by Tim Lebbon
There were maybe ten people left alive. Her father was to the left, standing on his hind legs disembowelling a man while a woman fired at him again and again. His body danced and jigged, feet kicking him from the wall, jumping from the floor, dodging bullets as his face and hands remained working on the man. He turned suddenly on the shooter, snatched her gun and buried it barrel-first into her face. One of his claws caught the trigger and the back of the woman’s head erupted into the air.
To the right their mother was a blur of thrashing limbs and snapping teeth. A man fell before her, screaming as she pulled herself up his body and opened it every inch of the way.
Someone shouted, someone else pointed, and bullets screamed at Natasha. The memory blurred as she danced left and right, jumped and powered down from the ceiling, bounced from the floor. The whistle of bullets passed close by, and their paths sometimes left hot streaks across her skin. And sometimes, they struck her. Peter whined behind her as a bullet found home. He fell to the floor beside her, growled, and they leapt together. Both of them found meat.
The lights went out as one last desperate burst of gunfire found a switching panel. The stench of an electrical fire added to the odour of opened bodies. But the humans were all dead or dying and already the rage was subsiding. For the berserkers, there were wounds to heal and expended energy to replace.
Natasha and her family settled down to feed.
* * *
Do you see? Natasha asked. Do you see now what they made us do? Her voice was weak and tired, barely there at all. Tom could feel her inside his head but there was no sense of invasion as before. He almost had to search to hear her voice.
“I saw,” he said. “But I don’t understand.”
I’m tired, she said. So tired. I haven’t fed for so long, Daddy. I need to go away for a while.
“Wait!” Tom said. “We have to decide where to go, what to do.”
Yes, we have to leave, she said, leave, he’s coming, Mister Wolf is coming . . . but I’m really only a little girl. She faded away at last. Tom could not be certain what he heard in those final few words: vulnerability, or hopelessness.
He sat there in the morning sun, the unearthed girl in his lap, cows staring over the gate at him with disinterest. A sparrow hawk hovered high overhead, stalking something a couple of fields away. Bees buzzed the hedge, and a tiny wren darted in and out of the undergrowth and picked insects from leaves, wagging its tail to gain balance each time it landed. Tom wished that he could find his balance so easily.
He loved the countryside, and right now it was shielding what had happened from the eyes of the world. His battered car, his dead wife . . . he could see her feet and lower legs through the open back door. Jo, he thought, but suddenly the idea of that body being his wife was alien and distant. She was somewhere else now.
Tom stood, carried Natasha and her chains to the car and set her down on the bonnet. It was only as he let go that he realised how easily he had moved. He paused, standing still, trying his best to discern exactly what had changed. Eyes closed, he heard so much more. Hands over his ears, he saw more. His head no longer hurt, and the aches and pains in his limbs had faded. He thought back to the memories Natasha had shared with him . . . but it was more than sharing. He had seen what had happened in that house. She had not told him about it, nor explained it, she had him. In the same way that she came into his mind to talk to him, so she had invited him into her mind to know more of her.shown
Do you see what they made us do? She had whispered before slipping away into a deep sleep. They kept us hungry.
Tom had to leave. He felt refreshed and strong and ready to move on, and though the grief over Jo sat heavy on his shoulders, there was still a numbness that held back the tears. He looked through the shattered windscreen at his dead wife on the back seat, and that was not her. That is not Jo! There lay the body he had touched and loved for over thirty years, and yet she was not there. She’s dead, he thought, dead and gone forever and I’ll never see her again, never smell her or taste her or talk with her again for all eternity. But though the rage and grief were there, something kept their full effect at bay, a numbness that promised worse to come.
Perhaps it was the unreality of what was happening. The impossibility. Natasha had thrown him into a dream world, a place where dead girls spoke in his mind and a man with guns came after him. A place where an unearthed corpse wanted him to be her daddy. Maybe it was that; the unreal, surreal place his world had become.
Or perhaps he really had gone mad.
“We have to go,” he said, and out of that unreal daze a panic began to descend. He was parked just off a country lane with the body of his wife in the car and a ten-year-old corpse wrapped in chains on the bonnet. He could not afford to drive the car any farther. Natasha and her chains were too heavy to carry very far. His wallet contained about fifty pounds in notes. Looking around he could see no signs of habitation nearby; no farms, no isolated houses that may offer him transport or a place to hide. He scratched absently at his chest and his fingers came away smeared red. He had been cut there, perhaps by flying glass when Mister Wolf blasted at his car with his gun. Tom rubbed the blood across his fingers until it dried, sticky and crisp, and he again wondered why he felt so strong.
Desperation, he thought. Fear. Panic. All simmering just below the surface of whatever’s keeping me going. “Crash and burn,” he said, and that was what he figured he would end up doing. But while he still had energy to stand and the will to move on, he was more than willing to let instinct and events take over. Just like Natasha and her family in the basement of that house, dodging or shrugging off bullets, raging at the wounds, letting instinct lead them on.
In the distance, Tom heard the roar of a car’s engine. It sounded like the growl of a wolf approaching its prey.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Cole listened for Natasha. He had been driving for half an hour, and although he had not heard her again, he was still sure that he was going in the right direction. It right. And for now he had nothing else to hang onto but that.felt
He tore through the country lanes, barely shifting down a gear to negotiate blind bends or humpback bridges. He had already had one collision today; he hoped that was his share of accidents for a while. And besides, the faster he went, the more chance he had of catching the old man and the girl. She lured me on, he kept thinking, she wants me to follow.
People were travelling to work now, and here and there he passed other cars going in the opposite direction. Their drivers greeted him with a uniform expression: shock and disgust. Slow down! they all said with their glares, and he grinned back and pushed down on the gas as he passed them by. He was doing all this for them, these sheep, these innocents who thought that nine-to-five, Coronation Street and a meal out on Saturday was all there was to life. None of them had a clue about what was really happening in their world. None of them knew the risks he took, the life he had given up to pursue the berserkers and try to keep the innocents safe from harm. And if he took time to stop and tell them . . . they would call him mad.
Let them.
And then there they were, the old guy standing beside the parked car, staring straight at Cole with eyes as wide as a rabbit’s in a headlamp’s glare.
“Holy shit!” Cole stepped on the brakes and swerved the car across the road, slewing it sideways to prevent careening into the hedge. I can’t be this lucky! he thought, but there was Roberts, moving back and forth with indecision, the fear of an innocent who had seen terrible things already etched on his face.
Cole was out of the BMW and running at Roberts almost before the wheels had stopped spinning. He paused a few steps away and aimed the .45 at his face.
“She’s not here!” Roberts yelled.
“What?”
“I hid her. I know you want her, she told me, so I hid her where you’d never find her.”
Cole paused, trying to work out whether or not Roberts was telling the truth, or if it even matter
ed. Roberts had seen Natasha and knew what she could do, so he needed removing from the picture. “Where?” he asked.
“If I tell you, you’ll kill me.”
“I’m going to kill you anyway.”
Roberts moved back one pace and leaned against his wrecked car, glancing down into the back seat. Cole followed his gaze and saw the dead woman’s legs through the open door. “You think I care?” the old guy said. “You killed my wife, you bastard.” There was little emotion in his voice, no real trace of anger or rage or anything else that could be dangerous. Numb.
“I’m sorry,” Cole said, keeping his voice equally neutral.
“So kill me,” Roberts said.
“Where’s the girl?”
“I told you, I hid her.”
Where? Cole thought. Just where? He could have stopped anywhere between the cottage and here, hid her in a barn or shed, beneath a hedge, out in a field, anywhere . . . but wherever she was, she would be found again. He could kill Roberts now, but his job would be far from over.
“Tell me where.”
“No. You’ve hurt her once before, I won’t let you—”
“her! Do you even know what she is, you stupid fuck?”Hurt
“A little girl you buried alive.”
Cole shook his head, snorted. “Look, I don’t have time for this. Tell me where she is and you’ll join your wife quickly, no pain, you won’t even hear it coming. Don’t tell me, and I’ll shoot you again and again until you do. Believe me, I could use a whole magazine and you’d still be conscious.”
“You won’t do that,” Roberts said.
Cole braced himself, lowered his aim until the sight rested on Roberts’ left collarbone, then swore because he was right. Cole could kill him with few regrets, but torture was not his thing.
“Okay, I won’t do that, but let me appeal to you. Please. You have no idea what she is, or what she can do, and you have to tell me where she is.”
“So that you can kill her?”
“Yes, exactly! I should have killed her ten years ago instead of doing what I did. That was stupid of me. I should have known she would rise again at some point.”
“I don’t know what the hell you’re on about, but I won’t let you hurt her again. She’s an innocent.”
“Innocent! What has she been telling you?” Cole said, genuinely amazed. “Has she told you what a wonderful little girl she was, how sweet her family were? Has she really?”
“She told me that she and her family were turned into killers.” Roberts seemed to be gaining confidence, and that pissed off Cole because was the one with the fucking gun!he
“They’ve been killers,” he said. “They’re berserkers. They’re not human, not like you and me. They’re a different breed, a whole race apart. Yes, we – the Army – used them, but they went willingly enough, let me tell you. They used to spend their long lives hiding from us because of the persecution their kind suffered centuries ago. They’d slink through shadows and take someone here, there, now and then. They always eat us! They eat people! But we caught them and gave them the chance to do it for real, to revel in what they are. Because they’re very, very hard to kill, and they never make a mistake.”
Roberts looked at him for a while, a cool appraisal that left Cole unnerved and wondering whether he had underestimated this man. “And after that, you think I’ll change my mind?” he said.
“I can’t believe your mind’s made up the other way anyway,” Cole said. “Look at all that’s happened since you found Natasha.” He glanced down at the feet protruding from the rear door of the car, but Roberts’ gaze did not waver.
“You killed her,” he said. “Not Natasha. You. With that.” He nodded at the gun.
Even as Cole glanced at the gun in his hand, he knew his mistake. Sly bastard! he had enough time to think, and then Roberts was upon him, punching and swearing and kicking, and there was no way he could have moved that quickly. One second he was safely under the sight of Cole’s .45, the next Cole was stumbling backward under a frenzied assault, tripping over his own heel and landing heavily in the road, and Roberts fell on him and plucked the gun from his hand, turning it around, pressing it into Cole’s right eye so hard that he thought his eyeball would pop. Oh no this is it this is it.
“Feel nice?” Roberts said. “Feel good?” But even then Cole could see the confusion in the man’s eyes.
“Please . . .” Cole said.
Roberts nodded. “I’m sure that’s what Natasha said, too.”
He pulled the trigger.
* * *
Click.
Nothing. He was holding the gun as though it were dirty, resting it in his hand rather than grasping it tight.
Click.
Again, nothing.
Holy shit what am I doing?
The man on the ground looked up at Tom, his left eye open wide, breath held, expression one of terror and outrage. Tom stared down at him—
—what in the name of fuck am I doing?—
—and almost smiled, the situation was that unreal.
Mister Wolf started to twist and writhe, and Tom knew it would only be seconds before he was toppled off, and then Mister Wolf would wrestle the gun back and reverse the situation, and he knew how to use the gun, the safeties, whatever had gone wrong with Tom’s attempt to shoot someone in the face.
I almost shot him in the eye!
Tom leaned back, twisted around and swung, bringing the gun in low and hard against the side of the man’s head. In the movies Mister Wolf would have been out cold with barely a mark on him, but in reality the skin of his temple split and he cried out, swearing and wriggling harder beneath Tom’s weight, swinging his fists, then changing his tactic and grasping at Tom’s clothing in an attempt to pull him off. Tom hit him again, this time putting all his strength into the swing. It made a sickening as it hit the man’s skull, and this time he did not shout as loud. His hands fell from Tom’s sides, his head rolled back and forth, and beneath his flickering eyelids Tom could see his eyes turning up in his head.thunk
Oh God, I may have killed him anyway! The gun’s slide was matted with a bloody clot of hair. Mister Wolf’s temple was a mess. He twitched, and his right leg scraped at the road once, twice.
Tom stood and backed away. He held the gun in both hands, aimed at the prone man even though he was still unsure why it had not fired before. He took a good hold of the grip this time, and as he squeezed he felt the safety push in tight.
Now, if he so wished, he could kill.
Tom sobbed out loud. Tears came, and much as he tried he could not hold them back. He had no idea what had happened just then. He fell to his knees in the road, gun resting on the tarmac.
I moved so fast. One second here, staring into the barrel of a gun. Next second there, pressing it into his eye and pulling the trigger twice, ready to see his head explode and his brains spew out all over the road. And in my mind at the time, feeding the rage . . . Jo? No, not Jo. Not my dead wife. Someone else . . .
Natasha.
Something had taken him when Mister Wolf pointed the gun at him, some unknown madness that had given him speed and strength. That had not been Tom, not at all. The anger had been his, but not the willingness – the – to kill. Tom thought he could never do that, no matter what. Not even to the man who had killed his wife.eagerness
He had moved so quickly. And with that came a recollection of the dream memory Natasha had shared with him; the speed with which she and her family had moved through that huge basement, and the power of their bodies as they dodged bullets and shrugged off knife wounds in their state of crazed hunger.
Tom stood slowly, looked around, shook his head to bring himself back. Right now he had the upper hand, and he could not afford to lose his position of advantage by cracking up. Later, perhaps. But not now.
“Natasha?”
There was no answer from the mummified girl. Still asleep after her feed. Tom rubbed the wound on his chest again, still putting
it down to flying glass when he had really always known the truth from the second her teeth touched his skin.
The BMW was still running, parked across the road so that no other vehicle could pass by. It would only be a matter of time before someone else came along. If Tom could make the most of the next few minutes – think logically, not crack up, not let what was happening get to him and drive him over the edge – then he and Natasha would be away from Mister Wolf for good. There was a car just waiting for him, though it was likely stolen. He would not be able to keep it for long, but perhaps after the next hour or two, if he drove carefully and quickly, he would be far enough away to find safety.
At least, for now. Tom was under no illusion; there would be a reckoning, a time when he would have to go to the police and tell them everything that had happened. Between now and then, however, he had to do whatever he could to move on.
He jumped the gate and went behind the hedge to where he had left Natasha. A snail had crawled onto her face in the few minutes she had been in the grass, and Tom flicked it off and stepped on it in disgust. The subtle crunch of its shell beneath his shoe felt good. He picked her up, chains and all, and was she slightly heavier than before? He could not really tell; the fight and its emotional recoil had drained him.
“Natasha?” he said again, but if she heard him she chose to remain silent. He stood there for a few moments, looking down into what was left of her face, trying to discern any form of expression there. But her living death was expressionless; everything she felt or thought was shown only on the inside.
He placed the girl on the back seat of the BMW and covered her with Mister Wolf’s jacket. Back at his ruined car he carefully bent Jo’s knees, hating the cool feel of her skin and the way her legs already seemed to be growing stiff.
“Jo,” he said, feeling everything, able to say nothing. “Jo.” He closed the door.
He ran back to the BMW and opened the boot. It was filthy inside, strewn with old sacks and dried grass and leaves, but he found what he was hoping for in one corner: a toolbox. He undid the straps holding it in and emptied it in the boot. Then he shook his head, cursed himself and hurried over to the prone man.
