“Who needs words?” She leapt forward and grabbed him, kissing him so hard that she almost knocked him over. The two of them embraced like they were terrified of losing each other again.

  Fiona smiled despite her tears, but it was an expression full of pain. Coben’s ghost seemed to be there with them at that moment.

  As were the ghosts of billions of others.

  Morgan whispered to Aaron, “I take it they know each other.”

  “You could say that,” he replied with a weak smile. He then turned to face the monstrous weapon buried in the turf. Up close, it seemed to climb all the way into space. “Did we do it? Did we win?”

  Ryan chuckled, his arms wrapped tightly around Sophie and staring into her eyes. “This is Old Trafford. The home team always wins. Um… win what, by the way?”

  Aaron had a lot of explaining to do. So he got started.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Ryan took several steps towards the weapon, staring upward with his eyes wide. The sky above Manchester was a healthy morning blue, but the patch directly overhead was a sickly purple, like an ageing bruise. The orbs at the base of the weapon pulsated, breathing in and out like air-filled blisters.

  “We don’t know what it is exactly,” said Aaron, “but it’ll pollute the atmosphere and finish us off.”

  Ryan half turned back towards him, seeming unwilling to have his back to the weapon now that he knew what it was. “So we destroy it, right?”

  “Any ideas?” asked Sophie. “I don’t see any buttons.”

  Fiona was crouched next to Cameron’s body, stroking his forehead. When she spoke, she didn’t lift her head to look at anyone. “Maybe we can blow it up?”

  Aaron nodded to his brother, an ache in his neck as he did so. His head felt heavy, as if it were filled with lead. “Do you have any more fireworks?”

  “No. I set them all off when I came to the rescue. It seemed like an all-or-nothing kind of situation. None of it was powerful enough to destroy this thing, anyhow. We need something military. C4 or dynamite.”

  “Know where we can find any?”

  “Nope.”

  Helper started moving, so Sophie and Morgan hurried to help him to recover. He was battered and wounded, moaning like an animal. But he was alive. A fact that overwhelmed Aaron with relief.

  Ryan whistled, which prompted Wallace to come waddling over. “Hey, our kid? Do you know how we can destroy this thing?”

  Wallace stepped closer to the weapon and lifted his fans. They vibrated and flapped for almost a full minute before he stopped and turned to Ryan. N2O4 Dinitrogen tetroxide. Deadly. Extinction.

  Ryan groaned. “Can you stop it?”

  Wallace turned to face the weapon again. This time, he spoke in his own voice, which was almost identical to Helper’s. “Poss-ib-ly.”

  “Then get to it, mate. Save our bacon.”

  “Yesss.” Wallace waddled over to the weapon and planted both of his fans on the orbs, left and right. Immediately they started to shimmer, but they didn’t seem to cause the alien any discomfort.

  Aaron gave his brother a wide-eyed stare. “Do you really think he can do it? I… I can’t believe we made it here and won.”

  Ryan stepped over and pulled his brother into a hug. “You never gave up, little bro. You crawled through shit and came up smelling of Hugo Boss. When did you become a man?”

  “The moment you died.”

  Ryan chuckled. “Then I’m sorry your personal development was based on a lie.”

  “Best lie ever.”

  “I’m proud of you.”

  Aaron didn’t know what to say to that. It was something he had never expected to hear.

  Sophie grunted behind them as she fought to get Helper onto his feet. The alien was bleeding from several places, and part of his large black eye had ruptured at the lower-left corner, leaking filthy brown fluid. His fan was crumpled like a crunched-up leaf.

  We need to get him help.

  Despite his clear injury and weakness, Helper suddenly threw up his broken fan and squealed. A warning. Terrified.

  Fiona swore and leapt up from beside Cameron. Behind her, clambering through the rubble, a dozen greens and a pair of takers raced in to attack.

  “They’re here to stop us,” said Aaron. “We have to buy Wallace the time he needs.”

  Helper continued to squeal in a way Aaron had not heard before. He was motioning towards the weapon, trying to express something in his panic.

  We get it. We need to buy time.

  “Fight,” Aaron yelled, and he took off towards the ruined South Stand. There, he immediately threw up his arm and let out a pulse that obliterated three greens in a split second. The taker behind them threw itself aside just in time to avoid a matching fate.

  Fiona grabbed chunks of rubble and tossed them at the greens, caving in brittle skulls. Then she unearthed a sharp scrap of metal that had once been part of the stadium’s seating. She used it to gore the enemy while Sophie and Morgan raced to help her, but the three women were quickly forced backwards as the enemy continued to pile into the stadium.

  “There’re too many,” said Ryan. He pulled out a catapult from his pocket and produced a small sack of marbles. He loaded a ball bearing and loosed it, sending the steel orb twenty metres across the pitch and right between the eyes of an infected woman.

  Aaron glanced at him. “When the hell did you turn into Rambo?”

  “Nowt much to do on the road except shoot marbles at glass bottles. The fireworks I found in the backroom of a dodgy old warehouse in Carlisle.”

  “You’re right,” said Aaron. “We can’t defend ourselves without weapons. Shit… what do we do? Should we run?”

  Ryan aimed and loosed another marble. “No. We have to give Wallace time. Even if we die doing it. The whole of the planet is relying on us, right?”

  Aaron nodded sombrely, wishing it wasn’t the case. Wishing that, for some surreal fucking reason, the fate of the world didn’t rest on him.

  How the hell did I get here? How is the world relying on me? Of all the people in the world?

  Aaron felt something inside him change and realised what it was. He leapt forward and threw up his arm, unleashing another pulse. The shimmering air obliterated a pair of greens.

  Ryan shook his head in astonishment. “You want to teach me that, our kid?”

  “The lesson is too expensive, trust me.”

  The enemy continued piling in, backing everyone up towards the weapon. Sophie and Fiona had to help Helper to walk. His manic squeals had become an exhausted wheezing. Something was clearly bothering him, and it didn’t seem to be the attacking enemy.

  What’s wrong with him?

  “Oh shite!” said Ryan. “It’s another one of them.”

  Aaron turned and saw a titan. It was small compared to most, formed from only four or five bodies, but it stomped its way into the stadium at ten feet tall. At the same time, a large taker, dressed in armour like the one dispatched earlier, came clambering through the rubble, too. A duo of ordinary takers followed, adding to the half-dozen already inside.

  Aaron felt woozy. We’re fucked. All we can do is delay.

  His vision caught Cameron’s pale corpse impaled on the copper pipe, and he tried to imagine that his brave friend was still alive. Cameron would’ve thrown himself into the fight, no matter the odds.

  “Feck it,” said Aaron. “You only die once.”

  He raced at the titan but then dodged aside as it swung at him and launched himself at an infected man. He punched the green in its face and knocked it down, but it wasn’t a killer blow. That hadn’t been his intention.

  The nearby greens, and several takers, pivoted and gave chase, attempting to surround Aaron. It caused them to move away from the weapon, and away from Wallace, who was still interfacing with the strange pulsating orbs.

  Nearby, Helper had fallen to the ground, too weak to remain standing. Sophie, Morgan, and Fiona stood over him, ready to defend their alien friend, but they were becoming surrounded.

  Ryan launched more marbles, focusing on a nearby taker who roared with anger as the projectiles peppered its flesh.

  Aaron ducked down and picked up a sharp piece of wood. It looked like part of an advertising board because it had the red logo of a well-known drinks company on it. He used it to stab an infected woman in the head and pulled it back out afterwards.

  Aaron then turned to find a new target, but he found himself suddenly airborne and breathless.

  The armoured taker had clubbed him in the side, but he had luckily moved with the blow and deflected the worst of it. All the same, he came crashing down onto his back, his fingers clutching at the turf underneath him that was wet with a foul green oil.

  The taker spoke into his head. Over is.

  For you, yes, Aaron replied.

  No, said the taker triumphantly. For mankind.

  Aaron frowned, not understanding why the taker thought it had won. Wallace was deactivating the weapon right now. Without it, the takers were doomed to suffocate as more and more corkscrews got destroyed.

  The taker swung at Aaron again, this time striking his shoulder and causing him to roll across the turf in agony. He still held the shard of wood, but it would be useless against the thick hide of a taker. His friends were all engaged in battle and trying to stay alive. Ryan was still firing marbles, unaware of Aaron’s plight.

  The taker stood over Aaron and made one of those mocking noises that was a perversion of human laughter. Over is. Ours will be.

  “Never,” said Aaron. “You’re nothing but a footnote in our history, the thing we needed to advance beyond what we were. One day, we’ll be travelling the universe hunting you down. You went and fucked with the wrong team.”

  The taker stopped its laughter and raised an arm. The air shimmered.

  Aaron steeled himself and said, “This is gunna hurt me a lot more than it hurts you.” He then stabbed the shard of wood right into his thigh.

  The pain was immediate, like fire inside his muscles, blazing up and down the nerves of his thigh. He shoved the shard deeper until an agonised scream erupted inside his head.

  The taker stumbled backwards, its pulse hitting the ground harmlessly. It clubbed at its own face, as if its many eyes were burning. It squealed like a pig.

  Aaron clambered gingerly to his feet while he had the chance, his shoulder full of sharp pains. “You ain’t laughing any more, are ya?”

  The taker convulsed, losing control of itself. Soon it would recover, but Aaron didn’t intend to let that happen. He stepped forward and raised his arm and released a pulse that unmade the taker in less than a mouse’s heartbeat.

  Aaron doubled over and gasped. The greens that had been pursuing him had moved away and were now closing in on the weapon. Ryan tried to take them out with marbles while Wallace continued to work on the controls, but he couldn’t deal with them all. Behind him, Wallace continued to hold his fans against the vibrating orbs. The entire weapon was pulsating, the fleshy globs moving upwards into an open chamber.

  How much longer does Wallace need? Is he going to make it?

  Greens were everywhere, but Fiona, Sophie, Morgan, and Ryan did all they could to dodge around and distract them. The titan swung a vine-like arm at them, narrowly missing each time. It was slow and cumbersome, and several times it crushed greens with its errant swipes.

  Several takers stood amongst the chaos, but they did little to involve themselves.

  Why aren’t they trying to stop Wallace?

  Helper was still lying on the ground, but he was dragging himself, one-armed, towards the weapon. He moaned in agony and despair. Something was very wrong with him.

  Aaron closed his eyes and focused. He tried to imagine Helper’s pain. What it would feel like. What it would sound like. He tried to reach out to Helper with his mind, to snatch at the invisible strands between them. He saw the atoms in the air, the chemicals that made up everything. The frequencies that made up life. Then he felt Helper.

  What is wrong, Helper?

  Aaron?

  Yes. What is wrong?

  Helper thought a word that was too alien to understand, but Aaron had a sense of what it was. It was a name. The true name of the alien that Ryan had christened ‘Wallace’.

  Wallace? Asked Aaron, opening his eyes again now that he was comfortably locked in on Helper. What about him?

  Helper turned on his side, searching for Aaron amidst the chaos. When he found him, he stared at him with his large, leaking black eye. Traitor.

  Aaron hobbled forward on his bad leg as quickly as he could. “Oh fookin’ hell.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Aaron raced towards Wallace, but a pair of takers quickly cut him off.

  That’s why they stayed back. They want Wallace to succeed. They’re trying to stop me from reaching him.

  Aaron had to dodge backwards to avoid a pulse. Then an infected woman lashed out with her talon and caught him across the ribs. He clutched at himself and swore, his hand already bloody.

  The enemy filled the stadium. Ryan, Sophie, and Fiona were finding it harder and harder to find space. Wallace remained at the weapon, doing…

  What? What is he doing?

  He’s activating it. Why?

  Aaron moved aside to avoid getting whipped a second time, but he could barely stay on his feet. His thigh was filled with white-hot needles, and his ribs were aflame with the agony of torn flesh. Eventually, he fell onto his knees, unable to go on. He spat blood onto the oily turf.

  Fiona stumbled onto her front, ten feet away from him, sliced across the arm by an infected man in a Manchester City shirt stained with bodily fluids. Sophie had an arm around Morgan, who was cowering in terror. Ryan fired marbles as quickly as he could, but his arms were shaking with the exertion.

  Aaron tried to get up, but his legs were rigid. He took a breath and tasted copper, not just from the blood in his mouth, but from the air.

  The top of the weapon split open like an opening flower, and a purple gas erupted into the atmosphere. Mankind was finished. The Earth had finally shed its dominant species. Soon, a new one would fester and grow.

  A taker spotted Aaron lying on the ground and approached, but Aaron did nothing to defend himself. There was no point. Best it just be over with quickly.

  The taker stumbled and fell. At first, it seemed like mere clumsiness, but when the creature ended up on its face, unmoving, it was clear something had killed it.

  Gunshots rang out around the stadium. Aaron rolled onto his side – something that took him several seconds – and saw people in the stands, on the pitch. Everywhere. Hundreds of people. Some were armed with guns, but a majority wielded only blades and clubs. Amongst them were a dozen blues, each with their fans vibrating.

  Greens fell like dominoes, convulsing on the ground. Takers roared and squealed as men attacked them and blues eviscerated them. Many humans died in the rapid onslaught, but their sudden, overwhelming assault had taken the enemy completely by surprise.

  Renewed with hope, Aaron clambered to his knees. From there, he made it to his feet. His friends were still in danger, surrounded by greens over near the base of the weapon. Behind them, Wallace continued to betray them. They had no idea.

  Morgan fell to the floor as Sophie let go of her in order to fight. Ryan tossed down his catapult and pulled out a knife. He planted it in the skull of an infected man but couldn’t retrieve it. So he resorted to wrestling, picking up men and women by the thighs and dumping them on their heads. Unlike Aaron, Fiona, and Sophie, Morgan and Ryan were not immune to infection. The talons whipping at them would prove fatal.

  Aaron ducked as a green swung at him. He was too wounded to fight back, so he ducked and staggered forward towards his friends. Five or six greens closed in on them, their talons raised over their heads.

  One slice to the neck and it would all be over.

  Aaron wasn’t going to lose anyone else. Not today. Not while there was still a chance they could stop the enemy from winning.

  Staggering forward, he raised his arm and let off a pulse that took out four greens standing in a row. Only one remained standing, and Ryan quickly kicked its legs from underneath it and stamped on its head. He looked at Aaron and nodded. A second later, and things would have turned out differently.

  A full-on war broke out inside the stadium, men against alien. Natives against invaders. Blues against takers.

  But the takers were too few, and the greens were fragile husks. This was Manchester’s last stand, and every man and woman was prepared to go down fighting.

  The blues turned their focus on the titan, pulling at its limbs with invisible force and stripping away great chunks of fungus-covered flesh. One of its legs gave way and it went toppling to the ground like the giant at the top of the beanstalk. Once down, the humans hacked at it with machetes and knives.

  The blues then dealt with the takers, edging their pulses and then pulling them apart while they were defenceless. The humans were opportunistic, finishing them off as they weakened.

  Within seconds, it was all over. The enemy dead.

  But it was too late.

  The weapon had deployed, releasing a deadly purple gas into the air.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “What the hell is that?” asked Ryan, staring up at the toxic purple cloud.

  Helper moaned on the ground. “Death… Death to… mankind.”

  Morgan covered her mouth. “Wallace couldn’t stop it.”

  Aaron shook his head, and when he looked over at Wallace, he saw the alien had stepped back from the controls and was at ease. His work was done. “No, he activated it. He betrayed us.”

 

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