*
A bolt through the back of his head, and they left Terry’s body in the cubicle.
Kingsley could barely steady his hands enough to turn on the tap at the sink so he could wash the blood from them; he kept thinking about James, seeing the same bolt sticking out of his eye.
Kingsley and Emma rinsed their hands and faces, scrubbed them until there were only faint smears of pink left. They then refilled every water bottle they had and set off, speechless.
With the big rottweiler lying awkwardly across his friends’ laps, Kingsley drove.
Not a minute into the journey, his ears began to ring. His neck ached. His chest felt tight. He wanted to scream.
6.
They made it.
Ten feet from the bumper of the van – a gap in the long, straight hedgerow with the turning of a pebbled concrete driveway. Just out of view was the gate that fronted Brian’s property.
Kingsley threw open the door and practically fell out of the van, eager to be out of the stuffy vessel. He went to the passenger door and took the dog from Emma’s lap, holding on to it’s lead as he helped Emma out.
They shuffled up to the black wrought iron gate. Peered between the bars at the broad, modern two-storey red-brick – white-columned porch with rustic double doors, eight windows to the front, every curtain drawn. Behind the white poplar trees lining the driveway, they could see a vehicle parked in front of the wide garage. A silver family SUV.
On the left gate post was a metal pad with a buzzer and speaker on it. Emma pressed the buzzer, heard an electronic chime, waited… Fifteen seconds passed and there was no answer. She pressed it again, stared at the pale ivy spiralling up the brick posts and strangling the granite finials.
“Hello? Who’s there?” came the voice of a well-spoken man who sounded somewhere in his fifties. Kingsley was pretty sure it was Dave’s uncle, but it was hard to tell when hearing it over the tinny speaker.
“Brian,” Emma spoke into the pad. “That’s you, isn’t it? Is Leena there? It’s her sister, Emma.”
No answer.
“Hello?”
Kingsley started to worry that it wasn’t Brian at all – that it was someone who’d broken into the house and that Brian, Leena, Dave and the kids were all dead – when a different voice came through the speaker.
“Emma? Is it actually you?”
“Yes, Leena – I’m here! Come outside!”
The front door flipped open and Leena ran down the driveway, blonde hair streaming behind her. She fumbled with the bolt and tugged the gate open, then she was in Emma’s arms and they were both crying, breathless with emotion.
“I was so worried about you,” Leena choked. After a minute she held her sister at arm’s length and looked her up and down, noting the bruises, the stiff leg. “What happened to you?”
“It’s a long story.”
Leena nodded, glanced at Kingsley and the dog. He could see the question in her wet eyes – Why are you here?
Emma said, “Kingsley’s friend Eric is with us. He’s in the van, but he’s in a bad state.”
More questions in Leena’s eyes as they flitted back and forth between her sister and Kingsley. “Okay,” she said. “Bring your van in so I can lock the gate. You can tell me everything over dinner.”
Kingsley steered the van into the driveway and parked up behind the SUV, then he helped Eric out. The four of them walked toward the front door where two other men were waiting on the porch, having emerged from the house shortly after Leena; Brian, a thin-faced man with glasses and a greying mullet. Dave at his shoulder, his short stocky figure accentuated next to Brian’s gaunt frame.
Brian didn’t say a word as they filed in before him. His face was unreadable, just as it had been the first time Kingsley had met him here at Dave’s thirtieth birthday party. The man was a true stoic.
The kids, Jacob and Sydney, slunk back into a room off the hallway as they entered, visibly unnerved by the beaten look of the newcomers, though they must have recognised Kingsley and Emma; it was to be expected from a five- and seven-year-old he supposed, especially considering their parents had probably been shielding them from most of the horrors outside.
Nevertheless, it was great to see the kids.
In the living room, Emma sank into a plush armchair and Eric lay down on one of the two long sofas, their eyes adjusting to the gloom inside with all the curtains closed.
“Let’s have a look at that leg then,” Leena said, switching on a lamp on a nearby table and propping up the footrest on Emma’s chair. She winced as her sister rolled back her trouser leg and prodded the tender flesh which had swelled up quite a bit.
“We’ll get you an ice pack to ease the swelling. And I’m sure with a sprain you’re supposed to wrap a bandage around it to keep it supported.”
“Worry about me after,” Emma said with a nod toward Eric, who had passed out on the sofa. “He’s worse off than I am right now.”
“What happened?” Leena asked.
Kingsley explained how Eric had been stabbed while trying to save Sammy’s life and gave a brief rundown of the events leading up to that moment, everything that had happened since discovering the car wreck near their campsite two days ago – days that seemed to stretch on for an eternity, normality a fleeting memory.
Then Emma told her part of the story, how she’d injured her knee while trying to outrun the snappers, how she had crossed paths with Mark’s group and ended up in that house with Kingsley. It was the first time he’d heard any of it; it was crazy to think that, had he not bumped into Terry,
