Lambs: World Gone Down (Survivors: Volume 1) E-Book

Ford Benton

• Herausgeber: AMMFA Publishing
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

Lambs: World Gone Down (Survivors: Volume 1): the thrilling debut novel from Benton Ford, the hottest new name in post-apocalyptic science fiction, a masterful tale of a civilisation on the verge of collapse.

On a warm summer’s afternoon, something goes wrong. The power goes down, bombs falls from the sky, and monstrous creatures begin stalking the streets.

As the people turn against each other, the survivors must come to terms with this new world and their own place within it. Teacher Claire Hopgood must save a group of schoolchildren from monsters both with wings and those who walk and talk like men. Unassuming nurse Alan Graf must battle to protect his dying father as the world collapses around them. And escaped convict Mark Raine faces a race against time to get back to the family he loves.

Nothing for any of them will ever be the same again. All they know is that the world they had known is gone, and that in this new world, they are no longer top of the food chain. No longer the predators, now they are nothing more than lambs…

Lambs: World Gone Down (Survivors: Volume 1) is a thrilling tale of survival that will keep you on the edge of your seat in the same way as The Walking Dead, only with dinosaurs.

Leseprobe

Lambs: World Gone Down

Survivors: Volume 1

Benton Ford

Contents

Survivors

1. Stalker

2. Blackout

3. House

4. Hilltop

5. Changes

6. Escape

7. Visitor

8. Request

9. Bombs

10. Locks

11. Monsters

12. Fiends

13. Bait

14. Warning

15. Roadblock

16. Slaughter

17. Intruders

18. Overcome

19. Riverside

20. Decay

21. Readiness

22. Safehouse

23. Parting

24. Fugitive

25. Regrets

26. Refuge

27. Withdrawal

28. Companions

29. Captives

30. Doctor

31. Vigilantes

32. Bigger

33. Stranger

34. Protector

35. Rescue

36. Resistance

37. Fracturing

38. Hopelessness

39. Convergence

40. Survivors

Acknowledgments

About the Author

“Lambs: World Gone Down (Survivors Volume 1)”

Copyright © Benton Ford 2023

The right of Benton Ford to be identified as the Author of this Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the Author.

This story is a work of fiction and is a product of the Author’s imagination. All resemblances to actual locations or to persons living or dead are entirely coincidental.

No part of this publication may be used for training Artificial Intelligence generative software.

For Wayno

A decent snack for any hungry T-Rex

Survivors

Volume 1

It started as a normal day …

… but things quickly changed.

1

Stalker

He liked to think of himself as a fox stalking a lamb. A particularly tasty one, soft and young and unsuspecting, one he would slowly isolate from its flock until it was cornered, then he would slowly close in, and when the time came to strike, he would take his sweet, sweet, time….

He lowered the binoculars. Yes, he had seen her. For a brief moment, Juliet had come to the window, perhaps looking out at the empty driveway, wondering where her father had gone.

He won’t be back. He’s stuck at work, and you’re alone. The way it should be. But don’t worry, your Romeo is coming.

Lawrence licked his lips, thinking about how he’d soon be licking other things.

He was getting hard. He couldn’t help it. Normally he’d have sorted himself with his hand, but today there was no need.

Juliet was waiting on her balcony for her lover to appear.

‘I’m coming,’ he whispered. ‘I’m coming, very soon.’

He climbed down from the hedge, folded up the stepladder and put it into the back of his van beside the trimmer. A little way back up the road he retrieved his council warning sign.

Maintenance in progress. Drive carefully.

He drove down the hill, past Juliet’s house and onwards down the narrow country road until he came to a tiny side entrance so overgrown most people would drive past without knowing it was there.

He had planned everything carefully. There was a farm at the bottom of this lane, but it was no longer working, the land sold off to other farmers and the house converted into a secluded glass palace for some rich cocksucker from London who only visited for a couple of weeks a year. Lawrence had offered his gardening and maintenance services in the hope of being able to ditch his shitty council job, and now earned a decent bit on the side for keeping an eye on the place, doing general maintenance, and making sure no prospective thieves got their eyes on it.

He drove down the lane, parking his van out of sight around the back of the house. Then he climbed over a stile into the field that backed on to Juliet’s father’s place. The land conveniently bulged in the middle, meaning that by walking around the outside of the field, he could approach the house from the side without being seen. Once he had her, he could drag her quickly back across the field to the farmhouse and load her up into his van. The back of Juliet’s house was visible only from the farmhouse, and Lawrence knew that was empty.

He'd have her gone and secreted away before anyone would ever know. And then … and then—

He still had his workman’s overalls on, a utility belt around his waist. He had a piece of wire rope, a rag to gag her, and a knife to keep her quiet if necessary. Not that it would matter. The farmhouse was the only house nearby, and the valley would swallow up any screams.

Lawrence grinned. She was his. She was finally his.

The hedgerow was overgrown, the grass long. He could duck down and even if the back of his coat was seen, he might be mistaken for a badger, an escaped dog. Juliet wouldn’t care. With Daddy out working late, she’d be watching television or doing her homework. Hell, there was a lot of shit going on up north which would keep the kids interested, even girls usually into Barbies and makeup and other bullshit. Lawrence had watched the news a fair bit himself, although most of it was the usual filtered speculation. He'd read some rumours on the Dark Web, but he went on there for other things, for the most part.

The house was ahead, above him, behind a low wire-framed fence but with the garage on this side, no windows. He had just reached the fence when a car rushed past on the main road, giving him a healthy reminder to keep his wits about him. It would only take one do-gooding idiot to spot him and everything would go to hell. He would never get another chance. A few more minutes and he’d be safe; she’d be his, and by dusk she’d be safely hidden away in his soundproofed shed.

He closed his eyes, dreaming about the soft feel of her skin, the gentle curves of her body. He’d get a day perhaps, at most, before the search put him in its radar. She had to be disposed of by then, no trace left behind, but a day was long enough. He’d have her, over and over—

Something shifted in the long grass nearby. Lawrence whipped around, but caught only a glimpse of something silvery as it dropped out of sight. The grass swished back and forth, indicating its position, and as he stared, a pointy serpentine tail flicked upwards, swished back and forth, then disappeared.

‘What the actual fuck…?’

A sound like the tearing of flesh came out of the grass, followed like a growl. It could have been a dog with a rabbit, but there had been no sign of either, and that tail thing … for a moment Lawrence forgot everything he had been planning. He turned away, pushing carefully through the grass, trying not to disturb whatever it was until he’d had a good look. The tail-like thing whipped up again, so close he could have reached out and touched it. He paused a moment, then leaned forwards, peering over the top of the grass into the hollow made by whatever it was with its catch.

There was a dog, that was certain. Some kind of terrier, its throat ripped out, its stomach torn open, its guts spilling out onto the ground. He noticed the bloodied collar with its silver pendant, recognised the dog as Jimminy, who belonged to Mrs. Baxter, who lived on the corner of the estate. Poor bastard must have got out, and run into this … this … whatever the hell it was.

Its body was thin and lithe, like a fish. From overhead it was hard to see, it’s skin a mottled dark green which blended into the grass of the field. Powerful back legs ended in hooked talons, which now held the dog’s carcass down while smaller front legs ripped open the dog’s chest and neck. A neck no thicker than Lawrence’s wrist shifted back and forth, ending in a serpentine head covered in green scales. Its nostrils flared as though incensed by the fresh meat its needlelike teeth were tearing off the poor dog’s bones.

‘Mother of all that is holy—’

The creature paused. Its head flicked up, and in a moment it had lashed out, mouth snapping shut over Lawrence’s forearm, teeth tearing through his coat and sweater to remove a chunk of flesh.

He stared as blood dripped on to the ground, then stumbled backwards, the pain still not quite registering over the shock, and the utter terror at what he had seen.

The creature’s head appeared out of the grass, flicking back and forth. It caught sight of Lawrence and let out a low, threatening hiss, then took a couple of steps forwards. He backed away again, and found the fence surrounding Juliet’s house at his back.

He thought of the shredded remains of a dog which he had patted affectionately a number of times. The creature was still watching him with its evil little eyes, head flicking back and forth as though assessing whether he posed a threat, whether it could take him down, too.

The opportunity to steal Juliet away and do delicious things to her had passed. He lifted a foot over the fence, though, stepping down onto the spongey, well-maintained lawn. He turned to climb over, the edge of the fence rubbing against his damaged arm, and the pain finally kicked in. He clamped his free hand over his mouth to stop himself crying out, tears welling in his eyes.

Hugging his bad arm against himself, blood soaking his clothes, he staggered across the garden to the back door.

‘Juliet!’ he cried. ‘Juliet! Open up! Please!’

A light came on behind the frosted glass, and Lawrence felt all his last hope fading. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. She should be in the back of his van now, perhaps getting a little warm up for what was to come later.

The door cracked open, and a slender blonde girl wearing jeans and a blue Eden Project t-shirt peered out. Lawrence’s heart lurched. She was an oil painting, even now, with worry etched across her face. Bright blue eyes, wide and innocent. Oh, the things he wanted those eyes to see—

‘Uncle Lawrence? Oh my god, what happened? Are you all right?’

Lawrence stared at his eleven-year-old niece and felt the urge to cry. ‘Juliet, you have to help me. There’s something out in the field, something dangerous….’

2

Blackout

‘Mrs. Greenfell, your daughter’s been late twice this week already, four times this month, and it’s only the twelfth. You know two late marks count as an absence, don’t you? Mrs. Greenfell?’

Kim clenched one fist beneath the table. The other hand held the strap of her bag so tight she could feel the frayed end stretching. Much more and it would break, then perhaps it would make a decent club to swing at Mr. Trower’s head—

The wail of a distant siren distracted both. When Kim turned back from the window, she found Mr. Trower shuffling a pile of papers, their appointment apparently over. As she started to stand, he pulled open his top desk drawer and switched off an alarm flashing on the screen of a smartphone.

‘I … I think—’ Kim began, trying to keep her voice steady when her heart was thundering with an anger she was struggling to contain, ‘—I’ll just let Emily chalk up a few absences if that’s what she needs, if that’s what it takes to keep her on track. She’s not had a good run of it since her dad walked out—’

Mr. Trower tilted his head and gave Kim a sour look, as though to say, whose fault is that? ‘There are currently seventy-six pupils at Bloomfield being raised by a single parent. Most are coping fine. It might help if your daughter made more effort to fit in, and they say that conformity starts at home—’

The siren had come closer and was now loud enough to make it hard to hear his words. On the corner of his desk lay a newspaper with a blurry picture on the front of some kind of prehistoric animal. NATIONAL HEALTH AGENCY NOW BELIEVES VIRUS ORIGINATED WITH SAURODS, the headline read.

‘Well, if we’re done here?’ Kim said, suddenly feeling an urge to cry. It was easier than picking a fight, which would get her in the school’s bad books, along with her daughter.

Mr. Trower flapped a dismissive hand at her as though she were no more important than a speck of dust, and Kim, chastened, headed for the door. She had one hand on the handle, when Mr. Trower cleared his throat.

‘Mrs. Greenfell?’

‘What?’

She turned. Trower was holding his phone in his hand, his face grave as he stared at the display. ‘Go straight home,’ he said.

Kim gave a solemn nod, then headed out. Her fingers, still shaking, slipped on the door handle, and it took two tries to close it. God, I need a fucking drink. Emily, the only person sitting on the line of plastic chairs in the corridor outside, looked up from a science textbook that barely hid a fashion magazine lying beneath.

‘All right, Mum?’

‘Let’s just get going.’

Kim walked quickly past, and heard Emily fall into step behind her. Her daughter caught up with her as she reached a set of double doors leading outside.

‘Mum, what did old Trowel say?’

Kim pushed through the doors, then stopped and waited for Emily. As Emily stepped outside, Kim jabbed a finger into her daughter’s chest.

‘Show some fucking respect for once,’ she said. ‘If you could damn well grow up, I wouldn’t have to come down here. Can’t you try a little harder? Just smile once in a while, and do what they want without making a goddamn song and dance about it. I can’t deal with this, Em.’

Emily, head lowered, peered up through jet black dyed hair gelled against the side of her face. ‘By cope you mean drink yourselves to sleep, then bang some pill to keep you awake until lunchtime, when you—’

Kim lifted a hand, but before she could lean into the slap, her anger left her in a sudden rush, a soul departing its body. She sagged sideways, and might have fallen if Emily hadn’t grabbed her, pulling her into a hug.

‘I’m sorry, Mum.’

‘Em, please.’

‘All right, I’ll try. I’ll carry some boxes for old Trowel or mark out the lines for sports day or whatever.’

Kim could barely bring herself to speak, she held her daughter close, remembering a time which didn’t feel all that long ago now, when she’d only needed one arm to hold her daughter, and her husband, Emily’s father, had still been around.

‘By the way, Mum, you can’t say fuck in front of me. That means I can say it.’

Kim laughed through tears. ‘You say it more than me already. Come on, let’s ditch this place. We’ll get pizza on the way home, or whatever trash food you like.’

‘There’s that new burger place in Kidbrooke. It’s not far out of the way.’

‘Sure.’

Emily pushed her mother away then gave a playful grin. ‘I have enough zits already. Might as well fill out the gaps that are left.’

‘You don’t have many.’

Emily lifted an eyebrow. ‘That’s because I cover them with concealer. And you never notice, because you’re always—’ She turned away. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘Come on,’ Kim said. ‘Let’s just go.’

The car always made her focus. She gripped the wheel hard enough to leave her knuckles white and steered out of the school car park into traffic. It was busier than usual this evening, perhaps due to the sirens she had heard earlier. But then, this was London, and it was rush hour. And despite what was happening in the north, that was there, and this was here. They had just come to a standstill when a military helicopter flew low overhead, angling away towards North London.

‘Woah, you see that?’ Emily cried. ‘Nearly took the roof off the car.’

‘Yeah, I saw it.’

‘You reckon it’s gone to shoot a few more of those things? Those—’

Kim thumped the steering wheel. ‘Maybe,’ she said, a little louder than was necessary. ‘I don’t know, do I?’

‘Dad would.’

‘Don’t start this again.’

‘Mum, I’m just saying, perhaps you should give him another chance—’

‘Your father and I are over.’

Emily looked away, out of the side window. Kim squeezed her eyes shut for a moment then looked over at her daughter. Every harsh word … it burned.

‘Em, I’m sorry.’

A half shrug, but Emily didn’t look back. ‘You know, this kid from class, Barry Davis, he said his dad took him up there last weekend, trying to get a look.’

‘Up where?’

‘Up to Manchester. To the edge of the zone.’

‘I’m sure he was lying—’

‘He said they were shooting people who tried to leave. Said he saw someone take a bullet. The front of their head just exploded—’

‘Emily!’

Emily looked up, eyes wide. Chestnut brown, like her father’s. Like her hair, before she dyed it. She was so beautiful, was Emily, as beautiful as her father had been handsome, before he wrecked himself.

‘Em—’

‘Please stop saying sorry. I know your generation is in denial, pretending there’s nothing going on. Blackout zones “for our own good”. It’s all government horseshit. You should see some of the SnipVids that are coming out of Manchester.’

Another helicopter buzzed overhead, this one so low its skids were barely above the line of cars as it angled downwards ahead of them, and then suddenly it was dipping sharply sideways into a residential area, momentarily disappearing from view before a deafening explosion sounded, the shockwave rocking the car. Kim was too stunned even to move as a plume of black smoke rose from behind a line of houses, and fragments of debris rained down on the windscreen of the car.

‘Mum, that’s not good.’ Emily had tears in her eyes. ‘Let’s forget the burgers and just get home, shall we? That helicopter … it just crashed.’

‘It just crashed.’ Kim felt like a soundbite, but her tongue was dry, her senses feeling like someone was holding her underwater. ‘It just … crashed.’

‘Mum, please, I’m scared.’

They weren’t alone. Other cars were attempting to turn around, away from the crash site. A few cars ahead, doors opened and a handful of people got out. Some ran towards the crash, others away, while the rest stood uncertainly, hands running through their hair, unsure what to do.

‘Mum! I want to go!’

Emily was right. Whatever had caused the crash, it was nothing to do with them, and there was nothing they could do to help. As the traffic across the street lurched forwards, Kim slammed the car into gear and turned into a gap.

It was a significant detour, but it was worth it. Sirens were everywhere, police and fire engines roaring past them far faster than was safe on the narrow, crowded commuter road. Kim took what shortcuts she knew, turning up narrow residential streets to avoid potentially busy intersections, even cutting down a one-way street to avoid a notoriously busy roundabout. As she pulled into traffic just short of Thames Tunnel Three, she began to think they might make it home at a reasonable time tonight. Too bad if they couldn’t get the dinner Emily wanted. There was some leftover spaghetti, some sausages in the fridge—

A shadow passed above them, something silent Kim didn’t get a good look at. She craned her neck to see, but Emily was reaching across her, trying to grab the wheel.

‘Mum, look out!’

The car in front had braked sharply. Emily pushed Kim aside as she jerked the wheel to the right, the car’s wing missing the back of the nearest car by a hair’s breadth. Kim let out a gasp, but before she could take the wheel back, the headlights of an oncoming car flashed out of the darkness. Brakes squealed, horns blared. Kim squeezed her eyes shut and waited for the impact.

‘Did you see it, Mum? Did you see it? They shot it down. They shot it out of the sky.’

Kim opened her eyes. The oncoming car had missed them, and they were somehow still moving, descending into the tunnel in a line of slow-moving traffic. She glanced in the wing mirror, saw the tunnel entrance receding behind her. Her fingers shook on the wheel and she gripped it tighter, wishing, oh wishing, she had something to drink. The line of cars had slowed to a crawl, horns blaring up ahead.

‘Mum? Did you see it? It was one of those flying—’

A muffled explosion cut off Emily’s words. Kim glanced in the wing mirror again, in time to see the tunnel entrance folding downwards like a closing mouth. In an instant, the block of grey sky over east London was gone.

3

House

In the potting shed, the bell was ringing. Alfred Lammonby set down the hoe with the broken handle he had been patiently repairing for the last hour, and pressed the intercom button beside the door.

‘Yes?’

A hiss of static. Then: ‘Alf? It’s June. The Master wants a word. Can you come up?’

Alfred closed his eyes for a moment. Another of the Master’s “words”. Perfect. All Alfred needed to break his concentration, reward himself with a long trudge up to the house, attend a pointless meeting, and then another long trudge all the way back down again.

‘I’ll be there in five minutes,’ he said, but as soon as June hung up, he swore like an old sailor and knocked a cup of nails across the floor.

Then minutes later, he staggered through the back door into the staff utility quarters, pulled off his wellington boots and set them down on the mat behind the door. Wincing, he rubbed at his bad knee. At seventy-three he should be long retired, sitting with his feet up, perhaps doing a little fishing. Lord Evans had promised Alfred a plot of land all for himself, a reduction in his duties to a few ceremonial activities, and a comfortable retirement package as a thank you for fifty years of dutiful service.

And then Lord Evans had died, leaving his son, Richard, to take over the estate, and he had reneged on everything.

The spiteful little bastard.

Richard was sitting at the table in the drawing room, still wearing his outdoor boots, one raised over the other, dropping mud onto the carpet. He had some trampy thing with him, all blond hair and flesh showing where it shouldn’t be, feet up on one of the sofas along the wall as though she owned the place.

‘Sir? You requested to see me?’ Alfred lowered his head a little into a respectful bow.

‘You took your time. When I call, I expect promptness. This isn’t a fucking holiday camp.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘You won’t have seen the news. There’s been some kind of outbreak just north of Birmingham. Typical with our fucking government, but a media blackout has been put in place so it’s hard to know exactly what’s going on. However, in case it’s military, I want you to prepare the bunker at the end of the grounds with enough provisions for a couple of months. I know my father kept an inventory just in case, paranoid that he was about a nuclear war. Whatever he had on it, double it. I’m not taking any chances.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Richard stood up. He was a wiry little man who stood a full head shorter than Alfred’s six-three. Lord Evans had been short too, but he had possessed a dignity and a grace of which Richard had inherited none. Richard’s eyes were dark, pitiless seeds, his mouth a sour, twisted grey line. Alfred had never liked him even as a child, but it had been June who had spent most of her time with him. She had never liked the boy either, Alfred knew, but unlike Alfred, she had been forced to hide her dislike, smothering him with motherly attention that his own mother had, due to her aristocratic duties, been unable to give.

‘You’ve served my family a long time, haven’t you, Lammonby?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Can’t he say anything else?’ the tart on the sofa said suddenly, leaning backwards on the chair, exposing a white triangle of cleavage. ‘Yes, sir, no, sir, three bags full, sir?’

Alfred chose to say nothing.

‘My father considered you a confidante, and a friend?’

‘Yes, sir.’

Richard leaned close. Alfred smelled whisky. Richard’s breath tickled his ear.

‘Don’t fuck this up,’ he whispered. ‘This could be it, Lammonby. The great disaster my father foretold. I’m counting on you. You won’t let me down, will you?’

‘No.’

‘Good. Now get on with it. I want the bunker prepared by the end of tomorrow.’

‘At least let Lilian and I help you,’ June said, as Alfred reached for another box of canned goods, wincing as his back screamed at him. Nine loads so far, and he was feeling every step. He had tripped on a root last time, almost dropping the box. He had a dozen more to do, and that was just to stock the larder. Sooner or later he would stumble again, but an order was an order.

‘No,’ Alfred said, shaking his head. ‘You have your duties. I can’t burden you. This is my task.’

‘He’s gone too far this time. I mean, he won’t even let you use the truck.’

‘The master said that if something bad is going down, we need to save petrol. He gave me the trolley.’

‘But the wheel has a puncture. You know what he’s doing, Alfred. Don’t pretend that you don’t.’

‘I have my duties.’

June grabbed his arm as he tried to pull away, and as he looked back into her defiant face, he wondered if his love for her had ever burned so bright. She was every day of seventy now, but to Alfred she looked as lovely as she had on their wedding day, forty-seven years ago.

‘You know what that little so-and-so is doing. He’s trying to—’

‘I know exactly what he’s doing,’ Alfred hissed. ‘But I’d rather he broke me than you or Lilian. He thinks he can run me into the ground, but I’m made of sterner stuff than that.’

Shaking her head, June sighed. ‘You were,’ she said.

Had it been a summer house perhaps, or a potting shed, or anything other than what it was, the bunker could have been pleasant, idyllic even, set in a grassy, shady grove of mature trees at the far end of the house gardens. All that was visible above ground was a dome of concrete with a heavy steel door set into one side which opened inwards to reveal a steep set of concrete stairs leading down into darkness. Down the stairs was a short, low corridor, designed to keep potential assailants in single file, which led to another door, thicker than the one above and designed to be blast proof. To the best of his knowledge, Lord Evans had never done a practical test on the door’s impregnability, but it hurt like anything to haul open each time, and was almost as difficult to close.

Inside the door, which could be bolted from the inside, was a small lobby room designed as a decoy. There was everything one might expect of a bunker here, a small kitchen, a shower unit and toilet with a plumbing system that exited near a pond two hundred metres away in a lower section of the gardens. There was a fold-down bed, and a desk. The walls were concrete, but the floor lined with tiles.

Through a hatch in the kitchen floor, however, was what appeared to be a small underfloor larder. This however, slid on rails to the side, revealing a second hatch, and beneath this a ladder.

Alfred hated this section. Not only because it was hell on his shoulders and back to climb down, carrying a few cans at a time, but because he was now nearly ten metres under the ground and hated every second of it. Even when he reached the bottom and opened a door onto a spacious living section with a second, larger set of everything above and with beds for up to five people, he hated what it represented. The walls had been painted, but they were still concrete, and an air filter in the ceiling was the only thing between them and suffocation. It looked good on the surface, but on the literal underneath it was a place for desperate measures, somewhere to hole up while the world went to hell.

Alfred remembered when Lord Evans had ordered it built, nearly thirty years ago, when Richard had been just a child. For nearly six months construction crews had worked solely at night, excavating the land and laying down the bunker, equipping it with everything Lord Evans had considered necessary at the time. For decades, Alfred had been required to give it a once monthly clean, dusting everything down, making sure the filters worked, the toilets flushed, and the taps ran clear. After the lord’s death, Richard had ordered all activities to cease, so now, after five years of inattention, the bunker was stuffy and dirty, the air filters coated in dust.

Climbing down, Alfred placed the cans he had brought on a shelf and inspected the bunker’s components.

Nothing seemed amiss. It was a little grimy, but the filters appeared to be working. The water from the taps ran clear, and the lights all switched on. The electricity system was connected to the house, which now ran on more recently installed solar panels. There were plenty of spare bulbs, and the fridge, which he would soon start to fill, was cool.

As a man of duty, the events in the outside world were none of his concern, but he had to admit, that the master’s sudden request had left him a little spooked. In one corner of the bunker was a television—a modern replacement of the old box that had stood here until a year prior to Lord Evans’s death—and Alfred found himself reaching for the remote in a bracket on the wall. He needed to check that it worked, after all.

The first couple of channels he flicked over were the usual filler—varieties, game shows, reality this and that—which June enjoyed on an evening off. Alfred was a man of books, and classics at that; little written in the last fifty years held much interest for him, not when there were so many of his own contemporaries he was yet to read.

The next channel was a news loop. A middle-aged reporter wearing a construction site hard hat stood in front of a building on flames in the background, although it looked slightly off kilter, as though it were a superimposition.

‘The government is advising everyone north of Birmingham to stay at home,’ the reporter said. ‘We will bring you updates when we have them of the nature of the outbreak. At the moment, very little is known. It is thought that the attack is of a biological nature….’

Alfred changed the channel. A couple more of fluff, shopping, commercials. Then another news station, a local one.

‘We are evacuating,’ a young female reporter said into the camera. ‘It’s possible that soon we will be forced to go off the air, but stay tuned to our social channels for text updates.’

A sudden explosion came from somewhere in the background, and for a moment everything shuddered. Alfred expected the station to go off the air, but the woman’s face reappeared, leaning close to the camera. ‘We’re hearing there might be a breach,’ she hissed. ‘We’re unsure what kind. I advise you to take shelter, and to stay at home until you hear further instructions. Stay safe—’

The connection broke. Alfred sighed. He flicked past a couple more shopping channels and a black and white film, then switched the television off.

At least he knew it worked.

He replaced the remote in the bracket and headed for the ladder. It would soon be dark, and he had several more loads to do.

Whatever was going on, he felt that following the second reporter’s advice would be for the best. They were safe here on the grounds of the house, and it wouldn’t do to panic.

Richard had taken away June’s television a month ago, claiming that it was a distraction from her work. Since then she had spent most of her free time listening to old records on a record player in their quarters.

He didn’t really know what he could tell her, not yet.

It was best to carry on as normal, for now.

4

Hilltop

One minute the class were enjoying a picnic beside the stone circle at the top of the Clent Hills, and the next, the pat-pat-pat of multiple explosions came popping out of Birmingham city centre as though someone had dropped a giant firecracker. Columns of smoke rose from a dozen burning high-rises as more explosions sounded. The ground shook beneath their feet.

Claire Hopgood, form teacher for Lower Sixth Class 2, had spent much of her adult life watching horror stories on the news, and sometimes, over a glass or two of wine, had absently wondered how she might react if such a disaster ever befell her: would she run screaming for cover, or stoically and heroically start marshalling and barking orders?

They did fire drills at school, of course. And when the prearranged time for the alarm to sound had come, Claire had carried out her duties like the rest, summoning the lacklustre enthusiasm to blow the whistle at the right time, to order her class out into the corridor, to lead them gamefully to pseudo-safety.

On the day when the world truly went to hell, though, at first she could do nothing. She stared dumbly at the distant puffs of smoke, felt the bangs—so, so much louder than they ever sounded on the television—ripple through her, and she stayed silent, even as the black dots of helicopters flew over the city, the staccato rhythms and the flashes of gunfire seemingly everywhere. Even as some of her pupils began to scream or duck down behind the standing stones, she simply stood still, useless and immobile, as the city in which she had grown up began to disintegrate.

It was actually Pauly, the driver from Don Jones Coaches who reacted first. Claire felt a tug on her sleeve, and when she could bring herself to turn, she found Pauly standing there, his face ashen, breathing hard from having hurried up the hill from the car park.

‘I heard those explosions,’ he puffed. ‘Do you think we should head back to the bus?’

Claire could only nod. Then, as though broken out of a trance, a rush of adrenaline flooded through her and she found herself galvanised into action.

‘Get back to the bus!’ she shouted. ‘Quickly! Duck your heads!’

It sounded stupid with the explosions still so far away, fifteen miles as the crow flew, but what if it was just the precursor to worse? It was forty minutes by coach, but a helicopter could cover the distance in a fraction of that. Worse of all, though, was that Claire had no idea who was on who’s side, who or what the explosions were aimed at, and who the helicopters were here to either massacre or save.

But there was safety with cover, and cover meant the electric bus in which they had come on today’s history school trip.

Panic did crazy things to people, however, Claire was quickly finding out. Some kids had run for the trees, others still cowered behind the stones, while more—a stupidly high number, she thought—had actually walked in the direction of the explosions, craning their necks to see more.

‘Miss, can you see those dots?’ Danny Rainer said, pulling a phone out of his bag, pressing it to his lips and issuing a command for the camera function. A phone that was banned on school trips, not that it probably mattered now, Claire thought.

‘Danny, I trust you. Go and bring Daisy, Ishy and Mick back here. We need to get back to the bus.’

Get back to the bus. It was a mantra to hold on to, one that gave her a modicum of comfort when she sensed she would soon have none. She thought of her house on Siding Street in Birmingham’s south, her terrier Reggie who would be panicking by now, probably peeing on the carpet in the hall. How close was Siding Street to the explosions? She thought they were too far north, but more were coming now, spread out, pops and bangs and more columns of smoke.

And then something let out a sound that Claire knew in that moment that she would remember for however long she lived. Something preternatural, something both haunting and awe-inspiring at the same time: the shriek of some kind of bird, an animal with lungs more powerful than any known. Something that couldn’t, shouldn’t exist.

She had heard the rumours, of course. Everyone had. But she had no more believed it than she did any other hairbrained conspiracy theory. And even if scientists were making crazy shit in labs, it wouldn’t get far if it ever got out. The kind of things she was reading about weren’t invisible little things like viruses, they were big, monstrous things that ripped and tore, and this world no longer belonged to them. They wouldn’t last five minutes among humanity.

And yet the dots that Danny Rainer was pointing at, soaring high above Birmingham city centre, fitted what descriptions she had heard. And they were, to her horror, coming closer.

‘Miss, Miss, are they birds? What kind are they?’

‘Danny, I told you, go and get Daisy and the others. They’ve gone too far down that slope. It’s dangerous—’

Someone began to scream. Claire spun around, almost tripping over a protruding root, sticking out a hand to touch one of the standing stones to give herself balance.

It felt so ancient, so powerful, so secure. She wished she could hold on to it forever, let its solidity comfort her, but two girls were standing up on a bench, one with a pair of binoculars held to her eyes, the other screaming at her, trying to snatch the binoculars away even while being fended off.

‘Lisa! Connie! Get down!’ Claire shouted, but her authority meant nothing now the world was collapsing in on itself. She might as well no longer exist.

Lisa Margate, the girl with the binoculars, pulled them away from her eyes and got down from the bench. Her face was ashen, her mouth agape. She dropped the binoculars with a hard thump which sent the other girl, Connie Hart, into a frenzy, scrabbling in the dirt to retrieve the binoculars. As she held them up, Connie cried, ‘You’ve broken one of the lenses, you stupid fucking bitch!’

‘Connie!’ Claire shouted, increasingly aware of her ineffectiveness. Lisa had fallen to her knees, her skirt tearing on a corner of the bench. She lifted her hands as though she meant to cover her eyes, then just flapped them in the air around her face while shaking her head slowly back and forth.

Eighteen kids. Eighteen sets of parents she would have to answer to if she didn’t get them back on the bus. Most of them were harmless, but Connie Hart’s dad was a rich, arrogant wanker. Getting on his wrong side was not-a-good-thing.

It was the focus Claire needed to galvanise herself. Ignoring the dots on the horizon that moved like birds and were slowly approaching, she began to run back and forth across the hill’s crest, waving kids back towards the car park, summoning reserves of authoritative anger she hadn’t thought she possessed until now.

And they started to listen. Most, at any rate.

Danny had managed to get Ishy and Daisy back to the bus. Connie was still berating Lisa, pushing her in the chest and making her cry, but both were backing up towards Pauly, who was standing at the top of the path back down. Jenny Coates and Tim Parkson, the alpha couple everyone knew were sleeping together, had reemerged from an overgrown area a little way down the slope. Tim fixed his belt as he ran, Jenny pulling at his arm.

Where was Mick Williams? The idiot kid who had scrapped into the Sixth Form with two Ds and a sob story at the interview with the headmaster had been with Daisy and Ishy but had disappeared. Claire thumped the side of her thigh. She would leave him behind if she had her choice. Since getting into the Sixth Form by the skin of his dirty teeth, he’d done nothing other than be a total pain in the arse. He’d survived two behaviour warnings and if he didn’t get back to the bus in five fucking seconds he’d get another—

‘Miss? Miss?’

Danny Rainer stood behind her. Claire shook her head. ‘What?’

‘Those aren’t birds, Miss.’

Claire had the children to consider. Bombs, helicopters, those things scared her, but she could make sense of them. Flying things that were not birds, she couldn’t.

‘Danny, please get on the bus.’

‘Miss, look. Please, Miss. Like, I know what they are. I saw something on Flip-Chat—’

I can’t look, Claire wanted to say. If I look I’ll lose my mind, and I just found it. I can’t look.

‘Miss, we have to go.’

Danny reached for her arm then pulled back as though breaking some unspoken code. He shook his head, then backed up, turned, and ran.

Claire turned, cupping her hands over her mouth to holler for Mick, but no sound would come. Something massive swooped out of the sky, dropping into the bushes just beyond the crest of the hill. Claire knew what it looked like, what it could be, but couldn’t process its existence in this world. This was her world, damn it. This creature’s world was gone, in the past, and yet here it was, dark, forest green, covered in the tufty beginnings of feathers over scaly skin, the size of a glider, the backdraft from its wings so powerful Claire staggered back, finding one of the standing stones behind her, cold against her back. Her hands shook so badly she could barely control them, and her heart felt set to explode out of her throat. She stared at the bushes as a muted scream reached her, and she didn’t think that Mick, wherever he had gone, was coming back.

‘The bus,’ she gasped, as the bushes shook. ‘Get to the bus….’

If any other members of her class were still outside, then they would have to fend for themselves. As a dark shadow momentarily passed over her, and then the sky above filled with something massive and dark that she dared not look up at, she understood that the world had flipped on its head. The role of teacher as it had once been was now obsolete, and if she were lucky enough to see the dawn of another day, nothing would be as it had been yesterday, and wouldn’t ever be again.