Chapter 18
Beginning of the end
“When we get back,” said Ellen slowly, “I’m going to go and see that Anton, I think.”
“Oh yes?” answered Rachel with a smile, and a wink to Phyllis, “and what makes you think he’ll want to see you?”
Ellen’s head whirled round. “And why should he not?” she demanded. “I may be a little older than you giggling girls, but I still have my monthlies you know, and my feelings.”
Phyllis leaned towards her and sniffed loudly. “That’s why madam,” she laughed. “We stink of fish and it’ll take us weeks to get back to smelling of flowers again.”
“Stupid girls,” growled Ellen. “Anybody would think that you invented sex!!”
Gudrun joined in the Homesteaders laughter, but in truth, it wasn’t that funny. They had been in Dockside for five weeks, having been sent by Connie Nesbitt to help out, working on the fishing boats which had been dragged up onto the beach for their hulls to be scraped clean. One boat had been past repair, and had been stripped of useful parts and abandoned. The Dockside fleet was down to four serviceable boats and a new one was being planned for next year. Gudrun had decided that she wasn’t going to be available when volunteers were called for to fell the necessary trees for the new hull.
Last year she had been clearing Valencia airport’s runway, this year scraping barnacles off ships bottoms, but next year it was someone else’s turn to do the dirty work.
It was a pleasant day, and they were in no great hurry. They were already in Burnt Wood and Homestead was only about three hours away. Rachel looked suddenly at Phyllis. “Where’s your Sticker then? Thought you said he would be here to meet us.”
Phyllis shook her head. “Don’t know, saw him a week ago and he said he would be here. Never let me down before.”
It was Ellen’s turn to laugh. “Probably found some other wench who’s more accommodating?”
Phyllis scowled at her. “Wouldn’t do that. We’re partners.”
“Yeah, partners,” sneered Ellen. “you, him and that bitch Streak.”
Phyllis looked at Ellen with murder in her eyes, but Rachel butted in. “We’d better get over to Hood’s Hole and find out,” she said quickly, then she frowned. “Hey, it’s awful quiet today.”
They stopped and listened carefully, turning round slowly where they stood.
“What’s going on?” Asked Gudrun.
The others looked to Rachel, who had the best hearing.
“Don’t know yet,” she answered. “Can’t hear any dogs at all. Not even the young uns.”
The dog’s campsite looked like a whirlwind had gone through it. The tents had been torn down, and were laying in forlorn heaps with the broken storage boxes scattered across the clearing. What few tables and chairs the dogs had possessed were now heaps of firewood.
The four weary travellers looked round in amazement and dismay.
“What the bloody hell’s happened here?”
None of the three Homesteaders answered Gudrun directly.
“Smell it?” asked Rachel.
Ellen nodded. “Bird shit?”
“Not just that. Something that’s dog, but more than dog.”
“Oh!” Phyllis exclaimed worriedly. “That’s wolf.”
“Wolf?” Gudrun said. “I thought that there weren’t any wolves round here.”
Rachel was on all fours, sniffing at the soil. She looked up at her. “There are now,” she said quietly. “And more than just a few, I’m thinking.”
They stood a few moments, not knowing what to do for the best.
“What now?” asked Ellen.
“Can’t stay here,” Rachel said firmly, and the others agreed.
They decided to press on carefully to Homestead, but only got another hundred metres or so down the trail before they met the first wave of wolves fleeing for their lives.
Ellen was in front, and the wolf pack bore her down to the ground, tearing at her neck, arms and body in frustration and anger. Her screams died within seconds and her horrified companions turned and ran for their lives.
A grey shape leapt out of the undergrowth at them.
Rachel and Phyllis were bowled over by the wolf, but Gudrun raced on.
“Got you now, meat.” Colin growled, and held Rachel down with one enormous hand clamped round her ankle. “You’re mine.” ‘Till Big Al comes back anyway,’ he thought.
He didn’t think much longer though, as Phyllis plunged her knife into his back, severing the spinal cord. He fell in an untidy heap, making little mewing noises, all feeling below the knife wound totally gone. Phyllis dragged Rachel to her feet and together they followed after Gudrun.
The sound of Gudrun’s hand ineffectually slapping against the side of the Never Look Back was a harsh counterpoint to her gasping breaths.
“Please open the door. Pleeeease.”
There was no answer from the time machine.
“Aaargh. Damn you.”
“TEMPER, TEMPER.”
“We’re going to die out here if you don’t open the door,” yelled Gudrun, more frightened now, than she had been for years.
“I’LL TRADE YOU AN OPEN DOOR FOR A JOKE TO IMPRESS HOOD WITH.”
“What? Oh god!” she wracked her brains for something funny, but there was only horror and rubbish there.
“Knock knock.”
“WHO’S THERE.”
“Egbert.”
“EGBERT WHO?”
“Egg but no bacon.”
There was a moments silence.
“IS THAT FUNNY THEN?”
“Yes, it’s downright hilarious.”
“WHAT’S BACON?”
“Hood knows, she’ll laugh her socks off.”
There was a small but very solid clunk and the door crept open at last.
Gudrun scrambled inside and wrenched the lid off the nearest crate, then slammed the lid down. “Damn, where is it?”
She hit the jackpot at the third attempt, and lifted Marcus’s Growler rifle out of the box. “Please work,” she whispered as she slid the power switch forward. A barely audible hum came from the huge weapon, as the indicators rose and then settled on just less than sixty percent.
She laughed briefly. “YES,” she yelled and jumped back down to the cave floor.
“UNREGISTERED HOSTILE SIGNAL. POSITION KNOWN AND LOGGED.”
“PROGRAM SOFT.”
“OPTIMUM ANGLE IN 3,78 MINUTES. REINSTATE PROGRAM”
With Hood and Hawk being below her horizon, Hind was talking to herself. Never Look Back heard the one sided conversation, but was powerless to inform Gudrun of the deranged mining ship’s intentions.
Phyllis and Rachel came limping into view as Gudrun left the cave, and she screamed again as the first grey wolves dashed from the trees to her right. Swinging the awesome weapon in their direction, she lovingly caressed the firing stud.
“EXECUTE.”
In the blink of an eye, one wolf became a charred mass of carbon and another went down howling in agony, but two others pressed home their
attack across the remains of dog city. The rifle pulsed again weakly, but she missed the swift target and Rachel fell as the wolves leapt on her.
“Move it,” screamed Gudrun, above the whine of the Growler’s capacitors charging up again. “Get out of the way,” and shuffled sideways for a clear shot at the snarling animals, but was thwarted in her intentions by the sobbing Phyllis going the same way.
Rachel stopped screaming at last and Phyllis collapsed on the ground in shock. Gudrun heaved the rifle up again.
“My turn, oooph!” All breath was forced from her, and the sound of her arm breaking was like the crack of a whip as Alain’s great weight bore her to the ground. He had circled round and leapt from the rocks above the cave entrance.
“Back,” he snarled as the rest of his depleted pack joined their two brothers at Rachel’s body. There were only twenty two of them left now, sixteen of them the four legged variety.
Alain’s tone belied his words, “well that was fun, wasn’t it?” he said and kicked Gudrun in the ribs as she reached for the Growler with her good arm.
“Naughty, naughty,” chided the pack’s angry leader, “you’ve been a bad girl and we’ll have to teach you a lesson, won’t we?” and his grin made Gudrun shiver with fear. He reached down and grabbed her by the arm, then threw her effortlessly away, as if she was a rag doll. She landed among the boulders at the side of the cave mouth and slumped to the floor, blood pouring from a cut on her head. She moaned and started coughing. There was more blood in her mouth, and the burning pain from her broken arm was only one spot of torture in her twisted body. Her other arm was dislocated at the shoulder and her left leg was bent at an unnatural angle.
“Let me bite her,” panted Tomas, “just a little bit.”
Alain ignored him and picked up the rifle. “Pretty little toy you have. May I look?”
Phyllis screamed as Tomas’s jaws fastened on her ankle and his eyes closed as he savoured human blood again.
“This isn’t happening,” thought Gudrun, over and over again. “Caren said I’m going to the future. I can’t die.” And as she lay on her back waiting for a grisly death, she saw a light in the Eastern sky. Growing brighter, ever brighter.
Every nerve in her body briefly sent messages of intense agony, and as the welcoming blanket of oblivion finally descended, the Never Look Back silently screamed for help.
Hind’s missile, made from three microwave ovens inside a refrigerator and packed with engine parts and insulating foam, had lost more than half of it’s mass during it’s short journey through the atmosphere, but it was deadly accurate, and still left a crater more than five hundred metres in diameter centred on the clearing. The sound of it’s impact was even heard in Dockside.
Homestead was sheltered from the blast by the hill, but several chimneys fell down and Hood’s chapel collapsed majestically in upon itself.
The sun was obscured by the dust cloud and the remains of Burnt Wood was ablaze again. The wolf menace was no more, but the cost of victory changed the map of Spangerland for ever.