The belly laugh that erupted from him was enough to drag Nigel back out into the slender hallway.
“What is it? What’s going on?” His voice was irritated and he held something behind his back. Glimpsing it briefly, I had a sinking feeling it was a bottle. Dave, however, didn’t notice, still giggling to himself, his head resting against the wall. He slowly let out a sigh. “You wouldn’t get it, mate. Don’t worry about it.” When he opened his eyes again, the contempt he felt for the other man was only too visible and the moment was lost. For a moment we just stood there in awkward silence before Nigel retreated, muttering to himself.
I nodded in the direction of an oak panelled door. “I’ll start in there.” Moving away, I was suddenly glad to have a few minutes alone, the company of strangers vaguely claustrophobic, all of our fear so obvious. Our need for unity, whether we liked each other or not, was just a touch too desperate, and I couldn’t wait for the time when we could settle down and relax slightly, or at least know each other well enough to be able to be honest about our feelings. I hoped we all lived that long.
As it was, it only took a few minutes to conclude my search. The room I’d entered was more formal and better kept than what I’d seen of the rest of the house thus far: the panelling of the door carried into the walls, their darkness offset by the array of shelves filled with books of various coloured spines and the deep red crushed material of the two oversized sofas on either side of the huge fireplace. It stopped me in my stride for a moment or two, its presentability too out of place in comparison with the hallway and what I’d glimpsed of the old kitchen. Perhaps the house had recently changed hands and this was the first room to get a makeover, or perhaps this was the main living and entertaining space and all efforts had been made to preserve its beauty and dignity. It was like a formal drawing room in a manor house.
Shaking myself, I started to examine the surfaces and walls more thoroughly. Musing over its existence wasn’t going to get us anywhere, and again I was reminded about how much more focussed I was going to have to become. I was supposed to be finding much-needed weapons to protect us, but instead I’d let my mind wander off into unimportant thoughts that had no space in this new life.
I found the plain cabinet I needed behind the door, unlocked. Bingo. Sitting neatly inside, proudly polished and upright were two full-length shotguns. Slightly warily, never having handled any kind of firearm before, I pulled them free. The weight surprised me and I tensed my grip, the long barrels wobbling slightly. John appeared round the door and grinned. “You look like the Terminator. Here, give us one.”
Swivelling it round so that the stock and not the barrel was facing him, I held out my left hand. “Do you know anything about guns?”
He shook his head, and I was pleased that once he was holding it, he looked slightly nervous. “Nope. Not a thing. Are they loaded?”
“Not sure.” Fumbling with the catch at the top I finally cracked it, so that the gun fell open. “Empty. Yours?”
“Empty too. Are there any shells in there?”
The gun cupboard was pretty bare once the weapons themselves had been taken out, with no drawers or hidden compartments. So maybe that’s why the farmer had left it unlocked. Without the bullets, they were pretty harmless. Still, I doubted the gun lobby would have been pleased with this guy. “Nothing.”
“There’s a dead cat in the dining room.” Dave’s face was sweating slightly again as he joined us, but he seemed to be ignoring his pain pretty well for now. “Nigel found one in the den as well. Nothing apparently wrong with them. Just dead where they’re sitting. Weird. Oh, good. You found some guns.”
John disappeared, no doubt his teenage curiosity engaged by the mysteriously dead pets. As much as I was fond of cats, however, the shells were still my main priority.
“Yeah, but no bullets. I’ll go upstairs and have a look. My money’s on them being in the bedroom. I’ll be back in a minute.” Resting the gun against the wall, I went back into the hallway and took the uneven stairs two at a time. Despite knowing that the others were just below me, when I reached the landing and stared at the various doorways spread out ahead I felt a moment of unease that wasn’t helped by the creaking of the old floorboards under my feet.
Unhooking the aerosol from the belt of my trousers, I pulled a lighter from my pocket before checking in each of the rooms. The bathroom was clean and cold and I thanked God that the shower curtain was pulled neatly open and not drawn across the bath, leaving me to wonder what could be hiding behind it.
There was a small, sparsely decorated third bedroom, and at the end of the corridor were three more rooms, two without enough clutter to be lived in, and the master bedroom, where the missing occupier obviously lived. A large double bed was covered with a perhaps homemade patchwork quilt, and there was a chair by the window, over which some working clothes had been slung rather than put away in the oversized oak wardrobe. The washing basket was overflowing slightly and I was glad to see no evidence of a woman living here. The dressing table top was free of lipstick and perfume, as the bathroom had been.
I was about to start rummaging when a noise from across the corridor caught my attention, freezing me. I turned around slowly, my heart once again thumping hard. The corridor was empty. Despite the urge I felt to run back down the stairs, I crossed the landing and peered into the large spare room. For a moment there was nothing, and then I heard it again. A crumbling sound.
Keeping against the wall, suddenly very much believing in monsters under the bed, I slid round to the other side of the double to see what was causing it. The sound of dust hitting tiles came again, and this time I could see, with relief, what was causing it. Against the far wall was a small fireplace, probably directly above the one that dominated the lounge on the lower floor, and small bits of soot were coming down from the inside and landing in the grate, the clumps scattering as they hit the hard ground. Small flecks of dark dust had spread on the carpet. Smiling slightly, the muscles in my shoulders relaxed a little. The wind was whipping up again outside and the storm the previous night had probably loosened some of the muck collecting in there. Or birds had taken refuge in it. They still seemed to be surviving pretty well. Not like the cats.
Turning away, I padded back into the main bedroom. There were two bedside cabinets and I pulled open and peered in both. In one was a selection of magazines and videos mainly aimed at the male marketplace, and the other was empty. Ignoring the clutter on the small shelf below the bedroom mirror I pulled open both top drawers of the large chest. One held neatly folded underwear and paired socks, but it was the other one that made me smile. There were four large boxes of cartridges, and lifting the lid to check if they were full, my grin stretched to see the metal gleaming back at me.
“Got them!” I yelled, pulling the boxes free and stacking them.
It was then that I caught a glimpse of something moving in the reflection from the mirror. A quick, darting action as something crossed the corridor. Putting the final box down and picking up the large can of hairspray I’d momentarily let go, I slowly turned round, knowing what was going to be there, and praying to God that I was wrong.
Blocking the doorway, about a foot inside the room, it hissed, some of its awful shiny surface covered in black dust, suddenly leaving me in no doubt as to what had been disturbing the soot in the chimney, those red eyes all focussed on me as they shone. Raising itself up onto its rear legs, it waved the others almost delicately forward, as if it were reaching out to embrace me. My mouth falling open in horrified disgust, I stared at its revolting underbelly. I thought I was becoming hardened to their physical presence, but that illusion fell away as my eyes tried to take in the sight of the monster’s guts: a moving mass of suckers, peering through from a smooth pearlescent coating that would no doubt work like a foreskin, pulling back to allow those greedy mouths access to whatever they sought. I tried to call out, to get help, but as if in an awful dream, I couldn’t get any sound out of my throat.
Mandibles clacking, the widow hissed, a loose spray emerging with the sound, and with sweating hands I finally managed some movement of my own, squirting the can and squeezing down on the lighter. Nothing happened. The flint clicked, but no flames erupted. “Shit, shit, shit . . .” With slippery fingers, I tried to keep my grip and flick the small lever down again.
Dropping itself back down, the widow took a slow step forward, as if sensing its advantage.
“Help me, pleeeaseesssss . . .”
The words sounded wet and in no way human, but rang clear in my head. A chill ran up from my spine and through my guts as I stared in horror, my fingers freezing on the nozzle of the can.
The widow took another step towards me and paused, the words coming again, seeming to ooze out from its surface rather than out from its moving mandibles.
“Help me . . . pleeeaseeesssss. . . .”
Lost in fear and confusion, my brain desperately tried to work, grasping at what I was hearing. What did it want? Did it want me to kill it? How could I help? Suddenly, as I stared into that bank of redness, the cold truth washed over me. They were the words the man in the café had spoken, that he had so desperately tried to spit out at me, the words that I had ignored and run so hard and fast away from. A low moan escaped from me. But how could it know? How could it possibly know? As those foul legs crept closer to me, I stared into those awful pin-prick pupils at the depths of it tumourous eyes and saw something new there, something other than rage. It was taunting me. It was enjoying my fear. More importantly, it was enjoying my shame. That sense of victory glowing from it, it crouched, preparing to attack, to finish its destruction of me.
“You fucking bitch.” Rage at the memory of that poor bastard eaten alive on that sofa, and rage at the poor bastard that had been me, running terrified, awash with crushing guilt, gave me the incentive I needed, and holding the can out directly I pushed the nozzle down and firmly ran my finger over the lighter.
The widow leapt into the roar of the flame, screeching as it realised, and I stepped backwards, the ledge beneath the mirror digging sharply into my back as I cowered away, taking all my resolve to keep my arms forward, burning it.
The flame I was producing was nowhere near enough for the job, and although I had stopped the creature mid-flight and sent it to the floor, it twisted angrily there, darting around the flame, trying to get to me, lashing out with its limbs, hisses and squeals escaping from it. The fire from the can was fading, getting thinner, and the nozzle was hot between my fingers. Part of the widow was burning, but instinctively I could tell that it still had enough energy to kill me before I could destroy it.
Through the smoke and madness another shadow filled the doorway, and my heart leapt. John was there, flame erupting from his own large can, raising the widow’s hiss to a shriek as its rear legs caught fire. With the creature distracted, I reached for the dressing table, my fingers fumbling into one of the boxes, grabbing desperately at some of the cartridges. Two within my grasp, I turned and launched them at the creature, not sure what, if anything, was going to happen. As soon as the metal had flown free of my hands, I squeezed back down on the lighter, sending the remains of my aerosol fire to help John’s.
One cartridge fell redundant on the carpet and rolled under the bed, but the second exploded like a firework, making me instinctively recoil, the power of it taking two of the widow’s legs off, and for the first time I heard agony in its wail, and what I hoped was fear. My own heart surged with the thought of surviving.
Unable to move, it lashed out with its remaining legs, squirming on the floor, until eventually the hissing died and it stopped moving. On the other side of the room John kept on burning it until the surface of its body popped and melted, all those alien eyes melting into one. The smell that erupted from it was like that we had encountered coming out of the scout hut. For a few moments we both just stopped and held our breath, as if waiting for it to leap back to life.
“Jesus.” John was panting, his eyes shaking slightly.
“Cheers, mate.” Dropping my can, I picked up the boxes of shells. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”
He still stood, staring at the sizzling mass on the carpet. Stepping past it, I grabbed his arm, shaking him until he met my own gaze. “You just saved my life. You killed the bitch. Now let’s go.”
He stared into my eyes for a few seconds and then nodded before his stare moved slightly beyond me.
“Matt. The curtains are on fire.”
Turning round to face the room, I could see where the bottom of the thick old material was losing the battle against the fire. The flames were also slowly moving up the bedspread.
“Fuck it. We’ll leave it.” Tugging his arm, I pulled him out of the room and towards the stairs.
“Wait.”
Eager to be gone, I snapped impatiently. “What?”
“What did that thing say? Did it speak to you?” His eyes were full of dread, and it sapped my anger. The whole thing had run in crazy time for me, and I hadn’t realised that he’d been close enough to hear it.
“We’ll talk about it on the way to town, okay?” It had to be okay, because I wasn’t ready to discuss that yet, my thoughts spinning too fast to focus. Once again, I was drawn back to that memory of Chloe in the darkened living room holding a conversation without a telephone. The likelihood of the dead widow being the same one as I’d seen in the café in Stony was highly unlikely, so how could it have known about the dying man’s words?
At the bottom of the stairs, George held out my backpack to me and loaded the guns while I put on the pack.
“I can use one of these. Not a brilliant shot, but I was good in my day. National Service and all that.” He filled his pocket with more shells and then did the same with mine. He met my eye and lowered his voice. “You carry the second one. Nigel’s not reliable and John’s too young. Dave’s outside throwing up.” The old man’s expression was grim. “I don’t know what that bite did to him, but it’s not good. We need to go on to Woburn. It’s a couple of miles on from here, but they are more likely to have a good chemist there than that little village. We’re also going to have to find some more cars.” Squeezing my arm, he glanced upstairs. “Is it dead?”
“Yeah, it’s dead. I fucking hope it is, anyway. We blew two of its legs off.” Smoke was starting to appear at the top of the stairs.
George slapped me on the shoulder. “Well, we’d better be going then.”
Following him back out into the humid air where the others had gathered, Katie and Nigel supporting Dave, that image of Chloe lingered, and things seemed to slot a little into place. Could the widows have some kind of collective consciousness? It would make sense that if they did before they evolved, then maybe they did after. Following George’s lead, I trudged silently back onto the gravel track, not feeling much more secure for the shotgun resting across my shoulder. Within a few steps, the first heavy drops of rain began to fall.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The rain was still coming down steadily when we entered the historic, idyllic town of Woburn, a haven of thatched buildings and antique furniture shops, awash with the spirit of Miss Marple, tea shops and twitching net curtains. Although I was thankful that, as we walked warily towards the main road, none of those thin voiles moved to signal prying eyes. I was pretty certain that if they did, it wouldn’t be just nosy old ladies trying to peer out at us.
We’d actually been closer to Woburn that we’d originally thought, and by braving the roads rather than attempting to navigate across the fields, it had been a much easier walk than our first of the morning, despite the weight of the bags and the clouds emptying onto us from above. Plus, this time round, no one even attempted a conversation. I led silently, my gun ready even if I wasn’t, and George brought up the rear, his weapon held hopefully with a little more confidence.
The main street of the town was wide, the middle section made up of two lines of parking bays to accommodate the shoppers
that converged there during the daytimes and especially on Saturdays. These were normally full, but as we turned the corner I could see only three or four cars stranded there, and it would seem that as with most of the rest of the animal kingdom, the human race had stayed in the comfort of their own homes to die. Or change. Which pretty much amounted to the same thing for those of us that were left behind.
“Where’s the chemist? Does anyone know?” Katie sounded tired, and I’d noticed dark circles gathering under her eyes as the day wore on. Nigel had taken over her role as support for Dave as the older man had got progressively weaker, but had remained silent on the journey, and it was still Katie that had given Dave the odd word of encouragement and support as he desperately tried not to show how much he was suffering.
“I think there’s one at the other end of the street. This bit’s all furniture shops and cafés.” I kept to myself that the reason I knew it so well was that Chloe had dragged me up here to choose pretty much all our furniture, wanting something a little more personal than what the huge warehouses in the Milton Keynes shopping centre had to offer. Another pang of loneliness and heartache stabbed inside, and I hoped that there would be a time when I felt safe and secure enough to allow some time for all the grief inside to come out and then allow me to keep her close inside. I needed it, and I felt I was cheating Chloe by not getting rid of some of the pain so I could then work on savouring our memories and committing them to a safe place in my mind. Surely that’s what the grieving process was supposed to be about. Not this shutting out of everything, just to try and keep my head clear.
For the moment, I kept my head down, and avoided looking in the windows of the shops we passed, holders of invisible snapshots of my previous life, focussing instead on the weight of the gun and the pack on my back while I stared at the cobbles.
“Hey, look at that white van!”
Jane trotted up past me and ran a few steps ahead before I could slow her down by grabbing at her sweatshirt sleeve with my free hand. “Hey, no running ahead. What van?”
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