was sitting in the snow, staring at nothing, her head shaking ever so slightly left to right. She’d discovered she wasn’t real, that every memory she had was false. She was “a tool”, my dad had said. A tool my terrified mind had created to save me from Mr Mumbles. With just a few choice words, he’d shown her that her entire life was a lie.
I stood over her, no idea what to say. What could I say? How could you help someone who didn’t really exist? In the end, I said the only thing that came into my head.
‘Hey.’
She blinked, as if wakening from a dream. Her head stopped shaking and tilted just a little. Her dark eyes peered up at me from behind a curtain of darker hair. She breathed out a cloud of misty white vapour.
‘Hey.’
‘You OK?’
She shook her head again. ‘Not great. You?’
I shrugged. There was a throbbing in my jaw where my dad had kicked me. Another addition to go along with all the other aches and pains throughout my body. ‘Been better.’
A piercing scream came from the direction of the police station. The screechers – the zombie-like things that had once been the people from my village – had been driven back by the battle of the Beasts. Now they emerged cautiously from streets and alleyways on all sides, their black eyes gazing hungrily upon us.
‘Screechers,’ Billy whispered.
‘I know,’ I said. ‘I see them.’
They were at various stages of mutation. At first we’d thought they were all just zombies. Then we’d discovered that this was just the first stage in a transformation that would eventually see them become like the Beast itself.
Some of those that moved to surround us now were still shuffling on two legs. Others crawled through the snow, their shapes barely recognisable as human.
‘What do we do?’ Billy asked.
‘I don’t know.’
I could feel Billy glaring at me. ‘You don’t know? What do you mean you don’t know?’
‘I don’t know, Billy.’ I squeezed the bridge of my nose, trying to ease the headache that spread out from there. ‘It’s been a bit of a rough day.’
‘Well, it’s going to get rougher if we don’t do something,’ he pointed out. He looked around at the screechers. They were still approaching slowly, eyeing the fallen Beast, not yet realising it was dead. The moment they did, there would be nothing to hold them back.
I turned to Billy. ‘And what should we do?’ I asked him. ‘Because I’m open to suggestions here.’
‘We run,’ Billy said. ‘We can run.’
‘Run where, exactly?’
‘The church,’ he said quickly. ‘We can hide in the church.’
I shook my head. ‘No, we can’t. It’s full of screechers. They’d—
Billy pushed past me, panic flashing across his face. He made a dive for Ameena, but she was too fast. I turned to see her sprinting away, running straight for the closest group of screechers.
‘Ameena, stop!’ I cried, but she didn’t slow. The screechers ahead of her began lumbering more quickly, teeth gnashing as they staggered forward to intercept her.
‘What’s she doing?’ he asked. ‘Is she trying to get herself killed or something?’
The realisation hit like a hammer blow. ‘Oh, God,’ I whispered. ‘She is. That’s exactly what she’s trying to do.’
Taking their cue from the others, the rest of the screechers began to pick up the pace. Their screams and howls filled the air as they began shambling and leaping and bounding towards us and towards Ameena.
I heard Billy whimper. ‘We’re going to die. We’re going to die!’
‘We can’t die,’ I said. ‘If we die, then he gets away with it. He gets away with killing my mum.’
A jolt of electricity buzzed through my scalp. I knew that using my abilities was playing right into my dad’s hands, but what choice did I have? If I died, he got away with it.
And there was no way he was getting away with it.
I closed my eyes. The blue sparks I saw whenever I used my abilities shimmered behind my eyelids as I raised both hands and let my imagination take over.
There was a whumpf as a circle of snow swirled up into a blizzard around us. It hit the screechers like a solid wall, battering them back, buying us some time.
Ameena stopped running. She didn’t turn to look at us, just sank down on to her knees and stared straight ahead. I set off towards her, pulling Billy behind me.
‘Come on, help me get her,’ I said. ‘We’ll take her to the church.’
‘I thought you said it was full of screechers?’
‘It is,’ I said, and the sparks flickered behind my eyes. ‘But leave that to me.’
We ran for the church, Ameena held between us. She stumbled along, keeping pace, but I knew if we let go of her she’d stop and fall.
The screechers were on the move again, thundering through the snow after us. Billy and I dragged Ameena up the stone steps and in through the heavy double doors. We fell inside and I closed the doors again with a slam.
We could hear the screams and the howls of the screechers inside the church. I nudged open the inner door that led through to the top of the aisle. The screams were coming from the little side room behind the pulpit, where I’d led the screechers when they were chasing me down.
‘Wait here,’ I said. Ignoring Billy’s protests, I stepped into the main church and made my way towards the pulpit. A towering statue of Jesus on the cross stood by the entrance to the side room. I spared it just a glance as I strode closer to the open door.
Halfway down the aisle I stopped. ‘Hey!’ I shouted, and my voice bounced back at me from the high ceiling. The screeches within the side room changed in tone. I heard a frantic clattering, and through they came.
They had entered the church mostly human, but now they were mostly beast. Two or three still stood upright, but their backs were bent and their shoulders were stooped, and jagged outcrops of bone tore up through their thickening skin.
Half a dozen more were on all fours, their bodies twisted and buckled, their limbs and necks broadening and stretching almost before my eyes.
There were no lingering hungry glares from any of them this time. They had no reason to hold back. They collided with each other in their hurry to get to me, and in a split second, the fastest and strongest was hurtling along the aisle towards me.
It had been a man, I guessed, although I couldn’t say why. There was something vaguely male about the scraps of humanity it had left, but then that may just have been my imagination.
It bounded like a big cat along the aisle, its glossy black eyes trained on my throat. It wanted to kill me, this thing. It wanted to open my neck, spill my blood across the floor. It wanted me dead.
But I could not die. If I died, he got away with it.
I raised a hand, felt the sparks flash. When I clenched my fist, something inside the screecher went krik. Blood burst on its lips as it let out a pained yelp. The next bound was its last. It slid to a stop at my feet, and it didn’t move again.
My eyes raised to the next screecher. It didn’t hesitate as it closed in for