“The white van,” said Frank. “That’s the van they took Florence in.”
“Are you sure?” said Ralph.
“Yes.”
Frank was out of the car and approaching the crashed van. He stood away from it, clutching his axe in one hand. Rush of blood in his head. He swayed. He ignored the dull pain throbbing in his muscles.
The van was on its side against a sloped grass embankment. At the top of the slope were trees, their branches creaking, curled and gnarled.
The driver’s door was open.
“Florence,” he whispered. He opened the back doors of the van, stepped back. His eyes were wide and stinging. Insects swarmed within his ribcage, skittering over bone.
“Frank!” Ralph said.
Frank slumped. The back of the van was empty. Dirty blankets piled to one side. Empty tins of baked beans. A stink of sweat and grease. No sign of Florence.
Ralph stood behind Frank. “What the fuck are you doing, mate?”
“She was here.”
“Who? The girl?”
“Her name is Florence.”
Frank barged past Ralph. There was some blood on the road. A scrap of clothing. Tyre marks burned into the tarmac.
“Looks like they hit something,” said Joel.
In the grime and dirt on the side of the van was a small handprint. Small fingers splayed apart. A girl’s hand. Frank traced a finger around it. He went to the cab. Empty. The windscreen was cracked. There were splotches of blood on the driver’s seat.
The others were standing at the front of the van, inspecting the bumper.
“They definitely hit something,” said Joel.
“Blood on the bumper and number-plate,” said Ralph. “Almost looks black.” He touched the bonnet. “Engine’s still warm.”
“Where did they go?” said Magnus.
Joel looked at the blood on the road. “What did they hit? An animal?”
“One of the infected?”
“There,” said Ralph. He pointed down the road.
They turned. A dark shape was lying on the embankment, ten yards away.
Ralph raised the flare gun, walked towards the prone shape. The others followed. Frank swallowed and it was like slivers of metal scraping his throat.
“Roadkill. Lovely.” Ralph spat.
The woman was a broken jumble of twisted limbs. The van had thrown her this far. Skin hung in tatters from her bare legs. Her right foot was turned the wrong way. When the men gathered around her, she moved, gulping a breath of air and fixing what remained of her face upon them in turn.
She hissed; the sound of sickness and hunger. Her chest rose and fell spasmodically. She reached her left hand towards them, as if imploring them for help.
From somewhere nearby rose the shrieks and wails of the infected. The woman listened to them. Her body was shaking. She screamed in reply and the men stepped away.
“Fuck this,” said Ralph. “Let’s go.”
“What about her?” said Magnus.
Ralph looked like he’d tasted something nasty. “Forget her.”
“Where did they go?” said Frank, glancing around. “Florence!”
“Shut up,” said Ralph.
“Florence!”
“Shut up!” Ralph grabbed him.
“Where is she? Where did they take her?”
“She’s gone.”
“Ralph’s right,” said Magnus.
There was something small and white in the grass, half-hidden amongst dandelions and daisies. Frank recognised it. He broke from Ralph’s hold and picked it up.
“What is it?” asked Magnus.
Frank turned it around in his hand. The golf ball he’d given to Florence. He imagined her holding it, terrified and alone, in the back of the van.
The smiley face grinned.
“I gave this to her. To cheer her up.”
The others looked at him.
Frank stared down the road. “I think she’s still alive. They couldn’t have gone far.”
“Fair enough,” said Ralph. He took the axe from Frank’s hand and walked over to the infected woman. She was making a low mewling sound, like a dying cat.
He ended her suffering.
“I’m driving,” said Frank.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
Two miles along the road, Frank stopped the car.
A man and a woman had pinned Mackie, and were peeling him like a soft fruit.
“He’s one of the men who took Florence,” said Frank.
The infected had torn away Mackie’s clothes, which lay strewn around them, ripped and bloody. Their mouths snapped at the man’s body, picking away bits of him.
Mackie was still alive.
Frank grinned, and he didn’t care.
The infected glared at the car, distracted from the meat of Mackie’s tender parts. Wet mouths and mad eyes. They held Mackie tenderly. His mouth was moving. Frank couldn’t hear him.
Mackie reached towards the car with a flayed, dripping-red arm.
The infected gathered him up like a pile of wet rags and dragged him off the road, where they would pull him apart in the deep shadows.
The last thing Frank saw of Mackie was his red hand trailing behind him.
Frank stopped the car on a hill looking down at the surrounding fields and roads. Ahead of them was the village of Loxwood. Ralph swept the area with the binoculars. The village looked empty.
Smoke stained every horizon. War upon the land.
“I see something,” said Ralph.
“What is it?” Frank asked.
“Not sure.”
Frank snatched the binoculars. Ralph pointed to where he’d been looking. Frank saw a flash of movement among the fields. A brief sighting of something pink and small at the edge of the village.
His body tightened. Adrenaline kicked in, dosing his blood.
Three figures were walking across a field towards the village. Two men and a young girl. Bertram, Florence, and the bastard with the balaclava. Both men were injured and hobbling. Bertram was holding a machete. Balaclava corralled Florence along with his baseball bat. Her head was bowed, avoiding eye contact with the men.
Rage was like bleach in Frank’s veins. “It’s them. It’s Florence. We have to get down there before they reach the village and find a car.”
Ralph took the binoculars then looked through them. “What is that down there?”
“What’s wrong?” said Magnus.
When Ralph took away the binoculars from his eyes, his face was severe and concerned. Frank grabbed the binoculars.
Something was following Florence and the men, keeping its distance and hiding from them as it moved closer. A pale tumultuous form flitting between trees and patches of grassland like it was carried on the wind. It moved quickly. Very quickly.
“Oh fuck, what is that?” said Joel.
Frank ran to the car.
They reached the village minutes later. Frank stopped the car and they got out. A baseball bat, speckled with blood, had rolled to a stop by the kerb.
There was a soft gurgling sound from down the street.
“We were too late,” said Frank.
They walked around the corner.
“Oh my God,” said Joel. He put a hand to his face and touched his mouth.
The creature was a travesty of sagging, corpse-white skin and wheezing breath. It held the fundamental shape of a human being, but its flesh and muscle was twisted and wrinkled. Tumours bulged under its skin, expanding and retracting as it breathed through a clenching ruby-lipped mouth. It was hunched over, withered vestigial arms dangling from its body, as it steadily absorbed the man in the balaclava.
The man’s arms moved in spasms. His eyes opened. His mouth opened but nothing came out. No words, just incoherent fear and terror.
“Fuck,” said Magnus.
As they watched, the monster puffed out and expanded like a creeping growth, losing its human shape to a blubbery mass of mottled flesh that enveloped the man slowly, as if the creature were savouring the absorption of its prey. It was like a giant unshelled mollusc. Dozens of small yellow eyes opened on the creature’s body. Prickly tendrils grew from its flanks; some of them sensed Frank and the others, and their slick tips tasted the air like awful tongues.