The Silence

by Tim Lebbon

  “We should stop and look ahead, find the best route,” Kelly said.

  “Look over there.” Huw pointed. “No time.” It was a mile away, maybe more, but the winding road leading down into the valley was obvious from the static traffic glimmering in the morning sun. At the head of the line of motionless vehicles, several cars and vans burned. Beyond them were more vehicles, all of them a bland colour that almost faded into the landscape. Military. Huw didn’t want to stop, didn’t want to hear any gunfire. It chilled him to the core, and he only wanted to get away.

  Glenn must have been looking as well. Talking to Jude, maybe, trying to comfort him and persuade him that the fires should not concern them, his attention snatched for just a moment too long. That was the only explanation for what happened next.

  The Land Rover thudded into a series of dips in the hillside, depressions where loose earth had fallen away. Glenn must have revved the engine because the bonnet rose, the tail end slammed down again, and then the front offside wheel struck a rock.

  Lynne cried out behind Huw, her hand reaching past his face as if she could grab the Land Rover, hold on, prevent it from tipping.

  It fell onto its right side. Huw slammed on the brakes, stood on the pedal as he tensed forward, disbelief and terror combining to steal his breath.

  The Land Rover rolled. Inside, shadows danced. It flipped onto its roof and momentum kept it going, bouncing off a pile of rocks, glass exploding and flowering around it as the rear window shattered.

  “No, no, no!” Kelly screamed, Lynne and Ally shouted, but Huw could only watch in stunned disbelief.

  It rolled twice more, the final roll flipping it almost completely off the ground, before it slammed down on its roof against a tree-topped pile of boulders. Its wheels spun lazily. Steam burst from the front grille, and Huw thought of a hundred action films he’d seen where crashed cars immediately burst into flames and then exploded.

  Kelly was out of the Jeep first, sprinting downhill, and Huw followed quickly, slipping in mud and going sprawling, grasping at Ally as she reached for him and pulled him upright, crying out when the truth of what he’d seen slammed in and the reality of what he might find clasped a cold hand around his heart.

  Lynne dashed past him, then he was on his feet, he and Ally sprinting over the crushed vegetation and torn ground that marked the Land Rover’s descent.

  Kelly reached the vehicle first and fell to her knees.

  She screamed.

  13

  Remain inside. Keep quiet. Stay safe. This can’t last forever.

  Metropolitan Police website, Saturday, 19 November 2016

  As I ran downhill beside Dad, the world kept spinning. I might have been in the rolling car myself, limbs thrashing, hair swaying, stomach lurching with every step I took. I was terrified of what I would find, but desperate to get there.

  This is too real! I thought. I’d had a gun pointed at my face, but seeing the crash and knowing that Jude might be hurt had brought home the shattering, sickening reality.

  I could see Mum kneeling on the ground, and though I heard nothing, I could tell by the way her shoulders and chest moved that she was screaming. She had her hands to her face as she looked into the upturned Land Rover, and whatever she saw must have been terrible.

  We reached the vehicle at the same time as Lynne. She went to Mum and knelt at her side, while Dad and I skidded against the Land Rover’s dented metal wing. I could smell petrol, heat, oil, exhaust fumes. I dropped to my knees.

  Blood. Someone was hanging from their seatbelt, bleeding across the airbag that had deployed at the first impact. It was stark and wet and there was so much. That’s not Jude, I thought, and then Dad reached past and grasped at Glenn’s arm where it was lashing at the car’s smashed window. He held his friend’s hand.

  I slipped around the front of the Land Rover and found its other side pressed tight against a pile of rocks. Above the car’s exposed underside¸ several trees grew out from the rocky facade, one of their trunks now splintered and pale. I crouched down but could barely see inside; the Land Rover’s nose was dipped into a hollow in the ground. I lay down flat, crawling forward, feeling hot water from the ruptured radiator dripping onto the back of my scalp and neck as I pulled myself beneath the bonnet.

  The windscreen had smashed and I tugged it aside, cutting my hands and spilling diamonds of glass to the ground. Then I dug my fingers into the soil and pulled myself further in.

  “Jude!” I shouted. The passenger airbag was slowly deflating, drooping like a landed balloon. And though I dreaded what it might reveal, I grasped the bent windscreen frame and pulled myself closer. To my right I saw Glenn’s airbag deflating, blood running as it revealed the man still hanging upside down in his seat, held fast by the seatbelt. His face was a mess. I didn’t look for long.

  Dad was trying to lift Glenn, struggling to get past him to find his son. The red maw of Glenn’s shattered mouth opened in a silent scream. Dad was spattered with blood.

  “I’ll get to him!” I said. I reached out and clawed my hand into the airbag, pulling it towards me so that I could see behind.

  Jude hung in his seat. He was looking around, confused, blinking rapidly, and when he saw me he burst into nervous laughter. His nose was bloodied, blood dripping up over his eyes and forehead.

  “Can you reach the seatbelt clip?” I asked. “Jude, unclip yourself. But you’ll fall, so try to turn so you don’t bang your head.” He said something, but he was upside down and I couldn’t read his lips. “Just do it!”

  To my right, Mum was trying to crawl into the narrow gap between the bonnet and the ground. I waved her back. “He’s okay, Mum, he just needs to unclip himself.” Mum was frantic, barely hearing, clawing at the ground and kicking with her feet to get closer to her son. “Mum!” She looked directly at me. “He’s okay.”

  I turned back to Jude. Seeing Mum’s tears wouldn’t help right now, and it would only bring on tears of my own. I needed my vision clear. Needed all my available senses clear, because I could still smell petrol.

  “Jude, I can’t see what you’re saying, but do your best to undo your seatbelt. I’ll help you out. There’s lots of glass, but if you crawl carefully you’ll be fine. Okay?”

  He stuck up both thumbs, then started feeling for the seatbelt release. I stretched my right hand through the smashed window for him, glancing again at Glenn. Dad was trying to help him but his bloody face was stretched in a terrible upside-down scream. The deflated airbag hung before him, and Dad tried to tuck it out of the way into the steering wheel.

  Movement, a thud, and Jude was free of the seatbelt. He’d landed on the Land Rover’s ceiling, still tangled in the belt but no longer restrained by it. He started to thrash and struggle, one foot kicking against Glenn’s shoulder.

  “Jude!” I said. “Take it easy, be calm! Come on now, squirt, calm down.” He calmed, looking at me with startlingly white eyes. His nose was still bleeding, and I was amazed at how much blood could come from one person.

  Mum started reaching for him too, and Jude worked his way free of the seatbelt.

  “Through the smashed window,” I said, and I felt my brother’s hand in mine. It was a good feeling, and I squeezed and pulled, helping him crawl through the narrow space and out. I winced as glass cut into my hands. I could feel Jude’s frantic breath on my face, and I smiled to try and calm him down. He was free, out, and he would be fine.

  We stood together and hugged. I couldn’t remember the last time we’d held each other like that, but it felt good.

  Then Mum was there holding us both, and Lynne, and a cool breath of November air chilled the sweat that had popped up across my back and neck.

  “Glenn?” I asked, pulling away so I could see. Mum grimaced. I ruffled my brother’s hair, then slipped around the side of the stricken vehicle and ducked down beside Dad.

  He was still holding Glenn’s hand. The man was motionless now, no longer writhing in pain.

  �
��What’s happened?” I asked. Half in the shattered side window, Dad turned so that I could see his face.

  “Can’t reach the seatbelt,” he said.

  “I’ll get in and—”

  He grabbed my arm with his free hand. “There’s petrol leaking.”

  “There’s nothing to light it.” I wriggled free of his grasp and turned away before he could respond. But I could not be sure at all. Had Glenn actually switched the ignition off? Could that do something to ignite leaked fuel? Would contact against hot metal parts be enough?

  I crawled back beneath the bonnet and through the broken windscreen, and it brought vague, shadowy memories of my own crash. The feel of glass beneath my hands, the smells, the sight of Glenn and his blood, all seemed terribly familiar.

  Inside, I searched for Glenn’s seatbelt release. Finger on the red button, I looked past the hanging man at Dad.

  “Ready?”

  He nodded. I pressed. Glenn stiffened, shifted slightly, then stuck fast.

  “That’s it,” I said, “seatbelt’s out. He must be…” I looked up at his legs and saw why he had hardly moved. The whole steering column had shifted, dropping onto his thighs and pinning him to his seat. It was difficult to see past the mess of deflated airbag, but his jeans were crushed and dark with blood. The steering wheel was buckled.

  I put my hand on Glenn’s shoulder and felt him breathing shallow and fast. He turned to look at me, his upside-down, blood-covered face so close to mine that I could smell his breath.

  “We’ll get you out,” I said, but when he answered I had no idea what he was saying. I felt useless. “Dad?” I couldn’t see my father, either. I backed out through the windscreen, cutting my hands some more. We’re flailing, I thought. It’s all starting to go wrong and the vesps aren’t even here yet!

  Lynne and Mum were fussing around Jude, cleaning blood from his face with tissues and checking him over. He was standing, shaking with shock, but he seemed fine. He smiled at me. One of his last remaining milk teeth had been knocked out and his lip was swollen. His nose bled. He’d have two black eyes. But he was still standing and conscious. He hadn’t suffered in his crash like I had in mine.

  “How’s Glenn?” Jude asked. I had to get him to repeat it past his swollen lip and the distracting blood on his face.

  “Trapped,” I replied.

  “How long do we have?” Mum signed.

  I shrugged, then realised the urgency. I blinked. At first I thought my family were staring at me, but really they were looking past me at the rolled, ruined vehicle. It could have been worse, I knew. If it hadn’t come to a halt against this pile of rocks it might have rolled some more. Two more tumbles and Glenn might have had his stomach crushed by the steering column. Three more and Jude might have had his skull caved in by the warped doorpost. A spark, a ruptured engine block, an explosion…

  I jogged uphill, scrambled into the back of the Jeep and snatched up my iPad. Otis was barking, I realised, and I tried to shush him. But he was beyond comforting, and I turned my back on the dog instead. Letting him out now might only make the situation worse; he might try to get into the upturned vehicle, slice his paws on the glass. There were enough injuries already.

  I accessed my scrapbook app. It had a direct link to the Live: Breaking News feed on the BBC site, and I only had to check a few of the postings with times and locations to see just how fucked we were.

  How truly fucked.

  I closed my eyes and dropped the tablet back on the seat. Otis was trying to scrabble through the cargo net that separated him from the back seat, and I stretched my arm around so that I could pet his head, scratch beneath his jaw. His eyes were wide and dark with excitement.

  “Good boy, Otis,” I said. “Shhh. Good boy.”

  Then I went to tell them the news.

  * * *

  “Maybe two hours,” Huw said. He was crouched beside Glenn on the upturned ceiling of the Land Rover. His friend was still trapped in the driver’s seat, legs stuck beneath the displaced steering column and wheel. He’d tried adjusting the seat’s height settings, lowering its back, and when he’d attempted to shift it back Glenn had screamed loud enough to hurt his ears. He’d had to stop after that. Glenn spent a few minutes in and out of consciousness, and when he came to again his breathing was faster, lighter. “Maybe a little less.”

  “How long can someone hang upside down without passing out?” Glenn asked.

  “I think that’s a myth.”

  “Doesn’t feel like it.” His voice was distorted by the damage done to his face and lips. There were bones broken there, Huw was sure, but it seemed minor compared to his legs. Maybe his stomach, too, and his spine. Glenn was already saying that he could no longer feel his feet.

  “I’m going to try to open the door again,” Huw said. “Maybe get you out that way.”

  “Not yet, not yet.” Glenn reached for him, grabbed his arm and squeezed tight. “Just sit here for a bit, yeah? Let me gather myself. Think things through.”

  Huw almost laughed. He was hanging upside down in a wrecked car, possibly bleeding to death, trapped with no emergency services about to come to the rescue and a plague of monsters bearing down on them, and still he thought he was in charge. But that was Glenn all over. It was why Huw had been pleased to have his friend with them.

  But he wasn’t with them any more. Huw could see that already, and Glenn wasn’t stupid. Even if they did manage to get him out, his injuries meant he’d be prone in the back of the Jeep, in the short term at least. Maybe his legs weren’t broken or his spine cracked, but it would be a while until they knew for sure. And they no longer had a while.

  “Okay,” Glenn said, voice slurred. “We don’t have long. So one try to get me out through the door, then if that doesn’t work you’ll have to leave me.”

  “What? No!”

  “Yes,” Glenn said. “And keep your voice down. Don’t want to upset…” He trailed off, tensing as a wave of pain swept through him. He gasped, panted, and held onto the wheel crushed against his thighs. Huw pushed his friend upwards a little, easing some of the pressure. Close like that, tight in the confines of the overturned Land Rover, they could feel each other’s warmth, smell each other’s fear. Glenn’s blood was damp and warm against Huw’s shoulder.

  “Sorry, mate,” Glenn said.

  “Hey, I’ll get you out, don’t start—”

  “I mean I’m sorry about Jude. He’s okay, yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m sorry. He was my responsibility. I should have been more careful, less gung-ho. After everything you’ve been through… I should have looked after him more.”

  “Glenn, he’s fine.”

  “Might not have been,” Glenn said. “Look at Ally. See how she turned out.”

  “She’s fine too!” Huw said, automatically defending his daughter. He’d done so a dozen times through the years when people expressed pity for her deafness, as if it made her a lesser person. But he knew Glenn hadn’t really meant it that way.

  “You’re such a good dad,” he said.

  “Fucking hell, mate, you’re making this sound like a goodbye. This isn’t a movie, you know. Now shut the hell up. I’m getting out to go around to the door. I’ll get it open, and you’ll scream your head off when I pull you out, I’m sure. Then we’ll be away. Nice cottage, open fire, wine cellar.” Huw relaxed, letting his friend take his own weight again, ignoring the loud groans.

  He scrambled from the vehicle and stood, looking around. Across the hillside, further down in the valley, smoke rose thicker and wider. There was no more gunfire, but none of the vehicles seemed to have moved. The military vehicles were still there. He wondered if those guarding the roadblock would see them, and if they did, whether they’d come to investigate. But he was powerless to change that.

  He had to concentrate on things he could change.

  “Huw, we need to get him out,” Kelly said. Lynne and the kids were back uphill with the Jeep. Ally h
ad taken Otis out and was throwing a stick for him, the dog blissfully unaware of the drama. Jude was talking to Lynne, his face cleaned up but his clothes stained with blood.

  “I’m doing my best.”

  “How bad?”

  He shrugged. He didn’t want Glenn to hear them discussing his situation. “I’ll get him out now,” he said, louder, and he turned his back on his wife.

  But they knew each other so well, and he saw the doubt and fear in Kelly’s eyes.

  The door was warped in its frame. He tried the handle again, tugged. It wouldn’t budge. He knocked out the rest of the shattered glass, careful not to flick it inwards at Glenn, then grabbed the window’s sill and braced his feet against the door column. He pulled, increasing the force until he heard a gentle creak. But there was no movement.

  “Okay?” he asked.

  “Hanging in there,” Glenn said, his muffled voice turning into a wet cough.

  Huw went to the back of the vehicle. One side was rammed against the pile of rocks, and petrol still trickled from the crack the impact must have put in the fuel tank. But he was able to open the lower portion of the rear door. It was a mess in there, with bags of food, clothing and other supplies tossed around and burst open, much of it soaked in petrol. Even if they did have time to rescue any of it, most would be unusable.

  He’d always liked the smell of petrol. Kelly called him weird. He didn’t like it any more.

  Huw pulled aside one tumble of bags, trying to orientate himself. The little tool hatch in the boot’s side popped open when he touched it and a jumble of tools clanged out, falling into the mess of opened bags. He winced.

  Sparks! he thought. Would he even feel the whoof of fire if a spark ignited the fuel? He guessed so. And he guessed his family would be far enough back to escape the conflagration and see him staggering around as he burned to death, and hear Glenn’s screams.

  Heart still jumping, he rooted around for the tools and found a tyre iron, jack, and other bits and pieces.

  Back at the door he wedged the sharp end of the tyre iron in beside the handle and leaned on it. He swayed back and forth, exerting more and more pressure with each forward swing, but succeeded only in bending the metal framing. The door catch and lock remained solid.