“We need to,” said Grimes. “We have to try.”
“My son’s at the other end of this country!” screamed Richard.
Nobody spoke. I looked up from where I was crouching. His arm was extended high above me, one long skeletal finger black against the sky, pointing south down the splintered road.
Things became dream-like, I suppose, although I have never had a dream so clear. Every thought and every action was slow and separate from the last, like the world had gently untangled itself for me, just for a few moments, to show me how it all worked. This happens, see? Then this, and then this, and then you do this…
I allowed my gaze to follow the direction of Richard’s gnarled finger, then saw the wordless signpost again, pointing the same way. Then I looked down at the lace in my hands. I slowly began working its frayed ends through the top hoops of my boot.
I looped the laces around my ankles once and tied them in a double knot. I undid my right lace and did the same with that. Then I stood up. I tightened my pack, tightened the zip on my jacket, felt the steel can against my chest.
I walked past Richard and Grimes. Bryce and Harvey looked at me curiously. The wind began to blow furiously around me, as if it had realised what I was about to do, even though I had not.
You have to understand, you see, this wasn’t a choice. I hadn’t weighed up the options, I hadn’t considered the practicalities, I hadn’t reached a logical conclusion. What happened next was not because of my own volition, not because I had found some hidden well of courage and determination. It happened because…well, I can’t tell you exactly why it happened. Perhaps it happened only because I let it happen.
I shall say this again: I hated running.
I picked my way through the wreckage. Then I began to run.
Some memories of my childhood.
I had a collection of Star Wars figures which I played with endlessly. My parents couldn’t afford to buy me as many as some of the other boys in the village, so when I was treated to a new one, I spent a long time deciding which one to choose from the display in the toy shop. Lacking the appropriate vehicles and combinations of characters to recreate scenes from the films, I created an entirely new universe in which Yoda was a vengeful dictator, Stormtroopers defected regularly and Darth Vader helped Han Solo overcome his terrible disfigurement at the hands of his deranged Wookie and joined him in his ceaseless fight against plasticine Kraken in giant seas.
My favourite figure was the Gamorrean guard. He was a green, hog-like creature with large upward-pointing tusks, steel armour, animal-hide clothing and a thick, heavy axe. In my universe, he was vastly more intelligent than his clansmen and questioned the system to which he belonged. His disillusionment forced him one night to abandon his sentry and head off for the sand hills of Tatooine, where he lived his life as a recluse. He was my friend and I took him everywhere with me.
One Saturday morning, I was halfway on my way home for lunch when I realised he had fallen from my pocket while playing at the stream that ran through the village. I ran back in panic and began wading up and down in my wellies, searching through the rocks and small rapids where I had been crouched. I became more and more frantic, this being the worst thing in the world my eight-year-old self could imagine happening at the time. I stumbled about, letting water into my boots as I trawled the cold water and scrabbled about in the stones beneath the surface. I couldn’t find him. He had been swept away.
Deep, deep loss. I ran home crying and fell into my mother’s arms with bubbles of snot popping from my nostrils as I wailed at her, explaining what had happened.
I was inconsolable for the rest of the day and most of the next. But, on Sunday evening, after my bath, I found a paper bag wrapped up in my pyjamas. Inside was a brand new Gamorrean guard figure with a little note from my father saying “Shhhhh! Dad.”
There was a tree in the village - a gnarled, ancient Yew that stood on a small green by the school. It was easily climbable with a natural, deep seat where the trunk split into its two main branches. One day two other boys and I found a pornographic magazine hidden in the seat. As young boys, there was no other option available to us but to read it. We were just reaching the end of a spread featuring a hairless couple having intercourse with their vests on when we heard a noise from the road below. We looked down to see a girl called Amy looking up at us. Amy was fifteen and deaf. She had a small white dog on a lead. I don’t know how she knew what we were doing, but she was clearly wise to us. She started making angry noises, the half-strangled moans and growls of profoundly deaf speech for which we all made fun of her. Then she started throwing her hands up, shouting and gesturing for us to get down. Her dog barked up at us. One of us started laughing and I joined in, then we jumped down from the tree and threw the magazine at her feet. We ran off whooping as she yelled behind us. I remember looking back and seeing her looking sadly down at the tattered, grubby pages, her dog sniffing them.
I remember kicking a tennis ball against the wall of my house and building up complicated rules and scores based upon the number of volleys and half-volleys I could manage in a single rally, where I could place the ball on the wall, how high I could bounce it, which objects I could hit with it and in which order. The end result saw me running wildly along the wall of the house, positioning myself in stranger and stranger positions to achieve the most complex shots with the greatest rewards. Occasionally, without warning, certain points became special in that they led magically to some real-world reward. If you get more than five volleys and manage to hit the sixth of the gutter and catch it in your left hand, Emily Dixon will fall in love with you. The rules evolved over an entire summer and only I knew them.
I remember running downstairs to the smell of mince and the sound of pips on the radio.
I remember sprinting upstairs to the toilet when the adverts came on during The A-Team, flushing the chain halfway through and racing it to the end, then leaping down the stairs again, running across the living room floor and diving over the top of the sofa. I had to be sat down before the last beat of the music to the first advert or something bad would happen.
I remember walking our dog one November morning before school and hearing my sister’s voice calling me back across the field, then running back with the dog through the frozen mist because Adam Ant was playing on the radio.
I remember my ninth birthday, being told to go to the garden shed, then running down to find a BMX shining against the back wall.
These things are all gone now. Not just in my time, but in possibility too. But I remember them, I remember running, running everywhere without thought. And yet I don’t remember actually running. Not the effort of it. I remember lightness, I remember speed, I remember the Earth seeming to bounce beneath me as if it were a giant balloon that I could push away from me with my bare feet. I don’t remember stiff, slow limbs or tight lungs or the feeling of concrete pounding through my bones.
Somewhere along the line, gravity had overtaken me.
Less than a minute after I had begun to run, I heard shouts from behind. I couldn’t make out the words but they came from Bryce first, with some cold laughter, then Richard and Grimes together. Then, when I failed to respond, silence followed by worried murmurs. The road I was on was long and straight. Snow was drifting at its sides and coating the devastation caused by whatever had happened on either side of it. I could still see the ridges and potholes of the shattered tarmac but, other than that, I was running south on an empty highway.
Pain arrived instantly. Whatever had pushed me - or pulled me - to start running, whether it was instinct, desperation or spirit, I was still a physical thing; I was my body. And my body didn’t want this. My body wanted nothing to do with this. By the time I could no longer hear the shouts behind me, my chest had started to squeeze in on itself. My fists tightened, my arms drew in and I found that I was looking across my brow to see the road ahead.
My legs started to ache. I felt as if I was being pulled down unde
r the earth, as if I would buckle at any moment like a plastic bottle crushed under the weight of an ocean, and disappear beneath the snow like dust.
I kept running. There was still nothing that you might call thought going on in my head, just two wordless drives spinning in each other’s orbits like opposite particles.
Go. Stop. Go. Stop.
I had time to register this on some level, and then realise that the road on which I was running seemed to be changing, before I heard something behind me. Footsteps. Too light to be Bryce’s, too short to be Richard’s. Grimes?
I heard a voice in my right ear, warm and cracked like a tin plate.
“That’s not the way.”
I glanced over my shoulder. Harvey was behind me, padding softly through the snow. He smiled at me.
“What?” I said between breaths.
“I said, that’s not the way.” He spoke naturally, without breath or effort, as if he were taking a stroll. He ran up beside me.
“What do you mean?” I said, trying to swallow, get some spit in my dry throat. “I’m not going back. Like Richard said, my family are this way.”
“I mean that’s not the way to run,” said Harvey. He pointed down at my feet. “Striding like that, trying to anyway. Your feet are landing too far in front of you.”
“What?” I spluttered.
“Look at them,” he said. “Go on. Look at them and feel what they’re doing.”
I looked down. I saw and felt what I always saw and felt when I tried to run: one leg stretched out and landed with a thud as far as it could ahead of me. While the impact travelled painfully up my shin, thigh and spine, the other one trailed behind loosely, curled up beneath my body and then took over by stretching ahead again, repeating the process.
“Striding,” he said. “You’re trying to pull the road under you, trying to turn the earth with your heels.”
I turned and looked at him. He had his pack on like me. His wide face was clear of pain. He smiled back at me.
“The planet’s much bigger than you, son,” he said. “It’s not going to work.”
I stared back at him, unable to think or say anything useful.
“Look,” he said. “Think of it this way: you’re turning a flat road into an uphill climb. You should be turning it into a descent. Look at my feet. They never go past my waist. They only take little steps. It’s like I’m falling - see, that’s all running is, controlled falling.”
He nodded to himself contentedly as if he’d just come to some satisfying conclusion. Then he took a deep breath through his nose. He bounced along next to me in the mist, his footsteps like feathers against my clumsy, pounding hammers. His smile never left his face.
“What…” I said, still struggling for breath, still feeling gravity haul me into the ground. “How do you know so much about running?”
Harvey ignored me and nodded down the road.
“Long way to Cornwall,” he said. “What did Richard say? Four hundred miles? Five?”
The numbers hit me hard. Not because I had not considered how far it would be to travel the length of the country on foot - as I said, I had not considered or decided anything - but because of how far Beth, Arthur and Alice were away from me. I felt the cord tighten again and I stumbled to a halt, bent over double.
“I’m not going back,” I said. “There’s nothing…back there.” I was struggling to speak.
“Slow down, mate,” said Harvey. “Easy, take your time.”
“There is no time,” I said. “There is no time. We’re probably already too late.”
“Then why did you start running?”
Just then I heard more footsteps behind us. I looked around to see Bryce, Richard and Grimes running towards us. As they drew near I saw the looks of concern on their faces. Concern tempered by just the tiniest trace of something else: interest, or maybe a kind of appalled respect.
Suddenly Bryce released an almighty roar as he fell to the ground.
“Ow! Fuck! Ow!” he yelled, clutching his leg. Grimes and Richard caught up and stopped.
“What happened?” said Richard, kneeling down next to him. Grimes took off her pack and started rummaging around inside.
“My ankle,” he said. “I didn’t see a pothole. Went over on it.” He straightened up to a sitting position and stretched out his leg. Grimes pulled out a torch and shone it down on Bryce’s boot. Flakes of snow danced in its beam.
“Broken?” she said.
“Nah…” said Bryce. He loosened the lace and put an exploratory hand down inside. “Don’t think so.”
Grimes reached out a hand and helped Bryce to his feet. He winced as he put weight on foot, then wiggled it and tried again.
“It’s OK,” he said. “I’m alright, just twisted it.”
He turned to look at me.
“Are you fucking serious?” said Bryce.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I wasn’t thinking…I…”
“Bloody right,” said Harvey quietly, just to me. “Not thinking. Maybe you should do some more of that.”
“Ed’s right,” said Richard.
“No, I’m not,” I said. “I’m not right, like I say, I wasn’t thinking. I just panicked.”
“No, you didn’t,” said Richard. “You just did what the rest of us were thinking. This is the only way we’ll make it to Cornwall.”
“Speak for yourself!” spluttered Bryce. “Running? Are you out of your fuckin minds?”
Grimes worked her jaw, thinking. “We can’t walk safely on these roads at night, we’ve already seen what happens.” She motioned to Bryce’s ankle. “Even when the sun rises, the cloud cover’s too thick. It’s mid-morning by the time you can see anything properly.”
“And it’s dark before sunset as well,” said Richard.
“So we get about five or six hours of light to move by,” said Grimes.
“To do twenty miles in five hours, we need to do more than just walk.”
“So we alternate,” said Richard. “We run a few miles, then walk a few.”
Grimes nodded. “That’ll work.”
“Are you serious?” I said.
“Makes sense on paper,” said Grimes.
“Twenty miles, every day, for three weeks,” I said to myself.
“Agreed,” said Richard. “Now let’s get through this shit heap and find shelter. Get some sleep. We need to rest if we’re going to…”
“Run to Cornwall?” Bryce boomed. “Is that what we’re doing now?” He looked around at us, open handed, awaiting a response. “Just so I know. Anybody?”
Richard stared at him for a while.
“That’s right,” he said. “But right now, we walk.”
He pulled on his pack and headed south.
We hit another pile-up soon afterwards. It took us an hour to clamber through the jumble of mud, stone and metal and find the tarmac again. By that time it was fully dark, so we walked a little in the light of Grimes’ torch until we found an overturned lorry. The red canopy of its trailer was half torn away and some of its cargo had spilled out onto the road. We pulled open some of the boxes, disappointed to find them filled with stationery.
“This will have to do us,” said Grimes. “We can make a fire from the paper. How’s everyone doing for water?”
“I’m pretty much out,” I said.
“Me too,” said Bryce.
“Right,” said Grimes. “There was a sign back there for services about a mile ahead. I’m going to go and see what’s what. There might still be some supplies there, water in the pipes at least.”
“I’ll come with you,” said Richard.
Grimes paused. “OK,” she said. “You three can stay here and get the fire going.”
“Sir, yes sir,” said Bryce, flipping a salute and sitting down on a crate of ballpoint pens.
Richard and Grimes left. Harvey and I searched the depths of the trailer for the driest paper and brought it out to the entrance. I kicked at the wooden floor until a pie
ce broke away, then I prised it back. A rat shot out from beneath, squeaking and running over my arm. I yelled and fell back on the floor as it scuttled out of the trailer.
“You alright?” called Harvey from outside. “Oh, hello little fella.”
“Yep,” I said. “Just a rat.”
“A rat?” said Bryce. He frowned and ran a hand down his beard. I could tell what he was thinking; I was hungry too. He stood up and walked past me, disappearing into the darkness of the overturned trailer.
I got to my feet and tugged at the wood until it broke off, then lugged it out to the fire that Harvey had started with the paper and Bryce’s lighter. There was a lot of smoke, but it was warm. Harvey and I sat close to it as Bryce hammered and stomped about inside.
“Reckon they’ll find anything?” said Harvey. “Richard and Grimes?”
I shook my head. “Doubt it,” I said. “We passed a service station two miles back with a van sticking out of its roof. I could see inside. It was empty, stripped clean.”
We heard some shouts from Bryce, things falling, then a pause, silence, some loud banging and a whoop of victory. Seconds later he appeared with a proud grin and two fat rats hanging by their tails from his fist. He dropped them by the fire and lit a cigarette.
“Dinner,” he said.
We ate the rats. They weren’t good. When we’d finished, Harvey got up and went into the trailer for more paper. When he was out of earshot, I turned to Bryce.
“Do you think we can do this?” I said. “With Harvey I mean. Do you think he’ll be able to manage it?”
“You saw him today,” said Bryce. “He was barely out of breath.” He looked me up and down in the same way he had done when we had met over whisky. “What about you?” he said. “Will you manage it?”
Harvey appeared, smiling, carrying a few packets of A4 paper. “I can hear you, you know,” he said, tapping his ear. “I’m not deaf.” He tossed a stack of paper onto the fire and his eyes began to twinkle in the growing flames.
“Did I ever tell you I used to be a postie?” he said.
The End of the World Running Club Page 22
