They halted.
Frank scanned the buildings around them. The sky was dark.
“The creature that took Gawen,” said Guppy.
Movement above them. A flutter of flapping skin. The breeze touched the back of Frank’s neck with cold fingers.
He sniffed the air. The stink of wet rot.
“Contact!” Sibbick said and fired overhead, tracking it with his rifle.
Frank twisted his head around the street. Movement on a roof across the street caught his eye. Something was perched by the chimney, watching them. Glowing white eyes. Its body was coloured like alabaster. Its movements were jerky and quick, like a bird. A low mewling sound came from its hidden mouth.
“I see it,” said Frank, his voice a whisper.
Guppy aimed at the shape on the roof. Before he could fire, the thing bobbed its head, twisted its sinewy body, and melted into the darkness.
“It followed us,” said Sibbick.
“Doesn’t matter,” said Guppy. “Keep moving. We’re too vulnerable stood in the middle of the street. We need to get out of here before we get our nuts roasted by the RAF.”
They moved together, sticking to the centre of the road.
A scrabbling on one of the roofs. Frank saw the creature’s eyes again. A flash of them, then they were gone.
“Keep moving,” Guppy said.
Then the creature came at them from above. It shrieked. A gust of air from veined wings. Frank saw its face, once the face of a man. Now it was a slick drooping mask. A saw-toothed rictus.
Claws sliced the air above Frank’s head.
Guppy and Sibbick fired at the creature.
“Where is it?” said Sibbick, looking down the barrel of his rifle, sweeping the rooftops.
“There!” said Guppy.
The creature was clinging to a wall. Its skin was almost translucent. It scrambled upwards out of sight. The creature could be heard moving over the roofs. A tile fell from a rooftop and smashed on the pavement.
“Wait a minute,” said Guppy. “I think it’s distracting us…”
Frank looked at him. “What do you mean?”
There were sounds behind them. The rush of a breeze and a keening cry. Another creature leapt from the other side of the street. A single flap of its wings and it was upon them.
The creature was streamlined and hairless. Its hands opened into filthy black claws.
It reached for Florence.
Sibbick flung himself between the creature and the girl. He fired his rifle. Florence screamed.
There was a maddening squeal. A shriek of pain. A ripping sound. A wet sound.
Guppy fell back and emptied the rest of his magazine.
Frank grabbed Florence and they rolled away. When he looked back the creature was gone.
Sibbick was lying on the road. His gas mask was gone, and so was most of his face.
He screamed through a ruined mouth.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
The creature’s claws had been busy. Private Sibbick’s face, chest and stomach were missing bits. Deep lacerations. Most of the skin had been ripped away from his jaws and cheek bones. His eyes and teeth were starkly white against the red pulp of his face.
“It’s okay, lad,” Guppy said, on his knees beside the soldier’s trembling body. “It’s okay.”
Guppy tried to hold him together, but the best bits of Sibbick were falling through his hands. Sibbick’s screams faded into a series of broken sobs.
The creature that attacked him was lying sprawled by the pavement, riddled with bullet wounds. It had once been a man, naked and pale with lesions and tufts of wiry hair on its glistening skin. Large membranous wings curled around its limp body. Its face was a horror of teeth and soft meat.
The other creature had retreated beyond the rooftops.
Guppy pulled his mask above his face. He looked different than Frank had imagined. A soft, doughy face. A balding scalp. His hands were bloody.
“What’s it done to my face, Corp?” Sibbick asked.
“You’ll be fine. We’ll sort you out.”
“I can feel it inside me.”
“You’re imagining it, Private.”
“It’s in my blood. The filth from its claws.”
Guppy was dull-eyed. “No, we’ll get you some help.”
“You should step away, Corp.” Sibbick’s voice was slurred and slow.
The two men looked at each other. Guppy nodded, stood up and wiped his hands on his thighs.
“You know what you have to do,” said Sibbick. “We’ve discussed this. I’d rather be dead.”
Guppy reloaded his rifle.
Sibbick began to shake violently. His fingers raked at the road. A damp nonsense sound came from the flapping hole of his mouth and his eyes rolled into waxen whites.
Sibbick’s skin moved under his fatigues.
Guppy stepped back. Frank guided Florence to the other side of the road. He kept checking the rooftops.
Sibbick thrashed against the tarmac, tearing the skin from his hands. Now he was screaming, and it sounded like the screams Frank heard echoing amongst the streets of Wishford and Horsham.
Florence covered her ears.
Guppy turned his rifle towards the fallen soldier.
There was a single shot, and Sibbick wasn’t screaming anymore. His crumpled body looked pathetic on the road.
Guppy was an abject figure, cradling his rifle, staring at Sibbick. He looked old. His face sagged.
“They killed all of my lads,” Guppy said. “They’re all gone.”
More gunfire from other parts of the town.
Guppy looked at Frank. He said nothing. He relieved Sibbick of his ammunition. Guppy pulled down his mask, stepped around Sibbick’s corpse and started down the street.
Frank and Florence followed him.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
They passed a pub with its doors hanging open. The coppery taint of blood drifted from the darkness inside. Frank thought he could see dark shapes huddled together, busy doing something, busy doing lots of things.
They hurried past.
“This is the road out of town,” said Guppy. He halted, looked down the street.
“What’s wrong?”
“Hostiles. Quite a few. Won’t be able to go through them on foot.”
Frank looked down the road. Scattered figures loitered and shifted in the moonlight, emitting low growls and mutterings. Some of them were staring at the sky.
“Don’t they ever sleep?” asked Frank.
“Haven’t thought to ask them yet.”
“Could we use a side street to go around them?”
“It’ll take too long. Haven’t got time.”
“What, then?”
Guppy’s gaze settled on a Ford Fiesta at the side of the street. He motioned for Frank and Florence to follow him. A man was dead in the driver’s seat. Guppy checked the man over then dumped him on the road.
Keys in the ignition.
“We’re driving out of here. Won’t make it out otherwise. I think the rest of the road is clear of obstructions.”
“Apart from the infected,” said Frank.
Guppy nodded.
“Will the car start?”
“Watch the road while I give her a try.”
Frank stood guard. He kept Florence close. Guppy twisted the keys; the engine spluttered and gurgled like something slowly rising from the dead just so it could die again.
Frank checked to see that the infected down the road hadn’t heard the sound of the engine. Luckily, they hadn’t, yet.
Florence looked up at Frank. Those small, dark eyes told him nothing. Her mouth didn’t move. He nodded at her, offered a strained smile.
After four attempts, the engine started. Guppy tapped the gas pedal, listened to the engine’s irregular throb and thrum.
“Get in,” he said. “I’m driving.”
Frank sat next to Guppy in the front. Florence sat on the backseat.