The last two jumped for it, gave him sporting shots as they ran and slipped on the ice. He missed for the first time, broke a leg at the second attempt, scored a direct head shot on the fifth one.

Four dead, one flaying about. He climbed back in the Land Rover, edged it forward in low-ratio. He aimed the offside front wheel for the head, felt it crunch and split, bumped over the trunk with the back tyres, split the abdomen like a squashed haggis.

Half a mile further on he saw the big wood, knew there would be some of them in there but he would have to leave the Land Rover and go on foot, hoped he had the strength to clamber over those huge drifts. The fuckers would be in that wood all right.

Only his obsession kept him going. He was breathing heavily, spitting blood all the time, and his heart was trying to hammer its way out of his body. It took him nearly half an hour to make it to the wood.

Huge trees, mostly oaks, a few dead leaves still clinging stubbornly to their branches. Rhododendrons were virtually the only cover; that was where he would find the bastards skulking, flush them out as if he was hunting rabbits for sport. It was sport.

It was the blood that gave them away, thick dark lung-blood, a trail of it leading up to a dense patch of bushes, maybe fifty metres square. Reitze leaned up against the trunk of an oak, the rifle resting in the crook of his arm. They were in there, all right, skulking like the animals they were. Getting them out was the only problem . . .

He thought about it; thinking didn't come easy these days. He found the Camel packet in his pocket, just one left. Just one. He straightened it out, rolled it between his fingers. Just one small white cylinder of paper packed with rich dark tobacco. He sniffed it; it smelted sweet. He would in all probability never smoke another after this one because he wasn't going back. He put it to his lips, flicked his lighter, drew the smoke down deep into his diseased lungs, sent himself into a fierce coughing fit.

They would know he was here now, but it didn't matter. Jesus, he wanted the fuckers to know what they were in for. An idea, but the deep snow made it impracticable; if it had been summer he could have set fire to the whole wood, stood downwind and waited. Get roasted or shot, you fuck pigs, it's up to you! But it wasn't summer and no way was he going to be able to fire the wood. Shit!

The hunter, it gave him a sense of pride, Man's superiority over animals. They were in there crapping themselves because they didn't know how to escape him. Well, there was only one way to get them—he would go in there after them!

Moving slowly, unsteadily, his rubber boots slipping on the snow. Parting the outer trailing branches of the bushes and peering inside. Much darker in here, even the snow had only penetrated in places.

Something rustled. The rifle came up to Professor Reitze's shoulder, bucked. A bullet cut through the foliage, whined, embedded itself in the trunk of a silver birch. Then silence.

Reitze stood there listening, sweat streaming down his face. There should have been panic, throwbacks stampeding everywhere at the sound of the shot, screaming with terror. But there was nothing, not even a protesting crow insulting him from a distant tree. It made him uneasy.

He stepped forward, rifle at the ready. God, it was heavy, made his arms ache. More blood here; he quickened his pace, had to stoop beneath the twisting rhododendron trailers, peering into every dark recess. So quiet.

A sudden noise had him whirling round, forefinger taking a trigger pressure. Just dislodged snow falling. Nothing else.

He came to a birch tree, had to rest for a moment, leaning up against it. Only then was he aware of the cigarette butt scorching his lips, leaned forward and spat it out into a patch of snow, saw how the nicotine-soaked paper was pink. Trying not to cough in case it gave his position away, a heaving of his lungs that eventually threw up stringy phlegm. He turned his head away, didn't want to see. His strength was failing fast, he had to find them soon.

A lot more blood now, they couldn't be far away. He would come to the end of the rhododendrons soon, the beasts of the chase hugging every last scrap of cover until there was no more left. Then they would be forced out into the open. Six ... eight... ten ... a dozen of them, firing as fast as he could pull the trigger, using his remaining strength and sheer will power to work the bolt. Bodies falling, convulsing, lying still. That was how it would be, there could not be any other outcome. His whole body trembled with anticipation, somehow found that extra reserve of strength to keep going.

And then at last he found them, a big bunch of them, twenty at least, in a wide clearing amidst the dense bushes, men, women and children. A strewn litter of bodies, corpses!

It took some time for Reitze to realise, to accept, that they were all dead. He did not want to believe it, wanted them alive, fleeing, shrieking their terror as he cut them down one by one, wanted the satisfaction of gazing down on every one of them dead by his own hand. But the elements and the Coughing Death had beaten him to it.

No, it couldn't be, it wasn't like this. They were all alive, trying to fool him into thinking they were dead so that he would go away. But you can't fool me, you shit-pigs!

'Get up!' He screamed, brought the rifle up to his shoulder. 'I know you're not fucking well dead. D'you hear what I say? Get up and run for it. I'm giving you a chance. D'you fucking well hear?'

No movement except a piece of wet snow sliding off a branch, plopping on to the ground. Faces stared back at him, dull orbs that were filled with a hopelessness that had frozen into them. Features rigid, defiant. We're not going to run because we're dead. You're too late.

'For the last time, are you going to fucking well get up and take your chance with me?'

No answer, no movement. Reitze had the rifle barrel trained on the forehead of the nearest inert body, took another trigger pressure. Your chance has gone, you bastard!

The slug split the skull in two, exploded a shower of red bone splinters. The second shot was almost simultaneous, bowled a small child over, rolled it so that you could not see the gaping wound in its side. Firing fast now, corpses coming alive with the impact of the bullets, thrown back, jerked one way, slumping another. Reloading, shooting again, the cloud of cordite smoke thickening, doing its best to screen the awful mutilation.

Reitze paused to reload, looked for unscathed bodies and could not find any. The first throwback again, this time a chest shot, ripping out the breast bone, breaking legs, arms, disembowelling others so that the stench of human offal mingled with the smeil of powdersmoke.

Only when he was out of cartridges did he stop, dropping on to his haunches, leaning back against the birch trunk. His eyelids were heavy, wanted to close, the smoke was making them smart but he forced them to remain open. The conqueror revelled in the sight of his conquest, wanted to savour the bloody carnage. All my own work. Liar! No, I killed 'em because they were still alive, trying to fool me but 1 was too damned smart for 'em. They paid.

'I got you, you fuck bastards!' A cracked whisper that was meant to be a jubilant yell. 'I got you for what you did to us.'

And when dusk drifted into the wood Reitze was still propped up against the bole of that tree, rigid, eyes still fixed on the bloodshed in front of him. The rifle had fallen from his grasp, half-buried in a patch of snow. Anyone stumbling upon him might have been forgiven for thinking that he was still alive, that he had slaughtered mercilessly and was merely resting.

But nobody would be coming here any more.