Berserk

Chapter Ten

Cole tried to shove down the guilt, but it kept rising again to remind him it was there. He drove it into darkness but it dragged him with it, and that darkness was painfully familiar. It stuck to him like blood on cloth, and however much he tried to distract himself it was always waiting there for him.

I'm a good man, he thought, and the sun glinted from a splash of blood on the dashboard.

Deep in the underground of his unconscious he thought he heard a wail. He turned up the car stereo, wound down both windows, pressing his foot to the gas so that he had to concentrate more on taking sharp bends and small humps in the road. Yet still he heard the echoes, and they were not fading away. Everything you ever see or hear or taste remains in your mind, so it's said, only waiting to be retrieved. And he knew that all four people he had killed in his life—three of them in the past two days—were still inside him. He would meet them again. They would rise up and speak to him, and it was purely his strength or weakness, his doubt or conviction, that would see him through.

I'm a good man!

He only hoped that he found Natasha by the time that mental showdown came.

"Who have you found?"

Tom had stopped looking into the mirror. He had seen Natasha sitting up once, and that was enough. She held my arm when I dug her up, he thought, but up until now that had been a memory he'd kept shut out, weighed down, away from everything that was happening. Because there were only so many edges he could walk, and that was one from which he would surely topple.

Them, Natasha said in his mind. She had spoken just now, Tom was sure. The voice had been that of a child, but one that has seen too much; croaky with age, weak with decay, yet filled with excitement. Sophia, Lane and their children, the ones who escaped. The other berserkers! The ones Mister Wolf wanted dead, so he killed my family instead.

"They have Steven?" Tom's heart was suddenly light in his chest, skipping instead of beating. The car drifted into the centre lane, and a lorry driver leaned on his horn until Tom twitched the wheel and brought them back.

Probably, she said. They probably have him.

"You told me they did!"

I said there was a chance.

Tom frowned and looked in the mirror again, the girl's face frozen and inscrutable. She remained sitting upright. Her hair was wrapped into a solid muddied knot at the base of her neck. He should wash it for her. And really, through the haze of everything that had happened, he was not exactly sure what she had said about Steven. All he knew was that there was a chance, and right now that was enough.

"Where will they meet us? What will happen? How many of them are there?"

I'll tell you where to go and when to stop, Natasha said. And Daddy, don't be afraid. I'm here with you. You helped me, now I'll look after you.

"You can't move!" Tom said, wincing as his raised voice seemed to allow in the pain from his back. "You can't do anything. How can you protect me?"

I'm a berserker, like them, Natasha said, and then she was silent, the question obviously answered.

Tom drove on. The pain in his back—I've been shot, shot by a fucking gun, and the bullet's still in there sucking in infection, and I might be dying!—throbbing in time with his heartbeat, yet never bad enough to make him woozy or faint. Something Natasha had done was seeing to that. She had fed from him—whatever she claimed to the contrary, he knew that was what had happened—drinking his blood, taking strength from it, and giving him something back in return. There was no other explanation for how good he felt, considering all that had happened to him. She was taking care of him.

Stop thinking, she whispered in his head, stop worrying, drive on.

"Am I going mad?" he said, and Natasha withdrew to allow him his own mind.

He drove on. Midday came and went, and Tom slipped into some sort of daze, feeling the miles drifting by but having little recollection of the moments in between. He was tired, hungry and thirsty. He supposed veering into an almost hypnotic state was a defence mechanism.

The motorway swerved and swayed northward. He kept his speed to about sixty, and most cars and lorries swept by as they edged up toward eighty. A few people looked his way, but he did not return their stares. He was aware of pale faces pressed to windows, and only when their vehicles moved on did he glance over at them, catching brief glimpses of faces which all looked the same. Whether they saw Natasha or not he did not know, and he was not sure what they would make of her if they did. A dummy, perhaps. Or maybe they would see a scarecrow, or a pile of cloths, or a strange plant being transported south to north. None of them stopped, none of them swerved away from him in surprise, the drivers losing the steering wheel as they reached for their phones to call the police. They simply moved on, and he would never see them again.

He drove on, mind focused ahead, the events of the past day and night as hazy as a dream.

The landscape was wide and flat. Fields were being harvested, some of them already worked and left with stubble where their crops had grown. One or two had already been ploughed under, and Tom thought of the life that would rise from the turned earth. Clumps of trees were dressed in orange and yellow, sprouting from a carpet of colour where many dead leaves had already been shaken loose. The sun bore down on one wooded hilltop and it shone gold and ochre across the landscape, like a beacon to anyone seeking the true splendour of nature. Such beauty in death. Such colour in decay. Everything in nature had a reason, and Tom spent a while musing on why dying leaves should look so attractive. Dead animals' colours were dictated by rot; sour colours, non-colours. Natasha, back there in the rear seat… there was no colour to her, just greyness, browns, nothing striking at all. The colour of death for plants was much more pleasing. Coming up with no answer as to why this was, Tom was pleased. Nature should be enigmatic. It was not up to humankind to pretend to know nature, and it was not right that someone like him should know such secrets on a day like today.

He thought of his office, his desk, his room filled with dusty musical instruments at home. But that all seemed years and worlds away.

Occasionally, Natasha would stroke through his mind, only touching him briefly, and he saw the new strength in her. It pleased him, and frightened him. Will you be my daddy? she had asked, and he had never considered the consequences of his reply.

The traffic slowed, then stopped, and then began moving again at a crawl. A few minutes later they passed a lorry in the ditch, its driver sitting on the back steps of an ambulance chatting with paramedics while they gave him the once-over. He looked at the BMW as Tom passed by, and his gaze shifted from Tom to the backseat, his eyes flickering away, back again, away. A policeman standing in front of the ambulance looked as well, his eyes fixed on Tom until Tom looked away. They'll be looking for the car, he thought, and as he accelerated he looked up at a traffic sign spanning the motorway. Place names and road numbers made no sense, but he saw the small black specks of cameras above the signs, pointing both ways. Farther on there was a camera atop a tall pole, aimed directly down at the slow lane. And as distance lessened between the BMW and the camera Tom was sure the camera moved, tracking his progress, following him like eyes in a painting.

"They'll be looking for us," he said. Natasha did not answer, and he wondered where she was. Back with Cole, checking whether he was dead or injured? Or ahead with the berserkers she was taking him toward? He could not tell, and he would not ask.

Miles rolled by, Tom's strange daze continued, noticing everything around him but casting recent events into something of a dream. Sometimes he remembered his dreams, mostly not, and this one seemed to be fading as every minute and mile passed. The memories were still there, but the feelings and emotions were not. The last day of his life was turning into a movie. He thought of Jo, dead in their car, and it was as if she were an actress he had once known. He should have cried at that—he tried to force a tear—but a new model Mini cut him up and made him swerve, and his cursing dried up any sobs that might have come.

When Natasha next spoke in his mind, almost an hour after Tom had last heard from her, her voice made him jump and let go of the wheel. He grabbed it again quickly. The sudden movement had stirred the pain in his back and Natasha came in, calming fingers in his head, easing the pain away. How she did it he did not know; he was simply thankful.

I've been talking with them, she said. They're coming for us, all of them. They'll tell us where to meet, and then they'll take me home.

"Steven?"

Yes, they have Steven.

Tom began to cry. The tears were sudden, hot, streaming from his eyes and blurring his vision. He shook. "I need to stop," he said, "just for a while. I need the toilet, and food and drink."

Of course, Daddy, Natasha said. Her voice broke and she paused, as if expecting him to say more about his son.

But Tom did not ask. Right now, weak and in pain, he was not sure he really wanted to know.

He composed himself enough to drive the three miles to the next service station. He pulled off and parked as close to the main building as he could, partly to remain inconspicuous, but mainly because he had no idea how far he could walk. He sat for a while, gasping past sobs, forcing the tears to stop because they would attract attention. If the police caught him now, there would be no future. Natasha would be taken away and buried again. He would be arrested and charged with God knew what. And Steven … he would remain wherever he was now, doing whatever he was doing.

That was what Tom did not want to know. Not yet. After the memories Natasha had shared to show him her story, he had begun to fear that his son would perhaps be better off dead.

"I need to leave you for a while," he said. "I'll cover you with my jacket. You don't look …"

Don't worry, you can tell me, Natasha soothed.

"Well, someone would have to come close to see what you are."

Do what you need to do, but please come back soon. We're so close, and they can help me.

"Who are they? How many of them are there?"

Four, she said. That's all that survived. Lane and Sophia, and their children Dan and Sarah. And you'll meet them soon enough.

Tom sighed and rested his hands on his thighs, ready to get up. It was going to hurt. No matter what Natasha was doing to him, this was going to hurt. And then he realised one vital factor he had totally missed, and cursed his stupidity.

He had been shot. His jacket, shirt and the back of his trousers were caked in blood. His collar too, from the head wound that still throbbed. He was still covered in muck from excavating the mass grave yesterday. He was a fool who would not get ten feet before someone noticed him.

"Oh Natasha …"

I can help, she said.

"How?" Even now he sometimes forgot her psychic fingers in his mind, probing his thoughts, hearing him as he heard her.

I can make them look away.

"They'll still notice, I don't understand—"

But I can only do it if you take me with you.

Tom sat silently at that, shifting the mirror and staring back at the girl. Her wrinkled face returned the stare; no smile, no movement. Perhaps sitting up had drained her strength.

He looked around the car; foot-wells, glove compartment, turning cautiously in his seat to glance at the backseat. There was nothing he could use to cover her. He would need his jacket for himself—it was bloodied and holed, but not as bad as his shirt—and he could see nothing else. And then he remembered the boot. When he had searched it for tools he had seen an old blanket, spread across the floor in a vain attempt to keep it pristine.

"Not pristine any more," he said, smiling. There was blood everywhere, front and back, and grave dirt was ground into the leather seats.

All he had to do was leave the car, walk around to the boot, open it, retrieve the blanket from beneath the tools and anything else that might weigh it down, return to the rear door, lean in, wrap Natasha's corpse and carry it into the service station. And then he would have to rely on her to help, in whatever way he could. I can make them look away, she had said, and the sense of her in his mind made him believe that.

Piece of cake.

Taking a few deep breaths, Tom looked around. There was a small car parked next to him, its owners absent. A few people milled outside, smoking or drinking or talking into their mobile phones. No one seemed to be looking at him in particular, and more importantly he could see no sign of any police nearby. He touched the door handle and looked in the mirror at Natasha. The door opened with a portentous click.

As soon as Tom exited the car several people looked at him: a man walking his dog on a small grassed hill beside the main building; a lorry driver using a cash machine; a mother and her young daughter just exiting the main doors. He was the centre of attention, and they could not help but see the guilt on his face. A burst of dizziness hit him and he leaned back against the car, closing the door and looking up at the sky as if admiring the day. He held onto the handle, sure he was going to pitch left or right at any moment. He could feel something warm running down his leg, and he hoped it was blood.

Daddy! Natasha called. Stay awake! Stay standing! Don't fall down! There was genuine concern in her voice, and he realised that had been all but lacking up to now. He shook his head, confused.

"I'm doing my best," he whispered, then bit his lip. Covered in blood and dried mud was bad enough; talking to himself would be sure to mark him as a loony.

When he felt steady enough he lowered his head and opened his eyes. He needed to focus on something, centre his vision to still the crazy gymnastics his balance seemed to be enjoying at the moment. He stared at a huge menu for the burger bar. When the cheeseburger stopped wavering from side to side like a zeppelin in a hurricane he took another deep breath, closed his eyes again, counted to ten.

Nobody was watching him now. Perhaps they had seen the state he was in and decided to move on. Or more likely, he was simply not their business. Strangers are like forgotten photographs to other strangers: the negative is there, but the image is never printed.

Tom shifted sideways with his back against the car. It would look weird to anyone watching, but not as weird as a bloody bullet hole in his back.

And just what the fuck is she doing to me? he thought. Or am I still in shock? Bleeding my life away without even feeling it? He had no answers, and if Natasha heard, she remained silent.

That fuzziness remained, a veil over the past that seemed to dilute its importance. "Jo," Tom whispered experimentally, but he did not cry.

He reached the boot and popped it with the electronic key. Now there was no alternative but to lean in and expose his back. "Help me now if you can," he said, but Natasha was silent once again. He moved the spilled tools aside, shifted an old pair of shit-caked Wellington boots, then gathered up the blanket covering the floor of the boot. It had been chequered once, but successive spillages of livestock food and countless assaults by muddied footwear had turned it into a uniform grey. Filthy. Just as likely to attract attention with this, he thought, but then Natasha was back, her young voice filled with excitement like a kid on her way to the zoo.

I've been talking with Sophia. They're not far away now. They'll tell us where to meet, and they know somewhere safe. Isn't that fine?

"And Steven?"

A pause, so slight that Tom thought he had imagined it. He's at home, she said.

"And where is home?"

It's a place …, Natasha said, trailing off. If she'd had eyes, Tom imagined she would be staring into the distance. My mother used to tell me about it while I was falling asleep. Below the streets of a city she never named are the tunnels, and below them the caves, and way, way below them is home. Humans have never been there, only berserkers. It's huge, alight with fires that have burned forever. The food is the richest, growing from the purest ground. Water collects in pools, the cleanest there is, and there are fish like nowhere else in the world. Some of the dwellings carved from the rock go back to a time before humans walked on two legs. There are other tunnels leading to other places, but it's home that berserkers always return to. The cradle of our existence. It's … somewhere I can barely imagine, let alone explain.

"I suppose we'll both see soon enough." He curled the blanket into a ball and slammed the boot shut, hissing as pain punched him in the back. Something ground around in there, like a rat clawing and gnawing through his flesh in search of another organ to rupture, and Tom had to lean forward and rest against the car, eyes closed once again. "Oh, Natasha, I'm going to go, I'm going to collapse and that'll be it, no home, no Steven—"

Don't you fucking dare!

His eyes snapped open. Fear swiped him around the face, and it was as effective as a real slap. The dizziness retreated. The pain decided to stay put, and he could feel it waiting in the shadows for its next opportunity to mess him up.

He had never heard her speak like that. That had not been a little girl's voice. Those had been the words of someone used to being in control.

What is she doing to me? he wondered yet again, and he thought briefly of what Cole had said.

Mister Wolf might be here soon, the girl said in his mind, shouting, drawing him away from his own thoughts. And we won't get away from him again, not with you shot like that. You're bleeding, Daddy. Her voice dropped again, changing from a shout back to a childish whine. So much blood! Get in the car and hold me before we go, and I'll make sure we both have the strength for this.

"What are you doing to me?" he asked.

Helping you. Making you strong. Keeping you alive.

"I don't even know what you are."

I'm a berserker, just like I've told you and shown you. Sit with me for a minute and I'll dream you some more, show you the truth.

He opened the back door and sat down in the car.

Pick me up, hold me like you did before.

Tom maneuvered Natasha into his lap and cradled her like a baby. He felt a needle-prick at his chest, and this time she moved in his arms, a grotesque shuffle that raised his hackles and sent a tingle down his spine.

We'll both be well soon, she said, and then he felt her withdraw from his mind as she began to feed.

With his free hand he spread the dirty blanket over the strange girl. Then he leaned his head back, relishing the warm waves of comfort that spread through his body and took away the pain.

Soon they took the light as well.

"I've shown you what we are", Natasha said, "and now I'll show you what they did to us."

And this was her real, true voice, and she sounded just like a little girl.

Cole had lost them. He was sure of this, just as he was sure that the MX5 was dying. It coughed and gasped, and something sounded as if it had come loose in the engine. Of all the dumb fucking luck… But then he had murdered the car's owner, so he supposed there was some cosmic justice at work here.

He was on the motorway heading north, simply cause he could move faster that way and it felt as though he was getting somewhere.

The car spluttered again and jerked, and at sixty that was not good. He'd have to pull off soon, or risk having to stop on the hard shoulder. If that happened and the police decided to stop and see if there was any problem, he'd have trouble explaining the blood and brains and bone all over the car's interior. He could try, he supposed. But it would not be easy.

I'm chasing a monster I buried alive ten years ago, officer, because some stupid twat dug her up without having the slightest fucking idea what he was doing. And now he's doing his best to take her to more of her kind, where she'll be looked after and tended and brought back to the land of the living, and I'm afraid of that because there's something about her, something they did to her at Porton Down. And though I don't know what it is, I am certain that, along with the Black Death, AIDS and a dashing of the Ebola virus on your morning cornflakes, you wouldn't class it as Good News. Oh, the car? Yes, well, I accidentally blew the driver's head off when I really only meant to put one in the car body. Pretty brunette. Just the kind of woman I'm trying to protect.

No, that would never work.

Cole took the next exit from the motorway, the car died on the roundabout and he managed to roll downhill into a small petrol station. There was a garage behind it, one car inside with its oily guts strewn across the ground. As the MX5 curved to a halt the mechanic strolled over, lighting up a cigarette on the way.

"Shit!" Cole climbed from the low car, cursing at the increasing pain in his bruised thighs. "Don't worry, mate," he said, nonchalant as he could be. He could feel a splinter of bone stuck into his rear from where he had sat on it. How bloody casual can I be like this? he thought. The .45 was a comforting weight in his belt.

The mechanic looked him up and down. His eyes grew wide, he took a long drag on his cigarette, then nodded. "Yep. S.E.P." He turned and walked away.

"What?"

The mechanic spoke over his shoulder, still walking. "Somebody Else's Problem. Douglas Adams. Phone's in the shop."

Cole stared after the man in amazement. "Maybe my luck's changing," he muttered, but then he pictured the woman he had killed, her pale thighs and black panties and ruined head, and he knew that Lady Luck would never smile at him again.

He limped to the shop, digging his mobile phone from his pocket. Hopefully they'd have toilets inside, and from there he could make the call he had been contemplating for the past hour, one which he had always promised himself he would never make. The call that would guarantee that he would be tried for at least four murders.

He had already tapped the number in, ready to dial.

"I'm too committed," he said as he entered the shop and spied the sign for the bathroom. The girl behind the till stared at him, never stopping chewing her gum.

Cole thought of himself as a good person, God-fearing and good. A splinter from an innocent woman's skull could prick his ass, but that did little to change his mind.

In the bathroom he checked that all the cubicles were empty, stood where he could see the door and pressed DIAL.

The phone was answered after four rings. It took some discussion and several minutes on hold for him to be passed through, but in the end the familiar voice came on, and Cole felt his instant dislike rising to the fore.

"Major Higgins," Cole said. "So you're still licking Her Majesty's ass?"

They were in the enclosed rear of some sort of vehicle, being transported to Porton Down. It was moving fast and the roads were bumpy, and if it weren't for the safety belts they would have been thrown around the interior of the cab.

There were no windows, and only one weak light. Strong mesh formed six separate cages, three on each side, with a walkway down the centre. The sliding doors to these cells were open today. Natasha sat across from Peter, and their parents sat in the stalls next to them, none of them speaking. Her father seemed to be asleep, but she could see the glint of his eyes beneath his lowered eyelids. Still pumped up from the exertions of the day, his animal instincts kept him awake. Her mother sat with her head resting back against the side of the truck, mindless of the bumps and knocks, staring at the short strip-light in the ceiling. Her face was pocked with two old bullet wounds, put there only hours before. By the time they reached Porton Down the wounds would be totally gone. The effort of healing was tiring her, and Natasha saw her eyelids droop.

Her brother sat wide awake before her, still alight from the hunt. His recent wounds were mere shadows, echoes of pain, and he twitched slightly now and then to shrug off another memory. He had healed quicker than all of them, as he was the youngest. In humans a child will heal faster than an adult, and so it was with them.

They were contained. Though the doors to the cells were unlocked and the light was on, the truck's rear door was bolted and deadlocked from outside. There was an electronic lock as well; Natasha could see the empty housing where its internal control had been removed. Mister Wolf had taken pleasure in telling them that the truck was heavily reinforced for their own safety. It was fully wired up and could be injected with a massive electrical charge. For their protection. Finally, there was a container of nerve gas fitted into a delivery container between the ceiling layers. Again, for their protection. He had smiled whilst telling them this, though there was no comfort behind the expression. Fuck up, it said, and I'll gas you myself. Make one move to get out, and I'll light you up like Christmas. Her father had nodded at Mister Wolf, walked around the truck, tapped at walls and kicked tires, and then smiled at the soldier as if he had already discovered a flaw in the vehicle's security.

Natasha was tired but could not close her eyes. She had been cooped up like this with her family many times before, and every time they had remained awake. It was not the fear of confinement, nor the obvious fact that they were prisoners that prevented them from sleeping. It was the knowledge that, one day, they would become expendable. Only one of the humans had ever shown any sign of truly understanding what they were and what they could do, and Mister Wolf made no secret of his desire to be rid of them. His mistake was assuming that the berserkers were unnatural, a slur on creation. If he could only see into their past. …

Peter's eyes flickered left and right, scanning the corners of their cells, ever-vigilant for a hope of escape. He would not find it, Natasha knew, not here and not now. And she guessed that he knew that, too. Her father, eyes almost closed and yet fully awake, waited for a more obvious chance at flight. And her mother felt every vibration of the road through her skull, each twist and turn of the truck. A couple of hours after setting out from the naval port she opened her eyes and announced that they would soon be home.

Home. Natasha could not remember the real home—the place her parents spoke of often, but only silently in her mind—because she had been a babe in arms when they were caught. Their enclosure at Porton Down was all she knew, other than the places they were sent to on occasion to feed and destroy. Her brother had been born in captivity. Perhaps that explained why he, more than any of them, was constantly on edge and ready to fall over. The slightest upset would set him raging; the smallest scolding drove him berserk. No problem for his family, but for the humans it made for a challenging time. It was a wonder they had not already tried to destroy him, but they knew the strength in a family.

The truck slowed, the road flattened and became smoother, and they all sensed that the vehicle was now in an enclosed space. It took a few minutes after it had stopped for the doors to be opened, and Mister Wolf glared in at the berserkers.

"Home sweet home," he said. "You know the drill. One at a time, the boy first, then the girl." He wore a heavy pistol on his belt, and Natasha could smell the silver bullets from where she sat. The huge garage had several observation posts built into its thick walls, and there would be a sniper in each one, high velocity rifles loaded with silver trained on the berserkers as soon as they left the truck.

"It's in the truck we could take our chance," her father had whispered to her mother one day. Neither of them knew that Natasha had been listening; they thought she was asleep, mouth bloody, stomach full. "In there, it's only that bastard Cole who has us covered. We'd only have seconds, but it could work. Freedom."

"And the nerve gas?" her mother had said. "And the shock? Could we survive that?"

"Perhaps not all of us—"

"I'll do nothing to risk our children. They're all we have. If keeping them alive means we have to stay here, then that's what we do."

"You think they'll ever let us go? You think they'll ever decide we have rights as well? We're animals to them! Assets!"

"I don't care," her mother had said, and as she turned away she had seen Natasha watching and listening from where she lay. She smiled, and Natasha smiled back, but inside Natasha had hated the look of defeat and acceptance in her mother's eyes.

Natasha remembered, and Tom saw. He knew this was only memory and yet it was pure experience as well: smell and taste, touch and sound. He could see everything that Natasha had seen, feel what she had felt.

He was a dark figure in the car, head tilted back and to the side, dribbling from one corner of his mouth. In his lap sat the blanket-covered body of an undead girl. At his chest her dried lips worked around the small wound, drawing blood. On his back the blood had dried and the wound had scabbed, flesh already knitting where only a couple of hours before a silver bullet had blasted its way through.

His blood held a taint, but only a taint. And tainted blood was better than none at all.

Natasha drank, flexing her fingers, muscles contracting and flesh filling out.

Tom slept and saw the past.

Anyone who glanced into the car and saw something strange immediately went on their way, and within two steps they were left with only a feeling of disquiet. Two paces further and they were concerned only with what they were going to have for lunch.

"What are we having for lunch?" Peter said.

"You're not still hungry!" Natasha said, aghast. He really was an eating machine. She'd heard the saying that a puppy will eat until it's sick; he was the same. His stomach was still swollen with the berserk feast they had enjoyed the day before, and now he was craving again.

"There's plenty there," Mister Wolf said. He was accompanying them along the corridor to their quarters as usual, one hand resting on the butt of his pistol. Natasha knew that he knew it would be useless; if they went for him, he'd be dead before he saw them move. But it seemed to give him a sense of comfort, and perhaps power as well. They were the animals and he was holding the gun. He was in charge.

"We've done your dirty work for you again," her father said. "Now we'd like to eat."

"I thought you'd eaten enough to last you a week," Mister Wolf said, glaring at Natasha's father with a stare that said, I'm so scared of you I don't know where to turn.

Her father knew this, but rarely played on it. If you got the better of someone like Cole, he would make it his mission to find a way to pay you back. Exposing his weaknesses only made him need to feel stronger. There was nothing he could really do to them, not without reason—he had his orders from way above—but he could make their lives uncomfortable if he so desired. And if his superiors ever questioned his actions, he would put it down to "training." He used that word a lot. Training. As if they were dogs.

"I'll have food brought to you," Mister Wolf said. "All of you." Everything he said had an undercurrent of threat. He hated them. He was a small, weak, insecure man, and Natasha feared him more than anyone or anything she knew.

There came a blank spot in Natasha's memory—a forgotten period, or something she did not want Tom to see—and then there they were, the berserkers, all together in the place at Porton Down where they had been kept for years, together like patients in an asylum or animals in a zoo. They were gathered in their courtyard, a large landscaped area with a pool and fountain, shrub planting, seating areas, a patio and barbeque, and a heavy steel grille spanning from wall to wall, supported on thick stone columns. The whole grid hummed gently. The sun shone through, but its power and beauty was lessened by the mesh, tainted by incarceration. The place smelled of lavender and the potential for death.

Natasha's parents sat quietly playing chess. Her brother larked with Dan and Sarah, two other young berserker children, a rough and tumble version of tag where the one who was "it" had to chase the others on all fours. The other berserker adults—Lane and his wife Sophia—were lying out in the sun, shielding their eyes and whispering.

This was when the change began. Because Lane and Sophia were whispering of escape, and their plan did not include all of Natasha's family. She remembered, and Tom saw, and with this knowledge came a feeling of dread at what was to come next.

Tom woke up. His neck ached from where he had been leaning back. Natasha was huddled in his arms, a cold dry shape that seemed to have taken on fresh weight since he had fallen asleep. He was filled with trepidation. The world was loaded with threat and primed with violence, and for a few seconds he did not want to move lest he kick started whatever was to come. He looked around without moving his head and saw people passing by outside, glancing into the car, meeting his eyes and looking away quickly, walking to their car or toward the restaurant as if they were used to seeing blood-soaked men huddled in rear seats with children's' bodies.

Five more minutes, Natasha said, and she sounded desperate and demanding, her voice striving for normality but dripping with something more animal and vital. Tom looked down and saw bubbles of blood between her mouth and his chest. He was feeding her; more accurately, she was feeding from him. He closed his eyes to see how he felt about this, and was surprised to discover no feelings at all. He was ambivalent to what Natasha was doing.

Yet still that sense of dread, hanging around him like an acid bubble about to burst.

It's inside, she said, it's in my memory, and I'll show you what I can remember … five more minutes, Daddy, and I'll feel better and you'll know what they did. What he did. And then you'll know why we have to move on.

She drifted away, and so did Tom, falling back into a sleep that invited the movie of her memory to return to him. It skipped and jumped as if cut and spliced from recollections that made no sense, and Tom fell into frame, scared and daunted, yet eager to know.

Natasha walked in from the courtyard, glancing through the door into their dining room. Three people were chained to the wall in there, and though she only caught a glimpse, it looked as though one of them had died. That was bad. Probably Lane had done that, angry that he had not been allowed out on the latest jaunt. He got like that sometimes—petulant, spoilt, like a child that has had its favourite toy taken away. He would never take it out on another berserker, and he could not risk doing anything to the soldiers on the base, so it was their food that suffered. He had probably supped blood until he was drunk from it, then continued until he was almost asleep, suckling from habit rather than necessity until the man died. Natasha was sorry. The food had been there for over a year now, and she had grown quite attached to him.

She walked on. The fate of their victims was the least of her worries right now. She had told her parents that she was going to her room to read, but in reality she had simply wanted to leave the courtyard because of the thickening atmosphere out there. Something was happening. It got like this sometimes—angry and loaded—and Natasha usually put it down to the electrical grid above their heads. But other times she shrank away from such tall tales, telling herself to grow up and try to understand what was going on. There were group dynamics at work here that her child's mind found difficult to fathom, but at least she realised that something was occurring. Her brother, oblivious, played tag with Dan and Sarah, still too young to know. All children are born animals, her mother once had told her, human and berserker. But with its first breath a berserker child is different, and every breath henceforth, increases those differences.

Natasha walked through the communal living area—blank walls, functional furniture, a TV and overflowing bookcase—and headed back to the bedrooms.

Someone was following her.

She darted into her parents' room and hid behind the door. A few seconds later Dan walked by, singing softly to himself and clicking his fingers, something he did when he was nervous. He paused outside Natasha's closed bedroom door, listened briefly and then walked on, singing changing to humming. He had obviously grown bored of playing tag.

He's doing something, Natasha thought, but she had no idea what.

Her memory jumped, blinked, skipped reels—and she was in Dan's room trying to stick something into his mouth so that he did not bite off his tongue. He was thrashing on the bed, moaning and screaming, foaming at the mouth, eyes turned up in his head, and though she had already seen the syringe and blood drops on his bed she did not know what they meant. She was shouting for help because Dan looked as if he were dying, and she had never seen a berserker die. Humans yes, plenty of times, often by her own hand. But never a berserker. Her cries merged with his screams, and her parents soon came running.

Not Lane and Sophia, though. They stayed away.

Her father took over trying to hold down Dan's tongue. He stuck his fingers into the boy's mouth, wincing when Dan clamped down and bit hard, and Natasha thought that the taste of another berserker's blood would have calmed him down. But he kept thrashing and screaming past her father's hand, and soon the loud siren that announced the opening of an external door went off.

Dan pushed Natasha's father away and sat up.

His screaming and thrashing had brought on the change, and foam was still bubbling at his mouth. His eyes glinted red, hands twisting into claws, and as he stood Natasha saw that blood was dripping from his sleeves and trouser legs.

"Dan," her father said. She heard something in his voice then that spoke volumes, and later, when everything was ending, she thought that even then he knew what was to come. Perhaps he had known for some time.

Dan growled, shivering as the fury burst through his veins and lit up his child's body like a radiator. He sweated blood. He shook his head, pink saliva speckling the walls of his room.

"Dan, whatever you're going to do, don't. Nothing will work against them, you know that, they—"

"Weak!" he said, spitting blood. The word was barely discernable past his mouthful of teeth, and whatever he said next came out only as grunts and snarls.

Natasha's father glanced at her and motioned her back against the wall.

From outside there came a scream, bloody and wet, and then the sudden explosion of machine guns.

Natasha's memory jumped again, and then slipped into a series of rapid images that reminded Tom of a trailer for a movie … a horror movie, where they showed all the best, bloody bits in order to lure in the viewers—Natasha ran along the corridor, her father holding her hand, Dan loping ahead of them. As he emerged into the living area a stream of bullets threw him against the wall, their silver coatings already melting into his bloodstream to poison and kill. But Dan howled, spun on the floor and stood again, leaping across the width of the room to land astride the soldier doing the shooting. He ripped off the man's head and threw it at the glass wall between the living area and courtyard. It left a bloody question mark on the window before bouncing beneath a settee.

Her mother ran in from outside, hunkered down low, her brother clasped to her chest. He was already raging and dribbling, but her mother cooed to him, trying to calm him down and prevent the change. "I want no part of this!" she said, and her father said, "I don't think we'll be given any choice. Where are they?" Her mother turned to look back into the courtyard and a bullet struck her face, exploding one eye and spilling hissing blood and brains across the boy clasped to her chest. "No!" her father screamed, and Natasha smelled the silver, the stench of burning blood and poisoned flesh, and she knew straight away that her mother would not be rising again. The syringe, she thought, wondering what Dan had injected and hating him for not sharing it.

She and her father ran toward the glass wall—her father carrying her raging brother beneath one arm—and then turned back when they saw what was happening outside. The courtyard had become a battle ground. Soldiers poured through the door from the control centre—some they recognised, a couple they did not—fanning out, firing, throwing grenades. Mister Wolf was probably with them, but Natasha could not see him. Out there too, Lane, Sophia and their children flashed across the courtyard, powering through bushes, over paved areas, blurring around bullets, ripping out throats and spewing blood, bouncing from walls, taking occasional hits only to rise again, stronger and more enraged than before. Natasha saw the smudges of terrified faces. A torso trailing guts splashed into the pond. The fountain turned red. A grenade exploded by the window and starred the glass, and her father grabbed her hand and pulled her away, back toward their rooms. "Mummy!" Natasha said, but she knew that her mummy was dead.

They hid in her room, lying down beside the bed. Her father had slammed the door again and again, smashed a hole in the wall and fused the security lock. It pushed four heavy bolts into the door from the wall, trapping them inside, making certain that they were set apart from Lane and Sophia and the escape these two had obviously planned. They would be trapped here now until the soldiers came to let them out. He cried and raged and swore as he never had before in front of his children. His tears were for his dead wife and his son and daughter, born innocent and yet guilty of so much at others' bidding. "Daddy, let's go and get them!" Peter gurgled, his face distorting and growing red from the change. But her father held him and kissed his forehead, shaking his head, saying, "It's not our fight," and more gunfire and explosions swallowed whatever else he said.

Lane smashed against the door, screeching, his nails tearing through masonry and snagging on the metal bolts, pulling and pushing and twisting, but even his berserker strength could not bend the thick steel. He screamed through the wall at them, nonsense in his words. "Natasha!" he said, and other things, and "Natasha!" again. "He wants me, Daddy?" Natasha said, and her father shook his head and closed his eyes in despair. The bashing and screaming continued until gunshots and explosions replaced them. There was more fighting and more death, and then it became quiet for some time, the only sounds the sobbing of her father and her little brother on the verge of rage. Natasha was petrified. But her fear and her father's despair kept her from the change.

Mister Wolf, face splashed with drying blood, pressed the pistol into the back of Natasha's father's head and pulled the trigger. Natasha squeezed her eyes shut, trying her best to un-see what she had seen, cast out the image of her father's face bulging out as the silver bullet melted his brain and poured its poison through his body, and even though her brother was screaming she could still hear Mister Wolf's voice, low and loaded, "I've been waiting to get rid of this scum for so long."

They were dragged through the courtyard by their legs, tied with steel-wired rope, and however much pleading or shouting Natasha and Peter did the soldiers would not let go. She could see why: the bodies of their fallen comrades littered the ground, bleeding and Tom and all of them dead. No Lane, no Sophia or their children, she thought, and the idea came for the first time that perhaps they had got away. Perhaps after all this there had been a chance after all. A chance that started in a syringe, something to calm the burn of silver and negate its poison. "Where are they?" she asked, and Mister Wolf turned to her—a little girl, that's all she was—and struck her across the face with his pistol. She cried because her daddy was not there to protect her, nor her mummy to calm the hurt. "Shut up, bitch," Mister Wolf said. They got away, she thought, and even though they had left her and her family to die, for a while she was glad.

The Plain, her brother's cold execution, the hole, the digging and burying, she remembered all of that, and Tom could barely comprehend the cruelty. In his sleep—where his dreams were Natasha's memories, steered and controlled and yet going only one way—he cried out, trying to shout at Cole for the terrible things he had done. "One more bullet!" he said, and it was Natasha's voice begging the soldier to kill her rather then bury her alive with her dead family. But Mister Wolf looked and saw only what he had been told to see: monsters. No little girl, no dead family, only monsters like these that had murdered his friends and comrades. And bury her he did.

You see? Natasha said. You see what they did to us, Daddy?

Tom came around quickly, rising out of the dream and back to desperate reality. Though the feeling of dread had gone—blossomed into the violence and terror of Porton Down—the dream had left him with a sense that all could never be right with the world again. He had seen terrible hidden things that he had never suspected existed. He was privy to awful secrets. And his wife …

Daddy, we have to go, Natasha said. She moved in his arms.

Tom gasped and tried to push her away, but the front seats prevented her from going any further. She moved on his lap, her limbs and body twisting slowly, as if performing an endless stretch. Her face had come away from his chest, her mouth bloody, dried lips pulled back from her teeth like those of a hissing dog.

"Are you coming back to life?" he said.

"I was never quite dead.

"What are you doing to me?"

Only good. Helping you.

"Helping me so that I can help you?"

Of course, she said, and her honesty made him hate himself. And helping you because you don't deserve what has happened. None of us do. We berserkers were wronged by Mister Wolf, and now he has done wrong to you as well.

"You want revenge?" Tom asked, thinking of Jo lying on the back seat of their ruined car … the image distant, like a faded black and white impression of crystal clear reality.

I want to be safe, she said. Tom tried not to look down at her face, but he could not help himself. He thought of the little girl she had been in the dream, confused and frightened and forced to watch her mother gunned down, her father and brother executed in front of her. He cried. They were dry tears, sobs heaving at his shoulders and reminding him of the pain lying dormant in his back, waiting to be reawakened. She was helping him. She was making him better. Whether by doing so she was making him into something else entirely, it would not do to consider right now.

"Let's go," he said. "In then out again. Food, drink, toilet, and then we'll go to meet them. Lane and Sophia. We'll go to them and they can take you home." And I'll find Steven, he thought, and will he look like those things that were chained up at Porton Down? Those people, living food, chained to the wall for the berserkers to have at whenever they felt hungry. "Will he?" Tom asked out loud, but Natasha did not answer.

He looked down at the girl in his arms—the corpse that had started to move—and opened the car door.