by Jon Jacks
Yeah, she had forgotten about six-foot rodents like Solstice.
Still, there were people she had missed, including Geraldine.
Geraldine’s determined expression creased into a sour frown as she took an abrupt swallow from a can of strong lager.
That decided it for Beth. Geraldine was no longer pregnant.
It had amazed everyone when Geraldine – ‘For the good of the wee mite, you understand?’ – had consistently refused all offers of a drink while pregnant.
Was Geraldine’s loss so painful to her that she just didn’t want to talk about it? Or did she fear that mentioning it would look like she was laying her troubles on other people?
That would be typical of Geraldine.
How could Beth bring up such a delicate subject without risking upsetting Geraldine?
She realised she literally had the answer in her hands. Foal.
‘Gerry,’ she said, ‘when I was, er, caught outside Silbury Hill, they told me Foal wasn’t pregnant. Is that right? Wasn’t she pregnant after all?’
Beth almost bit her tongue. This wasn’t a great way of bringing up the subject at all!
What had she been thinking?
Fortunately, Geraldine didn’t look upset in the slightest. She actually gave a resigned chuckle.
‘I reckon she had exactly the same thing as me, dearie – a phantom pregnancy. That’s what the doctor called it.’
Shifting in her seat, she raised her stomach towards Beth as if making it obvious that there was no longer any bump there.
‘See, what the doctor didn’t tell me – but what I found out from other women I’d met visiting him around the same time – is that there’s an awful lot of women in our area who suffered these here phantom pregnancies. Which says to me, girl, that what we were all really suffering from was pollution! Pollution in the land, or pollution in the water – who knows? But pollution’s the only thing that could explain it, don’t you think?’
Beth nodded in agreement.
‘So…you’re not…’
‘Not upset?’ Geraldine followed it with a full-hearted laugh. ‘Course I regret it! How many months did I go without a drink, eh? Making up for it now like, eh, me dearie?’
She raised the can of lager in a mock toast before taking another long slug.
Beth smiled wryly. That’s how Geraldine had ended up thinking she was pregnant without knowing who the father was.
‘Petrol station coming up!’
In response to Foley’s cry from the front of the bus, Solstice leapt up out of his seat and dashed forward.
In a well practised if still ridiculously dangerous manoeuvre, Foley clambered out of the driving seat. Solstice, slipping in around the other side, deftly took his place.
To make all this possible, the back of what had been a separate driving cab had been cutaway. The original seat had also been replaced with one boasting both a swivel base and a back that flipped positions.
The bus hardly slowed, moving forward under its own momentum until Solstice could reach the accelerator.
Foley took up his place by the door, geeing himself up in readiness to jump out and run around to the other side of the small island of pumps.
There he would start filling up the tank with petrol from the pump some other poor, surprised schmuck had parked his car by.
It was up to Solstice to choose a set of pumps where the bus could block the view of any garage attendants.
‘Oh ohh.’
Solstice’s worried tones floated back from the cab as he pulled into the garage’s drive.
‘Take a look see Foley! We might just have to spoil the habit of a lifetime and pay up here!’
Everyone stared out of the windows.
There weren’t any other cars parked up alongside any of the pumps, most of which had large ‘Out of order’ signs draped across them.
The attendant, a brightly dressed, lanky Asian, was standing by the only set working. He greeted them with a toothy grin, waving an arm to indicate that they should pull over on his side.
But worst of all, as far as Foley and Solstice were concerned, was the heavily armed soldier.
And he was grimly eyeing the bus as if it could be some bizarre form of terrorist attack.
*
Chapter 30
‘What the hell’s the army doing here?’ Foley breathed furiously.
‘I saw a few armoured cars and trucks passing by on the road,’ Geraldine said indifferently. ‘Probably just out on manoeuvres – or whatever it is they call it. You know, war games, that kind of thing.’
Foley ignored her. He was too busy watching the attendant, who was waving his arms urgently and yelling at them.
‘What’s he saying?’ he shouted up towards Solstice, who had wound down a window.
‘He says we shouldn’t shut off our engine. We’ve got to keep it running.’
‘Bit odd that, yeah?’ Foley frowned. ‘Normally we get everybody complaining when we keep it running, ready for a quick getaway.’
‘Suits us though! I don’t fancy cranking the old girl up again.’
Solstice shrugged his skinny shoulders, his pained muscles remembering how tiring it had been to crank the Magic Bus into action earlier. Being so old, the bus didn’t have an electric ignition like just about every other vehicle.
‘None of the car batteries are working right!’
The attendant grinned cheerfully as Foley, swinging the bus doors aside, climbed down towards the pumps.
‘They’ll keep your spark plugs working if you’re lucky, but that’s about it. Probably because everything else just sparks even when it’s not supposed to!’
The attendant pointed off towards a corner of the forecourt where a number of cars had been crammed as close together as possible.
‘The ones we couldn’t push into life, we ended up pushing over there!’
‘Why’s that?’ Beth asked.
She and Geraldine had stepped off the bus just behind Foley, intending to visit the garage’s shop. They had left Foal angrily yapping away in the bus’s specially constructed animal pen.
‘Is it anything to do with the computers going down? And with the electricity being cut off?’
As Foley opened the petrol cap and inserted the pipe end, the attendant started to frenziedly work a large handle to pump up the petrol. Despite the effort he had to put into it, he was still grinning happily.
‘Everything electrical’s down, Miss. Including these petrol pumps.’
He nodded over to the sternly grimacing soldier.
‘Affected supplies too, so everything’s rationed. Oh, and that includes what you can buy in the shop.’
He yelled the last bit at Geraldine, who was already languidly making her way towards the store.
There was another grim faced soldier and another smiling attendant inside the shop, both standing behind the counter.
The rationing didn’t bother Geraldine, who had no intention of paying for the vast majority of things she wanted. These were deftly slipped inside the innumerable pockets lining her baggy coat.
Five items disappeared beneath its multiple, dishevelled folds for every one going into her basket.
It was even easier than normal, as the video cameras weren’t working.
Even so, as Beth entered she slid naturally into her own familiar role, distracting the young attendant’s attention. She constantly appeared to be on the point of sneaking something into her pocket only to put it back at the last second.
Solstice stepped through the double doors that, devoid of electricity, had had to be forced and jammed into a partially open position.
He half turned, his heavily tattooed body lizard-like as it twisted almost unnaturally on prominently bony hip
s.
Checking on Foley’s progress filling up the bus – the cap being tightened, the pump pipe being returned to its holster – he grinned wickedly.
Oh no! Not here Solstice!
Knowing from experience what that grin usually meant, Beth secretly prayed.
Please! Not when we have soldiers about!
Geraldine was at the counter, paying for the handful of items in her basket.
Solstice took his place behind her, drawing a few crumpled notes from his pocket to pay for the petrol – and Beth sighed with relief.
Even so, as she followed Geraldine out of the door, she glanced back to check that Solstice wasn’t going to try something completely stupid.
Like insisting that the attendant paid him everything in the till as a special thank you for his custom.
Thankfully, he innocently slid the money across the counter. He smiled, and waited for his change.
But his face was tautly sunken. It was a sure sign that he was tensing.
He was preparing himself to put into action whatever crazy thing he had got in mind.
Please, please no Solstice! You’ll get us killed this time!
Beth hurried after Geraldine.
Geraldine moved in a slow, practised waddle to hide the fact that she was weighed down with enough shopping to feed a family of three for a week.
She was so well trained in this tactic that she didn’t even jump when a shot rang out behind her in the shop.
On the sharp crack of a second shot, however, both she and Beth broke into a run towards the bus.
*
The soldier who had been at the pump was already hurtling past Beth and Geraldine.
Automatic rifle at the ready, his eyes were focused on the shop windows as he tried to see past their glare into the interior.
Solstice appeared at the door, raising a pistol at the approaching soldier.
Solstice had been okay against an unprepared soldier, a soldier taking his eyes off the customers to flick through a magazine he had helped himself to from the top-shelf.
But Solstice was way too slow against a soldier expecting trouble.
This time it was a rifle that cracked, not a pistol.
Solstice’s shoulder exploded as the bullet tore through it. The impact picked him up, spun him around, threw him back.
‘Foley!’ Solstice croaked in agony.
Foley was already in action.
When he had heard the first gunshot, he had cursed Solstice for his stupidity. He had assumed Solstice had tried his usual demand for a share of the till and got himself an army regulation bullet instead for his trouble.
But as soon as he had seen Solstice sprinting out the door, he had waved a hand towards the parked cars.
The petrol in the tanks instantly began to slosh and churn, increasing the pressure till it ignited and burst out as jets of raw flame.
Under Foley’s direction, the flames raced through the air, heading for the running soldier.
‘No Foley!’ Beth screamed.
Huge sections of the nearby car wash abruptly shattered and splintered. A tidal wave arched towards the plumes of fire, deflecting them long enough for another wash of dirty water to rush against the soldier.
The waves bowled him across the forecourt, but carried him to safety.
Irritation flashed across Foley’s face. Almost instantaneously, however, it was replaced by a satisfied grin.
‘Everybody aboard the Magic Bus!’
He darted off towards Solstice who – with a series of anguished shrieks – was slowly rising to his feet, clutching his shattered shoulder.
Geraldine hurriedly clambered up the bus steps, no longer caring about the packets of biscuits and bottles of wine that now fell from her inner pockets. They hit the ground with a crunch and a splintering of glass.
As Beth swiftly followed her, she turned towards where she had last seen the attendant, intending to warn him that the fire might spread to the pumps. But he needed no warning; he had already taken to his heels, stopping only to help drag the drenched and concussed soldier with him.
Small, gaily flickering flames were already spreading across the forecourt, growing like beautiful, bright red flowers everywhere around the pumps.
Beth glanced back towards the shop.
Foley was helping support the groaning, badly injured Solstice to run as fast as he could.
‘Come on, hurry up!’ Geraldine screamed, forcing her bulk into the small driving cabin and getting behind the wheel.
Beth reached out past the bus doors to grab hold of Solstice. She helped pull him aboard as Foley leapt up onto the first step.
Immediately, Geraldine slammed the bus into gear, accelerating away from the pumps as fast as she could make the old bus go.
Foley swung the doors closed.
Beth let Solstice lean against her until he slumped down on the nearest seat.
Foal barked excitedly, leaping at the pen’s sides.
Then the first pump exploded.
The bus rocked, even as Geraldine skilfully threw it into a tyre-squealing turn.
Beth felt the blast of wind strike the windows, heard the glass rattle and shake like it was going to implode.
The heat was incredible, her skin tingling as if she had suffered instantaneous sunburn.
It was like driving through hell, the only view on one whole side of the bus being a solid wall of flames.
Another pump erupted, enveloping them in another blast of heat. It gave the poor old Magic Bus another violent shaking.
Sweating heavily, Geraldine fought the wheel, crying out, ‘Come on old girl, you can do it!’
Bringing it all back under control, Geraldine spun ‘my beautiful, precious girl’ out towards the garage’s exit.
There was a further eruption, quickly followed by yet another.
But now the blasts of heat were only striking the rear window.
Foley looked back at the vast wall of fire they were leaving safely behind them.
He turned to Beth.
‘You know, we could have handled all that. Played with it even.’
Beth didn’t know what to say.
Foley stepped closer towards her until he was staring directly into her eyes.
Beth shivered.
Once again, it felt as if he were looking beyond the surface and slipping inside.
Dipping down deeper and deeper.
Exploring every part of her.
‘Now why would you want to go and do that with the water, Annie?’
Yes, why would we want to do that?
Her inner voice sounded far more annoyed than Foley.
He was surprisingly calm, particularly as he seemed to have assumed Beth was somehow responsible for the waves of water that had doused his flames.
‘Annie?’ Beth said fearfully.
She feared the reply. Feared that she already knew the answer; she wasn’t who she thought she was. There was someone, or something, lying deep inside her.
‘Shusssh, I’m not talking to you little girl!’ Foley hissed, his eyes seeming to probe deeper still within her. ‘I can see you’re waking up, dear Annie.’
He suddenly pulled back, frowning in puzzlement.
‘But there are some things about you I just can’t figure out.’
*
Chapter 31
Had she really done that?
That amazing trick with the water?
Was it connected with the way that burst water pipe had originally saved her from the firemen and their hoses full of flame?
And the water that had weakened the wall that had crushed Miss Hilary?
Surely, no!
She wasn’t responsible for that!
It was coincidence, yes?
Coincidences were two a penny these days, weren’t they?
Hadn’t all the rules of chance being altered? Wasn’t that what all the papers, the TV news, had been saying for ages?
And if she really could control water like that, why the heck hadn’t she used it to put out the fire at home?
She could have saved her mum!
Easily! If you thought it was really so important.
*
‘How is he? Bad?’
Geraldine glanced over her shoulder, yelled back towards Beth.
Beth hadn’t really been looking at Solstice. She had been too self-absorbed.
Now that she looked at Solstice, she could see that he was in shock, shivering and whiter than paper.
His eyes bulged, his lips quivered.
What was left of his shoulder was a mess of – what was it a mess of?
She knelt closer to him, where she could get a better view of his wound.
His jacket had been worn and threadbare to start with, but now the gunshot blast had weakened the shoulder area even further. It was relatively easy for her to carefully tear it some more and make the hole bigger.
She had expected the wound to be a chaos of torn flesh, blood and muscle tissue.
But no; it was a mess all right, but what looked more like a tangle of spilt, then abruptly hardened, fluids.
It made her think of the mingled wax of an old wine bottle used as a candleholder.
Fortunately, it didn’t appear to be bleeding.
‘Anyone listening to me back there?’ Geraldine persisted.
‘He’s pretty bad. What sort of bullets are our army using these days? His shoulder looks like it’s been melted!’
Foley looked over, took a peek, pouted as if it were nothing unusual, perhaps even to be expected.
He stared quizzically at Beth, perhaps wondering what she found so odd about it all.
‘Do you reckon those soldiers got off any warning?’ Geraldine continued to yell back from the driving cab. ‘To their mates, I mean?’
‘Don’t think so,’ Foley replied. ‘I think we’ll be okay. Everyone will just think it was some idiot smoking by the pumps that caused all those explosions. Specially as it’s all being cranked up by hand. Accidents happen, don’t they? Specially when you’re doing stupid things like cranking up petrol?’
‘Good; cos there’s an awful lot of their mates around.’
Beth and Foley peered out of the windows.
Army trucks and armoured cars were zooming past on the road. Some stopped outside shops or superstores, unloading troops.