I couldn't remain silent for long. “All I know is there was supposed to be an evacuation. Everyone should be gone, but we missed the bus. Quite literally,” I said, turning to Andrew for reassurance I’d said the right thing.
He gave a shallow nod and silence followed, but I knew what came next. It was Zoe who spoke first.
“Evacuated from what?” As her words came out a tear rolled down her cheek.
“I don't know,” I replied, stepping forward with open arms, dropping them to my side as she instead turned and sunk into Naomi's embrace.
Drawing a deep breath and pushing down the rising emotion, I broke from the group to circle my car and closed the passenger doors as I did. Taking the driver's seat, I pushed down the locks as the engine started.
With emotional faces staring back, I turned the car, rolling it to the side of the road. Seven heads followed my every action as I killed the engine and walked to the last abandoned car in the long queue, a Freelander.
Leaning through the open driver's door, I turned the key one notch and watched the fuel indicator spring to the right.
They soon got the idea as I pulled open the boot and lugged suitcases to the side of the road. Each lent a hand, pulling our bags from my car with the wrecked screen.
Without words we started the convoy once more, pleased for every mile I put between us and the reminder of the worst day of my life, although the heaviness in my chest wouldn’t let me completely forget.
We drove for hours, following the map on Andrew's lap, Toby’s Mercedes never leaving my mirrors. Taking turn after turn, each time we found a queue of abandoned traffic, sometimes longer, sometimes shorter than the one we’d left.
At the first few we checked the head of the queue, gaining hope when there had been no repeat of the conflict; no cold bodies left behind. Until we came to a short queue of upwards of fifty cars.
Zoe was the first to see the bodies lying in pools of blood. We checked no more road blocks after, instead turning the car away each time we came across the beginning of the snaking line.
The skies had darkened, the air chilling. It must have been the tenth or so road north we'd found blocked. This latest queue was right back to the trunk road, but to its right we found the dry-stone wall smashed through.
The first car to knock the barrier down had been abandoned to the side, the windscreen smashed, the bumper discarded at the gap. Great welts scouring into the earth told us many more had followed.
I looked towards Andrew and he gave the nod as I turned the wheel through the gap.
The going was chaotic and the Freelander loved the terrain. At first I thought it was a farmer’s field, but instead it turned out to be wasteland potted with rocks hidden below the waist-high wild grass swinging in the winter breeze.
The same could not be said for the Mercedes in the rear-view mirror. With no surprise, smoke soon billowed from under the bonnet. Circling around, we watched our friends pile out.
7
With the blue sky only a memory and our luggage discarded to the long grass, Chloe squeezed up against Zoe, sliding Naomi to the door. Without complaint, Toby, Lily and Matt were left to fold themselves into the rear compartment. Holdalls bursting with our snatched precious things rested in every other space.
No one was keen to hang around in the dark, knowing death was close by and the eerie, distant orange lights helped to urge us on. Towering black smoke told of its source burning on the horizon.
Despite the cramped conditions, I felt the relief in the car as we moved away with a slow, considered pace, knowing each bump rushing through the axles amplified tenfold for those tight together in the back.
With the main beam lights dancing across my view, another ten minutes past before I was relieved to see the remains of a stone wall smashed through in too many places to count, the many cars which just hadn't been able discarded at its foot.
Swinging the four by four in an arc, I swept the headlights across the barrier and spotted the largest of the breaches near to the head of the silent queue of traffic. We rolled, our movement slow and considered.
I glanced to Andrew in the passenger seat, watching his shallow nod in reply.
The going was easy, the gap more than ample. Relief rushed through my body, a palpable excitement we were through the roadblocks. At my back, excited whispers joined my thoughts.
Through the gap and lit by our main beam, we saw the pickup truck which I guessed had cleared the way as we travelled through. Its mass was pointed high, angled to the horizon, the front wheels resting on a stone wall bounding the opposite side. Its doors were wide open.
Turning the wheel, the headlights caught on a view we'd seen so many times before. Bags, holdalls and luggage scattered around, but this time we weren't so naïve to the sight of the larger shapes surrounded in dark shadows.
A difference caught my eye and with only a little surprise, the others too, if the sharp intakes of breath were anything to go by. We'd seen the face of a man, his body encased in an oversized orange hazmat suit. His eyes reflected through the wide transparent window punctured by bullet holes.
Still turning, trying to find a route to navigate around the biggest of the debris, I pushed hard on the brakes and all looked forward as I saw something I knew to be a trick of light. Or so I thought, until Andrew jumped forward in his seat.
Leaning
