On Deadly Ground

  Dean, still polishing the handgun, said, ‘Around eight million years ago the Mediterranean dried up. The entrance to the Atlantic through the Straits of Gibraltar had become blocked, so the sea water evaporated. And you know something?’

  ‘Go on: surprise us,’ I said, gloomily.

  ‘When the Atlantic at last broke through again it created the biggest waterfall ever. The guy was saying water rushed back in to fill the Med with such force you could have heard the roar it made over most of Western Europe and North Africa.’

  Caroline stood up and stretched. ‘Uh…when are they going to give us some good news?’

  ‘When Hell freezes over,’ Dean said in a flat voice.

  I laughed, but there was little humour in it. ‘Some hope.’

  Caroline sniffed. ‘What’s that smell?’

  ‘Probably the Drive-Thru McDonald’s down the road,’ Dean said with a laugh as bitter as my own. ‘Who’s for a Quarter Pounder and fries? My treat.’

  ‘Christ, I wish,’ I said with feeling. ‘Seeing as you’re paying I’ll finish off with a couple of apple pies.’

  ‘They were always too hot to eat. Do you remember?’

  ‘Christ, yes. When I was a kid I’d always burn my lip because I couldn’t wait for it to cool.’

  ‘And the milkshakes? Weren’t they always too thick to suck up the straw?’

  ‘Did you ever end up using the straw as a spoon?’

  Suddenly Dean and I were talking as if we were reminiscing about a dead friend. Perhaps we were. There was an intensity about the way we talked. I’d swear I even saw a tear in old Deanie-baby’s eye.

  ‘Didn’t you find the fries were always too salty, though?’ he said.

  ‘Well, would you turn them down if they were offered to you right now?’

  ‘No,’ he agreed with a grim smile, ‘No, I wouldn’t.’

  ‘I never had the Fillet-o-fish, though. I never—’

  ‘Wait,’ Caroline looked round the field. ‘I can smell something.’

  ‘KFC?’

  ‘Pizza Hut?’

  ‘Dean, I’m serious. What’s that smell?’

  Dean stood up, sniffed the air. He shrugged. ‘I don’t smell anything.’

  The wind blew. Leaves rustled, dry-sounding.

  ‘It’s not food,’ Caroline said, ‘Don’t you smell anything, Rick?’

  ‘No. But with this wind blowing it’s hard to…wait a minute.’

  ‘There is something, isn’t there?’ Caroline looked up at me. ‘Smells strange, doesn’t it? Like—’

  ‘Summer rain,’ I said quickly. ‘When it falls on soil after a hot day.’

  Dean shook his head. ‘Can you tell me what this mysterious smell is?’

  ‘Get your things,’ I said. ‘We’re moving on. Now.’

  ‘But what the Hell is the smell?’ Deane complained.

  ‘It’s coming from down there.’ I pointed at our feet. ‘We’re sitting on a hot spot.’

  Dean looked at the grass—still fresh and green-looking. ‘I can’t see anything?’

  ‘Nor can I, but we don’t want to hang around just in case we’re sitting on a gas pocket that’s waiting to go boom.’

  ‘Rick.’ Caroline grabbed my arm. ‘Look what’s happening to the ground.’

  ‘I don’t see anything.’ Dean sounded alarmed. ‘What can you see?’

  ‘Look at your feet,’ I said.

  ‘Jesus.’ He looked at me in astonishment. ‘Worms. Thousands of bloody worms.’

  ‘Do you remember the night of Ben Cavellero’s party? That last one?’ I nodded down at the worms standing on their tails, sticking up from the ground. That’s what I saw then. The heat’s driving them out of the soil.’

  ‘Rick.’ Caroline’s brown eyes looked nervous as she watched the worms sliding out into the grass. ‘Come on, the heat must be building up fast.’

  ‘Ready?’ I asked as Dean and Caroline slipped the straps of their backpacks over their shoulders. They nodded.

  We walked quickly from the field, now turning pink as thousands upon thousands of worms slid out of the ground, some actually sliding up over our boots as if to trying to escape the heat seeping up through the soil. Here and there moles pulled themselves out of their holes. Rabbits ran by, driven out by the invading heat too.

  The smell of hot soil grew stronger. Already I imagined I could feel the heat coming through the soles of my boots.

  By the time we reached the fence we were running.

  In the next field trees were already dying from the heat. The leaves there hadn’t yet turned autumnal red but they were already dead. They hung limp from the branches in clots of waxy green as if they’d been doused in boiling water. Again the truth hit me:

  THE WORLD IS DYING

  Chapter 54

  After five minutes of hard walking we slowed to a more comfortable pace. We could no longer smell that aroma of hot soil. The landscape still looked fresh and green.

  As was our habit now, we avoided roads and stuck to cross-country tracks and footpaths. We were travelling through a mainly agricultural landscape of overgrown fields. There were no farm animals. Either they’d been slaughtered by starving refugees or had died of thirst with no one to fill their water troughs. We saw no sign that people had been in the area recently.

  We’d come across the occasional human skeleton. These were so numerous that you scarcely noticed them these days. They lay in the long grass with nettles sprouting through the ribcages and ants marching in and out of the eye sockets to pick what was left of the brains from the skulls.

  And sometimes there was the occasional bizarre and incongruous sight which could still take you by surprise. On a stone wall someone had placed a line of TVs. There must have been around twenty of them, dangling flexes swaying in the wind, and beside each TV on the wall was its remote control. I noticed a butterfly land on a big black-cased Sony TV; the butterfly’s red wings trembled in the cold breeze. The wings looked frayed and broken at the edges. A surge of sadness took me by surprise. The dead TVs lined up on the wall, the cold wind, the butterfly dying of old age. Life seemed so fragile somehow.

  Dean paused beside me. He nodded at the TVs. ‘Is this what passes for art these days?’

  ‘Uh?’

  ‘I wonder who put the heads inside the TVs?’

  I looked again at the TVs and saw that the sets had been gutted of the tube and all electronic components. They’d been replaced with severed human heads. They were well rotted; the eyes had putrefied to form jelly-like tears that hung down over cheeks. Flies buzzed.

  Dean pulled the Beretta from his pocket. ‘Just in case we meet the artist.’

  Caroline swallowed, her face pale. ‘How far now?’

  ‘Another hour. If we keep the pace up.’

  ‘Come on.’ She turned and walked quickly along the track.

  We followed, looking left, right, behind us in case the TV artist should make an appearance and decide he wanted to make an exhibition of us, too.

  But the area seemed deserted. We came upon the remains of campfires and the tell-tale scattering of empty food cans where people had passed through. But there was little to stay for now.

  Another ten minutes of hard walking and we passed a little redbrick village that had been turned into a fortress, with barbed-wire fences and trucks used as roadblocks. One glance told us it had been deserted for weeks. Most of the houses had been burnt out. Half a dozen human skulls littered the main street.

  ‘Another one bites the dust,’ Dean observed dryly as we hurried by.

  ‘OK. We’re here,’ I said. ‘Copley Manor.’

  For the next couple of hours we picked the ripe apples. Carefully we packed them into the backpacks and holdalls, making sure we didn’t bruise the fruit or take any worm-eaten or bird-pecked apples. We ate apples as we worked. Not that we enjoyed the flavour anymore. It was a way of filling your stomach. These days you ate when you had the chance. You could never tell when your next meal w
ould be.

  When we had as many apples as we could carry we started back. Walking was hard now. My heels started to ache. The straps dug into our shoulders. I constantly shifted the heavy holdall from one hand to another.

  ‘We won’t make it back to Fountains Moor by tonight,’ I said, panting. ‘We’ll break the journey same place as last time.’

  ‘Where’s that?’ Caroline sounded breathless too from the exertion. The local Hilton, I hope.’

  ‘Sorry.’ I gave a sympathetic smile. ‘It’s a barn.’

  Dean added, ‘The good news is, it’s across there in the next field. So at least we can rest.’

  She looked at her watch. ‘It’s still early. Are you sure we couldn’t make it home?’

  ‘Remember, it’s all uphill now.’

  Dean said, ‘And these backpacks are going to feel as if they’re full of housebricks.’

  The barn, made entirely of corrugated iron, was dry. We had sleeping-bags and rolls of foam rubber for mattresses so it would be reasonably comfortable.

  ‘God, it’s a relief to get these backpacks off,’ Dean said, shrugging off the straps. ‘Pass me your water bottles. I’ll go and fill them. Got the tablets?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I pulled a blister pack from my back pocket. ‘Don’t you want to take a break first? It’s a long walk down to the spring.’

  He shook his head. ‘If I sit down now I won’t want to get up again today.’

  I handed him the water-purification tablets. We didn’t need them up on the moor where the water was fresher and sweeter than anything that flowed from a city tap, but down here the water couldn’t be trusted. At best you’d probably be laid up with diarrhoea; at worst it might be typhoid, cholera or Weil’s Disease from rat urine in the water. So now we used iodine tablets to kill any bugs. They turned the water a reddish colour so it looked as if you were drinking diluted blood. Tasted crap, too; like dental mouth swill.

  Caroline watched Dean go. ‘Nice bum,’ she said, her eye flashing that mischievous glint.

  ‘Now, don’t you go making me jealous.’ I grinned as I carefully lined our bags of precious apples against the wall.

  ‘Rick, how long will he be gone?’

  ‘At least an hour. Uh-oh. You’re not having any ideas, are you?’

  ‘Ideas, Rick? And what would those be?’ Smiling, she approached me and lifted her arms so she could slide them around my neck. ‘Tell your Auntie Caroline what she’s thinking.’ She kissed me on the mouth.

  ‘She’s thinking that we could actually fill this hour we’re alone with more than just small talk and counting apples.’

  ‘They’re only apples.’

  ‘They’re only apples to you, my dear, but they might mean life or death to some poor soul.’ I meant it as a joke but Caroline saw the serious side.

  She sighed. ‘God, reduced to this. A bag full of apples has become a matter of life and death.’ She held me tight and nestled her head under my chin. ‘I’ve eaten in some of the best restaurants in the world, now I lie awake at night and all I can think about is a fried egg sandwich.’ She kissed my throat. ‘Can you believe that? Fried egg sandwiches. I’ve become obsessed with fried egg sandwiches.’

  ‘How long is it since we ate bread?’

  ‘I don’t know…three months?’

  ‘About that.’ I kissed the top of her head. ‘At least we’re not eating each other.’

  She looked up, smiled. ‘Until today, that is. But right now I’m going to eat you.’

  ‘You wouldn’t!’

  ‘I would.’

  ‘Which bit?’

  ‘Which bit do you think?’

  ‘Ouch,’ I smiled.

  ‘I promise not to chew.’

  I felt her fingers slide up my leg and over my groin to find my belt. She popped the buckle. Then she undid the button on my jeans.

  At that moment it was pure Caroline. She was doing what I was used to. She smiled that sexy smile I’d come to love. Her eyes twinkled with erotic mischief. Her hands moved expertly across my body, squeezing gently, stroking, caressing. I breathed in deeply, drawing in a whole lungful of her wonderful scent.

  Then she stopped. Suddenly stopped as if she’d felt a sharp pain.

  I looked down at her, startled.

  ‘Caroline? What’s wrong?’

  She took a deep breath, shivered.

  ‘Caroline?’ I was worried now.

  ‘It’s OK,’ she said. ‘I’m fine.’ Suddenly she reached out and held me tightly. She actually clung to me as if afraid something would snatch me from her.

  ‘Rick. I’m so glad I found you. I wouldn’t have made it this far if you hadn’t cared for me.’

  I hugged her, startled at the way she suddenly trembled.

  She looked up at me, her eyes shining with tears. ‘Do you love me?’

  ‘Of course I do.’

  ‘Say it…please, Rick.’

  ‘I love you. I do love you.’ I kissed her, my heart beating fast, but this time for the wrong reasons. I felt so afraid for her. I’d not seen her as frightened as this in months.

  ‘Rick, I love it when you hold me tight.’

  ‘Like this?’

  ‘Mmm…yes, like that.’ She buried her face into my chest; she continued speaking, her voice muffled. ‘You’ve had no regrets in taking me on?’

  ‘Take you on? You make it sound like you were a liability.’

  ‘Perhaps I am?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You could have someone younger.’

  ‘Caroline, I love you. You.’

  ‘Kate Robinson.’ Now her voice sounded anxious, jittery. ‘Kate—’

  ‘I’m not interested in Kate, she—’

  ‘Maybe, but she’s interested in you.’

  ‘But I’m interested in you, Caroline. I want you.’

  ‘But she’s a nice girl. If anything should happen to me…’ she started to say but suddenly she dug her face tight into my chest; her arms held me with a surprising strength. I kissed her and stroked her hair.

  I believe that was the moment that Caroline had a premonition of what would soon happen to her.

  The time was 4:15. By 5:10 my life would be different again.

  Chapter 55

  We made love. The time was 4:20.

  Caroline held onto me as we lay naked on the sleeping-bag. I looked down on her. Her breasts jiggled with every thrust I made, and her eyes widened, too, with that same rhythm. She panted my name, told me over and over and over that she loved me; how precious I was to her.

  Again I sensed she had a premonition that this part of our lives was ending. Though she looked beautiful there, her hair fluffed out, her throat pinking as I pushed myself deep into her, I sensed fear in the air. Fear. It hung so thick you could reach out and touch it. Fear. That was cold as ice. It weighed down on us.

  I fucked harder.

  Caroline gasped. ‘Gently, lover, gently.’

  I kissed her throat, chest and breasts, trying to shut out this image of fear as a bat-winged monster hovering dark and terrible above us.

  I kissed her nipples gently. Caroline snaked her arm around my neck and pulled my face to her breasts.

  ‘Bite,’ she panted. ‘Bite…bite! You won’t hurt me, you won’t—Oh! That’s it. Yes, that’s it.’

  ‘You’re beautiful; I—’

  ‘Oh, hold me tight, my love, hold me tight.’

  She squirmed beneath me.

  ‘I love you, Christ, I love you, I love you, I love you.’ I chanted it as if it was almost a protective mantra. I sensed that fear, that bleak, penetrating, Godawful fear settling on us.

  I’d caught the fear from Caroline. I could see it in her eyes.

  The time was 4:29.

  Thrash your body into hers. Thrash it good and hard. Those are the words I pumped through my head. Hold her tight: kiss hard; thrash yourself against her; thrash hard into her body.

  Because I wanted to keep that hovering fear at bay. I don’t know why
…I couldn’t explain why I felt like that. But I saw fear in Caroline’s eyes as she moaned beneath me. Even though her skin was hot against my skin, I sensed that creeping fear, crawling inside of her, turning her cold as ice somewhere deep in the very core of her being.

  The time was 4:37.

  I tried not to look at my watch. I wanted to love her as best as I possibly could. I wanted her to be lost in a sea of sensation. I wanted to see her come in a panting rush of excitement.

  But there was always that fear. A premonition that something dark and cold and terrible approached. As chilling and as dreadful as a ghost.

  Tears flowed down her cheeks.

  Yes.

  She sensed it, too.

  I know she did.

  The time: 4:40.

  I remember each minute individually. The minutes were like gemstones threaded onto a string. One after another. With a slow rhythm. Death was making her a necklace.

  I shivered.

  I told myself it was sheer imagination.

  But I know we both felt it. I couldn’t rationalize away that sense of foreboding; of a disaster waiting to happen. Awaiting its appointed time of arrival according to the Devil’s own timetable.

  4:43.

  Minutes came, then went.

  I remember it so clearly. It happened at 4:59.

  4:44.

  ‘Rick?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I wish we were home.’ She panted the words as I still thrust into her.

  ‘Will be…soon. Ah.’

  ‘Uh. Don’t stop. Uh, don’t stop.’

  ‘Christ, you’re wonderful.’

  ‘Don’t stop.’

  ‘I love you.’

  Fear beating its black wings.

  ‘Don’t stop.’

  Cold. My blood ran like freezing slush through my veins.

  ‘Love me, Rick.’

  ‘I do.’

  She smiled up at me through her tears.

  ‘You’re beautiful…beautiful.’

  For that second I forgot we were there on the dirt floor, that we were in a corrugated-iron shed in the corner of a field in the middle of nowhere. I pumped myself into her. Feeling shooting, tingling electric shocks. Now I saw only her eyes.