Furtive Dawn

by Helen Harper

  I answered honestly. ‘There are some things I miss. It’s not always easy. But there’s also a lot to be said for simpler times. This new world has more positives than negatives.’

  He didn’t reply; whether that was because he disagreed or he was merely mulling over my words, I couldn’t have said. It wasn’t easy to judge what someone was thinking when they were covered from head to toe in a clumsy white tent.

  ‘And the other … people,’ he said. ‘What of them?’

  I smiled. I knew what he wanted to ask and the question was probably a burning a hole in his mouth. When it had become clear what was happening in Manchester, every werewolf and vampire in the country had legged it straight here, desperate to get inside. They couldn’t have gone unnoticed. The Army couldn’t keep their true identities under wraps when, for the first time ever, the vamps and wolves had displayed their real natures. Part of me wished I could have seen the tabloids’ reactions. The British press certainly wasn’t shy about spouting opinions. It was no doubt one of those very tabloids that had coined the phrase ‘The Plague’.

  ‘We have many different people in Manchester,’ I said. ‘I won’t deny there’ve been some teething problems but things are settled now. We tend to get along very well.’

  ‘Yes, but…’

  I didn’t wait to hear what else he was about to say. There was an indefinable ripple in the air and the faint scent of fresh dung tickled my nostrils. Under my feet, vibrations tickled the ground. I whipped round and glared at the entire group. ‘Get back,’ I hissed. ‘Something’s coming.’

  They came to a sudden halt but what they didn’t do was move backwards. Clearly they weren’t willing to take orders from me. I could understand that. They’d learn.

  Fab, at least, was prepared to pay attention. ‘Let’s do as Charley says,’ he murmured, turning round and walking back the way he’d come. His bodyguards drew in round him, closer than before. I wondered if they were genuinely prepared to risk their lives for him. Then I stopped wondering and took my own advice. I dropped the bike and ran for the wall of a nearby building, pressing myself against it. The last thing I wanted was to be flattened. When the others saw what I was doing, they finally decided to follow suit.

  I scanned the street, judging its breadth and depth with a practised eye. It should be okay. ‘Stay where you are,’ I said, ‘and don’t do anything stupid.’

  The sound of steady thuds reached my ears, growing louder and louder by the second. One of the more vocal of the guards was next to me, his breath coming in short, shallow gasps. His hazmat visor was steaming up and I could only just make out his eyes darting wildly from side to side. He really was scared. He knelt down and placed his hand flat on the ground; I knew that he could feel the small tremors, even through his tightly bound hazmat gloves.

  ‘What is it?’ Fab asked, considerably calmer than his men. ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘Shhh,’ I said. ‘It’s almost here.’

  ‘What?’ His voice rose with little more than piqued curiosity. ‘What’s almost here?’

  I didn’t get the chance to answer him. From the crossroads ahead, and preceded only by its own shadow, a massive pink trunk appeared. No-one moved. The crouching guy looked too scared to twitch.

  ‘It won’t attack us,’ I told them. ‘It doesn’t care about us. But if we get in its way, it will trample us down.’

  ‘But what…’ Fab swallowed his words.

  The pink trunk was followed by a pink head with large flapping ears. The mammoth, if that’s what it was, was so large these days that those ears scraped the facades of the buildings on either side. It was taller than the fully grown shadow beasts and I had no doubt that it could move a lot faster if it wanted to. Instead, it always clumped along at ponderous speeds, as if it were contemplating the meaning of life while out for a wander rather than walking with a specific destination in mind. Its gentle brown eyes, with curling eyelashes that Coco Chanel would probably have killed for, blinked slowly.

  Inside my backpack, Lucy squeaked. ‘Stay down,’ I whispered to her. ‘This isn’t for you.’

  From the corner of my eye, I spotted the taller bodyguards reach into their backpacks with clumsy, gloved hands. They pulled out handguns. So much for leaving all of their weapons at the wall.

  ‘They won’t work,’ I said calmly. ‘Your guns didn’t work on Lucy and they won’t work on that beast either. In fact, all that will happen is the noise of the shooting will enrage it and make it charge. You’ll end up very squished. And very dead.’

  ‘I thought you said that you’d had very few deaths,’ Fab whispered.

  ‘We have,’ I answered. ‘And that creature hasn’t caused any of them.’ I bared my teeth in a smile. ‘But we also respect the wildlife. It doesn’t look like you lot are doing the same.’

  They stared at me, their eyes dark and shadowed from beneath their daft suits.

  ‘Hold back,’ Fab said to the others, still watching me. ‘For now.’

  The huge animal swung round and veered towards us. It rounded the corner with surprising grace. I knew it had seen us; its eyes had flicked in our direction and its tail had begun to swing in response. Other than that, however, it didn’t acknowledge our presence. It lifted up its heavy feet, one after the other, and plodded past us.

  Fab craned his neck upwards, his astonishment palpable. This close, it was impossible not to appreciate the size of the damn thing, not to mention how pink it truly was. It wasn’t a baby pink or a soft rosy hue; no, this creature was more of a lurid, coral colour. I supposed that when you were the size of a blimp, there was no point in concerning yourself with camouflage.

  I allowed myself a moment of sadness as my bike was crushed into a mess of twisted metal under one heavy foot. It was a calculated loss – we had plenty more bicycles – but it was still a shame to lose this one.

  None of the men moved until the creature was at least fifty meters past us.

  ‘I saw that on television,’ the man next to me breathed. ‘Or something like it. Back when the Plague was only just beginning.’

  ‘I saw that too but it wasn’t anywhere nearly as large as that. Look at that bike! There’s nothing left of it. If any of us were trampled…’ His voice trailed off, his expression a mixture of both wonder and fear.

  ‘How many of them are there?’ another one asked nervously, his eyes shifting around on the off chance that an entire herd of pink mammoth monsters was about to appear.

  ‘Oh,’ I said airily, ‘there’s only one. And yes, that’s the same one you saw on television. We call her Cuddles.’

  Fab said, ‘It’s a miracle that the walls around the city are still standing. That thing could break down any of them in seconds if it wanted to.’

  I smiled at him. ‘Yes, but want is the operative word, isn’t it? It doesn’t want to break down the walls because it doesn’t want to leave.’ What I didn’t add was that Cuddles preferred a diet of green leaves and we had those in abundance. He wasn’t going to go hungry, no matter how much the rest of us struggled. He’d never need to leave. ‘Come on. It’s safe now. We can continue on our way.’

  Four of the five bodyguards glanced at their fifth companion. He, in turn, looked at Fab then he drew in a breath. I only just suppressed my grin. Wait for it.

  ‘Mr Barrett,’ he said stiffly, ‘given what we have already learned, and the fact that our own weapons don’t work, I must advise that we abandon this mission for now and re-group on the other side of the wall. We cannot keep you safe against these sorts of threats. We are not prepared.’

  Fab shook his head. ‘That … elephant monster…’ he began.

  ‘Cuddles,’ I said helpfully.

  He grimaced. ‘Cuddles,’ he amended awkwardly. ‘It didn’t try to hurt us. It wasn’t a threat.’ He looked at me. ‘How far is it to your shelter?’

  I frowned as if thinking deeply. ‘A mile. Maybe slightly more.’

  ‘And are we likely to bump into any more crea
tures like that one?’

  I raised my shoulders. ‘Never say never. The beasties do tend to come out more at night, and dusk isn’t far off now. But it’s unlikely. The rest of the route from here to our enclave is usually clear.’

  ‘Usually,’ the bodyguard snorted. ‘That’s not good enough. Do the animals live in your so-called enclave too?’

  ‘Animals?’ I frowned at him. ‘I don’t know what you mean. There are some cats and a couple of pet dogs. I think someone has a budgie…’

  His nearest buddy interrupted. ‘He means the wolves. And the bloodsuckers. Will they be there too?’

  I blinked innocently. ‘But of course. We’re all one big happy family.’

  ‘Then,’ the first bodyguard addressed Fab again, ‘I must insist that we turn around and leave the city at once. I don’t want to be out at night and we can’t stay in this enclave if those other … things are there too.’

  ‘Relax, Boyce,’ Fab said. ‘If Charley here can manage it, you can too. After all, she’s half your size and she’s obviously doing fine.’

  ‘She’s got blue hair,’ Boyce growled. ‘And she can do shit with her fingers. She’s infected and obviously dangerous. I might not have been part of your team for long but I know what I’m doing. Until we know more about this city, we should get you out of here.’

  Interesting. He was far more antsy than his employer. And a newbie. ‘For the record,’ I told them lightly, ‘I get this hair colour out of a bottle. The magic has nothing to do with it.’ I didn’t deny being infected; I couldn’t do that. And I probably was a wee bit dangerous at times but only when threatened.

  I drew in a breath. ‘I won’t guarantee your safety because that would be foolish. I will say, however, that you are in no more danger in our enclave than you would be in any other British city.’

  ‘Well,’ Fab smiled, ‘that settles it then.’

  Boyce glared. ‘Our radios don’t work. If anything goes wrong, we’ll have to…’

  ‘It will be fine.’ Fab’s voice was colder this time. ‘We continue.’

  Some of the tension in my shoulders eased. I’d been gambling on this outcome and I’d been almost certain I’d achieve it. All the same, I was relieved that things had worked out the way I’d wanted them to.

  ‘Come on then,’ I beamed. ‘Let’s get going before Cuddles returns.’ I looked up at the sky, shielding my eyes. ‘We don’t have long before the sun sets.’

  I strolled ahead, twisting my head to the left and silently acknowledging the narrowed blue eyes watching from the roof of the house ahead. In the dying sun, Monroe’s fur was tinged with more burnished red than usual.

  I flicked my hand in the air then ran my fingers through my hair. Even in wolf form, he looked remarkably pissed off at my surreptitious instruction but he did lower himself behind the chimney stack. He might not be happy but I knew he’d understand. If all this was going to work for us, we had to be in control at every moment.

  Chapter Eleven

  I’m sure you know that the one thing most people like more than anything else is talking about themselves. Fabian Barrett was no exception. While his men walked in silence, their eyes flicking from left to right and their postures visibly stiff, even with the hazmat suits on, Fab meandered lazily next to me and chatted non-stop. He acted like he possessed total faith in his own immortality, regardless of his surroundings. With five bodyguards around him, that wasn’t an entirely unreasonable belief.

  ‘I was as shocked as anyone when the Plague began,’ he said. Now that he’d calmed down, the steam on his visor had subsided and it was easier to make out his face. He looked older in real life than he did on television. He didn’t have wrinkles but his skin had that smoothed-out quality that told of too many Botox treatments and face lifts. Rather than make him appear him younger, it suggested he was older than his years. Not that I blamed him for his vanity. It couldn’t be easy being constantly in the public eye. I knew enough from Julie and her previous career as an actress to appreciate that.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Force of habit. What do you call what’s happened? I know it’s not the Plague.’

  ‘Usually, we just say the apocalypse,’ I told him. ‘Sometimes the Manpocalypse.’ Cath’s attempt at coining a new phrase hadn’t really caught on, but she kept trying with it. I had to admire her persistence.

  ‘The Manpocalypse because it’s local to Manchester?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Clever.’ He heaved in a breath. ‘In those first weeks, you know, we weren’t sure that it wouldn’t spread. Everyone was on alert. I had a lot of people working for me in this city and I spoke to each and every one of them after they were evacuated. The tales they told were barely credible. And utterly horrifying.’ He shuddered. ‘The rats. The fire falling from the sky. The way the trees suddenly began sprouting at a rate of knots.’

  ‘It was quite something,’ I agreed.

  ‘Why on earth did you stay?’

  I considered his question. ‘For the same reason, I suppose, that people continue to live in Los Angeles and Tokyo when the threats of massive earthquakes hang over their heads every day. The same reason why there are settlements near active volcanoes or near the shore in tsunami zones. The benefits outweigh the risks. And this is my home.’

  ‘The benefits being … magic?’ he asked.

  I smiled easily. ‘Amongst other things.’

  ‘I visited here several times before the Pla— before the apocalypse,’ he told me. ‘Manchester was a great city.’

  ‘It still is.’

  His expression didn’t change. ‘Yes,’ he murmured. ‘I can believe that. I’ve been trying to get back here for months. The government can prove somewhat intractable when it comes to situations like this. They don’t like the unknown. And everything about what’s happened here is the unknown.’

  And then some, I thought. I pointed left, directing him and his entourage down the next street. Two of his men, the irritating Boyce included, insisted on darting ahead to check that the way was clear. Not that it was particularly easy to dart, given the suits they were wearing. I shrugged and let them continue. Despite the recent beastie incursions, this area was always clear of monsters but if checking it out first made them feel better about themselves, it was no skin off my nose.

  ‘What happened to them? To those people who were evacuated?’

  Fab grimaced. ‘Everyone was quarantined. The press called it Tent City, because that’s what it was. Thousands upon thousands of tents, all surrounded by military guards and all smack-bang in the middle of the English countryside. It wasn’t easy for those people.’

  ‘You’re speaking in the past tense. Tent City no longer exists?’

  He paused before answering. ‘Some of it still does. The people are no longer there but there are still lots of tents. You know, just in case.’

  ‘Just in case the rest of us survivors decide to leave?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Boyce shouted back, beckoning us, and we started walking again.

  ‘None of the evacuees seemed to be suffering from any ill-effects,’ Fab told me. ‘So everyone was released after three months. But you guys have been in here for far longer. It’s been estimated that it will take years for the infections to leave your bodies.’

  ‘Hence the quarantine is now three years long?’ I asked. ‘Assuming anyone actually leaves Manchester?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’re taking a big risk coming here.’

  He didn’t smile. ‘It’s worth it. We can’t abandon an entire city. We need to examine what’s happened and make sure it doesn’t happen anywhere else. We need to help you. If we can’t look after our own, what does that mean for the rest of the country?’

  It was a very similar argument to the one I’d often given Monroe. I acknowledged Fab’s words with a nod. ‘So what about you?’ I asked. ‘You obviously persuaded the government to let you in and you’re wearing your suit things to guard against…’ I could
barely bring myself to say the word ‘…infection. Will you be quarantined when you leave?’

  ‘The suit provides adequate protection. It’s been rigorously tested – though nothing is foolproof.’ He paused. ‘I hope that detail will persuade you that I am determined to make things better here for all of Manchester’s citizens, whoever and whatever they are. The benefits far outweigh the risks.’

  It sounded as if Fabian Barrett’s heart was in the right place. I felt myself begin to relax. This could turn out to be a very good day after all.

  ‘We’re close now,’ I said. ‘You should wait here with your guys and I’ll go up and tell the others you’re coming so they don’t get a nasty shock.’ I gave him a quick grin. ‘We have our own internal walls too. I won’t be more than five minutes.’

  I could tell from his expression that he wanted to argue so I put my hand on his arm and squeezed gently. Even with his suit on, I felt his body tense at my touch. He was nervous, whether he wanted to admit it or not. Oddly, it made me like him more.

  ‘It’s safer this way,’ I said.

  Fab nodded. ‘Alright.’ He motioned towards his bodyguards while I skipped forward, jogging rather than shuffling now that I didn’t have to keep pace with them. I gave Boyce and the others a cheery wave as I passed them. They responded with identikit frowns.

  Thanks to both Monroe and Anna, I knew that everyone inside the enclave, and especially our own guards at the main barricade, would be informed about our approach. I needed these precious minutes to grab a breather, though, and to tell them what I’d learned so far without Fabian Barrett listening in.

  When the barricade came into sight, there were far more people than normal. Some looked excited, some hopeful but most were simply wary.

  I raised a hand and ran up. Monroe, bare-chested but wearing jogging bottoms, hopped round the barricade and greeted me. Julian came after him.

  ‘They’re not far behind me. They’ll probably wait for two minutes and then follow without waiting for me to go back and fetch them,’ I said.