Fear; because she did not understand his words and his whispered tone frightened her. He was a threat to her safety. She ran blindly, not knowing where she was going, a panic-stricken flight that took her back outside into the hot dazzling sunlight, blinded her so that she did not see the flight of stone steps.
She screamed as she fell, felt the impact, but strangely it did not hurt; rolling, bumping, her inflamed body cushioning the blows, still clutching those carriers as they spilled scraps of natural wholefood in her wake. Landing on the pavement below where everything came back to her again. The fall had jump-started her brain, set her sluggish reasoning in motion once more.
People still milled about aimlessly, unintelligible shouts and grunts filled the air. Pushing, shoving, a young girl screaming as they trampled her, maddened cattle preparing to stampede.
Jackie Quinn pulled herself up, scrambled back up those steps, still carrying her squashed food. For a few moments, at least, she knew the way she had to go, through St Julian's again and out the back way; keep clear of the crowds and hurry whilst she still remembered which way to go.
There were fewer people on this side of town. A woman was slumped on a bench, she looked dead, and a man sat beside her apparently unaware of her presence. He looked up once as Jackie hurried by but he gave the impression that he did not even see her. He might have been blind.
It was amazing, frightening, how her strength had not waned. If anything she felt stronger, fitter, except for the smarting of her flesh and that constant thumping headache. In those first few awful minutes (hours?) she had weakened, felt abominably ill, but now that sensation had passed. She refrained from looking down at herself, didn't want to know; it was as if she had been given another body, a strong coarse squat butch frame. A sex change? God, she'd never look at herself again.
Hurry, your mind could go again at any second and then you'll be lost!
It was a long way, maybe two miles. Over the English Bridge, turning to the right, preferring to walk in the road because there were people about again, most of them sticking to the pavements, an instinct that was too ingrained in them for them to venture on to the highway. Yet.
A jumble of motor vehicles, a dozen or more minor crashes except for the one in the middle of the road where a lorry had shot the lights and gone over a Mini. The lights were still working, eerily, pointlessly; red, amber, green, but nobody was going anywhere.
A body lay on the tarmac, stark naked. Man or woman, it was hard to tell because it was mangled and bloody, probably thrown from the crushed car. Jackie thought she might spew again but that feeling of nausea was stopped instantly by an animal-like roar that had her forgetting the carnage.
A man was coming round the back of a bumped Ford pick-up, shouting hoarsely, pointing at Jackie. In one fleeting second she saw and understood. He was big and muscular, blotched skin like everybody else, and naked from the waist downwards. He wanted her, all right, and for one reason only!
She broke into a run, her carrier bags bumping and jogging against her, fast strides that scarcely affected her rate of breathing. Weaving her way through the line of cars, aware of his padding bare footsteps. Louder, closer, he would catch her soon, it was inevitable. Her heartbeats speeded up in time with her pounding head.
And then she heard a scream, half-checked and turned her head back to look. Her pursuer had altered his course, spied a woman propped up in a newsagent's doorway. A couple of bounds and he had her, threw her roughly down on the concrete. She struggled, screamed again but it was futile. So deliberate, so fast, a stag taking his hind by force on the rutting stand. A forced mating, any female was fair game.
Jackie fled, veered to the other side of the road because she spied a bunch of youths and wanted to avoid passing close to them. They did not appear to notice her. More than her life was at stake.
With relief she saw and recognised the Monkmoor lights. A phone box; an idea that hurt like a migraine stab almost blanked her out again. She would ring Jon, he would come and rescue her. Whatever had been between them in the past was a strong enough link. He would not desert her in her terrible hour of need.
Jackie Quinn glanced around, furtively, guiltily. A youth on the opposite side of the road was watching her, yet his expression was not one of lust like the man who had chased her, rather vacant as though he saw but did not understand; almost hypnotised.
She dragged the heavy glass door open, went inside and let it bang shut behind her, a vibration which jarred her nerves, speeded up the thumping in her head. Jon would come, he did not have to drive through the blocked town. Down the A49; she could even walk down and meet him there. Another thought, perhaps he would not believe her, think that it was some ruse on her part or else she had gone mad. Everything up in the hills would be perfectly normal, nothing untoward ever happened up there. You've got to believe me, Jon. Something's happened, everybody's come out in ghastly rashes and nobody knows what they're doing. Except me and I might go on the blink at any second. It's the Russians! I know it is because ... a man told me it was. Oh God, it sounded lame, a kid's fantasy. You've got to believe me, please. Her head was vibrating as though there were steam pistons in her brain. A robot, controlled by ... Oh Christ Alive, her vision was tunnelling again, like looking down a telescope from the wrong end, seeing just a circle with a tiny grey telephone ringed in it. Start dialling now before it's too late!
Her forefinger was almost too thick to go in the hole. Fumbling, missing and having to start again. Pushing with all her psychological strength, a tremendous effort.
0... 5. ..8. ..8. ..4. ..It was going to take hours. The dialling tone started up another vibration in her brain, a minute pneumatic drill boring into her so that the tunnel was becoming even narrower. She could barely make out the numbers now. 8 ... 4 ... One slip and you'll have to start all over again. 5 ... 5 ...
And then everything went black and red and the receiver was swinging on its flex like a pendulum gone berserk, banging against the pay-box.
It took Jackie Quinn some time to work out exactly where she was. A wide main road, totally deserted, not even an abandoned vehicle. The river below, a deep muddy current, the grass on either side brown and sun-scorched; dying.
Just walking, aimlessly, because there was nothing else to do, accepting what she saw with numbed apathy. The fear, the pain were gone. There was nothing left.
She still carried the plastic bags filled with mushed food because it never occurred to her to discard them, a mindless living thing in a dead world.
Scattered trees that appeared to have gone into their annual leaf-fall, but if you looked close you saw that the foliage was shrivelled and blackened instead of a golden brown tint. Heat scorched. But Jackie Quinn was not aware of this nor anything else.
The thumping in her head began again, more persistent and painful than before, bringing with it a glimmering of fear, the beginnings of realisation again. Stopping, holding on to a low branch of a withered tree. Waiting.
The pain came back, brought everything else with it. Oh God, she hadn't managed to phone Jon, hadn't made it in time. A sensation of helplessness, hopelessness, seeing the scorched countryside and knowing that it was not just a month of hot June weather that had done this. It was . . . she didn't know what it was, only that suddenly the whole world had changed.
She would go on to Pauline's mother's house. There was a phone there and she would try again. The blackouts were becoming more frequent; she had to hurry.
Almost running when she saw the traffic island. Miraculously she had continued in the right direction; not far now.
The pub, its doors closed, an atmosphere of finality about it. The housing estates beyond, people standing about, flesh-scarred caricatures of their former selves, not understanding, not caring. Just living, but for how long? Death was surely the next stage, Jackie prayed that it was because to go on living like this was too awful to contemplate.