The Power of Five Oblivion

Everyone was going crazy. We were penned in, trapped on all sides. The electric light, which had seemed such a miracle a while ago, made us into sitting targets with nowhere to hide.
    Then the policemen moved forward. I saw three people, a mother and two children, shot dead right in front of me. On the other side of the square there was another whoosh of flame and a scream. Machine guns were clattering everywhere. Windows smashed. People running left and right were thrown off their feet, sent spinning to the ground.
    “Holly!”
    Jamie had shouted and I skidded to a stop with a policeman standing in front of me. He had come from nowhere. He was aiming a gun right at me and I saw my own face, like a death mask, reflected in his riot shield. I could have been killed right then. God knows how many people might have died in the square. The police had obviously been ordered to leave nobody alive. But then, further away, there was an explosion and all the lights went out.
    Somebody had blown up the generator. I didn’t know it then – but that was what had happened and the sudden fall of darkness, as fast as a guillotine blade, gave us the chance to escape. I was blind but Jamie dragged me with him, circling round the man who had been about to shoot me, breaking through the police line. We couldn’t stop, not even to catch our breath. All the policemen were carrying powerful torches – we had seen them in the wood. It took them just a few seconds to find them and turn them on. Then, once again, the square was illuminated and the killing resumed.
    Jamie and I had made it into the doorway of one of the houses just off the square … Sir Ian’s place, as it happened. The house was called Postman’s Knock. We stood there, our chests heaving, listening to the shots, watching the bodies fall.
    “Let’s go inside!” I gasped. The door to the house was closed but it was sure to be unlocked. “We can hide.”
    “No. They’ll search. They’ll find us.”
    “Then what?”
    “Back into the wood. It must be safer there now.”
    “Why?”
    “Because they’re all here, in the village.”
    It made some sort of sense. At least the forest would give us cover. A man staggered past us, screaming, clutching at his eyes. He had been sprayed with something horrible. He ran into a bush and toppled forward. The man was Simon Reade. Did I need any more reminding that it was time to go? Making sure that Jamie was with me, I launched myself away from Sir Ian’s house and would have continued back past the garage for a third time, had I not found myself being seized by a hand around my throat. Suddenly there was a man with his face pressed against mine, whispering fiercely in my ear.
    “Stay still. If you want to live, you’ll come with me.”

SEVEN
    It was the Traveller. I was dazed; everything was happening so quickly and I’d only ever seen him occasionally. Even so, I knew him at once. He was holding me so tight, he was hurting me. There was a strange gleam in his eyes.
    Jamie tore at his arm, trying to force him to release me. “Get off her!” he shouted. There was so much noise all around – screams and gunfire – that it hardly mattered if he was heard.
    “Listen to me. Listen to me … both of you! You have to get out of here and there is only one way. You have to trust me. There are only minutes left. There…”
    He pointed up with one finger. What did he mean? And then I heard it, the thudding of more helicopters approaching, the same sound that I had heard in the forest only louder, more insistent. In the very far distance I saw the lights. There were lots of them. They would be here very soon.
    “They will destroy the whole village,” the Traveller said. “They’ll leave nothing standing, nobody alive.”
    “Why?”
    “Because, unfortunately, they believe what Rita told them. They think Jamie has gone.”
    “But why kill everyone?” I asked.
    “Because that’s what they do.” The Traveller loosened his grip on my arms. “They kill for the sake of it. They kill because they enjoy it.”
    “Who are you talking about?”
    “Hasn’t Jamie told you? The Old Ones.”
    The Old Ones. He knew about them too.
    We were still partly concealed in the doorway of Postman’s Knock, protected by the ivy that grew up on either side. Standing there, I saw someone run past, trying to make it down the main road. There was a burst of machine-gun fire and the figure – I couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman