Hyenas (7 page)

The door to his left, a plywood panelled affair,
painted white, was closed. Shouldering his backpack, Jay walked to the door. He
put an ear to it and held his breath, but all he could hear was his own
speeding heartbeat. He grasped the brass-effect doorknob, at the same time
tightening his grip on the rubberised handle of the knife, and pushed the door
open a couple of inches with his foot. He braced himself to run at the
slightest sound, at even a hint of growl or a giggle, but he heard nothing. He
pushed the door open the rest of the way and stepped back, the knife held out
in front of him in what he hoped was a threatening manner. Again, nothing.

In front of him was a serving counter, with a till,
menus, napkins and a small wicker basket that contained a few pounds worth of
tips. To his right was the dining area, windows overlooking Lord Street and the
Barclays Bank opposite. To his left was a narrow corridor ending in a brick
wall painted white. There were two doors set in the right-hand wall. A brass
sign jutting out from the furthest door told him it was a toilet. The nearest
door, Jay assumed, had to be the kitchen.

He repeated the same tentative two-part process with
the kitchen door: tap it open a couple of inches, wait, then kick it wide and
step back, knife at the ready. There were no hyenas but, in the middle of the
floor, surrounded by pans, utensils, swags of kitchen towel and improbable
quantities of various dried pastas, was a man lying flat on his back, milky
eyes glaring up at the grease-spotted ceiling. His lower jaw had been ripped
off and was sitting on his chest in precisely the spot where a paperback book
might rest during a break in a beach read. In one hand was gripped a
dry-blood-streaked kitchen knife.

Jay retched, once, twice, three times and turned away,
pulling his scarf up over his mouth and nose. There was no real smell of decay
— it was far too cold for that — but there
was
an insistent sour tang that wormed its way down the
back of his throat.

“Okay, okay,” he said. Another dry retch. “Just get
some food and fuck off.”

He scuttled around the body to a counter on the far
side of the kitchen, with cupboards above and below. He stood his backpack on
the counter and went through the cupboards as quickly as possible, just letting
anything he didn’t want fall to the floor and feeling, despite everything, like
a lawbreaker about to be caught in the act. He grabbed crisps, a bag of
sultanas, a packet of Rich Tea biscuits, bread sticks, a couple of tins of
peaches and a jar of Marmite, stuffing them all into his backpack. Once it was
full, he shouldered the pack and turned to the door.

The hyena, face and hands still bloody from its
encounter with the plate glass window, was crouched at the threshold grinning,
and Jay realised he’d left the knife on the counter behind him.

Chapter 9

Still grinning, the hyena hopped forward, for all the
world acting like a child pretending to be a frog. It didn’t take its eyes off
Jay for a second. It didn’t even blink.

Jay shuffled backwards, toward the counter and the
knife. The hyena hopped forward until it was an inch away from the jawless
corpse. It looked at the dead man, looked at Jay then barked laughter.

“Look,” said Jay, holding his hands up, palms out,
like someone confronted by a mugger, someone confronted by a more rational
stripe of violence. “Look, just, I don’t know, just, you know, don’t.”

As he spoke, the hyena’s eyes darted about, seeming to
follow something that was moving around Jay’s head, a fly perhaps, though Jay
could hear no such thing. Or maybe it was simply fascinated by Jay’s breath as
it condensed in the cold air around him, a brief, crumbling white lace.
Abruptly, it lost interest in water vapour or the flight of the silent
whatever-it-was and leapt.

It struck Jay headfirst in the stomach. Winded, Jay
staggered back until he felt the counter against his spine. He reached behind
him, patting the worktop, in search of the knife but finding only crumbs and
grease. The hyena, back on all fours now, displayed scaly teeth, and launched
itself at Jay once more. Jay tried to sidestep the attack but his feet slid in
a puddle of what looked like Branston Pickle and he hardly moved at all. The
hyena’s shoulder slammed into Jay’s chest and his back arched until his head
struck the cupboards above. The hyena hopped back a step then clawed at him
with bloodied hands. Jay raised his arms to fend off the assault and heard his
coat tear as long nails raked into the fabric. He kicked out at the hyena but
twice it leapt back, avoiding the blow, then lunged forward again and renewed
its attack. On the third attempt, the heel of his boot connected with the
hyena’s knee and it let out a yelp of pain and scuttled back a few feet, out of
reach.

Before it could recover, Jay bolted for the door,
knowing he wouldn’t make it and even if he did, then what? It would get him in
the corridor or on the stairs or out on Lord Street.

Jay didn’t even make it to the door. He tripped on the
jawless corpse’s outstretched arm, falling to his knees next to the
sour-smelling body.

The hyena laughed.

Jay snatched at the knife in the dead man’s hand and
clawed it free. He heard the hyena grunt as it leapt, could sense it in the air
above him. He flipped onto his back, his pack propping him up, like an extra
pillow for an infirm loved one. He thrust the knife out above him in both hands.

The blade slipped into the hyena’s chest with such
ease it was as if there was already a perfectly sized slot there just waiting
to house it. A mist of blood speckled Jay’s face and then the hyena’s dead
weight hit him. His arms buckled and the stinking thing was on top of him,
gushing hot blood over his hands and down his wrists. Jay tried to push it off
him, but it was too heavy and he had to content himself with heaving it a
little to one side and scuttling out from underneath it. He kept scuttling
until his back struck the cupboards he’d ransacked less than a minute ago.

He looked down at his hands. They were gloved in blood
and shaking so badly they were almost a blur. A vivid red blur. His heart was
beating so fast he experienced it as a tight rippling throughout his entire
body.

The hyena was lying on its side. Now that it was dead,
it didn’t look like a hyena anymore. It looked like what it was: a dead person.
And Jay realised for the first time that, prior to the Jolt, this particular
hyena had been a girl, no older than nineteen or twenty. She was short and
slight with close-cropped black hair. She wore a black t-shirt with the words
‘It only hurts because it’s true’ printed in a bold, white san serif just above
the almost imperceptible curve of her breasts. Everything about her was small
and delicate, except her jaw which was strong and jutted out in a way that, in
life, would have made her seem perpetually confrontational even when she as
just minding her own business. Jay felt certain that her smile would have been
pretty spectacular, a light-up-the-room affair that would have made people
realise they had her all wrong. He imagined she liked to cause trouble, to stir
things up, all in the name of fun. Probably, she was a colossal pain in the
arse, incapable of learning the difference between enough and too much. She was
fierce and honest and infuriatingly likeable. And she was just a little girl.
And he had killed her. He had pushed a knife into her chest and through her
heart.

Jay saw the Hello Kitty bracelet circling the skinny
wrist of her limp left arm and started to cry.

He cried for fifteen minutes, his knees drawn up to
his chin and his arms wrapped around his shins. As his sobs began to dry out,
he found himself wondering what Dempsey would have made of him — a grown man
crying — and then he realised it was doubtful that Dempsey would have thought
of him as a grown man at all. And, anyway, what did it matter? He wiped his
tears away with the back of his sleeves and got to his feet.

He washed most of the blood from his hands using the
water that had been sitting in the pipe since the Jolt and had, thankfully, not
frozen. He shook them dry. There was an apron hanging from a hook near the
door; Jay fetched it and did his best to cover the dead girl. He thought about
pulling the knife out, to make her look as normal, as unmurdered, as possible,
but he just couldn’t bring himself to do it. He considered saying a prayer but
suddenly realised that, aside from about three quarters of the Lord’s Prayer,
he didn’t actually know any. He only knew Blake.

So, he knelt down next to her, laid a hand flat
against the top of her head (because it seemed like the right thing to do,
somehow) and said, “In the age of gold, free from winter's cold, youth and
maiden bright, to the holy light, naked in the sunny beams delight.”

He stood, trudged from the kitchen, onto the landing
and down the stairs. As he was about to step out into the cold, a man wearing a
combination of army fatigues and police riot gear, complete with visored
helmet, stepped into view. He was holding a small, black assault rifle, which
he was pointing directly at Jay’s face.

Voice muffled by the visor, he said, “What’s your
favourite Beatles song?”

Chapter 10

“What?”

“Beatles song. Favourite. Which one?”

“Fuck off,” said Jay, surprising himself. He could
feel anger forming inside him, a knot in his gut and a hot, red buzz in his
brain, a kind of mental inflammation. His fists were locked in a cycle of
clenching and unclenching, clenching and unclenching.

“What?”

“I told you to fuck off. I’m tired and cold and I’ve
just murdered someone. Or I think I have. I don’t know.”

“Favourite. Beatles. Song.” With each word, the man
jabbed the gun in Jay’s direction.

Jay looked at his hands, still clenching and unclenching;
although he’d washed off most of the blood, there was a dark crust under and
around his fingernails and the grooves of his knuckles were filled in deep red.

“Octopus Garden,” he said.

The rifle butt struck his right cheekbone before he
even knew what was happening. He dropped onto his backside, legs splayed, then
flopped as far back as his bulging backpack would allow.

“That’s enough, Williams,” said a different voice.
This voice wasn’t muffled. It was deep and commanding, broad Scouse but clear
and precise.

“Sir, he said ‘Octopus Garden’, sir. Favourite Beatles
song, sir.”

“He looks like he’s had a bit of a rough time of it,
Williams. Probably doesn’t know what he’s saying. Leave him to me.”

Jay sat up. The owner of the voice was wearing a
similar uniform to Williams, military meets riot squad, but no helmet or visor.
He was taller, a lot taller, about six foot four, with a heavyweight boxer’s
build — all shoulders and arms. His hair was cropped down to less than half an
inch. “Fall in, Williams,” he said.

“Yes, sir,” said Williams and dropped back behind the
man Jay felt certain was Sergeant Pepper, where there were six other
militiamen, all clad in the same motley fashion as Williams, all carrying
assault rifles.

Sergeant Pepper had no assault rifle, just a pistol
holstered at his side. Jay imagined this was intended to mark him out as
‘officer class’.

“Looks like you’ve been in the wars, lad,” said
Pepper, gesturing to Jay’s blood-flecked face. “Trouble with the jokers, eh?”

“Hyenas,” said Jay, getting to his feet. “I call them
hyenas.” He had liked it when Dempsey called him lad, but Pepper didn’t look a
day over forty and it seemed like too forced an attempt to establish seniority.

“Hyenas,” said Pepper, smiling a little. “That’s new.
Like it.” He pointed at Jay’s hands. “So, I take it you killed one? One of
these hyenas?”

“Suppose so,” said Jay looking down at his hands again.

“Suppose so? You weren’t sure?”

“It was a hyena. Then I killed it and it wasn’t a
hyena anymore. It was just a kid. A girl.” He thought he might start crying
again. The sorrow mixed with his growing anger and formed something that was
almost unbearable.

“You did what you had to do. We need people who do
what they have to do. But don’t think because you’ve survived this long you’ve
got what it takes. Not yet, anyway. When the End happened, it was, what, eleven
o’clock, Sunday morning? And you were here, in the city centre? Shops had just
opened. A few hundred consumers milling about. The suburbs is where the real
shit went down. And that’s where you’ll earn your stripes, lad.  What’s
your name?”

“Jason Garvey. And you’re Sergeant Pepper.”

“Yes. That’s what they call me, Garvey.” A cold smile
came and went. “I prefer Vaughan, though.”

“Sergeant Vaughan?”

“Edward Vaughan. Just Vaughan to you.” Pepper — Jay
couldn’t think of him as Vaughan or anything else for that matter — took a step
toward him. “Are you with us, Garvey?”

“I don’t have a choice, do I?”

“Of course you have a choice. You can choose to join
us voluntarily or you can be drafted.”

“That’s a choice?”

“Of sorts. But, one way or another, you
are
going
to help me take this city back from the jokers.”

“Well I suppose I don’t have any choice but to choose
to come with you, then, do I?”

Jay was suddenly aware of the sarcastic bite in his
voice and realised he wasn’t afraid. For the first time since the Jolt, fear
wasn’t at the forefront of his consciousness. He wasn’t scared of these men
with their guns. That being said, he was under no illusion that he would have
to go with them, but it wouldn’t be fear that drove him to that decision,
rather it would be simple common sense. He didn’t want to be shot or
pistol-whipped but neither was he afraid of the bullet or the rifle butt.

He had no idea why he was so unafraid all of a sudden.
Maybe it was because he had fought, killed and survived. But he didn’t think
so. Maybe he was still in shock and once the adrenalin had run its course, he
would collapse into a trembling jumble. But he didn’t think it was that,
either. What he thought was, I killed that girl with the Hello Kitty bracelet,
I murdered her, and now whatever happens to me, I’ve got it coming, I deserve
it, maybe I even want it.

There was a commotion behind Pepper, and then Williams
said, “Christ, would you look at that. A fucking horse.”

A horse —
the
horse — thick curls of steam rising from its back and
flanks, had come from their right, from North John Street, showering the window
of the Abbey National with chunks of white shrapnel. For a second, it looked as
if it was going to plough right through them, and the militiamen began
scuffling about, uncertain which way to move. A couple of them raised their
weapons. Then, the horse veered away from them toward the middle of the street
and thundered by. Jay could feel the percussion of its hoofs in his diaphragm,
a slightly nauseating jitter that made him think of Jenny Lasseter again.

“Thanks,” he said.

“For what?” said Pepper, not looking at Jay, still
watching the horse as it crossed Whitechapel and headed up Church Street.

“Not you,” said Jay. “The horse.”

Pepper turned to look at him then, his expression
somewhere between bewilderment and irritation. He took a pair of handcuffs from
his belt and started toward Jay.

“Oh, bollocks!” blurted Williams.

The hyenas had arrived, just as Jay had known they
would, eight of them so far and who knew how many more were still to come?

The militia began firing. Pepper dropped the
handcuffs, pulled out his pistol and rushed forward to join his men.

Jay turned and ran, dipping back into the narrow side
street from which he'd only recently emerged. He thought he heard someone bark
his surname but it was impossible to be sure with the sound of gunfire bouncing
off every surface, creating a painful mosquito whine in his ears.

Maybe it was the sight of the horse, its refusal to be
brought down, but he was suddenly filled with a crackling, roaring energy. He
felt strong, unstoppable.

As he neared the end of the side street, he was
certain he heard his name called out. Then, a gunshot, this one qualitatively
different from the others, and he knew someone — Pepper, almost certainly — was
standing at the Lord Street entrance, shooting at him. Sparks flew from the
wall to his left a few feet ahead of him. Another shot. Sparks to his right.
Warning shots. But Jay didn't heed the warnings. At the end of the side street,
he turned down Harrington Street, sprinting between the two halves of BHS, the
walkway over his head. He didn't let the sight of too many bodies to count
littering the floor and tables of the BHS restaurant slow him down or dent his
sudden sense of strength and purpose. He didn't let the blood smeared windows
or that thing that might have been coils of red rope hanging from one of the
light fittings undermine his newfound energy and determination. He kept
running. When he reached a side street branching off to his left, toward Mathew
Street, he considered taking it, because it would lead him away from Pepper and
his militia. He considered it. But only for a second. This was the new Jay. He
needed to get to Liverpool One, to Waterstones and the book he would need to
sail the
Jerusalem
out into the Irish Sea; Mathew Street, though
undoubtedly safer, was in the wrong direction. He continued down Harrington
Street until it became Button Street — with its Bistro Pierre, Ted Baker and
American Apparel — following it round onto Whitechapel.

He could still hear the sound of gunfire as the
militia fought the hyenas. He risked a glance behind him. There was no sign of
Pepper. He wondered how he was going to get to Waterstones without being seen.
The quickest way would be straight along Whitechapel, onto Paradise Street and
up College Lane, but that would mean running across the wide intersection with
Lord Street, in plain view. But there were no other options. He’d just have to
hope Pepper was otherwise engaged. He took three deep breaths, the freezing air
cooling the inside of his lungs, and set off along Whitechapel.

At the intersection, he glanced up Lord Street, in
time to see the last of the militiamen turn into the side street down which
he'd fled, doubtless in full pursuit now. It was only because he'd witnessed
the opening salvos of the skirmish that he was able to identify the dark,
shapeless clumps lying about the snow as dead hyenas.

He was hoping Pepper and his men were heading toward
Mathew Street, away from him — because if they weren't, they'd emerge onto
Whitechapel any moment now and spot him for sure — when, his eyes still fixed
on the fallen hyenas, he tripped on something and fell. He pushed himself up
onto his knees and was about to spring to his feet, when he found himself
looking into a fist-sized head wound. Alice Band's brutal handiwork. Blood was
still leaking from the boned-edged hole, viscous now, moving like wax down the
side of a burning candle, quick at first, then congealing to a standstill,
reminding Jay of just how little time had passed since he'd crouched outside
Vero Moda, swooned and brought about Dempsey's death.

He scuttled backwards, away from the body, and stood.
He could feel the strength leaving his legs. Worse, he could feel his recently
acquired determination and energy seeping away.

He ran, hoping it was simply the sight of the corpse
that was leaching his resolve, that if he put it behind him, he'd be enervated
once more. Ten paces later, a stitch began to hack at his side and needles of
pain stabbed at his shins.

He tried to think of the horse, to summon it in his
mind, a totem, but all he could visualise was the black hole in the dead man’s
skull, impossibly deep, with its steady and seemingly endless trickle of blood
and grey matter.

As he turned up College Lane, his vision began to
blur, a combination of sweat running into his eyes and sheer breathlessness.
The smell of coffee from the Starbucks on the corner was so normal, so
pre-Jolt, he almost began to cry. On the opposite corner, two stories of
mannequins watched him through logo-plastered plate glass windows. And
suddenly, the strength was draining from his legs and he could hardly be said
to be running at all. The small set of granite steps halfway along the street
did little to ease the effects of the steep incline and he had to stop,
dropping first to one knee then the other.

From where he knelt, the cold drilling into his
kneecaps, he could see Waterstones stretching off on his right, toward the
corner of College Lane and Manesty’s Lane, a great wedge of a building, too big
to be a bookshop, the architecture somehow more appropriate to a cinema.
Surrounded by clothes shops, it had always seemed lost to Jay, its days surely
numbered.

Even before he’d wiped the sweat from his eyes and
blinked everything back into focus, he knew something was wrong: the way the
thick blanket of frozen snow seemed to have retreated from around the bookshop,
drawn back several feet to reveal slate-grey paving stones. And then,
confirming his worst fears, his nostrils prickled with the smell of ashes, and
he noticed the thick, black scorch marks rising up the broken windows.