Breeding Ground (14 page)

“Oh shit.”

The words drifted quietly in through my open driver’s window, and I looked up to see John, his mouth a wide O backing away round to the other side of his Land Rover, just as the suspension rocked slightly beneath us.

Signalling furiously, Dave climbed out of his fourwheel drive, his voice a blur, shouting from too far away. Staring at him quizzically, I finally figured out the last three words

“… under the car!”

The car shook again.

“What the fuck was that?” Nigel leaned forward, filling the small gap between the two front seats. “Just what the fuck did that?”

I didn’t know, and I didn’t want to know. “I think something’s under the car.” Something. The word hung in the air. We all had a pretty good idea of what that something might be. Without thinking, I pushed down

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the lock on my door, and George did the same on his side.

“Oh Christ.” The old man’s normal calm trembled. “Look at that.”

Two white, slick limbs appeared on the bonnet in front of us, tapping and scratching on the paint, the clawed translucent end screeching like fingernails on a blackboard as it dragged itself towards us.

“This might be a good time to do your window up.” He didn’t look at me, just stayed staring ahead.

“I can’t. The electric’s not working.” To make my point I jabbed the button next to the shift stick a few times. It was no good. Struggling with the keys, my hand shook as two more shiny limbs stealthily appeared, followed by the first angry row of red, unnatural eyes. Again the engine could only moan. Nigel made a similar noise as he pushed himself as far back into the rear seats as he could, yanking at the door.

“It won’t open. It won’t open.”

George pulled at the button he had only just pushed down. That too refused to budge. “What is going on? How can it do that? How can it stop the car from unlocking?” Panic was rising in his voice, and with my head filling again with Chloe talking to Helena in our darkened living room, with the knowledge that we barely knew what these things were capable of, my stomach cramped with my own dark fear.

The bank of eyes grew like hateful rising suns, and beyond them was the smooth rounded surface of the thing’s body. “Come on, come on.” I turned the useless key again and again, hoping for something.

Hissing, all stealth forgotten, the widow leapt upwards, slamming itself into the windscreen, its

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mandibles clacking hungrily at the glass. I don’t know who screamed first or whether panic overtook us all at the same time, but amongst the others, I could hear my own cry as I raised my hands to protect my face. Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ. It was coming for us. It wanted us.

Pulling back, it launched at the glass again with such force that its grotesque lower body should have burst on impact. Instead, it quivered like a distended water balloon as the legs sought purchase, one clinging to the inside of my open window, the creature’s furore finding release in an unholy high-pitched wail that seemed to come through its damp skin rather than mouths.

“Oh shit, oh shit…” Sweating, my shaking fingers pulled too hard at the key ring and the ignition key clattered to the foot well beneath me. The shrieking stopped as the widow twisted, suddenly aware that two of its legs were creeping inward; it froze on the bonnet for a split second before turning, realising its advantage. A small gust of wind caressed my cheek, as if teasing me through the gaping hole in our armour.

“Just close the fucking window! Just close the fucking window!” Nigel’s warm spit rained onto the tips of my ears as he screeched from the rear, his fist pummelling into the back of my seat.

“I fucking can’t, all right?” As I yelled my frustrated words at his reflection in the rearview mirror, the disgusting thing on the bonnet took a small, terrifyingly agile jump to the right, still pressing itself into the glass, shifting towards my window, the legs that were close enough stabbing inside, trying to find the leverage to haul its repulsive body in and upon us.

“Christ.” Releasing my seatbelt, I wriggled to the

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left, pushing myself over with my feet until I was wedged in beside George. As two spindly legs hooked into the driver’s door, a third reached for me, stopping only two or three inches from my sweating face, stretched almost straight from each of its joints, some clear gel-like substance starting to ooze from its pointed tip turning white in the air before dripping onto the driver’s seat and controls below.

In the corner of my vision I could see the burning eyes seeking me out through the thin protection of glass, and there was intelligence in them; angry, hateful intelligence, calculating the attack, taking its time, knowing we were no match for it.

Fumbling hastily beside me, George flipped open the dashboard and scrabbled inside. “There’s nothing in here. I can’t find anything.” The frustration screeched in his trembling voice as the mundane and useless bits of life gone by tumbled out onto the floor. His elbow nudged into me as he reached desperately further within the dark recess, pushing me a breath away from the spewing legs that stretched out dripping their almost-liquid juice millimetres from my jeans and face. I allowed my eyes to flash at him for a second, the heat of fear burning my face.

“Jesus, George!”

“Sorry… sorry…”

Beneath me, I could feel the thin brittle bones of his legs as I pressed into them, my body almost sitting on his lap, the sweat from my terrified skin no doubt melting into his. Behind us, Nigel scrambled to the other end of the backseat as the window became filled by the bulbous midsection of the nightmarish, sectioned, translucent torso.

“It’s coming in, isn’t it? This isn’t exactly how I saw

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this all ending. Not quite so soon.” The brutal futility in George’s voice was inescapable, and I stared at the pulsing alien, which slowly twisted and bent itself in front of us so that its eyes dipped into view, pausing to enjoy its moment of power.

It hissed at us in victory, filling our vision, and as we flinched and pulled back against the locked door, eyes squeezing tight, it mirrored us in preparation for the final attack. My heart pounding, I waited to feel its awful skin against mine as it came through the window.

Instead, the hiss turned into a screech and my eyes flew open in time to see the widow twist angrily around and leap from the car. Behind it, everything was happening so fast that I couldn’t take it in. Flames and smoke leapt from something in Dave’s hand, and despite my shock I heard myself yelling at him to back away, the thing was too close, it was far too damn close to him, twisting and turning and lashing out, and then for a second the man was lost in a blur of limbs and people and smoke, and all I could see was John beating at it with a golf club and Katie coming in close, creating flames of her own with a large aerosol can and a lighter, her pretty face tight with grim determination. From beneath them a dark, thick smoke rose upwards, spreading its putrid aroma into the atmosphere. The insides of my nostrils burned, as the screeching finally stopped.

For a moment none of us moved, and all I could hear was the panting of those outside, and the pounding of my trembling heart inside, until eventually there was a bout of dry coughing from ground level and Dave pulled himself to his feet.

With my fingers chilly at the tips and clumsy with numbness, where no doubt the blood had withdrawn

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in mortal terror, I tried the lock. The button slid up smoothly and I stepped outside, looking down at the mangled leftover of the widow on the ground, my guts turning.

His lungs clear, Dave sniffed. “Well, at least we know the pissed off bitches can die.” His smile was wan and I could feel that the one I returned wasn’t exactly confident. George appeared quietly beside us. “What happened to your wrist?”

Following the old man’s gaze, I saw that Dave had one arm held carefully in his other hand. A small patch of blood crept through his shirt, staining it brightly. He shrugged. “I think it bit me. Doesn’t hurt much. I don’t think it was deep.”

George nodded. “That’s as may be, but I think we’d better get it cleaned up and bandaged before we go. We can’t take any risks.”

Dave didn’t fight the suggestion too hard, and I had a sinking feeling in my stomach as we sat subdued and silent, watching Katie and George work, that Dave had lied a little about the pain. The thin veneer of sweat on his pale face hinted that the bite was bothering him more than he let on. It was bothering him enough not to fight Katie’s suggestion that she drive his car, at any rate.

Above us the clouds were darkening, giving the afternoon the impression of being much later, and it seemed to me that we had all aged a little in that twenty minutes or so. Just how long would we survive in this new world? And just how long would we be able to keep trying? Finally ready to get moving, I slid back into the driver’s seat of the truck, not taking much comfort from my quiet passengers, and this time

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when I turned the key, the engine purred into life without a hitch.

As we pulled away from the glass and metal city, heading out of the manufactured grid system and into the older, wilder Buckinghamshire, I resisted the urge to look back. In fact, none of us turned in our seats. Perhaps we all realised that to look back was pointless. There was nothing there for us now except lost dreams and lives and loves. To look back meant death.

There was one thing I was beginning to be sure of-if we were going to survive this thing, then we needed to concentrate on the future.

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Chapter Eleven

We’d been driving for about twenty minutes when the clouds roared and ripped themselves open, releasing their heavy wet cargo. The noise of the water beating against the windscreen was a welcome relief from the silence. None of us felt like talking, and although I’d put a CD on when we’d first left Milton Keynes, the haunting sounds of the past were too much to bear, and when I turned it off, there were no complaints from my passengers.

I peered through the rhythmical sweeping of the wiper blades. The water seemed to be coming in sheets, whole puddles falling from the skies rather than drops, as if even the forces of nature were trying to wash us from the face of the earth. The world beyond the glass was a constantly shifting blur and I slowed down, dropping a gear. “This is all we need,” I muttered, leaning forward slightly, my eyes squinting.

The wide dual carriageways of the new city had started to weave into the smaller darker roads that led into the outlying villages, and with the rain and clouds

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blocking out the natural light and evening slowly coming upon us, we could have done with the benefit of street lamps. Beside me, George was equally alert, scanning the road ahead and its borders for any sign of widows, and I could feel the tension in his body. I glanced in my rearview mirror for a moment to check that the others were still close by. Katie was driving the car behind me, and I didn’t like the idea of her getting into any trouble whilst I was too lost in my own thoughts to notice. From her hesitancy when pulling away from the supermarket, I’d guessed that she didn’t have too much experience in handling a big fourwheel drive, and although Dave would be talking her through it, in his injured state I wasn’t sure how much comfort or relief he would be.

“So, where are we going to go?” Nigel’s voice was calm, none of the irritating whine I now associated with him present. In fact, he just sounded the way I felt-tired to the bone. Maybe the shock of the attack had knocked that pretentious defensive-aggressiveness out of him. Glancing behind me, I reckoned I’d still be happier when he finally loosened that ridiculous tie. I reckoned he would be, too. I couldn’t see ties featuring heavily in the immediate dress code of our new society.

“I don’t know. Right now, I’m just heading out of Milton Keynes. You got any suggestions?” I hoped he had, because despite having lived around Buckinghamshire all my life, my brain was pretty empty on ideas.

“London?” He leaned forward. “Maybe the government’s got some kind of control of what’s going on there.”

The good old faith in they again rearing its head. It seemed logical, but the thought of that teeming

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London population, half of it evolved and hungry, turned my stomach. What if we got there to find widows spewing their sticky trails over Downing Street? All I could see for the moment was a vivid image of Tony Blair, cocooned and terrified, as the unrecognisable Cherie approached for an afternoon snack. Perhaps we weren’t quite ready for London yet.

“I was thinking more along the lines of an army base or something. Somewhere with relatively good defences where there may be some more survivors.”

He nodded, but there was a small flash in his eye at the disagreement. The kind of look that said, You’re talking shit, and if I wasn’t so dependent on you right now and if I wasn’t so fucking tired then I’d so enjoy telling you where to shove your better ideas. Maybe the pain in the arse Nigel was still alive and kicking in there after all. But right now, I didn’t have the energy for him.

“It’s just a suggestion. Maybe London is the best place to head.”

“I’ve got an idea.” George twisted in his seat so that he could see both of us, and his ancient face was very much alive, his eyes bright. “There’s a place out by Hanstone. It’s a government place, Foreign Office, I think. A lot of the guys down at the bowls club used to work up there. It must be pretty secure, I mean it’s surrounded by barbwire and high walls, and I think we can’t ask for much more than that.” Listening to him, I felt my own tiredness lifting a little.

“But the best thing is,” as he spoke he allowed himself an optimistic grin, “it’s a communications centre. That’s what the old boys at the club used to specialise in, anyway. So if we can get some contact with the

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