None of the ghouls had come any distance towards us, they were still milling about back by the jail.
Jerry took Mary gently by the shoulder and pushed her towards the gates, then stepped back. She looked at him over her shoulder, trying to smile, as she moved forwards. The faceless man had his hand on the gate, ready to open it the moment the preceding man had been cleared behind the canvas.
Abruptly, he stiffened.
The instant he stiffened, I saw the reason… and tumultuous horror spun through my guts.
He had seen the bandage on her leg.
‘Remove that,’ he said.
Mary looked puzzled and Jerry hadn’t yet understood. He still had his hands raised.
Mary said, ‘What do you mean?’ and the visored man said, ‘The bandage.’
‘What? Oh… no, that’s all right. I cut myself the other day, it’s not… what you think…’ She had started speaking easily, as if confident the explanation would suffice, but her words trailed off weakly. The man with the black glass face was rigid. I knew that his features, behind the visor, would be as hard and as cold as the glass itself.
Mary bent down and pulled the bandage from her leg. The cut was red and ugly-looking. The man stared at her.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said.
‘What the hell?’ Jerry shouted.
The guns were trained on him from behind the fence and his hands were still raised, as if he’d thrown them up in amazement.
‘They… won’t..’ I whispered.
‘I’m sorry,’ the faceless man said. ‘There’s no point in examining you further, miss. No one with an open wound can leave.’
‘It isn’t that!’ Mary screamed.
Her cry drew the attention of the guns. They shifted from Jerry to her. The faceless man was shaking his head, perhaps in negation, strengthening his words with the gesture — or perhaps in pity. The second man had come out from behind the canvas and headed for the landing craft. The others were pressing forward, clamouring to get through the gate.
One of the visored men by the canvas called, ‘What’s the hold-up, Jim? Get them through here!’
Jim said, ‘Please step back. You’re holding things up… I don’t want to have to…’ He turned his helmeted head to the side, indicating the line of armed guards. They were quite ready to shoot.
Mary gasped and moved back from the gates.
Jerry stepped forward, past her. He faced the faceless man. Jerry’s visage was like brittle glass itself. Had the visored man possessed a human countenance, Jerry might have argued with him, but they just looked at each other. Jerry had lowered his hands. I could tell what he was thinking as clearly as if my mind had been linked to his and the thought pulsing between us. He wanted to draw his gun and kill the faceless man who stood between Mary and safety. But he knew it would do no good — less than good, for he would be shot down in turn and Mary would still be on this side of the fence… without him.
After a long moment he turned back to us.
His face had shattered… just like glass.
Mary was calm, remarkably calm. We stood back from the gates, watching the others go through one by one. None of them were turned back. Mary said, ‘It’s the same decision we faced… talked about facing… in the jail. If someone should come…’
‘It’s not the same,’ Jerry rasped. But it was.
Then everyone else had gone through and the faceless man was looking at us.
Mary said, ‘Jerry… please go through.’
‘Well, I’m just likely to do that, ain’t I?’ he said.
Mary gave a little whimpering sigh. It was impossible to tell if it expressed relief or frustration; emotions were blurred in all of us now, our senses confused by anomie. It was worse for Mary, if anything, with an edge of guilt on her disorientation — without her, we could have gone through the gates.
The visored man said, ‘Anyone else?’ His voice was soft; he didn’t like what he had to do.
‘Jack… no sense in you staying,’ Jerry said.
I wanted to go. My muscles actually lurched in the direction of the gates and I had to restrain my body. I could feel my bones distinctly within my flesh, the scaffold of my skeleton fixing me in place. I shook my head, refusing my own instincts rather than Jerry’s suggestion.
‘Please go,’ Mary said. ‘It will be easier for me…’
And Jerry said, ‘Our supplies will last longer with just the two of us, Jack…’
It was so tempting I feared my honour would prove weak.
‘No one else!’ I called.
The visored man regarded us. Then he nodded and turned away. The line of men in uniform began to retreat, keeping formation and closing the crescent in around the pier. They moved as if executing a formal manoeuvre on the parade grounds, functioning exactly in a world gone mad. They had left the canvas shelter where it was; it snapped in the breeze, like a tent abandoned on a holiday in Hell.
Jerry’s big hand closed on my shoulder in gentle gratitude.
‘If it had been your girl…’ he said.
Maybe, I thought.
One by one the guards were filtering out of the line and boarding the landing craft. The men in protective clothing were already aboard. The three of us stood there by the gates and a line of faces gazed at us from the boat. It looked like a row of disembodied heads posted around a stockade. The last uniformed man had started up the ramp when a ghoul came loping out of a sidestreet and flung himself onto the fence…
Like a demented monkey, the ghoul began to scale the barrier. He was moving with purpose and I was reminded of Jerry’s tale of the solitary rat in the bag. His groping hand reached the top and clamped over the barbed wire. Blood ran down his arm. He jerked himself up. The other ghouls watched him, as if impressed by a virtuoso performance and envious of his agility.
The last guard was halfway up the boarding ramp when he looked back and saw the ghoul. His face set. The others, on board, were calling for him to hurry, but he turned back and sighted his weapon. He took aim as stolidly as if he’d been on the shooting range. I understood it. It was not a human target upon which he sighted. There was no need to kill the ghoul, the guard could have boarded in plenty of time, but he was guided by some instinct older than reason and deeper than logic. He squeezed off a burst from his automatic weapon. Cartridges spun over his shoulder, glinting in the sunlight. Splinters of bone and gore cascaded from the ghoul. Blood hung in a thin mist around him. He jerked; his body heaved up, then dropped back. He hung suspended from the top of the fence, his hand impaled on the barbed wire. Thick drops of blood fell from him and he swayed like some carnal fruit, bursting with red ripeness.
The guard grimaced — with satisfaction.
He turned back up the ramp. Spent cartridges were scattered at his feet and he looked down at them for a moment, as if they were runes which he had cast. Then he kicked at them. They spun off the ramp and dropped into the water. The guard went on up the ramp and then the ramp drew up and three of us were alone.
Mary buried her face in Jerry’s chest, clinging there, as if using his body as a shield against the sight of the dead ghoul. He stroked her hair.
‘We’d better get back to the jail,’ he said.
‘Again?’ The word was muffled against his chest, carved into his body. ‘Go through them again?’
‘It’s the safest place.’
I said, ‘Jerry… when we left… I didn’t close the door. I didn’t think… they might be in there now.’
He winced.
‘What about one of the vans?’ Mary said.
‘They seem attracted to them…’ I said.
‘Still, if we drive around without stopping,’ Jerry said.
Mary said, ‘I meant to drive back to the jail…’