Contagion

But it was not Shade. And when the thing charged, Lucy-Anne had no idea what was about to kill them. It moved without sound, long limbs waving like fronds and lifting it over food preparation surfaces, body and head kept level and straight and focussed on them. It had dark, fluid eyes. Like a shark. And when it opened its mouth there were too many teeth.

Lucy-Anne darted left, ducking down and frantically scanning for something to use as a weapon. But it was Jenna who saved the day. She swept something from a work surface and hefted it at the advancing creature, and the meat tenderiser impacted its head with a dull thud.

It paused and shook its head, and in a shockingly human gesture it brought one long, delicate limb up to touch its face. It looked at its hand—long-fingered, thin, feather-like—and saw blood.

“Lucy-Anne, use anything!” Jenna said, and she started throwing other kitchen objects. Several glass jars, metal ladles, a wooden chopping board, some hit the thing on its head or dark, upright body, some were knocked aside by its thrashing arms.

Lucy-Anne moved along the side of the kitchen, pulling drawers open and heaving a handful of knives and forks at the creature. She knew that they had mere seconds. It might be surprised, perhaps even a little shocked at the sight of its own blood and the willingness of these people to defend themselves. But if it was as hungry as the other things they had met, and as dismissive of those still relatively normal, then in moments it would come. And bite.

She tripped over the body. It was shrivelled and dry, still dressed in kitchen whites that were now stained an autumn of browns. It rustled and whispered as she fell, and she kicked out in shock, feeling her foot pass through something dry and brittle. The head rolled. Hollow eyes turned to her. And then she saw the knife in the dead man’s hand.

Jenna shouted, anger and fear feeding her voice. “Come on you bastard, stupid, stupid thing! You want to eat me? What would your mum say, eh? Would your dad be proud?” Lucy-Anne couldn’t see her—the central food preparation area was in the way—but she heard the pots and pans, plates and glasses, cups and cutlery that she continued to throw at the thing, keeping it at bay. The shadows of its waving arms and stalking legs passed across the ceiling above Lucy-Anne as it lifted itself up to leap, and then she stood.

It was ready to pounce on Jenna. Had her in the corner, pressed against the closed walk-in fridge with nothing left with which to protect herself. But it was Jenna’s wide-eyed glance past the thing at Lucy-Anne that saved her.

As the creature turned, Lucy-Anne jumped onto the work surface and leapt at it, dead man’s knife sweeping around in her right hand. Who were you? she thought. Who did you love, and are they still alive somewhere? But she could not distract herself with thoughts of lost humanity. She was still human, and loved, and she loved others. That was why she was as prepared as any of them to kill.

It lifted one long arm to ward off the knife, but the keen blade had remained untouched by time. It sliced through the light limb and Lucy-Anne’s weight drove it forward, burying the blade in the creature’s neck. As the thing fell, she fell on top of it.

Its shriek of pain was the first sound they’d heard from it, and it was horrible. Lucy-Anne closed her eyes as she and the thing tumbled to the floor, and she could have been hearing a baby crying out in pain. But then it lurched her aside and fell across her, teeth gnashing, head butting at her even as she brought her left arm up to protect her face.

Jenna stumbled past and raised something in her hands, bringing it down on the back of the creature’s head. Lucy-Anne twisted aside just in time, avoiding its head as it was driven down by the impact. She felt teeth grazing across her shoulder.

“Come on!” Jenna said, reaching for her. But Lucy-Anne could not try to escape from beneath the dying creature just yet. She held on to the knife and, with gritted teeth and eyes squeezed shut, twisted and shoved it deeper.

The thing that had once been a person shuddered, uttered a high-pitched keening sound, and then slumped down on her.

Jenna grabbed it and pulled, and Lucy-Anne pushed. She tried to close herself off from what she had done, dull her senses against the evidence of death. Warm blood, the stench of its breath, the sound of its hard skin against her own, the pain in her shoulder…she tried to ignore them all.

“Shitting hell,” Jenna said. “Come on. Up. Thanks. Come on, Lucy-Anne.”

They stood together in the kitchen and hugged, holding each other so tight and both trying to turn so that they could not see the dead thing. Lucy-Anne looked at the door through which it had entered, and there was no sign of any movement. But that route was open now, and she was not sure she could bring herself to kill again.

Its blood was already cooling on her hand and forearm.

“We’ve got to go,” she said.

From outside in the restaurant, someone shouted. And from further away, gunfire.

“Gotta help the others!” Jenna said. She dashed through into the restaurant, stepping over the body that might remain here forever.

As she followed, Lucy-Anne was already recognising what was happening because she had seen it all before. The shooting, the chaos, the death, and now the screams.

Nomad is coming to kill me, she thought. But fate carried her onwards, and she rode its insistent wave.

Out in the street, gunfire and shouts. The shooting was from some way off—Jack knew it was coming closer, though he could not worry about it right then—and the shouting was from Sparky. He was tangled with the bat thing on the road. They’d rolled out between two parked cars and now fought on the central white line, Sparky slashing with the knife, the creature thrashing to try to buck him off. His shouting was senseless, wordless, exhalations of both rage and fear. If Sparky stopped shouting, he might actually think about what he was doing.

Jack glanced the way Rhali had disappeared, and he actually took three steps in that direction. But his friend was before him, fighting for his life. And back in the restaurant, it was Hayden whom they had to all protect with their lives.

He breathed deeply, gathered his thoughts, and reached out. “Sparky,” he said.

Sparky glanced up and understood immediately, rolling aside, leaving his knife snagged in one of the thing’s tattered wings.

Jack lifted it up. It rose from the road, untouched, and paused in its screeching and thrashing to look around in wonder. He didn’t know what he was going to do with it. If he simply dropped it along the street it could well come at them again. Once again Jack thought, If only I could communicate with it, maybe—

Something dropped on him. It must have been up on the roof, waiting for an opportunity to leap down on some unsuspecting victim, and it crushed him down to the sidewalk. He lost his hold on the bat thing, fell, cracked his knee and elbow painfully, and as if drawn by pain the creature attacking him reached around and pressed its forearm across his wounded eye, pulling his head back and exposing his neck.

Jack threw his head back hard and felt it connect. The thing grunted and let him go, and Jack took the opportunity to stand and face it.

Beyond, the bat thing was running at Sparky once more.

The woman before him was naked and sleek, and she stank of gone-off fruit. Though not possessed of anything extra—no wings, or stings, or altered skin—still she was distinctly inhuman. Her head was elongated, her limbs too long and her body too thin, but it was her eyes that were most alien. They glimmered with an arrogant intelligence, as if she could see far more. And she looked so hungry.

Jack reached in and down, pleased at last at the clarity his universe had taken on once again.

Sparky screamed. Startled, Jack glanced across to see what could draw such a shocking noise from his friend, and then the woman was upon him again, knocking him back across a car bonnet. In an instinctive act he surged heat at her, and she groaned as the skin across her right shoulder and upper arm sizzled black. But still she came, falling on him and reaching for his face with both hands.

One finger scratched across his wounded eye. Jack gasped, writhed to dislodge her, punched at her without