Coldbrook (Hammer) (16 page)

‘What’s he shouting?’ Tommy asked.

‘Don’t know,’ Jayne said. ‘Maybe there’s been a smash?’

‘Yeah, must’ve been.’

They walked on, still holding hands and moving a little faster now, eager to see what had happened even though Jayne didn’t really want to.

From behind the fold in the land to the north rose a wisp of smoke, dancing with the breeze. The wisp soon became thicker, and in seconds the smoke was dark and billowing.

‘Tommy . . .’

‘Yeah. Come on.’ They moved faster, although Jayne couldn’t see what they could do. The guy with the mobile phone was running for the far end of the car park, and several other people were moving uncertainly in that direction. The emergency services would have been called, and to cause smoke like that a fire must have taken hold quickly. Maybe a fuel tank had gone up. Her heart thudded and, much as she had no wish to see, human nature drew her on.
Everyone loves a train wreck
, Tommy had once said when they were stuck in a traffic queue. A mile and an hour later, they’d passed a crashed car and two people being attended by paramedics.

‘Jesus Christ,’ Tommy said, ‘that guy’s leaking claret!’

A man was stumbling along the narrow road towards the car park, emerging from behind the trees, and he seemed to be painted from head to foot in red. From this distance Jayne couldn’t be sure, but she thought he was bald and naked from the waist up, the dark red creases that might have been a pattern on a shirt looking more like terrible gashes across his shoulders and stomach.

‘Tommy,’ she said softly, and he turned to shield her from the sight, holding out his hands. ‘No,’ she said. ‘We’ve got to go and help. You still got that first-aid kit in the trunk?’

‘Yeah.’ His eyes were wide with shock, and she could see that he was struggling to hold it together.

‘Let’s go, then,’ she said. ‘Looks like that cellphone guy’s going to reach him first, and . . .’ She trailed off, because the blood-soaked man had fallen to his knees. He pitched forward just at the entrance to the car park, and there was an audible gasp from all observers when his head struck the ground.

The man with the cellphone reached the prone body, and he stood a couple of feet away with his hands held out from his sides. He looked around, as if searching for support, then knelt by the other man’s side.

The smell of burning filled the air now, and there was another thump as the unseen vehicle’s petrol tank went up. A billow of smoke rose beyond the trees, supported on a ball of flame.

‘Someone called the fire department and paramedics?’ Tommy shouted. He received a couple of positive responses, then he and Jayne reached the car park and ran to his old Toyota. She grimaced as she ran, the movements grinding pain into her hips and knees, but she was the lucky one here. She was not bleeding.

‘Tommy?’

‘I can look after him until the paramedics get here,’ he said, and she could see that he was shaking. It took three tries for him to slip his key into the lock, and when he glanced back at her she could see the shock in his expression. She nodded. He’d taken a basic first-aid course so he could look after her when she suffered her
infrequent churu blackouts.
Not quite comas
, a doctor had told her, and she’d wanted to ask
What the hell do
you
know?

The man was standing up. Jayne frowned, already seeing something wrong with the angle of his limbs as they pushed him upright, like a newborn deer just finding its legs, unfamiliar with gravity and light and everything in the world.

‘Tommy.’ She pointed.

The cellphone guy was still there, standing with the blood-soaked man. He reached out and not-quite-touched him, perhaps afraid of hurting him – he seemed to be covered with wounds, Jayne saw, slashed and holed and torn – or maybe afraid of what this meant. Because the man shouldn’t be standing like that. Even from a hundred feet away Jayne could see that the agony had slipped from his face, along with the open-mouthed panic. There was something else there now.

As she tried to identify it, he lurched against the cellphone man, slung one arm around the back of his neck, and bit into his scalp.

‘Shit!’ someone shouted, and Jayne thought,
Yeah
. A man shouted in shock. A woman screamed. A kid squealed for its mommy.

‘Jayne . . .’ Tommy said, his hand still on the car door. ‘Jayne . . .’

‘Someone help him!’ Jayne shouted. A car door
slammed and a big guy with a long beard and long grey hair trotted past them. He was carrying a hunting rifle.

Cellphone guy screamed. It was a terrible sound in that tranquil place. The blood-drenched man pushed him away, ripping a chunk from his face and spraying the air with gore. It pattered down on the dry car park, but Jayne saw it painted on the air for ever, hanging there like a still from some horror movie. He chewed and spat, then turned to the car park.

Behind him the cellphone man had collapsed, and Jayne thought,
If I was him I’d be running like hell
.

The blood-soaked man stood silently. And then he ran.

‘Get in the car,’ Tommy said. He opened the door without taking his stare off the running man.

‘No, I’m not—’ There were more people running around the bend in the road from the direction of the unseen fire. Jayne counted five, and they were all wrong. Some were stained dark with dried blood. A young girl was wearing a bunny outfit, one leg ripped open. One man seemed to have lost an arm at the elbow, the remnants of clothing and flesh flapping as he ran. The only sound of their progress was the slap, slap, slap of feet on the road surface, and Jayne thought,
They can’t
all
have been in the car
.

The guy with the gun stopped and braced himself, lifting the rifle and aiming it at the running, blood-covered man.
I don’t want to see anyone shot
, Jayne
thought, thinking of Johnny and how they said he’d been found. But the gunshot never came. The man seemed unable to pull the trigger, and the blood-drenched man barrelled into him and knocked him back off his feet. They struggled on the ground, the rifle held sideways between them, and as the attacker’s teeth audibly snapped at the big man’s face he used the gun to shove him aside.

The long-haired man stood, looking around the car park as if for help. And then behind him the cellphone man got to his feet, and Jayne could see the mess of his chin and throat.

‘In the fucking car, now!’ Tommy hissed.

‘You too!’

‘Jayne—’

‘The police will be here! You too!’

‘Look out!’ someone shouted, and the rifle guy spun around. He brought the gun up, and this time Jayne knew he was going to use it. But the blood-covered man took him down again, and moments later the cellphone guy reached them, and together they bit and clawed while the big man screamed like a wounded pig.

‘We need to go!’ Jayne screamed, eyeing the girl in the bunny outfit as she raced into the far end of the car park. The one-armed man followed, scattering the crowd ahead of him, some diving for their cars, a couple more running in panic with no thought of direction. Jayne started
shaking uncontrollably, each shiver prompting stabs of pain from her burning joints. Her vision swayed and swam, darkening briefly, and she thought,
Oh no not now not now
.

A car started somewhere, then another, and she heard the screech of tyres as they sped away. She staggered to the door that Tommy had opened for her and fell in, pressing her head back against the seat. She bit her lip. Her vision cleared a little, and she saw that Tommy had slammed the door.
Tommy, you should be in here with
—

He moved in front of the car and looked along the car park, and a Mazda Miata struck him and flipped him over its hood. He rolled over the windscreen and spun in the air as the vehicle passed beneath him, his head striking first trunk and then the ground as it sped away.
That woman had blood in her ear
, Jayne had time to think, a heart-stopping detail, and then she processed what had happened.

‘Tommy!’ she screamed. ‘
Tommy
!’

Someone fired a gun, three times in quick succession.

Jayne cracked the door open and put her right leg out, hanging on to the frame to lift herself up. The fainting spell had passed but she felt so pathetically weak, and now Tommy needed her and there was no way she could let him down. No way. She stood away from the car, and the gun fired again. Across the car park, a Prius had its windscreen shattered by a stray shot.

People screamed and ran. Car engines roared. Someone was on the ground not far away, a young teenage boy, and a man was chewing at one bare leg. The boy screamed and kicked, but even though his other foot struck the man’s head and neck and shoulder, the attacker seemed unconcerned. It was the rifle man, Jayne saw. His beard had gone from grey to red. Another gunshot, and Jayne moved around the open door and leaned against the car’s wing.

A huge crash came from her right. The Miata had struck a station wagon at the car park’s entrance, but she was only concerned for Tommy. Everything else was too much information, and her brain refused to process it.
Keeping it for later
, she thought, and that was fine, because instinct had already told her that this had to be just her and him.

‘Tommy,’ Jayne said. He was twisting on the ground like a toy winding down.

Another gunshot, and from the corner of her eye Jayne saw a shape fall to the ground.

She started forward just as Tommy pushed himself up onto his hands and knees. Blood flowed from his nose as if from an open tap, and he kept his left hand inches above the ground.
His wrist’s broken
, Jayne thought, and she imagined his one-handed massages for the next few weeks.

‘Tommy!’

‘Fuck . . .’ he said, and she thought she’d never heard such a wonderful word. He knelt, then got one foot under himself.

‘Quickly!’

‘Yeah.’

Another gunshot, and for a second she could not understand what she had seen. Tommy slumped back to the ground – maybe he was ducking to dodge the bullets, making himself a smaller target. But his head had changed shape, and he’d lost part of himself on the gravel.
Got to get that
, Jayne thought, and then cold realisation froze her to the spot. She could not breathe. Tommy didn’t even twitch.

A man appeared in front of her, a little guy in shorts and a T-shirt that said
I’m Spartacus
. He was carrying a crying toddler under one arm and in his other hand he held a pistol. He was pointing it at Jayne.

‘Tommy?’ she said, and the man glanced at Tommy’s prone shape.

‘Get away from the car!’ the man said. He stepped past Tommy and came for her, the gun never wavering. ‘Get away from the fucking—’

The running woman struck him and pushed him down, crushing the little boy beneath both of them. The gun discharged and Jayne felt no pain, no punch. The woman was wearing shorts, walking boots and a light jacket, and Jayne remembered seeing her up on the hillside.
Gorgeous
day
, she’d said, and as she passed them Jayne had nudged Tommy in the ribs.
But hey, look at that ass
, he’d whispered.
Like a sweet peach
. Now she had what looked like a brutal bite mark on one shoulder, clothing torn away, skin ragged, and she attacked the man like a wild dog.

The boy was screaming, trapped beneath his struggling father and the woman – the
thing
– biting into him.

This is not happening
, Jayne thought, but she was a new Jayne once again. The Jayne who’d been walking with her love ten minutes ago had changed into the one seeing a car crash, and its results. And now she was Jayne on her own. Because Tommy was dead, and there was no denying that.

The man’s struggles weakened – the woman had bitten clean though his throat. Jayne could not comprehend the blood. His son – if that was who the boy was – was coated in it, still struggling, and the woman shoved the dying man aside as she reached for the child.

‘No!’ Jayne screamed, in denial at what she was seeing as much as against the woman’s obvious intentions. The boy soon stopped screaming.

The woman looked up.
There’s nothing in her eyes
, Jayne thought, and she edged back towards the open car door. It was the pain in her joints, the screaming agony in her jarred hips, that gave her the courage to live. It reminded her of her life and everything she had
suffered, the trials she went through every day to see another sunrise and eat another meal. And as the woman stood, expressionless and cooing softly, and then came for her, Jayne stood sideways and swung the door wide open. It struck the woman’s thighs and sent her staggering back, giving Jayne time to get inside the car and swing the door closed.

They’re biting, not eating,
she thought.

She tried to slam the door but the woman stuck her arm in the way. Jayne pulled, tugging as hard as she could, before easing the door back a little to slam it again, and again. She heard the crack of bone, but there was still no sound from the woman. She paused, looked up, and the woman grabbed her hand.

Jayne screamed for help. No one heard, or if they did they were too concerned with their own personal dramas. The woman heaved, and Jayne’s shoulder burned white-hot with agony as she was lifted towards the space at the top of the open door.
There’s a smell
, she thought, realising that the woman no longer smelled like a living person. She smelled like old clothes, damp and stale.

Jayne felt a sick coolness on her forearm, and then hot pain as the woman bit through her skin.

Unable to breathe, she went limp, and as the woman tried to adjust her grip Jayne fell across the seats and kicked out as hard as she could. The swinging door shoved the woman back against the neighbouring car.
Jayne sat up and reached out, slamming the door closed, hitting the locking knob, crying out in victory and pain.

Her arm was bleeding liberally from the bite.
I’ve got it
, she thought, and then she saw Spartacus and his young son standing up in front of the car. They looked around, faces slack and eyes empty, paying no regard at all to their wounds or each other. Then they saw her through the windscreen.