The Girl With All the Gifts(57)

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Fox in Socks

Peepo!

The Cops and the Robbers

What Do You Do With a Kangaroo?

Where the Wild Things Are

The Man Whose Mother Was a Pirate

Pass the Jam, Jim

The titles are like stories in themselves. Some of the books have fallen apart or else been torn, their pages scattered across the floor. It would make her sad, if her heart wasn’t full already with a dizzying cargo of emotions.

She’s not a little girl. She’s a hungry.

It’s too crazy, too terrible to be true. But too obvious now to be ignored. The hungry that turned from her at the base, when it could have eaten her… that could have been anything. Or nothing. It could have smelled Dr Selkirk’s blood and been distracted by that, or it could have been looking for someone bigger to eat, or the blue disinfectant gel could have disguised Melanie’s smell the way the shower chemicals always disguised the smell of the grown-ups.

But outside, just now, when she stepped in front of Sergeant Parks–impulsive, without thinking, wanting to fight the monsters the same way he did, instead of hiding from them like a big scaredy-cat–they didn’t even seem to see her. They certainly didn’t hunger for her, the way they did for everyone else. It was like she was invisible. Like there was a bubble of pure nothing where Melanie was.

That’s not the big proof, though. That’s the little proof that pushes her up against the big proof, which is so very big that she wonders how she could have failed to see it right away. It’s the word itself. The name. Hungries.

The monsters are named for the feeling that filled her when she smelled Miss Justineau in the cell, or the junker men outside the block. The hungries smell you, and then they chase you until they eat you. They can’t stop themselves.

Melanie knows exactly how that feels. Which means she’s a monster.

It makes sense now why Dr Caldwell thinks it was okay to cut her up on a table and put pieces of her in jars.

The door behind her opens, making almost no sound.

She turns to see Dr Caldwell standing in the doorway, staring down at her. The expression on Dr Caldwell’s face is complicated and confusing. Melanie flinches back from it.

“Whatever the pertinent factor is,” Dr Caldwell says, her voice a quick, low murmur, “you’re its apogee. Do you know that? Genius-level mind and all that grey muck growing through your brain doesn’t affect it one bit. Ophiocordyceps should have eaten out your cortex until all that’s left is motor nerves and random backfires. But here you are.” She takes a step forward, and Melanie locksteps back away from her.

“I’m not going to harm you,” Dr Caldwell says. “There’s nothing I can do out here anyway. No lab. No scopes. I just want to look at gross structures. The root of your tongue. Your tear ducts. Your oesophagus. See how far the infection has progressed. It’s something. Something to be going on with. The rest will wait. But you’re a crucially important specimen, and I can’t just—”

When Dr Caldwell reaches for her, Melanie ducks under her grip and sprints for the door. Dr Caldwell spins and lunges, almost fast enough. The tips of her fingers slide across Melanie’s shoulder, but the bandages make her clumsy and she doesn’t manage to catch a hold.

Melanie runs as if there’s a tiger behind her.

Hearing Dr Caldwell’s furious gasp. “Damn! Melanie!”

Out into the big room with the chairs around the edges. Melanie doesn’t even know if she’s being followed, because she doesn’t dare look back. Bile rises in her throat as she thinks of the lab and the table and the long-handled knife.

In her panic, she just runs through the first door she sees, not even sure if it’s the right one. It’s not. It’s the kitchen and she’s trapped. She makes a sound inside the muzzle, an animal squeal.

She runs back out into the chair room. Dr Caldwell is on the other side of it. The door to the corridor is halfway between them.

“Don’t be stupid,” Dr Caldwell says. “I won’t hurt you. I just want to examine you.”

Melanie starts to walk towards her, head down, docile.

“That’s right,” Dr Caldwell soothes. “Come on.”

When Melanie comes level with the door that leads out to the corridor, she bolts through it.

Since she doesn’t know where she’s going, it doesn’t matter what turns she takes, but she remembers them anyway. Left. Left. Right. She can’t help herself. It’s the same instinct that made her memorise the return route to the cell block, when Sergeant Parks took her to Dr Caldwell’s lab. Home keeps meaning different things, but she has to know her way back to it. It’s a need buried too deep in her to be pulled out.

The corridors all look alike, and they offer no hiding places–at least, not to someone who doesn’t have the use of their hands. She runs past door after door, all closed.

She goes to ground at last in an alcove, a slight widening of the corridor that creates an angle, a bulwark just wide enough for her body. It would only fool someone who wasn’t actually looking for her, since anyone walking by would be able to see her just by turning their head. If Dr Caldwell finds her, she’ll run again, and if Dr Caldwell catches her, she’ll shout for Miss Justineau. That’s her plan–the best she can come up with.

Her ears are straining for the sounds of distant footsteps. When she hears the singing, from much closer, she jumps like a rabbit.