Tunnels 06 - Terminal

pinstripe suit and with a packet still held tightly in its dried-out hand. ‘Tch, tch!’ Will said, wagging a finger. ‘Those things will kill you, you know,’ he admonished the corpse.
    ‘We can get everything we need here,’ Elliott called from another counter where she’d helped herself to two umbrellas – essential items in this world where the weather had only two defaults: blinding sunshine or fierce monsoons that descended with no warning at all. ‘Will, what do you reckon’s throughthere?’ she asked, indicating a row of doors along the side of the hall with signs above them proclaiming Lebensmittelabteilung.
    ‘One way to find out,’ he replied, already making straight for the nearest pair of doors and pushing them open.
    If the reek of rotten food wasn’t disgusting enough, the maelstrom of flies that Will and Elliott’s entrance stirred up would have deterred most people from entering. But not Elliott.
    ‘Must be something we can take?’ she asked, despite the fact that the flies were everywhere in the food hall.
    As Will waved the teeming bluebottles away from his face, he caught glimpses of the different counters selling cheese, food and meat, their once-chilled displays now a mass of putrefaction and writhing with maggots. And not only was the once-pristine white-tiled floor smeared with filth, it was also littered with the remains of dead rats. They’d obviously thought they were on to a good thing until the virus had finished them off too.
    ‘Oh, God, let’s just get out of here!’ Will yelled, frantically swatting the flies away from him.
    ‘But there’s tinned food over th—’ Elliott was shouting and pointing, as a fly shot straight into her mouth.
    ‘No way. We can get our supplies somewhere else,’ Will insisted, as he and Elliott stumbled back through the doors, which swung shut, sealing them off from the stench and insects again. Except for the one lodged at the back of Elliott’s throat.
    ‘Fly,’ she wheezed, pointing at her mouth. She was coughing and making noises like a cat trying to bring up a fur ball.
    She looked so comical that Will began to chuckle. ‘Is that tasty?’ he asked. Then he couldn’t help himself, doubling up with laughter. This didn’t amuse Elliott in the slightest, her face flushed from all the coughing.
    ‘It’s not funny, you creep,’ she managed to get out between all the coughing. Then she gulped loudly and grimaced. ‘Yuck. I think I swallowed it.’
    ‘Well, you did say we needed more meat in our diet,’ Will quipped.
    Then she too was laughing and coughing and thrusting the stock of her long rifle at him, as he backed away, pretending to be terrified by her attack.
    ‘Hey, spider woman, be careful with that, will you!’ he yelled, as he sidestepped yet again, only just managing to avoid her rifle.
    Will realised immediately what he’d said. They’d had the misfortune of meeting Vane, one of the Styx women, when they’d been ambushed at the top of the pore.
    Even the Styx themselves hadn’t known the reason for it, but this inner world had energised Vane, enabling her to restart the Phase. But it was more than just that; it had allowed her to produce Styx Warrior Class larvae in numbers that were off the scale. But, as a consequence, Vane had begun to resemble a hideously bloated arachnid. And given Elliott’s parentage, it wasn’t surprising that she was particularly sensitive whenever the subject came up, to the extent that she and Will rarely discussed it.
    Elliott was standing very still with her rifle still poised in mid-air, her expression stony. ‘What did you just say?’ she demanded.
    ‘I … I … that … that came out wrong,’ Will gabbled. He took a hasty step back as Elliott’s expression turned thunderous.
    ‘Spider woman?’ she growled. ‘Just because I’ve got Styx blood in me doesn’t mean I’m suddenly going to turn into oneof those monsters.’
    ‘I know. I’m sorry,’ Will said.
    Elliott cracked a smile. ‘Gotcha!’
    Relieved that he hadn’t really upset her, the boy nevertheless swung on his heels and made off.
    Elliott raised her arm in front of her face and moved it in an impression of one of the ovipositors that had snaked from Vane’s mouth. ‘Where are you going, juicy human?’ she shouted after Will. In fits of laughter, she gave chase, and Will was laughing too as he careered between the shop counters in the direction of the staircases at the end of the hall.
    Shouting