
him. “I was going to give you a few days to settle in before showing you,” said
Button. “But if you insist, follow me.”

Greg followed
his team to the back of the laboratory and through a door. Inside was another
staging area, with a large steel door blocking entrance to the room beyond.
Button tapped a code into a number pad on the wall and the door hissed and
opened.

“After you,”
said Button, somewhat patronisingly.

Greg chewed at
his bottom lip and then stepped through the open door. There was another
identical door up ahead. Once the first door was closed, the second one opened.
Greg’s stomach turned a little as he anticipated what he was about to see.

But he never
expected to find what he did.

In front of him
was a large glass cage. Sitting right in the middle, watching a television, was
a middle-aged man. He waved when he spotted them.

“You must be, Dr
Penn,” said the man in the glass cage. “I’ve been expecting you.”

***

Greg turned to
his team. “What the hell is this? Who is this man?” Wilson pursed her lips and
looked nervous. Greg realised it was probably due to the tone of his voice
having been so aggressive.

“This is Patient
WC-00,” Dr Button said. “The first and, currently, only carrier of Welshchild
Necrotising Fasciitis.”

Greg spun to
face the younger doctor and gave him a stern stare. “There is no such disease.”

“Yes, there is.
And you are looking at it.”

Greg looked at
the man in the cage with great interest. He was about Greg’s age, but seemed in
better shape – like he exercised regularly. The television standing on the desk
in front of the man flashed with images from a 24-hour news channel.

“I like to stay
abreast of current events,” said the man in the cage as he noticed Greg staring
at the television. “Despite having never been a part of them.”

Greg approached
the glass. He saw an oxygen scrubber set against the ceiling and realised that
the room was completely sterile.

It’s a giant
biohazard cabinet.

“How long have
you been in there?” Greg asked the man.

“Since shortly
after my birth.”

Greg looked at
his team and was astonished when they nodded to confirm it.

“Since you were
a baby? Why? Why would they keep you here?”

The man stood up
from his chair and shrugged. He came closer to the glass. “I have no ideas.
Perhaps now that you’re in charge you can finally let me out.”

“Step back from
the glass,” Button said.

Greg shook his
head. “I’m fine. I want to know why this man has been locked up his entire
life.”

Suddenly, the
man in the cage leapt the three feet between them and smashed his hands against
the reinforced glass.

Greg leapt back,
startled.

The man in the
cage smiled widely. His teeth were missing, his gums black. “They lock me up,”
he growled, “Because I am death itself. I am Plague.”

Button put a
hand on Greg’s shoulder. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s go somewhere and I’ll fill
you in.”

***

Back in the
office, Greg was too wound-up to sit in his chair, so he perched on the edge of
his desk while his team stood before him. As usual, Button was the one to do
their talking.

“WC-00 was
discovered on the 23rd January 1974 in the mountains of North Wales. An
earthquake in the area, twinned with a nearby Army training exercise, led to
the discovery. A small group of soldiers from the 1stBattalion Parachute
Regiment were running fitness assessments for entry into the SAS. They found an
abandoned child three-hundred feet above the ground on one of the foothills.
The child was healthy, but crying.”

Greg sniffed.
“They found a baby just lying there?”

Button shrugged
his shoulders. “That’s what the files say. The child was totally abandoned.
There was no one for miles around. The army could not explain it, but they took
the child back to a base in Hereford. Within twelve hours, everyone that came
into contact with the unidentified child was displaying flu-like symptoms.
Twenty-four hours later and their bodies began to…peel.”

Greg swallowed a
lump in his throat, but then found himself laughing. “Peel? What on earth do
you mean?”

Wilson cleared
her throat. “There’s a videotape in your desk drawer. You can play it on the
console over there.”

Greg looked left
and saw a television and tape desk that he hadn’t even realised was there.
There was also hardware for DVD, Blu Ray, and a memory card reader. Greg slid
open one of the slim, horizontal drawers at the back of his desk and did indeed
find a tape. He went over and slid the cassette into the playback machine.

The television
fizzed to life.

“What is this?
What am I looking at?”

“This was
recorded on the military base in Hereford,” Dr Fenton explained. “When people
started getting sick, one of the medical staff had the foresight to make a
recording.”

The image was
grainy and spotted with noise. On a couple of occasions even the vert-hold went
awry. What was clear, though, was that the images were coming from a handheld
camera inside what appeared to be an infirmary.

A voice narrated
from behind the scenes – the voice of the camera operator.

“It has now
been approximately eighteen hours since exposure to the Welsh child. Flu-like
symptoms have now progressed to something more resembling the flesh-eating
nightmares of science fiction. It is like nothing I have ever seen before.
Specialists are en route from Porton Down but I fear that it is already too
late for us.”

The camera
panned around the room and then zoomed in on a bedridden soldier.

As you can
see, the flesh of this man’s face is almost completely gone. His jawbone is
exposed and his trigeminal nerve is apparent beneath the liquefying flesh. This
man is melting alive. I pray that his pain is soon to end. I see no other
outcome but to assume that it is.

Greg felt his
stomach slosh as the cameraman continued showing scenes of biological
devastation. He watched as at least a dozen servicemen lay in their beds,
rotting from various parts of their body. One man even had his skeletal leg bones
on display beneath his knees. The video ended with the camera man turning the
focus on himself – displaying his own rotting face – and reciting the Lord’s
Prayer.

“Jesus Christ,”
said Greg, moving around and sitting behind his desk. The wooden barrier made
him feel more secure. He realised, as he placed his hands out in front of him,
that he was shaking.

“The base was
immediately quarantined,” said Button. “If it were not for the case the child
was found by the military and taken immediately to a secure medical facility,
the affects would have been far worse.”

“Catastrophic,”
Fenton added. “The infection rate of exposure to the Welsh Child was 100%.
survival rate: zero.”

“No disease has
a total kill rate. Not a single plague know to man.”

“This one does,”
said Fenton. “But only with phase one exposure.”

“What do you
mean?”

“In tests, only
subjects exposed to WC-00 directly displayed a 100% death rate. Of the test
subjects exposed to infected patients, only 50% were symptomatic. They still
contracted the virus and carried it, but it was dormant in their bodies – yet
still highly infectious. On the other hand, those with symptoms, which
eventually led to their deaths, were not at all symptomatic.”

Greg rubbed a
finger down the length of his nose and thought about what that meant. “So…those
who were dying were not contagious, yet those who appeared healthy were? That
would make it nearly impossible to contain if it entered the general
population. There would be no way of telling who was passing it on to whom.”

“Exactly,” said
Button. “Which is why WC-00 is probably the most dangerous human being on the
planet. If he ever escaped…”

Greg nodded. He
understood what it would mean. “So…this man, this WC-00, is one of the
asymptomatic carriers?”

“No,” said
Button. “He is something else entirely.”

“What do you
mean?”

“He carries the
virus, yes, and is extremely contagious, but he is not like the other carriers.
The disease is present in his body on a genetic level. Almost as though he were
engineered to carry the virus in his DNA.”

Greg huffed.
“You’re talking about genetic engineering…in the 1970s? That’s preposterous.”

“Perhaps, but
every test we have done on WC-00’s tissue samples suggest that the virus is as
much a part of his make-up as amino acids and mitochondria. He literally is the
virus, in human form.”

“I am plague,”
said Greg, remembering what the man had said to him.

“He says that a
lot,” said Wilson. She scratched at her forehead and let out a long sigh.
“Since his isolation began, ongoing efforts have been made to socialise and
enrich his existence, but in recent years he has begun to take on
characteristics of-”

“Dementia,” Greg
guessed. “I’m not surprised. He’s been locked in a glass cube his entire life.
Has he ever even felt the touch of another human being?”

“Only when he
was retrieved from the Welsh foothills,” said Fenton. “The level 5 Bio Hazard
protocols were created purely to house him. He’s never left that room. Anyone
that goes in must exercise extreme caution. Full safety measures.”

“What about when
he gets sick? How has he been kept healthy this whole time?”

“There has been
no need,” Button said. “His immune system is like nothing we have ever seen.
He’s never been sick a day in his life. Not even a cold.”

Greg shook his
head. “Well, I’m not surprised in an isolation chamber. He’s probably never
been exposed to anything. I was thinking more about internal disorders.”

“You don’t
understand,” said Button, somewhat condescendingly. “We have intentionally
exposed him to all kinds of pathogens, from the common cold to smallpox. His
immune system dismantled every single attack.”

Greg’s eyes went
wide. The man was a miracle – if they could ever discover the reason for his
total immunity…harness that knowledge in some way…

“Wait,” said
Greg. “What about his teeth. They were rotted and missing.”

“Auto-immune
response. The antibodies in his saliva are so aggressive that they attracted
the bacteria growing on the surface of his teeth until there was nothing left
but stumps. We serve him his nutrients in liquid-form now.”

Greg sighed. “No
human being should have to live like that.”

“Many would
agree with you,” said Fenton, finding his voice, “but those in charge are just
taking the only option available. The real blame should be with whatever
terrorist created WC-00.”

“You think
terrorists are responsible?”

Fenton shrugged.
“Some may have other opinions, but I see no other answers. Somebody was
supposed to find WC-00 and contract the disease, before spreading it. It was
only supremely good fortune that led to a safe quarantine.”

“Three hundred
and sixty-eight people were dead within thirty-six hours of the child being
found. If the disease had gotten outside that base, you and I would not be
standing here. We would all be dead, or not even born.”

Greg leant back
in his chair and held his breath. He concentrated on the pressure building
within his chest and then finally let the air out. If WC-00 ever got out, then
humanity would die out to the tune of 50%. More than three billion people.
And he was now the man in charge of that never happening. Several hours ago, he
had no idea that the destruction of mankind was being housed in a glass cage
below the British countryside. Now that he knew, he envied the ignorance he
would never again have the luxury of having.

I wonder what
other secrets this chamber of horrors contains.

Guess I’ll find
out.

***

After only three
days, Greg had discovered all sorts of uncategorised biological nasties. The
underground ‘Level 5’ lab housed methods of killing the world a hundred times
over. It was a good thing that the facility was one of the most secure in the
world. It would probably even put the American labs to shame.

Still, despite
all that he had seen, Greg’s mind kept wandering back to WC-00 – or Welshchild
as his team referred to him sometimes. He couldn’t believe that some unknown
man of science had once engineered and condemned a new born child to a life of
isolation – with the original intention being the semi-extinction of mankind.
Welshchild’s very existence was a tragedy. And it was something the world would
never know

about. The man
would spend every minute of the rest of his life inside a glass cage.

Greg lay back in
the king-sized bed of his underground apartment and stared at the whizzing
ceiling fan. It reminded him of the wheels on a speeding car; something he
would not see again for the next three years.

After the
breakup of his marriage, the chance to get away had seemed ideal, but now Greg
felt like he was in a tomb and surrounded by agents of death. The only thing
keeping him sane was the work – the thrill of being at the cutting edge of
epidemiology. His efforts at the facility could directly influence the future
of the world and its ongoing battle against infection. If he ever found a way
to replicate WC-00’s superior immune system, he would win a noble prize at the
very least.

He’s the
priority here. He’s a unique human being. The things he could teach us…

But in forty
years no one has been able to do anything but contain him.

That’s
exactly why this could my chance to make a difference. Maybe I could even find
a cure for the disease. I could allow that poor man to finally step outside and
smell the fresh air.

Or am I just
dreaming?

Greg hopped up
off the bed and walked across the bedroom. He had no idea what time it was, but
he wasn’t feeling sleepy. He would go back to work until he was.

Being
underground meant that time lost its importance. People worked when they were
awake and rested when they needed to. It was a system that worked well. People
were more productive when they could work to their natural rhythms. There were
no early mornings and late nights, just work and rest entwined.

Greg threw on
some clothes from the built in wardrobes and headed out of his apartment. The
outside corridor led back to the labs and the air-locked areas. He could also
get to WC-00’s containment cell, which was his destination. He wanted to talk
to the man, find out as much as he could.

Discover his
secrets.

Inside the main
lab, Button was working busily away. Out of the members of Greg’s team, Button
seemed the most resistant to downtime. The man ate at his desk and slept via
short naps of only twenty or thirty minutes at a time. Greg both admired and
pitied his dedication.

“Dr Penn, sir?
Can I help you with anything?”

“No, I’m just
off to see WC-00.”

Button swivelled
slightly on his chair and frowned at Greg. “There’s nothing we can do for him,
or with him.”

“But to not try
would be inhuman. The man deserves to have someone fighting to give him a
normal life.”

“He’ll never
have a normal life…and he’s not human. No one raised in such an environment
could be considered as such.”

Greg nodded.
“But that is our doing, not his.”

Dr Button
swivelled back around and faced his computer. With a weary voice, he said, “Just
be careful. WC-00 has a way of getting inside your head. He’s best left alone.”

Greg didn’t
exactly understand what that meant, but he nodded and said, “I’ll take it under
advisement, Dr Button.”

Greg headed
through the lab and typed in the key code needed to enter the containment cell.
The door hissed open and he stepped through into the airlock, before passing
through into the next room.

WC-00 sat in the
centre of his glass cage as he always did whenever he did not have company.
When he saw Greg appear, he waved a hand dismissively and turned back to
whatever he was watching.

Greg stepped up
close to the glass and sat down on the chair he had placed there a day earlier.
“Hello,” he said as he got comfortable.

WC-00 kept his
eyes on the television. “What do you want?”

“I just wanted
to see how you were doing?”

“I woke up.
Exercised for one hour. Ate breakfast. Switched the television on. Later I will
have dinner and then go to sleep. Tomorrow I will do the exact same thing
again. That will be my life until the moment I pass my final breath. I pray
that it is sooner rather than later.”

Greg raised an
eyebrow. “You pray? You believe in God?”

“Yes, I believe
in God. It is the only thing that keeps me going in here.”

“That is good,”
said Greg.

WC-00 turned and
grinned at him. “Yes, I have to believe in God, because the thought of standing
before him one day and demanding answers for my pointless existence is the only
thing with which I have to look forward.”

Greg sighed.
Religion could be a comfort to those who accepted it. It could also be fuel.
Fuel for rage and hatred. His own belief was that a lack of religion in any way
was the only way for society to occupy a rational middle-ground – but that was
a conversation for another time and place.

“You’re a
well-spoken man, WC-00.”

“Call me Welsh.
I have never possessed a name, but that serves me better than an ID code.”

Greg nodded.
“Okay…Welsh. How did they educate you here?”

“Books, videos,
interactions with men behind the glass. There is little else to do in here
other than educate oneself. I like to know about the world that has been denied
to me.”

“Perhaps one day
you will get to see it.”

Welsh let out a
long, bitter sigh. “That is a very cruel thing to suggest. Do not attempt to
dangle impossibilities in front of me, Doctor. I have no time for hope.”

“Everyone must
have hope.”

“Is that why you
opted to spend your life three hundred feet below the ground? Despair lives
beneath us and hope is in the clouds. It appears that you have gone the wrong
way, Doctor.”

Greg shifted in
his seat. The man in the cage had a way of voicing things in an unsettling
tone. His speech patterns were unusual – the product of having no native
upbringing.

“I am here to do
good,” he said. “To give hope to others. That is my hope.”

Welsh cackled.
“There is no hope here. This is a factory of suffering. The only reason I live
is so that men like you can try to understand me, to harness the invisible
death that writhes across my skin. I am a weapon, Doctor Penn. Many things in
this basement of monstrosities are weapons, but I am the most destructive. Yet,
your thousands of blood tests, your endless experiments on me, have all been
fruitless. My being is beyond your understanding. I am above anything you can
achieve merely by existing. I am plague.”

Greg considered
Welsh’s words and was disconcerted to recognise traits of self-aggrandisement.
When there was no normal outlets to gain self-esteem, a person would turn their
world-views inwards – convince themselves that they are above those around
them. It was an unhealthy belief-system.

“You keep
referring to yourself as plague? Why do you do that?”

Welsh shook his
head and snickered, as if the answer was obvious. “Dr Penn, if you were to step
inside this cell with me, your eyeballs would melt in your head. Your
fingernails would shrivel and decay. Your blood would thicken in your veins and
your skin would slide from your muscles like heated marzipan. To face me, man
to man, would mean certain death. I make all other diseases quake in their
boots. If I am not plague personified, then what am I? Should I ride a horse
and carry a quiver on my back. Would that convince you of what I am?”

Greg rubbed at
his eyes. The man before him should have been a wilting neurotic after so many
years of isolation, but instead he viewed himself almost as a god. “You believe
you are one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse?”

Welsh stood from
his chair and headed over to the glass. “It was just a metaphor, Doctor, but my
destiny was indeed great. If not for the actions of a squad of doomed
servicemen on that grassy hilltop where they found me, I would not have been
one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse…I would have been the apocalypse
itself.”

“And yet, here
you are, impotent and alone. Your destiny is no longer yours to decide.” The
comment was mean spirited, but Greg could not help it. Hearing the arrogant and
fatalistic words of the man in front of him made him angry. It almost sounded
like Welsh wished he had spread his dreaded plague.

Come on,
Greg. It’s hardly surprising that he has a grudge against humankind. He’s spent
his entire life as a lab rat. What capacity of love would he ever have been
given?

“Destiny takes a
lifetime, Doctor. It is determined by a journey’s ending, not by its beginning.
Would you not agree?”

Greg thought
about his own life. His beginnings had been bleak, yet bearable. His recent
past had been even grimmer. He liked to think that his life’s journey could get
better. Maybe it really was only the end of one’s life that counted.

“You are looking
at me with great interest, Doctor,” said Welsh. “But I assure you there are no
secrets here…at least none that you could comprehend.”

“I’d like to
try,” said Greg, more determined than ever. He had a desire to hear this man
thank him. He wanted to show Welsh what gratitude was. The only way to do that
would be by…

“I’m going to
cure you,” he said.

Welsh laughed,
loud and hard. “Cure me from what? I am what I am. I need no cure. It is you
who needs to evolve. I cannot be made sick by any organism or germ, and yet you
seek to cure me? That is rich indeed, Doctor.”

“I want to help
you,” said Greg, exasperated by the bitterness in Welsh’s manner.

“Help yourself,
Doctor. You need it more than I.”

Greg stood up.
“Suit yourself, but I assure you that one day you will get out of here and
you’ll thank me.”

Welsh examined
him carefully through the glass. “Well, if that ever does happen, Doctor,
perhaps I will thank you…but you, on the other hand, will be begging me.”

***

“Has he ever
tried to escape?” Greg asked his team as they sat in his office together.

“No, never,” said
Wilson. “Which I suppose is strange. It would be impossible for him to get out,
though.”

“You’re
positive?”

“Aren’t you,
sir?” asked Button with a hint of accusation.

Greg shrugged.
“I know that this is a very secure facility, but you think he would have at
least tried to escape once during his forty years here. The way he talks about
destiny and his superiority, I would think it drives him crazy being locked
up.”

Fenton folded
his hands in his lap. “How do you drive a crazy person crazy? I’m sure a sane
person would be beside themselves, but he is not a normal human being. Nothing
about him is suspect to the normal rules of the human condition, from his
personality right down to his very cells.”

Greg cleared his
throat and leant forward in his leather chair. “So what treatment have we
tried?”

Dr Button
answered. “We’ve tried mapping his genome, to try and identify where the virus
is located and target it directly. That failed. We have tried every antibiotic
in existence. They failed. We have tried full blood transfusions and organ
transplants. Failure. We have tried radiation therapy and various chemical
treatments. Fail-”

“Failure. I get
it,” said Greg. “So do any of you have any ideas how to proceed?”

“Yes,” said
Button. “We spend our times on projects with a future. You need to understand
that in regards to WC-00 we are nothing more than glorified hospice nurses. No
one has ever been able to make sense of him and, when he is dead, we should all
just be grateful that the only known source of the Welshchild disease will die
with him.”

“What about his
improved immune system? Has anyone come close to replicating it?”

Wilson shook her
head. “We don’t even understand it, let alone have any chance of replicating
it. His white blood count is the same as anybody else’s. We can’t explain how
he fights off infection. Previous Doctors have theorised that the Welshchild
virus is hostile to other pathogens. It may be what fights off the illness.”

Greg scratched
his chin and stretched out his legs. He was feeling tired, but he was too
excited to retire to his apartment. “This man is amazing. If only we could
unlock his secrets.”

“Just forget
about it,” said Dr Button. “He’s a lost cause to all but those who created
him.”

Greg stood up
and towered over his team. “Now listen here, Dr Button. I am in charge here. I
will decide whether or not something is a lost cause. I want all three of your
working on WC-00 for the foreseeable future. All other projects on hold.”

Wilson objected.
“Do you know how close this lab is to curing Malaria, HIV, even cancer? You
want us to just…stop?”

“Do you not
understand?” Greg shouted. “If we understand this man’s immune system, there
will be no need for a cure to malaria, or anything else for that matter. We
will be the saviour of millions of people, billions for the years to come. This
has to be our priority. Welsh Child Zero Zero is the key to a new, wonderful
future for mankind.”

Greg’s team
shifted in their seats and looked at him anxiously. They seemed unhappy at his
request, but also a little buoyed by his enthusiasm.

Greg smiled at
them all in turn. “We can be heroes,” he said. “Heroes.”

***

Days later and
Greg was ready to get started. The planning stages were complete and it was
time to start performing tests.

“There’s no
reason to go in there,” Dr Button told Greg. “We have more tissue samples then
we will ever need.”

Greg pulled the
positive pressure suit over his body from the feet upwards and started to
fasten the seals. Dr Wilson helped him attach the gloves to the suit and lock
the bracelets. “We’re starting from scratch, Dr Button. I want fresh samples so
I know that we are working with pure and up-to-date results. We shouldn’t take
anything for granted concerning this man.”

Dr Button handed
him the suit’s helmet. “Fine. Just be quick and just be careful. Wilson and
Fenton are both on lunch break. If something happens there’s only me to help
you.”

Before Greg put
the helmet on, he frowned at the doctor. “Careful?”

“Yes. It’s been
a while since anybody went inside, so be prepared. We don’t know for sure how
Welsh will react.”

Greg fastened a
utility belt around his waist and plugged it into the suit’s input jack. “I can
handle it,” he said into the helmet’s speaker.

Dr Button
checked Greg’s suit as he turned a full circle, checking for tears. When he was
satisfied, they inflated the suite and Greg turned around, clomping towards the
WC-00 airlock.

A vinyl tunnel
had been erected inside to allow uncompromised entry into the glass cell. Welsh
sat in the middle of the room, expectantly. Greg stopped in the tunnel midway
and waited for the chemical shower to douse him. Once that was done, he
proceeded to the glass cell. There was a key pad ahead and he quickly activated
it. The door unlocked and slid sideways with a hiss.

He stepped
inside.

Welsh observed
him quietly, almost seeming uninterested.

“Dr Penn. How
lovely for you to visit.”

Greg laughed.
“Less of the Hannibal Lector act. I’m here to help you.”

Welsh looked
confused. “Hannibal Hector?”

“Never mind. How
are you feeling?”

“I can’t get
sick. I feel fine, as always.”

“I meant in
yourself, emotionally? Are you still feeling…resentful?”

“I do not
resent,” Welsh said. “I just hold people responsible for their actions.”

Greg decided to
ignore the evasive answers and just get on with things. He wasn’t sure if Welsh
even had the capacity to share on an emotional level. “I would like to take
some tissue samples from you, if that is okay?”

“By all means.
Did something happen to the other thousand samples that you already have?”

Greg opened up a
pouch on his right arm and plucked out a syringe. “I’d just like to start
fresh. It would ease my mind knowing that I have the very best samples
available to me.”

“So that you can
use me to cure the world?”

Greg nodded. It
was a clunky movement inside the helmet. “You are an amazing specimen, Welsh.
You could be the key to a new future. A world without sickness and disease.”

Welsh turned to
the television and sighed. “And my reward for that is a lifetime of
incarceration.”

“If this works,
you would be able to leave.”

“I don’t think
so. By the time you even came close to understanding me, I would be an old old
man. Many scientists have worked on me before you, Dr Penn. Better, smarter
scientists.”

The comment
irritated Greg but he would not allow it to distract him. Whether Welsh
believed it or not, he was trying to do good. The fact that success would
effectively make him the saviour of the world was just a hefty bonus.

Welsh sat still
while Greg took his blood. He placed the full syringe into an airtight rubber
seal, which he then placed back into the pouch on his arm. Saliva swabs and
even ear wax samples followed. Greg also took some of Welsh’s hair and
fingernail clipping.

Greg glanced at
the television and saw that the news was on as usual. Riots in the Middle East
were raging. He wondered if the region would finally find peace one day, and if
maybe one day his work would help towards it.

Would people
still fight in a world without disease?

With his first
round of tests all complete, Greg prepared to leave the cell. Before he did,
however, Welsh reached out and grabbed his wrist.

Greg looked down
at Welsh’s fingers around his arm and frowned. “What are you doing? Please let
go of me.”

Welsh looked him
in the eye. “I just wanted to say thank you. I understand that you want to
help.”

Greg smiled. “I
told you that one day you would thank me.”

Welsh grinned
right back. “And I told you that one day you would beg me.”

Greg’s heart
skipped a beat. “I’m sorry?”

“You really
should be more careful.” He pointed at Greg’s elbow.

Greg’s eyes went
so wide he thought they might fall out of their sockets. His heart pulsed and
his lungs went stiff.

No, no, no….

The tear on the
left elbow of his suit was minute. But it was there. He was compromised. The
positive air pressure might be enough to save him, but…

“I…I…”

Welsh laughed.
“How very unfortunate. You had such high hopes.”

Greg staggered
backwards and was surprised when somebody caught him. It was Dr Button. He was
not wearing a suit at all.

“Button! Are you
insane? Why the hell are you in here without a suit? We need to quarantine this
whole level. I…I may be infected.”

“Oh believe me,
you are,” said Dr Button. “You have no idea how contagious this disease is. A
thimbleful is enough to infect a billion people. It truly is remarkable.”

“Wh…what are you
babbling about? We’re going to die. We have to make sure nobody else does.
You’re insane exposing yourself like this.”

Dr Button just
laughed. “Don’t worry, I was exposed a long time ago. I’m immune, Dr Penn. We
all are.”

Greg was
struggling to breathe. The panic was like nothing he had ever felt before. He
needed to get the hell out of the cell, away from the virus, but he couldn’t.
He could have the disease. “What do you mean, you all are?”

“The people I
work for. The people who tried to release this virus to the world more than
thirty years ago. We have been preparing. Billions will die, but we will go on.
The world will be rebuilt. The world will be better. We are ready to see that
change. It’s been a long wait, but now it is finally here.”

“You’re insane.
Fucking insane! Where are Wilson and Fenton?”

“I already told
you,” said Dr Button. “They’re taking their break. Although, I think they may
have eaten something that didn’t agree with them. I’d imagine they’re in quite
an amount of discomfort right now. It won’t last long, though, so don’t worry.
They will be dead long before the virus eats their flesh. They are the lucky
ones.”

Greg lashed out,
went to grab a hold of Dr Button’s neck. But Welsh leapt up and grabbed him in
a chokehold. Greg grunted and heaved as his throat was restricted. “Pl….please.
Don’t do this. Don’t…please.”

“Sounds like
begging to me,” Welsh whispered in his ear.

Dr Button shook
his head pitifully as Greg began to fade. “You wanted so much to make the world
better. Well, don’t worry; you will have your wish granted. You just won’t be
around to see it.”

Greg struggled
with his last ounces of strength. “You’ll never get out of here. They’ll…stop
you…”

Dr Button just
smiled. “Once I release the virus into the entire facility, all I will have to
do is wait a while. Welsh and I will walk right out of here. Then our true work
begins. Of course I will disable all outgoing communications first. Wouldn’t
want the world getting warning.”

Greg’s vision
was growing dark. The blood vessels in his forehead felt like they might pop.
“Why…are…you…doing…this?”

Button opened
his arms wide, like he was a preacher on a pedestal. “Because, Dr Penn,
we…are…plague.”

Forty-eight
hours later and everybody was dead. Welsh and Button walked right on out of the
facility and got into a car waiting for them nearby. Welsh wanted to see London
first.

THE PEELING: BOOK 4

(THE LIGHTS)

The camp had been free of
infection for almost two weeks, but the lights in the sky were making everybody
nervous. The blinking green orbs had appeared only days before and had been
hanging in the sky every time night fell. Every day when dusk approached, the
members of the camp would wait with bated breath to see if the lights would
still be there. Every evening it would become clear that the lights were not
going away. If anything, they seemed to be getting closer – lower in the sky.

Gretchen looked
out from her perch atop the roof of the ambulance and surveyed the rest of the
camp. She and nineteen other survivors had gathered together inside a roadside
hotel. The adjacent restaurant had provided them with some food supplies and
ample amounts of beer and soft drinks. The hotel itself was newly constructed
and gave them all the safety of communal living while also providing everyone
with the privacy of their own room. They had blocked up the road to the hotel
and kept a constant vigil for any other survivors that may have been lurking in
the nearby area.

While Gretchen’s
group were not against welcoming other survivors, there was still the risk of
infection. While The Peeling seemed to have abated somewhat, with new
infections becoming more and more rare, there was still the old fashioned
illnesses of influenza, dysentery, and pleurisy – and more importantly, there
were no longer any doctors to treat them. While the movies always made sure
that the group of desperate survivors had a medic amongst them, Gretchen’s
group had nothing of the sort. The members of the camp ranged from salesmen and
factory workers to a professional dog walker – nobody who knew how to treat an
illness.

Pritchett called
up to Gretchen and told her that her turn to keep watch was over. He also had a
piping hot cup of soup waiting for her. Gretchen hopped down off the ambulance
and took the mug from the man.

He smiled at her
warmly. “Everything A-okay?”

Gretchen nodded.
“Haven’t seen a thing. It’s starting to get bloody cold though. We’re going to
have to find a way to keep ourselves warm once winter gets here.”

Pritchett
nodded. “I guess we could gather up all the spare duvets.”

Gretchen nodded.
“We’ll work on it tomorrow.”

She walked away,
heading away from the roadside and back towards the restaurant where most of
the group tended to congregate during the evening. Pritchett would keep watch
for the next six hours, but other than him, nobody else would be busy.

As she
suspected, almost every member of camp was situated in the eatery. Pendle and
Groves had started a fire in a barrel in the centre of the room and had set up
a couple of sea bass fillets on a makeshift spit. The smell of the fish made
Gretchen’s mouth water.

To prevent
smoke, the group had opened up a skylight in the restaurant that seemed to do a
good job of keeping the air circulating. Maybe in the winter they could set up
more fires inside the buildings.

“Hey, Grets,”
said Pendle. He was a handsome young man with tanned skin passed down from his
Spanish mother. His dark hair had grown out in recent weeks and the heat of the
fire made beads of sweat form on the tips of his fringe.

“Hey, Pendle.
Smells good. I’m surprised we still have fish that is good to eat.”

“Groves smoked
most of the meat and fish early on. We’re just making a start on it all. The
frozen sausages and burgers have all run out and the fries are running low.
We’re going to have to go out and start searching for canned food soon.”

Gretchen nodded.
“I’ll start putting together a plan. There’s a supermarket nearby. Hopefully it
wasn’t completely stripped clean in the early days.”

Pendle sighed.
They all remembered the early days. The chaotic time where rape and murder went
unopposed and neighbours robbed one another with impunity. During the first
tumultuous weeks of the infection, anarchy claimed as many lives as The Peeling
itself. The Army had been called in to control the situation but, once the
government fell, they soon became nothing more than a roving band of bullies,
taking other people’s supplies at gun point. Then, even the Army seemed to
disappear and disband.

In the final few
weeks, survivors had become more and more of a rarity. It had been several days
since Gretchen’s camp had accepted anybody new – a guy name Logan was the last,
a man who claimed to have been a Physics teacher. They took him in for his
expertise, but so far he had done nothing but keep to himself.

The survivors
had all remained safe and well fed at the hotel since they’d gathered there
four weeks ago, but a time was quickly coming where they would have to venture
back out into the world – where rotting flesh lined the street and legions of
rats tore holes in everything in sight. Gretchen shuddered at the thought.

She shuddered
even more when she thought of her own family lying out there someplace.

When The Peeling
had hit, Gretchen’s husband had caught it almost right away. He had come home
with a flu that quickly became a burning, tingling sensation all over his body.
Then a scrap of skin came away on his ankle. It was quickly over from that
point.

As the news
report showed horrifying scenes of the flesh-eating virus, Gretchen was getting
a first-hand view. Her husband was little more than a patchy skeleton by the
time he died a week later. Gretchen’s mother-in-law had the children, but in
the chaos that ensued during the riots and looting, something had happened to
them. When Gretchen reached her mother-in-law’s home, they were all gone and
there was no note. Gretchen had stayed there for days until somebody eventually
set the neighbourhood on fire and forced everyone to flee. Gretchen had joined
up with a roving group of ten survivors on the M4 motorway and eventually they
had rested here at the hotel.

Gretchen sipped
at her soup and shivered as it warmed her cold body. What she would give to
have her husband’s cuddling arms around her now. Had anybody been lucky enough
to keep a hold of their spouse? Or their children?

She took a seat
alone at one of the tables and looked around at her new family. Amongst the
group was Shandi, an African American business women from Tulsa who had been
visiting the UK for a meeting. The women knew nothing of her country back home,
or the people she knew there. There was Bryan, who was perhaps their most handy
member of the camp. He was a skilled carpenter and had helped them construct
barricades over the windows and create makeshift weapons. Daniel was a salesman
from Alcester and mostly kept to himself. Something suggested the young man was
mourning on some great loss. A bubbly girl named Sally had worked at a Marks
and Spencer department store in Redditch prior to the infection and was the
cheeriest of the group. Her disposition seemed to be one where the glass was
half full. Danny was an old factory worker from Longbridge, who had worked
twenty years at the Rover car plant until the layoffs many years before. He had
been working a metal press since then. There were a dozen other faces in the
room, but Gretchen felt too tired to look upon them all. What she really needed
was to go to bed, but she hated being alone in her cold, featureless hotel
room.

“Why don’t you
just piss off,” came an angry voice from the other side of the restaurant.

“We can’t keep
burying our heads in the sand. We need to have an open discussion about this.”

“I don’t see the
point in freaking everybody out about something we don’t even understand.”

Gretchen sighed
and got up. She went over to the two camp members who were fighting. It was
Colin and David. Both were mid-forties men, but while Colin wore a dirty old
suit and had once worked at a bank, David had been unemployed most of his life
and was generally a lazy and abrasive chap.

“What is it?”
Gretchen asked them.

Colin smiled at
her, but it was clear that he was exasperated. “I’m just suggested that we bite
the bullet and talk about those lights in the sky. They must mean something.”

David rolled his
eyes. “They could be a million different things. What’s the point in stressing
over them? They haven’t done nothing since they showed up.”

Colin rolled his
eyes back at the other man. “It seems quite apparent to me that they are
descending. They are much bigger than they were when they first appeared.”

“No they ain’t.”

Gretchen waved a
hand. “No, Colin is right. I think they are getting closer to us…to Earth or
whatever.”

David shook his
head. “Fuck sake. There’s nothing to worry about.”

“I’m a bit
worried,” said Sally. “They have to mean something. What if they’re missiles?
Maybe another country doesn’t want The Peeling spreading over to them and
they’re going to nuke us off the planet.”

There was a
frightened muttering as the others in the room listened in. The talk of being
bombed was a fear many of them had and it had been discussed before.

Gretchen shook
her head. “Missiles don’t take days and days to fall; nor do they advertise
their presence with great blinking lights.”

“What then?”
came a voice. “What do you think they are?”

“Probably just
some environmental anomaly caused by all the methane.”

“The what?”
said David.

“The methane
gas…from all of the bodies. There must be millions of dead just rotting in the
streets. That amount of damage to the ozone layer…”

There was a
collective sigh. Missiles, people couldn’t deal with, but global warming… They
hadn’t cared about global warming before the world crumbled, so they most
certainly didn’t care about it now.”

“She’s right,” said
David. “I bet that’s all it is. No need to worry about it.”

Everybody
filtered back to what they were doing. Colin approached Gretchen and spoke
quietly. “Do you really believe that? About the methane gas?”

“Not really, but
there’s no point in speculating on anything worse.”

“I suppose not.
If you were to speculate, though; what would your guess be?”

Gretchen sighed,
shrugged her shoulders. “The only thing that worries me is that those lights
showing up right after the world’s most devastating plague is too much to be a
coincidence.”

With that
Gretchen decided that even the cold silence of her hotel room was better than
the tense atmosphere of the restaurant. People were starting to get tetchy, and
it would only get worse.

Back in her
room, Gretchen picked up a paperback she had snatched from the hotel’s lounge: Going
Postal by Terry Pratchett. She had already read it twice and enjoyed the
surreal Discworld and how it reminded her of the petty, care-free world she had
once lived in.

After two pages
she was fast asleep.

***

She awoke
sometime later to what felt and sounded like an earthquake. A glass of water
fell off the room’s desk and soaked the carpet. The empty hangers in the closet
rattled.

Gretchen checked
her watch: 3:13 AM.

She leapt off
the bed and headed over to the window. She was on the second floor and could
see clear across the car park. Pritchett was standing on top of the ambulance,
still keeping watch. He had his hands on his head, obviously flustered by
something.

“What the hell
was that?” Gretchen asked herself. The rumbling had stopped almost as soon as
it had started, but there was an electricity lingering in the air that put her
right on edge.

She slipped out
of her room and headed down the corridor. En route she met up with Pendle who
was barefoot and hurrying in the same direction.

“What’s going
on, Gretchen?”

“Damned if I
know.”

The two of them
headed down the carpeted staircase into the lobby below. There everybody was
gathered. There everybody was demanding an explanation.

“Was it an
earthquake?” Someone asked.

“In England? All
we ever get here is farty little tremors.”

“Maybe it’s the
global warming. Maybe our climate is changing.”

“Earthquakes
have nothing to do with the weather. It’s about fault lines and plate
tectonics,” said Colin knowledgably.

“Let’s just
everybody calm down,” said Gretchen. “We don’t know anything yet, so let’s just
stay calm until we do.”

Everybody
muttered, but the shouting voices quietened down.

“So what do we
do?” asked Colin.

“We go and check
with Pritchett. He’s the guy on watch. I’m sure he saw whatever happened.”

“I ain’t going
out there,” said David in his dirty boxer shorts.

“Stay here
then,” said Gretchen.

She started
heading for the lobby’s large entrance doors and found that a majority of the
group were following her. She had learned weeks ago that people felt safest
when they were acting as a herd. That was probably a rational reason for why
the ordinary law-abiding citizens of the UK had taken to looting and rioting in
the early days.

Outside in the
courtyard, the cold immediately struck Gretchen. Even through her sweater, she
felt it biting at her skin and nipples.

Up ahead, across
the car park, was the ambulance they used as a lookout. Pritchett was still
standing on top of it. He saw them approaching and waved his arms.

“You guys aren’t
going to believe this,” he said, with both a twinge of excitement and fear in his
voice.

“What is it? Do
you see what caused the tremors?”

Pritchett
nodded. “Hell, yes. And if you look up you will all get a great big clue as to
what it was.”

Gretchen, along
with everybody else, craned their necks and glanced upwards.

The blinking
green lights were gone. After days of looming over them all, they had
disappeared.

Or maybe the
opposite is true.

Pritchett spoke
excitedly. “The lights just suddenly plummeted out of the sky as though
somebody flipped a switch. All of them just shot right down to the earth and
then…boom!”

“Did any of them
land near us?” someone shouted.

Pritchett
nodded. “One landed right over in the woods across the ring road.”

People began to
panic. “Oh, God. What the hell is it? It’s something bad, isn’t it?”

“A bomb, I
reckon.”

“Terrorists.”

“Aliens.”

Gretchen had to
laugh at the last suggestion she heard shouted out. Aliens. It was
absurd; yet somehow her laughter contained no mirth.

“We should check
it out,” said Colin. “We should know what we’re up against.”

“What do you
mean?” asked David. “What we’re up against?”

“I mean we
should just take a look. Who knows maybe it could have even been a supply drop
from the government.”

One so heavy
that it shook the earth. Somehow I don’t think so, thought Gretchen.

Without any
further consultation, Gretchen headed towards the edge of the car park, over
the shrubs that bordered it, and onto the ring road. Cars lay crumpled up
against each other in a long line, but it was easy to navigate around them, or
even climb up over the bonnets when need be.

Pendle caught up
with her; Pritchett and Colin were not far behind. Everybody else loitered in
the car park; their herd mentality only going so far until they felt that it
might endanger them.

“This can’t be
anything good, can it?” asked Pendle. “I mean, whatever it was shook me right
out of my bed. What can hit the ground with that much force?”

“Guess we’re
going to find out.”

As they crossed
the ring road and headed for the woodland that bordered it on the far side, they
passed by decaying bodies in abandoned cars. Most were bony corpses, stricken
by The Peeling, but some were the victims of crime. They passed a man stabbed
in the heart with a pair of scissors. Who had done it and why would be just
another of the countless unknown stories that littered the landscape. Every
corpse had a story to tell, but no way to tell it.

Gretchen closed
her eyes as she walked past the carnage. Her nose still picked up the stench of
old death but at least her eyes could shut off. She shuffled along, letting her
feet find the way.

“Watch your
step,” said Pendle, seeming to know that she was walking with her eyes closed.

Gretchen opened
her eyes in time to see the approaching curb and the embankment beyond. She
stepped up and over it and began to descend down into the woodland.

“Where about did
it hit?” Pendle asked Pritchett.

“Over there,”
the man pointed.

They headed east
through the woods, following Pritchett’s excited directions.

Gretchen
couldn’t be sure, but it seemed to be brighter up ahead, as if the moonlight
were shining on something, or if something was shining by itself. The air also
seemed lest crisp and chilly. The atmosphere was becoming muggy.

“I think I see
something up ahead,” said Colin. “Are you sure this is a good idea? Perhaps we
should wait until morning.”

Gretchen carried
on walking. “If we’re in danger now, we’ll be in danger tomorrow. If we’ve
learned anything these last few months, it’s that waiting around with our heads
buried in the sand doesn’t work.”

“I agree,” said
Pendle. “We need to know what the score is.”

After several
more yards, Gretchen became positive that there was light coming from up ahead.
It was no brighter than the light from the full moon, but it was blinking and
had a greenish hue.

“What is that?”
asked Pritchett, his excitement had waned and he now spoke in a hushed whisper.

“I don’t know.”
Gretchen stepped over a clump of weeds and sidled up beside an old oak tree.
She flinched as something landed on her shoulder, but sighed with relief when
she realised it was just a crisp autumn leaf falling from the branches above.

The sound of
rustling made her flinch again. This time she looked to her left and saw a
movement in the bushes.

Then an
identical rustling spun her around to face the bushes in the opposite
direction.

Pritchett was
spinning around on the spot, looking everywhere. “What’s going on?”

“Something’s
moving,” said Colin.

“Not just one
thing,” Gretchen said. “I saw at least two things.”

“Maybe just
deer?”

“Maybe.”

More movement in
the bushes. This time from all around them.

“I think we
should get out of here,” said Pritchett. “I think we’re surround-” Something
seized Pritchett and dragged him back into the bushes. He disappeared so fast
that it was as if his body had been attached to a bungee.

Gretchen
shouted. “Run!”

Nobody argued
and they all started sprinting back the way they had come. They leapt over
roots and sidestepped tree trunks as they floundered in the darkness.
Pritchett’s screams rang out behind them but not for long.

Behind them the
bushes rustled. A deep, ominous growl filled the forest.

“What the hell
is happening?” Pendle shouted between huffs and puffs.

“I don’t know,”
said Colin. “We need to get back to the hotel and put some thought into this.”

“Let’s just
concentrate on not dying first,” said Gretchen.

They spotted the
road between the trees, several yards ahead.

“There’s the
road,” said Pendle. “We can make it.”

As soon as he
said the words, Pendle caught his ankle on a half-buried tree root and went
tumbling into the mud. Gretchen stopped to help him. But it was too late.

Something seized
Pendle’s foot and dragged him backwards through the mud. He screamed and
reached out for Gretchen, but within a second he had disappeared into the
trees.

Colin grabbed
Gretchen by the arm and turned her around. “Come on, we have to get out of here
now.”

The two of them
made it out of the trees and up the embankment. As soon as they hit the road
they dodged behind cars and tried to mix up their escape route. The bellowing
growls continued from within the woods.

The other
survivors were still waiting in the hotel car par, and when they saw only two
of the four explorers coming back, they began to panic and shout.

“Where the hell
is Pritchett and Pendle?” David demanded. “Did you up and leave em?”

“There’s
something out there in those woods,” said Colin, almost weeping. “We have to
get inside.”

Everybody
panicked and the entire group of survivors began sprinting across the tarmac,
heading for the hotel. Gretchen glanced behind at the woods across the road.
Nothing seemed to be following them, but the glowing green light she had seen
earlier had grown and now bathed the entire area in a putrid glow.

This is not
going to work out well at all.

I think we
may have just been attacked by aliens.

***

Inside the
hotel’s bar lounge, everyone stood around nervously, glancing out of the
windows and jumping at every sound.

“We all need to
just chill the fuck out,” said David.

“Chill out?”
said Colin. “Something abducted two of our members like something out of Close
Encounters. We should all be in a very un-chilled out mood. In fact we
should all be in quite a flap about things.”

David smirked.
“Perhaps I’m all ‘flapped’ out after what we’ve been through. Everyone here is
a survivor. The whole world has ended but we’re still here. I’m not about to
panic now after surviving so much.”

“We haven’t
survived whatever is out in those woods.”

“Look,” said
Gretchen, raising a hand and gaining the floor. “Panic or no panic, I am
telling you that something pretty damn dangerous is lurking in those woods and
I’m pretty sure it came from whatever fell out of the sky. This isn’t an
infection or looters; this is something else.”

“You’re quite
right,” said a voice at the back of the room. It was the physics teacher,
Logan.

Gretchen looked
at the man. He was holding what looked like a triple scotch in his hand. “What
do you know about it? Have you seen something?”

“Many things, my
dear,” replied Logan in a slurry mumble.

“Then stop being
so fucking cryptic and speak,” said David. “It’s about time you did something
useful around here.”

Logan ignored
David and kept his drunken focus on Gretchen. “We have visitors. Visitors whom
made an appointment many many years ago.”

“Visitors?”

Logan nodded.
“You think that this is all a coin…coin…coincidence.” The man belched. “There’s
hardly any of us left – probably less than one percent of the population. And
believe me that it’s this bad everywhere; every country. Every scrap of land.”

“How do you know
that?”

“Because I kept
tabs, my dear. Ever since I stopped working for the Government and started
teaching snot-nosed little kids about Hooke’s law, I kept my eyes and ears
open. The Peeling hit everywhere and there was no stopping it. The entire world
was affected the same as us. We are the last of our kind – the last remnants of
the human race.”

“You’re talking
shit,” said David. “There’s still enough of us to get things going again. We’ll
have babies and repopulate. Sooner the better if you ask me.”

“You said that
you worked for the Government,” said Gretchen. “In what capacity?”

“I was a
researcher – part of the space program.”

“Did we even
have one? I thought space had become more the realm of private industry.”

Logan nodded
forlornly. “Unfortunately the times of putting boots on the moon were long
behind us, but there were still many secrets to learn about the universe. We
never stopped tracking the skies with our telescopes or sending up probes.”

“So what are you
saying? What do you know?”

“I know about
the baby.”

David snickered.
“This guy has had a shit-tonne to drink.”

Logan sneered at
the lad, but continued. “Decades ago, a mysterious baby was found abandoned in
the freezing cold hills of Wales. Everyone who came into contact with the child
died. Guess how.”

Gretchen
narrowed her eyes. “The Peeling?”

“Indeed. Their
skin rotted off in days, leaving them raving lunatics before their deaths. The
child was isolated and kept that way until he was a grown man.”

“Are you saying
that this child was infected with The Peeling but lived like some kind of
Typhoid Mary?”

Logan shook his
head. “The child was a weapon – a dirty bomb.

One thing a
human being can’t resist is a baby. They knew that, which is why they used
one as their dispersal method. What they didn’t count on was the child being
quarantined so effectively. Through a stroke of luck, the child was found by
the Army who immediately took it back to base. The infection stayed within the
rural outpost and stopped there. Their plan failed.”

Gretchen shook
her head. “Whose plan?”

“The aliens.”

Gretchen laughed
at that moment, but something about the seriousness in Logan’s eyes – despite
his drunkenness – told her to take him seriously.

“We’d picked up
signs of life a few times. On our telescopes we spotted great blinking green
lights that would disappear before we could pin them down. We would pick up
strange radio chatter and radiation signatures that made no sense. We knew
something was out there; we just didn’t know what.

But when that
baby arrived, we knew exactly what it was: a way to wipe us out.”

Gretchen sighed.
She went and poured herself a vodka from the optics. She wasn’t usually a
drinker, but right now she needed one.

“Why wipe us
out?” asked Colin. “What would that achieve?”

Logan shrugged.
“I never stayed at the project long enough to find out. When we learned about
the child’s make-up – how it was genetically infused with the deadliest virus
in existence, I decided I’d seen enough. It was clear that humanity’s days were
drawing to an end. I wasn’t about to waste what life I had left in a lab.”

“So you what?
Thought you’d waste time teaching kids stuff that they probably wouldn’t live
long enough to use.”

Logan shrugged
again. “Pay was okay and there was lots of holiday time.”

Gretchen downed
her vodka. “So what happened? You said the child was quarantined for decades.”

“He was indeed.
Then he escaped about six months ago. I know because an old colleague of mine
died during his escape. I could tell by the way the Government were trying to
cover it up, blocking any attempts at investigation, that the child – now a man
– had escaped. I also knew what else that meant. That the End had arrived.”

“But it didn’t.
We’re still alive, and so are you.”

“For now, yes.
But the infection was only put on this earth to thin our numbers. For whatever
reason, something wants our planet. For terraforming or mining, who knows? But
they have thinned our number sufficiently, and now they are here to take their
prize.”

Gretchen hated
to admit it, but it kind of made sense. If aliens ever arrived, it would make
no sense to attack us with ships and guns. They would, by their very nature, be
more advanced than humans. They would have far better means to destroy the
planet’s inhabitants – biological means. Humans didn’t fight cockroaches with
guns, they used gas; contaminated the very air they breathed.

“So what do we
do?” asked Colin.

Logan laughed
and took a sip from his whisky. “We wait to die, my friend. We wait to die.”

***

Nobody dared to
leave the building, or even go off alone to their rooms. The bellowing growls
continued out in the woods and they all knew it would only be a matter of time
before whatever was making them came closer.

Bryan, the
carpenter, had assembled a team that was checking the existing barricades and
trying to construct new ones. The chairs and tables from the lounge had been
cannibalised for that purpose. By the time they were done, several hours later,
dawn had arrived and the growling had stopped.

“Do you hear
that?” asked Gretchen.

Colin shook his
head. “No.”

“Exactly. The
growling has stopped.”

“You think
they’re gone away.”

Gretchen shook
her head slowly. “Not at all, but perhaps we just discovered that they’re
nocturnal. Maybe on their planet it’s always dark.”

“How does that
help us?” asked Bryan, hammer in hand.

Colin nodded and
smiled, catching Gretchen’s drift. “Because they would have evolved to suit
their planet. They won’t be anything like us – the odds are far too
astronomical. If their planet is dark, then their eyes will be underdeveloped.
We might be able to use light to our advantage.”

Bryan sniffed.
“I’ll make sure we have fires ready to burn at a moment’s notice.” He walked
off.

“You think we
can fight back?” asked Colin. “If we really are facing something from another
world.”

Gretchen shook
her head. “I think we’re screwed. Something evolved enough to travel the
universe and engineer a planet-killing virus will have no problem taking out a
few stragglers.”

“Oh dear.”

“Doesn’t mean
I’m going to just lie down and take it, though. It’s in our nature as human
beings to fight, so that’s just what we’re going to do.”

“You’re damn
right we are,” said David, approaching with a pool cue in his hands. “Anything
tries to zap me with a ray gun will get a cue full of chalk dust up their
arses.”

Colin giggled.
“I’d like to see that.”

David patted
Colin on the back. “Let’s find you a pool cue of your own and we can play
doubles on their butt cracks.”

Gretchen rubbed
at her eyes. Since awakening last night, nobody had slept. It was beginning to
take its toll and the back of her eyelids felt fuzzy and her mind kept spacing
out for brief seconds. If they were about to be attacked by an alien clean-up crew,
she felt in no fit state to fight them – but the situation was out of her
control. As she looked around, she could see that everyone else was on the edge
of their own sanity thresholds. Rather than strengthen them as human beings,
the stress and hardships of the last few months had in fact weakened them to
the point of emotional collapse. None of them could endure much more.

Perhaps the
visitors know that. Maybe they’ve been hanging in the air waiting for just the
right time to descend and finish us off.

She caught
Groves, the resident chef, as he went to walk past. “Hey, Jamie. Can you go and
get as much food as you can from the restaurant; I think we could all do with a
big feast this afternoon.”

Groves huffed.
“You mean a last meal? Anyway, I’m not stepping outside with those things out
there.”

“It will be
alright. We won’t see them until dark.”

“How can you be
sure of that?”

“I can’t, but if
they are going to get us at daylight then we’re screwed anyway as we’re all
standing around in a huddle waiting to be picked off.”

Groves cleared
his throat. “Okay, fine. I’ll get what I can, but one sound I don’t like and
I’m straight back in here.”

Gretchen smiled.
“Of course. No one’s asking you to endanger yourself.”

“Yeah right.”
The man walked away, heading for the lobby and car park.

It was then that
Gretchen realised that since Pritchett had died, no one had taken up watch on
top of the ambulance. She knew that nobody would volunteer to go outside.

Guess it will
have to be me then.

She checked in
with a few more of the survivors and informed them that she was going to take
watch. They all told her she was crazy, but they also seemed a little glad to
have somebody out there keeping guard.

Not that I
can do anything other than yell that we’re all about to die.

Gretchen headed
outside into the cold and this time welcome the crisp weather. It snapped her
senses back into focus and stopped her mind from feeling so fuzzy. If there was
a chance she might die soon, she wanted to take in every breath and enjoy it.

To her surprise,
Logan came out after her, shouting for her to wait up. She turned to face him
and was confused as to his presence.

He swished a
bottle of Bell’s whiskey about in his hand and then swigged directly from the
bottle. “Need company?” he asked.

“From you? No
thank you.”

“Well, tough.
I’m coming. I want to see the thing responsible for our deaths before one bites
my head off. I’d rather face it head on.”

“Seems like the
only thing you like to face head on is a bottle of scotch.”

Logan looked at
the bottle and nodded. He threw it to the ground where it rolled beneath a
parked car. “Guess I could use a break. Heavy thoughts make a heavy drinker,
you know?”

Gretchen shook
her head and carried on walking, tired of arguing. “I’m not surprised you’re a
drunk. You knew about this and told no one.”

“Who would have
believed me? The government would have shot me dead as soon as I made the
mistake of walking down a dark alleyway. Just because I had the knowledge,
didn’t mean I could do anything with it.”

“When this whole
thing started people would have listened to you.”

“By then it was
already too late. The virus is unstoppable once it gets into the population.
The only thing that saved any of us is that there seems to be some random
percentage of immunity. I was as staggered as anyone to be included in that
small percentage. I guess part of me hoped that the virus would be all there
was too it, but deep down I knew there was more. Guess the drinking made it
easier to kid myself.”

Gretchen climbed
the ladder set up against the ambulance and took to the roof. Logan followed.

“What were you
doing before you came upon us, Logan? Where had you been for the weeks before?”

Logan shrugged.
“Just wandering, really. I had a sister but she caught the Peeling. I had
nobody else; not even a home I was proud of. Walking the roads seemed like the
best thing to do. Keep moving, keep surviving. We’re just like the nomadic
tribes that made up the dawn of mankind now. All of our fineries are gone and
all that’s left is the animal underneath. The things I saw, Gretchen, on the
road.” He shook his head in disgust. “Maybe it’s better if we’re extinguished.
Maybe that’s the reason why. Our violent nature.”

Gretchen chewed
at her lip, watched the treeline across the road and saw birds. “Maybe you’re
right. The Peeling didn’t affect any other species. Maybe whoever dumped the
virus on us just want to restore the balance.”

“Then that gives
me a little hope; that at least the earth will go on, even without us.”

Gretchen nodded.
“Me too. But you know, it will only take two to survive. If this alien clean-up
crew misses just one man and one woman, then the human race has as much chance
as it ever did.”

“From small
acorns grow mighty oaks. That brings me hope to. Maybe somebody will make it –
a new Adam and Eve.”

“Let’s just hope
they do a better job of it than the last pair.”

“Amen to that.”

***

The sun receded
behind the horizon and the moon rose to take its place. Logan still shared the
top of the ambulance with Gretchen but the old man had been sleeping for the
last two hours. During that time, Gretchen had kept her eyes focused on the
treeline. There had been no movement, no sound.

About an hour
ago, Bryan came out to let her know that they were going to cook dinner and
have the feast she had suggested. She had declined her invitation; she didn’t
feel like eating.

Now she sat
silently, watching the sun disappear and knowing that she might never see it
again.

The glowing
green light appeared inside the forest again, illuminating the gloom of the
canopy. Minutes later the bellowing growls resumed.

This time the
growling seemed to be on the move. It was coming their way.

“Logan, wake up.
Logan, wake the hell up.”

Logan
spluttered, opened his eyes. “W-what is it?”

“Shake off your
hangover. I think they’re coming.”

Logan stared at
her blearily for a second, before cottoning on to what she meant – and who they
were. He shot bolt upright. “Where are they?”

Gretchen
pointed. “Don’t you hear them? They’re coming through the woods.”

Logan stared
across the road at the trees. After a moment he took a big swallow and nodded.
“Oh shit.”

“That’s putting
it mildly. Come on, we have to get to the others.”

Logan stood up,
but made no attempt to leave the roof of the ambulance.

“Will you come
on,” Gretchen urged.

“I have to see
them. I want to know what it is that’s been watching us for so long.”

“You’re insane.”

“Don’t you
understand? For millennia man has wondered if we are alone. We are about to set
eyes upon a mystery that has kept humanity awake for its entire history. We are
about to witness beings far superior to ourselves. We are about to transcend.”

“You transcend
all you want. I’m getting off this fucking ambulance.”

Gretchen threw
herself down the ladder and beat a hasty retreat towards the hotel. The
growling from the woods continued getting louder. The moon rose higher in the
sky.

The other
survivors were all assembled in the lobby when Gretchen flew through the
entrance doors. They had obviously heard the ominous growling and had been
waiting to see what night would bring.

Colin shook his
head, his eyes bloodshot. “They’re coming, aren’t they?”

Gretchen said
nothing, just nodded.

Bryan, the
carpenter, took the floor. “Everyone grab their weapons. We’re safe inside this
hotel, but let’s be ready to defend ourselves against any unwanted attention.
We’ve survived this long, no need for anyone to give up now.”

Gretchen nodded
at Bryan, a silent ‘thank you’ for keeping everybody focused.

He walked over
to Gretchen. “Have you seen anything?”

“No, but I know
they’re coming. I could hear them moving through the woods in this direction.”

“Any ideas? We
need to take a stand.”

“How do you take
a stand against something you don’t understand?”

Bryan shrugged.
“By being ready for anything.” He went over to the empty reception desk and
took a golf club from the top of it. “Found this in one of the empty rooms.
Hope you know how to swing it.”

Gretchen took
the graphite shaft. “I’ve been known to hit a few.”

“Good. Let’s
hope they have soft heads.”

There was the
sound of crunching metal outside, from the car park. Gretchen and Bryan headed
across the lobby and peered through the doors.

The ambulance
had been tipped onto its side and had slid almost a dozen feet closer to the
hotel. Its rear doors were open and the gurney from inside had spilled halfway
out. Logan was nowhere to be seen.

Then he appeared
at the doors, his bloody hands pressed up against the glass. Half his face was
missing as if torn off by barbed wire.

“They’re
magnificent…” he moaned, before collapsing to the ground and dying.

Those still
standing in the lobby screamed.

“Calm down,”
Bryan shouted. “We’re all together and we’re fine. No one panic.”

“Don’t panic?”
someone said. “Logan has half of his face missing. What can do something like
that?”

There was an
almighty roar that shook the lobby’s windows in their frames. There was
movement in the shadows of the car park and the sounds of heavy footsteps –
like a stomping elephant.

“It sounds like
a herd of elephants out there,” said Bryan. “Shouldn’t they be little green men
or something?”

Gretchen
shrugged. “I think anything we imagined about aliens is very wrong. If they
come from a planet with more gravity than us then they would be larger and
heavier.

Groves raced
down the main staircase, holding a flaming mop in his hands. He put the torch
against a bin full of rubbish and set it alight. “We have fires set up all
around. Hopefully the light will keep them away.”

Gretchen nodded.
“Good idea. Make sure they’re all lit.”

There were more
sounds of the parked vehicles outside being pushed around by something
monumentally strong.

Everyone
regrouped at the bottom of the stairs, standing beside the bin full of flaming
debris. The shadows continued to shift and swirl outside, something moving but
unseen stalking the survivors.

Bryan returned
with his flaming mop. The stench of faded bleach burning made Gretchen turn
away. Once she was used to the smell, she took the torch from Bryan.

“What do you
want with it?” said Bryan. “We have fires burning at all of the downstairs
entrances as well as one in the lounge. We need to keep an eye on them all;
last thing we want is to burn ourselves down.”

Gretchen took
the torch over to the entrance. The flames illuminated Logan’s corpse. “I’m going
to see if I can get a look at what’s out there.”

“That’s crazy,”
said Bryan. “Stay away from the doors.”

“I need to know
what we’re up against.”

Gretchen didn’t
know why she was so determined to step outside, but something inside of her was
tired of hiding. She wanted to face death head on; to finally say that she had
had enough.

Gretchen shoved
open one of the double doors of the entrance and slowly slid out into the
courtyard. The roaring had stopped and no more vehicles were being shoved
around. Something was still nearby, though; she could sense it.

Something
flashed by in front of her, silvery scales peeking out of the darkness for a
brief second. Gretchen tracked the movement with her torch, but it had been too
quick.

Something else
moved up ahead. Again she caught a glimpse of silvery scales beneath the
moonlight. An important decision presented itself: whether to step back towards
the hotel, or whether to venture forwards into the car park.

Despite what her
thundering heartbeat suggested, Gretchen took a step forwards.

Something
swopped past the back of her. She flinched and took another step forward. A low
growl made the hair on the back of her neck stand up.

“Gretchen!” It
was Bryan shouting. “Get back in here.”

What the hell
am I doing out here? Bryan’s right, I need to get the hell back inside.

Gretchen turned
around, holding the torch out in front of her.

As the cone of
light around the flame moved, the darkness parted and illuminated the creature
standing between Gretchen and the hotel.

Gretchen
screamed. The thing in front of her blinked a reptilian eye the size of a
basketball on a head the size of a Toyota.

An unseen
appendage cut through the air and struck the torch from Gretchen’s hands. She
fell backwards on to her rump and dropped the golf club that she had forgotten
she even had.

Surrounded by
darkness, Gretchen could see nothing but the glint of moonlit scales as the
huge beast towered over her. She felt its fetid breath beat down on her like an
intermittent gale. She could sense the beat of its mighty heart within its
cavernous chest.

The creature
bellowed. Gretchen closed her eyes, frozen to the ground.

There was the
sound of something being struck multiple times. Gretchen heard human voices
followed by the inhuman growl of the beast.

Gretchen opened
her eyes.

David and Bryan
ran over to her and grabbed her under the arms. “Looks like you need a hand,
you daft cow,” said David.

The two men
dragged her towards the hotel while a handful of other survivors – including
Groves and Colin – proceeded to beat at the creature with a variety of
make-shift weapons. The blows seemed to have little effect, but they at least
distracted the enemy while David and Bryan got Gretchen out of there.

People held the
doors open while Gretchen leapt through them and skidded to her knees on the
tiles. David yanked her back up, before tuning and going back to the doorway.
Groves and Colin were still outside.

The two men
yelled outside in the courtyard as they continued fighting the monster. The
monster replied with a rumbling growl so loud that it made Gretchen’s head
ache.

“We have to help
them,” she cried.

But it was too
late. The ear-piercing scream that suddenly ripped through the air was proof
enough that Groves and Colin were beyond help. Two seconds later, their screams
halted and silence reigned.

Everyone left
alive inside the lobby stood around in silence, glancing at one another
nervously. The burning bin in the centre of the room cast dancing shadows
across each of their stark white faces.

Gretchen felt
her heart beating in her chest as she peered out into the darkness and saw
nothing but a velvet sheet of black. If she didn’t know otherwise she could
claim that the courtyard and car park were completely deserted – but she knew
that something unspeakable roamed the darkness out there, ready to extinguish
them all.

“We have to get
out of here,” someone said.

“And go where?”
said David. “Stepping outside is as good as committing suicide.”

“Well, we can’t
just stay here.”

“Nobody has been
hurt staying inside. It’s going out there that has gotten people killed.”

The front doors
of the lobby smashed into a thousand pieces as a shredded body came flying
through the glass. The corpse hit the ground and lay on the tiles facing up
with empty sockets where its eyes had once been.

Gretchen tried
not to gag. “Jesus, Colin!”

“Not anymore,”
said David.

Everybody in the
lobby scattered in all directions, some running up the staircase and others
heading into the lounge. David got caught over by the doors by something that
snatched in at him from the darkness. The brief flash of scales was all that
Gretchen saw and then David was gone.

The hotel filled
with the screams of terrified men and women, but Gretchen stayed rooted to the
spot. The outside wall of the lobby crumpled as something huge began to force
itself in. The creature was like nothing she had ever seen, nor even imagined.

Gretchen knew
right then, as she stared at the beast from a place unknown, that humanity’s
days were over. There would be no last stands or intergalactic war. There would
be nothing more than a frightened handful of people screaming for their lives.

In fact, the
only victory she could achieve was not to scream at all as she faced
extinction; so she just closed her eyes and waited; waited for it all to be
over.

And within seconds
it was.

BOOK 7 OF 7

SLASHER

1

Rain
battered the windshield like machine gunfire as MCU officer, Howard Hopkins,
stopped the Range Rover outside the nature reserve.  Redlake’s police officers
were already on scene, busily cordoning off the area.

Dr Jessica Bennett turned to her partner and raised her eyebrow.  “Tell me where we are again?”

“Redlake,” said Howard. “I know, I’d never heard of it
either.”

“Why did our fugitive trek halfway across the country to
some place most people have never heard of?”

“One of his victims lives here.  That big Thriller writer—Blake Price, you know the one—moved his family here
in 2009 after what Heinz did to them.  Heinz has been obsessed with Price for
most of his adult life, thinks the guy’s books were written specifically for
him.  Local police have his home on total lock-down
as that’s likely where he’s heading.”

Jessica reviewed her mental notes.  Twenty-four hours ago
she’d been entirely unaware of Richard Heinz and his sickening acts, but when
Director Palu had slapped a dossier across her table, his only instructions had been: “Learn all you can about this
monster.  He’s escaped and we’re going to catch him.”  She’d been surprised
because she’d thought the Major Crimes Unit existed to stop terrorism, not
recapture escaped inmates. However, once she’d read
the file on Heinz, she understood how the man qualified as a special case.

Howard switched off the engine and looked at her.  “You
ready?”

It was Jessica’s first time out in the field.  She had zero
experience and zero desire to be out there in the rain
and wind, but she nodded.  “Yes, I’m ready.”

They got out of the car.  Together they headed through the
downpour towards a group of uniformed police officers who’d been waiting for
them. Back home in Savannah, Georgia, the local police were never pleased to see badges with initials—FBI, CIA, ATF, NSA, EPA,
DEA, America had dozens of them—but here in England the various crime
enforcement agencies always seemed happy to cooperate.

Tonight was no different as one of the police officers
broke away to greet them with a grim smile.
“Sergeant Mike Young,” he said, thrusting out his hand.  “You’re both from MCU,
I take it?”

Howard wiped his wet hair out of his eyes and returned the
handshake.  “Officer Hopkins and Dr Bennett. We’re here to help you with your unwanted visitor.”

The officer chuckled. “Great, well, we’ve got all the exits
from the town’s nature reserve covered and we had eyes on Heinz just under two
hours ago. He entered from this direction.”

Jessica eyed the tree-line.  A paved pathway cut through the middle of the dark woods, but it melted into the
shadows after a dozen feet or so.  “Where does that path lead?” she asked.

“It leads to the town’s lake, but branches off in a few
places.  There’s a bridle path and cycle route, plus a path to the old abbey and museum.  It’s hard to know where Heinz will go,
but like I said, we have all exits covered.  I’ve also stationed a team at the
abbey.  It makes a good lookout over the northern end of the lake.

“Your director, Palu, has coordinated with our guv and asked us to stand off until you call us in.  The press
are just waiting for us to shoot the guy down for a story, so we’re happy to
let you try and bring the guy in alive.  Especially since Heinz may have
knowledge of a missing girl.”

Jessica frowned. “Missing girl?”

“Yeah, young lass by the name of Chloe Tanner, thirteen
years old. Disappeared eight years ago, but Heinz has been making reference to
her lately. Problem is the guy’s so nuts they haven’t been able to get a
straight answer out of him. Least if we can bring him
in alive they can up his dosage or something, keep trying.”

“We’ll bring him in, don’t you worry,” said Howard. He
patted a radio fastened to a strap above his chest.  “Are you reachable by
radio?”

The sergeant nodded.  “Usual band.”

“If you get any sighting of the fugitive, make sure we’re
first to know.”

“Will do.  Hope you catch the sick bastard.  He’s killed
three since he escaped.  I don’t know how they ever thought it was safe to send
a nutcase like him to a hospital instead of a
prison.”

“It was a secure facility,” said Jessica, “and it was the
appropriate place to send an offender like Heinz. He has a multitude of
psychological issues.”

The sergeant shrugged.  “There’s no curing evil, luv.  They
shoulda locked him up and tossed the key.”

Before Jessica had a chance to tell the officer how
ignorant he was being, Howard strode towards the pathway.  His gait was
confident and authoritative.  Jessica hoped she came off the same way as she
hurried after him, but the truth was her stomach
clenched unhappily.

She managed to catch up to Howard and nudged him.  “Let me
know the next time we’re going for a swift exit so I don’t end up trotting
along behind you like a numpty.”

Howard grinned at her.  The water dripping off the dark tips of his hair, along with his square,
jutting chin, made him look like some lothario off the cover of a bad romance
novel.  “Numpty?  Why Dr Bennett, we’re going to have to make you an honorary
Brit if you keep talking like that.”

Jessica smirked.  British slang
wasn’t something she consciously tried to adopt, but the longer she was in the
country, the more she seemed to absorb.  In fact, it might have been several
weeks since she’d last said “y’all.”  “Hey, I’m a daughter of the South,” she said.  “You folks are just borrowin’ me for a time.”

Howard touched her elbow.  “Come on, quicker we make it
through these woods, greater chance we have of finding Heinz before he moves on
through.”

Jessica felt a lump rising in her throat but held it down. This was really happening. She was going into the
woods to catch a killer.

She followed Howard into the tree-line, sticking to the
path.  Every now and then there would be a lamppost lighting a short stretch,
but other times they navigated only by the glow of
the moon.  Each of them carried flashlights, along with a can of CS gas and
handcuffs, but it was the Glock strapped beneath Jessica’s blazer that she
thought about now.  She hoped her aim in the field was as competent as it was
at the firing range.

Part of her had wondered if a time would even come when
she’d be required to wear her weapon—she was a medical doctor and a criminal
profiler, not a soldier—but Palu had surprised her by deciding to send her as
Howard’s backup.  MCU was currently short of officers
and most of the usual task force were nursing wounds from a previous mission,
so Palu was forced to scrape the bottom of the barrel.  Her inexperience had
shown immediately when she’d turned up wearing trousers and jacket, instead of
the black fatigues Howard was wearing.  Her polyester
threads clung to her now as the downpour soaked her through.

“So what did you get from this guy’s file?” Howard asked
her.  “Do we know what kind of crazy to expect?”

Jessica thought about Heinz’s crimes: several major sexual offences had led to his prosecution and
incarceration to a secure hospital, but his psychosis had only worsened from
there.  One day he attacked a nurse, chewing off her nipples and part of her
face, leaving her to bleed from a torn artery in her
neck.  Heinz also managed to kill two fellow inmates before he was finally
restrained and placed in solitary care, where he’d remained for the last
eighteen months.

That was until Heinz had escaped two days ago, killing the
pair of guards transporting him to an MRI appointment
at a local clinic.  Heinz had complained of excruciating headaches and the
Prison Service could not refuse him his human right to medical care.  Now two
prison officers were dead along with an innocent woman who’d been at the wrong place at the wrong time.  The young schoolteacher had
run into Heinz on her lunch break.  By the time she was due back at her primary
school, he’d cut a hole in her belly and raped her in the backseat of her car
while she’d bled to death.

Jessica swallowed, took a deep
breath, then recounted what she’d theorised from the case file Palu had given
her.  “Richard Heinz is unlike most serial killers in that he had a pleasant
childhood.  He was the son of an architect and his mother stayed home to raise
him.  He was an only child who socialised normally
and performed well at school, eventually training as an accountant.  He was
completely ordinary.”

“So what changed?” asked Howard.  “What was his…trigger?”

“I believe his attachment to his mother is key.  The reports I read suggest she doted on his every need, until
her death when he was aged twenty-three.  When Heinz eventually married, he
found that his wife was not the accommodating, subservient, surrogate mother
he’d been searching for.   His frustration led to
violence, and his wife left and divorced him the very first time he dared to
strike her. Good on her, it might have saved her life.

“Heinz tried several times for a reconciliation, but his
ex-wife totally cut him off, making him feel insignificant and weak.  He blamed her for not pandering to his ego the way
his mother had taught him women should. He projected his anger onto innocent
women by raping them.”

“Thus making himself feel powerful again,” said Howard.

Jessica nodded.  “Heinz’s sociopathic tendencies are exacerbated by mental illness. Paranoid
Schizophrenia has long been associated with serial killers: David Gonzalez,
David Berkowitz, Richard Chase, Albert Fish, Jeffrey Dahmer, Kenneth Bianchi,
and Ed Gein, to name the most prominent.  It’s believed
Heinz also suffers from the condition.  His version of reality is not the same
as yours or mine.  That must be why he’s here chasing down some author: he’s
fantasising.”

“Not just some
author,” said Howard.  “Blake Price.  He wrote Twinkle.  It
was amazing.”

“I didn’t read the individual crime reports,” admitted
Jessica,  “but Mrs Price was Heinz’s final victim before he was captured,
correct?”

Howard nodded.  “Heinz turned up looking to meet Blake
Price, but only his wife was home.  After she tried to
make Heinz leave, he attacked her with a bottle of Scotch.  I won’t go into
detail about what he did, but he said afterwards that he did it for Blake—that
his wife was restricting his brilliance.”

“That fits with the paranoid delusions,” said Jessica.  “Heinz probably believes that he and Blake are best
friends—even soulmates.”

Howard shook his head and sighed.  “He wrote Blake Price
over three-hundred letters from the hospital.  He didn’t get a single reply.”

“Paranoid schizophrenics tend to fixate.  Every single letter Blake Price ignored probably made Heinz’s
obsession even worse.  He’ll be wanting to meet Blake Price and find out why he
doesn’t value their friendship the same way.”

“Maybe because he raped the guy’s wife,” said Howard.

“That was a favour in Heinz’s
mind, remember?  It was a way to cement their friendship, like a cat bringing
its owner a dead mouse.  An animal’s love is not like our own.”

“Let’s just find the guy before he hurts anybody else.”

Jessica slid a hand over the Glock beneath her sodden blazer, ensuring it was still there. “Or hurts
us,” she said.

They headed along the path for another five minutes, at one
point crossing over a quaint wooden bridge spanning a stream.  Then the woods
got thicker.  Every crunching twig, rustling bush,
and hooting animal made Jessica flinch, ready to grab her weapon and shoot.
The endless pitter-patter of
the rain on leaves was disorientating and made her even more uneasy. Howard had
quietened and started walking with a slight bend in his knees.  If Heinz
appeared, Howard would let his training take over.  By watching him, Jessica
hoped she would know how to behave and when to act.
She was still mad at Palu for sending her out here in the wind and rain—and
danger.  This was not the place for a doctor.

A shadow skittered across the path.  It was only a rat, but
that didn’t stop Jessica’s stomach from lurching.
The small rodent paused briefly to look at them and then disappeared into the
thicket.

Howard sniffed the air.  “I think we must be getting nearer
the lake.”

Jessica smelt the faintly pungent stink of standing water.
Would Heinz be heading to the lake, or would he be
moving deeper into the woods?  He’d been heading for Blake Price’s home before
the police chased him towards the nature reserve, and that would still likely
be his ultimate destination.  Richard Heinz was a brazen sociopath; he wouldn’t hide in the woods.  He might hunt in them, though, which
Jessica thought about as she glanced around at the grey and black shadows.  The
leaning trees and tangled bushes provided a hundred places for a killer to
hide.  She felt like an extra in a horror movie—one
of those airheads whose only role was to be hacked to pieces.

Several more rats scurried across the pavement and into the
bushes.  It was unsettling enough to stop Howard in his tracks, who held up his
hand.

Jessica allowed her fingers to hover over her Glock.  “Rats are solitary animals,” she muttered.
“You only find them in packs if there’s—”

“A food source,” Howard finished.  He yanked his sidearm
from the leather holster at his thigh.

Jessica followed suit and snatched her Glock from beneath her blazer and pointed it at the ground, ready.  The two of
them stepped forward carefully, treading softly, creeping silently. Jessica’s
heart pumped against her chest, her stomach turned over in an endless wave, but
she remembered her training and concentrated on it
now.  Her safety was off, a round was in the chamber, and she kept a smart
distance from Howard.  If Heinz was nearby, there was no way he could jump one
of them without being shot and killed by the other.

More rats appeared.  They scurried away as soon as they spotted Howard and Jessica.  It wasn’t
long before the source of the rodent-gathering became clear.

At the edge of the path, half-buried in the weeds, was a
backpack.  Howard grabbed his torch and shone it.  The backpack was purple,
suggesting a female owner.  Rats had gnawed a hole in
its side and dragged out a packet of crisps and what looked like a
cellophane-wrapped sandwich.  The straps were adorned with an assortment of
whimsical patches and shiny badges:  PORN DESTROYS, FUJI FILM, BAZINGA! REDLAKE HISTORICAL SOCIETY, GOOFY’S GIRL.

Howard turned a circle, sweeping the area with his torch.
The only thing with them was the wind, the shadows, and the looming woods.

As the torch beam cut through the darkness, Jessica spotted
a dark patch on the ground several feet ahead.  Her
fear gave way to curiosity and she found herself heading towards it.

“Jessica, where are you going?  Stay close to me.”

She ignored Howard’s warning and kept on going.  “There’s
something over here,” she said.

Howard gave a brief hiss of
frustration, but he followed her.  By the time she reached the dark patch on
the path, he was right by her side.  “What is it?”  he asked.

“I don’t know.  Shine your torch on it.”

Howard did as asked, revealing the stain.

“It’s blood,” said Jessica
flatly.  There was perhaps an entire pint of it staining the pavement, by her
estimation.  She knelt and prodded the stain with her finger.  It was sticky
and cold.  “It’s fresh,” she said, “not completely fresh, but still pretty
recent.  It hasn’t washed away in the rain.”

Howard scanned the area with a clenched jaw.  “About two
hours ago, then?”

Jessica nodded.

Howard kept his gun raised, but placed the torch through a
loop fastener on his shoulder.  He pulled the radio from his belt and hit the ‘talk’ button.  “MCU Officer Hopkins to local
Redlake authorities, pick up, over.”

A voice came back immediately.  “Sergeant Young, reading
you, over.”

Howard took a breath, then said, “Check missing persons
reports.  I think Heinz has a hostage.”

2

Jessica
searched inside the backpack while Howard kept watch.  She found a sketchpad
and some pencils, as well as an expensive-looking camera with two different
lenses.

“I think maybe she’s a photographer or an artist.  There’s
no ID.  From the look of these professional camera
lenses, I’d say we’re looking for an adult.”

Howard frowned. “Anything else we can use?”

Jessica shook her head. “Perhaps she’s a student.  We
should check the roster of local art classes, see if anybody’s missing.”

It was the only lead they had, so
Howard passed the info on to Sergeant Young, who said he would get right on it.

“We have to find Heinz,” said Jessica once Howard was done
on the radio.  “If he has a hostage, the best way to save her is to find him
quickly.”

“I don’t know,” said Howard.
“We’re here for a manhunt, not a hostage negotiation.”

Jessica straightened and stepped away from the backpack.
“There won’t be any negotiation.  Heinz is a deluded sadist.  All he wants is
to satisfy his urges.  If he has a girl with him, she
doesn’t have long for us to rescue her.  Even now it might be too late to save
her from whatever sick games he’s playing.  If we hang back and do nothing, the
girl will have no chance at all.”

Howard seemed to sense her despair and held a hand out to her.  “We don’t know for sure he even has a girl with
him, but you’re right.  We’re here to bring in Heinz, so let’s bring him in.”

Jessica nodded.  “Times already a-wasting.  Let’s move.”

They picked up their pace, the possibility of an innocent
girl in peril spurring them on.  The rain kept
hammering, but Jessica found the weather comforting now; it kept her in touch
with her senses, prevented her from relaxing.

“The fact that Heinz encountered someone on the path tells
us he’s not hiding in the woods,” said Howard.  “If
we keep heading towards the lake, we might find him.”

Jessica was about to agree, but a voice in her head
couldn’t.  “No…no, he’ll be in the woods now.”

Howard stopped and faced her.  “The girl was attacked on
the path.”

“Yes, she was.  Heinz wouldn’t
usually hide, I agree, but now that he has a girl things are different. Once
his sadistic urges take over he won’t want to be disturbed.  He’ll take her
someplace where he can take his time: the woods, not the lake.”

Howard seemed to momentarily
doubt her, but then he nodded.  “Alright, you’re the one that understands these
sickos.  You say he’s gone into the woods, I believe you.”

“Good, because I’m sure of it.”  She turned towards the
woods, staring into the unbroken shadows that faded to
absolute black.  “Problem is, finding a killer in the woods is a lot like
trying to find a needle in a haystack.”

“Yeah,” said Howard, “and usually when you find the needle,
it pricks you.”

Jessica took a breath and stepped into the woods. Howard
was one step behind her. Beneath the canopy, the rain
fell in clusters instead of in an unending torrent.  The ground here was
uneven, thick with roots and weeds, but the trees were spaced far enough apart
that it was possible to walk in a mostly straight line.  The problem was visibility.  It was impossible to see more
than five-feet ahead and, if they used their torches, Richard Heinz would see
them long before they saw him.

Howard tugged Jessica’s blazer and took the lead.  He was
the senior officer and this was her first time at the
rodeo, so she was relieved when he walked ahead.  She remained three steps
behind Howard and concentrated on not tripping as they crept far enough that
the pathway completely disappeared.  Five minutes later, Howard put his hand up
to stop.

“What is it?” whispered Jessica.

“I think you were right.  Look.”

Jessica had to scan the area for several seconds before she
spotted the flattened bushes ahead.

“He’s probably carrying the girl,” said Howard.  “He must
have gotten tired and taken a rest here.  He dumped
her down in the bushes, by the looks of things.”

Jessica sighed with relief.  “Sounds like the girl is
unconscious.  That’s good.  He’ll want her awake, so it’ll buy her some time.”

“He may be near, so hand signals only from here.”

Jessica chewed at her bottom lip.  “Yeah, I…think I
remember most of them.”

Howard wheeled on her. “Damnit, Jessica.  You need to
remember all of them.”

“This is my first time in the field.  Tell the truth, I
never expected to ever be out like this.  I’m a
researcher.”

Howard stepped right in her face.  “No, Jessica, you’re a
member of MCU and you need to be battle-ready.  Things are gearing up and Palu
wants all of his senior agents to lead from the front.  You can’t hang back at
base while everyone else risks their lives.  How do
you expect new recruits to respect you?”

Jessica took a step back.  “Well, I…never really
considered.”

“Look,” said Howard, “our headquarters was hit not so long
ago, I’m sure you haven’t forgotten.  There’re no guarantees anymore that being behind a desk is safe.  You need to be able to
defend yourself, and right now I need to depend on you.”

Jessica raised her left hand and made a circle with her
thumb and forefinger—okay.

Howard nodded.  He gave the okay
signal back, followed by a hand wave that meant come.

They crouched down and trekked another hundred metres or so
until they made it over to a large oak tree in a clearing; the rain once again
became ferocious.  Snagged against one of the tree’s bulbous roots was a wool
scarf.  Several feet away, lying in the bushes, was a
purple fleece.  They searched the area for a few more minutes until Howard
signalled that he’d found something else.  When Jessica made her way over she
saw her partner was holding a knitted jumper in one hand and a bra in the other.

Jessica felt bile in her throat and it made her speak in a
harsh rasp.  “He’s stripping her,” she said.  “She must be waking up.”

As if to mark her theory correct, a shrill scream echoed
from the trees in the distance.

Howard pulled his weapon and
tried to pinpoint the sound.  Jessica’s senses were quickest. She raised her
Glock and started sprinting in the direction of the screams.  Howard took off
after her, apparently torn between shouting at her to come back and remaining
silent, so he settled on a weird warbling pitch that
was neither shout nor whisper.  “Officer Bennett, stand down.  Stand down!”

But Jessica couldn’t stand down, not while screams still
pierced the air.  She dodged between trees and leapt over bushes.  The thought of a poor girl being tortured consumed Jessica’s mind and
controlled her body.  Palu had been right to send her into the field.  She
needed to help the innocent, not just patch them up after they’d already been
hurt.  Her job was to stop monsters like Richard
Heinz, and that was exactly what she was going to do.

She managed to pick up even more speed as she hurdled the
hanging branch of a dying ash tree.  She didn’t realise it was a trap until it
was too late.

The screams stopped and were replaced by spiteful laughter.

3

Howard
tried to stop Jessica from running off half-cocked but she was as bull-headed
in the field as she was at the office.  At MCU headquarters, known
affectionately as the Earthworm, Jessica was the smartest member of the team
and in charge of the facility’s infirmary.

Out here she was a bag of nerves and unbridled emotion.
That emotion had sent her barrelling off in the direction of a scream that
Howard thought sounded too deep to be female. It was shrill and high-pitched,
but there was a throaty quality that made Howard
think it belonged to a man; a man trying to
scream like a girl.  Howard chased after Jessica, but struggled to catch her in
the dark labyrinth of the woods.

The screaming stopped abruptly.  Howard couldn’t be sure,
but he thought he heard laughter.  His foot caught on
a tree root, sending him tumbling to the wet mud, but his momentum brought him
back up again.  He forced his way through a crop of thorny bushes and emerged
inside a clearing.  The rain flooded down his forehead
into his eyes.  He blinked.

“Welcome,” said a voice. “Welcome to my party.”

Howard skidded to a halt and raised his gun. Jessica was
sprawled on the ground nearby, holding the side of her head and trying to get
up.  In front of Howard was the man they were
searching for: Richard Heinz.

The escaped killer was topless, with deep gouges down each
side of his chest that glistened in the moonlight. He was also barefoot, his
feet blackened and muddy. In front of him, on her knees, was a young girl
wearing only muddy white knickers.  She was sobbing
pitifully and had obviously taken a beating. Her swollen, bloody face was a
picture of misery.

Heinz had a screwdriver pointing at the top of the naked
girl’s head. “Come any closer and I’ll pierce her skull.  I won’t allow her to escape punishment.”

Howard took a very cautious step forward. “What
punishment?”

“I said stay back,” shouted Heinz.  “You’re disobeying my
rules. This is my party.”

Howard stepped back.  “Okay, I’m sorry. You’re in control
here, Richard, but you wouldn’t want to hurt anybody,
would you?”

“Of course not. I don’t want to.
What kind of a man do you think I am?”

Heinz seemed to think that wasn’t a rhetorical question,
but Howard was stumped.  What kind of a man?  A sick, twisted nut case.  “I think you’re a…good man.  I think you want to let
that poor girl go.”

Heinz huffed.  “Poor girl?  What kind of girl walks around
in the woods after dark?  Good girls should be at home, not flaunting
themselves around in too much make-up and fake nails.”

“I know,” said Howard, “but this girl is a photographer.
She’s out here to take pictures.”  He didn’t know for sure it was true, but
Jessica had seemed sure enough.

Jessica had now recovered enough to make it onto her hands
and knees.  She was shuffling through the wet leaves,
spreading out her hands.  Howard knew what she was doing: she was looking for
her gun.  She must’ve dropped it when Heinz clocked her. If Howard was aware of
her movement, Heinz would be too.

Heinz shook his head and looked at
Howard like he was a fool.  “The girl had condoms in her purse.  She’s just
another slut like all the rest.  She’s out late at night looking to lead men to
their ruin.  She needs to pay.  They all need to pay.”

“Okay,” said Howard.  “Then let me take her in.  I’m a police officer.  I can punish her.”

“No, you’ll let her off with a warning.”

Howard had to tell Heinz whatever he wanted to hear.  “No,
I won’t.  She’ll get what she deserves, I promise.”

Heinz’s eyes narrowed.  “Really?”

“Really.”

“Show me.”

“What?”

“Show me you’re telling the truth.  The girl deserves to
suffer for her sins, so come over here and beat her.”

Howard swallowed. This could be his chance. If he could get
close enough to Heinz, he could move the girl away and take him down.  All Heinz had was a screwdriver, and that could be taken care of
easily enough.  The naked girl looked up at Howard with her swollen eyes and
trembled.  She seemed to sense that her rescue was about to go down.  Whether
or not the girl would ever get over this was another
matter.

“Please…” she whimpered.

Howard glanced down at Jessica through the corner of his
eye.  She was still searching for her gun, still a little clumsy from the blow
to the head.  If she could find her weapon while Heinz was occupied, they might have a chance of taking in their fugitive quietly. But
there was no way Heinz couldn’t have spotted her moving. So why was he behaving
as if he were unaware.

“Come on!” barked Heinz.  “If you understand that this slut
needs punishing, then show me.  Show me or I’ll
pierce her skull right now.”

“Okay, okay.  Just stay calm.”  Howard approached slowly.

“Wait!”  Heinz pressed the screwdriver’s tip against the
girl’s skull, which made her whimper.  He nodded towards Howard’s gun.  “Drop
it.”

Howard looked at the Ruger P95 in
his hand and was suddenly aware of its weight.  Often it felt like an extension
of his arm, but right now it was like a heavy lump of metal and plastic in his
hand.  Could he let it go?  Was it a bad call?  Would refusing to drop his weapon result in the hostage’s death?  Heinz was crazy, there
was no way of telling what he would do.  Howard’s best bet was to play into the
sicko’s fantasies and keep him calm.  With a bit of luck, Jessica would find
her gun in the dirt and regain control of the
situation.

So, Howard’s plan was to rely on his partner, who had no
experience and had just allowed herself to get ambushed.

He dropped the P95 and held both empty hands in front of
him.  If he could get between Heinz and the girl, he would try to take the fugitive down hand-to-hand.

Heinz grinned, more animal than man.  Rain cascaded down
his bloody chest.  His sharp teeth glinted in the moonlight.  At his knees, the
naked girl sobbed.

“I’m coming over,” said Howard.

“Make it quick.”

Heinz watched Howard’s every move
as he crept forwards.  He made eye-contact with the girl, who silently begged
him to save her.  This was his opportunity to do so.  Howard could end the
girl’s nightmare right here and now.  In the corner of Howard’s eye, Jessica
continued to shuffle.

Heinz’s grin grew wider.

Howard crept closer, almost close enough to touch the
girl.  If he could just grab her, pull her out of the way…

“I think your partner is searching for something,” said
Heinz, nodding towards Jessica.

Howard glanced at Jessica who
froze.

“Is it this
she’s looking for?”  Heinz pulled Jessica’s Glock from behind his back and held
it up.

Howard didn’t think, he just acted.  As Heinz focused his
attention on the gun in his hand, he forgot about the screwdriver over the
girl’s head.  Now was the time to shove the girl
aside and take Heinz down.  Heinz thought he had the power now that he had the
Glock, but he wouldn’t have the experience or training to fire it properly.

Howard planted his feet, sprung, and went airborne.

Crack!

One second, Howard was flying towards Heinz, ready to push
the girl aside and take down his man.  The next second, he was changing
direction, barrelling sideways, his vision completely tilted.  When he hit the
dirt, he was unsure which way he was facing.  When he
tasted wet soil in his mouth, he knew he was sprawled face-down.  He heard the
screams of a woman, then more gunshots.

More silence.

More gunshots.

More screams.

Then a lasting silence.

Footsteps.  Twigs breaking.  The sound of a hurried escape
through bushes. A young girl screaming.

Howard remained face-down, fighting for breath and
squirming in agony.  His entire body felt white hot, but the pain was beginning
to localise in his chest, just beneath the left collarbone.

He’d been shot.  His first time.
It hurt like hell, but somehow it was bearable.  His mind was foggy and his
body felt loose.

A hand tugged roughly at the back of his vest and rolled
him over.  The rain fell into his eyes, forcing him to blink.  Part of him was
glad; he didn’t want to see Heinz’s maniacal face
again.

“Howard, are you alright?”

Howard felt himself being patted down.  He blinked the rain
from his eyes, trying to see.  He was relieved to see Jessica kneeling over
him.  “Wha…what happened?”

Jessica held up the Ruger P45.
“I may have lost my gun, but I managed to pick up yours. Heinz got away with
the girl though.”

Howard groaned.  The pain intensified.

“Try not to move,” said Jessica.  “You’ve been shot, but
you’re going to be okay.  From the look of things, the bullet hit your body armour, but the force probably fractured a
couple of ribs.  Obviously at such close range, body armour is only of
negligible use.  It’s a pity that—”

“Jess…Jessica?”

“What?”

“You need to go after Heinz.  He has your gun.”

Jessica sighed and let her head
drop.  “I know.  I was so stupid.  This is all my screw up.”

“Yeah.”  Howard coughed and wheezed; it was agonising to
breathe.  “Just take the son-of-a-bitch down and we’ll talk about our mistakes
later.”

“I can’t leave you here.  What if he comes back?”

“He won’t.”

“He might.”

Howard grunted.  “Call it in and leave me here.”

“Okay.”  Jessica’s hands shook as she reached towards the
radio on his vest.  She thumbed the button on the side.  “MCU officer Bennett,
requesting immediate medical attention in…in the
woods somewhere.  Officer down, none fatal gunshot wound.”

Silence.  They both looked at each other and frowned.

Jessica looked down at the radio and Howard watched as her
face dropped.  “What is it?” he asked.

She showed him the radio unit.
The module at the top, the piece with the antenna, was missing.  The plastic
was badly splintered.

“It must have taken a hit from the bullet before it struck
your vest,” said Jessica.  “Let me try my phone… Damn it!  No signal.  It must
be the woods.”

“You’ll just have to go for help yourself.”

Jessica shook her head.  “That young girl doesn’t have time
to waste, and I can’t leave you here wounded.  Come on, get up.”

“I’ve been shot.”

“Not anywhere that matters.  Come on, on your feet.”

Howard waited for her to start
laughing, but she was deadly serious.  She was staring at him like a
disapproving school mistress.  He swallowed a lump in his throat and tried to
sit up.  “Narghh!  Shit, damn it!”

“Stop being such a Jessy.  You’re a soldier, Hopkins, start acting like it.”

Howard managed to make it to his feet but immediately
wobbled.  Jessica caught him and steadied him.  After a few seconds, he felt
more secure. “I…I think I’m okay.”

Jessica handed him his gun. “The bruising is going to come
out quickly and make it painful to breath, but just
stay calm and you’ll be okay.  I believe this is yours.  I still intend on
getting mine back.”

Howard chuckled, but immediately regretted it and grabbed
his chest.  “Argh…okay, but once you get your gun back, can you…try to keep hold of it?”

Jessica placed her hands on her hips.  “I promise, so long
as you can promise to avoid getting shot again.”

“I got shot one time.”

“And I’ll never let you forget it.”

4

Howard
pulled off his tactical vest and body armour as they
walked because it was causing him pain.  Once he was down to a simple black
vest he could move easier.  The adrenaline coursing through his body kept the
weather from chilling him too badly.  In fact, the cold wind and stinging rain
kept him alert.  In his right hand he held his P45;
he wouldn’t be parted from it again.

“He can’t have gotten far,” said Jessica.  “He’s dragging a
hostage.”

Howard checked the glow-in-the dark hands on his watch.
“We’ve wasted about ten minutes and I’m slowing us down.  You should have left me.”

“What, and embarrass the MCU?  We need to finish this
mission together.  We’ll lick our wounds later, in private.”

“Easy for you to say.  I’m the one with all the wounds to
lick.”  As if to drive home his point, a twinge of agony in his chest caused him to double over and groan.

Jessica ran to his side.  “Are you okay?  Look,
maybe you’re right.  I should go get help and—”

Howard straightened back up.  “You mean like I told you
before you dragged my arse off the ground?  No, no, I’m not stopping now, I’ve just gone through the agony of
getting going.  But the mission has changed.  We see Heinz, I’m going to employ
lethal force.  He has a firearm now, so the parameters of the mission have
changed.”

Jessica rubbed at the bump on her temple.  “Palu’s going to chew me up and spit me out for losing
my weapon, isn’t he?”

Howard huffed.  “You have no idea, but you’ll come out the
other end of it.  Just learn from it.  Don’t go running off on your own again.
We had a woman like that in our ranks for a while
once, remember?  You don’t want to end up like her.”

Jessica nodded. Sarah Stone had been a temporary officer of
the MCU; a raging bull of a woman, badly scarred both physically and
emotionally.  She’d disappeared off the face of the earth a few months ago, likely the victim of a revenge killing by
the terrorist cell she’d helped decimate.  Sarah Stone had been a good lesson
on how being alone meant being vulnerable.  If the woman hadn’t been such a
loner, she might not have been singled out and
abducted. It might have also given the MCU half a chance to track her down.

“I think I see light up ahead,” said Howard.  He lumbered
over to a towering poplar and leant against its trunk.

Jessica moved up beside him.  She could see the light as
well, a faint twinkle coming through the edge of the treeline.  “The abbey?”

“Maybe.  Sergeant Young said he had men stationed there.
Heinz is unlikely to go anywhere near it.”

“He has to go somewhere,” said
Jessica.

Gunfire sounded off in the direction of the lights.  Howard looked at her.
“Looks like I was wrong.”

Jessica pulled at his arm.  “Come on.”

Howard managed to jog and they made it to the edge of the
woods.  They exited onto a pathway that could have
originated from the one they’d started on.  Before them lay a vast lake.
Beyond it was the imposing stone facade of the town’s ancient abbey.  Its
towering spire pierced the air like an upwards facing spear.

“That place doesn’t look too cozy,” said Howard.

“The perfect place for a guy like Heinz, then.”  Jessica
took a deep breath.  “The gunshots came from over there.”

“Maybe the local police managed to take him down.”

Jessica nodded. “Perhaps, but only one way to know for
sure.”

Howard pushed himself upright
from the tree trunk. “That means more walking, doesn’t it?”

Jessica helped him get moving.  “The drinks are on me after
all this is over.  Soon as we get Heinz pinned down, we’ll find a way to call
back-up.  I still want Heinz alive, if possible.”

Howard no longer cared.  Heinz was already a killer, but
now they’d made him an armed killer.  The gunshots at the abbey might not have
been aimed at Heinz; they may have come from Jessica’s gun.  More innocent
people might be dead, and that would be on them.

They kept to the edge of the lake, eyes pinned on the
abbey.  The lights affixed to its stone walls lit the building from the bottom,
bathing its base in shadow.  It was the type of place ripe for stories about
hauntings and grizzly executions, the perfect place
to set a ghost story; only they weren’t heading into a ghost story, they were
heading into a slasher flick.  Richard Heinz was both evil and insane.

The abbey was perched on a rise.  The pathway snaked round
the lake and eventually led up that hill.  Standing
at the bottom of it now, Howard and Jessica looked up at their destination.  It
was quiet, still, foreboding.

Despite his pain, Howard put his arm out and placed Jessica
behind him.  His black t-shirt helped him blend with the shadows better than the white blouse beneath her blazer.  He also
didn’t want her running off half-cocked again, so he’d feel better with her
behind him.

Out in the open, the rain was relentless.  Thunder rumbled
in the distance and the wind whistled across the lake.
The dark wood seemed to close up behind them as they left it.  The bullet wound
in Howard’s shoulder cried out, but it was the fear in his belly that was
hardest to overcome.  It was only the feeling of Jessica placing a hand on his
back that managed to get him moving up the hill, but
once he started nearing the abbey, he knew he was heading into danger.  It
wasn’t his first time, but it might be his last.

5

The
adrenaline that coursed through Jessica’s system when she’d first encountered
Heinz was beginning to wear off, and in its place was
a growing sense of dread.  Howard was hurt.  He wasn’t losing blood and nothing
major had been hit, but she knew the pain would be enough to drop most men.
Howard wasn’t most men, of course, but he was still human.  He wasn’t in a fit state to take down Heinz on his own, which was
why she needed to step up.  Her recklessness had placed a gun in Heinz’s hand.
Her gun had been used to shoot her own partner; it was negligence of the
highest order.

Howard had taken point—no doubt
to protect her—but he was slow and laboured.  The young girl Heinz had stripped
naked didn’t have time to waste.  They needed to get moving, but Jessica
couldn’t afford to rush off again.  Last time she’d been armed and Heinz still
got the jump on her.  She needed to stay calm and let
her brain do the thinking instead of her heart.

Modern security lamps were fixed on the abbey’s walls and
green-painted aluminium benches lined the path leading up to it, but otherwise
it was like stepping into the past.  The harsh grey
stone was the type seen only in ancient churches and ruins.  Its windows were
carved squares lacking glass.  Its square tower looked like it could come down
at any moment—yet it had stood for centuries.

“Any sign of Heinz?” whispered
Jessica.

“No, it’s quiet.  I don’t like it.”  Howard had his gun
unholstered, risen to shoulder level.

They entered the abbey’s boundaries.  Parts of the old
buildings were only foundations rising three feet out of the mud, but the main
tower and the attached cruciform church still stood
fully erect.  Further on, there was a modern bridge built over a narrow stream
which seemed to lead to a crop of modern glass-and-red-brick buildings.

“Wait here while I clear the church,” said Howard.

Jessica nodded.  She hovered a
few metres behind Howard and watched him disappeared into a rectangle of
darkness.  The rain hitting the old stone made a hissing sound, making her feel
like her hearing was malfunctioning.  She wanted to shout out for Howard, but
doing so could compromise him.  She had no choice but
to wait.

Eventually enough time had passed that waiting no longer
was an option.  Jessica pulled the CS canister from her belt and took a step
towards the dark rectangle, dreading what she would find inside the abbey.

“Jessica!”

She flinched and wheeled around, wondering where the voice
had come from.

“Up here!”

Jessica looked up and saw Howard staring down at her from
the top of the abbey’s square tower.  “What are you doing up there?” she
hissed.

“The church is clear, but I saw a
staircase and headed up.  Seemed like a good place to recon.”

“Can you see anything?  Can you see Heinz, the girl?”

Howard left then reappeared a moment later.  “I don’t
see…wait, hold on.”

“What is it?”

“I think I see something.  I’ll be
right down.”

Jessica waited patiently.  When Howard returned, he was
huffing and puffing.  Climbing fifty feet of old stone steps probably wasn’t
the best idea in his condition.  “You okay?”

Howard nodded.  He took a second to catch his breath,
clutching his chest.  “I’ll be…fine.  I’m just
feeling a bit…out of…breath.”

Jessica didn’t say anything.  Her partner needed help, but
perhaps not as much as the girl they were trying to save.  It was a matter of
triage.

“I saw something over there,” he eventually said, pointing past her.  “There are more buildings, looks
like a visitor centre or something.”

“What did you see?”

“I’m not sure yet, just…something.  A light.”

There was more to it, that much was obvious.  Howard looked
worried and it was clear he didn’t want to waste time
speculating.  They headed for the visitor’s centre immediately.

They crossed over the little bridge and joined a path
leading away from the abbey, towards the modern buildings.  The first building
they came upon was a heritage museum, but Howard
didn’t stop there.  He continued towards a building which turned out to be a
set of stables.  As he’d suggested, there was a light coming from there, from
inside one of the stalls.  A shaft of light rose upwards and bounced off the
open door.

They both took things slow.  Howard had his gun at the
ready and was staring hard, unblinking.  Jessica had his back, her CS canister
her only defence.

Howard moved up to the edge of the stall and took a ready
position.  He made eye-contact with Jessica and then
nodded.  Stepping into the doorway he thrust out his gun, then lowered it and
shook his head with disgust.

Jessica stepped up beside him and looked into the stall as
well, then covered her mouth.  Two police officers lay inside the stall, their
white shirt’s stained red.  The light source came
from the men’s torches. One of them lay across a lifeless leg, which was what
Howard had spotted from the tower.

Jessica stepped inside and flicked on her own torch.  She
shone it on the two dead men and examined them.  The
first had died from a stab wound to the temple, clear from the screwdriver
handle jutting out the side of his head.  Heinz must have driven it with
unbelievable force to shove it all the way up to the handle.  The second
officer had died from a gunshot wound to the gut.
Luckily the shock would have protected him from the pain until he passed on.

Howard rubbed at his forehead with the back of his free
hand.  “Heinz must have gotten the jump on this first guy, stabbed him in the
head, then used the gun when the other officer got
alerted.  Probably dragged their bodies in here to cover his tracks.”

“My gun,” said Jessica.  “These men are dead because of
me.”

“No,” said Howard.  “Heinz had the screwdriver long before
he got the jump on you.  The guy’s out for blood
regardless of the methods he uses.  Your gun didn’t convince him to kill.”

Jessica worried she was going to throw up, not because of
the gory scene they were standing in—she was a doctor, she could handle it—but
because of the guilt working its way into her gut.
“I need to save that girl,” she said.

Howard looked at her with understanding.  “Save the girl
and you balance the books.”

Jessica nodded.

Squawerk!

Sergeant Young, all units report in, over.

Howard stared down at the dead police officer and didn’t move.  Jessica leapt down beside the
man and patted him down.  She found the radio on his belt and yanked it free.
She hit the talk button.  “MCU Officer Bennett responding.  Your officers at
the abbey are KIA, Officer Hopkins is injured.  Send
immediate reinforcements and medical care.”

There was a long pause, then: Roger
that.  Secure casualties.  Backup units to arrive in fifteen.  Over.

The voice had sounded sad.  There was nothing further to
say, so Jessica simply said, “Roger that.  Over.”

Howard stumbled out of the stable and leant against the
building.  “Heinz didn’t have that big a lead on us,” he said.  “The gunshots
were only five minutes ago.  He must be close.”

Jessica looked around at the darkness and agreed.  The
buildings were all lit with security lamps, but that
only made the surrounding darkness blacker.  Heinz could be twelve feet away
and they couldn’t know it.

Jessica shone her torch into the darkness, lighting up the
muddy flower beds, bins, and benches lining the paths.
Every dozen feet was a sign spiked into the earth reading: STAY OFF THE GRASS.
There was no sign of Heinz, no movement at all, but Jessica did spot
something.  She stared down at the path; there was a small speck of colour a
few feet in front of her, and as she knelt closer she
saw that it was a bright-pink acrylic nail.  “Howard!  Howard, come take a look
at this.”

Howard hurried to join her.  He looked down at the nail and
shrugged.  “You think it belongs to the girl?”

“I don’t know, but Heinz mentioned
something about fake nails and make-up.  Plus it’s pink.”

Howard switched on his own torch and headed a few metres
further down the path.  “We’ve got another one here.”

They found another four before the trail ran dry.  “She
must have been biting them off as he dragged her,”
said Jessica.

“Clever girl.  They stop here, though.”

Jessica took in her surroundings.  There was a café and
shop nearby, but their glass fronts gave away that they were both locked and
empty.  A blinking alarm system made it an unlikely
place for Heinz to take refuge.

Jessica shone her torch in every direction.  Left…right…

She spotted it.  The pink acrylic nail caught the light.
Jessica stepped off the path and onto the mud.  “They went this way.”

“What’s over there?”

Jessica shone her torch into the
distance, spotting a familiar sign.  “A block of toilets.  We should check it
out.”

“We should wait for backup, but that’s not what we’re going
to do, is it?”

Jessica looked at her partner.  He was soaking wet and
panting, in obvious pain.  “I can’t help it,” she
said.  “The girl…”

Howard nodded. “I know.  Come on, let’s go save her.”

They headed towards the toilet block, spotting another pink
nail on their way.  The girl was smart; even in her terror and agony she was
thinking pro-actively, not behaving like a victim.

“How you want to do this?” asked Howard.  He pointed his
gun towards the gentleman’s entrance.

Jessica shook her head.  “He’ll choose the lady’s.  He’ll
get a thrill going where he’s not supposed to.”

“Lady’s it is then.  Stay back.
If things turn sour, you need to take cover and wait for back up.”

Howard crept forward, his P45 held out in front of him.
There was a spotlight over the door and as he stepped into it, Jessica saw what
a mess Howard was.  Dirt and blood plastered his
clothing which was sodden from the rain.  His entire body tilted to the left,
contracting around his wounded ribs.

While they had discussed which toilet Heinz might have been
hiding in, they had not considered the possibility that he might have been above them.  The first shot rang out and lit up
the shadows.  The bullet had been meant for Jessica, but it missed and struck
the dirt next to her feet.  She leapt forwards and shoved herself flat against
the wall, clutching her CS canister as her only
lifeline.  The roof overhung by a foot and gave her some cover.  Howard ducked
inside the entrance to the lady’s, but leant out to get her attention.  He gave
a hand signal: stay.

Jessica nodded. She looked upwards and tried to pinpoint
Heinz’s location.  His bare feet made slapping sounds
that joined the endless pitter-patter of
the rain.  Howard crouched down, pointing upwards with his gun, trying to find
a target.

Unfortunately, the target found them first.

Howard’s eyes went wide, then he leapt up and pointed his gun.  “Jessica, get down.”

Jessica was facing Howard, but she felt the presence
looming behind her; she heard Heinz’s bare feet slapping in the mud.  She spun
around, just in time to see the escaped psychopath rise up, bare-chested and bloody.  He aimed the gun at her forehead and pulled the
trigger.

6

Jessica
managed to leap aside just as the gun bucked in Heinz’s fist.  The sound was
deafening and the muzzle-flash blinded her.  All she could do in her frightened
desperation was press the release on her CS canister
and hold it out in front of her.

Hissssssss!

Her legs gave out and she tumbled onto her hands and
knees.  Her palm slipped on the wet mud and a jolt of pain ran up to her
elbow.  She screamed.

There was more gunfire.  Jessica
looked up to see Heinz dodging back, firing blindly as he covered his eyes with
his forearm.  Howard was taking cover in the toilet’s entrance, but he returned
fire as best he could.  Jessica considered getting up and trying to take Heinz
down, but when she tried to push herself up, she
instantly yelled out in agony.

Heinz continued firing blindly, his face a mask of agony as
the CS gas burned his sinuses.  Jessica had managed to save her own life by
holding on to the canister.  Turned out that it had been a match for a gun.

Click click click!

Heinz thrust the gun out, trying to make it fire, but it
was empty.  He tossed the gun aside, wiped at his eyes madly, then sprinted
away into the shadows.  Howard leapt out and took a shot at the fleeing killer,
but his gun too was empty.  “Damn it!”  He reached
into his pocket and pushed another clip in, but Heinz was already gone. He
rushed over to Jessica and propped her up.  “Are you okay?”

“I…I think my wrist is broken.  No…no wait, it’s just a
sprain.  Did you manage to hit him?”

Howard shook his head.  “The rain, the wind, the dark…”

Jessica nodded.  Trying to hit a target in conditions like
this was a challenge.  She marched forward and shouted into the darkness.  “You
better give yourself up, Heinz, because if I have to
come and find you, you’re going to regret it.”

“Jessica?”

Jessica was breathing like a wound-up pitbull.  She spun on
Howard with fury, but it wasn’t meant for him, so she reigned herself in.  “We
need to catch him, Howard.  He’s a monster.”

Howard was leaning in the doorway of the lady’s toilets.
In the entrance light he looked ghostly and pale.  He was holding his palm up
to her, which appeared black.

“What is it?” she asked him.

“I think it’s blood.”  He indicated a glistening wet streak
on the wall.  Jessica got close enough to see that it
was, in fact, a fresh blood stain.  The tangy, metallic odour was
unmistakable.  The real question was did the blood belong to Heinz?

Jessica wiped the rain from her face and blinked.  They
were going to have to step inside the toilet block,
but she didn’t want to.  Something in her guts told her to run the other way.
“The girl,” she said.

The lights inside came on automatically, presenting the
scene like a crime scene slide suddenly appearing on a projector screen.  Jessica went still, her eyes the only thing
moving as they took it all in.  The girl lay on the bloody tiles, her underwear
completely missing.  Her exposed flesh was grimy with mud and mostly unharmed,
but her face was a ruined mess.  As Jessica glanced
to her left, she saw a shattered mirror above one of the sinks.  The spiderweb
of jagged shards were bloody and lined with chunks of flesh.  Heinz had smashed
the poor girl’s face into the glass over and over again, until her features had
turned to putty.  Then, obviously in a hurry, he had
taken the time to quickly violate her.  The slender tree branch still poked out
from between the girl’s legs.

Jessica couldn’t blink, couldn’t swallow. “We didn’t even
learn her name.”

Howard felt for a neck pulse,
then looked over his shoulder at Jessica and shook his head.  “Looks like he
killed her in a hurry,” he said.

“He didn’t want to risk us saving her,” said Jessica.  “Us
chasing him probably lessened her time.  Damn it!  If I hadn’t let Heinz get the jump on me…”  She suddenly lost control of herself,
booting the door to one of the stalls, sending it crashing open on its
squawking hinges.

Howard jumped up.  “Hey, this is a crime scene.  Keep your
shit together, Bennett!  This girl’s family is depending
on you now.  We still need to bring Heinz in.  He’s out there, unarmed and
tired.”

Jessica clenched her fist.  “We don’t even know who this
girl was, so we don’t know she even has a family.  As for Heinz, we’re as weak
and tired as he is.  You can barely stand and my
wrist is useless.”

Howard was hunched over and made no attempt to straighten.
“Maybe, but there are two of us and we have guns.”

Jessica was about to argue but then realised that Heinz had
tossed her Glock when it ran out of ammo.  She went
back outside and shone her torch where Heinz had fled.  She found her Glock
buried in the grass.  Pulling a new clip from her belt, she loaded the handgun
and suddenly felt more confident.  The thought of unloading the entire magazine
into Heinz’s forehead gave her impetus to carry on.

Howard joined her in the rain.  His P45 was freshly loaded
and ready to fire.  If they couldn’t take down Heinz now, they didn’t deserve
their roles protecting the public.  One way or another, Heinz was leaving in
custody, either in cuffs or a bodybag; Jessica didn’t
care which.

In the distance, she spotted several lights.  It didn’t
take long to realise that they were torch beams.

“Back-up’s here,” said Howard. “I hope somebody brought
painkillers.”

Jessica watched the silhouettes
of police officers rushing up the hill and wished they’d arrived five minutes
sooner.  She headed down the path and met Sergeant Young at the head of the
pack.  He looked at her eagerly, his rotund belly heaving as he caught his
breath.  “Heinz?”

Jessica shook her head.

“How about the girl?”

Jessica chewed at her lip.  “We were too late.”

Young let his head drop.  “Bugger it!”

The small group of arriving police officers let out a
collective moan.  It was then that Jessica noticed a man out of uniform: he was mildly handsome with wavy hair and dark eyes.  He
looked nervous and sick, not dejected and angry like the police officers.
“Who’s this?” Jessica asked Sergeant Young.

“This is Blake Price.  He’s an author, one of Heinz’s
original victims.”

“You mean his wife was,”
corrected Jessica.

“Yes, my wife was a victim,” said Price.  “I wasn’t there
to protect her.”

“So what are you doing here now?”

Sergeant Young interjected.  “When Heinz escaped, we
informed Mr Price that he was in danger.  His family have gone to stay with friends, but Mr Price was insistent on helping.”

Jessica frowned. “Help how?”

Price pushed his way to the front of the group. He kept his
voice low, almost a whisper.  “Heinz is obsessed with me.  He thinks we’re
friends.  If I can get close to him, I might be able
to talk him round.  He’s delusional, but I’m a big part of those delusions.”

Jessica didn’t like it.  “Pretty risky.  Why not leave it
to the police?”

Price stared hard at her for a moment.  “Six months ago, my
brother died.  He was a brave man and died trying to
protect other people.  At his funeral I promised him that I would do my best to
honour his memory.  Believe me, my first instinct is to get as far away from
this place as possible, but if I can help bring an end to this before anyone else is hurt...  Heiz might have
information about a missing girl, right?”

Jessica saw a deep sadness in Blake’s eyes, especially at
the mention of his brother.  She trusted his convictions; Price really did want
to help.  “Okay,” she said.  “Just stay with Sergeant
Young until I call for you.”

Sergeant Young bristled.  “I think your time calling the
shots is over.  Two of my officers are lying dead in a stable, your own man is
injured, and now Heinz’s hostage is dead.”

“You’re right, I made a complete
pig’s ear of this entire thing, which is why I’m not going to allow any more of
your men to risk their lives.  Office Hopkins and I will get you your man, even
if it kills us.  You have my word.”

Sergeant Young went to argue, but ended up sighing.  “So far, all this is on you.  Less I get involved
the better, but if Heinz escapes the nature reserve, it’s over to me and my
men.  We’ll maintain a perimeter until then.”

Jessica nodded.  “Don’t worry, Heinz is done escaping.”

She checked on Howard who’d taken
a seat in the mud.  He was taking slow, steady breaths, but he managed a grim
smile as he noticed her approaching.  “Hey,” he said.  “The cavalry here to
take over?  I was hoping we had a little more time to fix our screw-up.”

“They’re going to maintain a
perimeter while we bring him in.  MCU still have the lead.”

Howard raised an eyebrow suspiciously.  “How’d you talk the
Sergeant into agreeing to that?”

“I used my Southern charm.  Okay, maybe it had something to
do with Young not wanting to put his name to our
mess.  We have one last shot to bring Heinz in, and this time we have an added
advantage.”

“What’s that?”

Jessica pointed at Blake.  “You may have heard of him: his
name is Blake Price.”

7

Howard
was torn between passing out and wanting to salvage
what was left of the MCU’s reputation.  When it came to terrorists, Howard knew
what to expect: they were maniacs with rules and beliefs.  Monsters like Heinz
had no rules or beliefs, entirely unpredictable, which was why a half-naked
serial killer leaping from the roof of a toilet block
had taken Howard by surprise.

The next surprise might kill him.  His ribs felt like
broken glass, stabbing into him with every movement.  The more time that
passed, the harder it became to breathe.  If he was forced
into action one more time, he feared he might lose consciousness.

Jessica was busy checking in with Sergeant Young.  It was
surprising how much she’d changed in only the last few hours.  She’d gone from
being his reluctant back-up, to throwing herself into
the task with gusto.  She’d started to resemble the headstrong woman he knew
from MCU’s headquarters.  He just hoped her impulsiveness wouldn’t lead to any
more mistakes.

The truth was that MCU had been tasked with bringing in
Heinz to show that they could operate within a
broader spectrum than only domestic terrorism.  If they succeeded in bringing
the escaped killer in, the MCU’s remit might grow, along with its prestige.
There was a lot riding on their success; Palu was counting on them.  Sending Jessica into the field to help Howard had been
unavoidable.  The MCU was recruiting and most of its senior members were
recuperating from a previous mission.  Jessica and Howard were all that was
left, and Howard himself had only just recovered from a fractured radial bone.

Now, Jessica came hurrying over, her eyes lit.  “They have
Heinz,” she said.

Howard frowned.  “They’ve captured him?”

“No, but they have him surrounded at the abbey.  They found
him there, trying to shake off the effects of the CS gas.”

Howard rolled onto his side and tried to get up.  Jessica
assisted him, grabbing him under the armpit.  “You need to sit this out?”

“I’m good for now.  I’ll quit when I pass out.”

“Okay, great, because we’re going to finish this now.  I
want that crazy son-of-a-bitch locked up for the rest
of his life.  Either that, or—”

“I know,” said Howard.  “I want to put a bullet in the guy
too, after what he did to that innocent girl, but he’s sick, right?  You said
that he belongs in a hospital.”

Jessica nodded, but she was
obviously angry.  “Let’s get back down to the abbey.”

They headed down the hill and slowly the abbey emerged.
This time the harsh stone walls were surrounded by a dozen police officers.
Sergeant Young stood in front of the large square tower, waiting for them.  “Heinz is inside.  He managed to attack
one of my men, but it’s nothing he can’t walk off.  It’s pitch black in there,
though, so it’s going to be risky for whoever goes in there.”

“Is Heinz still unarmed?” asked Howard.

“No, he’s managed to get hold of
a metal spike.  He may have pulled it from one of the signs in the ground.
There’s a ton of them dotted around the park.”

Jessica grunted.  “Great. Is there no way we can get this
place lit up?”

Young nodded.  “Sent some men to fetch a spotlight.  It’ll probably take about twenty minutes.”

Howard shrugged.  “We have twenty minutes.  Heinz isn’t
going anywhere.”  He folded his arms and shivered.  He was covered in mud and
soaked through.  His reward, once this evening was through, would be a soaking hot bath; but with the endless briefings required
after an incident like this, that would likely still be hours away.  Dawn would
be near by the time he made it back to his flat in London.

Howard took a short stroll and stopped in front of the black rectangle that led inside the ancient abbey.  Somewhere
inside, Heinz took shelter.  Was the man cowering like a trapped animal, or was
he beyond fear?  Was he waiting inside with no other instinct but to harm the
first person to come in after him?

Jessica came up beside Howard and
shouted.  “Heinz, we have you surrounded.  You’re not going to hurt anybody
else.  You’re going back to the hospital.  Throw down your weapon and come on
out.”

Silence.

“Richard Heinz, you will be
returned to the hospital tonight.  The only question
is whether or not we have to shoot you first.”

“Whore!  You speak to me no more.”

“Oh, I’m going to speak to you, Heinz.  I’m going to speak
to you like the sad little boy that you are.”

Howard looked at her.  “Jessica, what are you doing?”

She shrugged.  “What harm will it do?  If he runs out to
attack me, I’ll shoot him.  If not, we’re no worse off.  Until then, I want
Heinz to know what a piece of slime he is, mentally insane or not.”

Howard wanted to say it was a bad idea winding the psychopath up, but he just sniffed and said, “Fair
enough.”  Jessica was right, what was the harm?

“Heinz!” shouted Jessica again.  “I can see why your wife
left you.  You’re not a man.  You pick on young girls and innocent,
unsuspecting women.  Why don’t you come out here and
try picking on some of these men?”

“Shut up, bitch!  I took care of those men at the stables,
and no women are innocent.  They are all whores.”

“Did those police officers even see you coming, or did you
jump them from behind like a coward?”

Silence.

Jessica laughed cruelly.  “That’s what I thought.  You’re
such a loser, Heinz.  No wonder Blake Price doesn’t want to know you.”

“Don’t you do that…don’t you talk about him.  He’s my
friend.”

“Friend?  Blake Price hates you.  He thinks you’re pathetic.”

“No!  Shut your whore mouth.”

“The only whore was your mother.”

Heinz let out a scream.  Something flew out of the darkness
straight towards Jessica.  Howard nudged her aside just as the metal spike
embedded itself in the mud, jutting into the air like
a javelin.

Jessica turned to Sergeant Young and grinned.  “Heinz isn’t
armed anymore.”

Sergeant Young nodded and looked at her admiringly.  Howard
was also impressed.  Jessica had obviously hoped her taunts would drive Heinz
out, but disarming him was still a decent result.

“Good work,” Howard nodded.

“About time things started going right.”

“Come in here, whore, and I’ll kill you.”

“Why would I do that?  I think I’m going to send these men
in to get you.”

“No!”

Jessica faced Sergeant Young.  “I’d rush him now, while
he’s unfocused.”

Young nodded and his men ran inside the abbey.  There was shouting, but no sound of a struggle.  After a few moments,
Howard thought she heard pleading.

One of the officers headed back out of the abbey and
hurried over to Sergeant Young.  “He legged it up to the bloody roof soon as he
saw us coming.”

Just as the officer said it,
Howard saw the shadow of a man on top of the square tower.

“I don’t want my officers going up there,” said Sergeant
Young.  “We’ll wait him out.”

The officer nodded and went back inside the abbey.

Heinz began shouting from atop the tower.  “I will not be imprisoned again.  I am a great man and I
will do as I please.”

“What the hell is he doing up there?” asked Howard.

“Losing it,” said Jessica.  “He’s trying to re-empower
himself.”

“I would rather die than let you whores take me back to
that place.  I am not insane.  I do not need a
hospital.”

“There’s no word for what he needs,” muttered Howard.

Jessica remained silent, staring up at the silhouette of
Heinz.

“I will not be beaten and humiliated.  I judge the slags
and harlots of this world, they do not judge me.  I
was put here to do great work, but if my work is finished, then so am I.”

Jessica hissed and spun around.  “Get Price here now,” she
said to Sergeant Young.

Young nodded.

Two minutes later, Blake Price arrived at the scene.

“He’s going to jump,” said
Jessica.

“How are you sure of that?” asked Howard. It seemed like
you couldn’t be sure of anything when it came to Heinz.

“Believe me.  He’s so deluded that he’s romanticised
death.  He’ll embrace it long before he allows himself to be imprisoned.”

“I see,” said Blake.  “Can’t say I wouldn’t like to see
that.”

Howard sighed.  “Mr Price, I know this man has done
terrible things to you, but if we take him alive then we can continue to punish
him for his crimes.  Killing himself is the easy way
out.”

Jessica added her opinion.  “The more time we have to study
people like Heinz, the more chance we have of protecting future victims.  Heinz
is mentally insane, and there are biological reasons behind that which we
cannot learn if he is dead.  Nor can we learn any
information about the missing girl he claims to know
about.”

Blake rolled his eyes.  “Believe me, as much as you think
you know about killers, I know more; but I came here to help, so what would you
have me do?”

“Talk him down,” said Jessica.
“Just like you said you could. Be his friend.”

“You want me to play nice with the man who raped my wife?”

“Yes.”

Blake shook his head and walked off in disgust, but he did
so in the direction of the abbey.  He approached the square tower and shouted to Heinz.  “Hey Richie, what you doing, buddy?”

There was a long silence while the silhouette of Heinz
flickered and shifted atop the tower.  Howard felt his fists clench while he
waited for the author to put their plan into action.

“Blake?  Blake Price, is that
you?”

“Yes, it’s me.”

“W-why…what are you doing here?”

“I came to see you, of
course.”

“They…they said you weren’t my friend.”

“Of course I’m your friend.  You’re my biggest fan.”

“I am your biggest fan.  I’ve read everything you’ve ever
written.  Even that one with the vampires, Twinkle.”

Price let out a strained laugh.  “Yeah, that isn’t one of
my favourites.  So, how you been?  Why don’t you come down and we’ll catch up?”

It was working, Howard saw. Heinz truly believed Blake
Price was his friend.

“They locked me up in a bad place after what I did for
you.”

“After what you did for me?”
Price couldn’t hide his anger for a brief moment and Howard held his breath as
he waited for things to unravel.

“Yes.  I fucked that bitch of yours with a bottle of your favourite whiskey.  I told her to let you be
free.  She was holding you back, Blake.”

Howard put a hand on Blake’s shoulder.  The author was
trembling with rage.  “You’re helping us catch this son-of-a-bitch,” whispered
Howard.  “Just remember that, Mr Price.  Everything
Heinz says, he’ll pay for, I promise.”

Blake nodded.  “I know what you did for me, Richie,” he
shouted up, “and I appreciate it.”

“You’re glad I did it?”

Price looked like he might vomit, but he said, “Y-yes, I’m
glad you did it.  My wife was a bitch.  She…she…she
deserved it.”

“Then why didn’t you reply to any of my letters?  Why did
you move away to this horrible little town?”

“What letters?”

“I wrote you hundreds of letters, Blake.  Hundreds.”

“I…I never got any of them.  I sent you letters, too.  Did you not get them?”

Heinz sounded confused, like a little boy learning that
Santa wasn’t real.  “I…I didn’t get any letters.  You definitely sent them?
You’re not lying?”

“I wouldn’t lie to a friend, not my number one fan.  You
know what I think happened?  I think those bastards,
the police, kept our letters from each other.  They didn’t like us being
friends.”

“They don’t understand us, Blake.”

“Come down here and we’ll make them understand.”

There was a pause before Heinz finally answered.  “No, I can’t come down there.  They’ll get me.
You need to come up here.”

Howard looked at Blake and shook his head.

Blake took a series of deep breaths.  “You sure you won’t
come down here, Richie?  I’d like it if you did.”

“If you’re really my friend,
you’ll come up here.”

“Okay, I’m coming up.”

Before Howard could stop him, the author was marching into
the abbey.  Two minutes later, he appeared on top of the square tower, fifty
feet in the air and trapped with a serial killer.  Howard suddenly understood what having guts looked like.

8

Here
was the man who had ruined Blake’s life and destroyed his family.  Only now,
years later, had his wife even begun to put back together the pieces of her
self-esteem.  This man—this monster—had broken into their
home and filled it with nightmares.

Heinz smiled warmly at him.  It looked strange in contrast
with his bloody chest and red, swollen eyes.  “Blake, we’re finally together.”

Blake nodded.  “Yes. I’ve been imagining this moment a
lot.”

“Me too.  It’s so good that
you’re here.”

Blake didn’t want to waste any time on top of the
rain-soaked tower.  The wind was so strong it was capable of whipping them both
off.  “You need to come down, Richie.  They’ll shoot you if you don’t.”

Heinz shrugged his bony shoulders.
“Let them.  I’m not afraid of dying.  If my work is done, what do I have to
live for?”

Blake cleared his throat and tried to keep himself from
gagging on his own words.  “You have our friendship to live for.”

“I haven’t seen you in years.  How do I know you won’t disappear again?”

“I promise.  Now that we’re together, they won’t ever keep
us apart, but only if you come down now.  If you stay up here, they’re going to
split us up again.”

Heinz looked torn.  He glanced over the edge of the tower.

Blake took a step towards the man
who raped his wife.

Heinz straightened and looked at Blake.  “Why won’t they
leave me alone, Blake?”

“You really don’t know?  You hurt all those women.”

Heinz flapped his arms and shook his head indignantly.
Blake stepped back.  “They deserved it, Blake.  They
were all whores, like the ones you write about in your books.  You kill the
whores in your books, but people love you for it.  Why do they hate me?”

Blake couldn’t believe he was having to explain why murder
was wrong to a grown man.  “The women in my books are
victims, not whores.  I write about bad men who need to be locked up.”

Heinz’s expression darkened.  “Like me?”

“No…not like you.  You’re sick, Richie.  You can’t help
what you do.  Let them help you.  You could get out
one day and have a real life.  Don’t you want that?”

Heinz looked down at the police assembled below.  “I had a
life once, before they locked me up.  They punished me for what I did to your
wife.  I tried to explain it was what you wanted.  You were never home and you ignored her calls all the time.  I
used to follow you, I saw.  She was holding you back, irritating you.”

“Yes, you’re right, I used to ignore her a lot.  I was a
bad man back then…a bad husband.  I’m trying to be better
now.”

Heinz looked at Blake with pity.
“She’s got inside your head.  You don’t get it, do you?  Did you ever get it,
or have you been lying to me this whole time?”

Blake felt the situation slipping out of control.  It was
only a matter of time before Heinz figured out that
Blake was just telling him the things he wanted to hear.  “Where’s the girl,
Richie? You said you knew about a missing girl.”

Heinz scowled.  “Chloe Tanner?  She’s rotting in the ground
where she belongs.”

“She has a family, Richie.  Give them some peace.  Let them have her body.”

Heinz was trembling.  He looked ready to fly off the
waterlogged tower like a firework.  “They raised a whore.  They don’t deserve
peace.  One day, I’m going to come back and get their other daughter.”

Blake did his best to stay calm.
He had to keep Heinz talking.  “Richie, listen to me.  In my books, I always
tie up the loose ends, don’t I?  I can’t finish a book without letting the
readers know what happens.  How would you have felt if I left all my books with
no endings?”

Heinz shifted his feet.  “I…wouldn’t like it.”

“Exactly.  I always give away the secrets by the end.  The
killer always takes pride in all his crimes.  Do you really want to leave your
own book without an ending?  What if you died of a heart attack this very minute?  What would become of your work?  It would be
incomplete.”

Heinz swallowed, his thick Adam’s apple bobbed and
glistened in the rain.  Then he grinned sheepishly.  “I don’t know where I
buried her.”

Blake frowned.  “What?”

“It was some wood in some town,
but I have no idea where.  I was just driving around, looking for a girl.  It
was late, dark.  When I picked her up and killed her, I had no idea where I
was.  Somewhere on the M5, maybe, or the M6.”  He began laughing.  “I have no
fucking idea where I buried the little whore.  All I remember
is that I buried her nice and deep where nobody will ever find her.”

Blake closed his eyes for a second and took a few long
breaths.  “So you really don’t remember?  Do you think with time, you could?”

“No.  Why don’t we talk about
something I do remember, like how your wife screamed when I shoved the bottle
in?”

Blake flinched.  “Why are you doing this, Richie?  We’re
supposed to be friends.”

Heinz tilted his head, suddenly taking on the mannerisms of
a hungry snake.  “I thought we were friends, but you
don’t get it.  I think that you did get
my letters.”

Blake didn’t break eye-contact with Heinz.  If he couldn’t
say where he’d buried Chloe Tanner, then this whole situation was pointless.
There was no point keeping up with the ruse.  “You’re
right,” he said.  “I did get
your letters.  I got every single one of them and I used them to wipe my arse;
but first I read them to all my wife so we could both laugh about what a
pathetic loser you are.”

Heinz exploded.  He flew at Blake with
his hands outstretched, reaching for his neck.  Blake was ready and shoved
Heinz hard in the chest.  The psychopath went tumbling towards the edge of the
tower, but managed to right himself against the stone crenulations.  He spun on Blake and attacked again. This time he landed a heavy
fist under his chin.  Blake felt his knees give out and slumped against the
edge of the tower.  Heinz continued his onslaught, driving a kick into Blake’s
ribs, knocking the wind out of him.

“I’m your biggest fan, Blake,”
hollered Heinz, “and you betray me like this.  Do you think you’re better than
me?  Do you treat all of your fans like they don’t matter?  Are we beneath
you?”

“No,” said Blake.  “Just the bed-wetting sociopathic
ones.”  He pushed himself up and barrelled into
Heinz, shoving him back against the crenulations.  They wrestled and punched at
one another at the edge.

“I should have killed your bitch of a wife.  Maybe then you
would understand.”

Blake managed to land a fist on Heinz’s chin.  “You’re a fucking lunatic.  There’s nothing to
understand.  You’re just another mundane psychopath taking their anger out on
women.  You know how many men I’ve researched that are just like you?  You’re
not special.  You’re nothing.”

“I’ll kill you!”  Heinz managed
to clamp down on Blake’s shoulder with his teeth, tearing into flesh.  Blake
cried out and shoved Heinz away from him.

The two men then stared at each other from opposite ends of
the tower.

“I’ll kill you,” repeated Heinz.

“You only pick on girls,
remember?”

Heinz snarled and ran at Blake who ran to meet him, and the
two clashed in the centre.  Blake swung his fist but was knocked dizzy by the
top of Heinz’s head smashing into his nose.  He felt his nose burst open in a
gout of blood.

Heinz tackled Blake to the stone floor and mounted him,
raining down fury with his fists.  Blake tried to cover up, but several blows
managed to get through.  Each one sent his consciousness a little deeper into
the background.  Eventually his arms dropped to his
sides and he could no longer defend himself.  It was then that Heinz dragged
him up by his hair, got him on his feet, and shoved him towards the edge of the
tower.  He felt a rib crack as his front collided with the stone wall.

Heinz spun Blake around and got
in his face.  “I love you, Blake.  Your books speak to me.  They were written
for me.  We are connected.”

Blake spat blood and laughed.  “I didn’t write them for
you.  I wrote them for the money.”

Heinz raised his fist and struck Blake between the eyes.  He moaned and flopped lifelessly, but Heinz kept
him standing.  Then he grabbed Blake under the arms and lifted him onto the
wall.  “Time for your big finale, Blake.  It’s like we’re coming full circle.
If only you’d been at home that day, instead of your
wife, things could have been so different for us.”

Blake tried to speak but his words came out as an
incoherent slur.  He was only half-conscious, but he understood that Heinz was
about to shove him to his death.

“Heinz, step away from the author
before I autograph your face with my gun.”

Heinz spun around.  A few feet back, Blake could make out
the hazy image of a woman; the same one who’d had sent him up here in the first
place.

“What do you want, whore?  Have I not beaten you enough for
one night?”

“I’m still standing, ain’t I?”

While Heinz was distracted, Blake slowly slid himself off
the crenulations and slumped to his knees.  There, he took deep breaths and
repeatedly blinked to try to get his focus back.  He managed to see that the
woman had a gun drawn on Heinz.  Heinz, so far, was
keeping his distance.

“You won’t shoot me,” he said.  “You want to know where I
buried the girl.”

“He…he doesn’t know,” shouted Blake from the floor.  “Shoot
him.”

Heinz didn’t turn around, but kept his eyes on the woman.  “Or do I know?  No way to tell, is there?”

The woman glanced past Heinz at Blake.  “We’re going to get
you out of here, Mr Price, but we need to know where Chloe Tanner is.”

Blake managed to drag himself to his feet.  “J-just shoot
him.  Shoot him.  He doesn’t know.”

Heinz spun around.  “You can’t help it, can you?  You have
to take the side of these whores.”

Blake snarled.  “The only whore here, is you.”

Heinz exploded again, like a predictable bomb.  He rushed
Blake, tossing him towards the crenulations.  Blake
grabbed the half-naked psychopath around the waist and held on tightly.  The
combined momentum took them both onto the stone wall.  Heinz tried to throw
Blake over, but Blake held strong, and as Heinz shoved him they both tumbled
down.

They both went over the edge.

The woman atop the tower shouted out in panic.  “Mr Price!”

9

Jessica
raced forward as Blake and Heinz disappeared over the walls of the tower.  The
author had wanted her to shoot Heinz, had said the killer held no knowledge of the missing girl, but she had to finish things by the
book.  She had to do things clean, but that had all gone out the window when
Heinz and Price went off the top of the tower.

“Mr Price!”  She made it up to the edge and was stunned to
find the two men hanging on.  Price had both hands
wrapped around one of the jutting stone teeth of the tower wall, while Heinz
clung to his waist.  It was a reversal of how the two men had gone over.

Price looked up at her pleadingly.  The waterlogged ground
beneath him looked a hundred miles away.  “Hold on,
Mr Price.”  She grabbed the back of his coat, tried to heave him up, but he was
too heavy and her left wrist was sprained and useless.  Heinz reached up and
tried to rise, but the rain lashed down at him and he went back to gripping Price’s waist.

Jessica holstered her gun and tried to pull the author up
with her one good hand, but he was a dead weight.  She could hear the frantic
footfall of Young’s officers climbing the tower, but they would arrive too
late.  She knew there was only one way Price would
make it back up again; it also meant any chance of finding Chloe Tanner would
be extinguished.  “Price, you need to free yourself.  I can’t get you back up
here with Heinz hanging off you.”

Price’s face bulged as he strained to hold on.  He glanced
down at Heinz and then back up at Jessica.  “How am
I…?”

Jessica nodded.  She understood Price could do nothing.
Both the man’s arms and legs were incapacitated.  She needed to do something to
help him, before his strength gave out and both men fell.

“Hey, Heinz,” she shouted down.
“When I get hold of you, I’m going to lock you up in a woman’s prison.  They
can make you their bitch.  Would you like that, being made a slave to some big
butch gal?”

Heinz looked up at her and snarled.

“Maybe you’ll meet someone to
remind you of your mother?  I bet she was an ugly lady, huh?  I mean, if your
looks are anything to go by.”

Heinz ground his teeth like a salivating animal and tried
to climb Price’s body.  Price moaned under the exertion.  Jessica just hoped he
could hold on long enough.

“Heinz, I don’t even care where Chloe Tanner is.  You
probably never even knew her.  You’re just lying to impress your best buddy,
Blake Price.  I bet Chloe Tanner is alive and well, hooked up with some
boyfriend.  She’s probably with a real man.”

Heinz growled.  “I killed her. I…I fucked her and buried
her while she was still breathing.”  He grabbed a handful of Price’s coat,
yanking himself up a few inches.

Jessica leant over, glaring right back at Heinz.  “I.
Don’t. Believe. You.”

“Fuck you.  I buried…that bitch at some…abandoned petrol
station in…Reading.”

Jessica grinned.  “Thank you.”

Heinz snarled, realising he’d been goaded.  “I’m going to
slice your fucking tits off.”

Jessica laughed pitifully.  “Come get ‘em.”

Heinz reached up again, trying to
climb higher.  The rain lashed down at him, making him blink and splutter.
Price held on for dear life, straining and trembling as a serial killer
attempted to climb up his back.

Heinz was almost to the top when his hand slipped from Price’s wet shoulder.  At first, Heinz simply slipped
half-a-foot downwards, but then his eyes went wide and he was suddenly
falling.  There was anger in his eyes as he plummeted from the top of the
tower, but also a hint of fear.  The man was human enough to fear death, and Jessica enjoyed seeing that.

“Mr Price, hold on.”  She grabbed hold of Price’s
shoulders.  Her sprained wrist cried out in pain, but they worked together to
gradually get Price back up.

When she managed to pull him onto the wall, Price let out a deep moan of desperate relief.  “Oh, god…Jesus
Christ.  I thought that was me done.”

Jessica held his hand.  “You’re safe now, Mr Price.
Everything is okay.”

He smiled at her.  “You got the girl’s location.”

She nodded.  “Enough to go on, yes.  Thank you for all your help.”

“I want to get back down on the ground.”

Jessica laughed.  “Me too.”

10

Howard
sighed with relief when Jessica emerged from the abbey with Blake Price and a
police escort.  He’d been standing with Sergeant Young in horror as the Blake Price and Heinz had battled atop the tower and
gone over the edge.  Jessica had gone up there as soon as it became clear that
things were going badly, but she had been unable to defuse the situation.

Now Jessica and Blake were safe.

Heinz had slid down Price’s
outstretched body before finally plummeting to the wet ground.  He lay
motionless now in a puddle deep enough to submerge him.  Young’s officer had
gone to him immediately, but there was slim chance he could’ve survived the
fall.

Howard limped over to his partner
and broke protocol by hugging her.  “I was worried there for a minute.”

She huffed.  “I’ve been worried since four hours ago.  I
think it’s going to take me a day or two to stop being worried.”

“You did good.”

She gave him a look.

“Okay, you did…alright, after all the screw-ups stopped.”

“Saved my life,” said Blake.  “If she hadn’t got under
Heinz’s skin, he would’ve dragged me down with him.  I’m just glad it’s all
over.  I prefer writing books about men like Heinz, not coming face-to-face with them.”

“I’d appreciate an autograph,” said Howard, “if you want to
go back to being a writer again.  Not that police work doesn’t suit you. You
were brave up there.”

“No,” he said.  “I was terrified, but I was there for my
wife.  I needed to face that monster.  I needed to
put the past behind me so I can move forward with my family.”

“We have Chloe Tanner’s location,” said Jessica.

Howard smiled.  “Maybe Palu won’t completely rip you a new
one, now.”

“Yeah, maybe.  I—”

“You fucking whore!”

They all spun round to find Heinz
on his feet.  He thrashed at the two police officers holding him, but they were
able to restrain him easily enough.  He was bloody, wet, and physically beaten;
but emotionally he was as defiant and animalistic as ever.  He cursed at them all, fought them, bit them, scratched them,
but they had him under control.

“How is he still breathing?” asked Howard in dismay.

“The ground’s wet,” said Blake.  “The puddles broke his
fall.  Or maybe he’s immortal.  Most serial killers are, in a twisted way.  We never forget them.”  With that, Blake
lowered his head and walked away into the rainy night.

As the police officers ushered Heinz down the hill, they
passed Jessica and Howard.  Heinz’s entire body was battered and bruised, but
he still managed to give Jessica a look of absolute
hatred.  “When I get out of here,” he spat, “I’m going to find you
and rape you.  I’m going to rape you over and over.”

Jessica strolled up to Heinz with a scowl on her face.
“How are you going to do that without a dick?” She
swung her leg and punted the psychopath right between the legs.

Heinz bellowed.

“What the hell!”  Howard stared at
Jessica in disbelief.  Heinz was cupping his mashed genitals and screaming on
the ground.  “You can’t assault an unarmed man.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, fella,” said
Sergeant Young.  “I never saw anything.”

Howard shook his head, confused.  “What are you talking
about?”

“I said I didn’t see anything.”  Young took that moment to
turn a circle, nodding at each of his men.  “Did
anyone see anything?”

“Nope.”

“Nothing.”

“I weren’t even looking.”

“I saw whatever you saw, Sarge.”

Sergeant Young turned to Howard and shrugged.  “See? You
two go on back to the city and start on all that paperwork.  I’ve got things
covered here.”

“You’ll get Heinz back into custody?” asked Jessica.

Young nodded.  “I don’t think he’s in any mood to run now.”

“Go on, then,” grunted Young at Jessica and Howard.  “Get
out of my bloody town before you do any more damage.”

“Thank you,” said Jessica.

Howard said nothing; he only nodded and hurried to catch up
with Jessica.  “That was not okay,” he told her a couple of minutes later, once
they were away from the officers.

“It’s not about what’s okay, it’s about what happened.  I
kicked a serial rapist in the balls.  Is that not
justice?”

“That’s one word to describe it.”

“Only word to describe, far as I see.”

They walked back to the car in silence.  Halfway there,
Jessica spoke again.  “You going to tell Palu?”

Howard thought about it, then shook his head.  “I guess there’s nothing to tell.  I just want you
to know that you scare me.”

“I scare me too.”

Howard huffed.  “That’s why I’m glad you’re my partner.”

“You looking forward to the next one?”

“No, not at all.”

Jessica punched him on the arm playfully.  “Don’t worry, I won’t let you get shot next time.”

“You’re not going to let me forget that, are you?”

“No,” she said.  “Never.”

You can catch up with
the characters Jessica Bennett and Howard Hopkins in SOFT TARGET, available
here:   UK    US

PLEA FROM THE AUTHOR

Hey, Reader.  So you got to the
end of my book.  I hope that means you enjoyed it.  Whether or not
you did, I would just like to thank you for giving me your valuable time to try
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About The Author

Iain Rob Wright is one of the
UK's most successful horror and suspense writers, with novels including the
critically acclaimed, THE FINAL WINTER; the disturbing bestseller, ASBO; and
the wicked screamfest, THE HOUSEMATES.

His work is currently being adapted
for graphic novels, audio books, and foreign audiences. He is an active member
of the Horror Writer Association and a massive animal lover.

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The BIG Horror Pack 2 copyright 2015
by Iain Rob Wright

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