Eighteen

Two nights later, and there is a noise outside. I was lying awake anyway, almost dozing, but the noise brings me fully awake. I listen, straining my ears to catch the smallest sound. Lisa comes awake as well and turns to me, mouthing a question. I put a finger to my lips, get up, grab the gun and go to investigate.

Edging close to the door I peer into the car park. The shape of our car glows palely in the moonlight. A fuel tanker sits abandoned by the pumps. The motorway stretches off into the distance beyond it and . . . there. A tall, dark, inhuman shape. It moves. Taller than a person and lithe and bladed. The stink of Creature washes over me.

Panic. Sheer, unbridled panic. I feel like I’m having a heart attack, like the air I’m breathing in is not actually reaching my lungs. I run back through the station to Lisa, who has got up and is listening, face pale and eyes wide.

“We have to go,” I whisper.

“Now?”

“Yes. There’s one outside, by the car. We’ll have to go on foot.” This is it, I’m sure. We are about to die. My time has come, finally, after all those months. And under the panic I feel a kind of sadness, that we should have come all this way, survived all this time, only to die like everyone else.

I help Lisa through the darkened station, into the kitchens and out through a side door. The world outside is cold and sodden with dew. I strain to listen again, peering off into the dark, but I cannot see any movement. Is it still there in the car park? Has it sensed us yet?

We take off, scrambling up a slight bank, and then down the other side into some fields. Ploughed earth stretches off ahead of us. There is a wire fence, which we run into without even seeing. I step over, then help Lisa. We set off across the field, blind, tripping through divots and ruts. I take out the gun, squeeze it so hard the grip marks my hand.

We walk about a mile before we stop. Before I stop, because I can’t catch the breath to walk any further. I crouch down, the gun loose now in my hand. I’m shaking so much that I almost drop it. Shaking and shivering, the adrenaline gone cold inside me. Lisa kneels down awkwardly on the ground and holds my shoulders.

“We have to keep moving,” she says gently. I nod. She takes my hand and leads me off.