Part 25 (1/2)

'Where are you going?' Jack asked.

'We're taking the scenic route. Now get going!'

Jack made for the stairs, shouting for the four nearest men to come up. Tommy adjusted his tie in the mirror over the fireplace. 'It's time to take the fight to these creatures. The only way the bug-eyed monsters are taking these streets is over my dead body!'

'That can be arranged, dear,' Mrs Ramsey said. She was slowly advancing on Tommy, her knitting needles stabbing forward in short, choppy motions. It would have been comical but for the savage malevolence in her eyes...

Mary let herself be dragged out into the hallway and towards the street. One of the policemen was banging at the door of the understairs cupboard. Mary collapsed to the floor, as if overcome by the smog billowing in from outside. The three policemen pulled her upright and dragged her out into the street.

Mary climbed up into the back of a waiting van, where several of her neighbours were waiting. They looked at her with hollow, terrified eyes. 'Are you alright, love?' one woman asked.

'I'll be fine,' Mary replied, her eyes fixed on the entrance to her home. The last of the policemen emerged from the house and crossed the road to join those attacking number 15. The vehicle drove away towards Old Street. Mary slowly rocked back and forth, hugging her dead daughter's body. 'I'll be fine.'

'Mum, what are you doing?' Tommy asked. His mother was making short stabbing motions with the knitting needles as she walked towards him.

'Be a good boy and die, Thomas,' she replied, getting ever closer.

'Shoot her!' Brick shouted.

'I can't!' Tommy said. 'She's me Mum!' He raised the shotgun barrel to fire but couldn't bring himself to pull the trigger. Mrs Ramsey pushed the gun aside and lunged at her son.

The Doctor lashed out with one arm, the edge of his hand chopping against the side of Mrs Ramsey's neck. The little old woman crumpled to the floor, her arms still twitching for several seconds afterwards.

'You killed her!' Tommy cried out.

'Nonsense,' the Doctor said. 'I simply rendered her unconscious and incapable of harming you. She was drugged like the policemen, probably from a communion wafer. But she seems to have resisted the drug's influence for much longer than the police.'

'She's a very strong-willed lady,' Brick observed.

'That's what saved you,' the Doctor told Tommy. 'She didn't want to hurt her own son, just as you didn't want to hurt her.

She'll recover soon enough.'

Billy and Charlie rushed into the room to see what all the commotion was about, followed by two more Ramsey men.

Tommy told them to tie up his mother. The two brothers looked bemused but followed the orders without question. They carried Mrs Ramsey out and laid the old lady down on her bed.

Tommy shouted down the stairs to Jack. 'How's it going down there?'

'They'll be through the door any second. If we're going, we've got to go now Tommy!'

'You go. Take the lads out the back. I'll see you outside St Luke's Church in an hour.'

'What about you?'

Tommy smiled. 'I'll be alright. You worry about yourself.

Now go!' Tommy went back into the living room. 'Doctor, will me Mum be safe if we leave her here? We can't risk taking her with us.'

'I believe so,' the Doctor said. 'To the policemen she will be just another drone, like themselves. They should ignore her. It's us they want.'

'That's what I'm counting on,' Tommy replied. 'Brick, get upstairs and open that skylight. You four, go help him with the ladder. Doctor, you said you needed my help you ready?'

The Doctor slung the leather satchel over his shoulder.

'Ready.'

'Then let's go!'

Downstairs Jack sent the first four men out of the back door.

They ran to the end of the long, narrow yard to a gate at the far end. Once beyond that, they signalled the all clear. Jack ran back through the kitchen into the hallway. He grabbed up his double-barrel shotgun before yelling to the two men still holding the front door shut.

'You two! Get out through the back door now!'

'But the '

'Now!' Jack shouted. The two men ran back through the house, pa.s.sing Jack and then out through the kitchen into the back yard. They were followed by the two men that had been clinging on to the door of the ground-floor parlour. As they pa.s.sed Jack, both doors opened. More than a dozen policemen surged through the two doorways.

'I hope you've got a search warrant,' Jack said, 'otherwise I shall consider this as breaking and entering.'

'We're evacuating everyone from the local area,' the leading policeman began to say. His head was blown off by a shotgun blast from Jack.

'And that's what I call a legitimate act of self-defence.' Jack blasted a hole through the chest of the first policeman, who toppled backwards. His body partially blocked the hallway, slowing the progress of those behind. Jack had time to reload both barrels.

'See, I don't like burglars horrible, furtive little men who haven't got the bottle to rob you face to face.' Jack shot twice, further blocking the hallway with another twitching corpse. He calmly reloaded as the zombie policemen got ever closer. 'Give me a dangerous villain with an iron bar any day.'

Jack got off one more shot before he was forced to start retreating back through the ground floor of the house. He glanced up the stairwell to see Tommy give him a parting wave.

'They're all yours!' Jack shouted. He turned and ran, pulling the doors shut behind him. Jack emerged from the back door at speed into the yard, yelling at the men ahead of him. 'Move it!'

Brick was first up on to the roof, followed by Billy and Charlie.

The brothers were shocked by the array of dead pigeons littering the roof.

'What happened here?' Billy asked. 'Some sap lost all their little birdies to the smog?' Brick advanced on the teenager, his fists clenching and unclenching. Charlie. remonstrated with his brother by ramming an elbow into Billy's ribs. 'Sorry, Brick I mean, Mr Brick. I didn't mean anything by it...'

The Doctor was next up through the skylight, followed by the other two Ramsey henchmen. Last came Tommy himself, pulling the ladder up behind him. He was out of breath but smiling. 'That was a close thing. Jack's leading most of the old bill out the back as a diversion, but a few came up the stairs after us.' Tommy leaned over the skylight and shot down on to the landing below. A dull thud announced that one of the pursuing police was now out of action. Tommy closed the skylight and told Billy and Charlie to carry the ladder.

'Why?' asked Billy before his brother could get another elbow jab in.

'Because we might need it to get down from another roof,'

Tommy said, rolling his eyes in despair. 'Honestly, I worry about the next generation.'

The Doctor looked over the side of the roof, down into Tabernacle Street. More than twenty police were crowding through the front door into number 15. 'The decoy is working.