There was a cough, the shuffle of feet, and a dishevelled, blackened figure stumbled unsteadily into the room.
Hanna took another step, blinked at the light, then brushed soot and dirt from her eyes with her sleeve. There was a long, thin scratch down one side of her face, and her black hair was speckled with a frosting of ash. The knuckles on one hand were ripped and torn and her other hand was wrapped in a bloody piece of cloth.
Charlie wrestled against a powerful urge to run over to Hanna, to throw his arms around her and hold her tight. He blinked back tears, and when he spoke his voice felt hoarse and shaky. “How? How did you stay alive?”
Hanna made her way towards Charlie and stared down at the charred skeleton by his boots. She wiped at her nose with the bloody bandage that covered her fingers.
“This one kept us alive. Jordan. He held them back so I could get Poppy clear. He said he’d follow us. But he didn’t. He kept them back instead.”
Tara stared at Hanna. “Did Poppy…?”
Hanna gestured at the row of shops on the other side of the square. “She’s alive. Just about. She was asleep when I left her. Asleep and delirious.”
Charlie stood up and offered the hockey stick to Hanna. She stared at it for a moment then took it off him.
“How did you get out?”
Hanna looked back down at Jordan’s scorched remains. “After you ran, after I sent you back to the others, more of those things got in. They were on fire by the time they got near to us, frantic, screaming, running this way and that. Poppy couldn’t walk, so Jordan shouted at me to carry her away while he held them off. He said he’d be right behind us. But when I looked back I saw him, standing there, a stream of them coming at him. And then I saw the roof fall in, right on top of it all.”
Nico shook his head. “I never liked him. He scared me. He used to bully me in school. I can’t believe he gave his life for us.”
Charlie’s mind slipped back to their conversation just hours before. “How did you get out of the hostel?”
There’s a window down there, one that wasn’t boarded up. One of those things got there first. Jordan had my stick, so I used a burning piece of wood to get it out of our way. I wish I hadn’t.”
Hanna held up her right hand, the fingers red and seared. She winced and lowered her arm.
“We clambered out of the window, made it outside. The fire was so bad that the smoke hid us from them. I managed to drag Poppy over to the butcher’s store and we shut ourselves in the storage locker, down in the basement. Poppy slept, but I couldn’t. The door wouldn’t bolt, so I just sat there, holding it closed, waiting for them.”
She looked up at the sky that glowered down through the open ceiling. “It’s snowing again, isn’t it? I don’t think we’re getting off this mountain. Not ever. Where’s the other girl? Leandra?”
Charlie glanced at the others then shook his head.
Hanna nodded slowly, caught a flake of snow on her open palm and watched it melt away on her skin. “Yesterday I thought we had a chance. Now I’m not so sure. There were dozens of those things last night. We killed a few. But there are less of us every day. We can hide again, try to barricade the doors, the windows. But they’ll find us. We’re all exhausted. Injured. Nobody’s coming to help, not today, not with this weather. We can’t keep doing this.”
Charlie stared at her in disbelief. “So what? Give up?”
Hanna looked up from the droplet of water on her palm and met his eyes.
“No. I’m going to fight for as long as I can. But I don’t think any of us are getting away from Kaldgellan. I think we need to face up to that.”
Nico pointed at the shoulder of one of the mountains nearby. “What’s that place up there? I’ve wondered since the first day. Is that a cross?”
A mixture of smoke and low mist obscured the view, but Charlie could just make out a small grey building on the edge of the trees.
Hanna nodded without interest and picked at the cut on the side of her face. Charlie didn’t want to ask her how she’d got it. Hanna stifled a yawn and looked away into the distance.
“It’s an old church. They close it in the winter, but in the summer they have weddings there, christenings. If you’re hoping for help, there’s not going to be anyone there.”
Nico continued to stare up at the church. He turned towards the rest of the group. “If I’m going to die, I want to do it next to God. I’m going to head up there. I don’t want to go on my own, but I don’t want to stay down here any more either. Does anyone want to come with me?”
Hanna glanced around at the rest of the group. Ellie shrugged, the golden hoops in her ears jiggling with the motion. “Why not?”
Charlie nodded, and felt a wave of resignation wash away a little of the fear he felt. “Let’s do it. It’s as good a place to hide as any.”
Hanna raised her eyebrows. For a heartbeat Charlie thought she might shoot down the idea, but instead she nodded slowly. When she spoke again, she seemed more alert, as if the sudden sense of purpose had snapped her out of her stupor.
“If we’re going to get up there, with your friend Poppy in the state she’s in, we need to get moving. It’s not far, and there’s a path that will get us up there, but with this snow it might still take us a while. So if we’re going to do it, let’s get started.”
Chapter Thirty-three
The climb was far harder than it looked.
From among the blackened beams of the hostel, Hanna had reckoned it would take little more than an hour or two’s brisk march. But between the biting wind, the deep pillows of snow and Poppy’s bite wound, it was taking them far longer.
Hanna had only let them pack the most basic of supplies to take up to the chapel. Sleeping bags. A few tins of food from the village stores. A torch each. She’d suspected that they wouldn’t be staying in the church long, one way or another.
As they trudged through the deep banks of snow, Hanna fiddled with the bandage on her hand, trying her best to forget the events of the night before.
Fighting hadn’t worked.
She was more than lucky to still be alive. But worse was the fact that Jordan had given his life to save her and Poppy. As was the knowledge that, had their positions been reversed, Hanna would have left him to die without a backwards glance.
Somehow, that awareness hurt her more than the cuts and the burns and the bruises. Through a sea of aches and pains, Hanna wondered absently if what she had become to obtain her revenge would leave her in a place of absolution, or condemned forever. As the cold slowly seeped into her bones, she realized that there was no easy answer.
They assumed by now that they were safe in the daylight, but all the same none of them wanted to be alone or to stray too from the group. Charlie and Nico walked on either side of Poppy, supporting her up the slopes, but Tara had her phone in her hand, her eyes locked on to its screen. Her fingers weren’t moving, but her eyes never left the small, neat rectangle. Despite herself, Hanna found her feet dragging her closer.
“Anything?”
Tara continued to study the phone in her still, pale fingers. “My battery’s gone. I haven’t had any signal for days, but at least I could look at it, check it. Now it’s gone.”
Tara shook her head mournfully and threw her phone away. It landed in a deep drift of snow and sank out of view. “Maybe somebody will find it, one day. There are texts that wouldn’t send, stuck in the outbox. Maybe somebody will find it and know what really happened to us up here.”
Hanna stole a glance at Poppy, whose glassy eyes were lingering on the bandage around her ankle. Maybe it was Hanna’s imagination, but Poppy’s auburn hair seemed somehow thinner and her face seemed to have a yellowed, pallid sheen. There were black lines under her eyes and a prickle of sweat stood out on her skin, despite the cold. She had been delirious in the night, thrashing about as if possessed and muttering the strangest of words. The wound on her leg had begun to stink, a sickly, sweet odour, and Hanna wasn’t sur
e how long Poppy had left without some serious medical attention.
Hanna rubbed at her grainy eyes, brushed the snow away from her face and looked around at the group.
“You still sure about this?”
Nico nodded. “My mum always made me go to church. My dad’s family were from the Congo, but Mum’s Irish-Italian and she insisted they raise me Catholic. With a name like Nicolino, I guess that’s no surprise, huh? But yeah, I’m still sure.”
By the time they made their way on to the drifts that covered the chapel’s wide driveway, the dull glimmer of light that had somehow made it through the thick clouds was beginning to fade away. The snow was heavier now, the cold wind a constant moan. A low rumble echoed from the way they had come, and Charlie paused and looked back.
“Thunder?”
Hanna stopped alongside him and shook her head. “Avalanche. Further down the valley. That will make any snow patrols that were planning to head up this way think twice.”
Hanna took one last look down at Kaldgellan. A deathly layer of cloud, smoke and mist hung over the empty streets. Hanna could just make out the charred ruin of the hostel on one side of the village, the front of the minibus jutting out of the ruined ski shop. Charlie stepped alongside her, leaving Poppy with Nico.
“You think some of them are still down there? The locals, hiding, waiting?”
Hanna scanned the village for any sign of movement. “I don’t know. If they are, I hope they freeze to death.”
Charlie blew out a misty breath. “If that old man was right, if the people here hide the truth about those things, what story will they use to explain this away? How will they cover it up?”
Ellie chewed at a frayed fingernail. “Maybe we’ll be here to tell them the truth. Maybe those things wont find us up here.”
Poppy coughed – a bloody, raw sound, and Charlie lifted her up and set off again. A dozen more footsteps and the chapel slid into view. Yellowing chunks of worn stone made up the walls, covered in places by thick moss. Behind the chapel a wall of frosted pines bled into thick forest. Hanna found herself wondering how good an idea this was, and what might be lying further into the trees, amidst the shadows and the darkness.
An old oak door blocked their path, worn, weather-beaten, decorated with faded iron studs. Hanna stared at it for a moment, then turned the solid metal knocker and heaved the door inwards. The chapel wasn’t locked and a breath of stale air seeped out of the darkness.
Ellie was next to Hanna. “What if something’s in there? Are you sure we should—”
Before she could finish her sentence Hanna pulled a torch out of her pocket, clicked it on and slid through the gap in the doorway. Ellie hesitated before following her, and once the others were in Charlie helped Poppy through the door.
Shafts of dim daylight filtered in from stained-glass windows up near the high ceiling, revealing the interior of the chapel. Rows of wooden benches led from the doorway to a curved archway at the end and a small chamber beyond. There was an aisle between the two rows of benches and the others wandered behind Hanna past the empty wooden seats.
Even with the high windows, the church was swamped in darkness and shadow. Hanna’s torch flicked this way and that like the spotlight of a police helicopter, the beam swimming with dust. The bitter air of the chapel was almost as numbing as the wind outside, but all the same it was a relief to be out of the storm and snow.
Charlie lowered Poppy on to a bench near the doorway. She shivered, lay down and curled into a ball on her side, closing her eyes. Hanna watched her for a moment then shuffled further inside. The high ceiling amplified their voices and their breathing, the sound of their boots.
The others waited by the altar while Charlie investigated the small doorway that led off to the right. Hanna felt so tired she could barely stand and she leaned on the altar to keep from falling over.
Tara glanced at the small lectern that looked out over the rows of benches. “People got married here, didn’t they? Happy couples, people in love, people excited about the rest of their lives. Do you think they knew that … knew about those things out there?”
Ellie pulled her furry hood down from her face and wiped a finger of dust from the Bible that lay on the lectern. “I hope not. I think if people knew, if good people knew, they’d tell the world, wouldn’t they?” Ellie looked around at the others for some kind of reassurance.
Hanna shook her head slowly. “That old man we found was happy enough to keep those things a secret, so long as he kept his own skin safe. Some people will do anything to keep themselves alive, no matter how terrible it might seem.”
Charlie walked back to the others and stared out at the rows of empty seats. Nico nodded towards the room off to the right. “What’s in there?”
“Not much. A small changing room and a toilet. A rail full of robes. Candles, a few bottles of wine and some cups, and a corridor that leads away to a locked door at the back of the chapel. Nobody’s getting through that, not without a battering ram.”
Tara watched as her breath unfurled into the darkness and shot an angry look in Nico’s direction. “It’s like a freezer in here. It’s colder than outside. I wanted somewhere to hide, not a place to freeze to death.”
Hanna just managed to scrape together the strength to come back at the other girl. “It might be cold, but it’s as safe as anywhere. Nobody would be able to get up to those windows, they’re too high. That door at the front is solid, and we can bolt it from the inside.”
Ellie looked across at Hanna hopefully. “You think we’ll be safe?”
Hanna’s eyes lingered on the door at the far end of the chapel. “If those things find us, it’s going to take them a long time to break through that door. We might have a chance, just as long as they don’t find us any time soon.”
Chapter Thirty-four
As dusk approached they set up a small camp near the front of the chapel, as far away from the door as it was possible to get.
Only adrenaline was keeping Charlie standing as he lit half a dozen of the candles from the side room and placed them around the altar area, so that the sleeping bags basked in a warming, orange glow. The wind still whined and howled, but the chapel felt less frigid with the bodies that now occupied it.
Poppy had been asleep for most of the afternoon and she barely stirred when Nico leaned across to offer her some food.
“Leave her,” whispered Hanna. “Let her rest.”
Nico nodded and passed the backpack full of food to the others. Charlie stared at the bag for a moment before taking a tin of ravioli. He pulled the lid off the tin and reluctantly munched away at the chilled contents.
Outside, a harsh gust of wind rattled the windows in the ceiling. Daylight was almost gone now, the shadows in the chapel growing deeper by the minute. All of them sat wrapped in their coats, clothes and sleeping bags. In other circumstances, Charlie thought, it could have made for a perfect teenage sleepover or camping trip. Except those he found himself trapped with would never have acknowledged him, if not for what had happened.
He finished his food, put the can to one side, then closed his eyes and leaned back against the stone wall. He had barely slept the night before and within seconds he started to feel himself dozing. A muffled crash from somewhere outside jerked him awake.
Hanna’s face was just across from his inside the circle of light, her grey eyes alert and awake. “Just a branch, blown down by the wind. Go back to sleep.”
Black strands of her hair hung down like snakes from her scalp and the cut on the side of her face looked raised and angry.
“You sure it’s not them?” whispered Nico. His voice was unsteady, and even in the gloom Charlie could see him shaking.
“We’ll know soon enough,” hissed Hanna.
For a while no one spoke, then Nico sat up, pulled down the Bible from the lectern and placed it next to him.
“Maybe God will look after us. Maybe he’ll keep us safe.”
Hanna shook her hea
d slowly, the strands of her hair dancing in the candlelight. “I doubt it. I don’t believe there’s a God. Or heaven. Or hell. Just people.”
Tara stared across at Hanna, her sleeping bag pulled up under her chin. “What are those things, then? They’re not people, that’s for sure.”
Hanna shrugged. “I don’t know. But whatever they are, nobody is watching over us.”
Tara leaned her head to one side, blond hair catching in the ochre light. “Then why were you so keen to come here?”
Hanna played with the bandage around her hand, picking at the scabs on her fingers. “It’s high. It’s secure. And it’s just as good a place to die as any.”
In the corner, Poppy suddenly wailed and cried, her voice high and frantic. “They’re coming. They know we’re here. She sees us, she…”
Ellie and Nico gasped in fright at the sudden noise and Tara wriggled away in her sleeping bag. Even Hanna’s face looked tight with fear. She peered closer, leaning over Poppy.
“It’s OK, she’s asleep now, she—”
Poppy’s arm darted up, her fingers grabbing the hood of Hanna’s coat. Hanna swore and jerked away. Poppy sat up and looked around, her eyes delirious and unseeing.
“They’re alive, please, some of them are still alive … and the others, they’ve changed, they’ve…”
Poppy moaned and started to cry. Ellie wrapped an arm around her, pulling her close. “Shhh. It’s OK, it’s all right. Shhh.”
Ellie glanced up at the others. “She’s on fire… Her skin… She’s burning up.”
Hanna studied Poppy’s face, then leaned closer once more and touched Poppy’s shoulder. “Who, Poppy? Who’s alive?”
“Stefan. Stefan and Kelsey and Malachi and… Oh God, no, I can see them, she has them, she’s making them … making them…”
Charlie was on his knees staring across at Poppy. His mouth was dry, his heart pounding in his chest as if it were about to rip out of his ribs. When he spoke, his words were like sawdust in his mouth. “She’s dreaming, she’s just—”
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