King Carrion by Rich Hawkins

attempted to clean the streets of wreckage and human remains, but it was a thankless task.
         The news of the quarantine had spread around the town, and angry people gathered to protest, even though they had no one to protest at. Groups of people went to the edge of town to beseech the military, and after the gunfire they returned less in number or not at all.
         It was all chaos and rage, confusion and fear. And with all those things was the realisation that monsters would be on the streets once darkness fell.
         There would be more death that night.
     
    *
     
    Helicopters buzzed over the town. A fighter jet screamed through the sky and vanished into the east. The sky clouded over and soon afterward rain began to fall. Mason hoped it would wash most of the blood and filth from the streets.
         In the early afternoon, wandering through the town centre, Mason and Pete rounded a corner in the street to find a dead soldier hanging on a rope from a streetlight. They walked until they were below the streetlight, and stood back from the body, watching it sway in the breeze.
         “Fucking hell,” said Mason.
         It was a young man, probably no more than a teenager. His neck was limp and crooked after the wrenching of the noose. His eyes were bulging in their sockets, and his face was puffy and bruised. Arms hanging loose by his sides. His boots had been taken and his uniform was ripped open.
         “Looks like he got lynched,” Pete said.
         “He’s just a kid.”
         “People are angry at the quarantine. Doesn’t take long for things to fall apart. As a species, we’re pretty mental.”
         “Poor lad,” Mason said.
         Pete cut the soldier down then laid him by the roadside and covered his face with a sheet of newspaper taken from a nearby rubbish bin. Mason watched the street.
         “Let’s go,” Pete said. “We haven’t got much daylight left.”
     
    *
     
    There were disembodied shouts from nearby as the sunlight waned beyond the sloped roofs of buildings. 
         They were in a back street, on their way back to the church and shelter for the night, when a man stumbled out of an alleyway and collided with Pete. They both fell down. Mason went to Pete and helped him to his feet as the other man groaned on the pavement, clutching his ankle.
         The man was a soldier, sans a helmet and rifle, bleeding from a wound on his forehead and breathing hard through gritted teeth. His face was grimy and beaded with sweat. With eyes wet and rimmed with pink he looked up at them, his mouth forming into a pleading shape.
         “Please help me. Please…”
         “It’s another squaddie,” said Pete.
         “They’re hunting me.” The soldier dragged himself across the pavement and sat against the wall. “They’re trying to kill me.”
         “Who?” said Mason. “Who’s trying to kill you?”
         With a sharp intake of air, the soldier winced and glanced at his injured ankle. “The men. The fucking lynch mob.”
         Mason and Pete exchanged looks. Pete frowned.
         “They said I had the choice of hanging or beating. They said it was our fault, that we’d left the town to the monsters. They’ve already hanged Foster. Hung him from a fucking streetlight.”
         “We’ve already seen,” said Pete.
         They helped the soldier to his feet, and he hissed through his teeth when his injured ankle took his weight. They half-carried him as he switched the weight to his other ankle, and hauled him along the street.
         Behind them, from the adjacent street on the other side of the houses, angry shouts and calls echoed. A gunshot rang out, followed by a sound that was like someone banging a stick on a metal surface.
         “They’re well-armed,” the soldier said. “They took my rifle, and Foster’s.”
         “We have to get off the street,” said Pete.
         They