“City dogs,” I said. “Half-dead and desperate.”
“They didn't stop when I killed the first one,” said Riley.
“They won't. They're too hungry,” I replied. “It's a shame.”
“A shame?” she said. “Bet you wouldn't be saying that if they'd got you and were now chewing on your guts.”
“I wouldn't be saying much, would I?”
“Only 'ouch - that stings a bit',” she laughed.
We climbed the slope and pressed on. Towards the end of the day we became exhausted from trudging through knee high snow drifts and constantly being pushed back by the wind that whipped around our ears. I looked for a spot to camp in and found somewhere near the tired remains of a petrol station.
“Here's a postcard shot for you,” said Riley, sweeping her arm across the dismal looking building with the collapsed forecourt and the ever constant bindweed that wrapped itself around every upright structure. The signs had almost faded completely white and the giant plastic coffee cup leaned to one side on its rusting stand. “GREETINGS FROM GREAT BRITAIN!”
I stepped across a tyre stack that blocked the doorway and peered inside. Mushrooms were growing on the counter and the stench of mould was thick and overpowering. There was nothing for us in there.
“Anything?” asked Riley. “An old candy bar perhaps?”
“If you want to try, be my guest,” I replied.
“I'll pass.”
We camped in a wide strip of woodland that must have been a park or something. The trees were too well spaced and arranged to be natural. There were also picnic benches dotted around and one of those springy horses children used to ride on. It'd been red once. Riley saw it and gave it a swift kick with her boot, making it creek back and forth.
“Well this isn't creepy at all,” she said.
“Grab the other end of this bench,” I called to her. “We'll drag it over to the tree line.”
We heaved it out of the mud and shuffled nearer to where I wanted us to camp. I'd picked the edge of a clearing so the two of them could pitch up on flat ground. I hung my hammock on two trees that looked a perfect distance apart and which put me right next to them. When we were ready, we used the picnic bench to eat on.
“Don't you ever worry the dogs will get you?” asked Riley over her MRE.
“They don't roam that often,” I said. “The winters are drawing them out. Maybe this year will kill them off and we'll be left with the wild dogs.”
“Is that a good thing?” she asked.
“Yeah. They're more like wolves in the sense that they won't just attack you outright unless you invade their territory. They'd feed off the deer and keep their numbers down before considering me as a meal.”
“It won't help me sleep tonight,” she said.
“You need to spend more time outside, young girl,” said Piotr. “Then you learn to fear everything.”
“Are you scared, Piotr?”
“Always,” he replied. “Fear means you respect the world you are in. It can kill you. It is very fair. If it doesn't need to kill you, it won't. Take Miller's bear for example.”
“What bear?” cried Riley.
“You didn't tell her?” I said, grinning.
“I thought she was there when I told you?” he said to me.
“What fucking bear?” she repeated.
“I'm sure she was listening.”
“Is there a bear here? I thought you said there were NO bears?”
“Americans,” muttered Piotr. “TV generation. They know nothing about the world they live in.”
“Hey, hold on a minute,” said Riley, gesturing wildly with her spoon. “I know how to handle bears - I would have liked some fucking warning first though!”
“I thought we did warn you,” said Piotr. His face was creased with laughter. “Didn't you see Miller and I hanging our food sack up outside of camp?”
“No, I fucking didn't!”
“Well maybe you should from now on.”
“I will. You can count on it.”
As we bunked down for the evening I caught a glimpse of Riley wandering off into the thick of the woods to hang her food bag up on a high branch. Piotr looked at me and smiled.
“Did you have to wind her up?” I asked.
“It's good fun,” he said. “Besides, I thought she already knew.”
“So did I. I'd rather face the bear than more of those dogs though.”
“That's true,” he replied.
“Did you see how emaciated they were? It must be getting worse in the cities now. I thought more of the deer would have settled in the ruins but it looks like every living thing is staying away from them. Why?”
Piotr shrugged. “I don't know, my friend. Do they flood?”
“How do you mean?” I asked.
“The sewers will overflow without the pumps working. When the snow melts it will run into the underground system and flood it. The streets will fill up with raw, fifty year old sewage. That'd be a nasty mix.”
“I hadn't thought of that.”
“This is why the Americans came in and shut down your nuclear facilities. Had they been left unattended the rods would have overheated and caused an explosion. Not a nuclear one, but a big enough one to shower the country with radioactive debris. It's a delicate little world we live in. If we were to all disappear tomorrow it would take thousands of years to undo our damage.”
“Amen, brother,” I replied as Riley came back.
“I might actually get some sleep now. That's if there's not something else you want to tell me?”
“Like?”
“Oh I don't know - maybe there's some giant fucking monster living here that I didn't know about. Would you tell me if there was?”
“Maybe not,” said Piotr.
“I thought so.”
In the morning we picked up the pace, starting early after a hot breakfast and a cup of tea. We had a nice routine going now and the miles we put behind us went quicker than we realised. It was only as the day was coming to a close that I began to hear something whirring far off in the distance. I stopped mid-stride and Riley managed to walk straight into the back of me.
“What are you doing?” she cried. “Why are we-” She looked up suddenly.
“Do you hear that?” I said. Piotr turned and looked in the direction of the noise. “Is that a drone?”
“Maybe,” he said, looking left and right, thinking the same thing I was. “We need to hide. Now.”
There was nothing but a low stone wall topped with white and I began pumping my legs through the snow, trying to reach it as quickly as I could. Riley and Piotr were behind me, following in the furrows I made.
“That wall is the best we can do!” I called over my shoulder. “Get on the other side.”
As I reached it I could feel the sweat running down my back, cooling straight away. I thrust my hands into the snow, looking for the top of it to pull myself over and I felt a tearing pain run across my left hand. When I looked, I realised that the wall was topped with barbed wire.
“Watch out!” I shouted now that the engine was louder and much nearer now. I held my bleeding hand up and Riley nodded, feeling carefully for the wire. When she found it she pushed it down to the stone out of the way so me and Piotr could throw ourselves over. When we were across, Riley followed just as the plane became visible through the misty white sky above.
“Fighter jet,” said Piotr. “Not Russian. American.”
“Yeah, that's one of ours but what's it doing-”
We saw something drop from the belly of the dark craft. It was small and pointed and Riley began to bellow over the roar of it's engines.
“GET DOWN!”
The explosion shook the ground beneath our feet and we felt the wall shudder both with the concussion of the blast and the heat that followed. I felt horrid, unpolluted fear well up inside me and I buried myself as deeply into the snow as I could, trying desperately to hide from the terror. Rocks fell down
onto my back from off the top of the wall and I could feel how hot they were through my coat.
I don't know how long I led there - time seemed stretched and I lost track somehow until I felt a hand pulling at my pack, trying to lift me up. There were voices but they were far away, distant and muffled. Then I was on my feet and Riley was shaking my shoulders. Her mouth was moving but I couldn't hear what she was saying. I scraped the snow out of my ears and the world seemed to return to normal.
“What?” I said.
“It was napalm. Look!”
She turned me on the spot to look over the wall. It was like looking through a window into another world. The land that we'd just been walking across, the snowy fields with the sparse pines, was now a charred, blackened mass that billowed steam into the air for as far as we could see, halted only by the other stone wall half a mile away. The stench of fire and chemicals filled my lungs.
“Was it aimed at us?” asked Piotr.
“I don't think so - this is the edge of the blast. Whatever the target was, it was inside there,” she said, pointing back the way we'd come.
“But we didn't pass anything? Are you sure they weren't aiming for us but missed?” I found myself saying, my senses returning to normal. I seemed to be in one piece but for how long, I wondered.
“I... I can't say either way, can I?” she said, her emotions clearly struggling to come to terms with what had just happened. Had the Yanks just tried to kill us? Or someone else?
We stood there for a few minutes just trying to get our heads around it. Piotr was looking up at the sky as if the jet could come back at any minute. Riley just stared at the devastation with a blank look on her face.
“It knew where we were,” said Piotr after a pause. “It's tracking us.”
“Fuck you,” spat Riley without even turning her head. “It ain't me.”
“Miller,” he said, appealing to me. “Only she has the technology.”
“Fuck you both - they weren't aiming at us.”
“Riley, Piotr has a point.”
She spun round and stared at me and I was suddenly grateful she was wearing sunglasses.
“Listen you - it isn't me and they weren't aiming for us. Whatever they were aiming for wasn't us.”
“Riley,” I said. “What the hell were they blasting then?”
“How the fuck should I know?” she cried, throwing her pack down. “But it wasn't fucking us.”
We stood there panting, clawing air back into our pounding chests. It was hot, fiery air coming off the blast site and I wanted to run from it, to turn my back and flee. I felt helpless and, judging the faces of the other two, so did they.
Then we heard it again. It was coming back. It was a way off but it was speeding up now, coming from the east.
“Oh fuck!” she said and Piotr was cursing in Russian.
“Just dump the bag and run!” I said, charging forward towards the next wall, panic rising up in my throat, threatening to send me down into the snow to try and hide again. Piotr was right behind me but Riley had grabbed her rifle and was trying to get something from her pack. I turned, saw her run but in the wrong direction, then disappear suddenly into the snow without a trace.
“Riley!” I called, but the jet was almost on us and Piotr shoved me towards the wall. I'd just gotten over it when the bomb hit the ground, destroying everything in its path. Again I fell deaf to the power of the blast, felt the heat on my skin as I tried to hide in the earth but only met with sharp, thorny shrubs buried under the snow.
I waited, breathing in hurried gasps, eventually summoning up the courage to raise my head which by now was feeling the cold. I looked up and realised that I was on my own.
“Piotr?” I called but my throat was dry and it came out in a hoarse whisper. I swallowed a mouthful of snow and tried again, but still no answer.
I got to my feet and looked back the way I'd come and saw the same massive devastation. A gust of wind blew a cloud of smoke around me, enveloping me and making me choke and splutter. When it cleared I could see nothing of either Riley or Piotr.
“Riley!” I yelled. “Piotr?”
The stones of the wall were still hot from the blast so I started to walk along it, looking all around me to see where they could possibly be. The sound of the engine was gone now. It was eerily quiet. There was only the low whine of hissing water and the crackle of the woodland on fire at the other end of the field.
My boots hit something beneath the snow and I looked down. It was a pack - Piotr's pack. He must have thrown it over the wall before climbing over. I called out his name again, but there was no reply. I picked up his rucksack and dragged it along with me.
I went a few feet more and then I saw him. He was led across the wall and I hadn't seen him until now. His arm was stretched out in front of him and that was all that was recognisable. From the shoulder down he was a charred and blackened heap. Smoke rose from his remains and as I got closer I could smell the horribly sickly-sweet smell of burned flesh.
He'd pushed me on but it'd cost him valuable moments. He must have stumbled and been unable to get over the wall in time and the blast had destroyed him. I stared at his remains, holding his pack and not quite registering what was happening. Death was nothing new to me, it was just the shock and the suddenness of this one that had reached me.
“MILLER!!
Riley's voice cut through the confusion and suddenly I was over the wall, running across the blasted field kicking ashes into the air as I ran. The heat had vaporised the snow so I could see where the cliff edge was. When I got there I peered over the edge and saw Riley led at the bottom in a growing pool of blood that sunk into the snow.
“Miller - I think I’ve broken my leg!” she called up.
“I'm coming,” I called. “I'll try to find a way down.”
“Hurry! Please!”
I raced along the cliff and found a reasonable place to descend, throwing Piotr's pack down the twenty or so feet to the bottom. Then I found a foothold and lowered myself over the edge, smelling the harsh stench of burned earth as I came level with it before plunging further down. It took moments to reach the bottom safely where the snow piled up once more but now with a dusting of black ash.
Riley was led against a rock with her leg stretched out in front of her. There was a lot of blood coming from a deep wound in her right thigh but the angle of the leg itself seemed okay.
“Where do you think it's broken?” I asked, crouching down near her.
“I can't move it!” she said, wincing as I ran my hands over her leg, looking for anything out of the ordinary. There was nothing but the gash in her thigh though.
“Try harder,” I said, manipulating it myself. She was able to bend the knee and roll her ankle. She was in shock and I turned my attention to the wound - anything other than the dead body of Piotr above me. The blood was forming a pink slush around her. I rooted in my pack for a large bandage and pressed the pad of it onto the wound, wrapping the lengths around it as tightly as I could.
“Can you try and stand?” I asked, helping her onto her feet.
“It's not broken?” she said.
“No, it isn't but we need to deal with that cut. It's pretty deep. I think you hit that rock there. You were lucky.”
“Some fucking luck,” she said.
“Here, lean on me.” She threw her arm around my shoulder and together we walked away from the cliff edge, heading down a gentle slope towards a snow-capped barn at the other end of the field. It had only three sides from where I could see but part of the roof beams were still there. It was the only shelter for miles so it would have to do.
“We're going over there,” I said, pointing to it. “You think you can make it?”
“Too fucking right,” she said, gritting her teeth. “Try and stop me.”
We left a trail of blood on the pristine white snow. Riley limped along as best she could until we reached the shelter. I helped her inside the walls and she collapsed in the corn
er onto her good side, panting and moaning in pain.
“I'll be right back, don't move,” I said, running across the field to get Piotr's gear. I followed the blood stains all the way there, worrying about how much blood she might have lost already. I tried to remind myself that blood was deceiving, that it always looked worse than it was.
I sprinted back to the shelter with Piotr's stuff and began arranging things into priorities because this straightforward trek to the bunker had turned into a life and death struggle now - death already having scored against us in the most horrific way and looking to strike again if I didn't act.
I hung my pack up on a rusty peg buried in the wall and took off my coat. I rooted through Piotr's equipment and found his tarp, laying it out on the floor next to Riley. My mind was running hot and smooth now like an engine and I felt the kind of confidence that comes from having faith in your own skills and abilities. I could do this - I'd done this before and I could do it again.
“Riley, I need you to shuffle onto this plastic,” I said, helping her onto the tarp. Her hand was on the bandage and already the blood had seeped through her fingers. I got another one ready, moved her hand aside and placed it on top of the first one. “Press as hard as you can,” I said and went to find my tinder box.
Outside the snow was beginning to fall again. There was a pair of over grown apple trees about half a click away. I ran the short distance and began snapping off as many dead branches as I could, keeping the thin finger-like twigs in tact, then set off back to Riley and the shelter. All the time my lungs were burning with the cold but I pressed on knowing that our survival hung in the balance. I was just glad that we couldn't hear the plane any more - confirming that it had been following a signal given off by Riley's kit. With her bag destroyed the aircraft must have been recalled. Would they check it with a helicopter team though? Would they bother?
She hadn't moved when I got back inside and so I began to build my fire, arranging the sticks in a pyramid with my tinder at the bottom. In minutes I had enough of a flame to start boiling water in Piotr's big pans and I set them going, pouring in a generous amount of unrefined salt into one of them.
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