CHAPTER THREE

 

 

THE RAIN HAD slacked off; the waters had stopped rising, for now at least. The creatures were nowhere in sight. Now and again there was a gleam of green light. No more.

Cold was the enemy now. My teeth chattered. Marta's too. We huddled together for warmth.

With stiff, awkward fingers, I tugged the pistol from my waistband and slid out the magazine. Nine rounds. A tenth in the chamber.

I'd hold them off as long as I could. If they could be killed again. Ten bullets. Eight for them. Two for us.

I put the magazine back in and put the gun back in my waistband. I still shook occasionally. Some of it was the cold. Some was what I'd just seen. The rest was what I'd done. I kept reliving the blow, the feel of the man's nose driven back into his brain. He'd pointed the gun at me, yes. But I'd planned to kill him from the first. I would have done it no matter what, because he was a threat.

Was it like this for you, too, Papa, the first time?

Marta stirred and mumbled. I nudged her and her eyes opened; she moaned, glaring at me for disturbing her. But we had to stay awake; it was too easy, in the cold, to drift off and die. On the other hand, perhaps that way wouldn't be so bad. A warm, toasty feeling, then sleep, never waking again. Peaceful. But...

But if they came for me while I slept, only waking, when they bit into my flesh like a ripe peach...

I shook my head like a dog shaking water, forced myself to sit up straight. I looked up, praying for an aircraft. Some sign of life. Rescue.

But I knew there'd be none. Manchester was many miles inland. If it was underwater, what of the rest of the country? London was on an estuary. London would be gone. And the government? If they were anywhere, it would be in a bunker, keeping themselves safe, jealously preserving what they had. Wherever you went, that didn't change.

And still the cold, pelting rain fell. Marta moaned faintly again, straightening up. "Easy," I said.

"I'm cold," she said.

"Me too, little one."

Nothing else to say or do. Sit here and slowly freeze. Nowhere to go. I looked up Cheetham Hill Road, the people huddled on the rooftops, hunched on the sloping sides. Most were Asian, women in bright saris, men in shalwar kameez, but I saw people of all colours, in smart dress and casual. But the rain, the cold, the terror made everyone more and more alike. A woman caught my eye, middle-aged and plump, in bright sodden clothing, like a half-drowned tropical bird. She forced a trembling smile. I forced one, then looked away. Little customs. Etiquette. None of it meant anything now. No help would come. We'd been abandoned.

Nothing I wasn't used to.

There was higher ground than this, somewhere. Further above sea level. Relative safety, if we could only get there. But even if we crawled along the rooftops, even if we found a path through the huddled crowds there, sooner or later, there'd be nowhere to go but the water. And in the water...

Eyes open or shut, I kept seeing Marianna, pinned down and torn apart.

So far, they'd stayed in the water, or the flooded buildings. They hadn't come out into the open air, onto the roofs. Were they afraid?

What if Marianna came back as well? Could I aim a gun at her, and fire?

Not that it seemed likely. There would be nothing left of her. Nothing that could move. In a way that was almost worse. I imagined pieces of Marianna - a severed head, a string of vertebrae - bobbing in the water lapping out on the landing, empty eye sockets filled with green light.

Someone screamed. I forced my eyes open. The group to my left. The Asian family. A small, chubby man with a long white beard was pointing downwards.

I rubbed my eyes and looked again. I wasn't sure what I was seeing. My vision must be blurred. But I looked again, and I saw the same thing. The water below, filled with points of glimmering light. Green light. Dozens, even hundreds of pairs. All staring upwards. At me.

 

 

I DON'T KNOW how much time passed. I tried not to look, but every so often my gaze would shift, wandering down to the water, and they'd be there. Once or twice I saw new sets of eyes appearing, blinking on like activated lights.

They were gathering.

My fingers were wrinkled from the damp. Marta was very pale. Perhaps hypothermia would get us first. I almost willed it on.

My right hand still throbbed, despite the cold. The heel of the hand. If I fired the gun, that was where the recoil would hit. Christ, that would hurt.

All we could see were their eyes, watching. There were so many of them. And they were already dead. We wouldn't stand a chance. What are they waiting for? What?

When the attack came, it was almost a relief.

A face broke the surface, little more than a collection of holes in a clump of greenish-black sludge. Two hands rose, either side of it. More faces appeared. First in ones and twos, then by the dozen and the score. A forest of faces, jammed together. Rotted, grinning ones. Bloated ones, like maggots with glowing eyes. One was little more than bone. And others that hardly looked dead at all. Except for the eyes.

They reached out of the water, clutching at brickwork, drainpipes, shop-signs - anything that gave them a handhold - and started to climb.

There were screams now, like steel on glass. Deafening. A terrible, helpless sound. But I had the gun. I had the gun.

That made the panic go away; I felt numb, inside and out. Marta clung on to me. But she wasn't screaming. Or crying. I think she'd realised the same as me - with the gun we could cheat the dead things, if nothing else.

I watched them climb with that odd, dull sense of detachment. I wasn't afraid, not then. It had gone out of me. The shock, perhaps. Or perhaps there is only so much a person can sustain before something gives way.

They moved slowly, stiffly. When they brought their arms up and over to grab the latest handhold, it was like watching an old, clockwork machine, badly rusted and winding down.

But with purpose in spite of it all, relentless and inexorable. They climbed over each other - not jostling, not fighting. That was the worst part. They were an army, acting as one. They used one another to advance as a mass. Towards us. A wall of dead, rotting flesh, studded with glittering green eyes.

Hands groped out of the casement, clutched the edge of the frame. A head and shoulders followed. The blue woman.

Dragging herself out, she leant her weight on her arms, and hauled herself onto the casement top. A clumsy forward lunge landed her on the slope of the roof. Crawling on all fours, she began to climb. Her eyes didn't leave my face. It would be easy, if I just kept staring into them. I mightn't even feel anything.

Marta was shaking me. "Katja. Katja. Use the gun."

Screams shrilled across the street. The creatures had reached a rooftop. Brutal, simple tactics. One lunged out, seized hold of someone and pulled. The first brought half a dozen people down with it. Falling, they dislodged others. Pebbles in an avalanche. Three careered straight down the roof's slope and off it into the water, which exploded into churning froth as they were borne under. Others clung to the roofing, tried to stop sliding and climb back up, but more dead things closed on them. A teenage boy slid, screaming and scrabbling, until a dead thing grabbed his arm, twisting it up towards its jaws. Others scrambled in to join the feast.

A dull thudding, behind us. The ones in the back yard. They'd be climbing too.

The blue woman crawled on. Her face opened in a hissing snarl.

"Katja!"

Marta grabbed for the pistol, and I was awake again. I slapped her hand away and pulled the pistol out, took the safety off, fingers stiff and clumsy. The blue woman's hand rose up, clutching and clawing at the air, slapped down on the tiles.

Papa taught me to shoot. So long ago now. I hoped I could still remember.

Aim with both hands, one steadying the other. At the chest, the centre of the body's mass; squeeze the trigger slowly and gently - pull it hard and you'll spoil your aim.

She looked at the gun and cocked her head to one side, almost quizzically.

The gun's bark, jagged in the cold still air. Pain jolted up my arm as the butt recoiled into my bruised hand; I almost dropped it. A brass shellcase tinkled down the roof-slates, and the blue woman reared backwards and fell. Her body slid and rolled till it hit the casement. A hole gaped in the centre of her chest.

Good shot.

The dead things climbing behind her stopped, staring at her. I held the gun ready, smoke drifting from its barrel and breech.

The blue woman's head rocked side to side. She rolled over, showing the ragged exit hole in her back, and started climbing again.

The screams gathered in close, pressing down on my ears like hands. The blue woman's eyes expanded, filling the world.

I aimed at her forehead. If that didn't stop her, I'd turn the gun on Marta and myself, while there was still time for a quick death.

I hardly felt the recoil this time. A small, neat hole dotted the woman's forehead. Dark matter flew out in a spray from the back of her head, like a flock of scattering crows. Her mouth formed an O. She went completely still.

Then her eyes... faded. Like dying lamps. The glow in the empty sockets dimmed, and was gone.

Her limbs locked her in her crouch, then slackened and tipped her backwards, sliding. She thudded to a halt against the guttering, lolling half-over the water. The dead things around her, around us, stopped climbing. One reached out and prodded her. They stared up at us. Then back down at her.

I almost felt a sense of loss. At least the blue woman had been an enemy with a face.

"Katja, behind us," Marta whispered.

It was crawling up the other side of the roof, from the backyard, a tangle of bones and rags clotted with green-black mud that had once been flesh. It suddenly accelerated as if in a speeded-up film, scuttling up towards us like a putrid spider.

I brought the gun across and fired. One eye-socket blew out like a shattered bulb as the bullet snapped its head round. The remaining eye dulled and was extinguished. The remains cartwheeled down the roof, flying apart as they went. They fell into the water and sank. But other faces were filling the flooded backyard.

The blue woman lay where she'd fallen. The other dead things still surrounded her. Then they stepped back and slid down into the floodwater, the lights of their eyes dimming in the murk before disappearing.

 

 

WHEN I LOOKED back down at the yard, that was empty too. They didn't come near us; they left us alone.

Just us.

Perhaps if anybody else had been armed... but they weren't. The roofing in the neighbouring building caved in suddenly, collapsing under their weight. The white-bearded man lost his balance and fell in. The rest of his family shrieked. He screamed too. The dead things crawled out of the hole; the ones who weren't busy devouring him. They swarmed up towards the survivors... and just threw themselves forward, bowling the whole mass of them, living and dead, down the far side of the roof. The shrieks were swallowed up, lost in the churning and thrashing of water, the tearing of flesh and the splitting crack of bone.

I had to look away. Even if it cost me my life, I couldn't look. But I could still hear.

I tried to shut it out. Maybe I succeeded. I can't quite remember when I realised the screaming had stopped. At first I thought I'd gone deaf. But then I registered the hiss and splatter of falling rain, the slap of floodwaters against the buildings. The squeak of rats, the patter of their paws. And the wind; I felt it chill me, and I heard it moan. But there were no more screams.

I had no idea what sounds the dead things might make. Did they breathe? They were dead, after all.

I knew when I looked up, they'd be standing around me, silent and motionless, waiting for me to see them, so I'd know. Perhaps if I didn't look up they'd let me live.

"Katja?"

"Yes?"

"Do you think they've gone?"

"Who?"

"Those things. Whatever they are. They could be all around us."

Great minds obviously thought alike.

"What do you think?" she asked.

"I don't know."

"I think we should look."

We were going to die anyway, if not by the dead things then by cold, starvation, or disease or just falling off the roof when we fell asleep. If we looked now there might be time to use the gun. "I think so too."

"OK then."

"OK." I opened my mouth to count to three.

"They're gone," said Marta.

I looked along the rooftops, across the street. The dead things were gone.

So were the living. Rats scurried along the gutters; two bedraggled pigeons alighted on an abandoned rooftop. But there were no people. None.

Blood splashed the brickwork and tiling; here or there a child's doll lay in a gutter, or a handbag, a shoe, lay on the tiles. The bus's windows, still cracked and blood-smeared, were no longer steamed. The top deck was empty. Anything living had either been eaten or got up and walked, living no longer.

If those things killed us - if we weren't devoured completely - would we become like them?

And where were they?

"Where have they gone?" Marta whispered.

I had no answer.

 

 

WE GREW COLDER and colder. Soon we could barely move.

Perhaps this was their plan. We were dangerous, so they'd retreated, leaving the cold to do their job for them. Just waiting.

The thought was almost appealing. I knew I wouldn't be able to keep awake much longer.

Marta's lips were tinged blue. Her teeth chattered.

"So cold," she whispered.

There was a thumping sound from below.

Tiny lights blinked on in the water.

They'd decided not to wait after all.

I tried to count the shots I'd fired. My brain felt thick and slow. Two at the blue woman, one at the other creature. That was right wasn't it? Ten rounds. Minus three. Ten minus three. What was ten minus three?

Seven. Seven bullets left.

Five for them. Two for us.

Thump. Thump.

The ones in the water weren't moving, just watching. There were others, coming up through the brothel. Would they smash up through the roof beneath us? We wouldn't stand a chance.

I drew the gun, fumbled the safety off, looked across at Marta.

"Don't let them get me." Her voice was hoarse and gravelly; she sounded impossibly old. "Please."

I smiled and touched her cheek. Both felt like someone else's movement. "I won't."

Hands groped out of the casement window. They looked normal, not rotted or discoloured. It was only when the rest of the arms groped out, showing big, ragged scallops of flesh missing from the forearms and biceps, that all doubt went.

It pulled itself free of the casement. I aimed at the head. Aimed. Aimed. Couldn't focus.

"Krysztyna?" said Marta.

Krysztyna. She'd been Polish. Blonde, tall. Very beautiful. Punters often asked for her specially. Less beautiful now. She'd been on the ground floor. Her eyes had been blue. They were still there, but clouded and opaque, lit green from within like grimy bulbs.

She crawled up the roof towards us. After her came Elena. She'd come from the same part of Romania as my mother. A village not far from Timisoara. Her eyes had been dark. Not anymore.

Glass smashed behind us. Down the back of the building, another girl was dragging herself out. Anya. And after her, Sonia, and Hana.

Krysztyna was closing in. My hands shook, the gun barrel jerking to and fro. Shit. Shit. Shit. She was close. I pulled the trigger.

Shaking too much. Missed her entirely, clipped Elena's shoulder instead. She reared back, arms pinwheeling, then began climbing again. Below, another pair of hands emerged. Gabriela. She was the last one. Unless it was Marianna, but surely there couldn't be enough left.

I aimed again. Krysztyna reached out, her hand coming towards my face.

The bullet hit her just left of her nose, and the back of her head blew out. Her eyes went dark and she flopped forward, then slid down the roof to block Elena's path.

I turned around. Anya reached for my dangling foot. I pulled it back and fired again. The top of her head blew off. She dropped, bounced off the guttering and crashed down into the water in the yard. The surface glittered green.

How many shots now? Three had been fired. That left... that left...

Marta was moving, trying to get up. "What are you doing?"

"Standing up. If we hold onto the chimney... they can't grab our feet."

I nodded and stood. Down in the water, they were rising.

This was it, then.

I perched both feet on top of the roof. Marta got an arm round my waist, another round the chimney stack. I gripped a chimney pot's rim. I'd have to shoot one-handed.

Four left. Four.

They were closing in on both sides. Sonia one side, Elena the other. I'd liked Elena more. So I shot her first. End it for her.

Too low. It blew off the bottom of her jaw. A muffled, strangulated moan came out of what was left of her mouth. I aimed at her nose this time. The bullet punched a hole in her forehead.

I watched her fall.

Two rounds left.

Tears swam in Marta's eyes. Mine too.

"Do it," she said, voice calm and clear. She tilted her chin up. Ready.

She closed her eyes.

I put the gun against her temple.

I pulled the trigger.