Aftermath

bus juddered forward, then began to pick up speed. Driver saw that Jackson had suddenly started running toward the gate. Jas turned around and realized what was happening, but Driver managed to drive forward and position the bus directly between the two of them to give Jackson a brief but necessary advantage. Jackson reached up and lifted the heavy wooden crossbar which secured the gate from its brackets, then threw it to one side. He grabbed one of the thick ropes hanging from either side of the gate and pulled it open. A clot of dead flesh, which had been pushed up hard against the outside of the barrier by the force of many more pushing from behind, immediately freed itself and fell forward. Almost completely unrecognizable as the remains of the teenage boy it had once been, the putrescence-dripping shadow of a man took a few staggering steps before more of the foul things overtook and trampled over it. Everyone, Jas and Jackson included, was transfixed momentarily by the hideous sight. How any of these things could continue to function in such a pitiful condition was beyond anyone’s comprehension.
    Jackson was the first to move again. He jumped the decaying body lying in front of him and ran over to the other side of the gate. He’d only managed to half open it when Jas came at him again. He viciously grabbed Jackson around the waist and wrestled him away. Beside them, more of the dead spilled forward, moving together like a viscous, disease-filled sludge, a slowly spreading pool of decay.
    Driver tried to get through, but the gap ahead wasn’t wide enough. In response to the sudden movement of the bus, Kieran fired a warning shot. The recoil took Kieran by surprise—he’d only had cause to fire a couple of times previously—and he misfired and shattered the windscreen, only just missing Driver. The air was immediately filled with panicked screams. People who were even now still trying to get onto the bus hammered on the door at the same time as those trying to get off. Kieran reloaded and moved around to the other sideiring twice more at close range, each time hitting one of the bus’s massive tires, leaving the heavy vehicle listing to one side.
    Jackson freed himself from Jas’s grip and ran to try and stop Kieran firing. Jas—too fast for him—caught hold of him again before he was anywhere near. He dragged Jackson back and slammed him down into several inches of the foul-smelling, once-human slurry that continued to spread across the courtyard like an oil slick. Jackson gagged at the overpowering stench and the feel of the ice-cold muck on his skin. Winded, he spat out splashes of flesh and struggled to speak.
    “Why, Jas?” he wheezed, his voice little more than a whisper. Jas stood up and walked a few paces away. Jackson slowly picked himself up, slipping in the decay, every bone in his body aching. He managed only a few steps before dropping to his knees again. With his energy fading, he stood up straight once more and took the knife from his belt. “You have to let them make their own decisions, and you have to abide by what they decide. You can’t decide for them.”
    He ran at Jas again. His back turned, Jas heard his heavy footsteps and turned at the last possible moment. He grabbed hold of Jackson’s arm as he lunged at him, then flipped him over onto his stomach and dropped down onto his back. Jackson groaned with pain, but this time he didn’t fight back. He didn’t move.
    “You’re wrong,” Jas hissed in his ear, crouching down so no one else could hear. “You’ve got this all wrong. If we want to survive, then we’ve got to work together and we need to base ourselves here. There’s nothing to be gained from going to this bloody island. You hear me, Jackson?”
    When Jackson didn’t react, Jas grabbed his shoulder, still soaked with glistening decay, and rolled him over onto his back. He staggered away in shock. Jackson’s knife had sunk hilt-deep into his belly. Sue Preston forced her way off the now useless bus—followed by a flood of others—and ran over to help Jackson, but there was nothing she could do. He was already dead. The courtyard emptied as people ran for cover. Kieran walked forward and looked down at Jackson’s body, a flood of deep-red blood pulsing steadily from his wound.
    On the other side of the castle grounds, another engine was started. Hidden from Jas and Kieran’s view by the wrecked bus, neither of them saw the black Ford Fiesta until it