Project - 16 (21 page)

“
Oh,” she said. “He didn't look like he wanted it
anyway.”

As we reached the other side I thought I heard something
behind us. Piotr must have thought the same thing because we both
stopped in our tracks and turned, looking at each other.

“
You hear that?” I asked. He nodded.

“
It came from up there,” said Riley, dropping her pack and
lifting her rifle to her shoulder. She stared down the scope at the
break in the hedge that we'd come through earlier, easing off the
safety and chambering a round. Piotr began working his own rifle
whilst I was still looking at the slope. “Do you want to hazard a
guess?” she asked me.

“
Dogs.”

“
Spread out,” she said, walking towards the nearest car and
stepping up onto its bonnet. “No point running.”

I dropped my gear and unwrapped my rifle, letting the case
fall to the floor. Then I ran down the line of traffic and got on
top of another car, my cleats scratching the metal as I clambered
up. Piotr was on Riley's left about eight cars down from her,
aiming at the slope as the first animal appeared.

It's gaunt frame padded out of the break in the hedge and
stopped, staring down at us with eyes that glowed green in the
reflected sunlight. Riley fired immediately. The dog's head
exploded in a spray of blood and bone and its corpse rolled down
the slope and landed at the bottom.

Straight away six others burst from the hedge and sprinted
down the slope after it, leaping across the first row of rusting
heaps. Riley dropped to her knee, aimed and fired, killing one
whilst Piotr managed to wound another. I raised my rifle, sighted
the nearest and missed my first shot. I turned in time to catch one
running directly at me and I fired again, blowing its chest wide
open.

I saw Riley sling her rifle to give her arms the freedom she
needed to draw her pistol. She killed the two nearest her with
well-drilled double-taps of the trigger. Piotr clubbed another with
the stock of his weapon, following it down to the floor and
stamping on its skull. I'd been the lucky one so far - only having
to contend with the single animal whilst the others had bee-lined
for Riley.

“
All clear?” she called out.

“
Clear,” said Piotr.

“
Yeah, clear - I think,” I replied, jumping down to look at
the remains of my kill. The creature was little more than skin
pulled tight across a bony frame. I moved its head with the toe of
my boot and saw its mouth had only a few yellow teeth in
it.

“
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.”