The Sands of Borrowed Time (28 page)

“Maybe he’s certain that we’re trapped, that we can’t get down without passing him, taking his time, planning his moves,” Isla replied quietly in Summer’s ear.  The man took a final wheeze on his cigarette before flicking it out of the scaffolding, watching it fall its long descent to the dusty ground below.  Summer looked frantically around the cockpit as she heard the guy begin to cough.

Not good for the lungs my friend, they make you slow and old. 
She looked for anything she could use as a weapon, across the control panel, and along the floor, but there was nothing.  Her heart sank as she heard the footsteps start again, slow and ominous as their metallic clanks got louder and louder.  She turned to look at Isla, but she appeared as worried and desperate as herself, frantically tying her hair back from her eyes.  Dagger began to growl deeply, his sharp teeth showing as he snarled.

“I’m ready for anything,” she said, not sounding too convinced as she took out her hair pin and held it in her hands like a blade, her hair falling over her face again.  Summer thought she looked like a person making her last stand, her eyes wide with terror.  She swallowed hard as the footsteps came up the last flight of stairs, their vibrations felt by the girls in the cockpit as the gangway began to shake with the man’s weight.  Isla’s hands desperately moved over the door as she looked for a lock but there was none.

“We’re fucked,” she said as they both watched the man casually walk along the gangway.

“Bonsoir,” the man said as he peered his head through the doorway as Dagger tore into his jeans, pulling on them this way and that.

“Sorry?” Isla stammered out as she watched the commotion begin.

“Good evening,” the man replied as he tried to shake Dagger from his leg.

“Hi,” they both said, unable to control their shakes as Dagger backed off, looking up at the man, barking in protest.

“I saw you girls come over from the west, across the dunes.  I thought I would come up and say hi.”

“Hi,” they whimpered again, a bit confused at the man’s friendliness, Summer instructing Dagger to sit as he growled feverishly.

“Hey, no need to be scared,” he smiled.  “I’m lost,” he laughed as he opened up his trench coat and held his arms out wide.  “I have nothing I could hurt you with,” he continued as he looked down at the hairpin in Isla’s hand.  He chuckled again, “I have the same problem. “The sand gets in your hair, your hair gets in your eyes, and your eyes begin to burn like fire.” He smiled again as Isla and Summer looked at each other sighing deeply, a bit relieved that their fears about the man were looking unfounded. 

Isla finally mustered up the courage to speak as Dagger’s growls turned to whines of confusion, “You’re lost you said?” Isla and Summer, still a little afraid that the man might pull a fast one.

“Lost, wandering, searching.  I don’t know what you call it these days.  I think we’re all a little lost,” he replied sincerely, still looking at the hairpin in Isla’s hands.  Dagger began sniffing at the man’s shoes.

“Sorry,” she said as she tucked it back into her hair, looking across to Summer, not sure whether she was addressing the man or her friend.  He smiled again as he offered them a cigarette.  They both shook their heads.

“Neither shall I then; it would be a bit bad mannered to pollute the lungs of those who do not partake in the habit.”  Summer thought the man a little peculiar, if in a pleasant way, both by his manners and his dress sense. 

He must be cooking in that coat; it must be approaching 40 degrees out there,
she thought, looking at the man’s sweat, sodden hair.  Isla looked down across the desert, looking for a vehicle, only to see their truck.  He sensed her curiosity as he turned to look down at their truck himself.

“Believe it or not, I can’t drive,” he said.  “I just can’t do it, you know.  I get all nervous and end up stalling all the time.  The girls courteously laughed but were not entirely convinced by his story.

“It’s embarrassing, it truly is, and not very helpful in these days,” he continued.  "My feet have perpetual blisters and my legs eternally ache.  “Why it took me so long to catch you girls up.”

“We didn’t see you,” Summer said, looking at Isla and then back to the man.  “It’s why we’re a little alarmed.”  The man waved his arm, brushing off their concerns, bending down to pat Dagger gently on the head.

“Not to worry, I do apologise and understand what you’re saying, but I haven’t seen anybody for eons and wanted to catch up on all the latest gossip.”

“Gossip,” Isla asked, surprised at his use of that word, beginning to think he was a little eccentric also.  Dagger looked to the man panting, feeling more at ease in his presence, sensing that the girls were also.

“You know, the news,” he replied, “What’s been happening?”

“The news?” Isla asked. 

The man sensed her confusion, “I guess you know about as much as I do, but a little information shared can be of mutual benefit in times like these.”  The man went for his cigarette pack again, but thought better, leaving them in his pocket.  He began to look a bit more serious,

“Everyone’s going north, just as
they
are leaving there,” he said with a wink.

“And why are
they
leaving?”  Isla asked, sounding confused, looking across at Summer’s equally perplexed face.

“I was hoping you could tell me that.”

“And who are
they
?”

“I was hoping you could tell me that too?”  Isla shrugged her shoulders, and Summer held her hands in the air, pursing her lips. 

The man began to sense their annoyance, thinking his chat must sound like riddles, “By the way, my name is David,” he said, stepping boldly forward to shake their hands.  Summer leant back, a little surprised at his sudden introduction mid-conversation but shook his hand nevertheless, while Isla spoke their names.  They both felt that his grip was a bit over keen, looking at each other anxiously.  Dagger barked, and David patted his head again.

Maybe he truly hasn’t seen anybody in a long while
, she thought.

“Welcome to the Cape,” he said warmly. “Hope your hearts aren’t set on a spacewalk?”

“Spacewalk?”  Summer asked.

“Well, you’re in the cockpit of the space shuttle,” he said as they became more bewildered with each sentence he spoke.

“Maybe a little before your time.  The space shuttle was the pinnacle of the American space programme…”

“American?” Summer interrupted.

“Yes, America,” the guy laughed. “The greatest civilisation ever to have lived, if a little paranoid,” he continued, holding his hands high in the air with pride.

“I guess your American then?” Summer asked.

“Of course,” the guy said with a nod.

“So why didn’t they stop the star from exploding then,” Isla asked, “if they were so great?”

“What?  the guy asked, looking a little taken aback by the question.

“Why didn’t they save everyone?”

“What, you can’t stop…”

“Just kidding man, just kidding,” Isla chuckled. “You looked so proud of your heritage there, that I thought I’d bring you back down to Earth if you excuse the play on words.”  David laughed, looking a little embarrassed.

“You’re American too,” he finally spoke after regaining his composure.

“As you said a little before our time,” Isla replied.

“But this is America.”

“I think America ceased to be when that star exploded its guts across the Earth if you excuse my choice of words.”  The man nodded in agreement, but his face creased with the realisation.  Dagger crouched down, beginning to look fed up.

“There is no America, countries, borders or governments anymore,” she continued.

“Then what is there?”  David asked, his eyes lighting up with curiosity.  He stared hard at her, goading for a reply.

“Nothing,” Isla replied, looking out across the desert. “You have to make it up as you go along.”

    “Improvise?” he asked.

                   “Yes; every day, every minute is different.  You take it as it comes and do your best with it,” Isla continued. “There’s no one to box us in anymore.”  The man nodded in agreement and lit a cigarette, inhaling deeply as if in contemplation as to what was just said.  Dagger crinkled his nose and barked.

Stranded and Beaten

The trees were swaying and straining all around her as the wind screamed through their leaves with terror.  She found it difficult to breathe as the swirling gusts licked the life unapologetically from her lungs.  Gasping, she peered upwards at the gesticulating branches that pointed down at her, mocking her struggle.  Ravens cawed incessantly as they looked groundward at her in pity with their black and beady eyes.  She felt powerless. There was nothing she could do.

Kyla leant up and gasped.  She rubbed her weary eyes as she struggled to see through the swirling grit and dust.  The air was stifling, and she felt like she was slowly suffocating.  She soon realised it had only been a harmless dream but had now awoken into a very real nightmare.  They were in the grip of a powerful sandstorm.  The buggy was up to its chassis, deep in sand, the tips of the wheels poking out either side. 

The driver’s seat was empty, “Hayley!  Hayley!” she cried out anxiously, looking around disorientated, covering her eyes as the sand began to scratch her face as it howled over her.  She looked behind to see Demelza still asleep on the back seat, oblivious to the lashings of sand that were pouring down upon them.  “Demelza!  Wake up you lazy bitch!  Wake up!” she shouted as she leant over her seat and tugged at her shoulders.  Demelza stirred onto her back and opened her eyes, immediately shielding them from the onslaught of sand with her hands.  She rolled back onto her stomach.

“What lousy, fucking weather,” she murmured sleepily.

“Where’s Hayley?” Kyla asked hastily.

“How should I know.  Shouldn’t she be driving?”  Demelza replied almost incoherently as she yawned.

“She’s gone,” Kyla panted through the blasting sand as she frantically looked around her, “fucking disappeared,” her voice trailing off, knowing that Demelza probably couldn’t hear her anyway.  She could barely see an arm’s length in front of her as she jumped out of the buggy.  She stumbled along the sand to the bonnet, holding on to its side.  The main headlights were broken, all smashed in.

Had we hit something and crashed?
she asked herself.  The sand-ladened air wailed and billowed up her blouse, scraping painfully at her already raw skin.  She held her hand over her mouth as she gasped for air, coughing up the particles that she had breathed in.  She tried hard to look outwards into the desert, but all she could make out were glimpses of sand scurrying across the dunes and flickers of lightning. 

“Hayley!  Hayley!” she shouted again between painful, dry coughs as she staggered forward against the wind.  She looked behind, barely able to see the buggy and thought better not to lose sight of it. 
Maybe she got lost?  We crashed, or broke down, and she left to get or check something.  Then the storm came and guzzled her up,
she thought worriedly as she made her way back to the buggy. 
Maybe someone has taken her under the cover of the storm; scavengers, scum, and beggars, passing coincidently at the opportune moment! 
Her heart sank as more morbid thoughts raced into her mind, one after another. 
No!  No!  Hayley is smarter than that.  She’s nearby.  I can feel her.  She’ll be back.  She’ll have to come back.  We’re a team, and without all the right players the game is lost. 
She looked around again, full circle this time.  There was nothing but sand slowly consuming everything in its path.  She jumped as a hand touched her shoulder, “Hayley? she asked hopefully as she turned, only for her heart to sink.  It was Demelza.

“Why the look of disappointment?” Demelza asked, staring at her with concern.

“Hayley, she's vanished!”

“Vanished?  No.  Can't be.  Not Hayley?”

Kyla held up her hands, “Then where is she?”  Demelza looked around frantically, beginning to sense the seriousness of her absence.

“Shit, no!” Demelza spurted out. “Hayley, where are you?  You're beginning to freak us out!”

“Freak you out?  What's the problem girls?” a voice shouted up as a couple of hands grabbed their ankles.  They turned to look down, seeing Hayley drag herself from under the bonnet covered in sand.

“The carb is fucked, choked with sand, which means we're fucked,” Hayley said as she pulled herself up by grabbing the rails of the bonnet. She shook off the sand from her skirt.  “If this buggy goes nowhere, then we're going nowhere,” she continued as she futilely brushed off the sand from her hair with her hands.

“Looks like the buggy and ourselves are going nowhere, with or without the carburettor,” Kyla said, looking at the sand drifting up over the wheels.  “It's stuck for sure.  Soon to be lost and forgotten in the sands of time.”  All three looked despondently at the buggy, then at each other.

“Don’t look at me,” Demelza said worriedly, “sand and buggies are not my area of expertise.”

“Let's hope it will pass,” Kyla cried out.  “Let's wait till night and pray we can dig ourselves out of here by the morning.”  Demelza didn’t look too hopeful as Hayley nodded despondently.  They quickly covered the buggy with a parachute canopy that Cain had kept from his army days which they had stuffed into the boot.  He would proudly tell her of his HALO dives; high altitude, low opening parachute jumps into the desert.

“To win, you must outsmart the enemy and get into their territory, deep behind enemy lines without them ever knowing you’re there.  Then you have the element of surprise to your advantage,” he told her more than once.  He would tell stories around the campfire at night of how they would drop into the assailant’s turf from planes flying at the edge of space, opening their parachutes at the last moment.  “Timing is critical; pull the cord too early and you will drift in the breeze until they blow your bollocks out of the air.  Too late, and you’re going to break your back on the hard desert floor; if you’re lucky.” 
Cain was made for this scenario.  He was a wild card, cherishing every moment of madness that he could get,
Kyla thought. 
He could work the fear and adrenaline to his benefit.  He was perfect for the post-apocalyptic world.  A chance for the misfits of Evolution to show what they had. 
A flash of lightening split through the yellow clouds, a crack of thunder soon following, but there was no rain. 
Not Carla, though, she was a home girl, but she knew how to pull someone’s strings.  She was a taker.  Her only talent knowing how to slip her fingers into a person’s purse; taking the right amount, at the right time, from the right person.

“
You’re looking a little windswept there,” Kyla said to Hayley as she fought to get the sand out of her tangled hair, frantically running her fingers through it, swearing when they got caught in knots.

“Wouldn’t it be nice to have a day without sand,” she replied. “Imagine how good that would be!”

“Yes!” Demelza agreed.

“Washing it off and watching it swirl down the plug hole,” Kyla said, “never to return.”

There was a bump from behind, the buggy swaying a little on its suspension.  All three girls looked at each other, feeling as if time had stopped.  They looked towards the back, uncertain what was lurking there through the thick cotton of the parachute.  Kyla put her finger to her mouth, pursing her lips tightly.  She crawled onto the back seat and slowly lifted up the canvas.  Nothing, just swirling sand in the darkness of the day.  She shook her head, everyone looking perplexed.  She peeked again.

If anybody wanted us, they would have throttled us through the parachute without any introductions by now,
Kyla thought as she released her hand from the chute, letting it fall back down.  Just as she turned, there was a smack, a pulse of pain ripping through her cheekbone, followed by the parachute being violently pulled this way and that. 

Demelza screamed, “Fuck off you cunt!” which was answered with a hard kick, straight in her face, her lip splitting and spraying the seat with blood.  Hayley struggled to keep the parachute down over them as somebody struggled above her.  She wrestled through the canvas as she got punched again and again. Kyla swung from under it and looked out, seeing a man kicking and punching with savage insanity into a screaming Hayley below.  Kyla picked up the end of the chute, rolling it out towards the man who was blissfully unaware of her presence in the depths of his savagery.  Hayley felt a hand hold firm over her mouth as he continued to punch her with his other fist. 

“He’s too strong.  Somebody help me,” she tried to wheeze through her lips, gasping for air as her face and head throbbed with pain at the constant battering.  Kyla pounced, bringing the chute down on top of him, pulling the strings quickly around his body, cocooning the struggling man in the cloth as Hayley and Demelza restrained the man as best as they could.  Round and round the cord went until finally the man was contained, his legs and arms struggling futilely as his muffled growls and cries filtered through to them.  Kyla looked around in a panic for others as she became aware again of sand raining into her face.

“Anybody else out there?” Hayley asked as she tried to feel her face.

Kyla took a deep breath, “Probably.”

“Probably?” Demelza asked, staring down with wild eyes, intrigued by the amount of her own blood that was stained fast into the fabric of the seat.

“Looks clear for now, but Jesus that guy was insane.  He laid right into us,” Kyla replied, almost in tears.

“Sounded like he ran straight into the buggy,” Hayley added, feeling her cheekbones for cracks.

“Probably running blind through the sand, desperate to escape the storm,” Kyla added.

“Blind from the sand more like,’ Demelza said anxiously, “that stuff is beginning to grind my eyeballs away.”

Demelza pointed to the man, “What shall we do with him?” she asked almost silently, accenting the movements of her bruised lips.

“Him?” Kyla replied.  Demelza creased, holding her finger to her lips “Ssssshh,” she whispered.

“Oh fuck him!  The guy deserves to die a horrible death, and needs to know about it,” Hayley shouted out, pointing at her own bruised face.  “I mean look at that, does any man in possession of a full deck do that sort of thing?  And look at your lips.  They look like a Botox job gone wrong.”

“Thanks,” Demelza said, “think I need to visit the dentist so that he can pull the chipped teeth out of them.”

“I think the gods have decided to take him early,” Kyla said, poking the man with her boots, his limp body appearing lifeless.

“He's suffocated,” Demelza said, looking shocked.

“Good! Hayley said. “Saves me wringing his neck!”

Kyla chuckled as she pushed the man off the side of the buggy with her feet.  “Let's drag him away from the buggy.  I’m getting sick at the sight of him, wrapped up in that parachute like a cheap mummy.”

The worst of the storm had passed them by as a watery Sun sank below the horizon.

“Come on girls,” Hayley said, “spit that sand out of your lungs, and guts, and get digging.  I will get this little carb cleaned up and ready by the morning.”  As night fell, and the sand settled, allowing the supernova to sparkle overhead, the girls slowly dug their buggy out as their bruises ached, and their minds worried of what tomorrow would bring.