by Mark Morris
"Why? Has she said something?"
Mabel was about to respond when, thirty yards ahead of them, Greg suddenly cried out, spun around and collapsed to the ground.
Instantly Steve heard a whooping sound off to his left. He turned to see several scrawny figures appear at the top of the litter-strewn banking and come tearing down in great lolloping strides towards them. One of the figures was carrying a crossbow, which made him think ridiculously of wagon trains in the Wild West being ambushed by Indians. Ahead of Steve, Abby and Libby started running towards the crumpled figure of Greg, and he saw Sue drawing her Glock, Max swinging his MP5 from his shoulder.
Steve drew his own Glock and said, "Mabel, get behind inc."
"What's happening?" she said.
"It's an ambush," he replied, aware even as he spoke the words how crazy they sounded.
A gunshot cracked in the air with a sound like an exploding firework. Steve saw one of the attackers fall down the banking and for an awful moment thought that Sue had shot him. Then he saw the others either sliding to a halt or diving for cover and realized they were taking evasive action. Having fired a shot into the air, Sue now lowered her gun and pointed it at the gang.
"Come any closer and I'll blow your fucking heads off!" she yelled.
The kids looked at one another, evidently bewildered and scared. Now that Steve could focus on them he realized they were a sorry bunch. Thin, filthy and dressed in rags, they ranged in age from thirteen to about twenty. There were five of them, four boys and one girl. It was the oldest boy who was holding the crossbow. Greg was lying motionless, an arrow protruding from him. From where he was, Steve couldn't see which part of his body it had penetrated.
In a plaintive voice the girl on the banking called out, "We're hungry"
"Tough shit," shouted Sue. "Now drop the bow and get the fuck out of here."
"We only want some food," one of the boys shouted. "Then you should have thought about asking nicely before you attacked us. Now I haven't got time to argue. One of our party is injured and needs treatment. If you haven't all disappeared in ten seconds I'm going to start shooting. And that is no idle threat."
The teenagers immediately scrambled back up the banking like frightened mice and disappeared over the top. The older boy looked at Sue sullenly for a moment, then hurled his crossbow and arrows to the ground and stomped away.
"I'm going to see if Greg's all right," Steve said.
"You go," said Mabel. "I'll catch you up."
Steve ran across to where Libby and Abby were crouching beside Greg. Sue, gun still drawn, told Marco to fetch the crossbow. To Steve's surprise Marco obeyed the order without question.
"How is he?" Steve asked.
Abby looked ashen. Her hands and clothes, and Libby's too, were covered in Greg's blood. Steve saw they had been trying to staunch the flow with a towel from Abby's rucksack.
"The arrow's gone... right through him," Abby said.
"Let me see."
Steve crouched down, and immediately winced. The arrow had passed through Greg's arum and lodged itself in his rib cage. There was too much blood and torn clothing to see how deeply it was embedded in his chest. But it was not beyond the realm of possibility that the tip of the arrow had smashed its way through his ribs and punctured his heart.
As if confirming his fears, Libby said bleakly, "I think he might be dead."
Abby moaned and drifted awake. She was more exhausted than she had ever been in her life and yet she was finding it impossible to slip into the REM sleep her body craved. It was partly the stench of death suffusing the hotel in which they had been forced to spend the night; it was partly her anxiety for Greg; and it was partly the awful memories of the past few days, playing in her mind like a repeating film reel.
By the time they had managed to staunch the gush of blood from Greg's wounds, she, Dad and Libby looked like they had finished a shift at the local abattoir. While she had been ministering to Greg, Abby had been concerned purely with the task in hand. It was only afterwards, once the bleeding had been stymied, that revulsion had surged through her and she had reeled away, retching at the hot, coppery smell on her hands and clothes. She had dumped her rucksack on the ground and had torn off her "new" wax jacket (chosen from Sue's impressive stock of salvaged clothing), and hurled it away from her. Even as the jacket was sailing through the air, trailing blood like a fresh animal pelt, Abby had stooped and plunged her hands into the silt at her feet. She had rubbed her palms back and forth in the dirt, coating them, hiding the blood, trying to rid herself of its stickiness.
Dad, Marco, Max and Sue had carried Greg five miles to the next rest stop. It had been raining and Greg had been mostly unconscious, the rain falling on his upturned face. Towards the end he had begun to writhe and mutter, his lips as gray as his beard, his skin deathly pale. Abby wondered how much blood he had lost, and whether, in the world before the flood, he would have been given a transfusion. There was no chance of that now, of course. No transfusion, no operation, not even crisp clean sheets or central heating. The best they could do was milkless tea, painkillers, bottled water and disinfectant.
Exhausted and soaking, they had taken refuge in the Days Hotel at London Gateway a couple of junctions up the Ml. The hotel had been half occupied at the time of the flood and it stunk to high heaven with the rotting dead. Gagging, Libby had put her hand-Greg's blood still under her fingernailsover her mouth and had said, "We can't stay here."
"Beggars can't be choosers," Sue had said grimly. She had opened a small zip pocket in the side of her rucksack and extracted a thumb-sized bottle of Albas Oil, a few drops of which she had sprinkled on each of their cuffs. "If it gets unbearable, breathe this in," she had said. "We'll try and find a bunch of unoccupied rooms close together."
It was clear that no one had been in the hotel since the flood. The fixtures and fittings were strewn with nmud; the carpets were saturated and layered with silt; the air was thick with flies, which were instantly attracted to Greg's bandaged but still seeping wounds. The former occupants, now in a state of such putrefaction that they were boiling with maggots and coming apart like rancid cheese, were mostly confined to the rooms they'd been sleeping in when the disaster had struck.
The group found four unoccupied adjoining rooms on the third floor, spread out their plastic sheets and bedding, opened the windows to let in some air, and settled down for the night. One of the rooms was given to Greg and whoever was watching over him. Everyone had elected to sit with him for at least an hour to monitor his condition. Abby took the first watch and then crawled down into her sleeping bag, trying to distance herself from the stink and the mess and all the horrible things in the world. She was asleep as soon as her eyes closed, but it was not a restful sleep. She tossed and turned, and when she did finally wake up some hours later, her body felt as though it had been never still, as though she had run a marathon. She had no idea what time it was. The battery on her phone had died days ago and she never wore a watch. It was pitch-black. The air was stifling despite the open window. The stench of putrefaction was so strong that she couldn't help but imagine that the dead were in the room with her. So vivid was the image that she swung out an arm, half expecting to connect with a soft, bloated face. Something moved close to her, and a shard of fear pierced her gut. Then the room was bathed in a flickering flash of blue-white light as lightning streaked on the horizon, and she realized that the movement had just been Sue, turning over with a soft grunt.
Abby needed some air. Real air. Air from outside. She didn't relish the thought of creeping through the hotel in the dark, but she honestly thought that if she breathed any more of the hotel's poisoned air she'd puke.
She struggled fully dressed out of her sleeping bag and hastily dragged on her boots. She rumrnaged in her rucksack for her torch, then tiptoed out of the room, wincing each time the plastic sheet crackled beneath her feet.
The smell of death was worse in the corridor and she breathed in the s
mell of Albas Oil from her cuff. It helped. Not much, but a bit. She switched on her torch, illuminating a carpet caked with filth, and mold-blotched walls from which strips of sodden wallpaper lolled like thick red tongues. The door to the room where Greg was sleeping was slightly ajar and the flickering glow of a candle flame was discernible through the gap. Abby briefly toyed with the idea of popping in to say hi to whoever was on duty, but then it occurred to her that it might be Marco.
She crept down the stairs and eventually reached the lobby, which she had been dreading because there were two bodies there. The air was so rank she felt as though she could cut a hole in it. One of the bodies was underneath a big window on the left, and the other was over by the reception desk, its arms above the black, festering pile of gunk that had once been its head. Abby had tried not to look at the bodies closely when they entered the hotel, but she hadn't been able to help glancing at them. She had seen enough to tell from their filthy clothes that both of them had been women, and that the one under the window was wearing a string of pearls around her neck.
At least by knowing where the bodies were, she could direct her torch away from them, leaving them in the shadows. Then again, not being able to see them was in some ways even worse. The worst thing of all, though, would be if she shone her torch onto one of them and it wasn't there. Try as she might, she couldn't help imagining doing that very thing, and then hearing a sludgy snarling noise behind her. What if she spun round and the dead thing was right behind her, its flesh greeny-black and maggots falling out of its eyes....
That did it. She bolted across the lobby, torch bean veering wildly, breath like a hacksaw in her throat. She reached the main doors, the glass still miraculously intact, and blundered out into the night. Immediately a barrage of cold rain and wind hit her, making her head swim so violently that she thought she was going to faint. She crouched down just outside the door, hunched over, hair hanging limply across her face. The torch dangled between her hands, its bean pooling in the silt at her feet. She took a deep breath, and another, retched suddenly, then felt the nausea begin to pass. Already her fears from moments before seemed foolish enough to make her smile. She glanced at the blue lightning and started to straighten up-and a hand snaked round from behind her, clamping over her face and cutting off her breath.
"How is he?"
Libby's head jerked up as Max entered the room. She hadn't realized she'd nodded off until he spoke. She glanced guiltily at Greg, but he was still sleeping peacefully. "Must have phased out for a minute there," she said. "Una... what did you say?"
Max smiled. "I was just asking how Greg is."
"Oh. Okay, I think. He woke up earlier and we had a little chat. He was drowsy but lucid. The main thing is to keep the wound free from infection. If we can do that hopefully he'll be fine. How about you? How you doing?"
Max shrugged. "Better than Greg."
"I didn't mean physically. I meant... with your mum and everything."
Max glanced away, and for a second-despite his broad shoulders, his athletic frame, the fuzz of dark beard on his chin-he looked boyish, vulnerable. "Okay," he muttered. "It's just something I gotta live with." He nodded at Greg. "So, what were you and the doc talking about?"
"Oh, the usual. The latest cinema releases, what Victoria Beckham is wearing, where we're going for our holidays..." She laughed at Max's expression. "You should see yourself. You look so superior. No, Greg asked me what had happened, where we were; then he became very practical. He asked me if the wound was clean, how much blood he had lost, what medication he was being given, and whether I could see his fingers moving."
"And could you?" asked Max.
"Yes."
"That's a good sign, ain't it?"
"I suppose so."
Max looked down at the pale, gray-bearded man with something like affection. "He'll be okay, the doc. He's a tough old boy"
Libby said good night and left the room. Max looked at his watch-5:05 A.M.He wondered what the next day would bring. He guessed they would probably have to stay here another day or two to give the doc time to recover. It was frustrating making such little progress, but there wasn't much alternative. He was settling back in his chair, wishing he had something to occupy his mind-a book or a pack of cards, or better still a Game Boy-when the door opened and Libby reentered the room.
"Have you seen Abby?" she asked.
"No, why?"
"It's just she's not in her sleeping bag. Seems a bit odd, that's all. Where would she have gone?"
Max shrugged. "Toilet?"
"No, I've just partaken of the facilities myself," said Libby, referring to the two his and hers buckets they used at night, "and she's not there."
"Well, maybe she couldn't sleep. Maybe she wanted some air."
"Maybe," conceded Libby, "but it seems a bit weird. Do you think we should look for her?"
"I dunno. We shouldn't leave Greg, should we?"
"Actually," said Libby, "when I said `we' I kind of meant `you.' I don't fancy creeping around in the dark. I thought maybe I could sit with Greg for five minutes while you have a quick look round."
"Okay," Max said wearily, and pushed himself to his feet.
He was gone maybe ten minutes. She heard the thumping squelch of his footsteps a couple of seconds before he burst into the room.
"I think someone's taken her." He panted out the words.
Libby felt her guts clench. "Why? What have you found?"
"Outside the main doors... a torch, still turned on... and there are drag marks in the mud... and footsteps that I'm sure aren't ours." He took a deep breath. "I'll get Steve and Marco. You tell Sue. Mrs. B can sit with Greg."
Libby nodded, but Max didn't see it. He was already running from the room.
At first she thought it was the kids, but it wasn't. It was the man from the supermarket. Though small and skinny, he was strong. Abby fought furiously, tried to rake her heels down his shins, but he held her tightly, his filthy hand crushed over her mouth and nose with such force she could barely breathe. After a minute or so her head began to swim and she started to panic. She felt herself losing coordination, her chest becoming tight.
I'm going to die, she thought. Oh God, I'm going to die.
Then the man shifted his hand from her face to tighten his grip on her arms, and she whooped in a great lungful of air. He half carried, half dragged her along the silty ground, scampering away with his catch like a spider with a fly.
When he was out of sight of the hotel, he hooked his leg around hers to scoop her feet from under her, then slammed her facedown onto the ground. As her chin connected with the road, Abby's teeth clacked together so hard she might have bitten off her tongue if it hadn't been curled at the base of her mouth. The silt helped cushion the impact, though her chin would be bruised in the morning-assuming she was still alive then. The silt was cold and sticky and foul-smelling, but it was the least of her troubles. Worse was the fact that the man was now clambering onto her back, pressing his weight down on her.
He's going to rape me! Abby thought with a bright flare of panic. She raised her head from the silt with a sucking sound. "Don't," she begged. "Please...
The man ignored her. He was muttering to himself, but Abby couldn't make out the words. She gasped as the man yanked her arms behind her back, and then again as something bit into her wrists, forcing them together.
When he hooked a hand into the belt of her jeans and hauled her to her feet, she felt almost relieved. He gave her a little push, still muttering, the words coming out of his mouth in a breathy cascade.
"You- walk- walk- forward- don't- run- keep- walking- don't- try- don't- run- don't- try- to- change- I'11- kill- you- I- mean- it- I'11- kill -you- if-you- tryj ust- walk- I- ca n-you- know- I- can -kill-you...."
She stumbled ahead of him in the darkness, sliding in the silt, tripping over unseen objects in her path. Her captor was clearly deranged, keeping up a ceaseless and often incoherent stream of babble, his movements
quick, birdlike. He directed her onto the motorway, up the banking and across a waterlogged field. The rain was coming down hard now, droplets exploding softly on her scalp, diluting the silt, which ran down her neck and dripped from her throbbing chin. In the darkness the downpour was visible only when the blue lightning ripped apart the night sky in sporadic flashes, whereupon it was revealed as an endless torrent of silver arrows.
Beyond the field was an estate of identical pale-stoned houses with pan-tiled roofs. Though they were still technically in north London, somewhere between-where was it Dad had said?-Edgware and Elstree, the darkness and rain and the lack of life made it seem like the back end of nowhere.
Abby thought about everyone back at the hotel, curled up in their sleeping bags, and wondered when she would be missed, how far away she would be by then, how the hell Dad and the others would even begin to start looking for her? She was scared of provoking this nman, but she was even more scared of not knowing what was going to happen to her, and eventually she blurted, "Where are you taking me?"
He didn't answer. He just kept muttering to himself. Abby felt a rush of desperation, and then a welcome flare of anger. She stopped walking and turned round, her hair plastered to her face, her hooded sweatshirt heavy with water.
"Where are you taking me?" she yelled.
He bared his teeth at her. He looked more simian than human. His tie had gone. His glasses too. A thought skimmed across Abby's mind: How good is his eyesight? He seemed to have no trouble negotiating the darkness-as if, by shedding the trappings of civilization, he had awakened long dormant senses and instincts.
"I'm not moving till you tell inc why you're doing this," she said.
He pointed at her. His hands were crusted with that was running in the rain. Two of his fingernails were overlong, while the others were ragged and broken.
"Been-watching-you," he muttered. "Been-following- you-you-don't-see-me-you're-not-as-clever-as-you-think." He waggled his head, raindrops flying from the knotted clumps of his hair. "Know-what-you-are-seen-you-but-you- don't-see-nee-know-what-you-are-you-don't-fool-nee."
