The Girl with All the Gifts

22

Justineau is running again. But now she has no idea where she’s running to. The familiar geography of the base has been rendered arcane by the smoke of explosions, the din of gunfire and running feet.

Melanie makes it even harder to focus, squirming and thrashing in her grip. Justineau remembers lifting her from the body of the young junker boy, like plucking a blood-gorged tick from a dog’s belly, and has to fight the urge to drop her.

Why fight it? Not because Melanie saved her. But then, in a sense, yes. Because she’s turned her back on something inside herself, and Melanie is the sign of that – the anti-Isaac she snatched from the fire to prove to God that he doesn’t always get to call the shots.

Fuck you, Caroline.

Melanie is making noises a human throat isn’t properly configured for, and her head is levering backwards and forwards, butting at Justineau’s arm. There’s astonishing strength in the little girl. She’s going to break free. She’s going to bring the both of them down.

Justineau glimpses the steel door of the classroom block, unexpectedly close by, and swerves towards it.

Realises immediately that it’s no use to her. The door is closed, and the locks engage automatically when it’s in that position. There’s no possible way she can get inside.

Hungries loom on her right, a dozen or so, coming from the direction of the lab. Maybe they’re the same ones she originally fled from, still following her scent. Either way, they can smell her now and they want her. They’re coming towards her, legs rising and falling in tireless, mechanical syncopation.

Nothing for it but to turn tail. To run away from them as fast as she can, and pray that she gets somewhere before they catch her.

She does. She gets to the fence. It’s suddenly right there in front of her, blocking her way like a wire-mesh Everest. She’s finished.

She turns, at bay. The hungries are coming on at that same merciless, metronomic sprint. To right and left, there’s nothing. Nowhere to hide, or to run to. She lets go of Melanie, sees her fall like a cat falls, righting herself in the air to land on starfish-spread hands and feet.

Justineau balls her fists, braces herself, but an enormous exhaustion hits her and darkness rushes in from the corners of her vision as the adrenalin wave deserts her. She doesn’t even throw a punch as the first hungry gapes his jaws and reaches out to pull her down.

With a wet crunch, he’s slammed to the ground and ploughed under.

A wall slides smoothly across Justineau’s field of vision. It’s metallic, painted in dull green and there’s a window in it. From the window, a monster’s face stares out at her. Sergeant Parks’ face.

“Get inside!” he bellows.

The thing in front of her resolves itself, like a puzzle picture. It’s one of the base’s Humvees. Justineau grabs the door handle and tries all the wrong ways to make it open, twisting and pulling before she finally pops it with a single squeeze of the catch release on the handle’s inner face.

She throws the door open as the hungries round the back of the vehicle and start towards her. One of Parks’ boy soldiers, a kid half her age with a mass of red hair like an autumn bonfire, is up on the roof manning the Humvee’s pedestal gun. He swings it wildly, stitching the air with stinging metal. It’s not clear what he’s aiming at, but on one of the down-swings he intersects the nearest hungries and knocks them right off their feet.

Justineau holds the door, but doesn’t move – because Melanie doesn’t move. Crouched on the ground, the little girl stares into the vehicle’s dark interior with animal mistrust.

“It’s fine!” Justineau yells. “Melanie, come on. Get inside. Now!”

Melanie makes up her mind – makes a standing jump past Justineau and in through the door. Justineau clambers in after her, slams the door tight shut.

Turns to see Caroline Caldwell’s pale, sweating face staring right at her. Her hands are folded under her armpits and she’s lying on the floor of the Humvee like a bolt of firewood. Melanie cowers away from her, presses against Justineau again, and mechanically Justineau embraces her.

The Humvee wheels around. Through the window, they can briefly see a kaleidoscope of smoke and ruin and running figures.

They drive through the fence without slowing, but almost don’t make it across the ditch beyond. The Humvee belly-flops on the far side, shudders for a few seconds like a washing machine on spin before it gets enough traction to drag its rear end up over the rim.

For the next few miles, it’s chased by five yards of chain-link and a concrete post, bounding along behind it the way a wedding car trails tin cans.