There were further murmurs from the front of the crowd, a ripple of disquiet, like an electrical pulse.
'What's going on now?' Nina wanted to know, trying without success to peer over the heads of the knot of people in front of her.
An old lady with a powder puff of white hair and too much blusher, who was standing in front of the bullet-headed man, said over her shoulder, 'There's something wrong with them. They're not moving right.'
'Not moving right? Whatever do you mean?' Rianne asked. But the woman had turned away again now, and was absorbed in whatever was happening outside.
Rianne touched Nina's arm. 'I'm going upstairs,' she said. 'The windows at the top of the maternity ward overlook the car park. I'll have a better view from there.'
She expected Nina to nod and say goodbye, but instead the girl said firmly, 'I'll come with you.'
'Oh,' said Rianne, so taken aback by Nina's bluntness that instead of discouraging her, she found herself nodding. 'All right then. Come on.'
The two women crossed the foyer to the lifts. The maternity unit was on the fifth floor. They ascended silently and crossed to a set of double doors. As Rianne entered and held the doors open for the limping Nina, Sister Felicity Andrews poked her head out of the nurses' station, a chocolate chunk cookie in her hand.
'Hello, Rianne,' she said pleasantly. 'Forgotten something?'
'Another of my ladies has gone into labour,' Rianne explained briskly. 'She's on her way in.' Before Sister Andrews could comment she added, 'Have you seen what's going on outside?'
'Outside? No, I. .' Sister Andrews seemed to notice Nina for the first time. 'Who's this?'
Nina stepped forward, hand outstretched. 'Nina Rogers. It's OK, I'm just visiting.'
'Visiting? Well, it's not really-'
'Don't worry, Felicity, she's with me,' Rianne said.
Sister Andrews eyed Nina's bandaged leg doubtfully. 'Well, if you say so. .'
The maternity unit more closely resembled a hotel suite than a medical facility. It comprised a wide central corridor with birthing rooms on one side and a series of ten-bed wards on the other. It had been designed with comfort and reassurance in mind, the walls and floors painted in soothing colours.
'Ward five is our intensive care unit,' Rianne explained, hurrying towards it. 'It's empty at the moment.'
They entered the room, which was lit by low-level lighting. There were only four beds in here, each enclosed within its own self-contained cubicle. On the wall opposite the door was a row of four waist-high windows. Rianne rushed across to them, her hands slapping the sill as she leaned forward to look outside, Nina trailing in her wake.
The car park in front of the hospital was on several levels and spread over a wide area. Each level was separated by clumps of bushes and young trees, and veined with pedestrian walkways. Usually at this hour there were not many people around; even vehicular traffic was infrequent. Yet tonight, despite the drizzly weather, there was movement everywhere — dozens of dark figures converging on the hospital. With a little chill of dread, Rianne realised that the white-haired old lady downstairs had been right: there was something odd, something wrong, about the way that the people were moving.
They were shuffling, lurching, dragging their feet. It was as though every single one of them was sleep-walking or drugged. Not only that, but many of them seemed to be holding their upper bodies stiffly — their shoulders hunched, their heads tilted at strange angles.
'What's the matter with them?' Nina asked wonderingly.
'I don't-' Rianne began, and then her eyes widened. 'Oh, sweet Jesus. Look there.'
She pointed at a thick clump of bushes directly below, which appeared to be nothing but a mass of black in the selectively illuminated darkness. Seconds earlier, she had seen a pair of arms emerge from the bushes and drag a head and shoulders into view. She had been wondering what was so wrong with the man that he had to crawl along the ground, when he had hauled the rest of himself into the light. She gaped now, unable to comprehend how little of him there was. His body simply stopped above what would have been his waist. He even appeared to be dragging a remnant of spine in his wake like a bony tail.
Rianne felt Nina's hand tighten on her arm. The girl's eyes were as wide as she imagined her own to be.
'That is impossible, isn't it?' she said. 'He can't survive like that, can he?'
'Evidently he can,' Rianne said, and felt the sudden appalling urge to giggle.
More of the shuffling figures were now emerging from the shadows, into the light that was bleeding from the hospital. As they did so, both women were horrified to see that the crawling man was not alone in his affliction. Too many of the figures were dressed in rags; too many were stick-thin; too many were hideously misshapen or lacking limbs.
'What is this?' Nina murmured. 'Amputees' outing?'
'They look like they've been in a battle,' said Rianne. 'The walking wounded.'
The words were barely out of her mouth when twin headlamps swept into the car park entrance behind the shuffling army — a late patient or visitor, Rianne thought. Or perhaps a member of staff about to start the graveyard shift.
The car swept down the curving approach road, as though its driver was in a hurry and unaware of the crowd in his path.
'He's going to hit someone,' Nina said, her hand once again tightening on Rianne's arm.
And then with a screech of brakes the car stopped.
None of the figures had flinched or leaped aside as the vehicle bore down on them. Even now, they didn't move to the side of the road to allow the car through, as any normal person would have done.
The car seemed to pause for a moment, dark and sleek, like a big cat sizing up its prey — and then the driver's door flew open and a man scrambled out. Neither Rianne nor Nina could tell from their vantage point what the man was saying, but it was clear from his body language that he was not happy. He marched towards the three or four figures in the path of his car, waving his arms, head jerking as he shouted. The two women saw a couple of the shuffling figures stumble to a halt, saw them turn clumsily to face the furious man.
Then they saw the man stop dead, his arms dropping to his sides and, even from five floors up, Rianne could have sworn she could see the man's eyes widen in horror and shock.
Next moment the man was running back to his car, and the figures were lurching after him. Rianne felt a leap of fear in her chest for the man's safety, but she told herself that he would surely be fast enough to outrun his shuffling pursuers; that he would surely have time to make it back to his car, shut and lock the door, and reverse to safety before they had covered even half the distance.
Legs rigid, hands gripping the windowsill, she was urging the man to get away when she saw two black figures, as if formed from the darkness, step out of the bushes on either side of him. The figures were between the man and his car. He stopped, momentarily uncertain what to do, where to go. Then he dodged to his left, as if to plunge into the bushes himself, to make his escape that way — and another figure, tall and gangly and skeletal, stepped from the shadowy clump of foliage right into his path, and clawed with twig-spiny fingers at the man's face.
The man hurled himself backwards, pinwheeling his arms, trying desperately to maintain his balance. Rianne rose up on her toes, urging him to stay on his feet; Nina's grip on her arm tightened again, tightened enough to bruise. Both women let out a joint cry of despair as the man lost his struggle, tumbling on to his backside, his head hitting the ground hard. Within seconds the lurching, malformed creatures were on him, rending and tearing and clawing. Nina expelled a shrieking sob and turned away, reaching out instinctively for comfort. She and Rianne clung to each other, shocked and uncomprehending.