Tim Lebbon - Coldbrook

‘Quickly!’

‘Yeah.’

Another gunshot, and for a second she could not understand what she had seen. Tommy slumped back to the ground — maybe he was ducking to dodge the bullets, making himself a smaller target. But his head had changed shape, and he’d lost part of himself on the gravel. Got to get that , Jayne thought, and then cold realisation froze her to the spot. She could not breathe. Tommy didn’t even twitch.

A man appeared in front of her, a little guy in shorts and a T-shirt that said I’m Spartacus . He was carrying a crying toddler under one arm and in his other hand he held a pistol. He was pointing it at Jayne.

‘Tommy?’ she said, and the man glanced at Tommy’s prone shape.

‘Get away from the car!’ the man said. He stepped past Tommy and came for her, the gun never wavering. ‘Get away from the fucking-’

The running woman struck him and pushed him down, crushing the little boy beneath both of them. The gun discharged and Jayne felt no pain, no punch. The woman was wearing shorts, walking boots and a light jacket, and Jayne remembered seeing her up on the hillside. Gorgeous day , she’d said, and as she passed them Jayne had nudged Tommy in the ribs. But hey, look at that ass , he’d whispered. Like a sweet peach . Now she had what looked like a brutal bite mark on one shoulder, clothing torn away, skin ragged, and she attacked the man like a wild dog.

The boy was screaming, trapped beneath his struggling father and the woman — the thing — biting into him.

This is not happening , Jayne thought, but she was a new Jayne once again. The Jayne who’d been walking with her love ten minutes ago had changed into the one seeing a car crash, and its results. And now she was Jayne on her own. Because Tommy was dead, and there was no denying that.

The man’s struggles weakened — the woman had bitten clean though his throat. Jayne could not comprehend the blood. His son — if that was who the boy was — was coated in it, still struggling, and the woman shoved the dying man aside as she reached for the child.

‘No!’ Jayne screamed, in denial at what she was seeing as much as against the woman’s obvious intentions. The boy soon stopped screaming.

The woman looked up. There’s nothing in her eyes , Jayne thought, and she edged back towards the open car door. It was the pain in her joints, the screaming agony in her jarred hips, that gave her the courage to live. It reminded her of her life and everything she had suffered, the trials she went through every day to see another sunrise and eat another meal. And as the woman stood, expressionless and cooing softly, and then came for her, Jayne stood sideways and swung the door wide open. It struck the woman’s thighs and sent her staggering back, giving Jayne time to get inside the car and swing the door closed.

They’re biting, not eating, she thought.

She tried to slam the door but the woman stuck her arm in the way. Jayne pulled, tugging as hard as she could, before easing the door back a little to slam it again, and again. She heard the crack of bone, but there was still no sound from the woman. She paused, looked up, and the woman grabbed her hand.

Jayne screamed for help. No one heard, or if they did they were too concerned with their own personal dramas. The woman heaved, and Jayne’s shoulder burned white-hot with agony as she was lifted towards the space at the top of the open door. There’s a smell , she thought, realising that the woman no longer smelled like a living person. She smelled like old clothes, damp and stale.

Jayne felt a sick coolness on her forearm, and then hot pain as the woman bit through her skin.

Unable to breathe, she went limp, and as the woman tried to adjust her grip Jayne fell across the seats and kicked out as hard as she could. The swinging door shoved the woman back against the neighbouring car. Jayne sat up and reached out, slamming the door closed, hitting the locking knob, crying out in victory and pain.

Her arm was bleeding liberally from the bite. I’ve got it , she thought, and then she saw Spartacus and his young son standing up in front of the car. They looked around, faces slack and eyes empty, paying no regard at all to their wounds or each other. Then they saw her through the windscreen.

She heard their faint, haunting call.

The woman who’d bitten her — the woman with a peach ass — pressed her face to the side window, staring in. Her mouth hung open, and her teeth were stained with Jayne’s blood.

They’ll keep punching until they come through the glass , Jayne thought, but the woman turned and walked away. Spartacus and his son went in different directions, and then they were lost from sight behind the neighbouring cars.

Jayne screamed. She knew that she should remain silent, stay down and out of sight, but she was a different Jayne now, and she was more afraid than she had ever been before. She could see Tommy’s body in front of the car, but knew that everything had moved on.

She put her left hand over the bite on her right forearm. The blood was warm and sticky. They’re just biting, passing it on, rabies or something worse. She waited for whatever was to come, wondering if she’d feel the switch between being her and being one of them, and thought about the zombie films that Tommy had liked so much, and the online discussions he’d entered into, arguing the case for running zombies. They’re hunters ! he’d tell her, and she’d shake her head and mutter something about him being an overgrown kid.

Jayne kept her stare fixed on Tommy’s body, ignoring the other movements she saw in her peripheral vision, and plucked her mobile from her jeans pocket. As she tapped in 911, she wondered how the hell she could make whoever answered believe her when she did not yet believe this madness herself.

Her vision darkened and she felt a familiar faint coming on. Not now not now . . But she drifted away, and when she opened her eyes again an unknown length of time had passed. The sky was darker, the mountains above her lit by weakening evening sunlight, and three people were milling around the cars in front of her. All of them were shredded things, though none of the blood looked fresh. She thought they were checking the cars. Her vision swam once more and she rested her arm across her chest, bite on display, as the churu sucked her down again. .

In dreams there were dead fingers massaging her awake, leaving trails of slick, rotting blood across her hips.

She woke again, jerking upright and crying out as the pain scorched in from her stiff joints. Tears came and blurred her vision, and she wiped her eyes with her arm, forgetting the wound. It was red-raw and still trickling blood, and perhaps that was good. Cleaning the wound , she thought, so that I don’t change and start doing what those things were doing . And then she saw the little girl standing in front of the car.

Jayne gasped and sat up straighter. It was dusk now, maybe an hour since it had happened. Tommy was a shadow on the ground, and there was no sign of the three wandering people she’d seen before. They must have looked in on me. Maybe one, maybe all three, and did they stand there and stare as I slept?

The little girl wore her hair in a ponytail.

‘Poor kid,’ Jayne whispered, and her illness dragged her down once more into unconsciousness. Her cousin Jill called her across a stretch of water turned red with blood, reaching out but unable to touch. I was coming to see you , she said to Jill, but I stopped and found peace with Tommy , and Jill smiled in understanding and waved her urgently across the water. But I can’t, it’s dirty, I’m clean, and if I step in I might . .