Before I can get to my feet and run to join Lee, there’s a snapping noise and gravel spatters my cheek. Someone else is shooting at me. I’ll be dead if I stay here another second, so I just get up and run as fast as I can for the nearest doorway, the frame of which splinters as I race through into the rotting terrace. Those bullets are coming from the other direction, which means the snatchers have woken up and decided to join in. I crouch inside the hall of the ruined house, trying to work out what to do.
I’ve got a kid gone rogue with a sniper rifle, misguidedly trying to protect me. There are at least four highly trained Rangers who now want to kill all of us. And there’s an angry group of child-rustlers taking potshots at us from behind a big brick wall. Lee and I are trapped in houses on opposite sides of the street, there are four other armed children cowering in houses somewhere, and worst of all a minibus full of kids is smack bang in the middle of the crossfire. Would the snatchers shoot them rather than let them escape? I hear the engine revving. John isn’t sticking around to find out. The minibus goes roaring past the house I’m sheltering in, making a break for it, getting the kids to safety.
The moment they’re past I risk leaning out and sending some bullets back towards the snatchers. I get a vague impression of three of them lined along the wall. None of the Rangers are anywhere to be seen. I think only one of them is on this side of the street, which means three others are opposite me, with a clear shot if they want to take it.
There’s nothing I can do here except get myself shot. Time to go. I race through the house, past an overturned sofa thick with fungus, through a burnt-out kitchen, out the back door, down the old brick-walled yard, past the shed which used to be an outdoor toilet, and through the gate into the back alley.
Before I can get my bearings I hear the unmistakeable sound of a car crash.
Just for a second I catch myself wondering whether any day has ever gone completely to shit so quickly. But the answer, of course, is yes. Once.
Right – stop, think, prioritise.
Lee can take care of himself. Guria and the other four should have the sense to make their way out of the area, if they can avoid the Rangers. I have to worry about the minibus, because if John’s wrapped it round a lamppost they could be injured. That’s where I’m needed.
I run down the alleyway, away from the school, towards the ominous sound of a blaring car horn.
As I run, I expect to see a Ranger step out ahead of me, or hear one of the children calling for me to stop, but an eerie silence has fallen, broken only by that horn. The back alley is cobbled, with a gunnel running down the middle of it. I race past countless wooden yard gates, some hang off their hinges but most are still bolted shut. As I reach the far end of the alley I pass a row of garages and then I’m out into the street, skidding to a halt and trying to make it back into the alley without being seen. Because the minibus has driven head first into the grille of an enormous lorry, the first of a convoy of three, all boasting huge spray painted red circles on the side like some kind of logo. The street swarms with angry men carrying big guns.
I finally manage to stop about two feet away from a man who has his back to me. I take a step back; he hasn’t heard me. I turn, planning to creep back into cover... and I’m staring down the double barrels of a sawn-off shotgun.
So there I stand, watching the steam from the ruined minibus curling into the air behind the head of this gunman, trying to think of something to say. But he finds his tongue first.
“Well fuck me slowly with a chainsaw,” he drawls. “Look who it is.”
“Oh great,” I say when I’ve caught my breath. “And I didn’t think today could get any worse.”
He smiles, turns the gun around and slams the stock into my face.
The world goes black.
CHAPTER FOUR
I ACTUALLY SAW the muzzle flash as Guria took out the Ranger.
He was about halfway down the street, just behind the Rangers, in the top window. I opened the door and ran into the road, ignoring Dad’s calls to stay put. I didn’t really have a plan; I just wanted to stop Jane being cut to pieces in the inevitable crossfire. As the shot man fell, and Jane ducked, I saw one of the Rangers raise his bow to finish me off. I shouted at him to stop, but he wasn’t having it. I dived out of the way and heard an arrow whistle past, far too close for comfort.
I was a dead man if I stayed in the open. I had no choice but to hare over to the nearest house and dive inside, sliding on my stomach over the slime that had accumulated in the once pristine hallway carpet. I stood up feeling soggy and sick. My best chance of ending this was to get to Guria and take over the rifle. He was about fifteen houses up on this side of the road. I glanced back out the door and saw Jane had made it to cover across the road. That was a relief. Then the minibus roared past me, bullets pinging off its roof as the snatchers joined the fight from their compound.
Events were moving too damn fast. I ran out into the alleyway behind the house and raced up to where Guria had been hiding. Somehow I managed to get all the way there before any of the Rangers emerged into the alley to make their own escape. Or maybe they were digging in for a fight.
I reached the kitchen door of what I was reasonably sure was the right house, and brought my SA-80 to bear. Guria was one of us, but this was the first time he’d fired in anger. I had no idea what state he’d be in when I found him, and I wasn’t going to let him shoot me dead in a moment of hyper-adrenalised panic.
I grasped the old Bakelite doorknob and pushed. The door had been left locked but the wooden frame was rotting away; the lock fell off and crashed to the kitchen floor as the door opened with a wet smack. So much for stealth. I checked inside but there was nobody there so I stepped in and pushed the door closed behind me.
“Guria,” I said, loud but not shouting. “You there?” There was no reply so I made my way through the ground floor to the foot of the stairs. There was a skeleton lying sprawled across the bottom steps, the black stain that had seeped into the carpet around it all that remained to indicate it had ever borne flesh.
I stepped over it and climbed the stairs, which creaked alarmingly. They could go at any minute; this house was not a safe place to be, even without the threat of being shot. In the five years since The Cull, the elements had started to eat away at the infrastructure that civilisation had left behind. The endless persistence of water, probing every crevice and crack, with no houseproud DIYers to hold it at bay with supplies from Homebase, had started gradually eating away the houses and schools, shops and offices, and all the places we’d built to shelter us from the cold. There was no-one still trying to live by scavenging the scraps of what was left behind – it had all been corrupted by time.
I reached the landing and spoke again.
“Guria, you there?”
There was no response from behind the door to the front bedroom, which was pushed to. Had I miscounted, got the wrong house?
I pushed the door and stepped inside.
“Guria?” I said softly.
I heard a crash in the distance and the sound of a car horn.
The boy was crouched at the window, still facing the street, grasping the sniper rifle. I could see he was breathing.
“Guria, you okay?” I stepped forward.
He turned his head, as if finally registering that I was there. He was white as a ghost, pupils dilated, staring into the middle distance. He was in shock.
“Oh, hi Sir,” he said, as if from the bottom of a deep well. “I just shot someone.”
“I noticed.”
“His head kind of went pop.”
“Yeah, they do that. Good shot, by the way.”
“Like a melon.”
“Hmm. Can you pass me the rifle?”
“Oh, do you want a go?” He stood up and turned, holding the rifle out to me.
“No, get away from the window!”
But it was too late. He turned sharply, as if he’d heard something, and then Guria, silhouet
ted in the window, looked down in puzzlement at the arrow shaft sticking out of his chest.
“Oh,” he said, and dropped dead at my feet.
The Rangers weren’t our enemy. This was all a horrible misunderstanding. There was no need for this to go any further.
I knew all this.
But I looked at the dead child lying at my feet, with his wide eyes staring at the ceiling as his brain slowly cooled and died, and I felt a hard cold certainty in my chest.
Calmly, I reached down, picked the rifle up and raised it to my shoulder. Keeping three steps back from the window, hidden by the shadows of the room, I raised the powerful sight to my eye and switched through the options until I hit the heat sensor. And there he was, the man who’d shot a thirteen year-old boy who’d been my responsibility.
Lurking in the shadows of the bedroom directly facing me, he had no technology to aid his sniping. He felt confident, secure in the murk.
I took careful aim.
“Not a mercy killing this time, Nine Lives,” said the voice in my head that had remained silent for two long years.
“No,” I replied out loud; the first time, I think, I ever answered him audibly. I squeezed the trigger, putting a high velocity round through the man’s heart. He stayed upright for nearly ten seconds before he crumpled like a discarded puppet.
Confident that the immediate danger was past, I stepped forward and scanned the eerily quiet street. At one end the snatchers were emerging from the schoolyard gate, rifles and shotguns raised, looking bewildered, trying to work out what the fuck had just happened. At the other end the car horn still blared, and I saw a wisp of smoke drifting across the road mouth, evidence of whatever accident Dad had driven into.
There was no sign of any of the other Rangers. I assumed they were all hiding on the same side of the street as me. But the snatchers presented a tempting target. There were five of them now, in plain view.
I sighted on the rearmost. The cold hatred in my chest was still there, lending me an almost supernatural calm.
“Oh this is good. I like this,” said the voice.
I counted to three and then caressed the trigger once before letting fly. Within five seconds four of the snatchers were lying on the ground – head shot, chest, chest, head. They lay on the cobbles, blood pooling and mingling, running to the drains. The last one standing was left alone, surrounded by the corpses of his colleagues.
“Let him sweat,” said the voice.
I held my fire. The man didn’t know what to do. He was waiting for the inevitable kill shot, shaking in terror. A dark stain spread from his crotch as he wet himself. He dropped his gun and raised his hands, staring left and right, desperately trying to find me, as if locating me would allow him to appeal directly for clemency.
It took more than a minute for him to decide to turn his back and run. I let him take two steps before I shot the cobbles at his feet. He stopped and fell to his knees then shuffled around to face down the street towards me again. He was crying, hands pressed together in supplication, his chin wobbling as he screamed for mercy.
I let him go on like this for a minute or two, regarding him dispassionately like I would an ant underneath a magnifying glass on a hot day.
Then I blew his heart out through the back of his chest.
“Phew. I don’t know about you, Nine Lives,” said the voice in my head. “But I’ve got a blue steel boner that a cat couldn’t scratch.”
I smiled; so did I. To my surprise, I was quite glad Mac was talking to me again.
That should have been the first clue that I’d crossed some kind of line.
I went down on one knee and leaned over Guria. I gently closed his eyes and brushed away a lock of hair that had fallen across his face.
“Sorry,” I whispered.
My business here was done. I had three more Rangers to hunt down. I got to my feet, turned on my heels and stared straight down the shaft of an arrow, notched and ready to fly.
“Drop it, you sick motherfucker,” said the Ranger.
CHAPTER FIVE
THERE’S A HAND shaking me, but I shrug it off and turn over, trying to go back to sleep.
“Jane, you need to wake up.” The voice is soft but urgent, and the shaking resumes. I try to swat them away. I hear another voice saying “for God’s sake,” then feel a sudden sharp sting as someone slaps me across the face. I’m instantly wide awake. My head hurts like hell and there’s something wrong with my nose. I don’t even need to feel it to know that it’s broken again.
I’m lying on a very smelly blanket on what feels like a camp bed. It’s cold in here and the bright sun is streaming through the windows straight into my eyes. I take a moment to adjust.
“Welcome back,” says Tariq as he bleeds into focus next to me.
The best I can offer as reply is a vague mumble that sounds like a question.
“Back in the compound. The school,” says John, behind me. “There was a convoy of snatchers coming to pay a visit here this morning. Reckon they were coming to collect this month’s cargo. Three trucks loaded with kids and heavily guarded.”
“And muggins here drove into them headfirst.”
“I wasn’t expecting oncoming traffic,” says John. “There’s not exactly a major congestion problem these days.”
I turn to look at John. Every tiny motion of my head hurts. When he swims into focus I see a huge livid rip across his forehead.
“Ouch,” I whisper.
He winces, seemingly more embarrassed than hurt. “Yeah. Steering wheel. Knocked me cold for a while.”
“And the kids? Hang on,” I say, suddenly outraged. “Was it you who bloody slapped me?”
“They’re fine,” he says, ignoring my protest. “A bit shaken, but they’re back in the main hall while the snatchers try to piece together what happened here. Someone took out all their people. They were lying in front of the gate when we walked in. Sniper, I think.”
“Guria? Lee?”
“If I had to guess, I’d say Lee.”
“How many?”
“Five.”
“Jesus. He shot five of them when we’d already left?”
John nods and somehow manages to resist saying, “I told you so.”
“Anyway,” he says, and I can tell it’s an effort. “We can’t worry about him now. Jane, one of the snatchers seemed to recognise you...?”
“Yeah. I met him about three years ago. He was part of a child trafficking ring near the school. I shut them down and took him prisoner. I was going to interrogate him and find out where the kids were going, but Operation bloody Motherland turned up and arrested me instead. They let him go.”
By now my eyes have adjusted and I can see we’re in what must have once been a classroom. There are a couple more camp beds against the wall and some discarded clothes and tins of food. This must be where three of the snatchers sleep. Slept.
I sit up, trying to ignore the pain in my head. I reach for my sidearm, but of course it’s gone. So has the knife in my boot.
“They were pretty thorough,” says Tariq, brandishing the stump where his hook should be.
The door opens and two men stand silhouetted against the rising sun. “Miss Crowther. What a surprise.”
I recognise him from Olly’s compound, the day Operation Motherland turned up and ruined my life. “Hello Bookworm. How’s it hanging?”
He steps forward and grabs me by the hair, yanking me to my feet and dragging me from the room. Tariq and John make to intervene, shouting protests, but the other man fires a warning shot over their heads and they stand back.
I am dragged down the corridor towards the main hall and thrown, head first, through the swing doors. I crash to the floor, my vision blurring from the intensity of the migraine. But I don’t hit hard wood. Instead, my hands and then my right shoulder crash into something soft, yielding and wet. I recoil, my hands sticky with blood. I’ve been thrown onto a pile of bodies, six in all.
I make to stan
d but I feel a boot on my shoulder, pushing me down. Then knees in my back and a hand on the back of my head, pushing my face into the gaping wound in the back of one of the dead snatchers. I gag.
“Who the fuck are you?” says a voice that I don’t recognise.
I don’t reply. The hand pushes my face deep into the gore. I feel my cheek scraping against a jagged edge of shattered bone. Christ, this guy’s got a huge hole in him. That new sniper rifle is vicious.
“I won’t ask again.”
“I’m Jane Crowther. Pleased to meet you,” I say, trying not to get blood in my mouth.
“You’re sure this is her?” he asks. “She shut down Olly’s supply line?”
“Yes, boss,” I hear Bookworm reply.
“So what are you?” asks the man in a thick Scottish accent. “Some kind of vigilante?”
“Just a concerned citizen.”
“Who goes around massacring people.”
“Who goes around rescuing children from kidnappers.”
He snorts, derisively. “We’re not kidnappers, miss. We’re saving these kids. Aren’t we, boys?” There’s a chorus of muted giggles, although one guy looks uncomfortable, as if offended.
“Saving them from what?”
“Eternal damnation. Apparently.”
“It doesn’t do to mock the Abbot, boss,” says the uncomfortable one, threateningly. The boss nods, suddenly serious.
“You’re right, of course, Jimmy,” he says solemnly, then winks at me, humouring his colleague. “Anyway, love, we’ve got you and your two blokes. How many more of you are there?”
“Enough.”
He shoves my head hard into the wound and suddenly I can’t breathe, my mouth and nose blocked by soggy meat. He literally rubs my face in it, then lets go and stands back. I fling myself backwards, gasping for air, scrabbling away from the obscene mound of carcasses. I catch a glimpse of the children, huddled in the corner of the hall, watching wide-eyed, before I kneel and throw up, heaving long and hard until there’s nothing left and I feel wretched and hollow.
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