CHAPTER 8: THE THING BEHIND THE GLASS

The scaled man's raised hand held the whole line of survivors where they stood, and Aria, close behind his shoulder, heard what had stopped him: a dry, patient scratching from beyond the glass, like fingernails drawn slowly across a tabletop.

"That isn't the usual groaning," he said quietly, his amber eyes fixed on the dark between the shelves. "Nobody moves."

Aria shifted until she could see past his arm, and something low and quick flickered behind the counter, there and gone. The guard thumbed the safety off his pistol. "Right, that's it, a few rounds through the glass and we finish it before we go in," he said, hoisting the weapon.

"Put it down," the man said, without turning his head.

"We can't leave an infected sitting in the building we mean to sleep in!" the guard protested, though the barrel wavered.

"It hasn't come at us," Aria said slowly, following the movement through the dusty pane. "It can see us standing here, and it's just watching."

"It waits until people walk into a tight space, and then it strikes," the man said.

A palm slapped against the inside of the glass with a flat crack, and Maya scrambled backwards into Mrs Bennett, who staggered on her bandaged leg. Aria caught the old woman under the elbow before she could fall. "Steady, Margaret, I've got you," she said, and the hand slid down the glass and was gone.

"We should leave it and carry on to the checkpoint," Nicholas said from the back of the group, folding his arms. "I'm not taking orders from something that looks like one of them."

"The truck's wrecked and the road's blocked," Aria said, glancing over her shoulder. "Where exactly do you plan to carry on to?"

"You always find some reason to stand near him, don't you?" His mouth twisted. "It's pathetic."

Aria did not dignify that with a look. "What is it?" she asked the scaled man instead.

"A Stalker. It likes enclosed places, and it can sit still for hours." He tilted his head toward the doors. "I can hear it moving, but the walls swallow the direction."

"Then we can't all barge in together," Aria said. "Somebody has to draw its attention while somebody else comes at it from another side."

He turned the amber eyes on her at last. "Are you volunteering?"

"I'm proposing a plan, I'm not offering to be bait," Aria said.

She arranged them quickly, with the guard and two men staying out on the forecourt beside Mrs Bennett and the driver, who would walk round the back and try the service door. Maya would hold the entrance in case something came out, and Aria and the scaled man would go in through the front.

"She isn't going anywhere near that thing," Nicholas said, stepping forward and jabbing a finger at the man's chest, though he stopped short of touching him.

"You made it perfectly clear you won't protect me, so you've no reason to decide where I go," Aria said.

"Nick, leave it, let them deal with it," Vanessa muttered, tugging at his sleeve, and he allowed himself to be dragged back a pace, his gaze fixed on the cloth bag at Aria's hip.

She knelt and pulled a small pouch of dressings from the bag and pressed it into Maya's hands. "Keep that dry, and stay next to Margaret."

"Are you sure about this?" Maya asked, gripping the pouch with white fingers.

"No," Aria said. "But we can't stand out here all night, can we?"

The scaled man pushed the glass door open with two fingers, and the little bell above the frame gave a bright, cheerful ring. Everyone held their breath. Nothing came.

He went in first, and Aria followed with the lamp raised.

The shop was dim and sour with old blood. Shelves lay toppled across the aisles, bottles had burst across the tiles, and long brown streaks ran down the freezer doors. Aria placed each foot carefully among the glass, scanning the gaps between the fallen racks, and she kept her eyes on the man's broad back, near enough to touch.

The crash came from behind the counter.

A grey blur launched itself across the till and struck his shoulder, driving him into a shelf that came down in an avalanche of tins. Aria swung the lamp with both hands and cracked it across the creature's spine, and it whirled away from him with a hiss and crawled toward her on all fours, one shoulder dragging and its jaw hanging loose.

"Don't let it get behind you!" the man shouted, scrambling up from the cans.

"A bit of warning before it's trying to eat me would be nice!" Aria snapped, backing against a rack.

It sprang again. He caught one of its arms midair, but the creature twisted and drove its teeth toward his throat, and he strained to hold it away while red bloomed through the dressing on his forearm. Aria seized a metal display stand by its base and jammed it between the creature's body and his chest, and the extra inch of room let him heave it off and hurl it into the counter.

He swayed on his feet afterwards, and his breath sawed in and out.

"Stay back," he said, in a voice that had lost some of its gravel.

"You're bleeding all over the floor, and it's still moving," Aria said. "I'll do no such thing."

The Stalker pulled itself upright again, and Aria saw that it favoured one leg, so that every time it tried to turn sharply the limb buckled beneath it. "Stop trying to overpower it head-on," she said. "Keep it facing you, and I'll go round the side."

"Do you have a better idea?" he asked through his teeth.

"I've got an idea, which is more than we had ten seconds ago."

She shoved the fallen stand across the creature's path so that it had to wheel toward him, and he caught its attention with a growl. On the back wall hung a red fire extinguisher in a bracket, and she wrenched it free and came in low from the flank. When the thing lunged at him again he sidestepped at the last instant, and she swung the cylinder against its skull.

It dropped, but not for long. A cold hand clamped round her ankle and yanked her feet out from under her, and she crashed onto the tiles with her temple striking the edge of the counter. White light burst behind her eyes, and the whole shop swung sideways.

The man hauled the creature off her by its torso, his arms shaking with the effort, and she dragged herself upright on the counter and brought the extinguisher down again with every ounce of strength she had left. He finished it by driving its head against the floor until it lay still.

For a while neither of them spoke. Aria sat on the cold tiles with her palm pressed to her bandage, and he stood over her with blood dripping from his fingers.

"Are you bitten?" he asked.

She checked her arms and legs, then shook her head, and wished at once she hadn't. "Are you all right?"

"I've had better afternoons."

"Your idea of fine is going to get you killed one day," Aria said.

"You seem very invested in keeping me alive."

"I don't enjoy watching people die when I could do something about it." She pushed herself up on the counter and glanced at him sideways. "Don't read anything into that."

The corner of his mouth moved, a small and grudging twitch, and then he turned away toward the door.

Shouting reached them before they were halfway across the shop, and Aria stepped out onto the forecourt into a knot of arguing voices. At the damaged truck's open rear compartment, Nicholas stood with a holdall in one fist while Vanessa clutched another against her chest.

"I'm only taking what's mine," Nicholas was saying, backing toward the station.

"That food was meant for everyone who got on this truck, not just you," the guard said, advancing with his palm out.

"What do you think you're doing?" Aria asked, crossing the forecourt, and her voice came out hoarse. "People here are hurt, and you're taking the shared supplies?"

"I'm not going to starve because other people can't hang on to their own things," he said.

She looked into the holdall and saw the gleam of antiseptic bottles and dressing rolls, the very things Mrs Bennett's leg needed. "Put the medical supplies back."

"I'm not your responsibility any more, Isabella."