“We knew right then and there that they must be other survivors, not Nemesis. And we debated for a few minutes whether to turn around and try to find them or leave them a message. But in the end we decided against it. After all, we were on our way toward the continent and to leave a message would have been just too dangerous.
“But it lifted our spirits quite a bit, the thought that we weren’t the only survivors in this otherwise seemingly empty land. In all those days of travel, we had never seen any sign of life, human beings, I mean. Never a sound, never a light, never anything. Just hundreds and hundreds of dead people and some farm animals, cats and dogs wandering about. We had twice happened onto big packs of dogs, too. Once they pursued us for quite a distance. But never, apart from that in hindsight really comical incident in Newport, had we seen any other human beings.”
He paused pensively before going on. “Anyway, once we’d gotten to Cardiff airport it was easy to get a plane. Actually almost suspiciously easy, wasn’t it Rob?”
Rob nodded but didn’t volunteer any comment. He apparently was the silent, rather-stay-in the-background type. I quickly glanced up to Josh to gauche what he was thinking and he winked at me but nodded to Paul to continue.
Paul looked over at Nin and went on. “You know how to pilot a plane, don’t you?”
Nin beckoned his head. “Yes, a bit. But I’m certainly not as competent as you are. After all, I just have a license for small planes, nothing in the range of your league.”
“Still, it will come in handy, to be two of us who know how to handle a plane. But I wanted to tell you how we left Cardiff. After the stint with the other survivors earlier that day, we debated hard and long what would be the best course of action. Leave as soon as possible or wait till later in the afternoon? That was my favourite option. Coz I guessed that we might make it across the Channel before nightfall, which would allow us to find a suitable place for landing without being too obvious.”
Rob and Josh gave a collective snort at this, which startled everyone else, except Winter who took over now. “Let me tell them this, Paul, because you are obviously biased here.”
Turning to Nin and Alice, she explained. “There wasn’t much of a discussion, you know. We all assumed that Paul had valid and well-thought-through reasons for suggesting an early evening landing on the Continent. So we quickly agreed to do as he suggested. But since it was already late in the evening by now, we decided to wait for the next afternoon. Which left us ample time to choose a plane. Paul’s job. He chose a small plane with two engines. Don’t ask me the type or any technical details. And you, Paul, stop rolling your eyes at me. We spent the night near the plane, some of us in the car, some in the plane. And the next morning Paul sat for a long time in the cockpit and checked everything. He made Rob and Josh hunt for some fuel and they filled the tank. Meanwhile I tried as best as I could to lookout for possible danger. Around four o’clock Paul decided that now was the time to take off. We were all really nervous. Of course, Paul would joke about the whole affair, but Josh snapped at him, to just get us safely over to the continent and to please cut the crap.
Maybe I should mention that we had several guns with us as well as food for about three days and each of us had packed some personal belongings that we didn’t want to leave behind. It wasn’t much though, because Prof Papadopoulos had advised us to pack no more than what we might, in case of emergency, easily carry on our back and with our hands.
“Come to think of,” she added, looking over at Yuki and me. “I hope that we will be able to replenish our stocks and carry a lot more with us on the next flight. I certainly could do with some more cloths and things.”
“That shouldn’t be a problem; we have also already packed quite a bit of things,” Yuki replied.
“Good, now where was I? Right. The take-off in Cardiff.” Winter suddenly seemed very pensive. “It was awkward, taking off there in Cardiff and knowing that we would, if all went well, never again come back to this place. That now was really the final fair well from our friends and our former lives. None of us left family members behind. My family lives over in Canada, in case you wondered,” she added with a quick glance at Rob who gently hugged her tight for a moment.
“Anyway, we took off and Paul flew a circle over the airport before heading south. We had decided that the three of us would look out for possible dangers while Paul would try to get us across the Channel as quickly as possible. So, we each positioned ourselves at a window and craned our necks to get a good look. As to the landing place, Paul had decided that he would take it from there, once we’d reached the Continent. He had assured us that he could land this plane on any more or less smooth stretch of land, be it a meadow, a road or an airstrip. Josh and Rob had opted for landing near a garage so that we would be able to pick up a car. But we really had no idea where that would be.
“Anyway, first we were still for a while over England. Paul had decided to steer straight south until we’d crossed over Somerset. He had planned to hit the Channel somewhere near Dorset. It was beautiful weather as we flew across Lyme Bay, as Paul informed us, and out over the waters of the Channel. Just as before, during our drive through the country I mean, we saw not a trace of human existence, no ships and certainly no other planes. During the first maybe twenty minutes into our flight, we were extremely nervous. It felt so exposed, to fly over the empty countryside. I for one was sure that we would be spotted within minutes by Nemesis people. I expected to hear gunshots or some such thing any time soon. But obviously Papadopoulos and Paul had been right. Maybe the Nemesis were checking the airways, but apparently not over here where we passed.
“We made it across the channel without any trouble. Paul was flying direction Southwest by now, as he explained to us. Had he flown us straight southwards we would have hit the Continent somewhere in the very north-western parts of France? Instead he planned to fly a course which would lead us eastward past Paris and then on toward Dijon.
“When we spotted the continental mainland we got nervous again. Josh was all for landing soon. He thought that we were far too conspicuous in that plane. And that it would be so much easier to hide and disappear in a car. He was,” and here she winked at me, “anyway extremely wound up. What with the excitement of being on the way finally, together with the anxiety for our journey and of what we might find over here in Berne. We had no indication or idea where Nemesis cohorts might be. We just knew that some must be around. Anyway, Paul opted for flying on, he wanted to land somewhere between Paris and Dijon,” Winter paused, heaved a sign and look up to Rob. “Do you want to take over from me? Please?”
Rob gently smiled at her and continued their story. “You have to know that we had no really clear picture of where to land and how to continue. Our goal was mainly to get across the Channel, land somewhere, get a car somehow and then drive over toward you. We carried roadmaps with us, of course, but we wanted to be able to flexibly react to any situation that might come up and so we didn’t opt for a special place to land.
“Anyway, just as we were, as Paul put it, homing in on Paris, we saw the radio react to an incoming signal. Seconds later, we were contacted and asked to identify ourselves and state where we were going! In French! It gave us all a heck of a shock, I can tell you. Paul had left the radio on, just in case. Had it been a stupid mistake or a wise decision? I must admit that at that moment, I thought it was a really stupid giveaway. But Paul kept his usual cool and simply declared that now was the time to land and land quickly; before anyone might have time to send a plane on our trails that is. So, ignoring the voice on the radio that was repeating its demand for information in an increasingly insistent accent, he started the descent and simply landed in the first spot that seemed vaguely what we had planned for. A meadow next to a big car park full of cars. It looked like a garage and it was. It all didn’t take more than ten minutes and we three were all still baffled and in shock, when Paul pulled the plane to a stop and even cracked a joke. But that’s him a
ll over. And you can stop looking smug, mate.” This last remark was directed at Paul who looked extremely pleased with himself.
“Anyway,” Rob continued. “We were extremely lucky, you know. Within fifteen minutes after having been contacted we were down on the ground, scrambling out of the plane, unloading our gear and everything right next to a parking lot full of cars. Paul told Josh to run and find an appropriate car while we were getting our gear out of the plane. Josh had to break into the office of that garage to get to the keys. He had to rummage around a bit but found some keys, no problem, and carried them over to where we were. He tossed two or three to every-one of us so that we might try and find the car they belonged to. The first match would be our car. It was the very car we came here, a four-by-four and big enough for all our gear. The colour, white, wasn’t exactly what we had planned for, but it would do, it had to. We quickly packed all our bags into the car. The fuel tank was half full, so we decided to just head out and set off as fast as we could. We would bother about refuelling later on.”
My hands were sweaty by now and as I glanced over to Alice, Yuki and Nin, I could see that they were as captivated as I was by this story. It was almost as if with a good book. We knew the outcome. That they had managed to get away safely, but my heart was still pounding in my chest and I was anxious to hear how they had managed to get away from the Nemesis, for Nemesis these people on the radio had surely been. Josh squeezed my hand and I quickly glanced up to him. He was smiling encouragingly; he must have felt my tension. I bent my head to touch his shoulders and held on to his hand while Rob continued with their story.
“While Josh was racing us down the road, Paul was studying the map. After a few minutes, he declared that we were somewhere North of Reims, which meant that we still had quite some ground to cover to reach you. As we drove through the next village Paul demanded that Josh turn left at the next junction. We were all shocked when we realised that he had directed us onto a highway. But when we protested Paul convinced us that we were doing just the right thing. ‘If you want to hide something, you have to place it right there where every-one can see it. As an old Chinese saying goes’ he lectured us rather condescendingly. Josh reeled and exclaimed, ‘But certainly not when you are the only car on the highway. There is nothing and nobody that they might confuse us with. We are mad! This is sheer madness!’ Yet Paul was adamant; his argument being that they would never ever expect us to do such a brazenly outrageous thing. Even if they flew over us they would think we were Nemesis people and leave us alone. Because, who other than Nemesis would drive around so openly? Frankly, I thought this a ludicrous argument, but Josh kept speeding along the highway, muttering something about reckless people in charge of sensitive operations being a real pain. At some point he shot a hard glance over to Paul and said that he wanted to make it all the way to you, Lia, not be caught the minute we stepped onto the continent. But Paul simply laughed at all our concerns and bid Josh drive along.”
Rob paused for a moment then went on.
“It was just like Paul, you know. He’s a dare-devil who has gotten us in trouble time and again. But this one time his strategy proofed right. You wouldn’t believe what happened next, though: We had driven maybe five minutes on the highway when Winter spotted a plane flying toward us from direction Southwest. It flew really low and the people in it must have been well able to discern that we were four persons in the car. Then, just as the rest of us were collectively holding our breath and desperately trying to come up with a feasible plan, Paul opened his windowed, stuck his head out and started waving like mad to the plane. We all gasped at Paul’s mad bravery and Winter squeezed her eyes shut waiting for the worst to happen. But the plane just circled over us for a minute or two and then disappeared northward. It was unbelievable! Of course, Paul was utterly pleased with his crazy stunt. ‘See, I told you. It may have been a real piece of madness, but we managed to get away! Didn’t we?’ Josh cautioned him and sped on even faster, he wanted to cover as many miles as possible before the people in the plane had time to change their minds and follow us. Winter was almost hitting Paul, she felt so stressed out by the incident and it took a good two days before she was her normal confident self again, didn’t it darling?”
With this, he quickly bent and kissed her. She just rolled her eyes at Paul who was chuckling, clearly enjoying it all very much.
Now it was Josh’s turn to tell us how they had managed to escape for good. He raised my hand to his lips, pressed a kiss onto my palms and then said, “It was utter madness how Paul behaved, but, it helped. At the time, though, I could have murdered him. Thinking about you, Lia, and that I desperately wanted to see you again, while at the same time expecting to be pursued by the plane or cars any minute, I just sped the car along as fast as I dared. We sped along the highway at an average of 180km/hour. But it was quickly getting dark now and we really needed to fuel the car. So I pulled in at the next fuel station and we filled up the tank. Afterwards we drove on as far as we dared. When we had passed Reims, it was past 22:00 and we were not only tired but exhausted. Even though Paul was all for keeping going on the highway, he was outvoted this time and we left the highway at the next exit and continued on smaller roads. All the time, and just as it had been in England, we never saw a light or any other form of human presence. We spent the night on a side road in a forest and took turns to watch out for danger.
Nothing happened that night, we all managed to get some sleep and feel reasonably refreshed come next morning. We even took the time to cook some tea before we left.
The next three days we slowly but surely made our way toward the Swiss border, always heading in a south-easterly direction. We took care not to drive too fast and often stayed somewhere under cover during the day and drove mostly at dusk or dawn. But just like in England, we never met or saw a soul.
Yesterday, amazing, it really just happened yesterday! We had been driving for about two hours and were somewhere southeast of Besançon and just passing over a hill, when we suddenly saw vehicles in front of us, down in a valley! We literally screeched to a halt, I quickly reversed the car and drove backwards and down the road until we were out of sight. We parked the car away from the road, under some trees and all got out to explore the situation on foot and under cover of the trees. We had a little discussion whether some of us should remain with the car, but in the end we decided that it was safer to stick together. So we took our binoculars and guns and carefully headed up the hill to observe what was going on down in that valley. Thankfully, Winter made us also carry some food and water. ‘This might take some time and at some point or another food and drinks will come in handy’ was her argument. And she was right. We made our way through the bushes and shrubs to a rocky outcrop. There we had a good view while all the while remaining safely hidden from view. What we then witnessed was strange, bizarre, horrific and deeply unsettling.”
Josh paused, a strange look on his face, a mixture of sadness and anger. But before I could say anything, he went on.
“Down in that valley roads from three different directions converged and where they met there stood about thirty cars. Their drivers had assembled in an open space just beyond the junction. Probably a former pasture because a fence ran all around it. There were about forty people, maybe more.”
“They were fifty-three, I counted them,” interjected Paul. “But do go on.”
“Okay, so there were fifty-three people, men and women, but all of them dressed in a weird sort of uniform. Partly army style, partly plain cloth. But all wore dark colours like brown, dark-green, blue, and some of them black. I couldn’t make out any other colour. It was a while before we noticed the pattern, though. Apparently the black clothed people were the top rank. Then came the blue and brown clothed ones and the ones wearing dark-green seemed to be the newcomers.”
“How did you figure this out?” Yuki interjected.
“Well it was easy, really. Once we concentrated on what they were doing, that is,” Paul
replied. “You know, they were conducting some kind of ritual. A silly initiation spectacle, if you ask me. But then, I never fell for this kind of drama anyway. They were standing around in groups. Five groups. And in each group there were one or two persons dressed in dark-green outfits. Around them stood persons in brown and one person in blue was kind of directing their actions. A bit apart and in front of them stood three men in black, they were heavily armed and each had two massive dogs, some kind of mastiffs, at their heels. It was utterly frightening because of the menace and sheer brutality the whole scene emanated. And at the same time it was such a ridiculously straightforward setting that one felt a bit offended at one’s own psyche reacting as it did to all these dark cues and manipulations.”
“You are making this up now, Paul, aren’t you?” Winter interrupted him. “Coz as I remember it, back there, you were just as stunned as all of us. Stunned and frightened.”
She turned to nod to Nin, Yuki, Alice and me. “Maybe I should tell you what happened there. I am after all the least susceptible to overdo matters in order to impress – whether the general public or a certain person in particular.”
With a sweet smile she addressed first Paul and then Josh. Paul just grinned at her, looking very smug and pleased with himself, while Josh lowered his gaze and held out his hands as if in apology. She went on.
“Anyway. As Paul said, there were five groups and the three men a bit apart from them. But it was all too clear that those three men were the actual centre of attention. When one of them lifted his arm the blue clad persons turned around and, facing their group, waved their arms. We couldn’t make out what they said, but the dark-greenly clad people were now led forward toward the three leaders. The blue clad persons stood between them and the leaders and the people in brown formed a semicircle around them on the other side. The dark-greenly dressed people, I shall call them the adepts, huddled together as if they were afraid. And then they started to undress and when they were naked they stepped forward toward the five persons dressed in blue. There were men and women, but the majority was men. All of them stretched out their right arm and the person in blue walked among them pressing some kind of a machine onto their arms. Whatever they did, it must have hurt because some of them flinched as if in pain. When they were done the entire group walked over to a lone tree standing maybe fifty metres away. There stood two big pots, kind of bathtub sized basins filled with a dark liquid. The men in black positioned themselves on one side of the basins and then the naked adepts walked in single file toward them, knelt in front of them and held out their right hand. The leaders placed something in their hand. Afterwards the naked people stood up, walked to the basins and sat down in them. They totally immerged themselves in the dark liquid and when they reappeared their bodies were coloured red. It was Paul who suggested that this might be blood. We guessed that he was right when we saw how the dogs reacted to them as they filed passed their leaders back toward the people in blue. Some dogs just stepped forward nosing them, while others went so far as to lick them. It was gruesome and totally archaic. And therefore utterly frightening!
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