Tim Lebbon - Coldbrook

The man with the cellphone reached the prone body, and he stood a couple of feet away with his hands held out from his sides. He looked around, as if searching for support, then knelt by the other man’s side.

The smell of burning filled the air now, and there was another thump as the unseen vehicle’s petrol tank went up. A billow of smoke rose beyond the trees, supported on a ball of flame.

‘Someone called the fire department and paramedics?’ Tommy shouted. He received a couple of positive responses, then he and Jayne reached the car park and ran to his old Toyota. She grimaced as she ran, the movements grinding pain into her hips and knees, but she was the lucky one here. She was not bleeding.

‘Tommy?’

‘I can look after him until the paramedics get here,’ he said, and she could see that he was shaking. It took three tries for him to slip his key into the lock, and when he glanced back at her she could see the shock in his expression. She nodded. He’d taken a basic first-aid course so he could look after her when she suffered her infrequent churu blackouts. Not quite comas , a doctor had told her, and she’d wanted to ask What the hell do you know?

The man was standing up. Jayne frowned, already seeing something wrong with the angle of his limbs as they pushed him upright, like a newborn deer just finding its legs, unfamiliar with gravity and light and everything in the world.

‘Tommy.’ She pointed.

The cellphone guy was still there, standing with the blood-soaked man. He reached out and not-quite-touched him, perhaps afraid of hurting him — he seemed to be covered with wounds, Jayne saw, slashed and holed and torn — or maybe afraid of what this meant. Because the man shouldn’t be standing like that. Even from a hundred feet away Jayne could see that the agony had slipped from his face, along with the open-mouthed panic. There was something else there now.

As she tried to identify it, he lurched against the cellphone man, slung one arm around the back of his neck, and bit into his scalp.

‘Shit!’ someone shouted, and Jayne thought, Yeah . A man shouted in shock. A woman screamed. A kid squealed for its mommy.

‘Jayne. .’ Tommy said, his hand still on the car door. ‘Jayne. .’

‘Someone help him!’ Jayne shouted. A car door slammed and a big guy with a long beard and long grey hair trotted past them. He was carrying a hunting rifle.

Cellphone guy screamed. It was a terrible sound in that tranquil place. The blood-drenched man pushed him away, ripping a chunk from his face and spraying the air with gore. It pattered down on the dry car park, but Jayne saw it painted on the air for ever, hanging there like a still from some horror movie. He chewed and spat, then turned to the car park.

Behind him the cellphone man had collapsed, and Jayne thought, If I was him I’d be running like hell .

The blood-soaked man stood silently. And then he ran.

‘Get in the car,’ Tommy said. He opened the door without taking his stare off the running man.

‘No, I’m not-’ There were more people running around the bend in the road from the direction of the unseen fire. Jayne counted five, and they were all wrong. Some were stained dark with dried blood. A young girl was wearing a bunny outfit, one leg ripped open. One man seemed to have lost an arm at the elbow, the remnants of clothing and flesh flapping as he ran. The only sound of their progress was the slap, slap, slap of feet on the road surface, and Jayne thought, They can’t all have been in the car .

The guy with the gun stopped and braced himself, lifting the rifle and aiming it at the running, blood-covered man. I don’t want to see anyone shot , Jayne thought, thinking of Johnny and how they said he’d been found. But the gunshot never came. The man seemed unable to pull the trigger, and the blood-drenched man barrelled into him and knocked him back off his feet. They struggled on the ground, the rifle held sideways between them, and as the attacker’s teeth audibly snapped at the big man’s face he used the gun to shove him aside.

The long-haired man stood, looking around the car park as if for help. And then behind him the cellphone man got to his feet, and Jayne could see the mess of his chin and throat.

‘In the fucking car, now!’ Tommy hissed.

‘You too!’

‘Jayne-’

‘The police will be here! You too!’

‘Look out!’ someone shouted, and the rifle guy spun around. He brought the gun up, and this time Jayne knew he was going to use it. But the blood-covered man took him down again, and moments later the cellphone guy reached them, and together they bit and clawed while the big man screamed like a wounded pig.

‘We need to go!’ Jayne screamed, eyeing the girl in the bunny outfit as she raced into the far end of the car park. The one-armed man followed, scattering the crowd ahead of him, some diving for their cars, a couple more running in panic with no thought of direction. Jayne started shaking uncontrollably, each shiver prompting stabs of pain from her burning joints. Her vision swayed and swam, darkening briefly, and she thought, Oh no not now not now .

A car started somewhere, then another, and she heard the screech of tyres as they sped away. She staggered to the door that Tommy had opened for her and fell in, pressing her head back against the seat. She bit her lip. Her vision cleared a little, and she saw that Tommy had slammed the door. Tommy, you should be in here with -

He moved in front of the car and looked along the car park, and a Mazda Miata struck him and flipped him over its hood. He rolled over the windscreen and spun in the air as the vehicle passed beneath him, his head striking first trunk and then the ground as it sped away. That woman had blood in her ear , Jayne had time to think, a heart-stopping detail, and then she processed what had happened.

‘Tommy!’ she screamed. ‘ Tommy !’

Someone fired a gun, three times in quick succession.

Jayne cracked the door open and put her right leg out, hanging on to the frame to lift herself up. The fainting spell had passed but she felt so pathetically weak, and now Tommy needed her and there was no way she could let him down. No way. She stood away from the car, and the gun fired again. Across the car park, a Prius had its windscreen shattered by a stray shot.

People screamed and ran. Car engines roared. Someone was on the ground not far away, a young teenage boy, and a man was chewing at one bare leg. The boy screamed and kicked, but even though his other foot struck the man’s head and neck and shoulder, the attacker seemed unconcerned. It was the rifle man, Jayne saw. His beard had gone from grey to red. Another gunshot, and Jayne moved around the open door and leaned against the car’s wing.

A huge crash came from her right. The Miata had struck a station wagon at the car park’s entrance, but she was only concerned for Tommy. Everything else was too much information, and her brain refused to process it. Keeping it for later , she thought, and that was fine, because instinct had already told her that this had to be just her and him.

‘Tommy,’ Jayne said. He was twisting on the ground like a toy winding down.

Another gunshot, and from the corner of her eye Jayne saw a shape fall to the ground.

She started forward just as Tommy pushed himself up onto his hands and knees. Blood flowed from his nose as if from an open tap, and he kept his left hand inches above the ground. His wrist’s broken , Jayne thought, and she imagined his one-handed massages for the next few weeks.

‘Tommy!’

‘Fuck. .’ he said, and she thought she’d never heard such a wonderful word. He knelt, then got one foot under himself.