'All right.' She lapsed into another silence and her thoughts returned to Eric, her husband. For the first time for years she found herself wishing they were together, which was damned silly because they had got used to spending their lives apart. As a feedstuffs rep covering most of Wales he was away for days at a time and she knew bloody well he'd got other women. It was a rep's perk. So she got her own back by having Jon; she just needed screwing, every woman did, and when your man was away from home week after week you took steps to get it, just like he did. You never admitted it to each other but you both suspected—knew. Life went on that way, you didn't expect it to change. And then without warning something totally unexpected like this cropped up and you had your lover for keeps and your husband, if he was lucky, had one of his fancy women. A kind of enforced wife-swap. But right now she'd have swapped for Eric, because of all the men she had over the years he was the one she had never really got to know. Now it looked like it was too late.

So she was going to stick to Jon Quinn because she needed somebody to protect her. Somebody to screw her. And he needed her because, like Eric, Jackie was out there in a dying land.

She would have to accept the situation and so would Jon. Il would be like a second marriage for both of them.

JACKIE QUINN had a sensation like waking from a long deep sleep, refreshed but still having to fight to bring back hazy recollections which did their best to elude her like marshland jack-o'-lanterns.

She was indoors; Pauline's mother's house. She recognised the lounge even though all the furniture was gone and the paper was peeling off the walls, exposing spreading patches of damp which even the hot dry weather had not been successful in eradicating.

Outside it was getting dark, the sky turning saffron, a single twinkling star seeming to mock her through the dirt-streaked window-pane. She crossed to the window, stood looking out across the overgrown garden towards the roadside hedge, a thick untended length of hawthorn and lilac. The streetlamps came on, one flickering, dimming, burning low due to some electrical fault probably. She shuddered. It was eerie, artificial lighting still operating in a world where nobody was ^capable of any kind of maintenance. Unless, of course, like herself lucidity came back in flashes. But it would not be enough. Sooner or later the lighting would pack up and all amenities would come to a standstill. No medical service. Disease would follow. One way or another, if you didn't die now you would later. It was the beginning of the end.

Suddenly she stiffened, narrowed her eyes and stared out into the orange-tinted dusk. Something had attracted her attention. She saw a shape, then another, movements that rustled the scorched vegetation in the garden; branches swaying, twigs snapping.

Oh God! Unmistakable silhouettes in the half-light, grotesque naked shapes that had to be human because they

could not have been anything else, stooping, shambling forms, men and women, crouched amongst the bushes, conversing by means of gesticulations and grunts,

Jackie stifled a scream, backed away from the window, an urge to flee but there was nowhere to go because she was trapped in this place, a prisoner between the four walls of a terraced house, outside a bunch of naked savages that belonged to a primitive age.

She dropped on to her hands and knees, crawled across the room. They must not see her, must not be aware that she was hiding in here; the frail doors and windows would not keep them out. Her head began to ache again but it was too dark inside here to know whether her vision was starting to tunnel again.

Out into the hall, listening. Chattering. The noise reminded her of those jungle movies her father used to take her to on wet Saturday afternoons when she was a child. Incessant grunts and squeaks. And she knew only too well that the sounds were real, that no way were they the figments of her tortured brain.

She found herself in a rear room, vaguely recognised it as once having been the dining-room. A few years ago Pauline's mother had persuaded Jackie to stay to supper and they had eaten in here. The ceiling bulged, there was a gaping hole where water from the bathroom directly above had deluged through, probably a burst pipe during one of the recent severe winters. A rusted electric fire hung precariously to the wall in one corner; a broken concrete floor, a two-foot deep hole in the centre, further evidence of where the surveyors had dug down in an attempt to locate the fault in the foundations. And a telephone perched on me window-sill!

Jackie stared at the dust-coated instrument, experienced a sudden surge of hope. She closed her eyes, opened them again, and it was still there; afraid in case it was a mirage, her brain taunting her with false hopes. But it was real, dusty but real.

She raised herself up to the level of the sill, peeped over it. Those awful sub-human creatures were in the rear garden, too, a group of them squatting in a circle amidst the tall seedy grass of the larger lawn, a cross-legged gathering as though they represented some kind of council seated in judgement, grunting and nodding to one another, their rough bodies stark naked.

They're awful, inhuman.

You're one of them, too!

But I can reason, think.

But for how long? Your periods of civilised behaviour are becoming shorter and shorter!

Her stomach churned. Suddenly that telephone on the ledge by her hand was shrinking, growing smaller and smaller, framing itself in a reducing circle, around which was impenetrable blackness spotted with red! Now, before it's too late!

She grabbed the receiver, almost dropped it. Rehearsing her words in case they suddenly evaporated from a brain that was starting to go blank. I'm in number one, First Terrace, Jon. They're outside, camped in the garden. Primitive savages and they'll break in and kill me if you don't come quick. Please believe me, Jon, it's true, I swear it is. Come quickly. Bring the shotgun. Oh Jon, please save me from these hideous creatures!

Starting to dial ~ 0 ... 5 ... 8 ... 8 ...

Something was wrong, her failing sense of reasoning screamed it at her, a realisation that modern technology had ceased to function. No dialling tone, just a total silence. When the house had been emptied the telephone had been disconnected!

Sheer primordial rage engulfed her. She gripped the plastic-coated object with both hands, snapped it in half so easily that it might have been rotten. One half fell, bounced on the bare floor, the other swung on its flex, mocking her. She caught it, pulled, tore it from its connection, then grabbed the squat remainder, not knowing what it was, not understanding, only that it was an alien that had to be destroyed. Smashing it against the wall, fragmenting it, kicking it, crushing it beneath her feet. Killing it!

And then she was sitting there in the darkening room, smiling to herself. Whatever it was that had angered her was no more and she was satisfied. Outside those voices were louder, soft footsteps padding round the house. A scratching sound. She looked up, saw the face pressed against the glass, squat hairy features, eyes that rolled and only became still when they saw her. Fingers, long broken nails, scraping on the glass, clawing it, trying to find a way in. More faces, coarse beneath the masses of hair, jostling each other eagerly, angrily, for a view of the creature which lay within.

Jackie was not frightened, only puzzled. She did not know why she was here, why she should be in one place and those people should be in another, cut off from her. She stood up, smiled at them, grunted a kind of welcome. Let me out, please.

A crash of breaking glass, shards falling into the room, splintering. A bloody clenched fist powered a second blow and half the window shattered. Those outside were clamouring excitedly, beginning to force their way in, shoving one another on the sill. Blood was spurting, a crimson fountain, but they did not appear to notice it, jetting on to walls and ceiling, sluggish rivulets trickling down.