They’d come up on him from the gap between the office block and the warehouse building. Almost as many of them as there were cats. Moving quickly for grown-ups, despite being out in the sun. Older ones, knotted and hairless, deformed by swollen flesh, like they’d been pumped full of jelly. One mother had a head so eaten away there was virtually nothing left of it. Mick wondered how she was still walking around. He scrambled to his feet, ignoring the pain in his ankle. Desperate to get to his spear. Even as he went for it, though, he was thinking that maybe he should’ve just run.

Too late for that now.

He got to the spear and pulled it out of the ground. Looked back along the front of the building towards the doors. There were more of them there, coming from the other direction. If he wasn’t fast they’d cut off his route back to safety.

Then he saw Jake come charging out of the doors like the idiot he was.

‘No!’ Mick shouted. ‘Stay back. I’m all right!’

Brandon and Kamahl had waited inside, waving and pointing through the windows. Smart. That’s what he’d have done. No need to risk getting hurt when all he had to do was get to the doors …

He was still taking all this in when the world gave a sort of jolt and he went staggering sideways, head spinning. He struggled to make sense of what had happened and then realized something had hit him in the temple.

One of the grown-ups was carrying a half-brick. Mick put a hand to his throbbing scalp. More blood.

Jesus.

‘Mick!’ Jake was haring towards him.

Distracted by Jake and still dizzy from the first blow, Mick lost sight of the father with the brick, who hit him again. Mick staggered drunkenly, swinging the spear, and then Jake was there, pulling his arm.

‘Come on, Mick, get away from them.’

‘Bloody cats,’ said Mick, confused and disoriented.

‘Come on.’

Mick groaned as the pain pulsed in his head, shaking him back to reality. ‘You shouldn’t have come out,’ he said. ‘I can handle this.’

‘We have to get back inside!’

‘I’ll show them.’

Mick took a deep breath, getting it all back together, head clearing, drove his spear right through the chest bone of the father with the brick, twisted and yanked it free. Laughed. Stooped down to pick up the brick.

‘You want some?’ he shouted and the bulk of the grown-ups were on him. ‘You want to see what I can do with this?’