“Okay,” said Steve. “We have two options. Call for an extraction by air, or carry on. Peri, what do you want to do now?”
“I want do what we came here for. Find El Gordo and kick its arse.”
“That works for me,” said Steve.
“Hey, don’t the rest of us get a say?” asked Amanda.
Peri answered with a question. “Do you want to find your friends?”
“Of course I do. I just don’t want to be taken for granted.” She gave a shrug of acceptance.
“Then you want to go forward?”
“Of course I do,” Amanda repeated.
Peri turned to the white-haired Swede. “What about you, Gus?”
He smiled at her, and exchanged a look with the dog. “We’ll be safest if we all stay together, I think.”
“Right, then let’s move out,” said Steve. “Diamond formation, I’ll take point, Troy to the rear, Gus and Peri, right and left, and Amanda in the centre with the dog. Slow and quiet, people.”
They resumed their progress up the road.
After another few minutes, Steve halted the party and pointed diagonally to his right where the dark shapes of low buildings could be seen through the fog. “That must be Clifftop Farm,” he whispered. He touched the push-to-talk switch for the command channel and called in a brief progress report. Troy moved up alongside Peri.
“Well, boss?” he whispered. “Should we recce this place?”
“If it’s full of snakes, all we’ll do is give away our position.” she said. “I’d rather not get chased around when we’re so close to the place Amanda’s team should be. I’d vote for closing in on the target. What do you think, boys?”
Steve had re-joined them. “I agree,” he said. “And so does Captain Mike. The other patrols haven’t found a single civilian survivor, only corpses and snake-infested people who attacked them like zombies. The chances of finding anyone intact over there is zilch.”
“And the chance of finding something nasty over there is high, I’d say,” said Peri. “So we press on to Amanda’s chapel. To boldly go, where the hand of man has never set foot, and all that.”
Raising his voice slightly, Steve said, “Back into formation, and let’s move. Keep your eyes – no, your ears, keep your ears peeled.”
“How the fuck do I peel my ears, dumbass?” asked Peri. “Never mind, it probably involves sharp things that I don’t want to know about.”
The team carried on through the fog.
“It should be a few yards further, on our left,” whispered Amanda. “Look for a track that goes around behind those trees, there.”
Peri could see something darker looming through the fog. “Are those trees?” she whispered. “My imagination sees something much worse than trees. That’s a fucking T-Rex.”
Steve chuckled. “No, it’s a clump of trees, Peri. And sure enough, there’s a farm track.”
They turned onto the track, and two camper vans emerged from the gloom.
“That’s them,” said Amanda. She strode forward to open the door to the big Aero camper, but Troy reached out to hold her by the arm.
“Let us go first,” said Steve.
Steve and Troy moved to either side of the door, weapons ready. Steve counted down, then yanked the door out and open. Troy darted inside and to the left, his C8 pressed to his shoulder. Steve moved in right behind him, and faced the opposite way. “Clear,” said Steve, quickly followed by, “Clear!” from Troy.
Steve appeared in the doorway. “Peri,” he said urgently. “I need you.” Amanda made a move, but Steve held up a hand, and said, “Wait, Amanda.” He looked at Gus, who nodded in understanding and put an arm round Amanda’s shoulders.
Peri stepped into the van.
The first thing she saw was the body of a young woman lying on the floor in a pool of blood. Her chest was a gaping bloody mess, and a piece of mangled flesh seemed to have been stuffed into her mouth. “Shit,” breathed Peri. “That’s – that’s – is that her heart?”
Steve nodded. “I think so,” he confirmed.
“Fuck, this is awful.” Peri crouched down and looked closer, taking in the woman’s brown hair and pale skin. “I think this is Gilda. The other one – Tori – she’s a blonde.” Then Peri frowned and looked at the wound in her chest. “This looks different, doesn’t it?” She looked up at Steve. “Doesn’t it?”
Steve bent down to look more closely. “You’re right. It doesn’t look like the work of a snake.”
“What. The. Fuck.” Peri said, slowly. “It’s like something ripped open her chest and pulled out her heart, then put it – there.” She rose unsteadily to her feet. “What. The. Fuck,” she repeated. She started towards the door, mumbling that she needed air.
“There’s another one,” said Steve.
She stopped in her tracks, and closed her eyes, willing herself to stay calm. “Where?”
“Look.”
Peri moved into the camper and looked down its length where a lanky young man was lying on the floor with his back propped against a bench seat. “Owain,” she said. “Well, I mean, it isn’t Professor Coupar, so it must be Owain. But there’s no blood?” She looked over at Steve. “What killed him?”
Steve shrugged. “I can see the same as you can, Peri. He’s dead, but not like…” He gestured to the other end of the camper van.
Peri knelt beside the body and leaned in close. “Weird,” she said. “His trousers have been undone at the waist.” She pulled up his tee shirt. “Scratches on his chest, but not breaking the skin.” She looked at his face. She leaned in close to his lips and sniffed. “Smells of woman,” she said. She pushed back the hair on his forehead and pointed to small blemishes on his skin. Each was small, round and red, with a crescent shaped mark on one side. “Burns? From finger tips?”
Steve was still processing something. “What do you mean, he smells like a woman?”
“No,” said Peri. “His lips smell of woman. Scented lip balm. There’s a slight waxiness and a hint of vanilla and tea. He doesn’t look like someone that plumps up his lips, ergo, he’s been kissed by someone that does.”
“Okay, and finger tips?”
Peri stretched out her own fingers and held them just above the marks. “Ten fingers, each with a fingernail, pressed into his forehead pretty hard.”
“Ah, I see it now. So what does that all mean? He and Gilda were doing the bump and grind, then he died, then… then I’m confused.”
“We need to check the other van.”
Peri ran to the door of the VW camper and opened it before Steve could stop her. There was no-one inside.
Steve started to say something about going first, but then stopped as the smell hit his nostrils. “What’s that smell? It’s sort of familiar, but…”
Peri was laughing. “My friend, I am relieved that you find the smell sort of familiar, because it suggests you are getting enough.”
“What?”
“Getting,” said Peri slowly, “enough.” She made an unmistakably lewd twerk with her hips. “You know, Steve, …Getting… Enough…”
“Whoa!” he said, stepping back. “Are you saying I’m getting a nose full of…?”
“This is what a horny teen student’s bedroom smells like after, first, discovering girls, and second, vigorously entertaining said girls, and third, never taking the trouble of doing any laundry. This is what mums have to put up with without comment, because ‘boys will be boys’. The same scent in a girl’s room would likely cause a riot – life is such a bitch to girls! You are taking in the mingled scents of sweat, Cowper’s fluid, saliva, semen, natural vaginal lubricants, cervical mucus and pheromones. You are inhaling copious quantities of ‘l’aire de baise grand’.”