“The four-by-four!” Hoon shouted. “Go for the four-by-four!”
He had a hand on Leanne’s back, pushing her on through the abandoned cars that covered the bridge. Up ahead, Marshall and Daniel were powering on. Worryingly close behind, an army of tooth-gnashing, air-clawing bastards was rushing under the off-balance coach, tipping it further and further towards the edge.
A few figures dived through the flaming wreckage of the cars blocking the road behind the bus. They ran on for several paces, burning like brilliant candles in the night.
“Jesus,” Hoon wheezed. “Hurry up, sweetheart. Head for the four-by-four,” he urged.
The burning figures collapsed as the flames consumed them. Over on the right, the throngs pushing under the coach finally knocked it off-balance. There was a grinding of metal as the coach tipped all the way and tore free of the railings. It plunged out of sight, hitting the River Clyde a moment later with a crash and a splash and a groaning of compacting steel.
Wrapped in Leanne’s arms, Immy began to cry. It was sharp and shrill and split the night like a siren.
“Ssh, it’s OK, it’s OK,” Leanne whispered. “Please don’t cry!”
“Let her,” said Hoon. “Poor wee bastard’s earned it.”
One of the cars in their path had veered out of its lane and smashed into the side of the car next to it, forming a barrier in the road. Leanne side-stepped into the next lane, then screamed as a woman with half her scalp missing stood up sharply and let out a furious screech.
BANG! Hoon smashed his fist into the center of the woman’s face. She wailed and thrashed as he grabbed what was left of her hair, bent her backwards, and slammed her onto the hood of a car. “Hurry. Go with them two. I’ll catch you up.”
“What? No, just run!”
“Do as you’re fucking told!” Hoon barked. “Ten miles north of Fort William. Left before Spean Bridge. Highbridge. House next to the dog kennels. I’ll see you there.”
Leanne hesitated, Immy wriggling and screaming in her grip. “Go. Now,” Hoon told her.
With a glance at the closing horde, Leanne nodded quickly, then ran. Hoon drove a punch once, twice across the woman’s face, snapping her head round. The woman moved to grab for his throat, but hesitated, her face stuck somewhere between rage and confusion.
Hoon pulled her head up and smashed it back onto the hood, then let her slide to the ground. The horde was still closing, but it was spreading out, diverting around him like he was a rock in a stream. He tried to run, but moving quickly hadn’t been his strong point for quite some years now, and his lungs and legs had been cramping up for the past few minutes.
“Fuck it,” he wheezed, bending double, his hands on his knees. Straightening up, he saw Leanne reach the car. She glanced back at him and he managed a thumbs-up before she dived into the back seat.
The four-by-four screamed into reverse, tires throwing up swirls of grey smoke. Hoon saw it performing what he had to admit was a fucking impressive handbrake turn, before the chasing horde closed before him like a curtain, blocking the car from view.
He stretched and tried to peer over the heads of the crowd. “Come on,” he whispered, then he jabbed a punch at the air in victory as he heard the car speed off down the bridge, leaving the crowd trailing in its wake.
There was an itch across his scalp and his head was filled with a sudden shrill whisper. Hoon cricked his neck and flexed his fingers in and out. “Aye,” he muttered, driving the heel of his hand hard against his temple. “And you can shut the fuck up an’ all.”
The moment the office door opened, Amanda ran to her son and threw her arms around him. She pressed her cheek against his chest, and he rested his chin on the fuzzy, close-cropped hair on top of her head.
“Hey, Mom,” Jaden said.
“Oh, baby, oh baby, you’re OK,” Amanda babbled, squeezing her son like she would never let him go again. “I thought you were… I didn’t know if…”
Jaden untangled himself and looked down at her. She was smiling, but tears rolled down her dark cheeks. “Hey, I’m OK,” he told her. “But since you’re already crying, now’s probably a good time to tell you. Col shot the cat.”
Amanda frowned and looked to Col, who stood gaping at Jaden in disbelief. “Well, thanks a lot!”
“You shot the cat?” Amanda asked.
“It was an accident, Mrs McBride, I swear,” Col said. Amanda turned back to her son.
“You had a gun? Where did you two get a gun?” she asked.
“Long story,” said Jaden. “We had two, actually, until Captain Commando here took them off us.”
He turned to Mike, who stood just inside the doorway, his rifle lowered but ready. Both handguns were tucked into his belt. “We’d really like those back, by the way,” Jaden told him.
“Uh-uh. No way,” said Amanda. “You don’t know what you’re doing. You could hurt someone.”
“I totally know what I’m doing!” Jaden protested. “I already shot a cop!”
His mom let out a sharp gasp and covered her mouth with her hands. Jaden swallowed. “Which I appreciate probably isn’t as persuasive an argument as I had hoped.”
“You shot a cop?” Amanda said.
Jaden pointed to Col. “He killed the cat!”
“To be fair, Mrs Harris, he
was
trying to kill me,” said Col.
Amanda frowned. “The cat?”
“No, the cop,” said Col. “The cat was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Amanda looked at them both several times in turn. “Mike,” she said, at last. “Keep those guns safe.”
Mike nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Who the fuck is this guy, anyway?” asked Jaden. He turned to Mike. “Who are you?”
“Marine Lance Corporal Michael Waller of the United States Army,” Mike barked.
“You don’t look like a marine,” said Jaden, looking Mike up and down. He was mid-forties, Jaden guessed, and comfortably on the slide towards past his best. “I mean, the haircut, yeah, but you look a bit… flabby.”
Mike adjusted his grip on his rifle. “Step back, son and quit being all up in my face.”
Jaden didn’t move. “I’d like my gun back.”
“Jaden,” his mom snapped. “Quit being an asshole.”
After a moment, Jaden sighed and turned away. “Fine, Mom. Jesus. OK?”
“That’s it,” said Mike. “Chill. We’re all friends here.”
“What’s going on?” Col asked. He looked at everyone in turn. “Out there. Do we know anything?”
Amanda shook her head. “Not much. Nothing that makes sense, anyhow.” She took a steadying breath. “But let me show you.”
She crossed to a bank of flat-screen monitors mounted on one of the room’s otherwise featureless walls. The screens showed the station from a variety of angles. Two of them, marked ‘Platforms 1’ and ‘Platforms 2,’ were switched off.
“What’s wrong with these?” Jaden asked. He reached for the switch on one of the screens, but his mom slapped his hand away.
“Don’t,” she said, meeting his eye. “Just… don’t, OK?”
She waited until Jaden nodded, then leaned over and tapped some keys on a wireless keyboard positioned below the screens. The picture changed on all the screens simultaneously, and suddenly the station was filled with people rushing around and going about their business.
“When was this?” asked Col.
“Four hours ago. Little over,” said Amanda. She turned away and folded her arms, deliberately not watching the screens. “Keep your eye on the top right,” she said. “That’s where it starts.”
Jaden and Col turned their attention to the screen as requested. It showed the news stand near the entrance to the bus terminal. A queue was forming at the kiosk. Whoever was supposed to be inside the thing was nowhere to be seen.
“I’m not seeing anything,” Jaden said.
“Give it a minute,” his mom replied.
A man wearing an expensive-looking suit stood at the front of the queue, looking at his watch and sighing visibly every few seconds. He had rolled a broadsheet newspaper into a tube, and was tapping it impatiently on the kiosk counter.
There was no sound, but they could see the man muttering to the rest of the queue, then suddenly a shape was rising up from behind the serving counter. A fast-moving figure caught the man by his jacket and dragged him into the kiosk in one sharp, sudden jerk.
“Whoa,” Col whispered.
“He just pulled him in,” Jaden said.
Mike stepped up behind them. “Queue doesn’t even react. Just stands there looking stupid, wondering what just happened.”
“Probably in shock,” said Col.
Mike snorted. “Pussies. Me, I’d have reacted.”
“Good for you, Mike,” said Jaden. “Seriously. Way to go.”
Col leaned in closer to the screen. “What the Hell is that?”
Hundreds of black dots were scurrying out through a gap at the bottom of the kiosk. Looking closely, it was possible to make out blurry individual shapes, but it looked more like a single organism, growing and fanning out across the floor.
“Now they move,” said Mike.
Sure enough, the queue and some of the closest passers-by began hopping and jumping and frantically swatting at themselves. Some ran. Those that didn’t stood screaming for a moment as the tide swept around them, then suddenly went still and calm.
“Are those… insects?”
“Yeah, like roaches or somethin’,” Mike drawled. He pointed at another screen. “Now look here.”
The tide of bugs swept in from the right of the second screen. People tried to run, flailing and flapping and screaming in eerie silence.
“Check this guy, check this guy,” said Mike, pointing to an elderly man caught up in the crush to escape. He tripped and went down hard. The carpet of bugs swarmed over him, covering him from head to toe. The man thrashed around beneath them for a moment, then lay still.
It reminded Col of documentary footage he’d seen of lava flowing down a mountainside, consuming everything in its path. “What the Hell are they?”
A sudden movement back on the first screen caught his eye. The people who’d been standing frozen suddenly erupted into life. They raced off screen, immediately reappearing on two other feeds. One of them – a woman in a knee-length skirt and suit jacket – tackled a station security guard and dragged him to the floor. She and another woman fell on him, ripping and clawing at him until their hands came away bloodied.
“Holy shit,” Jaden muttered. “Guess it’s not the night to be working in security.”
The violence had infected all the screens now. On every one of them, people fought and struggled and lashed out at each other in rage.
Mike pushed between Jaden and Col, excitedly indicating the middle screen. “Watch, watch, watch,” he urged. There was a silent flash as a gun went off. A pulpy-pink wad exploded through the back of a man’s skull, and Mike snorted with delight. “Check that shit out!”
Amanda turned sharply and tapped the space bar. The pictures on the screens all froze. “You get the idea,” she said. She hit another few keys and the live images returned. Amanda scanned the monitors, making sure there was nothing going on, then lowered herself into the seat beside her desk.
“It all happened so quickly,” she said, staring past the others at something only she could see. “One minute, it’s a normal evening rush. Next thing… that happens.”
“Where is everyone now?” Col asked.
“They went downstairs. Down to the platforms,” Amanda said. “The bugs carried the bodies away. Just picked them up on their backs and dropped them right on the escalator. Creepiest thing I ever saw.”
Jaden turned to Mike. “What about you, GI Joe? What’s your story?”
“Mike arrived about an hour before you did. I saw him on the cameras and let him in here with me.”
“I’m stationed in Fort Hamilton,” he said. Col and Jaden both looked at him blankly. “New York. My platoon and me were up here for, you know, like exercises? But they got… They were all…”
He straightened his back and clenched his jaw. “I’m headed back to barracks. Reckon we can regroup there and assess the situation.”
“In New York?” said Jaden. “Good luck with that.”
“That’s where my parents are,” said Col. Jaden turned to him and raised a quizzical eyebrow. “The reunion. They’re in New York,” Col explained. “We could all go together.”
“You want to go to New York?” Jaden snorted. “New York City? One of the most densely populated places in the entire country?”
Col shrugged. “Just, I don’t know. My mom and dad.”
“Roads are blocked,” Jaden reminded him. “We cycled less than four miles and my ass feels like it’s snapped in half, so bikes are a no-no. How do you suggest we get there?”
“Train,” said Mike. “We’re in a train station. That’s why I came here.”
Jaden scoffed. “Yeah? Just take a train, will we?” He thought about this. “That’s actually a genius idea. We could totally take a train. Mom, you still know how to drive one, right?”
“Well, yes, but--”
Jaden raised his arms in celebration. “Then that’s it! A train’s like a rolling fortress. We get ourselves on a train and just punch through whatever’s in our way. We’ll be in New York in no time,” he said. “We ditch Sergeant Slaughter at his base or whatever, reunite Col with his parents, and then the world is our oyster.”
“That could work,” Col said, nodding. “A train could actually work.”
“It could,” Amanda admitted. “Except for one slight problem.”
She leaned over and flicked on one of the two darkened screens. The image that appeared made everyone take a shuffled step back. Dozens of people were crowded on the platforms and the tracks. They gnashed furiously at empty space. They swiped their clawed fingers at thin air. Down on the floor, a middle-aged woman was wrist-deep in the open chest of a teenager in a
Dunkin’ Donuts
uniform. She squished both hands around in his innards, like a pre-school child with a
lot
of red Play-Doh. The teenage boy’s head was turned towards the camera, his eyes wide and pleading, even in death.
“You want to get to the trains?” said Amanda. “Then we have to get past them.”