Berserk

Chapter Fourteen

From Tom's right came two gunshots in rapid succession. He looked that way, startled, expecting to see Cole running at them from behind the undergrowth marking the boundary of the car park. What he saw instead made him gasp out loud, and he closed his eyes and called for Natasha, afraid that he was back in one of her dream memories. If that were the case and he opened his eyes again, who knew what terrors would be awaiting him?

They're already here! Natasha gasped, and in his mind Tom sensed an uneasy shadow of betrayal. He opened his eyes to see Lane and Sophia running toward him across the car park. They were dressed in black, moving fast, and both carried weapons. Lane had a pistol in one hand and a long bulky tube over one shoulder; Sophia held a rifle in both hands. Both of them were looking at Tom, and he could not hold their gaze. The setting sun seemed to catch their eyes and turn them red.

"You're Tom," Sophia said when she reached the car, a statement rather than a question. "You were followed by the police. We just killed them, but they led others here." She stood beside the BMW, her breath barely raised after running across the car park, and pointed the rifle at his face. "I don't trust anyone. Understand? No one. You have no special privileges, and I'll shoot you the second I think I need to." She was having to raise her voice above the roar of the approaching helicopters, and Tom glanced up to see the shadows of two huge aircraft approaching. And as Sophia knelt next to the car, he saw what Lane had been carrying.

The male berserker was kneeling with the tube balanced on his shoulder, one hand holding the wide barrel, the other closed around the grip and trigger. Dust and rubbish swirled up around him, hissing against the body of the BMW. He did not even close his eyes.

"Stay in there!" Sophia shouted as she ducked down beside the car. For a few seconds there was a rattle merged within the roar of the helicopter rotors, and chunks of concrete erupted around Lane. Bullets ricocheted toward the buildings and Tom saw the man and woman duck back inside their unit.

Lane jerked as if punched. He slumped forward and then sat upright again, stilling himself, ignoring the second burst of machine gun fire as it blasted into the ground between him and the BMW. The tube on his shoulder coughed and spat its deadly load.

Tom fell across the front seats and gathered Natasha beneath him. He could still sense her confusion as a massive explosion brought daylight back again. The car shook as if shunted by a juggernaut. Its windows smashed inward, a blast of warm air sizzled the hairs on the back of Tom's neck, and something thunked against the car's roof. For a second he thought they were being machine-gunned, but then he realised that pieces of the helicopter were raining down.

He sat up and leaned around in his seat, looking back.

Two hundred yards away, a giant burning mass dropped from the sky. It struck the ground in an orchard beyond the car park, crushing trees, sending ripe apples tumbling to the ground, burnt black and dry. One rotor continued to spin, fanning the flames. The other had speared off into the dusk. There was another explosion, even larger than the first, and the shell of the aircraft bulged outward and scattered itself across the orchard and approach road. The flames were so bright that Tom had to look away. The fire caught in the trees and grass, fuel spilling and sending rivers of flame to carve their course.

"Holy fucking shit," Tom muttered.

"One down," Lane said. He stood, threw aside the SAM launcher and ran to the car, leaning in past Tom as if he were not there, searching for Natasha. He pulled the blanket aside and laughed. "There you are!" he said. "Christ, take a look at you! Sophia, have you seen this?"

The female berserker barely glanced at Tom as she looked into the car. Then she smiled. "You look well, Natasha," she said.

"She's been buried for ten years, how the hell do you expect her to look!" Tom said.

Lane, leaning into the car, looked at Tom for the first time. Their faces were barely six inches apart. He glanced up and down and seemed to take in everything about Tom in a second. "And what the fuck do you know about it?" he said.

Lane seemed like a normal man. Strong, large, capable of protecting himself, but normal. Tom saw no changes, none of the strange mutations he had seen in Natasha's memories of her own family. Perhaps the berserkers were enjoying this. Or maybe Natasha's recollections were … skewed. Tom did not like that doubt, but he could not help entertaining it. He had not been expecting them to be carrying weapons—in the girl's memories they had killed with tooth and claw—but he realised quickly how foolish that assumption had been. As deadly as they were when the rage was upon them, tooth and claw would be little protection against modern military hardware.

He wondered whether the army had made that same foolish mistake.

"Here comes the other one!" Sophia said.

Lane withdrew from the car. Tom opened the door, grabbed Natasha and climbed out, standing beside the two berserkers. They're so strong! Natasha said in his mind. So adapted! So powerful! I never knew, in the few hours I've been speaking with them I even guessed—

Will they still help us? Tom asked in his mind.

Oh yes, Natasha said, and her voice was soothed by a mental smile. They may mock me and discount you, but I still have something they want.

"What?" Tom asked, but the girl fell silent.

The second Chinook roared over the blazing remains of the first, turning hard left and heading away, spitting bullets behind it. The aim was bad, and they rattled against the industrial units and the parking bays before them.

Sophia looked at Tom curiously, then down at Natasha where she lay in his arms. "Come with me," she said. "If you want to stay alive you do what I say when I say it, even if you think I'm wrong. Understand?"

"How can I trust you?" Tom shouted.

"We promised the girl we'd look after you."

"That doesn't mean—"

"We keep our promises," Sophia said, and her cool stare forbade him from answering back again. He nodded and followed as she ran for the open unit. Lane came along behind.

Tom could hear the tone of the Chinook's rotors changing as it landed somewhere out of view. He guessed there could be twenty or more battle-ready soldiers in there, ready to pour out, encircle the units, and take revenge for their many dead comrades.

He followed Sophia into the unit, past the piece of furniture the man and woman had been working on. It was an old table, restored and polished to a brilliant sheen, reflecting fire from outside. A bullet had skimmed its surface and gouged a foot-long oak splinter. "We won't hurt you!" Sophia called. Lane's shadow fell on the table as he entered behind Tom.

The man and woman emerged from an office at the rear of the unit, arms held high, faces pale, eyes wide. The woman looked at what Tom held in his arms and her eyes went wider.

Sophia shot her in the face, and Lane shot the man twice in the chest.

Tom gasped and dropped Natasha onto the sawdust-covered floor.

The man went down hissing, drawing in one huge final breath, blood bubbles forming on his soaked T-shirt. Sophia stepped forward and shot him in the eye.

"Head shot," she said to Lane. "Head shot!" Lane simply shrugged.

"What the hell?" Tom said, but the two ignored him.

Daddy! Natasha said, and Tom looked down at where he had dropped the girl. She moved feebly on the ground. He bent to pick her up, tucking his hands beneath her body—it was not so cold now, no longer carrying the chill of the grave—and heaved her back into his arms. His back hurt. He bit his lip and groaned against the pain.

Sophia smirked at him. Tom turned away.

"Back door," Lane said, and Sophia darted into the office at the rear of the unit.

Tom heard her throwing bolts and shifting furniture, and he frowned. Barricading us in? he thought. We should be running! The soldiers will be here in seconds, and they'll be berserk themselves, ready for revenge. Their mates are cooking out in that orchard. There won't be time for "hands up and come out"

You forget so quickly, Daddy, Natasha said, nestled somewhere in his panicked mind. Trust them.

"Trust?" he spat, unable to help himself. He looked down at the dead man and woman, tears forming however hard he tried to gulp them back.

"The next couple of minutes could be our last," Sophia said, emerging from the office. "The last thing we need is unnecessary hindrances."

"Don't try to explain murder to me!" Tom said. She looked away, sneering, and he swallowed hard.

A volley of bullets rattled into the wall beside them, spilling tools and chunks of masonry to the ground. Tom fell and crawled behind a fixed woodworking bench, dragging Natasha with him and making sure she was shielded from outside.

Lane fired several shots from his pistol, then ducked down as a sustained burst of machine gun fire slammed into the unit. The noise was tremendous. Bullets coughed gouts of concrete from the walls, tore apart the plasterboard wall of the office, struck the old oak table, ricocheted from the floor, pinged from the bulky metal woodworking tools. Tom covered his ears and waited to be shot. Natasha could not protect him from this. A ricochet would take off the top of his head, or the soldiers would get in here, blow him apart with a burst to the chest and head. He looked across at Sophia, and between them the man's body jumped and jerked as bullets struck him. Tom averted his eyes, not wishing to see the damage they caused. Even above the gunfire he heard Sophia laugh.

"What the fuck are these things?" he whispered, and Natasha allowed him his rage, holding back any response.

The gunfire ended. Tom's ears rang with the echoes. Lane and Sophia, hunkered down behind machines, swapped glances. Lane nodded. It was as if everything were going according to plan.

Someone started shouting. "Lane! Sophia! You know there's no way out!"

Lane's eyes went wide with genuine surprise, and he coughed out a laugh. "Major Higgins, is that really you? Haven't you retired and gone to play polo into your twilight years? You old goat, I can't believe they sent you after us!"

"Come out, Lane," the man shouted.

"So where's Cole?" Lane answered.

"I have no idea!"

Lane gave the "wanker" sign to Sophia, and she laughed and nodded, returning an imitation of fellatio. "Sophia says you're a cock sucker!" Lane shouted, ducking as Sophia threw a chunk of masonry at him.

Tom could not believe the surreality of the scene. They were about to be machine-gunned to death—and he'd bet his life that these soldiers were from Porton Down, armed with silver bullets and a knowledge of what they were up against—and here were the berserkers making jokes.

Short memory, Natasha whispered. Remember Dan and Sarah?

Tom nodded. Yes, he remembered them. But what could two berserkers do against twenty armed, ready and vengeful soldiers? They would take a few with them perhaps, but not all.

Another burst of gunfire continued tearing the unit apart. Tom held onto Natasha, smelling her musty odour and feeling her tiny movements against his body. Something scratched at his chest and he pulled up, disgusted and amazed. Now? She wanted feeding now? But he looked at Sophia and Lane again, saw what was happening, and he understood why.

At last they were changing. Until now they had been under control, but Sophia was shaking, her legs quivering as they seemed to stretch out behind her, and Lane's eyes were closed, jaw thickening and lips cracked and bleeding. The berserker had dropped his gun and Tom looked at it, wondering whether he could reach it without getting his arm blown off. Probably not. But still, the option was there.

Lane turned to look at him, and his eyes were red. "Hands off!" he said. Tom shrank back.

The gunfire broke off again, Higgins shouted, and that was when the first scream rose up from outside.

Tom was shaking. His toes tapped at the ground, his arms jittered where he supported himself on his elbows, and his body trembled as if in the throes of a virulent fever. He was sweating, too, dripping onto Natasha and speckling the smooth concrete floor. He tried to keep his eyes closed, but the images behind them were too painful to keep them shut; Jo lying dead across his lap, Steven as a boy, keen to play at soldiers. So he opened his eyes to escape those images, only to give himself more terrible sights to forever remember. The dead man had been struck by several bullets, and blood and insides had splashed up onto the wall behind him. The dead woman's leg had been blown off. Lane and Sophia continued to hide behind the woodworking machinery, still changing, making light of their predicament as the screaming rose in volume from outside.

More gunfire, but this time it was not directed at them.

And Tom was angry. It was an anger he had never felt before, not even ten years ago when he had first been told of Steven's death. He was not even sure where it came from, but he supposed it was a combination of everything that had happened to him, a livid stew made from Jo's death, Natasha's sad history, Cole's pursuit, the bullet still lodged somewhere in his back, the two dead people splayed across the floor beside him now, their blood filling tiny cracks and scrapes in the concrete, spreading out, forming a map of their pain. Their blood. Their blood.

Tom stopped shaking, stared at the mess on the floor and had a sudden desire to lap it up.

The screams and gunfire outside were joined by something else—roars and screeches that he recognised from Natasha's memories.

Daddy, she said beneath him, I still can't change. Her voice was so wretched that it pulled Tom back from whatever precipice he was leaning over. He raised himself up and looked down at the girl. Her mouth was bloodied, his chest dripping, and her body wavered continuously as if seen through a heat haze.

"What's out there? Just those two children?"

Dan and Sarah, all grown up now. Young and powerful and angry!

An explosion complemented the gunfire. Tom risked a look around the corner of the bench, the anger rising again, ready to drown him. He gasped and swallowed, making sure he could still breathe. His legs and arms ached from supporting himself for so long, his face throbbed, and the only part of his body that seemed not to hurt was his back.

Tracer rounds tore across the car park. The stolen BMW was a mass of flames and several bodies lay around it, their uniforms simmering and catching fire in the heat. One of them crawled feebly away from the flames, hair and fatigues smoking and then igniting.

A soldier darted past the front of the unit, and for an instant Tom wanted to run him down, punch him, tear at him until he died.

A shadow followed. A shadow that growled. The soldier's scream came from out of sight, but it did not last very long.

Two soldiers backed away across the car park, heading for the ivy-covered fence from where Lane and Sophia had first emerged. They took turns firing their weapons and reloading, and though panicked they seemed to have some level of control over their fear. One of them was covered in blood; it did not seem to be his own.

Tom looked at the blood, and saliva flooded his mouth. "What's happening to me?" he said, but nobody answered. He looked at Sophia and Lane, and though the change had shifted their bodies from the norm, they seemed to have reined in their full berserker rage. Lane had picked up his pistol and inserted a new magazine, while Sophia was reloading the rifle with shells from her pocket. Neither of them looked at him or Natasha. For some reason, they seemed to have turned serious.

There was another burst of sustained gunfire and Tom glanced outside. The two soldiers were standing back to back, both shooting at things out of sight. Their magazines seemed to run out at the same instant, and a second later shapes darted in from both sides and tore into the men. Their screams were replaced by ripping sounds as the berserkers tore them limb from limb.

"Now, do you think?" Lane said.

"About now, yes," Sophia answered. She turned to Tom. "Join us?"

"Join you where, doing what?"

"We're going outside." So saying, she stood, hefted the rifle and walked toward the front of the unit. She left strange footprints in the bloody sawdust. Lane followed her, crouched low, and Tom was left hiding with Natasha still squirming beneath him.

Take me with you, Daddy, she said, never doubting that he would go.

There was still shooting going on, though not as much as before. Men shouted commands, the crack crack of rifles was punctuated by machine gun fire, screams became less frequent, another huge explosion shook dust from the walls and ceiling and punched against Tom's hands and knees, Sophia's rifle sang out from nearby, a hail of bullets rattled through the unit and struck walls and machines, another shot from the rifle, and then one man started shouting, the same word again and again, "Lane! Lane! Lane!"

"Major!" Lane said, as if greeting an old school friend.

I think it's safe to go now, Natasha said. Tom stood, picked up the girl and walked hesitantly out of the unit. He passed the oak table that had been shot to splinters. Shame. Jo had always liked oak, and …

A soldier lay several feet away, his stomach Tom out and his ripped throat still pulsing blood. Tom leaned his way as death exerted an unbearable gravity.

Not now, Daddy. Not yet.

Tom frowned, shook his head, and that was when he saw the man running toward them.

"You look frightened!" Sophia called out. The major came to a halt twenty feet in front of the unit. He was shaking, panting, one side of his face splashed with blood. He held a pistol in his left hand, but made no attempt to raise it.

"Lane!" the major shouted, though there was no expression on his face. He screamed the berserker's name yet again, and it was like the bark of a dog.

Tom glanced around the car park and took in the destruction. Five minutes ago the Chinook had landed and disgorged the soldiers, and now they lay dead across the concrete. Some of them were in groups of two or three, most were alone, insides steaming in the dusk. Several still moaned, hands raised to the sunset as if trying to hold it back for another day. The BMW still blazed. The first helicopter was a bonfire in the orchard, and from out of sight beyond a row of trees and shrubs another huge pall of boiling smoke and fire marked the demise of the second aircraft.

The major stared as if blinded by fear. The berserkers closed on him from two directions. They were no longer the children Tom had seen in Natasha's memories. Dan was as big as Lane and even more powerful, his naked arms and legs shimmering as muscles flexed and relaxed. Sarah was smaller but equally formidable. Her face had elongated, pulling back her eyes and hairline. It was covered in blood. Both berserkers growled and spat, and Tom could almost sense the combined thumping of their hearts, reveling in life in this place of the dead.

"Hold back," Lane said quietly, and they sank to their knees and waited. Each of them held Higgins in their glare. The girl licked her bloody lips, tongue tasting the air like a snake's.

"Lane!" Higgins shouted.

"Eloquent as ever," Lane said, and he suddenly growled and bent at the waist, stooping into an animal pose.

"Please!" Higgins said. He started shaking his head, eyes looking left and right at his dead men.

Lane straightened, his face changing. He was crying blood. He pointed his pistol at the major. "I'm giving you the choice," he growled.

"No, please Lane!" Higgins said. "I have a son, a daughter. I have grandchildren! It's Janey's birthday in three days, what will she do without her granddad? What will she do? Please, Lane. Please." He was crying now, a thin, slight man whose fatigues and rank did nothing to protect him from fear.

"I'm giving you the choice," Lane said again, enunciating each word carefully through his stretching jaw, sprouting teeth.

"Sophia?" Higgins said, but there was no help there. She still held onto her rifle, but she was changing too, growling and grunting and snarling at the corpse of a soldier at her feet.

Lane pulled himself upright, seeming to exert a massive effort to do so. His arm wavered, and then lowered. He dropped the pistol. "Your … last … chance," he said, and the final word transformed into a roar.

Higgins looked at Tom for the first time, then down at Natasha nestling in his arms. "You have no idea," he said, and then he raised his pistol and shot himself through the mouth.

Lane and Sophia were upon him before his body hit the ground.

Tom retreated back into the unit as the berserkers took their fill. He carried Natasha with him and settled her in an old rocking chair, its re-upholstered seat and back Tom up by bullets. The chair moved for a couple of seconds, and then kept moving. Even above the sounds of ravenous feeding from outside, Tom could hear the subtle creaks of the girl's torso bending and stretching.

Daddy, she said, her voice uneven and strained. Daddy!

The chair rocked.

Tom felt sick, as if he had eaten a handful of uncooked meat. The taste in his mouth was one that never should have been there. He looked at his hands, but there was no sign of blood, and for that he was relieved.

Natasha did not look as though she could be alive—her face was frozen, hair still matted with mud, limbs and body dried and stiffened by time. And yet her joints had begun to work, and every small movement in one limb seemed to encourage movement in another.

The chair rocked.

She shifted as if every bone in her body were broken, a fluid motion that seemed to feed upon itself. Tom wondered whether now that she had started, if she would ever stop.

"What is it?" he said, but he knew, and she said, You know. "I can't help you," he said. "I can't take you out there while they're—"

You don't need to take me out. Her mental voice was a pained whine, and her real voice came as a low rattle: "Daddy …"

He knew that she was right. And he knew what she was doing to him. He supposed he had known from the beginning, and as he turned from her he saw the body of the dead woman, her face ruined and her legs blown off, and he could not tear his eyes away.

"Daddy!"

His back flared with pain, and Tom could do nothing but return to Natasha. He lifted her from the chair, sat there himself and settled her in his lap. She was heavier than before, and her teeth seemed sharper, her suckling mouth more eager. He looked down at where she gnawed at his chest, saw his blood bubbling there, and closed his eyes.

In his mind he saw more murder at the hands of the berserkers. But this time the memories were his own.