by Tim Lebbon
I had smiled at his bad language, but he barely noticed.
“That all seemed so important until recently,” he said, shaking his head slowly. He winced. We all knew he was still in pain, though he had mostly stopped complaining. His eyes were bruising, his nose swollen and caked with dried blood, the gash on his forehead raw. But he’d denied that anything was really wrong. It can’t be, he’d said. It just can’t be wrong, because I have to look after you all. So it isn’t. It’s all fine.
I had also talked to him about Mum, how she was, and how I was afraid that she was slowly losing herself.
“She saw something terrible,” he said. “And the thing is… you’re supposed to see your parents get ill and die before you. Take to their sick bed, wither away, all their family around them. Either that or you go to visit them one day and they’re dead on the floor. The end of their story should be ordered, predictable. Full of love, if possible. Not like that. Not like Lynne went. And I know a bit about what she’s feeling because of how my own mum and dad died.” He looked aside, as if embarrassed to bring up the accident.
Now in the cold light of day, the journey before us seemed greater than ever. Dad hoped that we’d make at least ten miles a day, and we all agreed that we had to be there by Christmas. It was a notional date, one that meant nothing really. But it gave us a marker. We had a little under three weeks.
A car would make the journey in three or four hours.
We considered bikes, but squealing brakes and noisy falls were too great a risk. Besides, Jude had never really taken to bike riding in a big way. Even if we could find something suitable for him, we might only make a few miles before he grew tired or fell off. Jude, bless him, mentioned electric cars, and for a moment Dad’s eyes lit up. But the trouble was finding one. They needed recharging frequently. And they still weren’t completely silent.
So we were walking. Sometimes we cut across the countryside, following public footpaths and trying to avoid areas turned marshy in the heavy winter rains. Other times we stuck to country lanes if we could, although Dad reckoned we might eventually be able to try a main road, just to see how dangerous it was.
The sun was low, but already at its highest point. It was almost midday. Soon it would be the shortest day of the year.
* * *
Huw wasn’t sure just how badly he had been hurt. His nose was clotted with dried blood, and if he tried to pick it away it caused waves of agony. Even touching his nose or the area around it brought intense discomfort. So he breathed through his mouth. That drew cool air over his chipped teeth, and he became painfully aware that one of them was badly damaged, the nerve exposed and singing with every breath. He grimaced and accepted it. It was only pain. It wasn’t actually damaging him, it was alerting him to damage already done. He would forget what it felt like. It didn’t matter. It was only pain.
But the agony of broken teeth, smashed nose, split lip and gashed forehead were only the aperitifs to what might be the real damage. His whole head felt odd, as if someone had jumped on it, jumbled up the bits, and then glued them clumsily back into place. His eyes no longer felt level. He saw better out of his left eye than his right. It could have been his reaction to the pain, he knew, a blurring of vision and skewing of awareness. And the headache that pounded in again and again and refused to shift was hardly a surprise. He’d hit the edge of the door at full pelt, and it was like being hit in the face with a sledgehammer.
But perhaps it was worse than that. He knew that Kelly was aware, and the kids also looked at him strangely now and then, as if expecting him to do something weird. He’d have to keep a watch on it himself.
Ally and Kelly shared taking the lead, and he was happy to follow. This strange new world quickly became smothering in its silence and stillness, and he noticed how Jude was very keen to hold hands with him or Kelly.
The only sound they heard was an occasional breeze breathing across the landscape, rustling trees and bushes. They passed the lake and headed up a steep lane towards a low ridge. There were abandoned vehicles in several places, some neatly parked, some left in a hurry.
They also saw people. Small groups, normally, spotted on distant hillsides or across fields. Sometimes they would wave, more often not. Huw was aware of these other groups’ caution reflecting their own, and he never made any suggestion that they should join up with anyone. The larger the group, the more chance of noise. He felt sad at that, and wondered how such caution might develop over the coming weeks and months. Perhaps caution would mutate into mistrust, and a time would come when strangers were the enemy.
He hoped not. But these were new times, and the future was difficult to predict.
Close to sunset, over the ridge and heading down into a wide valley with a much larger lake a few miles distant, they witnessed a horrifying demonstration of the true risks they still faced.
There were maybe fifteen people in the group, and right from the beginning Huw thought it was too many. It was Jude who saw them, pointing left to where two roads joined in a T-junction. The group were following the road, and at the junction they paused and seemed to take stock. They were maybe a mile distant, partly hidden behind rubble walls and dwarfed by the landscape. If it weren’t for their bright clothing they probably would not have been visible at all.
Huw and his family soon wished they had not laid eyes on them.
They didn’t hear the sound that gave the group away. But vesps rose from all around, drifted down the hillside from above, dropped from the darkening sky, and soon the screams came, the running figures, the waving hands and fleeing shapes as the group split. Under attack they spread over the walls and into the fields, some trying to outrun the vesps, others hunkering down in the hope that they would be passed by.
There must have been a hundred vesps, drawn by the screams. There were several gunshots, muffled by distance and echoing across the hillside. But the chaos did not last for long.
Everyone fell. Vesps rose, circled and came down again, and more streamed in from the surrounding countryside. Huw watched horrified as a small figure ran alone down the hill, climbing over several walls as it went. He could not tell whether it was a boy or girl, but they ran with the familiar gait of a toddler—legs moving fast, arms waving.
He was about to tell his family they had to do something when the shape tripped and fell.
Maybe they cried out in pain or terror. Or perhaps they had been unlucky enough to trip over a roosting vesp. Whatever the reason, they never rose again.
Jude and Ally watched wide-eyed. Kelly had long since buried her face against Huw’s neck, desperate not to see.
And then Huw had to nudge her, because there was one survivor.
He stood upright amongst the chaos. Vesps still circled, but the man stood alone beside the road and turned a full circle, so slowly, witnessing what had become of his group. Family or friends, perhaps both, perhaps only people he’d hooked up with in an effort to survive, the sight of their torn bodies was too much for him.
Even from this far away, the silent landscape meant that they heard him begin to shout.
* * *
I was shaking. I could feel a pressure building around us, a need for rest, a desire to be close together and talking, communicating. Jude looked strongest out of us all, but Mum’s attention seemed to be drifting, and Dad was in pain. I could see it in every step he took. He was holding it in and being brave, but he stumbled a couple of times, kicking at the ground.
Jude froze both times, and I knew that we were making too much noise.
I spotted a hotel from some way off. It looked deserted; no lights on, no sign of movement, and I hoped we would be the only ones there. We’d only need one room, and access to the kitchens for food and drink. It wasn’t much to ask.
I led the way, Jude brought up the rear, and just as it was becoming too dark to move safely we climbed the steep slope into the hotel car park.
The front door stood open, yet inside we were alone. The hotel
seemed to have been used recently—muddy boot prints had dried on the reception carpets, and a few pieces of hiking equipment were scattered around. It was an old place, characterful without being scruffy, the small lobby’s walls lined with local artwork and a couple of comfortable leather sofas. One alcove held a couple of shelves of books on the area, and a big fish tank. The fish were floating, dead. I went closer and saw what might have been fighting scars on some of them. I didn’t know if tropical fish would eat each other if there was no alternative source of food. I didn’t really want to know.
There was still a board of room keys behind the reception. I was pleased they hadn’t gone the way of electronic door locks.
There was a vesp squatting motionless on the reception desk. I might have been able to creep past it and lift a key from a hook, but this close it would only have taken one scrape of metal against metal, one nudge of my boot against wood. We stared at each other, none of us able to come up with a plan. Maybe we can break into a room, I thought. Or we could find a couple of rooms open and barricade the door when we’re inside, or—
Jude moved quickly but calmly, in complete control. He hefted the broom handle with the knife he’d been carrying since the cottage, stepped forward, and impaled the creature with one hard stab. He lifted it from the desk and pressed it into the junction between desk and floor, leaning forward with one hard jarring motion. The creature’s head almost parted from its body. Blood flowed. It stank.
I looked around at my family in a panic, ready to run or fight if the vesp had let out a call to its brethren. But Mum closed her eyes and nodded at me, and Dad only looked proud.
I turned to Jude and gave him a gentle fist-bump. He pretended to flex his biceps.
Still moving carefully, I stepped behind the desk and lifted a key from its hook. My family followed me through swing doors into one of the downstairs corridors. All the doors were closed. I tried a light switch, but, as I’d expected, nothing happened, so we used a torch to light the way to our room. I tried the door first, just to make sure that it had not been left open and let in a vesp. Then I turned the key and we went inside.
The room was a double, big enough for us all to sit down and take the weight from our legs. We must have covered ten miles that day, maybe more, and I was pleased at the sense of progress.
As I sat on the bed and opened the iPad, the others huddled around behind me. I liked the sense of closeness, the faint scent of sweat emanating from Dad, my brother’s constant fidgeting. We had survived one more day together, and that was a good thing.
“Seventeen per cent,” I whispered as I opened the folding screen. “Not long left.”
We looked at what was happening to the world, and none of it was good.
* * *
Dad wanted to go and find the kitchens, but I insisted that he stay. There was still running water in the little en suite, and he needed to try and clean up his bloodied nose. It had been too painful to attempt in the big holiday home the previous night, and we had been too upset.
“You help Dad,” I whispered to Jude, taking him aside, “and keep an eye on him.” I wasn’t trying to make Jude feel responsible. It was genuine. I thought that Dad looked ready to drop, and my little brother was in charge.
Mum brought the shotgun.
The sun had set, and it was a strange, spooky experience walking along the hotel corridor by torchlight. So many doors. So many shadows.
We found the small dining room and moved through towards the kitchens, and that was when we saw the people. Three of them, frozen like statues beside the breakfast buffet counters, one carrying what might have been a hunting rifle. I caught my breath, torch aimed slightly down so as not to dazzle them.
One of them, a woman, raised her hand in greeting, and I responded. Then the woman nodded towards one of the kitchen doors, and Mum and I started walking again.
There were vesps in the dining room. I could only see two but that probably meant there were more hidden away. We could not risk trying to communicate with anyone.
When we were through the doors and in the kitchen, I saw two more people. They were not together; they moved cautiously around each other almost as if the other were not there. They both looked up and nodded, glancing at Mum’s shotgun and looking away again. They were gathering food. Ours was not the only occupied room in the hotel that night.
It was a surreal few minutes. No one moved too close to anyone else, and we all took polite turns visiting the well-stocked larders. Mum went, leaving me leaning against a large oven and trying not to catch the strangers’ eyes. It would be too awkward. They could not talk, and the chance of any of them being able to sign was remote.
I wondered what it would be like if this situation was repeated in a few weeks or months, when food was short and the world had moved on, deeper into the Grey and further away from civilisation. I hoped that it would go the same way, but I doubted it. I really doubted it.
Mum returned with a canvas bag of food and we left the kitchen. A woman on her own moved aside to let us through, and I thought for a crazy moment of asking her to join us. But she might be one of a group, and there was no way of telling how many others were with her. I’d seen what happened to larger groups. I caught her eye and she glanced away until we had passed.
The dining room felt so alien, with white tablecloths and places set for dinner, flowers wilted in vases, butter hardened and mouldy in small dishes, drinks glasses gathering dust. Signs of recent times now long gone.
We met no one on the way back to our room, and I felt sad as I closed the door and eased the lock across. Even so close to other people there was a growing distance between us all.
* * *
“Fourteen per cent,” I whispered, and Dad and I stared at the screen. There was nothing either of us wanted to say, and looking further afield at what everyone else was suffering was too painful. So I turned the iPad off and closed the lid, and we settled down to sleep.
* * *
Next morning we left the hotel on our own; there was no sign of the other people we’d seen the previous night. The lobby was silent, dining room as still and haunting in daylight as it had been the night before. For a while I wondered whether we had actually met other people at all.
Dad seemed a little better, brighter, his face less etched with constant pain, and he smiled at me when I asked how he was feeling. There was something about the way he answered that made me feel strange. It was like a child responding to a parent. I led us away from the hotel, and Dad seemed happy to follow.
Within ten minutes of leaving we passed a group of corpses beside the road. They had been dead for a while, the rot had set in, but I could still make out the sparkle of moist vesp eggs nestled in gaping wounds, and a dozen of the creatures sat watch on and around the bodies. A little further along the road were several cars that had been abandoned. One of them had flat tyres. Settling into its final resting place, I thought, and it was a disturbing idea. That car might be there for ever.
At lunchtime we stopped at a small caravan park and sat in the park shop for an hour, using the toilet, eating some of the food we’d brought along. The shop had been cleared out at some point, and there wasn’t much left. But whoever had done it had been careful not to damage the place too much, and there was a pile of ten-pound notes on the counter weighed down with a cricket bat.
I looked at my iPad. There was more talk of vesp-free zones in several places in Europe; cold, high places where snow had already fallen and vesps had become lethargic, easy to kill. There were pictures of piles of vesps being thrown into lakes, and victorious hunters wearing cloth gags over their mouths and waving spiked weapons of many kinds. Cold Kills Them the headline proclaimed, and that phrase had become a trending hashtag all across Twitter, spread through Facebook and the other social media sites.
News sites seemed to confirm the images as genuine.
It gave me something like hope.
* * *
Huw was handling his p
ain better. It was still there, a headache unlike any he had ever experienced, but he was trying to live with it. It was pain management, and he knew that in the future he would have to confront its cause. But there were no hospitals open, no experts with X-rays and MRI machines, and he was on his own. That scared him. But having his family around him lessened the fear.
He lived in hope. Red Rock called. They had a hundred miles to go, and there were other groups moving in the same direction, buoyed by some of the news being flashed across the Internet. Cold Kills Them.
He was sure that around the world there were people working on a solution to the vesps. People in bunkers, as there always were during times of national crisis. Scientists and experts, as well as all those who considered themselves important enough to save. As far as Huw was concerned, the most important people in the world were with him now. Jude held his hand, but mostly just to make sure his dad was all right. Kelly walked close to him, grim-faced yet offering him an occasional smile. With the weight of such danger heavy between them, they were closer than they had been in years.
And Ally led the way. His brave girl, who had already been through and confronted so much, was adapting to these new conditions faster than any of them. Theirs had become the silent world that she had already lived in for so long.
His wife came close and touched his hand. He stroked the back of her neck. They smiled at each other and, voiceless, their smiles spoke volumes.
* * *
That afternoon, with seven per cent charge left on my iPad, the mobile signal disappeared. I waited a while before checking again, moved around a little, but already knew what it meant. The others watched. Jude seemed unconcerned, but my parents understood. One more layer of isolation, one more step back. The Grey had grown several shades darker.
* * *
One per cent… and then that’s it. I’ll probably still carry the iPad with me, just in case we find somewhere to charge it. Maybe the power will come back on one day, and perhaps the mobile network masts will fire up again. But there’s a cold winter to get through first, and when we come out on the other side—and we will, I have no doubt of that—it will be into a whole new world. But that’s the future.
