Catherine Jinks TheRoad (99 page)

‘We can’t!’
Jesus! Alec couldn’t believe his ears. ‘
We haven’t got a torch!’

‘But –’

‘How we gunna find her in the fuckin dark, with no torch?’

Finally, Alec’s fumbling fingers (the ones on his right hand, which didn’t feel as if they belonged to someone else) managed to release the catch on the Ford’s front passenger door. Alec flung himself inside. He felt safer inside, although the vehicle’s interior was filled with the sound of snivelling children. Glancing back at them, Alec said: ‘It’s all right. It’s gunna be all right.’

Tap, tap
! Noel was now drumming one knuckle against Alec’s window. Backlit by the fire, he presented a grisly spectacle; Alec could just make out blood gleaming in his hair and on his right cheek – which seemed to be peppered with oozing sores.

Not shotgun pellets, thought Alec. Bits of glass. The glass got him.

‘What?’ Alec wound down his window, so frightened and furious that there were tears in his eyes. ‘Get in the car!’

‘We’ve got to find them, Alec.’

‘We can’t! I told you!’

‘We can. If we get a big branch, put the tip in the fire, it’ll act as a torch –’

‘And set the whole place alight!’

‘Noel.’ It was Linda who spoke. She had climbed into the back seat, to be with her children. ‘Noel, you’re not going out there. Not alone.’

‘Alec can come with me.’