Berserk (29 page)

“Will you become alive?” he asked.

I already am alive.

“You know what I mean. Will you move? Will you … grow? Change? Fill out?”

You’ve seen me move and you’ve heard me speak. It hurts when I do both, but it feels good as well. It reminds me what being alive means.

“What it mean?” Tom asked, and as the question left his lips its import struck him like another bullet.
does
What does it mean?
It was a question that he had asked many times before, both out loud, and more often silently.

It means so much,
Natasha said.

“I’m not sure . . .”

Being sure of that is what completes your life.

“But you’re so young. Just a girl. How can be sure?”
you

I’ve had a lot of time to think about it.

Tom closed his eyes, but he could not imagine ten years beneath the ground.

It’s not far now,
Natasha said.
Lane tells me there’s an industrial estate a couple of miles further on. It’s small, secluded. We’ll wait for them. They’ll be there soon.

“And then what?” Tom asked.

Then they’ll take me Home.

“And me?”

You’ll be fine,
Natasha said.
I’ll make sure. I’ll look after you.
And there it was, the admission, the proof that it was Natasha who was in control. She went away, withdrawing from his mind and leaving him alone.

Tom drove on, even less sure of the meaning of his life than ever.

* * *

You’ve nearly lost us,
the little bitch was saying.
You’re too far away. Always been too far. Too stupid to find Sophia and Lane, too stupid to kill me, and now you’re going to lose, and you’ll be worth even less than you think. You’ll be worth a spit from my mouth, a shit from my arse. You’ll be worth nothing, Mister Wolf, and nothing is what you’ll get.

Cole did not answer. That she was talking to him, luring him on, was good enough for him. He was used to her ranting and raging – he’d heard it ten years before, and even though now it was all in his mind, he was already used to it again – and he was happy for her to continue, lose control, even though his primal instinct was to cringe away from the unnatural monster. He felt her down in the dark places, stalking his mind as if looking for somewhere new to surface. Perhaps she would drag up another pseudo-ghost to try to scare him. The echoes of Lucy-Anne’s dying voice still haunted him, false though they were. He pictured her pale thighs and black panties, shook his head to clear the image, heard Natasha giggling in the caverns of his mind.
Bitch!
he thought, and he felt her brief spurt of anger.

He smiled. She was luring him on. He questioned why, but did not let that stop him. Nothing would stop him. Cole nursed the .45 in his lap, silver rounds nestling in the magazine.

“These are for you,” he said. “Every single one of them for you.”

Couldn’t do it before, won’t do it this time.

“I will,” he said, “without a doubt, without a twinge of guilt, and without an ounce of regret at never knowing how the scientists at Porton Down changed you.”

Natasha was silent, her presence huge and speechless.

“So, I know something you didn’t think I knew,” he said, smiling.

I’ll tell you more,
she said.
I’ll tell you all of it, if you want to know. Do you want to know, Mister Wolf?

“Fuck you!” he said, and
Yes,
he thought,
yes, I want to know.

I’d tell you what they did, if only you could catch me,
Natasha said, laughing as she pulled away.

How Cole wished he could fire a bullet after her retreating mind.

The others, Lane and Sophia and their children . . . he was trying not to think about what had happened before. It got in the way too much. It obscured his purpose, threw up a roadblock between him and the bitch he was after, and he did his best to keep that past down in the underground with all the other ghosts. Yet he could not shake the memories of their escape from Porton Down, and the things he had found afterwards. The syringes. The strange drugs. The antidote to the silver that Sandra Francis had made for them.

His only way to skirt past the roadblock was to believe that their antidote had worn off.

* * *

Five miles from the motorway Natasha told Tom to turn again. A minor road curved down into a shallow valley, ending at the entrance to the industrial estate Lane had told her about. It was five-thirty when they arrived there, and they drove into the main car park against the flow of traffic. Most people were leaving for home, and a few scattered lights remained on in several buildings. The sun had settled in the west and spread an orange glow across the hilltops. Sunlight caught stray clouds and lit them like Chinese lanterns. The car park quickly emptied until there was only their BMW and two other cars. One industrial unit still had its roller door open, and a man and woman were working on a large piece of furniture inside. Their radio gave the dusk a classical theme.

Tom opened the window and turned off the engine. He breathed in deeply, enjoying the fresh air, relishing the coolness that seemed to light up his body as the sun illuminated the clouds. Beside him Natasha sat still, silent, away. He wondered where she was. Talking with them, probably, the other berserkers. Planning, scheming, working out the best way Home. He pulled down the blanket and looked at her face. There was nothing to see.

He heard a car engine somewhere, but it faded and stopped without him seeing its lights. He tensed in his seat for a few seconds, wondering whether Sophia and Lane were here already. All he knew of them was what he had seen in Natasha’s memories, and he had not liked anything he saw. They had abandoned Natasha and her family; why would they come to rescue her now?
Because I’m a berserker,
she had said, but she also told him that they were simply another species of human. And humans were always prone to betrayal and deceit. Perhaps they would not come at all. Maybe they would give the police an anonymous call, lead them here, and sit back in their Home – wherever that may be – knowing that the last trace of their past at Porton Down had been destroyed.

“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.

* * *

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?”

“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.