Slow Decay - By Andy Lane Page 0,107

table. Gwen held out a spare magazine she had taken from her pocket. Jack took it, then walked stiffly out of the room and down the corridor.

There was silence for a few moments, then Owen heard the sound of gunfire – six rapid shots from Jack’s Webley, then a series of deeper roars from Gwen’s Glock. Owen imagined the creatures whirring around the cavernous room with the hospital beds in the centre, and Jack, standing there, picking them off like a man firing at clay pigeons. The firing started up again, higher and flatter than the Glock. He must have reloaded his Webley. Another pause, and then the firing started again, deeper this time: the Glock again.

Owen had lost count of the number of shots he’d heard, when suddenly everything went silent. Had Jack killed all the creatures, or had one of them plunged itself into his chest, filling him full of eggs? Still, no sound. No footsteps. Nothing.

Fingers appeared around the edge of the doorway. White, cold fingers.

Jack walked slowly back into the room.

‘That was fun,’ he said. ‘Forget about diet pills: I think we’ve just discovered the logical successor to paintballing.’

TWENTY

The sky was bright and clear, a wash of purest azure from horizon to horizon. Penarth Head stood out crisply against the sky, almost as if the whole scene were a collage and the headland had been cut out of a picture in a magazine and stuck onto blue card. Even the water of the bay seemed purer than usual, sparkling in the sunshine.

Standing at the quay that led down to the ferry, Jack and Gwen were comfortably silent. They had shared life and death together, and although they had plenty they wanted to say to one another, for the moment they were content.

‘What happened to the patients in Scotus’s medical facility?’ Gwen asked eventually.

‘Owen brought them out of sedation, one by one, and spun them some story that they’d been drugged in a bar. He’s very fond of that story. I think it has some kind of resonance for him.’

‘How did he explain the dressings and the scars?’

‘Told them they were missing a kidney, which was probably on its way to the Middle East to be transplanted into a billionaire oil tycoon. Hey, if it means they’re more careful about what they eat and drink in future then it’s a plus as far as I’m concerned.’

‘And they bought it?’

Jack smiled. ‘Owen can be very convincing, when he wants to be. I think he’s taken four of them out for dinner so far, and he’s working on the rest.’

Far out across the bay a small boat was bobbing around. Normally, Gwen wouldn’t have been able to see even half that distance, but the air was so clear she felt she could see all the way across to Weston-super-Mare if she tried.

‘What about Doctor Scotus?’ she asked.

‘Owen and I talked about that. In the end, it wasn’t our job to punish him. We suggested he try one of the “Stop” pills, under medical supervision, to see whether it would get rid of the thing that was inside him, infiltrating its way through his flesh. He couldn’t take it himself, of course – the thing wouldn’t let itself be harmed – so Owen dissolved it in solution and injected it.’

‘OK. And..?’

‘And Scotus was right. The creature had wound itself too tightly around him. He didn’t survive the process.’

‘Oh.’ A moment’s pause. ‘And Lucy?’

‘Returned to full physical health.’

Gwen thought for a moment. ‘She killed her boyfriend, you know. She ate her boyfriend. There’s got to be some kind of payback for that.’

‘I said full physical health. She’s under psychiatric supervision. I doubt she’ll ever come to terms with what she did.’

‘Hmm.’ She didn’t sound convinced. ‘I know Toshiko will survive,’ she said eventually, ‘but what about Owen? He took that thing with Marianne pretty hard.’

‘He always does. He’ll get over it.’ Jack looked sideways at Gwen. ‘And what about you? We haven’t seen you around for a while?’

‘You haven’t texted me.’

Jack grinned. ‘I mislaid the number. Everything OK at home?’

Gwen nodded. ‘Everything’s fine. Well, as fine as it’ll ever be. After I got the police to raid that factory and arrest the gang members, we went away for a few days. Rhys wanted to go to Portmeirion, but I held out for Shrewsbury.’

‘Very nice.’ He paused, weighing up whether to continue. ‘You know,’ he said eventually, ‘those diet pills weren’t the answer. They just address the symptom, not the cause. Changing