by Rich Hawkins
A low murmur flowed through the room. The wind howled outside, sweeping past the windows. Hands and feet were checked for frostbite, and various injuries and ailments were tended. Food was cooked. The communal meal was eaten while people shared sad stories and told bad jokes. There was a little laughter, guarded and reluctant, petering out after a few seconds. After the meal Andy helped Delia prepare Jack for bedtime, while Seth went to look for Quinn.
He found him at the back of the hall, talking to a woman about the various people in the group who were suffering illness.
When Quinn was done, he turned to Seth, one hand sweeping at the stubble on his shaven head as he sighed deeply. He looked tired and stressed, haggard and pale. His greying beard reached down to his chest, and was still damp with melting snow.
“You OK, Seth? Something wrong?”
Seth hesitated, swallowed a nervous knot in his throat. He put his hands in his pockets. “Uh, I just wanted to thank you for saving my life this morning, outside the barn.”
“It was no bother, lad,” Quinn said. “No need to thank me.” He seemed a little embarrassed.
“Well, I thought I should. Seemed like the right thing to do.”
Quinn nodded, scratched at his beard. “You seem like a good bloke, Seth. Maybe if I’m about to be eaten by some horrible beast you can repay the favour.”
Seth almost smiled, but the muscles hurt in his face. “Of course.”
Quinn shrugged, glancing around at the refugees inside the main room. “We all need to look out for each other. It’s the only way we’ll survive this.”
“I agree,” said Seth. “I’m just glad that you found us.”
“The more people we find,” said Quinn, “the more we save from the cold.” He lowered his voice. “I’ll try my hardest to get everyone to the army base, but we’ll lose more people before we arrive. I’ve accepted that. Casualties are inevitable.”
The pit of Seth’s stomach dipped. He prayed that if he were to die out there in the cold, it’d be a quick, and without too much pain.
Quinn said, “Would you mind taking some food up to Mack on the roof? He’ll be down here to complain at me if I don’t send something up to him soon. Younger brothers, eh? I love the bastard to bits, but he doesn’t half bloody moan when the mood takes him.”
“No worries.”
“Make sure you wrap up warm before you go,” said Quinn.
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE
Along with the food, Quinn gave Seth a bottle of whiskey. He told him not to let Mack drink it all. Seth went through the doorway towards the back of the hall and into the corridor that led to the throat of stairs. He switched on his torch and climbed to the first floor, which was used to store random equipment and furniture. Seth noticed a ping-pong table next to one wall. A pile of cardboard boxes. A tall cupboard, its doors open, revealed dusty cleaning supplies.
He went up the ladder, opened the roof hatch, and emerged with the snow and darkness all around him. Sudden disorientation made him giddy and anxious until he got his bearings and saw Mack’s slumped form at the side of the roof, overlooking the main street. Mack had cleared most of the gathered snow from the roof flooring.
Behind the community hall was a stretch of open land, and around that were rows of houses. All of it indistinct and covered in snow. Either side of the hall were more darkened houses. Another dead village, Seth thought, and tried to push away the sense of despair needling at him.
The snow-flecked wind swept over him, chilling his bones, making his teeth chatter. He wondered how Mack could be up here for so long without freezing. And then the thought came to Seth, of finding Mack rigid, cold and lifeless on the lawn chair where he conducted his watch of the surrounding streets.
Seth looked to the sky and hoped for a glimpse of stars, but there was nothing except a thick ceiling of snow clouds. He walked towards Mack, and coughed once to announce his presence.
“I knew you were there,” Mack said. “Noisy lad.”
“Sorry,” Seth said, unsure why he was apologising. He stood next to Mack. Beyond the waist-high lip of the roof was the darkened village, desolate and derelict. “Quinn asked me to bring some food up to you. And some whiskey.”
In the light of the small camping lantern, Mack looked up at Seth. He was swaddled in thick blankets, with his hood raised over his head so that only his face was exposed to the falling snow and cold air. “About time. Thought I was gonna starve to death up here. Let’s have the whiskey.”
“Quinn said not to let you drink it all.”
“I bet he did. Always acting like the elder brother, he is. Give it.” One hand reached out from the mass of blankets, palm up, impatient.
Seth handed the bottle to him. Mack unscrewed the cap, took a deep pull, and burped after he’d finished. He wiped his mouth and placed the bottle beside his chair. Seth gave Mack the food he’d brought: a bowl of swiftly cooling baked beans and meatballs. A plastic fork.
“It’s not much,” said Seth, pulling on his gloves. “Sorry.”
“It’s enough,” Mack said, forking a meatball into his mouth. He chewed, squinted up at Seth. “We have to be careful with the food.”
Seth put his hands in his pockets. “I’ve been trying not to think about that.”
“The food?”
“Yeah. And everything else. Supplies.”
“We’ll manage. We’ll survive.”
“Okay.” Seth wasn’t convinced, but he didn’t press Mack further. He folded his arms over his chest, shivering as the gusting wind pushed and pulled at him. “It doesn’t feel very safe up here.”
“Safe…” Mack said the word like he found it distasteful. “You think everyone’s safe down there below? Safe is relative. It’s meaningless out here.”
“How do you know if the army base is still there…or was ever there at all?”
Mack looked down at the street as he finished his food. He scraped every last morsel and dreg of sauce from inside the bowl. When he was done, he put down the bowl and took another swig from the whiskey. “Pull up a pew and sit down.”
Seth grabbed the spare chair from nearby and sat down. Mack handed him the whiskey. He drank a little, and a bit more, then several gulps. The whiskey burned the back of his mouth, but left some pleasing warmth in his chest.
“That’s good stuff,” said Mack. “Quinn can always be relied on to find decent whiskey. But to answer your question: I have no idea if the army base is still there. None of us have any idea. Not even Quinn knows.”
Seth passed the bottle back. “How did you find out about it in the first place?”
“It was on the BBC News, before the power went out. People were told to go there, because there were no other safe places to go. Our farm had already been attacked by some kind of big lizard. Killed all our cows. We drove it away with fire.”
“You and Quinn were farmers?”
Mack sighed. “The farm first belonged to our father, but when he died about twenty years ago, it was left to us in his will. Mother had already been dead for a few years.”
“You and Quinn, you’ve done a great thing,” said Seth. “You’ve saved a lot of people.”
Mack swigged from the bottle. “No one is saved until we reach the army base.”
“If it’s still there…”
“I have faith.”
“You’re religious?”
“Not in that way. Not really. But Quinn is. Got all of that from our mother. But he’s fairly low key about it. Sometimes I envy him.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because he believes in something greater. I don’t believe in anything much.”
Seth noticed that a third of the bottle was already gone. His face was starting to feel numb around his eyes and in his cheeks. “Quinn said not to let you drink the whole bottle.”
“I won’t,” Mack said. “You’re drinking it, too.”
Seth smiled. “Fair point.”
“Don’t move, Seth.”
“What?”
Mack’s voice dipped to a murmur as he looked down at the street. “Don’t move. Something’s down there.”
Seth followed his gaze. At first he couldn’t discern what Mack was looking at, but then his eyes adjusted to the darkness. His breath caught in his throat.
It was the figures he’d seen before. Shadowy forms, standing at different points in the street, and whose only definition was the silhouettes of their bodies. They looked to have crooked antlers sprouting from their heads, making them more than eight feet tall. They all looked terribly thin.
“You see them?” Mack said, slowly manoeuvring his rifle below the lip of the roof, ready to bring it into a firing position.
Seth didn’t take his eyes from the antlered forms. “I see them.”
The men spoke in whispers.
“What the fuck are they?” said Mack.
“I’ve seen them before.”
“When did you see them?”
“On the journey here.”
“And you didn’t think of telling me or Quinn?”
“I wasn’t sure what they were, and they didn’t seem like a threat. They were just standing there, like they are now. Just watching.”
“Shine your torch down there, Seth.”
“What?”
“Shine your fucking torch.”
Seth didn’t want to see their faces. He was quite sure of that. “I don’t want to.”
“Don’t be a wimp.”
“I’m not.”
Seth was about to do it, when he heard a light thump behind them. Mack heard it, too, and they both turned around. Seth raised his torch to reveal one of the antlered bipeds. Both men flinched when they saw its face.
“Holy fuck,” said Mack. “That’s something new.”
Seth’s legs felt watery and loose. “It’s good at climbing.”
It was vaguely human, but only in the basic shape of its body. It was emaciated, with shrivelled genitalia, its ashen grey skin dotted with matted hair and pulled tight over its bones. A bestial thing with blackened, twisted antlers, and glowing white eyes within its sunken face. The bones of its nose had collapsed inward. Its drooling mouth was deformed by an abundance of gnarled, jagged teeth. Its hands were long-fingered, tipped with black claws.
“They’ve been hunting us,” said Seth.
Mack put his rifle to his shoulder. “Just like every other fucking monster out there. Fuck ‘em all!”
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
The beast jerked its head forward, eyes blazing, and growled deep in its throat. Its body twitched and trembled, as if in the throes of some addiction or sickness.
It lunged for the men, snarling and hissing, claws raking at the air.
Mack fired his rifle. The loud report smarted in Seth’s ears.
The beast fell back and looked down at the bleeding wound in its stomach. It tottered on gnarled, scabrous legs.
Below them, inside the building, windows shattered. Screams followed.
Mack worked the rifle bolt, ejecting a bullet casing to the floor. Seth kept the torchlight centred upon the creature; it placed its clawed hands at its wounded stomach, then let out a roar that turned his guts to water. He almost dropped the torch from the shaking of his hands.
Then the creature charged again, claws raised, lips peeled back from its awful teeth.
Mack shot the thing in its face, and the back of its skull exploded. The creature toppled backwards, and the roof flooring trembled when it collapsed, limbs twitching, bleeding out until its black heart stopped.
More creatures began rising from the edge of the roof around Seth and Mack, hauling themselves over the lip, growling and snarling.
“Get downstairs!” Mack told Seth. “Help Quinn and the others. I’ll hold these fuckers off.”
“What?”
Mack chambered another rifle round. “Go, Seth. Do as you’re told, lad.”
“But…”
“No time. Fuck off.”
Seth stumbled away as Mack began firing at the creatures. He opened the roof hatch and fell down the ladder as animalistic howls of pain rang out from the roof.
He ran through the corridor to the doorway at the back of the main room.
The creatures were already inside.
*
Seth slipped on blood in the doorway, and held onto the jamb to stay on his feet. Speechless, he stared at the scene before him. In the flickering light of candles and lanterns, all was chaos and violence. Sobs and screams mixed with the blood-curdling bestial cries of the creatures. A chaotic thrashing of bodies as the monsters attacked. Shattered windows in the light of lanterns. Shards of glass on the floor. The creatures had burst through the windows and smashed down the front door. They were inside the hall. Feeding on people. Other refugees fought back or tried to escape.
Through the panicked crowd, Seth saw Andy, Ruby and Delia standing with their backs against the far wall to his right side. Delia held Jack in her arms as he wailed. She looked terrified. Ruby held a short wooden club of some kind, raising it before her. Andy gripped a carving knife in his right hand, and his eyes were so wide that they could have spilled from their sockets.
Seth started towards them, pushing his way through. He flinched from the bark of Callum’s shotgun. He glimpsed Quinn firing his pistol at a shrieking monster that ran at him with stringy viscera clasped in its spindly hands. Brief sights of terrified faces amidst the flailing, struggling bodies and clamouring forms. Pools of blood on the floor.
To his right, in one rear corner of the room, the children cowered in a huddled group, guarded by a few men and women armed with crowbars, knives and hammers. Seth glanced around, shielding his face from jutting elbows and legs; a misdirected hand struck him on the side of the head. Blood splattered upon him from his left side, and someone’s cries became a choking gurgle. A scream filled his ears, pulsed inside his skull. Near-witless, he looked down at a severed leg detached just below the knee on the floor. Entrails and offal. A ravaged body, made androgynous by the violence acted upon it. Everything manic and hysterical.
A man staggered past clutching his opened stomach, trying to keep his guts from slopping past his red hands. And while stumbling through the scrum of bodies and violence, suffering glancing blows from those around him, Seth saw Callum dump his shotgun and pull out a knife.
The creatures grabbed Callum, slashed and clawed at him. His hat dropped to the floor, and his greasy hair spilled down. He spat and swore, fighting with all his strength until he was lost to a feeding frenzy of horribly thin bodies and swiping claws. Blackened mouths gnawed and snapped. Hot arterial blood spurted on the floor and walls as he was quickly dismantled.
Other people were dragged away screaming, to be slaughtered in the shadows at the front of the hall.
Seth had almost reached Andy, Delia and Jack, when a stray elbow caught him in the face. His vision spun, dotted with black motes, as he fell, clutching his nose. His breathing was ragged. The floor was wet. He looked up to see a man holding a Molotov cocktail, preparing to throw it towards the front of the hall. He had just arched his arm back when one of the horned creatures bolted past him and clawed at his face – and he dropped the petrol bomb with a high-pitched wail.
The second before the petrol bomb hit the floor seemed to last forever. The bottle shattered, the burning wick igniting the petrol, and flames blossomed on the floor.
The man was set alight, the fire surging up his legs and then over the rest of him. The flames spread to the nearest wall, setting alight curtains and billowing grey smoke, which began to slowly fill the room. He coughed and spat. His eyes were stinging.
“Get out!” Quinn ordered to those still alive. “All of you. Get out!”
The survivors were already fleeing towards the back door. Seth glimpsed Andy leading Delia and Jack away from the flames. Within the smoke Seth was kicked and struck in the panicked rush. Survivors were clutching supplies, provisions, blankets, and even each other, as they evacuat
ed.
Battered, bruised, and weakened from the smoke, Seth struggled out on all fours. The creatures roared from nearby. He hoped that most people had escaped from the building.
The flames grew higher and spread.
He was on his knees, gathering the strength to stand, when a scabrous hand grabbed his left foot and pulled him down onto his stomach, slamming his ribs against the floor. The air was knocked from his chest. He glanced back and saw that the creature could only use its free hand to drag itself along; its legs were broken and useless. The creature snarled as spit frothed from its blackened lips, eyes blazing coldly.
Seth managed to flip onto his back, and tried to kick the creature’s hand away, but it held on tight, squeezing with immense strength the ankle bones under his skin.
He cried out.
The creature opened its mouth to bite at his legs. Serrated teeth dripped in the light of the fire.
Seth’s hand fell upon a hatchet. With all the strength he could muster, he sat up in one quick movement and buried the hatchet in the top of its skull, right between its gnarled antlers. He let out a cry borne of mania and anger, then let go of the hatchet as the monster released his foot. It slumped raggedly before him, gasping a final breath from its horrid mouth.
Seth staggered to his feet as the fire spread, flames licking at the ceiling and consuming the walls to each side. He shielded his face from the heat, wincing, eyes streaming and aching. The room blurred in the swarming smoke. His mouth and throat were dry and sore, and his skin prickled in the heated air. He had to move.
The revving and spluttering of the tractor’s engine rose above the roaring of the flames, and then began to fade, moving away.
He fled, the fire reaching for his heels, the walls collapsing behind him.
*
Seth escaped the community hall moments before the roof collapsed. He stumbled clear of the burning building and fell down in the snow, wretched and beyond exhaustion.
