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brooded a sense of desperation.
    Dirty brick and fading frontages.
    Pearcey didn’t care about urban degeneration and decay. It wasn’t heaving with monsters. That was all that mattered.
    “Thank fuck for small mercies.”
    Murmured under his breath.
    That empty bit of road, it was like a drink of cold water on a hot day. It wouldn’t last, not if their progress so far was any kind of guide.
    “Carlton, pull over, I need the toilet.”
    Pearcey heard Gallagher speak and, for a moment, grappled with the words. It didn’t really compute.
    His stolid, no nonsense engineer, the man he’d chosen as a partner, wanted him to stop in order to go to the lavatory?
    Pearcey shot a glance at his companion.
    “Are you pulling my leg? Tie a fucking knot in it Sonny. Wait til we get to your place. You’ve got a fucking toilet there surely.”
    Later, he’d wonder if the distraction might have made a difference. Possibly slowed his reactions, blurred his thinking enough to be partly responsible. It was nonsense of course.
    Sometimes things simply happen.
    It’s useless to ponder it.
    <><><>
    Gallagher was opening his mouth to reply when the world went crazy.
    It was like an explosion.
    Shock and impact.
    The thing hit the ridiculously long bonnet of the Jaguar and bounced up. Smashed against the edge of the windscreen and roof.
    Disappeared.
    A detonation that crushed metal and splattered fluid like spilled paint. Squirted it across the glass in ropey strings.
    Obscured Pearcey’s view.
    Not that it mattered.
    The steering wheel left his control and the car veered left, weighed down and wild. His foot hit the brake.
    An instinct for self-preservation.
    He registered Gallagher being hurled forward.
    No seat belt.
    Gallagher’s head thumped the glass but Pearcey had no time to think about it. The car was slip-sliding away. Like the man said, the closer you get, the more the crap seems to conspire against you.
    The car shuddered as it hit something else.
    Something fixed and unyielding.
    Airbags inflating.
    The aroma of chemical burning.
    Powder in the air.
    Chaos and confusion. He’d slowed sufficiently for the crash not to be calamitous, but it still jarred him in his seat.
    Gallagher was thrown against him.
    Blood spotting the beautiful leather.
    A random moment. That was all it ever took. Unpredictable was everywhere and he ought to be used to the fact, but it still crept up on you. However prepared you thought you were.
    Pearcey cursed the world and cursed himself.
    Cursed the smell of oil and electricity.
    He tried restart and got nothing. It was dead, the car had become an expensive piece of sculpture.
    He roughly threw Gallagher out of his way, into the passenger side.
    The man groaned and held his head.
    “Sonny, are you okay? Are you able to move?”
    Incoherent mumbling and a thumbs up.
    There was movement.
    Outside. Through the dust, beyond the red tinged glass, Pearcey could detect movement.
    “Good, because, we’ve gotta go. Make like a tree and leave. Ditch the car and run. Find somewhere safe. Get our shit together and move on.”
    Gallagher might have understood, even agreed.
    Pearcey didn’t care. He wrenched open the driver’s door and dragged his friend out.
     
    Things had started out bad and hadn’t improved. They’d just taken a distinct turn for the worse.



Chapter 8
Girl Lost
    Angela Gacek had stopped running.
    Not because the fear had receded. If anything, the fear was growing at an exponential rate. No, she hadn’t stopped running because she was less scared, she’d simply decided that conserving energy was a priority.
    She was thirsty, hungry and tired.
    So tired.
    Lightheaded.
    A little while back, for a moment, the world had greyed out. Everything had gone topsy-turvy. The pavement had suddenly been close to her nose and her hand had trailed down a wall.
    The pain in her fingers had brought her back to reality.
    On her knees.
    When she’d inspected her hand, a nail was gone and blood was