by Wood, J N
After turning off the A63, I parked us up on a little lane surrounded by woodland. It was so dark I couldn’t tell if this was a good spot or not. There could have been a massive city full of Mad Max villains just around the bend.
We were too tired to think of any alternatives, so decided to stick with our decision and sleep in the car.
DAY FIFTY ONE
Chapter 24: Petrol
Bird song woke me up. One of the better ways to be woken up in the current climate.
‘Morning,’ Roy said. His seat was back in its upright position.
I moved my seat up so we were at the same angle. ‘Good morning. What time is it?’
‘Seven thirty four.’
I took a sip of water. ‘Sleep well?’
‘Nope. You?’
‘No it was shit,’ I replied. ‘Kept thinking somebody was gonna kill us in our sleep.’
‘Me too,’ he agreed. ‘Shall we go?’
‘Have you eaten?’ I asked.
‘Mars Bar.’
‘Very healthy. We’ve got a load of meat left from the Penelope haven’t we?’
‘Yeah I got some out,’ he said. ‘You have it if you want. I just fancied some chocolate.’
‘Okay, just need a piss first,’ I told him. ‘I’ll eat on the way. Are we going back to that main road?’
‘Yeah I think so.’
We were soon back driving on the A63, the same one we’d been chased down the day before. Hopefully we can avoid any more situations like that.
‘Unless my memory fails me,’ Roy said. ‘I’m sure it’s only ten, maybe twelve hours to drive to Calais. And that was from Andorra.’
‘Is that where we’re going? We haven’t actually spoken about it.’
‘Yeah we’d only got as far as dropping Ben and Aurelie off. I hadn’t been thinking of anything after that to be honest. Anyway, Calais is probably best.’
‘You don’t fancy the Channel Tunnel?’ I asked.
‘Not in the slightest. I think I can sail us across. People swim it after all. If David Walliams can swim it, I can sail it.’
‘It’s not that far is it?’ I asked. ‘We could get a little motor boat or something. It’s not like we have to avoid all the big ships in the Channel anymore.’
‘Could do. We can see what our options are when we get there.’
‘Do you want to sail it?’ I asked. ‘Have a little trial run before you sail to Canada?’
‘No I’m not going back now. No need.’
I inwardly cringed. Fuck. What was I thinking?
‘Sorry Roy.’
‘Don’t worry about it,’ he said.
Shite.
An hour and a half later, we started seeing signs for Paris and Bordeaux.
‘Follow the signs for Paris,’ Roy said.
I did as I was told and followed the road around the bend. Through the trees on our left there were tents and a large blue marquee. It looked like the circus had set up camp in the middle of the motorway.
‘Slow down Chris,’ Roy said. ‘There’s something weird here.’
I slowed us down to five miles per hour and continued around the bend. The road became a slip road, taking us onto the motorway. The trees on our left ended, replaced by what I could only describe as a shanty town. Our side of the motorway was relatively empty, apart from litter and a few people wandering around. The other side of the concrete central reservation appeared to be a sea of shacks. Corrugated sheets were everywhere, being used as makeshift roofs. Modern and old tents filled the spaces between the rickety wooden walls of the shacks. As far as the eye could see, that side of the road was packed full. There must have been thousands of people ambling through the small gaps and alleyways. Behind the bustling shanty town was a concrete wall, about twenty feet high. It was all the way down the side of the motorway.
I twisted around to look in the other direction and almost shit myself. ‘Holy fucking shit balls,’ I shouted. The dirty, grinning face of a young boy filled the window in my door.
‘How the fuck did he creep up on me?’ I asked.
‘What does he want?’ Roy asked.
Nobody else in the shanty town was paying us any attention, just going about their business. Whatever that may be in this weird motorway town.
‘No idea,’ I answered, and lowered my window just an inch.
‘Bonjour,’ the boy said. He then went on to speak very quickly in French.
‘Wait,’ I said.
The boy ignored me, continuing to prattle on. He reached into his bag and pulled out a little velvet bag.
What the fuck is this gonna be?
‘Anglais,’ I told him.
He put his hand into the velvet bag, coming out with a handful of USB sticks.
‘I think he’s trying to sell us a USB stick,’ I told Roy.
‘I don’t need one,’ he said. ‘Let’s go.’
I turned back to the boy. He was pressing one of the USB sticks against the window. ‘Non merci,’ I told him. ‘Parlez-vous Anglais?’
The boy looked disappointed at that, and poured his merchandise back into his bag. His hand came out with a little carton of orange juice. He smiled at me through the glass.
‘Parlez-vous Anglais?’ I asked again. ‘English?’
‘Yes I speak English,’ the boy said, placing the carton back into his bag.
‘Let’s go Christophe,’ Roy said under his breath.
Five men and two women had separated from the crowds and now leaned against the other side of the central reservation, all seven staring at us.
Yeah maybe we should go.
‘Au revoir,’ I said to the kid, and drove us away, keeping to the inside lane, as far from the shanty town as possible.
‘What were you waiting for?’ Roy asked.
‘I was gonna ask him what all this shit is.’
We passed a little stall on our side of the road. It looked like it was serving food, and smelt amazing. A queue of about twenty people waited to be served. The concrete wall still followed the edge of the road. The tops of tower blocks behind peeked over the top of the wall.
‘This must be one of the fortresses Aurelie read about in the newspaper,’ Roy said. ‘I think Bordeaux is on the other side of that wall.’
I pointed to the hundreds of shacks. ‘What’s all this then? It looks like the slums in Brazil.’
‘Probably people trying to get into Bordeaux. Let’s avoid going near another big town or city.’
‘I would have avoided this one if I knew it was gonna be here.’
‘Yeah we need a map,’ Roy said. ‘You should have asked that kid if he was selling one.’
‘You kept telling me to leave.’
‘Did you see those people staring at us? They were starting to scare me. They looked like The Hills Have Eyes people.’
‘Yeah I saw them. That’s why I left.’
It was never ending, the shanty town seeming to go for ever. There must be hundreds of thousands living in the squalid and tightly packed spaces. Is Bordeaux that nice? It must have something good beyond the wall for people to camp outside it.
A man leapt over the central reservation and started waving at us.
‘No,’ Roy yelled. ‘Don’t stop.’
I didn’t slow down, just drove on past him.
‘When is this gonna end?’ I asked.
And then an instant later it did. The motorway carried on while the wall and the shanty town slipped away from us, curving off to the left. We must have reached the edge of the city.
The motorway took us over a wide river, away from Bordeaux and its bizarre neighbours.
‘That’s where everyone is,’ Roy said.
‘How are they all surviving?’
‘They’ll be out scavenging for food I guess,’ he replied.
‘What about the people within the walls?’
He seemed to think about it for a few seconds. ‘That I don’t know. Helicoptering food in maybe?’
�
�The world is well and truly fucked,’ I said. ‘We’re gonna struggle to get back to what it was like before.’
‘Maybe we shouldn’t. The environment won’t be complaining. Nature in general as well. You’ve seen all the animals.’
‘Yeah I suppose so,’ I said. ‘We still need a map.’
‘Next time we fill up we can try and get one. In the meantime just follow the signs for Paris, until we get near Paris. Then avoid it like the plague.’
‘Okay. Keep your eyes peeled for big towns with walls,’ I told him. ‘The next shanty town occupants might want to do something other than sell us orange juice.’
‘I’ve not been here since I was a kid. And my French geography isn’t brilliant, so I can’t really remember where the big towns are.’
‘Map,’ I told him.
We stopped at the next petrol station. It looked normal from the road, but as we got closer, saw that the place had been ransacked. Even the pumps had been vandalised, the rubber tubing cut off and lying on the ground.
‘We’ve still got a quarter of a tank left,’ I said once we were back on the road. ‘There’ll be others.’
There was another half an hour down the road, but it was in a much worse condition than the last. The building was a blackened shell of what it had once been, the tarmac around it cracked and burnt. The pumps were entirely gone, probably melted in the fire.
‘There’ll be others,’ I repeated, with less conviction.
The next one looked perfect from the road, so we took the turning and pulled up to one of the pumps.
‘I’ll fill her up,’ I said. ‘You’ll probably have to turn something on inside.’
‘Where is the switch?’
‘I don’t know. I thought you knew. You told me about it.’
‘I just know that it has to be done,’ he said. ‘I don’t know how to do it.’
‘Benoit went behind the till. It’ll be back there somewhere. Take the loaded gun with you.’
We both left the car. Roy walked over to the shop. When he opened the door, I noticed the panels didn’t contain any glass. It was in thousands of pieces on the floor.
‘I’ve done it,’ Roy shouted from inside.
I placed the nozzle in and pulled the trigger, nothing happened. The digital display was also not working.
‘Nope,’ I shouted. ‘It’s not working.’
Roy turned his attention back to the till area. A few seconds later he turned back to me and shrugged, his arms stretched out to either side of him.
I left the nozzle resting in the car and walked over to the shop.
‘I think I’ve turned on all eight pumps,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what else to do.’ He held up something in his hand. ‘I’ve got a road map though.’
‘I don’t think the electricity is on,’ I told him.
A glass shelf behind Roy exploded, showering him with the glass shards. He leant forward, covering the back of his head with the map.
‘What was that?’ he asked, ducking behind the tills.
I quickly glanced around, not finding anything that could have caused it. Then I noticed a hole in the window near Roy.
Fuck.
I dropped down to my hands and knees on the floor.
‘I think someone shot at us,’ I said.
‘I didn’t hear a gunshot.’
‘Silencer maybe,’ I suggested.
‘Let’s go out the back way.’
‘Is there a back way?’ I asked, seeing the toilet and an open door to a stockroom or something.
‘There must be,’ Roy replied.
I heard a car door closing.
Mother fuckers.
‘They’re in the car,’ I told Roy, and slowly stood up. There was one person sat in the driver’s seat of our 2008. I couldn’t see anybody else out there. ‘Get up Roy. He’s trying to steal our car.’
Roy sprung up from behind the tills. ‘Please tell me you didn’t leave the key in there.’
‘No it’s in my pocket. Come on, let’s get him.’
‘Wait,’ he said. ‘They might shoot at us.’
‘I think there’s only one person, and he’s in the car.’
‘You don’t know that.’
‘No I don’t,’ I accepted. ‘But he might be hot wiring it while we’re in here arguing.’
‘We’re not arguing. We’re discussing it.’
‘You’re more infuriating than Jack. I’m going out.’ Keeping my head down, I opened the front door and slipped outside. I suddenly felt very exposed. There was nothing to hide behind. If there was another person out here, I’m gonna be dead very soon.
Roy nudged me from behind. ‘Go to the first pumps,’ he whispered.
Staying crouched down, we both slunk across the forecourt, trying to keep the pumps between us and the car thief.
‘It’s just a little kid,’ Roy said, peering around a bin. ‘He’s got the AR-15.’
‘Can you see his gun?’
‘I can’t see it,’ he replied. ‘A little kid isn’t going to have a silencer is he? Are you sure he didn’t just throw a rock through the window?’
‘I don’t know. Might have been a rock.’
‘I don’t want to shoot a little kid,’ Roy said.
‘Don’t shoot him then. Let’s go and drag the little shit out of our car.’
‘It’s not our car,’ Roy reminded me. ‘We stole it. Now he’s stealing it from us.’
‘Stop being so pedantic. Remember to point your gun at him. Try and scare him out.’
We crawled on our hands and knees along the back of the car. I slowly edged around to the driver’s side. I couldn’t see the kid’s face in the wing mirror, so hopefully he couldn’t see us.
I waved Roy on so we would get to the car door at the same time. We both stood up, Roy pointing the gun at the window. We caught the young kid by surprise. He jumped in his seat and scrambled to aim the AR-15 at us, resting the tip of the barrel against the glass.
He looked about eleven or twelve years old.
‘La cle,’ the kid shouted. ‘La cle.’
‘What does that mean?’ I asked Roy. ‘Is it key?’
‘Probably.’
‘That’s definitely empty isn’t it?’ I asked, knocking on the glass next to the tip of the barrel. The kid switched his aim to me.
‘Yeah I double checked last night.’
I opened the door and grabbed a hold of the rifle’s barrel. The kid pulled the trigger, and looked very disappointed when nothing happened. I kept hold of it while Roy leaned in to the car and dragged the scrawny little kid out, dumping him on the ground.
‘Petrol,’ the kid screamed, his hands covering his head. ‘Petrol, petrol.’
‘What about the petrol?’ I asked.
‘Lot of petrol,’ the kid slowly answered. He dropped his hands back down and pointed back to the motorway.
‘He could just be taking us back to his big dad,’ Roy said. ‘And all of his dad’s big friends.’
‘This has been the third station though. What if they’re all burnt out or whatever?’
‘Trade?’ the kid said, pointing to the AR-15 in my hands. ‘Petrol.’
‘Empty,’ I told him, lifting the rifle.
The kid looked up at me and smiled.
‘If he wants an empty rifle that’s up to him,’ Roy said. ‘I think it’s morally questionable to give a ten year old child a high powered rifle though.’
‘J’ai treize ans,’ the kid proudly told us, his head now held high.
‘Okay. A thirteen year old child,’ Roy conceded.
‘What do you think?’ I asked.
He sighed. ‘What have we got to lose? Only our means of transport and our lives.’
‘So is that a yes or a no?’
‘Yeah let him take us to the petrol, or into a trap,’ Roy replied. ‘Put him in the front though. I don’t want him sat behind me. Hey kid,’ he said, showing him his rifle. ‘Don’t do anything stupid.’
T
he kid continued to smile. ‘Trade petrol.’
‘Yeah he didn’t understand a single word,’ I said, handing Roy the AR-15. ‘Probably thinks you’re offering him your gun as well.’
We drove back onto the motorway, the kid pointing me in the right direction. After a couple of minutes he pointed to a road coming up on our right.
‘Coming off here?’ I asked him.
‘Oui, oui, oui.’
‘Do you think he understands more than we think?’ I asked Roy.
‘Probably.’
He directed us down a little dirt track, lined by trees. The fields on both sides were just furrowed soil, presumably done before the world ended, now waiting to be seeded. As the lane curved to the left a small farmhouse appeared at the end.
The kid excitedly pointed at it.
I drove us slowly into the gravelled area in front of the house, looking for people waiting to jump out on us.
‘Turn us around so we’re facing the lane,’ Roy told me.
‘Yep. Good idea.’
I did a quick three point turn. As soon as I pulled the handbrake on, the kid opened his door and jumped out.
‘Wait kid,’ I shouted, but he was gone, running over to the garage separated from the house. A tractor was parked between the two buildings.
‘Shit,’ Roy exclaimed. ‘Shall we just go?’
‘Wait a second,’ I told him. ‘Stay in the car though.’
The kid opened one of the garage doors. It swung out over the gravel. He ducked inside, reappearing a few seconds later with a huge grin on his face, and carrying two large, green jerry cans.
‘I think he might be legit,’ I said.
He struggled across the gravel with them, the weight slowing him down, before plonking them down by the car. ‘Three?’ he asked, holding up his thumb and two fingers.
‘Oui, oui, oui,’ I answered, smiling.
The kid spun around and ran back to the garage, returning with another can.
‘You stay there Christophe,’ Roy said. ‘I’ll put them in the boot. Be ready to drive away.’
Roy opened the boot and placed the three cans inside.
‘This is definitely petrol and not diesel?’ he asked the kid.