Flare (15 page)

“Are they fucking stupid?”  I said as I pointed them out to Emily.

“About as stupid as that question”.

“Fair point”.  And it was.  We’d been fortunate in having Jerry with us to explain what was happening.  To everyone else, their world had just stopped without reason, the logical assumption being that at some point, someone in command would throw a switch and the world would pick up where it left off.  Without news, radio or TV, few people would realise what had happened, and fewer still would have the wherewithal find a way to survive.

The road north of Woking was fairly free of cars and we picked up speed, passing a petrol station with several vehicles abandoned at the pumps and half a dozen people industriously looting what little was left in the shop.

One of them ran out and shouted something at us, but the words were lost as Emily kept going.

“This car makes us a bloody target”, she said as she looked at the vanishing figure in the rear-view mirror.

“We’d be more of a target on foot”.

“Yeah, probably”.

We lapsed into silence, the state of the town enough to make even the most diehard optimist stop and think.  Someone had once said that our society was only three meals from barbarism, but I was fairly sure they hadn’t factored in a lack of TV and all the other devices that kept people chained to their sofas.  Once again I realised how very lucky we had been to fall in with Ralph, Harriet and Emily.

The couple were tough, self-reliant and practical, and Emily was all of those and army-trained to boot.  Without them, I knew, our chances of survival would have plummeted dramatically.

As we got further out from the town, the road cutting through woods and fields with the occasional house here and there, we began to pass walkers, mostly on their own or in couples, but occasionally entire families, all laden with heavy bags as they travelled.

All of them looked tired, haggard and some were nursing injuries, mostly burns.  Part of me wanted to stop and see if there was anything we could do, but the sensible part of me knew that there were too many people and all it would take was for someone to try and take advantage and we could lose everything.

Unable to take the stares of the walkers anymore, I closed my eyes and leaned my head back, trying not to think about anything other than getting to Manchester.

The motion of the car lulled me into a half-doze, only broken when Emily hit the brakes and tapped my shoulder at the same time.

“Trouble”, she said, and I looked ahead to see a man and a woman, back to back in the middle of the road while she held a small bundle in her arms.  At their feet were two rucksacks, and the man held a claw hammer up, brandishing it at the five men and women that surrounded them.

As we drew closer a couple of the group looked back at us, but quickly returned their attention to the couple when the man darted forward and struck one of them on the shoulder with the hammer.

Emily pulled up several metres short, unable to go around with them spread out across the road.

“What do we do?”  I asked nervously, thumb stroking the shotgun again.

Emily looked grim.  “We wait.  I don’t like it but there are too many of them”.

Just then, the bundle in the woman’s arm let out a wailing cry, the scream of an infant announcing its hunger to the world.

I looked at Emily and our eyes locked.  No matter what else
I might do before the world righted itself again, I would not,
could
not stand by and watch a couple protecting their baby and not do something to help.

Emily nodded at the unspoken thought and reached into the back seat, freeing her Bergen and slipping a hand inside.

When it came out it was clutching a small black pistol which she tucked into her waistband, tugging down the hem or her t-shirt so it was out of sight.  She looked up at me as if daring to say anything but I just shrugged as I got ready to open the door.

“Don’t use the shotgun unless you have to”, she said warningly, “you might hit the people we’re trying to help.  Take some spare cartridges too”.

I scooped a handful from the bag at my feet and slipped them into my pocket.  Emily was already out of the car and walking towards the group, and I had to hurry to catch up, my palms slippery on the stock of the shotgun and my mouth horribly dry.

“Ok, that’s enough!”  Emily’s shout made them all turn, a couple of them edging back as they saw the shotgun
in my hands.  “I suggest you leave them alone and go on about your business”.

The group exchanged a few doubtful looks, and a woman in her twenties with a long ponytail and, incongruously, far too much makeup, nodded and motioned to the others to move to the side of the road.

“Ok, ok, we’re leaving.  We don’t want any trouble”.

From their clothing, age and hairstyles I guessed the group had found themselves together by chance rather than design, but despite several of them being older they all took the cues from the young woman, moving to the treeline with looks that ranged from fear to frustration.

I approached the couple warily, the baby still shrieking as they eyed me with not a little fear.

“Are you ok?”  I asked, and the man nodded.  He could only be about twenty, the woman maybe a year older
, and he had a blond quiff made me think of Tintin.

“What was that all about?”  I directed the question at them both, but the man stepped protectively in front of woman and child, although what he thought he could do with a hammer against a shotgun I couldn’t
begin to guess.

“They wanted food, and when we told them we didn’t have any they tried to search our bags.  Then one of them made a grab for Sam and Jenny hit her.  I managed to get the hammer out and keep them off but I reckon it would have turned really nasty if you hadn’t turned up, so thank you”.

He kept his eyes on the shotgun as he spoke, still unsure whether we were saviours or yet more thieves.

“We’ve got room in the car for the three of you”, I said, voice as calm as I could make it with adrenaline still running through my system like wildfire, “at least let us get you away from here or they’ll just attack you again when we’re out of sight”.

“Really, you’d do that?”  He looked at his wife and she shrugged and nodded.

“This is Jenny and our little boy Sam, I’m Tom”, he said, picking up their bags and carrying them to the car, Jenny following in his shadow while I backed
away from where the group stood watching at a safe distance.

“I’m Malc and this is Emily.   We can talk later, for now let’s get out of here”.

They squeezed into the back seat bags and all, and in a few moments we were off again, the car groaning under the extra weight.

“So”, I said to the couple as we rounded and bend and lost the group from sight, “why were you out here in the middle of nowhere?”

Tom leaned forward to speak to me over the noise of the engine.

“Well”, he said
, breathing as if he’d just run a race, “me and my friends needed a car, and this seemed the best way.  I’m really sorry and all that, but I think you probably ought to stop before things get messy”.

I felt a sharp prick in my kidney and lo
oked down to see the tip of a kitchen knife held there by the man we’d just rescued.  Jenny, if that was indeed her name, was holding a second knife to Emily’s stomach, one arm still clutching the baby while the other snaked between the chairs to keep the blade against my friend.

The shotgun was useless in such close quarters, the barrels now broken and pointing into the footwell in any case
, and I ground my teeth together as I realised how well we’d been played. 

Emily slowed the car to a stop and turned the engine off, resting her hands on the wheel.

“What now?”  She asked through gritted teeth.

“Now”, Tom said as he used his spare hand to pull the shotgun away from me, “we wait for our friends to catch up, and then we’ll see”.

Chapter
24

“Don’t seem right to kill them”, Jenny said to the rest of the group while Tom stood watch over us with the shotgun.  We were sat on the verge while they went through our car, pulling everything out and spreading it on the grass nearby before splitting it between themselves.

I’d been watching in miserable silence as our food, water and medical supplies disappeared into bags and pockets, too afraid of the shotgun to try and argue with them, but now they were talking about our fate I began to listen carefully.

“You want to leave witnesses?”  One of the men asked, his white shirt grubby and sweat stained.  “What if they can identify us?”

Tom looked over at them.  “Identify us to who?  It’s not like there are any police about.  I’m with Jenny, I reckon we let them walk”.

He turned back just as I was thinking about making a foolhardy grab for the shotgun.  My legs had begun to tense but I settled back and pretended I was trying to find a more comfortable position.
  As far as I knew, Emily still had the pistol tucked in her waistband, but I had no idea why she hadn’t pulled it yet and I couldn’t exactly ask with Tom standing so close.

The woman with the makeup laughed nastily.  “Yeah, but you’re always with Jenny.  Under the thumb.  What if they’ve got friends nearby, eh?  What then?  We’re clever, we’ll bury them in a ditch”.

Hearing them discuss our deaths so casually made me feel sick to my stomach.  I looked over at Emily, hoping for some indication that she was about to leap into action while they were still focused on our gear, but she ignored me, watching the group carefully, eyes flicking from one face to another. 

She’d barely said a word to me since we’d been stopped, instead concentrating all her attention on our captors, watching their every move.

As the group continued to argue, Tom stepped a few feet closer to them, the better to both listen and get his point across.  They seemed split pretty much down the middle, the woman with the makeup leading the half that wanted us dead and buried, Tom and Jenny the half that wanted to let us go.

As soon as I judged Tom far enough away, I turned to Emily as casually as I could.

“What are we going to do?”  I whispered hoarsely.

“I don’t know yet”
.  She spoke quietly but calmly, no fear in her voice whatsoever.  I wished I felt even a fraction as relaxed as she sounded.  “I think we’re best off seeing how this plays out.  If they let us go, at least we’re alive even if they have got all our stuff.  If they decide to kill us then they’re not leaving me a lot of choice”.

“Can’t you shoot him?”  I said quietly, nodding my head towards Tom.

She shook her head.  “This isn’t a film.  I have to reach behind myself, pull the pistol out, take the safety off and aim at someone who has a shotgun pointed at us.  How do you think that’s going to turn out?  No, we need to wait until we’re standing at the very least, and if it does go bad I’ll need you to distract them”.

“Distract them how?”

“You’re a resourceful chap, I’m sure you’ll think of something.  Now if you don’t mind, I want to hear what they’re saying”.

I switched my attention back to the group as the argument between Jenny and the other woman grew more heated.

“We can’t just go killing everyone we come across”, Jenny snapped, “we’re not murderers”.

“But stealing’s ok, if it suits you?”

“Well, yeah, it is.  But stealing is only stuff.  Murder is taking someone’s life.  You can’t take that back once you’ve done it”.

“Well I say we shoot them and have done”.

“And I say I didn’t vote for you to be in charge, Sandra, and my bloke has got the shotgun”.

“Oh, it’s like that, is it?”  Sandra pushed up close to Jenny, their eyes mere inches apart.  The baby began to grizzle as he sensed the tension, and immediately Jenny turned away, soothing him with a dummy and soft cooing sounds.

“Fucking pussies, the lot o’ya.  Don’t know why I bothered helping you in the first place”.

“Because it’s hard to rob people on your own?”  Tom suggested, getting a dark look in return.

I cleared my throat.  “There is another option”, I said, wilting slightly as everyone turned to look at me.

“Go on”, Tom said, gesturing with the shotgun for me to continue.

“You could let us join you”.

Sandra shook her head.  “No, we’ve got too many people already.  I say we kill them and be done with it”.

Tom half turned to look at her and I felt Emily tense next to me, one hand slowly moving towards her waistband.

“You want them killed”, he said, “you do it yourself”.

Sandra stormed up to him and grabbed the shotgun, pulling it from his unresisting grip.  Hefting the unfamiliar weapon, she raised it to her shoulder but Emily was already moving, pulling out the pistol and aiming it in one smooth motion that spoke of years of practice.

Time slowed, every movement taking an age as I threw myself to one side, still watching as Emily’s finger tightened on the trigger, flame exploding from the muzzle as the roar washed over me
, louder than I would have believed possible.