Burnett nodded. He hated the idea. He wanted to be out there, but what the hell was he going to do if he caught up with the killer in this state? He climbed the stairs, although Tana did most of the work, practically carrying him to the bed.
* * * * *
He wasn't surprised when he woke up to find the sun coming up on a new day. He cursed Tana, but knew the man had taken the right course of action, too. He felt much stronger. Once Tana stumbled downstairs and found Burnett fixing breakfast, he tried to apologise, but Burnett cut him off with a raised hand and a smile.
'Let's get on the road,' he said.
'We'll catch the bastard, don't you worry,' Tana said, as he drove on through hamlets and villages, looking for their quarry.
If nothing else, the events in the warehouse had hardened his partner's resolve. The jovial ex-rugby-playing bobby-on-the-beat who’d somehow survived the apocalypse trapped under his boss's corpse and preferred pies to police work was gone. His eyes never stopped searching, expecting their bogeyman to jump out at them at any second.
'You okay?' Tana asked.
'Me?' Burnett replied. 'Fine.'
'Well, if you start to feel weird or anything, you let me know.'
'Weird how?'
'Well, a dog bit you. Looked to me to have gone pretty feral, so if you start foaming at the mouth I might have to leave you by the side of the road to go and chase the other puppies.'
'Fair point,' Burnett replied. 'I feel fine.'
That wasn't true. He wasn't anywhere near as weak as he had been, but he couldn't feel much in his arm except a burning, and he could barely move his fingers. He didn't much care though. He was back on the hunt.
'Shit,' Tana said. 'Well we're back where we started again.'
Burnett looked out through the windscreen and sure enough, there was the warehouse.
'Pull up,' Burnett said. 'Maybe he doubled back.' He didn't much believe it but they went through the motions anyway, scouring the warehouse, which had accumulated the further stench of two extra days' decomposition, but Burnett could tell instantly that the killer hadn't returned.
They got back in their car.
'What now?'
'Let's try a different direction. We've not seen another person in days. We might have some more joy if we can find people to talk to. Maybe they've seen something. I dunno.' He was grasping at straws now, but didn't know what else to suggest.
Soon the industrial landscape gave way to scattered houses, then to endless greenery. Burnett wondered how long it would take for nature to reclaim total dominion over all humanity's creations. How long before the whole world looked like those eerie photos of abandoned towns and fairgrounds people had been so fond of sharing on Facebook? The total numbers of survivors, in this part of the world at any rate, seemed bafflingly small. How could any sense of civilisation, technology, or industry ever come to be again? He wondered if the world would ever again know the hum of a power station. Hundreds of years of progress wiped out in a few moments.
His eyes hurt. He was weak. Even now, closing his eyes in the passenger seat as his exhaustion threatened to overtake him, the face of the killer danced before him, and he snapped back to full alert.
Something caught his attention out of the corner of his eye.
'What was that?' he asked, sitting bolt upright.
'What was what?'
'I saw someone. Or people, I'm not sure.'
'Where?'
'Back there, on my side.' Burnett said. Tana started to slow down and check the rear-view mirror. 'No, don't stop, keep going until you find a place to pull up.'
'Was it him?'
'I don't think so.'
'You sure you saw something?'
'No.'
Tana pulled the car up at the side of the road. Burnett got out and stared back up the road. There was a petrol station maybe half a mile in the distance, barely perceptible through a light fog. Was that all he'd seen? He was sure he'd seen a head pop up.
'Shit,' he said to himself.
'Maybe you dreamed it,' Tana said, getting out of the driver's side and staring back up the road. 'Wishful thinking.'
'Maybe,' Burnett replied. 'I want to go back and look anyway.'
'You're the boss,' Tana replied, getting back in the car. 'At this point all I'm doing is driving around aimlessly anyway, so what's the harm?'
Tana turned the car round.
'Slowly,' Burnett said, and Tana obliged. 'We don't want to spook them.'
'Because stopping, turning around, and crawling back slowly looking for them is going to put them right at ease.'
Burnett didn't reply. He pulled his gun out, checked the magazine and the safety, and moved it into his good hand. Not that it was ever really his good hand. He was a shit shot at the best of times, as likely to shoot himself in the foot as find his target, but it felt bloody reassuring to hold.
He stared out the side window, inspecting the thick bushes for movement. Maybe he'd dreamt it. Fuck it, at least they could go to the petrol station up ahead to try to find some kind of food. He was sure Tana thought the same.
It took them ten minutes to crawl along the road to the Esso garage. There was no sign of any movement. Burnett cursed himself for falling asleep in the first place and for deluding himself.
'Maybe the pumps will be working,' Tana said as he pulled onto the empty forecourt.
'I doubt it,' Burnett replied. 'No electricity.'
Tana pulled up alongside one anyway, stared at the pump for a moment, tapped the side forlornly and gave up. Burnett looked around, but the only movement was the evening breeze through the trees.
The door to the shop was open, and the smell of death hit them right away. Its source was the decaying corpse sat behind the counter, dried up and feeding some full-looking bluebottles which arced lazily around him. Poor sod had spent his last night on earth sat in a no doubt uncomfortable chair selling fags and sweets to drunks, stoners, and lorry drivers. He hadn't even deserted his post for the apocalypse.
How long had it been, Burnett wondered, since that night? How long had he now been running around after one man, ignoring the apocalypse around him? Best not pick at that scab, he thought.
'Fucking hell, if there's a Ginsters stand in here I'm going to eat so much pastry that I'm going to burst,' Tana said.
'Given it'll have been sitting unrefrigerated in a hot room for a fortnight or so, swelling and bursting is not out of the question,' Burnett replied.
'I think you're underestimating the great Ginsters pastie,' Tana said. 'Ginsters remain edible for entire millennia. They aren't made of food, but some kind of immortal science sauce.'
Burnett surveyed the empty shelves. 'I don't think you have to worry about that anyway.'
'Oh, bollocks.'
The whole place had been stripped bare, the shelves bereft of goods, save for a few bits and pieces discarded by whomever had gotten here first. Burnett wondered if this was the work of a singular person of exceptional foresight, or an endless trail of hungry survivors who saw this lonely petrol station as a beacon of hope and crisps on an otherwise desolate road.
'Piss,' he said, half to himself. 'At least tell me there's some cigarettes left?'
'Let's have a look,' Tana replied. He wandered over to the kiosk, where the shutter was down on the cigarette cabinet. He leaned over, avoiding the corpse.
As he pulled the shutter up, a fist flew up from behind the counter, connecting with Tana's jaw and sending him flying backwards.
Burnett had his gun drawn and pointed at the counter before he even realised what was happening. Tana picked himself up, looking shocked, but otherwise fine. He fumbled for his own weapon.
'Hey!' Burnett called out. 'Who the fuck is back there? Come out now, with your hands up.'
'Really?' came a woman's voice from behind the counter, dripping with incredulity. 'That's what you're going with? Come out with your hands up?'
'Well, yeah,' Burnett replied.
; 'What, like you want us to believe you're police?'
'As a matter of fact…'
'Bullshit,' the woman countered. 'Look, you and your friend get back in your car and piss off, yeah?'
'Why exactly should we do that?' Burnett said.
'Well, because there's nothing here worth taking as you can already see, and we've got a shitload of paper towels, lighter fluid and matches back here.'
'Let's go,' Tana said, dusting himself down.
'In a second,' Burnett replied. 'Miss, we'll leave in a second. We mean you no harm, I promise. But before we go, we're looking for a man. Mid-thirties white male, brown hair, glasses. Anonymous seeming but with a serious nasty streak. Don't suppose you've met anyone like that on your travels?'
The question was met with silence, and after it hung in the air for a moment unanswered, he turned to leave.
'Wait,' the voice called.
Burnett stopped. There came the sound of muffled, heated discussions behind the counter. Evidently the woman behind the counter was not alone.
'Look, we're putting our guns down, okay?'
He laid his pistol on the ground and motioned for Tana to do the same. Burnett raised his hands. Two women appeared from behind the counter, armed with deodorants and lighters. One of them looked to be no older than fourteen.
'Hi,' he said.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Sorrow's End
Tom's teeth knocked together as he slammed into the cold road, and his mouth filled with the coppery taste of blood. There was another crack, a scream, another crack, and something exploded above him, showering him in glass. Feet ran in all directions. Bodies littered the floor. Ralph's exploded trachea oozed his life over the road.
Another crack.
He had to move. As soon as another crack reverberated he jumped up and ran. The shots seemed to be coming from the far end of the street, so he made for the nearest house. The murder house. He wasn't alone. Three others huddled in the hallway, not wanting to go further in to the house, but not wanting to walk into the line of fire, either.
'Who's shooting?' a woman asked behind him.
He shrugged.
'What's going on?' came another voice, and Tom saw one of the three was Petr, still holding his bloodied nose.
'I have exactly the same information as you,' Tom said.
He turned and looked back out into the street. It was clear now of all but the dead, everyone else had scarpered. There was no sign of Leon or Susan.
'The shots were coming from down there,' the woman said, pointing back to the other end of the hamlet. On cue, another crack came from that direction, the bullet shattering a window across the street. A howl of pain or surprise followed. Someone had thought a window would provide adequate shelter from a gunman and had had that preconception challenged.
'What do we do?' Petr asked.
Tom felt like shaking the man.
'We wait,' he replied instead.
'Wait for what?' Petr asked, evidently not satisfied with the response.
'Given that we don't have any weapons and someone out there is shooting at us, I guess we wait to see what his next move is.'
'Oh, great plan,' Petr replied, rolling his eyes.
Fuck it.
He grabbed Petr and slammed him against the wall.
'Right,' he shouted, his face getting right up to Petr's, 'I've had enough of you bitching and moaning. What do you think? Perhaps you'd like to go out there and ask him what he's up to? Or perhaps we could use you as a human shield while we charge for the minibus? Let me guess, you want to avoid making any decisions for yourself, but you're not happy with any of the decisions anyone else has made, right?'
Petr stammered something, but Tom didn't let him speak.
'I've fucking well had enough of it. You don't like the way I'm doing things? Well kindly fucking fuck off.'
He let go of the man. For a second he thought the bigger man might launch himself at Tom; he just looked indignant for a second, then ashamed. He said nothing.
Tom returned to the door frame.
Petr did have a point. Standing around waiting to be shot was hardly the world's best ever plan. He tried to think of ways out, but each plan in his head played out like the level of a computer game which ended with him lying on the floor in a pool of his own blood, with 'Game Over' or 'You Lose' hovering over his corpse in bright red lettering.
He poked his head out of the doorway a little. The crack came quickly and he pulled his head back, in time to see a chunk of brickwork behind him splinter and explode in a puff of smoke. His heart raced.
He looked around for Patch. The best course of action here was to turn to the battle-hardened veteran of Afghanistan. He chanced another look, and saw the splayed legs of the man whose company he'd enjoyed the previous evening in the street, his body face down on the tarmac.
'Could you see anything?' the woman asked.
Tom shook his head. The gunman could be on the first floor of one of the houses which stood on the bend, giving the shooter a perfect view of the whole street. Tom could perhaps try and work his way round the back of the houses and sneak up on whoever it was, but that didn't sound like something he'd actually want to do. If the gunman was alone, he might have a chance, but what were the odds of that?
He scoured the houses opposite, making sure his head never popped into the gunman's line of sight. His heart soared when he saw Leon and Susan, huddled in the doorway two down from the house opposite, their backs to the gunman. Leon waved a sarcastic little wave.
Relief flooded through him. He wasn't alone. If it weren't for the homicidal maniac, he could have run across the street and given his old friend a bear hug.
Leon started gesticulating manically at him, trying to convey his own plan, but Leon didn't know anything about hand signals and Tom knew even less about reading them. Their attacker sensed the communication and the wall next to Leon exploded as a bullet hit it, sending Leon reeling back in surprise and falling into Susan's arms.
Tom got the gist of it though: head round the back and take the shooter by surprise. He tried to signal an acceptance back to his friend, but Leon was too busy studying the chunk of brickwork that had once been right by his head.
'What's going on?' the woman beside him asked.
'I think we're going to try and ambush him round the back,' Tom replied.
None of his three hallway companions said anything. Petr looked intently at his shoes.
'Look,' Tom said. 'That's the plan. I'm going round one way, Leon and Susan will go round the other way, and maybe we can sneak up on the bastard. Maybe we'll get shot. If you want to join me, join me. If you want to stay here, stay here. If we die, get out of here as best you can and look after yourselves. Okay?'
Nobody stepped forward to offer their support, which was as much a blessing to him as it was to them.
'Good luck,' Petr said weakly.
Tom moved through to the back of the house, making sure not to linger over the sight in the living room. The kitchen led out onto a small, unkempt garden with a back fence. He stepped out into the garden, expecting a shot to ring out at any time. He couldn't see the street.
He moved through the garden and hopped the fence. After the carnage of the main street, the path behind the houses was eerily quiet. Beyond the path there was nothing but open fields and woodland, and Tom felt exposed. He realised he didn't have a weapon to defend himself with.
Good planning, idiot.
He moved on. He looked out at the fields almost wistfully, but remembered Leon would be waiting for him. No running off into the trees.
Every footfall sounded to him like a thundering herald of his approach, but no traps were sprung, no gun barrels appeared from windows. The path bent round and he slowed, not sure exactly which house he needed to go into.
Another crack rang out, but now it sounded muffled and distant. There was no movement near him, so he edged himself to the rear of the house he guessed held their ass
ailant, his eyes never leaving the windows.
He saw movement out of the corner of his eye and froze. It was Leon and Susan making their way round with the same measured crawl he'd used. They locked eyes and raised eyebrows in acknowledgement. They too were bereft of weaponry, and Tom wondered exactly what it was they were expecting to achieve.
Susan signalled Leon and Tom to go in, while she stood guard at the gate.
They entered the back garden and moved to the door. Every instinct in his body screamed at him to turn and run away, but he stood mute as Leon put his hand on the handle and turned.
Inside, the house was silent and dark, but Tom could make out the outlines of a particularly nice kitchen. His first instinct was to find as big a knife as he could, and worry about bringing a knife to a gunfight later.
He stepped forward, but something moved in the shadows before him. It swung forward and connected with the side of his face. He fell back, his hand lashing out to grab anything. There was a counter, but he managed to do was slam into it, his side taking the brunt of the force. Pain flared up his ribs.
He tried to see who had attacked him, but his eyes weren't yet adjusted to the darkness. He heard movement. Leon was knocked back too, his head slamming into the wall. He crumpled to the floor.
Tom struggled to get to his feet, but he was barely able to get moving before their assailant was on him again. He pulled Tom to his feet and punched him in the stomach. He fell again, winded.
Their assailant moved into the light. Tom struggled to reconcile the brute force being meted out to them with the nerdy-looking bespectacled man wearing a woollen jumper who dispensed it. Leon tried to stand and lunge at the man, only to find their assailant much quicker. The man in the jumper brought his arm round in a chopping motion, the side of his hand met Leon's throat and Leon stumbled back again, his hands pulling at his neck, His face filled with panic as he struggled to breathe.
Tom tried to get to his feet again, but couldn't. He looked up and noted with not an inconsiderable amount of terror that the man now had a hammer in his hand and was making his way over to him. He fell to the floor and let out an involuntary whimper of fear.
Blood on the Motorway, #1 Page 21
