Meadowside Read Online Free

direction as the running man, past the food hall where delicatessens and salad bars competed with burger joints and tea rooms, and back into the main shopping centre. More people ran by. Someone screamed in the distance. Kylie cast a worried glance at Tom, but he just shrugged and led the way to Meadowside’s train station exit.
    A young woman, her hair and clothes drenched from the rain, staggered toward them swinging her arms. A small baby strapped to her chest in a harness made an odd rasping sound and raised its tiny arms. Its eyes were wide and staring, its face screwed up in hate. Its mouth opened and closed, making the gurgling, hissing sound undulate. As the woman stumbled closer she bared her teeth and hissed too. She raised both hands and reached out, her fingers grasping like claws.
    Kylie stepped back out of the way just as the woman lunged for her. The woman spun around with a snarl, and made a grab for Britney’s tracksuit top. Britney cried out and swung a fist at the woman’s mouth. The woman’s bottom lip burst and blood dripped down her chin, spattering onto the baby’s head. The baby thrashed wildly against its restraining harness, seemingly desperate to get at Britney itself, but its arms weren’t long enough to reach her. It hissed in frustration.
    Mike tried to wrestle Britney from the woman’s grip, but she clung on tight, her fist clenched around Britney’s tracksuit top. He struck the woman’s arm with the blade of his hand, but all that did was drag Britney closer to the woman’s gnashing teeth. Britney yelled and pushed out with both hands, kicked out at the woman’s legs. The woman snarled and jerked her head forward, clamped her teeth over Britney’s arm. Britney screamed. Blood gushed from between the woman’s jaws.
    Tom rushed forward and grabbed a handful of the woman’s hair, then yanked her head back. She came away with a lump of Britney’s flesh in her mouth and thrashed her head from side to side trying to free herself. Britney fell to her knees, clutching her arm, blood pumping between her fingers from a gaping wound. Her face was deathly white as she stared at the struggling woman wide-eyed in shock and fear.
    Tom dragged the woman away by her hair while Mike knelt down and reached into Britney’s backpack. He pulled out one of the designer shirts she had stolen from Sportswear Direct and tied it around her arm, wrapping it around several times in a makeshift bandage.
    Tom dragged the woman up to a shop window and smacked her forehead into it a few times, then spun her around and shoved her in the back. She stumbled a few steps, then toppled forward with a sickening crunch. Almost immediately the woman rolled over and sat up. The baby hung limp from its harness, its head flopped to one side, blood dripping from its ears. The woman bared her teeth and hissed. Tom stared down at her and backed away, horrified at what had happened to the baby. The woman leaned forward and dropped onto her hands and knees, then started to crawl toward him with the baby’s limbs dangling lifelessly beneath her.
    Tom looked at Mike, his eyes wide and staring. “Let’s get the fuck out of here,” he shouted, and ran.
     

4
     
    Smiffy lounged against Meadowside’s bronze war memorial statue with his mate Stonker, both of them posing with cans of Special Brew while Johnno took a photo with his phone. Stonker gurned at the camera, displaying his missing front teeth with pride. Smiffy held up the red and yellow football scarf tied around his wrist and clenched his fist.
    “Skumfuckers!” he yelled, just as the phone’s camera flashed.
    Several passers by glanced in his direction, then looked away quickly and walked on. Smiffy didn’t care what they thought of him. They were nothing. Worse than nothing. Just mindless sheep going about their mundane lives in pointless obscurity, destined to be forgotten the minute they died. Smiffy was a someone . He’d built his Skumfuckers firm up from