On Deadly Ground

  ‘What do you do then?’

  ‘You run like hell.’

  ‘Aw, shit.’ Tesco shook his head, grim-faced. The scars that radiated from his mouth like rays from a kiddy picture of the sun stood out white against the rest of his face. This new world frightened him more than he could say.

  I knew he could imagine that dirty great sign, too. With those words beating out their stark warning.

  DANGER!

  GO BACK NOW!

  But there’s no going back.

  Kate might be dying out there.

  The only way is forward.

  Into the Burntlands.

  Chapter 94

  We walked and walked. Soon even what had seemed dreadful became monotonous. Thousands of burnt skulls. Cars burnt clean of paint were dead shells, orange with rust. The trees that still stood had become skeletal monstrosities. They were as black as the ash beneath our feet.

  Tesco asked, ‘How long to Leeds now?’

  ‘If nothing gets in our way, I reckon six hours.’

  ‘If what gets in our way?’

  ‘Use your imagination. There might still be survivors out here. You know they’d kill us for the food we’ve got in the backpacks. Then there are the Greys.’

  ‘We haven’t seen any yet.’

  ‘Who’s to say there aren’t a couple of hundred waiting round that next corner?’

  Tesco swallowed, then unslung his rifle as we neared the bend in the road. What was beyond that bend was hidden by a high brick wall, the bricks at the base of the wall baked even darker by the heat seeping ever upwards.

  We approached the bend gingerly.

  My stomach tightened.

  I looked round the end of the wall, expecting to see a mob of hungry survivors or even Greys preparing to rush us.

  There was nothing there. Only burnt cars.

  ‘Come on,’ I said. ‘We’ll have to move faster. It’ll be dark in half an hour.’

  ‘Shouldn’t we think about making camp?’

  I shook my head. ‘We’ll walk through the night. If anyone’s still trapped alive in the plane, they’ll die of exposure.’

  ‘Or burn,’ Tesco said. ‘Have you felt the ground?’

  I bent down to rest my palm on it.

  ‘Damn.’

  ‘Hot, ain’t it?’

  ‘Too damn hot.’

  ‘How do you know we’re not right over the centre of a hot-spot that’s just about to go boom?’

  ‘We don’t.’

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘Come on, keep moving. It’s not safe here.’

  ‘It’s not safe anywhere,’ Tesco grunted under his breath. ‘The whole fucking world’s about to blow its top.’

  We pushed on.

  Darkness came quickly. In the distance we saw lights. Fires probably, either from inflammable gases flaring off through cracks in the earth or buildings slowly heated for month after month until they combusted.

  More alarming were the splits in the Earth beneath our feet. It looked as if some angry giant had torn open the ground. They were easy enough to step over but if you looked down you could see a dull red where the subterranean heat had risen so much even the rocks had started to glow like embers in a fire.

  Any second one of us might stand on top soil that had baked into nothing more than a thin crust. Then it might shatter like thin ice beneath our feet, dropping us straight into a pit of glowing rocks. There we’d scream, desperately claw the sides of the pit, trying to escape. But the only escape would be death when the heat boiled your blood in your heart.

  We walked on.

  Beneath us the ground would sometimes rumble and quiver. I’d hear those thumps again as steam, superheated by the glowing rocks, blasted from one subterranean cavity to another.

  And I thought about Caroline Lucas. How she’d been torn from me by one of those jets of steam exploding from the earth.

  You could have saved her, Rick. She could still be alive. I told myself this over and over again. You could have saved her. If you’d been smarter, if you’d been quicker.

  The thoughts made me walk faster. I heard Tesco panting with exertion as he trudged through the black dust, struggling to keep up with my vicious pace. I had to find Kate. If she’d survived the plane crash she’d need me. By some miracle, perhaps all three would have survived—Kate, Cindy and Howard. Christ, I hoped so.

  We were walking in near-darkness. Our night vision allowed us to make out the burnt road which we followed. At junctions I’d risk using the torch, hitting the road signs with a two-second burst of light, to check we were on the right road to Leeds.

  After switching off the torch, there’d be a tense wait, crouching at the side of the road, rifles ready. In that darkness even the two-second flash of a torch would be like a lighthouse, signalling to anyone else that there were other people nearby.

  I’d wait, rifle at my shoulder.

  Expecting any second to see figures bounding forward out of the darkness to tear us apart.

  When nothing stirred we moved forwards.

  Chapter 95

  The grey dawn light revealed a ghost city. Leeds had become a vast sprawl of burned-out buildings without windows or roofs.

  Thousands of cars littered the streets, their doors still flung open.

  When the poison gas had drenched this part of the city, people hadn’t just got out and walked: they had stampeded. And, later, when the subterranean heat had, at last, crept up through the earth to boil the blacktop, rubber tyres had burst into flame.

  All the cars had been stripped bare of their paint in the searing heat, and now they had rusted to that uniform dull orange. Windscreens had melted, the toughened glass pouring down over dashboards. There it cooled, then set firm once more, resembling many-times-folded sheets. Surreally, it reminded me of the strange blue-white ice formations you might find in the Antarctic. Icicles of once-liquid glass hung down from steering wheels.

  We walked silently on. In the Headrow was the wreck of a helicopter, lying in a mass of twisted rotor blades.

  In some kind of maniac purge, perhaps to wipe out looters and serve as a deterrent to others, there had been mass executions. Along the full length of Briggate, that runs from Lewis’s department store to Boar Lane, once a bustling shopping street, hung bodies.

  Cables had been strung from building to building at third storey height in the same kind of zig-zag pattern you might use to lace a boot. From each cable, hanging by their necks, dangled men and women by the dozen. They might have been dead weeks but the hot air rising up from the ground had dried the flesh of the corpses, mummifying them.

  As we walked along they swung gently in the breeze.

  ‘Christ,’ Tesco said. ‘Reminds you of Christmas, doesn’t it?’

  He was right. I’d walked that street as a child at Christmas time. I’d looked up in awe at the cables criss-crossing the street. Then, suspended there, had been moulded plastic snowmen, elves, Rudolf with his huge red nose leading the rest of the reindeer, sleighs bulging with wrapped presents. Oh, and lots of Santas, of course.

  Now the street was decorated with the dead.

  Some of the heads had come away. Headless corpses lay in the street where they had fallen.

  I looked up at the ruined buildings. Any second the barrel of a rifle might appear as a sniper lined us up in their sights. We’d be easy targets. Tesco unshouldered his rifle.

  I pulled back the bolt of mine.

  ‘I don’t like this,’ he whispered. ‘As they say in the movies: it’s too quiet.’

  ‘See anyone?’ I asked, also in a whisper.

  ‘Not a living soul,’ Tesco replied.

  ‘Looks as if we’re alone.’

  ‘Where do you think they’ve all gone?’

  ‘The first time they were driven out by toxic gas. This time…who knows?’

  ‘Probably by those guys.’

  I looked across the street.

  The figures, tall, grey-skinned, red-eyed, h
ad been painted on a wall. Whether the artist had meant only to record what he or she had seen, or whether it was intended to mystically appease the Greys I didn’t know.

  But it meant one thing.

  The Grey Men had been seen either in Leeds itself or very near by.

  Even now they could be standing there in the buildings, blood-red eyes glistening, as they watched the pair of us gingerly inching our way along the street.

  ‘Keep moving,’ I said. ‘Stop only if you see anything.’

  We reached the bridge that would take us to the south of the city where the planes had come down.

  The River Aire had evaporated. The river bed looked like the skin of some immense reptile, stretching out in a mass of arid scales. Human skulls littered the mud. There were barges, too, looking like toys dropped by the careless children of giants. And, lying on its side, an army tank, the barrel of its gun standing straight up into the air like a flagpole.

  We kept moving.

  ‘What a mess,’ Tesco said in wonder. ‘What a freakin’ awful mess.’

  The buildings lay in ruins. Most had been burnt. Where the Victoria Hotel had stood, near Tetley’s brewery, there was only a gaping crater. We walked by. You could have dropped a couple of trucks into that stonking great hole in the ground, then still had space for half a dozen cars. I stepped over rubble, broken glass, a baby’s rattle, then the hotel sign, bearing a silhouette of old Queen Victoria herself in profile. I shook my head. My band, Thunder Bud, played its debut concert there. We had an audience of six. The bassist even forgot to turn up. But it had been our first paid gig.

  Now the Victoria was a hole in the ground, half full of liquid mud that bubbled, jetted steam and stank of rot.

  We moved on. Faster.

  I scanned the ruins for Grey Men.

  Nothing.

  Nothing yet.

  But I didn’t doubt they were close. Probably watching. They’d move against us when they thought the time was right.

  By now it was fully light. Chunks of snow-white cloud moved across the sky.

  Above waist height the cold bit so deeply into your clothes you felt teeth of iced air prick your skin.

  Below waist height you could feel warm air rising from the ground. The pavement smouldered.

  We moved on. Leaving the corpse city behind. Now we were in a residential area, comprising burnt-out houses; their once redbrick walls scorched sooty black.

  Twenty minutes later I saw the plane. I stopped, my heart suddenly beating fast in my chest. The little Cessna stood out against the black earth like a gleaming white cross.

  Then I was running towards it.

  Tesco ran hard, trying to keep up with me.

  ‘Look,’ Tesco panted. ‘She tried to land on the road. It must have nipped over when the front wheel hit the traffic island.’

  ‘It’s still in one piece,’ I panted back. I was clutching at straws. ‘It can’t have been going that fast.’

  ‘But, Christ, have you seen those bullet holes?’

  ‘I see them…Kate…Kate!’ I started yelling her name, hoping to see her head appear over the wreck of the plane. ‘Kate!’

  I reached the plane where it lay upside down, its wings outstretched against the road. I threw my rifle and backpack to the ground, then dropped flat on the floor to look inside. The passenger cabin had smashed flat. I could see—

  Damn!

  I could see zip-all. Only a tangle of electric cables. The instrument panel had been forced across the gap I tried to peer through. I couldn’t see into the cabin itself.

  Damn, damn…I was sweating, my heart beating harder. Suddenly I wanted to throw up. We’d walked all night to get here. Just so I could do what I was doing now. Trying to see into that damned plane. But now I was here I was so afraid. No, scrub that. I was terrified. I knew I might look into that crushed cockpit and see Kate lying cold, broken, once-beautiful eyes staring.

  Tesco ran round to the other side. His feet clattered on the metal wing.

  I shouted. ‘See anything?’

  ‘It’s open at this side.’

  Impatient, I called again. ‘What do you see?’

  ‘Wait, clothes have spilled out of the bags…they’re covering something; they must…Oh…Christ. Rick, you better take a look.’

  ‘What is it?’ But you never really needed to ask the question, did you, Rick? ‘It’s a body, isn’t it?’

  Tesco nodded, stood back to let me see.

  I swallowed. ‘Who is it? Is it Kate?’

  Chapter 96

  The force of the impact had thrown the body forward. Clothes and food stored in the luggage compartment behind the seats had been hurled forward, too.

  ‘Christ, what a mess,’ Tesco said. ‘Look at all that blood. Can you see who it is?’

  ‘No…And I can see only one body.’

  I looked back at Tesco. I took a breath. ‘The head’s gone. I can’t tell who it is.’

  ‘The clothes. What was Kate wearing?’

  I shook my head miserably. ‘There’s too much blood…we’ll have to pull some of the wreck away to get a proper look. If you pull those bags of rice to one side, I’ll try and crawl in.’

  Even though the plane looked more or less intact, apart from the crushed windshield, the cockpit itself was full of the clothes and food spilt from plastic sacks.

  Tesco asked, ‘See anything yet?’

  ‘I’m trying to clear away—shit. The bastards!’

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Rats…fucking rats…the place is alive with them…ah-ck!’

  Propelled by sheer revulsion I pushed myself back out of the upturned plane. Rats streamed out after me, squealing, their gem-bright eyes glinting, long worm-like tails held stiffly up into the air.

  ‘Bastards.’ I stamped my boot savagely down on them, popping them beneath the heel. ‘Filthy bastards were eating her!’

  We stamped on the rats as they ran from the plane. Those we didn’t kill escaped into the rubble.

  ‘Christ…they’re disgusting…’ Sick to my guts, I wiped the back of my hand across my mouth. ‘Fucking disgusting.’

  ‘They bite you?’

  ‘No, thank God…Tesco, where are you going?’

  ‘I’m smaller than you, Rick. I’ll get inside the plane.’

  ‘For Christsakes be careful.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I will.’

  ‘See any more rats?’

  ‘None…they’ve legged it.’

  ‘Rick?’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘What shall I…Christ, there’s blood everywhere…Rick, what am I looking for?’

  ‘Can you see her hands?’

  ‘I see them. They’re not damaged.’

  I swallowed. ‘Kate wore a couple of rings—’

  There’s rings on the left…wait, let me check…yeah, rings on the left hand.’

  ‘OK, OK.’ I swallowed, feeling sick. This is it. Rick. Ask the question. Get it over and done with. Find out if that’s Kate’s torn body in there. ‘Listen. The rings on the hand. Is there a gold ring set with a red stone?’

  ‘Wait a minute.’

  The seconds ticked away.

  ‘A ring with a small red stone. Do you see it?’

  ‘It’s difficult to…Ah, I see them.’

  ‘Christ.’

  ‘No. The rings are silver.’

  Damn.

  Damn, damn, damn.

  I couldn’t believe it.

  I sat heavily on the wing, shaking from head to toe. The rings were silver.

  They weren’t Kate’s.

  I took a deep breath. ‘OK. I know who it is…it’s Cindy, poor kid.’

  I rubbed my face hard. Damn. I was so relieved it wasn’t Kate.

  So, that means you’re pleased it’s Cindy Gullidge lying mangled and rat-bitten in there? Shit…

  Elation, self-disgust at being relieved, so incredibly relieved it was Cindy, not Kate. The rival emotions struggled for supremacy, leaving
me so confused I couldn’t think straight.

  And Jesus, I was bleeding sweat. I sat there and shook until my teeth clattered.

  A hand tugged my sleeve. I looked up to see Tesco crouching beside me, his eyes serious. ‘I’ve had a good look inside the plane, Rick. Kate’s definitely not in there.’ He stood up and began wiping the blood from his hands with a shirt that had spilled from the clothes bags. ‘I don’t reckon it’s wise to hang around here.’ He nodded at the bullet holes in the fuselage. ‘Whoever did that might come back. And they’ve got some heavy duty firepower to make that kind of mess.’ I saw him freeze as he saw something; he craned his neck forward. ‘Hey, Rick. Take a look at this.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Someone’s written on the fuselage in felt tip. Is that Kate’s writing?’

  I stood up. ‘What does it say?’

  ‘Just a second. My eyesight’s shit. I need—Christ!’

  The bullets hit the plane like hailstones. Splinters of road surface leapt into the air. The whole plane shuddered like it was alive. Holes rashed along its side as the bullets punched through in a loud clatter.

  I grabbed my rucksack, my rifle. Bullets hit the road surface in splashes of black dust. Any second now a bullet might find my head. Then I’d lie writhing in the road, choking out my last breaths in gobfuls of blood and puke. We had to find cover fast.

  It was our only hope.

  Chapter 97

  The one thing that stands out vividly in my memory is the way the ruined houses we ran towards seemed almost to move away from us. It seemed to take forever to reach them. All the time bullets shrieked around us, smacked into rubble then whined away.

  Even when at last we did reach the houses we didn’t stop.

  There was no question of standing and fighting a war with those gunmen, even though I dearly would have loved to put a bullet into each and every one of their miserable skulls for shooting down the plane.

  Once the gunmen lost sight of us they stopped firing. But we didn’t stop running. Not until we were well out of the area. Then we collapsed behind a concrete wall, panting hard. I wiped the sweat from my face with a handkerchief; it came away black from the sooty dust we’d raised as we ran.