Berserk

by Tim Lebbon

  “Natasha?” Tom said, but the girl was still away. Her frozen face offered no clues. He reached for her, fingers outstretched, but he could not bring himself to touch that leathery skin. There was some of him in her now, he knew, and the small wound in his chest prickled at the thought.

  His back itched as well. Itched when it should have burned, annoyed when it should have killed. Yes, there was some of him in her, but there was some of her in him as well. Perhaps much more than he knew.

  He closed his eyes and sought out his rage, fearing what he would find.

  * * *

  Natasha came back just as Tom heard the sound of something approaching.

  “No!” Natasha said, her voice the grind of swallowed grit.

  “What?” Tom asked. The sound grew louder, a regular, fast beat.

  I never believed Cole would give us to someone else, she said in Tom’s mind. I always thought he’d want us for himself. Daddy . . . I’m sorry.

  “What are you on about? I don’t understand. Are they here, are Lane and Sophia and the others here?” Tom looked around the industrial estate car park. The man and woman in the open business unit had put down their tools and were standing at the door, shielding their eyes against the fading sunset, looking south down the valley. The woman lifted her hand to point and the noise suddenly grew louder.

  Tom recognised that sound. Helicopters. And he suddenly understood Natasha’s anguish. Mister Wolf had yet to catch up with them, but he had spread the word.

  “Now what?” Tom asked. Pain speared into his back, Natasha began to cry, and their whole world exploded into action.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  From Tom’s right came two gunshots in rapid succession. He looked that way, startled, expecting to see Cole running at them from behind the undergrowth marking the boundary of the car park. What he saw instead made him gasp out loud, and he closed his eyes and called for Natasha, afraid that he was back in one of her dream memories. If that were the case and he opened his eyes again, who knew what terrors would be awaiting him?

  They’re already here! Natasha gasped, and in his mind Tom sensed an uneasy shadow of betrayal. He opened his eyes to see Lane and Sophia running toward him across the car park. They were dressed in black, moving fast, and both carried weapons. Lane had a pistol in one hand and a long bulky tube over one shoulder; Sophia held a rifle in both hands. Both of them were looking at Tom, and he could not hold their gaze. The setting sun seemed to catch their eyes and turn them red.

  “You’re Tom,” Sophia said when she reached the car, a statement rather than a question. “You were followed by the police. We just killed them, but they led others here.” She stood beside the BMW, her breath barely raised after running across the car park, and pointed the rifle at his face. “I don’t trust anyone. Understand? No one. You have no special privileges, and I’ll shoot you the second I think I need to.” She was having to raise her voice above the roar of the approaching helicopters, and Tom glanced up to see the shadows of two huge aircraft approaching. And as Sophia knelt next to the car, he saw what Lane had been carrying.

  The male berserker was kneeling with the tube balanced on his shoulder, one hand holding the wide barrel, the other closed around the grip and trigger. Dust and rubbish swirled up around him, hissing against the body of the BMW. He did not even close his eyes.

  “Stay in there!” Sophia shouted as she ducked down beside the car. For a few seconds there was a rattle merged within the roar of the helicopter rotors, and chunks of concrete erupted around Lane. Bullets ricocheted toward the buildings and Tom saw the man and woman duck back inside their unit.

  Lane jerked as if punched. He slumped forward and then sat upright again, stilling himself, ignoring the second burst of machine gun fire as it blasted into the ground between him and the BMW. The tube on his shoulder coughed and spat its deadly load.

  Tom fell across the front seats and gathered Natasha beneath him. He could still sense her confusion as a massive explosion brought daylight back again. The car shook as if shunted by a juggernaut. Its windows smashed inward, a blast of warm air sizzled the hairs on the back of Tom’s neck, and something thunked against the car’s roof. For a second he thought they were being machine-gunned, but then he realised that pieces of the helicopter were raining down.

  He sat up and leaned around in his seat, looking back.

  Two hundred yards away, a giant burning mass dropped from the sky. It struck the ground in an orchard beyond the car park, crushing trees, sending ripe apples tumbling to the ground, burnt black and dry. One rotor continued to spin, fanning the flames. The other had speared off into the dusk. There was another explosion, even larger than the first, and the shell of the aircraft bulged outward and scattered itself across the orchard and approach road. The flames were so bright that Tom had to look away. The fire caught in the trees and grass, spilt fuel sending rivers of flame to carve their course.

  “Holy fucking shit,” Tom muttered.

  “One down . . .” Lane said. He stood, threw aside the SAM launcher and ran to the car, leaning in past Tom as if he were not there, searching for Natasha. He pulled the blanket aside and laughed. “There you are!” he said. “Christ, take a look at you! Sophia, have you seen this?”

  The female berserker barely glanced at Tom as she looked into the car. Then she smiled. “You look well, Natasha,” she said.

  “She’s been buried for ten years, how the hell do you expect her to look!” Tom said.

  Lane, leaning into the car, looked at Tom for the first time. Their faces were barely six inches apart. He glanced up and down and seemed to take in everything about Tom in a second. “And what the fuck do you know about it?” he said.

  Lane seemed like a normal man. Strong, large, capable of protecting himself, but normal. Tom saw no changes, none of the strange mutations he had seen in Natasha’s memories of her own family. Perhaps the berserkers were enjoying this. Or maybe Natasha’s recollections were . . . skewed. Tom did not like that doubt, but he could not help entertaining it. He had not been expecting them to be carrying weapons – in the girl’s memories they had killed with tooth and claw – but he realised quickly how foolish that assumption had been. As deadly as they were when the rage was upon them, tooth and claw would be little protection against modern military hardware.

  He wondered whether the Army had made that same foolish mistake.

  “Here comes the other one!” Sophia yelled.

  Lane withdrew from the car. Tom opened the door, grabbed Natasha and climbed out, standing beside the two berserkers. They’re so strong! Natasha said in his mind. So adapted! So powerful! I never knew, in the few hours I’ve been speaking with them I never guessed . . .

  Will they still help us? Tom asked in his mind.

  Oh yes, Natasha said, and her voice was soothed by a mental smile. They may mock me and discount you, but I still have something they want.

  “What?” Tom asked, but the girl fell silent.

  The second Chinook roared over the blazing remains of the first, turning hard left and heading away, spitting bullets behind it. The aim was bad, and they rattled against the industrial units and the parking bays before them.

  Sophia looked at Tom curiously, then down at Natasha where she lay in his arms. “Come with me,” she said. “If you want to stay alive, you do what I say when I say it, even if you think I’m wrong. Understand?”

  “How can I trust you?”

  “We promised the girl we’d look after you.”

  “That doesn’t mean—”

  “We keep our promises,” Sophia said, and her cool stare forbade him from answering back again. He nodded and followed as she ran for the open unit. Lane came along behind.

  Tom could hear the tone of the Chinook’s rotors changing as it landed somewhere out of view. He guessed there could be twenty or more battle-ready soldiers in there, ready to pour out, encircle the units, and take revenge for their many dead comrades.

  He follow
ed Sophia into the unit, past the piece of furniture the man and woman had been working on. It was an old table, restored and polished to a brilliant sheen, reflecting fire from outside. A bullet had skimmed its surface and gouged a foot-long oak splinter. “We won’t hurt you!” Sophia called. Lane’s shadow fell on the table as he entered behind Tom.

  The man and woman emerged from an office at the rear of the unit, arms held high, faces pale, eyes wide. The woman looked at what Tom held in his arms and her eyes went wider.

  Sophia shot her in the face, and Lane shot the man twice in the chest.

  Tom gasped and dropped Natasha onto the sawdust-covered floor.

  The man went down hissing, drawing in one final huge breath, blood bubbles forming on his soaked t-shirt. Sophia stepped forward and shot him in the eye.

  “Head shot,” she said to Lane. “Head shot!” Lane simply shrugged.

  “What the hell . . . ?” Tom said, but the two ignored him.

  Daddy! Natasha said, and Tom looked down at where he had dropped the girl. She moved feebly on the ground. He bent to pick her up, tucking his hands beneath her body – it was not so cold now, no longer carrying the chill of the grave – and heaved her back into his arms. His back hurt. He bit his lip and groaned against the pain.

  Sophia smirked at him. Tom turned away.

  “Back door,” Lane said, and Sophia darted into the office at the rear of the unit.

  Tom heard her throwing bolts and shifting furniture, and he frowned. Barricading us in? he thought. We should be running! The soldiers will be here in seconds, and they’ll be berserk themselves, ready for revenge. Their mates are cooking out in that orchard. There won’t be time for ‘hands up and come out’.

  You forget so quickly, Daddy, Natasha said, nestled somewhere in his panicked mind. Trust them.

  “Trust?” he spat, unable to help himself. He looked down at the dead man and woman, tears forming however hard he tried to gulp them back.

  “The next couple of minutes could be our last,” Sophia said, emerging from the office. “The last thing we need is unnecessary hindrances.”

  “Don’t try to explain murder to me!” Tom said. She looked away, sneering, and he swallowed hard.

  A volley of bullets rattled into the wall beside them, spilling tools and chunks of masonry to the ground. Tom fell and crawled behind a fixed woodworking bench, dragging Natasha with him and making sure she was shielded from outside.

  Lane fired several shots from his pistol, then ducked down as a sustained burst of machine-gun fire slammed into the unit. The noise was tremendous. Bullets coughed gouts of concrete from the walls, tore apart the plasterboard wall of the office, struck the old oak table, ricocheted from the floor, pinged from the bulky metal woodworking tools. Tom covered his ears and waited to be shot. Natasha could not protect him from this. A ricochet would take off the top of his head, or the soldiers would get in here, blow him apart with a burst to the chest and head. He looked across at Sophia, and between them the man’s body jumped and jerked as bullets struck him. Tom averted his eyes, not wishing to see the damage they caused. Even above the gunfire he heard Sophia laugh.

  “What the fuck are these things?” he whispered, and Natasha allowed him his rage, holding back any response.

  The gunfire ended. Tom’s ears rang with the echoes. Lane and Sophia, hunkered down behind machines, swapped glances. Lane nodded. It was as if everything were going according to plan.

  Someone started shouting. “Lane! Sophia! You know there’s no way out!”

  Lane’s eyes went wide with genuine surprise, and he coughed out a laugh. “Major Higgins, is that really you? Haven’t you retired and gone to play polo in your twilight years? You old goat, I can’t believe they sent you after us!”

  “Come out, Lane,” the man shouted.

  “So where’s Cole?” Lane answered.

  “I have no idea!”

  Lane gave the ‘wanker’ sign to Sophia, and she laughed and nodded, returning an imitation of fellatio. “Sophia says you’re a cock sucker!” Lane shouted, ducking as Sophia threw a chunk of masonry at him.

  Tom could not believe the surreality of the scene. They were about to be machine-gunned to death – and he’d bet his life that these soldiers were from Porton Down, armed with silver bullets and a knowledge of what they were up against – and here were the berserkers making jokes.

  Short memory, Natasha whispered. Remember Dan and Sarah?

  Tom nodded. Yes, he remembered them. But what could two berserkers do against twenty armed, ready and vengeful soldiers? They would take a few with them perhaps, but not all.

  Another burst of gunfire continued tearing the unit apart. Tom held onto Natasha, smelling her musty odour and feeling her tiny movements against his body. Something scratched at his chest and he pulled up, disgusted and amazed. Now? She wanted to feed now? But he looked at Sophia and Lane again, saw what was happening, and he understood why.

  At last they were changing. Until now they had been under control, but Sophia was shaking, her legs quivering as they seemed to stretch out behind her, and Lane’s eyes were closed, jaw thickening and lips cracking and bleeding. The berserker had dropped his gun and Tom looked at it, wondering whether he could reach it without getting his arm blown off. Probably not. But still, the option was there.

  Lane turned to look at him, and his eyes were red. “Hands off!” he said. Tom shrank back.

  The gunfire broke off again, Higgins shouted, and that was when the first scream rose up from outside.

  * * *

  Tom was shaking. His toes tapped at the ground, his arms jittered where he supported himself on his elbows, and his body trembled as if in the throes of a virulent fever. He was sweating, too, dripping onto Natasha and speckling the dusty concrete floor. He tried to keep his eyes closed, but the images behind them were too painful to maintain: Jo lying dead across his lap; Steven as a boy, keen to play at soldiers. So he opened his eyes to escape those images, only to give himself more terrible sights to remember forever. The dead man had been struck by several bullets, and blood and insides had splashed up the wall behind him. The dead woman’s leg had been blown off. Lane and Sophia continued to hide behind the woodworking machinery, still changing, making light of their predicament as the screaming rose in volume from outside.

  More gunfire, but this time it was not directed at them.

  And Tom was angry. It was an anger he had never felt before, not even ten years ago when he had first been told of Steven’s death. He was not even sure where it came from, but he supposed it was a combination of everything that had happened to him, a livid stew made from Jo’s death, Natasha’s sad history, Cole’s pursuit – the bullet still lodged somewhere in his back – the two dead people splayed across the floor around him now, their blood filling tiny cracks and scrapes in the concrete, spreading out, forming a map of their pain, their blood, their blood.

  Tom stopped shaking, stared at the mess on the floor and had a sudden inexplicable desire to lap it up.

  The screams and gunfire outside were joined by something else: roars and screeches that he recognised from Natasha’s memories.

  Daddy, she said beneath him, I still can’t change. Her voice was so wretched that it pulled Tom back from whatever precipice he was leaning over. He raised himself up and looked down at the girl. Her mouth was bloodied, his chest dripping, and her body wavered continuously as if seen through a heat haze.

  “What’s out there? Just those two children?”

  angry!Dan and Sarah, all grown up now. Young and powerful and

  An explosion complemented the gunfire. Tom risked a look around the corner of the bench, the anger rising again, ready to drown him. He gasped and swallowed, making sure he could still breathe. His legs and arms ached from supporting himself for so long, his face throbbed, and the only part of his body that seemed not to hurt was his back.

  Tracer rounds tore across the car park. The stolen BMW was a mass of flames and several
bodies lay around it, their uniforms simmering and catching fire in the heat. One of them crawled feebly away from the flames, hair and fatigues smoking and then igniting.

  A soldier darted past the front of the unit, and for an instant Tom wanted to run him down, punch him, tear at him until he died.

  A shadow followed. A shadow that growled. The soldier’s scream came from out of sight, but it did not last very long.

  Two soldiers backed away across the car park, heading for the ivy-covered fence from where Lane and Sophia had first emerged. They took it in turns, firing their weapons and reloading, and though panicked they seemed to have some level of control over their fear. One of them was covered in blood; it did not seem to be his own.

  Tom looked at the blood, and saliva flooded his mouth. “What’s happening to me?” he asked, but nobody answered. He looked at Sophia and Lane, and though the change had shifted their bodies from the norm, they seemed to have reined in their full berserker rage. Lane had picked up his pistol and inserted a new magazine, while Sophia was reloading the rifle with shells from her pocket. Neither of them looked at him or Natasha. For some reason, they seemed to have turned serious.

  There was another burst of sustained gunfire and Tom glanced outside. The two soldiers were standing back to back, both shooting at things out of sight. Their magazines seemed to run out at the same instant, and a second later shapes darted in from both sides and tore into the men. Their screams were replaced by ripping sounds as the berserkers tore them limb from limb.