“Don’t know. It’s not good whatever it is.” Steve shook his head and scratched at his knees, seemingly unaware of his movement. “Messing with the Manc. They’re nuts.”

  “I thought everyone who had it would be dead by now.”

  “They probably should be. God knows where Skinny and his mates found them.”

  Wallace entered the room and the murmurs of conversation fell away.

  “Hello, all.” Wallace gestured to Cate. “Everyone, this is Cate. Our newest member. Make her welcome, won’t you?”

  “Another mouth.”

  The mutter rumbled from behind her. A flush ran over her neck and cheeks. She kept her eyes on Wallace and spoke as clearly as she could.

  “I’m another mouth but I’m also another pair of hands.”

  She caught Steve’s grin from the corner of her eye. Wallace nodded.

  “Absolutely true,” she said. “And we should all remember that. So, as I say, make Cate welcome.” Wallace paused, her silence acting as emphasis. The burning redness in Cate’s cheeks faded, leaving her cold. “Now, news. Cate and Steve were up on the roof twenty minutes ago. They’ve seen movement. Steve?”

  Wallace leaned against a cupboard, waiting.

  “Movement. That’s right.” Steve rested his arms on his knees and his fingers hung limp. “We know about the cars they’ve got to block the avenue. Now they’ve got a van. A big one. Like a house moving one. They brought it in this morning. It was full of people. They’ve all got the Manc.”

  Voices rose immediately. Anger, fear, disbelief: they all flowed over Cate and didn’t stop even when Wallace raised a hand to quiet the group.

  “Everyone, please,” Wallace called.

  “What the hell are they doing?” someone shouted.

  “That’s what we’re here to discuss,” Wallace replied. The voices subsided. “Thank you, Steve.”

  Clearly relieved to be out of the spotlight, Steve returned to his chair. Unsure if she should, Cate squeezed his finger. His lips moved into a weak smile and she withdrew from him.

  “This is obviously a new situation. And a dangerous one. But it doesn’t change the fact that we’re in here and they’re out there and they can’t get in. We can get out, though.” Wallace’s gaze swept the room. “I need two volunteers.”

  Keeping her head still, Cate studied at the people closest to her. All of them remained motionless. Most of them sat with their heads down and had been like that since Wallace entered the room. All of them kept their eyes on anything but Wallace. Without another word being spoken, Cate understood what Wallace was asking. And she understood her place in it.

  “I’ll go.”

  Everyone was looking at her. She kept her focus on Wallace’s calm gaze.

  “That’s appreciated, Cate, but you are new here. You’re not familiar with our friends across the road or the layout of the roads.”

  “I know. But I’ll go if you want me to.”

  Wallace appeared to consider. Cate didn’t believe she was doing so at all.

  “Appreciated,” Wallace said. “Anyone else? Damien? You’re fast on your feet.”

  Cate’s shoulders tensed. She’d only had a couple of encounters with Damien and didn’t want another. At least not without others around.

  “I’d prefer not to,” Damien said and folded his arms over his chest.

  Wallace nodded. “Fair enough.”

  Cate swallowed her surprise. Was that how it worked here? Wallace, in charge, Wallace asking people to do things and they just refused? She had to admit in the silence after Wallace’s last words that she’d had no reason to assume this setup would be any different. Wallace was clearly the leader, the decision maker, but it seemed she couldn’t tell anyone to do anything.

  Disquiet crept up and down Cate’s back. They needed structure here. They needed a sense of order. The group of patients and staff obviously wanted someone to tell them what to do. Their situation wouldn’t work if they didn’t play their part.

  “Anyone else?” Wallace said.

  “I’ll go,” Steve replied. “I could do with some fresh air.”

  “Fine. You know how it works, Steve. No risk taking. Your priority is your safety, yes?”

  “Yes.”

  “Two AM,” Wallace said. “Stick with Steve tonight, Cate. Do exactly as he tells you.”

  “I will,” Cate replied.

  People filed out of the staffroom, the only sound the shuffle of their feet. A few gave murmurs of good luck to Steve as they passed and Steve thanked them. Within a minute, the only people left in the room were Wallace, Steve and Cate. Damien was last out. He glanced back, face unreadable, then left them.

  “I won’t lie to you, Cate,” Wallace said. “It’s extremely dangerous out there. I can’t overstate that enough, but we need to know what they’re up to. Finding out won’t be easy, though.”

  “You can trust me,” Cate said.

  “Glad to hear it.” Wallace left them.

  “So, me and you,” Steve said.

  Cate strode across to one of the windows. None were boarded here. They were two floors up and the room faced the rear of the building. Bright sunshine flooded the roof below.

  “It’s a long time until two tonight. What happens now?” Cate said.

  He joined her at the window. “Now I show you around. Come on.”

  Cate moved ahead of him, crossing to the door and the wards. Outside the room, she looked back at him. He remained at the window. She smiled, surprised at how easily it came to her lips.

  “Come on. I haven’t got all day,” she told him.

  Returning her smile, Steve walked to her. And in the few seconds it took him to cross the floor, the scream from the lift shaft raced around and around.

  Then the smell hit her.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  T he small hand slipped into Nicola’s and she held it with as much strength as she could. Over on the other side of their garden, Scott wiped the last of the dirt from the table and used the back of his forearm to wipe the sweat from his forehead.

  “You could eat off this,” he called to her and pointed to the gleaming table. She laughed; he unfolded the garden chairs, spacing them around the table. Sunlight made the table surface into a dazzling sheet, and the white of the chair frames glowed. All that white on top of the green, the grass freshly mowed, the sky above utterly cloudless. The white. The green. The blue.

  The hand in hers.

  Nicola lifted the tray she’d placed on the stump at the edge of the patio, holding it steady so the two bottles of lager and the glass of lemonade didn’t spill.

  “Come on. Let’s join Daddy.”

  All that blue and green and white. All that space of their long garden lay out before her in a smooth sheet. All the delicious scents in the air: grass cut, flowers in their beds blooming around the garden’s perimeter, the roar of a lawnmower a few gardens away. All of it. All around her. Inside her. With her.

  In her hand.

  In her.

  Nicola woke, moving from sleep to consciousness in seconds. She remained still despite the clammy sweat casing her and the ache of her dream pulsating in time with her heartbeat.

  There’d been a noise. A crash.

  Night surrounded her. Even so, she made no move to light a candle. She found her knife beside the chair she’d fallen asleep in. She focused on her surroundings, wishing she could focus on the memory of her dream and Julia’s hand in hers.

  The crash, whatever it had been, didn’t happen again. Nicola pictured the house and the road it was on, seen once in the gloom of sunset. Nothing obvious in the area would have made such a loud bang, nothing to bang.

  The back gate.

  She’d noticed it as she’d approached the front of the house. Half a brick wedged the gate open. Fallen branches and other debris lay on the path from the side of the house and while she’d decided the mess was a good cover for her since it made the house look as if it was still abandoned, she’d forgotten to close the gate. Now it had banged shut.

  Because someone had made it bang shut.

  She mentally swore at herself. The crash might well have been the gate, but what was stopping the wind from blowing it shut?

  Silently, Nicola lowered her feet to the carpet and hugged herself. Her layers weren’t helping to keep her warm at whatever time in the middle of the night this was.

  A tired voice spoke up. I really have had enough of this shit.

  She stood and tried to get her bearings. This room, the main bedroom, was at the front of the house. The bathroom was behind a closed door directly across from this one; two smaller rooms were beside the bathroom. The one furthest to the left overlooked the rear of the house and the garden.

  “What are you waiting for?” Nicola breathed. She walked, arms outstretched, to where she hoped the door was. Her legs hit the end of the bed. Her shins stung. She took a few breaths and moved again. Wood met her fingers. She was at the door.

  You’re really going to do this?

  She really was. Fear was all over her, but so was anger. There was no way of knowing what had happened to Tom or the men in the supermarket. A wild animal. A crazy person following her. Right now, she didn’t care.

  I’ll face it. I will.

  The memory of the wavering figures on the school field returned and she banished it. Let the kids come if that’s what was happening. She’d take them all.

  Nicola gripped the knife tighter and pulled the bedroom door open. A solid wall of black filled the hallway and any of the bedroom doors were lost in nothing.

  In that nothing, someone breathed. Nicola tried to throw herself backwards. Ice encased her feet and legs; her chest was a tight ball of blocked air. A few drops of urine squirted into her underwear.

  A whisper flowed out of the dark. “I know you’re there.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  C ate eyed the handgun Steve held towards her.

  “What am I supposed to do with this?” she asked.

  “Point and shoot.”

  “You keep it. I wouldn’t know how to use it.”

  “You’ll learn.” Steve’s hand remained hanging in the air. Wallace’s instructions from that morning echoed around Cate and she took the gun. The weapon was heavier than she expected, and the metal colder. She considered asking Steve its make or name and said nothing. Knowing either would make no difference.

  “The safety’s on,” Steve told her. She ran a finger along the barrel, then placed the gun into her coat pocket and nodded to the ward doors.

  “Now what?” she said.

  “Now you see 6X.”

  He unlocked the padlocked doors and eased them open. His torchlight shone into the ward. Beds and chairs were heaped high in random piles on both sides of the corridor. They formed a passage that came close to making a tunnel. Cate peered in further as Steve’s torch picked out more of the floor. They’d need to go single file and Steve would have to duck.

  “Like it?” he said.

  “It’s lovely.”

  “A lot of people aren’t happy about this. It’s a weakness, if I’m honest. But we need a way out.”

  “It’s a way in, as well,” Cate said.

  Steve pulled a face. “True. As long as Skinny and his mates don’t work out what it is or what we’re doing, we’re safe.”

  Cate pointed to the opening of the makeshift tunnel. “So, this is what? A delay in case anyone gets in?”

  “Something like that. You ready?”

  She took a few breaths to calm herself. Despite keeping busy throughout the day, she’d been constantly aware of what was happening come two in the morning. Steve had shown her as much of the hospital as he could; she’d seen into rooms and wards and spoken to a few people who’d been guarded with her but not unfriendly. She’d eaten. She’d taken another watch on the roof shortly before sunset. And now here was two in the morning and a trip outside.

  “Not really,” she said and he smiled.

  “It’s easy. Just keep your head down. Don’t speak unless I do. Move fast and be quiet.”

  “Easy,” she muttered.

  “One other thing?”

  “Yeah?”

  His eyes were white circles in the poor light and his smile had gone. “If anyone comes at us, you shoot them.”

  Cate pressed against the gun in her pocket. “If you say so.”

  “I do.” Steve leaned in to her. “Listen. If they get hold of us, we’re dead. They’ll kill me quickly. You won’t be that lucky. There aren’t any rules now. You know that. You’ve seen what it’s like out there. You know what people are capable of.”

  Cate thought of the scream in the lift shaft she’d heard again after the meeting, then the strong aroma that came out of nowhere before vanishing. Steve hadn’t reacted to either; she’d kept a poker face and walked with him through the corridors. She’d managed to keep the memory of the sound and the smell away during the day. Being busy and focused had helped. Now, in the dark, she saw herself moving all the junk away from the lift shaft and staring down into the black, calling down into it. Smelling that smell.

  “I know,” she said and pulled the gun free. Steve took it from her, clicked the safety off and handed it back to her.

  “Be careful with that,” he said.

  “I will.”

  “You kill anyone who comes near us.”

  “I will.”

  How easy those two words were. How easy it was to know she would kill to survive. Cate looked inside herself and felt nothing. Dismay, grief, fear were all absent at least for now. If she had to, she’d shoot the people outside to save herself and Steve.

  “Let’s go,” Steve said.

  He ducked and walked through the passage of furniture. Cate kept her eyes on his head and moved as he did. Behind them, the ward doors closed. Trapped air surrounded them. They passed the main desk, not quite visible in the poor light beyond the beds and chairs. A ghastly thought hit Cate and she spoke before she could stop herself.

  “What happens if all this collapses?”

  Steve snorted. “Then we’ll have a headache. Keep it down.”

  Cate closed her mouth against a possible reply and focused on walking, not on the poles and bedframes and chairs crowding in on her.

  The tunnel squeezed them in the further they walked. As they neared the end, Cate walked with bent knees and Steve shuffled forward like an old man. He waved his torch over a door.

  “This is it. Remember, we’re six floors up so it’s windy and a long way down. Once the door’s unlocked, my torch goes off. Go carefully. There’s a platform straight out there. The steps are to the left. They’re just like metal stairs. Try and walk as lightly as you can.”

  He whispered to her in the dark. His torch found her face and she nodded once. At the same time, a question came before she could stop it.

  “Is this how you got in when we met?”

  “Yeah. This and down below are the only two ways in. Now quiet.”

  Something about his words pricked at her. She let any doubt go as Steve’s keys jingled. He jabbed one into a padlock. It clicked. He pocketed his key, pulled the padlock free and turned off his torch. On all sides, weighty darkness pressed on her. The fire exit opened. Night rushed in and she followed Steve out to the platform, six floors up.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  T he woman placed her lit candle on the table. The little flame showed enough of her face for Nicola to be as comfortable as she could. Even so, she didn’t lower her knife.

  “Is this your house?” the woman said.

  “No.”

  “Just staying here?”

  “Yes.”

  The woman nodded and looked about herself as if the room was well-lit and not in almost total dark. “Cosy.”

  “What are you doing here?” Nicola said.

  “Same as you. Trying to find somewhere to sleep. Maybe some food. Have you got any food?”

  The woman was well into her forties although the eagerness in her voice made her sound much younger. The tightness in Nicola’s stomach and the tension in her shoulders increased at the question.

  “No,” she said.

  The woman slumped against the side of the sofa. “Doesn’t surprise me. Nobody has.”

  “You’ve seen other people?” Nicola asked.

  “A few. Not many since last week, I think.”

  “Groups?”

  The woman shook her head. “No. People are keeping to themselves.” She pointed to the knife. “You can put that down, you know.”

  Nicola made no move to do so. The woman didn’t appear surprised. She sat on the sofa and let out an exhausted sigh. Nicola stared into the other end of the room. From what she’d seen of the house before going upstairs, there were patio doors at that end, the small garden beyond. The woman had said she’d got in through a downstairs toilet window. She’d tried to say her name and Nicola had cut her off by shouting at her to leave. Now here they were downstairs with barely enough illumination to see, and the woman showed no signs of leaving.

  “What’s your name?” the woman said. Nicola kept quiet. “Fair enough.” The woman didn’t appear bothered. “Going to tell me your story? What your plan is?”

  “Cheadle. Hulme.” It came out before she could stop it and she knew why. As much as it might be better not to tell the truth and keep a distance, she wanted to name the town, to make her family’s place as real as it could be.

  “God. You might as well try Manchester. Nothing that way. Nothing, anywhere.” The woman slid forward. The movement caused a sly whisper. “Nothing out there and definitely not up near Manchester. That’s where the first bomb went off, remember?”

  “Yeah, I remember.” The woman drew back at the anger in Nicola’s voice. “I saw it happen. On the news.” Nicola fought the urge to close her eyes, wanting to shut out the memory. “I got sick, I got better, I came here. End of story.”

  “Right.” The woman kept her voice toneless and Nicola wanted to tell her she understood. There was no chance of a connection. They couldn’t share anything. Too much fear in the way of anything good between them. Way too much shit from all the grief and horror outside the house.

 

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