“Please stay where you are, sir,” the soldier said. “For your own safety.”

“What’s going on here?” said a small voice from behind Matt. He was too scared to move, but he craned his head over his shoulder and saw his dad standing on the narrow patio. He looked like someone had deflated him.

“Take your son into the house, sir,” the soldier said.

“I want to know what’s going on,” Matt’s father repeated. “Who are you people?”

“I’m not going to tell you again, sir,” the soldier replied. He sounded as though he was reaching the limit of his patience. “Take your son inside. Now.”

Greg Browning looked like he was going to reply but thought better of it.

“Come inside, Matt,” he said, eventually.

Matt looked from his father to the soldier pointing the gun at his chest. Behind him he could see the other soldier and the biohazard team watching him. He was about to turn and do as his father said when the girl lifted her head from the flowerbed and sank her teeth into the arm of the man in the white plastic suit.

All hell broke loose.

The man screamed and wrenched his arm out of the girl’s mouth. Blood pumped out of the ragged hole in the plastic, and splashed across the lawn.

The second soldier swung his gun. The heavy stock of the weapon crashed across the girl’s chin, and she instantly stopped moving, as though she had been turned off.

The soldier who had been facing Matt lowered his gun and turned to his colleagues.

“How bad is it?” he yelled.

The woman in the biohazard suit had knelt down next to her partner and was examining the wound. She looked up at the sound of the soldier’s voice.

“It’s bad,” she replied. “We need to get him out of here.”

“Bag the subject,” the soldier said. “Do it quickly.”

“There isn’t time. He needs clean blood, right now.”

“He’ll get it. Bag the subject.”

The woman stared at the soldier for a fraction of second, then let go of her colleague and laid the white stretcher flat on the lawn.

“Help me,” she said to the other soldier.

The soldier crouched down and took hold of the girl under her shoulders and pulled her out of the flowerbed. Matt gasped as he saw the damage to the lower half of the girl’s body.

Both her legs were snapped mid thigh, the white bones piercing the blood-soaked jeans she was wearing. Her left foot was horribly twisted at the ankle, and the right was missing three toes, the red stumps bright in the fading light.

Matt ran toward her. He didn’t know what he was going to do, just that he had to do something. He heard his father shout at him but ignored him. The soldier who had hit the girl with his gun turned, saw him crossing the lawn, and started to move, a shout of warning issuing from his lips. But he wasn’t quick enough; Matt slid onto his knees beside the broken girl and looked at the woman in the biohazard suit.

“Can I hel—”

The girl’s arm flashed out and slid across his throat. Matt felt a millisecond of resistance as her fingernails dug into the smooth skin of his neck, then it was gone, and an enormous spray of something red burst into the night air, soaking his chin and his chest.

There was no pain; just surprise and a suddenly overwhelming tiredness. Matt stared at the dark liquid squirting into the air and only realized it was his own blood as he fell gently backward onto the patchy grass of the lawn. It pattered thickly onto his upturned face, and as his eyes closed, he felt hands pressing against his neck and heard one of the soldiers telling his father that this had never happened.

5

INTO THE DARKNESS

J amie Carpenter dreamed of his father. When he was ten, his dad came home from work, holding his hand under his coat, and disappeared upstairs without saying hello to his son. Jamie’s mother was visiting her sister in Surrey, and after a moment, he followed his father, treading on the balls of his feet, taking the steps one at a time, slowly.

Through the half-open bathroom door he saw his father standing with his right hand in the sink. There were spots of red on the mirror and the white porcelain.

Jamie crept across the landing. His father was running the hot tap over his hand, grimacing at the temperature. He turned the tap off and reached for a towel, and Jamie saw his hand. There was a long bloody cut running from his wrist to his elbow, and in the middle of the gash, something dark was sticking out, dirty brown against the red.

His father dabbed the blood away from the cut and slowly reached into the wound. He gritted his teeth, then pulled the dark object out of his arm, letting out a sharp grunt as it came free. Jamie stared. It looked like a fingernail, more than an inch long, sharp and curved like a talon. A chunk of ragged meat hung from the thick end of the nail, glistening white in the bright light of the bathroom.

He gasped. He hadn’t meant to. His father turned around sharply, and Jamie stood rigid, speechless. His father opened his mouth as if to say something, then kicked the bathroom door shut, leaving Jamie standing on the dark landing.

Jamie drifted awake. He was moving, a loud car engine rumbling somewhere behind him, the sound of rain hammering against glass close to his head. He slowly opened his eyes and found himself looking out of a window at a dark forest, the trees blurring as they passed, water tumbling from the sky in sheets. He turned his head to the driver and cried out. Instinctively he reached for the passenger door handle and turned it, not caring what would happen if he jumped from a moving car, just knowing he had to get out, get away from the horror in the seat next to him.

“Don’t bother,” said the driver, his voice so loud that it drowned out the engine. “It’s locked.”

Jamie pressed himself against the door.

In the seat next to him was Frankenstein’s monster.

This is a dream. Isn’t it? It has to be, this can’t be real.

“It’s not polite to stare,” the monster said, and Jamie thought he heard the faintest hint of a laugh under the booming, granite voice.

“Who are you?” Jamie managed, his mind screaming warnings at him. Don’t talk to it! Are you stupid? Just shut up!

“My name is Victor Frankenstein. I did introduce myself. I assume you don’t remember?”

Jamie shook his head, and Frankenstein grunted.

“I suspected as much. Good thing I locked the doors.”

He laughed, a huge sound like a clap of thunder.

“There is only a certain amount I am permitted to tell you,” he continued. “I’m taking you to a safe place. My superior will tell you whatever else he decides you need to know.”

“Who is your superior?” asked Jamie.

No reply.

“I asked you a question,” he repeated, his voice rising. “Did you hear me?”

Frankenstein turned his enormous head and looked at Jamie.

“I heard you,” he said. “I chose not to answer.”

Jamie recoiled, and then the image of the blood on the bedroom windowsill crashed into his head, and he remembered.

“My mother,” he said, his eyes wide. “We have to go back for her.”

Frankenstein shot him a look of concern.

“We can’t go back,” he said. “She’s gone. You know that.”

Jamie fumbled his cell phone out of his pocket, scrolled through his contacts until he found his mother’s number, keyed the green button and held it to his ear.

Nothing happened.

He pulled the phone away from his ear and looked at the glowing screen. The network logo that usually shone in the middle was gone, as was the bar that indicated the strength of his signal.

“Phones don’t work around here,” said Frankenstein.

Jamie grabbed again at the door handle, wrenching it until the plastic began to bend in his grip.