The End of the World Running Club (21 page)

It was light when I walked back to the hotel. Yuill was already awake and met me at the door with a nod. Everyone else was asleep. I tried, but couldn’t. My legs were twitching again.

We were into our third day and the helicopter was officially late. We spent the time alternating shifts, keeping warm, eating and sleeping, although I could barely close my eyes without falling into the same dream: little legs cycling through the blue water above me, three shapes growing smaller and smaller as I sank deep into darkness. If I did sleep it was for only minutes at a time. I woke up with a gargled cry, my face creased into a frown, my limbs tense.

By mid-afternoon Henderson was back on watch with Harvey. The snow had stopped and Bryce, Richard and I had decided to do something about the bodies outside, if only so that we were spared the view on our journeys to and from the ridge.

We started with the ones slumped against walls and sprawled in the street. These were the easy ones. We were grateful for the freezing temperature and kept their faces down where possible. Then we took the bodies lying out of windows or doors. These were more difficult as they required manipulation. All of them had died dressed in night clothes suitable for a heatwave, some not dressed in much at all. Our thick army surplus gloves protected us from feeling much definition, and the snow and ice hid much of what would have been visible, but we couldn’t escape from the sound. We spoke loudly about anything until we had dragged them all to the ditch behind the road and rolled them in.

There was a small body which we had all avoided. It lay curled around the base of a post box and was mostly skeleton. Bryce eventually took it, wordlessly, wrapping it in a tattered sheet he found in the back of a car. He carried it across and bent down over the ditch, laying it carefully on top of the others. Richard and I watched from a distance, wondering at this unusual act of care as much as at the horror of the whole afternoon. When he had finished, we brushed earth and snow over them all with our boots.
 

Then we looked up at the telegraph woman.

She was no longer dangling. The temperature had frozen her into a solid flag of bone and fabric. Her free leg stuck out in a grisly right-angled semaphore. Both arms reached for the ground, her inverted nightgown covering everything but the bones of her hands. One of them was gnarled into a fist. The other was half closed apart from a single finger, which seemed to be pointing.

“How do you think she got up there?” I said.

Richard scanned the houses behind.

“From that one probably,” he said, pointing up at a large window that had been burst apart. Behind the window and in front of the earth, which packed the room like every other along the street, was an upended metal bed frame.

“Flew through the window, caught her foot, hit the brick on the way,” he said. “Probably unconscious or dead by the time she hit the wire.”

He stepped up to the telegraph pole and looked it up and down. He placed a hand against the wood and tried it. It rocked a little but it was still firm. He stood back and assessed the house next door.

“We could try climbing that wall,” he said. “Loop a rope around the pole, shimmy across and…”

A large rock sailed across the top of the wire and landed in a gutter.
 

“Oof ya…” said Bryce. I turned in time to see him launching a second. This one hit the wire near the woman’s foot and span to the ground. “Go on ya bastard...” he said.
 

Richard raised his eyebrows. “Or that,” he said.

We went to work in the rubble. Richard went for smaller, sharper bricks which he threw with speed and spin - I imagined he was no stranger to fast-bowling. Bryce stuck with the larger bricks that he hurled at the wire like a shot-putter. My approach evolved into a basketball-style upwards push, my plan being for the bricks to drop down upon the wire, dislodging the woman’s foot from above. Most of them fell short; Bryce’s crashed into the roofs and Richard’s whistled by the wire like bullets. We cheered whenever there was a direct hit. We were like boys doing something they shouldn’t in a place they shouldn’t be.

Eventually Bryce gave up with his method and copied mine. He chose bigger and bigger chunks of masonry, at last finding a ten-brick slab in the wreckage and dragging it to the road.

“Watch out, boys,” he said. Richard’s last stone flew wildly away and we both stood back. Bryce hauled the brickwork onto his chest and braced himself. He stood for a second like a weight-lifter preparing for a jerk, but instead he took two steps back, then three forward, ending in an almighty thrust that sent the bricks spinning in a slow, steep arc. They landed directly onto the wire, which bent down and snapped, releasing the woman to the ground in a heap.

We instinctively raised our hands in a cheer, but stopped as the woman’s body rolled over. Her head was exposed now. The bottom part of her face was gone, now just tooth and jawbone, but the top was still covered in some grey flesh. Long strands of silver hair had come loose from a tight bun at the back of her head and trailed down across her furrowed brow. Her eyelids were open. What was left of one eye looked sadly up at us from the ground. A silver cross lay in the snow in front of her, hanging from a chain around her neck.

The wire shook back to position above us, sending soft flakes of snow down upon the woman’s broken body below.  We stood silently for a minute, unable to take our eyes from her face. Eventually Richard stepped forward. I was about to follow when we heard a shout from above. It was Harvey’s voice. Then came Henderson’s, followed by a rumble and creak. We looked up and saw scree falling down the mound. Harvey and Henderson were on their feet. It looked as if Harvey was stamping out the fire, then Henderson had his hands on his shoulders, then another louder rumble sounded from closer to the road. Yuill and Grimes were out on the street now, running. Then halfway up the mound we saw the earth disappear into a huge pit.

Everything began to move quickly. Bryce, Richard and I ran to the other side of the road as the ridge above began to fall. Harvey and Henderson were coming down with it in a tumble of fire, smoke and tarpaulin.

Henderson managed to keep upright and slid down the landslide on his back, kicking with his legs and digging in his arms. Harvey, however, sprawled headfirst and was swallowed by a wave of earth from behind him. His limbs and head surfaced once or twice but by the time he reached the rooftops he was almost completely engulfed. One of his feet protruded vertically, motionless. We climbed up the mound towards it as the dirt settled and Henderson slid safely to a stop.

“Pull him out!” I said. “Dig and pull him out!”

Bryce and I yanked Harvey’s foot as Henderson and Richard ploughed at the loose earth with their hands. A second foot appeared which Yuill and Grimes took hold of. I braced myself against a chimney and we heaved back as Richard and Henderson burrowed deeper. I grabbed a limp and lifeless arm. Grimes found another. With one last heave we pulled on all four limbs and Harvey slid out of the dirt like a newborn calf.

We all fell backwards and slid down the slope to the road. Harvey was lying still on his belly. I spun him over and swept the clods of earth from his face, cleared them from his eyes, mouth and nostrils.

“Harvey!” I shouted, shaking him. “Harvey, are you OK?”

A deep groan started in Harvey’s throat but caught on something. He convulsed into a cough and sprang upright, spitting dirt onto the tarmac.

“Christ!” he shouted, hacking up more dirt and pulling it from his mouth with his fingers. “Fuck me!”

I staggered back, relieved as Richard and Grimes helped Harvey to his feet. They supported him as he bent over with his hands on his knees, retching and cursing.
 

Henderson slid down from the rooftops and stayed by the edge of the road, away from us. He sucked his teeth. I saw him exchange a look with Yuill.

Harvey eventually straightened up and Grimes fed him water from her flask. He swallowed it painfully and blinked, looking around himself. His eyes found Henderson and suddenly shot through with anger.

“You!” he rasped, staggering towards him. “You son of a bitch! You pushed me!”

Henderson sneered down at Harvey and laughed.

“Serious?” he said. He sucked his teeth and tapped his temple. “You’re off your head. I helped you. If it weren’t for me you’d be down in that crater right now.”

“I know a push when I feel one son,” growled Harvey. “I know a push!”

Harvey edged closer to Henderson, shoulders down and fists clenched, like a Jack Russell ready to pounce on a Rottweiler. Henderson stood his ground, twisted his face and shook his head.

“Crazy old man,” he said. “Fucking crazy.”

Bryce and Richard leapt forwards and held Harvey back.

“Easy there buddy,” said Bryce. “Let’s get you inside.”

They led him away to the hotel, patting his back, keeping him close.

“I know a flaming push!” he shouted back.

I looked at Henderson. He winked back and spat into the ground, then brushed past Yuill and walked towards the Land Rover.

Back in the hotel, Richard helped Grimes clean up Harvey. He seemed to have calmed down.

“I’m alright,” he said. “There’s really no need to fuss…”

Bryce watched them from the corner, smoking. He was quiet. He wore an expression I couldn’t place and wouldn’t until a little later.

Yuill paced the floor. It was getting dark.

“It’s been three days now,” I said. “Even if the chopper’s still coming, which I don’t think it is, we’re not safe sitting under that thing. We have to move and find somewhere else to wait - if we should even be waiting any more. I mean, every hour we spend sitting here is another hour closer to the evacuation.”

Yuill considered this for a moment, then nodded.

“It’s too dark to leave now,” he said at last. “We’ll stay one more night and leave in the morning. Henderson and I will take the night shift, everyone else get some rest.”

“Just keep that bastard away from me,” said Harvey. “Where is he anyway?”

“Setting up another fire on the road,” said Yuill.

Harvey grunted. “So long as he’s outside,” he said. “I don’t trust him.”

Grimes cooked some packets of rice and dried vegetables, which we ate by candlelight. Yuill took two bowls outside. When I had finished mine I went out to relieve myself at the side of the hotel. I saw Yuill and Henderson eating and talking in the light of a large fire halfway down the street. I couldn’t make out what they were saying, but there was no longer any hint of argument in their voices.

I returned to the hotel and settled down in my chair beneath my blanket. Once again I was sure that sleep would be impossible, but I closed my eyes and surrendered myself to the darkness. Ghoulish faces danced in front of my eyes. I wandered empty streets. Dread lay around every corner, jerking me awake with some nameless panic and filling my head with strange, tangled thoughts that made no sense. My chest felt heavy. I clenched my teeth. I wanted to move.

But I must have slept because I woke up. I woke up to the sound of wood scraping on the floor. And shouts, and the sound of an engine roaring.

G
ONE

I blinked in the daylight. Bryce was standing over me and Richard was out the door. Grimes was trying to sit up on her bench.

“Up!” roared Bryce. “Get up!”

I murmured something and struggled to my feet. Grimes was already outside.
 

“What’s going on?” said Harvey.

Bryce thundered through the door and I followed him out into the freezing morning. It was snowing again. The Land Rover was gone, speeding south over rocks and clods of earth. Richard was halfway down the road behind it and was now slowing down, his arms and legs cartwheeling. He came to a halt and stood panting clouds of steam with his hands on his head. The Land Rover disappeared in the dawn mist. Richard shouted something that was lost in the wind.

“Fucking great,” said Bryce. He jumped three times, grunting as he landed and finally falling into a crouch with his mass of tangled hair in his fists.

“Who were they?” I said, still coming to my senses. “Did you see them? Where’s Yuill? Henderson?”

Bryce turned on his heels and looked at me as if I was an idiot.
 

“That fucking
was
fucking Yuill and fucking Henderson!” he said, pointing at the now empty road. He slammed one hand against his head. “Ya fucking idiot!”

He howled some other obscenity at me and then ran across the street to a small Toyota that had been crushed by a boulder, kicking it, hammering its hood with his fists, punching its doors and what was left of its windows.

My gut felt like it had taken a swing from a crowbar, quivering and tightening as I stood breathless in the snow. Wave after wave of blood filled my head and rocked me back and forth. I tried to form words, questions. But nothing came. My mouth fluttered and twitched in the freezing air as if muttering some silent incantation or unintelligible equation.

We had been abandoned.

I heard Grimes behind me breathing short, trembling breaths full of whistles and squeaks like a child trying not to cry. She was standing still, rooted to the spot in her torn, stained uniform. Her hair was pasted across her brow collecting flakes of snow. She wore the beginnings of a snarl, clenching and unclenching her fists by her side as she ground her teeth.
 

Richard marched past me.

“We need to check the cars again,” he said. “We need a car. We need to go!”

“They’re all fucked!” shouted Bryce, still hammering on the Toyota.

“Check them again!” said Richard.

“They’re all FUCKED!” repeated Bryce.

“We’ll wait,” muttered Grimes. “Wait for the rescue chopper.”

Richard swung round on his feet and faced her with his arms outstretched. “There is no rescue chopper!” he bellowed. “They’re not coming! It’s just us!” He stopped, seeming to flinch from his own anger. “Just us,” he repeated. Grimes turned her face away and let her mouth harden into a thin line.