“What’s that?” he asked. “Have you been bringing weaponsback from the future? Do you have any idea how dangerous that is?”
“Not at all,” she said. “We developed this at the instituteat Canberra. It’s pretty effective. Allow me to demonstrate. Stand back.”
She opened the front door fully as he stepped back and aimedthe weapon at an old stone statue of an angel that had been in the front gardenfor years. She fired, producing the usual fizzing sound as the statue wasvaporised in a blaze of bright blue.
“Very impressive,” said Josh, hoping to cover his fear withsarcasm. “But I never liked that statue anyway. It was there when we moved inand I was always telling Alice we should get rid of it.”
“Oh, it’s very effective,” she said. “I’ve used it rather alot recently, as you can probably imagine. Hannah’s puny handgun was no matchfor it, that’s for sure. I saw her off with ease. What was it she told you? Shewas a trained firearms expert? Didn’t do her much good, did it?”
She trained the weapon on him threateningly. “Now get inhere!”
“No, I won’t,” he said, defiantly. “I’m out of here.”
He turned his back on her and walked back down the path towardsthe gate, wondering if he was making a huge mistake and he was about todisappear in a white-hot flash of blue light. He was gambling that she wantedhim so much she wouldn’t be able to bring herself to kill him.
“You go, then!” she shouted after him. “And see how far youget. Because if you think what’s happened so far is bad, believe me, youhaven’t seen anything yet.”
“Do your worst,” he retorted, resisting the urge to lookback. “I’m not changing my mind, and that’s that.”
“We’ll see about that!” she shouted, before slamming thedoor.
Relief flooded through him that he was still alive, but heknew that he was still in serious trouble. It wasn’t going to end here, thatwas for sure. It wouldn’t be long before she would try something else, but how couldhe prepare for it? The truth was, he couldn’t.
In the past, he had always managed to come up with some sortof Plan B when he had got into tricky situations, but he didn’t even have aPlan A this time. He would just have to try and deal with whatever trick shetried to pull next, never give in, and wait for an opportunity, however small,to fight back.
Head down and shoulders slumped, he painted a classicpicture of despair as he trudged back towards the city centre without any senseof direction or purpose. Perhaps he should just go into The Eagle and Child andhave a couple of pints. The beer might give him some inspiration, and if itdidn’t at least it would help him relax.
Deep in thought, he didn’t notice how much quieter thestreets were than usual, but he was suddenly shaken out of his gloom by thepiercing sound of an approaching ambulance as he walked along Woodstock Road.
He looked up to see it bearing down towards him at highspeed, and instinctively moved away from the edge of the road because he couldsee something was wrong. It was weaving erratically and for a moment he fearedit was actually going to mount the pavement and run him down. Was this Vanessatrying to do to him what she had done to Henry? But why bother going to thoselengths when she could just have zapped him with her laser gun?
His fears of being run down quickly receded as the ambulanceveered across to the opposite side of the road, at which point the rear beganto slide out as the driver lost control. It clipped the kerb and flipped rightover, crashing straight through the plate-glass window of a large furniturestore opposite.
It was only then that Josh noticed that the street wasdeserted. Something wasn’t right, and he instinctively suspected that Vanessawas behind it.
In the absence of anyone else being around to help, he ranover to the ambulance to see if he could help those inside, but as he reachedthe driver’s window and looked inside, he was forced to recoil in horror.
It wasn’t because of the woman’s injuries – there was nosign of any blood or any other damage from the accident – but what he saw wasarguably worse. The paramedic’s face was almost purple and drenched in sweat,while her mouth was pouring with foam, like a rabid dog. Whatever was wrongwith this woman, it hadn’t been caused by the crash.
The helpless driver screamed and clawed at the window,clearly in sheer agony.
Then he heard a gunshot in the distance and what soundedlike a burglar alarm going off. Something bad was happening here and he neededto get somewhere safe. It reminded him of when he had been trapped in themultiverse and strange things like this had happened in nearly every world hevisited.
“I’m sorry,” mouthed Josh at the stricken paramedic as hestepped back. She was clearly beyond help and he made the gut-wrenchingdecision to leave her. What could he do? He ran up towards the junction withLittle Clarendon Street but pulled up sharp at the corner as he almost trippedover a dead body in the street.
He looked down and recognised the waitress from the café onthe corner with whom he had spoken the night Henry had died. She was lying onher back, lifeless eyes staring emptily at him from a purple face. There wasdried foam mixed with her red lipstick all down her chin and her mouth wascontorted in a grimace. She had clearly died in agony. What could causesomething so horrific?
It reminded him of gruesome pictures he had seen on the TVnews many years ago of the effects of an advanced nerve gas that someterrorists had got hold of. They had used it to wipe out
