Free The Gates: An Apocalyptic Novel by Iain Rob Wright Page B

began to wobble. Mina couldn’t hold it
anymore.
    The flames were getting closer.
    She would have to drop the table and run. She couldn’t
help the girl. “I’m sorry,” she said.
    Suddenly the weight in her hands lightened.
    “After three,” said David, now standing beside
her. “One…two…three!”
    Together, they shoved the table up and over. It
fell free of the girl, and she screamed in renewed pain, but there was a hint
of relief creeping into her cries now. They grabbed her under the armpits and
dragged her out of the restaurant and onto the pavement. Nobody came to help or
even paid much attention, for everybody in the crowd had some place to be, and
it was unanimously away from here.
    Mina and David had retreated from Oxford Street
south into Soho when the gate opened, avoiding the initial slaughter, but they
hadn’t escaped the mass exodus from the city. Everyone in London knew they were
under attack. That nobody understood by what made their panic even
worse. They had made it as far as the Soho Theatre before they had slowed down,
and then they headed west onto Meard Street to catch their breath.
    “What’s your name?” Mina asked the girl, trying to
stop her screaming and attracting attention.
    “G-Gabby.”
    “A beautiful name. Gabby, we need to go. I know
your leg hurts, but you need to hop as fast as you can.”
    “We can’t bring her along,” said David. “We have
work to do.”
    Mina glared at him. “I’m not taking any more
pictures, David. We have to get out of here.”
    David looked at her like she was mad. “This is the
news story of the century—of all human history. Do you want to be a bystander,
or do you want to be the photographer whose pictures remain in the archives of
mankind until the end of time?”
    “I want to be one of the survivors. Which is why
I’m getting out of here and taking Gabby with me.”
    David flapped his arms and stamped his foot, almost
comically. “You will regret this for the rest of your life, girl. Think about
it.”
    “There’ll be no rest of my life to live if I hang
around here.”
    “We’re all going to die,” Gabby moaned. “They’re
coming to kill us.”
    Mina grabbed the girl’s head and seized her focus.
“Gabby, we will be just fine. Move as quickly as you can, okay?”
    They continued south towards the theatre district,
Mina propping up Gabby, and David following behind and complaining about what a
mistake she was making. Part of her wondered if a real photojournalist would do
as David suggested and continue taking pictures. War zone photographers stared
death in the face every day, but she was choosing to run away. This felt different
though. This didn’t feel like a situation where reporters should be expected to
hang around and document.
    They’d not yet witnessed the invading creatures
first hand, but the scattered survivors fleeing the city had screamed and
wailed about burned monsters tearing people apart. One woman even barked at
Mina about a giant angel come to smite them all. People had gone mad with
terror. David tried interviewing some of them, but most of what he got was
confused babble.
    The roads were clogged with wrecked vehicles and broken
glass covered the pavements. Slow-moving lines of exhausted survivors funnelled
along where there was a gap, and uniformed shop workers stumbled side-by-side
with executives and public servants. Several thousand refugees looking for a
way out—and this was only one small part of the city. How bad were things?
People were already starting to turn on one another. Mina saw a topless man
strike a cyclist with a brick before making off with his bike. The previous
owner still lay unconscious in the gutter outside a media office. David insisted
on getting a picture.
    Helicopters buzzed overhead but did nothing to
help.
    Gunfire clattered in the distance.
    Gabby moaned before they even made it to the end
of the street. “I need to stop. My leg…”
    “We can’t stop, you stupid