Berserk

'Human?' Tom said, tipping his head back and staring at the brightening sky. He was not entirely sure what that meant.

We have to move on, the voice said, quiet and considered. We have to go, because of Steven.

'Where is he?'

The blunt question must have surprised Natasha because she fell silent for a few seconds. Tom could still feel her in his head, but the sensation stilled like a held breath.

I can't tell you, she said.

'Why?'

I can't. I'm not sure, not really, but the closer we get the more certain I'll be. And it's dangerous there. Very dangerous. If he's still with them, they'll be angry, and strong, and well fed.

'Who are you on about? I don't understand. I don't understand any of this.'

They kept us hungry, Natasha said. And then she drew back into herself and left Tom alone, alone with his dead wife and that already familiar sense of abandonment.

Cole had never enjoyed killing. Those few occasions he had killed—his old friend Nathan King recently, and the times before—had been out of necessity. King had died because he knew too much and he had started blabbing, but really it was all down to the berserkers. Cole had promised himself ten years ago that he would have to be as heartless, ruthless and vicious as them to catch the ones that had escaped or, ironically, to prevent them from being noticed. He knew that he could never truly match them, but he had tried. Through the doubt and the self- hate, he had tried.

After killing Sandra Francis six years before, Cole had cried. Curled up in bed the tears came, and he stood immediately, went to the kitchen and cut himself across the back of his left hand. The pain gave the tears a different reason, and the blood brought back memories that had given him some form of justification. If the scientist had talked, helped him, revealed everything she knew about what made Natasha special, perhaps he would have let her live.

Now, standing over the kneeling farmer and pressing the hot barrel, of the .45 to the back of the man's skull, Cole would have cheerfully seen the fool's brains splatter his shoes.

'Fucking idiot!' he shouted. 'It's early, you should be in bed, not driving around the fucking lanes wrecking cars. Idiot. Idiot!'

'I … I … ,' was all the farmer could say. He was shivering, sweating and crying. Instead of inspiring pity this only increased Cole's anger.

'Stop stammering and tell me what you're going to do about it. Tell me!'

The farmer had seen most of what happened. The shooting, Roberts ramming the Jeep into the road, the blood on the woman's legs where she lay across Roberts' lap. Cole knew that he had hit her several times, and that was bad, that was wrong. But right now he was too enraged to feel sorrow or regret. Now, his blood was up.

I'm berserk! he thought, and although the idea was horrific, it was strangely satisfying as well. 'I'm almost as mad as them!' he said. Cole's finger tightened on the trigger and he pressed the barrel harder into the farmer's neck. The old man swayed on his knees and then tumbled onto his side, crying and raising his hands to ward off the bullet. He could have been anyone's father, probably had grandchildren, showed them around the farm, let them feed the chickens and play in the hay barn …

'I … I …,' he continued to say.

Cole knelt next to him and pressed the gun up under his chin. 'I said, what are you going to do about it?'

The farmer began to shake his head. The pistol barrel snagged his jowls and they bulged with each shake.

'Better start talking,' Cole said.

'Who … who are you?'

'Army.'

'That man … that woman …'

'That's none of your business. Now listen, old man, this is way beyond your understanding. Got that? This is nothing to do with you, but you've seen me, and you've seen everything, and I have to tell you my finger's about two pounds of pressure away from spreading your brains across the ground. Like that idea? You want me to air your head?'

'No … no. …' He shook his head again, fat jowls catching on the gun barrel, and Cole's anger started to dissipate. Later, he thought that the old man's obesity had saved him. He had actually looked funny down there, kneeling on the ground and shaking his head, blubbery cheeks going one way, neck wobbling the other. If he had not made Cole smile, unintentional though it was, he may well have never milked his cows again.

'You love the queen?' Cole said. He almost smiled again, but then the thought of Natasha rooting in his mind came back to him, the sense of her intruding there, doing her own secret things down in the underground of his subconscious, and he thought maybe he'd never smile again. 'You love your country, old man?'

The farmer nodded, eyes never leaving Cole's. I wonder what he sees there, Cole thought. I wonder if he thinks I'm mad? He has no idea …

'I need a car,' Cole said. 'That man you saw has taken something from Porton Down, and I have to recover it. And thanks to you, my Jeep's fucked.'

'Dear God, am I infected, is that it?' the farmer asked. 'Please, not me, not my children.'

'You know of the place, then?'

The farmer nodded.

Cole leaned back and took the gun from beneath the farmer's jaws. Perhaps threat was no longer the way. 'No, you're not infected,' he said. 'But that man had something in his car, something deadly, and he doesn't even know he's got it.' And if he did, would it make any difference? If he knew what Natasha could be, would it change anything that had happened? Probably not. People like that were selfish. Never saw the big picture. Didn't understand the implications of what they were doing, and why. That was why Cole was here with his gun. His gun was one of the implications. If only he could get close enough to put a bullet into that shriveled monster's head.

'And they've sent you to catch him?'

'Something like that,' Cole said. The idea had crossed his mind of telling the relevant authorities about what had happened, but it fled just as quickly. Not now. Not after last time. They had made it quite plain that they didn't give a shit for what they had done with the berserkers. It was down to Cole, and really it always had been.

'Are you a special agent?'

'What, like James Bond?'

The farmer smiled, but it dropped quickly at Cole's cool expression.

'I need a vehicle,' Cole said. 'As you so kindly wrecked mine, perhaps you'd be able to lend me one?'

The farmer nodded. 'My farm's a mile away,' he said. 'I have a car, you can borrow it but will I get a receipt?'

Cole brandished the gun again casually, and the farmer nodded, his eyes wide and amazed.

'You'll get your car back,' Cole lied.

The farmer stood and brushed himself down, and Cole urged him to walk on ahead. He was no threat—the shambling old man probably couldn't even raise his dick, let alone a fist—but Cole wanted him in front simply so that they did not have to talk.

He had some thinking to do. And while he was thinking he had to do something that made his skin crawl, his balls shrivel and his scalp tighten: he had to open his mind.

Cole taunted Natasha, and very soon she answered back.

Fucker … useless… , think you can get me? Piece of shit … worm … fuck you, Misterwolf …

The words flew in from a distance, vague and almost unheard. Cole could barely feel Natasha's slick, sick intrusion. They were more like echoes. She must have been a long way away.

'I'm not finished yet,' he mumbled, shouting it with his mind, but he did not think she heard.

'What?' the farmer said.

'Not talking to you.'

'You talking to HQ, eh?'

'Just keep walking.' Holy shit, he thinks he's in a fucking movie!

It was dawn now, and the sun was smearing the eastern hills with a palette of oranges and pinks. Cole loved