The Girl With All the Gifts(113)

Sometime in the middle of the night, the quality of the sounds from beneath them changes.

Up to then, it’s been random–the thuds and judders of stampeding hungries bouncing off each other again and again in a Brownian cascade. What they’re hearing now has a definite rhythm to it, a persistence. And there are grunts and clicks and whistles, mixed in with the sounds of effort and impact. Hungries don’t vocalise.

Parks disentangles himself from Justineau’s heavy, sleepy embrace and crawls to the trap. He lifts it up and flicks the torch on, already pointed straight down.

Framed in its beam is a face out of nightmare. It seems to leap up at Parks out of the blackness. Dark-eyed, pale-skinned, piebald with dots and slashes of colour. Its wide mouth hangs open to display slender pointed teeth like the teeth of a piranha.

Then it really does leap up, reacting to the light with instant, murderous rage. Something parts the air in a whickering blur right in front of Parks’ face–something that shines in the torchlight, and hits the mouth of the trapdoor with a resonant clang.

Parks leans back, but he doesn’t flinch away from the misjudged blow, so he sees what’s happening behind his attacker. Children, boys and girls both, are swarming over the lurching hungries, pulling them down and quickly dispatching them with a range of weapons that’s both wide and eclectic.

But this isn’t what they came for. This is just clearing the ground. They didn’t find this place by accident. It’s the loft room, and what’s in it, that brought them here. The dark eyes flick upwards again and again, locking stares with Parks.

He flings the trap shut again. Justineau is already stirring, but he pulls her quickly to her feet.

“We’ve got to go,” he says. “Now. Get dressed.”

“Why?” Justineau demands. “What’s…?” She doesn’t finish the sentence, because she’s heard the sounds from below. Maybe she guesses instantly what they mean. She knows they mean trouble, anyway, and she’s not so stupid that she’ll ask for an explanation that could take up the time they need for an escape.

The trapdoor doesn’t have a lock, but Parks manages to topple the metal cistern on top of it. He’s barely in time–the trap was already being pushed open when the tank crashed down across it. A shriek from below tells him that whoever was climbing up didn’t enjoy being swatted back down.

In seconds, the trap is thumping and juddering as the hungry children bring their strength to bear on it. Parks has no idea how they’re managing to reach it. Climbing on each other’s shoulders, or on the piled bodies of the other hungries they’ve just harvested? It doesn’t matter. They’re too strong and too determined for the cistern to hold them back for long.

He jumps up on to the table and thrusts his head out of the window, which Justineau has left open. There’s nobody up on the roof. He gets his shoulders through and levers himself up on to the slates. Justineau is already following, and although he offers his hand, she doesn’t need it.

The sloping slates aren’t wet, but they’re still as slippery as hell. The two of them climb up to the roof ridge with their limbs splayed like frogs, pressing their bodies hard against the treacherous surface.

Once they reach the ridge, it’s easier. There’s a single skin of brickwork making a narrow walkway, so they can stand upright and stumble along like drunken trapeze artists, using the breastwork of chimneys and the pipes of heating vents to steady themselves.

Parks is aiming to get to the end of the terrace and find another window to climb in through. Before they’re halfway there, loud scuffling and shrill shrieks from behind them warn him that they’re no longer alone. He turns to look. Small, limber shapes, clearly defined in the moonlight, are swarming up on to the roof from the room the two of them just left. They’re not making for the ridge; they’re crab-shuffling diagonally towards Parks and Justineau, taking the shortest route to their prey.

Parks waits until he reaches the next chimney before he takes out his gun. He fires twice, at the closest of the children. The first shot is a direct hit. The kid is slammed backwards, goes tumbling down the slope and over the edge before he can stop himself. The other shot goes wide, but the children scatter, panicked, and another one falls.

The rest retreat quickly. Not quickly enough, though. Parks has plenty of time to pick off a few more.

“Don’t kill them!” Justineau shouts. “Don’t, Parks! They’re running away!”

They’re changing tactics is what they’re doing. But Parks doesn’t bother to argue. Better to save the bullets, because they’re going to need them when they get to the ground.

If they get to the ground.

Something hits the brickwork of the chimney right next to Parks’ head, and splinters fleck his cheek. From behind chimneys and gables, the hungry kids let loose with what must be slingshots–but with the whiplash speed of a hungry arm behind them, the stones hit like bullets. One of them cleaves the air so close that he can feel it, and hear its mosquito whine as it goes by his ear.

Enough.

He unships his rifle and fires two wide bursts. The first sprays the chimney stacks, forcing the kids back into hiding. The second shatters the slates between him and them on a sweeping, ruinous arc. They’ll have a hard time coming across that stretch of roof, if they decide to risk it.

“Keep moving,” he yells to Justineau. He points. “Down! Down that way. Find a window!”