Read Online The Beast by Barry Hutchison - Free Book Online

breathing.
    ‘Now,’ smiled Ameena, ‘you cannot say that wasn’t fun.’
    ‘You idiot!’ Billy cried. His face was as white as the snow on the windscreen. ‘You could’ve killed us!’
    ‘Not my fault,’ Ameena said. She had released her grip on Guggs, who was now struggling with a slowly deflating airbag. ‘I did warn him.’ She turned to me. ‘You heard me warn him, right?’
    I nodded, too shaken to speak.
    ‘There you go,’ Ameena smiled. ‘Like I said, wasn’t my fault.’
    ‘You’re nuts,’ Billy muttered. ‘She’s absolutely nuts.’
    He and I both jumped as the alarm of the car we’d hit suddenly began to wail.
    ‘We have to move,’ Guggs grunted. I’d expected him to have a go at Ameena, or even attack her, but he was already opening the door and climbing out past the half-filled airbag. ‘Come on, Billy.’
    Billy didn’t wait to be told twice. He unclipped his seatbelt and opened the door in one move. A blast of icy air rushed into the car as he clambered outside.
    ‘Where are you going?’ I called after him. The door half-closed, then opened again.
    ‘Can’t hang around here,’ Billy said, leaning down. ‘Zombies aren’t the only thing roaming around,’ he finished, before the door slammed shut. I remembered the footprint in the sugar on Mrs Angelo’s kitchen floor. From the look on Ameena’s face, I could tell she was thinking the very same thing.
    ‘What do you mean?’ I asked, getting out of the car. Ameena got out too, and stood beside me. Billy and Guggs were already several paces away. Guggs had another metal bar in his hand now, shorter than the one he’d had before. I had to raise my voice to be heard over the car alarm. ‘What else is there?’
    They trudged on, moving slowly through the snow. I stumbled after them until Billy was less than an arm’s length away. He twisted when my hand caught him by the shoulder, and spun to face me, fists raised. But the cocky, bullying, arrogant Billy wasn’t there behind his eyes. There was nothing there but fear.
    ‘Just keep moving,’ he said, walking backwards.
    I pointed back to the car, already hard to make out in the blizzard. ‘What about her? In the boot? We can’t just leave her.’
    ‘Hurry up, Billy,’ Guggs barked.
    ‘What else is out there?’ I asked again. ‘What’s—?’
    A deep, rumbling roar rolled across the sky. It rose in pitch, becoming more like a screech before it finally faded away. Ameena was beside me again. ‘What,’ she asked, ‘was that?’
    Billy’s reply came as a low and scratchy whisper. ‘The Beast,’ he said. ‘It’s the Beast.’
    ‘Billy, come on!’
    ‘The Beast? What’s the Beast?’ I asked.
    ‘Explain later,’ Billy said, turning and stumbling away. ‘Need to get inside.’
    ‘Now you’re talking,’ Ameena said. She caught me by the arm. ‘Come on, let’s get warm, then we can figure out what all the shenanigans are about.’
    ‘ Jesus Christ! ’
    Guggs’ voice was shrill and panicked. I could just make him out in the gloom, swinging wildly with the metal bar.
    ‘What’s he doing?’ I muttered, before I saw a shape making a wild lunge at him through the snowstorm. It was a man. I’d seen him around the village a few times, and at the supermarket in town. But I’d never seen him like this.
    His eyes were coal black, his skin shades of grey. A mess of blood covered the bottom half of his face. It was smeared over his chin and down his neck, and it soaked into the thin white t-shirt he wore. On his bottom half he wore nothing but boxer shorts and socks. The boxers were marked with big red dots. From here, I couldn’t tell if the spots were a pattern, or if they were blood.
    The man opened his mouth as he hurled himself at Guggs. His whole bottom jaw seemed to dislocate, turning the mouth into a gaping cavern, lined top and bottom with yellowing teeth.
    For a second, I thought those teeth were going to clamp down on Guggs, but then Guggs’ arm was