Part 4 (1/2)

'Nothing you'd like to eat,' he snapped.

'I don't always eat mud.'

'I'm not talking about mud.'

'Look, what's your name?'

He paused. 'My name?'

'Can't you remember it, either?'

'I've got it back now, but it doesn't feel as if it belongs to me.' He gave a grim smile. Those gold-tipped incisors glinted. 'For the record, I'm called Carter.'

'Why the record?'

'Names don't mean anything round here.'

'They do to me. I'm April Connor.' She held out her hand. 'Mr Carter.'

He stared at her hand. 'Carter Vaughn. No mister. Still hungry?'

She nodded. 'To the point of nausea.'

'They all get like that, April.' He shook her hand. 'That's why you ate dirt, and the others ate stones, then they decided that the big guy should become dinner.'

'Why did they choose him?'

'Juiciest. Start walking.'

She walked in silence for a moment until they reached another sh.o.r.eline. This one was deserted; the falling tide revealed a stretch of sand that ran out a hundred yards or so. The pains in her stomach flared up again. A sickening spasm that fluidly transformed itself into raging hunger that attacked her veins as much as her stomach.

April talked to distract herself from the hunger. 'What's this place called?'

'As far as I know it doesn't have a name.' When he saw the anxiety in her face he smiled. 'Okay, I know you want answers. I call it Willow Island. On account ofa' He pulled at the fronds of a willow. 'And Rat Island would do. There's hundreds of the little b.u.g.g.e.rs.'

'I've been calling it the Isle of the Dead.' She rubbed her stomach. 'It seemed apt.'

'Yeah, that's a good one, too.'

'But how did I end up out here in the ocean?'

'Ocean? This is the River Thames. When it's daylight you can make out Gravesend upstream.'

The vastness of the twinkling water astounded her. 'But it's huge. I can't see the bank.'

'That's because it's low-lying. Also we're down near the end of the estuary. Is it getting bad?'

'Uh?'

'The hunger?'

She pressed her lips together as she nodded. Images of cooked meats seared through her - chops, steaks, rib roast, hams, hamburgers, you name it.

'This is when mud starts looking like Sunday dinner, doesn't it?'

Again she could only nod as painful cramps snapped her stomach muscles tight. In another effort to distract her she spat out another question. 'How did we get here, Carter?'

'You know how, April. You know exactly how.'

'I was attacked. Thrown in the rivera from the embankment near Westminster.' She found it hard to speak, the pain was so intense. 'You?'

'You were bitten on the waist. See the bite mark on my wrist? I thought I was helping some homeless kid in a park. He nearly chewed my hand off, then dumped me in the water at Woolwich. I drifted down with the tide like the rest.'

'I don't understanda' The pain grew worse.

'What is there to understand? It's the way it is. All we can do is keep away from the headcases, they get so hungry they'll eat anything. See those teeth marks in the tree trunk?'

April eyed the trunk of the willow. The bark resembled bacon - or at least it did right then. She saw how satisfying it would be to sink her teeth into the flesh of the tree.

'Don't try it.' Carter guessed what she was thinking. 'You'll only break your teeth.'

'But I've got to eat,' she said. 'I can't think properly. I need to bite down ona' She rubbed her forehead as nothing less than starvation ripped through her. 'Just to bite. That would be enough for now.' Even as she spoke she eyed the sand at her feet. Its sugary whiteness s.h.i.+ning in the moonlight was so alluring she longed to gorge.

'Look at me, April. No, look into my face. Eating that c.r.a.p only makes you sick or snaps your teeth. I'll show you how to stop the worst of the hunger. It won't make it go away but it'll be tolerable. Understand?'

Reluctantly, she forced herself to stop ogling the crisp sand that offered nothing less than a whole feast beneath her feet.

'Listen,' Carter told her. 'First we'll deal with the hunger pains, then I'll tell you everything I know. Okay?'

'Okay. Tell me what I have to do.' By now, she found she couldn't take her eyes off the firm roundness of his Adam's apple.

Carter pointed at the pool of water left by the high tide. 'There,' he told her. 'Don't eat the mud or the sand, just drink as much as you can.'

'That puddle?' April Connor clutched her stomach. 'I need food!'

'You won't get what you want here. Drink that, it'll stop the pains.'

'b.l.o.o.d.y moron,' she hissed. 'That's river watera are you trying to poison me?'

'Your choice, April. Drink, or go back to those lunatics and eat each other; I've seen it all before.'

'There's been more of us?'

'Lots more. Usually they go so crazy they end up back in the water.'

They made their way down on to the sh.o.r.e that glinted with a series of tidal pools. The one that Carter had indicated was clear enough to reveal bits of broken gla.s.s in the bottom. There was a latex glove, too, with a finger and thumb missing. She fancied she could see some worm-like creatures squirming amongst the sludge.

'You want me to drink that!'

'It's the only way, April.'