Tabitha

by Hall, Andrew

  It was dark outside, and the air was warmer. The base was full of shouting. Soldiers were rushing out into the yard; machine guns rattled glowing shots into the moors. Tabitha kept to the wall and edged around the corner, looking for the quietest way out of the base. Her eyes were drawn to a pale shape blowing beside her, caught under the lid of a metal dumpster. It was her mum’s ribbon, still tied to her ruined belt. Inside the dumpster her clothes and boots had been burned to ash. In the scorched ruins of her bra she saw a pale corner; her mum’s note. The paper crumbled away to nothing when she tugged it free, breaking her heart. She pulled her charred belt from the dumpster and fastened it around her waist, tucking her pistol into it. Checking around her, she crept around the corner to find a parked jeep on the yard. The door wasn’t locked. She ducked down inside and looked around for a way out of the base. A searchlight flicked past and blinded her for a second, and she ducked back down with a gasp. Had they seen her? She waited for shouting, frozen in the jeep’s footwell. They must have missed her. She crept up from the footwell and looked around through the windows. The whole base was ring fenced, and the only way out was manned and barricaded. Would the jeep smash the barricade, or the barricade smash the jeep? Whatever she was going to do, she’d have to do it fast. She couldn’t stay parked here so close to the fire exit. Even now soldiers were bursting out of the door and running round the corner. She fumbled for the jeep’s ignition in the dark, but felt only flip switches instead. She tried the switch where the keyhole should have been, but nothing happened. The jeep probably wasn’t running any more, just like everything else. Soldiers were fanning out from the fire exit, searching and shouting in the dark beneath the racket of machine guns and the air-raid siren. Tabitha switched seats, opened the passenger door and climbed out as quickly and quietly as she could. She started running for the fence, hoping to climb over before the searchlights found her. The shock of the solid tarmac jolted hard through her bare feet. Her every footfall seemed to land on a sharp stone, stumbling her as she ran. Before she made it to the fence though, the searchlight on the tower caught her. A machine gun rattled rounds into the tarmac around her. Blinded by the light she ran for the distant barricade, but the soldiers there were already yelling and firing at her.

  ‘Dragon! Dragon!’ came a shout across the base, and suddenly the searchlight on the tower burst into white flames. The huge dark creature swept past in the night overhead, lit for a moment by the flaming watchtower beneath it. Tabitha was hidden in the darkness again. She ran for the fence and started to pull at the screws that held it to a concrete post. A rumbling growl rolled overhead in the darkness, weird and alien. The dragon swept down over the base and spat a pillar of white light into the complex. Soldiers screamed in agony as buildings erupted into thundering white flames. Tabitha’s fingers wrenched and pulled at the screws in the fence. She picked a corner of the chain-link away from the concrete post as quickly as she could. The dragon roared and rushed over the base again, bursting another building apart in flames the colour of moonlight.

  ‘Get a lock on it!’ a man yelled, off across the square. Tabitha recognised the deep voice. It was Blake.

  ‘Locked!’ replied the soldier beside him, shouldering a missile launcher. The launcher spat its missile skywards with a rasping hiss, and clapped and boomed against the dragon’s roaring silhouette overhead. Blake yelled. A cheer went up from the gathering soldiers. The dragon’s body crashed down on the pitch-black moors, framed in the eerie glow of white fire.

  ‘They’re coming for the gate!’ came a distant yell from the barricade. Tabitha watched Blake lead his men across the yard, opening fire on the night where the floodlights caught moving shapes on the moors. Some of the soldiers fired uselessly into the night sky, blind to a second dragon that swept overhead. Another white fireball screamed down from the black sky, blowing another building apart. The flash of light lit the night around them, and for a moment Tabitha saw a creeping horde filling the moors. Already soldiers were deserting, yelling and running for the barricade. They disappeared from the glow of the floodlights and screamed in the darkness beyond the fence, butchered in the night.

  ‘Open fire!’ Blake bellowed. Something huge and black had appeared to tear down the barricade; a monstrous shadow that roared demonic as the soldiers shot it. Tabitha cursed and gave up on the fence, and ran for a jeep parked off to her right. She just had to hope it was working. She saw Blake across the square, silhouetted against the floodlight behind him. She jabbed at the switches and buttons on the jeep’s sparse dashboard, and felt her heart leap as the engine roared into life. Before she could reach for the handbrake though, the jeep’s engine spluttered and died.

  ‘Shit, shit!’ she hissed, fumbling with the switches again. Blake had spotted her in the glare of the floodlight and opened fire with his rifle, ignoring the spiders that spread out into the yard behind him. Suddenly the second dragon landed down on the roof of the headquarters with a crash, and spat a jet of fire down over the screaming soldiers below. Tabitha pulled down the window and aimed her pistol at Blake, shooting at him as he approached. She hit him in the shoulder as he reloaded. He looked at her in shock while she aimed for his head. Tabitha pulled the trigger. The pistol just clicked, empty.

  ‘Fuck!’ she yelled furiously, and ducked down against Blake’s returning shots as he stormed towards her. She flicked at the switches and the engine whirred and coughed and rumbled to life again; the jeep’s sudden headlights blinding Blake as he approached. Tabitha threw the jeep into gear and floored the accelerator, and drove straight for him. Blake tried to jump aside but hit the headlight with a bang, thrown to the ground as Tabitha ploughed through the perimeter fence.

  Tabitha skidded the jeep onto the road across the moors, tearing off into the night. She felt high; drunk on freedom. Jolts and bumps shook her body in the seat. She checked her mirrors for any sign of the alien horde, but there was nothing in the blackness around her. Maybe they wanted the base more than a stray survivor. She clung to that hope and felt her heartcore pounding as she put the base further and further behind her. She heard a helicopter somewhere above, and it sounded like it was getting closer. Within seconds it was flying overhead, and a spotlight blinded her. A machine gun rattled. The shots came punching and banging and ringing against the jeep’s bodywork. Tabitha swerved off onto the moors, helpless, trying to escape as the shots punched through the roof. There was a white burst of light in the sky. The helicopter erupted into flames, spinning and droning as it ploughed into the moors behind her, lighting the night in a flaring fireball. The second dragon’s grey shape rushed past overhead.

  Tabitha joined the road again and slammed the accelerator down. She killed the headlights, trying to slip away from the creature in the dark. But it had already seen her. Its white staring eyes blinked in the night sky above, stalking her. Another flash of white light. Tabitha jumped from the door and smacked hard into the ground as the speeding jeep burst into flames. Looking up from the dirt, she saw the jeep flip and tumble and come crashing down on the moors. The dragon swept overhead with a tidal rush as she struggled to her feet. She ran. The cold earth slapped against her soles and pounded her heels. A rock cut the ball of her foot, and stumbled her. But she kept running. She heard scuttling behind her, muffled in the grass and mud. The hillsides flashed white with distant explosions, and the night sky filled with the cracks and booms of a warzone over the military base. She didn’t look back; just kept running. There were gunshots, far away, rattling into the night. Tabitha’s hair streamed away behind her as she ran. Spiders tried to snap at her heels in the darkness. She didn’t turn to fight them. The chittering racket grew until it filled the moors behind her. The horde was chasing her. Tabitha gasped for breath and pounded her feet into the ground, sprinting with everything she had. Twin shooting stars glided by overhead; white eyes in the inky night. Again came the ear-popping rush of giant wings. Every thought left her head. All she could do was run. She ran from the scuttling
tide at her back and the dark wings in the sky. She ran from the thunder-clap bangs of artillery over the hills. The lightning-strike bursts of white light. But beyond the clattering metal rush of spiders, she heard other sounds too. The strange rumbling of alien wings, and the distant scream of soldiers. And the faintest trickle of running water. Tabitha followed her ears and veered off to the left as she ran, and the sound of water grew louder. Clearer. There was a slope to the moor here. She felt the ground get suddenly steeper and then slope down, and she threw herself onto her side to slide down the damp hill. The wings rushed by only feet above her head, and the dragon roared as she missed its snapping claws. Tabitha hurtled down the slope on her side, feeling the rough grass scratch and burn against her legs. Suddenly she hit a freezing rush of water. A deep river carried her now, faster than she could ever hope to run. The chittering wall of sound behind her grew distant, and the legion of spiders gave up the chase with a chorus of angry screeching. Tabitha gasped for air as the river current carried her. She glanced up at the starry night and slicked back her wet hair, breathing freedom in blissful gulps. Swept along in the river.

  Her relief was short-lived though. Within a couple of minutes the rocky riverbed was banging against her feet. The current tumbled her up against gravel and stones, where the river broadened out and grew shallow. Dripping trickles of icy water, Tabitha leapt up the crumbling turf embankment back onto the moors. She dragged herself on and broke into a sprint. She heard the sudden beat of wings up behind her. White fire burst out of the sky. She leapt away from the rushing blast, but screamed at the flames that seared her feet. The creature rumbled overhead, flying off into the night again. Tabitha forced herself to keep running. She had to survive. Up behind her on the slope, the chattering tide of spiders burst over the hillside after her. Muscles aching, she yelled and ran. She was tired; they were gaining fast. A hundred yards behind her. Fifty. Thirty. Again the white eyes swooped down out of the night sky towards her. She saw its body, grey against the black night. She leapt up over the dragon’s snatching claws and gripped tight to the scales on its leg. She felt herself pulled suddenly into the air, and felt her stomach turn over like she was on a rollercoaster. The wind rushed in her ears and chilled her wet gown. She was twisting and turning in the air, clutching its giant kicking leg as they flew high above the moors. The creature bellowed and the night spun around her, making her body lurch and her stomach turn. Over the next sudden hillside a dark lake sprawled out beneath her, sudden and vast and glistening in the faint sliver of moonlight. The dragon shook and writhed and kicked, and she lost her grip on its scales. Her stomach twisted. Suddenly she was falling from the sky, flailing and gasping and screaming in mortal dread as the lake loomed large below. A jet of white fire leapt out towards her overhead, but she was falling too fast for it. The dragon disappeared in the night sky far above. Tabitha sucked in her breath and held her hands out to take the impact, and the lake slammed into her palms like a brick wall. Her wrists were a sudden stinging agony. Everything was bubbling and black under here; a choking muffled rush of bitter-cold water. But Tabitha was laughing when she broke the surface again, coughing and spluttering the lake’s sour dirty taste. Treading the black water that lapped at her ears she felt nothing, thought nothing. There was only the soaring primal rush of cheating death.

  Tabitha climbed ashore on the far side of the lake, her feet slapping on wet silty sand. Tufts of spindly grass poked through the fine sand where she fell to her hands and knees. The beach by the lake was made of coarser grains, big and sharp against her skin where she crawled almost face-down in the dirt. The waves sloshed and fizzed on the lake shore behind her. The dim moonlight picked out shapes on the sand; twigs and rotten leaves strewn along the tide mark. Drowned feathers and shreds of plastic bag, scattered around her fingers in the washed-up froth. She staggered to her aching feet and looked up at the night sky, gasping for breath. Up over the lake the dragon roared in defeat, and gave up its search of the water. Tabitha saw no sign of the spiders here; the moors were far behind. The dark world tumbled around her then as she collapsed breathless onto the dirty sand. She’d escaped. She stared up at the sky, and the stars that stretched on forever. She’d never seen them so bright before. A million pinprick suns painted on the black night. They shone cold, scattered, oblivious.

  Beyond the lake shore was a forest, invisible in the deep dark but rustling in the wind. Tabitha heard clattering legs in the distance, getting closer. Staggering to her feet with a weary grunt, she ran in amongst the trees. Her thin flimsy hospital gown clung to her body, ice-cold in the wind as she ran. She had to get away from the sound of the clattering legs. Maybe she’d imagined it; maybe not. She had to run though. She had to get far away.

  Every other footstep was a jagged punishment; a jutting rock or a hard root against her bare feet. But everything in here smelled like dirt and trees, and it had never smelled so good. A fresh earthy scent all around her that felt like coming home. A world away from the hospital smell of the military base. There were no glaring fluorescent lights here, exposing everything she’d become to anyone who wanted to stare. There were no restraints to pin her down. No drugged-up daze to tangle her mind in amnesiac knots. Best of all, there were no people here. Only mortal fear. She could handle mortal fear; running for her life. At least now she’d die free. Imprisonment was the real terror; she knew that now. Facing death without a chance to fight back. But no more. She’d never be caught again; she refused.

  Tabitha tore on through the pitch black woods. Tripping and cutting and bruising, and banging into trees she couldn’t see. A fierce wind picked up, shredding the clouds away from the murky moon’s anaemic glow. Tabitha forced herself to keep moving. They could be right behind her in the dark, searching for her. So she ran. Every time she slipped down, or tripped, or hit a root and went flying into a tree trunk, she picked herself up. Wiped the cold grainy mud from her stinging cuts, and carried on. She had to keep running. They were all dead and gone now, everyone she’d loved. But she wasn’t. Not yet. Something primal had taken over, there in the back of her mind. A dark snarling hunger for revenge and survival. It kept her legs running, and her arms pushing past the branches. It kept her from giving up.

  34

  Tabitha was miles away by dawn. She looked down the hillside at the distant lake, spread out before her in the pink growing light. It looked no bigger than a puddle from where she stood, stretching her legs on a sandy footpath winding up a vast hill. She could see where she’d come from too, far away on the distant moors, where smoke rose in lazy black towers from the ruins of the military base. Turning her back on it, Tabitha looked down the other side of the hill on a landscape she didn’t recognise. It could’ve been anywhere; all rolling green fields and winding country roads. Off on the horizon she could make out the tower blocks of a distant city in the haze.

  ‘Where do I go?’ she mumbled to herself. She felt a concrete lump of grief rising in her throat; swallowed it down. Much too big to handle now. She wiped the tears from her eyes, gulped the feeling down again, and tried to focus on where to go next. She had all the country to choose from, and all of it dangerous. She stood and stewed in indecision, thinking everything through as the sun rose in the sky. When she’d taken to the roads with Laika, she’d thought she could hide away from the spiders in the countryside. But the opposite was true. She thought about last night too, when she’d been running for her life. Except for the river, there’d been nothing between her and them. The spiders were too fast in open country; they’d almost caught her. At least in a town or a city there was a warren of windows and doors to hide behind. An obstacle course she could use to get away from them, and survive another day in the grey ruins. But that was no way to live, she told herself. She’d have to think bigger than simply running and hiding. Right now though all she could think about were her sore filthy feet, and the endless freezing bite of the wind through her wet gown. Dew clung to the grass where she sat for a moment, winking li
ke beads of glass in the gold morning light. They slid away to nothing at the touch of her finger; a momentary beauty, lost forever.

  Tabitha hobbled down the far side of the hill on cold battered feet, and felt the bruised bones aching beneath her bare filthy soles.

  ‘…Too much to ask to grow some bloody metal skin on my feet,’ she grumbled, limping and staggering down the path as the birds sang in the pines.

  There was some old fallen stonework further down the hill, hidden between the trees like a tumble-down garden. Tabitha came to a peaceful pond in the heart of it, once fed by an ornate waterfall that had long since mudded up. Her presence startled a pair of ducks that stood by the edge of the pond, whispering soft grumpy quacks as they sploshed down into the brown water and glided away. Tabitha stared at the water; a deathly mirror reflecting a zombie version of the sky. Pondweed lurked just under the rippling surface there; rot-green feathery combs reaching up from the murk. Birds chattered and sang in the trees all around her, filling the silent murdered world with chaotic melody. She could never get used to the new quietness of the world. There were still the charred ruins of a fire in the dirt nearby; a nest of scaly charcoal logs that still smelled smoky-sweet when she kicked at them. There was a dusting of white ash on the ground, and scorched grass around it. She thought about festivals and campfires; barbecues and drunk pictures with old friends. She thought about her gran’s old fireplace too, a memory from her childhood. She’d lay her empty crisp packet down onto the red coals, and watch it shrink down into a bubbling plastic blob. Back in a different life. A snapping twig jolted her from her thoughts. It was just a squirrel, scurrying up a tree nearby. Tabitha turned back to the pond. She could have lain down by the ashes of the fire there, and gone to sleep. At least just to get off her sore feet for a while. But it wasn’t safe to rest here. Too high up, too exposed, too everything. She turned away from the dead fire, and hobbled on down the stony path onto a stretch of grass. Her feet were grateful for the softness. She headed into the trees where they grew thick and ducked under a low branch, slowing her steps down the slope and jumping down over a stone wall at the bottom. She froze at a sudden rustle in the bushes, but it was too gentle to be a spider. For one forgetful moment she thought it might be Laika, until her heart broke all over again at the thought. Just a blackbird.