Survivors (standard:adventure, 2894 words)
Author: Ian Hobson	Added: Apr 24 2004	Views/Reads: 4056/2601	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
In early 2003, as America, Britain and Spain pushed for war without UN agreement, I wondered where it might lead. Meanwhile a deadly virus was beginning to spread…

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

breakfast.' 

‘Hmmm, can I help?' replied Jan, with a giggle. 

* 

Feeling better for having a thorough wash and another shared can of
tuna, Billy and Jan cautiously left the basement via the rear emergency 
exit, which was still in tact.  Outside the clouds were thinning, and a 
little watery sunshine was beginning to filter through.  They were 
getting used to seeing the sun again.  For weeks they had thought that 
the warnings of an everlasting nuclear winter might be accurate. 

Billy stooped to pick up the two plastic bottles that he had filled with
rainwater earlier, stowing them in his rucksack before following Jan as 
she climbed over the rubble.  A Barclays Bank sign lay propped against 
what was left of a stone wall, and a huge rat scurried beneath it as 
the two approached. 

‘Which way?' Jan asked, looking around at this now familiar part of the
city.  Somehow she had grown accustomed to the devastation.  Though 
here was not as badly damaged as other places they had travelled 
through. 

‘We'll head up past the supermarket that we visited the day before
yesterday, and then we'll head north again,' replied Billy, as they 
began to pick their way across the debris-filled street.  More rats 
scurried away from a corps that lay half buried as they approached.  
‘Maybe we'll be lucky and find another car with some petrol in the 
tank...  How are the new boots?' 

‘They're okay,' replied Jan, giving the corpse a wide birth.  ‘I could
do with some more socks though.' 

‘Me too.  We'll keep an eye out for a store once we're passed the
supermarket.' 

Billy took the lead but stopped at the corner of the street beside a
burned out building.  The air smelled of soot and rain.  He peered 
around the corner before continuing on.  Jan followed, a few paces 
behind.  They moved quickly, keeping to the shadows as much as 
possible, their eyes darting from window to window and door to door – 
where there were still windows and doors.  They knew that they were not 
the only survivors. 

* 

It took almost two hours to get to the supermarket.  They hurried past,
knowing that there was nothing edible left inside.  It had been looted 
and emptied a long time ago, maybe even before the bombing had stopped. 
 And there were bodies; fresh ones, some with limbs hacked off.  They 
knew what that meant.  And more than anything, they feared the 
cannibals. 

Further on there were more corpses, but these were much older, scarcely
more than skeletons in tattered clothing.  Some had their hands tied 
and all had been shot through the head.  Probably looters caught by the 
military when they were still operational, Billy thought.  He stopped 
beside a tree, which stood undamaged on a street corner.  It had shed 
most of its leaves and they lay in drifts; a sign that winter was on 
the way. 

Billy wondered how they would survive the winter.  He knew that their
best chance was to keep moving north.  The Scottish parliament had 
declared Scotland neutral, refusing to be a part of the war.  And many 
people had fled there, until the borders had been closed. 

‘Billy.'  Jan came up behind him.  She was an inch taller than Billy,
and two years older.   But with Billy she felt safe; much safer than 
when she had been alone.  She pointed towards a small hatchback further 
along the street.  ‘I think there's a body in that car.' 

‘Worth a look,' said Billy, as he set off towards it.  Abandoned cars
were usually empty, of both bodies and petrol.  But a car with a body 
in it might just have petrol as well, and with luck, a battery that was 
not flat.  ‘You stay on this side of the road, Jan.' 

As Billy got closer he saw that it was a Ford Fiesta, and that there was
a human shape in the drivers seat.  He froze as he saw movement but 
then continued as a magpie came out of the open window and took to the 
air. 

The keys were in the ignition, and from her clothing, Billy could see
that the diver had been a female, though her skull was picked clean.  A 
few flies buzzed in and out of it as she sat staring down the street 
through empty eye sockets.  Billy walked around the car, first checking 
that the tyres were inflated and then opening the driver's door.  He 
took a grip of the woman's sleeve and pulled her out of the car, 
leaving a trail of maggots as he dragged her into the road.  The mess 
in driver's seat was worse than that in the Peugeot, and Billy was 
inclined to turn away.  But he leaned inside, checked the position of 
the gear lever and then turned the key in the ignition.  The engine 
turned and failed to start, but the petrol gauge needle began to rise.  
Billy beckoned to Jan, and she came running across the road. 

‘I think we might be in luck.  The tank's more than half full,' he said.
 ‘I don't fancy sitting on that though.'  He gestured towards the 
driver's seat.  It was stained with more than just dried blood, and 
there were bird droppings on the steering wheel and passenger seat. 

‘We can sit on our towels,' Jan suggested.  ‘It's time we found some new
ones anyway...  There's a hairdressers over the road.  Shall I take a 
look?' 

Billy looked across the street.  ‘Okay, but be careful.  I'll take a
look at the engine.'  He opened the Fiesta's bonnet and checked the oil 
and water.  Jan dropped her rucksack onto the rear seat and then 
crossed back over the road to the hairdressers. 

The window was shattered, and the glass crunched under Jan's boots as
she stepped over the sill and walked past a row of washbasins and 
overturned chairs.  She stopped for a moment and looked at herself in 
the wall-mirror.  ‘Look at you, Janet Miles,' she said out loud, 
‘you're a walking skeleton'.  But vanity was no longer a priority, and 
she moved on towards the door at the back of the room.  She tried the 
door and found it locked.   But Billy had taught her how to kick open 
locked doors, and it sprang open at her third attempt; releasing the 
now familiar smell of death. 

Two blond-haired corpses, a woman and a child, sat in an easy chair,
clinging to each other in death, as they must have in life.  Probably 
suicide, or perhaps victims of the mysterious virus that had clamed so 
many lives, Jan thought.  Terrorists had been blamed for the virus, 
though it had never been proven, and Jan wondered if it was just 
nature's answer to an overpopulated world - or some kind of divine 
punishment. 

She looked around the room and then walked over to a large wall cupboard
and cautiously opened the doors, finding exactly what she was looking 
for: a neatly folded stack of towels.  She grabbed an armful, but as 
she turned she noticed a refrigerator standing against the far wall. 

Outside, Billy had checked the car over, spread their towels on the
front seats, and was ready to leave.  He called Jan's name and ran 
across the road to see what was keeping her.  But as he entered the 
shop, Jan came through the rear door carrying an obviously heavy 
cardboard box with several towels balanced on top. 

‘Here, take these,' she said.  ‘I'll just go back for the rest. 

‘What's in here?' Billy asked, as he took the load from Jan. 

‘You'll see,' Jan replied, disappearing through the door once more. 

Billy hurried back to the Fiesta and opened its rear door.  ‘Oh you
beauty!' he exclaimed, as he stowed the box and then looked inside it.  
‘Fosters larger... and three bottles of water...  Brilliant!'  But his 
joy was short lived. 

‘Billy!' Jan was outside the hairdresser's shop, her arms filled with
large plastic bottles.  She looked panic-stricken and was staring along 
the street.  And as Billy followed her gaze he saw three men running 
towards them. ‘Run!' he shouted, before slamming shut the Fiesta's rear 
door.  Their two rucksacks almost filled the rear seat, so as Billy 
scrambled into the driver's seat, he opened the passenger door for Jan, 
who was now racing across the road, still carrying the bottles.  Billy 
turned the key in the ignition, praying to a God that he no longer 
believed in, that the car would start.  The engine turned but failed to 
start, and Billy cursed himself for not starting it before.  But as Jan 
ran around the back of the car and leaped into the passenger seat, he 
tried again, this time depressing the accelerator pedal, and the engine 
came to life. 

The first of the three men - a tall and powerful looking white man with
tattooed arms and a shaved head – was now only a couple of strides 
away, and as Billy put the car into reverse gear and let out the 
clutch, the man lunged forward and grabbed hold of the Fiesta's wing 
mirror.  But as the engine roared and the car sped backwards, with its 
gearbox wining, the man was pulled off his feet and dragged along the 
road until the wing mirror snapped off in his hand.  The man hit the 
ground hard but immediately rolled over and sprang upright, as if made 
of rubber, and uttering a long string of obscenities, he threw the wing 
mirror at the retreating car and it bounced off the bonnet. 

Billy swung the car in an arc, bumping over debris in the road and
almost colliding with a lamppost, before changing into first gear and 
speeding off down a side street.  ‘That was... too close for comfort,' 
he said to Jan, his heart racing. 

Jan was shaking like a leaf, yet still clutching the three plastic
bottles of Diet Coke that she had found in the hairdressers.  ‘Do you 
think they were...' 

‘Whatever they were and whatever they were selling, we don't need it,'
interrupted Billy.  He turned right at the next junction and was 
relieved to see that the road was reasonably clear for several blocks.  
He wrinkled his nose and glanced at Jan.  ‘What's that smell?' 

Jan set the bottles down on the floor at her feet.  ‘It's just the Coke
bottles.  They were in the bottom of a fridge with a load of bad food.' 


‘And you found some beer!'  Billy was grinning now. 

‘Yeah... and more water, and six tins of baked beans.' 

‘You're kidding?' 

‘No, they're in the box.  It was on top of the fridge.  I thought it was
probably empty but...' Jan began to laugh, and as Billy laughed with 
her the sun broke through the clouds. 

* Billy took his first sip of larger for more weeks than he could
remember, and let out a long sigh.  ‘Do you want one?' he asked Jan. 

She was stooping over a tin of baked beans that was balanced somewhat
precariously on their camping stove.  She turned down the flame and 
gave the beans a careful stir.  ‘What, a whole can to myself?' she 
asked. 

‘Well, I think we've earned a can each today, replied Billy.  They had
travelled well beyond the city, but with difficulty, as the roads were 
littered with abandoned cars and, in some places, bomb craters.  
Finally, late in the afternoon they had stopped beside the road in an 
area that looked untouched by war. 

‘I think these are about ready,' said Jan, as she shut off the gas. 
They set the hot tin can on the ground between them and groaned in 
delight as they took turns to eat with their only spoon. 

When the beans were finished and the can scraped clean, they sat on the
ground for a while and slowly finished their largers.  ‘Shame about the 
radio,' said Billy.  ‘I never thought to search the woman's clothing.'  
The Fiesta had a radio but the removable fascia was missing. 

‘We'd probably just get static or foreign languages again,' Jan replied.
 ‘In any case, I think no news is good news.  Hearing about the nuclear 
strikes in the south put me off TV and radio for good.' 

‘I know what you mean...  Just before the battery in the Peugeot fizzled
out, I picked up another report,' said Billy.  ‘More nuclear strikes in 
Europe.' 

Jan just stared at the ground, but Billy got to his feet.  ‘It's not our
problem,' he said, regretting mentioning it.  ‘We have to think of 
ourselves...  Did you say there were more tins in the box?' 

Jan nodded, close to tears; she had spent the previous summer in Paris. 
‘Two have no labels, but the other one's pineapple rings.' 

‘Shall we have them now?' Billy asked.  ‘We've not had any fruit since
we found that orchard.' 

‘Okay,' replied Jan, standing and following Billy over to the rear of
the Fiesta.  She put her arms around him and clung to him as he reached 
into the cardboard box and took out the remaining tins. 

‘Bloody hell, look at this,' he said.  Jan looked over Billy's shoulder
and watched as he pulled an old newspaper from the bottom of the box.  
The headline read: 

IRAQI WAR COULD LEAD TO WORLD WAR III – WARNS HISTORIAN 

Billy shrugged and tossed the newspaper aside.  ‘Okay, lets have some
pineapple...  Then we'll take a look at that farmhouse over there.  
Maybe tonight we'll sleep in a bed for a change.' he said. 

‘Not just sleep, I hope,' said Jan. 

They had survived another day.  And though they were unaware of it, it
was exactly one year since World War III had begun. 


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