by Jack Ziebell
They got in and shut the doors, but as he did, Tim noticed a twitching arm stretching from beneath the wheels.
He banged his hands on the steering wheel. “Fuck. Maybe we can wait, maybe they’ll disperse.”
“Tim,” said Asefa, “Look at these people. Now think of Sarah.”
Tim closed his eyes and pressed the accelerator pedal. As the car moved forward, he told himself the crowd would part with the force of the vehicle and let him through, but the Niva lurched upwards as they traversed the moving mound of flesh. The worst was hearing the tires spin, tearing skin and cutting into god knows what. Then the car crashed down on the other side.
“Look out!” yelled Asefa.
Tim slammed his foot on the brake and the car stalled. He opened his eyes. They had slipped sideways and the car was facing a clay wall under a rusty corrugated metal awning. He had stopped just in time; the front wheels almost tipping into an open sewer that ran like a deep gutter along the edge of the road. Out of Asefa’s window he could see the bridge over the river, leading out of the town. He looked out of his own window but immediately wished he hadn’t. Blood mixed with the mud and some people in the mound lay motionless, others broken but moving. Then he saw what scared him most. Three men who had been trying to get to the animal cart had instead turned their attention to nearer and warmer flesh, some of it still fighting back limply.
His jaw dropped and his mouth went dry. “They are eating each other.”
“Do not look Tim and do not judge; they have lost their minds, drive over the bridge.”
Tim did a three-point turn, but could not take his eyes off the horror in his rear view mirror as they drove over the river. The mass of people grew smaller in the distance until it was nothing but a heaving brown spot, then they turned a corner and it was gone.
“They were eating each other,” he said again. He was shaking and sweating and could feel himself slipping as Asefa told him to pull over.
“Let me drive now.”
They got out and switched seats, Tim moving on autopilot, the rain pouring down his face and over his unblinking eyes. Once in the driver’s seat, Asefa reached back and took out a Coke, opened it and gave it to him. “Drink this, the sugar will help you.”
Tim drank it down in gulps and continued trying to pour the drink down his throat once the can was empty.
Asefa held him by the wrist, took the can from him and placed his hand down on the dash. “Think about Sarah – think about your wife.”
Tim could see her. She was in trouble, in a mass of bodies, screaming out for help. In his vision she was not like all the others they had seen on the road; somehow she was herself and she was in pain, calling out for him. “Drive,” he said and they pressed on, dovetailing in the wet as they pulled away and headed down the last desolate stretch of blacktop.
After driving for two hours without seeing another living thing, the paved road came to a sudden end. Asefa stopped the car and put it into four-wheel-drive, “Now the real driving begins; with this weather these roads are going to be hard Tim, we must drive at speed or we will sink into the mud and never get out.”
Tim nodded. He had seen drivers stranded by the side of the road in similar conditions before; if you were timid, if you didn’t commit, you wouldn’t make it. You had to plough on through. Asefa attacked the road, his decades of off-road experience evident in his control; over-steer, under-steer, over-steer. The car skidded sideways into the turns, always straightening out before it was too late. Streams were forded at speed, sending sheets of water up the sides. They drove for several miles up a long steady hill and the higher they went, the denser and darker the foliage became around them, until they reached the top of a ridge, where the jungle opened out to reveal breaking clouds. The rain had stopped and Asefa said it was as good a place as any for a break. Tim took some of the ration packs from the back of the car and they ate them in their seats. “You better take some of these,” he said, handing Asefa a pack of antibiotics.
The food and open sky lifted his spirits, helping to wash away the mud and chaos of Gambella and the bridge. He got out of the car, climbed the roof rack and stood atop of it. From the ridge he could see what lay before them; leagues of jungle, steaming from the heat and the wet. He could just make out the track they were on as an indentation in the canopy, snaking its way to the Sudanese border. Sarah was somewhere far beyond the horizon and the thought of her there alone stopped him from enjoying the view beyond surveying the road ahead. A renewed sense of urgency gripped him and he swung down, taking again the driver’s seat.
Asefa looked concerned. “You sure Timmy? You done much driving on these roads?”
He had done his share of off-roading but he knew he couldn’t match the skills of his companion. He could also sense in Asefa’s tone a suspicion that his urgency may blind him to the care required for such paths. He switched back to passenger, feeling like a chastised child, but knowing Asefa was right. Asefa filled the tank with gasoline from two of the jerry cans that had been tied on the roof and they set off again, down into the next valley.
The jungle was getting thicker and thicker and Tim could hear the wild cries of animals not far from the water-logged track. The tire-tracks of previous vehicles had cut deep grooves in either side of the road and several times they nearly bottomed out on the muddy central ridge between their wheels. The animals seemed to have lost their natural fear of man and several times monkeys ran across their path, narrowly missing their tires but not adjusting their speed or direction as he would have expected in such close encounters.
After driving at a steady pace for some hours, they came around a bend to see an old long-wheel based Toyota Land Cruiser ahead, stopped dead and facing them in a small stream. The windscreen was bloody but they could see movement within through the smears. There was no way past without moving it.
“It is a ranger’s car,” said Asefa, “We will have to get it off the road to pass.”
Tim knew the park rangers patrolled the area, supposedly looking for poachers, but generally they smuggled people, guns or whatever else between the two countries.
“Careful Asefa,” he said as they stepped out, both with their guns at the ready. They approached the shaking vehicle. Inside a large man with the dark complexion of the South Sudanese was thrashing about. He was dressed in a green uniform and holding what looked like a sharp edged folding spade, which he was using to wildly slash at the interior. Two of the side windows were already caved out. Behind the steering wheel a second ranger lay motionless, his throat slit so deeply that his head tipped back over the seat.
“They must have been about to dig their way out when it happened to them,” said Asefa, “Let’s do this quickly; that car likely won’t start anyway so it’s best we leave him in there and tow it out.”
Tim nodded. The front of the Niva had a winch with a heavy steel tow wire wrapped around it but he was unsure if they had enough power to move such a heavy vehicle. Asefa disengaged the winch gear, unravelled the wire and attached it to the front of the ranger’s car. The man inside seemed agitated by his actions and his thrashing became more violent.
Asefa walked back to the winch, and re-engaged the gear. “Get back in, put the handbrake on and start the engine, we don’t need a dead battery.”
Tim did as he was told. Asefa switched on the winch and the cable became taut, the car ahead rocked slightly, then Tim felt the Niva begin to slide forward towards it. “Whoa!”
“Put her in reverse,” said Asefa.
Tim put the car in reverse and revved the engine. The wheels spun in the soft ground and again the Niva was pulled closer to the dead vehicle.
Asefa looked at the static wheels. “He must have the handbrake on, I will take it off.”
Asefa took his shotgun and returned to the ranger’s car. The man inside paused for a moment, looking at him, and then without warning shattered the windscreen with a heavy blow. The glass, still intact in its frame, was now a million
fragments; red liquid running between the myriad of tiny cracks. Tim could see Asefa take a step back then continue his advance towards the passenger door on the far side of the Land Cruiser, obscuring him partially from view. He could make out Asefa raising his shotgun to silence the madness contained inside their obstacle. Then Asefa let out a cry as he was dragged from view behind the car. A shotgun blast was followed by a horrific scream, then silence.
In a panic Tim scrambled for his gun, then realised he must have left it on the roof during the failed winching. He cursed and opened the door, reaching onto the roof without getting out; his hand trembling as he grabbed for his weapon. It wasn’t there; it must have fallen when he was trying to reverse. Terrified, he frantically checked his mirrors; there was nothing but jungle behind him. He opened the door a little wider and peered through the crack at the ground beneath, he couldn’t see the gun. He opened the door fully to get out but catching his foot in the footwell, he fell into the mud and lay on the ground.
“Asefa!” he called out, but there was no reply, only the sounds of the jungle and the thrashing metallic clanging from the other vehicle, the doors of which still appeared closed. He looked under his own vehicle, to see if some threat was lurking on the other side and to his relief saw only his rifle between the wheels. He grabbed it and held it to his chest. He looked at the gun and tried to remember what Asefa had done earlier, pushing the safety lever, down? He clicked the lever down hoping it was right and quickly refocused on the car ahead. “Asefa!” he cried twice more. Nothing. Monkeys howled an eerie retort in the distance. The madman inside the car furiously continued to attack his confines.
Tim got up and crept towards the car. The man inside was watching him and scraping the spade on the inside roof, making a jagged tear in the lining. Tim moved round to the side where Asefa had been, holding his gun out as if it were a spear to keep anything back. On the floor he saw Asefa’s gun, much blood and drag marks into the thick jungle. The man in the car was now bashing at the passenger window, trying to break through and reach him. He moved away from the car and towards the spot where the drag marks in the track ended and the jungle began. There was red on the leaves and pieces of what looked like limp sausage skins on a branch six feet in. He recoiled from the bush and fired four shots into the undergrowth. A lion? He shook with fear; it could have been anything. Whatever it was it was still out there along with who knew what else.
He edged backwards to the driver’s side of the ranger’s car and clearly saw the horror it caged. The man with the spade lurched over his dead companion towards Tim, who saw the hand without the spade was unflinchingly gripping the open throat of the man, using it for support. For a second Tim looked into the wild man’s eyes; they were not dead but held a startled malevolence that sent a chill to his heart. Even through the fear he felt pity. Tim raised his rifle against the glass and in the moment before he pulled the trigger the man stopped his thrashing and stared at him with unsettling calm. The window shattered and then even the jungle fell silent.
Tim stood holding the gun, unable to move but then remembered the other dangers around him and spun back to face the foliage, the gun trembling in his hands. In a single motion he turned back, holding his breath, he opened the door, felt through the warm, sticky wetness within and released the handbrake, feeling the car slip back a little. He jumped out, not stopping to close the door and ran back to the Niva, slamming his door and locking it once inside. He was hyperventilating and his knuckles turned white as he gripped the steering wheel, “Shit, oh shit, oh shit,” he repeated as he tried to stop himself from drowning in oxygen and fainting. Using all of his willpower to focus his mind he started the engine and reversed the Niva up the track. The cable tightened and the front of the Land Cruiser began to rise; it was working. The Land Cruiser shifted out of the ditch and slid to the side a little before falling back into the stream. It hadn’t moved much but enough for the Niva to squeeze past. Tim forced himself to get back out of his steel and glass cocoon and run, gun in hand, to unhook the tow cable. He ran back to the front of his car and engaged the electric winch; it wound painfully slowly and the noise it made seemed to be amplified beyond all recognition as he repeatedly scanned the trees around him. Finally the hook was secure in its fastening and he was able to retreat back to the safety of the vehicle.
Shifting into low gear he ploughed into the stream, the body of the Land Cruiser scraping green grooves into the side of the Niva as he passed. Briefly he though he might not make it, becoming trapped like the other car, but the shorter wheelbase meant he was able to traverse the dip without becoming wedged in, the Russian engine growling deeply as he pulled up the other side. At the spot where Asefa had disappeared he looked into the undergrowth one last time. He knew his friend was dead. He was alone.
He drove on for hours, taking great care not to slide off the road. He did not want to get out of the car to winch himself out. Without Asefa everything seemed more ominous and threatening. Several times animals darted across his path, nearly making him lose control. Tears ran down his face, he had never felt so despairing; had he not had a destination, he thought he would go mad with it. His mind was running again and again over all those presumed lost and he tried not to think of what London would be like had this sickness reached there. The cities would bear the worst of it he thought; yet that was where he was going. Juba was the capital of South Sudan and it certainly had enough people to create its own nightmare. At least he knew where Sarah should be staying, The Lion Den, even if he had little idea how to find it once he got there. There were so few roads in South Sudan that it was almost impossible to get lost on the way, as long as he and the car could hold together. Ending up on foot would be a death sentence. He became a man possessed. There would be no more rests, no more stops, no more breaks; he would drive until he reached her or died trying.
Twenty hours later, hallucinating with fatigue, he arrived in the outskirts of Juba. Once he had reached the blacktop road on the Sudanese side, he’d made good progress in the daylight, but at night he’d had to travel more slowly to avoid the cars and khat trucks illuminated in his headlights. He had made it this far but felt sick and shaky, from sugar, caffeine and the lack of sleep. Now the fear grew about what he would find if he did reach her.
He jolted awake and cursed himself. When he had pulled over to survey the town, he must have drifted off, not for long he guessed; there was still daylight, although the African sun was getting heavy in the evening sky. He looked past his anger and felt surprisingly rejuvenated for the shortness of the rest; the shaky feeling had gone and he felt like he could once again focus. He looked at the fuel gauge, the needle was on E. He got out and took the last of the jerry cans from the back and poured them into the tank. Back in the driver’s seat he looked at the smouldering skyline. This was it he thought and sped towards the dusty city.
As he approached he was surprised to see the shapes of men walking. Perhaps it was OK here? Perhaps she was OK. But as he drew closer, he could see the men were far from OK. Those on the outskirts were wandering aimlessly, like lost children, a vacant look in their eyes. He pulled up alongside one, a Dinka tribesman, as tall as he was dark, and called out to him; but the man ignored him and kept on going, walking out into the empty savannah. It was not these men who troubled him, but the others. As he drove on he noticed men not walking, but running wildly in the streets, attacking violently those who walked, as if for a game; knocking them down and beating them gruesomely into the dust like angry apes. Some had formed pairs or small groups, men and women, and were running together as wolves, chasing down lone runners and pulling them to the ground. For a moment he thought it may have been an organised rout to purge the city of the mindless, but he realised quickly that this was not the case. He could see a few white faces mixed in with the runners, some were big men in fatigues, security types; they would not have run in such a way, nor been drawn in to some kind of opportunist ethnic cleansing. This was part of it, whatever it w
as; a new terrible phase and one he would have to pass through to reach what he needed, if his mind was not to come apart by morning.
As he approached, a group of three men and one woman advanced with grimaced faces, almost skipping, towards the car. He knocked the leading man out of the way with the bumper and he fell, but the other three beat on the side of the car howling and whooping as he passed. In the shadows he could see more of the fallen, some were curled in the foetal position, clutching wounds and rocking pathetically. Packs of men and women were bent over the half devoured flesh of victims; fighting for entrails, establishing pecking orders. The End Times had arrived if it had come to this; was that all we were without our civilisation and morality; fragile objects to be tormented and devoured? He told himself again that these people were no longer human, therefore had no humanity to lose. They had become creatures, worse than creatures, for even creatures knew, or at least used to know, the rules of their kind. They had no rules, although he could see through the chaos a type of mad order beginning to evolve. Whatever had happened seemed to have affected people differently, perhaps simply revealing their individual base instincts, bringing each person’s deep and true nature to the fore. Not everyone was running, some of those he passed were still much as he had found the old mechanic; alive, but mindless and lying where they fell. He pitied those helpless ones who would soon be dead of sunstroke, thirst or worse.
More of the runners hurled their fists at his car as it past, as if it were some metallic spirit to be scared away. They would run after him until he turned a corner or became too distant to their senses. He was driving aimlessly, not knowing which way to turn, only guided by the route with the least obstacles. If he stopped he would be swamped, but he knew he would have to eventually, if he ever found her hotel.