Bay of the Dead - By Mark Morris Page 0,8

went very still. Rhys was beside her now, feeling like a bit of a spare part.

'Well?' he hissed. 'What can you see?'

Her head jerked round to look at him, hair swishing across her face. Her eyes were wide, face taut with disbelief.

'What is it, Gwen? Talk to me,' he said.

Suddenly she was a blur of movement. Instead of replying, she swung out into the alley, body poised and balanced, arms extended, gun pointing at whatever was moving about by the bins.

'Get up slowly,' she barked. 'Keep your hands where I can see them.'

For a split second Rhys wondered whether he ought to stay where he was, out of sight. Then he thought, Sod that, and moved across to stand beside his wife.

He had a clear view of the alley now, all the way to the sagging chain-link fence at the far end. To their immediate right, snug against the back of the house, was a line of metal dustbins, one per flat, each with a big white number painted on its lid.

Rhys barely registered any of this. He was too busy goggling at the figure squatting on the ground no more than five metres away. He shuddered as a wave of revulsion and cold, prickling fear swept through him.

The man – a tramp, judging by the rags he was wearing – was eating a cat. Rhys thought it might be the old ginger tom which belonged to Betty, their downstairs neighbour, but it was hard to be sure. The poor animal had been ripped apart and devoured, like a roast chicken at a medieval banquet. Most of its remains were lying on the ground at the man's feet, a mangled mass of fur and gore. Even now, as if oblivious to their presence, the man was gnawing on one of the animal's detached limbs, his chin and clothes smeared liberally in blood and guts.

'Oh, Christ,' Rhys muttered, 'that's disgusting.'

Gwen glanced at him, then turned back to the man. 'I told you to stand up!' she shouted.

The man paused, and then he cocked his head in a strangely animalistic way, as if Gwen's voice was very faint and it was taking him a long time to register her words.

And then his head snapped up with a sudden, horrible jerk, and they saw his face properly for the first time.

'Oh God,' Rhys murmured.

The man had no nose. Just a hole where his nose should have been. And his eyes were milky white. And his skin, dry and brown like old leaves, was stretched so tightly across the jutting bones of his skull that his mouth seemed lipless, exposing his black gums and blocky, meat-clogged teeth. As the man lurched upright, Rhys noticed other things about him too. He noticed that one of the man's fingers was missing at the second knuckle, and that the bone was sticking out like a splintered stick; he noticed that the man's feet were bare, and that the skin covering them had split in places, to reveal the sinews and tendons beneath.

And he noticed the smell. The awful, stomach-churning stench of something dead.

The man let out a sound from his ravaged throat, a horrible animal sound that was somewhere between a groan and a snarl. Then he raised his gore-gloved hands and lurched towards them.

'Get back!' Gwen screamed at him. 'Get back, or God help me, I'll shoot you!'

The man didn't even falter. He came at them, his face twisting into an expression of malice that was somehow mindless, utterly devoid of conscious thought.

Gwen shot him. The bullet blasted into his shoulder, leaving a sizeable hole, chunks of flesh and bone flying in all directions.

The man spun and fell, knocked back by the impact. Lowering her gun slightly, but still wary, Gwen took a step towards him.

The man scrambled to his feet and lurched towards them again. Gwen stepped back, almost slipping. Rhys grabbed her arm.

'Come on, love. You're not going to stop him. Let's just run.'

Gwen looked shaken and bewildered. She nodded, and the two of them ran back to the door leading into the apartment block. However, the door was on a spring and had clicked shut behind them. Mouth dry, Rhys delved into his jeans pocket with a trembling hand. It was a tight fit and the key ring was tangled up with all sorts of other stuff – loose change, a crumpled tissue, receipts from work.

'Come on, Rhys,' Gwen said. 'It's right behind us.'

'I'm trying,' he said.

'Well, try a bit harder.'

Rhys could hear