“Close the door,” said Dennis in a calm whisper that worried her at once.
She did as he told her. “What is it?”
He didn’t speak but pointed towards the bank on their right. It was lined with overgrown trees and tall grass. She squinted into the dark and saw two shapes running along the bank, easily keeping up with the boat despite the obstacles presented by fallen branches and fences.
She jumped when she felt Dennis’s arm around her. She hadn’t realised that she had moved closer to him. He held he firmly. “It’s alright,” he whispered. His mouth was so close to her ear that she could feel the warmth of his breath on her neck. “They can’t get us while we’re on the water.”
Hannah watched the shapes that from a distance might have been mistaken for human. But if you watched closely you could tell the difference. They moved like animals: their long limbs making smooth movements through the air. They were faster, they had better vision, hearing and smell. If you got close enough to one, they said, you could see their smooth pale skin, like white porcelain. Personally she didn’t think anyone had come that close to one and survived. If you got that close they would just grab you and sink their sharp fangs into your neck. If you were lucky they would kill you outright, if not you’d become just like them: superhuman in some ways, subhuman in all the important ones.
Hannah sunk into Dennis. She could hear them, grunting and growling. “Are you sure they can’t cross the water?” she said.
“If they could they would have done by now. They’ve been following us for the last half hour.”
She shuddered to think that while she’d been making up beds for the kids those things had been out there. Waiting for them to get close enough so they could jump across.
“What are we going to do?” she said.
He didn’t say anything and she knew there was more that he wasn’t telling her.
“What is it Dennis?” she said.
She turned to see him squirming. Whatever it was it was the reason he’d called her up. If they had been following the boat for thirty minutes then something else must have changed.
“According to the map,” he said in a way that made it clear he thought the map was to blame, “we’re approaching a lock.”
She nodded. She felt serenely calm. This was what she had expected, there wouldn’t be a happy ending for them. “How long?”
“About fifteen minutes.”
That was long enough. If she got the kids to sleep she could use a pillow on Cora. Dennis would need to deal with Ben, he was too strong for her.
“Are they asleep?”
She shook her head. “Not yet.”
“Do you want to see if you can sleep for a bit?”
She turned around so she could see him and frowned. Why would she want to sleep now? She was going to be dead in fifteen minutes.
“I can keep going for a few hours,” he said, “but not all night.”
“Keep… what are you talking about?”
She noticed that they were passing the same cluster of trees again. Or were they? It was difficult to tell in the dark and all trees looked about the same.
“One of us needs to keep driving until morning.”
Hannah felt sick to her stomach. Of course, it had been obvious. They just had to keep going until sunrise, by then they would be safe and they could continue to the lock. In her mind she had already stuffed a pillow over Cora’s mouth and held it down until she stopped struggling. She started to cry.
“What is it?” said Dennis.
She shook her head. “You go in and get some rest. I don’t think I could sleep yet.”
He didn’t argue with her. She took the tiller from him.
“Give me a call if you need me. Otherwise I’ll be out in a couple of hours to take over.” He kissed her softly on the lips and went inside.
She watched the creatures on the bank stop as the boat turned. They were smart, that was just one of the things that made them so dangerous. When the boat pulled away again they started to follow.
It started to get cold and Dennis appeared with a jacket for her. “You alright up here by yourself?”
She nodded and took the jacket from him. “You should be resting.”
The creatures continued their journey up and down the bank while she continued theirs up and down the river.
“I couldn’t sleep,” he said. “Are they still there?”
“Still there.” She had considered switching off the engine and letting the boat drift along to save fuel but there was a slight current towards the bank and she was afraid that if she fell asleep they would drift towards shore and the first she would know about it would be when she woke up as one of them.
“You want a coffee of something?”
“Coffee would be good,” she said.
He disappeared back inside and returned a few minutes later with two steaming cups of black coffee. There was no milk left. “We should think about weapons,” he said, settling his cup on top of the boat and closing the door behind him.
Finding weapons would be easy. There were thousands of guns just laying in the street where the army had been overrun. Getting to them would be more difficult but, she supposed, if they set off early enough they could be there and back before sunset.
“Is there a city on your map?” she said.
He took it out of his pocket and peered at it. He wouldn’t be able to see anything in the dark, frankly she was surprised he could see anything in the light. His glasses had broken when he tripped over, while they were travelling to the boat. There hadn’t been time to find another pair.
“We can’t be too far from Reading,” he said.
It was on the tip of her tongue to say that her sister lived in Reading but, of course, she didn’t. Probably no one lived there anymore.
Dennis sat with her until she started to yawn. “Go and get some sleep,” he said.
“I’m alright,” she said. But a few minutes later her eyes were starting to feel heavy and she couldn’t keep them open. The fear of the creatures stalking along the bank remained but it wasn’t enough to keep her awake anymore.
“At least let me steer, before you run us into a bridge or something.” He didn’t need to say what ‘something’ might be.
“Maybe I’ll just go and check on the kids,” she said and let him take the tiller. She saw him smile but kissed him anyway and then went back inside.
It was warm and she knew she wouldn’t be able to stay awake for long. She also couldn’t look at the faces of the sleeping children who, just a few hours earlier, she had killed.
Without getting undressed she climbed into bed, closed her eyes and fell asleep.
3
That night she dreamed. She dreamed that they were back at home. They had a nice home, a nice life. They lived in a new apartment block near the city centre. Dennis was in stocks, ‘not a stockbroker’ he’d told her but she could never remember what he actually did. She had been in marketing before Ben had come along. She hadn’t worked since.
They were in their mid-thirties and their friends were all settled down having children as well. They had a good social life. A good life. Then she dreamed that the creatures came and it wasn’t a dream but a memory.
She was laying in bed and she could hear Dennis beside her, breathing heavily, his throat making that irritating irregular rasping sound. He had been drinking the night before. But she could also hear something else, a scratching noise that sounded like hissing.
She didn’t know what it was, no one knew what it was back then. The population just exploded overnight. One day they were nowhere, the next day they were everywhere. And that was the night.