Mute

Chapter 24. Operation Sea Life

The flock of mutants that surrounded, or engulfed would be a better word, the front of the aquarium was as silent as the grave.

Georgie, squatting on the hot concrete, hidden from the mutants by an upturned rowing boat, shielded her eyes from the sun and watched the fire door.

Ant leaned against a closed and shuttered ice-cream kiosk fifty feet closer to the mutants. He ignored the sweat that stung his eyes.

The door crept open and a tall woman, made taller still by the afro that had obviously grown wild during her confinement, stepped out. Sunglasses covered her eyes as she peered into the full glare of a summer's day for the first time in a long time. This was Naomi. She was, to put it mildly, a striking figure. She saw Georgie and gave her a cautious thumbs-up. Georgie pointed east along the seafront, confirming what Naomi already knew from their run-throughs over the radio: the way to the van that waited for them.

Naomi, holding the fire door open, fanned her hand towards her as if guiding a cautious driver into a tight parking space. A woman emerged holding the hand of a young girl who Naomi kissed on the forehead before pointing in the direction Georgie had indicated. The shared features of mother and daughter were unmistakeable: The black hair, the pale blue eyes and sharply angled cheekbones, the broad, upright shoulders. They looked like two pieces in a set of Russian dolls. Neither of them looked at the mutants, they just ran where they'd been told to run. They were barefoot and made almost no sound.

Next out was a man, tall and skinny. His eyes darted everywhere. He saw the mutants holding their silent vigil and quickly covered the eyes of the boy he was carrying. Two more men followed, one in his early twenties and the other maybe twice that age. They walked hand-in-hand and quickly caught up with the young man carrying the toddler, who was noticeably struggling. The kid was obviously too big to be carried, but he was also too small to make the run to safety on his own. As the two men passed, the older one turned, offering to help the skinny man with the wriggling child, but his partner pulled him away. As the skinny man adjusted his hold on the toddler his hand slid away from the kid's eyes and the boy did what any four-year-old would do when faced with a crowd of monster-people.

He screamed.

Loud enough to wake the dead.

Loud enough to wake the mutants.

Georgie didn't blink, she cranked the lever on the brass valve that sat above the fire hydrant, turning it as far as it would go. Ant braced, holding the hose the way the training manuals had told him, knees bent, one hand cupping from below and the other on top, gripping it firmly in place. As the floppy length of hose was made solid by the water, the mutants started to stir.

Naomi, bringing up the rear of the aquarium exodus, ran to the skinny man with the wriggling, screaming cargo. She took one of the toddler's hands, the man took the other, and together they ran with the kid hanging between them.

At least three of the mutants were fully awake and were starting to react to the live flesh that moved in front of them.

The hose bucked, jerked and exploded in Ant's hands, but he held on fast and trained the jet on the approaching mutants. He wasn't picky with his aim, he just blasted from left to right and back across again.

And the mutants went down like targets at a funfair.

Those closest were felled by the power of the jet, and the rest simply ran in the opposite direction, traumatised by being soaked to the purple skin. This had been a huge risk on Georgie and Ant's part; the mutants outside Ant's morgue had run for cover when it rained, but they had no idea if this lot would suffer from the same phobia. Georgie and Ant had effectively bet their lives on this, along with those of everybody inside the aquarium.