One

by Conrad Williams

  The pram – not the best mode of transport for such an unpredictable road – hit one pockmark too many and the woman struggled to right it. The child slid out on to the surface; they heard the dull crack of its head, or Jane imagined he did. The man turned and started haranguing the woman. Two more figures appeared, as though rising out of the road itself. Men. They picked up the child – one of them grasping it by the hair – and dumped him back in the pram. There was no cry of objection, from the child or the woman.

  'Becky, I think maybe you should take Aidan down to the lake for a while,' Jane said. 'We don't need to see any more.'

  Becky tugged at Aidan's sleeve. The boy resisted. 'But I want to play.'

  'Aidan, it doesn't look good. I think—'

  'NO!' Aidan said, his chin thrust out in determination.

  Jane glanced back at the travellers and saw how they had turned towards them. He saw the first man's stance alter. He saw his knees bend slightly. He saw his shoulder recoil.

  'What—' began Becky. And then the fence to her left disintegrated, the bolt the man had fired from his crossbow burying itself in the dead bark of a tree with a dull phut!

  'Let's go,' said Jane.

  Aidan was pulling toys from his pocket. 'He can have this if he wants. He can—'

  'Now,' said Jane, and grabbed Aidan's hand.

  His back to the road, he felt the air move. Something punched past his ear, missing by a matter of inches. There had been some practising going on. He slipped the rifle off his shoulder and headed for the lake. Jane rued the lack of shots he had taken himself. He hadn't even tried the gun out yet, thinking it better that he conserve his supplies of ammunition. He thumbed the safety off as they ran. Before the shape of the land took them lower than the level of the road, he glanced back. The three men were coming across the field. He felt his throat turn cold and swollen; he couldn't swallow and for a moment he thought he'd been shot through it.

  The lake stretched out, grey and uninviting, gnawing against pebbles so cold they might crack if you held them for a while. No boats to launch from the jetty, which was half collapsed, bending into the water. The trees thinned out as they approached the edge. Their breathing was fast and shallow; the breath of fear. The men would soon breach that fence, the last line of trees, and they would be targets easily picked off.

  To the left, maybe two hundred yards away, Jane glimpsed the exposed spine of a drystone wall. They had to get beyond that, and quick, but there was no way they could make it before the men reached clear ground. He urged Becky and Aidan on ahead of him. Someone shouted out. They were splitting up: two men were following the route they had taken; the third – the man with the crossbow – had broken left and was taking a long, curving route to cut them off.

  'Stop looking around you,' Jane urged. 'Get to the wall.'

  They were at it, folding over it, exhausted, when another bolt hit one of the stones; chips of granite peppered Jane's face. He felt blood wetting his cheek, the taste of it. He was blinded in one eye, but there was no pain. Just blood, he thought, blinking it clear. I'm all right.

  He could hear the man now, his thundering stride, the rasp of his breath. He could hear the collision of wood and metal as he notched another bolt into his crossbow. Jane twisted hard to his right, falling back as he raised the gun, and shot from the hip. He no longer knew where Becky and Aidan were. Mouths full of burnt grass if they had any sense. The pellet struck the man in his left shoulder and that and his own velocity spun him violently; Jane heard the crunch of cartilage in the man's right knee as his position suddenly changed. Pain was boiling in the man's throat, a tethered, growling sound, but it couldn't get beyond his clenched teeth. His eyes were too large for his face: he pushed himself upright and lifted the crossbow. Jane shot again out of panic, his aim wild. The pellet caught the man in the throat and the growl was replaced by an awful choking as he began to drown in his own blood. Jane kicked away the crossbow and turned to see the two other men descending on him. One of them carried an iron bar, the other a ceremonial sword. Jane shot the man with the bar in the middle of the chest; he collapsed as if all his tendons had been cut at once, with no apparent regard to physics. The other man was upon Jane before he had a chance to swing the barrel of the rifle his way. The sword came down in a desperate, choppy arc, but it was too shallow, the action of a man who visualises what he wants crucial seconds before the physicality behind it can be achieved. Jane felt the tip describe a curve across his chest. There was a sting, massive heat, but the damage was only superficial. If anything it enlivened him. He was utterly, joyously conscious when he shot a round into the man's open mouth.

  Jane lay on the ground hearing only the slam of his heart and the torture of his lungs. This is the clamour of life, he thought. This is the noise of the spirit. Every time he breathed he felt the split in his chest part. Blood welled in his left eye. It was running into his mouth, making him cough and splutter. The taste of it. He'd not tasted anything so fine in such a time.

  He rolled over and was sick. He was shaking like a nervous dog. He felt hands on his back, tentative, nervous, as if there was some reserve there, the fear that Jane was running amok, that he might blindly strike out at anyone within reach.

  Gradually his breathing calmed. Blood had turned black the pale green shirt he'd put on that morning. The shakes would not abate, however. He could feel his mouth turning dry.

  'Get me warm,' he told the shapes he could not quite see but that he hoped were Becky and Aidan. He heard Becky say 'Shock.' She knew what she was doing. She worked in a hospital. Even X-ray people knew how to deal with emergencies. He blacked out.

  It seemed that he revived almost immediately.

  He felt a sudden deep pain at the realisation that Stanley had never seen a dragonfly.

  'Sorry, Stan,' he murmured. He was crying now. The likelihood was that dragonflies would not come back. How could evolution go that way again? How could you fluke the weirdly beautiful twice in a row?

  'I saw them,' he said.

  'Quiet, Richard.' Was that Becky? He saw a figure hunched over fire, bringing a pan of water to the boil. 'You need to rest. Just take it easy.'

  'But I saw them. Dragonflies.'

  Sobbing. The boy. His boy. No, not Stanley. Aidan. Sobbing into his cupped hands. Taking peeks at Jane, then sobbing some more. Do I look that bad?

  'We were fishing,' he said. 'Place called Tabley Mere. Knutsford. North west of England. Lovely place. Me. Dad. Grandad. Grandad . . . one of those people who don't have much time for little boys. Gruff. Sombre-looking. Bright blue eyes. Hair white. Hawkish. Sunken. He said maybe two dozen words to me before he died. I was thirteen by then. Miserable fucker, all things considered.

  'I'd started to get into fishing. I was only six or seven. But I could set up a rig. I knew about baiting a swim. I knew the difference between a roach and a rudd. We didn't catch a thing. Dad and Grandad both fell asleep. I went for a walk, took my rod with me. Over a stile. Through a field to some trees. There was a gravel pit beneath them. I caught roach after roach, or maybe it was the same one. And then I realised I was being watched.

  'It was like a window of stained glass had shattered into a thousand pieces and they were all hanging in the air behind me. It was a little scary, but I knew they couldn't sting me, they weren't like wasps. They didn't come near, as if they were attracted to you. They hung back. Hundreds of them. Maybe it was birthday for dragonflies, this particular day. You look at a dragonfly for a while, then everything else seems so dull afterwards.

  'I wouldn't know how to tell him. I wouldn't know how to describe it to him. How do you describe a dragonfly to someone who hasn't seen one? You might as well be blind.'

  Jane slept again, or fell unconscious. When he came to, he felt stiff, immobile. For terrifying seconds he thought he had been captured by his pursuers, ravened from the inside and left nailed to a post for the birds of his nightmares to tear strips from. But he was only lying on a blanket, his ar
ms above his head – the way Stanley had slept as a baby – his midriff bandaged tightly, professionally. His head felt warm, treacly, his veins felt warm. He thought that if he closed his eyes he could visualise his entire circulatory system, map it in his head, every junction and branch and bend.

  Gradually, the real world began to impinge. The wind skirled above their heads, cheated out of them by the high tops of lorries on either side. Their canvas skins thumped and fluttered and creaked. The woman and the child, the dead child in the shopping trolley, were gone.

  Becky must have manhandled Jane into the barrow, got him across that macerated field and onto the road again. She was sitting by Aidan, stroking his hair, leaning over one arm, a blade of hair hiding her eyes from him. She looked spent.

  Perhaps she sensed Jane's inspection, or heard the slightest shift of his arms as he repositioned himself; she looked up. Her eyes were red-rimmed, her skin sallow.

  Aidan said, 'I want to go home.'

  Jane resisted the urge: You are home.

  'We've nothing to eat,' Becky said. 'And it's weird. It's not that I feel tired, I mean I do, I'm knackered. But it's just . . . there's nothing in the tank. I'm depressed just at the thought of having to lift that pack onto my shoulders again. And it's not as if it's all that heavy.'

  Jane sat up. He felt light-headed, but otherwise OK. He felt guilty that he had rested while the others had not. But he would pay them back. There was no danger of that not happening. The pain drew his eyes closed, but he didn't cry out. The bandage seemed to muffle it somehow, that and whatever Becky had slipped into his arm while he was out of it.

  'Lorazepam,' she admitted when he asked her. 'Just to take the edge off. You deserved it, after what happened.' 'How much have you got left?'

  'A couple of ampoules. For special occasions.'

  'It's good. It's very good.'

  He felt honey-coated, bubble-wrapped. He looked around him at the cars and lorries, some super-magnified child's game in the moment of its abandonment. His head beat with the lack of sugar in his blood. But he tried to think. He'd seen something that teased him, like a scab not quite ripe for picking. He looked at Becky and Aidan. He looked at the lorries. The cars. A red car, maybe sixty yards down the road. Dented, windscreen cracked, layered with dust, but it had a sheen about it, an immaculateness that was missing in the others. Lady driver, he thought. Careful owner, full service history. He stood up, shakily.

  'Richard,' Becky said, in that voice, that nurse's voice she had down pat.

  'It's OK,' he said. He wondered if he'd lost much blood. But the wound had only scored his chest. No major blood vessels there. Perhaps just a fine fighting scar on his ribs to impress any bonehunters of the future.

  There was a shrivelled figure in the driver's seat, ageless, sexless, dwarfed by heat. There was a pair of softened crutches, bowing over a singed passenger seat. Something plastic on the dashboard wrinkled to a coin-sized disc. Disabled badge?

  He checked the odometer. Less than 15,000, although the car was over three years old.

  Where were you going?

  Jane went round to the back of the car and tried the boot. Locked. He lifted the back seat but there was no jack to be found. He replaced the seat and rubbed his face.

  Where had you been?

  Between the seats was an armrest, folded into a well. He put his finger through the loop and pulled it into position. In the well was a plastic tab. He opened it; a little door to the boot, handy access to bits and bobs to save you from stopping mid-journey.

  Just a little runaround. Something to get me down to the shops.

  Cardboard boxes. Maybe half a dozen of them. He called to Aidan. 'Come and help. I need a super-strong boy with little hands.'

  Two of the boxes were filled with perishables. Vacuumpacks of ham, beef, chicken. Yogurt. Butter. Milk. Bread. Ice cream. The stink of it made Jane's eyes water. 'Ripe Christ,' he said. 'That stuff is ready to make an evolutionary leap.'

  Aidan said, 'Ice cream,' as if he had never heard the words before. 'I like ice cream.' He began to cry.

  The other bags contained tins. Lots of them: beans, spaghetti hoops, red salmon, Toast Toppers, pineapples, tomato soup, Coca-Cola, 7-Up, Stella Artois. There was a box of Rice Krispies. A pack of sugar. Energy bars. Jane stopped Aidan's tears with a can of strawberry-flavoured long-life milk.

  'Nearly as good as ice cream, yes?' Jane asked him.

  'Actually, yes,' Aidan said. 'Actually. Very refreshing.'

  They ate until they felt stronger. The sponge of their muscles receded. The vignetting in their sight disappeared. They could breathe more deeply, more freely. Even breathing could become too much effort. A bad sign, if they needed one, Jane thought, replenishing their packs.

  They walked on into early evening. It began to rain. They pitched camp. Jane slept so deeply that he could remember no dreams when he wakened, although his eyes were crusted and there were tracks through the glaze of blood on his cheek: he had been crying in the night. Almost as soon as they had packed up and were moving on they found a road sign that had been uprooted and was face down on the hard shoulder. Aidan helped him to lift it.

  'My God,' Jane said. 'My God.'

  LONDON 38

  14. DESCENT

  Aidan skipped across chevrons at a slip road. Becky walked a little way ahead of him, to his right. Jane brought up the rear, pushing the wheelbarrow. He was itching to get rid of it. There was no need any more. Their packs were full, the road was coming to an end. Within three days they would be in London.

  He was hunched over the barrow, his breath coming in short, shallow scoops. Becky kept admonishing him, telling him to stand up straight and breathe normally, but the pain in his chest wouldn't allow it. One foot in front of the other. Twelve miles a day. Three days. He imagined Stanley standing at the balcony, watching out for him. He will be here, Mummy. He will.

  Whenever he felt his mind bending towards dark things he rescued himself with thoughts of Stanley. In this way he believed he was confirming Stanley's survival and reminding himself what it meant to know order, to be human. He thought of taking his son to the fair in Hyde Park. Stanley must have been around three. Jane had been disgusted by the prices, but to see his son laughing to the point of losing control was worth ten times what he had paid. He had decided to let Stanley be in charge after that. They would otherwise have gone home and watched TV, but he didn't want to be locked inside with Cherry tutting and shaking her head all afternoon. They had walked – slowly, very slowly – for miles. They stopped often, to look at the scrollwork on the iron frame of a bench, to watch the kites being flown, to trace the pattern of bark on a tree, to honk at the geese on the Serpentine and dodge the squirrels who barred their path aggressively, expecting nuts. They played peek-a-boo at the statue of Peter Pan and Stanley demanded to be picked up so he could pat the head of the bear at the end of the path near the Italian Gardens. They played on the pirate ship and Stanley made Jane laugh so hard when he said 'Shiver me timbers' that Jane's nose began to bleed.

  They stopped off at Baskin Robbins for ice cream on the way home. Stanley was nodding into his raspberry sorbet. Blond hair. The cowlick over his left ear that would not stay down. 'Daddy, um, when we get home which toy do you want to play with? Walter or red Power Ranger? You can have Walter if you like, but I love Walter the best.'

  He was snoring almost before he finished his sentence. Jane scooped him up and carried him onto a bus. They got off at Maida Vale and Stanley was deeply asleep, head on Jane's shoulder, melded to it, as though this configuration of muscle and bone had been waiting all these decades for just this one boy.

  Cherry had been at him the moment his key found the lock. Needs his sleep. Worn him out. A three-year-old boy can't. A three-year-old boy shouldn't. You. You. You.

  He'd let it all slide past him, moved slowly past her and put Stanley to bed. Best day of my life, Stanley. Thank you, mate. Night-night.

  They followed the hard narrativ
e of the road, navigating their way around its punctuative tragedies. Jane found himself thinking how it had gone for them, these car-bound travellers, long-distance or quick hop, going to or returning from. No time to get away. They must have seen what it was, perhaps had the vision melted into the back of their skulls before life was struck from them. He remembered an old annual he had been given for his birthday, something that had bothered him greatly when he was a boy. It was supposedly filled with adventures and excitement, but all he saw were nightmares. Nuclear war. Man-eating polar bears. Innocent aliens hunted for sport.

  There had been a story about a man who tests a dream machine; his dreams are relayed to a screen for scientists to view. He dreams he is on a spaceship moving faster than anything in the galaxy. He reaches the end of space and sees what is beyond it. But something goes wrong. There is an explosion. His body dematerialises. The scientist dies and his assistant, blinded by the explosion, calls out vainly to find out what was revealed, but, as the last panel explained, It was not for living men to tell.

  The scientist's body had been in close-up, his mouth open, his eyes open, strangely pimpled. It had stayed with Jane for months, that image. It was with him now.

  What did you see?

  There had been those oily miasmal colours, impressive even at the depths Jane had experienced it. What must it have been like at the doorstep? He felt a pang of envy, despite knowing that to have seen it would have been to die. These people in the cars flash-fried, brains scrambled, the upholstery of the seats in which they perished barely touched in many cases. It must have hit like a tidal wave, tearing the breath from everything in its path.

  He stopped in the road. Aidan had tired of his skipping game and was walking alongside Becky, his hand enfolded by hers. The broad green bandeau she was wearing glittered with dust. The bodies in the cars, lying on the floor swollen, split and black, like baked apples left too long in the oven. The rats wouldn't touch them. They ate only the bodies they found indoors. They didn't eat what was outside. The dust, was it some kind of appetite suppressant? And something else. He had been blind.