Chaos Theories Collection

by Moody, David

  He started to walk away, then stopped and made himself go back. Get a grip. No matter what had happened here, no matter who these people were, he needed to see what else he could find because he didn’t know when he’d get a chance like this again. He cursed his stupidity, both for being so cavalier with the little water he’d had whilst in the car, and for not spending more time in Trawsfynydd. He knew he couldn’t afford to risk the extra distance and travel back there now. He had to do this.

  On the passenger side of the car he found a hosepipe running from the exhaust, wedged into a narrow gap at the top of one of the windows. A family suicide. Much as it sickened him, he understood what these parents had done. If anything, their escape from what was ahead made him feel more vulnerable, even more frightened. Was it better to retain some degree of control and put the family to sleep like this, quietly, painlessly and easily, than to have carried these children on through the nightmare days which seemed to be inevitably drawing closer? The nightmare days which he and everyone else left alive would have to endure? The thought of a parent having to defend their child against the indefensible... He didn’t know if he’d have been able to do it. But then again, he thought, he’d never been given the chance.

  He carefully moved the dead man out of the way and took the keys from the ignition. In the boot he found a wide-brimmed straw hat which he swapped for the sweat-soaked cap he’d been wearing, peeling it off his head, and a couple of bottles of water. He drank half of one of them, then quickly stashed what was left in his rucksack, all the time looking around in case anyone was watching. And three small cartons of children’s juice too – what a find! Strange how the value of things had changed so quickly, he thought as he chewed a wrinkled, dried-up apple and forced himself to swallow. The contents of the back of this car were similar to the things he’d left behind in his car, abandoned outside Shrewsbury. Jewellery, expensive (and now utterly useless) electrical gadgets, heirlooms and important paperwork... all of it worth nothing now. And then Steven thought about what he’d left behind in Cambridge: the expensive clothing, house in a prime post-code, luxurious furnishings... and all he’d really needed was water, food, and Sam. What a fucking idiot...

  One last check around the boot of the car, then he closed it all up, replaced the keys and walked on, leaving the family’s roadside tomb as he found it, pausing only to offer a brief and silent word of thanks.

  23

  The three-quarter moon glowed brighter than ever tonight, the light it reflected an unwelcome reminder that the sun was waiting in the wings to re-emerge to continue to roast Steven’s part of the world again. But it was always daylight somewhere, wasn’t it? He felt guilty that he was enjoying the respite when there were millions of other people on the other side of the world who might be burning right now...

  It was never completely dark anymore. The moonlight aside, frequent forest fires lit up the landscape, adding a ruddy orange glow to the bellies of the billowing clouds of smoke which drifted overhead like bone dry storm clouds. Fortunately, the bleakness of the empty landscape through which Steven was walking now provided little fuel for the fires and he rarely found himself close enough to any flames to care. But every positive, he was quickly finding, had a negative tonight. The same barren emptiness which protected him also offered little in the way of landmarks or distractions. It was impossible to tell how far he’d walked or how far he still had left to go. He’d walk for half an hour or more, then look back and think he’d barely made any progress at all.

  His mind was beginning to play tricks. Was he delirious, or just starting to convince himself he was? He was exhausted, dehydrated, frightened... his emotions conspired to slow him down or even make him stop and give up, yet he knew that wasn’t an option. He was close now, and every step forward, no matter how insignificant it may have seemed, brought him closer to Criccieth and to Sam. He just had to keep moving. One foot in front of the other, again and again. And whenever he came close to stopping he’d remember the constant threat of the next energy pulse. Slow down now and he knew he risked being burned alive.

  It made sense, he’d decided a while back, to stick to the roads again now. It was easier to follow established routes; it required less physical effort and less thought, and though he’d only ever passed through this way on the way to Norman’s house, he knew the area relatively well. He wished he’d got someone to talk to, though. Jane, perhaps, or even Roy. He just wanted a little reassurance, someone to tell him he was doing the right thing, someone to tell him he’d be there soon and that he hadn’t wasted the last days of his life.

  But Christ, the road did undulate fiercely here. The unexpected gradients were difficult to anticipate in the low light and they frequently caught him off guard. Both the climbs and the descents were equally taxing: the sheer effort of dragging himself up one way, more than matched by the frightening free-fall on the other side, trying to keep his footing and regulate his pace as he stumbled and tripped back down. The tinder-dry forest over to his right was on fire here, filling the world with crackling noise and hot smoke and seeming somehow to suck even more oxygen from the air. What he’d have given for just a single breath of cool, fresh air... to empty his lungs of soot and other crap and replenish his blood with oxygen again. He’d been outside for almost an entire day now, and yet it was so stifling it felt like he was trapped in a locked room without any windows. A line he’d seen on a car window-sticker earlier – Dogs Die in Hot Cars – kept going round and round his head.

  Whenever a building loomed up at him out of the nothingness, Steven convinced himself he was further along than he actually was, that these were the first few buildings of Porthmadog, the last town he’d have to walk through to reach Criccieth, or maybe Penrhyndeudraeth, the village with the impossible to pronounce name before that. But he was totally disorientated now and as quickly as the buildings appeared, they were gone again as if taunting him, playing games with his mind. He began to think he might have already gone insane. This is one of those Twilight Zone episodes, he told himself. I’m already dead. The last scene will be me stuck in that Mini on the mountains, burning up in the energy pulse...

  Logic told him that was rubbish, that he needed to get a grip on reality, but out here in the midst of this long, lonely and uncomfortable night, there remained just enough doubt to keep him on edge, nothing and no one to tell him he was wrong.

  His tiredness was increasing by the minute. Adrenalin had kept him moving since Shrewsbury, but his body was dangerously close to letting him down now and he knew it. The effort was mounting with each step, except that they were no longer steps he was taking, more drags. He’d stopped lifting his feet and was now pulling them along the ground. Either the road itself or the soles of his shoes had become tacky with the heat, and he thought it would only be a matter of time until it was like trying to walk through glue, great long strings of molten rubber stretching from the bottom of his feet whenever he tried to lift one up.

  This is stupid. Just your mind playing tricks. Man-up and get a hold of yourself.

  But it was hard... too hard. He was done in. Spent. Exhausted.

  But I have to keep going... can’t slow down...

  The moon illuminated the road ahead for miles now, the tarmac strip seeming to go on forever, everything else in darkness with just a series of small brush fires on either side lighting up the route as if it was an airport runway.

  Steven stubbed his foot on the kerb. He’d wandered and not realised, failing to follow the curve of the road. For a second he felt nothing, then sudden, searing agony as the pain began to register. He tried to keep walking but it hurt too much. He was slowing again...

  Keep moving!

  He was so close now. He visualised the map and all the distance he’d managed to cover to get to this point, and that gave him renewed energy for a few more seconds. Then the effort overcame him and he stopped.

  Just five minutes. Just long enough to catch my breath.

  He’d had
enough. Panting hard but taking in next to no oxygen, he dropped to his knees. Then he fell forward, numb with exhaustion. Facedown on the tarmac. It was warm... almost comfortable like a sticky bed... still giving off the residual heat from the record temperatures of the day now ending. Then his face began to burn and he tried to roll over onto his back, only for his rucksack to get in the way. He lay on his side and closed his eyes. Just a few minutes, then I’ll get up and start walking again. What did they used to call this? A power nap...? He thought fleetingly about the energy pulses, about how one might strike at any moment, but even that wasn’t enough to make him move. I’m too tired to give a shit anymore...

  The world was sideways-on from his perspective now: half-road, half-everything else. He could see the outline of moisture-starved trees, their trunks at ninety degrees to reality, and in places he saw glowing red embers and ash drifting like snow. Snow! Remember that? He could see the kerb he’d tripped up, and when he moved his head slightly he also saw the outline of another building up ahead. He remembered this place. It was a hotel which looked like a castle that Sam’s dad used to point out every time they drove past, always telling them the same damn thing, that he’d heard the Sunday roasts were incredible here and that he’d have to try one someday. And now Steven could see toes. And a pair of sandles. Two short legs.

  ‘You don’t want to be lying down out here, son,’ a voice with a strong Liverpudlian accent said. It took Steven a few seconds to process, the accent catching him off-guard more than the fact there was someone standing next to him.

  ‘I’m fine, thanks,’ he said.

  ‘You don’t look fine.’

  ‘Okay then, I’m not fine. Leave me alone. I’m tired.’

  ‘What if the fire comes?’

  ‘Past caring.’

  ‘Now that’s just stupid. You walk all this way and give up now?’

  ‘How do you know how far I’ve walked?’

  ‘I don’t, but as there’s bugger all round here for miles, it’s a pretty safe bet you’ve walked some distance.’

  Annoyed, Steven sat up. In front of him was a remarkably ordinary-looking middle-aged man. He wore shorts, flip-flops, and an unbuttoned shirt. Was he a mirage, Steven wondered? If he was, he wished he could have imagined something or someone a little more exciting. ‘Give me a break. I’m exhausted.’

  ‘You collapsed,’ the man said.

  ‘I just fell asleep.’

  ‘Well here’s not the place, lad. And like I said, you didn’t fall asleep, you collapsed. We were watching you.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘Me and the missus. Sandra.’

  Steven looked around. He couldn’t see anyone else. Shit, was this a trick? A trap? He panicked and scrambled to his feet, thinking this diminutive man might be a decoy, and that he might be about to be mugged, beaten up by a gang. Then he relaxed. He almost laughed but he sobbed instead. He had nothing left worth taking, and besides, it seemed that pretty much everything was worthless now. ‘So where is she?’

  The man gestured towards the gothic-looking hotel behind him. ‘In there. We were trying to drive home, then what happened happened. The car stopped and I couldn’t get it going again. It’s just up the road. We’re lucky. We’d only passed this place a few minutes before.’

  ‘Convenient.’

  ‘You’re telling me. Don’t know what we’d have done otherwise. There’s no way we’ll get anywhere near home until we can get the car started again, so we thought we’d set ourselves up here for a while. There’s just the two of us. Everyone else cleared out by the looks of things.’

  ‘I don’t reckon you’ll be getting your car started again.’

  The man looked down at his flip-flops. ‘No, lad, me neither.’

  ‘How come there’s no one else here?’

  ‘How am I supposed to know? Has the heat made you soft? They’re all gone and we’re stuck here, that’s all there is to it. Now are you coming indoors or not?’

  ‘Got to keep going.’

  ‘In your state? Where you heading?’

  ‘Criccieth. You know it?’

  He nodded. ‘You’ve a good walk yet.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘You’ll be lucky to get there by morning.’ He looked Steven up and down. ‘Come to mention it, from the state of you I reckon you’ll be lucky to get there at all.’

  ‘Just need a rest. I’ll be all right.’

  ‘I doubt any of us’ll be all right, lad.’ The man looked nervous at being out in the open. He started back towards the hotel. Steven tried to walk on but overbalanced and lost his footing like a clumsy drunk. He felt the man take his arm. ‘You’ll not make another mile like this. Come on, come inside for a while. It’s not safe out here.’

  ‘I need to go...’ Steven said and he tried to take a few more steps forward but failed miserably.

  ‘You need to rest. I’m sure you have you reasons for wanting to be where you want to be, lad, but you’re exhausted. Come have some food with us.’

  Steven stopped fighting. The man took his rucksack from him and led him towards the hotel.

  ✽✽✽

  ‘This is Sandra, my better half,’ he said, introducing the exhausted-looking woman sitting in an armchair in the hotel bar. The dancing light of a solitary candle made her look older than she was. ‘I’m Roger. Sand, this is...?’

  ‘Steven,’ he said, still just standing there, barely able to function.

  Sandra got up and gestured for Steven to take her place. He looked like he needed the seat more than she did. He sunk into the unexpected luxury, revelling in its softness. He’d been on his feet so long he felt like he was floating. ‘Can I get you something to drink, love?’ she asked. ‘Are you hungry?’

  ‘Starving. Can you spare anything?’

  Sandra and Roger exchanged glances. Roger explained. ‘We don’t know what happened here, Steven, but everyone was long gone when we arrived. They’d taken plenty, but there’s still more than enough stuff for the two of us in the kitchens.’ He sat down next to Steven and leaned closer. ‘Look, I know we’re all in a sticky situation, but this place is the best of a bad deal by my reckoning. We’ve landed on our feet here. There’s no one here but us. I know you want to move on, but you should think about staying. It’s getting pretty unpleasant out there...’

  Sandra was leaning against a pillar, watching. ‘I could think of far worse places to be when...’ she started to say before her voice trailed away, unable to finish her sentence. She dabbed at her eyes with a tissue and disappeared into another room, feeling her way through the evening gloom. Her husband watched her shuffle away.

  ‘She’s really struggling,’ he said. ‘We both are. We all are.’

  ‘I can’t stay,’ Steven said, his voice a dry croak. He thought he sounded about seventy. ‘I appreciate the offer and all, but I have to get to Criccieth...’

  Roger put his hand on his arm. ‘I understand, lad. Like I said, though, you need to get your strength back before you go anywhere, otherwise I doubt you’ll make it much further down the road.’

  Sandra returned from the kitchen, carrying a tray and moving even slower than before. Roger got up and dragged another chair over. Steven laughed involuntarily. ‘What’s so funny?’ Sandra asked, confused.

  ‘Old habits die hard,’ he said.

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  He gestured around them. ‘You’ve set the chairs around the fireplace. Bit pointless.’

  ‘So we have,’ Roger laughed. ‘Well would you look at that! Didn’t give it a moment’s thought.’

  Sandra passed Steven several small, individually wrapped packets of biscuits and a couple of bottles of fruit juice. He thanked her then drained the first bottle quickly. ‘You sure you can spare all this?’ he said, his voice a little stronger.

  ‘There’s plenty more,’ Roger explained. ‘Like I said, there’s just us two here. More than enough.’

  ‘We’ve got boxes and boxes of cheese and onion
crisps,’ Sandra added. ‘You should take some with you when you leave. Neither of us likes them very much. Roger won’t eat anything other than ready salted.’

  ‘Fact is, lad,’ Roger said, ‘I’m starting to think we might not need much more than enough for a couple of days.’

  Sandra began crying again. Steven tore the wrapper from a packet of biscuits with his teeth. ‘This is all very much appreciated. Thank you both. This is the first food I’ve had to eat since first thing, I think.’ And he kept eating, forcing as much as he could down his throat, all the time aware that his dehydrated body would probably make him pay for this sudden influx of chemicals and calories after being starved for so long. He didn’t care.

  It took him a while to realise they were both staring at him. He stopped and looked up, then looked down again, trying to hide his sudden unease. What was really going on here? Nightmare scenarios began running through his mind... were Sandra and Roger murderers, cannibals or rapists? Maybe all three? Or were they just a couple of ordinary folk trying to deal with a situation which was anything but ordinary? He tried to be subtle with his questions. ‘Why are you here?’

  ‘Told you,’ Roger answered quickly. ‘The car gave out just up the road. Sand’s got a gammy leg. We’d never have been able to get anywhere on foot. Why?’