Tam eased the stick with its hastily epoxied shaving mirror past the block's blind corner with all the caution a bone-scared twelve year old could muster. She scanned left and right, tensed, manipulated the stick slightly, then turned to whisper, "Two Fours. A Six. Blonde. Coming from left."

I motioned her back. Behind me, Sam, her stockier twin, carefully lifted the weed wand from the laden wheel-barrow and held it ready. I sloshed the garden sprayer to be sure, to be sure, then began to pump the pressure. Long, careful strokes that became harder quickly stiffened the big bottle.

Tam sidled back, picked her hoe from the barrow. "They're big, Uncle Jim."

"We've dealt with worse," I assured her, raising the lance. "Here they come..."

Their characteristic patter of chitinous claws was quiet, but our ravaged city was silent. They made no attempt to stalk, just trotted from the cross-street then, sensing us, turned, attacked.

I squeezed the sprayer's valve. The narrow fan met the first Four. Big as a timber-wolf, it stopped in its own length, began to claw at its coarse 'fur'. I tracked onto the Six, then the second Four. Now all three were halted, tearing at themselves. I lowered the lance, wet the side-walk, shut off the jet. Sam stepped forwards and, squeezing the weed-wand's trigger, lit the spill's edge. It flared. She hopped back as blue flames engulfed the pool then spread to the thrashing Six. Its desperate convulsions passed the fire to both Fours.

Their coarse 'fur' burned well, revealing the grey, segmented skin and oddly jointed limbs beneath. Like fore-shortened caterpillars, there was a waist between each leg-pair's hardened body section. Our flash-fire could not breach that armour, but there was no need. The fire's sensory overload always threw Things into fatal shock. Silent as ever, they collapsed, twitched for a long minute, then stilled.

"Bad doggies..."

I turned, raised an eyebrow. Mo, the elfin pre-schooler our little convoy acquired just before lunch, had finally spoken. "That's how we deal with them."

"They bit Mummy."

The other kids exchanged horrified looks. Brenda, a determined seven-year old brunette, reached and gripped Mo's small, grubby hand, whispered, "They're dead, now..."

"They had more legs..."

"Eights..." Young Joe hissed, shaking his tow head. "Maybe Tens-- That's bad..."

"We must keep moving," I murmurred.

Tam nodded, eased her mirror-stick forwards, repeated her scan. "Clear."

We crept across the junction as a tight group, then made best speed down the deserted street. Tam and Sam watched the front and flanks. I had the wheel-barrow. Brenda and Mike hauled the food-laden stroller with, now, Mo perched on top. Joe and Jackie dragged a tandem buggy with our water supply. Matt and Elmer pulled the laden planting trailer we'd liberated from the garden centre. A couple of green tarpaulins and a big roll of bubble-wrap didn't seem much, but those would be shelter and comfort come dark. Their trailer also carried our spare spray gun, a dozen more bottles of fuel, the tiny, gas-fired stove, both pans and one of our wind-up lanterns. The two spiky weeders were their weapons of choice...

"Clear, Uncle Jim," Tam reported at the next corner. We kept going. We'd covered a couple of miles, were approaching the outer suburbs. I kept scanning ahead, behind, left and right as best I could. I had the advantage of height, the kids had better eyes...

I studied the abandoned cars and trucks we passed. At first, I'd tried one every few blocks, but they were all dead. Too modern, their electronics were fried. Now, I viewed them as dangerous concealment. We'd been surprised by a singleton Six which suddenly appeared from the cab of a crashed SUV. Replete, it had hesitated when the kids turned their garden implements towards it. That gave me just enough time to unleash the sprayer...

"Uncle Jim, there's a 'Mac' on the next block left."

"Well spotted ! Guys, we get a time-out !"

We were far enough out in the suburbs that this Mac was free-standing. We approached warily. The front door was locked, but an adjoining glass panel lay in crumbs on the floor. I lifted a hoe from the wheelbarrow, stepped into the shadows. Glass crunched underfoot, but I was more concerned with ambush. I needed two minutes to check the kitchen, utility, stock and drive-through areas before heading for the wash-rooms. I'd seen a Four get stuck in a cubicle. I did not want that surprise again.

"All clear," I told the kids. "Bring the trailers around to the fire exit." I pushed open the crash-bar, helped them in. "Use the wash-rooms while I sweep up this glass."

By the time they were done, I'd found a brush, shovel and bin, cleared the window's debris. I'd also sprayed and wiped enough tables to seat us comfortably.

"No chance of a Mac ?" Matt asked.

"No power, no extract fans..." I shrugged. "The chillers aren't stinking yet, but they're warm enough to grow Salmonella."

"Yuck !"

"Some-one's cleaned out the buns and soda," Elmer grumbled.

"Hot dogs and beans again." Brenda nodded.

"Cold dogs and hot beans !" Joe grinned.

"You called it !" I chuckled, setting up our tiny stove. While the three ring-pull cans of beans warmed, I used the can opener on the 'dogs. At least we had condiments and cutlery, serving tubs and paper napkins.

"Look what I found !" Elmer stood from behind the serving bar with a large bottle of Diet Cola. "It must have rolled underneath !"

"Open with care..." I warned.

"Sure thing, Mister Jim !" He grinned.

"I'll get the cups and straws !" Jackie obliged.

By the time we finished our make-shift meal, the clear sky had clouded, and drops of rain had begun to splat on the tiles outside. It soon got heavier. That settled my choice of staying or going. "We'll camp here, tonight."

I maneuvered our wheels into the baby-change area. After spreading one tarpaulin in the corridor to the wash-rooms, I unrolled the bubble-wrap over it. There was enough for two layers so, doubled, it provided a fair mattress. The second tarpaulin would be the kids' bed-cover. It wasn't ideal, merely the best I could improvise.

When they were settled for the evening, Sam spoke up, "Tell us again about the Airport, Uncle Jim."

"Oh, please !" Matt called. "We only heard bits..."

"Okay..." I made sure both wedges were tight under the door, sat on a corner of the bubble wrap. I wasn't going to get much sleep tonight, but a bed-time story would be good for the kids. "I work at the airport, I'm a jet mechanic."

They nodded politely.

"It was mid-afternoon. My team had just swapped out the number-two engine on an Easyjet. That was running hot, so we were going to strip it down and check its injectors. We reckoned it was bio-fuel char again...

"There was a huge blue flash from across the field, then a bang that broke a couple of windows. The power went out. We thought it was a transformer blowing until we heard shots. Terrorists ? Three of us began blocking the personnel door with a big crate while Jeff got on the phone. He couldn't get a dial tone, the system was down. We thought to try our mobiles. Two were dead. One said 'no signal'. One had 'emergency service only'.

"There was more shooting. We went through to the office, peered over the window-sill.

"Right on the other side of the field, beyond the taxi-ways, there was something black. We had an old pair of binoculars in a drawer, took turns looking.

"It was like a black, oval road-tunnel. Dark Things were trotting out in a steady stream." I shook my head. "They weren't anything we'd seen before. They weren't spiders or crabs, they were something different. As tall as big dogs, some had four legs, some six. Then a couple of longer ones came through with eight or ten legs. These seemed to be carrying long tubes...

"We were running on Orange-One Alert because it was the anniversary of Bin Laden's death, so there were a couple of Police snipers on the terminal roof. They were taking long shots at the stream. Now and again, one Thing would fall down, but the others ignored them. Then one of the Eights pointed its tube towards the terminal. There was a blinding flash-- Part of the terminal roof collapsed. One of the snipers was gone. The other moved in a hurry, didn't shoot again for a while.

"The front of the stream was getting close to the terminal. The usual armed Police must have chased everyone else out the back, because they came out onto the air-bridges and began shooting. They really chewed up the Things, and they were low enough that the Eights and Tens couldn't get a clear shot. Still, there were a lot more Things than those Police had bullets and they were getting very close...

"Next moment, there was a roaring noise from over by the fire station, and something on tracks came around the corner. I thought it was a tank, but it was too small."

"A 'Warrior'." Matt grinned.

"A 'Warrior'." I nodded. "The crew must have been very surprised, but they didn't hesitate. They opened up with their machine gun, chopped into the line of Things. One of the Eights got off a shot. The flash threw up a crater right in front of the Warrior. We thought it was a hit. It must have been a near-miss. The Warrior popped off some smoke grenades, backed up, then came around the smoke, shooting. An Eight's tube exploded, blew a hole in their line, tossed a dozen more off their feet. A couple more seconds, the Warrior was into them, driving around and around, squashing them flat.

"Then the Warrior crew began shooting their Carden cannon back up the line towards the tunnel. A few seconds of that and the machine gun and the squishy tracks, and it wasn't a line any more...

"But, Things were still coming out of the tunnel. So, the Warrior fired straight into the black--

"I don't know what they hit, but the tunnel rim arced lightning to the ground, then the black rippled rainbows like sunlight on a pool of oil, shrank to a point and was gone."

"Wow !"

"That still left a bunch of Things trotting about, but they couldn't out-run the Warrior or the Police guns..." I took a slow breath. "Took a while before the last were chased down, but then there were none..."

"Yeah !"

"Yeah, well, that was the good news." I shook my head. "The bad news was that first flash was some sort of EMP bomb. It took out the airport and a couple of miles around. We had no power, no phones, no radio, no computers, no lap-tops, no nothing. All the cars and trucks were dead, even the fire engines and tow vehicles. We were lucky we're a small, regional airport, so most of our traffic is morning, evening and over-night. Having a wide-body on final approach go dead-stick and crash would have been a mega-disaster...

Well, our stuff was civil, but the Warrior was hardened. They must have got on their military radio and reported in. Next thing, a breathless Airport Security guy was tapping on our door. 'Multiple Hostile Incursions'. One confirmed in the city centre, one at the hyper-market complex on the West side, plus ours. Possibly more. The Warrior's gun-fire had shut ours, but the others were still open. Chaotic reports were coming in from all over our area. No news from further away."

"Oooh !"

" 'Go home if you can', he said. 'You can't do anything here. The airport systems are wrecked.' Well, I usually commute by bus, but I had a mountain bike for getting around the field. So, I took off..."

"You came to us," Tam said. "We're the other way."

"Seemed a good idea." I shrugged. "With your Dad away on business, and Mum doing that audit in the city centre, I thought I'd look in..."

"We were doing okay..."

"You were." I nodded. "The bus was stalled, so you'd walked home from school, called in the neighbours' kids who were playing out and hunkered down. Couldn't ask for more."

The group exchanged nods.

"I had a few near-misses on the way, though. The Things didn't know what to make of my mountain bike, but I out-paced the Fours that chased me. I was weaving around abandoned cars and vans, so the Eight who took a shot at me just blew up an SUV...

"That started a nasty fire in the street. It spread to a couple of cars. When I looked back, I saw the flames had caught two of the Things and they were burning rather well."

"That's where you got the idea for a flame thrower." Matt nodded.

"Oh, yes." I grinned. "And I knew where to find the makings."

"The little garden-centre at the end of our road."

"The very place."

"I hope they won't mind you breaking in..."

"I left them an 'IOU', an apology and my bike." I shrugged. "Turned up at yours with a wheel-barrow of stuff plus the flame-thrower. I was hoping the power would come back on, but..."

"At least the gas was working, Uncle Jim." Tam grinned. "That was a lovely oven casserole you did us."

The others nodded.

"Well, with the fridges out, it would have all gone to waste... I'm still surprised none of the other parents made it back before dark."

"Maybe they were evacuated." Matt shrugged.

"Uh-huh. So, next morning, we left notes for our families, and headed North."

"Aunty Jayne's farm." Sam nodded.

"Yes. We should reach there by mid-afternoon tomorrow."

"Why have the Things gone blonde ?" Brenda wondered.

"I really don't know." I shook my head. "The first Things we burned this morning were that dark grey-green colour, almost black. Then we saw a couple of piebald Things. Since then, they've all been blonde."

"Could they be two different types ?" Tam puzzled.

"I can't see how the blondes could have got so far from their Tunnels-- And where did the dark Things go ?"

"Something they ate ?" Elmer suggested.

"Eew !" Brenda threw a hasty glance towards young Mo, but she seemed to have missed the gruesome implications.

"Or breathed ?" Matt had seen 'War of the Worlds' twice. "Perhaps our bugs got them ?"

"Could be." I nodded. "All the dark Eights carried lightning guns, but none of the blondes do. I saw several dark Things work together to break into shops, but the blondes behave like savage animals."

Pale-skinned Jackie shuddered. "Perhaps they got sun-burned ?"

"That really is a good idea." I nodded. "Sun-burn or ozone."

"Perhaps they'll just die off ?" Matt hoped.

"I hope so, too." I quirked a grin. "But I think we'll have to help some of them."

"Yeah !"

"Okay, I'll put one wind-up lantern in the wash-room so no-one gets lost, and the other in the baby-change area so we've got a little light here. Now, I'll have to ask you all to settle down and try to get some sleep. I know it won't be easy, but I'll sit here by the door. The wedges are tight, we should be okay. We do have another long hike tomorrow."

"Okay, Uncle Jim !"

"Okay, Mister Jim !"

"Night-night !"