The engines were getting nearer, and one had a particular coughing note Jess knew very well.

Liz put the tractor in neutral and killed the motor. Villagers stood gawping in the street outside the Assemblies church, which was in the same state as everywhere else – trashed, ransacked, the Sign marked above the door. All the God-bothering shit proven worthless: when They came in the night, Jesus and prayers did nothing.

Liz climbed down from the cab, reached back in and took the shotgun from under her seat. Keira got down too, unslung her rifle and slipped off the safety, nearly panting with excitement.

There’d been, Liz reckoned, one last shred of unbelief left in the girl, right up until the ride up to Barsall. Then she’d seen the pigs’ Landy at the Height, flipped over on its back, battered and crumpled like tinfoil, glass everywhere. And the gap in the ranks of marching pylons on Fendmoor, the wires hanging limply down to the fallen one’s wreckage. Keira had whooped then, in pure glee; even Liz’d had to smile at that. Girl must feel like the queen of all the world today.

Behind them, the second tractor halted with a squeak of brakes. Its engine cut out, too, and there was silence.

Noel Jones had run to the upstairs office as soon as he’d heard the tractors, rifle bouncing against his back. Army training: take the high ground. Mightn’t be trouble, but you never assumed: assumption was the mother of all fuck-ups. Ellie’s old sergeant used to say that, she’d told him. So had Noel’s.

He’d not been in the army long. He’d been young enough that it’d seemed a good idea at the time, but old enough to soon realise what kind of man he’d become, and to know he didn’t want that.

He’d been considered one of the bright ones. Comms and IT had been his forte; he’d taken that training back into civvy street and built the business he now ran from home. But he’d always been good with a rifle, too: best shot in the company, the colour-sergeant had crowed, maybe even the regiment. Not something he was particularly proud of, but it had its uses out here, if you were after some small game for the pot.

Noel had never taken a human life; he’d come under fire once in his Army days, but that was all. Most of the time he’d been well away from the main action, and he thanked his Methodist-Chapel God for that. But he still had the training, and the skill.

He recognised the battered tractors the second he saw them, even before Liz Harper clambered down. He opened the office window, swept the papers off a small side-table and picked it up; exactly what he needed.