Frank heard weird animal sounds, shrieks and howls, from the nearby streets.
The town was being overrun.
Moving further into Horsham. More bodies. Past the point of trying to protect Florence from the sight of them.
The concussion of thunder in the sky, like mountains colliding.
Frank had expected safety and sanctuary here. He kept trying to call Catherine. His heart palpitated when he thought of her. He squeezed the phone until his hand hurt.
They couldn’t stay on the streets much longer.
Florence pulled on his jacket sleeve. Frank looked down at her. She pointed up the street. A car had been abandoned across the road. Swathes of darkness and grey light beyond.
“What is it?” he said.
She kept pointing. Large, shining eyes in her face.
Frank pocketed his phone, resisting the urge to throw it away. He flexed his hands on the axe. He approached the car. Florence followed him.
He could hear wet sucking sounds. A cold hand fingered his spine. He peered at the road behind the car.
He went to say something but the words stuck in his throat.
There were bodies laid out on the road. Broken remains of people. A girl was crouched over one of the bodies. Her face was attached to its face. The girl was making the sucking sounds. There was just enough light to make out the torn pyjamas she was wearing.
Florence saw the girl and let out a whimper. The girl couldn’t have been much older than her.
The girl raised her head, detaching from the dead body. Frank pulled Florence behind the car and put his free hand over her mouth. He caught a glance over the car’s bonnet. The girl looked around, her gleaming feral eyes scanning the road. Her face was covered with blood. A carrion eater scavenging on the dead. She had been a little girl with a family once; a mum and a dad and dreams of boy bands.
The girl returned to her meal. Frank and Florence went around her, treading silently. Frank watched the girl all the way until they were clear.
Further on they crept around a group of people feeding on a pile of corpses. Some of the dead were wearing army fatigues. The scavengers were too busy stripping meat from bones to notice them.
Every dark corner and shadow was a threat. Small fires burned. Shop windows had been smashed. All he could smell was blood and smoke. The deeper they went into the ruined town the more they saw deformed and mutated people roaming the streets in baying packs, shrieking and screaming and dragging flayed bodies behind them. Frank noticed others lurking in shadowed alleyways and gardens, gibbering and wailing. Some of them simply stood staring at the ground or at the sky. A lot of them stared at the sky.
Frank saw people chased down and ripped apart. Some of them begged until the very end, until their vocal chords were removed by spindly fingers and hooked claws.
Some of the mutated ones hunted alone, stalking the streets like predatory insects. Frank and Florence hid behind cars and walls. They were prey. Death would not come quick if they were caught. The monsters sensed Frank and Florence, sucked in the smell of their fear and sweat. Monsters everywhere, creeping out of their holes.
He found the dark doorway of an empty book shop and pulled Florence down with him.
Slick-skinned figures skittered upon the pavements, parts of their bodies clicking and clacking and scraping together like lengths of dry bone.
Screams and shrieks and plaintive cries of hunger.
Gunfire nearby. Florence was trembling and crying. A man was shouting. Frank looked up, expecting some grinning monster to fall upon them.
“It’ll be okay,” Frank whispered to Florence. “It’ll be okay.” He decided he would kill her with the axe and then take down as many of them as he could before he succumbed. He wouldn’t let the creatures take her.
Dark shapes approached them.
Frank raised the axe.
Florence whimpered.
A man’s voice.
Four soldiers, faces hidden by gas masks, found them huddled in the doorway.
“Are you infected?” one of the soldiers asked them.
Frank stared at them, his mouth open.
He shook his head.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Corporal Guppy was a short and stocky man. Even behind the muffling effect of his gas mask, his voice was deep and commanding. The other soldiers – Privates Sibbick, Gawen and Pike – sounded as though they were barely out of their teens, but they killed infected people with an absent, instinctive skill.
The infected, Frank thought. That’s what they’re called. Infected.
“Keep moving,” Guppy said. He and Private Gawen jogged either side of Frank and Florence. Private Sibbick was on point, his SA80 trained on the road ahead. Private Pike guarded the rear.
Sibbick raised his hand. They stopped behind him, hidden behind the corner of a house. Frank was breathing hard.
“Is she okay?” asked Guppy, nodding at Florence.
“Yeah. But she’s seen a lot,” said Frank. “Too much.”
“Are you her father?”
Frank hesitated. “Yes.” He swallowed, looked away. He felt Guppy’s eyes on his face.
“What do you see, Sibbick?” Guppy asked.
“A single infected ahead. He’s just stood there.”
“Maybe he’s waiting for a bus,” said Gawen.
“Can we get past him?” Guppy said.
“Should be able to,” said Sibbick. “He’s facing the other direction.”
“Okay, let’s move. Keep an eye on the bastard. If he clocks us, take his head off.”
They crept past the man and stopped at the next corner. The soldiers scanned the street, searching for targets.
“Where are we heading?” said Frank. “What’s happening?”
“The world’s ending, that’s what happening,” said Gawen.
“Button it, Private,” said Guppy.
“Sorry, Corp.” Gawen said. He looked at Florence. “Sorry, little lady.”
Guppy cleared his throat. “The town’s been overrun. We lost a lot of lads back there, including our CO.”
“We’re more fucked than a choirboy at a priests’ piss up,” muttered Pike. His eyes were shockingly white.
“We’re heading to the school,” said Guppy. “Before we were cut off from our unit, the order came through to evacuate the town. The last transports will be leaving the school soon. We haven’t got much time. The town’s due to be firebombed within the hour. We’ve lost control.”
The air was sucked from Frank’s lungs. “Firebomb the town. Jesus.”
“We could do with Jesus right now,” said Gawen.
“I only believe in my SA80,” Pike said.
“Fucking atheists,” said Gawen. “Heathens.”
“Piss off.”
“Cut the yap, lads. We’ll have every hostile in the area upon us.”
“Sorry, Corp,” they said together.
Private Sibbick led them along the street. Gunfire and detonations from nearby. Far off screams that caused Frank’s skin to burst into gooseflesh. He held Florence by the shoulders, guided her in front of him.
“What caused this?” said Frank. “What has happened?”
Guppy grunted. “Where have you been for the last few days?”
“On a stag weekend.”
“Lucky bastard,” said Pike.
“It’s a virus,” said Guppy. “As far as we know.”
“How far has it spread?”
“Everywhere.”
“The whole country?”
“Maybe the whole world. We’re not sure.”
Something cold uncoiled in Frank’s stomach.
“Have you heard about any other areas of the country?”
“We haven’t heard much. It’s all a mess.”
“A big fucking mess,” Gawen said.
Frank could only shake his head. “But where has this virus come from?”