John reeled from the blow, tripped over his own feet and collapsed in a semi-conscious daze – allowing the snapper to bend down and sink it’s teeth into his neck.
Not even the adrenaline rushing through her system could numb the twisting, squeezing, burning pain that racked her injured knee; she hobbled to the wall of the house and slumped against it, listening to John gargle on his own blood as the snapper feasted and wondering if she would ever walk normally again.
*
Sweat poured down Kingsley’s forehead, stinging his eyes as he swerved away from Mark’s blade. It felt like he’d been doing this for hours – evading Mark, taking swings at him every time he backed Kingsley into a corner where he couldn’t dodge.
Ducking a wide cut at his face, Kingsley heard Emma’s scream and glanced toward the door. He felt the blade nick him across the chest less than a second later.
Instead of cringing back, he slashed at Mark’s wrist as the man moved in for a second swing, slitting the base of his palm open and causing him to drop the pocket knife.
Kingsley had the upper hand now. Finish him, his mind cried as he thrust and swung wildly. He murdered your friends.
But as Kingsley forced him back toward the corner, Mark caught his wrist and slammed his knife hand hard against the wall. Twice. His fingers gave and the knife fell to the floor.
Mark punched him in the nose, sent him lurching backwards. A second jab to the stomach doubled him over and Mark followed it up by kneeing him in the face.
Lying on his back, nauseous at the taste of copper in his mouth, Kingsley winced as the bleary image of Mark straddling him and drawing back his fist for another punch filled his vision. But the punch never came.
A dirty arm hooked itself around Mark’s neck and started choking him. At first, Kingsley thought the figure attached to the arm was a snapper, from the pale and tattered look of them; then his eyes adjusted and he saw that it was Eric. A film of grey powder dusted his clothes and there was sand in his hair and all over his face. He growled as he strangled Mark, the animalistic noise building into a broken roar. Mark gasped, flapped, kicked and twitched before he finally grew still.
5.
Eric passed out sitting against the wall with Mark in his lap. Kingsley called out to his friend as he crawled over to him, the relief of seeing him alive moments ago replaced by dread when he didn’t respond.
But he checked Eric’s pulse and found it steady. His fear was only slightly eased, however; there was a nasty wound in his side that had bled quite a bit, running down to his hip and congealing in the waistband of his jeans. It seemed to have stopped bleeding though, clotted with whatever the dust was all over his body.
Hearing movement behind him, Kingsley turned as Emma limped through the doorway.
“Shit. Is he okay?” she asked, her voice fractured with pain.
“He’s alive, but it looks like they stabbed him. I need to clean and cover the wound.” He stood, moved towards the hallway, then stopped and looked back at Emma. “You alright?”
She nodded. “Just my knee.”
“Where’s the other one?”
Emma swallowed. “Dead.”
Kingsley slogged out through the front door, a sickly taste rising to the back of his throat when he saw the bodies in front of the butcher’s van again. Averting his eyes, he trod past them and bent down to pick up the duffel bag. Then he thought of something and went round to the passenger door of the van, opened it and climbed in. He clicked open the glove box and peered inside.
When they’d been in Darren’s flat, the man had mentioned that his group were out looting a dentist’s office for medical supplies. Kingsley assumed the items in the glove box – boxes of paracetamol, packets of sterile gauze swabs, a bottle of saline solution – were the fruits of their search.
He piled the items in the bag and went back inside the house.
He was pretty sure his nose was broken. It was swollen, throbbing, and he could hardly breathe through it as he squatted beside Eric and rolled up his tattered shirt.
Tearing open a packet of gauze swabs, Kingsley took one and wetted it with saline, then began to wipe the wound, clearing the blood and grime around it. Eric stirred, his breath coming out in asthmatic wheezes.
“It’s okay,” Kingsley said, though he didn’t know if Eric heard, and he also had no idea whether he would be okay. “It’s over. I’m here and I’m not leaving you.” His swollen nose made him sound as though he had a cold.
He had to rub at the sticky debris to dislodge it from the wound. More blood oozed out and Eric moaned, fidgeted. His eyes peeled open and what little Kingsley could see of them looked red and irritated.
“Sorry, mate. Hold still.”
Having no idea how much saline he was supposed to use, Kingsley flushed the wound with small douses of the solution – eliciting more moans and quick, shallow breaths from Eric – until only crimson red came out. He then wiped away the excess fluid and pressed a fresh square of sterile gauze against the wound to staunch the blood flow again.
“Do you know what you’re doing?” Emma asked.
“Not really, but I’m trying my best. He hasn’t gone into shock yet, which I think means he hasn’t lost too much blood. What I’m worried about is the
