Looking around him, though, Peel reckoned she’d be okay in here. The amount of soldiers present; how far they all were underground. But then she’d grown up out there, where he’d existed for so long. He’d at least had experience by the time everything hit the fan, couldn’t even imagine what she’d gone through as a kid out in the wilds, surviving until she was picked up by these people. She’d told him about some of it, broad strokes, but he could imagine the rest. Pat had been more interested in his story, really.
It was an unusual one, had to be said. So as they’d gone off tracking the wolf that got away a couple of nights ago, and after much pestering, he’d filled her in on the background. Didn’t seem any reason not to, wasn’t like it was some big secret or anything. In a way, it had been nice to tell someone about it. Nice to have the company as well. It had been a while since Peel had talked to anyone.
As he’d spoken, memories had come flooding back. Of leaving school, training to be a policeman just like his cousin had been; the one who’d died in mysterious circumstances during that business up in Norchester, which he always suspected had been covered up. Making constable then and waiting to be in the right place at the right time to investigate something big. And boy, had that come along—couldn’t have been any bigger, in fact.
First, those murders on the Greenham Estate. It had been put down to gangs initially because of the location; that place was always blowing up. But then more incidents had occurred, like the massacre in that nightclub (and he’d had to explain here to Pat what those were, because she’d never seen—let alone been in—one; “It’s the kind of place you’d be hanging around in on a Friday and Saturday night at your age,” he’d said, “if things hadn’t gone to Hell in a handbasket.”). He’d never seen anything like that crime scene, and neither had his superior, Moss. Body parts everywhere, blood everywhere. Commonplace now, sadly, but back then it had been pretty shocking. And eyewitnesses mentioning some kind of large dog, which chimed with a few of the statements from Greenham.
It had been a dog, all right, as he’d discovered himself later on.
He’d been there when the case started to come together, when they’d discovered the couple who seemed to be at the centre of it all—the attacks, the murders—and who they traced to a motel outside town. Peel had gone along with the big boys, with the armed response units, with his colleagues, in the middle of all the action. A takedown, an honest to God takedown, and he was going to be involved in it all—on the front ranks! Right place at the right time. Looking back, he couldn’t believe that he’d actually been excited about it. Thought it would be fun! Operation ‘Dogcatcher’ they’d called it, because they were entertaining some bizarre notion that the bloke was training ferocious animals to do his bidding. Christ ...
The slaughter which followed, when they’d surrounded the chalet that couple were in, had been the worst thing he’d ever seen in his life. And the most surreal. He’d watched as Moss had turned into ... something. Knew now it was one of those bloody mutts he’d devoted his entire life to tracking, to killing—but at the time he hadn’t had a clue what was going on. Didn’t know that it had killed his governor and taken his form, to infiltrate the group of police officers and cause maximum carnage. That the couple weren’t actually running this freakshow at all, they were running away from it, like he should have been doing if he’d had any sense.
It had taken them all by surprise, the bloodshed that ensued. Officers cleaved in half, heads flying in the air. Flying ... just like he’d done when that explosion happened, rolling the car he was in. Waking up, he’d surveyed the devastation and heard the cries coming from that motel room. Scrambling out of his upturned vehicle, he’d made it back there, grabbed a discarded rifle, and filled that hairy fuck full of lead ... At least he’d assumed it was lead. Turned out the gun had been filled with silver bullets, or he might not have made it out of that situation alive either.
There had been only two survivors of that night, him and the girl—her boyfriend having taken the thing on and paid the price. Problem was, the beast had reverted back to its human form by the time the authorities made it to the scene. Peel had done quite a bit of damage to it, made sure it was dead in fact by emptying the entire magazine into the body even after it had been felled, but in that state even he could tell it was female. Not a dog, not a wolf, but a woman he’d shot and killed.
There had been questions, of course, but the girlfriend had been practically useless. Refused to back up his side of what—admittedly—had sounded like a crazy story. How could one woman have torn through all those coppers, let alone the armed ones? She was a what? A wolf? Pull the other one! Then the girl had vanished, left him holding the can, and he’d been drummed out of the force. He always suspected there were those who believed him, however. The same folk who’d hushed up what happened to his cousin, who couldn’t let shit like that get out because it would cause a mass panic. Maybe it should have done, because when what happened happened, none of the public had been prepared for it at all. When those things rose up and started to take over, nobody had any hope of defeating them. Not even the muppets who thought they had a handle on it.
In the meantime, as he had done that night when he’d saved Pat, Peel had gone hunting. His little contribution to the cause, in an effort to thin the herd. But he’d been one man, alone, trying to stem the tide of something that would, in the end, wash over them all. He’d had his successes, saved a number of other lives in his time—lives that had probably been lost again once the chaos reigned—but in the end he was only ever going to win the battles, not the war. Afterwards, he’d simply carried on doing what he knew best, what he’d trained himself to do best. Hunt those furry arseholes, then take them out. One by one if he had to. Peel hadn’t been able to stop the world from becoming theirs, but he could avenge it. And maybe one day ...
He’d shaken his head at that, sighed. Had been surprised when he looked down and saw Pat’s hand in his as they walked.
“It’s what we’ve been fighting for as well,” she’d told him then with a smile. This kid who’d grown up in fear of her life every single day; who’d almost been savaged by wolves that had killed her friends back at the outpost; who still hadn’t given up hope, who still had faith everything would work out. “All of us. Let me show you.”
She’d persuaded him to return home with her—the only one she’d known for some time. To give up on the hunt ... for now. Pat still had to report back about what had gone down, and he looked like he could use a kip and some decent food.
“Come on. It’s safe there, honest.”
So, reluctantly, he’d agreed. Checking to make sure they were not being followed—that they weren’t being hunted themselves—she’d taken him back with her. To the base she had set out from to deliver her message. A base that made 7B look like a hovel, apparently. It was a bit of a trek, to the outskirts of the city through territory that had once been parks and woodland—an attempt to bring some colour and nature to an urban environment—but was now all scorched earth and stumps. Along the way they passed burnt out houses, one which would probably have been quite a nice cottage back in the day. Peel glanced in through the shattered windows and saw only the remains of furniture now, bookcases on their sides and a few scattered photographs. All that was left of the owners.
Eventually, however, Pat stopped and pointed. “That,” she’d said, “that is 1A.”
“What? That? A lump of rocks?” What his old mum might have called crags on a bank holiday day out, it looked just as out of place here as the grass and trees must have done. Just as battered as well, blackened and cracked in places; the edges worn not by time but by a relentless hail of missiles. Pat shook her head, and approached the structure with her hands in the air.
Almost immediately, several red dots appeared on her person. “Hold your fire. P 15022012 reporting,”