‘Tracking by sound. Smart motherfucker.’
They continued their slow dance. Frost gripped her pistol, ready to put Guthrie down the moment he lunged.
‘What are you? Some kind of super-species? Some kind of evolutionary leap?’
‘Reesus,’ hissed Guthrie.
Frost cocked her head.
‘What did you just say?’
‘Reesus.’
Hancock crouched on the riveted metal of the cockpit roof. Dust-caked boots in front of him. He wiped blood from his eyes and looked up. A ragged flight suit matted with sand. Name strip: PINBACK. Hancock craned to see the man’s face. Black eyes. Peeling flesh. Hancock struggled to his feet. He pulled the lock-knife from his pocket and flipped open the stubby blade. He gripped the knife with a trembling hand.
‘All right, bitch.’ He swayed and stumbled, almost fell from the plane, then regained his balance. ‘Let’s boogie.’
Hancock slashed the knife back and forth, waited for Pinback to make a move.
‘Show me what you got. Come on. Let’s go.’
Sound of ripping fabric near his feet. Noble forcing his way through one of the patched ejection hatches. He squirmed through the aperture onto the roof.
He stood between Pinback and Hancock. Classic knife-fighter crouch, knife hugged to his belly.
He gestured to Hancock.
‘Get down below.’
‘To hell with that shit.’
‘Seriously. You’re in no shape. Get below. I got this.’
‘So what are you waiting for? Kill the fucker.’
Noble addressed Pinback.
‘Hey. It’s me. Harris. Remember? Think back. You got to remember.’
The blank face stared back at him.
‘We all said it, right? Every guy in uniform, some time or other, sitting in a bar. Shoot me. If I get fragged by an IED, if some jihadi motherfucker takes my legs, my dick, shoot me in the damned head. Don’t let me suffer. Don’t leave me paralysed. That night at The Barracuda. You and me. We shook. We had a deal. Take care of each other, no matter what. Do what’s got to be done.’
No response.
Noble shuffled closer to the cadaverous figure.
‘I’m talking to Pinback, Captain Daniel Pinback. You in there, Dan? Let me help you. Let me set you free.’
Pinback turned away and walked aft down the spine of the fuselage.
‘So what do you want from us?’ shouted Noble. ‘Rip out our throats? Go ahead. Turn around and take a shot.’
Pinback kept walking.
‘Fucking with our heads, is that it? To see how bad we want to survive?’
Noble spread his arms wide.
‘Come on, you bastard. Get your ass back here. Try and take a bite.’
Frost and Guthrie continued their dance.
She tried to work out if he were struggling to talk, or if the vocal sounds were an involuntary convulsion of the throat. One of the blackly comic aspects of infection: belches and long, rippling farts. A consequence of internal decay, bodies starting to bloat with rot gas.
‘Raysus.’
‘What are you trying to say?’
‘Raysus.’
He tried to run at her. A loping, convulsive limp. She shot him in the thigh, shattering his femur. He fell to the ground.
Frost dug the flare pen from her pocket and sent up another star shell.
The flare hung in the sky projecting harsh light and sliding shadows.
Guthrie lifted his head.
‘Joysus.’
‘Jesus. Is that what you’re saying? Jesus?’
‘Joysus.’
‘Can you remember your old life? Is some of you left?’ She stepped closer to the prone figure. ‘Guss. Are you still in there? Concentrate. Think. Can you remember who you used to be? Hail Mary, full of grace. Can you say it? Hail Mary, full of grace. Say the words.’
Guthrie lunged, snapping, biting. She backed off. She lowered herself to her knees, well out of reach.
‘What’s it like? Death. You died, remember? Your parachute failed. Hit the ground full speed. Guess the virus jump-started your heart. What was it like on the other side? Can you tell me? Did you go someplace? What did you see?’
‘Joy. Suss.’
‘Is there anything at all?’
‘Joy.’
‘Tell me it’s all true. There’s light on the other side. Light and love.’
He snarled and reached for her, tried to crawl. She got to her feet. She stamped on his ankles until they broke.
‘Joy.’
She stood over him.
‘Infection. Is it better than death? Can’t help wondering. If I injected the virus to avoid dying of thirst, would it be worth the extra days? Surely some kind of sensation, some kind of half-life, would be better than nothing at all.’
‘Joy.’
Frost kicked Guthrie’s shoulder, rolled him onto his back. She planted a foot on his chest.
He broke teeth trying to chew the splint binding her leg.
She stamped on his neck, boot jammed beneath his chin.
‘Joy,’ he hissed, head pinned to the sand.
She took aim.
‘Join us.’
She fired a full clip into his face. Muzzle roar and gun smoke. Sand splashed with brain, teeth and splintered skull.
49
Frost climbed up the ladder into the cockpit.
‘Hancock? Noble?’
She checked the cabin interior. The beam of her flashlight shafted through residual smoke haze.
She checked the pilot’s chair, made sure Hancock wasn’t sitting with his back to her.
The seats were empty.
One of the blast curtains was pulled back. Blood and tufts of flight-suit fabric on broken polycarbon.
She looked through the window. She shone her flashlight down at the sand fifteen feet below. No sign of Hancock or Noble. No disturbance in the dust.
Cold air on the back of her neck. She looked up. Starlight. A vacant ejection hatch above the co-pilot station.
She jumped, gripped the lip of the hatch, hauled herself up and out.
The fuselage lit by moonlight. The huge body of the plane. The vulpine wings.
Hancock and Noble fifteen yards distant, facing aft.
She got to her feet and limped towards them.
‘You guys okay?’
They turned. Faces full of exhaustion and fear.
‘Fucker is messing with our heads,’ said Noble.
‘Who?’
‘Pinback.’
‘He was here?’
‘Didn’t you see?’ asked Hancock. ‘Didn’t you hear us shout?’
Frost gestured to her left. Guthrie’s body lying in the sand seventy yards distant, lit by weak flame light.
‘Otherwise engaged.’
Hancock’s exposed head wound glistened with fresh blood.
‘Jeez. You okay?’
Hancock ignored the question, stared towards the aft of the plane as if he expected Pinback to return.
Frost trained her flashlight on riveted roof plates. Boot-prints in the dust. She followed footprints aft to their abrupt termination.
‘Looks like he jumped,’ she said.
Noble squinted at the body lying near the signal fire.
‘Who was it?’
‘Guthrie.’
‘Dead?’
‘Yeah.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘Yeah, I’m sure. He’s down for good.’
‘Then I guess we’ve got two to go.’
‘It’s cold. Let’s get back inside.’
They turned to retrace their route back to the cockpit roof hatch.
Muffled thump from down below.
‘Dammit,’ muttered Frost. ‘Hear that? They’re still trying for the bomb bay.’
Hancock shook his head and said:
‘Persistent sons of…’
His foot slipped on the sand-dusted curve of the fuselage. He fell on his back and began to slide legs first from the plane. He rolled onto his belly. His hands slapped the hull as he tried to find purchase. His boots thumped against smooth aluminium fuselage panels. No foothold. He tried to grip flush rivets and broke fingernails.