by R Magnusholm
Their shelter was a hodgepodge of interlacing branches woven with ivy. It looked pretty in a rustic way, but it consisted mainly of gaps and wouldn’t keep the wind and rain out.
John picked a handful of blackberries, and they sat on a wet log, eating and resting. Then they returned to their building project.
“We’ll need lots of straw to thatch it,” he said. “If we do it the right way, it should keep us dry.” He took a bundle of rushes, bent them in half, and crowned the ridgeline at one end. The reeds were about eight feet long and covered the top third of the roof nicely. But it didn’t look quite right.
He stared at it in consternation, imagining how water would run down both ends. But he was hopeless with mechanical things. A degree in business, management, and marketing doesn’t teach you how to thatch roofs.
Sheepishly, he pulled his sheaf of rushes off the ridgeline.
“Here, look.” Liz leaned a thin bundle of reeds against the side of the frame. She picked up a second batch, folded the top of it to make an L-shape, then slung the shorter arm of the L over the ridgepole. The longer arm of the L partially overlapped the lower bundle. “Ha, now the water will flow down the top sheaf onto the bottom one and from there to the ground.”
In no time, they lined the lower parts of the walls at one end of the structure.
“Liz, where did you learn this stuff?”
“My dad taught me.”
He picked up a new batch of rushes, bent the top down, and hooked it over the ridgeline. “My old man was too busy climbing the corporate ladder to teach me much.” Not that he had anything useful to teach, John thought ruefully. Nothing that could be applied to this primeval world, anyway.
He could see his father in his mind’s eye—a sage, grim specter—imparting words of wisdom: The boss must never apologize. Your subordinates are dirt. They’re people with no self-respect. Never give anyone a second chance. If somebody underperforms, you fire them. Friends exist to be used. If they can’t be used, they’re worthless to you, son. To hide the expression on his face, John busied himself with slinging the reed hooks over the ridgeline.
It took them the best part of an hour to use up all of the remaining materials. In the end, they had a thatched roof covering a quarter of the frame. With a fine cold drizzle sifting from the gunmetal sky, they sat on a pile of leaves and small twigs that made up the floor. The rudimentary roof created a three-foot-wide overhang where no rain fell. A small dry heaven.
“Phew.” She grinned. “We’ve got a roof.”
He smiled back tiredly.
“Hungry?” she asked.
“Could eat a horse.”
Her red-rimmed eyes twinkled ever so slightly. “You’re offending my vegetarian sensibilities.”
He considered this for a long moment. The way things were going, they’d die from exposure well before they starved to death. “I guess I’m a vegetarian too now. But if I have to eat another handful of blackberries, I’ll scream.”
“We can look for hazelnuts and mushrooms,” she suggested.
“Not yet, let’s finish the roof first.”
The wind picked up, and the rain began slanting sideways into their shelter. Liz pulled her feet in. Somehow, her single shoe had survived the plunge in the Thames, but its sole hung loosely ajar at the front, as if it wasn’t a shoe but a small pet alligator begging for food: Feed me, Daddy. Feed me, Daddy, Feed me—
Chapter 8
If I Wake up Dead
John glanced at the sky. He couldn’t tell if it was early or late afternoon. “We better finish the roof before it gets dark. And we need to block this end too.” He patted the pine trunk next to him. “It’s like a damn wind-tunnel in here.”
With a groan, he climbed to his feet and extended a hand to Liz. She grasped it and got up. He took his spear, and she picked up her club. Together, they limped out of their bramble enclosure into the woods outside. Under the gray skies, the somber triangular shapes of conifers towered above them like black and menacing cliffs. A cushion of moss squished underfoot with water squirting out with each step. The air smelled of the river and leaf mold.
After a quick drink from the stream, they carried on down a gentle incline to the reed beds by the big river that might or might not be the Thames. White-trunked birches and trembling aspens thronged their path, shedding yellow leaves that spun silently to the ground.
In the reed bed, yellowed plants shifted and clicked in the susurrating wind, sounding like millions of tiny castanets. Feathery tops swaying against the gray sky, the reeds towered above John’s head. He stared into the shifting wall of jointed stalks suspiciously. Anything could be hiding there. A platoon of tigers. A legion of lions.
If only they could make fire. All animals feared flames and smoke. And their nights of shivering in the cold would be over.
He dropped his spear and tore an armful of dead rushes. Thankfully, they snapped off easily at the base, and he wondered why the gales had not flattened the whole lot yet.
Liz laid her club on the ground and also began tearing the reeds. Suddenly she jerked her hand and waved it as if stung. “Uh-oh! A paper-cut.” She burst out laughing. “A reed cut.”
He grasped her hand. A shallow white line ran across the index finger and a droplet of blood appeared, reddening her fingertip. “I may have some plasters in my box we left in Pimlico Woods.” He thought of a newspaper article about a man who’d died from a tiny scratch. The man had been a fit guy who ran marathons, but that didn’t save him from flesh-eating bacteria. And who knew what germs this world had . . .
“It’ll heal in a day or two.” She took her hand away. “I just need to cover it.” She plucked an alder leaf, crumpled it, and wrapped it around her finger.
“Anyway, we need to get the box,” he said uneasily. “Is that leaf even clean?”
“All plants contain natural antiseptics. Otherwise they’d rot.”
“Oh.” He helped her to tie the makeshift bandage in place with a strand of long grass. “Tomorrow, we’ll go after the box. All kinds of useful stuff in there, including a glass paperweight that might work like a magnifying lens to focus the sun’s rays into a very hot spot.”
“Wow, fire,” she said wistfully. “What wouldn’t I give to have fire.” She watched him harvesting reeds for a while. “But John, it’s a shame we office workers don’t keep gardening gloves in our desks.”
“Then we wouldn’t be office workers.”
He pulled a length of twine from the pocket of his jacket and tied it around a sheaf of rushes. He used his shoelaces to tie two smaller bundles.
As he hoisted the largest sheaf on his shoulder, something burst out of the reeds in a flutter of feathers, screeching. John dropped his load and crouched, his fingers going white around his spear. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Liz hefting her club.
Ten feet to the right, the bronze-green rushes rustled and parted. A cute orangey-brown animal emerged, sniffing the air. It spotted them and froze.
John and Liz exchanged a relieved glance. It was only a fox. Or something like a fox, for faint stripes ran down its sides, and it sported shades around its eyes rather like a raccoon. A feather was stuck to its snout. It watched them for a while, and then with a flick of its white-tipped tail, it vanished.
They carried the bundles of rushes back to the building site. The new materials allowed them to finish the rear wall of the structure and to extend the roofing by a foot.
After three more trips to the reed bed, John and Liz were faint with fatigue and hunger. But at last the gabled roof was complete. Even though presently, the front end of their shelter was still wide open, and the rest badly needed a second layer, they finally had a cozy, dry place out of the wind and rain.
Bramble thickets surrounded their clearing on all sides—rather like reefs enclosing a placid lagoon. The only way in led via a narrow twisting path. Now, having blocked the entrance channel to their safe harbor with a pile of branches and thorny strands, they sat down to their su
pper of berries, nuts, and raw mushrooms.
John pushed a hazelnut into a depression in a log and whacked it with a stone he had quarried for this purpose from the streambed. He picked up the kernel and turned to Liz. “One more for you?”
“Thanks, I’m full.”
“You can’t be.” He held it out to her. “You ate the same as me, and I’m still ravenous.”
She took the nut from him and popped it in her mouth. “That’s the last.”
John cracked another handful of nuts and then munched on a mushroom—one of a dozen they had found right behind their shelter. It had a brown head and a stout body—similar to porcini. He sipped some water from the plastic container. The Arsenal mug was already empty. His belly grumbled, complaining at such meager fare.
“There’s a major advantage to being a fatso-bulgy-tum,” Liz said. “You need much less food.”
“You’re not fat,” he protested.
She laughed and began spreading the remaining reeds and dry tussock grass on the floor of their shelter to make a bed. The rain resumed, rustling in the thatch. The entrance to their home faced southwest, and they watched the dirty orange-gray band of light on the horizon fade to black. A leak sprang toward the front of the hut, where the roofing was thinnest.
“Hey, you sure, these mushrooms aren’t poisonous?” he asked.
“My dad calls them birch boletes as they only grow in birch groves.”
“Your old man’s still alive?”
“Yes.”
“Well, he seems to know more than a self-respecting Briton should know about mushrooms and den building.”
Liz yawned and stretched out on their makeshift bed. After a pause, she said. “He trained Air Force pilots in survival and evading capture.”
“Well, if we wake up dead, I’ll blame your dad.”
Silence, then a soft snore.
He peered at her in the dark but couldn’t tell if her eyes were closed.
With a shrug, he pulled some dry rushes over her legs and body, then burrowed in himself. It was completely dark now, darker than he had ever remembered in the city. The soporific sound of falling rain soon lulled his senses, and he began drifting, drifting, until he sat with his family at a Christmas dinner, tucking into a slice of turkey. His children smiled at him from across the table, and his wife sat beside him with a glass of white wine.
An ear-splitting roar awoke him, and he burst out of his pile of hay like a Jack from his box. Heart thudding, he grabbed for his spear.
Chapter 9
The Second Sun
Before sunrise, Fleet Woods
Leaning on his spear, John hobbled out of the hut with Liz close behind him. It was full dark, no stars. The cold wind blew briskly, chilling him. It must have been around forty degrees, if not colder.
2
The beastly bellows and snarls rolled across the clearing in waves that froze him to the marrow and threatened to unhinge his knees. But they had to defend the entrance to their bramble patch, or there might be no tomorrow.
The sun would rise, of course, but not for them. The self-pitying notion held a certain grim hilarity, and he chortled mirthlessly. Har-de-har, laugh at the horrors of the world and die with a smile. How’s that for poetry, ladies and gentlemen?
He stumbled, and Liz barged into him.
“Sounds like the bloody Serengeti out there,” he exclaimed.
“That’s sure not a hedgehog,” she said. Her voice sounded shaky and mildly accusatory.
His mind flashed to the day when his two-year-old daughter heard a chainsaw in the distance: “Daddy, what’s that sound?” How bright and wide with wonder her eyes had been.
He had decided to humor her: “I don’t know, Emily.”
“Daddy, maybe it’s a frog roaring.”
“Yes, a very big one . . .”
John had an urge to laugh like a lunatic and yell, Aux barricades citoyens! But his better sense prevailed. Perhaps their bramble stronghold wasn’t under siege. Yet. The roaring seemed to come from a distance.
They found the barricaded entrance by touch. John switched the spear to his left hand and picked up a rock from a small pile he’d prepared for unwelcome visitors. But how scarce was their ammo supply! Some two dozen rocks and flint cobbles. He lifted his eyes to the black sky and prayed. If we live through this, I’ll pile up at least two hundred. And that’s a promise.
The roaring continued, but as no beast stormed the pile of branches blocking the narrow path, John began to relax. A gust of wind made him shiver.
“Do you think those are lions?” Liz asked.
“Might be tigers.”
“Aren’t lions and tigers supposed to be tropical?”
“They have tigers in north China and Siberia. But lions are strictly tropical.”
Liz chuckled nervously. “Praise the Lord for small mercies.”
He said nothing, musing that if it ever got as cold as Siberia, then the mysterious beasts bellowing in the night would be the least of their problems. With no winter clothing, no fire, and no proper shelter, they’d freeze into two icy statues in no time at all. He turned up the collar of his formal office jacket. But suppose they stuffed their pockets with fluffy reed heads? And they might fashion reed-capes. Would have to learn to weave. But . . . but what would they do about Liz’s missing shoe?
The roars grew fiercer, echoing among the trees. At least two angry animals. After listening for a while he said, “Sounds like they’re fighting each other.”
“A false alarm then.”
The rock he clutched had chilled his fingers, and he lowered it back atop the ammo pyramid. He thought fondly of the leather gloves he’d worn only a few days ago. Curse the warm spell that hit London in the second week of March. Thanks to it, he and Liz had no warm coats. No gloves. No scarves. No hats. No nothing.
Any way you looked at it, they were truly and royally fucked.
Liz leaned against him, and he wrapped his arm around her. Her shoulders trembled, and his teeth chattered. Cold. So cold. He mused if there’d be ground frost in the morning.
“I suppose the tigers—or whatever the hell they are—aren’t coming this way,” he finally said. And even if they were, he thought, we’d freeze to death if we stand here all night. Tomorrow he’d strengthen the barricade with more deadfall. His fertile mind conjured images of sharpened stakes driven into the ground and deep pits with more stakes at the bottom. Maybe a deadfall trap. If only they had fire . . .
In the west, the inky clouds parted, and a bright half-moon peeked between the treetops, bathing their clearing in a silvery light. In this romantic glow, their rustic hut gleamed like an enchanted fairytale chalet. They had a shelter now. Home! Home with warmth and coziness. A place to rest their weary heads.
As they turned to go inside, the clouds broke overhead. An exceptionally large star blazed in the black well of the night—so bright, he had to shield his eyes. Its golden glow cast bronze gleams over Liz’s hair and the bramble vines around them. For a while, the silver light of the moon and the gold of the strange star combined, competed and intermingled, throwing double shadows. One side of their hut’s roof was gilded and another silvered.
“It’s gotta be a supernova,” he said. “Or else we’ve got ourselves a second sun.” Stunned by the sight, he forgot the cold, hunger, and his aching foot. The night had turned so bright, he could have read his company’s dismissal letter, crumpled in his pocket. He peered into the woods where the beasts still roared, but they were screened by intervening trees.
“Beautiful,” Liz said. Her eyes shone with a reflected glow—one silver, another gold.
And then the clouds shifted, and one after another the celestial lights were extinguished.
Chapter 10
The Pimlico Corrida
Scarlet drops glistened on the crushed grass. John followed the grisly trail, a rock in one hand and his spear in another. Close behind him came Liz, armed with a club and another rock. A severed hoof l
ay across the path, small and delicate. A deer probably. He peered around an alder bush.
The bank of their tranquil pool had been defiled—seemingly by a mad butcher. The victim looked not so much torn apart and eaten as blown up with explosives. Bloodied scraps of hide and gore lay strewn over a wide area. The head was missing, and all the meat was stripped from the scattered bones. A striped fox was gorging itself on glistening innards. As John and Liz stepped around the bush, the animal fled, dragging off its prize.
“Yuck. Disgusting,” she said.
He hooked a scrap of hide with his spear. “It’s not disgusting. It’s rawhide. We’ll make you moccasins.”
She looked at her foot shod in a bundle of dry grass, and her face contorted with distaste. “Hmm. I suppose you’re right. We’ll need to cure the skin first, though.”
“I read you can soak it in urine.”
“No, no!” She waved a hand at him in a warding gesture. “There’s a better way.”
“Huh?”
“The tannins,” she said sagely.
“I suppose your daddy taught you that.”
“Yep.”
“Your daddio sure was smart, but there’s just un problème . . .”
She raised her eyebrows.
“Where do you get the bleeding tannins in these bleeding woods?”
She smiled beatifically. “Oh, that’s easy.”
“Easy?”
“Pit bogs are full of tannins. And there’s a good marsh by the Thames.”
John slapped his forehead and began gathering the bloody scraps. They carried the gory mess to the reed bed. After rinsing the irregular pieces of hide, strands of sinew, and a length of intestine in the turbid water, he pushed them into the wet peat between the tussocks. He threw a waterlogged tree limb over the spot, then added a few grassy sods from the bank for good measure. He scrubbed his hands with grass and clay, then washed them in the stream.
***
After a breakfast of hazelnuts, blackberries, and raw mushrooms, they set off to Pimlico Woods.