by Louise Welsh
Stevie pulled her hand away. She released her seat belt and primed her gun. ‘Fuck.’ The heels of her boots scrabbled against the floor of the cab, the way Adil’s must have on the rope.
Magnus wiped his eyes and saw what she had seen. The crowd was moving towards them. He crashed the gears into reverse, but the Humvee was blocking his only exit.
Stevie punched his arm. ‘Drive at them.’
His hands were slick with sweat. Magnus revved the engine and accelerated at the crowd, but the square was too small to allow him to build speed. The black-clad assembly scattered, without a single scream. He was a bull, they the matadors. Unless he killed them all, he and Stevie would be raised on the empty gibbets beside poor Adil and Rob.
Magnus turned the van, gears crunching, tyres spinning against the cobbles. The crowd had fled to the shelter of the cathedral doorway. He twisted the steering wheel, aiming towards them. There was a crack of gunfire and the van went into a sickening spin. Magnus tried to steer into the skid, but the van kept whirling, the world a slur of smearing colour. He remembered the cans of petrol in the back and unlocked his door, ready to bale.
Stevie’s gun flew from her hand into the footwell of the cab. She swore and tried to grab it, but the spin pitched her back in her seat and the gun slid out of reach beneath her chair. Another shot cracked the air and the van slumped. The skid slowed. They hit a metal refuse bin that had been cemented there by a long-ago council for the benefit of tourists, and came to a halt.
Stevie groped for her gun. ‘Fucking drive.’
The van’s front tyres were blown. Black-clad men were smashing the windscreen and side windows with hammers. Magnus reached for his gun, but strong arms dragged him from the cab. He looked for Stevie and saw her bucking and kicking as she was pulled into the square. Magnus feared the hammers in the men’s hands more than he had ever feared a bullet; more than he feared a noose around his neck.
He shouted, ‘We’re outnumbered. Don’t fight them.’
Stevie was in the air now, two men holding her arms, another two her legs and ankles. Her body went limp. She shouted, ‘I’m unarmed!’
Her captors looked towards the blonde-haired woman, who still held the rope draped across her arms. She nodded and they lowered Stevie to her feet. Two of them kept a bruising grip on her arms.
Magnus was pressed in amongst a group of men. They held him by his neck, arms and back. They were warm, trembling from excitement, like men about to have sex. These were the people who had killed Adil. Magnus knew that he and Stevie were dead.
Their captors steered them together across the small square to the cathedral steps, where the group had reassembled. Magnus turned to look at Stevie. Her hair had come undone in the fight. It hung in matted strands across her face, but he could see her strained expression, her skin dulled with fear and exhaustion.
‘I should have ditched the van when you told me to.’
Stevie shook her head. ‘We were damned from the moment we ignored that first warning sign.’
Two men stepped from the Humvee. They were in their late teens, lean and muscular.
Magnus called, ‘Good driving, lads. I think we can say you won. We’d like to head on our way now.’
It was all bravado. The young men ignored him and took places at the back of the crowd. The woman had dropped her arms and was holding the skeins of rope, stretched taut between her hands. She looked at Stevie.
‘Why didn’t you turn back?’
Stevie returned the woman’s stare. ‘We wanted to get somewhere. Why did you murder that child?’
The woman’s brow creased. ‘He was warned and chose to ignore the warnings. The penalty is clearly stated.’
Magnus did not want to look at Adil’s corpse. But he could still see the boy in the corner of his eye, swinging slightly in the breeze. It was too easy to imagine his progress across the square to the gallows; the firm hands propelling him over the cobbles; the boy begging for his life.
Magnus said, ‘Adil was a good lad. He was only fifteen. He’d have gone away if you’d told him to. You didn’t need to kill him.’
The woman twisted the rope. ‘We take no pleasure in killing.’ Magnus looked from the hands coiling and uncoiling the rope to the faces of the men and women in the square and did not believe her. The woman said, ‘The Sweats were a penance from God. He destroyed our families; our mothers and fathers, our siblings, our children and grandchildren as punishment for ignoring His laws. We learned our lesson. Other towns have perished, but we survive, by God’s grace. Were we to welcome anyone who does not follow His law, God would smite us.’ The small group of people at her back were nodding. She repeated, ‘We take no pleasure in it. We pray that God accepts each death as a sacrifice and welcomes the fallen into His kingdom.’
Stevie made a noise of disgust.
Magnus asked, ‘Were Adil and Rob alone?’
The woman nodded to the corpses. ‘If they had had companions, they would be with their friends in death.’
Stevie said, ‘What was your job, before the Sweats?’
The woman raised her chin. ‘I was a mother. I raised my children until they were taken from me.’
Stevie straightened her spine. ‘What about your children? Were they sinners? Is that why they died?’
The woman lowered her eyes. ‘It was God’s will.’
Magnus had hoped that there would be some ritual before they were dragged to the gallows, a purification ceremony or prayer service that would give them a chance to escape, but the woman simply looked at the men restraining them and said, ‘It’s time.’
Stevie and Magnus bucked and struggled as they were forced across the square. Someone started to sing ‘Amazing Grace’ and the rest took up the refrain. Magnus had forsaken religion while he was still a teenager, but his mother had been strong in her faith. The song had been a favourite of hers and Magnus felt the insult of it in his killers’ mouths.
He shouted, ‘Better Christians than you died of the Sweats. If there’s a God, you’re all going straight to Hell.’
They were close to the line of gallows now. Magnus could smell poor Adil’s body. He tried to dig his heels into the ground, but the men gripped him tight by his elbows and half-dragged, half-carried him across the cobbles. Someone had taken the rope from the woman and was expertly threading it into place. Quick hands formed it into a noose. Magnus strained to look at Stevie and saw the same procedure taking place at the adjacent gallows. Stevie was facing away from him, still kicking out at her captors, her head twisting, looking for a chance to butt or bite.
‘Damn you.’ Magnus sought for language they would understand. ‘Damn you all to Hell. You’re Satan’s arrow. The Devil is working through you.’
The sound of singing grew louder in the square below. Magnus’s guards remained silent, save for the odd grunt of exertion, as they forced him towards the steps that led up to the small platform. A hammer jutted from one of the men’s pockets. Magnus struggled to free a hand and grab it, but the men tightened their grips on him. He heard a clatter and saw that Stevie had fallen against the steps to her gallows. Her captors righted her and shoved her onwards.
At first Magnus thought the throbbing noise was the sound of his own blood pounding through his head. When it grew louder, he thought it was the Humvee, revving up to capture other wayward souls. The singing stopped. Magnus’s guards faltered. He turned to look at the square and saw the Humvee still outside the cathedral, where the teenagers had parked it.
A brace of motorcycles screamed into the old marketplace. The men at Magnus’s back froze. The motorcyclists came to a halt. They were dressed in leathers, their faces hidden behind their visors. The lead biker reached up and removed his helmet.
Joe’s face was red, his hair dishevelled. He pointed a gun in the direction of the gallows and shouted, ‘These belong to me. Let them go and there’ll be no trouble.’
The woman with the flaxen plait stepped forward. Her voice was clear as
fresh water, calm as a still pool. ‘They have broken our laws. The penalty is death.’
Joe turned towards her. The gun in his hand turned with him. It pointed at the woman’s chest.
‘Don’t worry, cunt, they’re going to die, just more slowly and painfully than this.’
The woman furrowed her brow. ‘Didn’t you see our warnings? The penalty for trespass is death.’
Joe looked at the woman, as if he was only now seeing her.
‘You’re fucking insane.’ He took in the assemblage, their black clothes and still expressions. ‘All of you. Mad as fucking hatters.’
The woman took a gun from the pocket of her dress and shot him in the stomach. Magnus heard her say, ‘Slow and painful.’ And all hell broke loose.
His guards relaxed their grip, unsure of whether to hold him or go to the aid of their comrades. Magnus snatched the hammer from a guard’s pocket and smashed one of his cheekbones. The soft crunch of flesh and bone was horrible; the sound of a rotten apple, falling in an orchard. The man dropped backwards, clutching his face. The guards on the platform reached for their guns. Magnus hit out, aiming for knuckles, elbows, kneecaps, anything to keep them from getting a grip on their weapons.
The woman who had killed Joe shouted, ‘Death to blasphemers!’, and one of Joe’s posse shot her in the head. The death of the woman hit Magnus’s guards harder than any hammer blow. They let out a collective cry of pain and abandoned him for the fray.
Stevie had run up the steps to the gallows and taken the hanging rope. She was poised on the platform’s edge, waiting for a chance to jump. Magnus began swinging the hammer like a claymore. Stevie saw him and leapt to the ground. She bent her knees as she landed, but lost her balance and tumbled into a roll. Magnus reached out and pulled her to her feet. He was out of breath, but managed to gasp, ‘The Humvee.’
He had thought Joe’s leather boys the likely winners, but the religious brethren were fighting hard. Stevie and Magnus kept their bodies low, skirting the small square until they reached the Humvee. Stevie tried the driver’s door. It was unlocked. Magnus slipped into the passenger seat. There were no keys in the ignition.
‘Fuck, fuck, fuck.’ Stevie flipped down the sun visor and slid free the ignition card tucked inside. The Humvee growled awake. Stevie turned it towards the battle. A bearded man fell across their bonnet. His face left a smear of blood on the windscreen. Stevie braked and he fell free. She pressed her foot to the accelerator and steered down into the town. Magnus searched the Humvee for weapons, but there were no guns in the glove compartment, no hidden rifles in the back. His only weapon was the hammer he had stolen, still clutched in his hand.
He said, ‘The roadblocks.’
A bruise was turning damson on the side of Stevie’s face. She shook her head, as if trying to throw off the pain inside it.
‘I’m hoping they’ve moved those lorries. The roadblock that trapped us was designed to be opened and closed like a drawbridge. That woman and her followers wanted people to disobey their warnings, so they could maze them in. How else would they have the thrill of stringing blasphemers up?’
Stevie steered the Humvee into the industrial estate. She was right. The lorries were gone, the jaunty ice-cream float no longer there. She drove on, towards the main route to Glasgow.
Magnus watched the empty road retreat in the wing mirror and thought of Adil, swinging on his rope, food for the birds. It was hours before either of them spoke. By then the landscape was softening, the mountains replaced by rolling hills.
Magnus said, ‘If we make it home, I’m not going to tell Francesca the truth. I’ll make something up.’
An abandoned car rested in the long grass by the roadside. A vestige of a figure was slumped in the driver’s seat. Stevie focused on the way ahead.
‘Adil was a sweet boy. He was a team player. I can’t imagine him wandering far from Shug and Willow.’
‘Do you think that mad bitch was lying?’ Magnus turned the hammer in his hands. ‘Do you think they murdered the rest of them as well?’
Stevie stared straight ahead. ‘I think Belle used Adil and Rob, the same way miners used to use canaries. She sent them on ahead and when they didn’t come back, she took another route.’
A road sign appeared on their left: Glasgow 60 Miles.
Magnus said, ‘Shug wouldn’t …’
The sentence tailed away. Once he had been able to predict his son’s actions, intuit his thoughts. Now he felt he no longer knew the boy.
Stevie said, ‘You should sleep. We’ll be there soon.’
‘I can’t. You rest. I can drive.’
Stevie’s face was drawn. Greenery had grown from the roadside verges and she was obliged to drive along the centre of the highway.
‘I feel like I did when the Sweats first hit London. I’m scared to close my eyes, because of what I might see.’
They drove on, the white lines on the road speeding towards them like arrows, the encroaching countryside flashing by.
Thirty-Nine
They descended into Glasgow in the late afternoon. The sun had been with them on their journey, but now it was hidden behind clouds. Stevie saw the city laid out in the basin below, a mosaic of tenements, greenery and tower blocks. There were gaps in the view; whole districts laid black and wasted. Fires had stripped some high rises to their metal frames. They crumbled upwards, skeletons dissolving into the glooming sky. She kept her foot pressed to the accelerator and sped the Humvee on, down towards the ruined city.
Abandoned vehicles had clogged the approach to all the cities and towns on the journey. Several times Stevie was forced to divert onto minor roads to avoid jams that stretched to the horizon. She remembered her own panicked flight from London and knew they were remnants of an exodus that had failed to outrun infection.
As they neared Glasgow the numbers of vehicles multiplied. For the last thirty miles, broadening lines of stalled traffic bore witness to the panic at the pandemic’s height. The exit routes to every city in the world would look the same Stevie realised: Athens, Paris, Rome, Tokyo, Manhattan, Chicago, San Francisco … She had seen disasters played out so often in Hollywood movies that it was easy to picture American cities. Other countries had receded into landmarks: the Acropolis, Eiffel Tower, Colosseum, Godzilla …
Stevie had feared that the final stretch of road would become impassable. But though the traffic deepened, the way remained open. Eventually the motorway shrank to one narrow lane. She saw that cars had been shunted to one side to keep the way clear. Her skin tingled. The job had taken manpower and organisation. The people who had carried it out would be waiting, somewhere up ahead.
Magnus had fallen asleep after all, the hammer cradled in his lap. It was their sole weapon, primitive and only good for close combat. Stevie reached out and touched him gently on the shoulder. Magnus jerked awake. His grip tightened on the hammer and he looked at her without recognition. Stevie felt a flash of fear, then Magnus’s eyes focused. He rubbed a hand across his face. His bristles rasped. ‘Where are we?’
‘Almost in Glasgow.’
The city rose around them. Slip roads fed into new carriageways, each clogged with abandoned cars. Trees wavered on the banking, but the Humvee was the only thing moving on the road. They crossed a bridge over a broad river. White gulls swooped and dived above the water.
Magnus said, ‘There are people down there, mending nets.’
Stevie slowed the Humvee to a halt. She peered at the riverbank below and saw brightly painted boats moored by the river’s edge. Men and women were hunched around fishing nets, spread across the boats’ decks. The wretchedness of Adil’s death and dread at what might come next had coloured everything. The sight of the fishing folk prompted a guilty flutter of excitement in her.
One of the fishermen lifted his head and looked towards the sound of the Humvee’s engine. He pointed towards it. Others paused to look in their direction. Stevie raised a hand in greeting, but they lowered their heads and r
eturned to their nets.
Stevie let her hand fall. ‘I’ve been driving this stupid tank so long, I forgot it has tinted windows. I guess they couldn’t see us.’
A faint note of disquiet sounded inside her. She pressed her foot on the accelerator and drove on, trying to shake off the sense that there had been something defeated about the hang of the heads of the people mending nets.
A road sign listed the distances to places Stevie had never been; faint memories from vanished traffic bulletins. The motorway branched into swooping curves that stretched above and below them. This was where traffic would have jammed in the mornings and early evening, with commuters travelling to and from work. Now there were only lines of derelict vehicles.
Stevie said, ‘Have you noticed, there are hardly any bodies in the cars?’
Magnus had not spoken since the people repairing their nets had failed to return her greeting. She sensed him surveying the windows of the rusting, metal carcases.
He said, ‘Do you remember how hard it was, clearing the dead from Orkney?’
‘I’ll never forget it.’ Stevie felt another faint sliver of hope. ‘People are cooperating with each other.’
Magnus’s voice was wary. ‘Perhaps, but so were people in Eden Glen and Dounthrapple.’
‘We’re trying to make a better future on the islands, why shouldn’t people be trying to make one here too?’
‘No reason.’ Magnus tapped the head of the hammer gently against his palm, as if testing its weight. ‘But this is a big city. It’s too soon to let our guard down.’
‘My guard’s been up so long its hinges are rusted stiff.’
Warehouses and tenements rose like giant megaliths either side of the motorway, some so close that it felt as if the road had been blasted through a fully formed city. The Humvee was still the only car moving, but the fishermen and women had heard the engine and somewhere other survivors would be observing their progress from darkened windows.
Magnus said, ‘Do you think I was too soft on Shug?’
