The Girl With All the Gifts(54)

Caldwell can’t help herself. She advances, crab-wise, to intersect the female hungry’s trajectory, careful at these close quarters to watch her only out of the corner of her eye. Out of the corner of her other eye, she’s aware of Parks raising his hand in a halt gesture. She ignores him. This is too important, and she can’t in conscience let it pass.

She stands full in the path of the oncoming carriage, the shambling ex-woman. It bumps against her, with minimal force, and the woman stops dead. Her shoulders slump, her head bows. Now she looks the part: the lights going out, system powering down until something happens to kick-start it again.

Parks and the others have frozen. They’re all looking Caldwell’s way, watching this play out because there’s nothing they can do now to influence it. By the same token, it’s too late for Caldwell to worry about whether her e-blockers will work at point-blank range, so she doesn’t.

Moving with glacial slowness, she comes around to the side of the carriage. From this angle, she can see that the hungry has more injuries than was immediately apparent. Her shoulder has been torn, flesh hanging there in desiccated strips. The white blouse isn’t white at all at the back–it’s black from neckline to hem with ancient, crusted blood.

Inside the pushchair there’s a row of ducks on an elasticated string, which bob and rock in a desultory dance, and a big yellow blanket, dusty and rucked up, which hides whatever else might be there.

The hungry doesn’t seem aware of Caldwell at all. That’s good. The doctor makes her movements even more gradual, even more unhurried. Reaches out her hand to the topmost edge of the blanket.

She takes a fold of the thick, stiff fabric between finger and thumb. Slow as a glacier now, she peels it back.

The baby has been dead for a long time. Two large rats, nesting in what’s left of its ribcage, start up at once and leap with shrill squeals of protest over Caldwell’s left and right shoulders.

Caldwell staggers back with a wordless shriek.

The hungry’s head snaps up and round. It stares at Caldwell, eyes widening. Its mouth gapes open on grey rot and black stumps of teeth.

Sergeant Parks fires a single shot into the back of its skull. Its mouth opens wider still, its head tilting sideways. It falls forward on to the carriage, which rolls and pitches it off on to the road’s gravelled surface.

On all sides, hungries stir to life, swivelling their heads like range-finders.

“Move,” Parks growls. “On me.”

Then he bellows:

“Run!”





33


They almost die in the first few seconds. Because in spite of Parks’ yell, the others freeze.

It just seems like there’s nowhere to run to. Hungries are swarming on them from every direction, the gaps between them closing as they converge.

But there’s only one direction that matters. And Parks sets to work to open it up again.

Three shots drop three of the sprinting dead in their tracks. Two shots miss. Parks gives Justineau a violent shove, gets her running. Gallagher does the same for Dr Caldwell, and the little hungry kid, Melanie, is already going flat out.

They jump over the fallen hungries, which are scrabbling like cockroaches, trying to right themselves. If Parks had the time, if the seconds that are ticking by weren’t shaping up to be the last seconds of their lives, he’d have tried for head shots. As it is, he goes for central body mass and the best odds for sending them down.

Works fine, up until Justineau goes sprawling. One of the holed hungries has grabbed her leg and is swarming up it, hand over hand.

Parks stops long enough to unload a second bullet into the hollow under the ear of the ex-human predator. It lets go. Justineau is up again in an instant, not looking back. Good. Lot’s wife should have had that kind of focus.

He’s shooting to left and right. Only taking out the closest, the ones that are about to jump or grab. Gallagher is doing the same thing, and–though his hit rate is shit–at least he’s not slowing to shoot. That’s better than having him aim like Deadeye Dick and stand still long enough to get tackled.

They’re at the gates now, and there’s no lock on them that Parks can see, but they don’t open. Used to be electric, obviously, but bygones are bygones and in the brave new post-mortem world that just means they don’t bloody work.

“Over!” he yells. “Up and over!”

Which is easily said. A head-high rampart of ornamental ironwork with functional spear points on top says different. They try, all the same. Parks leaves them to it, turns his back to them and goes on firing.

The up side is that now he can be indiscriminate. Set to full auto and aim low. Cut the hungries’ legs out from under them, turning the front-runners into trip hazards to slow the ones behind.

The down side is that more and more of them keep coming. The noise is like a dinner bell. Hungries are crowding into the green space from the streets on every side, at what you’d have to call a dead run. There’s no limit to their numbers, and there is a limit to his ammo.

Which he hits, suddenly. The gun stops vibrating in his hands and the noise of his shots dies away through layers of echoes. He ejects the empty magazine, gropes for another in his pocket. He’s done this so often he could go through the moves in his sleep. Slap the new mag in and give it a quick, sharp tug, pivoting it on the forward lip so it locks into place. Pull the bolt all the way back.