Crawlers

11:31pm

No, thought Ben. No, no, NO-! He dropped flat: his face greeted the Barbican carpet a third time. His consciousness, his whole being, was focused on the red laser dot that right then must have been settling, fatally, on the back of his skull. 

The soldiers thought they'd been tricked: they thought that he and the girls were part of it! To die now, by mistake, so close to getting help - not just for the four of them but for Robert, Josh and Lisa too - it just didn't seem fair. Now the soldiers would see them as a threat. The nearest figure's finger would be tightening on the trigger. Ben squeezed his eyes shut, awaiting annihilation. But at the same time the screams of the charging horde were getting closer. He heard the drumming of approaching feet. They were right behind him- 

And now they attacked. 

Abandoning his school tie, Ben threw his hands up over his head and drew in his legs until he was a ball: he wanted to be smaller; he wanted to make himself disappear as hundreds of pounding feet stormed past, threatening to trample him. Gunfire; screaming; choking smoke; thundering footsteps; roaring voices - it all came to Ben in flashes. He could make sense of none of it. He just wanted it to end. 

Eventually the trampling feet passed. Now someone was shaking him. He flinched and slapped the hands away. Then he opened his eyes. 

Jasmine was crouching over him. 'Come on, Ben!' she shouted. 'Get up! Quick, while they're fighting by the doors!' 

As he got to his knees Ben turned to look. He couldn't help himself. 

The noise and movement of the battle had dispersed some of the gas. Ben could see a little of what was going on. In the background he saw the main body of the horde of parasitized adults. From where he was standing they were a row of backs swarming against the doors of the main entrance, hurling and battering themselves at the glass. Obviously there was no way out there. But at that moment Ben's attention was mostly on what was happening in the foreground, only a few metres away. 

Four adults were bent over, wrestling with something on the ground. Catching a flash of grey movement between them, Ben stared: one of the men in protection suits - possibly Rawson himself - was down, and struggling furiously. As Ben watched, the attackers were just getting the upper hand: while a fat red-faced man in a pinstriped suit immobilized their victim's legs by sitting on them, two snarling old ladies trapped his arms. The fourth member of the group, a young woman in a smart grey jacket and matching trousers, pulled a crawler from her handbag. With her free hand she ripped off her victim's hood, mask and goggles, then brought the eager, grasping creature down on the back of the man's head. 

The young woman was the girls' teacher, Ms Gresham. 

Ben gulped and looked quickly back at Jasmine, deciding not to tell her. 'Wh-what about the others?' he asked instead. 

'Lauren ran off,' said Jasmine. 'Samantha went after her. We've got to follow them, quick, or we'll get separated.' She tugged on his arm again. 'Ben!' 

'Right,' he said. 'Right. Yes.' Everything was happening so fast, his brain was having trouble keeping up. He retrieved his school tie and got to his feet. 'Um, which way did they go?' 

Jasmine held out a hand. 'Come on!' 

To Ben's right lay the stairs he'd found earlier. Jasmine took them two at a time. It was a short flight leading down to a small mezzanine floor from which more stairs led off to the left, these ones flanked by concrete pillars. 

Hold on, thought Ben as he passed the pillars and reached the bottom. He'd been this way before...

'Let me out!' wailed a familiar voice from Ben's left. 'I've got to get out of here! LET ME OUT!' 

At least Lauren hadn't proved too hard to find: when Jasmine and Ben reached her, she was pounding on one of the glass panel exit doors which, from this level, led out towards the Barbican's underground car park. Neither Lauren's pounding nor her yelling was doing the least bit of good: the doors had been locked for nearly four hours now. But Samantha's efforts to stop her were proving just as fruitless. 

'Babes, you've got to calm down.' 

'No! I've had it! I can't take this any more! Let me out!' 

'Please be quiet,' said Ben hopelessly. 'We don't know if we're alone down here.' 

'We should get out of sight,' agreed Jasmine. 'At least until this fighting stops. Is there - I don't know - maybe somewhere we can hide and get our breath back, work out our next move?' 

'Oh, sure,' said Samantha, rounding on her, 'because everything turned out so well the last time you had that idea.' 

'Well what do you suggest, Samantha?' Jasmine snapped back. 

'We could try the theatre,' said Ben. He pointed at another set of double doors off to their left. 'It's just through there.' 

The doors he was indicating were the same ones he'd used at the start of the evening. They led to the stalls of the Barbican's Main Theatre, where his tutor group's seats had been for the play. 

All three girls looked at him - even, Ben was surprised to notice, Lauren. 

'But it's dark,' she said indignantly, frowning at him. 

Lauren's point might be random but it was also true: beyond the glass panels, the blackness was total. Still, Ben couldn't help wondering whether the boys of the group would also have picked this minute to have an argument. 

BLAM! BADABLAM! More shots momentarily drowned out the screams upstairs. 

'At least we won't be in the middle of a battle,' Ben pointed out.