“Let’s do that”. She squinted up at the clouds. “Not going to be quite as hot today, but cloud cover can be deceiving. We need to find somewhere to top up our water, get you some boots and hopefully find a car that works. Best we get cracking, eh?”
It took us about fifteen minutes to break the tent down, scrape the bowls and cups clean and clear everything away before taking turns at the far end of the small copse.
That done, we marched back to the road, my feet sore and my calves burning from the previous day’s walking, but for some reason I felt alive in a way I hadn’t done in years. Even my constant fear for Melody was muted, still very much there, but no longer the insistent gnawing feeling that tried to claw its way out of my stomach every few minutes. I wondered at that as we walked, at first feeling like a bad parent, allowing my relief at re-cementing my growing friendship with Emily to overshadow my concern for my daughter, but then I realised that it was that very friendship that was giving me any real hope that we would be reunited.
Without Emily, I knew, I would never make it, would probably not have made it this far, and I almost felt like the miles were melting away under our feet as we headed north, each step bringing us closer to my little girl.
We’d been walking for about an hour when the trees and fields gave way to houses, just a few at first, large, sprawling things with security gates and high fences, several of which were now little more than burned-out shells, then rows of smaller dwellings, many of which were gutted by fire. Here and there one stood almost untouched, and from at least one of those we were watched by hostile eyes, a man and two women who stared at us until we were out of sight, making my shoulder blades itch until we were well past.
Smoke spiralled into the air from several streets away, and in the distance I could hear shouting, then a scream abruptly cut off.
Emily hefted the shotgun, her eyes darting from tree to hedge to abandoned car, constantly looking for trouble before it got to close. I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand up and made sure I kept pace, although never crossing into her field of fire.
“I don’t like this”, I muttered to myself, but Emily heard and nodded.
“Me neither. I was going to stop and try and find you some boots, but I think we’ll just keep going. I’m sure another few miles in trainers won’t kill you, but stopping might”.
It wasn’t until we rounded an abandoned supermarket delivery truck that we saw the bodies.
A man and a woman lay on the pavement, his body curled protectively around hers. The pitiful remains of what had been in their rucksacks surrounded them, the bags themselves torn apart and the whole area splashed with blood as if they’d been attacked by an enraged beast.
I could smell that blood, and flies buzzed as they flew around the bodies, looking for a home for their eggs.
“They’re fresh”, Emily said in a low voice, eyes constantly moving.
“How do you know?” I asked, fighting the urge to vomit while trying not to look at the naked fear written all over the dead woman’s face, the blank eyed stare only making it worse.
“If they’d been killed yesterday they’d be bloated by now, and if they’d been killed last night they’d be stiff”. She nudged one of the bodies and the arm flopped lifelessly.
“And the blood is still wet. I reckon an hour, maybe less since they died. Let’s get out of here”.
I nodded and suddenly wished I were holding the shotgun. If we were attacked now I’d be able to do little but get in the way, leaving Emily to defend us both once again.
As we passed the bodies I couldn’t help but look at the wounds, of which there were many. They looked like they had been hacked to death, defensive wounds on the wrists and arms of the man and a huge slice in the back of the woman’s head that turned her golden hair red and laid her skull open to show her brain beneath.
Aside from the buzzing of the flies and my own harsh breathing, the street was eerily silent. Emily took the lead and we pressed on, getting to the end of the road and taking a left, then a right until we were heading north again.
As we put some distance between ourselves and the bodies I began to breathe again, although I was beginning to strain my neck from looking behind us so often to make sure we weren’t being stalked.
“Who do you think did it?” I asked when we were several streets past the gory scene.
Emily shrugged, still looking everywhere she thought there might be a threat, shotgun half-raised as she walked.
“Who knows? Maybe it was someone they knew who had a grudge, maybe complete strangers looking for food. Doesn’t really matter now, does it? Dead is dead.”
“I guess not”.
Emily pointed to a shop at the end of the street, the plastic signs in the window claiming that they sold ‘everything you need in one store’.
“How about we check out their claim?” She said, “see if they have anything useful?”
The door to the shop was wide open, the glass panels above and below the central metal bar both smashed. I felt more than a little fear at entering a place where we could easily be trapped, but I was determined to prove to Emily that I was useful, so I nodded bravely and followed her up to the window.
She peered inside, then pulled a torch from her pocket and passed it to me.
“I’ll go in first”, she whispered, “you follow with the torch. Try and shine it wherever I point the shotgun, but for god’s sake don’t point it in my face, ok?”
I nodded again, and before I could change my mind we were moving, Emily slipping through the door silently while I crunched broken glass under my feet and winced even as I flicked the torch on and followed her in.
The shelves inside were almost empty, the cigarette display behind the till the same. Empty food packets were littered here and there, one bag of rice have split and emptied its contents all over the floor, making it feel like we were walking on sand.
It took a few seconds for the smell to register, and we followed it to the farthest aisle, where a short, fat man in his fifties lay in his pyjamas, the back of his skull caved in while a softball bat lay a few feet from his outstretched hand.
The body was beginning to bloat and more flies were buzzing happily as they explored.
“Poor bastard”, Emily muttered, giving the shop a final look-around to make sure we were alone. There was only one other door, this one leading to a store room at the back. Inside that room were a few boxes of random goods and a desk piled high with paper, but other than that anything of use had been taken.
“I’ll check in here”, she motioned towards the few boxes left, “you look in the shop. Anything we don’t have or we need more of is good. Not sure we’ll have much luck with boots though”.
She dropped her Bergen and pulled out a second torch as I went back into the main shop, running my eyes over the all-but-bare shelves.
All of the food and water had been taken, as well as alcohol, cigarettes and sweets. I found a single packet of polos wedged between two parts of the counter and pocketed them, then began to look in the clothing section, more accurately a corner of the shop that barely took up two shelves.
Several jumpers had been left behind, and holding one up I could see why. Throwing it back on the shelf, I looked for footwear but apart from an empty box it was all gone.
The only other thing I could find was a bottle of washing up liquid, standing on its own on an otherwise empty shelf. Presumably whoever had ransacked the place didn’t feel that washing up should be a part of the apocalypse.
Emily came out of the store room after a couple of minutes clutching several bags of dried fruit and a small box of batteries.
She held them p for me to see. “Not much there, how did you do?”
I held up the mints. “Not exactly going to see us through the winter, but hey”.
She snorted a laugh and went moved to the door, peering out into the street before jerking her head for me to follow.
As we left the village behi
nd, something that had been bothering me finally clicked.
“How many houses do you reckon were in that village?” I asked, looking back at the rows of roofs, some black with char while others stood untouched.
Emily shrugged. “Don’t know, couple of hundred maybe? More a small town than a village”.
“Let’s say two hundred houses then. Times that by three occupants per house as an average, that would mean six hundred people. Take away the three in the house we saw watching us, and the three bodies, that makes, what, five hundred and ninety four people”.
She nodded, seeing where I was going with it.
“So”, she said, looking back herself as the road turned and hid the buildings from view, “where the hell did they all go?”
Chapter 27
Slough was still burning. Heavy black smoke roiled in the sky ahead of us, mixing with the clouds until it became hard to tell which was which. Below the smoke, a haze of heat and the occasional flame could be seen as we approached the M4, and we both slowed.
“We need to go around”. Emily pulled the map from her leg pocket and unfolded it, holding it up and motioning me closer. Our heads almost touched as we studied it together and I was acutely aware of the closeness.
There was something about her firm competence, her strength in more than just the physical, that drew me as much as her quick wit and dimpled smile. It was all I could do not to brush back the stray lock of hair that fell across her brow, turning the instinctive movement of my hand into the tugging of my collar, releasing a wave of musty sweat that spoiled the moment as she grimaced.
“We can take the M4 west”, she said finally, “and loop around by smaller roads until we’re heading back towards the M40. What do you think?”
I nodded, pleased to be asked for my opinion for all its redundancy.
“I can’t see any other way. It adds time onto the journey but I don’t see us being able to make our way through that”. I pointed at the flaming town.
She tucked the map away and we set off, angling northwest as we drew closer to the motorway.
It was just after midday by the time the road came in sight, and I picked up my pace as the six empty lanes came into view but Emily suddenly grabbed my arm and pulled me back.
“What?” I said in alarm, looking around.
She held up a hand for silence, head tilted to one side.
“Do you hear that?” She asked.
I shook my head but then I heard something, a faint rumbling that grew louder even as I listened.
“What is it?”
She pulled me off the road and up a wooded embankment overlooking the motorway, tucking herself down at the top of the hill and motioning for me to do the same.
I dropped down next to her and looked out over the huge road.
“Those sound like four tonners”, she said, looking east to a bend about half a mile away.
“Four what?”
“Four tonners. Four ton army trucks, used for transporting soldiers and carrying supplies”.
Relief flooded through me and I got to my knees.
“Oh thank god! If the army has mobilised then it’s not as bad as we thought!”
She reached up and yanked at my waistband, pulling me sprawling back to the ground.
“Let’s not go and worship them just yet”, she growled, “we don’t know who they are or what they’re doing. We don’t even know it’s our army. I can think of any dozen countries who use four ton trucks, it could be an invading force for all we know”.
I lay back down properly, thoroughly chastened. It seemed that I was destined to make a fool of myself every few minutes and no matter how hard I tried I just couldn’t seem to help doing it.
Perhaps sensing my frustration, Emily squeezed my shoulder and gave me a quick smile before returning her attention to the road.
A few moments later a pair of olive green trucks drove into view, travelling no more than five miles per hour. Thirty or so soldiers in woodland camouflage trotted along behind, all armed with rifles and carrying small rucksacks that looked like the side pockets of Emily’s Bergen strapped together on a yoke.
As they drew closer, a ragged wave of humanity came into view behind them, hundreds of tired, hungry looking people with pinched faces, some of them sporting recent injuries but all carrying rucksacks or holdalls. Those very few not carrying bags were instead burdened down with children too young to walk, and on either side of the column soldiers walked in a loose cordon a few metres apart, eyes as much on the people they were escorting as any threat from the outside.
I couldn’t hear any conversation over the truck engines, but none of the walkers appeared to be talking much in any event, and as they drew level with us an older woman in a faded red jumper and corduroy jeans dropped to sit at the side of the road, fewer than ten metres away from our hiding spot.
The next soldier in the outer cordon bumped up against her, placing one booted foot under her arse and giving her a gentle shove.
“Come on, on your feet Grandma”, he said, not unkindly but without much enthusiasm either. “You know the rules. We don’t stop for another hour at least”.
The woman looked up at him, exhaustion stamped on her features.
“Just leave me then”, she said, her voice barely carrying to where we lay hidden.
“I can’t do that either”, he said, slinging his rifle to grab her under the armpits and haul her to her feet. He looked at the passing civilians and grabbed the arm of a burly teenager.
“Oi, you. Keep her up, keep her walking. Both of you go without rations for the rest of the day if she doesn’t keep up”.
The teenager took hold of the woman with surprising speed, and for a moment I thought it was borne out of care for the elderly, but as the soldier moved on the youth grabbed her hair painfully in one fist and twisted hard, making the woman scream.
“Listen bitch, I ain’t going without food for you, so you fucking walk or I’ll make you wish you was dead. You get me?”
I felt Emily’s body tense next to mine and I almost climbed to my feet, thoroughly shocked at behaviour that was so, well, un-British, but then I saw that neither the other civilians nor the soldiers did more than glance over at the anguished scream, the civilians looking back down at their feet and the soldiers returning their attention to the roadsides as the woman was prodded onwards.
I shared an astonished look with Emily. Whatever orders those soldiers were following, they didn’t seem to be particularly concerned with the welfare of their charges.
I turned my head to get a look in the back of the trucks, assuming they were filled with those too injured to walk, but instead I saw boxes and bags of food and huge pallets of bottled water, all guarded by a pair of soldiers in each vehicle with heavy machine guns and grim expressions.
“I’m glad you stopped me”, I whispered, seeing Emily nod her head as she looked closely at the soldiers.
“Do you know who they are?” I asked quietly.
“It’s hard to tell from here, but I think the patches are the Guards, which would make sense if they came from London, but I can’t be sure without getting closer”.
I shook my head. “Please don’t”.
“Don’t worry, I wasn’t planning on it. We’ll wait until they’re past and then head after them, but only as far as we need to, then we’ll turn north again”.
We lay silent after that, not moving as the soldiers passed just below us, eyes scanning the undergrowth but without any real suspicion of finding anything to worry about.
Emily had chosen our spot well and despite our vantage point the undergrowth kept us well hidden from view. The stream of people seemed to go on and on, but eventually the back markers passed us with another two trucks full of supplies, and as Emily stood I worked my cramped legs to get the blood flowing again.
“How many do you think there were?” I asked as I got to my feet.
“About fifteen hundred civilians, a hundred and forty soldier
s or thereabouts. I can’t help but wonder where they’re taking them”.
“I shudder to think. Was it just me or did they look more like prisoners than rescued civilians?”
She nodded. “They did, and I don’t like it. Come on, they’re far enough away now, I think we can follow them without getting spotted”.
I put a hand on her arm.
“But only as far as our turning north, right?”
“Of course. Don’t worry Malc, your little girl comes first. Maybe after we’re back we can try and find out what’s going on, but not yet”.
With a final glance along the road to make sure we were alone, I followed her down the steep bank and onto the tarmac, following in the footsteps of the soldiers as we resumed our journey.
Chapter 28
We followed the convoy for about two hours, keeping well back but still seeing the trucks far ahead when we rounded bends and crested hills.
I was worried that they would see us in turn and send someone to investigate, but Emily assured me we were too far away and too small to be noticed.
“If we were driving a truck, I’d worry”, she said, and I bowed to her experience.
We turned off the motorway at a junction that headed north, climbing the slip road under a steel grey sky that threatened rain despite the muggy heat.
The moisture in the air seemed to make my ankle throb, and I found myself lagging further and further behind as the thick greenery to the side of the road abruptly gave way to buildings, mostly industrial but with houses visible behind a last screen of trees off to our left.
A large truck sat in the roadway opposite an office building, the back still locked on the trailer but the cab doors wide open.
Looking around to make sure we were unobserved, Emily hauled herself into the cab and then leaned out to pull me up behind.
I’d never been in a proper truck cab before. It was surprisingly roomy, with a small sleeping cubby behind the two seats. This one had a microwave on a shelf above the window, as well as a TV on an extendable stand that could be pulled down to rest in the middle of the windscreen.
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