The Storm Read online

  A distant car horn cut through the heavy quiet, making Brick jump so hard that Daisy almost slipped from his grip. He clamped her to his chest. Wake up, Daisy, he thought as he set off across the road, heading for the passageway opposite. Please wake up, I can’t carry you forever.

  Then he remembered what she’d be when she woke, and sucked the wish back into the darkness of his thoughts.

  The houses on this side had gates on their passageways, but a little further up the terraced properties gave way to larger, semi-detached homes. He cut through a gravelled driveway and down a long, perfectly manicured garden. The hum of traffic was louder here, and he thought he could hear voices too. He reached a wall and leant against the crumbling brickwork, trying to catch his breath.

  ‘Can you climb it?’ he asked Adam. The little boy looked up at the wall – all six foot of it – and shook his head. Brick grunted in frustration, crouching down and gently laying Daisy on the ground. He rubbed his arms, trying to warm them up, then grabbed Adam under his armpits. His hands were so numb, and the boy so light, it was like lifting air. He boosted him to the top of the wall and sat him there. ‘Just lower yourself down. It’s not far.’

  Adam shook his head again, fear etched into his features.

  ‘Do it,’ Brick snapped. ‘Unless you want me to push you off.’

  The kid wiped his arm over his face, smudging away tears. He eased himself round, clinging on with white-knuckled fingers as he dropped. Brick ducked to scoop up Daisy, and it was as he was straightening that he heard the sound of a door opening. He glanced back, seeing a man step from the house. He was wearing jogging trousers and a vest, his face unshaven, and he looked pissed.

  ‘Hey, you, what the hell do you think you’re doing?’

  How far away was he? It was a big garden, maybe twenty metres between the back door and the wall, give or take. Brick didn’t move, even his heart seeming to slow its frantic beat, waiting. The man took a step forward. He had to be close enough for the Fury, didn’t he?

  ‘I’m talking to you,’ he yelled. ‘Get out of my garden before I call the police.’

  Another step. Brick retreated until the wall was against his back. The man had stopped, staring at him, the two of them in a deadlock. Maybe the guy would just go back inside. Brick was tall, and he had one of those faces, the kind that made you think twice about picking a fight. Maybe he’d just back off, lock the door behind him and call the cops.

  But there was a part of Brick that had to know whether the Fury was still there.

  The man rubbed his stubbled face, frowning. He was looking at the bundle in Brick’s arms.

  ‘What have you got there?’ he said. ‘What is that?’

  Brick ignored him, turning to the wall and trying to lift Daisy. His arms felt as if they were made of glass, ready to shatter, and he didn’t have the strength. He tried again, groaning with the effort. This time he managed to boost her to the top of the wall but he couldn’t angle her body over. His muscles gave out and she tumbled to the ground by his feet like a ragdoll, like a dead thing.

  ‘Hey, get away from her,’ the man shouted, and Brick heard him start to run. He bent down, grabbing fistfuls of Daisy’s clothes and flesh, not caring if he hurt her. He pulled her up, bracing her against the wall with his chest while he repositioned his arms.

  ‘Ge’ aaay fom ’er,’ the man’s voice was a wet slur, and Brick almost screamed when he heard it. He got his body under Daisy, pushing her up like an Olympic weightlifter. The man coughed out more words, his footsteps drumming the ground, louder, closer. Don’t look, Brick, just get over the wall, get over the goddamned wall! He shunted Daisy with everything he had and she rolled over the top, flopping down the other side. Then he clutched the bricks, hauling himself up.

  The man grabbed his leg, iron fingers gouging into his calf. Another hand took hold of his thigh, yanking. Brick cried out, digging his nails into the crumbling wall. He lashed back, his feet kicking at thin air. The man was howling, loud enough to bring the whole village down on them.

  Brick kicked again and this time his foot met something soft. There was a crack, a gurgled cry of fury, and he was free. He tumbled over head first, doing a clumsy somersault in mid-air and landing on his back. The impact emptied his lungs, making him groan, but he forced himself up.

  Daisy was lying in a heap, Adam crouched next to her. They were in another garden, this one filled with crates and old fridges rusted shut. There were noises from behind the wall, angry shouts and something scuffling. The man would be over in seconds.

  ‘Move!’ wheezed Brick, shoving Adam out of the way so he could get to Daisy. This time he lifted her on to his shoulder, staggering through the garden and down the side of the building. It was a shop, he realised, as he drew level with the front, an electrical store. The front door was open, but there were no people inside. In fact, there were no people anywhere on the street, just shops and – up to his left – the church. He set off towards it, making it half way before he heard the sound of someone screaming.

  No, not just one person, a load of people.

  He stopped, looking back. At the other end of the deserted road was a junction, and it was swarming. There must have been thirty people there, maybe more.

  ‘Cal!’ He was over there somewhere. He needed help.

  The churning, howling mass of people changed direction, like flocking birds, converging on a point just out of sight. Brick almost took a step towards them. Almost. But you can’t go, you have to look after Daisy. And that was a good enough excuse to make him turn away, walk towards the church, gritting his teeth so hard he thought they might snap clean out of their gums. He wouldn’t see it, he wouldn’t see the moment that Cal died, the creature of flame that would rise from his corpse and evaporate into the summer air. He would not see the moment that he was left on his own.

  He drowned out the screams, running the last few metres to the church gate and across the wide, tree-lined graveyard. The door was ancient oak, and heavy, but it was unlocked. He pushed his way in, Adam entering behind him. Then he threw his body against the door, shutting the madness and the guilt outside, sealing himself in the cool, quiet, secret dark.

  Cal

  East Walsham, 8.37 a.m.

  He was dead.

  Or as good as. There was nowhere to run. Ahead, people were streaming out of a shop like a river in spate, all of them howling. They were coming from behind him, too, the glass door of a bakery smashed into golden shards as seven, ten, fifteen people pushed out on to the street. Cal stumbled away, tripping off the kerb. On the other side of the road two men were staggering out of an estate agent’s, the Fury twisting their features into Halloween masks.

  There were too many of them, all running, the first – a kid, maybe eleven or twelve with a broken arm in a cast – just seconds away. Cal staggered. He thumped into a car, one of the ones parked along both sides of the road, and before he even acknowledged what he was doing he had scrambled underneath it.

  There was barely enough room for him, the metal ribcage of the car on his back, pinning him against the road. What the hell were you thinking?

  Something thumped against the car, turning day to dusk. Then it was as if the heavens had opened, hail thundering down all around him, plunging him into absolute night. The screams were so loud that he was drowning in them, he couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t move, he couldn’t do anything but lie there and listen to that deafening, awful chorus.

  People were flooding underneath, a torrent of limbs and teeth. Hands grabbed and pinched at him, trying to pull him out. Bodies wormed in beside him, crowding his coffin. The car rocked from side to side, its suspension groaning. They would roll it, then they would fall on him, and he would be no more.

  It wasn’t that thought that terrified him, though. After everything, death seemed almost like an old friend. No mystery, no surprises, just one last breath and then oblivion. What terrified him was the thought of going cold, turning to ice, while somethin
g hatched in the frozen cocoon of his body.

  Somebody’s hand gouged across his face, nails scratching his eyes. He batted them away. The hand reached for him again, dirty fingers in his mouth, and he bit down hard enough to taste blood. His attacker didn’t even seem to notice, scratching and snatching at him. He tried to roll over but there wasn’t enough room for his shoulders. He was dead.

  No, Cal, fight them!

  The voice didn’t sound like his, but there was no doubt it was coming from his head. What did it want him to do? There was another car in front of him, he knew that much. There was a line of them running down the side of the street, parked almost nose to tail. Could he reach it?

  He started to wriggle forwards. Legs barred the way, forming a fence between his car and the next, but he pushed past them. There wasn’t enough room for them to get a proper hold of him, their punches and kicks deflected by the bumpers, and just seconds later he was underneath the next car.

  It didn’t do any good. The crowd followed him, their radar tuned into whatever it was inside him. He couldn’t creep away because they didn’t need their eyes to find him. They surrounded him, blotting out the sun, a hundred fingers working into his flesh.

  Burn them.

  That voice again. It wasn’t his, but it was familiar. He tried to tune into it, but whatever it had been, it was now lost in the storm of voices.

  ‘How?’ he yelled.

  Someone was crawling in beside him, a nightmare face with a distended jaw. Cal smashed his elbow into the woman’s nose, knocking her out cold. That was good, because the other ferals couldn’t reach past her. They were still squeezing in from every other angle, though, pinching and biting, all the while that same voice pleaded burn them burn them burn them.

  Fuel. That was it! He was under a car, and somewhere above him was the tube that fed petrol into the engine. He didn’t know much about cars, but you didn’t have to be an engineer to know that if you ripped enough pipes something flammable would eventually start leaking.

  He struggled on to his back, reached up, ignoring the pain as something bit his leg. There were dozens of tubes above him, huge pipes and smaller, softer lines. He grabbed one of the latter, pulling hard. It resisted, but he didn’t let up, wrenching at it with everything he had until it tore loose. Fluid dripped from it, but it wasn’t petrol – he knew that from the smell. He scrabbled for another. It was too dark to see anything, and twice he felt a hand clutch at his fingers, only just managing to shake them free.

  ‘Come on!’ he said. ‘Where are you, you piece of—’

  Another pipe, and this time when he tore it from its mount the pungent smell of fuel instantly punched up into his sinuses. He gagged, feeling the steady drip of petrol on to his clothes, forming a pool beneath him. That was a problem, because even if he found a way to spark it up he’d be burned alive in the fireball.

  You do have a way, said the voice. And Cal suddenly saw the restaurant back in Fursville, the candles. He reached into his pocket, feeling the box there. Matches. He pulled them free. Something thumped his arm and they almost spilled, but he clutched the little box tight, sliding it open and taking a match from inside.

  That still left the whole being burned alive problem.

  ‘Think!’ he yelled, his voice lost in the howls around him. He needed to move again, get under the next car. He grabbed hold of the underside of the vehicle, using it to pull himself backwards. Once again there were ferals in the way, but the space between the cars was too tight for them to grab hold. He wiggled his way across, the crowd following, burrowing in next to him like maggots into old flesh.

  He drew the match across the box, once, twice, three times before it sparked. Careful not to drop it on himself, he flicked the flaming stick back the way he’d come. It bounced off a tyre, looked for a second as though it was going to go out, then landed in the gutter in a puddle of fuel.

  Darkness exploded into light, every scrap of metal beneath the car, every distorted face, every bloodied fingernail revealed in impossible detail. The flames spread fast, engulfing the people closest to the car. One of the men who was crawling underneath lost his face to the fire, but even through the inferno, even as his eyes melted, he raged.

  Cal’s shoes were on fire and he thrashed his legs to extinguish the flames. There was no air, his lungs full of smoke and smouldering flesh.

  An explosion ripped through the car in front as the fuel tank ignited, the shock wave peeling away the crowd. This was his chance, now or never. He rolled to his side, lashing out at the people in his way, gouging at eyes and throats and everything else he could find until the sky opened up.

  They were on him before he could stand up, but he threw himself away, heading into the smoke so they wouldn’t be able to see him. He collided with a flaming shape, shoving it as another blast shook the street. He was running now – a lumbering, unsteady shamble, but man was it good to be moving. He felt like he’d escaped from his tomb. He put his head down: nothing quite working the way it should but each clumsy step carrying him further from the pack.

  Only when he could no longer feel the heat of the fire on his back did he risk turning around. The street was a mess, at least four or five of the closely packed cars now engulfed. The smoke was too thick to really see much else, but Cal could make out a dozen shapes there, bodies dressed head to toe in fire, weaving in and around each other like ballroom dancers. Even now they were coming after him, and he was grateful for the Fury, because they would never know what happened to them, would never know the horror of their own deaths. One burning thing collapsed to its knees, and another, the dance coming to an end. Other shapes were emerging from the billowing black curtain, though, soot-black silhouettes that stumbled towards him.

  They couldn’t have him, though. Not now, not ever. Cal turned, began once again to run, while that same quiet voice rose up once again in his skull.

  Burn them. Burn them. Burn them all.

  Rilke

  Great Yarmouth, 8.52 a.m.

  ‘Burn who, little brother?’

  Schiller started as though he’d been woken from a dream. He licked his lips as if to erase all trace of the words, looking at Rilke with big, sad eyes. They were still walking along the coast, south, leaving a vast blanket of dust in their wake. They hadn’t seen more than a handful of people since the last little town, the trailer park. Word must be spreading that something bad was coming.

  No, something good, she thought. Something wonderful.

  ‘I asked you a question, Schiller,’ she said. Her brother had started whispering those words a few minutes ago – burn them, burn them – as though reciting a mantra to himself. She assumed he was speaking about the humans – she had come to call them that, knowing she was no longer one of them – that the purpose of their mission was finally getting through to him. Yet there was something in the urgency of his speech, and in the way his eyes had flicked back and forth, seeing a world she could not see, that made her think he was hiding something. ‘Burn who?’

  ‘Nobody,’ he said. ‘I mean everybody. Sorry, I didn’t even know I was saying it.’

  She held his gaze until he broke away and peered out across the quiet, slate-coloured water. He was chewing something over, she could tell. She knew her brother better than he knew himself, and there was something inside that little head of his that wanted out.

  ‘Schill, I won’t ask you again.’

  ‘I . . .’ he kicked at the wet sand, clumps of it sticking to his shoe. Then he looked up at her. There was no fire in his eyes, but they seemed somehow brighter. ‘It’s nothing, really. I’m just tired.’

  She opened her mouth to press him, but decided not to. They were all tired – exhausted, really – Schill, her, and Marcus and Jade, who traipsed behind with the new boy strung up between them. It was a wonder they hadn’t all dropped dead from fatigue.

  ‘There will be plenty of time to sleep,’ she said. ‘And a whole world to rest our heads on. Imagine it, Schiller, h
ow quiet it will be. How empty.’

  He nodded, staring at his feet as he shuffled down the beach. It was infuriating, Rilke thought, that her brother went back to being his usual self. Why couldn’t he be an angel all the time? Why should she have to put up with these bouts of snivelling misery in between his displays of god-like rage? She knew the reason – it was evident in the bald patch above his right ear, and the waxy sheen of his skin. Too much fire would kill him.

  ‘One more,’ she said, looking up ahead. The wide, sandy beach led towards a town, a big one by the looks of things. A cluster of houses sprang up to their right, and past them was a collection of piers and promenades blighted by towers. ‘This place, can you end it?’

  Schiller seemed to shrink at the thought, his back stooped as though all the world rested on it. He looked ready to wither away into dust and sand. It was pathetic. Where was the creature inside him? Where was his angel? She felt a hot stew of anger rise from her gullet, and for a second she saw nothing but white. Schiller must have sensed it – he knew her temper well enough to fear it – because he gave her a sharp, hurried nod.

  ‘Then end it,’ she said.

  Somewhere, far away down the beach, a bright yellow kite nuzzled the sky like a hungry fish. Maybe the word hadn’t spread as far as she thought. Maybe people hadn’t heard about Hemsby, about Caister. Well, they’d know soon enough.

  The world erupted into colour as Schiller transformed, tongues of blue and orange fire licking at the beach, freezing the damp sand and spreading a web of silk-like ice all the way to the water’s edge. It was getting easier for him, Rilke realised. He didn’t even flinch as the wings unfurled from his back, sails of pure energy that emitted a ceaseless pulse, one which made her bones hum like a tuning fork that would not quiet. His red-rimmed eyes erupted, the light inside them like molten rock, spitting and spilling down his face.