Arrowhead

just as ripe for the taking.'

CHAPTER TWO

The hunter had been crouching in the undergrowth for almost two hours when the creature finally wandered into the clearing. His prize. After tracking it for the best part of a day, he knew that this was one of its favourite haunts. This would be the place where he'd look into its eyes, where he'd feel that familiar adrenalin rush from bagging such a fine catch.

So he'd settled himself down to wait.

He was a patient man. And, besides, it wasn't as if he had anything else to do, was it? No going down the pub for a pint and game of darts, no cosy nights in front of the TV. Those days were long gone now, a distant memory… most of the time. The problem with waiting was that the mind needed ways to amuse itself. Against his will, he found himself drifting back, remembering. Thinking about the man he used to be and the life he'd once led. It felt like a dream.

'Read to me some more, Dad… please…'

Mentally, he tried to shake the memories from his head in the same way his old Golden Retriever used to shake himself dry. How little Stevie would laugh when Max did that – he could see the boy's face now on that holiday in Wales. They'd left the campsite and taken a walk down by a long river. Then they'd let the dog off the lead to run around and he'd immediately jumped in the water to chase a fish he'd seen. After swimming with his head held high, Max had finally realised there was no way on Earth he was going to catch the thing. He'd sprayed them all when they ran across to him. Stevie had laughed and laughed, as Joanne held up her hands to…

'Robert… Robert, come back to bed. It's Sunday morning.'

They were random, these recollections. That one was from back when they'd first got married, back when they used to lose themselves in each other every weekend. Back before Stevie came along and would climb in with them on a Sunday morning, bringing the papers with him. His son would read the comics while Robert took the sports section and Joanne would comment on what was happening in the world; which usually involved some soap or pop star spending thousands on rehab when everyone knew they'd be back on booze and drugs within a month.

'Listen to this: the government are stating categorically that there's nothing to worry about, Rob… That the people infected are 'isolated incidents', and there's only a slim chance of it becoming airborne.'

He squeezed his eyes shut, but the images didn't disappear. Robert went way back now, to his graduation from training college in fact. Remembering how proud his parents had been of him that day; at least he'd given them something before the crash two years later. And he had to admit to feeling a swell of pride himself as his name was called.

'Would you please step forward, Constable Robert Stokes.' He could see the crowds of people, the flashes of cameras as they snapped pictures. The applause was deafening. He thought he could change the world back then, make a difference.

Fast forward to the riots when the system was breaking down. The stones and half bricks that were hurled, terrified people hitting them with lead piping, with sticks. So many faces, so much panic.

Robert and his family had moved out of the big city a long time ago, when Stevie was only four. Joanne had argued that she didn't want her husband on the streets facing gun crime and goodness knows what else. She didn't want Stevie growing up without a father (a sick joke when he thought about it now).

'You ready?'

'Push the swing Dad, come on!'

'Okay, you asked for it.'

'Higher, higher! Can we go on the roundabout next?'

'Sure thing.'

'You're the best, Dad. The best.'

Of course, he'd argued that there were pockets of violence everywhere, but he could see it from her point of view as well. In the end he'd listened and they'd upped sticks from the place where he was born and bred. But he hoped to return one day.

They hadn't really gone that far. Robert put in a transfer to a market town north of Nottingham called Mansfield, taking out a mortgage on a house between there and Ollerton. They'd been so happy there. He enjoyed community police work well enough and they lived in one of the most beautiful areas of England, only a short distance from rolling green fields, from woodland and forests – plenty of places to take Max out for walks. Yet close enough to 'civilisation' that Joanne could go shopping if she wanted, and pursue her ambitions to run her own accountancy business now that Stevie had gone to school. She always had been a whizz at maths, even when they were young…

'Hi, my name's Robert – I'm in the class above you.'

'Joanne. You're friends with Tracey's brother, aren't you?'

'Yeah, that's right. A bunch of us are going out on Saturday, to the pictures. I was wondering…Well, do you want to come?'

It was ironic that the violence and the death found them all those years later. But it was the same countrywide in those dark days just before The Cull.

If the time prior to that had been a dream, then surely what came next was a nightmare; one from which he was constantly praying he'd wake. As friends on the force stopped turning up for work, as kids from Stevie's school were kept off sick, as more bullshit about the virus appeared in the papers and on the TV news… Nobody had taken it that seriously at first, not after all that business with SARS and Bird Flu. All that changed when they were smacked in the face with it.

Grimacing, Robert relived that night when Joanne had suddenly begun coughing in bed. Turning on the bedside lamp, he'd rolled over to find her holding a tissue up to her mouth. When she brought it away again, there was a bright patch of red there. And her eyes, God in Heaven, her eyes…

'You've got the most beautiful eyes, do you know that?'

'Charmer.'

'It's true.'

She was looking at him, petrified. They both knew what it meant – had seen enough about it to recognise the symptoms. Then they'd heard the coughing coming from Stevie's room as well.

The scene was playing out in his mind in slow motion: slamming open the door and snapping on the light; seeing crimson splattered all over the ten-year-old's duvet; Stevie crying because he didn't know what was happening to him; Max barking at the foot of his bed.

He'd bundled Joanne and Stevie into the car, knowing it was no use phoning for an ambulance. He and some of his colleagues had waited four or five hours for one to show up just a few days before. Tearing down the country roads, and thankful for all those lessons about how to drive at speed when in pursuit, Robert was soon brought to a halt when he reached the nearest hospital.

The car park was overflowing. People had left their vehicles on grass verges, double and triple parked; wherever they could. He'd had to abandon his vehicle half a mile away from the building itself, then he'd carried Stevie on his shoulder, holding up Joanne with his other arm as they made their way to the Accident and Emergency department. The place was heaving, packed to the rafters with patients, some on trolleys, sitting or laying down – or both – some making do with a couple of chairs for a bed, but most were strewn around the reception area and the corridors like beggars hoping for a handout. It was like something out of those history books from school, monochrome etchings which showed people suffering from the Black Death. Doctors and nurses wearing scrubs and masks flitted about in front of him, so Robert grabbed the nearest one and demanded that the man examine his wife and child.

'Look around you, mate – all these people need attention, and they were all here before you.'

'I'm a police officer and-'

'You think that matters anymore?' shouted the man in scrubs. 'You think it matters whether you're with the police, the emergency services or… or…' The man coughed. 'People are dying… people…' He coughed again, except