Chapter 1
Freddie rubbed another handful of dirt across his face and willed his heart to slow its rapid beat. Trapped in a crouch behind a massive clump of pampas grass overhung by the bare branches of an apple tree, he took slow breaths. Traitorous chickens clucked close by, pecking at the deeply scratted soil where Old Mrs. Belasis’ prized lawn had once grown. ‘They’ll know I’m here’, he wanted to shout at the gaggle of chickens, ‘Get lost!’ Instead, he remained still, barely daring to breath as several hens, staring with beady and expectant eyes, sidled up to him. He stared back, willing them to shoo.
Being out when the sun had passed its highest point was cutting it close, a mistake he knew better than to make, but gnawing hunger had pushed him to the limits of endurance. Curiosity, once the first eggs had been swallowed and dulled the pain, had slowed his progress back home.
He cursed the wheedling buzz as it returned from the far side of the forest and began to grow loud. The noise, absent since the last snowfall, had distracted him. What did it mean that it was back?
Rescue?
Don’t be stupid!
A reccy?
Could be.
Another cull? His bowels grew watery.
The wheedling buzz of the drones hadn’t been here since the snow had blown into sloping banks waist high against the village doors. He’d thought he and Hayley wouldn’t make it that year, but they had. The cold had bit deep, the hunger deeper, and he had almost been tempted to fill a hearth with kindling, light a fire, and wait for them. Almost.
Over the years, time had blended, and he no longer thought in terms of days and months. In a world devoid of calendars, clocks, and watches, the passage of manmade time became irrelevant and now only the rising and setting of the sun, and the seasons’ change from bone-chilling winter to skin-burning summer, measured his days.
At the beginning, when they were still numb from the horrors that had unfolded, neither of them had thought to mark off their days of captivity. There were no scratched five bar gates on the cabin’s wooden walls, no scribbled diary of proceedings as their lives had been whittled away in fright, then despair, then bowel-gnawing hunger. Instead, reference to the past was based on memories such as ‘when the water level dropped to the drought stone’ or, even more terrifyingly, ‘when the lake froze over’. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday became ‘a few days ago’ or ‘in a few days’ with the hours of the day measured by the brightness and height of the sun. Once the knicker-shitting phase of survival had passed, Hayley had nagged him to fetch a clock from home, but the battery had long since died and they’d both agreed that an expedition into the village to find more wasn’t worth the risk; there was little point in the telling of hourly time when only the sun’s position in the sky held meaningful knowledge.
The wheedling buzz grew louder as Freddie cupped a handful of soil to his lips and rubbed it across his mouth. As an added precaution, he took some of the rich and loamy earth on his tongue to dilute his breath. Above the canopy, black against the midday sun, a drone hovered whilst at the front of the house, claws tacked across the tarmac.
Coming here at this time of day had been a mistake. If he made another, it could be his last.
Freddie lay still, willing his heart to slow its rapid beat.
Could they sense it? Could they feel the vibration of his life’s force as it beat out its staccato of fear?
Yes! the vortex of panic that welled deep in his belly wanted to scream.
He took a slow, smooth breath before easing it out.
Don’t panic!
The tacking of claws on tarmac at the front of the house was joined by a low growl as the wheedling buzz of the drone grew loud.
He imagined the scene: the enormous beast, spit-covered fangs revealed in a snarl, searching the sky for the buzzing intruder, swatting at it with taloned hands as it swooped down, growling its frustration as it missed.
In the early days, when ‘they’ had still been interested in watching, before the culls had begun, one of the drones had been downed and Freddie had retrieved it, quickly pulling at the wires to disable the camera. Even at that early point, he knew that to stay alive he had to hide from ‘them’ too. The drone had confirmed his suspicions. Titan Blane Industries had been printed on the underside of the drone. Titan Blane Industries, the outfit rumoured to have provided security at the dodgy research facility, Kielder Institute, where he now suspected the first creatures had escaped from.
Since the shit had hit the fan, he and Hayley had spent hours talking about what had happened and how their peaceful and sleepy village full of doddery old pensioners in the winter and tree-hugging, forest walking tourists during the summer, had become the hunting ground for a pack of man-eating monsters.
Say it like it is, Freddie.
Werewolves.
Even now, after all these years, it sounded ridiculous. Okay, they weren’t your usual common and garden werewolf; a man morphing into a wolfman as the clock struck twelve and the moon grew full, but they were some sort of chimeric, fucked up, bio-engineered, manmade, man-wolf combo.
Neighbours.
Friends.
Jesus, help me!
Memories of those first blood and gore-soaked days as the villagers were either torn apart or bitten and infected with whatever godforsaken virus was turning men into monsters flooded back.
Freddie shivered, the fetid stench of the memory and its fear still clinging.
He and Hayley had survived the night and, when daylight came, decided to check on Guy, Tanya, and the twins. Like them, they’d decided that staying home was safer than joining the convoy of villagers as they made a desperate effort to escape.
The house had been quiet.
There had been signs of struggle.
Noise came from upstairs.
Freddie and Hayley had climbed the stairs to investigate. Bedroom 1 had contained Eric, a small mound of tan and white fur curled up on the bed, the family’s shitty Jackshit designer dog. Another fucked up crossbreed.
As Freddie had opened the door into the dingey room, the dog had looked up and stared at Freddie with blood-red eyes. Out of its mind even before being bitten, it had snarled then bounded from the bed like a hell hound—all red eyes and snapping jaws. The dog’s body thudded against the door as Freddie quickly pulled it shut.
“A fucking weredog! You’ve got to be kidding me,’ Freddie had hissed as Eric’s frenzied scratching had made the door rattle.
A deep snore from another bedroom had broken through the dog’s snarling. Guy! He snored like a drain, Freddie had remembered. He held a finger to his lips to quiet Hayley then leant into the door to listen. Grasping the handle, he had given the door a polite, but barely audible tap, and opened it without waiting for a response. The view into the bedroom slowly widened. Hayley pushed up against Freddie to get a clear view, and gasped. Freddie’s hands trembled.
Unlit by the morning sun, the bedroom had been darker than the previous one, and the stench of human sweat and breath was muggy in its warmth. The bed was empty, but on the floor, curled in a tangle of legs and arms lay four bodies. Dread-filled, Freddie had watched in deathly stillness as he took in the scene. All four were fully clothed: the twin boys in pyjamas, Guy and Tanya in their usual jeans and tops. Guy’s shoulder was blood-stained and huge rents had been torn in Tanya’s top. Bite marks were gouged into the woman’s neck. The scene was bizarre and the smell in the room clung to his nostrils.
Rats in a lair!
A chicken pecked close to Freddie’s hand then pulled at a worm, squeezing the tubular body flat in its beak.
Unable to take his eyes off the sleeping forms, Freddie had checked each one of the family in turn, watching the rise and fall of their ribcages as they inhaled and exhaled. One of the boys shifted. Hayley tugged at Freddie’s arm. ‘Come on,’ she had said, ‘before they wake up.’ Before they wake up, he’d thought, like Eric had woken up. A twin moved. The other began to murmur. Tanya awoke and gave a mewling growl. The twins unfurled, pushing themselves up to stare.
Another chicken pecked at the space between Freddie’s splayed fingers.
In the room, three pairs of blood-filled eyes held him in their stare. Tanya had snarled. Guy’s eyes had flicked open. Hayley had screamed and Freddie slammed the door shut just as Guy jumped to his feet and launched himself across the room.
‘Run!’
A chicken pecked at Freddie’s finger, rousing him from long-buried memories, and he realised that the irritating buzz of the drone was now distant and that the clicking of claws on the tarmac had stopped.
The silence was more terrifying than the noise.