Jackie seemed to sense his doubt because she looked away sheepishly. Kamiyo was about to tell them to wise up, to understand that they weren’t on a camping holiday, and that this was the end of the world. He was about to tell them that, but something else happened first.
An almighty bell pealed from atop the hill. It sent the whole camp into high-alert, and the adults sprang to their feet, hustling the children into the cabin. Jackie leapt to her feet too, staring at Kamiyo like he might suddenly take charge. He just stared at her blankly.
The whole time the bell continued to ring. Clang-clang-clang.
Kamiyo grabbed Jackie as she went to dash off. “What’s happening?”
“It’s Frank,” she cried. “He’s never rung the castle’s bell before.”
“What does it mean?”
“It means the demons have found us! It means they’re here.”
Kamiyo released the woman and allowed her to race off to join the others. He tried to see the castle up on the hill, but the night cloaked the land in shadow.
What horrors had spilled out of the forest? What had Frank seen?
12
TED
The bell rang out from nowhere.
Hannah raised her rifle. “What the hell is that? A goddamn bell?”
“A church maybe?” Ted looked around. Whatever it was, it didn’t give him a good feeling.
“A church? In the middle of the forest?”
“What else could it be? We might be closer to the edge of the forest than we thought. I still smell smoke. It must be coming from the same place. It can’t be anything good. That amount of noise…”
“Yeah,” agreed Hannah. “Any survivors would have to be insane to ring a bell like that. Unless…”
“Unless what?”
“Maybe it’s some kind of alarm. Maybe there’s a camp in this forest somewhere, and it’s under attack. It could be the Army.”
“I thought the Army was finished.”
“The Army I served is,” Hannah scanned the trees. “but Command splintered early on. There were other units out there on their own, doing their own thing.”
“Well, Army or not, you don’t ring a soddin’ bell nowadays for any good reason.”
“Whoever they are, we have to find them.”
Ted shouldered his hammer and grunted. “No way!”
Hannah looked at him, eyebrows dropping into a V. She didn’t use words to convey what she thought, but the disgusted shake of her head said enough. After a moment more of judging, she turned and pushed off into the trees. Within seconds she had gone, only the sound of her footsteps crunching on distant twigs proving she existed.
Ted stood there in the middle of a vast forest. Just when he’d thought he was getting to grips with things, he found himself in the wilderness haunted by a disembodied bell. “I must be round the bend,” he said to himself before taking off in a run.
He found Hannah twenty-yards ahead, pushing her way through a tangle of bushes. When she sensed him coming she turned and smiled, clearly pleased that he had decided to come along.
She’d gone back into silent commando mode and moved in crouches and crawls. This was her ballgame now, so Ted stayed behind and followed her lead. Once again, her focus was unnerving, and she moved through the undergrowth like a ferret, flicking her gaze left and right and not missing a single leaf. Whatever anxiety she claimed to have, this was her cure. Action was this girl’s emotional salve.
The smokey stench increased, but the ringing bell still seemed distant. Were the two things connected, or separate?
Hannah threw a hand signal that Ted guessed meant come closer, or possibly to stay low, so he did both just to be safe. “There’s something ahead,” she whispered. “People are crying out. Do you hear them?”
He did hear them and wondered why he hadn’t sooner. Then his ears homed in on something even more horrifying. “Those are children screaming.”
Hannah nodded grimly. “I know. Stay on me. We’ll check it out.”
“Fuck that! Those kids are in danger.” Ted rose out of his crouch and surged forward. He exited the forest within a hundred steps and was half-blinded by a roaring campfire. At first, it seemed the ground was a giant mirror, reflecting the stars in the night sky. Then his eyes adjusted and he saw a massive lake and reflected in it was a dozen screaming children.
Ted saw a woman crawling in the grass, clutching her neck and bleeding from her throat. A demon stalked her, grinning at the sight of its wounded prey. Ted’s vision turned red. His head seemed to narrow at the temples and blood pounded the back of his eyes. He hoisted his hammer and bellowed at the top of his lungs. “CHLOE!”
He brought his hammer down on the demon’s head, obliterating it. He spotted another creature rounding on a group of screaming children. They were backed up against the steps of a huge log cabin, unable to escape. The demon had one of the children by the arm, and the sight of the terrorised youngster sent Ted deeper into his rage. Crossing the space between himself and the demon, he swung his hammer so hard that the demon’s entire torso folded in half like a paper plate. An enraged warrior, Ted somehow sensed rather than saw the next demon, and as it moved behind him, his hammer came around like a meteor and sent it sprawling across the grass.
Gunshots lit up the night at the edge of the forest. Hannah crept out from the trees, picking her shots with that grim determination of hers. Ted sought his next target and blinked in disbelief when his gaze fell upon a castle on a hill. What the hell was this place?
Something brushed his shoulder, and he lunged, yelling at the top of his lungs. “DIE!”
A young woman melted in front of him, hands out and mouth wide in a scream. “Please!”
Ted stopped himself from caving in the woman’s skull just in time, twisting his wrists and sinking the hammer’s head into the mud. He tried to say
