Hyenas (11 page)

He could taste the almost fresh air coming in from the
ruined entrance, could feel the breeze easing the relative but now practically
unbearable warmth inside the shopping centre. Out in the middle of Parker
Street, twenty or more crows, like a heavy black blanket bothered by a strong
wind, undulated about something raw and scarecrowish.

Ellen was passing the transit van when the arm snaked
up and out of sight. Jay couldn't speak as the hyena, small, stocky and with a
long comb-over now dangling over its right ear and almost down to its shoulder,
reared up.

Chapter 15

“Jesus!” Brian shouted but Jay could hardly hear over
the blood that seemed to be crashing against his eardrums. The blanket of crows
flew apart, black rags clattering skyward, exposing something that didn't
really look like a scarecrow at all.

The hyena dropped down toward Ellen before she'd even
had time to wonder what Brian was squawking about and what had frightened the
birds. It misjudged her speed and instead of landing on her, pinning her down,
it glanced off her back and sent her sprawling across the polished floor amidst
shards of glass and scattered greetings cards from a toppled concession. As
Ellen hit the ground, her pistol jumped from her hand and spun out onto Parker
Street, skidding across the snow.

Jay tried to get at his own gun but discovered he'd
zipped up his coat pocket. He could feel the weight and shape of the thing
through the slippery fabric of his coat, abstract and useless.

The hyena looked at Ellen, then Brian, then Jay, its
eyes wide with a kind of delight, a child in a sweet shop. For a couple of
seconds, it seemed as if it just couldn't make up its mind, then Ellen pushed
herself up onto her knees and the hyena lunged at her.

Jay fumbled with the pocket's zip, managed to get it
halfway down before it jammed.

The hyena landed on Ellen. She had seen it coming,
though, and had managed to roll onto her back, bringing her legs up. When it
struck her, she kicked it away, sending it flying back against the transit van.

Jay shoved his fingers as best he could into his
pocket and, though he knew it was a waste of time, knew he was a thoroughgoing
dickhead, tried to pull the gun through the too small hole.

Ellen got to her feet and started toward Parker Street
and her gun. The crows were still in disarray but refused to stray more than a
few yards from their meal. The hyena grunted as it lurched after Ellen, its
greasy comb-over trailing behind it.

Jay dragged at the gun, the pocket beginning to tear
but refusing to relinquish the weapon.

“Fuck!” he growled. “You absolute fucking gobshite,
Jay! What in the name of all that's fuck is fucking wrong with you?”

The hyena stopped dead and turned toward Jay, its eyes
even wider than before, as if it had just spied the sugariest confectionary in
the whole shop, a little boy's dream and a dentist's nightmare.

“What the fuck are you looking at?” said Jay.

The hyena's eyes darted about as Jay spoke, as if it
was attempting to follow the erratic paths of several bluebottles, reminding
Jay of Hello Kitty.

“What?” he shouted. “What the fuck are you looking at,
Bobby fucking Charlton?”

The hyena grinned, dipped its head a little, and sped
toward him.

A firework exploded somewhere behind Jay or something
very much like a firework. At the same time, a penny-sized hole appeared in the
side of the van. Jay looked back to see Brian, smoking gun in hand.

“Get the fuck down, Jay!” he shouted, although his
voice was muffled behind a high-pitched whine which had taken up residence at
the centre of Jay's head. “You know I can't see for shit!”

Jay dropped to the ground. The hyena was still coming,
undeterred by the gun shot. A string of drool almost as long as its rancid
comb-over trailed from its mouth and over its shoulder.

Another firework exploded.

Another penny-sized hole appeared in the side of the
van a couple of inches to the left of the first hole.

“Jesus, Brian, the van's already dead!”

The hyena pressed on, only a few feet from Jay now. He
scuttled back on his buttocks, broken glass slashing at the back of his pants.

Another firework.

A penny-sized hole appeared above the hyena's left eye.

But it kept coming. The bullet appeared to have done
nothing. Maybe there was so little going on inside its skull it could take a
bullet to the brain and still function.

Another firework exploded. The van manifested a third
hole.

“Fuck's sake, Brian!”

Then the hyena's legs folded so suddenly it seemed as
if some secret internal switch had been thrown. It hit the ground face first,
arms limp at its side and slid the remaining few inches until its hairless
scalp was pressed up against the soles of Jay's shoes.

All this in the few seconds it took Ellen to retrieve
her gun from the snow and turn, ready to fire.

Jay got to his feet. His legs felt slightly
anaesthetised.

Brian was grinning and nodding his head, as if in
enthusiastic agreement with some amusing remark. He still had the gun trained
on the dead hyena, his arm shaking so much it looked as if he was trying to
flick something disgusting from the barrel of the gun.

“Bloody hell,” he said, voice tremulous. “I thought it
was too stupid to die for a second there.”

Jay was about to concur when he was distracted by a
small lifeless chime and saw that the wedding ring had fallen from the angry
stump of the hyena's third finger. He watched as it rolled in a loose circle
then fell on its side an inch from the hand it had slipped from, as if it had
been trying to find its way back home. Without knowing why, Jay found himself
reaching for it, found himself wanting to put it in his pocket, keep it as a
symbol or reminder of something he couldn't even begin to define. Then he
realised Brian was speaking to him.

“What?”

“I said keep it in your hand, Zippy,” said Brian with
the exasperation of someone who's had to repeat themselves several times.

“Keep what in my hand?” said Jay, thinking that Brian
might be referring to the wedding ring.

“Your gun. You had it zipped up in your pocket, for
fuck's sake. Some fucking gunslinger you'd make.”

“Brian, Jay, we need to get moving,” said Ellen.
“They'll be coming.”

A second later, there was a high, warped thud from the
Ranelagh Street entrance. Jay recognised the sound from his first encounter
with Hello Kitty on Castle Street: the sound of a hyena throwing itself at a
plate glass window, although the short interval between each distorted thud was
too brief to be the work of just one hyena.

“Now,” said Ellen.

Brian set off at a brisk walk. Jay unzipped his jacket
pocket — with no difficulty now, of course — and took out his gun. It still felt
like it was constructed from some impossibly dense alien material, cold, hard
but with a muted kind of life humming at its centre. The next warped thud was
accompanied by a sharp crack of breaking glass. Jay took one last glance at the
ring, decided against taking it, still uncertain as to why he would want to do
so in the first place, and followed Brian and Ellen out onto Parker Street.

The crows had taken up residence on the BBC Big Screen
that, pre-Jolt, had broadcast football matches and the local news down onto
throngs of shoppers, like the instrument of some science fiction tyrant. Now
the deadness of its screen reminded Jay of the thick, liquid blackness that had
seemed to lurk beneath Ellen's canvases. Ahead of them, the Radio City Tower
sprouted upwards, looking to Jay like a pale, apocalyptic fungus, dwarfing the
surrounding structures.

They turned right, away from the lifeless television,
and a steep quarter-circle of steps took them up to Great Charlotte Street and
a convoy of abandoned buses, windows shattered and blood-smeared. Jay glanced
right. A couple of hundred feet away, where Charlotte Street branched off from
Ranelagh Street, two, three, four, five hyenas flew round the corner and into
one another as if pursued or in pursuit of something that had slipped from view
and gone to ground. Jay didn't think the hyenas possessed the necessary
intelligence to attempt to trap them; nonetheless, he felt as if he was being
surrounded.

Jay didn't have to say anything: Ellen and Brian were
already running in the opposite direction, up Elliot Street, past Saint John's
Precinct with its Argos and All You Can Eat Chinese Buffet tucked beneath the
Holiday Inn, toward Lime Street. Opposite them, across what used to be a busy
intersection and a potential death trap to the distracted, the Victorian
colonnaded arch of Lime Street Station was preternaturally still now that it
had been stripped of its perpetual skirt of luggage-dragging commuters. There
appeared to be some activity within, visible through the glazed gable end, but
Jay was certain that was just an effect of the intricate mesh of sickle girders
that supported the structure's sweeping roof.

They followed Elliot Street round to their left and
the neoclassical mass of Saint George's Hall heaved into view, beyond the wide,
downward-sloping bus lanes of Saint George's Place.

Jay could hear the sound of hyenas from behind him
somewhere, muffled by distance and confused as a consequence of being bounced
from building to building, until he really couldn't tell how far away they
were; he couldn't even be entirely certain they were coming from behind him,
for that matter. He threw a glance over his shoulder but there was no sign of
any hyenas. As he returned his attention to Saint George's Place, which they were
crossing now, approaching the steel tubular barrier that ran down the centre of
the road, his attention was snared by the illusion of more movement from Lime
Street Station, a moiré of criss-crossing girders. The illusion was more vivid
this time, as if the station was seething with activity.

And then the illusion spilled out of the station onto
the broad, low steps that swept up to meet the glass gable. Fifty, sixty,
seventy hyenas, swarming from the station with a sudden roar of noise, tendrils
of steam rising from their scalps to create a tattered haze above them.

Ellen and Brian turned; their faces seemed to be
attempting in vain to express what Jay was feeling. His legs felt weak, almost
numb. He felt as if he was on the verge of waking, of struggling up from the
depths of a nightmare into a tangle of damp bed sheets and a long sigh of
relief. But, no, he wasn't dreaming. They were coming. He could almost smell
their collective stench, the sweat and shit and blood of them. And something
inside him wanted to say 'enough', wanted to lie down in the snow, curl up in a
little ball and just wait for it all to be over, but still he kept running.

Ellen vaulted the barrier with surprising ease. Brian
followed, a little less gracefully. Ellen was already springing over the low
railings that were designed to keep pedestrians from wandering from the
pavement into oncoming buses as Jay all but fell over the central barrier, only
just managing to stay on his feet and keep moving forward. His balance was
completely off by the time he reached the railings and he had to flop over,
landing on his back then lurching up again.

They were moving down Saint George's Place now, along
the high-walled plinth-like structure the hall appeared to sit upon. There were
two doors. The furthest, which if Jay remembered correctly led under the hall
itself, was closed. The nearest, leading down to the Northern and Wirral lines
and back to Lime Street Station, was open and broadcasting the snarling
laughter of hyenas.

As they neared the corner of the hall and the steps on
their right leading up into Saint John's Garden, Jay chanced a look back. The
hyenas had already halved the distance between themselves and their intended
prey.

Ellen had cleared the steps and Jay was about to set
foot on the first of them when Brian, halfway up, slipped. His legs whipped out
from beneath him and he fell backward, arms flailing, gun flying from his hand.
The back of his head hit the stone steps with a noise that was almost identical
to the one Jay had heard when Alice Band had punched a hole in her victim's
skull. Upon impact, the Peruvian bobble hat jumped from Brian's head and
flopped down to the pavement; Brian slithered down after it, a brief moan
escaping his mouth, his eyes showing only whites past fluttering eyelids.

Jay knelt down next to him, shoving his gun into his
pocket but not zipping it this time. The cold bit at his knees, icy teeth
drilling into the bone. He reached behind Brian's neck to lift his head and
felt hot blood wrap around his hand, a liquid glove. Brian's eyes had stopped
flickering now. His face looked waxy, suddenly unreal.

Chapter 16

Jay looped his arms under Brian's armpits. He pivoted
Brian round and began dragging him up the steps.

“Ellen!” he shouted back over his shoulder. “Lanky
streak of piss weighs a ton!”

He heard Ellen’s crunching footfalls as she came up
behind him.

“Jesus,” she said. “What happened?”

“Fell. He just fell.”

Ellen reached round him on his left and tried to help
but only succeeded in getting her feet tangled with Jay's. Jay fell, just
managing to get himself clear of Brian.

He got back on his feet and was reaching down for
Brian when the first hyena, a lean youth pre-Jolt, appeared at the bottom of
the steps, drooling bloody saliva almost as long as the wire from the iPod
earphones still pressed into its filthy ears. Jay thought it couldn't possibly
have moved so fast as to catch up with them already, then realised it hadn't
been part of the Lime Street pack, it must have come from under Saint George's
Hall, and how many more were behind it?

He grabbed the shoulders of Brian's coat and began
dragging him backwards through the snow. The hyena bounded up the steps and
launched itself at him, its feet landing squarely on Brian's chest. Jay lost
his grip and lurched backwards, landing on his backside. The hyena reared up.

Behind Jay, a gunshot. He recognised the sound now,
would never mistake it for an exploding firework again; it was a sound Jay
couldn’t help but think of as somehow
absorbent
, as if it drew in all other sound around it. The
hyena flopped to the left, eyes wide and unblinking. Jay couldn't even see
where it had been shot. He turned and saw Ellen, revolver in hand, behind a
haze of blue gun smoke. Her face was pale and slack, like someone who's
realised too late that they're going to throw up and there isn’t a suitable
receptacle to hand. He wondered if it was the first time she'd fired a gun,
maybe even the first time she'd killed. Jay turned back to Brian, stooping to
grab his shoulders again, and realised Ellen's expression had nothing to do
with guns and killing and everything to do with the horde of hyenas coming up
the steps.

Ellen fired again, then again. Two hyenas fell, taking
five or six more down with them in a tangle of limbs.

“Run!” she shouted. “Just run. Brian's dead. Look.”
She pointed to the widening red stain spreading out through the snow around
Brian's head, a dark halo. “He’s fucking dead!” She looked like she was about
to start crying, then her face hardened and she fired again. A hyena that had
clambered over its fallen pack mates suddenly fell backwards, gargling blood,
hands grasping its throat as if it was trying to choke the life from itself.
“Now!” She turned and ran, toward the library, its columns and dome visible now
across the breadth of the gardens, and next to it the museum, looking like its
own perfectly preserved exhibit.

Jay took one last look at Brian — he looked like a
very poor waxwork — tried to convince himself he wasn't relieved, and followed
Ellen, between the back of Saint George's Hall on their right and the low
ballustraded wall on their left guarding an eight-foot drop before flowerbeds
and lawns swept down to the road and the entrance to the Queensway tunnel. Behind
him, the hyenas' din seemed to be swelling by the second. He fumbled the gun
from his coat pocket and, ignoring the stitch that was beginning to gnaw at his
side and the hairline cracks of pain that were racing up his shins, forced
himself to move faster and catch up with Ellen. He wondered how she was doing
it, moving so fast whilst pregnant, then realised he'd answered his own
question.

As they bolted from the gardens, Jay glanced left,
down William Brown Street. He had a clear view of the tunnel now and thought he
saw movement in the darkness of its downturned mouth, movement that made him
think of fish darting about the bottom of a murky pond, half-shapes, shadows in
shadow.

“Oh shit,” he heard Ellen all but whisper.

He turned his attention away from the tunnel and saw
Ellen pointing at the library. The large folding wooden doors were closed.

“Fuck the library,” said Ellen. She started to turn
down William Brown Street, then stopped dead. “Shitshitshit!”

The half-shapes and shadows had resolved themselves
into a chaotic regiment of hyenas.

Jay and Ellen turned back, to head up toward Lime
Street. But there were hyenas that way, too, coming from around the side of
Saint George's Hall and from London Road, beyond the dead fountain and the
statue of Wellington, almost indiscernible on top of his comically high column,
as if the intention had not been to celebrate him but to place him in lofty
quarantine.

“Dead,” said Jay. It was all he could say, all he
could think. “Dead. Dead.”

Ellen had the gun held out in front of her and was
backing toward the library; there was really nowhere else to go. The hyenas
were bursting from Saint John's Garden now, slamming into one another in their
eagerness to get at their prey. Jay didn't even want to think about how many
there were. More than the eight bullets they had between them.

Ellen fired. The lead hyena lost a piece of its temple
and dropped to the snow. Four more hyenas tripped on the body, sprawling
forward, and still more tripped on them.

Jay and Ellen were backing up the steps now, toward
the closed doors. Ellen fired again. A hyena that had been climbing over the
low stone wall, sagged, as if abruptly drained of all energy, then flopped to
the ground face first.

“Start shooting, for fuck's sake!” she shouted.

Jay trained his gun on the nearest hyena, almost at
the wall, one of four frontrunners. He pulled the trigger. It surprised him,
how little effort was required. He'd expected there to be some resistance but
there was none. The report didn't seem as loud with the gun held out ahead of
him and, instead of the vicious recoil he'd been anticipating, the barrel just
lifted an inch or so, as if a brief but firm wind had got under it. A small
black hole that put Jay in mind of the opening of a pencil sharpener appeared
beneath the hyena's left eye and something like dark powder puffed out from
behind its head. It slowed, took another two steps, limp and uncertain, as if
they were its first, then dropped onto all fours before falling flat, its arms
trapped beneath its body, its legs still pedalling weakly, kicking up
decreasing quantities of snow.

Two of the other frontrunners tripped over the dying
hyena and pitched forward into the snow. The fourth, bearded and scrawny,
glibly sidestepped its fallen pack mates and closed in on Jay.

He fired, aiming at its head. He wasn't sure if he'd
missed or had hit the thing somewhere it didn't count but it kept coming, less
than ten feet away now. He fired again, lowering his aim to its chest this
time. He couldn't see where he'd hit it but it stopped advancing, performed a
brief, jerky dance and fell.

The rest of the pack had caught up now.

Ellen fired her last bullet. Somewhere near the centre
of the mass of steaming bodies, a hyena dropped from sight and several more
went down with it.

A hyena that looked like it had been a professional
rugby player pre-Jolt bounded over the low wall. Jay shot at it whilst it was
in mid-air. A blackish spray told him he'd hit the top of its lowered head. It
continued to travel through the air, landing at the foot of the steps and
immediately staining the snow a vivid red.

Three hyenas jumped up onto the wall, one after the
other. They panted through grins that looked painfully wide.

Jay thought he shot the tallest of the three in the
chest, and it fell back off the wall, landing on the advancing horde and taking
down as many as eight of its pack mates.

He carried on pulling the trigger three, four, five
times, hoping that the useless click would miraculously transform into a
deafening crack but knowing it wouldn't, knowing that it was over and he was
dead, Ellen was dead and the
Jerusalem
was going nowhere, and suddenly wishing he'd told the
others, told Dave and Kavi and Simon and Phil and Joe where the boat was moored
and hoping they'd find it anyway.