CHAPTER TWO

 

 

"MARTA!"

Her eyelids fluttered. The tranced state broke and she focussed on me again. She gripped my wrists tightly, then pulled me up through the trap door.

The first dead thing rose out of the water. The top part of its face still clung to the bone, matted hair hanging from the remaining pieces of its scalp. Marianna, frozen on the landing, stared down at it. A second, equally decayed, emerged a second later.

"Marianna!" She looked up, then scrambled onto the banister. The dead thing seized her legs just as I caught her outstretched hands. Screaming, she fell sideways into space, almost pulling me through the trap after her; Marta caught me round the waist.

My grip broke. Marianna fell back onto the dead things, and all three of them crashed into the brown water. Another dead thing rose. A woman, in jeans and t-shirt like my own. Her skin was blue, but she was unmarked. Except for the eyes; the empty sockets were filled with that green glow, and what looked like dried candlewax clung to her cheeks. Her face was blank and slack.

Marianna screamed my name. Not her mother's or father's, or even God's. Mine. Because I always knew what to do. But there was nothing; already she was beyond help.

They didn't kill her, not outright. That was the worst part. They weren't interested in that. They could hold her down, hold her still. The blue female gripped Marianna's arm at wrist and elbow, then leant forward and sank her teeth into the flesh. She shook her head back and forth, like a terrier with a rat. Marianna's shriek was the sound of a drill going into bones. I'd heard that, once. Ilir arranging a punishment, on someone who'd crossed him. He made us all watch, so that we would understand.

Thick blood began pouring out, down Marianna's arm, down the dead woman's chin. The blue woman pulled her head back.

Skin stretched and split, then the muscles and tendons underneath, as Marianna's drilling shriek rose ever higher. I heard them tearing. Blood spurted out in a vivid, unrelenting spray. I glimpsed white through it. Bone. Something ragged hung from the blue woman's mouth.

The water in the stairwell was red. The other two dead things held Marianna's legs, heads shaking to and fro as they bit. Her free arm flailed about, until a fourth pair of hands seized her wrist. A head lunged out of the water and sank its teeth into her breast.

I pulled Marta away from the trapdoor. Marianna's screams faded, became moans. Shock setting in, numbing the pain. There was that much mercy left, at least. But nothing would take away the sight of those things eating her alive. Perhaps, if she was lucky, she was beyond understanding it now.

But I wasn't.

There were other noises, too. Grunting and tearing. A sound like ripping wallpaper. Skin. A wet splatter, like piss on stone. Blood. And the chewing sounds.

They were eating her. There was still flesh on her bones. Panic is a choice, Papa said again.

While they were eating her, they were not eating Marta, or me.

Marta - she'd wriggled away, across the bare loft floor, huddled in the angle where it met the wood panelling. Her breath was hitching, rapid. Whimpering. So was mine. Faster and faster. My heart, hammering.

I closed my eyes, breathed in deep, then slowly out. In. And out again. Made myself count to ten. Just thinking about the numbers, not about the things eating their way through Marianna's body or what they would do when they'd finished.

Eight. Nine. Ten.

I opened my eyes. Marta was still huddled and whimpering.

I could get further, move faster, alone. Papa might have done the same.

But I chose not to. I cannot quite explain why. Perhaps because she was a child. Perhaps it was something in myself I refused to abandon. Or perhaps because, small, dark and birdlike as she was, she was very like my mother; it might have been that simple.

I dragged her to her feet, shook her, slapped her face.

"We have to get to the roof. Quickly. Before they -" I hesitated, then said it. "- before they finish eating Marianna."

She gulped a weepy, shuddering breath, face twitching. I touched her cheek. "Take deep breaths. You have to stay calm."

I looked around the loft. Any exit to the roof would be behind the thin plywood panelling. Was there a window? I'd never seen the front of the building; on the rare occasions I'd left or entered the brothel, I'd been bundled through a door at the back.

From below came ripping and munching sounds, and the gristly pop a chicken leg makes when wrenched free of the bird's body. Marianna was silent. Hopefully dead.

There was little time. Too much had been wasted already.

The window would be in the middle.

I prodded the wood panelling. It gave easily. Thin. I stepped back and drove a kick at it.

The plywood split. I yelled and kicked again. On the third kick the panel gave way; splinters stung my ankle and shin.

I grabbed at the edges of the hole I'd made, and pulled. "Marta! Help me. Quickly." She saw what I was doing and ripped at the panelling too. Chunks of it tore away. Behind it, wooden planks were nailed across something.

Thankfully the wood was old and soft, the nails pulling free of the brick work.

Please let there be a window behind this. Please.

There was. A casement, a couple of feet deep, and at the end of it, two panes of grimy glass.

I had to crawl into the casement feet-first to get at the window itself. I kicked out twice, with both feet, smashing the glass. Two or three short jabs knocked away the jagged edges.

It was almost silent. Almost. From below, there were still faint chewing sounds. And things breaking. Hard things. Bones.

Soon there'd be nothing left of Marianna.

The best I could hope was to keep us alive as long as possible. When there was no other option, I would find a way to end our lives. Marta I could finish with a single blow, a twist of the neck. For myself I would need a weapon of some kind. Better that than a death like Marianna's.

"We're going to climb up onto the roof," I told Marta.

"What... Katja, what do we do then? They'll just come after us. They -"

"Marta." I put all the authority I could into my voice. It didn't feel like very much, but she stopped talking. "We'll deal with that when we get up there. OK?"

"OK."

"Good," I said, and told her what I wanted her to do.

 

 

THE BIGGEST DANGER is loss of nerve. When I slid into the casement, I had to go head-first, on my back. Just as I was about to put my head out through the window, I pictured the water below, teeming with dead things reaching up for me. You can't stop to think in a situation like that, except about your next move, or it will paralyse you.

If I stuck my head out, it would be grabbed, seized in rotting hands. If I was lucky they would twist and tear, and my head would be ripped from my shoulders. If not, they'd drag me out and pull me into the water, where I'd feel their ragged nails ripping away my clothes to get at the flesh underneath, their teeth tearing pieces of my body away...

... while Marta...

"Katja?"

... while Marta was left on her own, waiting to be devoured. Unless she killed herself first.

I hadn't saved Marianna. But I'd been locked in my room to die, and I hadn't. I'd been treated as a piece of meat, but I wasn't. I was alive. Marta was alive. I'd got us both this far.

I was meat to Ilir, meat to the punters; now I was meat to these creatures. Only the appetite was changed.

Ilir - Ilir was probably dead already. Trapped on the flooding roads, in those infested waters.

But not me. Or Marta. We were alive. Now Ilir knew what it was to be meat.

I started laughing. Even to my own ears, in that space, it sounded like an ugly, jagged sound. But I couldn't stop. It was so funny. Ilir was the meat now, and I wasn't. Not yet.

"Katja!"

Do it, Papa said. Now.

I stuck my arms out through the window and reached for the top of the casement. I wasn't meat now, but I would be if I didn't move.

Nothing grabbed me. I began pulling myself up and out, still laughing. Hands grabbed my legs. I kicked out. Still laughing.

"Katja!"

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry." But still laughing.

The casement jutted out from the slope of the roof. The top of it was flat. With Marta behind and then under me, holding my feet and boosting me up, I was able to climb up on top of it. Then I turned and grasped her wrists as she reached up towards me.

The water lapped around the windows on the floor we'd lived on. Where would it be in our rooms now? Shin, knee, waist deep?

Something bobbed at the edge of the water. A mass of small objects, bristling with brown fur. Rats. Drowned rats. Hundreds of them. Beyond them, the water was full of faces, crammed together, glaring up with dull, impersonal hostility, eyes glowing. Live rats scurried, squeaking, over the roof tiles and guttering.

Water, the deep brown of drinking chocolate, rolled down Cheetham Hill Road and down side-streets and alleyways, frothing and eddying around lampposts and the bus. The bus's windows were steamed up and there was blood on them. Handprints. Shadowy figures moved inside. Eyes glowed behind the windows.

I leant back, pulling on Marta's wrists. She wriggled out of the window and braced first one foot, then the other, on the frame.

Fresh pairs of eyes flickered into life below; new faces swam up through the murk. They were gathering. I mustn't look, mustn't think about them.

Marta was composed now, focussed on the task in hand. I was proud of her. I pulled on her arms, and she walked up the sides of the casement, got a foot up onto the top of it. Then the other. And then she slumped down onto her knees and sobbed, and I stroked her hair and whispered things my mother had said to me when I was little, on nights that were long and sleepless and I saw monsters in the dark.

 

 

THE CASEMENT ROOF creaked under us. If it broke...

I couldn't hear anything from below. No movement in the attic.

When I looked around and across the street, I saw that others had done the same as us. All the roofs were occupied. Scores, maybe even hundreds, of people. Men, women, children. Babies. Grandparents. All huddled on the rooftops. Some clung to the sloping roofs, trying to hold on, feet wedged in the buckled guttering.

All that remained of Cheetham Hill Road were the rows of buildings that had flanked it, steadily sinking from sight as they descended towards Manchester. A mist was gathering. I couldn't see the city, or whatever remained of it.

It was almost peaceful. The only sounds were the lap and splash of the water, and the low, muffled weeping washing in from the rooftops. I looked back down. The faces were still there. Now and then there'd be a faint splash as arms broke the surface. They were treading water.

So far, we were safe. Safe. That was funny. I giggled. Marta stared at me. I made myself stop, forced a smile.

Above the casement, the roof sloped upwards another two or three metres. Just to our right, there was a chimney stack.

"Marta?" I pointed. "We have to climb."

The roof was sharply angled, the tiles wet. One slip... her eyes darted down.

I caught her by the shoulders. "Don't look at that. Don't think about it. Now, listen to me. You're going to go first -"

"I can't -"

"You're going to go first because then I'll be right behind you. If you fall, I'll catch you. And when you get to the top, you can help pull me up. OK?"

At last, she nodded.

"Alright. Go on. Now."

From below, there was a thumping sound. Marta let out a terrified squeak.

"Don't listen. Just climb."

She spread herself out across the tiles, dug in her toes and pushed upwards. Sobs made her back shake.

From below - thump, thump. Something had flopped into the attic space. It was moving around. The thumping got louder. Closer. I wanted to look round. I did not. Would not.

Marta fumbled for a purchase on the tiles. Her hands slid. "Katja!"

"Don't use your hands like that. Spread them flat and press down. Use your feet to climb."

"How?"

"Bring one leg up. Get a grip with your trainer. Then push up. Then with the other. Yes, that's right. Quickly now." I kept my voice as level as I could.

Panic is a choice. Panic is a choice. Panic is a choice.

From below, the thumping grew louder still. I ignored it, had to. Watched Marta climb. Oh please, God, let her make it. I hadn't prayed in years. I would say a prayer for Marianna when we got up there. Even though I did not believe. She had. And she had been a friend. Or a colleague. Something to me, anyway.

Marta was sobbing. She was just a child. A child. Still. Despite everything she'd already gone through. Now this. No child should have to see this. Nor any adult.

She will never make it. Too young, too small; too fragile, too afraid.

"Keep climbing, darling. You can do it."

She was almost there now, close enough to reach out and grab the apex of the roof. First one hand, then the other. As she did, her feet slipped, and her whole weight fell on her hands. She screamed. Her feet scrabbled and kicked desperately, sliding off the tiles. When I tried to catch them, she nearly caught me in the face.

"Marta, stop kicking. Stop kicking." I heard my voice rise. Sweat trickled down my back. How long could she hold on? If she fell, could I catch her? Would I? Or let her fall?

So easy to let her go. On my own, I could take better care.

Responsibility, Katja, Papa said. She is one of yours. And besides, she looks so like your mother.

I lunged out and grabbed her ankles. She screamed again, twisted her head round. Thank God, her grip didn't break. "Marta, keep still!"

This time, she listened to me, and obeyed. I shifted my hands so they were braced under her heels. "I've got you. Alright?"

"Oh god."

"Sh. It's alright, little one." My mother called me that, as a child. "I've got you now. I'm going to push you up. You pull with your arms, and get one leg over the rooftop. OK?"

"Yes."

The thumping was very loud now. "Go on!"

I pushed, and Marta hauled herself up, pulling herself astride the roof. "Katja!"

And the thumping stopped.

Marta grinned down at me, stupid with relief. It lasted for a barely a second. Then she was staring past my shoulder. "Katja?"

I turned. A head stuck out of the window. It was the blue woman. Her glowing sockets stared up at me. Drool welled up in her mouth like blood from a wound. It overflowed and mixed with the blood around her mouth. Marianna's blood. Her hands fumbled at the casement's top edge. Two fingers were without nails.

None of this could be happening. Perhaps my mind had finally given way and in reality I lay on my bed in the brothel unmoving and unaware, a piece of meat at last. What would Ilir do? Probably take me out and bury me in some unmarked grave. Peace of a kind.

"Katja, climb up!"

Marta. She needed me. If this was real, and I gave up, she had no chance.

Perhaps that was really why I saved Marta. To save myself.

But I couldn't look away from the blue woman. We stared at each other - for how long? Seconds, perhaps even minutes. It could have been hours, from how it felt. I waited for her to drag herself the rest of the way through the window. But she didn't. She let go of the window's edge and slid back inside the attic.

I stared at the space where she'd been.

"Katja, come on!"

I turned around, spread myself flat against the roof, and started to climb.

 

 

IT WENT WITHOUT a hitch. I pulled myself astride the rooftop and pointed to the chimney stack. We shuffled along until we were against it. I huddled behind Marta, trying to share body heat. We only wore jeans and T-shirts, and it was still raining. After all this, dying of hypothermia would be ridiculous, but entirely possible. Life has a sense of humour; this much I know. That jagged, ugly laughter bubbled up in me again, and I bit my lips until it passed.

A wind had risen, thinning the mist enough to reveal what remained of Manchester. I'd seen the city once before, from a distance. A private party that Ilir hired us out to. They'd taken us out back, bundled us into a van, told us to be nice, to pretend we were having a good time and happy to be there, happy to be doing this. One of the men must've said something good to Ilir, because he'd been kind to me. Kind for Ilir, anyway. He'd driven me into Manchester. Taken me shopping, bought me shoes and a dress. Taken me to a restaurant, bought me dinner. Then taken me back home to his bed, because he'd bought me.

The city wasn't there any more. All I could see - almost all - was water. Higher buildings stood clear of it, like strange, tall islands, the walls like cliffs. There was a towerblock nearby. A tiny stick figure stumbled out onto a balcony. I wondered if it was alive or dead. It stumbled back inside.

In the city proper I could see the CIS tower, sticking out high above the waters, but not the Hilton building; I had no idea what had happened to it. Other towers stuck up. A few tree tops, some of the taller lampposts. But that was all.

The rooftops were crowded. People huddled atop them like pigeons, clinging to each other. The rooftop beside ours was very crowded. A group of Asians; there must have been at least twenty, of all ages. They were trying to spread out along the roof, towards ours. One woman held a baby in her arms. Someone was shouting. Panic in his voice. Some sobbed, others prayed. I remembered my promise to Marianna and mumbled to myself, something like a prayer. It started with 'God' and it ended with 'Amen', anyway.

The sky was black and empty. Rain streamed down. Lightning flashed, a crack of thunder crashing down from almost directly overhead. Thin, bleating cries drifted from the rooftops. I looked for planes, helicopters. Surely the government would send help? They might deport me, I realised, when they realised who I was. But that was for later. I couldn't think that far ahead. Staying alive. That was all I had. Me and Marta. My little family of one.

The creatures seemed to be staying in the water and inside the buildings. They weren't coming out into the open air.

Not yet.

But until they did, we had some rest. Sort of. But that meant time to think as well, and it was all crashing in on Marta. On me, too. I felt sobs hitching in my throat. I had to stop. I couldn't let go now. I had to keep control.

How long ago had I woken up to this? How long had it taken? From getting out of the room, breaking Marta and Marianna out of theirs? It couldn't have been much more than fifteen, twenty minutes. Fifteen or twenty minutes in which to lose a friend and run for my life - or climb for it anyway - from things that could not but did exist.

I had to stop crying, had to stop crying. I took deep breaths. Counted to ten. It didn't help. Not at first. But I kept doing it, and eventually I felt calm again.

"Get back! Get fucking back!"

I looked up. Then I heard the gunshot.

Marta gave a tiny gasp. Screams from the neighbouring rooftop, a thud. A body flopped and slid down the tiles, smearing blood over them. A woman, middle-aged. Still alive. She hit the guttering, scattering half a dozen squealing rats, then dropped.

Instantly the water erupted into churning froth. The woman screamed; the water turned red.

I couldn't see much more than that, but I saw enough. Arms, flailing and clutching; eyes, glowing. The water heaved - they were swarming. Like piranhas. The woman's screams were cut off and for a moment a scrum of bodies heaved on the surface - some rotting, some bloated, some freshly dead - then sank, but the water continued to heave. And the red stain deepened and grew.

"There, you see? That's what happens. That's what fucking happens. You keep away from me you Paki bastards. Fucking keep away!"

I peeped round the edge of the chimney stack. A man was crouching at the near end of the neighbouring rooftop. He held a gun. The others on the rooftop were trying to move back from him. One man jostled another. The second man shoved the first. They fought, and then they both fell. A woman was knocked loose as they went. Oh, God. It was the woman holding the baby.

I didn't look. I heard the splashing as they landed, and then the screams. The screams. And the other sounds. But I didn't look.

The gunman inched backwards. I couldn't see his face. He was white and wore a leather jacket. It looked expensive. He pointed the gun at the knot of people.

"Stay where you are. Don't fucking move."

His voice sounded ugly, ragged and high-pitched. A man with a gun who'd panicked. Nothing more dangerous. How had it started? Who was he? Someone like Ilir, most likely. None of it mattered now. All that mattered was the gun.

That, and one other thing; he was backing towards our chimney-stack. What would he do when he found us? I pushed myself up into a crouch.

"Kat -"

"Sh." I put my finger to Marta's lips.

The gun would come in useful, if those things came out of the water. Even if it was only so that I could save myself and Marta from a death like Marianna's.

"Don't fucking move. Back. Back."

Someone moved. I didn't see who, I was watching the gunman. But he fired again. There was more screaming. Another body - no, two bodies - fell. I saw them from the periphery of my vision. Then I focussed again. It was the man I had to watch.

I crouched and lifted my hands. One would have to grab the gun. The other...

Papa had shown me all the different ways a man could be killed with a single blow, but I'd never used any of them. I'd spent the last year as a slave, not daring to even think of striking back. But now... I didn't feel the same. It hadn't been long, since I'd broken out of that room, but I felt different. I felt like somebody who could use what Papa had taught me. Who could deliver one of those killing blows. I hoped I was right. There would only be one chance.

He was inching back along the roof. His foot slipped. He yelled, flailing for balance. Was he going to go over and save me the job? No; his free hand grabbed the rooftop and he steadied himself. He was shaking. I didn't know if it was fright or fury. Then he was backing up again.

I could hear Marta's tiny, whimpering breaths. I forced myself to shut them out. And the screams of the poor frightened bastards further down the roof. And the sounds from the water. I just focussed on the man with the gun.

He was almost at the chimney stack now. I could hear his breathing. It was wild and gulping and hoarse.

"That's right. Stay where you fucking are. Don't fucking move. Don't -"

He'd reached the stack, grabbed at it with his free hand. Then he stiffened and whipped round. He had a thin face. Sandy hair. Pale eyes wide in shock and rage and madness. He was only in his twenties. He might have been younger than me. But he had the gun. And then the gun whipped up towards my face -

I hit the inside of his wrist with the edge of my left hand. The gun was knocked sideways and fired, perhaps twenty centimetres from my ear. Marta shrieked. The gunshot felt like I'd been punched in the side of the head. I boosted myself to my feet, driving my right hand upwards, heel-first. I knew the exact spot I was aiming for, at the base of the nose. Papa had taught me this; a blow there, from underneath, can smash the bone up into the brain. Result: instant death.

The angle of the blow had to be just right. If I missed, or got it wrong -

Pain shot down my arm. I felt the give of the breaking bone, and sickness burned the back of my throat. The jarring pain of impact as my hand slammed against the skull. The hot, sick spray on my hand and face as his nose exploded into blood and tissue. The gunman's head rocked back and he dropped the pistol. It slid past us.

He toppled backwards, face splashed red, his nose pulp - blood coming out of his eyes - sliding down the far side of the roof and off the edge.

A dozen pairs of green lights gleamed in the brown water where the narrow backyard had been. As the faces began resolving themselves through the murk, he crashed into the water.

I swayed, off-balance. Marta caught hold of my arms and steadied me. He'd been dead before he hit the water. The heel of my hand was bruised and throbbing.

From the backyard, I heard the waters churn and splash, heard things tear and break.

Marta was wide-eyed and crying.

"It's alright," I told her. "It's alright."

The gun had come to rest on top of the casement. Marta saw where I was looking. I looked back at her. "We need it," I said.

I thought she was going to argue, but she didn't. After a moment, she just nodded. She was starting to look less panicked now. Good. It would be easier if she was able to think for herself a little. Not too much. Not so that she started arguing with me or brooding, but enough that I didn't have to explain everything.

It went smoothly enough. When I reached the casement, I felt it creak under my feet, and tensed, afraid it'd give way. I listened out for thumping sounds in the attic, but there weren't any. I crouched and picked up the gun. Found the safety catch and put it on. Thrust it through the waistband of my jeans. And started to climb again.

By the time I reached the top I was shaking. Delayed reaction. And the cold. I managed a smile anyway. Marta smiled back.

And we settled down to wait.