FIVE
Trystan Thomas spooned Horlicks into his mug, added a little milk and stirred vigorously. He glanced at the cooker, where more milk was heating up in a small pan for Sarah's hot chocolate. His wife hated Horlicks with a passion. She said it smelled like 'the Devil's vomit'. She always insisted Trys brush his teeth immediately after drinking it. In fact, she maintained that if it came to a choice between kissing a dog's bottom or her husband's Horlicksy mouth, she'd go for the dog every time.
They had been up watching a Tom Cruise movie, and now Sarah had hauled her bulk upstairs and was getting ready for bed. Trys still found it hard to get his head round the fact that in a matter of days they'd have a new addition to their household, a tiny human being who would be linked to them for the rest of their lives.
How many more nights would they spend in this house as a 'couple', Trys wondered. How much longer until they officially became a 'family'? And until he officially became a 'dad'?
Sometimes the thought frightened him. Sometimes he'd lie in bed, staring at the ceiling, with Sarah moving restlessly beside him, and he'd feel utterly overwhelmed. He'd feel too young to be a dad, not much more than a kid himself. How would he cope? What would he do? At those times he would get an overwhelming sense both of life rushing onwards, and of a door – the door leading back to his own youth and freedom – slamming firmly shut behind him.
But then in the morning, in the daylight, he would look at his beautiful pregnant wife, at the woman he loved, who had their baby growing inside her, and he would feel that surge of joy all over again, that sense of wonder and excitement.
The kettle and the milk boiled at the same time. Trys tipped the steaming milk into Sarah's favourite mug and added two big spoonfuls of instant hot chocolate. He was stirring it in when he heard his wife call his name. No, not call – shout. It was only one syllable, but Trys heard the urgency in it, the trace of panic.
He threw the spoon into the sink, and was out of the kitchen before it had even stopped clattering. Their house was small, two up, two down, with a narrow hallway. He bounded up the stairs two, three at a time, and burst into the bedroom, panting.
'What's up?'
Sarah was sitting on the edge of the bed with her nightie on and a look of alarm on her face. She was not conventionally attractive – her nose was a little too big, her eyes slightly too deep-set – but to Trys she was fascinating and unusual, and therefore twice as gorgeous as all those boringly pretty girls with their dyed hair and regular features.
'My waters have broken,' she said. 'It's starting, Trys.'
He noticed that the bed was wet, that there was a puddle on the carpet between her bare feet. 'Oh hell.'
'Phone Rianne,' instructed Sarah. 'Tell her we'll meet her at the hospital. My bag's in the hall. I just need you to help me get changed and get downstairs.'
'Course,' Trys said. He raised his hands, as if indicating she should stay put. 'Back in a minute.'
He ran downstairs, snatched up the telephone and punched in the mobile number of their midwife, Rianne Kilkenny, reading it from the post-it note that had been stuck to the wall for the past two weeks.
His mind was racing, thoughts tumbling over one another. Now that it had actually started, he couldn't quite believe it was happening. He thought of the abandoned mugs in the kitchen, one containing hot chocolate, the other a smooth paste of Horlicks powder and milk, and he thought to himself, Next time I see those mugs, I'll be a dad. It was amazing, incredible. He started to grin. He was still grinning when Rianne's gentle Irish voice said, 'Hello?'
***
Rianne switched her phone off and sighed – not that she really minded having to wait for the Thomases. It was simply that it had already been a very long day. One of her other 'ladies' (she preferred calling them that to 'patients' – it wasn't as if they were ill, after all) had just successfully given birth to a baby girl after a twenty-two-hour labour, and Rianne had been looking forward to going home and getting her head down for a while.
But that was part of her job. An occupational hazard. She could never predict exactly when her ladies' little darlings would choose to make their way into the world. Rianne might have two ladies whose dates were a month apart, but if one went into labour two weeks late and the other two weeks early, she might suddenly find she had twice the workload she was expecting – but also twice the joy and satisfaction as well.
She had been in Reception, heading towards the automatic glass doors that formed the hospital's main entrance, when the call had come in from Trystan Thomas. Now she might as well turn round and go straight back upstairs again – though she decided to get herself a bar of fruit and nut from the vending machine first. She deserved a treat.
Turning, she caught the eye of a girl slumped in one of the uncomfortable, metal-framed seats in Reception. The girl looked like a student – early twenties, pretty face, long dark hair. The girl smiled vaguely at her and nodded at the phone, which Rianne still held in her hand.
'Everything OK?' she asked.
'What? Oh, yes,' Rianne said. 'I'm just waiting for one of my ladies. She's gone into labour. I thought I might fuel up on chocolate before she arrived.'
'You a midwife, then?'
'I am, yes.' Rianne nodded down at the girl's leg. 'You look as though you've been in the wars.'
The girl was wearing jeans, one leg of which had been rolled up, and a bloodstained bandage wound inexpertly around her calf.
'I was a bit drunk. Put my foot through a plate-glass door. My mates reckoned I might need a few stitches.'
'I see. And where are your mates now?'
The girl gave a wry smile. 'Out clubbing, most probably.' Abruptly she thrust out a hand. 'I'm Nina Rogers.'
'Rianne Kilkenny,' Rianne said, taking the hand and shaking it. 'Well, good luck with the stitches. I'd better. . .' She gestured vaguely towards the vending machine.
'Yeah, you get on,' Nina said. 'Hope all the babies you deliver are healthy ones.'
Rianne smiled and was about to move away when she became aware of some sort of commotion by the main doors. She looked round, and was surprised to see a disparate group of people – some in dressing gowns and slippers over regulation hospital nightwear – hurrying in from outside. These were the smokers, a constant but ever-changing group of patients and visitors, who were forever to be found flocking around the main entrance like carrion crows. Now, however, they were heading back into the hospital en masse, apparently so eager to re-enter the warmth that they were almost tumbling over one another in their haste.
Rianne's first thought was that they must have been caught in a downpour, but when she glanced up at the sky through the glass doors she saw nothing but the same fine drizzle that had prevailed all evening. Then she noticed that many of the patients sitting on the rows of chairs closest to the entrance were slowly rising to their feet and turning their heads to look outside.
'What's going on?' Nina Rogers asked.
Rianne strained to see beyond the increasing number of people who were now bunched around the entrance doors, but their bobbing heads were obstructing her view.
'I've no idea,' she said.
Nina pushed herself awkwardly to her feet. 'Well, let's go and have a look, shall we?'
Rianne hesitated for just a second, then nodded and accompanied a hobbling Nina towards the main entrance. When they reached the crowd clustered around the doors, Nina tapped on the shoulder of a grey-haired woman with a long, heavily lined face. 'Excuse me, do you know what's happening?'
The woman turned. 'It's people,' she replied. 'They're coming from all over, surrounding the building. They reckon it's gangs.'
'Who do?' asked Rianne.
A thickset, bullet-headed man turned to address them. 'They'll be after the drugs,' he said.
'Has someone called the police?' another woman asked, anxiety straining her voice.
'Where's hospital security, that's what I'd like to know,' said a weaselly man with thinning hair and a brown cardigan.
There were further murmurs from the front of the crowd, a ripple of disquiet, like an electrical pulse.
'What's going on now?' Nina wanted to know, trying without success to peer over the heads of the knot of people in front of her.
An old lady with a powder puff of white hair and too much blusher, who was standing in front of the bullet-headed man, said over her shoulder, 'There's something wrong with them. They're not moving right.'
'Not moving right? Whatever do you mean?' Rianne asked. But the woman had turned away again now, and was absorbed in whatever was happening outside.
Rianne touched Nina's arm. 'I'm going upstairs,' she said. 'The windows at the top of the maternity ward overlook the car park. I'll have a better view from there.'
She expected Nina to nod and say goodbye, but instead the girl said firmly, 'I'll come with you.'
'Oh,' said Rianne, so taken aback by Nina's bluntness that instead of discouraging her, she found herself nodding. 'All right then. Come on.'
The two women crossed the foyer to the lifts. The maternity unit was on the fifth floor. They ascended silently and crossed to a set of double doors. As Rianne entered and held the doors open for the limping Nina, Sister Felicity Andrews poked her head out of the nurses' station, a chocolate chunk cookie in her hand.
'Hello, Rianne,' she said pleasantly. 'Forgotten something?'
'Another of my ladies has gone into labour,' Rianne explained briskly. 'She's on her way in.' Before Sister Andrews could comment she added, 'Have you seen what's going on outside?'
'Outside? No, I. . .' Sister Andrews seemed to notice Nina for the first time. 'Who's this?'
Nina stepped forward, hand outstretched. 'Nina Rogers. It's OK, I'm just visiting.'
'Visiting? Well, it's not really—'
'Don't worry, Felicity, she's with me,' Rianne said.
Sister Andrews eyed Nina's bandaged leg doubtfully. 'Well, if you say so. . .'
The maternity unit more closely resembled a hotel suite than a medical facility. It comprised a wide central corridor with birthing rooms on one side and a series of ten-bed wards on the other. It had been designed with comfort and reassurance in mind, the walls and floors painted in soothing colours.
'Ward five is our intensive care unit,' Rianne explained, hurrying towards it. 'It's empty at the moment.'
They entered the room, which was lit by low-level lighting. There were only four beds in here, each enclosed within its own self-contained cubicle. On the wall opposite the door was a row of four waist-high windows. Rianne rushed across to them, her hands slapping the sill as she leaned forward to look outside, Nina trailing in her wake.
The car park in front of the hospital was on several levels and spread over a wide area. Each level was separated by clumps of bushes and young trees, and veined with pedestrian walkways. Usually at this hour there were not many people around; even vehicular traffic was infrequent. Yet tonight, despite the drizzly weather, there was movement everywhere – dozens of dark figures converging on the hospital. With a little chill of dread, Rianne realised that the white-haired old lady downstairs had been right: there was something odd, something wrong, about the way that the people were moving.
They were shuffling, lurching, dragging their feet. It was as though every single one of them was sleep-walking or drugged. Not only that, but many of them seemed to be holding their upper bodies stiffly – their shoulders hunched, their heads tilted at strange angles.
'What's the matter with them?' Nina asked wonderingly.
'I don't—' Rianne began, and then her eyes widened. 'Oh, sweet Jesus. Look there.'
She pointed at a thick clump of bushes directly below, which appeared to be nothing but a mass of black in the selectively illuminated darkness. Seconds earlier, she had seen a pair of arms emerge from the bushes and drag a head and shoulders into view. She had been wondering what was so wrong with the man that he had to crawl along the ground, when he had hauled the rest of himself into the light. She gaped now, unable to comprehend how little of him there was. His body simply stopped above what would have been his waist. He even appeared to be dragging a remnant of spine in his wake like a bony tail.
Rianne felt Nina's hand tighten on her arm. The girl's eyes were as wide as she imagined her own to be.
'That is impossible, isn't it?' she said. 'He can't survive like that, can he?'
'Evidently he can,' Rianne said, and felt the sudden appalling urge to giggle.
More of the shuffling figures were now emerging from the shadows, into the light that was bleeding from the hospital. As they did so, both women were horrified to see that the crawling man was not alone in his affliction. Too many of the figures were dressed in rags; too many were stick-thin; too many were hideously misshapen or lacking limbs.
'What is this?' Nina murmured. 'Amputees' outing?'
'They look like they've been in a battle,' said Rianne. 'The walking wounded.'
The words were barely out of her mouth when twin headlamps swept into the car park entrance behind the shuffling army – a late patient or visitor, Rianne thought. Or perhaps a member of staff about to start the graveyard shift.
The car swept down the curving approach road, as though its driver was in a hurry and unaware of the crowd in his path.
'He's going to hit someone,' Nina said, her hand once again tightening on Rianne's arm.
And then with a screech of brakes the car stopped.
None of the figures had flinched or leaped aside as the vehicle bore down on them. Even now, they didn't move to the side of the road to allow the car through, as any normal person would have done.
The car seemed to pause for a moment, dark and sleek, like a big cat sizing up its prey – and then the driver's door flew open and a man scrambled out. Neither Rianne nor Nina could tell from their vantage point what the man was saying, but it was clear from his body language that he was not happy. He marched towards the three or four figures in the path of his car, waving his arms, head jerking as he shouted. The two women saw a couple of the shuffling figures stumble to a halt, saw them turn clumsily to face the furious man.
Then they saw the man stop dead, his arms dropping to his sides and, even from five floors up, Rianne could have sworn she could see the man's eyes widen in horror and shock.
Next moment the man was running back to his car, and the figures were lurching after him. Rianne felt a leap of fear in her chest for the man's safety, but she told herself that he would surely be fast enough to outrun his shuffling pursuers; that he would surely have time to make it back to his car, shut and lock the door, and reverse to safety before they had covered even half the distance.
Legs rigid, hands gripping the windowsill, she was urging the man to get away when she saw two black figures, as if formed from the darkness, step out of the bushes on either side of him. The figures were between the man and his car. He stopped, momentarily uncertain what to do, where to go. Then he dodged to his left, as if to plunge into the bushes himself, to make his escape that way – and another figure, tall and gangly and skeletal, stepped from the shadowy clump of foliage right into his path, and clawed with twig-spiny fingers at the man's face.
The man hurled himself backwards, pinwheeling his arms, trying desperately to maintain his balance. Rianne rose up on her toes, urging him to stay on his feet; Nina's grip on her arm tightened again, tightened enough to bruise. Both women let out a joint cry of despair as the man lost his struggle, tumbling on to his backside, his head hitting the ground hard. Within seconds the lurching, malformed creatures were on him, rending and tearing and clawing. Nina expelled a shrieking sob and turned away, reaching out instinctively for comfort. She and Rianne clung to each other, shocked and uncomprehending.
It was a long time before either of them could speak.
'A zombie,' Rhys said incredulously. 'A bloody zombie, for Christ's sake!'
'We don't know that's what it was,' Gwen said. 'Let's not jump to conclusions.'
They were in the car, heading through the streets of Grangetown towards Corporation Road. After calling Jack, they had stopped only to get properly dressed and for Gwen to grab some extra ammunition. Now they were on their way to the Hub to liaise with Jack and Ianto.
'Jack's jumping to conclusions,' Rhys pointed out. 'Zombie attack, he said. Zombie attack on Cardiff. Sounds like a computer game.'
Gwen smiled. 'Jack likes to be dramatic.'
'Jesus!' Rhys exclaimed as a police car suddenly rocketed past them, siren screaming and lights going like crazy. Their own Saab rocked slightly in the slipstream. 'Wonder where he's going in such a hurry.'
Before Gwen could reply, her phone rang. She answered it on the second ring. 'Jack?'
She listened for a moment, frowned in puzzlement, and then shot a glance at Rhys. 'Andy, what are you—' Rhys grinned wickedly. 'Not still mooning after you, is he?' he said, loudly enough to be overheard.
Still frowning, Gwen put a hand on Rhys's arm and gave a little shake of the head. Rhys could tell from her expression that whatever Andy was telling her was serious.
'You're joking me,' she said. And, 'Oh my God.' And, 'OK, Andy, thanks. . . No, you get her to hospital. . . I'm on my way to meet them now, as a matter of fact. . . Yeah, see you.'
She pocketed the phone and puffed out her cheeks, as though exhaling a long-held breath.
'What?' Rhys asked.
'It's everywhere,' she said, and there was a hushed tone to her voice which chilled Rhys to the core. She told him what Andy had told her – about zombies attacking a group of partygoers in Gabalfa, about how his partner had been bitten and was bleeding badly. 'This is mad,' she said. 'It's just. . . mad.'
'Madder than aliens?' Rhys said.
'Yes!' she snapped, as though affronted by the sheer outrageousness of what was happening. 'Aliens I can understand, but zombies? It doesn't make sense.'
Rhys was about to reply when his unspoken words were superseded by an ear-splitting howl of brakes and a shockingly loud crash from somewhere ahead. He reacted as though a pedestrian had stepped out in front of the car, hunching his shoulders and stamping on the brakes, arms rigid as he clenched the steering wheel.
'What the hell was that?' he said.
'Car crash?' suggested Gwen.
'Sounded like a bloody building falling down.'
'Let's check it out, shall we?'
He gave a short nod, put the car into gear and eased it forward.
'I think it came from up there,' Gwen said, pointing at the right turn into Bradford Street.
Rhys nodded again and turned into the road that Gwen had indicated.
'Oh my God,' she breathed.
Less than ten metres ahead of them, the police car that had gone screaming past a few minutes earlier was embedded in the now-demolished garden wall of a suburban house. Judging by the thick black skid-marks on the road, visible in the light of the Saab's headlamps, the car had swerved out of control, mounted the pavement and smashed at some speed into the waist-high stone barrier. However it was wasn't the crumpled car, nor even the sight of its two unconscious, bloodstained occupants, that was responsible for Gwen's shocked exhalation.
The street was swarming with zombies. Dozens of them shuffled and lurched in apparently random directions. Though even as Gwen and Rhys gaped in horror and disbelief, the undead began to turn as one, to converge with slow and remorseless purpose on the wrecked car and its stricken occupants.