by Stevens, GJ
Racing closer in our view, I marvelled at the dent-covered four by four, the blue bonnet bent up in the middle. Glimpsing the driver behind the wheel, I focused on the whites of her wide eyes. For a moment I thought the impossible, until she blinked.
I looked at Thompson at my side, then to Jess, fearful of how she would react, but when she hadn’t moved, I looked to the soldiers, each with their rifles pointed to the ground.
Ready to watch the car drive between us and off into the distance, it was easy to understand the compulsion to get away as fast as they could, so I waved. I raised my hand and gave the driver a signal as if we knew each other before the world ended.
Glancing over my shoulder, I saw Alex and Jess looking at each other, Alex saying something under her breath and the others in view took a further step back, despite the car slowing as it came closer, stopping only a few lengths past our group.
The tall BMW X5, according to the letters on the back, sat unmoving just along the road. With its side panels as dented as the front, but not covered in blood, guts or other gore, I wondered how long they’d been like that. The thought cut off as the driver’s window lowered.
None of us moved until after a few seconds I stepped up, stooping with a wide, cautious smile to take my first proper look at the driver. A round-faced woman stared back, her light brown skin blotched with the red of effort, but with the start of a smile easy to catch. A bolt of silver pierced her left eyebrow and for a moment I thought of shrapnel until I spotted the silver stud in her nose. With dark hair pulled back in a bun, she wore a woollen dress and when she spoke I realised I hadn’t said a word.
“Are you just going to stare at me all day?” she asked in a thick Scouse accent.
“Sorry,” I said, then realised the stupidity of the apology, forcing myself not to look back to the group.
“You shouldn’t really be standing around here,” she said. “Have you seen what’s happening?”
“Ah, yeah. Of course. We’re trying to get away,” I said, looking behind her to the empty back seats. “Where are you headed?”
She looked along the road, then turned her head, eyeing me with caution as she spoke. “Anywhere away from here.”
I turned back to Thompson and watched his nod in my direction.
“Sir,” Sherlock said, and Thompson turned around to look at him.
“We should stay outside where we can keep a better eye on it,” he said in low voice.
“We need to get moving,” Thompson replied, turning away before he could see the scowl on Sherlock’s face.
The voice from the car pulled my attention back her way.
“So are you getting in or do you want to stand around in the open all day?”
I nodded, stunned by her words. “Thank you,” I replied.
“Well, get in then. It’s going to be a squeeze.”
Flicking a control on the dashboard, she smiled as the windscreen wipers stopped scraping the glass.
Still dumbfounded by her directness, I turned to the others.
“Come on, guys. What are you waiting for?” I asked, then heard her snort as I pulled open the passenger rear door and motioned with my hands for the rest to come over.
Moving around the front and climbing in the passenger seat, I ushered Shadow to squeeze in the footwell and I twisted, looking to Cassie to make sure she’d moved towards the car.
With Thompson’s nod of approval, the soldiers jogged at the sound of a distant howl, Carr running over and pulling the boot lid high, before yanking out the parcel shelf and frowning when he saw the size of the space but climbed in any way. The three women piled in the back seats as the other two soldiers squeezed in beside Carr to the sound of much huffing, somehow squeezing their rucksacks in too.
With no chance Thompson was fitting in the boot as well, and after he pushed down the boot lid, the women squeezed up closer together so he could sit behind the driver’s seat.
The car rode low at the back as we drove off and I concentrated on deciphering the driver’s words as she spoke again.
“Where are you headed?” she asked, as if we were hitchhikers out on a day trip.
Thompson coughed and I looked to the subtle shake of his head.
The driver glanced over her shoulder, smirking. “Never mind.”
“Anywhere out of here,” I replied. “I’m Logan,” I added, holding out my hand.
“Mitch,” she replied. Glancing over, the car wobbled as she took her hand from the steering wheel and squeezed my palm.
Turning forward, I watched the road as Mitch drove, still astounded at the emptiness of the wide road. We were yet to see any of the roadblocks we knew were further along and had seen on our travels. I could only guess it must have been a much more orderly evacuation. Perhaps they’d known in advance?
Checking each of the signs as we drove, I cracked the window just enough to give a breeze and to stop the window steaming. Seeing the first sign of concern in her expression, I powered the window up just a touch, making sure there wasn’t enough space for even a persistent finger to get a grip.
“The roads are blocked as you get closer to the motorway,” I said at first to Mitch and then twisted in my seat to repeat, forcing myself not to linger on Cassie’s hardened expression. “Where shall we go?” I asked, locking eyes with Thompson.
“The coast. We’re about ten mile out,” Thompson eventually replied, and as I turned around we saw the last car in the long line clogging up the road in the distance.
“Shit. That’s going to take forever to get through this,” I said.
“Why the coast?” Mitch asked, turning to me as she slowed the car.
I twisted in my seat and back to Thompson in the sea of faces. “A boat?” I said, and watched as he lowered his brow, then glanced to his colleagues, seeming to regret the pause as each nodded back.
I wasn’t sure how I felt about getting so close to the water again, still chilled from the last encounter.
Mitch gave a hearty laugh, distracting my concern. “If it’s a boat you want...” she said, then without slowing she twisted the wheel, swinging the car around to the left and off the main road. “This is Exeter. Fortress on the Exe.”
When she didn’t slow, twisting and turning us through the side streets, I grabbed at the seatbelt to pull it across my chest. Eventually, Mitch took us through a gap in a hedge where the tarmac ended, turning into a packed mud track and I gripped the side of the seat as we bounced along the ground potted with holes.
To the groans and complaints from behind, it sounded as if, like me, the terrain highlighted the many bruises and aches caused by the events of the day. Letting go with one hand, I leaned forward, holding Shadow to steady him whilst I peered beyond another hedge line ahead which blocked much of the view, catching the very top of boat roofs moored up by the side of the river. I hoped one of these guys knew how to pilot such a thing.
Mitch slammed on the brakes just before the bonnet touched the hedge line, jerking to a stop as if she’d only just realised we didn’t want to take the car into the river.
I looked to a gap in the hedge ahead and a dirt path leading to the left and the white hull of a small vessel. Pulling the door open, a frigid breeze quickly found every spot that hadn’t yet dried and I tested the air. At first smelling wet dog, I caught the background odour of sewerage.
Shadow jumped up from the footwell, busying himself sniffing the ground whilst taking a disorderly route towards the gap in the hedge with his nose switching between the air and the grass. Having found a scent of interest, he disappeared through the gap and out of sight along the path.
Rushing around the back of the car, I popped the boot, but didn’t wait for the soldiers to unfold before I ran at the gap as everyone got out.
Glancing back, Thompson looked across the flat land with his hand on top of the holstered pistol as the other three soldiers pulled from the car. Mitch circled the BMW, pushing the doors closed and sniffing the air.
; I stopped walking, following her back to the driver’s side.
“Come with us,” I said in a stage whisper, but she jumped back to the seat and closed the door, letting the window roll down whist shaking her head.
“No thanks. I don’t like the look of this one bit,” she said, then waved as her other hand pushed the stick into reverse.
I mouthed a thank you as she turned, heading away through the ruts to retrace the journey.
To the sound of Thompson’s low-voice commands, a call for Carr to follow him whilst the other two waited, I turned as each slowly spread in different directions whilst keeping their backs to the hedge.
Hearing a splash of water from the other side of the hedge, panic rushed my thoughts to Shadow, but Sherlock’s palm at my chest held me back with Thompson and Carr disappearing behind the gap.
Swapping a worried glance at Alex and then Cassie, I looked for Jess but couldn’t see her anywhere. Forcing myself against Sherlock’s hold, he took his hand away, stepping back and raising his pistol. Despite not pointing it at any of us, the movement conveyed the warning he’d intended.
A gunshot went off somewhere else, but before our nerves could settle and Sherlock could complete his turn to the noise, the great boom of an explosion instinctively made us duck as a chaotic sound of water compounded the dull echo, then a voice, a call for help vanishing as quickly as it came.
Pushing past Sherlock, I rushed toward the river as another explosion sent a jagged bright orange metal gas canister shooting into the air like a rocket.
67
First through the gap, I turned left along the river, glancing up the side of a narrowboat bobbing up and down as if nothing had happened. Looking to the faded paintwork, I peered through the nearest round window into the darkness, but turned away as the stench grew stronger.
Slowing when I couldn’t see the danger I’d raced to, I looked along the line of three vessels, a white cruiser between two narrowboats. About to turn to continue my search, I followed movement in the water beyond the first and caught the dark soles of boots slipping under the surface.
Before I could jump in and grab on, I looked forward, seeing Shadow running my way from the last boat ahead. Rushing past the gleaming white hull of the middle craft, I half expected a silver-haired guy to be sitting in the covered canopy with a champagne flute in one hand and the other on the wheel.
But no. The only sign there had been any life was a dried bloody splatter across the hull and tow path.
Turning at the sound of footsteps behind, I saw Alex leading the way, rushing with Gibson and Sherlock running after, each searching for the danger.
Shaking my head at her raised brow, I turned back to the white boat bobbing in the water, twisting around at the sound of footsteps on wood. Passing the hull, I searched the gap between the next two, wincing at the sight of a bald head just below the water between floating splinters of wood. About to drop to my knees and push my arm out to help, I saw another at its side. Both heads turned up with their milky white eyes peering out of the dirty brown water, their hands raising and thrashing in my direction.
Staggering back, Alex helped me to my feet as I scoured the water. Hoping the shapes I’d seen beyond were just in my imagination, I turned my attention to the last boat.
Long and wide, each surface cracked and dried, it looked like a museum piece dragged from the riverbed. It lurched from side to side and just beyond the cabin door at the nearest end, sharp, splintered wooden beams protruded out where more of the boat should have been.
Rushing forward, I caught muffled calls and a flurry of activity from inside. Jumping past the damage, I grabbed the roof as my feet slipped in the slick of blood I hadn’t seen before I landed on the deck.
After steadying, I pushed open the door. Peering into the darkness, Jess’s dark hands gripped at a figure’s throat as they grappled just inside. Thompson fumbled on his backside, struggling to get traction on the slick floor as he tried to lean forward and grab at the double barrel of a shotgun at his feet.
Before I could react, a great shove pushed me to the side with Sherlock running past, his rifle raised at the tussling pair with his finger moving to the trigger.
Something in his look and how he’d acted before told me he wouldn’t hesitate to use this moment to shoot Jess.
Recovering my footing, I launched sideways into Sherlock’s shoulder, just as a single shot burst from the rifle. Dried splinters showered down as the wood erupted and Sherlock slipped in the blood with the force of my push and I followed, unable to stop myself from pinning the gun to his chest as I landed on top of him.
Pushing back, he lifted me up despite my weight and all the strength I could muster. Shoving me to the side, I landed heavily on the deck, and he loomed over me with the rifle aimed point blank at my face. For a moment I wondered what the nothingness would be like.
Closing my eyes, I thought of the calm that would follow. Not having to run or hide, or constantly be on guard.
When the sounds of the scuffle didn’t vanish into nothingness, I opened my eyes, watching Sherlock pull away. I half expected Jess to rip out his throat.
Instead, Thompson gripped Sherlock’s gun around the barrel.
With the sharp smell of the gunshot and metallic tang of blood mixed with wet sewerage hanging in the air, I turned to the doorway and to Alex standing with Gibson looking over her shoulder.
Shaking with the cold, Alex leaned over to offer her hand. Getting to my feet, Jess stood staring our way, wiping blood on her sleeve. The guy she’d held lay at her feet in a heap.
Thompson spoke, but it took me a moment to understand the words. “The guy came at us with a shotgun. Carr set off a booby trap. The gas canister. She saved me,” he said, moving his hand from Sherlock’s chest and offering back his rifle.
“Again,” I said, looking Jess in the eye. “She saved you again.”
“Yes,” came Thompson’s reply as he nodded.
“Where’s Carr?” I asked, but Thompson only lowered his head.
With the bloodied shotgun in my hand, no one spoke as we helped each other to dry land. It was then I realised there was no sign of Cassie and I turned to study our small group in case I’d missed her. I lingered on our sorry sight and Jess covered in blood again, wiping the drying mess from her face with a rag Alex handed her.
Turning around to the sound of an engine, white smoke puffed into the air from the back of the cruiser and I spotted Shadow on board. The note of the engine rose and out from the door below the cabin, Cassie stepped out, barely acknowledging our presence on the towpath.
The water around the white hull came alive, teeming with creatures just below the surface, their effort making it appear as if the water were boiling.
Rushing the few steps to climb aboard, I was last in the line and watched as her hand went to the throttle and for the first time I knew I’d lost her; she was not the Cassie I had grown close to.
But then, as if she changed her mind, her hand hovered over the control, turning her head just enough to see my foot land on the deck and we were off. Thompson grabbed me by the scruff of my coat before the sudden speed could send me backwards into the teeming water.
Crowding the small deck with the two rucksacks at our feet, I tried to ignore the sound of what brushed past the hull as we cut through the water. Still with the shotgun in my hand, Alex and Jess ducked under the wheel deck, heading through the door and into the cabin.
Sherlock stood on the other side of the deck with his palm on his holstered pistol and brow furrowed, glaring in my direction. To his side, Thompson leaned out from the hull whilst looking ahead with one hand shielding his eyes from the winter sun and the other gripping a handrail.
Sherlock dropped his stare, stepping beside Thompson, leaning in to talk low to his ear.
I looked away, not interested in what he said, instead turning to Gibson standing the other side of the boat and following his look to the figures just underneath the water, ca
ught by the slow current and drifting the same way as us.
As Gibson looked up, I moved at the same time, peering out to the horizon and realised we were on a canal with a river a stone’s throw over a short bank. If it weren’t for the horizon lined with the tall columns of smoke of varying shades of darkness and the hint of stench mixed with the smell of the water, we could have been on a leisurely trip.
The weight of the shotgun turned me away from the fantasy as I stared to the bloody boot-prints on the deck, then to the shaven fur on Shadow’s side, and then Cassie’s cold, expressionless face.
No. We were definitely not on a pleasure cruise.
Thompson’s raised voice dispelled the last of my thoughts, instead watching him with his face right up to Sherlock’s as he tried to keep his voice low. Turning away when Gibson did the same, I knew Sherlock would argue about Jess and how they could travel with someone like her. I couldn’t help but wonder if it was Thompson’s orders or Jess saving his life that stopped him from throwing her overboard when she stepped from the cabin.
“Do that again and I’ll take you down,” Thompson said, unable to keep his volume low as he stepped away from Sherlock, instead staring at me before looking to the shotgun whilst walking my way. “Have you handled one of these before?”
Shaking my head as he held out his hand, I hesitated at the offer. But stepping forward, I didn’t resist as he took the long gun with both hands and clicked the small safety switch into place. Nodding when he looked me in the eye to make sure I’d seen, he snapped the gun in the centre and an empty cartridge ejected from the barrel, flying out over the side and into the river with a splash.
A single brass-ended cylinder remained. “Did you find any more cartridges?”
Shaking my head, he snapped the gun closed, cradling it in the crook of his arm with the barrel pointing upward. I nodded to show I’d understood, and he handed it back so I could mirror the hold. Satisfied, he turned away, climbing the short steps to stand at Cassie’s side.