Ahead of them, Sibbick halted. The others did the same.
Guppy looked at him. “Nobody knows. And if they do, they’re not telling the likes of us.”
“No one tells the grunts anything,” said Gawen. “Wankers.”
“Stop moaning, Gawen,” said Pike. “Always fucking moaning.”
“Go fuck your mother,” Gawen replied.
“I’d rather fuck yours.”
Private Sibbick turned, addressed Guppy. “Corp, the school is on the next street.”
“Good,” said Guppy. “Everyone stay on their toes. Keep sharp. Let’s go, lads.”
They moved.
“Don’t say that about my mother again, Pike,” said Gawen.
“Piss off.”
“Shut up,” said Guppy, “or I will personally kneecap both of you and leave you here.”
“Sorry, Corp,” said Pike.
“Sorry,” Gawen muttered.
“That’s better,” Guppy said.
A shadow passed overhead.
Pike stopped. “What the…”
Something came out of the sky and plucked Gawen from the street. Frank caught only a glimpse of it. Large and dark, made of sinew and bone, and stinking of wet rot. He saw its burning white eyes as it grabbed Gawen and made off with him.
Gawen screamed from above them.
The leathery flap of wings; the glimpse of a black shape against the sky.
“Holy shit,” said Pike. He was breathing hard through his mask. “It took Gawen. It took him. What the fuck was that?”
Sibbick fired off a short burst into the sky.
Florence sobbed.
Then there was silence. Guppy glanced overhead.
“Keep moving. Let’s go.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
The infected filled the street, flocking towards the school. Twisted, wretched faces; twitching and sagging bodies. They surged and staggered with the fervour of zealots, a mindless rhythm in their appalling jerking movements.
The refugees retreated from the fence.
Joel made a small, child-like sound. His face was slack and boneless.
“We’re fucked,” said Magnus. He looked around at the other terrified faces, then to Ralph.
Ralph said nothing.
People were crying and screaming. The police officers aimed their weapons towards the swarm of infected bodies.
The infected reached the fence, trying to pull it down with clawed hands and even their mouths. Some of them attempted to climb the fence with black spindly limbs. More infected clawed at the gate, thrashing and roaring through wide mouths.
The police opened fire.
Bodies were ripped open and thrown back into the swarm; others collapsed where they were standing. But those behind the fallen kept coming.
The refugees headed towards the school. Ralph, Magnus and Joel were herded with the crowd. Ralph turned back to see the battle behind them.
The infected tore open the gate and skittered over its wreckage. The fence came down with it. They poured into the car park. They closed down the yards between them and the line of police officers, and the line fell as it was breached. Some of the officers turned to run, but were caught and dragged back into grasping hands and jagged sucking mouths.
Some of the infected had been soldiers.
The police sergeant fired his handgun into the thrusting mass of infected. He took down a few staggering, grasping bodies. His gun clicked empty. A group of infected brought him down and pinned him. One of them, a young woman no older than twenty with bleached-blonde hair, forced her hand into his mouth and down his throat. The sergeant bit into her arm even as he choked. An infected man buried his face in the sergeant’s groin, and his mouth came away red and dripping. The woman pulled something pink and slippery from the sergeant’s mouth, threw it away and then locked her mouth to his raw lips. The sergeant’s eyes bulged and he tried to scream. He vanished amidst a throng of squirming bodies.
And then there were no more police.
The infected came for the refugees.
They slashed and clawed and used their teeth. They tore at the stragglers at the back of the refugee crowd. They ripped at soft flesh. There were wet tearing sounds and screams of agony and terror. The last sounds of beating hearts. A woman’s scream became a liquid gurgle as her throat was removed by an Asian man with a nest of pale tongues emerging from his dripping, gasping mouth.
The infected were jackals amongst lambs, tearing through the crowd, snarling and hissing. The air stank of hot blood and slaughter. Screaming faces. Bloated faces deformed to ruin. Rows of teeth too large for their mouths.
Ralph pushed against the bodies massing around him, crushing him. He grabbed hold of Magnus and Joel. They were buffeted and slammed by flailing arms. Magnus was hit in the face; he cried out, clutching his nose.
There was no way out of the car park except into the school; otherwise they would have to go through the infected to escape onto the street. Some desperate men and women took this option and were caught before they could reach the fallen fence. They weren’t seen again.
A man fell against Ralph, and tried to shoulder him out of the way, but Ralph pushed him back. The man was grabbed by a fat infected woman and dragged to the ground. She smothered him like a blubbery sea creature. Ralph turned away, elbowed his way through the crowd with Magnus and Joel behind him. He glanced back to see infected men and women clawing through the crowd of refugees, getting closer. People were dragged away and battened upon.
Ralph pushed his way to the front of the crowd, trying to get inside the school. There was only one door. The people inside the school were trying to shut the door on those outside. A few men were attempting to keep the door open, wrench it from the hands of those inside. Punches and elbows were thrown. A man spat out his teeth.
Ralph helped keep the door open. A man from the other side of the doorway tried to scratch out his eyes. Ralph batted away the man’s hand and punched him in the face.
The infected tore their way through the crowd. The panicking refugees were easy prey. Men and women were turned inside out and flayed; bones were separated from meat.
Ralph pulled Magnus and Joel with him as he pushed through the doorway, shoving others out of his way. They staggered into a classroom. Chaos. Bodies falling. Children screaming and clutching their mothers.
“Where do we go?” said Joel.
“Away from here,” said Ralph. “Anywhere but here.”
The infected tore through the doorway, into the school. Blood hit the floor and the walls. Ralph felt warmth on the back of his head. He kept pushing through the bodies. A man was clutching his bleeding throat. People pleaded to Ralph. He looked them in the eyes but did not stop for them. He headed for the doorway leading to the corridor.
He saw Susan Blake sitting in a corner across the room, her eyes closed, embracing her dog.
He left her there.
More screams and wails. Some people were too numb with horror to even flee or resist. Their deaths did not come quickly.
Ralph pulled Joel and Magnus into the corridor. Refugees ran past him in both directions. Some tripped and fell. Not all of them got up. He moved down the corridor.
“We can escape through the playground,” said Ralph.
“The playground?” said Magnus, still holding his nose.
“I think there’s a gate at the back.”
Ahead of them were people with the same idea.
Ralph glanced back to see the infected entering the corridor. The rooms behind them were slaughterhouses. No one would come out of them alive. A man was dragged to the floor as he tried to escape. He was buried by a scrum of ragged, slippery bodies.
They ran out into the playground.
Ralph stopped. So did Magnus and Joel.
The infected were in the playground.