“Well, here goes nothing,” said Slocock. He took a swallow from the bottle sitting between his legs and then gunned the engine. The Stalwart lurched forward and sped through the gap.
12
“It’s a beautiful day,” said Wilson, peering up at the cloudless blue sky.
“Keep your eyes on the bloody road,” growled Slocock. They’d been traveling for over half an hour now and even though Slocock intended doing most, if not all, of the driving he thought it would be wise if Wilson knew the basics of handling the Stalwart. He’d even instructed Wilson on how to operate the guns, despite his insistence that he could never bring himself to use them.
They were heading down the A449 towards Worcester in order to avoid the chaos that was apparently surrounding Birmingham and Coventry. North of Worcester they would try and get onto the M5, if it was clear, and proceed toward Gloucester, then across on the A40 and M40 to London, making a wide detour around Oxford as well.
Everything looked deceptively normal, apart from the lack of traffic on the road. So far their worst moments had come during the first few miles on the other side of the barricade. They had seen the first of the bodies almost immediately. They were everywhere; lying across the road; hanging half out of their bullet-riddled cars; huddled together in groups beside the road.
At first Slocock tried to avoid running over them. But it was impossible, so he stopped trying. Wilson shuddered every time he felt the tires go over something.
The bodies nearest the wire were all badly charred.
“Flamethrowers,” said Slocock. “To kill the fungus. A flicking lot of good it does.”
But so far Wilson hadn’t seen a sign of the fungus on any of the bodies they’d passed.
A half-mile past the barrier, they entered the “dead zone,” as Slocock called it. It was a total wasteland in which nothing lived. Parts of it were blackened and burned; other parts were covered in a strange white powder. At one point they saw a plane flying low across the ground to their east, leaving a trail of yellow dust behind it. Later they saw, in the distance, a jet dropping napalm.
They passed several burned-out vehicles, their occupants charred husks with rictus grins, their teeth showing white against their blackened flesh.
On these occasions Wilson was glad Kimberley wasn’t sitting up front with them. The motion of the truck made her feel even sicker and she’d gone to lie on one of the bunks even before they’d reached the barrier.
Both men felt uneasy as they drove through the “dead zone.” They knew that the Air Force had been informed of their crossing, but this was no guarantee that some pilot might not decide to attack them, either for the sheer hell of it or because he hadn’t received the message about them.
Slocock pushed his foot down. But speed was dangerous on the battered road surface, and there were several sections where the road disappeared completely—obliterated by massive bomb craters. Slocock was obliged to slow down and drive off the road around them.
Finally they saw green ahead of them and knew they were almost out of the man-made wilderness.
On the other side of the zone they passed a large group of disconsolate-looking people sitting beside a number of parked cars. They’d obviously decided not to risk trying to cross the zone, or perhaps had heard from fleeing survivors what was waiting for them even if they got through.
Most of them just stared apathetically at the speeding Stalwart; a few looked puzzled at the fact it was traveling in the wrong direction, and a few raised their fists angrily at this symbol of the now-hated military. None of them, Wilson saw, displayed any external sign of fungal infection.
When the road ahead seemed clear and undamaged, Slocock suggested, or rather ordered, that Wilson take a turn behind the wheel.
Wilson drove for about 10 minutes and was almost beginning to enjoy himself, absurd as that seemed in the circumstances.
“Okay, that’s enough,” said Slocock suddenly. “Pull up and I’ll take over. We’re getting near Kidderminster.”
As Wilson crawled over Slocock, he decided to check on Kimberley. He was tempted to go through the heavy hatch that separated the driver’s cabin from the rear compartment, but undoing the seals was a difficult business so he flipped the intercom switch instead. “Hi, Kimberley! How are you doing?”
There was a long pause before she answered, rather irritably, “I was asleep.”
“Oh.” He glanced at Slocock and saw the expected sneer. “Sorry. Are you feeling any better?”
“No. Where are we?”
He told her they were approaching Kidderminster. She said she was going back to sleep and not to wake her unless something important happened. He switched off the intercom with a sigh.
They rode on in silence for a while. Then Wilson pointed at the bottle of whiskey resting upright against Slocock’s crotch like a glass phallus. “Mind if I have a drink?”
“Piss off,” said Slocock.
Wilson wondered if he was joking.
“Does that mean no?”
“Look mate, I’ve only got another four bottles left.”
“That’s plenty.”
“Not the way I drink. And who knows how long it’s going to be before I get my hands on any more. So I’m sure as hell not wasting any of it on you.”
“You don’t like me very much, do you?”
Slocock laughed. “You intellectuals are real sharp. Yeah, you’re right. I don’t like you. My job is to make sure you stay alive long enough to do your job. After that, well, we’ll see.”
Wilson realized, with a mild shock, that Slocock was making some kind of threat. And yet he was surprised to note that it didn’t particularly disturb him. There were too many other things to worry about.
“Well, as Flannery would say in a situation like this, ‘Up yours, boyo.’”
Slocock grunted. “Who the flick’s Flannery?”
“An old friend of mine.”
“Sounds like a real wit. But whoever he is he’s too far away to do you any good.”
“You’re wrong there. He’s closer than you think,” said Wilson and smiled.
They made a wide detour around Kidderminster just to be safe even though the town appeared deserted. Slocock sent the Stalwart off the road, through a fence and across the fields.
Wilson winced when the vehicle crushed the fence under its tires. “Aren’t you afraid we might get a flat? I noticed we’re not carrying a spare.”
“They’re puncture-proof. The tubes are honey-combed with lots of separate cells inflated with nitrogen.”
They got back on the A449 without any difficulty and were heading south toward Worcester when they encountered a group of nine people coming along the road. Five men, two women, and two young children. Wilson expected Slocock to speed by them as he had the other group, but to his surprise the Stalwart began to slow down.
“Why are you stopping?”
“Take a closer look at them.”
As the truck came to a halt about 20 yards from the group Wilson saw what Slocock was talking about.
They were victims of the fungus.
Compared with Dr. Bruce Carter on the video they seemed scarcely affected, but it was there nonetheless. They all appeared to be subject to a particularly dark blue five o’clock shadow. The women and children too. And the same blue coloring was on their hands as well.
Wilson felt his flesh crawl.
