It was a strange thing to kick her mother-in-law in the head. There had been many times during her marriage to Ian that Judith had entertained a daydream of throwing a cup of tea over Ethel or throttling the old woman, not to death, but enough to choke the snarky comments from her lips. These were nothing more than effervescent fantasies. Fleeting spikes of vengeance tempered by the pragmatism of the long term and general good manners. With her beautiful daughter butchered and her baby boy maimed, only the present barbarity of their situation mattered. Face bathed in the blood of her own son, Ethel was nothing more than a wyrmal, and so screaming, Judith took a running punt at the old woman’s temple. Her foot exploded in pain, as the old woman’s neck snapped to the side. Ethel fell off Ian, sprawling on her back, head at an unnatural angle, legs twitching.

  Limping from the impact, Judith struggled to get Ian on his feet and stop Jack, who was holding his spurting stump of an arm to his chest, from slumping down. She dragged them to the gate at the back of Ethel’s small yard. It was six-feet high, wood panelled and flaking with old green paint. The iron latch she’d told Ian to oil she didn’t know how many times was stiff and came free with a jolt. Over her shoulder, and through the swirling dust, figures were shambling hurriedly into Ethel’s kitchen. Judith pushed what was left of her family into the cobblestone alley that ran between high garden walls.

  ‘This way,’ she cried over the wind.

  Bitten off at the first knuckle, Ian was missing two fingertips. He clutched at his belly. Oily blood bubbled up from his stomach wound and flowed from his fingers, but his injuries seemed superficial compared to Jack’s. All colour had drained from her boy’s face and his eyes were taking on a vacant, sleepy look, despite the pain he must have been suffering. Judith got them a few strides clear of the gate before she had to stop them to tend to her son. She undid her belt and yanked it from the loops in her waistband. Working fast, she made a loop and passed it over Jack’s stump. A hot jet of blood squirted in her face before she tightened the improvised tourniquet enough to stem the flow of blood. Jack screamed in agony, which brought some spark of awareness back to his ashen features.

  Close to her son’s ear, Judith shouted, ‘Hold this tight. Don’t let it loosen.’

  Then she was leading them on through the storm. At the end of the alley, Judith pressed her men to the alley wall and stuck her head out onto Alaric’s Hovel. Shapes moved in the thick haze. They were few and spread out, some to the left, some to the right. Back down the alley, wyrmals were finding their way out of Ethel’s back gate, and among them was the silhouette of Fletcher, half-naked, a meat hook in one hand and cleaver in the other. The sight was all Judith needed to make the decision. They turned left, away from the dunes and back up into town. The way wasn’t clear, it was merely the lesser of two evils.

  ‘Stay close to the houses,’ she told them.

  Reaching into her coat pocket she found her house keys, laced each key between her fingers, and withdrew a fist studded with metal. Ian and Jack didn’t want to move quickly, and she had to push and goad them the whole way. She wasn’t a battle-hardened drill Sergeant, but primal fear for her loved ones could transform any mother into a Boudica.

  From the far side of the road, a wrymal spotted them and changed direction. Judith beat her fist on the nearest door.

  ‘Let us in. Let us in!’

  No one answered. She shouldered Ian and Jack forward and banged on the next door. It remained impassive to their plight. By the third door, the wyrmals and Fletcher were spilling out of the alley behind them. The enemy across the street had reached the white line in the middle of the road, and Judith thought she recognised them. It looked like Kenny Blidworth. He was a sometime handyman, full-time local at the pub. A harmless bore at the best of times, now at the worst of times he’d transformed into the most present danger to Judith and her kin. His milky eyes rolled over them like a shark’s, devoid of humanity. A snarl was beginning to play on his face as Judith moved forward to meet him. The snarl froze when she grabbed a fist full of his greasy hair with her empty hand and slammed a fist full of keys into his eye with the other. The long mortice lock key popped his eyeball with a gelatinous spurt. Screaming, Judith twisted her wrist and yanked it free. Kenny’s face went slack and with a spine-shivering similarity to Kerry with her throat cut, he pitched forward.

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  Fletcher and his minions were gaining. Judith dragged and badgered Jack and Ian all the way. It wasn’t far to get home, but the way back through Bobbett’s Yard was blocked by more wyrmals filing down the narrow cut-through. The road ahead was similarly blocked. Judith was about to turn them back, or to hammer on some more doors, but the chance never came.

  Ian yowled in pain. Judith spun around, dragging Jack behind her, and felt how weak he was becoming as she did. Ian was down on one knee, like the day he proposed deep in the woods at the fairy circle. Only this time, he wasn’t holding a ring but the back of his hamstring. Behind Ian was Grundig Fletcher. His cleaver was dripping with Ian’s blood. Both men were glaring wide-eyed through the sandstorm at her. Neither pair of eyes could have communicated something more fundamentally different. Fletcher gripped Ian’s chin to expose his throat and raised the cleaver.

  Judith turned away as the blade came down. Choking on her sobs, she tried to get Jack away. Their legs were unsteady. His, from loss of blood; hers, from the weight of loss. It threatened to crush her spirit, snuff it out. The fight was leaving her with each leaden step. Better to stop. Better to give in to the inevitable and join the rest of her family. If Grundig Fletcher didn’t do the job, the three wyrmals ahead of them would. Stop, stumble on, it didn’t matter. It was over. They were just another offering for the crossing.

  Bright lights and the roar of an engine cut through the storm. The three wyrmals about to fall on them fell like skittles. Their bodies crunched beneath tractor tyres. The tractor stopped inches from them. Judith shielded her eyes from the glare of the headlights. The driver’s cab opened. A loud crack of gunfire made Judith duck reflexively.

  ‘Get them in the trailer. Hurry!’ It was Ma Tunstall, hanging out of the cab, levelling a shotgun back down the road. She fired again and snapped open the breach. Hands were on them, lifting. Two more shots as they were bundled into a trailer at the back, and without introductions and ceremony, the tractor’s engine gunned.

  Ma Tunstall mowed down as many as she could. Judith held Jack tightly in her arms.

  ‘Get Fletcher!’ she screamed.

  Ma pivoted and aimed, but Fletcher had dodged out of the way, pressing his fat body against the wall of a house. Ma put the vehicle into gear. They had to go now, or they’d be overwhelmed.

  As they drove away, Grundig stepped back into the road, leering.

  A few more turns and a short run and they came to a stop at the pub. The sign depicting the battling stag and snake swung violently back and forth in the gale. Jack lay with his head on Judith’s shoulder, blood soaking through her shirt. She’d taken her eyes off him for no time at all and he’d drifted into semi-consciousness. He was bone white, with a cold sweat on his brow and lips darkening.

  ‘Jack! Jack! Wake up!’ she said sternly, shaking him and lightly tapping his cheek. Jack moaned.

  People she’d registered only as fellow refugees were dismounting, rocking the trailer, before banging on the pub’s heavy double doors. Jack lolled groggily, unable to rouse himself.

  Judith channelled her Monday morning self, the mother trying to dynamite her teenage son out of bed in time for school. ‘Jack, wake up this instant!’

  The banging and shouting at the front door had reached a panicked frenzy.

  Jack’s head lightened on her shoulder and fell back with a dreamy murmur.

  A fellow refugee let out a hysterical cry, ‘Oh Herne, they are coming.’

  Ma reached the pub’s door. ‘Stop banging like bloody idiots. You sound like wyrmals.’ She used the stock of the shot gun to rap on the door, once hard, then two short sharp raps, and on final hard bang. With a beat between efforts, she repeated the pattern.

  Meanwhile, Judith let indignation colour her voice and she squeezed Jack’s weeping stump. ‘Jack. Wake. Up.’

  Eyes flying open, Jack cried out. ‘Bloody hell!’ But he slurred the words.

  ‘They’re at the end of the street,’ came a whining lament.

  ‘Up Jack, up.’ Judith shook off the weight of her fear and loss and lifted Jack under the arms.

  Ma started another round of rhythmic banging and on the third rap, a bolt clunked, followed by another and another to a mix of cheers and accusatory swearing.

  ‘Help the Sharkys and get the supplies!’ Ma instructed.

  ‘There’s no time.’

  ‘Karen Minstrel stop your bleating and help, or I’ll shoot you in the leg and leave you out here as a distraction.’

  Helping hands were on Judith and Jack, lifting them down. Through the whiplash veil of sand came the wyrmals converging on the pub, Fletcher calmly walking in their midst. The double doors slammed, muffling the keening storm. One, two, three locks bolted shut.

  Covered in equal amounts of fear and dust, faced stared back at Judith from around the pub. There was shame there too. A fire blazed in the hearth, making it oppressively warm. Jack’s legs gave way. Judith caught him enough to settle him gently on his backside.

  ‘Can anyone help?’ Judith pleaded, looking around the pub in desperate hope.