The Girl With All the Gifts(48)

She thinks about Beacon, and about what she said to Miss Justineau that time in the classroom, after the “Charge of the Light Brigade” lesson. It stands out very clear in her mind, and it’s easy to remember the exact words, because this was the conversation that ended with Miss Justineau stroking her hair.

Will we go home to Beacon? Melanie had asked. When we’re grown up? And Miss Justineau looked so sad, so stricken, that Melanie had immediately started to blurt out apologies and assurances, trying to stave off the effects of whatever terrible thing she’d inadvertently said.

Which she understands now. From this angle, it’s obvious. What she’d said, about going home to Beacon, was impossible, like hot snow or dark sunshine. Beacon was never home to her, and never could be.

That was what made Miss Justineau sad. That there never could be a going-home for her that meant being with other boys and girls and grown-ups and doing the things she used to hear about in stories. Still less a going-home that had Miss Justineau in it. She was meant to end up in jars in Dr Caldwell’s lab.

This time she’s living in now was never foreseen or intended. Not by anyone. That’s why they keep arguing about what they’re going to do.

Nobody knows. Nobody knows any better than she does where they’re really going.





31


Sergeant Parks had planned to let them sleep until the sun’s well up, because he knows how hard the next day is going to be, but as things turn out, they wake up early. What rouses them is the sound of engines. A long way off at first, and rising and falling a lot, but it’s obvious that whatever the hell it is, it’s coming closer.

Under Parks’ terse directions they grab their stuff and get the hell out of there. He lets the hungry kid off the running rope and puts her back on the leash, trying hard not to make the buckets clank together. No telling how far the sound will carry in the pre-dawn stillness.

They run out into the luminous half-dark, past the church and into a field behind it, go a good hundred yards or more before Parks signals to them to kneel down among the towering weeds. They could–maybe should–go further but he wants to see what’s coming. From here he can get a good view of the road without being seen, and their trampled passage will heal over inside of a minute as the resilient grasses stand up straight again.

They sit and kneel like that for a long time, as the sun slowly separates from the horizon and low light soaks into the field like water into a rag. They don’t speak. They don’t move. Justineau opens her mouth at one point, maybe ten minutes in, but Parks gestures her to stay quiet and she does. She can see the urgency in his face.

When the wind shifts, they can hear the shouted voices of people as well as the drone of machines.

It’s a strange cavalcade when it finally comes. In the lead, one of the bulldozers Parks saw the day before. As it rolls down the road and turns a bend towards them, he gets a good view of its broad blade, which has been decorated with a flamboyant death’s head in metallic spray paint. He hears someone–he thinks it’s Gallagher–make a mewling sound of pure fear beside him. But it’s low enough that it won’t carry, so there’s no harm in him voicing what everyone is feeling.

Behind the bulldozer is a Humvee identical to the one they commandeered, and behind that a jeep. All three vehicles are packed with junker men in holiday mood, shouting out to each other and waving a wide variety of offensive weapons. They’re chanting something with a strong, repetitive rhythm, but Parks can’t make out the words.

The convoy stops at the church, where a couple of the junkers jump down and go inside. There’s a shout, and they come out again, looking a little more animated. They’ve found the dead hungry, Parks guesses. But they don’t have any way of telling how long it’s been there. Hungry blood doesn’t flow much and it’s the colour of mud to start with, so drying out doesn’t change it. You’d have to look close even to guess how the hungry was taken down, because the entry wound from Parks’ pistol was small and discreet and there wasn’t any exit wound.

The junkers check the garage too, and Parks tenses because this is where it could all go south. If they’ve left any trace of their presence there… But there are no alarums, and there’s no search. After a few minutes the junkers get back on the bulldozer and set off again. The convoy turns another corner and disappears from sight, although they can still hear it for a long time after that.

When everything’s gone quiet again, Justineau speaks. “They’re looking for us.”

“We can’t know that,” Dr Caldwell objects. “They could be foraging for food.”

“Base had plenty of supplies,” Parks says, pointing out the obvious. “And they only took it yesterday. I’d have expected them to get the fence back up again and make themselves at home. If they’re out here instead, it makes sense to me that they’d be looking for survivors.” Which means they’ve made it personal. He doesn’t say it, but he thinks now that the ones Gallagher accidentally got killed might have been important, or popular. The attack on the base could have been totally opportunistic, but this wild hunt was whipped up to settle scores.

But he doesn’t say any of this, because he doesn’t want Gallagher to feel like he’s got all those deaths on his conscience. The boy’s sensitive enough that he might go down under the weight of that. Hell, Parks would buckle more than a little himself.