|
|
Breath poured from her lungs like fire as she ran; exploding from her throat, impeding her ability to take in a fresh supply of oxygen. She knew she couldn’t keep it up for long.
She was small, and so far that had worked to her advantage. When the world had gone crazy, she had been able to wriggle through the gaps in the insanity, and to lever herself into tight spaces, hidden from the carnage. Out in the open like this, though, her size was a hindrance. Her short legs, no matter how fast she pumped them, simply didn’t cover as much ground as the longer stride of her pursuers. She didn’t look back; didn’t need to: she could feel them gaining on her.
She caught the scream she felt building in her throat; wouldn’t let it escape her lips. There were about ten of them in pursuit, she guessed, though it was likely more were joining in; that’s what they did, gathering in strength like an avalanche. Almost a week spent scurrying from corner to darkened corner had taught her that: there was almost never just one. Screaming, as natural and necessary as it felt, would only bring more; slimming the odds of her escape down to zero.
She’d learned that the first time she had been chased. In her hysteria, she had charged down the middle of the street, certain that one of the adults would save her. That’s what adults did. Instead, as she shot down the road, a normally busy market street lined with stalls selling cheeses and fish and imitation-branded clothing, she found that the adults were screaming too. Veering left and right, she found her path continually being reshaped; evolving as the madness swept along like the tide. Wherever she turned, the adults were leaping on top of each other, dragging friends and family and strangers to the ground, and sinking in their teeth. Blood filled the air like a warm, heavy rain. She got it on her pyjamas; felt like she might be sick.
That first time, as she zigged and zagged through and underneath the market stalls, she hadn’t understood any of it, beyond the fact that it had seemed to start with the jaw-rattling crash that came from the roof of the apartment block as the sun flirted with the horizon, and with her mother rushing up the stairs outside their flat’s front door to investigate. As she had been instructed, she had waited patiently by the open front door for her mother to return, nerves dancing to a fraught up-tempo number.
The neighbours opposite, a couple with greying hair and wrinkles that made them appear ancient to her young eyes, emerged blearily into the corridor; the lines on their face deepened by concern. The man, orange-tanned and burly, who always smiled when he saw her and sometimes slipped her a half-melted chocolate bar with a friendly conspiratorial wink, took a couple of steps toward the stairs that led to the roof and then cried out in shock as her mother reappeared, leaping through the air at him, screaming, her eyes like two bright red inflammations ready to burst.
She had cried then, bawling her eyes out as the man caught her mother mid-flight and somehow twisted so that she hit the ground hard with him on top of her. Why was the man hurting her mum?
The man was yelling at his wife to call an ambulance, and the woman, her face ashen, scurried back into her flat.
“It’s ok, honey,” the old man grunted at her as he pinned her mother’s arms to the ground, “It’s ok, she’s sick, we’ll get help.”
She watched, tears streaming down her face, as her mother snapped and snarled, craning her neck to get close to the man’s big, calloused hands.
“She’s trying to bite me!” He yelled through the open door. “Tell them she’s got rabies or something, get them here quick!”
She had watched in disbelief as the paramedics arrived and had to subdue mum, pinning her to the floor, injecting her with a large, frightening needle that hardly seemed to slow down her wild thrashing. She heard the paramedic speaking into his radio; calling it in: lots of big words she didn’t really understand. The man stammered as he spoke. He sounded scared.
“Psychotic episode…possible infection…quarantine…it’s the eyes…”
As she had listened, she had been staring at her mother’s eyes, the ones that had always shimmered with love and pride when she had looked at her daughter. Now, those eyes were just bright red pools of blood, pupils all but gone, darting rapidly as her neck whipped side to side. She looked like a trapped animal searching for some means of escape.
The men had tried to drag her mother toward the stairs, but there were only two of them, and her thrashing made it almost impossible, so they bundled her into the lift, pushing her against the far wall, pressing and holding her there. No one said a word to the small girl standing stunned and terrified in the doorway as the lift’s dull-chrome doors slid closed, and for a moment she just stood there, shocked, remembering with disbelief that only a few minutes before she had been grinning as her mum teased her with the possibility of porridge instead of her favourite crunchy nut flakes for breakfast.
Then she remembered how slow the old lift was: she and her mother hardly ever bothered using it unless they had lots of shopping to carry. She made for the stairs, rushing down them.
She got to the bottom when the lift was still trundling lazily between the third and second floors, and watched the numbers crawling downward, panting for air. A man stood next to the lift doors, carrying a newspaper and a bottle of milk, looking at her, puzzled.
“Are you alright sweethe-“ he started to say as the lift reached the ground with a ping and the doors slid open, but his words were lost when her mother and the two paramedics charged out, roaring, and dragged him to the floor, ripping him apart with their teeth. The man’s chilling screams made her scream again, and she was still screaming when she saw her mother’s teeth clamp on the man’s ear, tearing it from his head with a wet smack, and fled out onto the street. She heard the building’s front door open behind her, only a second or so after she had slammed it shut.
As she dashed along the street and into the market, the soundtrack to a nightmare swelled behind her, cries of confusion and horror quickly becoming high-pitched squeals of pain. It was still very early; mostly it was just traders setting up their stalls and a few early birds hoping to get the prize cuts of meat.
It was when her frantic sprint through the market ended that she really learned something about the way the world had begun to work since that first crash on the rooftop minutes before. She was hiding under a stall that heaved with fresh fish, the pungent odour making her gag, and peeking out through a gap in the fabric draped over the table that provided her cover. The insanity in the street was all around her now, bodies hitting the floor and being savaged. For some, the wounds they received proved too much, and they simply lay there on the cobbles, blood trickling toward storm drains, eyes fixed and empty.
Others leapt to their feet and charged away, bringing down the first person they encountered, mauling them, tearing them like paper. As she watched, two police vans screeched into view, and she almost cried out in relief. The doors slid back, and four figures carrying shields and batons piled out of each, forming a line, advancing toward the unfolding mayhem.
She saw a couple of them falter even before they reached the first of the infected people, saw it in the way their steps slowed. Behind the plastic masks, she could see wide, disbelieving eyes.
Surely, now that the police were there, the madness would stop.
Instead, she saw the people in the market swarm toward the uniforms like starving dogs. The first few, bouncing off the shields or recoiling as the batons struck them, were ineffective, but then sheer numbers told, and the police disappeared in the frenzy of bodies. Moments later the police were them, and the uniforms meant nothing.
She understood then, as she watched a policewoman tear off her helmet and claw out her own eyes before launching herself through a window and into the room full of shocked onlookers beyond, that help would not come.
That screaming would bring only death.
And so, five days later, as she again raced away from them, Claire Evans did not scream. She kept her eyes focused on the path, making sure nothing would trip her, and scanned the street for some means of escape, even as she berated herself for emerging from the empty house in which she had hid while Aberystwyth fell. She had needed food, and the convenience store had seemed so inviting…another lesson learned. She was one of the top members of her class at school; she beamed every time a teacher told her what a fast learner she was. Now her life depended on it.
Finally, as she was sure her lungs were about to explode, she saw something that offered potential escape: a narrow opening in a wall near to the floor: it looked like a tiny window that led to the basement of a large pub. The Mouse and Hound. The front doors were shut, and looked like they had been boarded up from the inside.
She focused on the little window, far too narrow for an adult to consider as an entry, but big enough for her slim frame, maybe. There would be glass, she would cut herself. She hated the sight of blood; it always made her sick and fearful.
There was no time to consider it – with the things behind her closing fast, only barely out of arms reach, she veered toward the opening and threw herself at it, wincing as the concrete scraped the skin from her legs. And then with a loud shatter she was through, and falling, glass slicing a long clean line down her calf, and hitting the floor with a thump that knocked all the breath from her small lungs.
She rolled over, facing the window, expecting that she would see one of them tumbling after her, teeth bared, but all she saw were the arms frantically reaching in for her, swiping through the gloomy air of the basement, grasping at the space she had occupied moments earlier. The gap was too narrow, they couldn’t get through, at least not yet. The snarls of frustration and ravenous hunger made her blood run cold.
Still, she knew, she had to get away, had to put walls between herself and that window. Hauling herself to her feet, she turned to flee.
And then the strong hands grabbed her in the dark, and all that she had learned in five days of solitary torment and terror and survival on the streets of Aberystwyth deserted her young mind, and she screamed.
She was small, and so far that had worked to her advantage. When the world had gone crazy, she had been able to wriggle through the gaps in the insanity, and to lever herself into tight spaces, hidden from the carnage. Out in the open like this, though, her size was a hindrance. Her short legs, no matter how fast she pumped them, simply didn’t cover as much ground as the longer stride of her pursuers. She didn’t look back; didn’t need to: she could feel them gaining on her.
She caught the scream she felt building in her throat; wouldn’t let it escape her lips. There were about ten of them in pursuit, she guessed, though it was likely more were joining in; that’s what they did, gathering in strength like an avalanche. Almost a week spent scurrying from corner to darkened corner had taught her that: there was almost never just one. Screaming, as natural and necessary as it felt, would only bring more; slimming the odds of her escape down to zero.
She’d learned that the first time she had been chased. In her hysteria, she had charged down the middle of the street, certain that one of the adults would save her. That’s what adults did. Instead, as she shot down the road, a normally busy market street lined with stalls selling cheeses and fish and imitation-branded clothing, she found that the adults were screaming too. Veering left and right, she found her path continually being reshaped; evolving as the madness swept along like the tide. Wherever she turned, the adults were leaping on top of each other, dragging friends and family and strangers to the ground, and sinking in their teeth. Blood filled the air like a warm, heavy rain. She got it on her pyjamas; felt like she might be sick.
That first time, as she zigged and zagged through and underneath the market stalls, she hadn’t understood any of it, beyond the fact that it had seemed to start with the jaw-rattling crash that came from the roof of the apartment block as the sun flirted with the horizon, and with her mother rushing up the stairs outside their flat’s front door to investigate. As she had been instructed, she had waited patiently by the open front door for her mother to return, nerves dancing to a fraught up-tempo number.
The neighbours opposite, a couple with greying hair and wrinkles that made them appear ancient to her young eyes, emerged blearily into the corridor; the lines on their face deepened by concern. The man, orange-tanned and burly, who always smiled when he saw her and sometimes slipped her a half-melted chocolate bar with a friendly conspiratorial wink, took a couple of steps toward the stairs that led to the roof and then cried out in shock as her mother reappeared, leaping through the air at him, screaming, her eyes like two bright red inflammations ready to burst.
She had cried then, bawling her eyes out as the man caught her mother mid-flight and somehow twisted so that she hit the ground hard with him on top of her. Why was the man hurting her mum?
The man was yelling at his wife to call an ambulance, and the woman, her face ashen, scurried back into her flat.
“It’s ok, honey,” the old man grunted at her as he pinned her mother’s arms to the ground, “It’s ok, she’s sick, we’ll get help.”
She watched, tears streaming down her face, as her mother snapped and snarled, craning her neck to get close to the man’s big, calloused hands.
“She’s trying to bite me!” He yelled through the open door. “Tell them she’s got rabies or something, get them here quick!”
She had watched in disbelief as the paramedics arrived and had to subdue mum, pinning her to the floor, injecting her with a large, frightening needle that hardly seemed to slow down her wild thrashing. She heard the paramedic speaking into his radio; calling it in: lots of big words she didn’t really understand. The man stammered as he spoke. He sounded scared.
“Psychotic episode…possible infection…quarantine…it’s the eyes…”
As she had listened, she had been staring at her mother’s eyes, the ones that had always shimmered with love and pride when she had looked at her daughter. Now, those eyes were just bright red pools of blood, pupils all but gone, darting rapidly as her neck whipped side to side. She looked like a trapped animal searching for some means of escape.
The men had tried to drag her mother toward the stairs, but there were only two of them, and her thrashing made it almost impossible, so they bundled her into the lift, pushing her against the far wall, pressing and holding her there. No one said a word to the small girl standing stunned and terrified in the doorway as the lift’s dull-chrome doors slid closed, and for a moment she just stood there, shocked, remembering with disbelief that only a few minutes before she had been grinning as her mum teased her with the possibility of porridge instead of her favourite crunchy nut flakes for breakfast.
Then she remembered how slow the old lift was: she and her mother hardly ever bothered using it unless they had lots of shopping to carry. She made for the stairs, rushing down them.
She got to the bottom when the lift was still trundling lazily between the third and second floors, and watched the numbers crawling downward, panting for air. A man stood next to the lift doors, carrying a newspaper and a bottle of milk, looking at her, puzzled.
“Are you alright sweethe-“ he started to say as the lift reached the ground with a ping and the doors slid open, but his words were lost when her mother and the two paramedics charged out, roaring, and dragged him to the floor, ripping him apart with their teeth. The man’s chilling screams made her scream again, and she was still screaming when she saw her mother’s teeth clamp on the man’s ear, tearing it from his head with a wet smack, and fled out onto the street. She heard the building’s front door open behind her, only a second or so after she had slammed it shut.
As she dashed along the street and into the market, the soundtrack to a nightmare swelled behind her, cries of confusion and horror quickly becoming high-pitched squeals of pain. It was still very early; mostly it was just traders setting up their stalls and a few early birds hoping to get the prize cuts of meat.
It was when her frantic sprint through the market ended that she really learned something about the way the world had begun to work since that first crash on the rooftop minutes before. She was hiding under a stall that heaved with fresh fish, the pungent odour making her gag, and peeking out through a gap in the fabric draped over the table that provided her cover. The insanity in the street was all around her now, bodies hitting the floor and being savaged. For some, the wounds they received proved too much, and they simply lay there on the cobbles, blood trickling toward storm drains, eyes fixed and empty.
Others leapt to their feet and charged away, bringing down the first person they encountered, mauling them, tearing them like paper. As she watched, two police vans screeched into view, and she almost cried out in relief. The doors slid back, and four figures carrying shields and batons piled out of each, forming a line, advancing toward the unfolding mayhem.
She saw a couple of them falter even before they reached the first of the infected people, saw it in the way their steps slowed. Behind the plastic masks, she could see wide, disbelieving eyes.
Surely, now that the police were there, the madness would stop.
Instead, she saw the people in the market swarm toward the uniforms like starving dogs. The first few, bouncing off the shields or recoiling as the batons struck them, were ineffective, but then sheer numbers told, and the police disappeared in the frenzy of bodies. Moments later the police were them, and the uniforms meant nothing.
She understood then, as she watched a policewoman tear off her helmet and claw out her own eyes before launching herself through a window and into the room full of shocked onlookers beyond, that help would not come.
That screaming would bring only death.
And so, five days later, as she again raced away from them, Claire Evans did not scream. She kept her eyes focused on the path, making sure nothing would trip her, and scanned the street for some means of escape, even as she berated herself for emerging from the empty house in which she had hid while Aberystwyth fell. She had needed food, and the convenience store had seemed so inviting…another lesson learned. She was one of the top members of her class at school; she beamed every time a teacher told her what a fast learner she was. Now her life depended on it.
Finally, as she was sure her lungs were about to explode, she saw something that offered potential escape: a narrow opening in a wall near to the floor: it looked like a tiny window that led to the basement of a large pub. The Mouse and Hound. The front doors were shut, and looked like they had been boarded up from the inside.
She focused on the little window, far too narrow for an adult to consider as an entry, but big enough for her slim frame, maybe. There would be glass, she would cut herself. She hated the sight of blood; it always made her sick and fearful.
There was no time to consider it – with the things behind her closing fast, only barely out of arms reach, she veered toward the opening and threw herself at it, wincing as the concrete scraped the skin from her legs. And then with a loud shatter she was through, and falling, glass slicing a long clean line down her calf, and hitting the floor with a thump that knocked all the breath from her small lungs.
She rolled over, facing the window, expecting that she would see one of them tumbling after her, teeth bared, but all she saw were the arms frantically reaching in for her, swiping through the gloomy air of the basement, grasping at the space she had occupied moments earlier. The gap was too narrow, they couldn’t get through, at least not yet. The snarls of frustration and ravenous hunger made her blood run cold.
Still, she knew, she had to get away, had to put walls between herself and that window. Hauling herself to her feet, she turned to flee.
And then the strong hands grabbed her in the dark, and all that she had learned in five days of solitary torment and terror and survival on the streets of Aberystwyth deserted her young mind, and she screamed.